Which is more likely: a Communist or a Fascist America

http://wsm.wsu.edu/r/index.php?id=116

Yeah, quite a few actually, especially in the West.

Seems like an interesting book. But the impact of these western socialists should be balanced

"In a few isolated communities, and for a brief number of years, the party did have a significant role. But the implications of this admittedly colorful—and at times brutally violent—time can easily be overstated"

As a side note, many of the leftist Spanish Republican volunteers also came from the Northwest (Seattle and Portland).

I think he meant the populist movement that was so big in the farm states in the waning years of the 19th Century. Much of their platform was pretty much agrarian socialism, so there is fertile ground there for leftism to take root, albeit of a socially conservative nature.
Was that truly potential left wing socialism, or a potential form of right wing socialism such as the Spanish Phlangist or Italian Fascist movement. A poster on another forum used the term "State Capitalism" to describe these movements. I am not too familair with the term.

It might come down to how aggressively the potential socialist government advocated collectivizing agriculture. Almost all farms in the midwest were owner operated. Even southeren share croppers would probably not support direct collectivization.

Though one would think that U.S. socialists would never coerce collectivization of farmland, many other socialsits have initially said "no, not us, never" but they always end up doing the deed
 
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Like a friend of mine said- Americans fear from Socialism like from fire. For many Americans, heavy governoment investment in economy is like living in a Monarchism. Communism is against everything American culture and education teaches. Communist America is totally ASB.

By the way- Learn from the Canadians, they are pretty Socialist and their crime rate is like half of the USA.
And the Russians were taught to love the Czar and the Church.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
And the Russians were taught to love the Czar and the Church.
Russian peasants' relationship with the church is actually quite different than their relationship with the tsar. Peasants saw the tsar as a benevolent quasi-divine father figure who would make everything right if only he knew how horrible the nobles were. Priests, on the other hand, were often loathed in most peasant communities and seen as both parasitical and irredeemably corrupt. So while the peasants were highly religious, they were also highly anti-clerical.
 
I think people are getting too caught up in the particularities of OTL's fascisms and communisms, and missing the core ethos from which those movements sprang.

One thing to consider is that all OTL communist states were some variant of official Marxism-Leninism. Fascist states and movements, had no such central, animating principle.

If Marxism-Leninism was about imposing Russian prerogatives on other states, then fascism is about letting all that is dark, ugly and atavistic reign in society.

An American fascism wouldn't look like German "National Socialism" or Italian Fascism. It would be its own flavor of evil, as American as apple pie.

Was it Sinclair Lewis who said that when Fascism comes to America it would be carrying a cross and draped in the American flag?
 

Technocrat

Banned
Al Smith's American Liberty League wouldn't be able to get along with Father Coughlin's Christian Front, despite them both being Catholic, because Al Smith isn't anti-semitic as far as I know and he's anti-populistic. Wall Street fatcats backing the Liberty League's trying to turn the American Legion into a private army to overthrow FDR is interesting, but it's not exactly Nazi material.

And neither of those could work with the actual fascists, who are all anti-catholic as heck. And even all-together the Silver Legion, German American Bund, and Italian-American fascist groups are just a small group of immigrants and occultists.

Strom Thurmond and the States Rights Democratic Party are anti-federal-government, so despite having all the racist qualifications they don't really apply.

The Second KKK in general though could work with the other racist fascist groups, as it is hardly just a Southern animal like the original one was. There were notable KKK disturbances in Rhode Island and California.


Broadly speaking, there are three "fascist" esque coalitions that could be formed, but would hate each other:

- Al Smith, Liberty League, American Legion, White House Putsch, Business Plot

- Father Coughlin, Christian Front, Christian National Crusade (the right wing anti-semites/racists who were neutral enough on Catholicism and generally separate from the old Right enough to put the tendrils into left wing progressive and populist movements like LaFollette's and Huey Long's)

- The Silver Legion, German American Bund, other fascist groups, and the KKK

Group 1 has the money, Group 2 has the popularity, and Group 3 has the militancy and ties to fascist nations. But nary the three shall meet.


However, a civil war could be messy. There is an old news article showing armed men who were arrested making their way to Washington and identified themselves as members of Coughlin's Christian Front.


And the idea of getting a united Popular Front to oppose these guys doesn't work either. Huey Long and his ties to the Christian Front/Christian Nationalists, along with the same ties dripping into LaFollete's Progressives, would make the accusations of "social fascism" by the Communists all the more tangible. Which spoils an otherwise interesting scenario, as these were times when Huey Long, Smedley Butler, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party, and Communists could all get on stage with each other at rallies in various combinations. Butler voted for Norman Thomas once (I forget which election) and eagerly shared the stage with Huey Long, and didn't mind being supported by Communists.

That all is interesting, but you would never get the Communists and the foreign support they command from the Soviet Union onboard with the Progressives, Spread Our Wealth, Farmer-Labor Party, Socialists and other center-left to left groups.

