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Привет, and happy Thursday. This is Victoria, Narrative Design Lead of Victoria 3, and today I will be talking about Communism.

Please note, as ever, that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final. Additionally, there is a great amount to cover, and my permitted word count is quite small. This diary will not be exhaustive, and will likely leave open questions. I will leave it to the audience to extrapolate, speculate, endorse or condemn one another’s interpretations, and so on and so forth.

Preface

In Update 1.15, we have taken a thorough look at every facet of our representation of socialism. This process included adding several new laws particular to Council Republics, refining the various socialist ideologies, reworking all existing Journal Entries related to socialism and the systematic path through which one may acquire a Council Republic, and adding some additional, broadly-available content. All of the reworks and additions covered in this diary will be free for those who own the base game.

Our aim for this rework was to represent the historical evolution of and difficulties faced by socialism. To establish – and preserve – a Council Republic is now more difficult than it was before, but also more enriching. To succeed in a socialist playthrough, one will need to develop the potential of the working class, first pushing them to revolution and then defending the state that they shall create.

Before we go into more detail, however, we must know what socialism is.

For Europe, the early nineteenth century was a period of social disruption and creeping, ruinous poverty. This poverty was of a particular sort, which had never been seen on such a scale – the poverty of those whose continued lives relied upon the practice of wage-labour.

In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the traditional artisanal system, in which the production of finished goods was carried out by artisans organised under guilds granted privileges by the state, was collapsing under the pressures of social and technological change. The Revolution’s assault on feudal corporations and internal customs barriers broke guild monopolies and levelled prices across newly free markets. Machines enabled untrained wage-labourers to do work that had once required specialised knowledge, forcing small handicraft producers into competition with industrially-produced goods. With a greater supply of goods and greater competition came lower prices, and with that, a decline in revenue for once-comfortable small producers. 

With the erosion of feudal regulations on movement and the rural handicrafts industries that once supplemented their incomes collapsing, young people from the countryside moved en masse to cities in search of a wage. They made their homes in the infamous slums of our period, which became a source of fear amongst the wealthier classes as centres of crime and sedition. With a glut of labour and increasingly narrow profit margins necessitating fierce competition between enterprises, the wages on offer were often unlivable, necessitating child labour, pawnbroking, taking in lodgers, or charity as supplements. It was this appallingly visible and rapidly growing poverty that intellectuals of the 1830s and 40s came to refer to as the “Social Question” – the question of the organisation of society.

The Social Question was not solely the domain of those we would now call the left. Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, dedicates its third chapter to addressing other political currents which fought over this terrain – from what Marx and Engels referred to as the feudal socialists, who criticised the precarity of the wage system and sought to resolve the social question via restoring traditional paternal relationships, to the conservative or bourgeois socialists, who sought to alleviate social tensions via generalising property ownership and improving conditions under liberal society, to the petty-bourgeois, “True”, and “utopian” socialists. Whilst differing wildly in their content, all shared the desire to alter the organisation of society.

Until the late nineteenth century, the label of “socialism” retained this heterogeneous nature. It was the formation of mass socialist parties under the umbrella of the Second International that made “socialism” synonymous with “Marxism” in political parlance – and, even then, this was largely a European phenomenon. Across the Anglophone world, socialist parties such as the British Labour Party drew from the traditions of Christian socialism, Fabian reformism, trade-unionism, and radical-liberalism over Marxism. It would take until the Russian Revolution for Marxist socialism to eclipse its rivals outside of Europe – and, even then, this triumph was an incomplete one, marked by the fallout of the recent split between reformist and revolutionary socialists. We will go into more detail on this later, under “Reform or Revolution?”.

The socialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century – Marxist socialism, or communism – is what Update 1.15’s socialist content revolves around.

To quote Karl Marx in The German Ideology:

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. “

The Marxist conception of communism was that of a movement – specifically, the movement of the proletariat. Starting from conditions then in existence – that of a class of wage-labourers, simultaneously responsible for the great majority of production and yet dependent upon selling their labour-power to an employer for a wage in order to survive – the Marxists centred their analysis around this class, and the political activities it engaged in as a result of its situation. Our model of communism, therefore, revolves around movements. A socialist society must emerge from the struggle of the proletariat, by the means of its political movement.

