The Widening Gyre: The Great War and the Remaking of Europe

[The Laurent]

We definitely got the impression that France, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union wound up so... but there's at least some hints that the Balkans might turn into a full-on reactionary tumor on the body of Europe?

 

[King Washington]

Hmm, Italy goes red, but Mussolini is still a prominent fascist thinker? This promises to be interesting.

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Presumably in exile, whether in another country or Sicily as Italian Taiwan.

 

[King Washington]

Anyways my shot in the dark is that given how ambiguous the hints about France have been I'm guessing that the country just simply doesn't make it out in one piece by the end of the civil war.

 

[Bisexual-Mart]

I love how the term "ethnocide" comes up. It makes since because in our world, the word "genocide" wasn't coined until 1943, by the Polish scholar Raphael Lemkin, to describe the Holocaust.

With the concept being relevant a little earlier, it makes sense that another term is created to name this concept.

 

[WaltzinBrunhilda]

Hmm, Italy goes red, but Mussolini is still a prominent fascist thinker? This promises to be interesting.

Click to shrink...

Mussolini had broken with the PSI and the revolutionary left by 1915. The reasons why wouldn't change ITTL, and since the main pillars of the revolutionary forces in Italy emerged from the PSI which was notionally revolutionary defeatist from 1912 he'd never really fall in with the Communist forces.

Personally I'm just glad that there's a Bordiga-Malatesta united front I'd love to be a fly on the wall for those debates.

 

[PrognosticHannya]

Mussolini had broken with the PSI and the revolutionary left by 1915. The reasons why wouldn't change ITTL, and since the main pillars of the revolutionary forces in Italy emerged from the PSI which was notionally revolutionary defeatist from 1912 he'd never really fall in with the Communist forces.

Click to shrink...

It's less that, and more wondering what his "intellectual" and political career without the specific context of his place in Italy. What does Mussolini look like, for example, trying to assume prominent role in a British fascist party? Fascism is often so culturally-specific.
Assuming he's not just some random mid-level writer/propagandist ITTL and Curby included him solely because we'd recognize his name.

 

[Curby]

Hello everyone!

For the first revolutionary era, I'm planning to dedicate 1-2 larg-ish updates per year to the main events, which will be complemented by another 2-4 smaller, more concentrated ones covering some aspect of the time period in greater detail. Some of these are set in stone, but a good number aren't. I've decided to post a new poll to get a sense of what people would like to hear about, and would appreciate it if everyone who has been reading the TL would take the time to participate in it!

Thank you to everyone who has been reading so far. I am very excited to get to work on the next chapter of this story.

 

[QueenOfRoses]

We're all looking forward to the next step too - thanks so much for writing an excellent timeline!

 

[LuxemburgLover69]

I wanted to choose every option in the poll, lol. Looking forward to what we see next.

 

[Nuew]

I wanted to choose every option in the poll, lol. Looking forward to what we see next.

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Yeah, there's too many good options, I want to vote for almost everything.

 

[rajavlitra]

Mussolini had broken with the PSI and the revolutionary left by 1915. The reasons why wouldn't change ITTL, and since the main pillars of the revolutionary forces in Italy emerged from the PSI which was notionally revolutionary defeatist from 1912 he'd never really fall in with the Communist forces.

Personally I'm just glad that there's a Bordiga-Malatesta united front I'd love to be a fly on the wall for those debates.

Click to shrink...

From what I've gathered, one of the things that put Mussolini to a rightward direction was the failure of the Biennio Rosso. Considering what happened TTL, I'm imagining he's going to end up as some sort of kooky Strasser/Nazbol kind of figure weaseling his way back into Italian politics (see: Futurist Party's Manifesto and the Manifesto of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento). Kinda like Fiume with red paint.

 

[Curby]

The Constitution of the German Socialist Republic​

Only a nation which has invented the labyrinthine structures of Hegelian Idealism and Marxism could devise a political system of such needless and byzantine complexity. Only one which has powered the second industrial revolution could actually make it function…

-Anonymous American Academic, 1949.

No, of course we are not "formalizing dual power", or some such nonsense - the constitution recognizes that man is both a producer and a citizen, both a worker and a moral agent! Must it be really so unimaginable that the workers can have their councils and the nation still have its parliament? Soon enough, you will find there is nothing utopian about it at all!

-Georg Ledebour, 1920.

The councils rule, parliament meekly accepts its orders, and by this quite ingenious device, the entire nation has signed itself over to revolutionary communism.

-Matthias Erzberger, 1921

The parliament is, of course, a bourgeois-reactionary institution, but it would not be entirely useless to preserve, so long as it can be converted into a wholly advisory body.

-Ernst Thalmann, 1922

Historical Context

Following the defeat of Ludendorff's national salvation government, the 1st Congress of the Socialist Republic convened in Trier to draft a constitution. Delegations from the Revolutionary Worker's Bloc, the Social Democratic Party, the Catholic Worker's League, the German Trade Unions, the National-Social Association, and the Worker's and Soldier's Councils met for over two weeks. The primary axis of conflict was between a troika of Rosa Luxemburg, Emil Barth, and Vitus Heller who favored the creation of a pure council republic, and a radical social-democratic group (and its middle-class and trade-union allies) who worried about the "bureaucratic dictatorship" of the neighboring Soviet experiment, and advocated instead to combine a parliamentary-democratic state with clauses enshrining socialist economic organization.

In the end, neither faction achieved their full goals, though the burgeoning power of the council movement and left-wing, social-democratic skepticism of middle-class intentions sufficed to give Luxemburg's councilist vision the upper hand. On its surface, the constitution was a manifest compromise which created a system of dual-power between a parliamentary legislature and a Soviet worker's congress; in truth, however, the contradictions and pathologies of dual-power were at least partially resolved through its formalization of the two bodies as distinct legislative houses of a national government with easily distinguishable mandates. The investment of de facto executive power in the hands of the Soviet congress gave it an advantage in any future power struggle, and a more important role in the day-to-day administration of government.

The often ambiguous language of the constitution betrays its provisional nature and the struggles between the various factions of the Trier conference. For example, in Ch.2 art.8, the Republic declares its solidarity for oppressed workers, and commits to aiding them achieve independence and liberation from wage-slavery. It is unclear if "independence" here refers to national-bourgeois independence from colonial powers, or simply independence from wage-labor. Most of the convention favored a clarification to indicate that the clause encompassed both, but a sizable portion of Luxemburg's faction resisted this, resulting in the current text. Despite the ambitious, sweeping language of the document, much of it is subject to varying interpretations, something which the hardline, councilist flank of the Republic was not at all displeased with, given its skepticism of written constitutions. Other issues which prompted debate and acrimony were those of nationality, language, the extent of liberal freedoms, and the breadth of social rights.

