Effects of a post-WWI Communist Germany

[VidaLaVida]

Let's say that in the Revolution of 1918-19, immediately following defeat in WWI and the fall of the imperial government, the German Communist movement, led by the Spartacist League (and later, the KPD) had unseated the Social Democrats and triumphed in the revolution. Now, post-war Europe has not one, but TWO communist powers, Germany and Russia.

What happens from here, both internally and geopolitically? How similar or different would the domestic political, economic, and ideological policies be for the German Sparticists, compared to the Russian Bolsheviks? Speaking of them, though one would easily presume an alliance between the two, how close of an alliance would there be between communist Germany and Lenin (and after him, presumably, Stalin)? Would there be a close, stable alliance between them, or ideological splits? And what will be the reactions of Britain, France, the United States, and other world powers, both in terms of how they'll treat Germany (and the USSR), and what will happen with left-wing movements within their own countries?

 

[Red Cesar]

There used to be a great TL like this, done by Zimmerwald.

 

[deathscompanion1]

The allies sent troops to fight in Russia to stop communism.

Why wouldnt they try and halt it in a nation the are at war with and have armies already deployed and strong internal forces assisting them?

At a guess I'd say France goes further to the right as it's communists are viewed as fifth Columinsts and the Republicans win in Spain unless Britian openly supports the Nationalists.

 

[Alternate History]

Well, for one, the world revolution would survive and thrive as the conditions for it are ripe - Germany, as a highly industrialised country with a class-conscious proletariat was Soviet Russia's prime target for revolution. I would say that had Germany gone communist, the revolution would have expanded rapidly, Trotsky would have seized power in the Soviet Union instead of Stalin (which might have resulted in the democratisation of the SU, but at the very least the abandonment of state capitalism), and communism would have achieved all that it sought to achieve in that era. As for the reaction of the West... every bourgeois government would have allied to stop the communist tide, as a revolution in Germany was the worst nightmare they could have imagined. The two countries could have sent aid to the Hungarian Soviet Republic, who would have forced Entente troops out of what was Great Hungary and would have spread the revolution to Romania and Slovakia at the very least. And finally, if the Entente had tried to counterattack... well, they were already extremely war-weary and a continued war could have been a recipe for immediate communist revolution in France, Italy and the UK.

(IMO, the biggest question is in fact: how could the communists have seized power in Germany? Find the answer to that question and what I described is a given.)

 

[Jericho15]

Russia would win that feud due to Germany having a much stronger fascist insurgency being led by Adolf Hitler. If anything the instability of Germany would allow Soviet Russia to extend its reach to central europe probably bringing World War II faster but against the Axis forces of Soviet, Imperial Japan and probably not Italy due to fascist nations allying with the West, it could be maybe a Turkey? After which the War would end with Russia descending into another civil war and a cold war between the US and allies against a new powerful Fascist power of some sort.

 

[dwalters]

Great idea

I didn't read (nor can I find) the Zimmerman TL on this question.

I think it's great to explore because it is precisely the failure of the German revolution (and betrayal thereof by the SPD) that lead to two things: the rise of Hitler and German nationalism as a mass Fascist phenomenon and, the consolidation of Stalin and the bureaucracy in Soviet society that 'legitimized' the concept of Socialism in One Country and the selling out of revolutions then on (China, Germany later with Hitler, Greece, Vietnam etc after WWII).

An KPD lead Germany would of shifted the balance of power of workers revolution way to the west. In fact, instead of Germany becoming part of the USSR (after it was formed in 1922, it was seen as the embryo of a world federation of workers councils) but workers Russia becoming of communist Germany in effect with Poland squeezed into nothingness more or less.

The action would then shift to Austria (one of the largest and most left wing of the social democratic working classes of Europe", the Balkans and then onto France, Italy, Spain and even the UK. It would be a great time line to explore.

 

[dwalters]

Jericho, there would of been no "Axis" at all. Likely a new 'axis' around a counter-revolutionary France and UK, assuming France fails in overthrowing capitalism there, with a consolidated Central and Eastern European Workers Federation waging revolutionary war against all comers.

Even Japan might be effected if the Chinese Communist Party is not directed to subordinate itself to the KMT "Left Wing" and instead fights for power, it could of bottled up Japan and prevented them marching north from Korea into Manchuria.

 

[Henriksson]

Russia would win that feud due to Germany having a much stronger fascist insurgency being led by Adolf Hitler.

Oh, come on. Why would Hitler even be a fascist in this TL? Godwin's Law of Time Travel?

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Well, there would now be two Communist powers competing over the number 1 spot in the Commie club.

