Alright here's a list of all the discords you can find me on if you want to chat to me about this project in particular, while I recommend you join them all I am fine with you picking and choosing one or the other. Though without further ado...
It worked better than I thought. We lost a carrier, a base, and the people in them, while the Italians lost a lot of international goodwill and cooperation, even within the ABC.
Honestly if this ends up causing a split between the diehard fascists/accelerationists and the technocrats that leads to the ABC fracturing I would consider this a win
It worked better than I thought. We lost a carrier, a base, and the people in them, while the Italians lost a lot of international goodwill and cooperation, even within the ABC.
An interesting idea for a possible world merge would be Kaiserreich but it's the Totalist Internationale (including the CSA and Canada) fighting Savinkov's Moscow Pact, with the Remnants of the Entente and Reichspakt relegated to Australasia (Britain), Algeria (Sand France) and Tanzania (Kaiserreich).
An interesting idea for a possible world merge would be Kaiserreich but it's the Totalist Internationale (including the CSA and Canada) fighting Savinkov's Moscow Pact, with the Remnants of the Entente and Reichspakt relegated to Australasia (Britain), Algeria (Sand France) and Tanzania (Kaiserreich).
The Mosley of The UOB vs FBU Mosley. Foster or Browder's North American Nightmare, Valois' wild ride and let's not forget Red Mussolini's Italy. It would be hilarious to see those reactions. The use of the totalist internationale would also add some moral bleakness to the Internationale if the Totalists are brought in from the cold.
"I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him." - The Book of Revelations
Four worlds, each defined by a second world war. Four worlds, each sundered by a cold war. A pattern that had been seen before, and had repeated itself once again. Four worlds, separated by just twelve years. Four worlds that would cast a new and difficult spectre over those who lived in the fear of atomic armageddon in a cold, bitter, long war for supremacy in the face of rivals both ideological and geopolitical. With a cast seemingly similar, yet ultimately so different.
In the cold waters of the arctic, first contact was made, the Soviet aircraft carrier Karl Marx and its battlegroup investigating the telltale signs of electromagnetic disturbance associated with the Glide's transit, with a differing set of signal characteristics quickly labelled "Epsilon" by the STAVKA. Perhaps more concerning though, were that the transmissions they detected were in Russian. Some of the slang was very different, but the language was unmistakable.
Mig fighters launched from the decks of the carrier would sweep the area, an American submarine pack in the area approaching on request to shadow the possible foe as reconnaissance
A brief exchange would go down in history.
"Comrade intruder, you are in the territorial waters of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."
"The Savinkov is in the inseparable waters of the Motherland. What is this Union of Soviet Republics? We are here to look for signs of the Russian people, friend."
"You are not in your time or place, turn around now, comrade. Let our meeting not result in blood."
"Friend, the National Federation of Russian Peoples does not seek conflict habitually. Even with the agents of Communardism."
"Comrade, we are not seeking out war. You are not in your waters, turn back."
Aircraft would nervously follow one another, circling and staring. In a time of high tension, there was the nervous worry of something going down that shouldn't. But ultimately, nobody was looking for a fight with a nuclear power, and the intruders would withdraw. There would be peace for some more time, but it was clear that what had happened before had happened again.
Timelines Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, and Theta had been contacted, two following from a German victory in the great war, two following from a stalemate. Not quite following the prior pattern of four timelines centered around a world war begat by nazi Germany, but then there was much about this phenomenon that wasn't understood.
Epsilon and Eta were born of, against all odds, a German victory late in the great war through a confluence of miracles and a neutral America as well as an unborn Bolshevik Revolution spawned of a more despondent Kerensky seeking to duck out of the war before the Emperor's throne was even cold*. With the mishandling of the mutinies in the French army, the Entente would start to come undone as France fell into civil war lead by the new communards in a great revolt that would spread to Italy, relieving the almost broken German army at long last so that the Navy could focus on trying to break the blockade choking the life out of it. An overstretched British Empire would in 1921, agree to a "peace with honour" upon finding no means of continuing the war and a string of indecisive naval clashes. Only for Britain itself to collapse before the great General Strike of 1925 to birth a partner in revolution for the French and the (Northern) Italians while the loyalists of the crown fled to Canada and forcibly took it over to turn it into a base from which they could plot a return with what remained of the British Empire.
The Kaiserreich would assemble a massive empire in short order, mostly from its war spoils through winning the great power game by default. First with its war prizes from France and Belgium, then helping itself to whichever British territories it felt it could get away with seizing after the revolution; including a sizeable sphere of influence in China following the Qing restoration, and hooking its claws deep into Latin America in flagrant violation of the Monroe doctrine out of a feeling of invulnerability. But quietly in the background, forces both revolutionary and revanchist would eye the Germans and their allies with ill intent as Berlin's rapacious imperialism was indulged to the fullest possible extent.
