The Great Crusade (Reds! Part 3)
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
Stalinism remained in the USSR just because of Stalin's sheer control but Stalin would die in WW2 and his successors would do a more complete de-Stalinization while keeping the party bureaucracy in control. But World War II with its American troops alongside the Soviets in battles and all its after-effects would destroy High Stalinism. Trotsky would be a key figure in the postwar shake up of the Comintern. Nevertheless, the Soviet bureaucracy would remain in its hegemonic position until the upheaval of the 60s and 70s, with the USSR even going far closer to the transitional socialist ideal than the UASR itself by contemporary times, at least that's what I can remember Jello saying in terms of the UASR's contemporary struggles with an entrenched military-industrial complex and security state.
I just finished catching up with this TL and I have to say that I'm really liking it! It even managed to convince me to register an account.
One thing I'd be interested in seeing about this TL is how the feminist movement is impacted by this. In my opinion, the hinted at "Second Cultural Revolution" seems to have some elements of feminist critique, and given what's happened so far, I'd see the feminist movement in the 50's being closer to what we know IOTL as Third Wave Feminism. In other words, the majority of feminist critique in the UASR would be focused on how the Marxist practice of reducing all oppression to class doesn't fully capture the intersecting nuance of gendered oppression. I also see the big contentious issue with this still being the question of trans liberation as it was IOTL.
And speaking of transgender issues, what happens to these people ITTL?
Christine Jorgenson
Harry Benjamin
Magnus Hirschfeld
Lili Elbe
Sylvia Rivera
Marsha P. Johnson
I do think that there won't be an LGBT movement as we know it ITTL. Mainly because the LGBT movement IOTL was essentially born out of white assimilationist gay men co-opting a movement started by trans women of color. (Compton's Cafeteria, Stonewall riots)
Given the early victories for the G&L groups in the First Cultural Revolution ITTL, I could see the people who would have been a part of the Assimilationists just not bothering with the Gay liberation movement's equivalent ITTL or force-teaming themselves with trans women.
On the trans front, I think that ITTL the prevailing-at-the-time view that being trans is just "a medical condition to be corrected" would take root a lot earlier and become much more entrenched, keeping the Trans liberation movement ITTL from really moving beyond that for a while.
EDIT: For the sake of pure irony, I'd love to see an obnoxious Brit saying "Don't forget, we saved your asses in WW2."
One thing I'd be interested in seeing about this TL is how the feminist movement is impacted by this. In my opinion, the hinted at "Second Cultural Revolution" seems to have some elements of feminist critique, and given what's happened so far, I'd see the feminist movement in the 50's being closer to what we know IOTL as Third Wave Feminism. In other words, the majority of feminist critique in the UASR would be focused on how the Marxist practice of reducing all oppression to class doesn't fully capture the intersecting nuance of gendered oppression. I also see the big contentious issue with this still being the question of trans liberation as it was IOTL.
And speaking of transgender issues, what happens to these people ITTL?
Christine Jorgenson
Harry Benjamin
Magnus Hirschfeld
Lili Elbe
Sylvia Rivera
Marsha P. Johnson
I do think that there won't be an LGBT movement as we know it ITTL. Mainly because the LGBT movement IOTL was essentially born out of white assimilationist gay men co-opting a movement started by trans women of color. (Compton's Cafeteria, Stonewall riots)
Given the early victories for the G&L groups in the First Cultural Revolution ITTL, I could see the people who would have been a part of the Assimilationists just not bothering with the Gay liberation movement's equivalent ITTL or force-teaming themselves with trans women.
On the trans front, I think that ITTL the prevailing-at-the-time view that being trans is just "a medical condition to be corrected" would take root a lot earlier and become much more entrenched, keeping the Trans liberation movement ITTL from really moving beyond that for a while.
EDIT: For the sake of pure irony, I'd love to see an obnoxious Brit saying "Don't forget, we saved your asses in WW2."
Last edited:
Sorry for the double-post but, does the 1910 bombing of the Los Angeles Times still happen ITTL?
I'm assuming that the situation of trans people would be much better in the UASR, since they were actually able to get civil unions (the UASR's marriage equivalent), in the 1930s, probably similar to the state of most current gay people. However, in the FBU, it'd be terrible.
If Beria were to survive any regime past Stalin's death he'd probably end up with a bullet in his brain. The records, memoirs, and the like from the time of the succession show the rest of the higher-ups of Stalin's government were all ready to take down Beria and did very quickly the moment they got the opportunity. The only thing that could possibly keep him alive would be the need of wartime stability but if someone pulled it off right that could be accomplished with Beria out of the picture.
Knowing him probably being the all-around badass military genius that he was. If he was exiled to the Far East as per OTL and the Japanese try something as per OTL then he'll probably get Kalkhin Gol and an opportunity to prove his mettle which was key to his return to the front lines just before the war began.
