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Tibby's Graphics and Grab-Bag Thread.

Welp, that sounds messy. How are the other neighbors reacting? I expect France to want to be involved. Anything in the east either?
Oh the French are absolutely involved. Lorraine is already in the French orbit, and they're trying to reel Alsace in too. They're primarily trying to balance prolonging the civil war to ensure Germany's weaker with the interest of having a vaguely pro-French or at least not hostile government in charge.

The Veneds and Poles are trying to ignore Masuria for now, since Poles and Veneds working together goes against decades of bitter hatred. But they'll likely have to work together at some point, as Posen is still quite full of their people and whatnot. They're just not of the mood atm.

The League of the East Sea is... to be charitable about it, collapsing.
 
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FACT SHEET - PEOPLE'S KINGDOM OF LOUISIANA
Country NamePeople's Kingdom of Louisiana (English)
Royaume populaire de Louisiane (French)
Reino del Pueblo de Luisiana (Spanish)
Rheon ill Pobl di Llwisiana (British)
DemonymLouisianan (English)
Louisianais/e (French)
Luisiano/a (Spanish)
Llwisian (British)
Official LanguageFrench (national language)
Spanish, English, British (regional languages)
Head of StateKing of Louisiana: Philippe IX (Bourbon-Orléans) since 2021
Director-General: Rosalie de La Rochefoucauld since 2034
Head of GovernmentPresident: Avit Broussard (PRD) since 2038
Government StatusNational Assembly
Democratic Reform-Christian National Peasants'-Liberal Movement coalition
DépartmentsAcadiane, Baton Rouge-Pointe Coupée, Caddo, Kanza, Kitsai, Meschacebé,
Greater New Orléans, Les Ozarques, Paouni, Poteau, Quivira.
HistoryEstablished as Colony of Louisiana
9 April 1682

Establishment of "France-in-exile"
15 October 1792

Establishment of Governorate of Louisiana
23 February 1814

Declaration of the Republic
16 October 1851

The 'Glorious Restoration'
27 August 1889
ReligionSecular
Roman Catholic majority
CurrencyLouisianan dollar
Universal Credit
International AlignmentLa Francophonie
Crisis LevelLow
Official Government Websitedigi.safe//la-courenne.lou (King & Director-General)
digi.safe//le-ministère.lou (Government)
Fun fact!: Louisiana's constitutional scholars and political rhetoric often refer to it as a "crowned republic", with the monarchy [along with the Director-General] considered a de facto successor to the increasingly-powerless and considered-laughable Directory of the Republican era.

(Credit for the flag to rubberduck3y6 on DeviantArt)
 
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Political Parties in the People's Kingdom of Louisiana

Parti de la réforme démocratique (PRD): 67 seats - Langism, 'National Cooperation', Fiscal Conservatism (faction).

The Langist party (apart from all the SPLITTERS), it was the party set up by Héloïse Lang and even now is still shaped by her legacy. It is known for its deeply corporatist policies, preferring 'National Cooperation' above what it deplores as 'market' or 'socialist' forces. But over time it has grown more and more right-wing in policies, implementing pro-business reforms that led to its final split. Currently in government with PPNC and ML. Don't ask how.

La Louisiane en Commun (LeC): 52 seats - Social Langism, Progressivism, Green politics, Social Liberalism (faction).
The youngest and most successful Langist splitter, it split off as a result of the party's right-wing pushing out Caroline Fayard in favour of the former Prime Minister's wife. Fayard left the party as a result, along with most of its youth wing, to form a party advocating what Fayard called langisme social. The party ended up nominating popular Louisianan actress Bertille Lancier who led LeC to victory in only their second election. Distinctive from the Unionist Party by its lingering adherence to 'neutrality' above more overt socialist or capitalist ideas. The party which created Louisiana's basic income.

Parti paysan national chrétien (PPNC): 19 seats - Agrarianism, Christian democracy, Social conservatism.
The party of the farmers above all, it is also the biggest explicitly socially conservative party, known to strongly oppose abortion and polygamy, it pushes a 'traditional' viewpoint. However, everyone knows this comes second to its demands for pork-barrel spending for farmers. Once had a PM for a brief amount of time as Michel Hébert defected to it from PRD in protest at PRD giving way to the 'social experiments' in legislation. Currently in government with PRD and ML in exchange for its obligatory shedloads of money for farmers.

Mouvement libéral - Nouvelle Démocratie ! (ML): 16 seats - Liberalism, Market liberalism, Fiscal Conservatism.
Definitely not a Langist party, it is one based in the comfortable well-to-do in the cities (especially Baton Rouge, New Orléans and Quivira) and the bourgeois traders disaffected with National Cooperation and with PRD not going pro-business enough. Very much a party that just wants tax cuts and less regulation. In coalition with PRD and PPNC at the moment, with there being a lot of triangulation between urban liberalism and rural populism.

Parti communiste louisianais (PCL): 10 seats - Communism, Marxism-Narodism, Trotskyism (faction), Bolshevism (faction).
A communist party founded in a split in a long-forgotten socialist party, it followed Narodnik ideas (well, 'amended' to fit Marxist ideas) and tried to mobilise the peasantry (to a mixed extent) to form a rural organised class. The Louisianan expression of the wider rural communist sentiment that also created the Great Plains communist movement to its north. Even now it still pulls in a lot of poorer rural votes (more well-off ones vote PPNC).

Partagez la Richesse - Parti syndicale (PS): 8 seats - Langism, 'Share The Wealth', Trade unionism, Syndicalism (faction)
Known for a long time as 'the other Langist party', it was set up by Héloïse Lang's considerably more left-wing younger brother in protest at how he perceived PRD to be moving away from the late Lang's legacy, and took a lot of the Langist trade unions with him. PS was defined very early on as the extension of those trade unions and the wider labour movement, and with the poorer farmers overwhelmingly PCL, PS turned very urban and industrial. A lot of its younger votes went straight for LeC once it was established and PS collapsed overnight.

Bloc minoritaire - L'autre Louisiane (BM): 8 seats - Minority interests (Spanish, British, English, Native), Social liberalism (ish)
Louisiana was never always just the French, and there existed an interest for minority parties. The Atlantic Bloc used to pull in considerable votes in Meschacebé and Les Ozarques, and even though it's much reduced now (even with the addition of the Spanish and Native parties), it's still very much one that can decide legislative matters in exchange for support. Do not neglect them at your peril.

