Without the Soviet Union, what countries could go communist?

Russia didn't really match Marx's conditions for a country that would go communist (he predicted Germany), which kind of says it all about how meaningfully we can predict this in an ATL.

I think the issue with Marx predictions is they're based on the faulty idea that an awakening of class consciousness is what would drive the Working Class to revolution. From my understanding, what drives revolutions is two-fold; firstly, great social change in a short period of time (though can be decades), or erosion of state control in general leading to failure in providing basic needs for citizens; and secondly, an opportunistic Upper-Middle/Lower-Upper Class that can direct Prole anger at a tangible target for their political gain. As long as a robust Economy like the N. German Confederation/German Empire can keep paying its workers at the very least a subsistence wage, revolution simply isn't gonna happen.

Now, a period of social disorder, such as the Wiemar Republic? A perfect storm of collapse of public order, angry populace, and ready opportunists. The issue though is that the Army probably would come down much harder on Communists than Right-Wing groups, since they believed they could rein them in.
 
I think it is quite possible nobody would have gone communist had the USSR not gone communist. But then the butterflies would have been so great that perhaps a whole new set of circumstances might have created an opportunity for it to take hold somewhere.
 
I'm tempted to suggest you just read the timeline in my sig and sit back smuggly....

But here are a couple of thoughts:

The biggest problem you have is what you define as Communism. If you don't have the rise of the Soviet Union in 1917, then you need a very different formulation of the word.

You've said you'd take socialists, communists, and social democrats - but these three groups didn't automatically get along! Remember its a Social Democrat government that suppresses the Spartacist Uprising in Germany.

Basically all European Communist parties (and world communist parties) in our timeline date from the birth of the Soviet Union. Britain, France, Italy - 1920, USA 1919, Japan 1922, etc.

If Lenin doesn't happen you need to radically rethink how the world will look.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
1. The spread of communism would be VERY different without the Soviet Union.

2. You said China would be communist. Perhaps, but the road to Socialism in China would probably be way different without a USSR. Maybe the Soicalists takes power within Kuomintang in such a scenario.

3. Socialism would itself be way different without the Soviet example.

The Labour movement was strong in Western Europe. Britain, France, Germany and Italy all had strong left wing oriented parites after WW1. However here you again have to take the no Soviet example factor into consideration.

Spain is a good choice, while the left in Spain was much inspired by the USSR, it also had earlier roots in anarchism. But this of course might mean that the Anarchists would be the leading left wing faction in Spain, instead of Socialists (since the Anarchists were a very strong faction OTL also).
 
2. You said China would be communist. Perhaps, but the road to Socialism in China would probably be way different without a USSR. Maybe the Soicalists takes power within Kuomintang in such a scenario.

Yeah, that's what happens in my TL. Leftist!KMT coalition with CCP against Sun Yatsen and Song Jiaoren.

3. Socialism would itself be way different without the Soviet example.

The Labour movement was strong in Western Europe. Britain, France, Germany and Italy all had strong left wing oriented parites after WW1. However here you again have to take the no Soviet example factor into consideration.

Spain is a good choice, while the left in Spain was much inspired by the USSR, it also had earlier roots in anarchism. But this of course might mean that the Anarchists would be the leading left wing faction in Spain, instead of Socialists (since the Anarchists were a very strong faction OTL also).

Would the Labor movement be radicalized or de-radicalized without the USSR?

Ooh, Anarchist!Spain sounds really cool. It's sad how rare anarchist countries are in timelines.

On another thought, which countries could become anarchist with a post-WWI POD?
 
Yeah, that's what happens in my TL. Leftist!KMT coalition with CCP against Sun Yatsen and Song Jiaoren.

Would the Labor movement be radicalized or de-radicalized without the USSR?

Ooh, Anarchist!Spain sounds really cool. It's sad how rare anarchist countries are in timelines.

On another thought, which countries could become anarchist with a post-WWI POD?

Sun Yat-Sen could be pretty socialist at times himself.

Without the USSR the labour movement would be DIFFERENTLY radicalised. Its not like Lenin and co invent radical fringes for it, but you would need different ideologies to emerge to channel some of different strands of leftist thought. Also remember that being in a trade union etc doesn't make a worker automatically socialist/communist. You'd need to look as much outside labour movements as inside them for leaders.

Spain is complicated because the CNT is actually anarcho-syndicalist, blending anarchism and socialism. They were never that clearly defined in the 1900s-1920s period - members often cross pollinated and went to other meetings.

As anarchist nations - thats very difficult as even in Republican Spain during the exceptional circumstances of revolution/civil war they were only part of a broad leftist/loyalist spectrum. Likewise with Makhno in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War - he was never the only power operating in the Ukraine.
 
Russia didn't really match Marx's conditions for a country that would go communist (he predicted Germany), which kind of says it all about how meaningfully we can predict this in an ATL.

Cuba, Albania, Yugoslavia, China, Chile-kinda-sorta-for-a-bit, Vietnam... a lot of those were because of Moscow's sponshorship, but to predict any one of them 'turning' in 1900 would be a shot in the dark.

Marx also stated that his developmental path was not something every people, no matter their circumstances is tied to. Indeed, he and Engels warned against such behaviour. Indeed, Zapatista arose in Mexico, rather than one of the great capitalist powers.
 
Would the Labor movement be radicalized or de-radicalized without the USSR?

