Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

[Aelita]

The Socialist Labor Party as a national party: Primary Documents, circa 1912

National Platform
Socialist Labor Party of America
Adopted by the Thirteenth National Convention, Toledo, June 1912
And approved by a general vote of the party's membership.
*​

The Socialist Labor Party of the United States of America in National Convention assembled in Toledo on June 7th, 1912, reaffirming its previous platform pronouncements, and in accord with the International Socialist Movement, declares:

Social conditions, as illustrated by the events that crowded into the last four years, have ripened so fast that each and all the principles, hitherto proclaimed by the Socialist Labor Party, and all and each the methods that the Socialist Labor Party has hitherto advocated, stand to-day most conspicuously demonstrated.

The Capitalist Social System has wrought its own destruction. Its leading exponents, the present incumbent in the Presidential Chair, and his counterpart in the First Secretariat, however seemingly at war with each other on principles, cannot conceal the identity of their political views. The oligarchy proclaimed by the tenets of the one, the monarchy proclaimed by the tenets of the other, jointly proclaim the conviction of the foremost men in the Ruling Class that the Republic of Capital is at the end of its tether. True to the economic laws from which Socialism proceeds, dominant wealth has to such an extent concentrated into the hands of a select few, the Plutocracy, that the lower layers of the Capitalist Class feel driven to the ragged edge, while the large majority of the people, the Working Class, are being submerged.

True to the sociologic laws, by the light of which Socialism reads its forecasts, the Plutocracy is breaking through its republic-democratic shell and is stretching out its hands towards Absolutism in government; the property-holding layers below it are turning at bay; the proletariat is awakening to its consciousness of class, and thereby to the perception of its historic mission. In the midst of this hurly-burly, all the colors of the rainbow are being projected upon the social mists from the prevalent confusion of thought. From the lower layers of the Capitalist Class the bolder, yet foolhardy, portion bluntly demands that "the Trust be contained."

Even if the Trust could, it should not be contained; even if it should it cannot. The law of social progress pushes towards a system of production that shall crown the efforts of man, without arduous toil, with an abundance of the necessaries for material existence, to the end of allowing leisure for mental and spiritual expansion. The Trust is a mechanical contrivance wherewith to solve the problem. To smash the contrivance would be to re-introduce the days of small-fry competition, and set back the hands of the dial of Time. The mere thought is foolhardy. He who undertakes the feat might as well brace himself against the cascade of Niagara. The cascade of Social Evolution would whelm him.

The less bold among the smaller property-holding element proposes to "curb" the Trust with a variety of schemes. The very forces of social evolution that propel the development of the Trust stamp the "curbing" schemes, whether political or economic, as childish. They are attempts to hold back a runaway horse by the tail. The laws by which the attempt has been tried strew the path of the runaway. They are splintered to pieces with its kicks, and serve only to furnish a livelihood for the Corporation and the Anti- Corporation lawyer.

From still lower layers of the same property-holding class, social layers that have sniffed the breath of Socialism and imagine themselves Socialists, comes the iridescent theory of capturing the Trust for the people by the ballot only. The "capture of the Trust for the people" implies the Social Revolution. To imply the Social Revolution with the ballot only, without the means to enforce the ballot's fiat, in case of Reaction's attempt to override it, is to fire blank cartridges at a foe. It is worse. It is to threaten his existence without the means to carry out the threat. Threats of revolution, without provisions to carry them out, result in one of two things only – either the leaders are bought out, or the revolutionary class, to which the leaders appeal and which they succeed in drawing after themselves, are led like cattle to the shambles. The Commune disaster of France stands as a monumental warning against the blunder.

An equally iridescent hue of the rainbow is projected from a still lower layer, a layer that lies almost wholly within the submerged class – the theory of capturing the Trust for the Working Class with the fist only. The capture of the Trust for the people implies something else, besides revolution. It implies revolution carried on by the masses. For reasons parallel to those that decree the day of small-fry competition gone by, mass-revolutionary conspiracy is, to-day, an impossibility. The Trust-holding Plutocracy may successfully put through a conspiracy of physical force. The smallness of its numbers makes a successful conspiracy possible on its part. The hugeness of the numbers requisite for a revolution against the Trust-holding Plutocracy excludes Conspiracy from the arsenal of the Revolution. The idea of capturing the Trust with physical force only is a wild chimera.

Only two programs – the program of the Plutocracy and the program of the Socialist Labor Party – grasp the situation. The Political State, another name for the Class State, is worn out in this, the leading capitalist Nation of the world, most prominently. The Industrial or Socialist State is throbbing for birth. The Political State, being a Class State, is government separate and apart from the productive energies of the people; it is government mainly for holding the ruled class in subjection. The Industrial or Socialist State, being the denial of the Class State, is government that is part and parcel of the productive energies of the people. As their functions are different, so are the structures of the two States different.

The structure of the Political State contemplates territorial "representation" only; the structure of the Industrial State contemplates representation of industries, of useful occupations only. The economic or industrial evolution has reached that point where the Political State no longer can maintain itself under the forms of democracy. While the Plutocracy has relatively shrunk, the enemies it has raised against itself have become too numerous to be dallied with. What is still worse, obedient to the law of its own existence the Political State has been forced not merely to multiply enemies against itself; it has been forced to recruit and group the bulk of these enemies, the revolutionary bulk, at that.

The Working Class of the land, the historically revolutionary element, is grouped by the leading occupations, agricultural as well as industrial, in such manner that the "autonomous craft union," one time the palladium of the workers, has become a harmless scare-crow upon which the capitalist birds roost at ease, while the Industrial Unions cast ahead of them the constituencies of the government of the future, and, jointly, point to the Industrial State. It should be of no surprise to anyone that the harmless scare-crow has been cast aside by the class-conscious Working Class.

Nor yet is this all. Not only has the Political State raised its own enemies; not only has itself multiplied them; not only has itself recruited and drilled them; not only has itself grouped them into shape and form to succeed it; it is, furthermore, driven by its inherent necessities, prodding on the Revolutionary Class by digging ever more fiercely into its flanks the harpoon of exploitation.

With the purchasing power of wages sinking to ever lower depths; with certainty of work hanging on ever slenderer threads; with an ever more gigantically swelling army of the unemployed; with the needs of profits pressing the Plutocracy harder and harder recklessly to squander the workers' limbs and life; what with all this and the parallel process of merging the workers of all industries into one interdependent solid mass, the final break-up is rendered inevitable, and at hand. No wild schemes and no rainbow-chasing will stead in the approaching emergency. The Plutocracy knows this – and so does the Socialist Labor Party – and logical is the program of each.

The program of the Plutocracy is feudal Autocracy, translated into Capitalism. Where a Social Revolution is pending, and, for whatever reason is not enforced, REACTION is the alternative. The program of the Socialist Labor Party is REVOLUTION – the Industrial or Socialist Republic, the Social Order where the Political State is overthrown; where the Congress of the land consists of the representatives of the useful occupations of the land; where, accordingly, a government is an essential factor in production; where the blessings to man that the Trust is instinct with are freed from the trammels of the private ownership that now turn the potential blessings into a curse; where, accordingly, abundance can be the patrimony of all who work; and the shackles of wage slavery are no more. In keeping with the goals of the different programs are the means of their execution. The means in contemplation by REACTION is the bayonet. To this end REACTION is seeking, by means of the police spy and other agencies, to lash the proletariat into acts of violence that may give a color to the resort to the bayonet.

By its manoeuvres, it is egging the Working Class on to deeds of fury. The capitalist press echoes the policy, while the pure and simple political Socialist party press, generally, is snared into the trap. On the contrary, the means firmly adhered to by the Socialist Labor Party is the constitutional method of political action, backed by the industrially and class-consciously organized proletariat, to the exclusion of Anarchy, and all that thereby hangs. At such a critical period in the Nation's existence the Socialist Labor Party calls upon the Working Class of America, more deliberately serious than ever before, to rally at the polls under the Party's banner. And the Party also calls upon all intelligent citizens to place themselves squarely upon the ground of Working Class interests, and join us in this mighty and noble work of human emancipation, so that we may put summary end to the existing barbarous class conflict by placing the land and all the means of production, transportation and distribution into the hands of the people as a collective body, and substituting for the present state of planless production, industrial war and social disorder, the Socialist or Industrial Commonwealth – a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factories.

The Toledo Programme
Ratified June 15th, in National Convention assembled.
The Socialist Labor Party declares that the capitalist system has outgrown its historical function, and has become utterly incapable of meeting the problems now confronting society. We denounce this outgrown system as incompetent and corrupt and the source of unspeakable misery and suffering to the whole working class.

Under this system the industrial equipment of the nation has passed into the absolute control of a plutocracy which exacts an annual tribute of hundreds of millions of dollars from the producers. Unafraid of any organized resistance, it stretches out its greedy hands over the still undeveloped resources of the nation – the land, the mines, the forests and the water powers of every State of the Union.

In spite of the multiplication of labor-saving machines and improved methods in industry which cheapen the cost of production, the share of the producers grows ever less, and the prices of all the necessities of life steadily increase. The boasted prosperity of this nation is for the owning class alone. To the rest it means only greater hardship and misery. The high cost of living is felt in every home. Millions of wage-workers have seen the purchasing power of their wages decrease until life has become a desperate battle for mere existence.

Multitudes of unemployed walk the streets of our cities or trudge from State to State awaiting the will of the masters to move the wheels of industry. The farmers in every state are plundered by the increasing prices exacted for tools and machinery and by extortionate rents, freight rates and storage charges. Capitalist concentration is mercilessly crushing the class of small businessmen and driving its members into the ranks of propertyless wage-workers. The overwhelming majority of the people of America are being forced under a yoke of bondage by this soulless industrial despotism.

It is this capitalist system that is responsible for the increasing burden of armaments, the poverty, slums, child labor, most of the insanity, crime and prostitution, and much of the disease that afflicts mankind. Under this system the working class is exposed to poisonous conditions, to frightful and needless perils to life and limb, is walled around with court decisions, injunctions and unjust laws, and is preyed upon incessantly for the benefit of the controlling oligarchy of wealth. Under it also, the children of the working class are doomed to ignorance, drudging toil and darkened lives.

In the face of these evils, so manifest that all thoughtful observers are appalled at them, the legislative representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties remain the faithful servants of the oppressors.

