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Nephilim Jetfighter

2020-07-09T20:07:48Z

2600:6C58:637F:E506:C8FF:B94B:4200:4641:

[[File:Nephilim Jetfighters.jpg|right|250px|thumb|One of the few aerodynamic planes from the SPESS MEHREENS.]]
The '''Nephilim Jetfighter''' is the [[Dark Angels]]' air superiority fighter. It is flown by the [[Ravenwing]] to allow their ground-bound battle-brothers to focus on <s>catching [[Fallen Angels]]</s> SHOWING THEIR DEVOTION TO THE EMPEROR without having to worry about getting attacked from the air.

The Jetfighter was added to the Dark Angels' [[Codex]] in [[6th edition (Warhammer 40,000)|6th edition]] to help set them apart from the other [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]] of [[Space Marines]] that get their own codices. The [[lore]] justification is that the Dark Angels had the Jetfighters for longer, but only recently found the [[STC]] pattern of a superior engine that made them practical to use (though given that the Nephilim is neither Supersonic nor Fast, the previous engine must have been really bad to force the Dark Angels to keep them grounded).

Also what the [[Stormtalon]] ''should'' have looked like. With the [[Corvus Blackstar]]. The Nephilim shares the distinction of being one of the few non [[Great Crusade]]/[[Horus Heresy]] era Astartes aircraft that doesn't look like a metal box with wings and engines stuck on it.

Nephilim Jetfighters pack a twin-linked set of [[heavy bolter]]s and six "blacksword" missiles (36" S7 AP3, named because of their black smoke trail -- which is a lot more sensible than the [[Blood Angels]]' "bloodstrike" missiles), with a choice of twin-linked [[lascannon]]s or an [[Avenger mega bolter]] in the nose. Not the most difficult of choices. Though, having twinlinked lascannons in place of the standard heavy bolters would make more sense given the mega bolter. Can help conserve ammo and soften particularly hard targets for the bolter to finish off.

This fighter is excellent proof that if the different organizations of the Imperium would learn to share and not be selfish assholes, the Long War would be Long Over by now. Seriously, the Dark Angels use this thing to mow down every enemy air craft, even Eldar (the ones who get 40-1 kill-death ratios against Lightnings). Do they share this with the Guard? Hell no! They don't even share it with other Space Marines.

The jerkasses could at least give the Guard and the Navy the data for making damn blacksword missiles. Screw the Mechanicus, they have enough toys to dickslap. Besides, if they got it no one would hear of it again for a few centuries, if ever. Additionally, the mere name of this vehicle is highly ironic, as 'Nephilim' is commonly assumed to mean the [[Fallen Angels]] of Christian myth and [[Heresy|was the Calibanite name for Daemons]].

==Dark Talon==
[[File:Dark_Talon.jpg|right|250px|thumb|{{Blam|FWOOOOOOM!}}]]
The older, edgier brother of the Nephilim jetfighter, the Dark Talon uses the exact same chassis as the Nephilim save for some sweet Gothic arches and religious symbols plastered on its tail. The main differences, however, are the Talon's guns. Instead of the Mega Bolter or Twin Lascannon, it rocks the nasty Rift Cannon, a gun that literally rips a tear in the Warp within whatever it hits (see the FWOOM picture to the right). For some extra guns, it replaces the missiles with twin Hurricane Bolters to shred up infantry wherever it strafes. Speaking of strafing, the final and most infamous weapon of the Talon is its Stasis Bomb, a bomb that's dropped on enemy units, temporarily altering spacetime itself to freeze whatever it hits. <s> This is often used to capture [[Fallen Angels]] </s> DETAIN ENEMIES OF MANKIND to then be taken back up to [[The Rock]] for interrogation. Typically, a Dark Talon is accompanied by one or two Nephilim Jetfighters for protection against enemies, making sure they do maximum damage to whatever they fly over.

(7th Edition) It's basically a variant of the Nephilim, in the same way a Darkshroud is a variant of the Land Speeder (both are rocking the "Bolt a bunch of kickass masonry to the hulls" look). It's got a Rift Cannon (a STRENGTH 10 AP 2 BLAST), two Hurricane Bolters and a Stasis Bomb. It lost the '''Hover Strike''' special rule but it gets ''Strafing Run'' base.

All complaints about this thing are gone. It doesn't need to "Hover" any more, so it can drop a can of derp on a unit, then use the Rift Cannon to obliterate anything (it becomes a Vortex is you roll doubles for scatter) and it can shoot 12 BS5 re-rollable bolter shots to take out hordes. It's weapons may not exactly go hand in hand, it can come on, take out/debuff a unit for your Knights to take care of, then Rift Cannon the heck out of some termis or a vehicle. If your opponent has a couple large squads, the hurricane bolters will take care of them. It may not have any anti-air capabilities, but the Dark Talon got a huge buff in 7th.

(8th Edition) Whaddya know, 8th Edition swooping in to buff this nasty guy even more. The Rift Cannon is now a Heavy D3 Strength 10 AP -3 weapon. Its Rift vortex works way better, no longer rolling scatter doubles, but now if the cannon cause any wounds to the target you roll a D6 against the Rift Vortex chart (3+/4+/5+ scaling with remaining wounds) and if you make the roll it deals an additional D3 Mortal Wounds. Pretty nasty stuff. Also like other 8th edition vehicles it starts with a BS of 3+, scaling up to a 4+ or 5+ depending on remaining wounds.

(9th Edition) 9th Edition coming in once again to make this guy's life a whole lot easier. Rift Cannon now gains the new version of the Blast ability, meaning if it's dumping its shots into 6 or more guys for whatever reason it'll automatically have its 3 shots. The nicest addition to the Talon as well as the Nephilim is they gain the 9th Edition "Aircraft" rules, meaning they can fly off the board and enter into strategic reserves instead of just blowing up for "reasons." It can then scream BUENOS DIAS PENDEJOS as next turn it teleports in up to 9" away from enemy units before raining death on them.

