Below is a partial episode from the Educational Broadcast Corporation television documentary series titled, A World on Fire, which originally aired in the spring of 1987. The below episode is narrated by Patrick Stewart. The below episode is titled: Canadian Independence and the Alaskan Conflict.
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Following the end of the Second Great War, the US military finds itself faced with the daunting task of having to simultaneously occupy both Canada, and the defeated but still hostile population of the Confederate States of America. By the same token, many US officials are beginning to express doubts about the ability of the US military to effectively occupy all of Canada, Sonora, Chihuahua, Cuba, Baja California, the CSA, and a few scattered islands in the Caribbean.
(A political cartoon depicting a caricature of a bulging eyed snake with the words "US Army" emblazoned upon its side. The outlines of several large animals can be distinctly seen through the snake's grossly distorted midsection as the snake displays a look of painful distress upon its cartoon face.)
By the end of the war, most Canadians have resigned themselves to life under US occupation, and by the start of 1945, resistance to the US military presence in Canada has fallen off to virtually nil.
(Black and white film footage of Canadians passively lining up outside a courthouse in order to renew their residency cards with US occupation officials.)
With the empires of Great Britain and France no longer a going concern, the once defiant Canadian nationalists have gradually come to the realization that no outside help will come to their aid, should they try to rise up against US occupation forces, and most nationalists simply disappear into the woodwork and try to go about their daily lives without being noticed.
(Black and white film footage of a farm woman in Manitoba using a US manufactured tractor to plow a field as officials from the US Department of Agriculture look on.)
None the less, as the occupation drags on, a few Canadians do manage to modestly improve their standards of living.
(Black and white film footage of a large hydroelectric dam under constructed in Lillooet Country, British Columbia.)
(Black and white film footage depicting heavily padded Canadian high school athletes eagerly playing US style gridiron football under the brilliant glare of the nighttime sodium arc lights ringing their field.)
(Black and white film footage of a ribbon cutting ceremony at a US supermarket chain in the city of Toronto. As soon as the ribbon is cut, throngs of wild-eyed shoppers begin grabbing wheeled grocery carts and head off to explore the well-stocked aisles.)
However, huge swaths of the Canadian wilderness remain beyond the direct control of the US military as officials in Washington DC are forced to focus a dwindling number of available occupation troops upon areas immediately adjacent to the US border, and also upon the heavily industrialized occupation zones surrounding the Great Lakes.
(Black and white film footage of a small single-engine US Army spotter plane flying over a snow covered landscape somewhere in the Northern Canadian Rockies. The shadow of the small plane moves rapidly over the rugged terrain without any indication of human habitation appearing in the moving picture frame.)
In February of 1945, a study commissioned by the US Department of War concludes that it will be virtually impossible for the US military to effectively occupy the defeated Confederate State of America, while still maintaining large numbers of occupation troops in Canada. Additionally, continuous Freedom Party uprisings across the eastern portions of the defeated Confederacy begin to take their toll on US public opinion, and officials in Washington DC are sent scrambling in search of a speedy resolution to the problem.
(Black and white film footage of US occupation troops in a shootout with Freedom Party extremists who have taken over the State Capitol Building in Jackson, Mississippi. A ragged Freedom Party flag can be seen waving from a makeshift pole sticking out of a broken window located near the base of the capitol dome. A US heavy barrel cruises into view and trains its massive gun on the capitol building. The heavy barrel can be seen rocking back and forth slightly as it fires its huge 110 mm gun, and within a second the entire front lower section of the dome is completely engulfed in an explosive fireball. The dome then loses its shape and dramatically collapses in wreckage into the capitol building supporting it.)
Even before the end of the war, US officials had already reached the conclusion that the only way to guarantee the future peace and security of the United States of America was to completely and totally defeat the Confederacy, and to never again allow it to exist as an independent nation. Top US military planners repeatedly vow to crush the stubborn Freedom Party resistance movement, but US military planners quickly realize that their campaign will require many more troops before the existential threat presented by Freedom Party extremists can be entirely eliminated.
(Black and white film footage of high ranking US military officials discussing strategy with their civilian counterparts in the Planning Room of the old War Department Building in Philadelphia. The huge room is ornately decorated and seems to cover half an acre in the fish-eye view of the camera lens. There are several heavy tables arranged in rows, and each table has its own flock of bureaucrats intensely hunched over large maps spread across the tabletops. On the far wall is a huge map of the North American Continent.)
Thus in the early spring of 1945 the incoming Dewey administration begins to consider the feasibility of granting the people of Canada some sort of limited sovereignty.
(A black and white still image photo of President Dewey, General Daniel MacArthur, and Secretary of State Prescott Bush sharing a conversation in the Oval Office over coffee. MacArthur's face looks somewhat taut as President Dewey is intently explaining something to him. Bush absently stares into his own cup of coffee.)
After much debate it is determined that the US's best interest shall be served by turning Canada into a close ally, rather than having it remain under the yoke of indefinite US military occupation. US authorities identify a number of key Canadian lawyers, academics, and business leaders who are considered by the United States as being suitable to run an independent Canada. The US State Departments assists its handpicked delegates in orchestrating a constitutional convention in Ottawa, but it takes until January of 1946 until the first drafts for a new Canadian constitution are ready for review by US officials.
Among other things, the constitutional delegates are nearly evenly split on whether Canada should adopt a parliamentary form of government, or if it should become a federal republic modeled after the United States. In the end the Federalists win out over those supporting parliamentarianism, and in March of 1946 the Dewey administration gives its blessing to Canada's new constitution, which is closely based upon that of the US.
(A black and white still image of a smiling Secretary of State Prescott Bush shaking hand with Canadian Constitutional Convention Chairman, Alexander Meighen. Bush and Meighen are standing at the head of long table, and other constitution delegates can be seen sitting at the table behind them, smiling towards the camera.)
On May 1, 1946 the Dewey administration announces to the public that Canada will be granted full independence on September 3rd 1946, and that Canadians will be given the right to determine their own future. However, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, will not be joining the new Federal Republic of Canada, and instead they will become official territories of the United States. Likewise, Newfoundland and Labrador will be annexed by the Republic of Quebec, and will also not be a part of the new Canadian nation.
