Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

[Jake]

Paley himself surrendered WABC to the Red Army in exchange that they would not harm his staff or equipment and allow him safe passage to Canada. His conditions were accepted and upon handing the keys over, Paley left on the next boat to Newfoundland along with his wife and several mistresses.

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That sounds like quite a story all by itself...

 

[Hawkatana]

I'd use the Jontron "I have several questions" clip, but I'm not going to because Jon fucking sucks. That said, I presume you all get the point.

 

[Instant Sunrise]

Paley was a notorious womanizer and really did have several mistresses.

His wife at the time of this update was Dorothy Hart Hearst, who had been married to William Randolph Hearst's third son John Randolph Hearst before she divorced him in 1932 for "extreme cruelty" and married Paley in that same year. IOTL she divorced him in 1947 for infidelity and it was well known that Paley wasn't faithful to her.

 

[Adonisus]

November 11th: Leonid Spartak, husband and co-worker of Samantha Waver, agrees to a joint interview with Walt Disney to discuss the role of animation as both a creative art and a means of expression proletarian culture; defending the usage of fantastical elements by creators such as himself, his wife, Samawal, and Disney and making his now famous (and often misattributed to his wife) quotation that "the point of fiction is not to tell of the world as it is, but to speak of it in a way that provides some fulfillment beyond what merely being told about something can give; even if that fulfillment is simply in fun."

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I wanted to bring this part up because there is a major cultural significance to this, compared to OTL:

This is basically Leonid Spartak outright defying and criticizing the Zhdanov Doctrine in the Soviet Union. For those of you who aren't quite aware of what this was, it was the Soviet cultural policy under Stalin that instituted 'Socialist Realism' as the State-approved art style. It ruthlessly censored any kind of art, drama, literature or music that did not tow the party line, and this included any kind of fantasy. Any kind of satire was suspect. So-called 'cosmopolitanism', i.e. any kind of avant-garde or foreign-influenced work, was repressed. It did nigh-irreparable damage to Soviet Arts and Literature during the entirety of the Stalin era.

This doctrine was fiercely adhered to by every Communist Party outside of the USSR, and communist writers and artists could be harshly criticized for going against the approved style.

 

[Asherterix]

A question about the FBU - if I am a child born in the midlands (say, Kettering or Birmingham), how well do I speak Frech? Is it that all FBU citizens are fluent in both French and English, or does the amout of speakers of either language vary?

 

[Miss Teri]

A question about the FBU - if I am a child born in the midlands (say, Kettering or Birmingham), how well do I speak Frech? Is it that all FBU citizens are fluent in both French and English, or does the amout of speakers of either language vary?

Click to shrink...

Both French and English are taught in schools, but real fluency also depends your location and how many speakers you encounter in daily life.

 

[Instant Sunrise]

Television, A Revolution in Communications.

It's a disturbing thing to watch the Television shows coming out of the FBU. The use of pre-recorded laughter to demarcate what the audience is meant to find funny speaks volumes about their highly atomised society that TV producers must artificially create the same experience that any American takes for granted when watching a show with their Genosse. - American TV critic Robert Lloyd​

​

As a steward of the public's airwaves, I believe it is both our right and our duty to ensure that the programmes that we have been entrusted to allow into every single home are of proper moral character. - EBC Commissioner of Programme Standards (1968-1989) Mary Whitehouse.​

Perhaps no technology did more to shape the postwar cultural divides between the Alliance of Free States and the Communist International than the invention of Television. Where each bloc had a roughly equivalent experience with the artform of the cinema, it was with television that the UASR and FBU would diverge sharply, both in how the technology of television was approached and the artform of the television broadcast was presented.

If one is to understand how the same technology could diverge so sharply, it becomes necessary to understand the conditions that allowed Television to thrive after the war. Indeed, ever asking a Brit and an American to draw a picture of an old television set would get you sharply different answers.

To a Brit in the 1950's, a television was a box with a glass screen that sat in a house's drawing room. Whereas to an American, a television was a type of projector that would display live video.

If you ask somebody who invented television, you'll get a multitude of answers. If you ask a Brit, they'll say Issac Shoenberg. If you ask an American, they'll say it was John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth. If you asked a West German, they'd tell you it was Vladimir Zworykin. And if you asked a Russian, they'd say that it was Constantin Perskyi.

The story of television in the UASR can be traced to two people. Philo Farnsworth and John Logie Baird.

John Logie Baird, The Father of Television

Born in 1888, John Logie Baird was the youngest son of a Scottish Presbyterian Minister. In his childhood, Baird frequently struggled with bouts of illness growing up, with flare-ups that would leave him incapacitated for weeks at a time. Baird was an inventor from early on; as a boy he had built a battery operated telephone network between his home and the homes of his friends, and had even managed to wire up his family's home with electricity well before their town would be electrified.

Baird's desire to invent had eventually led him to Trinidad and Tobago in 1919, where he began operating a business selling jams and preserves of tropical fruits, as in the days before refrigeration, most fruit could not be transported to Europe before spoiling. It was here that a chance encounter with some visiting American socialists who had helped him defuse a tense labor standoff between Baird and his Tobagoian workers would prove to be a key turning point in Baird's life.[1]

Two years later, with his health issues flaring up again, Baird was forced to return to Britain. Leaving his fruit preserve business in the hands of his employees, and having built up a considerable sum of money owing to his personal thrift, was able to live comfortably in Hastings where he could dedicate himself to his inventions full time.

It was here in Hastings that Baird had encountered the works of German inventor Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow. Specifically Nipkow's interest in the use of a selenium cell which could be used to transmit images of light using electricity. A concept that Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi had termed "Télévision" from the Greek root "tele" for distance and the Latin root "visio" for sight.

Baird's initial experiments with Television were an electromechanical system that used a rotating disc for both scanning and projection.[2]

Baird's early mechanical Television sets were noisy, unreliable and were only capable of producing a handful of lines in resolution. These problems were further compounded by the fact that the earliest mechanical television cameras required massive amounts of light to operate.

One of Baird's first improvements was the flying spot system, which massively reduced the amount of light required to get an image. Rather than illuminating the subject and collecting the light reflected off the subject into the camera, Baird's flying spot system placed the light source behind the lens of the camera and the photodetectors outside the camera. The system in operation then would create a narrow beam of light that would fly across the subject's to illuminate it in a specific spot, where the selenium photodiodes would convert the light into electricity and transmit it to the receiver.

Baird's work was stymied by the lack of materials, particularly selenium photodiodes were in short supply and of noticeably poor quality in Hastings. But JLB refused to be deterred in his pursuit of moving images. He worked to squeeze more and more light sensitivity out of selenium photodiodes and in mechanical improvements to the Nipkow discs to improve the resolution and clarity of the projected images.

His efforts yielded fruit in 1925 when he successfully demonstrated his system at a Selfridge's Department Store in London. The wireless transmission of images, as crude as the early systems were, managed to win over the crowd.

