1935

Notable Events, 1935
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1 January: The Soviet Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate is merged into the People’s Control Commission. While in theory it represents a form of mass power check on the bureaucracy, in practice it is a tool to enforce party-state discipline.

2 January: The Peruvian Revolutionary War begins as the Peruvian autocrat Benavides attempts to pre-empt a Chilean, Mexican, or American revolution through an initial attack on trade unions and peasant groups in the dead of night. Comintern aligned groups in Peru are forewarned of the attempt by American and Chilean intelligence and spread the warning to others at risk. The pre-emptive strike ends up causing the very revolution it sought to destroy as mass uprisings rock Peru by dawn.

3 January: As part of efforts to renormalise relations, the Save the Children Fund fully re-opens operations in the UASR following a period of difficult circumstances due to the confusion of the civil war and the skepticism both the Red and White governments had towards the charity. Primarily working with children whose lives had been disrupted by the civil war, the UASR’s highly communal and cooperative approach to childcare prove to be somewhat shocking to the Fund’s British sensibilities; nevermind the assault the British right lays upon the Fund for daring to spend British pounds on “ghastly proletarian colonial spawn” in the words of a Mail columnist.

4 January: The Colombian, Costa Rican, and Panamanian governments sign treaties of friendship with the new world revolutionary governments and the Soviet Union at a conference held in Panama City. Though the first three governments are simply Comintern friendly popular front regimes heavily influenced by the northern Giant of America, the move is welcomed by many of the local working peoples of the three countries.

5 January: Italian politician Alfredo Rocco commissions an ambitious project for an Italian made animated feature film based on the story of Pinocchio. Rocco hopes that the film’s release will demonstrate the superiority of Italian culture. A budget worth about five million pounds sterling today is allocated to the project, buoyed by the influx of money into Italy by normalisation of trade relations with the other capitalist powers; with a planned one hundred and ten thousand drawings to be made for the film. All of this is set against a scheduled release in the fall of 1936. With the enormous amounts of money allocated to the project, production will proceed smoothly.

7 January: The South African chapter of the Industrial Workers of the World issues a manifesto condemning the construction of military heavy industry in South Africa “clearly intended to assail and besiege our comrades in the Americas and Eurasia” and organises demonstrations against the construction of the Capetown Army Tank Plant and demanding “Tractors, not Tanks.”

10 January: The KMT of China shows worrying signs of internal friction as its Soviet and American supported left and its Japanese and British supported right have a particularly heated debate over the acquisition of modern arms and training for the NRA as its campaigns against China’s many warlords continue. Jiang Jieshi and Wang Jingwei help mollify the argument, but Jiang cites concerns about Wang’s increasing reliance on Soviet-American support in private.

12 January : The Soviet Union announces an expansion of efforts to teach English as well as Spanish and other commonly used languages in revolutionary states within the USSR to ease cooperation; announced by Stalin in an address to the public with the slogan “multi-lingualism is internationalism!” The effort will be mirrored in many other revolutionary and revolutionary friendly governments.

13 January: The countryside of Peru is rife with hostile revolutionaries who are operating under the Mexican originated revolutionary theory of Zapatismo who engage in heavy fighting with the police and loyal elements of the military. Mexico and Chile both announce that they stand in solidarity with the Peruvian revolutionaries and formulate plans to send volunteers while the Soviets and Americans send advisors and assistance.

14 January: Before a plenum of the Congress of Soviets, Secretary-General Sinclair delivers the first State of the Revolution Address. The content, determined by the Workers’ Party Politburo, outlines the agenda of the central government for the coming year: a program of “Synchronization” to suppress the remnants of the old regime, economic recovery, and defense of the revolution against foreign interference.

16 January: The Japanese government issues a statement of concern for the fate of the large Japanese population in Peru as well as vague promises of attempted support for the Benavides government. With Britain preferring to focus its attentions on Brazil and Venezuela, Japan is the dictatorship’s primary; and some would say only; hope. This move however, does little to endear the Japanese Empire to America.

18 January: The Peruvian revolutionaries start to form a cohesive united front of action against the Benavides government that brings together socialist, progressive, native liberation, minority, and feminist groups under a single banner dedicated to defeating the Benavides dictatorship. Evoking the memory of the late Latin American theorist José Carlos Mariátegui, the so called “Mariateguistas” seek to strangle the Benavidistas by cutting them off from access to Peru’s industries and agriculture.

20 January: The Revolutionary Marines begin a “police action” in the Haitian Revolution. Dominican military strongman Rafael Trujillo begins mobilizing the army.

23 January: Benavides summons a war council to determine strategy for his war of reaction now that his efforts at an early victory have failed. He believes that through control of the cities, he can hopefully wait out the tide of revolutionary fervour and exhaust the political will of Peru’s red neighbours and win a war of attrition. But with Peru’s industrial capacity for military supplies limited and his supply chains being a tenuous link to Amazon river ports and occasional Anglo-Japanese ships, some question the ability for the Peruvian right to survive such a siege.

25 January: The Chilean government rejects out of hand a demand by its Bolivian counterpart to return the Atacama Corridor lost the pacific war of 1879-1883. The brusque refusal of the Chilean revolutionary government and its explicitly stated disinterest in further discussion of the topic inflames nationalist movements in Bolivia who claim that it is Bolivia’s sacred right to have access to the sea.

28 January : Bolivian nationalists organise a demonstration and rally on the streets of Sucre demanding that the “Yankee puppeted Bolsheviks of Santiago be made to pay by force.”

