• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Agreed... people like to harp about how some communists expected their revolution to happen without much bloodshed... but in reality those communists would be forced to emulate the bolshevist brutality very quickly, because otherwise the anti-communists would have swept them away.

Leaving property and industry in private hands brought the difference between a violent revolution and a more peaceful raising of Hitler to power in Germany.
Switching to communist dictatorship with a 100% state property should be possible only in countries, where the majority of people don't own much. As is the case of tsarist Russia. If attempted in other conditions the resistance should be too great to overcome. Another possibility would be by a foreign force.
 
Agreed... people like to harp about how some communists expected their revolution to happen without much bloodshed... but in reality those communists would be forced to emulate the bolshevist brutality very quickly, because otherwise the anti-communists would have swept them away.

There's a reason why latter-day commies tend to latch onto failures - Rosa Luxemburg, Che, the Paris Commune, Republican Spain, Trotsky, ephemeral figures like Emma Goldman, or even running dog democratic socialists like Allende. It's because entrenched Marxist regimes go totalitarian quickly and without fail. You may be sure that if Pol Pot had been cut off in his prime he too would be seen as 'the one that got away'.
 
Luxemburg is 'latch onto' as her movement is the one example of communism in an industrial country, and it almost succeeded, it was only half an hour off being the legitimate german state. Would it have turned into a Totalitarian state? No, but it probably would have ended in an unstable centre-left social democracy with too heavy an emphasis on direct democracy and referendums to do much but halt to a stop.
But its a perfect example of a Communist movement in a Industrial county and of a Communist movement that was, at its heart Democratic.

And i do not point out this example because i am a communist, i am not. I don't think communism wouldn't work because it would end in dictatorship. I think it wouldn't work because its stupid, its an attempt to change people in order to fit them into an economic abstraction which relies on a denial of humanity and, most importantly, a denial of material pride. BUT regardless of whether or not I think communism is stupid, that doesn't change the fact that MILLIONS of people at the start of the last century were communists.

And alot of those millions would not suffer dictatorship, the English Communists [Not the Stalinists who would come later, who were international, not english in their ideology] are a good example even though they never came to anything but a general strike. While they dreamed every day of a Communist society, they would not suffer it to not be democratic, atleast to the extent that Britain was democratic if not more.
While its possible that a British Communist government might be totalitarian, it is impossible that it would want to.
unlike in Russia, which was a nation with autocracy deeply ingrained in its nation and as such Democracy as a unbendable dogma was not at the heart of her people, and so not in the heart of her communism.

As i said before i will repeat

A Totalitarian State is not necessarily Communist
and a Communist State is not necessarily Totalitarian

and as such, either should be able to exist either alongside the other, and with a alternatives for the other.

Just because a state, its constitution and its laws are founded on Communist doctrines, that doesn't mean it has to have 100% state ownership either.
just the same as modern nations laws and constitutions are founded on the bible and the magna carter, they dont have to be Christian and they dont have to barons.
 
Last edited:
There's a reason why latter-day commies tend to latch onto failures - Rosa Luxemburg, Che, the Paris Commune, Republican Spain, Trotsky, ephemeral figures like Emma Goldman, or even running dog democratic socialists like Allende. It's because entrenched Marxist regimes go totalitarian quickly and without fail. You may be sure that if Pol Pot had been cut off in his prime he too would be seen as 'the one that got away'.

Yeah, people like having a blank slate onto which they can project their ideals... ideals which are untainted by contact with reality... :eek:o

Anyways if you play a revolutionized country, I would love to see (in-game) the choices which reality forces upon your idealistic young country...

- do we disown all the capitalists, or postpone this for later?
- shall we build our own new army, or keep the king's army?
- shall we form a new secret police from our "reliable" knuckleheads and give them a free hand to terrorize the opposition, or do we seek a compromise with the bourgeois and risk having to sell out on the promises we made to our supporters?
- Shall we arrest the king and his family, to set a clear signal that we mean business, or let him move into exile and thereby avoid escalating tensions?

