Current purge vision is dumb. Civil war is even more dumb. Personalities choice obviously shows poor research of devs.
Purge, Cleanse, Kill!
- Thread starter Pyramid_Head
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Absolutely. Decisions of such scale are made at the highest levels of the government, that is, between the head of state, head of the legislature* and foreign minister (none of the three was in any risk of being purged). Defense minister might be asked for opinion but that's it.
As for the SMDs, these were not permanently mobilized of course ("permanent mobilization" is entirely unrelated concept in the Soviet doctrine), but had so called Covering force (fully staffed units). Nowhere near enough, unfortunately.
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* Technically the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was the head of state but you get the idea.
Purge does not fulfill any of its supposed gameplay roles. It does not slow USSR enough to make others waging war against it on semi-equal terms(as long as it possible in-game), not preventing USSR agresson, but actually actively encourages it. In fact, declaring ANY war as early as possible is vital for USSR. It does not prevent USSR from spamming divisions. AI's incompetence allow huge encirclements and breakthroughs but should AI be at least somehow improved and be able to counter a breakthrough or prevent encirclement them USSR industrial capacity and ability to train hundreds of divisions(full str. divisions) will make a difference.
The consequences of the Purge was not immaterial to the early 1941 campaign. The "removal" of leadership down to the division level (154 out of 186 divisions commanders) had a definite effect on the skill level and competency of mid and high level officers.
I would prefer the effects lasted a little while into a defensive war and a longer time into an Soviet offensive war.
USSR had like 100 divisions at the time, so there couldn't possibly be 154 division commanders removed.
For in-game, I suggest making "lessons learned" focus be based on amount of land experience USSR has. It would make a lot of sense - if you learned the lessons of war, that means you earned battle experience. Amount is debatable, of course.
That number is pretty well sourced and mentioned in many books. Perhaps the difference is Stalin "removed" multiple commanders from the same divisions during the purge? If you have another source please pass it on.
This, along with purging 13 or 15 army commanders and 50 out of 57 corps commanders represents a large experience and brain drain of officers trained and skilled at handling larger formations. This was definitely one of the issues of Soviet army poor performance during the summer and fall 1941 campaign.
I believe the reference here is made not to division commanders (guys factually in command of a division), but to divisional commanders (a formal rank close to 2-star general). The problem is that anybody (say, a Military D.A.) would have such rank. And if 154 lawyers were shot it only serves them right if you ask me (I would know, I'm a law student).
Easy.
"Great purge" as a focus and event chain is the same victim of PDX approach to majors, as focus tree in general. Changes are needed. Not only "purge", but focus tree in general.
IMO I don't like making the Great Purge some kind of rational decision, it feels very... icky historically. I know many won't agree, but for me I'd prefer it if Stalin remains in power, the purge happens, whether you want it to or not.
The main arguments for keeping it as a NF choice is that the current form allows for Trotsky as an option if you don't take the purge. That gameplay choice fits with the "let the player go off the rails and do completely unrealistic things" mentality that allows you to get fascist / communist USA, Britain etc through player choice. I'm not a fan but it is what it is.
The main arguments for keeping it as a NF choice is that the current form allows for Trotsky as an option if you don't take the purge. That gameplay choice fits with the "let the player go off the rails and do completely unrealistic things" mentality that allows you to get fascist / communist USA, Britain etc through player choice. I'm not a fan but it is what it is.
Do you actually believe the people purged by Stalin were actually guilty of what they were accused of? Because that's essentially what you are arguing here.
I'm going to leave it at that, I'm not sure if elaborating would be against forum rules.
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André Fontaine's "La guerre froide" (The Cold War), 2003, mentions at least three occasions where the Soviet fabricated conspiracies, the Moscow Trials in the late 30s, the purge of foreign communists in the late 40s, and the Doctor's Plot in the early 50s.
Hannah Arendt "The origins of totalitarism" explains the totalitarian terror becomes stronger as opposition is weaker, because the point is not to arrest actual enemies, but to terrorize and, more or less, to promote a bunch of new people in the higher posts, with some officials trying to implicate their political rivals in the conspiracy of the moment.
