NationStates Jolt Archive

"Hwyl Fawr, Igo."

"'Till we meet again, comrade."

Graeme wasn't normally a man found likely to cry. Not over the oppression of his peers, not over the calamity of civil war, not even over the corruption of his son, nor, for that matter, the downfall of the infamous boy. But, today, some Sunday in the Third Commonwealth's second year, comrade Igo the elder, father of Sopworth, Grandfather of the Soviet Revolution in India, turned pages full of information that read as paper-thin cuts of some mother-onion, each line -the journalistic vegetable yielded hundreds- seeming to have been sliced with an obsidian blade guided by the hand of a meloncholic masterchef.

Morgana... something (if you asked Igo he wouldn't know, being as he was terrible with Tamil geography and her surname, such as it was, had been taken from some village in the south-central uplands, hadn't it? Well, in any event, that was his reason for calling her, "comrade"), since she'd quit the room and left Graeme with this type-written lachrymator, made immediately for home, determined to spare her comrades the worst of the coming hardships over which Graeme wept. She burst in, like Fido through the dog door at dinner time, bearing not the hound's hunger but the master's knowledge of the empty bowl, and barking all the while: "Put that down! Freeze those! For all our sakes, ration! Ration! Raf! Raf! Ration!"

Graeme was spilling salt on word of an empty table. That is to say, his tears fell on to -and because of- this report, which was of failure.

At least, that's how he read it. It's the failure of the monsoon he thought, and then the failure of democracy partly because he'd told the bastards this was coming.

Igo had said it for a long time. He believed, like many others in South India, that the infamous African famines just before the rise of the First Commonwealth had been caused largely by the failure of the African rain-belt due to so-called, 'visible air pollution'. He warned, like a few others, that the same could happen in Asia, especially now that China was dumping waste on these cloudy barges like Europe and Quinntonia had -before Africa's disater- in the west. He wanted an interventionalist foreign policy in which over-polluting would be sufficient cause for regime change. Now he was amongst the first to learn of a near nation-wide failure in the Soviet Commonwealth... not of communist agriculture, but of nature. Nature floundering in the face of capitalist assault.

Hours later the elected commanders of the Soviet forces in Bihar would read the same report, with Igo's notes attached, and groan, "Ahh." like the opening casket, "Ahh" like the awakened dead. Ahh, that's why the rains were so light, so brief. Ahh, that's how the Combine got in despite our careful timing and conspiracy with mother nature, and ahh, that's how the eastern wing of our army made it so far into Bihar though north of the Ganga. India's rains were struggling, weighed down by the Little Emperors' growth forumla, mighty Beijing's demands on planet earth... by China's smog.

Debate erupted in the Senates and the Soviets. Was Igo right? Didn't that mean that the Commonwealth was partly to blame? Certainly we had trams, trains, WIGs, and a lot of coastal, canal, and riverine transport, and quite a lot of solar, nuclear, and hydro-electrical power generation, enough of all these to make most of the world look black and filthy, but we still burned coal in some districts and ran our twenty-thousand tanks and twelve thousand military planes on diesel and aviation fuel, largely just to make-sure that the Latin American communes had supportive left-wing customers for their oil.

Urgent but horribly vague and skittish dispatches were sent to Mumbai, Kathmandu, Vientiane, Hanoi, and to the Khmer Rouge (even now beseiging Phnom Penh) all in an attempt to discern the specifics of rainfall (is it 'normal'?) and predicted crop yields for the coming year.

Certainly Victoria Salvadoria was still waiting for the clouds to do much more than sneeze on its agriculture. But was this happening elsewhere in Asia, or was the belt's failure -which did not seem complete even here, given at least brief rains in Bihar- confined to the east-coast of India?

OOC: Just thought I'd drop in IC-ly

Laverton, Australasia

The Jindalee OTHR was a fantastic piece of equipment. It was both defence radar and climatological survey tool, a device that could be used for the sword, and often the torch. Despite near-constant monitoring of the situation in Indonesia, the Jindalee still found itself the tool of a team of dedicated scientists, and it was these six men and women who made what was perhaps the most striking discovery of the year.

The Third Commonwealth was on its way to collapse. Low rains and environmental crisis had done what the political and economic machinery of the entire capitalist world could not; proof that the planet was still the supreme arbiter of human affairs.

At first, people scoffed. The Third Commonwealth, collapse? The Third Commonwealth? The Third Commonwealth? But gradually, the truth sunk in. The Grand Experiment (for the ISC was far more worthy of the name than the USQ) had failed. The nation itself would survive, no doubt. But its ability to influence the world's direction, that had changed. There no longer existed the resources, Australasian analysts suggested, for the ISC to continue its dominance of Southeast Asia.

But perhaps they were being overeager. It was true, the Free Colony had long hoped for this day to come. But now that it was here-- or seemed to be-- what now? Where to go, without the Third Commonwealth to stand against them? Malaysia? Already there. Aden? Suez? The Cape of Good Hope?

India itself?

And yet... and yet there was a slight melancholy that dimmed the halls of Government House, of Parliament, of The Lodge. The ISC was a fixture, a traditional foe. The nation that often drew a 'curses, foiled again!' from Australasian politicians and military planners. The last nation-- perhaps the only nation for some time-- with the guts, the bravery, the sheer balls to launch nuclear weapons with the USQ lurking off on its continent, ready to pounce.

And so Raleigh, not so two-faced as it would seem to be, decided to offer the ISC aid. It was a strange feeling, the appropriation of a funding package to aid the Red Menace. Truth be told, it wasn't a particularly large funding package with which to purchase anything, and nobody expected the ISC to accept-- or even notice. The Geletians were far too proud.

Australasians were much the same.

And so in the end, there was no offer of aid. The funding appropriation was cancelled. Instead, they sent only a telegram.

Hwyl Fawr, Igo.

OOC2: Hee!

The USQ took the news with a quiet shocked attitude as though their world had been turned upside down. The Yang to Quinntonia’s Yang was crumbling. Their agricultural base had completely collapsed, at first slowly, and then the bottom seemed to have fallen out. Of course they blamed capitalist China that was to be expected. Nevertheless, it was happening.

What did this mean? The Communes and City-States would be forced to look inwardly in order to survive, and the massive Commonwealth wide projects could no longer be supported. Everyone would be forced to return to a system not unlike their Celtic and Indian forebears. The individual Soviets suddenly were not going to be seen as all that important unless they put food on the table.

Perhaps there would be internal destabilization and even conflict between factions previously looking outside the Commonwealth now competing with each other for resources.

Of course, the budgets for the Quinntonian Christian missionary efforts were tripled immediately. But with the limited success that was the missionary effort in BG, the help would barely make a dent, but the missionaries would stay the course and help whomever they could.

WWJD
Amen.

Strainist meteorologists had likely been reading the same signs as their Indian counterparts... the monsoons in southeast Asia were going to be rather dry this year. While not as bad as in the Commonwealth, rains in the former Bonstock had been lighter than normal so far in the summer season, one of the key factors which had led Strainist commanders to push for a summer campaign against Indonesia.

