Italy or Soviets, which do you think is coming first?

[MobiusTwo]

This is good, but we disagree on India, Canada and South Africa. They all got reworked in TfV, and while their focus trees need improvement, these improved Trees should stay part of that DLC.

The way I see it, the TfV trees are so terrible that they ought to be straight up redone. If you know anything about South African or Indian history during this time period, you would definitely want the focus trees to be way more accurate. They completely ignore history and the alt-history these paths provide is nonsensical even in a game where you can restore Byzantium.

India in HOI4 totally neglects Nehru and Jinnah, the two most important figures on the subcontinent during World War II. These two men were the ones who eventually took control of India and Pakistan respectively. The "Marginalized Muslim Community" debuff makes it appear as though Indian Muslims were unwilling to participate in World War II, even though historically they pulled above their weight in the conflict. Frankly, the British Raj focus tree should resemble Spain's, with extensive paths for India and Pakistan. The way the India-Pakistan is portrayed in the game now is vastly oversimplified, and unfortunately, only occurs if the UK decides to throw the game by decolonizing or switching ideologies. The Princely States also need to be portrayed in a more substantial manner. For example, Hyderabad resisted integration into India.

The South African focus tree is set up in such a way that you can essentially end apartheid, even when you go fascist. There is literally no way on earth this would have ever happened between 1936 and 1948. I think that a communist-backed native uprising ought to be the only way the player can totally remove the "History of Segregation" debuff. In the fascist focus tree, you can set up Edward VIII as the "King of South Africa" which is ridiculous, since the Boer majority opposed the Anglicization of South Africa. Why would they want to be directly ruled by someone from the UK?

Canada's needs tweaking more than anything else, unlike South Africa and India, I'll give you that.

I would gladly pay again to fix the DLC we already got, but I understand that many people don't want to do that. What if they were to provide a new DLC that included, for example, changes to South Africa among other new feature? You could get the South Africa changes for free if you already bought TfV.

 

[Surimi]

Also sorry, but the whole "Hitler wasn't a socialist" thing doesn't hold, just something modern marxist sympathizers have proposed in an effort to disassociate from one of the most murderous men to ever live.

Marxists don't need to dissociate themselves from Hitler any more than other victims of Nazi atrocities need to dissociate themselves from him. In fact, almost the first act the Nazis took after coming to power was to arrest known Marxist and democratic socialist political figures, most of whom were later killed. Hitler was not a socialist. In fact, he hated socialism. Socialists in Nazi Germany either had to conceal their political beliefs, leave the country or face arrest, torture and death.

If you genuinely believe that Hitler was a socialist, then I challenge you to visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and speak out publicly in support of democracy. I'm sure you'll be fine, after all it's a democratic country.

He crippled the german economy in the 1930s by trying to reduce imports by as much as possible.

When the Nazis came to power, Germany was experiencing severe economic disruption from the Great Depression, as were many countries around the world. The unemployment rate was in the high twenties. The German economy was already crippled before the Nazis came to power. If anything, under the Nazis the economy appeared to recover, although we now know that this was mostly due to unsustainable loans by the government with the purpose of funding rearmament.

The derangement came from believing that both capitalism and communism were part of a singular Jewish plot to end civilization. He felt Jewish people couldn't act in a collective manner and were trying to end collective cooperation everywhere.

The Nazis made a very clear distinction between Jewish capitalism (which was seen as predatory and excessive) and responsible capitalism. Unlike communists, who as mentioned were generally imprisoned and killed, capitalists generally fared pretty well under the Nazis. One consequence of the rearmament, for example, is that many state owned industries were privatised and sold off by the Nazi government, which had the dual effect of raising money for rearmament and also building ties between the Nazi party and wealthy political supporters. Of course, Hitler and the Nazis weren't ideologically committed to the idea of a free market like modern American conservatives, but they were not by any stretch of the imagination anti-capitalist.

Most days I feel socialism really only exists to dupe people into giving stalin absolute power.

Stalin is not Hitler. People did not vote Stalin into power in a popular democratic system. By the time Stalin took power, there was no possibility of any kind of popular government in the Soviet Union and had not been for around a decade. The Bolsheviks had always opposed popular government and made no secret of this. There was never any intention of giving ordinary people power or creating a classless society, because Lenin believed that only an elite political class could hope to govern based on revolutionary ideals. People did not have a choice about whether to give Stalin absolute power. Plenty of people didn't like Stalin having absolute power, but those people kept quiet because otherwise they would be killed.

Then i consider that stalin had 28,000 tanks alone when the germans invaded. He built up a mind numbing stockpile of weapons and Stalin was a genius. He wouldn't have done that for no reason, so maybe he did intend to conquer the world in the end, to force anarchy down everyone's throat at once...

I think they key word there is "when the Germans invaded".

During the Russian civil war, almost every other major power on earth supported the white movement. Many provided direct military support to the white movement. It was transparently clear from the beginning that the various powers of Europe would not tolerate the existence of the Soviet Union. This was proven to be an entirely correct assessment when Germany did invade the Soviet Union. The intense military buildup prior to the war was, in retrospect, absolutely necessary and had it not happened, it's entirely possible that the population of eastern Europe would no longer exist.

You cannot force anarchy down people's throats. That's kind of the problem with anarchy. If Stalin had magically taken over the world, relinquished his power and abolished the government, what would stop everyone from just ignoring what had happened and going back to doing whatever they were doing previously?

 

[Col.Klink]

You cannot force anarchy down people's throats. That's kind of the problem with anarchy. If Stalin had magically taken over the world, relinquished his power and abolished the government, what would stop everyone from just ignoring what had happened and going back to doing whatever they were doing previously?

I didn't say "socialism works." In all actuality I hope that my disdain for all forms of socialism is palpable. That being said the reason why there is a transition period to the utopia isn't just to spread the world revolution, but the tyrannical dictator exists to control your very thoughts. He is supposed to fix your stupid brain so you are capable of handling anarchy. This is an outgrowth of the classical socialist idea that man is born pure and society makes him the greedy, selfish creature that he is. So if you dissolve all existing social conditioning man can accept anarchy. There seems to also be a twisting in Marxism that argues essentially man is what you force him to be, that he has no true nature. So the tyrant can with enough effort make men into ants.

