Hawkatana
That jaywalking punk anarchist
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Mexican History, Part II (AlexG, LNSS and Chat-Nihiliste.)
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Excerpts from multiple presentations made at the "National Forum: 80 years since the triumph of the Revolution'' in 2014.
Presentation 1: The three-way war: Cristeros, Callistas and revolutionaries, by Hector "Pedro" Ochoa
Presentation 1: The three-way war: Cristeros, Callistas and revolutionaries, by Hector "Pedro" Ochoa
Something that many modern historians forget, either out of ignorance of the conditions in Mexico during the 1920's to the 1940's, or out of frank historical revisionism to favor their personal interests, is the indirect help that occurred between the reactionary guerrillas of the Cristero movement and our joint revolutionary movement. It may sound strange, but there is a strong forgotten truth: without the Cristero movement weakening the military capacity of the Callista Army, our revolution would have suffered many more setbacks than it did originally. That doesn't mean that we should thank the Cristeros for their contribution to the Revolution. Their help was more a mere coincidence that benefited us in the end, it was not the result of a mutual understanding or an alliance; in other words, "the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend". Another factor to take into account in the separation of the contemporary Cristero movement from Zapatismo and, in general, from revolutionary agrarianism, which logically also ended up benefiting our struggle for the Second Revolution and its consolidation.
In this context, three political and ideological tendencies emerged within the agrarian movement of the time: the revolutionary, based on Zapatismo; the pro-government, a base of peasant support for the Callista government; and the Cristero one, led by landowners, clergymen and reactionary members of Mexican society. The first two groups were initially more or less de facto allies, in the face of what both groups considered a reactionary and anti-revolutionary threat. However, the Zapatista experience in Morelos, considered by many as a success, and Zapata's own radicalization towards Marxism (together with the slow but progressive appearance of the PCM in the political life of the country) ended up provoking the supremacy of the first group over the other two. The Callista agrarists didn't had the same popularity and charisma as Zapata and Co., and although they uniformly defended a modernization of the productive methods in the countryside since they considered both the traditional productive models of the haciendas and the peasant communities as something inherently backward, they didn't managed to break ideologically with nationalism and with it the idea of class collaboration, making their proposals, although sincere, insufficient to solve the problem in the best of cases or, in the worst of them, they became new landowners, with many of them ending up as bureaucrats who delayed land redistribution and agrarian reform for as long as possible; which benefited the Zapatistas, who were much more sincere, direct and effective thanks to the experience accumulated by decades of peaceful or armed militancy. Besides, as Zapata and General Villa were by that time friends and comrades, both had great mutual esteem and trusted each other for what had to be done, so Villa didn't support the Callista side in the agrarian movement, which for some people ended up sealing the fate of the Nationalist government.
But to understand exactly how the Callismo movement ended up being devoured from both its left and its right, we must first delve into the formation of the Cristero movement in the 1920's. As we well know, the post-revolutionary era disappointed thousands of its participants, which led them to embrace radical left and right policies, particularly due to the promotion of anti-clerical (but not precisely atheist) policies that led to the crossing of bloody dividing lines. The policies of both the bourgeois governments of Obregón and Calles angered many leaders of the Catholic Church, who, as we well know, feared that the peace pacts between the so-called "Sonora Group" [1] and the agrarian forces of Villa and Zapata would give rise to a new revolutionary order, so they chose to mobilize with the other major group threatened by the 1910 revolution: the rural aristocracy, fearful not only of the ideological growth of Zapatismo among their serfs, but also of the recent experience of terror by Villa's forces in the northern semi-desert plains of the north of the country. So they were quick, first, to call on their followers to oppose "the rise of international communism" by employing violence and, second, to bolster a number of Catholic organizations to give it an ideological veneer with which to attract both the old defeated but not destroyed Porfirian forces and former revolutionaries disillusioned by both the Callista turn of the revolution and also by the apparent lack of victories of the Zapatista and Villista forces, who, to make matters worse for these individuals, little by little slipped into the PCM camp, giving a certain popular legitimacy to the Cristero guerrillas in the areas where they became strong.
The final excuse, which provoked the uprising of the Cristero rebellion, was the application of the Calles Law [2]. This triggered the leaders' decision to take up arms. This rebellion, carefully planned from the Vatican, counted on officers from the old Porfirian army, was generously financed by Catholic landowning families who sent their sons to serve in its ranks, was reinforced with former revolutionaries who didn't join either Calles or Zapata and had popular support because the power of the church in the countryside allowed hundreds of parish priests to order their flocks to join the Cristiada to serve as cannon fodder.
As for the Cristeros, although many had no plan to solve the agrarian problem beyond the blind belief that a Catholic government would solve all the country's problems, they managed to keep their militants in line not by their own merits but by the excessive cruelty of the Callista forces sent to fight against them: girls and women of all ages sexually assalted, indiscriminate massacres, public tortures, profaned places of worship, etc. This led to the consolidation of Catholic ideological control in the Bajío and the West of the country due to the indignation and fear of being the next to be assassinated, the calls for revenge, and the rejection of any peace pact given from the pulpits of hundreds of rural and urban churches.
If the Catholic rebellion didn't managed to spread further it was because many peasants had made the Zapatista slogan "The land belongs to those who work it" (La tierra es de quien la trabaja) their own, as well as the slow emergence of class consciousness among peasants who saw no reason to join a movement led by the old ruling class, therefore, in areas where the power of the Catholic church had been broken or weakened (i.e., those areas where armed agrarianism had been in decline), the Cristero proclamations to form peasant guerrillas went largely unnoticed and while a few urban groups attempted to organize rural sheaves, their inability to dialogue with the peasants and offer a viable alternative to Zapatismo led them to alienate thousands of Catholic peasant families.
[...]
Eventually, both Cristeros and Callistas found themselves at a total disadvantage in the face of the popularity of Zapatismo, which was increasingly closer to Marxism. Hence the fruitless negotiations between the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty (Liga Nacional para la Defensa de la Libertad Religiosa, LNDLR) and the Callista government began. Logically, everything ended in failure. One of the rumors for which it is currently believed that none of the parties reached an agreement was due to the reluctance of the U.S. government to impose pressure on Calles [3]. By the time Calles finished his presidential term in 1928, the situation for the Mexican Army was, although not terrible, bad: the lack of support from the Zapatistas and the lack of knowledge of the terrain caused serious setbacks for the Army, which had to give all its efforts to contain and defeat the Cristeros, who opted for the use of guerrilla tactics to defend themselves and cause progressive damage to the Mexican government.
Ironically, the alignment of the peasants in the Zapatista-led zones; and the desperation of the Callistas to keep both groups at bay, was the perfect breeding ground for the formation of Cristero strongholds that took over the entire countryside around cities such as Guadalajara, Morelia and Guanajuato. Pitched battles between laymen against Cristeros were the everyday's bread, and for a time part of the states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Michoacán were under total Cristero control, from which they were able to maintain a position, if not good, at least stable enough to resist both the Zapatista influence in the region, and the diplomatic and military attempts of Calles and his successor to defeat them (or align them to his cause). The accumulated attrition of the Mexican Army resulted in the de facto seizure of places by the Cristero Army that destroyed any other social and political structure that was not controlled by the local parish priest, which allowed a later expansion of their consolidated territory over Aguascalientes and Zacatecas. On the other hand, in other states, the Cristeros were destroyed, either by the increasing repression of the Mexican governmental apparatus or by the consequences of the First Revolution, that is, by the terror launched against parishes and priests in Villista territory, which saw its counterpart in Zapatista territory where, thanks to a series of pragmatic policies, they had managed to reconcile Catholic customs with the call for agrarian distribution.
Despite the efforts of the nascent National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, PNR) to deal with the Cristero issue, it could be said that it was already too late. To make matters worse, once the Great Depression began, many businesses, both national and private (generally benefiting from the economic connection between Mexico and the United States) collapsed, so the government entered a continuous path of failure, where no one knew exactly how to deal with the economic crisis. The new president, -who had come to power thanks to General Calles having organized an electoral fraud against his adversary José Vasconcelos- Pascual Ortiz Rubio, tried to safeguard the economy as much as possible, diverting resources that could have been used to contain the Cristeros and Zapatistas. From this point on, the Great Game between the Cristeros and the Zapatistas began, to see who would take better advantage of the collapse of the Mexican State. [...]
Area of principal Cristero activity during the Cristero War. CREDITS: College of Liberal Arts of the University of Texas at Austin/Elizabeth Garcia and Mike McKinley. Link.
Presentation 2: From peasant guerrilla warfare to mechanized warfare: The military and political development of Zapatismo and Villismo, by Tiburcio "Francisco" Cruz Sanchez
The history of Zapatismo and Villismo in Mexico can be considered, to a certain extent, the history of our revolutionary government. Both armed groups, which had already been defeated during the 1st Revolution, emerged as victors of the 2nd Revolution, and although they didn't obtain the total hegemony of the revolutionary movement, they did give it an important base. This is why it is necessary to study the military and political failures and mistakes in historical-chronological order of both movements, as well as the way in which both overcame such errors to strengthen themselves and in aid of the other.
[...]
During the 1st Revolution, there were many factors that we could say frankly that although they helped the consolidation of Zapatismo in the south of the country, they also prevented its ideological and military expansion beyond the populations that had been part of the agrarian project before the war: on the one hand, we have the already known charisma of General Zapata, the Caudillo of the South (Caudillo del Sur), beloved by the peasants and defender of the poor. This charisma was reinforced by a correct application of guerrilla tactics that derived in strength, criticism and self-criticism within the generals of the Liberation Army of the South (Ejército Libertador del Sur) that allowed them to face (more of less) the Porfirian army despite their clearly disadvantageous situation. However, the material advantages of the troops loyal to Diaz and Huerta would be lost once the US decided to support Madero and later Carranza, and this loss of material advantage was aggravated by the multiple military fronts these forces faced, this allowed the Zapatistas to consolidate their positions in the entire state of Morelos, as well as parts of the states of Guerrero, Mexico, Puebla and even for a time, occupied Mexico City. This situation would be key in the following years, both with regard to the Cristero conflict, the emergence of revolutionary nationalism and Callismo, as well as the theoretical formation of Zapatismo as a Marxist (or libertarian, depending on the point of view of some) current.
Within the Zapatista effort to stop the Carranza's government, we can enumerate different characters now considered strategists, who learned to form themselves on the battlefield and in the political field, the hard way:
[...]
During the 1st Revolution, there were many factors that we could say frankly that although they helped the consolidation of Zapatismo in the south of the country, they also prevented its ideological and military expansion beyond the populations that had been part of the agrarian project before the war: on the one hand, we have the already known charisma of General Zapata, the Caudillo of the South (Caudillo del Sur), beloved by the peasants and defender of the poor. This charisma was reinforced by a correct application of guerrilla tactics that derived in strength, criticism and self-criticism within the generals of the Liberation Army of the South (Ejército Libertador del Sur) that allowed them to face (more of less) the Porfirian army despite their clearly disadvantageous situation. However, the material advantages of the troops loyal to Diaz and Huerta would be lost once the US decided to support Madero and later Carranza, and this loss of material advantage was aggravated by the multiple military fronts these forces faced, this allowed the Zapatistas to consolidate their positions in the entire state of Morelos, as well as parts of the states of Guerrero, Mexico, Puebla and even for a time, occupied Mexico City. This situation would be key in the following years, both with regard to the Cristero conflict, the emergence of revolutionary nationalism and Callismo, as well as the theoretical formation of Zapatismo as a Marxist (or libertarian, depending on the point of view of some) current.
Within the Zapatista effort to stop the Carranza's government, we can enumerate different characters now considered strategists, who learned to form themselves on the battlefield and in the political field, the hard way:
- Amador Salazar: General Salazar, born in Cuernavaca, was a signer of the Plan of Ayala. As we well know, he is considered one of the most important strategists of the 1st Revolution, responsible for keeping the Carranza government at bay during the 1915-1916 offensive. However, his efforts were disarticulated when Carranza managed to retake Mexico City from Zapatista control. As fate would have it, he survived an assassination attempt on his life in mid 1916 [4], and, knowing that the situation was uncomfortable for the Liberation Army, he proceeded to reorganize the Zapatista forces around the territories still under his control, and to convince Zapata to be more inflexible and harsh against those suspected of treason or defeatism. After the war, he became a Marxist sympathizer and thanks to the intervention of the PCM he received a scholarship to travel to the Soviet Union to take military classes under the direction of Mijail Frunze. Specializing in guerrilla warfare and encirclement operations, Salazar swore to himself not to repeat the failure of the counteroffensive on Mexico City in 1916. Returning to Mexico, he gave lessons to other future generals on what he had learned in the USSR and personally discussed battle plans with Zapata, Villa and Fierro (with whom he would become close friends), whether regarding what past battles might have been, or future possibilities.
- Eufemio Zapata: Emiliano's older brother; an arduous advocate of agrarian distribution, which he headed and supervised in Morelos and southern Puebla, especially known for his work in the city of Cuautla during the period of the so-called Morelos Commune. Like Amador, Eufemio was characterized as someone who sought to adapt to circumstances, but, equally, he had personal problems. Amador could be considered as someone who was impulsive; Eufemio on the other hand was an alcoholic. In mid 1917, Eufemio suffered an altercation with General Sidronio Camacho, which almost cost him his life [5]. However, Sidronio would be executed by the joint forces of Amador and Genovevo de la O, who acting in accordance with Emiliano's order to search and capture possible traitors, deduced that Sidronio was a deserter. Eufemio, grateful to be alive, quickly adopted a more serene attitude and gradually decreased his alcohol consumption. After the war ended, Eufemio was part of the Zapatista delegates who traveled to the north of the country every few months to meet with their Villista counterparts, having special contact with Felipe Angeles, General Villa's controversial kid glove. It is thanks to Eufemio's efforts that the Zapatista troops would manage to develop a logistical capacity with which to feed military operations in addition to clarifying their tactical and strategic vision.
- Manuel Palafox: The black bird of Zapatismo; Mr. Palafox is recognized today as the diplomatic representative of the Liberation Army of the South, as well as an important politician and administrator. Hated by the American bourgeoisie of the time, Palafox was quite direct in his comments and actions, redistributing land and factories, whether local or foreign, to rural people. Known for his administrative management in Cuernavaca (along with the help of other future politicians such as Felipe Carrillo Puerto or Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama), Palafox earned a place in the Revolution as the negotiator between Emiliano and the politician Emilio Vasquez Gomez. One of the authors of the so-called Manifesto of the Nation (Manifesto a la Nación) of 1916, Palafox was especially important after the war to act as an intermediary between, in the first instance, the Zapatista movement with the Mexican and American labor movement and later to be the main negotiator with the war-weary Synarchist rank and file, along with his wanderings in the UASR as ambassador and his later support for the Mexican Cultural Revolution, that although interesting, are not relevant to this presentation.
- Genovevo de la O: Genovevo is known not only for belonging to the Magonista wing of Zapatismo but also for discovering Francisco Pacheco's plot. De la O suspected Mr. Pacheco of being a traitor. At the beginning of March 1916, Pacheco was ambushed by a patrol of militiamen, subordinate to Genovevo, and was taken prisoner. He was accused of constantly incongruous attitudes, including insanity, but he was considered to be a deserter, so he was removed from his post. Although Zapata was not happy with the decision, Genovevo justified his actions by alleging Pacheco's erratic troop movements, which threatened to leave the way open for the Carrancistas to besiege Cuernavaca. He was famous during the war for his intransigence, hatred of cities and deliberate destruction of all infrastructure, including haciendas and railroad tracks. After the war he acted as a politician rather than a military man, often as a negotiator between the governments in Mexico City and Morelos, Zapatista territory. His ability to discern small details in individuals led him to become part of the nascent intelligence services after the 2nd Revolution with the negative consequences for the POLN that we all know. He died in 1952, shortly after General Zapata, but not before - like many other ex-Magonists - becoming a founding member of Lombardo Toledano's PPS.
Photos of the aforementioned generals: Amador, Eufemio, Manuel and Genovevo. CREDITS: Wikipedia.
[...]
During the period between revolutions, contacts between northern and southern Mexican movements were diverse. Previously, the frictions between the Villistas and Zapatistas, although not too many, forced the search for concessions, or simply, a disagreement. During the Convention of Aguascalientes, both groups clashed especially over the indigenous question and the degree to which the agrarian reform should be carried out. Similarly, while the Zapatistas were characterized by (to some extent) a mixture of pragmatism and idealism, the Villistas were rather orthodox and overly realistic, to the point that they were viewed with fear by other revolutionary factions, particularly in the case of the Magonistas who always saw the Villistas, first nationalists and later Marxists, as their greatest enemy. It was not for nothing that the territories under Villista control would be considered especially dangerous by the Cristeros: the Mexican red terror would find its maximum expression there. To a certain extent, what Calles could not, ended up in the government of the Socialist Republic: the pacification of the country, by negotiation...or annihilation.
The meeting points between the two factions would take more or less a syncretic turn as a result of the trips undertaken by Zapata to Villista territory, and vice versa. The PCM was just taking its first steps as the vanguard party of the Mexican working class; and the Magonista movement was recomposing itself in the United States and Baja California.
While all this was going on, Zapata was analyzing battle strategies in the northern part of the country, accompanied by General Angeles and Eufemio, his brother, who complemented each other and saw the mistakes of the past as something that should not be repeated. Emiliano, on the other hand, thought of the personal mistakes he made and could have avoided: his impulsiveness, his drunkenness, his lack of knowledge about military logistics. The Convention failed because Zapata's distrust of the former federal army officers, turned into fervent villistas, who advised expelling Carranza from Veracruz while they had the military thrust, which Zapata ignored to focus on the agrarian distribution in Morelos. The offensive against Puebla had failed because Zapata's peasant army had been exhausted in its march and subsequently didn't even attempt to rule Mexico City when his troops occupied it, and while the so-called Morelos Commune, hailed by the Mexican anarchist movement, flourished for a time, Zapata knew that this had only been possible because Carranza was too busy fighting Villa and his comrades, despite the physical proximity between Mexico City and Cuernavaca. In other words, Morelos was considered a minor problem by the bourgeois generals. Had it not been for Villa's strategic astuteness, the Northern Division would have succumbed. And then, the Morelos Commune would not even have been able to flourish. Zapata decided that there would be no need to fear again, that surrender was not and would not be an option.
