As with the officer corps, the diplomatic corps of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was traditionally aristocratic. The appointment of Ludmila Auředníková, who didn’t have a drop of blue blood in her veins, was against all the regulations, not to mention the fact that she was a woman. Nevertheless, the sovereign appointment of a woman of plebeian blood to the head of the embassy in Icaria did not shock anyone. This was because no-one from the aristocracy had applied for the post, which had been vacated following the death of Prince Dietrichstein, while the emperor was prevented from appointing the standing consul as ambassador because he was a Jew. However, the Icarian Union was a world power and the occupation of such an important office could not be postponed. When the Czech governorship proposed Miss Auředníková, it appeared that an intellectual match for the deceased prince would have to come from the untitled civil servants of the ministry of foreign affairs. Auředníková’s well-known intellectual abilities were beyond doubt, and so a number of high-ranking aristocrats welcomed sending her across the sea.

If her brother had not promised her that after three years she would return and remain in the diplomatic service, the stories of a dull life in Icaria might have discouraged her. But she assumed that he was including her in his political intrigues and so she decided to accommodate him. At twenty-nine, sacrificing her career for three years was not a bad trade-off.

From her matter-of-fact view of the world she had known for a long time that she was no beauty. It was enough to look in the mirror to see that she had a hooked nose, an overly large mouth, a short neck and a stoop, as well as a large behind and thin legs, but she had a charm which was the envy of the majority of women. She was always surrounded by men she had managed to bedazzle with her incisive opinions. Along with her eloquent eyes and distinctive lips, she was also fond of her wavy chestnut hair which did not require the sheen from expensive shampoos (while it also managed to hide a lump of fat on her back). Basically, however, she was not particularly surprised that she aroused such passion in men. What was more of a mystery was why all of her lovers, despite being passionately in love with her and potent in their marriages, were all so disappointing in bed. The same fate also befell her psychoanalyst. As usual she got what she wanted — he was passionately in love with her, but when he fell upon her on the analyst’s couch, he ended up like the others. It took her a long time to realise that this was her curse, after which she made no further attempts in that direction. Later, the psychoanalyst said that the blame must lie with Ludmila’s domineering intellect that castrated men, which makes you wonder in his case because he set great store by his intellect.

But whatever the reasons were for her misfortune, she had to come to terms with it and satisfy other practical needs, which could only be achieved through marrying into the highest social circles. Given the state of affairs, the husband’s age was of little importance, and if she were to find herself in those circles as ambassador, then she would hunt down some rich widower with pedigree. She and her brother came from a lowly background, but unlike the other eight siblings who were easy to please, those two had been obsessed by an ambition to break free from a young age. Petr was fascinated by power and she by luxury.

The Icarian Union was, after all, the most productive power on Earth. Even though it wasn’t very attractive for a European, the position of ambassador would itself be an interesting experience. She would find out in situ what was true and what were fabrications. Nevertheless, she was in no rush and didn’t even fly to New Amsterdam, choosing instead to travel by ship. The journey across the Atlantic was calm for the most part and so she sat on the upper deck and studied her literature consisting of a few books on the history and pre-history of the Icarian Union which she had packed along with her luggage. When she stepped onto the American coast she was able to name by heart all of the presidents, starting with Cabet and ending with the incumbent president, Cartier.

She knew practically nothing about the origins of Icaria and found it captivating. She didn’t know, for example, that the North of the former Union of American States was socially and culturally different from the South, and that differing economic interests led to the inevitable conflict between North and South. The South of the country exported its agricultural products, such as cotton and tobacco, while the North with its developing industry prevented the import of industrial goods from Europe. This also related to the position regarding slavery. The farming aristocracy in the South could not imagine any further development without slave labour, whilst industry in the North required a mass workforce. The Republican North introduced measures to protect the young industry, thus creating political centralism, whereas the Democratic South supported free trade and maximum autonomy for the individual states of the Union.

The fact that it did not disintegrate was a miracle brought about by the intellectual compatibility of two remarkable men whose decisive influence in resurrecting the dying Union was completely unexpected. One of them was the effective founder of Icaria, Abraham Lincoln, from the slave state of Kentucky. He was a self-made man, later expanding upon his secondary-school education through self-study, while during his formative political years he diligently continued with his studies in law. After passing his exams, he was accepted into the bar association of the state of Illinois in 1836, and the following year he and a colleague established a legal office in Springfield, which was then the state’s new capital. However, as a lawyer he lived in relative poverty for a number of years, which was why Mary Todd’s parents, rich slave owners from Kentucky, refused point blank to allow their daughter to marry him. From 1842, when Lincoln finally married Mary, until 1846, he devoted himself completely to his legal practice. He was known as a specialist in railroad law and became relatively wealthy. He returned to politics in 1846 and was elected onto the Whigs’ committee of representatives. In Washington, the then capital of the USA, he stood out as a critic of the war in Mexico. However, he was not satisfied with a career as a parliamentary speaker. It was when he became acquainted with the ideas of Étienne Cabet, the second remarkable man in our American story, that he began to seriously ponder the future of the Union. This was why he rejected President Zacharias Taylor’s offer to become the governor of the new territory in Oregon, and in 1849 he returned to Springfield. He left politics for the next five years, though he continued to write to Cabet,

