In 1932 President Hoover had General Douglas MacArthur, Chief of the Army, use cavalry, teargas, and arson to disband the Bonus Army protesters - veterans demanding economic relief for America.

In 1932 FDR was elected and in '33 he enacted his New Deal, dividing the country into New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition forces. His policies, including the abandonment of the Gold Standard, caused great panic among reactionary business leaders, military officers, and politicians - who created a conspiracy called the Business Plot in our history.

In 1934, as the New Deal had made unionizing easier - outpacing the class-collaborationist AFL with more militant men on the ground - a series of radical strikes were victorious in the ports of the West Coast, the city of Toledo, and the city of Minneapolis. Inspired by these actions, the men who would in real life form the CIO instead form the national movement of unskilled laborers called the American Workers Union.

The strikes and mass movement, coinciding with the American Legion's Business Plot-backed march on Washington, caused the panicked Plotters to approach MacArthur directly and ask his assistance in the coup. He agreed, taking the plot over more or less. However as his forces moved against the White House instead of the Legion marchers, the Secretary of State escaped Washington D.C. to organize the Loyalist government against MacArthur and his backers.
Thus beginning a Civil War.

Federal
- President Cordell Hull, FDR's Secretary of State and the legitimate presidential successor.
- Presidential Council (executive branch, the President's advisers - mostly inherited from FDR's diverse range of consultants, advocates, and experts that helped shape the New Deal)
- United Council of the Republic (legislative branch, delegates sent by the State Loyalist Councils)
- Council of War (a general staff formed from staff generals, mostly fossilized Great War career men with nowhere else to go who had been shunted to the Army Corp Area commands, which suffered greatly for manpower during the Wilson Administration)
State
- State Loyalist Councils (formed from Loyalist Governors, state legislatures, state military departments, state economic recovery boards set up during the New Deal, and/or state Democratic or Republican parties if they had a Loyalist - which would usually mean New Deal Coalition - leadership)
Local
- Coordinating Committees (formed by counties/cities out of county political parties, mayoral offices, city councils, county supervisory boards, trade union locals, sheriff's departments, and/or community groups)

- The Council of War (which is made up of Councilmen and a Chairman) are the senior staff of the Loyalist Army, with President Hull as Commander-in-Chief. They relay orders to the Official Commands (organizational divisions of forces in the field), which are under Field Commanders who in turn have Generals with their own staffs and subordinate officers under themselves.
- The Council of War also commands the irregular ("warlord") forces aligned with the Loyalist cause, in theory anyway; relaying orders to the Warchiefs sitting on State Loyalist Councils heading National Guard/militia/partisan forces. Warchiefs of multiple States are formed into Interior Commands, with one named HighChief. Each WarChief relies less on his personal staff and more on the officers leading the men, often elected or accompanied by agitants elected by soldier councils; due to the lack of discipline among men.

- Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur is the autocrat in charge of the 1st Command Area, a large region concentrated on ruling from D.C; and overall leader of the National Army.
- His General Staff coordinates with the Generals running the other Command Areas, who exist by the grace of MacArthur but otherwise operate with great autonomy and full authority over their regions superceding civilian government.
- Operating independently but inferior to the General Staff, handling whatever areas of the war effort and civilian affairs MacArthur has not deigned to comment on at the moment, are the National Recovery Administration and the Presidential Advisory Board - the first was a New Deal institution that mistakenly helped industry giants form monopolies in exchange for doing their patriotic duty to the nation - the second was put into place to legitimize the coup, with the Board ruling over a prone FDR, appointing a new Vice President and line of successors in his name, before the polio finally took him. Both are headed by the industrialists and Conservative Coalition politicians that, along with reactionary military officers and American Legion veterans leaders, invited MacArthur to stage the coup.
- At the bottom rung are the Nationalist Governors, who either declared or were appointed in lieu of actual Nationalist governors for those states, with the puppet President acting as the liason between them and the NRA/PAB.

>>16087095

- Nationalist activities in a given area are ultimately either on orders of the Nationalist Governor or of the Nationalist General running that Command Area. Both make good use of Nationalist dominated branches of the two major political parties, Nationalist leaning local governments or police forces, and Nationalist community groups such as the Liberty Committees formed by the anti-New-Deal Liberty League.
- The National Army is assisted by the Legion - the union of fascist vigilante organizations such as the American Legion, the Silver Shirts, and German American Bund. Their fascist demagogue leaders are the Grand Council of Fascists, which share's the level of influence of the NRA and the PAB.

Warlord Armies:
Are formed in much the same way as the forces of HighChiefs or Warchiefs on the Loyalist Side if they lack the discipline of the regular army; or, if they are essentially a cohesive renegade segment of the Regular Army, much like the autocratic Generals who rule absolutely from their personal staffs in the National Army.


Communist Insurgencies:
Worker Councils sprung up during the '34 Strikes and exploded during the Coup; they operate as open political groups in some areas, clandestine societies in others, and open ruling governments or armed resistance forces where they can.

