The era following the civil war is rarely discussed in school classrooms, save for a few mentions of "Reconstruction" and "the rise of the Klan" and "the Gilded Age." No, normally you just talk about the civil war, Lincoln's assassination, blah-blah-blah, then whoopedeedooda, we're in the Progressive Era and early 20th century.
Nevermind that the post-civil war generation was arguably the most tumultuous period in USican history (yes, even more than 1968!). Sexy history that the current education system would rather us forget!
Between 1865 and 1914, the only way I could describe good ol' USica is "dystopian." A sort of mix between anarchy and corporate proto-totalitarianism. In the south and west, disorder and madness. In the north and east, horrendous inequality and uneven optimism. At the same time, this is the generation after the rise of "popular sovereignty"— the hip thing was the let the People decide (as long as their decision lay within the powerful's interest).
After the war, we get into the Gilded Age. Businessmen and bankers who profited off of truly innovative ideas— and the sweat of workers. There we go, the creation of the modern middle class.
Eh... American society was still more like a hourglass-esque pyramid. Yuuuuuge underclass. And this underclass was divided, as we all know. You had your impoverished whites, the freemen, the ex-slaves, the aborigines, the immigrants, and whatnot— all under the thumb of a wealthy few. No government regulation, a lack of modern liberalism, and zero worker protections leads to the medieval conditions I alluded to earlier. If you're an American worker, a Protestant anglo male, you're lucky to bring in $500 a year. So you're making less than a dollar a day, 6 days in the mills, workin', sweatin', while your factory lord is burning $100 bills to light a cigarette. Yeah, you're not going to be too thrilled to be alive.
And thus, you have the age of labor uprisings. Riots, rebellions, and bloody utter failures to kickstart revolutions. Unions form, and they get pulverized. And you get economic panics, including really big ones in the '70s and '93. In the early '70s, you saw the rise of the Paris Commune. In '77, you get the Great Upheaval. In '86, you had the Haymarket Riot and Seattle Sino-American Riot. In '94, you had the Pullman Strike and Coxey's Army. And these were just the largest— there were thousands of strikes in this period. Racial and class tensions were absolutely brutal during this time— BLM, Trump's populist rise, Occupy? Hell, even the '60s counter culture and New Left? Paltry center-leftist protests compared to this— USica circa late 1800s was literally pre-revolutionary.
So now let's get this thread going somewhere— "what if that spark ignited a class war?"
It's 1894. The Panic of 1893 was so devastating that it seems to some to be a 'great depression.' Businesses closed en-masse, and the economy contracts. Same deal as our timeline.
But all that changes is that one Washington D.C. businessman is just a bit too harsh in his response, kickstarting a strike. Okay, usual worker nonsense. The police and military fire into the crowd, and anarchists try to rally people to fight back.
Did I mention that this is occurring at the same time as Coxey's Army protest? Workers from this movement ally with the strike as it occurs.
All these unemployed, dirty peasants wreaking havoc on the doorstep of the nation's fine capital will not be tolerated. Business leaders convene to plan an end to all this tomfoolery. The military will move in without hesitation or relent. They have the government's unwavering consent. Just keep flashin' dat cash. "Treat this intrusion as a foreign mass of hostile radicals."
The US Army is brought out and faces the mass of workers one overcast and dreary April day. No attempt at an ultimatum. Rifles aim and fire. Not since the civil war had more Americans been killed by their own countrymen— over two thousand dead.
News of this quickly spreads throughout the world, and the US faces harsh criticism from the more progressive empires of Europe. How embarrassing, being talked down to by monarchies!
Meanwhile, the Washington Massacre galvanizes various labor movements throughout the States. The Knights of Labor, the Populist Party, and the burgeoning socialist movement realize that this is possibly their greatest challenge yet— the whole world is watching, and public opinion is on their side for the first time. Not just this, but various racist movements such as the K³ also identified with the victims (99.97% white).
Thus begins a nationwide strike that puts every previous one to shame. How the businessmen's ploy had backfired! Oh well, the only thing to do now was to come down even harder. Your children don't respond to a slap? Beat 'em with a rod!
For workers in the pits, how could their life get any worse? Their employers are treating them all like dogs. Just being a worker earns you the suspicion and ire of the ruling class.
