Literature / Reds!: A Revolutionary Timeline

aka: Reds

Reds! is an AlternateHistory.com / Sufficient Velocity.com series started by Aelita centered around a Communist America. The series is divided into multiple timeline arcs. The first, from which the series name is derived, is titled Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline, and focuses on the events leading up to a socialist revolution in the United States during The Great Depression. The second, A Red Dawn, chronicles the early development of the new Union of American Socialist Republics (also referred to as United Republics), and the lead-up to an alternate World War II. The third, The Great Crusade, focuses on World War II proper.

The first depicts an alternate history in which President William McKinley was not assassinated, and in the resulting political climate (which marginalized Progressive reformers due to Theodore Roosevelt never becoming president), socialism becomes much more popular in the United States (additionally, several important schisms that occurred in the American socialist movement in our timeline did not occur in this one). After a much more brutal World War One (made more brutal, ironically, by the well-meaning attempts of internationalists like William Howard Taft to build stable international alliances), the American populace is radicalized and heavily divided, a powder keg ready to explode, until the Great Depression sparks a revolution in the United States.

While originally a solo project by Aelita published on AlternateHistory.com, the story has expanded in scope to include two additional collaborating authors, most notably Spartakrod whose contributions helped push the timeline through its mid-2010s writer's block and brought it to Sufficient Velocity.com, and a large team of several other minor contributors. As a result, the story has undergone various rewrites throughout its publishing history, along with Retcons and Adaptational Expansions to fill in gaps in the lore.

• The Original Version:
  • Reds: A Revolutionary Timeline (2009, Discontinued): The original thread. Describes the rise of the Communist Workers' Party and the revolution itself.
  • Red Dawn: American Revolution and Rebirth (2010, Discontinued): A thread covering the historical period between the Second American Revolution to initially the end of the alternate Second World War. Describes the political, economic and social changes America undergoes after the revolution and its effects on international politics, the communist movement and the growing fascist bloc.
• The Second Version:
  • The Great Crusade (2013, Discontinued): Describes the alternate Second World War, and potentially its aftermath. It is incomplete and its most recent updates contradict earlier ones due to ongoing re-writes. Goes up to 1945.
  • The Special Edition (2010, Discontinued): The combined first and second threads of the original version. Greatly expands the political background preceding the Revolution, describing in greater detail the slow rise of the socialist movement in America and the aftermath of the revolution. Goes up to 1938.
  • The Fool's Gold Edition (Discontinued): A second attempt at improving the pre-revolution lore and clearing up the establishment of the United Republics.
• The Sufficient Velocity Version (2018, Ongoing): Intended to be the definitive version, it has the aid of two other authors plus numerous smaller contributions from others. Currently up to 1942.

The timeline was published by the Sea Lion Press.

The timeline's discord can be found here.

The timeline's wiki can be found here.

There is a Hearts of Iron 4 Mod adaptation being developed. Its discord can be found here.

It also has a pair of "semi-official" crossover fanfic/quests, the first is The Dual Order - Endless Days of Madness which is a crossover with The New Order Last Days Of Europe, The Red Order: First Days of Eurasia and cold war headcanons for Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg and Red Flood. This crossover notably contains a number of details for post-war Reds! not available on the main timeline. The other is REBELLIONS: A World War Worldmerge which instead starts in the wartime period and features Kaiserreich and Red Flood. Both are made by Spartakrod, the second of the main writers of Reds!

Not to be confused with Reds, a movie by Warren Beatty about Red October (although the historical figure John "Jack" Reed plays a big role in both stories).

