History Literature / RedsARevolutionaryTimeline

* GoodIsNotSoft: The UASR is a nation of people devoted to social equality and individual liberty. But their early history is marked by political repression, including KangarooCourt and ''summary execution''.

** The early years of the UASR are a downplayed version of this trope. Many people are dealt with by KangarooCourt and firing squads, but it is nowhere near the scale of the Soviet Union, and many of the sentenced were responsible for suppressing American democracy. These actions are still seen in-universe as a black spot on the history of the UASR, but none of the UASR leaders are portrayed as evil for them.

* GoodIsNotSoft: The UASR is a nation of people devoted to social equality and individual liberty. But their early history is marked by political repression, including KangarooCourts and summary execution.

* DirtyCommunists: Subverted. The heroes are pretty clearly the UASR and communists in general, in spite of moral complexities. The ranks of Dirty Communists now includes Patton, [[UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower Eisenhower]], [[RichardNixon Nixon]], and J. Edgar Hoover. Even good ol' Honest [[AbrahamLincoln Lincoln]] gets an in-universe posthumous baptism as a good comrade.

* GretaGarbo: Never changes her name from Gustafsson and becomes first lady of the USRA in the late 40s.

* SureWhyNot: A large amount of the canon was decided and fleshed out in discussion with readers, to the point where it could be called a collaborative work. In other instances, some readers have written their own contributions unprompted and subsequently canonized by Jello.

The first depicts an alternate history in which President UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley was not assassinated, and in the resulting political climate (which marginalized Progressive reformers due to TheodoreRoosevelt never becoming president), socialism becomes much more popular in the United States (additionally, several important schisms that occurred in the socialist movement in our timeline did not occur in this one). After a much more brutal UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne (made more brutal, ironically, by the well-meaning attempts of internationalists like WilliamHowardTaft 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.

* BavarianFireDrill: Essentially describes [[HerbertHoover Hoover]] and [=MacArthur=]'s suspension of the Constitution and attempted power grab. It doesn't work.

''Reds!'' is an AlternateHistory series on AlternateHistoryDotCom. 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 TheGreatDepression. The second, A Red Dawn, chronicles the early development of the new Union of American Socialist Republics, and the alternate WorldWarTwo.

The first depicts an alternate history in which President WilliamMcKinley was not assassinated, and in the resulting political climate (which marginalized Progressive reformers due to TheodoreRoosevelt never becoming president), socialism becomes much more popular in the United States (additionally, several important schisms that occurred in the socialist movement in our timeline did not occur in this one). After a much more brutal WorldWarOne (made more brutal, ironically, by the well-meaning attempts of internationalists like WilliamHowardTaft 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.

* DirtyCommunists: Subverted. The heroes are pretty clearly the UASR and communists in general, in spite of moral complexities. The ranks of Dirty Communists now includes Patton, [[DwightEisenhower Eisenhower]], [[RichardNixon Nixon]], and J. Edgar Hoover. Even good ol' Honest [[AbrahamLincoln Lincoln]] gets an in-universe posthumous baptism as a good comrade.

* HistoricalInJoke: Also used liberally. Bank robber John Dillinger becoming a national security agent is one of the most obvious examples, as is William F. Buckley, Jr. (one of America's foremost conservative thinkers) becoming an orthodox Marxist and J. Edgar Hoover (the commie-busting head of the {{FBI}}) switching allegiances to the new communist government in order to preserve and expand his power. And apparently in this world, it's nearly impossible to think of actor [[JohnWayne Marion Morrison]] being in a western.

* ShellShockedVeteran: ''George Patton.'' No, really; in this timeline the US ends up entering the First Wordl War two years earlier and fighting in some of the bloodiest battles, taking much heavier losses. And Old Blood and Guts himself was on the frontline for them. He may not have developed full-blown PTSD, but he came home a greatly changed man, and ''very'' bitter towards the politicians who'd sent a million of his comrades-in-arms to their deaths for no particularly good reason.

