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

[iceknight90]

Dun dun dunnnnn.

Going to be an interesting conversation.

 

[BuilderOne]

So the cat is out of the bag now. Let's see how Joe handles the fallout, and the actual revelation.

 

[valaraanth]

Oh, I can't wait to see that pan out! TYFTC!

 

[AAAustinYu]

THIS CLIFF IM GUNNA JUMP OFF IT

 

[Alenco98]

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the Soviet Economic Miracle

The Soviet economic miracle (Russian: Советское экономическое чудо, lit. "Soviet economic miracle"), also known as the Miracle on the Moskva River, was the rapid reconstruction and development of the economy of the USSR and the nations in its sphere of influence following the Second World War.

Beginning with the implementation of the Revised Economic Policy (Пересмотренная экономическая политика, PEP), an era of sustained economic growth and low inflation was overseen by Premier Joseph Stalin, and continued under Premier Yakov Stalin following Stalin's death in 1956. The period is often regarded as a golden age of the Soviet economy, which grew at an average annual rate of 6 to 10 percent until the Great Middle Eastern Crisis of 1973.

The REP, crafted primarily by a team of economists led by Lev Gatovsky, Evsei Liberman, and Alexei Kosygin, introduced measures such as profitability incentives for state-owned enterprises and the decentralization of state enterprise management. These reforms, together with the revival of the private sector and the integration of the Soviet economy into international institutions such as GATT, the IMF, and the World Bank, as well as the influx of Marshall Plan aid, laid the foundations for the USSR's transformation from a developing country into a developed one.

July 13, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, Soviet Union

We sat looking at each other. Neither of us spoke. I let my eyes drift to the lamp on his desk for a few seconds, just to have somewhere else to look. He was in control of the room, of the silence, of everything, that much was obvious. I needed some kind of edge, even a small one.

"That's disappointing," I said, in Georgian. "The lamp isn't getting any bigger. I'm not getting hypnotized either."

He looked up, brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?" Georgian as well, low and even.

"A story I read once." I leaned back in the chair. "Some man gets attacked, knocked unconscious. And while he's out, years pass in the dream. He meets a woman, marries her, has children, he lives out this whole quiet, happy life. One day he's sitting in his living room and he notices a lamp. Something about it just feels off to him and he can't stop staring at it. At first its only for a few minutes, then hours, and finally he stares at it for days at a time. His wife panics, she calls the doctors, people try to move him and can't, he's frozen, just...hypnotized. And then the lamp starts growing. Fills his whole vision. He hears voices, screaming, all kinds of noise, he feels pain. And then he wakes up on a sidewalk, surrounded by strangers and missing teeth. The whole marriage, the children, the life, all of it had been a dream, stretched out in the space of a single knockout blow."

I let out a breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. "I used to think it would happen to me too when we were kids. I thought one day I'd find the lamp, I'd wake up and I'd be back with my family, my parents, my siblings, my fiance. You remember don't you? How I used to stare at ours for minutes at a time. Not just at home. At the seminary. In my quarters in Petrograd after Maria died. I kept waiting to wake up out of all this. Out of this nightmare."

He studied me for a long moment. "You're not even denying it."

"What would be the point? You tore the page out yourself. My guess is you've read everything by now." I met his eyes. "I had safeguards. Decoy journals, false trails. And still you found the real one. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but you owe me this much Joe. After everything I've done for you. How did you find it?"

"I owe you nothing." His voice didn't rise, but something in it sharpened. He looked at me the way he had the first time I woke from the fever after Kronstadt, that same stare. Back then it had terrified me. Not now. My political position was stronger now, my nerves were steadier, my mind felt like it was in one piece rather than the feverish mess. "You," he said, "have a great deal to explain."

He finished signing whatever document sat in front of him, set the pen down with deliberate care, and finally gave me his full attention.

"Even as children, you were different. Mama said it. Father said it. The priests at the seminary said it, I still hear it, even now. Why can't you be more like your brother? Every time, those same words." His jaw tightened, something old and raw moving behind his eyes before it vanished again, folded back beneath the calm. "And now this."

He opened the drawer at his side and drew out a single sheet of paper, laying it down on top of my journal, the first page, the one he'd taken. His thumb rested on it a moment, as if weighing something.

"I read your journal again and again," he said. "I have tried to explain it away. I have gone back through every memory of us from when we were children until now, searching for the version of events that makes sense without it." His eyes didn't leave mine. "There is only one conclusion left. So tell me, what are you?"

"Originally," I said, "you were an only child."

That landed. I watched something flicker across his face, the faintest crack in his composure before I kept going.

"It's all true. Petrograd. Kronstadt. Kerensky. I don't know the exact shape it would have taken without me, but I know the civil war was won regardless. Lenin died a few years after it ended, a stroke, of all things, which is how I knew exactly what you meant the moment you had me summoned back from Central Asia. The succession turned into a fight between you and Trotsky, just like now. You won. He was exiled, and a couple decades later you had him killed while he was exiled in Mexico, you sent several assassins, one of them killed him by stabbing him in the back of the head with an ice-pick." I laughed at that, Joe's mouth briefly twiched. "I would have personally used poison, less embarrassing, more quiet." I continued. "But we can kill Trotsky once we defeat him." I shrugged.

"You sound awfully arrogant." He said.

"When you hold the future in your palms you tend to develop a bit of a god complex." I said. "After all, remember how I told you to back Lenin back when he returned after the revolution?"




