Interesting stuff with Mussolini and that possible foreshadowing of a Franco-Italian anti-communist alliance. Should be interesting how that plays out!
Probably going to be a few adjustments to the exact borders for the sake of neater and clearer districts but New Afrika is going to be one of the largest SCRs within the Union in both dimension and population.
This fills me with anticipation for the future of this timeline. Any New Afrikan capital city in mind? Assuming national sub-divisions still have capital cities. I'm guessing New Orleans, Augusta, or maybe Memphis for historical reasons but could see plenty of others work too.
Also, will Appalachia and the Ozarks remain formally divided as the hinterlands of various states (or whatever replaces states in the region) or do they also get a reorganizing?
New York City has the cities around it that are essentially part of the same city but are counted as separate (so the whole metropolitan area) annexed into it as part of the Metropolitan Commune; split from the tri-state area to be its own republic.
This is also done with the ring of cities around D.C to form its own separate commune distinct from Virginia and Maryland.
Renaming is still undecided but will be the most frequent in the South; particularly in the areas to be given to the New Afrikan Socialist Republic formed out of the Black Belt as its black leaders will have no time or patience for any lingering remnants of the lost cause. This is heaviest in South Carolina in particular which has so much territory ceded to New Afrika that its tiny rump has to be folded into North Carolina.
Just looking at the map posted of the OTL Black Belt and assuming New Africa has roughly similar borders, I think it is a pretty big question whether or not any of the old Confederate states are going to continue in a meaningful form except Florida, Texas and Tennessee. I could see what is left of Virginia becoming part of some general Appalachian republican along with North Carolina and of course West Virginia, northern Alabama and Georgia being folded into Tennessee and Arkansas forming an Ozarks republic along with southern Missouri.
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out."
~William Tecumseh Sherman
William Z. Foster's Funeral Oration for Norman Thomas Following the return of the Provisional Government to the District of Columbia in late July, attention turned to finding the many missing friends and comrades. It did not take long to confirm the worst. The bodies of the many murdered in the early days of the coup were exhumed from their unmarked graves and cremated. Their ashes brought to the Capitol rotunda for funeral services in August. Foster offered a funeral oration for the martyred Norman Thomas. Following his and other orations, the Revolutionary Army Orchestra played a solemn version of the union hymn "Solidarity Forever" as the ashes were interred in a small necropolis in the East Front of the Capitol building.
Comrades;
It is with a heavy heart that I come to speak for the dead. Though I did not know him long, Norman was my friend. He was faithful and just to me always, as he was to all who knew him. But more than that, he was kind, even to those who wronged him.
As many will remember, I was the last to consent to his nomination. Then I knew him only by reputation, and in our brief interactions in party business. But I did not believe that the jackals would give in without murderous bloodshed. When I told him as much, Norman simply shook his head and said, "Be that as it may, Bill, I still must try."
I think some part of him always knew that his life was forfeit the moment his name appeared upon the ballot. But someone would have to bear that cross, and consecrate the Revolution with innocent blood. It was a duty he could not shirk, no matter how hopeless or foolish it may seem. It was how he chose to live his life, to be the best he could be. So he bore the weight of the world on his frail shoulders.
Norman may have been the first casualty of our Revolution. But he was not the last. The sound of cannons still rings over the forests and fields of America. Grieving fathers have buried their sons and daughters in untold numbers. Mothers dread every letter, that it might bring news of more lost kin. Our Revolution surges forward every day. But we must remember our hallowed dead. And remember the cannibals who demanded their blood sacrifice to capital.
So Comrades! Norman Thomas' ashes are mouldering in the grave. But his truth is marching on! He bids us take up the bayonet with a hardened hand, to tear down the Black Barons that that preyed upon our sisters, herded us into camps, that murdered our sons on the fields of the Somme, that whipped and starved us into submission!
The question of Left or Right; that is, Revolution or Barbarism, has been answered. Now there is only one course: forward. Forward to victory! Forward to the Red Dawn!
And I speak with the voice of the martyred dead, to all the enemies of the workers of all nations: The movement for the abolition of slavery began with the first slave. No longer shall we stand outcast and starving amidst the wonders we have made. You cannot murder us into submission, for as long as there are workers we will rise again and again. Seek not to bar our way, for we shall win through, no matter the cost.
Excerpts from the Preface of The Third Republic, a college level history textbook published in 1975.
The liberation of Washington signaled the death knell of the degenerated remnant of the Second Republic. Born in the fires of America's First Civil War, the Second Republic had seen the dramatic change in the United States from a union of sovereign states into a united federal republic. In this period, the nation, finally freed from the backwardness of the Slave Power, rose to prominence on the world stage, developing into an advanced stage of capitalism thanks to the decisive destruction of feudal remnant institutions.
As the capitalist economy had advanced, class conflict grew with it. The history of the whole of the Second Republic is the history of class war, from the violent repressions of the labor movement and the institution of Jim Crow segregation after the Civil War, to populist revolt in the west, and finally the development of a unified workers' party in the early 1900s. The workers' vanguard endured eras of imperialism, and despotic repression at home, emerging in 1920 as a powerful and unified movement of proletarian revolution.
The Second Republic had built great cities, and colonized the entirety of the continent. It built great engines of wealth and scientific progress. But that powerful edifice of civilization was built on a mountain of corpses; genocided Native Americans, oppressed Africans, and exploited immigrant workers. As the revolutionary leader William Z. Foster eulogized, "the machinery of abundance has left us in want."
With the American Revolution now a fait accompli, the leaders of the revolution were now confronted with the difficult struggle to institute a workers' republic. In this endeavor, they faced numerous obstacles, both internal and external.
[…]
One of the most contentious dilemmas of the early Third Republic was the uneasy relationship between the majority Communists and minority Anarchists within the workers' movement. The Anarchists, though small in number, were well organized and highly politically active, constituting an agitational faction both within and outside of the Party. The lines were not always clear; much of their organizational structures were not strictly anarchist in their constitution, and involved many party members in their leadership. And for all their disagreements, and the anarchists' skepticism of the Leninist centralism of the communist movement, they had a history of cooperation as long as their history of agitation.
When the Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti found themselves persecuted by the bourgeois state, the communist International Labor Defense had rallied to their aid. The Workers' Party organized mass demonstrations against their unjust imprisonment. Anarchist agitators in the Free Workers' Union were among the Solidarity federation's most effective organizers. Anarchist units had fought in the Civil War right alongside Communist and Social Democratic cadres.
The various anarchist cadres, united under the General Union of Anarchists, were now at the crossroads. The new government was no longer just theoretical, but reality. They faced the contentious question of collaboration or confrontation. While in their hearts, many wanted to spur the revolution on towards a stateless free association of workers, the experiences of the civil war and the threat of foreign reactionary terror had fundamentally changed the movement's core outlook. The GAU voted, with considerable controversy, to endorse Emma Goldman and Rudolph Rocker's proposition that an authentic "workers' republic" established by the workers' soviets was compatible with anarchist principles under the Organisational Platform of Libertarian Communism, and was preferable to anti-worker states. The GAU thus moved to formalise involvement within the nascent UASR and the Workers' Party.
