Reds: A Revolutionary Timeline

[Sean Mulligan]

I want to know what happens to WEB Dubois and to otl long time American Communist leader Gus Hall.

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by jeff

Keep going.

It might be a bit, with the holidays and all.

Originally Posted by Sean Mulligan

I want to know what happens to WEB Dubois and to otl long time American Communist leader Gus Hall.

Duly noted.

[Room 101]

Let's keep this goin'!

[Jello_Biafra]

Events of the Woods/Hoover Presidencies, 1925-29

1925

March 8: The American section of the Young Pioneers communist youth group is formally founded in New York. Essentially a political, urban Boy Scouts, the group becomes an important facet of inner city life quickly after its founding.

April 8: F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes his (eventually) famous novel, Under Red, White and Blue, to mixed critical reception and moderate commercial success.(1)

May 1: Turn out at annual May Day parades and demonstrations is a disappointment this year. The steadily growing economy and reduced unemployment have in many ways deflated militancy on the Left. The Worker's Party and the Solidarity labor union face the first decline in total membership after almost two decades of steady growth in membership.

May 17: National news suddenly turns to a small town in Iowa, over a teacher's defiance of state's anti-evolution law. The impending trial is expected to have national ramifications.

July 4: Independence Day celebrations across the country suddenly turn very somber, as news spreads of an assassination attempt on President Wood. The lone gunmen is killed while attempting escape. Wood, already in poor health, is gravely wounded by two shots to the chest from the assassin's revolver.

July 11: Herbert Hoover is sworn in as President. Due to a miscommunication about President Wood's death, Hoover is accidently sworn in almost a full hour before the President's passing. Due to this, and other unsightly coincidences in the affair, conspiracy theories begin to form around the assassination in later years.

August 1: The National Revenue Act of 1925 is signed into law by President Hoover. The Act greatly reduced federal income taxes across the board, especially on higher incomes. The federal government still maintains a modest surplus after the tax reductions, allowing the government to continue retiring some of the war debt from the First World War.

August 18: In the USSR, Leon Trotsky resigns his position in Sovnarkom as the People's Commissar for War, under mounting criticism within the party over, among other things, his earlier criticism of Zinoviev and Kamanev as well as his thesis on permanent revolution.

October 3: A Congressional joint resolution authorizing a constitutional amendment to ban the production, sale and distribution of alcohol is soundly defeated. The Prohibition movement begins a long, slow death in American politics, lingering in some areas for decades but losing most if not all of the former national attention it had received.

October 25: Walter Francis White, Executive Secretary of the NAACP, cautiously endorses the Workers Party's new emphasis on anti-segregation and anti-racism. W.E.B. Du Bois, Publications Director for the NAACP, is not so tepid. He begins publishing a series of essays in Crisis, the NAACP journal, championing an alliance between "the forces of labor liberation and the forces of Negroe liberation"

December 11: At the Fourteenth Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, the Troika between Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev disintegrates. Zinoviev and Kamanev criticize Stalin over the increasingly dictatorial nature of his leadership of the Party. Stalin, now allied with Bukharin, Molotov and Kalininn, begins strengthening his grip on the Politburo.

1926

January 16: A BBC radio play about a worker's revolution causes a panic in London, dramatically revealing the great tension between labor and capital in the UK.

February 4: Eugene Debs, five time presidential candidate and spiritual leader of the American socialist movement, passes away in his sleep. With the unifying force of Debs gone, many fear that the Workers Party will soon splinter.

April 28: A coal miner's strike begins in Britain. The conflict soon boils over into a full general strike. While the labor's taking to the streets is far short of a revolution in progress, the quick degeneration of the situation proves that fears of labor uprising are not totally without merit.

May 14: The British general strike ends with a negotiated settlement.

July 17: The Automobile Worker's Union is founded in Detroit, Michigan.

August 1: President Hoover cautiously endorses First Secretary Gilett's proposal for legislation that would, in effect, legitimate the existence of industrial unions and enforce collective bargaining contracts. With unions entrenched in every major American industry, the need for arbitration becomes manifestly apparent.

October 11: A decree issued by Mussolini's government in Italy orders the arrest of all parliamentary deputies of the Italian Communist Party.