Société des amis de la Constitution (SC): 3 seats - Louisianan nationalism, Right-wing populism, Republicanism (faction)
A very odd party, it named itself after the popular naming in the French Revolution, and originally represented a much more reactionary form of republicanism, one that saw the Orléanist monarchs as too liberal and holding back 'popular-Christian values'. Those days, that is very much merely a faction as SC now is a more bog standard right-wing populist party, but it is definitely by far the party most eager to delve in 'vulgar republican' attacks on the royal family and their behaviour. Louisianan tabloids love them, but they're the ones most dragged in court on libel grounds.

Alliance pour la restauration de la République (ARR): 2 seats - Louisianan republicanism, Social democracy.
The most explicitly republican party, it makes up the left side of the republicans that are hostile to the crowned republic model. Every year on Restoration Day, they hold a 'Repression Day' protest outside the National Assembly. Confrontation with the police isn't unusual there.
 
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The Tiefling Republic, or just simply Tiefland, is a parliamentary republic in the Pacific primarily known for its people, the tieflings, having a light resemblance to the Christian idea of demons. Tieflings tend to have sharper teeth, a black tongue, a bright orange sclera, horns on their heads (for both sexes) and a short tail, all complimented by a reddish skin.

The tiefling race has considerably confused anthropologists and linguists, for tieflings speak a clear form of Germanic (‘Tieflic’) and have a few customs that have clear English/German analogues. While non-baseline people speaking otherwise-baseline languages isn’t unusual (oh hello Elfdalians), the tieflings were first discovered in the Pacific, just west of the Galapagos Islands and south-east of Hawai’i.

Gradually a clearer explanation emerged, one based very much on tiefling oral lore and deep digging in Anglo-Saxon scribblings, and by the 1990s, one explanation became the universally accepted one, but it took decades to reach to that point due to it requiring the acceptance of magic as a reason, going against a long-running hesitancy to accept magic as an explanation for anything.

In the Fens in the 900s, one small village named Fensyke, which was near Skeldyke, had a spate of people seeking to commune with the devil, and through a ritual managed to inadvertently teleport their village to the Pacific with their inhabitants transformed into tieflings in the process. From then to when Captain Aleisandr Pyw and his ship the Fortune discovered it in 1857, the community grew to become very insular and deeply communitarian, with a noted ‘peasant republic’ model triumphing over the rest in the 1600s.

The tieflings, despite their daemonic appearance, were firm Christians with the people who communed with the devil punished swiftly by the priest of the local church who immediately took command of the beleaguered and scared community and turned faith into a unifying force that persisted centuries. However, ‘Tieflic Christianity’ had some practises out of sync with the present Catholic Church, and the tieflings found little interest in following the Pope, when they already had their ‘aircbysop’ as their spiritual leader.

The British sought to incorporate the tieflings into their complex feudal-imperial structure, but the latter had no interest beyond simple protection, and a proposal to purchase or lease the southern island of Blustma failed due to widespread tiefling opposition. In the end, the British was permitted to set up one naval port that would nevertheless still be in legal tiefling hands, in exchange for wider trade and a binding agreement.

Why did the British even agree to those? Because it knew the tieflings were in an enviable geographical position, and one that could threaten Britain’s Pacific ambitions if they were to seek alliance elsewhere. Despite grumblings back home by some ultra-conservatives at allying with ‘devils’ fuelled by widespread ignorance, this deal passed the Senate via a firm whipping.

Even now, Tiefland is widely seen as one of Britain's many protectorates, but it is undeniable that they’ve got the much better end of the deal. Wider trade and protection, and it did not ever have to betray its local peasants’ democracy! Well, it gets ambiguous when a lot of big ships with big guns dock in port for refuelling, but the tieflings know they won’t get a better deal elsewhere. And ships have to pay for using a port built on their land after all.

And Britain sometimes grumbles, but the binding agreement does give Britain an unbeatable port, and this has also led to a tiefling community in Castreleon and other parts of the Empire which has in their own way rewarded Britain as well. In 2011, a diplomatic envoy visited the estimated area of the old Fensyke, and set up a memorial commemorating the fact that tieflings are descended from people of the Fens. The memorial also warns of communing with the Devil, counselling that it is a severely unwise thing and to learn from the tiefling experience.
 
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The land of Arabia is in the West known for many things. To Muslims, it is where the Prophet Muhammad spent most of his life and it contains Mecca where there is an obligation for every Muslim to go on hajj. However, the modern Arabia is also known for being a place of contrasts, of wealthy coastal emirs and a poorer and more divided desert people. And a place of brimming rivalry and tension...

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British Government Assessment of the Arabian Situation as of 2041
CONFIDENTIAL - FOR PRIME MINISTER'S EYES ONLY

Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz
ALIGNMENT - FAVOURABLE (Hashemite Accord)

Note: The Hashemite Accord, covering the four Hashemite states of Hejaz, Palestine, Syria and Iraq, binds us to intervention if one of those states is invaded by a foreign power. Do note this does not bind us in the case of internal strife - see: Babylon.

King Ali II has been noted to be a tepid reformer at best, but we estimate that the situation inside Hejaz is far away from revolution. Diplomatically, he has shown no wish to shift away from Hejaz's pro-British stance, and has welcomed our envoy. We have given him our private assurance that if the Saudis or Rashids turn west, the Accord comes in force.

Sultanate of Agrabah
ALIGNMENT - NEUTRAL

Agrabah is a fairly neutral country that has shown a historical distance from the dynamics of the wider Arabian peninsula or the Mashriq. The House of Qāsim has been ruling this land for centuries since the rise to power of Sultan Aladdin I via marrying the previous Sultan's daughter. Although they have received our envoys, they have shown no wish to bind themselves to us. The young Sultan, Aladdin IV, has reached out to Hejaz for a defensive treaty against the Rashids and Saudis.

Sultanate of Jabal Shammar
ALIGNMENT - TENSE

The Rashids are seen by Western opinion as more moderate than the Saudis, but that does not mean they does not have ambitions. Sultan Muhammad bin Abdullah has been known to spend his family's wealth from the coastal oil reserves on considerable private military corporation (PMC) interest, especially from other Muslim states. This has led to tension between the PMC and the people of Jabal Shammar, but the Sultan's aim seems clear, ending the Saudi state once and for all.

Sultanate of Nejd
ALIGNMENT - TENSE

The Saudis are seen in Western opinion as the epitome of the 'backwards' Arabs, with noted Islamophobes seeking to associate all 'interloper' Muslims with the Saudis and their Wahhabist theology (as contrast with the 'indigenous' Islam of Britain). However, inside Nejd, they enjoy strong popular support especially after the rise of Mohammed bin Salman to Sultan. Reports from inside the Sultanate note that he is mobilising the people for 'unification', obviously looking north to Jabal Shammar.

