The Permanent Revolution Lives On! - Trotskyist AAR

[ThaHoward]

The Permanent Revolution Lives On!

Greetings comrades and enemies of the revolution!

With the long-anticipated Soviet rework arriving with No Step Back I decided it was time to make an AAR detailing an alternate history where Stalin was dethroned and replaced by the mythical Lev Trotsky. In truth, this is not my first attempt at telling such a story. Long Live the Permanent Revolution was indeed my first and aborted attempt to write such a story. Why was it aborted? Simply put, personal matters I will not delve into here, along with me, the writer, being dissatisfied with where the story went and felt it lacking in many ways, with the narrative going a different way than I envisioned and being too late to remedy it.

Thus this AAR will be a restart of said AAR! Consider it a reboot of sorts, central themes will remain the same, however, both during and after the AAR I have learned much about Trotsky, Stalin, Soviet politics, and WW2 that I wish to implement into the story, and taking out several misunderstandings. Moreover, with new releases of DLCs, I am now able to better form the story I want, tying in elements and focus trees from other countries to better represent the story I wish to tell.

"Will this be just a restart of your former AAR?" you may ask. Short answer: No. This will be a different story altogether, it will answer the very same question of "what is Trotskyism" and look at what would have happened if Trotsky, and not Stalin, lead the Soviet Union in the crucial dozen years from 1936-1948. However, this AAR will also diverge on one major point; this will not simply be a Soviet AAR, this will revolve around several countries. It might be overambitious, but instead of me the player only playing as the Soviet Union, and me as the writer only writing about the Soviet Union, I will instead play as several countries that will fall under the influence of Trotsky, the Fourth International, and Soviet-aligned communist regimes. In simple terms, I intend for this AAR to not only focus on the Soviet Union but on the communist movement as a whole.

In addition, I want this AAR to be narrative-driven, while it may be a good chance to look upon new NSB features, the focus will be on the narrative and politics, in line with a history book. Taking a step out of microelements of the gameplay and instead of constructing a greater overarching story.

Without further ado let us drop into the AAR. But wait, NSB have not been released yet? Fear not, up until release you will get several teasers, prologues, and introductions that will ease our way into the start of this AAR. Once started we will examine if Trotsky will just be another Stalin, bring forth a communist utopia, or be something different entirely. We will take a deep dive into the politics of the era, and while we examine whether or not Trotsky will be a saint or devil, we will also see if Trotsky and his fellow comrades will survive the next great clash of titans as his adversary Stalin did, or if he will be crushed by the other powers and again become a footnote in history. Once the proper AAR starts I will present house rules, goals, and more. Until then comrades!

Also credit due where credit's due: @Iskulya for assisting me in clearing up, presenting, and advising me on Soviet history, internal politics, and the Soviet interpretation of Marxism. @Shaka of Carthage who I will be basing my unit templates on (the Soviet Union and the majors) for historical non-meta divisions. More on that later.

Table of Contents:

Book one:

• Chapter One: Dostojevskijs Russia
• Chapter Two: Tolstoj's Russia and Bakunin's International
• Chapter Three: In Hoc Signo Vinces
• Chapter Four: The Lost Revolution
• Chapter Five: The Russian Revolution
• Chapter Six: The Kerenskiade
• Chapter Seven: The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War
• Chapter Eight: The Professional Revolutionary

Book Two:

• Chapter One: Stalin and Stalinism
• Chapter Two: Group of Democratic Centralism
• Chapter Three: Workers' Truth
• Chapter Four: Workers' Opposition
• Chapter Five: Right Opposition

Book Three:

• Preface: "Post-War" Era.
• Chapter One: The Weimar Republic

Supplements:

• The Bloodsoaked birth of the Soviet Union.

​

Psst! Heads up, I do not write this AAR to condone, condemn, glorify, demonize or support any particular ideology or country. Please refrain from violating forum rules on certain subjects, and because of said rules some events and subjects related to relevant countries and ideologies of this time period will not be addressed, so please refrain from bringing them up. That being said, if you are knowledgeable on relevant topics, ideologies, historical figures, and the time periods that are relevant to this AAR, please do not hesitate to post your information here or PM me.

