The VSVR 1865-1870
One of the first duties of The 3rd Chairman of the Republic was to rebuild the central government of the VSVR. Blanqui was under arrest, Marx had retired from politics, Weydemeyer (although not entirely responsible) was implicated in the coup and was forced to accept a lowlier military position whilst the 61 year old Feuerbach also chose to retire. With 4 casualties to the Central Committee since his ascension (all the Marxists) Engels was forced to hastily find new people to fill the positions.
In doing this he developed the 3-3-3 strategy. He claimed that to ensure peace there should always be 3 from his faction, 3 from the Marxists and 3 from the Anarchists in the Central Committee. On top of this he changed the name of the United Cooperationists to the United Front.
Only Lassalle, Necazian and Liebknecht held the same positions they had before the election whilst Engels, Bakunin and Kropotkin (a man who only joined the Central Committee in December) changed roles. It was in the Central Committee more than anywhere else where the results of Engels’ bargaining during the Crisis were most apparent.
Kadon who had languished for so long in jail and recently escaped was not only pardoned of his crimes but made one of the most powerful figures in the Republic. Deciding against promoting someone from the officer core the Party placed the popular hero from the recent Crisis in the position of power over the military. This in effect made the role less powerful than it had been under Weydemeyer as Kadon became more of an overseer than a controller of the Red Army. Ironic that the self proclaimed pacifist so eagerly accepted the role. Now with nothing to really fight for it was hoped that the Anarchist militia and the Young Anarchist movement would simply wither away.
Although he had been on the Committee since December Kropotkin was anything but an established figure. The 23 year old was the prodigal leader of a new branch of the Anarchist faction known as the Anarcho-Communists. Kropotkin was already being touted as the next leader of the Anarchist faction as a whole. In the past the Anarchists had suffered from being rather vague and idealistic with little grounding of their ideas in reality (it is not so long ago that some Anarchists called for doctors to work in exchange for chickens). Kropotkin’s ideas were grounded firmly in reality, it was hoped that once Bakunin stepped down the youngster could lead the faction onwards. With Blanqui’s arrest it was decided that secret police and politics should not mix and Blanqui’s former position was abolished. Instead the Chair of the Comintern role was created. The Comintern, or First International, was the central body of Communist Parties the world over and represented the international ideals of most factions within the People’s Party. Not only was Kropotkin on the Central Committee he was also the effective leader of the body that guided the world’s other socialistic parties.
Left to Right August Bebel, Pablo Iglesias and Paul Lafargue
As the Marxist faction looked to rebuild itself it looked to the up and coming youth as three young whelps were promoted to powerful positions.
The new leader was to be August Bebel, a 25 year old and therefore the eldest of the new Marxists, a man committed to social reform, liberty, party democracy and the international revolution. He was the ideal Marxist for the new era.
Just 22 Pablo Iglesias had only arrived in the Republic in October 1864. After founding the Marxist organisation known as the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (a member of the Comintern) in 1862 Iglesias quickly got on the wrong side of the authorities for his revolutionary actions and was chased out of Spain. Like all exiled Leftists he quickly found himself in Cologne. However unlike the majority he did not languish in the first Socialist city on earth but instead threw himself into the People’s Party. Coming from an already respected background he quickly rose through the ranks and greatly benefitted from the self inflicted clearout of leaders implicated in the Crisis on 1865 (Engels granted an amnesty to all but the leaders in order to prevent the Marxists from being too badly damaged but the faction cleaned up itself regardless).
Finally Karl Marx’s son-in-law (married to Laura Marx), Paul Lafargue was made Commissar for Justice. Some might complain of nepotism on the part of Karl Marx but it must be noted that the great former Chairman had a thinly veiled loathing of his son-in-law. He once famously wrote to him ‘’if you are a Marxist then I am not’’.
Following the events of January Blanqui became public enemy number one. His public trial only lasted three days as the jury voted unanimously for his execution and on February 15th 1865 he was executed by firing squad, as was his last request. The man who had been more important than any other the Rhineland Revolution, had smashed the church, redistributed the wealth of the rich and pioneered the Republic’s expansion had now been killed by the very people he had tirelessly served for the past 17 years.
The AKVD was officially disbanded although charges were not pressed against its surviving members; the membership of the organisation had been badly eroded during the fighting anyway. In its place two new bodies were created, with much less power. Firstly for internal Affairs the Ministry Against Counter-Revolution (MGC) and for spreading the revolution across the world the International Revolutionary Organisation (IRO).
Over the course of the next couple of months the United Front phased in legislation that lifted all restrictions on the press. The media could now print whatever they wanted without the interference of the state, the Anarchist faction rejoiced as did many liberal Marxists and Socialists.
If people thought things were bad in the VSVR then they had clearly failed to look just over their Eastern border at what was happening in Prussia. Without a large market for its goods in Northern Germany and without the resources of Silesia Prussian industry collapsed. By the start of 1865 14% of the country was unemployed (with that rate closer to 35% in the cities). The Prussian Army was being downsized but was simply too officer heavy to function properly whilst the government of King Wilhelm I was crumbling. As is so often the case with governments in their last days the once proud Prussian government had descended into debauchery. Prostitutes were present at cabinet meetings; Ministers were rarely sober, huge quantities of alcohol, whores and narcotics swept across Berlin. The end was coming and everyone knew it.
At the start of March the German Communist League launched its revolution against the collapsing Prussian state. Despite heavy fighting the Prussian Army did win victory in Brandenburg over the revolutionaries. However in the East its forces were totally overwhelmed. With the VSVR still settling down from the troubles of recent months Engels delayed intervention in Prussia for months, which was until June 8th. On June 7th at the Battle of Thorn a Prussian Army of some 11,000 men was crushed by a semi-organised force of 9,000 Communists. This conclusively proved that the Republic need do little other than march into Prussia and the Kingdom would fall.