Offers of aid were forthcoming, but they were severely limited by circumstances... Lyong's breadbasket was producing ample yields, but supplies for occupied Indonesia and a substantial aid package set aside for the much-more-pliable regime in Burma had already emptied Spyr's surplus.
Some hard currency was produced, and other goods as well (these predictably more related to Spyr's economic stimulus efforts than actual needs in India), but the Strainists accompanied these gifts with attempts to attract Geletian naval crews and ships away to the South China Sea ('from each to each' is used, though no more frequently than 'one last adventure against imperialism, and Sithin will cover your bar tab').

Outside India, from Hanoi to Tripoli to the jungles of Luzon, the Strainists work hard to suppress grins as they approach Geletian attaches. With circumstances at home likely requiring full attention, it is said, it would be a shame to see the world's revolutionaries left hanging. Certainly the Strainists can take over for a time, until the Soviets surmount this hump of difficulty and resume their course?
Of course, the Igovians will know that the Strainists have been trying to weasel in here for some time, and are siezing upon an opportunity like vultures upon carrion... but if rebuffed the Spyrans plan to simply sit back and wait until India begins to struggle in search of resources to maintain their leadership role. Once the Commonwealth begins to waver, nervous leftist movements will find a new benefactor regardless.

(A scrappy post brought to you between bouts of packing and tidying.)

"Sixty-seven percent for. Fourteen percent against. Nineteen percent did not vote. Emergency Whaling Resolution passed, so declared by the Commonwealth Final Senate."

More than a decade and a half since the last official Soviet whaling vessel put-in at the end of Commonwealth whaling, the fleet was preparing to sail once more. The resolution was passed in an effort to supplement the reduced produce of a failed harvest in feeding over 412 million Commonwealth citizens and tens of millions of Biharis living under a suddenly troubled Soviet occupation.

Numerous species would be hunted, including Humpback, Bryde's, Sei, Sperm, Minke, and a very few Fin whales, along with so-called targets of opportunity such as Orcas and some other dolphins and small whales. With limited information on whale species and numbers on the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean waters that will also be visited by the Soviet whaling fleet, certain species remain off-limits and states such as the INU, along with NGOs, have been asked to share any significant information on whale stocks in these waters. Some Commonwealth scientists suggest that certain available whales may be isolated populations and distinct sub-species that could be under greater threat than appreciated, while others suggest that the whaling resolution is virtually a waste of time when it comes to feeding half a billion people for a full year unless the Commonwealth is prepared to risk destroying species such as the Blue and Right whales... which, as the Emergency Whaling Resolution makes quite clear, it is not.

Further resolutions passed with less significant majorities, and could not be enacted through the entire Commonwealth, though in most cases pantisocratic phalansteries would independently pass similar measures locally in the end. A great deal of livestock was to be slaughtered for food, so much that it would be impossible to maintain equivalent stocks next year, but crops grown to feed animals were instead to be turned over for human consumption wherever they were suitable.

Unfortunately, the turmoil facing the United African Republics meant that emergency fish imports from vast Lusakan lakes were unlikely to materialise.

Traditional Geletian cooking looks set for a return as kitchens across the Commonwealth are directed to make use of everything, including animal parts that would have been rubbished under normal circumstances but now went into broth, pies, puddings, and so forth. As some people looked to maintain familiar flavours the demand for spices notably increased, which in another nation might have induced many farmers to further worsen the food shortage by switching to spice production, but in the Commonwealth was addressed with angry debate -made angrier by the fact that preceeding debates had concluded with votes to lower alcohol production- and the voting-down of such plans. Many want spice but all need rice! read one widely reproduced poster depicting an unusually heroic-looking team of irrigation-ditch diggers.

After the slaughter had begun the need to import replacement livestock for next year, along with the cost and manpower requirements of of increased irrigation projects, aqueduct schemes, and hastened transition from coal to cleaner power production methods all made it evident that further sacrifices must be made. Work on the would-be CS Anarchism, the Commonwealth Oceanic Guard's number-two battleship, was halted, the massive skeleton, laid-up at Alaric-Galle, abandoned as if by tiny scavengers who'd stripped its flesh. The Soviet Commune did not want to be seen building a monster weapon of war a few months from now if people were starting to suffer malnutrition in Raipur and Kolkata.

While all of this was going on, people were yet to actually feel hungry, and kitchens were still operating at fairly high capacity, with just a few items dropping off menus. Keen to provide something of a moral boost before the entire project became a loss, and send a signal of strength across the world, the Soviets commissioned the Commonwealth Ship Communism into COG service.

280 metres long over-all, the first Utopia Class battleship ran-up her colours weighing notably less than the planned standard displacement of 62,720t, a long way short of a 71,490t full-load estimate. A grand sight with four triple-mount 16"/52 guns, Communism was still crewed by workers, lacking as she did many of her final fittings at the time of her commission. Some systems remained inoperational, and the ship was in service without having gone-through prescribed sea-trials despite being the first in her class. All of this the Soviet Commune would attempt to hide, for now. Even without some of her abilities, a Utopia was still thought -by many in position to know- virtually unsinkable, but it was the cost and complexity of the qualities enabling this belief that had made the design and build such a lengthy affair and ultimately doomed Anarchism to stillbirth. Curse that internal belt!

In Mumbai also, the disappointing monsoon causes alarm. Figures on agricultural production are reviewed, as they are every year, and as is the case in the ISC production totals do not meet their targets, for the most part. But the monsoon failure is not a disaster, or a great shock for that matter. Unioners were hit particularly hard with monsoon failures during the 1990s, and Mumbai had managed to weather those troubles. So there is little doubt as to the Union's ability to see-out present setbacks, albeit with some tightening of the national belt. Agricultural development had been a major priority for the Indian National Union since the beginning of the nation, so even when the rains do largely fail to deliver, canals and efficient irrigation schemes, perfected over the years, allow crop production to continue. Overseas food aid is, albeit reluctantly, cut, with much of the surplus being slated for distribution to under-producing areas in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Much of the small surplus is promised to the Soviets, who, by all accounts, face problems more dire than those encountered by Unioners. For the same reason, few objections are raised when the Soviet whaling fleet takes to the sea once again. It is thought that the proposed species, having been spared by Indian fishermen for quite some time, have had enough time to sufficiently rebuild their numbers, making whaling once again a viable activity in the waters off the Subcontinent. Union fleets, though, will remain prohibited from whaling.

What is most alarming to the Unioners, though, is the prospect of India losing its most powerful defense. Nobody can pretend that the INU contributes as much as the ISC when it comes to protecting the Subcontinent from imperialism. Parliament has been running dangerously close to capacity with regards to military expansion, and still the Hindustani armed forces lag behind. Even Depkazia, with nearly 300 million fewer citizens, boasts a standing army almost twice as large as the INA, to say nothing of the Combine. Already worrisome stirrings in Raleigh and Washington heighten what is usually significant paranoia on the part of Unioners, who do not look forward to choosing between feeding themselves or effectively resisting invasion. Reason, though, should tell them that, come what may, as long as there are Soviets in India, the ISC won't fall to just any would-be imperial power.

This does not stop Mumbai from accelerating the various defense programs underway, prominent among them the F(J).11 development and the construction of INS Sindhudurg.

