Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg

[LAHistorian15]

<Snip>

List of Chairmen of the Combined Syndicalists of America as of 1962:

John S. Reed
(Socialist Labor)
(1937-1945)

Earl R. Browder
(Communist)
(1945-1953)

Norman M. Thomas
(Socialist Labor)
(1953-1961)

Gus Hall
(Communist)
(1961-Present)​

 

[Nagisaki]

List of Chairmen of the Combined Syndicalists of America as of 1962:

View attachment 754654
John S. Reed
(Socialist Labor)
(1937-1945)

View attachment 754660
Earl R. Browder
(Communist)
(1945-1953)

View attachment 754656
Norman M. Thomas
(Socialist Labor)
(1953-1961)

View attachment 754662
Gus Hall
(Communist)
(1961-Present)​

Can you please stop putting your fanfic in here and make your own thread for it? It's cool, but, again, really should be in it's own thread.

 

[Deleted member 82792]

 

[Thoresby]

Agreed, this thread should be for discussing the game and single post AAR's. Not fanfics.

 

[Deleted member 82792]

 

[LordUltimus]

Can we talk about Red Flood here, or should there be a separate thread?

 

[RiverDelta]

Can we talk about Red Flood here, or should there be a separate thread?

I'd say there should be a separate thread. Please link it if you find/make one.

 

[Gukpard]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Kaiserreich/comments/vurgt0

Big trouble in little China

 

[the Imperium of Canada]

Found this on SV

https://www.reddit.com/r/Kaiserreic...ongs_america_would_we_see_a_significant_rise/

While Huey's pragmatism might prompt him to occasionally, for an example, try to use the issue of Black civil rights to weaken and break up the KKK and other rival factions within what started as Longist coalition, I think overall, not only antisemitism, but probably all other forms of traditional, Anglo-Protestant supremacist-leaning racisms in America would become even more deeply entrenched and toxic.

While this isn't about antisemitism per se, let's take an example of Black civil rights. While there were certainly some conducive Postwar socioeconomic conditions such as the mass entry of Black Americans into workforce during the OTL WW2, the struggle for civil rights in OTL America wasn't done because it was 'practical'. Countless people who suffered real damages and sacrifices in not only properties (if lucky), but physical lives had to bleed to achieve civil rights against the establishment that 'practically' preferred the continued post-Reconstruction social consensus of White reconciliation by throwing Black civil rights under the bus.

Within all this, I'm not trying to give too much credit to the political authorities for what was only achieved by grassroot struggle. However, the external, overarching international political context of the era in which this was America was the self-proclaimed world-empire of liberty emerging victorious against the hyper-racist Nazi empire in competition against the Soviets with explicitly communist anti-racist, anti-imperialist slogans definitely was conducive to the progress of civil rights struggle. Ultimately, even more than the J Edgar Hoover-style lumping of civil rights movement with communist specter impeded it. Regardless of how many powerful key policymakers were sincere anti-racists at heart, there was a limit to which America could sit around while the Soviets were traveling from Cairo to Cape Town blasting propaganda about Scottsboro Boys, making friends with folks like Nasser, Sankara, and Dos Santos.

In Kaiserreich America where Huey wins, the political context is starkly different. Before anything, this is America where people with uh, least to say, pretty contradictory ideas of 'democracy' as we know in OTL came out as the winners of the life-or-death world-conflict. Whether sidelined by Huey or not, the KKK for a starter here is still part of the 'winning coalition'. The sort of 'pragmatism' espoused by Huey in this context is the sort that's far more like to continue, or even double-down on throwing minority rights under the bus for the 'practical' unity of White, Protestant Americans still very much the mainstream, whose mainstream status has been confirmed by the victory of the coalition containing the KKK and Silvershirts.

