Athenian Democracy: A Spanish Revolution

This is my first post on the forums and also my first time-line, so any constructive criticism on either forum etiquette or the time-line itself would be welcomed and indeed heartily encouraged. The TL details the rise of an ambitious, radical movement based upon the concept of Athenian democracy in post-civil war Spain. I'm not entirely sure how good it is, but here it is regardless. Enjoy, and once again, comments would be much appreciated and the input of Spanish speakers especially revered, for google translate is a fickle tool at best.

Chapter I – The Foundations of Athenian Democracy

The Second World War had ended, resulting in a devastating defeat for the Fascist and National Socialist powers of Europe, both Germany and Italy brought to their knees leaving themselves entirely at the mercy of the victorious Allies. And whilst the victors took their spoils from the Axis they regarded the far right dictatorship of Francisco Franco in neighbouring Spain with vicious contempt, seeing them as a remnant of the European evil and as a threat to the democracy that they had spent six years and millions of lives defending.

And whilst the isolation from the world’s economy looked bleak for Franco, what with him being denied a place in the United Nations and a worldwide attitude of condemnation towards his administration, the domestic situation looked even worse; with the country’s greatest minds and greatest workers living in exile or being forced to lie low and the rest of the country secretly dissatisfied with the censorship, brutality and intolerance of the regime they lived under, Franco’s position was precarious, with his police state unable to entirely silence the grumblings.

One place in which the satisfaction was most deeply felt was in Seville, where a political thinker evolving intellectually in this charged environment, named Alphonse Marcos, created a new political idea that would drastically shape the future of Spain. Marcos was deeply set against the totalitarian government under which Spain was suffering, but he also viewed the other end of the political spectrum with a degree of contempt, having himself seen the failure of this system to repel Falangism. Furthermore, he also believed that the representative democracy used in many Western countries was ineffective, open to corruption and easy to overrun. He saw only one option; a radical overhaul with the people in mind. He began to craft a new political mindset that he believed would properly represent the people whilst also being a feasible way of running a successful, internationally appreciated nation.

He dubbed this new system as Athenian Democracy, taking inspiration from the political system used by Athens up to 336 BC, in which every citizen (the definition of citizen was indeed different in Athens at the time, basically meaning well educated men of Greek descent) voted on all pieces of legislation. Marcos believed that one of the fundamental problems with modern democracy was that parties operated on a system of greed and that doing away with these corrupt, capitalist machines and directly asking the people their opinions on legislation and other issues to make sure that the general public were represented as far as was politically possible was the logical way forward.

In July 1947 he completed his Seven commandments (Siete Mandamientos) of Athenian Democracy (Democracia Ateniense) that would be the framework for a Spanish nation under AD (Athenian Democracy)

  1. Every week a referendum shall be given to every Spanish citizen over the age of 21 on which they can vote on whether or not to pass legislation, whether to go to war and the allocation of the budget controlled by an elected Chancellor.
  2. This legislation will be put forward and reviewed by a People’s Council of 30 who will be voted for every 2 years. The first amongst equals of this council shall be known as President for the purpose of international relations. Anyone can run for a position on the people’s council, although the candidates will be narrowed down by a commission who will regard the qualifications of the applicants and what they would bring to Spain.
  3. Legislation can also be proposed by the people through the use of initiatives. If an initiative gets 75,000 signatures then the People’s Council will overview and modify the bill before adding it to that weeks referendum.
  4. There shall be no political parties, for there is no need for indirect representation when the people can vote on issues directly.
  5. The only issues on which the people cannot vote are those involving the budget and taxes, ensuring that austerity measures can be put in place if needed. The people will have a degree of input regarding the allocation of the budget, however.
  6. Every year a referendum will be released allowing the people to vote on whether they want AD to continue or not. If more than 50% of voters no longer want the system, it shall be immediately dismantled to be replaced by a ‘normal’ government.
  7. Political education will be critical within schools and amongst the adult population to ensure that decisions are well informed. This will be handled by the Minister of Political Education who will put forward legislation to be agreed upon by the people.