The main communists insurgencies are the Workers Union of America (a nation-wide resistance movement led by the United Mine Workers of John L. Lewis and the other industrial/unskilled unions led by Sidney Hillman), the Toledo Commune (with the American Workers Party as their political arm), the Minneapolis Commune (with the trotskyist Communist League of America as their political arm), or the WestCoast Syndicates (with both the syndicalist IWW and the Soviet-backed Communist Party running interference for them).

Cordell Hull: Longtime Tennesee congressman and three years a senator when President Roosevelt appointed him Secretary of State, Hull was a moderate member of the New Deal Coalition. During the Civil War, however, the acting President's fierce patriotism served him well; and he was famed for the pressure he put on foreign allies to act (and the extents to which he would reprimand them when he felt they were attempting to damage the sovereignty of the nation or the well-being of its citizens).

Dwight Eisenhower: Like Patton, Eisenhower had been one of MacArthur's top aides during the nasty affair of the Bonus Army march in '32. Unlike Patton, Eisenhower had left the experience disgusted with MacArthur and sympathetic to the presidential platform of Franklin Roosevelt. Through demonstrations of strategic skill and leadership, Eisenhower convinced President Hull to give him an Official Command as a Loyalist general; despite his youth and lack of experience leading combat troops.

Smedley Butler: A Republican before watching what Hoover and MacArthur did to his friends in the Bonus Army, the once straight-laced but always controversial retired Marine corps Brigadier General Butler grew increasingly agitated and by thirty three was denouncing capitalism and imperialism. That year he won an off-year election for a vacant senate seat in Pennsylvania as an Independent. By the Putsch in '34; Senator Butler was well placed to turn Pennsylvania, an important state for both fascists and leftists, into a grinding battle-ground. The fighting between Butler's "Bonus Army" of Guardsmen, reserves, and out of state veteran volunteers against the Legion's largest field command became legendary for the rapidly accelerating violence and rhetoric that acted to radicalized ordinary supporters on both sides of the war.

Douglas MacArthur: Supreme Commander of the United States Nationalist government, the former Chief of Staff of the Army was the real leader of the Nationalist side during the Civil War; the man behind the men behind the puppet Nationalist presidents that came and went during the conflict. MacArthur ran the nation with no objectives in mind other than winning the war, leaving the details of returning to the gold standard and repairing finances to his friends and associates in the business and political world.

Robert A. Taft: Leader of the Conservative Coalition before the Putsch. Despite not being a clued in member of the Business Plot prior to the coup; Taft manuevered himself out of the increasingly powerless Senate and into the National Recovery Administration - which had been taken over by captains of industry and turned into a tool of corporatist policy. A proponent of the use of terror against workers unrest, Taft none the less was famed for the efficiency and diligence by which he orchestrated Nationalist economic policy. The man was also noted for his personal feud with Warren Grimm; often over Taft's close relationship with MacArthur and Grimm's growing power within the Nationalist camp.

>>16087125

George S. Patton: The ur-example of why MacArthur let his generals run their theaters mostly autonomously, like his superior Patton had a massive ego and excelled in the field with very little supervision to constrain him. The colorful uniforms and Roman style military ranks used in Patton's army captured the attention of the foreign press, as did the generals attempts to win over the British to the Nationalist side through ill-advised and unsolicited speeches and declarations.

Warren Grimm: Commander of the Legion and National Leader of the Grand Council of Fascists, Grimm survived a Wobblie bullet to the gut in 1919 and spent the rest of his life building up the American Legion (which later merged into The Legion with other fascist groups in '34 on the advice of Hitler) into a fascist organization with which to destroy all traces of bolshevikism, communism, and socialism in America.

With the Pershing Declaration ("The US Army does not fight its own") the regular forces, the small - cut in the 1920's and poorly divided into Army Corps Regions - husk of the US armed forces, have ceased major operations against each other - focusing on garrison and anti-partisan details - which in fact means engaging the Interior Forces of Loyalist Warchiefs (if Nationalist) or Nationalist state guard and militias rolled under the command of one of MacArthur's imperious generals and staff officers (if Loyalist); not to mention independent Warlord Armies - I mean Interior Commands (as in "I'm just here to protect the US from foreign invaders" being the legitimizing excuse), Communists, bandits, and foreign powers.

Who are all fighting each other as well.

In every State within the Union there are competing Loyalist and Nationalist governments fighting for control and for the hearts and minds of the people. A rebel movement can be as small as a county committee or a town council; or it can stretch across states led by a mighty WarChief.

While both governments in theory are directing the war effort from nation-wide federal planning, in reality their federal authority is stretched to decentralized commanders - commanders who either must act imperiously and requisition supplies and levy their own taxes in a region, or must deal with non-federal local committees formed by those sympathetic to their cause, which is a hassle in of itself.

>>16087152

This creates a geopolitical situation similar to the Warlord Period in China at this time, with areas under autocratic generals or military governors levying extreme taxes to fund their operations in lieu of reliable support from the central government they are answering to, if any.

The nation is fragmented and at war, with borders constantly changing. It is a golden opportunity for smugglers, bandits, mercenaries, adventurers, and meddling foreign powers.

And, all of these find it easier to hire on the ground - even the people who had just been shooting them - rather than continually resupply fresh blood.