---

Preamble

We, the workers, farmers, and soldiers of Germany, having struck down the tyranny of the bourgeois Ludendorff government, resolve to lay the foundation of a free socialist democracy. The following provisional articles are guidelines for the building of our new worker's state, which shall only be truly realized through sustained proletarian action and organization.​

Chapter 1: Fundamental Principles of the Socialist Republic

1. The Socialist Republic of Germany is a nation of all laboring people in Germany, irrespective of their form of work. This clause shall not be interpreted to include capitalists, war profiteers, or any other individual who profits from the subjection of workers to capitalist wage relations.
2. All power in the Socialist Republic emanates from the working people of Germany.
3. The means of production and all natural resources are recognized to be the property of society as a whole, and as the representative of the working peoples of Germany, the state reserves the right to take them into public ownership.
4. Individuals who were found to have willingly offered assistance to the previous dictatorship, as well as any members of the royal family, shall be deprived of the rights which other citizens enjoy; at the discretion of the Commissar of Justice and a majority of both legislative bodies, they may be permitted a sentence of exile.
5. The state shall act to eliminate capitalist economic relations and create a democratic and socialist planned economy controlled by the working people of Germany.
6. Political parties and candidates for public offices are obliged to uphold, defend, and advance the socialist character of the republic.
7. The present constitution is subject to change and revision with a 55% majority of both legislative bodies and the agreement of over half of the Council of People's Commissars.​

Chapter 2: Declaration of International Proletarian Solidarity

8. The reason d'etre of the German Socialist Republic is the abolition of capitalism, imperialism, and all other forms of class oppression. In advancement of this goal, the Republic declares its solidarity for all oppressed workers and commits to aiding their struggles for independence and freedom from wage-slavery.
9. The German Socialist Republic declares its eternal enmity and opposition to all imperialist powers.
10. The German Socialist Republic seeks friendship with all socialist nations, and commits to the creation of a world-socialist federation.​

Chapter 3: Declaration of the Rights of Workers

Section 1: Political Rights

11. All citizens of the Republic over the age of 17 have the right to vote and hold public offices.
12. Foreign residents from friendly socialist nations may apply for the right to vote.
13. All citizens have the right to form political organizations, to participate in worker's councils, and to engage in political advocacy.
14. No citizen shall be denied their political rights on the basis of sex, ethnicity, language or religion.
15. The above provisions do not apply to individuals convicted of treason or willingly aiding the previous regime, members of aristocratic families who refuse to renounce their honorifics, and members of the royal family of Imperial Germany.​

Section 2: Civic Rights

16. The Socialist Republic of Germany embraces the liberal rights of the individual, while insisting that they can only be substantively realized in a socialist order.
17. All individuals are guaranteed freedom of speech, and the organs of the state are obliged to undertake active measures to ensure every citizen has the means to share their opinions on matters of social and political importance.
18. Speech promoting the overthrow of the socialist republic and ethnic prejudice is excepted from the foregoing provision.
19. Freedom of Religion is protected and guaranteed.
20. Religious practices which violate the other enumerated rights may be regulated by the state, and are not protected.
21. Freedom of Assembly is guaranteed. The state will undertake efforts to guarantee citizens social and political outlets for solidaristic organization.
22. Freedom of association is guaranteed.
23. The equality of men and women is guaranteed.
24. Under no circumstance shall the aforementioned rights be denied on the basis of sex, ethnicity, language or religion.​

Section 3: Minority and Language Rights

25. The Socialist Republic of Germany repudiates in the strongest terms the repression of Poles, Jews, and Frenchmen under the previous Imperial government, and forswears the spirit and practice of national-chauvinism.
26. The state recognizes ethnic and religious prejudice as barriers to the achievement of socialism, and vows to eradicate the vestiges of bourgeois chauvinism from the republic.
27. German and Polish shall be the national languages of the worker's republic.
28. Speakers of national languages have the right to learn in an environment which primarily employs their language.
29. The state is obliged to provide for the cultural and social needs of communities which speak national languages on an equal basis. This includes participation in worker's councils, publicization of laws, and interactions with law enforcement.
30. With a simple majority vote of both legislatures, new national languages may be added.
31. Individual states may designate up to two protected minority languages.
32. Individuals who speak a protected minority language are entitled to schooling in which the majority of teaching is conducted in their native language.
33. The state shall also undertake efforts to develop and nourish the cultural life of all minority-language nations.
34. Schools must offer German instruction to students who lack facility in the language, to ensure they can participate actively in the civic life of the republic.​

Section 4: Social Rights

35. The previous rights shall remain mere formalities if workers are not provided with the material and social prerequisites of human flourishing. Therefore, the German Socialist Republic announces its commitment to the following rights, which it obliges itself to fulfill in perpetuity.
36. Every individual has the right to an education which will develop their intellectual capacities and acquaint them with the best of the culture and science of modern man. This right shall be realized through a system of universal, compulsory, public education up to the age of 18, and a network of free vocational, technical, and humanistic pedagogical institutes for adult workers. Higher education will be made accessible to all with the talents and desire to pursue it.
37. All have the right to work, to strike, and to receive fair compensation for their labor.
38. All have the right to join and form unions. No employer, including the state, may engage in actions aimed to dissuade workers from joining unions.
39. All unionized workers have the right to participate in free and open union elections.
40. Anyone convicted of violating the rights in the previous three articles may be found liable for treason.
41. Any business with over twenty employees must establish a worker's council. The worker's councils will have the right to manage day-to-day affairs of business, and may elect with a majority vote to seize its assets and run the enterprise as a cooperative if it is controlled by a private employer. Future laws will determine the relationship of cooperatives to the existing structure of state enterprises.
42. All workers have the right to the minimum material prerequisites for healthy human development. These include: assistance in old age, sickness, and unemployment, sanitary and dignified housing, and healthcare. The state is under a permanent obligation to provide these basic social goods to all the citizens of the Republic.
43. All workers have the right to participate in the cultural life of humanity. The state will undertake measures, such as funding and subsidies for the arts, which will guarantee broad access to literature, theater, and film.
44. All workers have the right to participation in the democratic planning of the socialist economy, as well as the management of the particular enterprises in which they work.
45. As man develops, so too do the conditions for human flourishing. The founders of the Socialist Republic acknowledge that the present list of rights is provisional and incomplete, and urges the workers of the future to treat it as such.​

Chapter 4: Organization of the Socialist Republic

Section 1: Legislative Power

46. Legislative Power shall be vested in two bodies: the People's Assembly and the All-German Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Farmers' Councils.
47. All legislation must pass both legislative bodies.
48. The People's Assembly shall be the representative of all German workers in their capacity as citizens.
49. Those elected to the People's Assembly will be termed People's Deputies. People's Deputies will be elected to three-year terms through universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage of all men and women over 17 years of age.
50. Half of the People's Deputies will be selected through the principles of proportional representation, and half through single-member constituencies representing 250,000 citizens each.
51. Election day will be made a public holiday, and the state is obligated to provide transport to polling stations for the indigent, elderly, and sick.
52. The People's Assembly will elect a speaker for the purpose of coordinating votes and introducing legislation. The speaker must be elected with a majority of the votes of the People's Assembly.
53. All sittings of the People's Assembly will be public.
54. Deputies elected to single-member constituencies are subject to recall.
55. The All-German Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Farmers' Councils shall be the representative of all German workers in their capacity as producers.
56. Every single-member district will also host a provincial council. The council shall be composed of delegates elected from every worker's council in the district. Worker's councils may choose to recall the delegates sent to their provincial councils at any point.
57. By a majority vote, the provincial council shall choose anywhere from three to ten delegates, proportional to the total number of workers represented by the council.
58. These delegates will compose the All-German Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Farmers.
59. Worker's councils will hold elections every two years to provincial councils, which will then appoint delegates to the All-German Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Farmers.
60. The All-German Congress will elect a council of people's commissars in which executive power is vested.
61. The All-German Congress may, with the consent of the present council of people's commissars, choose to add a new office to the council of commissars.
62. The All-German Congress may recall any currently serving commissar with a majority vote.
63. The All-German Congress of Workers, Soldiers, and Farmers will elect an executive committee of 100 members. All the powers of the All-German Congress, save the three enumerated above, are also vested in the executive committee.
64. The All-German Congress shall have the power to review all legislation proposed by the People's Assembly. With a 50% vote, the All-German Congress may reject any legislation from the People's Assembly which concerns economic and labor matters. This threshold is raised to 60% for other legislation.
65. The All-German Congress shall have the power to introduce legislation pertaining to the following subjects:​

a. The organization of the economy and matters of democratic planning.
b. Labor Unions.
c. The Expropriation of private property.
d. Currency, commerce, weights, and measures.
e. Social insurance and welfare.
f. Education, including higher education and scientific libraries. T
g. The raising of revenue.
h. All other economic questions and matters of direct relevance to the German citizen in his capacity as worker and producer. ​

