A Day in July: An Early 20th Century Timeline
- Thread starter Zulfurium
- Start date
Now that we’re in the second half of the twenties, i’m kind of surprised that Kaiser Willy isn’t really mentioned at all when it comes to political developments in Germany. I think the German support for the Hashemites was the only case so far were he intervened directly in a matter of great import. How did the German government convince him to diplomatically recognize the people who killed his cousin ‘Nicky’? I doubt he cares about distinctions between Moscow and Yekaterinburg, especially since Trotsky is clearly working with the Moscovites. He is not the sort of monarch who just nods along and signs everything that appears on his desk.
How does he get along with the SPD government in Prussia? After all, he is not only German Emperor, but also King of Prussia, which means no measure, no law and no decree goes into effect without him signing it. And in OTL he only died in 1941, so unless he is going to die of unnatural causes ITTL he will be around for quite some time.
I have actually been looking forward to seeing how he interacts with the political scene of the twenties and thirties, especially since we really have no real world situation to compare it to - in OTL all European monarchies at the time were either abolished, or their respective monarchs had been completely sidelined like in Britain. The German situation ITTL is really quite unique in that regard.
Also, i have been rereading the TL recently, and i have changed my opinion on how communism would be perceived ITTL. Originally i thought communism would be seen as less threatening, since communists don’t control all of Russia, and there was no attempted revolution in Germany. But i think the fall of Italy more than makes up for that - especially because of the attack on the Church and the flight of the pope. That’s a real ‘Barbarians at the Gates’ moment right there. Then there was the failed uprising in France, the prolonged Red Scare etc.
If anything, communism looks even more scary than OTL at this point, since it’s clearly no longer limited to Russia - it is now a truly international phenomenon, something communism achieved IOTL only after WW2.
Btw, who is King of Finland at this point (if there is one)? Was this ever mentioned?
How does he get along with the SPD government in Prussia? After all, he is not only German Emperor, but also King of Prussia, which means no measure, no law and no decree goes into effect without him signing it. And in OTL he only died in 1941, so unless he is going to die of unnatural causes ITTL he will be around for quite some time.
I have actually been looking forward to seeing how he interacts with the political scene of the twenties and thirties, especially since we really have no real world situation to compare it to - in OTL all European monarchies at the time were either abolished, or their respective monarchs had been completely sidelined like in Britain. The German situation ITTL is really quite unique in that regard.
Also, i have been rereading the TL recently, and i have changed my opinion on how communism would be perceived ITTL. Originally i thought communism would be seen as less threatening, since communists don’t control all of Russia, and there was no attempted revolution in Germany. But i think the fall of Italy more than makes up for that - especially because of the attack on the Church and the flight of the pope. That’s a real ‘Barbarians at the Gates’ moment right there. Then there was the failed uprising in France, the prolonged Red Scare etc.
If anything, communism looks even more scary than OTL at this point, since it’s clearly no longer limited to Russia - it is now a truly international phenomenon, something communism achieved IOTL only after WW2.
Btw, who is King of Finland at this point (if there is one)? Was this ever mentioned?
Apparently he was quite willing to work with the SPD to promote limited worker rights during the early years of his reign.
Don't forget Trotsky's trial of Tsar Nicholas and the Schönbrunn Raid.
AFAIK it's the OTL King, Friedrich Karl von Hesse
I will be getting to Kaiser Wilhelm, although to be honest the shock of the Great War, the murder of his cousin in Russia, a suicide attempt by his son Joachim (his marriage still falls apart ITTL and he seems to have been generally troubled, so I don't think a German victory would be sufficient to keep him out of a spiralling depression), the death of his wife (who is shocked and weakened by her son's suicide attempt) in 1922 and general pressure from all sides to limit not only his involvement in public policy but limit his general interactions with the public have led to him falling into depression and listlessness. His children have stepped up in his absence and fill in where they can. As we move further from the aforementioned events, Wilhelm will recover but for the first half of the 1920s he is essentially in semi-retirement. His sons do a servicable job and are not quite as demonstrative as their father, but they don't exactly leave people ecstatic for the future. I will have a section on the Hohenzollerns in update 26.
In France and Britain, "Enemy at the Gates" definitely describes the reaction quite well, which is why they invest a lot of resources in the Royalist cause in Italy. However, it is impossible to convince anyone to enter into the conflict directly instead of fighting with proxies. As for the Germans, for them it is more a matter of there being a general feeling, outside of right-wing circles, that the German state wasted nearly half a decade fighting Communists in Russia with little to show for it. People are tired of being afraid, tired of the blood and constant conflict, and just want peace. It all plays into the Spirit of Amsterdam, with everyone just wanting to get on with their lives. Communism is still viewed as a threat by many, but for now it seems as though the threat has settled, the first wave has been beaten back. Should it seem like Communism is suddenly spreading like wildfire, that is liable to set people off again, but for the time being people just want peace and prosperity.
@splashface256 is right about Friedrich Karl von Hesse being King of Finland.
Narrative Eight: The Red Prince, The Irish Gentleman & For The Reich
The Red Prince
Andrei Sverdlov as a Young Man
Andrei Sverdlov as a Young Man
Noon, 22nd of August 1925
House of Government, Moscow, Soviet Republic of Russia (1)
Andrei stared sourly out across the Moscow River at the Kremlin, wishing he could be there for the arrival of Trotsky for his first meeting as part of the Central Committee. Instead he was stuck here listening to the shrieks of the children running about.
He glanced over at his equally broody friend Jan, who had taken his father's death hard this last year. They were nearly of an age, he and Jan, but Andrei could not help but feel that they were beginning to grow apart.
While his father still sat at the head of the table in the Central Committee, Jan's father, Comrade Dzerzhinsky, was no longer able to (2). Andrei remembered his friend's father warmly, the bearded face always seemingly alight with interest in the world around him, even if he at times seemed to disappear into a world not their own - a trait his son exhibited on occasion.
Little Anna Larina sat down suddenly in the windowsill beside him, tearing him from daydreams of sitting on the Central Committee, and with all the bravado of an eleven-year old asked him loudly: "What are you moping about Prince Andrei?" (3)
She grinned up at him, her smile widening in time with his own growing frown. She knew he hated being called that. He was not a prince. As Uncle Bukharin often said, every man and woman was born and lived lives of equal importance, none above the other. Anything else was bourgeois arrogance.
He opened his mouth to tell her just what he though of her jibe, it was a speech he had already given her twice and knew by heart from the many times he had had to explain the issue to others, but was interrupted by dark-haired Aleya Efron's loud exclamation.