The Road to Socialism

Under our new model for socialism, practice precedes ideological consciousness. The Trade Unions will no longer support a socialist system by default upon researching Socialism – for them to become ideologically communist, they must first be mobilised by an appropriate movement into carrying out a revolution.

Once a revolution that supports Factory Councils reaches sufficient Activism, the Factory Councils amendment will be added to the country’s currently active Labour Associations law. This amendment’s effects are similar to the Factory Councils law, increasing the strength of the Trade Unions and strengthening socialist movements. If Council Republic is enacted whilst a country’s Labour Associations law has the Factory Councils amendment, the country will automatically gain the Factory Councils law.

The Communist and Internationalist ideologies represent a radicalised Trade Unions, and favour several of the new revolutionary laws added in this update.

To enact Council Republic, a country must now have Factory Councils as either a Law or Amendment. This is to represent the historical means through which Council Republics came to be, as an outgrowth of assemblies of councils that emerged during a period of revolutionary activity.

To summarise the new method of achieving a Council Republic, a revolutionary movement activates the Factory Councils amendment, and radicalises the Trade Unions. From there, one may either attempt to enact Council Republic as a law and follow up with other revolutionary laws, or push the movement into civil war to achieve Council Republic and a large number of revolutionary laws at once. Any period of time under a Council Republic without certain revolutionary laws – Factory Councils, Communal Administration, and Revolutionary Guard –  will lead to increased Consolidation. We will provide more information on this later in the diary, under the “Attack or Defence?” section.

New Socialist Laws

The socialism rework contains four new laws: Labour Suffrage, Extraordinary Commission, Communal Administration, and Revolutionary Guard. Applicable revolutions will start with several of these, depending on the movement type. Extraordinary Commission may be enacted by Council Republics that need a hand in defeating the White Movement – more information on that later.

Labour Suffrage represents the restrictions on political activity for the non-producing classes practised by the Soviet government in its early years. Under this law, exclusively lower-class pops and those involved in the state are permitted votes, with propertied pops being denied suffrage. In a country with a numerically large working class, this will tend to result in substantial success for the socialist or communist party.

The Extraordinary Commission represents a mass organisation dedicated to the repression of counter-revolutionaries, exemplified by the historical Soviet Cheka and the Lenin Boys of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Levelling up the Extraordinary Commission will provide many of the effects of the Secret Police law, as well as decreasing the political strength and increasing the mortality of those pops which tend to oppose a Council Republic. Enacting the Extraordinary Commission also activates the Extraordinary Measures Journal Entry, which will also be covered later.

Abolition of the standing army and its replacement by a universal militia was a common demand of the social-democratic parties in the pre-WWI era, and briefly practised in the early days of the Soviet Red Army. Activating the Revolutionary Guard law will destroy the political power of the Armed Forces, at the cost of reducing the size of the standing army. Additionally, activating this law will purge the officer corps of non-revolutionary generals, replacing them with fresh-faced militia commanders loyal to the Trade Unions.

The Communal Administration law represents the mode of administration attributed to the Paris Commune by Marx’s The Civil War in France, and expanded upon in Lenin’s The State and Revolution. The Communal Administration law substantially reduces the power of Bureaucrats pops and increases Clerks' attraction to the Trade Unions, but makes Government Administrations require substantially more Clerks than any other Bureaucracy law. If enacted whilst literacy and qualifications are low, one may find it very difficult to replace the standing bureaucracy with the communal mode of administration.

Reworked Ideologies

The stances of the Communist and Vanguardist ideologies have been reworked. Rather than desiring welfare, they would instead like to overthrow the government.

To work out a clean line between the Communist and Vanguardist ideologies is not an easy task. The distinction between the two is largely a product of post-revolutionary historiography, rather than a clear distinction drawn within the period itself. One must contend with the question of intentionalism vs. circumstantialism – historians’ and political scientists’ attempts to define what is referred to as “Vanguardism” [“Leninism” and its descendents] are coloured by the analysis of an existing political regime, whilst “non-Vanguardism” is characterised largely by works of political theory and reactions to the Soviet political regime from outside a position of power.

