My brothers Keeper, an SI as the twin brother of Stalin (Reworked)

[Kash]

This made sense for the beginning of the fanfic but cmon bro, he's personally killed entire families, hundreds of soliders, been through warfare, charged first in battles, and he still quakes in his boots like a little bitch, it's simply ridiculous, Stalin ain't that scary he just isn't, your character is pathetic, this attitude should've ended within the first few chapters if not scenes

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Yeah right now Mika is worst than Stalin in the eyes of a lot of peoples so is not Logic that is still afraid or dont have other plan for stalin
And I hope after this chapter is not going to still cry about his wife death and try to kill himself
If Mika really want to save peoples from stalin why doesn't he try and make a Better image for him and stalin, because the only thing he do is kill peoples left and right

 

[Alenco98]

This made sense for the beginning of the fanfic but cmon bro, he's personally killed entire families, hundreds of soliders, been through warfare, charged first in battles, and he still quakes in his boots like a little bitch, it's simply ridiculous, Stalin ain't that scary he just isn't, your character is pathetic, this attitude should've ended within the first few chapters if not scenes

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The road to hell, good intentions. He's definitely built a 6 lane highway by now

 

[OverseerEX]

I think Mika's been 'playing' a role and dissociating; that's why he could kill without mercy, and still be scared. His knowledge of the future gives him the ability to view the world as "false" to an extent.

Also, the whole Stalin is an unfeeling machine of unending ice as deep as Mother Russia is going a bit too far. Or is it just how Mika perceives him?

 

[Kash]

I think Mika's been 'playing' a role and dissociating; that's why he could kill without mercy, and still be scared. His knowledge of the future gives him the ability to view the world as "false" to an extent.

Also, the whole Stalin is an unfeeling machine of unending ice as deep as Mother Russia is going a bit too far. Or is it just how Mika perceives him?

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After what he saw in the illusion ( Maria and his Victims ) in going to change some extent . He can't be the same person after all this

 

[Alenco98]

The New York Times
July 17, 1973
Somali Forces Take Dire Dawa

Somali troops, supported by Soviet and Cuban volunteers, captured the strategic Ethiopian city of Dire Dawa early today, dealing a significant blow to the government of Emperor Haile Selassie. Military sources said the assault was led by Lieutenant General Dmitry Yazov and involved coordinated infantry, chemical and artillery attacks.

The loss of Dire Dawa, a key transportation and commercial center in eastern Ethiopia, comes as the Selassie government faces mounting pressures from famine, unrest within the armed forces, and growing political opposition.

In Washington, the United States condemned the joint Somali-Soviet action and announced plans for expanded military and economic aid to Ethiopia. American officials declined to comment on reports that U.S. special forces advisers may already be operating alongside Ethiopian units.

The Soviet Union has not publicly acknowledged its role in the fighting, but Western diplomats said the operation underscored Moscow's expanding influence in the Horn of Africa.

March 30, 1921
On a train approaching Moscow
Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR

Stalin stepped quietly out of the room, closing the door with care. Nadezhda lay curled on her side, Vasily tucked against her chest, both breathing in the deep, even rhythm of people who had not yet learned to ration sleep. He paused a moment, watching them, then turned away. That world—of rest, of softness—was not meant for him. It never had been. Revolution trained a man to live on fragments: fragments of sleep, fragments of warmth, fragments of mercy.

He crossed into the main room.

Mika was sitting at the table, a book propped open on a makeshift stand, the lamplight catching the uneven planes of his face. His hair was loose, falling to just above his shoulders, no longer tied back with military precision. The eyepatch, the half-empty sleeve pinned at the elbow, the ill-fitting tunic—he looked less like a commissar now and more like a brigand who had wandered in from the mountains and never quite left. It irritated him in a way he could not fully articulate.

Mika glanced up and smiled faintly. "Hey, Joe."

He acknowledged him with a nod and took the chair opposite. "What are you reading?"

"The Red Room," Mika said, tapping the page with his left index finger. "Swedish novel. Strindberg—August Strindberg. Elsa found a Russian edition for me. Thought it might keep me occupied before Moscow buries me alive with paperwork."

His mouth tightened at the name. Elsa. The foreign nurse. The humanitarian. The woman who had threaded herself into his brother's life at precisely the wrong moment. He understood grief. He understood desire born of loneliness; he was no stranger to that particular ache. But her? A foreigner. Connected to international relief networks, Western eyes, bourgeois sympathies. Too clean. Too visible.

"You sound like you're in love," He said flatly.

Mika did not deny it, just shrugged. That alone was unsettling.

"Unfortunately, you're not wrong," he replied. "And I hate myself for it. Every time I think of her, it feels like I'm betraying Maria." He exhaled slowly. "But it's lonely, Joe. Without Maria. And now without Elsa."

Stalin folded his hands. "Then find another woman in Moscow. Someone suitable. With your reputation, that won't be difficult."

Mika nodded, but his expression didn't change. "I know. But what would that give me? Someone pretty? Someone obedient? I don't need a servant or a sycophant or someone to warm my bed." He looked up, his remaining eye meeting Stalin's eyes. "I need someone who tells me to stop. Someone who calls me a monster when I deserve it."

Stalin felt a flicker of irritation. Softness. She was making him soft.

"You know what your new position entails," Stalin said. "You do not have the luxury of conscience."

Mika gave a short, humorless laugh. "Did you read the Kronstadt report?"

"I did."

"You saw that it worked."

Stalin remembered the words on the page. The crossing of the ice. The surrender. The casualties reduced by a margin that should not have existed. Foolish. Reckless. Brilliant, perhaps—but brilliance that relied on luck was still foolishness.

"That will not work again," Stalin said. "You will not always survive such gestures. Sooner or later, that kind of softness gets a man killed."

Mika studied him for a moment. "I don't really fear dying anymore," he said quietly. "And I trust you to take care of my children if it comes to that. I'll do what you tell me, Joe. I always have." A pause. Then, almost gently: "But I'll do it my way."

Stalin snorted. "You've never known any other way."

"What do you expect?" Mika shrugged, closing the book. "Someone has to be the soft one."

Stalin did not respond. He watched as Mika's gaze drifted down to the empty sleeve, the stump beneath the fabric. The lamplight made it look smaller than it was, diminished.

"Do you know anyone in Moscow who can make a prosthetic?" Mika asked. Casual. As if he were asking for a new pair of boots.

"I can arrange inquiries."

Mika nodded, thoughtful. Then he smiled.

Stalin felt it immediately. That smile—the same one Mika had worn as a boy before suggesting something outrageous, impractical, or dangerous. It never boded well.

"I have an idea," Mika said.

Stalin sighed. "Out with it."

"You think," Mika said, gesturing at the stump, "you could have the prosthetic maker attach a blade instead of a hand?"

For a moment, Stalin said nothing. He simply stared at his brother, seeing not the wounded man before him but the boy who had once proposed shooting bullets with a slingshot, who had once suggested setting the school bully's pants on fire "for balance."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Stalin said flatly. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest, studying his brother the way one studies leftover ordinance. "Have you finally gone mad?"

Even now—mutilated, grieving, half-broken—Mikheil was still Mikheil. Creative. Reckless. Incorrigibly dangerous. Loss had taken his arm and his wife, but it had not dulled that sharp, irritating spark in him. If anything, it had honed it.

"No, Joe," Mikheil replied calmly, almost patiently. He shook his head once. "I'm peacocking."

Stalin narrowed his eyes. "Pea… what?"

"Peacocking." Mikheil shrugged with his remaining shoulder. "You know the bird?"

"Yes," Stalin said curtly. "A bird. Get to the point."

"You've heard of their feathers," Mikheil went on, undeterred. "Bright. Excessive. Impossible to ignore."

"I said get to the point."

Mikheil smiled faintly. Not amused—focused. "Think about it. A blade for a prosthetic. A proper one. Short sword, maybe. I keep my hair long. The eyepatch stays. I won't look like a Party functionary or a clerk. I'll look like a bandit king. A warlord. Someone clearly insane."

He tapped his chest lightly with two fingers. "They'll look at me and think, this man is a menace. This man is insane. We should not provoke him."

Then he pointed at him.

"And they'll look at you, my older brother, my boss, and think—this man is the only one who can rein him in. The only one he listens to. The only one he answers to." He leaned forward slightly. "Which means he must be even more terrifying than I am."

Stalin said nothing. He did not interrupt. He was interested, he let him continue.

Mikheil pressed on, warming to his argument. "You can be the Party man. The organizer. The straight man. I'll be the monster. The Hero of the Revolution who still bows his head to his brother." He exhaled through his nose. "Lenin won't live forever. When he's gone, who do you think they'll look to? You—the man who held Petrograd, the man I defer to? Or those losers in the Politburo? Trotsky? Kamenev? Zinoviev?" He scoffed. "They're already on track to lose the succession battle. They just don't know it yet."

For a long moment, Stalin remained silent.

Clever, he thought.

