European Communist Parties With No Warsaw Pact?

[Simon]

Assume for a minute that for one reason or another - the Western Allies doing better, the Soviets worse, a combination of the two - WWII ends with western troops having liberated the Balkans and Central Europe or at least had enough of a presence in various countries that the Soviets can't install puppet regimes. Other than Poland which sitting between the USSR and GDR is Finlandised they're able to hold generally free and fair election so no creation of the satellite states or Warsaw Pact. I was wondering how do people think this might affect the various communist parties in Europe?

The first cracks in the foundations came from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and sudden reversal of the official party positions in June 1941, this then made worse by Khrushchev's On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences speech post-war. The bloody repression of the Hungarian Revolution and later the Prague Spring were the incidents that really caused splits to occur within them. Without the communist regimes of our timeline being in place though whilst the first two will be there the latter won't. So would the national parties be able to carry on for longer as cohesive groups?

 

[aurinoko]

It would depend on the parties themselves and diplomatic situations coming from the scenario you've described. PCF or PCI would have significant electoral strength without Soviet support. Whole 'Party of 75,000 martyrs" and resistance cred from the WWII would take them far in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Perhaps with limited Eastern European expansion of the Soviets, Cold War would weaken considerably in Europe, preventing "May 1947 crises" from happening?

 

[Alex Richards]

I think a big effect is going to be what takes its place.

Romania and Bulgaria for example are likely to remain monarchies where the monarch frequently meddles in government affairs, Yugoslavia will be... a bloody mess frankly and Hungary's going to be interesting.

I think it's reasonable to think that Czechoslovakia's Communists will be about as strong as the interwar period (if Carpathian Ruthenia's been annexed to the USSR that's going to serve as a bit of a black spot on their support but they'll get a boost from the resistance efforts), but Romania's communist party could end up either being suppressed or discriminated against by the government and either way becoming the main 'hard opposition' grouping against the King.

 

[The Red]

There's a lot of factors aside from the lack of a Warsaw Pact if the Soviets weren't able to advance into the Balkans and Central Europe. A lot of Communist parties enjoyed a rise in popularity, partially because of the involvement of communists in various resistance groups but also because the Soviet Union played a decisive role in defeating Germany. If the WAllies have to liberate all of Europe almost single-handedly then the Soviets and their ideology aren't going to be viewed as positively. Do Hoxha and Tito still take power in the wake of the German defeat? Does Stalin choose to help the KKE in Greece presuming there's no percentages agreement?

 

[TBS]

The key questions are first what the relationship between the West and USSR is like, second does Marshall Aid happen and third how long is the USSR the world’s only Communist state?

I can’t really see how the Cold War won’t still happen personally. The same Great Power Rivalry (tm) and need for new markets will cause similar pressures. It will just play out with the US in an even stronger position.

I’d imagine a big side effect would be less unity in the Western Allies and weaker post war reformism in Europe.

You could see France in effect breaking with the US over questions such as reparations or German and Polish rearmament (I know the OP says both would be Findlandised but I reckon they’re just too big).

Like wise without the Soviet threat being so close to home most post war Western governments could potentially bare a stronger resemblance to their pre-war conservative forbears.

On the other hand the scale of reconstruction will demand at least a brief abandonment of Laissez-faire and an ideological rational to go with it.

There is also the possibility that if US sees intra-western competition as as important as competing with the Soviets Marshal Aid and the like won’t happen. This could either lead to Moscow suggesting that the French and Italian parties abandon popular fronts and go for gold in states on the brink of mass starvation OR deepening the popular fronts as part of an attempt to break American influence in Europe. So either; repression not that different to before the war, state power/a failed suizure of state power (so shot) or the Eurocommunist process that happened IRL but likely faster.

As Red says above it would be interesting to see how much of post-war popular anti-fascism’s communist character was home grown and how much of it was the influence of global events sending shock waves back.

As for the parties themselves the amount they simply did as Moscow said, while being true, is a little over played and always applied most to the most marginal ones that are less interesting such as the CPGB or in a sense the SED.

Parties with real power in of themselves such as in Italy or Yugoslavia had either a little wiggle room even before ‘56 or eventually outright independence.

I think the lack of a ‘56 moment will mean that soviet domination of the communist world stays intact more or less until another country has a communist government even allowing for the impact of some kind of post-Stalin revisionism.

So that really depends on Revolutions in China or Western Europe in the 40s or a communist party taking the Parliamentary road successfully.

One aspect to consider there is that a US that still sees the old European powers as rivals akin to the USSR might succeed in capturing some of the national liberation movements against colonialism before the USSR does in Africa and Asia.

 

[Alex Richards]

I think the lack of ‘56 moment will mean that soviet domination of the communist world stays intact more or less untill another country has a communist government even with the impact of some kind of post Stalin revisionism.

Things were getting a bit rocky before that- the Secret Speech was already creating doubts among some of the softer factions. So we'd probably see some people splitting off and going Social Democrat, but less of a visceral collapse as OTL.

And I suppose it's quite possible that we do get a Hungary moment, it's just a different sort of one- the USSR is going to be a bit more faction prone and internally less stable, so perhaps we end up with a brief reformist period which gets bloodily deposed by hardliners?

 

[TBS]

A lot depends on the nature of post war France and Italy. It’s quite possible both would be conservative enough to mean that Eurocommunism isn’t really an option for parties constantly fighting to remain legal or to inact the sort of post war social settlement we saw IOTL.

I reckon that that politics would feel a lot more like it did before the war. Global politics is dominated by contest between capitalist states. The USSR is only ever semi recognised as member of the international community and communist parties remain just beyond the pale of acceptable politics even in counties like Italy, France and Czechoslovakia.

 

[0.42@632]

I think a big effect is going to be what takes its place.

Romania and Bulgaria for example are likely to remain monarchies where the monarch frequently meddles in government affairs, Yugoslavia will be... a bloody mess frankly and Hungary's going to be interesting.

I think it's reasonable to think that Czechoslovakia's Communists will be about as strong as the interwar period (if Carpathian Ruthenia's been annexed to the USSR that's going to serve as a bit of a black spot on their support but they'll get a boost from the resistance efforts), but Romania's communist party could end up either being suppressed or discriminated against by the government and either way becoming the main 'hard opposition' grouping against the King.

If Romania and Bulgaria remain authoritarian monarchies up to the present day, I could see republican movements forming in exile