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This war unfortunately failed. The Russians and French did not join the VSVR, but continue to cling to false ideas of nationalism. However the Capitalists are destroyed and revolution has come to all Europe. I think it's time to fight the war at home now when the war abroad is over. Everyone who opposed Trotsky, the Leader of the Revolution, must be eliminated.
And yet, the citizens of the VSVR still believe that Trotsky will be no dictator? Look at how his cronies are already attempting to extend the ban on the True Germans, in a bid for total control. You have already let them silence one group. If you continue to do so, citizens, and let them banish us as well, then who will protect you in the end? When Trotsky shows his true face, if he haven't already done so, who will be left to fight him?
Do not let this continue, Comrades! Stop Trotsky before it is too late!
I was just looking at some other countries in the game and found a few interesting things.
Did you know 1% of Japan in Russian? That majority of those Russians live in Tokyo and the surrounding areas.
3% of Americans are Hindu, making that the 3rd largest religion after Catholicism and Protestantism? Orthodox (2%) and Jewish (1.5%) follow behind.
In the Ruhr, the heart of the revoluion this once entirely North German area is pretty mixed. 3% South German, 4% Flemish, 1% Russian and 2% 'Other'.
Did you know that the Republic of India (based entirely around the Lower Indus) has a literacy rate almost equal to France?
Some interesting things.
Anyway, I'll try to get Part 2 of 1900-1905 up today.
Did you know 1% of Japan in Russian? That majority of those Russians live in Tokyo and the surrounding areas.
3% of Americans are Hindu, making that the 3rd largest religion after Catholicism and Protestantism? Orthodox (2%) and Jewish (1.5%) follow behind.
In the Ruhr, the heart of the revoluion this once entirely North German area is pretty mixed. 3% South German, 4% Flemish, 1% Russian and 2% 'Other'.
Did you know that the Republic of India (based entirely around the Lower Indus) has a literacy rate almost equal to France?
Some interesting things.
Anyway, I'll try to get Part 2 of 1900-1905 up today.
We must seek to check Trotsky's power domestically if he decides to remain in the VSVR, but his achievements should not be belittled. Hundreds of millions of men and women have been liberated. The emancipation of the entire world is in our grasp!
As a staunch Marxist-Leninist, I thoroughly denounce this type of thinking. If anything, party members expressing these kinds of ideas against fellow socialists within the Party should be expelled.
I would again raise the issue of a VSVR Constitution that would limit the power of the Chairman. A constitution would make it clear if or if not the chairman is doing something he should not do, like circumventing the Assembly.
The Socialist State is only temporary, so we don't need a Constitution. How are we going to dissolve the State with a Constitution? Constitution are bourgeois trickery, as is States.
That is definetly not true, I call it a trockyist trickery. Constitution could have article about disolve of state. Constitution is highly needed due to Trocky an his lack of power, which is likely to every marxist these days.
The VSVR 1900-1905 (Part 2)
To think that politics in the VSVR simply faded away whilst the Great War was being fought is a mistake often made when looking over this period. Rather than a unifying time for the People’s Party, as it seemed to be for most of the people, the Great War ushered in one of the most divisive periods in the Party’s history. The forces of the Old Right became increasingly critical of Trotsky, especially after the conflict in France started to become a bloodbath, the New Right seemed to be collapsing at the start of the conflict yet by the end they had galvanised and emerged anew – more united and more influential that before, finally even the Luxemburgists started to doubt their Marxist-Leninist Comrades in government.
Necazian, the famed and beloved Minorities Secretary, was the oldest and longest serving member of the Central Committee in its entire history. Born in 1830 he had witnessed the Rhineland Revolution as a teenager and became involved in the Anarchist faction from the factory floors of a steel mill in his native Dortmund during the early 1850s. By the end of the first decade of the Republic he had become a full time politician – playing a major role the Trade Unions in Wallonia and later Flanders too. When the Anarchists started to radicalise he greatly increased his standing within the People’s Party and the Anarchist faction itself by being the most vocal and eloquent voice of the moderate Anarchists – those who did not want to destroy the state, who abhorred violence and who wished to continue the alliance between Marxists, Anarchists and German Socialists. In 1863 he was appointed to the Central Committee by Karl Marx as a measure to calm the increasingly militant Young Anarchists of Kadon. Whilst the move was unsuccessful the new Minorities Secretary would go on to serve on the Central Committee for 30 of the next 37 years.
