As someone pointed out, the equivalent in the modern US would be someone calling their party the "Democratic Republican Liberal Conservative Party".
"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
As someone pointed out, the equivalent in the modern US would be someone calling their party the "Democratic Republican Liberal Conservative Party".
I mean, the Canadian conservative party was called the Liberal-Conservative for quite a while, even after the other party called themselves the Liberal Party.
I'm not an adherent of either but I can't see much difference between the two, asides from posturing.
There's a quote by Rohm that explains it quite well. In 1934 he said something like "Adolf is a swine, now he only associates with bourgeois reactionary's. We've had the National revolution, now is time for the Socialist one." People forget that the early Nazi party did have a very strong 'left-wing' and for many people it was as much about anti-capitalism as anti-communism. Hitler was on the party's right-wing and willing to crush the party's left both with the destruction of Rohm/the SA and with the purge of the Strassers earlier.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
Let's keep him as a commie.
Pretty sure Red can do that without your help.
I mean yeah, usually people who don't follow certain ideologies see them as the same thing. We call that "out-group homogeneity effect"
What gave you the impression that I wanted this TL to be fun and intense?
Because so far it has been both?
Thanks! We're still a while away from the Second World War but hopefully things will still be interesting up till then. What I will say is that we're very quickly approaching the moment where Hitler's antics are going to start affecting other countries. So if anyone was interested in seeing what camps might appear you won't have long to wait.
Yeah, I do try and stay outside of any bubbles but it is always a bit difficult. Obviously there's a massive difference between, say, Burke and Paine but when you get to contemporary political thought there often seems to be a dearth of ideas on both sides beyond expressing admiration or support for various institutions. This is undoubtedly a problem on the left as well but I suppose the bubble helps with that.
Well, here's why i got that impression. I got that impression after seeing all of this TL is about Communism, etc... that's why. This impression i morphed into this idea: I would like to see if other Fascist regimes (the ones on Asia (Japan and Thailand), thanks to the status of never being a colony), some Latin American countries and not-colonized yet African (particularly Ethiopia, but also probably South Africa), Central Asian (Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Nepal and Bhutan), Middle east countries (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) and probably Ireland, Egypt, Morocco & Liberia got dragged into Comintern thanks to Hitler's antics, which could cause some of these non-communist states and communist states all joining Comintern, though not in the desire of these countries. I would like also to see if East European countries like Baltics, Finland, Balkans, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and northern European states (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) all joining Allies from the fear of communism. I am seeing that Mao Zedong would invite Japan and Soviets to help him gaining power in China and established PRC from it, and i am also seeing that Portugal would join WW2 in the side of Allies too. That's all of my ideas for now. I hope The Red would take this but partially if not all of them...
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I don't think Hitler will quite have the power to make random countries communist against their will, at least not in 1923, but I'll see what I can do.
I actually meant that Adolf Hitler dragged them into Comintern bloc without getting them into communism actually. Really. I'm thinking that Adolf Hitler tries to woo them to join war on his side (Comintern), because thanks to his communist beliefs he thinks that these states, whatever it is communist or not would highly help him in his conquest to kick out "bourgeois, imperialists, capitalists" from their region. For example you can make Adolf Hitler try to woo Japan by manipulating the IJA's beliefs that all other Europeans like British and Americans are "bourgeois, imperialist, capitalists" and then... BAM! Fascist Japan declared war on America and joins Comintern! He could also make China communist by inviting Soviets and Japanese to help Mao Zedong take power in China and BAM! PRC formed. Is that the example? This could be helpful to you.
So, are you sure that Adolf Hitler would do something on Japan, Thailand, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ireland, Morocco, Ethiopia, Liberia, some Latin American states (i'll give you an example: Mexico), Yemen, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, some British-controlled Middle east states like Jordan, Tunisia, Indian states and also South Africa? If you sure, then i would love it!
We'll just have to wait and see. I don't really want to be told Reds whole plan for the rest of the story.
Camps in terms of blocs of nations, I assume? When Hitler is involved, other camps might emerge too. Capitalist reeducation camps, perhaps?
Chapter XXXV
'Marxists are too apt to forget that war has its own psychology, which is the result of fear, and is independent of the original cause of contention.'
~ Bertrand Russell, Scylla and Charybdis, or Communism and Fascism
~ Bertrand Russell, Scylla and Charybdis, or Communism and Fascism
It was in the midst of the economic collapse that the French would invade a vital economic heartland of the German people! They knew this action would only weaken us further, despite their stated aims. We were on the road to enslavement, and our government did not lift a finger. It was an action that I knew must be fought. No-one else rose to help us, once again the workers had to take matters into their own hands. So deep was the corruption and inertia of the republic that the white guards, as though seized by a melancholy, refused to defend the fatherland against a foreign invader. The enthusiasm with which they had murderers the revolutionary martyrs was entirely lacking when their masters held them back!