He scowled. "Go on."

"As all that with Trotsky happened, Germany had already rearmed and plunged Europe into war. Then they invaded the USSR, you led the country through it. Your armies took Berlin. And just as that war ended, you began a war with the Americans in every way except shooting, it was a rivalry that shaped the rest of the century, right up until the country came apart at the seams."

I kept my voice level, though it cost me something to do it. "You made plenty of mistakes along the way. Old friends, comrades, family, if I remember my teacher's lectures right, a lot of them ended up executed on your order. As for you, you died a few years after the war with Germany. Another stroke, like Lenin. By the end you'd gotten so paranoid your own guards were too frightened to check on you when you didn't come out of your room. Your maid found you on the floor. The Politburo was summoned, and while you lay there dying, having soiled yourself and everything, they were already circling each other, carving up who'd take what." A short, disbelieving laugh escaped me. "There's a whole film about it, if you can believe that. A comedy, of all things. My best friend showed it to me once. We watched it over drinks."

"As for what I am." I let the humor drain out of my voice. "Even I don't fully know. One moment I was on a ladder, helping my stepfather patch our roof. The next, I was a newborn, screaming, in Georgia." I exhaled slowly. "The closest I can come to describing it, I'm a castaway. Stranded in a time I don't belong to, a culture that was never mine to begin with. I miss everything about where I came from. Food that could be delivered to your home in an hour. Variety, real variety, more than you could imagine. Television. The internet. Music you could summon out of thin air. Games. Cruises. You've read enough of the journal to have some idea what all that means, even if the words themselves probably read like nonsense."

I paused, remembering. "When I went to Cuba, I ate real food for the first time since I landed in this body. Actual food, not whatever I've had to choke down here for years from mama or the servants. And more than that, for one stretch of days, I was just a person. Nobody staring at me like I was something to fear, or worship, or extract something from." My throat tightened, and I let it. There was no point hiding it from him, not anymore. "But mostly Joe, I'm lonely. Every other Bolshevik in your circle is afraid of me. Not one of them wants anything close to friendship. They think I'm unstable, and they're not entirely wrong to. I can't relate to a single one of them. I've done terrible things in the name of this fucking revolution, saved it several times, and every single time, it just makes them fear me more. You too probably if I'm honest."

I let out a long breath, something between a laugh and exhaustion.

"Honestly? I feel relief. Just relief that I don't have to carry this alone anymore, hidden behind a false journal a locked drawer and elaborate explanations." I looked at him directly. "You can kill me, if that's what you decide. But." I allowed myself a small, tired smile. "If you kill me, everything in that journal becomes worthless to you. It would be like handing a medieval peasant a manual for building a sub-machine gun, complete with all the parts, and no earthly way to understand a word of it."

"A medieval peasant." He repeated the words slowly, like he was turning them over for a blade hidden inside. "That's what you think of me?"

I smiled, good, that had landed exactly where I wanted it. "It's what I think of everyone in this government. Not just you." I didn't hesitate saying it. I couldn't afford to; hesitation here would read as fear, and fear would get me killed faster than the truth ever could. "Zinoviev. Trotsky. Kamenev. Lenin. Bukharin. Dzerzhinsky. It wouldn't matter if I had been born as any of their siblings instead of you. If any of them decided to kill me, the outcome would be identical. None of them could use what I actually have." I shrugged. "Think of a fish in a lake. To that fish, the lake is the entire world, every possibility, every limit, ever set of rules and regulation. I grew up outside the lake. I got dropped into it as an adult and already knowing there's more to that lake. That's the only reason that journal is worth anything at all. Without me alive to read and consult it, it's just ink."

His scowl deepened, but I let my voice soften before he could answer.

"But," I said, "you're also my brother. Even as kids, before I knew what you'd become, before any of this, I protected you. Every beating from Father, I took my share standing between you and him. Every kid who mocked Mama or laid a hand on you, I made sure they regretted it." I let a small smile through. "And what happened to Father at the end. That's still one of the proudest things I've ever done. I'd do it again without blinking."

"Again?" His eyes sharpened.

"Yes."

"Explain yourself."

"Not long after I joined the police in Tiflis." I kept my voice even, almost fond. "I changed my look. Wigs, false beards. I bought him drink after drink until he couldn't stand straight. And then, my hands were around his throat, and I didn't stop until there was nothing left to strangle. His body went into the Kura that same night." I let the smile show fully now. "You remember what I told you back at the seminary? That I'd kill him myself, for what he did to you, to me, to Mama? Even now I still remember all the beatings he delivered on me as a kid. Its why I refuse to hit my own kids unless necessary."

For a moment, something shifted in his face, an old look, one I hadn't seen directed at me in years. It took me back to the seminary itself, to the day I beat the shit out of our father while Soso watched.

"I made my peace with it a long time ago," I went on. "This is the life I have now. There's no road back to what I was."

I paused, tapping two fingers against the desk. "There's a line from a book I read once, something like, Even if we painstakingly piece together something lost, it doesn't mean things will ever go back to how they were. Even if none of this were real, even if it's all some fever dream..." I tapped the desk once more, slower. "It has felt real. Every day of it. The good and the terrible both." My throat tightened, just slightly. "Maria. My children. Mama. You. Kato. Elsa. Yakov. All of it, I love every one of you, and I still do, completely. And the terrible things too, the men, the women, the children I've sent to their deaths, the ones whose blood is on my hands specifically, not some abstract order passed down a chain. If none of this were real, I would be furious. That all of it, every bit of hell I've walked through happened for absolutely nothing. There's no version of me that goes back to a normal life after this. That door's closed for good."

