More ironic Vichy-type puppet regimes

[Strategos' Risk]

Vichy France was led by some odd turncoats if you think about it. Petain was a national hero whose claim to fame was smiting Germans. Laval was a former Socialist - though admittedly, he perhaps he was as ambivalent about it as Mussolini was.

Wang Jingwei and the Reorganized National Government in China is another key example, given how he was the leader of the left-Kuomintang faction. Though admittedly here too, Wang's doomerism about China's chances against Japan easily led him to seek accommodation with the fascist Axis. Also China at that time had an oddly positive working relationship with Germany which cut through obvious left-right distinctions. (And meanwhile, Chiang Kai-Shek wanted the Soviets on his side to fight Japan after he was done squashing the Communists.)

More Frenchmen, and some Belgians:

France was far from the only country where former leftists supported collaborationist regimes. (BTW, Paul Faure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Faure_(politician) and Marcel Déat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Déat were Socialists long after Laval had broken with the party--and of course Doriot had been a Communist... ) There was Henri de Man in Belgium: "This war is in reality a revolution. The old social order, the old political regime are collapsing. Hitler is a kind of elementary or demoniac force, he accomplishes a kind of destruction that has in all probability become necessary..." https://books.google.com/books?id=4oHq-ROPJWoC&pg=PA289 "After the "capitulation" of the Belgian Army in 1940, he issued a manifesto to POB-BWP members, welcoming the German occupation as a field of neutralist action during the war: "For the working classes and for socialism, this collapse of a decrepit world, far from being a disaster, is a deliverance..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Man

De Man is the most obvious person to look for if you want a (formerly) leftist Belgian to play an active rol in a German collaborationist regime. One should also note that many believe the fact that he opted for collaboration was not just an opportunistic move. By the 1930s, he had clearly developed a distinct line of thought, which some believe prepared the way for his later choice: notably, he was against philosophical materialism and against the idea of a class based party, and had sympathetic views of nationalism as a phenomenon.
De Man played a a rather minor role during the occupation, although that might also be because he wasn't trusted by others in the collaborationist scene. He was close to Leopold III during the early days of the war (one of the few top politicians to remain loyal to him). So perhaps Leopold and De Man are the duo to look for if you want a Pétain-Laval analogue in Belgium.

I suppose Andrey Vlasov qualifies- for some reason I had assumed he was an ex-White Russian but he had joined the Red Army during the Russian Revolution so it works. Easier for a military man to be have fewer ideological scruples than a politician, though. At least, easier to hide the ambiguity.

And for a fictional example, the late John J. Reilly's C.S. Lewis althist obituary has Lloyd George of all people as the Petain-Laval put in charge of Mosley's Britain.

Here's a historical list of WWII puppet states.

Would Sukarno being a Japanese collaborator count? I'm not sure how liberal he really was, so I'm not sure if it's truly ironic. The ex-colonial movements hitching their rides to the fascists was a opportunistic, but perhaps rational for the time, thing to do.

What about a Viet Minh puppet government within the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere headed by Ho Chi Minh himself, championing an "Asian socialism"?

Or even a situation where Azad Hind carves out a Japanese puppet state, Subhas Bose still meets an unlikely end, and his successor is... Gandhi?!?

Also what about the ironic opposite for Soviet client states in the Cold War that were run by former right-wingers or even ex-fascists. Supposedly the East German Stasi was lousy with the type.

In the interwar period and the run up to Barbarossa these political ideologies were pretty new, so it was perhaps easy to confuse what left and right really were. So I think that explains some of the switching which today seems awfully paradoxical and oxymoronic. So what are more interesting alternate cases?

 

[Japhy]

It's hard to think of a fascist who didn't have some degree of flirtation with the left in the Interwar period. From Mosley to Quisling to Mussolini himself the irony is almost a needed component of the fall to madness.

Edit: As noted Franco and Salazar

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Why did it happen, is it like how so many U.S. ex-Trotskyists became neocons? To accept either worldview requires some acceptance of the same principles, e.g. the current order must be overthrown, mass movement by the people is good, and so on?

Curious to consider fascists who became leftists, though. I'm sure they exist but I don't know of any.

 

[Ricardolindo]

It's hard to think of a fascist who didn't have some degree of flirtation with the left in the Interwar period. From Mosley to Quisling to Mussolini himself the irony is almost a needed component of the fall to madness.

If you count them as fascists, Franco and Salazar definitely never flirted with the left at all. Of course they were far more establishment figures than Mussolini and Hitler.

 

[Japhy]

If you count them as fascists, Franco and Salazar definitely never flirted with the left at all. Of course they were far more establishment figures than Mussolini and Hitler.

You are correct they didn't have those ties.

 

[Japhy]

Why did it happen, is it like how so many U.S. ex-Trotskyists became neocons?

