The Fire Never Dies: Labor's Star Ascendant

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Meshakhad

Meshakhad

DeltaEnterprise252 said:
I stumbled upon this timeline and am very intrigued. Do you have plans for fascism to gain more power due to there being a successful socialist revolution in the United States kind of like the Reds TL? What are some other major changes that might be hitting Africa and China.
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Yes, although it won't be called fascism ITTL.
piratedude said:
China has been mentioned already, but you have a good point with regards to Africa, and Liberia in particular. Prior to ww1, Germany had been by far its most prominent trade partner at 75% of its foreign trade (mostly rubber production) and they maintained a telegraph office there for most of the war. Britain and France had recognized its independence a while ago as far as i can tell so invasion is probably off the table, but they'll certainly face a lot of pressure from them
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I have some plans for Liberia...
DeltaEnterprise252 said:
So China has a new dynasty that will likely lead it to a new era of prosperity then it seems based on the title of that update? Also will there be more US involvement in Africa after the revolution?
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"New era of prosperity" might be overstating. More of a reduced warlord period. As others have guessed, the immediate focus of American foreign policy post-revolution will be on the Western Hemisphere.
 
piratedude

piratedude

@Meshakhad The Great War talked some on the American arms industry in the week 84 episode (march 3, 1916) starting at 6:50. Unfortunately the video is age restricted
 
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Meshakhad

Meshakhad

Whiteshore said:
Falangism?
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piratedude said:
en.wikipedia.org

Falangism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Or at least, thats OTL's falangism.

Names aren't going to be precise because ultimately the far right reactions to socialism and liberal democracy are going to be somewhat particular to their own contexts even though they follow similar patterns
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Yep. It's more that ITTL, falangism becomes the common term for far-right authoritarianism.
piratedude said:
@Meshakhad The Great War talked some on the American arms industry in the week 84 episode (march 3, 1916) starting at 6:50. Unfortunately the video is age restricted
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I'll check it out.
 
33. The 1916 Election (Part 3)
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    • Meshakhad

    Meshakhad

    …Historians have frequently debated the degree to which the violence of 1916 actually affected the outcome. Most agree that the Presidential election was relatively unaffected, as political violence was naturally most powerful in areas already dominated by one faction. Estimates of the “true” vote show that many states would have been won by narrower margins, but few would have actually flipped…

    …For the Republicans, 1916 was a disaster. Many of their former strongholds flipped red. Elihu Root only carried California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming. For the first time since the Civil War, a third party had won second place. Debs and the SPA expanded beyond their 1912 victories, capturing Pennsylvania and Illinois, and coming surprisingly close to an outright win…

    …However, it cannot be denied that violence affected the vote on a local level. The most obvious example was the assassination of William W. Farmer, the SLP candidate for governor of Indiana, a week before Election Day, and too late for a new candidate to take his place. Despite the assurance that a new election would be held in January, enough voters moved away from Farmer that the Democratic Congressman John A.M. Adair won[1]. Numerous other attempts, some successful, most not, were made across the country. The New York Journal wrote that “the nation’s new leadership will be stained in blood,” little realizing what was to come…

    …Given the multipolar nature of the violence, little if any effort was made to challenge the results. Democrats, Republicans, and Socialists were all sitting on victories that were questionable, and no one wanted to open that Pandora’s box. For the SLP, this was a victory. They had expanded their reach in Congress and state legislatures, expanding their representation in the Senate. Perhaps more importantly, even with the tragic loss of Farmer, the SLP had secured six more governorships and several mayorships. The big news was Meyer London winning New York, but Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, and West Virginia all had socialist governors (and a particularly radical one in Washington Governor-elect Bill Haywood). There seemed nothing stopping the socialist tide…

    - From 1916: The Tinder Year by Barbara Tuchman

    [1] IOTL, Adair narrowly lost to the Republican James P. Goodrich.
     
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    • dentista campora

    Banned
    Meshakhad said:
    …Historians have frequently debated the degree to which the violence of 1916 actually affected the outcome. Most agree that the Presidential election was relatively unaffected, as political violence was naturally most powerful in areas already dominated by one faction. Estimates of the “true” vote show that many states would have been won by narrower margins, but few would have actually flipped…

    …For the Republicans, 1916 was a disaster. Many of their former strongholds flipped red. Elihu Root only carried California, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming. For the first time since the Civil War, a third party had won second place. Debs and the SPA expanded beyond their 1912 victories, capturing Pennsylvania and Illinois, and coming surprisingly close to an outright win…

