Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

[Ritterin Sophia]

So the Monroe adoctrine is still in effect albeit with a more revolutionary bent I take it?

 

[Shevek23]

The troops of the Panama Canal Department continued reporting to whoever controlled Washington. Thus, when Washington fell to the Reds, they turned over control of the canal to the revolutionary government.

While other states might have been tempted to mess with the canal, the longstanding Monroe Doctrine, its extensions, and some public statements by both the Red and White movements made it pretty clear that interference in the canal was an act of war.

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Is this a shift from older versions?

In prior iterations it was explicitly stated that Patton, in his covert operative position, stacked the deck in Panama by transferring in a suitable number of covertly Red officers (and I assume, troops of all ranks--sergeants are particularly important!) and I suppose some others who were not known committed Reds but likely to come into line with the revolution--Truman types, known for their loyalty to the Constitution as opposed to the panicked White reactionaries. He put the ducks in a row there because of the crucial importance of controlling the canal combined with foreseeing the importance of Latin America, particularly Central America, in the post-revolutionary shakeout; concentrating on Panama is a two birds, one stone move.

Patton of course could not quite "be everywhere;" there would have been a finite number of reliably Red personnel to concentrate in crucial strategic points, and his ability to shift officers at will would have been limited, and pushing it too far would tend to risk showing his hand. He would have had to make tough choices about which strategic points to try to prepare and face obstacles he might not be able to control, and every increased concentration in one location dilutes the likelihood of a quick easy takeover of other crucial points.

I judged it made good sense, in the prior iterations, that in general this kind of move would be more needed in peripheral distant colonial outposts, since White dominance of strongholds in the continental heartland could be simply overwhelmed by volunteer revolutionaries and Constitution-loyal state Guard units, many of which would quickly go quite Red, but out in the overseas holdings the regular Army and other uniformed services would be it. And if one had to choose just one, from a list including the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and informal protectorates like Cuba and Haiti, the Panama Canal Zone is most important. The others are peripheral extensions of US imperial power but the Canal is a unique asset multiplying the effectiveness of the presumptive post revolutionary Red navy in both defense and offense. Looking ahead to a new relationship with the Central American peoples, if Patton controls the Canal Zone US military in a quick coup neutralizing the inevitable White officers (and sad to say some enlisted troops I suppose) and his agents have an agreed plan to negotiate an acceptable and generous new relationship with the Panamanian Reds, then Panama becomes the doorstop of North America, the southernmost Central American nation.

Technically, a Panamanian government envoy at a pol-sci seminar at Caltech I attended said Panamanians don't really consider themselves Central American but rather Caribbean culturally and geopolitically speaking; this makes more sense when we remember that Panama was once, and in 1933 quite within strong living memory, a province of Colombia and so in terms of Yankee concepts of continental boundaries (I gather it is more common in Latin America to consider America as one single sprawling supercontinent, not conceive it as separate "North" and "South") so logically part of South America, making bordering Costa Rica the southern limit of both the North American continent and the "Central American" region. This might also have related to old Spanish divisions perhaps. But in the new situation, unless Colombia goes Red fast, the practical boundaries are set by alignment with the American Reds.

With Panama strongly in the Red alliance, the question of "who owns the Canal Zone?" can be finessed many ways depending on expediency. I'm guessing that the UASR hands it all back to Panama. But the Panamanians countenance ongoing major UASR deployments there, on a more cooperative basis with a much larger Panamanian military.

With a Red Panama in place, it is going to be hard for reactionaries between Mexico and Panama to hold out; what the geopolitical wonks in the Red movement want is for all of Central America to go Red quickly, to prevent the foreseen White "Holy Alliance" from holding any annoying strongholds there. Unfortunately British Honduras (today now known as Belize) is going to be inviolate since the last thing the Americans want is to provoke an immediate shooting war with Britain! But an otherwise clean sweep of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica does not seem implausible to me...perhaps not all of these nations would go Red, but more moderate-liberal regimes under Red Yank protection seem entirely likely to be strongly favored wherever Red movements are not strong on the ground.

If on the other hand Patton is prevented from stacking the deck in the uniformed US services in the Panama Canal Zone, I'd be a lot less sanguine. While the enlisted forces are likely to be responsive to the revolutionary call, particularly since it began as protest of a plainly criminal White coup by an administration voted out legitimately, if Patton has not organized the officer corps significantly there it seems all too likely that the officers there will veer White and the Canal Zone would turn into a mini-civil war fire zone. The Reds as mutinous insurgents might still win the day, especially with the help of Panamanians, but the legalisms would be muddied and the British might well see an opportunity to sweep in and "restore order" before the insurgency can win.

Frankly I think that unless the reason you are not saying as before that Patton did rig the setup in Panama is that the Author Collective has hashed it out and decided that the talk of his doing so in prior iterations was implausible and unrealistic, that bit of finesse by Patton, which seems both possible and smart to me, ought to be brought into formal canon here. Panama is worth playing what trump cards Patton might have held in terms of manipulating the Army organization, and trading favors with the Marines and Navy sympathizers as well. It is the kind of thing Patton could do, to a reasonably limited degree anyway, and the kind of thing he would think of doing. Your prior iteration explanations made good sense to me and they would make sense here.

It doesn't have to be that way of course. Even with his stacking the deck the situation in Panama would get violent; it is a question of holding enough key points so that the "White" position collapses quickly, more rapidly than the British can contemplate moving in to secure the Zone. And that might be accomplished with an attack on the unmanipulated, or minimally stacked, US officer corps in the Zone by insurgent enlisted Red Yanks and Red Panamanian allies. But I think it makes most sense to say Panama is where Patton did rig things so it would fall quickly with minimal bloodshed and minimal excuses for a White-allied Britain to intervene.

If Panama can be "taken" (on behalf of the vast majority of Panamanians as well as the strategic interests of the Red Yanks, let us not forget!) swiftly with the accumulated firepower and organization of the former US forces falling into Red hands largely intact, then the British have all the more reason to remain circumspect in their truce negotiations. If on the other hand it were a free for all battle zone, it would be "Monroe Doctrine be damned!"

Historically the Monroe Doctrine was originally a British notion anyway; the powerless USA could proclaim it and this gave cover to British indirect rule operations in the hemisphere; as long as they were not claiming territory for the Crown, private business influence could dominate unchecked, and in the 19th century before the Civil War, it was the British who had the force in place to enforce it, not the USA. Of course gradually the USA grew more assertive of handling interpretation and enforcement ourselves.

It would be an irony of the temporary mutual interest in immediate peace that gives teeth to the Red Monroe Doctrine--that and the ability of Latin American revolutionary peoples to hold would-be reactionary interventions at bay long enough for UASR forces to be brought into play if (and everyone in '33-'34 is assuming rather, when) the Whites want to go back on the active offensive.

