PC: Chartist revolution/earliest possible socialist revolution in Europe

Is it possible to have the Chartists successfully pull of a radical democratic and socialist revolution in Britain in the early half of the 19th Century? Likewise is it possible to have a successful radical socialist revolution in Europe around this time? Presumably the Revolutions of 1848, if they were more successful might do the trick, but would an even earlier revolution have been possible, perhaps if the Revolutions of 1830 or 1820 were more radical?
 
Problem is you are asking quite a few questions here rolled into one.

The Chartist ideology, best defined by their Six Points, was pretty diffuse and not what many would consider socialist. Plus Chartism has a raft of its own problems - weak leaders, unstable support base, exclusion of women. Its main problems are that it was split between "Physical Force" and "Moral Force" Chartists - those who favoured violence vs those who pressed for legal protest. The physical force chartists were always a minority. The other major issue is that they were so well handled by the Prime Minister. Peel basically pulled the rug out from under them by granting a series of reforms that eroded their support base and managed to wait until the economy picked up and many just went back to work.

The 1848 revolutions, likewise, are not very socialist in ideology - many are more an older idea of radical liberal republicanism. And it varies from country to country.

I think your best bet is for the socialists in France in 1848 not to mess it up by launching their stupid June Days in Paris and getting squashed by the Government. That led to the lurch to the right and helped Napoleon III come to power. If they had held out and thrown their support behind Ledru Rollin in the presidential election they might have kept Napoleon III at bay and developed into a more radical state. But thats a big maybe.

France is most likely to see the earliest socialist revolution in my opinion.
 
Depends on what you require of this radical democracy and socialism.

If you´re fine with agrarian (theocratic) socialism with radical communal democracy (and a very weak overarching associative framework), then the 15th or 16th centuries might be doable. There were peasant revolts galore, and early radical reformation provided the theoretical framework, while communal assemblies, which had formed from the 12th century on throughout what is today Northwestern Spain, France, the Alps, Northern Italy, Southern Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Northwestern Romania, provided a solid political structure. Early modern absolutist monarchies with their relatively small professional armies were not yet an unsurmountable enemy for a revolutionary military force which uses the benefits of firearms and the military creativity of the many, as Jan Zizka`s Hussites have shown.

If you want something on the scale of a "nation" that builds on enlightenment philosophy and an industrial working class, then obviously you have to wait for and learn from the French Revolution. 1830 might be it, and of course 1848. Defending 1848 could have succeeded with a (paramilitarily) organised working class, so you`d need someone to prepare that. Some earlier Blanqui...
 
I was mostly aiming at the second kind of socialists. The basic idea is to have a major European power go socialist, preferably Britain but any additional support they can get on the continent would be helpful as well, and for this to happen towards the beginning of the industrial revolution, before the onset of colonialism in Africa and Asia, as well as the American Civil War. The idea is to see what effect a strong socialist power in Europe would have on those things.

For example I could see revolutionary Britain actively allying themselves with the North in the ACW, and arming and radicalising the slaves and poor whites in the areas they control and thoroughly destroying the plantation class. As a result the south becomes a hotbed of radicalism and the Republicans dragged further to the left, with the Moderate Republicans supporting a fully comprehensive program of reconstruction akin to the OTL Radical Republicans, and the Radical Republicans supporting a mixture of socialism and radical liberalism.

It would also be interesting to see what the effect of a socialist great power will have on the development of colonialism, and whether or not they would support it.
 
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