No WW1: Views on Fascism & Communism

Assume that WW1 is avoided, and the European powers trundle along without ever giving into any of the flashpoints that erupted over the years (if you’re of the school of thought that a major European war - and WW1 in particular - was inevitable, this is probably not the thread for you). With this peace, no major power ever embraces authoritarian ideologies like Fascism or Communism; not to say that there wouldn’t be authoritarian states, of course. Maybe a few minor states give them a whirl (like a balkan country), maybe some colonial populations find them attractive, but nothing like Italy Spain or Germany embracing fascism, or Russia or China embracing communism.

What might the world opinion be of these ideologies, without first hand experience of them on a large scale? For anyone concerned with extrapolating too far into the future on such a vague outline, lets say we’re looking at opinions in an alt-1945. That gives us a nice inflection point from our history, and 30 years of difference.
 
If the great war was not fought, I believe Communism would be common in the Russian Empire. It was destined to fall under the current Tsar, Nicolus, and it would most likely play out the same thought later than OTL. Fascism, on the other hand, would be smaller now I am no expert on the Italian Fascism and how it rose up but I think it would be very small in comparison to the communists. Correct me if I am wrong.
 
If the great war was not fought, I believe Communism would be common in the Russian Empire. It was destined to fall under the current Tsar, Nicolus, and it would most likely play out the same thought later than OTL. Fascism, on the other hand, would be smaller now I am no expert on the Italian Fascism and how it rose up but I think it would be very small in comparison to the communists. Correct me if I am wrong.

When you say things like “destined to fall” I am hesitant to concur.

By ‘common’ do you mean that a pro-communist movement was likely to still be viable in Russia, even if the government itself never embraced communism?
 
If the great war was not fought, I believe Communism would be common in the Russian Empire.
Ah, the good old "communism is destined to triumph!" cliche.
Where is your communism now, eh?

Bolsheviks lost in elections they organised themselves in 1918. Even though they outright banned everyone to the right from the centre from running.
In 1906 and 1907 elections, which were not weighted in favour of nobility, moderate parties like Trudoviks and Kadets won. No war means no radicalisation.

What might the world opinion be of these ideologies, without first hand experience of them on a large scale?
There will be no fascism period, since it arose as reaction to both war and communism. Communism will probably end up a footnote in history, just like other radical social movements that came before it (like Catharism).
 
There will be no fascism period, since it arose as reaction to both war and communism. Communism will probably end up a footnote in history, just like other radical social movements that came before it (like Catharism).

I think there would likely still be some form of fascism around, even if not entirely like ours. Its roots far predate WW1.
 
Communism will probably end up a footnote in history, just like other radical social movements that came before it (like Catharism).

So long as capitalism exists, so will a reaction to it and Marxism won’t disappear magically because WWI was avoided. If anything, it’ll strengthen the movement in Russia and Germany without the division between pro-war and anti-war factions and find a new trigger point to start a revolution from. All you'd be doing is shifting it to when and where, which could include any of the numerous depressions or recessions that were a feature of gold-backed economies. And the comparison to Catharism is rather presentist, hardly comparable.

Where is your communism now, eh?

Without going into politics; communism doesn't exist because the prerequisites to communism haven't been achieved by any nation according to Marxist principles.

In 1906 and 1907 elections, which were not weighted in favour of nobility, moderate parties like Trudoviks and Kadets won. No war means no radicalisation.

Said elections being literally null and voided by the Tsar and the Duma dismissed followed by said Tsar restructuring the electoral laws so that the landed nobility returned to power. Do you really think that wouldn't piss off a lot of folks and ferment even more discontent and anger at the monarchy?
 
Fascio existed in Italy before that country's entry into the war. If a general European war is avoided I could still see men like Gabriel D'Annunzio and Italo Balbo holding basically the same beliefs they did in IOTL. Whether they rise to power or if their movement spreads internationally is certainly up for debate. In Spain, however, as well as in Latin America, I think some proto-fascistic or fascist movements would happen anyways. Salazar's Portugal and Vargas' Brazil being good examples of what I'm referring too, rather than a mass movement like the AIB.
 