The Soviets can count on the full support of Unioners, and Mumbai will do whatever it can to take pressure off the ISC's apparently strained agricultural infrastructure. Raipur has, after all, never shown Parliament anything besides its consent and assistance.

(OOC: Unfortunately, I have to leave now, so I haven't had time to do what I'd like. But AMW can use the monsoon collapse or leave it as a relatively localised fault as you choose, and I'll try to get computer access ASAP. Meh, here, have this vague and rambling history of South India! Damn it, wanted to tidy this up a bit, but I'm really on my way out =) )

This Indian story will continue, surely, for a tale that reached as far back into history as did that of the Indo-Geletians it must be impossible to dislodge. Nobody knows when the first Celts established themselves in the sub-continent, and debate still rages over truly ancient archaeological finds in the south that have been called Celtic by some scholars and disputed by others, but the Geletians -whether beaten to India by cultural comrades or truly pioneering- began their rapid movement from Europe more than two thousand years ago, and reached the sub-continent several chatoic centuries later, smashing through Macedonian, Greek, Armenian, Parthian, and Gupta civilisations along the way.

The Geletian tribes -reputedly inclusive of a small clan known as the Igovians, who gave their name to a southerly place that was called Igovo-Trivandrum during the 1st Commonwealth and has been Thiruvananthapuram since the 2nd- established kingdoms in the south and along parts of the east coast, and eventually invaded Sri Lanka as well. Later European arrivals quickly concluded that the Geletians were superior amongst the natives, but of course used their ships and guns to establish over-riding European authority none the less.

Colonialism and the fortune of the Indian Celt

Though Tulgarian, Portuguese, French, and British authorities traded with the negotiating skill of musketeers, the Geletians were largely able to direct daily life in much of the sub-continent over a period of several centuries, earning a good degree of renewed animosity towards their people. In time, it is said, the Geletians, by and large, came to identify most strongly or most favourably with the British, reputedly after recognising Celtic identity in many who came to India from those remote isles. Possibly this favour came more from the fact that the British were winning more battles and making bigger deals than everybody else, but, ultimately, it became true that Geletian tribes backed Walmingtonian operations and edicts, often working for the East India Company and establishing themsleves as the great middle classes of India, immediately behind the British masters.

European identification with the white Geletian populace probably made life worse for the rest of India than would have been the case had no Celts been present prior to the latest western arrivals, but for the Geletians it became possible to attain high rank in the military -they certainly made famous soldiers, reinvigorating the Highland charge as a tool of British warfighting- and obtain a good Anglo-Saxon-style education. Several Geletians became entirely Walmingtonian, but many more stayed resentful, even if they endured British educations at the behest of their comrades.

Geletians were generally supportive of the Walmingtonians during the 1857 Rebellion, and were first on hand to put-down the relatively few risings attempted in South India. The experiences of the so-called Sepoy Mutiny, though, did not sit well with a large part of the Celtic population, and agitation began to grow for independence, sometimes for a united India, sometimes for various statelets, and sometimes for the restoration of locally-dominant Geletian kingdoms. By the C20th, Geletian-lead revolts were increasingly frequent and bloody, especially as the Geletians tended to inhabit economically important areas and enjoy ready access to significant weaponry. Only relative prosperity seemed to keep the body of the Geletian populace from rising en masse, and so droughts or recessions were always especially dangerous times for the Walmingtonians, especially as the Celtic population began to grow faster than the economy, and many were forced to accept increasingly lowered standards of living for the sake of the Company or the Empire.

The World at War in India

The Second World War, unsurprisingly, brought great changes to Indian life and politics.

Though the Indian National Congress wanted an agreement to exchange support to the Walmingtonian cause in the war for later independence, many Indians believed that the Axis forces would either be victorious or would at least take longer to defeat than they were prepared to wait. Large numbers of P.O.W.s taken by the Japanese co-operated in the formation of the Indian National Army, which fought along-side the Imperial Japanese Army against the British until collapsing in late 1942 and early '43 as its original commanders failed to toe the Imperial line. This apparent stumbling of Indian-Japanese relations essentially ruined the traditional Anglo-Geletian alliance that dominated much of Indian life, for the INA's failure left a vacuum in the resistance movement that could not be filled by Gandhi's increasingly alienated non-violent faction or the anti-fascist movement that was then just short of taking hold.

Crucially, the Geletians were well placed to provide the strength required for a reinvigoration of the INA when, just a couple of months before the INC's pivotal Bombay Session, the Japanese offered INA command to Subhash Chandra Bose. Returning to Asia from Nazi Germany, Bose impressed Japanese, Indians, and Geletians and lead an army that was otherwise dominated by Celts educated in Walmingtonian schools on the sub-continent and in Britain (including military schools) and maintaining stronger warrior tradition than most of their non-Geletian peers (owing to historic isolation in their hilltop communities and relative power over other Indians during British rule). The Geletians, then, typically made the best officers and also had greater enrolement rate in official armed organisations under the Walmingtonians, as well as being generally better able to afford essential supplies. With a large Geletian element, Bose's INA was much more potent than the one that had struggled to make-do with limited Japanese support.

It should be noted that many Geletians also fought the Japanese, both independently and in British service, leading to some of the most bloody clashes outside Suloists' struggle with the IJA.

Partition and Strife

After the war came treaties organising, with Walmingtonian consent, the nature of a partitioned India and the formation of the Indian National Union. But peace did not find South India, where Geletians fought to maintain the superiority they'd acquired.

The immediate post-war period also saw the foundation of the Beddgelen Principality, young Prince Llewellyn its head, and this act delivered India not into long-awaited stability but a fresh round of conflict. Llewellyn was even more stunned than Churchill by the Labour victory in Walmington, and he failed to win Attlee's support for his violently-designed state, which, due perhaps to perceived Geletian wartime co-operation with the Axis powers, was not a fully recognised participant in Anglo-Indian deliberations on the post-independence shape of the sub-continent, and Llewellyn was widely associated with the elsewhere defeated Axis dictatorships. Llewellyn's forces, somewhat ironically formed partly out of the wartime Indian National Army, attacked the formative Indian National Union, capturing large areas of territory assigned to the INU during independence talks with Britain.

For the most part, Walmingtonian support was directed towards the INU during its long and bitter struggle with Llewellyn, who was forced to change his friends on a regular basis. Some -though not all- Conservative governments in Walmington during the mid to late C20th did establish relations with the Principality, but its human-rights record and the frequent disruptions Llewellyn caused to established trade and diplomacy with Mumbai meant that Labour governments invariably favoured the INU just as the BID and Whig parties have in more recent years. The INU was eventually able to stabilise the front, and though fighting continued it was rarely so strategically significant as in the early years of independence.

One Solution... Revolution

By 1982, with Moscow's backing, the South Indian left, long forced into an unfamiliar position of obscurity, was ready to strike against the government, which it did with force. The labour movement kicked things off with civil disobedience and strikes, bordering on the Quit India rather than the old INA modus operandi. The Principality reacted with even more brutality than had the Walmingtonian authorities, and, as the movement was inclusive of both Indian and Celt (since the swelling population forced more and more of the latter into slums and rural poverty in which the former had long suffered), the result was even more dramatic.

