Prelude
The Great Crusade
A History of the Global Antifascist Struggle
A History of the Global Antifascist Struggle
"Soldiers, sailors and airmen of the United Nations! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you."*
Army General David Eisenhower
"They told us that our collaboration with the German fascists was necessary to preserve our neutrality. And yet in less than a month, the King had appointed [Sven Olov] Lindholm as his Prime Minister, and the Germans had made us their vassal. No one could escape the war."
Greta Gustaffson, Swedish actress and emigre
"If there is one thing to be remembered about the Second World War, it must be this: in the six years since the world plunged headlong into War in May 1940, nearly one hundred million have perished. After seeing the ghostly streets of Nanjing, the human abattoir of the kazetts, it feels as though some part of human goodness has drained from me. It is useless to fear the Devil when men built Auschwitz."
George Orwell
"In spite of our justifiable cynicism, we should never forget that for all the power politics behind the scenes, the Second World War was still primarily a moral cause. In spite of my inclination to deconstruct such narratives, I do feel comfortable saying that we were, as the British would say, 'on the side of the angels'."
Michel Foucault
"I have the real feeling I 'evacuated' 30,000 Jews already, by shooting them, at Riga. Is what I did 'evacuation'? When they fell, were they 'evacuated'? There are another 20,000, at least, waiting for similar 'evacuation'. - I just think it is helpful to know what words mean... with all respect."*
SS-Standartenführer Rudolf Lange
"Many veterans say they are upset at being criticized for the atrocities they committed fighting on the Soviet front; at least as upset as the people who criticize them for the atrocities. But really, what upsets them is not the criticism, but being reminded of their part in them. Just as their critics are really upset about having their myth of the glorious antifascist struggle ruined by the reality of it."
Henry Kerrigan†, British war correspondent
"The euphemism we used was 'liquidation'. We used the phrase a lot. 'Liquidation' was the common solution for a number of situations, whether it was captured Waffen-SS, civilian collaborators, suspected spies, or deserters. They don't talk about that part in the war movies or the news reels. When they do, they justify it by saying that our victims deserved it. But that's just bullshit; the people I liquidated didn't deserve it any more than anyone else. What I did was evil, but it was necessary evil."
Major Jane Schafer†
"Just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Slavic people, Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations—as though you and your ilk had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world—we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang."*
Hannah Arendt, German judge for the International Military Tribunal
"Here in Britain, we cannot seem to decide if the Americans are our friends or our enemies. In my youth, America was like our somewhat strange cousin; still our family and always welcome at our house, but he had his strange quirks that we didn't understand. Suddenly in 1933, America was our enemy, threatening our Dominions with an invasion by Godless Communists. And just as suddenly, less than ten years later we had propaganda posters featuring a Yankee soldier telling us 'This man is your friend, he fights for freedom!' And now I'm starting to hear talk that we're enemies again."
C.S. Lewis
"Once I saw the photos of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Kyoto, I couldn't get Ken Bainbridge's comment out of my mind; We really were all sons of bitches for our part in the project."
Andrei Sakharov
"It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."*
Anne Frank
'*' denotes a parallel quote to OTL
'†' denotes a fictional person
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Foreword
Unfortunately, my friends, all that you get at the moment is a teaser of things to come. This section of the Reds! timeline will cover the period from the start of World War 2 until its conclusion, and the immediate aftermath.
Stylistically, things are going to change a bit for this section. There's going to be less epistolary content, and more narratives and short stories. So it will read a bit less like a history scrapbook and a bit more like a novel.
Tune in at some unspecified date in the nearish(?) future for an overview of the sequence of events leading to the start of the war, as well as summaries of the geopolitics at play.
For those of you discovering this for the first time, this is third part of a timeline where events led to a revolutionary socialist movement taking power in the United States after a very different Progressive era resulted in a very different labor movement and a different World War 1. Unfortunately, since the early parts in the process of being revised and retconned, there's no easy way to read the whole thing. The first part has been revised up through the Red May Revolution and the Civil War and can be found here.
However, I will be compiling important posts as an FAQ in this thread, to help sort out this mess. So hopefully, we'll get through this mess alive.
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Index Lovingly Compiled by tuxer
- World Map-circa 1936
- A History of the Global Antifascist Struggle
- A4 Pacific
- A4 Pacific (Picture)
- The Road to War
- The Beginning of the Second World War
- Alas, Babylon: An Economic Anthology of the Second World War
- Operation Teutonic
- The Arsenal of Socialism
- Armored Fighting Vehicles of the Second World War (Part 1)
- Armored Fighting Vehicles of the Second World War (Part 2)
- The Siege of Leningrad
- Films about WWII
- Weapons of the Second World War
- Overview and Documentaries
- Foster and Churchill's date
- The War in the Pacific
- China in the Second world war (part 1)
- China in the Second world war (part 2)
- Henry Ford the Arch-Traitor (Part 1)
- Henry Ford the Arch-Traitor (Part 2)
- Henry Ford the Arch-Traitor (Part 3)
- Gun Porn
- Speeches to Remember (Part 1)
- Operation Valkyrie: The Drive on Moscow
- Stalinism can't melt steel
- Strategic Bombing
- Foreign Affairs
- UASR Armed Forces strength, WW2 (year end)
- Darkest Hour
- Excerpts from the AH.com thread "Good PODs for the Western Front (WW2)"
- Operation Thrush: the Don Basin Counteroffensive
- Secret War: Espionage in World War II
- Tanks a lot
- China in the Second World War (part 3)
- War in the South! - October 10th 1940
- The War for the Mediterranean (part 1)
- Speeches to Remember (Part 2)
- British Naval Porn
- Timeline February 2nd 1942- May 28th 1943
- Excerpts from the AH.com thread “WI: Axis victory in the Battle of Iceland”
- Wartime censorship
- The Green Guard
- Panzer 25 Gepard tank
- The Auroran War Part 1: Finland's wrath and Operation Ragnar
- German Heavy Tanks/Phallic Symbols
- Post-Revolution Battleships of the WFRN
- The Battle of Midway
- AH.com thread "Earlier Iberian Campaign"
- Stalingrad: When Titans Clashed
- "To Defend Freedom" the War in South America
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