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Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

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Mental Omega said:
The issue with the papacy to many leftist christians is not that there are bad popes, but that the pope and clergy are basically wholly cloistered from the flock and is under absolutely no obligation to answer to the flock or to lay priests. The new Trinitarian church seeks not to create a red Pentarchy but to do away with the stratified and rigid system altogether and supplant it with a more horizontal Church.
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Doesn't this go against the tennants of catholic theology though? You need some aspect of the apostolic succesion from Peter to be legitimate or its just another protestant church with catholic gilding.

Now, you could do some fancy word wrangling and argue that the Trintarian Praesidium or whatever collectively embody the apostolic succession in serving the will of god, but a "Red Pope" might be a better idea. Actually such a "Red Pope" would probably convince me if I were in America at the time to side with the trinitarians rather than Rome, because i'd be going "they aren't changing the church just replacing the corrupt leadership with some more dedicated to gods will" or whatever rather than "They're making us protestant!"
 
Yeah. Originally. The Church in Post-Jesus times, Late Antiquity and Dark Ages are three separate types of beasts. Thanks to medical care being shit, when some Bishop was voted to be Pope, it was expected they die within ten years plus-minus because as a Bishop they would have been already quite old by the time they are part of the Voting Conclave. So it was assumed there would be no need for some kind of term limiting measures.

On the authority side. The old title of the Pope was Bishop of Rome, and it was more a First Among Equals style of a deal if only because back then, the Church had to be, thanks to a lack of technology and modern bureaucracy, less centralized and hierarchical. Especially true in its first few centuries. This changed with Constantine establishing Christianity as a State Church.

The Comintern Propaganda wing could successfully argue that they are just returning Christianity back to how it was before it was corrupted by imperialistic Roman politics. Especially if the Comintern gets its hands on the Apocryphal Gospels thanks to Eisenhowers Middle Eastern campaign...like the one about Mary Magdalene...

Article:
Non-canonical gospels
There are well over 20 gospels of Jesus Christ. However, the Catholic Church found it necessary to leave certain ones out. The gospel of Mary Magdalene, possibly the most famous Apocrypha for example, depicts her being second to Jesus rather than Peter. It also insinuates that Mary and Jesus were lovers, and forms the basis of alternative interpretations and conspiracies such as in Holy Blood, Holy Grail. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus asserts that the idea of hell is not for an eternity, rather a time that meets the severity of the punishment. A gospel according to Judas (dating to around the 3rd/4th Century AD) was discovered in the 1970s but has only really been studied since the late 90s. This alters the narrative slightly to portray Judas' actions towards the end of Jesus' story not as a betrayal, but as following the instructions of Jesus himself. Considering that it is canonical Christian belief that it was God's plan to have Jesus brutally murdered, this does make some sick and twisted sense.

Some of these non-canonical gospels have been reconstructed in Robert M. Price's The Pre-Nicene New Testament: Fifty-four Formative Texts, Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures, and Robert J. Miller's The Complete Gospels.
 
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Baron Steakpuncher said:
Now, you could do some fancy word wrangling and argue that the Trintarian Praesidium or whatever collectively embody the apostolic succession in serving the will of god, but a "Red Pope" might be a better idea. Actually such a "Red Pope" would probably convince me if I were in America at the time to side with the trinitarians rather than Rome, because i'd be going "they aren't changing the church just replacing the corrupt leadership with some more dedicated to gods will" or whatever rather than "They're making us protestant!"
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Premier of the Central Committee of the Holy Trinitarian Church, maybe? I'm not sure how you square apostolic succession with dictatorship of the proletariat, tbh, but I could see that working as a stopgap at least.

Durabys said:
thanks to Eisenhowers Middle Eastern campaign...
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Pretty sure that one got retconned out. Kind of a shame because it's so wonderfully cinematic, but logically it didn't make that much sense even by the standards of WW2.
 
Baron Steakpuncher said:
Doesn't this go against the tennants of catholic theology though? You need some aspect of the apostolic succesion from Peter to be legitimate or its just another protestant church with catholic gilding.

Now, you could do some fancy word wrangling and argue that the Trintarian Praesidium or whatever collectively embody the apostolic succession in serving the will of god, but a "Red Pope" might be a better idea. Actually such a "Red Pope" would probably convince me if I were in America at the time to side with the trinitarians rather than Rome, because i'd be going "they aren't changing the church just replacing the corrupt leadership with some more dedicated to gods will" or whatever rather than "They're making us protestant!"
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It's not really a "Red Catholic Church". It's more focused on a charitable, decentralized form of Christianity.
 
Seeing that atheism is so popular and standard religious institutions have a fairly hard time adapting I wouldn't be surprised if the mainstream religious belief system was a huge syncretic mixture of all sorts of traditions and philosophies that was quite different from what we see as Christianity today.
 
It is possible for the revival of Christian socialism as an idea. It was one of many alternative forms of socialism before the rise of the USSR basically squashed all other alternatives to Marxist-Leninism.
 
Aelita said:
resulting in the universalization of adolescent exceptions to age-of-consent laws
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Could this be expanded upon a little? Does it mean that anyone over the Age of Consent gets arrested if they have sex with someone under that limit regardless of circumstance, or does it mean something else entirely?
 
