Guided By The Beauty Of Our Weapons

[KaiserMuffin]

Guided By The Beauty Of Our Weapons

A Combined Syndicates of America After Action Report

Settings

• Kaiserreich 1.3 Beta 6 (potential modification afoot)
• VH/Aggressive
• Playing 1936 through to the Civil War as USA (to keep the Civil War interesting)

Inspiration

1. I really like ‘First We Take Manhattan’ by Leonard Cohen
2. It actually is Father’s Day
3. I wanted to revisit some of the thoughts I had in ‘Nothing to Lose But Your Chains’

Goals

First we take Manhattan, the former United States, Canada and then Germany and Berlin; simple.

Style

History textbook (with pictures), Narrative. Sometimes omniscient narrator, sometimes unreliable narrator (3rd person), sometimes unreliable narrator (1st person))

Contents

Preface

[KaiserMuffin]

Preface:

The immediate and long-term events of the Weltkrieg set the scene for the rise of the International Workers of the World from a relatively obscure grouping of unions to the vanguard of the Syndicalist movement and their efforts to overthrow the extremist right-wing of American politics. This course of events was to be foreshadowed by the revolutionary spark that had been stifled by the Central Powers in Russia after the end of the Weltkrieg. Both Alexander Berkman and Jack Reed had been aware of the movement amongst the Russian émigrés in Switzerland.

Indeed, Jack Reed travelled to Petrograd at the height of the Bolshevik attempt at revolution and brought back many ideas that whilst alien seeds, they flourished in American soil. The quote of a man who went by the nom de guerre of Lenin "No amount of Freedom will satisfy the Hungry Masses” was apt at the end of the Weltkrieg in Russia and just as apt in the early 1930’s as the bottom fell out of the free-market in America. This has been hypothesised as a direct result of failure to intervene in the Weltkrieg by President Wilson as the resulting new order in Europe lead to a loss of markets and investment opportunities to Germany and a shrinking of exports to direct neighbours as their economies also contracted over the years from 1921 to 1934.

A typical Hooverville

As firms moved to close factories and people starved in the Hoovervilles, the IWW created the Ohio Valley Syndicate. This organisation spread to a national level where it became known as the ‘Combined Syndicates’ and provided food in exchange for labour across the East Coast and the Midwest through arrangements with farmers and union leaders; all under the IWW’s banner of ‘Abolish the Wage System’. This movement went from strength to strength, becoming the political arm of the IWW in the process. The Combined Syndicates formed a third-party platform that won several councillors in Chicago, New York and Detroit as well as gaining legislative control of numerous counties in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. In the 1934 gubernatorial election for Michigan the ‘Combined’ candidate (Walther Reuther) came in a respectable second place to Republican Frank Fitzgerald, whilst beating the Democratic candidate and incumbent Mayor of Detroit, Frank Murphy by over 10,000 votes.

John Herbert Dillinger

The path to the White House wasn’t to be the only way in which the Combined Syndicates prepared themselves however. The era of the outlaw-criminal such as John Dillinger provided the Syndicates with a number of easily accessible folk champions they could trumpet the merits of, especially since their actions in a number of cases were popular. These connections also lead to the provision of arsenals all over the country from illegal sources, including well documented robberies of Canadian and American military facilities and the support of the bank-robbing outlaws by the Syndicates long after their mob allies had abandoned them for easier rackets. All things must end however and when Syndicates connections to the support of Dillinger were revealed to Edgar J. Hoover, the F.B.I. demanded that he was handed over or the Bureau would start a publicity campaign re-branding the Combined Syndicates as the Criminal Syndicate along with turning its leaders into a band of fugitives. Having managed to conceal the extent of their military stockpile from the F.B.I. due to Hoover's personal obsession with Dillinger and with national tensions rising as well as issues with Henry Ford already starting to boil, the Syndicates handed over Dillinger to the F.B.I. in the autumn of 1935. Dillinger was serving a prison sentence at the time of the 1936 Presidential election, unaware that he had been betrayed by his supporters in the Union movement.