Pretty soon the UASR is going to be in a position to proclaim the ongoing Monroe Doctrine unilaterally. But of course this is precisely what the anticipated second round of White-Red fighting on a global scale is presumed to be all about.

Given Britain's record of accomplishing British interests with indirect rule in the Western Hemisphere, and that France is not yet gone reactionary, it is not in the short term interest of any power capable of projecting power in the Americas to violate the Monroe Doctrine formally. That is coming, probably, but if the Reds hold Panama, North America is a pretty tough nut to crack...even granting the threat of Canada and the fact that colonial European powers pretty much control the Caribbean and other Atlantic islands, and it is short term American policy not to rock their boat just yet. Which is the only thing protecting British Honduras from a rapid fall! Cuba is a major asset of the Whites...but the other Greater Antilles islands are going Red fast apparently--if Haiti allies to the UASR, can the Dominican Republic be far behind? I was surprised Puerto Rico was allowed to go Red, I figured MacArthur might command enough power there, certainly with British help, but the British might be slow to move, whereas Mac would have concentrated what loyal force he had in North America earlier and would plan on "cleaning up" PR after winning on the mainland I guess. So in terms of a war game board, Red and White are a bit interlaced, each has vulnerable salients threatened by the other, but usefully threatening it too.

If the expected Red-White international war were to go hot, no question the Caribbean and thus the UASR Gulf of Mexico region would be in a bit of a mess. It would be especially nasty for the checkerboarded peoples from British Honduras all the way east to Puerto Rico as people on both sides would be masticated by the other. Of course in a cynical bet my money is on the Reds and the outcome of the first phase of the war being the Reds hold on the mainland, and Canada is conquered--swiftly in the middle of the continent, with the coastal zones of British Columbia holding on and doing more damage before being crushed, and the eastern Maritimes perhaps holding out for years while a massive campaign rages in Ontario and Quebec. Similarly in the south, British Honduras would fall fast, despite presumably having been fortified and filled with troops aiming to take Central America, so perhaps quite bloodily--but swiftly. Cuba would be a bit tough at first but once it starts collapsing it will fall hard. The two sides' navies will be chewing each other up all through the Caribbean; Puerto Rico and the two republics of Santo Domingo might suffer a terrible invasion. Eventually though I expect the Red Navy will prevail, everything that can be remotely held to be "North American" will come under Red control of some kind, and the Europeans would be driven to defending themselves from attacks across the Atlantic, and both commerce raiding and subversion to cut off their colonial and global trade down the eastern side of the Atlantic and cut them off from all South America. This is all without even figuring on what the Soviets might be doing while the capitalist great powers are tied down in America like that!

You can see in a global slugfest scenario like that, it is pretty important the Reds hold Panama, and unless you clarify that no, it was beyond Patton's reach to arrange specially for controlling Panama, I would like to assume that as in prior iterations, he explicitly and deliberately acts toward that particular end.

 

[Katamariguy]

How popular is smoking weed in the UASR?

 

[LHB]

How popular is smoking weed in the UASR?

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IIRC it never gets banned in the first place so that's going to be a factor.

 

[Shevek23]

On a different tack, I have been musing about how different the state Integral Republic of Nevada is likely to be in this ATL. For most former states of the former union, we can imagine broadly similar trajectories to OTL. Mind, the "Rust Belt" is unlikely to decline absolutely; much of the decline of Midwestern and NorthEast coastal state industry related to union busting and flight from decent levels of regulation and social infrastructure in favor of the "Sunbelt." Indeed the South Shall Rise, but not so much at the expense of the North I would imagine. The northeastern industrial heartland shall decline relatively as other sectors grow up, but not absolutely. But for instance Florida will probably still boom due to its warmer climate; California will grow, perhaps not at quite the same delirious pace as OTL, but many factors will draw people particularly to the greater Los Angeles region.

But Nevada? From its admission as a state in the middle of the Civil War until the Census of 1950, for then nearly a hundred years, Nevada remained dead last in the ranking of states by population. It rose to second smallest in 1960 mainly because Alaska had been admitted. It is only in the Census of 1970 we see it starting to pole vault out of that cellar to medium small. It was only after the next census Nevada picked up a second Representative, a third in 2000 and fourth in 2010.

The thing is, this state just does not have a lot to attract substantial populations.

OTL, instead of Red revolution the ongoing Depression of the 1930s still left Nevada largely in the dust. It was in response to desperate Depression conditions that the state invested in "vice" industries--gambling and legalized prostitution, but also in the context of the stringent marriage and especially divorce laws, a major tourist hustle was making both of these very easy. Until the other states caught up with liberalized divorce rules, Nevada made substantial money by attracting in couples seeking either make a quick marriage--or quickly end one.

Clearly none of these opportunities, which all basically exploit systematic social misery, exist in the UASR. Marriage and divorce are going to both be quite easy in the Red republic, as a basic human right everywhere. I think it might open a dangerous can of worms to dwell on other sex related schemes, suffice it to say that brothels hardly seem like they would be a growth industry either!

Gambling--it is not clear to me how much the Red culture will frown on it. Certainly friendly private games among comrades will not merit any state attention; the fact that to varying degrees some people suffer an addiction is what might raise some concerns, and I expect it would not be long before a basically medical model would develop--people with a serious problem will be offered help. Anyway with basic necessities guaranteed, the consequences of blowing away any spare money will not seem so dire, and mainly it will seem a problem because of the unhealthy obsession with money as such. OTOH I think it is plain that casinos are nonstarters. Organized commercial gambling simply will not be allowed to develop anywhere.

Nevada of course is not built 100 percent on sin. But a lot of the commercial and industrial activity here is located here due to minimal taxes and regulation (on profitable businesses that is...I don't find the cost of living as a working person a lot lower here than I did in California!) Northern Nevada is indeed on a transport trunk, but the reason that exists is to connect California with the east. I don't think the Republic government of Nevada in the UASR will have any sort of gimmick to make operating here more attractive than more developed centers east or west of here.

What there is and was here that is inherent is mining. The small population of the near century of the state's eclipse was mainly engaged in that.

In modern times, a number of things make it less unattractive. The great dam called "Hoover Dam" OTL probably exists in some form, though perhaps better relations with Mexico limit it to something smaller. With air conditioning and heating the NV climate has its attractions.

Besides mining, the other thing to "sell" then is wilderness. I suppose the UASR military will appropriate a lot of it, as OTL, and perhaps some people training for service in Nevada will come back after serving their hitch for the desert and mountain adventure. But not a lot will stay!

