The New Order: Last Days of Europe Thread II

So, I'm a developmentalist, and I must say that it is extremely epic to play as Chita and do the development projects in the far East. The far East is the region of russia with less population and the smallest industry, so those new decisions make you really feel that the situation is improving and you are guiding the country to a better economic position. By the time I went to war against Tomsk my economy had the same size as South Africa, and while I had the economical inferiority in total GDP, my economy was still more developed than theirs infrastructure and technology wise.

When I was a kid in the 2000s I played a game called "Locomotion" that covered the 1900s up until the 2010s, and you could see the cities developing more and more as time went on. I got some locomotion nostalgia while playing it.

God I sank so many hours into Locomotion as a kid.
 

AeroTheZealousOne

Monthly Donor
This again, huh?
*sigh*

I, as one of the Board's uncomfortably large number of leftists, have made the admittedly unwise decision to weigh in on this.

I'll be real: Bringing down the intelligence community, while in my eyes the morally right thing to do, as painful as it may be, is very much at the same time the unwise course of action to take at that point in time, especially during the Cold War. Yes, the FBI and the CIA did some horrible, horrible stuff, particularly IOTL. No, I do not defend the horrible, horrible stuff they did either in our world or in the universe of The New Order. But at least in the case of this world, much of that clandestine stuff goes to the noble cause of anti-fascism, or at least in support of those worldwide who are itching to take the Germans and/or the Japanese down a peg or two and also willing to be... well, pliable to the interests of good old Uncle Sam. And to undermine both agencies, particularly in the years before the outbreak of both the Second West Russian War as well as the Great Asian War, is just to shoot the world's largest financial and material backer of the anti-fascist crusade in the metaphorical foot at point-blank range; a particularly cruel irony for a communist administration! I believe the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is in full force here, and the heavy-handed approach is not the way to win the desired hearts and minds over to one's cause.

Now, Hall's rise to power and subsequent actions while in power make sense from what little we know right now, especially with the context of what happened in recent years, with one of a number of possible scenarios:

1. President Robert Kennedy and Vice President William Guy are violently removed from the political scene by a far-right element, with circumstances conspiring to bring Strom Thurmond to the White House. Bonus points if this happened after Kennedy's COINTELPRO shenanigans were revealed to the public. Thurmond's actions during his time in office, up to and including filling the Supreme Court with segregationist reactionaries alongside a full repeal of the Civil Rights Act radicalizes the Progressives of the Pact further leftwards, being entirely disillusioned with the status quo, no longer merely upset by it. If this happens in the early 1970s, it, combined with the economic upheaval of the Oil Crisis, is probably more than enough to give sufficent public support (or at least sympathy) to the Marxist Caucus, just in time for the 1972 Elections. Now if Thurmond's unlikely rise to power happens during Kennedy's first (and here, only) term, then...

2. ...It is incredibly likely that the RDC wins the White House in a landslide. If Hart is elected, perhaps he can salvage the situation, perhaps not, leading to further radicalization despite his every effort. Now if Goldwater is elected, things have the opportunity to get rather interesting, especially if more pro-business policies are taken. The coordinated efforts to break up the AFL-CIO and/or the implementation of neoliberal "Reganomics", as well as the lingering effects of the aforementioned Oil Crisis and the rolling back of the CRA is just too much for millions to bear both socially and economically, and it makes Hall look someone who will get things done and live up to the promise of the American Dream that has been denied to so many. Alternatively...

3. George Wallace could have been President in the mid-to-late 1960s, and through whatever course of action either lost to Goldwater, or at any point between 1967 and 1971 been impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and thus thrown out of office following a massacre of kids, leading to a brief LeMay Presidency. One where a new Civil Rights Act never got signed. This option is mutually exclusive with #1, but both #1 and #3 go well with #2.

Understanding the context of events within the past decade in-game, whatever the course of them were, as well as what many American people experienced throughout, should give enough of an understanding as to why an individual who would seek to work beyond the limits of Constitutional Law was sent to the highest office in the land.

Is he a saint? Far from it.
Is he the right man for the job? Probably not, but neither are most other world leaders, as we know.
Do I think he is, as the kids say nowadays, "based" or, more accurately, "wholesome"? Not really, no, regardless of the positive intention of his character's actions that we are currently aware of.
Will he do more harm than good? This is for the devs to know and us to find out, but early indicators suggest the answer is very much a resounding "yes".

I imagine we will find out a lot more in the coming years about how the Hall Administration could, and likely will, play out, but for now all we have are the first 100 days or so to look at. I'm sure all of our expectations will be subverted in some way in another.

This is likely all I have to say on the matter. I hope it wasn't too frivolous like some of my other posts recently.
 
Do you know the event of Emil Maurice in trial in TNO? The one where he's being told his crimes and he's like "Uh the OFN said that I would be free if I cooperated"?

