Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

[Miss Teri]

Out of curiosity, where has FDR wound up by this point in the timeline? Is he still on the continent, fled to Cuba, or dead during the war?

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C. 1934, the former Assistant Secretary of War is a prominent figure within the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, having helped reform the party on the mainland following the Revolution and securing United Democratic Front with the WCPA.

 

[Jake]

Another question occurs to me, since it's semi-topical this month: Has he been able to stop hiding the fact that he's disabled yet?

 

[Miss Teri]

Another question occurs to me, since it's semi-topical this month: Has he been able to stop hiding the fact that he's disabled yet?

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Well, he just never becomes disabled in the first place.

 

[Jake]

Huh. I thought FDR's childhood bout of polio that left him in need of a wheelchair happened before the POD.

 

[Miss Teri]

Huh. I thought FDR's childhood bout of polio that left him in need of a wheelchair happened before the POD.

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I'd ask @Aelita about that.

 

[Alane1]

Huh. I thought FDR's childhood bout of polio that left him in need of a wheelchair happened before the POD.

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FDR was was when he was 39 when illiness paralized him in 1921 and though at the time it was thought he had Polio apparently his symptoms are more far consistent with Guillain–Barré syndrome which his docters didn't consider as possibility indeed apparently very few american doctors at the time even knew Guillain–Barré syndrome wasn't the same disease as polio.

He apparently had bouts of illiness in 1912 and 1915 consistent of Campylobacter jejuni which is apparently a major causative agent of Guillain–Barré syndrome.

 

[Shevek23]

FDR was was when he was 39 when illiness paralized him in 1921 and though at the time it was thought he had Polio apparently his symptoms are more far consistent with Guillain–Barré syndrome which his docters didn't consider as possibility indeed apparently very few american doctors at the time even knew Guillain–Barré syndrome wasn't the same disease as polio.

He apparently had bouts of illiness in 1912 and 1915 consistent of Campylobacter jejuni which is apparently a major causative agent of Guillain–Barré syndrome.

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That would certainly tend to suggest he would be similarly disabled in the ATL. 1912 is long enough after POD(s) to butterfly anything in particular, but the spirit of the TL is to tend to conserve persons and put them in different socio-political slots instead of traditional Church of the Almighty Butterfly with Misaligned Sperm that is something of a cult at AH.com--like, if you don't subscribe to this idea one is in danger of a mod ruling the TL ASB.

I've argued against it on the grounds that mere chaos means it is just as likely a TL that did not match the past before the POD is randomly diverted toward OTL conditions, except insofar as nonrandom changes make convergence impossible. The TLs where purely chance events happen to match up with ours, or even to counteract knock-ons in a plausible way, are highly improbable--but so is any other TL. An author may choose to ignore the background noise of pure chaos therefore, and focus on knock-on visible cause and effect instead.

Frankly the convergence of characters as mirroring OTL people generations after the POD suggests this TL has taken it way beyond that. But it is fun, and the rules seem to be kind of consistent--ATL person is similar to OTL person except insofar as the gross political and resulting social shifts put them in a different social position--but still essentially the same person.

So--the authors if deeply committed to FDR ATL being ablebodied can of course dodge this bullet. But if making him disabled in the OTL way works, you've given ample grounds to suggest he would contract the same condition. By 1912 the world is notably a different place already---since Theodore Roosevelt remained McKinley's VP and did not move on to the Presidency, there was no Bull Moose splitting of the GOP in 1912, which was the window that permitted Woodrow Wilson to take the office OTL, and it was Wilson who made FDR Undersecretary of the Navy. Clearly then FDR is doing somewhat different stuff in 1912, but on the other hand he apparently caught the disease earlier than that OTL, so it is highly likely he could here too.

 

[Rise Comics]

He could well be dead, historically He almost died during the anarchist bombing spree that kicked off the first red scare though he wasn't the target he just happened to be walking nearby and if the bomb had gone off a little sooner he would have been killed.

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In the original timeline, he was alive and in America after the Revolution.

 

[Durabys]

1912 is long enough after POD(s) to butterfly anything in particular, but the spirit of the TL is to tend to conserve persons and put them in different socio-political slots instead of traditional Church of the Almighty Butterfly with Misaligned Sperm that is something of a cult at AH.com--like, if you don't subscribe to this idea one is in danger of a mod ruling the TL ASB.

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Wait. What the actual fuck. WHAT?!

 

[Jake]

Wait. What the actual fuck. WHAT?!

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If you've been wondering why so many people have been cross-posting here from AH.com lately, this sort of thing probably explains it.

 

[Nyvis]

If you've been wondering why so many people have been cross-posting here from AH.com lately, this sort of thing probably explains it.

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Ehhh. That seems a bit like an overblown complaint. I've never seen that result in a thread move or anything, just a handful of people grumbling and shouting ASB.

Anyway, let's not bring that debate here when we have the AH.com welcome thread to debate that in.

 

[Durabys]

If you've been wondering why so many people have been cross-posting here from AH.com lately, this sort of thing probably explains it.

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Can you please PM me what the hell was that site-wide meltdown about? I haven't been a frequent visitor to AH.com since around 2014.

 

[Aelita]

Whatever turn of events that resulted in FDRs paralysis was unlikely, even with 1920s technology so I decided that the butterfly effect should apply. There are too many contraindications to say conclusively whether it was polio or GB, and if it was GB the resulting paralysis was a rare outcome of the condition.

 

[Baron Steakpuncher]

Can you please PM me what the hell was that site-wide meltdown about? I haven't been a frequent visitor to AH.com since around 2014.

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There was a meltdown recently?

 

[Jake]

Can you please PM me what the hell was that site-wide meltdown about? I haven't been a frequent visitor to AH.com since around 2014.

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I didn't see it firsthand, but I've heard several accounts of board drama and favouritism by the admins. I think I'd rather not know the exact details.

 

[LHB]

"The rise of public banking in the wake of the American Revolution was built on the strong foundation of credit unions which criss-crossed the pre-Revolutionary United States. The crisis of the Great Depression helped pave the way forward for the public banking movement. Several Communist-dominated states, including most famously Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, formally established state-owned banks in 1930 and 1931 as emergency measures for financing economic relief efforts. These banks were swiftly taken over by the Provisional government following the MacArthur putsch. They, along with the members of the Credit Union Alliance who had the good fortune to be out of MacArthurite control, formed the backbone of the Provisional government's finances.

Other public banks were formed in the chaos of the Revolution itself. Though some banks, particularly those specializing in agriculture or savings & loans, willingly sided with the Provisional government or simply tried to keep their heads down during the chaos the larger banks, especially those owned by the House of Morgan, eagerly sided with MacArthur. Their enormous credit assets were a critical component of funding MacArthur's shaky government through credit extended by the banks, trading of financial instruments to fund the war and loans received from abroad. This made them a prime target for revolutionary forces.

