PC: Post-War Western Communism

[Hashoosh]

To clarify, I'm trying to figure the out the plausibility of the PCF and PCI rising in the immediate post-war period. I don't know enough about the KPD in this era, but I can't imagine they'd have been strong enough to overcome the Western occupation forces. So we'll discount Germany from this discussion. But what about the other European communist parties? I know that the Soviet leadership told them to not work against the new governments, and this was for AIUI two big reasons:

1) Stalin didn't want to greatly upset the Western Powers
2) Stalin did not want other centres of Communism, but to dominate it from Moscow

So, how can these be overcome? Does it require the removal of Stalin from power in 1944 or 45? Do we need a far icier relationship between the WAllies and the USSR?

What would be the effects if the Soviets encourage communist takeovers in France and Italy? What about the other occupied states; Benelux, Denmark and Norway? I think Austria was restricted for the same reasons as Germany, so I don't see it as too plausible there.

Would these uprisings succeed, and what would be the Western reaction, regardless of success?

 

[Anneessens]

I don't have a lot to add for now, but re: Belgium, I could imagine that such an uprising would risk taking an ethnic/linguistic character. The KPB/PCB was a lot less implanted in Flanders, which was then a rather rural and conservative religious area. Just look at the results for the party's during the 1946 elections, at the height of its popularity (by province):

Walloon provinces:
Hainault: 25,08%
Liège: 21,71%
Namur: 13,74%
Luxemburg: 12,15%

Brabant (mixed province): 14,4%

Flemish provinces:
East Flanders: 7,22%
West Flanders: 5,34%
Limburg: 3,74%
Antwerp: 3,72%

Of course, in essence, this isn't a national divide, but one between rural areas and industrial ones (notice the difference between industrial Hainault and foresty Luxemburg), and the communists themselfs were not anti-Flemish (although I'm sure that some of its militant base probably was, identifying Flemishness with the collaboration as did many people in Wallonia at that time). Still, there's a chance it could be viewed and framed by many as an ethnic conflict, with all nastinesses as a result. One would probably an earlier un-discrediting, not only of Flemish nationalism, but of its most conservative rightist wing. Lots of it, depending, of course, on the way the KPB/PCB itself would handle such a thing.

During the 1930's the Belgian communists experimented with a Flemish nationalist discourse. However, by the end of the war, they had dropped this in favour of very pronounced Belgian centralist rhetorics. Added to that was the fact that the person who was the perfect embodiment of the Flemish autonomist/nationalist discourse within the KPB/PCB, Jef Van Extergem, didn't survive the war, as did the bulk of the central committee of the autonomous Flemish Communist Party (VKP) (whose autonomy was abolished near the end of the war). The only VKP survivor of any importance was Edgard Lalmand - who basically became the Belgian party's own little Stalin. However, although originally from Antwerp, he had a francophone bourgeois background, and was thus certainly not the ideal man claims of communism being a godless anti-Flemish conspiracy...

The KPB/PCB must have had some silenced internal opposition to Lalmand though, as the Belgian party was basically the first European communist party (except for the KPJ, of course) to be more or less de-stalinized - with the Congress of Vilvoorde in 1954.

That being said, the idea that it should come to a communist uprising in Belgium seems farfetched. The communist were in a winning mood immediately after the war, as 'heroes of the liberation', and probably believed that it was best to try and take advantage of its popularity democratically. I guess it could be driven to it, if instructed by Moscow and if the global geopolitical context allowed in.

 

[Hashoosh]

Interesting information on Belgium. Do you have the figures for the other parties' support at the time? I.e. did the Communists achieve plurality in any of those states (Hainault looks like it could be)