I basically pulled a Joe Steele on Trotsky but I made him born years earlier in 1913Isn’t that Leon Trotsky?
I see.I basically pulled a Joe Steele on Trotsky but I made him born years earlier in 1913
That is some bad video quality for 2016 😛View attachment 647852
Former New York Mayor Randal Winston shakes hands with President Donald J. Trump and Vice president Alex P. Keaton (2016)
Hey Paul isn't going to buy a high tech camera for a historic eventThat is some bad video quality for 2016 😛
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A picture showing two of China's 'Paramount Men' of the twentieth century together as cadets at the Whampoa Military Academy: Jiang Jieshi, effective ruler of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1944, interim President of the Federal Republic of China between 1944 and 1946, and elected President of the Federal Republic of China between 1946 and 1952; and Zhou Enlai, founder of the Chinese People's Party, war hero and General during the Second Sino-Japanese War 1932-1937, Foreign Minister under the interim government between 1944 and 1946, and President of the Federal Republic of China between 1958 and 1964.
History notes that Jiang Jieshi would become a particularly driven man - indeed, many of his acquaintances would state that he became 'almost a different person, often knowing things he had no way of knowing' - following what appears to have been a seizure in 1926*. However, he recovered quickly, albeit with some carefully-masked confusion over the following week. Whatever the case, upon becoming leader of China, he would begin to energetically and without rest pursue a number of different policies, namely: the strengthening of the government in Nanjing; the modernisation of China; the end of warlordism; the strengthening of the country's military against potential foreign invasion, in particular securing Manchuria with a large number of troops; and the division of the Chinese Communist movement. This latter would be an apparent motivator in his quiet, careful talks with Zhou Enlai beginning shortly after his seizure, the substance of which would only become apparent when Zhou led a large faction of the Communist Party in breaking away, forming the Chinese People's Party (this coming around the same time as the death of Mao Zedong from food poisoning). The foresight of Jiang's military policy would become apparent in 1931, when Japanese forces invaded Manchuria. Though fighting began at this point, 'official' war is considered to have broken out the following year when, following initial reversals, Japan fully committed to the invasion.
During the war years, Jiang would provide effective leadership to the country on the domestic front, as well as rallying support for China on the international stage - in particular from the United States, where he would quickly approach President Roosevelt upon his election, forming the beginnings of a strong personal friendship between both men as well as developing a strong Sino-American partnership. Indeed, he would use the war and the greater powers at his disposal to begin enacting a number of policies similar to Roosevelt's 'New Deal', which he would widen at war's end.
In 1943, Jiang would hold a Constitutional Convention, wherein the Republic of China would ultimately give way to the modern Federal Republic. He would hold power as interim President until 1946, would win election in his own right, and would serve the single six-year term allowed under the new Constitution before retiring.
*The change many observed is what gave rise to the ridiculous modern conspiracy theory that Jiang's mind was replaced by that of someone from the future.
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Peng Dehuai, Marshal of China, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between 1944 and 1958, and Minister for Defence between 1958 and 1964. Peng was contacted on behalf of Jiang Jieshi by Zhou Enlai, something that led him to ultimately back the KMT over the Communists - though he would later formally align with Zhou and the Chinese People's Party. In return for his service to the central government, he would be further promoted, and given command of a major area army in Manchuria just prior to the Japanese invasion. By war's end, he would have overall command of all forces in Manchuria, and the rank of Marshal of China. He gained particular fame for his coordination of guerrilla fighting inside the occupied portions of Manchuria, and his ability to bleed out Japanese forces in protracted fighting despite (initial) material inferiority.
Though not the most diplomatic of men - indeed, in one famous telephone exchange he told Jiang Jieshi 'unless you have more ammunition, fuck off and let me fight this war' - he would continue to enjoy the support of both Jiang and Zhou Enlai, first in his effective single-handed construction of the post-war Chinese Army, and then in his elevation to Minister for Defence under the Zhou Enlai administration, and is regarded both in China and abroad as one of the most talented soldiers of the 20th century. He would ultimately die in his sleep in his home in Beijing in 1983.
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Hazel Ying Lee, the world's first female fighter ace (fifteen confirmed kills over Manchuria) and post-war politician (served as Shanghai's representative to the Federal Yuan between 1948 and 1960). A Chinese-American woman, Hazel travelled to China in 1933, with a desire to aid the ROC Air Force. While in other circumstances this might not have been possible, Jiang Jieshi had used the Japanese invasion to declare the conflict with Japan a 'total war, in which all resources must be mobilised to repel the imperialist invaders'...which included the recruitment of women both as medics and in the following combat roles: pilots; snipers; and tankers. Indeed, in her later autobiography, Lee noted that Jiang 'almost seemed to have been waiting for me', with how he made a point of getting her a chance at proving her ability.
