Reds: A Revolutionary Timeline

I'm glad I found this TL again. It was on the 2nd page so I'm going to bump it up with this post. I am definitely looking forward to see how the next government of the US(S)A is formed.
 

Faeelin

Banned
To a Marxist, calling the political subdivisions of America "states" makes as much sense as a squirrel a primate. They may be both sub forms of a broad category of similar forms (political organizations or mammals), but the devil is very much in the details.

States, to anyone versed in political theory, and espescially to a Marxist, are sovereign entities that possess a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a given territory. The American "states" possess neither attributes under the federal constitution. To continue to call them states would be an anachronism unsuited to the rationalist world of a Marxian intellectual. So when the economic base gets restructured, those leaders would not hesitate to alter the political and ideological superstructure as part of that revolution.

By contrast, "republic" has no real set definition besides the absence of a monarch within the political structure.

Eh.... leaving aside whether Marxists thought this, and would therefore change the American states into Republics (which seems silly), this would require American Marxists to have a gros smisunderstanding of their traditions and history. Indeed, that's been lurking in my mind throughout this TL; look at the Socialist platofrm in 1932 OTL.
 
Very good TL, quite interesting, but I still don't know how you are going to pull of the actual revolution bit, it always seemed rather improbable to me.
 
Eh.... leaving aside whether Marxists thought this, and would therefore change the American states into Republics (which seems silly), this would require American Marxists to have a gros smisunderstanding of their traditions and history. Indeed, that's been lurking in my mind throughout this TL; look at the Socialist platofrm in 1932 OTL.

The Socialist party ITTL in 1932 is a very different group from the Socialist party of 1932 IOTL.

Whatever the outcome though, a "USSA" is a cliche that I'm not going have in this timeline.
 
My guess is, that Germany wins the war, and suddenly, all the banks of the US have a lot of debt, since France and Britain can't pay their loans anymore. That will be interesting!
Not that France and Britain paid their war debts IOTL :p

Also, Jello, that's a very Weberian view of the state. For Marxists, the state is an organ that arises out of class antagonisms, with the mission of preventing these antagonisms from interfering with the process of production. In practice, for Marxists, this means that the state ends up siding with the exploiting class, and not incidentally being comprised of its members.
 
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Might I also point out that Weber was a Marxian, if an unorthodox one. The classical Marxian view of the state tells you what the state does, it tells you nothing of what it is.
 
I'm curious, ITTL's WWI, is there any equivalent to the Espionage and Sedition Acts? If there is, does Debs still end up getting sent to prison, or is that butterflied away?

Also, update please. :)
 
I'm curious, ITTL's WWI, is there any equivalent to the Espionage and Sedition Acts? If there is, does Debs still end up getting sent to prison, or is that butterflied away?

Also, update please. :)

Update is coming later tonight.

Yes, there will be the equivalent of the Espionage and Sedition Acts, but I won't reveal the consequences just yet.
 
Voices in the War

This installment is mainly going to focus on the personal recollections of a number of important people who will appear prominently later in the timeline. I plan on having a large summary for 1915 by the end of this week as well.

Excerpt from Days in Red: A Memoir, by James P. Cannon, Haymarket Books, Chicago, Illi., 1969.

...The vote on [President] Taft's mobilization bill was scheduled for the second day of new Congressional term. Fresh from his party's election victory, he expected [House Speaker] Champ Clark to comply with his bill with no debate and at all due haste. Of course, we had other plans. Solidarity's Central Committee voted unanimously to call for a nationwide general strike of all of the affiliates the week before the opening of the new Congress. I can still remember being on the picket lines in front of the steel mills that day.

...The working class unity was amazing. For the first time that I could recall, black and white, native and foreigner, agreed to put aside all differences if only for this one moment in time. Even though the horrors of the First World War had yet to be revealed to anyone so far from the fronts, the great fear of another major war, begun for seemingly no reason other than to ensure that bankers would get a return on their loans, quickly turned into anger, and at for the moment a galvanized resolve to oppose the war.

...We got exactly what we wanted; we gave them pause for debate. However, the general strike turned out to be a sword that cut both ways. Until now, the political classes had been apathetic about the rise of industrial unionism and the Socialist Party. It was all to easy to give ground and let the radicals recruit another worker than to deal with them in any concerted fashion either through terror or appeasement. Our united front had unwittingly unleashed the largest domestic terror and propaganda war by any State extant in the world at the time.

