Recapitulation (literature)

Recapitulation: Review and Case Studies of Socialist Revisionism is a book written by Arika Ronango'O. It focuses on the history of the Xeroist movement and revisionism within socialism. It also features a chapter lengthily detailing the collapse of the SMN and how it came to be. It is separated into three chapters in addition to a prologue.
When written in an in-game book and quill, it would have to be split among three separate volumes as it amounts to about 255+ pages in length and book and quills are limited to 100 pages each. It is one of the longest books of political theory and history to date on Stoneworks. 
= Recapitulation =
=== Prologue ===
At the time of authorship, I am writing this in the year 210 AJC—or June of 2023—a time of several political upheavals and developments in the ideology of Xeroism and her movements across the realms of Eldham. This text will be dedicated to understanding the material conditions behind, and what poorly understood derivations of the ideology create.
Indeed, it was my great-great grandmother Xeroise Ronango’O whom is the namesake of Xeroism, and while she is not to be treated as a God and her words as the undisputed truths of the world, many of her texts stand up to this day and her texts and the texts of others will be used to analyze the phenomena of revisionism throughout the history of Xeroism and the nation-states and political movements that have embraced the ideology around one-hundred-and-fifty years in the making.
This text will be split into three primary parts: the first shall be dedicated to a synopsis of what Xeroism is and what the movement represents. The second shall be a history of the first derivations of Xeroise’s ideology and movement. The third shall be a finely detailed report on the issues that led me to author this text; an explanation to the peoples of the United Socialist States of Eldham and indeed the world of Eldham itself what has been kept hidden for the sake of maintaining certain reputations, structures, and organizational abilities.
For starters, let me elaborate on what this text is and isn’t; it IS an analysis of a phenomena; one called revisionism. It is NOT a denouncement of certain peoples or governments for straying from the Xeroist programmes. With that, I appreciate you my dear reader, never stop yourself from wisdom and knowledge, strive to learn more.
-Comrade Arika Ronango’O
=== Xeroist Birth and Synopsis ===
In order to even begin to understand socialism as an ideology and its development it is necessary to look at the state of the realms prior to it. The world of Eldham was indeed hugely feudal, thorned between various kingdoms, duchies, nomadic tribes, and indeed numerous swathes of uninhabited territories that would not find themselves encroached by humanity until the development of technologies that permitted them to move into the many ecologically hostile regions of Eldham. This was dominated by what Xeroise Ronango’O would later consider the ‘Unorganized economic model’: one hugely absent of taxes, absent of organizational structures to moderate economic and sustainable production, and—with few outliers—a non-centralized government or state structure. Xeroise described how at the time of her writings this structure was near nonexistent and when it did come to prominence was always incredibly localized and was quick to fall to the other three economic models that would come to dominate Eldham; and indeed the unmentioned Rathnir as well. During her lifetime though she seldom made observations on the status of the Eldhamite economy prior to Rathnirian colonial ventures and as a consequence failed to make notice of the predominance of the system prior to her own lifetime.
Upon the further development of the Unorganized economic model, three other economic models began to emerge. The economic model of old was indeed also weakened and siphoned by the Rathnirian colonization which enforced and implemented their home’s tax models and government systems, deeming them a necessity that no nation, city, or claim can live without. This economic timeline takes us to the foundation of the Sérotat Kingdom; a place where the homeland of Xeroism and indeed the first roots of socialism on Eldham would soon grow. The area was first condensing its state government in a classic Rathnirian style and was implementing a Tax-donor economic model, this featured the implementation of taxes as the mainstream conduct of promoting economic siphoning to the government for the first time in Eldhamite history and as a means of making sure that all levels of governance that exist have the monetary funds to promote ventures and expenditures. Now that the Disorganized model was functionally dead, the few proto-communist societies that existed across Eldham that indeed had no contemporary class distinctions and no money to begin with were now extinct. In its place was this system that derived the notion that without money your societies cannot exist, and unfortunately for communists across Eldham in the present the means do not exist for an immediate establishment of communism. Communism in this sense is understood to be a classless, moneyless, and stateless society. Instead this is what numerous scholars conclude on is the creation of a transitional state, this state is called ‘socialism’. 
Even the very earliest members of the Sérotat peasantry seemed to unconsciously recognize this pattern and numerous members of the peasant class wished for a return to their traditional ideals; although oftentimes these ideals were seen as being ‘utopian’ in nature. These ideas, and indeed the terms ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ themselves were actually imported from Burgamere in Rathnir following the establishment of a socialist colony on Zamotz Island in Eldham by the Burgamerians. These peasants in the Sérotat Kingdom ultimately united into a singular revolutionary class inspired both by their past and the hope for a utopian future inspired by the ideas of the Burgamerians and established an organization and guerilla army called the Ároxin. Xeroism had not been born yet and would not be born yet for numerous years to come, but indeed the early socialist movements on Eldham were utopian in nature. Socialism was seen as a perfect society or as close to perfect as one could get and the ideology was built on building utopia as opposed to later developments of the ideology (like Xeroism) which distinctly argued for scientific socialism as opposed to utopian socialism, that is to say an ideology led by the idea that socialism is a scientific project utilizing both demography, economics, and sociology; and even such a simple definition as that fails to fully capture the entire essence of what the Xeroists, or scientific socialists, promised as a change to the utopian socialist movement that previously dominated the Ároxin and other socialist movements across Eldham. 
In fact, it could be argued that Xeroism was actually a revisionism to the socialism of old; it is to be understood that revisionism may be used as a ‘dirty word’ and a pejorative in modern days but that is not how this word is used in this text. It is instead a taxonomic term that describes a shift of any kind. While a founding ideology—for the purposes of analogy, say utopian socialism—may desire a certain outcome, a revision of this founding ideology may result in either a change in programmes that achieve that outcome or a change in what that outcome may be. Revisionism in this sense, is simply change, and while some changes are for the subjective better, others have net negatives. 