(Black and white film footage displaying the shifting international boundaries of Canada. In its new form Canada is to be a westward facing nation, with much of its future economic activity centered along its Pacific Coast.)
A few Canadians are upset over their lost provinces to the east, but cooler heads point out that it would be difficult to govern over these remote territories as the establishment of an independent Quebec has already turned them into exclaves, and cut them off from the rest of Canada. In the end, Canadian fears of being cut off from the Atlantic Ocean are placated by a three-way treaty between the US, Quebec, and Canada which grants Canadian ships free right of way passage to the Atlantic via the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.
On July the 15th, just mere weeks before their official independence is set to take effect, Canadians go to the polls and elect Federalist candidate Alexander Meighen as Canada's first president. It is the first time in their history that Canadians have been allowed to select their own national leader. Meighen is sworn into office on Canada's first official day of independence on September 3, 1946.
(Color film footage of US troops lowering the US flag at a ceremony in Ottawa as a small honor guard of Canadian Mounties simultaneously raise the new flag of Canada. US Vice President Harry Truman and US Secretary of State Prescott Bush stand behind Canadian President Alexander Meighen as Meighen watches the flag of his new nation ascending the pole. Meighen is overcome with emotion as a single tear streams down his cheek. A few other Canadian dignitaries standing in the background also have tear stained cheeks.)
US troops can now be withdrawn from Canada in relative safety and sent down to the occupied Confederacy to bolster occupation forces already stationed there. A small number of military advisors will remain behind, however, in order to help train the new Canadian Army, and to provide additional security.
(Black and white film footage of a US Army Drill Sergeant haranguing new Canadian recruits at a training base near Vancouver.)
(Color film footage of tough but weary looking US solider boarding a chartered passenger train as they carry heavy looking knapsacks and rifles across their shoulders. A conductor looks on as battle hardened troops put their boots on the upholstered seats. Others casually smoke and play cards as the train makes its way southward across the US Midwest.)
Meighen takes office with promises to maintain close economic and political ties with his powerful neighbor to the south, and in the coming years the Federal Republic of Canada will benefit immensely from its close association with the United States. Meanwhile, and perhaps not too unpredictably, the value of the Canadian Dollar begins to fluctuate wildly as Canadians become unsure of the value of their new currency.
(Black and white still image of a headline from the Wall Street Journal dated June 2, 1947 titled, "Is The Canadian Dollar Stable?) Below the headline is a downward trending graph outlining the declining value of the Canadian during the past few months.)
President Dewey's economic advisors inform him that the Canadian Dollar is in danger of a free-fall collapse, and that the Canadian economy may experience hyper-inflation similar to what was seen in the Confederate States of America during the 1920s, if drastic steps aren't taken to correct the problem. Dewey takes immediate action by ordering his treasury secretary to buy up excessive Canadian Dollars in order to stabilize the value of the currency. The ploy works, but many US Socialists accuse Dewey of using the government to fix the problems of capitalism.
(Black and white film footage of Flora Hamburger making an impassioned speech in front of the United States House of Representatives.)
However, by the first anniversary of Canadian independence, in September 1947, the Canadian Dollar manages to regain all of its lost value, and to actually rise slightly above its initial value from a year earlier. And accordingly with a stabilized currency, the Canadian economy begins to hum with activity.
(Black and white film footage of refrigerators coming of an assembly line at a GE plant in Ontario. Raw lumber being loaded onto railroad cars for shipment to the US. Fish being cleaned and processed at a highly mechanized cannery plant in British Columbia.)
However, things do not stay quiet for long in Canada, as the October 1947 Russian Revolution begins to spill across the international border with Russian Alaska.
(Color film footage of the Kremlin as the red and blue hammer and sickle banner of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is raised for the first time. Officers of the Red Army inspect field pieces and other equipment at a military base abandoned by the Czar's fleeing army.)
By the spring of 1948, the fledgling Canadian Army finds itself outmatched by the intrusive Red guerrillas spreading out from Alaska's interior into Northwestern Canada. The steady flow of dedicated Marxist-Trotskyist fighters illegally entering Canada is difficult to stop due to the extremely remote and porous nature of the international boundary with Russian Alaska.
(Color film footage of boxy industrial buildings burning in the background, as Canadian troops in blue-green, and US military advisors in gray-green, fire their bolt-action rifles at unseen enemies hiding in a nearby cluster of snow covered pine trees.)
By the late 1940s Alaska has an extraordinarily large Russian population of approximately 350,000, making Russians by far the single largest ethnic group throughout the territory. This exceptionally large Russian population is mainly due to the oppressive Czars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who had a penchant for exiling malcontents and petty criminals to work camps in their far away North American possession.
(Grainy black and white footage of extremely disheveled looking exiles being forcibly loaded onto an already overcrowded steamer at a dock in Vladivostok.)
(Grainy black and white film footage of forced laborers using hand tools to cut a road through a remote Alaskan forest.)
Many of the surviving leaders of the failed Red uprisings occurring between 1917 and 1926 are sent to harsh labor camps in Alaska, where most are worked to death or die of disease, starvation, or injury. However, a few manage to survive their ordeals in the forced labor camps, and are released after their sentences expire.
(Black and white film footage showing malnourished internees with heavily bandaged hands and arms lying in a makeshift infirmary. Scene depicting a bleak windblown field, with wooden crosses dotting trash strewn snowdrifts.)
Moreover, many of the surviving work-camp internees opt to remain in Alaska and settle in the remote North American wilderness, far away from the watchful eye of the Czar's omnipresent secret police.
(Black and white footage of a Marxist organizer as he enthusiastically hammers his fist into the palm of his hand while explaining the tenets of Marxist ideology to a group of Russian - Alaskan fisherman who are drinking in a small smoke filled pub. Most of the men simply ignore the noisy rabble rouser as they nurse their drinks, but a few seem to be listening very intently.)