30 January: British and Japanese diplomats conclude talks, establishing an exclusive Japanese sphere of influence in mainland China, minus all existing concessions to the various European states.

1 February: New Fun Comics , the first “comic book” with all-original content (as opposed to comic strip reprints), makes its debut, courtesy of Syndicated Features._

4 February:_ Chilean Constituent Assembly elections return a solid majority for the Communist Party and its allies, though international observers voice concerns about the fairness of the election.

6 February: The Parker Brothers’ cooperative launches a new edition of The Landlord’s Game.

9 February: Victor Raul Haya de la Torre emerges as the de facto unifying figure for the Peruvian Revolution which aims to establish a “Socialist Union of Peru”, having adopted a latter day Marxist viewpoint after inspiration from the Mexican, Chilean, and Nicaraguan examples, and vows to uphold the legacy of his late comrade Mariategui. However the war is a messy one with few clear frontlines as the two sides battle in both the streets and fields. The revolutionaries though, have the advantage of easier supply chains as seized docks admit Soviet and American shipments and the Chilean border continually leaks weapons; while the reactionaries increasingly have to count every bullet fired.

11 February: Franco-Italian negotiations conclude, with both powers agreeing to respect one another’s territorial claims.

13 February: The term “people’s democracy” is coined by the American Institute of Scientific Socialism to refer to the model of social democratic American friendly popular front government established in countries such as Argentina.

15 February : The Turanist Proclamation is made in Turkey, demanding the return of lands lost to “opportunists” during the Turkish war of Independence, particularly in Armenia. The Kemalist government elects to ignore the Turanists for the time being, more focused on its efforts to develop Turkish infrastructure and repair the economy following the depression than on the grievances of those outside the government’s current consensus.

18 February: Santo Domingo is paralyzed by strikes. Faced with a choice of evils, Trujillo choses to attempt to suppress the strikes.

21 February : Chinese, Latin American, and Soviet animation students and artists arrive at the Hyperion Collective to learn the craft under the direction of Walt Disney’s team.

24 February: Utilizing the death of American sailors at the hands of the Dominican Army as a pretext, the Revolutionary Military Committee orders a naval blockade of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Revolution begins in earnest.

27 February: The Chinese government surprises many by welcoming the “revolution for humanitarian virtues against backwards thinking despotism” in Peru in an effort to win diplomatic favour in Latin America while the ongoing revolution’s leaders are warmly welcomed into the Communist International.

28 February: The Soviet People’s Commissariat for Military and Navy Affairs is split into separate commissariats for Defense and the Navy. Kliment Voroshilov takes the Defense portfolio, while Pyotr Smirnov takes the Naval portfolio. Simultaneously, Sovnarkom announces a campaign for fleet modernization.

1 March: The British Cabinet introduces a series of reports along with the fiscal year 1935 budget detailing long-term arms spending priorities. Parliament eventually enacts a three-fold increase in military expenditures. Among the provisions: putting the Royal Navy at full-readiness as soon as economical, full-modernization rebuilds for many of her battleships, and beginning design cycles for new classes of battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers.

2 March: The Band Concert , an animated short by the Hyperion Animation Collective, debuts. It is the first color outing for its lead cartoon star, Mortimer “Morty” Mouse.

3 March: The 3rd Marine Regiment crosses into the Dominican Republic, as the countryside breaks out into open revolt.

5 March: The Chinese government, encouraged by Chinese women’s movements as well as a desire to be more respectable to the wider world; announces the intensification of crackdowns on the practise of footbinding. The move is strongly supported by the Leftist and Liberal factions of the KMT as well as the Chinese Communist Party, while the Rightist faction of the KMT is more muted in its support over concerns that the effort may be best left for when China is reunified.

8 March: The British government signs off on the “Provision for animated arts” act providing for subsidies and tax breaks for animation production in the hopes of fuelling a British animation industry to rival its American counterpart lest the art form be wholly dominated by Americans. This is part of a wider effort to build up British film making, which itself is part of a wave of intensified European interest in film as part of a fear of the influence of Red Hollywood.

11 March: The Hashemite King of Arabia welcomes foreign investment as prospectors hoping to find alternative sources of oil to the present sources start exploration efforts in earnest, hoping that the presence of Oil in Iran will mean that the Peninsula should be similarly rich with the precious substance.

15 March: The heavily pro-integralist Brazilian Catholic secret society “The Humble Knights of God”, a cultish organization styling itself the successor to the legacy of crusader organizations such as the Livonian Order or the Knights Templar redubs itself the “Green Guard” to commemorate its first year of being merged with the Brazilian AIB.

16 March: The Subcommittee on Automated Planning, a working group within the Scott Commission, returns its first report. Among its recommendations is instituting a system to issue grants to research and development bureaus - both academic and industrial. The first round of proposal requests are for the manufacture of mechanical and electromechanical calculators, and second sources for critical planning apparatuses - namely, teletypes, automatic telephone switchboards and tabulators.

18 March: The Congress of Soviets enacts the Law of Elections as an entrenched law. The new law replaces the various provisional election laws governing elections since the revolution. Among its features are strict penalties for discrimination, a nation-wide voting age of 18, and measures to protect the workers’ republic from foreign and reactionary influence in elections. Additionally, it directs the Central Executive Council to establish a Central Election Commission to organize and enforce its provisions.