The Workers' Party, already divided as to the path the revolution would take after the defeat of the Whites, now had to decide whether to admit the GAU as a faction within the Party. Some even on the left wing of the party considered this a dicey proposition. After a contentious vote, the GAU was admitted into the Party, and Emma Goldman joined the Provisional Government. The DeLeonist pedigree of American revolutionary communism had a strong affinity for syndicalism, and as Foster and Reed had argued, the need for a united front was paramount. Foster had purposefully mixed anarchist and Marxist phraseology in his oratory and writing, particularly in his Funeral Oration for Norman Thomas.
[…]
In September, Earl Browder sought to formalize the revolutionary alliance for the post-revolutionary world. The parties and organizations which had united to put down the MacArthur putsch and establish the UASR would create a bloc to govern the revolutionary state. After several rounds of political hardball, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the loyalist Democrats and Republicans agreed to join the United Democratic Front.
The socialist-sympathizing bourgeois liberals united the remnants of their old bourgeois parties into a unified Democratic-Republican Party, harkening back to Thomas Jefferson. The UDF created a venue for constructive political discourse between the revolutionary parties.
On 20 September, as the Reds began pushing deep into the White held territory in the South, the governments of Great Britain and France extended diplomatic recognition to the UASR, holding the new government as the lawful successor of the old United States. Concomitant, the UASR agreed to exempt securities held by foreign governments, as well as by citizens of these foreign governments, from the general repudiation of debt the government planned. Diplomatic recognition by much of the world's sovereign states followed quickly after; only the various reactionary regimes in South America, Nazi Germany, and Fascist Italy continued to treat the MacArthur regime in Cuba as the legitimate government of the territory comprising the former United States.
[…]
The states began voting almost immediately for a new constitutional convention. By October, the requisite 2/3rds needed had been reached; the states had designated the All-Union Congress of Soviets as the constitutional convention. By November, 3/4ths of the states had ratified the revised Fundamental Principles of the Soviet Congresses, essentially rendering the 1868 Constitution defunct.
After electing a fresh slate of delegates to the Provisional Government, the Congress of Soviets established a Constitutional Committee, chaired by Solon DeLeon, to draft additional constitutional documents to give form to the new republic.
Excerpts from Alexandra Stein, "The Other Revolutionaries," in Intersection: Race and Gender in America, (Charleston: Commonweal, 1985)
In the battle for history, no figure is as polarizing as Harry Haywood. One part theoretician, one part political leader, one part military general, Haywood was the face of the African National Congress during the 30s, 40s and 50s. While other black leaders were often highly influential in this era, men like Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois are more known for their role in the broader communist struggle. This often compromised their ability to take a decisive role in the black liberation struggle. Haywood, by contrast, is remembered as a leader of black liberation first, and all of the often adversarial implications therein.
And he was often in fierce political battles with fellow Party members. On three separate occasions from 1934 to 1940, the Party Central Committee voted on expelling Haywood from the party, each time retaining him by narrow margins. The controversial nature of his leadership of the ANC is reflected in the differing opinions about him held by modern whites and blacks. To whites, he is a stern and uncompromising zealot for the cause of equal rights. Occasionally, they'll remember that his promotion of tactics of civil disobedience was a practical concern, not a moral principle. But for Africans, Haywood is remembered quite differently.
Haywood was the man most responsible for ending the terror of living in the South. It is entirely understandable that historically conscious black men and women are not as horrified as whites by Haywood's connection to the Red Terror, or the counterlynchings the Red Army Fractions engaged in when the judicial system failed to act against white terrorism.
This was a role that Haywood had taken since the Civil War. As the leader of the Red Army's Nat Turner Column, he cut a swath through the Fascist-held territory in the Mississippi River valley. Vengeful poor whites as well as black sharecroppers joined in droves. Here in the Deep South, the class war was at its bloodiest. Thanks to Haywood's personal leadership, the thinly suppressed rage of poor whites and oppressed blacks was channeled into an effective instrument against reactionary institutions. He contained the worst of revolutionary excesses while ensuring that justice was still served (indeed, Haywood is fondly remembered in the women's movement for his harsh punishment of war rape as well as for his enduring alliance with the WLU).
After the Civil War, Haywood served as the commanding officer of the Deep South Military District, responsible for the administration of martial law during the emergency period, as well as a member of the Politburo of the Workers Party. The cause of black self-determination won its early successes thanks in no small part to his passion for the project, and his respect among the new managerial class in the South.
The Battle of the Florida Straits
The Red flotilla, under the command of the tested communist Commander Jean-Paul Sanders*, was ordered into the Gulf of Mexico in October 1933 to interdict flight by White forces into the Caribbean. His force, four battleships and two battlecruisers, was met in the Straits of Florida by Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz's force of five battleships, including two of the mighty South Dakota-class.
The Whites, having committed all of the capital ships available to them, were in a do-or-die situation. In terms of broadside weight, the two South Dakotas tipped the firepower balance in Nimitz's favor. But the Reds' ships were on average more modern.
In the wake of a mild storm, the two forces encountered near the Florida Keys. Carrier based scouts spotted the approach of Nimitz's battle fleet. Sanders attempted to "cross-the-t", maneuvering his battle line broadside to the approach of Nimitz's. But Nimitz's escorts and own acumen thwarted this. The fleets engaged battle in the early afternoon after a period of skirmishes by escorts in which carrier aviation crippled one of Nimitz's heavy cruisers. At a range of nearly 25 kilometers, the two fleets started exchanging fire. At this extreme range, the 14 inch guns were almost entirely ineffective due to the design philosophy of American battleships, which emphasized survivability via heavy armor. The heavier sixteen inch guns of the Colorados, South Dakotas and Lexingtons had more luck, particularly against the less well protected ships.
The faster battlecruisers in the lead of the Red flotilla attempted to steam around the head of Nimitz's battleline. But the seven knot difference in speed was not sufficient, as Nimitz's tighter turn kept the two lines broadside to broadside.
The fleets slowly closed over the course of the engagement, and their guns increasingly found their marks. The results were savage. Nimitz focused fire on the lightly armored battlecruisers. Within ten minutes, both were ablaze, and drifting out of the battle-line. But their 16 inch guns, along with the 16 inch guns of the Colorados, had already inflicted severe damage on Nimitz's flagship.
As dusk began to fall, both fleets retired. Sanders was unable to force the Straits of Florida. His battleships endured the pounding delivered, albeit with significant damage. The battlecruisers did not fare as well; both burned well into the night as damage control crews fought valiantly to save the ship. At three in the morning, the fires were mostly extinguished, but the ships were gutted hulks unable to steam under their own power. Unable to safely tow them to safety, Sanders ordered the battlecruisers evacuated and scuttled.