George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" describes a campagn of mass arrests against Trotskyist during the Spanish civil war. It boiled down to the imprisonment of everyone that was ever associated with the Trotskyist party, under the charge of conspiring with the fascist, inclunding random soldiers that were just coming back from the front where they had fought Franco.
The point is, all of this describes a paranoid frenzy where people were not being arrested for what they thought, did or even were likely to do, but because the Great Leader called a particular group traitors, for more or less arbitrary reasons. No one was safe, and there was no such thing as too much zeal. What the victims actually did was completely irrelevant, it was already decided before they were arrested.
Add to all this the constant surveillance of the police, neighbors spying on you, the danger of being arrested because one of your friends (if you had any) was, and claims about a massive conspiracy every decade are difficult to take seriously.
Hannah Arendt "The origins of totalitarism" explains the totalitarian terror becomes stronger as opposition is weaker, because the point is not to arrest actual enemies, but to terrorize and, more or less, to promote a bunch of new people in the higher posts, with some officials trying to implicate their political rivals in the conspiracy of the moment.
George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" describes a campagn of mass arrests against Trotskyist during the Spanish civil war. It boiled down to the imprisonment of everyone that was ever associated with the Trotskyist party, under the charge of conspiring with the fascist, inclunding random soldiers that were just coming back from the front where they had fought Franco.
The point is, all of this describes a paranoid frenzy where people were not being arrested for what they thought, did or even were likely to do, but because the Great Leader called a particular group traitors, for more or less arbitrary reasons. No one was safe, and there was no such thing as too much zeal. What the victims actually did was completely irrelevant, it was already decided before they were arrested.
Add to all this the constant surveillance of the police, neighbors spying on you, the danger of being arrested because one of your friends (if you had any) was, and claims about a massive conspiracy every decade are difficult to take seriously.
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I am currently reading The Red Army and the Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Soviet Military by Peter Whitewood. It is a sourced, peer reviewed book, and a rather recent one. I highly recommend it for those interested on reading on the subject.
For one, there is not even a single shred of evidence that there was even the faintest possibility of a military coup. The only evidence on the matter are confessions extracted via torture and the threat of execution of family, and there is no reason to take that seriously. Beyond that, the circumstantial evidence is strongly against it, and further beyond that, it entirely contradicts what the sources have to say on the matter for the entire preceding period(1920's).
It is also necessary to keep in mind that purges were a very regular thing, both in the party and in the military for all of the preceding period, even during Lenin's time. The difference was that it was not on such a massive scale, and the 'purge' involved demotions, removal from position, and/or expulsion from the party if applicable.
The root of the matter is that the Bolshevik philosophy on the military in 1917 is that standing armies were undemocratic and dangerous institutions, and that a standing army should be replaced with a workers militia. This was a matter of principal, but it obviously did not square with the reality that revolutions had failed to take root in Europe. Not being utopian idealists, they quickly adjusted to the matter and formed a standing army as a matter of necessity.
For this purpose it was necessary to recruit many officers not only of the old Imperial Army, but also that of the defeated White Army. These people were referred to as "specialists" and were the subject of great scrutiny and criticism, being seen as an unreliable and traitorous part of the army. Although there were a few high profile defections, what the facts actually reveal is that the 'specialists' were actually far more loyal and less likely to desert or betray the Red Army than the ordinary rank and file soldier.
Despite this, it was always seen as a necessity that specialists be replaced as quickly as possible with 'proletarian' recruits. Even by the end of 1920's the proportion of 'specialists' among the officer corps was less than 10%, although they were disproportionately represented in the higher ranks. Despite this, there was still no evidence at all of the potential for a coup, and strong countermeasures had always been taken, making sure that the specialists were isolated from one another and that their numbers were never concentrated in one geographic area.