"What do you think you are doing Anna? You know exactly what he is going to say when you call him that. It isn't like it is the first time today he will explain it."
Andrei blushed and turned to glare at Aleya, who sat on the floor with a couple of younger girls, one of them two-year old Svetlana Bukharin, trying to keep them in linem though all he got for his fury was her bright laughter.
There was a year between Andrei and Aleya, but she had always been a clever one and spent much of her time in the same classes as he had. She was beautiful, wilful and intelligent but had never been a favourite with the teachers. Too much of her bourgeois father in her, they said, for her to truly shine as an example of worker's perfection. Her sister Irina on the other hand was sweet, loved by anyone who spent even a moment of time with her, and the darling of teachers everywhere (4).
There had been some talk a couple years ago of them leaving for Berlin with their mother to reunite with their father, but uncle Gorky had eventually been able to talk Andrei's father around to allowing Aleya and Irina's father, Sergey Efron, back to Moscow to help enrich the Poletkult movement with his poems and writings.
"I have not!" He said, an embarrassingly petulant note to his voice, well aware that he had tried to explain the issue not two hours earlier to one of the idiots his father insist he spend time with. Mikhail Mikhailovich Tomsky and Vladimir Andreevich Andreev were supposedly sons of up-and-comers in the party according to Andrei's father, but sometimes Andrei couldn't help but wonder what gave them a right to join them. Granted, neither of them were far removed from the farms they grew up on so less was to be expected, but only an idiot would fail to understand the concept of equality in a proper communist society (5).
Aleya laughter gave way to a gasp of pain when her sister suddenly appeared behind her, quite clearly pinching her to get her to stop. "I am sorry about her, Andrei." Irina said with a smile. "You know how she gets. She had hoped to be there for Trotsky's arrival but Matushka would have none of it, so now she is stuck here with the rest of us instead of getting to see the big man arrive."
"Irina!" Aleya shrieked in dismay, turning around and giving her sister a soft shove, just enough to tell her to shut up but not enough that she might be angered by it. "I just didn't want to sit here with the children when so much excitement is happening. Did you hear? They are going to have Boris Pasternak present from his latest collection of Poems! Can you imagine it! Him, speaking in front of hundreds of the most important people in society, so dashing, the perfect proletarian." (6)
Andrei traded glances with a smirking Irina, rolling his eyes to convey exactly what he thought of Aleya's reason for wanting to attend the event. "I was hoping to be there as well, but Father is worried about the reaction to Trotsky arriving here and wanted to make sure we were safe. They caught some madman yesterday who wanted to blow them all up. Father mentioned that I might get to sit in on the trial, but that is probably why you weren't allowed to go."
Andrei basked in the attention, enjoying the chance to show off his access to information. Jan grunted from behind him, turning to Andrei with a quiet smile on his lips. "You never did know when to shut up Andrei, I am pretty sure your father wouldn't be too happy about you blurting out stuff he told you in private."
Andrei blinked, thought about it for a moment, before cursing so foully that little Anna gasped in shock. "I am an idiot!" he groaned. The snickers from Aleya made the whole matter so much worse, although Irina's comforting pat on his shoulder helped a bit to soften the blow to his ego.
"Well, one thing is for certain, I can't be a prince. Can you imagine Aleksei Romanov accepting attacks like those I am under?" He said, with as put-upon an expression on his face as he could muster, before grinning, the others chuckling along in response and shaking their heads.
Footnotes:
(1) Like IOTL, the Kremlin has become the heart of Red Russia, and as such the OTL massive apartment complex known as the House of Government or the House of Embankment is still established as the best housing available for the Red Russian elite.
(2) This is Jan Feliksovich Dzerzhisky, Felix Dzerzhinsky's eldest son who was of an age with Andrei Sverdlov and ITTL has grown up alongside him.
(3) Andrei Sverdlov is at this point 14 years old and the son of the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. He has grown up in the lap of privilege, despite the hardships of the war years, and has been educated by the best minds available. He has emerged as one of the most capable of the leadership group, and is looked at by many as the future of the Communist Party alongside his friends and the other children of party leaders. As should be apparent, Andrei also is a bit full of himself and as a result is rather easy to tease. Anna Larina remains Yuri Larin's adopted daughter and, as a high standing figure within the Communist Party his family has a place in the House of Government.
(4) Ariadna (Aleya) Efron was the daughter of prominent poets in Soviet Russia IOTL while her sister Irina IOTL died of starvation during the Civil War, ITTL she survives. In general there has been some shuffling about, with Aleya and Irina's mother and as a consequence they themselves being treated better due to the higher value placed on cultural achievements ITTL's Moscow government. It should be noted that IOTL Andrei Sverdlov (who had a massively different life IOTL) was a key figure in the imprisonment and torture of Aleya Efron and her mother IOTL, reportedly participating directly in Aleya's torture.
(5) Andrei has, as is hopefully obvious by this point, been sheltered from much of what goes on outside the walls of the Kremlin. He is part of a treasured and protected elite who dream of ascending to the Central Committee to rule the Communist state. He hasn't quite understood that not everyone has gotten lectures over dinner from some of the foremost communist intellectuals in the world. Andrei is a product of his environment and understands the world through that lens, much in the same way a German royal might.
(6) While this is quite early in Pasternak's career, the greater cultural flowering of Moscow and the reduced censorship and intervention into the creative arts of this period has allowed Pasternak's career to really blossom, making him among the most popular young writers and poets of the 1920s.
The Irish Gentleman
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
Afternoon, 22nd of April 1926
New York City, United States of America
Joseph P. Kennedy sat in his office on Wall Street, gazing out over the Manhattan skyline and wondered about his decisions over the last several years.
Ever since his dear friend and mentor Galen Stone had retired in 1922, he had felt an itch to push forward in the name of prosperity for his family. First he had taken up a seat as partner with Hayden, Stone & Co while expanding his personal financial resources into New York real estate.
He had seen a great deal of success in these endeavours and by 1924 he had thought all would be well, that his family's health and fortune had been assured.
The election of President McAdoo disproved it all. The horrible rhetoric of hatred which had engulfed the Democratic Party left Joe disgusted alongside so many of his Irish compatriots.
While Joe had never truly felt himself bound to the fate of the Irish American, striving to outgrow the prejudice which had haunted his people for centuries, and was well known in New York and Boston society, it seemed that even he could not outpace this prejudice.
He had felt it at the Democratic Convention two years ago, the seething hatred of the delegates and the riotous Klan members. He had left, his vote abstained, alongside his fellow Irishmen. That was the first true moment of fellowship he had felt with them.