66. The All-German Congress may be called into session by the Council of People's Commissars, Executive Committee, or provincial councils representing at least 25% of the total workers.
67. The People's Assembly shall have the power to introduce legislation pertaining to all subjects of national interest, save that which concerns the overall organization of the economy, democratic planning, worker's councils, the expropriation of private property, and labor unions.
68. With a simple majority vote, the People's Assembly may reject any legislation from the All-German Congress, though this may be overridden with 60% of the All-German Congress and 40% of the People's Assembly.
69. Declarations of war and ratifications of treaties require a simple majority of both legislative bodies. ​

Section 2: Executive Power

70. All executive power lies in the Council of People's Commissars, which is tasked with the management of the day-to-day affairs of the Socialist Republic of Germany.
71. People's Commissars will oversee departments which work on matters within their jurisdiction. At the head of every department will be a ministerial committee.
72. The members of the Council of People's Commissars shall also be members of the executive committee, and at least half of those serving on ministerial committees within the various departments must also be sitting members of the committee.
73. The Council of People's Commissars will issue decrees, regulations, and orders for the purpose of interpreting and enforcing the laws drafted by the two legislative bodies. Though these resolutions take effect immediately, all are subject to review, and may be rejected by a 50% majority of the All-German Congress, a 55% majority of the executive committee, or a 65% majority of the People's Assembly.
74. The Chairperson of the Executive Committee shall be considered the head of the government.
75. Members of ministerial committees must be confirmed by the executive committee.
76. There shall be 20 People's Commissars, with the option for the All-German Congress to add more as the need arises: ​

a. Internal Affairs
b. Light Industry
c. Heavy Industry
d. Trade
e. Planning
f. Labour
g. Army
h. Navy
i. Communications
j. Railways and Transport
k. Justice
l. Education
m. Agriculture
n. Foreign Affairs
o. Finance
p. Minority Affairs
q. Health and Welfare
r. Culture
s. Housing and Urban Life
t. Confederal Affairs


77. A government may elect to have a single commissar without portfolio. ​

Section 3: Districts and States

78. The Socialist Republic of Germany is a unitary state. All previous regional divisions are hereby annulled.
79. The Socialist Republic recognizes the following constituent states, with their boundaries described in Schedule A:​

a. Berlin-Potsdam
b. Saxony
c. Mecklenberg-Pomerania
d. Prussia
e. Silesia
f. Posen
g. Hanseland
h. Anhalt-Brunswick
i. Bavaria
j. Baden-Wurttemberg
k. Schleswig-Holstein
l. Frankfurt
m. Hanover
n. Rhineland
o. Westphalia
p. Alsace-Lorraine
q. Austria​

76. With a 60% majority of both houses and the approval of the Council of People's Commissars, changes may be made to the borders of states.
77. Each state shall have a corresponding state assembly.
78. Fifty percent of the seats in each state assembly will be elected with regular, 4-year elections using proportional representation. 79. These will coincide with national elections. The remainder will be appointed by the provincial councils in the state, with each council receiving power to appoint a number of representatives equivalent to the overall share of workers it represents.
80. State Assemblies are tasked with drafting laws, regulations, orders, and decrees which deal with matters of local governance, including:​

a. Education
b. Law Enforcement and public safety
c. The provision of social goods and healthcare
d. The economic development of their region, in coordination with the central government.
e. The execution of all the orders, laws, decrees, and regulations of the higher organs of socialist government. ​

81. Each state Assembly shall appoint an executive committee to conduct administrative matters. The Executive Committee's Chairperson may also be called the state's Head Minister.​

Chapter 5: Territory and Symbols

Section 1: Territory

82. The German Socialist Republic is composed of all the territories of the previous German Empire and those of German-speaking Austria.
83. In recognition of the creed of international proletarian solidarity, the German Socialist Republic permits any nation or subnational grouping to apply for admittance as an integral territory, autonomous republic, or associated republic.
84. A people may elect to become an integral territory of the German Socialist Republic, in which case they are afforded no special rights or privileges, aside from the ability, in concert with the legislature, to determine the boundaries of any new states.
85. A people may elect to become an autonomous republic, in which case they are afforded exclusive rights to make cultural, religious, and language policy through their state assembly, but are treated as an integral territory in all other respects.
86. A people may elect to become an associated republic, in which case they are treated as an independent nation in confederation with Germany. The people of an associated republic shall not elect political representatives to German institutions, and their internal affairs shall remain free of interference from the German Socialist Republic. By entering into confederation, a state declares its wish to coordinate its military and foreign policy with the German Socialist Republic and all other existing associated republics, as well as ensure the free movement of goods and people. A democratically elected body from the German Socialist Republic and all other Associated Republics shall convene to ensure a smooth process of integration.
87. Upon the reception of an application for admittance, the Executive Committee, Council of People's Commissars, and Parliament will schedule votes within the next month. If all three bodies vote by simple majority to approve the application, it shall be considered accepted.​

Section 2: Symbols

88. The flag of the German Socialist Republic shall be the traditional black-red-gold banner with a hammer and sickle affixed in the center, as depicted in Schedule B.
89. The state motto of the German Socialist Republic shall be: the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
90. The national anthem of the German Socialist Republic is the "Ode to Humanity", performed to the accompaniment of the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony. "The Internationale" may also be played in its stead.
​

Schedule A





Schedule B

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Notes

This is very much intended as a standalone entry, just to get the constitution out here! I'm going to spend a lot more time talking about the political dynamics that led up to it in future posts that will also provide a much more fine-grained discussion of politics in the first year of the DSR.

I am indebted to this timeline for helping me think through some of the details of the constitution (though this one is markedly different, reflecting the different circumstances of the revolution), and this artist for the flag.

 

[Nevis]

Is there any particular reason you used raison d'etre over Staatsräson in the constitution or is it just a flair thing?

 

[SirKaid]

Given that it's highly unlikely that a German constitution would be written in English, it's probably just translation convention. Raison d'etre is a term that's familiar to English speakers while the German equivalent is not.

 

[The Laurent]

God, this is just a mess of a constitution. Like, holy shit. To clarify, I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, or isn't realistic, but just, like, wow.

You are absolutely going to have at least one period of Gridlock within the next decade.

 

[Curby]

God, this is just a mess of a constitution. Like, holy shit. To clarify, I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, or isn't realistic, but just, like, wow.

You are absolutely going to have at least one period of Gridlock within the next decade.

Click to shrink...

Almost certainly, though keep in mind that the rather weakened state of parliament and provisional nature of the constitution itself means that this won't necessarily be as painful as it is in say, the French Fifth Republic (as we're seeing now). In certain respects, these periods of gridlock are actually going to be constructive, prompting various forms of social upheaval and popular protest, which will be met with constitutional and legal reform.

 

[The Laurent]

Almost certainly, though keep in mind that the rather weakened state of parliament and provisional nature of the constitution itself means that this won't necessarily be as painful as it is in say, the French Fifth Republic (as we're seeing now). In certain respects, these periods of gridlock are actually going to be constructive, prompting various forms of social upheaval and popular protest, which will be met with constitutional and legal reform.

