Place In the Sun: What If Italy Joined the Central Powers? (1.0)

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Belka DNW

Belka DNW

Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth said:
Brazil never entered the war ITTL.
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Well if the things didn't heat up then some riots against ethnic germans don't occur, 42 german ships aren't seized by the brazilian government, the bigger influences (IMO) would be after TTL great depression, Brazil could shift its market away from the US to Germny if the latter isn't much affected. Internally the war didn't have that much effect, you could try and change somethings because of the butterflies but in general Brazil is not going to look too much internationally since it has a lot of internal troubles but if Vargas still rises and the US does not care or can't prevent it I can see Vargas alinging himself with Germany if is the most advantegeous position. Keep in mind that there is integralists, communists and low to midranking army officers rebelling against the government in Brazil.

couple links from wikipedia with the basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Integralist_Action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenentism
 

Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth

President Earl Warren said:
No Russian Communist state, leading to no red scare and the like. Also, did the US impose the same level of restrictions on people who objected to Mexico as World War 1? if so that leads to alot of the federal machinery that lead to opression during that era.
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There were markedly fewer censorship restrictions than in OTL- Eugene Debs was never imprisoned for example- because Charles Evans Hughes is a more liberal man than Wilson.

However, I'd caution against assuming that there will be no Russian Communist state. Xenia's regime isn't the most stable in the world and things could easily go wrong there.
In fact, we'll see more from Lenin and co in tomorrow's update!
 
Jaenera Targaryen

Jaenera Targaryen

Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth said:
There were markedly fewer censorship restrictions than in OTL- Eugene Debs was never imprisoned for example- because Charles Evans Hughes is a more liberal man than Wilson.

However, I'd caution against assuming that there will be no Russian Communist state. Xenia's regime isn't the most stable in the world and things could easily go wrong there.
In fact, we'll see more from Lenin and co in tomorrow's update!
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So...shall I call up the Red Army Choir and have them start singing in advance?


*cue Kaiser Bill in Germany having nightmares*
 
Ariosto

Ariosto

Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth said:
The 1920 US Presidential election is fast approaching and I need to start drawing up plans. Obviously, Charles Evans Hughes will be the Republican nominee. So, my question is twofold: who should the Democratic nominee be, and who should win in November 1920?
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Easily the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination will be Woodrow Wilson, having almost certainly still won the popular vote in 1916 (it isn't specified) and having only lost the election itself by the narrowest of margins, and the man seemed intent on running for a third term in OTL despite his crippling afflictions. His nomination would not be a foregone conclusion of course given he could suffer a debilitating stroke while on the campaign trail, but I personally believe it would be Wilson's health and only his health which would preclude his nomination by the Democratic Party in this universe; he is the closest to a unifying figure the Democrats have at this point, ironic as that may sound.​
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Most other names have been thrown out there, with McAdoo and Cox the natural frontrunners; if Wilson is able to see reason he will throw his support behind his son-in-law, which in this case might be enough to rally the required supermajority of the delegates behind McAdoo's nomination. Despite what others are saying it is also likely that Franklin Roosevelt would be named to the ticket as well... the major factor involved with his candidacy was that he carried the Roosevelt name, and it was hoped that Progressives might continue to support the Democratic ticket on the basis of association. It certainly helped that Roosevelt was from the critical swing-state of New York as well.​
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I think that the election will ultimately be another tossup, to some extent dependent on the economy, but also with a number of Ethno-American groups casting their votes in a somewhat unpredictable manner... the Irish certainly are not going to be throwing their support to the Republicans or Abstaining as an example, and the Germans are not going to be appreciative of the Hughes' Administrations stances towards the German Empire. The Second Mexican-American War, while a victory, is not liable to be one that rallies voters behind President Hughes given the obvious benefits from the conflict are not clear to the common man, and some may even blame Hughes for Roosevelt's death.​
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Edit: Suppose the voting public of the forum might have another idea however. I still contend though that the Republican Party will come out weaker with a Second Term under Hughes, and will not be surefire winners in 1924. ​
 
