Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree: A Nineteen Eighty-Four Timeline

[Roberto El Rey]

Francis J. Emanuel slid open the middle drawer of a large wooden filing cabinet in the corner of his well-furnished office in Central London. He worked his thick fingers through the middle of the "G" section, mumbling to himself as he went along: "Gluck...Glynn...Gold...Goldbaum...Golder...Goldman...Goldstein."

As he came upon the name he was looking for, he drew a thick folder from the cabinet and shut the drawer. Francis leafed through the papers within until he found two particular documents. One was a single sheet of paper labeled "Inspection Report" and dated 3 September 1894; this he laid out on his dark mahogany desk. The other was a packet of several sheets, labeled "Insurance Policy" and dated 19 January 1895; this he set aside.

As he sat down in his comfortable leather chair and switched on a lamp to supplement the light from the window at his back and the fireplace to his side, he pored carefully over the typewritten text of the inspection report. Grabbing an ink pen, he scratched out a few details here and there, taking notice of one passage in particular:

"Emanuel & Browne Marine and Fire Insurance Co. hereby affirms that the Goldstein & Sons Furniture Co. at 26 Whitechapel Rd. East, Whitechapel, London, conforms to the construction standards set by the London Building Act of 1894. It is for this reason that the former organization pledges to provide the latter with compensation in the event of fire, as detailed in the bilateral agreement between the two parties."

With a few strokes of his pen, those sentences were no more. In the margins, he scribbled a new revision:

"Emanuel & Browne Marine and Fire Insurance Co. hereby states that the Goldstein & Sons Furniture Co. at 26 Whitechapel Rd. East, Whitechapel, London, does not conform to the standards set by the London Building Act of 1894. It is for this reason that the former organization relinquishes all prior obligation to provide the latter with compensation in the event of fire, and any preexisting agreement between the two parties is rendered null and void."

With that, Francis J. Emanuel took the edited document outside his office and dropped it on the desk of his secretary.

"Miss Turner," he said politely, "Please retype this. There are some, er...errors that need sorting out."

Miss Turner looked over the papers. She glanced at her employer with a near-incredulous stare. Her stare was met by a wink that confirmed Francis's attitude toward her dubious task, followed by a glare that clarified the consequences should she fail to complete it.

As Miss Turner silently fed fresh sheets of paper into her clunky typewriter, Francis returned to his office. He picked up the unedited stack of papers, removed the metal fasteners, and crumpled the sheets into a crinkled ball. With as much ceremony as he might have used to cast an apple core into the bin, he tossed the papers into the fireplace. He sat back in his chair and watched as a formal agreement blackened into nothing.

Once the last sliver of white was charred by the heat, Francis J. Emanuel ousted the thought from his mind so that he could focus on more pressing matters. As he retook his pen and started on a letter to a client, the loudest sound within the office was that of Miss Turner, rewriting established fact for the benefit of one and the detriment of another.

 

[Flashman]

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

Is this a case of dramatic irony, or will the young Goldstein uncover this at a latter date?

 

[Roberto El Rey]

"Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."

Is this a case of dramatic irony, or will the young Goldstein uncover this at a latter date?

Most likely it will remain a dramatic irony, but I haven't written it yet.

Which brings me to some important news: New updates might slow down for a while. Up to this point, I've had a mental framework of how we're going to end up in the world we all know and love, but it's not been a concrete plan. In addition, many of the specifics (such as whether or not Goldstein will uncover the aforementioned deception) are not yet decided. As I was checking out the (now-banned) Konrad Sartorius's (now-defunct) TL Crisis in the Kremlin, I saw that he had bothered to write an outline for his TL before he began writing the actual entries.

This was kind of like a "duh" moment for me--I realized I should have been doing that all along. I began to worry that if I didn't get everything at least generally planned out in advance, I could end up writing myself into a corner that I wouldn't be able to get out of. And, I decided that having a plan in mind would prevent me from spending too much time on one subject or event, as I did with the November Putsch. So I'm going to write an outline for the rest of this TL, one which will cover all of the changes from 1901 to that dreaded year of 1984.