In 1982 a Commonwealth Guard was established in the citizenry to resist police oppression, and a certain Sopworth Igo was quick to pick at any scars caused in the ensuing clashes. Igo, having a father (Graeme) well-known in the Indian left as a scholar and orator, took every advantage presented to him and soon established himself at the head of a revolt supported by the USSR. Igo promised to attack the INU once again and with renewed energy if Moscow helped to over-throw Llewellyn, which was appealing since the Northern Indians were widely blamed for frustrating the Red Army's efforts in Afghanistan.

Llewellyn's government evacuated to Ceylon, which they called Victoria and Salvador -said to be a reference to the Victory and Salvation that the Prince sought there- planning to secure Roycelandian support for a counter-attack in the near future. At the Battle of Salvador, however, western fleets sent to support Llewellyn -suddenly much more palatable as an ally against the USSR's plans in South and Central Asia- were stunned by the deployment against them of modern Russian anti-ship cruise missiles from shore and sky, and withdrew in disorder after suffering surprise losses. Sopworth's ability to acquire and deploy these missiles for such a dramatic victory assured his success in sidelining the revolutionary councils -the Soviets- that had grown from the trades union movement and establishing himself as Chairman of the Communist Party of India. In truth, it is now known, the revolutionaries expended all of their modern anti-shipping armaments at the Battle of Salvador, and were equally ill-equpped to resist an over-land invasion had it come via the INU, but, at the time, the surprise of Salvador put the wind up the west, as it were.

The 1980s saw a rebuilding of South Indian military strength as the new Igovian Soviet Commonwealth directed raw materials and other goods to the Warsaw Pact's markets in exchange for relatively modern weaponry. The INU was attacked, several times, with varying degrees of success, the communists making gains on the ground but repeatedly failing to destroy the Union's reasonably capable air force and paying no more attention to marine and amphibious warfare than had the ill-fated Inca when assaulted by Spaniards able to appear as if by magic at any point on their imperial shore.

Commonwealth

Victoria Salvadoria was never annexed, and, by 1989, the masses had stopped believing in Sopworth's genius, enabling the Soviets to make their voices heard once more. The obvious approach of a large-scale coup attempt convinced Igo to relinquish his Premiership, and the Second Commonwealth rose almost bloodlessly. The people, having proven to themselves their own power, essentially forced Llewellyn to accept reunification, and the royal household evacuated to the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where they are said to have sponsered the rise to power of President Eustace F. Brown by the theft of Indian national treasures. Sopworth, meanwhile, was able to present his seven-year rule as a deliberate period of transition from hereditary dictatorship to state of the masses, and he still lives peacefully in what is now called the Indian Soviet Commonwealth.

The newly empowered Soviets quickly concluded hostilities with the INU and opened diplomatic relations that have endured for seventeen years, despite one or two bumps in the ideological road. The ISC inherited arms from east and west, and a diverse economy that enjoyed the latest Russian industrial technology (which no doubt would not have been updated for decades had Sopworth not fallen), and a high-tech base in Sri Lanka that had spent the last few years establishing itself as a semi-serious challenger to Spyr's crown as supreme Asian technocrat and sought to arm itself against an enemy hundreds of percent superior in quantative terms.

Fifteen years after its rise, the Second Commonwealth was obsolete, too confused by the issues of reunification and the sudden fall of the USSR, and not sufficiently forceful on an incrasingly hostile world stage (that is despite having deployed military forces abroad, including during the Malagasy Crisis, when Soviet forces intervened against a Roycelandian attempt to over-throw the Ratsiraka government). Men like Adiatorix and a once-more popular Graeme Igo lead a radical movement of public opinion against the moderate -some said stagnant- establishment characterised by dull civil servants such as Consul Chivo, and the Third Commonwealth was established with promises to put men and women on the moon, even Mars; to liberate Goa for Roycelandian occupation; to actively protect the Anarchan communes, even if it meant going to war with Roycelandia or the United States; to remove the Quinntonian presence from Andaman and Nicobar; and to bring-down autocrats from Brown to Wingert.

The Commonwealth Guard Expert Corps -essentially the army, navy, and air force of the Commonwealth- expanded to include 2.95 million full-time personnel (on top of the ever-present Commonwealth Guard Militia Auxiliary, in which over a third of all Soviet citizens are enrolled and armed), Raipur essentially bought the entire Russian space programme and moved it to Sri Lanka aboard the An-225s that it paid to complete, battleships and fleet aircraft carriers were laid-down for the first time in South India, Jharkand and West Bengal were admitted to the Commonwealth, and Bihar was invaded as its leadership was no longer allowed to hide-behind dubious claims to socialist ambition. The Third Commonwealth showed that it was deadly serious when the obliteration of Tripoli was prevented by defensive deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on a military target in order to protect civilians from strategic-grade attack, and relations with the likes of China and Quinntonia deteriorated even further.

Today it appears that the massive increase in trade with the Latin American communes, the INU, Bangladesh, Democratic Kampuchea, Laos, Vietnam, Libya, and lately Namibia, and rapid militarisation even greater than apparently observed by foreign governments has contributed to environmental and economic disaster in South India. Nobody knows how badly the Commonwealth shall be hit, what shall come out the other side, or even when.

(I haven't had time to proof read any of that, and only jammed a bit awkwardly on the end, there! Ick! Farewell!)

The new Minister of International Aid Pastor Edmund Hui has offered the ISC food aid after hearing of the coming famine and has announced that China would lift the embargo very soon in order to facilitate food trade over the Himalayas. The new government of China had realised something - Opening the border to trade could cause plummeting grain prices in China to soar, lifting the rural north out of their year long economic depression while stopping a famine at the same time. It was left unspoken but President Hu thought China and the Soviet commonwealth even needed each other.

Weeks before the news even broke out, savvy traders had braved the embargo to barter grain to the communes, offering to exchange their livestock for grain. It was a win-win situation for both sides from the traders' perspectives. The quantity of grain provided was at a fair price and would feed far more mouths that butchering the livestock, and Soviet breeding stock was fetching excellent prices on the Chinese market. To be honest, most of them were offering good prices because they were scared of offending Indians, most of which were larger in stature than the average Chinese and with the whole business conducted in spite of the embargo, without government protection. It remains to be seen how some the Bedgellens will react to the odd unscrupulous trader who attempts to exploit the famine by overcharging.

Gujaratis to the right of them, Gujaratis to the left of them, in to centre stage rode the three. Three bearded bards (notably, in this case, the term, "bearded" should put one in mind not of some tidy whiskers so much as of grey hair falling from jaws as if the silver waters of Jog). Two Celts, one Indian. They atop the biggest horses anyone in the INU had ever seen, he, central, upon an elephant equally impressive, especially big as it had been brought back from a Soviet station in Africa, and so dwarfed the local pachyderms.

Local security forces had deployed officers into the crowd that gathered even now around the scene, but, having quite given-up on trying to convince anybody that there was, "nothing to see, here!" they did little more than shrug and accept the invasion of the Union. Sopworth faced a lot more opposition than this, but then his aims had been evident and undesirable, where as these invaders -true Sovietists, not Indian Bolsheviks- were a bit less clear about whether they actually wanted to subjugate anyone. They seemed to have the benefit of the doubt.

