Workers Spring

The Workers Spring, also called the Wheelerist Revolution, or the Revolution of 1921, was a period of instability and political upheaval in 1921 in Edury. From early February to early May, tensions increased between the government and conservative movement, lead by then Lord-Magistrate Yohn Smith, and the leftist workers movements. By the end of this brief period, most members of Vorhees' circle were forced to resign, many institutions created and preserved by the conservative movement were abolished, and new democratic reforms were instituted by the ascendant workers movement.

Background
Most of the set up for the Workers Spring can be found in the Revolution of 1801. The Eduran Revolution is considered to be the defining moment of Eduran nationhood, and its consequences are still be answered today. Generally, the Revolution abolished class distinctions, and instituted a new constitution. However, the overall structure of Eduran government was not changed; the Forwielder, the Assembly, and the Senate all continued their existence, despite their powers ans responsibilities changing. The position of Forwielder was changed from what was de facto an elected king, to a symbolic figurehead with a fixed electoral term, and term limits. The Senate was downgraded to almost an advisory body, and the Assembly was elevated to the primary house of the Eduran legislature. Furthermore, the position of prime minister was formalized with the institution of the Lord-Magistrate, the leader of the Assembly. However, newly unformalized class distinctions, privatization of the commons, the growing pains of industrialization, and the emergence of the bourgeoisie and the industrial labor force would grow to be existential issues.

Pre-revolutionary stresses
Before 1800, Eduran society was stratified into several formalized classes, each with its own rights, privileges, and obligations. The nobility was the politically dominant force, and it was from this class that the Forwielder was elected. The position of Forwielder had developed, by the 18th century, to be a powerful executive. While Edury was still legally a medieval confederation of cities and states, the Forwielder had jockeyed to have powers similar to other east Alutran kings. He appointed judges, approved laws, lead the army, and conducted foreign affairs. The Senate was at this point a body made up exclusively of nobility. Senators were appointed by the cities and provinces to represent their polity, not the people who lived within them. While there was an Assembly of Estates, its opinion on laws was not legally binding.

The nobility was defined as the body of Edurans who either held privileged citizenship within a city, or were granted fiefs of land in Feudal tenure, effectively land ownership. By this point, the right to trade internationally had been monopolized under the nobility, and merchants existed as employees of different nobility. At this point, the commons and the guildsmen- two separate and distinct classes- had changed significantly since the medieval period. Guildsmen were a class of persons who held membership in a guild recognized by the state, and membership in this class was contingent on them remaining members of these bodies. Commoners were simply persons who were not nobility, nor members of a guild, nor bonded peasants. By the 18th century, the number of guildsmen and peasants had decreased dramatically, and the existence of a new, informal class was cemented. The bourgeoisie was a class of persons who owned property in non-feudal tenure, or whom were otherwise wealthy, outside of the typical system. A group of petit merchants (Eduran, little salemen) started to be named, these being merchants who operated as the chartered agents of noble mercantile concerns, or as captains of the Eduran Expiditonary Company. At this point the work force of the EEC, a 400 year old institution, was entirely non-nobility workers, whether they were captains or ships officers (usually members of this petit mercantile, and therefor, the bourgeoisie,) or longshoremen, deckhands, or other workers. The EEC had also shifted in purpose, being founded in the 1300s as a guild of captains and skilled navigators and seamen, to a profit driven corporation. The administration of the EEC were clerks, secretaries, and other bourgeoisie, however, much of the funding came from noble patrons.

The peasantry were also legally defined, and a limited class. There were, depending on where in Edury they were, two types of peasant; landed, and bonded. Landed peasants had a contract as subtenants of a lord, where they received free use of a plot of land, but had to pay for it, either in currency or in a percentage of the product of the land. Bonded peasants received no land, and had to work their lords; however, the pay they received was not dissimilar to a modern salary. While they were undoubtedly the least privileged class, bonded peasants would typically expect a set amount of food or produce of the land, regardless of the condition of the harvest. If harvests were plentiful, this meant the lord would profit greatly; however, a bad harvest would mean that a lord may have to go into debt in order to pay his bonded peasants.

The Alutran Revolution had also swept through Edury. Prior to this, theories on the source of power of the Forwielder and the Senate were usually justified with religion. Edury being a Stroomist state, justified the existence of these institutions by saying they were either endowed by, or outright created by, the two gods of Stroomism as the protectors of the holy balance of the realm. However, many philosophers dismissed this as superstition. Many enlightenment thinkers, such as Bringus Hingus, Eorl Cupturner, and Turtleboy posited that it was not religion that created the political institutions of the state, but the other way around. Many of them insisted that it was the people who ordained that the state exist as an executive committee to ensure the common good, and that as part of this, the state created religion in order to ensure social cohesion.