Rest assured, I WILL be posting new updates, but they may take more time now that I'm planning them out before I write them. I'll try to quicken them when I can, but the every-few-days schedule that I've generally been following might have to expand. I think it's very much worth it to keep this TL on the right course for my writing pleasure and your reading enjoyment. With luck, I'll have the outline done before too long and I'll be able to get back to the normal pace soon.

Any questions, comments or concerns?

-ReR

 

[Roberto El Rey]

"Emanuel...Emanuel!"

Ten-year-old Emmanuel Goldstein, in bed but still wide awake, could just make out his name being called from across the flat. There were plenty of other words but he couldn't hear them all from the other room. Normally, he stayed in bed whenever his dad made a ruckus, but if his name was being called, they must want a word with him.

He slinked out of bed and tiptoed through the room, so as not to rouse his brothers and sisters. As Emmanuel peered over the corner to the kitchen, he saw that his father was fuming over some piece of paper in his hand. Could it be his school report? No, school had ended for the summer plenty long ago. And even if it were, his marks were perfectly up to snuff--there'd be no reason for his father to go mad over them. In any case, now that he was closer up he could better make out what his father was saying:

"That damned liar Emanuel, I had that warehouse inspected three times and they assured me, every time, that it was perfectly up to code! That dirty thieving dog's just trying to keep our money, plain and simple," said Morris Goldstein to his wife, who was patiently listening as her husband vented his anger at his situation.

They couldn't mean me, thought the young boy standing outside the door. They must mean another Emmanuel. But why was his father cross with this other Emanuel fellow? He'd have to listen for longer.

"It's all complete bullshit. It's not that they don't have the money. I've seen that bastard's office, he's got all the cash he could ever want! He's just skipping out on us because he can, the greedy git! But we'll make him pay. I signed that contract, and so did he. He has to send us the money, whether he likes it or not. It's illegal what he's doing, and we'll take him to court, make him pay us every last dime and then some."

Though the young Emmanuel Goldstein had dropped in in the middle of the conversation, a few things were obvious to him about the problem at hand: First, this other Emanuel fellow was a rich man. Second, Mr. Emanuel was obligated, through some important legal matter, to give some of his money to the young Emmanuel's family; probably it had something to do with the fire in the family shop. Third, Mr. Emanuel was refusing to pay the money needed of him, and was dishonestly insisting that he did not need to pay. And fourth, Emmanuel's his family was going to bring this issue into the courts.

If ten-year-old Emmanuel understood the situation correctly, it was no small matter. Since the shop burned down, his parents had been quite desperate to hold on to money. A few of the trinkets they kept around the flat had already been sold in the pawnshops. Parry and Simon had taken up jobs at the mill down the road to make a few quid on the side. There was enough food on the table each night, but his mother became cross much more easily when she caught Emmanuel trying to sneak some bread before suppertime.

One other thing had caught Emmanuel's attention recently. Emmanuel's dad had been roiling a lot over something called “insurance”. Emmanuel didn't know what that was, but Simon had told him it was when you made an agreement with some rich bloke, so that when your place burned down he'd pay to have it built up again. If they had made this kind of agreement with this Mr. Emanuel regarding the family shop, and he was refusing to pay, this struck the young boy as quite unfair. Emmanuel was sure his family needed the money much more than this man did, and it was a real mark of villainy to make an agreement and then completely ignore it. He didn't know this Mr. Emanuel yet, but already he didn't like him.

“It's all bullshit, all of it is,” said Morris Goldstein, his voice growing in exasperation. “All these posh arses are the same...they'll do anything to rob decent folks like us. Not a shred of compassion! Our shop burned to the fucking ground and he can't be arsed to show a bit of humanity!” Morris Goldstein cried. “They're all the same, the rich bastards. Not one of 'em's any different.”

Ten-year-old Emmanuel, still unseen in the dark corner of the room, held on to those words. Rich men, every one of them, were thieves and opportunists. For years after that day, after the entire legal quagmire was over, those words would stick with Emmanuel; through all the pain he would endure in his childhood, that idea would be there in the back of his mind, determining his reactions to the hardships he'd soon witness.

Morris Goldstein couldn't have known it, but with that remark, he had just set his son on track to a very notable life.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Life was harsh for Emmanuel Goldstein in his adolescent years. Life was harsh for the entire Goldstein family during those years--the ones between 1901 and 1910, when Edward sat on the throne and the rich paraded about in top hats and inverness coats, looking down on the poor and the downtrodden. Indeed, life was harsh for most people during those years.

