|
This article, Commune of Kropotkin, written by slowfuture, was voted as the Best Organization of 2023 in the Sixteenth Annual Halo Fanon Wikia Awards. |
| This article, Commune of Kropotkin, was written by slowfuture. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
- "Over six centuries ago, Comrade Ho Chi Minh wrote that Lenin 'is the bright star showing us the way to the socialist revolution.' It is still true to us, some millions of light years away from Earth. In a future so alien to Comrade Lenin, we are linked. We are now beginning the slow, arduous task of building socialism; of ending exploitation; of bringing about a better tomorrow. Lenin, as he has done for so many revolutionaries throughout the ages, is a beacon in the distance; his passion, his love of the working people will inspire us to become so much more than we are today. Then, as now with Comrade Ho, Eternal Lenin will live forever in our work."
- ―We Now Begin: The Socialist Development Plan for Kropotkin, Rosa Nguyen, 2533.
- "Chủ nghĩa xã hội của chúng ta sẽ chinh phục các vì sao!-Our socialism shall conquer the stars!"
- ―Motto of the Commune.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [Source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Commune of Kropotkin was an ideologically Marxist-Leninist society organised on syndicalist principles on the planet of Kropotkin (formerly Napoleon). Kropotkin was a metal rich world and because of this, it was a corporate colony world run by the Napoleon Metals Corporation, who had won an auction in 2501 held by the CMA for rights to develop the planet. Construction of mining facilities and housing for the workforce began in early 2508. In order to attract workers, the Board of Governors of the Corporation advertised Kropotkin as a workers' paradise, where rights would be respected and the work week would be only three days; as such people applied in their hundreds of thousands to work in the mines and to bring their families - a total of 560,000 people arrived on Kropotkin within the first eight months. However, once the facilities opened in 2503, it became clear that these promises weren't met. A six day work week was implemented with work days usually lasting as long as sixteen hours. Infuriated by their betrayal, several Syndicalist organisations were set up to fight for workers rights--the most prominent being the Anarchist Workers Councils of Kropotkin, as well as this a Communist party was formed, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Kropotkin. By 2520, after seventeen years of exploitation revolution exploded in Kropotkin; the RCPK and the AWCK united and led the proletariat in an armed struggled against their exploiters. The conflict lasted for eleven years, with the Board hiring Baal Defense Solutions to provide security and combat the insurrection. By 2531, the revolution had proved successful and toppled the Corporatocracy enabling the revolutionaries to begin building a communist society.
History[]
Background[]
- "Napoleon, or Kropotkin as we revolutionaries call it, has become the testing ground for the Capitalist Regime of Earth. They are asking 'how far can we push the workers of the colonies before it breaks? Can we alienate the workers from themselves before we reach that breaking point and revolution happens?' This is capitalism in its truest, most uncorrupted form - pure unadulterated exploitation. We are less than human, we are, ourselves, disposable capital to them, tossed away when we become broken. It cannot stand! Join the Revolutionary Communists! End this hell!"
- ― Friedrich Liebknecht, leader of the Revolutionary Communists during a recruitment speech, 2519.
In 2500, 18 months after the planet's discovery, the Department for the Economic Development of the Colonies and Newly Discovered Worlds sent a small survey ship to determine the monetary value of the planet. After several weeks, it was determined that the planet was rich in heavy metals and cobalt which were essential for the continued development of starships and quantum communication. However, a subcommittee had been established to ascertain whether the development and early colonisation required would be economically viable if undertaken by the government. It was decided that while the later profits from the planet would be more than sufficient for the sunk cost, the early stages of development required significant investment that would eventually leech money away from other colonial development projects. As such, the Government announced in the summer of 2501 the discovery of the planet and that it would be auctioned off. Once announced, several corporations were set up to investigate and value the planet. The two largest firms, the Napoleon Metal Corporation, and the Colonial Industrial Investment Group, quickly emerged as the leading contenders for the planet. In order to stop an escalating bidding war, the Economic Development committee established an independent commission to fairly evaluate the worth of the planet, its potential future wealth generation and the fairness of either of these corporations owning the planet as the Napoleon Metal Works was a subsidiary of the large MISRIAH Arms. It was the discovery of another mineral rich planet that led to the CIIG backing out of the deal, allowing for the NMC to purchase the planet at a significantly reduced rate. By November 2501, the first ships arrived at Kropotkin to begin the arduous process of establishing the material required for economic activity and residential life.
