What would a socialist France look like and what would it's relations to others be like?

So, if France were to go socialist after World war one, how would it compare to the USSR? What would be it's relations with the USSR? Would France be able to spread socialism to other European countries ? How would other neighboring nations react to a socialist France?
 
reaction of others is the key thing , as OTL france displays many attributes that might well be associated with a 'firm' socialist government, rigid centralisation of key functions, seperation of the police and internal security forces, local police are less empowered that national police and gendermerie ... , state ownership / control of major industries ...
 

Cook

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"Hmmm. If France went Socialist?"

If the Socialists had formed government earlier, in the immediate aftermath of World War One, they would have been out of government six months later, because that was what the Third Republic was like; governments that consisted of never-ending evolving doors.
 
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With both France and the USSR going red, I would expect Germany to follow pretty quickly.
Would France and Germany start their own separate block away from the USSR, or would they all become allies? Also how would society work in the Western reds, would they be totalitarian, or something else. One of the most common things I here is that Karl Marx intended for socialism to take root in industrialized countries like France and Germany, not places like Russia and China, which were for the most part still feudal.
 
Just a note that France had a communist government after WWII and the Mitterand government was extremely left leaning with mass nationalisation.

Even now, some bits of the socialist party have trouble accepting market economy
 
Would France and Germany start their own separate block away from the USSR, or would they all become allies? Also how would society work in the Western reds, would they be totalitarian, or something else. One of the most common things I here is that Karl Marx intended for socialism to take root in industrialized countries like France and Germany, not places like Russia and China, which were for the most part still feudal.

Depends when it occurs. I very much doubt that they wouldn't ally together, so long as the bourgeois imperialist powers

As for whether or not the Western Reds would be totalitarian, I doubt it. The bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union emerged due to a number of reasons specific to Russia: the civil war, the overreach of the Cheka, the breakdown of the alliance with the left-SRs, Lenin's focus on vanguardism and ban on party factions enabling the gradual and continuous marginalisation of democratic and radical dissent within the Communist party, etc.

In France, on the other hand, you have a major industrial power with a strong tradition of democracy and human rights.
 
Just a note that France had a communist government after WWII and the Mitterand government was extremely left leaning with mass nationalisation.

Even now, some bits of the socialist party have trouble accepting market economy

France had never a communist government after WWII.

The "Provisionnal Government" of 1944 had 2 communists ministers, the Head of the Government being De Gaulle. The first elect government in 1945 had 5 communists ministers, the head was still De Gaulle. Later until 1947, in various coalition governments, the communists had severals ministers but never lead the government.

In 1947, the communists in France suffered from a great backlash and were never again in the government until 1981.

The main nationalisation happened in 1945 and De Gaulle policies were what some people, can called extremist leftwing policies but in 1945 they were normal in all Europe. I can said that british policies in 1945 were far more leftwing than in France, France had never something as state controlled as the NHS.

The PCF ( Parti Communist Francais) came to the government in 1981 and until 1983 Mitterrand had real leftwing policies, in 1983 he changed for more social-democrat policies. Communists again came back in 1997, and stayed until 2002. On both occasions, communists ministers had mostly secondaries posts.

Most of the nationalisation made in 1981 were reversed in 1986.
 
So, if France were to go socialist after World war one, how would it compare to the USSR? What would be it's relations with the USSR? Would France be able to spread socialism to other European countries ? How would other neighboring nations react to a socialist France?

It depends on how long after WWI or how far the Russian revolution has evolved in to communism by the time France goes 'socialist'. If it is early enough neither socialism nor communism is well defined and none of them has any rapport to either Stalinism nor the restrictive government of the Brezniev era. If it is late enough - I think the early 1930's - there are already other socialist or social-democratic platforms in Europe France could emulate. (There would even be some national-socialist or national-solidarist platforms, but that is a completely other train of thought.)

So in short, too much can still happen to make any predictions. if France were to become 'socialist' in the years between 1918 and 1929, today's France could look like today's Cuba, 1980's Cuba, today's Russia or even exactly like the France of today (which actually has a socialist president). It could be the 'seventh republic' instead of the fifth, but is could just as well still be the third.
 
