The Mason in the Sparrow's Tower

[Touzen]

Freedom.

Freedom. What is it? A word. An ideal. An utopia. It is an idea, an idea that has accompanied man ever since he chose to leave the caves of ignorance and step onto the plains of civilization. It was this great dream, freedom, that inspired us to great deeds and magnificent discoveries.

Yet freedom is dead, and we killed it. Bloody and beaten Lady Liberty lies at our feet, fallen prey to her own children.

This is the story of humanity's final days. Its the story of the ascent and fall of mankind. It is the story of a mason in the sparrow's tower.

 

[Touzen]

Forever Free, Citizen Imada.

With this letter I am verifying the reception of your written request from the 28th July '20 (2030 OT) in regards to your inquiry regarding the provision of a honor guard for the Gate Memorial Festival of 1th August. I am pleased to be able to tell you that Citizen Supreme Coordinator of the Anti-Totalitarian Assemblies Gakusha, representing the will of the Citizenry vested in his position, and the Assembly of the Free Citizenry have granted your request and that subsequently, the 23th Citizen Batallion 'First of January' will be reporting for security duties around the perimeter during the time requested in your appendix 25F/23A.

On a more personal note I also wish to convey you my reassurances that threats concerning attempts by Hirakiite Elements to disturb the festivities by means of terroristic disruption have been carefully analyzed by a special commission of the Directorate of Revolutionary Defense and the conclusion that has been reached strongly suggest that right now, Hirakiite elements and assorted restorationist collaborators as well as their allies from the totalitarian periphery do not have the required level of agitatory organization to mount any such attacks; major cells are still mainly concerned with reorganization after the Anti-Agitatory Central Actions of 28/29. As such, my suggestion is to abstain from issuing further requests pertaining to the Gate Memorial Festival security situation.

Furthermore Citizen Supreme Coordinator of the Anti-Totalitarian Assemblies Gakusha wishes to convey his interest in a personal arrangement between his person and your persona for the purpose of planning the organization of the scheduled meeting with our anti-totalitarian allies in Karpatica to discuss regional defense policy in light of the recent political activities in the Sarmatian Remnant.

As always I count on your accurate, revolutionary and anti-totalitarian response at the soonest possible point in time (day-zero).

Forever Free,

Citizen Kogara Takeshi
Directorate of Revolutionary Defense
Department for Anti-National Defense and Citizen Agitation

 

[Touzen]

It has been four years since the revolutionary uprisings of 1848 in Germania found their bloody end at the hands of the bayonets of feudal reaction. Where once brave young people stood up for a simple truth - that all men are created equal -, where they once fought and died for their trust in liberty and democracy, the silence of post-revolutionary dread has taken the place of lively political argumentation.

Four years are a long time. Four years are more than enough for the ideas that have been discredited in Germania to find a new home, far, far away in the East, in the Far East, many continents, mountains and seas away.

It is middle of the 19th century. The world is at the eve of great change. The industrial revolution is in progress as man redefines his standing in a world of machines and science. Only recently did the Communist Manifesto get published. 30 years ago Lan Yu's ambitions for a Jizhou throne built upon the backs of the people's of the world collapsed as the coalition of besieged Sarmatian states marched to victory over the Empire that was never again to be. Yet, the legacy of Lan Yu lives on as the petty statelets that established themselves after the fall of Oikawa's tributary master continue to perpetuate the political and economic backwardness of the Oikawan people.

In 1850 poet and activist Kawamura Katsu returns from his journey to Western Europe on which he had embarked almost 10 years earlier in a cold January night. It was the first time in hundreds of years that an Oikawan man had left the isolated islands to depart for the unknown. To depart for the West. Yet with him he brings the seeds of strive and death. With him, he brings the seeds of revolution.

A manifest is published, a manifest that tells the Oikawan people about the strive of their brothers and sisters in the Far West for national unity and personal liberties, for freedom of expression, assembly and speech, a struggle they only know about too well from their own land. This manifest tells about the simple truths that the government belongs to the people and that feudalism is not a privilege, but a fallacy. Sure, the Oikawans had heard about the ideas of Lan Yu and his vision of "fair governance" - but was he not the oppressor? Was he not responsible for the destruction of the Shogunate that was replaced by even even more backward successor states, some of them claiming to adhere to the legacy of Lan Yu, but ultimately falling short of their proclaimed visions?

The people listen.

In 1851, young intellectuals from over 20 Oikawan states sign a petition calling for widespread reforms and a national assembly with the purpose of discussing national reunification under the banner of a 'Republic' - the ideal that Kawamura has brought to them from the far-away lands. Not too long and many of these young intellectuals find themselves arrested, executed.

Protests across the country intensify. After 30 years of division and hundreds of years of political standstill, the country is ripe for bloodshed. The Daimyo of Kawasaki is brutally murdered, crucified by an infuriated mob, betrayed by his closest warriors unwilling to stand up for feudal tyranny any longer. The peasantry, led by the urban elites, declare the reorganization of the former feudal domain under democratic and republican ideals. All peasants are henceforth to be considered free and the masters of their own lives. The Republican Assembly proclaims Kawamura as the First Director of the Revolutionary Republican Assembly. Hearing about this unfolding series of events, Kawamura travels from Nokanawa to Kawasaki. He is determined to fight. So are the people. The tide of history would not be stopped. Temporarily delayed in the West, yes. But the idea shall now blossom in the East. The nation stands at the doorstep to modernity. Untold opportunities await.

And so they decide to fight.

 

[Touzen]

As long as an object keeps spinning, it is in revolution. As long as, therefore, energy is committed to this moving system, does the movement continue. We can deduct the first simple truth: a revolution needs energy to keep moving.