This election was when all things came to a head and the events of the electoral campaign as well as those preceding it will be covered in more detail in the following chapters.

[benmiller]

Where did you get 1.3 beta 6? The most recent update I have is 1.3 beta 2.

[KaiserMuffin]

Here - Keep an eye on the KR forums, sign up maybe so you can get things when you want them.

[benmiller]

Here - Keep an eye on the KR forums, sign up maybe so you can get things when you want them.

Thank you, sir!!!

[Timmie0307]

Interesting set up, I'll follow this!

[BrHop156]

Awesome!

[RedNomNoms]

I'll be following, of course.

[Asalto]

Nice start, will follow!

[Kurt_Steiner]

Reed et al siding with the Mafia would be a fine thing

[H.Appleby]

Reed et al siding with the Mafia would be a fine thing

The commies, or in this case SYnDiEZ, can't tolerate any criminal syndicate but themselves.

[KaiserMuffin]

Interesting set up, I'll follow this!

Awesome!

I'll be following, of course.

Nice start, will follow!

I hope you have nerves of steel, I have full time work doing rather physical labour... of course that might all end on Wednesday currently!

Reed et al siding with the Mafia would be a fine thing

Just applied a bit of bigot logic to some early game events then backstrapolated

The commies, or in this case SYnDiEZ, can't tolerate any criminal syndicate but themselves.

Hehe. We'll see.

On with the show!

[KaiserMuffin]

Chapter One – A World To Win. (January - March 1936)


The announcement of Oswald Mosley’s Totalitarian Socialist or Totalist unity movement and the publication of a charter echoing the Communist Manifesto in its tone and authorial style caused a variety of reactions through the political spectrum of the United States. Most considered it Syndicalist drivel, with the idea of the merging economic and political movements with such completeness as outlined in the text to be ‘un-American’. Some on the left embraced the charter as a guiding blueprint for the future of America ‘When the revolution comes.’ Others in the IWW and Combined Syndicates opposed it, pointing to the influence of the Sorelians in France and the National-Syndicalism in Italy as a negative thing as well as outlining the niche, elitist quality that these cadres and vanguards formed. Then there was a small segment on the extreme right, centred on Governor Long of Louisiana who viewed this as an alien threat to the very way of life that they themselves envisioned for the future.

Mosley's draft of the Totalitarian Socialist Charter

The Charter was the topic of discussion in households across the nation along with the mothballing of the US Army Air Corps due to an inability to supply and source parts for the aircraft as well as a downsizing of the Navy due to shortages and budgetary overruns, with headlines focussing on the fact that 9 of the 18 serving fleet battleships were gotten rid of in some manner. The USS Arkansas, USS Wyoming, USS New York, USS Texas, USS Idaho, USS New Mexico, USS Nevada, USS Arizona, USS Pennsylvania were all sold or scuttled despite reservations that were loudly voiced by in some quarters since the United States Navy had become too expensive for the shattered economy after the collapse of Wall Street. Still with the cutting of the services, wriggle room appeared on the budget sheet and government subsidies to several large corporations went out. This list of beneficiaries included Henry Ford’s automotive company. This didn’t win the Hoover government many friends in Syndicate circles, Ford being considered almost like a bogeyman such was his presence and the manner in which he ran his thugs.

The USS New York, sold to the La Platanean Navy

The rest of January was mercifully quiet before the explosion that was February. First the New York Times published a piece of investigative journalism exposing the increasing power of organised crime in the businesses and workplaces of the United States, specifically the Italian Mafia. This disquieting revelation provoked a plummet in relations with the Syndicalist Republic of Italy as well as leading a few in the orbit of the Long machine in Louisiana and the southern states to compare Alexander Berkman with Al Capone, due to a piece of tenuous logic doing the rounds at the time along the lines of ‘The mafia are crooks, the mafia comes from Southern Italy, Southern Italy is Syndicalist therefore Syndicalists are crooks.’


