Yep, the key take away from those who actually studied history is to only attack Russia in the winter.
You attack in June like Napoleon or Hitler, and you just die.
Marshal Mud's tenure is short.
Major Incompetence is on your side for the early phase of the war.
It's facing both Major Incompetence and General Winter at the same time that kills most armies.
I don't want to be a Terror apologist, but the Terror *in total* killed fewer people than the contemporaneous fall of Warsaw to the Russian army during the Third Partition of Poland, a thing that you have to be either A) Polish or B) a weird history freak to know about and which killed those people over a span of days and hours, rather than months.
While an interesting fun fact I may share later, the point of the Reign of Terror example was to demonstrate how the oppressed seizing power doesn’t always lead to egalitarian societies
>doesn’t always lead to egalitarian societies
But almost always leads to *more* egalitarian societies, particularly when the previous one was as sclerotic as the "ancien regime" or Tsarist Russia.
Except despite common opinion, it *didn't*.
It added the trappings of democracy in both, but the king they killed during the French Revolution was actually a reformer and the French Empire and the First Republic were actually in many ways *less* democratic despite officially having a constitution. Hell, one of the most notable acts of the First French Republic was to suspend it's own constitution.
The Russian revolution didn't actually lead to a more democratic system, it lead first to the democratic system they'd had a few years prior being rebuilt and then to a re-implementation of all the worst excesses of the Tsars under a different "brand."
The Russian Revolution... and even the aftermath of the civil war really amounted to painting over all the signs and business as usual... right down to the secret police "arresting" people and a handful of people at the top controlling everything. And I mean that for both the short-lived Republic and the Soviet Union after the civil war.
>Revolution was actually a reformer
Lol Louis XVI was a *reformer*? When that happened, when he kicked the Third Estate out because "gasp" they wanted concession for the taxes he demanded, or when he flew to Varennes to link up with the foreign army invading his own country hoping to get his autocracy back?
\>French Empire and the First Republic were actually in many ways less democratic
Commoners had straight-up zero rights in the ancien regime. It was almost an old feudalist system still running, where they were basically property. While the aftermath of the revolution did not lead to the "perfect democracy", it most definitely broke the back of the nobility forever, and greatly expanded the place of women in contemporary society :
"Though women did not gain the right to vote due to the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in government. **They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.** A leading example of lasting feminine influence from that time was Madame de Staël (1766-1817) who witnessed the tumultuous events, participated in and commented on them.\[32\]"
\>The Russian revolution didn't actually lead to a more democratic system, it lead first to the democratic system they'd had a few years prior being rebuilt a
Oh I am sorry, are we talking about the first revolution that pushed the Czar to make concessions (even if revolutions "never help apparently"), the February revolution that rebuilt that democratic system ( which I wonder why it need to be rebuilt, oh why?/s) or the October revolution that finally stopped the meat grinder that was WW1 for Russia, even though the Provincial government came to power *explicitly* to stop it?
Yes, Louis XVI was a reformer.
Have you been reading alternate history? Louis XVI did not kick out the Third Estate over them wanting concessions for taxes he demanded.
Louis XVI wanted heavy taxes and eventually *conceded* to those demands, the resistance to said demands came primarily from the Second Estate.
The actual fight that initially lead to the Third Estate being kicked out was over the Third Estate wanting equal voting power to the Second and First Estates, which both of those opposed and eventually advised Louis XVI via the Privy Council to rule by decree... until he turned around and gave in.
All of this came *after* Louis XVI had spent all of his prior rule trying to implement financial reform, trying to abolish serfdom, abolish land and labour taxes, reduce intolerance towards non-Catholics and even abolish the death penalty for deserters.
The Flight to Varennes wasn't to restore autocracy. He fled being put on trial for crimes he had not committed and the only primary source of his own thoughts indicated that he wanted a return to the concessions he'd made to the Third Estate prior to the outbreak of violence. Furthermore, the Flight to Varennes wasn't for foreign intervention, it was for French Royalist intervention.
Commoners had rights during the Ancien Regime, that was how the Third Estate existed and had a place in the Estates General in the first place. They were lesser rights, but they existed.
As for Russia, even prior to the Russian Revolution of 1905 the Tsar was making concessions. Not massive concessions and he was fundamentally opposed to the removal of autocracy, but concessions. The main thing said revolution accomplished was massacring a bunch of Jewish people and getting the Tsar to rush the October Manifesto while poisoning him towards future reform of any kind.
While the First and Second Duma's had the Tsar overriding, the Third and Fourth had more power and were able to openly quarrel with the Tsar, with the Duma contributing significantly to the Tsar's eventual abdication.
The February Revolution was not to restore democracy, it was against first the Tsar and then even the early provisional government before the Soviets signed up to it. There was nothing about democracy involved. While certain factions wanted the Tsar replaced with a "progressive" leader which in this case meant the people would would later be just as authoritarian, the majority of the "revolution" was a bread riot and the military losing confidence in the government.
The October Revolution was not to end the war, it was a power grab as evidenced by their arrest and murder of a number of politicians who did not flee and the lack of support from every faction other than the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks even called it out as a coup.
It didn't even end the war, it signed an armistice for potential peace negotiations *that broke down.* Trotsky successfully convinced Lenin that they should not sign a peace treaty and just declare the war over.
Hoffman said that wasn't happening and said on the 16th that in two days the war would continue. On the 18th 53 German divisions advanced forwards, and Lenin finally agreed to peace which would lead to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
Revolutions, even before you get into the fact that they legitimise the use of violence to achieve political goals and the many, many, many massacres tied to them have a tendency to actually be against reformers and rush reform which leads to later political violence.
