- Location
- The Midlands.
Fair enough. I didn't know it even was a real book.
Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
- Timeline Post-1900 Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Miss Teri
The Queen
- Location
- West
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, it's not well-known, but many do consider it the Dracula of werewolf novels: The Werewolf of Paris - Wikipedia
- Location
- United States
Hi all.
I'm the individual who Mr.E mentioned previously in this thread as the person working on Lovecraft's story within the Reds! universe. If the authors would be so gracious to let me hijack things for a moment, I'll briefly summarize my thoughts below.
I'm inclined, as others were talking about a while back, to think that giving him a happier ending to his life is within the spirit of the timeline (since, dark as it can get at points, there is an air, to me, of "the glass is half full"). This is borne admittedly out of a personal interest as I adore him as an author, but also the fact that he's an easy example from OTL as a pop culture icon that could be used to discuss how someone with reactionary beliefs can have those eroded and changed, even with his extremely gross takes on many subjects. As was also noted by others, the fact that he seemed to be changing towards the end of life suggests to me that if given the right push he could come around. I've adopted the AH cliche of "what if X person lived 25 years longer than they did?" as the basis for how I've approached him so far, so Lovecraft will have until 1962 to get his act together. Such a thing is, of course, a tall order given his poor health OTL and I'd be more than willing to post what I've written so far on the topic but I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment.
Lovecraft in the '20s is something of a blind spot for me and on the Reds! Discord server there was a brief talk a few months back - I've finally gotten free time to begin thinking about this in a more in depth way - regarding what might be done to begin his journey (my current goal is to have World War II be the event that fundamentally shatters his worldview). Some suggested that having Sonia's hat shop survive, thus stabilizing both his home life and potentially even his marriage, might be a good way to ensure he has better health; cancer, after all, is butterfly-prone. Sonia as a focal point for furthering his evolution towards things like race might be a reasonable place to start as well given that he seems to have genuinely loved her dearly, at least from what I can tell, and that she made him evolve his position towards Slavic people given her Ukrainian background. The issue, of course, is that a Lovecraft who doesn't get to those horrific OTL low points might never find the need to do the sort of self-introspection he did. If there are any Lovecraft historians also reading the thread, I'd be more than happy to converse by PM, iron out the wrinkles, and publish the first part of what I've written so far with permission from the Troika.
I'm the individual who Mr.E mentioned previously in this thread as the person working on Lovecraft's story within the Reds! universe. If the authors would be so gracious to let me hijack things for a moment, I'll briefly summarize my thoughts below.
I'm inclined, as others were talking about a while back, to think that giving him a happier ending to his life is within the spirit of the timeline (since, dark as it can get at points, there is an air, to me, of "the glass is half full"). This is borne admittedly out of a personal interest as I adore him as an author, but also the fact that he's an easy example from OTL as a pop culture icon that could be used to discuss how someone with reactionary beliefs can have those eroded and changed, even with his extremely gross takes on many subjects. As was also noted by others, the fact that he seemed to be changing towards the end of life suggests to me that if given the right push he could come around. I've adopted the AH cliche of "what if X person lived 25 years longer than they did?" as the basis for how I've approached him so far, so Lovecraft will have until 1962 to get his act together. Such a thing is, of course, a tall order given his poor health OTL and I'd be more than willing to post what I've written so far on the topic but I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment.
Lovecraft in the '20s is something of a blind spot for me and on the Reds! Discord server there was a brief talk a few months back - I've finally gotten free time to begin thinking about this in a more in depth way - regarding what might be done to begin his journey (my current goal is to have World War II be the event that fundamentally shatters his worldview). Some suggested that having Sonia's hat shop survive, thus stabilizing both his home life and potentially even his marriage, might be a good way to ensure he has better health; cancer, after all, is butterfly-prone. Sonia as a focal point for furthering his evolution towards things like race might be a reasonable place to start as well given that he seems to have genuinely loved her dearly, at least from what I can tell, and that she made him evolve his position towards Slavic people given her Ukrainian background. The issue, of course, is that a Lovecraft who doesn't get to those horrific OTL low points might never find the need to do the sort of self-introspection he did. If there are any Lovecraft historians also reading the thread, I'd be more than happy to converse by PM, iron out the wrinkles, and publish the first part of what I've written so far with permission from the Troika.
Last edited:
Miss Teri
The Queen
- Location
- West
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I look forward to what you have in mind.
I think that it would have been just as controversial because of the whole fantasy stuff - quite a few contemporary reviewers would tut-tut about 'promoting idealism' or, worse yet, 'replacing the reality of the class struggle with reactionary mysticism'. We're speaking of the period when in the USSR, even kids' fairy tales were somewhat suspect, and the communists in general proudly embraced the militant scientism. I know that things are not as rigid in the UASR, but I can't imagine this movie being screened in the Soviet Union anytime soon.
Last edited:
Miss Teri
The Queen
- Location
- West
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The UASR is fairly open to fantasy, and this is tame in comparison to some of the media to be released.
Serve and Protect
- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
Excerpts from Geliy Rokitansky, Serve and Protect (Metropolis: Bantam, 1979)
"There are no cops in our Republic. There are comrades and then there are dead men."
General Order 142, effective 1 June 1933, had ordered the suppression of all extant police organizations in the UASR as counterrevolutionary groups. All peace officers who had not submitted to soviet authority were to be arrested henceforth. Those who had collaborated with revolutionary forces would be investigated by the Main Directorate for the Political Commissariat, to winnow out any unreliable opportunists.
