(TL) Rosa’s Reich (Re-Write in Progress)

[GlobalHumanism]

Rosa’s Reich
(Democratic Communism in 1919)

By GlobalHumanism

Welcome to the official Redux of the Turtledove Nominated TL “The 4th International”!

Questions:

• "Communism is Evil!" Why are you writing this?
I'm not an apologist. Certain nations that have practiced communism have done horrendous things in the name of Marxist doctrine(s). However, to believe that Stalin, Lenin, Mao, etc, are the end all be all to such a vast ideology ignores a vast amount of competing interpretations within the discourse.
This timeline will therefore explore competing ideologies within Marxist doctine that existed at the time of post WW1 Europe, and see what might happen if one of them gained power.

• What's the central What if?
In 1919, Rosa Luxemburg, an ardent communist but firm believer in worker democracy over centrist dictatorship, was assassinated by a band of Freikorps reactionaries on the outskirts of Berlin.

But what if this didn't happen?
What if Rosa survived to lead a Democratic Communist Revolution within the midst of the German Revolution at large?

• Why are you are doing this Redux now?
For several reasons with the main being that I wanted to go back and expand on several diversions that occur in the timeline to enrich both the narrative and world created by this POD.

•Yeah, but you haven’t even finished the other one…
True, but what sense does it make continuing on with inadequate structure that neither satisfies the scope that I want to obtain nor satisfies the awesome readers that become fans of the timeline.

• Will readers still have a chance at voting during key junctions?
Yes! Reader participation is awesome for the storyline, with the added benefit of keeping things interesting for me as the writer.

• Well I read through the other one already, so there’s nothing to see until you catch up to where you left off?
Wrong! Expect far more detail, starting from the initial PoD, all the way to where the first draft of this timeline left off. This includes more accurate pictures, custom maps, flags, charts, newsclippings, videos, etc. When I read timelines, I like to pretend I'm there; my readers deserve nothing less

• Anything else I should expect?
Other than a slight change in the prose of the narrative and a small title change, not really. Just get ready to have even more fun this go around!

With that being said, let’s dive in!​

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Prologue
_____________________________

Rosa Luxemburg was born to a middle class Jewish family in Poland on March 5, 1871.

Since childhood Rosa had been imparted with a keen interest in the liberal ideals of direct democracy and mass political participation, leading her to join one of the first Polish political parties in 1886 at the young age of 15.

While a member of the leftist Poland Proletariat Party, she participated in the group’s first organized general strike in Warsaw.

After the Russian authorities violently cracked down on the group, executing several leading members in the process, Rosa fled to Switzerland where she studied at the University of Zurich until 1897.

Completing her doctorate in the spring of the same year (and one of the first women to do so at the University), she swiftly dived back into revolutionary politics and she, along with fellow revolutionary socialists Leo Jogiches and Julian Marchlewski, founded Sprawa Robotnicza (“The Workers Cause”) newspaper in 1893.

Believing that the worker’s struggle should not solely focus on the acquisition of self-determination, she distanced herself from many Marxists of her day. This in turn sparked several literary feuds with other Switzerland-based agitators such as Vladimir Lenin.

Moving to Berlin in 1897, Rosa became a member of the radical left-wing SPD party and spent the next several years developing her political philosophy. By 1908, she had solidified her position.

Can we oppose the social revolution, the transformation of the existing order, its final goal, to social reforms? Certainly not. The practical daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class struggle and working in the direction of the final goal - the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage labor. For Socialist Democracy, there is an indissoluble tie between social reforms and revolution. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its goal.

Pamphlet: Reform or Revolution - 1908

Assured of where she stood within the milieu of revolutionary politics, and dismayed by the SPD’s shocking support for Germany after the outbreak of World War I, Rosa, along with her close ideological friends Karl Liebknecht, Klara Zetkin and Franz Mehring founded the Die Internationale group in August 1914; this transformed into the Spartacus League in January 1916.
Imprisoned for an attempt to organize a general strike in June of 1916, Rosa, along with fellow Spartacist Karl Liebknecht, were jailed for two years, first at Posen, then at Breslau.