Ultimately the Republic will have things to offer such as opportunities for solar, wind, and geothermal power, and I would think the UASR would be hip to modest investment in developing this when general technology is as developed as the 1970s (which ought to be well before the year 1970).

By and large though, Nevada seems likely to remain near the very bottom of the list of Republics by population.

I expect it will be a place where the Native peoples get back more and better land, and have a lot more autonomy on it; mining will go on but with small populations, and the UASR All-Union government will use much of it but again only with transient populations. There will be tourists but mainly people looking for wilderness of the desert sort.

And Las Vegas I think will be quite an obscure name, mainly known to travelers taking certain routes as a wide place in the road. No mob money to solidify the mirage.

 

[AYC]

While other states might have been tempted to mess with the canal, the longstanding Monroe Doctrine, its extensions, and some public statements by both the Red and White movements made it pretty clear that interference in the canal was an act of war.

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The Monroe Doctrine is my favorite "the more things change, the more they stay the same" aspect of the timeline. "Why yes, we are a revolutionary socialist government that stands for the workers and peasants...the Canal? An 'imperialist relic'? Maybe, but it's ours now. Deal with it."

 

[Jake]

If on the other hand Patton is prevented from stacking the deck in the uniformed US services in the Panama Canal Zone, I'd be a lot less sanguine. While the enlisted forces are likely to be responsive to the revolutionary call, particularly since it began as protest of a plainly criminal White coup by an administration voted out legitimately, if Patton has not organized the officer corps significantly there it seems all too likely that the officers there will veer White and the Canal Zone would turn into a mini-civil war fire zone.

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On the other hand, one doesn't have to be a committed Red to not be very happy about the bolded part, and Panama is sufficiently distant from the continental US that both sides had much more pressing concerns than trying to force the issue. It's quite possible their overall commander(s) would declare that until the present unpleasantness was concluded, they were going to continue their mission of guaranteeing freedom of navigation and protecting the territorial integrity of the canal zone on behalf of the United States government, whoever that government ended up being after the last shot was fired.

 

[Shevek23]

The Monroe Doctrine is my favorite "the more things change, the more they stay the same" aspect of the timeline. "Why yes, we are a revolutionary socialist government that stands for the workers and peasants...the Canal? An 'imperialist relic'? Maybe, but it's ours now. Deal with it."

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Subjectively it matters to the American Reds that "we" and "ours" refers not to the USA as one of many imperialistic bourgeois oligarchies, but the revolutionary workers who seek the solidarity of the toiling masses of all the world. As one of two worker's republics in the world, and the only one American Reds can guarantee will remain on the side of the masses of all the world, the UASR has not so much a right as an obligation to seek to retain control of the Canal, to first defend those peoples of all nations who do rally to the Red side by preventing imperialists from using against the world Red revolution, and then to the advantage of the strategy of the united Red peoples going on the offensive to assist the oppressed and repressed masses in the remaining oligarchies of the world overthrow their masters.

To Whites of course it is the other way round; the Reds represent a dangerous, violent and irresponsible mob rule expected to degenerate into dictatorship worse than any liberal republic no matter how oligarchic, and with a fevered messianic drive to overthrow comfortable and superior social order everywhere for the greed of the Red oligarchs or even objectively for the worsening of every interest even those of the Red overlords, since they are driven by irrational fanaticism and the momentum of mob rule. Therefore if at all possible, the Canal should not be left at risk of Red control but seized by more "responsible" parties to put a spoke in the wheels of the Red juggernaut and possibly enable rollback of the "disease."

Obviously a person would not have to subscribe unequivocally to the dark reactionary second view to be quite contemptuous of the presumptions of the revolutionary former view. Other things being equal then everyone who is not Red to a decisive degree (not everyone needs to be unambiguously so to equivocate but being relaxed about the issue means giving at least some credit to Red good intentions and feasibility of the revolutionary project-or of course a high degree of general apathy) will side with the notion the Yanks should not retain it.

Other things are not equal--the few world powers capable of intervening to any notable degree, or local ones who might assist one side against the other, are on the White side leery of getting into a shooting war at the drop of a hat with even a fraction of the potential power of the North American Reds.

If it were a matter of selling the visionary soul of the people's revolution to rule over Panama with brutal tyranny, the question would be more pointed. But in fact the liberation of Panama is no oxymoron and no outlier; the Reds are credible allies of many Latin American peoples and the Panamanians can expect to fit in just fine, and profit from Yankee outpourings of wealth. If the Reds are at all sincere, the Panamanian working people are masters in their own house and can make sure that donations of goods, expert volunteers, and money as well as the spending on maintaining UASR military presence there all do the most good.

 

[AYC]

It follows, then, that the UASR is also going to pay reparations and launch a huge propaganda campaign to distinguish itself from its imperialist ancestor. Things like land being returned to Native Americans, every single Confederate monument being torn down without a second thought, etc.

Of course, by "the more things stay the same" I mean more in terms of the UASR always looking out for its own interest first, as all nations do regardless of ideology. American pride still exists, and they will have limits. A socialist Mexican government suggesting the return or binational administration of the "Lost Lands" (California et al) would be met with a "Comrades, the circumstances do not allow for such a drastic change at this time", rather than the "FUCK NO YOU FUCKING FUCKERS" reaction the USA would have.

 

[Ithillid]

every single Confederate monument being torn down without a second thought, etc.

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A lot of the interesting Confederate monumentation had not been erected yet. Most of what exists at this point are the standardized confederate garden gnomes that look exactly the same across the South.

 

[Shevek23]

On the other hand, one doesn't have to be a committed Red to not be very happy about the bolded part,
{I said, Jake bolded }

If on the other hand Patton is prevented from stacking the deck in the uniformed US services in the Panama Canal Zone, I'd be a lot less sanguine. While the enlisted forces are likely to be responsive to the revolutionary call, particularly since it began as protest of a plainly criminal White coup by an administration voted out legitimately, if Patton has not organized the officer corps significantly there it seems all too likely that the officers there will veer White and the Canal Zone would turn into a mini-civil war fire zone.

Click to shrink...

...and Panama is sufficiently distant from the continental US that both sides had much more pressing concerns than trying to force the issue. It's quite possible their overall commander(s) would declare that until the present unpleasantness was concluded, they were going to continue their mission of guaranteeing freedom of navigation and protecting the territorial integrity of the canal zone on behalf of the United States government, whoever that government ended up being after the last shot was fired.

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Indeed, if Patton's hands are tied in any number of ways I mentioned, and he cannot set up a near-surefire coup among US forces present in Panama, he can cross his fingers and hope something like that sort of fence sitting happens, which is good enough if it works.

But if he has the luxury of putting assets reliable to the Reds in someplace, I think he will prioritize Panama.

