Twilight of the Red Tsar
- Thread starter Napoleon IV
- Start date
-
- Tags
- dystopia stalin lives
- Status
A Dragon Reawakened
Bookmark1995
Banned
With Napoleon's permission, I wanted to explore events in China, both political and cultural, as it begins to rebuild.
But the old Generalissimo found out he would not live to truly enjoy the fruits of his reign. Over a decade of his war to retake the Middle Kingdom had taken a severe toll on his health. Chiang frequently suffered severe chest pains in the years of his rule. On September 17, 1970, Chiang suffered the first of three heart attacks while on a diplomatic visit to Washington. He suffered a more severe heart attack on May 7, 1971 which left him incapacitated. Realizing his death was not to far away, his began to prepare for his son, Chiang Ching-Kuo, to take power. Finally, on December 12, 1971, Chiang Kai Shek suffered his final heart attack, and died hours later in his sleep. He was 84.
....
Having died just a few years after unifying China, Chiang was no longer a mere statesmen. In the words of American ambassador to China, Leonard Unger, "Like FDR and Lincoln, Chiang's death in the midst of his greatest triumph had turned him into martyr." To this day, Chinese people refer to Chiang affectionately as Tongyī zhī fù, or "Father of Reunification".
From December 13 to December 20, Chiang laid in state at the entrance of the newly built Yuan Legislature [1], in Tienanmen Square. Millions of Chinese citizens had gathered in the newly rebuilt Beijing, many of them openly weeping the death of China's President on the streets [2]. Over a million people filed past Chiang's body to pay their respects.
Countless foreign dignitaries, including US President William Knowland, Senator Henry Jackson, the Dalai Lama, and Israeli President Zalman Shazar, all arrived to pay their respects.
A 20 minute eulogy was given by Yen Chia-ken, China's acting President who praised Chiang's great accomplishments.
To this end, he implemented very harsh, legalistic measures to crackdown on corrupt officials. So many officials were incarcerated during Chiang's presidency, some nicknamed him "Shang Yang", after the ancient Chinese legalist.
He also sought to attract foreign investment so the country could both modernize and develop a strong domestic arms industry. The latter was also meant to placate the extreme nativism many Chinese held.
Chiang's policies brought about what was called The Dragon Economy: Between 1973 and 1990, the Chinese economy grew by an average of 9 percent per year. GDP per capita quadrupled during that same period.
While he would remain an authoritarian figure throughout his governance of China, Chiang's policies would nevertheless bring about an era of political openness and incredible cultural achievements.
Among Chiang Ching Kuo's most consequential policies had been a desire to resurrect China's cultural scene from the ash heap.
There were several motivations for Chiang's cultural policy. One was that Chiang envied America's worldwide cultural influence, and believed that China could secure its dominance on the world stage through the export of Chinese culture. For similar reasons, he envied Hong Kong's own film industry.
The other was that Chiang wanted to end the worldwide perception of China as merely a battlefield where people died. Shedding that image could bring investment and tourist dollars to the Middle Kingdom.
On June 10, 1972, the Republican Yuan established the Ministry of Culture (later renamed The Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 1981). The Ministry of Culture would be tasked with reconstruction of destroyed cultural sites, obtaining Chinese artifacts from abroad, funding programs that celebrated traditional Chinese art, and promoting tourism to China.
However, it would be the excavation of the Terracotta Army in 1974 that would officially spark China's Cultural Renaissance. The uncovering of these statues breath new air into efforts to uncover China's past and to rebuild Chinese culture and pushed the Beijing government into sponsoring more archaeological and historical programs.
Throughout the 1970s, volunteers from China and elsewhere could be seen rebuilding or renovating old, destroyed pagodas. Young people would often be seen dressing in old, Chinese clothing. Chinese people carried pocket versions of the works of Confucius and Laozi. Millions of people flocked to Buddhist and Taoist temples.
****
The ad campaign to bring foreign tourists to China bore fruit. By 1980, almost 1 million foreign tourists came to China.
I held out my bowl to a man who wore a military uniform. He was tall, thin figure with a thick mustache. He open his mouth with a smile, revealing yellow teeth. I believed his smile to be one of sympathy, until a thick boot came into contact with my forehead. When I regained my senses, the soldiers dangled my bowl over my held.
"Stupid vet seo [4] whore," he screamed at me. His smile was one that resembled a devil. He took the few coins and rice I received, put them into his pocket, and threw the bowl to the ground, where it shattered into many pieces.
