The End of Open Warfare — The Iron Heel

As Avis's father embraces proletarian life through various working-class jobs, finding joy in direct investigation of social conditions, the political situation deteriorates rapidly. The socialist congressmen take their seats without incident, but this apparent victory masks a trap. When Granger politicians are prevented from taking office in states they won, violence erupts, but it's orchestrated violence. The Iron Heel uses agents-provocateurs to incite the Peasant Revolt, then crushes it brutally. Eleven thousand people are massacred in Sacramento alone.

Similar bloodbaths occur across Granger states, with farmers shot, hanged, and their communities destroyed. The militia law forces workers to kill their fellow workers in other states, while deserters who flee to the mountains are hunted down and executed without trial. The Kansas militia mutiny results in six thousand deaths when the Iron Heel traps and annihilates the entire unit. Simultaneously, three-quarters of a million coal miners strike but are crushed in the first great 'slave-drive' under the brutal Pocock.

Through all this carnage, the socialists hold firm, avoiding the trap of premature uprising. Instead, they develop a sophisticated underground network: weeding out enemy agents, organizing Fighting Groups for targeted resistance, and infiltrating the Iron Heel's own organization. This shadow war becomes a deadly game of espionage where trust is impossible but essential, and betrayal means death. The Revolution transforms into something resembling a religion, with absolute devotion to the cause of human liberty.