|
| Industrial Complex #7, later renamed Koslovic Industrial Estate post revolution. |
It became clear to the civil engineers that arrived on Napoleon that the hard, arid world would take significant infrastructure investment before it would be suitable for colonists. The NMW, aware of the potential gains to be made from the world, began investing unprecedented sums of money - the contributions dwarfed the several other colonial projects being undertaken at the time; economics surmised that at least two trillion credits had been pumped into developing the colony. Prospecting had been undertaken by the first colonial survey team following Napoleon's initial discovery, as such the NMW was able to focus its attention on building refineries and dwellings. Immediately it became clear that the first wave of materials provided to the construction teams would not be sufficient for the task. Typical colonial pre-fabrication units were not capable of withstanding the sustained dust storms that occurred on the planet with monthly frequency - the NMW was forced to ship specially made pre-fabs from Reach and Mars adding significant cost to the development. The Board of Directors of the NMW were concerned about the increased funding required, this, coupled with the longer construction timeframe that came from importing foreign pre-fabs, caused them to increase the working day of the contractors they employed. The workers' status as freelancers prevented them from being able to attack the abuses being made; their days increased by a third going from eight hours to twelve hours, alongside this they had two of their rest days taken off them. The freelancers' contracts were tied to the completion of the Napoleon project, thus preventing disgruntled workers from leaving the planet. Forced to grit their teeth, the workers dove into the arduous task of building up the barren colony's infrastructure and finished just behind schedule in April 2503, four weeks over the March 7th target date.
|
| Kropotkin City in 2534 |
Having come in over-budget and past the initial deadline, the investors had encountered significant loses in both capital and time. Seeking to rectify this, the Board of the NMC lobbied the Government on Earth to take the planet out of their jurisdiction and instead create it as a legal extension of the company. Napoleon was one of many planets in the early 26th Century trend that placed colonial worlds with large privatised investments as private holdings of large companies, effectively removing them from the legal protections as a colonial project. This distinction was important for several reasons, but the main draw in establishing it as a privately run world is that the workers employed by the company were only extended legal rights as employees and not citizens. The UEG agreed to allow Napoleon to become a privately run planet as it realised that significant capital investment was still required to ensure the profitability of the project, capital which it simply did not have due to other burgeoning colonial worlds. As such, they were not viewed as citizens of a developing world but rather simply transitory workers until the colony world was completed. Napoleon's colonisation coincided with a significant rollback of workers' rights in the Outer Colonies as demands for goods and raw materials in the industrialised and cosmopolitan Imperial Core were sky-rocketing. The overabundance of finance capital in the Imperial Core had little to invest in to further increase itself and had to be turned outward, thus the overexploitation of the Outer Colonies began in earnest. Napoleon was a particularly egregious example of this policy in action and was viewed by many policy makers in the UEG as a test case to determine the efficacy of allowing private firms to handle colonialisation, particularly as this colonialisation policy was not now about developing worlds for living in, but rather as sources of materials for the developed, original colonies. In essence, the development of further outer colonies became reliant on the strength of capital and extensions of the desire to further capital.
The important distinction between being legally a colonial citizen of a developing work and simply as an employee of NMC was not made clear to arriving and prospective workers. As the colonial housing and infrastructure required for the extraction of the raw materials was completed, the exploitation experienced began to increase substantially. The conditions endured by the workers through the first few years of the project were barbaric, with workdays lasting closer to sixteen hours with only one day of rest provided. By 2510, a mere seven years after the project's inception, worker deaths through poor management, unsafe work conditions, or suicide had become epidemic, leading to an investigation by a UEG Labour Commission. The Labour Commission's report was damning of the policies implemented by the NMC but its official publication was successfully prevented by a serious and well-co-ordinated lobbying campaign by the NMC. Despite this, in 2512 the report was leaked and published by members of the middle management at the NMC who had become increasingly disgusted by the actions of the company. One of the direct responses of the publishing of the commission's report was the establishment of the planet's first Union, the Napoleon Workers' Union, which was not revolutionary in nature but simply wished for better labour conditions. The union was ruthlessly suppressed that by 2514, it had been squashed. This, however, did not squash the desire to union build or better their conditions, but rather forced organising into becoming more clandestine and with a significantly more revolutionary tint.
Revolutionary Union Building[]
- "Friends, listen, you have to understand that the bosses make their wealth from us, not from this planet, not from the sales, but us! Without us the Capitalists have nothing! Labour is entitled to all it creates! No more parasites!"
- ― Erich Tse-Tung, founder of the Napoleon Syndicalist Union of Miners.
Murder of Friedrich Liebknecht[]
Revolutionary Era[]
The Red-Black Storm[]
- "To arms, Comrades! Let us smash the capitalists and take our future by force!"
- ―Rosa Nguyen begins the armed revolution
Formation of the Transitional Councils[]
- "Marxism, like all good endeavours that seek to understand our world, is a science; our socialism is a science. And like all good sciences, we adapt, we change, we innovate and we revise when new information is upon us. Unlike past comrades who had successful revolutions, we seek to have a successful peace. As such, we have adapted our strategies. The Vanguard Party is hereby dissolved. The dictatorship of the proletariat shall be brief. We have created thousands of Workers Councils underneath this Transitional Council to train us for the withering away of the state. Now we begin to build socialism; freedom at last!"