21 March: American engineering expatriates discover petroleum while drilling deep wells in Libya.

23 March: Little Gulliver, a socialist retelling of Gulliver’s Travel, is released in the Soviet Union, the first to make extensive use of puppet stop-motion animation. The film attracts the attention of the Culver City Collective (formerly MGM/RKO), and director Alexander Ptushko is offered a chance to work with their lead stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien.

26 March: The Benavides government manages to repel a red offensive into Lima for now, but the insurgency in the countryside is proving almost impossible to contain, especially as precious military supplies rapidly diminish. With the red blockade and no great power having the reach to properly contest American influence in the eastern pacific the logistical situation of Benavides looking grim as his enemies can simply bring their firepower to bear far more freely than he can. Particularly with the confirmation that Ecuador and Colombia fully intend to accept America’s request to recognise the revolutionaries as Peru’s sole government. Only threadbare amazonian supply chains from Brazil and the occasional brave shipment keep his army functional.

30 March: Hitler’s government publicly confirms that it has violated the Versailles Treaty’s ban on conscription for several months.

1 April: In a bout of good humour, Chairman of the Presidium Upton Sinclair indulges in an April Fool’s joke during a visit to the Proletkult Federation; announcing a sequel to his famous book “The Jungle ” that he pitches in a manner deliberately evocative of the sort of unnecessary esclative sequels common amongst Penny Dreadful type serials. Ernest Hemingway’s visible confusion at the announcement followed by relief at the revelation that it was indeed a joke are captured in film and go down in history.

4 April: With the arrest of Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican People’s Republic is declared in Santo Domingo. The new Dominican Workers’ Party, in alliance with the Dominican Peasants’ League, takes power in the Congress of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

5 April: The Solidarity (CV-6) is laid down at Newport News Naval Shipyard.

7 April: Stalin establishes a special commission to investigate instances of false-imprisonment, and to recommend clemency for those convicted of minor crimes.(1)

10 April : Benavides narrowly misses an assassination attempt during an inspection of the soldiers assigned to his guard. The experience intensifies his paranoia dramatically and he starts refusing to come out of secured locations in anything less than an armoured car.

12 April: The Imperial Japanese government finalizes orders for six Suruga -class battleships. While officially Naval Treaty compliant, the design in truth exceeds the 40,000 ton limitation by almost twenty percent.

13 April: Samantha Waver’s eldest twin children; Caleb and Edna Waver; turn 13. Their birthday celebration is attended to by a number of prominent figures in the Metropolis arts scene and the children of those figures.

15 April: Victor Raul Haya de la Torre makes a historic handshake with the young Argentine Communist Fanny Edelman as part of a ceremony to thank the International Volunteer Army for its contributions to the Peruvian revolution after the liberation of Huancayo drives a precariously placed dagger into the centre of the country that threatens to divide Benavides’ forces from each other.

18 April: In response to the four ships of the Italian Littorio- class battleships currently under construction, the French government finalizes an order for four Richelieu- class battleships.

20 April : Les Miserables , a cinematic retelling of Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name, debuts in theaters.

20 April: On his birthday, the Diehl Brothers approach the Fuhrer with offers of building a sprawling German animation industry to eclipse “the works of the Bolshevik Disney”, if the Fuhrer would only be so kind as to offer funding. Ever fond of seeing his subordinates squabble with each other, Hitler agrees but also offers similar deals to two other teams of German animators; informing them that whosoever best pleases the herrenvolk will receive the greatest favour.

21 April: The Anglo-German Navy Treaty is ratified. The new collective security treaty authorizes German naval building to 50 percent of the Royal Navy’s tonnage. Additional articles establish collective security protocols against the Soviet Union. With a strong but restrained Kriegsmarine , the French countering Italian moves, and cooperation with Mussolini’s government itself, the British Admiralty hopes to secure a free hand against the UASR.

24 April: The Yugoslav government formulates a policy of rejecting the legitimacy of the United Republics and all other revolutionary governments such as Chile, Mexico, and Nicaragua as part of its broader anti-communist stance. This also includes a total embargo on all goods from any such country.

27 April: The Nigerian dominion movement convenes in Lagos in the hopes of drafting a layout for a pathway to dominion status under the British Empire, inspired by similar movements in India as well as the previously successful efforts by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

30 April: Jiang Jieshi’s clique cedes the Hebei Province and adjacent territory to Imperial Japanese forces.

1 May: May Day is celebrated to its usual fanfare across the world, with major festivities in Comintern and Comintern aligned governments celebrating the gains of the movement so far. Premier Torre in Peru makes a radio address thanking the Peruvian revolutionaries for their service and urges them to press on to victory as the civil war enters its fifth month.

5 May: The so-called “Purge of the Judiciary” begins, following the promulgation of Congress of Soviets’ Resolution 1935-81, instructing the Presidium that all judicial terms are to be counted retroactively from initial appointment, and not from the enactment of the new Judiciary Organic Act. Hundreds of judges, including several Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal justices, face potential replacement.

9 May: The battle of Cuzco ends in the retreat of more of Benavides’ loyal forces into the Amazon, the southeastern regions of Peru are no longer tenable for the Peruvian rightists to hold and a breakout is attempted, but the tightly drawn noose prepared by the revolutionaries sees thousands captured and the southeastern regions near Chile turned into a generally solid power base for the revolutionaries as they seek to control all enemy movement in the country.

10 May: Samantha Waver gets approval and support from the Proletkult Federation to begin work on what would come to be the first Commander Columbia film, along with a heavy slate of at least two films per year from her studio, “Ruby Orchestra” to be made possible through massive mobilisation of animation talent from across the Red sphere to showcase the artistic supremacy of the proletarian movement. Aid from sympathetic persons in the bureau tips the balance in the struggle against those skeptical of a female lead project or an action oriented animated feature.