October 14: The Labor Standards Act, legitimating industrial unionism, passes the U.S. House 287-111. However, the legislation faces an uncertain fate in the more aristocratic Senate.

December 1: Compromise deals over the Labor Standards Act fail, resulting in the defeat of the Act 36-58 in the Senate. In response, the House votes on a constitutional amendment resolution to strip powers from the US Senate. Gilett hopes that the controversy, and the threat of a constitutional convention called by the states, might give the Senate reason to reconsider. Ultimately, the controversy goes nowhere.

1927

February 1: Norman Thomas, a former Presbyterian minister and New York City councilman, is elected to the US House in a by-election. A powerful orator and an enthusiastic activist, he quickly becomes a powerful figure in New York labor politics.

May 17: Charles Lindbergh, a daring airmail pilot, is pronounced missing and presumed dead, after his plane fails to arrive in Great Britain. An attempt at the first solo flight across the Atlantic will not be made again for several months.

June 1: In the USSR, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, former adversaires, form a United Opposition against Stalin's growing hegemony in the Communist Party.

June 8: Actor William Haines, the number one box office draw of the year, openly discusses his homosexuality and his relationship with his partner Jimmie Shields in an interview with the Daily Worker. The national news attention following is more one of curiosity than condemnation.(2)

July 16: American troops are deployed to China to protect vital American commercial interests.

October 6: The silent film era ends with the release of The Jazz Singer.

November 8: Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev are formally expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky and his associates refuse to capitulate, and soon face the prospect of internal exile.

December 6: The Soviet Communist Party, at its Fifteenth Congress, issues an official edict condemning all deviation from the party line. Josef Stalin is effectively undisputed master of the Soviet state.

1928

January 30: Leon Trotsky is arrested by State Security. He assumes a state of passive resistence, and is exiled to Alma Ata in the following month.

March 2: In accordance with "Second Period" Comintern policies, the Workers Party of America adopts the name "Workers (Communist) Party".

April 4: Max Eastman, editor of the Daily Worker, publishes an article in the paper in support of Leon Trotsky, and heavily criticizes Josef Stalin's growing leadership cult. Calls by the Comintern for his expulsion from the party begin almost immediately.

April 8: The United States Republican Party begins issuing it's first official membership cards. President Hoover accepts the first card, becoming the first "official" member of the Republican Party. Membership dues, collected during the primary season at party rallies, will be used to fund the national Congressional campaign.

May 4: Aviatrix Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to successfully fly across the Atlantic.

June 18: American troops stationed in China begin a general withdrawal.

July 2: A papal edict is issued, aimed at the growing involvement of US Catholics with the socialist movement. It harshly condemns socialism and laborism, and instead encourages humility and charity as an alternative. Known members of the Workers Party are to be explicitly denied communion.

August 6: First Secretary Gilett publicly announces his retirement from leadership of the Republican Party and from politics in general. Majority Leader Nicholas Longworth is elected to head the government for the remainder of the Congress.

November 6: US general election. President Hoover is reelected to a second term, and Republican Party returns a solid majority in the House of Representatives. Cooperation between the President and the First Secretary is expected to be high.(3)

December 18: In one of its last acts, the lameduck 68th Congress approves construction of a hydroelectric dam in the Boulder Canyon on the Colorado River.

1929

February 11: Leon Trotsky, along with his wife and son, is expelled from the USSR, to Istanbul, Turkey.

March 4: Herbert Hoover is sworn into his second term as President. Nicholas Longworth forms a Republican majority government.

(1) IOTL, The Great Gatsby. Under Red, White and Blue was F. Scott Fitzgerald's preferred title, but he arrived at it too late to in publication to change the name of the book.

(2) I was surprised to learn this, but apparently the Roaring 20s was a period of relative acceptance of homosexuality unmatched until the mid to late 1970s. I'd chalk it up to innocence rather than a progressive social attitude, but at any rate a major interview with an already openly gay individual seems like a decent point of departure for the development of different LBGT politics in ITTL.

(3)The 1928 US General Election

The Presidency

Herbert Hoover handily wins the nomination from the Republican Party. The Republican Party national secretary, a close confidant of the president, sets the party's sights on the South, hoping to crack the Democratic Party's dominance of the region once and for all. Campaigners, organizers and a slew of hopeful Congressional candidates descend upon the South during the campaign season. Many run under the banner of the Conservative Party. However, the Conservative Party is little more than a regional auxiliary to the Republican Party to avoid much anti-Republican sentiment left over from the Civil War.

