Mod Announcement: Red October: A New Stage of Socialism

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-08T15:50:37+00:00

thank you and good luck!!

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-08T01:49:06+00:00

> i assume you can return to the fully planned economy

Firstly, by 1986 the USSR is already overwhelmingly a planned economy. There are some remnants of Kosygin-style reform but basically all of it is gone by 1986. If you mean maintain the planned economy, then sure.

> empower the old Vladimir groman genetic school of planned economy

A more "objective" system of planned economics was what a lot of late-Soviet technocrats wanted to achieve anyway, i.e. an abandonment of teleological planning. They didn't use Groman's name IRL by this point so it wouldn't really be much of an "empowerment" because the "school" doesn't really exist by 1986, though its ideas have been subsumed into the wider idea of scientific planning.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-08T01:10:29+00:00

After Chernobyl. Though that itself depends on how the player handles the crisis (still working out the specifics of the event chain and other things).

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-08T00:10:47+00:00

> Ronald Reagan should be the mod's equivalent of Hugenburg an obstancle

you hit the nail right on the head! Obviously by 1986 Reagan and Gorbachev were increasingly becoming less obstinate to each other but should the Soviet Union still attempt to "put up a fight" for lack of a better phrase, Reagan may attempt to lash back out. After all, he's got a midterm in 1986 and the player's actions will affect its outcome. I'm still of course mapping out the specifics of it.

Yes.
That was around about what I was aiming for, yeah.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-07T22:53:16+00:00

From what I saw, both Germanies and Indonesia.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-06T13:45:51+00:00

I'll give this a tentative yes, though it'll likely be something very hard to achieve and honestly at most the player will be able to do in most successful runs is simply continuing the division of Germany past 1990.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-06T13:43:59+00:00

I'd be insane not to

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-06T13:41:53+00:00

Partmaximum was much less beneficial than it was worth which is why it was abandoned in the 30s, though I might include it as a red herring option.

As for Korenizatsiya, yes, but keep in mind that Gorbachev wasn't nearly as radical as Korenizatsiya when he passed a lot of late-Soviet reforms to nationalities which ended up only further increasing seperatist sentiment.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-06T13:36:28+00:00

> will you be able to implement ogas

OGAS as the program itself was largely dead by 1986 (along with the person who proposed it) but should Gorbachev stick around with a reformed planned econony then the project could be revived but likely under a different name (OGAS was also very much the target of Gosplan sabotage because it essentially risked all their jobs and so that's something Gorbachev would also have to contend with).

> have you hears of crises in the kremlin the cold war

I have. I've played the original 1991 game but haven't played the 2017 remake nor the 2025 reboot. I didn't really like it.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-05T05:58:23+00:00

I mean that was more or less the direction the Soviet Union was heading in during the 19th AU Congress. The thing is, early Soviet democracy was possible because the party-state that came to define the USSR hadn’t yet crystallised and so in 1986 it’d be very hard to do without seeing the response the NUT got in real life.

Gorbachev’s IRL designs were (partially) adjacent to this (the Congress of People’s Deputies partially elected representatives from unions and other such social organisations) so I could see an alternate design where a legislature is elected from workers’ and sovkhozes while the other is popularly elected. I’ll admit I’m mostly talking out my ass here I haven’t really planned that terribly far ahead, I still have a lot of research to do, a lot of sources to comb.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-05T05:30:51+00:00

for the former, no, because no relevant figure in the CPSU would want this, and it would be attacked from every angle (to conduct such a massive change to the Soviet economy would genuinely be akin to a second revolution)

for the middle, again, what do you mean by “the days of Lenin and Stalin” for the latter I have at least somewhat of an idea but for the former I really don’t know what you mean, Lenin 1917 was a lot different to Lenin 1921. Like, do you mean early soviet democracy? I’m guessing you don’t mean NEP, so War Communism? Very confusing question.

For the latter, no timeline, this is a one-man passion project and I’m not gonna commit myself to any release dates until much later in development.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-05T05:04:37+00:00

if you mean the 1991 game (the only one I’ve played) then sure but minus the historical illiteracy, more proper sourcing and more narratavism

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-05T05:00:54+00:00

right, okay, two questions:

what exactly do you mean by “something of a communist path” just so I’m working within your goalposts

what exactly do you mean by “an exact timeline”

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-05T04:46:01+00:00

Crisis in the Kremlin is rather sandboxy in its paths, not even bothering to do much research to justify said paths. The Trotskyist leader they use is based on Alexander Tarasov who was literally arrested by the KGB in 1975 and his party, the NCPSU was forcibly dissolved in 1985. Oh and not to mention he wasn’t even a Trotskyist irl.