- ― Joint Statement by the AWCK and RCPK.
Disagreements[]
Civil War[]
- "These Anarchists and Revisionists cannot be trusted to safeguard our Revolution! We must uproot the Transitional Councils before they pollute our socialism irreversibly!"
- ―Leon Prachanda, leader of the rebel Koslovic Communist Party.
Post-Revolution[]
Dissolution of the State[]
- "My beloved Comrades, my sisters, my brothers, my siblings. Today is a glorious day, the Revolution has ended. Our hard work has finally borne fruit. A few moments ago, We, the Workers Transitional Council, have abolished ourselves and given our powers to the hundreds of Workers' Communes that exist throughout our beloved Planet. Our future begins now. The Red and Black united shall create a new, just and peaceful society! Long Live the Revolution!"
- ― Radio broadcast by revolutionary leader Rosa Nguyen.
Bringing Socialism to the Stars[]
- "Join a Revolutionary Brigade! Plant the Red Flag on every planet toiling under imperialism!"
- ―Recruitment poster, 2556
Great Red-Black Cultural Revolution[]
- "Comrades! Capitalist roaders and revisionists have poisoned our Councils! They seek to undo all the victories and freedoms we have won with our blood! As Chairman Mao said centuries ago: bombard the Headquarters! Purge our Party of its enemies! Forward! Our Socialism, our very soul, is at stake! Not one more inch! Forward! Forward! Drag them onto the streets!"
- ―Joint Statement by the United Red-Black Revolutionary Front.
Upon reemerging into the Human sphere following the end of the Human-Covenant War, Kropotkin had been exposed to capitalist and bourgeois ideology for the first time in almost three decades. While the population had been trained ideologically throughout their entire lives, it did not prevent embourgeoisement of members of the cadre within the Executive Council. From 2560, the end of the Created Crisis, members of the Executive Council began to realise the issues facing the Kropotkin economy; the reliance on Thebes for agricultural support and the resource intensity of supplying revolutionary actions off-world (money having been abolished in favour of Labour Time Vouchers due to shortages that were endemic throughout the first decades of Kropotkin's existence) put significant strain on the Kropotkin economy. Indeed, the supplying and support of these Brigades lead to food and material shortages that often crippled local infrastructure and lead to large food lines. Aware of these issues, Thebes had managed to bring a few members of the Executive Council onside - in promising more aid and development funding from Thebes, several members of the council agreed to scale back the revolutionary activity and engage in some economic reforms that would allow Theban direct investment in collectively owned enterprises throughout Kropotkin. Additionally, and more worryingly, there were a sizeable faction within the Executive Council who wished to engage in more aggressive market reforms, restoring the law of value in production, removing the democratic ownership of enterprises and aligning Kropotkin more with the UNSC, this faction was lead by Deng Enlai a seasoned revolutionary leader who had fought during the Red-Black Storm. While both factions were unaware of the other's foreign influence, they had agreed on a rapid and out-reaching set of reforms that would reintroduce money and wage-labour into the economic arrangement in order to stimulate the economy and allow the flowing of foreign capital. By the end of 2564, the Executive Council had internally approved propaganda and ideology to enact these economic changes by the middle of 2565.
|
| Alexandra Davis, Head Political Commissar of the Honecker Ideological Battalion, and Mahmoud Ahmaedzadeh, Revolutionary Captain of the Antonio Gramsci Revolutionary Brigades, were figureheads of and instrumental in launching the Red-Black Cultural Revolution. |
However, in early 2565, following the end of the New Zanzibar Conflict and the Revolutionary War on New Indonesia, four of the most ideologically advanced Brigades and Battalions returned home: the Rosa Luxemburg Revolutionary Brigade, the Antonio Gramsci Revolutionary Brigade, and the Honecker Ideological Battalion and the Connolly Ideological Battalion, roughly consisting of 100,000 revolutionaries who had been engaged in violent class struggle for several years. The years spent educating and fighting for revolutionary socialism had pushed the class consciousness of these Revolutionary contingents ahead of most of the leading cadre of the Executive Council. As such, these returning revolutionaries posed the most significant threat to the Executive Council's economic plans, and they quickly attempted to side line them. Propaganda against Alexandra Davis and Mahmoud Ahmaedzadeh was frequently posted throughout Kropotkin, calling for them to engage in a self-criticism due to the supposed failures of their respective revolutionary engagements. It became clear to the Workers' Councils that a rift was growing between the Executive Workers' Council and the leading members of the Ideological Battalions and Revolutionary Brigades due to the latter's active participation in revolutionary activity. Due to the escalting tension between the Executive Council and the four Revolutionary brigades, the latter broke with Kropotkin protocol and did not surrender their weapons to the People's Barracks Council after the two week returning deadline passed. Alexandra and Mahmoud appeared in Red Square in Kropotkin City and spoke for several hours stating that they had kept their troops armed due them fearing for their lives on account of the Executive Council's actions.