Clever—and reckless. The idea was dangerous. It invited myth, spectacle, rumor. He despised chaos. Yet he understood symbols. He understood fear. And he understood that a controlled monster was more useful than a hundred loyal stooges.

He studied Mikheil again: the scars, the eyepatch, the empty sleeve. People would whisper. They already did. This would give them something solid to fear.

Finally, He spoke.

"Have you told anyone else this?"

"No," Mikheil said immediately. "Just you. I wouldn't risk it otherwise."

"And if that Swedish woman returns?" He asked, his voice carefully neutral. "Would you speak of me to her?"

Mikheil hesitated, just a fraction of a second. "It depends," he said honestly. "If she comes back. If something develops. If she becomes my wife—then she'd be family. I would speak to her as I spoke to Maria."

His jaw tightened. "And what did you speak of with Maria?"

"Work," Mikheil replied without hesitation. "Executions. Politics. How much I despised Zinoviev. How you were my connection to Moscow. Maria was my wife. Kato's sister. I trusted her."

"You are far too trusting," Stalin said sharply.

Mikheil smiled again, tired but unrepentant. "I prefer to think I'm a good judge of character."

Stalin did not return the smile.

Instead, he leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on his brother.

Loyal, he thought. I need to keep him on a leash.

Stalin studied his brother for a long moment, eyes narrowed, jaw set, weighing the idea not on its absurdity but on its usefulness.

"Fine," he said at last. "Keep your look. I'll get you a stupid little blade for your arm—hell, I'll get you a real short sword if that's what you want." A thin smirk crept across his face. "If you insist on looking like a bandit king, you might as well commit properly."

Mika's face lit up, the way it always did when he thought he'd won something. "I knew you'd come around to my mad plan," he said. "And I think you'll like what else I have planned."

"Oh God," Stalin muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What now."

Mika rose from his chair with deliberate energy. "Follow me."

Stalin sighed, already regretting the decision, and stood. He followed his brother out of the main room and down the narrow corridor, passing the closed doors behind which children slept—Mika's five, Yakov included—and their mother. Stalin glanced at the doors only briefly. Family was a vulnerability; he never forgot that. Mika, on the other hand, leaned into it.

They entered Mika's makeshift office. The room was cramped, utilitarian, far too tidy for someone who claimed to live on the edge of chaos. Without ceremony, Mika crossed to the far wall and knelt, dragging out a heavy wooden chest. Then another. Then a third. Each was roughly the size of a small child.

Stalin's brow furrowed.

Mika produced a key from his desk drawer and unlocked the first chest. The lid creaked open.

Gold coins gleamed dully in the low light. Foreign banknotes—American, French, Italian—were stacked in uneven bundles. Gems followed in the second chest, loose and unmounted, catching the light with quiet, obscene brilliance. The third held more of the same.

Stalin froze. "What is this," he asked slowly, his voice flat. "And how did you get it."

Mika closed the chests again with irritating calm and locked them. "I skimmed taxes. Carefully. Over time." He met Stalin's eyes without flinching. "Consider it starting capital for a little business I've been thinking about."

Stalin stared at him, mind racing. This was not petty corruption. This was scale. This was planning.

He pulled a chair closer and sat heavily. "Who knows about this?"

"Maria knew I was saving," Mika said quietly. "Aside from her, no one."

Good, Stalin thought. At least the Swedish woman wasn't involved.

"Go on," he said. "What idiotic idea justifies this."

Mika smiled, dragged another chair over, and sat across from him. "Do you know what Prohibition is?"

"Prohibition of what?" Stalin snapped. "Be specific."

"Alcohol," Mika said. "In the United States. It's illegal there now. John Reed told me about it. Demand is enormous. The Italian mafia—New York, Chicago, everywhere—they're killing each other over access to booze."

Stalin leaned back, arms folded. He said nothing.

Mika stood, retrieved a folded map, and spread it across the desk. His finger jabbed at the United States, then slid south.

"Here," he said. "Cuba. Ninety miles off the coast. Alcohol is legal there. I buy ships. I load them with liquor. I don't sell directly into the U.S.—too messy. I sell to intermediaries in Cuba. Mafia connections. They move it in. They pay us for supply."

His finger moved again. "Mexico is another option. Canada too—laws vary by province, some dry, some not."

Stalin watched him closely now, irritation giving way to reluctant interest. This wasn't drunken fantasy. This was logistics. Supply chains. Risk buffers. Plausible deniability.

"You want to turn Soviet money into criminal profit," Stalin said.

"I want to turn chaos into leverage," Mika replied calmly. "And money."

Stalin did not smile. But he did not interrupt.

He leaned back slightly, fingers interlaced over his stomach, eyes fixed on his brother as if Mika were not a man but a problem to be solved.

"Go on," he said at last. "Who would run this operation? You will be buried in Cheka work. You won't have the time—or the discretion."

Mika barely hesitated. "You remember our brother-in-law, don't you? Aleksander. Kato's little brother. The one with that ridiculous mustache."

The name landed like a stone dropped into still water.

Stalin leaned back further, gaze drifting to the ceiling for a brief moment. Kato. Every time her name surfaced, something in him tightened—irritation, grief, guilt, all tangled together. Especially now, when Mika's daughter was growing older, her face becoming an uncomfortable echo of the woman he had buried.

"Yes," Stalin said quietly. "I remember him. I haven't seen him since I was sent to Siberia."

Mika nodded. "Do you think you can contact him?" Mika pressed. "He was a Bolshevik like you. I lost track of him after I moved to Petrograd. I don't even know where he is."

Stalin thought for a moment, rifling through memories and correspondence like a filing cabinet.

"When I last wrote to him," he said slowly, "he mentioned Moscow. Foreign Affairs. Minor post." His brow furrowed. "But after Sergo moved on Georgia, I believe Aleksander went south with him."

"Who's Sergo?" Mika asked.

"Sergo Ordzhonikidze," Stalin replied without hesitation. "A party man. A friend. I met him in prison." He paused, then added, as if filing the thought away, "Reliable. Ambitious. Brutal when necessary. I'll introduce you one day."

"Sounds charming," Mika said lightly. "So—what do you think, Joe? Feasible, right? We'd make a lot of money doing this."

Stalin's eyes sharpened.

"And the Party?" he asked. "And Lenin?" His voice hardened. "If this becomes known—if we are caught profiting from smuggling—we won't just lose our positions. We'll lose the succession entirely. Trotsky would flay us alive."

Mika shrugged, irritatingly calm.

"Oh, that's easy," he said. "We tell him."

Stalin stared at him.

"Are you insane?"

"Think about it," Mika said, leaning forward now, animated. "The civil war is ending. The country is ruined. We need capital—real capital—to rebuild. So you pitch it to Lenin like this: international trade operation, alcohol exports routed through third countries. State revenue. Reconstruction funds. Nothing about my little savings."

Stalin listened despite himself.

"We run it officially," Mika continued. "But Aleksander manages the operations and the books. We skim quietly. Build a private war chest. Lenin doesn't need to know about that part."

Stalin said nothing for several seconds.

Then, reluctantly, he nodded.

"That… could work," he admitted. "But who makes the contacts? Aleksander doesn't speak English. You do—but you're needed here."

Mika's smile widened just a little.

"I was thinking of bringing Reed in."

Stalin's jaw tightened.

"John Reed?" he snapped. "The American? Are you joking?"

"Come on," Mika said. "He trusts me. He likes me. More importantly, he's American. He knows the country, the people, the networks. He can teach Aleksander English, show him how things work, introduce him to the right criminals."

Stalin disliked this intensely. An American. A brother-in-law. Unsupervised. On the other side of the world.

Yet the numbers began to form in his mind. Hard currency. Influence. Independence from party budgets. Leverage—always leverage.

At last, he exhaled through his nose.

"Very well," he said. "I'll speak to Lenin."

He fixed his brother with a warning look.

"If this collapses," Stalin added quietly, "it collapses on you first."

Mika only smiled.

Stalin did not like that smile—but he had learned, long ago, that Mika's ideas had a tendency to work themselves out, much to his irritation.

 

[OverseerEX]

Stalin did not like that smile—but he had learned, long ago, that Mika's ideas had a tendency to work themselves out, much to his irritation.

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And the invisible historian wrote: "Yes, Comrade Stalin knew once again, that his brother was right. And that annoyed him very much."
Mika: "Without me, this whole place would fall apart."

 

[BuilderOne]

"You think," Mika said, gesturing at the stump, "you could have the prosthetic maker attach a blade instead of a hand?"

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A freaking madlad.

I actually laugh while readimg this at night

He tapped his chest lightly with two fingers. "They'll look at me and think, this man is a menace. This man is insane. We should not provoke him."

Then he pointed at him.

"And they'll look at you, my older brother, my boss, and think—this man is the only one who can rein him in. The only one he listens to. The only one he answers to." He leaned forward slightly. "Which means he must be even more terrifying than I am."

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It'd be funny if in the future, every single spies and diplomats actually think like this. And somehow, Stalin would be officially recorded as the nicer guy.

