Priede Plan
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The Priede Plan (Hytek: Priedes plāns, Hesurian: Priede-Plan) was a proposal for the creation of a network of underground connections, support networks and logistical operations in Mascylla by the People's State of Hytekojuznia to incite a socialist revolution in the country and bring it under the influence of Hytekojuznia. Co-authored by Hytekojuznik Minister of War Davis Priede and later-Chairman Ernst Lehmann, it was the first major espionage proposal directed towards Mascylla in Hytekojuznia.
Beginning planning and drafting as early as 1924, nearing the end of the Mascyllary Revolution, the plan was presented to the Politburo of Hytekojuznia on November 6, 1927, and aimed to take advantage of the political instability of post-revolution Mascylla as well as the weakness of the institution of the Mascyllary monarchy. Initially supported by the Politburo as well as Artjoms Viliks, preparations to implement the Priede Plan were made throughout the late-1920s, before a tightening of relations between Mascylla and Krumlau saw many Politburo members defect from the plan, including Lehmann, and denounce direct involvement in Mascyllary affairs. By the mid-1930s, the Priede Plan had mostly been disavowed, with Chairman Roms Talbergs abandoning it altogether in 1937.
The plan was a heavily-guarded state secret by Hytekojuznia until the late 1940s, and its existence was denied by the Communist Party of Hytekojuznia until 1944, when redacted documents on the proposal were released to the public. The proposal damaged relations between Hytekojuznia and the Dreibund and was one of multiple precursor events to the Great Game in Erdara, and brought the existing Hytekojuznik–Mascyllary enmity to the forefront of the respective governments for until mild rapprochement was achieved during the 1960s under the later tenure of Ernst Lehmann.
Outline of the plan
The official name for the plan was A Proposal for the Complete and Total Liberation of the Mascyllary State, and was published on November 6, 1927 with extremely limited circulation limited to members of the Politburo. Only fifteen physical copies outlining the plan were ever printed, and most have since been destroyed. The initial clauses of the plan outlined the proposal for a series of underground networks within Mascylla, which would exist within its major cities utilising agents of the League of the Red Fists, Hytekojuznia's foreign intelligence agency, who would report findings back to the Politburo. Initially part of a wider wave of espionage proposals towards Mascylla, the Priede Plan would gain notoriety for its depth and thoroughness, and was initially commended by the Politburo. The plaintext of the plan itself outlined three main obstacles to achieving a revolution in Mascylla:
- Admiration of the monarch
- Lack of ideological devotion or motivation
- War exhaustion of the Mascyllary populace
Priede theorised that the continued presence of the monarch as a figurehead in Mascyllary society, even after republican victory in the Mascyllary Revolution, would be a large obstacle in successfully reforming Mascyllary society to conform to Hytekojuznia's socialist principles. Priede outlined multiple solutions to the matter but highlighted the effectiveness of assassinations, forced conversions and public addresses in the manipulation of the Mascyllary peoples' opinions of both Hytekojuznia and socialism in general. Lehmann later added the potential of utilising pre-existing hardline monarchists in Mascylla for Hytekojuznia to pass the blame for assassinations on in the future.
One of Priede's more scathing criticisms of the Mascyllary state and its people was their "lack of any discernible ideological devotion, motivation or identity", and argued that Mascylla's refusal to accept the "new societies" of the 20th century would ultimately lead to its downfall. Priede and Lehmann diverged on the fact of post-revolution Mascylla, where Priede wanted to eliminate the threat of Mascylla by neutering its ability to wage an effective war against Hytekojuznia, effectively bringing it under vassalige of Hytekojuznia, Lehmann intended to retain the power of the Mascyllary state, instead wishing to transform Hyteko-Mascyllary relations to create a political axis of the two powers, which he thought would be more effective in reducing the possibility of later counter-revolutions in Mascylla.