Over the following year he had seen business opportunities vanish into thin air, his stock with Bethlem Steel come under assault and even found his position within Hayden, Stone and Co threatened (1).
He felt bitter, betrayed by those he had thought his friends. It was under these circumstances that Joe first began to consider setting out on his own. His portfolio with Hayden, Stone & Co was sizeable and he had enough of a reputation for moneymaking that he would be able to make his way.
On the 3rd of October last year that was exactly what he had done, and the response had been surprising. He had soon discovered that the Irish American was powerful and deeply imbedded. From Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and New York itself he had discovered business associates unimagined.
Real Estate, hospitality, manufacture and, most recently, entertainment. He had found entry into all of them. It had not taken long before he found himself in august company: de Valera, Collins and other heroes of the war in Ireland guested his dining room and excited his sons with tales of woe and war, Governor Smith invited him to receptions while Mitchell, Meehan and Smith all came to him in hopes of forging business alliances. He had even had the uncertain pleasure of Bill Lovett's company on occasion, a man of surprising intelligence and business acumen (2).
Now, however, the matter had turned to politics. With the Democrats little more than lapdogs of the Klan, it was his duty as a proud American to stand up and defend the nation. To that end, Joe had begun canvassing the power brokers in Massachusetts, eying the seat of Senator Butler - once held by that venerable old goat Lodge. While he had quickly discovered that Walsh hoped to challenge for the seat, retaking a seat after losing his during the '24 election, Joe had been able to lean on the influence of his familial contacts in Boston with considerable success.
The end result was that he was now running for United States Senate as a Progressive (3). Oh dear, Rose would not be happy, he had forgotten to mention that his bid had been accepted when they last talked.
Oh well, you win some and you lose some. This one would definitely be a loss.
Footnotes:
(1) IOTL Kennedy was somewhat less successful early in his career, he didn't secure Bethlem stock and left HS&Co after his mentor Stone retired instead of getting a promotion to partner. However, the changed political climate following 1924 plays out quite a bit differently. Instead of really taking off economically in this period, Kennedy instead finds himself limited due to worries amongst his Wall Street colleagues that association with Irish Americans might make business in Washington harder and Kennedy is eventually forced out of HS&Co, starting his own business two years later and with a much stronger network as a starting point. However, this does mean that he never really gets involved in the film industry. IOTL he was able to secure a very significant role in Hollywood due to presenting a White, non-Jewish and moral persona which made him popular with the anti-Semites and racists who were beginning censorship efforts against Hollywood at the time.
(2) Under the changed circumstances, Kennedy finds his opportunities limited to the Irish American sphere - however, in recent years that sphere has grown surprisingly powerful. His contacts to de Valera and Collins are limited, but give him bonafides with the Irish communist, Smith serves as his introduction to state-wide political life and his business associates from OTL make common cause with him ITTL, more so than OTL given the political climate forcing them to look out for each other. Finally, he has dealings with Bill Lovett and some other shady figures, mostly as a money man - buying up real estate and managing money. He isn't really involved in any criminality except for peripherally.
(3) Again, the political situation is spurring Kennedy to action much earlier than IOTL. He has more of a fortune at this point than IOTL and has a good deal of time on his hands. IOTL he went to Hollywood, but ITTL he will seek to go to Washington. As has been mentioned, Irish alienation with the Democrats has led them to join the Progressive Party, giving that party a strong base of support on the East Coast. I might not mention it in an actual update, but he is elected in the 1926 mid-terms in place of David I. Walsh.
For The Reich
Gregor Strasser
Gregor Strasser
Afternoon, 22nd of June 1926
Münich, Bayern, Germany
"We cannot allow such filth to pervade our daily lives and infect our children with Communist-Jewish morals!" He thundered from the rostra of the Bavarian Landstag to considerable acclaim.
It was not the first time Gregor Strasser had spoken before the assembly, but it was his best performance of his short parliamentary career.
While his brother had spent the years trying to bring around the SPD to his way of thinking, and failing rather spectacularly at it, if Gregor was to give his opinion on the matter, Gregor had spent that time fighting.
He had fought Frenchmen, Germans and Russians in turn, broken more than he could count and kept on going. He had done his country proud, shown his loyalty to the Kaiser, and now? Now, he was bringing that same attitude to righting the wrongs Germany had undergone. Smut and filth on display, women cavorting openly in the streets and, worst of all, the constant presence of Jew Socialists.
It was impossible to go anywhere without hearing their bleating from the street corners, portraying themselves as martyrs of the people when in truth they were exploiting them, using the political influence they gathered to conspire with their Jew compatriots.
At first, when he had returned from the fighting in Russia, Gregor had thought the war over. He had even finished his studies as a pharmacist, but the call to action had come soon after.
In Italy, Jews, Anarchists, Socialists and Communists rose up and sought to overthrow the government. They tried to assassinate Emperors and murder children, looted and vandalised churches and made sport of priests and nuns. And what was the government's response? Nothing!
While he had fought and bled alongside true patriots in the frozen wastes of Russia, the Jews had infiltrated the government and taken over government. That long-nose Rathenau taking on airs and betraying the fatherland, the traitor Stresemann betraying the fatherland and helping Trotsky and his fellow Zionists. Traitors one and all. He even had doubts about his brother Otto from time to time, living in Berlin, the Gomorrah of modern times, and working alongside traitors and Zionists (1).
"We must stand up for what is right and proper, even if the government of Stresemann is willing to stand aside and let our youth be tarnished!" He basked in the roar of approval from his fellow DNVP and conservative Centre representatives. "It is only right that we protect our future. It is for this reason that I propose the establishment of a censorship board to ensure that immoral filth not be allowed to spread."
Gregor had initially entered politics alongside a large number of other former Freikorps fighters as muscle for the dozens of smaller nationalist parties which had characterised the political landscape of Bavaria in 1922 and had participated in the brawls which erupted on a semi-regular basis between rival nationalist factions, communists and socialists.
By 1923 he had caught the attention Ritter von Epp and ascended the political ladder, just as his brother was doing in the SPD. It was through von Epp that Gregor had found contacts in the DNVP and secured their backing for a bid to the Bavarian Landtag - a race he had won handily in 1924.
He had arrived at a time of flux for the party, as Karl Helfferich's replacement as leader of the DNVP's Reichstag Kuno von Westarp began his campaign against the radicals within the party. It had been a hard time for Gregor, as men he looked up to in the party found their power weakened and attacked. It had boiled his blood and nearly made him leave the party, but now he and the others were making a comeback (2).