And even as a standalone social democratic faction, the largest of these groups - Long's - is riddled with Christian Nationalists which would spoil the whole partnership even if his ego didn't.
 

DAMIENEVIL

Banned
Like a friend of mine said- Americans fear from Socialism like from fire. For many Americans, heavy governoment investment in economy is like living in a Monarchism. Communism is against everything American culture and education teaches. Communist America is totally ASB.

By the way- Learn from the Canadians, they are pretty Socialist and their crime rate is like half of the USA.

you might wish to check that out Canada crime rate is double the US on most crimes the US just has more violent crime
 

Technocrat

Banned
If every single right wing faction hadn't united to destroy them, maybe they would be. Prevent the formation of the republic, let the Alphonsines and the Carlists duke it out while Workers Catalan quietly secedes...
 
If every single right wing faction hadn't united to destroy them, maybe they would be. Prevent the formation of the republic, let the Alphonsines and the Carlists duke it out while Workers Catalan quietly secedes...

Don't forget most of the other left wing factions going out of their way to dick the anarchists over.
 
Fascism seems easier, as it can go masked and move under the guise of super-patriotism (criticizing the Administration is aiding the enemy, any doubt over the Administration's policies is insulting the troops, Ann Coulter's 'Some Dare Call It Treason' applied by the spin doctors, etc, etc). Communist America really does sound ASB IMHO.
 
We came close to a very mild form of fascism with FDR and had he become a dictator, he would have definitely been fascist or at least near-fascist even while opposing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in WWII.
 

Technocrat

Banned
So revisionist history in order to assist in present day radical right wing agendas is still in vogue, I guess. Stay classy Cicero.

Meanwhile in actual history, establishment liberals and conservatives from Churchill to FDR were taken in with the Italians at first - which fits into the Right Wing leanings of both at the time; need I remind you that liberalism is a chip off of the block of the Northern conservative Republican establishment in America and that liberals were, as establishmentarian conservative-leaning types apt to be recruited into anti-socialist/anti-trade-unionist vigilante organizations under the guise of anti-fascism the same way conservatives were under the guise of anti-communism. There is an old "New Republic" article from the 30's talking about vigilantism in America and dealing with how it wasn't just KKK and Liberty League conservative types who were generally sympathetic to fascism and focused on anti-communism who got recruited as vigilantes, there were also supposedly and publically declared anti-fascist groups used to recruit liberals to do the same things - attacking trade unionists and socialists.

Anyways, the point is FDR was as close to fascism as Hoover, Churchill, or any 1930's Conservative because liberalism was and is a simply reformist branch of conservatism that is still tied into establishmentarian capitalism and is able to be bent against left progressives.

So pointing out FDR specifically makes no sense, when Robert Taft was just as "moderately fascist", especially when you look at the Taft-Hartley act... Yet apparently bank regulation is more radical than oppression against trade unions in Cicero's book.
 
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So pointing out FDR specifically makes no sense, when Robert Taft was just as "moderately fascist", especially when you look at the Taft-Hartley act... Yet apparently bank regulation is more radical than oppression against trade unions in Cicero's book.

I don't particularly like the New Deal, but because it was giving a man with a broken leg a crutch instead of healing the leg. I hate Reagan's phony "deregulation" and the erosion of New Deal policies because the leg is still broken and you don't take the crutch away until after the leg is healed damnit.
 
We were probably closer under Wilson after we went to war, but in neither case were we very close, or likely to get much closer.

Also, some 'fascist' elements in the New Deal, like some of the aesthetics, were really just 1930s aesthetics and not specifically fascist like we are inclined to think now.

We came close to a very mild form of fascism with FDR and had he become a dictator, he would have definitely been fascist or at least near-fascist even while opposing Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in WWII.
 
Was it Sinclair Lewis who said that when Fascism comes to America it would be carrying a cross and draped in the American flag?

Saw this, just had to comment.

I believe theres an image of Sarah Palin *shivers* doing just that.

In fact, I think when i saw the picture it was from a motivational poster that had that quote in it.

Also, I believe Facism to be more likely due to the intolerance that was still in the era given. It depends to a certain extent though on when exactly it would happen.

I can picture either one of them having increased chances during the great depression without a doubt.

Also, I think a Communist USA is possible, but only after it was given an overhaul to fit with the American psyche.
 
Saw this, just had to comment.

I believe theres an image of Sarah Palin *shivers* doing just that.

In fact, I think when i saw the picture it was from a motivational poster that had that quote in it.

Also, I believe Facism to be more likely due to the intolerance that was still in the era given. It depends to a certain extent though on when exactly it would happen.

I can picture either one of them having increased chances during the great depression without a doubt.

Also, I think a Communist USA is possible, but only after it was given an overhaul to fit with the American psyche.

