Let the ruling classes tremble – an Interactive Revolutionary AAR

[Kadon]

Sorry comrade, but fighting for peace is like fornicating for virginity.

No. If you can't understand why someone would kill ten warmongers to save ten thousand innocents, then there's no hope for you.

[Raph]

A pacifist foreign/military policy would pretty much doom the Republic. Only when the old empires of captialism are thoroughly defeated can we start disbanding our military. There's actually a reasonable chance of that happening in our time, though.

[Thezfel101]

I say we concentrate defense funding in an arming of Britain's workers. The British are the linchpin of the Capitalist Empire. With them gone, our success is inevitable.

[Raph]

I saw we concentrate defense funding in an arming of Britain's workers. The British are the linchpin of the Capitalist Empire. With them gone, our success is inevitable.

If we want to cripple the British Empire, we should force them to free the masses of India.

[Thezfel101]

If we want to cripple the British Empire, we should force them to free the masses of India.

And we could call on our allies Afghanistan and Bhutan to assist. Splendid thinking Comrade.

[Tanzhang (譚張)]

In the next update I'm going to bring in a Bernstein led faction. Mostly a splinter from the Moderates their points of divergeance will be on democracy (at home and abroad) and a more peaceful foriegn policy.

Yay! Social Democrats.

[Xanthippus]

No. If you can't understand why someone would kill ten warmongers to save ten thousand innocents, then there's no hope for you.

I can understand that, but throwing a bomb at the Republic's heroes, who cannot be considered warmongers in the least, is not the act of a pacifist, comrade.

[Mr. Sometimes]

Yay! Social Democrats.

Finally!

[Raph]

Raped and killed by Marxist hordes?

This is really out of line.

[Lenin Cat]

But Rosa was a Marxist, a libertarian Marxist. Not only that, but she kept on good relations with Lenin and Trotsky, even though they disagreed, they sent many friendly letters to each-other.

[Dyranum]

No. If you can't understand why someone would kill ten warmongers to save ten thousand innocents, then there's no hope for you.

Aren't you dead?

Did Kadon somehow rise from the dead?
(yeah, I just had to say that )

EDIT: Oh and at the post above: Are you sure? I thought Lenin hated Left Communists?

[Tommy4ever]

Raped and killed by Marxist hordes?

Don't be so vulgar in the future.

[winsingtonIII]

Like Hatman stated, Lenin did what had to be done. I am pretty sure that the Anarchists would do the same, if Lenin had displayed such ineptitude. Fighting for what's right sometimes has to break the law. What of the American Revolution? Would you call that wrong and oppressive? The colonists threw off the shackles, and broke the British law. Yet, it had to be done for their freedom and self-governance. Sure, they are a capitalist society now. The Revolutionaries did what had to be done, just as Lenin has just done. Occasionally, the Rubicon must be crossed for the good of all.

I'm not referring to his actions after the civil war, I'm talking about his actions as democratically elected chairman. He came in, censored the press without any warning in the campaign he was going to so, and started on a bunch of utterly unnecessary prestige building projects to make himself look useful. Additionally, might I remind you that he renamed an entire faction to his name before he had even accomplished anything. I voted him into office his first term, and I felt betrayed by his actions. He lost my vote years before the civil war, which is unfortunate, because I want to support a faction with aggressive foreign policy and Marxist economics.

[Thezfel101]

I'm not referring to his actions after the civil war, I'm talking about his actions as democratically elected chairman. He came in, censored the press without any warning in the campaign he was going to so, and started on a bunch of utterly unnecessary prestige building projects to make himself look useful. Additionally, might I remind you that he renamed an entire faction to his name before he had even accomplished anything. I voted him into office his first term, and I felt betrayed by his actions. He lost my vote years before the civil war, which is unfortunate, because I want to support a faction with aggressive foreign policy and Marxist economics.

I'm sorry but all of those are terrible/incorrect reasons not to support Lenin. Not that he hasn't given good reasons, just you didn't touch on any of those in your post.

EDIT: Except for the whole "his actions after the civil war." That's a legitimate reason.

[winsingtonIII]

I'm sorry but all of those are terrible/incorrect reasons not to support Lenin. Not that he hasn't given good reasons, just you didn't touch on any of those in your post.

EDIT: Except for the whole "his actions after the civil war." That's a legitimate reason.

*sigh* there's no such thing as an "incorrect" or "correct" opinion on something so subjective... you have your opinions, and I have mine.

All of these actions (press censorship, building projects to make yourself look good, naming a faction after yourself) are pretty classic signs of someone attempting to create a cult of personality around themself. It doesn't prove he's trying to take complete power, but it made me suspicious of him, and with good reason, considering his actions after the civil war...

If anything, my fears were proven right by Lenin's military takeover, and there's no reason to be blind to the signs in his previous years in office that he would be capable and even likely to jump on a chance to take control of the government through force.

The point of my post was to demonstrate that there were reasons to be wary of Lenin even before he took control by force. Cpt. Everos had a valid point that in the aftermath of the Civil War, someone did need to step and take control of the situation, as such I was trying to point out that even before this he was making me suspicious. Then, after he took control, he of course went further than he needed to, unnecessarily imprisoning people who didn't deserve it, etc... the "good" reasons you speak of.