I really wonder how successful Stalin is going to even be securing power here in the first place. The fact that a broad opposition still exists within the Comintern in the late 1920s and early 1930s leads me to think that even though he does take power in a similar fashion to OTL, he definitely doesn't achieve the level of power he had here because there are simply too many elements pushing back against that. Hell, I don't even see him being able to carry out the Great Purge for fear of alienating the American-led Comintern Left and threatening his own lease on life.
As for political change within the Soviet Union, I think that the only way to dislodge the bureaucratic dictatorship that took root in the 1920s is probably some kind of political revolution at home. So my guess is that, probably with the revolutionary wave that seems to be going on ITTL in the 1970s, you have something like a 'May '68' moment in the USSR that ultimately goes further, leading to open street warfare between the workers and students and the agents of the state, which eventually leads to the undoing of the bureaucratic apparatus and victory for the libertarian segments of the revolutionary movement. This would make sense, given that Jello has before said that the USSR doesn't have anything like the FBI or CIA while the UASR still does at present.
So paradoxically, it may well be that the USSR of 2014 ITTL is to the left of the UASR, at least in terms of a rejection of state power and moving toward a more fully decentralized, anti-state communism.
What interests me is how this will ultimately affect the regimes that end up being more closely associated with the USSR in the immediate postwar world. I'm also very interested in seeing how the postwar revolutionary movements develop and where the dominos fall - I vaguely recall Jello mentioning Germany and Japan, but I would also assume Italy, too, falls to the reds.
As for political change within the Soviet Union, I think that the only way to dislodge the bureaucratic dictatorship that took root in the 1920s is probably some kind of political revolution at home. So my guess is that, probably with the revolutionary wave that seems to be going on ITTL in the 1970s, you have something like a 'May '68' moment in the USSR that ultimately goes further, leading to open street warfare between the workers and students and the agents of the state, which eventually leads to the undoing of the bureaucratic apparatus and victory for the libertarian segments of the revolutionary movement. This would make sense, given that Jello has before said that the USSR doesn't have anything like the FBI or CIA while the UASR still does at present.
So paradoxically, it may well be that the USSR of 2014 ITTL is to the left of the UASR, at least in terms of a rejection of state power and moving toward a more fully decentralized, anti-state communism.
What interests me is how this will ultimately affect the regimes that end up being more closely associated with the USSR in the immediate postwar world. I'm also very interested in seeing how the postwar revolutionary movements develop and where the dominos fall - I vaguely recall Jello mentioning Germany and Japan, but I would also assume Italy, too, falls to the reds.
Hollywood and the Cultural Revolution (by Crunch Buttsteak)
So I decided to write up a thing about the Cultural Revolution and how it affected Hollywood. Tell me what you think.
---
Excerpt from City of Quartz by Mike Davis (1990, New Left Books, New York)
The City of Los Angeles was somewhat unique, in that it had managed to avoid unionization up until the war. In 1910, two men bombed the Los Angeles Times' office, killing approximately 20 workers. The Times' publisher, self-proclaimed General Harrison Gray Otis, quickly pinned the responsibility for the attack on the city's young labor movement. Two brothers, James and John MacNamara, were arrested and dragged out a meeting of the Iron Workers Union in Indianapolis, and without even allowing them to see a lawyer, extradited them back to California.
While many in Los Angeles had been sympathetic to the plight of the 20 workers who had died in the bombing, the face of a relentless propaganda campaign by the Times and Otis. along with his support for the “open-shop” movement, convoked many residents that the bombing had been a frame-up. Eugene V. Debs even privately speculated that Otis himself had planted the bomb to discredit the labor movement.
Job Harriman, the Socialist Candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, had agreed to represent the brothers, convinced of their innocence.
The resulting show trial for the MacNamara brothers was one of the most shamelessly naked attempts at suppressing the city's burgeoning labor movement. Anything and everything that had ever happened in Los Angeles up until that point was pinned on the two brothers and subsequently on the labor movement as a whole.
AFL president Samuel Gompers, fearing that this trial might encourage more workers to take up arms against the state, asked his friend Clarence Darrow to assist in the defense of the MacNamara brothers.
After arriving in Los Angeles, Darrow met with the prosecutors prior to speaking to Harriman or the MacNamara brothers. While the contents of that meeting might never become known, what happened next was that Darrow held a closed-door meeting with the brothers, excluding Harriman.
At the next hearing, the MacNamara brothers surprised everybody, including Job Harriman, by changing their plea to guilty. They were sentenced to life in the then-notorious San Quentin prison.
Convinced that a long trial would irreparably damage the labor movement, Darrow had secretly arranged for a plea bargain, if he could get the brothers to plead guilty, the prosecutor and judge would not give them the death penalty.
The rest of the newspapers had rallied behind Otis. The General, now even more righteous in his antisocial beliefs, turned the Los Angeles Times into his own propaganda mill, turning many in the city against their fellow workers.