Despite sexism from certain commanders, Lee would rise to the challenge, shooting down a Japanese bomber on her second sortie. Initially flying the Curtiss F11C Goshawk, she would later graduate to the Boeing P-26, and then for the last year of the war she would pilot the domestically-produced Dongfeng J4. During the conflict, she would become somewhat of a celebrity, with both Chinese and American media reporting on her successes (American media veering somewhere between scandalised and intrigued at Chinese women fighting in the war).
Lee would ultimately command her own squadron by war's end, and would retain it until she left the Air Force in 1942, herself and her husband going into business in Shanghai prior to her entering the political arena. She and other women who fought for China would be greatly lauded by the Jiang government, and Jiang would use their successes to carefully push for greater female representation in all walks of life across China. While traditional attitudes weren't always easy to break - and, indeed, some parts of modern China remain more traditional than others - these efforts would bear fruit, with women not only continuing to enter the military, but also being increasingly visible in the workforce and the political arena, and China being for some time lauded by Western feminists as a positive example of progress (though of course, there remains work to do, as seen by the fact China's first female President was only elected in 2008).
A/N: As you clever people might have guessed, the aftermath of an SI
Jiang-SI Aftermath II
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FROCS Zheng He, here pictured in 1954. The Chinese Navy's first aircraft carrier, the Zheng He was formerly the HMS Glory, built and launched during the Second Great War. However, the ship was only commissioned a month prior to the end of hostilities, and as such saw no action. While she would be retained for a few years after the conflict, reductions in the Royal Navy would see her being sold to China in 1948, becoming the flagship of the growing FROC Navy.
Though the Zheng He's initial air-group consisted of piston-driven aircraft, by 1952 these had been replaced by an air-group of eight Dongfeng J6 jet fighter-bombers, 3 J5s refit for an AEW role, and four Westland Whirlwind helicopters. She would continue to operate with a similar air-group for the rest of her service life, ultimately being decommissioned in 1972. She saw action once, during the Sarawakian-Indonesian Border Conflict of 1960, wherein she provided support to Sarawakian forces against Indonesian light surface elements.
Since 1961, the FROC Navy has maintained a fleet built around 2-3 carriers, transitioning to domestic-built models in the 1980s, which together with the Air Force allows power projection across the Asia-Pacific region.
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Lyuh Woon-hyung, First elected President of the Republic of Korea 1940-1948. While the Second Sino-Japanese War had been primarily concerned with repelling the Japanese invaders, the Chinese government had also worked to supply older weapons - as it gained newer ones from America and others - to Korean resistance groups, the better to stymie the Japanese invasion. This would see the Korean peninsula becoming engulfed in fighting, which in turn forced the Japanese to dedicate units to Korea that should have gone to China, and all the while Japan lost money and support on the world stage. Ultimately, following the attempted coup in 1937 and the outbreak of civil war and major unrest (both leftist and rightist) on the Home Islands, the Japanese were forced to call large portions of their forces home, effectively abandoning Korea. The Republic of Korea would be declared shortly thereafter, though Japan did not recognise it - or officially end their war with China, though a de facto ceasefire prevailed - until 1945.
Despite Japan not initially recognising that they had lost Korea, President Lyuh was able to get a number of other nations to recognise his. China would be their main local supporter, with both ultimately becoming founder-members of the Association of East Asian Nations, while America would also prove to be a reliable trading partner. Gradually, Korea would stabilise, while the seeds for the rapid economic growth that began in the mid-1950s would be lain at this time. While both the hard-right and hard-left would slam President Lyuh for his centre-leftist policies, the moderate approach was what the fledgling nation needed most, while it would also see the foundations for a stable welfare state laid in Korea, mirroring developments in China.
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Poster art depicting nightlife in Shanghai. From the 1920s, Shanghai had been a vibrant, alternative city, home to Shidaiqu music and other avant-garde developments. It had also been home to...issues with corruption, especially in the old Shanghai International Settlement, and to less-than-legal enterprises.
Both before and after the war with Japan, Jiang Jieshi had sought to crack down on extralegal activities within Shanghai, in particular to combat the growth of organised crime and the narcotics trade. However, in something that struck many as odd, an effort was made to do so while not losing the alternative character of Shanghai. Much of this, it would later transpire, was because Jiang saw opportunities for new art forms arising - as indeed became the case, with the growth in popularity of Shidaiqu and other offshoots, the firm establishing of the Chinese film industry within Shanghai, and the city becoming somewhat of an 'artist's haven' in general.
Today, while Shanghai is a major financial and manufacturing hub, and home to the world's largest container port, it remains one of the more liberal and alternative cities within the Federal Republic.