Victory in CONUS is a matter of the overall correlation of forces and as a Red he would be pretty confident enough American people are committed, and many more persuadable, that the Reds will ultimately win. The level of force deployed to Panama, even if every one of them were a known committed Red, will not be crucial back home, but can make a huge difference in Panama.

Meanwhile if we assume the majority of officers, especially command levels ones, remain rather right wing in sympathy, a fence sitter command left to their own devices might well bet on MacArthur winning, accepting the risk of exile if he loses and hoping perhaps to be forgiven and negotiate restoration to a Red republic if that seems less bad. If not confident that they can impose this commitment on their troops, welcome in British Empire reinforcements to tip the balance. They can launch bloody purges against suspected Panamanian leftists, no doubt with the connivance either of a sitting comprador government or if doubting it, simultaneously purge the nominal government in favor of more reliable Panamanian elite allies. The British might not be able to send in their own troops, but would, with an invitation from the nominal Panama government, better be able to risk this there (perhaps not venturing into the American held Zone) than in say Hawaii or Puerto Rico. If they are afraid to station Tommies there, for any reason (including fear that the British troops might mutiny) they can probably help the American White-leaning commanders bring in someone or other, hired mercenaries perhaps. Of course these schemes could backfire but if the Reds have to fight extensively the British could more plausibly claim a need to assist the American commanders and their party-of-order Panamanian government impose that order.

I wrote a whole lot of stuff musing about the prospects in other more or less distant American imperial outposts--Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands (geographically these two are in the same place), Hawaii and Alaska.

I did not think much about the Philippines since the canon "done deal" of the British stepping in to make it some kind of protectorate seemed so plainly plausible and likely.

I did not think much about the many smaller possessions, mostly Pacific islands such as American Samoa--these I think would fall pretty quickly unless any American forces there happened to veer hard left, and I don't think Patton would tie down known useful pro-Revolution or anti-coup assets there knowingly if he could help it. I suppose with the British acting as allies of Japan, some islands near the Japanese possessions (Japan picked up most German Pacific colonies in the Great War OTL, and I assume here too) lacking native or settled populations of any permanence might wind up augmenting their holdings, while islands on which substantial expatriate people of European descent have settled and/or have relatively substantial US forces based there might more easily be assimilated into British holdings. But I'd have to study a map with some demographic and military force information to game that out--UASR is likely to lose most of these one way or another.

American Samoa for instance is partitioned off of British Samoa (today an independent nation, then a British colony) so it pretty much would fall into British laps unless the American Samoans made a real fuss about it, and if the British can mollify them sufficiently, eventually just be merged in.

But the major territorial holdings with the exception of Alaska I think would hold out pretty well. As in CONUS, the basic question is how committed the people living there are to avoiding being swallowed up into someone else's colonial system, versus holding out for participation in the Red American system. That and how strongly would White officers and the enlisted men loyal to that cause put up a ruckus opening the door to British intervention again to "restore order." I judged that if the Reds can get control of a good part of the military assets, including a good share of the actual uniformed US forces (and surely even without Patton pulling strings some officers would go Red or at least fence sitting Constitutionalist) they can make it hot for small invasion forces, whereas the general political situation including fear of immediate war limits the scale of British moves.

Puerto Rico would seem terribly vulnerable, but it has a fairly large population, as big as the states of Oklahoma or Connecticut, who would be motivated to prefer the Red side.

Hawaii is distant from strong British bases.

Attacking either would seem closer to an attack on integral American territory.

They can get away with this in Alaska I think because it is small in population and communications with CONUS would run right past Canadian naval bases for the RN in Puget Sound; the Soviets might try sending Red strongholds in Alaska some aid over seas, though the late winter early spring time frame suggests to me terrible weather for navigation, nor does the USSR have tremendous naval force or a lot to spare for such a peripheral zone. Perhaps someone should be making more noise about Alaska going to Canada so easily, considering the Russian interest in it remaining Red American, but we can plausibly put failure of Soviet forces to act boldly in the face of possible clashes with either or both of the RN, IJN, or confrontations with Canadian ground forces--perhaps Stalin considers it but hesitates, fearing those consequences or fearing triggering general fighting between American Reds and British Empire forces directly. Also I suspect demographically settlers in Alaska are less "Red" than the average American--surely some bold Reds will be there, and perhaps the Worker's Party had placed agents with missions there, but they might lack the traction to carry the day among other Yanks with more skepticism or fear of communists.

Alaska's loss is regrettable but not crippling to the Red republic.

Indeed the UASR can take the blow of losing every one of these overseas holdings, even Panama, but of all these far flung zones I think Panama has the highest stakes riding on it, and is where covert subversion of the uniformed forces would be most crucial and needed, so unless the authors plainly declare otherwise I think Patton will have taken some action to try to secure it. And it works for me that his plan is close enough to successful to overwhelm the Whites there and deter foreign intervention, especially considering getting the Panamanians on side.

 

[AYC]

A lot of the interesting Confederate monumentation had not been erected yet. Most of what exists at this point are the standardized confederate garden gnomes that look exactly the same across the South.

Click to shrink...

Well, there is the small matter of many, many public courtrooms in the South that are going to need some redecorating, assuming the POD didn't change this around:

 

[Miss Teri]

(Co-written with Aelita)

"Capitol Hill, Season 3" , review by the CongressCritter, filmpolitics.syn

Welcome back to our ongoing review of Aaron Sorkin's opus Capitol Hill. Through the first two seasons, we've seen how it is possible to fetishize an abstract concept like compromise, and how even Hoxhaists and TrueDems need to be respected, because that is what the Revolution was fought for.

The long awaited election season for the Congress of Soviets has come. The staff now has to ensure that the CLP survives this season and even if they do win, that they can see another electoral season through. (Particularly with the scandal involving the several of the Premier's supporters in the Central Executive Council last season).

With that in mind, many of the episodes show them in various locales, particularly workplaces and districts, campaigning for candidates in local soviets. Political maverick Bruno Gianelli (Robert De Niro) is assisting them, polling and selecting particular hotspots to target for the campaign.

Along with this travel and convince, we also go into the standard subplots and recurring storylines. The aforementioned scandal where several people's deputies were found to have taken illegal bribes continues, with commissars investigating Leo McGarry (Martin Sheen) and the staff for any further connections. Time and time again, indiscretions like this are shown as fussy bureaucrats trying to hinder the work of the Central Committee, much like it was in the first two seasons.