The Minimum Programme
As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight for the realization of its ultimate aim, the co-operative commonwealth, and to increase its power against capitalist oppression, we advocate and pledge ourselves and our elected officers to the following program:
Collective Ownership

1. The collective ownership and democratic management of railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs and telephones, express service, steamboat lines, and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all large scale industries.
2. The immediate acquirement by the municipalities, the states or the federal government of all grain elevators, stockyards, storage warehouses, and other distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present extortionate cost of living.
3. The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil wells, forests and water power.
4. The further conservation and development of natural resources for the use and benefit of all the people.
5. The collective ownership of land wherever practicable, and in cases where such ownership is impractical, the appropriation by taxation of the annual rental value of all the land held for speculation and exploitation.
6. The collective ownership and democratic management of the banking and currency system, administered through the Bank of the Republic.

Unemployment
The immediate government relief of the unemployed by the extension of all useful public works. All persons employed on such works to be engaged directly by the government under a work day of not more than eight hours and at not less than the prevailing union wages. The government also to establish employment bureaus; to lend money to states and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works, and to take such other measures within its power as will lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of the capitalist class.

Industrial Demands
The conservation of human resources, particularly of the lives and well-being of the workers and their families:

1. By shortening the work day in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery.
2. By securing for every worker a rest period of not less than a day and a half in each week.
3. By securing a more effective inspection of workshops, factories and mines.

Political Demands

1. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage.
2. The adoption of a graduated income tax and the extension of inheritance taxes, graduated in proportion to the value of the estate and to nearness of kin-the proceeds of these taxes to be employed in the socialization of industry.
3. The abolition of the monopoly ownership of patents and the substitution of collective ownership, with direct reward to inventors by premiums or royalties.
4. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women.
5. The adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall and of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally.
6. The abolition of the Senate and of the veto power of the President.
7. The election of the President and Vice-President by direct vote of the people.
8. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by a referendum vote of the whole people.
9. Abolition of the present restrictions upon the amendment of the constitution, so that instrument may be made amendable by a majority of the voters in a majority of the States.
10. The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for purely local affairs.
11. The extension of democratic government to all United States territory.
12. The enactment of further measures for the conservation of health. The creation of an independent bureau of health, with such restrictions as will secure full liberty to all schools of practice.
13. The enactment of further measures for general education and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of Education to be made a department.
14. Abolition of all federal district courts and the United States circuit court of appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of several states and foreign corporations. The election of all judges for short terms.
15. The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to issue injunctions.
16. The free administration of the law.
17. The calling of a convention for the revision of the constitution of the US.

Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of socialized industry and thus come to their rightful inheritance.

The Organization of the IWSU

The Solidarity Union's organization is substantially influenced by the "one big union" concept. The union federation's internal structure seeks to limit divisions between workers by craft or trade. While industrial unions such as the American Railway Union still exist as branch unions within Solidarity, the union's charter grants supremacy to the federations of workers' councils.

Members joined the ISWU in the pre-revolutionary era by joining one of the locals for the industrial unions, or one of the general union locals that amalgamated workplaces too small to form industrial locals. Membership was open only to workers, yeoman, students or the unemployed. Members of the exploiter class were strictly prohibited, though as a matter of practicality small business owners were allowed to join provided they followed strict rules in the running of their business. The only exceptions to this policy were employees of the military, police or private security, who were considered class enemies.

With the advent of conscription in WW1, and the growing discontent in the military itself, the membership ban for military members was rescinded in 1916. In the 1920s, the membership requirements became increasingly meaningless, as the party and union increasingly cultivated infiltrators within the repressive sections.

Locals elect representatives to regional councils in both the branch unions as well as the general unions. Those regional councils send representatives to the national federation, which governs the entire union. The constitution also had provisions for an international federation, but at the time of adoption this was far from being realized. In practice, workers in Mexico and Canada were often considered members of the American federation due to the organizational difficulty of forming separate national federations.

The Solidarity federation developed its own civic institutions in partnership with the Socialist Labor Party, such as local grocery co-ops, newspapers, health organizations, artist guilds, and counterpart to the Boy Scouts, the Pioneer League.

By 1914, the alliance between the SLP and the IWSU had virtually become a state-within-a-state, much like the German SPD, operating a very successful network of support organizations and an unemployment fund for members paid for by dues.

The Internationale

On 1 August 1912, Solidarity and the Socialist Labor Party of America adopted an official lyrical translation of the French socialist anthem "L'Internationale" as their organizational anthems. In time, the Internationale would come to be not only the anthem of working-class struggles across the nation, but would eventually be enshrined in the 1934 Basic Law of the Union of American Socialist Republics as "the national anthem of the American workers, in solidarity with the workers of the world".

The adopted lyrics represent a compromise between different traditions and nationalities within the American working class. Immigrants from European countries, especially Ireland or Scotland, were much more familiar with the British English version of the anthem, translated anonymously near the end of the 19th Century. However, native born Anglo-Americans tended to favor Charles H. Kerr's translation made famous by the Wobblies' Little Red Songbook. Naturally, the eventual compromise needed to strike a balance between the many ethnic groups within the American working class.

Lyrics (1912-1920 version)

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
For justice thunders condemnation:
A better world's in birth!
No more tradition's chains shall bind us;
Arise, ye slaves, no more in thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations:
We have been nought, we shall be all!

Refrain:
So comrades come rally
And the last fight let us face
The International Party
Unites the human race.
'Tis the final conflict
Let each stand in his place
The Internationale
Shall be the human race.

Behold them seated in their glory
The kings of mine and rail and soil!
What have you read in all their story,
But how they plundered toil?
The fruits of the workers' toil are buried
In strongholds of the idle few
In fighting for their restitution
The people only claim their due.

Refrain

No more deluded by reaction
On tyrants only we'll make war
The soldiers too will take strike action
They'll break ranks and fight no more
And if those cannibals keep trying
To sacrifice us to their pride
They soon shall hear the bullets flying
We'll shoot the generals on our own side.

Refrain

No savior from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot.

Refrain

 

[Spartakrod]

Ah finally, we're getting started on the move.

Here's our discord.

 

[Aelita]

So the Chinese Exclusion Act expired in 1913, how much immigration has come from China since then? OTL, there was a massive pool of Chinese labourers working in France during the war, so is there an active desire to attract Chinese workers in wartime to not only weaken the unions, but to free up men for the war effort, perhaps in order to discourage women from entering the workplace? I don't know the specifics of Filipino migration to the US at this time, is it significant at this point?

On that note, are there any other changes to migration patterns? Perhaps more people from Mexico, with firms bringing in cheap and experienced miners to replace striking American workers? "Professional" semi-transient scabs who travelled across Europe to break strikes were a thing at this time after all (I dunno about the US). I don't think there's been many butterflies in Europe yet so maybe there haven't been many changes in that regard.

What about German? How is the language adapting and surviving as a spoken language here when in OTL it entered a serious decline at this point? The party is a big vehicle for the German language, yes? But is that enough to keep it going in the face of serious anti-German sentiment? Or is there an aspect of "know your enemy?" Obviously native German speakers would be handy to have on the frontlines but I can't see that stopping anti-German bigotry at home.

What's the approximate ethnic/linguistic composition of the party? Are WASPs a major component at any level?

One more question: why is it called the "Two Red Years?" We already have the word 'Biennium' in English to refer to that length of time.

Click to shrink...

Given conditions following the Xinhai Revolution in China, there's a large number of Chinese looking to emigrate, and as you correctly deduced, a lot of demand for labor in the United States. We're looking at several million, probably a 60-40 split between men and women (not including children) from the time the act expires until 1920, settling in California and in the Midwest Industrial cities. Filipino immigration, as well as from Latin America, is similarly significant.

Initially, there would be attempts to use them as a catspaw against American workers, but the union federation is also working to break down ethnic barriers. And the very low unemployment rate, reaching minimums about 2 percent, makes scabbing effectively impossible even with major influxes of immigration. Non-citizen residents are also subject to conscription under the Selective Service Act, and being unable to speak English fluently becomes less of a barrier as the war grinds on. On the flipside, they are guaranteed citizenship if they complete their term of service. So with the levying of men for the Army and Navy, labor unions have much more leverage to organize workers, who are quite indispensable, but in general throughout most of 1916 and 17 most strikes are short term, unplanned "wildcat" strikes for quick gains, and management generally settles with some minor concessions because no one wants to get the state or the feds involved in labor management, because it's generally bad for everyone involved. There's an old saying that the Navy cannot abide mutiny, but neither can it tolerate captains who cause mutiny; that attitude is very much at play. Of course, it's not sunshine and rainbows; interethnic tensions are quite strong, but the extended war mobilization and the experience of military training for a huge swath of the US does help break down that, particularly between who ever got to be considered "Native" versus white ethnix.

The German language is surviving and adapting in America, and the relative strength of the SLP does help arrest its decline in the pre-war era by getting concessions for bilingualism in schools. There are attempts to single out Germans in the SLP as a fifth column, countered by slogans to the effect of "Down with the Kaiser, Down with the War", and other attempts to separate a liberal 48er German tradition from Prussian militarism. Your mileage may very, but industrial workers, whether at home or drafted into the military, at the very least are united by their shared experience of struggle, and will regard American Germans as their comrades. They are also quite useful militarily, and many of them hope that a defeat of the Kaiser will result in a German republic being formed. American propaganda focuses more on anti-imperialism and liberal-republican values than anti-Germanism to avoid making the home situation worse, so the context is also different. From about 1915 onwards, references to Germany are downplayed, they'd call it the Imperial Reich in propaganda, a somewhat clumsy calque of the German Kaiserreich. This does create the war justification problem, because as an anti-imperialist war fought ostensibly to make the world safe for freedom, they're aligning with the two biggest colonial powers.

As a language, the American German dialect would take on a lot of English loanwords, and some modifications of orthography and grammar, the details of which I'd need to do more research on, but some general trends I could see would be standardizing orthography more in line with English spelling rules, de-emphasis of the T-V slit of informal/formal language, and a greater influence from Yiddish from the larger percentage of Ashkhenazi Jews in the American German population.

In terms of ethnicity, the approximate breakdown would put contemporary Anglos as the largest plurality, probably 25 percent, followed by large blocs of Germans, Italians, and Irish at around 15 percent each, the rest a balance of African Americans, Eastern Europeans, and Jews.

In universe, it's called Biennio Rosso because of the focal points being centered in New York, with a large Italian population, who were the ones that coined the name that eventually stuck. Out of universe, it's a reference to OTL's Biennio Rosso that followed demobilization in Italy, involving a similar dynamic. I suppose references to the Red Biennium would also be used in history, but at any rate they're names that came after the events.