Nimitz did not get off any lighter. The USS Arizona was sunk by the catastrophic effects of plunging 16 inch shells. Her sister ship Idaho, already weakened, was sunk by air launched torpedoes from the Kitty Hawk as she retired. The older Pennsylvania was ultimately scuttled to prevent capture. The two damaged by still serviceable South Dakotas limped back to Cuba.
Excerpts from the AH.com news thread "Recently declassified documents point to British plans to intervene in the American Revolution"
Gally: Found this originally in The Morning Star, but I knew that would immediately bring cries of "Bolshevik agitprop!", so I found the same story on the Daily Torygraph Telegraph.
It's really fascinating reading. I'm by no means a military expert, but a lot of these seem like hare-brained bullshit. Honestly, I think it was a bunch of bored British military types spitballing for lack of better things to do. I mean, who thought that sending T.E. Lawrence to lead a cadre of American expatriates to slip into America across the Canadian border and wreak havoc behind enemy lines. It was like they figured, hey, this guy did a lot working with "Arab savages", surely he'd be able to pull the same miracle in America.
I think T.E. Lawrence said it best, "Your proposal is stark, raving mad. Leave me out of it."
DeOppressoLiber: Yeah, I downloaded the docs last night. I'm only a little bit way through it. Top kek
I think they sincerely believed the braindead "outside agitator" thesis that still guides so much of Franco-British thinking about dealing with radical groups. They seem to sincerely believe that there was no mass support for the revolution, that all it would take is a bunch of paladins on white horses to ride in and rouse the people to put down the outside agitators.
I think the British Army just wanted something to do. The Royal Navy, as far as I've seen, seemed to be much more level headed. I think they were in a genuine panic, because one of their closest rivals, who they did not seriously count as a threat, were now hostile. It's been a long time since West Point, but as far as I remember, the only official action between the British government and the UASR was a tense showdown between the HMS Invincible and the Lexington in the Caribbean. The Lexington's battle group had been ordered to interdict ships carrying White refugees to Cuba et al. The Invincible had been sortied along with a squadron of light cruisers as a deterrent. Because the Lexington crossed into what Britain considered its territorial waters, the ships confronted each other off the Bahamas. It might have resulted in a shooting match, because the British commodore was a bit overzealous in the application of his orders. But when a seaplane scout reported the Kitty Hawk entering the area, he backed down. Prudent of him; I guess he didn't want to be on the second battleship to be sunk by the Kitty Hawk.
AdmiralSanders: To be perfectly honest, the chances of the Kitty Hawk's air group sinking a more modern battleship like Invincible is quite low. Unlike the Idaho, the Invincible had been retrofitted with additional anti-aircraft defenses (Idaho, along with most of the "Standard" type battleships, had their retrofits delayed or cancelled due to the Depression). Not only was she twice as heavy, the Invincible was a far more advanced design, with greater protection against torpedoes as well as the plunging fire that killed her namesake, which gave it better protection against dive bombers as well.
I mean look at what she was carrying in 1933. A squadron of F2F-1 biplanes, a squadron of SB2F-1 dive bombers (basically an F2F that can carry a measly 250 kg of bombs) and a squadron of obsolete T4M torpedo bombers, which couldn't carry torpedoes large enough to threaten a Revenge-class battlecruiser.
The only planes that were a threat were the handful of TBDs, which had been undergoing sea trials aboard the Kitty Hawk when the revolution began.
Felix Leiter: I wouldn't put too much stock in this. It is the job of the general staff to plan for contingencies, even seemingly unimaginable ones. Canada had Defence Scheme No. 1, which was planned in the 20s, the era of very close diplomatic relations with the United States. Britain had Plan 1923, war plans for the destruction of France's colonial empire to force her to the peace table in the event of the unthinkable.
There's a reason why these plans went into a file and were forgotten until the statutory mandated declassification occurred; the General Staff worked out that any meaningful intervention was totally unworkable, and would only drag the country into a disastrous naval war, leading to the loss of Canada and the likely destruction of much of the Royal Navy's strength, something that other rivals would no doubt exploit.
Which is not to say that they didn't do things unofficially. The British Army had advisors in MacArthur's military from almost the very beginning, and their first-hand experience of modern mobile warfare ensured dramatic changes occurred in British military doctrine. France's more conservative military establishment did not have access to this wealth of data, and proved far more resistant to change. And honestly, that's really the reason why they unofficially extended advisors and credit to the MacArthur regime. By May, the British government expected a decisive Red victory in the Civil War. And even a White victory would be destructive to British interests; they wanted to learn what they could before America moved from friend to enemy.
The Fraternal Revolutions
The American revolution was not the only one to occur in 1932-33. It wasn't even the first; the Second Mexican Revolution had begun in July 1932 as a broad-based popular front took up arms against an increasingly corrupt and reactionary Calles regime. When Calles deposed many populists from the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR), he unwittingly began a firestorm.
Many embittered leaders of the First Revolution vowed to take up arms against what they declared a counterrevolution led by Calles. Veterans flocked to their cause, but the revolution did not begin in earnest until the US was locked into a constitutional crisis by January 1933. Freed from the fear of American intervention, the agrarian rebels in the South, led once more by Emiliano Zapata, became increasingly bold.
The Mexican Communist Party (Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM), underground but with influence in a number of front organizations, including the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM), used the degeneration of social order to begin arming a small urban guerilla force. With much of the Army and police tied down combatting Zapata's Liberation Army of the South and Villa's North Division, it became increasingly difficult to engage in organized repression against the CTM in Mexico's urban centers.
The Mexican agrarian rebels looked warmly towards the revolution brewing in their northern neighbor. Before WWI, the Socialist Labor Party had organized aid and relief to revolutionary groups. In turn, many American Marxist agitators had gone into temporary exile in Mexico during the First World War and the Biennio Rosso. In particular, Zapata was influenced by the importation of Marxist theory. At the outset of the Second Revolution, Zapata couched his agrarian revolution in Marxist terms, and sought support from the Comintern.
Zapata's "People's War" found common cause with the Mexican workers' class struggle. An alliance was brokered between Zapata, the left-wing dissidents of the PNR led by Lázaro Cárdenas, the CTM led by the Marxist intellectual Vicente Lombardo Toledano, and the PCM under the loose leadership of Diego Rivera. Initially stalemated throughout early 1933, the shifting tide in the American revolution bolstered their cause. After the liberation of Washington, the American Provisional Government began cooperation with the Mexican Alliance of National Liberation. They promised an offensive to liberate the Mississippi Valley, allowing the two revolutions to link up. In the interim, modest monetary aid from both their own coffers as well as the Soviet Union was channeled into Mexico.
Spartacus League and Red Army troops marched into New Orleans in early November. With MacArthur evacuating the remains of his supporters to Cuba, and desperately trying to hold on to America's other colonial possessions, the American Revolution was essentially over. At the request of Mexico's provisional revolutionary government, the UASR committed troops and arms in a "police action" to support the "popular, legitimate government" of Mexico. The flood of American aid and advisors tinted the pink left-wing nationalist revolution to socialist red. One the eve of the taking of Mexico City in 12 January 1934, Zapata announced the unification of the Left PNR, the PCM and agrarian liberation armies into the Workers' Party of National Liberation (Partido Obrero de Liberación Nacional, POLN).