12 May: The Los Angeles Observatory opens to substantial fanfare, with its powerful new instruments being intended for the study of celestial objects both near and far in greater detail than was possible before.

16 May: Mosfilm opens a studio in Hollywood, near Sunset Boulevard, to help handle American co-productions. “Mosfilm America” will use the studio to make an epic adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace with Pico Pictures (formerly Fox Films)

17 May: Under the terms Stavka’s General Order 36, the 177th, 179th and 181st Infantry Regiments are established as the first all-female combat units in the WFRA.

18 May: The Brazilian Communist Party launches uprisings against the provisional government chaired by Getulio Vargas. Revolutionary cadres in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, and Porto Alegre take to the streets. Workers and citizens are mobilized by slogans calling for the end of Vargas’ industrialist dictatorship. By the end of the week, revolutionaries are in control of the cities, and mobilizing in the countryside.

22 May: The journal Revmira is founded in Metropolis, quickly becoming a focal point of the Left Fraction of the Workers’ Party. A diverse circle of theoreticians, including Solon DeLeon, Chester O’Dell*, Paul Mattick, and the Italian exile Amadeo Bordiga, found the journal to serve as a voice of worker opposition from the left.

24 May: Having narrowly escaped capture, provisional president Vargas turns to the combat groups of Ação Integralista Brasileira to shore up an army weakened by desertion and mutiny, desperate to avoid Peru’s fate. Plinio Salgado is named Vice-President of the Provisional Brazilian Government.

29 May: With the disruption of aid from Brazil caused by the communist uprisings, defeatism is rife among the Benavidistas as many formations are forced to resort to looting to continue to provide sufficient food to avoid starvation in the field. An act which inspires yet further rebels against the reactionary government.

2 June : The coordinated seizure of stored up foodstuffs from many major farms and granaries in Peru menaces the ability of Benavides to continue to provide adequate food for his soldiers, nevermind civilians. Attempts to stop banditry (communist or otherwise) from waylaying supply shipments overland by arming the caravan guards often see precious guns and ammo lost to the reactionary cause.

5 June: The provision of easily transportable light artillery pieces to the revolutionaries swings the tide of a number of important engagements in Peru; with Benavides’ own artillery shell stock precariously low, the reactionaries’ return volleys are increasingly scattered and limpwristed compared to their revolutionary counterparts.

9 June: Further good news for the revolutionaries comes as word of some liberal governments such as France and Denmark recognising the Socialist Union of Peru as the legitimate government of the nation starts to arrive as some recognise that the revolution is a fait accompli at this point.

10 June: Production begins on the British animated film “Arthur the Second” which imagines a young boy of today’s Britain finding the lost sword of Caliburn that anointed Arthur as King and rising to the legacy of the once and future king.

12 June: In a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Secretary-General Sinclair awards the first Hero of Socialist Labor medals to the families of fifteen soldiers who died in the line of duty during the Revolution.

15 June : The first five year plan of the Federal Republic of Argentina is put into motion with the expectation of industrialising the Argentine hinterland and doubling food production by 1940. American and Soviet advisors are dispersed throughout the country to aid in this task.

16 June: Delegates from Korean resistance movements opposed to Imperial Japan smuggle themselves into Comintern territory in the hopes of appealing to the Third Communist International for an independent, socialist Korea.

19 June : Delegates of the African National Congress from South Africa, as well as other African independence movements arrive in DeLeon Debs to discuss the issue of anti-colonialism after a visit to the African Federal National Republic. Of importance is the question of national liberation versus global struggle.

24 June: Ground is broken on the first of the Columbia Valley Authority projects. New dams, power plants, industrial parks, agricultural collectives and civic centers are planned throughout the valley.

29 June: By this point the Peruvian Andes are largely in the hands of the Peruvian Revolutionaries and the majority of the country’s agricultural output is no longer accessible to the government sheltering in Lima. Already harsh rationing is made even harsher in response to the news that vital shipments of rice from Japan were halted after Japanese weapons were discovered on them by American blockade officials.

2 July: “Crimson July” begins in Brazil, as the AIB and Brazilian Army begin offensive operations against the Brazilian soviets. The main effort is directed against the Rio de Janeiro Commune. In spite of superiority in artillery and equipment, the suppression campaigns face stiff resistance.

3 July: Bo Gu, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and Wang Jingwei, Chairman of the Nationalist Government, conclude Comintern brokered power-sharing negotiations. CPC local administrations, including the cities of Shanghai and Ruijin, are retained, Communist delegates are seated in the National Assembly, Cabinet, and Military Commission, and the Chinese Red Army is integrated into the National Revolutionary Army.

4 July: The Sons of Liberty launch an insurrection in Charleston, capital of the African National Federal Republic. Attempting to exploit white fears against the black communist government to begin a restoration of the Second Republic, the militants storm the capitol complex. While they succeed in taking the buildings, most of the local leadership successfully evacuates. The AFNR Central Committee mobilizes the Red Guards and the local Armed Masses, instituting martial law.

8 July: Thanks to the politically paralyzed state of the Brazilian Navy, a number of Comintern advisors infiltrate Rio by sea. While they bring a small token gift of arms and ammunition, the delegation’s leader Walter Ulbricht has no kind words for Brazilian communist leadership. He castigates Luís Carlos Prestes for engaging in this adventurism without the consent of the Comintern.

