Government of Aeneas Warren
| Warren Government | |
|---|---|
 1st Cabinet of United Commonwealth | |
| Date formed | 8 January 1917 |
| Date dissolved | 14 September 1922 |
| People and organisations | |
| Head of government | Aeneas Warren |
| Member party | Continentalist Party |
| Status in legislature | Majority |
| History | |
| Incoming formation | First Triumvirate |
| Outgoing formation | Henderson Administration |
| Predecessor | Carson Henderson |
| Successor | First Triumvirate |
Under the leadership of Continentalist revolutionary Aeneas Warren, the Continentalist Party seized power in the United Commonwealth through the Continental Revolutionary War. Overthrowing the preexisting Federalist government, the Continentalists established a new administration and vastly overhauled the country's political system. The executive branch became replaced by the first Council of People's Commissars with Warren at its head as governing chairman. Ruling through various decrees, the Warren government instituted widespread political and social reforms, improving labor rights and access to education, and seizing land for redistribution among the working classes.
The initial Warren government was commenced in the city of Chicago at the onset of the Revolution, acting as a shadow cabinet and the executive committee of the Chicago People's Council. In February 1918 the Continentalist Party gained a majority in the American Constitute Assembly for the Eastern Provisional Government, effectively governing over territory seized by the Continentalist faction in the war with the Federalists. The Continentalists later banned a number of rival political parties, but entered into a cooperation with other Continentalist factions, which later evolved into the continental republics of the United Commonwealth of Continental States. Warren oversaw the 1st Central Congress, which on May 1 1922 proclaimed the Union Treaty on the Creation of the Continental States and ratified the Constitution of the Continental States. Warren governed provisionally in the name of finishing the war with the Federalists and their foreign allies, but promised to honor the scheduled 1924 elections, however, he would die unexpectedly several months later on 14 September 1922. He would be succeeded by a decentralized government led loosely by three members of the Presidium and People's Commissars, in what became known as the First Triumvirate.
Composition
Council of People's Commissars
The Council of People's Commissars of the United Commonwealth was the government cabinet first of the Eastern Provisional Government, then from 1922 of the United Commonwealth of Continental States. The members of the council headed individual ministries, known as People's Commissariats, and were joined by several deputies and a collegium, which functioned as a body to advise the commissar and carry out his orders. The name "Council of People's Commissars" was adopted to avoid the more "bourgeois" terms of "minister" or "cabinet", and additionally the council sought to replace the practice of a cabinet being nominated by a ruler or autocrat by having the council responsible to the National Congress. Although in theory the council operated at the discretion of the legislative assemblies, the constitution of the United Commonwealth enabled the People's Commissars to issue decrees which carried the full force of law when the Congress was not in session, and the Congress would routinely approve these decrees at its next session. The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars was effectively the prime minister, and later adopted the title "Premier". Aeneas Warren would serve as the first premier from 1917 to 1922, and subsequent premiers were to be elected by the National Congress. After Warren's death, numerous members of the First People's Commissar would make up subsequent governments, while many others were killed or imprisoned as part of the purges surrounding the consolidation of power of Seamus Callahan.
| Title | People's Commissar | Took office | Left office | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chairman | Aeneas Warren | 8 January 1917 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | |
| Deputy Chairman | Anthony Hopkins | 8 January 1917 | 9 October 1917 | Indep. | |
| Alfred Frick | 9 October 1917 | 8 December 1919 | LP | ||
| Ryan Kennelly | 8 December 1919 | 16 June 1921 | CPUC | ||
| Zhou Xinyue | 16 June 1921 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| Administrator of Affairs Secretary to the Premier |
Francis Fitzgerald | 8 January 1917 | 16 October 1920 | CPUC | |
| James Maurer | 16 October 1920 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| People's Commissar for Foreign Relations | Samuel Gompers | 8 January 1917 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | |
| People's Commissar for Defense | Zhou Xinyue | 8 January 1917 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | |
| People's Commissar for Finance and the Treasury | Edgar Dean | 8 January 1917 | 23 December 1919 | LP | |
| Isaias Armstrong | 23 December 1919 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| People's Commissar for Justice | Fernando Garland | 8 January 1917 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | |
| People's Commissar for Internal Affairs | Lennox Pierce | 8 January 1917 | 3 August 1918 | CPUC | |
| Dorian Conesus | 3 August 1918 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| People's Commissar for Agriculture | Orion Marshall | 8 January 1917 | 3 August 1918 | CPUC | |
| People's Commissar for Commerce and Industry | Charles Morgan | 8 January 1917 | 3 August 1918 | LP | |
| Leonidas Patoka | 3 August 1918 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| People's Commissar for Labor | Terrance Hamilton | 8 January 1917 | 3 August 1918 | LP | |
| Cincinnatus Scott | 3 August 1918 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| People's Commissar for Education | Desmond Davis | 8 January 1917 | 13 February 1918 | Indep. | |
| Kieran Hayes | 13 February 1918 | 4 April 1921 | CPUC | ||
| Seamus Callahan | 4 April 1921 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | ||
| People's Commissar for Transportation | Winston Ashtabula | 8 January 1917 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | |
| People's Commissar for Posts and Telegraphs | Marcus Kenton | 8 January 1917 | 14 September 1922 | CPUC | |
Presidium
The 1922 constitution of the United Commonwealth established the Presidium of the National Congress as the collective head of state of the nation. The Presidium was elected by a joint session of both houses of the National Congress to act on its behalf when not in session. Although created in 1922, Warren's presidium acted provisionally on the condition that it would be formalized after the 1924 general election. The Presidium was much smaller in number than the People's Commissars, and its members effectively became the de facto leaders of the state. Its powers included the calling of the National Congress, election of the Council of People's commissars, the adoption of decrees and legislative acts with the full force of law, and administrative actions in carrying out the laws. It was also possible to be a member of both the Presidium and the People's Commissars simultaneously.
| No. | Portrait | Information | Party position(s) | State position(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | .png) |
Name | Aeneas Warren | General Secretary of the Continentalist Party |
|
| Birthplace | Pikeville, Kentucky | ||||
| Constituency | Chicago at-large | ||||
| Tenure | 9 May 1922 - 14 September 1922 | ||||
| 2nd |  |
Name | William Z. Foster |
Chairman of the Central Committee of the Continentalist Party |
Acting Vice President of the United Commonwealth |
| Birthplace | Taunton, Massachussetts | ||||
| Constituency | Gary, Indiana | ||||
| Tenure | 9 May 1922 - 14 September 1922 | ||||
| 3rd |  |
Name | Ulysses Clark |
Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the United Commonwealth |
|
| Birthplace | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | ||||
| Constituency | Tioga, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | ||||
| Tenure | 9 May 1922 - 14 September 1922 | ||||
| 4th |  |
Name | Samson Zima |
Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the United Commonwealth |
|
| Birthplace | Elyria, Ohio | ||||
| Constituency | Cleveland at-Large | ||||
| Tenure | 9 May 1922 - 14 September 1922 | ||||
| 5th |  |
Name | Nathan Goedeke |
Deputy of the Central Committee of the Continentalist Party |
|
| Birthplace | Essex, Maryland | ||||
| Constituency | Baltimore at-Large | ||||
| Tenure | 9 May 1922 - 14 September 1922 | ||||
Overview
Consolidating power (1917–1921)
Constitutional and Governmental Organization
At the beginning of 1917, the newly founded Continentalist Party quickly gained traction in a handful of hotspots across the United Commonwealth, most notably Chicago. The Chicago Constituent Assembly was formed as a city council made up primarily of Continentalists, Landonists, social revolutionaries, and other left political parties, although the Continentalists did not make up a majority themselves. On 8 January Warren established the Council of People's Commissars as a "shadow cabinet" made up the leadership of the Continentalist Party, as well as members of the Landonist Party of the United Commonwealth and other non-Continentalists, in a "rare act of socialist pluralism" according to Warren biographer Simon Crowder. Although initially working with the constituent assembly, Chicago authorities outlawed the Continentalist and Landonist parties in July 1917 and ordered the assembly disbanded, to which the revolutionaries responded with the establishment of the Chicago People's Council. Open violence broke out in the city which resulted in the overthrow of the Federalist mayor and his government, as well as the withdrawal of Federalist military forces from northern Illinois by the end of summer. The northern states of the United Commonwealth began to fracture into differing factions. Although elections were scheduled for a new constituent assembly, Warren feared the Continentalists would not be able to achieve a majority due to the party being a relative newcomer to the political landscape. In the autumn of 1917 a coup would be launched by the Continentalists in Illinois, which captured the state and the city of Chicago, and appointed Zhou Xinyue the chairman of the Chicago Assembly. The Provisional Socialist United Commonwealth would be established, along with a new congress centered in the Midwest.
