M.A. Kleen

Preparing for an inevitable war with Nazi Germany while Stalin’s paranoia undermines everything you do is among the most anxiety-producing aspects of this WW2 grand strategy game.

With a rumored Germany rework coming down the pipeline, and the recent content creator pack for the Soviet Union, I decided to brush up on some Hearts of Iron IV, Soviet-style and noticed some subtle changes to its Political Paranoia system. Political Paranoia is the game’s attempt to incorporate the political machinations of Joseph Stalin as he consolidated power in the late 1930s.

Ioseb Dzhugashvili (1878-1953), commonly known by his nom de guerre ‘Stalin’, Anglicized as Joseph Stalin, was undisputed leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1927 to his death in 1953. To solidify his grip on power, he orchestrated a series of political purges between 1936 and 1938 in which somewhere around 700,000 people were killed (collectively known as the Great Purge). This effectively hobbled the Soviet military and led to its poor performance during the Winter War in 1940 and Operation Barbarossa in 1941.

Because the Great Purge had such a consequential effect on military events of the Second World War, Paradox Interactive’s epic grand strategy game Hearts of Iron had to incorporate it somehow.

In previous iterations of Hearts of Iron, the Soviet Union’s Great Purge was represented by a vanilla event or events that eliminated several generals and ministers. Hearts of Iron IV initially followed this route but the 2021 expansion No Step Back introduced the Political Paranoia system alongside an expanded focus tree. This created a kind of mini-game that forces you to navigate the purges and gives you greater control over their scope and scale. Trying to avoid them altogether has long-lasting and disastrous negative consequences.

You want to complete the purge focus tree as quickly as possible so you can get on with preparing the Soviet Union for its inevitable clash with Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, doing so while avoiding any major pitfalls is not intuitive.

Around four months into 1936 (usually April 3), an event pops up called “Iosif Stalin concerned about Factionalism”, which triggers the Political Paranoia system. If you choose to follow the historical Centre path, this begins a mini-game that requires you to run down a focus tree branch conducting purges against Stalin’s enemies, while trying to avoid (additional) negative consequences by keeping cumulative paranoia as low as possible.

There are four unavoidable purges that will remove advisors and generals from the game — Again, for emphasis, these are unavoidable. It’s impossible for you to play as the Soviet Union and retain all of your advisors and generals. It sucks, but you have to accept that fact going in. However, you can avoid losing any additional advisors and generals if you successfully navigate this path.

Purge Focus	Cool-down	Paranoia added	Paranoia removed
The Zinovyevite Terrorist Center	175 days	30	50
The Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center	175 days	30	50
The Military Conspiracy	175 days	30	50
The Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites	None	None	Removes all paranoia

If Paranoia value increases over 25, random purge events occur. The higher the paranoia, and the more days it has been high, the more likely it is for a purge to happen. If paranoia increases over 75, great purge events occur. You want to avoid these as much as possible because they will severely cripple your military.

The reason to wait to pick The Path of Marxism Leninism is because once the paranoia system begins, The Path of Marxism Leninism decreases Political Paranoia by 10 (if you choose it beforehand, it only gives you political power). That may not seem like much, but you want to always keep paranoia as low as possible. Paranoia continues to tick up every week. I would recommend completing one 70-day focus or two 35-day focuses before choosing The Path of Marxism Leninism.

Paranoia per Week	Paranoia per 35 day period
2	10
3	15
4	20

Most of the early focuses are ‘paranoia neutral’, meaning they remove as much paranoia as they accumulate. After completing ‘The Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center’, however, you begin to accumulate paranoia at a rate of 3 per week, which means you accumulate 30 paranoia per 70-day focus. You’ll have to carefully consider every move to avoid accumulating over 25 paranoia.

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned some subtle changes. There used to be other focuses that reduced paranoia, but not any longer. Paradox makes updates to the game every few months, so I’m not sure when those modifiers were removed.

There are several options for reducing political paranoia outside the focus tree. The best option is ‘Forge Satisfactory Production Reports’. It costs 25 political power and reduces paranoia by 20, but it can only be used once every 180 days.

There are four options for conducting an inspection in your administration, army, navy, and air force for 50 political power that trigger random events and reduce paranoia anywhere between 10 and 20, however, these will all apply negative penalties and possibly remove generals or admirals. I would avoid these if possible, but if I have to use one, I will usually use ‘Inspection in the Navy,’ since the Soviet Union’s navy is its least important branch. I would chose air force second, because its penalties can be removed later on and there are no generals to lose.

Following ‘The Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center’, political paranoia will begin accumulating by 3% per week.

‘The Workers’ Dictatorship’ will produce more paranoia (30) than it alleviates (10), so as soon as you accumulate 20 paranoia, this is a good time to spend 25 political power to Forge Satisfactory Production Reports. That will set you to zero, and then completing The Workers’ Dictatorship will remove the 10 paranoia that accumulates from there.

Now you have a decision to make. 105 days remain before you can select the next purge ‘The Military Conspiracy’.

The next focus, ‘Centralization and Discipline’, alleviates 20 paranoia, but it only takes 35 days to complete, meaning that 15 paranoia will accumulate. You can choose to just forfeit the extra paranoia, or you can complete another 35-day focus before Centralization and Discipline (I recommend ‘Send Military Advisors to Spain’). Completing these two 35-day focuses will accumulate a total of 30 paranoia, leading you with 10 extra after Centralization and Discipline completes.

Then you have an additional 35 days before you can unlock The Military Conspiracy, so you can pursue any 35-day focus, keeping in mind that 15 more paranoia will accumulate, leaving you with 25 when The Military Conspiracy unlocks for selection. This is when I’d recommend using ‘Inspection in the Navy’ to reduce your paranoia below the 25 danger zone.

The Military Conspiracy has a 175-day cool down period before you can select the final purge ‘The Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’. Unfortunately, there’s only one focus left that will reduce Stalin’s paranoia, and that is the 35-day event ‘Behead the Snake’, which reduces paranoia by 30. During this 175-day cool down period, you will accumulate 75 paranoia.

The following is the safest and most efficient way to complete this national focus branch and rid yourself of Stalin’s hazardous paranoia. If you follow it step by step, you should avoid any additional purge events and penalties beyond what I’ve already described:

1. National Focus: Any 35-day focus (recommend Heavy Industry)
2. National Focus: Any 35-day focus (recommend Infrastructure Effort)
3. National Focus: The Path of Marxism Leninism
4. National Focus: The Centre
5. National Focus: The Stalin Constitution
6. National Focus: The Zinovyevite Terrorist Center
7. National Focus: Socialism in One Country
8. National Focus: Secure the Administration
9. National Focus: The Collectivization Process
10. National Focus: Any 35-day focus (recommend The Comintern)
11. National Focus: The Anti-Soviet Trotskyist Center
12. National Focus: The Workers’ Dictatorship
13. Event: Forge Satisfactory Production Reports at 20 paranoia
14. National Focus: Any 35-day focus (recommend Send Military Advisors to Spain)
15. National Focus: Centralization and Discipline
16. National Focus: Any 35-day focus
17. Event: Inspection in the Navy at 25 paranoia
18. National Focus: The Military Conspiracy
19. National Focus: 70-day focus (or two 35-day)
20. Event: Inspection in the Air Force
21. National Focus: 35-day focus
22. National Focus: Behead the Snake
23. National Focus: 35-day focus
24. Event: Forge Satisfactory Production Reports
25. National Focus: The Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites

If you have a better or faster way to complete the paranoia mini-game in Hearts of Iron IV, please leave a comment below!