The fall of New York to the nascent UASR shifted the balance of power in many critical ways. While most of the key documents, including lending records, held by the major Wall Street banks had been transferred early on to Washington and MacArthur's protection, much of their other assets, including considerable quantities of gold, were still in New York when Red forces routed their White foes. While many today are shocked that the capitalist forces could be so lax in failing to secure essential wealth there were two compelling reasons for this oversight. The first is the major banks trusted their hired security to at least hold these facilities pending relief. The second was gold, unlike bank documents, was much harder to move in vast quantities.

Seizure of these assets and other bank documents was approved by the radical New York Commune and approved post-facto as a war measure by the Provisional government in Chicago. The victorious revolutionaries of the New York Commune immediately voted to use the seized assets as capital for founding the Bank of the New York Commune, known today as the Metropolis Communal Bank, to help fund the war effort and to transfer two-thirds of all gold seized to Chicago and the Provisional government at the first practical opportunity. While the Bank of the New York Commune was not the first case of seizure and conversion of private bank assets into public institutions it was the most spectacular, well-known and soon became the blueprint used in other bank seizures across America."

The Public Banking Revolution by Robert Bremmer, published 1992


"When the dust settled from the Revolution one of the main challenges of the UASR's new economic policy was imposing some semblance of order on the Union's financial and monetary systems. The ad-hoc network of credit unions and public banks that served the Provisional government so well had to be re-organized, supported and given specific responsibilities. The new government's first stab at solving this problem was the Banking Reorganization Act of 1933. The two main subjects the Act focused on was the status of public banks and credit unions. In some ways the Act effectively rubber-stamped what had already happened during the course of the conflict while in other ways expanded on these developments.

Credit unions saw some key changes but for the most part their core functions remained largely unchanged. The Credit Union Alliance was folded into the UASR government to serve as a regulatory body for all credit unions. Community banks, agricultural banks and savings and loans that survived the conflict were re-organized into credit unions owned by their depositors. Community banks whose owners were friendly to the Provisional government received limited compensation. The CUA itself was re-organized into a Congress of Delegates chosen from twelve regional districts. Its job was to both monitor the activities of these banks and provide advice, assistance and support for the UASR's economic policies.

Public banks would see critical organizational changes. They were organized into two new categories: provincial banks which were founded under the terms of the act in every province and Autonomous Region and the district banks consisting of banks founded by municipalities, districts and communes within each province. All public banks financed the operations of their relevant governments. Provincial banks were also designated as lenders of last resort for all district banks and credit unions within their jurisdiction. Public bank assets consisted of all physical assets held by their chartering sub-union government, all revenues of their chartering government, deposits from co-operatives in their areas of operation and interest from loans extended by the bank in question. Provincial banks could also turn to the Union Bank as their lender of last resort.

All public banks were operated by Executive Committees. In the case of district banks these committees were directly selected by the relevant governing authority with power to recall any or all of them in the event of unsatisfactory performance. Provincial banks had half of their Executive Committees selected by the relevant provincial government while the other half were chosen by the Provincial Bank Congress, a body of delegates consisting of representatives from all district banks and credit unions within their jurisdiction. The provincial banks also sent their own representatives to the Union Bank Congress to monitor, regulate and nominate potential members of the Union Bank Council subject to the approval of the Central Executive Committee.

Such banks were founded rapidly, proving to be very popular with Union citizens. These banks provided provincial and municipal authorities with the means to directly finance their own projects, fund public housing, overhaul infrastructure and speed up the process of electrification. The Central Executive Committee found them essential for providing greater flexibility and adaptability in economic planning, making it easier to adjust to the changing needs of the working class. They also found strong support from the credit unions thanks to their role as a reliable backup in case of financial emergencies and ability to forgive debts when necessary.

Most Union economic historians have concluded the public banks were one of the key pillars of the rapid economic recovery from the Crash of 1929. The model was so effective that public banks, along with credit unions, soon spread to much of UASR-aligned Latin America. Taking cues from their North American comrades, such institutions soon became the bulwark for financing the new revolutionary states. The only major holdout in the growing Communist bloc in this initial period was the Soviet Union."

Revolutionary Banking: A Monetary History of the UASR by David Harvey, published 1988


"One of the biggest questions facing the Communist movement was that of money. Money, in accordance with orthodox Marxist theory, was capital put into a commodified form. Further complicating matters was that the foundation of all money, according to communist and capitalist thinkers alike, was debt. Money existed as a form of debt and could only continue to be produced so long as debt was issued. It was both the lifeblood of capitalist economics and a commodity unto itself, traded like any other product of labor.

This made preserving any form of monetary exchange a difficult conundrum for Communists in the UASR and the USSR. On one hand, keeping money intact meant preserving a chain that held back the working class from liberation. Proponents of this position feared preserving money would undermine the gains of the revolution by ensuring the very instrument used to justify oppressing the working class would remain intact. This position was especially popular among the party ultra-left. In contrast to this position where the economists and thinkers in the immediate aftermath of the American and Russian Revolutions who had great difficulty conceiving of any sort of alternative for handling a highly complex, specialized economy. The ultimate solution reached by planners on both sides of the Atlantic for meeting these concerns was a reflection of the tensions, conditions and immediate challenges facing both revolutionary governments.

The Soviet Union resolved the problem in 1922 with the establishment of the State Bank of the Soviet Union, more commonly known as Gosbank. The Gosbank was founded using the seized assets of all banks, financial firms and other similar operations along with the confiscated wealth of the Tsars to handle monetary affairs in the new USSR. Gosbank was both the central bank of the Soviet Union and the only bank within its borders. Gosbank operated like other central banks of its time, such as the US Federal Reserve and the British Bank of England, and also extended loans to fund economic enterprises and infrastructure projects in the Soviet Union. Critics characterized it as the highest form of state capitalism while proponents argued Gosbank was a better solution than allowing multiple banks to operate within the USSR.

What developed in the UASR was very different. Unlike the Soviet Union, whose approach to Gosbank was influenced by the highly elite nature of clientele of Russian banks, the former United States had a long history of regional and community banks along with a vibrant network of credit unions. A far greater percentage of Americans, in contrast to subjects of the Russian Empire, had a bank account and lines of credit in some form or another. There was also the considerable network of independent yet allied credit unions organized under the Credit Union Alliance whose members included credit unions for the Workers' Communist Party, the Solidarity Labor Federation and the famous Army and Navy Federal Credit Unions. The credit unions were further supported by the ad hoc network of public banks founded shorty before and during the Revolution. Based on all of this the framers of the UASR determined it would simply not be possible or desirable to implement anything similar to the Gosbank. The Union Bank of the UASR was instead established solely as the central bank and main watchdog of financial activities in the UASR.

The Union Bank took a rather unique approach to managing monetary policy, which became a widely copied blueprint throughout the Comintern. The first major policy set by the Union Bank was the decision to move to a purely fiat currency backed by the full faith, credit and labor of the Union government. Transactions with governments who didn't trust the new Union Dollar were guaranteed by the gold reserves of the former United States and private banks which were seized during the Revolution. New money was created through extending loans or issuing bonds which could be purchased by citizens, economic co-operatives and other Comintern governments with the flow regulated by the interest rate set by the Union Bank. This created far greater flexibility for UASR planners in regulating the flow of currency in and out of the economy by granting, to quote Union Bank financial economist and later Chairman Joseph Schumpeter, "total freedom to create and destroy" .