I stopped tapping. "I don't know why I ended up in this body, in this life. What I do know is I can do real good with what's in my head. The war that's coming will be the bloodiest in human history, tens of millions dead, if it plays out the way it did before. If you let me keep working at your side, that number comes down. Every innocent life I've already burnt through won't have been spent for nothing." I let myself smile again, thinner this time. "And more than that, I know roughly how this war unfolds. Which offensives happen, when, where the major turns come." I raised a finger before he could respond. "But there's a catch. You've read about the butterfly effect in there, I'm sure."

He said nothing, though his expression had eased considerably. "Go on."

"Simple enough," I said. "The more I change, the faster my knowledge becomes worthless. I can predict a battle, plan around it, turn it into a rout, but the moment I do, everything downstream of that battle shifts, and my foreknowledge stops applying. I have a plan for that too, which is exactly why killing me would be a mistake even if you wanted to." I leaned back into the chair, letting the moment breathe.

"You have a real gift for irritating people. You're aware of that?"

"I am." I nodded. "But you're going to like this part." I leaned forward again. "I'm already building the groundwork. German-speaking Comintern men, vetted, loyal, good men, and I intend to seed them through the Nazi party itself. We're going to help Hitler rise. Roll out the red carpet for him, personally. Get our people into his inner circle, then scatter them further, through the party, through what becomes the German military, through their secret police. By the time Germany marches on Moscow, they won't have the faintest idea we've been reading their mail the entire time." My grip tightened on the arm of the chair. "We won't just take Berlin. I promise you, our armies will be standing on the Rhine before that war ends."

I sat back, and let my voice change, softer now, no performance left in it.

"But more than any of that." I held his eyes. "I don't want you to die the way you did, where I came from." My tone gentled further. "You're going to become a tyrant, a murderer that makes Genghis Khan look gentle. If there's a hell waiting, the two of us have first-class tickets there together, I call the window seat by the way." A small, tired laugh escaped me. "But you're still my brother. And I don't want you dying the way you did, alone, surrounded by vultures and terrified men who never loved you. I want you to go out surrounded by people who actually care about you. I want that for myself too when it's my turn." I exhaled. "Call it soft. Sentimental. I won't argue, I am both those things, clearly. But it's what I feel, and I'm done pretending otherwise." I met his eyes and held them. "So I need an answer. Right now. Either finish this, kill me and be done with it, or give me some sign, some indication, that I'm not going to end up in an unmarked grave or in a basement in Lubyanka for telling you the truth. Because I won't play this game the way the others do. I am not one of your lackeys that is going to be used up and discarded when they're no longer convenient. I am your brother, that counts for something and I know it.

He said nothing for a long moment. Then he rose, crossed to me, and took the journal from the desk, sliding the first page back into place with a care that felt almost reverent. He carried it to the shelf behind him, opened the safe set into the wall, placed the journal inside, and closed it with a heavy, final click.

He sat back down and studied me. "That journal belongs to me now." His voice left no room for argument. "If you want it, you come through me. If you need to consult it, you come through me." A pause. "You belong to me, Mika. I decide when you live. I decide when you die."

I let out a short laugh. "No 'I love you, brother'? No hug, even?"

"Don't get arrogant with me." His scowl deepened, though something in his eyes stayed less hard than his voice. "From this point forward, every decision you make, every action you take, you explain yourself to me first. In full detail. Nothing held back."

"You actually believe all of this?"

"Do I have another explanation that fits?" His jaw tightened. "There isn't one. You may share my blood, Mika, but that does not mean I let you move through this world however you please."

"And Kato? Yakov?"

He scowled harder, but nodded once. "That, I will allow."

"And after?"

"After what?"

"You and I both know you won't rule forever." I kept my tone light, careful. "I've already told you, I want Yakov ruling eventually, Kato at his side. After them, our grandchildren, and theirs after that." I tapped the desk once, softly. "You've read what happens in that journal. Do you really trust whoever comes after you to protect what you've built? Better to keep it in the family. Don't you think?" I let a small smile surface.

"Don't push your luck, Mika." His voice dropped low, final. "You're useful. That does not mean my patience has no bottom."

"Understood." I rose from the chair. "Will that be all?"

"Report to Lubyanka tomorrow. As usual."

I nodded and let myself out, I walked through the halls, not saying a single word and barely making a sound. I entered the room, closing the door, it was only there that I finally collapsed, sitting in front of the door and taking several deep breaths, shuddering. "Holy shit." I said in English. "That was too close."

 

[iceknight90]

What a great chapter. And now Stalin knows all.

The upcoming succession crisis and the build up to WW2 is going to be very interesting.

 

[Siryapsalot]

Now it's time to go full-throttle or cautious since Joe will want to be on top of things.

 

[spectre678]

"But... I love you. I need you. I missed you so much, Elsa."