For the use of propaganda and dramatic impact, he shortened the commandments down to seven short statements that would become the mantra of the movement:

  1. Las demandas populares (The Demands of the People)
  2. El consejo popular (The Council of the People)
  3. Las leyes populares (The Laws of the People)
  4. Las libertades populares (The Freedom of the People)
  5. La confianza popular (The Trust of the People)
  6. El consentimiento popular (The Consent of the People)
  7. El conocimiento popular (The Knowledge of the People)

In the majority of situations these political thoughts, outlandishly radical for a western democracy, would have been dismissed as the ranting of a lunatic or the ludicrous views of an isolated political dreamer. However, in the bars and workplaces of Seville, Marcos was a well known and extremely popular figure, with his charisma, friendliness and wit affording him a large amount of influence over the working class of the city. Using this to his advantage, he handed pamphlets filled with the details of AD to the people he knew, whilst actively discussing with people the pros and cons of the system. Despite the idea’s risqué ideals and the danger of harbouring adversarial political views under the censorship and oppression of Franco, some people came round to the idea, although the vast majority dismissed it as nonsense akin to communism or were too scared to even consider the idea.

And even amongst those that wholeheartedly agreed with Marcos’ thoughts, most were unwilling to give any real support to the cause beyond words of encouragement, hardly useful to AD’s bid to become the dominant force in post-war Spain. However, there were some whose contempt of Franco and the willingness to accept the seven commandments meant that they were happy to actively help the cause. Marcos, hesitant of Franco’s secret police and the unthinkable consequences of anti-Falange activism, took a long time narrowing the interested group of people down into those that would be useful and trustworthy, taking every possible precaution that a meeting could be arranged without the worst case scenario coming to pass; a discovery of the underground movement by Franco’s intelligence network.

Eventually he decided on a time and meeting place for a gathering of about 60 AD supporters. It would happen on the 21st January, 1948 in the basement of the Giralda Bar, Seville, were they would come together to discuss their ideals and possible ways of toppling Franco’s regime. The first meeting didn’t achieve anything material; the opinions and methods of action were vague and seemingly unrealistic, but it did succeed in creating an excitement amongst the men, who were beginning to truly believe in AD, and also in enticing more people to attend who were previously too afraid to take a role in AD, leading to a slow but steady expansion of the movement. The foundations of an AD Spain were shaky and seemingly short lived, but they remained nonetheless and would one day expand beyond the realistic intentions of any of the men in that bar that fateful evening in the mild winter of Seville.
 
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As a Spanish I think this is interesting though seeing someone take France out of power seems to me impossible in the 1940s or the 1950s unless something huge happens.

Anyway I mostly posted to correct the mistakes in Spanish.

Las Damandas del Pueblo (The Demands of the People) >> Las demandas del pueblo or more Spanish imho "Las demandas populares"
Las Consjo del Pueblo (The Council of the People) >> El consejo del pueblo or "El consejo popular"
Las Leyes del Pueblo (The Laws of the People) or "Las leyes populares"
Las Libertades del Pueblo (The Freedom of the People) or "Las libertades populares"
Las Confianza del Pueblo (The Trust of the People) >> La confianza del pueblo or "La confianza popular"
Las Consentimiento del Pueblo (The Consent of the People) >> El consentimiento del pueblo or "El consentimiento popular"
Las Conocimiento del Pueblo (The Knowledge of the People) >> El conocimiento del pueblo or "El conocimiento popular"
 
As a Spanish I think this is interesting though seeing someone take France out of power seems to me impossible in the 1940s or the 1950s unless something huge happens.

Anyway I mostly posted to correct the mistakes in Spanish.

Thank you kindly for the corrections, I've edited the OP, and I think when you say "France out of power" I assume you mean economically, and I agree that this is unlikely, but who knows how effective this new system is :)
 
I assume that Nanwe means Franco not France, it makes more sense that way. I am interested to see how this develops, it will be difficult to provide a convincing way round Franco, but hey go for it.
 