The Granges are listening. A charismatic grange leader, Jeremiah Smith, realizes an opportunity has arisen to seize power.
Pamphlets spread. Some scratch out the overtly Marxist language and put it into something the American poor can understand— tradition. These 'bloodsuckers' have stomped on what it means to be an American, and are attempting to make us more like the aristocracies of old. Both sides lost the civil war! Only the bloodsucker class won.
And workers couldn't deny this. After all, 2,000 of their countrymen had been gunned down just for the crime of not working hard enough (if they could find work at all!), so what else was there for them?
As a reaction, councils form. Taking up from the Grange movement, they get the nickname 'granges.' Jeremiah Smith is the one responsible for this rebranding (to the chagrin of some of the more purist ruralists), and he constructs what these will be: they're entirely worker-owned co-operatives with no hierarchy. They begin in the midwest (within the oldschool granges) and spread quickly. Workers in various rural areas run out their foremen and take up arms. In cities across the nation, the working class takes action— raiding police stations and military installations where arms may be found. Railroads are stopped. Workers refuse to work. Back-up workers refuse to work. People begin to steal from stores and pass around goods to their neighbors. Then people raid markets and begin running them themselves. People refuse to pay taxes. Farmers refuse to sell to markets that aren't grange-allied.
April 24th— a grange forms in St. Louis, right on the mayoral city hall, after the mayor is chased out by a mob. This grange then declares itself the St. Louis Commune— the first major US city to do so.
This shocks businessmen. They beg the State to take control. Whatever shall be done? Simple! Call upon the military once more.
SIGH. The damned fools.
May 1st, 1894.
The primary action is takin' place in N'yawk City. Boss Tweed, anyone? The last dollhole who'd ever need a populist revolution to take place. His legacy still remains, as Tammany Hall remains the place where kickbacks and grafts occur en masse— immigrants come in on Ellis Island and look for work and shelter? They'll provide it, as long as you remain loyal. It's where the largest labor riot rumbles. The whole city is on lockdown. Current NYC mayor Thomas Gilroy orders martial law. The national guard and US Army combine with the police and prepare for what seems to be the final showdown.
35,000 units vs. 150,000 strikers.
Americans.
Goddammit, these are Americans. With a slummy economy plus the super-strike, many soldiers and policemen haven't been paid. Now they're being told to kill their countrymen. Some will gladly do it so they can finally get some money.
But not everyone.
29,000 of the 35,000 policing units turn over to the strikers. It's one of the largest military/police revolts in history.
"Revolt." No, forget that bullcrap.
This is a revolution.
The insurgency overthrows Tammany Hall, and this has the effect of cutting off welfare for immigrants. This makes them dependent upon the new New York Grange.
Granges are established where cities and state capitals used to be a day prior. The leaders of the revolt have one huge order— "Take the ports!"
Uh oh. The revolution is becoming radical. Even the "traditionalist conservatives" are now calling for the blood of the wealthy. The revolutionaries wants to block all exits, and the nationalists want to block all entrances. Unions and granges form people's militias and establish several communes: the New York Commune, the Chicago Commune, the Charleston Commune, the New Orleans Commune, the San Francisco Commune, and more. There are several rules in these communes-
In these communes, there are no police forces. The granges support worker democracy— at first. Then they aim for something more— a 'worker republic.' They demand the Washington elite and business owners step down from power, relinquish their wealth and capital, and hand over all power to the granges.
They have the option to refuse, buuuut.... you remember that people's militia I mentioned earlier? Yeeeeeeeeeee~aaaah.... they... kinda surrounded Washington and threaten to burn it to the ground and kill everyone on Capitol Hill. They now have hundreds of thousands of soldiers on their side. Millions of armed workers aiming at them. Banks, businesses, railroads, ports, churches, state governments: now in the hands of the granges.
What would the capitalists do? What did you think they'd do? They're not idiots— surrender with their lives!
Because, let's take Carnegie. Yeah, revolutionaries capture his family and hold them hostage. Yeah, capitalists denounce such behavior. Yeah, rebels go all the way and execute his family and threaten further revolutionary terror. Yeah, capitalists quake and tremble at such barbarism and no-holds-barred brutality. No, popular support doesn't turn against the revolution. The revolution owns the media.