The matter of Tukhachevsky's relationship with Stalin is GREATLY overblown. Of course, they had a fundamental disagreement regarding strategy in the war against Poland, but there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest they had an adversarial relationship, despite Tukhachevsky's criticism of the appointment of such blatantly unworthy people like Voroshilov to the top brass(in his own laters he stated that he absolutely wasn't cut out for high command and requested reassignment to the civilian sector). Much to the contrary, Stalin supported Tukhachevskhy's career in general, and intervened specifically in numerous occasions.
The GPU did keep Tukhachevsky under surveillance, but there is nothing unusual about this: they kept everyone of significance under surveillance as a matter of course. According to their own records throughout the entirety of the 1920's, Tukhachevsky was entirely reliable and that they only had concern for his "arrogance" and "impetuous" nature, but it can not and should not be read from this that there was any kind of coup potential, the GPU addressed this as well.
The entire source of the mythology of a potential coup has its origin with the White emigre movement. Baselessly, White magazines would claim that such and such officer was a potential Napoleon and that he was going to overthrow the state. It was wishful thinking, nothing more. There was never any evidence to back up their claims, and much to the contrary, there is no real reason to believe them as these were not real observers with real information, but foreigners living outside the country.
Despite all this, there was always a real fear of a "Thermidorian reaction" and this was always assumed to come from the army. This fear did not stem from an actual appraisal of the real conditions that existed, but as an abstract fear from an appraisal of past revolutions. Still, this was never the decisive factor in the Great Purge.
The real impetus for the Great Purge comes from civilian politics, and it is a real mistake to assume that the operation of the military had anything to do with it. Just as mistaken is to say that it came solely from Stalin's personal foibles, or that it was simply baseless paranoia. In fact, Moscow did not really exert much reliable control outside of the metropolitan parts of European Russia. Regional officials had great leeway and more or less could rule over these areas semi-autonomously from the diktats of Moscow.
While it would be reductionist to say that this was the sole cause of the Purge, it is certainly true that a result of the Purge is that Moscow was able to assert impregnable authority over the whole of the country afterwards.
The only real possibility for a change that I could see would have been from Stalin's closest cohorts like Ordzhonikidze, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, and some others. They did not always agree with Stalin, and the post-war period shows definitively without a shred of doubt that Stalin's cohorts had come to a consensus about many issues and reforms that Stalin fundamentally rejected. It is unlikely they would have ever actually deposed Stalin, as most of them really did believed he was a great leader and a hero of the revolution, despite some disagreements with him.
So realistically speaking, there was no alternative to Stalin. Not even really the faintest possibility that he would be replaced, by a coup or otherwise. However, that does not make much fun for a video game.
It would be fun to have a few possibilities, such as Stalin being deposed by Voroshilov, Molotov, or one of the others who felt he had gone too far in excess. Another neat possibility would be to instead of having the Purge, do the opposite: rehabilitate people that you wanted. Instead of having Kerensky come to power, it would be interesting if there was the option to rehabilitate the Right Opposition, who could them come to power peacefully and institute Deng style reform and rapproachment with the West. Rehabilitation of the left opposition shouldn't be a possibility.. that's just too fantastic even by HoI standards. Not saying Trotsky shouldn't be an option, but it should be through some other means, if at all.
In game terms, why not let there be a possibility for a 'Red Napoleon' like the mythological Tukhachevsky, even if in real life there was zero possibility of it? The Civil War as it is now is a complete joke. Very uninteresting and very unfun.
I definitely think if they do introduce new events and focus trees that allow the Soviet Union to go non-aligned, democratic, or fascist, it should most definitely result in the immediate secession of the non-Russian republics, especially the Central Asian ones. Their loyalty and stability to the core was largely determined by the Soviet policy of national-territorial sovereignty, even if this was upheld in a pretty hypocritical and one sided way by Stalin. I don't think those republics would stick around for a regime that openly espoused Great Russian chauvinism, whether in liberal colors or otherwise.
For one, there is not even a single shred of evidence that there was even the faintest possibility of a military coup. The only evidence on the matter are confessions extracted via torture and the threat of execution of family, and there is no reason to take that seriously. Beyond that, the circumstantial evidence is strongly against it, and further beyond that, it entirely contradicts what the sources have to say on the matter for the entire preceding period(1920's).
