Can confirm that - I've seen a document that states that of about 180 guys who were picked up by a blocking detachment - 120 were pointed toward their unit and about 5-10 were shot.
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I'm a bit concerned about the portayal of the "Great Purge" in HoI IV
- Thread starter Lord Valentine
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Can confirm that - I've seen a document that states that of about 180 guys who were picked up by a blocking detachment - 120 were pointed toward their unit and about 5-10 were shot.
You understand you can't transition people from a feudal-capitalist society to a Marxist one overnight, Right? You need a strong state do oversee that, otherwise things fall apart. That is where the diference between Marxist-Leninism and Anarcho-Communism lay; Anarchists want to skip that part because they are too Utopian. Why do think the too sides are always at odds?
Stalin was both a revolutionary and a Marxist-Leninist. Why else would he have returned to Petrograd during the revolution to start agitating with the Bolsheviks?
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There is a strong state, which can still be accountable to the people and than there is a totalitarian dictatorship. You don't need to be an anachist to disagree with the latter. Let's get back to the topic.
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I was thinking about this purge NF some more and I think it would be nice to have better feeling of agency by having 2 exclusive NFs - one for the Purge, that would lead to the same NFs as it now does, and the other for actually supporting Trotsky (or whoever) with some new NFs after it. It probably won´t be in vanilla, but I hope there will be a mod. 
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Okay first a disclaimer: I am a Trotskyist albeit one who is not involved in Party politics anymore (so not much of one basically, a bit like being Catholic but not going to church) so if that makes me too biased in this situation for you to pay attention to what I have to say I'm not wasting your time. Saying that I don't think that Trotsky did everything right and I agree that at times he could be a ruthless git.
Okay on Communism, to my mind there has never been a communist state, there have been plenty that call themselves communist but then their are plenty that call themselves democratic and aren't either. Communism is supposed to be a world without a state, basically the idea is that first you have socialism and then over time as people get used to organizing things themselves the stat is supposed to wither away as it basically isn't needed anymore. Personally I'm not sure this could actually happen totally (maybe in a post scarcity world but that's not likely to happen soon) but think that the journey towards it would be beneficial even if we don't get there. There have been socialist states, but my argument is that they have all failed to remain so. This leaves us with what to call the USSR and other similar states which I will address later.
There are a number of differences between Trotsky and Stalin, first there is their background. Stalin was a terrorist who spent his formative years in Georgia mostly training to be a priest and had a fairly brutal childhood. Trotsky was Jewish and was sent to Odessa for his education, later acting as a trade union organizer only gradually sliding into being a revolutionary socialist. This to me speaks of what they were to become. Trotsky an intellectual internationalist, Stalin a brutal enforcer of doctrine (albeit a changing doctrine of his own design).
Basically what happened was during the civil war the Bolshevik government was having a lot of problems, they controlled a lot of the country but not all of it, the country was run down by war and the revolutions that had resulted from it, the revolutions that had sprung up across Europe had failed leaving them isolated and fighting a war on multiple fronts against pretty much everyone. This resulted in a policy known as "War Communism" which basically was "do what you must to keep us from losing" followed by NEP (New Ecconomic Policy) which can be summed up as "yay we won the war but everything is broken and we need to rebuild so we'll loosen up a bit". As the revolutions had failed abroad an ideology grew up of "Communism in One State" basically that Russia would have to go it alone being as self sufficient as possible but also dealing with capitalist countries, Stalin championed this ideology. Trotsky on the other hand championed the idea of internationalism, that the revolution must spread or die and that cutting deals with the ruling classes of capitalist nations doesn't help the workers who we want to have a revolution.
I would argue that Trotsky was correct because following Stalin gaining control of the Soviet Union the remaining elements of socialism were gradually stamped out. This brings me to what I would call the USSR (definitly from Stalin in charge onwards) which is State Capitalist, basically the state owns everything and runs everything for the benefit of the state (or more accurately for the benefit of those running the state). Basically from this point on what is happening is that the USSR is gaining control of other countries through force more then through spreading ideology (basically do what we say, follow our doctrine (at least lipservice) or its tanks on streets time). Basically "Communist" countries other then the USSR can be grouped into 3 groups, first group are your countries that came to "Communism" under their own steam and were too strong for the USSR to just do over (the PRC and Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia particularly just after the war which was significant)), the second group are countries that are easily accessable enough for the USSR to send the troops in (like the European Eastern Block nations), or thirdly nations that are far away and who hate the other side which are the ones that are freeist in their own actions (Vietnam, Cuba, Angola and so on).
