Could the Depression-era USA have fallen into Communism?

[Silencer]

So the recent literary thread and watching documentaries on altenative history got me to recall a story, "Buran Blows From the Far Side" by Jarek Grzędowicz. The premise: A middle-class city Russian goes on a vacation in a friend's forest cabin, and as a harsh Siberian storm is about to cut him off from civilisation, he stumbles upon a derelict, battered man, who is about to freeze to death. After the man is rescued into the cabin, he reveals that he is an escapee from a "gulag" - a death camp, and begs not to turn him in to the authorities. Of course, the mystery man is clearly insane or deceived, as there are no "death camps" in the Republic of Russia - although there are rumours of those in Alaska, the northernmost of the Unites Workers' States of America...

You get the drift. (And don't bother, there's no English edition of that one)

So, American and Russian history buffs, it's gotten me thinking: What would have needed to happen for communism not to erupt in Russian Empire as the October Revolution, but rather in the United States as a Second Socialist American Revolution? For Russia to become a capitalistic superpower, and America a "Red Hell on Earth"?

Here's some hooks: Obviously, it would have helped if Peter Stolypin wasn't assassinated and drove the socioeconomic reforms further, the Tsar would have adopted a constitution in the British vein, and Russia would have stayed out of the bloodbath of WWI, or if it had managed to win the Battle of Allenstein and threaten the Central Powers sufficiently that they might have sued for peace, surrendering territories in Poland, Silesia and Alfold, and agreeing not to contest Russian influence in the Balkans.

Oh, and you'd probably have to take the Japanese threat out of the equation somehow. Perhaps Russian concessions in the Far East would have secured a peace with Japan and enabled them to concentrate on the European front?

I didn't account for the communist leaders, but I just assume that without an economic downturn, war weariness and losses, and the Tsar's "rule of one" they could not, in fact, have mustered enough support for a coup.

So, now that Russia's future looks prosperous and bright, onto the USA. I imagine that the war in the Western Europe might not have ended by 1918 if the Germans didn't have a second front to tend to - though eventually the German economy would still collapse - causing a greater loss of life on part of the intervening U.S. military, and causing the disgruntled American veterans to be more in number and a greater social issue than they were in reality. And a more immediate one. Just like the demobilised soldiers were in Revolution-era Russia.

For the sake of the argument let's assume that there is still an armistice and a "Roaring Twenties" period, although I don't want to go into the details, I'm fairly sure that Russia, being a superpower by now and a neutral party to the WWI belligerents of Western Europe gets a prominent position in the League of Nations, taking up headquarters in Moscow, which supersedes the Imperial District of Sankt-Petersburg as an economic and cultural heart of Russia.

Now, I still need a Great Depression to strike, because I need an event in the USA that would be as demoralising, as devastating, and as order-shattering as the lost war was for the Russian Empire, to foster enough discontent within the populace to revolt. Take away Roosevelt's New Deal. Let's put a U.S. President in the office who would be weak, complacent, and willing to try and protect the interests of rich moguls and tycoons over Average Joe's. I wonder if it is enough to assume Hoover's reign would be disastrous enough, or maybe we'd need another politician to wreck the economy further and make the populace really desperate. Add to that the worker strikes that weren't uncommon in the USA then, and you've got revolutionary havoc brewing under the hood.

I'm not sure how the Great Depression in the USA would be affected by the presence of a rich Russia, which could effectively buy the States economy out of the crisis... Unless of course the shrewd Russian businessmen simply considered it too risky.

We will also need a suitable leader for the communist revolution; Daniel DeLeon would have long been dead by then, plus, he wasn't really big on an armed rebellion. So who else could that have been - Alex Howat? William Forster? An émigré Lenin?

Now, I might have gotten some hard-boiled, democracy-loving, roof-climbing, gun-wielding, militia-forming Americans' blood seething, or I might have gotten some Russian supremacists' hopes up, but let's remember this thread is not about pushing some political, ideological or nationalistic point, this is about a thought exercise, PODs and "whatifs".

Discuss.

 

[TheGM]

The biggest obstacle here is a easy one to point out.

Jesus.