Click to shrink...

And to be fair, if the continued function and power of the proletariat required accord and high levels of obsession with Parliamentary Cretinism then something would kind of be wrong.

 

[The Laurent]

To clarify what I mean, I mean it across several levels. First, ultimately if actually what's taking power is the legislature and not the workers, that's a problem no matter what said legislature is called.

But second: the French Fifth Republic is in a shit situation, and its own gridlock is even seriously and meaningfully harming its economy. But it's not overthrowing its capitalism. Business owners, even with the uncertainty of a national budget up for grabs and a mounting actual debt crisis based on how much the systems of Europe suck and etc, etc, still... enforce their power? Money is exchanged for goods and services, the worker is oppressed by the employer, the big companies post profits, etc, etc.

The function of capitalism requires the existence of a state in order to enforce itself... but it does not require the state at every moment to be entirely functional and actively sustaining it (as in, passing some sort of Continuing decree to allow capitalism to continue for the next three months until there must be another decree), lest it collapse at once.

Presumably once it's actually established, Socialism or Lower-Stage Communism would be equally resilient against legislative squabbles or minor disagreements between factions. It'd have its own logic and system of production/existence that would--one hopes--continue even if some particular Parliamentary figurehead gets angry at another for disagreements as to arranging the deck chairs on the cruise ship.

 

[DragonsAndSongs]

Meanwhile, the British government was in a state of deep crisis. The coalition liberals felt with good reason that they were being iced out of the actual process of governance. Elections slated to occur in 1915 had been delayed because of the war, but now it was felt that wartime elections were needed to "clarify" the opinion of the nation. The coalition liberals hoped to unseat many of Haldane's backbenchers, and the conservatives believed that liberal division and patriotic sentiment would propel them to victory. To ensure that the pro-war majority would remain intact, the acrimonious governing partners agreed not to run candidates against each other. In response, the independent liberals and increasingly antiwar British Labor Party did the same, forming the "Progressive-Democratic Alliance" to contest the elections.

Patriotic sentiment was still present in Britain, but it was challenged by the battle-field losses in May, declining standards of living, and growing discontent in both the middle-class and labor movement. It was believed that a clear parliamentary victory for the pro-war coalition would both quiet pacifist protest and make clear what the real correlation of forces ought to be in the cabinet.

The conservatives received several electoral windfalls before the scheduled December vote. Firstly, the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare led to a "rally around the flag" effect. A series of limited French offensives in the north successfully pushed the Germans back in Flanders, while the October Revolution in Russia polarized middle-class opinion against the left. In Germany, Ludendorff's dissolution of the Reichstag reinforced the government's claim that the war was a fight against German autocracy. Finally, the defection of the widely beloved Churchill to the conservatives provided them with a charismatic surrogate adept at rallying patriotic opinion. The leaders of the party may have detested the arrogant and volatile Churchill, but they soon found him to be an invaluable asset.

The election campaign was marred throughout by a lack of clarity from many of the parties. Labor refused to take a clear and consistent antiwar line, while the independent liberals moderated their position before the election to try to broaden their base, advocating for the beginnings of negotiation rather than an immediate exit from the war. Lloyd George faced increasing pressure from the liberal press to denounce the policies of his Conservative partners, which he felt reluctant to do publicly while still in coalition with the Tories. Instead, he ended up making equivocal statements which pleased nobody.

British Parliamentary Election Results, 1917​

Party	Vote	%	Seats Before	Seats Won	Change
Conservative	4,363,154	40.3	271	394	+123
Liberal	768,694	7.1	272 or 150*	44	-228 or -106
Labour	2,349,391	21.7	42	80	+38
Independent Liberal	1,786,403	16.5	New Party or 122*	81	+81 or -39
Sinn Fein	508,854	4.7	New Party	75	+75
Irish Parliamentary	227,360	2.1	74	5	-69

*Method of calculation for Liberal Party depends on whether one counts members of the antiwar independent liberals as MP's of the Liberal Party. 122 sitting backbenchers of the Liberal Party ran as Independent Liberals in 1917. ​

The results provided a stinging rebuke to the policies of the pro-war coalition liberals. The unpopularity of his government among the party's voting base was made quite clear on election day, as the independent liberals received more than twice the vote of the coalition government. Middle-class liberal discontent had led to a wave of defection. Yet the Independent Liberals did not have a banner night. The surge of pro-war sentiment in the country meant that most competitive ridings were lost to the conservatives, who picked up a whopping 123 seats and gained an absolute majority in parliament. Labor fared somewhat better, and looked increasingly as if they might displace the liberals as the main opposition to the Tories. (19)

The rise of Sinn Fein caused alarm across the British political spectrum. The militant republican group had ties with many of the participants in the May rising, and the collapse of the moderate Irish parliamentary party was a sign that the Irish would no longer be content with home rule after the brutal British crackdown in May. As the spectre of more Irish unrest loomed, the Tories were tasked with forming a government of their own.

​

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Hello! I've been really enjoying this TL so far — the quality of writing is exceptional
I just have one teensy, perhaps absurdly pedantic nitpick in this update

Your election results for the 1917 British election are clearly modelled on the 1918 election IOTL — you forget, however, that the 1918 election followed the Representation of the People Act, 1918, which finally brought universal manhood suffrage and also suffrage for women above 30 who satisfied some property requirements to Britain.

Consequently, the electorate of this election is more than double that of the previous election, which had a fairly more restricted franchise

In 1910, for example, 2,270,753 votes translate to 46.6% of the total vote for the conservatives in an election with 81.6% turnout

In 1918, which has only 57.2% turnout, 4,003,848 votes for the conservatives translates to 38.4% of the vote.

As far as I know, no equivalent of the Representation of the People Act of 1918 has been passed by 1917 ITTL — so the election data you present, which is modelled on the post-1918 electorate, is...completely impossible.

Yeah, I know, this is the most pedantic someone could be. Sorry for that lol. That aside, I'd just like to reiterate that the TL is amazing and supercool, and has been a delight to read so far

 

[Curby]

Hello! I've been really enjoying this TL so far — the quality of writing is exceptional
I just have one teensy, perhaps absurdly pedantic nitpick in this update

Your election results for the 1917 British election are clearly modelled on the 1918 election IOTL — you forget, however, that the 1917 election followed the Representation of the People Act, 1918, which finally brought universal manhood suffrage and also suffrage for women above 30 who satisfied some property requirements to Britain.

Consequently, the electorate of this election is more than double that of the previous election, which had a fairly more restricted franchise

In 1910, for example, 2,270,753 votes translate to 46.6% of the total vote for the conservatives in an election with 81.6% turnout

In 1918, which has only 57.2% turnout, 4,003,848 votes for the conservatives translates to 38.4% of the vote.

As far as I know, no equivalent of the Representation of the People Act of 1918 has been passed by 1917 ITTL — so the election data you present, which is modelled on the post-1918 electorate, is...completely impossible.

Yeah, I know, this is the most pedantic someone could be. Sorry for that lol. That aside, I'd just like to reiterate that the TL is amazing and supercool, and has been a delight to read so far

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Thank you for all the kind words!

This isn't pedantic at all - on the contrary, it's exactly the sort of thing I would like people to bring to my attention, and I am grateful for you doing so.

I am going to go back and edit the post at some point to account for some of the things you've mentioned. Given the relative weakness of the Liberals ITTL, I feel like it would be quite unlikely that anything like the Representation of the People Act would have been passed. The consequences, I think, will probably be a somewhat stronger performance by the pro-war Liberals, and a weaker one by Labor. Ironically, this will likely make the election actually look a bit more similar to the one IOTL in the actual performance of the parties, even though the turnout numbers are obviously going to be quite different! Let me know if you have any further thoughts on this.