Click to shrink...

run back to your winter palace and build snowmen, let him go

 

[Alenco98]

January 7, 1990
Catoca diamond mine
Lunda Sul, People's Soviet Republic of Angola

Jae-il Kim stood at the edge of a small creek, taking a piss as the rain came down on him, steady and warm in the way only tropical rain could be. It was the middle of rainy season now, and he'd stopped bothering to seek shelter from it weeks ago. He'd been in-country since early September. The first three months had been a blur of pre-service training, weapons handling, Russian language drills late into the night, small-unit tactics, demolitions, breaching and clearing houses in the mock village they'd built outside the training camp. It was only last week that he'd finally "graduated," sworn into the corps alongside the rest of his cohort in the presidential palace in Luanda, standing at attention in front of President dos Santos himself while sweat ran down the back of his new uniform.

His cohort numbered a little over three thousand men, and this was just for Angola, just the ones slated to serve in-country from January through December of this year. It was a strange mix of people, now that he thought about it. Some, like him, were there for practical reasons: a meal ticket, an easy foot in the door with their country's Communist Party back home. Others were true believers, he thought of the handful of Americans in his unit, earnest young men who actually seemed to mean every word when they talked about solidarity and revolution. Then there was Dragos, a Romanian built like a brick house, already a soldier back home, chasing a spot in officer's school that his lack of Party connections would never have earned him otherwise. And then there were the GRU and Spetsnaz men, off in their own orbit entirely. He'd barely exchanged more than a few words with any of them the whole time. They kept to themselves, spoke rarely, and when they did, it was short and clipped. But their eyes told him everything their mouths didn't. They'd seen things. Things he hoped he never would.

He finished, tucked himself back in, and zipped up, taking a moment just to stand there and look out at the stream, at the wall of green jungle stretching endlessly in every direction around him. Being here didn't feel real in a sense, he never thought it would be. It was nothing like Korea, not even close. Sometimes he'd catch himself staring out at the treeline and feel like he'd been dropped onto another planet entirely.

He sighed and glanced down at his right hand, at the small ring resting on his finger. A short laugh escaped him.

He thought back to the week before he'd shipped out, how he'd proposed to Sayeon by accident. They'd just made love and were lying together in her small apartment when the words had simply come out of him. "We should get married."

He remembered the way her face had gone red, how she'd propped herself up on one elbow to look at him. "Jae-il... what are you talking about?"

"I remembered something," he'd told her, already half-regretting how unromantic it sounded. "Since I'm a corps volunteer, if you marry me your college stipend doubles. You could actually enjoy yourself while I'm away. And my resettlement allowance doubles too, we could split the difference. You keep half the extra, I keep the rest. And if you want, we get divorced after I'm back. And if I don't come back you'd be eligible for widow's benefits."

He'd regretted that last sentence as soon as he said it. Sayeon broke down crying, and it took nearly an hour before she calmed down enough to speak. He'd been forced to spend the rest of that day trying to make it up to her, eventually walking her to their favorite chimaek place just to see her smile again. But in the end she'd said yes. They were married two days before he left, a small, quiet ceremony, just her older sister Samin, his own parents standing witness, as well as the Chondoist elder that administered the ceremony.

He crouched by the edge of the creek, letting his mind drift away from all that and spotted a handful of flat stones scattered in the shallow water. He picked one up, turned it over in his palm, and threw it the way his cousin Sieun had taught him years ago when they were kids. He counted the skips under his breath. Three.

He sighed. "Sieun could do ten," he muttered, then reached for another stone. Then another, and another, working steadily through the small pile until there was nothing left to throw. He glanced back toward camp, then out at the water one more time. Technically, they were far from the fighting down south, and the rains had slowed everything to a crawl this time of year, but that didn't mean he could afford to stretch a bathroom break any longer than it needed to be.

He crouched down again anyway, scanning the creek bed for one last stone. "Just one more," he told himself. That was when something caught his eye in the water, not quite the right shape for a stone, but close enough that he almost dismissed it. He reached in and picked it up anyway. It felt heavier than it looked, solid in a way that made him pause. He dipped it back into the current, rubbing away the film of dirt clinging to its surface, and that was when he saw the color underneath.

Pink.

He went still. He looked around, no one nearby, the camp still a hundred meters off through the trees. He took a slow breath, and without meaning to, one of the very first lessons from training surfaced in his mind, word for word, the way it had been drilled into all of them: All resources found during your service in Angola are the property of the Angolan state, and by extension, of every soviet state enterprise operating under the auspices of its government. Anyone found hoarding or stealing these resources will be shot.

He looked down at the stone again, turning it slightly so it caught what little light made it through the clouds. For just a moment, one single moment, he considered it. It was only natural, wasn't it? He was only human, and no one was watching. But then he thought of Sayeon. Of home, and the ring on his finger, and everything waiting for him if he actually made it back in one piece. He stood up, slid the stone into his pocket, and started back toward camp. Whatever it was worth, it wasn't worth dying over. Nothing in this shithole was.

He walked back through the perimeter, nodding to the guards as he passed, and made his way straight to the commander's tent without stopping. Regulations were clear about reporting finds like this. Two soldiers stood outside the tent entrance, rain running off the brims of their caps. He came to a halt and saluted.

"Name, rank, and nature of your business," one of them said. His Russian was sharp and clean, the kind of accent that could only come from Moscow. Something about the way he stood, the cut of his uniform, told Jae-il exactly what he was looking at. Spetsnaz, almost certainly.

"Private Second Class Jae-il Kim, Thälmann Brigade, Internationalist Corps." He hesitated only a fraction of a second. "I found something in the creek nearby. A diamond."

