NationStates Jolt Archive

"La Sociale!" the cry went up again as more than two-hundred members of the Vaas Hill commune made a third assault on the palisade skirting near-by Commune 15-2. "All power to the Soviets!" a reply resounded from the defences as residents returned to the ramparts and began once more to hurl missiles down into the ditch at the fence's base, which the Vaas Hill mob were now attempting to breach.

Strange battle cries to be heard on opposing sides, but Soviet India is a complicated place, most of all where Geletians dominate the ethnoscape and Smithian rather than Marxist or Igovian economics spent forty-three pre-revolutionary years as opposition beacon.

A lead shot, hurled from a teenager's sling, prangs against the decorative wildcat adorning the top of a Vaas Hill warrior's iron helm, knocking it from his head and him from the palisade that he had been attempting to scale. A seventeenth serious injury for the day, and several of the fallen man's comrades fail even to pause as they swing furious axes against the wooden defence. A few shotgun blasts are heard, but everyone knows that they are directed skywards and few are intimidated, especially on the third attack, the second during which shots have resounded (the second attack was disrupted by such provocative brinksmanship).

It has long been the Geletian way that socio-economic disputes not immediately settled in diplomatic commune lead to clan warfare. As do many of the potentially more easily solved disputes, some cricket matches, most nights out, and, sometimes, bets about whose kid can take the most ale. The Celts, as Strabo famously wrote, are madly fond of war... much to the chagrin of their modern Indian neighbours.

Warhorns sound, chilling Carnyx in a trio, three being a number of traditional importance to the Geletian Celts, though none can really claim to remember why. From inside the commune bagpipes answer, backed by fierce chanting, "Out! Out! Out!"

The attack will probably fizzle out when the Vaas Hillers get hungry enough or sober-up, but, despite taking heavier casualties, they will have a victory to claim by virtue of having ventured forth in support of their cause. Equally, the 15-2ers will hear their resident bard reciting many a tale of the attack's repulse.


(OOC: Details and development to come, but, given AMW's recent sloth, I think it best to proceed in drips and drops rather than a full on Indian monsoon of an opening post. The Igovian Revolution paddles on.)

There are big problems in the Indian Soviet Commonwealth's fourth stage of life.

The Soviets have pledged -have been tasked- to reduce the economy's reliance upon the income tax paid by workers (as distinguished form peasants by virtue of their drawing of a state wage or participation in a profit-sharing enterprise in contrast to the inner-commune subsistence of those incapable of or rejecting such employment). The mission to, "raise flags of revolution over all Africa" (S.Igo, Task!, a letter to the community) has made this challenging enough, but other popular edicts have brought on further complications, and clashes now result.

Particular difficulties are complicated, but, evidently, interconnected none the less.

The Commonwealth's relentless growth in terms of population continues to out-strip territorial gain, and the steadfast refusal of citizens to give-up their relatively luxurious phalansteric lifestyle is at odds with on-going trends to desertification in many regions and the inhospitability of many mountain districts, not to mention firm environmental protection measures across vast jungle tracts.

Further environmentalism dictates that power be provided by renewable and nuclear means, and that, where coal plants persist, they must be further from centres of population and cited with consideration for the prevailing wind and other complicating factors. Few communes are prepared to let a nuclear plant be raised on their side of the nearest mountain. Vast wind farms and solar collectors take up the space of innumerable potential communes, to say nothing of the dams that flood countless square kilometres in thirsty pursuit of hydro-electicity.

Building and sustaining these great projects does absolutely nothing to help the Soviets in their quest to reduce real income tax or to lessen the Commonwealth's reliance upon it.

The Final Soviet recently announced a plan to reduce dependence upon state power, declaring that it would produce and distribute solar tiles, small wind-turbines, micro hydro-electrical generators, and associated equipment so as to enable individual communes to provide a significant part of their own power requirement in a decentralised fashion, allowing the state to concentrate on production of power for industry, lessening the need for large centralised plants and making the best use of available space.

