Spectre of Europe - An Alternative Paris Commune Timeline
- Thread starter Reydan
- Start date
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Nobody expected...fascist Switzerland; really it's not something you see often here.
As always, I'm a bit hesitant to use the term fascism - something is going on in Switzerland though. Keep an eye on it.
Thank you!
Thanks! Well, OTL Mackinder had his heartland and world-island theory, but in this timeline the shock of Communard victory has convinced him that continental Europe is a somewhat lost continent. Hence his obsession with places where socialism can be limited - he's an Imperialist at heart with a global imagination. I imagined he would see these four points as places where socialism could be pushed back. Sort of like some of the focal point theory in the Cold War that led to the domino idea. Control of these regions isolates and, Mackinder argues, strangles socialism in Europe. Letting the socialists win in each opens up the rest of Europe, the Arab world, East Asia full, and the Americas to radical socialism and isolates Britain.
Chapter 120 - The Time of Tension – The Commune of France in the Autumn of 1922
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty – The Time of Tension – The Commune of France in the Autumn of 1922
“We would prefer to fight with Communard Arms, but they will not give them. Perhaps, then, a Frenchman is after-all just a Frenchman. We must take our arms from the dead we kill in our righteous struggle”.
Ferhat Abbas, ‘On Leadership, Nationalism, and Socialism”, North African Star, 1922
“I wonder, at times, if the Anarchist aim truly is to pull everything we have built down around our ears for ideology’s sake alone? We have built a powerful state, for workers and farmers, women and men, young and old, capable of defending itself. And what are we to do now, now that we see it pulled down around us and all our sacrifice to safeguard the revolution in Europe overturned? Your last letter said to fight – can you really mean that? Can Monica [Jorda] really mean that too?”
Olivier Martel to Louise LaGrange, 3rd August 1922.
The imprisonment of Henri VI, captured in the chaotic collapse of the frontline around Toulon, was possibly the most inconvenient aspect of the post-war world for the new Communard Government. For, even as the new international government got into the routines of working in Paris, the presence of the monarch in his Lyon prison was presenting headache after headache.
Firstly, he was the subject of daily calls for execution. Citizens’ delegations, particularly from the south coast of France ravaged by the war, called for the King to be punished for his crimes. The Marseilles delegation, who impressed many by their quiet dignity, brought into the convention floor itself a black lacquer box containing a roll on which were inscribed the names of all those who had died during the siege. Yet the governing coalition of Anarcho-Syndicalists, Internationalists, and Pragmatists were profoundly split on the issue, unable to make a decision despite growing unrest. They were anxious not to antagonise the powers of the world still further, after the upheaval of their victory, but equally could not agree on if he should be returned to his young family, given a hard labour sentence, or re-educated.
Delays were the inevitable outcome. ‘Delays, delays, delays’ as Martel put it, touring Catalan constituencies with Jorda and LaGrange earlier that year. The Blanquists had performed poorly in the election, the public wanting a new sweep of things post-war and the legacy of Blanqui himself having less purchase in the expanded electorate of half of Europe. They had clung on, though, in both Wallonia and Catolonia, and maintained huge popularity amongst the armed forces. Jorda’s re-election to the Secretariat of the Radical Fighting Union, the soldiers’ trade union, in May 1922 was such a landslide that the single round of balloting was an embarrassment for the other candidates.
If Henri VI’s presence in France was a headache, his absence, and the absence of so many thousands of colonial soldiers, from his Kingdom was a catastrophe for his Government. Blaise Diagne had secured the almost immediate release of the non-white conscripts of the French and Spanish colonial armies but the Convention had approved his initiative to keep the white soldiers and officers back for the time being. Although Spanish POWs returned home for Christmas 1921, Royalist ones were still held back. Ostensibly this was because of a lack of transport ships, Diagne told the international press; in reality, his ambition was to stir up the oppressed of North Africa.
Algerian Arab rebels 1922. Note the mishmash of former colonial army uniforms and tribal dress
He certainly succeeded. The rebellion of the Rif Tribes, which had begun almost the immediate the Spanish Government sued for peace, spread from Morocco into Algeria. Across French Africa the proportion of white settlers to non-white subjects varied dramatically, with a core of strength for the colonial regime on the Algerian coast around the cities but vast inland hinterlands where only scattered administrators, soldiers, traders, and missionaries flew the fleur de lis. With thousands of white young men sucked from this system, killed, wounded, or prisoner in mainland Europe, the balance of power was shifting. The return of Diagne, with thousands of former colonial black soldiers to the new Dakar Commune saw the flames of insurrection in West Africa begin to begin anew. Whilst in Algeria the young radical Ferhat Abbas mounted a guerrilla insurrection in Atlas mountains that panicked urban white settlers.
If these groups were hoping for aid from a united socialist Europe, though, they hoped in vain. All Diagne received, once he departed himself for Dakar, was a trickle of volunteers grandly titled an “International Brigade”, but really numbering in hundreds and with little more than war-surplus rifles as equipment. The Rif Tribes and Algerian rebels did not even receive these. The central coalition, anxious not to alienate an Italy concerned about its own North African provinces, or an increasingly hostile British Empire, held back. There were also logistical concerns – how could the Commune deliver the weapons to such remote groups without provoking a naval incident?
Practicalities, of course, never make headlines. For the radical opposition it was another betrayal, coming on the heels of the Swiss debacle, that proved the fatal weakness of the post-war government. Even as Jarues, Luxembourg, and Otto Bauer, a mixture of moderate and internationalist, began to get a feel for their coalition-leader positions the Montagnard trio hammered them in the press, in the convention, and in town halls, city squares, factories, and barracks across the Commune and Austria (another Blanquist powerbase).
The crusading fire had never left LaGrange as this speech in Stuttgart shows:
“I hear shouts from the audience…I hear them….cries of…no…no… ‘enough of war….enough of this and that…of fighting and dying…we have done that…we’ve got socialism in Europe now…’ [shouts of dissent from the floor]
“Are you sure comrades? Are you sure? Are you sure enough to beat your swords into ploughshares? To tear down the fortresses and walls? To turn the rolleurs into scrap metal? Are you sure?”
[silence in the hall]
“Because I am not. [scattered applause, some booing]…I am not sure comrades. We are strong together, true, but there is weakness in inaction. Fatal weakness. We have let the Swiss worker be crushed beneath the boot-heel. [More applause]. Are we to let that happen to the Arab or the Black in their hour of need?”
[mixed shouting and catcalling in the hall – German Blanquist Margarete Thuring is heard shouting “they are our comrades…workers are united!” from the stage to try and silence opponents in the crowd]
“It is simple…comrades…please…comrades…it is simple. Like two families who each have a field. One looks over to the neighbours, seeing them struggle with drought, and say ‘Oh well, that is their problem. We are alright –we should keep what we have to ourselves’. But what do that first family do, comrades, when next year they are the ones suffering? I find it astounding that these politicians who preach mutualism cannot see past the points of their own noses!”