The failures of the government to manage the situation in Italy, allying with Communists against their rightful rulers, and compromise with the socialists and liberals had created and opening for men like himself. It angered any true German when he saw the rightful rulers of the Reich sidelined in favor of Jews and traitors, a fact which many were finally catching on to.
Henning, Wulle, von Graefe, Dinter, the Graf zu Rewentlow and Fritsch had welcomed him with open arms as they prepared to challenge that bastard Westarp, to take back their party for the true believers in the Reich's cause (3).
It had started small, a protest here, a newspaper editorial there, criticising the leadership and calling for a return to the proper order of things. Then had come the fight against Land Reform in Prussia - a greater gift could not have been given for their cause, as Junkers and nobles of all ilk recoiled in protest and flocked to join their compatriots in the party. Now they would fight for the censorship boards, to win the hearts of the German Youth and ensure the purity of future generations (4).
"I call on you to save our children, to save our civilisation. Let not the works of Goethe and Wagner be sidelined by filth and trash! Vote for The Bavarian Moral Protection of Children Act!"
A roar went up in support and Gregor grinned.
By the end of the day he would have cause to celebrate, with Centre and DKP backing his proposal had passed with an impressive margin (5).
Footnotes:
(1) This is mostly run-of-the-mill anti-semitic conspiracy theory which is prevalent on the far-right at this point in time and is pretty dominant in Gregor's outlook. He doesn't interact too much with Jews in daily life, as contrasted with his brother in the SPD, and as such the two will have some divergent views on the issue.
(2) While the breach within the DNVP is not as great as IOTL, where the radicals in the party were running about assassinating people all over the place, there is still a schism between the National-Conservative wing of the DNVP and the Radical-Nationalist wing of the party which plays out in this period with the National-Conservatives under Westarp winning out to begin with. While the radicals aren't expelled from the party as IOTL, they are shunted from many national leadership positions and forced to content themselves with regional positions instead.
(3) These are largely radicals from the OTL DNVP who were expelled from the party. ITTL they remain in the party and are trying to regain at least some of their political power within the party, with Gregor Strasser becoming a part of this push. Whether they will succeed is very much a question which will play out in the coming updates.
(4) The far-right is experiencing a small but steady growth in this period but the most important factor is that they are able to secure financing from angry junkers eager to make the socialists pay. The far-right of the DNVP is working hard to absorb some of the small regional far-right parties into the DNVP to strengthen their position and throwing their support behind relatively popular causes like the censorship issue.
(5) As mentioned in the previous update, there are only a few places where the censorship efforts succeed - with Bavaria among the greatest successes. Securing the censorship issue is a major feather in Gregor's cap and brings him a good deal of national renown and infamy.
End Note:
It was interesting to explore the Red Russian elite from the perspective of their children a bit. I hope that Andrei comes across as an intelligent but sheltered boy who idealises his father and believes himself destined for leadership. The arrival of Trotsky being something of a spectacle might be a bit of a surprise, but it is worth remembering that before Trotsky took up leadership of the RSDLP he was a prominent socialist writer, politician and thinker. While many have lamented what happened with him, he remained an idol to many - his role in the outbreak of the revolution celebrated by many. He is a man with a very mixed reputation in Moscow, but no one doubts the significance of him entering the fold.
Kennedy is a fun figure. I have read a pretty good biography on him which made me want to include him given that he, to me at least, seems like one of the men who could have played a much greater role in the events of the 1920s, 30s and 40s than he did IOTL. His entry into the Progressive Party is also a signal of how widespread the move within the Liberal Democratic wing is towards the Progressives. It should also give an idea that the Irish American community is only growing more powerful and confident as time goes on.
I feel like I have to take a bath after writing from Gregor's perspective, but I hope that he gives some insight into what is happening on the far-right in Germany. I decided to use Gregor Strasser instead of Adolph Hitler because I feel he is a better fit given the future and because I feel using Hitler for this would be cliche. Better to bring some new blood to the role of angry anti-semitic nationalist. He is anti-semitic, nationalistic and rather un-democratic in outlook but isn't as obsessively bound up in it as Hitler was. He is also able to play off his brother to a degree. While they are in rival parties, they aren't actually too far from each other in ideological composition however, while Otto remained behind and engaged himself fully in politics in northern Germany, getting swept into the SPD in the process, his brother went east to fight with the Freikorps and as such has taken on a much more militant outlook.
I know this is a bit earlier than planned, but it gives me some more time to work on the next proper update, which I expect I will need as it deals with the technical, political, social and cultural developments of the period covered in the TL so far. Let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas for this - I am going to need some help with it. I would also like to hear what people think of this set of narratives.
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I like these. Shorter and much easier to digest than the usual updates.
You did say "Irish Gentleman", and then started talking about Joe Kennedy, though. The cognitive dissonance nearly gave me a headache.
I don't have any concrete suggestions, alas, but you might think about how the differing political climates have impacted Hollywood, as well as German or British cinema (and I suppose Soviet, also).
So instead of a new insurgent far right party, it grows and strengthen itself within the existing ones. This could mean they won't get total power the way the Nazi did, but it also means they will have the ability to steer discourse even if they don't win outright. Interesting dynamic.
I will give it some thought. I don't think there will be enough content for Mongolia to really be all that interesting, but two narrative updates down the line should give me the opportunity. Thinking of doing something in India for it though.
I like these. Shorter and much easier to digest than the usual updates.
You did say "Irish Gentleman", and then started talking about Joe Kennedy, though. The cognitive dissonance nearly gave me a headache.
I don't have any concrete suggestions, alas, but you might think about how the differing political climates have impacted Hollywood, as well as German or British cinema (and I suppose Soviet, also).
Happy to hear it.
I would say that Irish and Gentleman were an oxymoron, but that just feels mean...
That is a good point, I will have to get into it. If you have any suggestions on different development of cinema in any of those I would love to hear it.
Yeah, I thought it might be interesting to have a more insidious version of ultra-nationalism than the loud and proud nazi version.
Honestly, I think people have a tendency to misunderstand Joe Kennedy and attribute the worst possible motives to effectively everything he did.
As to the specifics, womanizing was, if not accepted behavior, something that a lot of men in his social class did and was semi-expected behavior so pointing it out as something particularly shitty has often seemed rather overblown to me, particularly considering that they spent much of their time apart. Kennedy was focused on ensuring that his family would rise to the heights of American society, ensured that his children had good educations and grew up in a loving home. Hell, reading about the Kennedy home, it seems to me that anyone would be hard pressed to do better than what Joe and Rose actually did.