Wow, I didn't realize until looking him up that Jiang Jieshi was Chaing Kai-Shek. I thought Jiang was some sort of random obscure Chinese politician/fighter.A picture showing two of China's 'Paramount Men' of the twentieth century together as cadets at the Whampoa Military Academy: Jiang Jieshi, effective ruler of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1944, interim President of the Federal Republic of China between 1944 and 1946, and elected President of the Federal Republic of China between 1946 and 1952; and Zhou Enlai, founder of the Chinese People's Party, war hero and General during the Second Sino-Japanese War 1932-1937, Foreign Minister under the interim government between 1944 and 1946, and President of the Federal Republic of China between 1958 and 1964.![]()
History notes that Jiang Jieshi would become a particularly driven man - indeed, many of his acquaintances would state that he became 'almost a different person, often knowing things he had no way of knowing' - following what appears to have been a seizure in 1926*. However, he recovered quickly, albeit with some carefully-masked confusion over the following week. Whatever the case, upon becoming leader of China, he would begin to energetically and without rest pursue a number of different policies, namely: the strengthening of the government in Nanjing; the modernisation of China; the end of warlordism; the strengthening of the country's military against potential foreign invasion, in particular securing Manchuria with a large number of troops; and the division of the Chinese Communist movement. This latter would be an apparent motivator in his quiet, careful talks with Zhou Enlai beginning shortly after his seizure, the substance of which would only become apparent when Zhou led a large faction of the Communist Party in breaking away, forming the Chinese People's Party (this coming around the same time as the death of Mao Zedong from food poisoning). The foresight of Jiang's military policy would become apparent in 1931, when Japanese forces invaded Manchuria. Though fighting began at this point, 'official' war is considered to have broken out the following year when, following initial reversals, Japan fully committed to the invasion.
During the war years, Jiang would provide effective leadership to the country on the domestic front, as well as rallying support for China on the international stage - in particular from the United States, where he would quickly approach President Roosevelt upon his election, forming the beginnings of a strong personal friendship between both men as well as developing a strong Sino-American partnership. Indeed, he would use the war and the greater powers at his disposal to begin enacting a number of policies similar to Roosevelt's 'New Deal', which he would widen at war's end.
In 1943, Jiang would hold a Constitutional Convention, wherein the Republic of China would ultimately give way to the modern Federal Republic. He would hold power as interim President until 1946, would win election in his own right, and would serve the single six-year term allowed under the new Constitution before retiring.
*The change many observed is what gave rise to the ridiculous modern conspiracy theory that Jiang's mind was replaced by that of someone from the future.
Yeah, that was who it wasWow, I didn't realize until looking him up that Jiang Jieshi was Chaing Kai-Shek. I thought Jiang was some sort of random obscure Chinese politician/fighter.
American and Kurdish soldiers meeting in 2018, not long after the official liberation of Rojava from the Syrians. Kurdistan, the official leading country of the International Socialist Alliance of Nations (ISAN), and proud follower of the ideology of Libertarian Socialism, while having positive relations with America, has also made it clear that they are not fans of their capitalist-liberal ideas, and continue to advocate for a world where the workers control the means of production, and the capitalist system is replaced by that of socialism. Regardless, the DC-Erbil relationship has been an odd, but successful experiment.![]()
Soldiers of the Zapatistan People's Republic of Chiapas in a public event in 2014, 20 years after its independence from Mexico. Chiapas, which was one of the few territories that didn't break away from Mexico during its revolution and balkanization in the 1910s and 20s, would see a resurgence in calls for independence in the 1980s and 1990s, with nostalgia for the sacrifice, honor, and bravery of the Zapatistas led by Emiliano Zapata, alongside feeling threatened by the dominant capitalist world order led by the Liberals, Social Democrats, and other similar-ideological nations. The short uprising in January 1994 would secure its independence a few months later, after negotiations with Mexico. The libertarian socialist republic is famous for its emphasis and celebration of indigenous peoples and agrarian socialism, with it's biggest impact on popular culture in the form of a few hit songs by left-wing American rock band Rage Against the Machine.![]()
Chiapas is one of the most well-known members of the ISAN, alongside Kurdistan and East Ukraine.
Statue of Nestor Makhno, an anarchist military leader and fighter during the Russian Civil War, located in the Eastern Ukraine capital of Hulaipole. Inspired by the success story of Chiapas, alongside the other non-socialist independence movements around the world from the 1990s to the 2010s, anarchist sentiment and support would gradually grow throughout the former area of Makhnovia, especially with the problem of corruption within the former Sovie/Eurasian state, which eventually blew over during the Orange Revolution of 2004, where the anarchists would see their chance and declare a new people's revolution in the former anarchist area. Unlike Chiapas, the uprising would not be quick, with many attempts to reconquer the land, although after several months it would become clear that the people would not bulge. In 2005, the Free Territory of Eastern Ukraine, consisting of most of Southeastern Ukraine, centered around Hulaipole. Relations between the two Ukraines would remain tense and unlikable until 2014, where an official 'reconciliation treaty' was signed. Like Erbil and Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the small town of Hulaipole has become a hotspot and almost pilgrimage for the world's Far-Left, with tourists covered in head to toe with black and red visiting museums, statues, and historical landmarks.![]()
(My idea of a far-left, libertarian socialist alliance in the modern world. Part of a bigger, more ambitious, and kinda crazier timeline.)