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Autumn Chen

@red-autumn.itch.io

578 followers 124 following 149 posts

interactive fiction writer - red-autumn.itch.io she/her ↙↙↙

Autumn Chen @red-autumn.itch.io · 08/09/2026

Hmm I wonder if there was a recent political event that could've gotten people to play Social Democracy An Alternate History 😭

Views chart for Red Autumn games on itch.io, showing a peak on September 7

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Autumn Chen @red-autumn.itch.io · 24/07/2026

77. Modern comparisons to Weimar: I wrote this before the 2024 US election, and I no longer agree with the idea behind this post.

I am invested in this for the obvious reasons, but also because if fascism wins in America, the basic political-economic thesis of Social Democracy: An Alternate History would be wrong. (Carrying the analogy: it might be too late for judicial reform, but it is not too late for IRA rallies.)

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Autumn Chen @red-autumn.itch.io · 15/07/2026

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Autumn Chen @red-autumn.itch.io · 13/07/2026

63. The Weimar Republic literally draped itself in the imagery of 1848, and Weimar Coalition electoral campaigns directly evoked the Revolution of 1848 as their predecessor.

Poster for Wilhelm Marx in the 1925 election, with two people holding a German flag: "Was 48 die Väer gedacht, die Enkel habens 18 vollbracht!"

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Autumn Chen @red-autumn.itch.io · 13/07/2026

60. Side note, this is also why I get annoyed by people who say that modern socdems lost workers by being "woke"; social democrats have always been progressive! Even on immigration (this was the 2nd International in 1907!) www.marxists.org/history/inte...

The congress, therefore, recommends the following measures:
I. For the countries of immigration:
1. Prohibition of the export and import of such workingmen who have entered into a contract which deprive them of the liberty to dispose of their labor power and wages.
2. Legislation shortening the workday, fixing a minimum wage, regulating the sweating system and house industry and providing for strict supervision of sanitary and dwelling conditions.
3. Abolition of all restrictions which exclude definite nationalities or races from the right of sojourn in the country and from the political and economic rights of the natives or make the acquisition of these rights more difficult for them. It also demands the greatets latitude in the laws of naturalization.

The Congress recognizes:
1. That present-day emigration is a result of the prevailing capitalist production system and is caused by circumstances which are closely linked to the entire contemporary economic order;
2. That its growth, which is sometimes abnormal, stems on the one hand from political, religious and national oppression in the lands of emigration, and on the other hand from the fact that the governments and capitalists in lands of immigration deceitfully attract immigrants in order to facilitate exploitation of workers by creating a labor surplus, and to make of the transport of the emigrants an independent capitalistic enterprise;
3. That because of such a close connection between emigration and the conditions of the present economic order, every attempt to limit immigration artificially through quota laws is fruitless and, in essence, reactionary;
4. That the legislation of the bourgeois governments against immigration does not improve the plight of the workers, does not limit capitalist exploitation, and has the most harmful effects on the fate of the proletariat in other lands, who look to emigration to save them from starvation, persecution, and pogroms. Unable by this means to reach its immediate goal, this legislation obscures the class-consciousness of the workers, draws the proletariat away from the class struggle, introduces dissension among the workers, and creates an atmosphere for the development of national and racial enmities.

Taking all this into consideration, the Congress declares itself opposed to every kind of law which forbids or limits immigration or emigration, and recommends that all socialist parties fight energetically against all such proposed laws and expose the true nature of these laws to the proletariat.

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Autumn Chen @red-autumn.itch.io · 03/07/2026

42. I'm a fan of Joseph Wirth in part because he would say things like this:

There stands the enemy, who drips his poison into the wounds of a people. There stands the enemy, and about it there is no doubt: the enemy is on the Right!

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