As for Rosemary, that seems more like a loving father making a horrible decision which he regretted for the rest of his life. She had the best possible education, including every possible special treatment possible at the time, and her parents had basically done everything in their power to make her as happy and comfortable as possible. The lobotomy was a last ditch effort of a desperate parent try to "fix" his child. The circumstances around her lobotomy are tragic and his decision to keep it secret seems to have been more an error of judgement than anything cruel. Reading about exactly how far the Kennedy parents went to make Rosemary feel accepted, securing the best possible education and doctors at a time when many would have done far, far less, the whole affair just seems like one big tragedy. As for him not really interacting with her after it went wrong, it seems like he had an easier time treating her as though she had died than what actually happened - and even then, she got the best care money could buy for the time.
Joe Kennedy was by no means a saint, but it is important to contextualize people's decisions.
Thanks for the insight on that, @Zulfurium; I apologize for condemning Joe for that, though we can criticize him for making a bad decision (and, as you've said, he did regret it for the rest of his life)...
I was reading about Edward Carter today and his role in the International brigrades in Spain and I'm excited to see the role that Trotksy's uber-militarist Yetkaterinberg has on any future International brigrades ITTL.
I have a couple different ideas which I look forward to exploring as regards international brigades.
It won't be the next narrative because I don't cover Asia in the next three updates, but the narrative after that should work. I have a couple ideas for who I will write about.
I sympathize with how you felt after writing from gregor's pov.
Dem collapse and replacement by a progLab coalition come dustbowl?
Dem collapse and replacement by a progLab coalition come dustbowl?
Crown Prince Wilhelm is certainly an interesting figure. He was fairly popular in right-wing circles, who put a lot of hope in him, since he was actually more right-wing than his father. I would expect him to be a fairly active Prince and later Monarch.
I mean within the spectrum of right-wing which all Weimar monarchists fell at the time, he doesn't seem necessarily more or less right-wing than his father - just more active. His father was crippled by guilt, doubt and depression at the time and only began to recover by the mid-late 1920s by which time his sons had largely picked up the torch.
The Crown Prince, based on only basic reading about him, seems to have been trying to take back power from the Weimar democrats (something I honestly couldn't fault him given the situation) and seems to have been focused on restoring his family's position, whatever the cost. As to his actual political leanings, I think that his alliance with the right-wing had far more to do with the fact that they were the only actual monarchists around during the Weimar Republic than any ideological alignment. He was quick to speak out against the war and basically did everything that was asked of him during it - actually deferring to his military advisors even when he disagreed with them (rather disastrously, as happened at Verdun). He is another figure I think people like to build up as some right-wing nut bogeyman when at worst he seems to have been seduced by Fascism and Hitler - not exactly anything unique (Hitler and Fascism were admired very broadly across much of the Western World from the March on Rome until well into the 1930s=. Given the situation and his actions, he comes across to me as a man easily caught up in dreams, like his father, but also a man much more careful than his father - see his behavior after the Night of Knives - and more personable - see his seeming ability to maneuver quite well within the right-wing eco-system. He was capable of learning and acting judiciously but had a tendency to get carried away by ideas which appealed to him. I have some ideas for him, but it will take a while before we get there.
Oh, i agree that the Crown Prince wasn’t some bogeyman. When i use the term ‘right-wing’, i use it as a neutral descriptor, not a moral statement, which is how the term is often used these days.
Fun Fact: If Wilhelm reigns until his OTL death in 1941, he would be the longest ruling monarch in German history (53 years), beating Frederick the Great by seven years. The ‘Wilhelminian’ epoch would then likely be compared to Britain’s ‘Victorian’ period, since in both cases the countries looked very different at the end of their reign compared to when they took the throne.
Btw, IOTL Max Hoffmann died in 1927, so unless his death is butterflied as well (do we know the cause of his death?) the question of his successor is going to come up soon (i assume he remained Chief of the General Staff after the war).
Fun Fact: If Wilhelm reigns until his OTL death in 1941, he would be the longest ruling monarch in German history (53 years), beating Frederick the Great by seven years. The ‘Wilhelminian’ epoch would then likely be compared to Britain’s ‘Victorian’ period, since in both cases the countries looked very different at the end of their reign compared to when they took the throne.
Btw, IOTL Max Hoffmann died in 1927, so unless his death is butterflied as well (do we know the cause of his death?) the question of his successor is going to come up soon (i assume he remained Chief of the General Staff after the war).
Update Twenty-Five (Pt. 1): Society in Flux
Society in Flux
Statue of Workers in a Moscow Park
A Cultural Flowering
The most defining feature of the cultural renaissance of the 1920s was the introduction and adaptation of the Proletkult movement by German artists and writers, wherefrom it would be adapted by a vast swathe of Europe. At the heart of this movement lay the idealisation of the worker and a far greater level of interactivity than previous cultural movements. Open-air theatre was a dominant feature of the movement, alongside gritty paintings of the worker-citizen in their environment and a celebration of urban and rural working life. However, just as important as the highlighting of the worker and farmer classes in this new cultural movement was the nihilistic license it created to refashion and reshape culture and social standing. While many artists already enamored with the working classes would focus on directly incorporating some of the innovations and developments coming out of Moscow, often melding it with Dadaist, under the title of “Proletkunstwerk”, a separate stream of cultural thought would develop in contrast to this movement dedicated to reshaping culture and society to fit with what they believed tomorrow's society would require (1).
Statue of Workers in a Moscow Park
A Cultural Flowering
Borrowing heavily from futurism, modernism, constructivism and Art Deco Movement, this new cultural movement would take its name from Wagner's concept of a synthesis of art, with the movement believing in the search for unity in a synthesis of all aspects of life and art, rejecting class structures in the name of human unity, using the term "Gesamtkunstwerk" or Universal Artwork to describe their ideals. The movement would find its first expressions in Neus Bauen, or New Objective, architecture but quickly spread to other cultural productions as well, in the form of theatre, cinema, music, poetry and painting. It would also lead to a flowering of futurist and speculative novels and novellas, as well as inspiring numerous radio and film works of a modernist and futurist bent (2).
Universalist, Proletarian and Expressionist art and cultural movements would all clash and conflict throughout 1920s Germany, inspiring artists, writers and directors such as Fritz Lang, Alfred Döblin and Bertolt Brecht to new heights and spurring on the cultural excitement gripping Germany. In France, it would be Dadaism, strongly inspired by both German and Russian proletarian movements, and Surrealism which initially made headway, with the former in particular proving extremely popular amongst the younger generation of artists. However, following the labour unrest of the early 1920s which culminated in the destruction of the CGT, there was a counterreaction to the more extreme cultural and social ideals of particularly the Dadaist movement and an associated shift towards more traditional, often Italian-inspired, styles in the Neoclassical movement of which Pablo Picasso for a period emerged as the most renowned participant (3).
