Reality check for eSocialists

[Duncomrade]

It should be clear to experienced eRepublik socialists that our understanding and application of socialism in eRepublik is not gaining widespread support. In order to succeed, we need to consider our understanding of the realities of eRepublik. These realities, as I see them, are as follows:

- Socialists are a very small minority;

- Political power is not necessary for the operation of a socialist economy;

- Warfare is the ultimate goal of eRepublik.


Socialists are a very small minority in eRepublik

At this time, we are spread too sparsely for any one Party to adequately achieve or even experiment with democratically managed, centrally planned production. There are numerous examples around the world of socialists running individual companies or small collections of companies, but there are very few large socialist industrial complexes that could decisively demonstrate to the masses the possibility of socialism in eRepublik.

The scattered socialists must come together to create a concrete example of a socialist economy. Some may ask, “Couldn’t we simply describe to the masses the theoretical potential of socialism in eRepublik?” The answer is “No!” Every veteran eRepublik socialist knows that articles are not enough to convince the apathetic and ignorant masses of eRepublik that a socialist economy is superior to the market economy; we have been propagandising since the game began, and it has not resulted in any sustainable examples of large-scale socialism. And yet, to this day, we continue to operate in our small, isolated pockets instead of uniting to create an obvious, successful and concrete example of socialism.

The CPSU managed to run GOSPLAN whilst having political power in eRussia. However, we were never able to demonstrate the full potential of a socially-owned, centrally planned economy because of the low population of eRussia, consecutive invasions leading to mass demoralisation and exodus, and the successful propaganda of bourgeois reactionaries.

The population was also too impatient to endure the slow process of experimentation and gradual improvement that is necessary for a fledgling socialist economy to realise real democratic management (if that is possible in eRepublik). To avoid such mass defection we need to be confident with our operation of a socialist economy before we attempt to gain political control of a country. This is the main obstacle to the realisation of a socialist state in eRepublik – people don’t believe that it can work! If socialists around the world were to come together in one or a few countries, it would provide a reliable base for experimentation with democratically managed and centrally planned economies.

As far as I know, only eSpain and eRussia possess large socialist industries. The eSpanish communes seem to be doing well, as evidenced by their activity in the eInternationale forum trade. However, the eRussian communes suffer from a severe lack of Party member activity, which prevents it from operating the industries.

Where should we unite to experiment with and make real a large socialist economy? Obviously it would be best to do this in a country with high resources, preferably where there are already established socialist industries. I think eRussia is a great candidate for this concerted effort. eRussia has high resources, the CPSU controls 15 companies and has several hundred gold and tens of thousands of Rubles. Furthermore, the CPSU is virtually inactive which means we are probably more open to allowing experimentation with our assets as opposed to already well-established industries such as the eSpanish communes.


Political power is not necessary for the operation of a socialist economy

We would be able to carry out our experiments and build an example of large-scale socialist economy in eRepublik without the need to conquer state power. Capitalist governments are incapable of affecting our socialist industries, such as by raising taxes, without also damaging private companies and their own reputations. However, a socialist government could damage private companies whilst benefitting socially-owned companies.

Therefore, if we so chose, we could happily create our own socialist society parallel to the existing capitalist society, without fear of interference from the bourgeois state. Our society would have to be maintained by out-of-game forums because the game options and mechanics don’t allow such organisation. Obtaining state power in-game would certainly be fun, and would provide an enormous boost to the construction of the socialist economy – but to achieve a lasting socialist government in eRepublik, we must first experiment and create the concrete example which I wrote about in the previous section.

Engaging in political campaigns before we can confidently provide the people with a tested socialist alternative can be damaging to our movement. This can be seen by the CPSU’s experience in eRussia. There we were unable to convince the people of the possibility of socialism because there had been no precedent; without a successful example to speak of, it was all too easy for the reactionaries to convince the people that socialism cannot work in eRepublik. The political defeat of our socialist government only served to reinforce the supremacy of bourgeois ideology in the minds of the masses. Added to that, the bitter struggle against the reactionaries and loss of political power led to mass demoralisation in the Party and the loss of many veteran cadres.

We need to create a successful example of socialism if we are ever to win lasting political domination in eRepublik.


