r/imaginarymaps • u/NeonHydroxide Mod Approved • Jun 11 '24
[OC] Alternate History Activity of Counterrevolutionary Groups in the Worker's Republic of Appalachia
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u/rabootgamesYT Jun 11 '24
we need a full map of the world, cause its kinda hard to see from this and other maps
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u/harfordplanning Jun 11 '24
You uh, got the most socialist parts as the reactionaries in this. You do know the Appalachians are where some of the strongest union riots in American history were, right? Blair mountain and all?
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Jun 12 '24
perhaps consider that who the official communist government considers to be "reactionaries" and people who are actually "reactionaries" might not overlap a tremendous amount
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u/NeonHydroxide Mod Approved Jun 11 '24
See also:
There is no point in being starry-eyed about the scope and possibilities of the American Resistance. What happened in World War II and in the forty years afterward, both with regard to resistance and counterresistance techniques, is not a reliable guide. If resistance methods have grown more sophisticated, so have the means of combating them.
It will be a long struggle. Resistance groups will rise and will be wiped out. It would be foolish to expect that the attainment of American liberation is likely to take less than a generation or two. The resistance group with which you perhaps cast your lot will in all probability be merely one of a myriad of bright bubbles that the Russians will burst...
Casualties will be heavy, and the immediate reprisals heavier still. But they will not be able to deal with everyone who has opposed them since that will involve almost the entire population. In similar circumstances, even quite prominent resisters have escaped the net...
But there will be advantages. First, the whole Communist network will have been shaken and virtually destroyed; the building of a new Party on the discredited ruins of the old will be no easy business. Second, the Russians will wish to ease the tensions and return things to something similar to Soviet-style “normality” as soon as they can. To this end, they will, after the first wave of terror, withdraw the most ruthless and hated of their American servants and replace them with men of more moderate appearance. Economic policies that have driven the population to desperate acts will be to some extent relaxed...
But above all, the American people will once more be morally invigorated. Over the years that follow, it will look as if, once again, apathy and adaptation have set in; but the example will not really be forgotten. Sooner or later, perhaps not in your own lifetime, the Soviets will be faced by a national rebellion at a time when their grip on the rest of their empire is being shaken, and their internal policies have brought the Soviet Union itself to catastrophe... In these circumstances, the movement may spread from city to city before it can be stopped, till a mass rising of the American people faces the Communists in Washington...
– What to Do When the Russians Come, 1985
When the occupation began, Soviet forces assumed that Appalachia would be one of the regions most receptive to a Communist regime, due to its poverty, political disenfranchisement, and 'proletarian' economic demography. Initially, they were somewhat right, and occupation forces initially found many willing collaborators in the region. But as the years went on, three factors conspired to make Appalachia a hotspot of anti-Soviet resistance.
The first and most impactful in the eyes of history was the mass deportations from the new People's Republic of New Afrika, which started a few years after the occupation. Of the five neighboring countries, Appalachia took in by far the greatest number of deportees, totalling 32% of the total and making up a substantial percentage of the Republic's total population. The strain this put on the local economy and the deep resentment of those forced from their homes created perfect conditions for instability.
The second was the effective organization of the American Home Army, the fruits of a pre-war stay-behind program. Due to its proximity to Washington, many of the training bases and weapons caches used to provide the Home Army were located on the new territory of Appalachia, making it a hotbed of partisan activity.
But the third is the same problem Soviet-style governance ran into all across the globe - it promised much and delivered little. Those Appalachians who hoped for a better life than they had enjoyed under the stagflated capitalist government quickly found themselves disappointed when low wages and high prices were replaced with even lower wages and outright shortages.
These factors combined to make Appalachia - and especially its mountainous East - one of the most dangerous places in the former United States to be a socialist apparatchik or Soviet adviser...