Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic -- The Socialist Planned Economy City Building Transportation Computer Game

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is a remarkable city building, resource management and transportation game that allows the player to manage all aspects of a planned, Soviet style country and economy. Set in a small, economically backward, fictional European country that borders both the Soviet Union and NATO, this very challenging simulation is a must for fans of this type of game (think Tropico) as well as for anyone who ever wondered what it would have been like to take power and try to chart a socialist path under extremely difficult circumstances.

It must be noted that though it was released on March 15 on Steam, this is an "Early Access" game meaning that its developers are still working out its kinks and making additions to it. There have already been several updates to fix bugs and crashes (I personally never encountered these so far as I know) and it does have something of the feel of an unfinished product in ways both good and bad. Some have complained that given this the price tag of $28.99 in Canada seems a bit steep though I think it is worth every penny.

Opening menu

In fact, part of what I found exciting playing it was precisely its unpolished aspect with only basic help instructions and no tutorial. For me its resultant very steep learning curve enhanced the feel of being almost thrown into an impossible situation after assuming control of a state against all the odds in trying conditions.

Right now the map options are limited to a totally blank one and the same map with a variety of pre-existing towns and hamlets. For the purposes of this review's screenshots I chose that latter option and started building up around the largest town.

As the name implies the purpose is to manage the allocation of workers as well as the supply chains and resource and industrial development of your socialist economy. Included in this are designing bus and train routes to transport your workers from home to job as well as the creation of truck and train networks to transport resources from resource to factory or from resource/factory to sell at the border to either the USSR or the west.

Meanwhile you are seeking to create new or expanded housing of varying quality for the workers, as well as amenities for them such as playing fields, schools, daycare facilities, hospitals, shops and pubs. Educational facilities also ultimately generate an educated workforce. The goal is both to expand the economy while enriching the lives of the people so that they remain content and supportive.

Trams!

Early in the game you can import power, resources, food and goods while you get your industries established but in the long run you can tool the economy to run in various ways. For example, you can place an emphasis on selling natural resources like coal, lumber, etc and importing other things you need, or you can attempt self-reliance and try to fulfill all your country's needs internally. You can even decide whether or not to try to lure foreign workers and from where.

The game really shines in the range of transport options and the old-school East Bloc vehicles from buses and trams, to trains, to trucks and tractors. You decide which vehicle to purchase and to allocate which is great fun.

The centre of the largest town right after the revolution!

There are flaws and limitations as more options would nice on some fronts as would a more highly developed political or military aspect. After all, with self-reliance or socialism came the need for defense against imperialist encirclement and attack, but in time the developers may yet take the game there. 

The lure of this game lies in building those farms and wondering what to do with the crops, creating bus lines to hamlets that no one uses at first, developing a resource and wondering how the placement of the various connections and extractors work and how to get workers to it, etc. I don't want to go into too much detail as I think it is great to just leap in. 

Suffice it to say if you have ever wanted to simulate the challenge of taking control of an all powerful version of Gosplan in 1922 when everything was a shitshow in the USSR this is the game for you. If you have no idea what I meant saying that, it is almost certainly not.

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic is available on Steam for $28.99 in Canada. It is in early access development. 

New Housing for Power Plant Workers with playing fields and a statue of Lenin.

Note the buses, part of the public transit networks.

"Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification" - Lenin

In that spirit one of the first things I built was a power plant to cut dependence on energy imports.

A new housing complex with a soccer field.

Undeveloped hamlet with a bus stop. 

Soon resources nearby will make this a mining boom town.

Livestock Farm

See also: Soviet Storm -- An epic Russian TV documentary account of WWII in the East

The Struggle for National Liberation in Africa, World Peace Council 1975

Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project

See the end of this post for details on the project.

Leaflet: The Struggle for National Liberation in Africa, World Peace Council 1975

This leaflet looks at the situation of the anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist struggle in Africa in 1975 from the point of view of the World Peace Council. We have looked at the WPC on the Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project before including with What is the World Peace Council, 1975. 

Much of the leaflet is focused on the apartheid regime in South Africa and the support this racist and fascist regime received from the United States, England, France, NATO and Israel at the time. The leaflet also was released against the backdrop of the collapse of Portuguese fascism and Portuguese colonialism after the Carnation Revolution. We looked at a document of the Carnation Revolution recently with Portugal Freedom Year One 1926 - 1975, Ministry of Mass Communication.

(Click on images to enlarge)

When The Left Chapter began part of what I wanted to do on the blog was to show and highlight vintage public leftist election/political leaflets and booklets. While many of these have been offered with commentary to date, a very large collection of hundreds of them from several different sources remains and to preserve these often quite rare documents we will be posting them on a regular (almost daily) basis now often without or with minimal commentary so that people may have access to them as quickly as possible as an historical resource. 

While these will all be leaflets from a variety of different leftist viewpoints and countries, they are being posted as an historical/study resource and the views or opinions expressed in them do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or blogger.

All of these posts (as well as posts made to date) will be listed on the page:Vintage Communist/Socialist Leaflets (which is still being updated with past posts).


If you have any public, vintage leaflets or booklets you would like to contribute to this project please contact us via theleftchapter@outlook.com

Tim Buck on the Suicide Pact, Labor Progressive Party 1949

Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project

See the end of this post for details on the project.