Barely a year after joining the Committee Necazian left the Anarchist faction the join Engels’ United Front – an alliance of pro-peace Marxists and moderate Anarchists who opposed the violent radicals of both factions. In 1865 the Front narrowly overcame the Anarchists to win the election and Engels was appointed Chairman. However Blanqui, fearing an Anarchist coup, launched a countercoup of his own against the government. However Kadon and the Young Anarchists came to save the new government as Kadon led the Communards who defended Cologne from Blanqui and his secret police before the Wallonian Army arrived from Brussels to crush Blanqui once and for all. For the next decade Necazian served Engels’ government ably and managed to push through many of the freedoms which the radicalised Anarchists had demanded. However when Lenin arrived on the scene in the early 1870s Necazian was swept up, like many others, in Lenin’s movement. It was until weeks before the election that Necazian finally made the jump but he joined Lenin’s government in 1875. 5 years of Lenin was enough for Necazian and before the 1880 election campaign was even begun he withdrew his support for the Chairman and instead backed Wilhelm Liebknecht’s pro-Trade Union Independent faction. The Independents would form a coalition with the Anarchists in 1880 in which the Anarchist faction led with Kropotkin as Chairman. Riddled by internal and external problems Kropotkin’s government laboured on comparatively unsuccessfully for 3 years. In 1883 Lenin, believing that the coalition was leading the VSVR to disaster, launched a coup to overthrow Kropotkin. The resulting Civil War lasted for about a year and left the Anarchists, Independents and Trade Unions banned and Necazian under house arrest. For the next 6 years he would write ferociously in favour of an opposition to Lenin.
That opposition finally arrived at the end of the decade in the form of Rosa Luxemburg. She rode to electoral triumph in 1890 and freed Necazian – placing him on her Central Committee. There he would serve for another 5 years before a fall in support for the Luxemburgist faction meant that he was forced out of the Central Committee again. However Rosa Luxemburg’s assassination by an unknown Russian assailant gave him a chance to return to the Committee – even if it was in the most unfortunate of circumstances. As the new century dawned and Trotsky became Chairman the aging Necazian was starting to waver from the Marxist cause which he had supported for a quarter of a century. He unwilling voted in favour of the True German expulsion and reluctantly voted to go to war within the space of a few weeks. After this he started to attend Central Committee meetings less frequently and his health worsened.
The crushing defeat of the Red Army at Chartes and the resultant trench warfare in Northern France convinced Necazian that no good could come of the war and he started to campaign alongside Democratic Anarchists and Anarcho-Kadonists in an anti-war alliance. The disastrous Summer Offensive that left ¼ of a million Red Army soldiers dead in return for next to nothing finally broke Necazian. He went to Karl Liebknecht and begged him to threaten Trotsky with an end to the coalition if he did not support moves to end the killing on the Western Front. Liebknecht refused and the following day the 70 year old Necazian resigned from office. He would not live to witness the fall of Paris just a few months later and the eventual end to the war in Europe a few months after that. One of the Republic’s best loved politicians was no more.
His replacement in the Central Committee was the Committee’s first Pole. Julian Marchlewski had been a young supporter of Rosa Luxemburg during her campaign against Lenin at the tail end of the 1880s and since then he had been a prominent figure in the Luxemburgist faction and was always wary of the Leninists. He represented the part of the faction that wanted to pull away from the Marxist-Leninists and closer to the Democratic Anarchists.
Yet for all the respect Necazian held within the Republic his retirement and subsequent death was overshadowed by the changes on the New Right of the Party.
Following the expulsion of the True German faction and then declaration of war the significant nationalist tendency within the Republic was left with very little to unite around. Those who did not wish to fight a Great War for the betterment of the Russian or the French proletariat were left isolated – to the German, Polish, Walloon and Flemish nationalists of the VSVR this was not their war. Trotsky claimed they fought for the revolution, Trotsky claimed they were liberated hundreds of millions, Trotsky claimed they were engaged in the final struggle of mankind. But what did all this have to do with the lives of the common worker in Berlin or the farmer in Poland? What good were Trotsky’s grand ideas and blustering revolutionary rhetoric to those who were being called up to fight for the revolution? To many they were worthless. Heavy losses in Austria, large-scale defeats in Africa and the meat grinder on the Western Front helped foster a strong anti-war, anti-Marxist, pro-nationalist base of support.