The influx of White Russian Emigres and Italian refugees would prove central to revitalizing right-wing interest in both Italian and Russian culture - with Russian classics experiencing a surge in popularity, most significantly expressed in the cinematic production of a planned five-film series based on Tolstoy's famed novel War and Peace by Abel Gance. Among the first major sound movies produced in Europe, the first two films would be produced and presented in late 1927 and 1929 respectively and stunned their audiences, elevating French cinema to world class (4).
While cinema and film had been experiencing a rapid growth in popularity in the leadup to the Great War, it would be the post-war period of the 1920s which truly saw the full emergence of classical film making. At the start of the Great War, French and Italian cinema had been the most globally popular, however, the war came as a devastating interruption to European film industries. The American industry, or "Hollywood", as it was becoming known after its new geographical centre in California, gained considerable ground in its place and by the 1920s, the United States reach its greatest-ever output, producing an average of 800 feature films annually. The comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the swashbuckling adventures of Douglas Fairbanks and the romances of Clara Bow, to cite just a few examples, made these performers' faces well known on every continent.
While silent films dominated the first half of the decade, often accompanied by live music and occasional narrators, a series of technological breakthroughs from 1919 and onward, on both sides of the Atlantic, would pave the road to sound film, with Lee De Forest in America and the German trio of Josef Engl, Hans Vogt, and Joseph Massolle in Germany both patenting sound-on-film technologies. While in America the transition to sound would struggle in the face of intense institutional pressures to continue the silent film industry, bitter competition and the worsening political climate towards the powerful Jewish influence in Hollywood would allow particularly German, French and Russian film-making to make significant headway on the international stage. Using the Tri-Ergon sound system developed by the German engineers and the sound-separating technological innovations invented by two Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen, would become the European standard of the time.
Universum Film AG, often shortened to UFA, was the single largest producer of films in Germany at the time, the company having been formed through a merger of several smaller film producers to improve German propaganda efforts during the war by the German High Command, and only truly competing with the heavy-industry dominated Deutsche Lichtbild-Gesellschaf, often referred to simply as DLG, and as such was the first to be offered the use of this sound technology. Having already been making money hand-over-fist due to the flamboyant spending habits of the German public at the time , UFA proved open to experimenting with this change to the medium in the hopes of ensuring the emergence of Berlin as a true competitor to Hollywood. While there were a few experiemental showings of the technology in smaller UFA films with some success, it would be Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis, a founding block of Gesamtkunstwerk, as an ode to societal unity and the threat posed by class strife (5).
While German and French cinema turned towards the topics of science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction, in the films Metropolis, Niebelunglied and War and Peace respectively, in Moscow Proletkult cinema blossomed under documentarians like Esfir Shub, with literary adaptations like those films directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and feature-films like the film 1905 by Sergei Eisenstein.
The work of nearly three years, from 1922-1925, the film was six hours long and covered many of the major events of the 1905 Revolution, being released on the twenty-year anniversary of the Moscow Rising in December 1905. Starting as a War Drama covering the Siege of Port Arthur, The Battle of the Yalu River and the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the movie spends two hours on demonstrating the cowardice and incompetence of the Tsarist government and military leadership, driving the brave workers and sailors to their death, before the movie moves on to Moscow. While the first two hours serve as a prelude, the next hour follows the events leading up to Bloody Sunday, the event itself, and its aftermath up to the founding of the State Duma. The final three hours follow the deteriorating circumstances which followed, as Armenian-Tartar massacres break out in the Caucasus, the Battleship Potemkin's crew rebels against its officers and the Saint Petersburg Soviet is established. As the tension rises, the movie comes to a bloody climax in the Moscow Uprising, lamenting the defeat of the revolution but concluding on a hopeful note that the revolution will endure and rise again stronger than before. While full showings of the movie in its entirety would prove rare, the structure of the film in episodes allowed for the showing of singular or a more limited number of scenes to cut down on play time.
1905 would prove an incredible hit, spreading far beyond the government-backed and sponsored showings which initially served to premiere the movie. It would not take long before the film made the jump to Germany, where it was presented to massive crowds of workers in open-air showings in Berlin and the Ruhr. From Berlin and Paris, it wouldn't take long before covert showings popped up across the rest of Europe despite censorship boards condemning and banning the film. It would be prohibited by the McAdoo Presidency in America, in Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the Iberian Peninsula (6).
With Hollywood's rise to global prominence in film had come a disturbing series of newspaper-driven scandals during the early 1920s which significantly marred the reputation of Hollywood and made it favourite target for nativist and conservative politicians as well as a bogeyman of the Ku Klux Klan. While a great deal of the hysteria which would come to engulf Hollywood would be exacerbated, and more than occasionally fabricated, by competing newspapers looking for the next story, there were a worrying number of incidents which lay at the base of the scandals. Some, such as the deaths of Olive Thomas and Thomas H. Ince, were likely accidental but found themselves part of rumor-filled media storms, while neglectful drug-and-alcohol related deaths like those of Wallace Reid and Barbara La Marr caused moral outrage. However, none of these could truly compete with the two dramatic court cases involving the murder of William Desmond Taylor and the prosecution of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
The first of these, the trial for the rape and murder Virginia Rappe, saw the popular comedic actor Fatty Arbuckle the target of a vicious media and legal campaign after Rappe fell ill from a pre-existing illness at a party hosted by Arbuckle and died four days later, with some of the more unsavoury participants at the party accusing Arbuckle of raping her and withholding medical care. However, there was little to no actual proof of wrongdoing on Arbuckle's part. However, District Attorney Matthew Brady had staked his career on the case and put considerable pressure on witnesses to fabricate statements which would strengthen his case. This first trial would eventually end in a deadlocked jury, 10-2 in favor of acquittal, after Arbuckle took the stand.
The mistrial would lead to a second trial. The same evidence was presented, but this time one of the witnesses, Zey Prevon, testified that Brady had forced her to lie. Another witness who testified during the first trial, a former security guard named Jesse Norgard, who worked at Culver Studios where Arbuckle worked, testified that Arbuckle had once shown up at the studio and offered him cash in exchange for the key to Rappe's dressing room. The comedian supposedly said he wanted it to play a joke on the actress. Norgard said he refused to give him the key. During cross-examination, Norgard's testimony was called into question when he was revealed to be an ex-convict who was currently charged with sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, and who was also looking for a sentence reduction from Brady in exchange for his testimony. Further, in contrast to the first trial, Rappe's history of promiscuity and heavy drinking was detailed. The defense was so confident of an acquittal that Arbuckle was not called upon to testify. Arbuckle's lawyer, McNab, made no closing argument to the jury. This would prove a mistake. Arbuckle would be convicted on the charges of rape and criminal negligence, finding himself imprisoned soon after, wherefrom he would struggle to appeal his case until his death in 1930.
