I assume they made religious holidays illegal in the red block.
Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline
- Thread starter Aelita
- Start date
- Timeline Post-1900 Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
silverpower
Communism is yuri and nothing else!
- Location
- Portland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
...while the answer is more complex than "oh it's just like OTL", I can assure you it's not something nearly so crass as "victory in the War Against Christmas And Other Unspecified Winter Solstice Festivals".
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And besides that? I mean, is it allowed to even have any religious festivities in private or with close family? Or is that forbidden too? Look, the final goal of communism is that no one will have to actually ever work again for a living and so every day will be a holiday, so in the end, it evens out that in a century or so you won't have religious-themed holidays but after that, it gets better and better to the point that you will have values, on your graph measuring human happiness, that have a divide by zero bug (hint: you get infinity, aka: Iain Bank's Culture).
I do not see why Socialists or Communists SHOULD have a problem with the person of Jesus or spirituality if one tailors the message and approach correctly.
It was the Russians in OTL, and specifically, the Bolsheviks, who made it a big core issue and problem and basically castrated their propaganda arm by doing so.
Also. For everyone in this thread:
Happy/Merry Christmas/Yule/Winter Solstice/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Las Posadas/Diwali/Chinese New Year/Mardi Gras/HumanLight/ect.
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Given that the martyred first (and only, since the title changed after the revolution) elected Communist President Norman Thomas was a friggin' Minister, and there's been a fair amount of effort put into describing the Catholics-except-fuck-the-pope church, it's safe to say that religion is not banned.
Religion is less public, and atheists are both common and open about it, but there's no indication that it's banned in any way in the UASR.
Religion is less public, and atheists are both common and open about it, but there's no indication that it's banned in any way in the UASR.
Spartakrod
Judeo-Spartacist Bolshevik-Kabbalist
- Location
- Sanctum Arcanorum
- Pronouns
- Fae/Faer/Faers/Faerself
While Christmas, Chanukah and the like are not recognised as official national holidays they're not banned. The secular holiday period of Yuletide however serves as the official winter solistice period celebration and overlaps with both of them.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
What!? Even the USSR at the height of militant state atheism didn't go there? And I think the TL made it quite clear the UASR's atheism is mostly in public and doesn't extend to policing people's private lives.
So, technically not giving support to any religious holiday, but in practice making sure there's a holiday for it anyway. I wonder how they handle work during the holiday period though. It's always a touchy subject but some services can't really close their doors for a week.
- Location
- The Midlands.
Same way it's done IOTL: Ask for volunteers, and if they can't find enough people who can use the time-and-a-half or would rather avoid their in-laws or whatever then the remainder will be asked to draw lots.
Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
- Location
- Morioh Town, Mt. Ebbot
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Along with what has already been said, banning could lead to explosive results in UASR by running against both Declaration of Rights & the Basic Law, and the militantly anti-bigotry/discrimination Red Terror/FirstCulRev. Also, though ITTL Americans are increasingly secular, religious leftism is A Thing (e.g. Liberation Theology like Red Trinitarian Church, Islamic Socialism like Samawal Hamidi's) and there's modest growth in minority religions as mentioned in the updates. There's also cultural reasons for the holidays even for the non-religious (especially events like Hanukkah/Chanukah).
Boxing Day type of deal?
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- Location
- The left-wing of the impossible
Religious holidays are handled on mostly a local basis. While they're not recognized by the federal government directly (indirectly, there are cases where secular public holidays are engineered to overlap, like Yuletide), religious holidays get varying levels of official recognition by local governments. For example, due to Metropolis' large Jewish plurality, major Jewish holidays have public recognition, and work in the city slows down on Passover and Yom Kippur.
Locals with other large religious pluralities would do similarly.
As for the secular figleaf treatment, During Yuletide there are three full holidays: the Solstice, Liberation Day, and New Year's. Liberation Day commemorates the last battle of the Civil War, and "coincidentally" this falls on December 25. So most people will have the day off anyway without giving official recognition to Christmas. That said, it is impossible to really say where the secular Yuletide traditions and customs end and the religious ones begin, even for atheists. Due to Christianity's cultural legacy, most non-religious people will still hold a view of Jesus as a great humanist teacher and may continue to celebrate Christian holidays out of custom.
Locals with other large religious pluralities would do similarly.
As for the secular figleaf treatment, During Yuletide there are three full holidays: the Solstice, Liberation Day, and New Year's. Liberation Day commemorates the last battle of the Civil War, and "coincidentally" this falls on December 25. So most people will have the day off anyway without giving official recognition to Christmas. That said, it is impossible to really say where the secular Yuletide traditions and customs end and the religious ones begin, even for atheists. Due to Christianity's cultural legacy, most non-religious people will still hold a view of Jesus as a great humanist teacher and may continue to celebrate Christian holidays out of custom.
I'm curious now. What kind of holiday music is common in the UASR? In OTL we have mainly crooners and mainly nonreligious because the boomers back in the sixties thought that overt displays of religion were gauche and that crooners were sufficiently old fashioned to be nostalgic. Are there similar trends in the UASR?