To combat the twin fears of encroaching debt and runaway inflation the Union Bank enacted a policy of debt forgiveness. Debts extended by the Union Bank could be forgiven for operations seen as socially necessary of those who were in danger of insolvency due to loan payments or as a means of deflating the overall money supply. In some cases, either by a vote of the Bank Council or the Central Executive Committee, jubilees could be implemented wiping the slate clean for entire regions or even in extreme cases the entire Union. Public banks and credit unions were also allowed to use this instrument their debts. In effect this instrument granted flexibility to co-operative enterprises outside the realm of the state, a mechanism for the Union Bank to keep inflation in check and the means for direct economic relief."

Globalizing Revolution: A Monetary History of the Communist International by Barry Eichengreen, published 1996

 

[Shevek23]

"...provincial banks which were founded under the terms of the act in every province and Autonomous Region...

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Quick nitpick while I contemplate whether or not to dive down the rabbit hole of theory of money from a Marxist perspective...

Isn't the use of the term "province" pretty alien to the consensus terminology of the UASR's political organization as put forth by @Aelita and others thus far? I thought all the subdivision bailiwicks of the UASR are all called "Republics" of some specified kind--mostly Integral Republics corresponding to the pre-revolutionary 1787 Constitution States (47 per the diagram in the Informational threadmarked post 667), 5 Autonomous Republics (which differ from regular Integral Republics in that they have special characteristics of their people, such as being African-American dominated or Native American, or in the case of Metropolis and maybe one or two more, are conurbations of great magnitude, super-city-states if you will) and 6 Associate Republics, which have historic grounds to be ambiguous about American identity and thus have a right to break their association with the UASR unilaterally--hence "associated."

So there are no "provinces" in the UASR. Just various types of worker Republics. The Autonomous and Associated "regions" are Republics too, just ones with special distinctions from the regular hence "Integral" ones.

 

[Aelita]

Province is an acceptable generic, if you don't care to specify what legal category it falls in

 

[kammada]

Gosbank was both the central bank of the Soviet Union and the only bank within its borders.

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IOTL, it wasn't exactly the case during the early NEP years. Back then, there were some joint-stock banks (some wholly controlled by the state like Prombank, some not), regionally-owned banks (mostly banks of the constituent republics of the Union as well as some regional banks within the RSFSR) and credit unions. This system, though, has been largely dismantled by 1926-27, even before the 'official' end of the NEP.

Otherwise, great post. When it comes to alternate history, one doesn't see the insights into its inner economic workings, let alone banking system, too often.

 

[Shevek23]

Province is an acceptable generic, if you don't care to specify what legal category it falls in

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All right I suppose, considering this is a work of fiction.

But I felt and still feel it detracts from the intelligibility and the high level of realism this iteration achieves generally.

I checked the post to see if the ATL "source" is from outside the Comintern or anyway the UASR. An FBU account might muff the normal terminology understandably. And perhaps with invidious malice aforethought too!

But it looks like a UASR source, and an American writer writing as a UASR citizen for a UASR audience (or any other) would call them what they are called normally in casual conversation, for clarity and just out of consensual (and also more correct!) habit. We in OTL USA do not refer to our states as "provinces" and anyone who did so would be pounced on immediately; if the revolutionaries went out of their way to rename the term from "state" to "republic" presumably to stress that these entities are in fact organs of popular will and not some sort of reified thing existing separately from that, why would anyone later get into the habit of calling them "provinces?"

Perhaps if there were a crisis in which some faction, of far left or perhaps much more likely the moderate right, were to defy UASR authority on the grounds of alleged "sovereignty" of these Republics (presumably just their own, or some factional bunch of them in alliance) analogous to the evolving "states rights" doctrines promoted by Calhoun and others (inconsistently of course; these same factionalists were all for Federal power when it suited them, a pattern continuing to this day on the US Right) leading up to secession in 1860, a counternarrative asserting that the UASR trumps the individual Republics being an organ of the larger number of working people might informally start speaking of the Republics as "provinces" I suppose.

But nothing in prior iterations nor a reasonable anticipation of existing trends as of the mid-30s in this one foretells such a crisis--the UASR as an overarching central government does in fact on one hand have less checked potential to act as a high handed central power, but on the other has gone out of its way to make local autonomy, in the context of a shared understanding that all Republics are in this together, much more a concrete reality where it matters, going so far as to formally grant the Associated Republics the unilateral right to withdraw.

I don't anticipate that becoming an actual thing in any of the existing AsR's in a reasonably foreseeable future--the extra bargaining power this gives them would tend to restrain and check any central movement that would highhandedly annoy the people of these republics, and without a strong irritant the rational interest of them all is to remain sheltered under UASR's umbrella of power and share in its collectively organized progress, while having superior autonomy to anything the USA ever gave them.

And by the same logic, I would not foresee a "republics rights" conflict among the IRs or AuRs either, so no reason for people to get out of the habit of calling them "republics."

If anything, the more likely alternative to calling the Republics that name is calling them "states," by carried over habit from the USA era. Of course that marks one as politically incorrect in the most literal sense--avoiding the old term as noted stresses avoiding the nonsense Calhoun and his latter day (OTL) acolytes like to assert, retaining it shows at best an uneducated conservatism and might be a signal of downright counterrevolutionary attitudes. So I think that calling each of the 58 units mentioned in the diagram referenced "republics" generically would be normalized fast and be so ubiquitous any alternative phrasing would seem bizarre--as I find it.

At least "state," were it not tainted with unfortunate associations (but not technically wrong if one were careful to acknowledge they are not nations with pure and total sovereignty--but they certainly are "states" generically speaking) is also a quickly uttered and written one syllable word; "province" is no more economical of breath or keystrokes than "republic" and is definitely wrong in that the Republics clearly have a dignity and authority higher than a mere administrative subdivision analogous to the Districts the Basic Law mandates on the Republics.

I bow to the authority of word of Collective God, but dissent and humbly put in a request for revision for the sake of logic and consistency of canon! Unless of course this telegraphs a constitutional crisis of the type I do not foresee sometime before the 1988 publication date of the confusing document quoted! I hope not, but we shall see.

 

[LHB]

All right I suppose, considering this is a work of fiction.

But I felt and still feel it detracts from the intelligibility and the high level of realism this iteration achieves generally.

I checked the post to see if the ATL "source" is from outside the Comintern or anyway the UASR. An FBU account might muff the normal terminology understandably. And perhaps with invidious malice aforethought too!