Sorkin's views are also apparent through the travel episodes, as the staff travels around America. "20 Hours in America" highlights Sorkin's view of whatever parts of the country happens to be featured. As Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), Toby Ziegler (Eugene Levy), and Donna Moss (Janel Moloney) travel around the country, urban areas are shown to be pristine examples of the revolution and Basic Law in action, while rural areas are near-reactionary, backwards areas, primarily allied with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Despite overtures towards accepting "viewpoints", the near-universal depiction of Middle America shows where Sorkin's primary sympathies lie.

Also on display are Sorkin's views on foreign policy, primarily focused on firmly internationalist, but also slightly peaceful ideology. Matters come to a head in "Richard Sorge," with Premier Bailey (John Amos) and the Central Committee dealing with submarine crew caught off the coast of Norway, and tense political discussions between him and the FBU Prime Minister (through Lord John Marbury(Richard Burton)), though, due to the events of the first season, nuclear war is off the table.

One thing that becomes clear very quickly is that Sorkin's writing has become more hamfisted this season. While the series has never been shy about the use of the soapbox, and it is perhaps natural that a writer would place emphasis on the power of words, it starts to become noteworthy how much more...pointed, the dialogue becomes. Sorkin's view of the Central Workers' Government borders on logocracy, with opposing political camps seeking to debate one another into submission.

Take, for example, the subplot in "Richard Sorge", where Toby squares off with an influential DFLP people's deputy, Meredith Vance (Robin Wright), on civil defense. Vance does not see the point in university students having to complicate their education by spending a few months in total doing reservist training, so that engineers can mobilise to defend the revolution as radar operators, etc. And her revulsion to the long tradition of drill and shooting practice in polytechnic is as much motherly concern for her children as it is her Christian sense of pacifism. Somehow, walking down the veranda between the east and west wings of the Great Hall of the Soviets, Toby manages to convince her of the enduring historic role of the armed masses.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like Toby and his irascible wit. But it really tugged on my suspenders of disbelief that he'd get her to drop her opposition so quickly.

Josh and Donna continue to be cute together, but as the romantic tension increases I'm left increasingly uncomfortable. It's not just that Sorkin clearly has a type, and the most interesting women characters tend to fit that type. It's because all the will-they-or-won't-they tension runs up against the sobering reality that Josh is Donna's boss, and thus a relationship would be flagrantly inappropriate.

By contrast, Sam Seaborn's (Anthony Michael Hall) arc is stronger this season. Some of the "I'm fresh from Pioneer camp" luster has worn off, now that his new assignments involve some of the more uncomfortable parts government. In "Senatus Consultum Ultimum", Sam struggles internally as he tries to get ahead of a growing news story after the administration receives a surprise rebuke when a national security jury refuses to certify official secret status on a program that had been covertly delivering weapons to a controversial rebel group in the fictional state of Qumar.

CJ (Allison Janney) mostly spends the season just mostly following the Premier around the nation and acting exasperated as she deals with the problems with the People's Deputies scandal and the Norway situation, and her ongoing will-they-won't-they with Worker Capitol Hill correspondent Danny Concannon (Mark Harmon), though the highlight of the series is "Navajos in the Lobby," where a pair of Navajos seek an official apology from the government for failing to give health notices or warnings to uranium miners in the GAF during WWII and afterwards (many of who got cancer later in life), and CJ has to deal with them and the subsequent issues that emerge from it.

The season, of course, ends with the CLP managing to win out in the Congress of Soviets in the third-to-last episode. This is to set up the two-parter finale, "All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic", where the newly inaugurated Congress and Republics vote for members of CEC, with the Staff attempting to ensure the current make-up of the Central Committee remains the same. Of course, at the very end of the season, one member is replaced, but Premier Bailey and the others keep their seat, ensuring another term.

This season contained more political intrigue and electoral antics, but Sorkin's own penchant for proselytizing unfortunately increased, beginning the show's most preachy period. Much like Roddenberry against Reynolds and Heinlein or Lear over Brooks and Simon, Sorkin overshadowed the other members of the steering committee for the show, including Lawrence O'Donnell and Paul Redford, and most of the problems with the season largely stem back to him.

---

Authors' Notes:

The very earliest incarnations of this TL used a look into the in-universe equivalent of The West Wing as a prologue. As time has gone by, I've gained more critical distance from the things I once loved. I watched the series in its original run, it was something my whole family would gather around to watch as each new episode aired. And during the dark times of the Bush years, it was soothing. But childhood must end, and as I've grown as a writer I've gained a more nuanced perspective of Sorkin as a writer and as a media personality. So this is a sort of dialogue with the person who started writing the TL ten years ago, and a bit of something to tantalize about the future. ~Aelita

Same basically about me, though it was more a show that my mother and I would watch during the relatively lighter Obama years when I was a high school junior and senior. Also, realizing that the flaws I ranted about in later Sorkin shows were in the West Wing in lower doses. ~ Mr.E

 

[AYC]

Something I've always been interested in ITTL is the decision to use OTL people born decades after the PoD, going against the conventional "Right sperm and the right egg" butterfly logic.

At the time I first read Reds! I didn't notice or care (it was one of the first alternate history works I read). In later rereads I found it jarring, but now I've come around to appreciating it as an interesting literary device. Unlike most TLs where it seems lazy, here it does a clever job of making the Redsverse seem more alien while simultaneously making a good sociopolitical point.

"Sean Hannity the communist" is a gimmick until it's more than that. You see the depth of his work and the passion for which he writes about his subjects and can see shades of OTL Hannity. He's familiar enough for a frame of reference, but it's like looking in a funhouse mirror.

The point being made is that people are a product of their enviromments, and what may seem like immutable beliefs are in fact brought about in significant part by nurture. Reading between the lines, I see a scathing critique of Great Man theory in the form of the idea that, because people are so essentially shaped by their enviromments, important historical change comes from the collective rather than the individual.

TL;DR Convergence of OTL people may at first seem lazy but actually makes a clever point about how much a person's upbringing shapes their personality and beliefs.

 

[veteranMortal]

Just out of interest, re: Confederate memorials, what happened with Stone Mountain?

Like, did they start it at all in Reds, or not?

 

[Spartakrod]

Just out of interest, re: Confederate memorials, what happened with Stone Mountain?

Like, did they start it at all in Reds, or not?

Click to shrink...

If it is started, it would be stopped.

Mt.Rushmore is also never built and the designer bounces out of America entirely.

Not to Americuba though, it's poor and full of brown people.

 

[Almaalma]

Finally getting around to posting the redone flowchart of the UASR government!

You may notice some differences in stylistic organization that I have done, such as encompassing all the organs of the Congress of Soviets into one box, as well as substantive changes reflecting changes from the older version of the timeline.

All the details come straight from the Basic Law and Civics posts.