Job Harriman’s mayoral campaign had been sunk by the outcome of the trial. For most in Los Angeles, this had created a deep scar against the labor movement. Those who still believed that the brothers were innocent had placed the blame squarely on the AFL for sending two innocent men to prison.[1]
Excerpts from Revolution on the Silver Screen: How the Cultural Revolution Changed Hollywood. Thomas Doherty (1999, New York University of Columbia Press)
For many of the actors, writers and filmmakers working in Hollywood, the biggest change that happened with the First Cultural Revolution, was that were was no change. Indeed, Hollywood had long been a favored target of pre-revolution cultural critics for "subversive content." Within the infant industry, many filmmakers, writers and actors chafed under wartime censorship laws which only allowed films that supported the war to be made. This grumbling discontent would plant the first seeds of revolution in a city that had largely resisted the call of the union until then.
[...]
In a 1958 interview with a PBS 5 documentary team, silent era actress Mary Pickford described what the culture of Hollywood was like before the revolution.
In 1916, Charlie Chaplin, one of the earliest super-stars in hollywood, made a film satirizing the war called "Shoulder Arms," because Chaplin was responsible for the production of his own films, simply handing a finished print in to the studio, the bosses had very little control over his work. As such, when the studio bosses got their first glimpse at the movie, the film was pulled from distribution, citing a shortage of nitrates due to the war effort.
As a force for progressive change, Hollywood cinema was considered to be a lost cause, the studio oligarchies beneath contempt. “Is it possible to create proletariate cinema in America?” asked Harry Alan Potamkin, the film critic for the communist months, the New Masses. Not likely, given the resistance by “the monopoly invested in Hollywood, Breen, and Wall Street.” Subversion of the capitalist model was the only viable alternative.
While the United States had no form of a national censor board, most states had their own censor board that would review movies for obscene content. As a result, as a film would travel around the country, each state would make their own edits to a movie, until the resulting film was a "barely watchable, disjointed mess." (Murch, 1986)
The Hollywood studio oligarchs would have been happy to allow for the status quo of ignoring the reactionary outrage regarding their films’ content. However, the switch from silent films to the “talkies” had forced the studios to spend tons money on upgrading theaters to handle sound. This massive outlay had already placed the studios in a precarious financial positions, but the stock market crash on 1929 nearly destroyed the studios. With audience attendance drying up, studios began to look for ways to bring audiences back into theaters.
Bowing to pressure from reactionary groups like the National Legion of Decency, the studio oligarchy banded together in 1930 to form the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). Because each of the studios owned the entire production chain, from when the script was first written to the theaters showing the movie, the MPPDA held a strict control over what could or could not be filmed. Appointing Joseph I. Breen to run the censor board, the MPPDA put together an exhaustive list of "thou shall nots" for Hollywood films.
Under the Breen Code, "No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, armed rebellion, wrongdoing, evil or sin." The statement forbidding the depiction of "armed rebellion" was very quickly interpreted to mean anything which supported the W(C)PA or any kind of union sympathy. Other prohibitions included "Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation." Specific prohibitions in the Breen code called for the prohibition of "Sex perversion [used exclusively here to mean homosexuality]," "Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races)" and "Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures." [2]
Actors, writers and directors were aggravated by these restrictions, feeling that films made under the Breen Code would not accurately reflect the reality of American life at the time. In a time where only 32 percent of women born after 1910 were virgins at marriage, and 1 in 7 marriages ended in divorce,[3] the Breen Code was viewed as hopelessly reactionary and antiquated.
One of the side effects of the Breen Code was that studios immediately became wary of producing any kind of political film, citing that “Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.” While most studios had avoided making political pictures to begin with, MGM’s Samuel Goldwyn famously saying “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” [4] Films continued to show life in America as though the depression and stock market crash had never happened. Even Warner Brothers, who’s bread and butter were films about organized crime and “gangster pictures” made pictures that ignored the effects of the Great Depression.
[...]
Formed in 1931, the W(C)PA-backed Workers Film and Photo League envisioned “a great counter-offensive to vicious and nauseating Hollywood productions” by “bringing revolutionary films to workers organizations throughout the country.” The group produced its own newsreels, taught seminars on working-class film criticism, organized protests against reactionary pictures, and screened Soviet films to cadres of radical cineastes.
Finding a commonality with the Marxist WFPL, Many actors, writers, directors, and producers joined the membership rolls of the league, unhappy with the restrictions that the Breen Code placed on them. The WFPL turned themselves into an alternate to the studio system, producing newsreels and sending them to party meetings and union events. One of the first documentary films produced was a film called A Martyr to His Cause a documentary about the trial of the MacNamara brothers, and the role that the now-disgraced Gompers and Darrow had played.
[...]
As the Red Army troops marched through the streets of Los Angeles, Hollywood stood with bated breath to find out how this revolution would affect them. Most of the executive class, such as Jack Warner, Samuel Goldwyn, and Louie B. Mayer had already left for Cuba and England. One notable exception was LA Times publisher, and son-in-law of the infamous Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler. Chandler had holed up inside the LA Times building, which had been designed like a fortress in case of another attack.[5]
Following the Red Army's short battle to capture the city, Daryl F. Zanuck quickly collectivized what had been the Warner Brothers studio into the "20th Century Motion Picture Collective." The rest of the industry quickly followed, with animator Walt Disney forming the "Hyperion Animated Pictures Collective." and the "Lankershim Motion Picture Collective." [6]
With plans underway by the UASR to campaign ruthlessly against racism and sexism. Attorney General Eastman found an ally in Zanuck and the WFPL. One of the first films released by the Collective after the Revolution was an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. Released to a massive success to an audience hungry for revolution.