Enter Anton Drexler. Drexler was a worker who shared these views. He might have been willing to fight for his Fatherland, but he saw the forced liberation of foreign proletarians as a betrayal of the revolution and of the Republic’s people. Inspired by the ideals of ‘National Syndicalism’ that had emerged as a major force in Spain and Italy during the 1890s Drexler called for an end to war, equality for both workers and peasants, the right of the minorities of the Republic to self determination, religious freedom, a new economic system and a national revival. Many of these points were the same as those of the True Germans, although whilst the True Germans were led by former aristocrats Drexler’s National Syndicalists had grown out of the working classes themselves. This meant that they had a greater understanding of what the VSVR’s proletariat wanted. The greatest difference between Drexler and Bismarck was that Drexler came up with a popular and socialistic economic policy. Ever since the Civil War of 1883-1884 the Trade Union movement in the VSVR had been virtually destroyed. Crushed by Lenin then discouraged and ignored under Luxemburg and Liebknecht by 1900 it was essentially dead. Yet the Unions were very popular amongst the people themselves. Drexler argued that the top down statist economics advocated by the Marxist-Leninists ignored the desires of the proletarians themselves and failed to give control of production to the workers. He also argued that the Council Communist system of the Luxemburgists promoted regionalism and competition between different Soviets – thus making it un-socialistic and unfair. He argued that it was better to divide worker control by industry than by region. Trade Unions in charge of different industries would still be low down enough to take input from the Workers themselves whilst high up enough to operate on a national level – thus making them able to avoid the regionalism of the Soviets. Whilst few looked into his deeper economic reasoning behind a Trade Union revival calls for a returned of the once much loved institutions (which could crucially facilitate strikes) gave Drexler a large amount of support.
Whilst one new force of the New Right rose another fell apart. As the peasant population declined rapidly and his faction failed to achieve electoral victory in 1895 and then 1900 Sorel’s Revolutionary faction started to crumble. In early 1900 Chernov had led the Left of the faction in a rebellion that led to the expulsion of the True Germans. It was becoming clear that the Chernov led Left was becoming increasingly estranged from Sorel’s Right. Although Chernov had supported the expulsion of the True Germans he was against the Great War so when Sorel threw his support behind Trotsky he further strained relations with Chernov.
The final break occurred in the late summer of 1900. Following the disaster that was the Summer Offensive Trotsky had looked to Sorel’s Revolutionaries to secure more men to replace the losses. Sorel had agreed and began to recruit thousands from the peasantry to fight for the revolution. Chernov regarded this as a betrayal of the very people the Revolutionary faction was founded to protect and broke with Sorel to form the Left Revolutionary faction. The Left Revolutionaries supported a decentralised economy, peace and most importantly of all a fair deal for the peasantry.
When Paris fell on December 21st the mood of the Republic shifted from uneasiness with the war to triumphalism. Sorel decided to visit the capital of his country of birth on Christmas Day.
A stray anti-communist partisan sniper shot and killed him as he marched up the Champ Elysees. The loss of Sorel was a disaster for the Revolutionary faction. Max Weber was now the faction’s most senior member, yet he lacked the popularity to take over. For the next few months the faction was left in limbo as no one was brought up to replace Sorel and Weber ran things alongside several other leading faction members. When France surrendered in April the faction would finally be given an opportunity. Since the war and the split the Sorelian portion of the Revolutionary faction had been haemorrhaging support. It seemed to be a faction on the road to oblivion. The war in the West had been the main point of cleavage between the National Syndicalists and the Sorelian Revolutionaries. Now that it was over, Drexler decided to send out lifeline to the Revolutionaries. In return for unification between the two factions under his leadership Drexler promised to support the central tenants of the Revolutionary faction – rural-urban equality, freedom of religion and anti-Marxism. With that the National Communist faction was born.
On June 1st the Tsar surrendered and over the course of the following month the Petrograd Soviet took full control of Russia – renaming it the Soviet Union. With so much of Russia’s revolutionary manpower in the VSVR the Soviet sent out a plea for Revolutionaries to return home. The resulting exodus saw around 20,000 Russians return to their homeland. Leon Trotsky chose not to return as he wished to remain at the heart of the revolution and in his own words ‘’that heart is in Cologne, not in Petrograd’’, Nestor Makhno initially meant to return but the refusal of the Soviet to grant the Ukraine independence meant that he instead decided to stay. Chernov, however left to return home and take charge of the Social Revolutionary Party, Martov too went back to Russia. The two would join their Internationalist and SR parties together to ensure that the Leninists (the single stongest force in Russia) did not secure power in the Soviet. The first Chairman of the Soviet Union was to be Plekhanov.
