Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

[Miss Teri]

Reds! is an American television series based on the popular online alternate history scenario Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline by Aelita Ulyanova. It began streaming on Hulu+HBOMax on August 15th, 202X. Created by Joss Whedon, JJ Abrams, and Jane Emily Smith, the series tells the story of an alternate history where William McKinley was not assassinated, eventually resulting in a communist revolution in 1933, and the formation of the new communist Union of American Socialist Republics, through the perspectives of several individuals through its history.

The series is not restricted to one time period, but rather extends throughout history from the Revolution itself all the way to the present. It also handles a diverse group of perspectives surrounding the new nation state of the United Republics, showing both how the new nation succeeds and fails its populace.

While the UASR has succeeded in eliminating strife, poverty, and racism, it has suppressed some viewpoints and controls the populace through propaganda and reeducation, which obfuscates the crimes committed by the Workers' Party regime. While it is democratic, party and union politics have led to a new form of corruption, essentially recreating the old capitalist order. Similarly, the Workers' Communist Party maintains a monopoly on power, leaving the Democratic Republicans and the burgeoning New American Alliance (an alliance of secret capitalists, "moderate socialists", and other dissidents dedicated to reforming the UASR to something more equitable) with little hope of opposing them or stopping their disastrous regime. While the regime of Premier Bernie Sanders (Larry David) is slightly more liberal, the party is still firmly in control.

The series was notable for its imagery throughout featuring various statues being toppled, and statues dedicated to Eugene Debs (depicted in the series as being alive and leading the Revolution in 1933 despite his death in 1925 both in real life and in the original scenario) erected in their place

The UASR and their allies in the Comintern (including the Soviet Union) are locked in a Cold War with the "Franco-British Union", which is, while liberal (run by the "President of Britain and France), under severe corporate interests and suppresses its left wing as well as oppresses the colonies under the still extant British and French empires. There is a moral ambivalence, with ambiguity as to whether to accept American communism (suppresses freedom and free enterprise, but provides security and racial equality) or FBU capitalism (freer, but also deeply unequal).

The UASR trumps up propaganda against the FBU, its allies, and the exile regime headquartered in Cuba. Whilst the Cuban regime had been racist and oligarchic in the past, it's implied the current propaganda against the Cuban regime is exaggerated, and that it is "a truly free place now, one that incorporates the best elements of all systems," under President Cortez (Pitbull)

Creator Smith and writer John Washington state that it was "an attempt to parallel the political division and tensions within our current climate, and find a way to bridge them and find an appropriate compromise." The creators of the show state they do not endorse communism, but rather "find it an interesting venue upon which to explore just how far equity can go, and if it was worth it."

The characters showcased are a combination of characters based on the scenario as laid out by Ulyanova and her co-writers and original ones meant to "represent a diversity of views":

• Janey Schafer (Kiernan Shipka)- the "main character", a member of the Red Army who serves valiantly in the Second World War, earning the Hero of Socialist Labor. However, she is haunted by the images she sees of both American and Soviet soldiers enacting atrocities against German civilians. She becomes a military bureaucrat, but finds that her outspoken attitude against the suppression of free enterprise and free speech have stifled her advancement in the corps. She joins the "New American Alliance" , but is revealed at the end to be a traitor, having been threatened with exposure of an affair with a British journalist named Henry Kerrigan. However, at the end of the first season, she is shown considering releasing the files of the Red Army, revealing decades of abuse.
• Paul Matthews (Ezra Miller)- A former member of the virulently racist "Sons of Liberty", later captured and trained as a soldier during the Second World War. However, he is haunted by the hazing and intense indoctrination, and later on, his disillusionment grows to the point where he takes a gun and attempts to assassinate Premier John Reed in 1952, though this only results in his imprisonment. He is later freed and by the 80's, becomes the head of the NAA. Is killed by Janey in the Season One finale.
• Henry Kerrigan (Kit Harrington)- British journalist and on-again/off-again affair of Janey Schafer. A journalist with a penchant for conflict zones, it is implied by phone conversations with unseen contacts that he is a spy, but his loyalties remain ambiguous.
• Violet Bedford (Amy Schumer)- Former Southern belle (based on the supporting character Mary Forrest), experienced extreme hardships and brutality at the hands of the Red Army, later meets Paul Matthews after the war, and marries him, later becomes the head of the New American Alliance.
• Natalie Colson (Jurnee Smollett-Bell)- Black animator at the "Ruby Orchestra Animation House" under tyrannical animator and Party loyalist Samatha Weaver. Whilst claiming to be "egalitarian", she experiences marginalization and racism as she works on propaganda shorts, including the popular superhero series "Captain Columbia". Eventually, after struggling to get her own black version of the character, she eventually convinces the stubborn Weaver to acquiesce through her speech.
• Hannah Loewenstein (Jennifer Connelly)- "Party royalty", the daughter of a prominent leader, and later appointed the leader of the Secretariat of Public Safety by Premier Jimmy Hoffa following the death of J. Edgar Hoover. Becomes a villain, due to her persecution of the Democratic-Republicans and the New American Alliance. Is killed after a fallout with Premier Gus Hall in 1978, resulting in a bomb attack.
• Howard Coyne (Cameron Britton)- Loyal, popular party member, appears a number of times, is revealed to be a serial killer. (Based on Andrei Chitlako and minor character Herbert Koehler)
• Lady Liberty (uncredited, thought to be Rachel Maddow)- A radio voice that supports the New American Alliance and airs the dirty laundry of the regime.

The series was criticized when first announced by right wing outlets, who accused Hulu+HBOMax and owner DisneyWarnerDiscovery (a subsidiary of EA) of advancing a "Critical Race, Marxist, gender ideology, satanic agenda". Mainstream outlets criticized the poor worldbuilding, dull production, and strongly centrist messaging. The Los Angeles Times review said that "Like if Red Dawn crossed with a 15 year old D student's essay on the Soviet Union", and Entertainment Weekly called it "The Chernobyl of streaming…by which I mean the actual disaster, not the miniseries. Remember the days before the Disney buyout? And the EA buyout, for that matter." Whedon's writing was especially criticized, with the New York Times saying that "He put all his worse impulses in that show…in between the sexual assault, constant shots of Jane Schaefer's bare feet, and the fact that he made Joseph Stalin talk exactly like Xander from Buffy, it's safe to say that he's learned absolutely nothing from his stint in Hollywood Jail." The New York Times then suspiciously put out a correction saying that Hollywood Jail is not a real thing. A notable exception was Armond White of the National Review, who said that it was "The best television series since Dragnet…a grim reminder of the mainstream media's 'divide and conquer' strategy, much like Godard's La Chinoise and Eddie Murphy's Norbit. It has redeemed the medium of television from the sins of Godless nihilist programs such as Freaks and Geeks and Sesame Street"

Original writer Aelita Ulyanova said of the series: "Their checks cleared. I am contractually bound to say nothing more. In the meantime, check out this gold plated Escalade I just bought!" Their co-writer Floki Asatan, on the other hand, has said "Wait, Aelita got paid and I didn't? Fuck that noise!" and proceeded to put an ancient Norse curse on the producers. Fellow co-writer Mary Brown said, "Well, that's 18 hours of my life I'll never get back. And where the hell is my money? If you're going to pervert something to this degree, at least pay up." Notably, the ending credits claim that the original scenario was created by "Aelita Ulyanova and Ian D. Admin"

 

[Hawkatana]

Hooners and Highways: Inside the secret world of Australasia's street racing scene - EBC News

By Eric Graham
13 October 2019



When people imagine Australasia and its people, the image that comes to mind is that of a rough people shaped by a rough country, the kinds of people who do what they want and say whatever's on their mind, damn be the consequences. So it's almost scary to think about the possibility that there are some that even they find too unruly and incorrigible, but for the country's thriving street racing culture, that's the reality they find themselves in.

I'm sure you might be at least somewhat familiar with the trappings of Australasian street racing, or "Hooner" culture, loud, fast and fine-tuned cars racing at night through dingy streets, open dirt roads or winding mountain passes, roaring crowds, constant evasion of the police, larger-than-life personalities and a cutthroat world of crime, hypermasculine bravado & pride and found family. But the truth behind the illegal, often dangerous pastime is at once less glamorous, yet less brutal than how it's portrayed on the silver screen.

I decided to investigate the ever-elusive hooners and shed some light on this culture of unsanctioned racing, and started my search in a common hangout for racing: Arthur's Pass, a mountain pass in the state of South New Zealand.



Upon arriving at an event being held at the pass, I met a hooner receptive to an interview. He asked that his identity not be revealed, so instead will be referred to by his callsign: "Kaz".

"I took that name because 'Cruise' was taken." He jokingly told me.

"It's a total adrenaline rush, you never know what's going to happen behind the wheel going 100 K's an hour. You've got a bunch of your mates looking after each other and having a bit of fun. I wouldn't change it for nothing."

Kaz has been racing in mountain passes across the country for five years now, from the Blue Mountains to Macquarie Pass just outside of Shellharbour on the Illawarra Highway in his customised 1997 Ford Ranger.

"I started when I was about 19 and won a few heats just outside my hometown after reading Initial D a lot as a kid, and I went pro not long after. And the rest, as they say, is history."

Kaz's mention of Initial D: a cult-classic indie comic about street-racing through the mountains of the Great Dividing Range isn't an isolated incident. Many hooners are inspired by movies, tv shows, comics and video games that are based around the sport, and even many that just take inspiration from the culture surrounding it, like Mad Max and joined the culture because of its portrayal in said media.

Hooner culture really took off around the early-90's with the introduction of Indian exports of cars to Australasia, which were cheap to manufacture and easy for the average Australasian to buy at an average of only £12,000 AUP (£10,400 FBP at the time) per vehicle.

Kaz is a part of a hooner team known as "The Ghosts", a South New Zealand-based group that specialise in mountain or "touge" racing: a style of racing that became popular with Nipponese immigrants, where racers engage in "cat and mouse" style chases through narrow mountain passes, where control, careful breaking and drifting are paramount and one small mistake could mean the end.



Touge racing is just one of three major "styles" of racing in Australasia however. The other two prominent styles are "Winders", where racers drive through the streets of the country's cities and "Dirt Rallies", where the race occurs in the middle of a desert or unsealed road out in the countryside (particularly popular in the Red Centre).

"I can't tell you much about them, but I've got mad respect for those guys just the same." Kaz had to say on the other styles. "I guess the way I understand it, in Touge you need a lot of control, Winders are about speed and Dirt Rallies are about power."

Examining the demographics of the hooners, most of the people in the sport are men between the ages of 18 to 40 and is disproportionately popular with those of Indian descent, who are often discriminated against in Australasia, though the culture is accepting of all who wish to participate.

"Boy, girl, black, white, brown, Asian, gay, straight, the only thing that matters is how good you are behind the wheel. As long as you're better than the other bloke, that's all anyone here cares about. I met some guys from Cairns a while back, and there were a lot of Fijians in that team."

The law on the other hand has had less glowing things to say about hooners.



"These are dangerous criminals recklessly endangering themselves and innocent lives in their selfish joyrides." Said commissioner Michael Fullerton of the New South Wales police in a press conference in 2017. "I ask that you go home and work on your cars in peace without commandeering public roads as your personal playgrounds."

