United Socialist States of America

The following is a history of the United States of America, the predecessor to the United Socialist States of America, from the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to the beginning of the Second American Revolution in 1917.
==The First American Civil War==
1863: Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer. Lincoln's death is a blow for the United States of America, while his death is considered a victory in the Confederate States of America. Hannibal Hamlin is sworn is as president of the United States.
1864: John C. Fremont is elected president of the United States, giving the Radical Republicans control of the White House. Fremont vows to be victorious over the south and to punish them harshly for the death of Lincoln once the war is over.
1865: General Robert E. Lee, fearing what the new Fremont administration would do the former states of the Confederacy, orders his army to disperse and keep up the fight against the United States through guerrilla warfare.
1866: An attempt on President Fremont's life by southern rebel John Wilkes Booth, convinces him to expand the power and scope of the Secret Service Division (SSD), to act as a national law enforcement agency under the direction of the President.
1867: The last organized force for the Confederate States is defeated. The former states of the Confederacy are demoted to territories governed under martial law. Meanwhile, the Radical Republicans push through Congress new laws to protect the rights of free blacks. These actions increase the ranks of southern resistance fighters.
Alaska is purchased by the United States.
1867: Distracted by occupation duty of the rebellious Southern states, the United States is unable to prevent the French from reinforcing the Second Mexican Empire and preventing it from collapsing.
==The American Empire==
1876: Liberal Republicans, angry over Radical Republican control of the party, split from the party and throw their support behind the Democratic nominee for President, Samuel Tilden. The Republican nominee, Rutherford B. Hayes, still wins the election amid allegations of vote fraud. Many of the leading protesters are arrested by the SSD for sedition. When the protesters attempt to get the Supreme Court to intervene, President Hayes packs the court with several new justices who support his decision. The Supreme Court has now become a rubber stamp for the President.
1880: In an effort to cement their power over the United States, leading Republican politicians begin cutting deals with wealthy industrialists, or "Robber Barons" as USSA history would call them. In return for pro-business laws, these industrialists promised to finance Republican candidates on every level of government. Deregulation, monopolies and union breaking thrive.
1886: Resistance in the southern territories has reached its lowest level with many hardcore southern rebels either being killed, captured, or taken exile in Brazil.
1898: The Spanish–American War. The United States gains control of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Both the Philippines and Cuba revolt after it becomes apparent that the US will not give them independence. This marks the United States emergence as an imperial power.
Hawaii is also annexed by the United States.
==Resistance Builds==
1901: President William McKinley barely avoids being killed by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. Paranoid he rushed through Congress and the states the 16th amendment, which gives the President the ability to suspend the Constitution and assume emergency power during a national crisis.
1904: Former Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is elected president over Democrat Alton Parker and Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who did surprisingly well for a third party taking a significant amount of the vote. The Socialist Party of America and other organizations with Socialist ties (International Labor Union and the Industrial Workers of the World) have been growing in strength in the United States, even in the occupied southern territories.
1905: A strike in Chicago turns bloody after police and strikers battle in the streets of the city. As rioting increases the national guard is called in to bring order to the city. The fighting in Chicago leads to sympathy strikes across the country, encouraged by Eugene Debs and other Socialist leaders. Fearing open revolt President Roosevelt uses the 16th amendment and declares a national emergency. Chicago and other American cities are put under martial law. Meanwhile, an arrest warrant is issued for Eugene Debs, but he fled the country with the help of some associates and makes his way to Geneva, Switzerland. While in Switzerland, Debs comes in contact with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and other leftists. These meetings lead to Debs to move father left politically.
Roosevelt enacts by decree the Treason and Sedition Acts which effectively curtail the First Amendment and makes membership to some political organizations and certain unions illegal. The IWW still attempts to lead resistance to Roosevelt's regime and creates cells across the country that gather weapons and fight the SSD.
1908: President Roosevelt wins reelection by a landslide with neither the Democrats or Socialists putting any serious candidates against him for fear of reprisals.
1912: President Roosevelt again wins reelection. During this year also Roosevelt negotiates the United States entrance into the Quadruple Entente.
1914: Archduke Franz Ferdinand is killed when bomb is thrown into his car while he is driving through Sarajevo. This begins World War I.
==The Coming Storm==
1914: The United States enters World War I on the side of the Quadruple Entente.
1914-1917: Casualties in the American Expeditionary Force are heavy. Trench warfare, shoddy weapons and meager supplies are the major reasons for the high number of casualties.