    …However, it cannot be denied that violence affected the vote on a local level. The most obvious example was the assassination of William W. Farmer, the SLP candidate for governor of Indiana, a week before Election Day, and too late for a new candidate to take his place. Despite the assurance that a new election would be held in January, enough voters moved away from Farmer that the Democratic Congressman John A.M. Adair won[1]. Numerous other attempts, some successful, most not, were made across the country. The New York Journal wrote that “the nation’s new leadership will be stained in blood,” little realizing what was to come…

    …Given the multipolar nature of the violence, little if any effort was made to challenge the results. Democrats, Republicans, and Socialists were all sitting on victories that were questionable, and no one wanted to open that Pandora’s box. For the SLP, this was a victory. They had expanded their reach in Congress and state legislatures, expanding their representation in the Senate. Perhaps more importantly, even with the tragic loss of Farmer, the SLP had secured six more governorships and several mayorships. The big news was Meyer London winning New York, but Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, and West Virginia all had socialist governors (and a particularly radical one in Washington Governor-elect Bill Haywood). There seemed nothing stopping the socialist tide…

    - From 1916: The Tinder Year

    [1] IOTL, Adair narrowly lost to the Republican James P. Goodrich.
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    Governor haywood, huh
    Wonder what is being done statewide to prepate for the coming tide
     
    Workable Goblin

    Workable Goblin

    Meshakhad said:
    By the present day, the dominant view will be that the USA was largely a bad thing (although Lincoln will still be respected), and those who see it as a good thing treated like Lost Causers IOTL.
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    This seems improbable to me, since clearly the socialist U.S. would not have existed without the United States having existed, and so treating the United States as though it was inherently bad is essentially treating the socialist U.S. itself as bad. Some people might do this, but like the corresponding people IOTL they're not likely to be a large part of the population. If anything, they're likely to be a bit less prominent, since a lot of what fueled their ascent IOTL was the repeated failure of the left in the United States, which obviously was not a problem here.

    I feel that the most likely common perception is that the United States had some good ideals and was a necessary step, but was deeply flawed from the beginning and captured by elite interests who subjugated the people, which of course the revolution solved. That way, people can mostly feel good about their history and compartmentalize the bad things like slavery or capitalism run amok from the good things like "all men are created equal". All the bad stuff was because of elites, and all of the good stuff was because of the native goodness of the American people, which of course eventually took over in the revolution. A nice simple (and wrong, of course) narrative that most people can feel good about.

    piratedude said:
    I can't imagine that being particularly likely here. More likely is that Red America is going to focus primarily on the western hemisphere, and have secondary interests in the pacific and artic bc of Hawaii and Alaska
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    In the short term, sure. In the longer term, none of the European states can possibly hope to "win" over Red America on its home turf, except that they might be able to somewhat hold on to the Caribbean islands and perhaps Canada, but they're still going to be in an ideological struggle with the former United States unless they themselves undergo socialist revolution. So the former United States is probably going to want to weaken them in some fashion, and an obvious point of attack is the African colonies, which are clearly subjugated, contain important resources for the European countries, and would be receptive to an anti-colonial message. This probably doesn't mean armies of American soldiers marching into the continent, but money, arms, that kind of thing...pretty likely, I think.

    From a practical perspective, Africa does offer a number of useful resources, some of which are easier to find there than in the Western Hemisphere, so there is definitely a reason for the former United States to try to influence African countries even besides pure power politics. Ultimately, socialist or not, Red America is still going to be a major power and so will tend to act in ways that are like how major powers act. It's still the largest (in area or population) and probably still the richest developed country, which counts for a lot...
     
    Meshakhad

    Meshakhad

    Workable Goblin said:
    This seems improbable to me, since clearly the socialist U.S. would not have existed without the United States having existed, and so treating the United States as though it was inherently bad is essentially treating the socialist U.S. itself as bad. Some people might do this, but like the corresponding people IOTL they're not likely to be a large part of the population. If anything, they're likely to be a bit less prominent, since a lot of what fueled their ascent IOTL was the repeated failure of the left in the United States, which obviously was not a problem here.

    I feel that the most likely common perception is that the United States had some good ideals and was a necessary step, but was deeply flawed from the beginning and captured by elite interests who subjugated the people, which of course the revolution solved. That way, people can mostly feel good about their history and compartmentalize the bad things like slavery or capitalism run amok from the good things like "all men are created equal". All the bad stuff was because of elites, and all of the good stuff was because of the native goodness of the American people, which of course eventually took over in the revolution. A nice simple (and wrong, of course) narrative that most people can feel good about.
    Click to expand...
    This is a possibility, and will probably be the dominant view by the 1950s.
    Workable Goblin said:
    In the short term, sure. In the longer term, none of the European states can possibly hope to "win" over Red America on its home turf, except that they might be able to somewhat hold on to the Caribbean islands and perhaps Canada, but they're still going to be in an ideological struggle with the former United States unless they themselves undergo socialist revolution. So the former United States is probably going to want to weaken them in some fashion, and an obvious point of attack is the African colonies, which are clearly subjugated, contain important resources for the European countries, and would be receptive to an anti-colonial message. This probably doesn't mean armies of American soldiers marching into the continent, but money, arms, that kind of thing...pretty likely, I think.