Baird's demonstrations of television grew in spectacle and complexity. In 1926 Baird was able to demonstrate what he had termed "Noctovision," an infrared camera system that was capable of penetrating through fog and smoke. In May of 1927, Baird was successfully able to demonstrate a wire-line transmission from London to Glasgow. By 1928 JLB had been able to achieve transmission of images using natural light, without any need for supplemental illumination, as well as demonstrations of both color and stereoscoping televised images using his electromechanical system.

Baird's demonstrations of television had made him a darling of the press outside of Britain, but press coverage inside of his home country was next to non-existent. By 1930, Baird had felt that his Television system was commercially ready.

At the time, the British Broadcasting Company was the sole operator of radio transmitters, and for Baird's television to be able to be adopted by the masses, he needed the help of the BBC to allow for Television programming.

The head of the BBC at the time was John Reith, who had been a childhood classmate and bully of Baird. Under Reith's tenure, the BBC steadfastly refused to allocate broadcasting time for an invention that they had deemed to be commercially unviable.

After giving serious consideration to petitioning the Postmaster General to make the BBC give him a chance, Baird decided to seek out better prospects for television abroad.[3] After a brief tour of Europe, which he met with a Russian exile in Germany who had been working on his own television system, Vladimir Zworykin.[4] Zworykin's frustrated description of a "second rate copy of [his own] work that had been stolen by the US Navy" called the Image Dissector had intrigued Baird, and so in May of 1933, as the second civil was winding down, John Logie Baird boarded a steamship from Cork Ireland to Halifax Nova Scotia, and from Halifax he made his way to the newly established Union of American Socialist Republics.

Philo Farnsworth, The Father of Electronic Television

Philo Farnsworth was born in 1906 to a Mormon Family as the eldest of several boys. From an early age he was fascinated by the potential of electricity, and envisioned how it might revolutionize daily life. As an adolescent, Farnsworth was an adept hand around electricity, repairing a burnt out electric motor and using it to turn his mothers hand washer into an electric washing machine.

As a high school student, Farnsworth had sketched out an electronic television system, and had even shown it to his high school science teacher, who further encouraged him to continue his work.

Having graduated high school, he followed his father's advice and joined the US Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland[5]. As a student of the Naval Academy, Farnsworth excelled in math and engineering. His interest though, would be towards electronic television.

Having caught the eye of the USNA's Dean of Engineering, in 1927 the Naval Academy allowed Farnsworth to set up a demonstration of his electronic television system.

Over the summer of 1927, Farnsworth and a team of engineering students at the US Naval Academy hammered away at the problem, turning Philo's sketches and schematics into a working television system. Tests were done and refinements made.

Finally on August 6th, 1927, to an audience of faculty, Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrated the first ever full-electronic television system, wirelessly broadcasting a images of the Naval Academy's crest, followed by a live shot of the USS Reina Mercedes cruising across Chesapeake Bay from a transmission station across the bay in Stevensville.

The demonstration of Farnsworth's invention had been a tremendous success, with a repeat demonstration, this time one that had Farnsworth show a series of silhouette images of various ship types, to demonstrate the value of sending a television camera with a forward observer to transmit live images back to a fleet.

While there had been many who had demonstrated electromechanical television systems, Farnsworth's all-electronic system had the potential for miniaturization, which is what drew the Navy's attention.

With the approval of the US Naval Academy's Engineering Faculty, Farnsworth was able to continue his work on television, making gradual improvements to the image dissector tube that increased its sensitivity to light and as well as reducing size and weight.

In 1929, Farnsworth arranged another demonstration of his improved Image Dissector system, this time to an audience from the Naval Research Laboratory. Farnsworth's demonstration this time was a wireless broadcast from his research lab at the US Naval Academy to a receiver at the NRL. In the short demonstration, one of Farnsworth's assistants spoke into camera along with a microphone that had been connected to a radio transmitter. The radio transmitter had been a standard shortwave radio set, but by having a shortwave radio set up alongside the television set that had been tuned to it, Farnsworth had demonstrated synchronized audio and video.

It was a simple trick, but it had completely changed how the NRL had seen this television thing. Now it was more than just remote transmission of images, but a way to speak face to face over a distance.

The demonstration had impressed the Naval Research Laboratory, and in 1929, Ensign Philo Farnsworth joined the Naval Research Laboratory in order to continue work on his Television project.

While Farnsworth worked on improvements to the image dissector, another engineer by the Name of Vladimir Zworykin had been working on a similar electronic television system for Westinghouse before being personally hired away in 1930 by David Sarnoff to work at Marconi Wireless Music Company's research and development division in Camden, New Jersey to create a television system.

Zworykin had been developing his own version of electronic television, with a pickup tube called an "Iconoscope" that was used to convert light into electrical signals and a cathode ray tube display known as a "kinescope." While Zworykin had a design that theoretically could work, he had yet to have a practical demonstration of his system, unlike Farnsworth.

On March 22nd 1931, Zworykin finally made a successful demonstration of his Iconoscope image sensor and Kinescope display to David Sarnoff and the other executive officers at Marconi.

The image was noisy and lacked contrast, but it worked.

An apocryphal quote that has made its way into many retellings of the story, After seeing Zworykin's Iconoscope demonstration, Sarnoff simply said three words, "Good, it worked."

Zworykin was given an increased budget and a larger staff, at the cost of an urgent deadline. Sarnoff wanted the opening ceremonies for the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles to be the event broadcast by television. WIth a deadline that was little more than a year away Zworykin was under pressure from Marconi to deliver a working system for the games.

With Camden working on the Iconoscope and the NRL in Washington working on the image dissector, it was only a matter of time before the two collided.

That collision came in October of 1931, when Zworykin filed suit against the US Navy for patent infringement. Zworykin alleged that Farnsworth's image dissector tube was a reverse engineered copy of his own Iconoscope. Zworykin and the Marconi Wireless Music Company demanded that Farnsworth cease work on the image dissector as Marconi was already working on it, and that the Navy should have just licensed Zworykin's work rather than, as he claimed, reverse engineered his work in order to produce an inferior copy.

The Navy quickly fired back on behalf of Ensign Farnsworth, and soon dug up every detail of his work on Electronic Television, going as far as to solicit statements from his former high school science teachers to prove that he had the idea for electronic television well before Zworykin.

Zworykin had claimed that he had the original idea back in Russia, but that his notes and research were destroyed in the Russian Civil War. The earliest record of Zworykin working on the Iconoscope at Westinghouse was a demo in 1926, where he had shown a diagram of a television system to executives at Westinghouse who told him to focus on more practical matters. Notably, none of the tests or demos at Westinghouse involved a working television system, unlike Farnsworth's successful 1927 test.