Which is fine dandy for PC types.

ARMY CORPS AREAS

"A Corps area was a United States Army geographically-based organizational structure used to accomplish domestic administrative, training and tactical tasks from 1920 to 1942. Each corps area consisted of divisions of the Regular Army, Army Reserve and National Guard of the United States. Developed as a result of serious mobilization problems during World War I, this organizational scheme provided a framework to rapidly expand the Army in time of war or national emergency such as the Great Depression"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_area

Bump for interest

>>16087171


During the early days of the '34 Putsch, Loyalists to the presidential successor (former Secretary of State) Cordell Hull and Nationalists joining Supreme Commander MacArthur (former Chief of the Army) in military revolt against FDR and the New Deal's "push towards Bolshevikism" fought it out on military bases and corps headquarters across the nation. It can be assumed that generally speaking the Loyalists and Nationalists attempt to mirror the pre-split nine Army Corps Areas. With actual US Army Divisions being cut from 1 to every Corps Areas to only 3 total during the 1920's budget cuts, after the split this means you have small regular army forces attempting to control very large multi-state corps regions and attempt to maintain control of the National Guard, Reserve, and militia divisions that make up the bulk of Loyalist and Nationalist forces.

The Loyalists and the British have not been able to trust each other enough to actually fight hip to hip, even though the UK recognizes the legitimate continuation of government through Cordell Hull. This means that the Loyalists are not actually benefiting from British military advisers directly.

>>16087185

Similarly, MacArthur doesn't trust German and Italian advisers in "his" army, and they are instead focusing on making the openly fascist Legion paramilitaries as powerful and well organized/supplied as possible - with hopes of the fascists gaining power over the military men and entrenched conservatives/business leaders in the Nationalist government.

Both sides benefit from lend-lease/the donation of military and industrial equipment from the British and Germans respectively, and both are supported by air corps from their respective benefactors.

The Loyalists benefit from the naval superiority of the British, indirectly; and the Nationalists benefit from the greater number of skilled military men that are training their paramilitaries into a terrifying occupation/anti-partisan force; as opposed to the British who have a much smaller pool of soldiers and have the Japanese and Indian revolt to worry about.

>>16087195

First Corps Area replaced the Northeastern Department and was headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, encompassing Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and Connecticut.

Second Corps Area replaced the Eastern Department, headquartered at Fort Jay on Governors Island in New York City and encompassed New York, New Jersey, Delaware and at various times, Puerto Rico.

Third Corps Area headquartered at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland and included Pennsylvania, Maryland, District of Columbia and Virginia. From 1921 to 1927, Washington, D.C. was withdrawn from III Corps Area and established as the District of Washington.

Fourth Corps Area, headquartered at Fort McPherson in Atlanta Georgia, encompassed the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Fifth Corps Area was variously headquartered at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana and Fort Hays at Columbus, Ohio and encompassed Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.

>>16087208

Sixth Corps Area was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, then Fort Sheridan, Illinois and covered the states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois.

Seventh Corps Area was headquartered at Fort Crook in Omaha, Nebraska and included Arkansas, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.

Eighth Corps Area, variously headquartered in Dallas and Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio Texas, replaced the Southern Department and included Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

Ninth Corps Area, headquartered at the Presidio of San Francisco, California, replaced the Western Department and included Alaska, Idaho, Montana, California, Wyoming, Washington, Utah, Nevada and Oregon.

COMMUNIST INSURGENCIES

"While the bureaucratic leadership of the AFL was unable to win strikes, three victorious strikes suddenly exploded onto the scene in 1934. These were the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 the leadership of which included some members of the Trotskyist Communist League of America, the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike the leadership of which included some members of the Communist Party USA, and the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party. Victorious industrial unions with militant leaderships were the catalyst that brought about the rise of the CIO."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Industrial_Organizations

1. West Coast Syndicates (and crossborder agitation with Canadian left and trade union groups)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_West_Coast_Longshore_Strike

2. American Workers Union (Rockies)

3. Minneapolis Commune (and crossborder agitation with Canadian left and trade union groups)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Teamsters_Strike_of_1934

4. Toledo Commune (and crossborder agitation with Canadian left and trade union groups)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_Auto-Lite_strike

5. American Workers Union (Appalachians)

The West Coast Syndicates have been bolstered with Soviet military advisers, while the inland Communes and AWU areas of open workers-committee governance can be assumed to be receiving arms and funding through their political party affiliates and other political and logistical front organizations operating outside of the U.S. to support the revolution.

Stranger sources of funding existed as well; with Trotsky organizing funds and arms deals for the Communist League of the Minneapolis Commune's operations in the Midwest; and syndicalist supporters across the Pacific Rim (notably Australia, whose veterans of the failed One Big Union had helped inspire the West Coast strikes) joining their comrades in the Westcoast Syndicates.