This was largely how things turned out. The ailing Prussian Army quickly wheeled about from the East to defend Brandenburg but was decisively beaten over the course of three moderately large engagements and totally wiped out.
Berlin was the last city in Brandenburg to fall, most due to its the fortifications that surrounded it. When it was captured in October a national holiday was proclaimed across the Republic. The very city that had acted as home to the oppressors of the Rhineland was now under the control of the people. It was true that the Red Army units that captured the city took some excesses – many captured Prussian aristocrats were killed on the spot whilst the symbols of Prussian Imperial might were shattered and looted. Even King Wilhelm I of Prussia was not spared – he was thrown to the crowd who tore him limb from limb, his battered corpse was subsequently put on display for all the proletarians of Brandenburg to spit upon.
The Republic’s invasion of Prussia was indeed a highly shocking event for Europe’s Monarchies and it is sometimes hard to understand why they did not intervene. The simple answer is geopolitics, national interest and mutual loathing. Russia was in no fit state for war with the VSVR in the first place (its industry might be strong but its army was naught but a husk) and was more concerned with the Austro-Ottoman alliance than with the VSVR. France might did not look at the Republic’s war with Prussia as a reason to intervene in Germany but as an opportunity to shift its forces southward to invade Spain – the Franco-Spanish War over Catalonia lasted almost exactly the same amount of time as the VSVR’s invasion of Prussia. Finally Austria-Hungary was the only major power to actually want to invade. However in recent years Austria-Hungary had started to fall behind Russia, France and even the VSVR and was thus unable to go to war without the support of either the Tsar of Russia or the King of France. Both those Monarchs viewed Austria-Hungary as just as much a threat to the balance of power as the VSVR and were unwilling to go to war.
Prussia would finally be annexed on May 14th 1866, France annexed Catalonia one week before.
At the same time as France’s war over Catalonia and the VSVR’s war over Prussia the Italian Peninsula was ablaze with the flames of war. The liberal revolutionary Garibaldi had been fighting a war in the Two Sicilies since 1864 but in February 1865 he finally captured Naples and in doing so secured the Kingdom. Rather than rest on his laurels he plunged into the Papal State and surrounded Rome. Unable to finally capture the city King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia-Piedmont arrived outside the city for tri-lateral talks with Garibaldi and the Pope. Victor Emmanuel had the support of the traditionally Habsburg Northern Italian Duchies whilst the Pope was unwilling to give up his realm to a Republic. Instead the 3 men agreed to a compromise – Italy would be united (as was Garibaldi’s primary wish) but under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel. Rome would be the capital but would have special status with the Pope effectively acting as the city’s mayor.
The Map of Europe had changed greatly.
Even as the VSVR government attempted to provide work for the 2.43 million new working men of the Republic the problem of urban unemployment blighted society. The industry of Prussia was in ruins. Even after the state re-opened the existing factories of Prussia barely 1/3 of craftsmen were able to find work. Instead the state invested almost obscene quantities in the reconstruction of the Prussian industrial base, the building of railroads, the recruitment of Prussian soldiers into the army and the general rejuvenation of the Eastern lands of the Republic. However large-scale unemployment persisted until September 1867.
In June 1867 the second socialist state on earth was born just to the North of the VSVR. In Denmark, much like in Prussia, the country had been violently convulsing in the last days of its Monarchy. Mass unemployment, an ailing military, huge public debt and chaos on the streets. Following a huge Anarchist riot in Copenhagen the King fled to neighbouring Sweden with most of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie effectively abandoning the Danish state to the proletariat. After seizing power the Danish revolutionaries sent a delegation to Cologne to ask for assistance in forming a Socialist Republic.
Denmark and the VSVR signed a military alliance and agreed to trade deals whilst advisors in all things from politics to economics to the military were sent to Denmark. The issue of the small but noticeable Danish colonial Empire was also dealt with. It was decided that the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland all constituted integral parts of the Danish nation and were thus left to be treated the same as Denmark proper however St Thomas was a different story. First and foremost slavery was made illegal, freeing 1/3 of the island’s population; the problem was the island could not simply be given to the former slaves as Danes constituted 2/3s of its population. At the same time there were fears that the Danes could oppress the freed Afro-Caribbean slaves. A special St Thomas Communal Government was formed in which both communities had a veto over all decisions made by a mixed Central Committee which was partially independent from Copenhagen.
Another major point of interest during this period was the growing system of alliances in Europe. In late 1868 Austria and the Ottoman Empire entered the Triple Alliance with Great Britain. Terrified Russia looked to the VSVR for an ally against the Austrians. The Tsarist ambassador sent to Cologne was effectively laughed out of the city and instead Russia signed the Entente with France. A military alliance aimed not only at the Triple Alliance but also at the VSVR – the Republic was becoming surrounded.
Around this time the Republic also founded the Red Navy – the first entirely steam powered combat fleet on earth.
In the dying days of 1869 glorious news arrived from the Orient as it became apparent that the people of Bhutan had thrown off the shackles of their Monarchy and formed a Communist Republic. When told about the news by Iglesias Engels responded by saying ‘’Bhutan? Where the devil is that?’’
Many people like to talk about Karl Marx’s economic miracle as he doubled industrial output in his first 5 years before tripling it in his second. In his first 5 years as Chairman Engels could match anything his friend had achieved as industrial output tripled once more. The VSVR had the fastest growing industrial sector on earth and its economy was the envy if the world. Arms, steel, cement, textiles, ships and alcohol were all specialities of the Republic’s ever growing working class.
Things has never been so good.