The Ároxin ultimately came to win their guerilla war against the Sérotat; founding the United Socialist States of Eldham and her leading Communist Party. This was the first time a socialist state had been born in Eldham, and its legacy would be profound. The nation’s three strongest politicians included Aboniert Ormnidus, Leo Belgicus—and the most important to the story we are telling—Xeroise Ronango’O. All three were young bright individuals who entered their careers with little precedent and for all intents and purposes were more or less making things up as they went. Ormnidus was a native to the region and served as the nation’s first General Secretary, at the time called Presidents, and had studied in Burgamere for several years in their capital city to study their government programmes. Belgicus was a man who would later become the second General Secretary and was a Burgamerian immigrant. Xeroise Ronango’O in this respect was the ‘odd one out’ and of relative ‘lowest importance’ in the government during the short founding period of the USSE. She had never studied abroad, and her knowledge of communism, warfare, and organization came solely from her time as an Ároxin member and guerilla fighter; though despite this her synthesis of communist ideas, and indeed her love of writing, would make her eventually the ideological figurehead of the nation and most communists on Eldham and also numerous such organizations across the realms of Rathnir.
Her first government position was as a Mayor to the small city—but also capital city—of Garkogorod which served as the head of government in the early USSE history prior to the later discussed Kunir War. Shortly thereafter she was appointed the first ever Minister of Culture (later renamed to the Commission of Culture) for her diplomacy and cultural sensitivities and the first ever Chairwoman of the National Assembly to the nation for her warfare experience. At this point in the USSE history the rights of the National Assembly merely included veto abilities of the General Secretary’s orders and the ability to approve declarations of war and other such matters. Though her abilities were few, Ronango’O used them so much that she garnered herself a reputation as a ‘corrector’ of the executive government’s perceived mistakes. It is estimated that more than half of all legislation that was proposed to the National Assembly at this time was immediately and drastically edited or vetoed by Ronango’O who was opposed to numerous foreign and domestic policies proposed by Ormnidus and Belgicus; of which she made one observation that would find itself a common experience among diplomats for the next century and a half of USSE foreign policy: that being the object of whether or not to support foreign communists abroad. Ronango’O was the only government official during this time to find herself a relative pacifist on this front, avoiding unnecessary confrontations and instead her work was strategic and covert. At this time, she also began writing numerous treatises and texts related to political theory. Two wars and a General Secretary campaign were set to come and by the end of them, journalists of the Red Star newspapers will have declared ‘Xeroism’ the movement of the people despite initial protests from Ronango’O to name a movement after her; for the first time Xeroism was to become a distinct ideology separate from the vague notions of socialism (typically utopian in nature) that had been slowly moved away from for the last twenty years during the short decades after the USSE’s founding. While prior to this diversion gaining a name the revision of traditional socialist doctrine went largely undiscussed and unnoticed; now that it had a name and a figurehead, dozens of outspoken socialists across Eldham were about to declare themselves Xeroists and place her name at the mantle of their Communist Parties.
The first of two wars that would develop Xeroise’s rise to executive power in the USSE would be the Second Coalition-Ellysian War in the USSE. General Secretary Ormnidus had suddenly passed away and Belgicus was to take his place and he saw no more appropriate person to hold the position of Deputy Secretary than Ronango’O. The discussion between the two involved Belgicus taking control over all domestic duties while Ronango’O dealt with all duties abroad and foreign. On the opposite side of Eldham from the USSE a war was gathering against an empire of peoples known as the Ellysians who had brutally suppressed numerous cities and ethnic groups.
During this war, Ronango’O would show off her expertise in a way that had not yet graced Eldham as she became the backbone of an extranational organization called the Anti-Radical Syndicate and promoted a ‘coalitional’ style of war, that is to say that she innovated the modern concepts of smaller nations or movements forming mass coalitions to force larger empires and governments to give concessions or be defeated. Xeroise was the one to draw together the war plans for the ARS leadership, assemble troops for an assault on three Ellysian cities, draw together numerous treatises, created a fort that would later become one of the largest cities on Eldham, and ultimately the one responsible for the division of the Ellysian Empire and the first expansion of socialism abroad on Eldham; where we would later see the first revisions of the doctrines that Xeroise was helping to develop in the USSE before the term ‘Xeroism’ had ever once been used.
Back at home, General Secretary Belgicus was slowly committing himself and his administration to city development and the people at large remained steadfast and greatly proud of its contributions from Deputy Secretary Ronango’O who had spearheaded the war effort in the North and brought great international reputation to the still relatively new USSE. The early intergovernmental conflicts and differences that Ronango’O had with her colleagues seemed to dissipate as much of the government remained on the same page and heads remained high now; this confidence and enthusiasm would not last particularly long though as the aforementioned second war of this timeline was about to rise from the horizon; an event that would be one of the most formative events of Xeroise’s political career, a war whose outcome was about to be what made Xeroise a ‘Xeroist’.
The Kunir War perhaps has among the nastiest reputations of any conflict in the history of Eldhamite wars—particularly for early Eldham conflicts. A Rathnirian maritime empire called Vanakunir had settled in the Eldhamite region of Leifmyrr to the direct North of the USSE at the time. They had gone to war and taken advantage of the dissolution of another empire called Santos to gain massive swathes of territory and the Vanakunirians found themselves in a ‘pirate coalition’ with two other maritime empires called Tortuga and Barbossa. Together they were a near unstoppable force and as a result for a short period of time in early Eldham they were able to be among the most feared powers—if not the most feared power—across the world.
Soon this pirate coalition, particularly Vanakunir, saw their ambitions turn to the South as they saw a proud region in need of being ‘kicked down’. They first started by annexing a small nation in the region of Serrona (where the USSE lays) called Valham which directly bordered the USSE; and this newfound colony would be called Newkunir. Soon a minor territorial dispute over a settlement called Alicuna that was at first fixed would be used as the excuse of choice by the Rathnirian pirates to assemble a war-party and begin war against the USSE.