Without Chernov to hold them together the Left Revolutionaries would gradually dissipate. The majority joined the Anarcho-Kadonists although some joined the Democratic Anarchists, Luxemburgists, Marxist-Leninists and even the National Communists.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great War the VSVR faced several major crises as things settled down from the conflict. In America the long standing Russian territory of Russian Oregon was occupied in September 1902 after the Soviet Union had failed to send troops to reoccupy it since it took charge of the country. The Soviets initially made calls for war, however the peace with Britain was only weeks old and without VSVR support the Soviets could do nothing.
Just as the Great War had caused a wave of revolutions it also caused a wave of anti-communist reaction around the world. In Japan Western and Chinese influences deemed the Shogunate too weak to resist the growing influence of communism and the foreign powers put their support behind the modernising Emperor. This led to the Meiji Restoration which marked the first major step taken by Japan into the modern world and created a second major, anti-communist, power in Asia to oppose the now vast Comintern.
In previous wars the rise in demand for armaments had given the VSVR economy a boost. However the Total War experienced in the Great War left the state in a terrible economic crisis. Across war ravaged Africa there were roughly 120,000 unemployed workers, in Wallonia there were 200,000 with a further 150,000 in other areas of European VSVR. With 370,000 men and women out of work and thousands more returning from military duty there were serious risks of an extended period of large-scale unemployment.
On top of this the state owed around £1,000,000 to a variety of creditors – this was more debt than the VSVR had ever been faced with. Yet now the Republic was being forced to send funds to the new Republics across Europe, Latin America and Asia in order to get them up and running. Trotsky’s solution was central planning. Council Communism was alright and all during times of stability but it could never provide the radical solutions the Republic needed here and now. Placing high tariffs on imports and raising taxes Trotsky began a campaign of large-scale industrial investment. The chief beneficiary of the stimulus was the new telephone industry. Trotsky decided to push for a campaign to connect the entire Republic by phone and in Africa he pushed for the industrialisation of areas to the East of the then only industrial territories in West Africa.
On the front of foreign affairs there were only minor incidents for the rest of Trotsky’s term in office. In June 1903 Oman agreed to transfer the port of Mogadishu to Italy – it was believed that the Italians were in a much better position to defend the important port from the British who surrounded it on three sides. The following month the French fought a small war with Sokoto in order to gain control of a strip of land that united a small, isolated, territory in West Africa with the mainstay of French territory in the region. Finally in August a dispute between the Indian Socialist People’s Republic and the state of Sindh led to war across the Indus. The Red Army had to be called in after Indian troops were beaten near Karachi and in December Sindh was absorbed into India (doubling its population).
Yet the real legacy of the peacetime Trotsky government was economic success. After just a year of harsh financial constraints the Republic was debt free. By the Summer of 1904 ¼ of a million unemployed had been returned to work. Unemployment still persisted in Wallonia, although now at the reduced level of 110,000 whilst roughly 10,000 Africans remained out of work in the cities. Trotsky had also succeeded in encouraging large-scale rural-urban migration which in turn caused a huge increase in the worker population. In Europe Southern Bavaria, Baden, Wallonia and the rest of the Rhineland had caught up with the Ruhr in terms of the size of their worker populations. Whilst the Ruhr pushed towards being 50% worker the southern Rhineland had reached 46%. Elsewhere the worker populations were growing rapidly, frustratingly though state action had failed to industrialise Poland as heavily as the German areas of the Republic.
Meanwhile Trotsky’s industrial policies were most beneficial to Africa. Ever since the arrival of the VSVR on the continent the West had been industrialising. However by the end of war this area was suffering from large-scale unemployment. Trotsky brought an end to this problem and allowed the West to catch up with the less industrial areas of the European VSVR. Meanwhile Trotsky spread industrial across the Sahel, Congo and Zimbabwe. Although these areas were still extremely rural the sheer size of the populations meant that the Congo and Zimbabwe-Zambia provided a significant level of output. The process of proletarianising Africa was proceeding at pace. However the VSVR's territory on the continent had reached the greatest extent possible without entering a conflict.
Trotsky is a Chairman who divides opinion unlike few others in history. Some praise him for spreading socialism to hundreds of millions in the Great War, for taking a hard line on the True Germans and for his economic successes after the war. Others criticise him for his belligerence, for the cost of the war to the proletariat, for his autocratic actions against the True Germans, for his failure to give the same treatment to the National Syndacalists and their National Communist successors and for his abandonment of the Council Communist principles of the Luxemburgists (which almost collapsed the Marxist Bloc alliance).However he was surely one of the most influential, indeed the Russian city of Tsaritsyn was renamed Trotskygrad in honour of the man dubbed the ‘’Great Liberator’’ by Soviets whilst in France some groups burned effigies of him.