***
As I returned home, I saw the scene of a terrible struggle. In the street next to mine, I saw a woman lying on the ground, dead with a bloody wound staining her green ao dai. On her face, was an expression of defeat. Not the sorrow I had witnessed when as I saw my grandmother's body burn. It was the expression of someone who had lost a great battle.
Next to her was woman, lying on her hands and knees, sticking in her head into a rice pot. She made the noises of a starved dog as she ate. Her hand was soaked in blood, and next to her was a knife caked in blood.
As I tried to walked away from this scene, I stepped on a can, which made a loud crunch. The dog-like woman stuck her head of the point. Her mouth was covered with sticky rice. The look she gave me was of a vicious animal, threatening me not to take her food. She bared her death, eyes never leaving me as I backed away.
The office of the President of the Republic has issued a press statement, stating "humanity has lost one of its greatest humanitarians." The Vatican has also issued a statement claiming "one of god's warriors has left the material world. We wish her the best and she goes before the Almighty".
Her 1976 best-selling memoir, A Cup Of Rice, which depicted her childhood as a vet seo refugee in Saigon's massive slum, moved millions of readers around the world, and earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. The 1985 film adaptation, directed by Hong Kong film director Ann Hui [5], would not only win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, but would mark the rebirth of China's film industry.
She was born Wu Lang on January 17, 1948 in a small farming village near the city of Zhaoqing, China. Before she was two years old, Mao Zedong would declare the formation of the People's Republic of China. Her father, Wu Den, was a die hard Mao loyalist. One of her earliest memories was seeing her father execute a landlord by firing squad.
But by July 1956, Sister Agathe's peaceful life was gradually torn apart. With the Sino-Soviet War approaching, her father, an extreme communist, quickly volunteered to resist to Soviets. She never saw her father again, who she assumed had either been killed in battle or starved.
By the winter of 1957, famine and disease had killed half her village, as well as her grandparents and younger sisters. Eventually, she, her mother, and her eldest brother abandoned their village and fled on a fishing boat to Saigon, where they arrived in February. Soon after her arrival, she contracted smallpox, which nearly killed her, and left with her with her distinctive scars.
As a smallpox stricken Chinese refugee living in Saigon, she lived in utterly impoverished conditions. She spent much of her childhood as a beggar for coins and rice. She and her family also faced horrific discrimination at the hands of native Vietnamese. Her brother was among the thousands who were killed during the July 29th riot.
A turning point came in her life in 1963 when she met Albert Belleville, a French Jesuit priest a man she described as "noble but strict". After inviting her over for a meal, Belleville offered her French language lessons. Albert Belleville became her father figure, and influenced her religious turn. By 1964, she was able to speak and write fluently in French. In 1966, she entered the Archdiocese of Saigon, and on March 19, 1968, she took her religious vows, and took the name Agathe, after St. Agathe, the patron saint of nurses.
She spent much of her life traveling to parishes in China, Belgium, and France, before settling down in the diocese of Loudeac, a small commune in Brittany, in 1972. Having poor memories of city life in Saigon, she came to prefer simple, rural life and lived a strongly ascetic lifestyle.
By 1975, she became a staunch advocate for the rights of Overseas Chinese in France and elsewhere. Her desire to "speak for the broken souls" in her words led her to write her semi-autobiographical tale, A Cup of Rice.
Her book, suspenseful, painful, and moving, became an instant best-seller when it was published in 1976. It earned instant worldwide acclaim.
It became popular across Mainland China and in the large Overseas Chinese community which proved to be a very popular market. It also gained widespread acclaim in the United States for its depiction of the horrors of Communist China, and especially in the growing Sino-American community.
As of 1990, it sold nearly 35 million copies worldwide, and has been published in 29 different languages. Sister Agathe was at one point labeled "the Chinese Vasily Grossman," for her ability to give a human outlook of a horrific tragedy
Almost all the royalties she earned for her book were donated to Catholic charities, whom she served faithfully throughout her life. Using her celebrity, she promoted tolerance, interfaith unity, and Russian-Chinese reconciliation. In a visit to Moscow in 1987, she publicly met Russian veterans of the Sino-Soviet War at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, hearing their confessions.
In recent years, the complications of smallpox took an enormous toll on her respiratory system, which doctors have stated was only aggravated by her ascetic lifestyle.
In 1986 and 1988, Sister Agathe was hospitalized with pneumonia. Her second hospitalization led to her semi-retirement and the end of her world trabels. Last week, during an Easter vigil in Loudeac, Sister Agathe collapsed into a coma and was transferred to a hospital where she died.
[1] Yuan is the name of Taiwan's Legislature.