Also hovering over the image of the hooners is the spectre of organised crime, as the country's various biker gangs or "Bikies" have perhaps unsurprisingly inserted themselves into the scene. Infamously, the Queensland-based Dirt Rally team "The Mad Boyz" were raided by police and found to have 15 tonnes of ice and 10 tonnes of cocaine in their possession.

"F***ing disgusted by them. This is why we in the Ghosts stay as clean as possible." Kaz elaborates.

Despite their mutual hatred of the presence of criminal gangs in the sport, his views on the police are far from friendly.

"There wouldn't be no gangs if they actually did their f***ing job. They're the biggest gang of them all." He stated.

Also tainting street racing's perception in Australasia is the ever-present danger of vehicular accidents. Street Racing is known to kill an average of 84 Australasians a year, and badly injure another 108. Kaz however is unconvinced by the casualties.

"Road accidents happen all the time down here in Australasia. If you ask me, I'd say we're all better drivers than most people in this country. We're not idiots."

Other hooners take a look at the danger and unregulated nature of the sport and almost see it as a challenge, citing a love of simple, uncomplicated racing on more varied tracks than in legal racing.

"Even if they made a legal track where we could just go nuts on, I don't think I'd give up the way I do things now. I have mates to look out for, you know?"

About the Author:

Eric Graham is a correspondent for the EBC in Australasia currently living in Launceston. He's a proud Birminghamer, a fond Whovian and just happy to be part of the EBC family.

Copyright © 1946-2020 EBC. The EBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.

 

[Raiho-kun]

 

[Chamarmur]

"Who are you?"

I am Plinio Salgado.



"No, really, who are you?"

I am the president of Brazil and its generalissimo, a president who is leading his people to ruin.

"That's not what I asked."

Fine.

I was born on January 22, 1895. Does the name of my town and my state really matter? I am the son of Colonel Francisco das Chagas Salgado; a successful leader, and Ana Francisca Renno Cortez, a teacher. I was good at what I did before I got mixed up in this nonsense. I loved math. I loved geometry.

Then my father died when I was 16.

I loved my father very much. I should have never tried to emulate him, to surpass him. I should have become a mathematician, physicist, something normal. But no, I just had to take the loss unlike any other, and I had to get mixed up with the study of the mind: psychology and philosophy.

As I said, I was good at what I did before I got mixed up in this nonsense.

That was my first mistake. My second mistake was my first ever election. Partido Muncipalista? Hah! Municipal autonomy? What a joke! I married the greatest love of my life that year, and the next year she was with child, my second greatest love. However, she was very sick upon giving birth, and two weeks after, she died. Life was without meaning. Just as it does not make any sense any more. I have lost. I have led my nation to ruination, and I fear that soon, the Communist hordes will take Rio de Janeiro. They will set ablaze our homes and topple Christ the Redeemer. If I am not lucky enough to be shot in action, they will tie a noose around my neck and I will hang. If they are feeling generous that is.

What will become of my daughter? If I am good, if I am the force of good, and if God loves me, then why has He consigned myself to such a fate; and, must the Brazilians suffer such a fate, for choosing to fear Him?

Perhaps it is but a test, like that poor man Job.

Time after time…

Time after time, the world has sent me these signs. The death of my father – I did not listen. The death of my wife – I did not listen. Well, third time's the charm. I am finally listening, now that my great project has become my undoing. Undoing? You see, these signs, they are the signs that there were no signs in the first place. There is nothing more to the world. It is a cruel, evil, and most of all, a banal place. Men try and make something out of it, by praying to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Did he ever really exist? There is nothing in the world, but a sequence, a series of banal and cruel events, from one to another; and, now countless people are about to be subjugated under the yoke of Communism, to forget God, not even to worship false idols, but fear nothing.

You know, they say the Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids of Giza for their kings, and within were countless troves to accompany, to continue serving the king even into death. In Ancient China, dozens of poor men, I say poor in spirit… but also rich in stature, cut themselves down voluntarily, to die with their king. Retainer suicide! I wonder what they would think of Timur the Merciless, who was peerless in his cruelty. For a moment in history, the pyramids of Giza were finally outdone by skulls, of once-living people; people with real lives; who did something; cut down and flayed and boiled, and piled one on top of another in a great pyramid… God cut down Babel, only to see a few millennia later in the great stead of Babel, a pyramid of skulls had replaced it.

These people had no duty to each other, little relation if any, and now they must ascend to Heaven together.

I found LOVE in scripture. Jesus Christ loves us all, each one of us, equally. Was it a lie?

"And that I do," said God.

"Imagine a forest, Salgado. Imagine, a lamb has fallen, and it cannot get up."

"What will become of it?"

It will die.

Fine, as your silence beckons, it will become a rotting corpse…… and then… worms will eat the flesh, and it will be reduced to bones…. Worms will provide, as the flesh had provided. In the place of the lamb there will be a flowering of plant life, and many eons later, a tree might stand in stead of the lamb.

I see your point.

Yes, this is love. Death is the ultimate expression of love.

---

Salgado jerked out of his bathtub, gasping for air. He coughed and coughed ferociously. Afterwards, he began to breathe heavily, and swiveled his head around. His second wife entered moments before, and had dropped her cup of wine - after all, her husband had just tried to kill himself, and then began to utter these words:

"I have returned to the land of the living, so that I might reduce the world to love in the name of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ."

 

[Miss Teri]

May 16th, 1942, 4:06 AM

The ring of the phone woke Earl Browder up.

"Did they install a phone in…."

It was then he felt the softness of the bed he was on. As he came to, he began to notice the size of the bed. The blankets on it.

He soon saw the little cabinet to the side. The large wooden door. The table with the tea kettle. The green plastered walls on the other side. The photos of Lenin, Eugene Debs, Daniel DeLeon, and Bill Foster hanging.

This was most certainly not his cell at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he went to sleep last night. Did they take him here in the middle of the night? Right when Roosevelt had commuted his sentence? Wasn't out of the bourgeois playbook. Strange they'd put him in this room.

The phone rang again, and Browder spotted it next to bed. After some hesitation, he reached out and picked it up.

".... Hello?"

"Apologies for waking you at this time, Comrade Secretary-General"

He recognized the voice as that of Morris Childs, his young protege. His brother Jack was his assistant.

"You're needed at Stavka for a Council meeting."

Stavka? "Like in Moscow?"

"No, like alongside the Potomac.

"Yeah, yeah, okay." So, he was in DC. Though, there was no "Stavka" there, as he remembered it at least. And the Council…

"Is the Politburo meeting?"

"The election is over, so probably not. Regardless, it's the Revolutionary Military Council"

The election? It's mid-May! Also, the Revolutionary Military what?

"Is Bob there? Bob Minor? I might need to speak with him"

"I thought you knew this, he left for Canada a few days ago. He and Franklin Roosevelt are trying to work out a trade deal with them now that they're in the war."

"Wait, Bob's with the President? Was that part of the deal?"

"The President? What are you talking about? Roosevelt is just a cabinet secretary and an opposition leader. And yeah, it was part of the deal to get them on board with our coalition government."

What the hell was going on?

"Are you okay, Comrade Secretary-General? Do you need to sleep more?"

"No, no, I'll try to get to this meeting. Where is it again?"

"If you've forgotten, the chauffeur probably remembers. Just get dressed."

He put down the phone, and shuttered. When he went to sleep, he was in a prison cell, about to be released from his sentence. He had beaten the unwarranted passport charge made against him, and now he was in this green, luxurious room, having to go to some meeting, and the President was hanging around with the acting head of his party.

He looked out the window, to see more clues. He saw a large lawn. To the side was a large white building. It looked familiar…

"Wait, am I in…"

Above it was a flag. But not the Stars and Stripes. It was Red and Black, with a yellow symbol he couldn't discern.

Looked a little like the Party flag.

[....]

Browder shifted in his suit. A smaller version of the flag pinned to his collar. A red pocket square. The last time he was in the backseat of the car was in the paddy wagon he was put in to transport him to Atlanta.

After finding his clothes and getting dressed, he worked around the White House. He noted that there were no photos of the Founding Fathers, no patriotic iconography. Rather, there were murals much like the ones he saw in the Soviet Union. Busts of the old socialists Eugene Debs, Daniel DeLeon, Karl Marx, even the late Emma Goldman.

There were a lot of assistants, both male and female, who were helping him out. They dismissed his confusion as merely sleepiness. Moreover, it seemed like he was…. Respected among them. He didn't expect White House aides to treat him with such deference.

He ultimately asked for a map of Washington, and received one very quickly. Upon opening, the words, "Debs Commune, DeLeon City" popped out at him.

It looked like Washington. Had the Washington and Lincoln Memorials listed, but he certainly didn't remember a city with the names of two socialists on it. Certainly not some of the landmarks, like the "Debs Monument" or the "Temple of the Revolution".

Browder, somehow, came to realize he was in some sort of Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon kind of scenario. He was on some strange version of Earth where the socialist revolution had happened 9 years ago, and there were certain things that were different.

"How is Raisa?", the driver of the car, Helmut, suddenly asked

"Hm?"

"Your wife"

So, that was the same. "Fine."

"Heard she was in Russia. Some diplomatic mission."

"Right, right." Honestly, he couldn't even remember the last time he had spoken to his wife. She visited him often in prison, but his upcoming release precluded that.

"Congratulations on your election to SecGen, Comrade."

"Thank you." He was apparently in the same position he had been before, but this time, as the head of state. Bill Foster was the old premier, but he was gone by now. Didn't catch who was premier now before he left.

Much of DC looked like the one he left behind. That is, until they finally arrived at Stavka.

Browder was awed by the fortress before him. It looked very reminiscent of the buildings he had seen in Moscow. Very collectivist, very imposing. It looked like the buildings in Moscow.

A soldier opened the door quickly, scaring Browder. He feared this was an elaborate, cruel ruse meant to send him back to prison. The soldier pulled Browder out and saluted him.

"Comrade Chairman, I hope we didn't disrupt your sleep."

"No, no of course not."

A small cadre of soldiers surrounded Browder as he walked up the steps. He followed them primarily, as they walked into the building. The wood paneling and bustling energy of soldiers and workers reminded him of the war planning buildings he'd see in the newsreels. Except with a seal with a Raven on it (Browder didn't understand that, but let it slide).

They moved through the building, full of machinery and people running, before getting to the center. A large circular room with a circular table at the center. Large maps of Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and the entire world hung on the walls.

He was relieved to see some familiar faces sitting already there at the table, even if they looked slightly different.

He was surprised to see Eugene Dennis in a suit similar to his, with the red handkerchief. He hadn't seen Dennis with such a nice suit. Interestingly, his name tag was his birth name. Perhaps he never changed it?

That old Wobbly Liz Flynn looked the same, with her hat and suit dress. Always a pleasure to see the old "Rebel Girl".

Browder was extremely surprised to see Marty Abern there. Abern, Cannon, and that whole Trotskyist lot were expelled from the Party before the Stock Market Crash, from what Browder remembered. From his tag, he was actually this world's version of the Secretary of War! Was there more to this world than he knew? Maybe Abern stuck with Foster.

The rest, he couldn't place. Some stern looking military men (including a black man, which Browder appreciated), and some other bureaucrats around.

He didn't recognize an older gentleman in a grey suit, but did recognize the name under him: Theodore Roosevelt III.

Browder recognized the bespectacled fellow in the white suit, Harry Truman. He was the Senator from Missouri, he believed.

