PART SEVENTY-SEVEN: Equal Before God (July 24, 1936 – May 2, 1937)
Excerpts from the diary of Iouliana Erdemir, sixth Tribune of the Byzantine Commune
Threaded the Sicilian needle as well as could be expected. Believe that, emphatically. Not insensible to the consequences, though. Enough of the Commune’s industrial capacity was tied up in maintaining the peacetime consumer economy as-is. In the grand scheme of things reparations were the best option– an extended police action in S. Italy would have been far more costly, even setting aside any moral dimension (which one does at one’s own peril, but I digress). But still, it’s another red line on the Commune’s ledger-books.
Making some progress ramping up production, at least.
The General Staff (or what’s left of it after the Gang of Ten was flushed out by Theodora et al, anyway) has been in near-continuous conferences for weeks, now. Broader grand strategies are being devised, the pieces on the board taken stock of.
Allies doing the same, presumably. But it’s not like we have all the time in the world to sort this out. Events are accelerating.
Tick, tock.
The Ming Empire’s gaze, at least, is still fixed eastward. Unrest in Cao Liuxian’s little fiefdom, a wary eye kept on Japan and the Allies, etc., etc.
Went to the cinema with E.– a double feature. First up was The City in Dusk, starring Lan Na as a Shanghai police inspector. Her perfomance was… charismatic. Not enough for me to forgive her execrable taste in men, granted– you don’t wind up married to Zhang Zhulin by being a good a person. Went in expecting noir, found a rollicking adventure story instead– the art deco spires of China’s urban centers were shot like set-pieces from a historical epic. Pure spectacle, but a diverting one, at least. Whole thing was conspicuously apolitical, to an extent that’s honestly extremely political in and of itself. Suppose it’d have to be, if it’s playing in movie-houses from Beijing to Belgrade.
Empress Julia Radziwiłł the Great of the Roman Commonwealth and her confidante, lover, and political adversary Juno Koca
The second feature was Juno and Ioulia, which was of course v. political. If the big studios in China & Haida have used the advent of the talkies to devise brilliant new spectacles, Byzantine directors have instead leaned towards conveying a certain intensity of character unavailable to the silent films of yesteryear. So Juno and Ioulia, in spite of being set amidst the 1702 revolution– that valiant, doomed attempt to bring down the Roman Empire a century ahead of schedule— and following its central protagonists, Julia Radziwiłł and Juno Koca, felt intimate. Claustrophobic, at times. Some scenes filmed on location in Radziwiłł Palace, but portraying it as a maze of close spaces and deepening shadows.
The film is tightly focused on its eponymous doomed lovers (Gümülcineli, Hersekli, et al occasionally drift in and out of the story, but felt ephemeral), imagining the course of events as a series of conversations between the empress of Rome and the consul of Naples– their chance meeting at a ball, a quiet moment together behind closed doors and away from prying eyes, a lively salon debate over Enlightenment philosophy, and then– a tense, taut parley between the two women, now with armies at their back, before the Battle of Ferrara, where Juno met her fate and Julia was left standing alone.
Now it’s fairly obvious that beyond the character study, even beyond the romance (which was electrifying, don’t get me wrong), this is a work freighted with historical-political meaning. Yet not in the way I expected– some facile connection between the Roman Empire of 1702 and its modern imitators, maybe. Instead, it dawned on me that Julia was meant to represent me (nb the pointed use of the Hellenized “Ioulia” in the title). It’s an allegory couched in the 18th century split between the two strands of Byzantine liberalism but about 20th century divisions within the Byzantine left. The more orthodox Marxism of my tendency is likened to cold Julian rationalism; Juno’s fiery rhetoric evoked the various anarcho-communist currents of thought in the old Athens Commune, sidelined by Exteberria’s faction in the transition from revolution to government.
It’s clear the director’s allegiance lies with the latter position, of course. Still, the point was eloquently made, and both philosophy’s advocates were portrayed as complex, sympathetic, and tragic characters.
Anyway. If I’m being accused of pushing materialist analysis within an Irenicist tendency traditionally more ambivalent to it, well, guilty as charged.
E. found this very amusing, naturally. Promised that at no point would she raise a revolutionary army against me due to irreconcilable political differences, with mock-solemnity.
Told that Ireland landed the ’38 World Cup, beating out the likes of Anacaona and Ayiti (!).
First thought: More evidence we did the right thing in ’29.
Second: Can’t help but wonder if planning a major sport event two years in advance is hopelessly naive considering You Know Who in Paris.