 

[Nikolai]

Wonderful! Looking forward to this!

 

[ThaHoward]

Wonderful! Looking forward to this!

Thank you! Good to have you back on the team so to speak!

 

[Bullfilter]

Have peeked in for a look. Good luck!

 

[ThaHoward]

Have peeked in for a look. Good luck!

Thank you kindly, welcome aboard!

 

[ThaHoward]

Teaser #01.

People's Commisar for Defense
Transcaucasian Military District and Sevastopol Defensive Area, Kyiv Special Military District

Mobilize Black Sea Fleet Stop Prepare Transcaucasian Front for immediate offensive action Stop Mobilize Southwestern Front, hold in reserve, prepare against possible French Entente aggression Stop

Imperialist powers in Montreux have unilaterally made a small state hold a great one by its throat Stop

Likely another ploy of the western counterrevolutionaries against our great nation Stop

Stand by for further information Stop Prepare for war Stop

​

 

[Nikolai]

That does sound bad for the future.

 

[ThaHoward]

Book One: The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time

Chapter One: Dostojevskijs Russia.

Tsar Alexnder 2. Nikolajevitsj of Russia, succeeded his father Nikolai 1. in 1855, 37 years of age.

Darkness, the darkest of all times, Russia, according to Dostovjevskij, experienced before the serfdom was abolished; landowners ruled over thousands of serfs, ruling over their lives and deaths, were worthless, simply put thieves who lived their lives broad and spent a third of the taxes their farmers paid on their magnificent apartments in foreign society.

But, then came the redemptive word - the Tsar's great word, unsurpassed and epoch-making: There is no higher and no holier in Russia's thousand-year history than this deed from the sovereign.

It was Alexander 2.'s decree of the 3rd of March 1861, In one stroke around 50 million were serfs were freed. Around 100 million hectares of soil that belonged either to the tsar himself or the private landowners, were distributed among the peasantry. Alexander 2., who followed his father Nikolai 1. in 1855, was the most liberal sovereign in Russia up to this point. He wanted to break with his father's iron fist regime. He didn't want Russia to continue as one enormous barracks. In his own humane, but weak method he sat in motion a string of reforms, that awoke the brightest of expectations among his populace and surprised the world at large. Other than freeing the serfs, he made them full-fledged humans and reworked the hated censorship of the papers. He restructured the legal system, encouraged the industry that would start to grow with good results, and organized a sophisticated railway network.

These were popular reforms. It is also a fact that the people still looked up to the Tsar in the deepest reverence. "Russians are children", Dostovjevskij wrote, "and the Tsar is their father". Even a Social-Revolutionary as Mikhail Bakunin - which Dostovjevskij abhorred - confirmed in the first years of 1860 that the relationship between the Tsar and his subjects was the greatest. Rarely had a ruling princely house had such an opportunity to play such a noble and exalted role, he said. Alexander was popular, he could, Bakunin added, quite easily become the people's idol, the first Tsar of and for the people.

And still, it was not to be. The Third Department in the imperial chancellery (the secret police) became perhaps one of the most vital decisions this regime took, among other policies that were mostly humane. Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg and the prison camps in Siberia became symbols of the government. Policerazzias, arrestations, deportations, and executions became the mirror of the regime. One question then arises, how could this happen?

First of all the will to reform set in too late. Those measures that were done to improve the social and economic conditions were not convincing or satisfactory, and it proved to be difficult to properly execute them. The central reform, liberations of the peasantry, was, in theory, a blessing, but in practice led to misery. The pieces of soil they were granted were much smaller than their lords previously had granted them. Already dissatisfaction and disappointment spread among the freed serfs and society at large. In addition, the peasants for the most part proved to be unable to meet their various commitments. They came in a precarious position. Indebted as they were, they had no means to tend to their soil in an effective way. They could not afford to procure needed tools. The agricultural sector in Russia stagnated and decayed instead of becoming a fundamental factor in the country's economy that Alexander 2. had hoped when he freed the serfs.

