UNITY AND STRUGGLE (1988-2001)
“
Communism isn't love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy” -Mao Zedong
Music advice (choose one)
Since the 1979 islamist coup happened in Iran, profiting from the revolution against the Shahist regime, the new regime funded a lot of islamists in Central Asia and the Caucasus to screw the local institutions. The Soviet Union decided to stay tolerant firstly, encouraging the locals to criticize the islamists. However, as the time passed through, it became clear that the Iranian-funded islamists were not here to participate to constructive debates and help improving socialist society by proposing creative ideas (some religious-inspired ideas, as long as they were positive and could help to improve the society, were always welcome to be debated by everyone) but to make trouble. After 10 years of trouble, the Soviet leadership decided that it was enough and decided to act. The Iranian leadership, when contacted by the Soviets, showed that it wasn't willing to cooperate. Iran just finished an exhausting war against Iraq and was weakened. Citing the suppression of communists by the Iranian regime and the ingerence in Central Asia, Caucasus and Afghanistan, the Soviet Union threatened the Ayatollahs of a war. After conducting a serious investigation, the Soviet intelligence services found evidence that Iran was not only sending troublemakers, but was also conducting espionage and sabotage operations, planned to expand in Soviet territory and had a nuclear program to build atomic bombs. With all these evidence the Soviet Union invaded its neighbour, weakened by the Iran-Iraq war, in late 1988.
After a serie of successful battles, the Red Army quickly occupied Teheran, forcing the Iranian leadership to move to Shiraz
Iran was overhelmed by the Soviet forces and the islamist government was forced into exile, while the Iranian Socialist Soviet Republic was proclaimed by the Communist Party of Iran in 1990. With the addition of Iran to the socialist camp, all the countries bordering the Soviet Union were now socialist.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the government accused the Soviet Union to fund the ETA and threatened to invade Catalonia. The answer of the Soviet government was clear : it asked Spain to leave the Basque country if they wanted the ETA to stop its actions, as oppression leads to resistance. After the Spanish refused, the war started.
After a defeat at Toledo, the Catalan-Soviet armies defeated the Spanish, forcing them not only to leave the Basque country but also Galicia who was agitating for independence.
In Ethiopia, the socialist regime of the Derg suffered since its creation in 1975 a strong opposition. In fact, there was almost no construction of socialism due to the permanent state of civil war. Some marxist groups, such as the All-Ethiopia Socialist Movement (MEISON) or the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) opposed the regime. The situation was complex, and the Soviet Union supported the Derg, mostly for geopolitical reasons, as the regime was also heavily criticized by many in the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Derg lost Soviet support (due to the changes in the Central Comitee of the CPSU that occurred since 1984) and fell to the United Ethiopian Democratic forces, however the civil war continued, as the new regime didn't recognized the independence of Eritrea, and as the struggle of the EPRP and MEISON continued against it.
The year 1991 also saw the rise of India to the status of great power, after years of socialist construction.
In 1994, the Danish government cracked down on several marxist and anarchist institutions, including cooperatives, councils or the free city of Christiania. Called by the Danish left, the Red army entered the country. However, the French and British quickly reacted and declared war on the Soviet Union.
This didn't stopped the Soviet Union, who invaded France. Quickly, agitators from Cuba landed on the British Carribean islands and agitated for independence. The independentists called for, and got Soviet recognition. The same happened in the Comoros, with the help of Mozambican agitators.
The Danish armies barely resisted and Denmark quickly fell, completing the list of Socialist Scandinavian Republics.
Meanwhile, the French were completely crushed on land, and agitation started in the British Pacific islands. In 1995, after one year of war, the Anglo-french surrendered, and Wales declared its independence.
The Sendero Luminoso and the People's War in Peru
“
The masses make history; the party leads them” -Presidente Gonzalo
A member of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) since the age of 15, Doctor Ruben Abimael Guzmán Reinoso, aka Comrade Gonzalo, was a school teacher in Ayacucho. He visited China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which profoundly influenced him. At that time, the works of Mao Zedong had a great impact on Peru.
In the early 1970's, after an intense ideological inner-party struggle, which saw the expelling of the right wing opportunists (a clique of revisionists who opposed revolution) and of the “left” wing opportunists (a clique of completely idealist guevarists without any impact on the masses and usually self-destructive), the PCP started its reconstruction in order to start the People's War, based on party unity, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought, Mariátegui Thought (Mariátegui was the founder of the PCP, in 1928, and a brilliant theorician) and general party line upholding.
In 1976, the reconstruction of the PCP was completed, and the construction of Base Areas to begin armed struggle started. Dozens of cadres were sent to the countryside to build Regional Committees, which would set up the foundations of the Base Areas. The general strategy of the United People's War was established in 1978, outlining that the People's War in Peru had to be developed as an united struggle in both countrysides and cities, with the countryside being the main theatre for armed actions, and the general strategy was to surround cities from the countryside.
