Some said my last AAR looked a lot like Red Alert 1. With that in mind I'm going to play a new AAR which will look like Red Alert 2.
Game:
Plan:
Introduction
Having decisively finished off the Left Opposition in late 1920s and going as far as assasinating Trotsky in Mexico, Stalin was more and more comming to believe that the general argument of the Left Opposition was, after all, the correct one. At first Stalin had to turn over the NEP and adopt the system of quotas known as Five Year Plans, which he originally opposed. Then, in order to accelerate the rural development he attempted forced farmland collectivization, which failed badly and led to millions of casualties especially in Russia and Ukraine. This decisive failure forced Stalin to admit that socialism cannot work in one country. Trotsky was right, USSR needed industrialized allies very soon to aid the development, otherwise USSR would not survive for long, or it would, but with huge and unbarable human casualties.
But where to look for allies?
Europe was almost completely sealed off by the Entente and its spheres of influence. The "Cordon Sanitaire" was established by the Entente efforts as early as 1919 between Germany and USSR, separating the two from each other and preventing them both from expansion. This curtain consisted mostly of Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. The latter two were part of the "Little Entente", while the former were tied to France and Britain through separate treaties. USSR was not ready to fight against the armed-to-teeth Entente countries and their allies, yet. Germany was isolated likewise, and the German KPD was struggling to win elections while its more militant leftist supporters organized sporadic uprisings which sometimes turned into full scale rebellions, such as in Berlin, in Bavaria, and in Rhur region. With the onset of Great Depression and the worldwide crisis of capitalism the chances of electoral victory seemed to increase, but the KPD wasn't the only party gaining support, the far right and nationalist parties were becoming far more popular too, and the former electorate of conservative DNVP was taken over by "revolutionary" NSDAP which meant new trouble. While the uprisings were suppressed successfully, full scale battles were being fought in the streets of Germany between the para-military forces of KPD and NSDAP with hundreds of casualties each year. In 1933 the NSDAP finally emerged triumphant and all hopes of victory in Germany were lost. Europe was now entirely hostile to USSR.
In Asia, Turkey would have been a good candidate, but Ataturk, somewhat similarly to Pilsudski, chose to betray socialism in favor of domestic nationalism once independence was achieved and secured. The Soviet agents and diplomats were still trying to peacefully influence the Turkish cabinet into accepting socialism, but were so far unsuccessful. An invasion was considered, but there was substantial threat of Entente intervention on Turkish side. Besides, Turkey was a backward nation which itself needed aid. It wouldn't be much helpful to USSR. Other southern Asian countries were even more useless.
In East Asia, the struggle continued between Chinese communists, Chinese anti-communists, and Japanese imperialists. With the Chiang's extermination campaigns in full swing and Mao's losses during the Long March, there was no hint of victory for the communist forces yet. And once again, China was far from an industrialized nation, and even in case of Communist victory, it wouldn't be able to help the development of USSR.
So Stalin's attention was turned toward Americas. USA was now the most industrialized nation on earth, and thus it would be perfect if it was a Soviet ally instead of an enemy. But the American electorate was not used to dissent or violent revolutions. With the help of the media and big businesses, the two American political parties maintained a firm grip on the US population and silenced all opposition. The Soviet spies in United States observed that there was at the time very little chance of a successful Bolshevik or even socialist revolution. However, the United States had only a very small standing army. Therefore, if the Red Army was to quickly invade American continent, Stalin reasoned, the US army wouldn't stand a chance. But how to get to America? The US had the world’s biggest navy at its disposal, bigger even than Royal Navy. It would block any attempt by the Red Army to land in North AND South America. The Red Navy, in comparison, was nothing of value. The Imperial Russian navy was once a rather effective fighting instrument, but it was at first decisively damaged by the Japanese in 1904, and then completely screwed over during the Russian Civil War with more than half of the ships joining with the White forces and at the end of the war ending up in the hands of the British and French. Those which stayed with the Reds were now ancient ships which were practically useless. In order to be able to invade the American continent, the Navy had to be rebuilt practically from the scratch. Since US has still not recovered from the Great Depression, now would be a perfect time to invade and catch the sick US economy off-guard.
And so, at a secret meeting of the Politburo in 1936 the decision was made.
America had to be invaded as soon as possible.