On May 12th, 1894, a month after the first strike, Grover Cleveland, Congress, et all sign away the United States of America to the granges. It happened so fast, historians will say.
The United States of America falls.
The US becomes the Democratic Worker's Republic of America. Jeremiah Smith is the de facto leader.
Immediately comes massive, sweeping economic restructuring. All private industry is nationalized. Farms are reformed into rural granges, a sort of collective farm system. The gold standard is abolished.
Wall Street is violently expropriated, and lush estates across the nation begin to burn as mobs drag out their owners for quick kangaroo courts that almost always leads to an immediate 'guilty' verdict. So begins what Smith calls 'worker's republicanism'— what we know as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Smith argues that in a reactionary country such as America, the capitalist class would remain a threat even after a successful socialist revolution. As a result, he advocates the repression of those elements of the capitalist class that take up arms against the new grange government, writing that as long as classes existed, a state would need to exist to exercise the democratic rule of one class (in his view, the working class) over the other (the deposed capitalist class)(psst— if this reads like pure copy/paste, you've got it).
Smith fears the inevitable counter-revolutionary forces and civil war, and so signs into existence "PAPA"— the Pan-American Penal Administration, an administration that runs a system of forced-labor camps, located mostly in the midwest and northwest. Smith does not wish to establish a strong vanguard party, and wishes to engage in fair elections— but these elections belong to the working class, not everyone. PAPA exists as a means to incarcerate counter-revolutionary forces. The capitalists that are currently being expropriated are the primary target, as are highly reactionary pro-capitalist and pro-traditionalist movements in the rural South. People who refuse to work on granges and hoard what they grow are socially shamed and exocommunicated, and sometimes denounced as 'wannabe tyrants.'
The united Grange movement seizes upon this populist hatred of the former ruling class to enforce worker's republicanism. Industrialists we're all familiar with— Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew W. Mellon, et al— see their businesses and monopolies nationalized and handed over to the workers while they, themselves, are paraded in humiliating show trials, forced to denounce their practices and declare loyalty to the new worker's state. After all, fellow industrialist Carnegie experienced firsthand these new rulers were not to be trifled with. What is wealth compared to blood?
But not all were on board. Some, especially in more disparate territories or in areas that remained largely reactionary, saw the revolution as nothing more than a minor inconvenience that will soon blow over. If anything, it's an opportunity— the titans had been slayed, meaning that if they could take control of Washington, they could profit immensely from what the fallen barons lost.
They just needed to rile up some sort of support.
January 1st, 1895. It's been a tumultuous year for the fledgling DWRA. The civil war has arrived, beginning in the far west and in the north east. It was mostly, ironically (but not unexpectedly), rival grange and labor groups that aimed to usurp power.
Nationalist forces in the west also drummed up a sizable militia force— however, these are much shadier characters, believed to be taking hefty payments from the government of Mexico, particularly the pro-capitalist and authoritarian dictator, Porfirio Díaz. In fact, Díaz had been greatly troubled by the revolution in the north. Revolutionary fervor was beginning to trickle south, and he wouldn't have it. What he feared most was the Worker's Republic becoming a terrorist state, "exporting revolution throughout Spanish America."
It wasn't just him— the whole world was absolutely stunned by what had occurred. America, the land of business, now a Marxist republic (even though those in power still weren't calling it Marxist)! America, the largest economy in the world! What will this mean for the future of global geopolitics?
You have these anarchists-cum-socialists in Washington D.C. claiming that they're for "market socialism," empowering the workers while partially centrally managing the economy. They simultaneously support and oppose imperialism, adopting a stance of "Worker's Imperialism." They wouldn't subjugate foreign peoples, but liberate them from the yolk of capitalist oppression. The first place, the testing ground? Cuba— the Worker's Republic uses a false flag operation to go to war against Spain. The war remains a short lived game of a war, with the WR gaining Cuba and the Philippines.
1898. The Worker's Democratic Republic of Cuba and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Tawalisi (formerly the Philippines) are established. This further shocks the world, as it "proves" that the WR are, indeed, spreading Marxism across the globe.
