TFT *SPOILERS* thoughts, discussions, and future speculation

PeterZ wrote:Russia was an economic basket case before they became the USSR. They would have been better off liberalizing their economy and government instead of doubling down on centralized control.

Its a myth, unfortunately. The reality was much more grim. Russian Empire was incredibly backward by European standards, in some areas it was even behind the Spain (!!!). The government was corrupt, backward and incompetent, the population was dirt-poor and illiterate, the national business was weak and most of industry belonged to foreign corporations. And, sorry, but in real world there were no "enlightened, benevolent" capitalists around. The British and French capitalists were perfectly fine in squeezing Russia dry without any thinking about its interests.

Without some kind of rigid central control over economics, we simply would never be able to pull out of all this mess. Communists were simply the best out of worst solutions, but only the worst solutions were available.

Had Patton been allowed to continue Eastward at the tail end of WWII, he would have destroyed the USSR forces west of Russia propper.

Seriously... it just laughable. Not only the US forces in Europe were vastly numerically inferior to Soviet, but there were no US general with strategical experience & competence of Soviet military leaders by 1945.

I respect Allied military command greatly, but truth is, their strategical solutions were primitive by the Eastern Fronts standards. They never launched any operation on the scale of "Bagration", never ever tried to command such enormous number of troops simultaneously. It wasn't their fault, it was simply the lack of experience. Before 1944, Allies never deployed such large number of troops on such great frontlines. USSR done this routinely, and Soviet strategical solutions - like refined "Deep operation" conception - was much more advanced than anything Allies have in pockets.

P.S. Of course, in case of prolonged conflict, the USSR in 1945 was doomed. It simply was too exhausted to fight anymore, have no resources for prolonged fight against USA. But it would not save the US armies in Europe from quick destruction.

PeterZ wrote:Russia was an economic basket case before they became the USSR. They would have been better off liberalizing their economy and government instead of doubling down on centralized control.

Dilandu wrote:
Its a myth, unfortunately. The reality was much more grim. Russian Empire was incredibly backward by European standards, in some areas it was even behind the Spain (!!!). The government was corrupt, backward and incompetent, the population was dirt-poor and illiterate, the national business was weak and most of industry belonged to foreign corporations. And, sorry, but in real world there were no "enlightened, benevolent" capitalists around. The British and French capitalists were perfectly fine in squeezing Russia dry without any thinking about its interests.

Without some kind of rigid central control over economics, we simply would never be able to pull out of all this mess. Communists were simply the best out of worst solutions, but only the worst solutions were available.

PeterZ wrote: Had Patton been allowed to continue Eastward at the tail end of WWII, he would have destroyed the USSR forces west of Russia propper.

Dilandu wrote:


Seriously... it just laughable. Not only the US forces in Europe were vastly numerically inferior to Soviet, but there were no US general with strategical experience & competence of Soviet military leaders by 1945.

I respect Allied military command greatly, but truth is, their strategical solutions were primitive by the Eastern Fronts standards. They never launched any operation on the scale of "Bagration", never ever tried to command such enormous number of troops simultaneously. It wasn't their fault, it was simply the lack of experience. Before 1944, Allies never deployed such large number of troops on such great frontlines. USSR done this routinely, and Soviet strategical solutions - like refined "Deep operation" conception - was much more advanced than anything Allies have in pockets.

P.S. Of course, in case of prolonged conflict, the USSR in 1945 was doomed. It simply was too exhausted to fight anymore, have no resources for prolonged fight against USA. But it would not save the US armies in Europe from quick destruction.

I'll agree that there was too little modern foundation with which to build a western styled economy in Russia at that time. Communism may well have been necessary to bypass the corrupt oligarchy that would have replaced Imperial Russia. I suspect that replacing the dispersed corrupt oligarchs would have been easier that a strong centralized autocracy. Making gradual changes to the laws constraining those oligarchs would have led to both a quicker transition into modernity and far fewer deaths. Centralized control has now given your oligarchs the precidence of complete autocracy to pursue their corrupt goals.

Whether Patton could have won or not in 1945 may well be fun to argue. I'll concede to your position there as well as the ultimate inability for the 1945 USSR to win a war against the West.

Panzer wrote:

PeterZ wrote:With Siddermark turning into the Spanish Civil War as a precursor? Yeah, possible.

I got more of a 1920s and 1930s Weimar Republic vibe from
Siddermark. Glacierheart the other couple of provinces remind me of Bavarian nationalism.

Who does scapegoating a minority and expropriating that minority's property remind you of?

I was getting the feel of the US before the civil war - at least in terms of the bitterness/political manoevering between the various factions [not slavery itself obviously] - but I'm sure that's something that most of you will have a better view on - being home terratory as it were!

