Solidarieta

Faraday Cage

Cornielo Barbieri published his life's work, "Solidarieta", at age 25 in the year 1863. Greatly affected by Giuseppe Garibaldi and the process and tribulations of Italian unification in his lifetime, Barbieri's work was a political thesis destined to change the history of Italy forever; but not in his lifetime. At the age of 27 Barbieri died of pnemonia, destitute and alone. Barbieri's ideas would not become widespread until the 1890's and even then propagated throughout maltreated Southern Italy (most of which was illiterate) through word of mouth and iconic graffiti developed by a small number of well educated reformist agitators. Even so, Solidarietism would not fully flourish until after the Great War; among veterans and radicals looking for any new direction to take; and by then had taken on a life of it's own beyond Cornielo's original work.
 

Faraday Cage

When the movement had reached it's peak, there was a national uprising demanding universal male suffrage. The whole nation was stopped; trains, post offices, and government buildings occupied by veterans, politicals, and even units of the regular army. When the government capitulated, the Solidarieta Party was rushed into power.

The Party ignored the existing constitution and created a new compact, within the bounds of which they (the parliament) elected new appointed officials. Corporations nationalized during the Liberal Period or voted so by the Party had compacts drawn up by the employees (based within the constraints of the main Party compact) and new management elected by them. Volunteers poured into the army, which had it's own secondary compact to that of the government, and elected their officers while the Party elected their generals.

The King was ignored, the Church was ignored (in fact the Party encouraged towns to elect their own priests), and even the elected Solidarieta Prime Minister was but a limb of the Party.
 
Sounds like an alt-Fascism or alt-Socialism/Syndicalism. I like the idea, but it needs more fleshing out. What makes Solidarieta? What's the core philosophy? Obviously Anti-Monarchist and Anti-Clerical. How does it compare/contrast Fascism, Socialism, Futurism, Republicanism, etc.? What movements are allied/opposed? What OTL political philosophers, politicians, and revolutionaries (assuming none were butterflied) back or oppose it?
 

Faraday Cage

The core tenants of Solidarieta are
Suffragio: sufferage/enfranchisement
Accordo: the social compact/constitutionalism
Autonomia: autonomy/self-management
Pan-Italianism: universal brotherhood of all Italian people
Internazionalismo: internationalism/one-world-ism
Avventurismo: adventurism/military interventionism

And I'll have to think about the participation/reaction of OTL thinkers. There are certainly a lot in the span of time I've mentioned so far, so it's a rich field to sift through.
 
The core tenants of Solidarieta are
Suffragio: sufferage/enfranchisement
Accordo: the social compact/constitutionalism
Autonomia: autonomy/self-management
Pan-Italianism: universal brotherhood of all Italian people
Internazionalismo: internationalism/one-world-ism
Avventurismo: adventurism/military interventionism

And I'll have to think about the participation/reaction of OTL thinkers. There are certainly a lot in the span of time I've mentioned so far, so it's a rich field to sift through.

So basically, a recipe for world government?

I shall watch this thread.
 
When the movement had reached it's peak, there was a national uprising demanding universal male suffrage. The whole nation was stopped; trains, post offices, and government buildings occupied by veterans, politicals, and even units of the regular army. When the government capitulated, the Solidarieta Party was rushed into power.

The Party ignored the existing constitution and created a new compact, within the bounds of which they (the parliament) elected new appointed officials. Corporations nationalized during the Liberal Period or voted so by the Party had compacts drawn up by the employees (based within the constraints of the main Party compact) and new management elected by them. Volunteers poured into the army, which had it's own secondary compact to that of the government, and elected their officers while the Party elected their generals.

The King was ignored, the Church was ignored (in fact the Party encouraged towns to elect their own priests), and even the elected Solidarieta Prime Minister was but a limb of the Party.

If this happens during the customs war with France, you actually have a reasonable chance of overthrowing, or completely side-lining the monarchy

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The core tenants of Solidarieta are
Suffragio: sufferage/enfranchisement
Accordo: the social compact/constitutionalism
Autonomia: autonomy/self-management
Pan-Italianism: universal brotherhood of all Italian people
Internazionalismo: internationalism/one-world-ism
Avventurismo: adventurism/military interventionism

And I'll have to think about the participation/reaction of OTL thinkers. There are certainly a lot in the span of time I've mentioned so far, so it's a rich field to sift through.

Damn...so a mix of Fascism and International Libertarian Syndicalism? Holy crap, that's evil genius! :D

BTW: Mussolini's Intellectuals is a great and detailed source for Fascist philosophy and political theory and Mussolini's Italy has a good amount on specific non-Fascists, anti-Fascists and those who became Fascists in the pre- and post-WW1 timeframe, if that's not too butterfly-prone with the early POD.

Off the top of my head D'Annunzio will eat up the Adventurism and Pan-Italianism, as will Balbo. The Internationalism may be of some conflict with the Pan-Italianism since the latter had major OTL ties to Nationalism. Irredentism will fit in perfectly with this philosophy. The Autonomia could attract Radical Syndicalists like Panunzio and the potential "all things to all people" interpretation might attract Mussolini (ever the political opportunist OTL).
 

Faraday Cage

The nationalists would form the "Soviet imperialism" type camp within the party, using romanticized notions of worldwide solidarity to bring along syndicalist type support. Essentially, the instinctive notion would be that by liberating other nations, their own self-managing Solidarieta parties would be subsidaries (ala the nationalized corporations and the military) of the Italian Solidarieta party. I'm guessing nationalists can be persuaded to be imperialists in other clothes.
 

Faraday Cage

Well Geekhis, just based on the little bit you shared one could make a case for the initial and eventual key posts of the original Solidarieta Party of the 20's, 30's, 40's being...