Étienne Cabet was a Frenchman who was born in Dijon on 1 January 1788. His father, Claude, had a cooperage business and assumed that all of his sons, including Étienne, would continue in the trade. However, the boy had been short-sighted since birth and sooner or later would have lost his fingers. Thankfully, he was a good pupil and the school headmaster instructed him in mathematics, astronomy and drawing. Dijon became an important Jacobin centre during the revolution and so he was introduced to communist ideas during his childhood. After graduating in law in 1812 he became the chief judicial clerk in Napoleon’s birthplace of Corsica. He hoped that the emperor would introduce liberal reforms and take steps to improve the situation of the poor, but he quickly became disillusioned as the longer the emperor sat on the throne, the more conservative he became. In 1831 Cabet stood for parliament for the opposition party in his home town. He won and immediately began to organize a united republican movement. He wasn’t particularly successful in parliament, though he gained greater recognition outside of it. In 1833 he became the general secretary of the Free Society for People’s Education, a voluntary organisation which provided free education to poor Paris workers. He edited the newspaper Le Fondateur and established the weekly Le Populaire, which became the most popular republican publication of its day.

Cabet’s increasingly radical ideas, his growing interest in neo-Jacobin doctrines, his promotion of revolution and his attempts to educate the workers in political matters, all proved to be a thorn in the side of the imperial authorities. He was arrested and after a short trial found guilty. He was given the choice of either two years in jail and the loss of his civic rights for four years, or five years in exile. He, therefore, moved to Brussels, from where he was also soon deported, and ended up in England. The years spent in exile in England were of vital importance for his intellectual development. Firstly, he switched from radical republicanism to an equally uncompromising communism. His study of modern economics led him to the conclusion that rule by the bourgeoisie was based on private ownership and that any attempts to improve the living conditions of the proletariat were unthinkable without introducing a system of communal ownership. He met other exiled French radicals in England, many of whom were inclined towards communism, but most importantly he met Robert Owen and his supporters, while he also remained open to some ideas from Christianity. After reading Moore’s Utopia, he was inspired to write about a utopia based on his own ideas.

He finished his Voyage to Icaria in 1838 and immediately after his return to France attempted to put his ideas into practice. He began to organise the Icarian movement, whose strategy was based on the pacifist communism he described in his novel. He was a prolific propagandist and in a relatively short time had created around him by far the largest utopian-socialist movement of its day. He could boast of between one hundred and two hundred thousand followers, which was a more than respectable number.

Unlike the French communists, who were committed to a violent overthrowal of the imperial regime, the Icarians’ emphasis was on respect for the law. Therefore, Cabet organised the movement completely transparently and had nothing to do with any of the other illegal movements. In Le Populaire, which he once again began to publish, he promoted communism as the new Christianity. This theme was also explored in another of his books, True Christianity According to Jesus Christ. Despite having mass support, the conditions in Europe and the Bonapartist regime were so stable that it was doubtful whether a communist regime could be installed using legal means. The bourgeoisie which came into power after Napoleon I not only ignored all of the workers’ offers of cooperation, but they also supported the government’s persecution of socialists and communists. After the economic crisis, which reached its height in the winter of 1846-1847 when the workers started to press for the violent overthrowal of the Bonapartist regime, the strategy of legal, non-violent change came openly under attack. It was under these circumstances that Cabet decided to leave France with between ten and twenty thousand followers to establish an Icarian community in America. It is interesting to note that his intention to establish a socially just Christian state on the American continent was financially supported by the French government. Napoleon III’s reasoning was that the establishment of an independent Iscaria would lead to the mass emigration of left-wing fanatics from France. He was not wrong in his thinking, even though this did not seem to be the case at the beginning.