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The abundance of crooners wasn't the Boomer's fault. Those were the Silent Generation's fault. The OTL American generation whose education and upbringing got double-whamied by two Red Scares. In OTL those people were the most socially and economically conservative generation of them all, even more so than the Boomers are/were in OTL.
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- Location
- The Old Dominion
Frank Sinatra hands down, though I would also take Mannheim Steamroller, Elsa Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Eartha Kitt and the Surpemes.
Jane Dough
(She/Her)
- Location
- Occupied Cascadia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I do like crooners. Though I have yet to work retail during the holidays, so I'm sure that will change lol
AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You will want to strangle every last one of them after a single season
Public Enemies
Miss Teri
The Queen
- Location
- West
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Excerpt from Diary of a Reactionary: My Life in the Sons of Liberty by Paul Matthews (UASR: University of Colorado Press, 1983)
Paul Matthews was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1917, to a family of devout Baptists. He moved to Denver, Colorado at age 5, and settled there. His father Josiah, a vehement opponent of satanism and "Marxist atheism", fought with the White forces during the Civil War, and his family helped out with the White auxiliary. He refused to back down when the Reds emerged victorious, and joined the Sons of Liberty branch in the Rockies ("Sons of the Rocky Mountains"), enlisting his sons as members as well.
Paul served with the group until his capture in 1936, whereupon he was given a small sentence, and given a chance of rehabilitation through enlistment in the Red Army. He accepted, and went on to serve with distinction in Leningrad and Odessa. After his discharge, he returned to Denver, and opened a bookstore with his brother (who left the Sons shortly after Paul's arrest). He operated the bookstore with his brother until 1977. He decided to write about his experiences with the Sons after a local documentarian interviewed him after finding his name in the membership rolls in 1980.
"[...] The day began at dawn. After waking up to the rooster's crow, we were ushered into the main barn. We would gather in front of the Flag of the Republic, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We sat down, and the head of the cell came up to speak. He would give a brief overview of the plans of the week, including logistics and current supplies. Sometimes, he would list the number of food items available, so that we would know what to get if needed, as well as establish the amount of money we had, and allocated it based on our needs at the moment. He would then call upon several members in the audience to come and meet with him for whatever they were planning. The rest of us would disperse, and work and train on the farm. If we needed a break, a Watchdog would follow us, to ensure we weren't meeting with government agents.
We were one cell of the Sons. Cells made up the branches of the organization, each operating in a different region. Our branch was known as the "Sons of the Rockies". The branches would send reps to the national "Continental Congress", who directed the actions of the branches. The Congress had an old fashioned nature to it: its directives were sent by letter, as opposed to telegram, through their own Pony Express (though they made easy target practice for the Pubs, who'd shoot us off the horses) and by secret movement through cars and trains. Hoover made it hard to really direct coherently, and we mostly worked out of our own volition.
My father, a "hero" of the White cause, was often called upon to help coordinate and execute the attacks. They had started out with big grand plans, but the failure of other chapters in similar plans had their effects. In particular, the failure in Charleston had forced them to abandon all major plans or couper, and instead focus on smaller activities.
As a young man of eighteen, I was given mostly menial tasks, such as transporting, guarding, and escorting. Whenever one of my compatriots and I were sent, it was usually to receive and transport goods or weapons. Goods were sold at stores or directly from the kibbutzim. Most of us young people were unsuspecting enough to buy the goods. Plus, we could be disguised better.
The weapons were the more dangerous task. We would go in groups of five, and head west, through prairie and forest, to the small shack belonging to a man named Joe. Joe had been a prolific bootlegger before the Revolution, and had great business from selling alcohol in the dry state of Colorado. The Revolution ended that, of course, so he used his skills to smuggle weapons from Canada and sell them to the Sons of Liberty. Joe also had a side job smuggling fugitive whites to Canada or Cuba.
We would give the money to Joe, and we'd wait until the dead of night, before we would return to the barn with the weapon. Not to arouse the authorities. We came to spend a lot of time in Joe's cabin, and get friendly with Joe himself. He would eventually request that he only deal with us. Apparently, he and a couple of the other Sons had a spat over something (in retrospect, they probably mistrusted him over his Italian heritage), and he found us more agreeable.
[...]
One day, in 1936, during the morning assembly, the head of the chapter, Phillip Larson, actually called on me to meet. In the meeting room, I saw my father, the other leaders, and several members of the Ku Klux Klan, dressed in their white garb. In the background was an older man in a prison uniform. I recognized him as former governor Clarence Morley.
"Paul," my father began, "you know who this man is, correct?"
I nodded.
"We need you and a couple of the others to escort him to the … smuggler."
"The Red Guards are out looking for him." One of the Klansman interjected. "We broke him out of Leavenworth a couple days ago."
I nodded. I was finally getting a big assignment! Finally helping the cause of restoring the Republic. However, I remained calm, and asked "When should this be done?"
"Tomorrow. At dawn."
With that, everyone left, except for my father, who kneeled down. He swallowed.
"Son…. Are you sure you can do this?"
"Yes, I can! I want to help the fight against the Reds."
"I know, I know… I begged them to choose someone older, someone who had more experience fighting, but they said that you and your group were the ones who knew the path the best. Are you sure you are up to this?"
I nodded. He swallowed again and hugged me.
