I feel like the homeless guy on the street corner with a sign saying "The end is near! Repent, sinners!". I'm right, yet no one listens.
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For those wondering about where Tommy got his map, it was here:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?490918-Victoria-II-Paintable-World-Maps
(or some place very similar)
And this isn't entirely the Anarchist's fault, we are just cursed to poor leadership and a poor choice of partners.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?490918-Victoria-II-Paintable-World-Maps
(or some place very similar)
And this isn't entirely the Anarchist's fault, we are just cursed to poor leadership and a poor choice of partners.
It should be obvious that they dealt with us to keep the Marxists from power, but it was ultimately their failings that's gotten us in this mess, if I am to believe some of the previous posts I've read. And by the sounds of my post, I'm also alienating my leadership as well and other anarchists in the process. This should be apparent.Alienate the only faction willing to deal with you. Good plan.
Xanthippus - Tis true. This is one of my favoritest AARs here, and I always feel like my comments never do it enough justice. That being said, one of the first questions I asked was pretty similar to your own.
On the AAR itself, I'm seconding a Luxembourgish (Rosa, that is) faction as opening up soon. It'd make me heart truly content!
I see, guess it's the limitations of the game engine. Just seems strange to see them labelled as Right wing, even if it is Right within the spectrum of Far Left! Hehe
Agreed! Rosa for chancellor, Emma Goldman for General Secretary!
Not to be rude or to provoke, but told us what exactly? As has been pointed out, everyone is so quick to point the finger and lay the blame (on both sides), ignoring the facts. As Tommy said, the Anarchists are largely unimplicated in the failings of these last 5 years. They governed with both hands tied behind their backs, having to bargain and cut deals to have others agree to even the slightest measure, that is hardly an indicator of how well they might be able to steer the republic.
I feel the urge to make an in character post. I shall do it in a new one.
Comrades, although I am new to the political scene of the VSVR, I feel compelled to make an appeal. I will not call upon bourgeois 'common sense', but I would plead with you all to make sure you are using all your senses, and trying to think and assess the situation clearly and thoughtfully, rather than jumping to feelings of disgust and hatred, and seeking to find a suitable outlet for your anger. It is oh so easy to point the finger and lump all the blame onto someone whom you feel ideologically opposed, but this is not helpful in the slightest.
The last 5 years have been tough on us all, and it is so easy to blame Kropotkin and the Anarchists at large, but while some mistakes were made, they cannot be held wholly accountable for the state we are now in. They were not afforded the chance to show what they might have been capable of were they not forced to form a minority government with a faction that was largely uncooperative and resistant to their policies. It was an alliance of convenience, but there was little convenient about it whatsoever. Now I do not seek to lump the blame onto Liebknekht and the Independents in order to shield Kropotkin and the Anarchists, either. They made mistakes too, some more dire than the Anarchists it would seem, such as allowing the corrupt and powerful unions to gain ever more power. It is important to recognise this mistake and prevent it from happening ever again, but it is not helpful to tar and feather Liebknekht for it. Comrade Liebknekht thought that he was doing this for the good of the republic, of that I am wholly and utterly convinced. It has brought calamity down upon us, and that is wholly unfortunate, but at the same time I believe this to be, in the long run, healthy for the Republic.
Sooner or later a confrontation with the Unions was inevitable, in my opinion. Perhaps the scale of the conflict could have been lessened considerably without policies that enabled them to gain in power, but we shall never know, and speculation on this matter helps noone. The lesson we have learnt is that the unions are counter productive to the health and strength of the republic, and we are now in a position to take them down once and for all. We must abolish the unions and regrow stronger than before! The revolution will never truly be over until we have achieved a fully egalitarian, stateless society the world over, and until that time we will experience growing pains. They will be uncomfortable, inconvenient, but also inevitable. Once we have overcome these pains we will be stronger, wiser and one step closer to achieving the ultimate goal we set out to achieve in 1850.
