Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well,
Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
- Timeline Post-1900 Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Well,
Katamariguy
Pessimist. Contrarian. Naysayer.
- Location
- Upstate NY
I'm confused here - either Mexico has been at civil war for more than 20 years, or a new revolt has begun recently without it being explicitly laid out.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
A new revolt started in solidarity with the American one.
Dramatis Personae: Battle of Chicago
Asami
Chairwoman of the Imperial Governance Council
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- She/Her
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.
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.
- Location
- Russia
- Pronouns
- He/him
Guess it is an (probably even an unofficial) flag of the Front itself, not the United States as a formally still existing entity under MacArthur.
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- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
Asami chose the design, so I can only speculate the exact reasoning, but I would think it is to separate the National Salvation Front from the USA itself, something that the reds would consider an illegitimate overthrow, so using its symbols instead of that of the USA underscores that point on the alt wiki
EcoSyndieDragon
Free Palestine, Oppose the Fash
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I really like this, as much as I enjoy the scholarly examination of events by those looking back with the benefit of hindsight there's something truly fascinating about getting the more emotionally charged perspectives on events as they were unfolding.
Well I've provided music for the one side perhaps I should do the same for the Whites? Something beffiting our villain and the reanimated horror of a state he leads being faced with thier defeat? This particular version works well for the American Ceaser I feel:
And kudoes to the ever talented @Asami for another great wikibox!
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Arthur Frayn
Fake God by Occupation, Magician by Inclination
- Location
- Land of Do As You Please
- Pronouns
- They/Him
Are all the updates drawn from in-universe (including textbooks) sources considered to be taken at face value, or should we take everything they say with varying grains of salt?
Also, had an idea for a piece of pop culture based on the latest update; feels like Reed and Foster convincing Browder to back a full revolution instead of "Constitutional Restoration" would make a great Lincoln-style film.
Also, had an idea for a piece of pop culture based on the latest update; feels like Reed and Foster convincing Browder to back a full revolution instead of "Constitutional Restoration" would make a great Lincoln-style film.
- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
Everything with a byline has some sort editorial bias. I have on occasion used footnotes to point out particular in universe slants
Asami
Chairwoman of the Imperial Governance Council
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just about all these are correct assumptions. I chose that jack for these reasons:
- In the historiography of post-revolutionary UASR, I feel like they would want to clearly delegitimize MacArthur's usurpation of power and infer that the NSF was nothing more than a terrorist overthrow of the US government, at which time they simply picked up the pieces and made their own Union.
- After the usurpation of power by MacArthur, I delineate the US from the NSF because the "United States" had effectively ceased to exist. The Second American Civil War is not like the first one where this is clearly a secessionist movement trying to rebel against a legal and perfectly orderly US government--this is internal agents of sabotage and fascism trying to overthrow and supplant the democratically elected government of the US; so the NSF is separate. If the Battle of Chicago had been against specifically "loyalist US forces" that refuse MacArthur's orders, I would have probably put "United States" as the defender in the battle... but since by this time the US government had effectively ceased to exist, and the UASR was in it's primordial state... yes.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Generally the source itself should clue you into whatever biases any in universe document has while out of universe posts can be expected to be free of such things. Some sources will be far more biased than others and like in OTL anything out of the Mail's presses should be regarded as suspect; especially if they intrude on the Mail's pet peeves. Editorials of course are generally nakedly biased, and Lord Rothermere has the biggest of axes to grind regarding America and Communism, the Anglophone left is his biggest bugbear after all. At least when he isn't being a Hitler fanboy and pursuing his harebrained scheme to become the King of Hungary because that is absolutely a thing Rothermere wanted to do and hoped Hitler and Horthy would realise this plan.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Did he write letters to Horthy or Hitler asking them to do that?
- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
He is still being a venomous snake in the White movement, but making him the head toadies was a bit unrealistic
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
I was going to post a tribute giving you a verbal "Heart" just for putting him in on the Red side, under the full USA flag indicating his relative conservatism in the UASR and that he formally fought as a constitutional restorationist who merely tolerated the Red triumph. But your own post is where that tribute goes.
Thank you for remembering Harry Truman and to the collective for agreeing he might be conservative as Reds'verse Americans go, but with his heart in precisely the right place.
I'd think the regime would want him to go back to being a judge, maybe elevate him, as long as his liberal tendencies are checked suitably.