I drew inspiration to do this from my recollection of youth spent in the library looking at diagrams of how different country's governments worked. The fact about this chart I like the most is that, contrary of many of the diagrams I saw in books as a kid, I've placed the people on top with varying levels of more national government in lower and lower ranks. This reflects the idea that in this form of government the people can be said to indeed hold the commanding power, with responsibilities being handed down to the government, being delegated to it, as opposed to the notion that the people are electing rulers to rule over them. For similar reasons I've also not drawn a box around "People", to (subtly) imply further that the government aren't separate from the people.

 

[Shevek23]

Sometimes I am an idiot. I somehow overlooked the existence of this post which very helpfully sketched out the broad philosophy and routine mechanics of the "soviet" form of government before the post of the Basic Law.

To be sure it is not entirely clear to me even now that I've read it. For instance it seems the Basic Law mandates direct election and by proportional means of the Republic Congress of Soviets in each Republic, but the civics text seems to suggest that District Soviets supply the membership of the Republic CoS. In a proportional manner in the sense that each district soviet, presumably allocated a total number of seats on the RCoS in accordance with population, apportions those seats among the parties and factions represented in the DS proportionally to their numbers in the DS, which presumably is closely proportional to how the district population voted since "typical" numbers of District Soviets are given as 200-300, which is plenty for quite fine proportionality. If such soviet style "kicking delegates upstairs" is the sole or overwhelmingly the normal way all RCoS seats are filled, the only major deviation from soviet indirect democratic republicanism via levels of Council appointments in the system is the mandate on District Soviets to be directly elected. Note that even here, it would be possible to comply with the spirit and letter of mandated proportionality of parties by reserving a portion of DS seats for hierarchal appointment by lower soviets, as long as the count of delegates sent to the District level by that path was in line with the proportional public vote, or any deviations made up by shifting the composition of any other DS seats filled by direct election. So quite possibly the soviet principle of each level advancing from the one below applies to all UASR soviets at every level, albeit with at least the District Soviets having to be governed by a general election in their composition--I think!

Finally getting around to posting the redone flowchart of the UASR government!

You may notice some differences in stylistic organization that I have done, such as encompassing all the organs of the Congress of Soviets into one box, as well as substantive changes reflecting changes from the older version of the timeline.

All the details come straight from the Basic Law and Civics posts.




I drew inspiration to do this from my recollection of youth spent in the library looking at diagrams of how different country's governments worked. The fact about this chart I like the most is that, contrary of many of the diagrams I saw in books as a kid, I've placed the people on top with varying levels of more national government in lower and lower ranks. This reflects the idea that in this form of government the people can be said to indeed hold the commanding power, with responsibilities being handed down to the government, being delegated to it, as opposed to the notion that the people are electing rulers to rule over them. For similar reasons I've also not drawn a box around "People", to (subtly) imply further that the government aren't separate from the people.

Click to shrink...

This is brilliant! I await confirmation but truly a picture is worth a thousand words...in this case 4000 or more, since that is how long a post I was working on and decided to simply PM to Aelita instead was. Hashing out the Basic Law this is pretty much the picture I formed in my mind, and good move turning it "upside down," I was thinking how to come up with a similar graphic but would have done the traditional "people on the bottom" thing. It is actually easier to draw up and understand such a chart your way though; the "higher" levels emerge from "lower" and so would be written later in time, and thus lower on a page!

It seems to match what I hashed out of it.

Note how CEC and Presidium, which you have shown as being both creatures of the single AUCS, are co-joined twins as it were. Every AUCS delegate (from the various Republic Congresses of Soviets--which are themselves actually more traditional, not so "soviet" in that they are elected at large from the people of each Republic directly instead of via the ladder of percolating selection by layers of soviets) is part of a very large Congress indeed--were the ratio of 50,000 people to one AUCS delegate applied to the modern USA, the resulting body would be about 6000 in number, some nine times larger than the British Parliament (House of Commons I mean) and twelve times the size of our current OTL Congress!

So the trick is, the AUCS, if I have read between the lines accurately, and generally the various Congresses of Soviets of the various Republics, do not conduct extensive ongoing business through the year in full session. The sessions of full Congresses meet, I suppose between twice and in extremely turbulent times maybe 5 or 6 times a year, and typically last maybe a week or so. Their business, as a full body, is to oversee the CEC and Presidium and courts, and revise the membership of these bodies, and confirm the work the smaller bodies have done and set them broad outlines of priorities for the next long interim between full Congress sessions.

This I think is why regular wage payments for delegates are not mentioned until we get to the CEC members, which Article IV is about. All CEC of the All-Union government members are chosen from some Republic's own Congress of Soviets, or anyway that is the default, though I think it would be entirely consistent with the UASR Basic Law for a particular Republic to decide to allow the general masses to vote for some of their AUCS delegates, just as the Basic Law mandates both District and Republic Congresses of Soviets must be elected.

But being a regular delegate to any of these Congresses--district, Republic, or AUCS--is not normally a highly demanding distraction from one's regular life. For the business of ongoing government, for the haggling out of detailed legislation and execution of policy, the various levels select a minority of their members to become CEC members. Basic Law does not specify which Congress level delegates shall be tapped as CEC or Presidium members, except to say all such selections are democratic within the Congress--so if some customary practices emerge that later Congresses wish to set aside they can do that.

Consider the intertwining of Presidium and CEC. I might be pretty confused about this but here is my impression:

Unlike the 1787 Constitution, there is some but relatively little reliance on a philosophy of "separation of powers." To an extent this exists but the main bulwark is supposed to be a vigorously guaranteed democratic basic framework, and separation is mainly for purposes of specialization to tasks rather than "checks and balances." The liberal-bourgeois Framers of the 18th century Constitution believed "ambition should check ambition" and set Executive and Legislative branches at odds with each other.

Here, executive power and legislation are specialized acts of one single democratic elected assembly--or so it is for the Republics, the AUCS has the "soviet" characteristic of being indirectly elected though as I mentioned if it seemed important I see nothing to stop a particular Republic from making their delegation directly elected. Either way this assembly is all powerful. To get specific types of things done, the assembly--at the All Union level the AUCS, for each Republic its own Congress of Soviets (Republics may in theory adopt quite different organizational models, but the Basic Law does mandate both a directly and proportionally elected CoS must exist and also that districts shall also have directly elected assemblies responsible for running them too)--either selects a subset of itself--CEC, and @Almaalma's diagram suggests the AUCS might create other committees probably overlapping the CEC membership but in theory could be completely different. The CEC members must each serve on one and one only "All-Union Secretariat." Unless I am confused, these Secretariats are elements under the Presidium. The AUCS or CEC (it does not matter which, all the latter's actions must be ratified by the former anyway) selects the Secretary General and explicitly not from anyone serving either in the AUCS in any capacity nor any Republic government. There is no direct election of this person who is the closest thing the UASR has to the former role of the US President. But the SG's powers are both limited and subject to the oversight of the CEC. To be sure, it is apparently the SG of the Presidium who personally handpicks the Chairs of each Executive Committee of each Secretariat, and these particular members of the CEC thus become by being Chairs of each Secretariat, the Central Committee of the CEC. Presumably the SG with the advice of the CC of CEC also ultimately decides which Secretariat Committees the remaining members of the CEC, composing both the Council of the Republics and Council of People's Deputies (I assume members of the CC can be in either category) will each be assigned to.