[2] A similar thing happened after Mao died OTL, but I imagine that ITTL, the tears are more genuine.
[3] OTL, this was the beginning of Chiang's last term as President.
[4] "Vet seo" means "scarred" in Vietnamese. I imagine it being a slur used against Chinese who were infected with small pox, or simply used to generalize all Chinese by the Vietnamese.
[5] Ann Hui OTL won acclaim for making a movie about Vietnamese refugees. ITTL, the topic of Chinese refugees would suffice.
[6] Similar criticisms were leveled against Mother Teresa and how she operated her homes for the dying.
A Dragon Reawakened
Excerpt From 1912 And Beyond: A History of Modern China by David Wong Lee
By 1970, Chiang Kai Shek's power over Mainland China was more secure than it had ever been. With the death of the hated PROC, the downfall of the Yellow Banners, he had crushed all opposition to the Kuomintang and himself, and earned respect among the armed forces. His military victories and the economic boom brought about by American aid made him as universally loved by the Chinese people as Mao Zedong had once been, the corruption of his pre-1949 regime now rendered a distant memory by a decade of turmoil.Excerpt From 1912 And Beyond: A History of Modern China by David Wong Lee
But the old Generalissimo found out he would not live to truly enjoy the fruits of his reign. Over a decade of his war to retake the Middle Kingdom had taken a severe toll on his health. Chiang frequently suffered severe chest pains in the years of his rule. On September 17, 1970, Chiang suffered the first of three heart attacks while on a diplomatic visit to Washington. He suffered a more severe heart attack on May 7, 1971 which left him incapacitated. Realizing his death was not to far away, his began to prepare for his son, Chiang Ching-Kuo, to take power. Finally, on December 12, 1971, Chiang Kai Shek suffered his final heart attack, and died hours later in his sleep. He was 84.
....
Having died just a few years after unifying China, Chiang was no longer a mere statesmen. In the words of American ambassador to China, Leonard Unger, "Like FDR and Lincoln, Chiang's death in the midst of his greatest triumph had turned him into martyr." To this day, Chinese people refer to Chiang affectionately as Tongyī zhī fù, or "Father of Reunification".
From December 13 to December 20, Chiang laid in state at the entrance of the newly built Yuan Legislature [1], in Tienanmen Square. Millions of Chinese citizens had gathered in the newly rebuilt Beijing, many of them openly weeping the death of China's President on the streets [2]. Over a million people filed past Chiang's body to pay their respects.
Countless foreign dignitaries, including US President William Knowland, Senator Henry Jackson, the Dalai Lama, and Israeli President Zalman Shazar, all arrived to pay their respects.
A 20 minute eulogy was given by Yen Chia-ken, China's acting President who praised Chiang's great accomplishments.
Excerpt from Tale of a Statesman: Chiang-Ching Kuo by Arthur Mai
On May 20, 1972 [3], a new era in China had begun with the ascension of Chiang-Ching Kuo to his father's office. Inheriting office in a period of economic expansion and reconstruction, Chiang wanted to ensure the longevity of the Republic of China. To do so, Chiang wanted to reduce the corruption and oppression that had plagued his father's own governance.To this end, he implemented very harsh, legalistic measures to crackdown on corrupt officials. So many officials were incarcerated during Chiang's presidency, some nicknamed him "Shang Yang", after the ancient Chinese legalist.
He also sought to attract foreign investment so the country could both modernize and develop a strong domestic arms industry. The latter was also meant to placate the extreme nativism many Chinese held.
Chiang's policies brought about what was called The Dragon Economy: Between 1973 and 1990, the Chinese economy grew by an average of 9 percent per year. GDP per capita quadrupled during that same period.
While he would remain an authoritarian figure throughout his governance of China, Chiang's policies would nevertheless bring about an era of political openness and incredible cultural achievements.
Excerpt from The Chinese Renaissance by Wu Yun Tang
By 1969, Chinese cultural expression had reached an incredible low. Two decades of war and Red China's anti-historical policies had left much of China's historic sites in utter ruin. Temples were destroyed, ancient sites burned, many artifacts shattered or stolen (often by Soviet soldiers).
Among Chiang Ching Kuo's most consequential policies had been a desire to resurrect China's cultural scene from the ash heap.
There were several motivations for Chiang's cultural policy. One was that Chiang envied America's worldwide cultural influence, and believed that China could secure its dominance on the world stage through the export of Chinese culture. For similar reasons, he envied Hong Kong's own film industry.
The other was that Chiang wanted to end the worldwide perception of China as merely a battlefield where people died. Shedding that image could bring investment and tourist dollars to the Middle Kingdom.
