Red Tide

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Michele

Save the Soviet one... :-). And what about sincerely Communist Poles or Rumanians or Latvians? Then you also have the all-is-not-lost guys on the _other_ side, the Finns.

Good point about the Finns.

As for sincerely Communist Poles or Rumanians or Latvians, they end up either as insincere toadies or as sincere inhabitants of the Gulag. The Revolution devours it's own.

[flyingwombat]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Good point about the Finns.

As for sincerely Communist Poles or Rumanians or Latvians, they end up either as insincere toadies or as sincere inhabitants of the Gulag. The Revolution devours it's own.

What about German communists? I remember reading in Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle" that this earnest German communist had been hiding out in a rural community N. West of Berlin. The man had dreams of converting the community into a "workers' paradise" -- he even had some of the locals onboard. This man also suffered from stomach pain which started shortly after Hitler came to power. As the war was winding down and the Soviets were about to liberate his community the stomach pain was gone. He was very happy when they arrived.

A few months later he had a meeting with a commissar who listed for several minutes the plan he had for re-building the community. The commissar's answer was "Nyet". The man's stomach pains returned.

[smurf]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Good point about the Finns.

As for sincerely Communist Poles or Rumanians or Latvians, they end up either as insincere toadies or as sincere inhabitants of the Gulag. The Revolution devours it's own.

The revolution was long dead before then.

Many resistance groups looked towards the east by a bad idea that if X is bad, then Y must be good.

Also there was a plethora of resistance movements up and down the fronts, including ones in Germany.

In some instances the best leadership came from those who fought in the Spanish Civil War, however the factions within that war lead to entrenching the idea of political factions.

Some just sided with the 'lesser of 2 evils' another misnomer, as it removes the choice of siding with no 'evil'.

[Daniilka]

Originally Posted by jimminy

Outside the world is no paradise, and people barely scrape by. There are rumours of starvation in recent times, and of unrest amongst the peasants. But you can get ice cream in several flavours! At least one PC originally comes from a Ukrainian village, but he headed to the big city...

why only in Ukraine?

translation of several articles:

History of Russia is a long number of the hungry years. Crop failures in tsarist Russia repeated every 6-7 years, lasting for two years in a row.
During the second half of the XIX century cruelty differed famines generated harvests 1873, 1880, 1883, 1891, 1892, 1897 and 1898. In XX century, particularly stood out famine, 1901, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1911 and 1913. The causes of mass starvation in the XX century were not in the sphere of exchange, and in the production of bread, and they were caused primarily extreme fluctuations in Russian harvests due to their low absolute magnitude and lack of land held by the population, which, in turn, gave him an opportunity to accumulate in the good years cash or grain stocks. The exceptional instability of Russian crop - primarily the result of adverse climatic conditions. The most fertile areas are extremely erratic rainfall. Along with low yields, one of the economic prerequisites for mass starvation in Russia was inadequate supply of land to the peasants. A possible cause of this phenomenon was the elimination of serfdom.
Dislocation, economic chaos, the power crisis and the refusal of assistance from foreign governments after the Civil War caused a new famine in 1921/22 he .. This famine was the first in the nascent Soviet Union. Regional and local problems of food and starvation among certain segments of the population, caused by various factors, periodically emerged and during 1923-31 period. Second mass starvation in the Soviet Union broke out in the 1932/33 years. the period of collectivization. And, finally, after the Great Patriotic War, the population of the Soviet Union seized the last in the history of the Soviet Union famine 1946/47 years.

Famine in Russia 1921-1923 better known as the famine in the Volga region 1921-1923. Known as the famine in the Volga region, due to the fact that the regions of the Southern Urals and the Volga region suffered the most prolonged and massive. Peak famine came in autumn 1921-spring 1922, although incidents of mass starvation in some regions were recorded in autumn 1920 to early summer 1923. According to official statistics Hunger covered 35 provinces with a population of 90 million people are starving from not less than 40 million from famine and its consequences were killed about 5 million. Mortality increased by 3-5 times (Samara, Bashkortostan and Tatrespublika mortality increased from 2.4-2.8 to 12.3-13.9 per 100 souls per year).

Famine in the USSR 1932-1933. - Mass starvation in the USSR on the territory of Ukraine, North Caucasus, Volga region, the Southern Urals and Western Siberia and Kazakhstan.
Common estimates of the number of victims of famine 1932-1933, made by various authors, vary considerably and reach 8 million people, although the latter estimate - 7 million people. Theme 1932-1933 famine in Soviet information space for the first time there was only towards the end of perestroika. To date, information on post-Soviet space have a clear idea of the famine of 1932-1933 as one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the Soviet period.