The leaders of the Revolution announced the formation of the Socialist Republic of Mexico (República Socialista Mexicana). A new constitution, modeled on the American revolutionary constitution, was promulgated on 5 May 1934, tying the new revolution symbolically to the historic struggle of national liberation against the French-imposed monarchy.
The New World revolutions did not end at Mexico. Many other national liberation and populist insurgencies were swept up in the mounting red tide. With the UASR's triumphant call for world revolution echoing through the new world, every revolutionary group in the New World had a ready patron. All that was required was a genuflection to the Comintern cause. But while the UASR was bold, there were still limits. The Comintern directed communist parties in British, French or other European dependencies in the New World to adopt popular front alliance tactics with reformists, and to shy away from insurrection and direct action, at least for the time being. But in the various independent states in North and South America, the various communist parties, thanks to their position as the conduit of foreign aid, began to explode in profile and membership. In some cases, such as Nicaragua, the local populists merged their movements into the Communist Party. In others, such as Colombia or Argentina, Marxist parties took an influential role in national liberation fronts or electoral revolutions. In Chile, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Comintern aligned parties took power directly by revolution or putsch.
The revolutions in Hawai'i, Puerto Rico and Panama were somewhat independent of the American Revolution. But owing to their previous association with the US, and the strong Marxist leadership, these former territories became Associated Union Republics in the UASR.
By 1935, the revolutionary surge in the Americas began to wane. Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela were rocked by internal revolts and abortive attempts at proletarian revolution, but ultimately the establishment held. The European colonies of the Guianas likewise endured.
To Reign in Hell
The Republic of Cuba, officially an independent protectorate of the United States, was ramrodded into becoming a state by the occupying US Army. The rump White Congress confirmed the Cuban legislature's declaration shortly before evacuating Washington. While some, including the First Secretary, had been kidnapped and turned over to the Reds, most had escaped, along with a flood of reactionary militants, rich bourgeois and their running dogs.
On 24 December, General of the Armies of the United States Douglas MacArthur infamously announced "I shall return," before stepping onto the good ship Brumaire. As the ship steamed out of Mobile Bay, a squadron of traitor US Navy ships escorted her to Cuba, while the Royal Navy stymied the efforts of the WFRN to interdict the exodus of counterrevolutionaries.
The next day, the last major battle of the Civil War began on Avery Island, Louisiana. Isolated from retreat by the Nat Turner Column, the last division of the US Army in the mainland, the 10th Infantry, deployed chemical weapons to force a break out to the waiting ships.
Upon his arrival in Cuba, the National Salvation Front-dominated Congress appointed him President-for-Life and Defender of the Constitution; a post he generously vowed he would only hold until the restoration of the Constitution on the Mainland. Cuba's native elite reluctantly accepted the imposition of MacArthur's own brand of "national socialism," needing the might of the US Army remnant to put down the peasant uprisings in the countryside, and fearful of Red invasion.
Former President Hoover, living in exile in Great Britain, took this opportunity to denounce MacArthur as a traitor. Though he had long held his tongue out of a sense of shame, and faint hope that everything would turn out for the best if MacArthur won in the civil war, he now openly confessed that he had only enabled MacArthur's putsch under extreme duress, including threats to his own life as well as his family.
I have to wonder, how well can MacArthur's Cuba really perform? While it's got a massive influx of resources from the fleeing white forces, the vast majority of those resources are military forces, and Cuba is not a large enough area to support what I'd expect the demands of a massively oversized military to require. At the very least, I doubt those damaged battleships will be repaired any time soon. This is ignoring the whole authoritarian thing, which will add further resource demands to keep enough soldiers active enough to perform policing duties.
I have to wonder, how well can MacArthur's Cuba really perform? While it's got a massive influx of resources from the fleeing white forces, the vast majority of those resources are military forces, and Cuba is not a large enough area to support what I'd expect the demands of a massively oversized military to require. At the very least, I doubt those damaged battleships will be repaired any time soon. This is ignoring the whole authoritarian thing, which will add further resource demands to keep enough soldiers active enough to perform policing duties.
I have to wonder, how well can MacArthur's Cuba really perform? While it's got a massive influx of resources from the fleeing white forces, the vast majority of those resources are military forces, and Cuba is not a large enough area to support what I'd expect the demands of a massively oversized military to require. At the very least, I doubt those damaged battleships will be repaired any time soon. This is ignoring the whole authoritarian thing, which will add further resource demands to keep enough soldiers active enough to perform policing duties.
Some of the White forces will demobilize, but not as much as you'd think since Cuba's not empty and there's a whole lot of locals who may or may not have socialist tendencies but sure as hell aren't happy about having a mob of idiots from the mainland playing house in Havana. So that's going to keep the Army busy through the 30s at least. The Navy's probably going to have to start scrapping ships and using the remains to repair damage taken in the revolution. IIRC they'll get some level of aid from the UK, as Airstrip One against the American commie menace, but most of that's going to go into propping up MacArthur's double-junta.
Cuba and the White government are not in a happy place right now. Will they get better? That depends on your definition of "better."
I have to wonder, how well can MacArthur's Cuba really perform? While it's got a massive influx of resources from the fleeing white forces, the vast majority of those resources are military forces, and Cuba is not a large enough area to support what I'd expect the demands of a massively oversized military to require. At the very least, I doubt those damaged battleships will be repaired any time soon. This is ignoring the whole authoritarian thing, which will add further resource demands to keep enough soldiers active enough to perform policing duties.
Down to its first ruler being very unafraid to crack skulls until compliance is established and working diligently to try to subsume native nationalism into transplanted nationalism.
As for the battleships; Britain is going to purchase the ships that Americuba can't afford to get a look at American warship design. The ships that Britain doesn't want are to be sold off to any other buyers around until Americuba's navy is at a more affordable size. They're not going to go for some Kaiserreich Kolchak navy with a state farce.
More on that is coming. I've got a lot of appendix type stuff to port over, and unlike last iteration I'm actually going to do a write up on how the revolutionary constitution came to be.
I have to wonder, how well can MacArthur's Cuba really perform? While it's got a massive influx of resources from the fleeing white forces, the vast majority of those resources are military forces, and Cuba is not a large enough area to support what I'd expect the demands of a massively oversized military to require. At the very least, I doubt those damaged battleships will be repaired any time soon. This is ignoring the whole authoritarian thing, which will add further resource demands to keep enough soldiers active enough to perform policing duties.
Not very well. They survive due to a lifeline from the British Empire, which both involves preventing American military intervention through threat of war, as well as extending a financial lifeline.
Paying full price for two battle-damaged battleships is a lot of hard currency for the regime. And of course, it's a legal shell game that is played; when they want to stop the UASR from invading, it's about protecting the sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba...while they lowkey talk to Havana about restoring the legitimate government of the United States.
