Constitutionalism, Communism, and Unionism: Arkmunster Philosophy

Arkmunster - or Auchendale, in older days - has long been a nation that has faced ideological conflict on a nationwide scale, with three civil wars to it's name and countless riots, as speakers took to the streets to rally the public. The beginnings of political dissent would be found towards the beginning of the monarchy, with the first King struggling for dominance over the Protestant Council, under the idea of the kingdom being under god, or god leading the kingdom.

This clash would not end in blood, but would mark the long struggle for legitimacy of the royal family. While the Protestant Council was hardly a public institution, it was backed by rich clergy men of decidedly not noble blood, and that seed would go on to undermine royal authority, as power would wax and wane over the decades.

The first truly public movement was the Constitutionalist one, advocating for a 'natural mix' of public and royal power. Drawing upon the Magna Carta, the French Revolution, and the Protestant Council, it could be compared to the later arrival of 'Integralism' on the public sphere, at least in the early stages. Constitutionalism saw the ideal society being split in three - local rule for the people, national rule for the Church, and global influence by the King. To what this would entail, leading thinkers would remain divided.

The small attempts at a manufacturing industry in Auchendale at the time would feed into this idea of 'local rule' as the national industries struggled to promote their products locally or abroad, with the largely agrarian stranglehold untouched by modernising attempts by King Louis. Local factories that helped promote a balance between agrarian products and manufactured ones, operating under a vague 'barter' system did better in helping promote factory work to the public. Drawing upon this, it was hoped that the feudalistic elements would be rinsed away in favour of a public one, noting the failure of nobility to modernise or even keep conditions steady in the provinces. Believing that the best ones to govern locally were those affected the most, i.e. the landowners and merchant classes, the public sphere was largely well decided upon by most thinkers.

The conflict began with the King and religion, with several thinkers swapping the ideas behind the two roles. The Church was viewed as a uniting figure - more so then culture - and was perhaps the only source of healthcare for the non-landed. The bureaucracy built up by the Church to handle such matters would be best left with the Church, and the ruinous influences that rampaged across Europe would be checked with further control by the Church. This would become the leading view leading to the first protests in favour of Constitutionalism.

The King was seen as a leading and universal figure for diplomacy abroad, at least again by some thinkers. The most poorly defined role of Constitutionalism, and after the failure of the early protests in favour, would ultimately merge with the position of the Church to create a hybrid that would be modelled in later protests.

As mentioned, Constitutionalism had barely dried on the paper before it was put to the test under the unpopular King John, as protests would break out regularly across Middlemoor and Ryde. Uniting behind faith and mismanaged rule, the protests were the first public, local action Auchendale had seen. An important lesson would be learned shortly after as the army was mobilised to violently put down the protests, leading towards around three hundred dead by the end of it. With the cities influence declining, the farming communities across the nation would begin to pick up the torch.

Constitutionalism had made it to the farms as surely as it did to the cities, but catered towards different problems. Struggling under the remnants of vassalage, the rent system had left most farmers poor, destitute, and starving. A more radical version of Constitutionalism, nicknamed the 'Free Soil' movement in favour of abolishing the system, would be championed. As the army was putting down the protests in the cities, the 'Free Soil' movement would rise up in revolt and throw Auchendale into it's first civil war.

To put a long, winding story short - the Free Soil movement had carried a successful campaign that brought Auchendale to it's knees, with a royal crisis and a crashed economy. It was only due to the timely intervention of Prince (and then King) Richard that ended the revolt with an army of mercenaries. This loss so close to victory would send Constitutionalism back to be revised and rebuilt from the ground up, which would create the modern version of Constitutionalism known to Arkmunster today.

This movement would build on the old one and coalesce the King and Council into one figure - the King himself. Parliament would serve as an advisory institution, a balanced mix that let both royal power and public power have equal weight. This movement would eventually coalesce into the Sibling War, Auchendale's second civil war. The triumph of the pretender King Quincy would bring Constitutionalism into power and the ultimately ruling influence over Auchendale for a long stretch of prosperity.

