This is comparing Russia--which is a vast land of near-infinite resources and large population--with a sub-tropical region of cash-crop monoculture and ideological retardation of an already-fragile socioeconomic state.But look, we're once again leaving the original point. I was just pointing out, when industrialization came up, that they would probably be able to fund it in a similar manner to Stalin.
This is comparing Russia--which is a vast land of near-infinite resources and large population--with a sub-tropical region of cash-crop monoculture and ideological retardation of an already-fragile socioeconomic state.
Similarity in methods =/= ability. Communism is about one thing: Industrialization. As has been pointed out, an overwhelmingly agrarian anti-industrial (not un-industrial, anti-) society will not be willing to break the farmers to feed the factories.
I'd say that you're being...overly generous with the worth you're assigning to cotton, especially given the cheaper cotton available from Egypt and India. The big problem will be feeding the populace. Unless they want to be dependent on yankee (or more likely Canadian) imports, those farmers are going to have to dump cotton for corn. Sweet potatoes will probably be important too.Okay, true. However, wouldn't said cash crops get them more cash to get machines? Or am I DRASTICALLY overestimating the amount of money cotton could get them for something like that?
It depends on how bad things get. If things get to the apocalyptic levels that allowed for creatures like Pol Pot and Nestor Makhno, then yikes. But that is pretty extreme. I see more of a mix between William Jennings Bryan and the Klan.But yes, it looks like it will just be some sort of Agrarian Socialism, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, although Pol Pot doesn't help with this.
Except again, how did they get to Stalin killing 20 million people? Also, it must be pointed out that the Tsars were limited more by technology and a lack of state competence than actual bloodthirstiness. Hence, Stalin killing more isn't a reflection of his bloodthirstiness, more that he had a more competent totalitarian state, and more technology with which to do so than his predecessors.
Yes, they had gulags but not nearly as bad as the Stalinist variety which were little more than death camps. The tsars were bad but they didn't kill maybe 20 million people during one tsars reign. They had secret police to be sure but not the mass murder squads the NKVD had. There is a big difference in scale between the two. Stalin had millions but the tsars had only thousands.
Nonsense, there were big differences starting with the 5 year plans which the Tsars never had. The Tsars were never Atheists but pushed Russian Orthodoxy . Even at their worst they never had anything as bad as Stalinst style slave labor camps.
This is comparing Russia--which is a vast land of near-infinite resources and large population--with a sub-tropical region of cash-crop monoculture and ideological retardation of an already-fragile socioeconomic state.
Similarity in methods =/= ability. Communism is about one thing: Industrialization. As has been pointed out, an overwhelmingly agrarian anti-industrial (not un-industrial, anti-) society will not be willing to break the farmers to feed the factories.
Exactly. The USSR could always count on customers for the grain it was exporting during Collectivization; cotton is far less fungible.In theory the Red CS could industrialize the same way, but what markets are available?
Eh, the Brits are still probably going to want to create their own cotton empire; more money for them, after all. The switch may be somewhat delayed, but the CSA's continued use of slavery is going to drive the British to foster their own imperial supply sooner or later.In OTL, the Civil War caused Britain to switch to Indian and Egyptian cotton. However if this war is shorter than in our history, the switch might not be as severe.
See below.
The only difference is that Tsarism never succeeded in getting Gulags and the NVKD. Improve the Mark One Romanov system and you get something very like Stalinism, as the Romanov system was showing indications of already evolving into a similar line. You might point out Nicholas II's reforms here, but then there's the NEP in the USSR that preceded Stalin as a counterpoint. As well as the Lighter and softer Brezhnev era.
Exactly. The USSR could always count on customers for the grain it was exporting during Collectivization; cotton is far less fungible.
Eh, the Brits are still probably going to want to create their own cotton empire; more money for them, after all. The switch may be somewhat delayed, but the CSA's continued use of slavery is going to drive the British to foster their own imperial supply sooner or later.
No arguments here.Even discounting slavery the fact that the CSA would be a 3rd world economic basket case would make it unstable enough for England to want to invest elsewhere so they wouldn't lose their investment if things blow up.
I wasn't comparing the tsars to Breznev but to Stalin. Breznev was far less bloodthirsty than either.
The USA is going to look for any possible excuse to go to war with it to get some of its land backWhich shows an interesting question. Where is this Communist Confederacy going to evolve? How is the outside world going to react to them?
Lenin was in charge of a country in the middle of a bloody, ideological civil war and that was also being invaded by over a dozen foreign powers all dead-set on killing every last Bolshevik.The problem is that almost everything Stalin did, Lenin did first. But only Stalin gets criticized for the exact same things that Lenin did.
Lenin was in charge of a country in the middle of a bloody, ideological civil war and that was also being invaded by over a dozen foreign powers all dead-set on killing every last Bolshevik.
Also, there are some pretty huge differences in scale between the two's governments.
The Cheka and camps of Lenin's day were not the NKVD and GULAG of Stalin's day.He didn't do away with the Cheka or the camps during the NEP, and he only embraced the NEP from a Stalin-style decision to induce the ideological state in a staggered fashion. The NEP in a sense was the economic version of the pristine, untouched, progressive Red Army of 1934-7 before the Purge dropped the hammer on it.
The Cheka and camps of Lenin's day were not the NKVD and GULAG of Stalin's day.
International pariah so long as slavery is its cornerstone. Unfriendly with Latin American nations due to history and active ideology of aggression and imperialist racism. Very poor relations with Nicaragua and Honduras.Which shows an interesting question. Where is this Communist Confederacy going to evolve? How is the outside world going to react to them?