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Issei Uzumaki

Ariosto said:
Easily the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination will be Woodrow Wilson, having almost certainly still won the popular vote in 1916 (it isn't specified) and having only lost the election itself by the narrowest of margins, and the man seemed intent on running for a third term in OTL despite his crippling afflictions. His nomination would not be a foregone conclusion of course given he could suffer a debilitating stroke while on the campaign trail, but I personally believe it would be Wilson's health and only his health which would preclude his nomination by the Democratic Party in this universe; he is the closest to a unifying figure the Democrats have at this point, ironic as that may sound.​
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Most other names have been thrown out there, with McAdoo and Cox the natural frontrunners; if Wilson is able to see reason he will throw his support behind his son-in-law, which in this case might be enough to rally the required supermajority of the delegates behind McAdoo's nomination. Despite what others are saying it is also likely that Franklin Roosevelt would be named to the ticket as well... the major factor involved with his candidacy was that he carried the Roosevelt name, and it was hoped that Progressives might continue to support the Democratic ticket on the basis of association. It certainly helped that Roosevelt was from the critical swing-state of New York as well.​
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I think that the election will ultimately be another tossup, to some extent dependent on the economy, but also with a number of Ethno-American groups casting their votes in a somewhat unpredictable manner... the Irish certainly are not going to be throwing their support to the Republicans or Abstaining as an example, and the Germans are not going to be appreciative of the Hughes' Administrations stances towards the German Empire. The Second Mexican-American War, while a victory, is not liable to be one that rallies voters behind President Hughes given the obvious benefits from the conflict are not clear to the common man, and some may even blame Hughes for Roosevelt's death.​
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Edit: Suppose the voting public of the forum might have another idea however. I still contend though that the Republican Party will come out weaker with a Second Term under Hughes, and will not be surefire winners in 1924. ​
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But if you setup a second Hughes term then its likely the Dems gain power back in '24 which sets up a possible Dem administration at the start of the Depression. Assuming of course that still occurs. While the Macroeconomics are different, there is still war debt out there, just not to the same level. It would be interesting to see how Frances fall to communism impacts global debts. Could the UK financials be the ones to trigger a Depression in this TL? Or is there no Depression at all? I tend to think that a major crash was inevitable at some point due to the lawlessness in which banks used their funds in aggressive investments that was eventually curtailed in Glass-Steagall.
 
Chapter 47: Stand With the Majority, Die With the Minority
  • Index

    • Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth

    Chapter Forty-Seven: Stand With the Majority, Die With the Minority​

    "It is fortunate, Julius Opisovich, that you are only a minority! If all revolutionaries adhered to your errors the Tsar would crush us underfoot!"
    -Vladimir Lenin to Julius Martov at the Second Unity Congress

    "Our two countries have been allied before, you know. Despite the war we still touch Germany on both sides. Now that the French proletariat has liberated itself, and after the Russian people have followed suit, the dictatorship of the proletariat will surround the dictatorship of the Kaiser. Then a new Franco-Russian Alliance, one of the people, not the emperors and capitalists, will succeed where the first failed!"
    -Vladimir Lenin to Georges Sorel at Toulon

    Julius Martov had spent the past year trying to learn Norwegian while surveying the wreckage of his career. September 1916 had been disastrous. His position as chairman of the Petrograd Central Worker’s Group had left him poised to seize control of the riots, to harness the power of the masses as man harnesses electricity. Nicholas II had been expelled from the capital while Georgy Lvov had sided with him. Yet, it hadn’t lasted. Lvov had betrayed the Revolution and Nicholas’ brother had crushed it. As soon as he’d heard gunfire in the streets, Martov had fled to Petrograd harbour in disguise and stolen a fishing-boat. He then travelled, not west into the Baltic, but east along the Neva River to Shlisselberg on Lake Lagoda. Schisselberg wasn’t under revolutionary control and no one was looking for him there. Disguised as a refugee, Martov had bribed his way on a ferry to Sortavala near the Finnish border. Thus began a month-long odyssey across Finland which involved hunger, hitch-hiking, freezing weather, and cost Martov ten pounds and his luscious beard. The deprivation was hard, especially for a man in his forties, but the idea of what the Okhrana would do to him was worse. Tired but safe, Martov staggered into Helsinki on the first of December 1916. It was there that he realised what had happened on his long march. When Martov had fled Petrograd, Finland had been a discontented Russian province; it was now the Finnish Socialist Workers Republic. (1) Martov was enchanted by the new order, but more than a little surprised that agricultural Finland- which, like all good Russians, he condescendingly viewed as a backwater- had been the first to successfully pull off a socialist revolution. Never mind that Matti Passivuori’s decidedly liberal regime wore only the aesthetic of socialism (it even let the gentry, native and Russian, keep their property), or that the current government was decidedly unstable. Seeing red flags fly so soon after his own defeat convinced Julius Martov that though he’d lost the battle, he would win the war. The laws of history said so.

    Julius Martov​
    juliusmartov.jpeg

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    Much as he would’ve loved to remain in the new Finland, Martov had to keep moving. Though Petrograd had recognised Finnish independence, he was a wanted man and doubtless assassins would find him if he stayed in one place too long, international border or not. Thus, on Christmas Eve 1916 he conferred with Kullervo Manner, the furthest-left politician in Finland. Manner agreed to slip Martov over the border to Norway, and presented him with a set of false documents. He was now Grigory Strissykn, a Russian landowner from Finland who held a Norwegian passport. Julius Martov set sail from Turku on the 27th, and Grigory Strissykn set foot in Oslo on the third of January, 1917.