By the mid-1920s a tiny network of well-established communistic collectives are in existence across Alaska's southern hinterlands. During the long arctic summer days, these collectives are able to produce a variety of cereal crops which are then traded with other collectives, and or traditional Russian speaking villages for livestock, timber, and other items necessary to live in the hardscrabble landscape. An unofficial cashless economy of sorts takes root amongst the Alaskan collectives, but few people living outside of Alaska are aware of its existence.
(Black and white film footage depicting Russian peasants using pitch forks to load hay onto a horse drawn wagon under the midnight Alaskan sun.)
Prior to the 1947 Revolution, most Russians living in Alaska maintain very little contact with their mother-country, and most seem to relish the relative autonomy associated with living roughly eight thousand miles away from the Czar's palace.
(Black and white film footage of carefree Russian peasant celebrating at an outdoor festival filled with music, dancing, and vodka.)
Beginning in early 1948, Moscow begins sending special political officers to Alaska in order to ensure that the locals are following the correct form of Marxist-Trotskyist ideology. However, most of the Russian Marxists living in Alaska follow Marxist-Leninist ideology, and their views regarding Marxist revolution do not coincide precisely with the views now being held by the regime in Moscow.
(Color film footage of rally participants in Moscow's Red Square carrying a large placard emblazoned with an outline of the boundaries of the RSFR, including the outline of Russian Alaska. Others carry smaller placards bearing the image of Leon Trotsky, while still others carry the red and blue banner of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)
The leaders of the Alaskan Leninist movement believe that it is up to them, and them alone, to decide when and where Marxist revolutions should occur, and for the moment they are content to live undisturbed in the Red Alaskan paradise they have created for themselves. On the other hand, the hot-blooded Trotskyists from Moscow believe it is the responsibility of each and every individual worker to promote the spread of global Marxist revolution, and they accuse the Leninists of creating a reactionary feudal society in the isolated Alaskan outback.
(Black and white film footage of a group of people vigorously arguing in a small meeting hall. A man standing behind a podium is banging his shoe on the podium, but no one is paying any attention to him.)
(Black and white film footage of a sad-faced former Leninist political commissar who is enduring the process of being denounced by his former comrades. The former commissar's wears a sign around his neck bearing the words "REACTIONARY" and "OPPRESSOR" has patches of his hair are brutally cut from his scalp. A heavy set woman walks up to the bound commissar and slaps him across the cheeks before spitting in his face.)
The firebrand Trotskyists from across the Bearing Straight quickly gain the upper hand, and soon all of the Alaskan collectives are brought into line with Moscow.
(Color film footage of peasants at a collective in Southern Alaska carrying the portrait of Leon Trotsky and the flag of the RSFR as they carry out a gay parade through the center of their village.)
The Trotskyists decide that the best way to carry the revolution to the people of Canada will be by sending teams of volunteers out into the Canadian states of Yukon and British Columbia to disseminate anti-US propaganda amongst the local population. The Trotskyists are aware that the US fought a simmering war with Canadian nationalists, just a few years earlier, and now the Trotskyists naively hope to capitalize upon that conflict by bringing the Canadian nationalists into their fold.
(Black and white film footage depicting a broad faced woman with a large bundle on her back happily making her way on cross-country skis. The woman smiles and waves happily to the camera before heading across a snow covered frozen lake.)
Unfortunately for the Trotskyists, the predominately traditionalists Christian rural Canadians prove unwelcoming to the idea of overthrowing their own newly established government, and the message of Marxist revolution is not well received by the people of Northwestern Canada. For the most part Canadians tend to view the Red guerrillas marauding across their country’s northern frontier as an amalgamation of atheistic political fanatics, and drunken Slavic bandits, and the Marxist fighters receive little to no support from the local Canadian population.
(A political cartoon from a Canadian newspaper depicts loutish potbellied horsemen dressed in fanciful Hunnic armor ridding across the Alaskan border to ravage a picturesque Canadian town. A silhouette shaped like a soldier holding a bayoneted rifle waits stealthily behind a brick wall at the town's gate. The initials "US" are plainly visible on the soldier's helmet.)
However, the Trotskyists in Alaska are undeterred, and soon a second wave of vanguard revolutionaries is sent out, but this time they are armed with Mosin rifles, explosives, and small artillery pieces.
(Color footage from a Russian propaganda film titled "Snow Storm". Guerrilla fighters on snow skies come to a ridge overlooking a shallow snow covered valley. One of the men points to the other side of the valley and says, "There it is right on time, the Canadian troop train!" The leader of the group places his rifle to his shoulder and uses its telescopic sight to get a closer look at the train as it nears a trestle bridge over a fast moving river. Another member of the group picks up a plunger type detonator from its hiding spot behind some boulders. The group leader advises the man with the plunger "Steady comrade...steady...steady" and then when the train is approximately half way across the bridge he makes a chopping motion with his hand and shouts "Now!". An explosion occurs beneath the tracks and immediately afterwards the steam powered locomotive is diving nose first into the river. A huge secondary explosion occurs when the locomotives boiler is ruptured by an impact with a large boulder in the river. The fighters dance with glee as patriotic music plays in the background.)
The goal of the Alaskan Trotskyists is to weaken the authority of the Canadian Federal government in the Western part of the country, and to either add the Yukon Territory and British Columbia to Russian Alaska, or to turn them into independent Red states aligned with Moscow.
Things finally come to a head when the city of Prince Rupert on the British Columbia coast is attacked and briefly occupied by irregular communist fighters operating from Alaska's southern panhandle.
(Color film footage of the flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic snapping in a stiff breeze as drunken guerrilla fighters dance happily in front of the Prince Rupert fire station. The scene pans around to show a small-town business district which has been destroyed. The street is partially blocked by burned out and wrecked vehicles of various types, utility poles askew, mangled trees with their limbs blown off, pockmarked buildings with broken windows, and a dalmatian hungrily eating something from a metal bucket. Local residents are nowhere to be seen.)