Peruvian people, don't vote! Long live the People's War!
Elections, no! People's War, yes!
Down with parlementary cretinism!
In June 1979, the PCP took the decision to initiate People's war. The preparation of the war took one year, and it was initiated on May 17, 1980, with actions against the pseudoelections initiated by the Peruvian regime. The years 1981 and 1982 were marked by the development of the guerilla war. Many assaults were carried out, against police posts and landlords, generating a mass mobilization of the peasants, many of them volunteering for the guerilla militias. People's committees emerged everywhere in the country, defining more Base Areas. The prison of Ayacucho, the town from where the Base Areas were initiated, was attacked by the guerilla, who defeated the police and liberated the prisoners. Power and communication lines were sabotaged, and support was given to worker's strikes through armed actions. At this moment, the People's War took the form of a mobile guerilla relying on the Base Areas. Soon, the guerilla would be known as the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path). This name would also be used to designate the PCP.
In early 1983, the PCP was reorganized, with the creation of the People’s Guerrilla Army and the Revolutionary Defence Front of the People, their consolidation as People’s Committees in the countryside and as the Revolutionary Defence Movement of the People in the cities, and the Military Plan for Conquering Bases. At this time, the Peruvian government sent the military, and the armed struggle intensified a lot. The government started white terror against the base areas, killing 8700 Peruvians in the countryside, especially in Ayacucho or Huancavelica. However, the slaughter committed by the reactionaries didn't produced the results its perpetrators wanted, in fact it only increased the revolutionary fervor of the masses, and the People's War grew stronger.
The guerilla forces engaged in many actions, destroying government attempts to subvert the revolution, seizing and redistributing land, sabotaging several extractive facilities such as mining stations or pipelines set up by the imperialists and their lackeys to plunder the country. Peasants were mobilized, ambushes were carried out against pro-government forces.
The government responded with a military takeover and the declaration of an emergency state in 1986.
After 8 years of People's War, more than 45,000 actions had been carried out, the People’s Guerrilla Army had been developed and had increased in belligerence, and hundreds of organisations of the New Red Power had been created all over the countryside.
In the regions controlled by the Sendero Luminoso, some basic socialism was implemented. The Red Power was becoming a proletarian state, with its own institutions, justice and amred forces, inside the bourgeois state, ready to overthrown the latter.
In 1988-1989, the PCP held its first meeting. In this meeting, Maoism was defined as the third and higher stage of Marxism (Leninism being the second) and Gonzalo Thought as the application of the universal ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete conditions of the Peruvian Revolution. For now, only the PCP in Peru and the CPSMLM in Somalia were parties in power recognizing Maoism as the third and higher stage of Marxism, however many organizations in the rest of the world also agreed on this, but at this moment it was a minoritary position among Communist Parties in power. In 1990, the level of armed struggle shifted from strategic defence to strategic equilibrium, with more than half of the country under the control of the Shining Path. With this step reached, the guerilla became less mobile, as the Base Areas were fully in control, and the government forces couldn't reach them anymore withot getting rid of the revolutionary forces. In 1992, the PCP proclaimed the beginning of the Third phase of the People's War : the strategic offensive.
Celebration of the International Women's Rights day. Almost half of the guerilla fighters of the Sendero Luminoso were women.
The People's Guerilla Army was reorganized, to adopt conventional warfare and urban guerilla strategies. The urban organisations were told to prepare to the Third phase, and in 1993 the offensive truly began. The cities of Trujillo and Lima fell in 1994, and the Shining Path was in control of most of the Peruvian coast. Fighters moved and secured the north regions, leaving the government only in control of Arequipa, which fell in 1995. With the fall of Arequipa, all of Peru was under the control of the Shining Path, and the old reactionary government fled to Chile and then to Washington, where it would function as a government in exile. Chairman Gonzalo declared the People's Republic of Peru, getting recognition from other socialist countries. The first socialist state in mainland Americas was born.
The US reaction was quick, and so was the Soviet reaction. Boris Loskutov knew that the American troops were ready to invade (as the USA already sent troops to help the old regime, which were defeated), and personally called the president Bill Clinton, threatening him to send in the nukes if the American army invaded and, reminding him that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was far more stronger than the American one, that the Soviet rockets were faster and would strike first, destroying American missile launching sites, that the Socialist bloc controlled most of Eurasia and Africa, and if there was a MAD, socialism would prevail because all of the countries surviving a nuclear war would be socialist.
The PCP announced to the world that they would defend their country to the last man. They managed to throw out the Americans and their puppets, and promised a “Vietnam” to any military invading the country. The excellent organization of the guerilla during the People's War and the Peruvian geography showed that these claims weren't empty.
In 1996, the Soviet forces invaded Saudi Arabia. The local regime backed several terrorist groups acting against socialism, especially in Afghanistan. When entering in Saudi Arabia, the Red Army encountered almost no resistance, and for one reason : the Saudi reactionaries left their country...