    Spring 1917 was a bleak time for Martov. Few of his Menshevik colleagues knew where he was, and e had no idea where they were. Norwegian newspapers were illegible, and the Russian ones he purchased at the embassy were all ‘tsarist rags’ (as he described them). Every week, some high-up in Tsar Michael’s bureaucracy promised that a “new wave of security enforcement is forthcoming to counter the revolutionary threat.” Such articles were followed by missives gloating about how such-and-such a “Martovist” had been arrested or executed. Their names were usually so obscure Martov was led to one of two conclusions. Either the Okhrana was losing its teeth and only capturing a handful of people, or the names of those arrested were picked at random from thousands sent to Siberia. Silence from his colleagues supported Martov’s fears of the latter. Seeing his own name vilified in the papers was exciting at first, but novelty soon turned to fear- the promised million-ruble reward for anybody who delivered Martov to Petrograd dead or alive didn’t help. If he didn’t seek protection from the Norwegian government, he’d be defenceless against tsarist assassins, but to acknowledge that he wasn’t in fact Grigory Strissykn would send a flare visible for hundreds of miles to every Okhrana agent in the world. Security shoved Martov into isolation. Odd-jobbing barely kept body and soul together (not speaking Norwegian wasn’t a huge benefit), and he began taking his meals at a Russian Orthodox charity kitchen. Grigory eneboer- Grigory the recluse- became known for his halitosis and liquor-induced red nose. Martov scrupulously avoided drinking in public- he couldn’t take the risk that he’d drunkenly curse the Tsar and reveal his identity. So, he stayed up late, vodka filling his stomach, calling Georgy Lvov every name in the book. When he awoke the next day, he blamed Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality for his hangover. Aware that the police could crack his door down at any moment, Martov left no traces of his Marxism. His taxes were paid on time and in full, a Russian Talmud rubbed shoulders with Anna Karrenia and War and Peace, and a journal of his lamented his lack of romance and desire to return “to God and the Tsar.” Every lie in that book was a knife in the guts, part of a disguise which might protect Martov’s flesh but scourged his soul.

    Failure exacerbated loneliness. Martov had spent his entire adult life preparing for September 1916. Revolution was inevitable; popular will couldn’t be defeated. Martov’s religion said as much. September 1916 had caught him off-guard as much as anybody else, but within twenty-four hours he had taken control. But letting that traitor Georgi Lvov parley with the foe doomed the revolution on which so many had pinned their hopes. That Russian communism had been set back years was painful; the belief that it was entirely his fault was agony. When he closed his eyes, Martov saw his Bolshevik foes sneering, saw his surviving allies abandon him for Vladimir Lenin, saw history books a century later call him the damn fool whose failure derailed the Revolution. It’s miraculous that suicide never once crossed Martov’s mind.

    However, the night is always darkest before the dawn. On the first of May 1917, a knock came on Martov’s door. “Julius Martov? Open up now!” His heart leapt- had the Okhrana found him at last? Would he rather throw himself from a window and die quickly? Heart in mouth, he trudged to the door of his grubby flat. This, evidently, was how it all ended. A moment later, a forceful blow nearly knocked him off his feet. “Julius Opisovich Martov, you are alive!”

    Leon Trotsky’s eyes gleamed beneath his spectacles.

    Trotsky’s past few years had been chaotic. He’d last seen Martov at a socialist antiwar conference in September 1915, where Martov had proven too conservative for his tastes and Lenin too radical. Six months later, as the Western and Italian fronts caved in, authorities deported Trotsky to Spain for sedition. (2) While Martov was raising the red banner in Petrograd, Trotsky was learning to describe his feelings about the food and the war in Spanish. Upon his release in December 1916, the authorities had planned to send him to Murmansk, but he refused, knowing what the puto zar- both men smiled at the description of Michael- would do to him. Instead, Trotsky had gone to stay with Jewish Communist contacts in New York City. The Lower East Side was a long way from Russia and the Tsar’s writ didn’t extend there. The good news, Trotsky told Martov, was that all the important Communists were alive. Though the Okhrana had inflicted ghastly fates on a few, the September Revolution hadn’t lasted long enough for the principal players to stick their necks out. Bloody purges in Petrograd and Moscow had taken many innocent lives, but the only major revolutionary to die had been the unpopular Nikolai Rozhov. Lenin was in Switzerland while Nikolai Bukharin had found refuge in socialist Finland. September 1916 had been a setback, Trotsky said, not a catastrophe. Martov hadn’t failed, he’d forgotten that the liberal revolution was only the first step. Now that Russia had the beginnings of a liberal bourgeois government, the revolutionaries had to unite to overthrow that regime, just as Marx prophesied. It was time for Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to set aside their differences and unite against the common enemy. "If you and Lenin quarrel", he told his comrade, "the only winners reside in Petrograd." Trotsky grinned as he retrieved two steamship tickets to Glasgow- one for Grigory Strissykn, the other for ‘Snezhok Goldstein’. (3)

    It was time for a second Unity Conference.