When Morris Goldstein brought Mr. Francis J. Emanuel and Mr. Jacob E. Browne to court for fraud, he expected he'd win easily, and come out with plenty of dosh to rebuild his shop and find a decent company to insure it. But, somehow, the case dragged on for months and months, and each day the family coffers grew emptier. Vital documents which would have ended the case in an instant were nowhere to be found; those which could be produced somehow said the opposite of what they had said a year or two before. The judge agreed that something was quite off about this case, but there was no significant evidence to support the case of the plaintiff, and no amount of sympathy from the presiding judicial officer could help that.

In February of 1902, Morris Goldstein, embittered by months of legal battle, formally withdrew his case, accepting a settlement of £3,270--less than half the value of his business. By that point, the family had already relocated to a ramshackle flat in a rough corner of Whitechapel, a dustbin compared to their previous one. Simon and Parry, long since deprived of their positions in the family shop, had taken up jobs in a local factory, working hard hours for little pay to support the oversized family. Morris himself found work as a middle manager in a local jeweler's shop. It was difficult work, and the pay was far from what he'd made as his own employer. It was on these reduced salaries that the family scraped by in their times of trouble.

Yet, as unkind as those years were to Emmanuel Goldstein, they still managed to do him a few favors. As he approached secondary school age, the only practical options for his schooling were a couple of Christian voluntary schools. Neither Morris nor Sarah would see their son educated in the Christian tradition, and in any case the family was unlikely to afford the tuition. For a little while, it seemed as though Emmanuel might soon join his worn-out brothers in the workforce, earning a few pounds each day to support the struggling Goldstein clan. But when Balfour's education laws were passed in 1902, just on the cusp of Emmanuel's eleventh year, a new borough council was set up in his neighborhood, and off to school he went.

Emmanuel's marks had always been good, but once he entered secondary school, they became outstanding. As the boy would soon discover, he had a truly remarkable talent for writing, public speaking and persuasion; these skills served him well in the papers he wrote for his courses, and in the squabbles he had with his instructors over their judgement of his work.

However, his scholarly successes were just as much the result of personal dedication as they were of natural abilities. Each night, he saw the misery and exhaustion on his brothers' faces as they returned home from work. Even at his age, he understood that this would be his future if he didn't find a way out of his situation. And so, at an early age, he made a personal vow to excel in his schoolwork, to attend a prestigious university and to find for himself financial security so that his children would never have to know the poverty he was living through.

This plan would soon undergo a very drastic change. While Emmanuel led his class in history, literature, persuasive speech, geography, and in most other fields, he held in the back of his head a lingering anger at the corrupt capitalist system which had wronged him and his family. As he glanced at the poor and the homeless each morning on his way to school, his perspective began to adapt. Every day, he reflected on the injustices imposed on the people of London by the endless pursuit of wealth. Every day, he pondered the suffering inflicted on his family by the greed of a few wealthy folk. Every day, he grew angrier at the way that the rich had gamed the system to their own benefit. And every day, he reflected on the ways that their tyranny could be broken.

One autumn day in 1905, Emmanuel witnessed a scene that would change his life forever. An impoverished old man with a grey cloth cap and a scraggly beard was ambling down the road to whatever rat-infested shithole he was lucky enough to call home. As he went on his way, he was passed by a well-to-do man in a large hat and a long coat. Suddenly, the clean-shaven man turned. In a refined southeastern accent, he shouted, "Don't you know to remove your hat to your betters, you old blighter?"

The dirty man stood wordless, staring at the younger man who had just addressed him. It seemed that the clean man had had enough of this old blighter's insolence, because after a moment's pause he shoved the poor man to the muddy street. As Emmanuel watched, stunned, the rich man looked down upon the dirty old man he'd pushed into the gutter, muttered "Serves him right", and strode gallantly away.

That night, Emmanuel burned with seething fury. They're all bastards, every last one of them, he thought as he reflected on the rich and the powerful. Of course he'd known that already--he'd known it since his father had said it in 1901--but he'd been making excuses for their villainy ever since. And all this time, he thought to himself as tears of rage welled in his eyes, I've wanted to be one of them. Never again, he vowed. I don't care if it's the last thing I do, I'm bringing them down. Every last one of them.

