May Day speech at the Supreme Soviet
The following is an edited extract of Comrade Stalin's speech to a closed session of the Supreme Soviet on 1 May 1938.
International Matters.
Comrades it is with some sadness that I have to report our efforts to resist Fascism in Spain seem to have failed. Madrid fell in early March and the legal government now only holds scattered towns in the South and East. Although we will avenge this defeat at a later stage, for the moment we cannot continue to commit resources to Spain (ie the NKVD spyring in the Nationalist area will be wound down).
The war in the Far East is still static, although the Japanese have lost some more ground in southern Manchuria. Beijing holds out, some 9 months after it was surrounded.
In Europe, we are finally convinced that Germany has major hostile intentions. The absorption of Austria is convincing evidence and Germany is now the only target for Soviet spying and subversion. Confusingly, Italy really likes us (+179 now) so we are not sure as to how stable their current alliance with Germany really is.
NKVD
The effort that SMERSH (yep for James Bond fans - it really existed, it was the NKVD domestic counter-espionage unit) put into killing enemy spies in the early year has paid off. Our scientists have been able to work unhindered and as a result our neutrality has dropped to 63, allowing us to pass new conscription laws on 4 March.
We are finally receiving some intelligence from Germany and it is possible that their conquest of Austria was less well received than Hitler may have wanted:
(I'm using 'none' as a mission as the manual/strategy guide suggests they are less useful but also less vulnerable in that role. Once I get to 7-8, it'll be play time in the Reich ...
)
Industrial effort.
Our research into industrial technology has seen further advances in the productivity of Soviet industry as has the process of building a new Industrial region in Central Asia. Our engineers can now commission a new plant in less than 300 days and at cost of 3.89 IC. Also as a result of Scientific advances, we are starting to build stronger defences at some key ports and improve our communications network on the Moscow-Minsk axis. This will help alleviate some of our major supply delivery problems:
(even at peace, and very early in the build up, there is too much 'red' on this particular map!)
A secondary advantage of this, is we will gain further construction bonuses, thus making all sorts of infrastructure much cheaper.
Leadership and Technology
We now have 17.88 leadership following recent educational research, we are keeping to 13 research teams as in general these are now working efficiently. The rest are split 2.69 spies (ie 0.13 per day) and 2.19 officers (13 a day). This allocation is critical and we will keep it under review but the hope is to have enough spies to build up a presence in Germany despite their counter-espionage.
In areas we have been researching since 1936 our research times are dropping remarkably:
What this shows is the advantage of practical & theory - the bottom 2 techs were started on the same day, the Mikulin is part of the LArm tech (ie level 1) and the encryption tech keys off electronic engineering where I have almost no theory or practical.
Production
Despite the growing fear of war, we do not see any need to alter our basic plans for this year. We are slowly running down our supply stockpiles so as to build construction projects and integrate new weaponry. The additional troops that come from improving our conscription laws also need training and that cost we aim to meet as a priority. We are starting a modest programme of fixed AA and also will build some additional airbases - particularly in Central Asia so we can protect strategically vital resources.