Russia would not be a proud comrade in revolution, but rather an ugly colossus of ultranationalist populism, fascism by other words and means. Something born of the instability of the Saratov Republic as it came to be known, with the left seriously weakened but the holders of capital in a republic assailed by a far right that disliked its very existence, the promised solutions to the anxieties of the people who felt their livelihoods start to suffer as American and Japanese investment into the country to counterbalance Germany started to dry took darker turns. Russia needed heroic men of action, not cowards who would sell their motherland for the chance to be slapped by a velvet glove instead of an iron fist.
Riding to the fore on a promise of land reform to birth a "middle class", anti-tsarism, reclamation of the "lost provinces", an end to the reparations to the Germans, Austrians, and Turks, employment and community for one and all, and freedom from dependency on Tokyo, Paris, and D.C for the amenities of modernity, the notorious terrorist Boris Savinkov would take the helm in the early thirties and clear out all remaining obstacles to absolute power. Not a Federal Democratic Republic of Russia, but the National Federation of the Russian People. Not a President or a Prime Minister, but a Vozhd. Not an appeaser, but a rejuvenation. And his ambition would see Russia at the helm of a ring of satellite states, it had the Saratov Pact; a subset of the Moscow Accord's economic zone, and under his direction the bear flew the reactionary White, Blue, Red slavic tricolour, the crown of thorns, and the sword of the Kornilov regiment.
It was in every way, an aberration against all that the Soviet Union stood for, a Hobbensian Leviathan where terror and bloodshed was seen as not merely tools of the state but a goal to aspire to. Through terrorism and violence, the dreams of the Russian people could be realised at last, and the parasites both within and without cast out forever.
America would enter a period of economic decline following the revolutions in France and Britain, its engines of activity slowing with a decreased access to capital and the need to shift focus to the east; though it still supported and recognised the new revolutionary governments out of spite for the Germans who had intruded into its sphere and the imperial remnants who refused to pay what America was owed. The new York Stock market Crash in 1927 and the Black Monday Crash two years later in Germany**.
To the surprise of few in timelines Alpha and Delta, but many in Beta and Gamma, the Socialist Party of America rose quickly in such times after its neutrality campaign helped keep the US out of the great war, ensure good relations with revolutionary France and Britain and build the American welfare state. It would be from here that Epsilon and Eta would diverge. In the former, Willian "Big Bill" Haywood would claim a sweeping victory in the 1936 election that would be met with an attempted coup by Douglas MacArthur as well as both big city big money and the plantation gentry. In a familiar story, the reactionary forces would be repulsed, but in an unfamiliar story, the Japanese and Russians would extend recognition to the new government to cut their ties of debt to the old USA in a calculated, cynical move.
From there the timelines would diverge in two different ways; Epsilon by the Entente's decision to approach with the Kaiserreich and thus being crushed by the INFOR (Armed Forces of the Worker's International), the Moscow Accord, and the Co-Prosperity Sphere. The latter where the Reichspakt found itself making an unholy alliance with the Sphere and the INFOR against the Russian Bear when the Entente and a defecting Qing sought to join with Savinkov's dream of Russian power stretching to lusitania. But in either case, the peace would not be able to be maintained.
A world turned upside down would slowly lurch towards war as old and new struggled for what would come after the midpoint of the century. In a shadow struggle to engulf the whole of the world, the Earth would finally conflagrate in the 1940s.
Epsilon saw the Kaiserreich vanquished in a great war against Japan, Russia, and the so-called Syndicalist International, with its proxies such as Imperial China, the remnants of a fallen British Empire, and Austria-Hungary similarly vanquished.
The Bear stood proud and unbowed, a titan of fascism that had drawn unto itself those who shared its mindset from other timelines. And accorded unto it was its proudest conquest; a piece of Germany taken from the fallen Kaiserreich as Savinkov's National People's Revolutionary Army of Russia stormed Berlin and washed their boots on the Elbe in the final drama of the second weltkrieg to craft a compliant puppet from the corpse of the former Reich while the west and the far east bore the banners of Revolutionary Syndicalism and Eastern Liberalism. The peace would of course, not last forever, as the Concordat of Free Nations would find itself pitted against itself in contests for dominion of what had followed the end of the Kaiserreich and the contest for the favour of stragglers outside the system.