The Senates Place in St. Petersburg during the first half of the 19th Century. In the backround is the sente. The plce is dominated by Murice Falconets statue of Peter the Great from 1782.

Unrest in the country spread, among the rural farmers; among students around the country, in certain civil services and officers circles, who more often than not belonged to the nobility; by large among young, excited, sacrificial women and men who dreamed of a state where all could be equal and all could be happy. These young men and women gathered in the poorest of student dorms in the suburbs of St. Petersburg and Moscow and deep-dived into endless discussions night after night, affected by western thoughts with roots in the French Revolution's ideology. Some called themself nihilists: rejecting all that had thus far been accepted on religion's, philosophy's and social theory's premise, they denied all and any recognized values. Others called themself anarchists and proclaimed that any form of state authority had to cease - they hailed "the free initiative by free people in free groups". Others came together in an organization named "narodniki". They were active, dangerous. They saw themselves as apostles of liberty and preached with the Evangelium of the modern age; yet they operated with revolvers and dynamites. They formed the shock-troops in the partisan campaign against the sovereign and his mighty army of civil servants.

"Revolution was everywhere and nowhere", it emerged here and there only to disappear again, usually after an assassination attempt, that usually cut in through their own ranks, young men and women who with great excitement risked their own lives for the holy cause, for liberty, for mankind, and for the Russian people. Reports of the violence from Russian terrorists and anarchists acts of violence spread across the world. People were baffled and terrified, especially since the revolutionaries first and foremost targeted the Tsar as a person. They were firm in their belief that if they could sweep away the king from the chessboard, the house of cards that was his state would crumble. The first attempt on his life was in 1866 and bombs quite literally rained down on the Tsar. Even his residency in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg would be rocked by an explosion. He escaped unscathed - for now.

However, the 13th of March 1881 proved to be his bane. Alexander 2. inspected one of his regiments and was heading home, when suddenly a bomb exploded. Alexander jumped out to tend to a cossack who was injured. Then a new bomb rained upon him, the Tsar tumbled and fell, both of his legs were torn to shreds. One hour later he passed away.

The assassination of Tsar Alexnder 2. in St. Petersburg 13. March 1881. The Tsar headed out of the wagon to check out a wounded cossack. Then a new bomb was thrown toward him, and after an hour of death struggle, Alexander drew his last breath. That Tsar had been exposed to several assassinations, but it wasn't until March 1881 the bomb-throwing anarchists were successful.

"You may persecute us, my lords", exclaimed one of the accused, a young noble girl during a trial a few years later, "today you possess the material power. But we have the moral power on our side, the power of historical progress, the power of ideas. And ideas will not be impaled by bayonets!" It took a great deal of courage to remain enrolled in the revolutionary organizations when the heavy hand of reaction strangled the nation following the assassination of Alexander 2. The throne was now warmed by Alexander 3., a thoroughbred autocrat, a man who started his reign by proclaiming that he would rule absolute because it was his duty to listen to God's voice - a stiff, arrogant, and not particularly gifted autocrat who hated his father's liberal reforms and everything that had to be with liberalism; an anxious, suspicious, and cowardly sovereign who shut himself in the castle of Gatsjina outside of St. Petersburg to secure himself from the assassins's reign of bombs. As his closest advisor he chose - and many read ills omens - the Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, Konstantin Petrovitsj Pobjedonostsev, a fanatical orthodox and arch-reactionary man who claimed parliamentarism was the "great lie" of the time. Despite being an omen heralding a new line of reaction, this man received shortly after the throne's change of occupant a letter addressed the Tsar, peculiar and bold letter - a prayer of mercy for those who had participated in the assassination of Alexander 2.

 

[ThaHoward]

Hello and welcome, Book One will focus on Russian history and society and how it develops until and during the Russian Civil War. I split the first chapter into three different chapters, as I believe they might be too tedious and long drawn in one chapter. Let me know if you believe the remainder of chapter one may be merged again into one chapter.