To think that politics in the VSVR simply faded away whilst the Great War was being fought is a mistake often made when looking over this period. Rather than a unifying time for the People’s Party, as it seemed to be for most of the people, the Great War ushered in one of the most divisive periods in the Party’s history. The forces of the Old Right became increasingly critical of Trotsky, especially after the conflict in France started to become a bloodbath, the New Right seemed to be collapsing at the start of the conflict yet by the end they had galvanised and emerged anew – more united and more influential that before, finally even the Luxemburgists started to doubt their Marxist-Leninist Comrades in government.
Necazian, the famed and beloved Minorities Secretary, was the oldest and longest serving member of the Central Committee in its entire history. Born in 1830 he had witnessed the Rhineland Revolution as a teenager and became involved in the Anarchist faction from the factory floors of a steel mill in his native Dortmund during the early 1850s. By the end of the first decade of the Republic he had become a full time politician – playing a major role the Trade Unions in Wallonia and later Flanders too. When the Anarchists started to radicalise he greatly increased his standing within the People’s Party and the Anarchist faction itself by being the most vocal and eloquent voice of the moderate Anarchists – those who did not want to destroy the state, who abhorred violence and who wished to continue the alliance between Marxists, Anarchists and German Socialists. In 1863 he was appointed to the Central Committee by Karl Marx as a measure to calm the increasingly militant Young Anarchists of Kadon. Whilst the move was unsuccessful the new Minorities Secretary would go on to serve on the Central Committee for 30 of the next 37 years.
Barely a year after joining the Committee Necazian left the Anarchist faction the join Engels’ United Front – an alliance of pro-peace Marxists and moderate Anarchists who opposed the violent radicals of both factions. In 1865 the Front narrowly overcame the Anarchists to win the election and Engels was appointed Chairman. However Blanqui, fearing an Anarchist coup, launched a countercoup of his own against the government. However Kadon and the Young Anarchists came to save the new government as Kadon led the Communards who defended Cologne from Blanqui and his secret police before the Wallonian Army arrived from Brussels to crush Blanqui once and for all. For the next decade Necazian served Engels’ government ably and managed to push through many of the freedoms which the radicalised Anarchists had demanded. However when Lenin arrived on the scene in the early 1870s Necazian was swept up, like many others, in Lenin’s movement. It was until weeks before the election that Necazian finally made the jump but he joined Lenin’s government in 1875. 5 years of Lenin was enough for Necazian and before the 1880 election campaign was even begun he withdrew his support for the Chairman and instead backed Wilhelm Liebknecht’s pro-Trade Union Independent faction. The Independents would form a coalition with the Anarchists in 1880 in which the Anarchist faction led with Kropotkin as Chairman. Riddled by internal and external problems Kropotkin’s government laboured on comparatively unsuccessfully for 3 years. In 1883 Lenin, believing that the coalition was leading the VSVR to disaster, launched a coup to overthrow Kropotkin. The resulting Civil War lasted for about a year and left the Anarchists, Independents and Trade Unions banned and Necazian under house arrest. For the next 6 years he would write ferociously in favour of an opposition to Lenin.
That opposition finally arrived at the end of the decade in the form of Rosa Luxemburg. She rode to electoral triumph in 1890 and freed Necazian – placing him on her Central Committee. There he would serve for another 5 years before a fall in support for the Luxemburgist faction meant that he was forced out of the Central Committee again. However Rosa Luxemburg’s assassination by an unknown Russian assailant gave him a chance to return to the Committee – even if it was in the most unfortunate of circumstances. As the new century dawned and Trotsky became Chairman the aging Necazian was starting to waver from the Marxist cause which he had supported for a quarter of a century. He unwilling voted in favour of the True German expulsion and reluctantly voted to go to war within the space of a few weeks. After this he started to attend Central Committee meetings less frequently and his health worsened.