But Harry Truman's Minutemen (rather, the Minutemen are a bigger thing, Truman is just one of many high commanders I suppose albeit a particularly notable one) get the old US flag in full, because although they either graciously or grudgingly accepted that the world had moved on and got with the new UASR and gave it loyalty as the conservative wing of it, their particular fight was for maintaining and restoring the old Union they remained loyal to, dreaming neither of sweeping proletarian revolution nor hardline reaction. They just wanted to keep the moderate peace, and had to oppose MacArthur to do that. So that is why Truman gets Old Glory, and that is entirely appropriate to his role here and his personal character I think.
He should be more lefty than OTL here just by Overton Window shifting, and the reason I give him love despite some questionable things is that I think even OTL his passion for populism in the best sense was a lovable thing. Like, the only people who tried to assassinate him were Puerto Rico nationalists, but he strongly favored a better deal for PR. He used words starting with N we do not use now very casually, but it deeply concerned him to hear of African American war veterans getting lynched or otherwise abused and this drove his civil rights initiatives despite both how awkward it was for any Democrat to do that and despite his very Dixieish upbringing. (A biographer says that his grandmother had the Southern Lady Vapors when he showed up in his US military cadet uniform one day (sometime prior to the Great War); he was very much from Southern Missouri. But he never ever forgot the situation of the common people--all the people, of all races, and he never got rich himself. This is why I like Harry Truman so much. The Iconic American Common Man.
So while I accept he is going to be about as right wing as any loyal citizen of the UASR can be, grade that on a curve relative to OTL! He ought to be very progressive by our standards, and I think he's going to be an asset in conciliation of the more conservative elements of the American masses who don't rebel in outright reaction.
So good to see him get a little love here. It gets a lot of love from me!
Uh, just one more thing @Asami , what is the symbol in the Wikibox for Devers's factional forces anyway? I can't really make it out!
{rereading his entry in your post}--OK, is that just an Illinois Guard symbol?
Technically then Truman should have Missouri's Guard symbol or both have Old Glory.
I gathered that Devers's group's symbol is for a formally radical and revolutionary group but your segment on his role up to and including 1933 does not mention any such affiliation, though surely there is plenty of time for that after the Battle of Chicago; MacArthur might be doomed but it is going to take a while to clean up the White mess. And he could have all sorts of casual informal connections to an existing group of radicals he pretty much absorbs into the Illinois Guard group he turned around.
I gather the distinction is, Devers is a lot Redder than Truman; Truman remains unenthused by Marxism or DeLeonism, Devers jumps in more wholeheartedly, so it would be clearly wrong for Devers to have stars and stripes for a symbol.
Just to be clear, I am very very happy with Truman being the last honorable bearer of the old US flag, he might be tickled to have it replaced with a Missouri symbol of some kind but I like it the way you did it. Just wondering what the meaning of Devers's symbol is since I can't tell what it is.
{rereading his entry in your post}--OK, is that just an Illinois Guard symbol?
Technically then Truman should have Missouri's Guard symbol or both have Old Glory.
I gathered that Devers's group's symbol is for a formally radical and revolutionary group but your segment on his role up to and including 1933 does not mention any such affiliation, though surely there is plenty of time for that after the Battle of Chicago; MacArthur might be doomed but it is going to take a while to clean up the White mess. And he could have all sorts of casual informal connections to an existing group of radicals he pretty much absorbs into the Illinois Guard group he turned around.
I gather the distinction is, Devers is a lot Redder than Truman; Truman remains unenthused by Marxism or DeLeonism, Devers jumps in more wholeheartedly, so it would be clearly wrong for Devers to have stars and stripes for a symbol.
Just to be clear, I am very very happy with Truman being the last honorable bearer of the old US flag, he might be tickled to have it replaced with a Missouri symbol of some kind but I like it the way you did it. Just wondering what the meaning of Devers's symbol is since I can't tell what it is.
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EcoSyndieDragon
Free Palestine, Oppose the Fash
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Asami
Chairwoman of the Imperial Governance Council
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's technically not Old Glory. It's Cowpens; very similar but distinct. In the case of Truman using it, the Minutemen are a DFLP-associated paramilitary that is largely comprised of National Guardsmen who have technically refused to submit to the authority of the Red Guards.
Yes.
The Red Guards, in their protozoic state, used whatever banners they had around. In the case of Chicago, they still served under the flag of the Illinois National Guard.