This idea was very popular amongst many of the legally nebulous bourgeoisie, who by the 1790's included industrial investors, factory operators, lawyers, scientists, and other wealthy men who were not members of the nobility. The nobility, of course, saw things a little differently. Many endorsed the religious argument, of course, but a large number also endorsed this "popular sovereignty", but saw themselves as the citizenry who gave the state its charter, and everyone else- the commons, guildsmen, and peasants- simply as subjects of society, not citizens with equal membership in it. Many noblemen called for reform by including the bourgeoisie in the nobility, or as a sort of secondary citizenship. The peasentry was split, with some endorsing popular sovereignty. However, an abolition of the feudal system would leave many peasants without the benefits they received for their labor. The State, of course, outright condemned the idea of popular sovereignty, with various senators and Forwielders decrying it as a threat to balance and harmony. Various philosophers, writers, and public speakers were censored or even forced into exile for their claims that the Senate and the Forwielder were not gods-appointed administrators of balance, but instead errant public servants.

Revolution
In 1799, a failed harvest, natural disaster, and economic recession had rendered many people across all classes very unhappy. The Assembly of the Estates met that year in Eduvesting to voice their opinion on several laws that the Senate had passed. However, at the end of their session, they had instead passed their own resolution decrying the senate and calling for new appointments by several provinces in the confederation. The Forwielder, Aethling IV of the house of Lincastle, reacted swiftly and harshly. After a weeks long back-and-forth, Aethling sent his official herald to the meeting place with the purpose of dissolving the Assembly, saying that he dismissed them from Eduvesting, and that he intended to sign a warrant to disperse their meeting. The herald had brought guards to protect his person, and the Lincastle crown, the symbol of the Forwielder's authority. A member of the Assembly, a representative of the commoners, procured a large hammer he had hid for self defense, and used it to smash the crown as the herald demanded the dispersal of the assembly. The Forwielders representatives fled, and the Assembly launched into action: in the Crown Declaration, they officially endorsed the ideas of popular sovereignty. They also declared, that since they were a more representative body than the Senate, they revoked the implicit charter that the Forwielder and Senate had to govern, and called for a trial of Aethling IV. The Forwielder, when he got report of this, ordered the army to arrest all members of the Assembly.

However, as part of the economic crisis, the state did not have money to pay much of the army. The soldiers of the garrison of Eduvesting had not received pay in several months. When orders arrived to march into the city, the footsoldiers largely ignored their officers. The state had lost the support of the army. Aethling fled the capitol, with many loyal senators. The Assembly declared themselves the natural government, and the revolution was truly under way.

Ecoralian and other international support for the reactionary faction would not do much good. Aethling would be captured by the Civic Guard that the Assembly established. His life ended as a convicted tyrant, under the guillotine. The army would largely prove ineffectual, and the Senate would not be able to elect a new Forwielder. When Ecoralian troops met with the remnants of the loyalist army, the Ecoralian force dwarfed them significantly.

Causes
Imagine if Regan was an old-school conservative instead the harbinger of neoconservatism, and the american people were ready to get loud and violent

1861
The tension between Vorhees and the various leftists and workers movements came to a boiling point after the former's 4th electoral victory. It was the first time since the Revolution that someone who did not win more than 50% of the vote gained the Magisterial chair, and the first time that the party of the Lord-Magistrate did not win a majority in the Assembly. It was also the first Assembly in which various leftist groups had significant membership- 16 out of 150 seats. Soon after, the Brotherhood of Iron Miners- a secret and illegal union of mine workers in the east of the country- went on strike. At midday on February 1st in the town of Attelborden, the workers threw their picks down and left. Accusations of sabotage were made, as well as attempts to force the miners back to work, or to hire scabs. A picket line was formed at the entrance to the mine to shame and prevent scabs from entering. By the second day of the strike, the mine owners hired the Pickett's Protectors, a private police force. This ended with the Protectors firing on the striking workers, killing several.

Prelude to rebellion
This would prove disastrous for the mine owners, and Vorhees, who had called to force the miners back to work. Three journalists had arrived at the scene, and one was killed when the private police fired upon the workers. Claims by Pickett that the workers had been the aggressors were refuted by the two remaining journalists, and their news stories were displayed in newspapers up and down the country- it was not the first strike story to become national, but it was the first that united the Bewaker and the workers movement against Vorhee's faction of conservatism. Most liberal Bewaker had been loosely allied with Vorhees up until this point, as their backers were the new money that most of the workers were striking against. However, with the Massacre of Atelborden plastering the newspapers, most liberals who did not own property turned to the worker's favor.

Vorhees handled the strike at Atelborden uncharacteristically poorly, as three days after the Massacre, the military was called into the town. Rumors began to circulate that Vorhees would attempt to suspend the town's elected government. These rumors, while not true, drove what liberal Bewakers were still allied to Vorhees away from the Lord-Magistrate. After a month of debate in the Assembly, and in the homes of practically every Eduran, the first call for a general strike was published in the Vorhoede, the newspaper of the General Laborers Brotherhood (GLB,) on February the 28th. This call was widely circulated, and by March 23rd, no newspaper in Edury had not published an article either echoing or condemning the call for general strike. The GLB in 'S-Rivibocht was the first to go on strike; no worker was allowed by the illegal union to work within the city or its periphery. The call for general strike was answered firstly in the eastern industrial mining towns, and then the central factory towns; but by mid-April, almost no mine, factory, or processing center was operating. During this time, Vorhees had tried several times to introduce legislation to allow him to use military strength to force the workers back into their assembly lines, but these were all blocked by the Assembly.