Book One is not necessary for the AAR, so you may skip it if you do not want a history lesson before 1936, but it can give good insights for the development of Russian society and greater understanding.

Book Two will focus more on Trotsky himself before 1936 and the internal power struggles within the Soviet Union leading up to his exile and the exile of many other opposition figures.

 

[Crossl3ones]

Looking good, I wish you the best of luck on your endeavour!

 

[ThaHoward]

Teaser #02

"The party cannot be without leaders ... The Mensheviks and those petty-bourgeois groups with which we have come to blows, were always inclined to speak a great deal about democratism. We, however, have always subordinated the principles of democratism to revolutionary expediency. We will continue to do this in the future."

"The party and the dictatorship of the proletariat have been led into an unknown blind alley by Stalin and his retinue and are now living through a mortally dangerous crisis. With the help of deception and slander, with the help of unbelievable pressures and terror, Stalin in the last five years has sifted out and removed from the leadership all the best, genuinely Bolshevik party cadres, has established in the VKP(b) and in the whole country his personal dictatorship, has broken with Leninism, has embarked on a path of the most ungovernable adventurism and wild personal arbitrariness."

"Being absolutely certain of my innocence and finding the present indictment absolutely unlawful, arbitrary and partial, dictated solely by animosity and by a thirst for a new, this time bloody, reprisal, I have categorically refused and continue to refuse to plead guilty to the charges brought against me."

 

[ThaHoward]

That does sound bad for the future.

It does not, however keep in mind with these teasers, they might hint at things that happen in the future, or they may be misleading in true maskirovka style

Looking good, I wish you the best of luck on your endeavour!

Thank you! Hope to see you around and that you'll enjoy it

 

[Iskulya]

Dissent in the Party? This doesn't bode well for someone!

 

[ThaHoward]

Dissent in the Party? This doesn't bode well for someone!

Dissent in the party? There is no dissent under the glorious rule of Comrade Stalin!

*Checks my notes on who to be purged*

 

[ThaHoward]

Chapter Two: Tolstoj's Russia and Bakunin's International

Tsar Alexander 3. Alexamdreovitsj, Russian Emperor from 1881 to 1894, through his wife Dagmar, later Maria Fjodorovna, in-law of Edward 7. of the United Kingdom.

For two scores, the letter boldly proclaimed, revolutionary organizations attempted to overthrow the existing order through a string of criminal actions. To battle and defeat this opposition the tsarist government had utilized two methods: in part, they turned to a liberal and reformist path to alleviate the unrest, in part, they turned to the cruelest forms of repression. Both of these methods had notwithstanding led to pitiful, and quite literally mournful, results. The opposition had only grown and had become all the more fierce. Why then not attempt a third method - Christian pardon? Why not listen to the message of the holy scripture: love your enemy?

"Who are these revolutionaries? They are humans who hate the present What are revolutionaries? They are people who hate the existing order of things, find it evil, and envisage the foundations of a future, better order of things. One cannot fight them by killing and destroying them. It is not their number that is important but their ideas. To fight against them one must fight spiritually. Their ideal is a general sufficiency, equality, and freedom. To fight against them, one must oppose their ideal with another ideal which will be superior to, and will include their ideal. The French, the English, and the Germans are fighting them now, and also without success."

The letter was signed by Count Leo Tolstoj - the greatest of contemporary Russian authors equal to Turgensjev and Dostojevskij - the man who created "War and Peace" and Anna Karenina". Tolstoj was no politician - or at the very least he had this far he had abstained from meddling in politics. In his eyes, he was first and foremost a Christian. In the eyes of the world, he was a great author who wrote brilliant novels, he was also the Prophet on Jasnaja Polijana - a noble patriarch who saw it as his mission to set the teachings of the gospels and the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount against the development of the modern age, both on reactionary and revolutionary fronts. Nevertheless, the Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod did not share these values, he frowned upon it and condemned it. It did not fit in his program or the measures he envisioned would save the sanctity of Russia's holiest institutions - the throne and the Orthodox Church. Pobjedonostsev replied to Tolstoj a grave warning:

"After I had read through Your letter I came to the conviction that Your faith does not agree with mine and the Church's and that our Christ - is not Your Christ. My Christ is a man of strength and truth who heals frailty, but in Your Christ, it seemed to me I found the traits of someone who is need of healing."