 

[Rich Rostrom]

A KPD lead Germany would of shifted the balance of power of workers revolution way to the west. In fact, instead of Germany becoming part of the USSR (after it was formed in 1922, it was seen as the embryo of a world federation of workers councils) but workers Russia becoming of communist Germany in effect with Poland squeezed into nothingness more or less.

British historian and novelist Constantine Fitzgibbon had a very interesting anecdote in the autobiographical introduction to his essay collection Random Notes of a Fascist Hyena. (Fitzgibbon was an anti-Communist socialist, and the author of When the Kissing Had To Stop, a fictional depiction of a hypothetical Soviet occupation of Britain. Naturally, he was savagely denounced by the USSR and its satellites and sympathizers, and was called a... you guessed it.)

In the 1930s, Fitzgibbon was a teenager, and studied for a while in Germany (where he mostly read Marxism, oddly). One night, while he was drinking beer in a corner tavern, a young SS officer struck up a conversation. The SS man said that he had recently returned from the USSR, where he had been "spying out the land". He spoke Russian, he said. He stunned Fitzgibbon by lavishly praising the power of the Soviet government and its great industrial and military works. He even said it was a pity Germany had not gone Communist. Fitzgibbon asked how a Nazi could possibly support a socialist system. The SS man replied that economic theories were for intellectuals - power was what really mattered. Communist Germany would naturally unite with the USSR, and being the stronger would dominate the alliance. With the combined resources of Germany and Russia - morgen die ganze Welt.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

I doubt the Entente would have allowed Germany to go communist. A communist coup would probably lead to a bloody civil war, with Britain, France, Italy and perhaps even Poland supporting anyone whose not commie.

Should communism prevail, which I personally doubt, the Netherlands where the next to fall, just google Troelstra's Folly, possibly followed by Austria and Hungary. This would put pressure on Czechoslovakia and Poland etc. I doubt France or Britain would fall, but both would go throubh a horrible Red Scare.

 

[blindgoose]

It butterflies Stalin. It removes the need for the NEP, and presumably shortens the Russian Civil War, saving more of the leadership of the Bolsheviks from war deaths. It also assists Russia in industrializing and over all, reduces the hardship which naturally followed in OTL from a massive and long lasting civil war. I'd say it also leads to more intense Red Scares in other capitalist countries and the earlier consolidation of Eastern Europe, and likely Southern Europe (Biennio Rosso), into a communist bloc which challenges the capitalist powers for superiority more effectively. We could very well see much more brutal crackdowns on radical movements, and in turn, perhaps more radicalization.

 

[Living in Exile]

The allies sent troops to fight in Russia to stop communism.

Why wouldnt they try and halt it in a nation the are at war with and have armies already deployed and strong internal forces assisting them?

At a guess I'd say France goes further to the right as it's communists are viewed as fifth Columinsts and the Republicans win in Spain unless Britian openly supports the Nationalists.

The Allies can't defeat a Germany that has solidly gone Communist. Presuming this all happens after the Armistice, there's just no way. The Americans might well pack up and leave. France has no soldiers willing to fight World War One Mk. Two. France is way more left wing than Germany was at that point. Any protracted war would simply lead to left-wing overthrow of France's government. Already iOTL you found Allied soldiers refusing to fight the Bolsheviks.

If the Allies forcefully try to crush the Communists, they ruin any chance they have of 'winning the peace' so to speak. No matter the internal dissent between who gets to lead the newly formed Communist bloc, Russia and Germany will present a united front against the West, undermining the influences of Versailles or whatever alternate peace is made. Central Europe will be dominated by the Communists. France probably buckles under the pressure and goes red itself. It all really depends on the USA. Great Britain could possibly seek the Napoleonic/WWII version of resigning itself to years of wars, nibbling at the edges, but that can't work long term without allies. The United States is probably capable of marching from Normandy to Moscow across war torn Europe, and possibly willing. The Red Scares were pretty bad.

Anyway, if the United States doesn't unite with an anti-communist crusade immediately post-war, the world is completely Red or radioactively glowing by the 50s.

 

[Killer300]

The US won't join an Anti-Communist crusade. Why?

War Exhaustion. The US populace will not tolerate another war after World War 1, not with the amount of people killed, and they would practically have to do all the heavy lifting themselves.

 

[MSZ]

Well for starters, if communists seize power in Germany in 1919, they would still have to wage a bloody civil war to gain control of the country. It's not like every German would just fold to the reds ASAP. So that automatically reduces any type of influence a communist Germany could have - it would be too bled out to do anything.