It was in the heated media environment soon after this conviction that the famous actor and director William Desmond Taylor was gunned down, swiftly turning into another media circus. While there were several suspects in the crime, not least a number of former valets of Taylor, it would be Taylor's love-life that the media and detectives turned their full attentions towards. Taylor had been in a close relationship with the comedic actress Mabel Normand, who also happened to have appeared in multiple films with Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle, who he had struggled to help cure her cocaine addiction, with some suspecting that it might be some of Normand's former suppliers behind the murder. However, even this scandalous theory would fall to the wayside in favor of a far more sordid tale involving 49-year old Talyor, the 19-year former child actress Mary Miles Minter and her mother Charlotte Shelby. While Minter was quite clearly deeply infatuated with Taylor, he had rejected her advances on multiple occasions - although this was disbelieved by both the media and her mother. When Shelby's first statement quickly proved to have been filled with lies, and she was caught trying to flee the country, Charlotte Shelby and Mary Miles Minter soon found themselves at the heart of another Hollywood scandal. This case would last until late 1922 and spell-bind the nation as the dirty laundry of half of Hollywood was aired in open court and culminated in Charlotte Shelby being found guilty of murdering Taylor.
All of these factors, as well as a moral panic over topics of sexual innuendo, miscegenation, mild profanity, illegal drug use, promiscuity, prostitution, infidelity, abortion, intense violence, and homosexuality in Hollywood films, led to calls for censorship of the Film industry. This was exactly what President McAdoo did in early-1925 on a wave of outrage following the latest Hollywood scandal - the trial of Mabel Normand's chauffeur Joe Kelly for the shooting death of millionaire playboy Courtland S. Dines, who alleged that Dines was trying to hold Normand captive after a long night of drinking. The resultant McAdoo Code which was imposed upon American film-making would prove very prohibitive, with severe fines imposed on any breach of the code, and the establishment of a board of censors in California through which any major movie would need to pass before receiving approval for public showings (7).
While there were many who feared that the Olympics would be left by the wayside in the post-war world, there were many who dedicated themselves to ensuring their continuity. While the 1916 Olympics, scheduled to be held in Berlin, had been canceled due to the ongoing war, there were many who looked towards 1920 with hope. However, in 1912 when the location had been selected, it had been a combination of the Netherlands and Belgium which had won out, with Antwerp planned as the center for the Olympic events. With the dissolution of Belgium and its partition, there was a great deal of uncertainty about whether the Olympics would be held at all, only resolved when Queen Wilhelmina pledged to hold the Games in place of the Belgians. Antwerp was considered too unstable given the recent annexation and as such the events were rerouted northward, with Amsterdam coming to replace Antwerp. While there was some talk about boycotting the event given the participation of formerly belligerent states, in the end the issue would be resolved with surprising success.
The 1920 Olympics would be the first to contain the Olympic Oath, the release of doves to symbolise and celebrate the recent peace and the Olympic Flag would be flown. In a display of post-war unity which augured well for the Spirit of Amsterdam, and at which this term was first coined to describe the surprising occurrence of former combatants participating in peaceful competition against each other, participants from across Europe journeyed to participate. New nations, such as Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Duchy participated alongside Swedes, Frenchmen, Brits and Americans. A particularly strong German delegation would make a strong mark on the Games and competed almost medal-for-medal with the Americans, losing out by a couple bronze medals and a gold to the Americans in the fight to secure the best results. The games were widely viewed as a major success and when the determination on the next location was made in early 1921 the choice was made to recompense Berlin for its lost games.
As such when delegations from across the world, including Red Russia and both White Russias, arrived in Berlin on the heels of the Amsterdam Conference it was widely believed that the games could do little but elevate the prevailing Spirit of Amsterdam to even greater heights. The 1924 Olympics were an opportunity for the Germans to put their best foot forward, building an impressive stadium in which to hold the Games and with a strong royal presence at the event. In a time when Russian tensions were only just beginning to ease and war in the Balkans was causing considerable worry and disquiet in the European community, it stood out as a calming and uniting event. In a surprising upset of the American streak of securing most medals at the event, the Germans were able to secure more Gold and Silver medals than the Americans while tying the number of bronze medals. In a bid to secure more popular backing in hopes of gaining re-election, President Wood would use his visit to Amsterdam to sign the Amsterdam Treaty as an opportunity to secure the Olympic Games for Los Angeles in 1928, an act which would prove insufficient to saving his hopes of re-election (8).
Radio, recordings, photography and film opened up new worlds for peoples across the globe. These developing forms of media gave them some sense of connection to London or Berlin, New York or Chita. They saw the images and heard the sounds of these distant places in ways that penetrated their consciousness deeply and marveled at the rapidly moving images across the screen and the voices that came out of the ether. Many people, from great intellectuals and government bureaucrats to clergy and beyond, wrestled with the issue of mass media. On some level, all of them recognised that the changes wrought by the new mass media were profound at the deepest individual and collective levels. New media not only enabled the transmission of existing works of literature or music to ever greater numbers of people, they also changed the way people around the world experienced the world, changing the very nature of the world experienced. The encounter with a visual image or a collection of sounds was no longer based on the unique experience of live performance or viewing, the transforming moment of listening to a Beethoven sonata in the still quiet of a concert hall or of contemplating a masterpiece in ones drawing room.
In the 1920s, visual images were reproducible, whether on printing presses or in film studios. The images on-screen moved rapidly across the spectator’s field of vision. Recordings and live performances could now, with radio, also be transmitted over great distances. Modernity was complex, contradictory, and contested; its greatest cultural figures understood that and used the media in which they worked, photography, film, radio, and recordings, to reflect upon the meaning of modernity. Across the modernising world and beyond, the post-war era showered people with new sounds and images. Britons flocked to the radio and the cinema, Argentines danced to recorded as well as live music, and wherever there was a movie projector and something resembling a screen, audiences laughed at Charlie Chaplin. The electrified and reproducible sound and image internationalized culture in the 1920s as never before, and inspired and worried people all across the social spectrum. Many artists, writers, directors, and composers jumped at the chance to work in the new media precisely because they signified a break with the past and provided one more way to express rejection of the pre-war world, with the old way of doing things - which many blamed for the calamitous second decade of the 20th century. However there were voices aplenty to challenge the supposedly degenerate and dissolute influences of the new media forms like cinema and radio. From the Ku Klux Klan in America's charges of Hollywood moral decay and Jewish degeneracy and anti-Communist hysteria in France to the Imperial elites of Germany and conservative powerbrokers in Britain, there were many who could find reason to fear and reject these new technologies and the world they brought with them (9).