9 July: After a perilous journey, the Korean delegates arrive in D.C by aircraft after making the trip to Vladivostok and taking the boat to San Francisco and then a plane to the capital. John Reed agrees to hear them out and discuss what the global revolutionary movement can do for occupied Korea.

10 July : Veiled threats of intervention are made by the governments of France, Japan, Britain, Germany, and Italy that warn of dire consequences should the Americans or Soviets intervene in Brazil.

11 July: Premier Foster delivers a statement to the Central Executive Council on the matter of the Brazilian Revolution. The official position of the Workers’ Party, in line with the Comintern Executive Committee, is that the Brazilian revolution is an ill-conceived exercise in adventurism, begun without the input of the global communist movement. The UASR is not in a position to directly aid due to the very different balance of naval power in the South Atlantic than the Pacific, though it will continue efforts to provide “humanitarian aid” to those caught in the fighting. In secret, he continues providing whatever token aid that can be mustered, but no overt show of military intervention is contemplated.

12 July: The chaos in Brazil has deadly knock on effects in the Bolivian economy as shortages result almost immediately thanks to the disruption in the transport of goods to the country. A general strike is called in Bolivia as demands to open up to the growing red bloc are made.

13 July: The disruption in Brazil and a series of strikes among Amazonian river workers proves to be gutting to the Peruvian reactionary cause. With even a temporary halt in the supply of ammunition even some of the city fortresses in Peru fall to the revolutionaries, though many cities yet remain under Benavides’ control.

14 July: Having put down sympathy uprisings among local white reactionaries, the AFNR Red Guards tighten the siege on Marion Square Capitol complex. At midnight, the Red Guards storm the compound, defeating the counterrevolutionaries though sustaining significant casualties.

16 July: The Imperial Japanese government, sensing the budding “animation race”, throws its proverbial hat in the ring by commissioning a feature length animated film based around the legend of Susanoo and Yamata no Orochi.

19 July: Taking personal command of his Green Guard, Salgado retakes the Presidential Palace from the Brazilian Red Army. The Rio Commune will be drowned in blood in the coming days. Many Brazilian communists flee on the Amazon to join the fight in Peru.

20 July: The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International convenes in Moscow, with an aim towards revising communist policy towards fronts against fascism, and alliances with national liberation projects. Delegates from the Republic of China’s KMT government sit as non-voting observers.

23 July : In response to claims that the Bolivian left is preparing to sell the country out to the Soviet-American devil and their dogs in Mexico, Peru, and Chile, the Bolivian military with the aid of nationalist paramilitary groups depose the Republican government to engage in a brutal crackdown. A number of Bolivian leftists manage to escape into Chile or Peru.

25 July: The first issue of The Sunday Worker is published. The longer format weekly journal includes more in depth articles and op-eds, as well as the Workers’ Literary Supplement.

29 July: The release of T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom receives its first unabridged general release. Amidst (false) rumors of the author’s involvement in partisan operations in the White Army in the American Revolution, it becomes a considerable financial success.

31 July: The influx of communist exiles from Brazil and Bolivia is welcomed with ceremony by the Peruvian revolutionaries, while volunteers from other leftist aligned parts of South America prove helpful in offering trained manpower to the revolutionary army; passing on their skills to an increasingly disciplined, well equipped, and organised people’s army while the reactionary forces opposing them lose more and more of their edge.

5 August: In the face of the upheaval of “Crimson July” in Brazil, Brazilian President Vargas decision to give Plinio Salgado a near carte blanche takes a disastrous turn. Vargas’ bumbling micromanagement of the crisis, coupled with the great leeway given to the Integralists sees support from military officials, businessmen, landlords, and Catholic clergy shift increasingly to “the savior of the Republic,” Plinio Salgado. Salgado sees his 18th Brumaire, and orders the AIB to seize the presidential palace and arrest Vargas for “conspiracy against the Brazilian people”, with the blessings of the army. Later that day, flanked by his supporters and the soon to be infamous head of the Green Guard Cristiano Boaventura Leite, Salgado proclaims a renewed Brazilian state that will “integrate all factors of the nation.”

8 August: The League of Militant Godless holds its all-Union Congress in Leningrad. The organization is at the zenith of its power and membership, and its chairman, Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, has the direct ear of the Politburo.

11 August : Most of the conflict in Bolivia subsides by this time as the disorganised Liberal-Left coalition is swept aside by the army and much of the rest flees into Peru. A military junta is formed that seeks to instate “military socialism”, which is little more than a fig leaf for a fascist oligarchy arranged around corporatist lines.

13 August: The Soviet Union and France coincidentally begin work on their own animated feature films on the same day, with the Soviets commissioning the production of an original socialist realist story about a man named Sergei Dragunov who seeks to help free an oppressed nation while the French draw up plans to bring the Song of Roland to life in animation.

14 August: In the wake of the Charleston Uprising, a wave of arrests occurs throughout the deep South of suspected reactionaries and “Sons of Liberty” members. Among those arrested are former plantation owner Harold Spencer* and lawyer John Stennis, in former Mississippi, both accused of (and eventually confessing to) plotting the assassination of the local commissar for the district commune.

17 August: Leonid Spartak and Samantha Waver publish a new volume of Aeon Lullaby, “Moonsetter ” whose themes are heavily tied to “what comes next” after a life changing event and are seen by many literary analysts as a call to the youth to not be satisfied with what has been done so far. Following this, work on further Aeon Lullaby comics will slow due to the greater focus on Commander Columbia however.

