Red Danubia: A TL Planning/Suggestions Thread

So, I plan to have a non-ASB TL, as part of an effort to get back into 'serious' AH writing. Inspired by this thread, I'm thinking about doing a timeline on the history of Europe (and possibly the world) in the wake of a surviving, Communist Austria-Hungary. I'm thinking about having a POD early in the War, with possible other PODs/butterflies related to alternate individuals.

What would be the best POD to get the desired result? When?

Any other suggestions/ideas?
 
The biggest thing would be to weaken the divisive nationalist movements in favor of the internationalist case of socialism.
 
I'd love to see Tito have a major role, he was born in the Austro-Hungarian empire and involved in the Communist movement from a young age.
 
Maybe Italy accept the German peace offer of 1917 (pre-war border status or maybe even what were agreed to keep Italy neutral if the italian delegation is good/desperate enough). This can give to the CP enough rope to switch troops on other front and try to end the war before the US involvement...basically forcing a stalemate maybe an exchange of the colonies for what the gaining in the east and a returning at the status-quo in the west.
Little after the end of the war in all europe there are revolt/revolution so nobody is in a good position to grab A-H land (or at least not too much)
 
That's a good start, but I need more internationalist sentiment in the Austrian socialists *before* WW1...

Well, and this is just guesswork, mind you, you could have the co-operation start in the Hungarian half of the monarchy as a grassroots banding together of various groups in opposition to the Hungarian aristocracy and their stooges. Nothing helps unity along like a fight against a common enemy (keeping it going afterward, however, is another story entirely).

There was the Hungarian Social Democratic party which supported Bela Kun's revolutionary state (though they were rather moderate compared to the decidedly radical Bela). Alterantively, you could have Bela Kun exposed to a more intellectual brand of communism/socialism instead of the highly radical variant he adopted as a PoW in Russia, he seems to have had the charisma. The other big part of the Hungarian half, Croatia, well ... they didn't really have communists per se at the time, though Radic (founder and leader of the Peasant's party, but only after the war, though he was a rather radical politician before and during it, actually publicly burning the flag of Austria-Hungary as a student on the day Fraz Josef I. visited Zagreb) would later on spend quite a bit of time in Moscow during Lenin's days, claiming to find much to be inspired from in the Soviet Union. I'd say he was more of a socialist than a communist, but it takes all kinds, right?

The initial revolution probably would be rather diverse in ideology. The Hungarian Soviet Republic was, at least initially.

The real problem with Austria-Hungary is that the majority of their major communists only really emerged from the Great War (the front was great for disseminating communist ideals) ... and by then you're pretty much too late to have a Red Danubia emerge.

It's entirely possible that there were other significant persons that could be used ... and someone else can probably help more than I can, but I've gone with what I knew OTOH.
 
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