Oh, and before I forget, here's a thing lost from an earlier revision cycle. One manly tear for Norman Thomas and the other martyrs of the Revolution, on the house:
I have to wonder, how well can MacArthur's Cuba really perform? While it's got a massive influx of resources from the fleeing white forces, the vast majority of those resources are military forces, and Cuba is not a large enough area to support what I'd expect the demands of a massively oversized military to require. At the very least, I doubt those damaged battleships will be repaired any time soon. This is ignoring the whole authoritarian thing, which will add further resource demands to keep enough soldiers active enough to perform policing duties.
I'll spoiler window this, in case there are people who have no idea where the TL is going and enjoy suspense:
The UASR and its chief foes (aside from European continental bystanders, guess who) the exilic so-called USA with Cuba as its only state penciled in yesterday (a lot like Taiwan, that) and the British Empire think they are likely to be the opposite sides of a big brawl any half decade now; both sides need time to maneuver and regroup. If a certain former Austrian and former corporal were not warping history beyond all recognition (I honestly think there is a very good chance there would have been no European WWII if Hitler just vanished from history before 1929, or anyway well before it, say during the Great War) I suppose something like that would be likely to happen, and mainly be the UASR's fault too in terms of conventional assignment of blame for wars--the Red Yanks are committed to the idea of world revolution and have the means to follow through and not a lot of reason to rest on compromise settlements with the established Powers.
I can take the British side on this one thing; they probably would honor an indefinite truce forever, not go all rollback crazy--if only the UASR were not driven to follow through on the promise of revolution and liberation for all the workers of the world.
But seeing the Americans won't hold off forever, with Canada right there and a world domination to lose, I suppose were it not for Hitler, the UK would slowly get its shit together for the knockdown fight of the century, and it is a three way boat race between deteriorating domestic situation (with this being the plainly coming world war, how well can Britain and her Dominions and subjects keep the lid on each bailiwick's working classes, how much can King and Religion and stuff like that paper over the benefits of taking the Red Yanks up on their offer of help for revolutionaries) in Britain and allied White powers, versus someone developing the atomic bomb and having time to stockpile lots of them, versus the war finally starting already. For the very short run of the foreseeable next several years, no one will really be able and certainly not willing to start that war.
Nobody who matters, that is. The Americubans are pipsqueaks on crack, jumping up and down in their impatience. They are also to put it bluntly, supplicant charity cases of the British Empire as noted. They can just wait their turn and do as they are told. This might not stop wildcats and hotheads from trying to sneak into the UASR or allied bloc members like Mexico and make trouble there, but that is what the organized UASR police forces are there to put a stop to; if neither Britain nor UASR are quite ready to go to full on war with each other yet, Americubans can do anything and the Red Yanks will just add it to the big pile of Things to Do Something About When We Liberate Cuba. They won't even bother to protest diplomatically; UASR does not recognize Cuba has a legitimate government, or rather said government is in exile (and no one else outside the Comintern recognizes that as Cuba's government. Again a lot like Taiwan). Anyway the smart Americubans know who is buttering their bread, and supplying the bread too.
And they are in for a bitter disappointment, those longing for the day the British Empire backs their reconquest bid anyway. That Austrio-German chap with the mustache is going to upset the whole inevitable Red-White War applecart and bring the British into the war against him, and with Britain against the Axis, willy nilly Zombie Cuba and the UASR will be on the wrong side, albeit both hating that fact. I daresay there will be not inconsiderable numbers of both UASR and AmeriCubans secretly relieved they aren't going to be killing each other after all--in Cuba they'd best keep such sentiments a secret since the MacArthur regime has no legitimacy or purpose if they are not fanatically against the UASR; I suppose on the mainland people have freedom to say "goody, let's be glad of this" though they might be pointedly asked just why they say that and have to explain it is because bloodshed is kind of nasty and it would be a shame to have to massacre them all. Which will get some scoffing and suspicion aimed at them but if their noses are otherwise clean that will be all.
So after that, it becomes a problem of intra-alliance traffic management. Americuban units will be small in number anyway; the British just have to route them where they won't be side by side with mainland Yankees (or Mexicans, or other Comintern forces). Grudgingly and on paper I expect a formal truce, explicitly temporary, and official disapproval by both sets of leaders, In D-DL City and Havana, of any score settling should the rival claimants to the title "American" meet. It would still be smart to keep them separate, with "USA" commanders also being concerned some of their troops and officers might defect to the Reds if that looks easy. Quite a few will not of course, especially among the officers, but I imagine it will be a thing, anytime it is possible for Americuban force members to think they have a clear shot at running into American Red hands.
Another thing will be forces in either uniform drifting into the waters, airspace or landing on the other. It will happen; aircraft and ships will have to sortie out of both places to fight German U-boats at least and every now and then one will find itself being forced down to the other's shores. I daresay Americubans stranded on the continental UASR or Puerto Rico will pray the official regime cops show up and follow orders to take them into protective custody and restore them to their homeland ASAP. Red Yanks will have a little more security given the mouse to elephant disparity in sizes between the nations and thus the great value the UASR alliance has to the British intermediaries, but some White hotheads might still do something stupid, so Red Americans are similarly going to hope the gendarmes show up promptly--and have to worry they themselves are corrupt. So having someone in His Majesty's uniform among them will be a welcome sight.
After the Reich is defeated will be a scary time for the people running roughshod over Cuba. For a time, it will seem Britain and France will be veering on going Red peacefully, and if they do the MacArthur regime is screwed blue. But a big part of the Spoiler is that somehow or other (I am very dubious of this part, but the author collective has done a bang up job of answering niggling little quibbles like this in this latest iteration so I look forward to how Aelita et al are going to explain this, and trust they'll make it make sense) Britain and France recoil, elect conservative governments and form a Cold War bloc against the Comintern. This saves MacArthur's bacon.
Both now-again-rival blocs will have atomic bombs and by and by worse kinds of nukes, in large numbers, and a nuclear balance of terror will serve to protect the White Cuban regime as effectively as Castro's Cuba was protected from Yankee invasion OTL. Indeed at an unofficial level I daresay FBU (Franco-British Union) conservative hotheads will give moral support in principle to the White reinvasion of the mainland and restoration of the "Constitutional" USA (in scare quotes because the Whites are pretty sure to have pulled some fast ones with Amendments that would never stand OTL).
Officially even the most conservative European and allied governments (independent India is a big anti-Communist player in earlier iterations, and I suspect must be here too) will be more restrained in their official language and disavow any such intentions--probably! Sane persons in the White regime will glumly know they are lucky that the Red hands are as tied as the White and that if the peace does break down their island will glow in the dark for centuries to come; less sane ones will resentfully recall the FBU forces remain the big dogs and they are a little chihuahua and will heel, albeit still barking and snapping. Really nutty ones will be sat on, or put on display with restraints kept out of sight to try to scare the Reds, or made to softly and silently vanish away as the case may be. Again the White regime has no legitimacy or purpose at all if they give up their crazy demands for taking over North America again, so it will be a bit of a lunatic circus. But Red Yanks, aside from remaining mad that they can't expect to carry out formal justice on the bloody handed tyrants, will mainly laugh and roll their eyes and worry mainly about the big gun FBU bloc powers; the long Canadian border is a much bigger problem than a reactionary ruled little island on FBU charity more than 100 kilometers off shore from south Florida.