Very quickly it became self-evident precisely how dangerous this war was to be, and so the Anti-Radical Syndicate that had famously taken down Ellysia was called in to assist. Unfortunately however, little membership of the ARS seemed earnestly interested in continuing their campaigns; namely because Vanakunir’s colonies and war were in the South of Eldham and most of the powers that made up the Anti-Radical Syndicate were Northerners who seemed to care little what happened outside of their political region. The war-effort was handed entirely over to an ARS general named Lily Prism and the war effort seemed to be over then and there following a devastating battle of the Gabeli Bay of Laria that resulted in both Prism and the entire Anti-Radical Syndicate withdrawing support from the USSE and leaving them alone. Belgicus knew that war could not be won with a chance without them so he capitulated to the pirate coalition, marking the end of the Kunir War.
The end of the war and the treaty they hesitantly signed infuriated Ronango’O, it had created what is today called the ‘Débalo Dakoroto’ or the ‘Great Humiliation’. Over fifty people had been forced to migrate, multiple cities were destroyed forever including Garkogorod, and the entire USSE population was forced to either be killed, emigrate abroad, or move into a small agrarian state named Ljordmir (today part of Kramenix) which had the only remaining USSE territory following the treaty that was signed with Vanakunir. This created refugee camps, the government seemed to lose all popularity, most seemed intent on letting the enemies win, and it now seemed inevitable that the USSE would collapse. Conveniently the exact time this was happening, Belgicus’ term ended and a new General Secretary was set to be elected. At first seemingly nobody wanted to run, after all they would be inheriting a nation that was a mere fraction of the power they once had and it seemed absolutely impossible to regain territory or power; nobody wanted the USSE to die in their hands.
However, Xeroise Ronango’O would be one of merely two people to consider running for office; her having the sole support of the Communist Party. The only other candidate was a refugee and member of the much smaller Tulipanist Socialist Party. She promised against all odds to bring back stability to this country; her sole duty was to restore what had been lost and place the USSE back where it belongs in the world. She ultimately won with over 85% of the national vote, making her one of the single most popular politicians in the entire history of the USSE including retrospection to this day. The nation seemed hopeless and over the following month, or using the in-lore calendar around five years, she was set to remold the USSE to her image. By the end of it, her programmes and beliefs will have made history and her referenda will make up the spine of Xeroism as it exists today.
Upon election, Ronango’O was quick to try regaining the national spirit, and did what she could to get people to run for office in a new National Assembly. Once this happened, she began to unroll one of the largest reform plans of any General Secretary in the entire history of the country. She frequently had to deal with the Tulipanist Socialist Party and another called the Worker’s Green Front—she saw both as unnecessary anti-revolutionary hindrances. As a result, at the beginning of what were called the Mumo’oa Ko reforms she would abolish all political parties except for the Communist Party. This had the goal of making sure the country was proletarian led and that there was merely one united proletarian front; members of the other two political parties complied and became members of the Communist Party. On top of this, she sought legislative reforms to the Constitution. Ronango’O dissolved the Ministries, replacing them with Executive Commissions that were appointed by the General Secretary, the National Assembly was given more legislative abilities, the independent Politburo was abolished which was an inactive legislative body; its responsibilities falling onto the National Assembly and Commission of Justice which is the case to this day, the position of Prime Minister was abolished, the Constitution of the USSE which remains to this day was first drafted, and a State’s Assembly that made the USSE a more federal socialist republic was made. This made a distinct legislative body in the form of the National Assembly that worked independently from the executive branch, led by the General Secretary and its Commissions. This system remains almost entirely the same to this day and has changed very little since.
These combined reforms reboosted national activity and she now focused her priorities on lost lands. She began support of a covert guerilla movement that remained classified for a long time that would sabotage the Newkunir colonies; in addition to Anglunia as the Vanakunirians sold the Isle of Kiurtrog and Téntalo to the burgeoning kingdom. Quickly, former USSE cities like those of Laria began to make the city deliberately ‘useless’ and economic growth happened in the nation for about the first time. First the USSE would purchase back the Anglunian colonies for $400,000 Rélos. Vanakunir at this time was incredibly busy with other war plans and when the USSE began to seek back the Newkunir colony and sent numerous threats and covert operations, Vanakunir was soon to capitulate and give the USSE back its territories. Just as Ronango’O had planned and within her designated time frame she had not only resuscitated the USSE government in its entirety but also taken back all lost USSE territory. She then began to invest in a new capital city in the form of Kazkaya which remains one of the largest cities on Eldham to this day.
With this, Ronango’O had perhaps the most popular reputation of any USSE politician—a reputation that would continue itself for years to come. Towards the end of this term, Red Star journalist Korwin Rogale would coin the term ‘Xeroism’ to describe the entire movement of scientific socialism that diverged from the Utopian Socialist factions of old—the term came about following Ronango’O publicizing her political theory text ‘The Boot Trembles in the East’. Soon thereafter numerous politicians began to self-identify as Xeroists despite some initial protests from Ronango’O who felt the term was narcissistic and didn’t like the nation’s ideology being named after her. Despite this, she came to understand that the ideology isn’t just a descriptor of her and that she was merely being used as a symbol of successful scientific socialist doctrine because of her reforms and the term Xeroist began to take off. Almost every single General Secretary since has self-identified as Xeroists and the term even began to spread abroad.