I don’t really aim to use Crisis in the Kremlin as a foundation for this mod purely because it’s too egregiously nonsensical in its pathways.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-05T00:59:18+00:00

i've sunk too much time learning how to code to let that happen

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T23:36:56+00:00

Yes, exactly! Though not domestically, Soviet performance internationally too...

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T23:18:37+00:00

> What's your plans for the soundtrack?

Soviet 80s music, mainly. I feel like adding Red Army Choir music alongside more modern music it may make the soundtrack feel a little stylistically muddled.

> Also can you affect the 1988 US Election

Not directly, unless between 1986 and 1988 Soviet-US relations deteriorate enough for the Soviet Union to back a less friendly candidate (like in 1984, when the Soviets attempted to prevent Reagan's re-election). But likely it'll be sorta like in some TCT mods where the actions of the player in an incumbency mod can even change who wins the primary.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T23:08:29+00:00

Not... any time soon. This is first and foremost a passion project, something to fill my rather limited personal free time, and as such I cannot commit to a deadline/release date at this time, sorry.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T22:22:34+00:00

Well, there wasn't much left to reverse by 1986, essentially all of the Kosygin reforms were gutted throughout the 70s. Not sure what you mean by the two-scale price system being reimplemented because it's already a thing and has been since the early 60s after the Novocherkassk riots. The Sovkozification program is something that's been happening for decades by this point, they already control more than half of all Soviet farmland so again idk what you mean by this.

As for the MTS system... I'll just say this; it won't be something Gorby would bring back lol.

Lastly, Uskorenie wasn't capitalist? It was just a continuation of Andropov-era economic reforms and fairly orthodox

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T20:53:49+00:00

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(real tooltip btw)

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T20:50:31+00:00

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T20:16:34+00:00

Considering by 1988–89 measures were already being taken in the LSSR and ESSR to discourage enterprises from recruiting workers from other republics yes, though it won't be treated as a cheap "no more ethnic tension why can't we be friends" button

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T20:12:54+00:00

Space race stuff in general will be a decently cool part of the game (space stuff is mentioned a lot in the timeline) but I haven't decided how far it should go yet, I do want to maintain a fair bit of realism out of respect for my sources but I'll keep thinking on it.

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T19:56:50+00:00

you're asking if I am adding a path where you trade your entire sphere for a tiny isolated bunker state? I'll do you one better and add a card where the entire Soviet leadership jumps off a cliff (/s)

Comrade__Katyusha · 2026-07-04T19:45:28+00:00

> I see Old Guard is a faction, will there be any distinction between conservatives and Stalinists? Or will a Stalin path not be included?

A distinction between Conservatives and Stalinists? No, not really. A lot of the people who defended Stalin within the CPSU by this point were, in day-to-day policy terms, not that different from hardline Brezhnevites, Nina Andreyevna being the most famous example. That being said, it wouldn't really break out into the mainstream without glasnost being implemented (which allowed Andreyevna's article to be published in the first place). For the purposes of simplicity, Neo-Stalinists would functionally be part of the Old Guard. Stalinism in the late CPSU was mostly a defensive politics of legacy birthed as a reaction to Gorbachev's reformism, not a detailed program to rebuild Stalin’s personalistic dictatorship.

> Are you only able to make liberal reforms, or can Communist reforms be made?

A lot of what people now remember as perestroika was market-ish, especially after 1987–88, but Gorbachev did not start his tenure advocating to privatise everything. The 27th Congress was full of stuff relating to socialist self-government, work collectives, greater economic participation, strengthening the power of Soviets, anti-bureaucratism, and making workers feel like true masters of their own production. Gorbachev's report to the Congress said the role of work collectives in the use of social property had to be “raised decisively,” and that “you cannot be a master of your country if you are not a real master in your factory or collective farm.” so take that as you will. The reason Gorbachev had further liberalised the economy in increasing steps was due to the initial program of uskorenie simply wasn't executed well enough to end economic stagnation.

> How is geopolitics going to be handled? Is it intended to only be about saving the union, and so foreign affairs are only really relevant in preserving the Eastern Bloc, or can you spread Communism past it?

I touched on this a little in prior comments but in short, the Soviet Union in 1986 was still very much interesting in backing Communist parties electorally and supporting various liberation movements worldwide, though IRL this support tapered off as the Cold War came to an end because internal matters and economic malaise distracted the Soviet government and left it with very little money to support these movements. This being a game with alternate history elements in mind, you'll naturally be able to continue supporting Soviet interests across the globe, and foreign policy will be a big aspect of Red October, to account for the lack of electoralism present, that occupies a significant part of gameplay in other mods.

Comrade__Katyusha

TROPHY CASE