20 August: Termite Terrace animator Robert Clampett begins work on an animated adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter of Mars (after getting permission from Burroughs himself). He receives help from the New York based “North Avenue Animation” (formerly Terrytoons), and the Culver City Animation section. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera are among the animators helping on the project.

22 August: Following the deployment of a WFRN squadron and a Marine regiment to the Naval Station Monrovia, Liberian President Edwin Barclay abruptly cancels negotiations with Italian commercial interests to re-develop the former Firestone rubber concession.

27 August: With the fall of Iquitos to the Peruvian revolutionaries, the supply situation for Benavides becomes desperate. Medicine, already in short supply, is now in the almost complete monopoly of the revolutionaries, and his enemies increasingly have the upper hand in more modern implements of war such as grenades, automatic guns, and light artillery. He orders that officers work to solve the crisis of desertion of hungry soldiers by means of deadly force in the hopes of stemming the bleeding, and has the police crack down violently on even talk of unhappiness with the present situation.

_30 August:_Timothy by Nobel Prize Laureate Sinclair Lewis is released. A roman a clef of the 1932 election (scheduled to be released in 1933, but delayed for obvious reasons), it focuses on the struggle of socialist clergyman John Timothy as he battles both failed President Walter Trowbridge and bombastic opponent Buzz Windrip. The story ends with Timothy being elected, but a shadowy general named Dewey Haik planning a coup (the epilogue was added after the Revolution)

3 September: The supposedly liberal Paraguayan state, in practise a deeply stratified Oligarchy, starts begins its rapid process of becoming a de facto Brazilian puppet state by concluding the Asunción agreement with the new Integralist government which calls for collective military action against a foe generally understood to be Argentina in the future. Uruguay, caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place; will also drift increasingly towards Brazil.

8 September: The Venezuelan government soon falls under the de facto control of Eleazar López Contreras as the minister of war is given the power of acting presidency to govern in President Juan Vicente Gomez’s place as the aging monarchical president’s health fails. Gomez will die shortly as the nearly eighty year old man’s body gives out. Gomez’s death leaves Contreras with a country of paradoxes, wealthy but unevenly so, at once one of the most vital strategic nations of the Americas yet far from the public consciousness, and with a long history of autocracy yet the allowance of “rival” parties that were impotent but rambunctious.

9 September : The first grants under the Automated Planning Research and Development program are issued. Among the institutional recipients are the Armonk Tabulator Collective, Western Electric Labs, and Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Systems. Several university professors with particularly promising proposals, including Alonzo Church of Princeton University and John V. Atanasoff of Iowa State University, also receive funding under the APRD Round One grant.

10 September: Benavides receives word that enemy forces are now within a hundred kilometers from Lima and that communications with the rest of his forces is becoming extremely difficult due to the very patchwork like distribution of his zones of control. The guarded roads that serve as the lifeline of his forces are also obvious targets, and when cloistered in the fortress cities they have control over; they have little means of interdicting the more fluid revolutionaries. Benavides begins to consider means of escape.

12 September: The British Parliament enacts the Government of India Act of 1935. Hitherto the longest Act in the history of parliament, it established limited direct franchise in the provinces, increased provincial autonomy, and provided for the formation of a Commonwealth of India between the provinces and some or all of the princely states. Discussions on what to do with Myanmar, which is currently governed as part of the Raj but is substantially culturally separated from the Indian subcontinent proper also begin in earnest; with “separation” and “unity” factions forming.

15 September: The Reichstag promulgates the so-called Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews and other minorities of their citizenship.

18 September: The Communist Party of Spain re-admits the expelled members of the Trotskyite Left Opposition, adopting the Chicago Program from last winter’s special Comintern congress.

20 September: The Turkish government concludes deals with Mussolini’s Italy to learn of ship design and construction from the fascist government as well as to solicit Italian aid in constructing shipyards.

23 September: Trouble in Venezuela begins for Contreras almost immediately as the whispers of Communist organised strikes in the vital oil industry start to be heard. A panoply of European interests are quick to remind Contreras that to allow Venezuelan’s vast oil reserves to fall into red hands would be unacceptable, and so Contreras makes preparations to try and strangle any strikes that form in their crib. While a mostly conventional military dictator, Contreras’ government does also make overtures to more properly fascist states in the hopes of developing Venezuela’s oil refining capacity to pocket more of the profits of the oil industry rather than have to transport the substance to extremely distant overseas facilities. Savings that he hopes to use to shut the Venezuelan left up through essentially bribing the populace into complacency.

27 September : With his pleas to France and Britain to contain Italy falling on deaf ears and the United Republics and the Soviet Union ill equipped to intervene in a landlocked warzone they have no access to, Emperor Haile Selassie announces to the League of Nations that he has no choice but to mobilise Ethiopia’s large but ill equipped army and fight for its survival alone. Making one last plea for collective security arrangements and punitive actions to be taken against Italy for its actions, Selassie warns that “It is us today, it will be you tomorrow.”

30 September: The closing of the Extraordinary Commissions and the end of martial law in the continental UASR marks the conventional end of the Red Terror.

1 October: Germany and Italy conclude agreements to engage in technical trades to the benefit of the infrastructures of both fascist societies, with Germany interested in Italy’s “second opinion” on ship and aerospace design in particular and Italy eager to learn from Germany’s steel and rail industries.

3 October: The Italian Army invades Ethiopia. The act is widely condemned but little real action is taken against Italy. Britain; hopeful to retain Italy as an ally quashes talk of sanctions against Italy from other European states and Italy remains scornfully dismissive of rebuke from the Comintern.