|
| Red Brigades descend upon the headquarters of the Revolutionary Communist Party, holding aloft banners of Chairman Mao,Kropotkin City 2565. |
By April 2565, after several weeks of no communication and semi-violent clashes, Alexandra and Mahmoud were invited to a Joint Session of the Executive Council to end the tension; many of the Workers Councils had publicly chosen sides and were arming their members in anticipation of a second Kropotkin Civil War. However, one week before the scheduled plan, a member of the Executive Council who was not a member of either reformist faction passed to Mahmoud and Alexandra the economic plan in full. They were horrified and apoplectic at the planned abandonment of socialism. Two days after receiving the information, and having carefully disseminated the plan to company captains throughout the Brigades, Mahmoud and Alexandra broadcast the economic reform package to the entire world of Kropotkin. Speaking together, Mahmoud, an Anarchist, and Alexandra, a Marxist-Leninist, announced the formation of a new collective: The United Red-Black Revolutionary Front, painting themselves as the next step of Kropotkin's socialist development, they called upon the Proletariat to take to the streets and save their socialism from capitalist restoration. The Revolutionary Communist Party leadership, including those outside of the Executive Council, hesitated and called for restraint almost immediately. This lead to the formation of Red Brigades throughout the planet but centred initially almost exclusively on Kropotkin City. The United Front were able to quickly take the reigns of the limited state power, although the Executive Council was able to escape. After three months of attempting to calm the situation down, the new Executive Council stated action would only be taken against the Capitalist Roaders, and not the Theban Pink Clique as they had been named. After three weeks of deliberations, this inaction against the Theban clique, and the soft-handed approach to the capitalist roaders, caused a schism within the United Front, led by Hera who formalised the Red Brigades into a Red Front. This Red Front marched upon the Revolutionary Communist Party's headquarters and quickly burned it down; the still armed Revolutionary Brigades refused to fire upon the crowds. Indeed, some of the more ultra left brigades marched upon the embassies of the Free Systems Pact nations attacking them before being beat off from all of them.
|
| Celine Bhutto, the member of the Anarchist Workers Council, who was responsible for communicating with New South Wales asking for military support. |
The United Front quickly lost control of the situation, as 15% of Workers Councils joined with the Capitalist Roaders. The power of the Red Front paralysed the capital city, and rumours began to spread that the Capitalist Roaders had reached out to the Commonwealth of New South Wales for support. This caused what was a localised uprising to spread outside of the capital, several Workers Councils, furious at what they perceived as inaction from the United Front at quashing bourgeois encroachment, rose up and began purging officials who were known associates of both the Capitalist Roaders, and the United Front. Armed violence occurred between Capitalist aligned Workers' Councils and the often independently acting socialist Councils. The United Front all but lost control of the situation and the reigns of governance, collapsing the Executive Council. The United Front continued to control 45% of the Councils, but lacked any ability to communicate with other Councils now acting of their own accord. By August, The Free Systems Pact, alarmed at the potential for UEG aligned soldiers to set foot on a founder world, quickly scrambled a peacekeeping force. Theban special forces arrived in system within a week, surveying the situation determined that a naval and terrestrial force would be required. Led by Thebes, Olduvai and Gao, a combined Naval and Infantry peacekeeping force arrived in System in September and deployed to the surface. Unwilling to engage against socialist-orientated but independent Councils, the Peacekeeping force maintained itself around its member states embassies and the Executive Council headquarters, effectively propping up the ailing United Front government. In October, a Combined New South Wales and Ectanus Command fleet arrived in Kropotkin's system with the promised peacekeeping force. A stand-off occurred between the FSP navy, consisting of loyal Kropotkin ships, the Theban and Olduvai expeditionary fleets. The stalemate lasted for two weeks before the UEG-aligned fleet departed, however not before deploying two companies of Special Forces to assist the capitalist roaders.
Once the news of the New South Wales and Ectanus fleets reached the surface, the perspective of the rebelling socialist Workers' Councils shifted dramatically. Fearful of the knowledge that the UNSC could arrive should the conflict drag on, they reaffirmed their support for the United Front's leadership on the Executive Council. Working quickly to restore order, Mahmoud ordered that the Red Front be brought in line as an extension of the Kropotkin military, having lost support from the Workers' Council, the Red Front complied. However, their entire leadership was purged; their ability to join the Revolutionary Communist Party or the Anarchist Workers Councils was stripped from them, and by extension their possibility to volunteer for Revolutionary Brigades. The United Front, now in control of the situation internally, moved to crush the capitalist rebellion swiftly. The Rosa Luxemburg Brigade and Antonio Gramsci Brigade, both of whom had remained loyal throughout the year long Cultural Revolution, worked with the FSP Expeditionary Force to launch an attack on the Capitalist Workers' Councils, now renamed the Kropotkin Democratic Movement. Fortunately, they were located on one continent, the most resource rich and developed continent on Kropotkin. In March 2556, the attack was launched, buoyed by the New South Wales special forces promises of support coming, the KDM resolved to fight. However, during the early stages of the attack, a rebellion occurred and the workers themselves overthrew the last vestiges of the capitalist leadership. Almost all of them were captured and delivered revolutionary justice; they were shot and their bodies strung up upside down and paraded throughout New Leningrad.