[Laughter and applause]
“I tell you comrades, because you know from your own heroic revolution – talk is one thing, but force is another. And sometimes, you need hands that know how to wield force. Blanqui did in 1871. Varlin did after the death of Bolaunger. You did. You did!”
[LaGrange lifts her hands]
‘These hands have wielded force comrades – your own Kaiser felt it!”
[More laughter and applause from the audience]
“Are there hands here that can wield force? Let me see them? Are they ready to wield force for Socialism? Are they comrades?!”
[A forest of hands shoot up – more applause from the crowd]
“We would prefer to fight with Communard Arms, but they will not give them. Perhaps, then, a Frenchman is after-all just a Frenchman. We must take our arms from the dead we kill in our righteous struggle”.
Ferhat Abbas, ‘On Leadership, Nationalism, and Socialism”, North African Star, 1922
“I wonder, at times, if the Anarchist aim truly is to pull everything we have built down around our ears for ideology’s sake alone? We have built a powerful state, for workers and farmers, women and men, young and old, capable of defending itself. And what are we to do now, now that we see it pulled down around us and all our sacrifice to safeguard the revolution in Europe overturned? Your last letter said to fight – can you really mean that? Can Monica [Jorda] really mean that too?”
Olivier Martel to Louise LaGrange, 3rd August 1922.
The imprisonment of Henri VI, captured in the chaotic collapse of the frontline around Toulon, was possibly the most inconvenient aspect of the post-war world for the new Communard Government. For, even as the new international government got into the routines of working in Paris, the presence of the monarch in his Lyon prison was presenting headache after headache.
Firstly, he was the subject of daily calls for execution. Citizens’ delegations, particularly from the south coast of France ravaged by the war, called for the King to be punished for his crimes. The Marseilles delegation, who impressed many by their quiet dignity, brought into the convention floor itself a black lacquer box containing a roll on which were inscribed the names of all those who had died during the siege. Yet the governing coalition of Anarcho-Syndicalists, Internationalists, and Pragmatists were profoundly split on the issue, unable to make a decision despite growing unrest. They were anxious not to antagonise the powers of the world still further, after the upheaval of their victory, but equally could not agree on if he should be returned to his young family, given a hard labour sentence, or re-educated.
Delays were the inevitable outcome. ‘Delays, delays, delays’ as Martel put it, touring Catalan constituencies with Jorda and LaGrange earlier that year. The Blanquists had performed poorly in the election, the public wanting a new sweep of things post-war and the legacy of Blanqui himself having less purchase in the expanded electorate of half of Europe. They had clung on, though, in both Wallonia and Catolonia, and maintained huge popularity amongst the armed forces. Jorda’s re-election to the Secretariat of the Radical Fighting Union, the soldiers’ trade union, in May 1922 was such a landslide that the single round of balloting was an embarrassment for the other candidates.
If Henri VI’s presence in France was a headache, his absence, and the absence of so many thousands of colonial soldiers, from his Kingdom was a catastrophe for his Government. Blaise Diagne had secured the almost immediate release of the non-white conscripts of the French and Spanish colonial armies but the Convention had approved his initiative to keep the white soldiers and officers back for the time being. Although Spanish POWs returned home for Christmas 1921, Royalist ones were still held back. Ostensibly this was because of a lack of transport ships, Diagne told the international press; in reality, his ambition was to stir up the oppressed of North Africa.
Algerian Arab rebels 1922. Note the mishmash of former colonial army uniforms and tribal dress
He certainly succeeded. The rebellion of the Rif Tribes, which had begun almost the immediate the Spanish Government sued for peace, spread from Morocco into Algeria. Across French Africa the proportion of white settlers to non-white subjects varied dramatically, with a core of strength for the colonial regime on the Algerian coast around the cities but vast inland hinterlands where only scattered administrators, soldiers, traders, and missionaries flew the fleur de lis. With thousands of white young men sucked from this system, killed, wounded, or prisoner in mainland Europe, the balance of power was shifting. The return of Diagne, with thousands of former colonial black soldiers to the new Dakar Commune saw the flames of insurrection in West Africa begin to begin anew. Whilst in Algeria the young radical Ferhat Abbas mounted a guerrilla insurrection in Atlas mountains that panicked urban white settlers.
If these groups were hoping for aid from a united socialist Europe, though, they hoped in vain. All Diagne received, once he departed himself for Dakar, was a trickle of volunteers grandly titled an “International Brigade”, but really numbering in hundreds and with little more than war-surplus rifles as equipment. The Rif Tribes and Algerian rebels did not even receive these. The central coalition, anxious not to alienate an Italy concerned about its own North African provinces, or an increasingly hostile British Empire, held back. There were also logistical concerns – how could the Commune deliver the weapons to such remote groups without provoking a naval incident?
Practicalities, of course, never make headlines. For the radical opposition it was another betrayal, coming on the heels of the Swiss debacle, that proved the fatal weakness of the post-war government. Even as Jarues, Luxembourg, and Otto Bauer, a mixture of moderate and internationalist, began to get a feel for their coalition-leader positions the Montagnard trio hammered them in the press, in the convention, and in town halls, city squares, factories, and barracks across the Commune and Austria (another Blanquist powerbase).
The crusading fire had never left LaGrange as this speech in Stuttgart shows:
“I hear shouts from the audience…I hear them….cries of…no…no… ‘enough of war….enough of this and that…of fighting and dying…we have done that…we’ve got socialism in Europe now…’ [shouts of dissent from the floor]
“Are you sure comrades? Are you sure? Are you sure enough to beat your swords into ploughshares? To tear down the fortresses and walls? To turn the rolleurs into scrap metal? Are you sure?”
[silence in the hall]
“Because I am not. [scattered applause, some booing]…I am not sure comrades. We are strong together, true, but there is weakness in inaction. Fatal weakness. We have let the Swiss worker be crushed beneath the boot-heel. [More applause]. Are we to let that happen to the Arab or the Black in their hour of need?”
[mixed shouting and catcalling in the hall – German Blanquist Margarete Thuring is heard shouting “they are our comrades…workers are united!” from the stage to try and silence opponents in the crowd]
“It is simple…comrades…please…comrades…it is simple. Like two families who each have a field. One looks over to the neighbours, seeing them struggle with drought, and say ‘Oh well, that is their problem. We are alright –we should keep what we have to ourselves’. But what do that first family do, comrades, when next year they are the ones suffering? I find it astounding that these politicians who preach mutualism cannot see past the points of their own noses!”