I would have two mutually exclusive chains of National Focuses, one for a Stalinist one nation policy and one for a Trotskyist internationalist policy. Basically the Stalinist chain would be a series of purges (increasing national unity and maybe like the equivelent of Party Org? but harming specific areas, so purge the armed forces (damaging the org of the armed forces, maybe loose some officers/manpower), purge the academia (damage research rates), and so on) and industrial/law reforms to make the USSR more powerful militarily. For the Trotskyist one I'd say have the initial ones be disadvantageous (say like first have "Encourage Debate" or something which reduces national unity, military org and industrial efficiency but increases research rate and PP gain?), some which increase the likelyhood of socialists taking over countries (civil wars and so on) and maybe makes your own troops you send as volunteers not have the org problem or have something that cancels it out (a "Spreading the revolution" positive bonus for troops fighting as volunteers for socialist factions in civil wars?) and later on ones which basically take away the bad parts of the earlier ones and increase national unity beyond what was taken away.
Basically it would be a choice between a militarily strong and unified USSR but with few friends and a little bit backwards to a militarily weak (in numbers at least) but advanced USSR with lots of friends. To me this would make it a real choice and add a lot to playing as the USSR.
Okay on Communism, to my mind there has never been a communist state, there have been plenty that call themselves communist but then their are plenty that call themselves democratic and aren't either. Communism is supposed to be a world without a state, basically the idea is that first you have socialism and then over time as people get used to organizing things themselves the stat is supposed to wither away as it basically isn't needed anymore. Personally I'm not sure this could actually happen totally (maybe in a post scarcity world but that's not likely to happen soon) but think that the journey towards it would be beneficial even if we don't get there. There have been socialist states, but my argument is that they have all failed to remain so. This leaves us with what to call the USSR and other similar states which I will address later.
There are a number of differences between Trotsky and Stalin, first there is their background. Stalin was a terrorist who spent his formative years in Georgia mostly training to be a priest and had a fairly brutal childhood. Trotsky was Jewish and was sent to Odessa for his education, later acting as a trade union organizer only gradually sliding into being a revolutionary socialist. This to me speaks of what they were to become. Trotsky an intellectual internationalist, Stalin a brutal enforcer of doctrine (albeit a changing doctrine of his own design).
Basically what happened was during the civil war the Bolshevik government was having a lot of problems, they controlled a lot of the country but not all of it, the country was run down by war and the revolutions that had resulted from it, the revolutions that had sprung up across Europe had failed leaving them isolated and fighting a war on multiple fronts against pretty much everyone. This resulted in a policy known as "War Communism" which basically was "do what you must to keep us from losing" followed by NEP (New Ecconomic Policy) which can be summed up as "yay we won the war but everything is broken and we need to rebuild so we'll loosen up a bit". As the revolutions had failed abroad an ideology grew up of "Communism in One State" basically that Russia would have to go it alone being as self sufficient as possible but also dealing with capitalist countries, Stalin championed this ideology. Trotsky on the other hand championed the idea of internationalism, that the revolution must spread or die and that cutting deals with the ruling classes of capitalist nations doesn't help the workers who we want to have a revolution.
I would argue that Trotsky was correct because following Stalin gaining control of the Soviet Union the remaining elements of socialism were gradually stamped out. This brings me to what I would call the USSR (definitly from Stalin in charge onwards) which is State Capitalist, basically the state owns everything and runs everything for the benefit of the state (or more accurately for the benefit of those running the state). Basically from this point on what is happening is that the USSR is gaining control of other countries through force more then through spreading ideology (basically do what we say, follow our doctrine (at least lipservice) or its tanks on streets time). Basically "Communist" countries other then the USSR can be grouped into 3 groups, first group are your countries that came to "Communism" under their own steam and were too strong for the USSR to just do over (the PRC and Yugoslavia (Yugoslavia particularly just after the war which was significant)), the second group are countries that are easily accessable enough for the USSR to send the troops in (like the European Eastern Block nations), or thirdly nations that are far away and who hate the other side which are the ones that are freeist in their own actions (Vietnam, Cuba, Angola and so on).
I would have two mutually exclusive chains of National Focuses, one for a Stalinist one nation policy and one for a Trotskyist internationalist policy. Basically the Stalinist chain would be a series of purges (increasing national unity and maybe like the equivelent of Party Org? but harming specific areas, so purge the armed forces (damaging the org of the armed forces, maybe loose some officers/manpower), purge the academia (damage research rates), and so on) and industrial/law reforms to make the USSR more powerful militarily. For the Trotskyist one I'd say have the initial ones be disadvantageous (say like first have "Encourage Debate" or something which reduces national unity, military org and industrial efficiency but increases research rate and PP gain?), some which increase the likelyhood of socialists taking over countries (civil wars and so on) and maybe makes your own troops you send as volunteers not have the org problem or have something that cancels it out (a "Spreading the revolution" positive bonus for troops fighting as volunteers for socialist factions in civil wars?) and later on ones which basically take away the bad parts of the earlier ones and increase national unity beyond what was taken away.