The audacious Appalachian Campaign raged into 1918, culminating in the Battle of Black Mountain, and raising grassroots support for the Continentalist Party. With the growth of Continentalist support, both within the general population and the military, Warren began consolidating power within the provisional government with the removal of rival socialist parties within the congress. This proved a delicate balancing act as to not threaten public opinion. In March 1918 one of the country's largest trade unions, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, threatened to go on strike if a broad socialist coalition government could not be formed, leading Warren to allow a number of Landonist Party members and other revolutionaries into government. Settling in Chicago firmly in 1919, Warren oversaw government affairs while entrusting military officers such as Zhou Xinyue and Achilles Taylor with the invasion of the southern states. In April 1919 Warren would survive an assassination attempt while riding in a car with representative James Maurer. Warren would be unharmed, while Maurer's hand was grazed while shielding him, and subsequently Maurer became a trusted confidant.
Warren's government in the early years of the revolution largely governed through the Council of People's Commissars and its ability to pass Continental Decrees. The practice evolved out of the executive order of the pre-revolution United Commonwealth, but carried the full force of law as the council was seen as the executors of the nation's congress. May 1917 a series of women-led protests were carried out in the city of Chicago, calling for labor rights and progressive reforms in the Federalist state government. The march galvanized public opinion in the city, and although it failed to sway federal opinion, it led to the revolutionary Chicago Assembly issuing the "Decree on the Rights of Women" on 20 May, which granted universal suffrage. This decree would later be retroactively recognized as a decree of the United Commonwealth. Once in power, Warren issued numerous other decrees of this kind, beginning with the "Decrees on the Establishment of the Workers' Government" in February 1918, which included decrees establishing elected workers' committees for the running of factories, created a national minimum wage, and instituted an eight-hour working day. At the 8th Congress of the Continentalist Party in March 1918, the first since Warren's seizure of power, the party formalized its goal of establishing a future communist society, and elected a new Central Committee. Although the Council of People's Commissars was the de jure executive power of the country, the Central Committee effectively controlled the government and appointments to any leadership position. After 1918, Warren became unrivaled paramount leader of the country, as he was the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and leader of the Central Committee of the Continentalist Party. In only one year, the Continentalist Party had grown from 25,000 members to 200,000, although processes were introduced by Warren to weed out opportunists from reliable Continentalists.
Social and Economic Reform
Warren's political program, October 1918
Throughout 1918 and 1919 numerous Continental Decrees were presented by the Council of People's Commissars which overhauled society in the United Commonwealth. In February 1918 a series of edicts improved labor rights, with the creation of a national minimum wage and an eight-hour working day. The Continentalists made their intentions clear through decrees promising to confiscate land estates owned by the nation's oligarchs and aristocrats, place them into national ownership, and redistribute the land among the working classes. A swift peace with the rest of North America was promised following the collapse of the "illegitimate" Federalist regime. However, these edicts proved incongruent as numerous soldiers deserted from the military in the hopes of claiming land or power in local governance. Although the provisional socialist authority had gained support for its opposition to the Sedition Act of the Federalist government, which dramatically limited free speech and allowed the government to jail rivals, The Continentalists controversially issued their own Decree on the Press, which limited the publishing of counterrevolutionary thought as a temporary measure. Universal suffrage was passed and went into effect during 1918 elections. Similarly, a number of feminist reforms were passed, including equal inheritance, divorce rights, the legalization of abortion (legalized in 1919 then banned again by Seamus Callahan from 1932 to 1950), the banning of marital rape, and the establishing of maternity leave. After 1917, homosexuality became de facto decriminalized by the Continentalist Party's discarding of the pre-revolutionary legal code, and homosexuality was formally legalized in 1922 as part of the passage of Landonist Law. These reforms would later be added onto with the Equal Rights Amendment of 1924.
A number of reforms would be created in the name of removing old, bourgeois elements from society and culture. In 1920 the country formally adopted the metric system nationwide, followed by the abolishment of daylight savings and time zones, and the creation of a new calendar system. Pre-revolutionary monuments, memorials, statues, and public works of art were reassessed, destroyed, removed, or limited in favor of revolutionary replacements. The practice of adopting a nom de guerre ("war name"), or the replacement or augmentation of one's name with a new moniker was popularized. Most often, revolutionaries adopted the names of classical heroes or the name of their birth towns to replace last names associated with aristocracy. Numerous places across the captured United Commonwealth would similarly be renamed. The army was overhauled with all ranks, titles, and medals being replaced. By law, libraries saw their hours extended and schools and universities were opened to larger pools of people. The Continentalist Academy of the Social Sciences was established in July 1918 for the purpose of creating published works exploring Marxism and Continentalism.
War Landonism
The first half of Warren’s administration, which was concerned with fighting and ending the Continental Revolutionary War, was governed by the policy of “War Landonism”, or the implementation of partial Landonist values specifically for the purpose of winning the war, at which point the Continentalist Party could institute its full agenda. At its core, the policy involved nationalization of all crucial industries under strict, centralized management, and to this end the state had complete control over foreign trade and labor. The non-working classes were impressed into obligatory labor duty; labor protections, such as the ability to strike, were temporarily removed. Food and other crucial commodities were rationed from central distribution centers, and agricultural surplus was requisitioned to feed the cities and the military. Warren indicated that such measures were only for the purpose of the war effort, stating "the confiscation of surpluses from farmers was a measure with which we were saddled by the imperative conditions of war-time." However, debate arose in leadership regarding if war landonism could be used as a transitional step toward socialism, or as a means to eliminate private property, commodity production, and market exchange. This would become the view of Secretariat member Ulysses Clark, who in 1920 wrote, “We conceived War Landonism as the universal, so to say 'normal' form of the economic policy of the victorious proletariat and not as being related to the war, that is, conforming to a definite state of the civil war".
”[War Landonism] proposes that all ideas of a limitation of public authority by individual rights be put out of view, and that the State consider itself bound to stop only at what is unwise or futile in its universal superintendence alike of individual and of public interests. The thesis of the state socialist is, that no line can be drawn between private and public affairs which the State may not cross at will; the omnipotence of legislation is the first postulate of all political theory.”