The ideology described numerous broad traits and today there exists several modes of thought within the Xeroist programme and ideology. One of the main things Ronango’O advocated for was a united party front for the proletarian movement that would debate and organize the communist movement from the bottom up and would lead the socialist state to success; what called a vanguard party. She sought revolution or upheaval against the state governments across Eldham that were led by oligarchs and kingdoms, and wished for their replacement by the proletarian movement. On top of this, other things such as city-wide collectivism and creative adaptation of the communist movement were also encouraged by Xeroise. These combined traits are what made up Xeroism and their distinction, reforms, and revolutionary acts made up what was called the ‘Golden Era’ of the USSE. The Xeroist doctrines were encouraged by the General Secretaries that followed Ronango’O including Quintus Solokov and Chelovek Serebra who carried the torch of the Golden Era using and building up Ronango’O’s ideas. They also served to classify the ‘scientific socialist’ movement in two primary classifications. The first was obviously Xeroism but the second was a more libertarian classification called ‘Unitism’ which called for peaceful reformism. The ultimate division of the scientific socialist movement was on whether one preferred revolution or reform.
These reforms and ideas of collectivism also developed an economic model that Xeroise described as the State-market model. In particular, the aforementioned Chelovek Serebra was the one to centralize the State-market model and make it profound; making the USSE one of the single largest economic producers and exporters in the entirety of Eldham and Rathnir. Under the State-market model all ‘means of production’ such as factories and other such places were all publicly owned and operated by the state and city governments. Instead of there being private factories that were owned by select individuals who used them to promise complete personal profits, anybody so long as they were trusted in these cities could use these institutions and means of production. In this model, the state normally purchases the objects produced at a fair market price and redistributes these items as needed at first for the nation and all or nearly all surplus are exported abroad which gives the government profits and the means to pay working people the complete international market price for their labor. This system promised a high GDP per capita as all citizens had access to quick economic growth.
The movement began to spread across the socialists of Eldham and soon Xeroism became the single largest communist movement across Eldham, in the USSE alone it is believed around 80% of politicians self-identified as Xeroists at this time. There was no longer any containing the ideology and it made its statement to the world loudly, Ronango’O and numerous other communist scholars publicizing books, newspaper articles, and speeches that praised the Xeroist beliefs and the promises they gave. Indeed it was this expansive spread of the ideology that would leave to the first examples of revision; specifically revision that would use an aestheticization of the Xeroist programmes yet fail to realize any of their criterion. This results in a revision that fails to create any of the material conditions that Xeroism achieved in the USSE.
=== Initial Movements of Revisionism ===
It is perhaps true that the first revision of the standard Xeroist ideology that is discussed in the first section happened in the former Ellysian Empire. Ronango’O was in charge of the largest territorial zone that divided the Empire yet also among the least populated. She had founded a city called Garxeto and helped to restore the city of Buchwych in the zone. Following the war she knew she did want the USSE to own the region forever and split the zone into four different nations. These were meant to represent four separate ideologies; initially she intended on founding all four as socialist nation-states but this was quickly dismissed by the Anti-Radical Syndicate. The Federal Republic of Cognia was founded as a liberal democracy, the Coalition of Anarchist Communes was founded as a series of anarcho communist communes as the name may suggest, the off-shore Kingdom of Heli was indeed founded as a monarchist nation—and most important to us, the Garijos Yawos was founded with the intention of being a socialist country; founded by USSE citizens and intending to model themselves with the same plans that Xeroise had for her own home country. Garxijos Yawos was literally Lo’Oi for the term ‘People’s Republic’, choosing not to favor any ethnic group by naming themselves something as simple as that. The way written Lo’Oi was done in the South was only changed after this which is why Lo’Oi is split into both a Northern and Southern group of dialects. Today in the USSE it would be spelt and called the Garxigosa Ávos as opposed to the Garxijos Yawos which is what it remains called in the North where the Garxijos Yawos was. Of course at this time Ronango'O had not yet become General Secretary and her reforms had not come to formation, nor had the term Xeroism been coined yet, but it did already de-facto exist.
It was here that the first leader of the Garxijos Yawos was appointed, Supreme Chancellor Henrich B. Pierre, who was a USSE citizen that chose to settle the Ronango’O-founded city of Garxeto. In retrospect it appears he had little understanding of the socialist programmes that Xeroise promoted and indeed even those being promoted at home in the USSE. The region at the time had a very small population and it appears Pierre descended into dictatorship rather quickly; perhaps mistaking the term ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ for a literal one-man dictatorship who felt his actions were favorable to the working class. The government had no legislature and was entirely led by the executive branch of which there was only Pierre and his advisors in addition to the city-located Mayors who found themselves obviously lower on the ladder than the Pierre-appointed administration. Democratic elections did not exist in the Garxijos Yawos but nonetheless the nation slowly grew in addition to their Eastern neighbor; the Federal Republic of Cognia.
Very soon the two very different nations would unite into one, called the Confederation of Garxijos; the name being a self-apparent negotiation between both the Garxijos Yawos and Cognia to give representation to both. At its founding, the Confederation continued to call itself socialist and remained under the leadership of Henrich B. Pierre; indeed despite the foundation of the Confederation, this larger country seemed to largely retain the Garxijos Yawos government.
This deeply angered the score of liberals that were largely restrained to the now-province of Cognia who founded the Garxijos United Liberation Front or GULF to restore ‘democracy’ to the nation, albeit this was liberal democracy. Indeed, it can be recognized that Henrich B. Pierre and his small group of supporters—even if ideologically possibly socialist—at least did not act on this and his government was an authoritarian state. In fact the Garxijos Yawos and early COG had zero political parties, not even a Communist Party, the country was instead directly hand-led by Pierre. Henrich’s concept of socialism is perhaps the first revision of Xeroism to exist, before the term Xeroism had ever been coined. Indeed, there have since been numerous self-declared Xeroists that seem to follow his exact train of thought; that being that such a dictatorship is a necessity to secure proletarian rights. This has of course been proven incorrect by the numerous straight-forward Xeroist democracies but also in retrospect it can be recognized that the proletarian class of the early COG and Garxijos Yawos seemed to be much more restrained and oppressed as opposed to being given opportunity and success. Garxeto wouldn’t explode in size until after Henrich was removed in a coup d’état by the Garxijos United Liberation Front, and prior to this there was no economic production like there was in Henrich’s homeland of the USSE, there was no elections, and there seemed to be very little government apparatuses to give the citizenry prosperity whatsoever; everything seemed to be hand directed by Henrich B. Pierre. This is additionally perhaps the first instance of negative revisionism, a revision of an original thought process or programme that results in incredibly negative consequences.
