Ideology matrix

Well,I don't know about LWR being Titioism,as Yugoslavia was actually a socialist state and was ruled by the Communist party like the WP countries,but Yugoslavia wasn't as authoritarian as them.So I would say LWR fits for the countries that were not socialist and governed by communist parties like PRC,USSR or SFRY (not to say that the regimes in those countries were same),like Egypt or Iraq.

Titoism is not a good substitute for Left-wing-radical because then you'd have only a couple of countries, if not only one, with such an orientation. Best way would be to put Yugoslavia under the Communist camp (LE) as it was after all a communist country despite not closely following the Soviet model. Egypt and Iraq would then fit very good as LWR.

Sorry to bump,but where can I put these codes?

Concerning YUG,here is what I think it should look like:

Also,I would suggest renaming some ideologies:
Nationalist Dictatorship to Nationalist or Nationalist Autocrat.
Maoist to Radical Communist.
Religious Dictatorship to Right-Wing Extremist.

I think you should change FA to Nationalist (Autocrat),though,as the ideologies are not only the ones of the country's regime,but of the minister too,and it is silly to have a minister called "Nationalist Dictatorship")

I second Great Duck's proposal regarding Yugoslavia's starting slider positions.

Iran would not be national socialist in any case. During the most radical period, 1980-1988, it was not remotely nationalist. Iran under the Shah was nationalistic, and he tried everything he could to resemble the emperors of ancient Persia, and playing on Aryan supremacy. This was discuraged during the 80's in Iran. The total denial of the historial roots and nationalism in Iran has actually given rise to a fairly good portion of people who label themself 'national socialists'. They are in strong opposition to the government.

It is not until recent years that Iran has begun to recognize it's historical roots again.

National Socialism, as a radical form of fascism, is the utmost form of statism, meaning that the state is everything. This is only possible to find small traces of in Iran, mostly in the large portion of the economy which is own by the state.

Militarism isn't particulary strong in Iran either, except during the Iraq-Iran war. It is now the lowest per capita spender in the middle east, apart from UAE. It should also be noted that the revolution itself was a 'Ghandi' one from the people who overthrew the Shah. Iran also spoke of 'defending the poor and oppressed', rather than 'survival of the fittest', which is an earmark of the fascist ideoligy. After the democratic reforms in the late 80's, Iran would simply be categorized 'conservatist', or 'reactionary'. It should be Paternal Autocrat from the revolution to 88, with perhaps a small period of 'left wing radical' in the first months after the revolution. The theocracy removed and arrested the socialist and communists who where a large part of the force behind the revolution in order to pave way for a true islamic state.

The Islamic Republic of Iran was not more autocratic than the Shah, only more conservative, (islamic law) less nationalistic, and with a more closed society.

Taliban would fit to the fundamentalist label. Keep also in mind that Iran has fought (via the northern alliance) a proxy war against them, and that they are bitter enemies.

Also, one can only critizise that much without offering help. This site should be gold to you. It features democracy-autocratic positions of countries from 1945-2006. The scale is from minus 10 to pluss 10, with + 10 the most democratic.

http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm - Choose countries in the lower part of the site.

Note that it does not measure oppression, but how the country is de facto ruled. A democratic regime can be brutal and oppressing too, but this should not be featured in any such scale. I have used a similar source for the new version of MDS2. (which only featured year 2003 )

The site doesn't open for me...

Here's a very different idea for ideologies for your consideration:
PA-->Paternalist (Nationalist also sounds good)
FA-->Oligarchist (means rule by a few) or Dictatorial
NS-->Absolutist
LWR-->Radical Socialist or keep as is
LE-->Orthodox Communist
ST-->Orwellian or Utopian Communist

An Absolutist government could either be a theocracy or an ultra-militarist state. Several noted Asian regimes that are democratic today went through a fascist period--South Korea under Park Chung Hee and Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew. The latter was a classmate of Sir Oswald Moseley.

I don't really believe that Kruschev and his successors actually opened up the economy at all--they just relaxed some of the repressive measures so there was some improvement in personal freedom, but I think the USSR was still Stalinist in an economic sense up to Gorbachev's time, when it became Leninist and finally collapsed.

Orwellian could certainly apply to Mugabe's government or the North Korean system today as well as Pol Pot's Cambodia. Cuba today is really more Leninist (Orthodox Communist), as there is a government sanctioned private sector. I believe Lenininst implies government sanctioning of limited free enterprise, in line with Lenin's New Economic Policy, whereas Stalinism means that all this is suppressed.

Burma's regime is certainly quite radical but I'm not sure whether it should be regarded as extreme right or extreme left--my guess is it fits extreme right better. It's fairly close to "National Socialism" IMO.

I suspect Iran's government, despite all the propaganda, is really more PA. You can be very repressive in terms of religion without being repressive in other ways. I suspect PA<-->SC is more or less a norm for Islamic states, even though some have experimented with more leftist approaches.

Re: "Left Wing Radical" -- To me that implies that even though the government is decidedly leftist and that there are some limits on freedom, the economy is open to large-scale private enterprise, including foreign investment. During the last years Yugoslavia was definitely LWR, as foreign investors could actually own up to 50% of state enterprises. Yugoslavia also tried to export cars, though they didn't work out too well. (I would agree that it starts out Orthodox Communist). For that matter China today has so much capitalism that I could hardly consider it to be Orthodox Communist any more. And I can remember buying light bulbs made in Hungary as far back as the 1980s. The Soviet Satellites opened up their economies more than did the Soviet Union. LWR fits either a Communist Party state that extensively opens its economy to the private sector or to a South American style regime like pre-WW2 Brazil. Hope all this helps.

