Difference between revisions of "Marxism"

Revision as of 08:55, 6 December 2004

This article deals with Marxism as it relates to NationStates. For more general information, see the Wikipedia article on this subject.

Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of the RL figure Karl Marx. Within NationStates there is a large and powerful Marxist community, more commonly referred to as socialists. The ideas behind Marxism, a classless society, an eternal struggle by the united and organised working class and their revolutionaries against elites translate quite well to NationStates. What follows is a history of the application of Marxism to intra- and inter-regional relations.

The application of Marxism to NationStates became a feature early on in regional government structure. The Proletariat Coalition under its founder Haderan and his successors was a Socialist region which sought to engender equality between the members. The region maintained a fairly basic form of rule by referendum until Southern Tasmania created the TPC Constitution, which was democratically ratified by the region and instituted formal ministerships and written constraints on the powers of the executive officers, with a seperate judiciary branch for members to keep their elected officials in line.

The AntiCapitalist Alliance or ACA was another left wing region that wished to apply Marxism to the international scene, with the Coalition of AntiCapitalist Economies or CACE. This organised aid to struggling nations which had voted themselves an anti-capitalist, anti-statist system of economy, including Anarchists and Marxists. It continues to be a major success in NationStates, attracting many nations to the anti-capitalist banner.

Later than both of these, by April 2003 came another major socialist region, Allied States of EuroIslanders. The ASE revolutionised the application of socialism to regional government by creating NationStates first Participatory Democracy, wherein all nations could have a direct and full impact on all regional policies, where nations retained the right to recall regionally elected officials and where nations also had the right to convene an Assembly vote to override the political and administrative decisions of the executive officials of the Alliance.

Other smaller Marxist regions existed during this time, including Coalition of Socialist States, World Socialist Alliance, The USSR, The Lefts Nirvana, Socialist Alliance, New Socialist Alliance and others, each of whom made contributions to the inter-regional scene by their relations with one or more of the three major socialist regions in NationStates. These relations were consistently of a friendly nature, involving mutual defence pacts and agreements on common policy. Out of bi-regional relationships grew the first Marxist interregional organisations.

The first interregional organisation of Marxists, which included other left wing ideologies was the MASS Alliance, an alliance which found its common expression in a policy of mutual defence of the left wing of NationStates, of open membership to any region which wished to join and of co-operation with other groups insofar as was possible. The MASS Alliance was not particularly well organised, relying rather upon comradeship until the time of the war with the Atlantic Alliance. As a result a treaty of formal participation was drawn up between members of the MASS Alliance.

The basic nature of the MASS Alliance eventually led to the two powerhouse regions of the Alliance dissolving their membership, to start afresh. The Proletariat Coalition and Allied States of EuroIslanders formally withdrew and MASS dissolved itself. The ASE and TPC set up the Red Liberty Alliance - the RLA, a second generation, better organised defender group with a socialist underpinning, to protect the socialists of NationStates from incursions by the more numerous capitalist powers. The RLA continues to exist with increasingly democratic structures and an ever more powerful military and intelligence organisation, refined and honed through defending regions such as Alliance of Socialist States, Cuba and China from imperialist assault by organisations such as DEN and Coalition of Invaders.

Outside of the core membership of the RLA existed other socialist regions, such as Socialist Union, fundamentally isolationist powers. Beyond that existed other socialist regions with distinctively lower horizons than the RLA. One such example is the RKKA. Including regions such as Land of the Red Army and Peoples Revolutionary Party, the RKKA is a throwback to the MASS Alliance by latecomers to NationStates. The RKKA has no well organised military and a small intelligence group known as the Maquis. While the RLA can put itself on a par with organisations such as the Union of Sovereigns Alliance or the Alliance Defense Network, the RKKA is altogether smaller with little appreciation of the vastness of the NS world outside of their narrow remit of attacking fascist regions. Such a narrow world outlook has proven problematic in negotiations between the RLA and the RKKA, since untrained and ignorant members such as Cavalieriana and Marturia have been unable to accept that their world is so insignificant when set in its correct context and so they attack the RLA without knowing what it is.

When moving outside the major inter-regional organisations of Marxism in NationStates, there are countless numbers of nations which battle each other on the Jolt Forums, whether it be wars between communists and capitalists or a war against fascists. Nations such as Communist Likon and DontPissUsOff are frequently found to take part in such struggles, to protect their ideals and their allies. This is on a much smaller and more ethereal level than organisations such as the RLA which fights against actual invaders that can seize control of regions and oppress the native members of that region.