I assume that Nanwe means Franco not France, it makes more sense that way. I am interested to see how this develops, it will be difficult to provide a convincing way round Franco, but hey go for it.

I did indeed mean Franco. A small typo on my part.
 
Well for all his many many faults Franco didn't I think equate his significance with a whole country though other figures of the mid 20th century may well have, eg Mussolini
 
Chapter II – The Rise of Athenian Democracy

Despite the meetings that happened at irregular intervals in different bars throughout Seville, the movement was still painfully unorganised. Worse still, Athenian Democracy, an idea that was becoming better known throughout the city, was inevitably leaked to the Falange authorities in control of the area. Quickly the news of this political idealism in Seville reached the leader himself, with insiders of his regime claiming that Franco was deeply worried about this new breed of politics, which he realised would appeal greatly to oppressed citizens. This is reinforced by the fact that on the 9th of December 1948 Franco declared (secretly) that all collaborators of the movement were to be sent to the infamous concentration camps and if the leader or significant member of the movement were to be found and positively identified (the regime had too little information to pinpoint the figurehead) he (or she) was to be executed.

Although Franco’s orders were meant to be secret, available only to those whom it directly concerned, news of the orders were leaked into the workplaces, bars and academic institutions of the city, meaning that many who were not in Marcos’ sphere of influence and had therefore heard no mention of AD were exposed to its ideals. Exactly the opposite of Franco’s intentions had occurred. Whilst he wanted to dispatch of potential dissidents through fear and intimidation before the movement gathered momentum, he had instead given AD the best publicity possible, meaning that the strength of the ideal increased greatly. Many historians believe that if this leak hadn’t emerged, the un-ambitious and unorganised movement of AD would have quickly fizzled out. Instead the Spanish leader himself had sanctioned the publication of the political ideal to the masses of Seville who would probably have been unexposed to the largely underground politics of Athenian Democracy.

This is when the movement truly began to gather strength. Whilst the rest of the country was generally happy with Franco at this point, demonstrated by events such as a pro-Falange march in Madrid in 1947, Seville, an important city that fell bitterly to the rebels during the Civil War, was almost universally unhappy with the rule of the authoritarian leader, most prominently due to the strong contrast between the political ideologies of the city and the state. When the citizens of Seville were presented with an alternative that was obviously worrying the echelons of government whilst also presenting them with the individual power that they craved, many lapped it up, eager to join the movement. In fact, there was a wave of popular opinion so strong that there was a sweeping trend across the city of vandalism, with citizens painting anti-Franco and pro-AD slogans on walls throughout the city. In fact, three men (whose names remain unknown) raised a flag during the night of the 2nd of February 1949 above the Cathedral of St. Mary that would later become the de facto flag of Athenian Democracy in Spain (sample of the flag is seen below). They were caught and executed just a few days later, Franco personally signing the death warrant.

AthenianDemocracy.png

This momentous if ineffectual showing of resistance towards Franco was immediately met with a significant overreaction. Although this is understandable considering the relative lack of organised or cohesive resistance to his regime so far, it would cause significant problems for Francoist Spain. On the 11th of February 1949, he sanctioned swift reprisals to the vandals, making sure that there would be highly public executions and deportations to his widely feared concentration camps, ensuring that the people of Seville witnessed the consequences of dissident action, in the hope that the threat of death would dissuade them from dissident activities. On Sunday the 12th of February 1949 a week of vicious reprisals ensued, led by the army officer Queipo de Llano, the man who had led the victorious rebel assault on Seville during the Spanish Civil War. This period in post-Franco Spain is known as the Semana de la Sangre or the Week of Blood. 97 men and 11 women who were believed to have either been responsible for the distribution of AD propaganda, for collaborating directly with the still mysterious leaders of the movement or for displaying pro-AD or anti-Falange slogans were executed, many of them in full public view, whilst approximately 200 hundred more were sent off to the forced labour camps, arguably a more distressing and painful fate.