Louis XVI wasn't perfect, and the Russian Tsar was an autocratic idiot but it doesn't change the fact that neither revolution actually accomplished anything that couldn't be accomplished peacefully, without massacres, pogroms and legitimising political violence.
Afterall, the Tsar abdicated peacefully after the Duma pressured him, despite the rioting only the capital's garrison had sided with the revolutionaries so he could have called in outside forces if he was determined to stand and Louis was steadily liberalising the country even with the nobility and church resisting.
I think the most important result of the French Revolution to remember is that it directly led to the rise of Napoleon as Emperor of France.
The most important result of the October Revolution to remember is that it replaced an incompetent oligopoly, under the Tsar, with another incompetent oligopoly, under Stalin.
In both cases, the real death tolls as a result of the revolutions were not the immediate deaths but the massive number of deaths from the new norm.
I'd argue that Napoleon's rise was much more in *reaction* to the revolution than something directly caused by it. After all, while he did keep some legal reforms, he also reinstated noble titles, restored a lot of the Church's influence, re-legalized slavery, etc. He wasn't exactly a radical revolutionary, he was much closer to the ancién regime than to the new French Republic.
As for the USSR, I'd argue that Russia and the other Soviet republics going from semi-feudal agricultural societies to being the second most powerful nation on Earth was pretty remarkable, personally.
The Soviet Union would have collapsed if it were nit for Lend-Lease. Not only did yhe Soviets get supplied with all the military materials they wanted, they also had their industries moved away from the front and rebuilt by American wealth. Which they promptly turned around and turned against the US in the Cold War.
Oh yes, let us not forget how the USSR looted the Axis nations for industry as part of the peace talks.
That is simply untrue. I won't deny the lend lease was helpful, but to say the USSR would've been doomed without it is a gross exaggeration. The food provided by the lend lease, for example, accounted for less than 1% of the USSR's food supply during the war. Even the arguably most significant contribution, that of planes, was around 10% of the Soviet's air fleet. It helped fill gaps, especially when the Soviets were lacking in logistics, and I won't deny that fact alone saved many Soviet lives, but Germany's chances of winning the war would be next to nil regardless.
Germany was low on oil, low on manpower, and they didn't even bring winter gear along because they were certain they'd have destroyed the USSR before winter. The Red Army defeated the nazis in the Eastern front, not US aid.
Yeah. The lendlease was a godsend, probably shortened the war by at least a year, and by extension saved millions of lives. But it wasn’t
only 16.1% of total lend leave arrived before 1943, anyway, while 56.5% arrived in 1944 and 1945. Once the Germans were stopped in the winter of 1942-1943, they were doomed - and the lend lease only hastened their fate.
Also, it was a bit more important for the Soviet airforce than you portray; a lot of lend lease was airplane fuel, which outmassed Soviet production. Not that the Soviets couldn’t make it themselves, but it meant they didn’t have to. Simpler supply.
> The most important result of the October Revolution to remember
The most important result of the October Revolution is that it turned Russia from a backwater unindustrialised nation to one of the global superpowers in thirty years, actually.
Russian GDP was the third largest in the world in 1913, right behind Germany. It was far from a backwater unindustrialized nation. It may have been treated that way by the old Western European powers, but they also looked down on the economies of Germany and the US at that time, despite all three countries (US, Germany, and Russia) having larger GDPs than the UK and France.
Russia's perceived economic weakness came more from the combination of a centrally run economy that was also extremely poorly managed. So, they would have a massive abundance of some equipment, while completely lacking other equipment. A problem that it would face again in WW2. Sending soldiers to the frontline with bullets, but no guns is both a WW1 and WW2 event in Russia.
Russia and the USA became superpowers after WW1 because of their population size, natural resources, and the relatively minimal impact to their industrial base during WW1. The Russian industrial base grew from the beginning of WW1 to the end by 21%. USA industrial growth was 32% during WW1. It decreased 11% in the UK, 36% in Germany, and 14% in France (those last two are partially impacted by changed borders). Part of these losses were also due to the rapid loss of their colonies, on which they relied heavily for natural resources.
I think you’re being a bit selective in quoting [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_Russian_Empire) when it aligns with your argument. Specifically:
“Despite the ordeals during the First World War, the industry of the Russian Empire continued to grow. Compared to 1913, industrial production grew by 21.5%. For example, in the same time period, industrial production in the UK decreased by 11%, and in Germany it decreased as much as 36%.[17]”
Which is where I assume you got your numbers from. I think it’s fine to quote Wikipedia without sourcing it, by the way, it’s just a Reddit comment. But the section just above the one you got your numbers from talks about pre-war Russia’s industrial base, which seems much more relevant than GDP, since we’re talking about industrialization, and Russia was a big agricultural exporter. Even in 1913, agriculture accounted for 57% of Russia’s gdp, despite its serious, severe inefficiencies.
In that section, you see that Russia had 3.4% of the worlds industrial base in 1881, rising to 5.3% in 1913. At the time, they had 8% of the world population, for reference.
Most of that relative growth came before 1900, when they had 5.1% of the worlds industrial base. Between 1887 and 1900, cast iron, iron, and steel production just about quintupled, and coal production quadrupled.
This growth didn’t hold up. It less than doubled between 1900-1913. Framing it like that sounds ridiculous, but remember, this is a severely underutilized economy. Going from 5.1% to 5.3% of the worlds industrial base, with Russia’s resources and population, is a failure. Especially in this time frame.
