I'm a bit concerned about the portayal of the "Great Purge" in HoI IV

[Paracetamol]

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.

National unity is not only loyalty of population to regime ,it is also political unity. Purges demoralized officer corps,party officials and part of urban population ,but also eliminated any political opposition and Stalin was completely free in his decisions. I doubt that without purges Stalin could go for Molotov-Ribentrop pact,for an example. Also,loyalty of rural population was not changed much since purges did not influence it that much.
So the approximation that purges raised national unity while damaging organization and recovery rate seems pretty decent to me.

 

[Opanashc]

The Great Purge should always happen if Stalin is in power and there should be no positive effects at all.

Everybody talks about the Great Purge, as if Stalin made the order, and his subordinates carried it out to the letter.
That is totally not the case.
It all started with NKVD discovering a plot against Stalin. Yes, the plot existed. Maybe it was at the level of generals talking to each other "who would you support, if Stalin got sick and died?", maybe it was more serious. It happened 80 years ago, we will never know now. NKVD arrested the men involved. They gained power doing so - look we are necessary! So the man in charge, Yezhov, and his subordinates started to create fake plots as well, to enhance his power. It took Stalin some time to realize what was happening - and when he did, he put Beria in charge. And the Purge ended after Beria took over. Beria started to look into what happened - and men who were wrongly arrested, and proven to be innocent were released. Like Rokkossovskiy.
I constantly bedazzled, at how people believe that dictatorship=complete power of the man at the top. That is totally not true. There are multiple interest groups that vie for power, and the dictator stays on top only while he has the backing of the powerful interest groups. Just like a president in democracies - once he looses the backing of men that matter, he looses elections/gets a vote of no confidence, gets impeached, etc.

 

[Karelian]

But point being, the purges only served to demoralise the people. Hardly an up in national unity.

Unless you portray National Unity of a totalitarian dictatorship as simulating the degree of control the aforementioned oppressive regime has - if one accepts this view, NU bonus is quite warranted, as after the Purges Stalin and his henchmen reigned supreme and the Soviet society had been completely subdued to his absolute rule.

 

[Sharp163]

I agree that gameplay should be slightly ahead of historical accuracy, but this is getting a bit ridiculous...

 

[Sir Garnet]

* These are good points. Suffering, fear, and terror can be unifying forces. Fear that any misstep will be fatal does create wary behavior. Severity against any suspicion of dissent does serve to eliminate open dissent. If even the suggestion of surrender incurs fatal discipline, surrender will be discouraged.

* I don't recall mention of all those who were spared and given the opportunity to redeem themselves in the most hazardous roles in the front line of battle, to prevail or fall as heroes - in special units or within their own unit.

 

[Opanashc]

* I don't recall mention of all those who were spared and given the opportunity to redeem themselves in the most hazardous roles in the front line of battle, to prevail or fall as heroes - in special units or within their own unit.

You talking about penal companies (for enlisted) and battalions (for officers)?

 

[scroggin]

Everybody talks about the Great Purge, as if Stalin made the order, and his subordinates carried it out to the letter.
That is totally not the case.
It all started with NKVD discovering a plot against Stalin. Yes, the plot existed. Maybe it was at the level of generals talking to each other "who would you support, if Stalin got sick and died?", maybe it was more serious. It happened 80 years ago, we will never know now. NKVD arrested the men involved. They gained power doing so - look we are necessary! So the man in charge, Yezhov, and his subordinates started to create fake plots as well, to enhance his power. It took Stalin some time to realize what was happening - and when he did, he put Beria in charge. And the Purge ended after Beria took over. Beria started to look into what happened - and men who were wrongly arrested, and proven to be innocent were released. Like Rokkossovskiy.
I constantly bedazzled, at how people believe that dictatorship=complete power of the man at the top. That is totally not true. There are multiple interest groups that vie for power, and the dictator stays on top only while he has the backing of the powerful interest groups. Just like a president in democracies - once he looses the backing of men that matter, he looses elections/gets a vote of no confidence, gets impeached, etc.

As leader Stalin is ultimately responsible for what happened under his leadership.

I think that it would be better to have the purge as a event you cant avoid if stalin is leader. Rather than have a fake history with two ballanced choices to make for interesting gameplay. Obviously if the real outcomes of the purge was in the game no one would choose to do it.

 

[Orlunu]

As leader Stalin is ultimately responsible for what happened under his leadership.

That's as may be, but he wasn't in control of it in this case, which is the point I took away from the post you're quoting and is far more important to the topic at hand.

 

[Opanashc]

As leader Stalin is ultimately responsible for what happened under his leadership.

Then US should try Lincoln for being the cause of greatest loss of american lives in an armed conflict and France should boo Napoleon for doing the same.

