How Realistic is Kaiserreich Without China and the USA

I'm generally quite pleased with kaiserreich, albeit totalism as a phenomenon always seemed super weird to me.

The Leninist/Stalinist style of governance OTL was in many ways an unusual freak of history that radically differed from pretty much any desired or orthodox view of what a socialist system should be. My favourite example of this is of course Karl Kautsky, a man so representative of the standard views for radical socialism that he was nicknamed "the pope of Marxism" and he actively condemned it every chance he got even to the point of calling it a slave state.
Leninism and it's variants was very much the product of radicalism in a very under industrialised, autocratic and in many ways still feudal society.

So when it essentially reappears in the other syndicalist nations, it's kinda weird. Starting in Britain under Mosley is super weird, Britain being super proud of its democratic traditions and in many ways more democratic than otl (democracy being used on literally every sector of society) a beauracracy which is still largely intact due to the calmer nature of their revolution, already being highly industrialised (hence radical measuresn to industrialise quickly are not needed), with numerous trade partners unlike the USSR...
Finally fundamentally the fact that these nations are willing to call themselves specifically syndicalist suggests that decentralised rule was very desirable amongst the general populace and the revolutionary intelligentsia, unlike the minority Bolsheviks who unusually for the time campaigned otherwise.

And yet despite this, virtually every time I played or have seen an AAR, pretty much the whole of the synditern becomes totalist. What should in the kaiserreich universe be so weird as to largely be ignored (the closest otl equivelant I can think of is the ideology of technocracy inc, or if randians existed in the interwar period) somehow becomes the norm. This is even stranger when movements such as Sorelianism exists atl (being different to its otl form) that provides a PERFECT authoritarian path for the syndicalist nations if that is what people wanted.
 
The zany political situation is what makes the game fun to play. Also modding take ages, especially to the extent that Kaiserreich is modded.

Oh, I'm not suggesting that we make a mod of our own. We can talk about it. Our The Peshawar Lancers redux project didn't result in a rewritten novel or anything like that. I think the setting is full of rich ideas, I'm just curious in what direction we can take it if it was somewhat less unrealistic, but still pulpy.

Speaking of Technocracy Inc., I've always suggested that instead of making the American Union State into Huey Long's adventure into ahistorical psuedo-fascism, it should encapsulate all of the wacky non-communist movements of the time that attempted to get the country out of the Great Depression. Because that's what the Union Party was, really- sure Coughlin was racist and Long was shady, but they also had old Francis Townsend because hey, he had populist economic ideas. So there should be a Technocrats wing to the AUS, they could try to make the state even more unitary.

Or like, what if the Canadian Social Credit guy emigrated to the U.S.

If I redid KR, I'd try to flesh out the AUS was an ideologically flexible (but ultimately jingoistic and anti-communist) state composed of weirdoes, held together only by personality- either Long's, or another's. Also I wouldn't have their base be solely the South, but also parts of the Midwest as well.

More minister ideas: http://cs.servegame.com/kaiserreich/thread-53-post-2149.html#pid2149
 
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I'm generally quite pleased with kaiserreich, albeit totalism as a phenomenon always seemed super weird to me.

The Leninist/Stalinist style of governance OTL was in many ways an unusual freak of history that radically differed from pretty much any desired or orthodox view of what a socialist system should be. My favourite example of this is of course Karl Kautsky, a man so representative of the standard views for radical socialism that he was nicknamed "the pope of Marxism" and he actively condemned it every chance he got even to the point of calling it a slave state.
Leninism and it's variants was very much the product of radicalism in a very under industrialised, autocratic and in many ways still feudal society.

To be fair to the Bolsheviks, Kautsky's complaints about the Bolsheviks where bunkum that announced exactly how much age had muddled his skills. Despite the fact that Lenin himself was a Kautskyan for most of his life and his practices where very much inspired by a younger Kautsky.

The thing I see is that Soviet Russia didn't really die and become Stalinist Russia as a result of their lack of development or the nations authoritarianism, but as a consequence of the fact that Revolutionary Russia was first and foremost envisioned as a fortress state meant to hold out until relief could come from German revolution which could provide them the grounding to really actually build Socialism in Russia. The clearer it became that Russia would stand alone for years if not decades very much hurt the Bolsheviks.

So when it essentially reappears in the other syndicalist nations, it's kinda weird. Starting in Britain under Mosley is super weird, Britain being super proud of its democratic traditions and in many ways more democratic than otl (democracy being used on literally every sector of society) a beauracracy which is still largely intact due to the calmer nature of their revolution, already being highly industrialised (hence radical measuresn to industrialise quickly are not needed), with numerous trade partners unlike the USSR...
Finally fundamentally the fact that these nations are willing to call themselves specifically syndicalist suggests that decentralised rule was very desirable amongst the general populace and the revolutionary intelligentsia, unlike the minority Bolsheviks who unusually for the time campaigned otherwise.

And yet despite this, virtually every time I played or have seen an AAR, pretty much the whole of the synditern becomes totalist. What should in the kaiserreich universe be so weird as to largely be ignored (the closest otl equivelant I can think of is the ideology of technocracy inc, or if randians existed in the interwar period) somehow becomes the norm. This is even stranger when movements such as Sorelianism exists atl (being different to its otl form) that provides a PERFECT authoritarian path for the syndicalist nations if that is what people wanted.

