Veltorina

The Veltorine People's Republic was a country in northeastern Sarpedon from the end of the 18th through the middle of the 20th centuries.

Beginning in the medieval period through the early modern period, the eastern provinces were sites of constant political, social, and religious upheaval and were home to the Veltorine people. Unlike other parts of the country, much of Veltorina retained a fierce devotion to the Catholic Church after the adoption of Imperial Catholicism, creating a vast religious divide between the eastern and western parts of the nation which enhanced the already extant cultural divides. The Catholic Church, though underground, retained a great deal of influence over eastern society. Those residing in the eastern provinces, additionally, were far more likely to have some partial degree of Istroyan descent rather than the Latinic majority of western Caphiria. The social and religious divide was compounded by the distance of the provinces from Venceia, which, in the pre-modern era, struggled with supply and reinforcement issues. As a result of all of this, Veltorina developed a national identity related to, but independent of, the Caphirian people.

Gaining independence from Caphiria after the long Veltorine War of Independence from 1769-1782. Established by the landed class of former eastern Caphiria, the nation was a largely rural and agricultural country for the first half of the 19th century, and contemporaries noted the excessive level of social stratification between the class of planters and serfs. The sudden Tyrian Revolution in 1864 seized control of the country, becoming the first state of its kind in the Occidental world. Following a period of rapid industrialization, which alarmed both Caphiria and Urcea, the revolution came to a functional end and the state became stable with the creation of the office of State Basileus in 1892. A relatively modern and industrialized country, Veltorina was a prior to the Great War. Invaded by Caphiria during the conflict, it became a primary front of the conflict and saw heavy involvement of the Armed Forces of the Apostolic Kingdom of Urcea before it was ultimately annexed by Caphiria at the end of the war. Following its annexation, it became the modern provinces of Thessia, Leonia, Amarsia, and Sennium, the so-called "Four New Provinces". The Veltorine government-in-exile continues to exist, and from 1953-2014 it enjoyed residency in Talionia, where it attracted large hosts of Veltorine emigres.

Continuing Revolution
The continued inability of revolutionary leaders to agree on form of the State in both the ideological and pragmatic sense lead to an agreement among leaders of the Socialist Party, especially Marcos Laudopoulous, to have the Party itself directly govern the country on a provisional basis. The annual party congresses were replaced, in 1867, with what has been called the "Long Congress" - a standing Assembly of the Socialist Movement directly governing the country without adjourning. Party leaders dubbed the new state of affairs the "Continuing Revolution", vowing to bring about social equality in the country along with large scale industrialization. In accordance with these goals, the party renamed itself the Socialist Revolutionary Industrial Progress Party in 1869.

The industrialization program in Veltorina encountered difficulty during the first decade of the Continuing Revolution, as the government often lacked the resources necessary to establish manufacturing resource chains and contact with foreign capital was not an option. Four different rounds of land redistribution in 1865, 1866, 1869, and 1872 provided short-term material benefit for the government, creating enough material to finish early factory construction but creating famine and economic difficulty in the process. The weakening economy destabilized the government, allowing Marcos Laudopoulous to grow more prominent within the Party apparatus.

Government and politics
Following the Constitution of 1892, Veltorina was governed, nominally, as a parliamentary republic with  characteristics. While the ruling Socialist Revolutionary Industrial Progress Party (SRIPP) was the only party allowed to exercise official government responsibilities, the legalization of freedom of assembly in 1892 allowed the formation of "interest groups" who, although all members of the SRIPP, functionally formed rival organized political factions. Whether or not the state was a single-party state in actuality has been an object of considerable debate among historians and political scientists. Although upstart political parties directly at odds with SRIPP were brutally repressed, the ideology of the SRIPP itself was essentially dependent on whichever faction was ascendant. A majority view among scholars is that the SRIPP essentially functioned as a quasi-democratic government agency rather than a political party, essentially making Veltorina an imperfect multi-party democracy.

