Socialist People's Republic of Greater Scandinavia
Socialistiske Folkerepublik Stor Skandinavien
Socialistiska Folkrepubliken Stor Skandinavien
Sosialistiske Folkerepublikk Stor Skandinavia
Sósíalisti Alþýðulýðveldisins Mikill Skandinavia
"The Fall of Capitalism was a phenomenon that is officially marked with the Dissolution of the United States in the early 1990s, but most historians and political analysts would argue that it began with the Indochinese War. Starting as the Vietnam War, it was initially a conflict between the capitalist Republic of Vietnam in the South against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North. The United States under the control of the aggressive President McCarthy intervened with the use of military advisers, lend-lease programs, and so-called "patriotic volunteer units," also known as "PVUs", "Blackhats", and their more infamous nickname, "Black Eagles." Initially, the war saw limited televising in America, but after the brutal massacre of several Viet Cong was televised, despite soaring morale amongst the populace, parental protesting allowed for a total media blackout of the war, and soon enough all the information coming out was government propaganda. The war crawled to a stalemate, but to the American people and to America's allies, it was a near victory. So near, in fact, that people cheered when American intervention expanded into Laos and Cambodia, another easy victory against the Red Menace..."
"...The expansion of the Vietnam War into the Indochinese War proved to be a strain on resources of the United States as the Soviet Union began employing the same tactics as the United States, televising their efforts across the Warsaw Pact. In doing so, it became the greatest tool for communism in decades..."
"General Secretary Georgy Zhukov had come in during a period of great unrest following the assassination of Nikita Khrushchev, who was meant to be the next leader of the USSR. Zhukov took over as the leader of Khrushchev's "Anti-Party Coup," seeing it as an obligation to his country to help keep it safe from "imperialist anti-socialist" enemies within. With the purging of the "anti-party," Zhukov became General Secretary, later Chairman of both the Central Committee and the reformed Council of People's Commissars. In a sense this mirrored President McCarthy's rise to power, who used a variety of tapes and witnesses to identify numerous communists in the American government, although many claim the evidence was falsified. Filling their place would be men equally as radically counterrevolutionary as he was, and that catapulted him into a position of power."
"Understanding these parallels, Chairman Zhukov decided that, with McCarthy at the helm of the United States, he needed to match the American's aggressiveness in a policy famously known as the "Checking Doctrine" from a chess analogy made in a British political cartoon. In Indochina, it meant escalating the war. Volunteers, lend-lease, and advisers, he met McCarthy blow for blow. Ultimately, the war was a Soviet-victory in the region, as the Americans over-extended their forces, but it was also a victory abroad as America and its forces became seen as violent aggressors, Soviets as brave defenders, and communism as an ideology of the down-trodden. The Warsaw Pact was revitalized, popularity of the regimes flourishing. More local and popular communists were put into places of power, transforming a previously enforced ideology into a homegrown movement."
"...With the suppression of a communist protest in West Berlin by NATO troops, primarily American, the Red Revolutions began across Europe. The tightening of capitalist markets was the cause, both against communist regimes, and even each other as nationalist tensions flared. It had begun a decline in their economies while the liberalized economies of the former Warsaw Pact, now reformed as the Fifth Communist International, had begun to flourish, stirring unrest. With the House Un-American Activities Committee and other similar groups in the West biting down on any "seditionist beatniks", many young intellectuals and inventors went to communist nations, who welcomed them and paid for their ideas, resulting in the "Red Renaissance". As East Berlin and East Germany suddenly became a cultural hub, West Germans began fighting for reunification, especially socialists. Their protesting turned mildly violent, with only minor looting, but the US took this opportunity to crush the group with excessive force..."
"The German Red Revolution spurred on Revolutions across Europe, particularly in France, Spain, and Italy. Fear of communism spread even more rapidly, and governments began trying to clamp down. In Scandinavia, power was being taken by an unusual source; the monarchies. A league of staunch anti-communists, the Kings of Scandinavia began to use their royal powers to a greater extent as socialist parties began to sweep into legislatures. As anyone can expect, propaganda for the communists was easy, but the monarchs viewed their actions as just. In Sweden, martial law was declared during rioting; in Denmark, a purge was done of communists in government; in Norway assassinations were common place. Soon it all came to a head. The Norse War was the final proxy conflict of the Cold War, with the Soviets funding and training insurgents and the American backing the governments, eventually deploying their own troops..."
"With the death of the Danish and Swedish royal families, the loss of morale brought the Norse War to a close. Soon enough, the Socialist People's Republic of Greater Scandinavia was declared in Stockholm, and as time passed more and more nations would recognize their sovereignty. Eventually the People's Republic of Iceland would join, but Finland, while offered, chose its own independence."