While Marconi was able to put their considerable legal weight behind Zworykin, the weight the US Navy had been able to put behind Farnsworth was even greater, and in August of 1932, the court ruled in favor of Farnsworth and the Navy. Farnsworth's image dissector had pre-dated Zworykin and the Navy could continue to develop electronic television.

With the patent court's ruling, Zworykin could have continued his work on the iconoscope at Marconi, but Marconi's management was resentful of Zworykin for getting them into this situation and costing them the Los Angeles Olympics, as they believed that Zworykin's insistence on taking Farnsworth to court had delayed work on the iconoscope project so much that Marconi was unable to inaugurate television broadcasting with the Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

On October 2nd, 1932, Vladimir Zworykin was fired from the Marconi Wireless Music Company.

A month later, Zworykin boarded a steamer bound for Hamburg Germany, where he soon fell into the employment of Telefunken, who wanted to Televise the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.

Television After the Revolution

As the guns fell silent on the May revolution, those working on Television awoke to a new reality. The Naval Research Laboratory was now the Workers and Farmers Revolutionary Navy Research Institute.

The newly christened WFRN still wanted Farnsworth to continue his work on television, as they had seen multiple applications for the remote viewing technology. Some saw it as a way to improve bombing accuracy by placing a television camera inside the nose of the bomb and allowing a bombadier to remotely guide the bomb towards a targeted ship, or for a forward observer to carry a television camera and transmit images of an enemy fleet back in real time for targeting.

John Logie Baird, newly arrived from Halifax, made a beeline for Debs-DeLeon to meet with Farnsworth to discuss collaboration. While the two men initially got off to a rocky start, Baird was fascinated in Farnsworth Image dissector while Farnsworth was more interested in Baird's flying spot method for use in converting 35mm and 16mm film into a television broadcast.

With the legal dispute between Farnsworth and Zworykin mooted by Zworykin's self-imposed exile in Germany, and the revolution, the research into Television that Zworykin had done at the former laboratory in Camden New Jersey was sent over to Farnsworth and Baird in DC.

With this new research, Farnsworth was able to design a new image pickup mechanism that combined parts of his own Image Dissector tube and Zworykin's Iconoscope to create the Orthicon tube, so named because of a set of focusing magnets near the picture element that deflect the electrons to be orthogonal to the imaging surface. While the requirement for bright lighting hadn't been solved yet, the images produced by the Orthicon were vastly less noisy than the original Iconoscope thanks in large part to the work of a former Marconi engineer named Albert Rose.

First demonstrated in 1935, the Orthicon tube offered clear pictures, but the WFRN was losing patience with Farnsworth. They wanted practical applications, while Farnsworth and his team were still trying to perfect the fundamentals. The Workers and Farmers Revolutionary Navy was focused on rebuilding the ships that had been scuttled or lost in the Civil War. Farnsworth's experiments with Television, while promising, had yet to be incorporated into a practical application that they could use.

On January 1st, 1936, the WFRN's Television Lab was placed on indefinite hold and Farnsworth was reassigned to work on the development of RADAR systems. Baird and Rose relocated their work to Camden in order to continue their work into developing television. While Farnsworth was unable to make a tv camera would function in the lighting conditions asked for, several image dissector based cameras did make their way into WFRN ships for the purposes of monitoring boilers and furnaces, their insensitivity to light here being a feature and not a problem to be solved.

Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Zworykin had been tapped by Telefunken to create a television system for the domestic market. His first work upon arrival in Berlin was to create the Superikonoskop, an improved version of the Iconoscope that provided clearer pictures through the use of coatings designed to induce the emission of secondary electrons.

By 1936, Zworykin had a camera tube that was commercially viable, and Telefunken had Cathode Ray Tube displays in commercial production. In magazine advertisements, posters, and store displays, no proper Aryan home could be without a Volkfernsehapparat. Germany's Deutscher Fernseh-Rundfunk (DFR) soon began broadcasting 90 minutes of content three days a week from the DFR studios located at Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow (Paul Nipkow Broadcast Center) in Berlin. Due to the expense of the early television sets, Fernsehsalons (television parlors) opened around Berlin which offered places for people to go and see the wonder of the real time moving image.

In Britain, John Reith, the General Manager of the BBC, had been one of the strongest opponents to allowing television to share the BBC's airwaves. But after a visit to Germany in 1936 to visit the Paul Nipkow Broadcast Centre and the number of television parlours in Berlin, Reith, a man who was already an admitted admirer of fascism, was a convert to the power of Television.

Not to be outdone by the DFR, the BBC itself had been developing their own Television system under the aegis of Issac Shoenberg, a Jewish emigre who had come to the UK from Russia in 1914 and who had been a naturalized subject since 1919. Shoenberg was an employee of the Marconi company, who had a patent license from their former US branch to use Zworykin's work on the Iconoscope. Working under the tight deadlines, Shoenberg developed a 405 line television system for the BBC using license copies of Zworykin's original iconoscope designs.

By November of 1936, the BBC's own television broadcasting was ready, broadcasting out of a converted wing of Alexandria Palace in London.

The initial broadcast was a newsreel from British Movietone News, followed by a live variety programme featuring Adele Dixon singing a specially composed song, "Television" alongside Buck and Bubbles, a comedy and dancing group. This in turn was followed by a selection of 16mm and 35mm films, including a specially made documentary film called "Television Comes to London," the very first BBC television documentary.

The broadcast was a success and members of the British bourgeoisie began buying television sets so as to show off the newest technology. For members of the proletariat though, the cost of owning a television set was prohibitively expensive, and thus they would be forced to frequent Television Parlours around London.

As the BBC's television broadcasts grew in popularity, the signal power used went higher and higher, soon blanketing the entire country and beyond, with 405 line broadcasts being received around continental Europe. In one memorable instance in November of 1938, a rare incidence of upper atmospheric weather conditions allowed the BBC's 405 line signal to be picked up by researchers working at a Television Research Lab in the Metropolis ASR.[6]

The BBC would continue their television broadcasts up until the British Declaration of War against Germany on February 14th, 1942, with the last programme broadcast before the war an "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" cartoon short.[7]

Fearing that German bomber pilots would use the radio signals emitted by the BBC transmitters to locate London itself, all television broadcasting was shut off and the BBC's Radio broadcasting was moved out of London, first to Bristol, then to Bedford. From here, the newly-christened Entente Broadcasting Company sent its message of resilience and resistance to the French people struggling under Petain's occupation.

---

[1] While everything else about Baird's life is accurate up to this point, IOTL there was no labor dispute and Baird came back to Britain after 18 months, having closed his business making fruit preserves and bringing the remaining stock back to Britain.

[2] For a video explanation of how Baird's Mechanical Television worked, please watch this video by Technology Connections:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5OANXk-6-w

[3] Here is the major divergence in his story. After being rejected by the BBC, Baird IOTL went to the Postmaster General and forced the BBC to allocate broadcasting time for his Television, which they reluctantly did.

[4] IOTL Zworykin had fought for the Whites in the Russian Civil War and was abroad in America when the Omsk Government fell.