During the state of war emergency, the states' Red Guards were to assume the primary role of maintaining public safety. The states were required to establish Public Safety Groups within the Red Guards, to be staffed by politically reliable officers and NCOs.
As the war drew to a close, pre-war police trickled into the Red Guards, zealously watched by political commissars. As the emergency gave way to a new normalcy, the Public Safety Groups transformed from an ad hoc force into a permanent institution and the primary law enforcement body in each socialist republic.
[...]
As part of the Red Guards, the Public Safety Groups are a paramilitary gendarmerie. All members must have completed Universal Service before induction into the Red Guards. Additionally, applicants to the Public Safety Group must maintain impeccable conduct records. Upon acceptance, applicants attend one of several federal Public Safety academies. Since their first establishment in 1935, these academies train public safety troopers in their legal duties, conflict de-escalation and resolution, criminology and forensics. Applicants to the federal Proletarian Guard face similar background and education requirements.
Upon graduation, troopers will be assigned to a local or a mobile group. In a local group, troopers provide security in a defined geographic area, and serve as the leadership cadre to any local volunteer elements. Mobile groups, sometimes referred to as special tasks groups, provide more specialized work such as forensics, firefighting or traffic control.
British Commonwealth observers occasionally recoil at the paramilitary nature of public safety in the UASR, seeing it as a sign of despotism. Domestically, this paramilitary system is seen as a means of protecting the public from the police. Public and civilian oversight is strict, and the conduct of public safety troops, like the rest of the security apparatus, is regulated by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Infractions by public safety troops are punished more severely than the equivalent civilian crime. In addition to non-judicial punishment for minor breaches of discipline, severe infractions are tried and punished by court-martial.
Troopers convicted of major crimes by court-martial are subjected to a public degradation ceremony, during which badges of rank and honor are stripped from their uniform. After this humiliation, troopers are discharged from service and receive whatever punishment, up to and including the death penalty, which was abolished for civilians in 1955.
[...]
Most of the pre-revolution Federal Bureau of Prisons continued to operate with few changes in 1934. Most of the state prisons were put under temporary federal control. Some of the large federal or military prisons, such as the Alcatraz Citadel and Leavenworth were converted into camps for political prisoners and high level criminals, including white war criminals, counterrevolutionaries, and targets of political repression. Most others, especially local ones, continued their functions for low level offenders.
A general amnesty was promulgated for most property crimes, as well as for crimes the revolutionary regime had chosen to decriminalize. This had effectively emptied the prison system of most of its population. Recipients of amnesty returned to their families, or were given berths in the Works Progress Administration programs. Former prisoners were euphemistically referred to as "liberated prisoners of war", and given a clean slate, with the records of their crimes sealed.
The Eastman Reforms to the corrections system effectively created two separate prison systems: the joint-union/republican Main Directorate for Prisons under the Secretariat for Justice, and the Special Prison Administration under the Secretariat for Public Safety.
Conditions in the main prison system were greatly reformed following the report of the Frankfurter Commission. Existing prisons buildings were scheduled for closure, and new camp complexes were put into construction by the WPA. The new prisons much more closely resembled civilian life or a WPA public works camps. Prisoners would live in smaller barracks, with attached kitchen, laundry and bathrooms. Guard presence would be minimal, and resources for education and training would be provided. Prisoners would be encouraged to complete their education or pick up a trade. Paying work was provided, which would allow prisoners to purchase things from the prison commissary, or to save up for their release.
Prisoners who continued to be violent while in prison would be sequestered into single person shacks until they showed signs of reform. Good behavior while in custody would be rewarded with reduced sentences or parole. Supervised contact with friends and family was encouraged to aid in the reform process.
[...]
J. Edgar Hoover, once the head of a small, underfunded anti-pornography and anti-prostitution agency (and, ironically, a one-time persecutor of socialist agitators during the Bienno Rosso), quickly took on his role as the new Secretary of Public Safety with an extreme zeal. He extensively studied and dissected the Soviet state-security system as a model, taking particular note of the secret police forces under "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky, from which he would build the Main Directorate for State Security. The paramilitary nature of the Public Safety Groups came from his attempts to imitate the Militsya system in the USSR.
Hoover's biggest innovation was his focus on standardization and the emerging field of criminology. During the days of the NBI, he was forced to compete with the US Marshal Service and local police forces in his investigations. Through the Public Safety Academies and the Militia Agency, Hoover now exerted more influence on local militias and Red Guards, and enforce these staunch rules of conduct, preventing any competition or hindrance between the varying police branches. Hoover would use a network of reformed sheriffs and former NBI associates to bring the Red Guards into line, and subsequently, use the Commissariat to ensure they kept to this standard.
Hoover attempted to resist public oversight into this new system, but pressure from Attorney General Crystal Eastman forced him to include them in said rules of conduct.
To ensure that all local militias were working under the same standards of forensics and scientific research (as part of the standardization process), Hoover both established the federal "Public Safety Laboratory," and had branches of established in each republic. Modern criminology was given emphasis, with a modern, scientific approach to investigation.