''Reds!'' is an AlternateHistory series on AlternateHistoryDotCom. 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 TheGreatDepression. The second, A Red Dawn, chronicles the early development of of the new Union of American Socialist Republics, and the alternate WorldWarTwo.

* {{Cincinnatus}}: The Marxist interpretation interpretation of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is this, as enacted more-or-less successfully by the Workers' Communist Party. The principle was that during the revolution, the whole of the working class, organized by the party, would take complete control of the state in order to enact its transformative program. In-universe, how well they fit this ideal is less clear.

* FictionalPoliticalParty: Played with; as the TL develops, new political parties form, but usually out of existing political parties. And the parties that have the same name tend to have diverged in radically different ways to become InNameOnly versions of their OTL coutnerparts.

* GreyAndGreyMorality: Implied to be the situation between the powers in the modern day; the former colonial powers remain imperialistic and ruthlessly capitalistic, but are suggested to have had to liberalise how they treat their colonial subjects in order to avoid mass socialist uprisings, and are not nearly as fascistic as the Cold War propaganda of the UASR would depict them. The UASR is in many ways a socialist worker's paradise, but is suggested to have still done nasty things in the Cold War (and, as one source notes rather omniously, is the only major world power to still maintain a secret police force, suggesting a certain level of oppression). And the Soviet Union, after Stalin, remains authoritative but has also loosened up in light of the competing socialist ideology in the UASR.

The first thread in the series, chronicling the events up to the establishment of the Union of American Socialist Republics' government, can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=122672 here]], and the second, chronicling post-Revolution events, can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=148698 here]]. The scenario is in the process of being rewritten and the rewrites of the first part of the timeline can be found [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=168330 here]]. A collection of the canonical materials of the universe, which lacks the copious in-thread commentary from both the creators and other participants but probably makes for much easier reading, has also been compiled [[http://fools-gold.org/aaron/reds here]], but it is currently over a year out of date.

* Douglas [=MacArthur=]: The point man for the military junta that [[ShameIfSomethingBadHappened pressured]] outgoing President Hoover into suspending the constitution and crushing the commies for good. Currently, he's PresidentEvil of the exile US government in Cuba.

* {{Cincinnatus}}: The Marxist interpretation interpretation of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is this, as enacted more-or-less successfully by the Workers' Communist Party. The principle was that during the revolution, the whole of the working class, organized by the party, would take complete control of the state in order to enact its transformative program. In-universe, how well they fit this ideal is very much YourMileageMayVary.

* DirtyCommunists: Subverted. The heroes are pretty clearly the UASR and communists in general, in spite of moral complexities. The ranks of Dirty Communists now includes Patton, [[DwightEisenhower Eisenhower]], [[RichardNixon Nixon]], and J. Edgar Hoover. [[AbrahamLincoln Lincoln]] is also going to be RetConned as proto-socialist.
* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: One of the consequences of the American Cultural Revolution in the mid-thirties is the liberalization of sexual mores. However, it's not entirely clear exactly ''how much'' sex constitutes "lots of sex" in this case; an in-universe discussion commenter castigates the in-universe version of ''PublicEnemies'' for depicting so many threesomes, saying he can see "that sort of thing happening in the fifties, but not the thirties." The liberalization of sexual mores is not entirely without controversy; indeed, the Left Democratic Party in this time gains a fair amount of converts by shifting radically to the left economically but to the right on moral values. A Second Cultural Revolution spanning from the late '50s through the 1970s (not yet written, but planned for future updates) results in ''even further'' liberalization of sexual mores.

!! This work provides examples of:

* AllohistoricalAllusion: has been used liberally
* AlternateHistory: Complete with excerpts of the universe's AlternateHistoryDotCom.
* AuthorAvatar: WordOfGod says the in-universe discussion board character "flibbertygibbet" most closely represents one of the authors' (Jello_Biafra) views.