It is also necessary to keep in mind that purges were a very regular thing, both in the party and in the military for all of the preceding period, even during Lenin's time. The difference was that it was not on such a massive scale, and the 'purge' involved demotions, removal from position, and/or expulsion from the party if applicable.
The root of the matter is that the Bolshevik philosophy on the military in 1917 is that standing armies were undemocratic and dangerous institutions, and that a standing army should be replaced with a workers militia. This was a matter of principal, but it obviously did not square with the reality that revolutions had failed to take root in Europe. Not being utopian idealists, they quickly adjusted to the matter and formed a standing army as a matter of necessity.
For this purpose it was necessary to recruit many officers not only of the old Imperial Army, but also that of the defeated White Army. These people were referred to as "specialists" and were the subject of great scrutiny and criticism, being seen as an unreliable and traitorous part of the army. Although there were a few high profile defections, what the facts actually reveal is that the 'specialists' were actually far more loyal and less likely to desert or betray the Red Army than the ordinary rank and file soldier.
Despite this, it was always seen as a necessity that specialists be replaced as quickly as possible with 'proletarian' recruits. Even by the end of 1920's the proportion of 'specialists' among the officer corps was less than 10%, although they were disproportionately represented in the higher ranks. Despite this, there was still no evidence at all of the potential for a coup, and strong countermeasures had always been taken, making sure that the specialists were isolated from one another and that their numbers were never concentrated in one geographic area.
The matter of Tukhachevsky's relationship with Stalin is GREATLY overblown. Of course, they had a fundamental disagreement regarding strategy in the war against Poland, but there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest they had an adversarial relationship, despite Tukhachevsky's criticism of the appointment of such blatantly unworthy people like Voroshilov to the top brass(in his own laters he stated that he absolutely wasn't cut out for high command and requested reassignment to the civilian sector). Much to the contrary, Stalin supported Tukhachevskhy's career in general, and intervened specifically in numerous occasions.
The GPU did keep Tukhachevsky under surveillance, but there is nothing unusual about this: they kept everyone of significance under surveillance as a matter of course. According to their own records throughout the entirety of the 1920's, Tukhachevsky was entirely reliable and that they only had concern for his "arrogance" and "impetuous" nature, but it can not and should not be read from this that there was any kind of coup potential, the GPU addressed this as well.
The entire source of the mythology of a potential coup has its origin with the White emigre movement. Baselessly, White magazines would claim that such and such officer was a potential Napoleon and that he was going to overthrow the state. It was wishful thinking, nothing more. There was never any evidence to back up their claims, and much to the contrary, there is no real reason to believe them as these were not real observers with real information, but foreigners living outside the country.
Despite all this, there was always a real fear of a "Thermidorian reaction" and this was always assumed to come from the army. This fear did not stem from an actual appraisal of the real conditions that existed, but as an abstract fear from an appraisal of past revolutions. Still, this was never the decisive factor in the Great Purge.
The real impetus for the Great Purge comes from civilian politics, and it is a real mistake to assume that the operation of the military had anything to do with it. Just as mistaken is to say that it came solely from Stalin's personal foibles, or that it was simply baseless paranoia. In fact, Moscow did not really exert much reliable control outside of the metropolitan parts of European Russia. Regional officials had great leeway and more or less could rule over these areas semi-autonomously from the diktats of Moscow.
While it would be reductionist to say that this was the sole cause of the Purge, it is certainly true that a result of the Purge is that Moscow was able to assert impregnable authority over the whole of the country afterwards.
The only real possibility for a change that I could see would have been from Stalin's closest cohorts like Ordzhonikidze, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, and some others. They did not always agree with Stalin, and the post-war period shows definitively without a shred of doubt that Stalin's cohorts had come to a consensus about many issues and reforms that Stalin fundamentally rejected. It is unlikely they would have ever actually deposed Stalin, as most of them really did believed he was a great leader and a hero of the revolution, despite some disagreements with him.
So realistically speaking, there was no alternative to Stalin. Not even really the faintest possibility that he would be replaced, by a coup or otherwise. However, that does not make much fun for a video game.