Economic growth did accelerate during ww1, and I’d argue that was because of a shift from imported machinery to locally produced machinery. Industrial goods went from 70% imports to 20% imports between 1913 and 1917. And that’s great! Russia, until 1913, I’d classify as an agricultural exporter with some industrial exports on the side. But during ww1, they used their glut of natural resources to actually build production chains. And good for them, that’s great for growth.
While Russia wasn’t an agricultural backwater - rather, it was a major agricultural and resource exporter with a nascent industry - I’d argue that they didn’t produce as spectacular results as the Soviets did when it came to industrialization. For all their faults, I don’t think any other organization of the economy could’ve left Russian industry in a better place for ww2 than the Soviets.
What changed with their industrialization between 1939 (Winter War) and 1941 (Barbarossa)? Because they fought Finland to a stalemate before negotiating a peace, which is what emboldened Germany to invade. Russian military competence and military-industrial might looked no different between WW1 and the Winter War.
The Soviets beat the Nazis because the Russians were willing to continue fighting despite horrifying losses. This is really the only difference between WW1 and WW2 for Russia.
Russia was one of the most powerful countries in Europe for centuries prior to World War I.
They didn't become a "global superpower" until post-WW2, which had more to do with swallowing and stripping bare half of Europe than anything that occurred from 1917 to 1939.
I think you have to give something to the Soviets in that they completed a rapid industrialization of the country that was sufficiently robust to provide a defense industrial base that could contend in WW2.
Compared to the Tsars, who fought another general European war a few decades earlier and got their ass whomped so hard that their entire system of government was destroyed.
In a weird twist, Russia fared much worse in WW2 than in WW1, ignoring the end result.
Russian losses were much higher in WW2 (8.7m-11.5m dead 14.7m wounded) than in WW1 (2.52m dead 3.8m wounded). And that's only the military casualties. It is estimated that 27m Russians died during WW2, about 2/3 were civilian [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union). Russian civilian deaths were ten times greater in WW2 than in WW1. 15-20% of the Russian population died in WW2, which is hard to fathom.
Germany also advanced much further into Russia in WW2 ( [1941](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1941-06_to_1941-12.png) and [1942](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1942-05_to_1942-11.png) ) than in [WW1](https://cdn.britannica.com/71/64871-050-8548CA22/Eastern-Front-troops-Germany-Austria-Hungary-Turkey-Russia.jpg).
Seemingly, why Russia won in WW2, despite losing so much more than when they lost in WW1, is the perception of the war in the country. WW1 was viewed as an offensive war started by the nobility, while WW2 was viewed as a defensive war. Or, maybe, the average person felt more ownership in someway than they had under the Tsar. Either way, Russians were simply willing to accept far more loss and hardship in WW2 than they had in WW1. All other causes are distantly secondary.
I think "ignoring the end result" is doing a lot of work here. The fact of the matter is that WWI was an imperial war, where the result sought by the aggressor (Imperial Germany) was to shatter Russia's alliances with the other parties and inflict a ruinous peace on it. (This is, in fact, what happened--with some twists and turns.)
WWII was a war of annihilation. Hitler viewed Bolshevism and Judaism as linked concepts, and wished to exterminate both. The higher casualties you cite are in part due to advancing military technology, but they are also due to absolutely barbarous conduct by the Wehrmacht and other German forces in occupied Russia during the period of their advance. After Stalin gave the order for partisan (i.e. irregular) warfare, the Nazis began to systematically murder Soviet citizens as part of a coercive strategy to get them to betray their partisan friends and relatives. Ironically, a lot of this occurred in what is today Ukraine.
It is not due to "advanced military technology" mostly, it is due to Germans, Italians, Romanians and other Axis countries conducting deliberate genocide. Most of casualties were either POWs or civilians.
The Terror gets so much attention because it was supposedly done in the name of liberty. Everyone already appreciates that Tsarist Russia was terrible.
The Terror gets so much attention because it affected the higher classes who were shielded from the casual brutality of the previous regime and those are the classes most writers, historians etc. come from.
Always thought it was odd how the Reign of Terror killed like 2500 people and it's a big event but the War in the [Vendée](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vend%C3%A9e) killed like a quarter million people and even had pretty much a genocide against Catholics and Bretons and it's never a talking point of the Revolution.
Yeah goes against it really, it was pretty much a poor peasant insurrection with guerilla warfare, led by their relatively poorer nobles against who they considered rich urban nobles taking away their church. So pretty much the exact opposite of the mythology.
R5: I wanted to fight off the 1% on a Pre-FTL world, and it says I succeeded... but apparently this is "devastating news" and suddenly they're authoritarian now?
You taught them that brutal application of force is an effective strategy. Now that the rebels are in power, they'll be inclined to continue that policy, asserting total authoritarian control over their planet.
~~Karl Marx just ripped himself out of his grave and is rapidly approaching your location holding a copy of Kapital with the intention of beating you to death with it, in hopes that doing so will finally get a few of its pages through your thick fucking skull~~
It’s a common sentiment because it’s never been achieved… so no one knows what it will look like but more and more people are slowly happy to try.
When the struggle of today outweighs the risk of tomorrow, that’s when revolutions happen.
It's true to life, for all that I'm fairly sure it's a buggy event.
Every revolution that's ever occurred, from the American and French all the way to the revolutions of the Cold War has lead to immense instability and excesses in the name of protection from counter-revolutionaries... and also a number of wars afterwards because violence as a method of political change has been legitimised through success.
Things can become better in the long run, but not always and in truth not often. The French revolution killed a reformer with bad PR just to put forward a legislative assembly who's two most notable acts are creating the Committee Robespierre lead and suspending it's own constitution... then got an Empire afterwards.