[Laughter and applause]
“I tell you comrades, because you know from your own heroic revolution – talk is one thing, but force is another. And sometimes, you need hands that know how to wield force. Blanqui did in 1871. Varlin did after the death of Bolaunger. You did. You did!”
[LaGrange lifts her hands]
‘These hands have wielded force comrades – your own Kaiser felt it!”
[More laughter and applause from the audience]
“Are there hands here that can wield force? Let me see them? Are they ready to wield force for Socialism? Are they comrades?!”
[A forest of hands shoot up – more applause from the crowd]
Division, division, division; the communard political scene for now seem divided between moderate or simply people tired of the continued struggle and that had seen enough war for now and the more hardliner who want to spread revolution everywere (regardless of possible new conflicts); frankly i doubt that the fight will remain for long limited to the political arena and even in case of electoral defeat...seem that LaGrange and co. will really not take no for answer.
For now the chaos in North Africa will mean that Italy will be, at some point, forced to intervene for fear that the rebellion will spread to their zone (same for the British) and this will create friction between the two war-time allies; the problem in North Africa is that the numbers of european immigrants will be much much more higher than OTL (in this i totally agree with Bmunro, the OTL statistics here are totally not appliable due to a vastly different political situation in the mainland) and so things will be more prolonged and brutal.
Italian North Africa, as i alraedy said, Libya local population is too low for even hoping to resist the wawe of italian immigrants...so i expect at least the coastal city to have an italian majority; Tunisia is more difficult and something more similar to OTL Algeria, still there will be much more italian there than Pied noir in Algeria due to the need to have a strong emigration outlet for the italians; finally, frankly the decision to give a very limited support to the rebels while not very glamourous from a revolutionary Pow, remain the best decision.
Support Diagne mean really really uspet the nation that not only is your biggest allies (in theory) but that can also stop the mentioned support with ridicolous ease and any attempt of invasion mean losing an enormous quantity of men and money trying to pass the alps...not that reality and fact will mean anything to the more revolutionary faction.
For now the chaos in North Africa will mean that Italy will be, at some point, forced to intervene for fear that the rebellion will spread to their zone (same for the British) and this will create friction between the two war-time allies; the problem in North Africa is that the numbers of european immigrants will be much much more higher than OTL (in this i totally agree with Bmunro, the OTL statistics here are totally not appliable due to a vastly different political situation in the mainland) and so things will be more prolonged and brutal.
Italian North Africa, as i alraedy said, Libya local population is too low for even hoping to resist the wawe of italian immigrants...so i expect at least the coastal city to have an italian majority; Tunisia is more difficult and something more similar to OTL Algeria, still there will be much more italian there than Pied noir in Algeria due to the need to have a strong emigration outlet for the italians; finally, frankly the decision to give a very limited support to the rebels while not very glamourous from a revolutionary Pow, remain the best decision.
Support Diagne mean really really uspet the nation that not only is your biggest allies (in theory) but that can also stop the mentioned support with ridicolous ease and any attempt of invasion mean losing an enormous quantity of men and money trying to pass the alps...not that reality and fact will mean anything to the more revolutionary faction.
Well, while there are a lot of strategic interest that clash between the Communard (or at least the most hardliner) and the Kingdom of Italy, the two nation had been more or less allied for sometime and just fought together a brutal war...and this create tie, even if one don't want it; not considering that probably the italians has been and still are one of the greatest economic patner of Communard France.
The italian socialist party will surely play a part in any attempt to retain good feeling with France and to strenghen the already present tie and the move to not antagonize the italians giving support to the rebellion in Africa is a clear sign that even Paris put a lot of value in any alliance with Rome (at least for now).
Still between the rebellion and the rise of more hardliner faction (and the feeling of being surrounded) will probably make any goverment in Rome feel the need to loose some tie with the communard and try somekind of reapprochment with the UK; in the end even the italian socialist will go for it due them being unwilling to play second fiddle to anyone (IMVHO i doubt that one of the most important political party of the second power of continental Europe will meekly play by French rule in any 'international' or don't expect a place of great importance...on the other hand the other, and expecially type like LaGrange, will desire keep them away as they are basically competition)
Chapter 121 - The Remaking of the Right
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty One: The Remaking of the Right
Oh happy, if he knew his happy state!
The swain, who, free from business and debate,
Receives his easy food from Nature's hand,
And just returns of cultivated land!
Virgil, Georgics.
A shoulder patch from the Garbist Youth League of Denmark, established 1925.
It is sometimes difficult to believe, in retrospect, that one of the most dominant ideologies of the twentieth century was to emerge from so inauspicious an event as the Annual Conference of the Agrarian League of Finland of 1923.
Held in a mild January in the buildings of the Swedish Commerce High School in Vaasa (around a quarter of the town’s population were descended from Swedish settlers and spoke that language as their mother tongue) the Agrarian League had grown out of a mutual aid society and pressure group. In previous years, since their founding in 1899, they had aimed to push first the Tsarist and later the independent Republican government towards greater investment and development in agriculture and rural affairs.
By 1923, though, they were beginning to feel the pinch of both the downturn in European agricultural exports occasioned by the effective walling off of much of Western and Central European markets by socialism and also a Finnish Conservative Government entirely focused on combating the Socialist Party for urban voters. Delegates complained of a lack of funding, a lack of attention, being paid to the rural backbone of the country.
Of course this would have remained merely grumbling if not for the intervention of Santeri Alkio. One of the founders of the League, Alkio had been Minister for both Social Affairs and for Agriculture under various coalition governments in the past. Now, though, he stood to deliver a resounding address that called on the League to move into Parliamentary politics. Only the backbone of the farming community, Alkio argued, with its long traditions of folk loyalty, mutual aid, self-improvement, and hard, honest, work could really convince Finns of the folly of a socialism simply not suited to Scandinavia.
His voice was not the only one urging reform right of centre in politics. The Swiss example, widely promoted by Adolf Heidler’s self-serving book, was often discussed. “President for Life” Kyril, busy reforming his country after a bitter civil war, was also praised by some who saw in it the dual advantage of capturing the modern aspects of socialism without the social upheaval. Yet in that small lecture hall in Vaasa in 1923 it was Alkio’s words that lit a fire. Like the Cross of Gold speech that had propelled William Jennings Bryan from a fringe candidate to a two term President in 1896, Alkio’s “People’s Bread” speech in Vaasa propelled the new “Garbism” ideology into the mainstream.