Browder definitely didn't recognize a sterner, German man sitting to the side. His name was Paul Mattick, and Browder didn't know him.

Browder sat down, and Abern stood up. "Alright, now we just wait…"

"I'm here, I'm here."

Everyone turned to see the man coming in. Browder didn't recognize him for a second, but once he got closer, Browder stood in silence.

He was 20 years older, with a little bit of grey now in his hair, and he looked a bit heavier, but more energetic than the last time Browder had seen him, but the man before him was John Silas Reed.

Browder watched in discomfort as Reed headed to his seat. Browder remembered when Reed died 20 years ago. He had seen his grave at the Kremlin Necropolis. And here he was, living, breathing.

"Alright, comrades, let's begin."

Browder was so stunned he barely registered the sentence.

"Oh, yes, start, start…."

What was this world?

(This was a short story I posted in the Fanfiction Thread some years ago. Since I didn't have time for a good April Fool's update, figured it might tide people over)

 

[Adonisus]

(The following is a collaborative piece, initiated by me and containing contributions from myself, the Troika and others. Just imagine it being read by one of those british-sounding text-to-speech apps. Enjoy!)

---

Non-Americans of Nusenet, what was something about visiting or living in the UASR that surprised you?



Roadside_Picnicer:

The meat analogues. So. Many. Meat analogues.
I'm from the USSR. When I was in High School I went to visit Metropolis on a Comintern cross cultural exchange. Here in the Soviet Union we still eat meat (though not quite as much as my parents did), and that's apparently still kind of true in a lot of parts of the Republics, but in the bigger cities like Metropolis they had already been using things like tofu and tempeh since before the revolution. That was also the same year that they were introducing vat-grown meat for wider public consumption. There was even one restaurant that was run by a collective from New Afrika, and they served battered and fried cauliflower. It was amazing.

• Frutabomba: We save the real meat for the stuff we serve at baseball games.

Guin_Of_The_Marsh:

I've lived in the UASR for about fifteen years now, but I'm originally from Nippon and my parents and I moved here when I was in my early teens. We ended up living in Athens in the New Afrikan Republic because my father was given a job as a physics professor at the university here. We'd lived in Tokyo for most of my life so you can imagine that going from the largest city in Nippon to a mid-to-large city in the Southern parts of the UASR was a bit of a cultural shock.

But what was especially surprising were the people there. We Nipponese have this international image of being a quiet and insular people, and to a certain degree that's true. But the people in New Afrika were so incredibly friendly and outgoing it was almost overwhelming. So many big smiles, so many people asking 'how are you?', 'how's your day been?', and 'You hungry? You eat yet?'.

I remember once, when I was in my Senior year of High School, some of the locals invited me to a 'truck meet'. Now, I had no idea what they were specifically talking about, but I'd heard that in the more rural parts of the UASR they would do things like 'tractor pulls' and other things involving automobiles because private car ownership was more of a thing there. But what I didn't realize is that they were actually getting together to show off all of their customized pick-up trucks; vehicles that they had not only polished and upgraded but also had covered with gaudy decorations, spoilers, etc. I suddenly realized that this was their equivalent of dekotora like from back home, but with pick-up trucks.

Oh yes, and the food. I was introduced to so many different kinds of dishes I'd never eaten before: grits (which is a kind of porridge made with maize) served with shrimp or with cheese, crispy fried chicken (not like karaage, and crispier), country ham (which was both juicy and very sweet), macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, biscuits (which are these thick bread things), and so many different kinds of fresh and pickled vegetables that it made my head spin (things like collard greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, so many greens!). Let's also just say that, once I was able to get my head around the idea of Sweet Tea, I quickly became a fan.




Wilson's_Gravy:

I'm actually British, but I'm also what they call a 'Red Nappy Baby', as my family have been involved in the ESCI since my grandparent's time. When I was in university, me and my family went on a vacation to DeLeon-Debs with a group of other ESCI and Left-Labour members and their families. This was partly a vacation and partly an educational trip, as I was studying for my computer engineering degree, so the two dates just kind of coalesced together. This was also about a year or so before the official linking between CyberSyn and Minitel went live globally.

People in the Comintern like to call DeLeon-Debs "the city of monuments", and it's true. Pretty much every major part of the city has huge, elaborate memorials, from the Temple of the Martyrs that has those statues of Lincoln, Norm Thomas and others and the various socialist realist Great Anti-Fascist Struggle memorials that were joint-ventures with Soviet sculptors (and boy does it show).

But it should also be called "The Land of Museums", because DeLeon-Debs quite possibly has some of the best museums in the world. The major one for my trip was the enormous CyberSyn museum.

Now, I had two major reasons to go there: the first was because I wanted to learn more about the Comintern's computer systems and how they were utilized (and of course its history, which is fascinating in and of itself). But I also wanted to find out how they used it in their politics. See, because direct democracy is essential to how their system works, they'd made it a major project to find ways to make voting and getting consensus quicker and more efficiently. These days, where slates are basically ubiquitous, a person in the UASR can wake up in the morning and vote for anything that needs voting on with a state-provided app. But back then, they had these enormous room-filling computer systems that required direct input from specialists whose whole job was to tabulate consensus and then enter it into CyberSyn in order to decide on things like distribution, managing, etc.

Seeing those huge, boxy computer systems that could only hold roughly 1/100th of the data I now carry in the palm of my hand made me realize just how far we've all come. What's even more amazing is that, even back then, it all worked incredibly well.




EchoFrost2006:

Born in Armenia, traveled a lot as a kid, Just moved to Anchorage to fly for Pan-Am.

I know that the cold does weird things to the mind, since every Finn, Moscovar, and Siberian I've met is living proof of that. But the Alaskan Chill must be something else, because I've never seen someone try to commit arson with Pierogi before them. Nor did I ever expect to have to avoid a speeding car while inside of a mall. Or even contend with having Polar Bears trying to attack the plane for the jet fuel.

And don't even get me started on the giant igloo in the middle of the city.

I've only been here for a week, and I do plan on staying here for the time being, so it might grow on me. But I don't think I can contend with this place as of right now.

• Ocean_Girl: I think the real problem there is that you're in Alaska. It's one of those places that is just ripe for attracting and fostering weirdness in general. Chicago's pretty good most of the year, winters aside.]
  
• KillerCheng: Alaska is an outlier and should not be considered as a baseline for the United Republics
  
  • MasterD: Anchorage is also an outlier to the rest of Alaska, don't consider it a baseline to anything. (Aside from some absolutely killer wild game and seafood restaurants. Ever had oolong tea-infused moose meat with spicy crowberry sauce?)
    
    • EchoFrost2006: That was a combination of words I never thought I'd hear. Sounds like one hell of a time.

MuckyMuck:

Seeing these different places with their own different cultures and traditions...

I'm from Jamaica, I defected here as a teenager so I could transition. Growing up on a small island, you all watch the same TV shows and read the same papers and celebrate the same holidays and eat the same food…it's all very holistic

When I first moved to Miami I was watching TV with my housemate and he told me that there was not just a TV station for the whole country, but one for the Republic of Florida and another for just Miami. I asked why they'd do all that just for the Republic or just the city and he just looked me straight in the eye and said "why do you think Florida has its own flag?"

And when I visited a friend in Metropolis, I was completely taken off guard by how different it was from Miami. It was like visiting an entirely different country from my point of view, but everyone else on the train just shrugged it off!

Of course, I'm used to it now, but I still remember getting off the train and realizing how much colder it was compared to everything I knew.

Also: Americans always love to show off their knowledge of the wider world. People always compliment my accent and talk about how much they love reggae music or beef patty sandwiches on coco bread, they really want you to know that they know all about you and your culture. It's kind of charming, to be honest.

• KillerCheng: It certainly helps that a lot of Americans genuinely like learning about other cultures, especially considering that there's so many within an hour's train ride if anywhere.

98_Nosferatu:

I'm a Wessi. Here in Germany one of the more positive stereotypes we have about America is that it's a place where you can find virtually anything and everything from around the world. There was a Lufthansa ad a couple years back making fun of that, showing footage from different American neighborhoods which the viewer would think are from Shanghai or Mexico City but all turn out to be in Metropolis.

By contrast this half of Germany is probably one of the least culturally diverse regions of Europe, so when I visited America as an exchange student last year it was quite the shock. It's not as exaggerated of a contrast as it's made out to be here sometimes, but it's definitely a melting pot. Some politicians and other people here would complain about it, but personally I was pretty happy to try out something from every continent. My favorite was Somali tea shared by a worker from Mogadishu.

Having studied in both Cologne and Philadelphia, though… I have to say I prefer the German education system. In America the expectation was always a lot of independence and collaboration, and while I'm sure that's great for a lot of people, it really didn't work for me. Sometimes it felt like we didn't have a teacher at all lol. Getting along with other students was sometimes rough, too. At first I always felt like the quietest person in the room, and some people acted weird about me being from West Germany (at least one person made a joke about me being a Nazi, which I did NOT appreciate.) But Americans are also said to be very friendly, and I can attest to that. I made a lot of good friends that year, including an Ossi, something most people my age in Cologne don't have.




KillerCheng:

Cuban here. Defected a good while back, though that's a story for another time.

One thing that still gets me is that whatever needs to be done will be done very quickly.

For one, my immigration paperwork was basically done the day of. And that's not getting into all the other work I needed to get set up over here. On some days, I even forget that there is a bureaucracy at all.

Another thing that gets me is that there's just so much to do, see, buy, and the like. I've been getting into Rally Racing recently(Currently halfway through the Tennessee Rally atm)on top of my music production stuff, helping others out with getting settled here, and my semi-professional competition gaming side gig. Like, a career here is not about one specific field, but the wide spectrum of accomplishments, professions, passions, and even hobbies. Like, there's just so much here.

Although the architectural side does leave a bit to be desired, since a collapse at the third strangest apartment complex forced me to move to this development at a former mall, though that also led to a surprise basement just a few weeks in. Might be my own luck at play, but I digress.

Oh, and I've been enjoying the food here quite a lot, though even a slight glance at me in person would probably clue you in on that lol.




Jeremy_ClarksOff:

It's probably the sheer passion everyone has.

For the most part, everyone here does what they do with a high level of passion and enthusiasm, from the Guards, to the artists, to even the clerk at the local distribution center, and especially everyone at the party meetings. There's just so much passion for civic life.

Honestly, it's no wonder the United Republics are the way they are, when the people here are this enthusiastic about making their world better, or even just doing what they like.




BiggestBand:

There's so much weed everywhere here, and I could smell it. It was nauseous enough that I couldn't really stay for all that long. It's probably a neat place, but I doubt I could power through the smell.




Bofors:

When I was sixteen, my parents defected. What I had been told was supposed to be a vacation turned into a permanent exile. And what shocked me was the level of suspicion and mistrust I have faced.

My father claimed political asylum. But that's his business, not mine. Since I was at the 'age of reason' during the defection, I could've been convicted of offenses against the Loyalty Act if I returned.

Since my father was granted citizenship, so was I, and this has led to the revocation of my Commonwealth citizenship. I may have the same rights as any American, but I also have the same duties, which I was never prepared for. The shock from going to a public boarding school to American secondary school was life-threatening, and my peers never let me forget it. I was always the "English snob" and none of my father's socialist bona fides could change that.

