It was a completely different world after WW2 because the US got to develop its productive forces while the rest of the world burned, and then dragged the Soviet bloc into the Cold War right after which was specifically designed to force socialist nations to divert inordinate resources towards the military. The Cold War was also what justified communist purges in the US and how the communist movement was gutted under McCarthyism.
the communist movement was gutted under McCarthyism
The communist organization was gutted under J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthy just picked off the stragglers.
For better or worse, it was WW2 itself that split the American Communists, as they wrestled with the old Leninist urge towards anti-war activism as a proletarian rallying cry and the Stalinist plea for interventionism on the Western Front. The internal reaction to the assassination of Trotsky, the protests against FDR at the peak of his popularity, the championing of civil rights movements back when segregation was fully normalized, the turmoil produced by various intraparty sex scandals, the repeated violations of the Smith Act that the FBI pounced on, the CIO’s throwing the party under the bus to appease Truman, the nuclear espionage… it all fouled the party’s national image and the economic philosophy as a whole.
By the Cold War, US Communism was a shadow of its former self and Global Communism was fully in the thrall of sectarianism (absent the odd Third Worlder like Tito). But that was all largely due to the success of the Russian Communist experiment (and the Chinese experiment, hot on its heels). There was never a comparable movement in the west, in no small part because US industry was too successful at appeasing the American public with consumer surpluses even at the height of WW2 rationing.
Communism, as a socio-economic philosophy, has a very hard time taking root in the imperial core precisely because it is so bound up with anti-imperial economics and self-sufficient policies. Sakai was right on that much, at least. You can’t sell an American or a Brit or Frenchman on self-determination when imperial extraction is so much more lucrative. The Settler isn’t going to buy an economic plan that strictly benefits the native laborer by internalizing their surplus.
At absolute best, you could see American Native People and segregated workers take up the banner. But as soon as capitalism becomes color blind, the Black Socialist losses footing.
FDR saved capitalism from itself with social democracy. He was the one responsible for killing communism in its craddle. Had Hoover and Dewey been allowed to do libertarian white nationalist capitalism for another twenty years, you might have seen American communism take firmer root. But FDR, Truman, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Obama have been far too good at expanding the economic borders and perpetuating the illusion of upward mobility.
So, going back to my original point, had Germany gone communist instead of fascist, we would be living in a very different world right now where communist was the dominant system in the world.
had Germany gone communist instead of fascist, we would be living in a very different world
Depends on how long the communist moment lasted. Italy had a big communist movement in 1919, but it had fully collapsed within five years. The USSR was a dominant economic system across the world for nearly a century. It couldn’t endure in the face of the productive forces of a capitalist rival.
I might suggest that a German communist movement was doomed in the face of the American, English, and French aggression. Especially if it was caught in the same kind of schism that divided Russia and China for so long. You get a Communist Germany that does about as well as Nasser’s Egypt or Allende’s Chile or Lula’s Brazil. Or it gets watered down by perestroika as Gorbachev’s Russia and Mandela’s South Africa, such that it dissolves into a weak nationalist socialism.
Or maybe the Germans really did have the secret sauce to make Global Communism work, in a way Communists in Russia and India and Latin America and the Middle East didn’t? I just don’t think so. Not given how easily the country collapsed into the most enthusiastic kind of self-immolation.
I don’t think there’s any economy in the 1930s that was going to come off the plate, swing one, and do International Communism right on the first try. Maybe Berlin gets to be the center of the experiment instead of Moscow or Beijing for a generation or three. But it seems like there’s still a lot of headwinds no matter where it started. Not unlike how liberal democracy and industrial capitalism had to sputter and fail and restart itself for centuries before it finally got enough traction to envelop the globe.
Once again, you’re omitting key facts in your narrative. The USSR suffered massive destruction during fascist invasion, and then was thrown into a cold war by a the US which was able to develop its economy, and used that leverage to suffocate the socialist bloc. It wasn’t ‘productive forces of a capitalist rival.’ that USSR couldn’t endure. It was the advantage of the US not being a direct participant of the war. If you ignore this reality then you end up with absurdist analysis as a result.
And of course, you can suggest anything you like, but that wouldn’t make it true. The German communist movement lacked the will of the Bolsheviks and they thought they could attempt reformism and work within the system. Then they were summarily betrayed by social democrats who aligned with the nazis. Had German communists been more principled and achieved a revolution, then they would have been able to ally with the Soviet Union and there was no chance of English or French capitalists overthrowing them. In fact, western capitalists tried doing exactly that in USSR in 1918 and they failed there too.
Or maybe the Germans really did have the secret sauce to make Global Communism work, in a way Communists in Russia and India and Latin America and the Middle East didn’t? I just don’t think so. Not given how easily the country collapsed into the most enthusiastic kind of self-immolation.
You’re once again entirely missing the original point I was making which is that the reason capitalist world has the advantage is due to the fact that the second world war happened because Germans fell into fascism. Had that that not happened, then the advantage would have been reversed.