[5] Here is a major divergence for Farnsworth's life. IOTL, his father had passed away from Pneumonia in 1924. Here, that doesn't happen, as a consequence, Farnsworth does not leave the Navy within months of joining like he did IOTL.

[6] This actually happened IOTL:
View: https://youtu.be/0kk0ytK_nqA

[7] IOTL the last BBC TV broadcast before the war was a Mickey Mouse short film. IOTL the BBC stopped broadcasting television in September of 1939 after Britain declared war on Germany.

 

[WildCan]

It's always interesting to see the way things are diverging, even by the 1950s the communist and capitalist blocs are already becoming radically different cultures.

 

[AlexGarcia]

Mexican History during the XX Century, Part I
​

Excerpts from "Contemporary History of Mexico" by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Mexico City, Progress Publishers, 2011).

1910-1920

The previous chapter analyzed the circumstances by which the Porfirian government brought significant economic development to the country and, at the same time, led to the foundations for the First Mexican Revolution. The current chapter narrates the experience of one of the most pivotal events for the country. Contemporary historiography sometimes refer to this event as the "Revolution of 1910", to differentiate it from the "Revolution of 1932".

As has been always known, the Plan of San Luis Potosi proved to be a success for Francisco I. Madero, who laid the foundations for the uprising against the despotic government. However, Madero's ambitions remained timid from the start, confined to constitutional reform along with other certain limited reforms. Educated as a classical liberal and as a member of the haute-bourgeoisie, Madero's platform was shaped according to his frankly moderate beliefs.

[...]

Madero's victory in mid-1911 led many to believe that the Revolution was over. Sadly, things had only just begun. Madero sought, through dialogue and diplomacy, to align all revolutionary (and reactionary) groups to his cause. But offering a concession to one group meant angering other groups. And his intransigence only made things worse. First, by negotiating with the Porfiristas, he ended up provoking the rage of the Zapatistas, who proceeded to declare war on him. Second, by not offering guarantees to the German Empire, he became the enemy of the Porfiristas, who would end up conspiring against him. And he wasn't sure of using the army to repress his opponents or stick to his idealist ideals.

When the coup d'état occurred, rumors say that Madero was somewhat shocked. He didn't believe that one of his own betrayed him. Victoriano Huerta was considered loyal to the revolutionary government. It was inconceivable to believe that he had sold out to Heinrich von Eckardt, German ambassador at that time, financier of the coup. But it happened. Parallel to the arrest of Madero, Vice President José María Pino Suarez and Francisco's brother, Gustavo Madero, were also arrested.

Gustavo was the first to die, on February 19, being tortured and stabbed. He lost the only eye with which he could see, and was finally shot. Francisco and José María were shot in the infamous Lecumberri Palace on February 22. Victoriano Huerta assumed the presidency, which was not recognized by the United States or the United Kingdom, but Germany did. Although the Porfiristas were anxious to regain power, Huerta had other plans: he proceeded to send Felix Díaz to useless diplomatic missions in Europe, and Bernardo Reyes was killed by a Zapatista assault, which Huerta took advantage of to further consolidate personal power.

[...]

Huerta's defeat is explained by two main factors: one, the Anglo-American embargo that prevented Germany from sending weapons and volunteers to his defense; and two, the massive rebellion that took place throughout the country as a result of his being considered "a new Porfirio Diaz". Both the classical liberals who had supported Madero and the Zapatista "revolting peasants" in Morelos decided to form a truce to fight against a common enemy. Germany became more concerned with defending itself than an ineffective government on another continent, leaving Huerta alone. With Zapatista troops approaching Mexico City in July 1914, he decided to flee, escorted by the members of the Army still loyal to him. He ended up fleeing to the United States, only to be arrested for his connections with Germany. He died in 1918 due to his old age and the poor conditions resulting from 4 years of war and rationing.

In the midst of the war, the German government sought, by any means, to convince any of the revolutionary or reactionary factions to take power under its tutelage, or at least to oppose the interests of the United States, which indirectly aided its war effort. Even with their divergences, all factions shouted in unison "La Patria es Primero", with the revolutionaries seeing the Germans as the instigators of Madero's assassination; and the reactionaries being smart enough to recognize that Germany would not survive the Great War.

Once Huerta was no longer a problem, the long truce that had lasted 2 years ran out. Liberals accused the Zapatistas of destroying Madero's incipient legacy. Zapatistas accused the liberals of not attending to the demands of the workers and peasants. The villistas initially did not seek direct involvement, mainly because they were not ideologically close to either group. Eventually, as the constitutionalist liberals were more willing not to give concessions, and under the promise of forming a joint government, Villa and his clique ended up approaching Zapata.

The breaking point occurred due to the events of the Aguascalientes Convention: a last attempt to unite all the victorious forces in a joint government that failed. Two factions emerged from the Convention: the Conventionists, composed initially by the Villistas forces and later, the Zapatistas; and the Constitutionalists, commanded by the forces opposed to the former, with Venustiano Carranza acting as de facto leader. The joint struggle of Zapata and Villa against the Constitutionalists brought them closer, first as friends, then as comrades.

[...]

Carranza always considered the Zapatista forces to be composed of "ignorant troublemakers". After all, he was a typical conservative liberal. Although he fought for the same ideals as Madero, he was much more realistic (and therefore, repressive). In order to achieve his goal of a liberal, institutionalized and democratic Mexico, it was necessary to eliminate the factions that opposed him. Although Carranza was beginning to have problems from within his own faction, he considered his greatest threat to be Zapata. Not only because of the degree of popularity he had among the workers and poor peasants of Mexico, but also because of the geographical proximity of Morelos to Mexico City. First he sought to align his support base with the promulgation of the Constitution of 1917. Next is to destroy Zapata.

A massive purge campaign of potential Zapatistas and their sympathizers was conducted in 1918 and 1919 but it was not enough. Carranza took some of his supposed best men to attack Zapata and kill him. The plan was simple: infiltrate the Liberation Army of the South, gain the caudillo's trust and then kill him at an agreed point without him knowing it was a trap. For this, the military men Pablo Gonzalez and Juan Guajardo agreed to act as volunteers. Gonzalez would be the intellectual man in charge of making the plan; Guajardo would be the one who would personally execute it.

But something went wrong. To this day it's still unknown what caused Guajardo to defect at the last second. One theory says that he was always loyal to Zapata. Another theory says that the caudillo offered him political power in exchange for betraying Gonzalez. There is even the possibility that Guajardo was discovered and he decided to defect and give information in exchange for his life. Be that as it may, April 10, 1919 was not Zapata's date of death. (1) Gonzalez was accused of incompetence and removed from his duties. Guajardo was sentenced to death, but he lived thanks to serving in Zapatista territory, where the Carrancista law did not reach. The fact that Zapata lived was a severe blow to Carranza and his legitimacy as ruler. Many were even disgusted to see how Carranza sought to kill those who gave everything to overthrow two dictators, so he was equated as the third.