FOREIGN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES

1. Canadian Militia (Midwest, expeditionary force to root out cross-border communist agitators and assist the Loyalist Government against the Nationalist rebels)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Canadian_Army#Otter_Committee

2. United Kingdom (New York islands, securing it as a neutral city to facilitate American trade)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_Army#Inter-War_period_.281919-1939.29

3. United Kingdom (Pacific Northwest, securing the safety of Vancouver - now the only North American Pacific port North of Mexico not under communist control)

4. United Kingdom (Norfolk naval operations area, from which they disastrously attempted to repeat the War of 1812 and force Supreme Commander MacArthur out of D.C., their amphibious invasion force having been burned out of the shores of the Potomac by the Nationalist forces)

So what are the "specs" of the factions?

Who is highly trained, who isn't? Who tries a combined forces attack, and who goes for meat grinders? Stealth? Brute force? Artillery? Tanks? etc?

CIVIL WAR IN MEXICO

Socialist "Constitutionales" (headquartered in Mexico City) fighting clericalist "Christeros" (headquartered in Guadalajara)

Insurgent activity by Zapateros (Indians and a anarchists) in the Southern provinces

Bandit, smuggler, and mercenary gangs running the unstable borders from Guatemala, through Mexico, into the U.S.


FOREIGN MILITARY ADVISERS:

Soviet funds, arms, and "advisors" (read: pilots, tank operators, infantry officers, and skilled industrial/scientific personnel) in the West Coast Syndicates

Soviet funds and arms sent to other Communist groups by way of political and other front organizations

German and Italian funds, arms, and advisers/instructors within the Grand Council of Fascists, assisting the Legion paramilitary force on the Nationalist side (note: if things continue as they are, Germany will be able to speed up the rearming process and the Fascists will gain more power in the Nationalist government, allowing more large-scale donations of German equipment to the Nationalist army as a whole and the assistance of more German personnel)

Question:

With all of this escalation and such, did Prohibition ever get repealed?

>>16087238
> specs for the factions

The Regular Army of this time was in a sorry state, divided into Corps Areas and hopelessly subdivided from there into tiny commands of a battalion size.

Furthermore the 1920's budget cuts, with conservatism being highly isolationist in this era, resulted in the Corps Areas from having 1 Regular Army division to stiffen up reservists/guard in each (9 total) to only 3 Regular divisions altogether.

The Loyalist Army and the Nationalist Army both come from this same pool of personnel, officers, and equipment; so there is parity there.

In terms of war leadership; MacArthur and his generals can be assumed to function like the Redcoats of the British Army during the Revolution, in that they rarely lose a decisive battle against a regular force fighting them in the conventional way. However their numbers are simply too small to hold or successfully contain National Guardsmen stiffening up irregular partisans.

The Loyalists have to retreat from most battles with a big area-commanding Nationalist general/military governor, but they are well prepared and supported to follow Washington's fabian strategy. Furthermore they can still kick sub-commanders in the teeth and fight competitively, which means a lot considering the areas of operation of so big you are only going to encounter the badass Nationalist generalissimo of the Corps Area once in a while.

The Loyalist advantage in partisans is, unfortunately, being worryingly countered by the increasingly terrifying reputation of the Legion - who are receiving training and specialists in partisan-suppression from Germany and Italy.

>>16087292

The only one who has beaten a British force of comparable size in open combat is MacArthur, otherwise I'm operating under the assumption that the British are well armed and well trained but very small in number; considering they are saving the bulk of the British Army for the Pacific - the Japanese are getting restless - and can only do so much with their Navy while simultaneously maintaining a spotty blockade to prevent Soviet and Fascist supply running, and maintaining global shipping lanes for everyone who isn't a Soviet or a Nazi. Without America, the British are the top dog of the free world, and are showing the strain.

>>16087254

FDR repealed it in 33, as per our timeline. Having Southern counties under Loyalist, Nationalist, neutral, or KKK warlord control be, perhaps murderously, dry could be cool - and bootlegging in a warzone could be a fun set up for an adventuring party. So good inspiration there.

>>16087238
>more specs

The Syndicalists are the best positioned, controlling West Coast ports, to be receiving arms, trainers, and actual assistance such as planes+pilots and tanks+crews from the Soviets.

The rest of the communists world are in for grinding guerrilla warfare and stealth. Minneapolis and Toledo are the exceptions, most of the American Workers Union guerrilla-controlled areas, mining towns in the mountains were workers councils openly run things, stash their guns/hide men in the hills/pretend to be normal neutrals or supporters when army patrols run through.

The main advantage the Communes have are mastery of the land and overwhelming popular support in surrounding interstate areas, fighting in the hillsides to protect the city.

The main advantage of the AWU's tentative mining soviets in the mountains when no one with bigger guns is riding through is through the AWU's covert workers council affiliates in the cities.

The equivalent of the CIO in our history, the urban/covert component of the AWU is made up of textile, garment, typographer, and other unions of men, women, and children in urban areas unsuited for guerrilla warfare but very very suited towards spying, political agitation, fundraising, and industrial sabotage.

Being a credible national movement with a great intelligence network makes the AWU competitive with the much more strategically positioned Westcoast Syndicates; whereas the two Communes are mainly colorful distractions that probably won't last long and will fall in big heroic/tragic/triumphant/what have you sequences that PC's can be part of.