==Tabletop Analysis==
The Nephilim and Dark Talon <s> are </s> were rather unpopular choices for a Dark Angels army, but their weaknesses have kinda been blown out of proportion. They're not bad, they're just overpriced and [[overcosted]] for what they can bring. 7th edition gave them more buffs, so they certainly aren't bad, more in the realm of iffy.

Both flyers [[Butthurt|suffered the sin]] of being the second "true" flyers out of the gate in the 6th Edition: The Heldrake that preceded it was rapetastically awesome (until the 7th ed FAQ) showing that the design team were still trying to figure out how these newfangled rules work. It was only after "Death from the Skies" came out that pre-existing Storm-talons/ravens became proper flyers as opposed to fast skimmers and they '''already''' had enough firepower to get by in the 6th edition environment, they only really needed ''(and received)'' the "flyer" rule to be added to them.

Anyway, onto the Dark Angels. For 170 pts you get a TL Heavy Bolter, six S7 AP3 missiles with Missile Lock, and an Avenger Mega Bolter. The only problem so far is this isn't the "real" AMB, it's a stripped-down AP4 version. For 5 points you can swap it for a TL Lascannon.

The Nephilim is great against skimmers and other light tanks, but an 175 point investment that can't kill AV14 and takes three or four turns to kill AV12 is just too iffy for most players. That's only [[Rage|25 points less]] than a [[Stormraven]] with the same lascannon + heavy bolter loadout. But the raven has far better missiles, +1 AV all round, ceramite plating, power of the machine spirit also has a transport capacity and can carry dreadnoughts

However, with the advent of the Death from the Skies supplement and the assignment of flyers into set roles, the Nephilim got a buff, mostly as a side effect when you compare it to what happened to other flyers:

Attack Flyers and Bombers no longer have access to the Skyfire rule by default, meaning the Nephilim has little to fear from more heavily armed Stormravens or Stormtalons. Despite being comparatively undergunned for a "Fighter", the ability to immobilise enemy vehicles makes it much more of a threat against its primary target ''(other Flyers)'' It also has more AV & HP than most other Fighters, matched only by the Stormfang Gunship, but the Nephilim is also FAR more maneuverable than the Wolf-interceptor, so does better in a dogfight and turns more easily on the tabletop.

Finally, despite the fact that Fighter craft are now primarily intended for use vs other Flyers, suffering -1 BS when shooting ground targets, the Nephilim keeps the ''Strafing Run'' rule so it gains +1 BS right back again. Meaning it hasn't lost much of its function against ground targets like all other Fighters did with the move into set roles. Whatever that means, because it's guns weren't exactly shattering worlds in the first place.

Now 8th edition: Firstly, it's hell of a lot easier to run this thing as most detachments have at least 2 Flyer slots, secondly, this thing turned from possibly one of the worst Flyers in the game to a really scary unit. Why? All of its weapons got an upgrade in some way; the Blacksword Missiles are now good against 2+ save stuff due to how AP works in this edition and they're no longer finite, the Avenger Mega Bolter went up to 10 shots at Strength 6 AP-1 essentially making it an Assault Cannon with 10 shots and the Twin Heavy Bolter and Twin Lascannon now gain double shots because of 8th edition again. This thing reunites Dark Angels, Flyers and Dakka together. Cool.

===Dark Talon===
As for the Dark Talon, it's far harder to directly compare to any other flyer since nothing else performs a similar role. Dropping your opponent's Initiative and Weapon Skill by 3 is always hilarious, doubly so when you drop a Blind test on his snipers immediately afterwards, but for 160 points the fact it has only one bomb and the lack of AP wasn't doing it any favors. But that was 6th ed; this is 7th ed where it drops a '''S10 AP2 Blast''' that has a 1 in 6 chance of becoming a '''Destroyer Vortex'''. Fucking hell YES!

In 8th edition this was changed again but only because Blast templates no longer exist; it gets D3 shots, S:10 AP:-3 D:3, and anything that takes an unsaved wound has a 2 in 3 chance to suffer D3 additional ''mortal wounds''. Stasis bomb also got tweaked; once per game, pick an enemy unit you flew over, and roll a D6 for ''each'' model. On a 4+ that model takes a mortal wound. [[Rape|Sensing a pattern here.]] Then there's 24 Hurricane Bolter shots at rapid fire range. That is even more sexy than before.

==Gallery==
===Nephilim Jetfighter===
<gallery>
image:NephilimJetfighterProfile.jpg|<center>Front View</center>
image:NephilimJetfighterSideView.jpg|<center>Side View</center>
image:NephilimJetfighterBackView.jpg|<center>Back View</center>
</gallery>
===Dark Talon===
<gallery>
image:DarkTalonProfile.jpg|<center>Front View</center>
image:DarkTalonSideView.jpg|<center>Side View</center>
image:DarkTalonBackView.jpg|<center>Back View</center>
</gallery>
===Conversions===
<gallery>
image:PC120049.JPG|A Nephilim converted to [[Counts As|serve as]] a [[Stormtalon]]
</gallery>

{{Dark Angels}}
{{40k-Imperial-Vehicles}}

[[Category:Dark Angels]]

Communism

2020-07-09T14:19:18Z

2600:6C58:637F:E506:C8FF:B94B:4200:4641: the points are actually valid

{{flamewar}}
{{awesome}}
[[Image:Communismleaders.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Contrary to western propaganda, this is how communism has always worked]]

{{topquote|Under [[capitalism]], man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.|Anonymous radio host from Soviet Armenia; also attributed to Yakov Smirnov}}
{{Topquote|MASH THE DIRTY RED SCUM! KICK THEM IN THE TEETH WHERE IT HURTS! KILL! KILL, KILL! FILTHY BASTARD COMMIES! I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM! AH! AH!|Ordo Xenos Inquisitor John Cleese, responding to the threat of the Damocles Crusade}}
{{topquote|Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.|Adlai Stevenson I}}

'''Communism''' can refer to two concepts: the society where the economy is collectively managed and organised government is replaced by local communes (hence the name), and the (usually) authoritarian ideology that seeks to instate such a perfect society. Communism in the first sense had been tried in various villages through the early nineteenth century before fizzling out, but most people are only interested in the second sense, due to its enormous impact on the twentieth century. Communism the ideology is generally associated with oligarchic rule of the "vanguard party" and a degree of central planning; it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, as well as a few minor powers such as Yugoslavia and Vietnam, during the Cold War. It is still, albeit in a very modified form, adhered to in a few countries today, such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea and Cuba.