I don't think it's weird that a party emerges which takes several of Marx's most Utopian statements (those about using economic planning to mobilize production in excess of what the capitalist manage specifically) combined with the more right wing conceptions of public morality that existed in the socialist movement doesn't seem too strange. It's odd that they openly disavow democracy rather than notions like Democratic Centralism (which is not an idea to throw out immediately, in a transparent and open system unity of action after debate isn't particularly different from any other notion of party unity). Personally the issue I see is that they define themselves as syndicalist, when really syndicalism wasn't distinct enough from the socialist or anarchist movements it was tied to to be seen as the primary plank of the new governments.
 
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5. Britain going Syndicalist. While I'm not saying it's completely impossible, I find it somewhat unlikely.

Again, why is it unlikely? After winning the war there was a wave of socialist popular opinion manifesting in many ways, after losing the war with an understandable reasoning? It makes perfect sense to me that things swung in favor of the Socialists.
 
Oh, I'm not suggesting that we make a mod of our own. We can talk about it. Our The Peshawar Lancers redux project didn't result in a rewritten novel or anything like that. I think the setting is full of rich ideas, I'm just curious in what direction we can take it if it was somewhat less unrealistic, but still pulpy.

Speaking of Technocracy Inc., I've always suggested that instead of making the American Union State into Huey Long's adventure into ahistorical psuedo-fascism, it should encapsulate all of the wacky non-communist movements of the time that attempted to get the country out of the Great Depression. Because that's what the Union Party was, really- sure Coughlin was racist and Long was shady, but they also had old Francis Townsend because hey, he had populist economic ideas. So there should be a Technocrats wing to the AUS, they could try to make the state even more unitary.

Or like, what if the Canadian Social Credit guy emigrated to the U.S.

If I redid KR, I'd try to flesh out the AUS was an ideologically flexible (but ultimately jingoistic and anti-communist) state composed of weirdoes, held together only by personality- either Long's, or another's. Also I wouldn't have their base be solely the South, but also parts of the Midwest as well.

More minister ideas: http://cs.servegame.com/kaiserreich/thread-53-post-2149.html#pid2149

There's a really good AAR called "The Crown Atomic" that is basically a timeline incorporated into it. Very well written. Details a Royalist reclaimation of the United Kingdom and rolls from there.
 
Quite the contrary, I've rarely ever seen Germany lose and have never been able to beat them myself as the Commune.

Yeah the Commune is hard, Syndie Britain is a bit better because you have the channel, but France gets rolled when Germany gets it shit together.
 
Due to bad AI decision making every war between two similarly powerful countries is basically decided in the first couple months of fighting either way, usually decided by who encircles and destroys the huge stack that much of the enemy army has been concentrated into. In most of my games France wins, but I also usually play a syndicalist country.
 
And when I play, it almost always does break through to the point where Germany is on its knees until the Entente invades.

I've always seen them break through, but Germany almost always somehow rallies itself together. Admittedly I usually play the Entente and intervene to stop it falling if I can.
 
Yeah the Commune is hard, Syndie Britain is a bit better because you have the channel, but France gets rolled when Germany gets it shit together.

Yeah. I also can't tell you how many times I've been screwed by Syndicalist Britain joining the war on my side, and because of that, the Entente entering war against me. And then having to deal with the extremely annoying random Canadian and Nationalist French invasions of the southern and western coasts, which basically screws up everything.

I've always seen them break through, but Germany almost always somehow rallies itself together. Admittedly I usually play the Entente and intervene to stop it falling if I can.

Yeah. More than a few times, I've steamrolled through Belgium and made it as far as the Rhine, and still got pushed back and ultimately defeated.

EDIT: Also, I think the US is balanced in such a way now where the USA has at least a 75% chance of winning. I used to always see them lose, and now it seems like they win every time.
 
Is anyone else interested in reworking KR countries/regions like I am about the AUS? Not like creating a fork of the mod, just talking about alternate history.
 
Germany wins against the Commune all the time in my games unless the Commune goes with the Spearhead doctrine, in which case they win all the time unless Germany also goes Spearhead, in which case... dunno.:p

As far as I know dead before the POD.

Actually he dies in 1938, there's an event for it in the game.
 
Is anyone else interested in reworking KR countries/regions like I am about the AUS? Not like creating a fork of the mod, just talking about alternate history.

This guy. My summer project is actually to create 4 different French foreign policy paths prior to confronting Germany about Alsace-Lorraine. Taking out the old regime remnants for the Travailleurs, promoting revolution in Europe for the Anarchistes, butting heads with Mitteleuropa for the Sorelians, and looking for any allies at all for the Jacobins. (Sidebar on the Jacobins: anyone else think it's weird that the only surviving major Leninists immediately go full OTL Communist if they get a majority? Personally, I'd move that back to a like third consecutive election.)

I'd love to rework the American situation too, creating something a little more variable, so that picking who wins actually means something about the ensuing civil war. That's just so much effort though, it'd mean starting basically from scratch with the events. Other things I'd love but will probably never happen: Having Black Monday as an event that's already happened. It'd justify the amount of chaos going on in Europe and around the world if the capitalist powers are in the midst of failing when the game starts.
 
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