"Son, be careful tomorrow. Please."
At the time, I was not fully appreciative of the danger that lay ahead.
[....]
Before dawn, I was awakened by one of my compatriots, Robert, and our group went to the main barn. Larson was there, and with him was Morley, still wearing his prison uniform. Behind them was the cart we would use to smuggle weapons.
We headed out at dawn, with Morley covered by a sheet.
"Hey, son, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you going out like this to help me."
"Yes, sir."
"It's a temporary situation anyway. They'll come to their senses, and the Reds and the Jews and the Papists will be driven out. "
[....]
We approached Joe's Cabin, and I went out to get the door, when suddenly, a group of Red Guards emerged from the forest, and surrounded us, rifles pointed at us. Morley emerged from the cart, and put his hands up. A commander emerged, with someone else apprehending Joe.
The commander looked at us carefully.
"Using children as soldiers. Is there any depth the reactionaries will not sink to? Take Morley, I'll handle this."
Morley was led away, while the commander approached us.
"Now, boys, I know you must think the worst of us, that we are out to destroy everything decent in the world. I hope, once you've served your punishment, we could prove you wrong."
The statement confused me at the time, but it didn't really register with me, as the Guard arrested me and my group, and lead us all away.
[....]
I was held in a jail cell in Denver for several days, before I was expected to be brought to the court for my sentence.
I was scared for my life, fearing what the Reds might do to me for defying their will. I feared they might shoot me once they convict me, or send me as slave labor, as I was told would happen if I were caught.
Eventually, I was released, and a woman in her 40's named Marguerite introduced herself as my legal defense. As we left the police station, she stopped me for a second.
"Because you are young, I think the judge might be lenient on you. However, you would need to serve some kind of sentence."
"Okay."
"I could get you no prison time, in exchange for a stint in the Army."
"I have to fight for them?" This was worse than I thought.
"It's that, or a full prison term."
I thought on it for a moment. I realized that if I learned their techniques and strategies, I could help bring them down on the inside, subvert them without them ever knowing.
"Alright, I accept those terms."
The judge accepted the terms given, and I was to report to the militia in the morning for basic training. With luck, I could gain the skills needed to bring the Old Republic back. It seemed like the fox was being let into the hen house. I was in for a rude awakening.
------------------
Crime in the First Cultural Revolution
The unspoken truth of the American Proletarian Revolution is that prior to the taking of power, there was a revolving door between America's criminal underclass and the revolutionary Workers' Party. As the famous Guardsman John Dillinger put it, "A lot of us went from peddling moonshine to peddling the State and Revolution, and we did it in much the same way."
Organized crime and the workers' movement were not always irrevocably opposed. Both had been outlaws in the bourgeois state, and the main pillars of organized crime had little in the way of political inclination beyond their cashflows. The Workers' Party would utilize connections with organized crime in the major cities for money laundering, procuring safe houses, acquiring weapons to arm the Spartacus League, to name but a few. The urban masses of petty thieves, confidence tricksters, card sharks, gamblers, and prostitutes had, like all those down and out amidst the splendor of American opulence, been quite sympathetic to the gospel of revolution.
A Robin Hood-esque Thieves Guild began to coalesce among these lumpen elements amid the heightening of struggle following the Great Crash. Rather than targeting marks indiscriminately, this loose federation of street gangs would target the opulent and aid those facing eviction and support workers at the picket lines.
The revolution itself would provide an avenue for many to "go legit." But with the seizure of state power, the business partnership between organized crime and the workers' movement would end. As the worst kind of exploiters, the criminal secret societies of the Cosa Nostra, The Five Points Gang, the Undzer Shtik, and the Cusick Gang (to name but a few) would become enemies of the state overnight. Deprived of many of their best militants, the various organized crime gangs would already be on the backfoot as the new order turned its efforts towards dismantling all vestiges of the old regime.
La Cosa Nostra had only recently gone through a massive restructuring following the Castellammarese War between 1930-1931, which saw the old school Silician bosses eliminated and the title of Capo di tutti capi (The "Boss of All Bosses") abolished, in favor of young upstarts, led by Charles "Lucky" Luciano" establishing a "Commission" to direct the activities of the organization, consisting of Five "Families" in New York (with Luciano, Joe Bonanno,Joseph Profaci, Vincent Mangano and Frank Costello as their heads) , the Chicago Outfit, and crime family of Buffalo. They also had extensive cooperation with members of the Undzer Shtik, including Arnold Rothstein and Meyer Lansky, through their mutual organization the National Crime Syndicate and their enforcement arm, Murder, inc.
As their traditional revenue sources of gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging were steadily destroyed by new decriminalization laws and their foot soldiers abandoned them, the Commission responded by lending their resources towards helping reactionary groups, including the various Sons of Liberty branches, by providing weapon or shelter, and smuggling them to friendlier climes.
This new relationship would land them straight into the crosshairs of Public Safety. Using the testimonies of ex-gangsters and eyewitnesses (sometimes coerced), the Commission was revealed in late 1934, and its bosses and leading figures identified, and publicly revealed as some of the leading figures of counterrevolution through the Public Enemies List. This would be the opening shot in the war against organized crime.
