Republican Spain

[Vanox]

Last WWW they quickly glossed over Republican Spain.
I was a bit dissapointed by three main things though.

First of all there's the issue of the flag.

They're using an unofficial flag instead of the official flag of the second Spanish Republic with the Castle crown and the Plus Ultra motto as seen below.

[/IMG]

Secondly there's the head of state issue. José Diaz might've been general secretary of the Communist party of Spain. But he never held the office of President of the Republic or as Prime minister. The Head of state should be Manuel Azana and maybe Juan Negrin later on.

Third and lastly it's the political make up. In reality Republican Spain was controlled by the Popular Front. This was an alliance between mainly left Republicans and both Stalinist communists and Trotskists. But for the game mechanics i understand that it's divided between Fascist/Democratic/Communist -> Falange/Left Republican/Communist party of Spain. My problem is however that Republican Spain starts out as a mainly communist state while the democratic Republican left should have the advantage. Still with a considerable portion of communist influence though.

I know Paradox prides itself on it's historical accuracy. But here they let the alternative history loose before the player has a chance to get involved. Or was it just mere chance that led to Spain becoming very communist?

Edit: I now realize that the Flag isn't an issue because the red star flag is probably a part of Communist Spain as opposed to Democratic spain.

 

[agus92]

Last WWW they quickly glossed over Republican Spain.
I was a bit dissapointed by three main things though.

First of all there's the issue of the flag.

They're using an unofficial flag instead of the official flag of the second Spanish Republic with the Castle crown and the Plus Ultra motto as seen below.

[/IMG]

Secondly there's the head of state issue. José Diaz might've been general secretary of the Communist party of Spain. But he never held the office of President of the Republic or as Prime minister. The Head of state should be Manuel Azana and maybe Juan Negrin later on.

Third and lastly it's the political make up. In reality Republican Spain was controlled by the Popular Front. This was an alliance between mainly left Republicans and both Stalinist communists and Trotskists. But for the game mechanics i understand that it's divided between Fascist/Democratic/Communist -> Falange/Left Republican/Communist party of Spain. My problem is however that Republican Spain starts out as a mainly communist state while the democratic Republican left should have the advantage. Still with a considerable portion of communist influence though.

I know Paradox prides itself on it's historical accuracy. But here they let the alternative history loose before the player has a chance to get involved. Or was it just mere chance that led to Spain becoming very communist?

Edit: I now realize that the Flag isn't an issue because the red star flag is probably a part of Communist Spain as opposed to Democratic spain.

Yeah, clearly the government shifted to communist after the "Levantamiento" (uprising). I would to see detailed Republican politics (you forgot the anarchists, that effectively seized power immediatly after the uprising, specially in Catalonia), amongs other SCW related mechanics, since the development of SCW is quite a thriller. But to be honest, it's not an easy task, and I doubt it's even possible with the current political system.

In conclusion: we can either accept the harsh reality, or sink uncountable hours creating a mod that no one interested in the SCW will like, since it's so politicized (less with the average forumites than with spaniards, granted).

 

[Sharp163]

Not this again...

 

[LordOfWar16]

Gameplay over History. That was and always will be Paradoxes philosophy. Gameplay will always comes first, even if this means you have to sacrifise historical accuracy.

Since they only have a 3 party system in the game, since internal politics play a secondary role especially in a grand strategy game, some stuff wont be 100% accurate of course. Germany isnt represented historical aswell and i am totaly fine with it for gameplay purpose.

 

[Deathshead419]

At the very least they could have Republican Spain retain elections. After all, "Fascist" Hungry still has them, despite being 100% brown:

 

[LordOfWar16]

At the very least they could have Republican Spain retain elections. After all, "Fascist" Hungry still has them, despite being 100% brown:

Fascism has nothing todo with an dictatorship without elections. Hungary infact held elections during ww2. In germany on the other hand as soon as he was in charge, hitler banned the other parties and ceded total controll over the country. Same goes for Italy aswell. Nations follwing a fascist ideology dont have to be dictatorships.

Fascism is just a generic term without an deeper definition. This term usualy was used by the enemies of fascism and never really used inside the countries that were claimed to be fascist. There are tons of different forms of fascim just as there are tons of different forms of democracies.

Germany for example had a completly different ideology than Italy, yet both are considered fascist.

 

[agus92]

At the very least they could have Republican Spain retain elections. After all, "Fascist" Hungry still has them, despite being 100% brown:

The communist took power, so no elections.

 

[Sharp163]

The communist took power, so no elections.

Or they could just be "elections".

 

[Victor Cortez]

Rep Spain has to be Communist so the USSR is more likely to help and Italy more likely to help Nat Spain.

 

[agus92]

Or they could just be "elections".

The only communist ideology that didn't saw elections only as a way to reach power, imploying getting rid of them after achieving it, is eurocomunism, and that is a movement of the 70-80s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocommunism

Note: spanish eurocommunists partly drained their ideology of the Popular Front (left wing party assemble, including the communists, that won 1936 elections), and it could be said that the 1936 communists in Spain would have respected the democratic system if they had won by themselves. I strongly believe the contrary, since the influence of the Politburó was still strong, and the USSR success was still recent, raising the ambitiousness if the revolutionaries. And to end with, the 30's where a decade where radical change was often embraced.

 

[Vanox]

Thank you for all the replies. I'd like to summarize my replies to some of you here.

First of all the "Gameplay goes over Historical accuracy"-standpoint i perfectly understand. However. What i'm asking is that they simply make the Spanish civil war a conflict between democratic and fascist forces. This is achievable within their three factions system.

Although like others have pointed out. It is true that they probably did this so that you can align yourself better with the USSR. Which was the main benefactor of the republicans irl.
And also because French intervention seems to be an option on the communist path in their focus tree.

But many probably don't know that a lot of French social democrats were sympathetic to the Left Republican (democratic) cause. So there go my plans of intervening in Spain with democratic France and using them as an ally against the Germans.

Anyway, If i'll be able to peacefully shift Republican Spain back to democracy I don't have any beef with it.