And since there are no educational deferments or exemptions to the draft, I spent two years of hell in the Army, mistrusted by my peers. By the time I was through with it, I really had no more appetite for university, and so I put off education until someone finally knocked some sense into me and told me I should be designing cars instead of fixing them.

People usually assume I am some sort of liberal when I talk about it, but I was already a fellow traveller when we arrived, and nothing has changed my opinion about the rottenness of the Empire. Just don't get starstruck about this place. It can still break your heart.

On a more amusing note, the one time I did "go back", when I was with the River Rouge team for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, I was held for questioning until the American consulate got involved.

• MasterD: Things like that are why my father joined the RIVA first before leaving England. Once he was done with training, they told him that if he survives he should ALWAYS keep his dog tags and his VOSCOM ID with him at all times just in case someone assumed he was a spy. They taught him how to do an American accent just to be REALLY sure, but he doesn't really need to use it because most people just see his dog tags and say "oh shit, RIVA, don't mess with him" without even asking what he did IN the RIVA or how he got that scar on his arm. (And before you ask, he's never told me how he got it either.)

WhoAteMyPie?:

When you're from a capitalist nation, you know that a lot of politicians seem to have nothing but contempt for their political opponents but try to hide it in order to keep up the facade of civility. And sometimes they just drop it all together and insult each other. This is especially true in Australasia, Blue Italy, Thailand or Americuba

When I visited the UASR on a school trip from Perth, I saw the People's Deputies speak, and…they were nice and courteous to each other. It was as if they were having a friendly philosophical debate and not determining the fate of the entire world. I got the sense that if they disagreed on policy then it was a friendly one, with the occasional good natured roast in between. It was honestly surreal, how cavalier it all was.







Yereh5767:

I'm from Palestine, Jerusalem specifically. I went to the United Republics for a vacation when I was a kid to visit family in Boston. The main thing I remember is that it was so cold! It was around the time of the High Holy Days so I expected it not to be very hot but the UR is just so much colder than here in the Levant! I only went out when my cousin let me wear their extra coats (my mom's said I looked like a little Haredi), and I instantly ran to the heater when we got back. It was also the first time I'd ever seen snow, which you could imagine was kind of a weird shock. Honestly I was more disappointed than surprised; books had made it seem so pretty and soft, where I was it was just cold and sharp and dirty.

This may have been unique to my family but I also noticed American kids my age love video games. When we'd get home after a long day my cousin would practically demand we sit at the house computer and play the game they had saved their labor vouchers for. I asked if they had any good books to read and they looked at me like I had a second head!




CaptainFantastic:

I was an engineering student from Kerala who came to America to study at Mass Tech. I now work as an aeronautical engineer at the Rocket Propulsion Lab in Pasadena.

India is not only a quite conservative place, but a very isolating one, especially in large cities, like Bengaluru, where I lived for a time. You don't interact that much with people, especially those in lower castes and classes. Instead, you mostly work 9 hours in an air conditioned office building, you go in your Hindustan through streets made for cars, and you stay in a home separate from anyone else's through walls. You might take the train for vacation to lion reserves in Gujarat, or the temples in Orissa, but you mostly live as one atomized unit.

I had seen America through Archie Comics and Spider-Man, and shows like Polytechnics, and thought it would be this place that was hedonistic, yet very serious and protective about its hedonism. And when I lived in Cambridge, it was a culture shock to see everyone so libertine, so open about their sexuality and pleasure. Yet, I also found they weren't that serious about it. They never forced foreign students to engage with it if they didn't want to, they had some humor about it, and they were also very nice and friendly. After only a little bit, you actually get used to it.

The bigger shock was the education system. Absolutely nothing equivalent to our entrance exams or testing of any kind. Instead, you are given group projects, and you do your part, while helping everyone else. Your advancement depends on your contribution and how well you work with others. Everyone is older, too, and a lot had already gotten some experience during their mandatory service.

Yet, again, very friendly. I never got the sense of rivalry or any pressure. Just pure collaboration with people who love doing the work as we are.

Americans are also very cultured. In India, anoraks are pretty… marginalized, with stuff like comics, VP movies, and animation considered just for kids. Here, you have an extremely healthy culture. No art is high or low, for kids or for adults. So diverse, too. Nothing like what I had read about all art following social realism.

Finally, it was interesting how different each place is. Cambridge is relatively conservative and pretty densely urban. Lots of trains, lots of historic areas. SoCal is completely different, very open, you actually need a car sometimes to go around, especially outside of LA city limits. People will regularly go naked on a hot day or on the beaches, and there's so much emphasis on athletics and health. PasSciInt is extremely open (especially for a small campus) compared to Mass Tech, and the tech nerds are more consumer oriented compared to the state corpo aspirants in Cambridge. Even the RPL is very much about the unmanned space program (probes and the outer solar system), and mock the "Luna/Mars/Titan obsessed manned space freaks" on the East Coast.

One thing I especially love about SoCal is the diversity. There are no enclaves, just people of many different cultures interacting and living together. I have colleagues, flatmates, and friends of many different origins, from China, Somalia, Australasia, Cuba, Chile, Azania. At the same time, it does give me a chance to feel nostalgic, especially with the large Indian population here (even if they're mostly Punjabis who have lived here for generations). I can enjoy North and South Indian food, you can also make your own, and share it with other, maybe mix it with others.

• Ocean_Girl: It will never not be funny to overhear an argument go through seven different languages over the span of three sentences. From my experience, Constantinople is probably the other place where that applies to the same extent.

AlexanderHamilton:

Originally from Havana, fled following the repression of student unions while I was head of one at the American University in Havana, lived for a time in Miami. I now live in Buena Vista in Progress City.

Not really a whole lot I could say that others above me haven't already, just a few main observations:

• A lot less political than I had expected at least in Progress. People disagree, but are very civil about it. People mock the current Premier and government, but it's never too violent. Hell, the technocrats who live and work in TomorrowWorld sometimes say they're "apolitical", just focused on working on technology to improve the human quality of life and the frontiers of science. Apparently, there's a whole history behind it, where Epcot was originally directly controlled by two state corporations: General Automan and Walt Disney's Tomorrowland Committee, before there was a general strike early on, and it became a city with elected officials (and later became capital of Florida). Miami is another story, though. Liberation people are very passionate to say the least.
• Everyone has roughly the same quality of life. Everyone has access to the same amenities, the same resources, and a lot of people thrive more than others, but there's virtually no one who is poor or can't improve themselves.
• I'm a history teacher, and I have a general curriculum, but no tests. Instead, we have semester long projects and more specialization. The students in my classes are enthusiastic about history, do their projects so immaculately that it makes international news sometimes.
• Public transportation is incredible. Epcot has the legendary People Mover, and Progress is generally very liveable, but even in Miami, it was so fast and so well-kept. You can walk anywhere in minutes, no need for a car.

TommysPaine:


I'm a Cuban defector, originally from Santa Clara and living in Miami. I've lived here for close to thirty years now. Semi-professionally, I work as part of the Socialist Republic of Florida's resettlement committee for defectors and immigrants (and not just Cubans, I should add, as a lot of other nationalities come here as well).

I can tell you from personal experience, as well as professional, that a lot of newcomers to the Republics often have a skewed idea of American social mores. If you grew up like I did in the twilight years of the Dictatorship (I'm in my 70s, for the record), you were sold this idea of an America that was overflowing with vice, fornication and persecution of the faithful.

Those first two, however, are what really seem to stick out for a lot of people, and it can be hard for them to navigate the more socially libertine atmosphere when they've spent most of their lives up to that point in a much more conservative environment. The public nudity, in particular, can be a massive cultural shock that takes a little while to adjust to. This is especially true for those who came from cultures that associate nudity of any kind with sexuality or sexual availability (I've seen this particularly from defectors from places like India). Even for myself, it took some time for me to wrap my head around the idea of the nude beaches and casual nudity on the streets of Miami when I first came here. But like everything else, you just get used to it with time.

Americans have a very healthy attitude to human sexuality that neither seeks to shame nor condemn, but also prioritizes the idea of consent and boundaries. In other words: "It's fine to look, but it's not fine to touch unless you ask."



Frutabomba:

How much fucking seaweed they eat.

Like, no joke. Half of their diet is algae-related. Took me for a shock when I moved to Miami from Havana.

---

No notes really this time, other than the fact that (if you haven't figured it out by now), Nusenet is essentially ITTL's aquivalent of reddit mixed with an updated form of Usenet.
I basically wanted to do one of these after I saw a crazy amount of videos on Youtube that basically had text-to-speech readings of various "Non-Americans of Reddit..." threads from reddit. Nothing really deeper than that, but it ended up becoming a fun little project that I hope maybe sheds some more light on daily life in the UASR from an outsider's perspective.

 

[Miss Teri]

List of selected books recommended for English/Literature teachers in the Metropolis School System (with descriptions), published 2023

Note: These are only recommended novels. Please only choose ten in accordance to your curriculum and which subjects you are going to teach. Note that these are recommendations and any novels that fit the curriculum are still welcome. Suggestions are more than welcome.
The Knights by Aristophanes (424 BCE)

• An Ancient Greek comic play commenting on the society of ancient Athens, marking one of the most significant examples of political satire from the ancient world.

Utopia by Thomas Moore (1519)

• A classic work of social critique, exploring the ideal society of the titular fictional country, sometimes described in retrospect as communist, in order to contrast it with the ills of European societies of the time.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1601)

• Among the most influential works by Shakespeare, thought to be influenced by ancient and medieval European legends. Tells the fictional tale of Prince Hamlet's quest for revenge against his uncle, King Claudius of Denmark, who murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize the throne.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605-15)

• Tells the tale of a low-ranking Spanish noble so obsessed with chivalric literature, that he styles himself as a knight-errant, and embarks on an eccentric quest to revive chivalry with a farm worker as his squire.

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)

• An essay satirizing colonialism and anti-Catholic sentiment in Britain and Ireland, which sarcastically proposed that poor Irish people sell their children as food for the Protestant landed nobility. Provoking anger from the British authorities of the time, it has become one of the biggest influences on English language satire.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776)

• A pamphlet which outlines a vision and argument for the settlers of the Thirteen Colonies to establish a radically democratic and republican government in North America.

Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782)

• The unfinished final book by Rousseau combines both philosophical arguments with poetic personal and biographical discussion.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789)

• The autobiography of an enslaved man from modern day Nigeria, who attempted to earn spiritual freedom through study of Christianity and eventually became a leading figure in the British abolitionist movement.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

• Tells the story of a scientist who creates a humanoid creature out of body parts, and of the creature's quest for revenge against his creator. Considered a classic of the gothic horror genre.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Fredrick Douglass (1845)

• Frederick Douglass' story of surviving and escaping slavery, detailing its cruelty in graphic detail

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

• A bildungsroman focused on the eponymous protagonist, a woman working as a family tutor who falls in love with her employer. Noted for its commentary on religion, sexuality and class and gender relations.

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels (1848)

• A pamphlet detailing the progression of history as a series of class relationships, and advocates a system to replace capitalism (where the bourgeoisie holds power) with a system where the working class (the proletariat) holds power. Laid the basis for Marxism as a political force.