During the period between revolutions, contacts between northern and southern Mexican movements were diverse. Previously, the frictions between the Villistas and Zapatistas, although not too many, forced the search for concessions, or simply, a disagreement. During the Convention of Aguascalientes, both groups clashed especially over the indigenous question and the degree to which the agrarian reform should be carried out. Similarly, while the Zapatistas were characterized by (to some extent) a mixture of pragmatism and idealism, the Villistas were rather orthodox and overly realistic, to the point that they were viewed with fear by other revolutionary factions, particularly in the case of the Magonistas who always saw the Villistas, first nationalists and later Marxists, as their greatest enemy. It was not for nothing that the territories under Villista control would be considered especially dangerous by the Cristeros: the Mexican red terror would find its maximum expression there. To a certain extent, what Calles could not, ended up in the government of the Socialist Republic: the pacification of the country, by negotiation...or annihilation.
The meeting points between the two factions would take more or less a syncretic turn as a result of the trips undertaken by Zapata to Villista territory, and vice versa. The PCM was just taking its first steps as the vanguard party of the Mexican working class; and the Magonista movement was recomposing itself in the United States and Baja California.
While all this was going on, Zapata was analyzing battle strategies in the northern part of the country, accompanied by General Angeles and Eufemio, his brother, who complemented each other and saw the mistakes of the past as something that should not be repeated. Emiliano, on the other hand, thought of the personal mistakes he made and could have avoided: his impulsiveness, his drunkenness, his lack of knowledge about military logistics. The Convention failed because Zapata's distrust of the former federal army officers, turned into fervent villistas, who advised expelling Carranza from Veracruz while they had the military thrust, which Zapata ignored to focus on the agrarian distribution in Morelos. The offensive against Puebla had failed because Zapata's peasant army had been exhausted in its march and subsequently didn't even attempt to rule Mexico City when his troops occupied it, and while the so-called Morelos Commune, hailed by the Mexican anarchist movement, flourished for a time, Zapata knew that this had only been possible because Carranza was too busy fighting Villa and his comrades, despite the physical proximity between Mexico City and Cuernavaca. In other words, Morelos was considered a minor problem by the bourgeois generals. Had it not been for Villa's strategic astuteness, the Northern Division would have succumbed. And then, the Morelos Commune would not even have been able to flourish. Zapata decided that there would be no need to fear again, that surrender was not and would not be an option.
Flag of the Morelos Commune during its existence. The words, in English, say Land and Freedom. CREDITS: Wikipedia.
First flag of the Zapatista movement, during the period between revolutions. The words are the same as above, Land and Freedom. The symbol is a machete (peasant symbol) crossed with a Winchester Model 1894, better known in Mexico as the .30-30. The flag will change according to the radicalization of the Zapatista movement to Marxism, with several variations.
This awareness of military disasters went hand in hand with Zapata's own ideological evolution. In reality we can speak of three Zapatismos during the 1st Revolution: the first was a liberal Zapatismo, product of his education and the bourgeois-democratic and nationalist values to which he had been inculcated, but this liberalism with a social focus died with the offensive that Madero sent against the communities of Morelos; the second Zapatismo is actually a consequence of the first, quoting Gramsci, "in the dialectic of ideas anarchy is a continuation of liberalism, rather than socialism" [6], so the Zapata who already had a strong communitarian vein and had a liberal background as a result of reading Magonist texts evolves to a form of anarcho-communitarianism for the management of the Morelos Commune, but the numerous limitations of this model that (as we have already mentioned, could only be sustained due to the fact that the communities of Morelos were not able to sustain it, and only persisted due to the fact that Carranza's bourgeois troops were busy fighting in other parts of the country) led to the fact that even in its period of apogee there were many internal struggles and caudillismo, so that a third Zapatismo appears in the last years of the 1st Revolution, when the winds of the Bolshevik revolution reached Mexico, making Zapata, completely alien to the workers' struggles, begin to take an interest in a worker-peasant alliance [7].
In reality, Zapata already had contact with agricultural workers, but these workers were essentially petty bourgeois from an ideological point of view, they didn't wanted the socialization of the land but an agrarian distribution to become small landowners themselves, Zapata on the other hand had experienced for himself the virtues and limits of the anti-capitalist strategy of the Mexican peasantry: they could build organizations independent of the bourgeoisie and govern themselves through peasant democracy, but they were incapable not only of putting at their service the little industry in their power but also of overcoming their political fragmentation since this model of resistance was only possible in areas culturally akin to the peasant communities of south-central Mexico; the failures of this regional peasant government easily explain the inherent immediacy not only of the agrarian peasant struggles but also the fragility of the military offensives of the Morelos Commune, dependent on its caudillos, its agricultural cycles and its tactical capacity completely detached from any long-term strategic considerations. This explains in more than one sense why the Liberation Army of the South of this period never managed to outline a political program that was attractive to the working class.
Zapata, thanks to his closeness to the PCM, was willing to correct this mistake thanks to the influence of Leninist thought which allowed him to reformulate his ideas to include not only the agrarian distribution but also the workers' problem, the reorganization of the economy and the need for a revolutionary proletarian-peasant government, in the countryside Zapata affirmed that the peasant government would no longer defend the right of individual property but would abolish the bourgeois character of the economy. Zapata, although he didn't sympathized with the Marxist-Leninist methods that the VKP(b) had implemented in the countryside, he understood and shared their motivations; he was definitely not a Bukharinist as the PPS militants tried to make him out to be: already during the Commune both he and Palafox tried to stop the individualist tendency of the peasantry that not only tried to destroy the rural factories but also generated a tendency of new accumulation since many of these peasants sought to maintain capitalist relations, generating new inequalities [8]. In the intermediate years between the two revolutions Zapata's incipient Marxism had deepened, proof of this was the initial publication (there will be future reeditions with the help of Villa) of his most famous book, The Revolution and the Peasant [9], where he defended in it the thesis that the only way in which the revolution would give full justice to the working masses of the countryside and the city, as well as in the non-industrialized countries, would be a proletarian state in transition to socialism where industry would be expropriated and the economy would be planned under a democratic dictatorship of the workers, which would be the first step of the international socialist revolution (in the book the strategy of the so-called People's War is mentioned for the first time)
[...]
Doroteo Arango, or General Francisco Villa, as we know him today, was not exempt from problems either. His movement and his Army survived Huerta and Carranza, but the sacrifices made were too much. Our advances in mental health have considered the possibility that, in their later years, at least a quarter of the Northern Division suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and in the interwar years many of them suffered from severe depression, even calling themselves "burnt cartridges" because they felt that the struggle had been a waste and that nothing had been gained after long years of war. Although this discouragement was natural, Villa made many efforts (several of them unsuccessful) to counteract these thoughts that he secretly also shared, as a consequence of the bloody campaign in the 1st Revolution (which would be repeated with even greater viciousness in the 2nd Revolution).Villa felt to some extent disgusted and anxious about the scenes he witnessed or starred in during his best years, developing a great self-hatred that was only tempered with the subsequent triumph of the American and Mexican revolutions, as for example, the rumor that he had cried publicly at Madero's funeral and later, when John Reed came to power in America: when he learned that the journalist who had narrated some of his greatest campaigns was now leader of the northern neighbor he wept for joy in front of thousands of his followers, losing much of the weight that had been on his shoulders (it is also said that he cried and promised bloody revenge when he learned of Stalin's death, but that is beside the point). Moreover, it is no secret that, due to his own living conditions, Villa had attitudes that today we know to be degrading: sexism, homophobia, racism. The most particular case was his contempt against the population of Chinese origin. His lieutenant, Felipe Angeles, didn't look favorably on the indigenous people (although he would later admit his mistake). Not to mention the many children he had with several women. That reactionary and disastrous legacy would not leave him in peace until his death, even in spite of the policies of reparation and rehabilitation in the post-revolutionary period. [Hello, Alex here, consider this as non-canon anymore]
In military matters, Villa saw with certain surprise and sadness the apparition of cars in the country: surprise because of their resistance capacity and possible military uses; sadness because he could not used them in due time and thus, save the lives of so many men who perished during the cavalry charges to counteract the Carrancistas. He was a good strategist, but not very charismatic and we can certainly accuse him of a certain insensitivity towards some of his followers.
[...]
For his part, like Zapata, Villa was accompanied by his own generals without whom it would be impossible to understand this period where the class struggle was particularly fierce:
The aforementioned generals: Felipe, Rodolfo, Candelario and Toribio. CREDITS: Wikipedia.
Cristero family during the war, with a modified Mexican flag, in which the Virgin of Guadalupe can be seen. CREDITS: Latin American Studies.
Flag of the UNS [14]. The yellow border represents Christianity and its unity, that goes beyond the nation. The use of the green, white and red colors are for obvious reasons (the national colors of the country). Mexico (and its lost territories, both from America and from the "rebels" in Central America) is represented in the flag.
In reality, Zapata already had contact with agricultural workers, but these workers were essentially petty bourgeois from an ideological point of view, they didn't wanted the socialization of the land but an agrarian distribution to become small landowners themselves, Zapata on the other hand had experienced for himself the virtues and limits of the anti-capitalist strategy of the Mexican peasantry: they could build organizations independent of the bourgeoisie and govern themselves through peasant democracy, but they were incapable not only of putting at their service the little industry in their power but also of overcoming their political fragmentation since this model of resistance was only possible in areas culturally akin to the peasant communities of south-central Mexico; the failures of this regional peasant government easily explain the inherent immediacy not only of the agrarian peasant struggles but also the fragility of the military offensives of the Morelos Commune, dependent on its caudillos, its agricultural cycles and its tactical capacity completely detached from any long-term strategic considerations. This explains in more than one sense why the Liberation Army of the South of this period never managed to outline a political program that was attractive to the working class.
Zapata, thanks to his closeness to the PCM, was willing to correct this mistake thanks to the influence of Leninist thought which allowed him to reformulate his ideas to include not only the agrarian distribution but also the workers' problem, the reorganization of the economy and the need for a revolutionary proletarian-peasant government, in the countryside Zapata affirmed that the peasant government would no longer defend the right of individual property but would abolish the bourgeois character of the economy. Zapata, although he didn't sympathized with the Marxist-Leninist methods that the VKP(b) had implemented in the countryside, he understood and shared their motivations; he was definitely not a Bukharinist as the PPS militants tried to make him out to be: already during the Commune both he and Palafox tried to stop the individualist tendency of the peasantry that not only tried to destroy the rural factories but also generated a tendency of new accumulation since many of these peasants sought to maintain capitalist relations, generating new inequalities [8]. In the intermediate years between the two revolutions Zapata's incipient Marxism had deepened, proof of this was the initial publication (there will be future reeditions with the help of Villa) of his most famous book, The Revolution and the Peasant [9], where he defended in it the thesis that the only way in which the revolution would give full justice to the working masses of the countryside and the city, as well as in the non-industrialized countries, would be a proletarian state in transition to socialism where industry would be expropriated and the economy would be planned under a democratic dictatorship of the workers, which would be the first step of the international socialist revolution (in the book the strategy of the so-called People's War is mentioned for the first time)
[...]
Doroteo Arango, or General Francisco Villa, as we know him today, was not exempt from problems either. His movement and his Army survived Huerta and Carranza, but the sacrifices made were too much. Our advances in mental health have considered the possibility that, in their later years, at least a quarter of the Northern Division suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and in the interwar years many of them suffered from severe depression, even calling themselves "burnt cartridges" because they felt that the struggle had been a waste and that nothing had been gained after long years of war. Although this discouragement was natural, Villa made many efforts (several of them unsuccessful) to counteract these thoughts that he secretly also shared, as a consequence of the bloody campaign in the 1st Revolution (which would be repeated with even greater viciousness in the 2nd Revolution).
In military matters, Villa saw with certain surprise and sadness the apparition of cars in the country: surprise because of their resistance capacity and possible military uses; sadness because he could not used them in due time and thus, save the lives of so many men who perished during the cavalry charges to counteract the Carrancistas. He was a good strategist, but not very charismatic and we can certainly accuse him of a certain insensitivity towards some of his followers.
[...]
For his part, like Zapata, Villa was accompanied by his own generals without whom it would be impossible to understand this period where the class struggle was particularly fierce:
- Felipe Ángeles: The so-called Silk Glove of Villismo, probably one of the most brilliant students of the College of Chapultepec and later not only one of the greatest artillery experts in Mexico but also a critic of Porfirio Diaz. Appointed director of the Military College during the Maderista period, he was commissioned to fight both the Orozquistas and the Zapatistas. It was in the fight against the Zapatistas where he refused to maintain scorched earth policies and tried to dialogue with Zapata to peacefully resolve the conflict, although this was not achieved, but at least he obtained Zapata's respect and admiration. Apprehended together with Madero during Huerta's coup, he was sent into exile to return in 1913 and join the Constitutionalist ranks. Carranza, who distrusted his democratic policies, sent him to join Villa to serve as his chief artilleryman, serving in battles such as those of Torreon and Zacatecas, it was in the latter where he demonstrated not only his talent but also where he broke the back of the old Porfirian army. It was in the battles of the Bajío, where the Obregonistas defeated Villismo, that led him back into exile, since Carranza's moral character repulsed him. It was in his 2nd exile in the United States where he adopted Marxism in its social democratic variant and decided to return to Mexico to continue fighting for a Marxist revolution. It was only when he discovered Felix Salas' betrayal that allowed him to survive and be amnestied together with Villa at the end of the 1st Revolution. A few months later he joined the PCM where he continued to evolve his political thinking and began his friendship with the Zapatista generals, improvising a military school in the backyard of Francisco Villa's house. Together with other Villista generals he joins the 2nd Revolution participating in the equally important 2nd Battle of Zacatecas and later becomes again the director of the renewed Revolutionary Military College of Chapultepec.
- Rodolfo Fierro: nicknamed "The Butcher" (El Carnicero), if Ángeles was the silk glove of villismo, Fierro was (never better said) the iron gauntlet. He was a railroad worker before joining the villista troops where he was soon promoted due to his fearlessness and loyalty and although he was not a brilliant tactician his suicidal courage compensated for the lack of adequate military preparation [10]. This, coupled with his fanatical loyalty to Villa, allowed him to rise quickly through the revolutionary ranks, taking charge of the villista terror: the systematic destruction of the old landowning aristocracy and the Catholic clergy and the confiscation of the wealth of these groups to finance the revolutionary war. He was known as someone who showed little emotion except for the pleasure he took in violence and murder, someone with no particular empathy but with an uncompromising disposition and a hatred of the privileged elites of the north of the country that made him extremely reliable for the cause in those turbulent years. After the defeats of Villismo in the Bajío he barely survived the battles where he learned that pure willpower could not aspire to conquer positions defended with barbed wire and machine guns, and that the era of war on horseback was over. Together with Villa he spent the last years of the 1st Revolution as a guerrilla fighter until the amnesty of Obregón and De la Huerta. In the years between the wars he became friend of General Salazar and the PCM militant David Alfaro Siqueiros, and together they devised the strategy of occupation of trains and motorized mobile forces using civilian cars with improvised armor and the use of machine guns to surround and decimate the Callista troops with great success. His dark fame rose to new levels in the war against the Sinarquistas and against the integralist troops. After Villa's death he transferred his loyalty to José Revueltas with the results we all know.
- Candelario Cervantes: outstanding Villa's general and perhaps one of the greatest experts in guerrilla warfare within the ranks of the Northern Division, from a very young age he had joined the opposition to Porfirismo. Although he didn't have an outstanding performance during the most important battles of the Northern Division, where he participated as another golden man, it was in the long years of guerrilla struggle in the Chihuahua mountains where he gained Villa's trust and esteem. In fact, it was the trusting relationships he achieved with the Chihuahua peasant populations that allowed Villa to have a rural support base for his long guerrilla war. He was amnestied together with Villa and distanced himself for a few years as he focused on the political struggle, even seeking to be elected in local public positions without success despite his popularity among the agrarian population. It was finally his reading of the renewed Zapatista thought that brought him closer to Villismo and with it he became one of the champions of the agrarian distribution in the north of the country. His participation in the 2nd revolution was to command the mobile guerrillas that harassed the rearguard and the supply lines of the Callista troops, this last war on horseback would be for many the swan song of traditional villismo before the total adoption of Jeeps and motorcycles, later he would become Palafox's right hand in the negotiations with the Sinarquist peasant communities angered with the war to convince them to accept a peace with honors, retiring from public life soon after.
- Toribio Ortega: another outstanding villista leader who like many others had spent his first years as an opponent to Porfirismo, with time he joined the villista troops where his bravery and ability earned him the rank of brigadier general participating in numerous battles before falling ill of typhoid so Villa sent him to recover in Chihuahua, not participating in the military defeats in the Bajío [11]. He rejoined the villistas during the guerrilla period and his popularity and ease to be loved by the population allowed the villismo to continue to be supported by the population. Strongly encouraged by Felipe Angeles, he was one of the first villistas to join the PCM and became an outstanding agrarian and union organizer, putting his military experience at the service of José Revueltas to organize the armed insurrections in the cities that were to be complementary to the guerrilla combats in the countryside. This war strategy allowed the unions to take over large industries but more importantly, the railroads that would later transport the villistas and communist troops. After the triumph of the revolution he continued fighting against the Sinarquistas in Sonora and Sinaloa and commanded troops against the Integralists. He would end up dying in his hometown (Coyame) in the middle of a multitudinous dance.
The aforementioned generals: Felipe, Rodolfo, Candelario and Toribio. CREDITS: Wikipedia.
[...]