---

This work provides examples of:

• Tropes A to G
• Tropes H To Z

Older Versions Tropes

• Black-and-Grey Morality: The United Republics are presented in a more positive light than most of the other governments of the time, but it is far from perfect. Amongst its abuses include the setting up of kangaroo courts and the execution of potentially innocent civilians (though nowhere near on the scale of Stalinist Russia) during the initial Revolution, and government repression targeting reactionaries like the True Democrats afterwards.
  • The United Republics' foreign policy, mainly trying to push along the World Revolution, is also noted to be extremely aggressive, to the point where even convinced socialist historians have looked back on certain controversial decisions with critical eyes, and described them as needlessly belligerent and even occasionally jeopardizing the world peace. The policy of kickstarting industrialization amongst its communist allies in South America, is in hindsight viewed as mainly being an attempt at strengthening its own position in those countries, and it is noted that the process happened at a steep humanitarian cost for the local peasantry. Similarly, the decision to militarily occupy Iceland during the Second World War, while justified back in the day as a case of military exigency, is seen as morally dubious at best in the decades after the war.
• Canon Discontinuity: All threads prior to the Great Crusade have been overwritten by the Sufficient Velocity version, making the older versions a Broad Strokes draft of the timeline.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the original conception, the Cold War would evolve into a three-way conflict between the Franco-British Union^note representing liberal democratic capitalism, the Soviet Union^note representing authoritarian state socialism and the United Republics^note  representing a democratic syncretic mixture of market socialism and state investment. However the Soviet Union would eventually democratize and the Cold War would be between Comintern and the FBU with China as wildcard.
  • Also the Social Ecology Union was supposed to win a Landslide Election that would herald an End of an Era as green politics became a major force in American politics. However Real Life Writes the Plot and the original author decided to change this.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A Soviet diplomat is dumbfounded when the revolutionary American government doesn't shoot Robert Taft for not taking his oath of office, and this pisses off Joseph Stalin to no end.
• Fictional Political Party: In the older versions the political parties of the United Republics circa 2009 were, from right to left:
  • The Democratic-Republican Party is socially conservative and aligned with the private sector and worker cooperatives, opposing government intervention in the economy and education and being extremely isolationist.
  • The Left Democrats are christian socialists with a focus on pacifism and social justice with some support for market reforms in luxury consumer goods, as well being moderate in cultural issues.
  • Progressive Labor Party supports a centrally planned economy, champions the values of the First Cultural Revolution and an aggressive foreign policy.
  • The Socialist Party champions pragmatic economics that includes both workers' councils and state intervention, an aggressive foreign policy and champions changes to cultural norms.
  • The Social Ecology Union favors economic decentralization with state-provided environmental regulations, a green culture and detente with the capitalist bloc.
• In Spite of a Nail: America and the Soviet Union would still end up in a Cold War, in spite of both being socialist countries with the United Republics. This is one of the major divergences from the earlier versions.
• Mêlée à Trois: The Cold War in older versions was three-way between United Republics, the Soviet Union and the Franco-British Union.
• The Purge: The United Republics, particularly under Foster, was willing to arrest politicians that did not swore the oath of office, purging disloyal people in the party and military as well being willing to execute John Birch (who was sixteen) for supporting Western Terrorists.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The United Republics government isn't perfect about following its own Constitution in the early days either (in fact, it's quite authoritarian, although nowhere near as much as the USSR's government), but it doesn't suppress the electoral vote when an election goes awry. It's seen as a What the Hell, Hero? moment in the present day.
• Riddle for the Ages: The true identity of the infamous Brazilian Green Guard "O Diabo Verde" and his ultimate fate at the end of WWII remains a mystery. Some even speculate "O Diabo Verde" was a Collective Identity for the leaders of the Green Guard.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!:
  • Essentially the reaction of the capitalist powers and President Herbert Hoover after the socialists win the 1932 election. They soon find out that no, they don't make the rules.
  • The United Republics government subverts this, refusing to fill legislative seats with their own men after the Supreme Court rules against them, and refusing to kill Robert Taft in spite of his opposition. This dumbfounds a Soviet diplomat and pisses off Stalin to no end.
• Token Evil Teammate: George Orwell believes William Z. Foster and Earl Browder are this to the United Republics. From what we know they are both noticeably more purge-happy and power-hungry than many of the other government officials in America.

---