Events in Brazil also came to a head a few days later, provoking fears that the AFL-CIO which had ties to the Brazilian Unions was training American Syndicalists in the art of insurrection, insurgency and government as part of an exchange of funding and materials. Whilst this was mostly fantasy on the part of right wing paranoids, the announcement of the pursuit of World Revolution and the Jacobin’s taking the French Foreign Ministry provoked concern and made the idea seem more plausible than it necessarily was.

Astrojildo Pereira, commonly named as the trainer of American Syndicalists

The recovery of Vice President Charles Curtis to better health lead to his guarenteed primacy in the Republican Primaries for the Presidential election being assured and provokes discontent. Despite Curtis American Indian heritage, he was widely viewed as part of the Hoover group at the government upon whom the lackadaisical reaction to the deepening Financial Crises that had beset the nation since 1932 was viewed at best as incompetence. Whilst the old parties had a good head start in the national polling, it was obvious that the race would be much more open in 1936 than it had been for several decades. The Hoover administration and Curtis’s electoral chances took a downturn after the Detroit ‘Battle of the Overpass’ where United Automotive Workers union leaders were assaulted by Henry Ford’s thugs on the 12^th of February. The publication of this went national after the Chicago Tribune carried the story on the front page the following day, along with a review of Charlie Chaplin’s movie Modern World. The movie was pulled from theatres by the distribution agency on the 15^th after it was felt that the pro Syndicate position it took was ‘inflaming’ this close to the elections.

[H.Appleby]

Wait, you sold the navy!? WHAT!? WHY!?

[Kurt_Steiner]

Well, nothing like good democractic elections to calm the country

[KaiserMuffin]

Wait, you sold the navy!? WHAT!? WHY!?

I had 3 IC and couldn't make enough supplies. I'm not going to fully attack the dissent (that's lamesauce) so I balanced the books after checking the pie charts for who was eating them all with a sweeping reduction in the navy and airforce. It gives the US ai some more manpower to play with later and it's also something realistic given the complete depths that the country has sank to between dissent, peace time modifier and difficulty setting. I'm roleplaying this combination of factors as a real drag . It's also a legitimate excuse not to build up the army as the AI does (which is boring and damages the way the civil war plays out otherwise IMO - the balancing is off because it doesn't account for the new US AI nuking the dissent for practically free and just spawning 6 or so fresh divisions just in time for the ACW.) Similarly I'm not performing any research - mostly because I forgot to, but also because I can't afford to.

[RedNomNoms]

The Combined Syndicates will have to rebuild the navy if they are to be able to fight a modern war. But at least those silly capitalists don't have one.

[KaiserMuffin]

A World to Win - Chapter One (March-July)

The news of the massacres on March the 12th along the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic shocked many. President Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic who had instigated the program in order to solidify his control of the nation refused to step down and Haiti felt as though it was unable to do something about this merciless killing. Public opinion was divided, in that the Caribbean was still considered ‘America’s Backyard’ at this time by some but hard line isolationists counselled that the events of Hispaniola be allowed to happen as they will.

The events in the Caribbean weren’t the only news in March however. Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest and vehement anti-Semite and anti-Syndicalist radio preacher narrowly escaped a Presidential silencing order after the Supreme Court ruled that such a thing would be anti-constitutional. The order was considered and proposed after a Papal Encyclical to the United States requested that Coughlin be shut down for his hate speech that was feared to bring the Catholic Church into disrepute.

The 18th of March saw the devastating St. Patrick’s Day flood where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers flooded Pittsburgh to a depth of 45 feet. The Combined Syndicates as well as Federal and State government along with a contingent of volunteers from across the nation raced to help the people of Pittsburgh recover after their city was damaged.

In foreign affairs, the Qing Empire received military advisors from the German Empire after the Shangqing Tianguo and then Sternburgs Mongolia declared war on them. At the end of March, the Fengtien Republic – a Japanese puppet in the Manchurian region, was rumoured to have defected to the Qing Empire and doubled the holdings of Pu Yi in the process however this was proven to be false. The Shangqing Tianguo made good progress in the early days of April as they pushed through, even as Japan also sent aid to the Qing.