Yama951 said:
It is possible for the revival of Christian socialism as an idea. It was one of many alternative forms of socialism before the rise of the USSR basically squashed all other alternatives to Marxist-Leninism.
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Norman Thomas, a Christian socialist, was the WPA's 1932 nominee, and more recently, the DFLP has adopted it as a tenant.
 
CompassJimbo said:
Could this be expanded upon a little? Does it mean that anyone over the Age of Consent gets arrested if they have sex with someone under that limit regardless of circumstance, or does it mean something else entirely?
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Personally. I had this idea (please, shoot holes into the idea if it is stupid, would like to know): full detail sexual education from the age of 10 onward and also something like a progressive Age of Consent law with an upper and lower bound. The lower bound is 15 and the upper bound is 20. Someone who is below 15 can have legal sex only in that age group and below (example from my life: many of the girls in my last year of junior high school lost their virginity at 13/14 with some of the 14-year-old junior team soccer jocks...aka their peers...so...yeah), between 15 and 20, an individual can have sex with up to a 25-year-old (example from my life: witnessed on a disco a group of 18-year old boys scoring with a group of 22-year-old female nurse students). Once reaching 20, there should be no age limit.

This nicely nips in the bud the entire 'Ephebophilia' stealth-pedophilia bullshit.
 
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CompassJimbo said:
Could this be expanded upon a little? Does it mean that anyone over the Age of Consent gets arrested if they have sex with someone under that limit regardless of circumstance, or does it mean something else entirely?
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Age of consent laws were historically created, not to protect minors, but to allow fathers to control the sexuality of their daughters. Because they were strict liability statutes, and among the first criminal offenses to be defined by strict liability, it meant that if a teenage girl slept with a boy her age, her father could have him prosecuted and jailed, and would only have to prove that he had slept with her to do it.

We've since found other uses for them, but in their original form and how how they were enforced they werent' so much a means to punish pederasty as to punish other minors.

Adolescent exceptions are often called "Romeo and Juliet laws", which i don't like that term because everyone should know that Romeo and Juliet died in the end of that story. Basically they allow people to have consenting sexual relationships within their own age group. If the age of consent is 16, an 18 year old isn't going to get prosecuted for sleeping with a 15 year old. Or someone isn't going to have their relationship go from legal to suddenly illegal because one of them just had their birthday.

Those are the kinds of legal ratfucking that they prevent.
 
To the writers of the TL, may I ask what kind of military rank structure does the WFRA & WFRN has? Seeing ComBat roughly being a Major's equivalent in the intro, will it be an experiment like USSR's early years' positional ranks? IIRC UASR kept the General officer ranks instead of outright switching to Com[unit type].

I suspect the Navy, even if changed from OTL, wouldn't have as big a rank alteration (because of interservice rivalry? and IIRC its officers being more old school?)
 
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WFRA/WFRN Military Ranks
  • Informational
    • Regency said:
    To the writers of the TL, may I ask what kind of military rank structure does the WFRA & WFRN has? Seeing ComBat roughly being a Major's equivalent in the intro, will it be an experiment like USSR's early years' positional ranks? IIRC UASR kept the General officer ranks instead of outright switching to Com[unit type].

    I suspect the Navy, even if changed from OTL, wouldn't have as big a rank alteration (because of interservice rivalry? and IIRC its officers being more old school?)
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    Positional ranks are an interim civil war thing. In 1936, in response to pressure from within the military, the UASR adopts a new rank structure designed to standardize things to a degree between the Army and Navy.

    Enlisted and flag ranks remain unique to the service, but field officer ranks are standardized to everyone's chagrin.

    Bear with the clunky table function

    Army RanksNavy Ranks
    Enlisted
    (Recruit)(Recruit)
    Trooper*Seaman
    CorporalLeading Rate
    SergeantPetty Officer
    Staff SergeantChief Petty Officer
    Sergeant MajorAdjutant
    Officers
    Sublieutenant
    Lieutenant
    Chief Lieutenant
    Major
    Lieutenant Commander
    Commander
    Flag Ranks
    BrigadierCommmodore
    Major GeneralRear Admiral
    Lieutenant GeneralVice Admiral
    GeneralAdmiral
    General of the ArmyFleet Admiral
     
  • Informational
    • Aelita said:
    Positional ranks are an interim civil war thing. In 1936, in response to pressure from within the military, the UASR adopts a new rank structure designed to standardize things to a degree between the Army and Navy.

    Enlisted and flag ranks remain unique to the service, but field officer ranks are standardized to everyone's chagrin.

    Bear with the clunky table function

    Army RanksNavy Ranks
    Enlisted
    (Recruit)(Recruit)
    Trooper*Seaman
    CorporalLeading Rate
    SergeantPetty Officer
    Staff SergeantChief Petty Officer
    Sergeant MajorAdjutant
    Officers
    Sublieutenant
    Lieutenant
    Chief Lieutenant
    Major
    Lieutenant Commander
    Commander
    Flag Ranks
    BrigadierCommmodore
    Major GeneralRear Admiral
    Lieutenant GeneralVice Admiral
    GeneralAdmiral
    General of the ArmyFleet Admiral
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    Why did they get rid of the positional ranks?
    Like, you said there was pressure from within the military, but why was that?
     