1915: A massive protest against the war is held in Washington. Speakers of the horrible conditions in the trenches, how the poor quality of the weapons supplied by the government supported monopolies are more likely to kill Americans than the Germans, and how shipments of food and medicine are being stolen while bribed government agents look the other way. Many members of Congress are in attendance. Following the protest Roosevelt purges Congress of any member of Congress who attended the protest and suspends all Congressional elections until after the war is over.
Meanwhile, President Roosevelt dismissed the current Secretary of War and took over the day-to-day operation of the war and even went on a long trip to the Western Front to inspect the troops. By doing this he neglected many of his duties of president. Instead he turned those over to a group of non-cabinet advisers, which included some new age spiritualists with no experience in politics, to run the country while he focused on the war. These advisors become known as the "Mad Men of Washington" by their opponents.
1916: As losses mount in Europe and the federal government continues to become more corrupt and incompetent, agents of the Socialist Party and other radicals begin to stir up dissent throughout the country. Strikes and protests spread across the country, often ending in shootouts between police and the armed protestors.
In Washington, the "Mad Men of Washington" are killed when the restaurant they were dining in exploded in a massive fireball. While the bombing was attributed to anti-government anarchists, in reality leading members of the Republican Party, including Vice President Henry Ford, had used agents of the Secret Service Division (SSD) to plant the bomb and kill the Mad Men. They felt that Roosevelt's obsession with a losing war was going to destroy the country unless they did something soon.
==The Revolution Begins==
1917: Vice President Henry Ford and other Republican leaders convince President Roosevelt to return to America to deal with the deteriorating domestic situation. Leaving the command of the American Expeditionary Force with General John J. Pershing, Roosevelt returned to the United States. Upon stopping in New York City to give a speech, however, he was killed by an unknown gunman.
News of Roosevelt's death spreads like wildfire through the country. Socialist Party leaders across the country begin demanding an end to the war, new elections and the repeal of the 16th Amendment and the Treason and Sedition Act. The new President Ford refused to repeal said laws or end America's involvement in the war, leading to a massive general strike that crippled the country. In response, Ford ordered the national guard of various states to fire on any strikers. This proves to be a horrible decision as national guardsman either refuse to follow the orders or join with the strikers.
Some states became embroiled in miniature civil wars as defecting national guardsman and strikers fought against loyal American forces. In Illinois, Chicago quickly fell to rebel forces. Socialist party leaders quickly formed a new government for the city and asked to meet with the leaders of various rebel organizations. Thus the First Revolutionary Congress was held. It included Socialist Party politicians, union leaders, rebel militia commanders and various other leftists like Russian-exile Leon Trotsky. Trotsky almost became head of the entire revolutionary movement if it was not for the timely arrival of Eugene Debs.
Debs, having heard what was happening in his old country, managed to convince the Germans to smuggle him back to America aboard a U-boat. Unable to safely reach the United States, instead Debs was taken to Mexico which was sympathetic to Germany (having been free of French influence since the Franco-Prussian War). With the United States collapsing into anarchy, President Diaz had been able to convince Emperor Maximilian II to authorize an invasion of the United States. The Mexicans won several victories against the American’s in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In California though Americans resistance was stronger than the Mexicans expected, even after the Socialist Upton Sinclair overthrew the governor. In an effort to further weaken the United States, President Diaz came up with the plan to sneak Eugene Debs back into the United States. Promising Mexico the return of some of the territory it lost in the Mexican-American War, Debs allowed the Mexicans to sneak him back into the United States where he made his way to Chicago with the help of loyal Socialist Party stalwarts.
In Chicago, Debs rallied support for his cause and defeated Trotsky by being elected President of the newly declared United Socialist States of America. Trotsky accepted his defeat and agreed to work with Debs, but on the way back to the hotel he was staying at, Trotsky was shot and killed by another Russian-exile named Joseph Dzhugashvili. Whether Debs ordered the killing is still unknown. The American Communist Party had supported Debs, since they found Trotsky to be too conservative, and Dzhugashvili was a member of that organization. Nevertheless, Trotsky’s death caused some Socialists to regret the choice of Debs as President. Many now thought that his time in Europe had made him too radical.