 

[Aelita]

Program

and

Constitution

Workers' Party of America

Adopted
At National Convention

New York City
18 - 28 August 1921

Preface​

The Great War has brought untold misery and chaos in its wake. Millions of workers have been maimed and slaughtered in the conflict of the imperialist governments. Capitalist society is face to face with social and industrial collapse; Kingdoms and empires have disappeared; but republics, ruled by an exploiting class more powerful and more unscrupulous than the kings and emperors, have taken their place.

National hatred rules the world. In spite of peace treaties and international conferences, the relations between the nations are more strained than ever. Intense commercial rivalry, and the resentment of the weak and vanquished nations against their victorious oppressors are a constant menace to world peace. The capitalists, dismayed at the chaos, and yet unable to understand it or even to contemplate its economic causes, are blindly steering the world towards new wars.

In Germany and Austria, the masses are being bled to meet the exorbitant war indemnities. In England, France and Italy, an impoverished proletariat is paying for armaments on a larger and more stupendous scale than ever before. Every gun that is made, every battleship that is launched and every shell that is manufactured, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, to add to the profits of the exploiters, and increases the poverty of the wage slaves.

Even before this war social legislation met only inadequately the needs of a proletariat condemned to uncertainties of existence under capitalism. Today it is a farce. No lasting improvement of the condition of the workingman under capitalism is any longer dreamed of. More than ever before, hunger and' want are rife among the workers. And the violent uprisings that result are met with merciless suppression by the master class. All capitalist governments are openly fighting the battle for the employers. The legislatures, courts and the executive powers stand behind them. The struggle of the workers for the most elementary necessities of life is met with ruthless persecution, and tends to become a fight for political power – a revolutionary struggle.

The Workers' Party will base its policies on the international nature of this struggle. It will strive to make the American labor movement an integral part of the revolutionary movement of the workers of the world. The Workers' Party will expose the Second International, which is continually splitting the ranks of labor and betraying the working masses to the enemy. It will also warn and guard the workers against the attempt of the so-called Two-and-a-Half International to mislead them.

Disillusioned by the cowardly and traitorous conduct of their own leaders, and inspired by the proletarian revolution in Russia, the workers of the world have organized the Communist International. Despite the bitter opposition of the Capitalists and their Progressive lieutenants, the Communist International is growing rapidly; it has become a world power, the citadel and hope of the workers of every country.

Even America, the bulwark of world capitalism, is suffering acutely from the general disorganization. Its economic and financial life has been caught in the violent, swirling maelstrom of war. Because of the catastrophic appreciation of European currency it can find no outlet for the products of its industry. Its foreign trade has declined approximately fifty per cent. Armies of unemployed crowd the cities. Millions are out of work. War prosperity is ended. The bread lines have come. Capitalism is totally unable to cope with the situation. Its utter helplessness was revealed at the recent Government Unemployment Conference. Nowhere is there a serious effort to ameliorate this condition. On the contrary, the employers are using it to increase their power of exploitation and oppression. The steel trusts, the oil monopoly, the railroads, the meat-packing and textile industries have already made heavy cuts in the workers' pay. A powerful anti-worker campaign is being waged by the Employer's Association. Even the soldiers who have given their all in the fight for capitalist "democracy" are now clubbed and jailed at the first sign of protest against the destitution forced upon them by this same "democracy," which is in fact a dictatorship of the exploiting class. Everywhere it is robbing the workers of the small gains they have won through many years of struggle.

Platform​

Imperialism

For generations the workers have been producing a surplus over and above what they have received in wages. A part of this surplus the capitalists have invested in the development and exploitation of the industrially backward countries of Asia, Africa and South America. These countries have been cowed into submission as colonies or "spheres of influence." In order to safeguard their investments in these countries, European and American capitalists have seized control of the local governments and oppressed and terrorized the native populations. Today these exploited and oppressed people, inspired by the Russian Revolution, are demanding freedom. In China, in India and Egypt, in Haiti, in the Philippines, in South America, in Mexico and South Africa – everywhere the spirit of revolt is awakening with new strength and momentum.

In the United States, the master class has not only been culpable for immense atrocities, both to foreign peoples and to its own sons it sends overseas to protect the plunder of rich men at home, but has also been complicit in the crimes of the other imperialist powers.

The Workers' Party is the only party opposed to the despoliation and plunder of the peoples of the world to serve the interests of capital. As in our own struggles against our domestic oppressors, we recognize an organic solidarity with all of the oppressed peoples of the world, and that an injury to one is an injury to all.

It is the program of the Workers' Party to oppose all foreign imperialist adventures. We demand that no more blood be spilt for plundered riches. We will not stand idly by while humanity is placed on a cross of gold. With the establishment of a Workers' Republic in the United States, the Party shall ally itself with the forces of liberation across the world.

The Class Struggle

The whole capitalist system of production rests upon the robbery and enslavement of the workers. In the United States, the Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Schwabs, the railroad junkers, the coal barons, the industrial magnates, own the means of production and the workers cannot secure work without their consent. They are unable to earn the means of buying food, clothing, and homes to live in without the permissions of these financial and industrial kings. The owners of capital are so many czars and Kaisers, each with a group of workers ranging from a few hundreds to tens of thousands whose right to life they hold in their hands through their control of the workers' opportunity to earn a living.

The conditions on which the workers are permitted to work is the enrichment of the capitalists. They must prostrate themselves, and work for wages which will leave in their masters' hands the lion's share of what they produce. They much add more millions to Rockefeller's billions, they must create new hundreds of millions for Morgan, they must add to the swollen fortunes of the financial and industrial lords of the country.

In the Declaration of Independence, a document underlying the institutions of the country, it was laid down as a principle that all men are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and "that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

These rights do not exist for the thirty million American wage workers and their families. The workers of this country are industrial slaves. They cannot work and earn a living without the consent of the capitalists.

The struggle against these conditions is continually breaking out in strikes. The history of this country during the last half century is full of examples of the rebellion of the workers. This class struggle for enough bread to feed their families has always been met with violence by the kings of industry.

The mass power of the exploited class is its strongest weapon in the struggle against the capitalists. And the capitalists are aware of this, and rightly fear the power of a band of working men. The capitalists seek to divide the workers against each other, through patronage to skilled laborers, a class of enforcers on their payroll, and by setting native workers against immigrants, and White workers against their Negro, Chicano and Chinese brothers.

By hook or crook, the masters have maintained their power. But the successes of the Workers' Party, and of the International Worker Solidarity Union have testified to the ultimate historical inevitability of socialism. The power of the capitalist state, and its armies, police, prisons and propaganda apparatus have not been sufficient to defeat the simple resistance of ordinary workers across the country. The powers they wield are great, but the power held by the workers, organized as a class to fulfill the interests of class, is greater than the might of any army.

The task of the Workers' Party in this era of revolutionary upsurge is to continue this struggle. The Workers' Party shall serve as the university of the working class. Through its union federation, the party shall fight the day to day struggles for better conditions, organizing resources to ensure the maximal defense of the immediate interests of the working class. The Party has committed itself to fight every struggle for workers' power, and to unite ever greater numbers of workers into the class struggle.

The Government

The workers' struggle has also been a struggle against the capitalist state, for the state is the instrument of class rule. Recent events have testified all too well to this inescapable truth; far too many mothers have buried their sons thanks to the relentless brutality of the capitalists' cronies. The parties of the establishment are in actuality a single capitalist party, united against the Workers' Party.

In the struggle against the imperialist war, the Democrats and Republicans, who claim to be foes and irreconcilably opposed to one another, had no problem collaborating to bring the army and police to bear against workers who did not wish to see their sons die for Morgan's gold. This repression has continued even after the capitalists triumphed, and began to feast upon the corpses of their foes.

The workers cannot wage a successful struggle against capitalist exploitation and oppression while the government remains in the control of the capitalists. The Workers' Party is prepared to fight the political struggle of the class war; a struggle for the workers to at last take control of the government and direct their own lives.

To this end, the Workers' Party will use all the tools at its disposal to fight this political struggle, including elections. The Workers' Party will not foster the illusion, as is done by the yellow Socialists, that the workers can achieve their emancipation through election alone. The institutions of the country have been designed to prevent exactly that.

The so-called democracy of the United States is a sham. The constitution makes it impossible for a majority antagonistic to the ruling class to make its will effective. The merchants, bankers and landlords of 1787 wrote the constitution to protect the interests of their class. A majority of people cannot change the constitution. The votes of two-thirds of the members of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states is required to pass a constitutional amendment. One-fourth of the states, in which there may live only one-fortieth of the population, can prevent any change to the law of the land.

The House of Representatives and the President are elected every four years, while the Senate is elected by the state legislatures every two years for six year terms. The Senate may block the actions of the House of Representatives, and the President may veto the actions of both bodies. And over and above them stands the Supreme Court, which can nullify laws which all three unite in passing.

In addition to these protections, millions of workers are further disenfranchised through naturalization laws. Hundreds of thousands cannot vote because of residential qualifications, which through the necessity of earning a living wage make it impossible for them to comply with. The capitalists control thousands of newspapers through which they seek to shape the ideas of the masses in their interests. They control the schools, the colleges, the pulpits, the moving picture theatres, all of which are part of the machinery through which the capitalists seek to dominate the workers.

Under these conditions, talk of democracy is to throw sand in the eyes of the workers. This democracy is a sham. And yet the masters call the people to pay their reverence to this nation's "greatness" every Fourth of July. What, to the American worker, is the Fourth of July and all its pageantry for freedom and "democracy"? We, the Workers' Party, answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, this celebration is a sham; the boasted liberty, an unholy license; the national greatness, swelling vanity; the sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; the denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; the shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; the prayers and hymns, sermons and thanksgivings, with all the religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the capitalists of the United States, at this very hour. The scale of the brutalities unleashed upon the American workers horrifies even the reactionaries of British and French Empire. The pages of The Times of London are filled with accounts of the atrocities committed to maintain order in the United States, which are read with horrified fascination by the establishment, unaware that the storm of class warfare that grips the United States will one day engulf the whole of the world.

Under conditions such as these, the Workers' Party recognizes the impossibility of winning emancipation through the use of the machinery of the existing government. Nevertheless, the Workers Party realizes the importance of election campaigns in developing the political consciousness of the working class, and that independent political action within the existing government is necessary for revolutionary political action. Therefore, the Workers Party will participate in elections and use them for propaganda and agitation, while holding to the fundamental truth, long forgotten and heard only in whispers, that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments detrimental to their interests.

The Workers' Republic

The program of the Workers' Party is a revolutionary one, no less monumental than the American or French Revolution. The Workers' Party seeks to transform the institutions of administration in the United States based upon the experience of the revolutionary workers in Russia, Hungary and Bavaria. The soviets, or workers' councils, of these revolutionary surges are the proper organizations of the workers' power in times of crisis, arising naturally out of previous struggles and the experiences of workers.