As the war with the Federalist Party continued, the financial situation of the provisional nation deteriorated. In early 1918 the People's Commissars established a Supreme Committee of the National Economy, which included numerous purported experts in business and economics, and served as a supreme overseer of the economy for about a decade. As per a series of 1918 decrees, the economy was to be organized into councils elected by the workers, which would be subordinate to the trade unions, which were in turn subordinate to the Supreme Committee . Among the Supreme Committee's first actions was the nationalization of key industries and public utilities, such as railroads, metallurgy, and mining. Throughout 1918 the committee focused on combating foreign influence in state business, as an alarming number of businesses began to be bought by Sierran capitalists. In April the Supreme Committee established a state monopoly on foreign trade, controlling all imports and exports to aid in the war effort. The continued nationalization of industry in the nation would become a dividing issue of the Continentalist Party, with Warren arguing the country was not ready for further overhaul. Those that supported the trade unions and further nationalization would eventually become the basis of the Labor Front toward the end of the Continental Revolution. For the remainder of the war the issue led to a process of state capitalism instead of full scale nationalization, with Warren expressing the belief that a centralized economic control of industry was required.
Within the Supreme Committee severe bouts of priority inflation occurred; with market forces taken out of the equation for determining priority in transportation of goods, the committee relied on sub-agencies self-reporting the importance of shipments, leading to all shipments being labeled increasingly as high priority. The Supreme Committee combated this by funneling all contracts through their purview and issuing economic plans. The country experienced a widespread coal shortage in the winter of 1917-18, which caused chaos and suffering for those in northern cities who relied on coal for heating. Both sides of the revolution sought to control coal production and distribution, whether that be the Supreme Committee or the Federalist government’s own wartime measures, and confusion and mistakes in the early months of the war caused massive supply problems. Additionally, railroads were destroyed, seized, or reappropriated; on the east coast alone approximately 40,000 loaded friend and coal cars became tied down in a traffic jam, and in New York harbor the number of unloaded ships reached 200. Foreign trade grinded to a halt with the Warren government, as foreign powers sought to strangle the Continentalist cause; the repudiation of the debts of the United Commonwealth in 1918 likewise aided in foreign capital being withdrawn from the country, leading to low investment rates.
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The Warren government issued the Decree on Food and Fuel Control in 1918, which emboldened the government to “use any and all agencies, to accept the services of any person without compensation, to cooperate with any person or persons in relation to the processes, methods, activities of and for the production manufacture, procurement, storage, distribution, sale, marketing, pledging, financing, and consumption of necessaries which are declared to be affected with a public interest.” The Supreme Committee subsequently fixed food prices, enacted harsh penalties against food hoarding and profiteering, and encouraged the growing of more food crops. Campaigns were carried out to combat food waste, and the planting of “victory gardens” was encouraged in backyards and vacant lots. Nonessential factories were closed to preserve coal, and citizens were encouraged to use less lighting and heating. Rationing from central distribution centers in cities was carried out. During the early revolution and the years just before it, agricultural prices had skyrocketed, and farmers often borrowed heavily to expand their holdings by buying out neighboring farms. This led to widespread downturn by 1920; the Continentalists offered financial support to farmers and cracked down on conglomerates, with large scale farms being seized and redistributed.
One of the most controversial aspects of the War Landonism period would be the practice of food appropriation. The Federalist government attempted to starve out the largely urban Continentalist movement in its early stages, with cities such as Chicago facing blockade in late 1917. Believing it the only way to combat widespread starvation and to fuel the war effort, Warren ordered appropriation of food yield from rural areas. Resistance to this decree proved high, but those who resisted were labeled as saboteurs or food hoarders, who were seeking to disrupt the war effort for selfish ends. In the short term this aided the Continentalist victory, but it also disrupted trade and led to widespread rebellion against Continentalist authority, especially as the situation in rural areas deteriorated. In the South, widespread opposition to the Continentalist advance and their requisitioning led to little incentive for many to continue production, and for others, migration away from the war torn regions was most promising. Urban workers often sold personal valuables or made craft goods for sale or barter, with some traveling to rural areas to barter for food and transport it to cities personally—a practice later banned and persecuted by the Extraordinary Commission. Elsewhere, an inefficient black market developed, fueled by the barter system due to a shortage of cash, which soared in urban centers.
Conclusion of the Revolutionary War
As the Continentalist invasion of the southern states intensified, the foundation of a Southern Insurrection was laid. By late 1919 the Federalist Party began widespread retreat further south and ultimately to a mass exodus to the Antilles. As the war intensified the Continentalists received widespread condemnation by foreign powers, especially Sierra, Brazoria, Superior, and the United Kingdom. These nations would form an allied intervention against the Continentalists in 1919 and launch an invasion. Although initially successful in capturing numerous border territories and strategic point, the invasion helped rally support to the Continentalist cause. Additionally, the international coalition suffered from poor organization and leadership. Without a clear goal or intention in the invasion, it quickly began to stall. As the Continentalists gained the upper hand against the Federalist, leadership opinion differed on the best course of action. For many, including Zhou Xinyue and Samson Zima, it was believed that the Continentalists should not stop at the collapse of the Federalists, but continue onward and wage a "war of revolutionary defense" to spread international socialism, and ultimately to topple the governments of Sierra and others with socialist revolution. According to Zhou Xinyue, the success of the Continentalist Revolution and its successful exportation to the rest of the world would catalyze an inevitable revolution in his native Sierra, who he believed would be instrumental in ensuring the survival of the fledgling United Commonwealth. Warren was favorable to this, but believed the country's military was exhausted and resented continued warfare. The Decree on Peace of 1918 would temporarily placate the military with promises of seeking peace. However, in 1920 the Continentalists launched offensive wars into Acadiana and Florida, committing to the goal of reunifying the United Commonwealth at its greatest extent, before continuing in the unification of North America. Likewise, in 1919 the pre-revolution government of the United Commonwealth was captured, and Theodore Attenbourgh was executed.
At the 2nd National Congress of America in 1920, Warren urged delegates to accept peace proposals with Sierra, arguing it was necessary to ensure the survival of the Continentalist-led government first and foremost. Around the same time the attempted invasion of Brazoria had stalled, and the Sierran-led alliance launched a counterattack that came within miles of Topèque, Tournesol, having grown fed up after Continental indecision during the ceasefire. Continental efforts were focused in the south to cut off the surrender to the Antilles. The nation proved unable to control the seas in the face of the Sierran-led blockade and suffered high losses at sea. However, on land Continental forces succeeded in the Siege of Tallahassee and proceeded with an offensive into Florida under future Marshall Aloysius Jadwin. An attempt was made by Warren's government to promote revolution in Brazoria and Superior, however, these efforts proved futile and led to the expel of all Continental representatives. Nonetheless, negotiations reopened with Sierra and ultimately led to the Treaty of Bernheim in early 1921. This marked the end of the allied intervention into the United Commonwealth, and largely marked the end of the revolutionary war, although no peace treaty would be signed between the Continentals and Federalists, but rather the Continentals finished the conquest of the south and the Federalists remained firmly in command of the Antilles.
Creation of the Continentalist States (1921-1922)
Cooperation with Continentalist Movements
Contemporary with the broader Continental Revolutionary War, revolution had also broke out in the Northeast Union, and in the south a unique, black-led movement had developed. Although largely Continentalist as well, these movements differed in that they were led by their own factions and not managed by Aeneas Warren and his government, although they later allied with it. In the southern states, government forces were largely united in opposition to the Landonist movement, and the region became the stronghold of the Federalist Party. However, the Federalists were challenged by the rebellion of several armed black militias, which loosely aligned with the Continental Army. Most prominently was the Black Guard, a militant group formed in 1919 which grew to become the overall hegemon of the southern rebellion. By the end of 1919 the Black Guard successfully united many disconnected parties across the deep south, and had effectively toppled the state governments of several states in the Mississippi region. Under the leadership of Harry Haywood, the Black Guard movement became formally Landonist in nature and allied with the Continentalist Party. The alliance of the two parties and the use of the Continental Army’s resources to arm and supply the various black rebellions of the south proved crucial in winning the invasion of the south, which began in 1920. The union of the black and Landonist orders polarized white southerners and pushed many to the ranks of the Federalist Party, beginning a period of brutal civil war that ravaged the south.