So essentially the theory is the Marxist tyrant conquers the world and as the enlightened superior he controls everyone's thoughts and fixes their stupid peasant brains so that they yearn to live like ants and only then does he surrender power for power is no longer needed.

When you actually discuss the mechanics of it, even if marxists are right that you can FORCE people through culture to be what you want them to be.... It is one of the most evil concepts I have ever read.

Marxists don't need to dissociate themselves from Hitler any more than other victims of Nazi atrocities need to dissociate themselves from him. In fact, almost the first act the Nazis took after coming to power was to arrest known Marxist and democratic socialist political figures, most of whom were later killed. Hitler was not a socialist. In fact, he hated socialism. Socialists in Nazi Germany either had to conceal their political beliefs, leave the country or face arrest, torture and death.

One might as well say that the French Revolution wasn't the birth of socialism. No only marxist socialists are the "true" socialists! No, that word doesn't belong to Marxists alone sorry. And just like all socialists they all hate each other. All of them have their utopic vision of the future and therefore no other ideas, particularly no other socialist ideas are tolerated. What's worse than someone who doesn't buy into your cult? A competing cult!

But instead of going back and forth why don't you watch this well researched and cited video. If five hours of evidence isn't enough to convince you then you won't be convinced and you've bought into marxist propaganda about their arch enemy.

During the Russian civil war, almost every other major power on earth supported the white movement. Many provided direct military support to the white movement. It was transparently clear from the beginning that the various powers of Europe would not tolerate the existence of the Soviet Union. This was proven to be an entirely correct assessment when Germany did invade the Soviet Union. The intense military buildup prior to the war was, in retrospect, absolutely necessary and had it not happened, it's entirely possible that the population of eastern Europe would no longer exist.

It's well said that the entire Russian mindset is about survival ever since Ivan (really Ee-vah-n) the terrible who created the idea of "expand or die." After they expanded so much that the north, east and south all had significant land barriers the only threat was the west, which was wide open. They were always preparing for invasion, not just Stalin. The question though about such a buildup is if Stalin intended to go on the offense with it. Considering the buildup though, Stalin's ambition, his sheer ruthlessness it's a fair assumption that he intended to use that army in an offensive manner.

added:

Stalin is not Hitler. People did not vote Stalin into power in a popular democratic system. By the time Stalin took power, there was no possibility of any kind of popular government in the Soviet Union and had not been for around a decade. The Bolsheviks had always opposed popular government and made no secret of this. There was never any intention of giving ordinary people power or creating a classless society, because Lenin believed that only an elite political class could hope to govern based on revolutionary ideals. People did not have a choice about whether to give Stalin absolute power. Plenty of people didn't like Stalin having absolute power, but those people kept quiet because otherwise they would be killed.

Marxist concept of "democracy" is different than ours. They loathe the representative systems because they argue that only the wealthy really have a say and that there is no way around that. The only way to fix that in their mind is if an enlightened cadre of men takes power to rule on behalf of "the good of the people." That's the "democracy" really they were about. This really is true of the whole marxist world, the interesting thing is that the Soviet Union at least initially pretended to be more democratic by our standards. That's where the word "soviet" comes from, it's just that they pretty quickly stripped the soviets of power and empowered bureaucrats ran by the central committee. This makes sense, because according to marxist ideology the people essentially allowed themselves to be enslaved (they argue that people are A: slaves and B: could take their freedom at any time, aka start the revolution.) Because of that why would you want to allow them any say? They'd just wind up enslaving themselves again. No no no, "true" democracy is an enlightened few taking absolute power to fix their stupid peasant slave brains! Then they won't try to be slaves anymore!

That central committee mind you is who picks a man to be in charge of the party. This is the "election" in the Soviet Union. By dominating the central committee Stalin formed the foundations of his power. Then he enslaved everyone else by pitting them against each other, essentially psychological domination.

Stalin is an evil but absolutely brilliant man. A really fascinating figure to study. I highly recommend checking out historian Stephen Kotkin's lectures on Stalin or even read his 3 part series. The man after all spent his entire life studying Stalin!

 

[kimidf]

The way I see it, the TfV trees are so terrible that they ought to be straight up redone. If you know anything about South African or Indian history during this time period, you would definitely want the focus trees to be way more accurate. They completely ignore history and the alt-history these paths provide is nonsensical even in a game where you can restore Byzantium.

India in HOI4 totally neglects Nehru and Jinnah, the two most important figures on the subcontinent during World War II. These two men were the ones who eventually took control of India and Pakistan respectively. The "Marginalized Muslim Community" debuff makes it appear as though Indian Muslims were unwilling to participate in World War II, even though historically they pulled above their weight in the conflict. Frankly, the British Raj focus tree should resemble Spain's, with extensive paths for India and Pakistan. The way the India-Pakistan is portrayed in the game now is vastly oversimplified, and unfortunately, only occurs if the UK decides to throw the game by decolonizing or switching ideologies. The Princely States also need to be portrayed in a more substantial manner. For example, Hyderabad resisted integration into India.

The South African focus tree is set up in such a way that you can essentially end apartheid, even when you go fascist. There is literally no way on earth this would have ever happened between 1936 and 1948. I think that a communist-backed native uprising ought to be the only way the player can totally remove the "History of Segregation" debuff. In the fascist focus tree, you can set up Edward VIII as the "King of South Africa" which is ridiculous, since the Boer majority opposed the Anglicization of South Africa. Why would they want to be directly ruled by someone from the UK?

Canada's needs tweaking more than anything else, unlike South Africa and India, I'll give you that.

I would gladly pay again to fix the DLC we already got, but I understand that many people don't want to do that. What if they were to provide a new DLC that included, for example, changes to South Africa among other new feature? You could get the South Africa changes for free if you already bought TfV.

I personally do not find TFV trees as horrible as DOD although I recognize that both focus packs need some necessary changes and readjustments to make them more plausible

Both Jinah and Nehru can be inserted, as portraits have recently done as Laval or Alcala Zamora, without creating specific approaches that will jump when proclaiming the independence of India and Pakistan. I also think that the portrait of the leader Raj should be changed to establish itself as domain and I propose Lord Louis Mounbatten for that position since he was the last governor of the Raj

on the South Africa issue I agree but I think this can be resolved by making a small modification of the current tree to prevent apartheid from occurring, which only occurs as it says in the communist branch

 

[WeissRaben]

The Soviet focus tree is undeniably shitty, but it contains all the basic parts of what happened in WW2 to Russia - the Purge, the Winter War, the relocation of industry.