The Red guerrillas withdraw after occupying Prince Rupert for less than a week, but the incident sets of alarm bells in both Ottawa and Washington DC. President Dewey assures Canadian President Meighen that the US will help, but Dewey is reluctant to pull troops out the Confederate occupation zones in order to send them off to fight in Alaska, and instead of relying entirely upon US troops to get the job done, Dewey pressures his North American partners to lend some troops to the fight. A coalition of troops from as far away as Quebec, Mexico, and Cuba shall assist US and Canadian troops in the invasion of Alaska, however, the bulk of the ground fighting will be spearheaded by US troops.
Meanwhile most people in the US consider the armed conflict brewing up in Alaska to be rumblings coming from a far off distant room, and the attitude among many in the US is that if the people of Canada wanted their independence so badly, then let them lie in the bed which they've made for themselves. For the time being most US residents can luxuriate in the booming post-war economy, and it will be sometime before the conflict in Alaska touches the lives of the average person.
(Black and white film footage of unskilled Mexican troops awkwardly climbing down a rope ladder slung over the side of a large transport ship. The inexperienced soldiers struggle with their rifles and knapsacks as they make their way down the side of the ship.)
Combat is swift and brutal as US troops, seasoned in the trenches of the Second Great War unleash the latest weapons which the US military industrial complex has to offer. Unsuspecting units of the Russian Red Army garrisoned in Alaska are caught completely flatfooted and are unable to mount a meaningful resistance to the US led invasion, and key strategic points are quickly overrun by coalition forces.
(Black and white film footage of US troops herding a group of Red Army soldiers with their arms raised into an open air stockade. In another scene a US solider points to a wooden crates full of ammunition hidden under the floor of a house, and then he screams into the face of a man with a droopy mustache. The man with the droopy mustache seems terrified, and doesn't seem to understand. The angry soldier takes out his .45 sidearm and uses the butt of its grip to viciously strike the mustached man squarely in the bridge of his nose. The blow instantly produces a fount of blood. The man with the droopy mustache collapses into a heap on the floor.)
Although US coalition forces quickly overrun Alaska's more densely populated areas, during the next few years they will find themselves drawn into an ever expanding guerrilla war with Red insurgents carrying out hit-and-run tactics throughout the Alaskan countryside.
(Black and white film footage of coalition troops, most likely Québécois, mocking religious icons inside a Russian Orthodox Church. A swarthy looking soldier runs his finger up the front of a Russian priest's chest, causing the priest's beard to flip up and to hit him in the face. Other nearby soldiers laugh.)
Eventually after four-and-a-half years of unresolved tit-for-tat fighting in Alaska, the governments of the US, Canada, Quebec, Mexico, and Cuba meet in 1953 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to form the North American Treaty Organization, or NATO as a means of centralizing and coordinate the struggle against Red Trotskyist aggression. Each member of NATO must agree to commit a certain percentage of its GDP to defense spending, and to also commit a certain portion of its military forces to the NATO alliance, but in exchange for doing so, each member will receive the unconditional support and protection of the US military.
By the mid-1950s officials in Moscow finally begin to comprehend that they have bitten off more than they can chew by starting a war with the Germans in Eastern Europe, and also by engaging in a guerrilla war with the United States in Alaska.
(Color film footage of a Tiger IV advancing through a field of spring flowers towards an unseen enemy somewhere along the Polish - Belarus border. A squad of quick-footed German infantry men equipped with the latest banana-clipped Sturmgewehr 49 assault rifles follow closely behind the heavy barrel as they keep their heads down.)
The harsh realization that fanaticism alone won't be enough to carry the global revolution forward finally drives representatives of the RSFR to sit down with their US and Canadian counterparts in Lisbon to discuss the fate of Alaska. A cease fire, but not a permanent peace settlement is agreed to in Lisbon in July of 1955.
(Color film footage of smiling diplomats exchanging copies of signed documents as mediators from the Portuguese government observe.)
However, the cease fire agreement will be a fragile one, and during the next few decades it will be broken on an average of four or five times in a single year. Also, during this same period of time the US Navy will maintain a strong naval blockade along the Alaskan Coast in order to prevent the smuggling of munitions into the disputed region.
(Late 1950s color film footage of members of the Texas Self-Defense Force smartly exiting a huge Sikorsky twin rotor assault helicopter. The squad sized detachment of men quickly leaps out of the barn-doors of the behemoth craft as the landing skids hover a foot or two above the billowing summer grass. As soon as the last man is off loaded, the mammoth Sikorsky climbs back into the sky and disappears. The men quickly form up into teams of four, assault rifles held at the ready, and head out into the nearby trees on a search and destroy mission. )
For their part, the Red government in Moscow does not officially recognize the foreign occupation of Alaska, and mock Alaskan representatives will be sent to both the Politburo and the Party Congress for some time to come.
Eventually an official 1969 peace agreement is reached during the Nixon administration. This agreement will divide Alaska along the 158th line of longitude, allowing Western Alaska to remain a part of the RSFR, while at the same time turning Eastern Alaska into an official territory of the Federal Republic of Canada.
(Color film footage of a crowded two lane Alaskan highway filled with Russian refugees who do not wish to live in Eastern Alaska and are attempting to flee towards the west. The modern asphalt road is filled with horse drawn wagons, tractors, buses, antique Fords, and even a few families making their way on foot.)
The 69 peace treaty will more or less keep the peace in Alaska until August of 1977 when the RSFR tests a 50 megaton sun-bomb on the island of Amchitka in the Aleutian Chain.
(Color film footage of the broiling thirty-five mile tall mushroom cloud over Amchitka. The cloud is so huge that it is nearly impossible to get a sense of its scale.)
US and Canadian officials are of the opinion that the sun-bomb test on Amchitka violates a clause within the 1969 treaty forbidding super-bombs on Alaskan territory, and within a month after the Amchitka test, US and Canadian troops launch a full scale invasion of Western Alaska in search of more super-bombs.
Although the Russian Red Army in Alaska is again caught off guard, and no super-bombs are found in Western Alaska, the conflict quickly spins out of control, and by September of 1978 US troops will find themselves fighting one of the largest land battles in history, as they struggle to push the Red forces of the People’s Democratic Republic of Japan out of South Japan.
