Reds: A Revolutionary Timeline

[Jello_Biafra]

Introduction

This timeline will focus on the events and causes leading up to a successful socialist revolution in the United States in the year 1933, and the impacts that such earth shattering change had on the course of world events. While this timeline will note all of the massive changes that occurred (and also, how much really did not change), it will not begin at the point of divergence. Instead, we will start with a glimpse of the present, in the form of a look at a popular television show at the turn of the 21st century:

The Committee's Office

The brainchild of PBS 7's Aaron Sorkin, The Committee's Office was a weekly television drama that detailed the lives and work of the men and women in the Central Committee's senior staff. The senior staff of the Central Committee are responsible for the unglamorous but crucially necessary work that keeps the government of the UASR functioning. Often criticized for having an overly optimistic picture of the inner functions of socialist democracy at the union level, it remained a huge critical and viewer success on public television for eight seasons before drawing to a close.*

Here follows an excerpt from a novelization of the pilot episode:

So begins another day at the Committee's Office. With all of the activity in the lobby this morning, it is easy to forget that this is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the seat of the All-Union Central Committee for the Union of American Socialist Republics, and not a busy subway terminal. Amidst the hussle and bussle of the early morning activity, a stately man, advanced in age, walks briskly past the security guards at the entrance. He moves quickly through the lobby, weaving past a busy clerical worker as he walks towards the receptionist's office.

As he passes the receptionist terminal, the attendant says "Nice morning, Comrade McGarry."

"We'll take care of that in a hurry, won't we Mike?" the man replies with dry sarcasm.

"Yes sir," the attendant chuckles.

The man continues his brisk pace into the inner workings of the west wing of the old Pennsylvania House. He is Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff to the Central Committee, and a personal friend of the First Secretary.

He quickly pushes through a set of white double doors, into the inner office. A woman runs past him quickly, pausing only momentarily to exclaim, "Don't kill the messenger, Leo."

"Oh why the Hell not, Bonnie?" he replies as he grabs the morning's memos. He passes quickly through the press office, making his routine morning acquaintances before calling out for his deputy. "Josh!" he yells.

Josh's blond assistant responds instead. "Morning Leo," she says.

"Hey Donna," Leo responds. "Is he in yet?"

She pauses from stirring her coffee, looking up at him coyly. "Yeah..."

"Can you get him for me?" he replies, clearly irritated.

She turns around in her seat and yells "Josh!"

"Thanks..." he sighs

"I heard it's broken," she abruptly changes the subject.

"You heard wrong," he replies, barely pausing from reading the memo.

"I heard it's-"

"It's a mild sprain," he interrupts, "he'll be back later today." Anticipating her next question, he continues explaining as he walks towards Josh's office: "He was swerving to miss a tree and he failed."

Leo walks though Josh's open door just as Josh finishes his phone conversation. "How many Cubans exactly have crammed themselves into these fishing boats?"

Josh responds as he busily jots down a note, "Well, it's important to understand, Leo, that these aren't exactly fishing boats. You hear the word "fishing boat" and it conjures up an image of, well, a boat first of all. What the Cubans are on would charitably be described as rafts."

"I get it. How many of them are there exactly?"

"We don't know."

"What time did they leave then?"

"We don't know."

"Do we know when they get here?"

"No"

"True or false: If I stood on high ground in Key West with a good pair of binoculars I'd be as informed as I am right now."

"That's true..."

"Well that's the Foreign Office's money well spent then."

"Well, having any sort of diplomatic relations with the old regime in-exile that's occupying Cuba, we might have a better idea."

"You look like Hell, by the way," Leo sighs as he begins the walk toward his office.

"Yes I do. Listen, Leo, did he say anything about it?" Josh asks timidly as he follows Leo.

"Did he say anything?!" Leo cries, "the First Secretary is pissed as hell at you Josh, and so am I."

"I know," he protests.

"We've gotta work with these people, and how the Hell do you get off strutting your--"

"I know"

"Caldwell is a good man," Leo scolds.

"Caldwell wasn't there!"

"I'm saying you take everyone on the Christian front, dump them into one big basket and label them stupid! We need these people."

"We do not need these people..."

"Josh, if this minority government can't get at least some votes from the Left Democrats, then we can't govern. You know we have a whole lot better chance dealing with them than the authoritarian statists in the Socialist Party."

So that's a little teaser for this timeline. Hopefully, I'll be able to make periodic updates on it throughout this week, but you'll just have to savor this much for now. I will give you this morsel to chew on: the POD is September 5, 1901.

*Basically The West Wing, but with red flags, in case you didn't catch the reference.

[MacCaulay]

I'll follow it. It's an interesting angle you started on, and I like that you didn't just say something like...say...1947: blahdiblah happened.

I'm on board, man!

[CCA]

Looks fantastic!

Looking forward to more!

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by MacCaulay

I'll follow it. It's an interesting angle you started on, and I like that you didn't just say something like...say...1947: blahdiblah happened.

I'm on board, man!

Thanks. I've always found it a bit depressing that in this board, devoted to alternate history literature, there isn't much actual literature being written.

Depending on how much output I can sustain, I'm hoping to keep the amount of dull timelime stuff to an absolute minimum.

Originally Posted by CCA

Looks fantastic!

Looking forward to more!

Welcome aboard, comrade.

[Tobit]

Is it ok if I laughed while reading this? I am big fan of the West Wing, but what was the most hilarious is that the usual portrayal of Red America is an iron boot stepping on a face for eternity.