Americans love us some Jesus.

Godless Commies on the other hand don't care much for the guy.

The Republican Party destroys the economy in one way or an other every 15-20 years but it never made people think that capitalism might not be all it is cracked up to be, and that is because of Jesus.

So then what you would have to do is think about is how would America go the way of most of Europe and start to ignore Jesus for this hypothetical situation to get off the ground.

 

[plaidchuck]

Doubt it would have happened either way. In the US as a country we can barely agree on the most simplest and mundane things. The country is simply too big and while we all speak the same language practically each town is its own little culture and country. I don't know if you're american, but if not and you've never been here, we're not the white bread homogeneous cookie cutter cut outs that hollywood seems to project to the rest of the world.

That being said, here I could never see any movement being able to be organized enough to overthrow the government due to what I've already mentioned.

However, I would say from 1910-30 anarchy and communism became as popular as they were going to be and the country was becoming very progressive, but wwII and the cold war killed all that with the "you're with us or against us" black and white thinking and propaganda.

 

[Jebus]

Here's some hooks: Obviously, it would have helped if Peter Stolypin wasn't assassinated and drove the socioeconomic reforms further, the Tsar would have adopted a constitution in the British vein, and Russia would have stayed out of the bloodbath of WWI, or if it had managed to win the Battle of Allenstein and threaten the Central Powers sufficiently that they might have sued for peace, surrendering territories in Poland, Silesia and Alfold, and agreeing not to contest Russian influence in the Balkans.

Oh, and you'd probably have to take the Japanese threat out of the equation somehow. Perhaps Russian concessions in the Far East would have secured a peace with Japan and enabled them to concentrate on the European front?

I didn't account for the communist leaders, but I just assume that without an economic downturn, war weariness and losses, and the Tsar's "rule of one" they could not, in fact, have mustered enough support for a coup.

Maybe the communists wouldn't have come to power if the Tsar's regime would've been slightly more competent, but I don't think Russia could in any concieveable way have come anything close to a wealthy democratic society from where it was under Nicholas II. I think you're underestimating the incredible corruption and incompetence on almost all levels of Tsarist society, and the rampant ignorance and illiteracy among the vast majority of the population. Frankly, Tsarist society needed a bloody revolution - where everybody connected in any way the regime had to die - in order to get anywhere in the first place. It turned out to be the communists who actually did it, which is, as usual, tough luck for the Russians.
However, the fact that Russia is today still basically a backwards state with autocratic rule and a mostly ignorant and violent society, held from drowning solely by its exports of gas and oil, demonstrates to me that there's no way they could've achieved anything resembling the USA in the 20th century.

The biggest obstacle here is a easy one to point out.

Jesus.

Americans love us some Jesus.

Godless Commies on the other hand don't care much for the guy.

The Republican Party destroys the economy in one way or an other every 15-20 years but it never made people think that capitalism might not be all it is cracked up to be, and that is because of Jesus.

So then what you would have to do is think about is how would America go the way of most of Europe and start to ignore Jesus for this hypothetical situation to get off the ground.

You're wrong.
Russian society was, especially in the early 20th century, way, way, WAAAY more religious than the USA has ever been. As I mentioned before, they were a nation of ignorant and illiterate peasants.

Doubt it would have happened either way. In the US as a country we can barely agree on the most simplest and mundane things. The country is simply too big and while we all speak the same language practically each town is its own little culture and country. I don't know if you're american, but if not and you've never been here, we're not the white bread homogeneous cookie cutter cut outs that hollywood seems to project to the rest of the world.

That being said, here I could never see any movement being able to be organized enough to overthrow the government due to what I've already mentioned.

It's a mistake to think that the Communists in Russia in 1917 were in any way big, organised and popular enough to even be considered a natural representative of the people. Basically, they were a fringe movement unknown to the utter majority of the people (like a peasant was to know what Marxism was), and grabbed power by manipulating key army units through populist propaganda. Also, they were basically very lucky.
Not to mention that the Russian empire was, if anything, way less homogenous that the USA was/is. Not only was there a vast gulf between the classes in society, it was also compromised of dozens of nationalities that had nothing whatsoever in common with eachother: the differences between Poles and Russians and Khazakhs and Mongol-Uighur steppe nomads, to give but a small example, are vastly larger than even the differences between a New York anglo-saxon citizen and a small town American farmer and a Mexican illegal immigrant are.