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

• The tale of sailor Captain Ahab's hunt for vengeance against the titular sperm whale, which bit off his leg during a previous voyage.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1864)

• A philosophical treatise in which Thoreau documents his experience of spending two years living a self-reliant life in an isolated forest cabin living alongside nature.

Around the World in Eighty Day by Jules Verne (1872)

• The adventures of an English gentleman who accepts a bet that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days using the new transport technologies of the time.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

• A story, commenting on racism, of the adventures of a young boy with a runaway slave on the Mississippi River.

Germinal by Émile Zola (1885)

• A masterpiece of French literature, telling the harrowing tale of a miners' strike in Northern France in the 1860s through the point of view of a young migrant worker, set against a backdrop of poverty and destitution.

The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant (1885)

• The autobiography of President Ulysses S Grant, with a particular focus on the Mexican-American War and the Slaver's War.

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (1888)

• The story of a young man who falls asleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000, exploring an imagined idealized future socialist society in America.

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells (1898)

• The chronicle of a Martian invasion of Earth.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)

• The harrowing tale of a steamer captain in the Congo Free State, witnessing the brutality and oppression of the colonial state firsthand. Best paired with a later response novel.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1905)

• The harrowing tale of the excesses of Second Republic capitalism from the perspective of a young immigrant worker.

Red Star by Alexander Bogdanov (1908)

• A science-fiction story written in the context of the failure of the Revolution of 1905, where the protagonist, Leonid (who represents Bogdanov himself), is taken into Mars, where a scientifically advanced but flawed communist society lives.

The Iron Heel by Jack London (1908)

• Progenitor of dystopian fiction, depicts the tragic future of an America where the revolution failed, and a tyranny resembling the Fascist dictatorships to come has taken over the country.

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist by Robert Tressell (1914)

• A classic of British socialist literature, this story explores the struggles of working people under the class system of England around the turn of the century.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915)

• The struggles of a man who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect.

Ten Days That Shook the World (1919, 1950 Edition) by John Reed

• Reed's memoir about the Russian Revolution. Specifically the 1950 version edited by Reed shortly before his death with his reflections on the legacy of the Russian Revolution.

RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek (1920)

• Science fiction play detailing the creation of autonomous human like "robots", and the eventual revolution. Introduced the word "robot" (from the Czech "roboti") to the English language.

Aelita by Alexei Tolstoy (1923)

• Written in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, tells the story of a Soviet expedition to Mars, which discovers a native civilization with its own stratified class society.

Under Red, White, and Blue by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

• The tragic tale of bootlegger Jay Gatsby, told as a metaphor for the American Dream.

The Death Ship by B. Traven (1926)

• A tale of American Gerald Gales who is rendered stateless and is forced from country to country, themes of immigration and anarchism abound.

A Farewell to Arms by Katherine Hemingway (1929)

• A romance between an American member of the Italian ambulance corps and a British nurse against the backdrop of the Great War.

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett (1929)

• One of the most influential novels on crime and mystery fiction in the Comintern. Follows the Continental Op as he investigates several murders amid a labour dispute in a corrupt Montana mining town.

Boston by Upton Sinclair (1929)

• Fictionalized retelling of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial

Journey to the East by James Cheng* (1930)

• The story of a young Chinese immigrant from a wealthy educated family following the 1912 Chinese Revolution, seeing him flee to America, become an industrial worker during the Great War, and his eventual embrace of his new country.

Family by Ba Jin (1932)

• A story of intergenerational conflict and turmoil within a 1920s family in China, reflecting the changes and uncertainty facing Chinese society of the time.

Why Socialism by Norman Thomas (1932)

• A "political pamphlet" by the Thomas-Sinclair 1932 Presidential campaign describing their political beliefs.

The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore (1933)

• The story of France in the 19th century, spanning from the 1848 revolution to the Paris Commune- as told through the story of a werewolf

Main Street, USA by Terrance Yates* (writing as Clarence Hollingsworth) (1935)

• A roman a clef detailing Yates as one of the Columbia students who helped organize students during the Bienno Rosso in 1919.

How the Steel was Tempered by Nikolai Ostrovsky (1936)

• Follows the life of Pavel Korchagin, including his fighting in and aftermath of the Russian Civil War when he fought for the Bolsheviks during the war and was injured.

Konstantin by Vladimir Kirasov* (1938)

• A satire about an assistant (Lydia) of the titular temperamental Russian playwright Konstatin Mikhaelovich Buklin (inspired in part by Mikhail Bulgakov), in exile in America, and him staging an adaptation of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, resulting in a showdown between Buklin, the Culture Secretariat, and GUGB agents monitoring Buklin.

Studs Lonigan Trilogy by James T Farrell (1938)

• Collection of Farrell's Young Lonigan (1932), The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934), and Judgment Day (1935), detailing the interesting life and times of the titular Irish American Studs Lonigan, who slowly descends into a cycle of violence and alcoholism by the circumstances of his neighborhood.

My Disillusionment With America by Emma Goldman (1938)

• Emma Goldman's final work, details her experiences during the Second American Revolution, her time as Secretary of Labor, and her eventual disillusionment with the Foster Government.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1940)

• The grand epic tale of the Joad family as they travel from war torn Oklahoma to California during the Revolution.

Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)

• The story of Bigger Thomas, a black man accused of killing a white woman, resulting in the explosion of tensions in post-war Chicago.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943)

• The life of Mary Frances Nolan, born of immigrant parents, and their life in early 20th century New York

Mrs. Takagawi by Tamika Kida* (1945)

• The titular character is a Japanese American lawyer in California defending a Japanese American teenager accused of killing a prominent local party official, claiming self-defense, and the resulting racial tension (increased by the war). Based on the Albert Munemori case

Metropolis by Osamu Tezuka (1947)

• The story of a future society and growing tensions between a robotic working class and an increasingly authoritarian workers party. Believed to be a secret satire of the post-war Japanese communist government.

The Washingtons: An American Saga by Herbert Jones* (1948)

• A doorstopper novel focusing on the Washington family of Virginia, from their first ancestor, a slave brought during the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, through the first American Revolution, the Slaver's War, the Great War, and the World Revolutionary War.

The Last Man in Europe by George Orwell (1950)

• A seminal text in dystopian fiction, dealing with a futuristic "cold war" between a communist human society in North America and a degrading capitalist society of animal people in Europe. Told from the perspective of the titular character, a Briton named Gerald.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)

• The story of Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian in the distant future, as he struggles to build a "Foundation" amid the collapse of a Galactic Empire

Howl by Allen Ginsburg (1951)

• Long form, experimental poem with a focus on detailing American life, heavy in metaphor. Believed to be one of the catalysts for the Second Cultural Revolution

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)

• A picaresque narrative centered on an unnamed black man and his adventures in dealing with "communistic racism" and black nationalism.

Death by Fame by Roberta Betancourt* (1954)

• Written in the immediate aftermath of the Limelight scandal by a former screenwriter who worked for Chaplin, this novel recounts the story of a group of struggling film actors in Los Angeles who find their lives forever changed after one of them is embroiled in a scandal with a famous star.

The Autobiography of David D. Eisenhower by David D Eisenhower (1955)

• Supreme Commander of the INTREV forces during the World Revolutionary War details his childhood in Kansas and Texas, before describing how he embraced socialism during the Great War, becoming a key player during the American Revolution, and his experiences leading the command during WW2.

The Martian Candidate by John Wyndham (1956)

• A science fiction tale about an ex-spationaut who is the first man on Mars, and runs for office, only to have increasingly… strange views, and is in fact a secret Martian agent sent to take over the Earth.

The Antares Protocol by Ivan Efremov (1957)

• A communist space crew in the distant future explores a planet under a stagnant, inefficient dictatorship. Believed to be a satire of the Soviet system under Molotov and Frunze.

The Osiris Foliage by HP Lovecraft (1958)

• The story of a mysterious alien plant brought back by a space mission that becomes increasingly malevolent, slowly enveloping entire communes and eventually attacking people, making them part of a hive mind subservient to the hive. Believed to have been inspired by increasing environmental awareness.

The Martians by Ray Bradbury, Al Feldstein, and Wallace Wood (1959)

• Considered one of the first "graphic novels", a long form comic book (adapted from short stories published in Red and Black Comics' Weird Science-Fantasy) about the future colonization of Mars, and the formation of a communist society and the struggle that went into it.

Credit Where It's Due by George Weiner* (1961)

• The story of Henry Valley, a corrupt accountant arrested in 1932, but released during the general amnesty of the First Cultural Revolution and made to work as a forensic accountant, working under stern commissar Spartacus Jones.[1]

Gentleman by Chinua Achebe (1961)

• A story parodying the rise of native elites in newly self-governing AFS-aligned African states, and their tendency to emulate and replicate both the culture and the abuses of the former colonial government.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

• Describes the increasing problem of pollution and its resulting environmental devastation it causes, with a particular focus on DDT. Sparked the modern environmental movement.

Cacti in the Sunlight by Ramon Formosa* (1964)

• A "narrative memoir", based on the narrator's experiences as a partisan in the Southwestern Theatre of the Revolution. In particular, his squadron's (a mixed Mexican-Punjabi band) battle against a nefarious arms dealer named Barry Goldwater.

Green Blood by Rodolfo Salvati* (1965)

• A story set in Integralist Brazil, about two estranged brothers, one a devoted Greenshirt and the other a closeted Uranian, whose familial connection mutually threatens one another with mortal danger. One of the most renowned works dealing with the Brazilian Holocaust, and influential on USAT+ liberation movements.

The Secret of Wilmington Lot No. 84 by Morris Rubenstein* (1966)

• A satire of both wartime and post-war America, starring Private Billiam T. Bailey, a devout communist who is assigned to the titular lot in Wilmington, Delaware (a secret government research facility), and his ultimate detailings with insane rocket scientists, angry alien gods, and a new substance that could end the world- while also not angering his bosses in the nomenklatura (which seemingly don't change despite the formations and break-ups of parties.)

The Family Solomon by Emma Salomons* (1967)

• A epic tale of the titular family of Jewish immigrants, from their arrival under matriarch Leah in the US in 1905, through grandson Fredrick's service during the Revolution and WWII, and eventually becoming the assistant to a deranged technocrat during the Second Cultural Revolution

The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

• The saga of Billy Pilgrim, who is abducted by aliens called Tralfamadorians (who perceive time in "all directions) during the Battle of Stalingrad, and experiences his life in a distinctly non-chronological order.

Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmeal Reed (1972)

• A tale of conspiracy and voudou set during the Harlem Renaissance.

Red Year, Black Sox by EL Doctorow (1976)

• A series of interlocking plots centered on average people during the concurrent Black Sox scandal and Bienno Rosso in 1919.

A Contract With God by Will Eisner (1978)

• A short story collection of comics, set within the same tenement building during the 1920's and 30's (based off Eisner's own childhood)

Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)

• Science fiction story about a young black woman who seemingly travels back in time to antebellum Maryland, where she endures the horrors of slavery.

The Brothers by Sarah Vinchovsky* (1982)

• The story of two brothers who become executives in Jazz Age Hollywood, only to end up on opposite sides of the Revolution, and running studios in the mainland and Cuba. Details the resulting developments of the film industry in both countries.

Reaction by Yargos Yannios* (1983)

• A fictionalization of the treason trial of Irene and Frederic Joliot-Curie (represented by Cynthia and Jean Escoffier) as told through their lawyer, leftist Georges Blum.