Idrisid Emirate of Asir
ALIGNMENT - FAVOURABLE (British-Idrisid Treaty of 1931)

The smallest Arabian state, it has seen tensions with Hejaz (which could be a concern for our interests as a country binded to both). Emir Muhammad bin al-Hasan has been noted to be someone seeking to broaden his diplomatic connections, and the French envoy has been seen meeting him. However, this impact is seen as likely low as they're the smallest and weakest state.

Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen
ALIGNMENT - TENSE

The Yemeni have been in conflict with our aligned states of Hejaz, Asir and the UAE for the last century. They have been long aligned with countries that have been Britain's rivals - first the Italian State, than the Narodniks, then Germany, and now finally Mexico and Tawantinsuyu. However, the Yemeni seems to be suffering a republican revolt and socialist overflow from the UAE. This promises to be something we can exploit, although the Yemeni people are similarly as anti-British as their elite.

United Arab Emirates
ALIGNMENT - FAVOURABLE (Trucial Agreement)

Our bastion on the Arabian peninsula, and helmed by our fellow Ibadis in Oman, this is by far the most British-aligned state on the Arabian peninsula, and it is with this state's existence that Britain's interest in Arabia relies on. The socialist revolution in the Hadhramaut is of deep concern to us. Authorisation for transfer of several military-grade technology to the UAE is expected to be on your desk for signature within the next few days.

Socotra State
ALIGNMENT - INTEGRATED

The possession of Socotra is crucial to our Arabia and Indian Sea interest, and we currently maintain a considerable amount of aircraft carriers ready to be deployed from Socotra. The primary concern of Socotra however, is piracy which poses a threat to trading south to eastern Africa and to the Indian states.
 
This Sceptred Isle: Union Jack of the North Sea Empire (plus one for with France)
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Incorporates
Gold cross on blue - St. Edward the Confessor's Cross
Red cross on white - St. Patrick's Cross
White cross on red - Representing the Defender of Faith role (and Norway)
Scandinavian shape - Representing the Norse heritage (and Norway)

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For a possible union with France, the flag incorporates
The Oriflamme - Representing the Patron Saint of France, St. Denis.
 
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In The Heady Daze
In The Heady Daze

Theresa May (Conservative majority) 2016-2017
Jeremy Corbyn (Labour minority supported by SNP and Liberal Democrats, then by Liberal Democrats) 2017
May 2017: def. Theresa May (Conservative), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Tim Farron (Liberal Democrats)
Jun 2017 vote on Scottish Independence Referendum: 324 Nay - 293 Aye (About 20 Labour 'Unionists' backed Nay)
Jul 2017 vote of no confidence: 348 Aye - 293 Nay
Theresa May (Conservative majority) 2017
Sep 2017: def. Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP), Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats)
Jeremy Hunt (Conservative majority) 2017-
 
Darkness at Noon: Vika Mikhailova
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Name: Viktoriya Terentiyovna 'Vika' Mikhailova
Date of Birth: 12 May 1885 (46 y/o)
Personality: A very polite (painfully so, in fact) individual who attempts to radiate competency in all her acts. Key word, attempts. However, she can be very cold at times, especially when things do not go her way.
Leadership Style: A quiet alliance-crafter and consensus-builder, she nevertheless keeps her principles first and foremost, and knows to ensure her enemies are marginalised as much as possible if she wants as much success as possible.
Ideology: Vika Mikhailova’s ideology was once described by someone quite well when they described it quite derogatorily as ‘Marxism-Narodism’. She is a firm advocate of the rural peasantry and their interests, and blends this with a seemingly firm Marxism. However, those close to her will know that she has a deep religiosity that she keeps close to her chest. Preferring to build alliances and contacts in the shadows, she knows that any good state is built on its bureaucracy, and hence she will seek to maintain the 'shadow state' on her side, no matter what.

Brief Bio: It is undeniable that Vika Mikhailova has given her all to the revolution, both of them, for they have made her who she is now. Born in a firmly religious Orthodox peasant family originating in the fields surrounding Voronezh, she grew up with a strong religious belief in God, but grew to privately question many of the official church’s teachings when it aligned with the state. Only born twenty years after her family was freed from serfdom, the family memory left an indelible mark on her, and their continuing poverty while the nobles (still a strong presence in Voronezh) showed her that there was legal inequality and there was extralegal inequality.

Leaving her family behind once she grew dissatisfied with her lot in life and moving to the city of Voronezh, She aligned herself to the local Socialist Revolutionaries once they emerged, but as the Russian Civil War radicalised people, she grew to align herself with the Left-SR. After the SR coalitioned with liberals and then led an uprising against the new Soviet Government, she condemned it and joined the Bolsheviks in disgust at her former party.

While in her local Bolshevik circles, she grew to cultivate deep contacts and people she grew to find deeply reliable, while preferring to present herself as purely the secretary for meetings. She would find that as secretary, she would wield a lot of unofficial influences in the cliques she ran in, and as she climbed up in influence, moving from Voronezh to Moscow in the mid-20s, she would continue this ‘quiet connections’ tactic, while increasingly cultivating influence over certain people via favours.

With the fall of the Viper and the rise of Yusupov, she saw the ‘Baron of Beyond’ with a deeply-concealed distaste, especially with his hostility to religion. Still, she would maintain her contact-building strategy sure that with Yusupov oblivious to her, she would continue. A few murmurs here and there about his ‘high-handed, almost tsarist ways, unfitting of a revolutionary’ helped the increasing tide against Yusupov, and once he was gone…

Well, she was but a humble secretary, and would accept the post of Premier in such a tone, promising to ‘let the Party lead the way’ and not run ramrod over it like Yusupov did. Nevertheless, she has plans. Big plans.

GOALS
Core Goal: “The People’s Renovation”

It is undeniable that Chairman Yusupov has made the religious situation all that more precarious. But we must study ourselves and admit one bitter fact – The Revolution does not lead to the death of religion. While capitalism is gone for good, there are still minor ills, minor grievances, existential worries, that lead people to religion.

The solution, therefore, is to not abolish religion. It is to bring the revolution to religion. The olds must be cast out, and just as the old Empire was reshaped into our glorious Union, the old churches, temples and mosques must be reshaped, made anew for our new society. Thankfully, we are not alone in this goal, there are commendable men and women seeking to cast out the religious bourgeoisie and make their faith proletariat-led.