This public display of brutality and thuggish behaviour angered the people of Seville in the extreme. Whilst before many of the citizens were unengaged by AD or simply didn’t believe that the Falange was bad for Spain, the seemingly unnecessary and disproportionate display of brutishness drastically turned many opinions towards AD. Once again, Franco had made the fatal error of giving Athenian Democracy far more publicity than the relatively small scale movement really deserved, giving them a platform and a sense of legitimacy that they could not have generated on their own. Public support in Seville for AD was staggeringly high and Franco was sensitive to this, realising that Seville was a troublesome area and that the people may resort to uprisings, sending military units to the city in anticipation of a seriously destabilising event. He knew that even though a truly successful rebellion was unlikely, publicised any civil unrest would seriously destabilise the legitimacy of his regime.

Throughout all of this Alphonse Marcos and the AD core had been relatively uninvolved, but a split was now emerging amongst them. Marcos and a few others believed that the transition from Falangism towards Athenian Democracy should happen peacefully, as it was not a revolutionary movement (such as communism had become) and should instead rely on public consensus and support from the rest of democratic Europe. On the other hand, the majority of the core believed that they should seize the moment, capitalising on wide spread public unrest and dissatisfaction within Seville to capture a key victory far earlier than any of them could have expected. In their eyes they had been given a rare opportunity to strike a blow to Franco and that if they didn’t seize the moment now, they were unlikely to have another chance.

Heated arguments flared within the group of 17 men who ultimately controlled AD’s destiny whilst throughout Seville, people were openly challenging governmental authority. The citizens were becoming more decadent, openly jeering and even throwing missiles at the military units who stood impassively by, under orders not to react in fear of creating an event that would spark mass civil unrest. The ancient city walls were increasingly plastered with anti-Franco slurs and paintings of the now well known AD flag and on the 25th of February in front of the Town Hall the boiling tensions within Seville came to a head when a man named Gervasio Rios threw a glass bottle at a military officer. Angered and embarrassed, the man in uniform pulled out his pistol and, without considering the consequences, shot at the quickly retreating man. He was hit in the leg, falling to the ground. The officer refrained from firing a fatal shot whilst the man was carried away by his peers, remembering his orders at the last moment, but it was too late, for the damage had already been done. When news reached the core AD activists about another shooting that could likely lead to an event similar to the Semana de la Sangre, Marcos finally admitted defeat and succumbed to the argument, put forward most strongly by the vocal Anibal Victore, that they should strike the first blow themselves before an innocent AD supporter was killed or more reprisals ensued. In the early hours of the 26th of February, 1949, the Seville uprising was officially begun.
 
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Goldstein

Banned
You know, this TL brings me a contradicting feeling. In my heart I know well it's too implausible that a movement so ahead of its time (oh, the irony) could triumph or even appear in the stark, defeated and exhausted reality that was postwar Spain. On the other hand, you make me want to believe it's possible, and to me, that alone makes it a great TL. By all means, continue this. I wait the next update with excitement.

OTOH, please, don't write it as "Felange". It's "Falange".
 
Your uchronia is very interesting. I like your Athenian Democracy, and I'd like to see where this will lead.
 
You know, this TL brings me a contradicting feeling. In my heart I know well it's too implausible that a movement so ahead of its time (oh, the irony) could triumph or even appear in the stark, defeated and exhausted reality that was postwar Spain. On the other hand, you make me want to believe it's possible, and to me, that alone makes it a great TL. By all means, continue this. I wait the next update with excitement.

OTOH, please, don't write it as "Felange". It's "Falange".

Thank you for the kind comments, I realise it's kind of improbable, but I think it's an interesting possibility that's been in my head for a long time so I'm trying to make it as plausible as possible. Oh, and thankyou for the Falange correction, it's a bad habit :)

Your uchronia is very interesting. I like your Athenian Democracy, and I'd like to see where this will lead.

Thank you, I'll be updating either later tonight or tommorow
 
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