 

[The Laurent]

Honestly that also feels like it'll have some knock-on effects, that Britain doesn't even let all of its men vote. Seems like that reduces the number of outlet valves even further.

 

[Curby]

1920: The Year of Proletarian Advance​

"No savior from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear
E'er the thieves will out with their booty
And give to all a happier lot.
Each at the forge must do their duty
And we'll strike while the iron is hot."
-The Internationale​

Excerpt from Speech by People's Commissar of Justice, Karl Kautsky, April 1920

My comrades, friends, and fellow laborers toward our socialist future - permit this old man to address you. For two decades we have debated amongst ourselves the question of revolution. Even as we felt our movement swell into a vast and mighty social-democratic army, many of us came to doubt that it would ever have occasion to storm the battlements of the bourgeois and seize power for the working people. There are those of us, too, who resigned ourselves to the present world of class oppression and injustice, who deserted the German worker in his time of need. Have we not all, in our moments of despair, had reason to consign ourselves to this present vale of tears?

Yet now, the mighty deeds of the German worker have awakened us all from our long slumber. Can anyone doubt that the hour of revolution is at hand? By the blow of your hammer you have smashed your chains! With your efforts, the mighty Junkers have been toppled! You and you alone have placed us here before you! We once despaired of our socialist future; now we know it as a certainty. As revolution sweeps this world, can anyone doubt the iron laws of historical materialism, which state: that from this old and unjust world, a new and better one shall be born? It is you, the German worker, who did this! Let us never forget that this great movement of global liberation was begun here, in our Rhineland!

Let us also never forget the heroic sacrifices of the German soldier, who liberated himself and now liberates Germany from the rule of Kings and Tyrants. Word has just reached us that the tireless soldiers of the Revolutionary Army have retaken the long-suffering city of Munich from the grasp of Ludendorff. His band of reactionary scoundrels have gone fleeing into the Austrian countryside. The hour of victory is at hand! Yet make no mistake: The Revolutionary Army shall not desist in its pursuit until the mad tyrant himself is clapped in irons and brought to justice!

As we speak, the laboring masses of this world struggle to break free from their oppressors. You, the German proletariat, are the most advanced section of the international working class. Having begun this world revolution, it is now our responsibility to complete it! We shall build a model socialist society in which the fruits of labor are shared and the economy is subjected to the democratic control of the working people.

There are many who will try to stop us. Even now, all the aristocrats and burghers of Britain conspire to crush our people's republic. They speak of freedom and democracy, of a great crusade against Bolshevism. My comrades, I have been advised that the men who utter these words attire themselves with jackboots! Is it not truly galling that these individuals, who administer a despotic empire which oppresses the Irishmen, the Indian, the Moslem, and countless other peoples, have the audacity to lecture this new, socialist republic of working peoples over such matters as democracy and freedom? What they desire is not to free the worker but to place him in everlasting servitude to the lords of industry.

The free workers of Europe will not allow this to pass. The violence that England is visiting upon its own people shall never be inflicted upon the laboring masses of this continent! We will not cease from our fight until we live in a world which can guarantee peace and socialism for all peoples…

From the Alternatehistory.com thread "Anglo-Turkish Detente in 1920?"

I'm sure this has been aired here before, but how would Britain and Turkey coming to some kind of renegotiation of the Aleppo treaty affect the first revolutionary era? Was this even possible?

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From what I've read, Churchill was pretty insistent on keeping the straits under British control, something which the Turks could never really agree to. That being said, even with a more liberal government, I have a hard time imagining Britain coming to an accord with the Turks without really pissing off the Greeks, who viewed the western Anatolian territories as their reward for all the wartime sacrifices. And at that point, the Greeks were viewed as the more valuable ally. The Turkish Army was in a really, really poor state, something which immediately became clear once Ataturk came to power and decided to restart the war with Britain.

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I think it's a mistake to believe Churchill miscalculated here. It didn't take a particularly sizable contingent of British troops to hold down the very defensible positions in the Lebanese mountains and Constantinople. Of course, it's a different story with the Greco-Turkish fighting, but that wasn't British troops. There's naturally a temptation to pillory Churchill here - I've done it myself on plenty of occasions - but I'm not really sure there was a better alternative in 1920. As Thalmannian mentioned, abandoning Greeks to the Turks would deprive the Brits of one of their most effective European proxies.

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Hampton: I think y'all might be overcorrecting a bit. Turkey may have pursued maximalist war aims once the conflict began, but the diplomatic cables sent by Ataturk's government were much more modest in their intent. Turkey wasn't proposing to close the straits off to Britain, it wanted its biggest center of population back, as well as some of the western cities in Anatolia which had a majority-turkish population. Lloyd George was reportedly in favor of taking up the offer of negotiations. I don't know how much of a difference such a deal would have made in the first revolutionary era, though; most of Britain's forces had to be deployed to India for the first few years, and that wouldn't have changed. Perhaps we see the Soviets taking an even bigger chunk out of Turkey.

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Excerpts from the book "Thirty Years Crisis: War, Revolution, and the Origins of our Times", by Matteo Arrighi

Published by the Frankfurt Institute for Critical Praxis © 1982, Frankfurt, ESF

The Two Months Prelude

In the final months of 1919, an extended war of position was fought between rival nationalist, revolutionary, and legitimist factions. It became clear that Britain and America - the two great capitalist powers - did not have the means to decisively intervene in the coming conflict. All sides readied themselves for a protracted war of manuever, though across the great industrial heartlands of Europe which stretched from France to Vienna, it was the revolutionary socialists who held the advantage.

In November, millions of exhausted soldiers made their way back home. An often neglected fact is that the majority of these men laid down their arms and refused to fight in the coming conflicts. But sizable minorities of radicalized troops and reactionary officers resolved to play their part in the European civil war. The socialist governments in Paris and Berlin were soon bolstered by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of hardened "red veterans" who swore allegiance to the new states, while in Thuringia, Southern France, and Salzburg, rival legitimist governments welcomed the so-called "officers armies". The loyalist carabinieri in Rome managed to hold the city after a wave of strikes, and the government entrenched its position by stationing an army of freshly arrived, politically vetted soldiers outside the city.

The primary problem for the legitimist governments was the widespread unrest in their rear, which prevented them from mobilizing resources to fight the nascent revolutionary states. The conservative heartlands in southern Italy were plagued by a religiously-inflected socialist "peasant's resistance". Attempts by the catholic clergy to calm the land seizures and revolutionary violence was met with the "arrest" and detainment of several priests. In Germany, Ludendorff faced the German Socialist Republic and the red battalions of the Rhineland to his north and the Bavarian Socialist Republic, with its middle-class allies to the south. Even in France, where there was the largest proportion of loyal citizens, Clemenceau's government found itself unable to establish logistical networks which could link it to the broader world, and imports froze to a halt. The dockworkers of Marseille and Bourdeaux soon seized the port cities outright - with Northern Italy falling to the reds, the white forces in France now faced the very real risk of a strangling encirclement. To break it, the military brass of Republican France settled upon a quick offensive north toward Paris, to capture the insurrectionary city before numerically superior red armies could be organized.