Hoover would utilize this new system of militias to help stabilize the new Republic and bring down elements that would threaten it, many of whom were listed in the "Enemies of the People" publication. A number of White remnants and reactionary cells across the nation were organizing attacks under the banner "The Sons of Liberty". Along with secret infiltration and disruption in the MDSS, Hoover also organized more public attacks and raids through coordination between the local Public Safety groups and the federal Proletarian Guard, most notably in Charleston in 1935, where the "South Carolina Sons of the Confederacy" attempted to seize control of the ANFR [African National Federal Republic] capital .
The coordination of local and federal groups also helped in bringing down various organized crime gangs across the nation. Public Safety groups (and agents like John Dillinger, Melvin Purvis, and Charles Floyd) would gain popularity bringing down infamous criminals like "Machine Gun" Kelly and groups like the Barrows and Baker Gangs. After a botched assassination attempt on Metropolis Attorney General Joseph Brodsky by Undzer Shtik enforcer Dutch Schultz, Hoover began a very public attack on the "National Crime Syndicate" alliance of Italian and Jewish organized crime, taking down its leaders and organization through infiltration, public arrests and trials,, and raids on various gambling and smuggling operations, the latter done through local militias.
[...]
The establishment of the Proletarian Guard centralised most federal law enforcement into a single agency. Inheriting the jurisdictions of the pre-revolution Marshals Service, National Bureau of Investigation, and the Secret Service, the Proletarian Guard streamlined federal coordination with republican authorities and provided a measure of transparency and accountability to the state's repressive functions.
But the Guard was also the public face of the Main Directorate for State Security. A major function of its existence, the suppression of counterrevolution, defied political transparency and accountability.
Following the abortive insurrection in Charleston, the Guard assumed primary jurisdiction in ongoing efforts to defeat counterrevolution and protect the regime from internal fifth columns. The local, ad hoc Extraordinary Commissions were dissolved into the federal hierarchy. In their place, the Proletarian Guard established a field battalion in each member republic, with investigative, enforcement and liaison groups. These battalions were not fixed in size; each field office had resources and personnel in proportion to the geographic size and population of the republic.
These battalions were grouped into numbered regiments, each one assigned to geographic district corresponding to one of the ten Collegium of the Review Tribunal [the ten circuits of the U.S. courts of appeals]. Each regiment is able to rapidly mobilise a motorised rifle battalion support republican authorities in the event of a state of emergency.
The 11th Regiment was established organize customs enforcement and border guard on the northern border with Canada and the major ports of entry, in cooperation with the Red Coast Guard and the Maritime Secretariat.
The Watch Brigade, comprised of the 12th and 14th Regiments, guards and polices the federal capital as well as major federal installations such as dams or federal academy cities like Phoenix and Los Alamos. Due to the high profile hostage-taking during the Charleston Putsch, the Watch Brigade also established a rapid-response group to train for hostage-rescue operations, the forerunner to the modern Special Applications Cadre.
[...]
The Main Directorate of State Security (or "StateSec") was heavily influenced by the Soviet OGPU and its successor GUGB (the latter having the exact same name in Russian). By design, StateSec operated outside the accountability of the Proletarian Guard, and worked for the political aims of the Workers' Communist Party, or rather, against the political enemies of the government, whether foreign or domestic.
StateSec was effectively joined at the hip with the Proletarian Guard. Most agents were recruited from within the Guard, and some would continue to hold duties within the normal apparatus. Organizationally, StateSec was the 13th Regiment in the Proletarian Guard, absent from the public organizational charts. Publicly, its existence was not acknowledged and continued to be protected by the State Secrets Act until 1947.
Not only did recruits have to meet all the normal requirements for membership in the Guard, they needed evidence of political reliability: a recommendation from an elected official, vetting from a current agent, and active membership in a "vanguard party", either the WCP or the DFLP. To help supplement the new ranks, however, Hoover brought in several of his former G-Men as "advisors"
StateSec was split on the same lines as the Proletarian Guard, with ten sections dedicated to a specific function to ensure peace in a more covert fashion:
Section 1 was Foreign Intelligence. Initially, Section 1 primarily monitored foreign governments deemed "hostile", (mainly Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Nippon) and the large "White" American emigre community. A fake magazine called The Patriot was set up specifically for emigres, with a fake subscription address. Subscriber information was sent directly to StateSec, to accurately gauge who was where. Agents also recruited within left leaning circles all over the world. Over time, with the fascist threat in Europe rising, more focus was given to observing the Nazi threat, and preparing. German leftist anti-Nazis were recruited to secretly infiltrate the German government, and either attempt to subvert or relay future plans. Agents also helped smuggle out prominent figures the Nazis had targeted (notably several scientists later affiliated with Daisy Bell). Similar programs were instituted in Italy and Nippon. SecOne would later play a prominent role in the overthrow of the Iranian Shah and the establishment of socialist Iran.
[...]
Perhaps the most notorious, Section 9 handled the most direct form of repression, through infiltration and internal subversion. Section 9 Hoover would turn this weapon loose on the Sons of Liberty. Along with the public raids by the Proletarian Guards, famously photographed with their Thompson Guns and sharp, modern uniforms, the Sons were inundated with new members, who would leave meetings suddenly, before a raid came to break them up. And when members were interrogated, they were given the opportunity to turn informant in exchange for a lower sentence.
This infiltration was very thorough, with at least one agent or informant in every branch of the Sons throughout the nation. As a result, any form of collaboration between the branches was sabotaged, making it easier to repress them, and prevent them from forming larger alliances. The strategy proved immensely successful at breaking the power of the Sons and leaving them ineffectual. Indeed, there were reports of Sons branches made entirely of informants or undercover agents.