In many ways, it is the opposite of [[capitalism]].

==Overview==
The ideology of communism is highly diverse, as numerous thinkers have proposed different definitions and pathways to a communist society, yet most modern communists, in one way or another, derive their ideas from the writings of Karl Marx: hence, it is Marxist communism that will be discussed here. Even then, a full explanation is far beyond the scope of this wiki, so [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism Wikipedia] might be a better bet if you want to get into the philosophical and economic details.

Most non-Marxist communists are more anti-authoritarian (e.g. Kropotkin, Makhno), so they are usually classified as [[Malal|anarchists]] instead. However, even Marxist communism is not homogenous, ranging from the more extremist (Hoxhaism, Stalinism aka Marxism-Leninism) to more moderate (Titoism, Kadarism, traditional Marxism), sometimes mixed with nationalism (Juche), liberal capitalism (Dengism) or - ironically given communism's recurring [[Imperial Truth|anti-religion]] tendency - ''Catholicism'' (Liberation theology). Perhaps the reason why there are so many different variations of communism is because Marx and Engels' blueprint is so vague in many places (it didn't help that Marx died before finishing Das Kapital) that it lends itself to a dizzying array of interpretations, for better or worse.

Marxism originates with the work of (newsflash) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Engels was the working son of an industrialist, while Marx got a PhD in law and spent much of his life in academia and radical politics; this arguably makes them the world's first [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee|socialist justice warriors.]] These two developed their economic theories as a response to the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Marx observed that while the mechanization of production was a good thing since it generated a lot of wealth, he believed it was [[Rage|grossly unfair]] since said wealth was accumulating in the pockets of only a few [[Games Workshop|fucking rich pricks]] and most other people lived in Victorian poverty. He further saw this as another step in a long historical trend in which a class that owned the means of production (i.e. factories, land, etc.) exploited and dominated a lower class that had to sell its labor power to survive.

Marx viewed society as being on a very clear cut path of social evolution with clearly defined phases, based on his interpretation of Hegelian philosophy (we suggest you look that up yourself, it's too complicated to make into a pithy explanation here). Every phase represented a different form of economy and social hierarchy, and, while starting out "progressive", would eventually [[Imperium of Man|fall into degradation]] as it exceeded its limits. At this point, this decayed socio-economic system would have to be overthrown and replaced with a more just and advanced one, starting a new phase: Marx considered the Fall of the Roman Empire (transition from individual slavery to land-based feudalism) and the revolutions of the 19th century (transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism) to be the moments when such a transition occurred. He believed that capitalism was rapidly approaching its own collapse and replacement.

The new social order, Marx believed, would be collectivist, atheist and classless: as industrial production required people to work together on a large scale, so too would the new system of government. The new society would start out more authoritarian (socialism) before its government would eventually dissolve (communism proper). The economy would be controlled by the workers rather than by individual shareholders, competition would be discouraged in favor of a more collective-oriented mindset, and religion (which Marx considered an obsolete "opiate of the masses") would fade away when it was no longer needed to distract people from the poor conditions they lived in. Most importantly, the new order would end the traditional state of affairs in which one class dominated all others through its control of the means of production (e.g. factories) and allow for true equality and prosperity for everyone.

However, Marx and Engels never gave a clear outline of how such a society could be created or what it would look like, and the first one to put it into practice on a national scale (Vladimir Lenin) gave it a distinctly authoritarian spin which only got worse with Stalin.

As a whole, most forms of Marxism are highly skeptical of liberal democracy (albeit supportive of the democratic process itself and direct democracy in particular), as it is considered to be corrupt and easily manipulated by the wealthy. In its place, communists propose the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Before you jump to conclusions, Marx considered all forms of government to be a form of dictatorship in that one class held absolute power over all others; in this case, the class in question would be the workers, who would use the innately authoritarian power of the state to ensure that a worker-controlled democratic decision-making process would not be opposed by reactionary elements attempting to re-establish the old order. According to Marx, this dictatorship would last only long enough to eliminate the differences between classes- as the state's existence is due to said class differences, this would eventually lead the state to dissolve when it was no longer needed.

Marx himself wrote little about how this would function or how it would come into being, presumably because he believed that it would be up to the workers to decide that. As mentioned above, this would unintentionally give a lot of people an opportunity to present their personal take on it as ''the'' way communism would be achieved, and by that time Marx was too dead to disagree.

In Leninism, Marxism-Leninism, and their offshoots, the dictatorship of the proletariat takes form of the "vanguard party", consisting of the most "class-conscious" individuals. This party would be given near-absolute power over society and economy, so that transition towards socialism and eventually communism would proceed properly. As such, most communist states using the Marxist-Leninist model have been dictatorships, headed either by charismatic despots (Stalin, Mao Zedong), or by the party oligarchy (modern China, late USSR). While other forms of Communism exist that do not follow the vanguard party model, they are too lacking in influence to have ever been implemented on a national scale so we can't really say what they'd be like. It should also be noted that Marx and Engels themselves doubted the idea that a small revolutionary party could represent the will of the working class, an idea originally espoused by one of his contemporaries.