In the Balkans and across the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the forces of proletarian liberation had fewer unalloyed successes. The coordination of workers in Bohemia was enervated by distrust between German and Czechs. In the German-populated Sudetenland, middle-class "Landswehr" formations took control of hundreds of small towns and expelled the Czech population further into Bohemia. The same process was repeated in reverse, leading to a hardening of ethnic boundaries. In Prague, Pilsen, and the other industrial cities of Bohemia, a war for control of the cities was fought between workers and middle-class nationalists. The arrival of Bohemian soldiers, pushed back by the triumphant forces of Karolyi's Hungarian Army, only intensified the fighting as troops lined up on opposing sides, joining "red militias" and "nationalist leagues". Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak legion slowly made its way north through Albania and Austria, fighting several pitched battles with both German nationalist and red paramilitaries. At their side was Tomas Masaryk, an exiled Czech intellectual who was the de facto leader of the radical wing of Czech nationalism.

Further south, workers had won the war of position in the major industrial cities of Austria. In Vienna, Otto Bauer and Friedrich Adler declared a socialist republic of Austria, and regional social-democratic parties and worker councils in Graz and Linz soon declared their allegiance to the new government. Franz Ferdinand did manage to flee to Salzburg, but real power was held by his one-time adjutant and chief of staff Karl von Bardolff, who now attempted to marshal his remaining forces for a march eastwards.

Following the successful Hungarian counter-offensive, the joint Croatian, Austrian, and Bohemian force disintegrated. However, whereas soldiers of the latter two nations returned home, with many of them participating in local paramilitary conflicts, the Croatian Army reformed itself along the southern bank of the Drava River, and vowed to defend the nation against further Hungarian assaults. The new government of minister-president Stjepan Radic promised to fight on until Hungarian troops were expelled from all of vojvodina and slavonia, and martial law was declared. A strike wave in Zagreb and several Adriatic port cities was brutally suppressed by the authorities.

In Bulgaria, the legitimist government was forced to flee from Sofia, but it managed to rally newer cadets and the officer class to its cause. Meanwhile, the returning veterans from the front overwhelmingly flocked to the new coalition government of Bulgarian socialists and agrarians. The contested lands of Macedonia fell bloodlessly into the hands of the Greek Army, which now advanced with great ease into the remainder of southern Albania. To the northeast, the radical but weak Romanian Social-Democrats launched an unsuccessful coup attempt, prompting a crackdown on the party's activists. Under the pretext of "internal security", Romania steadily built up its armed forces, violating the recently signed peace agreements.

In neighboring Hungary, there was remarkably little labor unrest. The Social-Democratic party had acted as a de facto coalition partner of Karolyi's government for some time, and the workers were motivated by a sense of social patriotism to support their nation in its time of need. Strikes only began in earnest once the Austrian Army had been pushed out of the nation, and were met with negotiation rather than bloodshed.

In France, the new socialist republic led by Jean Jaures and Ludovic-Oscar Frossard quickly took control of a wide swathe of territory running from Paris down through the Rhone Valley. Revolutionaries also seized a patchwork of unconnected port cities in the south, including Marseille and Bordeaux. The French Red Army began establishing a presence in the northeastern territories as German troops evacuated the area. To the northeast, Belgian and Dutch governments-in-exile both landed at the port of Antwerp before the year's end, though the latter would have to find some means of raising support against the popular, socialist coalition government of Troelstra and Wijnkoop, which had already established its control over most of the country.

European Civil War

As Europe entered the new decennium, it braced for an unprecedented era of ideological struggle. From January through March, white forces launched a series of offensives which aimed to strangle the new revolutionary regimes before they could mobilize their superior reserves of men and industrial capacity. The Viennese white army marched east toward Graz, taking the city in a bloody but brief battle. A white offensive toward Paris successfully encircled the city, and barricades were set up once more; some gloomily recalled the fate of the Paris Commune of 1871 and began to despair. In the most savage episode of the brief German civil war, Ludendorff set off from Thuringia with an expeditionary force that deposed the socialist government in Munich, killing more than ten thousand civilians in the process. "The rape of Munich" would turn the city into one of the most radical in all of Germany.

In Poland, after months of uneasy cooperation with Radek's revolutionary socialists, Pilsudski arrested its leadership and exiled the party's labor activists to Soviet Russia. In Finland, the Soviets encountered an unexpectedly resilient enemy, while peasant unrest in Central Russia plagued the homefront. Across the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Balkans, the forces of reaction solidified their rule: Croatia implemented a draft and banned most social-democratic organizations, the Bulgarian whites won several pitched battles in the center of the country, and in Bohemia, the Czechoslovak Legion tipped the ongoing civil war in favor of the whites, successfully suppressing the Prague and Pilsen communes.

Then, seemingly all at once, the red counterstroke came. All over Europe, the white forces had overstretched their lines. Their undermanned flanks were vulnerable to attack, and the newly assembled armies of revolutionary Europe commenced the grand proletarian counteroffensive. Ludendorff's advance on Frankfurt was halted by the 1st Indian Legion in late March, a battle which was immortalized in several German and Indian novels, and which even today is considered the first act of the Indo-German "special relationship". The German government, after several halting attempts at finding politically reliable officers, finally appointed Berthold von Deimling as the new commander of the red army. Ludendorff fought several delaying actions against his three red armies, but he could not resist their superior numbers and firepower. Weimar was lost on March 29th, and the soldiers of the German Socialist Republic began streaming into Bavaria, intent on avenging the Rape of Munich. Further west, the siege of Paris was broken by a red army raised in the north, and the demoralized republican army forced into a long retreat. In Italy, an attempt by loyalist troops to storm the anarchist heartland of Romagna was stymied by guerillas and then decimated by a newly-raised Red and Black Army. At its helm was none other than the infamous Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Mahkno, who had fled advancing red forces in Ukraine for political exile in Italy. As the snows across Europe thawed and gave way to spring, Karl Kautsky declared that the "Springtime of the European proletariat" had arrived.

Paranoia spread across the reactionary-nationalist regimes of Eastern Europe. Croatia was forced into a humiliating armistice as the Hungarian Army finally broke through the lines along the Drava River, retaking Slavonia and Vojvodina. The Czech government began expelling the sudeten Germans into the socialist republic, convinced that they posed a threat to the state. The German landswehr and militias were not able to halt the advance of the more organized Czech Army. In Poland, a demand to include Radek's socialists in the government was met with delays and stonewalling. Finland, sandwiched between an unsympathetic, social-democratic Sweden and the advancing Red Army, tried in vain to sue for peace; the slow advance of the Soviet army finally accelerated once a second round of worker's revolts began in Finland's industrial southern cities.

Over the summer, the outlines of the new European order began to solidify. The German Socialist Republic cleared the remaining white forces out of the nation, and adopted a new constitution. Elections were scheduled for September. The so-called "Black and Red" army of Italy began the "March on Rome", and godless anarchist militias set upon the seat of catholicism. With the Italian capital under siege, Pope Benedict died of a heart attack, and the cardinals of the eternal city fled to Portugal, which had thus far remained an oasis of relative stability. In early August, the city fell, giving the Worker and Peasant's Council Republic control over Central Italy. With the rural south still embroiled in peasant's unrest, the prospects for the Italian White Army did not look favorable.

Meanwhile, in Austria, the national army was unwilling to attempt an advance toward Vienna until a German expeditionary force was dealt with. After a series of inconclusive battles in the tyrolean alps, the government fled to Graz, worried of a possible Italian intervention. This decision likely quickened the fall of the military government; with the Austrian and German red armies steadily advancing on the remaining white strongholds, Ferdinand determined his time was up, and traveled south to the sympathetic Croatians. He would make the long journey to America out of the port of Trieste, where he was welcomed by a growing community of German emigres in Chicago.