But since the SG themselves is handpicked by the CEC, presumably there is no deep rivalry and conflict!

The Presidium thus is assigned the work of carrying out policy and is an Executive in that sense, but each department of All-Union power is overseen by a multiple member committee, which is headed by a CEC member who is thus on the Central Committee of the CEC, and has at least some other members who are non-CC members of the CEC wearing either the hat of a Council of Republics deputy or a Council of People's Deputies member. Each CEC member thus closely observes and gives input into one executive operation of the state, and meeting as CEC members, both the head of the committee governing that executive function and junior members (it is not clear to me whether they would be all the members of such an executive committee, but I think not--each Secretariat would also choose specialized experts in the field being governed, probably also the heads of individual departments under the Secretariat, and perhaps some either handpicked or appointed by lot citizen members too beyond the fact that the CEC members are elected citizen reps) are convoked into separate CoR and CoPD meetings to deliberate on and vote on policy, being informed by people who not only have oversight over government executive operations but in a limited but deep way also participate in the executive decision-making themselves.

Meanwhile in executing policy, not only is the Secretary General hand picked by the CEC, each separate executive Secretariat is not only watched but governed by a CEC member, chosen by the SG to be sure, but first they chose the SG, and his appointment of this CEC member also puts the CEC under governance of a CC that on paper the SG creates--but presumably before appointing someone to be SG, the candidate and the CEC bigwigs get their ducks in a row and have a general agreement and understanding on how the state will act, both legislatively and executive, over the next year to five years. Then the less exalted members of the CEC are those the Presidium puts onto general membership of Secretariat governing committees. So, all executive action is not only scrutinized by the "legislative branch," but handpicked elected AUCS delegates participate in the governing of each separate branch of the executive.

This does not mean CEC and Presidium are not worth distinguishing! As noted the SG is someone chosen from outside the hierarchy of elected delegates, and has a job of coordinating the executive action of the state. I guess the various Secretariats also have another "head" than the chair of each executive committee, a person handpicked by the SG (approved by the CEC and thus AUCS of course) for their specialized skill in both high level administration and the technicalities of the particular Secretariat's duties. Given the large number of AUCS delegates, it might work OK to never have such a person and instead rely on the executive committee chair, but I think that will fail at least some of the time. But although the executive committee, which is the effective boss of the SG's choice for executive head, is basically an arm of the AUCS, each one will also have lots of members who are not AUCS delegates but rather specialists in the Secretariat's field.

This system would break down if there were severe conflicts of interests between the majority of AUCS delegates and the established executive staffs. The way it would have to work to work well is that the latter are tightly constrained to respect and carry out the former's policy.

I have not thought too hard about how it might reflect and accommodate rival parties with significant policy differences closely contending for state power. I do think though that the basic logic of the system tends to focus people on cooperative consensus seeking and that national politics would not evolve the sort of "my way or highway" confrontations we have become accustomed to in the modern USA and I suppose in many liberal republics and parliaments around the world. I know from other iterations of this canon that while the Worker's Party holds the whip hand of majority power for a long time to come, for one thing it has its own internal factions, for another, there are substantial minorities voting for other parties.

Certainly it would be possible for WP majorities to simply freeze out Democratic Farmer Labor and other less revolutionary party delegates elected by various Republic Congresses, for the handpicked SG to simply select only WP delegates and thus leave all other parties off the CEC and out of the Presidium completely. When the AUCS meets again, in that case presumably all non WP delegates to it can refuse to vote to ratify anything done and call for major revision...but unless the people will have changed their voting and reduced the WP to a minority, the WP majority will just note down the opposition votes and chuckle as the majority ratifies the WP program and the UASR cruises on in single party rule...until that is the people vote in some other party or coalition of them. Then everything suddenly changes!

But if instead the WP leadership voluntarily adopts a principle of at least rough proportionality, presenting their SG candidate with a list of non WP party AUCS delegates to be placed on various committees and thus selected for the CEC, then the other parties, and fair samples of each faction within the WP, have fair representation. These admittedly handpicked delegates might not be the perfect channel, the WP leadership if not astute in their control of who shall represent the other parties in the active government might be guilty of soft-pedaling the differences and getting out of touch with deep growing grassroots resentments that might surprise them with an electoral shift in the various Congresses and thus a shift in who effectively chooses the Presidium, and thus CEC, and themselves relegated to junior status, or even perhaps cut out of the whole effective government! So it behooves the WP, while it holds and continues to seek to continue to hold the clear majority whip hand, to pay close and shrewd attention to what the other parties have to say, however unpleasant it might seem to listen to.

I expect then if the WP is guided by a high level of statesmanship in its choices, a collegial political culture instead of a competitive one will be favored, and if the general public shifts its votes to pull the rug of a solid majority out from under the WP (say there is no majority party by the 1960s or so, just a bunch of large but not 50 percent parties) the system will shift smoothly to accommodate the need for a coalition regime.

 

[Jane Dough]

God damn. I wish I lived in the UASR.

 

[AYC]

God damn. I wish I lived in the UASR.

Click to shrink...

I like to remind everyone who says this that the utterly MASSIVE culture shock you'd experience might soften your enthusiasm a bit. Most of us would be considered reactionary to your average Redsverse American. It's not just politics, it's the highly individualist way we live our lives in a capitalist world.

 

[Jane Dough]

I like to remind everyone who says this that the utterly MASSIVE culture shock you'd experience might soften your enthusiasm a bit. Most of us would be considered reactionary to your average Redsverse American. It's not just politics, it's the highly individualist way we live our lives in a capitalist world.

Click to shrink...

Let me rephrase that: I wish I were born in the UASR.
Edit: also, I am pretty damn far left, so while I might not be radical by their standards, I doubt I'd be reactionary.

 

[HeWhoAdds]

I like to remind everyone who says this that the utterly MASSIVE culture shock you'd experience might soften your enthusiasm a bit. Most of us would be considered reactionary to your average Redsverse American. It's not just politics, it's the highly individualist way we live our lives in a capitalist world.

Click to shrink...

Also, I'd kinda like it if my life were less individualistic?