Lehmann's first major contribution to the plan was the argument of the feasibility to incite a revolution in Mascylla with its populace having undergone a global conflict and year-long revolution in the last decade. He argued against any reactionary or immediate action in Mascylla and instead favoured a more secretive approach, creating the network necessary to strike at any given moment. Initially, Priede disagreed with the proposition but later changed his opinion in the later drafts of the plan around 1926. Lehmann, a Mascyllary war veteran and later defector, had sizable knowledge on inner workings of the Mascyllary military, and was influential in the planning of internal military resistance in overthrowing the government rather than a popular revolution.
Support
The plan gained considerable support within the Politburo when it was first proposed in 1927, and greatly bolstered the political popularity of both Priede and Lehmann within the circles of the Communist Party. It was championed especially by the hardline militant groups within the Politburo, who supported the restoration of Hytekojuznia's pre-war borders and greatly disavowed the Treaty of Lehpold. Preceding the expansion of Dreibund relations, the plan was meant to be implemented throughout the 1930s with the intention of inciting revolutionary activity in the 1940s, and was pushed forward greatly by Artjoms Viliks.
Many support circles for the plan, especially after the centralisation of Mascyllary–Krumlavian relations in the 1920s, cited the need for Mascylla to be treated harshly, and in some cases, punished, for its role in the decline of Hytekojuznia. Factions within the Politburo who believed the monarchy of Hytekojuznia would eventually fall to popular revolution due to the sustained belief of the indemonstrable nature of the monarchy were among the biggest supporters of the plan, and rejected the idea that Mascylla's victory in the war played any part in bringing about the circumstances needed to dethrone the monarch and establish a socialist state.
Opposition and abandonment
Initial opposition to the plan was rare, but existed in pockets when the plan was first presented to the Politburo. Early opposition to the plan often believed that attempting to incite a revolution in Mascylla was not a feasible achievement and that attempting to do so would ultimately backfire and see Hytekojuznia on its back foot isolated from the international community. It also cited the advanced nature of the Mascyllary military compared to Hytekojuznia's as well Hytekojuznia's commitments as per the Treaty of Lehpold, whose terms had not yet been disavowed officially by Hytekojuznia.
Most of the plan's later opposition emerged when Viliks was succeeded by Roms Talbergs and bilateral relations between Mascylla and Krumlau were finalised, creating the Dreibund alliance in coordination with Lavaria in the west, and the chances of Hytekojuznia successfully conducting mass espionage in Mascylla without massive repercussions were extremely slim. By 1930, most of the Politburo, including Lehmann himself, had turned on the plan and rejected it as too reactionary. By then, those who rejected the plan supported the introduction of bilateral relations with Arlyon to create a socialist alliance with the ability to counter the Dreibund. The plan became more and more unpopular towards the mid-1930s, and with the death of Priede in 1935, lost almost all of its support. Chairman Roms Talbergs issued a directive in 1936 dismissing the plan as any sort of official governmental policy.
Public release
The existence of the Priede Plan was heavily guarded and outright denied by the Hytekojuznik government until 1944, when Talbergs acknowledged its potential existence in a public address after years of popular inquiry into the plan. Heavily altered and redacted documents were released to the public after political concessions in 1945, greatly increasing the interest of the populace into the extensiveness of the plan's details. The acknowledgement of the plan's existence in the 1940s also greatly damaged relations between Hytekojuznia and Mascylla, and led to one of many war scares between the two states after embassy staff were expelled from both countries in October 1945. The redacted documents on the plan were the only publicly available information on the plan for over a decade, when government whistleblowers in Hytekojuznia caught wind of the inner workings of the plan, and subsequently rumours began to circle around the country throughout the 1950s, eventually spreading throughout Erdara.
As part of Ernst Lehmann's rapprochement policies with the rest of Erdara, documents partaining to the Priede Plan, including three physical copies of the plan itself, were declassified and made publicly available information in 1962. The act was commended by both Mascylla and Krumlau but the existence of the Priede Plan saw skepticism of rapprochement grow quickly in Mascylla, as well as negative public opinion growing in Hytekojuznia pertaining to their political intents abroad. Since the declassification, only two of the original copies of the Priede Plan remain, both stored in museums in Krasno.