Emmanuel pondered, disgustedly, at his perverted dream to find a job and steal money from those who needed it. That's all they did, the capitalists--leech wealth from the poor, grow fat while the rest of the people starved. That had to change. Power belonged rightfully to the people, but it had been pilfered from them, unjustly and amorally. No longer would he give a second thought to a career in the private sphere. Of course, he'd still go to university, but hang a degree in law or medicine--He knew what he wanted to be. He would run for Parliament. He would join a party. He'd found his own if he had to. He would fight for the rights of the old man in the street, for the rights of his family, of his friends, of the miserable poor who were being crushed under the boot of the bourgeoisie.

That was a promise that he would keep.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

In 1909, eighteen-year old Emmanuel Goldstein of Whitechapel was accepted with a full scholarship to the London School of Economics and Political Science, soon proving to be a diligent student. He rarely received any but the best marks, and he became renowned around campus as a powerful and persuasive speaker and a talented writer. He also became highly involved in campus political life, becoming chairman of the local Socialist Union and regularly penning and distributing pamphlets encouraging his peers to take part in local student marches.

It was in his second year of university that Emmanuel began attending regular meetings of the Labour Party. At the time, it was still just a minor party seeking recognition and status, but Emmanuel was convinced they were the future of the working class. Every other week, he would gather with a hundred or so fellow students in some musty classroom and listen excitedly to the Party's most recent progress on the electoral scene. But as he attended more of these rallies and meetings, Emmanuel began to realize that the main wing of the Labour Party, better though it was than the Tories or the Liberals, was far from a party of the working-class. When he listened to the likes of Barnes and Henderson, he found that the central Labour leadership favored change so gradual and perfunctory that, by Emmanuel's standards, they may as well have been conservatives. If the Party kept its moderate line, he feared it might abandon the working-class entirely and become a front for the leaders of the trades unions, pretending to represent the workers while only giving a damn about their bosses.

It was this mistrust of the mainstream Labour line that first attracted Emmanuel to the Independent Labour Party. Though it was nominally a faction of Labour, its membership were far more committed to the welfare of the proletariat than the rest of the Party. The firmly left-wing stance of the ILP was much more in line with Emmanuel's own views, and when Goldstein took the floor at ILP meetings (as he quite often did), the members were much more receptive to his pleas that the destructive activities of the capitalists be eradicated, rather than simply be mediated by the government.

In May of 1912, at the age of twenty-one, Emmanuel graduated with first-class honours degrees in political science and economics. That same day, he formally joined the Independent Labour Party. His powerful, captivating voice reverberated at almost every subsequent ILP meeting in London for the rest of the decade, calling for increased radicalism from the Independent faction, for support of the workers' unions, for hostility toward the upper classes, and for greater independence from the mainstream Labour line. By the time the shots rang out in August of 1914, Emmanuel's voice was well-known and oft-heard among the ILP rank-and-file, and his face was as familiar and important as those of Maxton, Snowden and MacDonald. Though he did not yet hold an official post within the Party or the government, by the age of twenty-three he was, without a doubt, one of the upstanding figures in the ILP.

In those few years before he first took public office, Emmanuel made his living by tutoring students at his alma mater. One young student first approached Emmanuel for help with his economics studies; as they studied together, they would bond over their common roots in Whitechapel, their common faith, their common love of writing, their common political outlook, and their common commonality. Their friendship grew, and it would last longer than most do. To Emmanuel and a few other close mates, this young man was Laz. To everyone else, he was Lazarus--Lazarus Aaronson.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

For anyone who's unfamiliar with the book, a man named Aaronson is mentioned as having played an instrumental role in the Ingsoc Revolution. This is my way of introducing him.

 

[Tales Weaver]

For anyone who's unfamiliar with the book, a man named Aaronson is mentioned as having played a part in the Ingsoc Revolution. This is my way of introducing him.

So Aaronson is accounted for. who is Jones and Rutherford?

 

[Roberto El Rey]

So Aaronson is accounted for. who is Jones and Rutherford?

"Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist, whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame popular opinion before and during the Revolution." He will be involved with the Times.