If you make your choices always towards compromise, then you would essentially get the "November-revolution" (revolution with lower case "r") that brought the Social Democrats to power in Germany in 1918, and which was eventually followed by a Communist uprising, put down by the old army. Germany stayed intact as a country and avoided a civil war, at the cost of protracted civil strife and having a largely powerless government for long stretches of time. Germany managed to preserve democracy for almost 15 years, but in another situation the Social Democrat policy of compromise may have led to a successful counter-revolution from a vengeful reactionary faction. Imagine Kerensky trying to hold on to power through compromise, and (if the Bolshevists aren't around) being overthrown by the likes of Kornilov eventually.

On the other hand if you make the choices towards escalation and against compromise, you would end up going down the Bolshevik route. But maybe you can avoid their worst excesses? You may be lucky and there may never be a White attempt at Counter-Revolution. So you don't have to keep those Czarist officers and those technical specialists, and you can build a totally new army and a totally new technical elite, without the need for such a vast secret police.

Would be fun, anyways... one of my favorite AARs from Vic1 was written about the Manhattan Commune, and about how they tried (in 1861 or so) to break free from the USA, inspired by Karl Marx himself. It was a really cool read. It had true villains, like a Stalin-esque character who seized the reins of revolution by appointing his cronies everywhere, and his nemesis, the Trostky-esque ideologue, whom he forced out of power (and killed personally IIRC) :D
 
A Totalitarian State is not necessarily Communist
I agree
and a Communist State is not necessarily Totalitarian
I disagree, but that doesn't matter, since it is not related to V2 much.
and as such, either should be able to exist either alongside the other, and with a alternatives for the other.
It seems to be so. You can have communist party running a government and elected because of the issues and in the same time not radical enough upper-house to institute dictatorship. I bet the chances are not big, but it should be possible to have democracy with communist party. But it wouldn't be called proletarian dictatorship.
 
No matter how well meaning, all radical regimes share a lethal self righteousness, an inability to admit fault or take blame, that taken together with their basic economic and social illiteracy almost inevitably leads into the abyss.
 
minor quibble, in germany the communist revolution happened first. and then a few months later once they had lost the popular support they had the first time a badly timed and organised coup was attempted.

and those decision for letting the player have the authority to decide the direction his revolution goes would be brilliant! much better than the all-this or not-at-all approach of Victoria the first.

The Prol Dict. should represent a system of government with Communist principles at the heart of its legislation.
Not the historic Soviet Union. thats the point im trying to make.

And being founded on Communism, does not necessarily mean a Brutal Dictatorship
 
No matter how well meaning, all radical regimes share a lethal self righteousness, an inability to admit fault or take blame, that taken together with their basic economic and social illiteracy almost inevitably leads into the abyss.

Judging from history, this seems to be the case for most regimes, period, not just the radical ones.
 
State ownership is central to the communist doctrine.

I will jump in and help the moderators.

Please if you want to discuss history, at least make an attempt to link it with in-game use :)

And to the point of communists... Not state ownership. Common ownership. It is possible to institute communism when the factories wouldn't be owned by state, but worker POPs and they would split all the income. It is possible and it corresponds with communism.

Also artisans can exist in communism. Some countries like Czechoslovakia went very far and destroyed them, but others like Poland didn't. When you work without employees, you don't exploit anyone and communists can let you go without comprimising their integrity. Actually your game might not change much after communism settles down and you as player won't see much difference.
 
Folks this thread is not meant to serve as a discussion of theory regarding the nature and relationship of communism and the power of the state, but rather to discuss game mechanics on how a totalitarian state should be modeled in game. If you want to continue the discussion of theories of the state in relation to various ideologies, please take your discussion over to the History forum where it properly belongs.
 
STOP DISCUSSING WHAT "REAL" COMMUNISM IS AND WHAT NOT!!!

Take it to the History forum if you want to discuss that. The Vic2 forum has had this f***ing topic 1000x already, it resulted in locked threads. Just Stop it!!! :mad:

This thread was started with the question of how a communist regime in the game should play out. That means, what reforms, what policies, what choices should a player have if his country has a communist revolution. Sid Meier explicitly asked if there would be "totalitarian" policies available, by which the player could stop the massive POP revolts from militant non-communist POPs who object to your rule.
 