    Congregating was dangerous. The key revolutionaries had all survived by going under the radar in places the Romanovs couldn’t reach. Hundreds of Russians suddenly appearing in Glasgow would cause a stir and be impossible to conceal, reinvigorating the Tsar’s attempts to kill them. A handful of disguised Okhrana men could easily arrest them all or the British authorities could send them back to Russia en masse. That would ingratiate London with Tsar Michael’s regime, while also getting rid of individuals for whom Whitehall had little love. Finally, Martov wasn’t sure he wanted to meet with a man nearly as hostile as the Tsar. Martov's nightmare of Lenin castigating him before friend and foe alike for bungling the September Revolution seemed frighteningly plausible.

    Trotsky acknowledged Martov’s fears. There was a danger from the Tsarist police, he said, but that had always been true. “Just think of when I knocked on your door a moment ago. Who were you to presume that the first Russian you’d heard in half a year was a comrade-in-arms, not a secret policeman?” The revolutionaries would slip into Scotland a few at a time and wouldn’t stay together- they’d move about the countryside for a few weeks before congregating, while their disguises would hopefully confuse snoops. As for the other, he reminded Martov that he had good relations with Lenin. Trotsky promised to ensure that Lenin didn’t humiliate Martov or the Mensheviks- provided Martov was respectful towards the Bolsheviks. Martov reluctantly agreed, and the two ventured to Scotland.

    Part of the disguise involved around Glasgow for a month. Their English phrase books were slightly deficient, but they got by. On 22 June, Trotsky presented Martov with a coded message- the paperboy was starting a new route, and wanted Martov to greet him outside his house. The ‘paperboy’- Vladimir Lenin with his distinctive newsboy cap and goatee- had finally made it. A week later, Martov received more coded instructions; he was to buy a bus ticket to the hamlet of Duck Bay, several hours north of Glasgow. The knowledge that if he couldn’t understand the reason for all this secrecy, the Okhrana wouldn’t be able to either, reassured him.

    Duck Bay’s population doubled in the first days of July 1917. The arrival of so many strange foreigners baffled the handful of conservative, ageing Scotsmen, who murmured amongst themselves about the ‘bloody foreigners. The only man not to complain was the owner of Duck Bay’s sole bed-and-breakfast, who received a vast sum for leaky bedrooms and an endless supply of potatoes, cabbage, and baked beans. Secured by the knowledge that the place was so miserable no secret policeman, British or Russian, would ever set foot there, the revolutionaries got down to work.

    The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party had split over a variety of practical and theoretical differences. Vladimir Lenin, champion of the hard line, had won a majority of followers at the 1912 Party Congress, and his allies came to be called bolsheviki- the majority. The more flexible and conciliatory Martov had led the smaller mensheviki- minority. Much had changed since both sides were under the same roof five years ago. While the numerical distinction between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had previously been minimal, Martov’s failure in Petrograd had won Lenin converts. The goateed Bolshevik savaged Martov’s liberalism, accusing him of being insufficiently revolutionary. His alliance with Georgy Lvov was held up as an example of his lack of revolutionary spirit- no real Marxist would’ve collaborated with a Tsarist tool! Red-faced, fists shaking, Martov replied that not only was Lvov’s treason hardly his fault, the September Revolution had been a liberal bourgeois one. Where was Lenin, he said, jabbing his finger at the Bolshevik, when the gunshots were ringing out? “In Switzerland”, Martov thundered, “reading old copies of Iskra!”

    “You may have started the revolution, Julius Opisovich, but I will finish it! After all, you and your minority are the liberal bourgeois, true, but you have forgotten your theory. For the liberal bourgeois government is not the final stage, is it? The people will overthrow it in good time.” Lenin then launched into a diatribe about the cruelties of Tsar Michael’s regime, lamenting the deaths of ‘revolutionary martyrs’ sent to Siberia or given nine grammes of lead in the back of the head, before explaining his version of the September Revolution to the assembled revolutionaries. Though he’d risen against Tsar Nicholas, Lenin said, Martov had in fact hoped the revolution would fail. His ‘liberal minority stance’- pozitsiya liberalnogo menshinstva, позиция либерального меньшинства- had led him to launch the September Revolution with intent to fail. Rather than setting out to establish a “genuine people’s government”, Lenin said, Martov had been willing to settle for a moderate regime. The dangerous implication- that Martov’s liberal views were closer to those of a moderate Tsar than his fellow revolutionaries- hung in the air. All the while, Martov was sitting in the front row, his fists and teeth clenched. He’d been called to Scotland to reunite the Party, not to be insulted in front of his peers! Before he could tell Lenin where to go and what to do when he got there, Trotsky raised a hand. Ideological differences were important, but the gulf between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks paled next to that between revolutionaries and the Tsar. September 1916 had been a partial success- though it had failed to create a people’s government, it had established the liberal bourgeois government Marx predicted. This, Trotsky emphasised with his eyes fixed on Lenin, had been an accidental effect unrelated to its failure, not Martov’s ultimate intent.

