Glad to have you aboard ZechsMerquise!
Well I'll admit I'm dissapointed that the French and particularily Prussians failed to beat me down when they had the chance. But I cannot force the AI to attack me. That's just a problem with the game.
The Bohemian War was really just a name. I think its pretty clear that Bohemia wasn't the primary part of that conflict.
As for anti VSVR coalitions. At the end of the Bohemian War I was basically the lord of all Europe. After I had beaten the UK and Russia in the Eastern War it was obvious that I was the unchallenged military hegemon of Europe. Any pan-capitalist alliance would have little hope of bringing me down. So the Imperialist powers prefer to try to abritrate with the VSVR. For some (like the UK and to a lesser extent Russia) this has meant large periods of peace and economic cooperation. For others (France and Austria) this has backfired as the Republic has struck repeatedly against them.
In RL Spain had one of the strongest Leftwing movements in Europe. Also in the AAR they had a massive White rebellion in which I actually had to send troops to save them. Rebels have swept Spain a couple more times since. This more than counts as a major insurgency. Spain is the least stable Comintern state with the CSR, Sweden and Italy also being major offenders.
The Anarchists (pre-Kropotkin) had a long history of being pro-Union and this section of the faction was still prominent making the pull to what was not far from a reincarnation of the ill fated United Trade Unions faction (remember them?) reasonably strong. Plus both factions seemed to agree on a lot of issues and both wanted to end Marxist dominance (20 years of Marxist dominanted government would make any opposition eager for a chance at power, even if it compromises on their beliefs - think Clegg). The Anarchists had also come painfully close in the past two elections to victory building up desperation for a shot in power. The alliance might have worked. Sadly Kropotkin was bombarded by issues and this marked the high tide of Trade Union mismangement making an alliance with a pro-Union faction an utter disaster.
I too am suprised that no one ever really took to the Moderates. They were basically a continutation of the Marxist factions (Marxists and United Front) that governed from 1855 until 1875. Basically those Marxist who prefered to stick to the ideas of Marx and Engels rather than accept Lenin's new leadership and ideas. But they crashed and burned, despite me providing life support by a decent Workers' Vote in each election.
Lenin did launch a purge, of sorts. The majority of the Anarchist and Independent leadership was killed in the Civil War and several key figures were imprisoned (like that warrior for freedom - Necazian). However the People's Party is a strange organism. Although the Anarchists were illegal the party was still made up of anywhere between 20 and 40% pro-Anarchists. Can you really wipe away that much of your Party? Of course not. Remember in this AAR Lenin never actually wanted to destroy the democracy - just to remove what he saw as damaging influences (Unionists and Anarchists).
If you weren't reading the comments then I assure you Lenin got a lot of poo flung at him over all sorts of things. Much more so than any other Chairman we've had.
Interesting how you describe your new faction idea. As you probably realise I can't introduce too many factions but with the enfranchisement of the farmers (finally) I plan to create a new faction. It's has quite a few similarities with the sort of faction you described. As a small spoiler it's going to be led by another balshy Frenchman (we've not had one for awhile
) and shall be called the Revolutionary faction.
I'd also like to announce that the AAR will resume properly (no more self indulgent Scottish successes
) tommorrow, I mean later today but not in the middle of the night
. A new year a new Chairman!