A precarious balance was undertaken politically as the last years of the multi-front war in the south came to a close, with Aeneas Warren making several promises of fair treatment and equality in the armed forces after 1919, and pledging to address racial equality after the war, as he could not “undertake at this time to settle the so-called race question.” Nonetheless his assurances were aimed at preventing the creation of an independent black nation in opposition to the envisioned United Commonwealth. With the surrender of Carolina and Virginia to the Provisional Socialist Authority of the United Commonwealth in September 1919, the United Commonwealth in alliance with the Black Guard, which de facto ruled a series of territories across the “Black Belt”, aimed to regain control over the territories abandoned by the pre-revolutionary government and establish continental governments in the emerging countries of North America. Encouraged by the victories against the Federalists, anti-Landonists, and Sierran-backed allies, Zhou Xinyue began to envision the future of world revolution with greater optimism. This sparked the invasions of Acadiana, Florida, and Brazoria, which were not all successful.
At the constitutional congress held in Chicago for the ratification of the Union Treaty, the future of the black-led South and its structure came into question. Although unpopular among civil rights activists, the reality of the situation had been that a de facto “black state” had emerged in the rural south, which was under the occupation of Haywoodite forces. In alliance with Seamus Callahan, who became the General Secretary of the Continentalist Party months later, Haywood negotiated for the creation of a semi-autonomous Continentalist republic within the union, along similar lines as the Congregationalist States, that would in theory be a black-governed polity. In May 1922 the Union Treaty was ratified by the First Central Congress which created the Okaloosan Continentalist State in its first iteration. The creation of this republic was argued from the perspective of a “Second Reconstruction”, as the south had been the lynchpin of the Federalist movement, and was particularly devastated by the war. Therefore, Continentalist leadership spearheaded by Callahan was that the creation of a separate republic would be the means by which the south was recreated in the image of Landonism, and would ensure that no “redemption era” would follow. Nonetheless this decision was highly controversial. Black activists would call the state an extreme act of segregation and ghettoization, as leadership was effectively boxing blacks within a “separate but equal” republic. Therefore many black leaders continue to advocate from the republic’s inception that it should be integrated with its neighbors.
The ongoing great migration only intensified in the wake of the Continental Revolutionary War, with thousands fleeing the horrors of the war into the northern cities and other industrial centers, or abroad to other countries. However, the republic was not without its supporters, such as Noble Drew Ali, a self-proclaimed prophet and founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America, who had gained considerable popularity and influence among blacks during the war. Ali would rise to a prominent position within the republic, famous for his writings which criticized the white race and called for blacks to settle the “promised land”. For the vast white population of the newly created republic, the unthinkable had occurred, and the social order had been forcefully toppled by a foreign invader. Immediately after the surrender of the southern states and the creation of Okaloosa, southerners organized into militias to continue to resist the “black occupation”. The Ku Klux Klan soared in membership, carrying out acts of intimidation and violence across the territory, while several militant groups continued operations across the rural south. The response from the central government would involve military action and occupation to quell the south, which lasted throughout Callahan’s term, effectively placing military forces in the south for the next 25 years. Thousands would be placed into “reeducation” and labor camps in the south as part of the brutal policies of the Second Reconstruction.
Proclamation of the Union Treaty
With the invasions surrounding the Continental Revolutionary War grinding to a stalemate by early 1921, and the political reality being that a world revolution would not be feasible, the Warren government sought to negotiate the formation of a Continentalist union of states in the territories that had been captured, especially after the Treaty of Bernheim. In the Congregationalist States, a revolution had effectively toppled the pre-war government and established a regime under the command of Xavier Ashcroft, a Continental ally. Although Ashcroft favored union with the United Commonwealth, in such a way where he had a high degree of autonomy and control over the Northeast, the subject proved highly controversial and led to infighting in the latter half of the Northeast Revolution. On 12 October 1920 a national referendum would be held in the Congregationalist States regarding the question of incorporation into the United Commonwealth, however, this referendum was also highly influenced by the presence of Continentalist officers and militias across the country. Subsequently, the referendum passed with a close majority, and negotiations between Ashcroft and Warren, resulting in the Newport Treaty on 18 November. The Congregationalist States were granted a special provision to secede from any union, something that other republics were not promised. Ashcroft also was elevated to a number of high ranking positions in the Warren government.
With the conclusion of the 2nd National Committee of the Continentalist Party held in Louisville, Kentucky the Continentalist government organized various Continental Republics which would stand united during the first assembly of the National Congress of the United Commonwealth. In total, nearly 700 locally elected party officials from the National Committee appeared during the National Congress. On 20 April 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from each state approved and ratified the Union Treaty on the Creation of the Continental States and the Declaration of Liberation and Independence, formally establishing the United Commonwealth of Continental States. Both documents were ratified by the first National Congress and signed by the heads of the state delegations. On 1 May 1922, the formal proclamation of the republic was made from Lincoln Park.
The creation of Okaloosa and the assumption that it would become a "black republic" led to fierce infighting at the congress. Warren forced a compromised and envisioned an internal relocation program that separated the two racial communities in an extreme manner, which effectively expanded racial segregation. Whites would control their own local townships while black continentals would control the republic's government. During the National Congress, the government outlined the creation of autonomous regions within the republics, including the Appalachian Autonomous Region and the Pennsylvania Dutch Autonomous Region. Details of the Constitution outlined that the new commonwealth, united as a brotherhood of Continental states would be unified by their belief in Continentalism and Landonism, establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat with a vanguard party. Warren expanded that those from the working class would have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom from want. Zhou demanded that gun rights be expanded within the constitution, allowing for every labor union and 'association of workers' the right to maintain a well regulated militia.
These Continental States forged within the crucible of war, molded by the hands of the workers and tenants of this great Continent under the leadership of the Continentalist Party, headed by Warren, overthrew the Federalist regime, breaking the fetters of oppression and establishing the United Commonwealth of Continental States; a Landonist state ruled and governed by the dictatorship of the proletariat. We hold ourselves ever loyal to the building of a socialist society, where social ownership of the means of production and genuine democracy for the working masses may forever reign. Constitution of the Continental States, 1 May 1921
During the third week of the Congress there appeared to be factions developing, with those supporting Zhou being from a syndicalist and labor background, these members formed the Labor Front. Those supporting Callahan were most from the political machine that historically dominated city politics, these delegates formed the Revolutionary Front. On the fourth week of the secession, Aeneas Warren established the Registered Sections as a means to encourage better representation of interests and allow for greater transparency. These factions would later intensify after the death of Aeneas Warren, when they evolved into differing factions that jockeyed for control of the Continentalist Party and the country.
Warren Presidency (1922)
Government Reorganization
The 1921 constitution of the United Commonwealth empowered Warren to take the office of acting president and to appoint an interim executive committee. By agreement at the constitutional convention, this interim government would be re-approved by a session of the National Congress after national elections could be held the following year. Effective after May 1921, Warren created the Secretariat of the United Commonwealth to accompany the preexisting Central Committee, representing his innermost circle, while the Central Committee expanded to include representatives from the continental republics. The role of the Secretariat became absolute, as it effectively controlled all appointments to the executive and legislative high committees, and the People’s Commissars considered any designation from the Secretariat to be mandatory.
Although Warren had effectively begun to consolidate control around his own leadership, he advocated for collective leadership and an avoidance of authoritarianism in theory. Warren publicly advocated to the Congress of the Continentalist Party that decentralization of leadership would protect the party from serious mistakes, improve accountability, and would make the country overall more democratic. It was widely understood that any lack of collectivization was a temporary war-time measure until the reign of Seamus Callahan, as in his life Warren advocated for elections and the avoidance of a one-man dominance over the political system. According to Warren’s political theory, the committee was to be the head of the nation, rather than any one leader. Although he was president and chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, in theory the power of both these offices should be limited and at the whim of the committees as a whole, and ideally not held by the same person.