 

[spectre678]

Mikheil smiled faintly. Not amused—focused. "Think about it. A blade for a prosthetic. A proper one. Short sword, maybe. I keep my hair long. The eyepatch stays

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dude must've been a walking dead fan

 

[Alenco98]

"I look forward to burning down Berlin and using your Fuhrer's skull as a cup once your country violates the treaty we just signed."

Mikheil Jugashvili addressing Joachim Ribbentrop after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

March 31, 1921
Lubyanka Building
Moscow, Russian SFSR

I stood in front of the building and stared up at it.

Lubyanka.

Even the name sounded like a diagnosis.

Dzerzhinsky had been thoughtful enough to have several Cheka agents waiting for me at the train station—stone-faced men in identical coats who looked like they'd been carved out of damp concrete and issued pistols instead of souls. Stalin, Nadezhda, mama, my children, Yakov, and the rest had all been taken straight to the Kremlin with our belongings. Settling in. Establishing a home. A family.

I, meanwhile, had been delivered directly to my new office/tomb.

I would have liked to join them, even briefly. I would have liked to see the rooms, see where the children would sleep, hear mama complain about the decorations, hear Nadezhda already planning where Vasily's crib would go. But no—history waits for no man, especially not one who had just finished butchering Kronstadt and survived out of sheer cosmic spite.

I'd read about Lubyanka once, a lifetime ago, in a class within a high school that technically didn't exist yet, in another life. AP World Government, I think it had been called. There'd been a section on Russia, a neat little paragraph about secret police, repression, "state security organs." Lubyanka had been mentioned in passing, there was even a picture in the corner.

They never really captured the ambiance.

The building loomed over the street, squat and heavy, like it was pressing itself into the earth on purpose. If buildings could feel smug, this one would be unbearable.

As I approached, escorted by Dzerzhinsky's guards, a pair of sentries at the entrance snapped to attention.

"Hail Lenin," they said in unison, raising their arms.

I returned the salute with my stump. "Hail Lenin." I said in a deadpan voice.

Of all the things I'd contributed to the revolution—terror, discipline, rivers of blood—that was apparently what had REALLY caught on. What I'd originally done as a joke, a bit of dark humor stolen from my timeline's future had now become a thing. Even here. Even in Moscow.

Part of me would have laughed.

All of me felt nothing at all.

I was shown inside, down corridors that smelled faintly of ink, old paper, sweat, and fear. Lubyanka wasn't loud like Petrograd during the terror. It didn't need to be. This place hummed quietly, efficiently, like a machine that had long since stopped asking questions.

Soon enough, I found myself standing before Dzerzhinsky's office.

I knocked. "It's Jugashvili," I said.

"Enter," came the familiar voice.

I opened the door and walked in, sitting across from him for what felt like the hundredth time in my life, just in a different city. Felix looked exactly the same as ever—severe, controlled, ascetic, like a man who had personally declared war on joy and won.

He studied me for a moment. "You look different," he said.

"Losing a hand, grief and almost dying tends to age a man," I replied with a shrug. "I understand Comrade Stalin arranged a role for me here. General Secretary of the Cheka."

"That's correct."

I nodded. "An honor."

A pause.

"While I would prefer to put you back into the field," he continued, "especially in places like Tambov, many in the party have described your actions as… excessive."

"Excessive," I repeated mildly.

"And while I do not entirely disagree," he went on, unfazed, "a man of your skills cannot simply be discarded. That would be wasteful."

There it was.

I smiled thinly. "Which is why you're putting me behind a desk."

"Yes."

Fair enough.

"That's fine," I said. "Tell me what you need."

"Reorganization."

"Reorganization," I echoed, nodding slowly. "In what sense? Staffing, I assume. Stalin mentioned as much. But beyond that—what exactly do you want from me? What do you need me to do?"

Dzerzhinsky leaned back slightly. "The Cheka is a mess," he said flatly. "Personal rivalries. Factionalism. Theft. Extortion. Bribery. On top of that, we are responsible for suppressing revolts, requisitions, enforcing party discipline, monitoring the army, watching state institutions. We are overstretched. I cannot manage this alone."

That admission alone would have made most men uneasy.

"Yours and Stalin's Cheka in Petrograd," he continued, "was the most functional in the entire country. Brutal, yes—but disciplined. Efficient. Predictable. That is why I asked for you."

I nodded again, the realization settling in like damp wool.

So this was it.

No more charging across ice. No more speeches to crowds. No more executions. No more dramatic threats shouted into the night.

I was being turned into a spreadsheet with a pulse.

"I understand," I said. "What's the first order of business?"

"Write a report," he replied. "A comprehensive proposal on how the Cheka should be reorganized. Structural changes. Personnel changes. Procedures. I will grant you full access to the archives. You have one week."

He looked at me sharply. "Do not disappoint me."

"I won't," I said. "Where will my office be?"

"Down the hall. First door on the left."

Of course it was.

"And," I added, almost as an afterthought, "my brother may approach you and Comrade Lenin soon with a proposal regarding postwar reconstruction. I'll submit supporting materials for that as well."

Dzerzhinsky's eyebrow twitched—just barely. "That can be addressed later. Focus on your report."

"Yes, sir."

"No further business. Dismissed."

I stood, saluted out of habit, and left.

As I walked down the corridor toward my new office, the weight of it finally hit me.

This was my punishment.

Not prison. Not execution. Not exile.

Paper.

Ink.

Committees.

Endless meetings about efficiency, staffing ratios, and disciplinary procedures.

A glorified office drone.

I muttered under my breath, in Georgian, something unprintable.

I missed Maria.

I missed the way she spoke softly in Georgian, waking up next to her every morning, just speaking to her about anything. I missed Elsa's quiet presence, the way she made me feel human. Everything felt colder without her already.

I opened the door to my office.

A desk. A chair. Shelves waiting to be filled with reports, atrocities and sins. More reasons for St. Peter to not write my name when I showed up at the pearly gates.

I closed the door behind me and sighed.

"Well," I said to no one, "at least they can't shoot me for bad handwriting."

March 31, 1921
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russian SFSR

I entered my apartments dead tired, the kind of tired that seeps into your bones and stays there. My left hand clenched around a suitcase stuffed to the point of abuse with notes, reports, half-finished memoranda, and reccomendations written in three languages depending on how angry I'd been at the time. Two Cheka guards followed me down the hall, boots echoing like punctuation marks. They stopped at the door, as instructed. I stepped inside alone, set the suitcase down with a dull thud, and closed the door behind me.

That was when I noticed the table.

The dinner table had been fully set—properly set. Plates, cutlery, bread, soup already cooling in bowls. Candles. Real ones. For a moment my brain didn't process it. Then my stomach growled loudly, traitorously, as if to announce that despite everything, I was still alive and apparently still required food.

"Oh," I said aloud.

I looked up.

Stalin was seated at the head of the table, posture rigid, expression unreadable. Beside him sat Nadya, calm and composed as ever. Mama was there too, already glaring at me for being late. My children filled the remaining chairs, whispering among themselves. Yakov sat straight-backed, trying very hard to look grown. Vasily was half-asleep. And then—two unfamiliar faces. A man and a woman, both Georgian.

I blinked.

"Who are you two?" I asked, genuinely confused.

The man stiffened immediately. "What the hell do you mean, who am I?" he snapped in Georgian, clearly offended. "Have you forgotten who your brother-in-law is?"

I stared at him for a long second.

"Aleksander?" I scoffed. "No fucking way. I thought you were with Stalin's friend."

"Mikheil." Mama hissed sharply.

"Sorry, mama," I said automatically.

Aleksander stood up and glared at me. "About time you shaved that ridiculous beard. You looked like a vagrant bandit." I said.

"Shut the hell up," he replied, stepping forward and pulling me into a rough embrace. "How the hell have you been?"

"Language," Mama snapped again.

"Sorry Mrs. Jugashvili," Aleksander said.

"Its good to see you again," Aleksander said, chuckling as he stepped back.

"Good to see you too," I said, then nodded toward the woman beside him. "And who's this?"

"My wife," he said proudly. "Maria Corona."

He turned to her. "Maria, this is Mikheil Vissarionovich Jugashvili. Stalin's younger brother."

"The prettier one," I added without thinking.

Laughter rippled around the table. Even Mama smiled. Stalin rolled his eyes with the weary patience of a man who had long since given up correcting me.

"Maria," I repeated, walking closer and offering a slight bow. "Pleased to meet you."

"A pleasure," she replied warmly.

The name hit me harder than I expected. Maria. Always Maria. It tugged at something raw and unhealed inside my chest. I filed it away where I kept things I didn't want to feel.

"Where were you?" Mama demanded, cutting cleanly through my thoughts. "Dinner was getting cold. We were about to start without you."

"Work," I said simply. "I can't say much. But it looks like I'll be sitting behind a desk for the rest of my life."

"Bah," she waved a hand dismissively. "Then sit and eat. Mika—you lead the prayer."

I took my seat and nodded. I murmured a simple Hail Mary, one of the few prayers I still remembered without effort. Stalin and Nadya followed the motions stiffly, visibly uncomfortable, but neither dared contradict Mama. No one ever did.

