Hello, and Happy Thursday. Today, Mike and Victoria will be talking about the content for Russia contained within Update 1.15 and the State and Revolution Immersion Pack. There's a lot to go over, from Romanovs to Revolutions, so buckle up as we go through some of the major Russian content coming up! Additionally, please note, as ever, that any screenshots attached are from a work-in-progress build, and certain elements may not be final yet.
Russian Political Setup
Russia starts with specific law variants that shape its nature as not just as an empire, but as a Tsardom- built atop a mix of traditional and Enlightenment practices.
Russia is not a feudal country in 1836, and hasn't been since the days of Peter the Great. The reforms of Peter and his successors have created a state that has done away with boyars and centralized power within the imperial government, giving administrative duties to the military rather than a hereditary aristocracy and outright abolishing the role of the patriarch in the Orthodox Church, turning the church into just another branch of the Russian government. Russia is autocratic, but its government is not simply a relic of a bygone era- it has a variety of effective institutional tools at its disposal to enforce its will.
Internally, Russia has established a variety of laws and institutions to keep an eye on its own people. The Napoleonic Wars only ended a generation prior, and the Decembrist Revolt is within living memory of every politician, so the state has given itself the tools it thinks it needs to suppress dangerous talk. Secret police maintain networks of informants to feed them steady streams of information, allowing them to keep an eye on individuals they deem particularly threatening to the state. This is combined with broader policies regarding nationality, with the state eager to turn the burgeoning nationalist movements to their advantage by promoting Russian nationalism while suppressing the nationalist thoughts of non-Russian peoples within the empire.
These tools are coupled with one last trick in the Russian Empire's arsenal: the Cossack Hosts. Cossacks have been both a major thorn in the side of the state and an effective arm of the state, and in the 19th century their usage as tools of establishing the state's presence along the frontier and wherever the state deems it necessary to suppress dissent would boom, as Russia pressed deeper into Central Asia and Siberia and as unrest began to grow in the western provinces.
These are powerful tools for the state to use in 1836, but they still depend on leaders making the right calls in the end- the autocracy's power is not absolute. Let's see how else the emperor can muster power, shall we?
Emperor and Autocrat
The Emperor and Autocrat Journal Entry, part of State and Revolution, is a container for the ambitions of Russia’s tsars, remaining for as long as the monarchy does. Through successfully completing their ambitions, the tsars will acquire the ability to wield their Imperial Fiat to issue powerful Ukases, or imperial decrees.
Imperial Fiat is gained both by completing this Journal Entry’s agenda items and foreign policy items in the Ruler of the East category. It may be wielded to promulgate a variety of Ukases, which will aid the tsars in pursuing their vision for the country. The effects of Ukases can range from reducing the Fervor of certain cultures at the cost of radicalization, to improving the effects of certain decrees. Moving off of the Autocracy law will weaken the effects of the Ukase.
Each historical tsar, as well as Alexander II’s firstborn son Nicholas, will have a unique primary agenda containing several agendas based on the aspirations of their reign. These agendas may be completed once certain conditions are fulfilled, progressing the primary agenda. Completing a sufficient amount of these agendas will conclude the primary agenda, granting a sizable sum of Imperial Fiat.
In addition to their primary agenda, each tsar will have several agenda items drawn from a pool of thirteen. Which agenda items may be drawn depends upon the situation of the Empire and the ideology of the tsar. For example, if the Empire has been democratized, a reactionary tsar may draw an agenda to dissolve the Duma and crush all resistance to such a measure.
In addition to the tsar's own agendas, each Favorite appointed by the tsar will provide their own agenda item, tailored to their ideology and personality, making the Favorite's influence felt in matters of national policy.
The Revolution
Hey folks! Let's talk about The Revolution, the other key part of State and Revolution. Victoria 3 already has revolutions, of course, but when it comes to Russian history, there's one history which becomes The Revolution- 1917. That's actually two revolutions, the February and October Revolutions, and that's also glossing over the 1905 Revolution which preceded it, but when The Revolution comes up for discussion, the pop history idea of it is squarely focused on 1917. Let's go over what that is and how we square that with the gameplay mechanics of Victoria 3.