In Eta, after a prolonged and protracted struggle of betrayals, devil's bargains, side switching, and confusion; the Entente, the Qing, and the Russians would be defeated. Germany would stand as master of Europe, with a puppet Emperor put in the winter palace of Petrograd and a Japanese client placed in much of the far east. Russia, bled in its aggression in all directions and attempts to support Canada against the American Socialists and war efforts everywhere it could; would collapse into warlordism with an exhausted Kaiserreich and Ottoman Empire unwilling to chase Russia into the interior and Japan much more interested in consolidating its hold over Northeastern China and Southern Asia, while the International focused its attentions on Latin America, French Africa, Indochina, and Southern China.
Timeline Zeta and Theta were best described as...strange. As if something fundamentally broke in the world and the human species collectively descended into a very strange manic episode when nobody managed to win the great war. As far as could be told, the original impetus of the change was a limited Russian victory in the Russo-Japanese war that gave the Empire a bit of extra breathing space without the seed for the opposition to the Emperor to grow properly planted. The French however, collapsed in the face of the Heer in the first world war and mutiny at home, only for the Russian army to break through the Austro-Hungarian lines and the exhausted German people to rise up against the Kaiserreich while the Imperial Army of Russia began to descend into mutinies and desertions followed by civil war launched by Republican factions.
Kolchak would re-establish "order", at the expense of having to make major concession to regional cliques to ensure their loyalty while the revolutionaries fled to the outskirts, such as Amuria and Northern manchuria in the east; Poland, Belarus, Bessarabia, Finland, and Western Ukraine in the west, and to the Caucasus states, China, Turkestan and Iran in the south. The empire had held on by a thread, embittered that what it believed was its designated hour to sweep through Europe and once and for all demonstrate its superiority to the British in the ancient rivalry had been "stolen" by mutiny and disloyalty from within. So embittered in fact, that Kolchak deemed that none of the house of Romanov he allegedly fought in the name of were worthy of their ancestral throne in Petrograd and made himself Supreme Leader and Regent.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany on the other hand, had embraced its leftist wing and overthrown the kaiser in the great revolution. A wave that would see friends in the Intermarium of the East, direct allies in Finland, Greater Hungary, Denmark, and Norway, and shake the world to its core as much as the revolving door governments in France and the descent of Russia into darkness. Further revolutions would occur in Latin America, most notably Brazil, while France; with no other seemingly valid alternatives, embraced the politics of the bloodthirsty; Futurism, Accelerationism.
No more decrepit reactionaries, no more foppish liberals, no more boring bonapartists, no more degenerate socialists; only the beauty of Speed and Violence under the wise vision of Le Patron; Antonin Artaud. As the British Empire reeled from the collapse of the Raj and the United States fell into a slump from a Europe with little hunger for the slew of American goods that the U.S had to offer while Italy sought to fill the void of power in the Mediterranean left by the near absence of France and the shrinking of the Austrian Empire, finding itself in the unusual position of being one of Britain's few reliable partners while being menaced by the breakaway state of Fiume that waited for a crisis that it could use to sweep in from Dalmatia to fulfill the great dream of its adventurous cities.
Timelines Zeta and Theta would diverge in the ousting of the increasingly unpopular Paul Levi, denounced for his efforts to half-way "normalise" the Republic without actually committing; compromises that seemed dead set on pleasing absolutely nobody. In Zeta, he would be succeeded by the SPD's surprise compromise candidate; Anna Seghers who sought to mend the bridges between the orthodox Kautskyists, the more Lenin influenced KPD, the FAUD, and other elements of the German left. In Theta, Karl popper would instead find his way to power to try and implement a wholly humanistic vision of the left to try and stand with the United Kingdom and Italy, only for Britain to spurn the offer and try to retreat to isolation after the Labour party was advised to cooperate with the whigs and one-nation tories and thus seal their fate to being entirely defanged and unable to stop the Monday club's ascension over British politics in the wake of the surprise rise of the Combined Technates of North America. In Zeta though, the Jobless Progressives would triumph and bring forth a new era of American reformism.
Russia would in both instances, be swept up by waves of political violence following the collapse of Kolchak's state in 1929. In both cases, the Empire would be reunified by the "right front", a ramshackle collusion of Eurasianists, Russian Ultranationalists, Technocratic Modernisers, Pan-Slavicists, and Rodnoverists. Under the new order, Russia would siphon whatever capital it could to forcibly industrialise at breakneck paces come hell or high water, particularly at the expense of those who had opposed the take over of the right front. Millions would die and the interior would become a sprawling web of closed cities under the close watch of the new Supreme Leader; Mikhail Drozdovsky who would gradually winnow out those he did not deem to have any further use. The Asians within his empire would be worked to death in particular, replaced by waves of formerly landless settlers so that the resources of the eastern hinterland would at last fill Russia's coffers.