The word landed the way he expected it to. He reached into his pocket and held the stone out, and the instant it left his hand, something in his chest loosened, like he'd just stepped back from a ledge he hadn't fully realized he was standing on. The two guards traded a glance before turning their attention back to him.

The one holding the diamond turned it over once in his fingers, studying it in silence for a moment. "Wait here." He ducked into the tent, leaving Jae-il standing alone in the rain with the other guard. He tried a little small talk to fill the silence, but got nothing back except short, flat answers, and eventually gave up. A few minutes passed before the first soldier stepped back out. "Go in."

Inside, several men were gathered—staff, he guessed, to whoever commanded this outpost. He'd never actually spoken to the man directly before, only saluted him in passing or during formation. Ignatiev, was his name. Up close, in the lamplight, he looked even older than Jae-il had expected—older than his own father, certainly. Jae-il straightened and saluted. "Sir."

"Sit." Ignatiev gestured toward the chair across from his desk.

Jae-il sat. "Comrade Zaitsev's already briefed me on the situation," Ignatiev said, his eyes flicking briefly to the diamond now resting on the desk between them. "I just need a short report from you. How exactly you came across it."

"Yes, sir." Jae-il kept it simple, he'd been on a bathroom break when a piece of his equipment slipped into the water, and going after it, he'd stumbled onto the diamond instead. He left out the part about skipping stones. He left out the moment of temptation, the second he'd actually considered pocketing it and walking away. He told it the way it needed to be told: that the instant he recognized what it was, he remembered the regulations and brought it straight in. Off to one side, a man he took for a secretary wrote it all down as he spoke, pen scratching steadily against paper.

When he finished, Ignatiev nodded, apparently satisfied. The secretary handed the finished report across the desk; Ignatiev skimmed it briefly before passing it to Jae-il along with a pen. "Acknowledgment form," he said. "Read it, sign it. You'll see a portion of its value added to your resettlement allowance once your service is complete."

Jae-il read it over, signed his name at the bottom, and handed it back. "Anything else you need from me, sir?"

"No." Ignatiev waved a hand, already turning his attention back to the papers on his desk. "Back to your post. Good work. Dismissed."

Jae-il rose and saluted. "Sir."

 

[BuilderOne]

I'd imagine new diamond mine being established soon. Hopefully "blood diamond" would not be a reality here.

 

[Alenco98]

A twitter meme from 2026:

Soviet political thought is, "I don't care if they threw your grandma in a mass grave. Those n***as were fucking LIONS!"

*A picture of Stalin and Jugashvili with their faces edited to be half lions and half their own
_________________________________________

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page on Latin-Sov

Latin-Sov (a portmanteau of "Soviet" and "Latin") was a cultural phenomenon in the Soviet Union that emerged following the end of World War II and the onset of the Thaw on the Moskva river. The Thaw, associated with a general relaxation of censorship across Soviet entertainment media, a reduced emphasis on strict adherence to Socialist realism, and, notably, the reopening of Soviet markets to foreign film, created the conditions under which the phenomenon developed.

Wary of importing media too closely associated with the American film industry, Soviet cultural authorities instead turned to Latin American cinema, with Mexican films receiving particular emphasis. Many Mexican productions of the period romanticized the Mexican Revolution and portrayed ordinary citizens rising up against an oppressive state apparatus, themes that Soviet censors judged sufficiently "revolutionary" in character to permit distribution within the USSR.

Soviet commentators and film critics frequently drew parallels between the partisan resistance movements of the Great Patriotic War and the peasant guerrilla fighters of the Mexican Revolution, framing both as expressions of popular struggle against oppression. This framing helped position Mexican cinema as ideologically compatible with Soviet cultural policy, distinguishing it from the perceived decadence of Hollywood output.

July 17, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, Soviet Union

Father Ilya Charkviani walked into the Kremlin beside his older brother, Aslan. A dozen OGPU bodyguards flanked them, Chekists as far as Ilya was concerned. The men had been with them since Gori, escorting them the entire way to Moscow without explanation. Their leader was a slight, thin-haired man in wire-rimmed glasses who'd introduced himself simply as Comrade Beria, deputy head of the OGPU in Georgia. He'd told them only that Jugashvili had summoned them personally.

Mikheil. Ilya hadn't spoken to him since the boy had left seminary school years ago. He and Aslan had heard plenty about him since, though, how he'd joined the Bolsheviks along with Iosif, but also how he hadn't stopped there. He'd become something closer to their attack dog. And now apparently, he wanted to see them.

Ilya turned it over in his mind as they walked, trying to make sense of it. He hadn't been especially close with Mikheil, or with his mother, or Iosif. Their father had taken the family in, back when old Beso's shoe business collapsed and left Mikheil's family with nothing. He and Aslan had taught the boys Russian. As far as he could remember, Mikheil had never been cruel to anyone in that house, he was polite if anything, always willing to help around the yard or town. So why summon them now?

The longer he sat with it, the darker his thoughts became. To kill them perhaps? To erase some inconvenient piece of the past. But that raised its own question, why call for them directly if that was his plan? He'd heard stories about Mikheil's particular taste for handling executions personally. Maybe that was the answer after all. He took a slow breath and silently began the psalm he always turned to when his nerves got the better of him and what he learned in seminary as well. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

They stopped in front of a study door. Beria straightened and saluted the guards posted there. "Comrade Lavrenty Beria, deputy chief of the OGPU in Georgia, reporting with Aslan and Ilya Charkviani, per Comrade Jugashvili's orders."