For Russian Orthodoxy, the one person to entrust and to support is clear – Aleksandr Vvedenskiy. Here is a firm theologian entirely willing to work with us and follow ideas for making the Church red. With the absence of a clear leader of Russian Orthodoxy with the death of that reactionary Tikhon years ago, the time is ripe to push the Living Church, Vvedenskiy’s project, into official state recognition as the sole and official Orthodox Church, with Vvedenskiy himself as Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia. In exchange, Vvedenskiy and his allies will seek to laud the Soviet Union and the revolutionary policies we are pushing elsewhere, and push their flock to support us in all we do. We will seek to use state power to reduce the legitimacy of the reactionaries and encourage cooperation with Vvedenskiy and the true Orthodox Church.

But it must never be assumed that this policy is blind to the other faiths in the Union. For a revolution in Islam, we must bring in a man who we have kept out in the cold since Lenin died. Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev. The man may have his nationalistic tendencies, but he is undeniably a Bolshevik and a man Lenin trusted completely. We will entrust him with all matters Islamic with the brief to bring nothing short of a complete and utter revolution in Islamic thought.

Regarding Buddhism, we will seek to set up a Buddhist Central Religious Board, filled with trustworthy party men who will ensure that the lamas are passing on the correct teachings, aka ones that conform to the Board and the Party’s desires for a socialist Buddhism. Any other religions apart from Orthodoxy, Islam and Buddhism will also be considered, but the Party Committee will have final say.

To the atheists who see religion as anathema to revolution, they are free to go after the non-revolutionary religions, the ones not following Vvedenskiy’s Living Church, Sultan-Galiev’s revolutionary Islam or Board-conforming Buddhism (and any other state-controlled/monitored faiths that may be created).

Those religions are not to be seen as incorporated in the Party Line like Yusupov’s abhorred cult. The Party Line is still one of strict atheism and she will maintain that. There just will be a tolerance of certain faiths that preach loyalty to the Soviet Union and to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Loyalty is necessary, and all this will be sold as sadly necessary for now.

Major Goal 1: “The Centralisation of Power and Its Consequences”
What is the Party? What is the Council of People’s Commissars? After the failure of the ‘Red Romanov’ that was Yusupov, we must seek to achieve self-criticism. A high-handed Moscow-centred regime led by an aristocrat that seeks to force his utopian ideas on the people? That is what we have became under Yusupov. The bourgeois, tsarist tendency is starting to creep inside the Council and the Party.

But it is never too late. The clear solution is to turn to our roots. For what was Lenin’s idea for the many nationalities inside our Union? It was not Yusupov’s revisionist proletlang nor a centralisation of power back to himself. No, Lenin desired for power to the nationalities, as can be seen in his Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia.

And of course we must seek to realise what we mean by soviet. Have we so easily forgot the meaning of that word? The evidence are overwhelming. Bolshevism, true Bolshevism, is not a diktat from Moscow. It is local power. But we must never go overboard and create anarchism. We are not Makhnov.

Hence there will be a system of federation inside Russia. The old Russian Soviet Republic will be dubbed the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and many oblasts will be established inside it, each with the firm hand of a loyal Party man overseeing it as the Chairman of the Oblast Council. Not a man hostile to the Party, someone loyal to the Party and selected by the Party. There will be no mini-Yusupovs, this Premier Mikhailova will assure the Party.

The Central Committee will act as a ‘rein’ on the local party structures, ensuring that each of them do not deviate from the party line, and will have the power to replace any council of an oblast or autonomous republic with a new trusty party-selected council. The Council of People’s Commissars, and the Chairman, has no say in this at all. The Party leads, always.

The republics will also have their own councils, with firm party men in charge. The party men will be of the utmost loyalty of course, and every selection will be up to the Central Committee of course.

As a sop to Sultan-Galiev in exchange for his collaboration on creating ‘Marxism with a Muslim face’, we will present the idea of a Turkestani Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with the national republics firmly in it, and all (this will be emphasised) political offices will be decided by the Central Committee. However, Mikhailova will declare her neutrality in the matter and declare that this will entirely be the Party’s choice. She is no Yusupov, she will gladly remind them.

The three federative republics (Russia, Turkestan and Transcaucasia) will provide a key level of power for the Central Committee to flex their muscles, and ensure that no Chairman can ever overrule the Central Committee on any serious matters.

The kulak question will be decided by the Central Committee and the localities, with the Chairwoman insisting that it is ultimately up to the Party.

Major Policy 2: “The Revolution of the Mind”
Hopefully burnishing her reputation with the party, Mikhailova will now move on to her next step, that of pushing Soviet culture towards what she would prefer it to be. Religion is covered by the core goal, this is more broader culture.

As the first Chairwoman of the Council of People’s Commissars, she will seek to continue past Premiers’ efforts to politicise ordinary women and get them involved in the Soviet Union, including restating and reinforcing past guarantees of income equality. She will also use what power she has as Chairwoman to appoint more women (but of course prioritising men with key connections that she will find crucial) to key positions. She will also arrange to recognise International Women’s Day as a public holiday in the Soviet Union – March 8th is the day noted down for it.

Yusupov’s Komsomol will prove useful here, as it will be utilised to crusade for the ‘Revolution of the Mind’, namely dealing with sex discrimination at a local level and broader sexism in society. Women are as much workers as men. The Komsomol will also be utilised to ensure as much women are in the workforce as possible, declaring that ‘the age of the house-bound woman is over!’.

Regarding homosexuality, Mikhailova will gladly agree with the people that it is a bourgeois-created sickness, and will seek to, while not outright banning it (such a thing is a Tsarist thing), officially treating it as a sickness of society, and a sickness of the mind. The ‘Revolution of the Mind’ will be extended to this, and mental care will be expanded to cover homosexuality. The policy of treating homosexuality will cover many treatments commonly available at the time, but one such permitted is encouraging the patient to ‘self-criticise’ themselves. If they desire a woman, how are they themselves a woman? If they wish to be penetrated by a man, how are they a man? As part of the ‘Revolution of the Mind’, all sorts of delusions about the individual must be thrown aside and self-criticism be intensified to make the new Soviet Man and Woman.

Sexism, racism, homosexuality, liberalism, monarchism, all are diseases of the mind, Mikhailova will maintain. And hence mental healthcare and a growth in what she calls ‘self-criticism’ is necessary. As she puts it, the absence of self-criticism and an asking of oneself – ‘Am I following the correct Party Line?’ – led to the rise of Yusupov and to the Revolution almost being compromised. No more. The Party Line (apart from necessary concessions to practicality) will be maintained no matter what.