I mean you could argue that they're almost completely overlapping. But yeah it's "Have the world view, face critique of worldview, take the worst possible solutions to problems." more or less.

 

[lerk]

Bose IIRC also sympathized with leftism and from what I heard was planning on defecting to the USSR at the war’s end. Could be said that he was a nazbol, maybe could’ve been the Indian Josip Broz Tito.

 

[OHC]

Rex Tugwell expressed admiration for Mussolini along with his flirtation with the Communist Party - there are plenty of technocratic types who would be happy administering a planned economy no matter what its ideological basis. Can't really see the US being a puppet state but Tugwell would probably be happy shaking hands with the leaders of either a victorious Axis or a global Comintern.

 

[Catalunya]

Not exactly what you’re looking for but Şükrü Saraçoğlu was one of the most pro-Western voices in the Turkish government in the 1930s (and a noted Francophile), but after Barbarossa he used his position to attempt to strongarm Turkey’s entrance into the war on the side of the Axis.

 

[raharris1973]

Journalist Herbert Matthews was an admirer of Italy's 'civilizing mission' in Ethiopia, and later Castro's revolution in Cuba.

Come to think of it, Fidel Castro was quite the admirer of Benito Mussolini.

What about a Viet Minh puppet government within the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere headed by Ho Chi Minh himself, championing an "Asian socialism"?

Or even a situation where Azad Hind carves out a Japanese puppet state, Subhas Bose still meets an unlikely end, and his successor is... Gandhi?!?

Love these two examples!

So I think that explains some of the switching which today seems awfully paradoxical and oxymoronic. So what are more interesting alternate cases?

I know of some *later* examples. Mobutu had some pretensions of being Maoist while being practically kleptocratic.
Jonas Savimbi of Angola was pleased as punch with Marxist ideology and patronage from China and North Korea and cooperation with Namibia's Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO) against both South Africa and the Soviet/Cuban backed MPLA...

Until those alliances turned out to be useless for Savimbi and he became happy to align with the South Africans against SWAPO, MPLA, the Cubans and Soviets, and later the Americans, and converted to a free market ideology.

 

[OHC]

there are plenty of technocratic types who would be happy administering a planned economy no matter what its ideological basis

Oh yeah, a more hipster / controversial option in this vein - Fernando Flores, the guy in charge of Cybersyn, despite being imprisoned and tortured by the Pinochet regime after the coup ended up joining the Chilean right in later life, working alongside ex Pinochet types.

 

[LSCatilina]

Why did it happen

It's still up to debate, but it might revolve around the idea of a "crisis of identity" in the European left in the late XIXth century and aggravated after the WW1 and the mobilisation of violence and nationalism.

Even before the conflict, you had recurrent questions and debate on the opportunity of violence (ranging from considering it a powerful mobilising myth to an absolute impasse), of structured ideology (from irrationalism and eclecticism to sheer orthodoxy), participation to "bourgeois" governments (from splitting to propose reforms and work from within to rejecting the very idea), etc.

With some influential ideas already emerging before 1914, for instance those of Georges Sorel (who had a certain influence on Mussolini's early years) on the role of political mobilisation in itself rather than class mobilization, the political violence born of the war, the mobilisation of nationalisms, the impact of the October Revolution (both as a magnet and a scarecrow), fascination with army discipline, etc. really allowed that to brew over quickly.

Indeed this radical left was not "closed off" to the political and intellectual life of their time, allowing some interesting bridges between nationalists and disgruntled left movement. It's interesting to point out that socialist movements that had a partisan history (as the SPD) have much less an history of having proto-fascist/para-fascist split or personalities comparatively to more supple counterparts (SFIO, PSI, etc.) even if it should be stressed these were relatively few personalities with poor success (for one Mussolini, you have a lot of Vallois)

Now this is of course just ONE component of fascisms in Europe and the whole "FaScIsM iS aCkChUaLlY sOcIuLiSm" is evidently politically motivated : besides the Mussolinis that came from the radical left with few success stories, you have the lot of Hitler, Degrelle, Codreanu, etc. coming from nationalist right and military structures. The important idea there is that fascist ideologies owed something significant to the collision of radical left and radical nationalism largely made possible by the Great War, but not to the point we can really consider that an ideological hybridation.

The "switch" of 30's and 40's personalities to a para-fascist or fascist, following the Great Depression and continued inner debate within radical left especially when it came to the role of the state and how it could be used politically to resolve the crisis whereas radicalism was ineffectual, dangerous, anti-national, etc. Lot of these takes, néo-socialisme, dirigism, planism, statism, etc. weren't fascist per se, but also did not necessarily saw Fascist Italy (or Soviet Union) as an anti-model but as a valid alternative/point of comparison but how a statist politic could "work". Again, this was rarely translated by large shifts to fascism or nazism, but promoted the idea of a national-radical, technocratic, electic, pacifist and anti-communist alternative to both the left and the right seeing the war and the defeat both as envisioned by themselves and as an opportunity.

