Nikita Neosha

    

Nikita Neosha
Nikita Neosha in 1919, wearing a Revolutionary Guard uniform
Member of the 1st and 2nd Presidium
In office 9 May 1921 – 13 February 1923
Member of the Secretariat
In office 10 April 1921 – 30 May 1923
Chairwoman of the Landonist International
In office 9 April 1923 – 20 September 1931
Preceded by	Michael Ruthenberg
Succeeded by	Jordan S. Clark
Full member of the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th Central Committees
In office 30 August 1916 – 9 May 1932
Member of the American Constituent Assembly
In office 8 August 1919 – 1 May 1921
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Constituency	Evanston, Illinois
Personal details
Born	(1890-11-03)3 November 1890 Peoria, Illinois, United Commonwealth
Died	(1959-08-22)22 August 1959 Chicago, Illinois, United Commonwealth
Nationality	Continental
Political party	Continentalist Party
Alma mater	Northwestern University
Religion	Atheist (Raised Jewish)
Military service
Allegiance	United Commonwealth
Branch/service	Revolutionary Guard
Years of service	1919
Rank	Captain
Battles/wars	Continental Revolution
Awards	Hero of the United Commonwealth Eugene V. Debs Award

Nikita Neosha (3 November 1890 – 22 August 1959), born Anastasia Lia Bronstein was a Continental revolutionary and politician of the United Commonwealth. She is one of several women who served in the inaugural government of the union after the Continental Revolutionary War, and was a staunch supporter of women's rights and universal suffrage. She served as a member of the 1st and 2nd Presidium from 9 May 1921 to 13 February 1923. She was a full member of the Central Committee from 30 August 1916 to 9 May 1932, and served in the Secretariat from 1921 to 1923. She was the second chairperson of the Landonist International, serving from 9 April 1923 to 20 September 1931, and was a representative for the state of Illinois to the American Constituent Assembly.

Born in Peoria, Illinois to a Jewish Russian family, Neosha attended school near Chicago and became exposed to the growing socialist movement at a young age. While attending Northwestern University in the 1910s she became a leading suffragette and activist for women’s rights, being expelled from university for her revolutionary activity. She became a member of the Continentalist Party in 1911 and an active follower of Aeneas Warren. During the Continentalist tour of the Midwest in 1916, she adopted her revolutionary name and decided to dedicate her life to the Continentalist cause. During the Continental Revolutionary War she was an active representative and member of government, campaigning to pass women’s suffrage in 1917, and also authoring or campaigning on behalf of a number of Continental Decrees which guaranteed women’s rights. She enlisted in the Revolutionary Guard in 1919 and achieved the rank of captain, as well as a Hero of the United Commonwealth award for bravery. Her highly publicized stint in the military became an important propaganda tool, pushing thousands to enlist in the Continentalist cause, and becoming a public target of the Federalists.

Upon the creation of Continentalist States via the Union Treaty, Neosha was elected to the 1st Presidium, becoming the first woman to serve in the office. She remained an active legislator for the next few years, fighting to pass the Equal Rights Act, to ban child labor, and to promote peace abroad. Having fallen out with Warren’s successor Seamus Callahan, she was removed from the Presidium with a promotion to the head of the Landonist International, where she served until 1931. She became an outspoken critic of war in her later life, and was one of only a few congresspeople to vote against the Continental invasion of Brazoria, which sparked Great War I. She was a successful author, editor, and publicist for much of her life, even after retiring from politics. After the death of Callahan in 1947, she became a supporter of Decallahanization and supported the posthumous rehabilitation of figures such as Zhou Xinyue. At the time of her death in 1959 she was regarded as one of the last "Old Continentals".

Early life

Nikita Neosha was born Anastasia Lia Bronstein in Peoria, Illinois to David (1855–1901) and Anna Bronstein (née Volkova; 1860–1926) on 3 November 1890. She was the fifth child in a moderately wealthy Russian Jewish family, as her father owned a plot of land outside the town. David had previously been a captain in the Commonwealth's army, having graduated from West Point, before settling in Illinois. During the Panic of 1893 the family suffered the loss of much of their fortune. According to Neosha's later memoirs, the family received anti-Semitic disdain from their neighbors, as Jews were associated with investment banking to them. Although the family's finances deteriorated, Neosha's family still hoped to provide an education to her. At the age of 10 she was sent to a boarding school in Joliet, where the following year she learned her father had died of tuberculosis. Neosha proved an avid reader and writer while in school, reportedly teaching herself Latin and Hebrew. She also studied history, economics, and politics, and became interested in the occurrences around Chicago. Returning to her family farm in 1904, she stayed busy with farm chores, cleaning, and caring for her younger siblings. She often cared for the machinery on the farm and was known to be a skilled builder, building a wooden sidewalk for a local store.

In 1909 she enrolled in Northwestern University and began studying history, and received work as a teacher. While at university she became immersed in the growing socialist movement around Chicago, as well as the fight for women's suffrage. During this time she also met and befriended Madeleine Waldmann, the intermittent companion of Aeneas Warren. In Chicago Neosha took up painting and moved in artistic and literary circles. She frequented cafes and salons in the city, where artists, writers, intellectuals, and revolutionaries discussed and debated. After the arrest of several high profile suffragettes, and news that they were being force-fed in prison, Neosha led protests in the streets of Chicago, which succeeded in freeing the prisoners. After 1911 Neosha joined the growing Continentalist Party and was tasked with writing for the party's newspaper under a series of pseudonyms. Because of her involvement she was briefly arrested in 1912 and suspended from university, but she nonetheless remained dedicated to the cause.