The major flaw in Communist ideology is that its economic theories simply cannot be translated into the real world (as of this writing at least). For all the bullshit and genuine problems that happen in the free market (or its corporation-dominated American form, at any rate), it still has the advantage of being able to rapidly adapt to changing economic demands. Centrally planned economies on the other hand (Other types of planned economies exist too, but they are much less common and tend to exist on smaller scales so we can't really tell how well they'd work on a national level, let alone an international one. They do seem to function surprisingly well on a regional/municipal scale though, especially those which are decentralized and use only a minimum of top-down authority.) not only fail to adapt in the same way, but don't even live up to Marx's ideals (e.g. the right not to be reduced to "a cog in the machine", the focus on bottom-up organization, etc.). At best, they provide short-term bursts of productivity at the expense of long-term economic decline. Even in an ideal universe where the bureaucracy running it wasn't corrupt or inept, the technology to monitor and plan a national economy has yet to be invented and what we have now can't keep track of everything well enough to make it work; the average economy is incredibly complex and not even the most advanced computers that currently exist can predict every possible variable that might effect how the economy functions (let alone predict the long term effects of a plan), so mistakes will inevitably occur and snowball with dangerous consequences. As a result, a centrally planned economy invariably destroys the countries in which it is attempted due to drop of quality in consumer products, and eventually, food sources. It gets even worse when you factor in the further increased complexity demanded by globalization.

Well no that’s not true at all,
I’m no tankie but centrally planned economies can adapt and shift rapidly to upcoming problem unlike the decentralized markets of capitalism where it takes
A lot of money aka incentive to get them
To help out the country- look at how quickly Russia was able to go from
An agrarian backwards country to an industrial power house that rivaled America- and America had slaves, time, and an abundance of recourses. Also America was involved In the Russian civil war and was against the commies. Even now communist countries like Cuba, Laos and Vietnam are thriving even with all the embargos
And attempted coups. The fact that they adapted to the covid crisis so quickly and have hardly any deaths. They send their own doctors to help out other
Countries. And you might say that communism has killed 100 million people do to the rapid industrialization and famine that happened to catch up to their rival powers that wanted them dead- capitalism kills
20 million a year- from no access to healthcare, affordable housing, wars for profit, dirty water, malnutrition etc. in fact 1.8 billion died from famine in bengal India due to the East India company.
Don’t forget the 30 plus coups that America and England have done across the world that put in a despot like Pinochet that will sell and privatize its recourses to America or UK. Iran is the way it is because they wanted to nationalize it’s oil and use for the Benefit of their citizens, uk haven none of that put in a radical Islamic government that would do the west’s bidding. In fact South America, Africa and the Middle East are they way they are because of colonialism aka capitalism’s ugly twin sister. So when fascists call these places “shit holes” these countries try to get their shit together but then get taken over by some crazy despot like bolsanaro in Brazil.

That being said, mixed economies combining elements of communism and capitalism (e.g. Keynesianism and the "Nordic Model") have consistently proven to be more effective than either lassiez-faire capitalism or pure communism. Make what you will of that. (Note that these arent socialist, they are just capitalism with strong welfare policies,‘this is just putting a band aid on capitalism excesses though. Capitalism requires constant consumption and growth so it’s a matter of time before they try to privatize these public sectors. The UK is currently trying to privatize the
NHS.)

Furthermore, Communist governments tend to move away from the tenets of Marx and Engels in an attempt to force their ideas to work in situations they were never intended to function in. Marx believed that the shift to socialism and then communism could '''only''' work in an advanced industrial society and that any attempt to make it happen before that point was doomed to backfire; Lenin got around this by claiming that he could "telescope" the capitalist and socialist revolutions into a single event with the aid of the aforementioned vanguard party and proposing an alliance with the Russian peasantry to compensate for the undeveloped presence of the working class. Even then, Lenin tentatively allowed a shift back to private ownership for the Kulaks just so the Soviet economy could get back on its feet, before Stalin purged them all as class enemies and triggered a widespread famine (which many historians suspect was intentional on Stalin's part).

Mao Zedong took this to an even further extreme by forcing the revolution in the primarily agrarian China and then trying to kick-start industrialization with the "Great Leap Forward". It was a total failure for several different reasons, and Mao's hamfisted attempt to retain control of the Communist Party gave rise to the Cultural Revolution and all the bloodshed that came with it. Somewhat like Lenin, Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping ended up implementing capitalist policies (while leaving all the other oppressive elements intact) in response to the earlier economic crises, and while it did salvage the economy it also ended up producing a system that arguably combines the worst qualities of both capitalism and communism that survives only by constant pandering to nationalist sentiments.

Because of the legacy of the Cold War and everything mentioned above, mass famines among numerous communist countries, and widespread human rights abuses from the regimes of communist leaders, there's good reason Stalin is occasionally put on equal footing with Hitler in terms of evilness. Even the forms of communism that originated independently of the Leninist traditions are generally poorly regarded at best.( remember though that even though Stalin was an evil dick he wanted the workers to own the means of production and egalitarianism in the eventual future. While Hitler wanted a white
World- where the elite were in control and everyone know they’re place in the
Heiarchy)

=== Note ===

It also is notable that Communist is often used as a Snarl World in modern first world politics against the left wing even when actual Stalinist-style communists (or "tankies", as other communists and socialists call them) are a small minority on the fringes. There is also a distinction between Revolutionary Communists like the Bolsheviks and Democratic Socialists such as the German SPD, which have come to power from time to time in political elections without overthrowing democracy. Ironically, it is the latter that more closely resembles classical Marxism, with the more totalitarian elements being innovations by Lenin and Stalin as they tried to apply Marx's requirements for a revolution in an advanced industrialized nation to the much less industrialized Russia (to say nothing of Mao Zedong trying to shoehorn them into the agrarian China).