During the rest of 1919 until 1920, and without knowing it, Carranza's actions caused certain of his people to begin to conspire against him. Three hitherto vaguely known figures stood out: Adolfo de la Huerta, Álvaro Obregón, and Plutarco Elias Calles (or as we know him today, the Mexican MacArthur). The three, although initially willing to support the Constitutionalist government, distanced themselves from Carranza in two aspects: one, the need to offer concessions to the workers to stay in power and; two, Carranza's distaste for caudillos and militarism, which the three individuals mentioned did not like very much.

When the Plan was basically done, it was proclaimed in the city of Agua Prieta, Sonora, from where its name comes. The proclamation took place on April 23, 1920, under the excuse that the federal government violated the sovereignty of the state of Sonora (governed by De la Huerta). In addition, Carranza was accused of suspending the "individual guarantees" of the Mexican population (what today we would call human rights). Still, we shouldn't interpret this as a legitimately democratic struggle, but merely as a warlord struggle for power. (2)

[...]

The death of Carranza (assassinated in Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla) gave the triumvirate a free pass to take power in the country. De la Huerta became provisional president while the 1920 elections were taking place, in which Obregón emerged victorious thanks to the help of his allies in the Laborist Party and the CROM, both subject to the will of the reformist (some would call him bootlicker) Luis N. Morones. Private conversations with De la Huerta convinced Obregón that negotiation was necessary to end an endless Revolution, so he ordered Calles (as Secretary of the Interior) to negotiate with Zapata and Villa.

Villa was given the opportunity to obtain a Hacienda in Durango, which he accepted comfortably (after all, years of war had left his Northern Division in a state of total physical and mental exhaustion). Zapata was more reluctant, having (and justifiably) mistrust of the new government, which was essentially a split from the old one. But being surrounded, without supplies and with the revolutionary momentum exhausted, he decided to sit down at the negotiating table. As a result, he was given the opportunity to govern Morelos under his laws and was given guarantees that the federal government would not repress his own, both in his state and throughout the country. In other words, there would be no more repression of the dispossessed. Zapata wasn't stupid, but he didn't have any other options either, and he accepted.

The Treaty of Ayala, between Zapata and the Obregón government, was ratified on November 20, 1922. The 1910 revolution ended symbolically 12 years after Madero started it. The country would quickly seek a diplomatic and economic rapprochement with the United States, which, as we will see later, was an initial blessing and ended in disgrace and discontent. Villa and Zapata will have recurring encounters with members of the WCPA at border points, which will end up further radicalizing them.

---

Excerpts from "A story of unparalleled camaraderie: the historical relationship between America and Mexico." by Octavio Paz (Mexico City, FCE, 2004).

[...]
During the First Revolution, there was always a certain anti-German feeling, a product of the unpleasant events that led to the assassination of President Madero. But although the United States represented (or appeared to be) a friendly neighbor willing to safeguard Mexico's democratic institutions, certain revolutionaries could not fully trust the American government. After all, historical experience had made it clear that the United States viewed Mexico in the same way that an abusive individual views its victim.

To some extent, this was true. There is no doubt that the bourgeois government, however progressive it may be, is still bourgeois, exploitative, abusive, imperialist. The United States in particular was acquiring more authoritarian tendencies as a result of its obligations in the Great War. Trends that, ironically, helped bring our country closer to theirs. We have the historical experience of Mexican anarchist groups, aligned with the minoritarian but equally important anarchist sections within the SLP and the IWSU. Within the liberals of the time there was a mutual understanding that Germany represented a threat to their own interests, so the US government generally had sympathy for the Constitutionalists of Carranza and Co.

One of the most important and yet largely ignored experiences was the formation of the Mexican-American Friendship Society, now better known as the Pan-American Cultural Association. Today, the PACA functions formally as an organization designed to strengthen cultural, social and political ties between all the countries of the continent, including those that are under the capitalist orbit (product of detente policies). But its origins are much more diffuse, since PACA had its origin in the middle of two wars.

The then MAFS had its origin at the end of 1917, when a group of American refugees, among whom was Linn Gale (future co-founder of the Communist Party of Mexico, PCM) decided to form an anti-war association that would have contacts in both countries. Many of these refugees, impoverished Americans who only wanted to live a peaceful life, arrived in Mexico only to discover that our country was in a civil war, so they were in a difficult situation: if they returned to their country, they could be considered traitors or saboteurs under the terms of the Espionage Act. If they stayed in Mexico, they would have to flee the civil war, or join it on one of the two main sides. For this reason, many of its members ended up participating in the final stage of the Revolution with the side that best had their interests embodied. But Gale and other individuals (such as Richard Jenkins*) decided that they had enough of the war.

His first interventions were small protests against US intervention in the Great War and in favor of national reconciliation in Mexico. It wasn't much different from other individuals who shouted "No to War". The situation, however, changed dramatically with the Biennio Rosso. The events in Russia with the Bolsheviks and the small but important revival of anarchism in Mexico as a result of the liberation of Ricardo Flores Magón made the different members of the MAFS begin to radicalize. Maybe they weren't communists, but they already showed a certain class consciousness. The Liberal Party, representative of Mexican anarchism, quickly established relations with the Society. This allowed certain of its members to become more interested in anarcho-communism and to reach "new horizons'' ideologically and geographically.

Still, the activities of the Society were content to denounce the imperialist war. Its funds for activities were quite limited, and it is likely that the Society ceased to exist de facto, only to be refunded again and again. With both wars over, the Society was finally able to take a breath and reorganize itself properly. The 1920s would prove to be a challenge for the organization, which although now supported by the PCM and the WCPA didn't yet have a really defined objective. Mainly they had problems with the cultural differences between both countries. In addition, the years after the Great War led to an increase in migration from other countries to both the US and Mexico, which quickly had to be represented in some way. The experiences of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Commune greatly helped the leaders of the Society to define how to represent the culture, gastronomy and other spheres of Mexican society in the United States, and vice versa.

According to its Declaration of Principles, ratified by its members in 1926, the MAFS sought to:

• Build greater cultural rapprochement between the peoples of the United States of America and the United Mexican States;
• Establish more gastronomic, scientific, technical, social, political and economic exchanges between both countries;
• Act as a mediating body for the peaceful resolution of any possible diplomatic or military conflict that could occur between the two countries, or that could affect both related to the rest of the world.
• Engage in the defense of the rights of workers in both countries, later including peasants, indigenous people, women and finally, sexual minorities.
• Engage in the defense of the citizens of both countries abroad.
• Abolish all discriminatory laws against the Mexican or Chicano population in the United States.
• Search for rapprochement with other Societies or various organizations that have similar goals, in order to develop a global relationship based on friendship, camaraderie and mutual understanding.