[...]
Under Eastman's orders, the Breen Code that had choked the film community for years was now counter-revolutionary. Free of censorship and being guided towards making films that were anti-racist and anti-sexist, writers and actors reveled in their freedom.
Following the revolution, the film collectives produced films like “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,” which accurately portrayed the frightening brutality and racism of the southern chain gangs. “Cabin in the Cotton,” a 1936 film adaption of the socialist realist novel by Harry Harrison Kroll, had the distinction of being the first American film to be released in the Soviet Union.
Other films were released that tackled issues that were besetting the American body politic, alcoholism (The Lost Weekend, 1936), antisemitism (Gentleman’s Agreement, 1939), racism (No Way Out, 1937) or even physical disabilities (The Men, 1946). Whatever the issue was, Hollywood had a film about how to solve it.
Actors who had been sidelined and stereotypes because of their race suddenly found themselves swimming in work, as more and more anti-racism films were being churned out by Hollywood. In New York, Orson Welles staged a production of Macbeth that featured an all-black cast to a resounding success.
Actresses who were tired of playing the same roles in every picture now had a new lease on life and they were able to play all kinds of different roles with Eastman’s directive to make anti-sexist films. Films coming out of Hollywood went from portraying simple hints and teases of sexuality to being able to show scenes of intimacy.
One of the directives handed down by Zanuck became known as “Eastman’s Law.” For any film to be approved for release, it had to feature:
1: At least two women
2: Who talk to each other
3: About something other than a man. [7]
Despite being a very low standard for producers to meet, almost every single pre-revolutionary film failed this test.
From a cynical perspective, the increased amount of titillation and sexuality was partially an attempt at getting audiences to watch “message films.” However, the increased amount of sexuality on film had the side-effect of normalizing sexuality for people. Suddenly, sex was no longer a taboo subject for people to talk about, and pre-marital sex had gone from being something that was commonly practiced, but never talked about, to something that was openly talked about. (Coontz 1992) Coinciding with this was an educational campaign in schools to teach teenagers about contraceptive use.
Abortion restrictions, having only been passed in the 1890’s and 1910’s as part of a plan to keep white protestant women from being “out-bred” by catholic immigrants, were removed,[8] Hollywood films would openly talk about women using birth control or having an abortion as part of a directed effort to de-stigmatize it.
One of the biggest bombshells of the Cultural Revolution was when actress Marlene Dietrich openly announced that she was bisexual. Shortly afterwards several other actors and actresses had come out in solidarity with Dietrich as well. Suddenly, homosexuals weren’t a nebulous other, they were stars, the were people that Americans were familiar with, people they trusted.
[...]
With the revolution and early friendship with the USSR, Soviet films enjoyed a surge in popularity, particularly in Hollywood. Russian director Sergei Eisensten made a visit to the UASR, where he discovered that he was almost a celebrity among WFPL members, which by this time had included most of Hollywood.
A screening of an experimental Soviet film “The Kuleshov Experiment,” was able to dramatically demonstrate the effect that editing and the juxtaposition of images could have on an audience. In the film, a shot of a Russian actor was juxtaposed with a shot of a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, and a woman on a divan. After the screening, the audience was asked to describe the performance of the actor in each scene.
In each scene, the audience read different things in the actor’s performance. Talking about the subtle differences in each scene. What the audience didn’t know, was that it was the same shot for all three scenes. The juxtaposition of images had caused the audience to read different things into the actors performance.
Following the screening, and the influence of Eisenstein and other Soviet filmmakers, Editors had gained much more respect in Hollywood. Initially seen as an assembly-line job, the editor became an important and respected part of the filmmaking process.
With a sometimes-heavy hand, the Cultural Revolution was able to revitalize an industry that was on the brink of collapse and transform cinema from an escapist and reactionary cocoon into a vital force for creating social progress.
---
1: This is taken pretty much verbatim from OTL.
2: All of these were lifted directly from the Hays Code OTL, except for the prohibition of 'armed rebellion.'
3: The actual statistics for this IOTL (see “Domestic Revolutions: A History of American Family Life”)
4: He actually said this IOTL
5: The LA Times building really was designed like a fortress IOTL.
6: I think I just butterflied Bugs Bunny. Sorry.
7: Yes, this is the Bechdel Test
8: I keep saying this like a broken record, I didn’t make this up, this is literally why so many states banned abortion in that time period IOTL.