As for Jones, all I'll say is that you will probably be surprised.

 

[Tales Weaver]

"Rutherford had once been a famous caricaturist, whose brutal cartoons had helped to inflame popular opinion before and during the Revolution." He will be involved with the Times.

As for Jones, all I'll say is that you will probably be surprised.

I am guessing that rutherford is Harry Rutherford.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

I am guessing that rutherford is Harry Rutherford.

Feel free to take your guesses, but I'm not going to confirm or deny anything just yet. You'll just have to wait and see

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from The Times, 7 July 1916

LABOUR WINS ST. GEORGE BY-ELECTION
by Edward Chipping

It was announced yesterday that the Labour Party has taken the east London constituency of Tower Hamlets St. George with the success of the Labour candidate, Mr. Emmanuel Goldstein, 25, in the local by-election.

The by-election was called after the tragic death of the Liberal MP, William Wedgwood Benn*, in a traffic accident in April. The Liberal Party did not put up a candidate to run in Benn's place. The Conservatives nominated Douglas Clifton Brown, who lost to Benn in the General Election of December 1910. The Labour Party quickly nominated Mr. Goldstein, a native of Whitechapel who, after joining the left wing of the Party in 1912, has become a rather well-known and prolific speaker in local Labour circles.

Mr. Goldstein received 1,792 votes to Mr. Brown's 1,154, securing a safe victory of 60.8 per cent of the electorate. This represents a swing of 2.7 away from the Conservative Party. It is believed that Goldstein's nativity to the area and his reputation among local Labour voters helped secure the newcomer's victory, despite his lack of formal political experience and young age.

At 25, Goldstein will be one of the youngest MPs in the House of Commons, and it is hoped his vibrant energy will help the emerging Party to assert its positions during Parliamentary debates. When Goldstein formally joins the House, the official Labour tally will be 58, and the official Liberal tally will be 126. Upon hearing of the results of the election, Mr. Brown conceded defeat to Mr. Goldstein, who hailed the victory as “another success for the Party of the working class”. Goldstein is expected to formally join the House next week.

*In another life, William Wedgwood Benn might have lived and had a son named Tony

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from A Complete History of the British Labour Party, 1952

When Goldstein announced in February of 1925 that the Independent Labour Party would split from the Labour Party, many were unsurprised. For almost nine years, Goldstein had been perhaps the Labour leadership's harshest critic—The Times had once called him “A Labour member in name only” (Doorwood, 1921). In many ways, this was accurate—by the time of Ramsay MacDonald's first ministry of 1924, nearly every time Goldstein spoke, he was critiquing the government's failure to improve life in the country's slums, or its apparent favouring of the rich and neglect of economic intervention. Each time he did, he was chastised by many Labour backbenchers, and supported by many others. In this way, the schism within Labour had become quite obvious. One time during the first Labour government, Baldwin remarked to his colleague Mr. Churchill, “This may be the first time in Parliamentary history that the governing party is serving as its own opposition”.

The dogma of the new Independent Labour Party included total devotion to the interests of the working-class, major economic and social reform to dismantle the class system, opposition to capitalism, state control and supervision of the economy, and equality for all regardless of race, sex or social class. In short, it was a rather far-left socialist party, influenced by the burgeoning socialist state in Russia and the writings of Marx and Lenin. James Maxton was to be the leader, and Goldstein was to serve as the party's chief whip. However, Goldstein was clearly the dominant personality. For years, Goldstein had been the main voice of the separatist faction of Labour, and when the sovereignty of the party was formally acknowledged, he would remain in that capacity as the ILP's most prominent member.

When the split was completed, Labour was significantly reduced. Forty-two Labour backbenchers had seceded to form the ILP, bringing the Labour tally down to 109—a reduction of almost one-third. Initially, this was not disastrous for the Labour Party. They were still the largest opposition party by a long shot, and the ILP typically voted with Labour on most issues anyway. In any case, Labour was not in power, so there was not yet any conflict between the two parties over the institution of policy issues. One effect of the split was that the Labour Party's parliamentary constituency experienced a noticeable drift toward the centre. A significant portion of its more left-leaning backbenchers had deserted to the ILP, leaving an overall less radical parliamentary constituency. The Party's leadership, however, stayed the same, and so from the top, the Party still seemed firmly socialist in its ideology.