To get to the topic: I don't think a communist coup would've succeeded in the USA the way it did in Russia, no. A more mensjevik-like version of socialism might've taken root - there was a large socialist movement in some regions after all - but I don't think many Americans would've put up with the kind of bloody dictatorship the Russians did. The Russians were, after all, too ignorant and brownbeaten to organise the kind of democratic counter-movement that I would expect would form in a more advanced society. Especially if this dictatorial movement grabbed power though utterly non-democratic means.

 

[TheGM]

You're wrong.
Russian society was, especially in the early 20th century, way, way, WAAAY more religious than the USA has ever been. As I mentioned before, they were a nation of ignorant and illiterate peasants.

So Russia = America now? And How em I wrong that the only thing stopping America from being over run by the red menace is Jesus?

also.

You got Worked.

 

[4too]

Divide And Conquer Verses Cut A Deal

Divide And Conquer Verses Cut A Deal




Allow some industrial trade and labor unions.

Allow those industries that can afford a stable labor pool better wages and work conditions.

Bleed white the mass labor unions.

Divide and conquer. Diffuse the Marxist 'timer' in the proletariat powder keg.

Openly discussed in Iron Heel published in 1908.

Here is my introduction to socialist literature by Jack London, better known States-side for adventure stories.

A hard leaning narration @ http://archive.org/details/iron_heel_1007_librivox

An earnest striving driven audio performance.

Starts familiarly like muckraking social expose novels of the period, BUT, the narrative lead is soooo certain. Very winning. Seductive.

When, when the voice got to 'after' political control changed, I got a cold chill.

Jack London died before the Russian Revolution of 1917 (and ever-never onward).

Had no idea what would be done, in the name of the people.


@ Silencer

Scan through some of the muckraking literature from the 19th Century and see if your "WHAT IF" can key off a failure to cut a deal on the road called "The Rights Of Man".

American political ability to get along has an under ^lying^ fairness because it's done in a business like fashion.

Leave present disdain of "compromise" to the ideologues, the pure power mongers, Big Brother Wanna-bees.

The business of real life, buying a car, a house, shopping for the lower price isn't a do or die political act.

In this world wide consumer economy, the open market place, it is life. Accept no substitutes.

Americans cut deals.

Seek the "What If" that derails that …. might find your track to a parallel history Red America,

Railroad and bank monopolies in the 19th Century Great Plains fermented the success of countering socialist political parties in those states.
Seek where power and privilege grasps for 'the divine right of kings' and you may have the dysfunctional Imperial Russian similarities.
Maybe the stimulus...
in the sea to sea strip mall, monopolizing under the sunny glare of one true FOX NEWS America declines into the once and future ! WAL-MART NA-TION !
What is the response ... besides a 6000 calorie a day comfort food diet ...


////////////////

Iron Heel is a utopian / dystopian novel, seen as a precursor to Orwell's 1984.

While London got the 'winner' in the sh-t fight for total power askew,
some of the details are fascinating, almost sci fi,
armored vehicles and auto fire rifles envisioned years before WW One.

It's the 'pet' or domesticated labor unions that may be your key to your "Brave New" Parallel Dystopia.






4too

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Interesting topic you created Silencer, a lot like an idea I had a while ago; what if Russia instead if the US had been the symbol of the free West?

 

[Silencer]

Maybe the communists wouldn't have come to power if the Tsar's regime would've been slightly more competent, but I don't think Russia could in any concieveable way have come anything close to a wealthy democratic society from where it was under Nicholas II. I think you're underestimating the incredible corruption and incompetence on almost all levels of Tsarist society (...) basically a backwards state with autocratic rule and a mostly ignorant and violent society, held from drowning solely by its exports of gas and oil,

OK, so take away the autocratic rule, and leave the gas and oil exports. The riches are still there, waiting to be exploited and sold to the entire world without the obstacle of being viewed as a backwards, totalitarian dictatorship.