Leaflet: Tim Buck on the Suicide Pact, Labor Progressive Party 1949

A Labor Progressive Party (Communist Party) of Canada leaflet opposing the formation of NATO and the emergence of the Cold War. Written by the party's leader, Tim Buck.

(Click on scans to enlarge)

When The Left Chapter began part of what I wanted to do on the blog was to show and highlight vintage public leftist election/political leaflets and booklets. While many of these have been offered with commentary to date, a very large collection of hundreds of them from several different sources remains and to preserve these often quite rare documents we will be posting them on a regular (almost daily) basis now often without or with minimal commentary so that people may have access to them as quickly as possible as an historical resource.

While these will all be leaflets from a variety of different leftist viewpoints and countries, they are being posted as an historical/study resource and the views or opinions expressed in them do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or blogger.

All of these posts (as well as posts made to date) will be listed on the page: Vintage Communist/Socialist Leaflets (which is still being updated with past posts).


If you have any public, vintage leaflets or booklets you would like to contribute to this project please contact us via theleftchapter@outlook.com

Defeating the Harper Conservatives -- The peace movement and the federal election

by Dave McKee, Canadian Peace Congress President

The 2015 federal election is a critical opportunity for the people of Canada to defeat the Harper Conservative government and its reactionary, pro-war agenda. It is important that the peace movements in Canada begin work now to play a strong role in shaping the public policy debate.

Foreign policy matters do not normally play a defining role in Canadian federal elections, and it appears that this election may be one of the rare cases in which issues of peace, security, militarism and international policy are an important part of the public debate.

The Harper government itself has tried to maintain a high public profile for certain aspects of its foreign policy, under the recurring pretext of fighting terrorism at home (through Bill C-51) and abroad (through the expanding war in Iraq and Syria.) This is partly an effort to shore up the Conservatives’ political base. It is also an attempt to draw public attention away from the ongoing and deepening economic crisis, which has attracted increasing public anger to the Harper Tories, and toward foreign policy issues, where the Conservatives can differentiate themselves from opposition parties whose positions generally present weak alternatives.

Of course, the two issues of economic crisis and war are closely related and should not be counter-posed to one another. The Canadian Peace Congress put it this way at our 2011 Convention:

As the global, systemic economic crisis continues and deepens, competition for resources, markets, influence and profits has grown much more fierce and desperate. Capitalist governments have moved quickly to attack social and labour rights and impose severe austerity measures that will impoverish and marginalize masses of working people, at the same time that they are prosecuting wars and increasing military budgets.

The role of the peace movement is to draw attention to this relationship, to highlight the disastrous foreign policy record of the Harper Tories, and to identify the danger of continuing those policies. In the process, we must project the importance of a new, independent foreign policy of peace, international cooperation and solidarity. And we must insist that such a new foreign policy will work hand-in-hand with progressive, democratic domestic policies that serve the needs of the majority of the people in Canada.

Among peace and progressive groups, there are different proposals for how to approach the federal election. Some argue that the singular focus should be on defeating the Harper government. Others argue the broad foreign and military policies of the main parties are so similar that the tasks before the peace movement lie far beyond the scope of a single election.

The Canadian Peace Congress takes a different approach, one that includes both the immediate goals and the necessity of fundamental policy change. Our two-part proposal is that the Harper Conservatives must be defeated, and also that we need to build a mass movement that demands of all governments a foreign policy of peace.

It is very true that the main arena for peace and anti-war activism is “extra-parliamentary” – in workplaces, communities, schools and the streets. This is where we encounter interested, engaged people whose commitment and energy provides the backbone for the kind of mass movement we need to build. A strong and united movement, in action, can project a peace program for Canada that no government can afford to ignore or distort.

At the same time, however, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has pursued the most aggressive and dangerous foreign and military policies in memory. Under the Harper Conservative government:

• Canadian military spending has soared, so that Canada is now the sixth largest military spender among NATO’s 28 members, and the 16th largest military spender globally.
• Canada has deeply embedded its foreign policies into those of the United States and NATO, to the extent that key economic policy is dictated by the military priorities of NATO and the US.
• Canada has promoted foreign intervention and participated in wars of aggression against sovereign states, including Libya, Syria, North Korea, Yemen, Brazil, Honduras, Venezuela and Ukraine.

Will defeating the Conservatives bring about a fundamental change in foreign policy? No, it won’t.

But it will remove the biggest immediate barrier to that change. Defeating Harper is key.

The Canadian Peace Congress Executive is developing the strategy for its federal election campaign, which will be launched soon.

Elements of the campaign will likely include:

• Window signs with messages that highlight the Harper government’s record on war and militarism and call on people to “vote for peace”
• A series of fact sheets and videos about foreign policy, militarism and war, and the importance of these issues in this election
• A speaking and organizing tour, to local groups across Canada, to draw together activists and identify ways cooperate in an effort to get foreign policy into the election discussion

We invite all members, supporters and friends to help with this campaign. If you want to get involved, or have ideas to share, please let us know.


‪#‎timeforpeace‬

This piece originally appeared in the Canadian Peace Bulletin, vol 2 no 1. It is reprinted here with permission.

Dave McKee is the Canadian Peace Congress President

You can find out more about the Canadian Peace Congress at www.canadianpeacecongress.ca 

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