The guards pulled the doors open. Beria glanced back at the brothers, jerking his head toward the entrance. "Move along now," he said in Georgian, his Mingrelian accent thick around the edges.

They stepped inside, and Beria shut the door behind them. A man sat at the desk, pen moving across a sheet of paper, and looked up as they entered.

"Ilya... Aslan." Mikheil's voice carried real warmth. "It's been a long time. Come, sit, make yourselves comfortable. You'll likely be in Moscow a while." His eyes drifted past them, toward Beria still hovering near the door. "Remind me of your name, I didn't quite catch it."

"Lavrenty, sir." Beria's voice wavered slightly. "Lavrenty Beria."

"Beria." Mikheil repeated the name slowly, as if turning it over, testing its weight.

"Is there a problem, sir?" Beria's composure was fraying at the edges now.

"No, no." Mikheil shook his head, almost too quickly. "You just look strangely familiar to me. I feel like I've seen you somewhere. Can't quite place it, though."

"Sorry?" Beria's confusion was obvious. Mikheil pulled a sheet of paper toward himself, jotted something down without elaborating, then looked back up at him.

"You said Lavrenty Beria, is that right?"

"Yes. Sir." Even more hesitant this time.

"At ease." Mikheil switched into Georgian, his tone easing into something almost friendly. "I likely mistook you for someone else. You're dismissed, feel free to stay in Moscow a few days, my treat. Buy something nice for your family, if you have one. Enjoy the city. Then head back to Georgia and resume your post whenever you're ready. My apologies for pulling you into this personally, I need these two for some sensitive matters, and I wanted someone from leadership overseeing their transport directly. You'll receive triple pay for the trouble."

"Yes, sir." Beria answered back in Georgian, some of the stiffness leaving his posture as he became more at ease. "Thank you. Will that be all?"

"That's all. Go on."

Beria bowed slightly and left, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving only the three of them in the room.

Mikheil rose and crossed to a small cabinet tucked in the corner of the office. He opened it and pulled out a bottle first, setting it on the table, the label wasn't Cyrillic, but Latin script. He made a second trip for glasses.

Ilya studied him as he sat back down. He'd heard Mikheil lost an arm at Kronstadt, but seeing the empty sleeve pinned up drove the point home in a way rumor never could. This wasn't the boy from Gori anymore. His hair was tied back, a black patch covered his left eye, and faint lines had already begun carving themselves into his face. War and power had aged him faster than the years alone would have.

Mika leaned forward, grabbed the bottle, and popped the cap off with his teeth before pouring three glasses.

"Coca-Cola," he said. "American drink. Go on, try it, it's not poisoned." He lifted his own glass and drank first, as if to prove it, then set it down with a satisfied sound. "Delicious." He looked at Ilya. "I heard you became a priest. Good. I'm glad you saw it through." His tone shifted, the warmth compressing into something more direct. "I won't waste your time dancing around it — I need you. Both of you. You're the only two men in this entire country I can trust with what I'm about to propose."

His eyes moved to Aslan.

"What exactly do you need from us?" Aslan asked. He'd said almost nothing the entire trip to Moscow.

"Good question Aslan." Mikheil glanced toward the door. "Georgian from here on." He settled back into his chair. "Lenin is dying," he said, flat and matter-of-fact. "Stroke, earlier this year. Officially, the line is that he's ill but recovering. In reality, it's only a matter of time. Iosif is the one actually running the country in his name, alongside Kamenev, Zinoviev, a few others. But they're irrelevant, Joe is the real power behind the throne."

"What matters," he continued, leaning back, "is what comes after. There are exactly two men with a real chance at taking power once Lenin's gone. Stalin. And Trotsky." He refilled his glass, drank half of it in one go, and set it down. "You both know what Stalin is. You grew up alongside him. He was raised Orthodox, same as the rest of us, he spent years inside the Church before he ever left it behind." A faint smile crossed his face as he finished the glass.

"Then there's Trotsky. Lev Davidovich Bronstein." Venom crept into his voice, though his tone stayed almost conversational. "That fucking Jew." He said it the way another man might mention the weather. "You've read the pamphlet I put out last year, I made sure it circulated through the Church specifically. And you both know what I accomplished in Central Asia. I have results behind my words, which means some kind of understanding with the Church isn't just possible, it's practically inevitable. I'm already in talks with the Patriarch, working toward exactly that."

"So the situation is simple," he went on. "Either Stalin takes power, and we build on the ground we've already gained with the Church — maybe even restore it to real standing again someday, official status, if the right door opens. Or that Jew Trotsky takes over, and burns all of it down with his revolutionary rhetoric."

"That still doesn't answer the question." Aslan's voice stayed even. "What do you want from us?"

Mikheil laughed. "I was building to it, its called setting the stage old friend." He reached beneath the desk and slid a newspaper across to Aslan. "Bezbozhnik, The Godless One, in our tongue. An atheist paper, virulently anti-religious, currently in wide circulation. I actually enjoy the crossword, if I'm honest. But that's beside the point. Yemelyan Yaroslavsky runs that paper, and he's deeply opposed to me, which means, by extension to Stalin as well. I need a counter-publication. Something to push back against everything Bezbozhnik puts out. That's where you two come in."