In the coming election I would make an appeal for the people to reconsider the Anarchists. They have not yet had the opportunity to help the republic! And I truly believe they are the only ones who can help us at this junction in our history. While I do not consider myself an Anarchist of Comrade Kropotkin's precise ideological underpinning, and I do not agree with all of their policies, it is necessary to stem production for the time being. Part of the reason that we are in such a dire situation as we are now is that the Marxist economy, while it has helped create a powerhouse industry and improved the lot of our Republic and our people ten fold, it has also created a severe crisis of overproduction and redundancy. Textile workers are labouring 10 hours a day to create fuel for steel factories? This is lunacy! I understand the need for employment, but determining what industries and jobs are available should be achieved via heterarchy, not hierarchy. While the Marxist mode of a highly centralised, planned economy was perhaps, nay even surely was, entirely necessary in our formative years, we have reached a bypass and that economic model can lead nowhere but ruin and misery. We need decentralised communes to determine the needs of the people on a local level, and to communicate with each other on regional levels to ensure distribution of resources is adequate. We MUST stop this rampant overproduction! Human need must be the defining quantity behind our industry. If there is no demand, then there should be no production!
Now Marxists may accuse me of not understanding Marxist economics, but I do. I consider myself a Marxist too! I am a disciple of the great fathers of Communism, Marx and Engels, I have read their Communist Manifesto and their masterpiece, Das Kapital too. We have had Marxism, it is time for Anarchism. Within our Republic, Marxism has been the thesis for the last 25 years, and Anarchism has largely been the antithesis. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: what could be more Marxist than this? From this synthesis we shall arrive at something new, we shall grow stronger once more. I would hope that this would arrive at a new party, one that successfully blends Marxist and Anarchist thought and policy, the best of both worlds!
Comrades, let us work together! We are too busy with our sectarian witch hunts against one another! The Marxists accuse the Anarchists of sowing dissent and uncertainty, but a cacophony of differing views and opinions is utterly essential to a healthy democracy, and without it our republic will stagnate! While I truly believe in Comrade Lenin's good intentions, Comrade Schlieffen less so (but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt), and I believe that they think Marxist party discipline, a bloated state and censorship is necessary, these ideas are dangerous! Travelling down that road leads to only one path: the path of Napoleon, the path of dictatorship. I do not suggest that it shall be Lenin, and perhaps not Schlieffen either, but they will lay the groundwork for a future aspirer to dictatorship with their enormous state and authoritative policies.
Similarly, the Anarchists accuse the Marxists of unnecessarily enlarging the state even when they are doing nothing more than providing for the people. While I advocate for decentralised communes administering state welfare, and eventually envisage a future stateless society where everyone is provided for so well that welfare will be unnecessary, that time is not now! State welfare is entirely necessary! Were we to roll back the reforms the Marxists and Leninists have instituted we would doom our own people to poverty! In fact, I advocate for the increasing of state benefits, while handing over the administration of this, as well as many other governmental offices, to decentralised communes. While Comrades Kropotkin, Bakunin and Proudhon have nothing but the best intentions for advocating their removal, fearing the people becoming dependant upon the teat of the state, this is a utopian ideal that must be dispersed! The concrete reality of the situation calls for the necessity of state welfare!
Finally, I would like to make an appeal for extending the franchise. Our peasant brothers and sisters have just as much right to participate in how their lives are run as we proletariats do! To accuse them of not understanding the revolution and therefore not being worthy of the vote is nothing more than thinly veiled classism! If they do not understand, then it falls upon us to improve their education so that they can and do understand! These people are not second class citizens, they are human beings who deserve the franchise! If we continue to deny them their right then we are no better than the bourgeoisie! This too goes for the shopkeepers and artisans, whom many still label the petty bourgeoisie. In the future the need for people to fulfill these roles shall be entirely negated, but the material conditions do not yet permit for this to come to pass. While their existence is necessary, to deny them the vote, to deny them the ability to link arms and join us as comrades in our revolutionary struggle is once again classism, and it is time we overcame this evil.
I hope that my fellow comrades will at least consider my words carefully. I hope that we can achieve synthesis, unite together once again and carry our republic on to greatness!