The Society and its members will normally have disagreements with the governments of both countries. However, the situation will generally remain calm until the beginning of the Second Revolution in Mexico, when the organization will be banned due to its closeness to the PCM. Its members residing in Mexico will go underground, generally giving day-to-day information on national events to those living in the United States, members of the WCPA and the Black Guards and the predecessors of the General Union of Anarchists. When the Red May Revolution reached its climax, with the counterrevolution fleeing to Cuba, many of the Society's members, acting "in the shadows," provided weapons, information, and money to Mexican revolutionaries at hidden border posts.

After both wars, the Society was formalized as an organization jointly part of the POLN and the WCPA, acting as a cultural, political and economic link between both parties. Although not de jure a member of the Communist International, the Society was de facto supported by its members. It is from here that, under the WCPA proposal, the Society will slowly open its doors to other American countries. Initially the idea of expanding the Society occurred in Chile, which was one of the first countries on the continent to turn to socialism. This was followed by each of the Central American countries, either on a smaller or larger scale. By the time the World Revolutionary War began, every Latin American country aligned with the Communist International had a regional headquarters of the Society, which had changed its name to the "All-American Friendship Society". During the following years after the war, the Declaration of Principles was modified according to the acceptance of new countries (with their respective representatives) in the Society. The events of the Second Cultural Revolution in the UASR deeply marked the organization, which gave increasing importance to the indigenous issue and the rights of sexual minorities.

As part of the process of shaping Pan-America in recent years, the Society agreed to be incorporated as an autonomous organization within this multinational union, adopting its current name. The détente in recent years has even allowed countries such as Brazil to join it, although Cuba remains unrepresented, for obvious reasons. There is no official central headquarters to ensure full equality among the Association's members, although traditionally the regional headquarters in Los Angeles and Mexico City have been considered to act as the most important ones, as they were the first to exist. The Executive Committee is composed of 2 members from each member country, plus 1 representative of the Communist International, duly elected to fulfill a joint governance role. There is a proposal to include a representative of the AFS as an official member of the Committee, but so far no vote has been taken for or against it, so its status is only as an observer member.

Divided into different areas, its attributions vary from the promotion of different styles of joint food between countries; the promotion, construction and maintenance of museums for cultural preservation; discussion forums on contemporary issues; political history courses; protection of the environment and the native species of each country; joint sports (and their respective preparation for the Olympic Games); collective scientific development, creation of various arts and music, literature and others; the protection of human rights and, in recent years, the discussion of the space issue has been opened.

---

Excerpts from "The History of the Marxist and Anarchist Movement in Mexico" by Arnoldo Martinez Verdugo (Guadalajara, Planeta Publishers, 2008)

The first anarchist movements in the country arrived in the middle of the 19th century, after the Greek emigrant Plotino Rhodakanaty arrived in the country to spread the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin among the incipient Mexican working class and peasantry. Although his efforts did not bear much fruit, he became the inspiration for certain Mexican intellectuals who, enamored with the idea of a mutualist society free from the threat of landowners and hacienda owners, decided to seek a more communitarian ideal, like Julio Lopez Chavez. Influenced by Rhodakanaty, openly called for class war against the rich; raising the banners of Liberty, Equality and Socialism. Unfortunately, his cause was extinguished by his execution by firing squad, by the regime of Benito Juarez, still recovering from the French intervention.

The development of anarchism in Mexico during the 20th century was a process with some problems, in part because of the bourgeois governments that attacked the anarchist groups themselves, as well as the rise of Marxism in the country, a product of the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution. The most important events during the first years of the century were the formation of the PLM and its subsequent relationship with the SLP and the IWSU. The Mexican Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Mexicano, PLM) was founded in 1905 by a group of Mexican intellectuals opposed to the authoritarian government of Porfirio Díaz.

They were initially influenced by the classical liberalism of the time, although with already leftist overtones. In fact, there are notable differences in the ideological thinking of the Party between its two main documents: The Party Program of 1906 and the Manifesto of 1911. The former has a marked liberal influence of a Jacobin nature, demanding a return to the political principles of the then Constitution of 1857, as well as state interventionism in the economy and robust labor rights for workers. Meanwhile, the Manifesto of 1911 declared war against the so-called "Trinity of the Clergy, Capital and Authority", as representatives of the bourgeoisie.

The PLM underwent a serious process of ideological transition thanks to the uprising in 1910. The liberal elements of the Party were relegated, while the Party Organizing Board developed an anarcho-communist image inspired by the writings of Piotr Kropotkin and the growing influence of the American labor movement and its continuing successes. The Organizing Board, composed of the Flores Magón brothers (Ricardo and Enrique) as well as Librardo Rivera and Anselmo Figueroa, decided to reform the Party into having a clearly revolutionary stance. Jesús Flores Magón, the third Magón brother, as well as the Sarabia brothers (Juan and Manuel) and Antonio Villareal, soon broke away from this project and tried to re-found the PLM in its original form, without success.

Reorganized as a revolutionary labor party (but not as a vanguard party, in a Marxist sense), the PLM undertook a program of social revolution for Mexico. But their refusal to cooperate with other revolutionary groups (the armies of Zapata and Villa, for example) proved to be disastrous. Madero's government found itself in direct confrontation with them for the attempted uprisings in Baja California, particularly in Tijuana and Mexicali, where even today there is a strong linkage between Mexican and American activists. The Confederation of Party Groups (its paramilitary branch) wasn't able to consolidate the conquered territories, being overrun by the Mexican Army, aided by the U.S. government (and, secretly, Germany). De facto, the PLM ceased to exist in Mexico once its leaders were arrested or forced to flee to the United States.

Once in exile, Ricardo and Enrique got in deeper contact with different members of the SLP and the IWSU. They decided to cooperate critically with the SLP (criticizing the leadership as socialists, aka, statists) as soon as the U.S. government began to repress any opposition to U.S. intervention in World War I. Due to the Espionage Act of 1915, the activities of the SLP and IWSU were de facto banned. Prominent American leaders like Eugene Debs were arrested or deported. Ricardo Flores Magón was also arrested along with Librardo Rivera after they published a provocative anti-war pamphlet aimed at anarchists all over the world, and both got imprisoned in Kansas. Enrique managed to escape back to Mexico and, from there, organized efforts for the release of his brother and other union and anarchist leaders, Mexican and American. Rivera and Ricardo Magon would be eventually released after the events of the Bienno Rosso, returning to Mexico but without losing contact with their American counterparts. Ricardo would personally maintain contact with Emma Goldman and other anarchist figures and groups in America (predecessors of the GUA), while deepening his cooperation with Marxists.

[...]