Warfare is the ultimate goal of eRepublik

In real life a peaceful, stable socialist economy is cherished because it enables the fulfilment of human development; people would be able to pursue all the various studies, vocations and hobbies that can be found in real life. In eRepublik, however, a peaceful nation has no appeal to the majority of players.

Imagine that a stable, pacifist socialist nation is created in eRepublik. Everyone’s needs are provided for by the socialised economy. Some satisfaction may be derived from the collective decision-making nature of socialist society but the great majority of eRepublikans are not going to be intellectually stimulated by witnessing the smooth operation of a socialist economy. You cannot ride a skateboard, visit a beach, fly a kite or do anything that we would do in real life to occupy ourselves in peacetime. Warfare is the only entertaining outlet provided in eRepublik and we socialists must recognise this.

If in the future the Admins create new modules that allow the pursuit of interesting peaceful activities, then a pacifist attitude might be able to attract adherents to socialism. But this is not the case at this time. If we continue to espouse peace then we risk alienating the great majority of players who realise that living in a peaceful nation is boring and that this is just a game.

We could create a strong, viable socialist economy to supply a glorious Red Army to take the Revolution to the nations of the oppressed. We could liberate the oppressed masses through our example and the gun! The fiery rhetoric that socialist war propaganda entails is always entertaining, at least in my opinion. And liberating the masses is surely a noble cause. Even if we lose a war, we cannot be destroyed by the enemy forces because eRepublik doesn’t allow any forms of selective state oppression.

All power to the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies!


Note: This thesis is my personal opinion. It has not been adopted as the official position of the CPSU.

[chuikov]

Very interesting article, Duncomrade. This goes against the economical development of the Internationale. I guess we have a new question now then:

Socialism in one country (for starters) or attempt an international cooperation between various communes to help them progress.

The CPSU is ready to give out gold to small parties around the world, but is it really worth it?

[Anatoliovich]

You had me looking for the vote button. :^U

[chuikov]

This is pretty hopeless. Before we can start to speak sense into the non-socialist presence of eRepublik, we have to speak some sense into the rest of the eSocialists. At the moment, the Internationale seems to be divided up in eSocialists who actually play the game seriously and those who just want to do something for the lulz.

Let's take a great example: North Korea. Massive attempts have been made, on every media page in eRepublik and on various forums to get Socialists to go there. There's absolutely no point in moving to eNorth Korea, when there's so many other ecountries with so much more progress on their economical front! Instead, North Korea is asking for money that could be invested into these larger companies. What could they possibly achieve in North Korea? Even if they fund 5-10 companies, there's no raw materials in North Korea. They'd have to import everything, that means we'd have to supply a commune in eNorth Korea which is three times more expensive then the communes in eRussia, eSpain or eUK for that matter.

[Anatoliovich]

And that leads to making one nation (eRussia), united and powerful under the eCommunism/eSocialism, in order for it to send support to other nations. The Internationale on its own is basically an enigma. ;o
It has no real material place in eRepublik - yet.
We need to find one country, well resourced (eRussia) and work together to build it up into a left-wing economic powerhouse so we can help these other nations. We can't live off of massive trade networks because it strains our finances/resources as is. We need to have one central hub.

[chuikov]

Exactly. We're too un-manned to attempt an international cooperation treaty, really. We must first of all make sure the system actually works.

[Anatoliovich]

SO LET'S GET TO IT!

[fredrickengels]

I read it and liked it. We should fully think this through realistically though.

First thing is we're going to have so many nationalities and languages, how are we going to easily communicate?

Second, how do you expect people to just up and jump out of their country when they have spent months building the things they have built up there. The businesses, the party, etc, etc. Do you think everybody will just come? For example for about a month here at the Socialist Freedom Party(eUSA) we have totally changed our party around, becoming more active, establishing communes, we have grown at an enourmous rate. We've put all that time into the party and now we should just leave? Don't get me wrong, I like your idea, but I don't think much people here will like it much.

Third, what would the eWorld do when they find out all of us are going into one country, or a few, to do this? I'll leave that one up to your thoughts, the possibities can vary.

[Radsoc]

IRL bias of socialism is too common among people. If we all called ourselves republikists from bananastan people would've voted for us and our ideas for sure.

But my goal isn't to win any elections even if that's great. The way erepublik works doesn't permit simulation of socialism. I see erepublik as another place to promote IRL socialism by fighting for eSocialsim. The Workers' Militia is very important in this context.