The Constitution of 1892 created five main organs of state. Replacing Veltorina's earlier, quasi- executive committee, the Constitution provided for a State Basileus, serving as and de facto  as well as head of the armed forces.

The State Basileus served at the pleasure of what the Constitution called the "key state institution", the Vanguard of the Socialist Revolutionary Industrial Progress Party, commonly referred to just as "the Vanguard". The Vanguard was comprised of eleven individuals who served as the official head of the SRIPP, and the State Basileus served as Chair of the Vanguard. The Vanguard was not a legislative body as such but rather was responsible for the absolute direction of party policy, endorsing or prohibiting positions which party members might take within the context of government. In theory, the Vanguard was intended to serve as the "soft moral guidance for the State" to ensure the "absolute integrity of Veltorine socialism", but in practice the Vanguard typically served as the front line for inter-party factional disputes. Victors within these disputes would often have enough power to replace the State Basileus. Critics of this system have described it as "allowing for unending chains of s", while the systems proponents have likened the process to motions in more traditionally democratic systems. The Vanguard served as the ideological, and ultimately constitutional, nerve center of the State. Members of the Vanguard, besides the Basileus and Convocation Speaker, were chosen or reaffirmed at annual party congresses, and it was an institution created by the 1892 Constitution.

The chief legislative body of Veltorina was known as the National Convocation for the Socialist Movement and it was created by the 1892 Constitution. It oversaw the "regular" law and administrative code of State and was responsible for amending the Constitution. In practice, the National Convocation could not propose, adopt, or otherwise pass measures that the Vanguard prohibited Socialist Party members from approving. As such, though it was constitutionally enshrined as the national legislature, it largely served as the main administrative body of the country but a body of secondary political importance. The 357 members of the Convocation were elected by a nationwide vote with a mechanism allowing for proportional regional representation, with the formula for apportionment changing every term. The terms lasted five years and members could not serve consecutive terms, though non-consecutive terms were extremely common. Any member of the SRIPP in good standing was eligible to run for the Convocation. The Convocation, each term, elected a Speaker, who served as the presiding officer and also served as a member of the Vanguard.

Theoretically independent from the government but key to its functioning were the annual party congresses, and in particular institutions known as Assembly of the Socialist Movement, which were held as the voting mechanism of senior party officials from throughout the country. The Assembly, which had been the primary decision-making body of the State prior to 1892, had no authority to change party doctrine or ideology but were solely responsible for selecting or removing members of the Vanguard. The senior members voting within the Assembly were those chosen by the Party Prefect for each Prefecture.

The final key government organ were the Prefectures, the territorial division of the country. The Prefectures had two senior officials; the "State Prefect", an administrative role appointed by the Convocation, and the "Party Prefect", the political head of the Prefecture who had "veto" power over the State Prefect. Party Prefects were elected by mass assemblies of party members in good standing, and served until removed from office by any subsequent mass assembles, which were held irregularly. The Party Prefect was nominally responsible for interpreting and directing the ideological initiatives of the Vanguard within the Prefecture, but in reality most Party Prefects attempted to sway the position of the Vanguard. The Party Prefect held the ability to direct the State Prefect's actions, and also appointed individuals to vote at the annual party congress.

By the dawn of the 20th century, the factions in charge of the Vanguard were largely considered to be "semi-" in outlook, leading to a relative open society as well as a mostly democratic political system, provided that one was a member of the SRIPP. During the time the Constitution was in effect, beyond the baseline of what the Vanguard allowed, the degree of freedom and political autonomy was largely dependent on the current Party Prefect and political conditions within one's prefecture.

Culture
Like Caphiria, Veltorine society was highly stratified. Although the institutional significance of ordo was less pronounced in Veltorina and traditional distinctions in social rank began to blur not long after independence, there nonetheless remained a clear hierarchy between the aristocracy and the peasant majority. A large percentage of the latter were serfs until the abolition of serfdom in 1843, and a smaller percentage were held as slaves until 1897 - a source of constant scandal for a self-avowed "socialist" state.