Frankly, Tsarist society needed a bloody revolution - where everybody connected in any way the regime had to die - in order to get anywhere in the first place.

I don't think that there are many instances of "everybody connected to the regime dying", much less "everybody connected to the regime dying and the country getting somewhere" simply because you lose too much human capital in the process.

OK, so let me revise this - I think that some bloodletting among the Russian elites might have been in order, but nothing more destructive than the February Revolution itself, with the bloody home war averted precisely because enough connected people managed to make the right decisions at the right time.

Doubt it would have happened either way. In the US as a country we can barely agree on the most simplest and mundane things. (...) we're not the white bread homogeneous cookie cutter cut outs that hollywood seems to project to the rest of the world.

Yet the "melting pot" of 1930's America is easily (out)matched the diversity of tsarist Russia, with their Russians, immigrant White Lower-Saxon Protestants (lol), Jews, Poles, more Germans, Tatars, Caucasians (the actual ones born in the Kaukaz) and native Siberians in their reservations. And yet, a handful of obdurate Communists managed to bring this vast country under their heel.

So are you saying "It couldn't happen here"?

Remember, Americans are actually quite big on the whole "Power to (we,) the people" concept. It would take a big drop in the popularity of government (which could happen if it was considered to be siding with the "banks" and "big business", ring a bell?) and a sharp decline in the efficiency of the American political process, which, despite being carried out according to a manual two hundred years old, is quite good at preventing people from open rebellion to prove their political points. But if the government was perceived as corrupted, the trade union criminalized, the civil liberties curtailed... who knows?

And they don't have to convert to Communism all at once, there's lots of room for Red Americans fighting to the death with Red State Americans

American political ability to get along has an under ^lying^ fairness because it's done in a business like fashion.

Leave present disdain of "compromise" to the ideologues, the pure power mongers, Big Brother Wanna-bees.

The business of real life, buying a car, a house, shopping for the lower price isn't a do or die political act.

In this world wide consumer economy, the open market place, it is life. Accept no substitutes.

Americans cut deals.

What if there were nothing more to cut deals over in the crisis? Hell, the Chinese are civil and obedient business-people, but it didn't stop them from having a bloody revolution once things got rough.

and the rampant ignorance and illiteracy among the vast majority of the population

Sounds liek America lol j/k <3

 

[Crni Vuk]

only the naive think there are no rich people in a communistic state. There will always be people with power and those without. Not to mention "true" communism was never really used either. It was always a form of it, leninism, stalinism, maoism. Call it what you want. But its hard to get the feeling that anyone really achieved the true communism here. The kind of politics those states followed has been always quite different to the ideals of Marx.

I doubt this would be different in the US. They would sure go with their own unique system or form of "communism". Something that works with the culture there and or the politicians. All hypothetically speaking. I doubt that communism has a real chance in the US.

 

[Jebus]

OK, so take away the autocratic rule, and leave the gas and oil exports. The riches are still there, waiting to be exploited and sold to the entire world without the obstacle of being viewed as a backwards, totalitarian dictatorship.

I doubt that, even without the autocratic rule, late 19th or early 20th century Russian economy and democratic politics would've amounted to much, as the country lacked much of the civil society and entrepeneurship needed to from a country anything like the USA or much of Europe was/is. Removing dictatorial regimes doesn't automatically create a prosperous, democtratic society if the society itself is not educated enough to make it so. That's pretty much the reason why Western European countries and Japan are, as far as I know, the only countries where the removal of dictatorial regimes led quickly to prosperous, democratic societies without much danger for 'relapse'. Just look at Afghanistan - a country where the common 'citizen' is at about the same level (probably even better) than the average Russian 'citizen' was 100 years ago - to see what happens if you try and make the same thing happen in a backwards society. Societies without much plurality, educated populace and individualism just can't handle it: every ideology falls into an intellectual vacuum where it immediately dogmatises and leads to strife and/or new dictatorships because of populism. It's a recurring theme throughout history.

Frankly, Tsarist society needed a bloody revolution - where everybody connected in any way the regime had to die - in order to get anywhere in the first place.