PeterZ wrote:
I'll agree that there was too little modern foundation with which to build a western styled economy in Russia at that time. Communism may well have been necessary to bypass the corrupt oligarchy that would have replaced Imperial Russia. I suspect that replacing the dispersed corrupt oligarchs would have been easier that a strong centralized autocracy. Making gradual changes to the laws constraining those oligarchs would have led to both a quicker transition into modernity and far fewer deaths. Centralized control has now given your oligarchs the precidence of complete autocracy to pursue their corrupt goals.

Lets agreed that communism most clearly arent the universal solution, but at right time & right place it could work pretty well, at least in short therms.

Whether Patton could have won or not in 1945 may well be fun to argue. I'll concede to your position there as well as the ultimate inability for the 1945 USSR to win a war against the West.

Well, this inability is pretty obvious. And about strategical level - just compare the Ardennes offensive with Balaton battle. In both case Germany attempted a major offensive, using the remaining armored forces, but while in Ardennes they were able to move quite a lot initially, in case of Balaton operation they didn't even manage to break through our defense lines! And while Patton wasnt exactly completely sucsessfull in encircling the enemy troops, Tolbukhin and Malinovsky immediately launched a massive advance on Vienna, and completely crushed the opposing German force.

PeterZ wrote:With Siddermark turning into the Spanish Civil War as a precursor? Yeah, possible.

Panzer wrote:
I got more of a 1920s and 1930s Weimar Republic vibe from
Siddermark. Glacierheart the other couple of provinces remind me of Bavarian nationalism.

Who does scapegoating a minority and expropriating that minority's property remind you of?

isaac_newton wrote:
I was getting the feel of the US before the civil war - at least in terms of the bitterness/political manoevering between the various factions [not slavery itself obviously] - but I'm sure that's something that most of you will have a better view on - being home terratory as it were!

The antebellum US did not have a centralized bank and so their economic crisies were all regional. The political animosity never managed to cause economic depression nation wide.

The Wiemar republic tried to inflate their way out of their debt. Theirs was a problem of too much currency inflating prices faster than production could meet. Siddermark is facing a destruction of capital and so the reduction of the money supply with which to engage economically. The US Great Depression is a better model for that.

The US lost confidence as wealth created with investments using 90% borrowing began to plummet and forcing people to sell valuable assets to make their margin calls. Prices fell independently of the value of the assets.

In Siddermark theft and the destruction of records took away the assets required to create the canal which would return value to the owners of the stock certificates held by the public. The banks used margin and so were doubly hammered when they tried to overcome their losses with their other assets. 70% of the now worthless investments was borrowed, so the banks had to cover that amount from their other healthy investments. Selling those investments created a fire sale with prices of everything dropping below their actual value.

Banks did not have enough money to provide for normal operating capital for businesses. The banks likely called in loans as well, forcing even normal businesses to sell assets to pay their loans. With no one having enough money for their needs, operations of all sorts had to be discontinued to save expenses. Hence the depression both in Siddermark and in the US.

I think you guys are being too historical, personally I think Zhermo Hygyns is based on Trump, but probably smarter.

SCC wrote:I think you guys are being too historical, personally I think Zhermo Hygyns is based on Trump, but probably smarter.

I doubt there's such thing as too historical with RFC. The problem is that there's too much history to pick from. RFC likes to build things with historical parallels but doesn't hew to them as closely as some "alternate" history authors do. So even if we guess which economic crisis or outburst of xenophobic populism RFC is modeling this on, it will only stay relevant until it isn't any more.

I'm hoping Hygyns will get blamed for the worst of the effects of the collapse because he's the guy in charge and then lose the next election.

noblehunter wrote:
I'm hoping Hygyns will get blamed for the worst of the effects of the collapse because he's the guy in charge and then lose the next election.

IF there would be next elections...

Dilandu wrote:

noblehunter wrote:
I'm hoping Hygyns will get blamed for the worst of the effects of the collapse because he's the guy in charge and then lose the next election.

IF there would be next elections...

I'm hoping the model is 1930s Canada where a PM loses when the Great Depression hits but wins the next election because the new guys don't succeed at fixing much.

What I don't get is why Charis didn't do more to prop up Siddarmark. It would have been easy for them to manipulate the markets and the election to keep a friendly protector in power.

There is no rational argument for not doing it from what I can see, unless they would be so clumsy at it to tip their hand and have a political backlash.

They fabricated evidence to get what they want in the earlier books, why not now?

The whole thing with Siddarmark's economic implosion seems contrived and all the hand wringing in Charis about the problems doesn't make any sense.