Focus returned to the events in the Western Hemisphere as the Hoover administration, at the urging of Charles Curtis passed the American Indian Citizenship bill and ended the discriminatory separation of aboriginal tribesfolk from the non-aboriginal population of the United States by making them legitimately entitled citizens with the same rights. Events in Brazil however had the government on tenterhooks as the AFL-CIO was castigated for supporting a Trade Union involved in a labour dispute on the Minas Gerais railways whilst Brazil was undergoing a banking crisis. Brazilian popular newspapers blamed the continuance of the strike and the weakening economy at door of the United States despite their government’s failure to guarantee the convertibility of the Brazilean Real and subsequent weakening of the currency.

May opened with the shocking assassination of President Madrid of Panama. The Canal Zone garrison was put on high alert as troops under Mj. General Stevens were roused from their barracks. A shipment of 15.5cm Howitzer M1917 artillery pieces had recently been sent to bolster the garrison’s armament and now they were placed into active service being readied in the event that the Crisis sweeping Panama would lead to a threat to the Canal Zone.

With the Panama Crisis as backdrop, the Third International began in Europe. The United States graciously allowed the Mexican delegation the use of one of the long-range aeroplanes developed by the Boeing Company, despite complaints by some Republican senators and Huey Long’s refusal to allow the Mexican plane to stop and refuel in Louisiana. As the Syndicalists pledged World Revolution in Paris, Panama declared itself a Syndicalist nation. Tensions ratcheted up a notch along the Canal Zone and the 1st Infantry Division ‘Big Red One’ was made ready for transport to Panama in Houston. After several days of high stakes diplomacy the Syndicalist chairman of Panama Floyd Britten Jr promised to abide by the treaties made by his predecessors with regard to American sovereignty over the Panama Canal.

The pledging of support for the American worker and the hailing of Jack Reed as the new Benjamin Franklin caused more ripples in the American political scene than the events in Panama however. Coupled with a promise of the Mexican Premier to support the Combined Syndicates and the recent Bolivian revolution there was much talk through May of syndicalist machinations to overthrow the legitimately elected government of the United States before the elections could come to pass and with Jack Reed out of the country, there was also talk of his role as a stooge of power-brokers in Britain and France.

Sweden’s hosting of the Olympics in Stockholm saw a contingent of athletes travelling via Danish Iceland to reach the city on June 2nd. On June 8th Jesse Owens ran into the history books, winning the 200 metres sprint and the long jump (which he credited to friendly advice from the German competitor Luz Long). It was notable that in Europe, Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, while at the time blacks in many parts of the United States were denied equal rights. The White House made no formal move to honour Jesse Owens; however the Combined Syndicates did send him a $1000 dollar prize and a commemorative award. The end of the Olympics followed shortly afterwards and whilst many athletes achieved gold medals, it was the case of Jesse Owens which stuck in the mind of many people.

As June wore on, the heat of the summer became unbearable. The United States recorded the highest national average temperatures for weeks upon end and people were generally agitated due to the high temperature. This weather came at a time of drought, whilst the Combined Syndicates increased its arms gathering and training of militias across the Midwest and Manufacturing Belt whilst Huey Long’s America First performed similar activities in the south. With this backdrop of tension and incredible heat, Alexander Berkman passed away from cancer and Jack Reed took charge of the Combined Syndicates. This news combined with Mexican moves towards rebuilding their military under the leadership of new Chairman the American-Mexican war veteran Pancho Villa, as well as the events in Panama increased fear of some sinister Syndicalist co-ordination against the United States.

With the fireworks and celebrations of the fourth of July, the United States took a day off from its worries as best it could.

[H.Appleby]

DAMN SYnDieZ!!!

But seriously, great update.

[Nikolai]

Nice going so far.