Just short of five-thousand Commonwealth citizens had, just this season, upped-sticks in the fashion of their semi-nomadic forefathers and crashed back into Gujarat, one of many places put to the double-edged sword of the naked barbarian all those centuries ago. The locals, apparently, had forgiven, or at least forgotten.

"...wanders the land, snorting water and pissing on the dinner table. The drought-elephant can not be killed. When shot, she springs a leak and only drinks faster to replace her losses."

The left Celt spoke the local dialect with a heavy accent and, though linguistically talented, the bard made no attempt to exclude inflections influenced by his Geletian tongue. The Indian's elephant was illustrative.

Gujarat, now hosting a cluster of three Pantisocratic Phalansteries, was witnessing its uninvited guests singing for their supper, or rather story-telling for their plot, land on which rested three still-building palaces of the people, each one a rival to Versailles in at least some aspect. Some sixteen-hundred people lived now in and around each part-built nest, and a total of one-thousand mostly-men were volunteered for military service at Mumbai's discretion.

That was at any given time, and the individuals 'on-call' came from a pool of probably fifteen-hundred. A rotation was in effect.

The story told today was a new one. It delt with the famine, and this odd community's raison d'etre. The warriors were veterans wanting to keep-up the fight while other soldiers -often younger men- struggled to water the elephant in the pantry. Many were outcasts from a land that accepted anyone willing to be accepted. People who excluded themselves because, for some deep-seated reason, they could not bear to belong. Many brought no loved-ones but the revolution, hence the high proportion of fighters in the community.

They wanted to sack Vienna, they wanted Louis' head incorporated into the frame of the doorway to one of their great halls, heck, they wanted to smash every coal-fired powerstaion in China and gut every SUV in Quinntonia. Given the opportunity, they would charge naked into a Siberian trench just to kill a Tsarist.

Forty-three of them were wanted by Interpol -with which the ISC does not officially co-operate- for international terrorism.

Raipur was busy and these men and women looked to Mumbai for a chance to do the jobs that might otherwise go undone. Even during the storytelling a group of them would start a chant indicating their desire to sieze Trieste in some sort of reckless commando mission against Austrian imperialist ambition.

It was a good choice for the Igovians to choose Gujarat for their settlement, and not Madhya Pradesh, where memories of the first Gelatian invasion haven't quite died away just yet. Of course, there are not many places in the Indian National Union that could in good conscience turn away a roving band of Igovians. Maybe they are the same people who voted to give the INA its first modern tanks since the 1950s, or who granted the nation billions of dollars in reparations. At least, not on the basis of first impressions. Some might have second thoughts on the issue when Gujarat's Sovietists begin to vandalize mosques and temples or start drunken fights with the local population, but certainly nobody is about to be so disrespectful as to advocate their eviction. But the Sovietists aren't in Gujarat just to tell stories and provide good grain alcohol for local Hindustan Ambassadors.

So it is not long after their arrival that INA officers begin to show up at the Phalansteries, armed with thousands of pages from the various Parliamentary departments involved in strategic planning. The Unioners figure that the Sovietists, being so few in number, might be used to greatest effect in commando actions, and a raid on Trieste is not out of the question. But Trieste is also on the far side of things, since the INU has never had much of a presence in the Mediterranean, much less the Aegean. It might be better, think most Union planners, to hit somewhere easier to get to. Targets include the Devil's Island prison complex, where several Igovians are believed to be held, as well as Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and New Caledonia. Mumbai isn't about to make the Sovietists do anything, although. It is usually a mistake to do that. So if the Igovians don't like an idea, they are not compelled to go along with it. And there is still much more planning and reconaissance to be done before anything at all happens.

Above all, the Igovians are promised that they will see action one way or another, either as commando raiders or as more traditional light infantrymen. They'll have another chance to engage Frenchmen, that much they can be certain of, regardless of the outcome of this present war.

Soviet introspection raises questions when it comes to the combined Indian fleet currently sitting off Senegal. By no means eager to see the larger part of it return home without firing a shot, it is proposed that Parliament lease all the Soviet ships, and offer to pay and provision Igovian troops in Libya. Without the Soviets, the Indian war effort will in all probability fail to deliver success against the numerous, if inexperienced, French, so Raipur is bombarded with communiques from Parliament and delegations of Unioners, asking whether it would be possible to lease such large portions of the COG and CMEC.

"...needless to say, Kanendru-Communism in Nepal will not be challenged from without for some time."

And not for the first time, except in the last sixteen or seventeen years, Sopworth Igo received applause from the Indian masses. Well, it went down okay in the north, at least.

The Commonwealth was securing new water resources from the north and paying by the supply of defence equipments and political support. Only in parts of the Soviet Commonwealth, mostly the new northern states, was much sympathy to be found for Maoism, and it was not hard to imagine Nepali authorities being relieved to secure long-term Indian backing, especially in light of the invasion of faux-socialist Bihar, which now made a bit more sense as not-being-invaded-by-us became a tool of Soviet deal-making in its relationships with leftist movements and governments around the region.

Raipur was now sending diplomats back to China, ostensibly to accept and co-operate with food-aid still badly needed in parts of the Commonwealth, with some forty-million people still theoretically unprovided-for based on last year's average calorie intake. It would now be possible to get-by through a bit of belt-tightening, but that might mean, said some alarmists, a year in which all children were born a little smaller and weaker, it would mean lower moral at a still formative stage of the Third Commonwealth, and it would mean a previously healthy population, with little excess fat to lose, doing the same work on less energy if the economy was not to contract next year. All in all, aid from abroad was favourable to this by a long shot, and China was picked as the number-one source.

Diplomats explained this as due to the relative proximity of China compared with the USQ, and that the INU was perhaps experiencing some slight short-falls in its own production and was too important as an aid-doner to nations in even worse shape than the Commonwealth. "We are hungry, but not hungry enough to take bread out of the frail hands of starving Africans, uprooted by imperialist aggression" said one local consul.

Of course, being seen to choose the Chinese option and help economic recovery in the north -which, if left to struggle, could always present a threat of instability to central government- was, in Soviet hope, a token of the best intentions on Raipur's part.

The dispatched consuls were expected more generally to restore relations between Beijing and Raipur, and to discuss the possibility of regional co-operation on water distribution projects and clean power. Unfortunately, many Commonwealth citizens placed most of the blame for the partial collapse of the monsoon, which came late and weak, on China's massive industrial growth and convenient coal reserves.

Lead in the initiative by a resurgent Sopworth Igo, Raipur wishes to involve the Commonwealth, China, INU, Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Kampuchea (a possible problem, since much of the world still recognises Cambodia, not the Khmer Rouge-lead rebel government with which the Soviets deal), and possibly others including the Strainists, Armandians, and Depkazis in projects of historic scale to stabilise and modernise power generation and distribution, water management, and so forth. The Soviets want sharing of nuclear, hydro, solar, and other power generation technologies, and of clean transport technologies.