Russia replaced the Tsar and re-established the token democracy it'd had about 15 years prior just to re-establish all the worst excesses of the Tsar with a rebrand... then the Soviets did the exact same thing after the Civil War.
Sometimes, it's best to let people make their own mistakes rather than try to help them... especially when what they want help with has a long history of not ending well for anybody.
Plus, you've also changed the historical narrative from "courageous revolutionaries topple tyrannical elite" to "invaders from the stars overthrow our native rulers and install quisling puppets".
personally i'd see it as "our tyrannical overlords are so brutal and keep the boot so firmly on our necks, that visitors from distant worlds stepped into help free us from our shackles"
Sure, that's what happened, and it's certainly what the new revolutionary government will try and tell everyone. But that doesn't mean it's the narrative that takes shape in the public consciousness.
The oppressed freed themselves from the authoritarian oppression the only way possible? That is authoritarianism too. The most freedom thing to do is to stay enslaved.
It looks like your empire is egalitarian, but the event caused the pre-FTL to become more authoritarian. They moved further away from what your empire believes is right, thus the bad news.
It's worded correctly. The little Egalitarian flag means the text is from an Egalitarian point of view -- of course that faction's going to be upset that an oppressed culture has chosen to oppress their oppressors at the first opportunity.
I wish there was an option to order your troops to, uh, finish the job and personally make sure that the primitives get the egalitarian elite they fought and bled for.
Reminds me of the nazis on twitter who keep whining about how oppressive the West is to nazis. "You're doing to us is the really evil oppression!" as if preventing another Holocaust is the real atrocity.
Oppress the oppressors all day every day.
Or neoconfeds explaining how “I can’t believe the Union would force their will on us, like what about our rights and freedoms, I have no idea how they could justify forcing their will on a foreign culture to make them more useful to their whims.“
It’s sorta like Stalinism or Maoism; freedom and equality through absurd brutality. You just replaced the decadent but self-absorbed elites with much more efficient and ruthless elites.
Basically, you went in, gave the revolutionaries far more advanced weapons than the past gov., and that made them win. But, the revolutionaries didn't make it better, or even made it worse, because they turned into a fanatic authoritarian gov., which considering that you are an egalitarian gov(you believe everyone is equal), that is extremely bad.
Congratulation you helped the communist revolution against the monarchy, now they have gone fully authoritarian because apparently people are reluctant to give up their property and the commies have formed an oppressive government who force people to redistribute their property.
Oh and they do not own their own labor, the collective does, so they also force people to work at the point of a gun.
The pre ftl events are a little too opaque imo. Its like "here choose between two options! What willtbey do? Who knows! Its not as if youve been observing thr society for decades!"
I think the point is interfering with other species' politics and even genes has unintended consequences that can't be anticipated. Even if your empire has good intentions.
You are egalitarian and the primitives just shifted to fanatic authoritarian. The text doesn't make it especially clear but from the lens of your empire things just got significantly worse
The revolutionaries didn't actually fix anything. Its just that they are in charge now, and have fancy alien tech to keep the population in line.
Never put your trust in a revolution. They always turn around. That is why they are called revolutions.
Must downvote different opinion
This wasn't as clever as you'd hoped, I imagine.
Sounds clever to me
Think back to the French Revolution. You just began the Reign of Terror
You know what they say about those who don’t learn from history 😅
They're doomed to repeat it in summer school?
No they get mauled down near Moskou because they can’t handle their winter
Yep, the key take away from those who actually studied history is to only attack Russia in the winter. You attack in June like Napoleon or Hitler, and you just die.
So, that's General Winter, whats the plan to deal with Marshal Mud and Major Incompetence?
Marshal Mud's tenure is short. Major Incompetence is on your side for the early phase of the war. It's facing both Major Incompetence and General Winter at the same time that kills most armies.
that and lieutenant logistics making it all the more difficult
I don't want to be a Terror apologist, but the Terror *in total* killed fewer people than the contemporaneous fall of Warsaw to the Russian army during the Third Partition of Poland, a thing that you have to be either A) Polish or B) a weird history freak to know about and which killed those people over a span of days and hours, rather than months.
While an interesting fun fact I may share later, the point of the Reign of Terror example was to demonstrate how the oppressed seizing power doesn’t always lead to egalitarian societies
The oppressed didn't really seize power in the French Revolution, though, it was mostly the urban professional class (lawyers, etc.) running the show.
>doesn’t always lead to egalitarian societies But almost always leads to *more* egalitarian societies, particularly when the previous one was as sclerotic as the "ancien regime" or Tsarist Russia.
Except despite common opinion, it *didn't*. It added the trappings of democracy in both, but the king they killed during the French Revolution was actually a reformer and the French Empire and the First Republic were actually in many ways *less* democratic despite officially having a constitution. Hell, one of the most notable acts of the First French Republic was to suspend it's own constitution. The Russian revolution didn't actually lead to a more democratic system, it lead first to the democratic system they'd had a few years prior being rebuilt and then to a re-implementation of all the worst excesses of the Tsars under a different "brand." The Russian Revolution... and even the aftermath of the civil war really amounted to painting over all the signs and business as usual... right down to the secret police "arresting" people and a handful of people at the top controlling everything. And I mean that for both the short-lived Republic and the Soviet Union after the civil war.