Game:
- USSR
- V.Hard/Aggressive
- 1936 scenario
- Some event modifications and new countries, but mostly vanilla
- AI may be helped if it is in crisis or does something really stupid
Plan:
- Build a navy
- Invade and Conquer USA
- Redeploy everything back to Europe
- Defeat Germany & Japan
- Defeat the remaining Entente states, if there are any
Introduction
Having decisively finished off the Left Opposition in late 1920s and going as far as assasinating Trotsky in Mexico, Stalin was more and more comming to believe that the general argument of the Left Opposition was, after all, the correct one. At first Stalin had to turn over the NEP and adopt the system of quotas known as Five Year Plans, which he originally opposed. Then, in order to accelerate the rural development he attempted forced farmland collectivization, which failed badly and led to millions of casualties especially in Russia and Ukraine. This decisive failure forced Stalin to admit that socialism cannot work in one country. Trotsky was right, USSR needed industrialized allies very soon to aid the development, otherwise USSR would not survive for long, or it would, but with huge and unbarable human casualties.
But where to look for allies?
Europe was almost completely sealed off by the Entente and its spheres of influence. The "Cordon Sanitaire" was established by the Entente efforts as early as 1919 between Germany and USSR, separating the two from each other and preventing them both from expansion. This curtain consisted mostly of Baltic States, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. The latter two were part of the "Little Entente", while the former were tied to France and Britain through separate treaties. USSR was not ready to fight against the armed-to-teeth Entente countries and their allies, yet. Germany was isolated likewise, and the German KPD was struggling to win elections while its more militant leftist supporters organized sporadic uprisings which sometimes turned into full scale rebellions, such as in Berlin, in Bavaria, and in Rhur region. With the onset of Great Depression and the worldwide crisis of capitalism the chances of electoral victory seemed to increase, but the KPD wasn't the only party gaining support, the far right and nationalist parties were becoming far more popular too, and the former electorate of conservative DNVP was taken over by "revolutionary" NSDAP which meant new trouble. While the uprisings were suppressed successfully, full scale battles were being fought in the streets of Germany between the para-military forces of KPD and NSDAP with hundreds of casualties each year. In 1933 the NSDAP finally emerged triumphant and all hopes of victory in Germany were lost. Europe was now entirely hostile to USSR.
In Asia, Turkey would have been a good candidate, but Ataturk, somewhat similarly to Pilsudski, chose to betray socialism in favor of domestic nationalism once independence was achieved and secured. The Soviet agents and diplomats were still trying to peacefully influence the Turkish cabinet into accepting socialism, but were so far unsuccessful. An invasion was considered, but there was substantial threat of Entente intervention on Turkish side. Besides, Turkey was a backward nation which itself needed aid. It wouldn't be much helpful to USSR. Other southern Asian countries were even more useless.
In East Asia, the struggle continued between Chinese communists, Chinese anti-communists, and Japanese imperialists. With the Chiang's extermination campaigns in full swing and Mao's losses during the Long March, there was no hint of victory for the communist forces yet. And once again, China was far from an industrialized nation, and even in case of Communist victory, it wouldn't be able to help the development of USSR.
So Stalin's attention was turned toward Americas. USA was now the most industrialized nation on earth, and thus it would be perfect if it was a Soviet ally instead of an enemy. But the American electorate was not used to dissent or violent revolutions. With the help of the media and big businesses, the two American political parties maintained a firm grip on the US population and silenced all opposition. The Soviet spies in United States observed that there was at the time very little chance of a successful Bolshevik or even socialist revolution. However, the United States had only a very small standing army. Therefore, if the Red Army was to quickly invade American continent, Stalin reasoned, the US army wouldn't stand a chance. But how to get to America? The US had the world’s biggest navy at its disposal, bigger even than Royal Navy. It would block any attempt by the Red Army to land in North AND South America. The Red Navy, in comparison, was nothing of value. The Imperial Russian navy was once a rather effective fighting instrument, but it was at first decisively damaged by the Japanese in 1904, and then completely screwed over during the Russian Civil War with more than half of the ships joining with the White forces and at the end of the war ending up in the hands of the British and French. Those which stayed with the Reds were now ancient ships which were practically useless. In order to be able to invade the American continent, the Navy had to be rebuilt practically from the scratch. Since US has still not recovered from the Great Depression, now would be a perfect time to invade and catch the sick US economy off-guard.
And so, at a secret meeting of the Politburo in 1936 the decision was made.
America had to be invaded as soon as possible.