Historians and political theorists have long debated why his words so galvanised Finnish and Scandinavian society. For some, such as Norwegian Prime Minister Peder Kolstad who himself was elected on such a platform in 1928, the success of the ideology was because “it takes what it wants from socialism but within a national and conservative ideology”. Others have pointed to the inapplicable nature of the other alternative ideologies – Scandinavian society, which featured relatively moderate socialist movements on the whole, was less worried about violent revolt. Nor, particularly for the Finns, was the example of Kyril’s National Christian Movement more palatable, considering that the President of Russia was looking increasingly expansionist as his country recovered from civil war. Still more have pointed to the potential for spread in the region. Not only did the Swedish-speakers at the conference in Vaasa act as a conduit to Sweden, but the interconnectedness of Scandinavian countries and the wider fraternal relationship they had with the Baltic states, saw the Garbist International established as early as 1925.
Although it changed and mutated in form, Garbism (named after the heraldic term for a sheaf of wheat – a garb) roughly contained the key points laid out in Alkio’s speech:
· A focus on the Individual and the need for self-improvement.
· A glorification of the countryside, rural society, and farm work (and a similar scepticism of cities and the urban way of life).
· Support for mutualism (such as insurance and aid societies) but the belief that the Government should support these indirectly (such as underwriting their finances) rather than run them as a welfare system directly.
· A respect for traditional ways of life, including the political system and society as it stands, but also a belief that some modernisation was needed to maintain this social and cultural order.
· A belief that Government should be small and decentralised, effectively just overseeing local governments with a light touch.
Soon enough Garbism, in its many forms, would spread to challenge socialism. And not just in Europe.
Oh happy, if he knew his happy state!
The swain, who, free from business and debate,
Receives his easy food from Nature's hand,
And just returns of cultivated land!
Virgil, Georgics.
A shoulder patch from the Garbist Youth League of Denmark, established 1925.
It is sometimes difficult to believe, in retrospect, that one of the most dominant ideologies of the twentieth century was to emerge from so inauspicious an event as the Annual Conference of the Agrarian League of Finland of 1923.
Held in a mild January in the buildings of the Swedish Commerce High School in Vaasa (around a quarter of the town’s population were descended from Swedish settlers and spoke that language as their mother tongue) the Agrarian League had grown out of a mutual aid society and pressure group. In previous years, since their founding in 1899, they had aimed to push first the Tsarist and later the independent Republican government towards greater investment and development in agriculture and rural affairs.
By 1923, though, they were beginning to feel the pinch of both the downturn in European agricultural exports occasioned by the effective walling off of much of Western and Central European markets by socialism and also a Finnish Conservative Government entirely focused on combating the Socialist Party for urban voters. Delegates complained of a lack of funding, a lack of attention, being paid to the rural backbone of the country.
Of course this would have remained merely grumbling if not for the intervention of Santeri Alkio. One of the founders of the League, Alkio had been Minister for both Social Affairs and for Agriculture under various coalition governments in the past. Now, though, he stood to deliver a resounding address that called on the League to move into Parliamentary politics. Only the backbone of the farming community, Alkio argued, with its long traditions of folk loyalty, mutual aid, self-improvement, and hard, honest, work could really convince Finns of the folly of a socialism simply not suited to Scandinavia.
His voice was not the only one urging reform right of centre in politics. The Swiss example, widely promoted by Adolf Heidler’s self-serving book, was often discussed. “President for Life” Kyril, busy reforming his country after a bitter civil war, was also praised by some who saw in it the dual advantage of capturing the modern aspects of socialism without the social upheaval. Yet in that small lecture hall in Vaasa in 1923 it was Alkio’s words that lit a fire. Like the Cross of Gold speech that had propelled William Jennings Bryan from a fringe candidate to a two term President in 1896, Alkio’s “People’s Bread” speech in Vaasa propelled the new “Garbism” ideology into the mainstream.
Historians and political theorists have long debated why his words so galvanised Finnish and Scandinavian society. For some, such as Norwegian Prime Minister Peder Kolstad who himself was elected on such a platform in 1928, the success of the ideology was because “it takes what it wants from socialism but within a national and conservative ideology”. Others have pointed to the inapplicable nature of the other alternative ideologies – Scandinavian society, which featured relatively moderate socialist movements on the whole, was less worried about violent revolt. Nor, particularly for the Finns, was the example of Kyril’s National Christian Movement more palatable, considering that the President of Russia was looking increasingly expansionist as his country recovered from civil war. Still more have pointed to the potential for spread in the region. Not only did the Swedish-speakers at the conference in Vaasa act as a conduit to Sweden, but the interconnectedness of Scandinavian countries and the wider fraternal relationship they had with the Baltic states, saw the Garbist International established as early as 1925.
Although it changed and mutated in form, Garbism (named after the heraldic term for a sheaf of wheat – a garb) roughly contained the key points laid out in Alkio’s speech:
· A focus on the Individual and the need for self-improvement.
· A glorification of the countryside, rural society, and farm work (and a similar scepticism of cities and the urban way of life).
· Support for mutualism (such as insurance and aid societies) but the belief that the Government should support these indirectly (such as underwriting their finances) rather than run them as a welfare system directly.
· A respect for traditional ways of life, including the political system and society as it stands, but also a belief that some modernisation was needed to maintain this social and cultural order.
· A belief that Government should be small and decentralised, effectively just overseeing local governments with a light touch.
Soon enough Garbism, in its many forms, would spread to challenge socialism. And not just in Europe.
Yes! Agrarian ideologies are often underrepresented on AH.
Also, I must say that while I haven't commented a lot, I loved every update from this TL and it's one of my favorites. Kudos to you Reydan, and I wait for more.
Also, I must say that while I haven't commented a lot, I loved every update from this TL and it's one of my favorites. Kudos to you Reydan, and I wait for more.
Oh well, agrarian neocon almost a century earlier...the biggest roadblock will be the how she view city and countryside. While some rejection of the modern and industrial society it's very understable and will have happened anyway, by this stage it's so late to be almost ridicolous, industrialization it's too advanced and even started to reach the agricultural sector to deny this.
Chapter 122 - Allies no more
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Two: Allies no more.
“For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”
Deuteronomy, 20:4.
“Neither sanctity nor salvation can be found outside the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church.”
Pope Pius IX
‘A cold wind is blowing off the Mediterranean’ wrote the Blanquist Monica Jorda to her friend and former Committee of Public Safety member Olivier Martel. From Jorda’s office in the Radical Fighting Union, she could see out over the Mediterranean Sea and, she recalled later, used to contemplate the peninsula lying out of sight, the Kingdom of Italy that had, for two decades now, been France’s ally of convenience.
The February Elections of 1923 were an unexpected occurrence, even for political-news aficionados in Italy itself. Orlando, the Liberal Prime Minister, had suppressed news of the minor stroke he had suffered in the previous Summer, but by the Christmas of 1922 was forced to yield to the advice and concern of his family and his doctors. The death of Giolitto in the assassination attack in 1919, along with three other senior Liberal colleagues had left the party bereft of senior talent though, and they started the election on an unsure footing.