Division arose within Warren’s government toward the end of his reign, especially between Zhou Xinyue and Seamus Callahan, who came to represent two rival factions within the Continentalist Party. In particular, Callahan represented the Revolutionary Front of the Continentalist Party which promoted a nationalistic and militaristic line within the party, and he also personally favored the continuation of strict racial segregation. He disagreed on Warren’s implementation of land reparations for black farmers, the public reason being because it compromised the Continentalist vision. With Warren’s commitment to holding a 1924 election, this galvanized the various forces of the Warren administration to push for their own agendas—very few differed on the goals of the administration, but rather on the implementation.
Crimson Terror
Under Warren’s leadership the United Commonwealth used acts of terror and violence against political dissidents, in what was known as “revolutionary justice”, and later was nicknamed the “Crimson Terror”. Warren considered this necessary to safeguard the revolution and ensure the defeat of opposing political groups, although later in life his preferences regarding punitive violence evolved in favor of rehabilitation. The Continental government justified the actions as a wartime measure meant to aid in the collapse of the Federalist regime, although the Crimson Terror continued after the official fall of the Federalist government on the mainland by several months. As one of the architects of the terror, Zhou Xinyue would write in 1920:
“The severity of the proletarian dictatorship, let us point here, was conditioned by no less difficult circumstances [than the French Revolution]. Besides the countless fronts initiated by the Federalist regime, there are also those attacking the nation, simultaneously or in turn: Sierra, Superior, Brazoria, the Canadian nations, the United Kingdom ... In a country throttled by a blockade and strangled by hunger, there are conspiracies, risings, terrorist acts, and destruction of roads and bridges … A revolutionary class which has conquered power with arms in its hands is bound to, and will, suppress, rifle in hand, all attempts to tear the power out of its hands. Where it has against it a hostile army, it will oppose it with its own army. Where it is confronted with armed conspiracy, attempt at murder, or uprising, it will hurl at the heads of its enemies an unsparing penalty.”
As the Continental Revolution intensified, violence broke out along old class and racial divisions; in the South, sectarian violence was a major catalyst for the creation of the Black Guard and the eventual Continental takeover. Beginning in December 1918, Warren empowered the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs, and later its internal division the Extraordinary Commission for Eliminating Counter-revolution and Sabotage, with the creation of a secret police force to monitor the emerging workers’ councils that had been created by decree of the People’s Commissars. In turn, divisions of the Continental Revolutionary Army, known as the Revolutionary Guard, were designated toward the maintaining of order and security in the major cities captured by the Continentals, and in Chicago they became an all-powerful overseer answering only to the Central Committee. The Revolutionary Guard would oversee reprisals against Federalist sympathizers in the city and those accused of harming the war effort, with their efforts becoming increasingly brutal after the attempted assassination against Warren and other high ranking officials. These threats against Warren’s own life led him to be persuaded that more drastic actions were needed to remove counterrevolutionaries. In February 1919 Warren appeared in the state-controlled newspaper, stating, "the time has come for us to crush the bourgeoisie or be crushed by it.”
As per the 1919 Decree on Terror, workers were encouraged to rise against bourgeois remnants and counterrevolutionaries, with those speaking out against the Continentalist regime being threatened with imprisonment. The decree also gave the Extraordinary Commission the power to “secure the Continental Republic from class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps” and prescribed “mass shootings” to be “inflicted without hesitation”. The first targets of the Crimson Terror were urban elites and political aristocrats, landlords, factory owners, and wealthy businessmen linked to the pre-revolution government, but this was later expanded to all supposed enemies of the revolution. The Extraordinary Commission oversaw the creation of the concentration camps meant to house captured dissidents, opening the first camp at Midewin, about 50 kilometers southwest of Chicago. By May 1919, an estimated 10,000 people had been imprisoned at sites around Chicago alone, with another 1,500 being executed. Under the first nine months of Crimson Terror, when it was officially mandated by decree, an estimated 30,000 people had been executed. One of the architects of the terror, Dorian Conesus, would call the action “a deep success, which has destroyed the bourgeoise as a class.”
Marshall Aloysius Jadwin, October 1921
The state support for the Crimson Terror soon spiraled out of control, as violence intensified. In the Continental invasion of the southern states, the reputation brought about by the terror flamed an ongoing insurrection, and led to mass acts of terror on both sides of the conflict. As Continental forces advanced into the South, violent retributions became commonplace, with Federalist sympathizers being routinely rounded up and imprisoned or executed in cities that were occupied. Perhaps the largest single massacre inflicted by the Continentalists during the war would come in October 1920, when 15,000 prisoners of war and civilians loyal to Samuel Hanson – considered the scourge of the Appalachian Campaign – were summarily executed, despite promises of amnesty by commanders in the region. During the southern campaign the Extraordinary Commission policed military units and initiated a system of shooting hostages to stop desertions. Among the victims of the Crimson Terror was Theodore Attenbourgh, the President of the United Commonwealth, who was executed along with most of his cabinet.
While the war against the Federalists waged, the Crimson Terror was expanded in the urban centers. Formerly allied with the Continentinalists, the Landonist Party and other left parties became scrutinized by the Extraordinary Commission all the same and its leaders were subject to imprisonment. The remaining leadership of the Landonists formally joined the Continentalist Party by 1920, or were forced into exile. Although some left-wing revolutionaries defected to the Federalist cause out of disdain for the Continentalist leadership, George Ossoff ordered all socialists expelled from the Federalist coalition and executed Continentalist deserters—many subsequently became spies for the Extraordinary Commission or saboteurs. The persecution of other leftist parties led to controversy and widespread condemnation from foreign onlookers. Additionally, mid-level Continentalist leaders criticized the far reaching powers of Internal Affairs, and its apparent lack of accountability. As a result, Warren began to limit the Extraordinary Commission in 1921, stripping the legal right to execution without trial in areas not currently under martial law. Numerous committees were folded into the Extraordinary Commission that year, causing the organization to reach 200,000 members by the summer of 1921. Officially the organization would be charged with running and policing labor camps, requisitioning resources, putting down rebellions and riots, and stopping mutinies among the army.
The Crimson Terror had reached its climax in the southern theatre, as the center of class-based and sectarian conflict. The continued terror in the South had begun to alarm the Warren government, which saw the possibility of a prolonged race war causing irreparable damage to the infrastructure and resources of the country. Additionally, the Crimson Terror had aided in the mass arming of the Black Guard – a militant wing of black southerners – causing apprehension in the Continentalist leadership that a potential army was being created that could rival their own. Racial tension played into this assessment, as according to Deputy Chairman of the People’s Commissars Ryan Kennelly, “there is a present danger of a negro uprising capable of threatening white rule.”
Although complacent in the Crimson Terror, Warren observed the damaging cycle unfolding from punitory violence and sought to walk back the terror. He witnessed little of the Crimson Terror firsthand, publicly distanced himself from the violence or public calls for executions, and rarely signed his name on such decrees, although his coded messages and private correspondences make clear his involvement. During the revolution, Warren is known to have read the works of ancient Roman writers such as Julius Caesar, taking inspiration from his populist reforms. Later in life he would echo Caesar’s “strategy of compassion” and his clemency; at the 10th Party Congress in 1922 he quoted Seneca, stating, “with clemency we gain a security more assured, because repeated punishment, while it crushes the hatred of a few, stirs the hatred of all.” The Contintental purges that had taken place across the country, primarily in the south, had effectively led to the death or imprisonment of thousands of Federalist collaborators, but to Warren, the tribunals were becoming corrupt and retributive, only making the ongoing Southern Insurgency emboldened. Publicly he sought to distance the new government from a reputation of wanton violence as portrayed in foreign media, and to dismantle dissidence from the ground up by systematically changing Continental society for the better. On 8 August he signed the Continental Decree “On Justice”, offering clemency to all former Federalist soldiers who had disarmed, as well as all low level civil servants or participants in the Federalist government, if they swore a new oath to the Continental government.