I still don't see how I was "incorrect" to be suspicious of Lenin's motives when he took the first chance he could to assert control through force. Wouldn't that make my suspicions correct?

[Kadon]

Aren't you dead?
Did Kadon somehow rise from the dead?
(yeah, I just had to say that )

I am one of the first zombies who will return late in the AAR, when it moves to a zombie apocalypse theme.

[Tommy4ever]

Mini update coming up that is largely being used to outline the new Centre of the People's Party. The Moderates have new leadership and there's a new Centrist faction in town ...

[Tommy4ever]

Changes at the top – Major shifts in VSVR politics immediately after the Civil War (1884)

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War there were several major shifts in VSVR politics which led to the fading of the Central Committee and the emergence of a new, even more centralised, committee – the Political Bureau, otherwise known as the Politburo.

Of the ten members of the Central Committee in 1883 2 died during the War and 3 were placed under house arrest. Meanwhile the Moderate Spanish politician Pablo Iglesias left the Republic in March 1884 (whilst the war was coming to a close) to take up the position of Chairman of the Spanish People’s Party. In May, as a protest against Lenin’s suppression of the Right, August Bebel resigned from the Central Committee to take up the role of chief editor at the nation’s 3rd largest newspaper – Unity (behind the Leninist paper Spark and the state paper Truth).

And then there were three...

The only remaining Central Committee members were Lenin, Schlieffen and Clara Zetkin. Whilst the Central Committee was filled back up with a multi-factional contribution Lenin took the decision to further centralise the head of the Party by creating the Politburo – a league of the 5 leading politicians of the Party who would each have an equal vote in decisions made by the Politburo with the Chairman, Lenin, having the casting vote. However with only two Marxist-Leninsts and one Militarist left from the old Central Committee Lenin would have to bring new figures to prominence to represent the Centre of the Party.



As the new leader of the Moderate faction Karl Kautsky was the obvious first choice. Kautsky was an important, if uninspiring, figure in Marxism and the chief proponent of Orthodox Marxism in the Republic. A largely respected figure he promised to carry on the policies of Karl Marx after his recent death calling for revolution by force, Party democracy, freedom and Marxist economics. In spite of his muted opposition towards Lenin for some perceived infringements on democracy and freedom (namely his treatment of the Anarchists, Independents and Trade Unionists following the Civil War and the failure to call elections) he was largely in favour of the new Marxist dominated People’s Party. He regarded the new ‘revisionist’ tendencies that had started to become popular among Marxists as a much greater threat than Lenin and quickly set about expulsing Eduard Bernstein and his supporters from the Moderate faction.

There was initially talk of inviting former Chairman Engels back to mainstream politics however it was clear that the great thinker and politician was in no state to make a return. The tragedy of the death of his dear friend, Karl Marx, in 1883 and his wife shortly later coupled with the horror of the Civil War had sent him into a deep depression. He had stopped writing and was, indeed, barely functioning; he was certainly in no state to join the new Politburo.

Whilst Lenin searched for a 5th member a new force swiftly emerged in VSVR politics – the Democrats.



Led by the recently expelled Moderate Eduard Berstein the Democrats were derided as ‘revisionists’ by some and praised as upholders of peace and democracy by others. Placed slightly to the Right of Centre in the Party’s political spectrum the Democrats were artificially strengthened by an intake of support from Party members who used to support the ‘Old Right’ (Trade Unionists and Anarchists). Whilst clearly another Marxist faction the Democrats profoundly disagreed with the other Marxists on how the revolution was to be achieved. Whilst the Orthodox Marxists claimed the working classes could only empower themselves through blood, violence and the destruction of the capitalist system Berstein and the Democrats claimed that they could win power through peace, democratic action and the reform of the capitalist system. In practise Berstein supported a move away from seeing the military as an offensive weapon towards seeing it as a defensive tool to protect the VSVR and the Comintern rather than directly expand it. He also claimed that the Marxist and Anarchist support of violent rebellion and even terrorism abroad was not the correct way to secure socialism (after all it had proven to be much more successful in pre-industrial society than in the industrial societies they targeted), instead the VSVR should lend political and financial support to the democratic socialist parties of Europe. He called for the adaption of the French Workers’ League into a political rather than military institution, the withdrawal of support from the Communist Unity Group in Britain (a group whose main weapon of the revolution was dynamite and who lacked mass support) and instead support for the Labour Party (a party that had twice been in power since its foundation in 1852). On top of his support for peace Berstein demanded an end to all restrictions on the press an on factions in the Republic coupled with an immediate leadership election.

The Marxist-Leninists Clara Zetkin and Lenin himself, the Militarist Alfred Schlieffen, the Moderate Karl Kautsky and the Democrat Eduard Berstein were now the 5 most powerful people in the Republic. Three German men and one German woman were being led by a Russian towards the betterment of a largely German internationalist Republic.

[Lenin Cat]

Are these guys social democrats(ie, like sweden) or democratic socialists? Meaning they actually support socialism and wish to some day achieve communism rather then a capitalist state with a strong welfare system?

[Tommy4ever]

Are these guys social democrats(ie, like sweden) or democratic socialists? Meaning they actually support socialism and wish to some day achieve communism rather then a capitalist state with a strong welfare system?

Democratic socialists. They still want to achieve communism, but unlike Marx they want to achieve it through peaceful means.