Plausibility Check- Union of African Socialist Republics

Zachariah

Banned
Seeing as how Pan-Africanism started out as a overtly communist revolutionary movement, with many of its early leaders such as George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, C.L.R. James, I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, Chris Brathwaite and several others having direct ties to the Comintern Politburo, how plausible would it be for an alternate version of the African Union to come into being in an ATL, as a communist state resembling that of the Soviet Union?
How large could such a Pan-African post-colonial Communist Union have been, how hostile would the Allies, Axis and other world powers have been (with the 'Yellow Scare' of OTL in Africa leading up to WW2 replaced by a far worse 'Red Scare' instead), and what would a best-case scenario for Africa in such a TL be? Could it have industrialized? What's the most powerful and enduring that such an African Union have possibly been? And if it had come into being, how much might its existence have altered the balance of power in the Cold War, and the Black civil rights movement as a whole?
 
Best guess is the Pre-WWII is too early. The 50s and 60s are more promising for such an outcome. I dont think it would have industrialized any better than it did OTL.
 
It's a really interesting premise. I don't know enough about African history to help you, but if you wrote something like this as pure wank I would likely enjoy it.
 
Seeing as how Pan-Africanism started out as a overtly communist revolutionary movement, with many of its early leaders such as George Padmore, Jomo Kenyatta, C.L.R. James, I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson, Chris Brathwaite and several others having direct ties to the Comintern Politburo, how plausible would it be for an alternate version of the African Union to come into being in an ATL, as a communist state resembling that of the Soviet Union?
How large could such a Pan-African post-colonial Communist Union have been, how hostile would the Allies, Axis and other world powers have been (with the 'Yellow Scare' of OTL in Africa leading up to WW2 replaced by a far worse 'Red Scare' instead), and what would a best-case scenario for Africa in such a TL be? Could it have industrialized? What's the most powerful and enduring that such an African Union have possibly been? And if it had come into being, how much might its existence have altered the balance of power in the Cold War, and the Black civil rights movement as a whole?

Its quite a cool idea, I agree. I think one question really to think about is, where could this union exist? The USSR was possible because it had a relatively OK degree of internal cohesion, with the Russians being preponderant, and the Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, and Baltics speaking Russian and being penetrated by Russian colonisers and culture to some extent. So it was an imperial kind of Union, where the dominant ethnicity called the shots.

For something to work in Africa, you have to start searching for plausible candidate countries that either a.) would be lead by a much stronger, fairly homogenous imperial de-facto leader of the Union or 2.) a collection of ethno-national states that have some common cultural core and don't hate each other's guts, while also having their own internal affairs under control without some breakaway 'national front' or rebel ethnic group stirring up trouble every 5 minutes.

In the latter case, the constituent nations need to kind of be of equal strength to prevent one from rising above the other, few enough in number to make majorities negotiations and stable coalitions possible across diverse interests and stakeholders, but not so few that cooperation breaks break down as the constituent republics start vying for supremacy inside the Union and run into gridlock (think 2-party confrontational systems e..g Republicans and Democrats)

It seems like kind of a tall order, to make this work. The other issue of course, is that even if it could work in theory, probably 3 to 1 odds the US decides its worth fighting a massive war to stop such a triumph for 'International Communism', so you know, thats not great...There aren't exactly a lot of successful examples to base this off, and the more I think about this, the more it kind of sounds like a Yugoslavia^2 situation waiting to happen. Nonetheless, with regards ethnic maps of Africa, these may be some of the best candidates:

  • Ethiopia conquers Somalia, breaks of Eritrea and forms an imperial UASR, whilst somehow not getting dogpiled by the West or starting WW3. Later they may think about trying to break off South Sudan to join
  • Kenya and Tanzania unite in sometime in the 1960s, fostering and conjuring up a kind of pan-Swahili shared national identity, eventually bringing in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and maybe Zambia. The three big countries help keep each other honest through the ability of any two to ally agains the third if he gets uppity ideas. Mozambique a possibility, if the non-British colonial origin is no impediment, and the Portuguese are gone
  • I would have liked to see something cool in French West Africa, but I think the ethnic cartography is so partitioned, and the melting pot of Nigeria has turned out kind of a like flat soufle, that I think that has to be ruled out. With North Africa being more in the Arabian sphere, that kind of leaves East/Southern Africa as your best bet
 

Zachariah

Banned
Its quite a cool idea, I agree. I think one question really to think about is, where could this union exist? The USSR was possible because it had a relatively OK degree of internal cohesion, with the Russians being preponderant, and the Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs, and Baltics speaking Russian and being penetrated by Russian colonisers and culture to some extent. So it was an imperial kind of Union, where the dominant ethnicity called the shots.

For something to work in Africa, you have to start searching for plausible candidate countries that either a.) would be lead by a much stronger, fairly homogenous imperial de-facto leader of the Union or 2.) a collection of ethno-national states that have some common cultural core and don't hate each other's guts, while also having their own internal affairs under control without some breakaway 'national front' or rebel ethnic group stirring up trouble every 5 minutes.

In the latter case, the constituent nations need to kind of be of equal strength to prevent one from rising above the other, few enough in number to make majorities negotiations and stable coalitions possible across diverse interests and stakeholders, but not so few that cooperation breaks break down as the constituent republics start vying for supremacy inside the Union and run into gridlock (think 2-party confrontational systems e..g Republicans and Democrats)

It seems like kind of a tall order, to make this work. The other issue of course, is that even if it could work in theory, probably 3 to 1 odds the US decides its worth fighting a massive war to stop such a triumph for 'International Communism', so you know, thats not great...There aren't exactly a lot of successful examples to base this off, and the more I think about this, the more it kind of sounds like a Yugoslavia^2 situation waiting to happen. Nonetheless, with regards ethnic maps of Africa, these may be some of the best candidates:

  • Ethiopia conquers Somalia, breaks of Eritrea and forms an imperial UASR, whilst somehow not getting dogpiled by the West or starting WW3. Later they may think about trying to break off South Sudan to join
  • Kenya and Tanzania unite in sometime in the 1960s, fostering and conjuring up a kind of pan-Swahili shared national identity, eventually bringing in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and maybe Zambia. The three big countries help keep each other honest through the ability of any two to ally agains the third if he gets uppity ideas. Mozambique a possibility, if the non-British colonial origin is no impediment, and the Portuguese are gone
  • I would have liked to see something cool in French West Africa, but I think the ethnic cartography is so partitioned, and the melting pot of Nigeria has turned out kind of a like flat soufle, that I think that has to be ruled out. With North Africa being more in the Arabian sphere, that kind of leaves East/Southern Africa as your best bet

All good suggestions- Jomo Kenyatta (born as Kamau wa Ngengi, known as Johnstone Kamau since his conversion to Christianity in his teens, and still going by that name during his studies in economics in Moscow at the Comintern School, KUTVU) makes the Kenya option a tantalizing one, especially if it got underway earlier. His roommate in his student lodgings at the KUTVU, I.T.A Wallace-Johnson, also makes Sierra Leone, The Gold Coast and even Nigeria interesting potential prospects as well. IOTL, Kenyatta/Kamau left KUTVU after only a year, due to the Soviet Union (getting worried about Hitler coming to power, and seeing Britain and France as potential allies in the war against them which he was calling for) withdrew its support for the African anti-colonial movements against the British and French. This was also the same time when George Padmore bailed out, similarly disillusioned by the Comintern's flagging support for the cause of the independence of colonial peoples in favor of the Soviet Union's pursuit of diplomatic alliances with the colonial powers themselves.

