Trtosky lives and forges a rival empire

Starting with two POD's one is the turtledove 191 scenario of a CSA victory in the Civil War and the other is a Czarist victory in the Russian revolution. Monst of the major communists flee Russia to other parts of Europe but Trotsky ends up in the Empire of Mexico.
What isn't the same as the 191 scenario is that the CSA has been in more or less constant decline since it's creation. This is due to several factors including the collapse of the cotton market, nearly nil immigration because the immigrants would have to compete with unpayed labor and that several states have a majority of slaves. The nation's only benefit of being allied with Britain and France was shattered when the Confederate Congress voted to preserve slavery rather than manumit them by request of their allies.
Trotsky sees opportunity in this powder keg of a country. He gains control of a printing press and starts creating pamphlets spreading the word of the worker. First the poor whites working in factories are given the pamphlets, they spread the word to the slaves in the factories who in turn spread to the slaves on the farms.
In 1933 the revolution starts in the deep south where the slaves outnumber their masters. By 1937 the entire country is under control of the revolution except Northern Virginia. For the majority of the war the Union has stayed neutral in this conflict. But in the final days they choose the lesser of two evils and supply the revolutionaries with artillery to help them take Richmond.




any thoughts?
 

Germaniac

Donor
The much more industrialized North would never allow a communist state in the south, fearing the spread of Revolution to the northern proletariat.
 

Germaniac

Donor
Plus, if the CSA is having an even worse go at it then how is there any Proletariat to incite. If there economy is collapsed and backward for the last sixty years how could they A) Have the Capital to develop any industry, B) Reform the Aristocratic hierarchy to even allow for industrialization, C) have an army which could threaten the North enough not to invade it.

The South would be very anti-immigrant, save for the slave immigrants when the slave trade is reopened. I really doubt they would allow a Jewish Russian Left-Wing Radical into the country, really what else could he do besides conjure up revolution.
 
I like the idea...has great dramatic potential. I could see Trostskiism gaining ground with both slaves and poor whites...assuming they can set aside their rivaly/hate for the slaves, which given the horrid economy the "slaver-aristocrats" have handed them after the "blood they shed" seems plausible to a point. A dying economy and poor industrial base (and lack of a sizable Proletariat) doesn't preclude Communism or a sizable Communist movement in the CSA any more than it did in Russia, China, Spain, Italy, or *Name Other Nation with Communist Revolution/Movement*.

Yes, the USA will NOT like this at all and will take steps to oppose it, particularly given the Gilded Age class tension in OTL's USA. In the speculative fiction world we call that "dramatic potential". ;)
 
Plus, if the CSA is having an even worse go at it then how is there any Proletariat to incite. If there economy is collapsed and backward for the last sixty years how could they A) Have the Capital to develop any industry, B) Reform the Aristocratic hierarchy to even allow for industrialization, C) have an army which could threaten the North enough not to invade it.
That brings up the question of how communist revolutions swept China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Angola. They happened so rural Marxism isn't that unlikely, but I do agree that any attempt of a Marxist take over in this timeline will go the way of the Congaree Socialist Republic.
 
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