The decision to emigrate cost Cabet many of his loyal supporters. However, he defended his emigration citing the words of Jesus, ‘Whenever they persecute you in one place, flee for another.’ Before leaving, he published the Communist Manifesto in Le Populaire with its demands for workers’ guaranteed rights, particularly the right to work and to a decent salary. However, there was nothing in the Manifesto about ending private ownership and there was not a single mention of the revolutionary conquest of America. The result was the end of the Icarian movement in France. For those who had joined the project, they were disheartened by an article where he proposed a dictatorship by the movement’s general director. This would last ten years, and even though he suggested the director could be deposed before then if he lost the people’s confidence, Cabet did not describe the practical mechanisms by which he could be removed. However, he could not be dissuaded and in the summer of 1847 he joined with Owen, who had suggested a suitable place to establish Icaria in America. This was virgin territory along the Red River and the preparations were immediately made to send a vanguard. On 3 February 1848, sixty-nine Icarian pioneers boarded the boat Rome and sailed to New Orleans. As representatives of their allies, France, the exploratory group was greeted by a salvo of cannons.

Cabet, though, was not among them. Although he had said that he would arrive in Icaria in two weeks, the journey was hard and dangerous, and Texas was so far away that he didn’t arrive there until 2 June. They didn’t have to wait long for further disappointments. The settlers had imagined that they would be given one million acres, but the land allocation regulations limited the maximum area to 320 acres for a married couple and 160 acres for an unmarried person, and this was not even land that was adjacent to each other. Naturally this ruled out the establishment of a self-sustaining community. By as early as mid-August most of the settlement workers had been worn down by the new environment and way of life which was different to the one they were accustomed to in Europe. Seven people succumbed to fever, one was killed by lightning and four fled. Then just as they had voted to leave Icaria, the second exploratory group arrived, and so they decided to stay. In the period between August and November, another seven groups left from France to Texas, though of course none of them had any idea of the problems that lay ahead. At any rate, Étienne Cabet felt that the danger had passed and no longer delayed his departure from France.

On the last day of 1848 he finally arrived in New Amsterdam, and as fortune would have it, he spent the days before his departure for Icaria at the home of Abraham Lincoln. After arriving in New Orleans he organized a meeting of the Icarians where they were to decide on the future of the colony. Those who wanted to return were given money for the journey, but the majority (280 settlers in total) decided to move to a more suitable place. On 1 March they set out for Nauvoo in Illinois, a town on the Mississippi which had recently been vacated by Mormons. This time the Icarian community was established without too many problems, in part thanks to Cabet’s presence and organizational abilities. The priorities were to provide dwellings for everyone and organize work, education and recreation. In February 1851 the parliament of the state of Illinois granted the Icarian community the status of a joint-stock company with capital of one hundred thousand dollars. In accordance with the principles of equality, no-one was allowed to own more than one share to the value of one hundred dollars. The company was to have six directors elected for one year, who would elect a president from among them. In reality, though, President Cabet was in control of everything.

Soon, however, opposition towards his authoritarian behaviour caused new friction. In particular, people quickly grew tired of the detailed regulations which restricted their social and private lives. By the end of 1853 they already had to observe 48 rules. They were forced to show that they were well acquainted with the relevant Icarian texts, that they could fully adapt to the Icarian way of life, and put into practice for themselves the fundamental communist principles contained in Cabet’s books: respect for order, organization and discipline, avoid smoking and drinking hard alcohol, get married, become a true Christian, entrust the community with the education of your children, etc.

In December 1855 Cabet realized that the issue of his power was causing such turmoil within the community that he had no other alternative than to present an ultimatum to the community asking them to choose between him and his critics. He believed that the best solution was to present to the assembly a series of constitutional amendments which if approved would greatly strengthen the power of the president. For example, he proposed that the presidential term of office should be extended to four years and that the president should be responsible for the administration of community matters and compliance with Icarian laws. This strategy united the opposition and he was forced to consider a compromise.

Although he was re-elected, many of the Icarians were no longer satisfied with life in the community and several decided that it would be better to leave. Shortly after his re-election, 57 men, women and children left the community and the fate of the Icarian community was left hanging in the balance, and so he proposed that the community be divided in two, with one part remaining in Nauvoo and the second moving to south-west Iowa, where they had started work on a second Icarian base in 1853. This proposal failed to receive the requisite support and the opposition succeeded in pushing for the appointment of a commission which would examine the president’s management of the community’s finances. The schism came to a head when Cabet led a group of his supporters to an area near the Icarian community which they started to call Little Icaria. Two months later they moved to Saint Louis, where just a few days later Étienne Cabet suffered a serious brain haemorrhage and died at 5am on 8 November 1856.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that his personality and ideals had influenced the thinking of Abraham Lincoln during the windstorm of the conflict between North and South, then the vision of a sunny Icaria would never have materialized. It was the course of the Civil War in Kansas and Cabet’s ideas which led Lincoln to the belief that waiting until conditions were ripe in the South for the abolition of slavery would only lead to the Union returning to a state of feudal barbarity. This brought him back to the political struggle, though this time with the clear goal of abolishing slavery across the USA and reforming the Union according to some slightly modified ideals from the Icranian community in his home town of Illinois. In his famous speech to parliament in the state of Illinois on 16 June 1858 he declared: A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. On 18 May 1860, the Republicans elected him as their candidate for the office of president, and when his verbal jousts forced the Democratic candidate to make statements questioning slavery, he became the American president of the Union in autumn.