Thus the state guaranteeing the best mental healthcare for all its comrades is upholding the true revolutionary spirit and ensuring self-criticism and maintaining the Party Line are preserved.

Major Policy 3: “Workers of the World, Unite!”
The Soviet Union, as the bastion of the Revolution, must not close its eyes to the world. We enjoy a Comintern and many parties turn to us as the shining light. We must not squander this on micromanagement and setting a diktat to the world communist movement like we did with our internal states.

Hence the official stance of the Comintern on ideology shall be that if it is broadly within communist ideology, we shall allow them to decide what they think is best. What works for Moscow will not work for London, for Paris, for Berlin or for Washington. However, as it is within our interest to have a working relationship with the peoples of those countries, we shall encourage the communist parties to cooperate with other, less communist, parties, to ensure the broader Left has a strong voice.

Regarding the bourgeois governments, we shall once again seek to improve relationships without propping them up. We must show ourselves to be more legitimate than their own, to cut through the pathetic bourgeois lies with nothing but cold hard truth. And we will show them that we have turned black earth to red roses, showing the beauty of socialism and of our Soviet Union. If it legitimises our brethren and make us look far more human and less like a spectre, so much the better!

However, we will not seek to bail out the collapsing ‘Weimar’ government of Germany. The KPD there will be given every latitude to decide on their future trajectory, with revolution very much within possibility. Also within possibility is allying with the social-fascists to keep out the brown fascists. Such is the cruelty of necessity. It will be entirely up to Thalmann and his party, with Moscow refusing to give a diktat.

One can be forgiven for thinking this represents us abandoning the communist movement. Nothing can be further from the truth! We will continue to support our communist allies in other countries by financial and material means in order to further the world revolution by any means they so deem necessary.

Minor Policy 1: “The Question of Lenin”
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known to all as Lenin, was a great leader who led us to revolution. He was also a man. Not a God, as much as we all love and admire him. We shall not make new totems for our new revolution! So instead of embalming him or what Yusupov did by entombing him in that monstrosity of a memorial, there shall be a state funeral in his home city of Simbirsk where there shall be a quite impressive (but still modest) grave, and a far more modest, but far more sustainable memorial be built in Moscow, and be dedicated to not just Lenin, but to all those who gave their lives for the Revolution, including many sadly-deceased members of our great Party.

Minor Policy 2: “The Question of Yusupov”
Yusupov still remains alive and a pest on the future of the Soviet Union. If the Central Committee so desire to put him on trial for revisionism and for betrayal of the Revolution, the Chairwoman shall smooth the way and ensure they have every chance to. The Chairman must always be accountable to the Central Committee, for the Party leads the way, not any one person.

If the Central Committee decides that he is to be put to death for betraying the Revolution, it is to be carried out at once. His grave will be decided by his next of kin.

Minor Policy 3: “The Question of the Tsar”
TOP SECRET
The Chairwoman will privately arrange for the bones of the old Imperial Family to be retrieved from the mine and buried in anonymous graves not far off from Kostroma, where their house first started. The proceedings must be done in absolute secrecy, with not even the Council of People’s Commissars or Central Committee knowing of the matters. Only Mikhailova and a select few that she can trust absolutely.

The graves will be entirely anonymous, only noted by a gravestone above Alexei’s grave with no names on it, only an Orthodox cross. If Mikhailova is secure in power two years after the burial, she will hold a midnight journey, completely alone, to the burial site, and privately state to the dead what Lenin, Dukhanov and Yusupov could never have done, an apology for what was by all accounts a senseless murder. After that, she will consider the matter done and literally buried.


Minor Policy 4: “The Question of Mikhailova”
If all else succeeds, she will be quite comfortable as the ‘Party Woman’ and the Chairwoman of the Council of People’s Commissars. She will seek to develop a new generation of Soviet politicians with similar ideologies to her – a faction that is firmly social-conservative, deeply anti-cult of personality, yet with a boldly pragmatic streak on other matters.

If she succeeds, she will seek to step down from the post and hand over to a ‘Mikhailovite’ at some point. If there’s a war for some reason, she will state that she will serve for as long as the Central Committee desires her to, but after the war finishes, she will conclude her plans to build a clear succession, and then retire.
 
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Posting it here for posterity, but my cursed conclusion on the scripts of China in Turn Around, Bright Eyes...

Some Northern Chinese governments go a bit doo-lally and decide to "modernise" Chinese writing, force through Bopomofo or something as the "New Chinese Script", other Chinese governments try Gwoyeuh Romatzyh as the official transliteration, and the world still uses W-G.

So you have a situation in where the world colloquially refers to places and people by their Wade-Giles/Postal names...
[Peking, Mao Tse-tung]
The 'scientific transliteration' is Gwoyeuh Romatzyh...
[Beeijing, Mau Tzerdong]
And Bopomofo is reducing the Chinese script to a primarily southern one...
[ㄅㄟˇㄐㄧㄥ, ㄇㄠˊ ㄗㄜˊㄉㄨㄥ].
 
Fifty-Four Forty and Fight: The Legacy of the Anglo/Mexican-American War
Fifty-Four Forty and Fight: The Legacy of the Anglo/Mexican-American War
James K. Polk (Democratic) 1845-1846*
1844: def. Henry Clay (Whig)
George M. Dallas (Democratic, then Independent Nationalist) 1846-1849
Abbott Lawrence (Whig) 1849-1853
1848: def. Martin Van Buren (Democratic) and George M. Dallas (Nationalist)
John A. Quitman (Whig) 1853-1857
1852: def. John C. Frémont (Democratic) and Lamden P. Milligan (Nationalist)
Millard Fillmore (Whig) 1857-1861
1856: def. John Van Buren (Democratic), Abraham Lincoln (Conscience Whig) and John C. Breckinridge (Nationalist)
Alexander H. Stephens (Whig) 1861-1863*
1860: def. Hannibal Hamlin (Democratic/Conscience 'Fusion')
Benjamin F. Butler (Democratic/
Military Junta) 1863-
 
No More Unicorns
Here's a list from my stupid playing with UKElect. No, it doesn't make sense.