Villa had already known the social perspective of Zapata's project in Morelos, which he partially criticized. Already in the 1st Revolution, together with Fierro, he had mercilessly crushed the Magonistas who in the Plan de la Empacadora [12] (better known as the Orozquista Plan) defended the program of the Mexican Liberal Party. Due to the exile of Ricardo Flores Magón and most of the PLM leadership to the United States, and, therefore, without a coherent leadership, the surviving anarchists in northern Mexico had incorrectly concluded that Huerta was the lesser of two evils and had joined their fate to that of El Chacal, being known as the Colorados (because of the color of their red and black shirts and flags). Villa deeply despised them and saw them even worse than the federal Huertista troops, for while the Huertistas were the enemy (and many of the federal soldiers were conscripts, forced to serve Huerta's government) the Colorados were traitors of the worst kind (and, besides, they were volunteers and not conscripts), maintaining that contempt over the years, even when Villa abandoned social patriotism to embrace Zapata's vision of Marxism. In general, Villa's strength was military but not political or ideological, until he was forced to learn more about his northern neighbor. In contrast, the still young Emiliano was fascinated by the development of socialism in the United States, after all, he was overjoyed by the Bolshevik Revolution and was now a reader of Marx and Lenin. His strength was political, but not military.
Each one required something the other didn't have. And, with the 1st Revolution over, the trips to Morelos and Chihuahua became more and more frequent. Zapata needed to learn and develop the concepts of war, and Villa wanted to redeem his past by repeating his performance but now doing it better.
Villa had already known the social perspective of Zapata's project in Morelos, which he partially criticized. Already in the 1st Revolution, together with Fierro, he had mercilessly crushed the Magonistas who in the Plan de la Empacadora [12] (better known as the Orozquista Plan) defended the program of the Mexican Liberal Party. Due to the exile of Ricardo Flores Magón and most of the PLM leadership to the United States, and, therefore, without a coherent leadership, the surviving anarchists in northern Mexico had incorrectly concluded that Huerta was the lesser of two evils and had joined their fate to that of El Chacal, being known as the Colorados (because of the color of their red and black shirts and flags). Villa deeply despised them and saw them even worse than the federal Huertista troops, for while the Huertistas were the enemy (and many of the federal soldiers were conscripts, forced to serve Huerta's government) the Colorados were traitors of the worst kind (and, besides, they were volunteers and not conscripts), maintaining that contempt over the years, even when Villa abandoned social patriotism to embrace Zapata's vision of Marxism. In general, Villa's strength was military but not political or ideological, until he was forced to learn more about his northern neighbor. In contrast, the still young Emiliano was fascinated by the development of socialism in the United States, after all, he was overjoyed by the Bolshevik Revolution and was now a reader of Marx and Lenin. His strength was political, but not military.
Each one required something the other didn't have. And, with the 1st Revolution over, the trips to Morelos and Chihuahua became more and more frequent. Zapata needed to learn and develop the concepts of war, and Villa wanted to redeem his past by repeating his performance but now doing it better.
Presentation 3: The National Synarchist Union and the ideological roots of Mexican Fascism, by Ignacio Arturo "Oseas" Salas Obregón
In order to understand how Synarchism as a movement and ideology could become a serious threat to the revolutionary state that emerged from the triumph of the popular forces in 1932-1934, it is necessary to understand two parallel and closely linked phenomena: reactionary Catholic thought and Mexican nationalism, which converged to create an organization that would put the revolutionary authorities in check for many years. [...]
It was during the last years of the Porfirian regime when Catholic associations were founded under the anti-socialist directives of Pope Leo XIII who began to organize welfare societies for those Mexicans who, in poverty, remained loyal to their Catholic faith; these societies fostered mutual aid societies. Later, an important group of these Catholics radicalized their position and considered reforming the whole society through religion, leading them to found numerous religious organizations to promote a Catholic model for the Republic, and taking advantage of the Maderista situation to organize a party that represented Catholic interests in such a way that in 1911 the National Catholic Party (Partido Nacional Catolico) was founded, which after Huerta's uprising joined the coup government under the perception that it would be the best for Catholic interests.
This collaboration was the reason why the party didn't survive Huerta's defeat at the hands of the revolutionary armies, who punished Catholic political militancy by including in the 1917 Constitution the prohibition of political parties with references to any religious confession in their names, which, together with several articles of progressive orientation and with a certain social justice content, gave the perception to these sectors that the 1st Revolution was essentially anti-Catholic. During the following years the relationship between the Catholic Church and the post-revolutionary state was not the best and had numerous moments of great tension and physical violence, as a result of the intransigent and fanatic clerics opposed to any change, who initiated the formation of groups such as the LNDLR or the Catholic Association of Mexican Youth (Asociación Católica de la Juventud Mexicana, ACJM), who played an important role before, during and after the Cristero War as representatives of the urban intellectuality of the Cristero movement.
As the Catholic historian Jean Meyer points out, the so-called cannon fodder, the contingents of Cristero combatants, originated not in the middle strata of the urban petty bourgeoisie (who monopolized the story of the war, presenting it as a crusade in defense of a faith persecuted by a tyrannical government), but among Mexican peasant groups, the great losers of Mexican history, whose living conditions progressively worsened as the years went by and to many of whom the revolution didn't do justice, on the contrary, it accumulated the list of injustices for them, where modernity had not been a source of welfare but of redress, in a continuous history of abuses born from the Spanish Conquest and with their communities devastated to impose a program of unequal and superficial development while identifying the indigenous past with barbarism. With many of their demands defeated and many of their leaders assassinated or co-opted, without political instruction or an organization of their own to represent their class interests, faith became their bastion, their defense. United around the figure of Christ, promoted by the Catholic Church as an alternative to the secularized and laicist state emanating from the 1st Revolution, they would fight for an order directed by religious norms, and would attack with fanatical dedication against their enemies.
It was during the last years of the Porfirian regime when Catholic associations were founded under the anti-socialist directives of Pope Leo XIII who began to organize welfare societies for those Mexicans who, in poverty, remained loyal to their Catholic faith; these societies fostered mutual aid societies. Later, an important group of these Catholics radicalized their position and considered reforming the whole society through religion, leading them to found numerous religious organizations to promote a Catholic model for the Republic, and taking advantage of the Maderista situation to organize a party that represented Catholic interests in such a way that in 1911 the National Catholic Party (Partido Nacional Catolico) was founded, which after Huerta's uprising joined the coup government under the perception that it would be the best for Catholic interests.
This collaboration was the reason why the party didn't survive Huerta's defeat at the hands of the revolutionary armies, who punished Catholic political militancy by including in the 1917 Constitution the prohibition of political parties with references to any religious confession in their names, which, together with several articles of progressive orientation and with a certain social justice content, gave the perception to these sectors that the 1st Revolution was essentially anti-Catholic. During the following years the relationship between the Catholic Church and the post-revolutionary state was not the best and had numerous moments of great tension and physical violence, as a result of the intransigent and fanatic clerics opposed to any change, who initiated the formation of groups such as the LNDLR or the Catholic Association of Mexican Youth (Asociación Católica de la Juventud Mexicana, ACJM), who played an important role before, during and after the Cristero War as representatives of the urban intellectuality of the Cristero movement.
As the Catholic historian Jean Meyer points out, the so-called cannon fodder, the contingents of Cristero combatants, originated not in the middle strata of the urban petty bourgeoisie (who monopolized the story of the war, presenting it as a crusade in defense of a faith persecuted by a tyrannical government), but among Mexican peasant groups, the great losers of Mexican history, whose living conditions progressively worsened as the years went by and to many of whom the revolution didn't do justice, on the contrary, it accumulated the list of injustices for them, where modernity had not been a source of welfare but of redress, in a continuous history of abuses born from the Spanish Conquest and with their communities devastated to impose a program of unequal and superficial development while identifying the indigenous past with barbarism. With many of their demands defeated and many of their leaders assassinated or co-opted, without political instruction or an organization of their own to represent their class interests, faith became their bastion, their defense. United around the figure of Christ, promoted by the Catholic Church as an alternative to the secularized and laicist state emanating from the 1st Revolution, they would fight for an order directed by religious norms, and would attack with fanatical dedication against their enemies.
Cristero family during the war, with a modified Mexican flag, in which the Virgin of Guadalupe can be seen. CREDITS: Latin American Studies.
Before continuing, it is fair to mention that Meyer is a writer with a clear commitment to the Vatican, so that on more than one occasion he has been accused of hiding important data directly linking the Vatican to the religious insurrection of the Cristeros through the Mexican Episcopate while avoiding paying attention to the fact that the Cristeros -ideologues and combatants- lend themselves to calling themselves "counterrevolutionaries'' and see the post-revolutionary state of Calles as inspired by Marx and Lenin. There is no mention of the economic interests of the self-declared Catholic organizations and their opposition to the concessions given by the Calles regime to the workers' movement of the PCM and Zapata's peasant movement, presenting instead the conflict between the laity and the religious as inevitable because of the wickedness of the former, he minimizes the relations between the LNDLR and the Cristero army, since the League's ambition was to seize power, organizing a military committee and even a draft constitution that had the support of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Vatican Secretary of State. He avoids explaining the reactionary character of the leaders of the League not only in the religious aspect but also in the economic one, he lies when he states that the Cristeros didn't represent the interests of the Mexican landowners -they used the adjective "Bolsheviks'' to all their enemies, from Calles to the agrarian peasants who benefited from the Revolution- and he minimizes the hatred that the Cristeros had against the revolutionary agrarian militias organized by Zapata. The same is done when he presents the Cristero leaders as popular leaders, when a good part of the old aristocracy of the "good families'' of the center and western parts of the country were part and leader of the Cristero movement and a few years later of the Synarchist movement.
Returning to the main point, there is already something in this uprising that we can clearly describe as proto-fascist; if Benito Mussolini himself described fascism as totalitarian, its system in which there is no human or spiritual value above the State, perhaps the Cristeros who fought in the name of the Catholic Church -which fulfills many characteristics of an State- didn't already had a totalitarian ideal? The theocratic ideal where there is only one God, one Pope, one religion and where religion governs all aspects of human life in the name of Christ.
The Cristero War developed from 1927 without quarter, while the peasants of Villa and Zapata and the workers of Campa and Revueltas rose up on their side in 1932. Perhaps in other conditions the Cristero troops could have defeated the Callista regime from the right, but the defeat came from the left by an alliance between agrarians, communists and revolutionary nationalists, which was irrelevant for the Cristeros, who continued their struggle against the new POLN regime without concessions or pacts of any kind, establishing the Mexican clerical proto-fascism.
On the other hand, it is indispensable to study Mexican nationalist thought in order to understand the genesis of Synarchism.
In fact, in Mexico the nationalist ideal has long been an ideological and political current, different groups have made the nation their flag and at the same time have given diametrically opposed justifications on how the defense of the nation should be given, thus, for example, the 2nd French Intervention and the Second Empire are presented by a group of nationalists as a defense of the Mexican nation against a European power that triumphed thanks to the unity of the continental liberal forces, Therefore, the liberals were the true patriots who fought against foreign domination, while for another group of nationalists the defeat of Maximilian I was a defeat of the Mexican nation against the liberal puppets of an Anglo-Saxon power, since then introducing ideas foreign to Mexicanity such as liberalism or Protestantism.
It is not pertinent to write the genealogical tree of Mexican nationalism, but it is necessary to explain how an interpretation of this nationalism arises that makes attractive, even feasible the introduction of fascism in Mexico, among these diverse authors, the figure of José Vasconcelos and his thesis of the cosmic race stands out among all of them.
The truth is that nationalism has always given special importance to the concept of race, which on more than one occasion homologated the nation itself, but in a country as ethnically diverse as Mexico, what was the race that represented the Mexican nation? For Vasconcelos it was neither the indigenous nor the Spanish (or, better said, Criollos) but the mestizo, which he called the cosmic race or bronze race, which in Vasconcelos' opinion is the synthesis of all humanity, the historical need to culminate the evolution of all races: it is in the American continent where European Hispanicity, the indigenous contemplative spirit, black sensuality and the collectivity of the Asian peoples are synthesized.
This impulse to build a nation was reflected in the ambitious program of Vasconcelos, to affirm the Mexican identity that was seen throughout his political life, hence the importance of the study of Vasconcelos' work for Mexican fascist thought: he manages to adapt the idea of the Mexican nation from modernity itself. Mexican nationalism for Vasconcelos draws its strength and poetry from the future, not from the past, the cosmic race does not exist in past times but in the future. His influence and thought allowed many fascists, philo-fascists and crypto-fascists framed within multiple organizations to have a theoretical framework from which to elaborate their own analysis and strategies.
Many Mexican nationalists outside both Synarquism and the PPS see Vasconcelos' political defeat in 1929 as a lost opportunity [13], that which could have happened, they see his exile in the United States and, after the revolution in that country, in Spain as a sign of Vasconcelos' inherent nobility, who refused to spill blood among brothers, however, all historians aware of the historical moment agree that when Vasconcelos refuses to defend his triumph at the polls against the electoral fraud imposed by Calles and signs the Guaymas Plan and states "The President Elect is now going abroad; but he will return to the country to take direct charge of the command as soon as there is a group of armed free men who are in conditions to make him respect it" essentially destroyed his own movement and created an organizational vacuum that the fascists rushed to fill by reusing much of the same ideological beliefs.
Vasconcelos' exile marks what Mexican fascism will become, the epistemic framework of what is possible and what is impossible in its struggle against the Callista or POLN regime. This exile would be followed by a second wave of internal exiles. With the triumph of the revolutionary forces, many members of the educated petty bourgeoisie that had been the backbone of Vasconcelism escaped to the areas controlled by the Cristeros, bringing with them their ideas that would later shape Synarchism but also invaluable technical knowledge that allowed the Synarchists to create a functional regime in the areas they controlled.
Many in the PPS, particularly among the heirs of Lombardo Toledano, assert the inevitability that the "reactionary nationalist" Vasconcelos would eventually spawn Synarchism, when the truth is that the Vasconcelists were not particularly enthusiastic about joining the ranks of the Cristeros, but their inability to dialogue with the POLN allowed them no other option, and not all urban Vasconcelistas ended up joining Synarchism, continuing their resistance to the various revolutionary regimes on their own part, but unlike the Synarchists they do so without a coherent leadership, divided into numerous organizations confronting each other, evolving in fits and starts to fascism, unable to appeal by themselves to the Mexican masses and being discovered, prosecuted or eliminated their cells in the cities in a short time disappearing, leaving as the only heir of the ideas of the cosmic race to the UNS.
[...]
Fascism was born as a reaction against the danger of the socialist revolution, and the Mexican case is no exception. But how did Mexican fascism evolve before Synarchism?
After the fall of Porfirio Diaz the struggle of armed factions that were nothing more than the expression of the class struggle in the country started, where the great majority of the popular masses were unable to organize themselves independently of the ideological coordinates of the bourgeoisie, so the masses of workers and peasants were subordinated to the bourgeoisie that didn't agree with the Porfirian status represented by Madero, Carranza or the Sonora Group; even the revolutionary conventionists articulated their program as leftist nationalism. But there is also an international context where the class division sharpens and enormous masses of dispossessed people appear except for their religious expressions together with the appearance of a new stage of capitalist development making the Mexican bourgeoisie a subordinate on the international level of the monopolist bourgeoisie.
This bourgeoisie justifies its domination over the country through the state that constantly takes measures that favor it through nationalism that is useful to maintain and adjust the international division of labor; the work of the post-revolutionary state that finds in Calles its champion was directed to:
Returning to the main point, there is already something in this uprising that we can clearly describe as proto-fascist; if Benito Mussolini himself described fascism as totalitarian, its system in which there is no human or spiritual value above the State, perhaps the Cristeros who fought in the name of the Catholic Church -which fulfills many characteristics of an State- didn't already had a totalitarian ideal? The theocratic ideal where there is only one God, one Pope, one religion and where religion governs all aspects of human life in the name of Christ.
The Cristero War developed from 1927 without quarter, while the peasants of Villa and Zapata and the workers of Campa and Revueltas rose up on their side in 1932. Perhaps in other conditions the Cristero troops could have defeated the Callista regime from the right, but the defeat came from the left by an alliance between agrarians, communists and revolutionary nationalists, which was irrelevant for the Cristeros, who continued their struggle against the new POLN regime without concessions or pacts of any kind, establishing the Mexican clerical proto-fascism.
On the other hand, it is indispensable to study Mexican nationalist thought in order to understand the genesis of Synarchism.
In fact, in Mexico the nationalist ideal has long been an ideological and political current, different groups have made the nation their flag and at the same time have given diametrically opposed justifications on how the defense of the nation should be given, thus, for example, the 2nd French Intervention and the Second Empire are presented by a group of nationalists as a defense of the Mexican nation against a European power that triumphed thanks to the unity of the continental liberal forces, Therefore, the liberals were the true patriots who fought against foreign domination, while for another group of nationalists the defeat of Maximilian I was a defeat of the Mexican nation against the liberal puppets of an Anglo-Saxon power, since then introducing ideas foreign to Mexicanity such as liberalism or Protestantism.
It is not pertinent to write the genealogical tree of Mexican nationalism, but it is necessary to explain how an interpretation of this nationalism arises that makes attractive, even feasible the introduction of fascism in Mexico, among these diverse authors, the figure of José Vasconcelos and his thesis of the cosmic race stands out among all of them.
The truth is that nationalism has always given special importance to the concept of race, which on more than one occasion homologated the nation itself, but in a country as ethnically diverse as Mexico, what was the race that represented the Mexican nation? For Vasconcelos it was neither the indigenous nor the Spanish (or, better said, Criollos) but the mestizo, which he called the cosmic race or bronze race, which in Vasconcelos' opinion is the synthesis of all humanity, the historical need to culminate the evolution of all races: it is in the American continent where European Hispanicity, the indigenous contemplative spirit, black sensuality and the collectivity of the Asian peoples are synthesized.
This impulse to build a nation was reflected in the ambitious program of Vasconcelos, to affirm the Mexican identity that was seen throughout his political life, hence the importance of the study of Vasconcelos' work for Mexican fascist thought: he manages to adapt the idea of the Mexican nation from modernity itself. Mexican nationalism for Vasconcelos draws its strength and poetry from the future, not from the past, the cosmic race does not exist in past times but in the future. His influence and thought allowed many fascists, philo-fascists and crypto-fascists framed within multiple organizations to have a theoretical framework from which to elaborate their own analysis and strategies.