Tune in for next week's episode, the Conflict in Northeast Asia.
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Following the end of the Second Great War, the US military finds itself faced with the daunting task of having to simultaneously occupy both Canada, and the defeated but still hostile population of the Confederate States of America. By the same token, many US officials are beginning to express doubts about the ability of the US military to effectively occupy all of Canada, Sonora, Chihuahua, Cuba, Baja California, the CSA, and a few scattered islands in the Caribbean.
(A political cartoon depicting a caricature of a bulging eyed snake with the words "US Army" emblazoned upon its side. The outlines of several large animals can be distinctly seen through the snake's grossly distorted midsection as the snake displays a look of painful distress upon its cartoon face.)
By the end of the war, most Canadians have resigned themselves to life under US occupation, and by the start of 1945, resistance to the US military presence in Canada has fallen off to virtually nil.
(Black and white film footage of Canadians passively lining up outside a courthouse in order to renew their residency cards with US occupation officials.)
With the empires of Great Britain and France no longer a going concern, the once defiant Canadian nationalists have gradually come to the realization that no outside help will come to their aid, should they try to rise up against US occupation forces, and most nationalists simply disappear into the woodwork and try to go about their daily lives without being noticed.
(Black and white film footage of a farm woman in Manitoba using a US manufactured tractor to plow a field as officials from the US Department of Agriculture look on.)
None the less, as the occupation drags on, a few Canadians do manage to modestly improve their standards of living.
(Black and white film footage of a large hydroelectric dam under constructed in Lillooet Country, British Columbia.)
(Black and white film footage depicting heavily padded Canadian high school athletes eagerly playing US style gridiron football under the brilliant glare of the nighttime sodium arc lights ringing their field.)
(Black and white film footage of a ribbon cutting ceremony at a US supermarket chain in the city of Toronto. As soon as the ribbon is cut, throngs of wild-eyed shoppers begin grabbing wheeled grocery carts and head off to explore the well-stocked aisles.)
However, huge swaths of the Canadian wilderness remain beyond the direct control of the US military as officials in Washington DC are forced to focus a dwindling number of available occupation troops upon areas immediately adjacent to the US border, and also upon the heavily industrialized occupation zones surrounding the Great Lakes.
(Black and white film footage of a small single-engine US Army spotter plane flying over a snow covered landscape somewhere in the Northern Canadian Rockies. The shadow of the small plane moves rapidly over the rugged terrain without any indication of human habitation appearing in the moving picture frame.)
In February of 1945, a study commissioned by the US Department of War concludes that it will be virtually impossible for the US military to effectively occupy the defeated Confederate State of America, while still maintaining large numbers of occupation troops in Canada. Additionally, continuous Freedom Party uprisings across the eastern portions of the defeated Confederacy begin to take their toll on US public opinion, and officials in Washington DC are sent scrambling in search of a speedy resolution to the problem.
(Black and white film footage of US occupation troops in a shootout with Freedom Party extremists who have taken over the State Capitol Building in Jackson, Mississippi. A ragged Freedom Party flag can be seen waving from a makeshift pole sticking out of a broken window located near the base of the capitol dome. A US heavy barrel cruises into view and trains its massive gun on the capitol building. The heavy barrel can be seen rocking back and forth slightly as it fires its huge 110 mm gun, and within a second the entire front lower section of the dome is completely engulfed in an explosive fireball. The dome then loses its shape and dramatically collapses in wreckage into the capitol building supporting it.)
Even before the end of the war, US officials had already reached the conclusion that the only way to guarantee the future peace and security of the United States of America was to completely and totally defeat the Confederacy, and to never again allow it to exist as an independent nation. Top US military planners repeatedly vow to crush the stubborn Freedom Party resistance movement, but US military planners quickly realize that their campaign will require many more troops before the existential threat presented by Freedom Party extremists can be entirely eliminated.
(Black and white film footage of high ranking US military officials discussing strategy with their civilian counterparts in the Planning Room of the old War Department Building in Philadelphia. The huge room is ornately decorated and seems to cover half an acre in the fish-eye view of the camera lens. There are several heavy tables arranged in rows, and each table has its own flock of bureaucrats intensely hunched over large maps spread across the tabletops. On the far wall is a huge map of the North American Continent.)
Thus in the early spring of 1945 the incoming Dewey administration begins to consider the feasibility of granting the people of Canada some sort of limited sovereignty.
(A black and white still image photo of President Dewey, General Daniel MacArthur, and Secretary of State Prescott Bush sharing a conversation in the Oval Office over coffee. MacArthur's face looks somewhat taut as President Dewey is intently explaining something to him. Bush absently stares into his own cup of coffee.)
After much debate it is determined that the US's best interest shall be served by turning Canada into a close ally, rather than having it remain under the yoke of indefinite US military occupation. US authorities identify a number of key Canadian lawyers, academics, and business leaders who are considered by the United States as being suitable to run an independent Canada. The US State Departments assists its handpicked delegates in orchestrating a constitutional convention in Ottawa, but it takes until January of 1946 until the first drafts for a new Canadian constitution are ready for review by US officials.
Among other things, the constitutional delegates are nearly evenly split on whether Canada should adopt a parliamentary form of government, or if it should become a federal republic modeled after the United States. In the end the Federalists win out over those supporting parliamentarianism, and in March of 1946 the Dewey administration gives its blessing to Canada's new constitution, which is closely based upon that of the US.
(A black and white still image of a smiling Secretary of State Prescott Bush shaking hand with Canadian Constitutional Convention Chairman, Alexander Meighen. Bush and Meighen are standing at the head of long table, and other constitution delegates can be seen sitting at the table behind them, smiling towards the camera.)
On May 1, 1946 the Dewey administration announces to the public that Canada will be granted full independence on September 3rd 1946, and that Canadians will be given the right to determine their own future. However, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, will not be joining the new Federal Republic of Canada, and instead they will become official territories of the United States. Likewise, Newfoundland and Labrador will be annexed by the Republic of Quebec, and will also not be a part of the new Canadian nation.
