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THIS. Establishing character background is a must. haha. Would it be possible for us to customize our background as well?

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@Goshman some very interesting suggestions eloquently put, thank you

I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. There’s no doubting communist and fascist regimes around the world have done terrible things and I’m very sympathetic to what happened to Poland.
However, fascism, at it’s heart, is an ideology of hate and violence based fundamentally on the principles of purifying and strengthening the nation and race through the repression and murder of degenerates (ethnic minorities, homosexuals, the disabled, the work-shy, left-wingers). Fascism also believes in war and conquest as the ultimate pursuit of humanity.
Communism as an ideology is pacifist, Utopian, about building a society where everyone is free and equal, indeed in the final stage of communism, the state is done away with because human cooperation has reached a point where it is no longer needed. Now of course many communists believe in revolution and class war, but this violence is a means to an end, ie achieving a utopian communist society, rather than the end in itself as it is for fascists.
But of course, all of this is somewhat irrelevant because as it says in the game, Solidarity is not a communist party, and it rejects the Soviet Russian example, instead being a democratic socialist party.

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People are quick to attach all fault of communist states to dictators, yet for some reason make it seem as fascism is rotten at its core.

Exterminating left-wingers? Of course, it has to happen, just like right-wingers have to be exterminated in communism. It’s impossible to have a radical left/right system functioning with people from the other side. They pose a threat that has to be eliminated.

Exterminating ethnic minorities? That one’s up to the rulers. Fascism promotes unity - if a minority stands together with majority, they pose no threat and there’s no need for any rash action. If there’s danger of secession or uprising - it’s quite likely they will be taken care of, just like in communism. Both system need everyone to work together, if there would be votes to leave the system it would lose all sense.

Exterminating the homosexuals, well, fascism has a harder stance on that matter compared to communism, although it wasn’t that different to DEMOCRATIC UK (in which same-sex activity for males was not legal in all its parts until 1982, compare that to “homophobic” Poland, where such activities were legal for both males and females since the fundation Polish state) which detained convicted male homosexuals in prisons, just like in Third Reich. And it’s not like dictatorial communist states were any better than facists on that matter, USSR being the prime example.

Exterminating the disabled? Perhaps you don’t know, but Adolf Hitler was the one who organized the first ever Paraolympics. Nuff said imo.

And when it comes to work-shy, there was never any exterminations or eliminations from society. They eliminated themselves because they didn’t want to work. A simple conflict between socialism and capitalism. Why should someone get profits from the country if he doesn’t do anything for it or its citizens?

And last but not least, conquests? Tell me again what countries did Spain attack during Franco or Chile during Pinochet? Conquest is not a core part of fascism, it is a perfectly viable system to create and keep within your borders. Germany’s territorial acquirements, aside those from before 1939 and from Poland were mostly for later defense reasons (talking about northern France, Denmark and Norway). In the east, every country but Poland and Lithuania that got taken over was given semi-independence for the time of war with no further plans to incorporate them to the Third Reich. Compare that to Stalin whose words don’t leave much thought: “Only Poland and Hungary deserve their own states.”. Had it been not for Western Allies, the Eastern Bloc would probably consist of 1 or 3 states, rather than its actual amount.

It can be easily seen that this forum consist mainly from people with leftist views, so me being right-wing obviously puts me in minority, but please, don’t ever defend communism. It’s as you clearly said - an utopia. That means everyone working towards it before perpetuum mobile is invented knows/should know that it won’t work and will end up as dictatorship or a very poor country which would be much better off in another system (e.g. Cuba).

And democratic socialism is nowhere near communism, just like nationalism and light fascism is nowhere near nazism.

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@AlexClifford1994, just wondering, will there be more different parties to choose at the beginning or will those two be the only one ?

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I am a royalist lol. So no everyone is left wing here. Fascism is as rotten as Communism. Because there’s no damn example of real fascist or real commie country who didn’t
-Killed part of population or jailed just because race or the theoretical social class … I am looking Stalin and Mao here and Pol pot… who LITERAL killed 25% of population YOU HAVE GLASSES CAPITALIST BULLED IN YOUR HEAD AFTER TORTURE.
Controlling every aspects of citizens live including number of sexual copulations an average citizens have . No kidding a Democratic German study demonstrate that commie germans have more sex and more virility than capitalist germans.
A terror spy systems based in terror and family denounces. Mostly from their own children’s. Both systems were famous for that.

1984 is a lucid and almost literal description of Stalinist regime with some hints of Hitler’s regime but vastly Stalin. In fact the job the protagonist have in the ministery of truth existed in Stalinist system. People were changing photos and news archives. The hate day existed with mao and in North Korea.

