While I admit my own TL stretches the limits of likelihood, I do like the site's tales for having some grounding in reality. It's something almost completely absent in mainstream media, which tended to favour Axis or Confederate victory scenarios with little to no explanation of how they could be accomplished.
"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
While I admit my own TL stretches the limits of likelihood, I do like the site's tales for having some grounding in reality. It's something almost completely absent in mainstream media, which tended to favour Axis or Confederate victory scenarios with little to no explanation of how they could be accomplished.
I guess the problem is that popular media lends itself to sensationalism, so there's naturally a tendency to make deeply implausible events happen for the sake of the dramatic.
I don't mind stretches in plausibility, it's more the faux-legitimacy of saying "Plausiblity doesn't matter because it's AH" that bugs me, because it just tends to encourage laziness.
I've grown to notice that the disdain many people on this forum have for popular media AH stems from the fundamental differences in how we and popular culture view the subject.
Over here, alternate history is an art in of itself, and we draw enjoyment from simply writing about what could happen, but the writer of a show or a book just doesn't care about "pure" AH - to them, alternate history is a tool to create an interesting scenario their fanbases can enjoy, nothing more.
Of course, AH.commers also happen to see their view of alternate history as somehow the "correct" one, and this is why you get so many people dissing on popular media AH, and some even end up saying that they are "doing alternate history wrong", which makes about as much sense as saying "doing the five-man band wrong" or "doing dystopia wrong". I've seen people like that.
I think there are caveats, for example CSA: The Movie is utterly ridiculous but as @Meadow said recently, the point isn't so much "this could happen" as much as saying "is this world really that different from ours?" I can appreciate that.
There are also works like Fatherland by Robert Harris, or SS-GB by Len Deighton (my favourite AH novel) where you have pretty implausible scenarios but they are also well-written and have an interesting plot. I wouldn't want to pull them off the shelves for being "wrong AH" but if they were posted on the board I probably would nitpick them.
In summary, no-one should have a monopoly on deciding what is and isn't good AH, but I do appreciate this board's standards on plausibility for encouraging writers to go a bit further and do a bit more research than they might otherwise do. Otherwise we might have a Free for-all where Hitler becomes a Communist or whatever.
Oen of the first thigns I learned about AH is that there is a surpirsing amount of fatalists within the community, despite the subject matter. Though I suppose with plausability, it's about trying to make it sound like it makes sense. Reality is Unrealistic anyway so trying to force it in a way to make sense can be hard, givne how nature likes to emss with us
I do look forward to more of this thread.
Chapter XXXVII
"They are wonderful . . . I do not know whether they will make shock troops, but there is one thing of which I am sure: it is people like these who make up the long columns with solid ranks of the revolutionary proletariat. It is on their unbreakable force that everything depends in the factories and the trade unions: these are the elements who must be assembled and led into action, it is through them that we are in contact with the masses."
~ Lenin on the KPD
~ Lenin on the KPD
Before Hitler had become a national figure, the German Communist Party (KPD) was in a state of flux. Those who argue that the party that would eventually become so wedded to the German Worker's Republic that it would be virtually indistinguishable from the state spent the early years of the Weimar republic wallowing on the fringes of German politics.
The party's role in the Spartacist uprising in Berlin and the Bavarian Soviet Republic in the early month's of 1919 had not gained them any popular appeal. The surviving leadership was overly lax, the party leader, Paul Levi, concentrated on maintaining his own power within small circles or control whilst averting direct action. Increasingly, the Independent Social Democrats (USPD) outshone the party as the left-wing alternative to the dominant Social Democrats (SPD). By the time of the Kapp Putsch, the party leadership was so stagnant that it ordered members not to join the general strike against the right-wing coup.
Though many members chose to ignore the official party line, the KPD appeared moribund as it stood on the sidelines whilst the trade unions defeated the reactionary coup and the workers rose up in the Ruhr. What Levi had dismissed as 'putchist' elements within the party had taken an active role in this process, including one Austrian private who had no intention of permanently laying down his rifle, even after the failure of the Ruhr's workers to endure much beyond the failure of Kapp's coup. The leadership of the KPD took virtually no lessons from the success of the general strike, beyond a bizzare confusion as to why the working classes had chosen to follow the trade unions raher than the KPD. The party that was in danger of becoming little more than an intellectual clique by the end of 1920, when salvation finally arrived.