It would be fun to have a few possibilities, such as Stalin being deposed by Voroshilov, Molotov, or one of the others who felt he had gone too far in excess. Another neat possibility would be to instead of having the Purge, do the opposite: rehabilitate people that you wanted. Instead of having Kerensky come to power, it would be interesting if there was the option to rehabilitate the Right Opposition, who could them come to power peacefully and institute Deng style reform and rapproachment with the West. Rehabilitation of the left opposition shouldn't be a possibility.. that's just too fantastic even by HoI standards. Not saying Trotsky shouldn't be an option, but it should be through some other means, if at all.
In game terms, why not let there be a possibility for a 'Red Napoleon' like the mythological Tukhachevsky, even if in real life there was zero possibility of it? The Civil War as it is now is a complete joke. Very uninteresting and very unfun.
I definitely think if they do introduce new events and focus trees that allow the Soviet Union to go non-aligned, democratic, or fascist, it should most definitely result in the immediate secession of the non-Russian republics, especially the Central Asian ones. Their loyalty and stability to the core was largely determined by the Soviet policy of national-territorial sovereignty, even if this was upheld in a pretty hypocritical and one sided way by Stalin. I don't think those republics would stick around for a regime that openly espoused Great Russian chauvinism, whether in liberal colors or otherwise.
There are some current and recent US Supreme Court Justices that would find that kind of evidence totally admissible. Cause "a nuke in LA" and stuff.
Even if there were no potentially possible coups in USSR that matters little because we are talking about a game, where we can stage coups in ANY state, any ideology. It's a game feature and if it's here to stay then it should be at least somehow addressed. Almost every country have ministers to change the ideology, national focuses and other meant to preent flexible and variably gameplay. But It is fundamentally wrong to make it a dialogue with four options like : set democratic, communist, fascist or neutral governments.
Agreed.
Not going full tilt on the purge however has its benefits as the resulting war lets you switch laws early and go through the NFs which would otherwise be unavailable.
You can declare war for about 50 or 100 PP on any minor and still change economic laws. declaration on Romania earns 15% tension, which is enough to change for early mobilization, and that equals +50% CIC and MIC build time(from civilian economy and its crippling -60% build speed) Smallest civil war will strip you of 18% of your forces, biggest will cut whole 50%. This choice is not sub-optimal, it's insane. Only way I see it as acceptable is when I am roleplaying.
It's quite feasible to change equipment in the templates or disband divisions to make the civil war a cleaning up action.
Don't get me wrong. The purge and the Soviet NF tree could be improved greatly. It's probably the least developed no-brainer NF tree in the game.
The same can be said of any major, you are trying to change the fundamental rules of the game for only 1 country.
The USSR lost 2.5 million men on the early stages of Barbarossa, but they had over 800 divisions as reserve, 60 of whom were equipped by Lend-Lease according to USA records, that is 9 million men mobilized at any one time, 5 - 6 million at the front.
They then went on to become one of the world's superpowers, they become so during the war and were "crowned" immediately afterward.
Why should they be prevented from accruing a massive industrial capacity or of fielding hundreds of divisions? Your fears and complaints are the exact same reasons why Hitler attacked on the first place. The game makes a great representation of the fear and terror a build up USSR should inflict on their neighbors and the world.
Besides, your assumptions about lack of equipment are pulled from thin air, the ones lacking equipment and cannibalizing their Panzer divisions to concentrate firepower were the Germans, the Soviets always had more to throw at them. At the start of Barbarossa there were 30 000 soviet tanks of all types including T-34 and KV-1 for which the Germans had no answer and only 3500 tanks in their own army, also of all types.
SU is already gimped in the game, they don't have ministers that boost Infantry or the army or anything else other than Tanks after taking a focus, and have only specialist for most everything else, is it realistic that they have worse ministers than Sweden, Spain, Perú, Italy many minors, etc?
I think this change is needed because USSR is way too powerful right now. It should be adjusted, balanced. And the Purge is the best way to do it without applying measures like 0.2 combat effectiveness multiplier from HoI2.