Excerpts from Patton's War Diaries, 1915-1919, by Martin Bluemenson, Ed. Washington State University Press, 1972.

August 3, 1914.

Was ecstatic today to learn that we [America] would going to war against Kaiser Billy soon. It would be a great tragedy to miss out on the great War of this generation. And to be doing it for such a noble cause[1] should be the dream of every Christian soldier to fight and die for. It will be some time before we actually can ship out, and I do feel anxious about leaving my young wife so soon, but I have talked to her about it and she feels filled with pride that her husband has such devotion to duty. An acquaintance at the officer's club informed me that such a sentiment is unlikely to last, and since he is many years my senior I am inclined to trust him on the matter. But her heart is in the right place.

I read this morning that the damned Socialist leader Debs had pledged to do everything in his power to stop the war. Such a prominent firebrand of a leader, speaking such things on the eve of war ought to be put up against a wall. But I am told that only the savage nations permit such practices, and I will leave the matter at that...

December 2, 1914

...Also informed of possible promotion today. The President had earned his mandate in the election, and I am told that a major expansion of the Army is now under way. Still, would have rather learned that promotion had come because of merit rather than a sudden urgent need for more First Lieutenants.

April 5, 1915

Currently aboard ship headed for France. The A.E.F.[2], I am told, will be deploying on the line somewhere, though for obvious reasons I still do not know where. One of the more cynical lieutenants remarked that the whole A.E.F. was nothing more than a propaganda ploy. Suspect him of being a Socialist subversive, though I am wondering if he is how he made it through West Point. He carries the air of the professional, educated soldier, though I wonder if it is indeed just cynicism on his part

June 4, 1915

Haven't written for several days. Still trying to make sense of it all. Our first action began on the 28th of May. We just arrived on the line to reinforce French push at Artois. We began the campaign with much enthusiasm; the news had told us the French were nearing a breakthrough and we were eager to push through the breach...On the front, the sound of the shelling was everywhere. I had never imagined warfare quite like this. My battalion would lead the charge. We went over the wall that morning, running through the fog over the broken earth. We covered no-mans-land quickly, and encountered minimal resistance from the Huns. We neutralized their remaining machine gunners with minimal causalities and took their first trench with little difficulty. No sooner had we prepared to advance further we can under bombardment. First thought the Frogs had fouled up the operation. But we were soon under massive attack from the Germans. No sooner had the bombardment lifted we saw waves of gray-uniformed German soldiers charging at us. We fought them off as long as possible, but they had the advantage of numbers and terrain. We were forced to retreat, abandoning all the ground we had gained, leaving behind many of our brothers....The Germans pressed us until the 1st on the line before the skirmishes stopped. Only just now beginning to make sense of it. We went over the wall with 1,120 men, exactly, as the Mstr. Sgt. informed me. By the time fighting died down, we had just over five hundred battle ready men. At least two hundred were killed in the initial engagement, and the remaining wounded, missing and dead accumulating over the next four days.

June 30, 1915

In the battalion infirmary today. The doctors tell me that I suffered "mild exposure" to "chlorine gas" during the fighting. I suppose that means they think I should feel more gracious about my fortune. Ashamed to say that I too retreated from the yellow gas clouds. A week ago, I had no knowledge of any such horrifying weapon. It came on the winds, and wafted into our trenches, and rather than stay and suffocate we all ran. Retreated could have turned into a route, but the winds reversed just in time, and we rallied to a secondary trench. Still, had to be carried off the lines on a stretcher, in spite of my insistence that I could still walk. Breathing has been more difficult than I've ever known, like being perpetually at a run. My lungs still burn some. I suppose it's Christ's Providence that it wasn't worse. The man in the bed next to me suffocated in the night. Still feel shame over retreating without orders. But men can be fought with bullets and steel, this gas cannot.

August 9th, 1915

The horrors of this war do not cease. We marched through a ruined French village today, finally leaving the line. What I saw I'll never forget. The little French girl, in torn rags, crushed under the collapsed house, sinking in the mud; must have been killed by artillery bombardment. I can't stop thinking about my little daughters, young Beatrice, and Ruth, who I have not even been able to see, or to hold yet. What if my daughters, or my wife, or any of my family were killed, an innocent "casualty of war"? I left for France with so much resolve, but my experiences here have given me doubts about our purpose...