The Judicial Commissariat of the United Commonwealth was overhauled with the creation of a committee on rehabilitation, and a memorandum was placed on the execution of Federalists without trial by threat of death. Seeking to alleviate the brain drain caused by the mass migration of former industrialists, capitalists, inventors, and intellectuals, the decree also created the Commissariat for Industrial Reparations and Cooperation, which was tasked with protecting skilled workers from retribution and to ensure public trust in the nation’s industrial sector. All together, this decree proved controversial among the leadership of the nation, as numerous hardliners argued in favor of continuing punitive violence. Chief among them was Seamus Callahan, who firmly believed in the application of state force to ensure control. He would remark at the 11th Party Congress, "The state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of oligarchs over the entire people; now we want... to organize violence in the interests of the people." A proposition to ban the death penalty led to debate among the Council of People’s Commissars with Warren observing, and the measure was only narrowly rejected.
Critics of the Crimson Terror, especially after the declassification of state documents from this period in the 1990s, point to the policy as simply replacing one class of elites with that of another, as opportunist Continentalist Party members terrorized the pre-war aristocracy, but often sought to become a new aristocracy themselves. Continental historian Alexander Wells, writing in 1923, recounted, “high ranking members of the [Extraordinary Commission] would be seen driving Rolls Royces and wearing suits seized from the raids of the mansions. They went on vacation to Florida. They ensured that their families were the most well fed of them all, even if it meant theft.”
Hyperinflation and Monetary Policy
During the Continental Revolution, the value of the dollar had nearly collapsed, and in many parts of the United Commonwealth money had lost its function as a store of value and a means of exchange. Especially in the South barter was widespread, as well as the manufacturing of craft items by unemployed workers, often using stolen materials, to be used as a commodity. By the end of the war, a large number of Continental workers and soldiers were being paid in kind through the direct distribution of food and other products, and elsewhere rationing of scarce resources was being carried out. Forced requisitioning of foodstuffs had been employed to fuel these free redistributions, without due compensation to farmers in most circumstances, leading to decreased incentive to produce surplus, as well as increased loss of value. Already weakened by the loss of millions of able-bodied farmers, requisitioning further decimated agricultural production; wherever requisitioning was applied, it had the long term effect of causing cultivation to contract.
The Continentalists placed a high degree of emphasis on nationalizing major industry as an integral part of destroying the bourgeois class and elevating the proletariat. However, this process was slow and carried out sporadically. As the war with the Federalists intensified, all effort was placed toward military production, and most other factories were repurposed or fell silent due to lack of investment or resources. There is contention how much of the economy was nationalized, with the Supreme Committee of the National Economy reporting different figures than industrial surveys—indicative of the largely ad hoc nature of the nationalization process. The manufacturing of consumer goods fell dramatically, with people selling off their goods for food.
The gold standard was suspended on both sides of the conflict. Due to a series of bank runs at the outbreak of the war, the Continentalists imposed exchange controls that fatally weakened the standard. The People’s Bank, created in 1918 as a state-owned bank, suffered from a lack of credit function, and effectively acted as a liaison for transmission of assets to industry, with funds acquired through currency emission. Becoming woefully inadequate to handle the situation, the People’s Bank was abolished soon after and the issuance of currency was brought back to the People’s Commissariat of Finance. The People’s Bank had failed to replace the collapsing dollar, but had only continued to print more money in the face of increasingly high debt obligations. As a result, from 1918 to 1919 the number of dollars in circulation had increased by about 520%.
In 1921 the Warren government began implementing new policies to attempt to repair the country’s finances. Outright requisitioning was banned in favor of a “tax-in-kind”, or compensation for all surplus foodstuffs. In the cities the compensation of workers and soldiers through rations was to be replaced by the payment of wages. The People’s Commissariat of Finance pegged the value of the dollar against the “pre-war dollar”, or the purchasing power of the dollar in 1912 before any economic distortions. By this metric the government automatically increased wages to adjust for the steadily depreciating value of the current currency. As this policy continued, the monthly national inflation rate averaged about 50 percent, and the quantity of currency in the Continental economy increased by 150 times. Along with the adoption of the Union Treaty, the State Bank of the United Commonwealth was created, and was given a free hand by the People’s Commissars to stabilize the economy, even going so far as to allow the bank to restrict government access to capital. Later in the year, the country returned the gold standard, and also implemented a centrally-administered tax system. The actions of the State Bank would lower the government’s fiscal expenditure relative to the nation’s currency circulation from 80 to 29 percent from 1920 to 1922 respectively.
Among the State Bank’s reforms was the implementation of a parallel gold-backed dollar alongside the more liquid, government-monitored dollar. The gold-pegged dollar became the means of payment for international trade, later aiding in the reopening of the United Commonwealth to the world stage, steadily increasing trade surplus and helping to standardize domestic commodity prices. Liberal foreign observers would later praise the Continental system as it effectively incorporated the power of state-led fiscal policies without harming the flexibility of a market economy, although critics believed economic growth would be unsustainable in the country. The remainder of Warren’s presidency saw fierce debate between the People’s Commissariat of Trade and the State Bank, as more-liberal minded government agencies advocated for temporary integration into international monetary systems, with the acceptance of loans from foreign banking institutions. However, the prevailing consensus was that reliance on foreign capital was exposing the Continental economy to manipulation and “capitalist aggression”. Isaias Armstrong, as head of the finance ministry, advocated for a “socialist commodity exchange”, in which the monetary system functioned with a fiat currency. 1922 saw the adoption of foreign loans, both long and short term and largely based on mineral commodities, while the dual currency system remained in place to protect fiscal sovereignty.
By the time of Warren’s death, Continental trade surplus had risen steadily, and capital reserve had been generated, which was being put toward the repayment of short-term foreign loans. The national current account became positive by 1923, indicating a return to control over the country’s monetary system. However, economists warned of the growing disparity between the currencies as a future problem that would threaten economic growth. With the repayment of foreign loans via the gold-backed dollar, its utility greatly diminished, leading to a gradual shift toward a single currency.
Great Famine
By the end of Warren’s administration, and into the leadership of his successors, emerged the growing food shortage crisis that gripped parts of the nation, later known as the Great Famine. The destruction brought upon by the war, the massive migration of people thereafter, and the rapid implementation of Landonist policies across the nation catalyzed a major crisis of the 1920s, especially in the southern United Commonwealth.
The first major cause of the famine was the widespread destruction caused by the Continental Revolution and other related conflicts. As fighting became increasingly brutal in rural areas, thousands of acres of land was razed or damaged in the fighting, or simply left abandoned for long periods of time, causing crop waste. Both sides of the conflict enacted harsh, scorched earth policies meant to starve out the other. In 1918 the Federalists attempted to starve out the Continental urban centers through strict blockade and sabotage of the food supply. During the invasion of the South, the advancing Continentals sought to destroy the Federalist will to continue fighting and its logistics network, while the Federalists sought to buy time by destroying land in their retreat, giving little to the advancing armies. When it became imminent that the Federalist government would lose the mainland and the mass exodus to the Antilles began, the Federalists attempted to provide as little resources to the successful Continetalists as possible through the sabotage of farmland across the south, the destruction or sullying of all useful infrastructure of equipment, and through a mass looting of valuables to be shipped to the Antilles.