Nothing lasts forever, however, and Constitutionalism's weakness was in the fact that the movement's fluidity in some areas and strictness in others lead to a clash of rural and urban interests, along with public and private interests. These tensions would only be exacerbated by the Grand National Union, the Auchendale's 'One Big Union' group. The GNU would help unite and close the gap between rural and urban, forming a united front against the growing power of 'landlordism' and 'capital'. Strikes would consistently ravage the economy, and blood would be regularly spilled in the industrial heartland of Middlemoor.

In the background of this, there would be a critical examination of leftist ideas entering Auchendale's public sphere. The early movement could be divided into three camps, each one drawing upon a separate thinker. To non-Arkmunster citizens, the most famous would be Karl Marx's 'Das Capital', while most Arkmunster citizens would more easily recognise Bakunin (along with Rocker and Flynn), and the third being the short lived rise and fall of the Anarchist wing, backed by the books of Kropotkin. The 20th century would be marked like most other countries, between labour and capital, and left or right forces. Constitutionalism sat firmly on the right and the growing popularity of Anarchism would mark the first decades of the movement.

As mentioned, anarchist ideals would hold great popularity among leading trade unionists in the GNU and would be the leading thought among the group. Drawing upon Constitutionalism and the relative local prosperity and the continual mockery that was parliament and King, many felt that the best way to solve the 'capitalist struggle' was through total abolition. Short lived communes, mostly notable the short lived 'Middlemoor Commune' in 1915 would reinforce this perspective. The decisive change from anarchism to marxism would come with the successful Russian Revolution in 1917, causing a surge in support among the long suffering unions. Thus, leading into the Mill Strikes come the Great Depression, would be largely Marxist in nature.

King David would break the Mill Strikes, dealing a decisive blow to Constitutionalism, but would step down in favour of Michael, who would die shortly afterwards in the 1930s. The next King, King-General Claude, would undermine and ultimately overthrow Constitutionalism and replace it with a more traditional autocracy. The Leninist based 'National Union', an underground political arm to the GNU, would begin to struggle against King-General Claude and would lead to the third civil war late in the 40s. By then, the 'National Union' had failed and Manschel would take the reigns of the left-wing Auchendale Commune.

Manschel himself could be described as a Stalinist figure for the nation, although that's not quite true. Much more moderate then Stalin, Manschel would still purge a wide band of the army and bureaucracy, begin 'revolutions' that would modernise the nation and help lead to thousands of deaths, and was generally sympathetic and an ally to the Soviets. His assassination after the lengthy reconstruction in the 80s, a thirty year reign, would lead to ideological chaos.

The Marxist-based Trade Union Council would try to wrest control from the more autocratic First Citizen Lewis, but to no real avail. The struggle throughout the 80s to 2015 would be one of chaos and falling living standards as the nation tried to reimagine itself post-Manschel. The ultimate failure to do so would lead to Constitutionalist-inspired revolts and would ultimately lead to the Marxist roots being abandoned in favour of syndicalism taking control of the left.

The rise of Officer Nicholas and the successful Blue Month demonstration would cement this, leading to syndicalist thought finally taking the reigns over the nation and unions returning to the forefront, a strange sight in the 21st century. Recovery programs in the two years would help bring the nation back to where it was in the late Manchel era, but the political instability and terrorism that marked post-Manschel never truly went away.

The future, as President Nicholas resigns, seems to be a confused and muddled one for Arkmunster, as the political lines blur and the problems of the 20th Century bleed over into the 21st. Though, as polling seems to indicate, a return to syndicalist and technological orthodoxy seems likely as Nicholas's party begins to poll continually better under the candidate White, but the left has begun to fracture again even with this, as anarchism and marxism starts to slowly climb back up in popularity. If there's one thing to be said about Arkmunster, however, the strong right stronghold of the nation has been permanently shattered, as royalist and conservative sentiments continue to collapse. Arkmunster may be ideologically divided, but the now Queen is unlikely to return to Ravehaf.