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A New Era (The End)
The Death of American Syndicalism and the Beginning of a New Era
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Combined Syndicates of America (1925-1941)
"Who gets the bird? The hunter or the dog?"- John. L. Lewis on his alliance and then rejection of the CSA.

The alliance of the unions with the syndicalist movements was an uneasy one. Many workers and union leaders were reluctant to join arms with a movement many Americans considered the enemy of the nation. The average Steel belt union worker knew little of the complex nature of socialist philosophy and cared even less to find out. However, the benefits of joining the powerful Combined Syndicates movement was too great for many union men and union bosses to turn down. The ideological commitment of the average worker was distressingly limited by the reckoning of the CSA leadership. While massive numbers of workers came out to listen to and were prepared to die for comrade Reed, very few factories actually operated according to syndicalist principles. The CSA never quite lived up to the ideal of the “One Big Union.” Nevertheless, syndicalist ideas did have some effects on the union base. The traditional union leadership discovered that, while the size of the unions and their power to make deals with businesses grew with the syndicalist movement, their power to maintain negotiated deals actually decreased. In order to successfully bargain with companies, unions must be able to force their members to uphold their side of any deal. Syndicalist ideas caused many workers to become hyper individualists who were unwilling to obey either company management, the old union leadership, or carefully crafted contracts. These troublesome syndicalists threatened the future of the hard-won contracts. More than a few union leaders decided that the syndicalists had outlived their usefulness. Many humiliated businesses decided to exploit the divisions and offered to improve the terms of the contracts if the unions dissociated from syndicalism.

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John L. Lewis was a brutally pragmatic and effective union leader of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW), and briefly president of the CIO and associate member of the CSA. Personally a liberal and not a socialist, Lewis was prepared to do anything it took to improve the well-being of his union workers as long he was in control of the unions. He backstabbed and changed his alliances and allies like he changed his socks. Lewis allied with Reed and the CSA when he saw their power in government and abandoned the CSA when syndicalism became a liability and a threat to his personal control over the CIO. Ironically before associating with the CSA himself, Lewis had fought off an attempt by William Z. Foster to seize control of the UMW for the CSA and syndicalism. Reed denounced Lewis as "a selfish and principleless traitor who cares only for his personal rule of his unions as his own petty fiefdom." That opinion of Lewis was common well beyond the syndicalist movement. After 1937, Lewis supported Curtis and the Fair Deal. However, the isolationist union leader broke with Quentin Roosevelt over Roosevelt's more interventionist policy toward the Third Internationale. Lewis was forced to leave the pro-Roosevelt CIO over this. Lewis led strikes against the Lend-Lease program and the active war effort to the outrage of the President and 87% of the American public according to polling. Roosevelt punished Lewis and the UMW by seizing the mines they worked at for the war effort. Backlash against Lewis's dictatorial control over his unions eventually caused bi-partisan laws to be passed to undo the centralization of power in union leadership after the fall of American syndicalism and to redemocratize the unions but not to the degree of syndicalism. Lewis retired after these laws passed but his devoted followers still praise Lewis's oratory skills and his undeniable effectiveness in winning contracts for union workers.

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Walter Reuther was a powerful leader and eventual president of the UAW. He seemed unlikely to be the man to purge the UAW and the larger CIO of the syndicalists and communists. Reuther was born into a socialist family and considered himself a strong socialist during the 1937 New Years General Strike. He have been hospitalized after being badly beaten by one of Henry Ford's thugs and was involved in the battle of the Overpass. He had also visited the Commune of France in 1933 and was greatly impressed. However after the signing of the contract with GM, Reuther saw that the syndicalist unions were inefficient, undisciplined, and broke hard-won contracts with the capitalist business owners. Reuther approved of Reed's deal with the federal government and realized quickly that violent revolution was not coming. Reuther knew the unions would have work with the capitalist system and the syndicalists were making that impossible so the syndicalists had to go. He was impressed by the Fair Deal efforts and joined the Republican party. During WW2, the UAW did not strike against the war effort. Despite his abandonment of the CSA, Reuther did keep some of the core values of the syndicalist movement. He strengthened the control of the union leadership over the workers, but he also rejected the autocratic style of Lewis and of the totalists. He wanted and fought for unions to have a direct say in the running and management of companies. The balance between too much workplace democracy and too little workplace democracy was a constant concern of Reuther and unions in America today. Reuther also remained faithful to the ideals of racial and gender equality of the CSA unlike many others. Reuther and the UAW strongly supported the Civil Rights Movement and were important allies of Martin Luther King Jr.