Famine in the USSR 1946-1947 - mass starvation in the Soviet Union after World War II.
According to researchers, post-war famine was a consequence of a combination of factors:
* The collapse of the rural economy, already weakened by the collectivization of 1930 (see graph), due to the effects of war (lack of manpower, equipment and horses, the destruction of many villages in Ukraine and the Black Earth, etc.). Thus, the number of able-bodied men of the rural population after the war rolled back to the level of 1931, the supply of agricultural machinery during the war actually took place, the number of horses is about 45% of pre-war gross agricultural output during the war years was reduced by 40% and livestock fell in Compared with the end of 1930;
* Drought, 1946, which led to a significant but not catastrophic decline harvest. Grain harvest in 1946 amounted to 39.6 million tons - a 16% lower than a year earlier and 2.4 times lower than in 1940;
* The policy of the Soviet authorities: exporting grain abroad, including to achieve political goals, a strategic grain reserve in the event of another war, despite the extremely poor security of Soviet citizens with food, increasing the tax burden on the population in parallel with a decrease in wage and price increases.
There is evidence of 4.43 million tonnes of exports for the years 1946-48, and from 1.23 million tons exported in 1946 at least 500 thousand tons were exported to France in the first half of the year - that is, before the famine, as in 1948 (after graduation) was exported 2.59 million thus directly during famine abroad were brought up to 1.4 million tons of grain.
An approximate count of the number of famine victims of 1946-47gg. is difficult because of the lack of reliable demographic statistics for this period (between 1939 and 1959 censuses were not), attempts by the authorities to conceal the scale and the fact of hunger (the secret correspondence in 1946, 47gg, "drought" and "the consequences of war in 1980), weakening control over the current population in the postwar years. It is known that in 1947, official mortality in the USSR has increased in 1,5 times (approximately 800 thousand people, half of which accounted for the RSFSR), worsened, and other demographic indicators (fertility, marriage registration, etc.) . In early 1947 sverhsmertnost from hunger in the RSFSR and the Ukraine blocked the natural growth of population, rural population has declined by nearly 1 million people. According to M. Ellman total of hunger in 1946-47gg. in the Soviet Union died from 1 to 1.5 million people. Some researchers believe these figures are inflated.

[Daniilka]

Originally Posted by Randyman

That's pretty much my take as well. Only I've played in a lot of games that never got out of the survival stage and ended prematurely (in most cases because the survival stage dragged on too long). As a result, I'm burned out on that kind of game, probably permanently.

Well you can play for SMERSH

SMERSH ( "Death to Spies", Soviet military counterintelligence). Converted from the Office of the special divisions of the NKVD on 19 April 1943.

Aims and objectives, as well as the status of its employees:

• "Head of the General Office of Counterintelligence NCB [" SMERSH "] is the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, placed directly under the People's Commissar of Defense and serves only its disposal"
• "SMERSH organs are centralized organization: at the front and district authorities SMERSH subject only to its parent bodies"
• "SMERSH organs inform the military councils, and command of the relevant units and agencies and the Red Army on its work: the results of the struggle against the agents of the enemy, on the part of the Army infiltrated the anti-Soviet elements, the results of the fight against treason and betrayal, desertion, mutilation"
• Solving problems:

1. the fight against espionage, sabotage, terrorist and other subversive activities of foreign intelligence services in units and institutions of the Red Army;
2. the fight against anti-Soviet elements who had infiltrated into the units and the establishment of the Red Army;
3. the adoption of the necessary intelligence-operational and other [via command] measures to create conditions at the front, excluding the possibility of impunity for the passage of agents of the enemy across the front line in order to make the front line impervious to spyware and anti-Soviet elements;
4. the fight against the treachery and treason in the units and institutions of the Red Army [desertion to the enemy, harboring spies and generally facilitate the work of the past];
5. the fight against deserters and mutilation at the front;
6. Verification of the military and others who were in captivity and surrounded by the enemy;
7. Special assignments People's Commissar of Defense.
8. SMERSH organs are exempt from holding any other work not directly related to the tasks listed in this section

• SMERSH organs have the right:

1. to conduct intelligence-Publicity work;
2. to produce in accordance with the law to seize, search and arrest soldiers of the Red Army, as well as associated persons of civilians suspected of criminal activity;
3. to conduct investigation of cases of arrested with subsequent transfer of cases by agreement with prosecutors before the appropriate judicial authorities or the Special Meeting of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
4. apply various special activities designed to identify criminal activities of agents of foreign intelligence services and anti-Soviet elements;
5. cause, without prior coordination with the command in cases of operational necessity and for questioning the ordinary and command commanding the Red Army.