During this time she published several more articles with “The Russian Revolution”, a polemic criticizing the actions and structure of Bolshevik revolutionary politics, being the most explosive.

Taking a particular interest in railing against the "vanguard party" power regime started by Vladimir Lenin, Rosa pointed her criticism toward the Russian soviet system by stating:

The basic error of the Lenin-Trotsky theory is that they too, just like Kautsky, oppose dictatorship to democracy. “Dictatorship or democracy” is the way the question is put by Bolsheviks and Kautsky alike. The latter naturally decides in favor of “democracy,” that is, of bourgeois democracy, precisely because he opposes it to the alternative of the socialist revolution. Lenin and Trotsky, on the other hand, decide in favor of dictatorship in contradistinction to democracy, and thereby, in favor of the dictatorship of a handful of persons, that is, in favor of dictatorship on the bourgeois model. They are two opposite poles, both alike being far removed from a genuine socialist policy.

Democracy and Dictatorship - 1918

Now a household name in left-wing circles, on November 8th, 1918 Rosa Luxemburg was released from prison.
Rosa then joined Karl Liebknecht after his own release, and together they worked to distance themselves from the SPD party in the waning months of 1918, establishing the Communist Party of Germany in January of 1919. This then lead to the Spartacus Uprising, and the subsequent military reaction by the Freikorps. Their lack of allies, coupled with the premature insistence on violent revolution, lead to the quick collapse of the uprising and the murder of both Karl and Rosa, along with the annihilation of the Spartacus League.
_____________________________​

Point of Difference

Instead, Rosa, after her release from prison, and pushed on by her own ideological imperatives, breaks from Karl Liebknecht, decides to act decisively on her own and immediately works to build her own individual power base for radical left wing socialism.

_____________________________
​

 

[tuxer]

hum... I am sad but also excited. Maybe you should ask a moderator to close the original thread, no?

 

[GlobalHumanism]

hum... I am sad but also excited. Maybe you should ask a moderator to close the original thread, no?

Good point. I will.

And don't be sad. I'll move quickly to catch up to where we left off.

 

[eliphas8]

So, can someone explain why this is called the 4th international originally?

 

[GlobalHumanism]

So, can someone explain why this is called the 4th international originally?

My original outline had planned for a fracturing between Red Germany and the USSR, laying the seeds for a 4th, ultra left wing comintern to compete with the 3rd.

 

[eliphas8]

My original outline had planned for a fracturing between Red Germany and the USSR, laying the seeds for a 4th, ultra left wing comintern to compete with the 3rd.

Ah. I don't think in this instance the Russians would get to keep the "3rd" title. The Germans were expected to lead the communist movement by the Russians, and if they break with the Germans it will be them who end up labeled as the splitters (more like the OTL workers international) with the Germans retaining the alliance of the majority of the communist movement.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Ah. I don't think in this instance the Russians would get to keep the "3rd" title. The Germans were expected to lead the communist movement by the Russians, and if they break with the Germans it will be them who end up labeled as the splitters (more like the OTL workers international) with the Germans retaining the alliance of the majority of the communist movement.

I may disagree. In that case I think the Bolesheviks would still have the international status to paint Germany as the revisionists, especially around the time were talking about.
In Europe, the Russians were seen as the fathers of workable revolution. No way some left wing upstart could dismantle that amount of international clout.

 

[tuxer]

Can't you edit to keep all the lines aligned to the left instead of having the words in the middle? It makes it hard to read (ok, it doesn't I am just lazy).

Ah. I don't think in this instance the Russians would get to keep the "3rd" title. The Germans were expected to lead the communist movement by the Russians, and if they break with the Germans it will be them who end up labeled as the splitters (more like the OTL workers international) with the Germans retaining the alliance of the majority of the communist movement.