The fall of Chicago's crime syndicates would become the stuff of legend. The Chicago Outfit boss Johnny Torrio was gunned down as he resisted arrest in his office. His body was riddled with bullets from Thompson guns. His underling Al Capone was killed shortly after, with the small remainder of the Outfit arrested. Their Irish rival Bugs Moran (leader of the North Side Gang) went peacefully, eventually sentenced to life for conspiracy to murder and racketeering, at Joliet Prison (Released on parole in 1949). The Gang gradually disappeared afterwards.
In Philadelphia, William Cusick, driven out of business by the repeal of Pennsylvanian Prohibition, attempted a desperate robbery, before he surrendered to the Red Guards, and sentenced to ten years.
The New York gangs would survive this initial onslaught, if only for a little while. However, their power was decimated, as they lost control over the Longshoremen Union, and the state decriminalized prostitution. Their gambling establishments were also raided on a regular basis. Lesser gangsters around New York were eliminated. Owney Madden, owner of the infamous Cotton Club in Harlem (noted as blacks could be performers but not patrons) was arrested. On the order of Langston Hughes, the Cotton Club itself would be demolished completely and replaced with a new cultural center to celebrate African music and art. With the writing on the wall, some, notably Rothstein, began to use their reactionary connections to transfer their assets to interests in Cuba. Still others used the changing winds to turn to legitimate enterprise in exchange for being Public Safety informants.
The final nail came in 1936. As their finances dwindled, the Commission, over the strong objections of de facto Chairman Luciano, approved the proposal of Dutch Schultz to assassinate Joseph Brodsky, Metropolis Attorney General, as a means of intimidation. This attempt went horribly wrong, as Schultz failed to shoot Brodsky as he exited his Manhattan office, but his Guards had spotted and gunned Schultz down on sight. With this failed assassination, the inevitable crackdown on the New York gangs began. Joseph Profaci was shot whilst attempting a get-away in his car, and died several hours later. Vincent Magano and Frank Costello were both arrested and sentenced to Alcatraz across the country, as was prominent Jewish ally Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and the rest of Murder, Inc. The biggest coup for Hoover and the MDSS came with Luciano's arrest and conviction.
Vito Genovese, one of Luciano's closest friends and allies, had fled to Italy shortly after the Revolution, and began a very successful black market operation, which brought him closer to some in the Fascist government. While the Fascists had been hostile to the Sicilian mafia for years, Genovese had won the trust of key officials (supplying Mussolini's son-in-law with cocaine[1]), and used that to make a play towards a common enemy: Communists.
Genovese worked out an arrangement with Luciano (through Bonnano and his friend, noted Italian-American publisher and arch-MacArthurist Generoso Pope from their Cuban exile) where he would send Italian weapons to Canada, and Luciano would smuggle and sell them to the Sons of Liberty. After the Brodsky hit, the scheme was discovered, and he was forced to go on the run as he was declared "Public Enemy No.1", and tracked to a hotel room in Buffalo, prepared to cross over in Canada.
Luciano's trial saw his headquarters raided, revealing thousands of telegrams between him and Pope, as well as letters between him, Bonnano, and Genovese, all laying out the scheme and its exact nature. Along with that was evidence of him using his businesses as hideouts for members of the Sons of New England and the Fascist League of America, as well as evidence of illegal gambling and prostitution. All of which made it easy to convict Luciano and sentence him to death.
With Luciano's fall, the American Mafia withered away on the mainland. By 1946, it was a shadow of its former self on the mainland, with its members either killed or imprisoned. However, the National Crime Syndicate was able to reestablish themselves in Cuba, with the Commission now consisting of Bonanno and Genovese (managing to survive the war by switching sides) with a seat given to Rothstein, solidifying the merger between the Italian and Jewish mobs. Using their control over Havana gambling and hotels, they would become a major clandestine force in Cuban society. However, organized crime wasn't completely extinct on the mainland. Vestiges survived in urban areas, with support from the exiled leadership in Cuba, now focused on the new illicit vices, predominantly gambling.
Outside the reigns of organized crime, the disorganization created by the Civil War had created a number of vagabond criminals (primarily bank robbers), who roamed the land (primarily the West and Mid-West), committing crimes, and evading the law. This era would come to be called the "Public Enemy" era, since many would end up on " Public Enemy" lists given to law enforcement.
These new outlaws targeted any establishment with money: banks, stores, trucks, trains. Their exploits would make headlines through sheer audacity. Some, like George "Machine Gun" Kelley, George "Baby Face" Nelson, the Baker Gang, and, probably most notoriously, the Barrow Gang (under "Blanche and Buck" Barrow), became somewhat famous for their activities and their free-spirited, almost adventurous look (hiding a very troubled, criminal lifestyle). However, they were no match for what was gradually becoming the most effective law enforcement agency in the world, and the real cost of their lifestyle
Kelley would meet his end in 1934, at a South Bend, Indiana hotel, resisting arrest . Nelson would die resisting Public Safety units under Charles Floyd in Reno, Nevada in 1936. Fred Baker and his mother Kate were both killed in Florida in 1936, with her other son Arthur and associate Alvin Karpis captured and convicted (Karpis would go on to become one of the only people to successfully escape the Alcatraz Citadel in 1954). Finally, the Barrows Gang was brought down by Pubs lead by Melvin Purvis in 1940, who managed to kill the two leaders, and round up the rest.