• "SMERSH organs completed by a former operative of the Office of the special divisions of the NKVD of the USSR and a special selection from among the military command officers and the political composition of the Red Army. "In connection with it," employees of agencies "SMERSH" are assigned military ranks, specified in the Red Army ", and" employees of "SMERSH" are in uniform, epaulets and other insignia set for the respective arms of the Red Army. "

SMERSH activities include filtering the soldiers who returned from captivity, as well as pre-cleaning the front line of German agents and anti-Soviet elements (with the NKVD troops for the protection rear of the existing Army and the territorial organs of the NKVD). SMERSH has actively participated in the search, detention and the conduct of investigations in cases of Soviet citizens, operating in the anti-Soviet armed groups which fought on the side of Germany, such as the Russian Liberation Army.

The main opponent of SMERSH in its counter-espionage activities was Abwehr, German intelligence and counterintelligence services in 1919-1944, field gendarmerie and RSHA, the Finnish military intelligence.

Service SMERSH agents was extremely dangerous - an average operative served 3 months, then dropped out after the death or injury. Only during the battle for the liberation of Belarus were killed 236 and missing 136 military counterintelligence. The first front-line counter-intelligence officer, awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously) was St.Leytenant Zhidkov PA - Branch detective SMERSH counterintelligence infantry battalion 71 th Mechanized Brigade 9 th Mechanized Corps, the 3rd Guards Tank Army.

However, the reputation of SMERSH as a repressive body is often exaggerated in contemporary literature. Contrary to popular belief, bodies SMERSH could not sentence someone to jail or be shot, because not a judicial body. Judgments were given a military tribunal or a Special Meeting of the NKVD. An arrest warrant for the average of counter-intelligence team were supposed to receive from the Military Council of the Army or the front, and senior and senior commanding structure - from the People's Commissar of Defense. However, SMERSH has been serving as the secret police forces, each compound had its own NKVD, who led the case to the soldiers and officers who have problematic biographies, and recruiting agents. Often the agents of SMERSH showed heroism on the battlefield, especially in a situation of panic and retreat.

Blocking detachments under the organs of SMERSH never created, and members of SMERSH they never led. At the beginning of the war protective measures implemented by NKVD troops for the protection of the army in the rear. In 1942 began to set up defensive squads in each army, was at the front. In fact, they were intended to maintain order during the fighting. Only the head of blocking detachments Stalingrad and South-Western Front in September-December 1942, were employees of the special divisions of the NKVD.

To ensure the operational work, escort locations, escort and protection of detainees from the Red Army to the military counter-intelligence SMERSH stood out: for front-line management of SMERSH - a battalion; for the Army Department - rota; for the department corps, division and brigade - the platoon. As far as blocking detachments, the protective service is actively used by employees SMERSH agents to search for enemy intelligence agents. For example, on the eve of the offensive operations of large scale fronts acquired with the participation of SMERSH activities under blocking service. In particular, conducted sweeps of military garrisons, to 500 and more settlements with the surrounding forests, was carried out inspection of non-residential premises, thousands of abandoned huts. During such "sweeps", as a rule, delaying the large number of undocumented persons, deserters and soldiers who had their hands on documents, with signs indicating their production in the Abwehr.

The military counter-intelligence SMERSH agents sometimes not only fulfill their direct duties, but also directly participated in the battles with the Nazis, often at critical moments, takes command by companies and battalions who have lost their commanders. Many army security officers were killed while on duty, task command of the Red Army and the Navy.

SMERSH operatives in their forensic practice, preferred individual firearm as a single officer with a gun at all times aroused the curiosity of others (A. Potapov, "Techniques of firing a pistol. SMERSH Practice"). The most popular guns following: 1. Revolver system "Nagan" self-cocking officer sample 1895, 2. TT pistol sample 1930-1933 he was 3. Walther PPK 4. Borchard-Luger (Parabellum-08) 5. Walther pistol, Model 1938 6. Pistol Beretta M-34 "9 mm. 7. Special Operations sabotage compact pistol Lignose, caliber 6.35 mm. 8. Pistol "Mauser Hsc» 9. "The Czech Zbroevka caliber 9 mm. 10. Browning, 14 charger, model 1930-th year

Search and cleaning of secret underground bunkers of the Nazis. Identification and neutralization of enemy agents. A wide range of powers ... Nurses in the hospitals ...

Detective, race, dungeon crawling, romance ...

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Michele

Since we're at it, let's mention Defiance, then - which might be better known than Levi's works. Does that portray what you have in mind?

I recommend the book, rather than the movie.