Common to both would be the Japanese and Korean revolution; though the exact form it took diverged. In Theta it would embrace the path of Socialist Pan-Asianism under Okuwa Shumei, blending together the thinking of Marx and Sun Yat Sen in equal measure. In Zeta, it would be under an alliance of Council Communists, Revolutionary Syndicalists, Socialist Feminists, and Collective Anarchists. Whereas the relationship between Berlin and Tokyo would break down in Theta as the Asian revolutionaries condemned the effort to normalise relations made by Popper; in Zeta they would maintain an accord even if there was some disagreement with the decisions made far away. Thus in the latter, they would successfully coordinate to bring down the Russian bear, while in the former the Japanese responded to Rosenbaum's attempted takeover of Zheltorossiya with an invasion and a decision to entrench to refocus on preventing the Technate from retaking Hawai'i.
The former; timeline Zeta; would see the Rotfront, the Revolutionary Pacific League, and the Alliance of Democratic nations triumph over the Solar League and the Russian Empire. The Allies would secure North and Central America as well as Africa and India, the Rotfront and the Revolutionary League on Europe, South America, East Asia. With the capture of Moscow, the Reunification of China, and the end of the siege of Bogata, the war was over. Russia would itself, collapse, with much of its far east claimed by Zheltorossiya which was joined to the German supported Kavkaz society's new Bolshevik government in Moscow, though the dawning realities of the cold war would prolong the reunification of Russia under the United Soviet Republics of Labour and Virtue; eventually leading to the Bolsheviks largely staying somewhat neutral in the arguments of the direction of the Socialist movement while championing the cause of socialist futurism.
In Theta however, Germany and Italy would be overrun by the Solar League and the Russians, while only South America's enormous logistical difficulties and the popularity of the South American communists prevented the Technate from advancing further southwards. Though the Japanese would keep the revolutionary dream alive, the world would fall into a deeper darkness divided between Paris and D.C on one hand and London and Petrograd on the other. Countless had perished in a deluge of barbarism, and an iron fisted new order would clench its fist around the throat of millions.
The worldmerge would bring these four worlds together and a whole new set of problems and arguments. The liberal spheres of the Epsilon and Eta Reichspakt and Japanese lead APTO (Asia-Pacific Treaty Organisation) would not find much to be impressed about from the ADN; prompting a division of the liberal world. The Socialist sphere would retain a very loose association, while Fascism and Reaction would divide on the question of Moscow or Paris. While the revolutionary bloc was on paper, seemingly the strongest by a substantial margin, systemic conflicts in the multitendency tent it would construct would generally leave it somewhat wary of conflict that may test its united front of leftists.
Perhaps the most serious nemesis would be what rose out of Savinkov's Russia. What had once been the Moscow Accord had grown into the Mutual Accord of Fraternal Nations, a great association of "revolutionary patriots" and an iron ring of sycophants and would be challengers to the cold throne of the Vozhd. Savinkov himself was long dead, breathing his last in 1956 from the complications of age and his drinking habits. The tyrant had since, been replaced by Mikhail Spasovsky who had himself, found himself replaced in his increasing age by one of the last of the officers of the Great Patriotic War, Sergey Bunyachenko, who had a somewhat rocky start to his reign as a Ukrainian in a Russian ultranationalist regime, but his annihilation of the remnants of Ukrainian nationalist organisations did more than enough to convince the Privy Council that he was the heir they needed.
Bunyachenko's absorption of the Theta Russians to one-up Spasovsky's unification of the Eta Russian warlords would give him control over an enormous realm of Russians. the Svobodnik Behemoth to the Nazi Ziz and Showa Leviathan. A monstrous thing with a monstrous economic appetite for imperial expansion of its sphere of interest, and an equally monstrous desire for militarization where the sword of the kornilov regiment flew on the banners of more than ten thousand regiments. Undisputed master of its alliance bloc, Mother Russia would take the opportunities and threats offered by another worldmerge in stride, with the Privy Council of the National People's Republican Party of Russia eager to expand their influence to new frontiers.
Opposing them was among other things the "Fourth International" meant to reconcile the internationals of the worlds of the Kaiserreich and the worlds of red Germany in a rather rocky marriage between Syndicalists, Veperedists, National Liberationists, and 2 1/2 Internationalists who supported the Kautsky line. An organisation that doubtlessly had extensive French influence but no clear supreme leader. The German Socialist Council Republic, the Socialist Commonwealth of America, the Socialist Republic of China, the Revolutionary Worker's republic of Japan, the Union of Britain, and more besides ensured that the French were not particularly dominant in their iteration of four world socialism.