The USPD was racked with inner turmoil. The party was far stronger than the KPD, in the summer of 1920 they had become the second largest party in the Reichstag, whilst having more members than the KPD had voters, and it had the moral authority of being unambigiously in favour of both the general strike and the Ruhr uprising. It was not usprising that to many communists, the USPD was the party of choice. Whilst this had been a boon for the party, the direction in which they should proceed would soon split the leadership from the majority of its members.
The basis of this division was based on whether to align the party with the international communist left. Though the Comintern in 1920 was not quite the intercontinental alliance of great powers that it would one day become, the grouping of communist parties was considered incredibly important by those in the USPD who wanted their party to coordinate with similar parties across the world. There were those within the party who were greatly resistant to such a move, particularly within the upper echelons of the party, who had largley been involved in the movement prior to the end of the First World War and the rise of the Soviet Union. Those opposed included the party's leader, Arhur Crispen, who after observing the Second Congress of the Comintern had come to the conclusion that if the party joined it would lose all independence of action.
The argument in favour of joining the Comintern fell to more recent and younger members. One of these was an employment office inspector and former docker named Ernst Thalmann, a man who not for the last time would take a leading role in growing the strength of the Communist Party to the detriment of democracy. Along with fellow comrades Heinrech Melzner and Jacob Walcher he argued that the socialist vision of the party was entirely embodied by the Comintern, and that it provided a modern means of building an alliance with smiliarly minded organisations across Europe, comparing the party's current strategy unfavourably with the failure for European socialists to collecitvely organise against the outbreak of the First World War.The pro-Comintern position was joined by older members such as Ernst Däumig and Walter Stoecker, who had been impressed by what they had seen whilst acting as observers to the Comintern congress.
At their Autumn conference, party delegates made their final decision, the option of joining the Comintern had won by a large margin and he KPD had finally began to emerge from the political wilderness. By the end of 1920 the USPD had effectively split into two separate parties. The vast majority of the party's membership formally merged with the KPD, whilst a majority of the party's deputies in the Reichstag attempted to retain the USPD brand, to little effect. The remnant USPD, having lost its mass membership, would go on merge with the SPD in 1922.
Paul Levi hadn't played a significant role in influencing the USPD's dissolution,he now found himself the main beneficiary. Almost overnight, his fringe movement now had over twenty deputies in the Reichstag a membership of over half a million Germans. Despite this strenghening of the party's position, he remained apprehensive towards any direct action, continuing to call for a parliamentary approach to socialism whilst the party extended its influence amongst the trade unions. Ironically, this moderate view left him alienated in the expanded party and he soon stepped down from the party's leadership. His vocal criticism of the March Action, a prolonged shootout between KPD members and the Reichswehr in the town of Mansfeld, would lead to his expulsion from the party altogether in 1921. Heinrech Brandler, a former labourer, found himself thrust into a leadership role where he worked closely with the Comintern, leaving some former-USPD members to wonder whether the warnings about a loss of independence had been valid.
~ Shaun Williams, Weimar's Rise and Fall
---
The Berlin offices of the Communist Party were far more frantic than usual, and Gerda had recently began to feel more and more like a cog in the machine rather than a party comrade. Briskly walking down the hallway, she couldn't help but frown at the long line of potential members waiting outside. Excellent for the party, but more stress for her.
Gerda was happy to devote her life to the cause of socialism, but under current cirumstances she hadn't had much of a choice. The revolution still hadn't come nor the liberation of women that it promised, life in Berlin as a single mother remained difficult. She loved Rosa, but couldn't help but wonder if her revolutionary activity wouldn't be of greater use if she didn't have an energetic three year old to look after.