The federations of councils, experimented in the great revolutionary upsurge in the United States under the leadership of the Workers' Party, have proven to be the most effective weapon for democratic liberation by the workers. The Workers' Party shall make the soviets the basis of the future revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

The existing capitalist government is a dictatorship of the capitalists. Today in the United States a comparatively small group of capitalist-financial and industrial kings control the government of the United States, of the states and municipalities.

The Workers' Party rejects the hollow mockery that is the bourgeois dictatorship of capitalism and its sham democracy. Through the institution of the true democracy of workers' power, the working class will maintain its dominance against its enemies, taking hold of the direction of society. The working class as a whole can finally control its own destiny.

The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat shall at once take from the capitalists their plundered wealth, in the form of the control and ownership of the raw materials and machinery of production which the workers are dependent upon for their life, liberty and happiness, and establish collective ownership.

Together with this collective ownership the Workers' Republic will as quickly as possible develop the system of self-management of the industries by the workers. Through the establishment of the socialist system of industry the exploitation and oppression of the workers will be ended. As the power of the capitalists in industry wanes and the lower stage of communism is established, the struggle between the classes will disappear. Through the development of technology and the productive powers of industry, each individual will finally have the freedom to develop his talents to the furthest. And so shall the free development of each be the condition for the free development of all.

The International

The Workers' Party accepts the principle that the class struggle for the emancipation of the working class is an international struggle. The workers of Russia have been obliged to fight against the whole capitalist world in order to maintain their Soviet government and to win the opportunity of rebuilding their system of production on a socialist basis. In this struggle they have had the support of the organized workers of every country.

The future struggles against capitalism will take the same character. In order to win the final victory in the struggle against world capitalism the working class of the world must be united under one leadership.

The leadership in the international struggle which inspires hope in the hearts of the workers of the world and arouses fear in the capitalists of all nations is the leadership of the Communist International, the fraternal organization of Workers' parties around the world.

The Workers' Party declares once again its sympathy with the principles of the Communist International, and enters the struggle against American capitalism, the most powerful of the national groups, and in doing so it takes up the vanguard of the world struggle against capitalism.

 

[Aelita]

American Civil War Orders of Battle

US Army Infantry Division

• Division Headquarters
• 2 x Infantry Brigade
  • 2 x Infantry Regiments
    • 3 x Infantry Battalions
      • 4 x Infantry Companies
        • 4 x Infantry Platoon
    • Machine Gun Company
  • Machine Gun Battalion
• Field Artillery Brigade
  • 155mm Artillery Regiment
  • 2 x 75mm Artillery Regiment
  • Mortar battalion
• Engineer Regiment
• Train HQ
  • Supply Train
  • Munitions Train
  • Engineering Train
  • Sanitary Train

Authorized Strength: 27,000 men, 1,000 officers. 48 mortars, 72 artillery pieces, 260 machine guns, 17,666 rifles.

The US Army infantry division had changed very little from the Great War. Years of Congressional frugality had frozen the Army's combat units, and blocked most attempts at reorganization and modernization. This is not to say that the officers of the White Army were dunces stuck refighting the Great War. The General Staff had begun studying the problems of the next war as soon as the guns had fallen silent in France.

A 1920 memorandum by Brigadier General Fox Conner, widely circulated within the War Department, had identified the basic strategic questions poised at the US Army. A falling out among the victors of the Great War was identified as the only plausible future conflict within the next decade; all other potential adversaries had been ruined. This would entail military operations, whether on the offense or defense, on the North American continent, liking against the British Empire. The tactics and organization of trench warfare would only be of limited applicability. The terrain would favor a return to maneuver warfare. The existing US Army division was too immobile for operations in depth.

Financial and political restrictions blocked General Pershing's1​ planned reorganization to a triangular division arrangement. Like after the Slaver's War, the political leadership beat swords into ploughshares, and made only limited accommodations to geostrategic needs. The Selective Service system was gutted; the individual states would maintain it for an enlarged National Guard to provide the Army with the reservists it would need to mobilise for the next war.

The US Army itself would be a professional, all-volunteer cadre force. With the limited budget available, it would be impossible to simultaneously reorganize the divisions, and familiarize officers and NCOs with the new organization, as well as establish the new cadre system.

Under the National Defense Act of 1919, the divisions of the US Army were reorganized into three grades of readiness. Class A divisions were to be maintained at between 90 to 100 percent manpower, in full readiness for combat operations. Class B divisions would be fully billeted with all necessary materiel, but would only be kept at 50 percent manpower. In the event of mobilisation, a Class B division would require a week to prepare for operations, and significantly longer to fully mobilise. Class C divisions were purely reserve formations, staffed only by a core cadre of officers, NCOs and senior enlisted, between 10 and 25 percent strength. Class C divisions would require much longer to train and mobilise reservists and new recruits, and would have to acquire rear echelon assets, such as trucks and draft animals transferred from the civilian sector.

The existing divisions of the US Army were divided into the organisational classes based roughly on their history. The 1st through 10th Infantry Divisions were to be organised as Class A divisions. The 11th through 24th Infantry were to be Class B divisions. The 25th through 50th were the designations for National Guard divisions in federal service, and under the ambitious plan established by General Pershing, were expected to be organized at Class B level. The remaining divisions of the National Army, 51st and up were to be demobilised to Class C levels, maintaining a minimal cadre of officers and NCOs to manage equipment in long-term storage. Pershing and the General Staff developed a rubric to make this ambitious plan affordable by slimming down the huge square divisions into smaller triangular divisions of around 13,000 officers and men.

The US Congress would not provide the funds and personnel required for this scheme. The National Defense Act of 1921, along with the year's Selective Service Act, dramatically reduced the manpower of the US Army, and cut the funding available to the bone. With the exception of the 3rd Infantry Division, all of the Class A divisions were downgraded to Class B status by 1924. The planned Class B divisions were reduced to skeleton Class C cadres, and many of the National Guard commands existed only on paper after the National Guard adopted more flexible organisations for the needs of the states. Class C divisions were often just stores of equipment and uniforms barely guarded, especially as Great Depression budget cuts forced economisation.

Limited reorganizations were made under this arrangement. Trench warfare became a special operation, and most of the specialized equipment and units required were transferred from the division to corps or army level commands.

The US Army division of the Civil War was a slightly leaner version of its Great War antecedent. MacArthur had been a champion of military reorganization, one of the strongest advocates Pershing's triangular division plan, but with the pressing need to crush the insurrection in the industrial centres of the United States quickly, the U.S. Army could not be reorganised. MacArthur would fight the war with the tools he had: 2 Class A divisions (3rd Infantry, 1st Cavalry) and 10 Class B Divisions.

On paper, these divisions were robust and wielded immense firepower. But they were organizationally cumbersome, with each level of the chain of command constituted of four organic units plus supplemental units. Officers were burdened with a heavy organizational workload.

Additionally, the divisions relied heavily on draft animals for logistical backbone. Motor transport played a minor role in the moving of troops, equipment and supplies. While field commanders did requisition civilian motor vehicles during the drive northward, it played a comparatively limited role in the first phase of the war. Artillery is the king of the battlefield, and their carriages were not suited for motor transport. During the winter and spring of 1933, the White Army did not control a sufficient industrial base to refit artillery carriages with pneumatic tires and suspensions. What industrial base they did control was plagued by strikes, absenteeism, sabotage and outright insurrection.

Where they did excel was in prepared defense. With a large number of redundant sub-units, the division could absorb casualties and remain in combat for an extended period of time. Each of the brigades of a US Army division had nearly as many men, rifles, and machine guns as a Red Army division. The engineer regiment, a hold over from the Great War days, allowed the rapid employment of defensive works.

While this table of organisation and equipment by statute applied to the regular, reserve and National Guard divisions of the US Army, the practical necessities of mobilisation required the stripping of the available reserve cadres in the Southern United States of men and materiel to mobilise the regular army divisions. National Guard divisions serving in the White Army typically lacked organic support assets and were at significantly reduced manpower.

---

Red Army Rifle Division (March Plan)

• Division Headquarters
• 3 x Infantry Regiment
  • 3 x Infantry Battalion
    • 3 x Infantry Company
      • 3 x Infantry Platoon
      • Weapons Platoon
    • Weapons Company
  • Cannon Company
• Artillery Regiment
  • 3 x 75 mm artillery battalion
  • 155 mm artillery battalion
• Engineer Battalion
• Reconnaissance Company
• Medical Company
• Signal Company
• Service Company
• Political Commissariat

Authorized Strength: ~15,000 men, 700 officers. 84 mortars, 36 infantry support guns, 48 artillery pieces, 190 machine guns, 9,200 rifles.

On 7 February 1933, the Revolutionary Military Committee of the All-American Congress of Soviets promulgated the then secret General Order 17. This directive ordered the establishment of a Red Army outside the control and oversight of the all-antifascist coalition in the Provisional Government.

Under General Order 17, the soviets were directed to take control of the Selective Service draft boards, and begin the process of conscripting men for the Red Army. Training camps would be established by the Spartacus League.

By the time this inflammatory move became known in the broader Provisional Government, it was too late and desperate to stop. In mid March, the RMC finalised its general mobilisation plans. The "March Plan" would utilise the personnel and assets of the Class C cadre formations as the seed for new divisions, stiffened by a core of union "old shirts" and Great War veterans from the party.

The divisions of the March Plan would be organised as triangular divisions comprised of three rifle maneuver regiments. Each regiment would have three rifle battalions, supported by an organic cannon company. These light pack howitzers and support guns would greatly augment the firepower available to the regiment on maneuver.

The infantry battalion in turn would have three rifle companies, and a weapons company kitted with machine guns and mortars. And each rifle company in turn would have three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon similarly arranged.

Divisions of the March Plan were organised to maximise the flexibility and mobility of the division. Organic support assets enabled unit commanders utilise initiative in combat operations and greatly shorten preparation times in offensives and assaults.

These divisions had their organisation heavily inspired by the Experimental Brigade, active between 1925 and 1928 under the command of Brigadier General Leslie McNair. The Experimental Brigade had been promoted by ambitious junior officers with the patronage of Pershing to develop new techniques for operational scale warfare, manoeuvre and mechanisation. As part of the hard-sell to a budget conscious Congress, the division-equivalent unit was pitched as a mere brigade, and a number of other techniques were utilised to hide the total program cost in other programs.