    From a practical perspective, Africa does offer a number of useful resources, some of which are easier to find there than in the Western Hemisphere, so there is definitely a reason for the former United States to try to influence African countries even besides pure power politics. Ultimately, socialist or not, Red America is still going to be a major power and so will tend to act in ways that are like how major powers act. It's still the largest (in area or population) and probably still the richest developed country, which counts for a lot...
    Click to expand...
    I never said they wouldn't get involved in Africa in the long term. They will.
     
    34. Huey Long
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    • Meshakhad

    Meshakhad

    …to my eternal regret, I voted for Wilson in 1916. I can truthfully say that I thought that Eugene Debs had some good ideas, but he seemed too radical. I remember thinking that he should have run for Governor, the way Haywood and Trautmann did, and that the experience of real politics would have moderated him (not that it really did for Haywood or Trautmann). Besides, the country seemed to be doing fine overall, and Wilson had kept us out of war. Of course, I didn’t yet see the true rot in the system, even as I was representing workers who were denied their fair compensation by greedy bosses…

    - From Every Comrade A King by Huey Long
     
  • Index
    • Bibliography
  • Index
    • Meshakhad

    Meshakhad

    In addition to today's (very short) update, I've decided to stop half-assing my "sources". I've gone through every post, made sure that each post has a source, and added the names of the authors. Naturally, I couldn't help but have some fun. So, here is the full bibliography (so far) for The Fire Never Dies:


    My Life by General Leon Bronstein

    The Last President by Aviva Chomsky

    The Rise and Fall of the Prohibition Party by Aviva Chomsky

    Red Star Rising: A History of the Second American Revolution by Tom Clancy

    Every Comrade A King by Huey Long

    Viva la Revolucion! A History of the Mexican Revolution by Ambassador John McCain III

    The Great Contest: The 1912 Election by David McCollum

    The Great War by Indy Neidell

    One Big Idea: The Industrial Workers of the World Before the Revolution by Condoleeza Rice

    Socialists of America Unite! A History of the Socialist Labor Party by Aaron Sorkin

    1916: The Tinder Year by Barbara Tuchman

    The Chinese Phoenix: Birth of the Xinhai Dynasty by Matt Ward
     
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    • 35. The Great Longshoremen's Strike
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    • Meshakhad

    Meshakhad

    …The Petrograd Uprising is often cited as the cause of the Great Longshoremen’s Strike, but it was most a trigger. In addition to the tensions that had swept the nation during the 1916 election, the IWW-affiliated Longshoremen’s Union Protective Association (LUPA)[1] resented the federal government for blaming the Black Tom explosion on German agents. This had emboldened their bosses, who felt they could safely ignore any calls for a reduction of work hours as likely influenced by German agents. No accidents on the scale of the Black Tom explosion occurred, but there were numerous minor ones that left some workers dead and many crippled. The bosses didn’t care, after all. They were making money hand over fist…

    …As news of the Petrograd Uprising spread among the American working class, it soon dawned on LUPA that some of the supplies they were loading onto docks were bound for Russia, where they would now be put to use crushing the Russian workers. Enough was enough. On March 12, just four days after Wilson’s inauguration, LUPA went on strike. Their demands included higher pay, compensation for injuries on the job, a slower pace of work, and an end to all shipments of arms to Europe…

    …The bosses flatly refused. However, their traditional tactics were no longer as viable. Both New York and Pennsylvania had socialist governors, and both New York City and Newark had socialist mayors. Anti-strikebreaking ordinances were standard. The law here was on the side of the workers. Unwilling to give in, the bosses had little choice but to wait the workers out. In addition, the capitalists were not united. While the dock owners hoped to end the strike soon, their clients and vendors took their business elsewhere. After a week of the strike, cargo that was previously being shipped to New York or Philadelphia were now bound for Charleston and New Orleans. Meanwhile, massive piles of food, fuel, and arms sat on the East Coast docks…

    - From Red Star Rising: A History of the Second American Revolution by Tom Clancy

    [1] IOTL, LUPA had been absorbed into the AFL-backed International Longshoremen’s Union. ITTL, LUPA remains an independent organization, and the ILU is largely confined to the Great Lakes.
     
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