- Pax Sovietica: Rise of the Soviet Century, 2009 Cascadian documentary
"The flag of the SPR of Greater Scandinavia was initially a defaced royal standard of Denmark. The blue was added for Sweden, and the red, blue, and white represented colors found on all the capitalist flags of the Nordic countries. The central symbol of the flag is the Workers' Triquetra, first used by the Scottish Socialist Republic, then the People's Republic of Iceland, and then the Irish Socialist Republic. Soon enough it was the symbol of socialism in Northern West Europe, while the South clung to the common crossed hammers and three-pointed star. The wreath was taken from the German Democratic Republic, considered the first communist state beyond the "American Curtain." Some have protested the cross found on the flag, and that the flag is so reminiscent of the old royal standard, but the majority find it serves as both a common symbol of Scandinavia and as reminder of the past, and what was fought for and against."
- The Little Book of Flags, 4th Ed., 2015
People's Republic of Egypt
الجمهورية مصر الشعبية
In TTL, Gorbachev successfully managed to reform the Soviet Union and prevented the collapse of Communism as both ideology and economic system. For a decade, the Eastern Bloc economies still lagged behind the West, but that began to change with the introduction of fast-developing computer science to the picture in 1990-s.
The Gorbachev's reforms had made it possible for the Soviet economists to argue about the flaws of centrally planned economy, without the fear of appearing ideologically compromised. Once the Politburo understood that Gorbachev had only bought a short respite with his reforms and that an utter collapse was still a frightening possibility, action was immediately taken.
The reforms of planned economy with the introduction of computer science were introduced as the program with highest possible priority, much as the space program had been fifty years ago. Vast sums were poured into the development of best analytical and predicative models that Soviet mathematics and computing could produce. And at the end, the efforts began to bear fruit.
By the early 2000-s, the Eastern Bloc economies were booming, united into an ever closer, ever better planning and distribution model led by the Soviet Union. And when the Western economies experienced a largest-ever market crash, much like the financial crisis of 2007-2008 in OTL, shockwaves spread through the world.
Suddenly and unexpectedly for all policymakers, the Arab world, long discontent under old dictatorships and monarchies rose up in revolt. Egypt was one of the forerunners of open protests and its demonstrations against President Mubarak grew into the largest popular revolt the Arab world had ever seen. And the ideology driving those protesters wasn't Western liberalism or Islamism, but reformed communism that had been the main bearer of progress for that decade.
Once the army joined the uprising, the old system was doomed. The government of Egypt fell overnight and was built from the ground up by the Citizens' Committees, organized in the fashion of the Soviet Communist Party. The new People's Republic of Egypt soon adopted a new constitution, a new economic system and of course, a new flag.
The flag of People's Republic still features the green and white colors of Islam, which also harkens back to the flag of old Kingdom of Egypt, now seen in a nostalgic way in comparison with the hated regime of the Republic. In the middle stand the black shapes of the Great Pyramids with a yellow-fimbriated Red Star of revolution shining above them, symbolizing both the glorious past and glorious future of Egypt. The white stripes in front and behind the pyramids stand for the Nile Delta, the eternal mother of Egypt.
Central American Communist Union
Unión Comunista Centroamericana
In this ATL, All of Central America is a loose federation of socialist states. Think of it as a soviet twist on the former Central American Federal Republic. Due to the US spending so much time and effort spreading capitalism to other countries during the cold war and ignoring their southern neighbors, multiple rebellions spread across that part of the continent, resulting in said countries collapsing and a newly born Communist Union swallowing up their former territories starting from Guatemala and eventually advancing south towards Panama. After there were no more independent nations left in Central America, the CACU was declared an official nation with its capital in Guatemala City.
Much like in the USSR, many people in the CACU are quite poor and mostly live in the country, resulting in agriculture, mining, etc. to be the most common jobs in the nation. Despite this, citizens of the union are surprisingly educated and are able to enjoy relative freedom compared to many other poorer or less free nations nearby, such as Cuba, resulting in many people emigrating to Central America when they can't stay in the US.
Due to the flag's unique 2:8 ratio, it is intended for both regular use on flagpoles and for hanging above entrances to many government buildings, such as courthouses. The flag itself features a palm tree and hoe in the top center, symbolizing the workers in both the dominant agriculture and forestry sectors. The 5 stars right below on the gold stripe represent the 5 most common languages spoken in the union: Spanish, English, Mayan, Xinca and Garifuna. The seven white and blue blocks further down below represent the seven former Central American nations in order from north to south: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama, which are all now part of the CACU.
Democratic Republic of Iran
جمهوری دموکراتیک ایران
ITTL, Yuri Andropov avoided the terminal illness that did him in OTL's 1984 and got to live for another three years, bringing economic stability to the USSR through reforms of sort (while avoiding political ones to ensure the survival of Marxist-Leninism) and of course making the Cold War last far longer than OTL's, with the Warsaw Pact still intact and Andropov's successor being the like-minded Heydar Aliyev. This would have severe consequences in the Middle East, of which tensions with Islamist Iran lit up after the country invaded Afghanistan in 1995 after a decade long reduction in Soviet troops and advisors. The USSR did not take kindly to Iran trying to export the revolution behind their backs, so in 1996 they launched a series of attacks upon Iran and an invasion of Afghanistan in what became known as the Soviet-Iranian War. The USSR won it after a string of victories against Iran caused the Islamist regime to fall and in its place, the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Iran, which is led by the MEK (and was also planned in advanced so as not to incite the wrath of the United States had they went with a full-scale invasion).