From A Summary of United Kingdom Parliamentary General Elections, 1800-1950--Cambridge University Press, 1951

General Election, 30 May 1929

​

Electoral Results

*Indicates Prime Minister

Notes

The general election of 1929 was the first election in which the Independent Labour Party ran candidates independently of the main Labour Party, and consequently, it was the first in which the press used the term "Central Labour" to differentiate the two parties. Before the election, the ILP's representation consisted of the original 42 MPs who had broken from Labour in 1925 to form the ILP. The Central Labour representation consisted of the 109 MPs who had been left after the split. The presence of the ILP in the general election had a spoiler effect, splitting the vote between itself and Central Labour in some constituencies and helping the Conservatives to remain the largest party.

Nevertheless, Labour was brought to power for the second time in five years. Central Labour, Independent Labour, and the Liberals had a slim combined majority of twenty-one seats, and this allowed Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald to claim the Prime Ministership of a minority Labour government. The ILP agreed to support this minority government in exchange for cabinet positions for ILP leader James Maxton and prominent ILP member David Kirkwood. It would later be revealed in 1932 that the leaders of the Labour Party had illegally colluded with the government of Russia during this election to win more seats; this would cause a large scandal, deeply shaking popular support of the Labour Party and leading to the Party's routing in the general election of 1932.

General Election, 27 October 1931

​

Electoral Results

*Indicates Prime Minister

Notes

The general election of 1931 was called due to controversies over the National Government which had been formed earlier that year due to indecisiveness in MacDonald's Labour government. In August, MacDonald's cabinet had been unable to agree on how to deal with the unemployment that had become endemic in Great Britain as a result of the Great Depression. To end the indecision, a National Government was formed which included ministers from the Conservative, Liberal, and Labour parties. The Independent Labour Party refused to participate in the government in protest.

In September, a general election was called to gain the country's approval for the new National Government. The pro- and anti-National Government Liberal factions ran as separate entities, and MacDonald's tiny clique of pro-National Government Labour MPs ran separately from mainstream Labour. Before the election, the Labour tally was at 217, down from the 231 seats it had won in 1929; This had occurred in 1930, when Oswald Mosley, then a Labour backbencher, had presented the Labour conference with the "Mosley Memorandum", which proposed that the government solve the problem of unemployment with credit and deficit spending. When the Labour Party rejected this plan, Mosley and 13 of his followers had defected to the ILP, disillusioned with Central Labour. This brought the Central Labour tally to 217, and raised the Independent Labour tally to 49.

The result of this election was a sweeping victory for the National Government. The Conservatives received 432 seats, the Liberal Nationals 24, and MacDonald's National Labour 9. For the Independent Labour Party, which soon renamed itself the Socialist Labour Party, little changed. Central Labour found itself in an undesirable position, but the worst was very much still to come.

General Election, 24 March 1932

​

Electoral Results

*Indicates Prime Minister
​

Notes

The general election of 1932 was called in the wake of a massive scandal surrounding the Labour leadership. In February 1932, a series of documents had surfaced which showed secret communications between Labour Party officials and agents of the socialist Russian government. These documents, later verified by confessions from those involved, showed, beyond doubt, that the Labour Party had illegally colluded with the Russian government to fraudulently win seats in Parliament in 1929 and 1931. The documents revealed, among other things, that the Labour Party had allowed Russian government agents to rig vote-collection systems, accepted illegally-obtained information on opposition parties which was used to damage their chances of winning, and had illegally accepted tens of thousands of pounds of funding from the Russians.

When these documents were made public, a scandal ensued of the highest degree. Prime Minister MacDonald resigned in disgrace, followed by Philip Snowden, J.R. Clynes, and Labour leader Arthur Henderson, who had held the great offices of state in the Labour government and we're implicated in the fraud. Stanley Baldwin, made Prime Minister after MacDonald's resignation, called an election to introduce "a Parliament that [held] the trust of the British people", in Baldwin's words. Central Labour, leaderless after the resignation of Arthur Henderson, could barely mount a campaign, and the British people (quite justifiably) had little trust in them after the MacDonald Scandal broke. They lost thirty seats--close to one-half of their previous representation--and were down to just 44 standing MPs. The Conservatives gained 496 seats, 80% of the House of Commons--the largest Parliamentary majority ever achieved by any one party to this day. The Liberals, still divided into two squabbling camps, were too busy holding grudges against each other to carry on a worthwhile campaign, and both sides dwindled. The National Government was dissolved, and a firmly Conservative one took its place.