Then we ate.

No politics. No executions. No Kronstadt. No Moscow. We talked about the children, about Aleksander's travels, about food shortages, about nothing important and everything that mattered. For an hour—maybe more—I felt almost human again. Not forgiven. Not redeemed. Just… present.

For a brief, dangerous moment, I wondered if maybe I wasn't entirely lost.

But moments like that never lasted.

Eventually the plates were cleared. The children were sent to bed. The noise faded. And soon enough, I found myself alone in my room—except for Stalin and Aleksander, who remained standing in the quiet with me, like the aftertaste of reality returning.

"I've explained your proposal to Aleksander," Stalin said flatly. "Bootlegging. Smuggling to the United States."

Aleksander nodded, rubbing his chin as he looked between the two of us. "It's clever," he admitted. "Very clever. Also completely insane. And illegal in at least three countries."

"Only risky if we do it like amateurs," I replied, already dragging my suitcase onto the desk with my left hand. It thudded open, vomiting papers everywhere—flow charts, draft memoranda, half-legible notes, arrows pointing to other arrows, entire sections underlined in red with comments like MOVE THIS HERE and THIS IS WHERE WE STEAL THE MONEY written in the margins.

"Dzerzhinsky," I continued, "has put me in charge of reorganizing the Cheka. Structure. Personnel. Procedures. The whole beautiful nightmare. He wants it rebuilt from the ground up."

I paused, letting that sink in. Somewhere deep inside, a tiny voice whispered that I had somehow gone from mass executions to organizational charts. History works in mysterious, deeply cruel ways.

"I think," I went on, "we can fit our little operation very neatly into that reorganization."

I turned to Aleksander and smiled.

"Tell me—how would you like to run your own department of the Cheka?"

His eyebrows shot up. "My own department?"

"Yes," I said cheerfully. "Your own department. Something fancy, having to do with customs and border enforcement. Unofficially: booze, ships, and Americans with poor impulse control."

Aleksander stared at me. Then at Stalin. Then back at me. "You're serious."

"I am," I said. "You'll be a Cheka officer making money for the revolution. And—" I waved my stump vaguely "—skimming generously for yourself, me, and my dear brother here. Equal shares. Family rates."

Stalin said nothing. Instead, he reached forward and took my papers.

That always made me nervous.

He skimmed silently, eyes moving fast. Every thirty seconds or so he muttered, "Interesting," in a tone that could mean anything from this is brilliant to this will get us all shot. Occasionally he picked up the pencil on my desk and added notes in his tight, angular handwriting. He crossed out entire paragraphs. Rewrote others. Drew a box around one section and wrote CONTROL POINT next to it.

When he was finished, he slid the papers back toward me.

"He's given you an alarming amount of authority," Stalin said at last. "Good."

That was praise, by his standards.

"How do you plan to staff these directorates?" he asked.

"My people from Petrograd," I replied without hesitation. "Mostly. The ones who survived. And anyone in Moscow I find who's competent, quiet, and not stupid enough to steal from me."

Stalin nodded. "Good. Loyalty first. Ideology second."

Then he turned to Aleksander.

"For now, you stay in Moscow. Tell me, Alyosha—how is your English?"

Aleksander hesitated. "Enough to order food and insult someone."

"And Spanish?"

He grimaced. "Barely."

"You will study," Stalin said simply. "Once Lenin approves this—and he will—you and your wife will take the first ship available to the United States."

Aleksander stiffened. "The United States?"

"Yes," Stalin said. "You will have access to Mika's funds."

Aleksander looked at me sharply. "Your funds?"

"Yes," I said. "My funds."

I leaned back in my chair, feeling suddenly very tired.

"Let's call it… creative accounting during my years in Petrograd. Think of it as starter capital. Or hazard pay. Or blood money, if you're feeling poetic."

Aleksander opened his mouth. Closed it again. "How much are we talking about?"

I smiled thinly. "Enough."

"Can I see it?"

"Later," I said. "I'd like at least one illusion of mystery left in my life."

Inside, I felt the familiar contradiction twisting again: the absurdity of it all, plotting international smuggling schemes while reorganizing the secret police, the loneliness of it. Maria was gone. Elsa was gone. And here I was, amputated, exhausted, planning to rebuild the Cheka and bankroll the revolution through American alcoholism.

Some men get midlife crises.

I got flow charts and a criminal empire.

April 7, 1921
Lubyanka Building
Moscow, Russian SFSR

I stood in front of Dzerzhinsky and Lenin while my life's work—at least this week's version of it—sat between them on the table.

The papers looked innocent enough. written neatly, structured. Relatively clean margins. Bullet points. Very civilized for something that was, in practice, half a blueprint for a police state that would give Orwell ideas and half a carefully disguised criminal enterprise. A Frankenstein document stitched together from Cheka realities, borrowed intelligence doctrines from my last life, and whatever scraps of pragmatism I still had left in my soul.

Stalin stood off to the side, silent, arms folded. He had already given them the outline for out bootlegging side hustle verbally. The sanitized version. No mention of skimming, side accounts, or the fact that several directorates would quietly fund themselves like bandits pretending to be tax collectors. This paper included that but more detailed and sanitized, again, without the stealing.

Lenin adjusted his glasses. Dzerzhinsky sharpened his pencil.

That sound—the soft scrape of graphite—felt louder than artillery.

They read in silence. Occasionally, one of them crossed something out. A sentence vanished under a single hard line. Another paragraph bloomed with cramped marginal notes. Lenin underlined words. Dzerzhinsky circled entire sections like a man deciding where to amputate.

Ten minutes passed.

Ten minutes doesn't sound like much until you're standing in front of two men who can decide whether you live, die, or simply disappear into a file cabinet labeled mistakes. I tried not to fidget. I failed. My stump itched. Phantom pain. Or guilt. Hard to tell anymore.

I glanced at Stalin.

His face was blank—perfectly neutral—but his eyes were locked in. Focused. Calculating. He was nervous, which meant this mattered. Which meant I should be nervous too. He didn't look at me, not directly. That was his way of saying don't speak unless spoken to. Or possibly if this goes wrong, you've never met me.

Dzerzhinsky finally set the papers down.

"You did all this in a week?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. Then corrected myself, because honesty mattered now, apparently. "I drafted the structure. Stalin helped refine the organizational logic. He's very good at that."

Lenin nodded slowly.

Stalin said nothing, but he glanced at me just long enough to remind me that I had just bought myself another month of life. Maybe two.

"This is impressive," Lenin said at last. He paused, then added, "Ugly—but impressive."

"And necessary," Dzerzhinsky said flatly.

I nodded. "Unfortunately."

There was a beat of silence, the kind that invites either genius or execution.

"So," I said, because I am incapable of letting silence live. "Regarding the other proposal Comrade Stalin mentioned."

Lenin sighed and leaned back. "Yes. The alcohol."

He pulled out one of the pages—the one with my hand-drawn world map, arrows crisscrossing oceans like a madman's war plan. Cuba. Mexico. The Baltics. Little notes in the margins: legal here, plausible deniability, Americans are idiots.

"You are correct that we need funds," Lenin said carefully. "The country is starving. Industry is dead. The NEP will take time to set in." He tapped the paper. "But if this is discovered, whatever international standing we have left will suffer. How do you guarantee this doesn't explode in our faces?"

"With respect," I said, choosing my words like they were landmines, "we are already a diplomatic pariah. All our actions during the war ensured that. What we need right now is survival. Rebuilding. Once we are strong again, then we can afford principles."

Lenin frowned. "You are suggesting we shape foreign policy through crime."

"No," I said quickly. "God no. I hate politics. I'm just pointing out that money tends to make problems easier to deal with. Necessary evils and all that." I shrugged.

I gestured to the map. "Shell companies in the Baltic states. Agents posing as exiles. Third-party shipping. We sell only where alcohol is legal—Cuba, Mexico, the Bahamas. American criminal organizations handle the shipping into the US itself. We never touch U.S. soil. We never break any international laws."

"What do you think this looks like Morally?" Lenin asked.

"Repugnant," I said immediately.

"Legally?"

"Gray."

"Ethically?"

I shrugged. "I stopped keeping score after Maria died."

Dzerzhinsky watched me closely. Not judging. Measuring.

Lenin looked at him. Dzerzhinsky gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.

"Very well," Lenin said. "This operation will proceed under your supervision. You will report monthly revenues directly to me. And if this becomes an embarrassment—"

"It won't," I said.

Lenin raised an eyebrow.

"…because if it does," I amended, "I'll make sure it only embarrasses me."

A pause.

Then Lenin nodded. "Accepted."

"As you say, Comrade," I replied.

Inside, something loosened. Relief. Or dread. Possibly both. I had just been handed the keys to an institution that could outlive me—and a criminal pipeline that might rebuild a country.

Or destroy it faster.

Either way, I thought, as I gathered my papers and tried not to smile, I really should have died at Kronstadt.