The doting housewife option wasn't available to her, even if she had wanted such a bourgeois lifestyle, Rosa's father was invisible when it came to real commitment. Typical socal democrat. Her job at the factory had gone whilst she was pregnant. No matter how unattractive the prospect of a working women was to the German elites, they were tolerated up to a point, but women who wanted to be mothers and also have their own lives remained an outrage.
Gerda had resigned herself to the fact it wouldn't have mattered in any case. She couldn't rely on anyone to look after young Rosa even if she hadn't been told that she was no longer welcome in the factory that paid her a pittance for a day's labour. Christina had told her they could stay in the flat for as long as they wanted, but her friend's reassurances didn't stack up to the reality of feeding three people on one woman's wages. She had briefly thought of going home, but that wasn't an option any longer. Her family could probably have stomached the embarrasment of a daughter who was pregnant but unwed, but for her to be a communist also? The moment Gerda had found out she was pregnant, her infrequent thoughts of going back to her rural life was gone for good. She was a new woman now, her belief in the revolution would have to see her through.
The party had come to the rescue for her, offering her administrative work for what money could be arranged, as well as some food. A helpful group of her comrades were willing to take turns looking after little Rosa amongst other young children, There were even days when Rosa and some other children were allowed to stay in the offices, Gerda was looking forward to seeing her as she opened the door of the room for new applicants. It had been continuously full ever since the price of bread had gone into the billions.
"Very sorry about the wait today, the last few weeks have been chaotic as you might have imagined!" As she sat down with a sigh, the man across from her merely beamed, his cheek bones elevating noticeably, whilst his eyes seemed to bulge despite his arched forehead. The new applicant couldn't have been that much younger than her, yet he emoted an adolescent enthusiasm that alongside his unkempt hair took years off of him, he might have been in high school. Gerda had seen this before, especially in the last few weeks. The eagerness of the newly converted.
"Oh it's quite alright," the man-child assured her, "it's just good to see our movement finally getting the attention it deserves."
"Yes, it is all very encouraging," she smiled back, "although I believe the matter at hand is that you're not a party member..." The man simply shrugged.
"Our movement", Gerda had to suppress a giggle, a lot of latecomers seemed to enjoy claiming ownership to a party they hadn't done anything to build. She wondered where this man had been when she'd had to fight a tank with a kitchen knife.
"That's an oversight on my part, comrade. I can assure you I'm very keen to do anything I can to help." She hadn't managed to get the smile off of his face, but just because the man was arrogant didn't necessarily mean he couldn't be a good socialist, provided he actually believed in the cause that he had said he did.
"I hope you don't mind, but we do need to ask these sorts of questions when considering new members," Gerda couldn't help but think back to the previous days events, "we have to make sure that you haven't been sent by the army or the police."
The police hadn't bothered with subtlety, ever since the enabling act they had decided they could do whatever they liked. They had barged into the office yesterday, demanding to know where the party's ammunition and explosives were being held. Gerda had asked them whether they thought she would keep her daughter in the same building where explosives were being held, which seemed to make them blush. She didn't ask them if they thought the party was stupid enough to stockpile a weapons cache in their Berlin headquarters. Preferably they were that incompetent, but it was almost best to be wary of the enemy.
The aspiring party member seemed to agree, vigrously nodding as he assured Gerda that he understood why it was best to be careful. "The agents of international capital are everywhere, and it's often hard to tell the difference between them and normal people."
Gerda raised an eyebrow at that, "what do you mean by "tell the difference"?". He seemed to have realised that he had mispoken,
"I mean that they can be clever, that's all I'm saying."
The young man was smiling again, and Gerda put his confusion out of her mind, as he went on to explain what he had been doing for the last few years that had not involved him joining the KPD. It was a story of university and then writing that was fairly common amongst bourgeois members of the party, although Gerda was surprised to hear that that the impish looking man had a PhD.
"So it's Doctor Goebbels then?"
"Please, just Joseph,"
With a smug grin, Dr Goebbels continued on with his long-winded explanation as to how he had been reading Marx for several years now, apaprently for pleasure rather than study, until the violence in the Ruhr had finally inspired him to join the party. Recently, that had been an even more common story than the tales of woe caused by hyperinflation amongst new members. Gerda had presumed that the crippling poverty induced by the economic disaster that capitalism had brought about was leading to the swell in support but she had heard time and time again about this 'Red Front' that was causing so much bother for the French. She sympathised with them of course, but she couldn't help but wonder why they were so fixated on a foreign enemy. Some of the people Gerda had signed up recently seemed to have forgotten that Germans could just as easily have become the enforcers of capitalism as the French.
All the same, Dr Goebbels was another new member, one who would pay dues and help the revolution in that small way if in no other. There was no record of him being involved with any police force, he hadn't even been able to join the army due to his club foot. She was fairly certain that he was harmless.
"Welcome to the Communist Party of Germany."
Having filled out his membership card, she handed it over to him, he immediately stood up, placed it into his coat pocket, and extended his hand.
"It's been a pleasure, comrade, I'll hope we'll be seeing more of each other soon." His expression was a little too leering for Gerda to remain comfortable, though she smiled back neutrally as he left the room.
It was a brief sensation, but all of a sudden she felt a shiver down her spine. It was probably nothing to do with the little man she'd just turned into a comrade, but she felt as if her life would be just fine if she were to never see him again.
---
The painting is The Red Tower Of Halle by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
And the plot thickens.
"When the Volksfuhrer says, we ist die prolet race, we heil, heil, right in der prolet's face,
Not to love der prolet is a great disgrace, so we heil, heil, right in der prolet's face!"
"When the Volksfuhrer says, we ist die prolet race, we heil, heil, right in der prolet's face,
Not to love der prolet is a great disgrace, so we heil, heil, right in der prolet's face!"
When you said Doctor Goebbels, I literally shivered and got goosebumps. This Germany won't be very nice if Goebbels is going to be a player in the ruling party.
I always imagined that Goebbels would be making an appearance sooner or later, considering his OTL record, but you managed to portray him as the little creep he is effectively enough. I get the feeling that, even if it's not as much as the OTL Hitler's Germany, there's going to be that anti-semitic and nationalist voice to the German Worker's Republic. Depending on when the revolution happens, I suspect we might see a German-Soviet Split later in the future over the question of ideological purity and political clashes. Then again, Goebbels did have moments where he fell out of favour with OTL Hitler because of ideological differences, although he did ditch socialism for Hitler, so maybe he'll have the same poor luck when it comes to other questions.
Deleted member 92121
Excellent, the demagogue enters the field. They are aways fun.
Curious to see how the relationship between the Red Front and the KPD develops. This chapter seems to indicate that they are not connected, with the Red Front operating as a Rogue Insurgent force, although it also states that the KPD will be the ruling force of communist Germany. So the Front will eventually be absorved by the KPD and Hitler uses his stablished reputation as a revolutionary to climb the ranks? My guess at least.
Curious to see how the relationship between the Red Front and the KPD develops. This chapter seems to indicate that they are not connected, with the Red Front operating as a Rogue Insurgent force, although it also states that the KPD will be the ruling force of communist Germany. So the Front will eventually be absorved by the KPD and Hitler uses his stablished reputation as a revolutionary to climb the ranks? My guess at least.
Loving this timeline a great deal. The poverty of people on the ground really does show just why this is a society ripe for revolution and meanwhile Hitler is clearly becoming a revolutionary capable of capitalising on that. It's a very different path from otl hitler (the lack of implicit support by the establishment is the major one) but you can see how some of the same people will find him attractive in both timelines.
Cheers mate! Hitler's path to power here is going to be very different, but there are going to be a handful of people in his KPD that will be familiar from OTL. It's actually not too difficult to make Goebbels a convert, he wasn't lying to Gerda about an interest in Marx. Although he was also virulently nationalistic and anti-Semitic before he met Hitler. This led him to Strasserism in our world but with the Red Front's violent resistance against the French he very well might have seen the KPD as the 'nationalist' socialist choice ITTL.
I think I might have to add "It's still Hitler" as a tag-line for this TL.