Footnotes:
(1) Proletkunstwerk might be a bad translation, my German doesn't go very fa,- but should roughly translate to Prole(tarian) Artwork. It is a progression of the Dadaist art movement which became strongly influenced by the Poletkult movement in Russia, particularly the more worker-focused aspects of the movement and its embrace of popular culture through street art and engagement with workers at their place of work. They are big on street theater, on works glorifying the working classes and other works in a similar line.
(2) Gesamtkunstwerk was the ideal behind the OTL Bauhaus (Neus Bauen) architectural movement which ITTL becomes considerably more widespread. Bauhaus architecture is still a thing, but the movement as a whole is much wider ITTL, encompassing art, music, film and literature, with Gesamtkunstwerk and Neus Bauen (New Objectivity) being closely related. Basically, the ideal behind the movement is one of unity, of bringing everything into harmony and removing conflict and strife from society. It proves relatively popular with the middle class which finds itself alienated by the proletkunst movement and yet find the expressionist movement too distant for their more practical tastes. There is a strong objectivist and practical outlook to the Gesamtkunst movement which appeals to many in the political center and finds a good deal of inspiration in what they imagine to be American culture (which is something quite distinct from what American culture is actually like).
(3) While in Germany Dadaism was swallowed whole by Poletkult influence to create the Proletkunst movement, in France it remains far more "pure" in its dedication to the core tenants of dadaism, with its rejection of logic and reason in favour of nonsense. It is pretty strongly connected to the workers' movements of the period and when the CGT is crushed the Dadaist movement finds its following weakened significantly. This in turn leads to the strengthening of a neoclassical movement similar to that which developed IOTL in the same period. However, with the war in Italy going on the inspiration more comes from a horror at the cultural losses in Italy and Italian refugees than from French artists visiting Italy - for example, Picasso doesn't visit Italy in this period as he did IOTL.
(4) With France and Germany arguably in a better place than IOTL, the adoption of sound film happens earlier and as such when Abel Gance gets working on a masterpiece in this period he is able to adopt it. Instead of producing his massive planned Napoléon series in this period, Gance is instead determined to produce War and Peace instead. There might be a Napoléon series in his future, but for now it is War and Peace which gets adapted to film. As with his Napoléon work, these are massive epics of several hours in length which really dig into the source material and even expands on them in some cases. It will later be held up as one of the masterpieces of Post-War cinema and one of the best examples of someone trying to grapple with the horrors of the Great War.
(5) As some might notice, Metropolis is far from the same movie as IOTL. With greater funding and technological development in Germany at the time, particularly with significant investments in the entertainment sector, UFA is on significantly stronger financial footing and as such is better able to cope with the costs they ran up in this period - as well as being able to distribute and market their movies further than IOTL to better win back their money. Metropolis ITTL is the first major mature German sound-film and it proves a rather significant success for UFA, ensuring that UFA and DLG remain separate. Thea von Harbou is greatly influenced by the Universalist cultural movement and is viewed as a subversion of the Proletkunst movement given the movie's focus on class relations, but diverging from Proletkunst by promoting cooperation and unity between worker and employer.
(6) I might have gone a bit overboard with the 1905 film, but it is actually based primarily on Eisenstein's original vision for what became the move Battleship Potemkin. IOTL he ran out of time because he only had a single year to complete the work and after some initial shoots gave up on the plan and instead focused entirely on a single episode of what he had originally planned should be a long multi-sequence film. ITTL, with the greater focus on culture in the Moscow government Eisenstein is given more resources and time to complete the film and as such is able to create this monstrous masterwork. Ordinarily the entire 1905 film won't be shown at screenings of the movie outside of special occasions - instead specific episodes in the movie will be brought out and shown as more manageable viewings. While the Bloody Sunday and Battleship Potemkin episodes remains a poignant favourite for many, the climactic Moscow Uprising is what the movie becomes remembered for. It is a masterful work of propaganda which proves integral to strengthening Proletkunst in Germany, really kickstarting Germany's own proletarian cinema which initially focuses much of its attention on the German Revolution of 1848, it proves vital to strengthening what had previously been a flagging French anti-capitalist cultural movement - in many ways serving as the spark for a nascent leftist cultural movement which will come to subsume and eclipse Dadaism. The Film 1905 itself is premiered during the Anniversary celebrations of the Moscow Uprising on the 21st of December 1925.
(7) The scandals which IOTL hit Hollywood in the first half of the 1920s play out just that bit worse in order for censorship to get enforced. This very nearly happened IOTL, and the major studios would enforce the Hays Code voluntarily from the 1930s onward, but here it is just that bit worse with a more interventionist president who is willing to act. McAdoo was elected to reduce American interventionism and improve its moral standing, so policing Hollywood seems like an obvious course of action for him.
(8) There are a couple of important butterflies with regards to the Olympics ITTL which shift the host cities around. First of all without Germany banished from the games for the first eight years of games, Paris isn't chosen to host the games once more and the missed Olympic Games for Berlin in 1916 are replaced by the games in 1924. At the same time the Dutch secure 1920, opening up the 1928 slot to allow for the Americans to win it. This will have the effect of ensuring that the Los Angeles Olympic Games don't occur during the Depression, which should have some pretty significant consequences for how they play out in contrast to OTL.
(9) This is the introduction of mass media and a bit on its effects upon the wider populace. These are similar developments to those of OTL, although it bears mentioning that American film and music isn't quite as dominant ITTL, with particularly German, but also French and British, challengers to American supremacy in international media playing a key role in fostering an international dialogue through film, music and pictures.
Endnotes:
I know that this is only one segment, but please bear with me. There is a ton of stuff covered in this update which took quite a bit of research to get as close to right as possible. At the same time I had a bunch of job-search related meetings this week and preparations for Christmas this week. I do hope you appreciate it being out earlier than usual. Given that each section in this update is pretty self contained I will try to get them out one at a time as I finish them. Look for the next one around Christmas.
This one is a bit experimental. It is difficult to work out potential cultural developments when you don't have a particularly firm grasp on it yourself - which is the case here - so any comments or notes on specific developments in this section are very welcome.
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