I don't think that there are many instances of "everybody connected to the regime dying", much less "everybody connected to the regime dying and the country getting somewhere" simply because you lose too much human capital in the process.

OK, so let me revise this - I think that some bloodletting among the Russian elites might have been in order, but nothing more destructive than the February Revolution itself, with the bloody home war averted precisely because enough connected people managed to make the right decisions at the right time.

The Russian revolution was doomed to end up in a dictatorship, even if it weren't for the Communists. Just like Russia and most of the former Soviet Union (i.e. the former Soviet Republics where there wasn't the civil society I spoke of in my previous point) were doomed to end up in relative dictatorships after the fall of the Soviet Union. Do you think it's a coincidence that, say, Poland and the Czech Republic ended up as democracies while, say, Khazachstan and Kyrgyzstan ended up as dictatorships?

and the rampant ignorance and illiteracy among the vast majority of the population

Sounds liek America lol j/k <3

Well, no, it's nowhere comparable. It's really hard to imagine just how ignorant and isolated the average Russian 'citizens' where at the beginning of the 1900's. A good example is that, for instance, a lot of the villagers wondered in 1914 why they would have to fight for their country, since "We've got nothing here the Germans would want, and Germany is sooo far off they'd never want to come over here anyway..."
They didn't even have an idea of what principles like sovereignity, answerability, democracy, statehood or citizenship even meant, so how would people like that even function in a non-dictatorial society? Even the most redneck of rednecks in the USA is nowhere near the level of abject poverty, ignorance and downtrodden-ness the average Russian 'citizen' was.

 

[Courier]

 

[The_Noob]

The US government wouldn't ever agree to be anything but a trade-off oligarchy with democractic republic style laws, ever.

If they can't agree on a sentence of suggestions any president ever spits out, they certainly wouldn't agree on suddenly shitting on the Constitution they so adore and try on the newest political fad, thus ruining it before Russia could.

 

[Silencer]

Just look at Afghanistan

Russia has oil, gas, iron and great spaces which could easily have been developed as well as U.S. with its interior, with the right management.

Afghanistan can at best be the #1 supplier of rocks.

the country lacked much of the civil society and entrepeneurship needed to from a country anything like the USA or much of Europe was/is

I agree, BUT... why not import enterpreneurship from abroad, just like the USA did, and just like Russia was doing, albeit on a small scale, since at least Catherine the Great in XVIII century.

Do you think it's a coincidence that, say, Poland and the Czech Republic ended up as democracies while, say, Khazachstan and Kyrgyzstan ended up as dictatorships?

Polish Republic and Czech Republic have a rich tradition of sejms, rallys and compacts under independent medieval kingdoms, Austro-Hungarian parliamentary monarchy, then finally again independent interbellum republics.

Kazachstan and Kirgistan have a tradition of Temujin, Kubilai, Janybek, Stalin, and possibly Conan the Barbarian making pyramids of the heads of his enemies, to the lamentations of their women.

On the other hand, this "Japan" that you speak of, Miko, had had a tradition of a military shogunate, and was largely secular up till the middle of XIX century.

Courier: I'd like a version with 48 hammers and sickles better.

 

[mobucks]

But... there are 50 hammers and sickles...
Last time I checked at least. I stopped watching TV/the news/being afraid.

 

[For NCR]

America will NEVA fall for communism. Too much propaganda made society think communism as the ultimate evil back then.

 

[DammitBoy]

I don't know what you kids are talking about, the united states is a socialist state already.

thanks fdr!

 

[4too]

Nanny State

Nanny State

... thanks fdr!

The rascals take turns bailing each other out: J.P Morgan in the robber baron era, FDIC bank insurance into our days.

My bank got FDIC-ed, quiet, orderly change. How about in your soveriegn state, or is it a *commonwealth* ? Much ripple in the real estate pool?

So many folk waving the bloody shirt of states rights, fanning the smoke, can't see who or whom has taken the money and run!

Can't tell one rich man from another, with out a billion dollar TV ad can we? All just sliced bread and circus ... dangling misdirections ... in the republic of nanny.

Lord preserve us from all manifestations of "irrational exuberance".