Already the Commonwealth is altering its airport and air traffic laws and informing foreign carriers. Soviet airports will no longer require lengthy taxi runs to be carried-out under power of aircraft engines, but will provide tractor vehicles to tow aircraft on the apron. New take-off and approach procedures are being enacted to further save fuel, and some of the least efficient old aircraft may soon be banned, an advance warning suggests.

Frankly, most of the Soviet population is concerned that market-driven economies will never tackle the problems of climate change and visible air pollution, or at least not until the point of no return has already been passed. Increasingly, a strong central government in China -if communist revolution is unlikely- taking a commanding role in the economy is seen as important... at least to the degree that Roycelandia and Quinntonia regarded the defeat of the USSR as important.

Meanwhile, hydrological and nuclear engineers from the Commonwealth have flown (by WIG) to South East Asia, and diplomats are meeting Bangladeshi energy ministers even now.

"I knew it was too good to be true" said His Imperial Majesty Emperor Royce I as he put down his copy of The Port Royal Times.

"All the same, they are human, so offer some food aid and accept refugees fleeing the famine. It's the least we can do."

"Very well, your Majesty..." replied Wiggles, already on his laptop and sending instructions to the relevant people. "Shall we keep the PR low-key?"

"No, let it be known we're helping. Don't make a big song and dance of it, of course- but make sure people know we aren't just sitting back and taking bets, either."

It had been a hard season in the Commonwealth, but the effect on the Soviets was perhaps predictable, in general terms. Revolutionary efforts redoubled.

Aid from China, and trade with that changing power, were hailed in such grand terms as the French discussed their minor reconciliations with Yugoslavia, and Raipur sought this time to make the trade important rather than token. It might not be easy with Soviet quotas and tariffs in place, but counting nations such as France and Russia on a fairly considerable list of states with which the Commonwealth does absolutely no trade, and the likes of Australasia and the Roycelandian Empire hardly more important, there must surely be room for some Chinese goods, and there is certainly energy left in the Commonwealth for exports there.

The Soviets continue to require Chinese staple foods for the short term, and have declared an interest in discussing export of Soviet medical technology. The Indian Soviet Commonwealth has amongst the world's most heavily funded health industries, and without the restrictive aspects of profiteering corporate domination of a vital industry -and a habit of stealing breakthroughs in the global private sector and then flatly and nationally refusing to be taken to task over it- in a few areas Soviet sciences are advanced of the market norm.

Few in the Commonwealth feel justified in withholding advanced drugs and equipments from the people of the world, but face the problem that exporting such advances would normally see them protected or owned by private corporations and managed for profit. Raipur now wants to manage the sale of items in which it leads the field under strict terms of universal availability.

The Senate has even voted, recently, to place Chinese-owned freight to and via Commonwealth territory in a new tax bracket normally reserved for INU, anarchist, and some Strainist, African, and Yugoslavian concerns as opposed to the higher and less encouraging rates directed at the likes of Quinntonian and Australasian assets.

At the same time, however, the Soviets were sending more arms to the Khmer Rouge, which was even now pressing the northern outskirts of Phnom Penn, was continuing to invest heavily in the future strength of the Pathet Lao, was sending nuclear technicians to Hanoi, was engaging the Bangladeshi People's Republic in stiff anti-corruption (inclusive of anti-privatisation) projects and the continued connection of Bangladeshi-Soviet power generation and distribution networks, was reportedly training troops in and from Maoist Nepal, was finally reported to be pursuing trade relations with Burma, was turning a blind-eye to Strainist expansion in Indonesia, and was reinforcing troops in Bihar.

There was a danger of making the Midle Kingdom feel encircled, and so it must be stressed that nations such as Thailand and Depkazia still receive virtually no attention from Raipur, and that relations with Dra-pol have not been fully restored, while the Philippines Liberation Soviet continues to lose ground against Strainist and Moro Islamic groups with little response from Portmeirion save financial support for Vietnam's peacekeeping mission.


(OOC: And now you'll have to excuse me, I've got to see a tall guy called Merlin* about a long night of drinking.

*He's not really called Merlin, but I'll be darned if I can spell or pronounce a name quite so Dutch as his. Darn these backpackers and their various ethno-linguistic origins.)

With relations between the ISC and China on the mend, the Minister of Social Development Edmund Hui has asked whether it would be a good time to visit Portmeirion again as the first representative from post-Monarchist China to visit the Soviet commonwealth.

Hui indicates that Beijing would be "extremely receptive" to the use of Soviet developed medical technologies in Chinese medicines and has agreed to discuss finer points of the proposal at his visit while ignoring loud calls of protest from Sinoese drug firms. Hui has indicated that most of the efforts would be focused on the poorer northern China. In addition, Hui would take up the foreign policy portfolio and the energy portfolio in response to recent proposals to develop greener energy sources.

Political analysts believe a substantial trade agreement with the Soviet Commonwealth would mark a shift away from China's traditional trade partners Quinntonnia and Japan towards more progressive trade partners. While the star spangled banner declines, the sun of the ROC and the stars of the Soviets continue their ascendancy.

Portmeirion is indeed once more open to the Chinese, and Soviet Consuls are keen to restore their posts in China. It is said that old Soviet revolutionary efforts directed at China ceased to be a priority once the Chinese people relieved themselves of the old tyrants -Liu- and amply demonstrated their desire and independent ability to continue progress at their own pace. Soviet policy towards the Chinese masses is increasingly one of the helping hand of trade rather than the rousing fist of revolutionary agitation.

Consul Chivo has been elected to a committee looking at how China and India can make a profitable trading industry out of tackling undesirable climate change, hopeful that old trade in traditional goods and crafts can become very much secondary to big-time high-tech industry in power generation, propulsion and transport, and efficient (as they would be called in the Chinese market) consumer goods.

Many in the Commonwealth believe that the most valuable relations will be in product/technology development rather than bulk trade of goods, per se. "I imagine" said Sopworth Igo, "that Sino-Indian trade during the twenty-first century will be primarily in ideas."

The younger and more infamous Igo speaks of hopes to see technology designed in Chennai pushing trams around a clean and sparkling Beijing while a reactor lights phalansteries in Raipur thanks to a breakthrough made at a technological institute in Shanghai.

As Europe and the Americas fight over their own lands and Africa's, Asia will look down from the roof of the world with scorn. For shame! Here is prosperity! Here is how to conduct one's affairs in the manner of real civilisation! La Sociale!
-G.Igo speaking at a college in Hanoi, SRV.

"Always Towards Victory, Comrade!"

The answer to such a question was simple. "Where's this lot going?" Honestly! It is oil for the engine of revolutionary triumph! The Indians threw a close-fisted salute to their Ecuadorian comrades as the last of the petrochemicals were loaded and the tanker made ready to leave for Madras Porthmadog.

Compared with this operation, South West Africa was as nothing, even if a Soviet Commonwealth was being established there under the Thiruvananthapuram Doctrine. Even the West African campaign, in which was to be found a large part of the Commonwealth Oceanic Guard and tens of thousands of volunteer partisans, paled.

Anarchist Latin America -Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and half of Guyana- was tied with the Indian National Union for the title of Most Important Ally in the Raipur Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.