Joined together from the Frances of both timelines Epsilon and Zeta following an agreement between the Second and Third internationals of the timelines, the Federation of French Communes may not be the military leader of the Fourth International's bloc, but it was in essence, the spiritual heart. The Paris Commune was a constant in all timelines, and the most direct claimant to its legacy had a certain prestige, not to mention the high place the original French revolution still holds in the canon of everyone who has ever sought to defy tyrants. And of course, the most widely used song for Socialism as an ideal was originally written in French.
The International was fractious however, ideologically riven between myriad tendencies with only the matter of larger problems to deal with and a concerted effort to attempt to reconcile the thought of Revolutionary Syndicalism, Socialist Democracy, and Vpered Cosmism preventing them from fractioning. It had produced a more coherent international over the years, but it also meant that it had produced structures people weren't entirely satisfied with as they sought to reconcile the works of Bogdanov, Kautsky, and Pouget into something resembling a universal theory of anti-capitalism. And that effort to try and create a more unitary tendency had also resulted in them having relatively little patience for further deviations; fearing the possibility of even more factionalism.
The Imperial Pact of Mutual Defence, Economic Development, and Co-Prosperity; often simply abbreviated to the IMPAKT between the Imperial Germans of Timeline Zeta and the Imperial Japanese of Epsilon and Zeta represented the old guard of liberalism. The old order of empires and imperial spheres and the duty to uplift the less fortunate under the guidance of the Imperial Core. With its substantial quantities of resources at its disposal, the IMPAKT generally trended towards the Bismarckian ideal of open but managed democracy, and concessions given with the understanding of an expectation of obedience.
It was deemed almost a given that they would work out an arrangement with the Commonwealth of Allied Free States and set the road for bringing their commensurate organisations under a single roof. There would of course, be the matter of deciding on whether to go with the project of the universalisation of the usage of the Pound Sterling as a reserve currency, or whether the Yen and the Reichsmark warranted a place. Or perhaps a new currency was needed, one that would represent the common liberal international ideal.
The Allies and the Solar League were relatively smaller blocs, with mostly peripheral influence outside of their native realities. This meant that it was essentially unavoidable that they would seek out arrangements with the IPTO and the Zollverein respectively. The former out of general American desire to form some manner of solidarity in their relations with each other; the latter because the Zollverein was deemed by Paris and the Technate as the bloc least likely to be able to roll over their influence or pressure them into directions deemed unsuited by the most radiant leadership.
However, the most important matter landing on George Habash's desk would be the matter of the first meetings with his Socintern counterpart; Louis Viannet. Habash, having recently seen significant gains in the oil crisis would take to the duty of meeting of internationals with his characteristic confidence and christly patience. Louis, a younger man than Habash himself, would arrive in Pyongyang for the meeting after initial jockeying for who would be the host and who would be the guest had been decided in the Comintern's favour.
Habash and Viannet quickly came to the conclusion that there were indeed, quite substantial gulfs in the interests between the Comintern and Socintern and there would be a significant amount of trouble in the push for integration. Whereas the fascist blocs and the liberals had the chance to simply maintain a certain distance from each other; the Socintern and Comintern were both differing models of world government that had erected certain structures to represent the desires of the global proletariat.
The initial meeting was at least, courteous and full of socialist fraternity. There was of course a wariness towards what was seen as unacceptable amounts of deviation and the empowerment of potentially anti-revolutionary cadres in the eyes of one side or the other. But nobody came into the initial meeting the cold war to devolve into a six-way struggle. It was clear that as negotiations dragged on and on though, that the gulf in governance structures developed had grown truly enormous without the crucial bedrock of the theses of Lenin to anchor one or the other.
The first four timelines' communisms were all derivatives of the influence and legacy of Ilyich, for better or for worse the shadow of Lenin cast on the revolutionary movement was unavoidable in any of the four timelines. In the second though, Lenin was a footnote at most, his time in the sun taken by Kautsky and Pouget who sought to continue the tradition of the second international or build from the Syndicalist model respectively. And while the United Soviet Republics of Labour and Virtue were more receptive to the Comintern's path; they were...more than a little strange.
One particularly sore point though was the general rejection of the Marxist Ultraleft in the second quartet of timeline. The Kautskyists who felt that the critiques of Bordiga and Pannenkoek were in bad faith and the Syndicalists who did not really identify with Marxism to begin with; aligning more with the first international than anything else. There were points in the negotiations where there were definitely strong desires to use harsh language in the initial wave of contact accords. But cooler heads managed to prevail for a little bit longer to at least establish a basis of exchange and a promise to work towards the integration of the Metzavtomat and the Réseau général d'informatique et de communication (RGIC).