...Met a young lieutenant today, a one David Dwight Eisenhower. In our spare time we took to talking of things we missed back home. He tells me to call him by his boyhood nickname, Ike. I suppose it's easier than picking him out of the many Davids in the world. He's five years my junior, and unmarried, but he's bright and a welcome confidant. Apparently he shares my growing doubts about the war, doubts which we wisely keep to ourselves lest it affect the men's morale. Still, I am sure that our cause is just, even if the outcomes have been unsavory so far. Our road is not an easy one, and we must push onward.

1. Patton refers here to the violation of Belgian neutrality by the German military. Allied propaganda heavily played up alleged German atrocities in Belgium, many of them completely fabricated.

2. American Expeditionary Force; ITTL, a division sized unit deployed to the front ahead of the main American army, still being conscripted and trained at the time, in order to bolster sagging Allied morale.
 
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Awesome update JB...I am reallly wondering what exactly Debs have in his sleeves for his massive Anti-War Campgain. Things have definatley started to go down hill from here...Keep it comming:D
 
Notable Events, 1915

January 12: The heavy cruiser USS Montana is sunk by a German U-Boat off the Azores. Of her complement of 859 men, less than a quarter are rescued. The Taft Administration uses the sinking of the ship on training exercise heavily in the coming month's "public diplomacy" campaigns.

January 28: As one of the last acts of the "lame duck" Congress before the new term, Congress passes the "Naval Armaments Act" with a strong Democratic/Republican bipartisan majority. The Act authorizes the construction of three additional New Mexico class battleships (Tennessee, California and Colorado), along with funds to design and lay six ships of a superior class of battleship. An order for six battlecruisers of similar make is amended into the bill by allies of the Taft Administration.

February 4: An emergency joint meeting of the National Executive Committees of the Socialist Party and the Solidarity Union convenes in Chicago. All nationally elected officials of the Party, as well as top union organizers and delegates from all the union and Party locals are present. The leadership of the joint committee presents a motion to the membership to stick with the Party's electoral platform and continue opposition to Taft's war. By the end of the week, the debate is still raging over whether the resolution permits acts of "industrial sabotage" such as strikes. The final resolution passed by a narrow margin supports syndicalist tactics, with the proviso that all acts of sabotage be peaceful and avoid damage to property.

February 28: Bill Haywood publicly announces the beginning of a campaign of anti-war strikes by Solidarity affiliated industrial unions. Members of the United Mine Workers, the Longshoreman's Union, the American Railway Union, and the newly formed United Steelworker's are the first unions to answer the call. Within a week, much of industrial production and transportation throughout the important hubs of the nation has ground to a halt. Eugene Debs and other leaders begin long speaking tours to mobilize opposition to the war.

March 4: In response to labor unrest, President Taft calls out the National Guard to restore order. The ARU strike is suppressed first, on the legal pretext that the strike has interfered with the transportation of the US Mail. The leadership of the ARU is arrested on felony charges related to the obstruction of the mail service. Two new laws are introduced into Congress, which would later become the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act respectively.

March 5:
President Taft outlines his administration's agenda for the coming year to Congress. Two new cabinet level positions will be created: the Department of Public Diplomacy, and the Department of Industrial Coordination. The former will be charged with what could only reasonably be described as propaganda work, the latter will serve as a means of managing the top-heavy trusts and cartels that have been the subject of frequent attacks from Socialists. While the administrations critics within the Democratic Party charge the president with threatening the institutions of the American Republic with these new expansions of executive power, they soon withdraw their criticism. The President's plan is seen as a necessary evil required to fight both the war abroad and the enemy of insurrection at home. A national conscription bill is also included within the agenda, as well as provisions to equip and support an expanded Army of two million men.

March 16: The general strike begins to peter out, as the propaganda war waged by the Taft Administration and its allies in the press and industry turn public opinion against the strikers. The ARU votes overwhelmingly to end the strike, which has proven futile in the face of concerted armed opposition from the national government. Within a week, the Steelworkers and Miners leave their picket lines as well.

March 20:
Eager to move his agenda forward, President Taft concedes to a powersharing agreement with leaders of the Democratic Party. A National Unity Coalition is formed within Congress, and Taft agrees to reshuffle his cabinet secretaries to include Democrats. The compromise also puts the kbosh on the Department of Public Diplomacy. Instead, a special office to fulfill the role is to be created within the Department of Justice, under direct supervision from a Congressional oversight committee.

