Others requested the discussion on a socialist America in the 1930s to happen here. What I got from the original posters was an even worse 1930s and worse Gilded age leading to uprising. So the discussion has been moved here. Is that feasible? And how would history be affected?
Socialist America due to Great Depression
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Realistically speaking? If it's communist, probably the USSR with a dash of nazi germany only more racist.
If it's just "socialist" as in social democratic? FDR dies in '33, Huey Long wins in 1940, i guess.
If it's just "socialist" as in social democratic? FDR dies in '33, Huey Long wins in 1940, i guess.
With the depression as it existed--no way. Even at the worst, there was never the critical mass of popular support a socialist party would have needed to win big at the polls or stage an armed uprising. Ditto for the fascist side, Business Plot stuff notwithstanding.
With a worse gilded age, perhaps you could plant the seeds for an American radicalism early enough that there would be a solid base for a socialist/communist party by 1929. Though of course that might butterfly the Depression away.
With a worse gilded age, perhaps you could plant the seeds for an American radicalism early enough that there would be a solid base for a socialist/communist party by 1929. Though of course that might butterfly the Depression away.
Longer Gilded Era means no Progressive Era, i.e. no Smith Act.
Basically this is Reds!.
Basically this is Reds!.
Have FDR nationalize the banks instead of bailing them out. That immediately brings a major sector of the economy under government control and creates a precedent for nationalizing failing industries. As the New Deal moves forward, FDR can expand on OTL's TVA to create a federal utilities company, and an expanded housing program would result in a large portion of the population livign in government-owned housing projects.
You need two POD's. No successful Bolshevik revolution means socialism remains identified with American labor interests and communism is associated with faith-based communal towns/colonies like Zoar, Ohio and Amana, Iowa. Marx's association of the economic system with suppression of religion must be ignored for the idea to move in the US.
You would likely have to prolong the Depression in order for that to happen. Most likely Hoover wins re-election in 1932 and his response to the Depression doesn’t change. Thus the economy is much worse for a while and the public reaction becomes a lot more violent. Perhaps you could see what a large scale splintering among Americans towards either extreme left-wing or right-song extremism.
Why should the Depression be expected to lead to socialism in the United States, when it didn't in other major democracies? France was under center-right rule except for the Popular Front interlude, and even that was dependent on the Radical Socialist party (which despite its name was neither radical nor socialist) for its majority. The UK was governed by the National government throughout the decade. In Canada neither Bennett's Conservative government nor Mackenzie's King's Liberal one was socialist; the CCF got less than ten percent of the vote in the 1935 federal election. In Australia, Lyons was in power almost through the decade. We all know what happened to Germany (and no, Hitler's "National Socialism" was not socialism unless you view any regime which intervenes in the economy as socialist, which deprives the term of any meaning). Even in Spain where the Popular Front won a narrow victory in the 1936 elections, the Republican Left, a key element of the front, was progressive but not socialist, and many of the "socialist" measures taken by the Republic were the product of wartime conditions.
In the US in 1932 when American capitalism was in its greatest economic crisis ever, the two "anti-capitalist" parties did miserably. Norman Thomas got 2.23 percent of the vote, William Z. Foster 0.26 percent. By comparison Eugene Debs got six percent in the prosperous year of 1912.
In the US in 1932 when American capitalism was in its greatest economic crisis ever, the two "anti-capitalist" parties did miserably. Norman Thomas got 2.23 percent of the vote, William Z. Foster 0.26 percent. By comparison Eugene Debs got six percent in the prosperous year of 1912.