Over time the living memory of the crimes of the Whites will fade I suppose. How long? Well I just saw a thing on Facebook about Ann Frank, Martin Luther King and Barbara Walters all having been born in 1929, so now would be still too early for it to fade completely.
Surely as long as MacArthur lives, the UASR has nothing polite to say to the pretenders of Cuba. With him dead, maybe a long process of eventually opening the door to formal if unfriendly diplomatic relations might begin, but of course the UASR and with it in solidarity the entire Comintern will have some conditions, starting with Cuba dropping any pretensions of any claims whatsoever on any little bit of the former USA. Not naming itself the USA might be one of them too. No one personally involved in the current government having participated in the White coup another nonnegotiable point I suppose, though someone who was really junior, like a lieutenant whom the Reds have no particular knowledge of particular atrocities being ordered by them, having a minor role in the government, might be a point they might stretch over, especially if there is some sort of apology. Being committed to crazy I suppose the Whites will have their own "nonnegotiable" points they will in fact have to concede or forget about at a later date.
I can't see this happening any time before say the 1990s.
UASR Red Americans will probably live longer by the way, since medicine is going to get pretty good I would expect, and sensible medical advice will more likely prevail in public media and general culture than OTL.
So I expect tobacco use to take a nosedive much sooner and more precipitately than OTL. Up to a certain time, I suppose it will be as OTL, but when the medical jury comes in there will be no obfuscation and procrastination. A generation will resist quitting smoking but there will be no industry with a vested interest in perpetuating and extending their market and lots of dirty tricks of OTL will not happen in Comintern American nations; a medicalized model of weaning people off tobacco, while taking care to transition tobacco growers and processors into unharmful alternative lines of agriculture and processing, will pull the rug out from under the industry and I would guess by 1975 only die hard tobacco fiends who are doing this quite deliberately and have to keep the smoke out of everyone else's faces will be using tobacco in the UASR or other American Red countries.
Same will be true of lots of other public health stuff...we'd recognize the role sugar plays as opposed to the witch hunt against "fat" much more clearly for instance.
I don't mean to suggest Comintern bloc medicine will be miraculously ahead of its time (though I do expect it will become steadily more advanced than the cutting edge OTL) nor that officials will never make a mistake--but mistakes will be called on and effectively corrected I think, with no corporate vested interests to muddy the waters. So even people born a decade before the Revolution, who live through the Civil War and the second World War, and don't happen to die in some Cold War brushfire war on the revolutionary side, will have I guess a decade or so more life expectancy, and the fraction who do get really old might enjoy an additional five years or so.
I suspect that barring tremendous advances that are at this point OTL still science fiction, we are actually pushing the limit of maximum number of years people can live, and that when you are pushing 100, you have to expect to go any day---but for the very old, I suppose better health in younger years and really advanced medicine (by the 2010s I suspect it would have many capabilities we can't expect to see OTL until the 2040s or later) can enable happier, less painful, more active and capable senior years.
So perhaps ATL Barbara Walters can live maybe ten years longer than she will OTL, but she'll be happier and more active in the last ones of her extra decade than in the last ones she has OTL. Martin Luther King with a slightly different name (I suppose because his parents were radicalized in the ATL) will be right there with her. Poor Anne Frank, probably not, but she has a roll of the dice chance anyway.
The point being, living memory of the Revolution will be living even in 2018, more than the same year is remembered OTL.
I imagine there are different degrees of autonomy for the republics, just like (in theory) in the USSR. So ASSRs would have more autonomy than the average constituent republic.
Depends how you define "mercenary work". The Pinkertons, for example: They might have marketed themselves as "bodyguards" and "private detectives" but in practice they were selling applied violence for cash, which is mercenary work distilled to its essence. Quite possibly the British and/or French government would find such an organisation a good source of competent but politically expendable manpower to clamp down on any unrest in their Caribbean colonies.
Depends how you define "mercenary work". The Pinkertons, for example: They might have marketed themselves as "bodyguards" and "private detectives" but in practice they were selling applied violence for cash, which is mercenary work distilled to its essence. Quite possibly the British and/or French government would find such an organisation a good source of competent but politically expendable manpower to clamp down on any unrest in their Caribbean colonies.
It's more of the international aspect that's the problem. I think there's good reason to accept that the various imperial powers knew what they were doing in maintaining security forces that were made up of units from the mother country presiding over a body drawn from the local population. Foreign mercenaries in your colonies is a really ugly signifier of tyranny.
Author's Note:
I've written and rewritten this short story three times now. The central aim hasn't changed; war is awful and it shouldn't be romanticized, even when the cause is just. And while I feel this serves as a proper bookend to the first part of the timeline, this story may not be for everyone.
Content Warning: Depictions of war crimes, specifically sexual violence.
The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised
Life comes at you fast.
I heard the distant crack of rifles. The pounding of cannon shells followed. I'd dithered long enough. Damn my stupid pride, it was time to leave. Anywhere but near the fighting. I tore through Mama's lacquered wood wardrobe (God rest her soul) for something suitable for riding, stopping only for a moment to wipe the sweat from my brow.
My heart pounded. When the thunder of guns ended, an eerie silence fell over the plantation. After a dreadful silent minute, I heard the familiar creak of the front door swing wide then slam shut. Heavy boots clopped across the wooden floor, up the stairs. I shrunk behind the wardrobe until I heard my brother cry out, "Mary!"
"I'm in the master bedroom!" I cried, slumping against the wardrobe.
Little Jeb stumbled into the bedroom. He doubled over, wheezing as he tried to catch his breath. "Brother-dear, come sit down," I said, patting him on the back. I pushed him into Dad's rocking chair.
Dad had been a tall, barrel-chested oak of a man. His only son, barely fifteen, was dwarfed by the chair his father had made. Still, little Jeb Jr. looked very much like him. Sometimes when I looked at his curly brown hair, or his green eyes, or his square jaw and uneasy smile, I had to fight back the urge to cry. Sometimes it seemed like little Jeb was the only proof that Dad had ever existed.
When Jeb finally caught his breath, he looked at me, the pained expression of terror chiseled into his face. "The sheriff sent me home to get you. He said you needed to come with him for protection, cuz they're coming for us."
A pit formed in my stomach. I'd already known, but I'd held onto the hope that I'd have more time...that I wouldn't have to take to the road. I let out a heavy sigh as Jeb rambled about Sheriff McMasters calling a posse. I was born in this room almost twenty years ago, brought screaming into the world by 'Nana Jones. I was going to leave it much the same way.
"Jeb dear...we need to leave."
"But why...the Sheriff says he needs me. We need to defend our homes from the Reds."
I shook my head. "No. I will not see my only kin die for some damned lost cause."
"But we can beat 'em Mary! I know it. It's our home and I ain't gonna let 'em take it."
