Commonwealth of America

Other native dialects

The **Commonwealth of America,** is a federal socialist republic located in North America. The nation is the successor state to the United States of America, and was formed after the end of the Second American Revolution.

The Commonwealth occupies the contiguous territory of the former United States, from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico at its easternmost to the Pacific Ocean in its westernmost point. The former overseas territories have been lost, most being absorbed into Japan's sphere of influence. It's bordered by the Socialist Republic of Canada to the north and by the United Mexican States to the south.

## History

### Revolution

The Second American Revolution began in 1937, after a business plot led by General Douglas MacArthur deposed President Huey Long from the presidency, amidst a disputed election. Huey Long's loyalists from the America First Party organized an exiled legitimate Federal government in New Orleans, while General Defense Committees and Red Guards rose in the Midwest to support the exiled Jack Reed, candidate for the Socialist Party of America and winner of the popular vote. Dissident Republicans and Democrats met with the governors of the west, who organized the Pacific States government, opposing MacArthur's unconstitutional takeover. The nation is now split, between geographic, racial, and class lines.

As violence spilled out onto the streets, brothers and sisters took up arms against one another. Within a week of MacArthur's ultimatum to put down arms, open war was declared between the Chicago, Washington, and New Orleans governments. However, after MacArthur's death in the Siege of Washington and the beginning of the People's Liberation Army's push to the Gulf, the Junta and Loyalist governments opted to work together against the rapidly advancing "Red Menace", the PLA and Red Guards.

After Huey died in the Battle of New Orleans, The Junta under Omar Bradley and Loyalists under VP Charles Lindbergh opted to integrate their governments, as order collapsed in White territory. The instability caused by both the collapse of centralized control and the "betrayal" of the Loyalist cause allowed Pelley's white supremacist Silver Legion to take control of the cut-off Eastern Pocket, instituting genocidal and repressive Dominionist policies, against everyone from Catholics to racial minorities. This further delegitimized the counterrevolutionary cause, as former Longist populists in the Eastern Pocket defect en masse to the PLA.

### Post-War and Reconstruction period

America is undertaking six key points in its recovery plans.

1: Land Reform. America has massive amounts of arable land and enormous agricultural produce, but much of it is trapped in the hands of various forms of ranch and plantation barons who are essentially Feudalistic relics that need to be removed. This will come with a decrease in land-intensive livestock consumption (beef and pork particularly) but America's already massive agricultural output can be improved even further when switched to more land efficient uses; like Chicken, Potatoes, Amaranth etc.

2: Spreading out the development. The Steel Belt, East Coast Megalopolis, and the West Coast have the highest living standards in the world, but places like the Black Belt, Deep South, and Midwest are generally quite poor and without FDR's developmental programs there would be large sections of these places that haven't been electrified even without the war. These will need to be brought up to par in accordance to the conditions they experience. They obviously can't be exactly like the industrial heartland, but they can be far better than they are.

3: Redesigning cities. The destruction of many of the cities outside the industrial core is an opportunity to basically rebuild them from scratch around rational, planned lines of development that will make them far more livable and productive. For once, American cities will be actually walkable. They're very comparable to the precepts of New Urbanism. Grid based compact cityscapes with multi-floor apartments, very walkable streets and terrain, convenient placement of stuff like stores and public services, multi-use zoning, ease of expansion as needed, heavy emphasis on accessibility of public transport and so on so forth. Architecturally the various councils within the Commonwealth are free to design buildings as they please as long as they don't violate health, safety, and accessibility standards. Art Deco remains popular.

4: Redesigning transport infrastructure. The railway networks, both light and heavy, need to be expanded further to fully connect the country. Roads for wheeled vehicles also need to be paved and aerial transport networks also need to be established.

5: School expansion. Even by this point there is a lot of functional illiteracy in America that needs to be addressed to produce the educated populace the revolution desires. Americans need to be educated to the finest standards, not just to be factory workers as the current school system makes them. Dewey of Dewey Decimal system fame will likely play a major role in education reform.

6: Expanding global trade connections. Self-explanatory; favoured partners would be INFOR, the Nanjing government, and Bose's bloc.

## Economy

Though the old United States was one of the most advanced industrial societies, with vast natural wealth of North America avaliable for its industry, it has been improperly distributed leaving large sections of the country underdeveloped, such as Appalachia, the Deep South and Midwest. The metropolitan territories of Mid-Atlantic, the Steel Belt and the Pacific commonwealths have the highest standards of living as they were the first to be rebuilt.

The Commonwealth has implemented a ad-hoc structure that on one hand empathises worker control on a industry-by-industry basis on co-operative confederations and trade union control, but also utilizes state-owned companies for infrastructure, heavy industry and other key industries.

## Politics

The Commonwealth is built on a mixture of socialist tendencies and traditional American federalism, adopting facets of traditional American politics with inovative elements from the socialist experiments abroad. The basic administrative units are the Labor Councils, which are composed of industrial workers and party officials elected by universal suffrage. The Labor Councils are responsible for infrastructure projects, taxes, education and social services and command the Red Guards.

The Commonwealths are the next administrative level and, in a break from traditional American federalism, don't have much power serving as a middleman providing feedback mechanism and economic data.

The federal government is separated into legislative and judicial branches, in another imitation of the old United States. The federal People's Justiciary serve to safeguard the constitution and are elected every ten years. The People's Assembly introduces and votes on legislation, with parliamentary prodecure overseen by the current Speaker of the Assembly Earl Browder.

The People's Assembly elects the First Secretary and the rest of the Secretariat, the federal cabinet. The First Secretary serves as head of government and sets the policy agenda. The current First Secretary is Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, known as the "Rebel Girl", who will not be running for re-election in the 1950 election.

### Political Parties and Factions

At the national level, the Socialist Party of America is the only legal party to contest elections for the People's Assembly. However the party is not unified and is divided into various "caucus" that have their own goals, foreign and domestic policies and base of support. The Unionist Caucus, lead by FS Flynn's husband, Carlo Tresco, seeks to continue the current compromise between syndicalism and moderate "sewer socialism". Earl Browder's Communist Caucus will seek to expand the existing state-owned enterprises and is eager to join INFOR. The Farmer-Labor caucus is formed from the left-wing of the Farmer-Labor Party, largely only interested in the agricultural issues of their Midwest supporters and is the most autonomous of all caucus.

At the local level smaller parties, like the Winsconsin Progressive Party and the Dakota Non-Partisan League, participate in the electoral process with some limited success.

## Military

The Red Guards are a policing force, preserving law and order within the various commonwealths. They answer directly to the Labor Councils but the Commonwealths can coordinate with them for investigations.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) are under the direct command of the People's Assembly. The People's Liberation Army Navy and People's Liberation Army Air Force are subject to the same body. The PLAN is formidable despite being mostly built from scratch in the post-war environment.

 Chief of the Joint Staff of the People's Liberation Army
 Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army
 Chief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army Air Force
 Chief of Staff of the People's Liberation Army Navy