When you mention De Man, Doriot, Déat or Faure, these are perfect examples of personalities that crossed the political Rubicon after the defeat by opportunism, aggiornamento, and attraction to the victors of the day against what they had identified as "ills" of their countries (parlementarism, conservatism, communism, jews, etc.) and far too often this is a conveniently forgotten factor, as if it was written on the wall these would have necessarily "switched" to fascism, nazism, para-fascism even if Germany didn't won the western front and promoted directly or indirectly this.
You could very well have, ITTL, ended up having Marcel Déat appearing as a Roosvelt-like figure for instance.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Very well put and comprehensive. Wang is perhaps an analogous figure in that his anti-colonialism and mistrust of Western imperialism allowed his leftism to coexist with Japanese collaborationism. As with the Belgian/French examples, it was a willingness to work with the currently winning party against the ills of the time. Same with the other Asian decolonial collaborators.

And also it’s possible to imagine a Fascist Italy that remained aloof, or even fought with Germany, Mussolini subsequently becoming a Franco/Salazar type, initially abhorred by NATO but eventually brought into the anti-Soviet fold, and Nazism considered as a uniquely abominable evil distinct from fascism, and 20th century ideological lines getting drawn differently. After all, who was Dolfuss and what was his Austrofascism but the first victim of Nazi aggression?

 

[Ricardolindo]

Bose IIRC also sympathized with leftism and from what I heard was planning on defecting to the USSR at the war’s end. Could be said that he was a nazbol, maybe could’ve been the Indian Josip Broz Tito.

Subhas Chandra Bose is a perfect example of a Third Positionist, I think.

 

[lerk]

Subhas Chandra Bose is a perfect example of a Third Positionist, I think.

He was just an Indian Nationalist, nothing really “Nazi” or “Communist” about him. Kind of reminds me of Jamal Abdelnasser and other Arab Nationalists tbh.

 

[Octosteel]

He was just an Indian Nationalist, nothing really “Nazi” or “Communist” about him. Kind of reminds me of Jamal Abdelnasser and other Arab Nationalists tbh.

Do you think a Nazi victory scenario probably has them backing the Pan Arabs against the British? The British are going to have to make a decision on Israel at some point although the nations that attacked in 48 were largely Britain friendly Arab monarchies.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

The Stern Gang was willing to work with the Germans, perhaps they wouldn’t have to choose.

 

[Octosteel]

The Stern Gang was willing to work with the Germans, perhaps they wouldn’t have to choose.

Wait, really? How does that work? Well, I guess I see how it works (work as united front to push out the British, figure it from there) but did the Germans reciprocate at all? Middle East in a Nazi scenario is something I've been thinking of a good bit recently since it's the place where a lot of crazy stuff could happen (especially since Vichy France would still be holding Syria even as the Germans are trying to boost Pan Arab revolutions elsewhere).

 

[TheIO]

Wait, really? How does that work? Well, I guess I see how it works (work as united front to push out the British, figure it from there) but did the Germans reciprocate at all? Middle East in a Nazi scenario is something I've been thinking of a good bit recently since it's the place where a lot of crazy stuff could happen (especially since Vichy France would still be holding Syria even as the Germans are trying to boost Pan Arab revolutions elsewhere).

Makes a bit of sense when Mussolini had been making noises about backing the Arabs in Palestine, so who do your far-right movements turn to for backing instead?

Also maybe a wishful thinking element of "they'll send all the Jews to the Promised Land whether they like it or not" but I would want to see whether there was actually evidence of the Stern Gang contacting the literal Nazis.

 

[LSCatilina]

Do you think a Nazi victory scenario probably has them backing the Pan Arabs against the British? The British are going to have to make a decision on Israel at some point although the nations that attacked in 48 were largely Britain friendly Arab monarchies.

It might be a bit unlikely as a question of principle : acknowledgement and support of Pan-Arabism would be seen as the support of an emerging, racially inferior, power in Eurasia that would be perceived as a racial and political threat for nazis whereas British imperialism would "merely" be a political challenger but racially compatible.

It doesn't mean that Hitler and other nazi figures weren't willing to work and support arab and arabo-islamic nationalism in their war against Britain and while it was mostly a pipe dream, appeal to these in order to weight against any challenger or contender in the region would likely have been considered seriously. But I'd rather see this as opportunism (arguably always justifiable trough racial mental gymnastics), not even with the pretext of an anti-colonial mantle Japanese imperialism endorsed, especially as North Africa and Near East in particular would likely (at least in a first time) serve as a bargaining chip and good behaviour prizes for subordinated countries (Spain, France, Italy) not unlike how Balkans were for Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania.