I can only immagine Bossi and the Northern League being even more annoying than IRL
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Bicentennial Man: Ford '76 and Beyond
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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Oh yeah I forgot the PSOE was secretly sponsoring mass murder in the Basque Country. Fun
This was well before the Northern League was just a vanity outlet for Salvini's ego, correct? As in it actually really did want to exit Italy?
I'd never even heard of it; generally taken aback, though perhaps I shouldn't be
This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine
This Little Light of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine
The Peruvian Army's 1980 coup d'etat in the wake of the narrow, controversial election of APRA's Armando Villanueva had badly polarized Peruvian society, as had the subsequent crackdown on protestors, opposition politicians, and even rival factions of the army or police forces. While in the spring of 1980 this had not seemed particularly acute - compared to the disastrous series of events in Central America since February 1978 or the near-revolution in Venezuela in summer of 1979, to say nothing of the Beagle War - by January 1982 the CIA was starting to get a distressing series of reports about events on the ground.
It was difficult to emphasize, even by the standard of South American juntas, how badly the Peruvian military had botched the "Crime of 1980." Both candidates of the 1980 election - leftist winner Villanueva and his liberal opponent, Fernando Schwalb - were imprisoned by the Army and their parties banned from operation. The head of the new junta, former Prime Minister Oscar Vargas, had interpreted the events of the Beagle War as suggesting that what Pinochet had done correctly compared to the rotating cast of officers in Argentina was consolidate power primarily to himself and thus purged a number of his internal opponents, including reformists who had pushed for a democratic transition in 1979-80, and filled his government with subservient hacks. Despite spiraling inflation and a depressed economy, Vargas invested heavily in new airplanes to better police Peru's remote provinces, ended a number of labor protections, and slashed agricultural and energy subsidies on which Peru's largely indigenous rural population depended. It was a dramatic return to and escalation of the policies of the 1975-80 governments of Francisco Morales Bermudez, in comparison to Juan Velasco's military but left-nationalist 1968-75 period.
Though the Chilean fiscal crisis later in the year would challenge them for the title, by January of 1982 a fair argument could be made that Peru had the most acute economic crisis anywhere in the world, during a period when most of South America (and Latin America more broadly) was in a severe depression that rivaled the Great Depression, and in certain countries arguably exceeded it. At the start of 1982, Peruvian urban unemployment had reached 25% and rural unemployment was thought to be considerably higher; exports had slowed to a crawl and foreign direct investment, already slowing to a trickle thanks to high inflation and weak economies elsewhere in the world, turned into massive capital flight. While the Western economy seemed to oh-so-slowly be improving throughout 1982 despite a fair amount of overseas turbulence in the Middle East, in South America and Peru in particular the slouch into the trough of a major depression was only beginning.
The appeal of the Shining Path, then, seemed relatively obvious, especially as in its early years the organization papered over the psychopathic millenarian worldview that powered it. Shining Path was an enthusiastically Maoist organization meant to organize a communist revolution of the Peruvian peasantry, and their leader, Abimael Guzman (nom de guerre Chairman Gonzalo), sprinkled his declaration that extant Soviet-style socialist states were revisionist with adages to historical peasant uprisings in Latin America as well as Inca mythology to appeal to his Quecha-speaking base of footsoldiers.
The Shining Path's brutality rapidly made it infamous, but in many rural districts, they rapidly became the most important economic and social network available to indigent and often landless farm laborers. Over the course of late 1980 and early 1981, the Shining Path rapidly spread along the Peru-Brazil border, and by the end of 1981 they had established a foothold in Bolivia while extending their influence down near the coast.
Their presence was fully announced to the world on January 10, 1982, when they conducted raids on Juliaca and Puno on Lake Titicaca, well south of their traditional heartland. In an act of remarkable savagery, 31 civilians and police officers were slaughtered in bombings and machete attacks as the Shining Path raided a police armory and stole hundreds of additional rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and even police vehicles that they rapidly drove off into the jungle with. The Peruvian Army's belated non-response signaled to many rural peasants who had previously been ambivalent that, perhaps, the Shining Path had some viability as a genuine force.
The CIA's analysis of the situation was dire and more than a little alarmist. While it was true that Peru's military had essentially lost control of a number of rural districts in the Andes and deep Amazon, it was a small part of the country and very small part of Peru's population, most of which still wanted nothing to do with Shining Path, which even urban leftists detested. Despite suggestions that the next Pol Pot was biding his time in the Peruvian jungle, it was unclear exactly how an organization even other leftist guerillas in South America were wary of could possibly arm itself and finance a true revolution. Nonetheless, it was a situation that bore watching - Peru was a populous and strategically placed country in which Vargas' string of debacles and a massive vacuum of opposition from both left and center had created an opening for extreme voices to speak into the void and inspire violence and anger in a populace that was understandably aggrieved, and Carey's contemporaneous notes from his January 14, 1982 National Security Council meeting summed up the thoughts of everyone in the room: "Concerning and frightening - Bears watching."
Oh dear, yet another Latin American country about to be set ablaze... This really is a Latin America screw
Ironically enough, Brazil is going to come out of TTL pretty ok if not slightly ahead of OTL, but at the price of being the only non-dumpster fire on their continent (though Ecuador is doing fine last I checked)
ShinyBois are just too “how were these a thing” to not use, I rarely see TLs deploy them much
Nice to hear that Brazil will be alright enough - Hopefully there'll be a backswing in South America after all the atrocities so that they'll do better afterwards
"Fuck the (insert slurs against Southern Italians here)! We are going to have an indipendent Lumbardy." was quite literally its original slogan.
It’ll definitely vary by country, for sure - Uruguay for instance will probably be fine for the same reasons it was OTL (that and it’s easy to forget Uruguay exists)
I generally try to go where my muse takes me on these things; more broadly, though I’m American myself, I want a TL that’s accessible to people from all over the world and covers a variety of places and people (apologies to Japan for seeming to forget it exists lol)
Castro is probably looking at South America and laughing his ass off. The entire region is either a mess full of communist guerillas or its people are kicking out pro-US military dictators
Dude at one point claimed Celtic Heritage to eplain why Rome couldn't tell him what to do.
Interesting Northern League could be even orse ITTL, if Bruno Salvadori (Valdostan Union) is still alive.
OTL Salvadori was pushing for either more internal indipendence for the Aosta Valley or even its full integration into France. Before his death in a car accident in 1980, him and Bossi were planning to form a united front/party for their pet projects of more indipence.
Oh no, he hated everyone under the Po river. And I mean everyone.
Dude at one point claimed Celtic Heritage to eplain why Rome couldn't tell him what to do.
Interesting Northern League could be even orse ITTL, if Bruno Salvadori (Valdostan Union) is still alive.
OTL Salvadori was pushing for either more internal indipendence for the Aosta Valley or even its full integration into France. Before his death in a car accident in 1980, him and Bossi were planning to form a united front/party for their pet projects of more indipence.
Yeah Castro has been smoking many a cigar in celebration, Torrijos did more in the course of an evening than the Cubans ever accomplished in 19 years before that
Jesus Italian politics are cursed, that’s a recipe for disaster
Honestly I just immagine the disaster is already happening ITTL. No assasination of Moro means less national backlash against the Red Brigades, and I doubt the P2 and other rightwing groups were happy about the Historical Compromise.
Practically you have the potential of making the Years of Lead longer and bloodier
Also sorry if I am derailing the thread
Not at all! I am always open to ideas and admittedly know little of Italian politics
To me, the question is how the fuck did a specifically Maoist organization get so big in Peru, of all places.
The only reason I can think of is the Asian minority, I guess? Is Fujimori the equal and opposite reaction to Shining Path?
Honestly if you need more informations, you are free to ask. The period between 1960 and 1990 was such a clusterfuck in Italy that you could fill a book about all the weird/insane/tragic stuff going on.
To give you an idea, this dude literally boosted that the P2 owned the entire Italian army and was involved with the terrorist attack of Bologna/ a lot of dictatorships in South America
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No, he is not a judge, He was massonery leader, and self-proclaimed Nobel Candidate, Licio Gelli
This may result in bigger Hispanic immigration to Brazil than IOTL if it keeps on being (relatively) stable compared to its neighbours.
IOTL there's a significant Bolivian community in São Paulo and Venezuelans are spread out through the entire country. ITTL these may not be the only 2 nationalities Brazilians think of when someone mentions immigration.
Not Newt Gingrich
Banned
In real life, Shining Path managed to hold up for years as a small but persistently brutal insurgent force. The principles of Maoism tend to appeal more to rural peasants than industrial workers, so Peru turned out to be fertile ground for such a movement.