It was estimated, recently, that over 45% of all Soviet investment abroad was in the protection and development of the communes and syndicates left after the era of the great Neo Anarchan confederation, and the region's number-one industry must surely be the satisfaction of Soviet war needs.

Notably, the number of advisors, consuls, liasons, er... tourists, backpackers, and migrants from the Commonwealth to areas of strategic importance in the old anarcho-syndicalist commune had been on the rise, lately. Indeed, tens of thousands of Indians now resided in Latin America, and WIGs, ships, and planes arrived hourly.

Cartographers in Raipur broke-out the red paint...

(OOC: What? World revolution doesn't wait just because there's already a war on! We're already adding a new course to the rosta in social-education centres, especially for Royce after his capture. Imperialism For Dummies ;) )

The State of the Commonwealth

Since the partial collapse of the Asian monsoons this year, the Soviet economy has been challenged.

Aid -from China especially- and the realisation that early estimates of the disaster's scale were unduly pessimistic have averted famine, but extra resources have been sunk into various areas. These include next year's harvest, radical environmental programmkes, improved water infrastructure in the under-developed northern rurals, and the production of extra exportable goods with which to secure funds to pay-back Beijing. The Indian communists can not allow themselves to accept charity while they have any means of paying.

Doing all of this means a change in daily life for millions of Indians. Many Commonwealthers ordinarily work relaxed hours and take many free days, but Soviets have widely voted to increase their hours significantly since the crisis, and many now work hours comperable to their peers in capitalist economies.

For now this state of affairs is being engaged with enthusiasm and revolutionary zeal, but many are sure to miss their lengthy playtime and rest if forced to make these changes lasting.

While relatively-little feudal France pays first-world citizens to abandon reason and decency, go against the wishes of their own governments, and act as genocidal mercenaries of an inferior power, the Soviet Commune looks to bigger, cheaper, politically familiar sources of more desperate men and women with more to gain and less to lose, and with clear consciences.

Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Lao, Vietnamese, Biharis, Tanzanians, Malagasy, Namibians, Zambians, Zimbabweans, and more are raised in greater numbers, lifted from discontented unemployment at home and helped towards action by a pool of workers amongst a healthy, young population of more than 412 million Commonwealthers.

COG frigates, corvettes, WIGs, submarines, and light carriers begin to patrol ever busier sea links with the Latin American communes.

Constance, Armand

Chivo was not comfortable with this. The Combine made him feel queesy. But he missed his time in the limelight, and serving the popluar vote was all he had by way of getting it back. For once he did not step down after a personal conflict with the mass line, and that -in the Combine nest- felt all the worse.

Still, needs must. He was here to discuss formal relations between Soviets and Combiners, freedom and conformity, liberty and logic, in pursuit of progress.

The Commonwealth's citizens felt that the PR Bihar, mostly under Soviet occupation, would be best served by accession to the ISC. Division of the state was not desirable, and could only lead to conflict.

Raipur wants to discuss a peaceful Armandian withdrawal in which the Combine would be presented as an ally, finally accepted as part of the community of India... implying Soviet recognition of North Sienna and opening of its severely restricted borders.

The Soviets were emboldened, it seems, in making this decision after perceiving a gradual warming of Mumbai's position.

Intervening in Bihar, even if the Combine gives it up, will have been the final act in stabilising the border with the Geletian enemy. Raipur also would back Armand against the new Caliphate, which is being seen as a potential threat to the Union.

Under heavy influence from Graeme and Sopworth Igo and from Adiatorix, the Soviets want to forge new bonds. Imagine... India, China, Armand, Spyr and Sujava. Perhaps the Commonwealth was finally forced -by aid from old enemy China- to reconsider its distinctly superior approach to a singly-leading role in the Progressive world?

Of course, the Combine may feel that it deserves more than diplomatic recognition and some new transit rights. Well... the Soviets can't maintain revolutionary momentum everywhere at once. Maybe the world of the C21st can be best divided into Soviet-individualist, Combine-unionist, Indian-liberal, market-socialist, and Chinese-moderate avenues of advancement?

We, Chivo may admit, don't know how to get through to those cultures wanting order above merryment, strong leadership above independence, traditionally-shaped values over revolutionary romance.

Might the Soviets finally join a treaty organisation?

The proposed medicine distribution plan now appears completely dead in the water after an industry-wide consortium threatened to move all research to Quintonnia and file a class action lawsuit against the government for intellectual property theft. It appears the best that Edmund Hui can hope for is for private Chinese citizens to cross the border to purchase Soviet drugs, rather like the Quintonnia-Canada situation.

The Social Democrats hand was also significantly strengthened by reports of a rural recovery in Northern China caused largely by the rise in grain prices associated with the lifting of the embargo on Soviet trade.

Talk of a treaty organisation with the Soviets intrigues many. Securing peace with the Soviet giant would certainly allow Beijing to waste less on the military and more significantly, allow for major economic benefits, perhaps even pushing the Chinese economy to the world No 1 spot ahead of Quintonnia. Soviet technology was also of interest. WIG technology was much more advanced there, as was the Morrigan UAV program. In exchange, China would be likely to share her edge in air-to-air missile technology and possibly even submarine technology. Again, the goal was to lower costs associated with the military to free up more cash for social portfolios especially education.

There was of course, a lot to discuss first. Chinese businessmen would want to open labour intensive industries in the Commonwealth, taking advantage of lower wages and the possibility of a large market.

How would the business thing work out? The best that Quinntonian business had been able to do was a brisk trade in commodities, as economics were complicated by the lack of a currency to use when trading with the Gelletians. Of course, that kind of trade had been very profitable, if stunted by events in the last year or so.

WWJD
Amen.

In the Commonwealth, social and state ownership dominate. Workers own their own enterprises, and manage them democratically.

The possibility of opening businesses abroad has often been considered, but it would mean moving citizens to the involved nations, and would really just be spreading the revolution rather than boosting the Indian economy. Some Sovietists would like to move abroad, set-up businesses with money put-up by their phalansteric business, and invite locals to join the new businesses and engage in worker-management and profit-sharing, quite convinced that they would cut a swathe through the grumbling hierarchical brutes of the corporate universe. But, after what happened in Sino -pioneers such as these were rounded-up and shot, presumably because they were having too much success and threatening the domination of the super-rich and the myths of the global status quo- Commonwealthers hesitate to make such attempts, due both to concern for their safety and to a belief that other governments such as China's don't want this... and it may be best to get in Beijing's good books.

Investing in the Commonwealth is certainly no more simple. Goods come in and go out easily enough -yes, even between India and Quinntonia until very recently- but the idea of someone owning a business concern from afar, taking a disproportionate share of the profit and disallowing workers from voting on their own management decisions, well, it just isn't about to be swallowed in South India.

Special consideration is being given to the Chinese case, and possibilities are being discussed in the Soviets.

The Sovietists are not keen to keep working for someone else once they have repaid any debts... it is regarded in the same light as owing favours to a mafia boss, and few distinguish between mob Don and 'legitimate' investor.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Finally, a suggestion is put forward by Sopworth Igo, who imagines Indians travelling to China, perhaps to areas in need of investment, work, development, or such, to establish social-enterprises in which a handful of Indian experts would work along side locals.