On June 10, 1972, the Republican Yuan established the Ministry of Culture (later renamed The Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 1981). The Ministry of Culture would be tasked with reconstruction of destroyed cultural sites, obtaining Chinese artifacts from abroad, funding programs that celebrated traditional Chinese art, and promoting tourism to China.
However, it would be the excavation of the Terracotta Army in 1974 that would officially spark China's Cultural Renaissance. The uncovering of these statues breath new air into efforts to uncover China's past and to rebuild Chinese culture and pushed the Beijing government into sponsoring more archaeological and historical programs.
Throughout the 1970s, volunteers from China and elsewhere could be seen rebuilding or renovating old, destroyed pagodas. Young people would often be seen dressing in old, Chinese clothing. Chinese people carried pocket versions of the works of Confucius and Laozi. Millions of people flocked to Buddhist and Taoist temples.
****
The ad campaign to bring foreign tourists to China bore fruit. By 1980, almost 1 million foreign tourists came to China.
Excerpt From A Cup of Rice by Sister Agathe
I held out my bowl to a man who wore a military uniform. He was tall, thin figure with a thick mustache. He open his mouth with a smile, revealing yellow teeth. I believed his smile to be one of sympathy, until a thick boot came into contact with my forehead. When I regained my senses, the soldiers dangled my bowl over my held.
"Stupid vet seo [4] whore," he screamed at me. His smile was one that resembled a devil. He took the few coins and rice I received, put them into his pocket, and threw the bowl to the ground, where it shattered into many pieces.
***
As I returned home, I saw the scene of a terrible struggle. In the street next to mine, I saw a woman lying on the ground, dead with a bloody wound staining her green ao dai. On her face, was an expression of defeat. Not the sorrow I had witnessed when as I saw my grandmother's body burn. It was the expression of someone who had lost a great battle.
Next to her was woman, lying on her hands and knees, sticking in her head into a rice pot. She made the noises of a starved dog as she ate. Her hand was soaked in blood, and next to her was a knife caked in blood.
As I tried to walked away from this scene, I stepped on a can, which made a loud crunch. The dog-like woman stuck her head of the point. Her mouth was covered with sticky rice. The look she gave me was of a vicious animal, threatening me not to take her food. She bared her death, eyes never leaving me as I backed away.
Sister Agathe, Author of A Cup of Rice, Dead at 42-Published April 24, 1990 in Le Monde
Sister Agathe, author, refugee, human rights advocate, Roman Catholic nun, and Nobel Laureate, died yesterday in Loudeac, Brittany. She was 42.The office of the President of the Republic has issued a press statement, stating "humanity has lost one of its greatest humanitarians." The Vatican has also issued a statement claiming "one of god's warriors has left the material world. We wish her the best and she goes before the Almighty".
Her 1976 best-selling memoir, A Cup Of Rice, which depicted her childhood as a vet seo refugee in Saigon's massive slum, moved millions of readers around the world, and earned her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. The 1985 film adaptation, directed by Hong Kong film director Ann Hui [5], would not only win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, but would mark the rebirth of China's film industry.
She was born Wu Lang on January 17, 1948 in a small farming village near the city of Zhaoqing, China. Before she was two years old, Mao Zedong would declare the formation of the People's Republic of China. Her father, Wu Den, was a die hard Mao loyalist. One of her earliest memories was seeing her father execute a landlord by firing squad.
But by July 1956, Sister Agathe's peaceful life was gradually torn apart. With the Sino-Soviet War approaching, her father, an extreme communist, quickly volunteered to resist to Soviets. She never saw her father again, who she assumed had either been killed in battle or starved.
By the winter of 1957, famine and disease had killed half her village, as well as her grandparents and younger sisters. Eventually, she, her mother, and her eldest brother abandoned their village and fled on a fishing boat to Saigon, where they arrived in February. Soon after her arrival, she contracted smallpox, which nearly killed her, and left with her with her distinctive scars.
As a smallpox stricken Chinese refugee living in Saigon, she lived in utterly impoverished conditions. She spent much of her childhood as a beggar for coins and rice. She and her family also faced horrific discrimination at the hands of native Vietnamese. Her brother was among the thousands who were killed during the July 29th riot.
A turning point came in her life in 1963 when she met Albert Belleville, a French Jesuit priest a man she described as "noble but strict". After inviting her over for a meal, Belleville offered her French language lessons. Albert Belleville became her father figure, and influenced her religious turn. By 1964, she was able to speak and write fluently in French. In 1966, she entered the Archdiocese of Saigon, and on March 19, 1968, she took her religious vows, and took the name Agathe, after St. Agathe, the patron saint of nurses.