In contrast the Socialist Party was bullish – or at least its leadership was. An “integration” faction had taken over the leadership at the Party Conference in November 1922, headed by the newly released Gramsci. Their desire was to push Italy towards membership of the new European Union and, in doing so, trigger the social-remaking of society along Communard lines. This sat, however, uneasily with the more moderate members who wanted reform rather than open social conflict in the state. Coalescing around the veteran reformer Filippo Turati, they argued that whether or not membership of the European Union made good socialist dogma, it could not be sold to the electorate. ‘People have no stomach for radical political change’ Turati argued in the party newspaper ‘our efforts are best spent in shoring up the rights of workers and families at home’.
But it was the right-wing of Italian politics, which came together in a new party, that dominated the election results in a surprise landslide. The Reyists, who nominated controversial Admiral Giovanni Mancini as their leader, secured a decent number of seats. But it was the new party, the Christian Union, that became the voice for a democratic and socially conservative politics. Founded by a number of conservative politicians and clergymen, there was the ever-rumoured whiff of Vatican funding about the party. The surprise success of clergyman politician Eugenio Pacelli, elected to a district in Rome itself, was supported by veteran parliamentarians and ex-military men such as Senator Armando Diaz. A great success, the rise of the Christian Union represented a swing of the pendulum that was Italian politics firmly to the right of centre.
Mancini (centre, sitting in the car) is mobbed by supporters in Genoa. In truth, though, the Reyists
did not really achieve enough seats for the Christian Union to need to bring them into Government
The pulling apart was not dramatic but, over the coming months, Franco-Italian relationships cooled. Slowly but surely trade agreements were scaled back, military co-operation in exercises shelved indefinitely, and to Paris’s annoyance more and more Italian diplomats were reported working the circuits in Madrid, Berlin, and London.
The Communard Government was split. Blum, speaking for most Centrists, reflected that it was a shame but, ultimately, inevitable. For internationalists like Luxemburg it was a kick in the teeth. Her diplomatic blunder, inviting Gramsci to Paris in the weeks after the election and receiving him as if he represented the official Italian Government, saw a tit-for-tat escalation of incidents throughout 1923. Italian forces moved into French North Africa more forcefully, helping secure the settler-dominated coastal strip, which saw Luxemburg send Bauer on a diplomatic mission to Egypt. The Italians, interpreting this as a coded threat to their Libyan flank, seized a cash of weapons on an unflagged freighter bound for Dakar, infuriating Paris still further.
The Blanquists, as the letters back and forth between Jorda, Martel, and LaGrange show, viewed the break with Rome in the same pragmatic terms as the Centrists. ‘We cannot expect a traditionalist state to fully partake in the social revolution we are building in Europe’ Martel wrote to LaGrange shortly after the election. Still, they did not refrain from lambasting the Government in the Assembly and in the press, fanning the smouldering embers of discontent for their own purposes.
“For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”
Deuteronomy, 20:4.
“Neither sanctity nor salvation can be found outside the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church.”
Pope Pius IX
‘A cold wind is blowing off the Mediterranean’ wrote the Blanquist Monica Jorda to her friend and former Committee of Public Safety member Olivier Martel. From Jorda’s office in the Radical Fighting Union, she could see out over the Mediterranean Sea and, she recalled later, used to contemplate the peninsula lying out of sight, the Kingdom of Italy that had, for two decades now, been France’s ally of convenience.
The February Elections of 1923 were an unexpected occurrence, even for political-news aficionados in Italy itself. Orlando, the Liberal Prime Minister, had suppressed news of the minor stroke he had suffered in the previous Summer, but by the Christmas of 1922 was forced to yield to the advice and concern of his family and his doctors. The death of Giolitto in the assassination attack in 1919, along with three other senior Liberal colleagues had left the party bereft of senior talent though, and they started the election on an unsure footing.
In contrast the Socialist Party was bullish – or at least its leadership was. An “integration” faction had taken over the leadership at the Party Conference in November 1922, headed by the newly released Gramsci. Their desire was to push Italy towards membership of the new European Union and, in doing so, trigger the social-remaking of society along Communard lines. This sat, however, uneasily with the more moderate members who wanted reform rather than open social conflict in the state. Coalescing around the veteran reformer Filippo Turati, they argued that whether or not membership of the European Union made good socialist dogma, it could not be sold to the electorate. ‘People have no stomach for radical political change’ Turati argued in the party newspaper ‘our efforts are best spent in shoring up the rights of workers and families at home’.
But it was the right-wing of Italian politics, which came together in a new party, that dominated the election results in a surprise landslide. The Reyists, who nominated controversial Admiral Giovanni Mancini as their leader, secured a decent number of seats. But it was the new party, the Christian Union, that became the voice for a democratic and socially conservative politics. Founded by a number of conservative politicians and clergymen, there was the ever-rumoured whiff of Vatican funding about the party. The surprise success of clergyman politician Eugenio Pacelli, elected to a district in Rome itself, was supported by veteran parliamentarians and ex-military men such as Senator Armando Diaz. A great success, the rise of the Christian Union represented a swing of the pendulum that was Italian politics firmly to the right of centre.
Mancini (centre, sitting in the car) is mobbed by supporters in Genoa. In truth, though, the Reyists
did not really achieve enough seats for the Christian Union to need to bring them into Government
The pulling apart was not dramatic but, over the coming months, Franco-Italian relationships cooled. Slowly but surely trade agreements were scaled back, military co-operation in exercises shelved indefinitely, and to Paris’s annoyance more and more Italian diplomats were reported working the circuits in Madrid, Berlin, and London.
The Communard Government was split. Blum, speaking for most Centrists, reflected that it was a shame but, ultimately, inevitable. For internationalists like Luxemburg it was a kick in the teeth. Her diplomatic blunder, inviting Gramsci to Paris in the weeks after the election and receiving him as if he represented the official Italian Government, saw a tit-for-tat escalation of incidents throughout 1923. Italian forces moved into French North Africa more forcefully, helping secure the settler-dominated coastal strip, which saw Luxemburg send Bauer on a diplomatic mission to Egypt. The Italians, interpreting this as a coded threat to their Libyan flank, seized a cash of weapons on an unflagged freighter bound for Dakar, infuriating Paris still further.
The Blanquists, as the letters back and forth between Jorda, Martel, and LaGrange show, viewed the break with Rome in the same pragmatic terms as the Centrists. ‘We cannot expect a traditionalist state to fully partake in the social revolution we are building in Europe’ Martel wrote to LaGrange shortly after the election. Still, they did not refrain from lambasting the Government in the Assembly and in the press, fanning the smouldering embers of discontent for their own purposes.