A note: Warren Grimm was a real guy who died in 1919. A Great War vet who had also fought the Reds in Siberia with the American intervention mission there, he was the leading charger of the American Legion men who were allegedly charging the Centralia Pennsylvania Wobblie Hall, a year after destroying the previous hall under similar circumstances during another parade.

So shaken the local IWW was over that previous incident, a Great War vet of their own opened fire during the 1919 incident - killing four men total and being chased down and giving quite a fight before being beaten, castrated, thrice-hung, and then shot to pieces; in what was officially a "suicide".

I propose here that, even if he really wasn't the bad guy in 1919 that I'm guessing he probably was, getting a Wobblie bullet to the gut and surviving could turn Grimm into America's own Hitler - a guy of low military rank active in organizing fascistic anti-left veterans paramilitary groups.

>>16087228
>The West Coast Syndicates have been bolstered with Soviet military advisers
>Bolsheviks helping Anarchists
>Anarchists accepting help from Blosheviks

What the fuck am I reading?!

>>16087411

The Syndicates are the only major insurgency in the U.S. where the CPUSA have a hold; the Communist Party being present in the Longshore strike in real life.

The IWW was also present, however.

Think of it this way: every Soviet weapon that goes into the Syndicates increases the power of the CPUSA faction, and gives them more weapons than those who follow the Wobblies on the Albion Central Committee.

Other than that, Syndicate might as well be the word Soviet in terms of how deep organizational differences between syndicate and council communism are in a warzone one year after the start of control.

>>16087411

Here is the longer write up for the Syndicates I left out this time:

The longshoremen of San Francisco initiated a general strike throughout the city, shutting San Fran down and sparking the ad hoc unionization and repeat of their tactics in all of the ports of the West Coast. The communist maritime workers union, and the syndicalist one before that, had been made irrelevant as the New Deal allowed sailors and dockworkers to unionize at will and naturally most end up joining the federally favored AFL affiliated conservative class-collaborationist unions. But the wildcat strike by longshoremen in San Francisco, cutting their national leadership out of leadership entirely and establishing their own coordinating committee, allowed Communist Party and IWW activists a free hand helping to organize union and non-union sailors across the West Coast into sparking general strikes, shutting down those cities. The resulting central committee (Albion Hall) in San Francisco accordingly had leaders ranging from respected on-the-ground grassroots leaders from the mainstream unions, popular leaders from non-unionized sailors who were particularly effective in leading strikes and defensive actions against the police and companies, and the activists from the communist CPUSA and syndicalist IWW that were invaluable in creating a logistical division from scratch in lieu of support from the national-level union bureaucracies.

>>16087254
Only in one of the factions

>>16087411

Essentially, with Commies and Syndies on the same side - for now - I used the facts of the actual strike to set up a situation similar to the Republican side in Civil War Spain.

I hope that it stretches your suspension of disbelief less now.

>>16087428
You ever read a piece on the Spanish Civil War or the Russian Revolution? Communists and anarchists would rather outright kill eachother than sending over some shiny new tanks. The only way to justify giving Russian Weapons to Anarchists would be if the CPUSA gets ten times the amount. Maybe the Anarchists/Communists in the US were different from their European counterparts, but this scenario seems very implausible.

>>16087481

Actually, in the South and Plains states, State Loyalist Councils/Nationalist Governors, probably are oftentimes resurrecting it; not to mention the Coordinating Committee or voluntary counterpart in the more centralized Nationalist System (Liberty Committees, Elks/Lions/Rotarians, and other nationalist community groups not having the same level of official power as CC's do for the Loyalists) probably have brought back prohibition in many cases.

>>16087491

In Spain, the Communist faction got support.

Here, the Communist faction is getting support.

I don't understand how you think this situation is different than Spain, care to explain?

France is neutral ? Sounds unlikely.

>>16087515

To elaborate, Toledo are socialists; Minneapolis are Trotskyists; the AWU are just radical trade unionists/syndicalists/whatever.

The only place with the CPUSA partially in charge of armed, held lefty territories are the West Coast Syndicates; where they have roughly 1/3rd of the leadership positions, the IWW has roughly 1/3, and trade unionists/previously non-unionized sailor war leaders/elected officers have another 1/3. Roughly.

And that's on the outset in '34.

So it makes perfect sense where I'm coming from that the Soviets would attempt to bring the Westcoast fully into the fold, by giving money and guns to the Communist leaders with in it; so that they can become the core cadres of the military there and push the anarchists out of leadership positions.

That's the way it happened in Spain, was it not?

>>16087531

Not neutral; France is screaming for Britain to focus on helping them keep Germany from continuing to rearm.

I'm just having trouble imagining the French sending troops out in 35, with Hitler in power and Germany rearming.

>>16087561
In 35 the german army, though it is rearming, isn't near the level of the french one. They could spare troops, but most of all they could spare guns, tanks, planes, and maybe their navy.

>>16087515
You are stating that the Syndicats (Anarchist) are getting help from the Soviet Union. During the Spanish Civil War both sides actively denied eachother supplies and weapons and almost fought a full blown war within the war when some random policemen seized an Anarchist compount.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_May_Days
You should also acknowledge that the Spanish Communists were completely irrelevant in public life before 1936 but as the war progressed the more influential they got thanks to Stalin's material support of the Republic. The same development should happen in your scenario if there is no strong reason that it shouldn't.