But what happens when no further energy is introduced to the system? First, our object will slow down, gently, then more and more, until it will eventually come to a hold and cease its movement: it will have become stagnant, adynamic once more. Why? The lack of new energy. Thus we can deduct the second simple truth: lack of energy means the end of revolution.

It are these two simple truths that nature has given us that are the basis of the change that comes, has to come, if humanity is to break out of its cage of immobility.

But everyone can start a revolution. Anyone can snip the spinning top, temporarily making it cruise around violently, enjoy the spectacle of colors its creates, before it eventually dies down and returns to what it once was. Child's play even the simplest of minds is capable of. Only few however manage to maintain the patience to spin it again and again. For whatever reasons it may be, lack of interests or the sudden appearance of other duties, the child will eventually be forced to abandon the spinning top and the revolution ends.

What can we deduct from this? We can deduct that starting a revolution and then building upon it is a fallacy that will not work. You cannot build on the revolution. It is a process full of dynamic movement. The revolution in itself is by definition wild and untameable.

A revolution without movement is not a revolution.
​

As bureaucracies expand, as former revolutionaries announce a 'return to normalcy' after a period of revolutionary upheaval, boldly claiming that from now on a new society will be constructed after the successful revolution, the revolution and its ideas have already died. A successful revolution is only successful while it is going on. A revolutionary leader that stops the revolution is no revolutionary leader. As normality returns, the revolution disappears. Hence we arrive at the third truth: the revolution is permanent.

The revolution has to be permanent if it is to stay true to itself and maintain its characteristics. Stability and safety are the eternal enemies of the revolution and its ideals. Only in struggle, in extremity, in sacrifice and hardship can the revolution prosper, these are the sources of energy that keeps it spinning. Therefore it is paramount that once the revolution has been started, normality will never return, or all is forsaken, all is reverted to the point from where the revolution will have to be started again, with all progress lost. Every step towards society building is a step away from the revolution and a victory for the ancien régime.

- Hiraki Yoshiro: The Case for World Revolution

 

[Touzen]

The case against Revolutionary Franken
​

The case for the revolution is a simple one. As we have analyzed by now, the revolution will ultimately surface in rather specific conditions. Let us recapitulate:

Both the capitalist bourgeoisie state in its most imperialist and aggressive version and the anti-capitalist socialist state exhibit characteristics that show striking similarities: a high concentration of economic and political power in the hands of very few and the exploitation of the broad masses to further the goals of these elites. Both are hostile to the idea of a free market: the economic and political realities in both these systems thus exhibit a high level of static control, which becomes especially obvious in the Marxist state, but to the skilled eye is also plainly visible when dealing with the capitalist bourgeoisie system, as so called 'free market' capitalism puts natural pressure on smaller market players, ultimately leading to the system of monopoly and financial capitalism that is in control in our time and age. Both the capitalist bourgeois state and the socialist state therefore ultimately lead to monopoly structures.

Yet the Marxist is mistaken when he claims that the working class will in an act of historical inevitability bring about the dialectic end of oppression. Dialectically spoken, Marxists proclaim the end of history with the end of monopoly capitalism by resolving the class differences once and for all.

Yet history has proven the Marxist wrong. The Kyvan and Manchurian revolutions, only few years old, already exhibit the signs of monopole centralization as laid out in this book, with the creation of new bureaucracies and the expansion of control instances to 'safeguard the revolution' forcing the worker under the iron hand of a new ruling class that arose out of the historical inevitability that is: the socialist state does not end exploitation, it merely reorganizes it.

Yet despite its shortcomings the Marxist state realized is a historical necessity, a historical inevitability. The revolution will not materialize for the first time in Franken, for the Franken worker only knows the capitalist exploitation system. The proletarian movements of the Germanian continent have entered into an unholy alliance with the capitalist exploiters by compromising and lending their support to the bourgeoisie. While this alliance will ultimately discredit the socialist ideology for the Franken workers, it sufficiently silences their revolutionary spirit for long enough for the proletariat elsewhere to take the glory of the first revolution. This proletariat will be the Kyvan proletariat.

Why? The Kyvan proletariat has successfully overcome the fallacies of monopoly capitalism and has now established a system of state monopolism. The inherent contradictions of the Marxist ideology will result in the fall of the Kyvan system. Yet a return to the old system is impossible, for the class consciousness of the Kyvan proletariat will already have grown to a level where it will not become a prisoner of the bourgeoisie again. It is at this point in time that the Marxist system as the final step in human development will be overcome and the revolution will establish itself on the ruins of this failed experiment.

As revolutionaries we therefore have to support the socialist revolution wherever it occurs, because where the socialist system arises, the arrival of genuine freedom is within reach.

- Oide Rokuro: An Introduction to Scientific Materialism

 

[Touzen]

The Department for Anti-National Defense and Citizen Agitation announces:

That whoever is found guilty of haboring, supporting, joinining, aligning or associating with Comradist-Hirakiite Elements will be punished with a jail sentence not under 5 years,

That whoever is found guilty of using Comradist-Hirakiite terminology including, but not limited to, 'Comrade', 'Permanent Revolution' or 'Monopol Politicism' outside of a historical/informative-agitatory context will be punished with a jail sentence not under 3 months,

That whoever is found guily of supporting movements or elements seeking to impose anti-dialectic developments upon society will be punished with life in prison or death.


This is the will of the Citizenry as expressed by the Assembly of the Free Citizenry and loyally executed by the Directory of Revolutionary Defense.

Forever Free.

For the Department of Revolutionary Defense
Department of Anti-National Defense and Citizen Agitation

Citizen Kogara Takeshi