Italy? Italy has nothing. WW2 in Italy literally cannot go as historical, because nothing about Italy is correct in the game. It has tech issues (mostly through no design companies and theorists worth the money) but no industrial issues, it's a granitically fascist nation, it's staunchly behind any war that might happen, and it doesn't surrender until the very tail end; while it didn't have research issues, but then had no industry to follow it up; it was a deeply divided nation, even within the Fascist party (I'd actually put the fascists in non-aligned too, to represent the more monarchic branch); and it exploded into civil war the instant the Allies actually made it look like the war was going to be bloody and touch them directly.

None of this exists in the game.

 

[Ffire]

Also sorry, but the whole "Hitler wasn't a socialist" thing doesn't hold, just something modern marxist sympathizers have proposed in an effort to disassociate from one of the most murderous men to ever live. Sort of like how modern Marxists disengenously say "comminism has never been tried", conveniently not mentioning that in marxist theory there is always a transitional state, a state lenin declared to be socialism.

So true sadly

 

[Col.Klink]

The Soviet focus tree is undeniably shitty, but it contains all the basic parts of what happened in WW2 to Russia - the Purge, the Winter War, the relocation of industry.

Italy? Italy has nothing. WW2 in Italy literally cannot go as historical, because nothing about Italy is correct in the game. It has tech issues (mostly through no design companies and theorists worth the money) but no industrial issues, it's a granitically fascist nation, it's staunchly behind any war that might happen, and it doesn't surrender until the very tail end; while it didn't have research issues, but then had no industry to follow it up; it was a deeply divided nation, even within the Fascist party (I'd actually put the fascists in non-aligned too, to represent the more monarchic branch); and it exploded into civil war the instant the Allies actually made it look like the war was going to be bloody and touch them directly.

None of this exists in the game.

One of the fascinating things about the Italian experience is that the king was so terrified of the communists that he allowed Mussolini's March on Rome to succeed. Yet, this carried a twist. By surrendering to Mussolini he denied Mussolini justification to destroy him. Mussolini's entire argument was built upon a multi ethnic "nationalism", in essence a cultural idea of what it was to be Italian. A cultural idea that he would use to unite everyone in a collective.

Yet because Mussolini was unable to destroy the image of the king, the very cultural institution of the king the king in effect bound Mussolini to him. Mussolini had power, but the king had limited it and bound Mussolini to him. So even though Mussolini invented totalitarianism (outside of Russia) he was unable to implement it because he was unable to destroy the institutions of the existing culture. I really don't know if the king's fear of not being able to stop the communists was justified. He felt he had a losing hand and by folding he saved the Italian people the full brunt of Mussolini's evil. Mussolini wasn't ever able to consolidate as much power as Hitler had... Much less Stalin.

That gives me an idea for an Italian focus tree.... (honestly originally I didn't have many issues with the original tree.)

Demonstrate that Italy is a house of many different ideas held roughly together by Mussolini. Have a focus branch for a communist overthrow and path, a monarchist victory path, Mussolini's path and possibly even a republican path. Italy would seem less solid to players, but still full of options and possibilities. Italy wasn't great in WW2 but that was mainly because it's navy couldn't play a large role (no fuel) and REALLY bad strategies for an army that was industrially crippled. They still could have won in North Africa though, and that would have potentially changed the course of the war. It could have even gotten the UK finally to come to terms and sign something approaching a white peace with Germany, which would have ended the blockade.

 

[Ketchup & friends]

I would gladly pay again to fix the DLC we already got, but I understand that many people don't want to do that. What if they were to provide a new DLC that included, for example, changes to South Africa among other new feature? You could get the South Africa changes for free if you already bought TfV.

We agree that these countries need a rework (Yugoslavia too).

But these reworked trees should be available via TfV. No additional second DLC should be neccessary for a full experience.

Granted, they could make the same reworked focus tree available by either TfV OR a new DLC, but then there will be outcry about that.

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

I would say that USSR, considering the player demand for it; but Italy has to go first. They are currently so OP in the game, even on historical, that you cannot get a rough "historical" game with Italy as it stands.

 

[MobiusTwo]

We agree that these countries need a rework (Yugoslavia too).

But these reworked trees should be available via TfV. No additional second DLC should be neccessary for a full experience.

Granted, they could make the same reworked focus tree available by either TfV OR a new DLC, but then there will be outcry about that.

Unfortunately, I don't think people will be happy no matter which way you slice it. They could never touch the broken older focus trees again and neither of us would be happy. They could make a new DLC and essentially have people pay for updated content twice and lot of people would be upset. You could include a Yugoslav rework in the upcoming Italy DLC, and make the Yugoslavia changes free to anyone who already bought DoD, and people would be upset that they "wasted" development time on a country that already had a focus tree, albeit a bad one.

But man you are right that Yugoslavia needs a rework. As it stands there are many completely worthless focuses in the "Western Branch" and no way to completely remove all the crippling debuffs you have to work with. Perhaps this is fair, as Yugoslavia was a chimera state that should never have existed to begin with, but it doesn't make for a fun playthrough. There is also no reward for staying Non-Aligned and essentially no benefit to going Democratic since you'll have to fight the Croatian uprising when the Axis invades. Meanwhile the Communist branch is comparatively so overpowered that there's no reason why the player would want to go with anything else.

Demonstrate that Italy is a house of many different ideas held roughly together by Mussolini. Have a focus branch for a communist overthrow and path, a monarchist victory path, Mussolini's path and possibly even a republican path. Italy would seem less solid to players, but still full of options and possibilities. Italy wasn't great in WW2 but that was mainly because it's navy couldn't play a large role (no fuel) and REALLY bad strategies for an army that was industrially crippled. They still could have won in North Africa though, and that would have potentially changed the course of the war. It could have even gotten the UK finally to come to terms and sign something approaching a white peace with Germany, which would have ended the blockade.