But it looks like a UASR source, and an American writer writing as a UASR citizen for a UASR audience (or any other) would call them what they are called normally in casual conversation, for clarity and just out of consensual (and also more correct!) habit. We in OTL USA do not refer to our states as "provinces" and anyone who did so would be pounced on immediately; if the revolutionaries went out of their way to rename the term from "state" to "republic" presumably to stress that these entities are in fact organs of popular will and not some sort of reified thing existing separately from that, why would anyone later get into the habit of calling them "provinces?"

Perhaps if there were a crisis in which some faction, of far left or perhaps much more likely the moderate right, were to defy UASR authority on the grounds of alleged "sovereignty" of these Republics (presumably just their own, or some factional bunch of them in alliance) analogous to the evolving "states rights" doctrines promoted by Calhoun and others (inconsistently of course; these same factionalists were all for Federal power when it suited them, a pattern continuing to this day on the US Right) leading up to secession in 1860, a counternarrative asserting that the UASR trumps the individual Republics being an organ of the larger number of working people might informally start speaking of the Republics as "provinces" I suppose.

But nothing in prior iterations nor a reasonable anticipation of existing trends as of the mid-30s in this one foretells such a crisis--the UASR as an overarching central government does in fact on one hand have less checked potential to act as a high handed central power, but on the other has gone out of its way to make local autonomy, in the context of a shared understanding that all Republics are in this together, much more a concrete reality where it matters, going so far as to formally grant the Associated Republics the unilateral right to withdraw.

I don't anticipate that becoming an actual thing in any of the existing AsR's in a reasonably foreseeable future--the extra bargaining power this gives them would tend to restrain and check any central movement that would highhandedly annoy the people of these republics, and without a strong irritant the rational interest of them all is to remain sheltered under UASR's umbrella of power and share in its collectively organized progress, while having superior autonomy to anything the USA ever gave them.

And by the same logic, I would not foresee a "republics rights" conflict among the IRs or AuRs either, so no reason for people to get out of the habit of calling them "republics."

If anything, the more likely alternative to calling the Republics that name is calling them "states," by carried over habit from the USA era. Of course that marks one as politically incorrect in the most literal sense--avoiding the old term as noted stresses avoiding the nonsense Calhoun and his latter day (OTL) acolytes like to assert, retaining it shows at best an uneducated conservatism and might be a signal of downright counterrevolutionary attitudes. So I think that calling each of the 58 units mentioned in the diagram referenced "republics" generically would be normalized fast and be so ubiquitous any alternative phrasing would seem bizarre--as I find it.

At least "state," were it not tainted with unfortunate associations (but not technically wrong if one were careful to acknowledge they are not nations with pure and total sovereignty--but they certainly are "states" generically speaking) is also a quickly uttered and written one syllable word; "province" is no more economical of breath or keystrokes than "republic" and is definitely wrong in that the Republics clearly have a dignity and authority higher than a mere administrative subdivision analogous to the Districts the Basic Law mandates on the Republics.

I bow to the authority of word of Collective God, but dissent and humbly put in a request for revision for the sake of logic and consistency of canon! Unless of course this telegraphs a constitutional crisis of the type I do not foresee sometime before the 1988 publication date of the confusing document quoted! I hope not, but we shall see.

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One of the reasons for the author using generic terms is because the model being described is copied widely throughout Latin America. This makes using generic terms more understandable as there isn't the same political setup in the UASR's Latin American sphere of influene at the time this is referring to. As it says in the text itself this model doesn't stay unique to the UASR so referring to it in such parochial terms, especially much later when you've got by then a far more internationalized Comintern and UASR along with more time for the model to spread, simply wouldn't make sense.

 

[Shevek23]

One of the reasons for the author using generic terms is because the model being described is copied widely throughout Latin America. This makes using generic terms more understandable as there isn't the same political setup in the UASR's Latin American sphere of influene at the time this is referring to. As it says in the text itself this model doesn't stay unique to the UASR so referring to it in such parochial terms, especially much later when you've got by then a far more internationalized Comintern and UASR along with more time for the model to spread, simply wouldn't make sense.

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That makes good sense.

And yet I feel that ATL readers of whatever bloc would quite understand how to translate UASR Republics into the provincial subdivisions of Latin American Comintern republics, and the example and historic basis offered being the UASR, the right terms for UASR would be well known to any reader and substitution of some generic template term hardly necessary, while the alien terminology for the UASR remains offputting and confusing.

Like, I had to go back and scan the basic law stuff to make sure there weren't some "provinces" I'd forgotten about. Nope, in context clearly every time you used that word in the post, you meant "Republic."

So consider my protest lodged, me unconvinced by these explanations, and that as far as I am concerned we can move on and forget about the terminology, and I beg indulgence if in the future I am quite confused by fast and loose terms that I think the people in the time line would not substitute for the normal and natural one.

 

[Traveller76]

MLA (2004)
Directed by Devdas Jain
Written by Aditya Lalita Kaur
Produced by Seema Korrapati

MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) is a political satire comedy film starring Ravinder Korrapati, Shakti Bachchan, Kapil Akshay Vemulakonda, Rajni Chaudhary, Vasant Kaur, Rajneesh Chaudhari, and Varsha Rao

Ravinder plays Nagendra Tamboli, a former action film star facing bankruptcy after a series of failed films. As an attempt to revive his career his manager Jayant (Shakti Bachchan) suggests he enters politics as other films stars have done in the past. When Nagandra says he does not know any anything about current affairs or political issues Jayant advises him 'neither did the other stars, that is why they have advisors and writers.' Jayant and Nagendra decide to travel to Nagendra's village of Nasjur, where Nagendra left about fifteen years ago, in order to establish residency. While Nagendra and Jayant are travelling by bus a radio announces that the MLA for Nasjur has died from a heart attack and that a special election will be held in several months time.

Nagendra and Jayant arrive in Nasjur where several people recognize Nagendra as the son of the local schoolteacher Chander (Kapil Akshay Vemulakonda), who has now retired. When Nagendra and Jayant arrive at his family's house his father refuses to meet them but his mother Navdeep (Rajni Chaudhary) and younger brothers greet him warmly. After some refreshments Jayant and Nagendra tour the village where except for a few new signs and houses little has changed since Nagendra left. Already posters for the election are appearing with Tushar Patil (Vasant Kaur) as the leading candidate. Nagendra and Jayant rent a room with Agni (Rajneesh Chaudhari) a chemist and school time friend of Nagendra's.

The next day Nagendra and Jayant visit the local school where they meet Puja (Varsha Rao), a classmate of Nagendra's and now head teacher after Chander retired. While having lunch Puja tells Nagendra and Jayant that the former MLA Ganesh Kulkarni started out as a reformer when he was elected ten years ago. However when his wife died of a long illness much of his spirit left him and he became a recluse and corrupt, trading his votes for money. Agni and Puja are hoping to nominate an independent candidate against Tushar Patil, who is supported by various landlords and business people and whose factories are known polluters. Puja invites Nagendra to her family's house where she shows the effects that pollution are having on her community. The next day Nagendra and Jayant file the paperwork to run as an independent candidate in the election. Nagendra uses his popularity as a film star and roots with the local communities to tour the constituency vowing to clear up pollution and listen to local concerns. Through a montage we see Nagendra, Jayant and Agni meeting voters with sometimes hilarious results and posters for Nagendra replacing Tushar's. A few days before the vote Nagendra and Jayant are invited by Tushar Patil for dinner. At the dinner Tushar offers a 'gift' of one lakh rupees (100,000) for him to withdraw from the election. Jayant agrees but Nagendra stops him and refuses which causes an argument between the two. Meanwhile Tushar is secretly recording the argument and has the video released to a local news channel.