Many Mexican nationalists outside both Synarquism and the PPS see Vasconcelos' political defeat in 1929 as a lost opportunity [13], that which could have happened, they see his exile in the United States and, after the revolution in that country, in Spain as a sign of Vasconcelos' inherent nobility, who refused to spill blood among brothers, however, all historians aware of the historical moment agree that when Vasconcelos refuses to defend his triumph at the polls against the electoral fraud imposed by Calles and signs the Guaymas Plan and states "The President Elect is now going abroad; but he will return to the country to take direct charge of the command as soon as there is a group of armed free men who are in conditions to make him respect it" essentially destroyed his own movement and created an organizational vacuum that the fascists rushed to fill by reusing much of the same ideological beliefs.
Vasconcelos' exile marks what Mexican fascism will become, the epistemic framework of what is possible and what is impossible in its struggle against the Callista or POLN regime. This exile would be followed by a second wave of internal exiles. With the triumph of the revolutionary forces, many members of the educated petty bourgeoisie that had been the backbone of Vasconcelism escaped to the areas controlled by the Cristeros, bringing with them their ideas that would later shape Synarchism but also invaluable technical knowledge that allowed the Synarchists to create a functional regime in the areas they controlled.
Many in the PPS, particularly among the heirs of Lombardo Toledano, assert the inevitability that the "reactionary nationalist" Vasconcelos would eventually spawn Synarchism, when the truth is that the Vasconcelists were not particularly enthusiastic about joining the ranks of the Cristeros, but their inability to dialogue with the POLN allowed them no other option, and not all urban Vasconcelistas ended up joining Synarchism, continuing their resistance to the various revolutionary regimes on their own part, but unlike the Synarchists they do so without a coherent leadership, divided into numerous organizations confronting each other, evolving in fits and starts to fascism, unable to appeal by themselves to the Mexican masses and being discovered, prosecuted or eliminated their cells in the cities in a short time disappearing, leaving as the only heir of the ideas of the cosmic race to the UNS.
[...]
Fascism was born as a reaction against the danger of the socialist revolution, and the Mexican case is no exception. But how did Mexican fascism evolve before Synarchism?
After the fall of Porfirio Diaz the struggle of armed factions that were nothing more than the expression of the class struggle in the country started, where the great majority of the popular masses were unable to organize themselves independently of the ideological coordinates of the bourgeoisie, so the masses of workers and peasants were subordinated to the bourgeoisie that didn't agree with the Porfirian status represented by Madero, Carranza or the Sonora Group; even the revolutionary conventionists articulated their program as leftist nationalism. But there is also an international context where the class division sharpens and enormous masses of dispossessed people appear except for their religious expressions together with the appearance of a new stage of capitalist development making the Mexican bourgeoisie a subordinate on the international level of the monopolist bourgeoisie.
This bourgeoisie justifies its domination over the country through the state that constantly takes measures that favor it through nationalism that is useful to maintain and adjust the international division of labor; the work of the post-revolutionary state that finds in Calles its champion was directed to:
- Do everything necessary for the Mexican bourgeoisie to maintain the monopoly of political and economic decisions;
- To manage the dependence of this bourgeoisie on imperialism and;
- Lend itself to confrontation with the proletariat and the peasantry to maintain the relationship of forces favorable to the bourgeoisie while integrating them into an interclassist economic model within a system of dependent capitalism.
The internal panorama after the 1st revolution is that of the existence of a rising Mexican bourgeoisie accompanied by powerful North American investments that at the same time create a strong and organized industrial proletariat, which Calles confronts and tries to dominate by employing collaborationist unions such as those led by Luis Morones. Calles' objective was to create and empower a nationalist bourgeoisie that would impose its project of a dominated ruling class of capitalist underdevelopment on the whole country by employing a powerful bureaucracy and a large and professionalized army. A large part of this bourgeoisie, concentrated in Monterrey and faced with the accelerated growth of unions loyal to the various currents, led them to found the Employers Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Confederación Patronal de la República Mexicana, COPARMEX). This organization became the financier of the future non-Synarchist fascist organizations; it was thanks to the financial support of this employers' organization with twenty-six divisions and five thousand members that the small urban fascist groups managed to become something more than a group of drunks eager for street fights in a series of paramilitary groups that had modern war weapons.
The origin of COPARMEX can be found around the figure of Luis Sada who organized the Employer Union (Unión Patronal, UP) in 1929 among businessmen in Monterrey who, while not particularly concerned with the success or failure of the agrarian reform, were opposed to union efforts, whether social democratic or communist, their expansive growth and organization was analogous to union efforts in defense of workers' rights. COPARMEX formed the Nationalist Civic Action (Acción Cívica Nacionalista, ACM) as a legal front to subsidize strikebreaking forces, aimed primarily at propagandizing on behalf of industrialists and financing secular right-wing organizations (fascist or otherwise) to confront social democratic or communist trade unionists.
The funds supplied by the ACM to the fascist organizations came from the industrial complex in Monterrey and the oil companies of the United States and Europe, the sums were considerable and with them were financed the purchase of weapons in Japan and even Germany, in addition to more mundane tasks such as the distribution of propaganda, the political formation of the subsidiary organizations and the salaries of the leaders of the fascist organizations. Therefore, it is possible to affirm that at least for what was secular fascism in Mexico its militants didn't manage to transcend beyond becoming glorified thugs of the industrial bourgeoisie mostly grouped in Monterrey. In addition to the lack of a clear leadership due to Vasconcelos' self-exile, the nascent city fascism had no political culture of its own and limited itself to imitate as best it could the various foreign fascisms, nor was there any established structure or hierarchies by which to make decisions, becoming a fragmented movement that managed to unite at least in name too late and too slow to become a real threat.
Some groups in the last years of Callismo managed to transcend, one of them was the Confederation of the Middle Class (Confederación de la Clase Media, CCM) founded by Gustavo Sáenz de Sicilia (former leader of the ephemeral Mexican Fascist Party, Partido Fascista Mexicano) or the Pro Raza Committee of the Federal District (Comité Pro Raza del Distrito Federal, CPRDF) which depended on the International Hispanic and Latin American Pro Raza Union (Unión Internacional Hispano y Latinoamericana Pro Raza), founded by Antonio C. Diaz. Both groups opposed modern education and sought to eliminate Chinese immigration as "harmful to the nation". Parallel to the urban organizations was the National Union of Veterans of the Revolution (Unión Nacional de Veteranos de la Revolución, UNVR) led by General Ríos Zertuche, which was dedicated to obtaining land concessions for its members (eventually it ceased to matter that they were veterans) but with a special emphasis on the right to private property, These groups and others such as the Mexican National Vanguard (Vanguardia Nacional Mexicana), the Anti-Communist Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Anti-Comunista) or the Mexican Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Demócrata Mexicano), after the triumph of the 2nd Revolution, weave alliances that ended up subordinating themselves to the Revolutionary Mexicanist Action (Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista, ARM), the Golden Shirts.
Founded in the last years of Calles' dictatorship by General Nicolás Rodríguez (a veteran distanced from General Villa) imitating the paramilitary model of the German Brownshirts, ended up gathering some disgruntled veterans, which allowed him to present them directly as a group with popular and revolutionary ascendancy that would legitimize them before the population while raising a nationalist discourse characterized by anti-semitism and anti-communism. Their main activity was to confront the strikers; they were born with the support of Calles to have a shock group to repress the workers and enjoyed the support of high ranks of the state, since they got away unpunished for many of their crimes. They benefited from the union problems due to their employment as a shock force of most of the industrialists and merchants of the country, responsible for their financing, even having subsidies from the Axis powers.
The petty bourgeois origin of this organization had a simple ideological expression: praise of the "middle class" together with an anti-semitic, anti-chinese, anti-communist discourse, expressed in its slogan "Mexico for the Mexicans" (México para los mexicanos). They never went beyond the analysis of fighting against the "Judeo-Communist'' confabulation, their hatred of the workers' movement was justified by their hatred of the USSR and they claimed to be the continuators of the 1st Revolution, one that they considered betrayed by the 1917 Constitution. This organization, which enjoyed the support of Calles in his struggles against leftist demonstrations, had bloody confrontations against the workers' militias in the cities. In the 2nd Revolution, with the support of the police and the army, they managed to drown in blood several strikes and urban insurrections, but not enough to prevent the triumph of the revolutionary forces. When the troops of the reformed Northern Division smashed the Callista army in the 2nd battle of Zacatecas many Golden Shirts also died as a consequence of the capture of that city; this military despair turned into an indescribable frustration when not a few Callista generals were convinced by Cárdenas and the left wing of the PNR to change sides, and to prove their worth to the new regime they ordered their men to murder or imprison the Golden Shirts, the ones whom they had allied to fought against the communists for so long.
After this they went underground, launching indiscriminate terrorist attacks, with some members escaping to San Luis Potosí, where they joined the forces of General Saturnino Cedillo, who ideologically moved between anti-communism and the defense of national and foreign capitalist interests for whom the socialist revolution was an obstacle. Cedillo, who had carefully woven his alliances with both the ARM and the UNVR in an open way and being advised by the CCM in a discreet way, had turned San Luis Potosí into his personal fiefdom during the years prior to the 2nd Revolution, so that when the war broke out these fascist organizations managed to find a space there, not only to train their troops, ideologically indoctrinated or print their propaganda but also being the last "free" bastion where they could govern. This failed government in San Luis Potosí would be the swan song of the remnants of Callismo that died together with the last non-Synarchist fascists, who despite the promises of the German and Japanese governments to finance them, were unable to control the countryside. An offensive by the new Popular Revolutionary Army launched from numerous fronts, together with the Zapatista insurgency in the countryside, led to its rapid decline, being seen as a prelude to future confrontations against the UNS in the western part of the country.
[...]
Meanwhile, in the western part the country, and seeing that after the bloody seizure of Monterrey by the villistas and communist troops the leading nucleus of COPARMEX was destroyed, the local sections of the Employers Confederation and the Golden Shirts were more pragmatic and therefore managed to survive a little longer. When the Callista army collapsed or changed sides (both to the left and to the right) they decided to collaborate with the Cristero guerrillas who were rushing to fill the vacuum in the seizure of the cities launching their own reactionary terror exterminating all the unionists they could find. They were not the only ones to change sides: when Mexico City fell and Calles escaped with his loyalists to Veracruz to create a last resistance, the bureaucracies and garrisons of Sonora, Sinaloa and the territories of both Californias, which had previously crushed any non-Calles political group, decided that the Calles regime was already a lost cause and sent delegates to establish negotiations to join the Cristeros.
Thus, taking advantage of the war pause negotiated with Zapata and in parallel to the Congress in Mexico City that would create the POLN, a Congress was held in the city of Morelia to create the National Synarchist Union (Unión Nacional Sinarquista, UNS) unifying all the right wing left standing: the Cristero troops, the remains of the old army and federal bureaucracy, the COPARMEX together with its paramilitary, and finally the Vasconcelist intellectuals around a platform based on the following points:
The origin of COPARMEX can be found around the figure of Luis Sada who organized the Employer Union (Unión Patronal, UP) in 1929 among businessmen in Monterrey who, while not particularly concerned with the success or failure of the agrarian reform, were opposed to union efforts, whether social democratic or communist, their expansive growth and organization was analogous to union efforts in defense of workers' rights. COPARMEX formed the Nationalist Civic Action (Acción Cívica Nacionalista, ACM) as a legal front to subsidize strikebreaking forces, aimed primarily at propagandizing on behalf of industrialists and financing secular right-wing organizations (fascist or otherwise) to confront social democratic or communist trade unionists.
The funds supplied by the ACM to the fascist organizations came from the industrial complex in Monterrey and the oil companies of the United States and Europe, the sums were considerable and with them were financed the purchase of weapons in Japan and even Germany, in addition to more mundane tasks such as the distribution of propaganda, the political formation of the subsidiary organizations and the salaries of the leaders of the fascist organizations. Therefore, it is possible to affirm that at least for what was secular fascism in Mexico its militants didn't manage to transcend beyond becoming glorified thugs of the industrial bourgeoisie mostly grouped in Monterrey. In addition to the lack of a clear leadership due to Vasconcelos' self-exile, the nascent city fascism had no political culture of its own and limited itself to imitate as best it could the various foreign fascisms, nor was there any established structure or hierarchies by which to make decisions, becoming a fragmented movement that managed to unite at least in name too late and too slow to become a real threat.
Some groups in the last years of Callismo managed to transcend, one of them was the Confederation of the Middle Class (Confederación de la Clase Media, CCM) founded by Gustavo Sáenz de Sicilia (former leader of the ephemeral Mexican Fascist Party, Partido Fascista Mexicano) or the Pro Raza Committee of the Federal District (Comité Pro Raza del Distrito Federal, CPRDF) which depended on the International Hispanic and Latin American Pro Raza Union (Unión Internacional Hispano y Latinoamericana Pro Raza), founded by Antonio C. Diaz. Both groups opposed modern education and sought to eliminate Chinese immigration as "harmful to the nation". Parallel to the urban organizations was the National Union of Veterans of the Revolution (Unión Nacional de Veteranos de la Revolución, UNVR) led by General Ríos Zertuche, which was dedicated to obtaining land concessions for its members (eventually it ceased to matter that they were veterans) but with a special emphasis on the right to private property, These groups and others such as the Mexican National Vanguard (Vanguardia Nacional Mexicana), the Anti-Communist Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Anti-Comunista) or the Mexican Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Demócrata Mexicano), after the triumph of the 2nd Revolution, weave alliances that ended up subordinating themselves to the Revolutionary Mexicanist Action (Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista, ARM), the Golden Shirts.
Founded in the last years of Calles' dictatorship by General Nicolás Rodríguez (a veteran distanced from General Villa) imitating the paramilitary model of the German Brownshirts, ended up gathering some disgruntled veterans, which allowed him to present them directly as a group with popular and revolutionary ascendancy that would legitimize them before the population while raising a nationalist discourse characterized by anti-semitism and anti-communism. Their main activity was to confront the strikers; they were born with the support of Calles to have a shock group to repress the workers and enjoyed the support of high ranks of the state, since they got away unpunished for many of their crimes. They benefited from the union problems due to their employment as a shock force of most of the industrialists and merchants of the country, responsible for their financing, even having subsidies from the Axis powers.
The petty bourgeois origin of this organization had a simple ideological expression: praise of the "middle class" together with an anti-semitic, anti-chinese, anti-communist discourse, expressed in its slogan "Mexico for the Mexicans" (México para los mexicanos). They never went beyond the analysis of fighting against the "Judeo-Communist'' confabulation, their hatred of the workers' movement was justified by their hatred of the USSR and they claimed to be the continuators of the 1st Revolution, one that they considered betrayed by the 1917 Constitution. This organization, which enjoyed the support of Calles in his struggles against leftist demonstrations, had bloody confrontations against the workers' militias in the cities. In the 2nd Revolution, with the support of the police and the army, they managed to drown in blood several strikes and urban insurrections, but not enough to prevent the triumph of the revolutionary forces. When the troops of the reformed Northern Division smashed the Callista army in the 2nd battle of Zacatecas many Golden Shirts also died as a consequence of the capture of that city; this military despair turned into an indescribable frustration when not a few Callista generals were convinced by Cárdenas and the left wing of the PNR to change sides, and to prove their worth to the new regime they ordered their men to murder or imprison the Golden Shirts, the ones whom they had allied to fought against the communists for so long.
After this they went underground, launching indiscriminate terrorist attacks, with some members escaping to San Luis Potosí, where they joined the forces of General Saturnino Cedillo, who ideologically moved between anti-communism and the defense of national and foreign capitalist interests for whom the socialist revolution was an obstacle. Cedillo, who had carefully woven his alliances with both the ARM and the UNVR in an open way and being advised by the CCM in a discreet way, had turned San Luis Potosí into his personal fiefdom during the years prior to the 2nd Revolution, so that when the war broke out these fascist organizations managed to find a space there, not only to train their troops, ideologically indoctrinated or print their propaganda but also being the last "free" bastion where they could govern. This failed government in San Luis Potosí would be the swan song of the remnants of Callismo that died together with the last non-Synarchist fascists, who despite the promises of the German and Japanese governments to finance them, were unable to control the countryside. An offensive by the new Popular Revolutionary Army launched from numerous fronts, together with the Zapatista insurgency in the countryside, led to its rapid decline, being seen as a prelude to future confrontations against the UNS in the western part of the country.
[...]
Meanwhile, in the western part the country, and seeing that after the bloody seizure of Monterrey by the villistas and communist troops the leading nucleus of COPARMEX was destroyed, the local sections of the Employers Confederation and the Golden Shirts were more pragmatic and therefore managed to survive a little longer. When the Callista army collapsed or changed sides (both to the left and to the right) they decided to collaborate with the Cristero guerrillas who were rushing to fill the vacuum in the seizure of the cities launching their own reactionary terror exterminating all the unionists they could find. They were not the only ones to change sides: when Mexico City fell and Calles escaped with his loyalists to Veracruz to create a last resistance, the bureaucracies and garrisons of Sonora, Sinaloa and the territories of both Californias, which had previously crushed any non-Calles political group, decided that the Calles regime was already a lost cause and sent delegates to establish negotiations to join the Cristeros.
Thus, taking advantage of the war pause negotiated with Zapata and in parallel to the Congress in Mexico City that would create the POLN, a Congress was held in the city of Morelia to create the National Synarchist Union (Unión Nacional Sinarquista, UNS) unifying all the right wing left standing: the Cristero troops, the remains of the old army and federal bureaucracy, the COPARMEX together with its paramilitary, and finally the Vasconcelist intellectuals around a platform based on the following points:
- Defense of the cosmic race that was endangered by the Anglo-Saxon liberal influence on the one hand and by Judeo-Bolshevism on the other, this would be achieved by promoting the process of miscegenation, encouraging the arrival of settlers from white Catholic countries and the Mexicanization of the native peoples.
- Defense of Mexican Catholic traditions threatened by atheism, this would be achieved by recovering the privileges destroyed by Juarez's liberalism and reunifying the Catholic Church with the State.
- The colonization of land for the peasants who would fight in their ranks, which would allow the expansion of private property while protecting the old large estates.
- The creation of a corporative state where all social classes would serve the nation that would later have to reclaim its dominion over the "Central American rebel provinces" and join a future alliance of anti-communist states to recover the lands stolen by America.
It would be this political and ideological platform from which the Synarchists would base their work and carry the war to the peoples of Mexico for a few more years.