Would there be a plausible historical basis for communist and democratic paths? One of my pet peeves is when the devs add ideological paths for the sake of having all ideologies represented in the focus tree. For example, Japan having a communist path is nonsensical, and the devs should have worked on expanding the fascist and non-aligned parts of the tree.

I would say that USSR, considering the player demand for it; but Italy has to go first. They are currently so OP in the game, even on historical, that you cannot get a rough "historical" game with Italy as it stands.

Wait, Italy is overpowered? In the current state of the game I feel they're pretty weak. The AI gets naval invaded by the Allies fairly consistently, and as a player, you can no longer waltz into Yugoslavia or any of your regular pre-WWII targets without France intervening.

 

[Iskulya]

Soviets need to come first. Italy is a glorified minor.

The United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany are basically the stars of the show. Even in terms of more plausible alternate history, there are tons of possibilities for the Soviet Union.

It's no secret that the Soviet Union was created on the principal of world revolution. The structure of the Soviet Union as a federal republic was highly scalable. Most people know that the Soviet Union consisted of 12 SSRs(pre-war) based on nationality. What most people don't know is that even smaller, local ethnic republics on a county or even city level existed. In Western Ukraine, there was a "Polish Republic" the Soviets set up, on a very small scale. The subject of Soviet nationality policy is complicated and also very contentious especially on this forum, but suffice to say that one of the main purposes of this was to serve as a kernel for a future Polish SSR, which of course could only have come about through an invasion.

The Soviets also had annexationist ambitions towards Finland, even for a while creating a Finnish SSR that existed mostly on paper. I don't know much about the Winter War or that situation, I'm sure Fulmen does so I leave that to people such as him who are more educated about it.

It is debatable whether Stalin seriously ever entertained ideas of world revolution or expansion of the Soviet Union into a world socialist republic, but the general annexationist ambitions towards Poland and Finland are undeniable. Stalin was a kind of pragmatist, so even though the military situation made the dream of annexing Finland impossible, the Soviets were in a position to annex Poland in its entirety. The reason this didn't happen was as a compromise towards international diplomacy. This also has a lot to do with the continued existence of Mongolia, which was not recognized by any country in the world at the game start aside from the Soviet Union itself.

It would be nice having a much greater flexibility in diplomacy, even as a Stalinist Soviet Union. Some things I think are a little too bold or complicated for the developers to successfully implement. Hitler did try to push for the possibility of an expansion of the Tripartite Pact into a Four Power Pact. The Soviets didn't bite, but I think as an option, if implemented correctly, could be very interesting. The Soviets are brought into the war and fight against the Allies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, while Germany fights the Allies on the continent. Both would be wrangling to make a deal with the Allies to backstab the other.

The Allies might make a deal with the Soviets and provide concessions in Asia, perhaps Iran and/or India as Soviet satellites, or something of that nature, and then have them backstab the Germans. Or on the other hand, the Allies might make concessions to Germany like the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and the so-called Danzig Corridor in exchange for a grand anti-bolshevik crusade. Some might question whether even a limited military alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union was possible, but in my opinion it was.

While the role of ideology in Nazi thinking was huge, people also tend to underestimate the role that geopolitics played in shaping it. Even Hitler himself was willing to revise such fundamental tenants of Nazi ideology and do a complete 180. From the outset, the Nazis had viewed Judaism and Bolshevism as synonymous, yet Hitler himself abandoned this view in 1944. He changed his view to this idea that Stalin was actually a purger of the Jews, and came to identify specifically Trotskyism, not Marxism-Leninism with Judaism, and in turn identified Trotskyism with the Western Allies. In short, he adopted a view of Trotskyism which was remarkably similar to the official Stalinist view.

The reason for this abrupt, complete contradiction of ideological orthodoxy was entirely because of geopolitics. Hitler held out hope for a miraculous and impossible breakup of the enemy coalition. He was open simultaneously to a deal with the Soviets directed against the Western Allies, and with the Western Allies against the Soviets. Thus the Nazis portrayed themselves schizophrenically as defenders of Western Civilization against the "Bolshevik-Asiastic Hordes", but also as inveterate enemies of "Jewish capitalism" which was identified with the Western Allies.

Could such an ideological shift happened earlier? I don't see it as being impossible if the diplomatic situation made it favorable for the Germans. It's a lot more plausible than most of the other alternate history in this game. OTOH, alt-history that relies on the game otherwise being completely historical usually results in a lot of problems. See the Dutch Monarchist path as an example of an alt-history tree that is completely broken by having historical focuses off.

I think at least the devs are starting to have the right kind of philosophy to a Soviet rework. During the LR release stream, Archangel made mention of this idea that the Soviet rework should focus on communist ideologies rather than the traditional "let's represent every ideology no matter how far fetched". I think that's the right move. With things like Trotsky, Bukharin, the Caucasian Clique, there's already more than enough material for multiple compelling, different communist paths.

The Great Purge and the effects it has need to be totally redone imo. It's trivially easy to get rid of the penalties before Barbarossa as well, which is another problem. Make the Purge something that you truly suffer from. In our house MP mod we have a "shock" effect which provides dramatic debuffs for the Soviets for the first three months after Barbarossa. By increasing the role of the purges you can also have room to make the alternate history routes more different.

I'd imagine it:

Stalinist: Purges, huge military penalties that take a lot of time and effort to recover from.

Trotskyist: Devastating civil war, but avoids the pitfalls of the purges. Race to get your economy and military into fighting shape after the civil war.

Bukharinist/Right Opposition: Avoids the purges, but has economic penalties that compensate. A central plank of Bukharin's platform was in protecting the peasants and small proprietors. Stalin ruthlessly squeezed them of capital to fuel industrialization, so any Right Opposition path should be noticeably weaker than the Stalinist one economically, at least in the short run.

Don't get me wrong, I love playing as Italy, and desperately want an Italy rework too. It's just that in importance and impact it would have on the game, a Soviet rework is much more necessary and meaningful.

Also, the "Hitler was a socialist" debate? Really? Can you guys not derail this thread with that garbage please?

 

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

Wait, Italy is overpowered? In the current state of the game I feel they're pretty weak. The AI gets naval invaded by the Allies fairly consistently, and as a player, you can no longer waltz into Yugoslavia or any of your regular pre-WWII targets without France intervening.