>>16087611

I'm aware of that. Everything you say still seems to be what I'm doing here with the Syndicates. Are you trying to refer to greater geographic distance between the Stalin supported communists in the Republic and the Anarchists? That if the Anarchists were stronger outside of Catalonia that Stalin wouldn't have risked giving material support to the Republic in hopes of raising up communist influence there, out of worries that it would be redirected towards the Anarchists?

>>16087586

You convinced me. And to prevent it from being a foreign soldiers clusterfuck, the British can be bogged down trying to un-nationalize some of those Royal Dutch Shell oilfields that the Mexicans nationalized in...33? 34? I'm trying to remember.

>>16087586
In 1935 France had a conservative government. Remember that the conservatives prevented any French intervention in Spain during the civil war. Intervention in the US? Extremely unlike would be an understatement.

>>16087668

My understanding of French Politics:
- Conservatives: REVANCHE! We will have revenge on Germany!
- Lefties: ISOLATIONISM
- Far-Right Leagues: LET'S JOIN THE FASCIST POWERS

How close am I?

>>16087647
Well, if that's the case, ok. Maybe I got confused by the 'Syndicate' label.

>>16087611

Listen guy, I can change the name of the Westcoast faction, as I'm obviously overplaying the Wobblie influence here, the CPUSA influence was greater in real life.

That's why I have this thread, to get commentary and advice.

>>16087727

I guess each West Coast port could be its own Soviet, alltogether in a union of Soviets..

I just wanted a English word. Council Republics is a bit unwieldy, and these are mostly non-union sailors who were inspired by the union longshoremen, so something snappy is called for.

>>16087611
One of the things to consider is that in 34 Stalin begins to understand that the isolationism he imposed on the KPD during the rise of the nazis was an error : the power of the nazis, which he expected to crumble rapidly, actually increases.
That's why starting then, he encourages the formation of alliances with the socialists against the fascist movements in the streets, and against the traditional right in the assemblies.
Seeing a fascist putsch in a major power of the time might push him to support the opposition more frankly than he did in Spain.

>>16087772

Yeah but in a new setting there's no reason to make things more complicated/require more explaining than necessary. I'm plenty willing to change minor details that let this flow better.

>>16087717
its a bit more difficult since even the left was split on the issue of intervention. France was isolationist during this time because noone could get enough support for any decision about anything...

>>16087668
In 34 they had a national union government, because of an aborted coup by some far-right organizations. >>16087717
Actually the conservatives had no desire for REVANCHE, since they won the last war. The reparations thing didn't go as well as planned, but that was accepted as a lost cause in 24.
They also had the support of a lot of veterans that didn't really like the idea of a new war with germany.
Lefties weren't isolationists, but their foreign policy depended strongly from the british one.

>this entire thread

My God, this is awesome.

Sweet.

Would there be an analogue to the Condor Legion of in this setting?

>>16087907

Ah. Ok. On a side note, I always liked the distinction of the Croix de Feur, hawkish anti-German non-fascist rightists, from the other far rightists.

La Roch was considered questionable by other Resistance members, but did end up getting considered officially a resistance member and not a collaborateur after the war; if I recall.

And that whole situation was a mess, with the liberals (Radicals?) and the Communists operating in the Vichy State with official permission, and only the Christian Democrats and the SFCIO being wholly resistance.

>>16088000

Definitely German and British air support that the Americans lack.

In terms of men on the ground however, the British have a few solo intervention areas but cannot afford to spare tons of men and the Loyalists don't want to put their men under British Control and the brits won't put their men under Loyalist control.

As for der Leader and il Duce (pictured), I figure with their limited capacities in 35 and MacArthur being MacArthur, that they're primarily sending guns, trainers, and money to the explicitly fascist faction of the Nationalists; the Grand Council of Fascists (which is just the political leadershi pf the Legion paramilitary organization). With training from the best torturers and sadists around, the Legion are turning into a real nightmare of an anti-partisan/secret police force; and Leader Grimm's star is on the rise.

The Business Plot never fucking happened. I don't mean it never got off the ground, I mean General Smedley Butler most likely made the whole damn thing up.

Also, we need to come up with names for the two different genres we call alt history. One for the genre we're people explore the logical progression of events in history happening differently than they did OTL, and one for shoehorning historical events into other places, times, and cultures. I'm thinking Turtledovism for the latter. For example, Spanish Civil War: America Edition, is most definitely Turtledovian fiction.

Though I'm willing to entertain some suggestions on just how much the British, French, Soviets, Germans, and Italians can spare around 1935, economically and militarily speaking.

>>16088024
Well, nationalists being in the Resistance wasn't that surprising, it happened everywhere. The surprising thing was that they didn't fight the communist resistance movements like it was often done elsewhere... but maybe that was due to the difference in numbers.