Of course, the infiltration extended to what many considered the Sons' political arm, the True Democratic Party. StateSec had party meetings infiltrated. Both Chairman John Nance Garner and General Secretary Martin Dies were heavily investigated, and they, along with other TrueDem politicos, were regularly arrested when news of their ties to reactionaries came out. The TrueDems, after a harsh split that saw its conservative faction join the Sons, slowly hemorrhaged members because of this investigation.
Hoover also targeted the Democratic-Republican Party, especially for its members tied to the old order, like Robert Taft and Charles Hughes. Because the DRP had longevity and had thoroughly disavowed anti-state terrorism, the infiltration ultimately became a long game. In 1972, former Rep Howard E. Jones* revealed he had been an informant from 1947 up to his retirement in 1970.
Of course, counterintelligence involved fighting foreign espionage on domestic soil. Given his role in subverting fascist governments, Hoover kept an eye out for them attempting to subvert the revolutionary government. The Friends of New Germany had been formed during the Civil War, specifically as a pro-White, pro-Hitler group for German Americans. After the war had ended, the group was reconstituted as a paramilitary group called the German American Bund under German Great War veteran Fritz Julius Kuhn. While small and mostly ineffectual, Hoover became convinced that Bund was a courier between deep undercover spies and the German government. He extensively investigated the potential of German spies throughout the government. Ironically, after Kuhn's capture in 1938, Kuhn revealed that Hitler had actually cut off the Bund financially because they hadn't made any significant progress, and assessments had shown most German Americans were fully supportive of the new government. Hoover also failed to find any spy network among Japanese American communities, despite exhaustive investigation.
Hoover had more success proving the connection between Fascist Italy and the Sons of Liberty via the Italian-American mafia. Many Italian weapons were recovered during various raids, and during the anti-Mafia sweep of 1936, it emerged (through Sec9 informants) that Commission head Luciano had been corresponding with one of his lieutenants, Vito Genovese, now in exile in Italy, and had negotiated to have the weapons sent to support the reactionaries (This deposition, with his long litany of other crimes, lead to Luciano's conviction and sentence to death for treason and murder).
If convicted of crimes "of a political nature", one would be sentenced to one of the prisons administered as part of the Special Political Administration.
[...]
In spite of their general enthusiasm for the Red Terror, the body-politic remained deeply wary of the formation of any special bureaucratic caste. The old wounds made by state repression in the old United States were freshly remembered even amidst the carnage of the civil war. As the extraordinary measures of the civil war were retired, workers agitated for restraints placed on the new state apparatus to maintain its organic relationship to the working-class.
One of the most pivotal of these institutions was the establishment of the state security juries. While it was recognized that combating counterrevolution remained a major concern, of equal importance was preventing StateSec or the military from becoming a state-within-a-state, the small gear turning the large gear.
The state security juries would be the popular check on the state's powers of espionage and repression. Citizens chosen by lot would be vetted and assembled. Once sworn to secrecy, they would be organized into commissions in various geographic localities. All planned acts of domestic espionage and political repression would be reviewed by these commissions. The jurors would be briefed on the case matters, and would issue warrants only if they were satisfied the government met its legal burdens. Additionally, the classification of all state secrets would be made by the state security juries.
"There are no cops in our Republic. There are comrades and then there are dead men."
General Order 142, effective 1 June 1933, had ordered the suppression of all extant police organizations in the UASR as counterrevolutionary groups. All peace officers who had not submitted to soviet authority were to be arrested henceforth. Those who had collaborated with revolutionary forces would be investigated by the Main Directorate for the Political Commissariat, to winnow out any unreliable opportunists.
During the state of war emergency, the states' Red Guards were to assume the primary role of maintaining public safety. The states were required to establish Public Safety Groups within the Red Guards, to be staffed by politically reliable officers and NCOs.
As the war drew to a close, pre-war police trickled into the Red Guards, zealously watched by political commissars. As the emergency gave way to a new normalcy, the Public Safety Groups transformed from an ad hoc force into a permanent institution and the primary law enforcement body in each socialist republic.
[...]
As part of the Red Guards, the Public Safety Groups are a paramilitary gendarmerie. All members must have completed Universal Service before induction into the Red Guards. Additionally, applicants to the Public Safety Group must maintain impeccable conduct records. Upon acceptance, applicants attend one of several federal Public Safety academies. Since their first establishment in 1935, these academies train public safety troopers in their legal duties, conflict de-escalation and resolution, criminology and forensics. Applicants to the federal Proletarian Guard face similar background and education requirements.
Upon graduation, troopers will be assigned to a local or a mobile group. In a local group, troopers provide security in a defined geographic area, and serve as the leadership cadre to any local volunteer elements. Mobile groups, sometimes referred to as special tasks groups, provide more specialized work such as forensics, firefighting or traffic control.
British Commonwealth observers occasionally recoil at the paramilitary nature of public safety in the UASR, seeing it as a sign of despotism. Domestically, this paramilitary system is seen as a means of protecting the public from the police. Public and civilian oversight is strict, and the conduct of public safety troops, like the rest of the security apparatus, is regulated by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Infractions by public safety troops are punished more severely than the equivalent civilian crime. In addition to non-judicial punishment for minor breaches of discipline, severe infractions are tried and punished by court-martial.