However Communist have a rebellious halo that teens love to use like look how cool and xtreme I am. And Now for people who thing she must be a fascist. My father was not in jailed because political reasons in Fanco timws because he was a teen. He was part of USO a illegal union for liberty. Friends of him were in jail in Sahara a colony back them. And he saw police killing labourers in strikes. So no i am no fascist because the idea is sick same communism old idea is sick .
However no problem with moderate democrats commies or socialists.

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I’m a constitutional monarchist myself, so I’m far from fascist lover, although my social views are conservative, so by nowdays standards I’m considered right-wing. When it comes to economic views though, I’m mostly liberal.

As for your father’s friends jailing, do you perhaps know whether they were in Sidi-Ifni, or in Western Sahara? I’m just curious, because I’m very interested in colonization and colonies in general.

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Sidi ifni yeah his friend were there a year in a prision for political people. He was well treated in Spanish fascism thankfully there weren’t so much torture and forced Labour as on others. He was liberated with all political prisoners when Juan Carlos had the throne. Same time La marcha verďe

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As much as I don’t want to turn this thread into a debate about communism and fascism, i really have to take issue with a few of the points you’ve made.

On repressing ethnic minorities, this is absolutely not about unity. Unity would be trying to bring together the community. Fascism is fundamentally racial. It sees other racial groups as inferior and thinks their presence will defile the purity of their own race. In germany, the Jews posed no threat to the nation or unity. The german jewish population was perhaps the most well-integrated in the world and were generally right wing and patriotic in their politics. Many fought for their country in WW1. Hitler didn’t persecute them because they were a threat but because of fascist racial theory and centuries old anti-semitism. In Franco’s spain during and in the years after the civil war, left wingers, liberals and trade unionists were seen as and treated as a disease that was infecting the spanish race with “anti-spanish” foreign values. Some advocated getting rid of sewers so that the working class would once again perish from poor hygiene and disease. There is a big difference between homosexuality being illegal or socially unacceptable, as it was in most of the world in the first half of the 20th century and actively killing homosexuals. Again, for fascists, gays were degenerates who would defile the race. Racial purity is a central element of fascist ideology and the logical step for fascists is to exterminate any threats to it.

Now that really does make me cross. Once again, the nazis viewed the disabled as a threat to the health of the race. They murdered 275,000 disabled people simply because they had a disability[quote=“readher, post:64, topic:19177”]
And when it comes to work-shy, there was never any exterminations or eliminations from society. They eliminated themselves because they didn’t want to work. A simple conflict between socialism and capitalism. Why should someone get profits from the country if he doesn’t do anything for it or its citizens?
[/quote]

Fascists believed in the incorrect theory of eugenics, that social traits such as being a criminal, work-shy, alcoholic etc were genetic conditions and therefore killed, imprisoned or sterilised these people to maintain the purity of the race. The work-shy were put in concentration camps, along with the homeless and prostitutes. Again, to protect the purity of the race in case they should pass on these traits to their children.

So that’s one aspect of fascist ideology. The other is violence. Fascism is above all else a cult of violence, that believes that violence and war purify and bring the best out of humanity. Its no coincidence that the ideology emerged out of the brutalised culture of post-WW1 europe.
Franco was an imperialist through and through and wanted the french colonies in north africa and portugal. The only reason he couldn’t achieve this was that his country was crippled by the civil war and Hitler didn’t agree to his plans, instead siding with Vichy France. After WW2 in a post UN world, there was obviously no opportunity for such expansion. Hitler’s vision was always to build a german empire in eastern europe, including much of the soviet union, as was set out in mein kampf, as lebensraum for the german people. And I hardly think creating satellite states in many occupied territories was motivated by Hitler’s godwill to allow those people self-determination. Italian fascism was totally founded on the idea of aggressive war and imperial expansion, it just so happened that they weren’t especially good at it.

Now did Stalin and other communist dictators do terrible things? Yes, absolutely and I don’t for a moment condone or play down their crimes. But show me where in communist ideological theory (i’m talking about marx and engels here) does it advocate taking over europe or wiping out 25% of the population? Stalin was an imperialist who continued the longstanding russian imperial dream to dominate and control eastern europe and asia.

I’m not a communist but i don’t think at its core communism is rotten, at least not the essential ideas behind it. I think communist regimes are and have been rotten of course. But fascism is rotten to the core because the fundamental beliefs of fascism are contradictory to humanity and humility.

EDIT: for the sake of clarity I want to say this: do I think soviet Russia and other communist regimes were rotten- yes. Do I think Stalin, Mao and other communist dictators were evil? Absolutely. Do I think the original theory and ideas behind communism were evil? No. I don’t agree with those ideas but I don’t think those ideas were evil. Whereas I do with fascism. Why then so many evil comminists? Dunno, perhaps because absolute power corrupts absolutely. Why did I pose the question in the first post about the ethics of playing as a fascist but not communist? Because there are no communists in the game.