If the Socialists had formed government earlier, in the immediate aftermath of World War One, they would have been out of government six months later, because that was what the Third Republic was like; governments that consisted of never-ending evolving doors.

I once looked into the possible impacts of France going Socialist in the first few months of 1919. The impacts were pretty big. There was potential for Syria and Turkey to turn out very differently and a large chance that France would end up keeping the WW1 income taxes. That in turn would make France much more stable and prosperous during the interwar period (under all sorts of government - but I suspect the early victory of socialism would strengthen the moderate reformist right). That in turn of course has huge implications for how WW2 goes (if it even starts) and how France and the French Empire evolve...

I couldn't think of a neat PoD to avert the implosion and defeat of the Socialists though. I considered the Socialist's pre-war leader (Jaures) surviving his OTL assassination, but that would likely change WW1 itself, and I didn't want to do that...

fasquardon
 
Maybe France would be the first country ruled by democratic socialism. Why? Because a dictatorship in the country of the French Revolution isn't plausible, so any dictatorship (as long as it isn't supported by foreign occupation forces) wouldn't last very long due to the enrooted republican traditions.

Quite. Socialist=/=Communist.

Socialism = Communism :p

France never had socialist governments, only social-democratic ones. The French Socialist Party actually is a social democratic Party.

If you're searching for socialist governments, you'll find some behind the Iron curtain. For example, the GDR was a socialist country led by the SED, a socialist party.

As to communism, it wasn't an actual form of government but the goal of various socialist countries and parties.
 
WRONG!!!
Social democratic = socialist

And how to you call the socialists countries of Europe then? You can't call them communist, because communism is a state if society without state the communist parties wanted to achieve, and now you can't call them socialist either, since you said that socialism is social democracy.
 
And how to you call the socialists countries of Europe then? You can't call them communist, because communism is a state if society without state the communist parties wanted to achieve, and now you can't call them socialist either, since you said that socialism is social democracy.
???
You can't run a society without a state. Communist parties may have claimed they didn't want one, but even the Anarchist socialists of Catalunya found out they needed some sort of governmental apparatus.

I should, I admit, have used 'is' not '='. Communist is contained within socialism, but so, equally, is social democracy, and various other movements (like the Anarcho-Syndicalists).

Trying to tell e.g. the current President of France that he's not 'socialist' because you want to define the term in your own way is very unhelpful.
 
Trying to tell e.g. the current President of France that he's not 'socialist' because you want to define the term in your own way is very unhelpful.

The current President of France isn't socialist or social democratic at allx'D he is a fucking neoliberal.

I should, I admit, have used 'is' not '='. Communist is contained within socialism, but so, equally, is social democracy, and various other movements (like the Anarcho-Syndicalists).

I can live with this definition. Communism is some form of socialism - but isn't Anarcho-Syndicalism some form of communism, since they aspire to a society without state and classes?

You can't run a society without a state. Communist parties may have claimed they didn't want one, but even the Anarchist socialists of Catalunya found out they needed some sort of governmental apparatus.

Well, that's an interesting subject for another discussion. Could an anarchist society successfully live without a state? Obviously they just changed the definiton of state to argue that they abolished the state.


Want to see your facial expressiom there :biggrin:
 
Could an anarchist society successfully live without a state? Obviously they just changed the definiton of state to argue that they abolished the state.

One of the first AHs I ever tried writing was about a country of anarchist nihilists. I reckoned at the time (and I still think younger me was onto something) that what would happen is they'd have a state-by-default where all the functions of a state were performed, but the organs performing those functions were given different labels and there was a fiction that these organs were separate (of course in reality these organs were so deeply interlinked that they were in no real sense separate).

It wasn't a particularly democratic system.

fasquardon
 
Why exactly?

And what were the functions of this pseudo state?

It wasn't democratic because there were no clear lines of accountability and power had collected in the hands of who ever had opportunity and ambition at the right moments.

And in a sense the functions of the pseudo state were "everything", it was a weird sort of statist society where officially there was no state and everyone had complete freedom, but de facto power was very concentrated and custom meant life was more regimented than the legal code would lead you to believe.

fasquardon
 
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