|
| The Red Front, the flags of the different Red Brigades on display, march in Kropotkin City at the conclusion of the hostilities. |
The Great Red Black Cultural revolution had a profound and lasting impact on the Commune. During the six months of the Red Fronts dominance, later renamed the Red Terror, many leader Revolutionary Captains from previous Revolutionary Brigades had been purged and in some instances killed, crippling the Commune's ability to wage Revolutionary Campaigns for several years due to extensive retraining required to fill the void. Additionally, the Revolutionary Communist Party's entire leadership was likewise purged and executed, required a years long rebuild. This caused significant political delays and inertia in the Commune as deadlock between the Marxist-Leninists and Anarchists became an almost daily occurrence, as the former, despite being the ones who ended the Capitalist rebellion, were largely blamed for the uprising beginning. The Executive Council lost a significant portion of its ability to legislate and dictate policy in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, the Workers' Councils gained more autonomy and the planet wide legislative Association of Democratic Workers Councils gained more power to direct policy with the collaborative agreement of the individual Workers Councils. This abrupt political change took several years to work through as the entire planet had to learn on the job how to engage within this new framework. As such, fearful of potential backsliding into capitalist restoration, the FSP maintained a sizeable presence on Kropotkin until 2569 when it was asked to leave by 96% of the Workers' Councils. While deeply damaging on the Kropotkin psyche, the Cultural Revolution did in fact strengthen the socialist relations on Kropotkin as it became clear to all that their revolution's continued success was not guaranteed, but needed to be safeguarded in perpetuity while capitalist nations existed in the galaxy.
Foreign Policy[]
- "Comrades! Friends! Revolutionaries! We Kropotkiners may have won our freedom from the Imperialists, but fear not! We have not forgotten, nor will we shirk, from our obligation to the oppressed peoples still toiling under the violence of galactic colonialism! We know that our freedom without the freedom of all, is vile opportunism! The blood of the Kropotkin proletariat will soak and enrich all worlds desperate for freedom! My friends! My brave revolutionary comrades! Where you go, we go! The Working Class of Kropotkin stands behind you! Your right, is our fight! Today, revolution, tomorrow, liberation! Long live the Revolution!"
- ―Closing speech given by Petr Castro, leader of the Kropotkin Revolutionary Volunteers to the CIV Colonial Liberation Movement Congress.
|
| Revolutionary Captain Petr Castro delivers a speech to gathered colonial revolutionaries, 2554. |
The Foreign Policy of the Commune was shaped by the stage of its transition towards communism and the nature of the Human-Covenant War during those periods. While proletarian internationalism was at the heart of their Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the productive forces of the colony were not sufficiently developed upon the successful creation of their Dictatorship of the Proletariat, an adoption of Socialism in One Country was agreed upon by the councils to develop socialism rapidly to improve living standards. Initially, upon the successful completion of the revolution the Communards were aware of the nascent war occurring and took steps to prevent their own discovery by the Covenant. As such, they quickly reduced their satellite capacity and severed all out-going communications from the planet. In order to maintain an understanding of developments throughout the war, shuttles were sent every three years with scouts to investigate and make a determination if the foreign policy needed to be updated. Despite this isolationist policy dictated to the Commune by material conditions in the early years of their development, the desire to spread communism to the stars was never far from the minds of the revolutionaries. Training of the armed forces to fight on far flung planets continued unabated during this period of spatial silence to prepare them for what they believed would be a significant class uprising once the end of the Human-Covenant War was reached. For close to twenty years, the commune prepared its revolutionary brigades with both political and military training. While the guiding ideology of the Commune was Marxism-Leninism, the diverse nature of the revolutionary movement meant brigades held political leanings that included Anarcho-Communism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, and Maoism among a constellation of others. What had once been contentious in the centuries prior was united by the single unshakeable goal of helping to establish the socialism that Kropotkin had come to enjoy to the plethora proletariat oppressed throughout Human space.