Third: I have basically no idea what football is or how it’s played. Never caught on in Byzantium, I suppose. Philomon cornered the market on professional sports back when there still were markets to corner. Well, the bit of the market that’s not permanently ceded to chariot-racing, anyway, which Byzantines have been following with renewed vigor to console themselves after Paris, tragically, won the European Classic.
A few Sicilian brushfires are still smoldering. “Napoli ti ricorda” was on Baris’s assassins lips. Juno and Ioulia fresh in my memory, had to remind myself that Koca chose Naples for her last stand because it’s where the revolutionary armies expelled from Greece were able to regroup, not because of any particular tie to the old Kingdom of Sicily.
Still, things had calmed down enough to get back to our efforts reorganizing and reforming the officer corps– urgent enough as-is, but especially pressing after the coup attempt. The overwhelming majority of common soldiers refused to back the Gang, so it’s clear the rot is centered on their commissioned brethren.
General Staff’s received a badly-needed influx of new blood, alhamdulillah.
Field Marshals were all reliable sorts– we don’t hand out marshal’s batons like candy (cf. France). Still, I’ve a good feeling about Anrejić. She’s up there with Theodora, probably. (Don’t tell her I said that)
Field Marshal Zanye Anrejić
The influx of talented new corps commanders was a bigger turnaround, because we were desperately short of generals not stuck in a First Great War mindset.
“The Class of ’36”: Generals Nadine Hau-Fang, Gavriel Halevi, Valentina Ha, Zdravko Savic, and Stephanos Kastelis-Kurya
A reshuffle of the New Red Army chain of command swiftly followed. The Army of the Alps was given to Ha, and Hau-Fang was put in charge of the Danube frontier.
Savic was given command of the Army of Milan, a linchpin of any defense from French invasion.
Halevi’s responsible for our ever-growing reserves– new divisions coming up from training, new landships rolling off the production lines, etc. were under his watchful eye. For the moment, they’re assisting the Army of the Danube.
Eudokia Akinyi, who’d already been around a while, but who’s young and dynamic enough to fit in with the new crowd, is guarding our eastern flank in the Caucasus.
Finally, it’d be a waste not to use a general with Stanotas’s experience and talent, but she still needed to be redeployed as far away from Italy as possible and pronto. So she was sent to the line of fortifications along the Dniester, responsible for our borders with Poland and Russia.
Dust settled, there’s cause for reasonable optimism re: the New Red Army’s field performance.
In any case: it was time to think bigger. We’d been trying to spin up military production piecemeal up ’til now, but now the military’s working with the design bureaus and the industrial unions to devise a more coordinated, comprehensive strategy.
Reassured further by the continuous technological advancements we’re seeing.
Carmela Mirra’s given us something to cheer about after the bitter disappointment of the World Classic– something more substantial than any bat-and-ball game. Advanced aeronautics and the valor of the Byzantine peoples mean more than RBI et al.
Still, there’s a certain visceral catharsis one can only get when a national hero punches someone in the face repeatedly.
Note to self: ask E. for her brother’s address; a letter of congratulations is called for, probably.
I’m definitely not still mad about the European Classic. Perish the thought.
Gang of Ten’s failed coup played itself out in reverse in Marathas. The Gang sought to overturn a communal republican status quo and replace it with Müllerism. The coup in Marathas apparently sought to overturn a Müllerist status quo and replace it with– well, that’s not clear.
Also: The Gang of Ten’s coup attempt actually happened. Less sure about this one.
Suppose that’s one way to reform the officer corps.
Really hope we don’t wind up on depending on Sharqi’s good graces in some hypothetical Sino-Byzantine war.
Dealing with the Müllerists closer to home is trouble enough. The Army of the Danube and their Hungarian counterparts have been performing large-scale military exercises. Keep expecting some sort of minor but embarrassing international incident to happen as a result of several hundred thousand Byzantines, with Byzantine habits, attitude towards authority, etc. descending upon Zsigmond’s Hungary. (Doubt a movie like Juno and Ioulia would fly in Hungary, for example, and only partially because of all the heaving bosoms in low-cut 17th century dresses.)
Nothing of the sort happened, fortunately.
Juhasz Zsigmond, chairman of the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party.
In a better world, we wouldn’t be propping up Müllerists like Zsigmond; we’re culpable for whatever happens to the Hungarian people, too.
We don’t live in that better world, though, so there’s nothing to be done but accept them as the lesser of two evils. At least until the present crisis passes.
Later. “Until the present crisis passes.” Listen to yourself, Iouliana. That’s a classic Müllerist talking point, right back to Staatsrat Müller himself. Ugh.
Even in these darkening times, though, there’s reasons for hope. Great Britain (allegedly our ‘good’ ally as opposed to ‘bad’ allies like those nasty Hungarians) has finally, finally, finally caught up with the Byzantine Commune circa 1884 and released their avaricious death-grip on their African colonies.