    Jane Dough said:
    Why did they get rid of the positional ranks?
    Like, you said there was pressure from within the military, but why was that?
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    Positional ranks are clunky. The problem the RKKA always had was that they had to either keep adding new ones and complicate the hierarchy, or put people in non-indicative ranks.

    For example, in traditional rank systems a company is typically commanded by a captain, with a first lieutenant serving as XO. Most of the platoons under him will be commanded by first lieutenants.

    In the RKKA's positional system, you had the Komroty (kommandir roty) in command of the company, his XO was Pomkomroty (assistant company commander), and then you have the komvsvoda leading the platoon. In addition, you had additional ranks for any non-command officers like staff officers. It's more complicated than it needs to be, and most of the military had very little attachment to it, especially the non-communist military men who were rehabilitated.
     
    I've been wondering if the UASR does weather any different than the OTL United States. One of the big things going on is the Dust Bowl, but America tends to be rather prone to other types of severe weather— typically hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, and blizzards. IOTL, radio stations were hesitant to warn of potential storms out of fear of inducing panic until eventually CONELRAD and the EB/AS came out. Something tells me the UASR has no such qualms about warning people in these early days, though I wonder what kind of effort they're making towards understanding the processes that go into each type of weather?
     
    DemSocPrevails said:
    How do unionized sex workers in UASR view their fellow SWs who are not unionized? And vice-versa?
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    Someone who is not in the union and in that line of work is very likely to be a victim of circumstances or human trafficking. Unionized sex work tends to occur in established settings--brothels, burlesque clubs, film studios, etc.--through the majority of the 20th century. This is done for the health and safety of members; for sex workers to work out of their homes, on the streets or otherwise alone with clients is dangerous.

    Streetwalking isn't illegal, but it's pretty unheard of. Working on your own outside the union is dangerous; you wouldn't have the resources for protection, STD screening, or job security. Some locals might just be too small to assume that kind of overhead, so perhaps people in small rural towns might find themselves in that situation, but it would be a transitory thing, either as survival sex work, or as a prelude to relocation.

    Which isn't impossible. People generally have the right to housing and sustenance, but people also fall through bureaucratic cracks.
    Night_stalker said:
    So does Gen. Washington still outrank everyone else, or has that been removed as Counterrevolutionary thought?
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    He doesn't, because the WFRA considers itself legally distinct from the United States Army. While such exercises in hagiography would be spurned, it's also a little factoid that most people in the military wouldn't consider except as bar trivia.
    CompassJimbo said:
    I've been wondering if the UASR does weather any different than the OTL United States. One of the big things going on is the Dust Bowl, but America tends to be rather prone to other types of severe weather— typically hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, and blizzards. IOTL, radio stations were hesitant to warn of potential storms out of fear of inducing panic until eventually CONELRAD and the EB/AS came out. Something tells me the UASR has no such qualms about warning people in these early days, though I wonder what kind of effort they're making towards understanding the processes that go into each type of weather?
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    There's a standardized emergency broadcast system set up in the 30s, and it covers everything from weather to military invasion.
     
    Night_stalker said:
    So does Gen. Washington still outrank everyone else, or has that been removed as Counterrevolutionary thought?
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    That raises a broader question, really. How is the UASR going to handle the role of the Founding Fathers as cultural icons? A lot of US citizens hold them in such high regard that it approaches the religious, including a lot of the more moderate socialists, which is going to be difficult to reconcile with an official line in the education system that takes a considerably more nuanced view of their role in North American history.
     
    Jake said:
    That raises a broader question, really. How is the UASR going to handle the role of the Founding Fathers as cultural icons? A lot of US citizens hold them in such high regard that it approaches the religious, including a lot of the more moderate socialists, which is going to be difficult to reconcile with an official line in the education system that takes a considerably more nuanced view of their role in North American history.
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    They've pretty much been dethroned. The mainstream perspective is that they're ancient history, and the version of history everyone learns in Pioneer camp and now in the schools has a critical Marxist perspective.

    It basically means that they're just historical figures without much emotional weight attached, particularly for the first post-revolution generation. There isn't this visceral sense of betrayal that a lot of modern liberals and leftists have, where they have a hyperbolic hatred of many past cultural icons because they got given a squeaky clean version of American history that was nothing but hagiography and then learned how flawed they were as young adults.
     
    So how much of the 'critical Marxist perspective' being taught in UASR history isn't simply propaganda of a different sort or at a minimum extremely slanted to encourage certain views and just how tolerated is historiography that doesn't focus on marxist historical materialism and historical determinism?
     
    Alane1 said:
    So how much of the 'critical Marxist perspective' being taught in UASR history isn't simply propaganda of a different sort or at a minimum extremely slanted to encourage certain views and just how tolerated is historiography that doesn't focus on marxist historical materialism and historical determinism?
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    It's probably no worse on the propaganda front than modern American grade-school education. :V
     
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