Operation Zorya Outcome
Zorya has been a smashing success. Within the space of a year, the great majority of the unoccupied Union has been brought under the control of the operations' forces. With the pointed exceptions of the anarchist territories of Orenberg and the Siberian Free Territory, Zorya has overrun virtually all opposition in the Asian parts of the Soviet Union; with only the Turkestan Legion, Afghan Islamists, and Japanese supported Amur still holding out east of the Urals. Not even in the wildest dreams of the Soviet remnants could such a fast reunion have been accomplished, and while there has been some need for purges here and there, such as with Omsk's leadership circles or Lysenko and Yagoda; the first and latter sent off to Dachas to keep their noses out of politics in rehabilitation and the second to a detainment facility; the leadership of the Northern Eurasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is largely uncontested.
There have been some idiosyncracies here and there to drag some into line, such as with the Islamic Marxists in Central Asia or the Christian Socialists in the farther east territories, and upon examination of Kemerovo the decision has been made to keep the Rurikid aesthetic intact for the sake of tourism, but the VKP(B) has largely reasserted its hegemony over the majority of the former anarchy. While the governance so far is more or less provisional and there is a great deal of transport infrastructure work in particular that needs to be done, the sundered Union can properly begin to heal now. Revolutions ended up bringing down the likes of Tomsk, Zlatoust, Yakutia, Pavlodar, and Novisibirsk down from within, while others such as Aktobe, Vologda, Komi, or Krasnoyarsk folded into the Republic with offers of food and medicine.
The EINPAK has begun to allow the Finnish army to move through RK Moscowien to reinforce the remainder of the grand coalition that has clustered around deeply contested leadership. Whereas Emperor Vladimir the Third of Vyatka was the initial leader, following Sergei Taboritsky's murder of Solzhenitsyn over the latter bringing up the former's Jewish maternal ancestry over a particularly angry debate regarding Imperial succession; leadership has been increasingly disputed. Onega and Samara's republican leanings and the open nazi sympathies of the Aryan Brotherhood have further strained the attempts at maintaining the coalition even with heavy Finnish assistance and EINPAK support; the latter so far preventing a full breakout from Gorky. At the present moment, the closest thing to a leadership is Mikhail Antipin, whose Christian faith is the sole unifying element of much of the Russian right...with the noted exception of "high priest" Velimir who advocates for a particularly esoteric form of Slavic Neopaganism. However the "national anarchist" militias of the Aryan Brotherhood have generally been poor opponents.
Finnish attempts at an Arkhangelsk offensive were stopped by Marshal Tukhachevsky's counterattacks which have reached half-way through Onega itself, though with the rather confused nature of troop deployments in this year due to the rush to secure as much territory as possible, offensives have slowed down as the summer of 1962 settles in and frosted terrain turns into meltwater bogland across Northern Russia. Finland is a daunting prospect to invade, with impenetrable forests, rough mountains, frigid swamps, and myriad little waterways. But Murmansk is an invaluable port that currently remains in Finnish hands, something that cannot be allowed to persist. Others worry that Germany will feel a need to intervene if we cross from Karelia into Finland itself to secure one of its major nickel suppliers.
Many in the operational STAVKA have suggested making amphibious attacks on Karelia through the White Sea with the Navy, while the army turns to focus on the West Russian pocket to crush the coalition. Amur has also been suggested as a target for three dimensional envelopment. However for Central and Western Siberia, the fighting is over and rebuilding can begin in earnest.
Analysis of Operation Zorya
This sort of battlefield is essentially ideal for the sort of military doctrine that informs our tactics and operations within likely combat zones in Eurasia and the Americas. Our forces are designed to be able to move very quickly across very large and often underconnected stretches of terrain thanks to the necessity of rapid deployment brought about by the global scale of an expected third world war. Something that has proven uniquely well suited for the rapid scissor manoeuvres that have characterised the North Eurasian Reclamation war. While this alter of Transpermian Russia and Central Asia has proven unexpectedly densely populated and settled given the expected demographics of so thorough a collapse of Soviet civilisation, there are often vast stretches of terrain that need to be crossed before reaching anything of significance before running into densely packed and heavily fortified population centres that form island fortresses in the seas of the Tundra, Steppe, and Taiga.