...and moved to Afghanistan, toppling down the socialist state with the help of the reactionaries Talibans. The Red Army quicly intervened to help Afghan socialists.
Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein profiteed from the fall of Saudi Arabia to invade and annex Kuwait, as the small country stole Iraqi oil using horizontal drilling. There was almost no reaction in the rest of the world, except for the congratulations from the socialist world. The capitalist world was already concerned by the loss of Saudi Arabia (and their oil) and barely noticed the annexion.
Receiving a help from local socialists, the Red Army got rid of the Saudis reactionaries and other islamist forces in Afghanistan. The classes supporting the Talibans (tribal chieftains) were expropriated in a land reform with the goal of ending tribalism in Afghanistan.
In 1998, Lebanon was in trouble due to a communist insurgency. Syria supported the communists, and soon Syrian, Turkish, Kurdish, Irakian and Soviet units joined the communist rebels in Lebanon. When the Lebanese communists seized French capitals, France intervened by threatening to invade Britanny. The hostilities started, again.
With full military help, the Lebanese communists achieved a quick and easy victory. Jordan, who joined Lebanon and France in their war, was also defeated and turned into a socialist state. The West Bank, occupied by Jordan, got independence, creating the first Palestinian state since 1948, under a coalition led by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (
and I forgot to screen this peace treaty).
France was easily crushed, too. At this moment, its government was a shadow of its former self, as many function of the state were already assured by the socialist institutions created during the 70's.
(It must be noted that France had communist rebels, and rebels are very rare in this mod as they are nerfed a lot) The defeat of what remained of the bourgeois state was easy. With all of France occupied, the Soviet forces moved against Spain, which was easily crushed too. However, this time, the local communists organized socialist armed forces, and asked the Soviet Union to recognize them as the lawfull governments of Spain and France, which the Soviet Union refused in the previous wars. This time, the Soviet leadership accepted. France and Spain got their own Red October, in 1999. The new governments proceeded to some border changes : Spain abandoned Ceuta and Melilla to their rightfull owner, Morocco, while France granted the Roussillon to Catalonia, uniting back the country after more than 300 years of division between France and Spain.
Meanwhile, in the Middle-East, the Israelo-Palestinian conflict intensified, due to the creation of a new Palestinian state one year ago. Palestine declared war on Israel, followed by the Soviet Union; the Zionist state couldn't stand against the Soviet Union, which sent units against Israel. After what is known in the region as the
reunion, the PFLP reorganized the territory under the principles of the One-State Solution. The new state of “Palestine” was established as an anti-racist and secular unitary state, having no Jewish or Arab national character, and where Muslims, Christians and Jews can live as equals. However, many Jews (understandably) feared that the constitution of the new state could be violated, and they feared pogroms. To avoid such violence to take place, Soviet peacekeepers troops would stay in Palestine, at the demand of both the PFLP and Jew citizens.
6 years after India reached this status, the Soviet Republic of Indonesia also reached the Great Power status, taking the place of France.
Now you probably understand why I sphered India and Indonesia in the early years... In NWO they always become Great Powers at some moment, due to their big population. Now they can sphere other countries, and they also get the event to turn their spherelings communist (although I had to do most of the work, since China was very bad at doing this, they couldn't even keep Korea against Japan!).
It's also to be noted that there is no Great Power in continental Europe at this moment.
In 2001, the leaders of all Eurasian socialist countries met in Shanghai to create the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). At this moment, the institutions such as the Warsaw Pact, the OSPAAAL, the KOMINFORM or the COMECON showed obsolescence problems, and a great administrative reform was needed in the international institutions of the Socialist world. The OSPAAAL, as it was mostly a tool of antiimperialist struggle, declined in use, as most of Africa and Asia were freed from imperialism, and also because the Peruvians showed that antiimperialist struggles could be won without foreign aid. The OSPAAAL continued to exist, but declined in favour of the Algiers Panafrican Pact (APP), uniting socialist African countries. In Eurasia, the SCO took most of the functions of the Warsaw Pact, with the latter becoming no more than an administrative subdivision of the former. The KOMINFORM and the COMECON were merged into the newly recreated KOMINTERN, that was some sort of UN for socialist countries and communist parties in non-socialist countries. The OSPAAAL also became an organ of the KOMINTERN.
So, to recapitulate :
The new KOMINTERN (communist internationale) have the functions of the KOMINFORM and the COMECON, and the OSPAAAL is an organ of it.
The SCO and the Algiers Panafrican Pact are the pancontinental unions of Eurasia and Africa. The Warsaw Pact (the functions of the Warsaw Pact are the administration its own Space Agency and some cultural functions) is now a subdivision of the SCO. Although not all European socialist countries are part of it, they are part of the SCO.
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In the last update, I said that there was few historical material (outside of Peru), however I probably underestimated myself again, as I found things to write.
About the music, I edited some of the previous updates to add more music. You can read them with the new music, if you want.
Now, here is a map of socialist states in 2001