---
Excerpt from City of Quartz by Mike Davis (1990, New Left Books, New York)
The City of Los Angeles was somewhat unique, in that it had managed to avoid unionization up until the war. In 1910, two men bombed the Los Angeles Times' office, killing approximately 20 workers. The Times' publisher, self-proclaimed General Harrison Gray Otis, quickly pinned the responsibility for the attack on the city's young labor movement. Two brothers, James and John MacNamara, were arrested and dragged out a meeting of the Iron Workers Union in Indianapolis, and without even allowing them to see a lawyer, extradited them back to California.
While many in Los Angeles had been sympathetic to the plight of the 20 workers who had died in the bombing, the face of a relentless propaganda campaign by the Times and Otis. along with his support for the “open-shop” movement, convoked many residents that the bombing had been a frame-up. Eugene V. Debs even privately speculated that Otis himself had planted the bomb to discredit the labor movement.
Job Harriman, the Socialist Candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, had agreed to represent the brothers, convinced of their innocence.
The resulting show trial for the MacNamara brothers was one of the most shamelessly naked attempts at suppressing the city's burgeoning labor movement. Anything and everything that had ever happened in Los Angeles up until that point was pinned on the two brothers and subsequently on the labor movement as a whole.
AFL president Samuel Gompers, fearing that this trial might encourage more workers to take up arms against the state, asked his friend Clarence Darrow to assist in the defense of the MacNamara brothers.
After arriving in Los Angeles, Darrow met with the prosecutors prior to speaking to Harriman or the MacNamara brothers. While the contents of that meeting might never become known, what happened next was that Darrow held a closed-door meeting with the brothers, excluding Harriman.
At the next hearing, the MacNamara brothers surprised everybody, including Job Harriman, by changing their plea to guilty. They were sentenced to life in the then-notorious San Quentin prison.
Convinced that a long trial would irreparably damage the labor movement, Darrow had secretly arranged for a plea bargain, if he could get the brothers to plead guilty, the prosecutor and judge would not give them the death penalty.
The rest of the newspapers had rallied behind Otis. The General, now even more righteous in his antisocial beliefs, turned the Los Angeles Times into his own propaganda mill, turning many in the city against their fellow workers.
Job Harriman’s mayoral campaign had been sunk by the outcome of the trial. For most in Los Angeles, this had created a deep scar against the labor movement. Those who still believed that the brothers were innocent had placed the blame squarely on the AFL for sending two innocent men to prison.[1]
Excerpts from Revolution on the Silver Screen: How the Cultural Revolution Changed Hollywood. Thomas Doherty (1999, New York University of Columbia Press)
For many of the actors, writers and filmmakers working in Hollywood, the biggest change that happened with the First Cultural Revolution, was that were was no change. Indeed, Hollywood had long been a favored target of pre-revolution cultural critics for "subversive content." Within the infant industry, many filmmakers, writers and actors chafed under wartime censorship laws which only allowed films that supported the war to be made. This grumbling discontent would plant the first seeds of revolution in a city that had largely resisted the call of the union until then.
[...]
In a 1958 interview with a PBS 5 documentary team, silent era actress Mary Pickford described what the culture of Hollywood was like before the revolution.
During the war, the studios all came down and gave us a big list of things we could and could not do. Of course, most of us had wanted nothing to do with the damned thing, but the guys upstairs wanted to be cheerleaders for Taft. The studio guys. they would basically buy you in a contract, and you could only act in their pictures. So even if you wanted to work with somebody you were friends with, if they were in a different studio's stable, you were out of luck. The bosses from the studio had a huge list of demands for you since you were their face, they'd tell you what to wear, who to date, how to look, and so on. If you gained or lost even a kilo, they'd be down your throat in a second.
In 1916, Charlie Chaplin, one of the earliest super-stars in hollywood, made a film satirizing the war called "Shoulder Arms," because Chaplin was responsible for the production of his own films, simply handing a finished print in to the studio, the bosses had very little control over his work. As such, when the studio bosses got their first glimpse at the movie, the film was pulled from distribution, citing a shortage of nitrates due to the war effort.
As a force for progressive change, Hollywood cinema was considered to be a lost cause, the studio oligarchies beneath contempt. “Is it possible to create proletariate cinema in America?” asked Harry Alan Potamkin, the film critic for the communist months, the New Masses. Not likely, given the resistance by “the monopoly invested in Hollywood, Breen, and Wall Street.” Subversion of the capitalist model was the only viable alternative.
While the United States had no form of a national censor board, most states had their own censor board that would review movies for obscene content. As a result, as a film would travel around the country, each state would make their own edits to a movie, until the resulting film was a "barely watchable, disjointed mess." (Murch, 1986)
The Hollywood studio oligarchs would have been happy to allow for the status quo of ignoring the reactionary outrage regarding their films’ content. However, the switch from silent films to the “talkies” had forced the studios to spend tons money on upgrading theaters to handle sound. This massive outlay had already placed the studios in a precarious financial positions, but the stock market crash on 1929 nearly destroyed the studios. With audience attendance drying up, studios began to look for ways to bring audiences back into theaters.