Unlucky Charms by Richard E. Kim (1984)

• A historical fiction novel centered on a Chosun-Nippon joint special unit in Indochina, with a new American commissar being assigned. There are deep dives into the generational trauma of the 20th century, stretching from the Chosun occupation, Nipponese Self-Purification Campaign, and a Midwestern Asian's struggle with identity. All of this comes to a head over the supposed silly superstitions concerning Assorted Charms.

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Rick Veitch (1985)

• A dark comic book satire of the superhero genre, featuring flawed, cruel superheroes modeled on various archetypes and characters from comics on both sides of the Atlantic (focusing on dueling American-Soviet and Franco-British teams), and an alternate history centered on a "superhuman arms race", which threatens to destroy the Earth. [2]

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

• A haunting ghost story centered on a newly freed family in Ohio shortly after the Slaver's War.

Redemption by Fire: My Experience with the Red Army by Reinhardt Koller* (1988)

• An autobiographical account of a retired East German Generalleutnant, with detailed descriptions of his time as a Landser in the Wehrmacht to his capture by the Red Army, and his eventual return to Berlin as part of the DBA.

Fear and Loathing in the Bush Fire by Monte Melkonian* (1989)

• A darkly comedic memoir of the author's experiences being deployed in the Azanian War from December 1983 to March 1986, detailing personal accounts of what he saw and experienced fighting in the bush.

Red Star Operations by Ma Hanying* (1993)

• A satirical retelling of the space race of the 1960's and 70's, centering on a scientist within the Chinese space program, and her numerous bizarre experiences, including space orgies and contact with extraterrestrials, and the nitpicking of clueless bureaucrats.

Mumbai by Anand Divaakar* (1994)

• A look into the so-called "New Bollywood", and its intersection with the Red Summer, from the perspective of numerous characters, including an actress (who ends up barely escaping the infamous Osho murders) and a young hot director determined to do away with musicals.

Nike of the North Star by Margaret Atwood (1996)

• The story of the titular Canadian comic book character, and her creator, German Jewish refugee Julia Wasserman, during the Depression, WW2, and the immediate postwar period. Based on the creation of characters like Nelvana and Johnny Canuck.

The Life and Death of Sanjay the King by Ganesh Namrathan* (2004)

• The story of the titular character, the American-born son of Indian immigrants, and his struggles in love and loss, interspersed with stories of his parents living in post-war India and their eventual arrival to America.

Murder in the 80th Degree by Maria Vegara* (2007)

• A mixture of science fiction, magical realism, and detective story, focusing on a "time city", where every point in time intersects, resulting in multiple historical periods interacting. The main character, a Mexican detective from the 1960's, investigates the murder of a 19th century American labor activist, resulting in the uncovery of a conspiracy to break up the city.

[1] Adapted into a film in 1964, and later a procedural television series
[2] A mixture of OTL Watchmen and Veitch's The One

 

[Aelita]

Foreign Affairs
Part One​

The bright lights of the Metropolis skyline filtered in through the windows of my hotel room. Such a wonder of the age, it seldom ceases to amaze me. It's only twilight, and still the glow of the artificial lights burns away the darkness like the noonday sun. This hustling metropolis never sleeps it seems. In the few weeks that I'd been living there, the relentless pace of city life had never once faltered, and tonight it was no different. If anything, the war was only giving new urgency to it all.

The bellhop, a right cocky young Negro man still fresh-faced and boyish, had told me that the city's central committee had mooted but ultimately rejected implementing total wartime blackouts. It had been decided, apparently, that economic efficiency required leaving some of the lights turned on.

How can a people this soft hope to prevail against steely Prussian militarism? I often wondered. I left my desk, the typewriter paused mid-word, standing to stretch my sore bones. Long cold, half-empty mug of tea in hand, I peered out the window, looking down on the rush of traffic below. Workers, many just leaving factories after long wartime shifts, were congregating at the street corner newsstands. "The universities of the revolution," they'd been called.

I scoffed just thinking about it. Everyone in this blasted country, from janitors to prostitutes, fancied himself or herself to be an intellectual. Still, on the whole they had exceeded my expectations; their "intellectualism" didn't seem to be only limited to Marxist dogmatics.

I set my tea aside, as unfinished as my manuscript. I'd been dispatched to New York by The Times to report upon the developing conflict between the Comintern and the German-led Axis Powers, now embroiled in Eastern Europe. That was the publicly stated reason, anyway. But The Times herself had undergone a change of editorial slant recently. E.H. Carr was ascendant, and even the owners of this venerable institution of journalism agreed that the foreign policy of His Majesty's Government was disastrously short-sighted. I'd agreed with the real purpose of my assignment, to help dismiss any myths about the war and the American state's involvement in it and thus increase support for intervention and an end to the appeasement of Germany.

I had been selected because I had no great love for Socialism nor America. I neither mourned the passing of the late United States, nor did I champion the coming of this new "Union of American Socialist Republics." The long and fierce Liberal heritage of my family, which I had done my part to uphold at Cambridge as well as in professional life, coupled with what my employers had flatteringly described as my "natural, if slightly naïve incorruptibility," had earned me this task.

It was our common enemy that kept us all in common purpose. Were it not for the War, and the disastrous leadership of first Chamberlain and now Lord Halifax, I would not have remained with The Times long enough for it to gain the nickname of the "threepenny Daily Worker."

I decided against tidying my hotel room. I dumped the cold tea in the washroom sink, leaving the mug on the edge of the bath. I threw on my coat, gathered my keys and pocketbook, and left my dreary room. I decided that my companion and I would head out for the night, for a few drinks and take in the sights. Research indeed. I knocked on his door, just down the hall from mine. "Mister Standfast," I called out, "It's Kerrigan! I think it's time for another research trip."

I heard a soft voice mumble something, probably something to the effect of "At this hour?" if I knew my old friend well.

Standfast opened the door wearing his usual perpetual frown. "Kerrigan, I know your writing muse is alcohol, but must you bring me along as well?"

"Standfast my old boy!" I cried, "You're looking as grey and world-weary as ever. Come along now, a few pints might put some colour in your dour mood."

He cleaned his thick spectacles with the fat end of his crooked tie while chewing it over. Standfast had gone straight from adolescence into his middle age, and I was shocked to learn that this shy little man was only twenty-five years old. "Oh, I suppose there's no resisting you, is there? Fine then, but you're buying."

"Wouldn't have it any other way. Come along, I hear that there's a nice place a few blocks from here we haven't visited yet, called the Cutty Sark. A good Scottish pub, run by an ol' Scottish mac from the auld country."

Standfast almost laughed I think, but his expression remained as morose as ever. "Your attempts at faking a Glaswegian accent haven't improved," he remarked as he made his way to the stairs at his usual slow but deliberate pace.

The evening air was cool and refreshing, especially after having holed up in my hotel room for most of the day. The street traffic nearly drowned out our conversation. Though I must admit, it was a rather one sided affair. As we walked, I did most of the talking. Standfast mostly nodded along, occasionally quipping some dry comment to take the wind out of my sails.

I had been to New York before, when I was barely a man, involved in some transatlantic business for my father's firm. To tell you the truth, it had not changed greatly in the past ten years. Some of the scars of the civil war still lingered, but on the whole the populace was not much redder than they were before the revolution. They were just in power and triumphant at the moment. The skirts were shorter, the workers' councils more active, and the people more zealous. But on the whole, we should have all seen the revolution coming. The Communists had already won before the first shot was fired. The nucleus of their new system had already been birthed within the body of the old one.

The Cutty Sark was inviting, and I had worked up a considerable thirst. I half dragged Standfast to the bar. After he began to dig his heels in, I relented, and agreed to find a table in a quieter corner of the building. But quiet was a sort of relative thing; it was a Saturday night, and after a long day spent in the dizzying array of assemblies, councils, and committees that make up the skeleton of American civic life, it was popular to go to the pub, and continue to talk shop while slightly inebriated.

The waitress was polite but not overly friendly. I ordered some of the local flavour. Since Standfast seemed paralyzed with indecision, muttering something about whether to see if the porter measured up. So I ordered for him to spare him from the continued agony. The waitress quickly scratched down our order on a little pad, and briskly moved on to the next table.

"Must you be so meddlesome?" Standfast said wearily, as though he already knew the answer.

I didn't see the point in answering. Soon enough, the waitress brought two pints—excuse me, half-litres—of foamy golden lager. And to be perfectly honest with you, while I didn't care for the style, it wasn't half bad. Standfast seemed to enjoy it as well. He seemed so inscrutable to me; he barely talked about his personal life at all, and scarcely talked anymore about world affairs. Why he had taken up this profession baffled me. Journalism, especially foreign correspondence, seemed to be work suited only for adventurous gadflies and incorrigible womanizers.

As far as I could tell, the crowd that frequented the Cutty Sark was mostly the young and fashionable sort. The usual array of strapping young men, with slicked back hair, double breasted leather jackets, and colourful trousers. Some wore more traditional professional dress, sans the neck-tie. A scarf, usually red but occasionally black, was the most usual stand in. For my part, I tried to blend in as well as I could, but I drew the line at goggles and jackboots.

Standfast, on the other hand, remained as resolutely bourgeois as ever, and on some level I admired him for it, even if he did it out of tired habit.

It was a mixed crowd too. Plenty of young women, some of them dressed much like the men, but others wore enticingly short skirts. As I contemplated whether or not to eat the house's offerings rather than endure another dismal attempt to cook myself a meal, a group of young coeds strutted by our table. With their chests puffed up proudly in their tight sweaters, it was hard not to get distracted. They sat not far away, giggling loudly. I licked my lips, contemplating how best to approach them.

"On the prowl again, Kerrigan?" groaned Standfast.

"How can I not be? A bachelor has never had it quite as good as here in Metropolis after the revolution. The women here are loose—excuse me—'liberated,' and they practically give themselves to the hunter."

Now, I have a fairly high estimation of my abilities. I had quite a list of conquests before accepting this assignment, and it isn't just due to my grooming and rugged good looks. Men more attractive and well-bred than I don't have half my accolades. But I did not suddenly become so much more charming or handsome after one transatlantic boat ride.

"Has it not occurred to you that they're hunting you?"

As if to punctuate his statement, the waitress returned and promptly set a cocktail glass before me. "Excuse me comrades," she explained, "But it appears you caught the eye of one of our patrons. She says to tell you that she heard your accent, and wished to welcome you to the cradle of our revolution with one of the local drinks."

I saw her up at the corner of the bar. As I looked up, she was raising her own glass to me. Her short red hair, trimmed close on the sides but longer on the pate caught my eye first. She was…tomboyish to say the least. Her face was girlish enough, definitely no pinup girl though. She didn't wear a speck of makeup. It took me a moment to realize she was wearing the olive service uniform of the Revolutionary Army, but with the mandarin collar unbuttoned, revealing the black turtleneck beneath.

The drink was ruddy brown, with a little cherry in the bottom. "Capital. What is it?"

"She said to come ask her yourself."

It was smooth, I'll give her that. I made a mental note to remember that line for later. I excused myself from our table. Standfast rolled his eyes as always. I sauntered over to my androgynous mystery woman. She was not my type, but her boldness definitely had my interest.

"It's not poison, is it?" I said in my best RP, something I found always loosened American women's morals. It was exotic and dangerous I suppose.