But the matter of joining the military commands was so far, seemingly doomed to be tabled as Panama City and Pyongyang found themselves met with the less than ideal difficulty of rather significant divergences in the way that said military commands or the international support structures behind them were even designed. Scientific exchange on the other hand, was largely open as ideas were once again exchanged and communicated on a huge scale. People were excited to see which ideas were novel, and differing interpretations of various socio-political theories.
But as the Communist and Socialist world's attentions were primarily fixated one each other, their attentions would be dragged right back to the affairs of the bourgeoisie when news of conflict between SARPAC-aligned Finland and neutral Sweden with the full backing of the Russian Army hoping to quickly crush Sweden before it could formally align with any variety of Liberals, Nazis, or Internationalists; citing a series of pre-emptive strikes on Finnish military positions. Finland's National Populist Government had long dreamed of seizing the Lappland from the Swedes as well as conquering Aaland, a move generally supported by the National People's Republican Party of Russia to divert Finnish nationalism's attentions towards the west. Information on timeline Epsilon was still being amassed and accumulated, there was a whole lot of things to learn in very short order, but there was just enough ambiguity of the situation between the last European Monarchy of timeline Epsilon and the northernmost appendage of the National Populist bloc to raise the question of whether Sweden had indeed, struck first.
Whatever the case though, it was clear that the SARPAC was the more prepared power for the war, given that multiple Swedish positions had buckled before the waves of armoured offensives and air strikes as well as reports of the Russian navy at Petrograd and Riga amassing the baltic fleet. Almost certainly with Aaland in mind. Sweden, having kept to a policy of neutrality out of a long awareness of how incendiary open alignment to any one direction could be; had now sent out requests for aid by reflex, particularly pleading for aircraft. Signalling, implicitly, that the initial alpha strike had done its job of levelling most of the Royal Swedish Air Force on the ground.
With the Zollverein, the Progressives, and the Imperialists also having something to gain from Sweden's enormous mineral wealth and developed economy absorbed into their sphere in total; there was also the matter of Sweden's developed proletarian movement allowed to grow in a policy of "good neighbourliness" with the INFOR. Of course, as the Finns did not seek to annex Sweden outright, and the corridor of Swedish territory they desired would be unable to threaten Socialist Norway, there was a question of whether a situation so poorly understood should be poked into at all. Especially with objectively larger conflicts such as the South American war ongoing.
Most troubling though is that as far as the Comintern can tell, there's generally reliable evidence that Sweden had a tactical nuclear arsenal ready in case of invasion by the INFOR or the SARPAC. On the other hand, with the severity of alpha strikes by aircraft and conventional missiles, there may very well not be any functional or deliverable nuclear weapons left in the Swedish Kingdom.
The August Blood Coalition, hoping to recover from the disruption to its oil losses and currently public enemy number one in the Communist mind; also worryingly had sought to offer its support to the Russians, accepting the Mutual Accord of Fraternal Nations' outlining of the sequence of events as the truth. And then of course, to some protest from Beta Tokyo which was of the opinion that this was not a fully comprehended matter but with full support from the Delta Nihonjin and the Beta-Delta Italians; there was the ratification of a treaty of provision of the basics of ground level cooperation. The MAFN and the ABC being able to join together would of course, make efforts to contain either Tokyo or Moscow considerably more fraught with difficulty.
But that was hardly the only new problem to arise under the glare of the great bear of a Fascist Russia.
....
TO BE CONCLUDED
*A modification of KR lore that I feel, makes somewhat more sense than anything resembling a particularly functional government arising from the OTL October revolution. Instead an abortive attempt by the left wing of the Soccial Democratic Labour party and the SRs tries to launch an uprising and Kerensky does the Ebert thing only to himself, find his ass thrown out the Kremlin for accepting Brest-Livotsk in full after being advised by Kornilov that resistance was useless as the Russian right began to undermine the Republic more or less from the moment it was born.
**Fiddling with bits of KR and Red Flood Lore to "decompress" the timeline so that there's less of a sense of everything happening all at once.
