You have nothing to lose but your chains.

**Leviathan07** · 09-03-2010 02:08

Hmmmm I like this style! Keep it coming and show us the Third American Revolution

**c0d5579** · 09-03-2010 03:04

Originally Posted by Kasakka

The battle of the Overpass... the blood (or bruises) of our comrades calls for something that starts with R, or another starting with V, both of which end in E, and I think we all agree on that one!

Romance and Verse?

**FlyingDutchie** · 09-03-2010 14:26

Try as I might, I cannot tie that quote to a syndicalist revolution. Look forward to what will follow.

Are you still working on your CK AAR?

**KaiserMuffin** · 09-03-2010 23:07

After the Battle of the Overpass it was realised that, whilst the CSA stood a chance in an election in the Midwest, men such as Henry Ford and Huey Long were opposed to the CSA, and would pour every ounce into beating them. A nationwide victory was felt an unlikely possibility and contingencies were set. A pamphlet written by Eric Blair circulated amongst the people who believed in the CSA, ironically they called themselves 'The Faithful'.

The Faithful comprised the core of the militias, campaigned on the streets when they could, and were the most dogged supporters. Most nominally worked for Shachtman or Hoffa or Foster, the bigger names in the movement, but they served one man in their hearts.

Jack Reed managed to get a unionised press mass-producing the piece written by Eric Blair after Reed's return from a trip to the Union of Britain. Called the '1984 manifesto' it outlined an idealistic socialist planet, in which the peoples of the world worked together, but the final lines were the most notorious...

"And if we fail in our struggle, you must imagine the future, a dark future."

Originally Posted by Eric Blair

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.

-Paul Mattick, Uprising

**c0d5579** · 09-03-2010 23:56

Why's not-really-named-Orwell writing under a pseudonym, and why's he in North America in the first place?

**KaiserMuffin** · 09-03-2010 23:57

I will edit for Clarity.

**Meadow** · 10-03-2010 00:02

You nicked my 'romantically socialist 1984' idea! I put that into Kaiserreich's forums ages ago, but it's called 'The Union in Forty Years' and written in 1944

I suppose great minds think alike. You can expect my version to turn up in The People's Flag.

And yes, he's plain Eric Blair in this timeline.

**c0d5579** · 10-03-2010 19:38

Oooh, does this mean he's going to write "Homage to Chicago?"

**Leviathan07** · 10-03-2010 20:29

Originally Posted by c0d5579

Why's not-really-named-Orwell writing under a pseudonym, and why's he in North America in the first place?

George Orwell was the pseudonym, Eric Blair was his real name

**KaiserMuffin** · 10-03-2010 20:35

I finally realised what c0d was referencing, and all I'm saying is Blair/Orwell is currently in the UoB. However, he has no placement in government... and the Brits have sent men!

**KaiserMuffin** · 10-03-2010 22:48

Originally Posted by Eric Blair

Our civilization, pace Chesterton, is founded on coal, more completely than one realizes until one stops to think about it. The machines that keep us alive, and the machines that make machines, are all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal. In the metabolism of the Western world the coal-miner is second in importance only to the man who ploughs the soil. He is a sort of caryatid upon whose shoulders nearly everything that is not grimy is supported.

Towards the end of 1936, the United States Presidential Election put John N. Garner into the white house. The sentiment in the Manufacturing Belt was that there was something fishy, since ballot results reported that in several states with strong unionised working communities such as Kentucky that not a single vote was placed for the Combined Syndicates ticket.

Both Reed and Long contested the electoral results, and in the Enlow Fork Mine, Greene County, Pennsylvania the Coal Miners began to strike. This was quickly followed by a series of sporadic coal strikes across Northern Kentucky and several in Wyoming. Jack Reed, having called an emergency congress of the CSA then called a General Strike one week later and all across the manufacturing belt workers downed tools.