Troopers convicted of major crimes by court-martial are subjected to a public degradation ceremony, during which badges of rank and honor are stripped from their uniform. After this humiliation, troopers are discharged from service and receive whatever punishment, up to and including the death penalty, which was abolished for civilians in 1955.
[...]
Most of the pre-revolution Federal Bureau of Prisons continued to operate with few changes in 1934. Most of the state prisons were put under temporary federal control. Some of the large federal or military prisons, such as the Alcatraz Citadel and Leavenworth were converted into camps for political prisoners and high level criminals, including white war criminals, counterrevolutionaries, and targets of political repression. Most others, especially local ones, continued their functions for low level offenders.
A general amnesty was promulgated for most property crimes, as well as for crimes the revolutionary regime had chosen to decriminalize. This had effectively emptied the prison system of most of its population. Recipients of amnesty returned to their families, or were given berths in the Works Progress Administration programs. Former prisoners were euphemistically referred to as "liberated prisoners of war", and given a clean slate, with the records of their crimes sealed.
The Eastman Reforms to the corrections system effectively created two separate prison systems: the joint-union/republican Main Directorate for Prisons under the Secretariat for Justice, and the Special Prison Administration under the Secretariat for Public Safety.
Conditions in the main prison system were greatly reformed following the report of the Frankfurter Commission. Existing prisons buildings were scheduled for closure, and new camp complexes were put into construction by the WPA. The new prisons much more closely resembled civilian life or a WPA public works camps. Prisoners would live in smaller barracks, with attached kitchen, laundry and bathrooms. Guard presence would be minimal, and resources for education and training would be provided. Prisoners would be encouraged to complete their education or pick up a trade. Paying work was provided, which would allow prisoners to purchase things from the prison commissary, or to save up for their release.
Prisoners who continued to be violent while in prison would be sequestered into single person shacks until they showed signs of reform. Good behavior while in custody would be rewarded with reduced sentences or parole. Supervised contact with friends and family was encouraged to aid in the reform process.
[...]
J. Edgar Hoover, once the head of a small, underfunded anti-pornography and anti-prostitution agency (and, ironically, a one-time persecutor of socialist agitators during the Bienno Rosso), quickly took on his role as the new Secretary of Public Safety with an extreme zeal. He extensively studied and dissected the Soviet state-security system as a model, taking particular note of the secret police forces under "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky, from which he would build the Main Directorate for State Security. The paramilitary nature of the Public Safety Groups came from his attempts to imitate the Militsya system in the USSR.
Hoover's biggest innovation was his focus on standardization and the emerging field of criminology. During the days of the NBI, he was forced to compete with the US Marshal Service and local police forces in his investigations. Through the Public Safety Academies and the Militia Agency, Hoover now exerted more influence on local militias and Red Guards, and enforce these staunch rules of conduct, preventing any competition or hindrance between the varying police branches. Hoover would use a network of reformed sheriffs and former NBI associates to bring the Red Guards into line, and subsequently, use the Commissariat to ensure they kept to this standard.
Hoover attempted to resist public oversight into this new system, but pressure from Attorney General Crystal Eastman forced him to include them in said rules of conduct.
To ensure that all local militias were working under the same standards of forensics and scientific research (as part of the standardization process), Hoover both established the federal "Public Safety Laboratory," and had branches of established in each republic. Modern criminology was given emphasis, with a modern, scientific approach to investigation.
Hoover would utilize this new system of militias to help stabilize the new Republic and bring down elements that would threaten it, many of whom were listed in the "Enemies of the People" publication. A number of White remnants and reactionary cells across the nation were organizing attacks under the banner "The Sons of Liberty". Along with secret infiltration and disruption in the MDSS, Hoover also organized more public attacks and raids through coordination between the local Public Safety groups and the federal Proletarian Guard, most notably in Charleston in 1935, where the "South Carolina Sons of the Confederacy" attempted to seize control of the ANFR [African National Federal Republic] capital .
The coordination of local and federal groups also helped in bringing down various organized crime gangs across the nation. Public Safety groups (and agents like John Dillinger, Melvin Purvis, and Charles Floyd) would gain popularity bringing down infamous criminals like "Machine Gun" Kelly and groups like the Barrows and Baker Gangs. After a botched assassination attempt on Metropolis Attorney General Joseph Brodsky by Undzer Shtik enforcer Dutch Schultz, Hoover began a very public attack on the "National Crime Syndicate" alliance of Italian and Jewish organized crime, taking down its leaders and organization through infiltration, public arrests and trials,, and raids on various gambling and smuggling operations, the latter done through local militias.
[...]
The establishment of the Proletarian Guard centralised most federal law enforcement into a single agency. Inheriting the jurisdictions of the pre-revolution Marshals Service, National Bureau of Investigation, and the Secret Service, the Proletarian Guard streamlined federal coordination with republican authorities and provided a measure of transparency and accountability to the state's repressive functions.
But the Guard was also the public face of the Main Directorate for State Security. A major function of its existence, the suppression of counterrevolution, defied political transparency and accountability.
Following the abortive insurrection in Charleston, the Guard assumed primary jurisdiction in ongoing efforts to defeat counterrevolution and protect the regime from internal fifth columns. The local, ad hoc Extraordinary Commissions were dissolved into the federal hierarchy. In their place, the Proletarian Guard established a field battalion in each member republic, with investigative, enforcement and liaison groups. These battalions were not fixed in size; each field office had resources and personnel in proportion to the geographic size and population of the republic.