As such, fields also lacked adequate equipment to reinvigorate production, and for farms that remained intact, the destruction of infrastructure and supply chain conflicts made transportation of food inefficient, slow, or impossible. Railroads in the south were often destroyed, or were backed up by overuse. Distribution of food supply decreased due to the realities of diminished infrastructure, but more so from the agrarian population’s lack of desire to purchase overpriced manufactured goods, instead increasing consumption of total food production prior to reaching the cities. Writing after the war, Marshall Aloysius Jadwin described the infrastructural difficulties as follows: “The Federalists pilfered anything of value from the unlucky people of the South, those who were born with the misfortune of being expendable to their government, or lacking the money to buy the fleeting tickets on Abarough’s Ark … they took mechanized equipment, machines from the factories, tractors, any and all precious metals from the vaults. They left the fields barren, and from railroad hubs black plumes of smoke jutted out to meet each advancing Continental division.”
Second was the issue of labor shortages or labor inefficiencies. The war had left hundreds of thousands of people dead, disproportionally those from agricultural regions. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of people had been drafted into the military or pressed into service in some way away from the fields. A mass exodus had taken place bigger than both of those factors combined: hundreds of thousands of people had fled to the Antilles as part of their retreat, while even more had fled into neighboring nations, and many more had fled from the war torn, rural regions of the country toward cities. Especially in the South, a large number of farmers were black sharecroppers, tenant farmers, or otherwise impoverished. Facing discrimination and harsh conditions, black farmers were part of a major migration north and west even prior to the Continental Revolution—the sectarian and racially-motivated violence of the southern campaign only escerbated the impetus for the migration. As such, a large number of farms in the South were undermanned as their workforce had evaporated, or was disinterested in working in the same conditions as before the war. In Okaloosa territories the government controversially forced former sharecroppers, farmers, and laborers back onto the farms in large numbers, in an effort to solve the migratory crisis and rebuild the country’s agriculture.
A third chief issue was the effects from the rapid implementation of Landonist policies. Land distribution and collectivization was carried out en masse, and middle class farmers who employed other laborers – the basic Marxist definition of a capitalist – were targeted for alleged Federalist sympathies. Food requisitioning, while a short term solution to the food shortages in order to benefit the government and the military, severely limited productivity, as agricultural yield contracted from lack of incentive or compensation. The policy also backfired in some regions, as it generated public dissent against any government action, and led to local communities seeking to safeguard their own food stores by force. It was deemed necessary for the war effort that food be confiscated by the government and distributed centrally at a fixed price according to specific quotes, however, this policy had begun to cause widespread discontent and had eroded the agricultural sector in the long run. Beginning in 1921 at the Third Congress, this policy would be reformed into the “Food Tax”, which was intended to incentivize increased agricultural production. Under this policy, farmers would surrender an estimated 33% less food to the central government. A significant amount of food products would remain at rural households, which was intended to incentivize the creation of local household economies, and increase the total number of livestock and crops grown, and the rate of the food tax was relative to each region’s assessed prosperity and individual needs – effectively a form of progressive taxation. The government encouraged small-scale production of all kinds and sought to revive domestic trade and bartering of excess commodities beyond the food tax.
As the Continentalists gained the upper hand in the civil war, the foreign community largely blockaded the United Commonwealth. The country was cut off from world trade, and all foreign imports declined. Pre-revolution, the country had often utilized a large number of imports from neighboring countries, especially Superior, and the sudden loss of foreign imports and embargo by nations like Superior during the revolution caused widespread food scarcity. Vast regions of the country, especially the Mississippi Delta region, largely grew and exported cash crops, and these farms were ordered to begin a transition to other crops, which would be a gradual and disruptive process. Negotiations began with foreign nations to temporarily arrange for the purchase of foodstuffs from abroad, which hurt the nation’s pride and limited funds that could be spent on domestic projects. Humanitarian aid from several western nations was reluctantly accepted, totalling some $62 million worth of food and $8 million in medicine, although Warren was skeptical of this aid and had it closely monitored. Under government encouragement, churches across the country were urged to sell off their possessions to help feed the needy and house the homeless. Overall this aid would directly feed some 14 million citizens throughout 1922.
The country’s agrarian landownership had never been ideal to the central government, with Warren Aeneas once remarking that, "Small-scale production gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily, hourly, with elemental force, and in vast proportions." The war had seen the nationalization of all industries and the implementation of strict centralized management, with strikes temporarily forbidden and obligatory labor duty. As the war ended, Warren initiated universal labor conscription for all citizens aged between 16 and 50, forcing this age group into military service, as well as toward building infrastructure and manning factories and fields. After Warren’s death, the government sought to reverse the growing agrarian trend; Callahan envisioned a growing industrial, urbanized workforce that would require a steady supply of surplus extracted from the agricultural sector. Prices for farm exports worldwide had spiked due to the war and earlier wars in Europe, something which the Callahan government sought to exploit by continuing a high degree of United Commonwealth exportation. Callahan’s own personal suspicion of the rural south and other populations also contributed to his desire to “punish” the south, thereby he had low sympathy for the white southerners who fought bitterly against agrarian reform and the new collective farm systems. Poor harvests in the mid 1920s, catalyzed by both natural disaster, inefficiency during the transitionary period, and disdain from the population for the reacquisition tendencies of the government lead to the development of a famine.
The epicenter of this crisis would be in the Mississippi Delta, where sectarian violence was extremely high. The black population, which had accounted for the majority of farmers in the region via sharecroppers and tenant farmers, had plummeted from violence and migration northward. The antiquated systems of agriculture in the region inhibited the use of progressive agricultural techniques or modern mechanization—the war and deliberate sabotage destroyed what remained. As a result, one of the country’s most important agricultural regions faced a shortage of labor, a lack of infrastructure to combat the shortage, and was actively experiencing destruction of farmland. The government responded to those who resisted the state coercion with force, forcefully transporting many to collective farms, and enacting harsh taxation and punishments on those that did not comply. As a form of protest, livestock was slaughtered for food rather than to give up food to the collective farms, leading to a livestock shortage. The government invoked a policy of moving to the south thousands of northern farmers, successful laborers, and loyal Continentalists. This was done in part to alleviate shortages, but also in the hopes of leading to assimilation and inspiring greater embrace of Landonism among the locals, but this policy only further inflamed the native southerners.
The south entered a period of widespread famine that has been called by numerous governments an act of genocide, owing to the government’s apathy or alleged involvement in worsening conditions. Widespread revolts occurred throughout the period, protesting the transfer of land and livestock, and the acquisition of food yield by the government. Contributing to the crisis was the poor management of southern farms by new overseers, who were unfamiliar with new crops being grown, or were unable to harvest or effectively transport food yield to where it was needed once harvested. Whether or not the government purposely sought to curb southern nationalism and punish white southerners who had rebelled against the government is disputed. However, the government is often blamed for contributing to the famine through harsh measures of food reacquisition. The bulk of these effects would take place after Warren’s death, while the Warren government made considerable efforts to alleviate the famine.
Cultural Revolution
It was in the final months of the Warren Era that the first implementations of the Cultural Revolution began, which was later intensified under Seamus Callahan; state censorship and restriction of religion and other non-Landonist activities began gradually, as did the establishment of work and prison camps for political dissidents. Warren took an interest in cultural affairs, from his banning of pre-war symbology and literature, to his creation of new academic schools to promote Landonist values.