Prime Minister: Sergio Panunzio (who better than a corporatist syndicalist to manage a national system of self-managing subsidaries all interlinking together?)

Party Chief: Benito Mussolini (the political agitant, hatchetman, and unofficial nexus between the organs of the National Solidarieta system.)

Propaganda Minister: Gabriele d'Annunzio (the decadent movement writer, romanticizing the benevolently portrayed patriarchal role of Italy as the lighting bolt of global solidarity.)

Commander of the Armed Forces: Italo Balbo (butterflies enough to make him have put the energy he put later in life to aircraft in OTL into soldiering earlier in life.)

Keep in mind Prime Minister isn't an all powerful role in the internally democratic Party, where whoever controls the largest bloc of votes would be the de facto chief executive of the nation.
 
Fascism Lite! :D

Good choices. D'Annunzio as Propaganda Minister would be a really good fit for him, assuming the coke and broads doesn't cause too much embarrassment. I'm curious to see more about the "internal democracy" and power blocs ITTL, and watching with anticipation...of course I may be one of the few interested in Italian political history here.
 

Faraday Cage

Since this is just my initial thoughts thread I might as well go ahead and mention the general gist of the immediate timeline: Italy putting more Italians in it's colonies, syndicating Italian diaspora groups and foreign Solidarieta parties, ultimately intervening in support of the Solidarieta Party in Spain and only late in the Patriotic War joining in alongside the Alliance (US, France, UK, Japan) to allow the final push against the Great Republics (communist Germany, Russia, and China), as much to avoid a stalemate that puts them lumped in with the Great Republics as communists in the eyes of the Alliance (and thus doomed to become minoritized by the communist powers) as anything else.
 

Faraday Cage

The Partito overwhelmed the Kingdom government, forcing them to submit to the demands for universal male suffrage and immediate elections. The people voted the Partito into power and the Partito drew up the Nazional Accordo based on the Partito Accordo, abolishing the monarchy and replacing the old constitution, as well as introducing sweeping reforms: putting the assets nationalized during the corrupt Liberal Period, the military, and bureaucracy into the hands of the workers, soldiers, and clerks by allowing them to vote their own Accordos (within the bounds of the Nazional Accordo) into existence and elect their middle management; while the Partito elected officials into high posts from its own membership proportional to it's (near total) membership in the Parliament. The Nazional Accordo incorporated all these elements, creating a system for all the individual components to function as one whole while remaining self-sufficient (and thus resilient). They then voted a special referendum on land and the people voted for the land to be removed from the hands of a few wealthy property owners and placed into the hands of the community, with elections for land management based on each community's Accordo. Those who treated their tenants well or had sudden changes of heart causing them to spread their wealth remained managers of the land, those who didn't were replaced and by the nature of their oligarchy became a minority voice and without political clout under the new system. Comunita Accordos also allowed for the election of priests and other local functionaries, within the limits of the hierarchical national syndication organizational structure of Solidarieta.


Within the Partito itself it was not long before the dominant Maggioranza and the smaller Minoranza became recognizable camps, themselves composed of smaller factions. Under the Accordo the Minoranza still had it's say, serving in an advisory capacity even when it was overruled in executive functions; as well as electing a (smaller) percentage of the high officials.
 

Faraday Cage

awxfdh.jpg


The Solidarieta Italia flag, a modification of the Kingdom of Italy's old flag using the Savoy Knot (which, in the vertical and crown-less form had been adopted by the Party for their own ends as it's the "knot that binds but never constricts").
 

Faraday Cage

Some side-effects I'm thinking for this timeline:
- Progressivism becomes the dominant ideology of the Republican Party thanks to Teddy Roosevelt.
- Communism instead of fascism rises in post-Great-War Germany.
- Business partnerships unite American, British, and Japanese policies in Asia.
- The Catalonian workers form the Spanish Solidarity party during the struggle with Nationalists and Communists.
- Recolonialism after the Patriotic War (WWII)
- The development of orbital space rather than a venture to the moon.
 

Faraday Cage

Solidarieta (1960's)
PoD: In 1863 an obscure Italian writer, Corneilo Barbieri, publishes his political manifesto "Solidarieta", destined to become a world-changing political ideology after his death.
Current Events: The Progressive and Solidarity Blocs compete for the future uplifting of mankind in a post-Communist world.
Great Powers: United States of America (a representational democratic republic), British Imperial Federation (a commonwealth of nations under a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy), Republic of French Solidarity (syndicalist representational democratic republic), World Solidarity League (union of syndicated republics under a one party system)
 
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Faraday Cage

Thinking on things my current guess is that as a (late) member of the Alliance in the Patriotic War against communist Germany, Russia, and China; Solidarieta Italy (already having propped up the Solidarity party in Spain) gets a good chunk of the soft underbelly of Europe, turning liberated areas into syndicated republics. Let's say Germany gets divided into North and South and Russia is badly beaten and forced into humiliating concessions that lead to the downfall of it's government, as is China.

If post-war a devastated Russia (minus Japanese Siberia) and China (interior China anyway) go Solidarity and get Italo-European aid, the World Solidarity League is on it's way. The continuance and re-invigoration of colonialism and France's turn into an (frustratingly independent from Italian control, but allied in the same bloc) Solidarity representative democracy (as in not becoming a permanent one-party state but instead shifting French politics irrevocably towards various flavors of Solidarity) is just gravy on top of that.

Not that the Progressive Bloc won't still be just as ahead as NATO was in our world. The US, the British Imperial Federation, and the Grand Empire of Japan.

Of course with post Great War independence in many colonial areas and post Patriotic War recolonialism, other territories such as the British middle-east can find themselves under the sway of new leadership and so forth.
 
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