5 October: Salgado is declared Generalissimo by a rump Congress of Deputies filled with his supporters, ushering in the era of the Estado Novo.

6 October: The revolutionary governments of Chile and Mexico and other American aligned Latin American governments declare non-recognition for Salgado’s “Estado Novo.”

7 October: In spite of the Canadian Liberal-Conservative government’s solid anti-communist credentials, the poor state of the Canadian economy results in embarrassment at the polls. R.B. Bennet retains the office of prime minister thanks to a supply and confidence agreement with the new Social Credit party.(2)

9 October: As part of the Soviet-American naval agreement, workers and VMF personnel from the Baltic Shipyard take residence at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard. Soviet engineers and workers will learn modern naval architecture and construction. The keel of the future Soviet battleship Stal’naya , an improved variant of the Monitor -class battleship, is laid.

12 October: Akira Ikufube’s Japanese Rhapsody wins first prize in Alexander Tcherepnin’s contest for young composers, providing the twenty one year old music composer his first big break which will eventually set him on the path to eventual fame as the primary composer for a significant portion of the Godzilla films to be made throughout the 20th century.

13 October: The South African Communist Party, the African National Congress, and the South African chapter of the Industrial Workers of the World form a “tripartite alliance” inspired by the American example.(3) The tripartite alliance is staunchly republican, anti-imperial, pro-Comintern and strongly internationalist. Though a black majority movement, it welcomes white and Asian members waging the struggle as well. It strongly rejects “half measures” such as Dominionism, bourgeois republicanism, and is also “committed to the anti-racialist and anti-misogynist” struggle.

15 October: Salgado offers vague hopes of support to Benavides in the form of volunteers and small trickles of whatever supplies Brazil can offer him, but it amounts to a band-aid over a disembowelment. The disruption to the Brazilian support network earlier in the year has already proven to be a mortal injury, and the false hope Benavides is given by the news leads his high command to order ill advised offensives to try and reclaim the amazonian supply road that burn through limited supplies through little gain.

17 October: The Fengtien clique in Manchukuo that serves as the “government” of the Japanese placed puppet Emperor Pu-Yi escalates its rapid development plans with an eye towards transforming Manchuria into a power that can stand next to Japan as “France does to Britain”. Prison labour is used heavily to cut costs while investors from Japan and Europe are invited to build up Manchukuo as a counterbalance to the USSR and China. The Japanese government for its own part maintains overall direction of these developmental efforts and is particularly interested in expanding steel production and oil prospecting.

20 October: King Kong Returns , a sequel to King Kong made by a different studio and creative team, is released. Though the original creators are lukewarm to the concept (especially since the original concept for a sequel by the late Merian Cooper isn’t being used), intellectual property is considered no more sacred than any other form of private property. Though some take the film’s struggle between another member of Kong’s species (still named King Kong, though larger and more powerful than the original) and the giant two headed eagle Aquillon to be symbolic of Ethiopia’s struggle with Italy, the timing of the movie makes this unlikely. The film also introduces the now iconic power of electric blasts and attacks to King Kong as he gains a surge in power from exposure to lightning to seize the initiative against the frost breathing Eagle.

25 October: The elite Watch Brigade is established in the Proletarian Guard. The Watch Brigade is tasked with the dual purpose of securing the national capital, as well as serving as the elite mobile counterterrorism/counterintelligence taskforce.

31 October: Halloween is celebrated in the Union of American Socialist Republics with an emphasis on self made costumes and celebrating creativity with a tinge of spookiness.

2 November: The battlecruiser Toledo (CC-9) enters commission. Rebuild and modernization begins on the Spartacus(ex-Colorado) (BB-49).

6 November: Salazar quashes attempts by Portuguese integralists to partner up with their Brazilian counterparts due to their monarchist leanings, rounding up and arresting a number of prominent Portuguese Integralists in a crackdown.

7 November: UK General election: The Conservative-led National Government retains control, albeit at a reduced majority.(3)

10 November: The Venezuelan left begins to organise for strikes demanding that more of Venezuela’s oil wealth be used to enrich Venezuela’s people rather than the land owners and the businessmen. They start to set time tables for when they plan to launch the strikes, hoping to emulate Peru’s success and avoid Brazil’s failure.

11 November: The noose circles around the Peruvian Right’s neck as ships of the Peruvian Navy start to defect to the revolutionaries out of desperation for food, medicine, and exhaustion with increasingly harsh discipline in rather large numbers. With his loyalist ships barely having enough fuel to make maintenance runs, he can do little to challenge sorties by red warships that sometimes take potshots at Lima, devastating an already poor morale situation.

13 November: Colombian and Venezuelan relations take a rather cold turn as the Venezuelan government expresses vocal disapproval of Colombia’s decision to align with “unlawful usurpers” while Colombia’s own government snipes back with Venezuela’s cozying up to the autocracies and juntas in Brazil and Bolivia. Things take a further turn for the worse when Venezuela accuses Colombia of seeding its oil fields with foreign provocateurs to which Colombia responds by accusing Venezuela of being little more than a minion for British Imperialism.

15 November: The Havana Outfit, formed by a quadrumvirate of Italian, Irish, Polish, and Jewish organised crime groups dominated by the exiled leadership of the New York Mafia starts making investments into the construction of Venezuelan refineries to “get its finger in the pie.”