Xeroise remained optimistic and hoped the early COG could simply be reformed into a socialist republic as opposed to a self-declared socialist state that functioned as a dictatorship. This optimism resulted in her being greatly upset by the GULF coup and in fact she and the USSE as a whole did not recognize the GULF as the legitimate government of the COG for months to come. She later came to conclude that despite her many criticisms of the GULF, including the liberal reforms that later killed the COG just as she had predicted, in comparison to the reactionary revisions of Henrich B. Pierre, the GULF in this respect was a progressive force and deserved at least some critical support.
After Ronango’O became General Secretary and the ‘Golden Era’ came to be, the USSE began to drastically expand its foreign policy. This expansion of socialism abroad and support for foreign socialist movements would actually result in similar revisions to the Henrich government of COG; but for the time being as the term of General Secretary shifted to Quintus Solokov and later to Chelovek Serebra, the Xeroist doctrine was now coined and was seeing further developments domestically in the USSE.
Chelovek Serebra in particular was a rather proud internationalist and quietly and covertly engaged in operations to expand socialism. This included nations such as in Pergamos, Merconis, and Prubensia. Indeed, Xeroise was involved in the foreign-sponsored Pergamosian revolution. This also resulted in large-scale territorial growth, the USSE doubling in size from the second term of Serebra in comparison to where Xeroise left it off. The latter half of the Golden Era created the two main schools of thought within Xeroism, being the Chelovekian and Urabonic schools of thought.
Those who proclaimed Urabonics believed in a decentralized isolationist socialist state within the Xeroist framework meanwhile the Chelovekians argued for a centralized socialist state within the same framework. Today neither term is frequently used; though to describe periods of socialist isolationism the term ‘Gáto sau’ or ‘Stronghold socialism’ is frequently used. Ronango’O never necessarily proclaimed herself a supporter of either early school of thought nor had she declared support for the Gáto sau framework; seeing the issue as being situational and falling underneath the broad umbrella of creative adaptation that she proclaimed was often necessary for the survival of socialist movements.
While socialist Xeka, Pergamos, Prubensia, Kolssonafell, Kaladinia, and other such regions remained quite firmly in the Xeroist framework as was the USSE, socialists in Merconis were about to innovate perhaps one of the most revolutionary revisions of Xeroism to date. If we consider there to be two primary revisions of Xeroism—one being ‘authoritarian’ in nature in a desperate attempt to protect the proletarian movement whether long term or short term and in the process eliminating certain proletarian characteristics of the movement—the other considered the traditional Xeroist movement to not be proletarian enough. Wolfgang Godd-Fjell was a socialist cactus farmer from the small nation of Merconis and he later became its Prime Minister; the position which led the Merconian executive branch. He soon made his socialist state a Protectorate to the USSE which he felt would give the nation the better opportunity to defend itself. His small nation quickly found itself embroiled in dire conflict with the Zamotz Union and in spite of the USSE and ZU being former allies—in fact fighting together in the Bull’s Eye War on what would be the winning side—the USSE would be forced into brutal warfare with the Zamotz Union. This would be the beginning of the First Sand War; of which there would be three. However, the USSE would only find itself embroiled in the first.
This war and the USSE’s hesitancy to defend Merconis led to Godd-Fjell developing an abstract revision of the Xeroist framework that inspired him in his leadership of Merconis; a revision and school of thought known today as Fjellianic thought. He felt a strong belief in extremely radical anti-imperialism and felt socialist states had a duty to leave isolationism and bring about worldwide revolution against the feudal forces of Eldham. Perhaps justified in his anger, the Fjellianic school of thought could perhaps be described best as being optimistic. The USSE lost the Sand War tragically and its interventionism during the end of Chelovek Serebra’s second term would result in many targets being placed on the back of the USSE; indeed the country could have actually died in the period of time that followed known today as the Hard Times which was led through by General Secretary Van’la Gaboliver—then the sixth General Secretary of the USSE. If the USSE had continued a policy of interventionism and endorsed foreign revolution outright it could have resulted in the nation’s death to anti-communist war factions and the recognition that such interventionism could result in the death of all socialist projects outright is largely why Fjellianism remains unpopular today.
With both the Fjellianic school of thought and the Henrich regime, we arguably have examples of so-called negative revisionism. As previously iterated upon, one wishes to maintain proletarian states and movements by centralizing and—either temporarily or indefinitely—removing the proletarian and democratic elements of the socialist project. This is the misconception we see among several revisionists of Xeroism today and it is what we saw during the Henrich B. Pierre regime in the Garxijos Yawos and COG. The other wishes to violently risk the maintenance of the socialist state by endorsing world revolution. This isn’t to say that Gáto sau or ‘socialism in one country’ policies are inherently always the correct option, it is merely a recognition that this is a revision and change from where we originated. Quite obviously the latter revision has proletarian sympathies while the first seems to lack it—or atleast functions in a way that disturbs the proletarian state functions. Meanwhile the orthodox Xeroists such as those that find themselves a large chunk of the USSE government presently and others find themselves quite firmly in the center; sticking to the Xeroist tradition rather strictly. Gáto sau in this respect is seen as an example of creative adaptation of the communist movement to best fit the needs of the worker, but it could also be argued (and is argued) that the concepts of interventionism preached by those with Fjellianic beliefs or sympathies embodies the same concept. It just so happens that the Fjellianics are a diversion from the original Xeroist orthodoxy, while of course the Xeroist orthodoxy isn’t. This doesn’t make them incorrect per se not only because (as we explored early in this text) Xeroise was not a god and her words are not objective truths simply because she is Xeroise, but also because Xeroise Ronango’O and the communists that made up early Xeroism are complicated figures in and of themselves.