Violence and rebellion start
On April 22nd, the GLB of 'S-Rivibocht acquired arms from an unknown source. That same day, they stormed the city hall of the town, and successfully seized it. This event immediately took the entire nation by surprise, and is widely recognized as the start of the revolution. The GLB announced their demands for the resignation of Vorhees and his cabinet, the abolition of the Electoral Commission, and the establishment of an electoral system with official partisan division that would favor their movement. The next day, the military was called in, and Vorhees ordered the 2nd Infantry Regiment to storm the town and capture or kill the rebelling workers. This move equally shocked the political leadership of Edury; Vorhees had requested several times to be allowed to use military might, but this time he did so with no permission from the Assembly or the Daar. The latter threatened to revoke Vorhees's executive power, and the conservative factions largely abandoned Vorhees, save for his own band of Oude Garde.

The 2nd Infantry was made mostly of conscripts, of whom were largely poor peasants or former workers, and so refused to fire upon the rebelling workers. It is rumored, but not confirmed, that a band of the soldiers threatened to bayonet and hang officers who called for reinforcements from non-conscript regiments. It is unknown whether nearby regiments refused to march, or whether orders for reinforcements were never given.

Attelborden, where this all started, and Goatinburgen both underwent similar events and were under worker occupation by May 4th. However, the mood in the rest of the country was not as sure- some workers assemblies would not commit to violent uprising, and other would not act until the central government agreed to meet with the rebelling workers. However, on the 5th of May, the 44th Infantry Regiment- a non-conscript unit- arrived in Goatingburgen and fired upon the town hall, successfully taking it and killing several workers.

Widespread revolution
This event caused an explosion in the workers halls; by this point, print news was able to move quickly in Edury, so from the 6th to the 10th of May, the moderate workers were all silenced and the revolutionary corps took up arms. The army leadership, in the absence of orders from Godenhaven, refused to commit any more professional regiments outside of their forts, and the conscript regiments threw down their arms or joined the revolutionaries.

On the 10th of May, the Workers Clubs of Godenhaven had seized the town hall, and controlled many of the streets; they then started moving to the Palace of the Assembly. Soon a siege began, as the Republican Guard- the palace guard of the Assembly- was forced to repel revolutionaries. It was reported that windows in several offices were shattered by bullets, Vorhees' included.

Meeting in a secure location within the Palace of the Republic, the Assembly voted to demand the resignation of Vorhees, and after the vote was tallied, a motion was tabled to demand the Daar revoke the former's executive power. While this vote was never called, its message was clear; Vorhees resigned that day at 9:14 PM. The rest of his cabinet followed soon after.

Continued revolution
Following Vorhees' resignation, the Assembly elected a Constitutional Committee to meet with the revolutionaries and discuss reforms. Almost instantly the cohesion between the workers and the liberals broke down, as both factions succumbed to infighting. The Workers Clubs of Godenhaven met with the Constitutional Committee for nearly two weeks, while the other groups from other cities such as Eduvesting, 'S-Rivibocht, Not Utrecht, and others accused the WCoG of betrayal, and then eachother of infidelity to their movement. The liberal Bewaker were in a similar state, with the smaller subfactions calling for acquiescence to the workers demands- especially concerning electoral reform- while others demanded a hard line against the revolutionaries. Eventually the greater liberal factions within the Assembly tried to take the initiative, and attempted to pass a law only tacitly supporting some of the revolutionaries demands.

When news of this reached the leadership of the Workers Clubs of Godinhaven, they quickly decided to once again storm the Palace of the Republic. This time, they were successful- the leadership of the Workers Clubs marched onto the floor of the Assembly, and at gunpoint, voted to dissolve themselves and call for new elections in a scheme similar to the modern day mixed-member proportional.

Aftermath
In the six months between the final storming of the Palace and the new elections, the leadership of Godenhaven's workers associations- a man known only as A Name Goat Wont Like, or more simply ANGWL, would meet with the other workers associations in major cities. In the agreement he worked out with them, they would run as one bloc in the upcoming elections, with a committee of representatives from each city deciding policy agendas at the national level, but most aspects of policy and activity would remain with the local associations. This created two things, the first being the foundation for the structure of the modern National Workers Association, emulated by the Liberals Federation, and the second being the only government elected in Edury since 1855 to have more than 50% of the seats in the Assembly.

After the tumult of the second revolution in half a century, political life in Edury congealed into a new stability- the two main parties, being the Workers and the Liberals, would vie for local dominance, but would spend the next 100 years mostly in sync on foreign policy. Meanwhile, both would come to rely on the support of smaller, niche parties.

The Revolution of 1861 is also responsible for the third category of Eduran general philosophy- the Niuewe Bewaker, usually translated into Interspeak as the "Newer Guard". Not only a political force, but all three groups- the Oude Garde, the Bewaker, and the Niuewe Bewaker, have significant cultural differences between them. Even today, it is rare for a married couple to be of two different groups.