Yours for the revolution,
Comrade Xanthippus
The last 5 years have been tough on us all, and it is so easy to blame Kropotkin and the Anarchists at large, but while some mistakes were made, they cannot be held wholly accountable for the state we are now in. They were not afforded the chance to show what they might have been capable of were they not forced to form a minority government with a faction that was largely uncooperative and resistant to their policies. It was an alliance of convenience, but there was little convenient about it whatsoever. Now I do not seek to lump the blame onto Liebknekht and the Independents in order to shield Kropotkin and the Anarchists, either. They made mistakes too, some more dire than the Anarchists it would seem, such as allowing the corrupt and powerful unions to gain ever more power. It is important to recognise this mistake and prevent it from happening ever again, but it is not helpful to tar and feather Liebknekht for it. Comrade Liebknekht thought that he was doing this for the good of the republic, of that I am wholly and utterly convinced. It has brought calamity down upon us, and that is wholly unfortunate, but at the same time I believe this to be, in the long run, healthy for the Republic.
Sooner or later a confrontation with the Unions was inevitable, in my opinion. Perhaps the scale of the conflict could have been lessened considerably without policies that enabled them to gain in power, but we shall never know, and speculation on this matter helps noone. The lesson we have learnt is that the unions are counter productive to the health and strength of the republic, and we are now in a position to take them down once and for all. We must abolish the unions and regrow stronger than before! The revolution will never truly be over until we have achieved a fully egalitarian, stateless society the world over, and until that time we will experience growing pains. They will be uncomfortable, inconvenient, but also inevitable. Once we have overcome these pains we will be stronger, wiser and one step closer to achieving the ultimate goal we set out to achieve in 1850.
In the coming election I would make an appeal for the people to reconsider the Anarchists. They have not yet had the opportunity to help the republic! And I truly believe they are the only ones who can help us at this junction in our history. While I do not consider myself an Anarchist of Comrade Kropotkin's precise ideological underpinning, and I do not agree with all of their policies, it is necessary to stem production for the time being. Part of the reason that we are in such a dire situation as we are now is that the Marxist economy, while it has helped create a powerhouse industry and improved the lot of our Republic and our people ten fold, it has also created a severe crisis of overproduction and redundancy. Textile workers are labouring 10 hours a day to create fuel for steel factories? This is lunacy! I understand the need for employment, but determining what industries and jobs are available should be achieved via heterarchy, not hierarchy. While the Marxist mode of a highly centralised, planned economy was perhaps, nay even surely was, entirely necessary in our formative years, we have reached a bypass and that economic model can lead nowhere but ruin and misery. We need decentralised communes to determine the needs of the people on a local level, and to communicate with each other on regional levels to ensure distribution of resources is adequate. We MUST stop this rampant overproduction! Human need must be the defining quantity behind our industry. If there is no demand, then there should be no production!
Now Marxists may accuse me of not understanding Marxist economics, but I do. I consider myself a Marxist too! I am a disciple of the great fathers of Communism, Marx and Engels, I have read their Communist Manifesto and their masterpiece, Das Kapital too. We have had Marxism, it is time for Anarchism. Within our Republic, Marxism has been the thesis for the last 25 years, and Anarchism has largely been the antithesis. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: what could be more Marxist than this? From this synthesis we shall arrive at something new, we shall grow stronger once more. I would hope that this would arrive at a new party, one that successfully blends Marxist and Anarchist thought and policy, the best of both worlds!
Comrades, let us work together! We are too busy with our sectarian witch hunts against one another! The Marxists accuse the Anarchists of sowing dissent and uncertainty, but a cacophony of differing views and opinions is utterly essential to a healthy democracy, and without it our republic will stagnate! While I truly believe in Comrade Lenin's good intentions, Comrade Schlieffen less so (but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt), and I believe that they think Marxist party discipline, a bloated state and censorship is necessary, these ideas are dangerous! Travelling down that road leads to only one path: the path of Napoleon, the path of dictatorship. I do not suggest that it shall be Lenin, and perhaps not Schlieffen either, but they will lay the groundwork for a future aspirer to dictatorship with their enormous state and authoritative policies.
Similarly, the Anarchists accuse the Marxists of unnecessarily enlarging the state even when they are doing nothing more than providing for the people. While I advocate for decentralised communes administering state welfare, and eventually envisage a future stateless society where everyone is provided for so well that welfare will be unnecessary, that time is not now! State welfare is entirely necessary! Were we to roll back the reforms the Marxists and Leninists have instituted we would doom our own people to poverty! In fact, I advocate for the increasing of state benefits, while handing over the administration of this, as well as many other governmental offices, to decentralised communes. While Comrades Kropotkin, Bakunin and Proudhon have nothing but the best intentions for advocating their removal, fearing the people becoming dependant upon the teat of the state, this is a utopian ideal that must be dispersed! The concrete reality of the situation calls for the necessity of state welfare!