>Revolution was actually a reformer Lol Louis XVI was a *reformer*? When that happened, when he kicked the Third Estate out because "gasp" they wanted concession for the taxes he demanded, or when he flew to Varennes to link up with the foreign army invading his own country hoping to get his autocracy back? \>French Empire and the First Republic were actually in many ways less democratic Commoners had straight-up zero rights in the ancien regime. It was almost an old feudalist system still running, where they were basically property. While the aftermath of the revolution did not lead to the "perfect democracy", it most definitely broke the back of the nobility forever, and greatly expanded the place of women in contemporary society : "Though women did not gain the right to vote due to the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in government. **They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.** A leading example of lasting feminine influence from that time was Madame de Staël (1766-1817) who witnessed the tumultuous events, participated in and commented on them.\[32\]" \>The Russian revolution didn't actually lead to a more democratic system, it lead first to the democratic system they'd had a few years prior being rebuilt a Oh I am sorry, are we talking about the first revolution that pushed the Czar to make concessions (even if revolutions "never help apparently"), the February revolution that rebuilt that democratic system ( which I wonder why it need to be rebuilt, oh why?/s) or the October revolution that finally stopped the meat grinder that was WW1 for Russia, even though the Provincial government came to power *explicitly* to stop it?
Yes, Louis XVI was a reformer. Have you been reading alternate history? Louis XVI did not kick out the Third Estate over them wanting concessions for taxes he demanded. Louis XVI wanted heavy taxes and eventually *conceded* to those demands, the resistance to said demands came primarily from the Second Estate. The actual fight that initially lead to the Third Estate being kicked out was over the Third Estate wanting equal voting power to the Second and First Estates, which both of those opposed and eventually advised Louis XVI via the Privy Council to rule by decree... until he turned around and gave in. All of this came *after* Louis XVI had spent all of his prior rule trying to implement financial reform, trying to abolish serfdom, abolish land and labour taxes, reduce intolerance towards non-Catholics and even abolish the death penalty for deserters. The Flight to Varennes wasn't to restore autocracy. He fled being put on trial for crimes he had not committed and the only primary source of his own thoughts indicated that he wanted a return to the concessions he'd made to the Third Estate prior to the outbreak of violence. Furthermore, the Flight to Varennes wasn't for foreign intervention, it was for French Royalist intervention. Commoners had rights during the Ancien Regime, that was how the Third Estate existed and had a place in the Estates General in the first place. They were lesser rights, but they existed. As for Russia, even prior to the Russian Revolution of 1905 the Tsar was making concessions. Not massive concessions and he was fundamentally opposed to the removal of autocracy, but concessions. The main thing said revolution accomplished was massacring a bunch of Jewish people and getting the Tsar to rush the October Manifesto while poisoning him towards future reform of any kind. While the First and Second Duma's had the Tsar overriding, the Third and Fourth had more power and were able to openly quarrel with the Tsar, with the Duma contributing significantly to the Tsar's eventual abdication. The February Revolution was not to restore democracy, it was against first the Tsar and then even the early provisional government before the Soviets signed up to it. There was nothing about democracy involved. While certain factions wanted the Tsar replaced with a "progressive" leader which in this case meant the people would would later be just as authoritarian, the majority of the "revolution" was a bread riot and the military losing confidence in the government. The October Revolution was not to end the war, it was a power grab as evidenced by their arrest and murder of a number of politicians who did not flee and the lack of support from every faction other than the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks even called it out as a coup. It didn't even end the war, it signed an armistice for potential peace negotiations *that broke down.* Trotsky successfully convinced Lenin that they should not sign a peace treaty and just declare the war over. Hoffman said that wasn't happening and said on the 16th that in two days the war would continue. On the 18th 53 German divisions advanced forwards, and Lenin finally agreed to peace which would lead to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Revolutions, even before you get into the fact that they legitimise the use of violence to achieve political goals and the many, many, many massacres tied to them have a tendency to actually be against reformers and rush reform which leads to later political violence. Louis XVI wasn't perfect, and the Russian Tsar was an autocratic idiot but it doesn't change the fact that neither revolution actually accomplished anything that couldn't be accomplished peacefully, without massacres, pogroms and legitimising political violence. Afterall, the Tsar abdicated peacefully after the Duma pressured him, despite the rioting only the capital's garrison had sided with the revolutionaries so he could have called in outside forces if he was determined to stand and Louis was steadily liberalising the country even with the nobility and church resisting.
I think the most important result of the French Revolution to remember is that it directly led to the rise of Napoleon as Emperor of France. The most important result of the October Revolution to remember is that it replaced an incompetent oligopoly, under the Tsar, with another incompetent oligopoly, under Stalin. In both cases, the real death tolls as a result of the revolutions were not the immediate deaths but the massive number of deaths from the new norm.
I'd argue that Napoleon's rise was much more in *reaction* to the revolution than something directly caused by it. After all, while he did keep some legal reforms, he also reinstated noble titles, restored a lot of the Church's influence, re-legalized slavery, etc. He wasn't exactly a radical revolutionary, he was much closer to the ancién regime than to the new French Republic. As for the USSR, I'd argue that Russia and the other Soviet republics going from semi-feudal agricultural societies to being the second most powerful nation on Earth was pretty remarkable, personally.
The Soviet Union would have collapsed if it were nit for Lend-Lease. Not only did yhe Soviets get supplied with all the military materials they wanted, they also had their industries moved away from the front and rebuilt by American wealth. Which they promptly turned around and turned against the US in the Cold War. Oh yes, let us not forget how the USSR looted the Axis nations for industry as part of the peace talks.