Folks this thread is not meant to serve as a discussion of theory regarding the nature and relationship of communism and the power of the state, but rather to discuss game mechanics on how a totalitarian state should be modeled in game. If you want to continue the discussion of theories of the state in relation to various ideologies, please take your discussion over to the History forum where it properly belongs.

emu'd :eek:o
 
Folks this thread is not meant to serve as a discussion of theory regarding the nature and relationship of communism and the power of the state, but rather to discuss game mechanics on how a totalitarian state should be modeled in game. If you want to continue the discussion of theories of the state in relation to various ideologies, please take your discussion over to the History forum where it properly belongs.

Ok, I am sorry for that. In game mechanics terms totalitarism should give you the option to fix internal prices and salaries. Wich would free resource for a crash-course industrialization.
Some control over migration. For example, reduce emigration, when people want to get out. Greater effect to internal migration through the national focus system. During the reign of Stalin whole nations where relocated.
The problem of revolts could be handled in a broader implementation of any uprising mechanics. Before revolting, rebels should weight the militay power of the state and the forces against it, these are other rebels, countries at war, etc. If things look desperate they should wait for better times. If time passes by without change, they could say: "The hell with it!" and put up a fight anyway.
Like that a totalitarian state, wanting to industrialize rapidly on the expense of its people's standard of living, would have to maintain a large standing army.
 
Last edited:
Perhaps the result of a revolution could be decided by the affected country's National Value (I'm not sure if this mechanic from V1 will be in V2) or previous government type and/or ideology? A reactionary monarchy that values Order would be far more likely to take the historical USSR route, while a liberal democracy that values Liberty would resemble Trotsky's vision of American communism or Kaiserreich's Union of Britain?

If only a few revolutions succeed, the countries' levels of industrialization could affect their fates as well. Trotsky became decidedly less popular in the still-mostly-agricultural USSR after they started to realize that they wouldn't be joined by revolutions in industrialized Britain, France, Germany, America, etc. I'm not sure how this translates into the game though.
 
Perhaps the result of a revolution could be decided by the affected country's National Value (I'm not sure if this mechanic from V1 will be in V2) or previous government type and/or ideology? A reactionary monarchy that values Order would be far more likely to take the historical USSR route, while a liberal democracy that values Liberty would resemble Trotsky's vision of American communism or Kaiserreich's Union of Britain?

If only a few revolutions succeed, the countries' levels of industrialization could affect their fates as well. Trotsky became decidedly less popular in the still-mostly-agricultural USSR after they started to realize that they wouldn't be joined by revolutions in industrialized Britain, France, Germany, America, etc. I'm not sure how this translates into the game though.
I think Kaiserreich's French and British Syndicalists would be socialists, not communists.

As for Trotsky's comments:
Trotsky in that article you posted... said:
The American soviet government will take firm possession of the commanding heights of your business system: the banks, the key industries and the transportation and communication systems. It will then give the farmers, the small tradespeople and businessmen a good long time to think things over and see how well the nationalized section of industry is working.

Here is where the American soviets can produce real miracles. "Technocracy" can come true only under communism, when the dead hands of private property rights and private profits are lifted from your industrial system. The most daring proposals of the Hoover commission on standardization and rationalization will seem childish compared to the new possibilities let loose by American communism.

National industry will be organized along the line of the conveyor belt in your modern continuous-production automotive factories. Scientific planning can be lifted out of the individual factory and applied to your entire economic system. The results will be stupendous.

Costs of production will be cut to 20 percent, or less, of their present figure. This, in turn, would rapidly increase your farmers’ purchasing power.

To be sure, the American soviets would establish their own gigantic farm enterprises, as schools of voluntary collectivization. Your farmers could easily calculate whether it was to their individual advantage to remain as isolated links or to join the public chain.

The same method would be used to draw small businesses and industries into the national organization of industry. By soviet control of raw materials, credits and quotas of orders, these secondary industries could be kept solvent until they were gradually and without compulsion sucked into the socialized business system.


