Untainted Communism

I'm interested in the long term political effects of a world in which communism never takes hold in Russia (I'm less concerned with precisely how this occurs). Would the global communist/socialist movements, popular among Western intellectuals at the time, have a brighter future? How would socialism function in multiparty states and how would certain countries tolerate its presence without its association with a specific country like the USSR? Is it likely that politics around the world would be more center left?
 
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Unfortunately you need specifics, as those events which have prevented the USSR are very important to future geo-politics.
 
Okay, I see what you mean and here's a big. I suppose I envisioned the white movement and the foreign armies emerging successful because of either a loss of key leadership, or fragmentation within the bolsheviks as well as a stronger or more loyal loyalist regime. A less militarily successful Germany, as well as a more successful Russia with a truly crushing blow against Austria Hungary in the Carpathians and if you really want to go far, a different Tsar and Tsarina (especially one without a hemophilic son) are a few other factors could have tipped the scales against the Bolsheviks.

What is important in such a timeline however is that a reactionary or at least conventional regime would retain power in Russia. Such a regime could in my opinion, probably still develop the nation's military enough to fight off an invasion by the Nazis about as well Stalin's red army.

WWII and whether or not it occurs is of course the big stumbling block here. Someone is going to argue the butterfly effect because communism was such a key scapegoat in the axis toolbox. But I see no reason that, in Germany's condition at the time a right wing fascist or right-wing government at least as radical as Mussolini's if not as much as Hitler's would very likely have surfaced there as they did in many european nations following the first war. Whether such a Germany would be revanchist and agressive enough to pursue something like WWII is difficult to say, but if there is not a WWII the great depression will persist longer so it's difficult.

So there's a little geopolitical context to start building off of. Guess it raises a few new questions too.
 
Tainted Communism

The main issue that tainted Communism in Russia was Lenin. Without his leadership, the gang we came to know as the Bolsheviks wouldn't have been near as successful. The main POD's preventing his rise to prominence were as you said, no bloody disasters for the Russian Army in WWI, no distracted tsars influenced by Rasputin, and/or mostly Kerensky keeping the SR's, Bukharinites, and Mensheviks onside with a semi-functional Provisional Government that doesn't mismanage the economy.

What the Bolsheviks offered was a clear path to power and simple slogan, "Peace and Bread" after years of feckless debating-society democrats, clueless autocrats who wanted to believe 1905 hadn't sunk the credibility of tsarist government, and sharp operators letting Russia drift off the road and over a cliff, hundreds of thousands dead and wounded, a broke treasury, famine and other crap going on.

FWIW there were a lot of democratically-minded folks in the Russian Revolution, who outnumbered the Bolsheviks 8:1 and figured Lenin & Co could be dealt with later. They didn't realize elections weren't going to matter afterward as Lenin had no intentions of sharing power or pulling a Cincinnatus after the state of emergency was over.

Long story shorter, there's been several explorations on AH of a Russia that didn't go Communist.
They tend to be of the "Russia becomes Nazi Germany with Slavophilia vs Nazism as the guiding philosophy" in a White victory post Russian Civil War. I have severe trouble with that b/c the White generals were largely inept militarily and politically and about as charismatic as moldy borscht.

I'd prefer a Russian social-democratic renewal that got Russia prosperous, positively engaged economically and politically with the world and avoiding the brutality and want of Stalinist state socialism. No Holodomor or purges killing millions of people, but that's me. It's your story to tell and what POD's to sell as to why/how it gets there
 
I agree. Russia may be a tempting surrogate for nazi Germany but it seems kind of like a forced role to me.

Anyway, what of the fate of socialism and communism's perception beyond Russia? I doubt it would take the same path in Germany or England as in countries like India or Mexico... Perhaps there would be spanish civil wars instead of red octobers.
 
Communist ideology might be very attractive in Europe's colonies or places under semi-colonial domination. The first successful Communist (adapted for conditions, like Maoism) revolution might be in China or in a colony somewhere.
 
I was thinking more about the industrial nations but this is very interesting. I wonder if such a revolution (provided it's not in the Philippines) might have some influential sympathizers in the United States...

If these movements occur will they fizzle or will some form of communism be a symbol of freedom for third world nations?
 
Ho Chi Minh traveled to France when the Versailles Conference was going on in order to advocate for Vietnamese independence, but it didn't go anywhere.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if TTL saw a Vietnamese insurrection led by a Communist Ho that the U.S. sympathized with on the grounds of human freedom?
 
Brilliant. I can just imagine people wearing "Free Ho Chi" pins! Especially if the USA goes a bit center left after a long, hard depression. He'd certainly be happy if they sincerely compared him with George Washington.

By the way, how long might the depression have gone on (a hard question, I know). Perhaps the Democrats would become more like the British Labour party did and might the GOP would become somewhat centrist. Surely there would be few McCarthy types...
 
"Where Communism triumphs depends on conditions in each individual country."

So perhaps we end up with all sorts of flavors of communism and socialism. In this timeline, I think we can expect a lot of diversity in governments...
 
"Where Communism triumphs depends on conditions in each individual country."

So perhaps we end up with all sorts of flavors of communism and socialism. In this timeline, I think we can expect a lot of diversity in governments...

I suggest you the famous two parts (later three, maybe) Timelines of jello biaffra on a succcessfull (on quite a few account) revolution in AMERICA. Realistic and fascinating; it the way a commie USA would turn, maybe...
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
The most long term effect I can see is that Marxism remains a somewhat fringe ideology that shares the extreme left with other, similar ideologies, instead of becoming the Boogie Man of Extremist Leftism it became IOTL. Syndicalism, technocracy, and other movements continue to be competitors, instead of falling through the cracks of history.

EDIT: Oh, and other forms of communism, of course.
 
Brilliant. I can just imagine people wearing "Free Ho Chi" pins! Especially if the USA goes a bit center left after a long, hard depression. He'd certainly be happy if they sincerely compared him with George Washington.

Pardon pardon me for being pedantic, though technically, the pins ought to be written as "Free Chi Minh", as like most transliterated Chinese names, the guy's surname (Ho) is in front rather than at the back. :D

It would also depend on when you want these pins issued, as he only started adopting the alias HCM (Chi Minh literally means "bringer of light") during WWII, so before then, the pins ought to be "Free Sinh Cung" (from his real name Nguyen Sinh Cung). :cool:
 
It might not have made that much difference.

Czarist Russia was a centralized, bureaucratic, corrupt, backward, authoritarian empire. Bolshevik Russia was much the same.
 

Cook

Banned
Czarist Russia was a centralized, bureaucratic, corrupt, backward, authoritarian empire...
All this and the fourth largest economy in the world with annual growth exceeding 8% per annum in the 1890s and still above 5% per annum in the 1900s.
 
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