Tensions between the Worker's Republic and Mexico were rising ever since the success of the revolution. The successful conclusion of the Spanish-American War in '97 and the creation of new worker's states was the trigger for war preparations.
Due to the popular economic reforms, the Second American Civil War was going badly for opposing parties. Díaz's hope— that the business leaders that hadn't been expropriated but were still disenfranchised would fund a pro-capitalist army— faded as the fabled 'capitalist army' failed to materialize.
Smith was learning from the failure of the Paris Commune— be strong and assertive, control society like a tool, and don't alienate the People.
The PAPAs were quickly filling with capitalists and bankers that dared speak out against the regime, as well as suspect peoples whose loyalties were questioned— including a considerable amount of former Confederates. This conflict, the racial one that was always the driver in American social relations, was one that was quickly turning against racial supremacists. The granges that took control had defected from the increasingly racist Knights of Labor, opting for racial equality over all. By '97 and '98, it was a major question that had to be asked— what of segregation?
"No segregation." Full, total integration. No race will be above another. No class will be above another (save the whole worker's republicanism thing, but that's, eh, temporary). This egalitarianism was extremely unpopular in the South, but it was enforced with a strictness that far surpassed Reconstruction— you hate negroes? You go see PAPA for a few decades.
What of religion? Protestantism has always been a lynchpin of American social values, but surely secular Marxism would oppose the furthering of religion! You’d be wrong— the granges rose to power by capitalizing on religiosity.
There is one problem though…
Katlickers.
Catholicism has always been a marginalized belief system in America, despite being just another branch of the Christian faith. The reason for this— Catholics answer to the Pope, whom they believe is God’s conduit to the secular world. In other words, their loyalties lie in the Vatican. Whether the Worker’s Republic or the United States, the result is the same— “they’re evil!”
Popular sovereignty. Smith greatly adored the idea of popular sovereignty and believed that it was a necessary component of democratic socialism. Thus, he allowed the People to deal with Catholicism as they saw fit. After all, if the katlickers answer to the Pope, who knows what they’re capable of! Very quickly, they become a ‘suspect class’…
In the South, this leads to an explosion of violence and hatred. The South is already fanatically Protestant Socialist, but repressing the underlying racial tensions means that, wherever you poke a hole, the steam will be blistering. Gettin’ dem katlickers is your God-given duty as an American, as a Worker! They don’t believe in America, they believe in the Pope and the tyrannical Vatican. Can’t lynch negroes? Lynch a katlicker!
By the way, you know what nation is largely Catholic? Mexico. Díaz beat the war drums ever louder and louder, telling the nation of the “horrors inflicted against Catholics in America.”
The whole world is speaking of American horrors. Why would the bourgeoisie, aristocracies, and monarchies of other nations support such a nation?
Japan, long obsessed with the West, is just as terrified of Worker Imperialism as any European imperialist power. There’s this… communist nation that just established a Marxist satellite to their south! What could they be plotting?
The 20th Century.
This is where it starts getting interesting.
1902. Tensions in North America reach a fever pitch when British warships move south from Nova Scotia, right after American troop movements got a little too active on the New England/Canadian border. A war on two fronts seems inevitable— but who would attack first? Mexico, Canada, or the Worker’s Republic? The civil war has been repressed before it could spiral out of control, and the DWRA military is ready for any confrontation.
Smith manages to defuse tensions for the moment. Nevertheless, it’s apparent that a foul stench has filled the room— the Old World powers want the USA back, and Díaz was clearly funding the Nationalist forces.
War is in the air.
Germany spots an opportunity. England, France, and Russia all desperately oppose the DWRA. That’s not to say they don’t, but Nationalist movements in their own respective countries have left a cold war brewing ever since the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Perhaps they could use the terror the WR inspires in other empires to subvert their rivals. Perhaps they can trigger a war in the Americas that will draw in all the major world powers (save them) and drain them of their resources. And once that’s done, they can pounce them all at once!
It’s worth a shot, right?
To be continued! Will WWI start 10 years early? Will an entirely separate world war be fought between the Americas, with the 'vanilla' WWI leaving Europe to rot? What happens to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Tawalisi following the Russo-Japanese War? If America is socialist, what happens to all those technological innovations? What are the world's communists doing? Will a Communist International form? What's the result of Worker's Imperialism?