The video leads to protests outside the house of Nagendra where he and Jayant are thrown out by Agni. Puja accuses him of being another corrupt politician and that it was better to be openly corrupt than to hide his intentions and hurt his family. While waiting for a bus a car stops and a couple asks to speak with Nagendra. They reveal themselves to be Harish and Anima Kulkarni, the son and daughter in law of Ganesh Kulkarni. At their home in the city they tell Nagendra that their father had accrued a massive debt while taking care of their mother and that Tushar Patil and others offered to pay off the debt and fund Harish's college tuition and wedding. Ganesh accepted but kept a record of all the transactions and wrongdoings of Tushar and his partners in a book that they give Nagendra. Nagendra insists they take this to the proper authorities and requests a ride back to Nasjur.

At a rally Tushar Patil is addressing the crowd and blames Ganesh Kulkarni and Nagendra for a 'culture of corruption'. When Nagendra arrives he is initially booed but requests an opportunity to speak, which Tushar grants. Nagendra addresses the crowd, saying that he planned to run for the wrong reasons and that he should be honest with his own family and community. Over time he changed his mind and decided not to go back to the city and stay in the village if they want him to stay. Just then a car of police officers and election officials arrive and announce that Tushar Patil is under arrest for bribery. Meanwhile news of Ganesh's records and corruption are messaged to everyone's mobile phones. While stepping down from the stage Nagendra is hugged by his father and family along with Agni, Puja and Jayant while surrounded by a cheering crowd.

The end scenes show Nagendra and Puja, now married, moving furniture into a new house with assistance from Agni and Jayant with a television announcing the election of Nagendra as the new MLA. Nagendra asks Agni, Puja and Jayant "What do you think of this title, Chief Minister Tamboli?" All three look worried as the credits start.

 

[Aelita]

Events of interest, 1934

January 1: The Alcatraz Citadel is transferred from the Navy to the Secretariat for Public Safety. The Citadel's military prison facilities will be expanded to serve as the primary repository for infamous counterrevolutionaries. Among its first inmates is Arizona businessman and junta supporter Barry Goldwater, serving a life sentence for sedition and treason for his part in arming and supporting reactionary militias during the Civil War.

January 6: The first Flash Gordon comic strip is published, written and drawn by Alex Raymond. In it, the titular hero, with love interest Dale Arden, is whisked away by Dr. Zharkov to a far-away planet, Doitsu, where he fights the evil dictator Adolf the Abominable.

January 15: Marinus van der Lubbe is executed in Germany for his alleged role in the Reichstag incident. Demonstrations are held throughout major American cities to protest this display of Nazi brutality. That night, a candlelight vigil is held at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. Provisional President Sinclair delivers a eulogy for the martyred Dutch communist as a stirring call to action to fight fascism.

January 16: Henry Ford buys a permanent home and a defunct factory in Germany as part of his move to cozy up to Hitler and restart his business empire within the Reich.

January 17: Samantha Waver proposes her draft for Commander Columbia for the third time to the Motion Picture Commission of the Proletarian Culture Federation and is initially rejected due to citations of overambition and scepticism that a female lead project with a female lead could succeed. Samantha refuses to accept defeat however and continues to fight a long battle to get her script approved.

January 21: A group of civic organizations, notably the Sons of the American Revolution, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and International Red Aid, secure land in Washington D.C. for a Second Civil War memorial. WPA Secretary-General Earl Browder sponsors a popular contest, organized by the Architect's Union, to design the memorial.

February 1: On the eve of the normalization of relations with the UASR, the French National Gendarmerie conducts a series of arrests of key members of the far-right Action Francaise. A plot against the Third Republic is exposed the following morning.

February 3: The National Congress of the Workers' Party adopts Browder-Foster-Sinclair troika's proposed program for "the state development of socialist relations."

February 6: American Foreign Secretary John Reed concludes his meeting with his French counterpart, Yvon Delbos. A draft trade treaty is nearing completion as the American embassy in Paris resumes normal operations after a year of political crisis.

February 9: The Fundamental Principles of the Soviet Congresses is ratified by Mississippi. All 48 states have now consented to the new union.

February 11: Benito Mussolini declares Fascist Italy to be "an eternal enemy of the Bolshevik government in D.C" in a speech in Rome, denouncing the new government as the final culmination of the "American disease of liberty lust and feminisation" and declares America to be "a nation of the weak, by the weak, and for the weak."

February 13: Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express is published, to be a classic in the mystery genre.It is one of the British works coming out during the year to include a White American emigre as a character.

February 16: Imperial Japan: the coronation of the first puppet emperor of the Manchu State (Manshūkoku) is held. The newly declared "Great Manchu Empire" is a vassal of the Empire of Japan, and its government ministers merely serve as front men for Japanese imperial ministers. In a speech before the Provisional Congress, Premier Foster harshly condemns this latest display of Japanese imperialism in China. In a closed Central Committee meeting that evening, policy towards Japan is discussed, and a study by the Foreign Secretariat of the possible effectiveness of resources embargoes against Japan is commissioned.

February 20: The first lynchpin in the state socialist program, the National Recovery Act, is passed unopposed by the Provisional Congress. The NRA omnibus would establish much of the legal framework for the new economy, numerous new all-Union secretariats and agencies, as well as public relief and works projects.

February 24: The Supreme Court issues its decision in Morgan v. UASR. The Court, formerly reticent about constitutional matters, rules unanimously in rejecting legal arguments questioning the legitimacy of the new constitutional order.

February 26: Responding to a tip left by an informant, a Public Safety posse comitatus led by Spartacus League Sergeant John Dillinger corner bank robber and hired gun "Machine Gun" Kelly at a hotel in South Bend, Indiana. Kelly and eight accomplices are killed while resisting arrest and attempting to escape, but several members of the posse are killed While Kelly's gang's counterrevolutionary spree of bank robbery and terrorism is ended, the ineffective ad hoc cooperation between Spartacists, Indiana Red Guards and Hoover's NBI-men provokes internal review and public scandal.

February 28: Leon Trotsky publishes his first syndicated column for the national newspaper, The Daily Worker. The column, "Reflections on the American Experience with Communism", offers a careful analysis of what has been accomplished, and what remains to be accomplished in the American Revolution.

March 1: British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin introduces the budget for the 1934 fiscal year in the House of Commons. Amid nominal increases in income tax and social spending, the budget contains a major increase in armaments spending. The Army's budget is doubled to £13.1 million, while the Royal Navy and Royal Air force both receive an additional £10 million, amounting to £36.4 million and £19.4 million respectively. The funds earmarked for defense preparation studies are a portent of greater changes to come.

