PART 64: Heart of Darkness (1875-1883)

PART SIXTY-FOUR: Heart of Darkness (March 15h, 1875 – January 6th, 1883)

Excerpts from The Athenian, a cultural and political magazine generally associated with the Athens Commune movement.

The commune was founded in 1874 in the midst of a general strike of Athenian workers, and was elected to control the government of Athens polis in 1875 amidst widespread dissatisfaction over the direction of the mainstream socialist parties under Kazimir Duvnjak and his Labour Party. Young leftists from religious groups, local universities, and labour unions found themselves in control over the regional assembly, with Evgenia Exteberria, the Athenian-born daughter of a Basque refugee fleeing the advance of France into Iberia and an exiled French Jacobin dissident– provisional president of the Byzantine chapter of Qiu Zhichao’s International Workers’ Movement, serving as archon. What followed was a radical experiment in communal democracy and the first attempt at communist government in modern history.

Evgenia Exteberria, founder of the Athens Commune

The First Hundred Days
The question on everyone’s lips is why President Allegri has permitted the Commune to exist.

First, of course, the Golden Horn and the national assembly has limited legal means at its disposal to influence the government of a polis. Of course, this does not necessarily guarantee our safety— we all remember the brutal suppression of the Mannahatta Commune after just six days by the Pangalist extremists of Lenape, but we must also remember the suppression of the Chinese General Strike of ’74 by the ostensibly democratic and constitutional Ming Empire.

Mekinges Non-har’-min, exiled leader of the Mannahatta Commune and member of the Athens Polis Assembly

Qiu Zhichao, jailed founder of the International Workers’ Movement

Allegri has chosen not to take this tack. But while they are constrained from, say, blocking Exteberria from assuming her post as archon, they could easily block all our programs and force us to work within the bounds of establishment politics.

Secondly, perhaps she sees us as simply being a faction of the broader socialist movement, and our presence liable to split the entire socialist project. Yet we are cognizant of our relationship with the mainline irenicist and labour movements, and happily caucus with them in national politics.

We are left with but one answer to this mystery, then— Allegri and her liberals want to leave us free to try our experiment in communal democracy and fail, vindicating her narrow, 18th century world-view. We must prove her wrong, and build the future of the world in this ancient cradle of democracy.

Constantinople University — imperial stooges?
Much has been made of Constantinople University’s “botanical expedition” to Africa. We have long suspected that their interest lay in reconnaissance in areas of colonial interest, and this has been borne out by the late failure of the expedition to catalogue even a single plant— it is clear that they have not the slightest botanical training.

The Progress of Liberty
Ever since the Berlin Conference in 1871, the imperial powers of the Near West have all sought to divide the minor nations of Africa for their own enrichment.

The reactionary dictatorship of Somalia has continued its centuries-long expansion deeper and deeper into the East African interior, and the formerly somnolent Ghana has begun expanding to the east and north.

Saba Muzaffar, Acting Lord Protector of the Somalian Republic for the “convalescence” of Lord Protector Maxamed Muzaffar, who would be 95 years old in 1875

Sultan Khalifa II Keita of Ghana

Great Zimbabwe, mired in economic difficulties and a demographic crisis, is unable to expand its influence in Subsaharan Africa. The British have come to dominate the Congo River, while Somalia has established a colonial exclave along the Cuanza. “Portugal” continues to rule Namibia, the Ayiti Dominion of Cape Nitaino still rules the south, and Aceh maintains its grip on Madagascar. The remainder of Subsaharan Africa is considered “up for grabs”, with the states occupying it considered beneath the dignity of “civilized” governments— or not recognized at all, and their territory left tantalizingly empty on maps.

The Kingdom of Gaza falls in the former category— a recognized state, but one the Allegri administration feels free to declare war on without any particular justification.

The Republics of Iran and Azerbaijan— slightly more privileged subjects of the Byzantine empire— quickly swore to aid their mother republic in important task of overthrowing the all-powerful absolutist tyrant Maueva of Gaza.

Emperor Maueva of Gaza

Most of our other allies quickly followed suit— only Lai Ang objected, as Lai Ang had overseas colonial ambitions of its own to consider.

The Acehese granted the Byzantines use of their ports, and the newly created “Colonial Legion” was landed in Africa.

A glorious victory for liberty.

Surely the people of Gaza are glad that the Byzantines came to bring them the values of the Enlightenment and democracy, and behead their emperor for them.

This foot-hold established, the Colonial Legion legion quickly planned its next move, turning on the neighboring kingdom of Suazi.

Queen Mahlangu of Suazi

It’s difficult to think of any era in history which parallels the casual brutality with which the Great Powers are dismantling the native states of Africa. Perhaps the initial exploration and colonization of Avalon, when the British, Haida, and Ayiti all scrambled to seize as much of South Avalon and the interior of North Avalon as possible comes close.

Our present age is one of technological marvels, where the very land can be reshaped according to our designs. Yet these miraculous sciences are not used for the common betterment of mankind, but the expropriation of the wealth of weaker nations to feed bourgeois-owned industries…

…and assert imperial dominion over the cultural and ecological treasures of other peoples.