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by Tobit

Is it ok if I laughed while reading this? I am big fan of the West Wing, but what was the most hilarious is that the usual portrayal of Red America is an iron boot stepping on a face for eternity.

Of course. That's part of the reaction I'm going for.

Yeah, I loved the West Wing as well. Practically grew up watching that show. I figured it would be a good way to simultaneously show how much changed and really how much didn't change.

Red timelines are usually either dystopias or (less commonly) utopias, so I figured it would be nice to take the middle way this time.

[Sean Mulligan]

What happened to Teddy Roosevelt? Did he die or did McKinley somehow avoid assasination so TR never became president?

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by Sean Mulligan

What happened to Teddy Roosevelt? Did he die or did McKinley somehow avoid assasination so TR never became president?

It was discussed on the first page. McKinley's would-be assassin, a Polish immigrant, was arrested by a racist cop on largely trumped up charges, and thus McKinley carries out the rest of his term without incident. TR is marginalized within the party as his noteriety over his Rough Riders fades, and the conservative faction of the Republican party maintains a monopoly over the party apparatus.

After his political career reached its terminus, TR divided his time between promoting state and local conservation efforts, a fairly promising career in literature, and promoting the Scouting movement.

[Cyclone]

Out of curiosity, what happened with the Russo-Japanese War? Does it end the same way as OTL, even without TR?

[Historico]

I definatley want to see what happens ITTL's alternate Wilson Presidency...he might not make to see this one alive...Keep it comming JB

[Jello_Biafra]

Excerpts from "Party Government in Crisis" by E.E. Schattschneider, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 32, No. 1, February 1938.

Predictably, the rise of the Progressive Socialist Party as a third force in American party politics created dramatic consequences for party-government in the Congress. The work of previous theorists of the party in government demonstrated the effects certain facets of the revolution in party politics more than adequately. Notably, the work of Fenwick et al. have theorized the enormous upheavals that the existence of three parties in Congress (particularly the House) have caused in the American constitutional system. Demonstrably, the existence of a sharply defined separation of powers within the government was a system that reflected the strongly non-partisan preferences of Founders such as Washington and Madison, and has adapted poorly to a regime of two powerful political organizations competing for control of the apparatus of government.

...Presidential government, while hindered by the existence of political organizations independent of the formal positions and councils of government, nonetheless could still function even with the consequences of divided party authority and potential divided government. As Representative Clark noted, while the government could still function being pulled in two separate directions, the addition of a third independent force made such functions impossible.

...However, the resulting crisis in party-government between 1912 and 1918 could not be explained solely in terms of constitutional factors of separation of powers. As we must understand, in seeming paradox, party-government does not just form within the councils and halls of government. The party is larger than its members within the government, and as will be demonstrated with reference to the specific cases of the 1917 New York City Mayoral election, the characteristics of the party and the form its membership takes can have drastic consequences upon the performance of the party in government.

...1917 saw the first eclipse of the Tammany Hall machine in New York politics. As was demonstrated, the Progressive Socialists' ties to both organized labor and a large pool of enrolled members to the party eroded traditional dominance of the political machine's system of organized legal corruption. The Socialists and the union's provided the same services to their members that the machines did; they offered opportunities for gainful employment, helped cover rent shortfalls for party workers, offered legal services to members and medical care to injured workers. But more importantly, the party's membership rolls enabled it to mobilize its electorate in much the same way as the Tammany Hall machine. However, it did so without resort to the totality of legal corruption of the machine, and the egalitarian drives of its leaders created effective political organizations more of the vein of a fraternal order than of a cloistered, highly stratified secret society. Morris Hilquit's move into the mayor's mansion on January 1st, 1918, was the first blow in the final death knell of machine politics in the former United States.

Proposed text of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

§ One: The executive power shall be vested in the President of the United States; and in the Cabinet of the United States, consisting of the various Secretaries in charge of the executive departments and the First Secretary.
The First Secretary and Secretaries of the Cabinet shall be elected by the House of Representatives without debate on the proposal of the President. The person who receives the majority vote of the House of Representatives shall be appointed by the President.
Members of the Cabinet may serve concurrently as members of the House of Representatives.

§ Two: The House of Representatives may express its lack of confidence in the Cabinet only by electing successors by majority vote of the members and requesting the President to dismiss the Cabinet. The President must comply with this request and appoint the successors.
If a motion of the First Secretary for a vote of confidence is not supported by a majority of members of the House of Representatives, the President may dissolve the House of Representatives, and order new elections to occur within twenty one days of dissolution.

§ Three: Save the following provisions, the House of Representatives shall be elected for four years. Its term shall end when a new House convenes. New elections shall be held no sooner than forty-six months and no later than forty-eight months after the electoral term begins. If the House be dissolved, new elections shall be held within sixty days.
The House of Representatives hall convene no later than thirty days following election.

[taylortjc]

O jeez a Red America

[dwalters]

A few things. You have De Leon dying 2 years before he does in OTL. Any reason for this?

Anthracite coal is mostly a central and eastern PA product, not "Western PA" as you have it.

I think the idea of the CIO essentially 'happening' 20 years early is great. It's quite the creative concept.

I'm not sure that even as you have it, the SLP would remain THE party. You are essentially arguing that the "Kangaroos" (everyone but DeLeon's supporters) win AND DeLeon doesn't split. I find this highly unlikely given De Leon's political personality. Still, an interesting concept and I like it.

David Walters
Marxists Internet Archive