* BavarianFireDrill: Essentially describes [[HerbertHoover Hoover]] and [=MacArthur=]'s suspension of the Constitution and attempted power grab. It doesn't work.
* BlackAndGreyMorality: The UASR is 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).
* BombThrowingAnarchists: Subverted. Emma Goldman, aka Red Emma, is a powerful figure in the Revolutionary government. This causes much debate in the Anarchist Movement. Anarcho-syndicalism in particular plays a large part in the organisation that enables the Red May revolution and it has been hinted that Chicago may effectively become an anarchist commune.
* DirtyCommunists: Subverted. The heroes are pretty clearly the UASR and communists in general, in spite of moral complexities. The ranks of Dirty Communists now includes Patton, [[DwightEisenhower Eisenhower]], [[RichardNixon Nixon]], and J. Edgar Hoover. [[AbrahamLincoln Lincoln]] is also going to be RetConned as proto-socialist.
* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: One of the consequences of the American Cultural Revolution in the mid-thirties is the liberalization of sexual mores. However, it's not entirely clear exactly ''how much'' sex constitutes "lots of sex" in this case; an in-universe discussion commenter castigates the in-universe version of ''PublicEnemies'' for depicting so many threesomes, saying he can see "that sort of thing happening in the fifties, but not the thirties." The liberalization of sexual mores is not entirely without controversy; indeed, the Left Democratic Party in this time gains a fair amount of converts by shifting radically to the left economically but to the right on moral values. A Second Cultural Revolution spanning from the late '50s through the 1970s (not yet written, but planned for future updates) results in ''even further'' liberalization of sexual mores.
** It's also noted by a present-day member of a web forum from America that this is apparently exaggerated in-universe outside of America; in something corresponding roughly to the dominant cultural mores of contemporary American society in the actual timeline, places like New York and California tend to be ''very'' socially liberal (and thus closer to this trope) whereas places in the Midwest and the South, while perhaps more liberal in these ways, still tend to be more conservative.
* ForWantOfANail: Originally the timeline diverged entirely because a racist cop in Buffalo happened to pick on a certain Polish immigrant. While this remains probably the biggest inciting event for the divergence from our timeline, it is not the point of departure in the rewrite.
* GeneralRipper: General Douglas [=MacArthur=] lives up to this during the Second American Civil War and subsequent dictatorship in exile in Cuba.

* IstanbulNotConstantinople: All of the government bureaus and branches are given new names under the new government. In addition, the Dominican Republic gets renamed to the People's Republic of Quisqueya, while UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC becomes Debs, D.C.

* EverybodyHasLotsOfSex: One of the consequences of the American Cultural Revolution in the mid-thirties is the liberalization of sexual mores. However, it's not entirely clear exactly ''how much'' sex constitutes "lots of sex" in this case; an in-universe discussion commenter castigates the in-universe version of ''PublicEnemies'' for depicting so many threesomes, saying he can see "that sort of thing happening in the fifties, but not the thirties." The liberalization of sexual mores is not entirely without controversy; indeed, the Left Democratic Party in this time gains a fair amount of converts by shifting radically to the left economically, but remaining more conservative on sexual freedom. A Second Cultural Revolution spanning from the late '50s through the 1970s (not yet written, but planned for future updates) results in ''even further'' liberalization of sexual mores.

* HistoricalInJoke: Also used liberally. John Dillinger becoming a national security agent is one of the most obvious examples, as is William F. Buckley, Jr., the orthodox Marxist. And apparently in this world, it's nearly impossible to think of actor [[JohnWayne Marion Morrison]] being in a western.

* IstanbulNotConstantinople: All of the government bureaus and branches are given new names under the new government. The Dominican Republic gets renamed to the People's Republic of Quisqueya as well.

''Reds!'' is an AlternateHistory ongoing series being published at AlternateHistoryDotCom. 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 TheGreatDepression. The second, A Red Dawn, chronicles the early development of of the new Union of American Socialist Republics, and the alternate WorldWarTwo.