100 years: the legacy of Richeism in Sutherland
In 1925, the URLS, and the control of the Richeist Party, both collapsed amid a wave of socioeconomic upheaval. As we approach the Centenary, it's time to reflect on Sutherland's Years of Hate
Clashes between the provincial police and anti-Richeists against the Richeist Statesguard like the March on Unthank (left) took place amid demise of the Richeist regime (right) in Sutherland
On the twelfth of May, 1925, the first democratic President of Sutherland, Raynard Armstrong, pronounced the "end of terror and victory of good men." The Address on Ravenscar is fondly remembered as the end of possibly the worst chapter of Sutherlander history, however one of the quotes that has remained in public consciousness was to remember what came before far more urgently:
Victory is never final, Richeism is never dead and history is never over. Freedom will fall the day that the last free man forgets whose shoulders he stands on.
What is Richeism?
Richeism can best be defined to the international community as "Sutherlander fascism," but it has relatively distinct principles and foundations not quite replicated anywhere else, especially on the role of the nationstate. While not on an extremely surface-level analysis systemically racist, Richeist parties, politicians and governments advocate for the "Sutheran nationstate," which solely legitimises the role of Gotic-derived Atlish-speaking Sutherans, and deems any other group within the jurisdiction of this nationstate as a threat to its existence. Furthermore, the notion of a "national personal duty," as applied through the persecution of the unemployed and disabled (and by the regime's end, even children who refused or failed to work,) saw widespread conscription, forced labour and anti-trade union laws passed, with the duty of work shown in propaganda as the path to national progress as well as the successful fulfillment of men's societal role as workers and breadwinners in Sutheran richeist society.
Tenets of Richeist thinking include total loyalty to the actions and history of the Sutheran nationstate viewed through a Gotic lens, a strict hierarchical structure delineated on race, gender and ability to provide to the nationstate, and a warped interpretation of the social contract in which the nationstate permits citizens to remain, live and "prosper" within its jurisdiction as well as to be protected from the horrors of land without statehood (likely derived from Early Modern conservative thinking, with 17th century figure Tomas Hensen and his literature on the "nasty and short" lives to be expected without the state being propagated) in exchange for the citizen fulfilling the duties of working, maintaining what the Richeists viewed as optimal social standards (which were, in near-totality, deeply reactionary and antithetic to social liberalism & the idea of universal rights), maintaining public infrastructure and serving the country whenever possible. The failure to commit to these duties was seen as grounds enough to be stripped of citizenship (as was the "failure" to belong to one of the diminishing in-groups of what Richeists deemed as belonging to the Sutheran nationstate), and concentration camps were set up across the country to intern communists, the unemployed and disabled, trade unionists, liberals, Cumbrishfolk and Atineans. In the 1920s, Richeists pursued eugenicist policies in order to "eliminate" disability - which incorporated homosexuality/"transvestitism" at the time, with Richeists viewing the nuclear family as the only acceptable family structure - and increase the capability of the population to fulfill the duties of the Richeist citizen. They also sought to disengage workers from trade unionism, while violently suppressing trade unionist movements as a threat to the nation's security, resulting in the
Red Sunday in 1918 when trade unions clashed with Richeist paramilitaries and the police during the wider General Strike of 1918 in protest to falling wages and the return of child labour in some areas.
(right) Images of Red Sunday in 1918, with demonstrations in cities like Prospect, Barrowland province
Other aspects key to Richeism include the concept of a nostalgic future, which builds on national destiny myths to conflate the endgoal of Richeism (an ethnostate of Gotic settlers acting entirely within their prescribed roles without question and in the national interest) with an idolised version of Sutheran history, as well as the core nature of Amendism to the state, which was viewed as both a hallmark of being a good citizen, evidence of the "workability" for unquestioned faith to unite likeminded communities of Richeist citizens, and a means to the end of both categorising who fell within societal roles, and consolidating the power of all arms of the state. Friction with the Catholic Church of Sutherland, the key denomination for the Atinean people, was such that the Church was formally disassembled and driven into secrecy in 1918 to be replaced with a government-sanctioned Church in the Divinity of Sutheran Catholicism, while practice of Druidism and other Cumbrish folk religions was strictly prohibited. The power of the Amendist Church became such that the Richeist government saw it as a threat and alternative source of faith that distracted from faith in the nationstate, leading to the Night of Greatest Sin in 1925, in which key church leaders were killed en masse and replaced by the Richeist paramilitary wing. The professional army also faced significant persecution in favour of the paramilitary wing of the Richeist Party, who owed more to the Party itself and were more unquestioning in their loyalty to the Richeist nationstate, to the extent that the army faced multiple coups, assassinations and sustained pressure from Godfred Roscow to centralise power and provide loyalty.
