WI: Communist America, Cold War between two flavors of Communism (American Western and Soviet Eastern)

[lerk]

A common right-wing talking point is that the Cold War was merely a struggle between two opposing leftist factions. What if that was true? What if the Western bloc countries all adhered to one form of Communism and the Eastern bloc countries adhered to another? How will this impact religion (what with Rome being in the hands of Communist Italy and there being few non-Communist European countries), the third world (where the more religiously conservative populations would oppose Communism) etc. How will this competition look like? How will it end? What about right-wing anti-communists from both sides?

 

[Nyvis]

Trotskyism seems like the best prospect for an anti soviet western left. Though some kind of USSR critical left communism might work too.

I think the point about the third world being anticommunist out of religious conservatism is a bit overstated though. What matters a lot more there is how the dominos of empire fell, or if any of the European powers tried to cling to theirs even through revolution. Third world countries are likely to end up in the orbit of whoever supported their decolonization the hardest.

 

[Catalunya]

I’ve been exploring a Trotskyist America vs USSR scenario for a while now, and always have America take the non-communist powers, like the UK and France, under it’s wing in the fight against degenerated Russian communism.

 

[Nyvis]

I'm reminded of the fact this was the original plot for Reds! but the writers went back on it because they figured out the existence of the kind of movement capable of bringing communism to America would derail the isolationist trend in the USSR that made Stalin so dominant.

But if we go with a slightly later American revolution, it makes the USSR's degeneration more irreversible and Trotskyism more antagonistic so that probably works better.

I really wouldn't put the European empires under the US' wing though.The US always had at the very least a hypocritical pretense of an anti imperialist stance (even if it was a budding empire of its own). I think you can build on that. Meanwhile, Stalin had a tendency to seek accommodations with the liberal order as part of socialism in one country, especially with his reliance on the wallies to survive WW2.

I think you can engineer a world were trotskyism absorbs elements of OTL Castro and Che Guevara and blames the stalinist USSR for being too kind on the empires, while the USSR is mostly concerned with making inroads into European diplomacy through its satellite communist parties, who had some pretty decent performances OTL and were only irrelevant due to being cordoned off.

Cue trotskyists declaring popular fronts the instrument of the revisionist imperialists while European communist parties support Empire on grounds of "development".

If you want it to end up with a two blocs cold war, you can throw in Maoist China siding with the US, and you have a Maoist - Trotskyist block against an social democratic imperialism - stalinism (they're the same thing with extra steps) block.

 

[Catalunya]

I'm reminded of the fact this was the original plot for Reds! but the writers went back on it because they figured out the existence of the kind of movement capable of bringing communism to America would derail the isolationist trend in the USSR that made Stalin so dominant.

But if we go with a slightly later American revolution, it makes the USSR's degeneration more irreversible and Trotskyism more antagonistic so that probably works better.

I really wouldn't put the European empires under the US' wing though.The US always had at the very least a hypocritical pretense of an anti imperialist stance (even if it was a budding empire of its own). I think you can build on that. Meanwhile, Stalin had a tendency to seek accommodations with the liberal order as part of socialism in one country, especially with his reliance on the wallies to survive WW2.

I think you can engineer a world were trotskyism absorbs elements of OTL Castro and Che Guevara and blames the stalinist USSR for being too kind on the empires, while the USSR is mostly concerned with making inroads into European diplomacy through its satellite communist parties, who had some pretty decent performances OTL and were only irrelevant due to being cordoned off.

Cue trotskyists declaring popular fronts the instrument of the revisionist imperialists while European communist parties support Empire on grounds of "development".

If you want it to end up with a two blocs cold war, you can throw in Maoist China siding with the US, and you have a Maoist - Trotskyist block against an social democratic imperialism - stalinism (they're the same thing with extra steps) block.

Another alternative is having a The Way the Wind Blows type scenario where the US goes communist in the 70s, and you have a New Left America that opposes what it sees as authoritarian communism.

 

[Lilitou]

I'm reminded of the fact this was the original plot for Reds! but the writers went back on it because they figured out the existence of the kind of movement capable of bringing communism to America would derail the isolationist trend in the USSR that made Stalin so dominant.

But if we go with a slightly later American revolution, it makes the USSR's degeneration more irreversible and Trotskyism more antagonistic so that probably works better.

I really wouldn't put the European empires under the US' wing though.The US always had at the very least a hypocritical pretense of an anti imperialist stance (even if it was a budding empire of its own). I think you can build on that. Meanwhile, Stalin had a tendency to seek accommodations with the liberal order as part of socialism in one country, especially with his reliance on the wallies to survive WW2.

I think you can engineer a world were trotskyism absorbs elements of OTL Castro and Che Guevara and blames the stalinist USSR for being too kind on the empires, while the USSR is mostly concerned with making inroads into European diplomacy through its satellite communist parties, who had some pretty decent performances OTL and were only irrelevant due to being cordoned off.

Cue trotskyists declaring popular fronts the instrument of the revisionist imperialists while European communist parties support Empire on grounds of "development".

If you want it to end up with a two blocs cold war, you can throw in Maoist China siding with the US, and you have a Maoist - Trotskyist block against an social democratic imperialism - stalinism (they're the same thing with extra steps) block.