Meanwhile, once again based on demography alone, it's so, so incredibly easy in the Kaiserreich America to wrap antisemitism and anti-Catholicism with anti-syndicalism pinned around the immigrant proletariat-heavy, defeated northern industrial cities (AND in the south, against the Hispanics by associating them with circa 1936-syndie Mexico). This obviously happened to some extent, too, in OTL, but how the history developed as we know it made it impossible for the prewar sort of 'Judeo-Bolshevik' anticommunist variety of antisemitism to become respectable again in America after WW2. The conditions are, if anything, opposite in Huey's America. It would be incredibly easy to blast the propaganda about 'Jewish-Catholic-immigrant foreign agitators' as having started the 2ACW by planting seeds of syndicalism as opposed to 'true Americans'.

'Progressivism' of the Interwar period America, indeed, most of the world was drastically different from 'progressivism' of today, far from being incompatible with racism. It has been elaborated numerous times in this subreddit alone that the notion of Huey Long, the preventer of Blacks voting being some sort of essentially more 'progressive for his time' is a complete myth. He was pragmatic in that he didn't constantly thump on the race issues like other Southern Democratic establishment, but mostly focused on economic messages. But he was far from some sort of anti-racist by conviction.

And what you suggest that AUS-victorious Huey wouldn't have to appeal so strongly to the Southerners alone is very unconvincing; at least for a generation or so after when whatever the postwar system consolidated, the non-Southern Americans are still to a significant extent hostile, conquered peoples. It's one thing to try to extend his base to new audience, but to abandon the same, old base that propelled him to that status so far is suicidal for any politician.

And once again, focus on my word pragmatic, not by conviction. Do you really think by the standards of 1940s-50s America, even if Huey was to truly build a whole, new national base beyond the South, it would be easier and more pragmatic to do so by suddenly embracing some sort of racial egalitarianism like those defeated syndies *gasp*, or just appealing to the same, racist, xenophobic sentiments that certainly wasn't absent in North, neither?

Read carefully through the citations in the previous reddit threads cited above. It is absolutely a self-serving posterior myth that Huey was some sort of racial progressive by conviction which your idea of victorious AUS under Huey suddenly cozing up to the minorities is predicated on. Even for the purpose of outmaneuvering others in the AUS coalition, frankly, it really is far more pragmatic and easier for Huey to simply double-down on racism to make the KKK and Silver Legion redundant than suddenly reversing his coalition's stance entirely on one of the most critical social issues in the American history.

 

[Twiggierjet]

Found this on SV

https://www.reddit.com/r/Kaiserreic...ongs_america_would_we_see_a_significant_rise/

Yeah that makes sense imo

 

[Deleted member 82792]

 

[Deleted member 82792]

Did Henry Ford try to create his own utopia in the KR Amazon?

 

[herlockscholmes]

I'm kind of curious about how much American Kaiserreich fans identify with their respective factions in the 2ACW. I was born and initially grew up in New England, moved to Syndicalist territory and now live in what would probably be considered federal territory. I'd say I probably most identify with the New Englanders of any of them - and it's cool that one of the focuses for NE involves beefing up industry in my birthplace.

 

[Inquisition]

I'm kind of curious about how much American Kaiserreich fans identify with their respective factions in the 2ACW. I was born and initially grew up in New England, moved to Syndicalist territory and now live in what would probably be considered federal territory. I'd say I probably most identify with the New Englanders of any of them - and it's cool that one of the focuses for NE involves beefing up industry in my birthplace.

I’ll admit it has some effect on how I play. I was born, grew up, amd still live in NYC, which almost always ends up joining the CSA - and frankly none of the other options save the PSA appeal to me (mostly because, as a black guy who grew up in not-affluent circumstances, preserving the status quo of the 1930s would be bad enough, much less the hell on earth an AUS victory would create for African-Americans). In the PSA’s case I have never seen them win once, so I tend towards the Reds by default.

 

[Meshakhad]

I'm kind of curious about how much American Kaiserreich fans identify with their respective factions in the 2ACW. I was born and initially grew up in New England, moved to Syndicalist territory and now live in what would probably be considered federal territory. I'd say I probably most identify with the New Englanders of any of them - and it's cool that one of the focuses for NE involves beefing up industry in my birthplace.