Finally, I would like to make an appeal for extending the franchise. Our peasant brothers and sisters have just as much right to participate in how their lives are run as we proletariats do! To accuse them of not understanding the revolution and therefore not being worthy of the vote is nothing more than thinly veiled classism! If they do not understand, then it falls upon us to improve their education so that they can and do understand! These people are not second class citizens, they are human beings who deserve the franchise! If we continue to deny them their right then we are no better than the bourgeoisie! This too goes for the shopkeepers and artisans, whom many still label the petty bourgeoisie. In the future the need for people to fulfill these roles shall be entirely negated, but the material conditions do not yet permit for this to come to pass. While their existence is necessary, to deny them the vote, to deny them the ability to link arms and join us as comrades in our revolutionary struggle is once again classism, and it is time we overcame this evil.
I hope that my fellow comrades will at least consider my words carefully. I hope that we can achieve synthesis, unite together once again and carry our republic on to greatness!
Yours for the revolution,
Comrade Xanthippus
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Guys, this is all much ado about nothing. Everything's going to be fine. No one's going to challenge the government or provoke a civil war! I suggest that every faction caucus and tell the other factions a compliment!
Marxist-Leninists: Your leader has a beautiful head of hair. His mane is as eternal as the government of the VSVR!
Militarists: You guys are very open and honest about your military policy.
Moderates: I met both of your supporters in the Party and they were wonderful people.
Independents: You're not the Marxist-Leninists, Militarists or Moderates.
Another situation brilliantly defused by Comrade Kadon, hero of the Crisis of 1865, savior of the VSVR!
Marxist-Leninists: Your leader has a beautiful head of hair. His mane is as eternal as the government of the VSVR!
Militarists: You guys are very open and honest about your military policy.
Moderates: I met both of your supporters in the Party and they were wonderful people.
Independents: You're not the Marxist-Leninists, Militarists or Moderates.
Another situation brilliantly defused by Comrade Kadon, hero of the Crisis of 1865, savior of the VSVR!
Well spoken comrade!
Anarchism is an ideal. And Kropotkin did nothing during his reign that would have helped the anarchist cause. A minority government, with both parties only united in hatred against Lenin can not work.
They kept none of their promises. They created more problems than they solved.
Kropotkin and Liebknecht failed together. No proper reforms, no equality for everyone, no constitution...
Someone, please bring Kropotkin down. Shoot him. In name of the revolution.
Politicians are servants of the state, but this man gave up the state for the unions, who are the menace greatest of our revolution. These counterrevolutionary forces must be overcome or the republic and the true anarchist cause will be endangered.
What kind of democratic party abhors that everyone be allowed to vote? Industrial workers are worth more than peasants? Freedom of speech is abominable?
No more finger-pointing. Lets start shooting!
Anarchism is an ideal. And Kropotkin did nothing during his reign that would have helped the anarchist cause. A minority government, with both parties only united in hatred against Lenin can not work.
They kept none of their promises. They created more problems than they solved.
Kropotkin and Liebknecht failed together. No proper reforms, no equality for everyone, no constitution...
Someone, please bring Kropotkin down. Shoot him. In name of the revolution.
Politicians are servants of the state, but this man gave up the state for the unions, who are the menace greatest of our revolution. These counterrevolutionary forces must be overcome or the republic and the true anarchist cause will be endangered.
What kind of democratic party abhors that everyone be allowed to vote? Industrial workers are worth more than peasants? Freedom of speech is abominable?
No more finger-pointing. Lets start shooting!
Equality for women
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The corrupt unions must be overthrown. Giving votes to all men is not sufficient. Women must be given equal power. Men of Steel are not enough, only when a Woman of Iron is in command will the power of the unions be overthrown.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The corrupt unions must be overthrown. Giving votes to all men is not sufficient. Women must be given equal power. Men of Steel are not enough, only when a Woman of Iron is in command will the power of the unions be overthrown.