Flag of the UNS [14]. The yellow border represents Christianity and its unity, that goes beyond the nation. The use of the green, white and red colors are for obvious reasons (the national colors of the country). Mexico (and its lost territories, both from America and from the "rebels" in Central America) is represented in the flag.
- Calles, Obregón and De La Huerta, along with members of the urban bourgeoisie, the so called Nouveau riche.
- Officially, the Law for Reforming the Penal Code/Law of Worship Tolerance. A supplementary law to enforce the Article 130 of the 1917 Constitution, which both ITTL and OTL caused the start of the Cristero War.
- IOTL, the US government successfully made Calles' government negotiate with the Cristeros, which eventually ended the war. This doesn't happen ITTL.
- IOTL, he was killed.
- Same as above. It's considered that Eufemio was not killed for being an alcoholic, but because of the slow collapse of the Zapatista movement.
- The quote comes from "The State and Socialism", written in 1919. Link.
- IOTL, Zapata started the transition to marxism, but he never finished it, since he was killed. He had sympathies for the Russian Revolution.
- IOTL, this actually happens too: both Zapata and Palafox tried to convince the peasants/commoners not to destroy rural factories, without much success.
- The book exists only ITTL. In the English editions, Peasant is replaced by Farmer because of pragmatic reasons. Over the years, the word will be changed again to Commoner.
- IOTL, that was the reason Fierro was killed: his suicidal courage.
- IOTL, he died of that sickness.
- The Plan de la Empacadora was real (OTL) and was signed by Pascual Orozco and other people, who unrecognized Madero as the legitimate president. For a certain time, Zapata wanted Orozco to become the next Mexican president, until he aligned with Huerta.
- Both IOTL and ITTL Vasconcelos was candidate for the presidency of the Republic in 1929. As a result of his defeat in the elections, he decided to exile in the US.
- It's based heavily on the UNS flag from IOTL, but the flag is changed because of the different ideological basis of the UNS ITTL. The original can be seen here (CREDITS: user Ec1801011, Wikipedia).
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Aircraft of the World Revolutionary War - Part II
Instant Sunrise
Queen Shit of Liesville
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Pronouns
- her/she
Aircraft of the World Revolutionary War - Part II
Hammer of the Comintern - The A-14 Shillelagh
This section written by @Zolarian01
Surviving A-14F on display at the National Air Force Museum in Monino, USSR.
The Red May Revolution had brought about a sea change in the global geopolitical order, with the newly formed Union of American Socialist Republics looking fearfully across the Atlantic, anticipating an offensive war by the British Empire in the future, with the full support of the French and their German, Italian and Japanese lapdogs. It was in this tense situation that the Spanish Civil War erupted, leading to the Communist and the Fascist powers providing volunteers and materiel to the warring sides.
The Spanish Civil War was considered to be "the arena where all the major powers would refine their military tactics and equipment" and the UASR was no exception. Besides the usage of tanks, they would seek to improve their aircraft in preparation of the Great War that would come.
In 1935, Donald Douglas along with Jack Northrop and Alan Loughead, came up with a proposal for a light bomber-reconnaisance aircraft powered by a pair of 373 kW East Hartford R-995-80A Wasp Junior radial engines mounted on a shoulder wing. It was estimated to be capable of 420 km/h with a bomb load of 500 kg. However, reports from the IVA volunteers fighting in the Spanish Civil War showed the design to be significantly underpowered, and it was scrapped.
The next year, the WFRAAF Stavka issued a new specification for an attack aircraft. The Skunk Works EDB, under Douglas, Northrop and Loughead, developed the Lo-7, which was similar to their old project, but powered by 890 kW East Hartford R-1830-90C Twin Wasp 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines and capable of carrying 1000 kg of bombs.
The first prototype of the Lo-7 took flight on 24 September 1937. The aircraft attracted the attention of a delegation of VVS generals and aircraft designers visiting the United Republics. During the flight trials, while attempting to demonstrate single engine performance, the Lo-7 prototype crashed, killing the test pilot. In spite of the crash, the Soviets were sufficiently impressed to place a preliminary order of 100 production aircraft.
Due to the Soviet order, Douglas, Northrop and Loughead carried out a major redesign of the aircraft. While the wings were left largely unchanged, the fuselage was deeper and narrower, which accommodated a crew of four - a pilot, a navigator, a bombardier and a gunner. The wings were mounted a bit lower, and the engines were mounted in nacelles slung under the wings. Normal bombload was 500 kg, or 750 kg in overload conditions. The revised aircraft, to be later known as the YA-14, first flew on 16 May 1938.
In 1938, the WFRAAF decided that the new aircraft perfectly met it's requirements for an attack bomber, and in June 1938, ordered 200 planes powered by Parsippany R-2600 Twin Cyclone engines, under the designation A-14 (the A-14s having 1300 kW turbosupercharged R-2600-7 engines). These had a larger vertical tail to cope with the increased power of the Parsippany engines, had a longer nose to give more room for the bombardier/navigator, and carried more fuel. However, technical issues with the R-2600-7 would lead to it being replaced with the two-stage supercharged R-2600-11.
The WFRAAF was impressed by the A-14's high power to weight ratio and easy handling characteristics. The initial production A-14s were to feature a battery of 4 x 7.62mm MG-7-Br1 machine guns in fuselage blister positions. An additional two 7.62mm machine guns would be manned from a dorsal position while a single 7.62mm machine gun was allotted to a manned ventral gun position. Interestingly, rearward-firing 7.62mm machine guns were also introduced in this design, with these being mounted in each engine nacelle. Bombload was a reported 750 kg of internal ordnance. Performance specs allowed for a top speed of 620 km/h (comparable to fighter performance) and a ceiling of up to 9,600 m and range totaling some 1,770 km (ferry range).
After the first A-14 was produced in this fashion, the Workers and Farmers Revolutionary Army Air Force came back with a "modest" change to the requirement, deleting the need for a dedicated high-altitude platform and instead centering on a design capable of handling operations in a low-to-medium altitude zone. The first A-14 had been already produced for high-altitude work, and the following ones would conform to the new requirement.
An A-14A forced to make a forced landing in a field during Operation Teutonic.
The A-14A differed from the A-14 in having 1200 kW supercharged R-2600-11 engines, marking a clear departure from the high altitude role. Armament of A-14A models included the 4 x 7.62mm forward-firing machine guns in fuselage blisters, 2 x 7.62mm machine guns in the dorsal position, 1 x 7.62mm machine gun in the ventral position and the 2 x 7.62mm rear-firing machine guns in fixed engine nacelle positions. Additionally, 750 kg of internal ordnance could be carried. Performance allowed for a top speed of 558 km/h, a ceiling of 8,600 m and an operating range of 1,609 km.
In the initial days of Operation Teutonic, the A-14A fared poorly due to the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica running riot in the skies above the Western Soviet Union. The few that did manage to score a hit were hampered by the (apparently) small bombload. The reports coming in at the WFRAAF Stavka and the Skunk Works EDB would influence the design of the following models, the A-14C and the A-14D.
An A-14B (Yer-3) preparing to take off from a makeshift airstrip in the Soviet Union.
During the early days of Teutonic, the VVS was in dire need of a Shturmovik-type aircraft in order to combat Axis armor. Though there was the Il-2 designed by the Ilyushin OKB, at the time, it was not being produced in sufficient numbers. A stopgap was needed while the factories brought Il-2 production up to speed.
Vladimir Yermolayev, who had visited the UASR back in 1937, was reminded of the aircraft prototype whose trial he had seen. In spite of the crash, he had felt that it was a good aircraft, and convinced the generals to give it a chance.
Now, as the Soviet Union was being invaded by the Stahlpakt, Yermolayev wrote a letter to the aircraft's chief designer and his good friend, Donald Douglas, asking if he could produce the said aircraft under a license. Douglas immediately forwarded Yermolayev's letter to the People's Secretariat for Aeronautics, who wasted no time in approving the request.
The Yer-3, as it would be known, differed but little from its American half-sister, the A-14, in using 1200 kW Mikulin AM-43 supercharged radial engines, 23 mm VYa-23 cannons, 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns / 12.7 mm DShK machine guns. The WFRAAF would retroactively designate this variant as the A-14B.
A WFRAAF aircrew in front of their A-14C.
The A-14C differed from its predecessor, the A-14A, in mounting just 2 x 12.7mm nose-mounted (lower fuselage) MG-12-Br2 machine guns, 1 x 12.7mm machine gun in the dorsal position, 1 x 7.62mm machine gun in the ventral position and the two engine nacelle-mounted rear-firing 7.62mm machine guns. To make up for the lessened offensive firepower, the internal bombload was increased to 1,000 kg. Performance remained comparable with the top speed reported at 563 km/h, a (maximum) ferry range of 3,700 km and a ceiling of 8,700 m.
An A-14D successfully skip bombs the Japanese troop transport ship Kinugawa Maru.
The A-14D model appeared as an "improved" A-14A. D models brought back the cluster of 4 x 7.62mm lower-fuselage nose mounted MG armament. 2 x 7.62mm machine guns were appropriated to the dorsal aft gun position along with a 7.62mm machine gun in a flexible ventral tunnel mount. Bombload was an impressive 1,000 kg though this could be supplemented by an internally-held fuel supply instead, increasing the aircraft range somewhat. Additional improvements over the A-models included improved armor plating for increased crew protection and 2 x Parsippany R-2600-23 Twin Cyclone radial engines of 1,300 kW each. Despite these additions and the aircraft proving heavier than preceding models, the A-14D saw only a slight reduction to overall speed. Performance included a top speed of 550 km/h, a (maximum) ferry range of 3,700 km and a reduced ceiling of 7,720 m.
The A-14D was received favorably by Soviet and American air crews, who felt it to be substantially superior to the A-14C. The Soviets felt that the 7.62 mm Browning MGs were underpowered, and replaced them with the 7.62 mm ShKAS MG. By the end of 1941, several VOSCOM air crews had become well-versed in raiding Axis ground forces with their aircraft. Based on their feedback, the A-14F would be developed.
An A-14F carrying a Mark 13 aerial torpedo.
The A-14F became the definitive production run of the series, numbering some 2,759 total aircraft. The A-14F followed on the heels of the A-14D production model and was a dedicated ground attack platform as opposed to the light bomber role carried out by preceding models. The initial production A-14F block featured the distinctive solid nose assembly mounting 4 x 20mm MG-20-A1 cannons (deleting the bombardier's nose position and bringing the crew total down to three personnel). Later production blocks would replace the MG-20-A1 with the MG-20-A4 revolver cannons. Additional armament for this aircraft included 2 x 12.7mm MG-12-Br2 machine guns in a flexible dorsal position and a single 7.62mm machine gun in the ventral position (flexible mount). Bombload totaled 2000 kg of internally-held ordnance or a 1000 kg aerial torpedo and/or 1400 liter drop tank. Engines for the aircraft were Parsippany R-2600-23 Twin Cyclone supercharged radials of 1,350 kW each. Top speed was 527 km/h with a combat range of 1,530 km and a modest ceiling of 7,220 m.
An RAF Havoc I being rearmed after a bombing run.
An RAF Havoc II being loaded with ammunition.
The Franco-British Union would receive a lot of American military equipment during the course of the Great Revolutionary War via Lend Lease, and among the more notable ones was the A-14. Named the "Havoc" in RAF service, the plane was much liked by the aircrews who flew it, with Captain Eric Brown considering it to be "one of the best planes I have flown so far, with considerable firepower". The A-14D and A-14F variants were exported as the Havoc I and the Havoc II, with the American 20 mm cannons being replaced by 20 mm Hispano-Suiza cannons.
In combat, the A-14 proved to be a little aircraft of large worth. The ability for the system to adapt to various armament configurations allowed for the type to reach further and deeper into the war than it would have otherwise. The "Shillelagh", as it would be called by it's crews, proved to provide its operators with a sturdy and powerful attack platform capable of undertaking a variety of specialized roles - ground attack, light bombing, strafing, skip bombing and even torpedo bombing, as needed. Its agility, speed and resilience were a headache to Luftwaffe pilots and anti-aircraft gunners in the Heer, who called it "Der Zementbomber"[7], "Der Schnelle Teufel" and "Der Fliegende Panzer"[8]. Comintern aviators, however, were full of praise for the aircraft, with some VVS pilots calling it "летающий танк" (letayushchiy tank, meaning "flying tank") , a name shared by the other workhorse of the VVS' Shturmovik fleet, the Ilyushin Il-2, and the Cold War-era Mil Mi-24 "Krokodil" assault gunship.
Against the Japanese, it was a different story altogether. The A-14 initially faced severe difficulties while engaging in combat in the Pacific Theater due to the exceptionally agile Japanese fighters being able to stay neck to neck with them, in spite of increasing speed. The situation was so bad that A-14s only flew under heavy fighter escort for a while in the Pacific. But when they managed to strike a target, the results were devastating, as the survivors from several Japanese troop transport ships, merchant ships, destroyers and light cruisers would attest.
A-14 "Shillelagh" (Lo-7/Yer-3)
Role : Light bomber, ground attack aircraft
National origin : UASR
Designer : EDB-18 "Skunk Works"
First flight : 16 May 1938
Introduced : 1940
Primary users : UASR, USSR
Produced : 1939 - July 1944
Number built : 18,529
AFS Reporting Name : Beast
A-14A and A-14C
Specifications:
Crew : 4 (Pilot, navigator, bombardier and gunner)
Length : 14.27 m (A-14A), 14.63 m (A-14C)
Wingspan : 18.69 m
Height : 5.36 m (A-14A), 5.51 m (A-14C)
Wing area : 43.11 m²
Empty weight : 6,879 kg (A-14A), 6,730 kg (A-14C)
Maximum takeoff weight : 9,394 kg (A-14A), 10,800 kg (A-14C)
Powerplant : 2 × Parsippany R-2600-11 Twin Cyclone supercharged radial engines, 1,200 kW each.
Performance:
- A-14A :
- Maximum speed : 558 km/h at 3,780 m
- Cruise speed : 475 km/h at 3,500 m
- Range : 1,609 km with 750 kg bombs
- Service ceiling : 8,600 m
- A-14C :
- Maximum speed : 563 km/h at 3,780 m
- Cruise speed : 479 km/h at 3,500 m
- Range : 1,330 km with 500 kg bombs
- Service ceiling : 8,700 m
Guns:
- A-14A :
- 4 x 7.62mm forward-firing MG-7-Br1 machine guns in fuselage blisters, 2 x 7.62mm machine guns in the dorsal position, 1 x 7.62mm machine gun in the ventral position and the 2 x 7.62mm rear-firing machine guns in fixed engine nacelle positions.
- A-14C :
- 2 x 12.7mm MG-12-Br2 nose-mounted (lower fuselage) machine guns, 1 x 12.7mm machine gun in the dorsal position, 1x 7.62mm MG-7-Br1 machine gun in the ventral position and the two engine nacelle-mounted rear-firing 7.62mm machine guns.
- A-14A : 750 kg of bombs
- A-14C : 1000 kg of bombs
Specifications:
Crew : 4 (Pilot, navigator, bombardier and gunner)
Length : 14.19 m
Wingspan : 18.69 m
Height : 5.36 m
Wing area : 43.11 m²
Empty weight : 7,087 kg
Maximum takeoff weight : 11,113 kg
Powerplant : 2 x Parsippany R-2600-23 Twin Cyclone supercharged radial engines, 1,300 kW each
Performance:
Maximum speed : 550 km/h at 3,960 m
Cruise speed : 450 km/h at 3,700 m
Range : 1,200 km with 450 kg of bombs
Service ceiling : 7,720 m
Armament:
Guns : 4 x 7.62mm lower-fuselage nose mounted MG-7-Br1 machine guns. 2 x 7.62mm machine guns in the dorsal aft gun position along with a 7.62mm machine gun in a flexible ventral tunnel mount.
Bombs : 1,000 kg bombs
Rockets : 4 × 130 mm triple tube rocket launchers with T64 HVAR rockets.
A-14F
Specifications:
Crew : 3 (Pilot, navigator and gunner)
Length : 14.63 m
Wingspan : 18.68 m
Height : 5.52 m
Wing area : 43.11 m²
Empty weight : 7,272 kg
Maximum takeoff weight : 12,338 kg
Powerplant : 2 × Parsippany R-2600-23 Twin Cyclone supercharged radial engines, 1,350 kW each.
Performance:
Maximum speed : 527 km/h at 4,400 m
Cruise speed : 450 km/h at 4,300 m
Range : 1,530 km
Service ceiling : 7,220 m
Armament:
Guns : 4 fixed forward firing 20 mm MG-20-A1 autocannons in the nose (Initial production block) / 4 fixed forward firing nose mounted 20 mm MG-20-A4 revolver cannons (Later production blocks), 2 × 12.7 mm MG-12-Br2 machine guns in dorsal turret, 1 flexible 12.7 mm machine gun, mounted behind bomb bay.
Bombs : 2,000 kg bombs
Rockets : 4 × 130 mm triple tube rocket launchers with T64 HVAR rockets.
Torpedoes : 1 × 1000 kg Mark 13 aerial torpedo.
Comintern variants:
XA-14 : Initial test prototype. Powered by two 890 kW East Hartford R-1830-90C Twin Wasp 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines and capable of carrying 1000 kg of bombs. Crashed while attempting to demonstrate single engine performance.
YA-14 : Revised test prototype, powered by two 890 kW East Hartford R-1830-90C Twin Wasp 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines and capable of carrying 750 kg of bombs.
A-14 : The first aircraft of the series to be produced for high-altitude daylight bombing. Powered by two Parsippany R-2600-7 turbosupercharged radial engines. Armed with 7 to 9 MG-7-Br1 machine guns and capable of carrying 750 kg of bombs.
A-14A : The first mass production variant, built for low-to-medium altitude operations. Powered by two Parsippany R-2600-11 supercharged radial engines. Armament and bombload similar to the A-14. 1,187 built.
A-14B : Soviet license produced version and the most produced variant. VVS name - Yermolayev Yer-3. Powered by 2 × Mikulin AM-43 supercharged radial engines, 1200 kW each. Armed with 3 × 23 mm VYa-23 cannons and 5 × 7.62 mm ShKAS machine guns or 3 × 12.7 mm DShK machine guns, 4 × triple tube rocket launchers with RS-132 rockets and 750 kg bombs. 7,230 built in the USSR.