France would prove the exception to the rule. Over the summer, Marshall Philippe Petain leveraged his growing popularity into a promotion, and he fought a series of successful delaying battles in Central France. He was rewarded by the fall of Marseille in August after the first joint Anglo-French operation of the first revolutionary era. At long last, proper supplies could be ferried in from the outside world; Clemenceau petitioned both Britain and America for aid, though at the time, only the former had the munitions capacity to provide assistance to the embattled legitimist government.

Nonetheless, the completion of Anschluss and fall of Finland inaugurated a new European order led by the new revolutionary regimes of Germany and Russia. Yet, at a crucial moment, the German government decided to bow to popular consensus, and rather than sending its swelling army into the Balkans, the social-democratic leadership demobilized most of the drafted soldiers and reformed the Red Army into a series of volunteer corps. The majority of these were sent to the Netherlands to reinforce the nascent council republic there, giving the reactionary regimes in the east crucial breathing room.

Shortly after the election of the radical Luxemburgist government in late September, a secret agreement was reached by Czechia, Croatia, and Romania to cooperate against any aggression from the powerful red bloc. Poland sent a secret observer, but, with its own territorial disputes still outstanding with Czechia and Romania, resisted signing onto the agreement, though all sides did agree to draw back their competing paramilitaries. Perhaps the most important clause, however, was one providing for the dismemberment of Hungary at an unspecified future date. With a friendly white government installed there, it was believed that the bloc could present itself to Britain and America as a viable counterweight to the red menace, thereby securing arms and funding that were presently being directed to Toulouse. Of course, the allure of territorial aggrandizement played a large role as well; all three governments believed in the need to "strengthen the state" in the midst of the red menace.

The darkest day in Hungarian history began on November 3rd, 1920 as the nation was invaded by Romania, Croatia, and Czechia. Italy, still in the midst of its Civil War, refused to intervene, as did the recently elected Luxemburg government, which treated the war as a conflict between "rival national bourgeoisie". The Soviet Union was busy dealing with a revolt in Central Asia. Small and isolated Serbia was the only power to respond to Hungary's desperate plea for assistance. It hoped to use the opportunity to conquer Bosnia and establish a greater Serbian state. Serbia's invasion of the region forced the Croatians to postpone their planned advance into Vojvodina, but Hungary still struggled to hold off the Romanian and Czech armies. They slowly gave ground in the northwest against the Czechs, but after reinforcing the mountain passes of Transylvania the Romanian Army was halted, setting the stage for a long, static, and extraordinarily murderous conflict. In December, the Croatian counterattack in Bosnia began, shattering the Serbian Army and sending them reeling back toward Belgrade…

War in the Middle East

The successful Anatolian offensive of May 1919 exposed a vast technological deficit between the British and Turkish armies. In a little over a month, numerically inferior British forces broke out of the Adana region and captured the provisional capital of Ankara, forcing the Turks into a humiliating peace. For some time, the remnants of the Ottoman Empire had been on the ropes; with a tightening British blockade and Entente control of the straits, they had little means to resupply their army, and had to lean on the disorganized and poorly-run domestic war industries. The consequence was a staggering discrepancy in firepower which the British Levantine Army exploited to devastating effect.

After suing for peace, the demoralized and exhausted Turks transitioned their economy to a peace-time footing under the liberal party. Among the officer class and hundreds of thousands of Turkish refugees, however, nationalist sentiment still ran high. The Turks had lost not only Constantinople but also the entire western Anatolian coast, which was now occupied by the Greek "hereditary enemy". Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine were converted into Entente colonies, while Arabia and Jordan became British client states.

The outbreak of revolution across the British Empire convinced the Turkish military that a window of opportunity had opened to resume hostilities. After the Liberal party refused to take confrontational measures, it ousted the ruling government in a bloodless coup, installing the beloved general Kemal Ataturk in Ankara. Unlike many of his nationalist supporters, Ataturk himself was skeptical of resuming the war with Britain, especially when the army was still mostly demobilized. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to reinitiate negotiations with Britain. After several days of nationalist protests across Turkish cities, he felt obliged to restart the war, and the Turkish Army was mobilized to begin offensive operations against the British garrison in Adana. Ataturk attempted, in vain, to avoid directing forces immediately against the Greeks, but clashes between paramilitaries and atrocities committed by the Greek Army soon compelled a more formal intervention.

Ataturk's reservations about the state of the Turkish army proved prescient. Attacks on the British lines at Kocaeli, east of Constantinople, ended in the destruction of the assaulting Turkish forces. In the south, the British Levantine Army fought successful delaying actions at Adana, and retreated in good order toward more defensible territories in Syria. Clashes with Greek forces ended in disaster, and the Greeks began marching east into central Anatolia. With the Greek incursion into additional Turkish territory, Ataturk was forced to divert troops to the western theater, allowing the British forces to fortify their lines around Aleppo.

The British were, in fact, content to allow the Greeks to fight their battles for them, and proceeded to strip the Levantine theater of experienced troops. In the summer of 1920, Ataturk raised several new armies, and used them to shore up Turkish lines in Seyitgazi and Eskisehir. The Greeks slowly advanced, but at a frequently pyrrhic cost. By fall, the front had stabilized and the prospect of another large-scale Greek offensive dimmed. The British were well-pleased with the campaigns, which had further drained Turkish manpower reserves and secured their hold on the straits.

The Battle for Asia

Along a vast, 3,000-mile arc from Quetta to Shenyang, imperial powers warred with national independence movements for control of the markets and resources of South and East Asia. Conflicts raged across a half-dozen different regions, including Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Burma. But the most consequential fighting took place in China and India, where national independence movements engaged in protracted wars of liberation with established colonial powers.

There are several curious parallels between the Chinese Kuomintang and the INC. Both were national independence movements composed mostly of middle-class intellectuals. Each fought against foreign imperialism. Broadly speaking, each group endorsed a form of left-wing, social-patriotic, anti-colonial politics, and invoked the revolutions in Europe to justify their own independence struggles. Yet neither organization was committed to revolutionary socialism; a future Indian or Chinese state was imagined as a social-democratic developmentalist republic run by cultural and intellectual elites rather than a revolutionary council democracy. A left-wing faction existed in both the INC and Kuomintang, but over the course of the first revolutionary era, it never had a real chance of seizing power.

The conflict in China predated the onset of global upheaval, yet it was not unaffected by it. Chinese workers in Beijing and Japanese-occupied Qingdao engaged in suicidal acts of resistance against the Japanese occupiers over November, and a growing guerilla resistance in the countryside hampered Japan's supply lines. Back home, the Japanese civilian government hoped to find some means of bringing the conflict to a close, but Sun Yat-sen resisted concluding a peace, hoping to secure American greater assistance after Bryan's assassination.

Growing occupation costs steadily depleted the gigantic foreign currency reserves that Japan had built up from its trade surpluses during the Great War. Slowly but surely, the shipbuilding and civilian sectors of the economy started to shrink as the army consumed a greater share of national income. The military tried, with varying success, to pawn off its failures onto the civilian government.

The moderate prime minister Hara Takashi felt increasingly hemmed in by the opposition forces. To his left were socialists who pushed for universal-suffrage legislation, while the army and nationalistic circles desired an intensification of the war in China. A faction of the navy, meanwhile, had started to come around to the notion of a preemptive strike on America, not least because it would expand their influence in the government, but this was opposed both by the older senior brass and the other power-centers in Japan.

Tensions with America worsened in March, when the military and navy cooperated to force Takashi's hand on a policy of blockade. American ships, which had previously been unmolested by the Japanese Navy, were now stopped before they could deliver vital supplies to the Chinese Army. The Japanese armed forces were emboldened by the financial crisis in America, which was still wreaking havoc on regional banks and the job market.