Thanks for the update, but I'm a little confused on whether it's Theta or Zeta where the Combined Technates are a thing? Because the first quote below says that in Zeta we have the Combined Technates and in Theta we have progressive USA (edit: turns out reading comprehension gets worse when tired lol, misread the first Theta as Zeta for some reason):
In Theta, Karl popper would instead find his way to power to try and implement a wholly humanistic vision of the left to try and stand with the United Kingdom and Italy, only for Britain to spurn the offer and try to retreat to isolation after the Labour party was advised to cooperate with the whigs and one-nation tories and thus seal their fate to being entirely defanged and unable to stop the Monday club's ascension over British politics in the wake of the surprise rise of the Combined Technates of North America. In Theta though, the Jobless Progressives would triumph and bring forth a new era of American reformism.
The former; timeline Zeta; would see the Rotfront, the Revolutionary Pacific League, and the Alliance of Democratic nations triumph over the Solar League and the Russian Empire. The Allies would secure North and Central America as well as Africa and India, the Rotfront and the Revolutionary League on Europe, South America, East Asia.
In Theta however, Germany and Italy would be overrun by the Solar League and the Russians, while only South America's enormous logistical difficulties and the popularity of the South American communists prevented the Technate from advancing further southwards.
Thanks for the update, but I'm a little confused on whether it's Theta or Zeta where the Combined Technates are a thing? Because the first quote below says that in Zeta we have the Combined Technates and in Theta we have progressive USA:
But then these quotes imply that Theta is the one with the Combined Technates and Zeta is the one with the USA.
Am I missing something, or has there been a slight mixup here?
Slight mix up. It should be Zeta that has the progressives and Theta that has the Technate.
Though due to its sheer size, Russia is probably more of a problem than the Technates or the Artistic State of France.
The Vozhd commands more soldiers than many countries have people, and the National Federation of the Russian Peoples has a larger army than both USSRs and UASRs combined as the great behemoth.
The first four timelines' communisms were all derivatives of the influence and legacy of Ilyich, for better or for worse the shadow of Lenin cast on the revolutionary movement was unavoidable in any of the four timelines. In the second though, Lenin was a footnote at most, his time in the sun taken by Kautsky and Pouget who sought to continue the tradition of the second international or build from the Syndicalist model respectively. And while the United Soviet Republics of Labour and Virtue were more receptive to the Comintern's path; they were...more than a little strange.
One particularly sore point though was the general rejection of the Marxist Ultraleft in the second quartet of timeline. The Kautskyists who felt that the critiques of Bordiga and Pannenkoek were in bad faith and the Syndicalists who did not really identify with Marxism to begin with; aligning more with the first international than anything else. There were points in the negotiations where there were definitely strong desires to use harsh language in the initial wave of contact accords. But cooler heads managed to prevail for a little bit longer to at least establish a basis of exchange and a promise to work towards the integration of the Metzavtomat and the Réseau général d'informatique et de communication (RGIC).
But the matter of joining the military commands was so far, seemingly doomed to be tabled as Panama City and Pyongyang found themselves met with the less than ideal difficulty of rather significant divergences in the way that said military commands or the international support structures behind them were even designed. Scientific exchange on the other hand, was largely open as ideas were once again exchanged and communicated on a huge scale. People were excited to see which ideas were novel, and differing interpretations of various socio-political theories.
Why should we bother to reply to the Kautskyites? They would reply to us, and we would have to reply to their reply. There's no end to that. It will be quite enough for us to announce that the Kautskyites are traitors to the working class, and everyone will understand everything.
I don't know nearly enough theory to understand what Kautskyite's positions even are and why they're incompatible with us. It's best that we maintain friendly relations with them regardless and a policy of non-interference in each other's respective Internationales. We can't afford a leftist split.
I'll also admit I'm a bit surprised that Savinkov's Russia is the major threat to emerge from the four new timelines. It's nice to see at least that TNO/Reds timelines aren't the only ones producing major threats. It's a good change of pace to see a power outside those timelines to force people to bend the knee to it. I was sure that the Technate would be a major threat, but Russia makes a lot of sense. It's got the territory, aggressive industrialization, militarization, and larger version of the Warsaw Pact at its disposal. I look forward to seeing the maps. The fact that it has more soldiers than our USSRs and America SRs combined has people is fucking mind boggling.
I genuinely can't imagine how much land it's annexed. There's the Russian warlords from the collapsed Savinkov timeline, but then what did it grab outside of that? It sounds like it's be busy as fuck annexing, puppeting, sphereing, and bribing every nation that it can into falling under its umbrella.
Interesting, i just recently found this and binged it like 4 days ago, very interesting so far tho i will have to expand my little guide document with all the alliances and timelines.
The 4 new worlds seem to push the balance of the entire 8 conjoined timelines back away from what i percieved to be a slight leftist lead. When you take into account the 4 new worlds, out of Epsilon Eta Zeta and Theta only Theta has leftists as the leading powers and they are going to be rather difficult to integrate into a broader command structure.