A-14C : Improved version of the A-14A with reduced machine gun armament (3 MG-7-Br1 guns and 3 MG-12-Br2 guns compared to 9 MG-7-Br1 guns on the A-14A) and bomb load increased to 1,000 kg. 1,365 built.
A-14D : Improved version of the A-14C with 7 MG-7-Br1 machine guns, increased armor protection and 130 mm triple rocket launcher tubes installed. Powered by two Parsippany R-2600-23 supercharged radial engines. 1,794 built.
A-14E : Testbed for improved nose armament and powered turrets.
A-14F : The definitive production variant. Significant increase in firepower, with four nose mounted 20 mm MG-20-A1 cannons in the initial production block and three 12.7 mm MG-12-Br2 machine guns. Later production blocks were armed with MG-20-A4 revolver cannons. Bombload increased to 2,000 kg. Provision for carrying 130 mm T64 HVAR rockets or a 1,000 kg Mark 14 aerial torpedo. 2,759 built.
A-14G : Similar to A-14F with increased MTOW and upgraded engines (Parsippany R-2600-29 series radials). 1,136 built.
A-14H : "Lead Ship" aircraft model based on A-14F with glassed-in nose and bombardier position. 873 built.
A-14J : "Lead Ship" aircraft model with glassed-in nose and bombardier position based on A-14G models; improved powerplant, improved armament capabilities and updated onboard equipment. Represents final production variant. 862 built.
Lend Lease variants:
Havoc I : RAF designation for A-14D aircraft received from the UASR under Lend Lease. 827 built.
Havoc II : RAF designation for the A-14F. 492 built.
A Fighting Aircraft for the Proletariat - The F-34 Belladonna
This segment written by @Aelita
Surviving F-34C Belladonna on display at the National Museum of The Great Revolutionary War in Moscow.
In March 1937, the Stavka of the Air Forces issued a directive for the development of a prospective fighter capable of operations at all altitudes. Based on the observed successes of the Royal Air Force's new Supermarine Spitfire prototype, as well as intelligence gathered by the Main Reconnaissance Directorate (MRD) sources on the Air Ministry's Specification P.13/36 long-range bomber, it was clear that the first generation monoplane fighters, which had entered production immediately after the Civil War, were already greatly outclassed.
Project 3.114F was the most demanding specification yet issued by the WFRAAF: a single-engine high-altitude interceptor, with cannon armament capable of reliably engaging heavy bombers, a liquid-cooled "hyper-engine" currently being developed by the Allison collective coupled with a turbo-supercharger, a level airspeed in excess of 600 km/h at altitude, and could climb to 6,000 meters in less than six minutes.
The Bell Aircraft Design Bureau answered the proposal with its highly unorthodox Be-13 design, with rear mounted engine and tricycle landing gear. The unusual configuration was made possible by running the drive-shaft beneath the pilot's feet. It also allowed the well-streamlined nose to carry an impressive armament and ammunition load. Designated the XF-34, the prototype mounted a powerful MG-20-A4 revolver cannon firing through the propeller hub, as well as two of the reliable and battle tested 12.7mm M2 machine guns synchronized to fire through the propeller arc. Both were accurate and flat-shooting, enabling a skilled pilot to hit hard even at longer ranges. In terms of stopping power, it easily outclassed its competitors, the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire, which currently mounted eight .303 machine guns.
When mated with the turbo-supercharger, the XF-34 prototypes were able to climb to 6,000 meters in seven minutes, and later developments of the engine were expected to enable it to make the required time to altitude marks. The prototype was impressive, but faced a number of teething issues, especially related to mechanical reliability, and was further hampered by ongoing development problems with the Allison engines, which were operating below the intended specifications while reliability issues were being worked out on the cutting edge.
Service-test versions, the YF-34A and B, introduced new innovations that would become standard on successful fighters in the war, such as direct-fuel injection, bubble-canopies, and automatic engine control systems. The airframe was slightly increased in dimensions, allowing a much more efficient and aerodynamic turbocharger configuration to be achieved. A rear armor plate was added, serving to protect both the pilot and the engine from rear attack, though not from higher deflection angle attacks.
The F-34 developed into an increasingly specialized platform based on the experience fighting the Luftwaffe in the Soviet Union. While initially envisioned as a high altitude fighter-interceptor, beginning with the E variant the boost control of the turbocharger was configured to improve peak engine power rather than maintaining performance at altitudes above 5000 meters, with high-altitude work being taken up by the F-35 and F-41 platforms.
The airframe configuration and low fuel load of the "Belladonna", as air crews came to call it, was better suited to the coverage of ground forces role with Frontal Aviation. These operations prioritized very rapid climbs to medium altitudes, seldom higher than 5000 metres, to both escort friendly tactical bombers as well as attack enemy tactical aviation. The Belladonna's excellent roll-rate and energy retention, combined with formidable turn performance, made the plane deadly in the constant clash with German fighters demanded by this role. Attacks on enemy ground forces themselves were a low priority, usually limited to the strafing of soft targets. The Belladonna could carry a 250 kg bomb (1 in early models, up to 3 in the K model and later), but this capability was seldom used, with other fighters proving to be better suited to the fighter-bomber role.
Some issues with the basic model proved more difficult to resolve. The plane's balance with the mid-mounted engine created an instability issue that could only be mitigated with fuel-tank configuration. The plane had a tendency to flat-spin in certain stall conditions, and this was fiendishly difficult to recover or bail out from, contributing to the WFRAAF's early investigations into the ejection seat concept. As dangerous as the Belladonna could be to careless pilots, its temperamental character was little comfort to Luftwaffe aviators, who called it Spitzer for its pointed bullet shape.
Unlike most other American fighter designs of this era, the F-34 eschewed wing mounts for its armament in favor of central mounting. The main armament on all variants would fire through the propeller hub, supplemented by nose or wing-root mounted electrically synchronized machine guns. A few prototypes were made with underwing gondolas for additional machine guns, but were ultimately rejected in pilot testing for the adverse effect it had on the plane's roll rate.
The majority of Belladonnas would be armed with the MG-20-A4 revolver cannon, developed by the Garand bureau. An extension on the design principles of the ShKAS aircraft machine gun, the weapon used a five-chamber revolver to increase the reliable maximum of feeding and extraction by shortening the recoil stroke and chambering fresh cartridges in stages.
While early models suffered from reliability problems, improved quality control reduced the mean-time between failures to less than more conventional aircraft cannon. While the resulting weapon was heavy, it was also able to fire at 1200 rounds per minute, nearly double the rate of other aircraft cannon. On the Belladonna, the central mount enable very accurate, concentrated fire to be delivered at all ranges, made only more devastating once American arsenals began to produce HEI shells based on the German Minengeschoß (mine shot), made with a thinner shell case of drawn steel to increase the high explosive payload.
Some subvariants were outfitted instead with an NS-37 cannon, designed by Soviet engineers A. E. Nudelman and A. Suranov to improve the plane's potency against German ground attack aircraft and medium bombers. The very high muzzle energy of this 37mm cannon resulted in structural damage on early examples, and the vibration induced by sustained fire could increase the wear on the propeller reduction gearing. This trade-off was judged to be worth it, as the 37mm HE shells were devastating to larger craft, and the plane still retained dogfighting capabilities that the higher altitude interceptors lacked.
The F-34 proved to be a well liked fighter by its pilots throughout the war, and was only superseded by the F-39 "Belladonna II" in the air superiority role in 1944, itself a slightly enlarged F-34 powered by a turbo-compound engine.
F-34 "Belladonna" (Be-13)
Role : Single engine fighter
National origin : UASR
Designer : Bell Aircraft Design Bureau
First flight : 6 May 1938
Introduced : 1940
Primary users : UASR, Soviet Union
Produced : 1939-May 1944
Number built : 24,154
AFS Reporting Name : Fig
Specifications (F-34C, 1940)
Crew: One
Length: 9.4 m
Wingspan: 10.4 m
Height: 3.8 m
Empty weight: 2,425 kg
Loaded weight: 3,347 kg
Max takeoff weight: 3,900 kg
Powerplant: 1× Allison V-1710-60 liquid-cooled vee, 1,088 kW
Never exceed speed: 845 km/h
Max level speed: 680 km/h at 8,800 m
Combat radius: 840 km (internal fuel)
Service ceiling: 13,100 m
Rate of climb: 19.1 m/s
Power/mass: 325 W/kg
Armament: 1 x MG-20-A4 20x102mm cannon w/ 180 rounds in propeller hub, 2 x M2 12.7x99mm machine guns w/ 220 rounds per gun in nose
Variants:
XF-34: Two prototypes. Powered by Allison V-1710-17 (900 kW). Later fitted with turbo-supercharger and four-bladed propeller. Provision for two 12.7mm MGs and one 20mm cannon.
YF-34A: Service test version. Outfitted with two 12.7mm M2s and one MG-20-B2
YF-34B: Final service test. Improved streamlining w/ revised canopy shape, cooling and carburetor air intakes. Trialed 37mm autocannon for bomber intercept role.
F-34C: Production variant. Uprated V-1710-60 (1,088 kW) w/ fuel injection. Engine/Pilot armor plus self-sealing fuel tanks added. Electric synchronization system implemented.
- F-34C-1: Fighter-interceptor. 1 x MG-20-A4 2 w/180 rounds, 2 x M2. 800 built.
- F-34C-2: Provisions for drop tanks added, improved armor for oil cooler. 1621 built.
- RF-34C: Photo-recon version. Cameras added to rear fuselage.
- TF-34C: Two seat trainer version.
F-34D: Bomber-interceptor variant. Slight redesign wing and tail, improved V-1710-70 (1190 kW)
- F-34D-1: 1 x NS-37 autocannon, 2 x M2. 300 built, retained in continent for bomber defense.
- F-34D-3: Deleted M2 machine guns, added 2 x MG-20-ShV1 cannons with 200 rpg to wing roots. 400 built. Deployed as high altitude bomber defense in Soviet Union.
- F-34D-4: D-1 w/ 37mm swapped out for MG-20-A4, stopgap while new models began production. 356 built.
F-34E: Gyro reflector gunsight. Improved airframe and bubble canopy. Adjusted center of gravity. V-1710-75 w/ 1190 kW dry (1450 kW w/ water-injection). First flight April 1941.
- F-34E-1: 1 x MG-20-A4 w/ disintegrating belt feed system increasing ammo capacity to 300 rounds. 2 x MG-12-B2 w/ 450 rpg in wing roots. 1720 built.
- F-34E-2 through 4: Bomber killers with different weapon configurations centered around NS-37 autocannon w/60 rounds. 200 built.
- F-34E-5: E-1 w/ 2 x MG-12-B3 in wing roots. 2180 built.
F-34F: Trial with new five bladed propeller and automatic boost control. 4 built.
F-34G: Testbed with twin contra-rotating propellers.
F-34J: Commonwealth export model. F-34E w/ 1 x Hispano Mk IV in prop hub, 2 x 13.9x99mmB HMG. 2800 built.
F-34K: V-1710-117 (1190 kW dry, 1650 kW with ADI), improved throttle/RPM control and automatic boost control.
- F-34K-1: 1 x MG-20-A4 in the prop hub, 2 x MG-12-Br3 in wing roots, new underwing pylons. 5123 built
- F-34K-2: Bomber hunter. 1 x NS-37 w/ 65 rounds, 2 x MG-20-A4 in wing roots. 185 built
F-34L: Soviet license built version. F-34K powertrain, VYA-23 cannon w/150 rounds in prop hub, 2 x ShVAK cannon in wing roots. 2240 built.
Above the Battlefield - The FA-35 Yeoman
An FA-35 about to take off from an airfield in the USSR during the Second Battle of Stalingrad.
In 1937, the WFRAAF had put out a set of requirements for an all-altitude interceptor that could respond to the RAFs P.13/36 bomber specifications and the observed performance of the Supermarine Spitfire, as it was clear that the extant monoplane fighters were sorely outclassed by the RAF.
The requirements for Project 3.114F called for a single-engine all altitude fighter plane that could climb 6,000 meters in under six minutes and be capable of flying at 600 km/h at altitude.
Bell, Skunk Works, and the Farmingdale-based design bureau named "Republic Aviation" would submit designs for a high altitude interceptor.
Skunk Works would submit the Lo-22, a two engine twin boom design with a central nacelle for the cockpit, the WFRAAF would assign this the designation F-36. Bell's Be-13 submission would become the F-34 Belladonna, while Republic would submit the Re-5.
Bell's aircraft proved itself to work well at all altitudes, while the Re-5 was only effective at high altitudes. The testing was conclusive and the Be-13 was the one that would be built.
This changed in 1939, when a source for the MRD had slipped them information that the German Reichsluftfahrtministerium had put out a set of requirements to their aircraft industry for a project called Amerikabomber, which was to be a heavy bomber capable of reaching Metropolis and back from airfields on the Azores Islands.
This information, while extremely alarming, was also seen as an inevitability. And when members of the MRD met with the Stavka for the WFRAAF, as well as aeronautical engineers from the Red Star and Skunk Works EDBs, it was soon realized that the aerodynamic constraints that had shaped the XB-15 and the Unthinkable Bomber would also force Germany's aircraft designers into a similar design envelope.
The need for a long combat range would force a bomber to fly at high altitudes in order to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency. Likewise, the planes were likely to be lightly armed with only a rear turret due to the drag induced by gun barrels sticking out all over the fuselage. The aircraft would also need to be pressurized in order to stay at high altitudes for long periods of time. With turbocharged or supercharged engines, and with very low drag from the high altitudes, the plane would need to fly faster than most conventional bombers in order to generate enough lift to stay in the air. This in turn would mean an aircraft that is difficult to maneuver at low altitudes but could outlast any fighter at high altitudes, especially when the small wings of any fighter that tried to intercept it would cause them to be sluggish and barely maneuverable at high altitudes.
To combat this threat and the threat of a planned "Ural Bomber," a similar planned project for a strategic bomber meant to be capable of striking beyond the Ural Mountains at factories in Yekaterinberg, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, and Novosibirsk, in 1940, the WFRAAF Stavka put out a call to the Project 3.114F designers for a revised version of their existing designs for a high altitude short range interceptor.
Under the new requirements for Project 3.114F-2, the new aircraft were required to have:
- Maximum Speed : 650 km/h
- Service Ceiling : 14,000 m
- Range : 1500 km
- Armaments : 8 x 12.7mm machine guns
The other advantage the Re-4 held was that the comparatively simple air-cooled radial engine would allow the plane to shrug off more damage than the more complex liquid-cooled inline engines of its contemporaries in the F-34 and F-37.
By 1941, the Re-4, now christened the F-35 Yeoman, would begin to arrive at the front in numbers for the WFRAAF to field against incoming Luftwaffe bombers.
The initial results of the F-35 in combat showed it to be an excellent high altitude fighter, where the Luftwaffe's Bf-109s and Fw-190s would struggle in the thin air, the F-35's larger wings gave it an excellent roll rate, and pilots soon discovered that dive and zoom climbs from high altitude would allow the F-35 to fly circles around their enemies.
Where the initial batch on F-35s fell short on though was the climb performance at low and medium altitudes. Down in the thicker air, the F-35 was vulnerable to attack, and the Axis fighter pilots soon began using carrion tactics to force Yeoman pilots down from the high altitudes they ruled into an awaiting tempest below.
Republic Aviation responded to this with the F-35B8, which added a paddle-bladed propeller to give it better climb performance at low and medium altitudes.
The F-35B's introduction to the battlefield was a welcome relief to the American and Soviet pilots, who took to the improved climb and turning performance with enthusiasm, surprising the Stahlpakt pilots they had been fighting with a fighter that was suddenly capable of faster climbs and tighter turns at low and medium altitudes.
But where the F-35 soon began to shine was in the role of ground attacks and dive bombing. Republic Aviation had, almost entirely by accident, created one of the best and fastest dive bombing aircraft the Great Revolutionary War had seen. With the improved propellers, the F-35 was capable of reaching speeds of 890 km/h during dives, skirting the edge of the sound barrier, with some pilots claiming to have broken the sound barrier on dives.
In 1942, the WFRAAF responded to this unexpected new use and redesignated the F-35C as FA-35C, with the main design changes being additional hardpoints to carry up to 1000 kg of bombs and ten 130mm HVAR rockets.
F-35 "Yeoman" (Re-5)
Role : Single engine fighter/ground attack aircraft
National origin : UASR
Designer : Republic Aviation Design Bureau
First flight : 6 April 1936
Introduced : 1939
Primary users : UASR, Soviet Union
Produced : 1941-1945
Number built : 18,636
AFS Reporting Name : Flick
Specifications
Crew : 1
Length : 11.02 m
Wingspan : 12.43 m
Height : 4.47 m
Empty weight : 4,536 kg
Max takeoff weight : 7,938 kg
Powerplant : 1 × East Hartford R-2800-59 18-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine, 1,500 kW
Propellers : 4-bladed Parsippany C542S constant-speed propeller, 3.96 m diameter
Performance
Maximum speed : 686 km/h at 9,100 m
Range : 1,660 km
Service ceiling : 13,000 m
Armament
8 x 12.7 mm MG-12-Br2 machine guns (3400 rounds)
Single hardpoint capable of carrying up to 1,000 kg of bombs
10 x 130 mm HVAR unguided rockets
Variants:
XF-35 : Initial prototype version built for Project 3.114F. Featured a liquid cooled Inline engine, 2x nose-mounted MG-12-Br2 Machine Guns
YF-35 : Production prototype version, built in 1940 in response to the Project 3.114F-2 Specifications. Replaced the inline engine with a 1462 kW Parsippany R-2800 Double Wasp Radial Engine and the wing was redesigned to an elliptical design. Armament increased to 8 MG-12-Br2 machine guns.
F-35A : Production version of the YF-35. Engine power was increased to 1492 kW, the hinged cockpit was changed to a sliding design, control surfaces were replaced with all-metal ones, and additional cowl flaps.
F-35B : Last of the razorback variants. Featured a paddle-bladed propeller for better climb performance, a revised antenna, new radios, extra cockpit armor, and changes to the turbosupercharger exhaust system.
F-35C : First F-35 to use a bubble canopy for greater pilot visibility. R-2800-57 engine rated at 2060 kW WEP.