18 November: Notorious gangster Alphonse “Al” Capone is killed by the Chicago Militia while attempting to rob the Union Bank. He had been leading a small alliance of Chicago Outfit remnants and Sons of Liberty members. His death (and the arrest of his group) marks the effective end to the Outfit. A cache of Italian weapons are found with them, fueling rumors that fascist Italy has been supplying weapons to the remnants of the Mafia still in the mainland.

21 November: Julius Monroe, a young African American composer is selected by Samawal Hamidi to be the chief composer for Commander Columbia after being impressed by his experimentations with a number of Prokofiev and Gustav Hoist’s compositions for a stage performance. The son of a commissioned officer in the army in the Great War who swiftly defected to the revolutionary army during the civil war; Julius is initially surprised by the chance to work on the score of a major film project, but accepts. The opportunity will even let him consult his idol Prokofiev in person.

23 November: The first rugby national championship is held in Chicago, the culmination of an eight-team single elimination tournament. Army Spartacus beats Navy Trident 19-17 in a grudge match broadcast nationally by radio.

29 November: Ishiro Honda, a recently drafted petty officer in the Imperial Japanese Army and future director of many of the first Godzilla movies, is briefly considered by the burgeoning Kodoha movement in Japan to join their planned takeover; but is passed over due to being considered insufficiently politically zealous.

1 December: The Thai Kingdom concludes negotiations of trade deals and development plans with the Japanese Empire as the Thai government hopes to become an industrial power in five years time.

4 December: Ground clearing begins in Moscow for the planned Palace of the Soviets.

9 December: Former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia is hospitalised with a sprained ankle after an attempt to hunt a moose goes awry in Sweden. Former Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany having a seemingly meanspirited laugh at his cousin’s expense as he falls face first into the snow is captured in a photograph and becomes the inspiration for political cartoons for years.

10 December: Sensing imminent victory, the Peruvian revolutionaries begin the work of sketching out concepts of post-war organisation and the transition process to peacetime, including the first draft of Peru’s new revolutionary basic law.

13 December: Aircraft aligned with the Peruvian revolutionaries launch air attacks on forces stationed outside of Lima for the first time. The sight of red aircraft having free reign so close to his power base seems to shock Benavides to the point that he attempts to flee.

15 December: In the leadup to the 1936 Swedish general elections, Sven Olov Lindholm and Burger Furegard consult with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini for ways to convince the King that it is in his best interest to appoint them to power regardless of the election’s outcomes.

18 December: In preparation for next March’s scheduled elections, the Central Election Commission promulgates new rules of procedure under the new Law of Elections. Pursuant to Article XV of the Fundamental Principles of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the Law directs the revocation of voting franchise based on class or history of counterrevolutionary activity.

20 December: Benavides’ Ill advised effort to escape leads to a fatal injury as an ambush on his caravan leads to a grazing shot impacting his glutes while seated. Though the injury would normally be easily treated, the lack of medicinal supplies will lead to the injury suffering gangrene.

25 December: In recognition of the new friendship between Chile and Peru, the two make a historic agreement to form an “Andean Confederation” once the revolution is won in Peru that will be the nucleus of the later Confederación de Naciones de Nuestra America. This Confederation is built around the tightening of bonds, the easing of cooperative efforts and resource coordination, and can be thought of as more of a tight knit alliance then an attempt to merge the two together despite sensationalist reporting at the time. Already Chilean forces have proven to be of substantial help in the Peruvian revolution, with a Chilean volunteer armoured brigade in particular proving to be unstoppable and breaking open reactionary lines wherever it treads.

27 December: Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov meets with his Turkish counterpart. Talks sour quickly when Litvinov broaches the subject of military control of the Straits, and dismisses Turkish demands for the Soviets to return territory lost to the Armenians during the chaos of the Turkish war of Independence and the Russian Revolutionary War(5). The Turanist movement accuses the Turkish government of meekly capitulating to the Soviets soon afterwards..

31 December: Benavides dies of infection to the injury in his glutes after eleven agonising days. Though the revolutionary war will continue somewhat into 1936, his death is often considered the beginning of the end.

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1. This actually happened at various points IOTL.
2. Canadian Election results: Spoiler

Liberal-Conservatives: 110 seats (-30)
Liberal: 85 seats (-5)
Social Credit: 25 seats (+25)
Socialist Labor: 12 seats (+12)
Liberal-Progressive: 5 seats (-2)
Workers’ Party: 4 seats (+3)
Reconstruction: 1 seat (-)
Independents: 3 seats

3. UK election results: Spoiler

National Government
Conservatives: 345 seats (-95)
National Liberal: 33 seats (-2)
National Labour: 4 seats (-8)
National: 1 seat (-1)
Total: 383 seats (-106)
Opposition:
Labour: 161 seats (+102)
Liberal: 18 seats (-12)
Fascist Unionists: 8 seats (+8)
Independent Labour Party: 6 seats (+6)
Nationalist (N. Ireland): 2 seats (-)
Communist: 2 seats (+2)
Independent/Other 4 seats

4. Somewhat similar to the OTL Tripartite Alliance formed between the ANC, SACP, and COSATU in 1990 but very different in practise due to the much earlier timeframe, wildly different conditions, and less pronounced disparity in influence between the ANC and its partners.
5. The greater weakness of the Turkish position and the greater strength of the Soviet and Armenian ones in the wake of the first world war forced Kemal Ataturk to consider the Armenian push into Turkish Armenia fait accompli and instead focus all efforts on the Greek and French occupational forces. This will be a sore point of Turko-Soviet relations for the entirety of the interbellum period and a rallying point for the Turanist movement.