(Black and white film footage displaying the shifting international boundaries of Canada. In its new form Canada is to be a westward facing nation, with much of its future economic activity centered along its Pacific Coast.)
A few Canadians are upset over their lost provinces to the east, but cooler heads point out that it would be difficult to govern over these remote territories as the establishment of an independent Quebec has already turned them into exclaves, and cut them off from the rest of Canada. In the end, Canadian fears of being cut off from the Atlantic Ocean are placated by a three-way treaty between the US, Quebec, and Canada which grants Canadian ships free right of way passage to the Atlantic via the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.
On July the 15th, just mere weeks before their official independence is set to take effect, Canadians go to the polls and elect Federalist candidate Alexander Meighen as Canada's first president. It is the first time in their history that Canadians have been allowed to select their own national leader. Meighen is sworn into office on Canada's first official day of independence on September 3, 1946.
(Color film footage of US troops lowering the US flag at a ceremony in Ottawa as a small honor guard of Canadian Mounties simultaneously raise the new flag of Canada. US Vice President Harry Truman and US Secretary of State Prescott Bush stand behind Canadian President Alexander Meighen as Meighen watches the flag of his new nation ascending the pole. Meighen is overcome with emotion as a single tear streams down his cheek. A few other Canadian dignitaries standing in the background also have tear stained cheeks.)
US troops can now be withdrawn from Canada in relative safety and sent down to the occupied Confederacy to bolster occupation forces already stationed there. A small number of military advisors will remain behind, however, in order to help train the new Canadian Army, and to provide additional security.
(Black and white film footage of a US Army Drill Sergeant haranguing new Canadian recruits at a training base near Vancouver.)
(Color film footage of tough but weary looking US solider boarding a chartered passenger train as they carry heavy looking knapsacks and rifles across their shoulders. A conductor looks on as battle hardened troops put their boots on the upholstered seats. Others casually smoke and play cards as the train makes its way southward across the US Midwest.)
Meighen takes office with promises to maintain close economic and political ties with his powerful neighbor to the south, and in the coming years the Federal Republic of Canada will benefit immensely from its close association with the United States. Meanwhile, and perhaps not too unpredictably, the value of the Canadian Dollar begins to fluctuate wildly as Canadians become unsure of the value of their new currency.
(Black and white still image of a headline from the Wall Street Journal dated June 2, 1947 titled, "Is The Canadian Dollar Stable?) Below the headline is a downward trending graph outlining the declining value of the Canadian during the past few months.)
President Dewey's economic advisors inform him that the Canadian Dollar is in danger of a free-fall collapse, and that the Canadian economy may experience hyper-inflation similar to what was seen in the Confederate States of America during the 1920s, if drastic steps aren't taken to correct the problem. Dewey takes immediate action by ordering his treasury secretary to buy up excessive Canadian Dollars in order to stabilize the value of the currency. The ploy works, but many US Socialists accuse Dewey of using the government to fix the problems of capitalism.
(Black and white film footage of Flora Hamburger making an impassioned speech in front of the United States House of Representatives.)
However, by the first anniversary of Canadian independence, in September 1947, the Canadian Dollar manages to regain all of its lost value, and to actually rise slightly above its initial value from a year earlier. And accordingly with a stabilized currency, the Canadian economy begins to hum with activity.
(Black and white film footage of refrigerators coming of an assembly line at a GE plant in Ontario. Raw lumber being loaded onto railroad cars for shipment to the US. Fish being cleaned and processed at a highly mechanized cannery plant in British Columbia.)
However, things do not stay quiet for long in Canada, as the October 1947 Russian Revolution begins to spill across the international border with Russian Alaska.
(Color film footage of the Kremlin as the red and blue hammer and sickle banner of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is raised for the first time. Officers of the Red Army inspect field pieces and other equipment at a military base abandoned by the Czar's fleeing army.)
By the spring of 1948, the fledgling Canadian Army finds itself outmatched by the intrusive Red guerrillas spreading out from Alaska's interior into Northwestern Canada. The steady flow of dedicated Marxist-Trotskyist fighters illegally entering Canada is difficult to stop due to the extremely remote and porous nature of the international boundary with Russian Alaska.
(Color film footage of boxy industrial buildings burning in the background, as Canadian troops in blue-green, and US military advisors in gray-green, fire their bolt-action rifles at unseen enemies hiding in a nearby cluster of snow covered pine trees.)
By the late 1940s Alaska has an extraordinarily large Russian population of approximately 350,000, making Russians by far the single largest ethnic group throughout the territory. This exceptionally large Russian population is mainly due to the oppressive Czars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who had a penchant for exiling malcontents and petty criminals to work camps in their far away North American possession.
(Grainy black and white footage of extremely disheveled looking exiles being forcibly loaded onto an already overcrowded steamer at a dock in Vladivostok.)
(Grainy black and white film footage of forced laborers using hand tools to cut a road through a remote Alaskan forest.)
Many of the surviving leaders of the failed Red uprisings occurring between 1917 and 1926 are sent to harsh labor camps in Alaska, where most are worked to death or die of disease, starvation, or injury. However, a few manage to survive their ordeals in the forced labor camps, and are released after their sentences expire.
(Black and white film footage showing malnourished internees with heavily bandaged hands and arms lying in a makeshift infirmary. Scene depicting a bleak windblown field, with wooden crosses dotting trash strewn snowdrifts.)
Moreover, many of the surviving work-camp internees opt to remain in Alaska and settle in the remote North American wilderness, far away from the watchful eye of the Czar's omnipresent secret police.
(Black and white footage of a Marxist organizer as he enthusiastically hammers his fist into the palm of his hand while explaining the tenets of Marxist ideology to a group of Russian - Alaskan fisherman who are drinking in a small smoke filled pub. Most of the men simply ignore the noisy rabble rouser as they nurse their drinks, but a few seem to be listening very intently.)