But what if they hadn't- what if the Comintern had continued to support them, along with all the others? Also worth bearing in mind- the Pan-African communist movement wasn't just limited to Africa. The Caribbean was also a hotbed for it. Indeed, along with Kwame Nkrumah (who'd later credit James with teaching him "how an underground movement worked", and who James would introduce to Padmore in his writings by saying "this young man is coming to you. He is not very bright, but nevertheless do what you can for him because he's determined to throw Europeans out of Africa”- an option to kick off the Gold Coast/Ghana option?), C.L.R James was a Trotskyist himself, and in his history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins, he effectively presented Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian revolution as a communist revolutionary movement. So places like Dudley Thompson's, Marcus Garvey Jnr's and Amy Ashwood Garvey's Jamaica; James' and Eric Williams' Trinidad; Braithwaite's Barbados, and T. Ras Makonnen's Guyana- all of these could be places for your Pan-African revolution to get started.

And while we're on the topic of the Garveys, what about Liberia as a long-shot contender to get it off the ground in West Africa? Convinced that black people should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Marcus Garvey sought to develop Liberia into the base of power for Pan-Africanism- he launched the Liberia Program in 1920, intended to build colleges, industrial plants and factories "to manufacture every marketable commodity", and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. The Liberia Program was derailed in 1924 though, when the Liberian President unexpectedly ordered all Liberian ports to refuse entry to any member of the "Garvey Movement". This action closely followed the Firestone Rubber Company's agreement with Liberia for a 99-year lease of one million acres (4,000 km²) of land, assisted by American and European governments; only two months earlier, Liberia had signed a deal to lease the land to the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) instead, at an unprecedented dollar an acre ($247/km²). So what if this door hadn't been slammed- what if these efforts had been able to continue, and the American Pan-Africanists had been able to build up their industrial and political power base in Liberia in the 20's and early 30's, just as they'd planned?
 
All good suggestions- Jomo Kenyatta (born as Kamau wa Ngengi, known as Johnstone Kamau since his conversion to Christianity in his teens, and still going by that name during his studies in economics in Moscow at the Comintern School, KUTVU) makes the Kenya option a tantalizing one, especially if it got underway earlier. His roommate in his student lodgings at the KUTVU, I.T.A Wallace-Johnson, also makes Sierra Leone, The Gold Coast and even Nigeria interesting potential prospects as well. IOTL, Kenyatta/Kamau left KUTVU after only a year, due to the Soviet Union (getting worried about Hitler coming to power, and seeing Britain and France as potential allies in the war against them which he was calling for) withdrew its support for the African anti-colonial movements against the British and French. This was also the same time when George Padmore bailed out, similarly disillusioned by the Comintern's flagging support for the cause of the independence of colonial peoples in favor of the Soviet Union's pursuit of diplomatic alliances with the colonial powers themselves.

But what if they hadn't- what if the Comintern had continued to support them, along with all the others? Also worth bearing in mind- the Pan-African communist movement wasn't just limited to Africa. The Caribbean was also a hotbed for it. Indeed, along with Kwame Nkrumah (who'd later credit James with teaching him "how an underground movement worked", and who James would introduce to Padmore in his writings by saying "this young man is coming to you. He is not very bright, but nevertheless do what you can for him because he's determined to throw Europeans out of Africa”- an option to kick off the Gold Coast/Ghana option?), C.L.R James was a Trotskyist himself, and in his history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins, he effectively presented Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian revolution as a communist revolutionary movement. So places like Dudley Thompson's, Marcus Garvey Jnr's and Amy Ashwood Garvey's Jamaica; James' and Eric Williams' Trinidad; Braithwaite's Barbados, and T. Ras Makonnen's Guyana- all of these could be places for your Pan-African revolution to get started.