It is in this case possibly recognized that neither is inherently correct or best representative of what Xeroism calls for. There is no one good true answer to the situations that orthodox Xeroists and Fjellians are put through on the world stage which is targeted by feudal enemies. It is incredibly situational and this may in fact be the entire premise of what Ronango’O meant by “creative adaptation of the communist programmes”, even in her own one-hundred-and-sixty years of life she frequently showed instances of restraint towards internationalism and other instances where she showed supports for communists abroad. Socialism exists as a stepping stone into communism because it is not possible on Eldham to create communism at the moment because of the hegemony of economic models like the Tax-donor that are enforced whereby cities require taxes to stay afloat. In the presumably long, long, long, time before communism can be established the socialist state serves as necessary and if the socialist state is to be proletarian in nature and serve the interests of the working people of the world; that creative adaptation is necessary.
I have concluded in my studies that sometimes the correct answer is intervention, sometimes the correct answer may in fact be Gáto sau if it means preserving the socialist projects in the face of impossible odds. Regardless, the movement is strategic and this is the key to why the negative revisions of Xeroism fail; they fail to actively and creatively adapt. They think there is always one correct answer and this is their fatal flaw. Merconis’ many failures derive directly from constant “war-mongering '' against the feudal states and indeed one may consider some of the failures of states like the USSE a consequence of not taking advantage of strategy. The proletarian revisions of Xeroism are unique in this respect, and should be recognized as quite different and separate from the anti-proletarian revisions of Xeroism like we saw in Henrich B. Pierre’s Garxijos Yawos and COG. Indeed, spikes of this type of revision have been seen recently and that is the discussion of the next section of this text; the June Report. Specifically, this text serves as an introduction and educational text so that readers may understand the historical context of Xeroism and what revisionism actually is because it is so frequently used as a buzzword. The June Report serves as the most recent case study in a revision of the Xeroist programme that if integrated would see devastating anti-proletarian legislation and causes being elevated to existence in the longest lasting democracy and country in general in Eldhamite or Rathnirian history combined.
=== The June Report ===
To begin, one must understand the events of June 19th, 2023 or the latter end of 209 AJC. Revolutionaries from abroad—as in not the USSE—had founded a guerilla organization called the Sulotoxédé Mizorgaxá Nizu or the SMN one day prior. This group consisted of Xeroists that considered themselves to be anti-revisionist and felt that the USSE government had been overly swept by cowardice and their Gáto sau programs; a cowardice that would result in the death of the nation. They had the initial misconception that much of the USSE executive branch was preparing to enforce numerous anti-democratic reforms which we shall explore shortly.
Shortly after its founding they consulted numerous USSE government officials asking for advice, this is something frequent of communist insurgencies abroad. In incidents like these the USSE would also refuse recognition and assistance to these insurgents. This was done, as previously iterated upon in past chapters, to prevent further targets being placed on the back of the USSE as a consequence of paranoia that they would sponsor communist terrorists in their homelands. Indeed, that week the USSE was being falsely accused of sponsoring terrorists in Cataria; so it should be understood that many of these fears appear justified.
To further understand the outcome of the SMN members and the USSE federal government, you must next understand the situation between the USSE and Leiden. On the 14th, the leader of Leiden demanded complete control of the former lands of Manzland/Kolssonafell and threatened a death war against the USSE if they didn’t comply. The USSE was quick to both sign a treaty complying with Leiden’s demands and also temporarily vassalize under Eleanor; both Eleanor and Leiden being associates of the Hands paramilitary organization. This was designed to prevent Leiden from attacking the USSE further from the inside; though it is possible that this may have been a well-thought out ploy to further eliminate USSE sovereignty seeing as the USSE capital city claim was already owned by Kelz who was the leader of Eleanor and indeed an associate of Nora whom led Leiden. As of now, it appears only time will tell the exact situation that was placed on the USSE’s back, but nonetheless the reaction was the same.
Within the USSE this act of vassalizing under Eleanor after having already ‘lost’ their capital city was considered incredibly demoralizing and communists abroad such as the soon-to-be-founded SMN found the act to be pathetic. This is where the factions of orthodox Xeroists in the Communist Party of the USSE began to split into three small factions. The first was of course those who remained orthodox in their opinion and were neutral in the issue, and saw the Eleanorian vassalization plans as being the same as those we experienced under both Uraka and the Imperium; both of which we raised out on top of. Not only did this result in a loss of USSE-controlled territories though, but the Serronan League which was a Panserronanist organization that the USSE found itself a member of was forcefully dissolved. The second was a revision of the Xeroist orthodoxy, one remarkably similar in thought process to the old thoughts of Henrich B. Pierre and other such socialists that drifted away from democratic policies. Deputy Secretary Emma Brewtaker who had been freshly elected alongside now-General Secretary Magerius Ukumari began to plan for very drastic reforms. It is as of yet unknown when Brewtaker first consulted Ukumari about these reforms; but what is known is that he seemingly did not raise his hand to stop them.
On June 19th a census began to be conducted in preparation for the first election of the Supreme People’s Assembly of which I was a census coordinator. I noticed that the popularity statistics of the USSE government—of which responses were optional—seemed to be frighteningly low. Indeed, an apparent record low in USSE history. I warned newly-elected Brewtaker of these statistics which reported a mere 60% approval of the government—which may seem high for some countries but was a startling low for the standards of the USSE that had not been seen before—mostly because she already did not have strong communist allegiances and the USSE was largely made up of communists. On top of this, she was outspoken within government circles about frustrations relating to the earlier collapse of the Serronan League days prior which seemed to be the main spark that created such a low approval rate.