Also, there was a number of (previously named) communist representatives that chose to create a collaborationist party, but it never had more than 300 members.
The communist party was outlawed and clandestine since 1939, and supported fully the resistance after the invasion of the USSR. A lot of its members did not wait for their leaders' assent to join, though.

Some specific additions I'm considering
- British and German air legions on either side
- International communist volunteers for the West Coast
- A large bandit army in Northern Mexico, Pancho Villa style
- Trotsky on the ground in North America
- more detail about the Canadians
- the theaters around Pennsylvania and California being especially fierce partisan warfare between trenched Nats and Loyals
- the Japanese being involved, somewhere...
- something I mentioned in earlier versions, Governor of Puerto Rico Teddy Roosevelt Jr.

Also, how do you guys feel about the distinction in the Nationalist side between MacArthur and his general staff, the blandly fascist military-industrial men running the government below Mac, and the outright fascist Legion/Grand Council of Fascists?

Does having both Mac, the military dictator, and Grimm the up and coming fascist leader work or does it detract?

>>16088336
What happpened to delano, btw ?

>>16088386

Shit, I guess the introductory timeline was too brief/unspecific, though I'm pretty sure the bit about the Presidential Advisory Board of the Nationalists mention it.

Now that I've fleshed things out more, my previous updated version that presented a brief but pretty thorough summary (seen at the opening here) is not out of date in that I need an equally condense/concise but longer (so carrying more information, rather than stretching this out) intro.

Anyway, FDR was captured in the coup, and "due to poor health" his day to day duties were taken by a Presidential Advisory Council, that fired VP Garner in his name, appointed a new successor from their ranks, and then arranged him to "succumb to polio".

>>16088637

That's basically the method of coup that the Business Plotters discussed in real life; FYI.

I should probably mention these guys as well

"In 1915, the second Klan was founded and remained a small organization in Georgia. Starting in 1921, it adopted a modern business system of recruiting (which paid most of the initiation fee and costume charges to the organizers) and grew rapidly nationwide at a time of prosperity. Reflecting the social tensions of urban industrialization and vastly increased immigration, its membership grew most rapidly in cities, and spread to the Midwest and West out of the South. The second KKK preached Americanism and purification of politics, with strong racism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Communism, nativism, and antisemitism. Some local groups took part in attacks on private houses, and carried out other violent activities. The violent episodes were generally in the South.[19]

The second Klan was a formal fraternal organization, with a national and state structure. At its peak in the mid-1920s, the organization claimed to include about 15% of the nation's eligible population, approximately 4–5 million men. Internal divisions, criminal behavior by leaders, and external opposition brought about a collapse in membership, which had dropped to about 30,000 by 1930. It finally faded away in the 1940s."


Ken Hite has a pretty good summary of the Second Klan from a gaming perspective in one of the Serpent Bites mini-supplements for his game Day After Ragnarok; mentioning how the Second Klan had plenty of affiliates in the North that did things like bodily take over city halls in Rhode Island and California; and compared the way that the Klan might run a region to the way the Communist Party ran the Soviet Union, with the party being superior and separate from the state it controls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Legion_of_America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_New_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L.K._Smith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin

Some of the and individuals absorbed into the American Legion to form The Legion and the Grand Council of Fascists.

Note the Northeastern oriented fascists and nazis in the US weren't very focused on anti-catholicism, and oen of their leading numbers, a hardcore fascist and anti-semite, was a Catholic priest with a hugely popular radio show - Father Charles Coughlin.

Whereas the KKK and its affiliates, with the power base in the South and great plains states, were hugely anti-European-immigrant and anti-Catholic.

I think I'll play up internal factions on either sides - with the military juntists, rotarian businessmen and political leaders, and fascists on the Nationalist side; and President Hull's more moderate/conservative leadership of the Loyalists as compared to more populist New Dealers on the Loyalist Committees and partisans ranging from law and order soldiers to popular frontists wanting to make common cause against the Nats while pursuing their own social revolution agenda.

I'd previously wanted most of FDR's cabinet members to get caught and tried/shot in the coup, but if I keep the relatively conservative Hull as president I might want to have if not Wallace at least Tugwell or Morgenthau or someone as a counterpart to him from the New Deal braintrust.

The Bund didn't exist to any great extent until 37, and this pamphlet is from 39, but the imagery is still pretty stark and unsettling; genuine American fascistica.

As if that weren't depressing enough...

>>16089136

Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur
- Army: The National Army
- Area of Operations: Corps Areas 2, 3, 5

General Charles P. Summerall
- Army: Army of the Citadel
- Area of Operations: Corps Area 4

Strategos George S. Patton
- Army: The Phalange
- Area of Operations: Corps Area 7

General Malin Craig
- Army: The Army of the West
- Area of Operations: Corps Area 9

Dux Warren Grimm
- Force: The Legion
- Area of Operations: Chapters all over the nation

That leaves Corps Area 1 (New England), 6 (upper Midwest), and 8 (the Southwest) needing commanders.

Summerall is recently retired, running the Citadel in South Carolina; Craig was the previous chief of the army before Mac and pretty elderly; Patton is only a few years ago Mac's aide.