The first thing to get is that the historical outcome of the Revolution- the rise of the Bolsheviks and the formation of the Soviet Union- isn't a fixed thing, nor the sole inevitable outcome of the Russian Empire's decisions. The revolutions, both the 1905 revolution and the February and October Revolutions of 1917, were in reaction to specific conditions and specific triggers. In 1905, a radicalizing liberal movement, the shock of Russian defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, bloody suppression of opposition gatherings, and military mutinies, all came together to spark uprisings across Russia. Faced with a united opposition, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to concede to numerous liberal demands, including an elected duma and universal suffrage, in a document known to history as the October Manifesto. Nicky haaaated these reforms, and actively worked to undo them as soon as he felt he could. In the meanwhile, many Russians thought that they had just fought in The Revolution, and harkened back to the main Revolution they understood- the French Revolution of 1789. Crowds sang La Marseillaise, and wore cockades in the style of French revolutionaries. Ilya Repin's famous painting 17 October 1905 captures this vision of a mass bourgeois revolution, of middle class crowds dressed in red, white, and blue, cheering in victory.
Repin's 17 October 1905
But of course, that wasn't the end of Russian history. In 1914 some Austrian dude was shot in a side street, and Europe decided that now was the time that millions must die. The Russian Empire, as a key part of the Entente, was deeply involved in World War One, but despite some significant numbers on paper, it failed to defeat Germany and the other Central Powers by Christmas 1914, and found itself mired in the same bloody warfare as everyone else. By this time, Nicholas II had managed to defang the liberal duma, and reclaim much of the autocratic power he had exercised before 1905. This was bad for him in two ways: firstly, it meant that by reassociating the government with himself personally, the failures of the government became the Tsar's failures. Secondly, Nicholas II wasn't a skilled politician or skilled commander. Russia fought and fought and fought ineffectively for three years, wearing down men, wearing down supplies, and wearing down the Tsar's standing. Small strikes in March 1917 (still February in the Julian calendar Russia used at the time) rapidly snowballed, leading to mass protests, general strikes, riots, and rifle fire. In about two weeks, the government collapsed, the Tsar abdicated, and the Duma now organized a provisional government- this was it, then, this was The Revolution, right?
Nope! The abdication of the Tsar hadn't made World War One end, or end food shortages, or address any of the other unrest that had led to the end of Romanov rule. The Provisional Government still had to do something to justify itself. The tsarists might have been knocked out for the moment, but there was still another opposition out there- the socialist radicals. The Social Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the Anarchists were all still out there, bolstered if anything by the end of tsarist suppression. When the Provisional Government decided that it must reaffirm Russia's alliances with the Entente and recommit to the war effort, the left grew stronger. When disgruntled officers made attempts to coup the government, the left grew stronger. Every misstep the Provisional Government made, every failure to cement its legitimacy, strengthened the position of the revolutionary left. An issue of "dual power" developed, where the liberal Duma and socialist workers' councils both directed. Finally, in November (October according to the old calendar), tensions reached a boiling point, a Bolshevik uprising kicked off in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), soldiers stormed the Winter Palace, a collective regime of peace and love was declared, and the Russian Civil War kicked off.
How do we translate all this into Victoria 3? We have some constraints, and some gameplay focuses to keep in mind. World War One's role in the 1917 Russian Revolution is that it undermined the Tsar's popularity, tanked the economy, exhausted the populace, and made it that much easier to radicalize everybody. Victoria 3 has ways for governments to lose popularity and legitimacy; we don't need to shoot at Austrians in order to make the tsarist government weak. The historical 1917 Revolution is also very late in the game's timeframe- there's so many possible divergences in history that could have happened by then in Victoria 3 that banking on the historical events that led up to the revolution occurring in the game are fantastically low. That, of course, is when Richard Nixon influenced the design.