However, within four months of his election, until 4 March 1861 when he had to swear his oath, the country stood on the brink of civil war. The prospect of seizing power had inspired the southern extremists to rebel, and between 20 December 1860 and 22 February 1861, seven states left the Union, starting with South Carolina and ending with Texas. The outgoing president, James Buchanan, had been unable to prevent this, and so Lincoln, despite not having sworn his oath, surprised both the Republicans and Democrats by signing a treaty of mutual cooperation with France, and even more surprisingly, by announcing the Icarian Union as a successor state to the Union. The French troops did not disembark in Mexico, as the emperor had planned, but in the rebellious South. By doing so, Napoleon III was fulfilling a promise, four years after the death of Cabet, that if the Icarian Community was threatened by the Union, he would send help to the Icarians. He thus acquired future economic influence in the American continent at the expense of Great Britain.

Leo Altschul, Ludmila’s consul at the embassy, later explained to Ludmila that France’s economic interests were not the only reason for Napoleon III’s intervention in North America. The first contingents of French interventionist troops, who occupied the southern states of the Union for a short time, were almost to a man made up of zealous Icarians and communists, so the revolution which threatened in the French empire exploded in America. Under these circumstances the new president could adopt a conciliatory tone towards the South. He promised to avoid violent intervention, as the pacifism of Étienne Cabet obliged him to, but he would not allow the division of the country at any cost. It is up to you, my discontented fellow citizens, not me. The government will not intervene, but if it is war that you wish, then you shall have it. The indirect threat the South would remain under the control of France was much more effective than the threat from Icarian institutions. The sentence also made its impression on Ludmila: The government will not interfere, but if it is war that you wish, then you shall have it and she remembered it. This contradiction described the reality much more accurately than any high-sounding ramblings.

Although Lincoln had played an important role in the foundation of Icaria, and the Icarian Union was founded in 1861, Cabet’s successor was considered to be the new president. The capital of Icaria was reverentially moved to Nauvoo and despite the fact that Cabet’s utopian project in the New World had long since been considered a failure, thousands of French Icarians and supporters of socialist and communist ideas now saw Nauvoo as the New Jerusalem and besieged the shipping companies in Marseille and Toulouse in their desire to build their utopia in America. Within a few years 200,000 families, or nearly one million people, had moved there. Another 200,000 families later moved there from France on the pretext that they had been carrying out political activity in the empire on behalf of a foreign power. It is necessary to add that at least one third were immediately interned upon disembarkation and sent for re-education, while the rest of the unorthodox utopians were scattered across Icaria to areas where there was still fighting with Native Americans. Lincoln and his successors also faced problems from the English, Dutch and Germans, who from the initial stages of the independent Icaria had rebelled against the Icarian ideals for religious reasons. In order to implement egalitarianism, the liberation of the slaves was only part of the solution. Lincoln’s trump card, then, was to arm the French National Guard with a military arsenal and introduce compulsory school attendance, which guaranteed an education for future generations in the spirit of the new ideals.

In terms of further economic and political development, one decisive triumph for Icaria was Cabet’s one-time interest in the Fulton plan for a steam-powered vessel. The otherwise astute Napoleon I had laughed at Fulton. However, within a short time in government Cabet provided him with the financial resources to build the first steamboat. Abraham Lincoln also followed in his footsteps and began to build a fleet of naval steamboats. This soon became an impermeable barrier against unwanted goods from Europe and unwanted Europeans. With their innovative approach to the development of industry and technology, Cabet’s ideas found their way into Republicans’ hearts. Heavy industry, employing a mass labour-force, was also responsible for the development of commerce and light industry. However, it also produced agricultural machines, and the rapidly evolving technology silenced even the most stalwart defenders of the traditional order in the South. In the 20th century, Icaria was the most productive power on the planet, and the other powers were to be thankful that their lands were not militarily threatened due to its traditional isolationism. In peacetime they could profit from the technological progress on the other side of the Atlantic and live as they saw fit.

 

Translated from the Czech by Graeme Dibble