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Well I read Marx writings and the Marx private letters to Engels and other people . What he wrote was not what he really did in his life. And dunno NONE COMMUNIST REGIME was good same as not fascist so IF ALL PRACTICAL EXAMPLES ARE GARBAGE THE IDEALS HAVE TO BEING ROTTEN.
Franco was one of worst man in story of Spain. I born in same city as him and yes he was imperialist the only thing save us from a complete masses massacre is he was monarchy loyalist in his heart so he can’t assume declared himself king or a republic. So we ended with a Lifelong keeper that was good Because everyone know that when the old man end death another regime would born (we didn’t knew what regime could be chosen by our King but we know it would be different.) Franco brother was left wing mason atheist and one of best pilots in story . Franco was so jealous about his handsome brother that arrange his death in an accident ( Franco loves arrange accidents)

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Communism is rotten at its core because it’s unachieveable. Because of this, it creates false hopes and gives inspiration to people to try to achieve it, but because it’s impossible, it always ends up in dictatorship or poor state. They try to achieve it, find it impossible, but since they believe in it so much, they try to find imaginary problems in their plans - people with other views, minorities etc etc. The principle itself might be noble, but it loses its nobility status the moment someone tries to make it reality, and as it serves no other purpose, it’s just as rotten as fascism. It’s a bait for young people to fall for its promises, and then descend into violence and rebelion in order to achieve it, only they don’t know it’s impossible and that they break all they’re supposed to stand for by doing it.

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Are we talking about Fascism or National Socialism here? Yes, Nazism is an even more extreme evolution of Fascism, but the same could be said of Stalinism as an extreme evolution of Marxism. Yet the differences are always quite clear.

Let’s be honest with the era of the 20s and 30s. Europe at that time was a hive of wretched Imperialist ideas and a powderkeg of jingoism resulting from the horrors of the Great War. Beliefs of segregation were not uncommon, and the Jews were very much still within the cycle of hatred that had been running for close to two thousand years at that point. The idea of blaming the Jews was not a novel idea that Hitler just happened to come up with, nor was it an idea that the Fascists of Italy agreed with until the 30s when Mussolini feared that he would alienate Hitler.
As for other racial policies outside of antisemitism, remember that the kind of research that both Italians and Germans used to declare their superiority was at the time a cutting edge field of study, no matter how misguided. The way it was used did not differ that much from previous Imperialist doctrines of presenting natives (of America, Africa, and Asia) as uncultured beasts and savages meant to be delivered to the light by Europeans. Concentration camps were established in Africa and Asia by Imperialist powers throughout the later 19th century, many of them conducting mass murder either with use of force or utter neglect. One could argue that in the United States the forcible relocation of Native Americans into areas where they could not survive is no different as an end result than the genocide that happened in Poland and the hands of both Germans and Soviets. Spanish military actions in Cuba to the latter half of the 19th century are an example of early concentration camps that would later be so closely tied to the Nazis.

You’ll note that none of the very early Syndicalists and Nationalists that fed into the formation of Fascism spoke of eradicating 25% of the population either. They did speak of political violence as a necessary tool of maintaining an organized few in power over the disorganized many. Much like in all ideologies, the genocide part comes in with the strong demagogue who makes the ideology fit their own mindscape - this being Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Khomeini…
Marx and Engels discussed political violence quite extensively as well. For example, they saw the Paris Commune as an excellent example of their ideas coming to fruition. It was Lenin who would eventually criticise them for not having done enough to destroy their enemies and secure their foothold.

You have to take note that the country was still extremely young and not particularly unified. They did not have the industrial base or political unity necessary to fuel their grand ideas. They also ended up taking the worst possible lessons from WWI - lessons which they did learn throughout WWII but which came too late, as by that time the Italian industrial capacity was already stretched far too thin to support Mussolini’s ever-growing ambitions.
Besides which, their dreams of imperialism were there since the unification of Italy took place.

The ethics are largely the same, although our modern minds will always comprehend the fascists as the worse offender. In countries where the left and right were so diametrically opposed in rhetoric, their means of gaining power tended to be the same. Fascists could not curry favour without painting the Communists as the enemy, and the Communists had the perfect representation of the bourgeoisie in the Fascists. They are in many ways two sides of a single coin of political extremism.

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Might I add that I think you guys are confusing Fascism and Nazism? Fascism is more about order and unity and a dictatorship of sorts, it’s meant to be a utopia as well! I am a left winger myself but I don’t think one is inherently worse or committed to the ideals of the first countries to adopt it.