No More Unicorns
Rory Stewart ('Independent' Conservative minority propped up by Liberal Democrats) 2019-2020
2019 (min.): def. Jeremy Corbyn (Labour), Nigel Farage (Reform), Dominic Raab [repl. Boris Johnson] (Conservative), Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat)
Anna Soubry ('Independent' Conservative minority propped up by Liberal Democrats) 2020-2021
Pat Mountain (UKIP majority) 2021-2026 [first interim, then permanently. Chancellor Freddy Vachha was the real power.]
2021 (maj.): def. Ian Lavery (Labour), Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat), Jeremy Hunt (Conservative), Nigel Farage [dec.] (Reform), Anna Soubry (Independent Conservative)
Gavin Williamson (United Conservative majority) 2026-
2026 (maj.): def. Layla Moran (Democratic Alliance), Pat Mountain (National Independence), Richard Burgon (Labour), Andy Burnham (Metropolitan)
2031 (maj.): def. Andy Burnham & Layla Moran (Democratic Alliance), unclear (National Independence), Vaughan Gething or Nadia Whittome [unclear] (Labour)
 
1622895503750.png
soviet antarctica.png
The PSR's flag is of a similar design to the Empire's (apart from the penguin and star) because the design is seen as pan-Antarctic.

The Penguin Socialist Republic (formerly the Antarctic Autonomous Socialist Republic) is, despite all the hullabaloo about the Nazis in New Swabia seeking Tsalal cities and the complicated human-supremacy imperialism in British Antarctica, the chief worry of the Penguin Empire. Not because it is revolting against them, but because the Empire dreads re-incorporating it as the lease approaches its final deadline and there is no more Russia to renegotiate with. Any suggestion of letting the Republic continue goes up against a very strong Antarctic nationalist sentiment in the Empire.

But it really cannot be underestimated, the penguins of the Socialist Republic have a very different cultural outlook. While the Empire accepted technological innovation and tried its utmost to keep cultural ideas away from the realm, the Socialist Republic was a virulently 'modernised' area in every sense of the word, with even the traditional Penguin traditional hierarchical addresses being done away with in favour of yékií ('comrade'). Tárétskyiráa (often referred to up North as its Russian form Trotskygrad) is very much a modern-looking city, even if quite Brutalist, in contrast with the Empire's capital which tends to rely far more on traditional Penguin architecture.

Unusually for a socialist republic that defines itself on its penguin heritage, it lauds a human as the 'Founder of the Penguin Revolution'. To understand how Leon Trotsky became the hero of the penguins, you have to understand the turbulent nature of the 1920s in Russia. As part of the cut-throat socialist politics of the 20s, various socialist parties competed against each other in the Duma and outside it. After the 1925 purge of the Bolsheviks (leading to some of them fleeing and others opportunistically defecting), the Mensheviks was on shakier ground, especially Leon Trotsky who was seen as historically 'neutral' in the Bolshevik-Menshevik split (even if he did join the Mensheviks in the end).

As a ploy to remove one of the most prominent Mensheviks (and a suspected crypto-Bolshevik), Leon Trotsky was relocated to the newly reorganised Antarctic Krai (formerly a Russian lease port). As the narrative goes, Trotsky arrived to the Antarctic Krai in 1927 and was disturbed by what he found. The Soviet managers were establishing a race caste system with penguins dismissed as 'not even sapient' and the land not a legacy of a Russian lease from the Penguin Empire, but a new workers' frontier where a new society, a socialist one, can emerge free from the touch of capitalism. The penguins were not considered part of the workers, but rather as mere tools, like hunting dogs.

Then the narrative goes, the heroic Trotsky rallied the penguins, the true workers and proletariat of the Krai, and overthrew the old elite and forced the Russians to acknowledge the penguins as equals to humans and hence workers and proletariat in their own right. The actual reality is far more grey of course, and has more to do with the fact Trotsky noticed a certain alienation from the new regime the penguins had, and exploited that much to his benefit, and the benefit of his emerging clique in a microcosm of the greater struggle for leftist dominance in Russia.

As the Left-SR dominated in Russia after the rise of the People's Socialist Party, the fact that the Antarctic ASR (renamed in 1931) was firmly of Trotskyite leanings was a minor irritant at first. But when Trotsky and his right-hand penguin Yínkeé (at the time and still commonly realised up north as "Comrade Pingu") released The Permanent Revolution in 1932, it caused heads to turn as it was in a sense a renouncement of the line the People's Socialist Party advocated, rather pushing the idea of a vanguard party, a stronger state structure and a push towards global revolution through using state measures rather than bottom-up, a rejection of 'democratic dictatorship' in favour of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. There were murmurs of sending Narodnik ships to 'curb' Trotsky and remove him from power, but practical circumstances (plus, Antarctica is far away) intervened.

Trotsky was keenly aware that he was outnumbered by the Penguin Empire, and after consultation with Pingu, dropped the idea of spreading the revolution to the Empire through war for the duration, preferring to take advantage of the Empire's vast size and populace to spread 'revolutionary cells'. In the meantime, he strengthened the organisation of the Autonomous Socialist Republic and prioritised fellow Trotskyists above anyone he deemed to be a possible Narodnik collaborator. By necessity, this meant penguins rather than the humans dispatched there, and this strengthened his appeal as the 'Comrade of the Penguins'. Helping this was Trotsky's leaning more in his old Menshevik roots and establishing stronger mass-party organisations connected to the Antarctic Communist Party (governed of course by its Central Committee and its Chairman, namely him).

With the Narodniks far more interested in internal then European matters, Trotsky had years upon years to create his regime. And with penguins increasingly loyal to their Chairman for he ended the tyranny of the Empire then the Narodniks, there were very few assassination attempts. One in 1940 ended up with an ice pick in the assassin's head and Trotsky, increasingly paranoid, forbid anyone but his family and Pingu from meeting him. He would communicate his plans through either his wife Natalia Sedova-Trotskaya or his secretary Pingu. This would create some tension later on, but the two had a functioning working relationship, especially after Trotsky's death.

With the New Swabians relatively close to them after 1943 [by Antarctic standards!], Trotsky authorised an invasion of New Swabia that would just exhaust his forces with hundreds of penguins dead. Aware that his political capital in the ASR was on shakier ground (nobody disputed that the battle was morally just, it was just badly planned), Trotsky elected to focus on what he did best, releasing ideological pamphlets and allowing the Central Committee and the party organisations to manage themselves beyond broadly keeping to the party line.