She had that cocky half-smile that I'd seen in the mirror plenty of times. "Only if you drink too much." She patted the stool next to her, and I obliged. "It's a Manhattan; rye whisky and sweet red vermouth with a dash of bitters."

"My name is Henry Kerrigan," I said, offering her my hand.

She shook it firmly. "Lieutenant Jane Schafer. So tell me, Kerrigan, what brings you to Metropolis?"

I found myself getting a little lost in her wolfish grin. I wondered idly what was making this woman so alluring. I took a quick drink from the Manhattan. It went down smoothly. "I'm a journalist actually."

"I don't suppose you've come all this way to sample the whiskey here."

"No ma'am, though I must say this drink was worth the trip." She chuckled softly. Good, I thought, she doesn't think I'm completely daft. "I'm actually here to report on the war. Specifically, the home front, to give readers back home a more favourable impression."

"The Times then?"

"You are sharp," I said, trying to mask my surprise.

"You have to be in my profession."

"And that would be?"

"That depends. Are you here for business or pleasure tonight, Kerrigan?"

I had finally figured out what was so captivating. It was her voice, low and sultry for a woman. And that unashamed way her eyes seemed to undress me. That damnable Standfast, he was right; I was the one being hunted tonight. "Pleasure," I said confidently.

"Good. Political commissars shouldn't make a habit of carousing with foreign journalists. But if you're just a private citizen right now, then I don't see any problem."

My heart jumped a little bit. I felt a wave of nervous excitement. They'd warned all of us on this expedition about StateSec. Somehow, though, the aura of mystique just made her more alluring. If I had been paying more attention, I'd have seen the Party emblem on her collar. "Any problem for what?" I said, finishing my drink.

Jane stood up. She pulled me off my stool, 'til I pressed close to her body. "Dancing," she said, as she guided my hands to her hips.

---

I won't go into great detail about what followed. I am, after all, a gentleman. But suffice to say, we danced for a while in the pub. Then we retired to my hotel room for a more intimate sort of dancing.

Afterwards, we lay in bed quietly. I do not know if it was the alcohol, the exhaustion from a day spent hammering away at a typewriter, or the night's other activities, but I started to doze off while she held me close to her chest. We lay cwtched together for some time, and it seemed like there was no other sound in the world other than her gentle breathing on the back of my neck.

I felt her start to stir, and my eyes fluttered open. The city lights filtered through the Venetian blinds. I turned to see Jane standing at the other side of the bed, beginning to dress. A wave of shame fluttered over me. So that's what it felt like…

"Hullo," I groaned, still groggy with sleep.

"Oh, you're up," she said flatly, "I was trying to save us an awkward morning."

"Too late for that."

"In my defence, I did stay for a few hours. You weren't exactly an engaging conversationalist."

Impossible. I checked my pocket watch; it had been at least a couple hours. Where had the time gone? "Ah, my apologies." I propped my pillow up at the head of the bed. "Still…it was nice. You're not like any woman I've ever known."

She laughed quietly. "Flatterer."

It must have worked, since she stopped dressing after putting on that absurd brassiere designed to minimize the profile of the breasts. She stooped over, kissing me on the forehead. "Alright, I'll stay for a bit. Let me put a kettle on, since I doubt either of us will be getting back to sleep."

"You're a sweetheart," I said.

The match flared brightly, filling the room with the aroma of brimstone. The range lit without difficulty, blue flames dancing. She filled the kettle, and set it on the range. I finally got a good look at her unclothed body. I couldn't help but feel envious of her physique. It reminded me of the marble sculptures of the great masters.

"Are all women soldiers as athletic as you?"

She tsked. "No. But most are. Are you surprised?"

"To be perfectly honest, yes."

She slipped into the bed next to me. "You think we're playing at soldiering," she accused.

I didn't answer. Which was probably all the answer she needed. Even in the dark, I could see her disapproval.

"The world is changing, Kerrigan. You can't stop it. Nobody can."

"You think I don't know that?" I hissed, "I am a journalist. I take my profession at least as seriously as you take yours. My assignment here is proof of that."

"You're obviously not some starry-eyed British pinko. I'm sure you think of yourself as liberal and oh-so open-minded, but you view every stirring of the oppressed against their chains with such disdain. So why are you here?"

"I would like to think we're fighting the same war. Just in different fields."

She fluffed a pillow and sat beside me at the head of the bead. "Go on, I'm listening."

"The British nation has become the unwitting co-belligerents of the Germans. While our financiers make truly outlandish loans to the German government, oft rumoured to be underwritten by His Majesty's Government, some of us still remember the last time German militarism was allowed free reign over the continent."

The kettle began to boil. She leapt to it immediately. While she asked me how I took my tea (plain), I wondered just how much I should share with this woman. As she passed me the piping hot black tea, our fingers brushed. I looked up to see her smile. Good, she didn't seem too mad at me, and for a moment I wondered if this would not be a one-time event.

"May I ask how old you are?"

"I'll be twenty-three soon."

I felt a little roguish being twelve years her senior. But at least this time I could excuse myself, though I would probably never admit it to my peers, she was the one who had conquered me. "I was young enough there was no danger that I would ever be conscripted in the Great War. But I was my father's second son. My older brother joined the British Army in 1916, just after his eighteenth birthday. He made it almost to the end; the Germans killed him during the 1918 Spring Offensive."

"You hate them, don't you?"

"The Germans?"

She nodded.

"Hate is a strong word. But yes, I do very much blame Germanic militarism for my brother's death. And I dare say I've come to hate all militarism with equal enthusiasm. I'm hardly alone in having lost, and it kills me to see the memory of our fallen desecrated by short-sighted anti-communist alliances. Since then, I've never trusted Germans, and I never will."

She…laughed? I froze, somewhere between anger and confusion. "You've been sleeping with the enemy then." She kissed my forehead so tenderly. "I was born in Berlin. My parents were ordinary German workers. When the war ended, they joined with millions of their comrades to put an end to Junker militarist-capitalism. My father marched with Red Rosa in November 1918. The Freikorps put him—and many others—up against a wall for joining the general strike. My mother left the Old Country to live with relatives in America."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know—"

"If there is one thing I would like you to take away, it is that the Internationale will not stoop to fighting the war on the terms set by the Nazi-Fascist Axis. The stubborn, prideful, chauvinistic German will be dragged to freedom whether he likes it or not."

Before I knew it, she was on my lap, kissing me. There was a lust for life behind her kisses, and instantly I feared the worst.

When she finally gave me a moment to breathe, I whispered, "You're shipping out to the front soon."

"Ja."

"I've…grown rather fond of you in the short time we've known each other. Don't get yourself killed."

"I feel the same."

We spent the rest of the early morning talking. Mostly politics. I found her strident, if not fanatical, in her devotion to "the cause", which she often spoke of in such reverent terms. She had heard the call to arms in defense of liberty and answered it. Her attachment to the cause was as much intellectual as it was emotional, and I admit I had fully succumbed to the temptation to underestimate her on more than one occasion.

That transatlantic affect slipped at some point, and I felt I was really starting to know the East-Side Jewish girl underneath it all. She spoke German with an appalling Yiddish accent,and chided my German for sounding too much like a "Hamburger professor". She spoke no French, and laughed openly when I declared it the language of love. After another…tryst…while she whispered sweet-nothings in German into my ear, I am becoming sympathetic to the idea that love has many dialects.

We parted late in the morning. Her liberty was near up, and soon she'd take a troop train out of Penn Station. Despite promises to write, I think we both knew at the time it would be unlikely we would see each other again. Yet life is oft full of surprises.

 

[Adonisus]

(Entry from Comintern Encyclopedia of World Literature, 2010 ed.)


Braun, Ernst (1930-2007)

German (FSRD) author, historian, critic and painter most famous for his historical fiction, among them his allegorical novel Mac Bethad, his widely reprinted short story "Der Krahendoktor" (The Crow Doctor), his children's story Die Fliegerin (The Aviatrix), and his widely lauded Walpurgis trilogy.

Born in 1930, he was named after renowned German revolutionary and FSRD(1) premier Ernst Thalmann. As he related in an interview in 1983: "I was born during the twilight years of the first republic in Berlin. My parents were both Party members and they were acquainted with Thalmann personally." Said parents, Friedrich and Helga, would be among the thousands of leftists who would be forced to flee from Germany after the Reichstag Bombing Decree, taking then three year old Ernst with them to the United Republics. Braun himself would not step foot on his homeland again until he was sixteen. "There was a significant German diaspora population in America, so much so that it was one of the official languages, so I still grew up speaking German and being immersed in German culture. But it was also within the patchwork that was Metropolis and its diverse population. I had quite the cosmopolitan childhood."

From a young age, Braun was a voracious reader, going through his own family's meager library before then spending many hours a day at the Library of Metropolis, where he discovered the works of Wilhelm Hauff, Alexandre Dumas, and especially Jozef Kraszewski. These authors would ignite a passion for both history and historical fiction that would define the rest of Braun's life. In particular, it was Kraszewski who would be his life-long obsession. The famously prolific Polish polymath(2), noted not only for his astounding output but his additional talents in both art and music would, in his mind, define what a proper author should be: hard-working, enthusiastic, and autodidactic. "Discovering Kraszewski defined my life. Not only did I have so many books to read, with so many kinds of stories, but his prose was absolutely spell-binding. He also had talents in so many different fields. That was what inspired me to learn how to paint. The idea that a person could be both an author and a painter at the same time was a revelation for me."

At 19, he began attending the University of Berlin, where he showed an exceptional talent for historical research (his thesis was on the history of Yiddish in German culture and its connection to class conflict), eventually earning a doctorate in History in 1952. During his free time, he began submitting various short stories and poems to several publications. These works displayed his attention to historical detail, as well as a rather macabre sense of dread that would color much of his work. "If anything, my research proved to me that the old adage about history not repeating but rhyming was absolutely true. Seeing our species make the same mistakes again and again can color one's attitude, I suppose." In 1955 his first novel Der Graben (The Trench), about a group of soldiers suffering through the perils of early trench warfare during the Piedmontese Civil War, was published to moderate success. His next two books, released in 1958 and 1960 respectively, received similar responses, earning Braun the title of a 'cult writer'.

In between book releases, Braun would continue his academic work researching the history of Germany and its relationship with other countries. Out of this would come, in 1961, a literary biography of Friedrich II of Prussia simply entitled Fritz that would finally bring Braun to mainstream notice. This biography, a combination of scholarly research and social commentary, ignited a great deal of debate on both sides of the Hugenburg Line and internationally. Braun affirmed the fact that Friedrich was almost certainly Uranian, and wrote eloquently on the notorious episode where he was forced to watch the execution of his friend and possible lover by his father's soldiers. He also had much to say on what he viewed as the toxic and reactionary nature of both Friedrich's upbringing and Prussian culture in general, drawing a pointed (and controversial) line between Prussian militarism and the rise of Adolf Hitler (the first edition also included a slight against the SPD, but this was removed in subsequent editions on Braun's request). "It is, perhaps, a credit to Friedrich that he managed to grow into manhood as a functioning adult", he wrote in the preface, "considering the terror his father Friedrch Wilhelm visited upon him as a child."

