Bogumil,
Have you ever wondered if other people visit the ARPLAN Blog just to gather research or historical references? Although there are people who do in fact read and disseminate your translations of “National Bolshevik Manifesto” and “Der nationale Sozialismus,” the idea of somebody finding inspiration on ARPLAN might seem fantastical to me until recently.
A while back, I recalled mentioning somewhere in an earlier ARPLAN post that one of the video games that I would play every few months or so is called “Collapse: A Political Simulator” by Kremlingames, a Russian cooperative and game developer. Set in a fictional former Soviet Republic from 1992 to 2004, the goal is to win power in the newly-established Parliament and reshape the country in the image of a political party. Late last month, the developer introduced a new update that added some interesting features like status buffs/debuffs, party coalitions and alliances, modding tools, and new entries on all seven playable parties in the in-game encyclopedia. The developer added enough lore on the former Soviet Republic to make me wonder if they were familiar with the ARPLAN Blog by any chance.
One of the parties that piqued my curiosity is the “National People’s Party (NPP),” whose ranks are split between National Bolsheviks and Pan-Germanic Socialists. The developer described the party as emerging from Soviet-era hardliners opposed to the Economic and Social Liberalization of their Soviet Republic during Perestroika and Glasnost. They were especially critical of the pro-Neoliberal factions within their Soviet Republic’s Communist Party (known in-game as the “Communist Party of the Republic, CPR”). When the Soviet Union collapsed, these pro-Neoliberal factions would later form their own parties (“Conservative Party,” “Liberal Party,” “Social-Democratic Party,” and “Socialist Party”) to vie for power in the new Parliamentary Democracy. The NPP believed that it was time to gain power through the electoral process, except the party’s Left-Wing and Right-Wing both have conflicting ideas on what to do after taking power. Thus, the developer wrote that the Left-Wing coalesced around the legacies of Ernst Niekisch and Gregor Strasser, whereas the Right-Wing chose Otto Ernst Remer and Otto Strasser. How the player determines the party’s alignments will affect whether the Left-Wing rejoins the Communist Party and whether the Right-Wing joins the Fascist Corporatist party, the “Blue Guards (BGs).”
I found the idea of having the NPP divided over the legacy of the Strasser brothers to be a peculiar design choice, especially since the party is already split between National Bolsheviks and Pan-Germanic Socialists. It makes sense in a gameplay context because the party was always the hardest one to play as, but the difficulty is now higher due to new status debuffs on party unity and poorer relations with other parties and foreign governments. Another status buff is the former Soviet Republic’s HDI (Human Development Index), which is its standards of living.
From a backstory and lore perspective, however, I feel that they had to have somehow known about the distinctions between the two Strasser brothers. Honestly, I have no idea if the developer knows about ARPLAN, but I know for a fact they are familiar with politics in the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, and the PRC. It would be kind of interesting either way to find out. Based on how the NPP’s Left and Right are both described through in-game events, there are two ARPLAN posts that lends credence to the idea that the developer is familiar with the Strasser brothers:
Visions of National Socialist Democracy, Part V: Strasser: https://arplan.org/2019/07/24/national-socialist-democracy-strasser/
Gregor Strasser’s ‘Thoughts About the Tasks of the Future’: https://arplan.org/2019/05/20/gregor-strasser-thoughts/#more-1300
Signed,
-DAH
PS: Usually, I play the Communist Party in Collapse because of their bonus gameplay features.
Categories: Politics
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