Takashi attempted to break the political deadlock and ameliorate spiralling tensions with America through diplomacy. By July, the American government had concluded the first stage in its counteroffensive against labor, and, according to Japanese intelligence, the pacific fleet had grown considerably. When the British ambassador to Japan got wind of the planned diplomatic overtures, he did all he could to encourage it, and the anglophilic American President Elihu Root was persuaded to participate in an August conference in Halifax.

While this is not the space for a detailed examination of American domestic politics, there were powerful interests concentrated in the Republican Party which were skeptical of a detente with Japan. Despite the extent of the red panic, there was still considerable concern about involving American soldiers in the "European morass", and many prominent politicians instead looked to the markets in the east as a "release valve" for social tensions. Of course, Takashi was equally cross-pressured, and he was aware that an overly conciliatory peace could lead to the end of his government.

Given these facts, the talks were always a long-shot. Root was willing to negotiate on the basis of Japan's proposals in the previous round of discussions in 1919. For the Japanese, however, this was a nonstarter. Considerably more of the nation's blood and treasure had been spilled, and their forces were now approaching the gates of Chongqing. The small size of the American Army and continued economic depression also gave Japan increased incentives to take a hard line. Few Japanese politicians imagined that a failure of negotiations would result in outright war.

Yet a large fraction of the American power elite had already decided that war was what the nation needed. A conflict with Japan would absorb the masses of radicalized, unemployed factory workers, stimulate the national economy, and provide a suitable pretext for the expansion of the security state. It would ensure that the United States would have unimpeded access to the vast, chinese markets, and prepare it for the long struggle with global bolshevism. While some desired mobilization to be directed against the nascent socialist states of Europe, there was a persistent worry that this would lead to a second round of industrial unrest and the "bolshevization" of the army. Instead, it was decided to furnish aid to the white forces more covertly, while using a war with Japan to expand and enlarge American power. The racialized "Jap" was a much more suitable target of domestic propaganda than the white proletarian masses of Europe.

Britain was, technically speaking, obliged to come to the aid of its pacific ally. Churchill was not pleased with President Root, and many in Britain began to ponder whether the "stink of Bryanism" had permanently infected America. But there was, in practical terms, little that it could do to assist Japan that would not throw the entire empire to the wolves. Of course, the Americans were aware of this, and those of a more strategic cast of mind viewed the war as a means to drive a wedge between Britain and Japan, regardless of its final outcome.

On October 4th, 1920, Elihu Root issued an ultimatum to Japan, demanding that it cease the illegal blockade of the Chinese coast. This was met with stony silence for 18 hours. Japan then sent several diplomatic cables indicating that it was, in fact, interested in making concessions. For two days, furious debates gripped the American state department as the so-called "Internationalists" tried to avert the war with Japan, urging instead a intensified domestic crackdown as a prelude to a mobilization against Europe. Then, on the 7th, 5,000 Japanese marines landed outside Luzon, taking the city's garrison by surprise. Japan had pre-empted the equivocating Americans, and The Eastern Seas War had begun.

To the west, the 1st Indian war of Independence continued apace. By October 1920, the INC had solidified its control of the vast, populous lands along the Ganges River. These were the centers of the British administration, stretching from Dhaka in the east toward Indore and New Delhi to the west. The INC's successful consolidation of these agriculturally fertile and more urbanized territories meant that Britain was in for a long and grueling conflict.

The initial situation of loyalist British Indian forces was likely only salvageable because of the loyalty of the large princely states of Rajputa, Hyperabad, and Mysore. Although by no means pleased with the course of the Great War and their relative position, the princes were far more fearful of the centralizing ambitions of the INC, and they coordinated effective resistance to the Indian National Liberation Army before British reinforcements arrived.

These began to enter India in earnest by June 1920. They were delayed several months by the need to repress domestic dissent in Northern England and by the arduous process of reassembling a politically reliable, loyalist core of junior officers. By then, the princely states in the northwest were struggling to hold back the tide; the Indian Army had cut into large swathes of Rajputa, and begun advancing into Gwalior and Central India. In many places, combat lines were malleable and fluid; nothing like the trench warfare in Europe emerged. The plains and deserts of India were far too vast for such a strategy to be viable, especially given the relatively small size of the warring armies.

British forces shored up the existing lines and made limited advances over the final half of 1920, most notably by knocking the national-Indian forces out of most of Rajputa. Yet attempts to breach the Indian heartlands in the northeast were summarily repulsed, with Indian guerillas decimating British supply lines. A disastrous invasion of Bihar led to a reshuffling of the military command in September. Morale amongst the colonial soldiers was a constant concern. Even these "loyalists" were not particularly enthused over a war to reconquer a rebellious India. As the Soviets pacified Central Asia, more and more arms from the Soviet Union and its socialist allies began to flow to the Republic of India. In December, the 1st and 2nd Indian Legions arrived at the front following a long journey from Germany, and smashed the British lines in Orissa with several brilliant acts of manuever warfare. It would be a long war indeed…

Excerpts from the book "The Month that Transformed the World", by John Reed

Published by the Press of the Communist Party of Russia © 1923, Moscow, Soviet Union

…I arrived in Hamburg on November 20th, and was met by a small delegation of dockworkers, who explained that they were the official representatives of the new socialist city government. All across the city, there was a celebratory attitude, though this was slowly giving way amongst the people to a kind of steady determination, and men were beginning to return to their workplaces without so much as a government decree. The massive warehouses adjacent to the docks were covered with red linens of innumerable shades, which I could faintly make out even while pulling into the harbor. They hung down off the roofs, swaying in the wind. Some of them dipped gently into the cool water, which had not yet frozen.

A burly man speaking broken English explained that the worker's councils had requisitioned the crimson cloths of the city's wealthier residents for this purpose, and assured me, with a certain level of irony, that they would be returned to their rightful owners following the winter snows. I asked him if he had been informed of my purpose here, and he consulted a notebook, running over a list of names before nodding expectantly; "John Reed, American Socialist", he noted dryly, now speaking German in a slow, pedantic manner, as if to ensure I understood, before he extended me a hand, "Greetings, Comrade."

We walked along the boulevards of the great merchant city, now an entrepot into the new world of revolutionary europe. Despite the proliferation of red flags and street-side preachers of the worker's revolution, all the city's functions went on normally. I inquired about my train to Berlin. My acquaintance replied that it would be arriving on schedule, though there would not be any private coaches. I asked him if I would need to make some form of payment, eliciting a derisive scoff: "The workers of Germany will accept no gifts from foreign dignitaries."

 

[ExNihilo]

You, the German proletariat, are the most advanced section of the international working class. Having begun this world revolution, it is now our responsibility to complete it!

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Russian socialists who (arguably) began the world revolution months prior:

The workers of Germany will accept no gifts from foreign dignitaries.

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Random journalist counts as a foreign dignitary now? I suppose Reed will behave with far more dignity to the German Revolutionary Government than any official American diplomat.

It also kind of reminds me of Reds!verse, George Orwell visiting Deleon-Debs post revolution.

 

[SMBlade]

infamous Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Mahkno

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Kropotkin's glorious beard, he's back! Get 'em, you glorious man!

 

[The Laurent]

Russian socialists who (arguably) began the world revolution months prior:

Random journalist counts as a foreign dignitary now? I suppose Reed will behave with far more dignity to the German Revolutionary Government than any official American diplomat.

It also kind of reminds me of Reds!verse, George Orwell visiting Deleon-Debs post revolution.

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You're talking about the future first-ballot Hall of Famer, do not include his name without adding the title "Sheik."