Attention from this biography would bring attention to his fiction, and after years as a 'cult author' his previous books finally found a widespread audience. But this was only a prelude to what would be his first international success as a novelist: his novel Mac Bethad. Released in 1963 and inspired by a combination of Shakespeare's famous play 'Macbeth', as well as various historical texts that inspired it, it attempts to humanize the notoriously paranoid Scottish king that both usurped his throne and in turn was usurped by the son of Macbeth's predecessor, whilst leaving a reign of terror in his wake. It was, like his previous work, rather macabre in nature yet rich in historical detail of 11th century Scotland, and also containing a small trace of the supernatural in its undercurrent ("One cannot help writing about the Middle Ages without the old superstitions seeping in", he was quoted as saying). Like in Shakespeare's play, Macbeth is visited by the Weird Sisters that prophecy his rise and fall (though in this case, it's in the form of a vision he receives in his sleep). Also like the play, once he does seize the throne he is overwhelmed by the responsibilities of being a king and obsessed with finding imagined enemies everywhere (although unlike in the play, where he is pushed along by his wife Lady Macbeth, it is instead through a council of ambitious advisors who encourage his worst impulses for their own gain). Ultimately, it is through his own paranoia that he finally runs out of allies, and he is ultimately killed by a stray boulder from a catapult during his duel with Macduff. Unlike most other depictions of Macbeth, however, Macbeth as king is shown to be a fairly progressive ruler who attempts lower taxes, distributes money from the treasury to aid his subjects, and decree sumptuary laws to counteract wasteful spending by the nobility. This bit of novelty, while unusual, was not without precedent in historical scholarship(3).

Critics and readers alike were quick to see the rather obvious parallels between the text and recent history. Some years beforehand, a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) concerning the Great Purge and other wartime atrocities by the government of Iosif Stalin was made public for the first time, causing an international outcry that permanently altered the man's legacy as a politician and public figure in the Communist world. That Stalin himself had died an apparent martyr for the country during the Battle of Moscow under mysterious circumstances brought a degree of senselessness to the whole affair. Braun himself would say in a preface to the 20th anniversary edition that "..As the facts of the Yezhov Affair became clearer and clearer, it rocked many of us to our core. We knew that Stalin was strict, and that his rule was rigid in character, but we had fooled ourselves into thinking that the precarious conditions of the war had forced him into drastic action… Considering that my namesake adhered faithfully to the Moscow line well into the war, and never really publicly came to terms with it in spite of his own personal Internationalist convictions put a pall over our newly free (if divided) country. It was through this that I was reminded of Shakespeare's play, and the book followed from there".

Themes of paranoia and terror were not limited solely to this novel. Published in his first collection of short stories Alte Geschichten (Ancient Tales) in 1963, his widely reprinted short story "Der Krahendoktor" (The Crow Doctor) is now considered a modern classic of macabre literature. It tells the story of a wandering plague doctor, complete with ghoulish crow-like mask, in 17th century France as plague overruns a group of villages. Wherever the plague doctor appears, he is followed by a crow that squawks 'fais sortir tes morts!' ('bring out your dead!') as it flies overhead. As the plague doctor is spotted in a wagon heading towards yet another village, the villagers take it as an omen that plague is imminent. They immediately begin performing acts of penance, including flagellation, fervent prayers, and eventually the lynching of an old woman accused to be a witch. However, the plague doctor never leaves his wagon, and simply passes through the village without ever setting foot in it. The story ends ominously with a young child coughing roughly as the crow makes its clarion call in the sky. Whether or not plague has actually come, or whether or not the plague doctor themself is spreading it, is left up to the reader to decide.

During his scholastic and literary endeavors, Braun also pursued many other ventures. His most famous, of course, was painting. Beginning in the late 1950s Braun would begin painting in earnest, with numerous subjects. These would include cityscape paintings of Berlin (including a widely acclaimed triptych of the Reichstag building during its reconstruction), history paintings (including a painting of Friedrich II that would become the cover art for his biography, as well as images of peasants), and several nudes. One of the subjects of these nudes, Abeni Kasiyah, was an African student and scholar who volunteered for the project, and would marry Braun six months later (she would pass away in 2001 from thyroid cancer, six years before Braun's own passing). On top of painting, he attempted several other endeavors including: developing a chess variant he called 'Peasant Revolt', revising the famed Prussian war game Kriegspiel to a revised board game variant (unsuccessful), writing music (also unsuccessful), works for the theater (his most successful being a staged version of The Crow Doctor), and even a puppet theater. He also wrote and illustrated a popular children's book called Die Fliegerin (The Aviatrix)in 1965, in which a young girl, bored with her dull rural life, builds an airplane with the help of her friends and flies off to a kingdom in the sky, where she has many adventures flying around battling a tyrannical Queen of Birds. Unlike his other work, this story is fairly light-hearted and whimsical, made even more exciting by Braun's lush illustrations.

Braun would not release another book for six years. During that time period, he began crafting what critics believe to be his magnum opus. As Braun himself recalled in 1993: "I had unwittingly worked myself into illness. I was not getting enough sleep, nor was I eating well due to the sheer amount of work I had thrown myself into. I then contracted a rather pernicious case of Influenza, the first time I had ever actually contracted it and made worse by my weakened immune system, and I was bedridden for three days. One night, warm with fever, I had a nightmare which was nigh indescribable save for one clear image I had, which was that of a skull stuck onto a wooden stake whilst a knight rode away on horseback, bearing a standard with a circled cross. When I woke up that afternoon and went to my books, I realized that the standard was that of the Swabian League. I then sat down at my easel with my paints, and began furtively to work."

In 1971, the first volume of what would be called the Walpurgis trilogy was published, entitled Fleisch und Blut (Flesh and Blood), bearing the painting previously mentioned as its cover art. The novel would cause an international sensation that would overshadow his previous success. Taking place in the 16th century, it chronicled the events of the German Peasants' War through a panorama of characters from peasants, to religious fanatics, to nobles and kings. Like his previous historical fiction, it took a macabre and dim view of feudal life, both as a system that relentlessly ground down the peasantry and forced the rulers to constant paranoia and backstabbing. Key figures include Thomas Muntzer, the radical protestant reformer and his falling out with Martin Luther (4), a young peasant named Hanz who is swept up into the rebellion and gives a grounded view of medieval warfare and brutality, the infamous Bauernjorg (aka Georg von Waldburg) who would order the torture and execution of thousands of peasants before seizing their lands for himself, and Henvy V the Younger who was the last Catholic of the League and his notorious affair with his mistress Eva von Trott. The novel and resulting trilogy is filled with apocalyptic images of violence, famine and pestilence that war leaves in its wake. Battlefields, strewn with fly-covered corpses, are described with an ominous black cloud 'like the cloak of a horseman riding into nightfall'. Swords and cannons, though historically accurate and thoroughly described, are robbed of almost any romanticism, only showing the gruesome result that their use gives. The atrocities that the Swabians inflict upon the rebelling peasants from mass rape and pillaging to fire and mass murder are all graphically catalogued to an almost lurid degree. Most famously, Muntzer himself is subjected to numerous visions that critics have compared to the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch, phantasmagoric in nature and filled with surreal apocalyptic imagery of skeletal horsemen with trumpets, angels with eyes crying blood, draconic slavering jaws and cavorting demons dragging sinners into a fiery orgy of torment and pain. The first book even begins with a stanza that rather brazenly takes from the Illiad: "O Heavenly Host, sing of the cause of the peasants and their leader Thomas Muntzer. Seditious. Doomed. Which rattled the many crowns of Germania, and sent to His embrace many an innocent soul."

The response was incomparable to anything in Braun's career up to that point. It was an immediate bestseller both within the FSRD and internationally, being translated into over twenty different languages (including English, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Yiddish, Nihonese and Spanish) and like his previous work was an instant lightning rod of controversy. Critics were divided on the more phantasmagoric aspects of the work, with some arguing that it subtracted from the overall realism of the book while others saying that it only better communicates the nature of the time period. The biggest controversy however did not come from within the Comintern world, but from within the AFS and specifically the German Federation, where monarchists and conservatives were outraged at what they saw as slanderous statements about both the monarchy and the nobility. Members of the ruling German Democratic People's Party even brought forward a petition to ban the book from within their borders on charges of sedition and 'moral corruption'. Attempts to publicly burn the book were halted by the authorities, who almost certainly did not want repeats of the book burnings of the 1930s.

The other two books in the trilogy, Kanone und Knochen (Cannon and Bone) and Eroburug und Tod (Conquest and Death) would be published in 1973 and 1974 respectfully. The last book would end with a quote from Friedrich Engels' book The Peasant War in Germany: "Still, the two revolutions, that of the sixteenth century and that of 1848-50, are, in spite of all analogies, essentially different. The revolution of 1848 speaks for the progress of Europe, if not of Germany." In 1975, Braun would be awarded the highest literary honor in the Comintern with the Ostrovsky-Sinclair prize(5). The following year he would be received in Warsaw in the homeland of his idol, where he was presented with a rare and lavishly illustrated edition of Stara Basn (Kraszewski's most famous book) and a rare caricature (6) of Kraszewski as a humanoid octopus simultaneously writing, painting and composing that was originally published in the 19th century.

For the rest of his life, Braun would only furtively release new fiction, with the majority of his work focused on history and biography. In 1983, he would release a two volume biography on Kraszewski, including many images of the man's paintings and drawings and a thorough cataloguing of his numerous publications (numbered in the hundreds, as he would discover). In 1990 he would release his biography of his namesake, Ernst Thalmann, entitled Nie Gefallen: Ein Leben von Ernst Thälmann (Never Fallen: A Life of Ernst Thalmann). This latter book is considered by critics to be his best biographical work, as by that time more information about Thalmann and his cooperation (and, as it was revealed, conflicts) (7) with Moscow and Stalin were made public. In particular, Braun gives a critical account of the KPD in the rise of Hitler and the early Comintern's inconsistent line towards the Social Democrats leading up to the Enabling Acts, though he ultimately concludes that neither side was completely wrong. He furthermore chronicles Thalmann's time as a general in the German exile army under Ludwig Renn, and the time he spent in Metropolis in the still young Union of American Socialist Republics (UASR).

In 2007, Braun would pass away peacefully in his sleep at the age of 77. His papers, numerous drawings and copious notes were donated to the library of the University of Berlin. At his funeral, his children and grandchildren would be joined by the descendants of his namesake, who laid a wreath of red poinsettias (his favorite flower) at his tomb.


NOTES:
1-Stands for Freie Sozialistische Räterepublik Deutschland, or Free Socialist Republic of Germany.

2-Kraszewski wrote over 200 novels, and hundreds of shorter peaces in his career. No assistants like Dumas, either. It was all him.

3-Scholars believe that the reason Macbeth is a straight villain in Shakespeare's play is due to his royal patrons (James VI and I was descended partly from Clan Bruce). Though rare, there are more flattering depictions of Macbeth.

4-Luther would rather infamously side with the aristocracy against the peasants, whereas Muntzer (Luther's former friend) and his apocalyptic theology sided with the peasant rebels.

5-This is ITTL's Comintern equivalent to the Nobel Prize for Literature, named after Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky and American author Upton Sinclair.

6-This actually exists.

7-IOTL, Thalmann was rather infamous for sticking strictly to the Moscow line against 'social fascism', and is often blamed for not allowing a proper left-wing opposition to Hitler to form. ITTL, it's a bit more complicated than that (and will be revealed in more detail in coming installments).