The crushing defeat of the Red Army at Chartes and the resultant trench warfare in Northern France convinced Necazian that no good could come of the war and he started to campaign alongside Democratic Anarchists and Anarcho-Kadonists in an anti-war alliance. The disastrous Summer Offensive that left ¼ of a million Red Army soldiers dead in return for next to nothing finally broke Necazian. He went to Karl Liebknecht and begged him to threaten Trotsky with an end to the coalition if he did not support moves to end the killing on the Western Front. Liebknecht refused and the following day the 70 year old Necazian resigned from office. He would not live to witness the fall of Paris just a few months later and the eventual end to the war in Europe a few months after that. One of the Republic’s best loved politicians was no more.
His replacement in the Central Committee was the Committee’s first Pole. Julian Marchlewski had been a young supporter of Rosa Luxemburg during her campaign against Lenin at the tail end of the 1880s and since then he had been a prominent figure in the Luxemburgist faction and was always wary of the Leninists. He represented the part of the faction that wanted to pull away from the Marxist-Leninists and closer to the Democratic Anarchists.
Yet for all the respect Necazian held within the Republic his retirement and subsequent death was overshadowed by the changes on the New Right of the Party.
Following the expulsion of the True German faction and then declaration of war the significant nationalist tendency within the Republic was left with very little to unite around. Those who did not wish to fight a Great War for the betterment of the Russian or the French proletariat were left isolated – to the German, Polish, Walloon and Flemish nationalists of the VSVR this was not their war. Trotsky claimed they fought for the revolution, Trotsky claimed they were liberated hundreds of millions, Trotsky claimed they were engaged in the final struggle of mankind. But what did all this have to do with the lives of the common worker in Berlin or the farmer in Poland? What good were Trotsky’s grand ideas and blustering revolutionary rhetoric to those who were being called up to fight for the revolution? To many they were worthless. Heavy losses in Austria, large-scale defeats in Africa and the meat grinder on the Western Front helped foster a strong anti-war, anti-Marxist, pro-nationalist base of support.
Enter Anton Drexler. Drexler was a worker who shared these views. He might have been willing to fight for his Fatherland, but he saw the forced liberation of foreign proletarians as a betrayal of the revolution and of the Republic’s people. Inspired by the ideals of ‘National Syndicalism’ that had emerged as a major force in Spain and Italy during the 1890s Drexler called for an end to war, equality for both workers and peasants, the right of the minorities of the Republic to self determination, religious freedom, a new economic system and a national revival. Many of these points were the same as those of the True Germans, although whilst the True Germans were led by former aristocrats Drexler’s National Syndicalists had grown out of the working classes themselves. This meant that they had a greater understanding of what the VSVR’s proletariat wanted. The greatest difference between Drexler and Bismarck was that Drexler came up with a popular and socialistic economic policy. Ever since the Civil War of 1883-1884 the Trade Union movement in the VSVR had been virtually destroyed. Crushed by Lenin then discouraged and ignored under Luxemburg and Liebknecht by 1900 it was essentially dead. Yet the Unions were very popular amongst the people themselves. Drexler argued that the top down statist economics advocated by the Marxist-Leninists ignored the desires of the proletarians themselves and failed to give control of production to the workers. He also argued that the Council Communist system of the Luxemburgists promoted regionalism and competition between different Soviets – thus making it un-socialistic and unfair. He argued that it was better to divide worker control by industry than by region. Trade Unions in charge of different industries would still be low down enough to take input from the Workers themselves whilst high up enough to operate on a national level – thus making them able to avoid the regionalism of the Soviets. Whilst few looked into his deeper economic reasoning behind a Trade Union revival calls for a returned of the once much loved institutions (which could crucially facilitate strikes) gave Drexler a large amount of support.
Whilst one new force of the New Right rose another fell apart. As the peasant population declined rapidly and his faction failed to achieve electoral victory in 1895 and then 1900 Sorel’s Revolutionary faction started to crumble. In early 1900 Chernov had led the Left of the faction in a rebellion that led to the expulsion of the True Germans. It was becoming clear that the Chernov led Left was becoming increasingly estranged from Sorel’s Right. Although Chernov had supported the expulsion of the True Germans he was against the Great War so when Sorel threw his support behind Trotsky he further strained relations with Chernov.
The final break occurred in the late summer of 1900. Following the disaster that was the Summer Offensive Trotsky had looked to Sorel’s Revolutionaries to secure more men to replace the losses. Sorel had agreed and began to recruit thousands from the peasantry to fight for the revolution. Chernov regarded this as a betrayal of the very people the Revolutionary faction was founded to protect and broke with Sorel to form the Left Revolutionary faction. The Left Revolutionaries supported a decentralised economy, peace and most importantly of all a fair deal for the peasantry.