    So ended the first day of the Second Unity Conference.

    Lenin and Martov photographed for the last time together at the Duck Bay Congress
    lenin+martov.jpeg

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    The next day’s discussion of tactics was telling. Despite Trotsky’s mediation, Lenin had triumphed over Martov. The Menshevik was the failed moderate who’d traded one tsar for another; the Bolshevik brimmed with revolutionary fire. Thus, Lenin’s views dominated the discussion on the role of the peasantry. He criticised the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) for being lukewarm, but reiterated his belief in the revolutionary potential of the peasants. In fact, Lenin claimed, one thing September 1916 had shown was that peasant cooperation was essential, and Martov’s ignoring them had been “a major theoretical and practical error.” Only Petrograd had risen up- the farmers had remained docile, and the revolution had failed. Martov objected that the September Revolution had ended too quickly for the peasants to rise up, to which Lenin retorted that Martov’s poor leadership was to blame. Before the Menshevik could defend himself, Trotsky interjected, pleading with both to forget the past and focus on what needed doing. This earned him flak from both Lenin and Martov- the former was disappointed at losing a chance to humiliate his rival, while the latter was furious at not being able to defend himself. The discussion then moved onto the SRs. Lenin criticised their liberalism and support for the Great War, and said that there were far too many “voices opposed to full-throated revolution” in their ranks. The peasants would be best served, he said, by throwing their weight behind the radicals in the party. At this, Boris Kamkov (4) interjected with a hearty “hear hear!”, before the more conservative Viktor Chernov shouted him down. Citing his internal exile as proof that he was a genuine revolutionary, he publicised his deep offence at Lenin’s insinuation. Chernov also mentioned his colleague Avram Gots, who’d fallen prey to the post-September purges. Lenin, Chernov said, “was not the entire revolution. This is a popular movement, a movement of masses and of hearts. No one man can stand on a podium and dictate the course of events, and then proclaim himself an agent of worker’s democracy!” Martov’s smirk was short-lived, as Vladimir Lenin shrugged.

    “Very well, Viktor Mikhailovich. You are right. Revolution is not one man dictating events from a podium, it is the people in action. The people, let it be remembered, constitute a majority. If you are a revolutionary, you will side with the bolsheviki. If you are a reactionary, you will side with the mensheviki. But the minority will lose in the end.” Martov stared at his erstwhile comrade like a deer caught in headlights, before glancing fearfully at Leon Trotsky. His heart sank as Trotsky smiled at his ally Lenin. One by one, the delegates rose to their feet. “Long live the majority! Da zdravstvuyet bol'shinstvo! Да здравствует большинство!”

    Following this, the Second Unity Conference dissolved. The Bolsheviks had triumphed; Martov had been sidelined. The left wing of the SRs had defeated the right. It was time to decamp before MI5- or worse, the Okhrana- discovered them and made Tsar Michael’s day. Lenin and Trotsky returned to Helsinki; Martov sulked, tail between his legs, to New York. He would play no role in the human tragedy which would unfold from Tsar Michael’s constitutional dreams and restructure the Russian state in ways no one could’ve imagined.

    Victory enabled Lenin to return to the safety of Zurich via Germany in September 1917 with his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, where he rented a flat under an alias. He availed himself of Swiss university libraries and three visits to Marx's birthplace in Trier to begin composing a new polemic. Imperialism As The Self-Destructive Outgrowth Of Capitalism (5) argued that the 'reactionary powers' were in constant competition for resources because, "that which stops growing begins to rot". The near-total colonisation of Africa and Asia left little unsettled space on the globe, and Lenin believed that the reactionary powers would now turn on one another. Lenin viewed the Great War as the first step in this, with the Tsarist regime and France having been the great losers. In keeping with his aggressive line at Duck Bay, Lenin described the September Revolution as incomplete and barely attempted to conceal his view that Julius Martov had deliberately bungled it. Imperfect though it was, Lenin conceded, the September Revolution served as proof that the weakest reactionary regimes would die first. He refused to describe Tsar Michael's Russia as the liberal bourgeois regime Marx had predicted. In his mind, the Tsarist facade needed an even greater defeat for a proper revolution. Lenin acknowledged a major contradiction in his theory: the Tsarist regime needed a defeat too massive to survive, but the only state with the military force for such a thing was Germany and her allies. Yet if Germany assumed power over Russia, surely they would establish a reactionary regime of their own choosing? While acknowledging this paradox, Lenin believed that a "true popular expression of sentiment" would forestall a German-dominated Russia. Citing Kaiser Wilhelm's refusal to occupy all of defeated France and his thus-far non-intervention in the Danubian Civil War (6), Lenin argued that Berlin could never hold all Russia. If the Germans faced "a united front of the working and producing masses... in Petrograd, Smolensk, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa", they would eventually come to terms with the people's government. This wasn't the greatest argument and Lenin knew it.