Unfortunately, this plan came a cropper when thousands of peasants were raised to work in the production of the decentralising power facilities and the administration of their distribution. Government expenditure only rose, income tax with it, and, in the event, the monsterous state project was unable to keep pace with technological progress at the universities, several of which were able to declare the obsolescence of the particular solar collectors approved for mass production.

And, so, associated-labour concerns took control of the power decentralisation scheme, Soviet India's anti-patent laws helping to proliferate the leading technologies resulting from practical experience and university studies. Peasants returned to their favoured lifestyles, or else joined the worker-managed businesses created by this new industry (and they said the bourgeois were the only ones any good at creating new needs!), and government spending fell due not only to the retirement of so many state-sector workers, but to the suspension of several power-station projects previously slated to supply new communes in Bihar and elsewhere.

So, why the conflict?..

"Counter attack! Stand to! Stand to, comrades! To the barricades!" one of those formidable trumpets sounds again as a lookout reports the sighting of warriors from 15-2. Men draw blades and pick-up staves as children dash to collect their slings or to fill a bag with nicely shaped rocks piled here and there in readiness, and women hurry livestock inside the courtyard.

"A grubby capitalistic trick, attacking during high tea! While we're all sober!"

"I can't believe this. We need the state's backing, or we're no better than climbing bourgeois! How the feck we're supposed to afford that collector without a subsidy I don't know! Get back, damn you! We're with the Commonwealth!" Borminius looked a lot less red, almost a little smaller, throwing a rock from a phalanstery window, not the man who shook-off a rubber-tipped arrow during the attack on 15-2 and kept charging, despite the immediate and deep bruising below his collarbone.

Outside, the counter-attack was being mounted by one hundred and seventy snarling tigers of men, most full to bursting with spice and opiate infused strong wine, sixty archers amongst them and several armed with rubber-slug laden shotguns while the rest raised spears and staffs. So far they'd managed to shatter five large windows and, storming across the cow field, wreck the gate.

"Centralists!" They shouted, "Go back to Lenindia!"

One was caught in the knee by a slung stone, and went down looking down-right puzzled at his inability to run, pain receptors blocked by the violent swill he'd consumed en route from Commune 15-2.

"Man! Tili's knee is messed up!"

"They've hobbled him for a good while, and all for a failed scheme! How can we be expected to buy a turbine unit if only four of us are eligible for the maximum wage, and it's not half enough to cover the production cost? Do they think that we can all work in power decentralisation? Somebody's got to make the trams, you bastards!"

A smokebomb is cast forth, searching for the inner courtyard at the Versailles-lite Vaas Hill.

"'Galle 17th Street Electro Distribution Units Plant.' One of these days, we're going to have to call a meeting to rename this ruddy place."

"Yes, if there's anything left to rename, my big hairy friend."

Aeron raised an eyebrow at Tilakaratne, but couldn't really fault the latest nickname on a factual basis.

"Profits are a bit... thin, aren't they? I'm sure we've got the latest design, I checked the intranet just last night, myself."

"Nobody can afford it. We don't have enough technicians ready and waiting, the Soviets just dropped this on the Commonwealth as if the population would have anticipated a sudden demand for three hundred thousand ecologically friendly power generation units, four years ago, and started taking courses. Only the state factories are big enough to produce that many!"

Aeron nodded. He was a little less informed, politically, and probably would have been with the Vaas Hill commune in Commonwealth's state sector was the most powerful tool in the world's economy. That wasn't exactly what his Sinhalese comrade was driving at.

"The way things are, nobody can afford what we're selling. But they need it. My own commune needs it! You know we're burning wood, again? The State Soviet cut our link to the national grid because of the decentralisation policy. We're polluting more than we were when we got power from the regional plant."

Now Aeron shook his head. And then tucked into his veggie wrap.