While almost none of the Warlord forces could be fairly called Peers to even rear-echelon military formations, the eclectic variety of doctrines and approaches to war utilised by hostile warlords allowed for a sort of laboratory of military science. From which we are able to determine that air and mechanised doctrine is highly satisfactory, but heavily armed transport helicopters such as the Mi-21 are less all-purpose than was originally envisioned in contrast to lighter armed transport helicopters with hunter-copter escort. Nevertheless, the Mi-21 gunship has shown a significant amount of promise even if it is not the sole helicopter that air-cavalry formations will need. Artillery coordination, particularly when faced with extremely heavy fortifications, is in need of improvement with Thermobaric weapon stocks having been noted as requiring substantial increasing to deal with heavily dug in forces.
We have also had a rare opportunity to practice our doctrines of revolutionary warfare through carving apart the mechanisms of capital with the advances of our forces and targeted liberatory efforts at civilian populations and production centres. This has confirmed the general findings of "Refined Deep battle" that were developed in response to the post-war situation and the likely need for a massive drive across Europe, Canada, Brazil, and South Asia in event of war. A heavy focus on ensuring that military advances are accompanied by needed supplies for civilian populations may be logistically burdensome but pays dividends in encouraging the embracing of revolutionary praxis or at least not opposing the advance of REDFOR troops.
Coordination with behind the lines partisans have also been shown to be of particular importance. Most every regime has some who are at least sympathetic to the cause of Communism who yearn for freedom within, and these can serve as a crucial fifth column to tie down the enemy's coordination on offense or defence and a crucial source of intelligence that espionage and reconnaissance cannot provide. Deep-Area Operators are well suited for insertion into the rear of enemy areas to engender this cooperation to ensure a whole-populace envelopment of the enemy. Which proved to be of significant assistance in the operation areas of Novosibirsk-Altay, Yakutia, Zlatoust, Yugra, Chita, and Pavlodar in particular. The ability for behind-the-lines partisans to paralyse an enemy's movements should not be overlooked when determining the overall thrust of our operations.
Anarchist cooperation has also shown to be of value as the Siberian Black Army and the Orenberg Militia were of significant assistance in operations in Central and Western Siberia. While the anarchists are still negotiating for their path forwards in the new Soviet government of Alter-North Eurasia, it is relieving to know that Red-Black cooperative efforts pioneered in America remain viable in the current era.
The following is a selection of News for your consideration as I prepare the vote for the next set of actions. More news will of course come, but here's something to chew on.
Other matters (Foreign)
Fiesta with Castro
Fidel Castro of the Alter Cuba has made his choice to align with the communism he has always sympathised with thanks to the offers of patronage by the Vladivostok Compact and has even requested Observer status in the compact with potential outright membership later to ensure the defence of the Cuban revolution against a potentially unreliable US and a deeply hostile Dominica and Haiti. So long as the understanding between the OFN and the VOSCOM continues, the cuban revolution will be secure, but should a more unscrupulous administration take control over his America, he wants his options open. His Cuba can offer a surplus of tropical luxury goods, Chromite, and a means of projecting influence into TNO's Gulf of Mexico, important as the Colombian uprising is seemingly collapsing in the face of the Dominican and Iberian backed ultraconservative and fascist movement. Of course, going for broke on Cuba may anger some in the OFN, and it will likely result in deepened CPS interest in the region as well as the commencement of operations by TNO Japan to look into ways of threatening our own world. Of course, if one wishes to go full speed ahead, Castro's Cuba could be sped towards full membership within the year.
The Italo-Iberian Nuclear Program:
Evidence shared by the CIA suggests that the Italians and Iberians are cooperating on nuclear research in addition to Iberia contributing to Italy's space program. This strongly suggests that Fascist Italy is developing its own independent ICBM technology, likely with assistance from the Imperial Japanese. Based on reported construction, they will likely amass a large number of rockets at first before creating the warheads with Uranium sourced from Morocco and the Levant. While it is likely that Italy will aim most of these warheads at Germany due to the pressing nature of the EINPAK's strategic threat tot he Kingdom of Italy, the new caretaker Duce Scorza's foreign policy is difficult to gauge due to essentially serving as a puppet for the Italian quadrumvirate until they sort out their own internal conflicts.