Well, the situation is similar to this video:

 
ONE HOUR OF CHITA MUSIC!

YES! I SAID ONE HOUR OF CHITA MUSIC!

"Gukpa, did you say one hour of Chita music?"

YES!

I SAID "ONE HOUR OF CHITA MUSIC!"

 
Ladies and gentlemen

Georgy Romanov, grandson of Vladimir Kyrillovich (Aka Vladimir III from TNO) is now father. His son has been named Alexei Romanov.

THE TRUE ALEXEI!
 

qazse

Gone Fishin'
Just to check - If Kemerovo and Chita both make it to the regional stage, can they peacefully reunify?
 

chankljp

Donor
It has been a long time since I last commented on the TNO thread, and thought that this will be a good time to do so.

As someone that has been accused by another member over on the political chat sub-forum of suffering from 'Anti-leftist anxiety', and me being a self-identifying as ideologically being on the center-right, I honestly do not see any issue with the way in which in first 100 days of Gus Hall's presidency is being portrayed at all. I can break things down into two parts:


Regardless of your views on United States government, the FBI, and the CIA.... What Gus Hall did was in absolutely no way whatsoever 'wholesome' or 'based'.

And I am not just talking about his actions of dismantling the American intelligence community in the middle of a Cold War against literal Nazis being a bad idea for the anti-fascist cause.... But instead, I am looking at his actions on how he went about this in and of itself:

Unless I am deeply mistaken, the chain of event went something like this:

(1) As per OTL, the FBI and CIA had indeed engaged in some shady and messed up stuff in the name of American national interests and security (Namely, the unlawful surveillance and wiretapping targeting civil rights activists)​
(2) The FBI and CIA, along with the rest of the American political establishment, are fundamentally opposed to the very idea of a communists getting into power in their country. And have openly declared that they will do everything in their power to make sure that he will get removed from office ASAP, as well as preventing him and his allies from getting anything done in office at the mean time.​
(3) Knowing this, Gus Hall, using his power as the POTUS, demand access to said classified files on the FBI and CIA's (Legitimate and not fabricated) misdeeds, with the intention of either holding it over their head to make them cooperate with his adminsitration, or expose them to the public in the name of his ideology.​
(4) FBI and CIA refused to cooperate, and be as obstructive as possible. Giving him only a small part of what he had demanded access to, while 'misplacing'/outright destroying the rest.​
(5) Gus Hall went on national television, exposing the small tidbits of genuine misdeeds that he had managed to uncover... As well as use this opportunity to flat out make sh*t up and appeal to the already widespread conspiracy theory that it was the Federal government that ordered the assassination of MLK and Malcolm X, doing so without any hard evidence on his side.​
(6) Riots and civil unrest ensue, with the Hall administration uses to cripple the US intelligence community, so that they will not be able to get in their way as they go about reshaping America.​
Now, did the FBI and CIA engaged in all manners of shady, morally objectionable, and outright illegal acts in the name of the US establishment? Yes.

Did the FBI and CIA refused to hand over evidence of said shady, morally objectionable, and outright illegal misdeeds to the POTUS as they are required to do? Yes

But this does not change the fact that Gus Hall used his platform as the POTUS to make the claim that MLK and Malcolm X was murdered by the Federal government, doing so without any evidence to support his claims. With the events implications being that Hall does not believe the conspiracy theory himself, but know that others would, and used this opportunity to cripple his political enemies.

I am not a lawyer, or even know much about the law beyond a layman's understanding. But if I am not mistaken, under US law, during a court case, if the defendant's side is caught tempering with of destroying evidence, the judge can order the jury to assume that whatever the accused claimed the now missing and unrecoverable evidence to contain as true.... Hence, it CAN be argued that Gus Hall was merely doing the same thing here, only on a national level.... The fact that we HAVE been playing as the Federal government before he came to power, and hence know for a FACT that the FBI did NOT in fact assassinate MLK and Malcolm X (Or at the very least, the previous POTUS never ordering said assassinations) not withstanding.

Which leads me to my second point:


From the limited information that we have seen so far, Gus Hall can be understood as, for the lack of a better term, 'Reverse American Yeltsin' (The one from the OTL, not TNO). In that just as Yeltsin played a key role is dismantling communism in the USSR, in order to establish capitalism in the new Russia... Gus Hall is trying to dismantle capitalism in the United States, in order to establish socialism in its place.

Continuing on from this metaphor, the 'crippling the US intelligence community for political purposes' by Hall can be understood in the lens of OTL's 1993 Russian constitutional crisis.

In that he was trying to enact radical reforms in a former superpower that for one reason or another, no longer function (It the US is still functional, you would not be getting Gus Hall anywhere even NEAR the White House in the first place).... With remnants of the previous administration doing everything in their power to be uncooperative and stand in his way. Hence, him taking morally question actions (To put things likely) in order to remove said obstructionists, cleaning the way for his administration to do what in their eyes, needs to be done.