And while we're on the topic of the Garveys, what about Liberia as a long-shot contender to get it off the ground in West Africa? Convinced that black people should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Marcus Garvey sought to develop Liberia into the base of power for Pan-Africanism- he launched the Liberia Program in 1920, intended to build colleges, industrial plants and factories "to manufacture every marketable commodity", and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. The Liberia Program was derailed in 1924 though, when the Liberian President unexpectedly ordered all Liberian ports to refuse entry to any member of the "Garvey Movement". This action closely followed the Firestone Rubber Company's agreement with Liberia for a 99-year lease of one million acres (4,000 km²) of land, assisted by American and European governments; only two months earlier, Liberia had signed a deal to lease the land to the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) instead, at an unprecedented dollar an acre ($247/km²). So what if this door hadn't been slammed- what if these efforts had been able to continue, and the American Pan-Africanists had been able to build up their industrial and political power base in Liberia in the 20's and early 30's, just as they'd planned?

IMHO I think the Sahel actually has some good potential for a Pan-African socialist state. Sure, it wouldn't be very powerful, but I think a Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso Union could work out alright.
 

Zachariah

Banned
IMHO I think the Sahel actually has some good potential for a Pan-African socialist state. Sure, it wouldn't be very powerful, but I think a Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso Union could work out alright.
Thing is though, who'd kick things off- who'd get that revolution started? Especially since it's also the single-most religious region on earth which isn't comprised solely of theocracies with compulsory religions (i.e, Arabia), and has with the smallest, most insignificant atheist and agnostic populations on the planet. A Pan-African, socialist state? Maybe. A full-blown, USSR-style communist state though? That would be a massive challenge. Unless- hmm. A Religious Communist state would be rather interesting (if against the Trotskyist principles of the Pan-African Communist revolutionary anti-colonial leaders). And an Islamic Communist super-state, as it would have to be in that area to have the support of the masses- that would be intriguing to say the least.
 
All good suggestions- Jomo Kenyatta (born as Kamau wa Ngengi, known as Johnstone Kamau since his conversion to Christianity in his teens, and still going by that name during his studies in economics in Moscow at the Comintern School, KUTVU) makes the Kenya option a tantalizing one, especially if it got underway earlier. His roommate in his student lodgings at the KUTVU, I.T.A Wallace-Johnson, also makes Sierra Leone, The Gold Coast and even Nigeria interesting potential prospects as well. IOTL, Kenyatta/Kamau left KUTVU after only a year, due to the Soviet Union (getting worried about Hitler coming to power, and seeing Britain and France as potential allies in the war against them which he was calling for) withdrew its support for the African anti-colonial movements against the British and French. This was also the same time when George Padmore bailed out, similarly disillusioned by the Comintern's flagging support for the cause of the independence of colonial peoples in favor of the Soviet Union's pursuit of diplomatic alliances with the colonial powers themselves.

But what if they hadn't- what if the Comintern had continued to support them, along with all the others? Also worth bearing in mind- the Pan-African communist movement wasn't just limited to Africa. The Caribbean was also a hotbed for it. Indeed, along with Kwame Nkrumah (who'd later credit James with teaching him "how an underground movement worked", and who James would introduce to Padmore in his writings by saying "this young man is coming to you. He is not very bright, but nevertheless do what you can for him because he's determined to throw Europeans out of Africa”- an option to kick off the Gold Coast/Ghana option?), C.L.R James was a Trotskyist himself, and in his history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins, he effectively presented Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haitian revolution as a communist revolutionary movement. So places like Dudley Thompson's, Marcus Garvey Jnr's and Amy Ashwood Garvey's Jamaica; James' and Eric Williams' Trinidad; Braithwaite's Barbados, and T. Ras Makonnen's Guyana- all of these could be places for your Pan-African revolution to get started.