March 7: Fascist Italy announces even greater expansions of its military forces with the blessing of the British Empire which hopes to rely on Italy as an ally against America at sea and Russia on land.

March 8: A list of 700 names, consisting of suspected counterrevolutionary political leaders, paramilitaries, organized crime bosses, and other dangerous counterrevolutionaries, is published by SecPubSafe. The Enemies of the People list signals an intensification of the Red Terror amidst the transition to constitutional government.

March 12: On the first anniversary of Pope Pius XI's anti-communist papal bull, a congress of dissident Catholic priests and lay members convenes in Chicago, establishing what would eventually become the Red Trinitarian Ecumene.

March 15: The Basic Law of the UASR is ratified by the Congress of Soviets, with only scattered opposition votes by independents and True Democrats. The Congress of Soviets dissolves for elections, as previously agreed.

March 15: The cultish and secretive society known as the Humble Knights of God commits to a merger with Salgado's AIB party under the orders of the Boaventura brothers to serve as the "Lusophonic SS" despite the protests of secular fascists like Barroso.

March 16: Former First Secretary Nicholas Longworth attempts to commit suicide by hanging himself in his cell while awaiting prosecution. He is cut down and resuscitated by prison guards.

March 21: New York socialist leader Morris Hilquit passes away from a stroke at his home in Manhattan. The beloved former Mayor of New York is given a state funeral procession through Manhattan. After the somber occasion, attended by hundreds of thousands, his body is cremated, and interred in a small plot next to Norman Thomas.

March 24: Provisional Secretary for Foreign Trade Walter Lippman announces a comprehensive suite of sanctions against Latin American "caudillo autocracies." The seizure of overseas assets, trade embargo and naval blockade are expected to deal a crippling blow to the former comprador regimes of the old United States.

April 6: Elections for the All-Union Congress of Soviets conclude. A decisive supermajority is achieved by the pro-revolution United Democratic Front, with an absolute majority of seats held by the WPA. The demoralized opposition fails to show up at the polls with sufficient weight.

April 13: Charlie Chaplin endorses Samantha Waver's script in her next submission to the Proletkult Federation, which proves to be a decisive move towards getting it accepted due to the vast influence wielded by the "little tramp" among his fellow entertainers through his high regard.

April 14: The II Congress of Soviets convenes. The Office of the President is legally subsumed into the Presidium of the Congress of Soviets. Upton Sinclair is elected Secretary-General of the Presidium and sworn in at noon. The deputies of the Central Executive Council are elected in the afternoon.

April 15: A torrent of the worst dust storms recorded in the Dust Bowl wrack the Midwest. The new Central Committee declares a state of emergency in the affected regions, and mobilizes the Red Guards to provide relief. Spurred on by the crisis, work advances on the expansion of the Provisional Government's Agricultural Relief and Reorganization Act.

April 18: Troops of the Mexican People's Liberation Army cross into Guatemala as Jorge Ubico's regime begins to founder amidst widespread labor unrest.

April 23: A preliminary trade agreement, brokered by Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace with his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Chernov, furnishes grain, agricultural supplies, and tractors to the Soviet Union. This in-kind trade is publicized as repayment for Soviet military aid during the Civil War. In reality, like the Provisional Government's "tractors for tanks" trade last summer, it is relief aid to counter the mounting problems with the collectivization drives.1​

April 30: The Judiciary Omnibus is passed. The omnibus defines the basic structure of the union court system. People's Tribunals, analogous to the Federal District courts of the previous era, serve as the court of original jurisdiction for the majority of issues. A tier of Appeals Tribunals are established superior to the People's Tribunals. Various special courts, such as military justice courts, are also established by the Omnibus.

May 1: Much of the nation comes to a temporary halt today to celebrate International Labor Day. The parades, marches and festivities are much more jovial this year, replacing the often militant tone of previous May Days with a much more celebratory feeling. In the spirit of the day, the White House, the Capitol, and other government buildings are decked with red and black bunting.

May 5: The Socialist Republic of Mexico adopts its new revolutionary constitution.

May 11: The revised Agricultural Relief and Reorganization Act comes to a vote. To ensure its swift passage, Premier Foster has elected to attach a motion of confidence to the bill. The Central Committee retains the confidence of the Congress.

May 13: The Public Safety Act is ratified. The Civil War's Special Committee for State Security is elevated to permanent state committee status. The law also establishes a national gendarmerie, the Proletarian Guard, as the primary all-union law enforcement agency and the public face of the Main Directorate for State Security.

May 18: The 3rd Cavalry Regiment is reformed into the 3rd Tank Division. The unit continues maneuvers in Kentucky to study combined arms and tank warfare.

May 23: The Commission for Legal Reform is established under the Secretariat for Justice to overhaul the American legal system. As a preliminary step, the Workers' Party announces the suspension on the enforcement of most criminal laws save those deemed essential to basic security. Homosexuality, miscegenation, obscenity, prostitution, cannabis, low-stakes gambling, and birth control are effectively decriminalized throughout the Union.

May 25: Diego Rivera, Chairman of the Presidium of the All-Mexican Congress of Soviets, announces the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate members of the deposed Calles regime, with an eye to rehabilitate and heal the divisions between the two wings of the first Mexican Revolution.

May 28: New York City breaks ground on major urban renewal public works projects. The construction program will renovate or build modern public housing, children's creches, schools, parks and public baths throughout the city.

June 1: General Jiang Jieshi meets with American ambassadors in Nanjing to discuss economic and military cooperation, especially with regards to Japan's growing militancy.

June 4: In accordance to CEC directives, the Union Bank sets the price of gold at $1.25 per gram.

June 7: John Reed arrives in Leningrad, to conclude the negotiation of a major treaty defining foreign trade, mutual defense, and cultural exchange between the UASR and the Soviet Union.

June 9: Donald Duck makes his debut in the Hyperion color short The Hen and the Ducks, where he and other wetland creatures work to overthrow a stereotypical fairy tale style hen encroaching on their land as a capitalist.

June 10: The "Night of Long Knives" purge begins in Nazi Germany, consolidating Nazi rule and eliminating unreliable populist elements like the SA.

June 12: Commander Columbia is finally accepted by the Proletkult Federation, and starts pre-production with a head start due to the significant legwork already done by Samantha Waver and her group from before and during the revolution. Interest from the wider American government, which is looking for propaganda symbols to help define the new American identity will see the project expanded into a massive slate of two films a year for at least ten years starting in the late 30s; and will find Mrs.Waver at the helm of the "Ruby Orchestra", which will come to be one of America's premier animation groups.

June 12: The Commonwealth of the Philippines was formally established as an Anglo-Japanese protectorate, with a Philippine Constitution stipulating a British Crown-appointed Resident-General and a semi-presidential government. The Philippines becomes a de facto British dominion. The Empire of Japan gets "parity rights" in the 1934 Philippine Constitution in the exploitation of Philippine natural resources with Filipino, Americuban and British citizens as well as a limited de facto control over the island of Mindanao. Japan also gets to send a Resident-General based in Davao to see the enforcement of the Anglo-Japanese protectorate over the islands.