Didn't we have equality for women already?
Meaning if you are a city women... people on the land are still not allowed to participate in politics, whether man or woman.
Name the women that have been pulling the levers of power. Now name the men. The numbers are not nearly equal to one another. Replace Kropotkin with a women. Its the only way to beat the unions.
Sounds good, but I am not the author.
And still a big percentage of the citizens, namely those who are not working in factories and do not belong to unions, are not allowed to vote.
The Unions Friend
Unite Against Opression!
As we sit here on the eve of tragedy, staring into the abyss of worker fighting against worker, some say our nation has never been more divided. But we can take cold bitter comfort in the fact that all member of our leadership, from anarchist to militarist have never been more united about blaming the unions for their own failings.
As workers struggle to make ends meet, they are insulted as politicians sitting on their rear ends in Cologne cry out in chorus that the problem lies with our hard working union men and women. From their petty thrones they lay claim to the very sweat off the brow of our proud union leaders who worked their way through the ranks with honest labor and loyalty. And all a reasonable person can say is, perhaps the Marxists and Anarchists have been right about each other all along. Perhaps they are both no more then petty bourgeois tyrants seeking to yoke the workers to their self rightous political fantisies!
These white skinned manipulators seek to blame all the problems of the country upon the unions. What nonsense! Our stalwart union men and women have produced everything our nation needs in abundence. They say that the unions are corrupt, but how is this possible? There are no bourgeois in the unions. What the unions take is only going to take care of their rank and file. And why must they do so? Because our so called leaders have not shown any leadership in years if not decades!
Year after year, our leaders have lavished attention on everything but what is important. The people of our nation can not eat a bayonet and they will not be clothed by a democratic commune. The welfare of our people must always be our first and most important principle and our leaders have forgotten it. Year after year as the viability of our factories has grown more precarious they have ignored the issue and paid attention to other matters. And now that the problem has come to a crises, they blame the very victims of this gross negligence!
The problems of distribution and planning are not the unions duty and never have been. If our leadership can not correct these problems, the answer is not to throw out the unions but to throw out the leaders! The unions do all that our nation expects of them, something that becomes more difficult every year. It is time that our politicians did the same!
Long live the Unions!
- Comrade Keynes
This is just another example of the corruption that has seized the unions. They want to restrict benefits of citizenship to themselves, the better to extort the rest of the workers. They need to be handbagged. Vladimir is no good with a handbag, Peter is no good with a handbag, Alfred is no good with a handbag, August is no good with a handbag, Wilhelm is no good with a handbag. Rosa or Greta is what the Republic needs, but its patriarchal structures keep all the women out of sight and out of power.
So I finally caught up after being gone for almost a week. 50 new pages! Lenin! The Independents screwing everything up! Marx dying on the eve of civil war! What this country needs is a reboot. I propose that after this "civil war" is resolved we write a constitution. I know this sounds like some Jeffersonian bourgeois scheme to solidify the state, but the Party needs reorganizing, and we can't have hung governments and entrenched bureaucratic unions cause ruin in our republic in another 35 years. Of course, our constitution would have to promote, nay, force the dissolution of the state and military after the revolution has spread across the globe and all men are free.
Just a word from Büt von Facce
Just a word from Büt von Facce
I don't think you'll get much argument from anyone. I didn't mention it in my appeal above, but that's because I didn't get the sense that there was much sexism in the republic. It would be good to see more women in the council though, and I've already advocated for Rosa Luxemburg and Emma Goldman. Others have advocated for women too.
No bourgeois constitutions! We need nothing more than a social contract! Though I see no problem in having that commited to writing.
Yes. We needed a distinction and I chose this.
I have an image of you charging alone with a bayonet into a crowd of about 1,000 Red Guards. :rofl:
I'm surprised Tommy hasn't thrown Enewald in somewhere for comic relief yet
We could have Enewald as some sort of terrorist who just maims and murders people at will and at random. hmm ....
He could actually be a useful plot device.
Hard one considering there is no Indonesia tag in game and no country has cores on the entire Dutch East Indies.
Yes, that is how Turkey is in game. I decided there had to be some way of explaining how a Socialist Turkey would work.
Classic Enewald.
I agree.
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