















Oswald Mosley delivering his “winter of discontent” speech. Declaring that the Union of Britain shall prevail.

















James P. Cannon, Second president of the Socialist Republic of America and fervent critic of Oswald Mosley









Meanwhile, the Socialist Party of America, having lost much of its political clout after Cannon and many members of the Socialist Labor Party won landslide victories in both the 1940 and 1944 elections, would agree to a merger with the fledgling Progressive Party (along with absorbing members of the American Federation of Labor) to form the Progressive-Socialist Party, and nominated the aging but experienced Meyer London as its candidate for the forthcoming 1948 election. However, even with the formation of the PSP, it was still facing an uphill electoral battle against the Socialist Labor Party, as the SLP (in addition to having almost unanimous support from the Industrial Workers of the World) had chosen Elizabeth Nord, the protege of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, as their candidate for the election. Nord had already gained considerable clout during her tenure as General Secretary of the National Council of People's Duties, where her optimistic attitude and charming personality has won her popularity among the public, and her deft handling of policy and administration seemed to ensure cooperation with even opposing factions in Congress.





Mussolini marching with the Young Maximist Pioneers



The early month of 1947 saw Britain hit with one of the worst snowfalls in recorded history. While storms affected the rest of Northern Europe, it seemed the UoB was the worst hit, where entire animal herds froze solid or starved to death. People suffered from the persistent cold, and many services shut down for weeks or even entire months at a time. These reports, however, would be censored by the Mosley regime, with the official statement playing down the severity and any reports claiming otherwise considered subversive misinformation.Eventually, the reports about the harsh winter started outpacing the Ministry of Truth’s attempts to cover up the reports. Wanting to reassure the public (and maintain his approval among the masses), Mosley held a speech at the house of the TUC. In it, he emphasized the British spirit, unbroken during the Second World War, would endure the blizzard, and will emerge even stronger than ever. This was met with the usual thunderous applause.Deep down however, the cracks were starting to show.Mosley was always seen as an outlier amongst most of the Syndicalist world, as he was the only self-proclaimed “Totalist” to win his nation’s elections, with Mussolini shut out by a Socialista Cristiana/Sindacalista coalition party, and the Sorellians only achieving minor victories during the COF’s pre-war elections before being purged by Frachon’s Jacobins. But now, with much of his own country starving to death, his use of lies, intimidation and even purges to keep his citizens in line, and repeated refusals of the Internationale’s aid to keep up the illusion that his policies were self-sustainable, were starting to make him an outright pariah.Among the leadership in the SRA, Mosley was never viewed with the most positive of outlooks. Even among hardliners, like the rabidly anti-reactionary Trade Union Unity League, and the staunchly pro-authoritarian Vanguard Party of America, Mosley was now being seen as an incompetent oaf blundering his country into self-destruction at BEST, while at worst he was considered no different than the tyrants residing in Moscow.James P. Cannon, the current sitting president of the SRA, held a personal grudge against Mosley. During the Gibraltar conference, Mosley chastised both Cannon and the SRA for various arbitrary reasons. For starters, he criticized Jack Reed for stepping down from power soon after the end of the civil war rather than maintaining power. Next, he voiced his disgust for sparing ex-president Herbert Hoover, among other “reactionary” leaders captured by the CSA, rather than executing him. And then Mosley went on to criticize the SRA’s various decisions during its Constitutional Convention, from investing power in the Congress over the President, to separating government control from the judicial system, to refusing centralization of the government.While William Z Foster and Earl Browder had initially taken Mosley’s words as endorsements for their extremist policies, it had only earned him Cannon’s scorn. And now that Mosley’s brutal yet inefficient handling of the UOB’s winter crisis turned even his foreign supporters against him (with Browder seeing Mosley as a blundering oaf, and Foster declaring Mosley as “A Savinkov In Red Clothing”), Cannon now had nearly unanimous support in denouncing the Maximist regime.Upon returning to Chicago, Cannon revealed at length about his interactions with Mosley. Soon after a smear campaign started, painting Mosley as a power hungry dictator who was subverting the revolution in Britain. These accusations ranged from the accurate (the real figures of food production and utility operation), to the speculative (the exact number of people who perished from starvation, hypothermia, or purges), to the outright false (such as claiming Cynthia Mosley had arranged a secret agreement with leading Shashkist generals to assure the Russian State’s support during the war against Germany, with a promise to aid Savinkov’s attempts at uprooting Syndicalists in the countries Russia would occupy!). This campaign would see James Cannon winning a second term during the national elections of 1944 and, with multi-party support from Congress, escalated the campaign against Mosley from muckraking and anti-Maximist propaganda to covert support of civilian dissidents and disillusioned officers.Meanwhile, Mosley tries to draw what few allies he has to strengthening his hold, fearful of any attempt to remove him from power. As February ended and March came, the blizzard had finally come to a end. However the blanket of snow had started to create massive flooding through out the country side. Eric Blair, once a dedicated follower of Mosley, was starting to voice his doubt about the regime. Blair would published article after article about his misgiving with the Maximist regime within the party newspapers. This would not elude the eye of Mosley, as in 23rd of July Mosley announced that Blair would be relinquished as chairman of the TUC, a position that served more symbolic as the Grand Protector wielded true power, and that the Italian Benito Mussolini would be appointed in his place. Mussolini's presence in Britain was not that unusual, after failing to gain power within his own country the man fled to the British Isles where he was welcomed with open arms by the Totalist government. During his stay, Mussolini was appointed head of the ministry of transportation, with Mosley citing his tenure as the SRI's head of transportation. With Blair's removal and Mussolini's appointment, it was blatantly obvious that Mosley was now preparing for anther round of purges.