| February 25 |  |
Editor says, what if Communist Party USA had aimed its main blow at FDR? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the March 2013 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1881, on this day William Z. "Bill" Foster was born in Taunton, Massachusetts.
Toward a Soviet AmericaHe was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA. He passed through the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, as well as leading the drive to organize the packinghouse industry during World War I and the steel strike of 1919.
During the 1930s, the Communist Party changed course, deciding to aim its main blow at the Presidency. But it was too late because only a month after Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, he was assassinated by a man by the name of Alfred Kuhn, an avowed fascist and a high ranking officer of the "Silver Legion", a group of radicals who sought to abolish democracy; it was a a Day that will live in infamy.
From this chaos emerged several competing power groups, Cordell Hull's Democratic Guard, Oliver Frederick's Royalists and of course the Black Legion, a far right, paramilitary Fascist organization headed by Virgil Effinger.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Bill Foster, Communist Party, Soviet America, William Z Foster, FDR. Editor says, in reality there was no coup d'etat and William Z. Foster's book Toward a Soviet America was just put out as campaign literature. And yet the Soviet Union gave him a state funeral in Red Square and Khrushchev headed the honour guards. His ashes were interred with John Reed and Bill Haywood. In preparing this post, we have repurposed content from three articles, Socialist Worker, Wikipedia and A Day That Will Live In Infamy.
~ More likely, all third parties would be ruthlessly suppressed.
~ Our system's quite a bit more stable than that---whoever was FDR's legal successor would be sworn in, and life would go on. However, the Silver Shirts and similar outfits on both sides of the divide would find life very unpleasant for quite a while.
~ But FDR's assassination means no New Deal--and whatever one thinks of its economic merits, the New Deal helped take the wind out of the sails of a lot of extremist movements. By 1936, perhaps, some extreme candidate (more probably of the right than of the left) might well be able to win the presidency, if worsening conditions hadn't led to a straight-up military takeover by then.
~ A Communist-led coup d'etat would have been the opening salvo of the 2nd American Civil War.
~ In that chaos, Butler might've agreed to the Business Plot.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