 

[Loke]

Then US should try Lincoln for being the cause of greatest loss of american lives in an armed conflict and France should boo Napoleon for doing the same.

Ńo.

 

[Spartanlemur]

It's a video game, and the devs are basically giving us two choices as far as I can tell:

-Go full Stalin = give in to your paranoia and become the tyrant we all love to hate

-Do the right thing, and potentially get Trotsky in power

If you're playing a "good guy" game, then you'll likely want Trotsky in power, because he was probably less of an arse than Stalin.

Is it perfectly historically accurate? No, but then if it were, Britain could not go fascist, and Germany could not go Communist. It's supposed to be fun, and give us variety, and for now, the current method works.

Maybe later they can add new internal politics and character mechanics which represent it better, but for now, I think it works.

 

[BoleslavLev]

As I already mentioned - now getting Trotsky seems like a punishment while it should be an achievement imo. Also there are 2 exclusive branches after the Great Purge of NKVD or Rehabilitation of the Army - do you think this means you can do "The Purge" in more subtle way if you wish?

 

[SDSkinner]

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.

The executions are for desertion. That happens in every military. The USSR killed a lot more because they had more soldiers, conditions were much worse, the Red Army had lower standards for training and drafting to fill the ranks and more relaxed standards of evidence.

 

[The Guru]

The idea of Trotsky being the "nice guy" option is quite silly

He was as bloodthirsty and backstabbing as Stalin. His role and behaviour during the Russian Civil War are unequivocal. The reason why Stalin and Trotsky were incompatible was precisely because they were too similar.

 

[Hagen67483]

Maybe a small piece of knowlege: Stalins Translater Valentin Bereschkow once said that Stalin was very impressed when Hitler did the "night of the long knives" in 1934 to kill the leaders of the SA. After Stalin heard it he replyed "Have you heard what happend in Germany, Hitler is a great guy. Thats how you deal with the poilitical opposition." So you could say that Hitler inspired Stalin to do the purges.

And here an old Stalin joke: After some of his governors left the building Stalin missed his favorite Pipe. Stalin ordered the NKVD to question the governors to find out who took the pipe. One day later he found it himself and told the NKVD that everything is alright. The respons was: "This is bad, half of the governors already admitted that they took the pipe". Question from Stalin: "And the rest?" Answer: "Didnt survive the questioning"

 

[MGL 86]

Stalin`s policy of iron grip, industrialization and war preparation saved Russian people in the end. If Russia had peaceful leader, who knows what would have Hitler done after Soviets collapsed in 1941?
Stalin being on top should have some positive effect in HOI4.

 

[mursolini]

There is nothing bad in propaganda
Propaganda here is that for all the benefits you have discussed above, people were grateful for Stalin personally. 'Father of nations' and all that stuff.
Obviously he was not the only person responsible for life level rise at that time.

It is similar to 'Improve national unity' propaganda in game terms. Same happens with almost any dictatorship.
I won't agree that Chinese situation is similar, they are more united around the party, not single person nowadays. But if you mean the time of Mao, then it would be similar.

"Propaganda" is inefficient, if it can`t show real achievements. It doesn`t meter one bit how good it is, if the reality people face every day is in contradiction with propaganda.
The reason Stalin and Hitler were actually popular, was that they managed to show real improvements, which, made their propaganda far more believable, then let`s say Mussolini.

absolutely true, however Trotsky is a lot cooler and within reason (imo of course) of being used as a front figure by others. People know who trotsky is. Very few people can list potential people that were purged any why they would be interesting. also I like cool stuff.

Realistically, very few people know the ministers of countries, yet, they are present

Trotsky is very poor figure because it is unrealistic, and would create absolutely wrong impressions. If I want to play a country, I want to learn it`s history as it was , not it`s history shown to confirm community bias. Picking alternative leaders based on current fame is wrong. Creating fantasy history in place where there is perfectly usable real history, is also wrong. While I understand that I have very limited evidence, the community in former Soviet countries were quite buthurt about Soviet focus tree having Trotsky coup.

Whoever would do the ground work for coup against Stalin, would undoubtedly take power for himself, and probably execute Trotsky.

 

[podcat]

The idea of Trotsky being the "nice guy" option is quite silly

He was as bloodthirsty and backstabbing as Stalin. His role and behaviour during the Russian Civil War are unequivocal. The reason why Stalin and Trotsky were incompatible was precisely because they were too similar.

We dont portray him as a good guy, and in fact if Stalin is overthrown there are counter purges, so we arent really taking a stand who is the biggest evil of the two, although Trotsky has traits that shifts him slightly more in favour of coups and such compared to declaring wars so there is a slight playing difference.

 

[Red Roo]

so we arent really taking a stand who is the biggest evil of the two

*I...mustn't...OT...*





Edited for clarification. Lol

 

[CaesarCzech]

This is going to be one of the most modded things.