The Worker's (Communist) Party again nominates Upton Sinclair for President. His running mate, young New Yorker Norman Thomas brings a helpful human face to the ticket. Thomas' success at organizing with churchs and religious groups bolster the party's campaign, as it mirrors the dominant Republican's turn towards the South. The party hopes to rally Southern populists, tenant farmers, exploited blacks and white industrial workers into an effective coalition to take control of the House of Representatives.

The ailing Democratic Party further entrenches, and again nominates Bourbon Democrat John W. Davis. The party finds itself beset on two fronts, and struggles to hold onto its remaining House seats, as well as the Southern state governments.

Herbert Hoover(R)...........................19,345,891 (337)
Upton Sinclair (W)...........................12,125,054 (130)
John W. Davis (D)...........................6,521,324 (64)



House of Representatives

Republican Majority Government

Republican Party....................................246 (+46)
Conservative Party.................................41 (+41)

Opposition

Worker's Party......................................112 (-46)
Democratic Party...................................36 (-40)
Independent....................................... ..0 (-1)

US Senate

Republican Party....................................49 (-1)
Democratic Party...................................21 (-8)
Conservative Party.................................8 (+8)
Worker's Party......................................18 (+1)

[manofsteelwool]

Is the current (1920s) US government closer to being like OTL's government or a semi-presidential system like in France?

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by manofsteelwool

Is the current (1920s) US government closer to being like OTL's government or a semi-presidential system like in France?

It's semi-presidential, like the current French Fifth Republic. However, the Senate still retains all of its powers from before the upheavel, so on balance the Congress is more divided than in France's semi-presidential system.

[Thinker1200]

So now we see how the Cold war will play out eh? This should be interesting.

[TNF]

Sinclair '32!

[Historico]

Awesome update on Wood's unfinished Second Term, entered into by Hoover as I think a Social Progressive like himself would be able to work with the Socialists on some Domestic Legislation. Also an alternate LGBT Rights Movement and Lindbergh swapping with Earhart things should be pretty interesting come the Revolution. Norman Thomas has been set up at the Worker's Party FDR>...Thomas in '32!!!

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by The New Freedom

Sinclair '32!

Originally Posted by Historico

Awesome update on Wood's unfinished Second Term, entered into by Hoover as I think a Social Progressive like himself would be able to work with the Socialists on some Domestic Legislation. Also an alternate LGBT Rights Movement and Lindbergh swapping with Earhart things should be pretty interesting come the Revolution. Norman Thomas has been set up at the Worker's Party FDR>...Thomas in '32!!!

O ho... looks like there's some dissension in the ranks as to who should be president.

Since I myself am undecided, I think it's time for a little bit of audience participation. Looks like I'll be making an in character thread for the nomination

[sprite]

A brilliant update to one of my favourite threads

[TNF]

I was re-reading over this timeline earlier and I noticed in the information page you gave for the UASR that the country has a GINI coefficient of 12.1%(!), which is both (a) remarkable and (b) interesting in that it's even lower than OTL's poster-boy for social democratic wealth redistribution, Sweden (which has a GINI coefficient of 23%, IIRC).

Just thought that was interesting, is all. What kind of policies (beyond the usual social democratic wealth redistribution ones) allow this sort of equality within the UASR?

[Archangel]

Norman Thomas looks very promising in the Communist Party and the Republicans are each day resembling more an European-like centre-right party.
Keep up the good work!

[Jello_Biafra]

Excerpts from "Review: Towards a Permanent Republican Majority" by George Catlin, in American Political Science Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, February 1930.

Nathan Fines' recent study of American political trends gives us a bold prediction: as a direct consequence of political dynamics, demographic trends and most of all economic cycles, the American Republican Party will be uniquely situated to dominate American political life for the foreseeable future. Fines' thesis is bold indeed, and while the Republican Party's landslide general election victory and the political success of the Hoover-Longworth Administration's(1) political programme may seem to the pedestrian observer to be proof positive, we must be more cautious in evaluating the strength of such a profound claim. Nevertheless, Fines has come prepared, marshalling an impressive range of evidence with remarkable clarity.