Imperialism and capitalism are inextricably linked, but with the vast majority of Avalon and Eurasia already dominated by capitalist-imperial states, their insatiable need for new resources, land, property, and wealth ranges ever-further.

Mercury Rising
For all of the myriad crimes of the capitalist empires of the world, at the very least the majority of them have something to constrain them from out-and-out atavism. Those of ostensibly liberal and democratic sensibilities can at least aspire to hypocrisy. Less useful are the appeals to traditions and “commonsense” which bind together old feudal monarchies and new reactionary dictatorships, but at the very least such states are unable to wholly devote themselves to the base acquisition of wealth. In both of these types of states, the consequences of stepping beyond the bounds of what is considered acceptable can be quite severe.

More and more liberals are beginning to dispense with even the pretense of democracy and high-minded ideological window-dressing, instead embracing anarcho-capitalism and its amoral commitment to the enrichment of the bourgeois above all else.

And the Pangalist tendency of anarcho-capitalism is particularly potent, as the unfortunate King Nusrat Suryavamsi the Last of Hindustan learned on his way to the executioner’s block.

Chief Executive Nandini Devapriam of Hindustan

It is a harsh reminder that, if left to continue along their natural course, liberal constitutionalism will inevitably give way to bourgeois dictatorship— which, in turn, has a knock-on influence on other nations’ politics.

At the very least, Allegri has declined to collaborate with the new regime in Orissa and instead sought more moderate partners on the subcontinent…

…and even with the socialists out of government, they are still a potent force, and the strength of the unions and the churches are still sufficient to force Allegri to at least pretend she has a conscience.

Perhaps she envies the Junonian “state of nature” the cartels and combines of Hindustan have built for themselves…

Imperial Atrocities
By Lefa Mokoena, an Athens University student from Basotho
Southern Africa is not simply a tabula rasa awaiting occupation by the empires of the Near West. It is our home. It has thousands of nations, thousands of cultures, over a sixth of the worlds’ languages. Thousands of unique philosophies and ways of seeing the world, being extinguished one by one by colonial administrators and foreign industrial combines.

The greater part of a continent is being reduced to a resource for the rich— raw materials for factories, cheap labor for extraction industries, cultural artifacts and masterpieces of artifacts to place in “natural history” museums alongside fossils and taxidermied animals, or a playground for recreational hunters.

And yet your government has the gall to claim it is bringing “liberty” to Africa.

I am grateful for my comrades in Athens who recognize the common enemy we have in the bourgeois-imperial complex— although they must understand that, for us, the struggle is of much greater urgency. It is a crisis without compare in modern history.

While, as a foreign national, I cannot vote in the Byzantine republic’s elections…

…I urge those who can to do whatever necessary to bring down the Allegri government.

A Most Convenient War
A Play in One Act
SCENE I:
ALLEGRI: The proles are getting restless! Don’t they appreciate how many Bantus we had to liberate to keep the department stores stocked with cheap goods?

SECRETARY OF WAR: (shuffles papers) Well… there is a war between the Republic of Lithuania and Poland and Russia. Perhaps if we intervene everyone will get riled up about the de Valois-Vexins and von Wismars, hated absolutist tyrants of eastern Europe.

MUNITIONS MINISTER: War’s good for business, too. The Colonial Legion’s expeditions in Africa didn’t use nearly enough munitions to keep our bosses… whoops, partners in the Industry in the black.

ALLEGRI: Brilliant!

THE KAISERIN: As the empress of a sprawling Continental holdings of the von Habsburg dynasty, I am of course committed to the defense of liberty from all its enemies.
An ATTENDANT enters carrying Lord Protector Maxamed Muzaffar’s PHYLACTERY into Allegri’s office
ATTENDANT: His Exellency the Lord Protector, committed as he is to steering the Somalian Republic through this time of national emergency, will of course support his fellow republic in its noble endeavor.

ALLEGRI: Such loyalty from my comrades-in-arms! We’re the Noor Sallajers of the 19th century.

Exeunt.

SCENE II:
Enter FIFTY-ONE THOUSAND RUSSIAN SOLDIERS, who get SLAUGHTERED IMMEDIATELY

On the Election
The Athenian congratulates Kazimir Duvnjak on his victory over the Junonian-Julian-HERMES coalition and return to the House of the Golden Horn.

Kazimir Duvnjak, Fourteenth President of the Byzantine Republic (Second term)
Inaugurated March 4th, 1879

The Labour Party

Now we call on him to remember why the Byzantine people returned him to office: end Allegri’s useless war. Quit the colonies. Prove to the world that the “Byzantine empire” died with Alexios V.

Fifty thousand Russian dead— the Orthodox brothers and sisters of many of us— are not a campaign stratagem.

The struggle of the worker is of international scope. You forget that at your own peril, Kazimir Duvnjak.

Inertia Creeps
We value our comrades who make up the strong backbone of the Labour Party, and its constituent unions have been absolutely vital allies to communal tendency unions like the IWM. We nonetheless feel obliged to condemn the man who has placed himself at the top of this organization, and seems content to continue his predecessors’ follies out of pure inertia.