The Matter of Hitler's birthday
The 20th of April is here and the ECCI has enough spare time to decide on a diplomatic insult directed towards the Fuhrer. What should it be? If anything? Though we could refuse to dignify the monster in the Volkshalle with the consideration of an insult.
Last Days of MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur's health in our own reality's Cuba is only continuing to decline. It is clear that it is unlikely for him to survive another year, but the left in Cuba is extremely weak and disorganised thanks to decades of bloody targeted attacks and repressions and an onslaught of propaganda, as well as significant investment into the island to prop it up by the Franco-British. Already many are lining up to be the next President of the Country, including the Liberal reformist Attorney General Robert F Kennedy, the hawkish Secretary of War Edwin Walker, or the treacherous and scheming NBI chief Allen Dulles who is hoping to use the pliable and incompetent Arthur MacArthur as his frontman to run the country. Douglas' own decisions have been increasingly erratic, infamously firing Avery Brundage from the Olympic Committee purely due to the Americuban team not performing to his satisfaction in 1960 and summarily ordering General George Van Horn Moseley shot after asking for directions to RAF Caribbean Bomber Command's nuclear storage facilities in 1959. Though admittedly few are going to miss Moseley and his warmongering. While the extensive nuclear presence in Cuba and Canada as well as Europe make direct action against the island far too risky to countenance, it is the opinion of DeLeon-Debs Commune in particular that Dulles and Walker not be allowed anywhere near power.
Order restored in the CPS
The philippine and malaysian insurgencies, for the time being, have been put down as a result of Operation Kyu-Go. While the former was full of as many liberal Americanophilic nationalists as it was socialists, the latter was a genuine communist uprising that we unfortunately arrived too late to significantly tip the scales in favour of. But despite this foreign policy success, exposures of corruption within Funada Naka's administration have forced him to resign in disgrace in August of 1962, particularly extensive participation in the Yasuda Zaibatsu's efforts to cook its books in China to guise enormous amounts of tax fraud and false claims of struggling profitability to receive greater investment from the Japanese state. The fallout from the revelation has shaken investor confidence and has resulted in the first quarter since the end of beta World War 2 where the Nipponese economy's growth rate did not itself increase from the prior quarter. Ikeda Hayato, leader of the Kochikai (Broad pond society) Keynesian technocrat faction of the Taisei Yokusankai has swept into power following a protracted power struggle and the rapid-fire exchange of three different prime ministers, Hayato promising a doubling of the average Japanese working man's wage by 1975. A certainly lofty promise given that Nipponese average incomes are already the Beta timeline's highest per capita of any major country
Assassination Attempt on Hitler fails
An unknown agent has attempted an attack on Hitler's life during his Christmas address. Given the extreme newness of our intelligence networks in Beta Deutschland it is unlikely that we or anyone connected to us had anything to do with this. Hitler, already in poor health from a long struggle with Parkinson's disease, was struck by the bullet but quickly resusticated and restabilised, with the gunman, an as of yet unidentified Nipponese Man, having been taken in by the Deutsch police for interrogation after the attempt. No known motive has been discovered and the bewildered, barely coherent state of the gunman and the secrecy of the Nazi state makes it unlikely that answers beyond state propaganda will be forthcoming. Now realising his mortality, Adolf Hitler has decided to begin consideration of his successor. Fritz Dorls, Albert Speer, Hermann Goering, Reinhard Heydrich, and Martin Bormann are all in consideration, but paramilitary supporters of the five have begun campaigns and harassment against perceived rivals.
The Christmas Invasion
The Kingdom of England, in response to fears of foreign intervention on the British Isles, has with EINPAK support, conducted a "policing operation" in Scotland as English troops have crossed the border with mechanised support and air attack while the English navy starts bombardments of the Scottish coast. Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine strikes are following, with the causus belli of Scotland harbouring AFS agents and Communists being offered to justify Operation Bruce as the royal armoured corps spearheads offensives into the Scottish Lowlands on Christmas day, when most of the Scottish defence force was not prepared nor expecting an attack. However the fairly hastily drawn up nature of the offensive has resulted in irregular advances, particularly among soldiers not expecting the Scottish to fight back. It is however, unlikely that the Scottish can hold out on their own in the face of a far more populous country with a greater industrial base such as England, which has made its ultimate ambitions in Scotland ambiguous so far. Other EINPAK member states are committing their support, with the French air force having launched air strikes on several Scottish border outposts. The VOSCOM is currently uncertain of a response to the Scottish situation, and our lack of intelligence assets on the ground in Britain make the overall picture of the war rather muddled. The Comintern is thus being asked to guide a response.