Oh, and might I add that there seems to be a lot of debate on the nature of Fascism, so many people could claim so many things about it which feels to me more like Nazism.

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I agree communism is unachievable and agree regimes do bad things for the reasons you say. But world peace is unachieveable, does that mean the idea of world peace is rotten to the core?

I think you can really say that one is simply a form of the other. Especially if you equate Stalinism and Communism. If you can use stalin to criticise communism, you can use Hitler to criticise fascism.

@Goshman
Of course fascism didn’t invent concentration camps or anti-semitism, or racial policy, or imperialism. But I don’t really get why that’s relevant. They believed in it and used those ideas and policies and put them in to practice. Other people did similar bad things. But fascism is an ideology that promotes and justifies them. It is far more extreme than the admittedly distasteful imperialism and racism of 20th century europe for reasons i’ve already stated.

All that said, i’d quite like to draw a line under this whole debate. I appreciate there’s a lot of strong feelings and good arguments on both sides but this is really besides the point of this thread as I have pointed out! Not having a go with anyone, I love a good debate as much as the next man, but let’s get back on topic!

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And for anyone who may be dying to continue a political debate after the thread owner shuts it down… that’s why we have a generic Politics Thread for civil conversation on such topics.

Now back to the game.

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I’m beginning to see why political COGs haven’t taken, I’m not sure that we can separate the issue being that there’s so little of the game just now. Maybe we should let the waters settle until there’s more of it, I dunno, then at least we could talk about the game rather than persist in soapboxing one another to death.

Just a suggestion, forget I’m even here.

At the very least we couldn’t accuse this premise of not generating interest.

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i just now realized that with your previous game Divided we Fall. This is essentially Spiritual Sequel. if you do second game as sequel to this what will you name it ?

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@AlexClifford1994

It seems to me alex you are making no disctiction between fascism and nazism.

for fascism look at Franco and Pinochet rather mussoliny.

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A couple of thoughts, then you can shoot me if you so desire…

  1. @AlexClifford1994 is building his world currently - we really don’t have a good idea on his fictional world before we are thrown into the action. Perhaps in his fictional world, the fascist and nazi parties have merged with one having a hostile takeover of the other…
    1a. If this is the case, the MC is giving the option of calling for a purge in the press … perhaps she/he is calling for a purge of the party of the nazi extremists … we don’t know yet.
    1b. If this isn’t the case, perhaps we need more background on the party structures before we decide which to ascribe to.
  2. Perhaps @AlexClifford1994 will have a “historical” (pseudo-historical) primer in the beginning to set the entire setting sort of the way @Goshman is doing with the train scene and the cadet scene in his WiP.
    2a. I’m sure @AlexClifford1994 was going to do so with the beer putsch scene we are currently in the middle of but maybe this is indicating a revised intro is called for.
    2b. I have not played the Leninist party yet … is the feeling of disconnect there as well? If not, it may be because @AlexClifford1994 did not yet focus on the fascist side … remember we wasn’t even sure if he wanted to allow both paths.

I still think offering both paths is the way to go but perhaps a little more world-building in the beginning would help ease the angst we as a reader-base is feeling here.

ok… I’ve had my say on this you can shoot the messenger now :rose:

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Dvivided we fall is such unloved Gem it not even funny!!! One of best choice of games I ever played!!

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I’ll try and clear up these points if I may…
The fascist party, as I’ve said early on I think, is going to have an extreme form of patriotism, a hatred of the left, liberalism and democracy, and a belief in violence but not racial or anti-Semitic elements in order to avoid all this.
Solidarity is a democratic socialist party, so not communist or leninist, openly critical of Soviet russia but opposed to the monarchy and fascism of course.
I could add a sort of historical introduction like i have at the start of divided we fall but i haven’t done so because I want the reader to almost feel their way into this world. I also think a big historical info section would jar the narrative a bit. The state of the country and the parties are (i hope) fleshed out to some extent in the queen’s speech and that of the leader of your chosen party. For further info you can read the guide.
I am going to add to the opening chapter a bit where you can choose the social background of your character, after which their will be a discussion with your friend about your background and why you chose to join the party. This will add in the motivations and experiences of the character and also build up the world a little, i.e. if you are a aristocratic new order member you were sickened by the way that your parents and their class accepted and collaborated with the german occupiers in WWI and betrayed the nation. If you are a middle class Solidarity MP you worked in your 20s for a charity helping those in poverty and saw the terrible conditions that the working class endure… etc etc Whatever background or party you chose, there will be experiences that will be detailed that have led you to the conclusion that the system is broken and radical change is needed.

I’d never think of shooting you or any other messenger for that matter @Eiwynn, some very valid points/suggestions

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