==Communism in Traditional Games==
In general there are three ways communism is used in fiction and board games:

1: '''''FILTHY GODLESS RED BASTARDS''''': Dangerous, faceless enemies, ripped straight from the wettest dreams of the Cold War-era American John Birch society. These communists are the enemy; a vast, brutal, godless horde determined to take over the world that our heroes must resist. Nowadays, this attitude is usually played for comedy, as in ''[[Paranoia]]'' where Friend Computer's glitched-out personality has made it a paranoid wreck obsessed with a largely-imaginary adversary (while creating some actual communists in the process). By the way, if you want an example of literal CommuNazis, the East German Stasi are a good place to start, although the Nazi part is mostly aesthetic and the Communist ideology is what was dominant.

2: '''Champions of the Proletariat''': The other side of the coin to what is listed above. These are either rebels against corrupt corporate overlords (frequently cyberpunk heroes) or a body of workers and soldiers fighting against fascist invaders (any game from the Russian perspective in WWII will count). Occasionally this show up in Medieval settings as anachronistic peasant revolts or other politically-radical types out to pull down the social parts of [[Medieval Stasis]].

3: '''GLORIOUS COMMUNISTS''': Somewhere between the other two and generally played for laughs. Communist regimes are oppressive and ponderous, but also able to do great things through sheer force of Industrial Might, Soviet Super Science, Stalinist Architecture and Will-Of-The-People and can be heroic just as easily as villainous. See Red Alert-II and III, and to a lesser extent a few parts of the [[Imperium of Man]]. As close to real communism as you can get, comrade.

Communism has also provided us with the Russian army, which is an awesome gaming resource and reference, either in a drunken, drown-your-enemies-with-bodies-and-artillery sort of way (World War II), or a send-in-the-hardened-and-manly-Spetsnaz-and-tanks way (Cold War). It is a sacred law of [[/tg/]] alternate history [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] settings that there must be at least one communist faction and it must control at least 50% of the world's total landmass. Even [[Warmachine| Khador]] draws on the imagery of the Soviet armed forces, despite being more analogous to Tsarist/Imperialist Russia politically, aside from their Manifest Destiny "Why can't everyone else just roll over and let us conquer them?!" ideology that has... [[Nazi| other roots]].

Like all radical ideologies, communists are all over [[Shadowrun|the Sixth World]], mostly among the poor and disenfranchised who can't help looking up at the big fancy megacorp enclaves and wondering how ''that'' makes any kind of just sense. The Berlin Flux State was probably the biggest and most successful anarcho-communist enclave in-setting for a while, before it became such an embarrassment to the megacorps insisting they should be the only game in town that many of them (including the one run by the great dragon Lofwyr) had it dismantled somewhere around second or third edition.

People like to call the [[Tau]] communist. There's ''some'' truth to that, given they're a highly-collective society that generally values group achievement over personal accomplishment, but they're also a largely class-stratified society, with only the assurance that their leaders are theoretically cooperating for the [[Greater Good]] to keep them from being out-and-out feudalists with castes. This system is actually very similar to Italian and Spanish ''[[Nazi|fascism]]'', where the economy was split between several large trade-based corporations, where the workers and the bourgeoisie were supposed to talk out their issues together (under the benevolent guidance of the party elites of course).

There was also the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]], a parody of the kinds of communist guerrillas of previous decades, who are armed grots out to demand equal treatment from their Ork masters with comical results. The Imperium, being a decentralized feudalistic empire, undoubtedly has many worlds that have communist governing bodies and economies, and maybe even a few where things worked out okay.

[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Golarion]] has got a semi-hemi-demi communist nation in-setting: Galt, land of insane, constant revolution where the only winners are the ''final blades''. It represents the "messy revolutionary" kind of communism rather than any of the three flavors above, though there's some obvious mixing with the principals of the French Revolution that was its more-direct inspiration.

The [[Harpers]] of Faerun are semi-communists in outlook. They strongly favor removing power from single governments and shifting leadership to individual communities. This can make them heroic when unseating despots but significantly less so when assassinating anyone who tries to unite the city-states.

''[[Star Trek]]'' is complicated. On the one hand, the Federation has essentially a communist economy, but their advanced technology has created a post-scarcity economy, so it can be interpreted that the producers thought this would be a natural product of a society where everybody was self-sufficient. Conversely, their chief rivals, the Klingons and the Romulans, are transparent analogues of the USSR and Maoist China seen through the pre-détente eyes of an American lounge lizard. Similar post-scarcity communists are common in ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'', though with a much stronger anarchist bent. They are largely and uncomplicatedly perfect due to the game designers' raging stiffy for that kind of thing.

Any WWII or quasi-WWII game worth its salt will have a communist faction, including the classic ''[[Axis & Allies]]'' and the modern wargame ''[[Flames of War]]''. Additionally, many classic board games have attempted to tap into the forty-five year struggle for dominance between America and the communists. The most famous and best is probably ''[[Twilight Struggle]]''. [[TSR]] also released an RPG set during the Cold War called ''[[Top Secret]]'', though, like most non-''D&D'' TSR products, no one under thirty-five has ever heard of it.

{{BLAM|This article has been marked as containing treasonous capitalist road sentiments. Please report to your local commissariat for re-education through labor.}}

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
File:AK-47.jpg|Glorious Soviet Industries could be used to produce huge numbers of reliable and effective things which are still in high demand after a half a century...
File:Lada 1200.jpg|...Their cars are not on that list.
File:Communism and the NTS Fallacy.png|Communism as understood by someone who thinks all communists are Stalinists ([[Rip and Tear|not mentioned: those that claim the kulaks deserved it]]).
File:Space marine commie.jpg| Do your duty comrade
File: Stalin space marine.jpg| This is how World War II actually went
File: Space marine revolution.jpg| What these dorks think they look like
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* [[Imperium of Man]] as it too was based on a revolutionary progressive ideal that gave way to despotism, with the big question being if this was a natural consequence of the ideal or a complete perversion.
* Come to think of it, most failed utopian societies that /tg/ loves probably borrowed from the history of Soviet Russia in some way, especially from the revolutionary to Stalinist era.