Count Leo Nikolajevitsj Tolstoj. Contemporary portrait by Ivan Kramskoj. Most of his life was spent in his estate, Jasnaja Poljana, where he tried to ease the hardship of his peasants, however, for some years he was an officer and partook in, among other battles, the defense of Sevastopol under the Crimean War. His literary production earned him disapproval from the government, and his collected works were not published until after the revolution and after his death in 1910.


When "War and Peace" was released by the end of the 1860s a notable Russian critic exclaimed it was a complete picture of human life, a complete picture of Russia at that time. A complete picture of all that makes the greatness of mankind, their joy, their suffering, their humiliation.

The universal human in Leo Tolstoj's ideal world, however, did not appeal to Pobjedonostsev His world was not universal, it was Russian and nothing else. It was the Tsar's and the Orthodox Church's, bureaucracy's, the army's and the police's world. The methods he abided to grant absolution for the disparity of the time did not align with those Tolstoj recommended either. Pobjedonostsev saw salvation in strict censorship, put universities under strangeling control, and give the police even greater freedom than before. All that was not "Russian", in his mind tsarist-orthodox, had to be defeated without compassion. It was Pobjedonostsev who adopted a brutal policy of Russification. One faith, one language, one law, was his watchword. The opposition was paralyzed in his iron fist, he was a master in the art creating absolute silence around him, a frightening and menacing silence that all could hear.

Oppositional elements were deported to Siberia. Or they fled to the west - strictly sealed off the border, where passports were thoroughly investigated and foreign circulations were censured before they could enter the country. It was said that the only free discussion and debate in Russia took place abroad. Nearly in every metropolitan of Europe, you could meet a Russian revolutionary - in Genève and Lausanne, in Munich, in Brussels and London. There they made their plots and schemes. There they conducted their propaganda. There they waited for their hour to arise.

Members of the anti-tsarist constellation belong to the heroes of modern history, in many ways admirable and astonishing in their tenacious persistence in a struggle that stretched itself over half a century. They never tired, they never lost courage. When one of them disappeared to the horrors of Siberia or west in exile, one other stepped forward to take his place. They understood perfectly well the risk that they took. There was no doubt in mind what fate awaited them when the police hammered on their door. They knew what awaited them in Peter and Paul Fortress and faraway Siberia.

Fjodor Michajlovitsj Dostojevskij. Contemporary painting by Wassilij Grigorjevitsj Perov. Son of a physician in Moscow and was educated as an engineer officer but started to author novels early on. In 1849, 28 years of age, however, he was arrested, suspected of revolutionary ideas, and sentenced to death. When the judgement was to be passed, he was pardoned and instead sentenced to forced service in a Siberian regiment. The years in captivity in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Siberia broke his health, and he went through a religious crisis. After his release in 1859 followed the novels that made him world-famous.

Without comparison most famous of those who once were part of the conspirators, was Fjodor Michajlovitsj Dostojevskij - the 19th Century's great author whose name is perhaps mentioned with the greatest reverence, he who authored "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov". Over and over again his story has been told. How he as a young expatiate artist in the 1840s, seriously and otherworldly discussed his country's issues in a circle of enthusiasts who all agreed upon the necessities of reform - first and foremost the peasants had to be liberated and the censure nullified. How he was arrested one night in 1849, months in captivity in the Peter and Paul Fortress where he was subjected to innumerable interrogations and at the end brought before the execution squad - only to the very last second be told the sentence was really deportation to Siberia - four years in a house of correction and then a long and forced service as a private in a Siberian regiment. And how he finally, after years of suffering, got to return to his Russia where he in the space of two decenniums made his revolutionary effort in world literature.