I could continue (and I want to), but I also want to hear other headcanons!
Nevermind that the post-civil war generation was arguably the most tumultuous period in USican history (yes, even more than 1968!). Sexy history that the current education system would rather us forget!
Between 1865 and 1914, the only way I could describe good ol' USica is "dystopian." A sort of mix between anarchy and corporate proto-totalitarianism. In the south and west, disorder and madness. In the north and east, horrendous inequality and uneven optimism. At the same time, this is the generation after the rise of "popular sovereignty"— the hip thing was the let the People decide (as long as their decision lay within the powerful's interest).
After the war, we get into the Gilded Age. Businessmen and bankers who profited off of truly innovative ideas— and the sweat of workers. There we go, the creation of the modern middle class.
Eh... American society was still more like a hourglass-esque pyramid. Yuuuuuge underclass. And this underclass was divided, as we all know. You had your impoverished whites, the freemen, the ex-slaves, the aborigines, the immigrants, and whatnot— all under the thumb of a wealthy few. No government regulation, a lack of modern liberalism, and zero worker protections leads to the medieval conditions I alluded to earlier. If you're an American worker, a Protestant anglo male, you're lucky to bring in $500 a year. So you're making less than a dollar a day, 6 days in the mills, workin', sweatin', while your factory lord is burning $100 bills to light a cigarette. Yeah, you're not going to be too thrilled to be alive.
And thus, you have the age of labor uprisings. Riots, rebellions, and bloody utter failures to kickstart revolutions. Unions form, and they get pulverized. And you get economic panics, including really big ones in the '70s and '93. In the early '70s, you saw the rise of the Paris Commune. In '77, you get the Great Upheaval. In '86, you had the Haymarket Riot and Seattle Sino-American Riot. In '94, you had the Pullman Strike and Coxey's Army. And these were just the largest— there were thousands of strikes in this period. Racial and class tensions were absolutely brutal during this time— BLM, Trump's populist rise, Occupy? Hell, even the '60s counter culture and New Left? Paltry center-leftist protests compared to this— USica circa late 1800s was literally pre-revolutionary.
So now let's get this thread going somewhere— "what if that spark ignited a class war?"
It's 1894. The Panic of 1893 was so devastating that it seems to some to be a 'great depression.' Businesses closed en-masse, and the economy contracts. Same deal as our timeline.
But all that changes is that one Washington D.C. businessman is just a bit too harsh in his response, kickstarting a strike. Okay, usual worker nonsense. The police and military fire into the crowd, and anarchists try to rally people to fight back.
Did I mention that this is occurring at the same time as Coxey's Army protest? Workers from this movement ally with the strike as it occurs.
All these unemployed, dirty peasants wreaking havoc on the doorstep of the nation's fine capital will not be tolerated. Business leaders convene to plan an end to all this tomfoolery. The military will move in without hesitation or relent. They have the government's unwavering consent. Just keep flashin' dat cash. "Treat this intrusion as a foreign mass of hostile radicals."
The US Army is brought out and faces the mass of workers one overcast and dreary April day. No attempt at an ultimatum. Rifles aim and fire. Not since the civil war had more Americans been killed by their own countrymen— over two thousand dead.
News of this quickly spreads throughout the world, and the US faces harsh criticism from the more progressive empires of Europe. How embarrassing, being talked down to by monarchies!
Meanwhile, the Washington Massacre galvanizes various labor movements throughout the States. The Knights of Labor, the Populist Party, and the burgeoning socialist movement realize that this is possibly their greatest challenge yet— the whole world is watching, and public opinion is on their side for the first time. Not just this, but various racist movements such as the K³ also identified with the victims (99.97% white).
Thus begins a nationwide strike that puts every previous one to shame. How the businessmen's ploy had backfired! Oh well, the only thing to do now was to come down even harder. Your children don't respond to a slap? Beat 'em with a rod!
For workers in the pits, how could their life get any worse? Their employers are treating them all like dogs. Just being a worker earns you the suspicion and ire of the ruling class.
The Granges are listening. A charismatic grange leader, Jeremiah Smith, realizes an opportunity has arisen to seize power.