[[category:Not related]]
[[Category:history]]

Communism

2020-07-09T14:18:55Z

2600:6C58:637F:E506:C8FF:B94B:4200:4641: Undo revision 671699 by 2600:1700:89A0:EAA0:0:0:0:537 (talk)

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[[Image:Communismleaders.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Contrary to western propaganda, this is how communism has always worked]]

{{topquote|Under [[capitalism]], man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.|Anonymous radio host from Soviet Armenia; also attributed to Yakov Smirnov}}
{{Topquote|MASH THE DIRTY RED SCUM! KICK THEM IN THE TEETH WHERE IT HURTS! KILL! KILL, KILL! FILTHY BASTARD COMMIES! I HATE THEM, I HATE THEM! AH! AH!|Ordo Xenos Inquisitor John Cleese, responding to the threat of the Damocles Crusade}}
{{topquote|Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.|Adlai Stevenson I}}

'''Communism''' can refer to two concepts: the society where the economy is collectively managed and organised government is replaced by local communes (hence the name), and the (usually) authoritarian ideology that seeks to instate such a perfect society. Communism in the first sense had been tried in various villages through the early nineteenth century before fizzling out, but most people are only interested in the second sense, due to its enormous impact on the twentieth century. Communism the ideology is generally associated with oligarchic rule of the "vanguard party" and a degree of central planning; it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, as well as a few minor powers such as Yugoslavia and Vietnam, during the Cold War. It is still, albeit in a very modified form, adhered to in a few countries today, such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea and Cuba.

In many ways, it is the opposite of [[capitalism]].

==Overview==
The ideology of communism is highly diverse, as numerous thinkers have proposed different definitions and pathways to a communist society, yet most modern communists, in one way or another, derive their ideas from the writings of Karl Marx: hence, it is Marxist communism that will be discussed here. Even then, a full explanation is far beyond the scope of this wiki, so [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism Wikipedia] might be a better bet if you want to get into the philosophical and economic details.

Most non-Marxist communists are more anti-authoritarian (e.g. Kropotkin, Makhno), so they are usually classified as [[Malal|anarchists]] instead. However, even Marxist communism is not homogenous, ranging from the more extremist (Hoxhaism, Stalinism aka Marxism-Leninism) to more moderate (Titoism, Kadarism, traditional Marxism), sometimes mixed with nationalism (Juche), liberal capitalism (Dengism) or - ironically given communism's recurring [[Imperial Truth|anti-religion]] tendency - ''Catholicism'' (Liberation theology). Perhaps the reason why there are so many different variations of communism is because Marx and Engels' blueprint is so vague in many places (it didn't help that Marx died before finishing Das Kapital) that it lends itself to a dizzying array of interpretations, for better or worse.

Marxism originates with the work of (newsflash) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Engels was the working son of an industrialist, while Marx got a PhD in law and spent much of his life in academia and radical politics; this arguably makes them the world's first [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee|socialist justice warriors.]] These two developed their economic theories as a response to the effects of the Industrial Revolution. Marx observed that while the mechanization of production was a good thing since it generated a lot of wealth, he believed it was [[Rage|grossly unfair]] since said wealth was accumulating in the pockets of only a few [[Games Workshop|fucking rich pricks]] and most other people lived in Victorian poverty. He further saw this as another step in a long historical trend in which a class that owned the means of production (i.e. factories, land, etc.) exploited and dominated a lower class that had to sell its labor power to survive.

Marx viewed society as being on a very clear cut path of social evolution with clearly defined phases, based on his interpretation of Hegelian philosophy (we suggest you look that up yourself, it's too complicated to make into a pithy explanation here). Every phase represented a different form of economy and social hierarchy, and, while starting out "progressive", would eventually [[Imperium of Man|fall into degradation]] as it exceeded its limits. At this point, this decayed socio-economic system would have to be overthrown and replaced with a more just and advanced one, starting a new phase: Marx considered the Fall of the Roman Empire (transition from individual slavery to land-based feudalism) and the revolutions of the 19th century (transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism) to be the moments when such a transition occurred. He believed that capitalism was rapidly approaching its own collapse and replacement.

The new social order, Marx believed, would be collectivist, atheist and classless: as industrial production required people to work together on a large scale, so too would the new system of government. The new society would start out more authoritarian (socialism) before its government would eventually dissolve (communism proper). The economy would be controlled by the workers rather than by individual shareholders, competition would be discouraged in favor of a more collective-oriented mindset, and religion (which Marx considered an obsolete "opiate of the masses") would fade away when it was no longer needed to distract people from the poor conditions they lived in. Most importantly, the new order would end the traditional state of affairs in which one class dominated all others through its control of the means of production (e.g. factories) and allow for true equality and prosperity for everyone.

However, Marx and Engels never gave a clear outline of how such a society could be created or what it would look like, and the first one to put it into practice on a national scale (Vladimir Lenin) gave it a distinctly authoritarian spin which only got worse with Stalin.

As a whole, most forms of Marxism are highly skeptical of liberal democracy (albeit supportive of the democratic process itself and direct democracy in particular), as it is considered to be corrupt and easily manipulated by the wealthy. In its place, communists propose the "dictatorship of the proletariat". Before you jump to conclusions, Marx considered all forms of government to be a form of dictatorship in that one class held absolute power over all others; in this case, the class in question would be the workers, who would use the innately authoritarian power of the state to ensure that a worker-controlled democratic decision-making process would not be opposed by reactionary elements attempting to re-establish the old order. According to Marx, this dictatorship would last only long enough to eliminate the differences between classes- as the state's existence is due to said class differences, this would eventually lead the state to dissolve when it was no longer needed.