She spent much of her life traveling to parishes in China, Belgium, and France, before settling down in the diocese of Loudeac, a small commune in Brittany, in 1972. Having poor memories of city life in Saigon, she came to prefer simple, rural life and lived a strongly ascetic lifestyle.
By 1975, she became a staunch advocate for the rights of Overseas Chinese in France and elsewhere. Her desire to "speak for the broken souls" in her words led her to write her semi-autobiographical tale, A Cup of Rice.
Her book, suspenseful, painful, and moving, became an instant best-seller when it was published in 1976. It earned instant worldwide acclaim.
It became popular across Mainland China and in the large Overseas Chinese community which proved to be a very popular market. It also gained widespread acclaim in the United States for its depiction of the horrors of Communist China, and especially in the growing Sino-American community.
As of 1990, it sold nearly 35 million copies worldwide, and has been published in 29 different languages. Sister Agathe was at one point labeled "the Chinese Vasily Grossman," for her ability to give a human outlook of a horrific tragedy
Almost all the royalties she earned for her book were donated to Catholic charities, whom she served faithfully throughout her life. Using her celebrity, she promoted tolerance, interfaith unity, and Russian-Chinese reconciliation. In a visit to Moscow in 1987, she publicly met Russian veterans of the Sino-Soviet War at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, hearing their confessions.
[Picture of Sister Agathe consoling a sorrowful Soviet veteran]
She, however, also faced criticism in her life for her die-hard stance against abortion, her rumored donations from organized crime. Some of the hospices she ran were criticized for withholding medicine from the poor. [6]
In recent years, the complications of smallpox took an enormous toll on her respiratory system, which doctors have stated was only aggravated by her ascetic lifestyle.
In 1986 and 1988, Sister Agathe was hospitalized with pneumonia. Her second hospitalization led to her semi-retirement and the end of her world trabels. Last week, during an Easter vigil in Loudeac, Sister Agathe collapsed into a coma and was transferred to a hospital where she died.
[1] Yuan is the name of Taiwan's Legislature.
[2] A similar thing happened after Mao died OTL, but I imagine that ITTL, the tears are more genuine.
[3] OTL, this was the beginning of Chiang's last term as President.
[4] "Vet seo" means "scarred" in Vietnamese. I imagine it being a slur used against Chinese who were infected with small pox, or simply used to generalize all Chinese by the Vietnamese.
[5] Ann Hui OTL won acclaim for making a movie about Vietnamese refugees. ITTL, the topic of Chinese refugees would suffice.
[6] Similar criticisms were leveled against Mother Teresa and how she operated her homes for the dying.
Last edited:
I was just thinking this because of a question in another thread:
One of the interesting butterflies here is how African-Americans vote. For reference this table is how they vote IOTL:
Obviously ITTL the upward swing that was seen in 1956 would continue, and by 1964 the black vote swing Republican by a very small margin (as in like 1-2%). After the Civil Rights Act is passed in 1966 African-Americans would swing decisively towards the Republicans. However the Democrats wouldn't do as badly here as the Republicans do IOTL because the party's liberal wing would balance against the Southern Democrats (who don't move Republican). So the Democrats would get something like 30-35% of the vote on average, with 40% being their ceiling.
One of the interesting butterflies here is how African-Americans vote. For reference this table is how they vote IOTL:
Obviously ITTL the upward swing that was seen in 1956 would continue, and by 1964 the black vote swing Republican by a very small margin (as in like 1-2%). After the Civil Rights Act is passed in 1966 African-Americans would swing decisively towards the Republicans. However the Democrats wouldn't do as badly here as the Republicans do IOTL because the party's liberal wing would balance against the Southern Democrats (who don't move Republican). So the Democrats would get something like 30-35% of the vote on average, with 40% being their ceiling.
Bookmark1995
Banned
@Bookmark1995 : First you took over Rumsfeldia, now you take over this one.
Nah. I consider this practice, as I do research for, and prepare to write my own TL.
I get the feeling that she will get canonized at some point in the future for being the patron saint of refugees and or racial equality.
QueerSpear
Banned
Great update. It truly shows that this TL, while nasty, is not GrimDark.
I think you meant to say PROC.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Still doing a lot of research for that to get it right.
Well, yes. She would be one of those people who it is impossible to hate (except for those who dislike her religious values). She has written a moving book, which got made into a wonderful movie, she promoted forgiveness of the nation that caused her so much disease and misery, and her life was tragically short.