==White America==
1918: In Washington, President Henry Ford was facing an almost hopeless situation. Most of the country was under rebel control, the American Expeditionary Force in Europe was mutinying and Mexico was invading from the southwest. Furthermore, a Neo-Confederate revolt had begun in the southeast, funded by the Confederados of Brazil. Worst of all, Ford could not ignore the gathering "People's Army" in the mid-west. A collection of rogue army units and rebel militia, this ragtag army under the command of Debs in Chicago was poised to march on Washington.
Desperate to build a united front against Debs, President Ford formed an alliance between leaders of the Democratic Party and more conservative union leaders. After picking Samuel Gompers as his Vice President (Ford had not picked a Vice President to succeed him since the death of Roosevelt), Ford resigned from the presidency. The new President Gompers announced that the Treason and Sedition Act would be repealed and new elections would be held once the USSA was defeated, along with various other reforms. Gompers presidency was quickly recognized by various nations giving the new president some legitimacy.
Deciding that the USSA was the greater threat, Gompers ordered General Pershing, arrived from Europe to lead the loyal American forces (being called Whites since the USSA had quickly gained the label red) on offensive toward Chicago. In the Spring, General Pershing (who was given the tile General of the Armies of the United States) went on the offensive capturing various Red strongholds in the mid-west before capturing Chicago defeating the People's Army at the Battle of Chicago. While Whites across the country cheered, General Pershing in a letter to Gompers warned that much of his army had been mauled in vicious house-to-house fighting while securing Chicago and would not be ready for another offensive. Upon reading the letter Gompers contact the ambassadors of the Entente nations and requested troops to help finally defeat the Reds.
Meanwhile, Debs and the Revolutionary Congress relocated to St. Louis. Things looked grim for the USSA and when news came that Entente forces would be entering the country to help the Whites, it seemed that the USSA would not survive the year. Already Canadian troops were entering the country to support White forces, while President Gompers sign a ceasefire with Mexico, promising them territory in exchange for their support in defeating the USSA. Foreign intervention, however, had the opposite effect on the American public. No foreign troops had ever set foot on American soil since the War of 1812, and now they were being invited in by the President. Recruits pored into the People's Army and what they lacked in training and experience, they made up for in numbers and tenacity.
By the summer of 1918, the White gains had been reversed. Pershing's army was forced to abandon Chicago, but unable to make it back to Washington he retreated to Detroit (where he would remain until 1920 when he and most of the army would retreat into Canada). With Pershing's army surrounded at Detroit the People's Army marched almost unopposed to Washington. Debs arrived in the capitol on July 1, 1918, along with members of the Revolutionary Congress and a large contingent of the People’s Army. After the symbolic “storming” of the Capitol building, the new constitution for the United Socialist States of America was drawn up at the Second Revolutionary Congress, with Debs once again being elected president. Under the new constitution, Debs was made President-for-life and Congress was reorganized into one house. Gompers, meanwhile, remained under house arrest at the White House. On July 4, however, he was taken before the newly restaffed Supreme Court where he was quickly tried as an "Enemy of the People" and sentenced to death by firing squad, which was carried out shortly thereafter. The quick execution of Gompers horrified many Revolutionary leaders and drove a larger wedge between the more radical Debs supporters and the rest of the revolutionaries.
==Treaty of Phoenix==
1918: Despite the fall of Washington, the Whites were not fully defeated. Pershing's army still remained at Detroit and White forces remained active in parts of New England, Utah and Alaska. There was also the Neo-Confederate revolt in the southeast. Nevertheless, Debs decided that Mexico had to pay for their treachery when they sided with Gompers. President Debs ordered the People’s Army to invade Mexico, but the offensive ended in a failure. The People’s Army, over-confident from their victory at Washington, were not ready for the better armed and better trained Mexican forces. The Entente nations could be blamed for that since they were supplying the Mexicans with weapons and advisors to keep them in the fight against the USSA for as long as possible. Unable to drive the Mexicans back across the Rio Grande, Debs finally relented and agreed to a peace treaty. The Treaty of Phoenix was signed on December 23, 1918, which gave Mexico Texas south of Corpus Christi, southern New Mexico and Arizona, and San Diego from California.
The Treaty of Phoenix was the final straw among the anti-Debs revolutionaries. Upton Sinclair declared that California was now independent. Meanwhile, members of the Revolutionary Congress walked out and returned to their home territories which were now rebelling against the United Socialist States of America. Some leaders even attempted to make alliances with the remaining White forces.