They still have no problem capitulating France. Sure, the Allies eventually navally capitulate Italy; but not for Italy gets France surrender.

 

[WeissRaben]

Would there be a plausible historical basis for communist and democratic paths? One of my pet peeves is when the devs add ideological paths for the sake of having all ideologies represented in the focus tree. For example, Japan having a communist path is nonsensical, and the devs should have worked on expanding the fascist and non-aligned parts of the tree.

Oh yes. As said above, Mussolini found himself handcuffed quite hard by how he had gotten his power, so he was never quite able to stamp other ideologies out, the way Germany, the Soviet Union, or Japan were. He was still bound by some quite loose checks and balances - which were quite weak, yes, but still enough to depose him, as it eventually happened in '43.

The Salò Republic, or Italian Social Republic - the German puppet in Northern Italy after the armistice of Cassibile and Operation Achse - was a lot closer to being a fully totalitarian fascist regime; but being a German sockpuppet with a tired Mussolini at the helm, it's no surprise.

 

[Happy Trigger]

One of the fascinating things about the Italian experience is that the king was so terrified of the communists that he allowed Mussolini's March on Rome to succeed. Yet, this carried a twist. By surrendering to Mussolini he denied Mussolini justification to destroy him. Mussolini's entire argument was built upon a multi ethnic "nationalism", in essence a cultural idea of what it was to be Italian. A cultural idea that he would use to unite everyone in a collective.

Yet because Mussolini was unable to destroy the image of the king, the very cultural institution of the king the king in effect bound Mussolini to him. Mussolini had power, but the king had limited it and bound Mussolini to him. So even though Mussolini invented totalitarianism (outside of Russia) he was unable to implement it because he was unable to destroy the institutions of the existing culture. I really don't know if the king's fear of not being able to stop the communists was justified. He felt he had a losing hand and by folding he saved the Italian people the full brunt of Mussolini's evil. Mussolini wasn't ever able to consolidate as much power as Hitler had... Much less Stalin.

That gives me an idea for an Italian focus tree.... (honestly originally I didn't have many issues with the original tree.)

Demonstrate that Italy is a house of many different ideas held roughly together by Mussolini. Have a focus branch for a communist overthrow and path, a monarchist victory path, Mussolini's path and possibly even a republican path. Italy would seem less solid to players, but still full of options and possibilities. Italy wasn't great in WW2 but that was mainly because it's navy couldn't play a large role (no fuel) and REALLY bad strategies for an army that was industrially crippled. They still could have won in North Africa though, and that would have potentially changed the course of the war. It could have even gotten the UK finally to come to terms and sign something approaching a white peace with Germany, which would have ended the blockade.

I have a question out of curiosity. Do you think Hitler would had the same limitations and "act" like Mussolini if Germany still had the Kaiser, maybe as a democracy monarchy?

 

[Happy Trigger]

I'd like to see more decisions to start borders conflicts between Japan and USSR, while Japan is fighting the chinese. But a large border conflict like on the video above. That would require the japanese player to mantain troops in Manchukuo all the time. Maybe these border conflicts could be a pre-requisit to the signature of the non-agression pact.

 

[CrazyZombie]

I think, Soviets must come first, but I don't hope for any sane appoach in this, so I'm already bracing myself for obligatory monarchist path and various similar meme-cancer content.

Also, Soviet expansion is unimaginable without further land warfare rework: supply, complex logistics, order execution delay, maybe, introduction of "officer corps" or something to show such a common problem as lack of competent officers of all levels due to rapid expansion of army. Long story short, I want to see exactly WW2, at least, mechanics-wise. I have no hope already for vanila being "fixed", so in terms of lore, mods would be my salvation.

 

[MobiusTwo]

As much as I would love to be able to play as Tsarist Russia in vanilla HOI4, the return of the House of Romanov is really not feasible at all in the game's timeframe. The German monarchist restoration focus tree, which is easily one of my favorites in the entire game, is already far-fetched enough, even though there were significant royalist elements still present in Germany as late as the 1950s.

Even if you could play as Tsarist Russia, what would the practical differences be from the Soviet Union? You would still be fighting Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states (reintegrating former imperial lands) and be at odds with Germany and Japan. That's essentially what the Soviet Union can already do in the game. And once you finish those rivals off, I imagine that Tsarist Russia would be able to reignite the Great Game or seek vengeance for its former allies abandoning it during and after WWI. But how different is that from the Cold War?

Yeah, I only want to see Tsarist Russia as an easter egg when monarchist countries puppet the Soviet Union.

 

[Col.Klink]

I think, Soviets must come first, but I don't hope for any sane appoach in this, so I'm already bracing myself for obligatory monarchist path and various similar meme-cancer content.

Also, Soviet expansion is unimaginable without further land warfare rework: supply, complex logistics, order execution delay, maybe, introduction of "officer corps" or something to show such a common problem as lack of competent officers of all levels due to rapid expansion of army. Long story short, I want to see exactly WW2, at least, mechanics-wise. I have no hope already for vanila being "fixed", so in terms of lore, mods would be my salvation.

Didn't Hoi III have an officer corps mechanic? Either way it took me a long time to realize that really that the whole concept is ultimately bunk. Like the idea that the Russian army performed so poorly early 1941 was because of the purges.

Consider, it's 1939. The day Germany invades Poland George C. Marshall is sworn in as Chief of Staff of the US Army. Now the US government was not complacent, this was a period in which the US quietly began to prepare for war, the M2 medium tank was deemed obsolete and needed to be replaced as an example. Anyway, what did George Marshall do to prepare the USA for war? He forced something like 98% of the senior officer corps into retirement. That's right, in 1939 the USA had it's own purge of it's army! Marshall had this list of attributes that he deemed necessary to a quality officer corps and was quite ruthless in driving folks who didn't fit the bill out, Patton really being the only such survivor of note. Now you consider that after this purge he would oversee the expansion of the US Army from 186,000 men to 8,200,000 men and the quality of leadership only kept going up as time went on.