Thank you! As always, please let me know if there is anything or anywhere you'd like to know about in depth.
I agree, although I'd rather not see them as neo-con in OTL sense. I tried to create a vision of agrarianism that would respond to the threat of communardism in this timeline. Hence the emphasis on mutualism and self-improvement, as continuation of older 19th century traditions, that for Garbists are held up as idealised models of rural society that should be applied across the country. But yes, how they handle industrialisation and urbanisation will be key. This is just the start of a movement that will mutate and change...
Garbism sounds like an exciting competitor. Agriculture not having the primary function anymore in the 20th century has never held back anyone from idealising it. Industrial policies of Garbists could take any direction really: from detrimental protectionism over costly but industrially very helpful agendas of infrastructural development to what sounds like the exact opposite, namely environment-minded green reforms. Oh, and let´s not forget Malaysia- or Argentina-like nationalist policies of industrial development (which are, as the two examples indicate, in themselves very differently again.)
Italy`s swing to the right is quite plausible.
Italy`s swing to the right is quite plausible.
Ok, the Italo-French break up was not avoidable at this stage and frankly nobody will be very surprised, the two nation were too different and frankly the Communard dominated European Union will have scared anyone in Italy except the radical and die-hard socialist.
Said that, there is a lot of difference between two neighborugh that have a cordial but not official relationships and two enemy, but seem that the hard liners rethoric...at least in pubblic and the diplomatic usual kindergarden fight will make things between Paris and Rome very cool; after all for the Blanquist, having an perceived enemy (and i count even the UK) at close door mean the possibility to inflame the population, having a good military budget and lambast anyone perceived as soft against the right (where i already seen things like that?).
Regarding the italian political scene, well seem that while no fascist-like take-over a shift to the right had happened, no surprise, Italy has been always a conservative nation (even our communist were in general very conservative), still she remain a democracy and this is a plus. In addition to that the socialist party isprobably destinated to break up, as Gramsci will take the more radical and Turati the more numerous moderate and frankly between the colonial expansion, the previous reform and the economy not in shamble like OTL post-war i doubt that there will be many that will desire to rock the boat too much and IMHO the monarchy will remain a lot popular with the war objective achieved but not at the cost of OTL WWI.
London will probably become Rome new best fried...and this make a lot of sense for the United Kingdom as an allied Italy mean absolute control of the Mediterrean and a foothold in the balkan and regarding that corner of Europe, it's very probable that something akin to a mix of Little Entente and Latin Monetary Union between Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania will be attempted as a counterweight to the European Union
Said that, there is a lot of difference between two neighborugh that have a cordial but not official relationships and two enemy, but seem that the hard liners rethoric...at least in pubblic and the diplomatic usual kindergarden fight will make things between Paris and Rome very cool; after all for the Blanquist, having an perceived enemy (and i count even the UK) at close door mean the possibility to inflame the population, having a good military budget and lambast anyone perceived as soft against the right (where i already seen things like that?
).Regarding the italian political scene, well seem that while no fascist-like take-over a shift to the right had happened, no surprise, Italy has been always a conservative nation (even our communist were in general very conservative), still she remain a democracy and this is a plus. In addition to that the socialist party isprobably destinated to break up, as Gramsci will take the more radical and Turati the more numerous moderate and frankly between the colonial expansion, the previous reform and the economy not in shamble like OTL post-war i doubt that there will be many that will desire to rock the boat too much and IMHO the monarchy will remain a lot popular with the war objective achieved but not at the cost of OTL WWI.
London will probably become Rome new best fried...and this make a lot of sense for the United Kingdom as an allied Italy mean absolute control of the Mediterrean and a foothold in the balkan and regarding that corner of Europe, it's very probable that something akin to a mix of Little Entente and Latin Monetary Union between Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania will be attempted as a counterweight to the European Union
We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow.
--Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, Speech on the Polish Question in the House of Commons, 1848.
--Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, Speech on the Polish Question in the House of Commons, 1848.
Chapter 123 - Economics
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Three: Economics
“The nation which gains control of iron, soon acquires control of gold”
Thomas Carlyle, 1867
“In general, the bureaucracy of the totalitarian State is unsympathetic to the claims of self-management to autonomy. As Proudhon foresaw, it finds it hard to tolerate any authority external to itself. It dislikes socialization and longs for nationalization, that is to say, the direct management by officials of the State. Its object is to infringe upon self-management, reduce its powers, and in fact absorb it.”
Daniel Guerin, ‘On the Syndicalist Plan for the Economy’, Gauche Révolutionnaire, 1923.
Whilst battles over foreign policy raged, the Centrists in the new Convention focused on domestic goals. Blum’s agenda for building a modern, integrated, European Socialism was outlined at a Party Conference in 1922 that brought delegates from every former nation-state in the European Union together in Lyon for five days. It rested on the control of three commodities – iron, coal, and the railways – which Centrists agreed should be controlled by the state to secure and support individual and collective freedom further down the scale. In all three, though, they almost immediately bumped heads with their Syndicalist partners in government.
Railways were, perhaps, the clearest success of the Centrist platform. The railways, and railway worker groups, had long been a close partner of the Centrist movement. Something about the practical, hands-on, nature of the Centrist ideology, as well as the relative clarity of its top-down nationalised vision. In response the Centrists prized, and praised, the skill and patience of the railwaymen and women who worked around the clock to keep the nation running.
The Centrist plan for railways was one of standardisation. All rolling stock, permanent way, staff, funds, and structures were to be the purview of one, state-run, company with a board comprised of worker representatives, administrators and managers, and the Minister of Railways. Roger Salengro, the veteran Centrist, assumed the role in early 1923 and soon began a radical shift in structure. Standardisation of track gauge proceeded at a rapid pace – all of the permanent way in the Ruhr region was replaced over a single three-day period in September – and the Minister also began a series of consultations aimed at rationalising the rolling stock available to the Union. Chief among his aims, given the slow but steady growth of road competition in the form of lorries and busses, was to ensure a logical service for both passengers and goods on branch lines. ‘The rural poor will always be poor’ Salengro told the railway arm of the Austrian Trade Union Federation ‘unless they have access to both transport for personal reasons and freight for their industries’. His answer was the railbus, a relatively new invention that married the convenience of the small bus with the set-track of the railway. With these increasingly rolled out to communes across the Union on narrow-gauge, existing lines could be run entirely for freight and costly locomotives used on short-haul low-density rural rides scrapped or repurposed.