Basically it would be a choice between a militarily strong and unified USSR but with few friends and a little bit backwards to a militarily weak (in numbers at least) but advanced USSR with lots of friends. To me this would make it a real choice and add a lot to playing as the USSR.
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Knock it off Guys before you get banned trust me.
We are Not Changing it
We are Not Changing it
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I was thinking about this purge NF some more and I think it would be nice to have better feeling of agency by having 2 exclusive NFs - one for the Purge, that would lead to the same NFs as it now does, and the other for actually supporting Trotsky (or whoever) with some new NFs after it. It probably won´t be in vanilla, but I hope there will be a mod.
Lol you wrote this while I was doing my massive spiel, glad to know I'm not alone on this
We are not channing it Knock it off.I was thinking about this purge NF some more and I think it would be nice to have better feeling of agency by having 2 exclusive NFs - one for the Purge, that would lead to the same NFs as it now does, and the other for actually supporting Trotsky (or whoever) with some new NFs after it. It probably won´t be in vanilla, but I hope there will be a mod.
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Calm down we're talking about modding it not changing the base game.
Sorry i writed it in way that made you miseundarstand this. Our feedback wont make paradox change it and since this is controversial thing we should stay clear of this lest we get into trouble its not holocaust but its still thing where i dont want to offend anybody in today society.
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Calm down mate! Paradox has allready adressed the issue a few pages earlier and shown that they are totally fine with a civil discussion on this issue.
There is nothing wrong with having a debate about other implementations of Soviet internal politics in the game, with an eye to creating possible mods once the game is out, as long as it abides by the forum rules.
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you dont know internet then
hopefully im proved wrong and nobody goes into holocaust or so but then again this is internet.- 2
No worries, I understand its difficult especially as I'm assuming you are not English 1st language (you are doing better than I could in any other language other then English so good on you mate).
What it is, is that the Stalinist Purges are already included in the game (as Paradox staff have said it had a major impact on the military ability of the USSR and so is included in the game, the other taboo subjects that will not be named have been deemed by Paradox to not be militarily significant and so there is no point putting them into the game plus if they did the game would I believe be illegal in a number of countries) it's just that not all of us are 100% happy with how they are being done in the vanilla game and are discussing how we would change it to make it more fun/realistic/interesting. As its in the game we can talk about it and if anyone does bring up the taboo subjects they will be dealt with by the mods so I wouldn't worry, the worst that those of us who don't break the rules would face would be this thread being locked.
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What you say is confirming the practice existed, but that they were not killing everybody, just a few "as an exemple" to increase their "political awareness".
Though if you repeat the process of eliminating 5-10% of your soldiers everytime they retreat or are disorganized, you shoot yourself in the foot and help the enemy by doing his job.
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I agree that 1922-1991 was not overnight and still it was not long enough to begin to come closer and even less reach the promised "bright future". Not only they did not reach it, they were going farther and farther from marxist theory and socialism. The "strong" state you talk of could have been just a bit democratic and just a bit representative of the workers and peasants ? And yes, democracy (even socialist democracy) and totalitarianism are at odd.
Maybe this part of the discussion belongs to the history forum ? Let's get back to the mechanics of Stalinists vs Troskists for game purposes...
Stalinists purges should give you more control at the cost of lost expertise (generals, officier pool, available ministers, research). Troskists rise to power should give you bonuses to spread communism and sending volunteers at the cost of (at least initially) state disorganization because of the changing of government (national unity, production).
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A few thousand deserters were shot. But not gunned down with machine gun fire during a retreat, but documented for treason, and executed for it.
From the start of the war until 10 Oct 1941, zagradotriady stopped 657364 soldiers who lost their unit or ran away. Of them, 25878 were arrested, and 10201 of those shot. That's 1.5%. That's what happened during the hardest time for the Red Army. Once again - those stopped were not just retreating, but either lost their unit or ran away from the front. SU did not practice decimation (like Italians did in 1917).
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Your post shows how little you know of the inner workings of the Soviet state.
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The Great Purge should always happen if Stalin is in power and there should be no positive effects at all.
IRL it didn't even increase what in-game translates to national unity, but rather lowered it.
IRL it didn't even increase what in-game translates to national unity, but rather lowered it.
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Was Stalin more or less secure in power after the purges?
If the answer is more secure, then it's hard to argue that NU dropped.
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The way the Stalinist regime treated its own people demoralised not just the military but the common folk as well. The morale of the average Russian soldier in the early years of WWII was quite low and is one reason why millions were quick to surrender en masse in 1941. In some areas it wasn't only the Ukrainians, Balts and Estonians welcoming the Germans with showers of flowers, but ethnic Russians as well.
Many often forget that the Great Purge wasn't just about purging military and government officials; it also affected entire groups of people on the civilian side. However I can't elaborate on that because I'd be going into a topic that we're not allowed to talk about on these boards and I really don't want to get banned. But point being, the purges only served to demoralise the people. Hardly an up in national unity.
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