June 14: The Sequoyah Autonomous Socialist Republic is established, the first major reorganization of the government's social contract with Native Americans. Formed out of eastern Oklahoma, the new autonomie is established concurrently with the abolition of blood quanta laws, allowing the native leaders to redefine what it means to be a member of a Native American nation on their own terms.

June 18: The Council of the National Economy meets in Chicago, establishing the syndicalist administration of state industries.

June 21: Hitler shares a secretive telegrammed conversation with the British Prime Minister discussing the possibility of rapprochement with a United Kingdom far more afraid of the Sino-Soviet-American Socialist triad than the thought of a renewed German bloc in central Europe. This will lead to face to face talks a month later.

June 22: The Commonwealth of Virginia agrees to cede additional land in Arlington to the All-Union Government. The National Revolutionary Defense Act of 1934 is passed by the CEC, authorizing naval spending to complete eight capital ships, four carriers, and thirty cruisers.. A standing army of twenty-five divisions and 800,000 men is authorized, to be supported by twenty Red Guards division cadres capable of mobilizing rapidly to full strength.

June 30: The Central Committee formally endorses the Lakota Nation's proposal for a Great Sioux Autonomous Socialist Republic. Under the proposal, the Black Hills and surrounding ancestral lands in Wyoming and South Dakota would be returned to the Lakota and Cheyenne people as a multinational autonomous region.

July 1: The film classic, the The Legend of Robin Hood, premieres on the big screen. The reinterpretation of the Robin Hood myth offered by this (for the time) high budget, glossy Hollywood epic will capture the imagination of American audiences for decades to come. Considered the archetypal proletarian folk tale, the film catapulted its lead, Marion Morrison, into stardom.

July 2: Prime Minister Baldwin meets with German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath. Hitler treats the warm reception of the proposed Anglo-German military cooperation against the Soviets as a blank cheque for rearmament.

July 4: Independence Day is celebrated with the usual fanfare throughout the UASR.

July 7: The Anglo-Japanese Naval Treaty is signed in Kyoto. Cooperation and technical exchange are strengthened, and the terms of mutual defense against the Comintern are defined. This amounts to a quiet renunciation of the Naval Treaties by Japan, and diplomatic protests are made by the American government.

July 8: Nicaraguan Revolution: following the conclusion of a pact with rebel leader Augusto Sandino, elements of the 1st Marine Division conduct an amphibious landing near the capital of Managua. Already reeling from the loss of American military support and trade, the demoralized National Guard surrenders with minimal bloodshed.

July 10: The Soviet Joint-State Political Directorate (OGPU) is reorganized into the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB) as a subordinate agency of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

July 12: The Third Summer Spartakiad is held in St. Louis, by the now American dominated Sportsintern. Originally a Communist alternative to the Olympics, most commentators see it as a dry run for American and Soviet athletes who are to compete in the upcoming Olympics in Berlin.

July 14: Aeon Lullaby: Blood and Thunder by Samantha Waver releases, featuring its young protagonists engaged in fierce battle with the Archons who oppose them as well as a reflection on the nature of beauty even in the terrible ugliness of war.

July 16: The Comprehensive Finance Act is signed into law. The CFA restructures the American tax system, transferring the bulk of tax burden to economic firms.

July 18: After a contentious debate, the Congress of Soviets recognizes the provisional African National Federal Republic as an Autonomous Republic. Following a confirmation vote in the Council of the Republics, the previous month's votes by the Black majority Workers' parties to dissolve the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are confirmed.

July 21: The Leningrad Treaty is signed, significantly expanding the role of the Communist International and beginning its transformation from a forum of communist parties into an international governing body.

July 24: Soviet agronomist Trofim Lysenko is arrested by the GUGB. His political opposition to "Wallace's hybridization Darwinian pseudoscience", as he termed it, has resulted in his denunciation for complicating Soviet-American relations. After a forced confession for "sabotage", Lysenko is sentenced to hard labor.

July 30: Work resumes on the suspended ex-United States-class battlecruisers. Two begin conversion to aircraft carriers, the remaining three are modified beyond the tonnage limits of the Washington Naval Treaty.

August 2: Adolf Hitler merges of the offices of Reich Chancellor and Reich President into the singular Führer. Protests by German-Americans are held all across the UASR, catching the attention of the All-Union Government. In the coming weeks, Secretary-General Sinclair promulgates policies that will offer asylum to anyone fleeing the tyranny of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

August 5: Herge's fourth comic volume starring the collected adventures of the character Tintin, Tintin in America, make its debut. Combining a pre-Revolution draft for an American set adventure with plot elements lifted directly from Land of the Soviets, the volume features Tintin battling the CSS, and their nefarious schemes tricking the Lakota peoples of the Black Hills into supporting their cause, while exploiting them.

August 8: The First Five Year Plan's strategic directives are finalized in the State Planning Commission. The Plan hopes to achieve a return to pre-depression industrial production levels and a halving of unemployment by June of 1936, pre-depression GDP by February 1937, full employment by January 1938, and real economic growth rates of between 7% and 8% per annum until the Plan's conclusion in October of 1939.

August 10: At his office, Chicago Outfit boss Johnny Torrio, one of the most powerful figures in American organized crime, is killed in a shootout with MDSS agents.

August 15: Al Capp's comic strip Lil' Abner, a beloved American institution for the next forty years, is first published.

August 16: The Tennessee Valley Industrial Project begins. Ground is broken on the first of a dozen damn in the Valley, and plans for a major aluminum smelting industrial center are finalized for the region.

August 18: Patronized by Philadelphia Orchestra music director Leopold Stokowski (who had introduced his works to America in the 20's), Dmitri Shostakovich debuts his Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

August 24: The American 1st Cavalry Division is reorganized as the 1st Mechanised Division. Its two mechanised cavalry brigades are reorganised into three mechanised infantry regiments, each with an organic tank battalion.

August 27: A Comintern Military Affairs conclave is held in Sevastopol. Among the attendees are the Soviet Army Commanders M.V. Frunze, M. N. Tukhachevsky, I.E. Yakir, Vice Admiral William Halsey, and Lt. General Harry Haywood.

September 3: Following a cashiering ceremony, Major General George C. Marshall's sentence of death by firing squad is carried out in Haymarket Square, Chicago. The public of executions of other notable putschists will be carried out in the coming months.

September 12: A wave of major arrests of True Democrat politicians is conducted by the Proletarian Guard.

September 15: The Yiddish word "kibbutz" enters into the American national lexicon, following an in depth profile by The New York Times of the burgeoning collective farm projects throughout America. The writer, an American Labor Zionist Jew, compares his experience visiting collectives in the Black Belt and the Dust Bowl ridden prairie to his experience living in the kibbutzim founded by Jewish settlers in Palestine. The word will soon stick, and become standard lingo for the agro-industrial collectives in America.