"It's a disaster in the making, yes, comrade. When we build one of these things, the materials; the transportation; the education in necessary skills; the wages, even if we take minimum: it's all more than any one commune can afford while some are peasants, some are profit-sharing, and the rest are bound by wage caps. We're going to plant our economy right where it is, my hairy friend, and when we had all the momentum in the world behind us, too. I tell you, if they don't stop fighting and find a way to buy one of these things, soon" Tilakaratne leant back in his chair to tap a large metal cylinder with the back of his fork as he spoke, "'Galle 17th Street Electro Distribution Units Plant will go bust."

Aeron spat his lettuce and sat up, "Businesses don't go bust in Soviet India!"

Well, I don't usually bump AMW threads, but boredom is... mh, someone else can finish that sentence.

... cheese.

What? You didn't say it had to make sense.

+1!

Another bump while I think how best to continue digging myself into a hole, here.

The Indian National Union

Many Unioners would like to scoff at what they see as the Igovians' disunity and warlike nature, but in truth Unioners themselves are hardly less violent. Sri Lankans might fight over resource allotments with rubber-tipped arrows and slings, but seldom does a day pass in the INU without at least several firefights in every one of the Union's states. Bajrang Dal militants in Madhya Pradesh clash with local farmers and militiamen, while in Mumbai gang violence continues to pose a major problem. Punjabis have to contend with several major insurrectionist organizations and religious groups. And in Rajasthan, Unionist militiamen continue to wage their long-running campaign against Rajput princes and their allies, a low-intensity conflict but one that claims many lives nonetheless.

Perhaps the increased centralization of the military and police forces, at least over the Igovians, helps Parliament to better keep a lid on the various ethnic and political tensions that inevitably flare up from time to time.

The power problems that face the ISC attract the interest of a fair few Unioners, who propose this or that solution. Many suggest that the ISC invest more resources in nuclear power. CANDU-style deuterium-uranium reactors provide the majority of the Indian National Union. They note that retired Igovian nuclear warheads could be converted into mixed-oxide fuel for such reactors, so the nation's investment in nuclear weaponry is not entirely lost. The idea of decentralization of electricity generation is, says Unioners, a good idea in general, but for an industrial economy large and expensive national-level power plants are necessary, and there isn't any way around that.

Nuclear power is indeed a cornerstone of Soviet planning, and Portmeirion always keen to work with the INU, Nepal, Bangladesh, and other allies in developing the involved technologies. It is expected that nuclear and hydroelectrical power will dominate industrial production in the Commonwealth of tomorrow.

But growing populations, climate change, and the desire to ween the economy off income tax, as well as the very nature of communistic India, make the continued dispersal of power-generation an unavoidable priority.

This is just the most visible item today. Some other large items and high-technology goods are also out of reach without government subsidies in the early days. Some Soviets want the state to subsidise initial runs of new products, enabling their production at a time in which most citizens -with wage caps in place- can not afford them. As things stand, the population can't -through consumption- support the development and production of various new goods. But other Soviets are more keen to see income tax decline, and some suggest that this will allow people to make purchases enough, claiming also that the suggested subsidies would lead to a litany of mistakes and over-production of unwanted items.

Unrest continues as the Soviets rols-out new legislation, likely designed as much to give pause for thought and perhaps inject some activity back into the economy as to really solve underlying problems.

Wage Caps Scrapped!

Yes, in the Sri Lankan Soviet State there is no longer such a thing as a maximum wage, nor a minimum.

The State Soviet found, this week, that phalansteric life provides cushion enough for healthy living, and essentially declared that wages drawn from the state and profits from worker-managed enterprises exist only to provide luxury and privilege not provided by the Commonwealth.

Few in Soviet India have yet come to terms with the practical or political implications of Sri Lanka's characteristically odd economic foray, but already far-fetched proposals have been penned in numerous Local Senates for bills to organise punitive and preventative military action against the Commonwealth's island latecomer.

OOC: Kudos to you, BG, for exploring your economic model. I'm interested in what comes of this.

OOC: Hey BG, is this just a monologue or did you want anyone else to RP in this?