games

they claim that the Luxemburg was an anti-militarist who wanted to achieve communism through democratic institutions. in order to ‘follow in their footsteps’, you have to complete focuses called “Civil Liberties” and “Embrace Democratic Institutions”. the shit-cherry on top is that your reward is to turn your neighbors into special puppets called “Volkskommissariats”.

now first off, Rosa Luxemburg is probably most famous for her 1899 book Reform or Revolution. she was opposed to reformism, and argued conclusively. i would not personally describe her as “embracing democratic institutions”. she is called by some a dem soc, and many argue that the lesson of the Spartacus League is that it was too much democracy, but paradox isn’t putting any nuance into this. they physically put this part of the tree right in the middle between communism and democracy. someone else could probably explain the details of her politics better.

the Volkskommissariat thing is actually the worst part. they are obvious reskins of Reichkomissariats, a game mechanic representing Nazi Germany setting up puppet regimes in occupied Europe. These were real institutions broadly responsible for managing forced labor and ethnic cleansing, but due to paradox policy against depicting war crimes, they are puppets that are easier to exploit. using the term ‘volk’ instead of people is always a weird red flag. it’s especially odd because in real life the USSR called their departments people’s commissariats (though that is not featured in the game). they somehow managed to smear Rosa as both a liberal and a fascist