Soviet or Nazi "Cultural Revolution"

Honestly I almost think it would be a twist on the whole "Himmler trys to purge all christian/non pagan elements from the reich".

I think Himmler may well attempt this....and promptly be killed along with his supporters by the rest of the german leadership, who take the opportunity to declare the SS (who would probably be obscenely wealthy and powerful due to Himmler's patronage) and its mysticism fuckery "Jewish inspired treason" or such and have it violently disbanded by the Heer and its wealth seized by the government, followed by the Reich veering back towards relative modernity (though still keeping all the horrifically evil shit) instead of some third-rate early medieval LARPfest.
 
I would think the obvious leader figure for the Kulturrevolution is one Adolph Hitler, as Mao was in China. One can imagine an ailing and aging Hitler feeling like he's lost his grip on the Nazi state, whipping up the Hitler Youth and SS, backed by local party elements, into clearing out old guard elements like Göring who are too accommodationist or internationalist (or so perceived). I don't think anyone lacking the aura of Founder could pull off something analogous to the Cultural Revolution.
 
As others pointed out the Soviets went through their Cultural Revolution in the '20s and it lasted well into the '30s in terms of self-inflicted property damage and murder. By the '60s they were no longer in the mood for any hardcore awakening. Hell, that was the whole point of Brezhnev, a congenial hack who wrote diaries with magic markers, couldn't articulate an intelligent thought without two secretaries giving it to him, awarded medals to factories that over-produced sunglasses by simply painting over the lenses with black paint and boasted of how he could achieve so much in a four day week he may, nay must, take three-day-weekends. There was also a sense of maturity in the Soviet thinking and overall self-reflection, the excesses of the '30s while no longer talked about under Brezhnev were nonetheless part of the national thinking. Nobody wanted to go down that route again. Andropov was the last of the scary men, and he was only put in power because he was dying and everyone knew it. As for the rest of the red meat eating dinosaurs, they were all either dead or lacked the name recognition. Stalin killed the rest. One of the things to remember is that the Soviet societal upheaval was forty years old by the time the '60s rolled around and people got settled into the system, though they had their problems and flare-ups and etc. China... we're talking what, 20 year interval from the last shuddering upheaval?

Now a Nazi Cultural Revolution, that makes the mind throw up in horror and potential. But I have to disagree with some of my fellow board members. If Hitler is alive and not brain-dead, there is no way it happens, as Nazi Germany's ideology wasn't Nazism, it was Hitlerism: he who is closest to Hitler wields the most power. I explored this in other threads, but while under Communism power was derived from your rank and title and people under you and how close you were to various sources of powers, in Hitler's Germany your title and departmental rank mattered not one iota. If you were seen to have Hitler's sanction you did as you wanted, Party and etc. rank be damned. A live Hitler has no need for Cultural Revolution, as he would still hold the power. Unless he was senile and sidelined. It that scenario I can see him being manipulated by an equivalent of Mao's wife and kitchen cabinet. I can't think of any historical woman in Hitler's life who could match Mrs. Mao's evil. Rather the figure would have to an unknown to us. This Miss X along with the surviving cabal of sidelined old Nazis could revenge themselves on a regime that passed them over. Perhaps an aging hypochondriac pedophile Baldur vor Schirach, useless former sparkling-wine salesman turned former diplomat Ribbentrop, drummed out of the Eastern Ministry Alfred peddler of intellectual-hog-shit Rosenberg and too much of a sociopath even for SS Kurt Daluege would round out my Gang of Five. They could find a flunky in one of the three competing propaganda outfits in Nazi Germany (I mentioned this before, but Goebbels did not have a monopoly on publishing lies in Nazi Germany, he competed with two other outfits) to jump-start the Second Awakening of German People using Hitler as a toboggan down the mound of corpses.

I am not sure who would be opposing them as the official Nazi regime head. It might be Himmler or Goering or Goebbels, or it might be none of them. After all, who the Hell heard of Khrushchev or Brezhnev 20 years before they came to power, never mind 30? For all we know it could be some slick politico who made his name for himself by administering a region in the East with the least amount of trouble and the most amount of gain (think an odious shit-heel from the General Government), or conversely someone who was a noted trouble-shooter who got more than a few wizened old Nazis to nod in approval in how he handled a problematic Gau in the former Soviet Territories by encouraging the natives to kill each other to avoid losses of German lives (Belarus?) or it could be a WW2 veteran who went into politics after the War and whose once dashing good looks made him a local favorite and now has the charm of a gone to seed former matinee idol.

That would be my equivalent to Mao's Cultural Revolution.

I need a drink now.
 
Perhaps the attempted changeover of Germanic Europe to Germanic neo-Pagan Empire.

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I would think the obvious leader figure for the Kulturrevolution is one Adolph Hitler, as Mao was in China. One can imagine an ailing and aging Hitler feeling like he's lost his grip on the Nazi state, whipping up the Hitler Youth and SS, backed by local party elements, into clearing out old guard elements like Göring who are too accommodationist or internationalist (or so perceived). I don't think anyone lacking the aura of Founder could pull off something analogous to the Cultural Revolution.
So Himmler would be at most a German "Lin Biao"?
 

RousseauX

Donor
If Hitler will give him his backing, then yes. If not, he's dead meat.

Now, here's another question. Who is the Peng Dehuai of this scenario, and who's the Zhou Enlai?
Any number of Wehrmacht general could be a Peng Dehuai analogue, Guderian perhaps? Anyone who is 1) brave enough to oppose leader's dumb policies and 2) is bad at politics 3) has good wartime records will do.

Zhou Enlai would be someone like Speer I guess
 
no it didn't lol the cultural revolution was primarily directed against the party apparatus over a combination of ideological impurity and personal political gains
You could argue that it happened as a result of this, but was kept going by the percieved "petty bourgeoisie".
 
Maybe a German version of the Cultural Revolution might also involve attempts to cut the Prussian aristocracy and the industrialists down to size and would the Nazis also spread it to their puppet states?
 

RousseauX

Donor
You could argue that it happened as a result of this, but was kept going by the percieved "petty bourgeoisie".
It wasn't, it was kept going because of the perception that the party itself was full of people who were privileged and holding back the road to actual Communism. There was also political gains to be had: if you accuse someone with a good (state-assigned) apartment of being a "bad element", he gets kicked out and you get his apartment.

Also the resentment towards the privileges of the party apparatchik was real and the exact same thing fueling resentment against the party apparatus in the Glasnost era in the USSR, get rid of the dozens of "red capitalists" in the country doesn't change the fact that you define the real counter-revolutionaries and "capitalist roades" to be guys sitting in Communist party offices.
 
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