Pamphlets spread. Some scratch out the overtly Marxist language and put it into something the American poor can understand— tradition. These 'bloodsuckers' have stomped on what it means to be an American, and are attempting to make us more like the aristocracies of old. Both sides lost the civil war! Only the bloodsucker class won.
And workers couldn't deny this. After all, 2,000 of their countrymen had been gunned down just for the crime of not working hard enough (if they could find work at all!), so what else was there for them?
As a reaction, councils form. Taking up from the Grange movement, they get the nickname 'granges.' Jeremiah Smith is the one responsible for this rebranding (to the chagrin of some of the more purist ruralists), and he constructs what these will be: they're entirely worker-owned co-operatives with no hierarchy. They begin in the midwest (within the oldschool granges) and spread quickly. Workers in various rural areas run out their foremen and take up arms. In cities across the nation, the working class takes action— raiding police stations and military installations where arms may be found. Railroads are stopped. Workers refuse to work. Back-up workers refuse to work. People begin to steal from stores and pass around goods to their neighbors. Then people raid markets and begin running them themselves. People refuse to pay taxes. Farmers refuse to sell to markets that aren't grange-allied.
April 24th— a grange forms in St. Louis, right on the mayoral city hall, after the mayor is chased out by a mob. This grange then declares itself the St. Louis Commune— the first major US city to do so.
This shocks businessmen. They beg the State to take control. Whatever shall be done? Simple! Call upon the military once more.
SIGH. The damned fools.
May 1st, 1894.
The primary action is takin' place in N'yawk City. Boss Tweed, anyone? The last dollhole who'd ever need a populist revolution to take place. His legacy still remains, as Tammany Hall remains the place where kickbacks and grafts occur en masse— immigrants come in on Ellis Island and look for work and shelter? They'll provide it, as long as you remain loyal. It's where the largest labor riot rumbles. The whole city is on lockdown. Current NYC mayor Thomas Gilroy orders martial law. The national guard and US Army combine with the police and prepare for what seems to be the final showdown.
35,000 units vs. 150,000 strikers.
Americans.
Goddammit, these are Americans. With a slummy economy plus the super-strike, many soldiers and policemen haven't been paid. Now they're being told to kill their countrymen. Some will gladly do it so they can finally get some money.
But not everyone.
29,000 of the 35,000 policing units turn over to the strikers. It's one of the largest military/police revolts in history.
"Revolt." No, forget that bullcrap.
This is a revolution.
The insurgency overthrows Tammany Hall, and this has the effect of cutting off welfare for immigrants. This makes them dependent upon the new New York Grange.
Granges are established where cities and state capitals used to be a day prior. The leaders of the revolt have one huge order— "Take the ports!"
Uh oh. The revolution is becoming radical. Even the "traditionalist conservatives" are now calling for the blood of the wealthy. The revolutionaries wants to block all exits, and the nationalists want to block all entrances. Unions and granges form people's militias and establish several communes: the New York Commune, the Chicago Commune, the Charleston Commune, the New Orleans Commune, the San Francisco Commune, and more. There are several rules in these communes-
- No man may exploit the labor of another man
- All goods must be shared
- Exploiters of men are barred from the community
- Criminal behavior must be dealt with by the community
In these communes, there are no police forces. The granges support worker democracy— at first. Then they aim for something more— a 'worker republic.' They demand the Washington elite and business owners step down from power, relinquish their wealth and capital, and hand over all power to the granges.
They have the option to refuse, buuuut.... you remember that people's militia I mentioned earlier? Yeeeeeeeeeee~aaaah.... they... kinda surrounded Washington and threaten to burn it to the ground and kill everyone on Capitol Hill. They now have hundreds of thousands of soldiers on their side. Millions of armed workers aiming at them. Banks, businesses, railroads, ports, churches, state governments: now in the hands of the granges.
What would the capitalists do? What did you think they'd do? They're not idiots— surrender with their lives!
Because, let's take Carnegie. Yeah, revolutionaries capture his family and hold them hostage. Yeah, capitalists denounce such behavior. Yeah, rebels go all the way and execute his family and threaten further revolutionary terror. Yeah, capitalists quake and tremble at such barbarism and no-holds-barred brutality. No, popular support doesn't turn against the revolution. The revolution owns the media.