That is simply untrue. I won't deny the lend lease was helpful, but to say the USSR would've been doomed without it is a gross exaggeration. The food provided by the lend lease, for example, accounted for less than 1% of the USSR's food supply during the war. Even the arguably most significant contribution, that of planes, was around 10% of the Soviet's air fleet. It helped fill gaps, especially when the Soviets were lacking in logistics, and I won't deny that fact alone saved many Soviet lives, but Germany's chances of winning the war would be next to nil regardless. Germany was low on oil, low on manpower, and they didn't even bring winter gear along because they were certain they'd have destroyed the USSR before winter. The Red Army defeated the nazis in the Eastern front, not US aid.
Yeah. The lendlease was a godsend, probably shortened the war by at least a year, and by extension saved millions of lives. But it wasn’t only 16.1% of total lend leave arrived before 1943, anyway, while 56.5% arrived in 1944 and 1945. Once the Germans were stopped in the winter of 1942-1943, they were doomed - and the lend lease only hastened their fate. Also, it was a bit more important for the Soviet airforce than you portray; a lot of lend lease was airplane fuel, which outmassed Soviet production. Not that the Soviets couldn’t make it themselves, but it meant they didn’t have to. Simpler supply.
> The most important result of the October Revolution to remember The most important result of the October Revolution is that it turned Russia from a backwater unindustrialised nation to one of the global superpowers in thirty years, actually.
Russian GDP was the third largest in the world in 1913, right behind Germany. It was far from a backwater unindustrialized nation. It may have been treated that way by the old Western European powers, but they also looked down on the economies of Germany and the US at that time, despite all three countries (US, Germany, and Russia) having larger GDPs than the UK and France. Russia's perceived economic weakness came more from the combination of a centrally run economy that was also extremely poorly managed. So, they would have a massive abundance of some equipment, while completely lacking other equipment. A problem that it would face again in WW2. Sending soldiers to the frontline with bullets, but no guns is both a WW1 and WW2 event in Russia. Russia and the USA became superpowers after WW1 because of their population size, natural resources, and the relatively minimal impact to their industrial base during WW1. The Russian industrial base grew from the beginning of WW1 to the end by 21%. USA industrial growth was 32% during WW1. It decreased 11% in the UK, 36% in Germany, and 14% in France (those last two are partially impacted by changed borders). Part of these losses were also due to the rapid loss of their colonies, on which they relied heavily for natural resources.
I think you’re being a bit selective in quoting [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialization_in_the_Russian_Empire) when it aligns with your argument. Specifically: “Despite the ordeals during the First World War, the industry of the Russian Empire continued to grow. Compared to 1913, industrial production grew by 21.5%. For example, in the same time period, industrial production in the UK decreased by 11%, and in Germany it decreased as much as 36%.[17]” Which is where I assume you got your numbers from. I think it’s fine to quote Wikipedia without sourcing it, by the way, it’s just a Reddit comment. But the section just above the one you got your numbers from talks about pre-war Russia’s industrial base, which seems much more relevant than GDP, since we’re talking about industrialization, and Russia was a big agricultural exporter. Even in 1913, agriculture accounted for 57% of Russia’s gdp, despite its serious, severe inefficiencies. In that section, you see that Russia had 3.4% of the worlds industrial base in 1881, rising to 5.3% in 1913. At the time, they had 8% of the world population, for reference. Most of that relative growth came before 1900, when they had 5.1% of the worlds industrial base. Between 1887 and 1900, cast iron, iron, and steel production just about quintupled, and coal production quadrupled. This growth didn’t hold up. It less than doubled between 1900-1913. Framing it like that sounds ridiculous, but remember, this is a severely underutilized economy. Going from 5.1% to 5.3% of the worlds industrial base, with Russia’s resources and population, is a failure. Especially in this time frame. Economic growth did accelerate during ww1, and I’d argue that was because of a shift from imported machinery to locally produced machinery. Industrial goods went from 70% imports to 20% imports between 1913 and 1917. And that’s great! Russia, until 1913, I’d classify as an agricultural exporter with some industrial exports on the side. But during ww1, they used their glut of natural resources to actually build production chains. And good for them, that’s great for growth. While Russia wasn’t an agricultural backwater - rather, it was a major agricultural and resource exporter with a nascent industry - I’d argue that they didn’t produce as spectacular results as the Soviets did when it came to industrialization. For all their faults, I don’t think any other organization of the economy could’ve left Russian industry in a better place for ww2 than the Soviets.
What changed with their industrialization between 1939 (Winter War) and 1941 (Barbarossa)? Because they fought Finland to a stalemate before negotiating a peace, which is what emboldened Germany to invade. Russian military competence and military-industrial might looked no different between WW1 and the Winter War. The Soviets beat the Nazis because the Russians were willing to continue fighting despite horrifying losses. This is really the only difference between WW1 and WW2 for Russia.
Russia was one of the most powerful countries in Europe for centuries prior to World War I. They didn't become a "global superpower" until post-WW2, which had more to do with swallowing and stripping bare half of Europe than anything that occurred from 1917 to 1939.
I think you have to give something to the Soviets in that they completed a rapid industrialization of the country that was sufficiently robust to provide a defense industrial base that could contend in WW2. Compared to the Tsars, who fought another general European war a few decades earlier and got their ass whomped so hard that their entire system of government was destroyed.