Kaiserreich was a notable influence in converting me to socialism. I unironically identify as a syndicalist.

 

[herlockscholmes]

I’ll admit it has some effect on how I play. I was born, grew up, amd still live in NYC, which almost always ends up joining the CSA - and frankly none of the other options save the PSA appeal to me (mostly because, as a black guy who grew up in not-affluent circumstances, preserving the status quo of the 1930s would be bad enough, much less the hell on earth an AUS victory would create for African-Americans). In the PSA’s case I have never seen them win once, so I tend towards the Reds by default.

That makes a ton of sense, and I feel like it feeds into a larger point about HOI...part of what makes Kaiserreich interesting is that you can do well as the "good?" (idk, maybe "better" is the right term, here?) guys.

Kaiserreich was a notable influence in converting me to socialism. I unironically identify as a syndicalist.

I was having an interesting conversation with my father earlier today (he's v leftist, used to have Spanish Republican propaganda posters as his mousepads and the Internationale as a ringtone on his phone) where I tried to explain the world of Kaiserreich to him. Didn't take long for him to fall in love with the CSA.

 

[Inquisition]

That makes a ton of sense, and I feel like it feeds into a larger point about HOI...part of what makes Kaiserreich interesting is that you can do well as the "good?" (idk, maybe "better" is the right term, here?) guys.

The thing that always gives me a bit of pause is that the CSA can be either one of the best American unifiers or the second-worst, depending on who wins the Convention. If you have Browder in charge then you literally get a rehash of Stalinism with American Characteristics, and then there’s William Z. “Send the children to the mines!” Foster.

 

[RiverDelta]

The thing that always gives me a bit of pause is that the CSA can be either one of the best American unifiers or the second-worst, depending on who wins the Convention. If you have Browder in charge then you literally get a rehash of Stalinism with American Characteristics, and then there’s William Z. “Send the children to the mines!” Foster.

Honestly Foster's path makes no sense to me, the guy wasn't some kind of lunatic OTL.

Browder? Yeah, sure, "Communism is the Americanism of the 20th Century" was his whole thing, that fits about right.

 

[Worffan101]

The thing that always gives me a bit of pause is that the CSA can be either one of the best American unifiers or the second-worst, depending on who wins the Convention. If you have Browder in charge then you literally get a rehash of Stalinism with American Characteristics, and then there’s William Z. “Send the children to the mines!” Foster.

Think of it this way:

CSA wins: You either get Norman Thomas's peace and wellfare/Eliza Flynn's freedom and equality, or your pick of two authoritarian assholes.

USA wins, MacArthur coup: You either get a puppet President, or outright dictatorial rule by a megalomaniacal warmongering sociopath whose galaxy-sized ego cannot handle not being the GREATEST man ever with the GREATEST foes.

USA wins, no MacArthur coup: You have a compromise president with a massive long-term insurgency hobbled by the very problems that caused the crisis in the first place, but at least democracy is preserved and there is hope for the future.

AUS wins: You get your pick of a "guided democracy" under a Putinesque despot, a totalitarian corporatocracy under a figurehead President who's an insane Nazi, or a totalitarian Nazi regime under a guy who thinks Jesus is a lizard alien who talks to him from a flying saucer.

PSA wins: America is such a gutted ruin the PSA was able to take the remains and now has to rebuild the shattered country.

New England wins: As above but America is the puppet of an authoritarian Canada run by people like A.K. Chesterton.

There are really only two chances for good endings--USA wins without MacArthur, or CSA wins. A PSA victory preserves democracy but realistically America is going to be a broken nation for the forseeable future.

 

[Pergington]

I've always headcanoned that a PSA America would be a broken yet strong nation. Most of the nation has been shattered and the most Industrialized and populated centers the the East are broken but the West Coast still remains, its cities and people a beacon for what America once was, and will be, again.

Then again, I actively despise the CSA and the Syndie factions because of how much they win in my games so I make sure they lose now.