What about this? (from left to right)

-Anti-Revisionist (Maoism, Hoxhaism and Stalinism)
-Soviet Communist (Stalin's successor's, particulary Chrutsjov)
-Left-wing radical (Yugoslavia, Nasserism & Luxemburgism)
-Social Democrat
-Social Liberal
-Neoliberal
-National Conservative
-Military Dictatorship (note: this doesn't mean Junta, altough it can be applied on junta's with a relatively liberal policy, it can also denote Ultra-Nationalist and Conservative nations as Pre-1975 Spain, Morocco under Hassan II and Pre-'79 Iran, all who were Monarchies who derived most of its power from the military during most of the cold war)
-Ultra-Nationalist (Replaces Fascism)
-National Revolutionary (Can denote NS but also Syrian Ba'athism and the like)

Just a point; why is the third group of nations in the CW mod asian Communists?

First off the NATO countries include Australia, Japan and South Korea? therefore a larger Comm group should theoretically include China, North Korea and North Vietnam. - In a third world war setting were thinking that Jap and Australia would join agains the WP nations but why would NK and North Vietnam stay neutral?

Second the China - Soviet split only occured in 1959 and even that is theoretically preventable. They did sign a 30 year peace treaty and in '55 were heavily exchanging technology and expertise with eachother... Obviously an allied behaviour, as modelled in Hoi2.

Third Even in a sino-soviet split, China never aligned itself with other communist countries except Albania. North Korea largely kept to its own version of Socialism and so did Vietnam who remained allied to the Soviets untill the late 80s...

China, NK and Vietnam therefore should remain Communist - as we appear to keep Japan Australia and other first world countries in the NATO/democratic sphere... basically Communism VS Democracy
- China should be allowed to split up through events in 1959-63 timeframe... becomming isolationist

The third ideology should Realisticly be Non-Aligned Countries - Led by India etc. basically a bloc of self interested nationalistic nations
OR
a theoretical bloc of Arab states linked with Naserism ie. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lybia etc.. to add more to the historical flavor.

thoughts and ideas?

North Vietnam wasnt pro-Chinese,but Cambodia was.After the split China and USSR supported different factions in proxy wars,and so I think we should not change it.Only I think the name should be changed to Maoists,as some of them,like Albania,were not Asian.

kami888 said:

USSR no longer exists, so no one cares. Nowadays the ideology is referred to simply as Communist even in Russia.

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Sorry i have to say because i am a member of the Brittish Communist Party we are strictly marx-lenninist and we make that clear to all our members and out rivals

SoyuzSovietskii said:

If I may just throw my two cents in, to give a communist's view of the whole spiel....

The Sino-Soviet split was over the issue of revisionism- Kruschev reintroducing limited private property, his policy of 'peaceful coexistence' with the west, and the rampant careerism and cronyism practiced by the leaders of the post-Stalin USSR.

Though the post-Stalin USSR still professed to be Marxist-Leninist, they were often referred to as 'Eurocommunist' which reflects their less radical nature- I think this would be the perfect substitute for 'Leninist'.

One problem I had with the original ideology matrix was the difference between Leninism and Stalinism, when in fact the two are synonymous- Stalin's policies are Lenin's theory put into practice. Absolute hardline communism, in my opinion (absolute authoritarian, absolute left), should just be plain 'Marxism-Leninism'.

'Castroite' or 'Castroism' isn't really a word... As a substitute for 'Left-Wing Radical' I'd use "Titoite", as Titoism (a la Josip Broz Tito) - reflecting all the pseudo-socialistic nations that were left-leaning but not officially aligned with the Eurocommunist or the Anti-Revisionist blocs- (for example, Nasser's Egypt, Tito's Yugoslavia, Saddam Hussein's Iraq)

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I agree quite a bit with this dude.

I'm also bothered by some of the Social Democracy qualities. If I decided to make the USSR completely democratic, leftist, while retaining central planning, its not social democracy at all.

I personally think such an ideology would fit under Council-communism, Anarchist-Communism, or whichever you choose.

I am sorry to post this late i just found this topic.
I dont know if it is still being worked on at all, but generally on a left-right axis the categories should be mirrored.
As you only have three definitons, they should be quite broad, as the original game mechanics are.

For example:

Totalitiarian Left - Extreme Left -Left Wing Radical - Right Wing Radical -Extreme Right -Totalitarian Right

Gweed said:

I agree quite a bit with this dude.

I'm also bothered by some of the Social Democracy qualities. If I decided to make the USSR completely democratic, leftist, while retaining central planning, its not social democracy at all.

I personally think such an ideology would fit under Council-communism, Anarchist-Communism, or whichever you choose.

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Though this thread is a joke (the most revolutionary politics are Stalinism and Maoism? Jesus Christ), that wouldn't be councilist or anarcho-communist at all. There's no economy in the capitalist sense, in a direct democracy therefore there is no planning. There's no centralisation either, rather federated communes. Nor does it fall into the left wing of capital, right wing of capital paradigm either, as capital would be abolished obviously.