The Weimar regime seemed to have forgotten their endless betrayals of the working classes, and asked once again for our support in exchange for their worthless currency. It is understandable that the people of the Ruhr came to our banner, knowing full well that their government had abandoned them to their fate. The Berlin bureaucrats did not care about the people of the Ruhr, they were merely looking for a distraction whilst they found a way to sell a new surrender to the German people as if it were something other than another tribute to the lords of international capital. As we have seen, they ran from the fight like the cowardly officers who left men to die in the trenches at the end of the great imperialist slaughter.
This applies to all those for whom Germany is more than a mere stop-over for making and spending money. They, who, despite all their claims of patriotism and prosperity had no real desire to contain the economic collapse or the French invasion. To them Germany is merely another business, or another property, to be bought and sold to the highest bidder.
The omens of this betrayal were present and visible to the workers of the Ruhr, and despite the government's anemic calls for passive resistance, there were those who attempted to draw a real lesson from the events that had caused the French invasion.
The handful of comrades from Munich were sufficient to begin the raising of the militant organisation, soon others from the Ruhr rising jojned our movement, and soon others called to the cause of the socialist revolution. By the time the French attacked, the basis of the Red Front was already in existence, not designed to fight a foreign invader but to protect the German worker and assist in his revolution!
All the same, when the Berlin government passively bowed it was clear that we had no other choice but to act. There would be no help coming from the cowards who urged collaboration with the French, fearful that their paymasters would no longer tolerate their servants if they did not supply the products of German labour at slave rates. Their suspension of their sham democracy made it all the more clear the German people were not to interfere with this grand conspiracy.
It became clear that there was only one path that we could follow. We were not expecting to fight a French invasion, but we were faced with no other option. As our fellow Germans suffered around us we could not standby as the French capitalists ran roughshod over our own people.
And so we began!
This is the fundamental difference between the Communist Party and the republican government, our priorty is not international capital but the German worker!
It is on this basis that the Red Front was formed, the Communist Party can no longer be a bystander to events. When the crisis comes it will always hit the worker the hardest. The worker, who has nowhere to run from exploitation and usury, only has his own strength with which to fight. The Communist Party is the living representation of the worker's strength, and the Red Front is the worker's weapon.
~ Adolf Hitler, Our Struggle
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The city of Wetter had already woken by the time the fighting had started.
As the French began to drag people out of their homes into the early morning sunlight, the shouts of protest had echoed throughout the quiet streets. The attacks Johann had participated in had finally convinced the local French garrisson to go through the town and eliminate all forms of resistance. Unwilling to distinguish guilt from innocence, it hadn't been long before any Germans suspected of any perceived sabotage, passive or otherwise, were being rounded-up by the garrison. The riots that had broken out were not by the initiative of the Red Front, but no-one involved was taken by surprise. They were, after all, there only to assist the workers. Johann took comfort in sticking to that line.
All the same Johann's comrades had been in the crowds, and when the French had started to shoot it wasn't long before they returned fire. Or perhaps it had bene the other way around. Johann couldn't be sure, he had already been lying low outside of the town, watching the violence unfold from their small camp as they had made the final preparations for their assault on Castle Wetter.
The crackle of the gunfire from the other bank of the river was by the French who were aiming directly at them. They had made little effort to fortify the castle before it had become clear that the Red Front was operating in Wetter, and now that it was too late they had chosen to face the revolutionaries head on, despite the fact that the majority of their garrison was busy fighting in the city.
Hitler had reassured them that this strategy would work, that an urban area could swallow far larger numbers of soliders than a fixed fortification, and thus whilst the French were tearing the town apart by fighting a few dozen men and an angry mob, the bulk of the Red Front forces would be able to storm the castle and smash the skeleton crew left behind..
The Red Front hadn't been much of a force to begin with, a rabble of escaped revolutionaries and local workers that had needed to be drilled into a fighting unit. It had taken time doing so underground, but now they exhibited a discipline that Johann hadn't seen since his own training in 1918, quietly surrounding what was left of the French garrisson until it was made clear that the riots would keep the French busy. It was at that point when Comrade Hitler had given the order to attack.