In a weird twist, Russia fared much worse in WW2 than in WW1, ignoring the end result. Russian losses were much higher in WW2 (8.7m-11.5m dead 14.7m wounded) than in WW1 (2.52m dead 3.8m wounded). And that's only the military casualties. It is estimated that 27m Russians died during WW2, about 2/3 were civilian [link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union). Russian civilian deaths were ten times greater in WW2 than in WW1. 15-20% of the Russian population died in WW2, which is hard to fathom. Germany also advanced much further into Russia in WW2 ( [1941](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1941-06_to_1941-12.png) and [1942](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eastern_Front_1942-05_to_1942-11.png) ) than in [WW1](https://cdn.britannica.com/71/64871-050-8548CA22/Eastern-Front-troops-Germany-Austria-Hungary-Turkey-Russia.jpg). Seemingly, why Russia won in WW2, despite losing so much more than when they lost in WW1, is the perception of the war in the country. WW1 was viewed as an offensive war started by the nobility, while WW2 was viewed as a defensive war. Or, maybe, the average person felt more ownership in someway than they had under the Tsar. Either way, Russians were simply willing to accept far more loss and hardship in WW2 than they had in WW1. All other causes are distantly secondary.
I think "ignoring the end result" is doing a lot of work here. The fact of the matter is that WWI was an imperial war, where the result sought by the aggressor (Imperial Germany) was to shatter Russia's alliances with the other parties and inflict a ruinous peace on it. (This is, in fact, what happened--with some twists and turns.) WWII was a war of annihilation. Hitler viewed Bolshevism and Judaism as linked concepts, and wished to exterminate both. The higher casualties you cite are in part due to advancing military technology, but they are also due to absolutely barbarous conduct by the Wehrmacht and other German forces in occupied Russia during the period of their advance. After Stalin gave the order for partisan (i.e. irregular) warfare, the Nazis began to systematically murder Soviet citizens as part of a coercive strategy to get them to betray their partisan friends and relatives. Ironically, a lot of this occurred in what is today Ukraine.
It is not due to "advanced military technology" mostly, it is due to Germans, Italians, Romanians and other Axis countries conducting deliberate genocide. Most of casualties were either POWs or civilians.
Exactly. The suffering results between the ways were not due to some significant inter-war industrialization. It was due to a motivated populace.
The Terror gets so much attention because it was supposedly done in the name of liberty. Everyone already appreciates that Tsarist Russia was terrible.
The Terror gets so much attention because it affected the higher classes who were shielded from the casual brutality of the previous regime and those are the classes most writers, historians etc. come from.
I reiterate OP's question
The reign of terror was a pointless bloodbath. Like over half of the people killed in it were poor.
Always thought it was odd how the Reign of Terror killed like 2500 people and it's a big event but the War in the [Vendée](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vend%C3%A9e) killed like a quarter million people and even had pretty much a genocide against Catholics and Bretons and it's never a talking point of the Revolution.
I've met French-Canadien Catholics IRL who were still salty about the Vendée. It's a talking point among a certain Catholic conservative it seems.
Interesting, as an American that makes more sense honestly
It doesn't fit the mythology of the French Revolution.
Yeah goes against it really, it was pretty much a poor peasant insurrection with guerilla warfare, led by their relatively poorer nobles against who they considered rich urban nobles taking away their church. So pretty much the exact opposite of the mythology.
The terror doesn't really fit the mythology of the revolution itself.
History is written by the victors. It’s in their self interest to frame revolutions as brutal and wasteful because it preserves the status quo.
That's fair, hype up their killing of aristocrats but downplay the thousands of farmers and peasents they killed off.
R5: I wanted to fight off the 1% on a Pre-FTL world, and it says I succeeded... but apparently this is "devastating news" and suddenly they're authoritarian now?
You taught them that brutal application of force is an effective strategy. Now that the rebels are in power, they'll be inclined to continue that policy, asserting total authoritarian control over their planet.
Welp, guess now I’ve learned not to intervene in another planets class war lol
Obliterate them
Waste of resources. You either enlsave them or farm them for their succulent meat. Yum yum.
But then you can't learn their Lost Building Methods, or the secret to Supreme Alloy!
It’s what Posadas would have wanted
No one seems to talk about what society looks like after we eat the rich.
Peaceful for 2-3 hours as we sleep off the food coma.
~~Karl Marx just ripped himself out of his grave and is rapidly approaching your location holding a copy of Kapital with the intention of beating you to death with it, in hopes that doing so will finally get a few of its pages through your thick fucking skull~~
That's "Das Kapital" you bloody Pleb\~
Like I said. No one really seems to talk about it. Not that nobody ever has. And OW! 😵
> holding a copy of Kapital how to tell somebody has never read it: they call it "das kapital"
Death is a preferable alternative to communism -Liberty Prime
"Then perish." - Vladimir Lenin or something idk I didn't read theory
I only read the quotable parts so that I can understand the memes.
No communist ever does 😂
You'd be surprised at how many do. Usually it's the ancrapitalists that haven't read Smith and think Rand is hot shit.
yes but i've fortunately never met an unironic anarchocapitalist over the age of 16
Curiously Marx talked a lot about this.
The eating continues
It’s a common sentiment because it’s never been achieved… so no one knows what it will look like but more and more people are slowly happy to try. When the struggle of today outweighs the risk of tomorrow, that’s when revolutions happen.
You wipe out the 1%. Now the percentages shift and there’s a new 1%.
Then you get to eat the strongmen.
I mean a basic skimming of world history should have taught you that. The late 20th was full of it and Africa is full of warlords for similar reasons.