Another part is the fact that just as the Allies weren't happy about Russia going red, they also aren't likely to to just accept Germany doing that - in fact, they are actually more likely to want to prevent that, if only due to geographic distance to it. That they would want the Germans to pay reperations is another, as well as having it keep a small military. A communist revolt would be just the thing France would need to establish its desired Rheinish Republic as a puppet state, and for Poland to get Upper Silesia and Danzig without the Germans protesting. And without those industrial areas, Germany is significantly weaker.

Next - just because communists win in Germany doesn't mean a Russo-German alliance must arise immediately. The two countries are seperate, facing different challenges, and with communism showing its first signs of failure 1 - 2 years tops after the revolution, they are more likely to start competing with each other for "domination in the communist world", Berlin denouncing the NEP or Stalinism as "vulgarisation of communism by opportunists" or something like that, and vice versa.

So Communist Germany leading to a German-Russian union, or even communist dominated central Europe is very unlikely - the countries between them really didn't like it, and if Germany tried to move across the 1914 border after signing the armistice, France would ensure it goes back and abides by the Versailles provisions. Neiyher would want the other to be too successful, so as not to claim the prestige. Without Germany being the seen as a "bulwark against communism", its much more likely France, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary claim that title to ensure the two communist giants don't unite. Rapallo-grade collaboration will come sooner though.

I imagine that ideological splits between the two would occur early enough, if only due to the fact that Germany was an industrial, while Russia an agrarian society. Being formerly a federation, the Union of German Soviet Republics has a chance at being less centralized, the central committee not being Prussian-dominated. And IIRC Germany was a net importer of food both before and after the war - that is something that would have to lead to a much different land reform and collectivisation.

 

[Maponus]

A unbelievable bloodbath that ends in the majority of the KDP members being shot, and a right-wing government raising the black flags of reaction over the mass graves while Social Democracy twiddles it's thumbs and watches (or screaming in terror as both sides start to murder it). You'd only need moral support from the West, Germany's anti-Communists easily adapted themselves to mass politics and know how to handle a gun much better than their Communist counterparts, who'd spent most of the war in jail.

Germany has too large and politically aggressive a Bourgeoise to ever stay Communist for more than a year or more, and the mass of workers weren't interested in Communism expect as a way of expressing their desire for social reform. Germany's Labour Movement was mostly Christian and Social Democratic. This isn't Russia or China where the Marxists can rely on swarms of conscripted peasants to fight it's battles against an incompetent elite. Even if it's possible for the Communists to do better, even then only if they find some way to co-opt the Social Democratic political machine to their own ends, it's only a matter of time before they are all masscred or exiled.

This would probably butterfly Nazism as we know it. Instead, we likely get a Freikrop dominated state based on a heady mix of old style Monarchism and the Conservative Revolutionary ideology from which Nazism plagiarised it's more inteliigent soundbites.

Oh, come on. Why would Hitler even be a fascist in this TL?

Read Hitler's Vienna. Hitler's political views were formed as a result of his pre-war exposure to Pan-German and Social Christian right-wing ideologies. WWI only confirmed his anti-semiticism and increased his vehement dislike of Social Democracy, his disgust with parliament (which he apparently liked in theory but was put off by Austro-Hungary's dysfunctional and immature parliamentary debates) and his loathing of "Slavdom".

 

[Juan Valdez]

Well, I don't think German could remain communist as IIRC, there wasn't so much support for the KPD in OTL. But let's say this TL's DDR managed to survive, with the Soviet Union (if it forms, TTL, which I think is likely) in the same camp, Eastern Europe will definitely become Red at some point or another.

 

[Aelita]

Rather than a nascent KPD topplling the SPD, it would be more plausible to have Ebert and the Social Democrats pushed towards revolutionary methods out of necessity. Have the right begin a German civil war after the Armistice would be the most plausible, forcing Ebert's government to rely on the militancy of urban workers in the Spartakusbund and other revolutionary groups as a power base, ultimately forcing them into diplomatic aligntment with the Bolsheviks and support for revolutionary measures and a council republic at home.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Rather than a nascent KPD topplling the SPD, it would be more plausible to have Ebert and the Social Democrats pushed towards revolutionary methods out of necessity. Have the right begin a German civil war after the Armistice would be the most plausible, forcing Ebert's government to rely on the militancy of urban workers in the Spartakusbund and other revolutionary groups as a power base, ultimately forcing them into diplomatic aligntment with the Bolsheviks and support for revolutionary measures and a council republic at home.

Which is basically how the October Revolution happened; the moderate leftists unleashed the far-leftists to counter a far-right threat.