Celebrities were made of the agents who brought down these "Public Enemies". Purvis, Elliot Ness (who had helped bring down the Baker Gang as well as Maine armed robber Al Brady), and most famous of all, John Dillinger, who had taken down Kelly, along with countless other criminals during this period. After his work in the Mid-West, he would go on to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and the Sons of Liberty. Agents like Purvis and Ness would transfer to Section 9, where they would focus on finding foreign agents or similar infiltration missions.
As the nation stabilized and the economy recovered, the "Public Enemy" era would largely come to an end by the beginning of World War II, though holdouts continued to operate into the late 40's. With improvements in bank security and continued coordination under the umbrella of Public Safety, it became more and more difficult for robbers to operate. Still, their legend would live on, especially as they soon entered the culture, and many in the Second Cultural Revolution would embrace what they saw as the free-spirited, carefree lifestyle they embodied (and not their violent ends.)
The most sinister of the major crime headlines during the First Cultural Revolution came in 1935, with the trial of Hamilton "Albert" Fish. A day laborer, he, by his own account, had been killing since at least 1898, claiming God had commanded him to do so. He had confessed to five child murders by 1934, three before the Revolution, and two afterwards, which police had been able to trace to known homicides (He had claimed many more, including during the Civil War). He was tried for all five homicides. Experts testified about his psychosis and his multiple sexual fetishes. The truly ghastly nature of this testimony and his open confession were enough for a jury to recommend an execution. He was brought before a firing squad, and executed at Sing Sing Prison yard.
Fish's case would come into notable prominence as the first major serial killer case in the UASR, and would come to define how these cases would be seen. During the news coverage some of the experts commented that Fish was an example of an aberration that could've only occurred under the late capitalism, and that cases like his would disappear as the progression of society continued. Sadly, this prediction would not come to pass in the coming years.
---------------
[1] True story.
Paul Matthews was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1917, to a family of devout Baptists. He moved to Denver, Colorado at age 5, and settled there. His father Josiah, a vehement opponent of satanism and "Marxist atheism", fought with the White forces during the Civil War, and his family helped out with the White auxiliary. He refused to back down when the Reds emerged victorious, and joined the Sons of Liberty branch in the Rockies ("Sons of the Rocky Mountains"), enlisting his sons as members as well.
Paul served with the group until his capture in 1936, whereupon he was given a small sentence, and given a chance of rehabilitation through enlistment in the Red Army. He accepted, and went on to serve with distinction in Leningrad and Odessa. After his discharge, he returned to Denver, and opened a bookstore with his brother (who left the Sons shortly after Paul's arrest). He operated the bookstore with his brother until 1977. He decided to write about his experiences with the Sons after a local documentarian interviewed him after finding his name in the membership rolls in 1980.
"[...] The day began at dawn. After waking up to the rooster's crow, we were ushered into the main barn. We would gather in front of the Flag of the Republic, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. We sat down, and the head of the cell came up to speak. He would give a brief overview of the plans of the week, including logistics and current supplies. Sometimes, he would list the number of food items available, so that we would know what to get if needed, as well as establish the amount of money we had, and allocated it based on our needs at the moment. He would then call upon several members in the audience to come and meet with him for whatever they were planning. The rest of us would disperse, and work and train on the farm. If we needed a break, a Watchdog would follow us, to ensure we weren't meeting with government agents.
We were one cell of the Sons. Cells made up the branches of the organization, each operating in a different region. Our branch was known as the "Sons of the Rockies". The branches would send reps to the national "Continental Congress", who directed the actions of the branches. The Congress had an old fashioned nature to it: its directives were sent by letter, as opposed to telegram, through their own Pony Express (though they made easy target practice for the Pubs, who'd shoot us off the horses) and by secret movement through cars and trains. Hoover made it hard to really direct coherently, and we mostly worked out of our own volition.
My father, a "hero" of the White cause, was often called upon to help coordinate and execute the attacks. They had started out with big grand plans, but the failure of other chapters in similar plans had their effects. In particular, the failure in Charleston had forced them to abandon all major plans or couper, and instead focus on smaller activities.
As a young man of eighteen, I was given mostly menial tasks, such as transporting, guarding, and escorting. Whenever one of my compatriots and I were sent, it was usually to receive and transport goods or weapons. Goods were sold at stores or directly from the kibbutzim. Most of us young people were unsuspecting enough to buy the goods. Plus, we could be disguised better.
The weapons were the more dangerous task. We would go in groups of five, and head west, through prairie and forest, to the small shack belonging to a man named Joe. Joe had been a prolific bootlegger before the Revolution, and had great business from selling alcohol in the dry state of Colorado. The Revolution ended that, of course, so he used his skills to smuggle weapons from Canada and sell them to the Sons of Liberty. Joe also had a side job smuggling fugitive whites to Canada or Cuba.