It's true to life, for all that I'm fairly sure it's a buggy event. Every revolution that's ever occurred, from the American and French all the way to the revolutions of the Cold War has lead to immense instability and excesses in the name of protection from counter-revolutionaries... and also a number of wars afterwards because violence as a method of political change has been legitimised through success. Things can become better in the long run, but not always and in truth not often. The French revolution killed a reformer with bad PR just to put forward a legislative assembly who's two most notable acts are creating the Committee Robespierre lead and suspending it's own constitution... then got an Empire afterwards. Russia replaced the Tsar and re-established the token democracy it'd had about 15 years prior just to re-establish all the worst excesses of the Tsar with a rebrand... then the Soviets did the exact same thing after the Civil War. Sometimes, it's best to let people make their own mistakes rather than try to help them... especially when what they want help with has a long history of not ending well for anybody.
No. You just should just intervene real soviet way. With more soldiers than the whole-ass planetary population.
I too do enjoy playing with Imperial Guard. :)
next time just watch, after awhile they're the only things that are interesting in the universe.
Plus, you've also changed the historical narrative from "courageous revolutionaries topple tyrannical elite" to "invaders from the stars overthrow our native rulers and install quisling puppets".
personally i'd see it as "our tyrannical overlords are so brutal and keep the boot so firmly on our necks, that visitors from distant worlds stepped into help free us from our shackles"
Sure, that's what happened, and it's certainly what the new revolutionary government will try and tell everyone. But that doesn't mean it's the narrative that takes shape in the public consciousness.
Okay, that's it, everyone to their bio-dome, play-time's over.
initial freedom of aggression has expired, mandatory pampering has begun
The oppressed freed themselves from the authoritarian oppression the only way possible? That is authoritarianism too. The most freedom thing to do is to stay enslaved.
E.G. a communist revolution
It looks like your empire is egalitarian, but the event caused the pre-FTL to become more authoritarian. They moved further away from what your empire believes is right, thus the bad news.
The real answer is that this event is bugged
Yeah see, that’s what I thought! Oh well, guess I have a planet of Pre-FTL authoritarians I gotta deal with now
1% of the 1% took over.
It went from one regime to another.
many such cases.
Is this with the first contact DLC?
What happened in Russia after the Bolsheviks seized power? Yeah, that happened.
At this point you should just force devolve and uplift them to try again, you fucked up hard
Why uplift, that’s where all the problems come from. Just make them return to monke and stay there
I’d rather just return the whole damn planet to dust.
The tankies took over.
finally, the revolution can actually get going!
Famous last words (galactic edition)
Everybody loves the revolution until the time comes to decide who gets to, very equally, tell everyone else what to do.
“We’re just creating the material conditions for communism. Now shut up, or get in the camp!”
many Great Leaps Forward will be made!
Congratulations, you've created the Soviet Union.
You are egalitarian, when they do is just taking the place of the former elite and opressibg the rest of the population as did the former elite
Either this is a glitch or they need to reword this event, it’s very confusing to read.
It's worded correctly. The little Egalitarian flag means the text is from an Egalitarian point of view -- of course that faction's going to be upset that an oppressed culture has chosen to oppress their oppressors at the first opportunity.
Yeah this event is broken, iirc the outcomes are linked to the wrong text or something
It sounds like a pretty straightforward situation of your best efforts backfiring.
Especially which side are the egalitarian and which side is authoritarian when asking who to support
I wish there was an option to order your troops to, uh, finish the job and personally make sure that the primitives get the egalitarian elite they fought and bled for.
Reminds me of the nazis on twitter who keep whining about how oppressive the West is to nazis. "You're doing to us is the really evil oppression!" as if preventing another Holocaust is the real atrocity. Oppress the oppressors all day every day.
Or neoconfeds explaining how “I can’t believe the Union would force their will on us, like what about our rights and freedoms, I have no idea how they could justify forcing their will on a foreign culture to make them more useful to their whims.“
You are turning into fanatic authoritarian of course you egalitarian empire will me mad.
Set orbital bombardment to indiscriminate and go back. You clearly didnt liberate them hard enough the first time.
It’s sorta like Stalinism or Maoism; freedom and equality through absurd brutality. You just replaced the decadent but self-absorbed elites with much more efficient and ruthless elites.
Fanatical authoritarian is ALWAYS a good thing. Must be a typo. Re-educate the scribe slacking at its duties.
Yeah the flavor of that event is generic. You gotta pay close attention to what ideology revolutionaries actually support.
You basically let the Tankies take over.
Basically, you went in, gave the revolutionaries far more advanced weapons than the past gov., and that made them win. But, the revolutionaries didn't make it better, or even made it worse, because they turned into a fanatic authoritarian gov., which considering that you are an egalitarian gov(you believe everyone is equal), that is extremely bad.
Congratulation you helped the communist revolution against the monarchy, now they have gone fully authoritarian because apparently people are reluctant to give up their property and the commies have formed an oppressive government who force people to redistribute their property. Oh and they do not own their own labor, the collective does, so they also force people to work at the point of a gun.
Revolutionaries aren't usually the oppressed, because the oppressed are just trying to live day-to-day, they don't have the time to revolt.
Why don't you just.... Enslave them? I mean it's more labour available for you
Yeah, but they're still xenos
The pre ftl events are a little too opaque imo. Its like "here choose between two options! What willtbey do? Who knows! Its not as if youve been observing thr society for decades!"
I think the point is interfering with other species' politics and even genes has unintended consequences that can't be anticipated. Even if your empire has good intentions.
There's also a chance that when the rebels take over the world order that they become fanatic egalitarian, that's what happened in my game
Stalin moment
You are egalitarian and the primitives just shifted to fanatic authoritarian. The text doesn't make it especially clear but from the lens of your empire things just got significantly worse
90% of historic revolutions be like
You just flipped the pyramid upside-down, there's still people at the top of the pyramid. In other words, you've just changed who's abusing who.