Victor Mike
The Indochina War in our own native timeline continues. Ho Chi Minh's struggle has already liberated the north of the country and parts of Laos with the freely given support of the Communist International, but the war southwards remains a going concern. Indian, Thai, Australasian, and Indonesian troops are being deployed to reinforce the ailing Empire of Vietnam as its forces start to pull towards more defensible positions where possible. With the length of the conflict, the People's Revolutionary Army of Vietnam needs time to recuperate and consolidate. We have already recognised the Hanoi government as the legal authority of Vietnam, though some say it should extend to the whole of former French Indochina. In better news, reactionary forces in Indochina are starting to draw down their commitments and support.
Expanding the Permanent Seven?
The Permanent Seven, consisting of the North American Union of Socialist Council Republics, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Socialist Republic of Zhonghuo Suweiha, the Confederal President of the Pan-American Confederation of Council Socialist Republics (Presently Argentina), the Franco-British Union, the Dominion of the Greater Indian Commonwealth, and the Dominion of the United States of Australasia, are the seven mighty nations of our world who marched to victory against the Axis powers a generation ago. Helming the tweny one member security council, each is invested with the power of veto and signature in the United nations Security Council's decision making, and holds powerful say over the deployment of the "Purple-helms"; the United Nations Armed Humanitarian Intervention Corps. Many ask if the contact with the beta timeline, which lacks any similar organisation, should result in an expansion of the United Nations and thus commensurately an expansion of the security council. Candidates include the Alter-United States of America, the Republic of the United States of Brazil, and the Federal Republic of India. While India would be our favoured candidate, due to the need for the permanent members to remain odd-numbered to prevent ties, another will have to be chosen.
Victory in the Congo!
The Congolese People's Revolutionary Front has defeated the last remaning Belgian loyalist forces, establishing a red foothold in central Africa. Though the fighting was long and difficult and there will be a need for a great deal of rebuilding in the Congo, the worst is finally over. Though the country is surrounded by potential enemies on virtually all sides, it can be reinforced and can serve as a launchpad for further operations on the African continent, much as how Liberia and Somalia have served. While the FBU has shifted its Uranium and Coltan extraction operations over to Australia primarily, this is still a significant victory for Socialism and the dream of a free Africa.
The Belgian Collapse
Already rocked by protests against the bloody Congo war and the years of wartime draft, as well as Belgian military spending serving in large part to lock it out of much of the post-war economic boon; the Belgian government collapsed shortly after the announce of the final ceasefire and withdrawal agreement in July of 1962. With another coalition not being able to be formed and the Belgian King in disgrace, an attempt by Leon DeGrelle; once in hiding under a false name and cosmetic surgery; to launch a "national Walloonian restoration" and seize control to offer a faultline to OS-Burgund in the hopes of "reviving national socialism" in Belgium has been used as a pretext; along with significant street conflict between Flemish and Walloon nationalists, Belgian Unionists, and leftists; to launch an Alliance intervention into the country. By November of 1962, following the brief but thorough invasion of Belgium by the FBU, the netherlands, and West Germany; the country was formally partitioned and dissolved. Patrice Lumumba, in response to the news, declared a day of celebration across the Socialist Republic of the Congo.
Other Matters (Domestic)
Confronting the Past
Timeline Beta presents a number of difficult questions for the governments of the Socialist Republic of Italy, the Free Socialist Republic of Deutschland, the Socialist Republic of Romania, the Socialist Republic of Bulgaria, the Socialist Republic of Hungarian Soviets, and the Socialist Republic of Nippon. Particularly the uncomfortable questions raised by the actions of people's alters and how they reflect on themselves. While we cannot function as the psychologist for the entirety of the population being governed by the Comintern, there might be a need for some action, such as another look at those who have been rehabilitated. On the other hand, some would say that re-opening these past matters for those who have already been forgiven would be a step towards needless paranoia and repression.