Thank you. I think after so many years of misery, the Chinese people have earned political and cultural liberalization.
Last edited:
So it's a test run eh. What is the basic POD of this planned TL of yours anyway?
QueerSpear
Banned
With Napoelon IV's blessing I am continuing my post on the welfare state.
Excerpts from Farewell, Social Democracy article at The Economist[1] published in 1974
The appeal of the social democratic model has always been alluring. In recent years people who are eager to both defend their creaking social model and to avoid the alleged ruthlessness of free markets. It is widely thought that the welfare state could magically combine high taxes and a series of lavish entitlement programs with fast growth and low unemployment. Yet the belief in social democracy will crumble further in 1977.
The most telling recent evidence for this was the Swedish election in September 1973. The ruling Social Democrats, who had been power uninterrupted for the last 41 years, took a dubring, scoring their worst in decades.
Swedish voters were particularly worried about jobs and energy prices[2]. Despite good growth in the last decades, a failure to liberalise the labour market, strong trade unions and a lack of competition in services have combined to stunt job creation in Sweden. The lack of jobs has also made the effects of the oil shock more pronounced.
Now a new centre-right coalition government led by Thorbjörn Fälldin's Centre Party and Gösta Bohman's Moderate Party is likely to bring much needed liberalisation and deregulation. Mindiful of Swedes' underlying fondness for their welfare state, the new government's tax and benefit cuts will be modest. who is only 47, will be a man to watch on the European political stage.
The truth about economics is that, to bring about greater prosperity for all, it has done so chiefly by embracing liberalisation and freer markets. Where these have been rejected, particularly within the public services, the result has been slow productivity growth. And although the Swedish public sector frequently offers greater consumer choice, more competition and less corruption than elsewhere in Europe, the high taxes needed to pay for it remain a heavy burden.
Europe in 1974 will learn, not for the first time, that there is no magic formula that will make it possible to keep the famous European welfare state intact while retaining the continent's historical economic dynamism. In short, there really is no alternative to the though business of economics.[3]
It is no surpise that, in wake of the Cold War's ending, that the Black American community would be left behind by the United States government. While legally guaranteeing "equality" before the law, the government of the United States never sought to remedy the severe poverty amongst its largest minority that was the result of slavery and white supremacy.
From 1974 to 1980, the immediate years following the abolition of the quite frankly modest welfare state, poverty would increase from 20% to 32%[5] nationwide. The effects would be even more pronounced amongst the Black American community which would see povery increase from 55% to 70% during that same timespan.[6]
Experiments with common ownership are thriving across the country. The secret to national success is to link and scale them up.
At the core of the traditional socialist argument has always been that democratic ownership of the means of productions is necessary to achieve human liberation. The traditional position, both amongst the Social Democrats and the Red Capitalists, is that this can only be achieved by state control- that is the nationalization of manufacturing industries, banking services and the energy and comunication companies. This model is beyond the pale for socialists, which over all seek to minimize if not abolish the state.
Not only has Red Capitalism failed utterly in the form of the Council Union of "Socialist" Republics[8] but the social democratic program of progressive taxation, financial regulation and income-support programs also proved to be unable of living up to the misguided ideal of reforming away capitalism's excesses.
At the same time, new resources have become avaliable to support the construction of an alternative system that is highly democratic and accountable in structure. In recent years, there has been a steady buildup of interest in new forms of democratized ownership. Worker-owned cooperatives, neighboorhood land trusts, and credit unions all democratize ownership in one way or another, but they do so in a decentralized rather than statist fashion.
The general argument for democratic ownership has been much broader than simply capturing profits for social use. For one thing, unlike private corporations, democratic enterprises are not require to grow to meet capitalism's demand for ever-increasing profits- a critical consideration in any serious effort to move beyond our current growth at all costs system. Democratic forms of enterprise are also made far more transparent than private firms, and its management is more acountable than the autocraticaly run corporate fiefdoms.
A major problem involves the inevitable institutional power that comes from large-scale industry, which would always be opposed to democratic ownership. During the 1960s the historian William Appleman Williams suggested that one way for socialists to deal with this challenge was to focus on regional rather than the national system.
One such example is Cooperation Black, a worker cooperative in Jackson, Missisipi, one of the most reactionary states in the country, with a legislature that is actively hostile to Black Americans. Black Americans have been hard hit with the end of the welfare state particularly- while the poverty rate of the white population is 22%, 44% of Black Mississippi residents are poor.
Indeed, Misssissippi has the distinction of having the highest poverty rate in the country, with a median income of just under $10,000 a year.[9] And the situation is even more dire for the states' Black population, whom are so impoverished they compose the majority of sweatshop workers acording to recent studies.