In 1916 while under investigation by Federalist authorities, Aeneas Warren led a mass campaign across the Midwest and into Tournesol, organizing rallies, speeches, and demonstrations. Neosha would decide to hitch along with the campaign, helping to organize false passports and other documents. According to her memoirs, it was during a passionate speech on the banks of the Neosho River that she became infatuated fully with the Continentalist movement and the rhetoric of Warren:

It was on one fateful day in the hot summer months, as [Warren] was speaking to a crowd of about 2,000 that I found my cause. There on the banks of the Neosho River I underwent my baptism ... born again, I was fully initiated into the Continentalist cause from that day on. Forever after, I would be known as Neosha.
— Nikita Neosha, 1928

Political career

Neosha in the Revolutionary Guard, 1919

Adopting a nom de guerre in reference to the Tournesol journey, Neosha returned to Chicago with the Continentalist contingent. She became a fiery speaker for the Continentalist cause and stood by Warren during the tribulations of late 1916, as Federalist backlash intensified against the growing socialist movement. She would serve as one of 410 delegates to the 7th Congress of the Continentalist Party, and quickly rose through the ranks by election to the 7th Central Committee. This would mark the beginning of a fruitful career in the Central Committee that lasted until 1932. She became editor of the popular Continentalist newspaper at the end of the year, and was also the head of communications, codes, and written materials for the party.

Neosha remained an ardent supporter of women's suffrage at the dawn of the Continental Revolution. In May 1917 she helped organize a series of women-led protests in Chicago, which led to the revolutionary Chicago Assembly issuing the "Decree on the Rights of Women" on 20 May, which granted universal suffrage. She actively campaigned for and helped draft a series of other Continental Decrees, which guaranteed a series of rights for women, such as the legalization of abortion, the banning of marital rape, and the establishment of maternity leave and centers for child care. She became one of the first women to be elected to office in the Continental government, joining the provisional congress in 1919. In support of the Equal Rights Act, which later passed in 1924, she declared that she would take up arms and fight in the defense of Chicago. Donning a uniform of a revolutionary guardsman, she would see combat in eastern Illinois and aid in the capture of dissidents. According to witnesses, at a skirmish outside Gary, Indiana she executed a convicted Federalist spy with a pistol. More importantly, her activity became an important propaganda tool and catalyzed thousands of people to enlist in the military. She subsequently had a high bounty placed on her head by Federalist forces, which she touted with pride. For her bravery she would be awarded the Hero of the United Commonwealth award, and was promoted to captain, however, fearing she would be targeted by Federalist forces to be made an example of, Warren urged her to return to the capital. She later wrote, "I went out to fight for our freedom, and it does not matter what happens to me. I did what I thought was right and I stand by it."

Neosha delivering a speech at the 13th Party Congress in 1922.

She subsequently became the fourth ever woman to be seated in the Secretariat of the Continentalist Party after the 11th Congress in 1921, and the first woman to be seated on the Presidium, being selected as part of the Government of Aeneas Warren. While in government she leaned against the idea of sponsoring revolution in neighboring countries, subscribing to the belief that the country should build socialism domestically first. She also was an advocate for worker's rights, intervening in favor of the 168 miners arrested in 1922 for an unauthorized strike against working conditions in Pennsylvania. She also fought to ban child labor, and advocated for the first national social welfare program for women and children, which went into effect in 1922.

After Warren's death in 1922, Neosha's position in the presidium came under threat during the brief succession crisis that followed. Although not a public follower of William Z. Foster, she spoke out in favor of intra-party democracy and against the strategic reshuffling of officials. During the First Triumvirate she remained a respected, staunch traditionalist and opponent of the "factionalism" initiated by Seamus Callahan. However, when Callahan achieved power in 1923, Neosha was distant enough from his rivals and cordial enough with Callahan's positions to where she was spared denouncement or retribution. That year Callahan recommended her to serve as the second chairperson of the Landonist International, as she loosely held a similar foreign policy mindset to Callahan, later known as Socialism on One Continent. Although in theory a promotion, the action was to remove Neosha from the presidium and away from active government. Nonetheless she became an active head of the organization, remained active in the Central Committee, and took up writing Continentalist material once more. She become one of only a few legislators to vote against the United Commonwealth's invasion of Brazoria, which sparked Great War I.

Later life and death

She would become one of the last "Old Continentals", or the traditionalists from before the Continental Revolution still in government. Toward the end of Callahan's regime she became actively despised by him and was secretly monitored by police, however, she surprisingly managed to avoid arrest and remained active until her last years. In 1946 she retired from her last remaining post in Landintern as part of the International Control Commission, and was hired as an editor for the International Literature magazine. She stoked the ire of Callahan when she "accidentally" praised Zhou Xinyue, who Callahan had purged from government two decades earlier. She later claimed the words "slipped out" and that it was a "grave political mistake". After Callahan's death in 1947, she became one of the leaders of a faction calling for several figures of the revolution to be posthumously rehabilitated as part of Decallahanization. She co-authored the request to rehabilitate Zhou Xinyue in 1954, and made an appeal at the 21st Congress of the Continentalist Party.

She died in 1959 while in Chicago and was buried in the Crimson Square Necropolis. She bequeathed her estate in Illinois toward the creation of a charity for "unemployed women workers", creating a scholarship that has awarded upwards of $20 million in scholarships toward underprivileged women. A statue of Neosha was placed in the United Commonwealth Capitol's Statuary Hall in 1968, while a replica also stands at her birthplace in Peoria. Several institutions across the United Commonwealth would be named after her, most notably Neosha University and Neosha, Ontario.