WI: French Politics after the Sovietization of Central Europe?

[CHKeeley]

I’m wondering what would French politics look like in the 1920s and 1930s following the tried-and-true scenario of Germany going red in the aftermath of the First World War.

For the sake of the scenario, let’s say the Spartakusaufstand and similar risings are avoided in 1919/1920 and the existing workers parties preserve their strength. Following a year of uneasy dual power, the Kapp Putsch strikes and most of the SPD luminaries are murdered by putschist Freikorps. A general strike similar to the OTL one breaks out to stop the coup, and its leadership is taken over by the workers parties leading to a collapse in government and civil war. The Polish Army, caught between chaos on its western and eastern borders, cannot coordinate a response to the Soviet counteroffensive and the Red Army captures Warsaw. Subsequently, after years of fighting, German revolutionaries triumph with the assistance of the Red Army. The Rhineland is occupied by the Entente and counterrevolutionary German authority survives on the fringes of the Franco-British lines (Baden and Hessen regions). Europe is red from Frankfurt to Vladivostok by the year 1923.

What does French politics look like in the aftermath of this? With this new constellation of power, they’ll have a harder time squeezing the indemnities out of Germany than OTL and the left will be under heavy suspicion as agents of Russo-German Bolshevism. Do embittered right wing veterans organizations like the Croix-de-Feu manage to topple the Republic amidst paranoia and economic dislocation? Does the French right learn something from Italy and move to crush the trade unions? How do the dominant French social democrats react? Does antisemitism come back in a serious way and what do Maurras and the restorationist AF do? What do folks think?

 

[Jürgen]

A important question is how Red Germany and Red Russia would deal with each other. While we imagine they would have united front Communist independent power have tended to have somewhat toxic relationships with each other,

 

[omnidirectional]

I think if its Thalman or Levi from the Bavarian Soviet in charge of Red Germany, they work together with the USSR alot, since Levi was coordinating with Lenin and Thalman had Soviet ties. If its Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacists, they have a passive aggressive and not very cooperative relationship with the USSR and pursue their own agenda with limited working together and alot of ideological posturing and disagreements.

Something like fascism would become more popular in France, though without the Nazis, it would evolve differently. Maybe a Bonapartist party or Petain being put in as an authoritarian anti-communist leader. There would be more socialist and communist agitation with a Red neighbor.

 

[Imielin]

A important question is how Red Germany and Red Russia would deal with each other. While we imagine they would have united front Communist independent power have tended to have somewhat toxic relationships with each other,

Of course, they would cooperate, at least in the beginning. The success of the German revolution would make Marxist statements more true - that the revolution would occur in industrialized countries. With a more educated and political proletariat, German communism would be more democratic, even if that meant a delegate model of representation with the imperative mandate as a council democracy. By extension, Russian communism would also be changed - factory committees from the Civil War era could survive and take part in the economic planning, and Soviets could exert more power, leading to the weakening of the central organs. There could be also a chance that the Soviet Union would be an actual federation of states - including Germany, Russia, and other national republics. Still, there would a strife between German and Russian communists but Russian ones would ultimately lose. Even Russian industry would be influenced by German thought as there would be no industry left after the Civil War and Bolsheviks would be forced to import industrial stuff from Germany.

With workers of Central Europe uniting, the Western elites would be more wary of the socialist and left-wing movements in their own countries - the rise of authoritarianism is imminent, especially with the already strong French proletariat.

 

[the Imperium of Canada]

Even with potential ideological differences I'm pretty sure Soviet Russia and Germany are going to be very dependent on each other in terms of resources and Industrial aid, and of course not wanting to being encircled by hostile capitalist powers.