These battalions were grouped into numbered regiments, each one assigned to geographic district corresponding to one of the ten Collegium of the Review Tribunal [the ten circuits of the U.S. courts of appeals]. Each regiment is able to rapidly mobilise a motorised rifle battalion support republican authorities in the event of a state of emergency.
The 11th Regiment was established organize customs enforcement and border guard on the northern border with Canada and the major ports of entry, in cooperation with the Red Coast Guard and the Maritime Secretariat.
The Watch Brigade, comprised of the 12th and 14th Regiments, guards and polices the federal capital as well as major federal installations such as dams or federal academy cities like Phoenix and Los Alamos. Due to the high profile hostage-taking during the Charleston Putsch, the Watch Brigade also established a rapid-response group to train for hostage-rescue operations, the forerunner to the modern Special Applications Cadre.
[...]
The Main Directorate of State Security (or "StateSec") was heavily influenced by the Soviet OGPU and its successor GUGB (the latter having the exact same name in Russian). By design, StateSec operated outside the accountability of the Proletarian Guard, and worked for the political aims of the Workers' Communist Party, or rather, against the political enemies of the government, whether foreign or domestic.
StateSec was effectively joined at the hip with the Proletarian Guard. Most agents were recruited from within the Guard, and some would continue to hold duties within the normal apparatus. Organizationally, StateSec was the 13th Regiment in the Proletarian Guard, absent from the public organizational charts. Publicly, its existence was not acknowledged and continued to be protected by the State Secrets Act until 1947.
Not only did recruits have to meet all the normal requirements for membership in the Guard, they needed evidence of political reliability: a recommendation from an elected official, vetting from a current agent, and active membership in a "vanguard party", either the WCP or the DFLP. To help supplement the new ranks, however, Hoover brought in several of his former G-Men as "advisors"
StateSec was split on the same lines as the Proletarian Guard, with ten sections dedicated to a specific function to ensure peace in a more covert fashion:
Section 1 was Foreign Intelligence. Initially, Section 1 primarily monitored foreign governments deemed "hostile", (mainly Germany, Italy, Brazil, and Nippon) and the large "White" American emigre community. A fake magazine called The Patriot was set up specifically for emigres, with a fake subscription address. Subscriber information was sent directly to StateSec, to accurately gauge who was where. Agents also recruited within left leaning circles all over the world. Over time, with the fascist threat in Europe rising, more focus was given to observing the Nazi threat, and preparing. German leftist anti-Nazis were recruited to secretly infiltrate the German government, and either attempt to subvert or relay future plans. Agents also helped smuggle out prominent figures the Nazis had targeted (notably several scientists later affiliated with Daisy Bell). Similar programs were instituted in Italy and Nippon. SecOne would later play a prominent role in the overthrow of the Iranian Shah and the establishment of socialist Iran.
[...]
Perhaps the most notorious, Section 9 handled the most direct form of repression, through infiltration and internal subversion. Section 9 Hoover would turn this weapon loose on the Sons of Liberty. Along with the public raids by the Proletarian Guards, famously photographed with their Thompson Guns and sharp, modern uniforms, the Sons were inundated with new members, who would leave meetings suddenly, before a raid came to break them up. And when members were interrogated, they were given the opportunity to turn informant in exchange for a lower sentence.
This infiltration was very thorough, with at least one agent or informant in every branch of the Sons throughout the nation. As a result, any form of collaboration between the branches was sabotaged, making it easier to repress them, and prevent them from forming larger alliances. The strategy proved immensely successful at breaking the power of the Sons and leaving them ineffectual. Indeed, there were reports of Sons branches made entirely of informants or undercover agents.
Of course, the infiltration extended to what many considered the Sons' political arm, the True Democratic Party. StateSec had party meetings infiltrated. Both Chairman John Nance Garner and General Secretary Martin Dies were heavily investigated, and they, along with other TrueDem politicos, were regularly arrested when news of their ties to reactionaries came out. The TrueDems, after a harsh split that saw its conservative faction join the Sons, slowly hemorrhaged members because of this investigation.
Hoover also targeted the Democratic-Republican Party, especially for its members tied to the old order, like Robert Taft and Charles Hughes. Because the DRP had longevity and had thoroughly disavowed anti-state terrorism, the infiltration ultimately became a long game. In 1972, former Rep Howard E. Jones* revealed he had been an informant from 1947 up to his retirement in 1970.
Of course, counterintelligence involved fighting foreign espionage on domestic soil. Given his role in subverting fascist governments, Hoover kept an eye out for them attempting to subvert the revolutionary government. The Friends of New Germany had been formed during the Civil War, specifically as a pro-White, pro-Hitler group for German Americans. After the war had ended, the group was reconstituted as a paramilitary group called the German American Bund under German Great War veteran Fritz Julius Kuhn. While small and mostly ineffectual, Hoover became convinced that Bund was a courier between deep undercover spies and the German government. He extensively investigated the potential of German spies throughout the government. Ironically, after Kuhn's capture in 1938, Kuhn revealed that Hitler had actually cut off the Bund financially because they hadn't made any significant progress, and assessments had shown most German Americans were fully supportive of the new government. Hoover also failed to find any spy network among Japanese American communities, despite exhaustive investigation.