Bowing to pressure from reactionary groups like the National Legion of Decency, the studio oligarchy banded together in 1930 to form the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). Because each of the studios owned the entire production chain, from when the script was first written to the theaters showing the movie, the MPPDA held a strict control over what could or could not be filmed. Appointing Joseph I. Breen to run the censor board, the MPPDA put together an exhaustive list of "thou shall nots" for Hollywood films.
Under the Breen Code, "No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, armed rebellion, wrongdoing, evil or sin." The statement forbidding the depiction of "armed rebellion" was very quickly interpreted to mean anything which supported the W(C)PA or any kind of union sympathy. Other prohibitions included "Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation." Specific prohibitions in the Breen code called for the prohibition of "Sex perversion [used exclusively here to mean homosexuality]," "Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races)" and "Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures." [2]
Actors, writers and directors were aggravated by these restrictions, feeling that films made under the Breen Code would not accurately reflect the reality of American life at the time. In a time where only 32 percent of women born after 1910 were virgins at marriage, and 1 in 7 marriages ended in divorce,[3] the Breen Code was viewed as hopelessly reactionary and antiquated.
One of the side effects of the Breen Code was that studios immediately became wary of producing any kind of political film, citing that “Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.” While most studios had avoided making political pictures to begin with, MGM’s Samuel Goldwyn famously saying “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” [4] Films continued to show life in America as though the depression and stock market crash had never happened. Even Warner Brothers, who’s bread and butter were films about organized crime and “gangster pictures” made pictures that ignored the effects of the Great Depression.
[...]
Formed in 1931, the W(C)PA-backed Workers Film and Photo League envisioned “a great counter-offensive to vicious and nauseating Hollywood productions” by “bringing revolutionary films to workers organizations throughout the country.” The group produced its own newsreels, taught seminars on working-class film criticism, organized protests against reactionary pictures, and screened Soviet films to cadres of radical cineastes.
Finding a commonality with the Marxist WFPL, Many actors, writers, directors, and producers joined the membership rolls of the league, unhappy with the restrictions that the Breen Code placed on them. The WFPL turned themselves into an alternate to the studio system, producing newsreels and sending them to party meetings and union events. One of the first documentary films produced was a film called A Martyr to His Cause a documentary about the trial of the MacNamara brothers, and the role that the now-disgraced Gompers and Darrow had played.
[...]
As the Red Army troops marched through the streets of Los Angeles, Hollywood stood with bated breath to find out how this revolution would affect them. Most of the executive class, such as Jack Warner, Samuel Goldwyn, and Louie B. Mayer had already left for Cuba and England. One notable exception was LA Times publisher, and son-in-law of the infamous Harrison Gray Otis, Harry Chandler. Chandler had holed up inside the LA Times building, which had been designed like a fortress in case of another attack.[5]
Following the Red Army's short battle to capture the city, Daryl F. Zanuck quickly collectivized what had been the Warner Brothers studio into the "20th Century Motion Picture Collective." The rest of the industry quickly followed, with animator Walt Disney forming the "Hyperion Animated Pictures Collective." and the "Lankershim Motion Picture Collective." [6]
With plans underway by the UASR to campaign ruthlessly against racism and sexism. Attorney General Eastman found an ally in Zanuck and the WFPL. One of the first films released by the Collective after the Revolution was an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. Released to a massive success to an audience hungry for revolution.
[...]
Under Eastman's orders, the Breen Code that had choked the film community for years was now counter-revolutionary. Free of censorship and being guided towards making films that were anti-racist and anti-sexist, writers and actors reveled in their freedom.
Following the revolution, the film collectives produced films like “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,” which accurately portrayed the frightening brutality and racism of the southern chain gangs. “Cabin in the Cotton,” a 1936 film adaption of the socialist realist novel by Harry Harrison Kroll, had the distinction of being the first American film to be released in the Soviet Union.
Other films were released that tackled issues that were besetting the American body politic, alcoholism (The Lost Weekend, 1936), antisemitism (Gentleman’s Agreement, 1939), racism (No Way Out, 1937) or even physical disabilities (The Men, 1946). Whatever the issue was, Hollywood had a film about how to solve it.
Actors who had been sidelined and stereotypes because of their race suddenly found themselves swimming in work, as more and more anti-racism films were being churned out by Hollywood. In New York, Orson Welles staged a production of Macbeth that featured an all-black cast to a resounding success.
Actresses who were tired of playing the same roles in every picture now had a new lease on life and they were able to play all kinds of different roles with Eastman’s directive to make anti-sexist films. Films coming out of Hollywood went from portraying simple hints and teases of sexuality to being able to show scenes of intimacy.
One of the directives handed down by Zanuck became known as “Eastman’s Law.” For any film to be approved for release, it had to feature:
1: At least two women
2: Who talk to each other
3: About something other than a man. [7]
Despite being a very low standard for producers to meet, almost every single pre-revolutionary film failed this test.
From a cynical perspective, the increased amount of titillation and sexuality was partially an attempt at getting audiences to watch “message films.” However, the increased amount of sexuality on film had the side-effect of normalizing sexuality for people. Suddenly, sex was no longer a taboo subject for people to talk about, and pre-marital sex had gone from being something that was commonly practiced, but never talked about, to something that was openly talked about. (Coontz 1992) Coinciding with this was an educational campaign in schools to teach teenagers about contraceptive use.