The Continentalist Party was atheistic and officially opposed to organized religion. Initially this took the form of strict separation of church and state. Later, priests became a common target of the Crimson Terror due to a perceived proclivity toward counterrevolution held by religious officials. Aside from a period during the Great Famine when religious officials called on churches to sell unnecessary items to feed the starving, the state and the church rarely cooperated. In 1922 this sparked the Warren government to order the seizing of religious valuables and riches. Across the country thousands of properties were held by religious institutions, which were seized, sold, or otherwise redistributed. Approximately 20,000 priests or pastors would be imprisoned by the end of the Warren government, usually for militant resistance to these redistributions or perceived sympathies to the Federalist cause. Freedom of religion was guaranteed, but did not include free exercise, as certain polities of religion were prohibited. Episcopal polities and all denominations that required an oath or creed to religious organizations were outlawed, as were religious institutions or groups that promoted the destruction of the state, socialism, or the party's control. All traces of religion in government were also recalled in the name of separating church and state; that which advanced the idealization of Landonism would supplant any such public ritual.
The official stance of the government was that there needed to be an ostensible commitment to the annihilation of religious institutions and ideas, however, the country’s religiosity before the revolution forced a slow hand, with gradual revoking of religious rights. There was a noticeable decline in religiosity in the United Commonwealth (as well as many other western countries) during the turbulent years of the 1910s and 1920s, which the government sought to exploit. With the explosion of the fundamentalist movement prior to the revolution, there was an overexpansion of churches across the country, which now struggled to financially support themselves; the government revoked tax exemption status for religious organizations, further weakening the influence. Fundamentalists were looked upon with contempt by the government, especially due to many churches possessing ties to the federalist movement. As a result many churches were shut down or relabeled as terrorist organizations, leading to mass arrests. The propagation of evolution and other scientific discoveries in the 1920s was slow to catch on, due in part to a government hesitance to endorse the ideas, and also to placate religious advocates. Later in 1928 this policy was reversed, with the belief that modern science would help to replace belief in religion. Pastors and fiery devotees were arrested for public demonstrations or writings and deemed to have a mental illness, and were forcefully hospitalized as such. Others were forcefully relocated, imprisoned (often for refusing conscription), or deprived of their parental rights.
Landonist International
Warren’s address to the Landonist International, 1919
Founded in 1919 by Aeneas Warren, the Landonist International emerged as an international organization to advocate for world communism and organize various communist organizations around the world. Initially it was the opinion of many within the Continentalist government that the outbreak of world revolution was imminent, and the government supported rebel groups and dissident political parties in numerous neighboring nations. At the opening of the Landonist International in 1919, the United Commonwealth’s delegation dominated proceedings, as very few delegates from other countries attended, and those that did had little backing or recognition in their own countries. Warren called for revolution to overthrow the bourgeois governments of North America, as opposed to the parliamentary path being taken by so-called revisionist Marxists. After the conclusion of the Continental Revolutionary War, the Continentalist Party sponsored the 1922 Landintern World Congress, nicknamed the “Victorious Congress”. Held in Chicago in August 1922, the conference saw wider support and participation from delegations from around the world.
Military Actions
Although the Continental Revolutionary War gradually came to a close, the war had created unbearable living conditions and had fueled an ongoing rebellion in the south, eventually evolving into the Southern Insurrection. By 1921 the government’s war-time policies had caused disillusion in the public consciousness. Food requisitioning caused discontent among farmers, and harsh reprisals in the cities was leading to strikes and protests. Overall, economic output in 1921 reached a new low. Warren would be forced to deploy the military on several occasions to crush rebellions and protests in the major cities. Most prominent of which would be the Portsmouth Rebellion, in which sailors in the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire mutinied and seized control over one of the nation’s largest ports and shipyards. The city’s large garrison of soldiers, as well as the general citizenry, supported the rebellion, citing religious and press restrictions as well as an impetus to revolt. The rebels called for the legalization of free press for all socialists, that independent trade unions be given freedom of assembly, that farmers be allowed to sell goods on the free market, that food rationing and reacquisition be ceased, and above all else, that the wars be ended. The government responded to these criticisms by labeling the mutineers as misguided by foreign propaganda and reactionists, and violent reprisals were carried out. Similarly violent crackdown was undertaken against protestors in the city of Boston in June 1921.
Prominent anarchist in the Free States movement, Luigi Galleani, would orchestrate a bombing in New York City on 10 September 1921, killing 38 people and injuring 143 others. This would spark crackdowns against anarchist supporters of the Free States that continued over the next few years. American anarchism would play a major part in the revolution of the Northeast and was a major deterrent to the Congregationalist States joining the United Commonwealth. Prominent anarchist and labor organizer Jo Labadie would call the Continental seizure of power “the true burial of the revolution”.
Domestic Achievements
Toward the end of his presidency, Warren became dedicated to the goal of ending homelessness and the growing vagrancy problem exacerbated by the war and economic downturn. In addition to the overarching policies meant to stabilize the economy, Warren also created the Commissariat for Housing, and dedicated a large portion of the 1922 government budget toward rebuilding infrastructure and living conditions. For Warren, the urban center was the ideal place for rebuilding; migration into the cities had swelled the population of several northern cities, while destruction of city blocks gave new opportunities toward rebuilding better. The landlord class and other housing interest groups were dispossessed and circumvented by the government commission, allowing for rapid seizure and redistribution, or the seizure of land for rebuilding. Controversially, the Commissariat for Housing had a free hand to demolish or seize property, and they were charged with allegations of targeting the neighborhoods of racial minorities. Nonetheless, the overall number of homes in the country rapidly increased after 1922, and the vast homeless population from the war largely disappeared.
Warren was a proponent of universal access to education, and fought to preserve the right of women and racial minorities to receive education. During his tenure he increasingly opened universities to larger groups of people. He also ordered the building of improved schools and centers for learning. For the first time in the United Commonwealth, all children were guaranteed free, secular, and universal education until the age of 16.
Death of Warren
In late 1922 Warren experienced increasingly declining health from stress and age. He took a temporary step away from government to visit with family, although he kept a close eye on political developments in the capital, trusting Vice President William Foster, Zhou Xinyue, and informal aide-de-camp James Maurer as liaisons to the national government. During this time he met with dignitaries, writers, and intellectuals from across the country and even abroad. During this period he became increasingly worried with the growing state bureaucracy and the corruption within. He also became horrified at the news of widespread celebrations following his birthday in 1922, fearing the development of a cult of personality. There is evidence that at the end of his life he considered a complete overhaul of the government, replacing the revolutionary model with one that did not possess a figurehead at the top of government. Warren is noted as having suffered from insomnia as well as regular headaches, brought about by years of nonstop work and activity.
Warren returned to the capital at the end of August, however, in late September he fell ill with what was later diagnosed with Spanish flu. In his last public speech, Aeneas Warren famously stated "our goal is the happiness of all mankind", which would become a hallmark of the Continentalist Party. On September 14, Warren died in Chicago at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, having succumbed to the Spanish flu. His death left behind a heavily fractured Continentalist Party. Zhou and Warren's family organized the funeral with the intent of providing the deceased Secretariat a Christian funeral in the Baptist tradition which caused increased tensions between Waldmann and Callahan.
The funeral was held on September 20 on a notably mild fall evening, drawing in some 50,000 to Chicago for the mourning of the death of the revolutionary leader. During the ceremony Zhou ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to begin the construction of the National Sepulchral of the Continental States with the intent of preserving the former Secretariat. Warren's body would be deposited within the National Sepulchral three years later in 1925. Warren's mother, father and close relatives' bodies were exhumed throughout Kentucky, as many were captured and executed during the Federalist Cullings, and were buried alongside Aeneas in a temporary plot in Chicago. Sierran historians who attended the event claimed that Warren was provided an apotheosis and that the Continentalist Party intentionally attempted to deify him in the eyes of the public. Warren’s untimely death would propel the nation’s leadership into a fierce battle of succession.
See also
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