And while we're on the topic of the Garveys, what about Liberia as a long-shot contender to get it off the ground in West Africa? Convinced that black people should have a permanent homeland in Africa, Marcus Garvey sought to develop Liberia into the base of power for Pan-Africanism- he launched the Liberia Program in 1920, intended to build colleges, industrial plants and factories "to manufacture every marketable commodity", and railroads as part of an industrial base from which to operate. The Liberia Program was derailed in 1924 though, when the Liberian President unexpectedly ordered all Liberian ports to refuse entry to any member of the "Garvey Movement". This action closely followed the Firestone Rubber Company's agreement with Liberia for a 99-year lease of one million acres (4,000 km²) of land, assisted by American and European governments; only two months earlier, Liberia had signed a deal to lease the land to the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) instead, at an unprecedented dollar an acre ($247/km²). So what if this door hadn't been slammed- what if these efforts had been able to continue, and the American Pan-Africanists had been able to build up their industrial and political power base in Liberia in the 20's and early 30's, just as they'd planned?

That's a great post, I learned a lot! I don’t really know enough about this to do anything more than conjecture sadly, but you seem to know what you’re taking about.

The point about the Soviet cadres is interesting. It sounds like the Soviets maybe did not fully nurture the generation of talents that would go on to be important nationalist leaders in the early days of independence. So maybe some kind of PoD that keeps them in Russia for longer might aid in giving them a greater impetus for a Soviet-style union in Africa due to being immersed in that so much


Liberia is an interesting one. With my limited knowledge, I find it hard to see working because:

  • Liberia has close links to the United States, which in this era will mean its elite may be very wary of pan Africanism and socialism and will probably have the leverage to do something about it– The Firestone incident sounds like pretty much an example of this in action
  • Your suggested PoD also takes place close to WWII, and some people in Washington or London might feel it would place less strain on the Western alliance if the followers of Garvey and the movement to industrialise and liberate Africa disappeared from the scene or were stopped in some way
  • An issue with that area is that it is a real patchwork of British and French colonies. You may need a PoD in the 19C to get more contiguous English or French speaking colonies, or to enlarge Liberia considerably at the expense of Ivory Coast and Guinea. My instinct is that any Union may be harder in nations that did not share the same cultural coloniser and whose administrative functions must be executed in another language. Belgium is not a good harbinger for this condominium arrangement, with a lot of people being super-sensitive about the language thing. On the other hand, wasn’t Vanuatu an English/French condominium? So maybe it is possible.

All that being said, Liberia was free, and it was probably a fairly ‘modern’ country in Africa by the standards of the day. That modernity may give it a good chance of being one of the first to kick-start an advanced political movement as its nucleus.

The point about Islam is a good one too, and probably also goes for communities in Africa that are highly devoted to Christianity. The deeper ties to religion in Africa than Europe, generally, give it a form of cultural inoculation against (the Marxist strain, at least) socialism/communism. Getting support from ordinary people may prove difficult if the ideology is socialist and anticlerical. On the other hand, it is worth remembering out that pre-Revolutionary Russia was much like Africa – overwhelmingly poor, rural and fundamentalist.

In the end, the people kind of sided (loose term since there was a lot of coercion involved obviously) with the state over the church, since the contest between a church that was part of the rotten structure of the Old Regime and the chance for material improvement was too hard for religion to win. Maybe something similar will be possible in this situation. E.g. paint the imams or bishops as part of the power structure of the French/British/Portuguese etc colonial power structure that must be destroyed, or at least made a kind of private/underground thing like in Russia.
 
Thing is though, who'd kick things off- who'd get that revolution started? Especially since it's also the single-most religious region on earth which isn't comprised solely of theocracies with compulsory religions (i.e, Arabia), and has with the smallest, most insignificant atheist and agnostic populations on the planet. A Pan-African, socialist state? Maybe. A full-blown, USSR-style communist state though? That would be a massive challenge. Unless- hmm. A Religious Communist state would be rather interesting (if against the Trotskyist principles of the Pan-African Communist revolutionary anti-colonial leaders). And an Islamic Communist super-state, as it would have to be in that area to have the support of the masses- that would be intriguing to say the least.
To my knowledge, Burkina Faso under Sankara was pretty religiously tolerant. It's not too hard to imagine a communist state without any particularly strong anti-clerical tendencies.
 
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