It’s not perfect. There’s still a lengthy ‘transition period’ where British boots will remain on the ground. There’s an attempt to play this off as something magnanimously granted by the benevolent mother country, rather than won by the Congolese people for themselves. Doubt they’re fooling anyone, though, even themselves. Interim President Ricard Touzayamoko is, rightly, the toast of the Red Rose Pact.
Spoke with Prime Minister Napier on the phone. Made it clear the Byzantine Commune would hold her government personally accountable should Great Britain backslide on its promises to liberated Congo.
Would like to think I’m not bluffing, but who knows what the world will look like a year from now, or two, or five? Still, for the moment, we can consider ourselves slightly less compromised than we were prior to this. That’s something to be proud of.
Such victories are unevenly distributed, however. Important not to fall into the Julian (Ioulian?) trap of uncritically worshipping at the altar of capital-P Progress.
Some are born into places that see progress towards a better world. Some are born into places that stand still. Some are born into places where things get worse. It’s just luck, distributed piecemeal.
Even within the Commune this holds true. Ostensible liberation from capitalism notwithstanding, can’t say I felt particularly free growing up in forgotten old Tuzlukçu. Owning our land communally didn’t help when the harvest was bad. Didn’t stop my stepfather from inviting himself into our household and terrorizing the rest of us into submission, either. Good communal republicans sat in the House of the Golden Horn, true to the ideals of democracy and economic justice the Commune was founded upon. Spent my childhood with a tyrant’s boot on my neck anyway.
Owe everything I have to the Byzantine Commune, of course. The Navy saved me– I genuinely believe I wouldn’t be alive today if they hadn’t scooped me up from Tuzlukçu and deposited me in Athens, if some random military commissar had been a little less perceptive about my circumstances, if my obvious lie about my age weren’t accepted with a wink and a nod. Still, important to remember it had left us behind up ’til then. There are undoubtably countless others in similar circumstances, subject to dictatorial authority and deprivation even amidst a general plenty. You can still fall through the cracks, even with the reforms of the last couple of decades.
If I ever, ever let myself forget that, let myself be seduced by the Commune’s perfection, I’ve failed as a Tribune and would deserve it if the House of the Golden Horn slid off its perch and into the Bosphorus. The development modelled by historical materialism isn’t just a boulder rolling downhill towards full communism; “There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” Marx wrote that in the preface to the French edition of Capital, and one need only look at the subsequent trajectory of French history to prove his point.
8 Dhu al-Hijjah, 1355 H
Anyway. Sometimes the old and the new come together in ways that are, frankly, beautiful.
Decided it was probably now or never for the Hajj. Would’ve liked to carry it out after I left office, but considering the general state of things in the Near West, planning that far ahead seems ill-advised.
Fretted a little that all the worldly concerns resting on my shoulders might distract me from proper devotion, but that was foolish in hindsight. The moment I stepped past the miqat, all that just sloughed away.
Adey Walashma, premier of the Somalian Republic
Under any other circumstances, Adey Walashma is a hated class enemy who presides over a cruel ultra-capitalist cabal of patricians whom I am obliged to vigorously oppose in any way possible (we were staring daggers at one another when we chanced to meet each other at the airfield). For a few days, though, she was my sister, one amongst thousands and thousands of brothers and sisters together in a state of ihram, equal before God. (Is this what the perfect equality supposedly heralded by full communism would be like?)
When my fingers first brushed the surface of the Kaaba, I simultaneously felt incredibly small and inextricably connected with something, far grander than something so trivial as the fate of nations or the fortunes of war.
So of course the moment I was back at my desk in Byzantion I was handed a stack of ministerial appointments to sort through, a memo about how we don’t have the Ekklesia votes to pass the next stage of our war production plan, and, for some reason, a briefing about a jewel heist in Edinburgh? (Someone stole the old Habsburg crown jewels, apparently? I didn’t even know they’d ever left Germany, but I suppose it’s just like Goethe to sell the regalia of the last Holy Roman Empress to her bereaved survivors in Great Britain). No rest for the wicked, then.
Got to work building popular support for that war production bill that died in the Magnaura.
Was woken up suddenly at some desolate hour of the morning and given some horrible news.
A catastrophe, which could easily bloom into a nightmarish fascist envelopment of Western Europe.
Theodora was grim even by Theodoran standards at the emergency conference convened just as the sun was rising.
But the first thought that popped into my mind, well before the full gravity of the situation sunk in, was Oh, so that’s where the crown jewels went.
Kunigunde von Starschedel, leader of the fascist forces in the German Civil War
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