FDR loses 1936 election Thread - Black ICE Mod for Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour

It's generally agreed that FDR created the 1937/1938 re-depression due to his new regulations and laws put in place after he won the 1936 election.

I'd like to see that if FDR loses the 1936 election, the economy recovers a lot faster with Republicans in office. Of course, that would also imply a stronger Isolationist position on things, including trade, until certain levels of economy are reached. So maybe ban trade deals (other than selling raw materials).

Also: the Soviets in the 1930s hired a number of American firms to completely redesign/rebuild the Soviet rail system. Prior, the Soviet rail system was a hodge-podge of track sizes; they had tracks that were too steep or too tight to be taken at high speed. Crappy roadbeds that required limited loads, etc.

Then there's the factories that American firms built in the USSR during the 1930s.

This resulted in a lot of money going to the USA, and big improvements in Soviet infrastructure and efficiency.

The American companies, because of the Great Depression, were extremely glad for the work - as was the FDR administration, because it created jobs.

I'd like to see that modeled in the game - an isolationist America with a more growing economy might not have been as interested in doing all that - which would have had serious effects in the the USSR during WW2.

The Germans also did a lot of construction projects in the USSR, post-MR pact. Building factories, etc. I talked to a German who was in the Wehrmacht at the time in a construction bn in Ukraine. He said that the Soviets had shot everyone who knew construction for hundreds of miles radius - and when they found out that the cook in the Wehrmacht construction bn knew how to make cement ceilings (the cook's Dad had done it), the Soviets offered him a job as a Colonel in the Red Army. Which the cook took. The guy I talked to said he always wondered what happened to the cook once Barbarossa started.

He said as an example the Soviets took a guy who knew how to build dams, and assigned him to build factories. The problem was - the guy built the factory walls 2m thick cement - and then when they went to bring the machinery into the factory, they found that the doors were too narrow, and had to jackhammer away feet of that 2m thick wall...

So clearly these were people who were not really well educated - they were "monkey see/monkey do" construction people.

And they were the best available.