I don’t think there’s any economy in the 1930s that was going to come off the plate, swing one, and do International Communism right on the first try.
Great, because nobody has been making that argument here. Let me know if my point is still unclear for you.
It was a completely different world after WW2 because the US got to develop its productive forces while the rest of the world burned, and then dragged the Soviet bloc into the Cold War right after which was specifically designed to force socialist nations to divert inordinate resources towards the military. The Cold War was also what justified communist purges in the US and how the communist movement was gutted under McCarthyism.
The communist organization was gutted under J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthy just picked off the stragglers.
For better or worse, it was WW2 itself that split the American Communists, as they wrestled with the old Leninist urge towards anti-war activism as a proletarian rallying cry and the Stalinist plea for interventionism on the Western Front. The internal reaction to the assassination of Trotsky, the protests against FDR at the peak of his popularity, the championing of civil rights movements back when segregation was fully normalized, the turmoil produced by various intraparty sex scandals, the repeated violations of the Smith Act that the FBI pounced on, the CIO’s throwing the party under the bus to appease Truman, the nuclear espionage… it all fouled the party’s national image and the economic philosophy as a whole.
By the Cold War, US Communism was a shadow of its former self and Global Communism was fully in the thrall of sectarianism (absent the odd Third Worlder like Tito). But that was all largely due to the success of the Russian Communist experiment (and the Chinese experiment, hot on its heels). There was never a comparable movement in the west, in no small part because US industry was too successful at appeasing the American public with consumer surpluses even at the height of WW2 rationing.
Communism, as a socio-economic philosophy, has a very hard time taking root in the imperial core precisely because it is so bound up with anti-imperial economics and self-sufficient policies. Sakai was right on that much, at least. You can’t sell an American or a Brit or Frenchman on self-determination when imperial extraction is so much more lucrative. The Settler isn’t going to buy an economic plan that strictly benefits the native laborer by internalizing their surplus.
At absolute best, you could see American Native People and segregated workers take up the banner. But as soon as capitalism becomes color blind, the Black Socialist losses footing.
FDR saved capitalism from itself with social democracy. He was the one responsible for killing communism in its craddle. Had Hoover and Dewey been allowed to do libertarian white nationalist capitalism for another twenty years, you might have seen American communism take firmer root. But FDR, Truman, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Obama have been far too good at expanding the economic borders and perpetuating the illusion of upward mobility.
So, going back to my original point, had Germany gone communist instead of fascist, we would be living in a very different world right now where communist was the dominant system in the world.
Depends on how long the communist moment lasted. Italy had a big communist movement in 1919, but it had fully collapsed within five years. The USSR was a dominant economic system across the world for nearly a century. It couldn’t endure in the face of the productive forces of a capitalist rival.
I might suggest that a German communist movement was doomed in the face of the American, English, and French aggression. Especially if it was caught in the same kind of schism that divided Russia and China for so long. You get a Communist Germany that does about as well as Nasser’s Egypt or Allende’s Chile or Lula’s Brazil. Or it gets watered down by perestroika as Gorbachev’s Russia and Mandela’s South Africa, such that it dissolves into a weak nationalist socialism.
Or maybe the Germans really did have the secret sauce to make Global Communism work, in a way Communists in Russia and India and Latin America and the Middle East didn’t? I just don’t think so. Not given how easily the country collapsed into the most enthusiastic kind of self-immolation.
I don’t think there’s any economy in the 1930s that was going to come off the plate, swing one, and do International Communism right on the first try. Maybe Berlin gets to be the center of the experiment instead of Moscow or Beijing for a generation or three. But it seems like there’s still a lot of headwinds no matter where it started. Not unlike how liberal democracy and industrial capitalism had to sputter and fail and restart itself for centuries before it finally got enough traction to envelop the globe.
Once again, you’re omitting key facts in your narrative. The USSR suffered massive destruction during fascist invasion, and then was thrown into a cold war by a the US which was able to develop its economy, and used that leverage to suffocate the socialist bloc. It wasn’t ‘productive forces of a capitalist rival.’ that USSR couldn’t endure. It was the advantage of the US not being a direct participant of the war. If you ignore this reality then you end up with absurdist analysis as a result.
And of course, you can suggest anything you like, but that wouldn’t make it true. The German communist movement lacked the will of the Bolsheviks and they thought they could attempt reformism and work within the system. Then they were summarily betrayed by social democrats who aligned with the nazis. Had German communists been more principled and achieved a revolution, then they would have been able to ally with the Soviet Union and there was no chance of English or French capitalists overthrowing them. In fact, western capitalists tried doing exactly that in USSR in 1918 and they failed there too.
You’re once again entirely missing the original point I was making which is that the reason capitalist world has the advantage is due to the fact that the second world war happened because Germans fell into fascism. Had that that not happened, then the advantage would have been reversed.
Great, because nobody has been making that argument here. Let me know if my point is still unclear for you.