Abortion restrictions, having only been passed in the 1890’s and 1910’s as part of a plan to keep white protestant women from being “out-bred” by catholic immigrants, were removed,[8] Hollywood films would openly talk about women using birth control or having an abortion as part of a directed effort to de-stigmatize it.
One of the biggest bombshells of the Cultural Revolution was when actress Marlene Dietrich openly announced that she was bisexual. Shortly afterwards several other actors and actresses had come out in solidarity with Dietrich as well. Suddenly, homosexuals weren’t a nebulous other, they were stars, the were people that Americans were familiar with, people they trusted.
[...]
With the revolution and early friendship with the USSR, Soviet films enjoyed a surge in popularity, particularly in Hollywood. Russian director Sergei Eisensten made a visit to the UASR, where he discovered that he was almost a celebrity among WFPL members, which by this time had included most of Hollywood.
A screening of an experimental Soviet film “The Kuleshov Experiment,” was able to dramatically demonstrate the effect that editing and the juxtaposition of images could have on an audience. In the film, a shot of a Russian actor was juxtaposed with a shot of a plate of soup, a girl in a coffin, and a woman on a divan. After the screening, the audience was asked to describe the performance of the actor in each scene.
In each scene, the audience read different things in the actor’s performance. Talking about the subtle differences in each scene. What the audience didn’t know, was that it was the same shot for all three scenes. The juxtaposition of images had caused the audience to read different things into the actors performance.
Following the screening, and the influence of Eisenstein and other Soviet filmmakers, Editors had gained much more respect in Hollywood. Initially seen as an assembly-line job, the editor became an important and respected part of the filmmaking process.
With a sometimes-heavy hand, the Cultural Revolution was able to revitalize an industry that was on the brink of collapse and transform cinema from an escapist and reactionary cocoon into a vital force for creating social progress.
---
1: This is taken pretty much verbatim from OTL.
2: All of these were lifted directly from the Hays Code OTL, except for the prohibition of 'armed rebellion.'
3: The actual statistics for this IOTL (see “Domestic Revolutions: A History of American Family Life”)
4: He actually said this IOTL
5: The LA Times building really was designed like a fortress IOTL.
6: I think I just butterflied Bugs Bunny. Sorry.
7: Yes, this is the Bechdel Test
8: I keep saying this like a broken record, I didn’t make this up, this is literally why so many states banned abortion in that time period IOTL.
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Wow, that's an impressive contribution to the TL, Crunch.
Depends on what exacty happened to Warner Bros' animation department. If Chuck Jones is around and prominent ITTL, there may still be at least an analogue to Looney Tunes.
It also makes me wonder how animation - and film production in general - would develop outside the UASR. The original draft included mentions of how FBU television by TTL's 2010 became plagued with reality shows, although Doctor Who is still a thing.
Considering how different Latin America us here, I wouldn't expect telenovelas to be prominent - at least as we know them. With most of the region being swept up in the revolutionary tide from 1933 through to WWII, its post-war development would contain entertainment just as heavily influenced by the new social order as elsewhere.
In East Asia: A unified communist, non-Juche Korea may still produce popular dramas, but with the same sort of leftist influences that revolutionize Latin American TV. China/Hong Kong may still create martial-arts action flicks, although the mainland being ruled by a leftist ROC government means plenty of divergence from OTL. And Japan would likely have anime become even more prominent than IOTL (thanks to the animation age ghetto getting butterflied away). Within anime/manga, fanservice and hentai would have a more liberatory nature as opposed to objectification - so, not quite as much tentacle porn (which arose partly to get around the censoring of genitalia).
India still being under the Raj probably has major implications for the development of Bollywood, likewise with Iran being a pro-Soviet socialist country.
And the Soviet film industry is bound to take influence from Hollywood, even when the Soviet and American governments are at odds with each other during the Cold War's first few decades.
Depends on what exacty happened to Warner Bros' animation department. If Chuck Jones is around and prominent ITTL, there may still be at least an analogue to Looney Tunes.
It also makes me wonder how animation - and film production in general - would develop outside the UASR. The original draft included mentions of how FBU television by TTL's 2010 became plagued with reality shows, although Doctor Who is still a thing.
Considering how different Latin America us here, I wouldn't expect telenovelas to be prominent - at least as we know them. With most of the region being swept up in the revolutionary tide from 1933 through to WWII, its post-war development would contain entertainment just as heavily influenced by the new social order as elsewhere.
In East Asia: A unified communist, non-Juche Korea may still produce popular dramas, but with the same sort of leftist influences that revolutionize Latin American TV. China/Hong Kong may still create martial-arts action flicks, although the mainland being ruled by a leftist ROC government means plenty of divergence from OTL. And Japan would likely have anime become even more prominent than IOTL (thanks to the animation age ghetto getting butterflied away). Within anime/manga, fanservice and hentai would have a more liberatory nature as opposed to objectification - so, not quite as much tentacle porn (which arose partly to get around the censoring of genitalia).