A new Nihonjin Navy
The Nipponese Red Revolutionary Navy is infantile after the prolonged period of lowered construction due to the restrictions placed on the provisional government. Six years after the end of the provisional government, the NRRN is facing a decision of doctrine. The NRRN has commissioned Aircraft Carriers and Super Cruisers to fill out its new navy to counteract the patrols of the massive Australasian fleet with greater capability than the Socialist Revolutionary Liberation Army Navy is currently capable of managing. However, there is the question as to whether Nippon needs to once again be a first-rate naval power, or if it should focus on a more supportive role in the face of great might of the Workers and Farmers' Revolutionary Navy Pacific Fleet, like the Soviet Pacific Fleet. Others are of the opinion that Nippon should curtail its militarism lest it go down a red-tinted Concordiast path, especially in the face of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. To name only a handful of positions being raised by the All-Nippon Assembly of the Soviets.
Embracing the Red Spring
The first post-war generation is starting to come of age and is pushing for realisations of the revolution in all things. Not merely economic but cultural and personal. A desire to make moves not merely towards the evolution of the dictatorship of the proletariat but the development of genuine communism and the abolition of the tyranny of market economics and commodity production. They seek a full liberation of sexuality, of race, of gender, of culture as a whole, for the aspirations of the freedom of the human spirit and justice for the labouring masses to be realised to the fullest and for all of the old chains to be shattered. Many, particularly those of more conservative or agrarianist strains are uncomfortable with this, feeling that it frays at the social cohesion of society and plays into anti-communist propaganda. Others see this as simply not the affairs of the Revolutionary State and a matter for the populace to decide on its own rather than endorsing things one way or the other. On the other hand, Nixon built his career on riding this wave.
The Space Race
The race is on to put a man on the moon (either Reds! or TNO's moon, either works) is on and the vast resources of the Communist International can be put together to make this possibility a reality. Other important milestones include the launching of the first permanent space stations from which long-term research and observation can be conducted and the grand tour of the solar system, a once in a millennium opportunity to explore the solar system in a single launch with chemical thruster probes and finally; the first to land a mechanical probe on the red planet of Mars. While much of this is undeniably showboating, there are immense advances in ICBM technology associated with developing rocketry in this way, and advancing your spacelift capability lets you put larger and more capable satellites in Earth orbit able to provide multiple practical benefits.
The Space Race is not simply a prestige thing though it certainly is a flex to do well in it. Advancing it directly improves your ICBMs, your ability to monitor situations on either Earth, the amount of infrastructure you can put into Space, and offers a number of technology events. While it's not the end all and be all of the cold war, if you can get a large quantity of materiel and people in space, you can do a lot. Satellites and Space Stations are both immensely useful, and any serious Anti-Ballistic Missile Grid is going to require a massive commitment to space infrastructure. GPS and weather forecasting systems as well as spy satellites will all require space infrastructure as well, and there are a great many military benefits to improving your space network.
Big milestones in essence, are a way to keep public interest in these things high with more prestige oriented goals so that more mundane but probably more important goals will be easier to achieve with a higher number of Cosmonauts and Astrophysicists. Milestones include manned Lunar Missions, translunar probe missions, space station construction, lunar base construction, asteroid probe missions, and more. Later on, more sophisticated objectives such as a manned Mars mission or the construction of spacedocks will be unlocked provided enough technology and infrastructure is ready.
Many rocket types that make certain space missions much easier such as Ion drives or Nuclear Pulse Rockets for translunar missions are best not done until you have spacedocks, the former due to struggling to achieve escape velocity and the latter because detonating a nuclear warhead at Baikonur or Cape Caernarval every time you launch is kind of a dumb play as most would agree. Fusion Torches are the holy grail of "conventional" rockets but are at the end of a rather lengthy tech tree. And of course, this is a quest based on paradox settings so space investment will dovetail into the sequel of this quest later on. Though that's IRL years away most likely so don't fret too hard.
The major space programs will be listed every turn with their publicly stated and if you have sufficient intelligence, secret priorities listed and the estimations of their progress towards that goal. You of course, will also get to see contributions by member states of the COMECON group and their current scale of commitments, while at this stage in the game the other alliance blocs are very dominated by a singular member with the exception of the accord between the Triumvirate and CPS which ultimately still maintain separate programs.
discord.gg