Can tell America's history tale many ways: wars, politicians, rumors of politicians, {" " thanks fdr ' " ] AND the boom and bust of the economy.

This money crisis, that banking crash, another land grab swindle opportunity, they litter the timeline landscape and frustrate the spiel of charlatans with the next quick fix answer.

The barker with the latest SURE bet ...

Lord preserve us from all manifestations of "irrational exuberance".







4too

 

[Jebus]

Just look at Afghanistan

Russia has oil, gas, iron and great spaces which could easily have been developed as well as U.S. with its interior, with the right management.

Afghanistan can at best be the #1 supplier of rocks.

Doesn't matter. Massive amounts of natural resources does not lead to a democratic civil society - otherwise Saudi Arabia and Congo would be beacons of liberty and freedom. Well, maybe the Congo is - but not in a good way.
The key word is "with the right management". You need a society that's already fully developed and where the middle class has the skill and potential to run the country - like, say, Norway - to be able to have a country where natural resources will actually benefit the society as a whole and not the corrupt upper class. And the second outcome is exactly what happens in Russia today - I don't see why it should be any different 100 years ago. If anything, it'd be even worse.

the country lacked much of the civil society and entrepeneurship needed to from a country anything like the USA or much of Europe was/is

I agree, BUT... why not import enterpreneurship from abroad, just like the USA did, and just like Russia was doing, albeit on a small scale, since at least Catherine the Great in XVIII century.

You can import interpreneurship - though I doubt you'd attract much small enterprises, it's usually about the big factories - but you can't import a civil society.
I mean, Russia around 1900 had about 125 mln. people. Maybe all but a half a million of them (excluding Poland and the Baltic regions) were living in an abject state of existance. I mean, by 1914 the serfs had only been 'freed' 50 years earlier, and by and large they still led a short, brutal, ignorant and dirty existence where half of all children under 5 died and prospects of social mobility were practically zero. You're not going to change that by having Germans build a shoe factory in St. Petersburg.[/quote]

Do you think it's a coincidence that, say, Poland and the Czech Republic ended up as democracies while, say, Khazachstan and Kyrgyzstan ended up as dictatorships?

Polish Republic and Czech Republic have a rich tradition of sejms, rallys and compacts under independent medieval kingdoms, Austro-Hungarian parliamentary monarchy, then finally again independent interbellum republics.

Kazachstan and Kirgistan have a tradition of Temujin, Kubilai, Janybek, Stalin, and possibly Conan the Barbarian making pyramids of the heads of his enemies, to the lamentations of their women.

On the other hand, this "Japan" that you speak of, Miko, had had a tradition of a military shogunate, and was largely secular up till the middle of XIX century..

Well, going that far back isn't really what's important. After all, around the time of Magna Carta etc. Christian Spain was the most democratic part of Europe (they even had parliaments with 'regular' people), while England was the least 'free'. As anyone knows, that was not indicative of what happened in the long run.
I'd guess the main point of divergence lies somewhere in the 17th century, when serfdom was formally established in Russia just as it was on its very last legs in Western Europe (it was effectively declining since the black death). Ever since then, the standard of living for the average citizen in Western Europe started climbing slowly (excluding times of war), while in Russia it effectively went downhill.
Creating a 'modern' society isn't about how independent the king or the nobility were, or how brutal the wars were, but how educated your average citizen is. By the time of, say, the French Revolution the average literacy of French citizens (including the peasants) was anywhere between 50 and 75% (most likely closer to 75%); at the time of the American revolution there was virtual universal male literacy in Colonial America; while at the time of the Russian revolution (over a century later) around 75% of the Russian population were still illiterate (the 25% literate people were most likely mostly located in Poland, Finland and the Baltic states).
When you have a population of ignorant, isolated peasants, vastly limited in their knowledge of 'the world' because they're at the mercy of whatever their priest or local potentate tells them, and vastly limited in their mobility (both spacial and social) because of the collective farming system introduced after the abolishment of serfdom in 1861, you have a country where it's litterally impossible to set up self-governance or civil society of any sort. And that's not something you fix in one, even two or more generations.