    From his flat in New York City, a livid Julius Martov wrote two long missives to Lenin. The first, dated 29 August, criticised him for "infringing the unity of the Party by marginalising the minority." If Lenin did not cease his dogmatism, Martov warned, the only victor would be Tsar Michael. Lenin didn't give Martov the dignity of a response but commented to Nadezhda that "of course (Martov) is marginalised. The minority is, by definition, in the margins! Perhaps if he would cease being a Menshevik, he might come out of the margins!" The second letter was far longer and concerned two separate points in Imperialism As The Self-Destructive Outgrowth Of Capitalism. "Though you and I can agree on precious little these days, Comrade Vladimir Ulyanovich, both of us have stood on the barricades and raised the red flag against the Tsar... To claim that our practical experience of socialism is so little, when neither of us can set foot in our Motherland because we have chosen the revolution over peace and stability, seems wrong in the extreme and I would recommend you modify this accordingly." Given that he'd trouced Martov two months before at Duck Bay, he told his wife in putrid terms, this was damned insolent. Martov criticised Lenin's belief that the Tsarist regime needed another great external defeat before the people could liberate themselves on the grounds that the only power which cold achieve this was reactionary Germany, and that this wouldn't be an improvement. This irked Lenin- hadn't Martov read the bloody response to that exact argument?- but what came next made Lenin want to tear his beard out in rage. Martov declared that this "reeked of a certain pro-German sentiment, which might be construed as active support for the militarised Kaiser's regime under the guise of popular revolution." Lenin sat speechless as Nadezhda held his shoulder, possibly to comfort or to restrain. A slew of Russian cursing broke half a minute of silence.

    "A German agent, me?" The goateed Bolshevik crumpled Martov's letter and hurled it against the wall, calling his foe every name in the book. After he'd calmed down, Lenin ordered his wife to fetch a pen and paper, before devoting three hours to a counter-polemic. All the wounds which had festered since the Party schism, all the bad blood brought to the surface at Duck Bay, spewed from Lenin's acid tongue. He couldn't destroy what he hated, so he mocked it, cursed it, made it the victim of the one thing he had- his pen. Lenin condemned Julius Martov as "basically of the same ilk" as Georgi Lvov and charging that both had betrayed the September Revolution in different ways. Had he been in charge of the Petrograd Workers Army, fine revolutionaries would not have met their fates before the Okhrana and the people would've displaced the Tsars. Believing- as Martov was alleged to- that Michael's regime was the liberal one predicted by Marx, Lenin declared, was not just erroneous; it was grounds for schism. One could either stand with the majority or die with the minority. Lenin filled Stand With the Majority, Die With the Minority with fire and anger shines through the dense Communist prose a century on. However, this emotion comes at the cost of the intellectual airs of Lenin's other works. At times, the work is almost childishly petty and virtually no one reads the piece today outside of research purposes.

    In setting the tone for the forthcoming revolution and post-revolutionary politics, however, Stand With the Majority, Die With the Minority was deeply important. No longer could one claim to be an "adherent of Marxism" or even a "Russian revolutionary." You were with Lenin and viewed Julius Martov as a worse enemy than Tsar Michael, or you were a Menshevik traitor. His hardline approach won Lenin much criticism, but it also won him more than a few converts. Martov was the failed revolutionary whose incompetence had transferred power to Michael and Georgi Lvov; Lenin was the new firebrand.

    The business of revolution now distracted Lenin from his ideological battles.