There is no definitive date as to the arrival of Marxism in Mexico, although it's commonly accepted that it arrived in its Leninist current. It quickly gained strength from anarchist groups that found in Lenin and the Bolsheviks the key to the realization of the Social Revolution. However, due to the circumstances of the First Revolution and the theoretical inexperience of the early Mexican Marxists, the revolutionary movement faced multiple headaches to even get the endorsement of the Communist International. In the United States, there were already various translations of Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and other Marxist texts. In Mexico, it was particularly difficult to even find the Manifesto, and the few copies that existed were usually in English. Thankfully with the assistance of Spanish-speaking SLP comrades from the United States, the early Mexican Marxists overcame such adversities.

The first "litmus test" for the nascent Mexican Marxist movement would come at the same time as the formation of the unions and parties aligned with the new post-revolutionary regime. Both the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación Regional Obrera Mexicana, CROM) and the Laborist Party (Partido Laborista) were founded in 1918 and 1919, respectively, with the former being in practice subordinated to the latter. The Laborist Party was the result of the search for a workers' movement that were not subordinated either to the anarcho-communist tendencies of the time nor to a policy fully subservient to the Mexican state. However, the party was strongly dominated by the moderate syndicalist Luis Napoleón Morones, who was accused of being a loyal ally of the government, particularly close to Alvaro Obregón. Morones considered it necessary to found the Party after his project was rejected in the National Socialist Congress (3), which was organized to seek the formation of a newer and stronger socialist party in Mexico.

The Congress was convened from August 25 to September 7, 1919 with participation of different members and personalities, both Mexican and foreign, on behalf of the Socialist Party of Mexico (although this party no longer existed at that time). Among the most prominent members were M. N. Roy (a Bengali revolutionary who was visiting the country at the time); José Allen (initially a secret agent of the U.S. government (4), later convinced communist); Linn Gale (an American adventurer who was in Mexico to dodge the draft during the Great War, with sympathies towards anarchism); among others. The Congress proved to be a failure. It resulted in the formation of at least two self-proclaimed Communist Parties and a newer, separate Socialist Party. Only through the direct intervention of the Comintern an unified Communist Party of Mexico (Partido Comunista de México, PCM) was established in 1923.

The first years of the PCM would be challenging. An additional problem would be the gulf between the national party and the Comintern, between what the PCM considered to be the right policies to be applied based upon the conditions in which Mexico found itself versus what the Comintern wanted to apply to all the member parties, regardless of differing material conditions per country. Fortunately, American comrades in the Workers' Party proved to be helpful, taking in the PCM as a de facto regional satellite party and tying the Mexican movement closer to the North American movement, recognizing the conditions that the country was going through, and seeing their comrades as equals. The bonds of affection and comradeship between rank and file militants of both parties will allow the PCM to acquire a more revolutionary perspective, against those elements willing to collaborate "critically" with the state (5).

The PCM would then fight against the scabs of the new regime, the yellow unions. In 1921, the General Confederation of Workers (Confederación General de Trabajadores, CGT) was founded to oppose the CROM's policy of collaborationism, but later collapsed as the communists abandoned the organization because of the anarchist supremacy in the CGT. The PCM's rise would then allow the formation of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederación de Trabajadores de México, CTM) in 1929. (6) The CTM was the Mexican equivalent of the IWSU in the US, as a national trade union center/federation, and, as their American comrades did, its objective was to overcome the collaborationist unions and radicalize the workers and peasants.

---

[1] IOTL, Zapata died that day.
[2] IOTL, the main motive behind the Plan of Agua Prieta was the split between Carranza and Obregón, supported by the Laborist Party. The excuse that allowed the Obregonistas to initiate the uprising was the disputes between the federal government and the state of Sonora. In order to give legitimacy to the Plan, Carranza was accused of circumventing the popular vote, undermining the 1917 Constitution and weakening the sovereignty of the federal states.
[3] It doesn't have anything to do with Nazism. The Congress was called Congreso Nacional Socialista since it was meant to unify all national movements in Mexico related to socialism. It's a mere coincidence.
[4] Although most texts and stories about the PCM in its early days can be confusing, almost all agree that Allen was an agent of the U.S. government. Even so, it appears that he eventually became a sincere communist, inasmuch as he was never fully expelled by the Party.
[5] IOTL, during all its history, the PCM will be influenced by both Marxism-Leninism and Revolutionary Nationalism, which will negatively affect the development of the Party in the long run, essentially becoming a puppet of the PRI. This doesn't happen ITTL.
[6] IOTL, the CTM was founded in 1936.

 

[Katamariguy]

I take it that Villa never makes his border raid?

 

[Veracruzan]

how did the german diplomat ended up financing Huerta and not the us ambassador?

 

[AlexGarcia]

I take it that Villa never makes his border raid?

Click to shrink...

Villa manages to resist for more time the constant fighting against the Constitutionalist forces. Also, since the US enters in WW1 in 1914 and not 1917, the US support for Carranza is more ceremonial and not material, so Villa doesn't particularly hate the US government/seeks to get vengeance.

 

[AlexGarcia]

how did the german diplomat ended up financing Huerta and not the us ambassador?

Click to shrink...

Germany tries to counter British and American presence on Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico). The German Foreign Minister, Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, decides that Victoriano Huerta, Bernardo Reyes and Felix Diaz all can be of great benefit to Germany's interests in Mexico, so the German Government (via Heinrich von Eckardt as German ambassador) funds the trio and the events of the Decena Trágica occur, but earlier (1912 instead of 1913)

 

[Chat-Nihiliste]

Excuse my English, it's not as good as it should be:

Well, I finally caught up with this timeline and I must say that in general I really enjoyed it and I think it's great that this last post is about Mexico.

The truth is that it is interesting to see how butterflies affect my country, in our time line Octavio Paz was quite a mercenary, I don't know if here it was the same joining the winner or if he had a sincere conversion, on the other hand we also found Martinez Verdugo who he negotiated with the blood of the guerrillas (particularly the Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre) to achieve the legalization of the PCM (already Eurocommunist at the time).

What happened to Felipe Angeles? He was the commander of the artillery of the Northern Division, which I suppose was not so powerful without the sale of American ammunition since they were busy in the war, Felipe Angeles when he was hanged for "treason" in 1919 declared himself a Marxist, if he survived here I imagine him having an important participation in the second Mexican revolution.

It is also interesting to realize the ideological changes, moving the PCM away from revolutionary nationalism to give greater emphasis to Marxism will undoubtedly be healthy for the party, another change is the configuration of the CGT, in our timeline they expelled the Marxists and they declared war on the PCM for many years, so much so that in the 1930s they had an uneasy alliance (but alliance in the end) with the golden shirts (the crappy version of the brown shirts) since they saw the communists as the real enemy.

I would also be very interested to know what happened to José Revueltas (Octavio Paz's greatest ideological adversary) who in the 1930s was in charge of developing the anti-fascist strategy in the country, in addition to being one of the most important Marxist theorists in Mexico.

At the end of the day I am glad to see that here Taibo II does not end up being the "achichincle" (minion) of AMLO.