She seemed hesitant to consider the statistics worrying and the conversation began to turn from the census results to the political status quo of the USSE. She made statements such as “We have a bunch of fucking walnut brains making decisions and holding power” and “Honey I’m a baby sitter, my powers were stripped and handed to the partisan chair. You want something to be proud of? Tell Eleanor to suck our cock and stand and fight for our morals for once how about that”; I was sympathetic to her considerations as I admittedly found the situation worthy of attention, in spite of this though I was honest. I informed her that she and Magerius still had the most executive power in the entire nation and in fact none of her responsibilities fell to the Partisan Chair like she claimed. It was at this point she proclaimed she felt the need to go public about her frustrations about the nation and introduce lengthy reforms. I figured at first that she meant reforms along the lines of the one that the Central Committee of the Communist Party were already passing to migrate the USSE from a federal government to a unitary one and I said I would be willing to support her reforms at first. She made a lengthy speech of which I found myself with surprisingly no grammatical corrections or advice for changes—I had been the USSE’s go-to “announcement-fixer” for quite a long time at this point.
It was at this point I inquired about what specific reforms she had in mind as I was experienced with the laws and constitutional status of the country. She asked me how far I was willing to go when it came to reforms at which point I stated “So long as you’re not making a dictatorship I can get behind drastic reforms”. She was quick to respond with “...bad news, that’s exactly what I’m calling for. Temporary peoples dictatorship under Magerius”.
This left me mildly confused at which point I inquired further and asked what she meant by that. She proceeded to give me the following plans that she had earlier offered to Magerius: suspending the constitution and judiciary, disbanding the legislature (Central Committee of the Communist Party of this time as the Supreme People’s Assembly had yet to be elected), and declaration of nationwide martial law; all of these were set to be indefinite, quote, “Until we can redo the system to get rid of the issues”. She felt there were numerous issues with the nation—which she didn’t get into massive detail with—but she followed with “Basically [the] Roman Republic electing a temporary dictator to save their ass”. After this fact she also write another lengthy speech that she intended to give at the inauguration of Magerius Ukumari to ease people into these reforms; emphasizing the populist rhetoric that she and Magerius used in the electoral campaign for General and Deputy Secretary whereby the stated on numerous occasions they felt the USSE would die without them.
At this point I was quite confused and appalled, and the indication that Magerius was allowing her to announce this all at his inauguration seemed to imply he was on with these plans. I saw right through the excuse of “necessity” for such reforms, this was an identical revision to those of Henrich B. Pierre’s government and other authoritarians of the past. Indeed despite a comparative unpopularity, numerous nation leaders had been through significantly worse situations than Emma and Magerius had been and not once had any of those politicians considered the complete demolition of democracy; including the likes of Van’la Gaboliver with the Hard Times, Leo Belgicus with the Kunir War, and Xeroise Ronango’O with the Great Humiliation—all of which we explored in the first two chapters of this text—in those ranks.
What was being proposed was a supposedly temporary—though the length of such reforms was never specified—reform plan that would slowly ease the public into voting away their own democracy in favor of a military junta led by Ukumari and Brewtaker. It was later discovered that Ukumari was disfavorable of Brewtaker’s reform plans but his failure to stop her initially and apparent unseriousness towards the situation led the Brewtaker referenda to be spread across the general public at a rapid rate simply through word of mouth.
Dissatisfied USSE citizens, particularly high leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, were quick to join the aforementioned SMN where word of the Brewtaker reforms reached them and shocked them deeply. They already felt they could not safely discuss some of their ‘anti-revisionist’ legislative ideas in public without being targeted by the People’s Security Bureau or the Ukumari administration and nonetheless the SMN began to create Dozidok Voba—or Operation Red.
This was a covert operation created by the USSE members of the SMN to discuss safely re-establishing anti-revisionist control in the USSE government at a time where it was—now known to be false—believed that the entire Ukumari government was in on the Brewtaker reforms. This was further expanded upon when the Premier of the Central Committee, Maksim Kuznyssov, whistleblowed to the USSE members of the SMN what he overheard during a government meeting. He claimed to have overheard the partial reveal of the Brewtaker reform plan to the high executive government of which his presence—as he was a member of the legislature–was an outlier. He described that the executive government “foamed at the mouth” in approval for the Brewtaker reforms and that the General Secretary seemed to approve of such plans as well; adding on that the executive government seemed to dogpile on those (he did not go on to name who specifically) who weren't convinced by the reform plan and considered them revisionist. He reported that the People’s Security Bureau, led by Krakhov, seemed to intimidate people at the meeting. This seemed to affirm what many considered “paranoia” on behalf of the now-privately declared anti-revisionist bloc.
If what Kuznyssov saw was truthful in its entirety, it would implicate at least half of the executive government in multiple criminal acts. These acts would have included the violations of Infringement of Citizen’s Rights to Free Elections including charges of Conspiracy to commit that crime on top of possible violations of the Malpolitics crime; also with charges of Conspiracy to commit it.
The USSE cell, or gizuá, was absolutely horrified by the whistleblowing as it seemed to make an already bad situation much worse. Almost immediately, those with legislative experience: including Rosa Ortangon and myself, introduced an internal party mandate to the Communist Party of the USSE. This seeked to stop people from voting for legislative reforms if they had not been discussed internally by the Party first and would create the means to remove people from the Party if they did vote for such legislation without the approval of their comrades first. The strategy of the USSE gizuá was to create a “legislative wall” around Brewtaker and her compatriots. While the USSE government at large seemed to consider those doing this violent terrorists, there was little to no talk of actual acts of violence against the USSE state and indeed very little talk amongst the USSE gizuá in support of foreign communist revolutions. In fact, there seemed little interest in the USSE gizuá to actually fight for these movements whatsoever; most simply providing ideological and dialectic help which in the case of war might be as good as useless. The only such violent acts to be discussed was the assassination of Rosa Ortangon—who was in on the matter to begin with.