    Vladimir Lenin hadn't expected the Second French Revolution. Writing had consumed his time in Zurich and prevented him from appreciating the mess to his west. Historians often express surprise at this given his later revolutionary credentials, but it isn't so peculiar. After all, events surprised Georges Sorel in Italian exile just as much. When the Dijon revolt erupted in the first weeks of October 1917, no one knew what to make of it. If information couldn't reach the Parisian central government in a timely manner, it certainly wouldn't reach Swiss journalists soon. Besides, it's easy to forget given his infamy as the great Marxist revolutionary of all time how obscure Lenin was in autumn 1917. Most of those who knew his name at this point were either his devotees or mortal enemies. The average Dijonite rebel knew no more about Lenin in late 1917 than about the politics behind the Mexican-American War. Furthermore, it wasn't initially clear that these rebels deserved Lenin's praise. Even after Georges Sorel became their undisputed champion, their Marxist credentials remained shaky. Lenin, who knew nothing about Sorel, didn't want to champion a man who might turn out to be his ideological enemy. Besides, who could say if the rebels would win? Switzerland had one of the freest presses in Europe but it enjoyed cordial relations with the Third Republic, and its papers certainly provided Paris' version of events. Marxist publications were short on tactics and strategy. Attempting to visit Dijon would've got him arrested at the border as a 'subversive' or killed in the fighting. So, Lenin abstained from intervention or even public comment, though he discussed the war at great length with his wife.

    Vladimir Lenin was thus shut out of the Second French Revolution.

    Unbeknownst to Lenin, he was the subject of fierce debate amongst the new French leadership. Ludovic-Oscar Frossard, Marcel Cachin, and Louis Dubreuilh wanted nothing to do with him. This wasn't because they disapproved- all three shared his Orthodox Marxism and had read his works- but because they feared a power struggle. As men who'd enjoyed traditional political careers before the war, they viewed themselves as surrounded by outsiders. Sorel, despite being their nominal leader, was a quasi-syndicalist philosopher; Jean-Jacques Famride a military buffoon. Adding Lenin into the mix would only complicate matters. Additionally, Lenin was one of Europe's most wanted men. While they all professed not to care about relations with the "reactionary states", the triumvirate knew that if Lenin assumed a public mantle in the French revolutionary government, every Okhrana agent in the world would follow... and no one would shed a tear if they managed to kill one of the French revolutionaries either. Georges Sorel disagreed. Lenin, he said, "had a rare revolutionary spirit." Even though he had no intention of sharing power with the Russian, Sorel wanted to meet him, even if only informally. Sorel's practical experience burning the edifice to the ground would doubtless come in handy in Russia while Lenin's encyclopedic knowledge of Marxist theory could help in crafting a new state apparatus.

    Thus, Georges Sorel invited a group of Russian union leaders to Toulon in summer 1918. Sorel’s syndicalist past gave him a firm appreciation of unions and he believed they could play a ‘vanguard role’ in toppling Tsarism. Cognisant that Vladimir Lenin had routed Julius Martov at the Duck Bay Congress two years prior, Sorel refrained from inviting major Mensheviks. The forty Russian union leaders who received invitations to France were all marked as having ‘revolutionary sympathies’- a badge of honour in Sorel’s mind. Vladimir Lenin travelled from Zurich but neither Leon Trotsky nor Martov attended. The French maintained absolute secrecy, sending delegates first to America and then Spain before providing guides to slip them through Pyrnenees passes. Georgi Lvov knew something was amiss in France, but not its scope or nature- like all Europeans, he assumed whatever came out of Sorel’s world had to be insane. Nevertheless, more than one Okhrana agent was later found on the wrong end of the Franco-Spanish border, nine grammes of lead in the back of his skull.

    Having perfected the security, the French revolutionaries opened the Preliminary Congress of Russian Soviets on 11 August 1918.

    Georges Sorel was visibly ailing. He’d lost an arm in the closing stages of the French Civil War and had been undergoing treatment for the wound, which for a man nearing seventy wasn’t a boon to one’s health. The stress of maintaining power over a rogue state while watching his dreams of a centrally planned economy fade had aged the philosopher. “Why are we listening to this man?”, asked one Russian delegate. “He has none of Comrade Lenin’s revolutionary vitality nor even theoretical experience.” The goateed Bolshevik was of the same mind. “I feel like a schoolboy being lectured to by an aged professor unaware of how times have changed.” Worse than the embarrassment of being a junior partner was the fear that Sorel would turn the union leaders against Lenin. If he nominated one of their own as a potential revolutionary leader, the union leaders might eschew Lenin in favour of Sorel’s man. Nor did Lenin see much of revolutionary France. Though Réquisition revolutionnaire had yet to be issued, the nucleus of a centrally-planned economy was already taking shape, and many of the Russian's ideas found their way into Sorel's economic platform. (7) However, Sorel didn’t want Lenin to see the economic damage wrought by the Great War and civil war lest it reflect poorly on his leadership. Thus, Lenin was cloistered in a luxury Toulon hotel, forbidden even to take a stroll around town unescorted. His Russian stomach didn’t take well to lavish French food and his hosts were more than a little put out when he eschewed escargots for potatoes and rice.