Hoover had more success proving the connection between Fascist Italy and the Sons of Liberty via the Italian-American mafia. Many Italian weapons were recovered during various raids, and during the anti-Mafia sweep of 1936, it emerged (through Sec9 informants) that Commission head Luciano had been corresponding with one of his lieutenants, Vito Genovese, now in exile in Italy, and had negotiated to have the weapons sent to support the reactionaries (This deposition, with his long litany of other crimes, lead to Luciano's conviction and sentence to death for treason and murder).
If convicted of crimes "of a political nature", one would be sentenced to one of the prisons administered as part of the Special Political Administration.
[...]
In spite of their general enthusiasm for the Red Terror, the body-politic remained deeply wary of the formation of any special bureaucratic caste. The old wounds made by state repression in the old United States were freshly remembered even amidst the carnage of the civil war. As the extraordinary measures of the civil war were retired, workers agitated for restraints placed on the new state apparatus to maintain its organic relationship to the working-class.
One of the most pivotal of these institutions was the establishment of the state security juries. While it was recognized that combating counterrevolution remained a major concern, of equal importance was preventing StateSec or the military from becoming a state-within-a-state, the small gear turning the large gear.
The state security juries would be the popular check on the state's powers of espionage and repression. Citizens chosen by lot would be vetted and assembled. Once sworn to secrecy, they would be organized into commissions in various geographic localities. All planned acts of domestic espionage and political repression would be reviewed by these commissions. The jurors would be briefed on the case matters, and would issue warrants only if they were satisfied the government met its legal burdens. Additionally, the classification of all state secrets would be made by the state security juries.
- Location
- The Midlands.
Mussolini decided the Mafia were more useful on the inside pissing out ITTL, then?
Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Apparently the push needed for Hoover to go after the Mafia was signing up with the communists. Who knew?
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So. I guess Eliot Ness ended up with the Whites and on Cuba or very dead?
What is even more hilarious, that this micro-party of fewer than 2000 individuals, by 2015 ITL, would have the same policy goals and philosophy as OTLs Bernie Sanders and AOC.
I was having an idea. The best way to explain something to anyone is to have an exposition individual. Someone, who NEVER EVER met the topic that is being explained to the audience. As it is explained to this individual by people around him, so it is explained to the audience.
My idea: A Bernie Bro/Sis or AOC Fan gets ISOTed to the REDS! verse UASR in 2019.
The whiplash will be something to behold.
It is funny. By 2015, the True Dems are probably a joke party in the same vein like OTL's current Hyper!Neo-Stalinist/Maoist party in the Czech Republic (More insane than the still parliamentary party, the KSČ, aka Brezhnevist Communists), and having like 0.somethingsomething percents and zero chance. So much pathetic that you have to SEARCH for their existence NOT on the internet, but physically.
What is even more hilarious, that this micro-party of fewer than 2000 individuals, by 2015 ITL, would have the same policy goals and philosophy as OTLs Bernie Sanders and AOC.
I was having an idea. The best way to explain something to anyone is to have an exposition individual. Someone, who NEVER EVER met the topic that is being explained to the audience. As it is explained to this individual by people around him, so it is explained to the audience.
My idea: A Bernie Bro/Sis or AOC Fan gets ISOTed to the REDS! verse UASR in 2019.
The whiplash will be something to behold.
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Mal-3
Fun Tyrant
Or maybe just not famous. Ness gained the spotlight going after the Chicago Outfit's violation of the Volstead Act, which never passed TTL. It's entirely likely that Eliot Ness ended up Just Another Cop who may or may not have stuck around to join StateSec after the revolution or just found a lower-stress vocation and retired to obscurity.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
The TD are explicitly a reversed CPUSA, complete with most of the membership being informants here.
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In the 1930s-1980s? Sure. But by I think that by 2015-2020 they would become such a political/philosophical joke (like in OTL, there was this scandal back in the late 1990s that our government organs stopped watching over extremist leftists...people were paranoid...their answer: We consider them a joke and do not bother watching them.) , with the entire population working on a completely different political wavelength and with modern digital observation methods possible, that StateSec got pestered into basically just watching them from a distance because it was considered by everyone a waste of money and resources better spent on finding ACTUAL FBU spies.
Basically. The scenario I outlined above, is a current-day OTL US 'Leftist' getting dropped into the REDS! verse. And serving as the audiences constantly curious The Watson for the Reds! verse.
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Miss Teri
The Queen
- Location
- West
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Basically. I based it off Vito Genovese real life close ties with Fascist Italy (he apparently supplied Mussolini's son-in-law with cocaine)
I was going to briefly mention that Ness was one of the ex G-Men that was serving as an "advisor" for StateSec, but decided against it. But yeah, that's what he's doing.
- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
In the context of an ongoing Cold War, there's more pressure keeping the admittedly powerless dissidents around. And in this case, StateSec has a reason to keep groups like the True Democrats around and visible compare to more dangerous Neo-Strasserite groups like the Socialist Action Front.
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
With the above, I was more thinking about setting up a scenario where basically the OTL audience reading this would get Mr./Ms. Exposition explaining to a Watson the Reds! world from the position of the Watson being someone a modern young audience could relate to (Berni Bro/Sis, AOC Fanboy/Fangirl) while at the same time being someone having zero clues about the inner working of a genuinely socialist/communist state (aka: being basically seen in-universe as an ignorant extremist at best and dangerous reactionary at worst)...