The CIO which had broken from the AFL to ally with the Combined Syndicates now decided to withdraw from the CSA and expel the troublesome syndicalists controlling the work floor to reassert the authority of the union leadership over their workers. Walter Reuther of the UAW declared that “We must demonstrate that we are a disciplined, responsible organization; we not only have power but that we have power under control.” The withdrawal of the CIO inspired many other unions to do the same. The defecting unions joined the cause of the informal Fair Deal coalition and the Republican party. The defection of the unions was a blow that which the CSA would never recover from. The defections made a mockery of the ideals of syndicalism and revealed how hollow the commitment of the average American union man to the cause of revolution was. The reforms needed to prevent a second civil war in America proved rather mild by modern standards and disappointingly mild by the standards of the Third Internationale. The CSA was reduced to its political wing which was mostly the old social democratic wing. The appeal of the CSA social democrats was undermined by the strength and popularity of the progressive wing of the Republican party. The rump CSA limped on to the presidential election of 1940. Concerns that the CSA would act as a left-wing spoiler for Quentin Roosevelt that would allow the conservative John Nance Garner to win the White House ended when the sickly Reed died from poor health barely a month before election day. The aggression of the Internationale in 1940 during the Second World War further undermined the appeal of socialism. After the death of Reed, the CSA collapsed completely and dissolved shortly after the election. Never again would violent socialist revolutionaries seriously threaten the existence of the United States.
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The death of Reed and the election of Quentin Roosevelt is generally considered the final end of the "Great Crisis Era" and the start of America's return to world affairs.

With the America First Union discredited and the CSA appeased for the moment, Curtis managed to get the Fair Deal passed through Congress without too much trouble. The political crisis was over but there were still millions of Americans without jobs and a stable income. The political divides still had to be healed. The administration had to win over the unconvinced Americans and to ensure the reforms were effectively carried out. The popular Roosevelt prepared a massive tour of America to sell the benefits of the Fair Deal on the behalf of Curtis. The President was determined to use this chance for long lasting reform to ensure the Depression and the resulting political crisis never happened again. Already, a new party system was starting to form. The progressive wing of the Republicans dominated and remade the party while the Democrats increasingly became the conservative American’s party, although the familiar system of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats did not solidify until the mid-1960s.

Meanwhile, the world was still a dangerous place for the weakened institution of liberal democracy. The fact that democracy managed to save itself in the United States did not undo the damage done to it by the First World War and the various socialist revolutions. Political analysts of the left and right continued to decry the weakness of the liberal and capitalist democratic tradition. They continued to proclaim democracy was doomed to be crushed by the tide of revolution and the hand of despotic emperors. Events seemed to prove them right as one democracy after another collapsed overseas throughout the 1930s. While most Americans in 1937 believed that the problems overseas were not their problems, they could not help but worry. The Sleeping Giant slumbered on after taking a new set of medicine, but not contently in its sleep. But that is another chapter of American history for another time.

With our growing prosperity, it is tempting to ignore the growing darkness beyond our shores. The dreadful forces of left-wing and right-wing radicalism seem to be the problem of other nations. It is tempting to forget that only half a decade ago that those very forces wreaking havoc across the world today nearly plunged our nation into calamity. Those forces still plot to take away the liberties we hold most dear. We must not play the part of old Imperial China sitting contently behind our wealth and oceans while hostile forces continue to grow until the day we find ourselves weak and our freedoms gone. If our brothers are oppressed, then we are oppressed. If they hunger, we hunger. If their freedoms are taken away, our freedoms are not safe. If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world and know when the freedom of others is secure, our own freedoms are secured. We do not seek needless conflict but we must and will defend ourselves and our cherished values at any expense.” -President Quentin Roosevelt (1942 State of the Union address).

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THE END
 
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That's the end of the main story although I might find the time to make little stories in my world. Please leave responses.

Note: The reason that I will not cover the actual war because the RNG of Kaiserreich created a war whose broad outline is quite similar to our own world which is both deeply interesting and boring as the same time. It is as if by preventing the Second American Civil War, the OTL was partly restored. I will mostly leave the war to your imagination. I also lack the time to do so, Thank you all.

This post may be edited more later.
 
Well thank you for taking us through the avoidance of the American Civil War. A shame it has ended so swiftly, but I quite understand.
 
thank you for your story!
 
Thank you for an interesting and complete tale.

On your earlier question:
Question to the audience! If Reed successfully deals with Curtis and avoids starting the Second American Revolution, is Reed a traitor to socialism and the revolution and a cowardly sellout to the capitalists or a hero who greatly advanced the cause of the working class man in America without needless violence?

Reed certainly improved the lot of U.S. workers and avoided violence which would have decimated said workers. He did not stubbornly adhere to an ideology when that would have led to unnecessary death and destruction. Pragmatism won the day and thankfully so.
 
That was a great story - really well done! Tell me, what do you think the future elections on the non-executive levels would look like on the political spectrum for the US?
 
Thanks for doing this story, it was a really enjoyable read! :)