This does not, however, translate into him returning back to the revolutionary circles of Russia. With his humility, his deep found religiosity, his Russian mysticism, and warm love for the broad strata of the Russian people. Dostojevskij quite contrary became an ardent supporter of Tsarist absolutism in effect of its divine monarchy on Russian soil.

In his essays, he appeared as a flaming defender of the faith of the Russian distinctive character and its unalienable values, of the belief of Russia's holy mission in Europe and the world at large, on the thesis of the Russian people's soul to transform western cultural heritage. Dostojevskij made a clear line between Russia and the West - Russia, he said, is not Europe, which it so often is alleged, and that is so often imagined in the west. Russia only had one European uniform, and beneath it was quite a different beast that would bring salvation to the world. By the end of his days he expanded his thesis on Russia to also include Siberia - Siberia, he meant, may become Russia's promised land, it was an "unexplored America".

Mikhail Bakunin.



To Dostojevskij everything that was Russian Orthodox was a positive evil. If he condemned his fellow author Turgenjev, who was often critically disposed toward the Russian aristocracy, for what he called atheism, his disdain for Russia, and inflated admiration of the west, his emotions rose to hatred when it came to a certain man named Bakunin. The aristocrat and officer who joined the revolution, and around the same time as Dostojevskij experienced the correctional houses in Siberia. He ended up in the wilderness of Siberia after participating out of an untamable love for the adventure and boldness that he found in the wild ride that was the revolutions of 1848-1849 in France and Germany. He was arrested by German police and extradited to the Russian government, who deemed it safest to send him further away to the Orient. After 10 years or so imprisoned, he managed to escape, and via Japan and America, he returned to Europe where he became the great bannerman of anarchism. It was precisely because of his anarchism, his declaration of war against tsarist society Dostojevskij could never forgive him. But Bakunin also became Karl Marx's most dangerous co-wooer to the leadership of the socialist movement.

This struggle that erupted between these two revolutionaries, shocked the entire socialist world to its roots and made deep scars. Under Karl Marx's leadership, the first international socialist organization had just been former, that which would later be called the First International. During the years of 1866-1869, several congresses were present in different places in Switzerland and Belgium, and their magnitude and influence were in rapid growth. Bakunin soon made it known he demanded a leading position of the International. But, it was not Marx's liking. In a congress in the Haag in 1872, there was a fierce clash between supporters of Marx and those who supported Bakunin. It ended with a severe defeat for the up-and-coming Russian. He was promptly excluded from the International. And this turned to be his bane - he died four years later. But, here the First International also met its end. It had gotten breakage that was incurable, and soon dissolved altogether. Despite this, in 1889 it resurged in the form of the Second International.

Karl Marx, inspiration to many a revolutionary.


Around this time, Karl Marx was also gone - he died in 1883. Then he had already - in 1867 - published the first part of his main work "Das Kapital", whose main thesis is the proposition that forms the foundation of his teachings of class struggle: the proletariats hatred toward the bourgeoisie is explained and justified of the industrialists and employer's ruthless exploitation of his workers. Few can dispute the employer treated his employee, at this time,as shameful as shortsighted. "The Capital" became "the laboring classes bible" - it became, to quote Engels "a common platform for millions of workers from California to Siberia". It was not merely an argument, it was a talisman, as the English political scientist E.H. Carr put it.

The age of disciples made its return among the revolutionary Russians. Among the many who followed in the footsteps of Bakunin was the aristocrat Prince Kropotkin - an aristocrat close to the emperor, officer, and secretary in the geographical association but also convinced and active anarchist. It is told that when he partook in receptions or dinners among the more distinguished classes, he used to take a cab to a small room he had rented in the outskirts of St. Peterburg and change into a working man's clothes and seek out a group of young laborers he had befriended - they loved to listen to him and interpret those ideas that promised to one day make them free men. This double life came to an end when the Prince one day struck him. He followed the same fate as many before him. He was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. After two years he had enough. He decided to get out of the prison with the help of a few friends, and he managed to do so, in the middle of the day! He slipped out to the great abroad, and from Switzerland, from France and England, he conducted for many years revolutionary activities back home in Russia. He was also active as a writer; among other things he wrote a respectable paper on the great French Revolution. Not until 1917 could he return back to Russia; still he remained a faithful anarchist and therefore not capable of accepting Marxist thesis which - now in the for of Bolshevism - would become the dominant force. Prince Kropotkin died in 1921.