Once contact with the outside galaxy had been re-established in late 2553, the Communard Councils were finally able to understand the devastation the Great War had wrecked on Humanity. They found the galaxy significantly more empty than when they had retreated into silence. Quickly, they were able to establish contact with both Venezia and Talitsa, two more Outer Colonies that had managed to maintain their independence throughout the war. The Communards were disappointed to find that these were not bastions of revolutionary fervour, but instead Petty Bourgeois strongholds with no inclination to further the goals of the Commune. The Commune spent little time in developing its relations with Venezia which was a hive of black market activity and instead focused on Talitsa, which it believed to be a progressive force in the goal of dismantling UNSC imperialism despite its non-aligned perspective. Kropotkin diplomats quickly learnt that the planet was too de-centralised and its political groupings too disparate to effectively grow its presence on the planet. Despite this, Kropotkin was able to establish a small commune in the city of New Vladivostok, the second largest city on the planet. Hoping to maintain some distance from its homeworld while it continued to industrialise and train troops, the Commune in New Vladivostok became a hub of Kropotkiner diplomatic activity during its nascent years in the galactic community. During these burgeoning months of re-establishing themselves galactically, two massive uprisings occurred while Kropotkin was still too weak and ill-equipped to take part in. Kropotkin revolutionaries were forced watched in horror as the UNSC crushed the Kafkian Uprising and the Second Mamore Insurrection with brutal efficiency. Several members of the United Red-Black Front, the successor to the Communist Party and Anarcho-Syndacalist unions, established aid missions to the region in the first serious act of proletarian internationalism by the Commune.
Kropotkin's closest relationship was with the Theban Commonwealth, which had provided the nascent revolutionaries arms and training during the initial stages of The Red-Black Storm. Despite this, the ties between the two independent nations were difficult and fraught, though rarely outright hostile. The bulk of this tension was due to the ideological position of Kropotkin and Thebes. While both of the nations professed socialist principles, Kropotkin's socialism took a significantly more proactive and revolutionary slant, which regularly brought it into conflict with the realpolitik that drove Thebes's foreign policy. On numerous occasions, Thebes caught wind of Kropotkin ideological cells on non-socialist, but Theban aligned, planets helping foment Marxist revolutions against newly independent governments. As Thebes saw itself as a 'big brother' and shepherd for the newly independent worlds that arose in the Post-War era, Kropotkin received many meetings from Theban ambassadors demanding restraint. The difficulties that arose from these acts did not hinder trade between the two worlds. Thebes was Kropotkin's largest trading partner, exporting raw materials the Commonwealth needed, while Kropotkin received much needed food and agricultural equipment and access to the latest technological developments in the larger galaxy. It was an inequitable trading relationship, with Kropotkin being a net-importer from Thebes. This caused more left-wing sections of the Workers' Councils, particularly from the Anarchist Workers' Councils, to decry this as a form of imperialism which positioned Kropotkin as a Theban semi-colony. The Revolutionary Communist Party felt differently, seeing it as a necessity to develop the productive forces on the planet as black outs and food shortages were a semi-regular occurrence. Post reintegration with the wider Human community, the relationship with Thebes proved to be a significant bone of contention between the Anarchist and Marxist blocs.
However, following the Great Red-Black Cultural Revolution the Commune's foreign policy direction became significantly more robust and proactive in attempting to spread socialism to the stars. The scars from the Cultural Revolution took many years to heal and the divisions between the Marxists and Anarchists had strengthened, but what united them was the realisation that the integration into the wider Human sphere left Kropotkin susceptible to bourgeois and capitalist interests. One of the key changes made once the Cultural Revolution had finished was the permanent establishment of Ideological Battalions, whose job it was to actively go to worlds with insurrections taking place and educate them in Marxist-Leninist ideology. The recognition of needing to spread socialism to more worlds was met by the serious contradiction that the Revolutionary Brigades had suffered significant leadership depletion during the many purges that had taken place during the Cultural Revolution, denying them membership in either of the leading parties or in the Revolutionary Brigades - it would take three years before a Revolutionary Brigade would be sent to support an ideological battalion. Despite this limitation, the ideological battalions still contained well trained revolutionaries, who were able to drag out many low-scale civil wars into drawn out guerrilla campaigns that brought some revolutionary successes, but in the large took the communists into power in power-sharing agreements. This often put Kropotkin into disagreements with members of the Free Systems Pact who were worried about drawing UNSC attention, indeed Kropotkin was sanctioned by Thebes twice between 2565-2572, and received numerous public denouncements for members of the pact for its actions.
Relations with the UEG[]
- "What you will never understand, Comrade Diplomat, is that there are 18 million people on this world trained and armed, ready to lay down their lives for communism; for the Revolution; for the freedom of the working people. You may be able to retake this world if you tried, but you would lose a gallon of blood for every inch. The world left would be devoid of life for we will have burnt every centimetre, every home, every soul, before we would let you conquer and enslave us again."