The Socialist Labour Party, however, escaped the worst of it. Baldwin had expected the SLP to suffer similarly to Central Labour due to their mutual association. However, he was proven wrong. The parties had been separated for seven years now, and through all that time, members like Goldstein and Mosley had been blasting Central Labour over as often as they did the Conservatives. The Party's refusal to participate in the National Government made it clear that the two parties were not allied. By 1932, most voters knew better than to associate the Socialist Labour Party with the Central Labour Party. The SLP did lose a few seats, but it emerged from the situation largely unscathed.

Despite its crushing losses, Central Labour was the largest opposition party by a razor-thin margin, and so it was designated the Official Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, chosen a week after the general election, was Arthur Greenwood, the MP for Wakefield. Greenwood had served on the Privy Council as Minister of Health in the government of 1929-1931, and he was the only former cabinet member who had not lost his seat in the election (and he likely would have lost it, if not for the untimely death of his Conservative opponent, George Hillman, five days before the election). Greenwood was the most experienced among the forty-four Central Labour MPs, and possibly the Party's most prominent personality after its drastic electoral reduction, so he was the natural choice for leader. Though officially he was Leader of the Opposition, this was little more than a rump title, as he barely controlled a third of the opposition MPs. The early and mid-1930s in Britain were a conservative time, and this election was a primary reason why.

 

[Fluffr_Nuttr]

This is awesome.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

This is awesome.

I'm very glad that you like my TL!

Next up, an update on the state of Germany, and then the butterflies hit America.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Excerpt from p. 279 of Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Germany Between the World Wars by Otto Grünwald, 1946

The Great Depression changed everything for Germany. Before the Depression, right-wing populist elements like the Nazi Party and the German National People's Party were already popular, as shown by their surprising performance in the 1928 General Election. But in 1929, when the German economy sank to depths none thought possible and millions more Germans became bitter, unemployed and vengeful, it was only a matter of time before the people's frustrations and fears overtook them in the electorate. And, with the powerful personality of Adolf Hitler once again at the helm of his party, triggering the untapped anger of thousands of Germans every day, it was almost a foregone conclusion that the Nazis would emerge dominant.

German Federal Election, 1930
​

Frankfurter Zeitung, 17 September, 1930
HINDENBURG NAMES HITLER CHANCELLOR
by Johan Walter

Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was today named Chancellor of the Reich by President Hindenburg following his Coalition's victory in the federal elections on Sunday. Hitler's party is the leading party of the German People's Coalition, composed also of the German National People's Party and the Centre Party, which gained a 58% majority in the federal election on Sunday. This new office has cause concern for some, who have expressed worry that Hitler will use his new position to ease the passage of an Enabling Act, a controversial decree suspending civil liberties for which Hitler advocated for during his campaign.

...

Berliner Tageblatt, 29 October, 1930
REICHSTAG BURNS DOWN IN CASE OF ARSON; PERPETRATOR SUPPORTS SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
by Joseph Dauer

The Reichstag building, seat of the lower house of the German Parliament, was set ablaze at roughly 2:04 this morning. Firefighters responded quickly to the fire, but were unable to put the fire out until 4:48. By that time, thousands of onlookers had gathered on the Königsplatz to observe the fire, which had been raging for over two and a half hours. Marcus Van der Inde, a young Dutch man seen loitering near the building when the fire was started, claimed responsibility for the act of arson. Shortly after the fire was started, he was observed standing in front of the building, shouting to onlookers that Germany be "returned to its natural rule". Under questioning, Van der Inde reportedly admitted to being an ardent supporter of the Social Democratic Party.

...

