The New Year

The New Year ​ 1936 was the year of upheavals. The stock market had crashed and with it any hope for stability in this new year. Incredible progress would be made in some regions of the world while others would bear witness to profound regressions. The first such country was Russia. In Russia, Kerensky had been assassinated in broad daylight, shot down in his automobile. The aristocrats of the Duma achieved a majority and selected DmitryRomanov, the last of his line. To the monarchists of Russia, this was a joy, a return to thedays of God and Tsar. To those who hoped for the continuance of Menshevik policies, or even thought that Russia might at last get that 'shot of Bolshevism' it so desperately needed - it was a disaster.

The last of the Romanovs reacted with surprising calm to the news that Kerensky had been killed​ Parades and protests mingled uneasily in a way that the increasingly unstablecountry was becoming accustomed and before the month was out there would be thefirst of many bombings by malcontents.While Russia crept towards a return to its age-old monarchy, four minds in Europe would gather to suggest the shape of the world to come. Mosley, Valois, Beria, and Mussolini. These four men would be the authors of the Totalist Charter, a manifesto on the use of power and the meaning of revolution. It opened with a quote from Lenin that described succinctly the aims of Totalism: \"The organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors.

In the words of Sorel, now was the time \"of the decisive struggle,\" and counter-revolution had to be fought on every front with every possible weapon.Mosley and his staff on the way to the first of the Totalist Charter meetings. The meetingswould take place in one of the Ministry of Armament's factories from which Mosley held court. In the Congress of Trade Unions in Britain and before the Bourse du Travail of the Commune, this doctrine would be voted in. Mosley for Britain and Valois in France while Beria would gain power without the need for an election. Of the authors of the charter, only Mussolini would not gain power in his home country.The Charter would be published in a dozen languages, almost always printed as a slender red volume. In Britain, it was pocket sized, and while jokes were made about how thatwas only possible because of how few ideas it really contained, it was a common sight tosee intense young men and women sitting in silence on the trains and trams, engrossed in their little red books. In America, the book was banned, along with countless other books, records, and now films.

Adored by critics and major voices in the world of leftist politics, the movie struck a chord with America​ \"Modern Times\", starring British-born actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin, as well asnoted pro-syndicalist Paulette Goddard caused a stir. It was hilarious, it was clever, and itwas overtly political. The world of the factories was shown naked and ridiculous, with its petty tyrants and dehumanizing conditions. The film sparked a national dialogue, and predictably, a fresh set of protests from the growing Combined Syndicates of America - a sort of popular front of a variety of syndicalist forces, from social democrats to the most militant, who now proudly called themselves 'Totalists.'

Syndicalism was a rising force in America, spurred on by the growing inequality and the government's seeming unwillingness to do anything to change it. A demand for radicalsolutions would define America in '36, as the forces of the extreme right and extreme left silenced the center with the sheer intensity of their argument. Combined Syndicates activists clash with the police. The CSA was unique among American labor parties in that it did not explicitly condemn armed resistance.​South of the border, another regression had taken place, also spurred on by assassination.Zapata, leader of syndicalist Mexico and hero of the revolution, had been murdered in his home. He was struck from behind, an ice axe to the back of the head delivered by one Ramon Mercader. Fatally wounded, Zapata was still able to fight with Mercader, wrestling him to the ground before his bodyguards arrived on the scene.When questioned, Mercader refused to answer why or who he had been working for, only saying \"I was in a blind alley... Zapata crushed me in his hands as if I had been paper.\"

Mercader in custody after police interrogation.​ Regardless of his motives, the assassination resulted in chaos. The rightist faction tooktheir chance to seize control of Mexico city, and in a brief but brutal street fight between the rightist military faction and the red militias, the rightists emerged victorious. The rightists were made up of pre-revolutionary officers who had sided with Zapata at almost the last moment. Others had surrendered and been politically recuperated. They had been living in that tenuous no-mans land where they had been too important to die and too distrusted to be allowed real command. Now, with the aid of their followers inthe armed forces and certain foreign business interests, they were in charge, with Pablo Gonzalez chief among them.

Pablo Gonzalez, the new military dictator of Mexico. His first acts would be to ban elections and to roll back the Zapata's syndicalist reforms.​Further South, a revolution in Bolivia would lead to South America's first syndicalist government, triggering a military build-up in its neighbors and an explosion of anti-syndicalist violence in Brazil.

Armed revolutionaries in Bolivia celebrating after the news that the President had fled the country.​Brazil was on the verge of collapse. Goods rotted on the vine that no one could afford to buy, and class conflict threatened to rip the country apart. One political movement claimed to offer the solution to all of these problems. They were as opposed to socialist materialism as they were to capitalist competition. Theirs was the way of Integralism.To the Integralists the problems of the world were not economic but moral, spiritual. In away not dissimilar to monarchists they believed that man, God, and the State were part ofa single system meant to live in harmony. Unlike the monarchists, God's elect was not a King or Queen, but the State itself that would mould its citizens into good, Christian citizens.

Salgado and the integralists had campaigned endlessly, until no city in Brazil was not without its own contingent of Green Shirts.​Their victory signaled a new era in Brazil, and in the rest of South America. However, perhaps the greatest shock of '36 would be in the German colony of Mittelafrika.