Without compulsion! The American soviets would not need to resort to the drastic measures that circumstances have often imposed upon the Russians. In the United States, through the science of publicity and advertising, you have means for winning the support of your middle class that were beyond the reach of the soviets of backward Russia with its vast majority of pauperized and illiterate peasants. This, in addition to your technical equipment and your wealth, is the greatest asset of your coming communist revolution. Your revolution will be smoother in character than ours; you will not waste your energies and resources in costly social conflicts after the main issues have been decided; and you will move ahead so much more rapidly in consequence.

"The science of adfvertising"... :wacko: I dare say I do not share his view on the willingness of the common American worker to submit himself to conveyor-belt-style rationalization, and I am even less sceptical that the common American farmer of the 1920s would have submitted himself so voluntarily to Collectivization. After the failure of the first "voluntary" collectivization effort, Trotsky would have the Red Army roam the American midwest and you would soon have the same sort of massive rebellion and starvation that you had in Russia. :eek:o

Any sort of drive to remove property rights from wide sections of the population should result in massive militancy from all non-communist POPs. You might get lucky and have the majority of your POPs already turned communist, but the remainder would still rise in revolt...

Of course someone could sketch out a path for a communist regime that does not entail the removal of property rights from the majority of the population. How "communist" would this be, though? That would be socialist, not communist.
 
Up to players to handle that I imagine, also having mechanics similar however to the Comecon would be nice, an entirely alternate market system/direct barter transactions between nations.

This way if two nations say Germany and Russia are both Communist, Germany could directly trade machine tools for food rather then have Russia go through the market system of having to sell food at unfair prices or having to buy machine tools are unfair prices and avoid the outflow of capital.

But thus far I think we have two things we can do:

1) Az Leviathan07 suggested, have it that once Communists take power (democratically or otherwise) you can begin implementing Decisions that can radically shift your country towards totalitarianism if you dont want to wait on the Upper house, with each step in the process causing a wave of revolters while at the same time giving you the tools to deal with it.

2) Make a decision/event that once you implement Secret Police a modifier attached to Crime Fighting so that now it handles domestic spying and the suppression of dissent at a higher cost (this would be nice to make it appliable region by region after all the KGB was probably more active in Ukraine then in Kazakstan).

3) The game should model some of the more clear cut benefits and costs to totalitarianism (communist or otherwise).

Quoted from Rise and Fall:

But that "surge" was unlikely to be swift enough---certainly not to the increasingly autocratic Stalin--while Russia laboured under its traditional economic weaknesses. With no foreign investment available, capital had somehow to be raised from domestic sources to finance the development of large-scale industry and the creation of substantial armed forces in a hostile world. Given the elimination of a middle class, which could either have been encouraged to create capital or plundered for its existing wealth; given, too, the fact that 78 percent of Russian population (1926) remained in a bottom-heavy agricultural sector, which was still overwhelmingly in private hands, there seemed to Stalin only one way for the state to raise money and simultaneously increase the switch from farming to industry: that is, by collectivization of agriculture, forcing the peasants into communes, destroying the kulaks, controlling the output from the land, and fixing both the wages paid to farm workers and the (far higher) prices of food for resale. In a frighteningly draconian way, the state thus interposed itself between rural producers and urban consumers, and extracted money from each to a degree that the czarist regime had never dared to do. This was accentuated by the deliberate price inflation, a variety of taxes and dues, and the pressures to show one's loyalty by buying state bonds. The overall result, represented in the crude macroeconomic statistics, was that the share of Russian GNP devoted to private consumption, which in other countries going through the "takeoff" to industrialization was around 80 percent, was driven down to the appalling level of 51 or 52 percent.