 

[AlexGarcia]

Excuse my English, it's not as good as it should be:

Well, I finally caught up with this timeline and I must say that in general I really enjoyed it and I think it's great that this last post is about Mexico.

The truth is that it is interesting to see how butterflies affect my country, in our time line Octavio Paz was quite a mercenary, I don't know if here it was the same joining the winner or if he had a sincere conversion, on the other hand we also found Martinez Verdugo who he negotiated with the blood of the guerrillas (particularly the Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre) to achieve the legalization of the PCM (already Eurocommunist at the time).

What happened to Felipe Angeles? He was the commander of the artillery of the Northern Division, which I suppose was not so powerful without the sale of American ammunition since they were busy in the war, Felipe Angeles when he was hanged for "treason" in 1919 declared himself a Marxist, if he survived here I imagine him having an important participation in the second Mexican revolution.

It is also interesting to realize the ideological changes, moving the PCM away from revolutionary nationalism to give greater emphasis to Marxism will undoubtedly be healthy for the party, another change is the configuration of the CGT, in our timeline they expelled the Marxists and they declared war on the PCM for many years, so much so that in the 1930s they had an uneasy alliance (but alliance in the end) with the golden shirts (the crappy version of the brown shirts) since they saw the communists as the real enemy.

I would also be very interested to know what happened to José Revueltas (Octavio Paz's greatest ideological adversary) who in the 1930s was in charge of developing the anti-fascist strategy in the country, in addition to being one of the most important Marxist theorists in Mexico.

At the end of the day I am glad to see that here Taibo II does not end up being the "achichincle" (minion) of AMLO.

Click to shrink...

Don't worry about your English, I normally use Google to translate to English, including the Mexican post of above, and hey, it's good to see another Mexican here.

About the first thing, as far as I can tell, the father of Octavio Paz was a zapatista, and during his first years alive he familiarized somewhat to the Left. TTL, Octavio will not abandon this, and since normally travels to the US in his youth, he will familiarize with both the Mexican anarchists that live in the US and the communists of the WCPA. About Martinez Verdugo, since the PCM never degenerates into what became OTL (a puppet party), the party still maintain it's revolutionary ideals, and that doesn't change after the PCM fuses with the other revolutionary groups to form the POLN. So Verdugo is a sincere communist.

To be honest, I didn't thought about Felipe Angeles, so his fate for now is ambiguous, but maybe I could make him live, who knows.

The CGT, as OTL, will not survive, but the relationship between anarchists and communists will be somewhat better, partially because, at the end of the day, both the Mexican anarchists and the PCM are heavily influenced by their American counterparts. So, I'm not seeing them becoming enemies, just distant allies.

I plan to make José Revueltas being part of the POLN, since there is no need for him to being expelled from the party, since there is no ML (Stalinism) supremacy anymore. His works TTL are optimistic but cautious (in my perspective). Don't worry, he will be part of other threads.

Yes, Taibo II ITTL is actually a respectable person.

 

[Chat-Nihiliste]

Don't worry about your English, I normally use Google to translate to English, including the Mexican post of above, and hey, it's good to see another Mexican here.

About the first thing, as far as I can tell, the father of Octavio Paz was a zapatista, and during his first years alive he familiarized somewhat to the Left. TTL, Octavio will not abandon this, and since normally travels to the US in his youth, he will familiarize with both the Mexican anarchists that live in the US and the communists of the WCPA. About Martinez Verdugo, since the PCM never degenerates into what became OTL (a puppet party), the party still maintain it's revolutionary ideals, and that doesn't change after the PCM fuses with the other revolutionary groups to form the POLN. So Verdugo is a sincere communist.

To be honest, I didn't thought about Felipe Angeles, so his fate for now is ambiguous, but maybe I could make him live, who knows.

The CGT, as OTL, will not survive, but the relationship between anarchists and communists will be somewhat better, partially because, at the end of the day, both the Mexican anarchists and the PCM are heavily influenced by their American counterparts. So, I'm not seeing them becoming enemies, just distant allies.

I plan to make José Revueltas being part of the POLN, since there is no need for him to being expelled from the party, since there is no ML (Stalinism) supremacy anymore. His works TTL are optimistic but cautious (in my perspective). Don't worry, he will be part of other threads.

Yes, Taibo II ITTL is actually a respectable person.

Click to shrink...

I entered to improve my English

Or both, frankly Octavio Paz was both a mercenary and an anti-communist, here he could be a mercenary and a communist, he would be within the character despite the changes in the story.

The tragedy of Verdugo is that he was sincerely convinced of Eurocommunism, so he was quite willing to hand over the political police of the PRI to the guerrillas, at the end of the day he was left "como el perro de las dos tortas".

One of Angeles' descendants fought in Spain against fascism, here Angeles could very well be the one leading an entire brigade of Mexicans in that war, although honestly I imagine a more institutional role professionalizing the revolutionary army.

Yes, Revueltas will definitely not write "The proletarian without a head" or "Mexico a barbaric democracy" but in this timeline I see him applying some of the ideas of "The terrestrial days" not in a novel but in an essay of the type "it's fine, Stalin was a son of a bitch, but he was our son of a bitch and we wouldn't be what we are without him" or something like that, doing his best to prevent Soviet nationalism from trying to usurp his image but also being very critical of his actions, could end up his days as rector of the UNAM, applying "educational self-management".

Taibo II lost all my respect as a politician, although even today he enjoyed his novels.

 

[Veracruzan]

nice to see we´re (at least) three mexicans here, also. curious about Revueltas´s legacy as an academist, does the UNAM keeps the same name? even the National part?

 

[AlexGarcia]

nice to see we´re (at least) three mexicans here, also. curious about Revueltas´s legacy as an academist, does the UNAM keeps the same name? even the National part?

Click to shrink...

I'm not chosen yet that aspects of Mexico lore, but for now the UNAM probably will remain as the UAM. It could be useful for me to more Mexicans to help improve the Mexican lore, so I invite you to contribute or discuss in the Reds! server in Discord, if you want of course

 

[Asherterix]

What are the politics of the Spanish State and Republic? I know they're in stalemate but what are the specifics

 

[Miss Teri]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[King Washington]

Notably, the ending credits claim that the original scenario was created by "Aelita Ulyanova and Ian D. Admin"

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This got me cackling

 

[greendoor]

and the fact that he made Joseph Stalin talk exactly like Xander from Buffy

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The worst thing is I could actually see Whedon doing this. Whedon Dialogue is a curse.

 

[Jane Dough]

I hate that I would still probably watch this lol

 

[Scrivener]

Reds! (Sponsored by AT&T-Verizon-Comcast)

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I can already feel my internal organs implodin-

 

[The Jovian]

Reds! is an American television series based on the popular online alternate history scenario Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline by Aelita Ulyanova.

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The only faithful adaptation of Reds! I can see happening is a croudfunded, independently produced, animated anthology series so this is spot on about how a big network would sanitize the timeline's politics to try and present both sides as equally bad.