- ― Rosa Nguyen's response to a UEG diplomatic service member.
|
| Rosa Nguyen, the leader of the Red-Black Storm, who asserted Kropotkin's independence to UEG diplomats on Thebes. |
As Kropotkin's revolution was completed during the nadir of the Massacre of the Outer Colonies, the Unified Earth Government, which by this point had ceded its political power to the United Nations Space Command, was not in a position to attempt a re-conquest nor a reinforcement of the world after BDS pulled out to protect other, more easily defensible worlds. Coupled with Kropotkin's retreat from the galaxy at large in hopes of avoiding the Covenant onslaught, the UEG simply believed the world to have been lost during the evacuations from the outer colonies. Kropotkin, in fact, was largely forgotten about by the UEG even after the end of the hostilities with the Covenant. In fact it was a chance encounter with a UEG diplomatic core during a Kropotkin diplomatic exchange on one of the moons of Thebes that brought Kropotkin back into the minds of the UEG. Rosa Nyugen, who had led the delegation in trade negotiations with Thebes, spotted the UEG diplomats and engaged them in conversation. Rosa informed them of the former colony's continued existence and stressed its desire to remain independent of UEG. The diplomats she spoke to were clearly unprepared for such an encounter, merely encouraged a rethinking of such policy to which Rosa responded with her now famous declaration of resistance. The Theban hosts were embarrassed by the outburst but it proved to be profoundly popular on Kropotkin.
|
| President of the United Earth Government, Ruth Charet, knew the threat Kropotkin's socialism posed, but was unable to actively supress the planet. |
After the verbal ambush, the diplomats returned to Earth to inform President Ruth Charet and her government that Kropotkin and its rich minerals had survived the war. Charet was not in a position to reclaim the planet by force, nor did she have any desire to, as she faced rebellions in the Mid-Rim with the Kafkian Uprising peacekeeping mission winding down and more brutal incursions from the Storm Covenant. Instead, VIOLET-III's Xiphos Team was deployed on a fact-finding mission. The two Spartans spent seven weeks on the planet and made recommendations to avoid armed confrontation on the world due to its well-trained populace and the potential for other newly independent worlds to join in the defence of Kropotkin. As a result of this, the UEG sanctioned the world and cut it off from its own market and black-listed any goods from the planet. Moreover, sleeper cells were sent to Kropotkin on occasion with mixed success and the UEG recognised the dangers of allowing a communist nation to exist and thrive posed to its own hegemony.
Military[]
The People's Revolutionary and Ideological Army[]
- "Our brigades must have the strongest discipline, and the most rigid ideological adherence to socialism. These men and women are the Galactic Vanguard of the Proletariat. They must have no weakness, no willingness to err. We must be ruthless in our goal: the liberation of humanity."
- ― Malcolm Fanon's closing remarks to the Executive Council in 2555.
|
| Flag of the Kropotkin Revolutionary Brigades. |
Following the conclusion of the Kropotkin Civil War and the dissolution of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, it became unfeasible and undesirable for the Executive Council and the Workers' Councils to maintain a standing army. Instead, a conscious effort was made to ensure the entire population of Kropotkin armed and trained due to the foreign policy desire to spread revolutions to other human systems. During the revolution, members of the old Revolutionary People's Army had been trained by Theban military advisors and post-revolution several military academies were established to pass on the knowledge learnt from conflict. It was agreed during an extraordinary session of the Democratic Workers' Councils that every Kropotkiner aged between 18-40 would attend a compulsory boot camp lasting twelve weeks with a refresher boot camp every two to three years. During this extraordinary session it was also decided that the 'Revolutionary Brigades', as they had been termed, would be formed on an ad hoc basis by Workers' Councils who wished to take part and lead a revolutionary campaign on another planet. Despite the ad hoc nature of the armed forces, the Councils were aware of the necessity of maintaining a standing command structure to help direct the logistics required to armed the Brigades during their assembly. This command group was also in charge of ensuring there were enough supplies on the planet to arm brigades, and they developed an equation of the equipment on the planet to accurately know how many revolutionary brigades could be assembled. However, in keeping with Kropotkin's socialist and decentralised ethos, this military command had no ability to raise brigades nor did they have any leadership over the raised brigades. The Anarchists within the Councils did, however, have to make a concession to the Revolutionary Communist Party which was the largest party on the planet, in the establishment of Ideological Battalions - these were smaller than brigades but still as well equipped, whose mission and task was to train off-world revolutionaries in Marxism-Leninism ideology.