The goal of the first legislative wall was to let Brewtaker smash her head into it headfirst and destroy her own reputation if she attempted to dismantle democracy; something that would be helped by the newspapers and possibly the Commission of Justice. To this day I still have massive respect for Brewtaker and I do believe she wants what is best for the nation; I knew from the moment she informed me of her reforms that what she wanted was not justified. My ancestors like Xeroise Ronango’O had sat idly by, not wanting to intrude, when figures like Henrich B. Pierre betrayed socialist principles in Garxijos with the exact same reasons as Brewtaker and I would not do the same in my own home country.
The moment Brewtaker became aware that the Communist Party was passing internal party mandates to restrict her from passing reforms she was quick to show her anger towards numerous government officials in government communications chats. I will not disclose all that was said as it is technically considered classified information. All that can be said until it is one day declassified is that many harsh things were said that further alienated the USSE gizuá of the SMN from the federal government. This happened on the 20th of June.
At this point the USSE members of the SMN seemed to divide in two; a smaller group seemed to be gravely insulted and now advocated for what they deemed necessary acts of violence against the USSE. It appears though that this was done in private and without the knowledge of the other faction. The other argued what was called in the policies called out for in the Operation Red description; which was almost entirely restricted to legislative reforms and occasional newspaper coverage and criminal charges if found to be necessary.
Around on the 21st of June what would be the first of two government meetings with the SMN and USSE would occur. I was called into the meeting half way through by, I believe, Rosa Ortangon but it may have been Estenis Cornaro. What I witnessed was an initially quiet discussion between Magerius Ukumari, Krakhov, Kuznyssov, and either one of the latter two. I have been unable to find the request to join the meeting and as such I am unable to recall who the final attendant that had called me into the meeting was.
Ultimately Krakhov threatened to remove Kuznyssov from the nation for whistleblowing and accused all the SMN attendants to be terrorists. At this point things disintegrated rapidly. Kuznyssov made abundantly clear that he had evidence that seemed to implicate much of the executive government–Krakhov included–of various crimes. At this point Kuznyssov had become a sort of pufferfish if you will. If the executive government tried to take too hard a bite out of him he had the ability to attack. Equally so, if Kuznyssov tried to attack the executive government too harshly they had evidence that he had technically committed crimes involving the release of classified materials. I reminded both parties that it seemed to be to the benefit of both to draw a stalemate in the mud because the consequences if either tried to bite would be dire. At this point, nearly all of this information was still being kept behind closed SMN and USSE government doors, and everyone there abundantly was aware of how harsh the pushback would be from the general public if everything was revealed all at once.
The reason the SMN kept this information hidden initially was specifically to protect the reputation of those in the executive government whose alignments were unknown, to prevent the possible outbreak of most violent terrorism and possible civil conflict, and to prevent perhaps the most publicized political division in the history of the USSE government. The USSE likewise kept information hidden from the public to prevent more people joining sides seemingly. The more moderate faction of the SMN USSE members began to consider leaving the organization to save their reputations and indeed members of the USSE government who had seen the outbreak from Brewtaker and the partial reveal of her referenda were making abundantly clear that they opposed it. Only after the second meeting with the SMN, this prompted Magerius Ukumari to make a statement for the first time saying he did not support Brewtaker’s reforms.
At this second meeting, which I did not attend, the SMN began to collapse in front of people’s eyes. The government and the PSB threatened to remove the citizenships of every single SMN member in attendance; although it is possible they may have been bluffing. Regardless this prompted anger from individuals such as Kuznyssov who I have not had much privilege to talk to since the meeting but the USSE government claims he made statements that he encouraged violent acts of terrorism against the government. It appeared that the more radical element of the SMN—which had until this point been abundantly quiet—suddenly revealed itself and this in addition to the threats that their citizenships would be removed resulted in every single USSE member of the SMN leaving the organization of falling off the face of the earth in inactivity. When I received word after the meeting from the SMN on how it went, people were leaving en masse. The more moderate members of the SMN were stating things such as “We can discuss this but I’m not leaving if Arika Ronango’O isn’t” and other things of that nature. I had become a sort of unintentional figurehead when it came to planning and reforms in this respect; also because I was rather outspoken in my opposition to things that violated rules and any acts of terrorism that would negate the reputation of the SMN. Just as I saw the acts of anti-proletarian acts of violence from Brewtaker’s reforms to be unnecessary, I did not think terrorism against the USSE was necessary until the day we no longer had a democracy. My lineage and over a dozen General Secretaries before Ukumari and Brewtaker ever came to power provided the infrastructure for democracy and its defense, and the majority of the SMN seemed to agree that that infrastructure was readily usable–unlike say for example in numerous liberal governments where their infrastructures and legislatures appear largely useless in the attempt to achieve proletarian reforms.
With this, we are relatively caught up to the present. The SMN is mostly dead though the anti-revisionist bloc remains an integral internal voting bloc of the Communist Party that is set to win a majority of seats in the election of the Supreme People’s Assembly. Whether or not Brewtaker or other individuals will see consequences for their reform plans is presently unknown and Brewtaker and any supporters she may have seemed to have been placed on the backburner by General Secretary Ukumari as they became an increasing liability that formed a drastic rift in the USSE internal government.
Regardless, what we see here is an incredibly fascinating case study in how anti-proletarian reform and revisionism can be opposed both from within and externally. What we have at our disposal is a telling history lesson on how to act within the revolutionary framework in creative methods and how to maintain proletarian ideals by any means necessary. What we have here is a recapitulation; a summary on how to notice and fight revisionism. Only parts of the story that have unfolded over the last week have been revealed to the public by the Ukumari administration including a public statement rescinding support for Brewtaker’s reforms (despite not necessarily going into detail what those reforms were), but this text has done what it can to leave nothing out. One of the unanimous conclusions among government officials over the past few days has been a hard pill to swallow; that we must be more transparent. With this, I conclude RECAPITULATION, and I thank you my dear reader for taking your time to hear out the histories of our movement together.
Your comrade in perpetuity, Arika Ronango’O
Category:Socialism
Category:Communism
Category:Xeroism
Category:Traveler's Era