    Imperfect amenities didn't prevent the revolutionaries from learning at Toulon. Georges Sorel’s recollections of the early days in Dijon, when no one could tell if the revolt would be crushed, elated the Russians. Here was the only man to have fought for the creed they’d given their lives. The street battles of 1905 and riots of 1916 paled besides the liberation and conquest of France. “If any of you still have cause to doubt my dedication”, the grey philosopher said, “let them see my arm.” He dangled his empty sleeve before a speechless Lenin. Ludovic-Oscar Frossard and Marcel Cachin stressed the importance of expanding popular support for the revolution early on, citing the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and all labour unions as potential allies. Lenin cooly replied that it was the decision of the majority- bolsheviki- alone. The politically charged word shut Cachin up. Jean-Jacques Famride invited Lenin to inspect a unit of elite soldiers and offered insights into military strategy. Lenin and five comrades were in the room when Réquisition revolutionnaire became law on 22 August 1918, though security prevented their being photographed. Georges Sorel viewed Lenin’s presence as a test for his domestic security, and their success greatly pleased him. Though he never told Lenin, three Okhrana agents were apprehended during his time in France on separate occasions; their interrogations and subsequent executions went seamlessly. “If we can protect this man, the most wanted revolutionary in all of Europe aside from myself, then I trust we can declare our regime defensible. I challenge Georges Clemenceau to do as well as the Tsar” was a warm and valued compliment. Lenin and the Russian union leaders agreed that May Day would be the start of “our great enterprise”.

    No primary records of the Toulon Conference exist; the memoirs of Lenin and Cachin, plus the testimonies of captured Okhrana officers, are all historians have. As such, it’s entirely plausible that gaps exist in the story, as doubtless the two chroniclers were writing to boost their ideologies and reputations while the Tsar's agents knew relatively little.

    Lenin’s sojourn ended at the Spanish border, where he received a faux Finnish passport on 2 September. Arriving in Helsinki three weeks later, the revolutionary counted down the days until 1 May 1919.

    He had a Russian Revolution to plan.


    Comments?

    (1) See chapter 35
    (2) OTL
    (3) ‘Snezhok’ is the Russian for ‘snowball’. Does that give you a clue? ;)
    (4) This gent
    (5) A TTL work of his replacing Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, which was not published in this world owing to Lenin's preoccupation with the Duck Bay conference. The central pillar of the two is more or less unchanged though.
    (6) Lenin is writing in autumn 1917, weeks before the sack of Vienna and two to three months before the Danubienkorps sets foot in the Habsburg Empire. Chapter 41 has the full story...
    (7) It had better; RR is more or less OTL's War Communism....
     
  • Index
    • Ariosto

    Ariosto

    Issei Uzumaki said:
    But if you setup a second Hughes term then its likely the Dems gain power back in '24 which sets up a possible Dem administration at the start of the Depression.
    Click to expand...
    I wouldn't say it is likely that the Democrats win in 1924, I honestly feel they have a better chance of taking the Presidency in 1920, but then we are talking a matter of degrees that more or less are the same.​
     

    President Earl Warren

    So I will say that if Lenin and Co manage to pull off there Revolution, the red Summer will definitely have more rails, as now it looks like a World Communist Revolution pulled off from Paris. Still needs the President to be a total fuck up to get as bad as it did.

    My other prediction is that the Germans will likely seize Ukraine in the Chaos of the Revolution but go no farther, (admittedly maybe wishful thinking) which leaves a very interesting situation. Both Russia and France are immensely weakend but together, they are a deadly threat to Germany and will be forced to act in concert.

    The British and Japanese could well be the third bloc here, happy to secure their colonial empires as the Commies and Huns kill eachother with plans to possibly divide the ruins.

    Probably a lot of AH ITTL where If Just Mikahail could of Surrvied, Monarchy and Reform would of been preserved and Russia be so much better off. And while I can see some TLs where it happens, probably quite unrealistic.

    Edit: to complete the International alliance system, Germany and the United States could very definitely draw closer off a mutual antipathy with Communism and British/Japanese Imperialism/Facism with a mutual Sphere of interest agreement: US control of the Western Hemisphere,German control of Europe. Possibly China could rise up again and fill out Asia.
     
    Last edited:

    TGW

    It's very interesting to see this. Can't help but wonder how, if Lenin did manage to win out, this new Russia would look considering that France already got to their revolution first.
     
    Vince

    Vince

    Monthly Donor
    Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth said:
    Martov sulked, tail between his legs, to New York. He would play no role in the human tragedy which would unfold from Tsar Michael’s constitutional dreams and restructure the Russian state in ways no one could’ve imagined.
    Click to expand...

    This doesn't seem very clear to me. Is restructuring being credited to Michael or Martov? Or is it just implying Martov has no role in both the constitution and restructure?
     
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