When looking at that I finally realized the theory about Stalin's purges crippling the soviet military is bunk. If the USA could do a purge and expand its army nearly 8 fold in just two years (39-41, the army expanded by 43 fold by 1945) then there is no reason why the officer corps that Stalin purged in 36-37 couldn't have been replaced by 1941 and he didn't expand his army by nearly the same degree that the United States did. No soviet weakness in 1941 has to be something else.... Some historians argue that it's really that the Russian tank corps were being restructured, they didn't even have trucks for the infantry to work in coordination. The infantry divisions didn't have anti tank guns. Communication was almost solely done by wire ect.

Those issues are actually pretty well modeled in the game already, half the game is just making sure you got the equipment your men need which is tbh one of the greatest improvements of hoi4 over hoi3.

I have a question out of curiosity. Do you think Hitler would had the same limitations and "act" like Mussolini if Germany still had the Kaiser, maybe as a democracy monarchy?

That's a tough one.... Part of Mussolini's issue was that he was unable to achieve power through a marxist line of attack. That's what makes marxism so clever is that it's a method of subversion and domination and while fascism and nazism are not marxism they are outgrowths of marxism and use marxist methodologies to achieve power. Marxism is so effective at this that it came to define socialism thus the argument above.

Anyway, By declaring his party to be "the will of the people" and marching on Rome he put the king in a position where if he resisted he would be "fighting the will of the people" and in effect create the opportunity for Mussolini to deligitimize the institution. The man is unimportant, the INSTITUTION of the king is important. By siding with the self declared "will of the people" the king prevented Mussolini from deligitimizing him, therefore if Mussolini killed him he would just be a bloodthirsty murderer not a champion of the people. Then Mussolini's coalition, which included a lot of conservatives and monarchists would crumble.

The overall strategy is to target cornerstone institutions that define the society and undermine them with a conflict. You deligitimize them causing a collapse. The more you can collapse the more chaos there is and the more power you can claim for yourself. Mussolini wound up bound by two major institutions (the king and the papacy) rather than being able to collapse them so he was limited. The nazis as an example imported ideas, a lot of Nordic Mythology and symbols as a means of introducing a counterculture to the various Christian mythologies and symbols that served as a cornerstone moral and cultural institution of German society. This effort is today why the Nordic world tree is included on the ADL website as a hate symbol.

Anyway, I don't know how well Hitler would have fared if the king still had some sort of role in German society.... The hardest part is that I know what actually happened with Mussolini but I really am struggling to figure out what place the German king would have in society and therefore how hard would it be to remove him. Would his institution already lack legitimacy and make it easy for Hitler to remove him? I know a lot of Hitler's power came from angry members of the military or former members of the military. Members angry not only upset at their fall in social status from before ww1, but also what they felt was a betrayal in suing for peace ending ww1. Would this factor allow Hitler just to outright remove the king? I dunno....

And TBH I realize that I have to study more about the institutions that bound Hitler up and kept him from getting everything he wanted. There is a reason why his government instead of nationalizing all industry forced industries to put what is in effect a party commissar on the board. The party member made sure the corporation was run "for the good of the people" rather than for profit, and so control was implicitly established rather than explicitly like in the USSR (this btw is the strategy the modern CCP in China uses to maintain a degree of central planning control over it's economy.) I just don't think Hitler had the power to nationalize everything and so the implicit control was the best that could be done.

Would there be a plausible historical basis for communist and democratic paths? One of my pet peeves is when the devs add ideological paths for the sake of having all ideologies represented in the focus tree. For example, Japan having a communist path is nonsensical, and the devs should have worked on expanding the fascist and non-aligned parts of the tree.

TBH I have absolutely no idea of the sort, scale or power of republican forces within Italy at the time. I floated the idea mainly because Monarchism clearly is an option, and the communists remained such a powerful force in Italy that they began to take over in the chaos of the collapsed Italian government. They were in fact the ones that murdered Mussolini, catching him by setting up roadblocks throughout the north. Not because they were actually trying to catch him (just happenstance for them) but because they were being communist dicks asserting control. So clearly a communist path is something that is at least somewhat possible. There was a large movement of communists in Italy, hell Mussolini and his parents were part of it at one point!

So... maybe leave out the republican path. I mean you have a very good point. I deeply enjoy PLAUSIBLE alt history in game. The "emperor" of Manchukuo staging a coup and driving out the Japanese to establish independence being one of the more implausible ideas that I enjoy, but still plausible enough y'know? That as a measuring stick should help us figure out what fun alt paths to include and what to leave.

Soviets need to come first. Italy is a glorified minor.

The United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany are basically the stars of the show. Even in terms of more plausible alternate history, there are tons of possibilities for the Soviet Union.

It's no secret that the Soviet Union was created on the principal of world revolution. The structure of the Soviet Union as a federal republic was highly scalable. Most people know that the Soviet Union consisted of 12 SSRs(pre-war) based on nationality. What most people don't know is that even smaller, local ethnic republics on a county or even city level existed. In Western Ukraine, there was a "Polish Republic" the Soviets set up, on a very small scale. The subject of Soviet nationality policy is complicated and also very contentious especially on this forum, but suffice to say that one of the main purposes of this was to serve as a kernel for a future Polish SSR, which of course could only have come about through an invasion.

The Soviets also had annexationist ambitions towards Finland, even for a while creating a Finnish SSR that existed mostly on paper. I don't know much about the Winter War or that situation, I'm sure Fulmen does so I leave that to people such as him who are more educated about it.

It is debatable whether Stalin seriously ever entertained ideas of world revolution or expansion of the Soviet Union into a world socialist republic, but the general annexationist ambitions towards Poland and Finland are undeniable. Stalin was a kind of pragmatist, so even though the military situation made the dream of annexing Finland impossible, the Soviets were in a position to annex Poland in its entirety. The reason this didn't happen was as a compromise towards international diplomacy. This also has a lot to do with the continued existence of Mongolia, which was not recognized by any country in the world at the game start aside from the Soviet Union itself.

It would be nice having a much greater flexibility in diplomacy, even as a Stalinist Soviet Union. Some things I think are a little too bold or complicated for the developers to successfully implement. Hitler did try to push for the possibility of an expansion of the Tripartite Pact into a Four Power Pact. The Soviets didn't bite, but I think as an option, if implemented correctly, could be very interesting. The Soviets are brought into the war and fight against the Allies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, while Germany fights the Allies on the continent. Both would be wrangling to make a deal with the Allies to backstab the other.