They had crept forward until the French machine gun had started to bark and Johann had acquainted himself with the lovely green meadow, as the tracer bullets glowed over his head. The clattering noise of the gun was deafening, made all the worse by the occasional splattering noise and a howl of pain. The familiar click of a jammed weapon was a welcome relief, and soon he took out the grenade he had taken from the Frenchman the day before and lobbed it as best he could at the hastily arranged machine-gun nest. There was an even louder noise from the reuslting explosion, and he was soon covered in blood and dirt. Johann was picking a worm out of his hair when he noticed that the Frenchmen were still there, twitching, whilst their machine-gun had seemingly disappeared. He heard a roar all around him and knew at once that it wasn't the screams of the injured, it was the call to advance and he joyously followed.
A handful of French soliders were perched on the high walls, firing off shots at the advancing Germans. They were outnumbered and outgunned but they had the height advantage and even though smoke was rising from the other side of the castle, it seemed they were adamant that their position wouldn't fall. Joseph continued to implore his comrades to charge. They had reached cover by the time that a grenade fell inbetween his legs, Johann winced as the explosion cleared. He hadn't supported this strategy, and now he had died for it. The French soon stopped firing, an explosion rocked the other side of the castle and an even larger smoke plume emerged in the sky.
"At least something's going right," Johann thought to himself, before imploring what was left of his comrades to move on once again. With the handful of Frenchmen distracted by shooting inside the walls, Johann attached what meagre dynamite the Red Front had been able to provide him with the bolted doors before lighting the fuse. A blast sent wooden splinters flying everywhere, and they charged in amongst the smoke. The French barricades, hastily assembled inside the castle, had all been focused on Hitler's initial breakthrough. The French had been holding on, only to now realise that the situation was hopeless. The Red Front had them surrounded.
Taken by surprise, the French troops fought on in the courtyard all the same. They were cut to pieces in the envelopment they could reorientate themselves, both by Johann's comrades but by those who were already inside. It was a miracle that neither group had accidentally fired on each other.
Hitler appeared to be frantic with bloodlust, he didn't seem to care about the fact that his original plan had required the French to meet them outside the castle. Standing amidst those who had survived, he seemed unable to stay in the one place for more than a few seconds, his eyes darted around the walls as if the men around him were available. Eventually, it seemed that he had found what he was looking for, as he focused on the tricolour fluttering on top of the tallest tower.
"We need to get that flag down!"
The businesslike, somewhat distracted, tone of their leader wasn't enough to prevent an outbreak of cheers. The castle was theirs, and the French flag would now be replaced by their own. It had been enough to illicit joy, until Johann remembered who had been responsible for carrying the flag.
Outside of the castle his body still lay, it wasn't going to be going anywhere on its own any longer. Joseph's eyes remained wide open, looking at nothing, as he lay still amongst the dirt. Gunshots began to ring out in the castle, slow and methodical now. The execution of the wounded. Johann remembered the look in Hitler's eyes, and wondered whether this was part of the plan, or if he had simply gotten a taste for killing. The flag remained in Joseph's hand, and Johann was dismayed to find that he stil had a firm grasp on it. Unwrapping the flag from Joseph's fingers, still warm, made Johann shudder. He hadn't realised how queasy he was, stumbling back through the castle walls.
The gunshots had ceased now, though Johann could still hear firing from the town itself, it appeared that Hitler had as well. A great rush had begun to take out everything that good be carried, guns, ammunition, even spare uniforms. Their leader looked at Johann, confused for a moment, before remembering why he had sent him away.
"Oh, drop that, the French have got a lot of explosives and paraffin hanging around. I need to you to make sure this feudal relic is ablaze after we've taken everything we can!"
It appeared that statements were no longer of the same importance that they had been upon the initial relief of taking the castle. The French fighting in the town would soon be back to avenge their brethern, and the Red Front had no intention of being there when they returned. One of the things Johann found most appealing about Hitler's leadership was his hatred of doomed last stands.
As they made off in small groups the first glimmers of fire had begun to appear from inside the castle, soon the entire structure would be burning long into the night, glowing as an emblem of resitance across the river. The city would suffer for this, far more than for his little shootings, and the workers would suffer the most. They always did. Johann could take comfort in his actions, knowing that they would hasten the inevitable uprisings predicted by Marx. The worker's had a breaking point, and the more acts of resistance around them the more would rise up. The French could not pacify entire cities for long, nor could Berlin once the foreign army had eventually fled.
Whilst dialectical materialism proceeded inevitably towards its final destination, it could not do so without agency. Such had been the case in Russia, soon it would be the case in Germany.. The crisis had come, and there was no longer any option to sit on the sidelines. As the flames began to roar, Johann put away thoughts of death and destruction that he had caused, or was still to cause. He was doing something, and that was what mattered.
He could dwell on what he had done when the revolution was won.
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The painting is The Creation of Freedom by Jaber Al Azmeh