Now I don't want to get into a lefty-schismatic rant here, but we should clarify.
Yes, Russia was not what Marx wanted. Lenin only did it because he was Russian. Russia was large and agricultural, communism calls for a small industrialized state.
Yes, communist principle calls for a world revolution. Trotsky continued that vein of though while Stalin, and later Mao, perpetuated the revolution in one country theory. Such a break is fundamental to all revolutionaries, including democrats, I might add.
Stalin practiced state capitalism like China does today because that's the only practical way communism works--state-determined economics. That's why communism always fails--it doesn't get rid of capitalism. It only shifts its center.
Agreed, communist revolutionaries weren't narrowminded, even if resulting governments were. Look at Russia. Same old social taboos, new package.
But then you say that historic divisions from EUII don't matter in Victoria. True, mercantilism didn't exist like it did in the 1400s, but rather changed names. What we once called mercantilism we now call economic statism. It's the same thing. When slight, it's Taiwan. When bad, it's Nazi Germany. But it's all the same--business by and for the state, not the individual.
Also, aristocracy and plutocracy were very important to Victoria's timeframe. In EUII we saw the rise of the plutocrats--money-based power, the bourgeois--at the expense of blood and aristocracy. In this game we'll see the plutocrats win. New rich, venture capitalists, robber barons, even humble middle class--all plutocracy, not aristocracy. These two terms are very important. Maybe not today, but the 1800s? Very much so.