...One of the strongest planks of Fines' thesis is his analysis of the Republican Party's successful strategy of co-opting both the political programmes and organization methods of their adversaries at the polls. Since the final midterm Congressional election in 1918, the Republican Party's chief adversary has been the communist Workers Party. As Fines' so eloquently put it, "the socialist opposition has been the most able and thorough schoolmaster in the art of mass politics in the entirety of the Grand Old Party's existence." Indeed, the Republicans have made able use of their education. The modern Republican Party, organizationally, is the mirror image of the mass-based membership Worker's Party(2). The Republican's impressive resources have allowed for the mobilization of an impressive membership group, and a powerful electoral apparatus to mobilize support for the party on election day.

The Republicans have done more than learn new organizational methods from the opposition, though. While many high-profile attempts at political realignment failed under the Wood presidency, the Republican Party has spent most of the 20s experimenting with adopting facets of the Worker's Party's "Minimal Programme". Hoover's first term led to limited success on that front, adopting landmark workplace safety legislation, it was ultimately First Secretary Longworth's decisive reorganization of the parliamentary Republican membership leading up to and after the 1928 election victory that have allowed the social democratic reforms of the past year. Hoover's controversial election platform, which called for the nationalisation of the rail roads and comprehensive federal disaster relief programmes, are, as Fines' polling data demonstrates, a key factor to winning over many Midwestern and Southern farmers to the Republican Party. In spite of high profile opposition within the party, both measures passed under Longworth's strong parliamentary leadership.

...However, their remain some problems with Fines' thesis. A permanent Republican majority rests on extrapolating current economic and demographic trends. A dramatic increase in the rate of urbanisation, or a weakening of economic standard of living growth could very easily upset the Republican Party's prospects for the future. Similarly, Fines' prediction of the total demise of the Democratic Party within the next decade is beset with reasonable doubts. Identification with the Democratic Party is still very strong in the American South, in spite of the success of both the Republican and Worker's parties' penetration of the electorate in the last election. The Republican's Southern auxiliary, the Conservative Party, simply may not have the staying power to uproot such an enduring tradition.

1. The new trend in this late period has become one of naming the President and the First Secretary together for a given administration.
2. The author here omits the Solidarity labor union's position within the Worker's Party apparatus in the analysis, as he doesn't find it an important distinction.

[manofsteelwool]

Originally Posted by Jello_Biafra

Excerpts from "Review: Towards a Permanent Republican Majority

this sounds a lot like Rove's dream for a "permanent republican majority" that never happened.

Is that where you got the name from? and does it also foreshadow the republicans' demise in future elections?

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by The New Freedom

I was re-reading over this timeline earlier and I noticed in the information page you gave for the UASR that the country has a GINI coefficient of 12.1%(!), which is both (a) remarkable and (b) interesting in that it's even lower than OTL's poster-boy for social democratic wealth redistribution, Sweden (which has a GINI coefficient of 23%, IIRC).

Just thought that was interesting, is all. What kind of policies (beyond the usual social democratic wealth redistribution ones) allow this sort of equality within the UASR?

I'd love to tell you, but that'd reveal far too much I'm afraid. But if you want a hint, take a look at the internal dynamics of a worker cooperative as opposed to a capitalist corporation

Originally Posted by manofsteelwool

this sounds a lot like Rove's dream for a "permanent republican majority" that never happened.

Is that where you got the name from? and does it also foreshadow the republicans' demise in future elections?

Yeah, that's where I got the inspiration. Given the subject matter, it's a not very subtle foreshadowing of their coming demise as a major political party.

[TNF]

Great update. I joyously await the implosion of the GOP.

[Historico]

Nothing like a Null-old thesis from an American Political Science Journal to set up the pitfall of the Great Depression...Keep it comming JB

[Thinker1200]

Originally Posted by The New Freedom

Great update. I joyously await the implosion of the GOP.

We are a mere 3 years from a American Communist revolution, i think this is obvious.

@JB: MOAR NAOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TNF]

Originally Posted by Thinker1200

We are a mere 3 years from a American Communist revolution, i think this is obvious.

@JB: MOAR NAOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Any TL where the (non-progressive) GOP bites the dust is good in my book.