The "capitalist class" often only agreed to reforms to counter the danger of a socialist reforms. Though, without the example of the USSR, businessmen will not fear such a revolution that much, prevent substantially reforms and thus "help" the labor movement to keep its original, marxist ideology.

Ooh, Anarchist!Spain sounds really cool. It's sad how rare anarchist countries are in timelines.

Anarchist Spain is a real interesting subject. Basically the Soviet Union without the lack of liberty... Really a communist state without the main problems of other socialist states.

On another thought, which countries could become anarchist with a post-WWI POD?

Before Peron came around, anarchists were quite strong in Argentina.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Argentina
 
The emergence of the Soviet Union not only created the model for *communist movements, it triggered terror in capitalist countries which led in turn to crack downs and coloured domestic communists with being in the pocket of a foriegn power, and a Slavic, "barbaric" one to boot.

Without it, the far left is much less cookie-cutter but also probably less organised. However there would be less overreaction to them by capitalist states - relatively speaking anyway.

Its become something of a cliche at this point but perhaps syndicalist trade union power could take over in France or Germany?

Pulling this out of my arse, say Germany is able to get a favourable-ish armistice out of WWI in late 1917, early 1918 (let's say Lenin gets shot in Finland Station to butterfly Bolshevik Russia :rolleyes: ). By this point Germany is economically crippled and effectively under a military dictatorship. Having 'won', there is no stabbed in the back ideology, Ludendorff and Hindenburg lose their sheen running an authoritarian, poor country and the Kaiser is a gurning puppet happily overseeing a jackboot police state. Recovery is very slow and German troops are still dying in occupied Poland and trying to prop up Austria-Hungary. Plus if the Entente haven't won, expect insane tariffs simply to spite Berlin.

Have an economic downturn, maybe the soldiers' pay isn't reliable, a naval mutiny triggers - fellow sailors refuse to fire on their comrades, a general strike in solidarity by the *Spartacists starts, with many 'moderate' trade unionists joining wildcat style. Unpaid soldiers refuse to shoot at strikers. The Social Democrats have gone along with the military control in the hope of diluting it, discrediting them. It seems the only legitimate opposition to the dictatorship is the far-left calling on the people to take industry, the army and the state into their own hands. The Ludendorffs and Hohenzollerns flee to Switzerland, the Reichstag agrees to let the new Popular Councils have equal footing to itself to claw back some legitimacy, and is slowly eclipsed by them - and from there I'm sure you can use your imagination.
 
Let's hear it for all those "communes"'established on Israeli kibbutz during the 1930 and 1940s.

What about all those "hippy communes" in North America during the 1960s?
 
Sun Yat-Sen could be pretty socialist at times himself.

Without the USSR the labour movement would be DIFFERENTLY radicalised. Its not like Lenin and co invent radical fringes for it, but you would need different ideologies to emerge to channel some of different strands of leftist thought. Also remember that being in a trade union etc doesn't make a worker automatically socialist/communist. You'd need to look as much outside labour movements as inside them for leaders.

Spain is complicated because the CNT is actually anarcho-syndicalist, blending anarchism and socialism. They were never that clearly defined in the 1900s-1920s period - members often cross pollinated and went to other meetings.

As anarchist nations - thats very difficult as even in Republican Spain during the exceptional circumstances of revolution/civil war they were only part of a broad leftist/loyalist spectrum. Likewise with Makhno in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War - he was never the only power operating in the Ukraine.

Sun could be pretty socialist, but in many cases, he allied with Song Jiaoren, who was really capitalist. In my TL, the leftist KMT kicks Song out, but keeps Sun as a figurehead (since he wasn't as right-wing as Song).

On labor movements...maybe the governments try to suppress them, which radicalizes them further?

And on Spain, yeah, I'm sure they'll be seriously mixed Socialism and Communism. I'd expect that if they get more power, there might be a three-way Spanish civil war between the Republic (who's trying to suppress both the fascists and the anarchists), while the anarchists in the eastern parts of Spain are trying to retain their ideologies. And then the fascists are...well, the fascists.
 

MrP

Banned
Areas historically vulnerable to mongol predation, coincidentally, are vulnerable to communist plague.
It is, as you say, coincidental. It just turned out that way in OTL because Russia became Communist, which enabled the ideology to spread, through influence or (more often) riding the coattails of the Red Army, into the countries bordering it. Remove the USSR and the spread of Communism, if it spreads at all, will follow a completely different pattern.

Then, as Reydan pointed out, there's the question of what Communism is without Lenin.

Basically all European Communist parties (and world communist parties) in our timeline date from the birth of the Soviet Union. Britain, France, Italy - 1920, USA 1919, Japan 1922, etc.

If Lenin doesn't happen you need to radically rethink how the world will look.
OTL's Bolsheviks were outliers in the broader Socialist movement, with their idea of a "revolutionary vanguard" claiming power in the name of the proletariat. By the early 1900s most mainline Socialist movements based on Marxism (leaving out the non-Marxist ones because it would get even more complicated) hoped to achieve Marx's objectives through democratic or at least incremental means. The far end of the leftist spectrum was occupied by the Anarchists, who engaged in political assassination and other acts of what we'd call terrorism today.

So, without Lenin, you could have some variant of "hard Socialism" gaining power in an industrialized country; you could have radical agrarian democrats stage a successful revolution in a non-industrialized one; perhaps the Anarchists might even have a shot somewhere. But none of that would resemble what we call Communism OTL.
 
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