But for American communism to succeed though, there has to be a wide spread collapse of the middle class. After all, the communist economic model is attractive only to the eyes of the underpaid worker or peasant. Only then would these people consider such alternatives.

Perhaps a Great Depression that is prolonged as compared to our TL (no New Deal?) and an American communist party which had a leader who had the caliber of Lenin to exploit the situation.

And yeah, that was a demotivational poster Palin was in. Which brings us to the question whether Palin was just stupid...or if beneath her soccer mom facade, she's a Hitler in waiting. *Shudder*
 
But for American communism to succeed though, there has to be a wide spread collapse of the middle class. After all, the communist economic model is attractive only to the eyes of the underpaid worker or peasant. Only then would these people consider such alternatives.

Perhaps a Great Depression that is prolonged as compared to our TL (no New Deal?) and an American communist party which had a leader who had the caliber of Lenin to exploit the situation.

And yeah, that was a demotivational poster Palin was in. Which brings us to the question whether Palin was just stupid...or if beneath her soccer mom facade, she's a Hitler in waiting. *Shudder*
What "middle class"?

The phenomenon of the great American "middle class" is an invention of the 1960s. Prior to then, the majority of the American public, greater than 60 percent, considered themselves to be working class.

The term "middle class" was reserved for the people who actually happened to be in between the great mass of workers and the small elite political-capitalist class.
 
What "middle class"?

The phenomenon of the great American "middle class" is an invention of the 1960s. Prior to then, the majority of the American public, greater than 60 percent, considered themselves to be working class.

The term "middle class" was reserved for the people who actually happened to be in between the great mass of workers and the small elite political-capitalist class.

Just from reading late 19th century/early 20th century literature (I mean the kind they have you read in standard texts in high school) it seems obvious to me that the ability to hire servants--not legions of footmen and scullery maids to be sure, but one or two--a housemaid, a governess, a handyman--was a taken-for-granted hallmark of the true middle classes of that time, even in America. Quite obviously these people weren't the ruling bourgeoisie, who did have legions of servants, just for their homes, while commanding veritable armies of employees at work (which they owned). A middle-class American of the decades between the Civil War and say the 1920s would ideally be neither an owner of enterprises that employed lots of workers nor someone else's employee. They'd be independent professionals if urban--doctors, lawyers, people like that. Or own a medium-small business--not a mom-and-pop store, but not one with more employees than they personally knew and interacted with daily either. Out in the country they'd be the more successful farmers, owning lots of land and employing a number of hands.

Fast-forward to the end of the 20th Century and you can see how the continuity is broken; there are plenty of people with the money to hire household help all right, but we wouldn't consider them "middle-class;" we'd call them "rich." They are still subaltern rich, not the big shots. But now, to have that sort of income you must almost certainly be someone's employee. Just a very well-paid one. But such people no longer have the sort of independence that was a basis for arguing they should be the backbone of the political system and the standard for judging the national interest. Now they are beholden to the hand that feeds them.

Meanwhile the idea of "middle class" has been shifted downmarket; mainly as a way of dividing the working class as much as possible. Below a certain point a person can't seriously consider themselves "middle class" by even our modern cheapened standards but people still cling desperately to the status because admitting to being something less than that is admitting total irrelevance to the status system and being despicable. But the newly downshifted "middle class" that can't even hire a nanny is pretty much just as irrelevant to and despised by the real classes that matter in the decision-making of the nation. Flattery keeps it that way; with cheap, empty words the working class never unites and recognizes that essentially, taken together, they are the people and these pretentious upper classes should be supported and tolerated exactly to the extent they make the common people's lives better, and no more. That awakening can never happen as long as we cling to this "middle class" idea, and we always will as long as we fear falling more than we feel confident we can, with solidarity, stand on our own.

I believe Jello is pointing out, once upon a time not so very long ago, Americans had a shrewder idea of where they stood on the food chain, and if the upper classes did not deliver acceptable policies, they had the peculiar notion they had some right to step up and deliver some policies of their own. American socialism, such as it was (and it was quite a lot, in certain places and times, in various forms) was what happened when some of those working class people decided the time had come, or was perhaps long past, to stand up and start actually doing something about it.

The myth of the middle class in its modern form is part of how US society smothered that movement. That was an example of a carrot; there were also sticks.

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Oh, and I think the evolution of this modern notion of the middle class may have culminated in the '60s, but it was a work in progress long before then. A lot of American mythology--I am thinking here of movies in the 1930s--involves a fusion of the world of working-class people with the very rich. In the mythic world of the silver screen, you often would see rich and poor learning to hobnob with one another. The stubbornly snobbish rich could be made fun of, as could the irredeemably boorish poor, but the moral of the story was often that at the end of they day, the best people from each class could get together.

There were other movies from those years though that tend not to be remembered so well, and they paint a starker picture. They aren't the ones that would get shown in the middle of the day on the cheaper TV stations though.
 
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