Biggest powerhouse of the new timelines is Fascist Russia and its faction/puppets wich have the biggest combined army and possibly the biggest combined economy. Luckly for us they probably wont unite with the EINPAKT outside of any major shifts due to mutual hatred.
Well it's nice to be quasi-half right, at least about the next world being KR but am happily surprised about the inclusion of RF. Also nice to see I was right about Savinkov being the BBEG of the two new timelines.
Now all we need is the vaunted OTL world merge. You know to show the dumbest of all possible timelines. Or failing the OTL world merge, the glorious totalist Internationale rising to defend the workers from ultra-leftist revisionists.
Well it's nice to be quasi-half right, at least about the next world being KR but am happily surprised about the inclusion of RF. Also nice to see I was right about Savinkov being the BBEG of the two new timelines.
Half right. The Technate and Solar League are the other half of the bad guys. As it must after all; be remembered that the Technocrats and the French accelerationists are nuts.
In Timeline Theta, the Accelerationists have restored the Napoleonic borders, albeit with Cisleithania as part of the French sphere rather than Poland.
While the Futurists and Technocrats might be ideologically more similar to the ABC; political realities (such as Russia leaning in that direction due to the Nazis being fundamentally opposed to the existence of a non-subjugated Russian nation state) mean that they will have to lean more towards the Nazis. Which is of course, rather awkward when Solarian France shat all over the western aspirations of German nationalism.
The Comintern vs Socintern ideological struggle over the ultimate direction of the revolutionary left though, is arguably just as, if not more important for the Comintern's business as the geopolitical struggle with the Fascists, Reactionaries, and Liberals.
It might actually be a good idea to get involved in Sweden simply for the potential camaraderie between us and the 4th Int. It would be a good way for us to learn how to work together on various fronts. If we win we would also deal a blow to the ABC again after they so quickly backed fash Russia, and would give the latter a taste of defeat. Also of course has the potential to go wrong so hmmm…
Integration is tough. Maybe I'm just a bit too naive but I think there's a way VOSCOM and the 4th Int. coexist and even thrive together. And I think it's necessary to be good friends if we don't want the worlds of facism, liberalism, and whatever else to overtake leftist ideologies.
The Comintern vs Socintern ideological struggle over the ultimate direction of the revolutionary left though, is arguably just as, if not more important for the Comintern's business as the geopolitical struggle with the Fascists, Reactionaries, and Liberals.
Right, for those who aren't read up on their theory, what are the differences between the Comintern and the Socintern exactly? Like aren't we all driving towards the same goal of liberating the proletariat from the oppression of the bourgeois ruling class.
Right, for those who aren't read up on their theory, what are the differences between the Comintern and the Socintern exactly? Like aren't we all driving towards the same goal of liberating the proletariat from the oppression of the bourgeois ruling class.
The matter of how to actually transition from the dictatorship of the proletariat to socialism is a very deadly serious one and one that cannot be delayed by the 70s. The moves to end the status quo of proletarian commanded Capital and embrace the disintegration of class society as a whole, the proletariat included, are already underway. However, differing models throws a monkey wrench into trying to standardise a program of class disintegration which is a necessity for ensuring a successful transition. Capitalism is a world system and as such requires world scaled solutions to its abolition rather than simple management. Furthermore, the Comintern sees the great bulk of tendencies in the Socintern as essentially, the entrenchment of worker-controlled capital rather than efforts to dissolve class outright whereas the Socintern sees the Comintern as top-down and centralistic in its general prioritisation of Pyongyang over local governance.
The matter of how to actually transition from the dictatorship of the proletariat to socialism is a very deadly serious one and one that cannot be delayed by the 70s. The moves to end the status quo of proletarian commanded Capital and embrace the disintegration of class society as a whole, the proletariat included, are already underway. However, differing models throws a monkey wrench into trying to standardise a program of class disintegration which is a necessity for ensuring a successful transition. Capitalism is a world system and as such requires world scaled solutions to its abolition rather than simple management. Furthermore, the Comintern sees the great bulk of tendencies in the Socintern as essentially, the entrenchment of worker-controlled capital rather than efforts to dissolve class outright whereas the Socintern sees the Comintern as top-down and centralistic in its general prioritisation of Pyongyang over local governance.
So how likely is the Comintern and Socintern, willing to form a United front against the combined forces of reaction both moderate and extreme? How likely is it that the split between the leftist might be exploited by opportunistic libs or fascists? And finally how likely is it that split might turn the two leftist blocs against each other in proxy wars or god forbid a hot war?
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