It doesn't mean that there won't be friction between the two, largely based on political systems but it won't be that disastrous because both Red Germany and the USSR are in the early 20s council communist nations - USSR is just more statist than Germany. After all the Petrograd Soviet continued to exist until 1924 and the tolstoyan Life and Labor Commune existed until 1930/37 OTL so Red Germany and the USSR are ideologically close.

 

[tuxer]

I may disagree. In that case I think the Bolesheviks would still have the international status to paint Germany as the revisionists, especially around the time were talking about.
In Europe, the Russians were seen as the fathers of workable revolution. No way some left wing upstart could dismantle that amount of international clout.

but when we left off in the last thread weren't the Bolshevisks still in the middle of the Russian Civil War while Red Germany was already established for... a few months I presume?

How can the Russian be seen as fathers of revolution when they still face huge counterrevolutionary activity while Red Germany has already smashed all the counterrevolutionaries?

 

[eliphas8]

I may disagree. In that case I think the Bolesheviks would still have the international status to paint Germany as the revisionists, especially around the time were talking about.
In Europe, the Russians were seen as the fathers of workable revolution. No way some left wing upstart could dismantle that amount of international clout.

In the first two years of their rule? The Bolsheviks themselves thought they would be overshadowed by their German peers. Even if the Russians started it all that's not the same as Germany, the greatest hope for world revolution. Especially because before the revolution the Bolsheviks were relatively unknown. The German state had always been the heartland of socialism. And a revolution there would be seen as the heir of that legacy.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

but when we left off in the last thread weren't the Bolshevisks still in the middle of the Russian Civil War while Red Germany was already established for... a few months I presume?

How can the Russian be seen as fathers of revolution when they still face huge counterrevolutionary activity while Red Germany has already smashed all the counterrevolutionaries?

I was saying OTL

 

[CrimsonKing]

Hello GH,

Just some friendly suggestions from a fellow Germanwanker. I did to some extent follow the original version of this, and found it interesting. However, I have to say I thought Rosa was moving much too fast. She basically decided to skip strait to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in the immediate aftermath of WW1. Now, a German-Soviet alliance has enormous potential, but in the immediate aftermath of the war the Wallies hold all the cards, even more so when one considers the inevitable internal damage wrought by the Civil War which accompanied the Communist seizure of power. What she needs to do is negotiate some kind of settlement with France, Britain, and America that gets them out of the Rhineland and buys time to consolidate the KPD's hold within Germany, implement her sweeping domestic changes, and repair the economy. After that is done, at least a few years will be necessary to resurrect the shattered army and navy, and for all intents and purposes build the air force up from scratch as was done by NSDAP. This will also allow consolidation by the Bolsheviks in Russia and a general stabilization of the international situation. During this time, act as passive and nonagressive as possible on the world stage, and use the influence of Communist parties and associated movements in the West to discourage rearmament there. Then move, in a step-by-step, methodical fashion, against Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria in coordination with the USSR.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Chapter I: Spartacus League Reborn

______________

Part I

Time Period: November 8th, 1918

Rosa Luxemburg, hero of the radical left, and champion of the revolutionary social democratic movement in Germany, step forth from the shadows of her makeshift imperial prison van into the streets of Berlin.

It was November 8th, 1918, and the world she knew was ablaze with revolutionary fervor.

Spurred on by the strife and misery wrought by four years of industrialized warfare, and inspired by the world-shaking revolutionary activities of the Russian Bolsheviks, revolts had ignited Germany were breaking out.

Picking up copy of "Die Freihet" at a corner newsstand, she read of the sailor mutinies occurring in n Hanover, Brunswick, Frankfurt on main with a massive one occurring successfully in Kiel.

Moving her eyes swiftly down the front page, she also read of Kurt Eisner and his Independent Socialist Party's (USPD) deposing of the Wittlesbach monarchy in Munich.

“The revolution had come…” she excitedly thought to herself.

Quickly her excitement turned to dismay, as she began to read that the mutineers, along with the Kurt Eisner's USPD party in Munich had each set up “Soviet Councils,” in their controlled areas respectively and had simultaneously adopted policies that mirrored those adopted Bolshevik regime in Russia.