The Brigade was organised into three motorised infantry regiments, each with organic support assets. This basic structure of three maneuver elements with organic support was repeated down to the platoon level. In manoeuvres in the midwest, the Experimental Brigade pioneered the application of radio, mechanised infantry carriage, artillery support doctrine, and even the employment of tanks for exploitation. Most of the Army's best and brightest would pass through it during its three year life, including Harry Haywood, Martin Abern, George Marshall, David Eisenhower, and Terry Allen. Junior officers and NCOs competed for a billet with the Brigade, and during its brief existence it was the Army's most prestigious posting.

The Experimental Brigade would be shuttered during the scandals of 1928. With many of its alumni drummed out of service for being Reds or Pinks, the Congress defunded the experiment over the objections of then-Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur.

With most of the nation's industrial base under Red control, and the working class enthusiastically involved in the war effort, the Reds were able to rapidly shift to a war footing, and begin supplementing the materiel taken from government arsenals. Heavy water-cooled machine guns were converted to air-cooled models. Artillery pieces were retrofitted to truck carriages. A wide assortment of cars, trucks and motorcycles were requisitioned for military use. The production lines in Detroit began churning hastily militarised models alongside new tanks and armored cars. Everything from boots, uniforms and web gear to rifles, machine pistols and cannons were being churned out in the great industrial cities.

To ease organisation and foster morale, the Red Army adopted the heraldry and names of Great War National Army divisions. The first division mobilised under this plan was the 19th Infantry Division, mobilised from the loyalist cadre at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, and Great War veterans hastily retrained for service.

By the time major fighting began in April, the Provisional Government was able to constitute five divisions under this arrangement to supplement Red Guard and paramilitary forces. All of them were significantly under strength, and would be committed to battle immediately.

In the savage fighting of April, they clashed with the regular divisions of the US Army in Chicago, Toledo and Pittsburgh and bore the brunt of the casualties. The flexibility and manoeuvre made possible by their organisation and motorisation allowed for daring counterattack and exploit operations, absolutely crucial to the decisive encirclements that turned the tide of the Civil War.

By the beginning of the June offensives, the Red Army had mobilised sixteen of the new model divisions. Grueling logistical work had ensured that while none were full strength, they were adequately equipped for offensive operations.

---

3rd Cavalry Regiment (Mechanised)

• Regimental Headquarters
• 2 x Mechanised Cavalry battalions
  • 2 x Cavalry Squadrons
    • 3 x Cavalry Troops
    • Weapons Platoon
  • Mechanised Infantry Company
    • 3 x Infantry Platoons
    • Weapons Platoon
  • Weapons Squadron
• Tank battalion
  • 3 x Tank company
    • 3 x Tank Platoon
      • 5 x M1927 Tank
    • Service Platoon
  • Service Company
  • Reconnaissance Platoon
  • Antitank platoon
    • 4 x M1921 12.7 x 99 mm heavy machine guns.
  • Assault gun Platoon
    • 4 x M1928 75mm assault gun
• Artillery battalion
  • 2 x Towed 75mm batteries
  • 1 Assault gun battery
    • 2 x assault gun platoon
    • Mortar platoon
• Service Battalion
• Engineer Company
• Reconnaissance Squadron

Authorized strength: 3,641 men, 120 officers. 45 tanks, 16 artillery pieces, 12 assault guns, 20 mortars. 700 riding horses, 2,140 rifles/carbines, 20 machine gun teams.

The 3rd Cavalry Regiment was formed from the bones of the Experimental Brigade. Over the objections of the old guard of the Cavalry Branch, who did not see the temperamental new weapons and motorised systems as sufficiently mature to replace horse cavalry, the two Cavalry divisions began mechanisation in mid-1928.

The 3rd Cavalry Regiment, a component of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade in the 2nd Cavalry Division, was detached to begin mechanisation. One of its three cavalry battalions2​ was converted into a tank battalion, with equipment, officers and NCOs transferred from the now defunct Tank Branch.

In each of the two remaining battalions, one of the cavalry squadrons was converted into a mechanised infantry company. These companies were equipped with twelve M1928 light armored half-tracks, manufactured by Packard based off the Franco-Russian Kégresse design. Infantry would be carried into battle protected from shell splinters and gun-fire, and eventually many of these half-tracks would be outfitted with M1917 Browning machine guns. Each company was stiffened with a weapons platoon equipped with a 57mm mortar section and a Browning machine gun section.

Following preliminary organisation, the cavalry squadrons were augmented by a motorised weapons platoon, and the M1919 Christie prototypes were replaced with more reliable M1927 Christie tanks.

The main punch of the new regiment came from its battalion of 45 fast tanks. The light three-man tanks carried a turret mounted 37mm gun and a coaxial Browning machine gun. Additional firepower came from organic assault guns armed with 75mm pack howitzers, and two support batteries of 75 mm guns.

The cavalry regiment was organized towards the role of exploit operations in the enemy rear areas, with artillery and tanks to be screened by cavalry and mobile infantry. During manoeuvres in 1929 and 1930, the regiment performed quite well, and the Cavalry Board looked to acquire funding from Congress to finish the conversion.

The 1st Cavalry Division was part-way through reorganisation when the Depression hit, and the Army budget tightened. Plans to reorganise both divisions under the new plan were shelved indefinitely, with 1st Division only partially mechanised. 2nd Cavalry Division was downgraded to a Class B division.

Under US Army doctrine, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment was an independent manoeuvre unit, and should have been redesignated a brigade. But leaders in both the Cavalry and Tank Branches fought this proposal to prevent the outright cancellation of the mechanisation of the cavalry.

---

1. His full rank is General of the Armies of the United States. It was intended to be equivalent to a British Field Marshal, but since only Pershing held it during the Great War and the years after, in practice it has the kind of symbolic weight that the position Marshal of France has in the French Army.
2. This will probably only concern militaria enthusiasts, but naming conventions in the Cavalry Branch were reformed during the Great War ITTL to avoid possible confusion with British and French forces. IOTL, during the 19th century cavalry battalions existed only in garrison; when on maneuver the field force of the battalion was known as a squadron, and these squadrons were divided into troops that were the equivalent of infantry companies. At some point, this organisational difference was abolished, and cavalry battalions became squadrons. But in the British and French armies, the company equivalent unit is known as a squadron, and the platoon equivalent is a troop. The US Army grudgingly adopted this nomenclature during the Great War.

 

[Asami]

In case you were wondering about a couple of those commanders:



Jonathan Wainwright, in our original timeline, served as a cavalryman in Texas and the Philippines, serving in the Moro Rebellion. He later was promoted to Captain in 1916. He was also Assistant Chief of Staff of the 82nd Infantry Division at the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives in February 1918. He would later go on to serve as Douglas MacArthur's number two in the Philippines, and later be the American commanding officer whom surrendered to the Japanese Empire after the fall of the Philippines in 1941; he was a Japanese prisoner of war through out World War II, being held in prison camps in Luzon, Formosa and later Manchukuo. He was liberated from captivity by the Soviet Union in August 1945.

Funnily enough, he was nominated for a Medal of Honor in 1942, and was shot down after General MacArthur opposed his candidacy. He was given one later, in 1945 after being liberated.

In this timeline, Wainwright's inspiration for supporting the Whites over the Reds comes down to piety for his family, and inspiration from the American despot himself.

His cousin is J. Mayhew Wainwright, a Republican politician and member of the U.S. House representing the State of New York. Combined with his positioning during the Interwar as a member of the general staff at Fort Riley and Fort Myer, he certainly feels a stronger connection to General MacArthur than to President-Elect Thomas and the subsequent Soviets.

Wainwright would be taken as a prisoner of war by the Spartacus League after his and Marshall's surrender in the Battle of Chicago in 1933.

...



Harry S. Truman, perhaps destined in another life, another universe, to be the 33rd President of the United States; his path was inevitably slapped onto another track with the rise of Socialism in the U.S., and MacArthur's putsch and subsequent civil war. The young Missourian from Lamar had found himself shipped off to France at the outbreak of World War I, serving as an artilleryman throughout the war.

Like many of his comrades, Truman was exposed to, and learned the doctrine of Marxism. Truman, however, did not necessarily agree with it eye to eye. Upon his return from the war, the young Truman married Bess Wallace in 1919, and launched a career as a judge, being elected a Jackson County judge in 1923, and subsequently, elevated to the Presiding Judge for the County in 1927.

Truman was recalled to active service in the Missouri National Guard in 1933, upon the assassination of President-elect Norman Thomas; with his regiment being attached to General Marshall's army, with standing orders to take Chicago back from the Reds.

It was to this end that Harry Truman and many of his comrades who were more liberal or social democratic and vehemently opposed to the race-baiting of the National Salvation Front, rebelled against their commanders and formed the Minutemen, named for the historical American militia who came to the People's aid.

Truman would find himself at home in the armed services of the new revolutionary state, with nary a thought back to his days as a judge. But despite the attempts by his communist comrades to bring him to the side of Communism, Truman remained a firm believer in his old principles.

...



Jacob L. Devers was a product of West Point, much like Douglas MacArthur. In fact, Devers graduated the same year as the famed revolutionary general George S. Patton, giving a great deal of context to Devers' eventual moving into socialism and his full-throated support for the Revolutionary government against MacArthur.

After his graduation from West Point in 1909, Devers was commissioned in the United States Army as a 2nd Lt. serving as a field artilleryman; he would float around some artillery batallions across the United States before being recalled to West Point in 1912 to teach mathematics. It was here that he came into contact with new recruits Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley.

By the time of his deployment to France in 1915, Devers was now a Captain, where he quickly came into contact with growing socialist sentiment that was rife among the Army's front-line troops. Devers saw battle in some of the heaviest combat of the war, but managed without injury. He returned home in 1919 and was brought back to West Point to serve as a senior field artillery instructor under Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur.

While initially supportive of MacArthur's attempts to consolidate the military and root out suspicious individuals of Red sympathy, Devers became increasingly disillusioned with MacArthur's rapacious behavior. Devers was later transferred to Fort Leavenworth, where he attended a Command and General Staff School with Dwight D. Eisenhower.

By the time of the outbreak of the Revolution, Devers had been shuffled down for suspicious ties to communist organizations and his radical ideas on mechanization. In command of the Illinois National Guard, Devers was formally activated to assist General Marshall in putting down the rebellious Reds, however-- Devers never relayed these orders to his men, instead he ordered the troops to defend Chicago. Devers' role in helping create the Red Guards was a boon to the initial days of the revolution, and earned him the appreciation and support of many.

To fully understand Devers' role in American military might, one should look to his role in both World War II and beyond...

...