Excerpt from Stephen Kotkin's 2014 book: Mikheil Jugashvili, The Red Rockefeller and His Rivers of Blood

After the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion and Jugashvili's recovery from the infection that nearly claimed his life, he was promptly recalled to Moscow. On paper, the move was framed as a promotion—a reward for decisive action in defense of the revolution. In practice, however, the appointment functioned as a containment strategy.

Jugashvili's promotion was spearheaded by Grigory Zinoviev. Although Zinoviev's authority within the Petrograd Soviet had been sharply curtailed over the course of the civil war, he retained a network of allies within the party apparatus. By early 1921, concerns about Jugashvili's methods were no longer confined to private whispers, particularly after detailed reports of the events at Kronstadt began circulating within party circles.

Lenin, Trotsky, and several senior Bolsheviks grew increasingly alarmed by the scale and theatricality of Jugashvili's violence. Even Stalin privately acknowledged the "excesses committed in defense of the revolution." Jugashvili's actions at Kronstadt—most notably the forced participation of civilians in executions—went beyond what much of the leadership considered politically sustainable, even under the extraordinary conditions of civil war. Had Jugashvili been an ordinary Cheka commander, his fate might well have mirrored that of Yakov Tryapitsyn, who was arrested and executed following the Nikolaevsk incident once his brutality ceased to serve a useful political purpose.

But Jugashvili was not an ordinary Chekist. By 1921, he had become a revolutionary celebrity: the man credited with the murder of Kerensky, the man who led the storming of the Winter Palace, a central figure in the defense of Petrograd, and one of the principal architects of the destruction of Yudenich's Northwestern Army. His résumé was not merely violent—it was foundational to the revolutionary mythos.

As Lenin remarked during a closed session of the party leadership, shortly after the full scale of the Kronstadt repression became known, "To execute a man like that is to condemn the Cheka—and our revolution—to death." The statement was less an endorsement of Jugashvili's conduct than an acknowledgment of the symbolic capital he had accumulated. In the early Soviet state, revolutionary legitimacy often outweighed even the gravest political discomfort.

Accordingly, Jugashvili was appointed General Secretary of the Cheka, a title that suggested elevation but, at least initially, served a different purpose. Removed from the front lines and absorbed into the Cheka's central bureaucracy, he was effectively stripped of autonomous field command. The reassignment also temporarily checked the informal power exercised by his brother Stalin in Petrograd, confining Stalin instead to his other posts: People's Commissar for Nationalities, his seat in the Politburo, and leadership of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection.

Thus, Jugashvili was neither punished nor sidelined outright. Instead, he was absorbed upward—bureaucratized, monitored, and drawn closer to the center of power—where his talents could be exploited while his excesses were, it was hoped, rendered more manageable.

Unfortunately for many within the party, Jugashvili was neither a brute nor a mindless butcher, despite how he was derided by some delegates at the Tenth Party Congress. Once installed at the Cheka's center, he demonstrated a capacity for institutional design that confounded those who believed his utility ended at the firing squad. Jugashvili set about transforming what had been a crude, improvisational instrument of terror into a durable system of repression—one capable of penetrating nearly every sphere of Soviet life. In this sense, Kronstadt marked not the end of his influence but its bureaucratic beginning.

Throughout 1921, under Jugashvili's supervision and with Dzerzhinsky's formal authority, the Cheka underwent a sweeping reorganization. The organization was divided into a series of directorates, each tasked with a discrete function within the expanding security state. This restructuring imposed order on chaos, hierarchy on improvisation, and specialization on violence.

At the apex stood the First Directorate, the Revolutionary Guard Corps. This elite formation was charged with the personal protection of Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Stalin, and other senior members of the Politburo, as well as their families. Unlike the broader Cheka ranks—drawn from former tsarist police, wartime conscripts, and occasionally outright criminals—the Guard Corps was composed of personnel vetted for ideological reliability and combat experience. Loyalty, not merely brutality, was the criterion.

The Second Directorate, Counterintelligence, focused on the detection and neutralization of internal threats. It was subdivided into specialized sections, including a Returnees Section to monitor émigrés coming back from exile; a Non-Diplomatic Foreigners Section tasked with surveilling foreigners unaffiliated with embassies; and a Diplomatic Section overseeing accredited missions. Within this directorate also operated a Special Operations Detachment, a rapid-response unit designed to dismantle confirmed terrorist cells—an embryonic precursor to later elite counterterror forces.

The Third Directorate, Internal Security, was the largest by manpower. Its units guarded government buildings, prisons, labor camps, research facilities, and other sensitive installations. It also provided armed support to the militsiya during civil unrest, including the suppression of peasant uprisings such as Tambov and, later, resistance during collectivization. This directorate represented the Cheka's visible presence in everyday Soviet life.

The Fourth Directorate, External Intelligence, handled espionage abroad. It was divided into political monitoring, military intelligence, and economic and industrial espionage. A party liaison division coordinated with foreign communist movements, while the most consequential branch—the Special Activities Division, known internally as the October Force—provided training, advisors, and financial support to revolutionary movements overseas. Here, Jugashvili fused ideology with clandestine logistics.

The Fifth Directorate, Political Police, turned the Cheka inward, monitoring the Communist Party itself. Subdivisions tracked rank-and-file corruption, factionalism, and ideological deviation, while a communications unit monitored internal correspondence. Members of the Politburo and Central Committee were nominally exempt, though investigations could proceed with majority approval—an early institutionalization of mutual surveillance at the summit of power.

The Sixth Directorate, Archives and Records, was among the least glamorous but most consequential. It centralized documentation, personnel files, interrogation records, and operational reports. This bureaucratic memory ensured continuity and made repression cumulative.

The Seventh Directorate, Public Investigation, managed informant networks and compiled reports on popular sentiment, dissidence, and everyday "anti-Soviet" behavior. The distinction between criminality and political deviation increasingly blurred under its remit.

The Eighth Directorate, Signals and Communications, monitored letters, telegrams, telephones, and radio traffic. Few aspects of private communication escaped its reach, embedding surveillance into the fabric of daily life.

The Ninth Directorate, Border and Trade Enforcement, officially oversaw customs, ports, and frontier security. Unofficially, it would quickly become Jugashvili's personal fiefdom through his brother in law Aleksander Svanizde, serving to bootleg alcohol into the US and bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in hard cash that would be used to rebuild the Soviet Union and turn Jugashvili into the richest man in the country,

Finally, the Tenth Directorate, Religious Affairs, monitored surviving religious institutions. Separate departments tracked Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, Protestant sects, Islam, Buddhism, animist traditions, and smaller denominations. The goal was not immediate eradication but control, fragmentation, and gradual neutralization.

Together, these directorates formed the institutional core of the Cheka. In time, they would be reconstituted as the OGPU, then into the NKVD, and eventually reborn as the KGB after Stalin's death. The architecture Jugashvili helped design endured. What began as an emergency apparatus of civil war became a permanent feature of Soviet governance—a state within the state, disciplined, adaptable, omnipresent, and wielded as a tool by Joseph Stalin to consolidate power after Lenin's death.

Note: I guess you can consider this the end of the civil war arc. I'll probably spend maybe 20-30 ish chapters, I don't know yet on the 1920s and early 30s. We'll cover prohibition, Mika becoming rich, Lenin's death, Elsa, Stalin's rise to power. I'll end this arc once I start the great break. You can consider this chapter the end of season 1, but I'll keep cracking out chapters like nothing, consider this sort of like the end of an arc in Jojo's bizzare adventure.

 

[iceknight90]

Oh man. I can't wait to see the adventures in alcohol trafficking.

 

[spectre678]

"I look forward to burning down Berlin and using your Fuhrer's skull as a cup once your country violates the treaty we just signed.

Click to shrink...

Austrian painter immediately makes plans to have his remains thrown in some random mass grave

 

[Kash]

The death of Lénine going to be something with Mika and Staline working to become the New Leader

 

[OverseerEX]

Good, Comrade. As long as you keep the chapters coming, you will not be seen as undermining Party discipline and law.

 

[BuilderOne]

"I look forward to burning down Berlin and using your Fuhrer's skull as a cup once your country violates the treaty we just signed."

Mikheil Jugashvili addressing Joachim Ribbentrop after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

Click to shrink...

Ribbentrop in 1930s: this brute is too suspicious of our own people, our state and our Fuhrer.

Ribbentrop in 1950s: this bastard is too suspicious of our own people, our state and our Fuhrer... but he has a point and he's correct.

 

[Ryan Lozano]

May I ask are the romanovs still alive

 

[Alenco98]

"In Colombia, everyone and their mother knew the Narcos and the Reds were working together."
—Excerpt from Narcos, Season 1, Episode 1

April 1, 1921
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russian SFSR

I poured vodka into Stalin's glass first—because of course I did—then Aleksander's, then John Reed's, and finally my own. It felt awkward doing it one-handed. The kind of awkward that makes you hyper-aware of the empty space where your hand used to be. A phantom itch in fingers that no longer exist.