...which is hilarious. Because in our universe, someone on the progressive left of the Democratic party is considered SOCIALIST/STALINISTS/Ultra-Leftist by the corporate mass media, while in Reds! verse they would be screamed at for being Fascist-enabling corporatocrats/Hard Rightwingers. Which is another interesting point: Such an individual would be used to getting ridiculed and screamed at, which means that he or she would continue to ask questions and not rather shut up. Forcing Mr./Ms. exposition to further elaborate.
...which is hilarious. Because in our universe, someone on the progressive left of the Democratic party is considered SOCIALIST/STALINISTS/Ultra-Leftist by the corporate mass media, while in Reds! verse they would be screamed at for being Fascist-enabling corporatocrats/Hard Rightwingers. Which is another interesting point: Such an individual would be used to getting ridiculed and screamed at, which means that he or she would continue to ask questions and not rather shut up. Forcing Mr./Ms. exposition to further elaborate.
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Arthur Frayn
Fake God by Occupation, Magician by Inclination
- Location
- Land of Do As You Please
- Pronouns
- They/Him
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the TD were made up of informants from multiple competing agencies, all working in parallel/against one another. The party is essentially a giant honey trap for political dissidents, and once the Revolution is a generation or two in the past my guess is that it would cease to function.
Without going into spoiler territory, how open is the Canadian border post-WW2? Given the aforementioned de facto prison sentence joining the TD would entail, my guess is that most political dissidents would just move North - it would be ironic if it was Conservatives (or, well, as conservative as you'd get growing up in a left Communist country) grousing about "moving to Canada".
Without going into spoiler territory, how open is the Canadian border post-WW2? Given the aforementioned de facto prison sentence joining the TD would entail, my guess is that most political dissidents would just move North - it would be ironic if it was Conservatives (or, well, as conservative as you'd get growing up in a left Communist country) grousing about "moving to Canada".
Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
- Location
- Morioh Town, Mt. Ebbot
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wow this is more than a little problematic. I assume State Secret Act no longer applying post-1947 and eventual diversification of parties means this is no longer true in 21st century UASR?
I don't know who you are thinking of you might know, perhaps in real life, but I think you underestimate the flexibility of people. It is one thing to ask a sample of current Sandersites or Justice Democrats in the abstract, "how would you like to visit a Communist 'USA'?" But I think most people, ISOTed to such a world as described here, would find that actually it is not all that bad.
Certainly some of us Sandersites who admire AOC as well figure both Bernie and AOC are working the art of the possible in the reactionary USA we all know so well, and I for one think I might appreciate living out the rest of my life in the UASR quite a lot. Hard to be sure, but I figure quite a few progressives, including many who currently fear Bernie and even perhaps Warren is "too radical," would be quite gratified to see a non-capitalist America actually working.
That said, the major surprise the 2016 Sanders campaign here in Northern Nevada held for me was how many quite normal, non-moonbeam types unlike me, military veterans and small business people, were on board. Perhaps some of these Sanders supporters would recoil.
But I really don't think so. It was believe it or not pretty pragmatic, supporting Bernie, and these pragmatic people, observing that stuff gets done pretty well, would just change their minds too.
They would probably just join DRP or the Farm-Labour Party without skipping a beat. That being said, a lot of people who are active supporters of Social Democratic political parties have views that are further left than just Social Democracy - they just vote Social Democratic because that's the option available to them.
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I already said that they have probably fewer than 2000 members by 2015 and one would have to look in actual physical party registry papers to even find out that they exist by that point. They wouldn't have even a presence on the internet probably. AKA: With no chances and below even a joke party. By that point, they would be so pathetic that StateSec would use just electronic espionage to make sure they stay honest and to save resources for better things, like actual counter-espionage.
- Location
- California
How much freedom of movement do the citizens of the USAR have?
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
Plenty, the American conception of the Comintern requires continual free movement between member states. The Soviet Union, as the decidedly weaker and inferior power which is far more reliant on America's trade and support than the other way around, is gradually shanghai'd into alignment with American policy on this matter. Stalin cannot form high Stalinism with the existence of another socialist great power, nevermind one that is clearly far more powerful than the USSR, and his power will gradually ebb over the years as will that of his faction in Soviet politics as a whole.
Inter-bloc movement is complex; especially in the days before a coherent British lead bloc forms as every one of the Capitalist great powers and the nations aligning with them has their own set of rules. Canada cannot survive without trade from America and so must be open to some degree by necessity. Germany is already pursuing autarky and so is perfectly happy to completely close all non-political movement between itself and America.
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- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
There will obviously remain requirements for political reliability, but they do relax. It becomes less a matter of formal requirement and more one of institutional culture.
The organization will be publicly acknowledged as existing after WW2. But there's still obviously going to be secrecy in its internal operations the same as any domestic security organization. It's regulated by things like the Freedom of Information Act, but their job is fundamentally to break skulls in the service of the revolution, and they largely use the same methods that the FBI used historically IOTL.
There is no system of internal passports, and in fact it would be unconstitutional outside of a state of martial law. Obviously, certain places the public can't go for their own safety or for safety of others, but that's largely no different from OTL. Really the only major difference is that there are open borders with other Comintern states after WW2, and simply living and working in a state that is a signatory to the Comintern is enough to gain citizenship.
- Location
- California
So basically the USAR has been an overall promoter of personal freedoms which has had an effect on the comintern as well? While also providing technology and economic assistance for the other members?