He looked between them. "I grew up in your household. Your family took mine in when we had nothing. Consider this repayment. You'll have status, money, protection, and these days in this god-forsaken country that's worth more than anything else I could offer you. Not just for yourselves either. Your friends. Your families. I'm one of the most powerful men left in this shithole right now. Say the name Mikheil Vissarionovich Jugashvili, and no one will dare lay a finger on either of you."

Ilya didn't know what to say. Neither did Aslan. They'd braced for interrogation on the trip up, maybe worse, an execution dressed up as a summons. Instead, they were being handed jobs.

"Would we have editorial freedom?" Aslan finally asked.

Mikheil laughed, genuinely amused. "This is Russia. Not America. You want editorial freedom, go find a boat west." He softened slightly. "I'll read everything you intend to publish myself, at least at first. Once I'm satisfied you understand the line, I'll loosen the leash and let you run. But you follow the party line, without exception. No attacks on Lenin, on the government itself, on core policy. Corrupt officials, local abuses, mild critique, all of that's fair game. 'Perhaps we should reconsider policy X,' that sort of thing. Within reason."

"And if we refuse?" Ilya asked quietly.

"I'd be disappointed." Mikheil's tone didn't change at all. "But I don't think you will. You're a priest, after all, don't you want to see the Church restored to something real again? I could even arrange a meeting with Tikhon himself if that would help you decide."

"Let's actually discuss this," Aslan said, careful. "I want the details. How this would actually work, day to day."

"By all means." Mikheil stood, reaching for a small bell on the desk and giving it a sharp ring. "But first, lunch."

July 17, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, Soviet Union

I sat across from Joe in his office, a bottle of wine between us. He'd pulled the diary out at my request, and I was flipping through it, hunting for one particular name. "I really should have organized this better."

"Half of it is just rambling," Joe said.

I paused, glanced at him, shrugged. "You're not wrong." I kept turning pages, scanning, until I finally landed on the entry I wanted: the death of Stalin.

I spent a few minutes reading through it, mostly a rough summary of the film itself, as best as I could reconstruct it from memory. I had no real way to verify how accurate any of it actually was. But if it was solid enough to get turned into a movie, I figured it was close enough to work with. I worked through the plot, the cast of characters, until I hit the name I was actually searching for.

Lavrenty Beria: Head of the secret police, pedophile, murderer, lost the power struggle against Khruschev following Stalin's death. Executed. The funeral scene is pivotal. Georgian, same as me and Joe.

I pulled out the slip of paper where I'd already written his name down and checked it against the entry. Match. I exhaled slowly, closed the book, and slid it back across the table to Joe.

"Found something?"

I considered lying. Denying it. But my search had been too obvious to walk back now, and honestly, I already planned on getting rid of him. "I did."

"What was it?"

"I found me."

Stalin's brow dropped into a scowl. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean", I tapped my finger against the table, "I found the person who filled my role the first time around."

That got his full attention. "Go on."

"Lavrenty Beria. Deputy chief of the OGPU in Georgia. He's the one who personally delivered Ilya and Aslan to me earlier in the day. Surprised me that he went that far honestly, but knowing what kind of man he becomes, he's probably already angling his way upward however he can."

"What did he do? In your version of events?"

"He ran the OGPU, the NKVD by the time you died, though don't ask me what half of those acronyms actually stand for." I shrugged. "After you're gone he makes a play for power. He looses. He gets executed for it."

"What are you planning to do with him?"

"Honestly?" I mulled over it for a moment. "I want him dead. He preys on children. I find that distasteful for my standards.

Stalin scoffed, waving a hand. "Soft. Even now, you're soft."

"Not wanting children harmed makes me soft? Fine. I'm soft then."

"Arrange a meeting between him and me."

I went rigid. "Are you fucking serious right now? You know what he does the moment you have your stroke don't you? He goes straight for your documents. Waits hours before he even calls for a doctor. We've been over this already."

"Arrange the meeting." His voice hardened, final. "If I find him useful, he works under you. You said it yourself, the moment Lenin dies, it's war with Trotsky. We need every capable man we can get on our side. Arrange it."

I studied him for a moment, then nodded, exhaling. In my head, I was already drafting contingencies, poison, an accident, something quiet and clean, a way to use the man and then erase him before he became a problem. But Stalin had a point, buried under all that paranoia. We did need people. And nobody claws their way to the top of the Soviet secret police without being genuinely, dangerously good at what they do. Maybe he had his uses. For now.

"I'll arrange it," I said, standing. "Anything else?"

"Lenin's treatment." Stalin switched into Georgian without pausing. "How is it progressing?"

"Elsa says he's stabilizing. Regaining some movement."

"Does she know about our arrangement concerning him?"

"Not the details. I've only told her to take it slow, that if he recovers too fast, he'll just exhaust himself again. And to keep the reports on his progress vague enough so he stays out of politics."

"Keep it that way. She learns nothing further."

"Understood. That's already the plan."

"And the gangsters? The Americans?"

"Receptive. Got a telegram a few days back, the major groups, Jews, Irish, most of the established crime families, they're open to a conversation. A few holdouts, though."

"Holdouts?"

"The Italians. They're….they're rather old-fashioned about outsiders. The Sicilians in particular won't even work with mainland Italians half the time, let alone anyone else." I waved a hand. "I could talk your ear off about the internal politics there, but the short version is, some figures inside the Italian families are more open to us than others. We might need to, ah….." I shaped my good hand into a gun and mimed the recoil. "….help the right ones rise a little faster."