While the new regime had taken massive steps to purge Iran of Islamist influence, it was also just as dictatorial as the Islamists as well, only that it targets Islamic culture on a Stalinist-scale as well as suspected "Western" influences; destroying Muslim structures and culture in the name of revolution. Many people perished in the Anti-Islam campaigns, and some had fled to Pakistan and Oman along with Turkey and the West if they were lucky to do so, some stayed behind to wage insurgency against the pro-Soviet regime, both Islamist and non-Islamist (some of them backed by the US).
The flag of the DRI should reflect that of the regime's revolutionary nature, and should not reuse the previous tricolor flags of the past in the process. The white background stood for the freedom the revolution gave, the green for the Iranian people and culture (or constituted as culture to the regime), and red for the bloodshed made during the revolution. In the middle of the flag lies a yellow circle enclosed in a red border with the symbols derived from the flag of the MEK, with the long-handled sickle obviously representing the workers and the gun with a bayonet representing those that fought for Iran's "freedom", both soldier and civilian, and the red star being self-explanatory. The red fist that was in the MEK party flag was excluded for simplicity's sake in case it should be reproduced for aircraft roundels and national emblems.
Free Commune of Vaduz-Schellenberg
Freie Kommune Vaduz-Schellenberg
Rejoice, free Vaduz-Schellenberg, bastion of orthodox anarcho-communism!
Seventy-two years since the triumphant Red Army marched to liberate the people from the despotic Liechtenstein princes, our citizens remain vigilant against a changing world! Reactionaries on all sides, from the apathetic Swiss to the revisionist crypto-fascists of the Warsaw Pact, have infected the pure ideals of Marxist-Leninism! Our freedom from the Nazi collaborators had not been forgotten, but now, even the former champions of the union have strayed from the path of orthodoxy! Only we stand firm against the toxic reversions of the Soviet regime!
Our free commune is but a tiny oasis of hope, formed from the blood of our first pioneers. Eschewing the diseased bourgeois concept of government, our proletariat have embraced the agrarian utopia envisioned by our founders. Even the very name forced upon our nation have been torn out, consigning the disgusting Liechtenstein name to history! Since then, we remain free of the trappings of corrosive government, free to decide our own fate under the auspices of anarcho-communism!
But traitors and spies roam among us, from capitalist infiltrators to revisionist Soviet pawns. The so-called government-in-exile of the Democratic Republic of Vaduz-Schellenberg continues to plot and dine in the gilded Kremlin halls, and the insidious princes and their spawn squander their ill-gotten wealth in the rotten heart of New York. But our people's militia remain ever watchful, ready to weed out all who seeks to subvert our alpine home. Neither Washington nor Moscow could hope to enslave us. We may be small, but we remain strong!
Make no mistake! The world remains averse to our revolutionary ideals! Till the day the world awakes to their error, we will defend our borders to the death! And I, marshall of the people's militia, will stand by you every step of the way! Rejoice, Free Commune! Rejoice!
-Excerpt of the May Day speech from the Marshall of the People's Militia of Vaduz-Schellenberg
Arab Aryan Republic
TL Background:
Egypt is completely separated from the Ottoman Empire in the latter 1800s, becoming its own sultanate.
As Egypt drifts towards Muslim Fascism the British begin to prop up the Ottomans.
A similar WW1 occurs but the remaining Empire peacefully breaks into the Turkish Sultanate (more of a constitutional monarchy), Armenia, Kurdistan, and the Arab Sultanate. The Russian Revolution occurs, later inspiring a revolution in Persia.
WW2 is similar but different and Egypt joins the Axis invading the Arab Sultanate.
The Arab Aryan Republic is a member of the Union of Aryan Republics (sometimes known as Communist Persia).
It was created in the wake of the Anglo-Persian liberation of the occupied Arab Sultanate.
The Republic follows the form of Communism known as Aryanism that originated with the Soviet inspired Persian Revolution in the interwar period.
The Flag is based on the previous Sultanate Flag, itself based on the Arab Revolt Flag, with the hoist removed and a red & gold star added.
The Technocratic State of Chile
Though Chile's history of socialism had a rocky start - with extensive economic warfare and political unrest orchestrated by the United States, including an attempted military coup - it has since had a long history of stability. The government of Chile attributes this peace and prosperity to Project Synco; a radical program aimed at utilising cutting-edge technology, both hardware and software, to organise and direct the economy according to cybernetic principles. Whilst initially simple Synco continued to evolve, making extensive use of new technology to expand its capabilities and extend its control into more sectors of the economy and even into the public and private lives of Chileans. The meritocratic order of technicians, engineers, programmers, and operators who managed and ran Synco soon became the true power in Chile, able to grant riches or cast a man into poverty with the flick of a switch. Despite this, no one individual has emerged as a dominant power within Synco; its detractors claim it is a dictatorship without a dictator. At the turn of the century the System Operators are already experimenting with neural networks and genetic algorithms, leading some to believe that it's only a matter of time before Chile becomes an arithmocracy; a country ruled not by man, but by math.