India still being under the Raj probably has major implications for the development of Bollywood, likewise with Iran being a pro-Soviet socialist country.
And the Soviet film industry is bound to take influence from Hollywood, even when the Soviet and American governments are at odds with each other during the Cold War's first few decades.
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Chuck Jones and Tex Avery would have definitely stayed and probably did collectivize Termite Terrace. Leon Schlesinger DEFINITELY would have left for Cuba, and Bob Clampett probably would have left with him as well. Bugs Bunny may still exist ITTL but not as we would know him.
If the ATL review of Snow White that Jello had posted hadn't already referred to the Disney Animation Collective by name, I probably would have gone with renaming Disney to the "Hyperion Animated Pictures Collective" (since the first Disney studio was on Hyperion Ave in LA, and I had figured that the whole practice of naming things after yourself would have been strongly discouraged post-revolution as being a holdover of the capitalist bourgeois)
As far as hollywood having an effect on the USSR, I'd say that's likely. A lot of the directors and editors are still following the "traditional" directing and editing methods a'la D.W. Griffith (who ITTL was likely blackballed for making a counter-revolutionary film like "Birth of a Nation"). This style would have been perfect for what the Stalinist USSR was pushing for WRT Socialist Realism. (IOTL, "Cabin in the Cotton" WAS the first hollywood movie approved for release in the USSR)
This, incidentally, was what motivated Eisenstein to visit the UASR. Eisenstein wanted to use editing to tell more dramatic stories and wasn't a fan of Socialist Realism. (IOTL this was why he came to the US and later Mexico) With a socialist America, his film pitches probably wouldn't have been rejected and he probably would have had a much longer career in the UASR than he did IOTL.
Also, I have a little bit of an alt-bio of Walt Disney floating in my head, but basically he was slightly radicalized by his time as an ambulance driver in WWI, and then with how Universal basically stole Oswald the Lucky Rabbit away from him would have radicalized him much much more ITTL.
I've never been above retconning things.
I mainly stuck with Disney because it would be easily recognizable to readers, and didn't think about alternatives. It seemed plausible that Disney being respected as an artistic and creative force would give him a lot of pull and thus the name sticking.
But Hyperion Animation Collective sounds cool, so let's go with that.
EDIT: Incidentally, Walt's father Elias was a man of socialist sympathies
I mainly stuck with Disney because it would be easily recognizable to readers, and didn't think about alternatives. It seemed plausible that Disney being respected as an artistic and creative force would give him a lot of pull and thus the name sticking.
But Hyperion Animation Collective sounds cool, so let's go with that.
EDIT: Incidentally, Walt's father Elias was a man of socialist sympathies
Maybe it starts as Hyperion but latter, maybe after Disney's death, gets formally or informally renamed the Disney Animation Collective. I suppose it depends how much of an artistic impact Disney has on the studio...
teg
bookmark95
Banned
I read of the the censorship that stifled Hollywood after the 1920s was not the result of worker's agitation, but was caused by some dirty scandals that were rocking Hollywood at the time, in particular the Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle case, in which the actor was charged with raping young Virginia Rappe. The sensationalism of the trial wrecked Arbuckle's career and brought in the idea that Hollywood was a pot of sin, this bringing in Mr. Will Hays and his code. How much is scandal part of Hollywood in this TL, what impact will it have on industry, and what will happen to Mr. Arbuckle in this TL?
He was mentioned by name in an earlier update. Let's see... Here it is:
" Many iconic cartoon characters are introduced in animated shorts that bookend feature films, such as Droopy the Dog, Bugs Bunny, or Screwy the Squirrel."
Then again, given the somewhat convoluted canonicity of the earlier updates , I'm not quite sure if this is still in canon.
Partly. The scandals and Roscoe Arbuckle trial weren't the ONLY reasons that the hays code came down on Hollywood IOTL. One of the other big factors was that there were a lot of crime dramas being made and the criminal was seen as the hero, something that scared the establishment. WR Hearst and the rest of the newspaper establishment were usually the ones leading that charge, mainly because their business was threatened by the rise of newsreels as a source of information.
In this TL, I would say that the Arbuckle trial still happened, and still has the same outcome (2 deadlocked juries and finally an acquittal). The scandal would still have been enough for reactionary outrage to get the MPPDA to establish the Breen Code to censor movies.
After the revolution, I'd say that Arbuckle remains quietly blackballed. Because AG Eastman doesn't want to be seen supporting a rapist, or even someone accused of rape.
Maybe that 'rebelion of youth' trope can go both ways at times... I am tempted to check who where the parents of Mathieu Bock-Coté now.
Also, that does have a certain cool and 'serious edge', Hyperion Animation Collective. I approves.
If there is a Bugs Bunny, he'd probably end up being some sort of totemic figure for respecting the wilds. He'd end up being Smokey the Bear with a Brooklyn accent.