|
| Malcolm Fanon, pictured in 2555 at a Politburo meeting, was the key architect behind the establishment of the Ideological Battalions. |
The ad-hoc nature of the Revolutionary Brigades at first meant that each brigade had to be created fresh without any unique regalia or symbolism and history. The first two Revolutionary Brigades were the Ho Chi Minh Revolutionary Brigade and Connolly Ideological Battalion. The usage of old socialist revolutionaries as the nomenclature of the military stuck and became traditional. Additionally, the Connolly battalion was the first to adopt its own flag, a red flag with a yellow harp in the top left corner with a star above, and brooches in the form of identifiers. While each brigade and battalion were to be retired upon completion of their service, it was agreed that they could be resurrected as and when required, keeping all identifiers and flags. Indeed, upon the creation of new armed unit, an ornate version of that unit's flag was to be created and deposited in the People's Hall of Revolutionary Service. The difference in how a Brigade and Battalion was armed and their requisite sizes was determined upon the first creation too. The Brigades were to number no lower than 10,000 troops with an upper limit of 70,000. Battalions were to be much smaller, with a lower limit of 500, with the upper limit being 3000. The brigades were armed significantly heavier than their battalions counterparts, gaining access to heavy materiel like armoured vehicles, tanks, APCs, etc, and air vehicles for transport and fire support. Battalions had access to only jeeps and troop vans, as their role was primarily to engage with the proletariat living in settlements the revolutionary movement held, training and educating them in ideology while also helping the Parties of these worlds set up workers' councils for governmental training once the revolution had proved successful. While the Brigades could be drawn from any member of the Anarchist Workers' Council or Revolutionary Council, the Ideological Battalion due exclusively from members of the Communist Party, in particular cadre who had engaged in leadership or educational roles throughout the many Councils on the planet. Additionally, members of the Politburo and Executive Group of the Anarchist Councils were expressly forbidden from joining either division.
|
| The brooch worn on the lapel by members of the Connolly Ideological Battalion. |
The style of warfare the Kropotkin military could wage was significantly limited. It was unable to engage in a conventional multi-front war due to the limited field army it could raise coupled with its easily outclassed naval fleet. Instead, it engaged in what was became to be known throughout the outer colonies as Kropotkin Guerrilla Warfare; a form of Protracted People's War. As Kropotkin often joined revolutionaries already engaged in uprisings against the planetary government, bases of support and fronts were often established or in the process of being established throughout the planet. The Revolutionary Brigades would usually deploy most of its strength to the weakest front with a small contingent held in reserve to support in other fronts should they begin to collapse. The Ideological Battalions would be sent to the main base of support for the movement and begin in efforts of education and the establishment of dual power in these areas. The building up of a revolutionary government in the liberated areas was twofold, one to train the non-Kropotkin revolutionaries in governance post-Revolution and a propaganda purpose. The Revolutionary Councils were to act as an alternative form of government during the revolutionary war, providing successes for the people when the state became increasingly violent in its methods of suppressing the uprising. The aim being that cities and towns would willingly begin acknowledging the power of these revolutionary councils allowing the movement to slowly strangle the government into collapsing. Of course, this had to coincide with military successes of the movement and throughout a Revolutionary War retreats were to be expected. It was believed that the Kropotkin revolutionaries experience with these reversals would maintain revolutionary fervour - on occasion, however, this led to disaster with notable examples of revolutionary movements being crushed due to a misunderstanding of the balance of forces.
|
| 'Join the Movement! Defend and uphold the new Revolutionary Councils! Forward to Liberation!' 2558, a typical Kropotkin propaganda poster. |
Post Red-Black Cultural Revolution, the structure and nature of the Kropotkin armed forces was significantly altered permanently. The Cultural Revolution had left a dearth of leadership experience due to the extensive purges undertaken by the Red Front. However, as the Red Front had been the driving force behind the saving of Kropotkin's socialism, most of its members were permanently moved into Ideological Battalions that ceased to be an ad-hoc force but instead permanently standing. The Ideological Battalions became a permanent educational force on Kropotkin when not deployed to other worlds. For three years post-Revolution, it was only the ideological battalions that were deployed to other worlds to train and educate. During this period, Kropotkin's reputation as a successful revolutionary force started to diminish. Lacking the might of their revolutionary brigades, the Ideological Battalions often found themselves engaged in revolutions that lacked any real military path to victory. Indeed, throughout what was termed the 'Dimmed Red Star' period, revolutions that Kropotkin supported often had to capitulate with the government or engage in peace talks that ended in a reformist solution, with the revolutionaries becoming part of the bourgeois government and dismantling their own alternative and revolutionary state apparatus. It was not until 2571 that the Revolutionary Brigades were able to be deployed again, beginning the rehabilitation and rebuilding of Kropotkin's revolutionary credentials.
Revolutionary Internal Security Council[]
- "Do nothing that brings you risk."
- ―Common Kropotkin dissident refrain
|
| Logo of the Revolutionary Internal Security Council. |
[]
- "Socialism is not won through acts of servitude and deference to the ruling class, but through the power at the end of this ship's cannon."
- ― Revolutionary Fleet Admiral Nguyễn Văn Giang of the KPRN Hai Bà Trưng
|
| Flag of the The People's Revolutionary Navy. |
[]
- "Even the cold void shall not be able to withstand the burning fire of our socialism."
- ―Revolutionary Lieutenant Klara Luxemburg.
|
| Flag of the 'Voidwalkers'. |