We would give the money to Joe, and we'd wait until the dead of night, before we would return to the barn with the weapon. Not to arouse the authorities. We came to spend a lot of time in Joe's cabin, and get friendly with Joe himself. He would eventually request that he only deal with us. Apparently, he and a couple of the other Sons had a spat over something (in retrospect, they probably mistrusted him over his Italian heritage), and he found us more agreeable.
[...]
One day, in 1936, during the morning assembly, the head of the chapter, Phillip Larson, actually called on me to meet. In the meeting room, I saw my father, the other leaders, and several members of the Ku Klux Klan, dressed in their white garb. In the background was an older man in a prison uniform. I recognized him as former governor Clarence Morley.
"Paul," my father began, "you know who this man is, correct?"
I nodded.
"We need you and a couple of the others to escort him to the … smuggler."
"The Red Guards are out looking for him." One of the Klansman interjected. "We broke him out of Leavenworth a couple days ago."
I nodded. I was finally getting a big assignment! Finally helping the cause of restoring the Republic. However, I remained calm, and asked "When should this be done?"
"Tomorrow. At dawn."
With that, everyone left, except for my father, who kneeled down. He swallowed.
"Son…. Are you sure you can do this?"
"Yes, I can! I want to help the fight against the Reds."
"I know, I know… I begged them to choose someone older, someone who had more experience fighting, but they said that you and your group were the ones who knew the path the best. Are you sure you are up to this?"
I nodded. He swallowed again and hugged me.
"Son, be careful tomorrow. Please."
At the time, I was not fully appreciative of the danger that lay ahead.
[....]
Before dawn, I was awakened by one of my compatriots, Robert, and our group went to the main barn. Larson was there, and with him was Morley, still wearing his prison uniform. Behind them was the cart we would use to smuggle weapons.
We headed out at dawn, with Morley covered by a sheet.
"Hey, son, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you going out like this to help me."
"Yes, sir."
"It's a temporary situation anyway. They'll come to their senses, and the Reds and the Jews and the Papists will be driven out. "
[....]
We approached Joe's Cabin, and I went out to get the door, when suddenly, a group of Red Guards emerged from the forest, and surrounded us, rifles pointed at us. Morley emerged from the cart, and put his hands up. A commander emerged, with someone else apprehending Joe.
The commander looked at us carefully.
"Using children as soldiers. Is there any depth the reactionaries will not sink to? Take Morley, I'll handle this."
Morley was led away, while the commander approached us.
"Now, boys, I know you must think the worst of us, that we are out to destroy everything decent in the world. I hope, once you've served your punishment, we could prove you wrong."
The statement confused me at the time, but it didn't really register with me, as the Guard arrested me and my group, and lead us all away.
[....]
I was held in a jail cell in Denver for several days, before I was expected to be brought to the court for my sentence.
I was scared for my life, fearing what the Reds might do to me for defying their will. I feared they might shoot me once they convict me, or send me as slave labor, as I was told would happen if I were caught.
Eventually, I was released, and a woman in her 40's named Marguerite introduced herself as my legal defense. As we left the police station, she stopped me for a second.
"Because you are young, I think the judge might be lenient on you. However, you would need to serve some kind of sentence."
"Okay."
"I could get you no prison time, in exchange for a stint in the Army."
"I have to fight for them?" This was worse than I thought.
"It's that, or a full prison term."
I thought on it for a moment. I realized that if I learned their techniques and strategies, I could help bring them down on the inside, subvert them without them ever knowing.
"Alright, I accept those terms."
The judge accepted the terms given, and I was to report to the militia in the morning for basic training. With luck, I could gain the skills needed to bring the Old Republic back. It seemed like the fox was being let into the hen house. I was in for a rude awakening.
------------------
Crime in the First Cultural Revolution
The unspoken truth of the American Proletarian Revolution is that prior to the taking of power, there was a revolving door between America's criminal underclass and the revolutionary Workers' Party. As the famous Guardsman John Dillinger put it, "A lot of us went from peddling moonshine to peddling the State and Revolution, and we did it in much the same way."
Organized crime and the workers' movement were not always irrevocably opposed. Both had been outlaws in the bourgeois state, and the main pillars of organized crime had little in the way of political inclination beyond their cashflows. The Workers' Party would utilize connections with organized crime in the major cities for money laundering, procuring safe houses, acquiring weapons to arm the Spartacus League, to name but a few. The urban masses of petty thieves, confidence tricksters, card sharks, gamblers, and prostitutes had, like all those down and out amidst the splendor of American opulence, been quite sympathetic to the gospel of revolution.
A Robin Hood-esque Thieves Guild began to coalesce among these lumpen elements amid the heightening of struggle following the Great Crash. Rather than targeting marks indiscriminately, this loose federation of street gangs would target the opulent and aid those facing eviction and support workers at the picket lines.
The revolution itself would provide an avenue for many to "go legit." But with the seizure of state power, the business partnership between organized crime and the workers' movement would end. As the worst kind of exploiters, the criminal secret societies of the Cosa Nostra, The Five Points Gang, the Undzer Shtik, and the Cusick Gang (to name but a few) would become enemies of the state overnight. Deprived of many of their best militants, the various organized crime gangs would already be on the backfoot as the new order turned its efforts towards dismantling all vestiges of the old regime.