September 18: The District of Columbia, and additional land cessions from Virginia and Maryland are combined into the Debs Commune, bringing the City of Washington's expanded metropolitan area under a single government.

September 20: The first oil drills and derricks in Italy and Libya are completed and launched, and foreign investment in the Kingdom of Italy; particularly from exiled American Oil industry magnates; has already paid substantial dividends to the Kingdom. In honour of their contributions, Mussolini makes Fred Koch an honorary citizen of the Kingdom.

September 24: The first class of conscripts are inducted into the Armed Masses Militia.

September 27: Mexican Premier Lázaro Cárdenas del Rio announces the immediate enactment of land reform to destroy the hacienda system. Private property in land is abolished without compensation, with land being turned over to ejidos collectives managed by the National Agrarian Registry.

October 1: The First Five Year Plan formally begins. Presently, unemployment stands at around 20%. Metrification, a voluntary affair half-heartedly promoted since the First World War, becomes mandatory.

October 4: Mexican Foreign Minister Vicente Lombardo Toledano delivers a symbolic 1 peso note to the British embassy in Mexico City as "compensation" for the nationalisation of the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell. Relations will be normalized in the coming months.

October 7: The Education Reform Act passes on a strict party line vote. The Act will be the first in a series of Deweyite reforms of primary, secondary and higher education in America. The Act orders the state takeover of private schools and their incorporation into public school systems, establishes a comprehensive reform of discipline and curriculum standards in all areas of schooling, ostensibly to promote cooperation, critical thinking and civic virtues in students.

October 9: In game 7 of the first World Series held after the Revolution, the Detroit Tigers win out over the Cincinnati Reds. The game marks the first time where the "Internationale" is sung before the game (in this case, by the Workers' Choir of Michigan)

October 11: The Death Ship, a film based on the B. Traven novel of the same name, is released, starring Clark Gable in the Gerard Gales role.

October 16: The UASR and the USSR formally join the League of Nations.

October 25: Junior officers of the Panamanian military, supported by American forces in the canal zone, overthrow the government of Augusto Samuel Boyd. Diógenes de la Rosa, Chairman of the Labor Party of Panama, announces the formation of a socialist republic.

October 30: The Eisenstein System is established in the American filmmaking industry, following consultations between the famed Soviet director, the film division of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Hollywood film collectives (mostly unionized from the old studios). The ad hoc syndicalism of the past year is codified, giving the artists unions a major stake. The so-called Eisenstein Code is promulgated, directing film endeavors at least passively towards the Communist social project. A basic self-rating system is included in the code. Many of the previous restrictions of the pre-Revolution "Breen Code", including sexuality, miscegenation, depictions of societal ills, revolutionary thought, and offense to the clergy, are lifted.

November 1: Following a coup by junior officers, the Socialist Republic of Chile is declared in Santiago. The coup leaders, with the support of the trade unions and the Communist Party of Chile, announce Constituent Assembly elections in February.

November 4: King Ali bin Hussein of Arabia completes an agreement with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden to begin oil exploration and development in the Al-Ahsa region.

November 7: Red October celebrations are held in major American cities as a gesture of brotherhood with their Soviet Comrades.

November 8: Two years after the completion of filming and the subsequent reshoots and re--editing following the death of director Merian Cooper in the Revolution (as well as the negotiations for the Eisenstein Code), King Kong is a major blockbuster, and one of the first of many pre-Revolution films to finally come out.

November 13: The Abyssinia crisis begins with the discovery of an Italian garrison well within the Ethiopian border.

November 21: Cole Porter, after spending the Revolution in Toronto, marks his return to the Great White Way with Anything Goes, a musical romance romp set on a boat that is eventually marooned on an island.

November 30: At the first annual conference of the National Architects Guild, Secretary-General Sinclair announces a contest to submit designs for building to house the Congress of Soviets.

December 1: A treaty organizing major foreign investment and aid to Mexico is formally ratified by the UASR. The treaty cements a close alliance between the two nations that will endure throughout the century.

December 4: The first issue of Libertine magazine is published. The monthly magazine, headquartered in Greenwich Village, New York, combines a balance of journalism, artistic review, nude pinups and sexual health advice. The self-proclaimed "vanguard" magazine announces its opposition to reactionary and bourgeois false-morality.

December 5: The Haitian Revolution: an alliance of left-wing groups, led by the Communist Party, takes power in Haiti in a bloodless coup. The new government is recognized by the UASR as the revolution spills across the border into the Dominican Republic.

December 15: The Empire of Japan announces an expansion of naval armaments, as a show of force and the Empire's dominance in the Far East.

December 22: The first observance of the Winter Solstice as a federal holiday. Marking the start of winter, the new secular holiday of Yule will mark a period of rest and making merry beginning with the Winter Solstice and ending with the New Year. The celebration of Christmas remains an important federal holiday during the Yule period.

December 24: The keel of the battleship Monitor (BB-57) is laid down at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard.

December 25: The leadership of the Indonesian Communist Party, pressured by arrests from the crushing of various strike actions but invigorated by the American revolution, convenes near the Prambanan Temple. It is decided to intensify general strikes and prepare for an armed uprising against the Dutch colonial government around June of next year.2​

December 31: General of the Armies of the United States Douglas MacArthur is declared President ex perpetuo by the exile government. Across the international dateline in Kamchatka, a ceremonial changing of the flags occurs as the UASR terminates the extraterritoriality agreement and lease of the region ratified twelve years prior between Lenin's government and the United States.

---

1. This means a greatly greatly reduced collectivization famine. OTL, over 5 million perished in the 1932-33 famine. ITTL, a possible 1933-34 mass famine is averted. Excess deaths by starvation and pestilence are on the order of one hundred thousand.
2. Compared to the OTL revolt and events leading up to it, Tan Malaka does not fell ill and left behind in Singapore so he and Alimin managed to report to Moscow in 1925, where the proposal to revolt was rejected by Stalin, Although the PKI still suffered immensely from PID raids ITTL, a more coordinated revolt would spare most of its leadership from being gutted as badly as OTL, and without the splits in leadership.

 

[the atom]

May 23: The Commission for Legal Reform is established under the Secretariat for Justice to overhaul the American legal system. As a preliminary step, the Workers' Party announces the suspension on the enforcement of most criminal laws save those deemed essential to basic security. Homosexuality, miscegenation, obscenity, prostitution, cannabis, low-stakes gambling, and birth control are effectively decriminalized throughout the Union.

Click to shrink...

Was anyone prosecuted under these laws between the revolution and this decision?

Hitler shares a secretive telegrammed conversation with the British Prime Minister discussing the possibility of rapprochement with a United Kingdom far more afraid of the Sino-Soviet-American Socialist triad than the thought of a renewed German bloc in central Europe. This will lead to face to face talks a month later.

Click to shrink...

I'm noticing an ominous lack of 'France' in these talks.

....I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this 'FBU' business.