Quick question!
Are you all so turned off Kropotkin that you'd see him as an electoral liability for the Anarchists if they revive themselves?
If my fears about big K are right then we are to turn to Emma Goldman. Her backstory would make plenty of sense, especially compared to my many previous backstories of revolutionaries randomly deciding to waltz into the upper echelons of VSVR politics whilst in their teens ). In RL she left Russia at 16 in 1885 for New York, in this reality she would surely just hop over the border into the VSVR.
Also, I hope no one is opposed to the introduction of Ernst Thalmann into the story. He's going to be a Marxist-Leninist.
BTW, in case your wondering I'm trying to formulate the new Central Committee at the moment.
Democrat Platform: No more senseless bloodshed! No more counterproductive aggression! No more politics of hate!
Peaceful Coexistence. We must encourage socialism through democracy across the world.
Luxemburgist Platform: We cannot afford to provoke London any further. We should avoid any conflict that is not forced upon us by an attack on the Comintern for the time being.
The Luxemburgist stress peace because continued war will for now only hurt us. The Democrats stress peace because they want to fill some ideological quota, because they want to feel like they're doing the "right" thing.
Honestly, the Democrats stink of the old Independents to me. A faction more concerned with fulfilling it's idealism than it's responsibilities to the people. The Independents were willing to sacrifice the people in order to support the Unions, mark my words, the Democrats will happily sacrifice the progress of this Revolution to secure their self-centered feelings of ideological superiority.
Comrades, I have recently found such a disgrace as this. Three of our factions support protectionism! The Luxemburgists, Militarists and Moderates are all in favour of a fundamentally bourgeoise thing! Why, you ask, why is it bourgeoise? Think, comrades, think! A wall of tariffs prevents food and other goods from coming here means one thing, higher prices! Instead we should have more so that prices are lower, as that is good for the working man, not the capitalists! The Moderates say they are in favour of free trade, but advocate higher taxes and tariffs to deal with the current problem, and more Marxist economics that have served us so well! If they have served us so well, why are we in this mess now? The Leninists and Militarists have messed up our country to much for me to support them. The Luxemburgists offer the same as Lenin, tariffs. planned economy and no votes for farmers. The only faction left is the Democrats, a shining light in the darkness. Bernstein for Chairman!
You're wrong. Free trade is a Capitalist Bourgeois way of enslaving the Proletariat under foreign goods, as well as destroying our domestic production and lowering wages as an excuse for harder competition. No, the Socialist Revolution must protect it's own industry from foreign Capitalist competition. Competition itself is a Bourgeois weapon against the Proletariat. The Democrats are nothing but agents of the Bourgeois, you can support the Revolution by voting on any other faction.
Competion results in lowered prices, this is a good thing for the workers who buy the goods. Monopolies result in high prices because there is nowhere else to buy from if prices rise. A foreign monopoly maybe worse than a native monopoly, I grant you, but no monopoly, is better than both.
The Trade Unions were the bedrock of this nation from the very beginning. When this nation was being built, it was the Trade Unions that built it with their blood and sweat. And when this nation's leaders failed they sought a scapegoat for their own failings, biting the hand that feeds!
Well, what has that policy brought us I ask you? The Trade Unions have been shattered and powerless now for a better part of a decade. How well has the economy worked in that time?
As I stand here today, looking around this so called cathedral to the working man, I see nothing more then a rotting corpse! Socialism, comrades, is dead in Cologne. It has rotted on the inside. All that sustains the illusion is military glory. The ruling people may not eat but they can celebrate because we have killed one king and a million proletarians in France. What a sick joke history plays when it repeats itself. We promised brotherhood and prosperity when our revolution began. Now our revolution stands for spreading starvation at the point of a bayonet!
I am sick of this hollow city in Cologne, so proud of itself even as the people suffer. Thus, I will hold my nose and vote for the democrats and whatever fool notions they stand for. I can only hope that by lessening the power of the imperial city of Cologne we might dilute it's corrupting influence.
The Trade Unions were the bedrock of this nation from the very beginning. When this nation was being built, it was the Trade Unions that built it with their blood and sweat. And when this nation's leaders failed they sought a scapegoat for their own failings, biting the hand that feeds!
Well, what has that policy brought us I ask you? The Trade Unions have been shattered and powerless now for a better part of a decade. How well has the economy worked in that time?
As I stand here today, looking around this so called cathedral to the working man, I see nothing more then a rotting corpse! Socialism, comrades, is dead in Cologne. It has rotted on the inside. All that sustains the illusion is military glory. The ruling people may not eat but they can celebrate because we have killed one king and a million proletarians in France. What a sick joke history plays when it repeats itself. We promised brotherhood and prosperity when our revolution began. Now our revolution stands for spreading starvation at the point of a bayonet!
I am sick of this hollow city in Cologne, so proud of itself even as the people suffer. Thus, I will hold my nose and vote for the democrats and whatever fool notions they stand for. I can only hope that by lessening the power of the imperial city of Cologne we might dilute it's corrupting influence.
((And I've now pulled the full Necazian, having voted for both the furthest right and furthest left wing parties at one point or another. Well, not quite the full Necazian. I seem about as likely to pick a loser as he is to pick a winner.))
Madness. The economy of the VSVR is the world's strongest and noone is starving. Rather, the problem is overproduction of certain goods which the state has had to pay for, resulting in some foreign debt; this has not affected the people, only the state coffers.
The Trade Unions should indeed be commended for their role in the creation of this Revolution, but it was their corruption that threw our Republic into Civil War.
Competition is non- Socialist in it's nature. It implies there are different wages and prices, and thus unequality. Also, competition is used by Capitalists to lower wages, only a strong domestic Socialist market can protect us from the Bourgeois threat.