Marx himself wrote little about how this would function or how it would come into being, presumably because he believed that it would be up to the workers to decide that. As mentioned above, this would unintentionally give a lot of people an opportunity to present their personal take on it as ''the'' way communism would be achieved, and by that time Marx was too dead to disagree.

In Leninism, Marxism-Leninism, and their offshoots, the dictatorship of the proletariat takes form of the "vanguard party", consisting of the most "class-conscious" individuals. This party would be given near-absolute power over society and economy, so that transition towards socialism and eventually communism would proceed properly. As such, most communist states using the Marxist-Leninist model have been dictatorships, headed either by charismatic despots (Stalin, Mao Zedong), or by the party oligarchy (modern China, late USSR). While other forms of Communism exist that do not follow the vanguard party model, they are too lacking in influence to have ever been implemented on a national scale so we can't really say what they'd be like. It should also be noted that Marx and Engels themselves doubted the idea that a small revolutionary party could represent the will of the working class, an idea originally espoused by one of his contemporaries.

The major flaw in Communist ideology is that its economic theories simply cannot be translated into the real world (as of this writing at least). For all the bullshit and genuine problems that happen in the free market (or its corporation-dominated American form, at any rate), it still has the advantage of being able to rapidly adapt to changing economic demands. Centrally planned economies on the other hand (Other types of planned economies exist too, but they are much less common and tend to exist on smaller scales so we can't really tell how well they'd work on a national level, let alone an international one. They do seem to function surprisingly well on a regional/municipal scale though, especially those which are decentralized and use only a minimum of top-down authority.) not only fail to adapt in the same way, but don't even live up to Marx's ideals (e.g. the right not to be reduced to "a cog in the machine", the focus on bottom-up organization, etc.). At best, they provide short-term bursts of productivity at the expense of long-term economic decline. Even in an ideal universe where the bureaucracy running it wasn't corrupt or inept, the technology to monitor and plan a national economy has yet to be invented and what we have now can't keep track of everything well enough to make it work; the average economy is incredibly complex and not even the most advanced computers that currently exist can predict every possible variable that might effect how the economy functions (let alone predict the long term effects of a plan), so mistakes will inevitably occur and snowball with dangerous consequences. As a result, a centrally planned economy invariably destroys the countries in which it is attempted due to drop of quality in consumer products, and eventually, food sources. It gets even worse when you factor in the further increased complexity demanded by globalization.

That being said, mixed economies combining elements of communism and capitalism (e.g. Keynesianism and the "Nordic Model") have consistently proven to be more effective than either lassiez-faire capitalism or pure communism. Make what you will of that. (Note that these arent socialist, they are just capitalism with strong welfare policies,‘this is just putting a band aid on capitalism excesses though. Capitalism requires constant consumption and growth so it’s a matter of time before they try to privatize these public sectors. The UK is currently trying to privatize the
NHS.)

Furthermore, Communist governments tend to move away from the tenets of Marx and Engels in an attempt to force their ideas to work in situations they were never intended to function in. Marx believed that the shift to socialism and then communism could '''only''' work in an advanced industrial society and that any attempt to make it happen before that point was doomed to backfire; Lenin got around this by claiming that he could "telescope" the capitalist and socialist revolutions into a single event with the aid of the aforementioned vanguard party and proposing an alliance with the Russian peasantry to compensate for the undeveloped presence of the working class. Even then, Lenin tentatively allowed a shift back to private ownership for the Kulaks just so the Soviet economy could get back on its feet, before Stalin purged them all as class enemies and triggered a widespread famine (which many historians suspect was intentional on Stalin's part).

Mao Zedong took this to an even further extreme by forcing the revolution in the primarily agrarian China and then trying to kick-start industrialization with the "Great Leap Forward". It was a total failure for several different reasons, and Mao's hamfisted attempt to retain control of the Communist Party gave rise to the Cultural Revolution and all the bloodshed that came with it. Somewhat like Lenin, Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping ended up implementing capitalist policies (while leaving all the other oppressive elements intact) in response to the earlier economic crises, and while it did salvage the economy it also ended up producing a system that arguably combines the worst qualities of both capitalism and communism that survives only by constant pandering to nationalist sentiments.

Because of the legacy of the Cold War and everything mentioned above, mass famines among numerous communist countries, and widespread human rights abuses from the regimes of communist leaders, there's good reason Stalin is occasionally put on equal footing with Hitler in terms of evilness. Even the forms of communism that originated independently of the Leninist traditions are generally poorly regarded at best.( remember though that even though Stalin was an evil dick he wanted the workers to own the means of production and egalitarianism in the eventual future. While Hitler wanted a white
World- where the elite were in control and everyone know they’re place in the
Heiarchy)

=== Note ===

It also is notable that Communist is often used as a Snarl World in modern first world politics against the left wing even when actual Stalinist-style communists (or "tankies", as other communists and socialists call them) are a small minority on the fringes. There is also a distinction between Revolutionary Communists like the Bolsheviks and Democratic Socialists such as the German SPD, which have come to power from time to time in political elections without overthrowing democracy. Ironically, it is the latter that more closely resembles classical Marxism, with the more totalitarian elements being innovations by Lenin and Stalin as they tried to apply Marx's requirements for a revolution in an advanced industrialized nation to the much less industrialized Russia (to say nothing of Mao Zedong trying to shoehorn them into the agrarian China).

