Socialist Santa?

This is a hypothetical I came up with earlier, but do you think it is possible that in a US that became socialist/communist in the early 1900s (the details aren't really important to this), could somehow convert Christmas and specifically Santa into some "Socialist Holiday"? This is about the time that modern Santa came around largely due to ads from companies like Coke. And Santa, with giving out toys for free to the masses, seems like it could pretty easily be hijacked by American socialists if it was early enough on and separated from the more religious elements of Christmas. Did OTL communist nations do anything like this with holidays or cultural events?
 
Well, this is actually a Russian New Years' Tree, but:

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chankljp

Donor
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Communist Santa have his toy workshop onboard the MIR space station, where he redistributes the means of production to all the good proletariat children of the world! :biggrin:
 
Off-topic, but one wonders how a lot of American pop culture staples would fare had the United States gone socialist/communist - would the Western genre have fallen out of a favor earlier?
 
Santa Claus is a guy dressed in red who gives presents to people for no other reason than because they were good people that year. Christmas, on the other hand, is about Jesus. If like many early 20th century communists you aren't eager to turn Jesus into a communist, you can easily strip the "reason for the season" out of Christmas and make it focused around Santa Claus and his utopian commune at the North Pole where Santa and his elves have perfected communism and donate the excess fruits of their labour to the people of America. It would be a fantastic opportunity to teach children about communism.

I'd love to see the Christmas movies TTL.

Off-topic, but one wonders how a lot of American pop culture staples would fare had the United States gone socialist/communist - would the Western genre have fallen out of a favor earlier?

The Old West is very easy to romanticise in whatever way you want to. For instance, you can easily portray the American Indians as practicising "primitive communism" while the white settler is portrayed as evil capitalist exploiters.
 
The Old West is very easy to romanticise in whatever way you want to. For instance, you can easily portray the American Indians as practicising "primitive communism" while the white settler is portrayed as evil capitalist exploiters.

It's also worth mentioning that the USSR had their own versions of westerns, sometimes referred to as Osterns or Easterns.

White Sun of the Desert is the most famous one, especially still in Russia and former Soviet countries. It concerns a Russian Red Army captain who fights against the "primitive" guerrilla Sheik-led factions in the Central Asian "bad lands". The Russian is the bringer of the progressive ideals of communism; the bad guys want to enslave women into multiple-wives sex harems. A dialogue exchange in the movie is literally "hey, a revolution just succeeded, you only have to have one husband now, if you want."
 
Okay so I wasn't far off base at all. I would be interested in a TL that covered more of the cultural implications of a communist America rather than necissarily the political ones, since it seems like there are a lot of ways it could go.

The idea of Santa as a sort of socialist paragon is exactly what I had in mind.
 
Santa Claus is a guy dressed in red who gives presents to people for no other reason than because they were good people that year. Christmas, on the other hand, is about Jesus. If like many early 20th century communists you aren't eager to turn Jesus into a communist, you can easily strip the "reason for the season" out of Christmas and make it focused around Santa Claus and his utopian commune at the North Pole where Santa and his elves have perfected communism and donate the excess fruits of their labour to the people of America. It would be a fantastic opportunity to teach children about communism.

I'd love to see the Christmas movies TTL.



The Old West is very easy to romanticise in whatever way you want to. For instance, you can easily portray the American Indians as practicising "primitive communism" while the white settler is portrayed as evil capitalist exploiters.


It is odd that you think communists should prefer Santa to Jesus, and Ayn Rand's disciples say the same thing about capitalists!

"…the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the background. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice — Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones. http://capitalismmagazine.com/2000/12/santa-claus-the-anti-Christ/
 
Also don't forget that Christian Socialism is a thing, which I can imagine would be rather popular in a socialist America.
 
Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.
- The Communist Manifesto
 
if American socialists are smart, and people of all ideological stripes aren't, but if they are,

we're going to be all in favor of religious liberty,

they'll be city and town sponsored events which emphasize Santa Claus and the other cultural aspects, but they'll be laws that businesses have to close down by 5:00 pm Christmas Eve, or maybe merely regulations with fines.

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And in a flight of fancy, there's a public debate in which second-generation Chinese-Americans are saying, Christmas is not part of our culture, why must we be closed? And this carries the day and thus Chinese restaurants tend to be open on Christmas Day.
 

Deleted member 94680

“During the early-mid Soviet period, religious celebrations were discouraged by the official state policy of atheism until 1936. Christmas tree and related celebrations were gradually eradicated after the October Revolution. In 1935, in a surprising turn of state politics, the Christmas tradition was adopted as part of the secular New Year celebration. These include the decoration of a tree, or "ёлка" (spruce), festive decorations and family gatherings, the visit by gift-giving "Ded Moroz" (Дед Мороз "Grandfather Frost") and his granddaughter, "Snegurochka" (Снегурочка "The Snowmaiden").“ From Wikipedia page “Christmas in Russia” specifically the “History” section.
 
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