Now, for OTL Yeltsin, was the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation filled to the brim with communists diehards, authoritarians, and far-right ultra-nationalists, who are going to sabotage and obstruct his administration no matter what he tries to do in order to, in his eyes, enact much needed free market economic reforms to get Russia functional again?

Yes..... The same way that from TNO Gus Hall's perspective, the American political establishment, with the CIA and FBI serving as their blood hounds, is filled to the brim with lackeys of the the forces of capital, Wall Street moneyman, millionaires, corrupt special interests groups, and racists, who are going to sabotage and obstruct his administration no matter what he tries to do in order to, in his eyes, enact much needed communists economic reforms and revolutionary civil rights legislation for the sake of the common American working class.

In fact, imagine if OTL is a TNO style HOI4 mod... With Yeltsin being the failstate of the USSR that you only get early preview content for. I am sure that you will have lots of right-wingers and anti-communists such as myself going 'OMG! Yeltsin has just issued a decree ordering both KGB and Communist Party archives to be made public! He is so based! How is this a bad ending! I am a Yeltsin-stan now!'... Without knowing the OTHER things that he will end up doing.

If I have to make a speculation, I will say that Gus Hall's path as POTUS, once fully implemented, will go something like this:

(1) The Hall presidency trying to pass legislation that while radical, is genuinely needed to get the US even somewhat functional again (Not that dissimilar to the situation that 1936 US was in over in Kaiserreich world).​
(2) The establishment WILL NOT cooperate with a communist POTUS at all, period. While actively doing everything in their power to remove him from office.​
(3) At this point, Hall will have two options:​
- Continue to not be able to get anything done, not even basic governing functions, in the fact of a hostile political and economic establishment. Resulting in him getting removed from office​
- Take steps to subvert American democracy and institution via any means possible, starting with the FBI and CIA as we have already seen. Centering power on the executive branch of government one step at a time. Until you finally get enough power over the country needed to enact your communist reforms... Which turns out to be disastrous anyway, for one reason or another. With the administration going, 'It must be the fault of the damn bourgeois!'.​
(4) Even IF the Hall presidency managed to overcome EVER SINGLE opponent without getting removed from office, and finally be able to enact their desired communist reforms, they would need to dismantle so many institutions of American society t the point that they were not even 'breaking a few eggs to make an omelet' anymore. But instead, setting fire to the kitchen (The United States, or rather, what is left of it by this point), and burning the entire house down (OFN, and much of the anti-nazi bloc) as a consquence.​
(5) All the while with the US burning their own country down, they were not doing so in a vacuum. With literal Nazis and Imperial Japan running around doing their thing, with their largest geopolitical opponent having shot itself in the head.​
 
Something I wonder is if Suslov is really the least bad authoritarian Soviet leader.

Like, he seems to be the least lethal, that is true, but basically his economy means that the Soviet Union gonna reach the 1980s in the same status as OTL and suffer from the same bureaucratic problems and shortages as OTL, even if they do best the Nazis.

Is this my lame attempt to promote our God emperor of cornkind 🌽 Nikita Khrushchev (may peace be upon his name)? Yes, but I also find Suslov stanning something quite "meh"


My favourite setting for the Soviet Union is Khruschev annexing Zhukov and then anschlussing Bessonov too.
 
Something I wonder is if Suslov is really the least bad authoritarian Soviet leader.

Like, he seems to be the least lethal, that is true, but basically his economy means that the Soviet Union gonna reach the 1980s in the same status as OTL and suffer from the same bureaucratic problems and shortages as OTL, even if they do best the Nazis.

Is this my lame attempt to promote our God emperor of cornkind 🌽 Nikita Khrushchev (may peace be upon his name)? Yes, but I also find Suslov stanning something quite "meh"


My favourite setting for the Soviet Union is Khruschev annexing Zhukov and then anschlussing Bessonov too.

Suslov's awfully bureaucratic, he's too rigid and dogmatic, and he's an unapologetic anti-Semite. I prefer Zhukov working with Yakovlev; that has the potential to lead to a socialist multi-party democracy in future, and it's got excellent economic takes.
 
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Anecdote: Playing Ponylon (From this year April Fool's crossover with EaW), I have turned Buryatia and Irkutsk into an unified puppet through event and annexed all other far east countries, but The Reunification of Russia decision to unify the Far East does not appear, so I cannot progress in the focus tree. If someone can help, by telling me what could be the problem and/or reporting the bug to the devs, please do so. I would greatly appreciate it.

Note: I have already tried annexing the puppet as well as having all of the provinces I control with the same culture. The decision still doesn't appear.
 
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