[chuikov]

@ Engels: It's not an order, it's a suggestion. I believe he merely pointed it to the enations with smaller party populations (less then 30-40). The situation in eEurope is a chaos, so to say. There's a commune in almost every eEuropean ecountry at the moment. Each commune is growing slowly, way too slow to put it more correctly. If we'd get a raw material rich ecountry up on its feets, it could help all these other communes.

[Riza Karabasan]

I agree on moving to eRussia, but Russian bureaucracy and slowness what made me move to Slovakia.

[Duncomrade]

Jun 11, 2009 19:31:56 GMT fredrickengels said:

I read it and liked it. We should fully think this through realistically though.

First thing is we're going to have so many nationalities and languages, how are we going to easily communicate?

Second, how do you expect people to just up and jump out of their country when they have spent months building the things they have built up there. The businesses, the party, etc, etc. Do you think everybody will just come? For example for about a month here at the Socialist Freedom Party(eUSA) we have totally changed our party around, becoming more active, establishing communes, we have grown at an enourmous rate. We've put all that time into the party and now we should just leave? Don't get me wrong, I like your idea, but I don't think much people here will like it much.

Third, what would the eWorld do when they find out all of us are going into one country, or a few, to do this? I'll leave that one up to your thoughts, the possibities can vary.

English is the international language, I'm sure there will be translators available. If comrades can't get over the language barrier then they are free to pursue their own paths.

If comrades are doing well in their own countries then they should definitely not abandon their efforts! And please share your tactics and strategies with the Internationale.

What the rest of the eWorld thinks of this experiment shouldn't concern us. If they really believe that socialism can't work then we can tell them that they needn't bother being alarmed by our presence. I hope I made it clear that the "experiment" only involves economic management. As I explained, socialists have no need for political power in eRepublik. Although there is nothing stopping our right to pursue political power in the country.

[fredrickengels]

I hope we can get past the language barrier, I can just see people getting stressed because of it.

Our tactics are simple-constant propaganda through Newspapers, forums, and sending PM's to individual players. When people find out are platform and ideas they seem to like them. It's like Radsoc said, if people knew us and our ideas they would support us, it's just the socialist bias towards us that is killing us.

The reception could very well concern us. I fear our country would be constantly under attack and be under threat by TO'ers who would try to kill our industries by heavily taxing us. I don't think they would care if they also destroyed private companies, they are TO'ers, they would probably be applauded by many for destroying the pesky socialists companies. We have seen throughout history that when socialists try to build socialism, the counter-revolution will be ready to attack at every turn, pulling every dirty trick in the book.

[Duncomrade]

I would be proud if the bourgeoisie considered us such a threat that they must destroy an entire country, including the indigenous capitalists, just to flatten a socialist experiment! However, I don't think such would occur because I am not proposing a political campaign in the host nation; I don't even propose building the experiment to a level of dominating the national economy. We would merely be experimenting with various methods of democratic control, centralisation and decentralisation etc. The local bourgeois society should have no concerns about our presence. We would probably just be ignored.

If there is a danger of capitalist intervention in our experiment then you must also consider the possibility of capitalist intervention in a "real" erevolution. If carrying out this mere experiment is likely to attract the violent reaction of the capitalist class, as you say, then an actual socialist society would be expected to endure massive repression. If you believe that we can't carry out an experiment freely, then you must think a real revolutionary state would have no chance at all. If that is the case then we should abandon all of our socialist efforts now and turn to mere social democracy.

[chuikov]

I can't imagine situations getting any worse for us in eRussia. The bourgeoise class is divided in two. New eRussian patriots are gathering in eRussia to create their own English-speaking party, the goal is to become a FRP puppet party. In any case, I don't think we should ignore the political campaign. There is so much we can finally endure, in eRussia. We have Russian-speaking members, who else can have an argument with the FRP? Who else can infiltrate the FRP and have their secrets spread wide-open to the public?

However, as you said, comrade, we're weak. We shouldn't attempt anything massive until the GOSPLAN is functional, though. If you remember the "Great Betrayal" of Sasha Igorovich when we were about to gain power, imagine that times 3. We are going to have go through that kind of resistance when we are on the verge of achieveing political supremacy.