==Communism in Traditional Games==
In general there are three ways communism is used in fiction and board games:

1: '''''FILTHY GODLESS RED BASTARDS''''': Dangerous, faceless enemies, ripped straight from the wettest dreams of the Cold War-era American John Birch society. These communists are the enemy; a vast, brutal, godless horde determined to take over the world that our heroes must resist. Nowadays, this attitude is usually played for comedy, as in ''[[Paranoia]]'' where Friend Computer's glitched-out personality has made it a paranoid wreck obsessed with a largely-imaginary adversary (while creating some actual communists in the process). By the way, if you want an example of literal CommuNazis, the East German Stasi are a good place to start, although the Nazi part is mostly aesthetic and the Communist ideology is what was dominant.

2: '''Champions of the Proletariat''': The other side of the coin to what is listed above. These are either rebels against corrupt corporate overlords (frequently cyberpunk heroes) or a body of workers and soldiers fighting against fascist invaders (any game from the Russian perspective in WWII will count). Occasionally this show up in Medieval settings as anachronistic peasant revolts or other politically-radical types out to pull down the social parts of [[Medieval Stasis]].

3: '''GLORIOUS COMMUNISTS''': Somewhere between the other two and generally played for laughs. Communist regimes are oppressive and ponderous, but also able to do great things through sheer force of Industrial Might, Soviet Super Science, Stalinist Architecture and Will-Of-The-People and can be heroic just as easily as villainous. See Red Alert-II and III, and to a lesser extent a few parts of the [[Imperium of Man]]. As close to real communism as you can get, comrade.

Communism has also provided us with the Russian army, which is an awesome gaming resource and reference, either in a drunken, drown-your-enemies-with-bodies-and-artillery sort of way (World War II), or a send-in-the-hardened-and-manly-Spetsnaz-and-tanks way (Cold War). It is a sacred law of [[/tg/]] alternate history [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] settings that there must be at least one communist faction and it must control at least 50% of the world's total landmass. Even [[Warmachine| Khador]] draws on the imagery of the Soviet armed forces, despite being more analogous to Tsarist/Imperialist Russia politically, aside from their Manifest Destiny "Why can't everyone else just roll over and let us conquer them?!" ideology that has... [[Nazi| other roots]].

Like all radical ideologies, communists are all over [[Shadowrun|the Sixth World]], mostly among the poor and disenfranchised who can't help looking up at the big fancy megacorp enclaves and wondering how ''that'' makes any kind of just sense. The Berlin Flux State was probably the biggest and most successful anarcho-communist enclave in-setting for a while, before it became such an embarrassment to the megacorps insisting they should be the only game in town that many of them (including the one run by the great dragon Lofwyr) had it dismantled somewhere around second or third edition.

People like to call the [[Tau]] communist. There's ''some'' truth to that, given they're a highly-collective society that generally values group achievement over personal accomplishment, but they're also a largely class-stratified society, with only the assurance that their leaders are theoretically cooperating for the [[Greater Good]] to keep them from being out-and-out feudalists with castes. This system is actually very similar to Italian and Spanish ''[[Nazi|fascism]]'', where the economy was split between several large trade-based corporations, where the workers and the bourgeoisie were supposed to talk out their issues together (under the benevolent guidance of the party elites of course).

There was also the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]], a parody of the kinds of communist guerrillas of previous decades, who are armed grots out to demand equal treatment from their Ork masters with comical results. The Imperium, being a decentralized feudalistic empire, undoubtedly has many worlds that have communist governing bodies and economies, and maybe even a few where things worked out okay.

[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Golarion]] has got a semi-hemi-demi communist nation in-setting: Galt, land of insane, constant revolution where the only winners are the ''final blades''. It represents the "messy revolutionary" kind of communism rather than any of the three flavors above, though there's some obvious mixing with the principals of the French Revolution that was its more-direct inspiration.

The [[Harpers]] of Faerun are semi-communists in outlook. They strongly favor removing power from single governments and shifting leadership to individual communities. This can make them heroic when unseating despots but significantly less so when assassinating anyone who tries to unite the city-states.

''[[Star Trek]]'' is complicated. On the one hand, the Federation has essentially a communist economy, but their advanced technology has created a post-scarcity economy, so it can be interpreted that the producers thought this would be a natural product of a society where everybody was self-sufficient. Conversely, their chief rivals, the Klingons and the Romulans, are transparent analogues of the USSR and Maoist China seen through the pre-détente eyes of an American lounge lizard. Similar post-scarcity communists are common in ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'', though with a much stronger anarchist bent. They are largely and uncomplicatedly perfect due to the game designers' raging stiffy for that kind of thing.

Any WWII or quasi-WWII game worth its salt will have a communist faction, including the classic ''[[Axis & Allies]]'' and the modern wargame ''[[Flames of War]]''. Additionally, many classic board games have attempted to tap into the forty-five year struggle for dominance between America and the communists. The most famous and best is probably ''[[Twilight Struggle]]''. [[TSR]] also released an RPG set during the Cold War called ''[[Top Secret]]'', though, like most non-''D&D'' TSR products, no one under thirty-five has ever heard of it.

{{BLAM|This article has been marked as containing treasonous capitalist road sentiments. Please report to your local commissariat for re-education through labor.}}

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
File:AK-47.jpg|Glorious Soviet Industries could be used to produce huge numbers of reliable and effective things which are still in high demand after a half a century...
File:Lada 1200.jpg|...Their cars are not on that list.
File:Communism and the NTS Fallacy.png|Communism as understood by someone who thinks all communists are Stalinists ([[Rip and Tear|not mentioned: those that claim the kulaks deserved it]]).
File:Space marine commie.jpg| Do your duty comrade
File: Stalin space marine.jpg| This is how World War II actually went
File: Space marine revolution.jpg| What these dorks think they look like
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* [[Imperium of Man]] as it too was based on a revolutionary progressive ideal that gave way to despotism, with the big question being if this was a natural consequence of the ideal or a complete perversion.
* Come to think of it, most failed utopian societies that /tg/ loves probably borrowed from the history of Soviet Russia in some way, especially from the revolutionary to Stalinist era.

[[category:Not related]]
[[Category:history]]