Berliner Tageblatt, 30 October 1930
HINDENBURG SIGNS REICHSTAG FIRE DECREE
by Florian Hoch

Today, President Hindenburg signed into law the Reichstag Fire Decree in response to the events of Wednesday, in which the Reichstag was burned down by an SPD activist. Addressing the nation by radio yesterday, Chancellor Hitler expressed fear that the arson was meant as a signal for members of the Social Democratic Party, who lost their plurality in last month's elections, to initiate a coup to take back power from the German People's Coalition. Hitler argued that the Decree, which temporarily suspends most civil liberties, was necessary to "counteract the anti-democratic forces controlling the Social Democratic Party".

...

Frankfurter Zeitung, 29 November 1930
ENABLING ACT PASSES
by Florian Hoch

The Reichstag, meeting today in the Kroll Opera House, passed the Enabling Act, a controversial measure which gives the cabinet the ability to pass laws without assent from the parliament. The measure passed easily with 86% of the vote; this sizable majority was achieved through the absence of the representatives of the Social Democratic Party, whose presence was banned following the deliberate destruction of the Reichstag building in October by an SPD supporter.

 

[Tales Weaver]

So nazis start 3 years earlier..

 

[Roberto El Rey]

So nazis start 3 years earlier..

Yup, and with the Social Democrats instead of the Communists as the initial enemies.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

Indianapolis, Indiana
28 February 1933

Francis Duquenne McCoy, his black knit cap tucked over his reddened ears, slipped inconspicuously down the crowd. To accommodate the elongated object hidden inside his pant leg, he had to keep his leg uncomfortably straight when he walked. But despite his awkward gait, hardly anyone paid attention to the small, black-clad man skulking away from the President-elect of the United States.​

President-Elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressing a crowd in Indianapolis, February 28, 1933, approximately twelve minutes before he was fatally shot. In the upper left-hand corner of the image is visible the window from which the assassin fired the shots.
​

Frank McCoy slipped into a narrow back alley on the other side of the street. Still unnoticed, he rounded the back corner of a two-story house and climbed the wooden fire escape he'd observed in his earlier walk around the area. The second-floor window he'd opened was still ajar; he squeezed his undersized frame through the window and carefully got to his feet, making sure not to make too much noise. Frank made his way across the storeroom to the other window, which commanded a view of the entire street. As he crouched down in front of the window and surveyed the scene, he removed the hidden object from beneath his clothes. He looked it over lovingly as he held it in his hands. He remembered shooting his first deer with it when he was twelve. Today, he thought gravely, he would use it for the last time.

McCoy took a moment to listen to the voice coming from the lectern across the road. There he was--Franklin Delano Roosevelt. McCoy had to admit, the man had a powerful voice. It was the same damned voice he'd heard a thousand times on the radio, preaching for old age benefits and government handouts, protection for the workers and for "balancing the budget"--whatever the hell that meant. It was all commie bullshit and Frank knew it. Roosevelt was nothing but a puppet of that kike Trotsky in Russia. The minute he was in office, he'd sign this country over to the Jews, free 'em up to pillage and steal from real, Christian Americans.

Frank would not let that happen. For months, he'd stayed up nights, tossing leaflets all over Noblesville with Stars-of-David on them, warning his fellow Americans not to vote that commie into office. When a man started running his mouth about Roosevelt, a cross would be burnt on that man's lawn the same night. And when election day loomed, he'd got himself made chair of the polling board. A particularly intimidating Klansman watched over the ballot boxes for "security"--and to make sure his fellow citizens thought long and hard before checking "Democrat".

When the results came out, Frank was beyond livid. He'd prayed each night for the Lord to tell him why, why he'd sent this great nation to the dogs. But when he heard that Roosevelt would be stopping in Indianapolis, he realized that this was his sign--an invitation to do the right. He'd hopped on the first train, ready to save the land of the free from Bolshevik destruction.

McCoy steadied his hand as he aimed the barrel down the sights. Roosevelt was saying something about pension plans; McCoy hadn't been paying attention, anyway. He squeezed his finger around the trigger. Goodbye, you commie traitor.

BANG! BANG! BANG!


Forty minutes later...

"This is WCBS eight-sixty, CBS News in New York. We interrupt this broadcast with an extremely urgent news bulletin: roughly forty minutes ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President-elect of the United States, was fatally shot while speaking to a crowd in Indianapolis..."

 

[Tales Weaver]

FDR assassinated? uh-oh..