The Fourth International was founded in 1946 when Russia was at its nadir and the ASR had the greatest latitude possible. It was a rejection of the Third International (itself a Russian splinter from the Second International) and pushed the idea of Marxism-Trotskyism as elaborated in The Permanent Revolution and other writings of Trotsky. The man, acutely aware of people who wished to assassinate him if he left the ASR, elected to agree to his son Lev's offer to go in his place to Paris where it was being held. The congress went well, but it brought the world's attention to Trotsky's Antarctic ASR, especially Russia. After Mravinsky, Khrushchev sought to buttress his control by dealing with Trotsky.

The West, led by Britain, was in the 'Khrushchev Thaw' period and Trotsky was seen as an ideological threat. So he authorised the invasion ('restoration of order') to the Antarctic ASR. It was... not to his satisfaction in the end. Trotsky fled south, rousing his penguins to resist the 'illegal occupation'. Leon Trotsky died in the cold icy wilderness in 1962, souring the penguins further to the Russian occupiers who seemed to bring back the bad old days where they were treated as counter-revolutionary or as unwelcome occupiers of rightful Russian land.

Khrushchev's successor Merzhanov was a hardliner, but as the Fourth International publicised the plight of the penguins and portrayed Russia's control as tyrannical, he knew he had to do something. There were very few penguins in the ASR that were sympathetic to the orthodox Marxist-Narodnik line, but he could make-do with at least an opportunistic collaborator. Hence the appointment of Yínkaé ('Pingo'). Pingo was unpopular with the average penguins, with Pingu famously tearing into his one-time comrade as a 'betrayer of the true Marxist-Trotskyist line and of the penguin proletariat'. Pingo was in many ways 'Anthropocentrism with a penguin face' and as he dismantled the Trotskyist structures, there were constant revolts and penguins refusing, even at the point of a gun, to listen to the measures that the Central Committee in Moscow set out for their errant republic.

And of course, the attempts at establishing local workers' councils were cancelled as they were seen as a way to empower Trotskyist elements. This was one of the things that led Merzhanov to be tarred as betraying the revolution himself, and as soon as Mravinsky came back, he cancelled the occupation and granted Trotsky a pardon for his previously-accused 'crimes against the Revolution'. Pingo was dismissed and he extended an offer to the hiding rump of the Trotskyist government to return to power. By the time he did so, Natalia Sedova-Trotskaya followed her husband to the grave and was granted the Antarctic funeral (namely being thrown to the bottom of the water to decompose) near where Trotsky was estimated to be buried, and Pingu was valiantly struggling on. As he moved his ageing body through Trotskygrad back to the restored Central Committee to take the position of Chairman, the clapping of flippers and the nooting and screeching of triumph followed him. He wouldn't last in the position long.

But in his few years as Chairman triumphant, he followed his old mentor and released his Clarifications on Marxist-Trotskyist Thought, incorporating many of his thoughts that were similar to the foco system of East Cuba, to make the modern 'Marxism-Trotskyism-Pinguism' that was widely accepted by Trotskyites elsewhere. Pingu passed away in 1983 and his last wish was to 'discourse with Comrade Trotsky once more', and hence his body was thrown into the water in the same place as Trotsky and Sedova-Trotskaya. That place is now called the 'Sea of Heroes' and every Chairman after their demise is put there. As Russia fell apart, the ASR was renamed the Penguin Socialist Republic and declared independence with very little fuss. The Chairman became the President, but the organisation remained exactly the same.

The Fourth International still meets at Trotskygrad every other year. The Empire has grown used to its peculiar socialist neighbour, but as the lease starts to run out, and the political atmosphere turn nationalist and reunificationist, are the 2040s the end of Leon Trotsky's legacy?
 
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Pingu passed away in 1983 and his last wish was to 'discourse with Comrade Trotsky once more', and hence his body was thrown into the water in the same place as Trotsky and Sedova-Trotskaya. That place is now called the 'Sea of Heroes' and every Chairman after their demise is put there.

Tibby, I don't know how, but you've given me feels about Trotskyist penguins. I actually started tearing up a little at this point.

I love TABE so much because of mad shit like this.
 
View attachment 39291
View attachment 39292
The PSR's flag is of a similar design to the Empire's (apart from the penguin and star) because the design is seen as pan-Antarctic.

The Penguin Socialist Republic (formerly the Antarctic Autonomous Socialist Republic) is, despite all the hullabaloo about the Nazis in New Swabia seeking Tsalal cities and the complicated human-supremacy imperialism in British Antarctica, the chief worry of the Penguin Empire. Not because it is revolting against them, but because the Empire dreads re-incorporating it as the lease approaches its final deadline and there is no more Russia to renegotiate with. Any suggestion of letting the Republic continue goes up against a very strong Antarctic nationalist sentiment in the Empire.

But it really cannot be underestimated, the penguins of the Socialist Republic have a very different cultural outlook. While the Empire accepted technological innovation and tried its utmost to keep cultural ideas away from the realm, the Socialist Republic was a virulently 'modernised' area in every sense of the word, with even the traditional Penguin traditional hierarchical addresses being done away with in favour of yékií ('comrade'). Tárétskyiráa (often referred to up North as its Russian form Trotskygrad) is very much a modern-looking city, even if quite Brutalist, in contrast with the Empire's capital which tends to rely far more on traditional Penguin architecture.

Unusually for a socialist republic that defines itself on its penguin heritage, it lauds a human as the 'Founder of the Penguin Revolution'. To understand how Leon Trotsky became the hero of the penguins, you have to understand the turbulent nature of the 1920s in Russia. As part of the cut-throat socialist politics of the 20s, various socialist parties competed against each other in the Duma and outside it. After the 1925 purge of the Bolsheviks (leading to some of them fleeing and others opportunistically defecting), the Mensheviks was on shakier ground, especially Leon Trotsky who was seen as historically 'neutral' in the Bolshevik-Menshevik split (even if he did join the Mensheviks in the end).

As a ploy to remove one of the most prominent Mensheviks (and a suspected crypto-Bolshevik), Leon Trotsky was relocated to the newly reorganised Antarctic Krai (formerly a Russian lease port). As the narrative goes, Trotsky arrived to the Antarctic Krai in 1927 and was disturbed by what he found. The Soviet managers were establishing a race caste system with penguins dismissed as 'not even sapient' and the land not a legacy of a Russian lease from the Penguin Empire, but a new workers' frontier where a new society, a socialist one, can emerge free from the touch of capitalism. The penguins were not considered part of the workers, but rather as mere tools, like hunting dogs.

