The Union of Southern Socialist Republics

Summary
The Union of Southern Socialist Republics is a one-party socialist state in the post-American south. It consists of 5 socialist republics and one autonomous free state, with power firmly held in the centralized government in Atlanta. Founded during the April Revolution in the chaos of the post-collapse, it is lead by the Southern Socialist Workers' Party guided by a Chairman as head of state. The first Chairman was the founder and leader of the original revolutionary movement, Jeremiah Carter, and after his death the party has struggled to appoint a successor. The three most likely candidates are the radical socialist Atticus Jackson, the syndicalist reformer Hiram Calhoun, and the iron-fisted strongman Marcus Sherman.

The USSR suffers from a combination of underdeveloped infrastructure, poor modernization, and an inefficient bureaucracy that has lead to many famines and shortages of all kinds. However, dissent within the Union is relatively uncommon, partially due to the activities of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, but also due to the shared brotherhood fostered during the Tex-Mex invasion, which lit an intense fire of patriotism that still burns bright to this day.

The USSR is relatively isolated in the North American community, pursuing a policy of limited autarky to decrease its reliance on foreign goods. It covertly funds communist and socialist movements in many of its neighbors, namely partisans in the Carolina Protectorate. The Union seeks to avoid direct conflict with Virginia itself, instead targeting more immediate and less dangerous threats such as the rising Ozarkistan, the thassalocratic Caribbean Rastafarate, and their historical enemy, the 8th republic of Texas.

Socialist Republic of Dixie
The Socialist Republic of Dixie is the beating heart of Southern Socialism, and the heartland of the USSR. The Southern Revolution began in the Dixon city of Atlanta, and quickly spread to include most of pre-collapse Alabama and Mississippi, the base from which the USSR expanded to include all of the post-American South. Maintaining a mix of heavy industry and agriculture, the SRD is the prime example of communism with southern characteristics.

Gulfard Socialist Republic
The Gulfard Socialist Republic was a secondary birthplace of the revolution, beginning as the anarchist commune of West Florida. Once the revolution had taken control in Atlanta, Jeremiah Carter and his Red Confederates intervened in West Florida to destroy the competing form of socialism and maintain a "stable socialist environment". After its subjugation the newly-formed Gulfard Republic became the USSR's "Gateway to the Gulf", providing maritime trade, ships, and off-shore oil.

Socialist Republic of Florida
The Socialist Republic of Florida was created when the USSR invaded the nationalistic Floridean State, although before they could capture the entire peninsula, the Caribbean Rastafarate seized Miami and the rest of Southern Florida. Atlanta set up a puppet regime in the north based in Tallahassee, but have never made significant progress in reclaiming the south. The SRF has made numerous requests to the USSR to re-unify with the GSR, and all of these requests have been denied.

Appalachian Socialist Republic
The Appalachian Socialist Republic was set up both to quell Appalachian rebellious sentiment, and in the hopes that it could foster socialism among Appalachian tribes in the Grand State of Virginia. Unfortunately, the Appalachian Raccoon refuses to be tamed, and the spread of Ali-Alakwas has only fueled their efforts at resistance. Regardless, Appalachia remains the Union's biggest source of ore and other mined resources, and thus remains a sore spot in the USSR's flank.

Autonomous African Free State
The Autonomous African Free State was created in an attempt to both suppress black nationalism and to attract more farmers to utilize the fertile Mississippi River Valley, is the only majority-black SR in the union, and as such stands as a physical manifestation of the USSR's commitment to racial equality for their african comrades. The non-black population mostly consists of native Dixons, Ozarkian refugees, and Tex-Mexican expatriates.

Socialist Republic of Louisiana
The most underdeveloped region of the union, Louisiana has been cursed by barely hospitable terrain, poor infrastructure, and having bore the brunt of the Tex-Mex invasion. Ironically, these disadvantages ended up aiding significantly in repelling the Texan armies with a devastating guerilla campaign. Despite its poor development, it still provides a significant amount of the Union's agriculture, and the more developed coastal regions do engage in Caribbean trade.

(Former) Socialist Republic of Arkansas
The Socialist Republic of Arkansas was originally a faithful member of the union, but was torn from the USSR during the First Ozarkistan Expansion. Inexperienced soldiers, incompetent leaders, and a concurrent food shortage are commonly blamed for this defeat that is still remembered to this day. Many of the remaining Arkansawyers were forcefully converted to Ali-Alakwas, and the rest were expelled or executed.

(Former) Socialist Republic of Carolina
The Socialist Republic of Carolina was never formally a part of the union, but a short-lived illegitimate state during the civil war in the then-independent Carolina Republic. Ultimately supporters and sympathizers of the Grand State of Virginia prevailed, and they were annexed soon after their victory. Communist partisans still remain in the Virginian Carolina Protectorate, and often frustrate the Commonwealth's efforts to rebuild and integrate the region.

History
The April Revolution

The Union of Southern Socialist Republics has its beginnings in the industrial heart of Georgia, when a cross-industry union strike in Atlanta escalated into a full-blown worker’s revolution. While achieving early success in securing power in the city, the disorganized and inexperienced unions failed to effectively hold onto power and the city descended into riots, terrorism, and skirmishes between rival factions. The revolution’s savior would come in the form of Jeremiah Carter, a socialist writer from rural Louisiana. He gathered support among the agrarian regions outside of Atlanta, and utilized militias from those regions to help pacify the city. Little more than a mob with stolen U.S. armory equipment, the Red Southern Army (often called the Rednecks) was still a resilient and formidable guerrilla force, which proved effective in the streets of Atlanta against the gangs and rival militias plaguing the city.

Jeremiah Carter and the Rednecks

Once Carter and his Rednecks had taken power, they immediately disarmed and stripped the unions of their power, instead centralizing it into a “Proletarian Senate” with a “Worker’s Council” as its head, and himself as the “Supreme Chancellor of the Revolution”. Carter quickly gathered a host of communist politicians, writers, and other influential figures to form the Senatburo, which headed the newly-formed “Southern Socialist Worker’s Party”. While many of the former supporters of the unions voiced opposition to the supposedly tyrannical actions of Carter, namely syndicalists and democratic socialists, these complaints were drowned out by the fanatical support of the people for the men they saw as having saved them from chaos. Opposing parties within the commune were banned, but two factions quickly arose within the SSWP: the Rednecks and the Bluecollars. The Bluecollars were a minority in the party and more moderate than the Rednecks, opposing the spread of socialism across the south through violent means, and supporting a more democratic organization of the commune. The Rednecks, the majority, were lead by Jeremiah Carter and supported a far more total, radical revolution, across all of the south. The Bluecollars attempted to stage a protest against the reign of Carter and his Rednecks, but the demonstration quickly turned into a riot, and soon after the Southern Red Army was called into crush the organizers. The Bluecollars were subsequently banned, and their leaders either imprisoned or exiled.

The Red Tide

After consolidating power in the Atlanta Commune, Carter turned his eyes beyond to the greater south, and began converting the disorganized Red Southern Army into a true military, and revamping the economy of the Commune to supply them. The post-collapse south was in complete disarray, fractured between neo-confederates, black nationalists, U.S. loyalists, and all manner of gangs, local unaligned militias, and rival socialist movements. Jeremiah Carter appointed Atticus Jackson as Supreme War Councilor, and the Southern Civil War began.