Jeb tried to get up, but I held him down in the chair. He struggled and squirmed. "Jeb, these ain't some National Salvationist peckerwoods like the ones I ran off when they tried to draft you. They've already beaten the United States Army. They've won. That fat old sheriff ain't gonna do nothin' but get y'all killed."
Jeb stopped struggling. I pulled back, avoiding the bitter grimace on his face. "Hate me if you want. I'm not letting you get yourself killed. You're all I have left, Jeb."
A trickle of sweat ran down my nose. Maybe it was the look he gave me, like he wanted to belt me, but suddenly even the sundress I wore felt stifling. I didn't have a choice in this, the war was coming to my doorstep. Our tenant farmers and hired help had all deserted the plantation. Hell, some of them done went and joined up with the Reds.
When I felt like I'd gotten the poison out of Jeb, I sent him to the barn to saddle up our best horses. He left, eyes downcast, and it reminded me when the help had announced they were downing tools last month.
I changed into riding breeches and jodphur boots, wondering if I had any right to be angry with Jeb, 'cause I tried stopping the world from turning too. When the tenants showed up at my door, I'd lost my temper.
Their leader, a tall but soft-spoken Negro named Verne, had knocked politely on the front door. When I answered, he calmly explained that the plantation workers would no longer be slaves to the bourgeoisie, whatever the hell that was. They were laying down tools, and finding their own destiny elsewhere.
I...didn't take it well. When I offered better terms, even if they'd only stay 'til harvest, he refused. Then I lost my temper and slapped him. I called him some things I didn't believe, just to see if it would hurt him. Then came the pleading...hadn't we been better masters than the rest? Hadn't father done enough to help elevate their race?
When my conniption had ended, I instantly regretted it. Verne took the abuse calmly, and stated that he believed, like Christ, in turning the other cheek, and though I was a "class enemy" as their landlord and master, he never felt any personal dislike towards me. He wished me the best of luck, and calmly walked away.
The plantation had already been deserted by the time I realised I was holding on for nothing. Without their rent, I couldn't pay the mortgage, sure. But we'd just gotten word in Warren County that Washington had fallen, and there wouldn't be anyone to collect.
I gathered up some salt-pork, tinned meats and oats from the cellar. My thoughts kept going back to Verne...he'd been on the plantation for as long as I could remember. I remembered bawling my eyes out the day Daddy said I was too old to be playing with him now, that we belonged in two different worlds. He must've still remembered me...because my words had hurt him. Oh, Mama would've fainted if she'd heard her Southern belle say such things.
Verne looked at me forlorn. He didn't raise his voice or nothin. It was probably the first time in his life he'd dare to stand up to a White. He seemed invincible doing it, and right now I almost envied him.
I had less food on hand than I'd like. Cupboards had gotten barer since the troubles began. There hadn't been a drop of gasoline in the county for a month now, and everything was running short. I made up a quick lunch from some of our perishables; ham sandwiches with fresh butter and garden tomatoes. It might be the last time we see such luxuries. It occurred to me that Jeb and I would have both been safer if we just went with the tenants and asked them for protection. But it was too late. It would always be too late.
I went back upstairs and scraped up all the cash I had on hand, perhaps eighty dollars in total. It would have to do, and if it didn't, Daddy's old Colt Single Action Army would make up the difference. Besides the usual travel supplies, I wrapped up some jewelry in handkerchiefs to keep for sentimental reasons. The rest went into the saddlebags for barter.
I went downstairs to call Jeb in for lunch. Something stopped me on the upstairs landing. I gazed at at the beautiful wallpaper, the richly varnished wood banisters, the photos of mother and father carefully hung on the walls; this might be the last time I ever saw home.
I heard yelling outside. The splintering wood, cries of pain and the panicked neighing of a horse followed.
"Jesus Christ…" I muttered, heart skipping a beat.
Even in the more progressive households like my own, all young women in Mississippi had been taught to fear violation at the hands of Negroes. I'd always known better. Precocious little me had seen enough trembling wives and children to know that Whites could be just as violent. But that's the thing about fear. It ain't rational. So while I nervously loaded the Colt Peacemaker, I imagined a gang of black men outside getting their revenge for decades of abuse and lynching. But my little brother was in trouble and I needed to go.
Instead, I found a group of White men circled around my brother curled up on the ground. They hooted and hollered as they kicked him. The hot September sun near blinded me as I levelled the Colt with murderous intent at the man who looked like the biggest and meanest of the bunch. Shaking, I cocked the hammer, suddenly aware of the terrible power in my hands.
Then something hard hit me on my right temple. It knocked me down on the hardwood deck and sent the Cold flying from my hands. I couldn't tell if the crack that followed was the pistol going off, or my head breaking open. The world was spinning as I flopped over on my back. Two wicked men loomed over me. My eyes refocused and the two blurry images merged into one crystal clear, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand as he smiled wickedly.
His mouth moved, but I couldn't hear over the ringing at first. The ringing cleared, and sounds followed his flapping gums: "—Old Jeb Forrest's daughter has some moxy."
I tried to put a name to his face. I'd seen his ruddy, gap-toothed smile before. Ah, yes, John Tanner. Dirt poor farmer, odd jobber and unrepentant sinner.
The gang that had been beating Jeb had stopped. They had him by the hair on his knees. For a moment, they stood there aimlessly, as though waiting for Tanner to lead them somewhere. They wore khaki uniforms with the broken chain insignia of the Spartacus League sewn into the shoulders. Tanner's tunic had sergeant's chevrons.
Tanner grabbed me roughly and yanked me to my feet. He pushed me up against the siding. Wood splinters and paint flakes dug into my back. His hands were around my neck. I clawed desperately at his fingers. He squeezed just enough for my breaths to come out ragged. My sweat ran cold seeing his predatory grin.
"Well, well. I'd always wanted to give Jeb Forrest what for. But seeing as he's dead, and you're right here, ripe for the taking, I guess I'll have to take my revenge on you. You boys will get your turn soon enough."
I let out a blood curdling scream as he dragged me inside. I cried for help, begged him to stop. I beat at his face and chest with my fists. It only earned me a punch in the gut. As I doubled over, gasping for air, Tanner cackled, "Bring that little runt in here. Make him watch."
Tanner threw me on the dining room table. He stood between my legs, grinning like a pig in shit. I continued kicking, but I couldn't get any leverage. I tried breaking his grip on my hips and sliding away, but a rough pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and forced me down on the table.
I instantly recognized him. Robert Lee Baxter had been my classmate until eighth grade. No longer legally required to go to school, he went to work to support his family, making decent wages at Murdoch's general store in town. He'd always smiled bashfully at me every time I shopped. We made smalltalk, and he always said such kind things. For a while, I wondered if he'd been sweet one me. Daddy would never have allowed his daughter be courted by White trash like a Baxter, but until now I never would have thought he had an ounce of wickedness in him.