Cooperation Black was created in 1977 as a workers' cooperative that is striving to be a one-stop-shop for Black activism. The co-op is still small: a farm, a couple dozen plots of land, a little over 100 dues-paying members, and a community center. But it's aiming to be much more- the organization does not only seek to help the residents of Jackson, Mississippi, but to give them an entirely new, supportive economy in which to operate.
The idea is essentially this: since capitalism is not working, and the current political system will not be doing much to help, why not create a new economic and political system right alongside the old one?
[1] This is a real life article published in 2007 adapted for the timeline- I recomend for you to read it here to laugh at the writer's clear lack of economic insight (pun intended)
[2] the real life article talks about immigration, but in the 1970s immigration would not be high enough to matter. Instead the oil shocks and energy crises mentioned earlier in another post shake up the Swedish economy
[3] the last paragraph is a near word by word copy of the real one, because you just can't imitate that kind of unearned self-righteouness and ideological purity
[4] Angela Davis would probably be a syndicalist rather than a Marxist Lennist, and yes that's a real book though the excerpt is not real obviously
[5] OTL the Great Society is a good example of the effect of welfare on poverty, where the nationwide povery dropped from 20% in 1963 to approximately 12% in 1968 (graph here). Obviously TTL the Great Society (and JFK's New Frontier doesn't exist either) but I would assume Richard Nixon would implement some limited programs of his own. The information of the effect of the War on Povery comes from this article.
[6] This a complete reverse of OTL where the number of African-Americans in poverty would shrink from 55% in 1960 to 27% in 1968- a 28 point drop in millions in poverty.
[7] This is composite article based on two different real life articles, both from The Nation. I think its contents would fit the 1980s enviroment TTL.
[8] this is a blind idiot translation of the USSR name- it shows how far from grace the Soviets have fallen that people seek to translate its name in a mocking literal manner
[9] an approximate calculation based on present day median income in Mississippi plus the inflation rate.
Excerpts from Farewell, Social Democracy article at The Economist[1] published in 1974
The appeal of the social democratic model has always been alluring. In recent years people who are eager to both defend their creaking social model and to avoid the alleged ruthlessness of free markets. It is widely thought that the welfare state could magically combine high taxes and a series of lavish entitlement programs with fast growth and low unemployment. Yet the belief in social democracy will crumble further in 1977.
The most telling recent evidence for this was the Swedish election in September 1973. The ruling Social Democrats, who had been power uninterrupted for the last 41 years, took a dubring, scoring their worst in decades.
Swedish voters were particularly worried about jobs and energy prices[2]. Despite good growth in the last decades, a failure to liberalise the labour market, strong trade unions and a lack of competition in services have combined to stunt job creation in Sweden. The lack of jobs has also made the effects of the oil shock more pronounced.
Now a new centre-right coalition government led by Thorbjörn Fälldin's Centre Party and Gösta Bohman's Moderate Party is likely to bring much needed liberalisation and deregulation. Mindiful of Swedes' underlying fondness for their welfare state, the new government's tax and benefit cuts will be modest. who is only 47, will be a man to watch on the European political stage.
The truth about economics is that, to bring about greater prosperity for all, it has done so chiefly by embracing liberalisation and freer markets. Where these have been rejected, particularly within the public services, the result has been slow productivity growth. And although the Swedish public sector frequently offers greater consumer choice, more competition and less corruption than elsewhere in Europe, the high taxes needed to pay for it remain a heavy burden.
Europe in 1974 will learn, not for the first time, that there is no magic formula that will make it possible to keep the famous European welfare state intact while retaining the continent's historical economic dynamism. In short, there really is no alternative to the though business of economics.[3]
Excerpt from Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis[4] published in 1983
It is no surpise that, in wake of the Cold War's ending, that the Black American community would be left behind by the United States government. While legally guaranteeing "equality" before the law, the government of the United States never sought to remedy the severe poverty amongst its largest minority that was the result of slavery and white supremacy.
From 1974 to 1980, the immediate years following the abolition of the quite frankly modest welfare state, poverty would increase from 20% to 32%[5] nationwide. The effects would be even more pronounced amongst the Black American community which would see povery increase from 55% to 70% during that same timespan.[6]
Excerpt from the 1980 Socialism In America Is Here[7] article from the syndicalist Liberation! newspaper
Experiments with common ownership are thriving across the country. The secret to national success is to link and scale them up.