==The Civil War==
With USSA control of the East Coast, the White Government fled to Seattle. The Red army marched west under the command of George Patton, who had seen the horrors of the Western Front. The first major battle was the battle of the Mississippi. The Whites attacked in Western Kentucky against a USSA force of 100,000. The battle was brutal as 30,000 on both sides were killed by machine guns and aircraft. The entire Czechoslovak and Québécois legions were wiped out. In White Alaska revolts broke out against President Ford. This caused Japan to send troops to fight the Reds. 
Throughout Winter 1919 Japan sent its army's across the West Coast and helped the Whites put down the Second California Republic. The USSA advanced to St. Louis laying siege to the city. In the north the Reds were on the run with the road to Chicago wide open. Debs sent a journalists who had been only a medic in WWI. Ernest Hemingway ordered any deserters or soldiers who didn't advance, to get shot by their own men. This ruthless efficiency chased the Whites away. 
The Reds broke through St. Louis and encircled the White army's in the Upper Mississippi. Patton's campaign of terror extended as the Entente armies were destroyed in the Battle of the Praires in 1920. For the next two years the Reds conquered all White territory. The Entente had to pull out of the war reading a communist invasion of Canada. In 1922 the Whites surrendered and Red forces occupied Alaska. In 1924 Debs dies and Patton takes over as a dictator. Hemingway is forced into exile in Cuba.
==Storm Clouds==
1931: Japan occupies Manchuria.
1932: In response to the growing anti-Semitism in Germany, Albert Einstein and his wife move to Britain.
1934: The Russian Duma outlaws all Communist parties and some Socialist parties. Leftists politicians are arrested across the country and sent to Siberia.
1935: The last Chinese communist stronghold is captured.
1938:The Munich Agreement is signed by Great Britain and The Reich over the Sudentenland, which houses many ethnic germans in Czechoslavkia. Neville Chamberlain proclaims it " Peace of Our Time"
1939: Albert Einstein speaks with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain about the construction of an atomic bomb. Chamberlain is uninterested.
On August 23rd, American-German Non-Aggression Pact was signed. Adolf Hitler realized that even though the Americans did poorly in World War I, he believed the presence of American troops in France bought enough time for Russia to clean up the Bolsheviks and then drive the German armies west. Hitler did not want a repeat of WWI again.
1939: World War II begins on September 1st when Germany invades Poland, taking control of the country by the end of the month. By then Britain and France had given up on appeasement and declared war on Germany. Both attempted to get Russia to join them but Russia viewed Japan as a bigger threat, who they were fighting an undeclared war near the border of Manchuria. They would keep an eye on Germany but would not try to get involved in a war with them.
President Patton, meanwhile, declares war on the Empire Mexico, with the official intention of regaining territory lost during the Second Revolution (but in reality hoping to conquer Mexico and spread Communism into Central and South America), starting the Third Mexican War. The People's Army had three times as many soldiers as the Mexicans, 30 times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The People's Army, however, had poor leadership and low morale due to government purges against alleged capitalist moles. Because of these factors, and the British/French armed and trained Mexican military, Mexico was able to resist the Soviet, containing them in the northern Mexican states.
1940: France falls to Germany. Great Britain, led by the newly elected Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was left all alone to fight Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Meanwhile, a select group of British scientists begin working on a secret project on a lonely Scottish Isle. It is code named "Excalibur."
In North America, hostilities between the USSA and Mexico cease in March 1940 with the signing of the Debs Peace Treaty. Mexico returns territory taken during the Second Revolution, Baja California and 30 percent of its economic assets. American losses on the front were heavy, and the country's international reputation suffered. The American forces did not accomplish their objective of the total conquest of Mexico, but did win a symbolic victory by regaining former American territory. The Mexicans, however, retained their sovereignty and enhanced their international reputation.
1941: The Empire of Japan launches a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, wrecking most of the USSA Pacific fleet. The next day, President Patton of the USSA declares war on Japan. Following Italy and Germany's declaration of war, the USSA is dragged into the war in Europe.
1942: The Dolittle Raid, though only causing minimal damage, is vital to the morale of the American war effort. Battle of Midway becomes the turning point of the war as the Japanese lose a large number of there aircraft careers to the American fleet. American forces spearhead the invasion of North Africa to liberate it from Italy and Germany; meanwhile American communist agitators infiltrate the native populations to incite revolt.
The scientists of the Excalibur Project develop the first successful atomic pile.
==The Tide Turns:1943-1946==
1943: Germany's Africka Corps is defeated at El Alamein and Germany is forced to flee back to Europe