“I knew this would occur...” Rosa whispered quietly to herself.

“The precedent established by Lenin’s dictatorial vangardism is spreading, threatening not just the future of democratic liberation for the working class, but the overall unshackling of the working class itself.”

Tossing the paper back on the pile in front of her, she clasped her right her to chin and began to think.

“No.” she thought. “I will not let this critical moment in history be corrupted by the dangerous pragmatism of the Bolshevik program.”

She immediately rushed off. “No; democracy for the workers will triumph.” she muttered.

Making her way to a small hotel located a mile away, Rosa, who through letters during her incarceration had asked close friend and fellow ex-Spartacus League founder Klara Zetkin’s to come to Berlin upon her release day, greeted her political comrade around midday.

“Rosa!” Clara cried with tears of joy in her eyes. “Your back!”
“I have, but unfortunately we don’t have a moment to spare.” Rosa said back.
“What on earth do you mean?” inquired Klara.
“We must revive the Spartacus League.” said Rosa.​

Clara, who too had become excited over the socialist uprisings began to argue that there was no need to restart a dead political action group.
“Rosa, we may be better served joining up with the Social Democrats (SPD).” said Klara.
“The same SPD that supported the imperialists and the capitalists during this apocalyptic war? Never.” said Rosa sharply.

“Never will I side with any of these pragmatic bourgeois mouth-pieces.
No, the workers, and all other oppressed peoples in the Germany need a party that will be the loudest voice, in a sea of voices. A voice that will cry out for their right for freedom to participate not only in the political machinations of their country, but their right to freely associate, own and manage the means of productions; those tools that the bourgeois powers of Friedrich and his SPD will only continue to use to control and enslave them.”
Klara was silent. The words that Rosa spoke resonated deeply with her.

“I am with you Rosa.” Klara said.
On the night of November 8th, 1918, with a hand shake between two old comrades, the Spartacus League had risen from the ashes.
“Our message of liberation shall be the same.” said Rosa. “But our methods will be different.”

The next morning both Rosa and Klara made their way to the local jailhouse.

“Where are we headed?” asked Klara as they rushed out the door.

“Karl; he’s arriving back in Berlin today." said Rosa.

Rushing along the city streets, the women made their way downtown.
As they reached the central city promenade, they heard an announcement being made by a newsboy.

“The Kaiser has Abdicated!”​

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Hello GH,

Just some friendly suggestions from a fellow Germanwanker. I did to some extent follow the original version of this, and found it interesting. However, I have to say I thought Rosa was moving much too fast. She basically decided to skip strait to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in the immediate aftermath of WW1. Now, a German-Soviet alliance has enormous potential, but in the immediate aftermath of the war the Wallies hold all the cards, even more so when one considers the inevitable internal damage wrought by the Civil War which accompanied the Communist seizure of power. What she needs to do is negotiate some kind of settlement with France, Britain, and America that gets them out of the Rhineland and buys time to consolidate the KPD's hold within Germany, implement her sweeping domestic changes, and repair the economy. After that is done, at least a few years will be necessary to resurrect the shattered army and navy, and for all intents and purposes build the air force up from scratch as was done by NSDAP. This will also allow consolidation by the Bolsheviks in Russia and a general stabilization of the international situation. During this time, act as passive and nonagressive as possible on the world stage, and use the influence of Communist parties and associated movements in the West to discourage rearmament there. Then move, in a step-by-step, methodical fashion, against Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria in coordination with the USSR.

Hey crimson!
I enjoy your TLs as well. (I often use your view counts to compare to mine )

And I agree with you in principle though they way you describe is a bit too Nazi like in it foreign policy moves
But I think that a red alliance would be in the cards for two isolated communist powers considering how reactionary the capitalists had been in the Russian Civil War. And while yes it wouldn't the smartest gamble foreign policy wise, it would ensure at least for the time being, the continuance of both regimes.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Count me in. I was very impressed with the original TL (prequel?).

 

[Not Henry G.]