"The Old Anarchist of Kearneysville" is an often used nomenclature to describe John Lucas, a man who went into the Great War with optimism and hope for a quick victory over Germany, to a firebreathing anarchist who loathed and resented the tyranny of government.

By and large, Lucas had a standard upbringing, and graduated from West Point in 1911. Serving in the field artillery (where revolutionary sedition was strongest), Lucas spent some years in the Philippines witnessing imperialist horrors that were visited upon the natives, before being shipped off to France in 1914.

During the course of World War I, he had numerous close-calls with death, including surviving a German gas attack. However, his luck was cut short in June 1918, when he was struck and severely wounded by a German HE shell near Amiens. Incapacitated, it was in his convalescence that Lucas' anger at the war turned inwards towards the federal government.

While he had already been introduced to Marx and Lenin during his time in the trenches, he branched out his ideological thought while recovering in Washington D.C.; when he was transferred to the ROTC program in the University of Michigan, Lucas quickly began to radicalize into the anarchist terror that many Americubans shudder to think about today.

The time before the revolution saw him shuffled from installation to installation to serve as an officer trainee and military sciences expert. When the Revolution came, Lucas initially followed Devers out of Washington, but soon broke off to join his anarchist groups in Michigan, becoming one of the commanding officers of the Black Brigades (named so for their anarchism, not ethnicity).

After the Battle of Chicago, he, like Truman and Devers, played a role in the development of the revolutionary armed forces, and later served with distinction as a member of said armed forces. He was briefly appointed as a military liasion to China in 1948, before his recall to Chicago in 1949, and his subsequent death at the Naval Station Great Lakes on Christmas Eve, 1949.

 

[Aelita]

In lieu of something more substantive in this busy holiday season, I've made a simple map to illustrate the relative areas of control and the resulting front lines at the end of May 1933. Areas under the control of the nascent Union of American Socialist Republics are in Red. Areas under the control of the National Salvation Movement are colored in Gray. Areas that are not under effective control of either side are colored White. Crossed swords icons are areas with major partisan fighting occurring.

 

[Aelita]

U.S. Navy Fleet Strength​

Capital Ships

• Nevada-class battleships
  • USS Nevada (BB-36)†
  • USS Oklahoma (BB-37)†
• Pennsylvania-class battleships
  • USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)†
  • USS Arizona (BB-39)
• New Mexico-class battleships
  • USS New Mexico (BB-40)†
  • USS Mississippi (BB-41)
  • USS Idaho (BB-42)
• Tennessee-class battleships
  • USS Tennessee (BB-43)
  • USS California (BB-44)
• Colorado-class battleships
  • USS Colorado (BB-45)
  • USS Maryland (BB-46)
  • USS Washington (BB-47)
  • USS West Virginia (BB-48)†
• South Dakota-class battleships
  • USS South Dakota (BB-49)
  • USS Indiana (BB-50)
  • USS North Carolina (BB-54)
  • USS Iowa (BB-55)
  • USS Oregon (BB-56)
• Lexington-class battlecruisers
  • USS Lexington (CC-1)
  • USS Constellation (CC-2)
  • USS Saratoga (CC-3)
  • USS Yorktown (CC-4)†
  • USS Constitution (CC-5)
• United States-class battlecruisers
  • USS United States (CC-9)‡
  • USS Antietam (CC-11)‡
  • USS Constellation (CC-13)‡

† denotes ships placed in reduced commission for either treaty compliance or budgetary reasons.
‡ denotes ships under construction

Total: 17 active, 6 reserve, 3 under construction

Carriers

• Langley-class
  • USS Langley (CV-1)†
• Kitty Hawk-class
  • USS Kitty Hawk (CV-2)
  • USS Ranger (CV-3)
• Gettysburg-class
  • USS Gettysburg (CV-4)‡
  • USS Shiloh (CV-5)‡

Total: 2 active, 1 reserve, 2 under construction

Other Ships:

Cruisers: 18 active, 6 reserve
Destroyers: 80 active, 27 reserve
Submarines: 55 active, 2 reserve
Mine warfare: 27 active
Auxiliary: 71 active

---

Specifications

Name: Lexington-class
Operators: US Navy
Preceded by: None
Succeeded by: United States-class
Built: 1916-1923
In service: 1919-1946
Planned: 8
Completed: 5

Type: Battlecruiser
Displacement: 42,450 tonnes (standard)
48,700 tonnes (full load)
Length: 270 meters (886 ft)
Beam: 32.1 meters (105 ft)
Draft (full load): 10.8 meters (35 ft 5 in)
Installed power: 132,120 kW (180,000 shp)
Propulsion: Turbo-electric, four shafts, 16 boilers
Speed: 60 km/h (32 knots)
Range: 22,000 km at 19 km/hr
Complement: 1600
Armament: 4 x 2 - 16-inch/45 caliber Mark 1
8 x 2 - 6-inch/53 caliber Mark 12 guns
6 x 1 – 57mm/60 caliber Mark 8 AA guns
2 x 1 – 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes
Armor: Belt: 127 - 305 mm (5 - 12 in)
Barbette: 127 - 305 mm (5-12 in)
Conning tower: 76 mm (3 in)
Turret: 280 - 381 mm (11 - 15.1 in)
Deck: 76-105 mm (3 - 4 in)
Bulkheads: 152 mm (6 in)
Ships
Lexington (CC-1)
Constellation (CC-2)
Saratoga (CC-3)
Yorktown (CC-4)
Constitution (CC-5)
United States (CC-6) (12 percent complete, scrapped)
Ranger (CC-7) (17 percent complete, scrapped)
Enterprise (CC-8) (cancelled before keel-laying)

With the entry of the United States into the Great War, the General Board was confronted with the problem of German commerce raiders, of which existing cruisers were inadequate to counter. The possibility of a German battlecruiser breaking out into the North Atlantic to disrupt supply convoys gripped the imagination of the public, the United States Congress and the Admiralty alike.

Conceptual work on battlecruisers had been done since the concept first debuted with HMS Invincible, but the General Board had hitherto shown no serious interest in procurement. The new reality of American military involvement on the Continent jumpstarted major development of an American battlecruiser beginning in October 1914.

With funding to produce a battlecruiser second to none provided by the US Congress, the Lexington-class would be one of the largest capital ships hitherto conceived. Mounting eight 16-inch Mark 1 guns like her cousins the Colorado-class, and capable of 34 knots on 180,000 SHP, Lexington would be able to outgun anything she could not outrun, and outrun anything she could not outfight.

She and her sister ships were laid down a month before the Battle of Jutland as accelerated war builds. Unfortunately, like the Admiral-class she paralleled, she was practically obsolete. New information streaming in forced repeated modifications to the ships in construction, including the addition of thicker belt and turret armor. Three were fitting out, and another two nearing completion when the Armistice was signed, slowing down the pace of their commissioning.

Following sea trials and the cutting of the US Navy's construction budget, the last three ships United States (CC-6), Ranger (CC-7) and Enterprise (CC-8) were selected for scrapping in mid 1919.

The Lexington-class can be be best compared to the Admiral-class of the British Royal Navy. Both ships were designed for speed but forced to give expensive compromises to defense when the realities of naval strategy refuted much of the doctrine behind the battlecruiser. Like all battlecruisers, she would be too large and expensive to be attached to the scouting wings of the fleet like a proper cruiser, and yet also have serious weaknesses standing in a protracted engagement with other capital ships.

The long, fine hull of the Lexington enabled efficient cruising and very high top speeds, especially compared to her contemporaries. But the additional weight in mid-construction refit gave the ship a much lower than desired freeboard and compromised seakeeping in rough seas.

The choice of a turbo-electric drive improved maneuverability, allowing her four screws to be utilized to assist her rudders. The surplus electrical power provided by the arrangement allowed the inclusion of amenities like air conditioning and refrigeration, highly important to crew morale on extended voyages.

Nonetheless, the Lexington had a number of strengths over her British counterpart. In keeping with American naval architecture philosophy, she concentrated all armor around vital systems (engineering, magazines, armament, command and control) in an armored raft that had sufficient reserve buoyancy to keep the ship afloat even if the ends were totally flooded.

Her main belt, 12-inch thick face-hardened Class A armor, was inclined outward ten degrees to enhance horizontal protection. While inadequate against her own guns, it did provide an adequate protection zone against the 14-inch class guns that were the most common in extant world navies.

Underwater protection was insufficient. The rapidity of her construction outpaced important research on protecting capital ships against torpedoes. Her very minimal torpedo bulges gave little more protection against underwater explosions than normal cruisers. Several refit proposals were studied in the 1920s to improve this protection, but rejected due to budgetary constraints

In terms of armament, like most of her contemporaries her primary armament was quite sufficient, but secondary armament was quite lacking. The eight 16-inch Mark 1 guns were mounted in four twin turrets in a two fore, two aft arrangement. The turret mountings, drives and shell hoists were identical to those of the Colorado-class battleships that were laid down contemporary with her. The turret armor was reduced in thickness to save weight.

As designed, the 16-inch Mark 1 could fire a 2,100 lb armor piercing projectile at 2,600 ft/s. With a maximum elevation of 30 degrees, this translated to a maximum range of just over 34,000 yards. With the limits of sighting and her mechanical gun directors, doctrine initially focused on engagements at half this range.

The secondary armament was more disappointing. Unlike the rest of the US Navy battle line, the Lexington mounted a new type of 6-inch gun in her secondary mounts. The heavier shells were expected to extend engagement ranges and improve lethality against enemy destroyers, but the trade-off with rate of fire would prove too costly.

The Lexington-class would also be one of the first in the US Navy to be commissioned with dedicated anti-aircraft guns, six navalized variants of the US Army's 57mm M1918 quick-firing guns, with timed airbursting fuzed shells.