A French railbus in the rural west c1926
The Syndicalist party, now fully coalesced in the European Congress, was in uproar. Although Jean Jaures was still the nominal leader, his age saw him give way on a number of points to younger and more fiery members. Syndicalist leaders such as Milly and Rudolf Rocker, Juan Garcia Oliver, and Benoit Frachon were determined that the Centrist State, as they saw it, not be allowed to reach its tentacles into free and worker-based communal industries. They had their chief success in this struggle in the coal industry. In a series of worker-inspired ballots and actions, they managed to sway first German and then Walloon Miners’ Unions to their cause. Unable to push through a Nationalisation Act, which required the consent of the Trade Unions, the Centrists were forced to watch in frustration as their supposed “partners” in government placed control firmly in worker hands in a decentralised system. ‘Puerile Anarchy’ was all a bitterly disappointed Lev Kamenev wrote in his diary when the news was conveyed to his mission in Ukraine.
Battlelines, through the mild winter of 1923, continued to be drawn between the two factions and the spring of 1924 saw a new occurrence for the socialist regimes – a major strike. The Steel Strike of February 1924 turned out to be a brutal affair consuming the European Congress and its people whilst both the UK and USA went to the polls and the opposition factions in the socialist state waited for a moment of weakness.
“The nation which gains control of iron, soon acquires control of gold”
Thomas Carlyle, 1867
“In general, the bureaucracy of the totalitarian State is unsympathetic to the claims of self-management to autonomy. As Proudhon foresaw, it finds it hard to tolerate any authority external to itself. It dislikes socialization and longs for nationalization, that is to say, the direct management by officials of the State. Its object is to infringe upon self-management, reduce its powers, and in fact absorb it.”
Daniel Guerin, ‘On the Syndicalist Plan for the Economy’, Gauche Révolutionnaire, 1923.
Whilst battles over foreign policy raged, the Centrists in the new Convention focused on domestic goals. Blum’s agenda for building a modern, integrated, European Socialism was outlined at a Party Conference in 1922 that brought delegates from every former nation-state in the European Union together in Lyon for five days. It rested on the control of three commodities – iron, coal, and the railways – which Centrists agreed should be controlled by the state to secure and support individual and collective freedom further down the scale. In all three, though, they almost immediately bumped heads with their Syndicalist partners in government.
Railways were, perhaps, the clearest success of the Centrist platform. The railways, and railway worker groups, had long been a close partner of the Centrist movement. Something about the practical, hands-on, nature of the Centrist ideology, as well as the relative clarity of its top-down nationalised vision. In response the Centrists prized, and praised, the skill and patience of the railwaymen and women who worked around the clock to keep the nation running.
The Centrist plan for railways was one of standardisation. All rolling stock, permanent way, staff, funds, and structures were to be the purview of one, state-run, company with a board comprised of worker representatives, administrators and managers, and the Minister of Railways. Roger Salengro, the veteran Centrist, assumed the role in early 1923 and soon began a radical shift in structure. Standardisation of track gauge proceeded at a rapid pace – all of the permanent way in the Ruhr region was replaced over a single three-day period in September – and the Minister also began a series of consultations aimed at rationalising the rolling stock available to the Union. Chief among his aims, given the slow but steady growth of road competition in the form of lorries and busses, was to ensure a logical service for both passengers and goods on branch lines. ‘The rural poor will always be poor’ Salengro told the railway arm of the Austrian Trade Union Federation ‘unless they have access to both transport for personal reasons and freight for their industries’. His answer was the railbus, a relatively new invention that married the convenience of the small bus with the set-track of the railway. With these increasingly rolled out to communes across the Union on narrow-gauge, existing lines could be run entirely for freight and costly locomotives used on short-haul low-density rural rides scrapped or repurposed.
A French railbus in the rural west c1926
The Syndicalist party, now fully coalesced in the European Congress, was in uproar. Although Jean Jaures was still the nominal leader, his age saw him give way on a number of points to younger and more fiery members. Syndicalist leaders such as Milly and Rudolf Rocker, Juan Garcia Oliver, and Benoit Frachon were determined that the Centrist State, as they saw it, not be allowed to reach its tentacles into free and worker-based communal industries. They had their chief success in this struggle in the coal industry. In a series of worker-inspired ballots and actions, they managed to sway first German and then Walloon Miners’ Unions to their cause. Unable to push through a Nationalisation Act, which required the consent of the Trade Unions, the Centrists were forced to watch in frustration as their supposed “partners” in government placed control firmly in worker hands in a decentralised system. ‘Puerile Anarchy’ was all a bitterly disappointed Lev Kamenev wrote in his diary when the news was conveyed to his mission in Ukraine.
Battlelines, through the mild winter of 1923, continued to be drawn between the two factions and the spring of 1924 saw a new occurrence for the socialist regimes – a major strike. The Steel Strike of February 1924 turned out to be a brutal affair consuming the European Congress and its people whilst both the UK and USA went to the polls and the opposition factions in the socialist state waited for a moment of weakness.
Good to see syndicalism strong. It's this pluralism which distinguishes TTLs socialist states from OTL. Good counterbalance to authoritarian tendencies, and together the many strands will appeal to more people.
Chapter 124 - “Soak it Hard!” The 1924 Presidential Election
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Four: “Soak it Hard!” The 1924 Presidential Election
“Fully 90% of socialist, anarchist, and Communard, activity in this country is traceable directly to aliens”
A. Mitchell Palmer, Nomination Acceptance Speech, Democratic Convention 1924
“The Art of Politics is knowing what to do next”
Vice-Presidential Nominee James P. Cannon, Socialist Farmer-Labor Party.
Sometimes one speech can swing a Convention, or one line of argument, pressed home with enough fervour and flair, can win an election. So it was in 1924.
The decision by President Hughes to respect the conventions of the day and not seek an unprecedented third term was the final nail in the coffin for the Progressive Alliance between the Republican Party and the labour movement. Already dissatisfied by Hughes’s move to the centre ground in 1920, American socialists and trade unionists had found themselves locked out of the second Hughes Government as the President had ridden the pacifist wave into office. ‘He kept us out of the war’ had been the enraptured slogan of many Republicans in 1920, and Hughes had used the issue of the day to bolt for the comfortable, pro-business, centre.
Since then the two groups had been pulling further apart and the widening gulf had become more and more bitter. The capture of the California Governor’s office by Upton Sinclair, on a Labor ticket, had angered many Republicans as had the stiff (but unsuccessful) opposition the socialists had put up in House races in Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska. The rift between the two was irreversible and, in 1924, both campaigned against each other vigorously.
The Republicans under Frank Lowden, former Governor of Illinois, maintained a tack towards the sensible centre. The selection of the capable yet publically underwhelming Calvin Coolidge as Vice President emphasised this business-friendly traditional Republicanism. The socialists, meanwhile, coalesced into a rough and ready fusion Farmer Labour Ticket with Bill Haywood at the top and the young radical James Cannon at the bottom.