By the mid-1920s a tiny network of well-established communistic collectives are in existence across Alaska's southern hinterlands. During the long arctic summer days, these collectives are able to produce a variety of cereal crops which are then traded with other collectives, and or traditional Russian speaking villages for livestock, timber, and other items necessary to live in the hardscrabble landscape. An unofficial cashless economy of sorts takes root amongst the Alaskan collectives, but few people living outside of Alaska are aware of its existence.
(Black and white film footage depicting Russian peasants using pitch forks to load hay onto a horse drawn wagon under the midnight Alaskan sun.)
Prior to the 1947 Revolution, most Russians living in Alaska maintain very little contact with their mother-country, and most seem to relish the relative autonomy associated with living roughly eight thousand miles away from the Czar's palace.
(Black and white film footage of carefree Russian peasant celebrating at an outdoor festival filled with music, dancing, and vodka.)
Beginning in early 1948, Moscow begins sending special political officers to Alaska in order to ensure that the locals are following the correct form of Marxist-Trotskyist ideology. However, most of the Russian Marxists living in Alaska follow Marxist-Leninist ideology, and their views regarding Marxist revolution do not coincide precisely with the views now being held by the regime in Moscow.
(Color film footage of rally participants in Moscow's Red Square carrying a large placard emblazoned with an outline of the boundaries of the RSFR, including the outline of Russian Alaska. Others carry smaller placards bearing the image of Leon Trotsky, while still others carry the red and blue banner of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)
The leaders of the Alaskan Leninist movement believe that it is up to them, and them alone, to decide when and where Marxist revolutions should occur, and for the moment they are content to live undisturbed in the Red Alaskan paradise they have created for themselves. On the other hand, the hot-blooded Trotskyists from Moscow believe it is the responsibility of each and every individual worker to promote the spread of global Marxist revolution, and they accuse the Leninists of creating a reactionary feudal society in the isolated Alaskan outback.
(Black and white film footage of a group of people vigorously arguing in a small meeting hall. A man standing behind a podium is banging his shoe on the podium, but no one is paying any attention to him.)
(Black and white film footage of a sad-faced former Leninist political commissar who is enduring the process of being denounced by his former comrades. The former commissar's wears a sign around his neck bearing the words "REACTIONARY" and "OPPRESSOR" has patches of his hair are brutally cut from his scalp. A heavy set woman walks up to the bound commissar and slaps him across the cheeks before spitting in his face.)
The firebrand Trotskyists from across the Bearing Straight quickly gain the upper hand, and soon all of the Alaskan collectives are brought into line with Moscow.
(Color film footage of peasants at a collective in Southern Alaska carrying the portrait of Leon Trotsky and the flag of the RSFR as they carry out a gay parade through the center of their village.)
The Trotskyists decide that the best way to carry the revolution to the people of Canada will be by sending teams of volunteers out into the Canadian states of Yukon and British Columbia to disseminate anti-US propaganda amongst the local population. The Trotskyists are aware that the US fought a simmering war with Canadian nationalists, just a few years earlier, and now the Trotskyists naively hope to capitalize upon that conflict by bringing the Canadian nationalists into their fold.
(Black and white film footage depicting a broad faced woman with a large bundle on her back happily making her way on cross-country skis. The woman smiles and waves happily to the camera before heading across a snow covered frozen lake.)
Unfortunately for the Trotskyists, the predominately traditionalists Christian rural Canadians prove unwelcoming to the idea of overthrowing their own newly established government, and the message of Marxist revolution is not well received by the people of Northwestern Canada. For the most part Canadians tend to view the Red guerrillas marauding across their country’s northern frontier as an amalgamation of atheistic political fanatics, and drunken Slavic bandits, and the Marxist fighters receive little to no support from the local Canadian population.
(A political cartoon from a Canadian newspaper depicts loutish potbellied horsemen dressed in fanciful Hunnic armor ridding across the Alaskan border to ravage a picturesque Canadian town. A silhouette shaped like a soldier holding a bayoneted rifle waits stealthily behind a brick wall at the town's gate. The initials "US" are plainly visible on the soldier's helmet.)
However, the Trotskyists in Alaska are undeterred, and soon a second wave of vanguard revolutionaries is sent out, but this time they are armed with Mosin rifles, explosives, and small artillery pieces.
(Color footage from a Russian propaganda film titled "Snow Storm". Guerrilla fighters on snow skies come to a ridge overlooking a shallow snow covered valley. One of the men points to the other side of the valley and says, "There it is right on time, the Canadian troop train!" The leader of the group places his rifle to his shoulder and uses its telescopic sight to get a closer look at the train as it nears a trestle bridge over a fast moving river. Another member of the group picks up a plunger type detonator from its hiding spot behind some boulders. The group leader advises the man with the plunger "Steady comrade...steady...steady" and then when the train is approximately half way across the bridge he makes a chopping motion with his hand and shouts "Now!". An explosion occurs beneath the tracks and immediately afterwards the steam powered locomotive is diving nose first into the river. A huge secondary explosion occurs when the locomotives boiler is ruptured by an impact with a large boulder in the river. The fighters dance with glee as patriotic music plays in the background.)
The goal of the Alaskan Trotskyists is to weaken the authority of the Canadian Federal government in the Western part of the country, and to either add the Yukon Territory and British Columbia to Russian Alaska, or to turn them into independent Red states aligned with Moscow.
Things finally come to a head when the city of Prince Rupert on the British Columbia coast is attacked and briefly occupied by irregular communist fighters operating from Alaska's southern panhandle.
(Color film footage of the flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic snapping in a stiff breeze as drunken guerrilla fighters dance happily in front of the Prince Rupert fire station. The scene pans around to show a small-town business district which has been destroyed. The street is partially blocked by burned out and wrecked vehicles of various types, utility poles askew, mangled trees with their limbs blown off, pockmarked buildings with broken windows, and a dalmatian hungrily eating something from a metal bucket. Local residents are nowhere to be seen.)