Name: South Dakota-class
Operators: US Navy
Preceded by: Colorado-class
Succeeded by: Monitor-class
Built: 1918-1923
In commission: 1921-1946
Planned: 8
Completed: 5
Cancelled: 3

Type: Battleship
Displacement: 43,200 tonnes (standard)
48,900 tonnes (full load)
Length: 208 meters (682 ft)
Beam: 32 meters (105 ft)
Draft: 11 meters (36 ft)
Installed power: 45,000 kW (61,000 shp)
Propulsion: Turbo-electric drive, four shafts, two turbogenerators, 12 boilers
Speed: 43 km/h (23 kts)
Range: 15,000 km at 19 km/hr
Armament: 4 x 3 - 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 2 guns
8 x 2 – 6-inch/53 caliber Mark 13 guns
4 x 3 - 3-inch/50 caliber Mark 17 dual purpose guns
8 x 1 – 57mm/60 caliber Mark 8 AA guns
Armor: Belt: 356 mm (14 in) on 19 mm (¾ in) STS, inclined at 15 degrees
Barbette: 114-356 mm (4.5 - 14 in)
Conning tower: 406 mm (16 in)
Turret: 305 - 457 mm (12 - 18 in)
Deck: 127 - 178 mm (5 - 7 in)
Bulkheads: 356 mm (14 in)
Ships
South Dakota (BB-49)
Indiana (BB-50)
Montana (BB-51) (12 percent complete, scrapped)
Massachusetts (BB-52) (cancelled)
New York (BB-53) (cancelled)
North Carolina (BB-54)
Iowa (BB-55)
Oregon (BB-56)

The South Dakota-class were an evolution of the "Standard-type" battleships that formed the core of the American line-of-battle during the Great War. The Standard-type, thirteen ships spread across five classes, reflected a naval philosophy emphasising a homogenous line-of-battle composed of ships with nearly identical maneuvering capabilities.

Based on research conducted during the rapid naval buildup before the Great War, naval architects and planners developed a coherent doctrine concerning naval forces. The Standard-type doctrine emphasised, in order of importance: protection, firepower and maneuver. While other battleships in this era adopted various banded armor schemes, with different levels of protection in different areas of the ship, the Standards adopted a schema of "all-or-nothing" protection. All vital ship systems, such as machinery, magazines, weapons or command-and-control, would be concentrated in a single protected zone. This zone would have a uniform level of armor protection at expected combat ranges, preventing the possibility of the exploitation of weak points.

This protected zone would also be an armored raft with enough reserve buoyancy to keep the ship afloat should the rest become totally flooded. Thus, even if totally immobilised, so long as the armored citadel remained intact the ship could fight.

The previous battleship class, the Colorado, had traded out twelve 14-inch guns for eight 16-inch guns in response to British and German 15-inch guns entering production, but in other respects remained true to the Standard-type.

The South Dakota was envisioned as the lead of a new Standard-type that would eventually replace the old line. Consequently she was a third more massive than the Colorado. The major increase in displacement enabled the mounting of twelve 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 2 guns in four triple turrets. The heavier Mark 2 had improved muzzle velocity as well as a maximum inclination of 45 degrees to exploit over-the-horizon plunging fire guided by radio and spotter plane.

The increase in armament came with a major increase in protection. The main belt was thickened to 14-inches. Protection was further improved by the adoption of a fifteen degree outward incline to increase horizontal protection. The face-hardened belt was backed by a ¾ in structural member made from Special Treatment Steel. This new and expensive high tensile steel alloy had identical ballistic characteristics to Navy Class B armor.

Based on the experienced gleaned from the Battle of Jutland, vertical protection was nearly doubled, to seven inches at the thickest. While this was developed as an answer to increasing practical gunnery ranges and the resulting danger of plunging shell fire, it would also improve resistance against aerial armor piercing bombs.

The biggest difference from the previous ships was the adoption of a comprehensive underwater protection system developed after Great War cooperation with the Royal Navy. The torpedo belt consisted of a honeycomb pattern with an outer air space and inner buoyancy space, filled either with water or oil, terminating at a 2-inch thick steel bulkhead. The system was tested as proof against a 750 pound torpedo warhead.

The South Dakota also improved aerial protection with the addition of twelve 3-inch dual purpose guns as well as 57 mm anti-aircraft guns. While considered more than adequate when the ships were ordered in the summer of 1918, they became quickly obsolete as aircraft technology advanced.

Eight ships were initially ordered, matching the accelerated build table of eight Lexington-class battlecruisers. But with the close of the Great War and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, funding was put in jeopardy. New fiscal realities as well as negotiations for a comprehensive naval arms treaty suspended construction on three of ships. Ultimately, only the five furthest along in construction would be completed.

Name: Kitty Hawk-class
Operators: US Navy
Preceded by: USS Langley (CV-1)
Succeeded by: Gettysburg-class
Built: 1923-1930
In commission: 1926-1943
Planned: 2
Completed: 2

Type: Aviation cruiser
Displacement: 15,000 tonnes (standard)
18,220 tonnes (full load)
Length: 222.1 meters (waterline)
234.4 meters (overall)
Beam: 24.4meters (waterline)
33.4 meters (overall)
Draft: 6.8 meters
Installed power: 40,000 kW (55,000 shp)
Propulsion: two shafts, two geared steam turbines, six boilers
Speed: 54 km/h (29 kts)
Range: 19,000 km at 28 km/hr
Armament: 8 x 1 – 125 mm/40 caliber Mark 18 guns
8 x 1 – 57mm/60 caliber Mark 8 AA guns
12 x 2 – 12.7 x 99 mm M1921 machine guns
Armor: Belt: 51 mm
Conning tower: 100 mm
Deck: 25 mm (3rd deck)
Bulkheads: 51 mm
Aircraft: 75
Aviation facilities: 2 catapults
3 aircraft elevators
Ships
Kitty Hawk (CV-2)
Ranger (CV-3)

Following the success of the converted collier Langley, the US Navy secured funding for a purpose built aviation cruiser. The new ship would be built on a cruiser style hull of approximately the same displacement as the Langley, but envisioned as a complement to the fast cruiser wings of the fleet.

CV-2 was not envisioned as a capital ship, but rather as an integral part of the scouting wing that would support the battle line of heavy dreadnoughts in a fleet engagement, both by denying access to enemy scout planes as well as tracking enemy fleets. Design iterations emphasized speed over protection, envisioning her planes acting as over the horizon spotters for long range battleship gunnery.

Kitty Hawk would be laid down in the Fall of 1923. Initially conceived as a flush deck carrier like her predecessor, she would displace just over 18,000 tonnes at full load, significantly heavier than her original drafts. With two shafts and a modest 54,000 horsepower geared steam turbine propulsion, she would manage just over 29 knots in her sea trials.

Initial testing resulted in a number of innovations in command and control, but she failed to perform to the Navy's expectations. Her sister ship, Ranger, would be modified with an island structure during fitting out based on the recommendations to the General Board, a refit which Kitty Hawk would soon gain.

Both ships participated in a number of Fleet Problems in the early 30s. With the Navy hemorrhaging money, and construction on the United States battlecruisers now occurring in fits and starts, the relative success of the new aviation cruisers, combined with British and Japanese developments would ultimately secure the conversion of two of the battlecruisers as a "cost-saving" measure.

 

[LHB]

Here is a brief contribution on some of the more economic stuff dealing with changes to the oil industry and finance.

"The story of the Big Three of the global oil industry is well-known among economic historians on both sides of the Cold War. With the recent upheaval of the past decade receding into the past historians now turn towards examining the role played by the petroleum industry and its pre-Revolutionary titans. Though the Big Three no longer play the role that they once did their histories shaped one of the most vital industries on Earth. In this article I will explore how Standard Oil, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and Royal Dutch Shell rose to dizzying heights before plunging into the depths of disaster.

The oldest of the three was Standard Oil. This venerable behemoth was born on January 2nd​, 1882 when John D. Rockefeller consolidated a growing network of oil extracting and refining companies into a single, massive trust. Standard Oil rapidly became one of the largest oil companies in the world, controlling 90% of all oil production and refining in the United States. Their position was further entrenched thanks to the US Supreme Court's ruling in Northern Securities striking down key portions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, enshrining monopolies and trusts in the American economy. With this legal shield in place Standard Oil would dominate the US oil industry.

On May 26th​, 1908 the foundations of the second of these titans were laid with the discovery of oil in Iran by British prospectors, leading to the birth of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. They quickly exploited this major find, which was easily the largest in the world to date since the Baku oil strike by the Nobel company in Russia. In 1913 their status as a major player in the oil trade was assured when Winston Churchill successfully persuaded the British Admiralty to shift the Royal Navy vessels' main fuel source from coal to oil. To secure supplies for the now oil-hungry fleet the Crown purchased a controlling interest in APOC. The support of the British Empire was used to pressure the Iranian government into granting a total monopoly on oil production to APOC.

In April 1907 Royal Dutch Shell came into existence through the merger of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the British-owned Shell Transport and Trading Company. This business deal was motivated largely by the growth of Standard Oil to better ensure Royal Dutch could compete on a global stage. They held their ground and soon expanded thanks to their control of critical oil supplies located in Dutch Indonesia. This was further bootstrapped by Shell Transport's considerable fleet of tankers, creating a fully integrated global supply chain.

The First World War was especially good for the Big Three. Industrial warfare was exceptionally resource-intensive and oil was no exception to this rule. Trucks, tanks, airplanes and increasingly oil-fired warships all devoured petroleum at a voracious rate. Each was able to corner their own niche in the military market. Standard Oil was the sole supplier for the increasing demands of the growing US military. Royal Dutch Shell scored a lucrative contract as the primary supplier of fuel for the British Expeditionary Force and sole supplier of aviation fuel for British forces. Anglo-Persian, thanks their prior contracts with the Royal Navy, profited from the global naval war and the Admiralty's desires for fuel security while also servicing the needs of US warships anchored in British ports. Each expanded operations into new territories, pioneered revolutionary technologies and pulled more oil out of the ground than anyone ever thought possible.

After the First World War the Big Three of international oil stood supreme. The Russian Revolution saw the downfall of the Nobel company's Baku holdings through seizure of all oil production by the Soviet Union. The sustained economic boom of the period saw these companies actively expanded their operations by purchasing small companies in Mexico, Venezuela and other major oil producing countries. Demands for profit from shareholders, lenders and competition between each other further crowded out smaller, independent oil companies. By the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 an estimated 95% of global oil production and 90% of oil refining were directly controlled by the Big Three.

Even the Great Depression could not hinder the power of this oligopoly. In 1931 when King Hussein bin Ali of the Kingdom of Hashemite Arabia, due to a serious fiscal crisis precipitated by the dramatic reduction of revenues from the hajj, offered a concession to Anglo-Persian to explore the kingdom for oil. On April 8th​, 1932 Anglo-Persian prospectors struck oil in the Eastern Provinces, finding the largest field in the world, establishing their main base of operations at Dhahran Camp. This discovery would have far-reaching consequences for Anglo-Persian and the oil industry. It would also be the last great triumph of the Big Three.