Just one of many anti-socialist cartoons that typified the election of 1924
But these both paled in comparison with the revitalised Democrats. Going into the St Louis Convention, A Mitchell Palmer, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, was hardly a favourite. Many assumed that either Governor James Cox from Ohio or Governor Edward Edwards of New Jersey would take the mantle, but after a deadlocked first ballot Palmer gave a resounding speech that helped rocket him up the league. America was under threat, he said, from socialists. The revolutionary war in Europe proved that the Commune, far from being a trusted trade partner, was a war-mongering despotic regime. ‘For is not socialism’ Palmer opined ‘nothing but a system where robbers and thieves may legitimise their attempts to take over that which they have not earned?’ Socialism, he insisted, was thoroughly un-American and the product of ‘fevered, febrile, thoroughly alien minds’. Any thinking American knew where to look, he added, for the cause of the country’s woes. ‘The back-street socialist club. The Union back office. The slum. The tenement. The gutter. Where may be heard the patter of Communardism too often in the jabber of foreign tongues’. He was nominated on the second ballot, especially after bringing onto the floor the Governor of Indiana, Republican Edward Jackson, who then and there forswore his former Party and pledged to serve the Democrats as Vice President if chosen. ‘The atmosphere in this hall’ The New York Times wrote ‘feels like the interior of a thunder cloud. All is stormy energy and flashes of power’. The Palmer-Jackson ticket was confirmed to popular acclaim.
Palmer’s campaign, right from the get-go, made no mistake about its target audience or its main message. Across the country white, respectable, Americans were regaled about the stories of Communard atrocities. The flight of anti-socialist refugees from the new European Union further fanned the flames, as each sob story was added to a litany of horrors to be digested in every morning paper. The Klu Klux Klan, already seeing a surge in membership, threw itself into the public arena. Klan newspapers, volunteers, and funds were all at Palmer’s disposal. Although some protested, like Governor Edwards who called it ‘shame-faced baiting of the lowest order’, but Palmer was riding a wave of popular anxiety about the place of America in a post-war world that it had not been part of. Voters flocked to his cause, especially across the mid-west, and election day was a rout.
The Democrats swept up some 18 million votes, dominating not only the South but also the Midwest, parts of the plains states, and the upper Pacific northwest. Republicans and Farmer-Labor were routed, both tied on about five million apiece, and falling off the ballot almost completely in some areas. Democrats took Congress too and partied into the night. The Klan partied too, particularly when it was announced that Grand Dragon DC Stephenson would seek Jackson’s vacant chair in Indiana with the new President’s blessing.
“Fully 90% of socialist, anarchist, and Communard, activity in this country is traceable directly to aliens”
A. Mitchell Palmer, Nomination Acceptance Speech, Democratic Convention 1924
“The Art of Politics is knowing what to do next”
Vice-Presidential Nominee James P. Cannon, Socialist Farmer-Labor Party.
Sometimes one speech can swing a Convention, or one line of argument, pressed home with enough fervour and flair, can win an election. So it was in 1924.
The decision by President Hughes to respect the conventions of the day and not seek an unprecedented third term was the final nail in the coffin for the Progressive Alliance between the Republican Party and the labour movement. Already dissatisfied by Hughes’s move to the centre ground in 1920, American socialists and trade unionists had found themselves locked out of the second Hughes Government as the President had ridden the pacifist wave into office. ‘He kept us out of the war’ had been the enraptured slogan of many Republicans in 1920, and Hughes had used the issue of the day to bolt for the comfortable, pro-business, centre.
Since then the two groups had been pulling further apart and the widening gulf had become more and more bitter. The capture of the California Governor’s office by Upton Sinclair, on a Labor ticket, had angered many Republicans as had the stiff (but unsuccessful) opposition the socialists had put up in House races in Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska. The rift between the two was irreversible and, in 1924, both campaigned against each other vigorously.
The Republicans under Frank Lowden, former Governor of Illinois, maintained a tack towards the sensible centre. The selection of the capable yet publically underwhelming Calvin Coolidge as Vice President emphasised this business-friendly traditional Republicanism. The socialists, meanwhile, coalesced into a rough and ready fusion Farmer Labour Ticket with Bill Haywood at the top and the young radical James Cannon at the bottom.
Just one of many anti-socialist cartoons that typified the election of 1924
But these both paled in comparison with the revitalised Democrats. Going into the St Louis Convention, A Mitchell Palmer, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, was hardly a favourite. Many assumed that either Governor James Cox from Ohio or Governor Edward Edwards of New Jersey would take the mantle, but after a deadlocked first ballot Palmer gave a resounding speech that helped rocket him up the league. America was under threat, he said, from socialists. The revolutionary war in Europe proved that the Commune, far from being a trusted trade partner, was a war-mongering despotic regime. ‘For is not socialism’ Palmer opined ‘nothing but a system where robbers and thieves may legitimise their attempts to take over that which they have not earned?’ Socialism, he insisted, was thoroughly un-American and the product of ‘fevered, febrile, thoroughly alien minds’. Any thinking American knew where to look, he added, for the cause of the country’s woes. ‘The back-street socialist club. The Union back office. The slum. The tenement. The gutter. Where may be heard the patter of Communardism too often in the jabber of foreign tongues’. He was nominated on the second ballot, especially after bringing onto the floor the Governor of Indiana, Republican Edward Jackson, who then and there forswore his former Party and pledged to serve the Democrats as Vice President if chosen. ‘The atmosphere in this hall’ The New York Times wrote ‘feels like the interior of a thunder cloud. All is stormy energy and flashes of power’. The Palmer-Jackson ticket was confirmed to popular acclaim.
Palmer’s campaign, right from the get-go, made no mistake about its target audience or its main message. Across the country white, respectable, Americans were regaled about the stories of Communard atrocities. The flight of anti-socialist refugees from the new European Union further fanned the flames, as each sob story was added to a litany of horrors to be digested in every morning paper. The Klu Klux Klan, already seeing a surge in membership, threw itself into the public arena. Klan newspapers, volunteers, and funds were all at Palmer’s disposal. Although some protested, like Governor Edwards who called it ‘shame-faced baiting of the lowest order’, but Palmer was riding a wave of popular anxiety about the place of America in a post-war world that it had not been part of. Voters flocked to his cause, especially across the mid-west, and election day was a rout.
The Democrats swept up some 18 million votes, dominating not only the South but also the Midwest, parts of the plains states, and the upper Pacific northwest. Republicans and Farmer-Labor were routed, both tied on about five million apiece, and falling off the ballot almost completely in some areas. Democrats took Congress too and partied into the night. The Klan partied too, particularly when it was announced that Grand Dragon DC Stephenson would seek Jackson’s vacant chair in Indiana with the new President’s blessing.
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