There's a fantastic choose-your-own-adventure sort of browser game, ''The Campaign Trail', with a scenario about Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign called 'More Than Ever'. When you start the scenario as Nixon, the Democratic candidate for the presidency hasn't been nominated yet- Nixon's opponent is a nebulous 'The Enemy', but as Nixon pursues different policies, the Democrats settle on a specific direction based in opposition to whatever direction Nixon has decided to go, and depending on the specific policies Nixon has chosen, different Democratic politicians can become the Democratic candidate for president in 1972. I wanted to apply that idea here; the Russian Revolution shouldn't always be predestined to be a liberal revolution and then a communist revolution- it should develop in dynamic opposition to Russia's rulers and policies.
Even before the Revolution first appears as a journal entry, the game starts to keep track of some factors, including the ideologies of the country's past and present rulers. These factors determine if the Russian government is generally 'conservative', 'liberal', or 'socialist'. The preliminary revolutionary opposition is then the largest ideological group that isn't the government's group, and the most popular opposition leader from within that ideological group becomes the leader revolutionaries look to for inspiration. If and when the Revolution kicks off from a political movement gaining enough popularity and militancy to challenge the government, that ideological group will take over Russia, and the revolutionary leader's specific ideology will be used to reshape the laws of Russia. Minding who is popular among the opposition, finding ways to position the government to reorient the opposition in specific ways, all become great ways to influence and shape the ways the Revolution might appear.
Forcing the Revolution to immediately track things in 1836 leads to some funny moments
Of course, that's not the end of it- that first Revolution essentially has created the Provisional Government. Now the new revolutionary government has to secure its hold on power and establish its legitimacy- and even if the old government's ideology has been discredited, the third ideological camp, the smaller of the two old oppositional ideologies, is still around and causing trouble. If the Provisional Government can't keep Russia together and keep its popularity up, that second opposition may just attempt to stage a coup and kick off a real civil war. Outside the core of the country, disaffected nationalities may also rise up in opposition to the shaky new government, and wayward generals may become adventurous warlords. The Revolution is only the start of a new stage in Russia's history- a period of instability, fragmentation and consolidation, and an open question of who will become the new Russia.
Russification
Before the Revolution asks what Russia can become, there's the question of who is Russian. In 1836, Russia is a multiethnic empire, home to countless peoples of different languages and different faiths, just as the ideas of nationalism are about to sweep the world. The idea of 'Official Nationality' was something formulated during Nicholas I's rule in 1833, just before game start, declaring 'Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality' as the three pillars of the tsarist state. Nationality there is Russian nationality- officials recognized something of the power of nationalism, and wanted to ensure that Russian nationalism would be strong enough to keep the empire together.
Russification, then, was of paramount importance for the Russian Empire. The western frontier was split between different areas of non-Russian nationalities all influenced by their own ideas of nationhood and power, and the Russian government saw in that a threat to itself. Promoting Russian identity and making the people of these regions see themselves as Russians first was of paramount importance. If the government succeeded, its fears of separatism and of nationalism tearing the empire apart could be abated, at least a little. If the government failed, though, then the grim specter of Poles, Finns, and Latvians happily celebrating their own identities would shake the vision the government had of Russia's future, radicalize the opposition, and damage the tsar's legitimacy.
Siberian Exile
Opponents of the regime don't have to be tolerated. You are the State! You own Siberia! It's right there! An easy way to deal with dissidents without making them martyrs is to simply exile them into Siberia. If someone is too popular, leading too many people towards some revolutionary ideal you don't like, just send them away!
And who cares what happens to those oppositional voices while they're in the wilderness? They entered with some wacky ideas, and they might end their exile with some wacky ideas. Maybe those ideas are different from the ones they started their exile with, but they were already opponents of the government, so why worry about the details? Surely nothing bad can happen from giving exiled dissidents a lot of spare time and opportunities to communicate with other dissidents, far away from the watchful heart of the empire.
Surely nothing bad can happen.
The tsar is the leader of the nation, and he has all the tools at his disposal to ensure Russia remains steadfast in its loyalty, its identity, and its ideology. Whatever dissident ideas might be muttered in coffeeshops and reading groups can be swiftly dealt with, and can surely pose no real threat to the established order.
And that's all for now, folks! Thank you for reading. Next week, Victoria will cover the content included in State and Revolution for non-Russian countries and cultures.