The American Revolution was a disaster for Standard Oil. Standard Oil's American holdings were seized by the Union of American Socialist Republics. What wasn't taken by the Reds would be destroyed by the Whites as part of a haphazard scorched-earth strategy. The Rockefellers and other high-ranking company members who escaped the Reds' clutches fled to Cuba with critical documents in tow. The once-mighty empire of the Rockefellers was further gutted when Mexico followed suit, seizing control of all oil production including Standard Oil's extensive holdings. This left Standard Oil a shadow of its former self. By 1936, in the face of stiff competition from Anglo-Persian and Shell, Standard was forced to declare bankruptcy. Their remaining assets divided up between the two oil majors. A shattered Nelson Rockefeller's only consolation was a largely symbolic seat on Anglo-Persian and Royal Dutch Shell's governing boards."

Excerpts from "Rise and Fall of the Big Three", The Economic History Review by Daniel Yergin, published 1991


"The credit union movement in the Union traces its history back to the St. Mary's Cooperative Credit Association of New Hampshire founded on November 24th, 1908. St. Mary's was established by Francophone immigrants from the Canadian Maritime provinces who were inspired by similar examples in Quebec. These immigrants felt conventional banks were not genuinely interested in protecting their assets, preferring the credit union model. This was because the credit union was required to use its resources to maximize the benefits for the members and every member had a vote on credit union policy, giving them a direct say in what was done with their money.

The idea of the credit union soon came to the attention of the Socialist Labor Party thanks to several sympathetic New Hampshire farmers who were also members of St. Mary's. Credit unions continued expanding, largely through the agrarian arms of the party, over the more profit-oriented banks. There were some exceptions founded by industrial and extractive industry workers, such as the Mingo County Mutual Credit Association established by Pennsylvania coal miners and the Pacific Sailors Credit Union, but the bulk of credit unions were agricultural in nature. On March 8th, 1913 the socialist-leaning credit unions formed the Credit Union Alliance, an organization intended to support new and existing credit unions.

Unfortunately for the CUA the progress of the credit union movement was put on hold by the outbreak of the First World War. Rationing and the demands of the war halted their spread by temporarily alleviating many farmers' financial precarity. The mass drafting of the industrial working class further stymied the growth of credit unions as many credit union members shipped off to fight in Europe. This had the unintentional consequence of helping create the Army Federal Credit Union, founded by soldiers and officers using their pay as deposits. Army Federal was particularly attractive thanks to their very generous life insurance and pension transfer policies.

The greatest boost for the credit union movement, which cemented the connection between credit unions and socialism in the United States, was the Biennio Rosso. First Secretary Wilson, along with cracking down generally on the Socialist Labor Party, used the chaos and upheaval to force banks into freezing or shutting down accounts owned by known socialists, labor unions and organs of the SLP. Such actions were justified on the grounds of seizing the proceeds of a criminal enterprise. This had the unintended consequence of forcing the remaining leadership to liquidate what accounts they could still access so they could retain some funds to ride out the strike wave.

When the repression was rolled back assets were unfrozen turning this trickle into a flood. Many Solidarity Labor Union Federation locals and party cadres immediately established their own credit unions with membership in the union or the party as a requirement for opening an account. These new credit unions, along with the already existing branches with strong socialist leanings, soon flooded the CUA, turning the organization into an arm of the Party in all but name. This alliance was solidified in 1919 when, as part of accepting Lenin's provisions for the Communist International, the Party established the Communist Workers Credit Union as a merger of existing party credit unions into one organization.

The CUA was now the bedrock of local and regional finance for supporters of the communist cause, independent farmers, co-operatives and labor union rank and file. Co-operatives were a particularly major beneficiary of the CUA's growth and now-considerable financial resources. The bottleneck of startup capital and modernization, put in place by capitalist bankers' hesitation to fund what they saw as insufficiently profitable enterprises, was now removed leading to a boom in investment. The growth of co-operatives across the United States during the 1920s would not have been possible without the generous funding from members of the Credit Union Alliance."

Red Finance: The Public Banking Revolution by Ian Bremmer, published 1992

 

[Aelita]

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Ratified 24 December 1933

Preamble

It is precisely because rights are neither natural, owing to the inexorable laws of the universe, nor ordained by God, but rather legislated by humans, that they are so precious. In the degeneration of the Old Republic, we the peoples of the Union of American Socialist Republics have witnessed the limits of bourgeois legalism.

We recognize the truth that the order of society is a product of class conflict. No matter how well articulated or thoughtfully legislated, the rights of persons, toilers, exploited peoples and ultimately all citizens in class society are dead letters, extended at best only in the most convenient of times, and savagely curtailed whenever the material logic of political economy finds it expedient.

This Declaration of the Man and Citizen is a social contract, ratified by the Soviets of Workers', Farmers', Soldiers', and People's Deputies. It is a promise made by the revolutionary vanguard to the whole people, and to all succeeding generations, never to forget the painful lessons of despotism and class oppression.

It is a living promise, an entrenched law that shall serve as a statement of principles to guide the revolutionary experiment in the coming years. It is a binding promise to the revolutionary government, requiring of it to secure the fundamental freedom and dignity of all its subjects.

It is an affirmation of the most cherished goal of the revolutionary vanguard, to seek a condition of society in which there shall be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor slave, in which all peoples shall enjoy freedom and equality of condition, in which life will no longer be ruled by cruel necessity, but instead devoted to the pursuit of happiness.

Article I

All humans are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of comradeship. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, whether by race, color, creed, sex, language, religious or political opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Article II

All persons born or naturalized in the Union, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the Union and of the Socialist Republic in which they reside. No member of the Union shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges, rights or immunities of citizens; nor shall any party to the Union deprive any person of life or liberty without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.

Article III

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all its forms.

Article IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. No warrants be shall be issued except upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Article V

No law shall be made or enforced that abridges the right of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of the broadcast and recorded media. The right of the people to peacefully assemble and participate in politics shall not be infringed.

Article VI

No one shall be subjected to torture, or to cruel and unusual punishment, nor shall any punishment be disproportionate to the crime committed.

Article VII

No person shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article VIII

No person shall be held to answer for any capital or otherwise infamous crime unless upon indictment by a Grand Jury, nor shall any person be made to answer twice for the same offence, nor shall any person be compelled to bear witness against himself.

Article IX

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. Everyone is entitled to be informed of the nature and cause of any accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have a compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have legal counsel for his defense.

Article X

Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.

Article XI

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Article XII

The UASR is founded upon the doctrine of state atheism; no law shall be made privileging any religion, its institutions or its adherents over any other, or over nonbelief.

Article XIII

Everyone has the right to work and the right of free choice in employment, to just and favorable conditions of work, and to protection against unemployment. The right of workers to manage their workplaces shall not be infringed. The right to form and join independent trade unions shall be inalienable.

Article XIV

The Union of American Socialist Republics is a socialist state; the state, natural resources, and the means of production shall belong to the People, to be administered fairly and democratically for the common benefit of all.

Article XV

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article XVI

Everyone has the right to education, funded in whole by the polity. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial and religious groups.

Article XVII

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Article XVIII

The universal age of majority shall be eighteen. All persons of this age are entitled to vote, and may stand for any office within the Union. The right to vote, individual or collective, shall not be infringed.

Article XIX

The security of the workers' republic rests upon the armed mass of the whole people. To this end, the right of the Soviets to form militias, provide for the training and arming of any militia, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms in accordance with the reasonable limits of a free and democratic society, shall not be infringed.

---

A Brief History of the New Bill of Rights

While the Workers' Party had taken a decisive command over the revolutionary soviets as well as the commanding heights of the Provisional Government, this was not without costs. The formation of the United Democratic Front granted the revolutionary government supermajoritarian legitimacy and the junior members of the Front demanded a commensurate price.

While proposals by Democratic-Republicans to reform the existing constitution or produce a new liberal constitution with the consultation of leading American and Continental jurists were dead on arrival, under the leadership of Theodore Roosevelt III and Daniel Roper, the Democratic-Republican coalition had held a hard line on securing amnesty for members of the business class who would accomodate to the new order, and the enactment of an entrenched bill of rights to protect citizens from arbitrary despotism.

The Workers' Party had held constitutionalism in disdain as legalism that served no purpose but to secure the interests of the propertied classes. This disdain came from the bitter experience in seeing how little the guarantees made by the old Bill of Rights had been worth.

It was one thing to argue it when out of power and subject to abuses in the name of national security. But in October 1933, with the civil war winding down to its inevitable conclusion, the communist rank and file were faced with the unknown territory of governing. Browder gave his assent to the proposal, assuaging the fears brewing among the rank and file of a perpetual emergency period.

In the paranoia of the putsch and civil war, many innocent workers had run afoul of overzealous "Extraordinary Commissions" tasked with rooting out reactionaries and counterrevolutionaries. Many others had used the revolution as smokescreen to settle old grudges.

The Constitutional Committee of the Congress of Soviets met on 7 October 1933 and elected a Drafting Commission composed of equal representatives from the Workers' Party, the DFLP and the DRP. The Commission was chaired by prominent New York public intellectual Eleanor Roosevelt, and would consult with prominent lawyers and jurists associated with the National Civil Liberties Union.

The first draft prepared incorporated substantial language from the Bill of Rights, as well as textual homages to the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The first week was dominated by debates between Roger Nash Baldwin and Robert Taft over the status of private property. Baldwin argued the communist line that entrenching property rights was not only incompatible with the establishment of a workers' republic, it was incompatible with the organic laws already ratified by the Congress of Soviets. Taft countered by arguing that other planks protecting privacy were dead letters without robust property rights over homes.

With the whole venture verging on being scuttled over liberal intransigence, the liberal faction relented. Arguments shifted towards including language giving special protection to motherhood and childhood Article XV, over perhaps overblown fears that equal rights provisions would be interpreted reductio ad absurdum.

Communists successfully lobbied to change the wording of Article III, which had previously been a near verbatim copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, to delete exemptions for forced labor being applied as part of the punishment of prisoners. The DFLP successfully direct textual quotations from the Fourteenth Amendment in Article II.

Following debates and preliminary amendments, a second draft was made. The new draft separated the freedom of speech and religious freedom sections borrowed from the First Amendment into two separate articles, now numbered V and XII respectively. Article V clarified speech protections with more expansive language, and Article XII's new language walled off the government from religious interference totally.

Another new article was added, establishing the age of majority at 18 and barred age discrimination, and at Chairman Roosevelt's suggestion was inserted as the new Article XVIII for ease of memorization.

The final draft was sent to the whole Committee for debate. After assurances given to all parties that the proposed Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was not meant to be the exhaustive, final word on the matter, the whole committee voted without opposition to recommend ratification. Measures that would have focused on substantive economic and cultural rights to appeal to socialists, as well as measures to safeguard the revolution from degeneration were put aside for a later date as the Constitutional Committee turned its attentions framing a more permanent system of government to replace the ad hoc emergency government of the Civil War.