Staring up at Bobby Lee smirking at me...it really hit me. He was waiting his turn to rape me. I'd never felt so betrayed. Tanner had always been a mean son-of-a-bitch, and no one ever expected anything else from him. As terrified as I was of him, I could endure his cruelty. But Bobby Lee's betrayal hurt me...deep in my soul.
I heard Jeb hollering. He was begging for them to stop, swearing to God and on his mother's grave that he'd do anything just so long as they left me alone.
They laughed.
Jeb was crying now. In between his sobs he said "I'm sorry, Mary, I'm so sorry." As Tanner roughly tore open my blouse and yanked my breeches off, I tried to tell Jeb to be strong. But the words died in my throat. It wasn't going to be alright, and he didn't deserve to see this anymore than I did.
"It's not your fault, Jeb," I sobbed.
It was like being stabbed with a dull knife, and it it didn't go away. I...I don't remember a lot about the act itself, everything just jumbled together. He smelled like sweat, alcohol and cheap tobacco; so strong I might have gagged. I remember his weight onto me, the sound of men cackling.
Then Tanner stopped as suddenly as he had started. Some voice I couldn't recognise shouted from the next room, "Sergeant! What da hell is goin' on in here?"
Bobby Lee's grip loosened and Tanner went motionless as he looked over his shoulder. I pulled away until I was blocked by Bobby Lee's barrel chest.
A black man stood in the doorway. He was tall and square jawed, filling out his travel worn khakis with broad shoulders and a hint of a middle-age paunch. His eyes narrowed with rage as he unslung his .303 Springfield and levelled it at Tanner.
Tanner took a moment to regain his modesty. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to remember mine. But I was too transfixed by my unlikely savior's arrival. I waited, dreading each passing second, unable to run or look away.
"This ain't none of yer concern, captain." Tanner said with a shrug. "She's a class enemy getting her just desserts. Go on and git, if you don't wanna see it, then don't watch."
"You know I can't do that," the captain stated calmly. "You were sent here to gather supplies and if needs be, flush out any fascist partisans. General Haywood specifically ordered no brutality towards civilians."
More men were tramping through my house. Some Whites, some Negroes, a few Chinamen. They seemed to be aligned with the Negro captain, and spoke mostly like Yankees. The moment grew more tense as Tanner's group fanned out, their pistols and rifles readied.
One of the Yankees, a rail-thin man with kinky black hair and horn-rimmed glasses, circled around us. His eyes...and the pistol he held at his hip, stayed fixed on Tanner as he circled towards the captain. "What's the word, Gracchus?" he asked.
Gracchus' aim did not waver an inch, like a hunter stalking his quarry. He spoke calmly, like killing was as easy as breathing to him. "Tell me, commissar: what is our standing order to deal with rapists?"
"That's up to the courts-martial. I'm sure we might be able to get them to be lenient, especially to the accomplices." The commissar chuckled. "Or we could shoot them all like dogs. Right here, right now. Your choice, captain."
Gracchus' aim remained steady. "You heard the man. How this plays out is entirely up to your discretion, Sergeant Tanner. But please remember, peckerwood, that you stood on the sidelines with your thumb up your ass and waited to pick the winning side while me and mine killed crackers who were twice the man you've ever been."
After a moment's hesitation, Tanner's trembling hand dropped his revolver on the table. The rest folded quickly and Bobby Lee finally let go of me.
Gracchus lowered his rifle. "Commissar, get this piece of shit out of my sight."
I watched in a stupor as all of Tanner's gang were gathered up and marched out of the room. My thoughts went to Bobby Lee again as he was prodded out of my house at gunpoint. He didn't dare look me in the eye.
I tried to imagine why he could feel such hate for me...that he'd wish to hurt me and violate me. What could I have done to deserve this? I wanted so badly to cry, but the tears would not come. I trembled, imagining the noose around Bobby Lee's neck. It didn't give me any comfort.
It must've been the third or fourth time he said it, cause Gracchus said "Ma'am" quite insistently. I startled at the sudden sound, but recomposed myself as he offered one of mom's old quilts. He wrapped it around my shoulders, hiding my nakedness.
I stared up at him slack jawed. He told me he'd give me time to get dressed, but he'd return with something to drink.
I dressed quietly in the dining room. My clothes were in decent condition, save for the buttons on my blouse. I pondered getting another one, but couldn't find the strength to go up the stairs. My dignity could not be anymore violated than it already was. My camisole would suffice for now.
Gracchus returned with some of my teacups, a vacuum flask, and some sugarcubes. He asked me how I took my tea as he poured two cups.
"Just sugar is fine," I said. "I'd offer you some cream, but the icemen stopped delivering two months ago, so my icebox is just a fancy cupboard. Milkmen too. Just as well, wouldn't have any money to pay them."
I took the tea cup from him. He stood almost a head taller than me, watching me with sad eyes as I stirred my sugar cubes into my tea. "No one is going to hurt you anymore, ma'am."
"Why?" I whispered, giving up on the pretense that everything was going to be fine.
"Those crackers found an excuse to bully someone. They should have never been allowed to volunteer." He looked hurt as he said it.
"No, why are you helping me? Aren't I your enemy?"
"No, you're not," he said calmly.
I stamped my foot. "What's the war been then? Just a big misunderstanding?"
He let out a sigh, as though he was explaining things to a small child. "The war is all but over, Miss Forrest. The old world that made us enemies is gone now. We're leidensgenossen now."
"How am I your 'fellow-sufferer'?"
Gracchus sipped his tea thoughtfully. "You're the same age my younger sister was when it happened to her. I'll spare you the details, but I carried a lot of hate in my heart for years because of what they did to her. I finally learned that no amount of revenge was ever going to bring her back or fill the hole inside me. I know that it is hard for you to trust me. But I want to build a world where little girls, Black or White, aren't going to be brutalized."
There was still smoke rising above the trees. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but as I drank his over-boiled tea it occurred to me that if things had been as dandy in the Old Republic as I'd earnestly believed, we wouldn't be killing each other with such enthusiasm. Every drop of blood drawn with the lash needed to be repaid with another drawn by the sword.
I didn't yet know if I could believe in the New World that Gracchus promised. But at least for now, I could trust that he believed in it.
You think of heroism as big, noble acts. But sometimes it's the littlest things that make all the difference in the world. Like when a man who had every reason to hate you and all your kind wraps a blanket around you, makes you tea, and tries to help you feel like the world hasn't ended, that there's still hope for tomorrow, something worth surviving for.
Author's Note:
I've written and rewritten this short story three times now. The central aim hasn't changed; war is awful and it shouldn't be romanticized, even when the cause is just. And while I feel this serves as a proper bookend to the first part of the timeline, this story may not be for everyone.
Content Warning: Depictions of war crimes, specifically sexual violence.
It may not be for everyone but in many ways I consider this one of the most important chapters in Reds! as bizarre as it can sound. I see so many works that fall into the traps of 'Marysuetopia' or protagonist-centered morallity. Moments like this in the timeline help avert that and also manages to handle the subject of rape very well, just enough to convey to the readers what's going on without crossing into the line of tasteless spectacle.