In the end, we decided to distinguish the two based on the conditions they must deal with – Vanguardists arise in countries with low labour productivity [as approximated by GDP per capita] and large peasant populations, where the question of pre-capitalist forms and land reform are immediately relevant, whilst Communists arises in countries with high labour productivity and small peasant populations.

Vanguardists lack strict stances on Army Model and Bureaucracy, deferring to their Interest Groups on these issues. A Trade Unions Vanguardist will favour upholding Communal Administration and Revolutionary Guard, whilst an Armed Forces Vanguardist will favour abolishing the Revolutionary Guard in favour of a conventional army with Mass Conscription.

The Social Democrat ideology has been removed, and replaced with the more period-appropriate State Socialist ideology. State Socialists represent the reformist, statist socialist current that historically remained affiliated with the Second International parties in the aftermath of World War I, and is defined by a desire to achieve a socialist economy through reforming the existing state. Ferdinand Lassalle himself is now a Trade Unions State Socialist.

The generic Social Democratic Party has been redesignated as “Socialist”, and given a stylish new logo and pleasant red colour. Other parties have also found new colours – the Free Trade Party in Industrialists Orange, the Religious Party in white, and the Radical Party in a cool salmon pink.

Socialist Content

In the Spring of 1914, nearly every parliament in Europe hosted a sizable delegation from the socialist parties of the Second International. The socialist movement was a strong and assertive factor in the daily lives of most working-class people, and a serious consideration for those who employed them. The socialist parties were affiliated with a complex network of trade unions, workers’ associations, press organs, and other civil society organisations, which fostered a strong sense of class identity in their participants. Six months later, they had thrown themselves behind the cause of nation and empire, and dispatched their constituencies to machine-gun each other on the fields of Ypres.

How did this happen? It is not a question of a few jingoistic politicians, nor the outcome of parliamentary votes. The course of history is rarely decided by something as legible and formal as the proceedings of parliament. A vote that conforms with the world situation is often treated as a cause in itself, and a vote that contradicts the world situation tends to be overwritten by reality – in content, if not in form. Despite Sweden’s neutrality in the First World War, the history of the Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti closely mirrors that of the belligerent socialist parties. Likewise for the Italian Socialist Party, which maintained an anti-war stance, and expelled its pro-war members in 1914. The fate of the European socialist parties can be charted from the date of their foundings, and lay in an unanswered question at each of their hearts.

Reform or Revolution?

In Sweden, the period between the founding of the Social Democratic Party and the first World War is referred to as the “Heroic Era”. This was the era of the Second International, of mass workers’ movements largely unified behind a single workers’ party. Across Europe, this movement was referred to as “Social Democracy”, and its parties as the social-democratic parties. The German Social Democratic Party [SPD] was an exemplar of this movement, and may be used as a convenient case study in what became of the Second International parties in the early twentieth century.

The party that would become the SPD was founded in 1875 as a merger of the German General Workers’ Association [ADAV] and Social Democratic Workers’ Party [SDAP]. The ADAV drew from the current of state socialism exemplified by Ferdinand Lassalle, whilst the SDAP drew from what was becoming known as the Marxist tradition. As a compromise between Marxists and Lassalleans, the party produced the Gotha Programme, best known for being the subject of Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme. The Critique of the Gotha Programme centres around the programme’s lack of a qualitative break from the platforms of the liberal parties, and its treatment of the state as a neutral and independent body whose organs may be peacefully inherited by the proletariat by legal means.

Following the abolition of the German Anti-Socialist Laws in 1890, the SPD adopted the Erfurt Programme, a more radical programme which cast itself as the minimum required for the working class to win control of the political system. In the following years, a division in the SPD became apparent between those who considered the programme as a necessary precondition for revolution, and those on the “Revisionist” party right – exemplified by Eduard Bernstein – who believed socialism could be achieved without a need for revolution. The revisionists pointed to SPD’s role in legislation directly impacting the working class, as well as the immense gains in support that the party had secured in the period since the abolition of the Anti-Socialist Laws. In search of unity, the SPD centre under Karl Kautsky advocated for the party to maintain a policy of ambiguity on the matter of revolution, upholding it as a possible – but not inevitable – tactical measure to achieve socialism. Ambiguity on the question of reform or revolution, in practice, strongly favoured the maintenance of the Party’s current activities, which were reformist in content. The result of this was an official policy that condemned Bernstein’s programme in name whilst making it impossible to break from the conditions that had given rise to it. Come 1914, a party committed to its reforms was faced with the need to defend them against Tsarist autocracy, and voted accordingly.