At the core of the traditional socialist argument has always been that democratic ownership of the means of productions is necessary to achieve human liberation. The traditional position, both amongst the Social Democrats and the Red Capitalists, is that this can only be achieved by state control- that is the nationalization of manufacturing industries, banking services and the energy and comunication companies. This model is beyond the pale for socialists, which over all seek to minimize if not abolish the state.
Not only has Red Capitalism failed utterly in the form of the Council Union of "Socialist" Republics[8] but the social democratic program of progressive taxation, financial regulation and income-support programs also proved to be unable of living up to the misguided ideal of reforming away capitalism's excesses.
At the same time, new resources have become avaliable to support the construction of an alternative system that is highly democratic and accountable in structure. In recent years, there has been a steady buildup of interest in new forms of democratized ownership. Worker-owned cooperatives, neighboorhood land trusts, and credit unions all democratize ownership in one way or another, but they do so in a decentralized rather than statist fashion.
The general argument for democratic ownership has been much broader than simply capturing profits for social use. For one thing, unlike private corporations, democratic enterprises are not require to grow to meet capitalism's demand for ever-increasing profits- a critical consideration in any serious effort to move beyond our current growth at all costs system. Democratic forms of enterprise are also made far more transparent than private firms, and its management is more acountable than the autocraticaly run corporate fiefdoms.
A major problem involves the inevitable institutional power that comes from large-scale industry, which would always be opposed to democratic ownership. During the 1960s the historian William Appleman Williams suggested that one way for socialists to deal with this challenge was to focus on regional rather than the national system.
One such example is Cooperation Black, a worker cooperative in Jackson, Missisipi, one of the most reactionary states in the country, with a legislature that is actively hostile to Black Americans. Black Americans have been hard hit with the end of the welfare state particularly- while the poverty rate of the white population is 22%, 44% of Black Mississippi residents are poor.
Indeed, Misssissippi has the distinction of having the highest poverty rate in the country, with a median income of just under $10,000 a year.[9] And the situation is even more dire for the states' Black population, whom are so impoverished they compose the majority of sweatshop workers acording to recent studies.
Cooperation Black was created in 1977 as a workers' cooperative that is striving to be a one-stop-shop for Black activism. The co-op is still small: a farm, a couple dozen plots of land, a little over 100 dues-paying members, and a community center. But it's aiming to be much more- the organization does not only seek to help the residents of Jackson, Mississippi, but to give them an entirely new, supportive economy in which to operate.
The idea is essentially this: since capitalism is not working, and the current political system will not be doing much to help, why not create a new economic and political system right alongside the old one?
[1] This is a real life article published in 2007 adapted for the timeline- I recomend for you to read it here to laugh at the writer's clear lack of economic insight (pun intended)
[2] the real life article talks about immigration, but in the 1970s immigration would not be high enough to matter. Instead the oil shocks and energy crises mentioned earlier in another post shake up the Swedish economy
[3] the last paragraph is a near word by word copy of the real one, because you just can't imitate that kind of unearned self-righteouness and ideological purity
[4] Angela Davis would probably be a syndicalist rather than a Marxist Lennist, and yes that's a real book though the excerpt is not real obviously
[5] OTL the Great Society is a good example of the effect of welfare on poverty, where the nationwide povery dropped from 20% in 1963 to approximately 12% in 1968 (graph here). Obviously TTL the Great Society (and JFK's New Frontier doesn't exist either) but I would assume Richard Nixon would implement some limited programs of his own. The information of the effect of the War on Povery comes from this article.
[6] This a complete reverse of OTL where the number of African-Americans in poverty would shrink from 55% in 1960 to 27% in 1968- a 28 point drop in millions in poverty.
[7] This is composite article based on two different real life articles, both from The Nation. I think its contents would fit the 1980s enviroment TTL.
[8] this is a blind idiot translation of the USSR name- it shows how far from grace the Soviets have fallen that people seek to translate its name in a mocking literal manner
[9] an approximate calculation based on present day median income in Mississippi plus the inflation rate.
Last edited:
Bookmark1995
Banned
Jesus, 1 in 3 Americans living in poverty! And more than two thirds African Americans living in poverty!
I'm surprised such a social revolution didn't happen sooner if poverty is grown that quickly.
Is the Jackson cooperative part of much larger movement of private, regional syndicalism?
And this is why I love reading "The Economist".
Democratization of businesses is definitely something that can be achieved with the designated results.
My God, America is going to end up a grudge match between the Christian Democrats and the Tories.
Bookmark1995
Banned
That could have tremendous ripples across the Republican Party, since ITTL they are the people who get the black vote.
How will the libertarian-leaning Republicans respond to such violence?
- Status