Peyton C. March: long-retired, expert administrator, opposed to the Siberian expeditions against the Bolsheviks - generally doesn't think the Communists are a strategic threat and that the internal safety of the U.S. comes first

George C. Marshall: A brilliant colonel in terms of developing infantry tactics, and a friend of Eisenhower. I see him as being kind of neutral on the Loyalist and Nationalist thing and could of gone either way, and since I had Eisenhower go Loyalist, I figured he should to.

That gives the Loyalists two expert behind the scenes guys - the pioneer of modern infantry tactics, and the WWI US' greatest military administrator.

Any wrap up comments before the day ends and I work on the next iteration?

No intention of threadcrapping, but check out the 1932 electoral map by county (scroll down).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1932

That's gotta throw a few flies into the ointment. Assuming GOP=Nationalist (probably not a valid assumption, but needs some handwavium) we are seeing their strength coming almost entirely from the Northeast, which is also the most vulnerable to British intervention.

>>16090225

Worth noting; but the South was, hardcore Democratic, but also hardcore...well...Southern. I wouldn't expect lifelong dixiecrats to all cozen up to Big Business Yankee elitists, but we're talking about serious divisions and likely regional warlords/neutral/freestates here.

Most significantly, it is interesting how FDR's presidency created a system, that lasted until the 70's, where you had both in and out of government two bipartisan coalitions: The New Deal Coalition and the Conservative Coalition.

Things break along the New Deal/anti-New Deal lines, rather than GOP/Dem lines. There are anti-New-Deal pro-business "progressive" Dems like Al Smith who would fit along with the nice happy patriotic corporation face of fascism/corporatism, and there are moderate/liberal eastern establishment Republicans who supported the New Deal.

The New Deal Coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Franklin D. Roosevelt forged a coalition that included the Democratic state party organizations, city machines, labor unions and blue collar workers, minorities (racial, ethnic and religious), farmers, white Southerners, people on relief, and intellectuals.
- Wikipedia

>>16090342

The Old Right emerged in opposition to the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt. By 1937 they formed a Conservative coalition that controlled Congress until 1964.[2] They were consistently non-interventionist and opposed entering WWII, a position exemplified by the America First Committee. Later, most opposed U.S. entry into NATO and intervention in the Korean War. "In addition to being staunch opponents of war and militarism, the Old Right of the postwar period had a rugged and near-libertarian honesty in domestic affairs as well."[3]

This anti–New Deal movement was a coalition of multiple groups:

intellectual individualists and libertarians, including H. L. Mencken, Albert Jay Nock, Rose Wilder Lane, Garet Garrett[4], Raymond Moley, and Walter Lippmann[5];
laissez-faire liberals, especially the heirs of the Bourbon Democrats like Albert Ritchie of Maryland and Senator James A. Reed of Missouri;
pro-business or anti-union Republicans, such as Robert Taft;
conservative Democrats from the South, such as Josiah Bailey[6] and Harry F. Byrd;
pro-business Democrats such as Al Smith and the founders of the American Liberty League[7]
powerful newspaper and magazine publishers, such as William Randolph Hearst of the Hearst chain[8] and Colonel Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune.[9][10]
reformed radicals who had supported FDR in 1932, such as William Randolph Hearst and Father Charles Coughlin[11]

I seriously want to writefag something about this. Fuck you, fantastic OP, for making me want my next book to be an alternate history novel.

>>16090437

That's a high compliment.

Any thoughts on how I can improve this?

>>16090466

One thing I'd consider is, perhaps, to maybe have, after some time, at least, some sort of lines to form. America's a big place, and I could see that certain places become bastions of Loyalist forces, and other of the Nationalists. Perhaps mass conscription occurs, with both sides intent on conquering the other and trying to unify the nation. Another issue would be the terrain of America. The Midwest could very well turn into either something similar to the Western Front, with trench warfare and the like, or maybe something similar to the early periods of World War 1, with scout cars and picket forces.

Hell, maybe the Nazis are able to sneak their Panzers into there, to give them a test ground for the next war?

>>16090413
Mencken was anti-New Deal? Never would have guessed.

>>16090539
>>Hell, maybe the Nazis are able to sneak their Panzers into there, to give them a test ground for the next war?

I can see the Second American Civil War taking the place of the Spanish Civil War as a testing ground for new military doctrines. Picasso's Baltimore might replace his Guernica in this timeline.

OP is ending his run, so I'll refrain from further comment. It's progressing nicely though.

I hope this is archived, I intend to read it once I have time. But for now: You might generally be interested in the Technocrats. Most people know the word "technocratic" but I for one was unaware that it goes back to a 30s movement which has a hilarious and awesome history.

>>16090664

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/16087045/

Figured this is a good idea, these threads should be saved.

>>16090664

The great part is there are two groups there: the Technical Study Group, or whatever the think-tank's name was, that wrapped up with that classic technocratic map of North America in the early 30's... and their nigh-fascist political equivalent started by itinerant cement pourer masquerading as an engineer masquerading as a scientist, Howard Scott...I think that's the name.

>>16088336

>International communist volunteers for the West Coast

You gots to have them International Brigades OP. But don't forget there were plenty of International volunteers for Franco in Spain as well.