 

[Jane Dough]

Also, I'd kinda like it if my life were less individualistic?

Click to shrink...

This too. I am a severely isolated person. Individualism does me no favors.

 

[Shevek23]

I've had some fun trying to imagine mapping a suitably Reddified version of my grandparents, who were quite young in 1933, onto the Reds'verse and supposing they raised corresponding children and I were thus born as OTL in 1965; what would my relatives be like and how would my childhood and adulthood be different?

My father's parents OTL were very right wing people from Wisconsin who moved to Los Angeles when my father was about 10; he was born in 1942, the day of Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Japan as he takes pride in. My mother's were an English immigrant, come over during WWI as a young child, and the youngest of a Sicilian family of immigrants; she was the only one of her immediate family born in the USA, in Yonkers. My mother, born in later WWII, evidently reversed her parent's political leanings (they were pretty conventionally blue collar New Deal Democrats unlike my Bircher paternal grandparents) and went looking for a quite conservative mate.

Assuming I would want them to map so they fit in comfortably and conventionally in the UASR, I suppose I have to mirror image their relative extremisms--making my Wisconsin ancestors into pretty activist Reds of some kind, if not Marxist Debs-DeLeonists then some kind of anarchists instead, and my mother's people a modest degree right of the UASR's center, no farther right than Truman's wing of Left Democrats I suppose. Another thing to try to figure how to map is the deep devotion to Roman Catholicism of OTL which applies to both sides--I think keeping them all Trinitarians would throw off the mirroring and have to suppose they all went for some degree of Red atheism in some form, perhaps with my mother's Sicilians (my maternal grandfather I think did not have much contact with his own close kin, my mother once mentioned his father used to collect rent from him if that gives an idea) being a bit mystical in some lefty-millenarian way and my Midwest paternal side being rather dogmatically into the materialist metaphysic--following a modestly intellectualized version of the Baltimore Catechism equivalent for Reds, listening on the radio to whoever the Red correspondent to Bishop Fulton Sheen would be, and I suppose pretty much fans of Red Sean Hannity if they had lived long enough for him to pull past Rush Limbaugh.

Paralleling OTL WWII, my paternal grandfather would serve in the Red Fleet prior to the UASR entering the Great Crusade War openly, and be routed back to Kenosha to shack up with my grandmother and father my father before the equivalent of Pearl Harbor day, upon which he would volunteer to go back into the Navy for the duration. Paralleling, the prewar stint would be in the Pacific, on a maintenance machine shop ship--he was basically a machinist, trained as such by the Navy. The wartime stint OTL was pretty much in the same steps as Bill Mauldin and Patton--to North Africa, Sicily, Italian coast, then to Normandy beach and I am not sure after that--he explained he was in the Navy all right, but his jobs had him hitting the beaches with the ground troops and then staying on the beach fixing Navy stuff there. I would have to reprise, or rather wait for the latest version of the ATL UASR war, to map it. As a Navy man I don't think he'd go to the Soviet eastern fronts anyway, unless perhaps coming in at the White Sea or Black Sea; for parallelism it has to be the European theater. Anyway he gets out after the war, goes back to Kenosha, eventually moves to Los Angeles because his second daughter had some respiratory issues they thought Southern California would help, set up OTL as a machinist in a partnership with others there.

In the ATL these would be collective shops obviously. And if the smog of OTL is headed off with more rational transport policies in Southern California, presumably my aunt would do better with breathing!

It makes sense my parents might meet via my maternal grandfather, also a machinist, knowing the paternal one via collective machine shop enterprises. My father might be routed to the UASR air force much the way he was OTL. This sets the stage for my birth and that of my siblings though I have to wonder how bizarre the sheer number of children my mother had OTL would seem in the UASR of the 1960s and '70s!

As for me, I think a huge radical change in my childhood would be earlier recognition of a major hearing loss I had, and that other siblings of mine had the same issue. In addition to hearing aids being properly funded and probably more advanced than OTL, I expect I'd be routed to a program acculturating me to Deaf communities. I'd be told that I could never know if I might lose my hearing completely and that being proficient in American Sign Language would be an asset in my membership in the general community. Since I had few friends as a kid, I think there is a good chance this would appeal to me and I would be pretty bicultural, still reading a lot and being into the ATL version of science fiction and having vague ambitions for science, but perhaps being better routed into more human affairs type scientific interests, leaning more heavily on history or sociology or geography or possibly economics (I think my affinity OTL for Marx's approach would not be reversed at all). And the OTL uneasy relationship I had with the notion I ought to serve in the military and "oh right, they don't want me, I am practically deaf!" would be settled a different way--mandatory universal service whether you like it or not, and there would be divisions accommodating the severely hearing impaired, with training in how to operate effectively with no hearing whatsoever, maybe doing service with heavy protection for what hearing I had left in noisy jobs where attempts at sonic communication are effectively abandoned as futile.

Differently abled is not a mere sweet piety after all. People who have major impairments in one type of common abilities find workarounds that give them a different perspective than the more usual types of people and a good socialist society will respect that and make use of the divergent approaches. I sort of fell between stools in this OTL, never thinking of myself as a Deaf person with the good fortune to have a little bit of useful and pleasant hearing ability, but just as a hearing person who unfortunately did not hear so well--even with good adaptive tech!

So I figure in the ATL I'd rather break symmetry with OTL in that I'd have better, more sensible early life examples and advice, have better integrated values, and the benefit of being routed to join communities that shared common issues with me and that I could develop a personal loyalty to in addition to those I found OTL. I think I'd pay it forward effectively, and that having served in the UASR forces somehow would be good grounding for a more effective adult life.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and perhaps a contrarian streak in me would make me cavil at common wisdom and I might be an admirer of the theoretical advantages of more individualism and competitiveness! Be a sort of FBU fanboi...gosh I hope not, but good art is brutal sometimes, isn't it! And if my alternative is to be a Red Dittohead, perhaps it would be well to be off kilter a bit the other way.

Honestly though I don't think the mirroring of the Reds 'verse can elevate rightist opposition to moral equivalency of OTL leftist opposition. One is more correct than the other I honestly think!

 

[Katamariguy]

I'd have to interview my parents more closely to give a detailed narrative, but with the likelihood that there'd be no Korean War and no divided peninsula, I think it'd be fair to say that ITTL I would never be born. Even if the social motivations to attend university in the Americas remain (and that's if my grandparents didn't flee to FBU territory!), I'd guess that UASR education reforms would greatly reduce the prestige attached to Ivy League academies. And even if they both studied in the same East coast city and fell in love, I guess major changes of immigration policy from OTL would affect their decisions in my upbringing - American citizenship wouldn't be something to take advantage of and seriously change my prospects in life.