The Allies might make a deal with the Soviets and provide concessions in Asia, perhaps Iran and/or India as Soviet satellites, or something of that nature, and then have them backstab the Germans. Or on the other hand, the Allies might make concessions to Germany like the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and the so-called Danzig Corridor in exchange for a grand anti-bolshevik crusade. Some might question whether even a limited military alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union was possible, but in my opinion it was.

While the role of ideology in Nazi thinking was huge, people also tend to underestimate the role that geopolitics played in shaping it. Even Hitler himself was willing to revise such fundamental tenants of Nazi ideology and do a complete 180. From the outset, the Nazis had viewed Judaism and Bolshevism as synonymous, yet Hitler himself abandoned this view in 1944. He changed his view to this idea that Stalin was actually a purger of the Jews, and came to identify specifically Trotskyism, not Marxism-Leninism with Judaism, and in turn identified Trotskyism with the Western Allies. In short, he adopted a view of Trotskyism which was remarkably similar to the official Stalinist view.

The reason for this abrupt, complete contradiction of ideological orthodoxy was entirely because of geopolitics. Hitler held out hope for a miraculous and impossible breakup of the enemy coalition. He was open simultaneously to a deal with the Soviets directed against the Western Allies, and with the Western Allies against the Soviets. Thus the Nazis portrayed themselves schizophrenically as defenders of Western Civilization against the "Bolshevik-Asiastic Hordes", but also as inveterate enemies of "Jewish capitalism" which was identified with the Western Allies.

Could such an ideological shift happened earlier? I don't see it as being impossible if the diplomatic situation made it favorable for the Germans. It's a lot more plausible than most of the other alternate history in this game. OTOH, alt-history that relies on the game otherwise being completely historical usually results in a lot of problems. See the Dutch Monarchist path as an example of an alt-history tree that is completely broken by having historical focuses off.

I think at least the devs are starting to have the right kind of philosophy to a Soviet rework. During the LR release stream, Archangel made mention of this idea that the Soviet rework should focus on communist ideologies rather than the traditional "let's represent every ideology no matter how far fetched". I think that's the right move. With things like Trotsky, Bukharin, the Caucasian Clique, there's already more than enough material for multiple compelling, different communist paths.

The Great Purge and the effects it has need to be totally redone imo. It's trivially easy to get rid of the penalties before Barbarossa as well, which is another problem. Make the Purge something that you truly suffer from. In our house MP mod we have a "shock" effect which provides dramatic debuffs for the Soviets for the first three months after Barbarossa. By increasing the role of the purges you can also have room to make the alternate history routes more different.

I'd imagine it:

Stalinist: Purges, huge military penalties that take a lot of time and effort to recover from.

Trotskyist: Devastating civil war, but avoids the pitfalls of the purges. Race to get your economy and military into fighting shape after the civil war.

Bukharinist/Right Opposition: Avoids the purges, but has economic penalties that compensate. A central plank of Bukharin's platform was in protecting the peasants and small proprietors. Stalin ruthlessly squeezed them of capital to fuel industrialization, so any Right Opposition path should be noticeably weaker than the Stalinist one economically, at least in the short run.

Don't get me wrong, I love playing as Italy, and desperately want an Italy rework too. It's just that in importance and impact it would have on the game, a Soviet rework is much more necessary and meaningful.

Also, the "Hitler was a socialist" debate? Really? Can you guys not derail this thread with that garbage please?

I think that there should be some sort of benefit to Stalin. By not taking on Trotsky's plan of funding insurrection everywhere Stalin actually managed to restore *SOME* international esteem for his country. The end result was being able to import technology and even whole factories to boost his country. While I don't agree that the purges were in fact as devastating as they are represented in the game, I think a reasonable trade off is that Stalin's economy is the best option for the Soviet Union while still remaining communist.

Trotsky on the other hand should have massive capacity for staging coups ect internationally..... Which makes me think, there should be an option to form a puppet government with a coup....

Also side note, you mentioned how geopolitics effects ideology. The Soviet Union having a surprisingly flexible governmental structure actually seems to be something that they inherited from the empire. In "Russia a History" I remember reading about how the government had a rule of "govern locally how they want to be governed." Which of course explains how the Russian empire was able to expand so quickly. Of course the Soviet Union didn't abide by that credo but kept the ethos of governing locally with flexibility, instead of trying to fight ethnic identity groups as a rule it generally (though not always) gave them their own little small regional government. The Soviet Union really was clearly designed well to expand.

 

[Surimi]

That being said the reason why there is a transition period to the utopia isn't just to spread the world revolution, but the tyrannical dictator exists to control your very thoughts. He is supposed to fix your stupid brain so you are capable of handling anarchy.

In what ways do you believe that the Soviet Union was preparing people for the immanent reality of anarchy?

Sure, in Marxist theory the trajectory of societal evolution ultimately leads to the abolition of the state, but again, Marx, Lenin and Stalin were not anarchists. The latter oppressed and killed anarchists. They did not see the abolition of the state as an inherently good thing or a worthwhile goal in the here and now, quite the opposite in fact.

When you actually discuss the mechanics of it, even if marxists are right that you can FORCE people through culture to be what you want them to be.... It is one of the most evil concepts I have ever read.

You're getting very close to an actual historical debate, but in reality that debate wasn't anything to do with socialism, it happened during the Enlightenment. In fact, it started about a hundred years earlier, carried on through the Enlightenment and is arguably still going on today.

If everyone possesses the capacity for reason, why do people sometimes behave unreasonably?

Hobbes was famous for his pessimistic view of human nature, but the point he was actually making is that humans require a society. Society is the only thing that protects us from each other, and in order for society to function there must be certain constraints on human liberty. Children, for example, do not typically have the same liberties as adults. However, this creates a problem. If you're okay limiting the liberty of children because they're not capable of making reasonable decisions, why not also constrain the liberty of peasants? They can't make reasonable decisions, can they?

This is why Kant famously described Enlightenment as the "maturity" of mankind, because it wasn't enough for people to have the inherent capacity for reason, they had to actually use their capacity and learn how to think for themselves. For empiricists, who ultimately became the dominant strand of enlightenment thought, this translated into a need for education. People couldn't be expected to behave like reasonable people unless they had actually been taught how to make reasonable decisions. Or, as you would put it, unless they had been FORCED to be reasonable adults capable of making decisions for themselves. How terrible!