When Paris fell on December 21st the mood of the Republic shifted from uneasiness with the war to triumphalism. Sorel decided to visit the capital of his country of birth on Christmas Day.
A stray anti-communist partisan sniper shot and killed him as he marched up the Champ Elysees. The loss of Sorel was a disaster for the Revolutionary faction. Max Weber was now the faction’s most senior member, yet he lacked the popularity to take over. For the next few months the faction was left in limbo as no one was brought up to replace Sorel and Weber ran things alongside several other leading faction members. When France surrendered in April the faction would finally be given an opportunity. Since the war and the split the Sorelian portion of the Revolutionary faction had been haemorrhaging support. It seemed to be a faction on the road to oblivion. The war in the West had been the main point of cleavage between the National Syndicalists and the Sorelian Revolutionaries. Now that it was over, Drexler decided to send out lifeline to the Revolutionaries. In return for unification between the two factions under his leadership Drexler promised to support the central tenants of the Revolutionary faction – rural-urban equality, freedom of religion and anti-Marxism. With that the National Communist faction was born.
On June 1st the Tsar surrendered and over the course of the following month the Petrograd Soviet took full control of Russia – renaming it the Soviet Union. With so much of Russia’s revolutionary manpower in the VSVR the Soviet sent out a plea for Revolutionaries to return home. The resulting exodus saw around 20,000 Russians return to their homeland. Leon Trotsky chose not to return as he wished to remain at the heart of the revolution and in his own words ‘’that heart is in Cologne, not in Petrograd’’, Nestor Makhno initially meant to return but the refusal of the Soviet to grant the Ukraine independence meant that he instead decided to stay. Chernov, however left to return home and take charge of the Social Revolutionary Party, Martov too went back to Russia. The two would join their Internationalist and SR parties together to ensure that the Leninists (the single stongest force in Russia) did not secure power in the Soviet. The first Chairman of the Soviet Union was to be Plekhanov.
Without Chernov to hold them together the Left Revolutionaries would gradually dissipate. The majority joined the Anarcho-Kadonists although some joined the Democratic Anarchists, Luxemburgists, Marxist-Leninists and even the National Communists.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great War the VSVR faced several major crises as things settled down from the conflict. In America the long standing Russian territory of Russian Oregon was occupied in September 1902 after the Soviet Union had failed to send troops to reoccupy it since it took charge of the country. The Soviets initially made calls for war, however the peace with Britain was only weeks old and without VSVR support the Soviets could do nothing.
Just as the Great War had caused a wave of revolutions it also caused a wave of anti-communist reaction around the world. In Japan Western and Chinese influences deemed the Shogunate too weak to resist the growing influence of communism and the foreign powers put their support behind the modernising Emperor. This led to the Meiji Restoration which marked the first major step taken by Japan into the modern world and created a second major, anti-communist, power in Asia to oppose the now vast Comintern.
In previous wars the rise in demand for armaments had given the VSVR economy a boost. However the Total War experienced in the Great War left the state in a terrible economic crisis. Across war ravaged Africa there were roughly 120,000 unemployed workers, in Wallonia there were 200,000 with a further 150,000 in other areas of European VSVR. With 370,000 men and women out of work and thousands more returning from military duty there were serious risks of an extended period of large-scale unemployment.
On top of this the state owed around £1,000,000 to a variety of creditors – this was more debt than the VSVR had ever been faced with. Yet now the Republic was being forced to send funds to the new Republics across Europe, Latin America and Asia in order to get them up and running. Trotsky’s solution was central planning. Council Communism was alright and all during times of stability but it could never provide the radical solutions the Republic needed here and now. Placing high tariffs on imports and raising taxes Trotsky began a campaign of large-scale industrial investment. The chief beneficiary of the stimulus was the new telephone industry. Trotsky decided to push for a campaign to connect the entire Republic by phone and in Africa he pushed for the industrialisation of areas to the East of the then only industrial territories in West Africa.
On the front of foreign affairs there were only minor incidents for the rest of Trotsky’s term in office. In June 1903 Oman agreed to transfer the port of Mogadishu to Italy – it was believed that the Italians were in a much better position to defend the important port from the British who surrounded it on three sides. The following month the French fought a small war with Sokoto in order to gain control of a strip of land that united a small, isolated, territory in West Africa with the mainstay of French territory in the region. Finally in August a dispute between the Indian Socialist People’s Republic and the state of Sindh led to war across the Indus. The Red Army had to be called in after Indian troops were beaten near Karachi and in December Sindh was absorbed into India (doubling its population).