The Reform or Revolution Journal entry tracks the evolution of this question. Once 25% or more of the world’s GDP is controlled by countries with a Socialist Movement or Party, the Reform or Revolution Journal Entry will become active. Whilst it is active, every country with a Socialist Movement or Party will contribute to shaping the international socialist movement. Populous countries will naturally be advantaged in this, but an especially powerful - or marginal - socialist movement may make certain countries count for far more or less than their population would suggest.

The strength of socialism in a country corresponds to the amplitude of its contributions to either Reform or Revolution. Whether a country will contribute to Reform or Revolution depends upon the particular conditions of her socialist movement - a socialist party that has entered a governing coalition outside of a revolution, and refuses revolutionary measures such as Factory Councils will contribute strongly to Reform, whilst a movement that is organising an insurrection will benefit Revolution.

If a war breaks out between more than 50% of the countries involved in this Journal Entry, the trend will multiply rapidly. For example, if the international socialist movement is generally reformist, such a war will cause a rapid Reformist victory, whilst a drift towards Revolution will swiftly turn the world Revolutionary.

The outcomes of this Journal Entry have consequences for the entire world. Upon a Reformist victory, the Socialist Movement will split between Socialists and Communists, unlocking the Communist Movement and Communist Party, the Socialist Movement will lose its revolutionary ideologies, and the ideology of the Socialist Movement will change to State Socialist.

Conversely, if Revolution wins, the Socialist Movement will become radicalised worldwide, changing its core ideology to Revolutionary Socialist and avoiding the historical split between Communism and Socialism. Moderates will flee the socialist parties and movements, reducing their attractiveness to non-socialist Interest Groups and less radical Pops.

Attack or Defence?

In Update 1.15, a Council Republic will become engulfed in conflict from birth. Once the Council Republic law is enacted, all anti-socialist ideological movements in the country will amalgamate into the White Movement, which will immediately seek to bring about its downfall.

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Due to the length of this Dev Diary we couldn't post is all here on reddit. Please jump on over to our forums HERE to read it in full!

Forum post link HERE

There is a question in the air - I've heard it asked time and time again. It is the burning question of our time: What is to be played?

https://youtu.be/XkD9quHxECg

Привет! Welcome all to the first dev diary for State and Revolution, the upcoming Immersion Pack all about Russia, states, and revolutions! Releasing October 22nd, alongside free Update 1.15, you can pick it up as part of Volume 3 - and you can already check the full list of included content on our Steam page. In the meantime, please join me, Mike, a designer who likes trains too much, as we go over what a state is, what a revolution is, and what a Russia is.

Let's go over the historical background briefly. Russia in 1836 is a conservative empire, still shaken by the Napoleonic Wars. Moscow burned in defiance of Napoleon's occupation of the city just twenty-four years earlier- as far back from the present as 2002 is for us in 2026. The shocks of that war, the ideas spurred on by it, and the further surprise of the Decemberist revolt of 1825 all reinforced an arch-conservatism in the Russian court, a fear of any whiff of liberalism and a deep-seated commitment to a paternalistic vision of autocracy, of a Tsar that is Russia's head and its heart.

This vision of Russia would be severely challenged over the course of the 19th century. The viability of the old order was challenged by military defeats in the 1850s and diplomatic and economic failures; the state had to change if it wanted to survive. Reactionary Nicholas I was succeeded by his son, Alexander II, a tsar who believed that Russia needed to reform in order to prosper. Revolutionary sentiment was already beginning to brew, however, and despite the passage of some reforms, notably including finally emancipating the serfs of Russia, and victories abroad such as the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War, he was eventually assassinated by revolutionaries in 1881. That caused his son and successor, Alexander III, to reaffirm his belief in the old conservative order and the failure of reformism. Alexander III would do all he could to assert his autocratic vision of Russia, and succeeded in impressing his idea of what Russia should be and what a tsar should be onto his son, the future Nicholas II, but he failed in passing on the lessons of rulership and governance. Under Nicholas II, Russia lost the Russo-Japanese War and experienced a great upheaval in 1905 which many at the time thought was the Revolution, but they didn't know what was to come in 1917…