On May 12th, 1894, a month after the first strike, Grover Cleveland, Congress, et all sign away the United States of America to the granges. It happened so fast, historians will say.
The United States of America falls.
The US becomes the Democratic Worker's Republic of America. Jeremiah Smith is the de facto leader.
Immediately comes massive, sweeping economic restructuring. All private industry is nationalized. Farms are reformed into rural granges, a sort of collective farm system. The gold standard is abolished.
Wall Street is violently expropriated, and lush estates across the nation begin to burn as mobs drag out their owners for quick kangaroo courts that almost always leads to an immediate 'guilty' verdict. So begins what Smith calls 'worker's republicanism'— what we know as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Smith argues that in a reactionary country such as America, the capitalist class would remain a threat even after a successful socialist revolution. As a result, he advocates the repression of those elements of the capitalist class that take up arms against the new grange government, writing that as long as classes existed, a state would need to exist to exercise the democratic rule of one class (in his view, the working class) over the other (the deposed capitalist class)(psst— if this reads like pure copy/paste, you've got it).
Smith fears the inevitable counter-revolutionary forces and civil war, and so signs into existence "PAPA"— the Pan-American Penal Administration, an administration that runs a system of forced-labor camps, located mostly in the midwest and northwest. Smith does not wish to establish a strong vanguard party, and wishes to engage in fair elections— but these elections belong to the working class, not everyone. PAPA exists as a means to incarcerate counter-revolutionary forces. The capitalists that are currently being expropriated are the primary target, as are highly reactionary pro-capitalist and pro-traditionalist movements in the rural South. People who refuse to work on granges and hoard what they grow are socially shamed and exocommunicated, and sometimes denounced as 'wannabe tyrants.'
The united Grange movement seizes upon this populist hatred of the former ruling class to enforce worker's republicanism. Industrialists we're all familiar with— Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew W. Mellon, et al— see their businesses and monopolies nationalized and handed over to the workers while they, themselves, are paraded in humiliating show trials, forced to denounce their practices and declare loyalty to the new worker's state. After all, fellow industrialist Carnegie experienced firsthand these new rulers were not to be trifled with. What is wealth compared to blood?
But not all were on board. Some, especially in more disparate territories or in areas that remained largely reactionary, saw the revolution as nothing more than a minor inconvenience that will soon blow over. If anything, it's an opportunity— the titans had been slayed, meaning that if they could take control of Washington, they could profit immensely from what the fallen barons lost.
They just needed to rile up some sort of support.
January 1st, 1895. It's been a tumultuous year for the fledgling DWRA. The civil war has arrived, beginning in the far west and in the north east. It was mostly, ironically (but not unexpectedly), rival grange and labor groups that aimed to usurp power.
Nationalist forces in the west also drummed up a sizable militia force— however, these are much shadier characters, believed to be taking hefty payments from the government of Mexico, particularly the pro-capitalist and authoritarian dictator, Porfirio Díaz. In fact, Díaz had been greatly troubled by the revolution in the north. Revolutionary fervor was beginning to trickle south, and he wouldn't have it. What he feared most was the Worker's Republic becoming a terrorist state, "exporting revolution throughout Spanish America."
It wasn't just him— the whole world was absolutely stunned by what had occurred. America, the land of business, now a Marxist republic (even though those in power still weren't calling it Marxist)! America, the largest economy in the world! What will this mean for the future of global geopolitics?
You have these anarchists-cum-socialists in Washington D.C. claiming that they're for "market socialism," empowering the workers while partially centrally managing the economy. They simultaneously support and oppose imperialism, adopting a stance of "Worker's Imperialism." They wouldn't subjugate foreign peoples, but liberate them from the yolk of capitalist oppression. The first place, the testing ground? Cuba— the Worker's Republic uses a false flag operation to go to war against Spain. The war remains a short lived game of a war, with the WR gaining Cuba and the Philippines.
1898. The Worker's Democratic Republic of Cuba and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Tawalisi (formerly the Philippines) are established. This further shocks the world, as it "proves" that the WR are, indeed, spreading Marxism across the globe.
Tensions between the Worker's Republic and Mexico were rising ever since the success of the revolution. The successful conclusion of the Spanish-American War in '97 and the creation of new worker's states was the trigger for war preparations.