It was not anarchism that would in the end decide the course of the revolutionary movement in Russia. That honor befell to Marxism. The founder of the Marxist school in the Tsar's Empire was a young engineer by the name of Georgij Plekhanov. He started to agitate fervently among the workers he intermingled with. Then, history rhymed, the police caught his scent and he had to flee to Switzerland. The new in Plekhanov opinion and course of action was that he on purpose stirred up the great masses. As the rationalist and realist, he was, without any form of sentimentality, he looked down upon the Narodniks conduct of assassinations - and with that a semblance of contempt. It was, in his opinion, useless. Anarchist bomb-throwing could never achieve grand results. Simply training a few heroes of the people and the revolution was not enough. You had to engage the great industrial proletariat, get them to your side, and aim toward one great battle of annihilation, instead of limiting yourself to small-scale skirmishes that until now took place. You had to go on direct assault on society at large, not just individuals. This was a maneuver that could first be pulled off only when the industrial development became insufferable for the proletariat in the great cities. For Plekhanov socialism was not "a scream of agony", it was an operation of exact science with a basis in Karl Marx's teachings of the necessity of the conclusive class struggle.

Georgij Plekhanov, the great thinker of Russian Marxism.

 

[ThaHoward]

Here is the second part of what was intended to be chapter one. Feel free to tell me if it is too long, or indeed could be longer. The next chapter will focus on the lead-up to 1905, and from then we may be introduced to a few pivotal characters for the rest of our story. When I finish my planned chapters of book One, I might add one chapter to Marxism and the International that we briefly examined in this chapter.

Again Book One is intended to be prologue chapters leading up to 1936 you may be free to ignore. Book Two will focus on the internal power struggles in the Soviet Union and Comintern during the Soviet years from end of civil war to 1936. Book Three is when the AAR starts proper.

In the first page of this AAR I said I would not delve into personal matters of why it suddenly took longer time to write it and it was aborted. I do not seek sympathy, but I will "come clean" now so you don't feel I let you down or ignore you. In short I have gotten heart issues at a young age, and when I do I need to take my time to not exhaust myself and not have undue stress.

And with that somber note I hope you will look past it and enjoy the AAR

 

[Bullfilter]

they may be misleading in true maskirovka style

Always enjoy a bit of maskirovka

The background stuff is excellent, but as I’ve just been listening to a very detailed podcast (Duncan) on the lead up to the Russian Revolution going back as far or further, I’ve tended to skim briefly. But for those wanting a refresher on the period, key figures, factions and events, it’s valuable stuff and well done.

 

[ThaHoward]

Always enjoy a bit of maskirovka

The background stuff ids excellent, but a I’ve just been listening to a very detailed podcast (Duncan) on the lead up to the Russian Revolution going back as far or further, I’ve tended to skim briefly. But for those wanting a refresher on the period, key figures, factions and events, it’s valuable stuff and we’ll done.

No Russian/Soviet AAR without maskirovka

But I'll check out your podcast sound interesting, and somewhat relevant!

 

[Bullfilter]

But I'll check out your podcast sound interesting, and somewhat relevant!

It’s by Mike Duncan and is on a bunch of Revolutions, the last being the Russian. I get it on Spotify but it’s probably available on others as well.

 

[RustyHunter]

An interesting beginning, and I'll be curious to see how you frame the Russian Civil War. It's a truly fascinating conflict that seems sorely underappreciated (in the U.S. at least). I'll also be interested to learn more about Trotsky since all I really know is he performed well in the Civil War, seemed Lenin's likely successor, and wanted to pursue global revolution.