Normal. I was trying to look normal. As if any of this—civil war, famine, secret police, us pretending to be statesmen instead of well-dressed gangsters—qualified as normal.

"Cheers," I said, raising my glass with what I hoped passed for dignity. "To the revolution."

The glasses clinked. We drank.

I personally hated vodka. Always had. Bitter. Violent. It tasted like punishment distilled. But celebrating the birth of a criminal empire disguised as state reconstruction seemed like an appropriate occasion to suffer through it. If we were going to rebuild Russia on smuggling, coercion, and creative accounting, I could at least tolerate a mouthful of disinfectant.

I turned to Reed.

He looked thinner than when I'd first met him in Petrograd all those years ago. Gaunt. Hollow-cheeked. Like a man who'd been living off cigarettes, ink, and ideology for far too long. Prison does that. So does constant travel. So does believing history is on your side while history repeatedly punches you in the face.

Thankfully, he had me.

When Zinoviev had ordered him to Baku last year for some glorious Comintern spectacle, Reed had wanted to wait for his wife. A romantic. In a revolutionary movement. Adorable. Zinoviev, of course, didn't care. Bureaucrats rarely do. So I intervened. Quietly. Firmly.

Good thing, too. There'd been a typhus outbreak in that region shortly after. Apparently saving John Reed from dying of either disease or Comintern enthusiasm was becoming a hobby of mine.

He'd been working in Moscow ever since, writing for the English section of the Comintern. Useful, I suppose. Words matter. Propaganda matters.

But I had better uses for him.

"Reed," I began, setting my glass down carefully. No dramatic gestures—I only had one hand left for those. "I won't mince words. I need your help. The country needs your help." I paused just long enough to make it heavy. "Can you help me?"

He met my eyes. "What do you need?"

"I'm sure you've heard of Prohibition, right?"

"I have." He nodded slowly.

"Good." I stood, crossed to my desk, and retrieved the papers I'd prepared, along with the map. The ink was still faintly fresh. I motioned him over. "Here. Read."

He took the documents and skimmed them in silence. First the proposal. Then the maps. I watched his face the entire time—subtle shifts, tightening jaw, raised brow. It's amazing what people reveal when they think they're just reading.

When he finished, he set the papers down.

"This is bold," he said carefully. The careful tone of a man who knows he's standing on ideological thin ice. "If this works, the hard currency could be… significant. It would help reconstruction." He hesitated. "But alcohol? We'd be making money off the backs of the workers. The masses."

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself. "Please. Everyone likes a drink. You didn't seem morally burdened by yours just now." I gestured at his empty glass. "Besides, Lenin and Dzerzhinsky have already signed off on it. We're not debating purity—we're discussing logistics."

He didn't look convinced.

"And I need you and Louise for this," I added.

He blinked. "You need me and Louise? How?"

"First," I said, pointing toward Aleksander, "you need to teach my beloved brother-in-law and his wife English. Properly. They'll be living in the United States. He'll be directing operations there."

Aleksander didn't react. He just stared forward, I already told him about the plan and he said he was all in.

"Second," I continued, turning back to Reed, "you lived in New York. You have connections—unions, journalists. So does your wife. I need introductions. Quiet ones. You'll be the bridge between Aleksander and the mob. Start with whomever you see fit, the Italians, Jews, Irish, whoever is raking in the most money from booze. I'm sure they'd love more booze to sell."

Reed frowned. "Comrade Jugashvili, with all due respect—I'm wanted for sedition. I have an indictment in the United States. My wife was forced to testify before Congress. How exactly do you expect us to walk through immigration without being arrested, let alone make introductions without getting caught?"

Ah. There it was. The reasonable concern.

"Leave that to me," I said smoothly.

I pulled a letter from my desk and handed it to him.

"You, Louise, and Aleksander are not going directly to the United States. You're going to Sweden first."

He stared at me.

"I'll arrange for the Cheka to provide you with papers. New identities. On paper, you'll all be refugees fleeing communist oppression." I allowed myself the smallest smile. "Irony is one of our more renewable resources."

"You and Louise," I continued, "will be former aristocrats. Disillusioned. Persecuted. Aleksander will be a former tsarist officer. Your cousin. Along with his wife."

Aleksander didn't blink. I admired that about him. He absorbed insanity like it was rain.

I tapped the letter.

"This is addressed to Miss Elsa Brändström. You will go to her. You will hand her this. And knowing her…" I paused.

Something twisted in my chest. Annoying. Inconvenient.

"Knowing her," I said more quietly, "once she reads it, she'll help. She'll use her connections to secure Swedish citizenship for the four of you."

Reed studied me carefully now.

"From there," I finished, "you travel to the United States with your new papers. Clean. Respectable. Harmless."

I leaned back slightly, letting the weight of it settle.

"And then," I said softly, "we begin selling America its own sin—at a profit."

I handed him the letter. He took it without ceremony and slipped it into his coat pocket, as if I'd just passed him a dinner invitation instead of a geopolitical liability.

"How soon would our paperwork be ready?" he asked.

"I can have it done within a week," I said lightly. "Then you four Musketeers can be on your way."

Aleksander chuckled under his breath. Stalin did not. Stalin just stared at me with that particular expression he reserved for moments when he was deciding whether someone was more useful alive or dead. I'd learned to distinguish the two versions of that stare. Barely. The difference was subtle—about the width of a cigarette paper.

"That's not everything," I continued.

I walked to my closet, opened it, and pulled out one of the heavier chests. Dragging it across the floor one-handed was not dignified, but dignity is a luxury for men with two hands and fewer secrets. I set it down in front of them and flipped the lid open.

Reed leaned forward. "What the hell is this?"

"Consider it starting funds."

He stared at the stacks inside. "Starting funds?"

"Yes." I nodded calmly. "You'll need to establish a shipping company. Buy a ship—just one, at first. Something respectable. Nothing flashy. I have more money where this came from."

I paused deliberately.

"All of this was set aside for me by Lenin and Dzerzhinsky."

Another lie. A beautiful one. The kind that slides out smoothly and leaves no fingerprints. He didn't need to know I'd liberated it from a different allocation entirely. Revolutions are expensive. So is ambition.

"You'll also set aside a portion for Elsa," I added. "Tell her she may use it for humanitarian purposes. Relief work. Orphans. Whatever keeps her conscience warm at night. She's soft like that. I mentioned it in the letter."

Reed looked at me carefully. "What exactly is in that letter?"

"Let's just say," I replied slowly, "she and I understand each other. To an extent."

Understanding wasn't the right word. Emotional leverage was closer. But nuance is wasted on the morally concerned.

Stalin shook his head faintly. Disapproval? Disgust? Approval disguised as disapproval? With him, it was like reading tea leaves in crude oil.

"Anyways," I continued briskly, shutting the chest, "once you're in the States, and once you and Louise begin asking for introductions to the Mafia. You're to do it quietly. Carefully. Only through people you trust. And make sure you truly trust them."

I looked at him pointedly.

"You and Louise will live separately from Aleksander and his wife. No obvious connections. Once you secure introductions and meet with the Mob, you give them the same pitch I just gave you—logistics, money, supply routes, Soviet citizenship as insurance, guaranteed shipments. The entire package."

I leaned back slightly.

"Do not mention communism. Do not mention dialectics. Do not mention class struggle. You have a product. They have a demand for it. This is purely business."

Reed nodded slowly. "And once we have an agreement?"

"Then you and Louise relocate to Estonia once Aleksander and his wife Maria have good command of the English language. You register a shipping company there. On paper, the alcohol will be Estonian. That gets us around trade embargoes and sanctions. We'll ship to Canada, Cuba, or wherever the Mob prefers to receive it."

I shrugged faintly.

"Since you'll be exiles fleeing Bolshevik tyranny—on paper, at least—you shouldn't face much scrutiny."

He studied me for a moment. "You seem awfully confident about this."

"I wouldn't be confident," I said evenly, "if I didn't know it would work."

Confidence is easier when you've already calculated the moral cost and decided it's affordable.

I leaned forward, lowering my voice slightly.

"So—are you in? Can I trust you?"

He hesitated only a moment, then nodded. "If it means helping the revolution, so be it. I'll be on your side."

Of course you will, I thought. Ideology is such a useful anesthetic.

"Glad to hear it." I reached out with my left hand and took his right. The handshake was firm, solemn. "It'll be a pleasure doing business with you."

Business. Such an elegant word.

"You may return to your quarters. It's getting late, and you'll need to inform your wife. Continue working as usual. Stand by. I'll call you again once the paperwork is ready. Aleksander." I turned to my brother in law. For now, stay with Reed, you'll be starting english lessons tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yes, tonight. Reed" I turned back to him. "You think you can start today?"

"I'll do that," he said. "Thank you."

Reed left the room with Aleksander, closing the door softly behind him as they both exited.

And just like that, I was alone with Stalin.

"Why her?" Stalin asked in Georgian.

Of course he would wait until Reed left to ask that.

"Who?" I replied, feigning innocence. A performance. I'm very good at those.