Richeists were notable for their relatively opaque stance in favour of corporatism from an early stage, with the Richeist Party benefitting from rigorous (but not total) aristocratic and capitalist support during the crisis years of the 1910s amid the rise of communist, trade unionist and socialist working-class paramilitaries and organisations in the URLS (largely concentrated in industrial Sutherland.) Early Richeists acting within the frameworks of the democracy as it existed prior to the state takeover in the late 1910s campaigned on a promise of stability, both aimed at exploiting the fear of middle-class workers and landowners of communist and trade unionist parties, and the urgency of industrialists and corporations to find an amicable path to protect their capital interests and wealth from seizure. The Richeist state, especially in its early years, was highly corporatist, however disagreements between corporations and the Richeist party, and the declining economic situation in the URLS, led to increased pressure from Richeists to extract profits from corporations. By the mid-1920s, the Richeist state was almost entirely based on pseudo-state-run corporations and extremely laissez-faire working laws, causing a steady and severe decline in living standards nationwide, which exacerbated the social unrest which never truly disappeared from Richeist Sutherland.
The structure of power and government in Richeist Sutherland was distinctly autocratic and centred around a culture of fear and cult of personality around Godfred Roscow, the Richeist party leader. Questioning the legitimacy of the powers of the state, or the way in which it used those powers, was viewed as no less than treason; while Roscow tolerated a minimal level of controlled opposition both within his party and arms of government, and outside his party with the tolerance of the hardline conservative nativist National Sutheran People's Party (LSFP) remaining in the legislature, these sources of opposition were either driven into silence, amalgamated into the party on the provision that they remained in total loyalty to Roscow and his structure of power, or persecuted vigorously. The structure of the aristocracy initially afforded Roscow, himself a member of the landed noble family of the same surname, a level of pragmatic support, however his tolerance to the autonomy of aristocrats fell as his regime continued and as his paranoia grew.
(left) A photo from Redcar, Eskland, at the height of the Richeist regime in 1922
By the time that the regime began to fell, it had already been significantly hollowed out by the effects of disillusionment, the drastically shrunk base of support, socioeconomic turmoil, increasing tolerance of "societal wrongs" by increasingly autonomous police forces and provinces who wrestled power away from the state, whose military arms were either degraded and demoralised (as in the professional army) or unprofessional and easily corruptible (as in the paramilitary wing.) The Richeists tolerated largely involuntarily, with much harm to their egos, the secession of Lyvenntia in hoping that the core Sutheran nation would have its support shored up, however the chaos created by the drastic reduction of tax intake by the state, the support quickly consolidated from Lyvenntia for anti-government forces and the increasingly transparent view that the Richeist government was little more than a paper tiger with limited and inconsistent jurisdiction all resulted in the total collapse of Richeist control throughout the first half of 1925.