Re-7/F-35M: Further development to utilize the larger R-4360 "Wasp Major" radial, nominatively camouflaged as an F-35 variant to conceal intelligence penetration of the German jet program. Armed with 4 x MG-20-A4 cannons.
A Long Range Protector - The F-41 Guardian
F-41A in VVS service, c. 1941.
At the beginning of the Great Revolutionary War, the WFRAAF's strategy for bombing was to depend upon heavily armed "porcupine" bombers that were capable of defending themselves. Under this strategy, the need for a fighter escort was considered unnecessary compared to heavily armed bombers. By the middle of 1940, however, the need for a long range high altitude fighter had quickly become apparent.
Due to the demand for radial engines from the B-19, C-39, A-14 — and later on the B-23 projects though, it was made a requirement that the new aircraft use a liquid-cooled inline engine.
With the wartime production lines running in full, the YF-41's design team took the opportunity to use some newer scientific methods to ease production. Lead designer Edgar Schmued would take the opportunity to work with the People's Scientific Advisory Committee on Aeronautics to design the aircraft around the use of laminar flow airfoils, which would reduce drag at high speeds.
Initial test flights with the Allison V-1710 engine's single-stage supercharger proved disappointing and the plane was found to struggle at high altitudes.
The decision was made then to reengine the aircraft with a turbosupercharger that would give it the necessary high altitude performance.
The F-41 differed from the Belladonna in that it was a taildragger that placed the engine in front of the pilot, making for a more "traditional" fighter plane design than the 'donna.
But once the turbosupercharger was added to it, the YF-41 became a powerhouse at high altitudes, capable of maneuvering at all altitudes and with the addition of drop tanks, fully capable of escorting B-19 and B-23 bombers to their targets and back.
Further improvements would be made in 1942 with the B and C models adding a bubble canopy for increased pilot visibility in addition to engine upgrades to gain more power.
By the war's end, the F-41 Guardian would be one of the most produced fighter aircraft in the UASR.
F-41 "Guardian" (Na-73x)
Role : Single engine escort fighter
National origin : UASR
Designer : Red Star Aviation Design Bureau
First flight : 6 February 1941
Introduced : 1941
Primary users : UASR, Soviet Union
Produced : 1941-1946
Number built : 21,505
AFS Reporting Name : Foil
Specifications
Crew : 1
Length : 9.83 m
Wingspan : 11 m
Height : 4.077 m tail wheel on ground, vertical propeller blade
Wing area : 21.8 m2
Empty weight : 3,463 kg
Gross weight : 4,173 kg
Max takeoff weight : 5,488 kg
Fuel capacity : 1,020 l
Powerplant : 1 × Allison V-1710 V-12 liquid-cooled turbo-supercharged piston engine, 1,200 kW
Propellers : 4-bladed constant-speed, variable-pitch, 3.40 m diameter
Performance
Maximum speed : 710 km/h
Cruise speed : 583 km/h
Stall speed : 160 km/h
Range : 2,660 km with external tanks
Service ceiling : 12,800 m
Rate of climb : 16 m/s
Lift-to-drag : 14.6
Wing loading : 1.86 kPa
Power/mass : 300 W/kg
Recommended Mach limit : 0.8
Armament
Guns : 6 × 12.7mm MG-12-Br2 machine guns with 1,840 total rounds (380 rounds for each on the inboard pair and 270 rounds for each of the outer two pair)
Rockets : 6 or 10 × 130 mm T64 HVAR unguided rockets
Bombs : 1 × 50 kg or 100 kg bomb or 250 kg bomb on hardpoint under each wing
Variants :
XF-41 : Initial test version. Featured a liquid cooled Allison V-1710 engine with a single stage supercharger. 1 built
YF-41 : Production prototype version, with the V-1710 re-engined with a turbosupercharger. 6 built.
F-41A : Initial mass production variant. Armed with six 12.7mm MG-12-Br2 machine guns. 2,463 built.
F-41B : Improved version of the F-41A, with a bubble canopy for improved pilot vision. 9,654 built.
F-41C : Weight-reduced version of the B model. 6,148 built.
F-41D : Licensed version of the F-41 built by Soviet Aviation Factory 18 in Voronezh. Modifications include the use of an Mikulin AM-38F liquid-cooled V12 engine, replacements of the MG-12-Br2 machine guns with 12.7×108mm Berezin UBT machine guns. 2,187 built
RF-41 : Photo-reconnaissance version of the F-41B. 100 built.
TF-41B : Two seat trainer version of the F-41B. 33 built.
Lend Lease Variants:
Mustang I : Lend-lease version of the F-41B. 600 built.
Mustang II : Lend-lease version of the F-41C. 313 built.
[7] and [8] IOTL these names were given to the Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik.
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Zolarian01
Deputy Premier, UISR
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A little bit of info about the new aircraft post :
A-14 (ITTL) = A-20 (IOTL)
F-34 (ITTL) = P-39 (IOTL)
FA-35 (ITTL) = P-47 (IOTL)
F-41 (ITTL) = P-51 (IOTL)
A-14 (ITTL) = A-20 (IOTL)
F-34 (ITTL) = P-39 (IOTL)
FA-35 (ITTL) = P-47 (IOTL)
F-41 (ITTL) = P-51 (IOTL)
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- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
The F-34 is a P-39/P-63 actually
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Is the FA-35 carrier-launchable? Because it seems to me like a capable fighter with 1 ton of bombload in a dive-bombing attack would be very handy on carriers. being able to replace your dive-bombers with aircraft that can also act as fighters would be obviously beneficial for the ability of that carrier to defend itself, as well as allowing smaller escort groups for strikes against enemy carriers.
- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
Carrier aircraft in this era really need to be designed clean-sheet. The punishing nature of carrier landings necessitate a very sturdy construction, and space requirements require folding wings and the additional weight that brings.
The F6F Hellcat had the same Double Wasp radial engine as the P-47 historically, with a 2-stage supercharger with similar power output. But it was 40 mph slower, climbed slightly slower, and had a lower max-take off weight. This was the first time any carrier fighter was anywhere close to its land counterparts in performance.
The Navy's next carrier fighter, the F8F, was basically the result of engineering and aerodynamic advancement allowing them to fit the same engine in a smaller, lighter airframe.
Similarly, naval aviation in Reds! will follow its own parallel course
The Haymarket Revolutionary History Museum
Miss XTC
2 kawaii 2 live 2 sugoi 2 die
- Location
- HelLA.
- Pronouns
- She/They
The Haymarket Revolutionary History Museum and The "Haymarket Museum System"
(Special thanks to @Miss Teri for co-writing)
The first proposal for a grand "Museum of the Revolution" came in 1935, as part of the Reconstruction proposals for new buildings honoring the Revolution. The proposal was well-received, but it was decided to fold such an idea into other proposals, including the "Temple of the Revolution" and the "Workers' Museum" (formerly the "National Museum", but better known in either case as "The Smithsonian")
A proper dedicated museum would be proposed intermittently through the First Cultural Revolution and the World Revolutionary War, but didn't garner much support until 1956, as the Cold War affirmed a new sense of solidarity and a desire to see the Revolution remembered. The main trouble was where to build it. Several proposals suggested re-using an already existing building, such as the former New York Stock Exchange (which would later become the Workers' Museum of Modern Art), the former Pullman factory in Chicago, the Edison Institute in Dearborn, the River Rogue Plant, and the former Phoenix Park Hotel in DeLeon-Debs (where Norman Thomas was shot in 1933). A Revolutionary History Museum Exploratory Committee was set up by Secretary General Sam DeWitt to explore where and how to make such a museum.
The eventual proposal came from Lisa Schneider, the then eleven year old daughter of Ezra Schneider*, a Chicago museum workers union leader and committee member. According to the elder Schneider, "My Lisa came up to me and said 'Dad, we were talking about the Haymarket uprising in class today, and I thought it would be a great idea if that museum you were working on would be built in Haymarket Square to commemorate the first May Day.' So, I called Jim Richards (the head of the exploratory committee), said 'My daughter says we should put the museum in Haymarket Square to honor the first May Day' and Jim said 'God, that's genius! Why didn't any of us think of that!'"
While Haymarket Square became a center of activity following the Revolution and the founding of the Chicagoland Commune (the policemen statue at its center commemorating the dead policemen in the incident was toppled in an iconic image from the First Cultural Revolution), it had actually been forgotten and subdued by the 1950's. There were proposals to create a memorial to the activists. The Haymarket Martyrs Monument was moved to replace the policemen statue, thanks to the encouragement of Lucy Parsons (the widow of Albert Parsons, one of the defendants). Lisa herself stated in her memoirs that years later, as a history undergrad, she had found a proposal in 1944 to build a small museum dedicated to the Haymarket affair, mainly rejected due to mobilization. Lisa speculated her statement might've reminded her father of this proposal. There was debate as to whether to place the museum in Haymarket or Terra Haute, Indiana (birthplace of Eugene Debs), but Haymarket won out.
Work began in 1957, with Brazilian exile Oscar Niemeyer becoming lead architect. Niemeyer was inspired by Soviet and American modernist and constructivist architecture, including Le Corbusier's design for the Congress of Soviets and the Palace of Councils. Helping was the Tomorrowland Commission (a state corporation headed by Walt Disney focused on "innovation and technology", which had recently completed the amusement park Tomorrowland in Anaheim, California) The Haymarket Museum was completed and opened to the public in 1962, with the Martyr's Monument standing at its steps and dignitaries like Premier Nixon, Paul Robeson and descendants of the some of the defendants.
The original collection stretched as far back as the late 18th and early 19th century, with exhibits on Shaker culture, the Oneida community, and the "utopian socialist" communities, like New Harmony in Indiana or Charles Fourier's North American Phalanx. From there, the birth of the modern socialist movement is examined, with rare first editions of books by Proudhon and Marx, murals depicting the Haymarket affair, the St. Louis general strike, and the Bienno Rosso. Afterwards, visitors are thrust into World War I, while George Patton, played by an `Audio-Animatronic '' provided by the Tomorrowland Commission, reads excerpts from his war diaries and Eugene Debs reads out his anti-war speeches. The section on "The Birth of American Labor Power'' concludes with the early years of the Soviet Union, the roaring 20's, the Bienno Rosso, and the growing dissatisfaction with the status quo by the American proletariat, and finally ends with the election of Norman Thomas.
This leads to "The Red Dawn", the middle section of the museum's original exhibits. Featuring rare photographs of the MacArthur Putsch, the Second American Civil War, and the Cultural Revolution, this section was controversial upon opening for its uncensored portrayal of the Civil War and Cultural Revolution, often showing graphic violence and sexuality. Some called for the section to be eliminated, but historians have since attested to its value. The ending section, "The Anti-Fascist Crusade", thrust visitors into World War II, with rare examples of weapons and vehicles of the time period, before concluding with the famous "Defend the Future!" mural.
While the Museum has been consistently popular with both tourists and native Chicagoans, it has not been without controversy. The biggest was in 1969, when various local museum workers in Chicago went on strike, protesting mismanagement by bureaucrats who didn't have proper experience, poor conditions for collections and especially the lack of a proper, all-encompassing union for workers across all city museums, with only the Haymarket workers having more representation in government due to their proper union.
Haymarket workers joined the strikers, and after negotiations moderated by Schneider, the workers combined the museums under the Haymarket banner, forming the "Chicagoland-Haymarket Museum System".
Made up of different pre-existing museums with different topics, the Haymarket Museum System is regarded as something of a "Smithsonian of the Midwest", with research being conducted in conjunction with "Chicagoland State University" (a merger of the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Loyola, DePaul, etc.)
The museums that make up the Haymarket system include:
Even after the strike, with criticism from various feminist, anti-racist, and queer groups over the lack of proper acknowledgement over their roles, the Museum took sweeping changes to its content through the 70's and 80's. While the basic structure of the permanent exhibits would remain the same (save the occasional addition), there would be a more in-depth approach to African, Asian, Latine, female, and USAT+ history in Red America. The Museum's many rotating and temporary exhibits, usually in conjunction with other institutions from around the world came to include "Los Rojitos: How Socialism Developed in Latin America", "The Red Sun: Japan after World War II", and "Umshini Wam: The Struggle Against Apartheid and the Rhodesian conflict".
Rennie Davis, a journalist for The New Left, wryly commented years later: "Some of the new pieces, like the ones on Chinese volunteers during the Revolution [Qilai! Qilai!] and Japanese-American soldiers in World War II [Heroism against Hate], were not part of our complaints, but the Haymarket Museum curators saw fit to include them anyways...you can say whatever you want about them, but I'll be damned if they aren't thorough."
Similarly, the 90's saw new sections dedicated to the early Cold War, with dedicated sections to the Horn War, the Space Race (the Revolutionary Natural History and the Museum of Science and Industry would host those collections), and the Second Cultural Revolution. By 2017, new sections focused on the transition to lower-stage communism, the "Long 80's", and the growing "Digital Revolution", as well as ongoing struggles around the world.
The Haymarket Revolutionary History Museum and the Chicagoland-Haymarket System are a staple of the Chicagoland Commune, a testament to efficient anarchist management, and regarded as some of the finest research institutions in the world.
(Special thanks to @Miss Teri for co-writing)
The first proposal for a grand "Museum of the Revolution" came in 1935, as part of the Reconstruction proposals for new buildings honoring the Revolution. The proposal was well-received, but it was decided to fold such an idea into other proposals, including the "Temple of the Revolution" and the "Workers' Museum" (formerly the "National Museum", but better known in either case as "The Smithsonian")
A proper dedicated museum would be proposed intermittently through the First Cultural Revolution and the World Revolutionary War, but didn't garner much support until 1956, as the Cold War affirmed a new sense of solidarity and a desire to see the Revolution remembered. The main trouble was where to build it. Several proposals suggested re-using an already existing building, such as the former New York Stock Exchange (which would later become the Workers' Museum of Modern Art), the former Pullman factory in Chicago, the Edison Institute in Dearborn, the River Rogue Plant, and the former Phoenix Park Hotel in DeLeon-Debs (where Norman Thomas was shot in 1933). A Revolutionary History Museum Exploratory Committee was set up by Secretary General Sam DeWitt to explore where and how to make such a museum.
The eventual proposal came from Lisa Schneider, the then eleven year old daughter of Ezra Schneider*, a Chicago museum workers union leader and committee member. According to the elder Schneider, "My Lisa came up to me and said 'Dad, we were talking about the Haymarket uprising in class today, and I thought it would be a great idea if that museum you were working on would be built in Haymarket Square to commemorate the first May Day.' So, I called Jim Richards (the head of the exploratory committee), said 'My daughter says we should put the museum in Haymarket Square to honor the first May Day' and Jim said 'God, that's genius! Why didn't any of us think of that!'"
While Haymarket Square became a center of activity following the Revolution and the founding of the Chicagoland Commune (the policemen statue at its center commemorating the dead policemen in the incident was toppled in an iconic image from the First Cultural Revolution), it had actually been forgotten and subdued by the 1950's. There were proposals to create a memorial to the activists. The Haymarket Martyrs Monument was moved to replace the policemen statue, thanks to the encouragement of Lucy Parsons (the widow of Albert Parsons, one of the defendants). Lisa herself stated in her memoirs that years later, as a history undergrad, she had found a proposal in 1944 to build a small museum dedicated to the Haymarket affair, mainly rejected due to mobilization. Lisa speculated her statement might've reminded her father of this proposal. There was debate as to whether to place the museum in Haymarket or Terra Haute, Indiana (birthplace of Eugene Debs), but Haymarket won out.
Work began in 1957, with Brazilian exile Oscar Niemeyer becoming lead architect. Niemeyer was inspired by Soviet and American modernist and constructivist architecture, including Le Corbusier's design for the Congress of Soviets and the Palace of Councils. Helping was the Tomorrowland Commission (a state corporation headed by Walt Disney focused on "innovation and technology", which had recently completed the amusement park Tomorrowland in Anaheim, California) The Haymarket Museum was completed and opened to the public in 1962, with the Martyr's Monument standing at its steps and dignitaries like Premier Nixon, Paul Robeson and descendants of the some of the defendants.
The original collection stretched as far back as the late 18th and early 19th century, with exhibits on Shaker culture, the Oneida community, and the "utopian socialist" communities, like New Harmony in Indiana or Charles Fourier's North American Phalanx. From there, the birth of the modern socialist movement is examined, with rare first editions of books by Proudhon and Marx, murals depicting the Haymarket affair, the St. Louis general strike, and the Bienno Rosso. Afterwards, visitors are thrust into World War I, while George Patton, played by an `Audio-Animatronic '' provided by the Tomorrowland Commission, reads excerpts from his war diaries and Eugene Debs reads out his anti-war speeches. The section on "The Birth of American Labor Power'' concludes with the early years of the Soviet Union, the roaring 20's, the Bienno Rosso, and the growing dissatisfaction with the status quo by the American proletariat, and finally ends with the election of Norman Thomas.
This leads to "The Red Dawn", the middle section of the museum's original exhibits. Featuring rare photographs of the MacArthur Putsch, the Second American Civil War, and the Cultural Revolution, this section was controversial upon opening for its uncensored portrayal of the Civil War and Cultural Revolution, often showing graphic violence and sexuality. Some called for the section to be eliminated, but historians have since attested to its value. The ending section, "The Anti-Fascist Crusade", thrust visitors into World War II, with rare examples of weapons and vehicles of the time period, before concluding with the famous "Defend the Future!" mural.
While the Museum has been consistently popular with both tourists and native Chicagoans, it has not been without controversy. The biggest was in 1969, when various local museum workers in Chicago went on strike, protesting mismanagement by bureaucrats who didn't have proper experience, poor conditions for collections and especially the lack of a proper, all-encompassing union for workers across all city museums, with only the Haymarket workers having more representation in government due to their proper union.
Haymarket workers joined the strikers, and after negotiations moderated by Schneider, the workers combined the museums under the Haymarket banner, forming the "Chicagoland-Haymarket Museum System".
Made up of different pre-existing museums with different topics, the Haymarket Museum System is regarded as something of a "Smithsonian of the Midwest", with research being conducted in conjunction with "Chicagoland State University" (a merger of the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Loyola, DePaul, etc.)