La Cosa Nostra had only recently gone through a massive restructuring following the Castellammarese War between 1930-1931, which saw the old school Silician bosses eliminated and the title of Capo di tutti capi (The "Boss of All Bosses") abolished, in favor of young upstarts, led by Charles "Lucky" Luciano" establishing a "Commission" to direct the activities of the organization, consisting of Five "Families" in New York (with Luciano, Joe Bonanno,Joseph Profaci, Vincent Mangano and Frank Costello as their heads) , the Chicago Outfit, and crime family of Buffalo. They also had extensive cooperation with members of the Undzer Shtik, including Arnold Rothstein and Meyer Lansky, through their mutual organization the National Crime Syndicate and their enforcement arm, Murder, inc.
As their traditional revenue sources of gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging were steadily destroyed by new decriminalization laws and their foot soldiers abandoned them, the Commission responded by lending their resources towards helping reactionary groups, including the various Sons of Liberty branches, by providing weapon or shelter, and smuggling them to friendlier climes.
This new relationship would land them straight into the crosshairs of Public Safety. Using the testimonies of ex-gangsters and eyewitnesses (sometimes coerced), the Commission was revealed in late 1934, and its bosses and leading figures identified, and publicly revealed as some of the leading figures of counterrevolution through the Public Enemies List. This would be the opening shot in the war against organized crime.
The fall of Chicago's crime syndicates would become the stuff of legend. The Chicago Outfit boss Johnny Torrio was gunned down as he resisted arrest in his office. His body was riddled with bullets from Thompson guns. His underling Al Capone was killed shortly after, with the small remainder of the Outfit arrested. Their Irish rival Bugs Moran (leader of the North Side Gang) went peacefully, eventually sentenced to life for conspiracy to murder and racketeering, at Joliet Prison (Released on parole in 1949). The Gang gradually disappeared afterwards.
In Philadelphia, William Cusick, driven out of business by the repeal of Pennsylvanian Prohibition, attempted a desperate robbery, before he surrendered to the Red Guards, and sentenced to ten years.
The New York gangs would survive this initial onslaught, if only for a little while. However, their power was decimated, as they lost control over the Longshoremen Union, and the state decriminalized prostitution. Their gambling establishments were also raided on a regular basis. Lesser gangsters around New York were eliminated. Owney Madden, owner of the infamous Cotton Club in Harlem (noted as blacks could be performers but not patrons) was arrested. On the order of Langston Hughes, the Cotton Club itself would be demolished completely and replaced with a new cultural center to celebrate African music and art. With the writing on the wall, some, notably Rothstein, began to use their reactionary connections to transfer their assets to interests in Cuba. Still others used the changing winds to turn to legitimate enterprise in exchange for being Public Safety informants.
The final nail came in 1936. As their finances dwindled, the Commission, over the strong objections of de facto Chairman Luciano, approved the proposal of Dutch Schultz to assassinate Joseph Brodsky, Metropolis Attorney General, as a means of intimidation. This attempt went horribly wrong, as Schultz failed to shoot Brodsky as he exited his Manhattan office, but his Guards had spotted and gunned Schultz down on sight. With this failed assassination, the inevitable crackdown on the New York gangs began. Joseph Profaci was shot whilst attempting a get-away in his car, and died several hours later. Vincent Magano and Frank Costello were both arrested and sentenced to Alcatraz across the country, as was prominent Jewish ally Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and the rest of Murder, Inc. The biggest coup for Hoover and the MDSS came with Luciano's arrest and conviction.
Vito Genovese, one of Luciano's closest friends and allies, had fled to Italy shortly after the Revolution, and began a very successful black market operation, which brought him closer to some in the Fascist government. While the Fascists had been hostile to the Sicilian mafia for years, Genovese had won the trust of key officials (supplying Mussolini's son-in-law with cocaine[1]), and used that to make a play towards a common enemy: Communists.
Genovese worked out an arrangement with Luciano (through Bonnano and his friend, noted Italian-American publisher and arch-MacArthurist Generoso Pope from their Cuban exile) where he would send Italian weapons to Canada, and Luciano would smuggle and sell them to the Sons of Liberty. After the Brodsky hit, the scheme was discovered, and he was forced to go on the run as he was declared "Public Enemy No.1", and tracked to a hotel room in Buffalo, prepared to cross over in Canada.
Luciano's trial saw his headquarters raided, revealing thousands of telegrams between him and Pope, as well as letters between him, Bonnano, and Genovese, all laying out the scheme and its exact nature. Along with that was evidence of him using his businesses as hideouts for members of the Sons of New England and the Fascist League of America, as well as evidence of illegal gambling and prostitution. All of which made it easy to convict Luciano and sentence him to death.
With Luciano's fall, the American Mafia withered away on the mainland. By 1946, it was a shadow of its former self on the mainland, with its members either killed or imprisoned. However, the National Crime Syndicate was able to reestablish themselves in Cuba, with the Commission now consisting of Bonanno and Genovese (managing to survive the war by switching sides) with a seat given to Rothstein, solidifying the merger between the Italian and Jewish mobs. Using their control over Havana gambling and hotels, they would become a major clandestine force in Cuban society. However, organized crime wasn't completely extinct on the mainland. Vestiges survived in urban areas, with support from the exiled leadership in Cuba, now focused on the new illicit vices, predominantly gambling.
