Plausiblity Check: Communist Ottomans?

Just an idea I had...based off a game of Victoria I was playing

How do we get the Ottoman Empire to become a Communist state? Is it even remotely possible?

The earlier the better BTW...
 
The House of Osman is really in the same boat as Russia was prior to its revolution. So it's not at all implausible for it to turn for the Red, but it isn't entirely likely.
 
If it was communist, then it wouldn't be a monarchy. And if it isn't a monarchy, then it isn't the Ottoman Empire.
 
Just an idea I had...based off a game of Victoria I was playing

How do we get the Ottoman Empire to become a Communist state? Is it even remotely possible?

The earlier the better BTW...

I don't see it. There were communist organizations in the Ottoman Empire, but they were all terrorists and mostly Armenian. As the legitimacy of the state was based upon being the government of Islam, an atheistic ideology doesn't seem very compatible.
 
Communist movements don't have to be aethistic, though. Just because the big bad SU was doesn't mean that religious socialists are impossible.
 

Keenir

Banned
well, there were some short-lived movements before the 18th century, some of which involved communal property.

If it was communist, then it wouldn't be a monarchy. And if it isn't a monarchy, then it isn't the Ottoman Empire.

didn't Vietnam or one of the other communist nations keep their king?
 
There was the revolt of Sheikh Bedreddin in 1416, which was for communal property and elected assemblies. While it would be a bit of stretch to call it communist, his motto of “Share all you have apart from the lips of your beloved one” is certainly of a similar vein.
 
There was the revolt of Sheikh Bedreddin in 1416, which was for communal property and elected assemblies. While it would be a bit of stretch to call it communist, his motto of “Share all you have apart from the lips of your beloved one” is certainly of a similar vein.

Just looked him up on Wikipedia.

A very interesting guy....
 

Ibn Warraq

Banned
I don't see it. In order for it to succeed, such a brand of communism would have to be so different that we wouldn't even recognize it as communism and if that's the case, then I don't see how it could be called communism.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Obviously the Ottoman empire would be renamed, perhaps becoming the Union of Socialist Republics of the Levant or something to that effect, but I say that if the Russian empire could become Communist, then so could the Ottoman empire.
 
At the risk of upsetting AHP, was there actually much by way of proletariat in the Ottoman Empire? I realise its not a major requirement, Russia after all hardly had vast numbers of them percentage wise by 1917, but I think you need atleast some otherwise you will have to rest your support on the peasants.
 
Obviously the Ottoman empire would be renamed, perhaps becoming the Union of Socialist Republics of the Levant or something to that effect, but I say that if the Russian empire could become Communist, then so could the Ottoman empire.

That doesn't necessarily follow. The Ottoman Empire was almost entirely agricultural, and the Ottomans had always promoted small land-holding vs. large estates, so most peasants were land-owners as opposed to tenants or semi-serfs. Also, the total absence of communist or socialist movements in Ottoman history ought to be an indicator that Marxism wasn't exactly operating in fertile ground.
 
At the risk of upsetting AHP, was there actually much by way of proletariat in the Ottoman Empire? I realise its not a major requirement, Russia after all hardly had vast numbers of them percentage wise by 1917, but I think you need atleast some otherwise you will have to rest your support on the peasants.

That's not upsetting. There was a limited "proletariat", but it was almost entirely Greek or Armenian and the "capitalists" were almost entirely foreigners, mostly French, German, and British, in that order of importance by WWI.

I just don't see socialism having any fuel in the Ottoman Empire. The way property rights worked is a long explanation, but it was already kind of "communist" in that a lot of a community's land was communally controlled, with an absence of large landholders and no nobility.
 

Sargon

Donor
Monthly Donor
Goodness me, how odd! I was only having a weird dream about this the night before last. :eek:

Unless you can get a member of the House of Osman to be communist and end up leading it, it ain't going to be a Communist Ottoman state. Or conversely, still with an Ottoman figurehead, but with a communist government, a little like Mongolia was with the Bogd Khan. Besides, I don't recall much in the way of socialist or communist movements there from my reading, so as the Pasha says, that's an issue that makes it that much more difficult and unlikely to happen without a different development of things there.


Sargon
 
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