"You know who I'm referring to," he said flatly. "The woman. The Swede. Why her?"

I met his gaze evenly. "She has the connections. Her father was chief adjutant to the King of Sweden. A lieutenant general in the Swedish army. Men like that don't lose their networks when they retire—they simply stop pretending they don't have them."

I folded my remaining hand behind my back.

"And if his 'beloved daughter'—as she once described herself to me—pleads for her poor refugee friends to become Swedish citizens, he will pull strings. Discreetly. Efficiently."

Stalin's expression hardened. "You're too trusting, Mika. Your love for her is blinding you."

Love.

Such a crude word for something so strategically inconvenient.

"I'm not blind, Joe." I looked at him directly. "You've seen how she is. She's a genuinely good woman. Painfully so. And when she reads my letter, she will fold. She will help us."

"Just what the hell is in that letter?" he asked.

I smiled faintly.

"Did you know what she told me," I said, "when she asked for permission to go to Siberia? All those years ago. When the war was still raging?"

He exhaled sharply. "Fine. What did she say?"

I could still hear it. The tone. The certainty.

"'After what I've seen… I can't return home and live comfortably while this continues. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.'"

Stalin scoffed. It was almost a chuckle.

"Please stop," I said quietly. "Please don't mock her."

"She's even softer than you."

"She sounds awfully naive," He added.

I nodded slightly. "You're not wrong about the naive part."

Naive is such an elegant insult. It implies purity while condemning it.

"But remember," I continued, "she went straight into Siberia. Into chaos. Back when the Czechoslovaks and Kolchak's men were running amok. She risked execution. Cold. Disease. Starvation. All to save people she didn't know."

I looked between them.

"Is that really soft? Is that naive?"

Silence.

"In a way," I said more quietly, "I think she's braver than I ever was."

The words tasted strange. Almost sour.

"All I ever did was shoot men who couldn't fight back. Or charge into battle with an army behind me. Or rely on my reputation to make people tremble before I even entered the room."

I flexed my fingers—five on one hand, none on the other.

"All she had was herself. And a stubborn refusal to look away."

I inhaled slowly.

"That, frankly, is far more respectable than anything I've ever done."

Stalin stared at me as if I'd just confessed to treason.

"Never say that in front of the Politburo," Stalin said quietly. "Or Lenin. Or anyone who isn't us."

"I know." I nodded. Of course I knew. Self-awareness is a survival trait.

"But tell me," I asked, tilting my head slightly, "who truly is the braver person? Her, or me?"

Joe blinked. Just slightly. It was almost comical.

"You think too much sometimes," he said. "That sort of thinking can be dangerous."

Dangerous.

"Dangerous?" I echoed. "Is crossing an icy bay with a torch and a white flag any less dangerous?"

He scoffed again. "You always were the clever one. Even now."

Clever. That was the polite word for morally flexible.

He turned and left the room without another word.

The door closed. I was alone, without Maria, without Elsa.

Note: Looks like I was able to write this chapter up pretty quick. I'll try and get as many as I can these next few weeks before I start lol

 

[Alenco98]

May I ask are the romanovs still alive

Click to shrink...

Nahhh blud, they're dead. Mika was in Petrograd, he didn't save them

 

[iceknight90]

Hell yeah. The adventures of Don Jugashvilli! I've been looking forward to this.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JonvgVz119k

 

[BuilderOne]

"She has the connections. Her father was chief adjutant to the King of Sweden. A lieutenant general in the Swedish army. Men like that don't lose their networks when they retire—they simply stop pretending they don't have them."

Click to shrink...

Imagine if our bởi would actually marry her... at the insistence of Swede king. Basically a political marriage....

 

[Alenco98]

"Silver, or lead"

Mikheil Jugashvili addressing the various American crime bosses during the Stockholm conference

May 7, 1921
The Brandstrom Residence
Stockholm, Sweden

Elsa Brändström sat near the fireplace, the late spring chill still clinging stubbornly to the air. The fire crackled softly, the only sound in a room otherwise thick with expectation.

Four visitors sat across from her.

Two she recognized from Petrograd, though barely. They were faces she glimpsed years ago in crowded corridors and hurried introductions. The other two were complete strangers. They had arrived that very morning, solemn and purposeful, claiming they bore a message from Mika.

She had taken the letter from the man who introduced himself as John. His voice had been steady, almost rehearsed. She accepted the envelope without comment and now held it in her lap.

Carefully—almost ceremonially—she slid her letter opener beneath the seal. She made certain not to tear the paper. The gesture was deliberate, controlled. If nothing else, she would not let emotion show in something as simple as opening an envelope.

Part of her was curious what he had to say.

Another part of her dreaded it.

Part of her wanted to hate him—and she did. She hated what he had become. Hated what he had done. And yet…

Yet she pitied him.

Pity for a man trapped in a world of violence and blood and power. A world he had chosen.

But then the question came, uninvited and unwelcome: did he deserve pity?

He could have left. He had told her he might leave. America had been possible. Safety had been possible. Instead, he chose his brother. Chose loyalty. Chose power.

And now, she thought, he belongs to it. Or perhaps it belongs to him.

She unfolded the letter and began to read.

Dear Elsa,

I hope this letter finds you well. It feels like a lifetime since I last spoke with you, and frankly, it has been lonely without you. But unfortunately for both of us, I am not writing merely to ask how you are.

The civil war may be over, but the country is, quite frankly, destroyed—and that is putting it lightly. Industry has collapsed. Agriculture is only barely recovering under the NEP. Unemployment is rampant. Banditry is widespread throughout the countryside. Millions are starving or on the brink of it, with only the American Relief Administration offering assistance.

Elsa's fingers tightened slightly around the paper.

She had seen it herself. The hunger. The cold. The hollow eyes.

As such, I have proposed an idea to the Politburo. It is, frankly, a morally repugnant idea. But I would rather violate morals than allow millions to starve and die.

She exhaled softly. Of course he would phrase it that way.

The concept is simple: I intend to bootleg alcohol—the only thing in that godforsaken country that is not in short supply—to the United States.

Her eyes flicked up from the page for a moment.

Of course.

The profits will be used to rebuild the country. Roads repaired. Infrastructure restored. Schools, clinics, and hospitals built. Factories reopened. Farm equipment and seeds purchased. Grain imported to ease the famine.

The vision was sweeping. Ambitious. Disturbingly plausible.

However, to accomplish this, I must send these four fine individuals—Mr. Reed, his wife, my brother-in-law Aleksander, and his wife Maria—to the United States.

She glanced up at them briefly. The man called John sat very still.

I have provided them with false papers, but given the United States' increasingly restrictive immigration policies, I doubt Russians will be admitted easily. Therefore, I am hoping you might assist them in acquiring Swedish citizenship. You have spoken to me often of your life here—of your family's connections within the Swedish government.

There it was.

She felt it before she read the next lines.

I understand you are likely angry. I understand that I am, in many ways, using you. And frankly, I am.

She almost smiled despite herself.

At least he was honest.

But I remember the day you asked to go to Siberia. When you said you could not return home and live comfortably while this continued. That you would not be able to live with yourself.

Her throat tightened.

Tell me, Elsa—could you live with yourself if you blocked this?

The room seemed quieter now.

Aleksander and his efforts will help me save millions of lives and rebuild the country. If you assist him, you will have greatly contributed to that effort.

I am not asking you as a man in love with you. I am appealing to you as a humanitarian. Help me help this country.

Her jaw tightened.

I know it will never atone for what I have done—for the thousands I have killed. So do not think of me when you consider this. Think of the millions you may save. The mouths fed. The families returned to work. The cities and roads rebuilt. All of it beginning with one decision.

She swallowed.

Finally, should your father recover—or God forbid, should something happen to him—know that you will have a place in Moscow if you wish. The famine continues, and you are the most competent person I know. Things are stable for now, but who knows how long that will last. If you return, I know millions more lives could potentially be saved.

Once again, I hope your father recovers quickly. I wish him, you, and your family the very best. I hope you are at least resting in Sweden.

You are entitled to a third of the funds my colleagues have brought. If you do not wish to return to Russia, you may use it to open the orphanage you once spoke of.

Elsa lowered the letter slowly.

She let out a long breath.

Of course only he would devise something like this.

She remembered the stories he had once told her—half-confessions delivered with a crooked smile. Bribes taken. Deals struck in shadowed rooms. Smuggling operations whispered about as if they were amusing anecdotes.

Yes, she thought. Of course someone like him would attempt something like this.

She placed the letter carefully on the small table beside her.

Then she looked up at the four people seated across from her—waiting.

She sighed heavily and shook her head.

She did not want to admit it—not aloud, not even to herself—but he had her.

He was right.

Mika was many things: ruthless, manipulative, morally elastic. But he was not a liar. When he set his mind to something, it happened. There was no hesitation in him, no half-measures. If he believed this scheme would work, then it would. Of that she had no doubt.

She looked at John. Then at Louise. Then at Aleksander and Maria.

"I will make arrangements," she said at last.

The words tasted bitter.