Outside the reigns of organized crime, the disorganization created by the Civil War had created a number of vagabond criminals (primarily bank robbers), who roamed the land (primarily the West and Mid-West), committing crimes, and evading the law. This era would come to be called the "Public Enemy" era, since many would end up on " Public Enemy" lists given to law enforcement.
These new outlaws targeted any establishment with money: banks, stores, trucks, trains. Their exploits would make headlines through sheer audacity. Some, like George "Machine Gun" Kelley, George "Baby Face" Nelson, the Baker Gang, and, probably most notoriously, the Barrow Gang (under "Blanche and Buck" Barrow), became somewhat famous for their activities and their free-spirited, almost adventurous look (hiding a very troubled, criminal lifestyle). However, they were no match for what was gradually becoming the most effective law enforcement agency in the world, and the real cost of their lifestyle
Kelley would meet his end in 1934, at a South Bend, Indiana hotel, resisting arrest . Nelson would die resisting Public Safety units under Charles Floyd in Reno, Nevada in 1936. Fred Baker and his mother Kate were both killed in Florida in 1936, with her other son Arthur and associate Alvin Karpis captured and convicted (Karpis would go on to become one of the only people to successfully escape the Alcatraz Citadel in 1954). Finally, the Barrows Gang was brought down by Pubs lead by Melvin Purvis in 1940, who managed to kill the two leaders, and round up the rest.
Celebrities were made of the agents who brought down these "Public Enemies". Purvis, Elliot Ness (who had helped bring down the Baker Gang as well as Maine armed robber Al Brady), and most famous of all, John Dillinger, who had taken down Kelly, along with countless other criminals during this period. After his work in the Mid-West, he would go on to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and the Sons of Liberty. Agents like Purvis and Ness would transfer to Section 9, where they would focus on finding foreign agents or similar infiltration missions.
As the nation stabilized and the economy recovered, the "Public Enemy" era would largely come to an end by the beginning of World War II, though holdouts continued to operate into the late 40's. With improvements in bank security and continued coordination under the umbrella of Public Safety, it became more and more difficult for robbers to operate. Still, their legend would live on, especially as they soon entered the culture, and many in the Second Cultural Revolution would embrace what they saw as the free-spirited, carefree lifestyle they embodied (and not their violent ends.)
The most sinister of the major crime headlines during the First Cultural Revolution came in 1935, with the trial of Hamilton "Albert" Fish. A day laborer, he, by his own account, had been killing since at least 1898, claiming God had commanded him to do so. He had confessed to five child murders by 1934, three before the Revolution, and two afterwards, which police had been able to trace to known homicides (He had claimed many more, including during the Civil War). He was tried for all five homicides. Experts testified about his psychosis and his multiple sexual fetishes. The truly ghastly nature of this testimony and his open confession were enough for a jury to recommend an execution. He was brought before a firing squad, and executed at Sing Sing Prison yard.
Fish's case would come into notable prominence as the first major serial killer case in the UASR, and would come to define how these cases would be seen. During the news coverage some of the experts commented that Fish was an example of an aberration that could've only occurred under the late capitalism, and that cases like his would disappear as the progression of society continued. Sadly, this prediction would not come to pass in the coming years.
---------------
[1] True story.
Durabys
Miaow! Break the Chains!
- Location
- the land of the Boii
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Will you continue this story later on please?
Miss Teri
The Queen
- Location
- West
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I might if the opportunity rises.
Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
- Location
- Morioh Town, Mt. Ebbot
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Hmm, seems to be similar-but-not-the-same incorrect mindset that USSR has to serial killers
- Location
- The Midlands.
As previously discussed, psychology was a lot more primitive in the 1930s even when it wasn't being appropriated to justify someone's political agenda. Even today there's a lot we don't know about personality disorders, particularly the extent to which genetics play a role.
That said, however, the UASR will probably see a noticeable drop in mental illness along with crime in the next few decades. One thing we can say with reasonable certainty is that the fewer additional sources of stress in your life, the easier it is to manage your symptoms.
Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, that entirely depends on how one defines mental illness. The UASR may not have the same sort of biases about the subject as the pre-revolution USA (or late capitalism in general) but it will almost certainly have some forms of biases.
- Location
- The Middle of the Howling Wilderness
I think you could make a pretty strong argument that a communist society like the UASR might see someone like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk as mentally ill, for example.
- Location
- The Midlands.
And not without reason. There's some compelling (if not wholly conclusive) evidence that personality traits associated with psychopathy are an advantage in the working environments that so-called "late-stage capitalism" creates. A rather good article about it from a few years ago can be found here: Is Wall Street Full of Psychopaths?
Hakazin
Serpent Admirer
- Pronouns
- She/Her
True, but I was actually more thinking of the autism spectrum (or just general introverted behavior) when I made the comment. Given the socially engaged lifestyle the UASR assumes as normal, I could easily see a lack of ability to cope with that sort of always-on social activity be considered a "problem" in need of "fixing" by many. As much as the UASR seems to be aware of how social environment influences mental illness, I sincerely doubt they're going to adopt the social model of disability overnight.