We have once again reduced a vast swath of Europe into little more than a charnelhouse, in the grand tradition of Georgiana Sapountzakis and her Capitolino cronies.

We maintain the posture of the colonial power Allegri reshaped us into.

Most egregiously, we remain complicit in the pillage of Africa.

The administration’s official line is that we are bringing socialism to our colonies, and that our oversight protects them from the depredations of even worse empires. We reject this, emphatically. It is simply the self-serving justifications of Allegri recycled, with “socialism” replacing “liberalism”. The workers of Gaza, Suazi, and our other dominions and protectorates have little reason to care what color the rosette pinned on their imperial governors’ chest is.

Don’t think we haven’t noticed the steady influx of spies and informers trying to infiltrate the government of the Athens Commune. Even ignoring the relationship between our movements, this is a clear violation of the constitutional privileges governing relations between the national government and the elected governments of its constituent poleis, of which the Athens Commune is one.

The forces of reaction are on the march…

…while Duvnjak “builds socialism” by exporting it at gunpoint to the Kenyans.

Even with our fellow socialist governments, the Duvnjak administration acts more like an overlord than a comrade.

We suggest he build the revolution at home before he attempts to seize all the world.

Our true enemy is capital, which grows ever stronger as we are distracted with infighting and colonial follies.

The stratification of the classes was the seed of the Roman Republic’s destruction in Antiquity. We would be wise to learn from that example, less our own Republic meet the same fate.

We would prefer not to use violent means to achieve our goals. Yet the crisis facing Byzantium is becoming so acute many within the Commune are starting to advocate for armed revolution.

It is becoming increasingly clear that all other actors on the political stage are perfectly willing to use violence. Why should we tie our hands?

The Fall of Charlotte von Habsburg

It played out like a twisted echo of the fall of the Roman Empire— Charlotte von Habsburg brought to the Gendarmenmarkt in a tumbrel— drums roll ominously— a dynasty falls with the drop of a hiratine’s blade and the raising of a tricolor. Yet what happened here was not the triumph of liberty, but the final extinction of a democracy long threatened by the growing power of industrial magnates, and the man who presided over the execution was no Noor Sallajer.

Johannes Goethe, Commissioner of the Northern Baseball League, Chairman of Goethe-Spalding Munitionsfabriken GmbH, and Kazike of the North German Federation

Perhaps attempting to evoke the Far Western splendor of the Ayiti Federation, Johannes Goethe has bestowed upon himself the title Kazike— the German word for “cacique”. Make no mistake, however— while the Cacique Executive Officer of the Ayiti Federation is a constitutional monarch, the Kazike is a Pangalist dictator.

For the better part of a century, the Byzantine Republic and the Kingdom of Great Britain sought to strengthen Germany to form a bulwark of liberty on the Continent to rival France. Yet the Habsburg Monarchy was a mis-shapen liberal capitalist democracy built in the image of its Victorian League partners, and therefore contained the seeds of its own destruction. Now all that strength is in the hands of the Kazike and the consortium of industrial oligarchs and kleptocrats.

The Duvnjak administration hastily ended its war with Bavaria and formed an alliance with the surviving von Habsburg monarch. Victoria von Habsburg was eager to avenge her fallen sister.

Queen Victoria III von Habsburg of Great Britain and her Prime Minister, Dame Sarah Montagu

For once, we agree with his foreign policy.

The folly of empire
By Lefa Mokoena, an Athens University student from Basotho

Democracy, clearly, is in a time of crisis. The Lenape Republic, Hindustan, and the Habsburg Monarchy have all fallen to anarcho-liberals. Having handed a loaded pistol to industrial capital, liberal democracy is absolutely shocked to be shot straight through the heart.

(OOC: I totally forgot this happened when I decided to keep OOTP’s randomly generated name for the Berlin team, the Berlin Glory, by the way)

Yet rather than addressing the root causes of this rapid disintegration of democratic governance from Avalon to Asia— the accumulation of capital, the alienation of the common worker from their labor, the power wielded by private corporations– Duvnjak has instead opted to continue the colonial adventure his liberal predecessors embarked upon.

It seems Basotho— my beloved homeland- and Matabele were next on the chopping block. The Colonial Legion lept into action, and the liberal press was filled with electrifying accounts of their triumphs in “Darkest Africa”.

The Byzantine people tire of this casual brutality exercised on their behalf.

They don’t care about imperial glories, or competition with reactionary great powers to secure workforces to harvest cash crops and land to plant them on. They care about the unemployment rate, low wages, the poverty of the sick and the elderly. Even among those not affiliated with socialist or communist movements, there is a sense that the government is not on their side— that they live in a republic blessed with great wealth that they see very little of.

So go on, try to convince the workers of Byzantium– of the world— that their enemies are rivals in the scramble for southern Africa. Print naked propaganda portraying the Ghanians or British as cruel imperialist oppressors and the Byzantine Colonial Legion as bearers of the torch of liberty in the heart of darkness.