The museums that make up the Haymarket system include:
- The Revolutionary Art Institute- Formerly the Art Institute of Chicago, has a heavy focus on social realist, contemporary, and international art, as well as exhibitions focused on film, photography, comics, and design, as viewed through a socialist lens.
- The Revolutionary Natural History Museum- Formerly the Field Museum and Adler Planetarium, focused on "the natural world" and the effects of climate change, featuring many dioramas and fossils, as well as a "aerospace museum" with spacecraft from both the UASR and USSR on display next to the former Adler Planetarium
- The Museum of Science and Industry- Science museum with a particular focus on engineering. Has such items as the original command module for Luna 2, the WFRN Nuclear Submarine Joe Hill, and a replica of a 60's era Soviet factory
- The Lincoln Park History Museum- Formerly the Chicago History Museum, more focused on local Chicagoland history, as well as general anarchist history. Has the largest collection of original anarchist texts and artifacts in the world.
- The DuSable Museum of African History- Focused on African-American history, though largely focused on the Great Migration and the participation of Africans in the anarchist rebuilding of Chicago. Also has a large collection of African and African American art and a large collections of writing from a variety of black writers
- The Asian Museum- Formerly the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, focuses on Asian history and Asian artifacts, as well as a focus on notable Asian American communities and their history.
- The Revolutionary Uranian Museum- Done in collaboration with the Benjamin-Kinsey Institute, Museum focused on Uranian, Sapphic, Ambisexual and Transgender history, with a recreation of Magnus Hirschfield's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft and the famous Chicago O'Ryan bar (the center of a 1958 declaration that helped create the modern USAT+ movement)
- The Revolutionary Culture Museum- Newest addition (formed in 2005), focused on the culture of the United Republics from the Revolution onwards. Has a large collection of both First and Second Cultural Revolution artifacts and writings and one of the largest collections of popular culture in the United Republics.
- The Chicagoland Zoos- Formerly the Lincoln Park, Brookfield and Phillips Park Zoos, has a variety of animals from around the world. Notable for its efforts to save endangered species, especially in collaborating with wildlife organizations in the capitalist sphere.
- The Pullman Monument- Site of the former Pullman railroad car company town, now a monument to discuss its role in the early labor movement in the United States, with particular focus on the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the 1894 Pullman Strike. Also explores the harsh living conditions and oppression of the Pullman Company Town.
Even after the strike, with criticism from various feminist, anti-racist, and queer groups over the lack of proper acknowledgement over their roles, the Museum took sweeping changes to its content through the 70's and 80's. While the basic structure of the permanent exhibits would remain the same (save the occasional addition), there would be a more in-depth approach to African, Asian, Latine, female, and USAT+ history in Red America. The Museum's many rotating and temporary exhibits, usually in conjunction with other institutions from around the world came to include "Los Rojitos: How Socialism Developed in Latin America", "The Red Sun: Japan after World War II", and "Umshini Wam: The Struggle Against Apartheid and the Rhodesian conflict".
Rennie Davis, a journalist for The New Left, wryly commented years later: "Some of the new pieces, like the ones on Chinese volunteers during the Revolution [Qilai! Qilai!] and Japanese-American soldiers in World War II [Heroism against Hate], were not part of our complaints, but the Haymarket Museum curators saw fit to include them anyways...you can say whatever you want about them, but I'll be damned if they aren't thorough."
Similarly, the 90's saw new sections dedicated to the early Cold War, with dedicated sections to the Horn War, the Space Race (the Revolutionary Natural History and the Museum of Science and Industry would host those collections), and the Second Cultural Revolution. By 2017, new sections focused on the transition to lower-stage communism, the "Long 80's", and the growing "Digital Revolution", as well as ongoing struggles around the world.
The Haymarket Revolutionary History Museum and the Chicagoland-Haymarket System are a staple of the Chicagoland Commune, a testament to efficient anarchist management, and regarded as some of the finest research institutions in the world.
LuxemburgLover69
There are more things between Heaven and Earth...
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I love museums so this was nice to read. No mention of Night at the Museum movie though. Suppose it was butterflied away.
I'm excited when we get to the parts of the timeline where the Cold War kicks off. The culture and politics will be awesome to explore based on what we know so far. Anyway. This update was packed with some awesome stuff. Great work!
I'm excited when we get to the parts of the timeline where the Cold War kicks off. The culture and politics will be awesome to explore based on what we know so far. Anyway. This update was packed with some awesome stuff. Great work!
Miss XTC
2 kawaii 2 live 2 sugoi 2 die
- Location
- HelLA.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I love museums so this was nice to read. No mention of Night at the Museum movie though. Suppose it was butterflied away.
I'm excited when we get to the parts of the timeline where the Cold War kicks off. The culture and politics will be awesome to explore based on what we know so far. Anyway. This update was packed with some awesome stuff. Great work!
Nothing says there isn't a Night at the Museum movie ITTL...
DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Under communism society has evolved past the need for Ben stillerNo mention of Night at the Museum movie though. Suppose it was butterflied away.
Australasia ad
Asherterix
Out Exploring
- Location
- Approx. 15,396,300,000 miles away
- Pronouns
- He/They
What's the meaning of the flag?
Hawkatana
That jaywalking punk anarchist
- Location
- That place in the thing
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I wasn't the one who made it, but I can answer a bit of it.
It's based on the "Eureka flag", arguably the first ever Australian flag that was made during the Eureka Stockade: a miner's strike turned anti-British rebellion in the town of Eureka in the then-colony (now state) of Victoria. It's also used by the Australian far-left, far-right and even modern Australian republicans.
Here's my rough recreation of it.
It could also be based on the old ensign for New South Wales, which is also considered the flag of Australian Federation.
The sun likely comes from the Aboriginal flag.
And the black probably comes from a 2015 proposal for a redesign of the New Zealand flag
The stars being arranged the way they are on most of the flags is a reference to the Southern Cross constellation, which is only viewable in the southern hemisphere, most clearly in Australia & New Zealand.
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Asherterix
Out Exploring
- Location
- Approx. 15,396,300,000 miles away
- Pronouns
- He/They
Cool Aussi/Kiwi flag trivia!
Edit : Wait, if the Eureka flag is for republicans, then does Australasia not have the British monarch as head of state?
Edit : Wait, if the Eureka flag is for republicans, then does Australasia not have the British monarch as head of state?
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Hawkatana
That jaywalking punk anarchist
- Location
- That place in the thing
- Pronouns
- He/Him
No, they're still a monarchy, just one operating under the Statute of Westminster. Even though the Eureka Flag is a de facto republican flag, it's kinda one of the only real national flags Australia has outside of the colonial flags.
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Having just finished the first 'part' of the timeline, I thought I'd make a comment with some of my impressions so far.
First, as I noted in my piece on the matter, TTL is pretty much the platonic ideal of the 'Socialist America' premise. Given the extensive detail involved, and the relative orthodoxy of the DeLeonist Marxism on which the UASR is founded, it's hard to think of a more conventional road to a US-based communist revolution. Yet this does not make TTL even close to generic. Indeed, I have greatly enjoyed the narrative's deep attention to matters of social and organizational prefiguration. The slow buildup to the revolution, punctuated by various crisis moments like the Two Red Years, is simply splendid.
My few points of criticism pale in comparison. Mostly, I find the international context up to the revolution to be a bit too convergent, though I get why that's the case. I also think the actual revolution could use a bit more attention, at least in the way that its new institutions are founded (and the exact structure of the Reds' military structure, that's really unclear right now). Nevertheless, I'm curious to see where the TL goes from here, as I still have a lot of catching up to do!
First, as I noted in my piece on the matter, TTL is pretty much the platonic ideal of the 'Socialist America' premise. Given the extensive detail involved, and the relative orthodoxy of the DeLeonist Marxism on which the UASR is founded, it's hard to think of a more conventional road to a US-based communist revolution. Yet this does not make TTL even close to generic. Indeed, I have greatly enjoyed the narrative's deep attention to matters of social and organizational prefiguration. The slow buildup to the revolution, punctuated by various crisis moments like the Two Red Years, is simply splendid.
My few points of criticism pale in comparison. Mostly, I find the international context up to the revolution to be a bit too convergent, though I get why that's the case. I also think the actual revolution could use a bit more attention, at least in the way that its new institutions are founded (and the exact structure of the Reds' military structure, that's really unclear right now). Nevertheless, I'm curious to see where the TL goes from here, as I still have a lot of catching up to do!
I second that question. In the old AH.com Reds! fanfiction thread, it was all over the place, from about as common as it is between OTLs developed countries to people getting convicted for high treason in absentia because they left the UASR on their own, something that not even OTL USSR was really doing after Stalin's death. Some authoritative info from the Troika would be nice.
Yu-Gi-Oh
Hawkatana
That jaywalking punk anarchist
- Location
- That place in the thing
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A brief summary of the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise, the Manga, Anime and Tabletop RPG
Cover of the original Tankoban release in 1994
- The original Yu-Gi-Oh! Manga published in Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine #1318 on September 12th, 1994 by Kazuki Takahashi in Nippon.
- The manga stars a young man named Yugi Muto and his friends Katsuya Jonouchi, Hiroto Honda and Anzu Mazaki, as well as the amnesiac spirit of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh who dwells in a mysterious puzzle owned by Yugi and takes vengeance on those who wrong his host through various games themed in some way around his next victim.
- Chapters 50-59 of the manga released on September 18th and November 20th of 1995 as it began the "Monster World" Arc: based around Takahashi's love for Tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons and Warband, as well as introducing the recurring character Ryo Bakura and the evil spirit within the Millenium Ring; an item similar to the Millenium Puzzle that housed the Pharaoh.
- Due to the arc's popularity and the number of fan mail asking Takahashi, his editor and the Shuesha collective as a whole asking for more details about the game, the 60th chapter onwards, rebranded as "Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Master" (Or simply "Yu-Gi-Oh! DM" by fans) shifted the manga's focus from an episodic structure of games of the week to almost exclusively on the Monster World RPG (give or take a few chapters), where Takahashi would work to expand and refine the rules of the game before the manga ended its original run on October 29th 2001 in WSJ #1661.
- On April 5th 1996, an anime produced by Toei and directed by Takahashi aired on TV Asahi. The anime would run for six years with six seasons, mostly following the events of the manga, with its final episode The King of Games airing in August of 2002.
- While the production value of the first season was considered lacking by viewers, later episodes would gradually increase the quality of the animation by spending more time perfecting the style to more closely resemble Takahashi's later art.
- The anime introduced many new elements that weren't in the original manga. Most famously was the character of Miho Nosaka: a character who only appeared in a single chapter in the manga was made into one of Yugi's closest friends and a consistent love interest for Honda. Entire original story arcs were also made for the anime, including the infamous Academia Arc.
- The anime received two English dubs in its time. The first dub by Fun Pit in 1998, is widely considered to be one of the worst examples of an English dub for Nipponese media. The second dub by Blue House Productions however is seen as much better in comparison, despite utilising many of the same voice actors as the Funpit dub, and received Takahashi's personal blessing. The Russian dub by Soviet Central Television is also noteworthy not only for being the first Russian dub of an anime that could truly be called good, but the first example of an anime being dubbed by a broadcaster owned directly by the state in the comintern, as is the Egyptian dub for its casting choices seen as bizarre and out-of-place.
- In October of 1996, 5 months after the anime was unveiled, a working prototype of the Monster World RPG simply titled "Yu-Gi-Oh!" made by Bandai with Takahashi's supervision and based primarily on the Indian TTRPG Warband was passed around at local conventions across Tokyo to playtest. After rebalancing it based on player feedback, the game eventually became commercially available as "Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Role-Playing Game"in Nippon, China, Korea and Indochina two months later.
- Much like its appearance in the manga/anime, the game ran on a d100 engine, though with lower numbers being better than higher ones. Anything below a 10 is a critical hit, and a 00 is a super-critical hit. Conversely, anything 90 or above is a fumble and a 99 is a critical fumble.
- The game's first edition was made to be a flexible engine to accommodate both traditional RPG experiences like D&D as well as wargames like Warhammer.
- Upon making its way to the UASR, USSR, Latin America, the Balkans, East Germany and Czechoslovakia, the game was rebranded to "Yu-Gi-Oh! Tabletop Role-Playing Game" in those regions. Over time, the distinction between the two (often abbreviated as the ORPG & the TRPG) became greater as they would often receive exclusive material before it was officially released in the other.
- While Monsley Kingdom: the first setting shown in the manga would eventually be published, the first official setting released for the game and the "default" setting for the first edition was the ancient Egyptian-inspired Millenium World.
- The first edition, while praised for the most part for its unique gameplay, was also criticised for its clunky mechanics and trying to awkwardly act as an engine for both RPGs & wargames without excelling at being one for either.
- The game sold well in most regions it was released in, particularly Nippon, the United Republics and East Germany, and is one of the most successful TTRPGs in its home of Nippon, while earning a reputation of "Everyone's second-favourite TTRPG" elsewhere.
- After a 3 year hiatus, Takahashi returned to the series to rework the game after taking on feedback towards its first edition, creating the "Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Role-Playing Game: 2nd Edition" published by Bandai and releasing it on the 6th of September, 2004, as well as "Yu-Gi-Oh! Tabletop Role-Playing Game: 2nd Edition" a few months later. He would also pen a sequel manga named "Yu-Gi-Oh! V2"in Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine #1798, set 6 years after the events of the original manga and with a mostly-new cast of characters which would release on the same day as the ORPG and ended publication in 2010. The anime adaptation by Toei and co-directed by both Takahashi & veteran animator Tadayoshi Yamamuro began airing in December of that year and ended in May of 2011.
- The second edition featured less wargame elements than its predecessor, though still retained a lot of its older elements (albeit in a more refined manner) and still ran on a d100 engine. These changes were generally well-received.
- V2's manga stars Souji Yuden: a video game-loving teenager who enters virtual games of Monster World Online to save people from a group of psychic terrorists called Lindwurm bent on bringing chaos to the world. The anime made Souji more hot-headed than his laid-back manga persona, a change which was disliked by many fans.
- The setting used in the manga/anime: the steampunk Orlin was used as the main setting for 2E, under the name Empires of the Smoky Skies.
- Around the time of 2E, the game gained a cult following in West Germany, thanks to the rise of online tabletop simulators & DVDs of V2's dub from East Germany.
- Around 2012, Takahashi announced he'd be stepping down from being directly involved with the franchise in the future to focus more on making the manga he wanted to instead of being known as simply "The Yu-Gi-Oh! man", designating Ryo Mizuno & Akira Ito as his successors for both the game & manga respectively, though would remain involved with both projects as both a consultant and a character designer.
- On February 3rd, 2014, the 3rd edition of Yu-Gi-Oh!: "Yu-Gi-Oh! Official Role-Playing Game: 3rd Edition" published by Bandai was released, followed a week later by the "Yu-Gi-Oh! Tabletop Role-Playing Game: 3rd Edition" in the west. To coincide with its release, Ito released the third entry of the manga: "Yu-Gi-Oh! Vanguard" in Weekly Shonen Jump #2250 with an anime by Toei announced 5 months later, with the manga ending in June of 2019 and the anime by March the following year. Blue House would also produce an original animated series in America alongside Vanguard's anime known as "Yu-Gi-Oh! Chronicle", based on the TRPG ruleset as opposed to the ORPG rulings, which was released in August of 2014 before being cancelled in May of 2015 after a single season.
- Mizuno stated that his goal with the third edition was to make the game more accessible to new audiences, leading to a lot of the game being streamlined and simplified from 2E. This decision was almost universally praised, and is widely considered by fans to be when the game "truly made its own identity".
- A new mechanic in 3E and its main selling point was the new "Fusion Class" mechanic, inspired by D&D's Prestige classes, where players were encouraged to combine character classes to access new, more powerful classes with devastating new abilities.
- "Yu-Gi-Oh! Vanguard" focuses on social outcast Yuko Hirano and her two best friends Toru Tachibana & Misaki Tomoe in the near-future year of 20XX. The trio accidentally stumble upon a dark gate underneath their high school and must enter through to fight against lovecraftian abominations known as Jokers from entering their reality through Monster World. The manga and its anime adaptation were criticised for a lackluster story, though praised for its likeable and well-written characters, many of whom are fan-favourites.
- "Yu-Gi-Oh! Chronicle" is a side-story set in the UASR starring Chris Silverman: an archaeology student at Harvard and his mission to find his missing explorer father Dante, travelling the world to find him and the terrible secret he found out. Chronicle was harshly criticised for its writing, story, characters and unsatisfying ending and is seen as the worst entry in the franchise by many, although Nipponese audiences were more forgiving towards its shortcomings.
- A theatrical crossover movie between all four series written by Takahashi himself named "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Lost Mobius" was released on the 12th September of 2019: exactly 25 years after the release of the first chapter of the manga, which was praised by both critics and general audiences despite the decision to focus primarily on the divisive character of Chris and for tying up many of the franchise's remaining plot-threads in satisfying ways through the original villain Parallax.
- The setting used in Vanguard: the dark fantasy setting of Erebus was used as 3E's "default" setting, published simply as Erebus. Though the sandbox-like Zazamanc setting from Chronicle was also greatly supported as Ends of the World, even long after Chronicle had ended.
- As of late 2021, both Mizuno & Ito have confirmed rumours of the fourth edition of the game and its tie-in manga, though have not revealed any details as of yet beyond them being in early development and that both would release when they're ready.
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In honour of Kazuki Takahashi (1961 - 2022), Rest in Peace.
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Hawkatana
That jaywalking punk anarchist
- Location
- That place in the thing
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I had this on the backburner for a while and was gonna publish it after Vilani mentioned in the next TTRPG post, but with the death of Takahashi-san, I thought it would be relevant to publish it now.
The man was my fucking hero. It's the least I can do.
The man was my fucking hero. It's the least I can do.
Asami
Chairwoman of the Imperial Governance Council
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Definitely wait.
Hawkatana
That jaywalking punk anarchist
- Location
- That place in the thing
- Pronouns
- He/Him
For an idea on how that would be, I'd suggest reading chapters 50 & 59 of the original manga. Those chapters served as the introduction to Bakura & the Spirit of the Ring, and actually featured the game I expanded on. Yeah, I didn't make up much.