Garner attempted to negociate, whilst Long attempted to disrupt the negotiations. The battle lines became more and more clear, and after a month of strained and increasingly useless discussions Jack Reed left Washington as Huey Long, from his Atlanta Headquarters seceded from the United States, creating the 'American Union State'.

Reed gave instructions for the militias to organise, and on the 25th of February, 1937 the Freedom War began...

-Paul Mattick, Uprising

**c0d5579** · 10-03-2010 23:46

Originally Posted by KaiserMuffin

I finally realised what c0d was referencing, and all I'm saying is Blair/Orwell is currently in the UoB. However, he has no placement in government... and the Brits have sent men!

I'm starting to like this Blairwell-as-philosopher/historian-of-the-World-Revolution thing. The "coal miner caryatid" passage was very good.

**KaiserMuffin** · 10-03-2010 23:55

It's a real quote from an essay written in OTL 1931. Considering the UoB was founded from a coal strike ITL, I thought it suitable - as well as the fact I could use the Pennsylvania Coal Mines for my own minor coal strike that sparks a civil war... Gotta keep those miners happy.

**c0d5579** · 11-03-2010 00:12

Have to look that one up, despite my admittedly authoritarian-rightist sympathies (blame the infantry!). The man could turn a phrase.

**KaiserMuffin** · 11-03-2010 19:12

The rather vaguely fascist and very german sounding Project Gutenberg is your friend.

Long live taking advantage of Australian copyright law!

**TEASER**

Greater things are believed of those who are absent.

**KaiserMuffin** · 12-03-2010 00:53

Originally Posted by Eric Blair

In Ellis Island Barracks in New York, the day before I joined the militia, I saw a French militiaman standing in front of the officers' table.

He was a tough-looking youth of twenty-five or six, with reddish-yellow hair and powerful shoulders. His peaked leather cap was pulled fiercely over one eye. He was standing in profile to me, his chin on his breast, gazing with a puzzled frown at a map which one of the officers had open on the table. Something in his face deeply moved me. It was the face of a man who would commit murder and throw away his life for a friend--the kind efface you would expect in an Autonomist, though as likely as not he was a Maximalist. There were both candour and ferocity in it; also the pathetic reverence that illiterate people have for their supposed superiors. Obviously he could not make head or tail of the map; obviously he regarded map-reading as a stupendous intellectual feat. I hardly know why, but I have seldom seen anyone--any man, I mean--to whom I have taken such an immediate liking.

By the 29th of February the leaders of the CSA had been chosen. Max Shachtman had managed to outmaneouver William Z Foster in an incredibly close race. As Premier of the Combined Syndicates, he elevated Jack Reed to the status of the Official Head of the State and between them they took stock of their situation. New England was lost to the Canadian Landgrab 'Defense Scheme #4' but the Syndicates had bigger fish to fry.

Lt. General Merriman was sent south with the 2nd Syndicate Army. The Unionmen gave a good fight and Merriman pulled them back before they had their fingers burnt by the US Infantry under MacArthur. Consolidating in Philadelphia they were joined by the 3rd Syndicate Army under legendary organiser Jimmy Hoffa.

Meanwhile Mj. General Murray and the United Workers of New York landed in Dover due to a cunning ploy by Admiral Rickover of the CSA navy and the International Brigades from France and Britain, fresh from their landing in New York two days earlier were deployed in Harrisburg. Though officially militiamen, almost 90% of the troops from Europe were regulars in mufti.

The Syndicate Armies and the International Brigade brushed aside MacArthur and the irregular drafted divisions from Kentucky who had arrived to reinforce Baltimore, and then stormed on to Washington, the United Workers of NY providing support from the South Bank of the Potomac after landing in Norfolk. Admiral Rickover ordered the Bombardment of Washington from Chesapeake Bay as the International Brigades and the Syndicate Armies marched on Washington, overrunning the Kentuckian Militia in the process.

The CSA had made it's first steps.

-Uprising, by Paul Mattick