One might as well say that the French Revolution wasn't the birth of socialism.

It wasn't.

Calling Hitler a socialist is wrong, but it's understandable because Hitler did use words like "socialism" and "workers". Again, it relies on a kind of nominalism which is clearly and transparently wrong, but you can see a person reaching that argument.

The French revolution predates socialism as a concept by decades. The ideological motivation for the French revolution is the same as that of the American revolution, meaning its the radical Enlightenment. It's the idea, again, that society should be organised on rational principles in order to maximise liberty. It was a bourgeois revolution organised and lead primarily by the wealthy middle class, and its economic effects were extremely pro-capitalist.

What you may be observing, correctly, is that socialism (like almost all modern political positions save the most extreme conservatism) is an outgrowth of the radical enlightenment (in Marx' case, the German Enlightenment via Hegel). It turns out, when you accept that people are free and equal in rights, then people might start wondering why it's okay to coerce people who are supposed to be your equals into 14 hour shifts under threat of starvation.

But instead of going back and forth why don't you watch this well researched and cited video. If five hours of evidence isn't enough to convince you then you won't be convinced and you've bought into marxist propaganda about their arch enemy.

This video literally is propaganda. In fact, many of its "cited" claims are explicitly based on citing Nazi propaganda as a truthful or accurate source, without reference to the actual policies of the Nazi regieme. I mean, I'm not sitting through 5 hours of this drek, but I watched enough of it to spot what's going on here.

It's not hard, for example, to disprove the idea that Hitler was a free market capitalist, but it's just as easy to disprove that Hitler was a Marxist socialist. Now, if I was to use the same propaganda tactics as we find in this video, what I'd do is to pull out a bunch of quotes where Hitler condemned socialism (of which there are no shortage) then pick an axis which suits my needs. Say, "equality" versus "hierarchy". I'd put socialism on the equality end, and free market capitalism and fascism on the hiearchy end, and voila. Clearly Hitler was a free market capitalist!

This would be dumb and easy, however. Hitler was not a socialist. He was not a free market capitalist. He was a fascist. Fascism is its own ideology with quite distinct and noticeable features which have been extremely well documented. It can be very relevant to point out similarities between fascism and other ideological positions, but only if you understand that they are in fact different things.

They loathe the representative systems because they argue that only the wealthy really have a say and that there is no way around that. The only way to fix that in their mind is if an enlightened cadre of men takes power to rule on behalf of "the good of the people."

This is actually one of the main points of disagreement between orthodox Marxism and Leninism.

That's where the word "soviet" comes from, it's just that they pretty quickly stripped the soviets of power and empowered bureaucrats ran by the central committee.

Yes, because the Bolshevik party, under Lenin, whose ideology was Marxist-Leninism, took control of the Soviets and established a dictatorship in accordance with their own principles. Other parties, like the SRs, had different principles and violently resisted this takeover. The Bolsheviks weren't pretending to be democratic or to favour popular rule, they were waiting until they had sufficient control of the democratic process to abolish it.

There's a weird doublethink in your argument, where on one hand Hitler (a vehement anti-socialist who openly condemned socialism as evil and who presided over a regime that was unrelentingly hostile towards socialists) is a socialist, and yet on the other hand actual socialist parties, parties with actual socialist policies, are either being openly misrepresented or excluded from your definition of socialism because they can't be used to attack the idea of socialism so easily. Be honest, is socialism just a word you use arbitrarily to describe things you don't like? What actually defines a socialist to you? Because it's clearly not based on either policy or political affiliation.

 

[Happy Trigger]

When looking at that I finally realized the theory about Stalin's purges crippling the soviet military is bunk. If the USA could do a purge and expand its army nearly 8 fold in just two years (39-41, the army expanded by 43 fold by 1945) then there is no reason why the officer corps that Stalin purged in 36-37 couldn't have been replaced by 1941 and he didn't expand his army by nearly the same degree that the United States did. No soviet weakness in 1941 has to be something else.... Some historians argue that it's really that the Russian tank corps were being restructured, they didn't even have trucks for the infantry to work in coordination. The infantry divisions didn't have anti tank guns. Communication was almost solely done by wire ect.

[...]

I think that there should be some sort of benefit to Stalin. By not taking on Trotsky's plan of funding insurrection everywhere Stalin actually managed to restore *SOME* international esteem for his country. The end result was being able to import technology and even whole factories to boost his country. While I don't agree that the purges were in fact as devastating as they are represented in the game, I think a reasonable trade off is that Stalin's economy is the best option for the Soviet Union while still remaining communist.

Trotsky on the other hand should have massive capacity for staging coups ect internationally..... Which makes me think, there should be an option to form a puppet government with a coup....

Also side note, you mentioned how geopolitics effects ideology. The Soviet Union having a surprisingly flexible governmental structure actually seems to be something that they inherited from the empire. In "Russia a History" I remember reading about how the government had a rule of "govern locally how they want to be governed." Which of course explains how the Russian empire was able to expand so quickly. Of course the Soviet Union didn't abide by that credo but kept the ethos of governing locally with flexibility, instead of trying to fight ethnic identity groups as a rule it generally (though not always) gave them their own little small regional government. The Soviet Union really was clearly designed well to expand.

First, thanks for answering my question. You gave me a new view about the period.

You made some good points that i would like to discuss. First about the "purge" that the US and USSR did. I think the primary differency between them is that while Stalin literally killed a lot of people, the US just send them to retirement. These people in retirement could be convoked at any time, be consulted, and even work to the army as civilians with a certain degree of influence inside the army. The same can't be said about USSR. So, we can argued that one of the biggest effects of the 'Great Purge' was the lost of brains, that alone could be the cause of secondary and tertiary problems inside the military.

About the collaboration goverment idea. It really make sense, but that to look plausible, would need something like what happened in Yugoslavia in the 50s when soviets tanks drove down the street and was made the announced that the 'situation in Yugoslasvia was normalized'. To turn a coup in a puppet state, the country interested should need to exert a huge degree of influence (principally military) inside this country.