Due to the popular economic reforms, the Second American Civil War was going badly for opposing parties. Díaz's hope— that the business leaders that hadn't been expropriated but were still disenfranchised would fund a pro-capitalist army— faded as the fabled 'capitalist army' failed to materialize.
Smith was learning from the failure of the Paris Commune— be strong and assertive, control society like a tool, and don't alienate the People.
The PAPAs were quickly filling with capitalists and bankers that dared speak out against the regime, as well as suspect peoples whose loyalties were questioned— including a considerable amount of former Confederates. This conflict, the racial one that was always the driver in American social relations, was one that was quickly turning against racial supremacists. The granges that took control had defected from the increasingly racist Knights of Labor, opting for racial equality over all. By '97 and '98, it was a major question that had to be asked— what of segregation?
"No segregation." Full, total integration. No race will be above another. No class will be above another (save the whole worker's republicanism thing, but that's, eh, temporary). This egalitarianism was extremely unpopular in the South, but it was enforced with a strictness that far surpassed Reconstruction— you hate negroes? You go see PAPA for a few decades.
What of religion? Protestantism has always been a lynchpin of American social values, but surely secular Marxism would oppose the furthering of religion! You’d be wrong— the granges rose to power by capitalizing on religiosity.
There is one problem though…
Katlickers.
Catholicism has always been a marginalized belief system in America, despite being just another branch of the Christian faith. The reason for this— Catholics answer to the Pope, whom they believe is God’s conduit to the secular world. In other words, their loyalties lie in the Vatican. Whether the Worker’s Republic or the United States, the result is the same— “they’re evil!”
Popular sovereignty. Smith greatly adored the idea of popular sovereignty and believed that it was a necessary component of democratic socialism. Thus, he allowed the People to deal with Catholicism as they saw fit. After all, if the katlickers answer to the Pope, who knows what they’re capable of! Very quickly, they become a ‘suspect class’…
In the South, this leads to an explosion of violence and hatred. The South is already fanatically Protestant Socialist, but repressing the underlying racial tensions means that, wherever you poke a hole, the steam will be blistering. Gettin’ dem katlickers is your God-given duty as an American, as a Worker! They don’t believe in America, they believe in the Pope and the tyrannical Vatican. Can’t lynch negroes? Lynch a katlicker!
By the way, you know what nation is largely Catholic? Mexico. Díaz beat the war drums ever louder and louder, telling the nation of the “horrors inflicted against Catholics in America.”
The whole world is speaking of American horrors. Why would the bourgeoisie, aristocracies, and monarchies of other nations support such a nation?
Japan, long obsessed with the West, is just as terrified of Worker Imperialism as any European imperialist power. There’s this… communist nation that just established a Marxist satellite to their south! What could they be plotting?
The 20th Century.
This is where it starts getting interesting.
1902. Tensions in North America reach a fever pitch when British warships move south from Nova Scotia, right after American troop movements got a little too active on the New England/Canadian border. A war on two fronts seems inevitable— but who would attack first? Mexico, Canada, or the Worker’s Republic? The civil war has been repressed before it could spiral out of control, and the DWRA military is ready for any confrontation.
Smith manages to defuse tensions for the moment. Nevertheless, it’s apparent that a foul stench has filled the room— the Old World powers want the USA back, and Díaz was clearly funding the Nationalist forces.
War is in the air.
Germany spots an opportunity. England, France, and Russia all desperately oppose the DWRA. That’s not to say they don’t, but Nationalist movements in their own respective countries have left a cold war brewing ever since the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Perhaps they could use the terror the WR inspires in other empires to subvert their rivals. Perhaps they can trigger a war in the Americas that will draw in all the major world powers (save them) and drain them of their resources. And once that’s done, they can pounce them all at once!
It’s worth a shot, right?
To be continued! Will WWI start 10 years early? Will an entirely separate world war be fought between the Americas, with the 'vanilla' WWI leaving Europe to rot? What happens to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Tawalisi following the Russo-Japanese War? If America is socialist, what happens to all those technological innovations? What are the world's communists doing? Will a Communist International form? What's the result of Worker's Imperialism?
I could continue (and I want to), but I also want to hear other headcanons!