Then the narrative goes, the heroic Trotsky rallied the penguins, the true workers and proletariat of the Krai, and overthrew the old elite and forced the Russians to acknowledge the penguins as equals to humans and hence workers and proletariat in their own right. The actual reality is far more grey of course, and has more to do with the fact Trotsky noticed a certain alienation from the new regime the penguins had, and exploited that much to his benefit, and the benefit of his emerging clique in a microcosm of the greater struggle for leftist dominance in Russia.

As the Left-SR dominated in Russia after the rise of the People's Socialist Party, the fact that the Antarctic ASR (renamed in 1931) was firmly of Trotskyite leanings was a minor irritant at first. But when Trotsky and his right-hand penguin Yínkeé (at the time and still commonly realised up north as "Comrade Pingu") released The Permanent Revolution in 1932, it caused heads to turn as it was in a sense a renouncement of the line the People's Socialist Party advocated, rather pushing the idea of a vanguard party, a stronger state structure and a push towards global revolution through using state measures rather than bottom-up, a rejection of 'democratic dictatorship' in favour of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. There were murmurs of sending Narodnik ships to 'curb' Trotsky and remove him from power, but practical circumstances (plus, Antarctica is far away) intervened.

Trotsky was keenly aware that he was outnumbered by the Penguin Empire, and after consultation with Pingu, dropped the idea of spreading the revolution to the Empire through war for the duration, preferring to take advantage of the Empire's vast size and populace to spread 'revolutionary cells'. In the meantime, he strengthened the organisation of the Autonomous Socialist Republic and prioritised fellow Trotskyists above anyone he deemed to be a possible Narodnik collaborator. By necessity, this meant penguins rather than the humans dispatched there, and this strengthened his appeal as the 'Comrade of the Penguins'. Helping this was Trotsky's leaning more in his old Menshevik roots and establishing stronger mass-party organisations connected to the Antarctic Communist Party (governed of course by its Central Committee and its Chairman, namely him).

With the Narodniks far more interested in internal then European matters, Trotsky had years upon years to create his regime. And with penguins increasingly loyal to their Chairman for he ended the tyranny of the Empire then the Narodniks, there were very few assassination attempts. One in 1940 ended up with an ice pick in the assassin's head and Trotsky, increasingly paranoid, forbid anyone but his family and Pingu from meeting him. He would communicate his plans through either his wife Natalia Sedova-Trotskaya or his secretary Pingu. This would create some tension later on, but the two had a functioning working relationship, especially after Trotsky's death.

With the New Swabians relatively close to them after 1943 [by Antarctic standards!], Trotsky authorised an invasion of New Swabia that would just exhaust his forces with hundreds of penguins dead. Aware that his political capital in the ASR was on shakier ground (nobody disputed that the battle was morally just, it was just badly planned), Trotsky elected to focus on what he did best, releasing ideological pamphlets and allowing the Central Committee and the party organisations to manage themselves beyond broadly keeping to the party line.

The Fourth International was founded in 1946 when Russia was at its nadir and the ASR had the greatest latitude possible. It was a rejection of the Third International (itself a Russian splinter from the Second International) and pushed the idea of Marxism-Trotskyism as elaborated in The Permanent Revolution and other writings of Trotsky. The man, acutely aware of people who wished to assassinate him if he left the ASR, elected to agree to his son Lev's offer to go in his place to Paris where it was being held. The congress went well, but it brought the world's attention to Trotsky's Antarctic ASR, especially Russia. After Mravinsky, Khrushchev sought to buttress his control by dealing with Trotsky.

The West, led by Britain, was in the 'Khrushchev Thaw' period and Trotsky was seen as an ideological threat. So he authorised the invasion ('restoration of order') to the Antarctic ASR. It was... not to his satisfaction in the end. Trotsky fled south, rousing his penguins to resist the 'illegal occupation'. Leon Trotsky died in the cold icy wilderness in 1962, souring the penguins further to the Russian occupiers who seemed to bring back the bad old days where they were treated as counter-revolutionary or as unwelcome occupiers of rightful Russian land.

Khrushchev's successor Merzhanov was a hardliner, but as the Fourth International publicised the plight of the penguins and portrayed Russia's control as tyrannical, he knew he had to do something. There were very few penguins in the ASR that were sympathetic to the orthodox Marxist-Narodnik line, but he could make-do with at least an opportunistic collaborator. Hence the appointment of Yínkaé ('Pingo'). Pingo was unpopular with the average penguins, with Pingu famously tearing into his one-time comrade as a 'betrayer of the true Marxist-Trotskyist line and of the penguin proletariat'. Pingo was in many ways 'Anthropocentrism with a penguin face' and as he dismantled the Trotskyist structures, there were constant revolts and penguins refusing, even at the point of a gun, to listen to the measures that the Central Committee in Moscow set out for their errant republic.

And of course, the attempts at establishing local workers' councils were cancelled as they were seen as a way to empower Trotskyist elements. This was one of the things that led Merzhanov to be tarred as betraying the revolution himself, and as soon as Mravinsky came back, he cancelled the occupation and granted Trotsky a pardon for his previously-accused 'crimes against the Revolution'. Pingo was dismissed and he extended an offer to the hiding rump of the Trotskyist government to return to power. By the time he did so, Natalia Sedova-Trotskaya followed her husband to the grave and was granted the Antarctic funeral (namely being thrown to the bottom of the water to decompose) near where Trotsky was estimated to be buried, and Pingu was valiantly struggling on. As he moved his ageing body through Trotskygrad back to the restored Central Committee to take the position of Chairman, the clapping of flippers and the nooting and screeching of triumph followed him. He wouldn't last in the position long.

But in his few years as Chairman triumphant, he followed his old mentor and released his Clarifications on Marxist-Trotskyist Thought, incorporating many of his thoughts that were similar to the foco system of East Cuba, to make the modern 'Marxism-Trotskyism-Pinguism' that was widely accepted by Trotskyites elsewhere. Pingu passed away in 1983 and his last wish was to 'discourse with Comrade Trotsky once more', and hence his body was thrown into the water in the same place as Trotsky and Sedova-Trotskaya. That place is now called the 'Sea of Heroes' and every Chairman after their demise is put there. As Russia fell apart, the ASR was renamed the Penguin Socialist Republic and declared independence with very little fuss. The Chairman became the President, but the organisation remained exactly the same.

The Fourth International still meets at Trotskygrad every other year. The Empire has grown used to its peculiar socialist neighbour, but as the lease starts to run out, and the political atmosphere turn nationalist and reunificationist, are the 2040s the end of Leon Trotsky's legacy?
Incredibly based.
 
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