She felt disgusted with herself the moment they left her mouth—the quiet recognition of a moral compromise made not in passion, but in calculation.

"Please feel free to remain in one of the guest rooms," she added, her voice steady despite the unease coiling inside her.

"No need," John Reed replied quickly. "We're already staying at a local hotel, but we appreciate the offer. How long do you think it will take for everything to be ready?"

"A week," she said reluctantly. "Perhaps two. I will need to visit some of my father's colleagues." She drew in a slow breath. "But you need not worry. You will have your citizenship."

"If you'd like," Louise said gently, "we can leave one of the suitcases here. Mika told us to leave it with you."

Elsa's eyes shifted to the case.

"Let me see it."

Louise pushed the suitcase across the floor toward her. Elsa rose from her chair, lifted it carefully, and set it in her lap. The weight of it was unmistakable.

She unlatched it and opened it.

Inside was an assortment of foreign currency—neatly bundled notes from multiple nations. Gold coins glinted dully in the firelight. Jewelry lay scattered between stacks of money, gemstones catching the light like cold stars.

Her family was wealthy. She knew what wealth looked like.

This was something else.

This was excess. This was liquidity. This was power made portable.

She stared at it, her mind racing.

How had he acquired this?

Skimming from state funds? Bribes? Smuggling operations? Confiscations? She would not have put any of it past him.

She felt an immediate urge to close the suitcase and push it away. To reject it outright.

Blood money.

That was what it was.

And yet…

Her thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the orphanage she had once dreamed of building. To the children she had seen—thin, frightened, abandoned. She could do so much good with this.

So much.

Her fingers tightened slightly on the edge of the case. Then she closed it gently and exhaled.

"Where will you be staying?" she asked, her tone measured. "Once everything is prepared, you will need to present yourselves at the immigration offices. Your documents must be in order."

"We're at the Grand Hotel," Aleksander answered.

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "That is a rather expensive establishment."

Maria gave a faint, almost apologetic smile. "We considered staying with local communists. But Mika advised against it—to avoid suspicion."

Elsa nodded slowly.

Clever.

Always thinking three steps ahead.

"In that case," John Reed said, rising to his feet, "we will take our leave. Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Brändström. Comrade Jugashvili was correct when he said you were a genuinely good person. We appreciate your help."

He smiled at her sincerely.

A good person.

The phrase lingered.

Was she?

She had just accepted blood money. She was about to facilitate what was, by any definition, an illegal enterprise. An immoral one, perhaps.

And yet—

If she refused, what then? More hunger. More suffering. More children without food or shelter.

Was inaction cleaner? Or merely more comfortable?

As the four of them departed and the door closed behind them, she remained seated, the suitcase resting beside her.

A memory surfaced—sharp, unwanted.

A conversation she had once had with Mika, months before Kronstadt.

"Imagine," he had said casually, "that you are standing beside railway tracks. A trolley is coming. Ten people are tied to the tracks ahead. You do not have time to untie even one. The only thing you can do is pull a lever and redirect the trolley onto another track. But if you do, it will kill one person instead. If you do nothing, ten will die. Tell me, Miss Elsa—what would you do?"

She remembered feeling unsettled, almost offended.

"What sort of person invents such a question?" she had demanded.

He had only laughed.

Now, sitting in her quiet Swedish home, staring at the suitcase full of illicit wealth, she understood.

She had pulled the lever.

She had chosen the track.

A slow, sinking feeling settled in her chest. Her decision would save lives—perhaps many. But it would not be clean. It would not be pure. There would be consequences. There were always consequences.

She drew the suitcase closer to her, clutching it as if it might anchor her.

A sob escaped her before she could stop it.

Mika had been right.

"Why did I save you?" she whispered into the empty room.

May 23, 1921
The Grand Hotel
Stockholm, Sweden

Elsa sat in the Veranda restaurant of the Grand Hotel, facing the waterfront. The late afternoon light shimmered across the harbor, soft and golden, the boats drifting lazily as though the world were uncomplicated.

Before her sat a plate of pork—perfectly seared—accompanied by pan-fried potatoes, roasted root vegetables, and a rich cognac sauce that pooled warmly along the porcelain. Beside it stood a glass of red Burgundy. She had barely touched it. She wanted a clear mind when she met Reed and the others.

She had arrived thirty minutes earlier. First to the restaurant, deliberately. She ordered her meal, waited for it to arrive, and only then stepped into the lobby to request that Mr. Reed and his party join her. Appearances mattered. Everything had to look ordinary.

She cut into the pork and brought a forkful to her mouth.

The meat and sauce melted together as she chewed slowly.

Delectable, she thought, almost guiltily.

She had never been much of an eater—not since Siberia. Hunger had altered her relationship with food permanently. It had become necessity, not pleasure. But today, for once, she allowed herself the indulgence. The warmth. The richness.

After each bite, she glanced toward the entrance from the lobby.

She was nearly three-quarters finished with her meal when she saw them enter.

All four.

She set down her utensils carefully, dabbing her lips with her napkin. She did not look up at them immediately. Only once they had taken their seats across from her did she meet their eyes.

"I didn't order anything for any of you," she said evenly. "I am only here for a meal—and to deliver your papers."

Reed nodded. "I'm guessing you didn't encounter much difficulty."

"Not particularly," she replied.

She reached into her handbag and withdrew the documents.

"Congratulations, Yakov Reznov," she said calmly, sliding the first set across the table. "You are now a citizen of Sweden. As is your wife, Larissa."

John and Louise accepted the papers without speaking.

"And for you," she continued, turning to Aleksander, "Anatoly Suslov. I hope you and your wife Melania find a place to settle here in Stockholm."

She handed them their documents.

The names felt foreign on her tongue. Manufactured lives. Manufactured histories.

"How soon will you be leaving?" she asked.

"Tomorrow," Aleksander replied.

She inclined her head. "I wish you good luck in your journey."

She hesitated only a moment before adding, "I do not mean to sound rude, but I sincerely hope we do not have to see one another again. I do not wish to become further involved."

"That is understandable," Louise said gently.

Maria glanced around the restaurant. "Should we order food? It would appear strange if we sat for only a moment and then left."

"She has a point," John added, raising his hand to signal a waiter.

Elsa suppressed a sigh.

She had intended to come and go quietly. Efficiently. But now she would have to endure this performance—this careful imitation of normalcy.

She could leave, she supposed. It likely would not attract much notice.

But then Mika's words surfaced again:

Aleksander and his efforts will help me save millions of lives and rebuild the country.

She thought of the children she had seen in Siberia. Of mothers with hollow eyes. Of men too weak to stand.

If this farce of a lunch helped them maintain their cover—helped keep suspicion away—then she would sit through it.

Fifteen minutes passed before their food arrived.

They spoke while they waited. Not of politics. Not of smuggling. Not of plans. Instead, they discussed Stockholm—the harbor, the palace, the narrow streets of Gamla Stan. They asked her what she would recommend they see before departing. She answered politely, even offering suggestions.

For a moment—just a fleeting moment—it felt almost real. Like an ordinary meeting. Like she was merely offering advice to travelers passing through.

Then the plates were cleared.

Reality returned.

"Once again, Mrs. Elsa," Aleksander said as he rose, "you have been of great assistance. If you ever require anything, please let us know."

She gave them a brief nod. "Safe travels."

She did not linger.

She left the restaurant, passed through the lobby, and stepped out into the cool air.

As she walked away from the hotel, Mika's trolley question returned once more.

She glanced down at her right hand, imagining her fingers wrapped around a lever.

Pulling it.

Diverting the trolley.

Saving ten.

Condemning one.

She slowed her steps and turned back briefly, looking at the hotel façade.

The dread returned—the same heavy sensation she had felt when they first arrived at her home.

"Should I have saved him at all?" she murmured to herself.

She turned again and continued walking home.

 

[iceknight90]

Elsa and her twisted relationship with Mikhail remains one of the highlights of this fic.

 

[GarfRed]

The trolley problem Mika? What a way to get her to agree.

 

[Alenco98]

Lyrics from a Russian song about the South African civil war, released sometime in the 90s:

Hello sister, my dear, how are you?
The winter had probably swept the way home already?
The stars are falling over Cape town in the rays of dawn
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)
The stars are falling over Cape town in the rays of dawn
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)

It's Saturday now, and it pours harder, along with the war
Smells like sweat here, boys sleep here, there was a hard battle
I made a bet with my friend Oleg, that he will be back
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)
I made a bet with my friend Oleg, that he will be back
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)

I send my big hello to my sister
Tell them to keep writing, it was a long time since last letter from home
And if they ask what I write to you about, well, just lie
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)
And if they ask what I write to you about, well, just lie
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)

Hello sister, my dear, how are you
The winter had probably swept the way home already?
The stars are falling over Cape town in the rays of dawn
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)
The stars are falling over Cape town in the rays of dawn
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)

Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)
Just don't tell mom that I'm in YUAR (South Africa)

Based it on this: https://youtu.be/jLeIx8rrlSc?si=kG1vZhuWqpfPvVOQ