April 3: The President's mobilization bill, dubbed the "American Preparedness Act", passes over a filibuster attempt by Robert LaFollete Sr., in the Senate. While parliamentary tricks to extend the length of the legislative day indefinitely, and thus force LaFollette and supporters to run afoul of rules limiting the number of times a Senator could take the floor in a legislative day are sufficient to end the filibuster, opposition is significant enough to provoke an amendment to the Senate's rules on debate, introducing the cloture rule.

April 4: As the government mobilizes for war, Representative Upton Sinclair (S-NJ) is voted "Opposition Leader" by Socialist and Progressive Caucus in the House. In later years, as coalition governments become the rule in a Congress divided three ways against itself, the position becomes solidified within the House rules. On that same day, 20,000 volunteers of the American Expeditionary Force depart for France.

April 20: Conscription campaigns begin in the US.

May 1: Several abortive strikes are attempted by Solidarity affiliated unions to commemorate International Labor Day. The so-called "Espionage Act" is quickly signed into law, and a number of leaders of these strikes among the Lady's Garment Worker's Union and the Teamsters are soon the first victims of repression under the Act.

May 20: The US Atlantic fleet is deployed to Scapa Flow, to join the British Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. Anglo-American naval cooperation, with the US as the junior partner, becomes key to British naval strategy.

June 1: US Marines invade Haiti under the pretext of restoring order to the Republic. The Republic of Haiti enters protectorate status, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico and Panama.

June 8: The Office of Public Diplomacy begins the the largest domestic propaganda campaign since the outbreak of the Civil War over fifty years before. The campaign seeks to break the power of unions and the Socialist Party to disrupt the war mobilization, as well as to mobilize public opinion towards the punishing of the German Reich. German atrocities in neutral Belgium becoming a heavy feature in the campaign.

July 20: In spite of Green Corn rebellions in Oklahoma and labor unrest in the cities and mines, conscription remains on schedule. The Taft Administration projects that half a million soldiers will be armed and deployed in France by the end of the year, with another million arriving by summer of the next year. The American Expeditionary Force is expanded to 3 divisions with the arrival of 2nd Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division. Three more divisions will arrive at the front by late August.

August 1:
Eugene Debs narrowly escapes prosecution under the Espionage Act for a labor organizing speech he made in his native Indiana. The speech, carefully crafted to avoid prosecution, nearly runs him afoul of the new law. However, a sympathetic judge dismisses the case. Stirrings of discontent begin over the Espionage Act, which had previously escaped attention.

September 22: Six divisions in the AEF join the French Army in the Second Battle of Champagne. The German Army, sensing the coming offensive, prepares additional defensive positions at Champagne. The battle soon turns into a bloody quagmire. Three days of intense artillery bombardment prove insufficient to break the German defenders, and under pressure of German counterattack, the offensive begins to lose momentum as causalities mount. Simultaneous British offensives at Loos fair little better.

October 5: The American 1st Infantry threatens a final break through at Champagne. However, the offensive loses tempo in the mud, and the the French commander-in-chief Joffre soon orders a halt to the offensive. Captain George Patton earns his second purple heart in the offensive.

October 30: German counter-offensives begin at Champagne. The beleaguered forces of the AEF and the French Army are forced to give back all the ground taken in the battle before the lines stabilize on the 5th of November. After similar defeat at Loos, British Field Marshall John French is forced to relinquish his command of the British Expeditionary Force to General Douglas Haig.

November 18: German unrestricted submarine warfare begins, in a dual effort to weaken Anglo-French strategic positions as well as demoralize the thousands of American troops that cross the Atlantic daily.

December 2: A secret memo is distributed throughout ranking officers of the AEF, seeking cooperation from qualified American officers with a British military project. A number of young officers soon transfer out of the AEF into a new "Special Logistics Task Force". This task force would form the nucleus of the American Tank Corps in the coming years.
 
Great update. I can't wait to see where this goes.

Also, I'd like to note how absolutely horrifying it is that there's a department of the government tasked with cooperating with and making policy in favor of the monopolies. Holy hell.
 
Great update. I can't wait to see where this goes.

Also, I'd like to note how absolutely horrifying it is that there's a department of the government tasked with cooperating with and making policy in favor of the monopolies. Holy hell.

Thanks :)

I'm glad someone noticed that change. Basically, while the pretext was the necessity of coordinating the war effort, it's going to become a permanent fixture of American politics until the Revolution.

Similarly, another important change that I forgot to mention in earlier installments, but still should be quite interesting to those interested in poli sci, that ITTL there was no Cannon revolt either.
 