The enterprises would produce Indian-derived technologies for which a Chinese market may exist. They would be established primarily with Indian funds put-up by phalansteries back home (most can put up tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars without difficulty), and Chinese workers would immediately take part in profit-sharing with the few Indians who would work there, and would return a portion of their profits to the Indian communes that backed the business, until the start-up cost is repaid.

Once the debt is clear and the business in full swing, the concern will pay its way in China by putting the porition of profits formerly in debt repayment instead into local development and aid projects, workers helping to buy perhaps construction materials or such for the local villages and to improve infrastructure... after all, it is their community.

The Indian workers may return home once this is all working well, completing a cultural as well as technological and economic exchange. In this way, Indian technology reaches the Chinese market, but Chinese workers and under-priviliged communities benefit from the profits. It is suggested that the concerns hold automatic Chinese patents for their goods during the debt-repayment period, and that perhaps after this the technology become available generally in the Chinese economy. It is hoped that the concerns will be competative -even against bigger capitalist firms- as they were set-up with experienced Indian help, and are run without managers who take an undue share of profits in the corporate world, allowing these concerns to run with much thinner profit margins while still paying good wages to labourers. Wages high enough that workers can vote to lower them periodically in order to put-aside funds for repairs or new equipment et cetera.

On the other side, Chinese investment in India. The Phalansteries that put-up funds and sent experts to China would have done so on the understanding that Chinese experts will come to their communities with Chinese technology.

It will be most easy for the Chinese state to conduct business with the communes, and much harder for private individuals and companies to find ways to extract a profit. The Indians don't stand to gain much directly by delivering technology and setting-up social enterprises in China, but are keen to see the poor lift themselves out of poverty and to see rural China industrialise in an environmentally responsible way -the delivered Soviet technology would include great power-saving measures, clean energy production, water conservation aspects, and so on- rather than powering their rise with China's huge coal reserves.

It would be easy for the Chinese state to call this justification for delivering technology to the involved Soviets. To get private concerns involved, it would be normal to expect everyone drawing profit to be involved in work. This won't much appeal to a millionaire investor, one imagines.

Sopworth suggests that firms wishing to trade with the Commonwealth may be first to receive production rights for Indian technology after the patent's initial period of resting with the first social-enterprise to introduce it to China. For some months, under the vague plan, an Indian technology introduced to China would be produced entirely at however many new social enterprises took it up, establishing the technology in the Chinese market place. Then a major firm would receive the right to begin the technology's use, and it would be produced/used by the social enterprises and that one firm for a period of time before being open to any other firms.

That firm would be one with something to offer India, and would give its technology to the Indian communes that invested in the related social enterprises.

At this stage, then, trade remains primarily in ideas and technology rather than getting into each other's markets. Sopworth himself has not said anything to rule-out future plans for greater integration and trade. Alternative plans from the Chinese side are also likely to be discussed if presented.

There is an outside possibility that a more conventional arrangement could be made, but it may be a touchy issue in the Commonwealth. Communes sending a small porition of their profits back to Chinese backers, and proposed social-enterprises sending a similarly small portion back to their Indian helpers, seems a lot like taxation for nothing -or rather for a favour done in the past and repaid time and again- but if the workers are allowed a lot of flexibility in voting on just how much of their takings to send abroad then it might be easier to take. Maybe this will reduce the backers' take, but if there is any take at all it is an improvement over the nothing that exists now.

While worker's advocates and unions in China have endorsed the plan, business leaders have shown little interest in it. For Chinese businesses keen to trade with the Commonwealth, It would be the equivalent of investing in the development of a market only to see the production rights handed to a major firm, possibly not their own.

The other way round, it was slightly more palatable. Edmund Hui suggests that corporations involved in the social development phase recieve a tax break for their charitable works. Again, business leaders derided the idea but many of the more left-leaning billionaire businessman are quite intrigued by this idea.

Peter Lee, representing a consortium of businessman, has put forward a more simple model that would be likely to appease the Soviets as well as business. Chinese investors in India would treat the communes like sub-contractors, for example, tendering out contracts to produce X amount of LCD screens or Y amount of car wheels, while a joint government body regulates the tendering process to keep marginal communes afloat and to apply a tariff to protect Chinese manufacturing jobs ~ the overall cost of manufacturing in India would work out to perhaps 9-11% less than in China for the most competitive communes, maybe 6-7% in the weaker communes, as opposed to the 15% difference in wages. Not the huge differences caused by sweatshops, but still enough to make it worthwhile. Revenues collected by the tariff would be spent on social development. Indian investors would face a similar tariff to protect domestic jobs, and would face a similar model.

Ironically, the strongest opposition to trade with Raipur came from the manufacturing unions - manufacturing jobs were none existant in Sino, dying in Xiaguo.

While worker's advocates and unions in China have endorsed the plan, business leaders have shown little interest in it. For Chinese businesses keen to trade with the Commonwealth, It would be the equivalent of investing in the development of a market only to see the production rights handed to a major firm, possibly not their own.

The other way round, it was slightly more palatable. Edmund Hui suggests that corporations involved in the social development phase recieve a tax break for their charitable works. Again, business leaders derided the idea but many of the more left-leaning billionaire businessman are quite intrigued by this idea.

Peter Lee, representing a consortium of businessman, has put forward a more simple model that would be likely to appease the Soviets as well as business. Chinese investors in India would treat the communes like sub-contractors, for example, tendering out contracts to produce X amount of LCD screens or Y amount of car wheels, while a joint government body regulates the tendering process to keep marginal communes afloat and to apply a tariff to protect Chinese manufacturing jobs ~ the overall cost of manufacturing in India would work out to perhaps 9-11% less than in China for the most competitive communes, maybe 6-7% in the weaker communes, as opposed to the 15% difference in wages. Not the huge differences caused by sweatshops, but still enough to make it worthwhile. Revenues collected by the tariff would be spent on social development. Indian investors would face a similar tariff to protect domestic jobs, and would face a similar model.

Ironically, the strongest opposition to trade with Raipur came from the manufacturing unions - manufacturing jobs were none existant in Sino, dying in Xiaguo.

A number of Soviets have voted to embrace the Lee Model, though it has not become full Commonwealth policy. Still, with each phalanstery housing on average 1,600 people, and only a minority working already in the cities or on full-time phalansteric operations, even a few dozen willing Soviets means a workforce of hundreds if not thousands already willing to give it a try.

It is possible that more will follow the lead after a period of observation in which many will be keen to see whether chasing targets leads to unpalatable working hours or conditions, and how much control the Indians retain in their business affairs.

It is likely that many communes will start out with some significant enthusiasm, internationalist revolutionaries keen to have some sort of relationship with the Chinese masses and others happy to know that they are still working towards significant investment in their own community. So long as moral remains high, productivity is likely to, even if it is still only in a minority part of the Indian and Chinese economies.

Still, in historic terms, this does seem like a fairly big step up in the Sino-Indian relationship. Not quite moving in together just yet, but perhaps a toothbrush has been left in the bathroom, eh?