Awesome. I loved the old tl but I lost touch with it. Subscribed

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Count me in. I was very impressed with the original TL (prequel?).

Sort of.
Think of it more as filling in the blanks and satisfying the historians

 

[lukedalton]

And I agree with you in principle though they way you describe is a bit too Nazi like in it foreign policy moves
But I think that a red alliance would be in the cards for two isolated communist powers considering how reactionary the capitalists had been in the Russian Civil War. And while yes it wouldn't the smartest gamble foreign policy wise, it would ensure at least for the time being, the continuance of both regimes.

The problem in all that, is that while the entire plan is very reasonable and logic much depend on the fact that the Entente go as OTL...and this can be difficult.

OTL the British try to use Germany as a bulkwark against the communist and try to not weaken her too much while Wilson go to his messianic project. Here with Germany already communist things will be different and (just to reiterate what's said in the previous thread), while the communist revolution in Russia can be seen as an internal thing of an ally and much involvement is very unpopular.
Keep Germany down is another question as at the moment there is not much good feeling towards her and all the parties want their pound of flesh and her being red will simple add fire.

 

[GlobalHumanism]

Chapter I: Spartacus League Reborn
______________

Part II

Time Period: November 9th, 1918

On November 9th, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II informed sitting Chancellor Prince Max of Baden that he was abdicating both his Imperial and Prussian crowns.
Though the announcement was a shock to the populace at large, given that occurred while the Kaiser was visiting his officers in Belgium, it was not surprising Rosa.
“The Kaiser has abdicated!” a Berlin newsboy yelled.
“Prince Max expected to do so as well!”​

“Providence seems to be on our side.” Klara whispered to her close friend.
“I have no use for providence; but opportunity - I can work with.” Rosa whispered back.
“Either way, this event has made it imperative that we take advantage of this milieu sooner rather than later.”
The women then continued to proceed to Berlin rail station.

By midday, just as
a train pulled into the platform with the recently released Karl Liebknecht on board,
Prince Max had announced his own resignation of the Chancellorship within the chambers of the Reich's Chancellery, with Social Democrat Party (SPD) leader Friedrich Ebert subsequently appointed as his successor.
“Karl!” shouted Rosa and she ran up and shook his hand fiercely.
"It's good to see you! I hope these past two years have treated you well."
"I am alive - that's all I can say.” responded Karl.
The two comrades spoke for several minutes about the evolving revolutionary situation for Germany and Europe at large.
"The Russians, Hungarians, Poles, Germans - they all burn with revolutionary fervor!" Karl extolled.
“We have only to follow comrade Lenin’s lead...”
Rosa's immediately interjected.
"The Bolsheviks have proven to be nothing more than bandits on the march dictatorship," she said.
"Have you not witnessed their disregard for people's will during the Fifth Congress of Soviets!? They've begun liquidating all dissenting voices - even fellow Communists!"
Rosa was referring to the dismissal of the Left Communist from the Congress of Soviets in the Spring of that year.
"Lenin took decisive action, Rosa!" Karl responded.
"Revolution needs a single voice to speak above all other if it is to succeed."

A shouting match ensured as the two comrades found it impossible to reconcile over the Karl's intention to mirror Lenin's revolutionary stratagem in Berlin.
"If you believe that Bolshevist program, and one applied haphazardly, can liberate the working class - then you are truly lost," Rosa responded
"And if you believe that it cannot, than those years in prison have made you truly naive."
Stunned at her friend’s statement, Rosa began to back away.

A bond, forged over years of ideological comradeship, with a few words had be broken.

"Where you go, Klara and I refuse to follow." she said as took several steps back
"I only hope that your chosen path does not lead you to ruin."

Fixing his jacket lapels, Karl turn his back toward the two women and immediately marched off.​

As Rosa and Klara made their way back to their temporary apartment, a crowd which had gathered outside of the Reichstag, heard SPD minister Philipp Scheidemann announce the end of the German Monarchy.

"The old and rotten monarchy has collapsed.
Long live the German Republic!"
______________