The treatment of Richeist government officials, many of whom remained in the state either out of faith to its continuity or fear that Roscow would have them killed, was variably brutal, while the level of loyalty of police organisations, remaining governmental structures in the provinces waned unevenly over the successive weeks and months, with the wearied Statesguard often having to be utilised in lieu of the unprofessional paramilitary wing to quell anti-Richeist protests, which were sometimes supported and sometimes suppressed by local police forces. The leader of the paramilitary wing responsible for the persecution of minorities and the disadvantaged defected from the Richeist regime by entering the socialist stronghold of Threlkeld in mid-south Sutherland unarmed on 18 March, 1925, in the hopes of negotiating his freedom and amnesty, however was shot on sight by four different men within the space of a few seconds at around 7pm. Roscow's second-in-command, Edrick Oldhamstow, was sighted by a hunter in the boreal forests of Westmorland on 31 March after attempting to escape, however was shot in the leg, and tortured over the process of two weeks by a rural landowner before being disposed of in the River Eame and sighted in mid-April. Roscow's private secretary was initially granted amnesty by a workers' council in Whitton upon defection on 28 April, however was discovered to be a key conspirator in the persecution of Cumberland in the wider
Farlam Trials in the autumn of 1925, and sentenced to death. Roscow himself disappeared for four months, until he was found by the underground organisation
Foryield in rural Beira under a pseudonym, and brought before the Farlam Trials.
The legacy of Richeism
(right) Image of the Restane, in the central district of the capital of Sutherland, Eamont
While comprehensive, our memory of Richeism has faded from living memory completely now that the oldest person alive in Sutherland today was merely 17 when Roscow finally slumped out of power. Nevertheless, with the cordon sanitaire against the far-right still in place, anti-fascist iconography and communitarian values still sacrosanct in Sutherland, as well as a militant democratic structure that proscribes anti-democratic and neo-Richeist parties and media routinely, there do seem to have been lessons learnt from the darkest days of Sutherland's history. Similarly, the Constitution (in conjunction with one of the world's most activist judicial systems) and setup of the Presidency, provinces and Government all aim overtly to prevent a singular party and singular strongman from seizing power unilaterally.
Remembrance Day is still held every 14 January, to commemorate the persecution of Cumberland in particular, but also all marginalised groups at the time.
With O100 Day approaching for 12 May next year, preparations are already underway for commemorating the centenary of the end of Sutherland's darkest hour, and the start of possibly its brightest. Yet, with ongoing problems with trust in the police and inertia in states' power reforms, as well as wider inequities associated with liberal capitalism, and the continued presence of the far-right on the fringes of Sutherlander politics, it would be far too sweeping to suggest that Richeism is defeated quite so confidently.
History is never over.
Quotes on Richeism
The next Richeist, as with the last, will run as a man of the down-trodden people in the pockets of those whose boots have crushed them, with the sole goal of controlling who the boot falls on. - John Blake Smith, Labour leader 2020-present
Richeism is state and corporate power in tandem. The businessman and the statesman have one cause, the furthering of the Sutheran nation within and without, and deviation is folly. - Godfred Roscow, Richeist President of the URLS and later Sutherland
Richeism is putting the state above all that is wrong, and all that is right too. Just as unity of faith in religion is theocracy, unity of faith in the nationstate is Richeism. - Thorborn Aldredsson, Professor of the Loreshall of Whitton
Richeism is aristocracy not afraid to be caught redhanded. - Alma Hepburn, Civic Democratic Union (VDA) leader 1966-1977
The love of power and police is the elixir that Richeism feeds on. - Raynard Armstrong, President of Sutherland 1925-1937
The Cumbrishfolk are not deemed man by a Richeist, but beast who stands between his beloved state and its destiny as an ethnostate. We were the forest that was burnt to the ground, and far too many of our ashes were long gone and forgotten in the wind by the time democracy prevailed. - Morwen Gryffydd, Premier of Cumberland 2006-2015
Neo-Richeists often claim that they are not racist but nationalist, but in the same breath state that the Sutheran nation is one race. Richeism, as with all far-right ideologies, have only the willingness to not believe their own words above their horrific love for ethnostatehood. - Freda Seddon, President of Sutherland 1961-1967
The most dangerous thing to a Richeist is to be deprived their belonging to a state. They believe both that the state deserves the right to strip personhood, but has a duty to preserve THEIR personhood - the tragic unreciprocated love of a Richeist to a nationstate that has moved on from his hatred is the sweetest victory. - Eddard Falwick, Foreign Minister 1984-1989