There were two contrary, yet predictable economic consequences from this extraordinary attempt at socialist "command economy." The first was the catastrophic decline in Soviet agricultural production, as kulaks (and others) resisted the forced collectivization and were eliminated. The horrific preemptive slaughter of farm animals--"the number of horses fell from 33.5 million in 1928 to 16.6 million in 1935; and the number of cattle from 70.5 million in 1928 to 38.4 million"--in turn produced a staggering decline in meat and grain production and in an already miserable standard of living, not to be recovered until Khrushchev's time. Esoteric calculations have been attempted as to the proportion of national income which was later returned to agriculture in the form of tractors or electrification--as opposed to the amount siphoned off by collectivization and price controls--but this is an arcane exercise for our purposes, since (for example) tractor factories once established, were designed to be converted to the production of light tanks; peasants, of course, were not so useful in checking the Wehrmacht. What was incontrovertible was that for the moment, Soviet agricultural output collapsed. The casualties, especially during the 1933 famine, could be reckoned in the millions of lives. When output began to recover in the 1930's, it was expedited by hundreds of thousands of tractors, hordes of agricultural scientists, and armies of tightly controlled collectives...

The second consequence was altogether brighter, at least for the purposes of Soviet economic-military power. Having driven private consumption's share of GNP down to a level probably unmatched in modern history--and certainly far lower than, say, the Nazis could ever contemplate in Germany--the USSR was able to deploy the fantastic proportion of around 25 percent of its GNP for industrial investment and still possess considerable sums for education, science and the armed services...

So what we can also as decisions/polices try to implement is the collectivization of agriculture that while it will reduce agricultural output (not as much as in real life for balance reasons) for consumption while increasing the amount of export to help provide the state with more money as well as I think give you the ability to manually promote pops.

Manually constructive factories, railroads, expanding rgos, force capitalists to buy bonds, higher tolerance for taxes, etc.

Then eventually farm output should recover. I say introduce events, the first decision reduces production (while increasing profit) and then events pop up gradually to reduce the mallus.
 
I think Kaiserreich's French and British Syndicalists would be socialists, not communists.

If the game's division between the two is reform vs. revolution, then the KR countries are solidly communist.

I am even less skeptical that the common American farmer of the 1920s would have submitted himself so voluntarily to Collectivization. After the failure of the first "voluntary" collectivization effort, Trotsky would have the Red Army roam the American midwest and you would soon have the same sort of massive rebellion and starvation that you had in Russia. :eek:o

Any sort of drive to remove property rights from wide sections of the population should result in massive militancy from all non-communist POPs. You might get lucky and have the majority of your POPs already turned communist, but the remainder would still rise in revolt...

Look at when the article was published. 1934, in the middle (end?) of the Dust Bowl. That would be the perfect time for voluntary collectivization.

Of course someone could sketch out a path for a communist regime that does not entail the removal of property rights from the majority of the population. How "communist" would this be, though? That would be socialist, not communist.

This really demonstrates why socialism/communism really needs to be split even more, so there's as many leftist ideologies as rightist ones (counting fascism as neither). I'd add social liberalism and anarchism, redefining preexisting socialism as [Fabian] social democracy and preexisting communism as some generic term for Stalinism. Social liberals would want both social and political reforms (hence the name) while anarchists would reliably implement both after a successful revolution.

This is grossly inaccurate, but good enough for gameplay purposes. And it all depends on how much ideologies can or can't be modded.
 
I think a Totalitarian State should be a form of government, Seperate from Prol. Dict.

which you get by a decision avialable in extreme circumstances, and it should not be limited to any ideology.

Prol. Dict. should represent a country with Communist doctrine at the heart of its consitution, and it should not be limited to dictatorship.

In order to allow the game to have open possibilities and be MORE FUN by having a wider range of potential ways to play, there should not be arbitary limitations.

Possible an event and decision chain sparked by a country being Prol. Dict. along the lines of what leviation proposed.

- do we disown all the capitalists, or postpone this for later?
- shall we build our own new army, or keep the king's army?
- shall we form a new secret police from our "reliable" knuckleheads and give them a free hand to terrorize the opposition, or do we seek a compromise with the bourgeois and risk having to sell out on the promises we made to our supporters?
- Shall we arrest the king and his family, to set a clear signal that we mean business, or let him move into exile and thereby avoid escalating tensions?
:D

would be one of the ways to get a totalitarian state.