You've created the EUSSR. Early 2010s Eurosceptics furiously typing.

Joking apart I think this is quite interesting. You hit a lot of the same story beats as IRL in this timeline, interestingly, with an "Only Bronstein could go to China", but I think this kind of Very Unique Soviet-dominated Europe is generally an interesting thing to explore. I'm imagining it's a sliding scale between the entire continent being Finlandised and the kind of immediate post-WW2 Soviet Friendship shtick just sorta lasting indefinitely.

 

[Nyvis]

You've created the EUSSR. Early 2010s Eurosceptics furiously typing.

Joking apart I think this is quite interesting. You hit a lot of the same story beats as IRL in this timeline, interestingly, with an "Only Bronstein could go to China", but I think this kind of Very Unique Soviet-dominated Europe is generally an interesting thing to explore. I'm imagining it's a sliding scale between the entire continent being Finlandised and the kind of immediate post-WW2 Soviet Friendship shtick just sorta lasting indefinitely.

I think the material is here. Immediately post WW2, European communist parties were ascendant in enough European countries to swing it, and they weren't as isolated from potential political allies as they would become once the cold war kicked in and events like the repression in Hungary made them inconvenient to associate with. A soviet analysis that sees this as their best bet for the future seem reasonable.

And of course a lot of those parties retained a blinkered attitude towards their own countries' empires.

France is probably the linchpin in this.

I'm imagining a soviet aligned Europe but not one it directly rules. It doesn't really have the reach to extend the Warsaw Pact to the Atlantic by force, but political systems dominated by communist parties with deep ties to the soviets could still build a self reinforcing political block.

 

[BBadolato]

I'm not sure you can even get a 'Cold War' as we know it in any remote sense, not even the hallmark tropes. America by the end of WW 2 really was just hoping for things to go back to 'normal'. Same with the Soviets give or take occupation the of Eastern Europe. Also, there's an issue with the fact the U.S without a political system to make an issue of out the 'OTL' Cold War with voters, might not be foreign policy oriented at times as the OTL Cold War U.S was.

A world where the U.S is Communist, could just see the Cold War as the Sino-Soviet split, basically two Communist nations jockeying for influence with other nations. But here's the thing, those other nations made calculated decisions on who to support and to what degree. IF the USSR and U.S don't really provide them all that much they could just tell both them to go gent bent and call it a day. Mind you I'm coming at this from the mindset of, I don't think the Cold War as we know it happened until the Korean War, when the OTL was pulled from the idea that they could just let things be as they were.

 

[frittering]

It's much easier to imagine a path where the Socialist Party is more centralized and organized on the ground outside of its urban and mining strongholds starting from the turn of the century and becomes electorally feasible on the state and later federal levels in the 1910s than one for CPUSA, which had a much more diffuse base and only genuine strength in a handful of rural counties where it was strongly organized or demographics were sympathetic for idiosyncratic reasons. A USA where the Socialist Party is dominant would have its own tensions with the USSR, given the skepticism or outright disdain of many in its ranks (or who could conceivably be in its ranks were it stronger) of the Bolsheviks and strong support for it or its later affiliates/splinters ('24 and '48 Progressive Parties, Nonpartisan League, American Labor Party) from Jews and German-Americans. Given the Socialists' strong isolationist orientation, however–informed by both leftist pacifism and said Germans' desire for non-confrontation with the home country–it most likely wouldn't be a world power.

 

[Nyvis]

It's much easier to imagine a path where the Socialist Party is more centralized and organized on the ground outside of its urban and mining strongholds starting from the turn of the century and becomes electorally feasible on the state and later federal levels in the 1910s than one for CPUSA, which had a much more diffuse base and only genuine strength in a handful of rural counties where it was strongly organized or demographics were sympathetic for idiosyncratic reasons. A USA where the Socialist Party is dominant would have its own tensions with the USSR, given the skepticism or outright disdain of many in its ranks (or who could conceivably be in its ranks were it stronger) of the Bolsheviks and strong support for it or its later affiliates/splinters ('24 and '48 Progressive Parties, Nonpartisan League, American Labor Party) from Jews and German-Americans. Given the Socialists' strong isolationist orientation, however–informed by both leftist pacifism and said Germans' desire for non-confrontation with the home country–it most likely wouldn't be a world power.

On the other hand, a Socialist Party led USA would be rising early enough to derail developments in the soviet union and third internationale enough to change things there, I expect. I also doubt the viability of an independent CPUSA in its presence so a lot of figures who were less critical of the soviet project are probably also still in the party. So you can't entirely go off of OTL tensions even if I agree they won't align neatly.

It's worth remembering that the early soviet leadership was quite desperate for socialist allies in more economically developed countries, before giving up on that prospect with the failure of German revolutionaries. OTL, they didn't have much hope for the US, but TTL they should see it coming.

One possibility is to play up the isolationism and pacifism as a poor substitute for internationalism, which lead to American socialists misreading the build up to WW2 and the soviets being scarred by the lack of support against Germany. Followed by different visions for postwar Europe once the shock of WW2 breaks the socialist US from its isolation?