"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?

[The Red]

Great stuff.

Having seen the original Metropolis, it's interesting to see how this one is different. Certainly… how to put it? More unequivocal. None of that "mediator" stuff,

Thanks! And yes indeed, reading reviews at the time a lot of critics were confused as to why the film’s ending calls for rapprochement given its overriding themes, particularly the workers trying to bury the hatchet with Joh Fredersen after he’d spent the last three hours trying to murder them all.

and the good-bourgeois protagonist appears to have vanished.

Gustav Fröhlich, who played Freder Fredersen, was a UFA contracted actor and as such was forbidden from finishing his scenes ITTL and had to be killed off early on. I kinda imagined him dying from shock after the “MOLOCH!” sequence and his death subsequently making his father even more antagonistic towards the workers.

 

[The Red]

I'm not too surprised that Hitler Thought has such a strong nationalist element to it. It's rather hard for me to think of a successful socialist revolution that didn't somewhat adopt such nation-focused rhetoric, although there are those who argue that the October Revolution is the exception. And that then gets into a whole debate about how much of a mass movement that was along with the Russian Civil War and other stuff that I'm not qualified to talk about.

There aren’t any that I can think of, although arguably German Ideology is more “savvy” to its use of nationalism. The October Revolution started out with little to no nation-focused rhetoric but as the civil war escalated the Bolsheviks were very quick to make use of the fact that the Whites were being backed by foreign powers who wanted to exploit Russia.

The extent of American neutrality's a good question to ask; an explicitly socialist Germany trying to conquer Europe is going to worry a whole other crowd who were more isolation IOTL, but how much to actually get intervention to be popular?

It’s often hard to tell whether prominent members of America First and other groups were staunch in their isolationism or were simply not averse to fascism. For example, Burton K Wheeler was actively trying to censor films he deemed to be anti-German and was happy to leak American war plans but after Pearl Harbour he deflatedly supported the war effort.

Naturally it’s easier with those who discarded their isolationism on June 22nd, 1941.

 

[El Terremoto]

Basically how the communists treated the workers. The unenlightened proletariot who needs the workers to save him. And the colonies are basically agrarian, so it fits well into that narrative.

???

ummm...

"The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge." seems pretty much the opposite of what you said?


unless I'm wrong and totally misunderstood your post

 

[Nyvis]

???

ummm...

"The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge." seems pretty much the opposite of what you said?


unless I'm wrong and totally misunderstood your post

His first use of worker should be peasants I think.

OTL the USSR was very industry focused and didn't think much of the non-industrial workers.

 

[El Terremoto]

His first use of worker should be peasants I think.

OTL the USSR was very industry focused and didn't think much of the non-industrial workers.

It was less not thinking much of non-industrial workers and more disliking private small farms as a sort of petty-bourgeois class relationship. Even Stalin was very much pro-agriculture so long as it was collective.

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

???

ummm...

"The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding, it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge." seems pretty much the opposite of what you said?


unless I'm wrong and totally misunderstood your post

Wow. My bad. I meant rural peasant farmer. Wow. I am so sorry. This is so funny lol . It's like saying anarcho capitalists praised labor unions.

I meant the rural peasant farmer who the communists found to be "too folksy and nationalistic" for the revolution.

Long story short communism ranked the industrial worker over the rural peasant or farmer. Communists viewed the rural peasants as too superstitious and into national folklore to truly understand the "enlightened revolution".

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

OTL the USSR was very industry focused and didn't think much of the non-industrial workers.

Yes exactly what I meant.

 

[Nyvis]

It was less not thinking much of non-industrial workers and more disliking private small farms as a sort of petty-bourgeois class relationship. Even Stalin was very much pro-agriculture so long as it was collective.

I don't disagree, but instead of trying to work with the natural structures in farmer communities going in that direction, like the fact that a lot of land was traditionally controlled collectively by farming communities, they tried to transform them into industrial laborers, making them into what they were supposed to liberate people from.

To people who just got out of serfdom, it was the worst possible betrayal.

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

It was less not thinking much of non-industrial workers and more disliking private small farms as a sort of petty-bourgeois class relationship. Even Stalin was very much pro-agriculture so long as it was collective.

Yeah about that ... That's bringing industrial concepts to an agricultural tradition, and the result was essentially screwing them. Communism largely revolves around industrial and capitalist societies and it's 9-5 standardized shifts don't really work in traditional farming. So saying "I'm fine with you making the food we need to survive as long as you do it in an industrial-ish fashion and therefore superior method" is not pro-agriculture. William Jennings Bryan was pro-agriculture. Joseph Stalin was not.

Turning your nation from the breadbasket of Europe to a net importer of wheat for the sake of industrializing the nation is not pro-agriculture.

 

[Nyvis]

Communism largely revolves around industrial and capitalist societies and it's 9-5 standardized shifts don't really work in traditional farming.

Communism assumes the revolution should happen in a developed country where agriculture is less of a concern and more integrated into industrial processes, not a still feudal backwater. Some of the issues the USSR and China faced with agriculture were just a result of using the wrong tools for the job.

Of course, those could crop up in Germany too, with its antiquated Junkers controlled agriculture.

 

[IntellectuallyHonestRhino]

Communism assumes the revolution should happen in a developed country where agriculture is less of a concern and more integrated into industrial processes, not a still feudal backwater. Some of the issues the USSR and China faced with agriculture were just a result of using the wrong tools for the job.

Of course, those could crop up in Germany too, with its antiquated Junkers controlled agriculture.

That is fair, but all in all the damage that communism did and does to the agricultural sector is its most damning feature. It's also really bad in being efficient with consumer demand, and is highly inefficient there. But need a bunch of weapons to fight a large scale war? I'll give it that.

 

[cortz#9]

Great update and great film.

 

[The Red]

Great update and great film.

Thanks! We're headed for another time jump as some of you might have guessed so I thought a bit of pop culture might work well to fill in some of the gaps.

 

[The Red]

Of course, those could crop up in Germany too, with its antiquated Junkers controlled agriculture.

Land reform was one of the few issues the KPD and SPD actually managed to work together on IOTL, albeit unsuccessfully.

 

[mudhead]

I've seen a couple of versions of Metropolis, most recently the 2012 reassembly, including lost footage found in Argentina and NZ.

I must say that I thought - and think - that it's absolutely terrible. Nothing makes sense, and the ending seems to indicate "OK, proles, we've had some problems, but these two people are really nice. Now get back to fucking work, the lot of you".

 

[President Earl Warren]

How is hitler going to deal with religion? This will be very important dealing with bavaria

 

[cortz#9]

Thanks! We're headed for another time jump as some of you might have guessed so I thought a bit of pop culture might work well to fill in some of the gaps.

Cool! I enjoy pop culture references in alternate timelines, they make the TL more interesting IMO and add a little more depth to them.

 

[Augenis]

I had been interested in the idea of Hitler being a communist as well. How would it come about? Maybe he'd be more exposed to leftist views upon passing art school? Maybe a communist uprising breaks out when he returns to Vienna?

Well that's what you are reading right now.

 

[The Red]

@Aloha I'm not sure why you deleted your post but those are both interesting ideas. I hope you enjoy the TL and the trajectory that I came up with.

 

[The Red]

I've seen a couple of versions of Metropolis, most recently the 2012 reassembly, including lost footage found in Argentina and NZ.

I must say that I thought - and think - that it's absolutely terrible. Nothing makes sense, and the ending seems to indicate "OK, proles, we've had some problems, but these two people are really nice. Now get back to fucking work, the lot of you".

I watched a version that was pre-reassembly about ten years ago and it really stuck with me. I agree that the ending is ludicrous and I was watching a version that had to rely heavily on title cards to explain the missing scenes so the plot's lucidity varies a lot in general but there was something about the ambition and scale of the film that really stuck with me and there are individual scenes that are just superb. There's the amount of things the film has inspired as well, that arguably isn't deserving of merit in itself but has ensured that it will enjoy an immortality that isn't even conceivable for most other films.