Awesome update JB, Seems President Taft is taking a heavy hand against the Strikers(No pun intended:D). Can't wait to see what takes place during the 1916 Election, as I have a feeling it will be either a super close one like IOTL or a landslide for old Taft....Keep it comming and Haywood for President!!!
 
Awesome update JB, Seems President Taft is taking a heavy hand against the Strikers(No pun intended:D). Can't wait to see what takes place during the 1916 Election, as I have a feeling it will be either a super close one like IOTL or a landslide for old Taft....Keep it comming and Haywood for President!!!

Since Taft essentially formed a national unity coalition with the Democrats, are they even going to bother fielding a candidate, or is it just going to be Taft versus the Socialists?
 
The War And Future Leaders

More excerpts from voices who will later be important in the timeline.

Excerpt from Salt of the Earth, by Henry A. Wallace, Pathfinder Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1963

The war, I think, changed everything. I am candidly certain that had not over one million young American boys bled the soil of France red, then life as we know it today would be radically different. I'm sure it is the peculiar navel-gazing of old men and historians to ask what would have happened if some important event were to have been undone, but I cannot help to succumb to the temptation. One thing I do know for sure is that my own part in the war changed my life forever. The deaths of my comrades in the trenches of France, and the militarization of society at home are an irrevocable part of me, and without them, I do believe I would have remained a simple farmer, happy with the smell of good tilled earth.(1) I'm sure I would have been happier for it.

...During the 1916 Red Scare, President Taft and all of the kings of mine, rail and factory declared that the Army deployed in France was becoming a "boot camp for communist, socialist and anarchist subversion". I do not know much of other regiments, but that was certainly true of mine. My fellow enlisted men were my teachers in the great school of Socialism, and much of what I am today I learned there. When the "dangerous subversives" and "bomb-throwers" are the only men decrying the insanity of attacking machine guns with the chests of men, of sending men to dark and bloodied battlefields for the purpose of conquest and plunder, of killing our brothers so that the Imperialist scramble can continue unhindered; then we all come to find that perhaps we who went along with the bloodshed were the insane ones, not those who denounced it.

...The events of today give me trouble. When I see Foreign Secretary James Burnham's dangerous game of cat and mouse with Nikita Khrushchev over which direction the Comintern will sway; or when watching the nervous tension in the news broadcasters and official government spokesman as they tried to calmly explain to us that the missile deployments in Ireland(2) had brought us two minutes away from midnight, I sense that we are in an age that is every bit as pivotal as the First World War.

Excerpt from The Oppenheimer Diaries, by Kai Bird, Ed. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007.(3)

June 25, 1941: Today's front page of Daily Worker confirmed my suspicions. America is engaged in a world wide conflict for the second time in life, this time ostensibly on the side of righteousness. In thinking of this issue, I can't help but think about how horrible the coming days may be. The war in my youth ended before I was of fighting age, but even at home we felt the effects. Even in the relatively affluent district of New York that I was raised in, we still felt the affects of wartime scarcity and rationing.

The wage and price controls enforced by InCor(4), and the rationing were making life miserable. It wasn't uncommon to see the local bootblacks hauled off by the police, with the pretext of violating wartime rationing. Everything was scarce. I remember one of my more important chores was to go and stand in the breadlines every afternoon just to make sure that we got our bread. If I dallied even a little, there was a chance that there wouldn't be any left. I fear that the rationing of my youth will come back in full force to support the global fight against fascism.

1. This, my friends, is called irony :) ITTL, Wallace is a political leader, somewhat parallel to IOTL.
2. Wallace refers here to what would later be called The Irish Missile Crisis, a gambit by First Secretary Nixon to counter attempts by the Anglo-French Union to prevent some, shall we say, interesting political developments in a certain British Commonwealth country.
3. While the work is fictional, the editor is an actual Oppenheimer biographer.
4. Slang term for the Department of Industrial Coordination. If it sounds Orwellian, that's because Orwell derived a lot of Newspeak from a certain abbreviation trend within left-wing circles.
 
August 1: Eugene Debs narrowly escapes prosecution under the Espionage Act for a labor organizing speech he made in his native Indiana. The speech, carefully crafted to avoid prosecution, nearly runs him afoul of the new law. However, a sympathetic judge dismisses the case. Stirrings of discontent begin over the Espionage Act, which had previously escaped attention.
Got it in one. :D

Also, update please.
 
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