The Red guerrillas withdraw after occupying Prince Rupert for less than a week, but the incident sets of alarm bells in both Ottawa and Washington DC. President Dewey assures Canadian President Meighen that the US will help, but Dewey is reluctant to pull troops out the Confederate occupation zones in order to send them off to fight in Alaska, and instead of relying entirely upon US troops to get the job done, Dewey pressures his North American partners to lend some troops to the fight. A coalition of troops from as far away as Quebec, Mexico, and Cuba shall assist US and Canadian troops in the invasion of Alaska, however, the bulk of the ground fighting will be spearheaded by US troops.
Meanwhile most people in the US consider the armed conflict brewing up in Alaska to be rumblings coming from a far off distant room, and the attitude among many in the US is that if the people of Canada wanted their independence so badly, then let them lie in the bed which they've made for themselves. For the time being most US residents can luxuriate in the booming post-war economy, and it will be sometime before the conflict in Alaska touches the lives of the average person.
(Black and white film footage of unskilled Mexican troops awkwardly climbing down a rope ladder slung over the side of a large transport ship. The inexperienced soldiers struggle with their rifles and knapsacks as they make their way down the side of the ship.)
Combat is swift and brutal as US troops, seasoned in the trenches of the Second Great War unleash the latest weapons which the US military industrial complex has to offer. Unsuspecting units of the Russian Red Army garrisoned in Alaska are caught completely flatfooted and are unable to mount a meaningful resistance to the US led invasion, and key strategic points are quickly overrun by coalition forces.
(Black and white film footage of US troops herding a group of Red Army soldiers with their arms raised into an open air stockade. In another scene a US solider points to a wooden crates full of ammunition hidden under the floor of a house, and then he screams into the face of a man with a droopy mustache. The man with the droopy mustache seems terrified, and doesn't seem to understand. The angry soldier takes out his .45 sidearm and uses the butt of its grip to viciously strike the mustached man squarely in the bridge of his nose. The blow instantly produces a fount of blood. The man with the droopy mustache collapses into a heap on the floor.)
Although US coalition forces quickly overrun Alaska's more densely populated areas, during the next few years they will find themselves drawn into an ever expanding guerrilla war with Red insurgents carrying out hit-and-run tactics throughout the Alaskan countryside.
(Black and white film footage of coalition troops, most likely Québécois, mocking religious icons inside a Russian Orthodox Church. A swarthy looking soldier runs his finger up the front of a Russian priest's chest, causing the priest's beard to flip up and to hit him in the face. Other nearby soldiers laugh.)
Eventually after four-and-a-half years of unresolved tit-for-tat fighting in Alaska, the governments of the US, Canada, Quebec, Mexico, and Cuba meet in 1953 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to form the North American Treaty Organization, or NATO as a means of centralizing and coordinate the struggle against Red Trotskyist aggression. Each member of NATO must agree to commit a certain percentage of its GDP to defense spending, and to also commit a certain portion of its military forces to the NATO alliance, but in exchange for doing so, each member will receive the unconditional support and protection of the US military.
By the mid-1950s officials in Moscow finally begin to comprehend that they have bitten off more than they can chew by starting a war with the Germans in Eastern Europe, and also by engaging in a guerrilla war with the United States in Alaska.
(Color film footage of a Tiger IV advancing through a field of spring flowers towards an unseen enemy somewhere along the Polish - Belarus border. A squad of quick-footed German infantry men equipped with the latest banana-clipped Sturmgewehr 49 assault rifles follow closely behind the heavy barrel as they keep their heads down.)
The harsh realization that fanaticism alone won't be enough to carry the global revolution forward finally drives representatives of the RSFR to sit down with their US and Canadian counterparts in Lisbon to discuss the fate of Alaska. A cease fire, but not a permanent peace settlement is agreed to in Lisbon in July of 1955.
(Color film footage of smiling diplomats exchanging copies of signed documents as mediators from the Portuguese government observe.)
However, the cease fire agreement will be a fragile one, and during the next few decades it will be broken on an average of four or five times in a single year. Also, during this same period of time the US Navy will maintain a strong naval blockade along the Alaskan Coast in order to prevent the smuggling of munitions into the disputed region.
(Late 1950s color film footage of members of the Texas Self-Defense Force smartly exiting a huge Sikorsky twin rotor assault helicopter. The squad sized detachment of men quickly leaps out of the barn-doors of the behemoth craft as the landing skids hover a foot or two above the billowing summer grass. As soon as the last man is off loaded, the mammoth Sikorsky climbs back into the sky and disappears. The men quickly form up into teams of four, assault rifles held at the ready, and head out into the nearby trees on a search and destroy mission. )
For their part, the Red government in Moscow does not officially recognize the foreign occupation of Alaska, and mock Alaskan representatives will be sent to both the Politburo and the Party Congress for some time to come.
Eventually an official 1969 peace agreement is reached during the Nixon administration. This agreement will divide Alaska along the 158th line of longitude, allowing Western Alaska to remain a part of the RSFR, while at the same time turning Eastern Alaska into an official territory of the Federal Republic of Canada.
(Color film footage of a crowded two lane Alaskan highway filled with Russian refugees who do not wish to live in Eastern Alaska and are attempting to flee towards the west. The modern asphalt road is filled with horse drawn wagons, tractors, buses, antique Fords, and even a few families making their way on foot.)
The 69 peace treaty will more or less keep the peace in Alaska until August of 1977 when the RSFR tests a 50 megaton sun-bomb on the island of Amchitka in the Aleutian Chain.
(Color film footage of the broiling thirty-five mile tall mushroom cloud over Amchitka. The cloud is so huge that it is nearly impossible to get a sense of its scale.)
US and Canadian officials are of the opinion that the sun-bomb test on Amchitka violates a clause within the 1969 treaty forbidding super-bombs on Alaskan territory, and within a month after the Amchitka test, US and Canadian troops launch a full scale invasion of Western Alaska in search of more super-bombs.
Although the Russian Red Army in Alaska is again caught off guard, and no super-bombs are found in Western Alaska, the conflict quickly spins out of control, and by September of 1978 US troops will find themselves fighting one of the largest land battles in history, as they struggle to push the Red forces of the People’s Democratic Republic of Japan out of South Japan.
Tune in for next week's episode, the Conflict in Northeast Asia.