Yet the real legacy of the peacetime Trotsky government was economic success. After just a year of harsh financial constraints the Republic was debt free. By the Summer of 1904 ¼ of a million unemployed had been returned to work. Unemployment still persisted in Wallonia, although now at the reduced level of 110,000 whilst roughly 10,000 Africans remained out of work in the cities. Trotsky had also succeeded in encouraging large-scale rural-urban migration which in turn caused a huge increase in the worker population. In Europe Southern Bavaria, Baden, Wallonia and the rest of the Rhineland had caught up with the Ruhr in terms of the size of their worker populations. Whilst the Ruhr pushed towards being 50% worker the southern Rhineland had reached 46%. Elsewhere the worker populations were growing rapidly, frustratingly though state action had failed to industrialise Poland as heavily as the German areas of the Republic.
Meanwhile Trotsky’s industrial policies were most beneficial to Africa. Ever since the arrival of the VSVR on the continent the West had been industrialising. However by the end of war this area was suffering from large-scale unemployment. Trotsky brought an end to this problem and allowed the West to catch up with the less industrial areas of the European VSVR. Meanwhile Trotsky spread industrial across the Sahel, Congo and Zimbabwe. Although these areas were still extremely rural the sheer size of the populations meant that the Congo and Zimbabwe-Zambia provided a significant level of output. The process of proletarianising Africa was proceeding at pace. However the VSVR's territory on the continent had reached the greatest extent possible without entering a conflict.
Trotsky is a Chairman who divides opinion unlike few others in history. Some praise him for spreading socialism to hundreds of millions in the Great War, for taking a hard line on the True Germans and for his economic successes after the war. Others criticise him for his belligerence, for the cost of the war to the proletariat, for his autocratic actions against the True Germans, for his failure to give the same treatment to the National Syndacalists and their National Communist successors and for his abandonment of the Council Communist principles of the Luxemburgists (which almost collapsed the Marxist Bloc alliance).However he was surely one of the most influential, indeed the Russian city of Tsaritsyn was renamed Trotskygrad in honour of the man dubbed the ‘’Great Liberator’’ by Soviets whilst in France some groups burned effigies of him.
Good update, showing us anti-Trotskyists that you are listening, and the VSVR is indeed not the perfect place to live.
I especially like that you're letting the Americans get some glory with Oregon. 51st Stater approves.
Anyway: I'm starting to lean toward the group that says you should end the AAR with the collapse of the Comintern, and communism, in 1936. Leaving the VSVR as this nostalgic "good old days" phenomenon. A fever dream still remembered by those who saw it.
I especially like that you're letting the Americans get some glory with Oregon. 51st Stater approves.
Anyway: I'm starting to lean toward the group that says you should end the AAR with the collapse of the Comintern, and communism, in 1936. Leaving the VSVR as this nostalgic "good old days" phenomenon. A fever dream still remembered by those who saw it.
Drexler?! 
Oh no, now we really have Nazis in the VSVR.
And Bob, why are you so keen on having the VSVR collapse in a huge fireball? It would ruin the memory of the AAR to have all our contributions die right at the end.
Oh no, now we really have Nazis in the VSVR. And Bob, why are you so keen on having the VSVR collapse in a huge fireball? It would ruin the memory of the AAR to have all our contributions die right at the end.
Hmm, the next election could be interesting. I wish good luck to all Russian members of the Party leaving for Russia to lead the Revolution there.
Our contributions do not die, they live on in history. Should the VSVR continue to exist after 1936, it will no longer be something beautiful and idealistic, it will be a bloated thing dragging on when it should have died with dignity. It's poetic, and another reason is that I personally don't like the idea of a whole world reduced to the state of the IRL Soviet Union, because the idealism will die, and when the idealism dies...
On the current road the VSVR is on I think it hardly seems possible for the VSVR to collapse. Its people are happy, they are free, it is secure from outside threat and confident.
Sure thing might start to go wrong in the next 30s years but baring a Breshnev-Gorbachev style double combo of incompetence I can't see it collapsing.
[[If you and Enewald ever meet I think you will annihilate each other and be transformed into pure rage...
EDIT: Oops, antimatter physics isn't known yet, that will have to be an out of character comment
]]
[[If you and Enewald ever meet I think you will annihilate each other and be transformed into pure rage...
EDIT: Oops, antimatter physics isn't known yet, that will have to be an out of character comment
No, enewald will just eat him
- Status