Russia, then, is an empire committing itself to a vision of a tsar-led empire, an imperial realm which seeks to push back the obscene ideas of the French Revolution- but there's no guarantee it will maintain that vision, or even maintain its empire. It won't help that the Tsar doesn't rule entirely alone, even as an autocrat- he might have a court favorite by his side, advising him about industrial policies, paths to reform, or how the favorite can magically heal the crown prince.

There's revolutions, and then there's the Revolution. Before it happened, it was a phantasm that haunted the minds of rulers for a century. It wasn't always destined to be an uprising draped in red - the revolution the crowned heads of Europe feared in the 1800s was a repeat of the French Revolution, of national assemblies, phrygian caps, and the tricolor flags. When Russians took to the streets in 1905, many of them sang the Marseillaise, not the Internationale. The shape of the Revolution was always in flux, reacting to the direction of the Russian Empire's policies, influenced by mass movements and charismatic individuals, changing as exiles stewed on ideas in Siberia and Switzerland. The Revolution only became one solid thing when the Revolution actually happened, and even then people argue over its causes and its goals to this day. 

What does State & Revolution contain?

• Emperor and Autocrat: The Tsars of Russia have unique agendas based upon their ideologies and historical personalities, directing the state according to their own visions of what the empire should be. From Nicholas I to Nicholas II and even beyond, each Tsar has his own particular ambition he wants to achieve, and helping him achieve his goals allows the emperor to pass through decrees- ukases- which allow him to manipulate the levers of government in powerful and unique ways.
• The Russian Revolution: As the pressures of the Victorian era mount, dissidents whisper a word among themselves that stirs their hearts- Revolution. The revolution itself, the Revolution, builds up in reaction to the tsars and the Russian state, defining itself in opposition to the established order. A rigid autocracy will cause liberals and socialists alike to yearn for the Revolution, but a reformist turn might upset conservatives in Russia even as it placates liberals.
• Favorites: Even the autocratic tsars rarely worked entirely alone. Every tsar has the ability to appoint favorites, figures who can influence the shape of government, the passage of laws, and even provide unique agendas for tsars to pursue. Favorites can be almost anyone, from well-educated nobles eager to industrialize the empire to wild-eyed peasant holy men with the remarkable ability to inspire, generations later, the creation of one of the best Eurodisco songs to come out of Germany.
• The other Reds & Whites: Before the Russian Revolution, there was the January Uprising. Try to preserve a crumb of Polish autonomy, either by currying the favor of the Russian government or silently preparing to stage an uprising which gambles everything for Polish independence.
• Ukrainian and Belarussian cultural Renaissances: The 19th century was a pivotal time in the development of national identities across the Russian Empire, and many modern elements of Ukrainian and Belarussian identity have their roots in ideas established during this time. Populations satisfied with Russian rule in 1836 may become less compliant over time as nationalist ideas develop, a growing corpus of poets and journalists write works in their own tongues, and peasants move to cities to find better work in Russia's growing industrial sector and find themselves exposed to new concepts and new ways to express themselves.
• The evolution of Socialist politics: As the socialist movement develops in a country, the shape of socialism will become informed by choices made by the state and the socialist movement. Will socialists become reformists committed to electoralism or die-hard revolutionaries? In Russia, a radical group of communists might show up and declare themselves 'the majority'- will these Bolsheviks end up heading the radical left wing, or will Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries lead the way?

Over the next two months we will go over more of State and Revolution, from tsars to exiles, old empires crumbling and new nations rising, and the fantastic work our team has done in every discipline. See you next week!

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Now an interjection from Pelly. 

Yesterday Martin talked about the AI update and 1.14 - and above you will have seen mention of 1.15. This is not a typo, the AI update, when it is in the Open Beta will be 1.14, but when we publicly release it, it will be rolled into the 1.15 update and released on the 22nd of October. 

This is for versioning reasons and because 1.14 is a special beast, so please don’t be confused when the update coming alongside State and Revolution is 1.15.