Remember that in the case of no WW1, it's very likely that Italian Irredentism will still be a strong ideology that the far-right will continue to push for. It won't have the disappointment of Italy's limited gains of the war and perceived betrayals to gain support, however.
 
"Communism"* as OTL knows it is basically Leninism and its various disciple ideologies; absent the Russian Revolution of OTL, this ideology either does not exist or is weaker by several orders of magnitude. Marxism of TTL won't have the same levels of contempt for "bourgeois democracy", nor will there be a cohesive global movement promoting nonsense like "democratic centralism".

Fascism, again as OTL knows it, would effectively not exist in TTL either; the Right's embrace of "War Socialism", wartime authoritarianism, and such, is really at the root of European Fascism OTL. This is not to say that Rightwing Authoritarianism won't exist -- you'll still have aristocratic militarists, anti-democratic businessmen, and what have you -- but we can say that Right-wing Totalitarianism will be butterflied out of existence, just as the Left-wing variety will be.

*what most people refer to when they refer to "communism", not the "ideal" of a propertyless cooperative society, etc
 
Communism would exist, but probably not practiced. Russia would become a republic without the Bolsheviks, with maybe a few socialists in there. At most, Russia would become a semi-socialist agarian state (which Lenin kinda wanted before he became a communist). The Petrograd Soviets were pretty popular if I understood and so they'd probably assimilate into the ruling system. My guess is that it'd probably have some sort fo parliament and such. China could copy Russia though depending on how things go with it, especially with Japan. The Kuomintang weren't reliable and if Japan tried to exploit an unstable China, the USA may eventually get involved and help rebuild China.

Fascism was a reaction to communism and the war, so it wouldn't really exist. The closest thing to it would be the national catholicism that Franco had and while I figure some sort of nationalist movements mxied in with military and or religious zest would appear, it probably would only be in lesser developed nations and would be put down pretty quickly.
 
So long as capitalism exists, so will a reaction to it and Marxism won’t disappear magically because WWI was avoided. If anything, it’ll strengthen the movement in Russia and Germany without the division between pro-war and anti-war factions and find a new trigger point to start a revolution from. All you'd be doing is shifting it to when and where, which could include any of the numerous depressions or recessions that were a feature of gold-backed economies. And the comparison to Catharism is rather presentist, hardly comparable.



Without going into politics; communism doesn't exist because the prerequisites to communism haven't been achieved by any nation according to Marxist principles.



Said elections being literally null and voided by the Tsar and the Duma dismissed followed by said Tsar restructuring the electoral laws so that the landed nobility returned to power. Do you really think that wouldn't piss off a lot of folks and ferment even more discontent and anger at the monarchy?

Strengthen the movement? What in hell? So, war (as a destabilizing force) makes the radical socialists stronger, and peace (as a stabilizing force) makes the radical socialists stronger as well? Are we dealing with the mythical Schrodingers socialists?

And to your goalposting, I respond in kind: no form of capitalism has ever existed in human history, (12,000 BC-->Now) since it doesn't fit into my libertarian box set of specifically defined ideals. Government has always taxed people, therefore true capitalism has never existed, and any blame towards capitalism is unfounded.

If the First World War doesn't happen, the most likely major thing to happen in Russia, concerning Bolsheviks, is a highly unlikely civil war in which the Bolsheviks get crushed. After such a civil war, the left SR, headed by Kerensky, would be PM.
 
The German SPD were officially Marxist as of WWI, so Marxism in general would remain heavily tied to social democracy, rather than Leninism.

Apart from that, if you can somehow avoid a World War... things become unrecognisable. The First World War created the modern world.
 
The German SPD were officially Marxist as of WWI, so Marxism in general would remain heavily tied to social democracy, rather than Leninism.

Apart from that, if you can somehow avoid a World War... things become unrecognisable. The First World War created the modern world.

Yeah, though I know at least one person who tried to envision it. I know RvBOMalley made a map of a world without WW1 and I did myself later on.
 
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