"Can you manage that without leaving fingerprints?"

"I'd rather handle it quietly, without bloodshed. But if it comes to that, I can manage it."

"Then it's yours to handle. For now, focus on your own work. Finish what you're building with Ilya and Aslan, and close out the arrangement with Tikhon."

"Understood. I'll keep you updated." I paused at the door. "One more thing."

"What."

"Lunch, Sunday. Me, Elsa, mama, the kids. Bring Nadezhda. Bring your children too."

"Mika….."

"Don't 'Mika' me, Joe. We're family. You need an afternoon where you're not running the entire country on no sleep, or you're going to burn out faster than you think."

"I'll see what I can d-"

"No. You will clear the afternoon. You will delegate for four hours. It is not a difficult thing to ask."

He shot me a look somewhere between irritation and something almost fond. "You're a genuine pain in my ass, you know that?"

"I am." I smiled, heading for the door. "And this pain in the ass has kept you alive more than once already."

Notes: Again, Mika isn't anti-semitic, he uses it to appeal to people within the church. Anti-semitism is bad, just remember that. Anyways, sorry for the delay, had some personal things that came up. I'll try to get another chapter out this week if possible.

 

[iceknight90]

The discovery of the diary seems to have eased some tensions and standoffishness between them.

If anything Stalin seems more affectionate and responsive to his brother.

But I suppose knowing that your brother knew the future and deliberately did things to ensure you'd come out on top, sacrificing his own happiness and morals for your benefit out of brotherly love and loyalty would ease feelings of inferiority or resentment.

 

[Alenco98]

Jewish in the US Starter pack (Posted on reddit in 2026)

• You either have a tiny nuclear family or an enormous web of relatives still in the USSR (You know exactly why)
• You low-key root for the Soviet team at the World Cup and the Olympics though you never admit it out loud
• Your gentile friends assume you're either loaded or a closet communist sympathizer. No in-between.
• You've got a Holocaust survivor relative in the family who is either rabidly pro-Stalin or despises the USSR with a passion. No in-between either.
• You've been to the USSR at least once, or you've met relatives who still live there.
• Your inbox gets a steady trickle of emails from the Soviet embassy reminding you that Soviet citizenship is just a form away (You've considered it a few times).
• You know at least a handful of words in Russian.
• You're either stuck performing rabid pro-Americanism, or carefully threading the needle criticizing the USSR without sounding ungrateful for what they did for your relatives.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page on the Gosbank Tower

The Gosbank Tower is a 120-story, 655-meter (2,149 ft) skyscraper located in downtown Moscow, Russia. Designed by architect Yakov Belopolsky, construction began in 1983, and the building was officially opened on 24 October 1986, with full completion declared on 1 May 1987.

At the time of its completion, the Gosbank Tower was the tallest building in the world, having surpassed the Sears Tower in Chicago. It held this title until 2010, when it was surpassed by the completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The tower was constructed to house the headquarters of Gosbank, the State Bank of the USSR, consolidating the institution's central administrative functions within a single building.

For his design of the tower, Belopolsky was awarded the title People's Architect of the USSR in 1988.

August 1, 1923
Donskoy Monastery
Moscow, USSR

I sat in Tikhon's chambers, sipping some Coca-Cola I'd brought along. Between us on the table lay a single sheet of paper, the culmination of five months of work. Four really, if I subtracted the stretch I'd spent in Cuba, but close enough. Five months of proposing terms, watching Tikhon push back, eventually wearing him down to agreement, only to carry it all back to Stalin and the Politburo, who'd inevitably add their own demands and strike out half of what we'd settled. Then back to Tikhon again, arguing it all over from scratch. An elaborate, exhausting game of telephone played with the Russian Orthodox Church as the prize.

"Alright." I set my glass down and turned my attention to the paper. "Let's walk through this one final time. Once we're both satisfied, I take the whole document to the Politburo."

Tikhon nodded slowly, folding his hands. "Then let us begin."

"Right." I exhaled. "Item one. The Soviet government ceases harassment of priests, clergy, and religious activity of any kind, provided none of it involves inflammatory rhetoric or direct or indirect calls to violence against the Soviet state."

"Accepted." His voice was even, practiced by now.

"The government permits the reopening of churches and seminaries."

"Accepted."

"The Church's finances and properties are returned to Church control, under Soviet supervision. You retain freedom to manage your own finances and holdings, subject to a yearly audit conducted by the OGPU."

His eyes narrowed slightly at that one. This clause had caused me the most headaches, I recalled the shouting matches with Tikhon, with Stalin, with half the Politburo, all fighting over the same six lines of text. "Remember," I said before he could speak, "we've been over this. This is the absolute best I can secure for you."

"I know." He sighed, and something in his shoulders eased, if only slightly. "We settled this already. I accept."

I let out a breath of relief. "The Church lifts its excommunication of all members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union."

That one landed harder than the last. His jaw tightened, and a long, weary sigh escaped him before he spoke.

"The wording of the statement, that remains entirely mine? Unsupervised?"

"As agreed. So long as the excommunication is lifted, and the language doesn't embarrass the state, you may phrase it however you see fit."

He considered this for a moment, eyes distant. "I've been turning something over in my mind. Something along the lines of, 'the circumstances that necessitated it no longer exist.'"

"That's perfect." I nodded, genuinely pleased. "Moving on, the Living Church movement is to be formally abolished, and its members subject to state persecution where necessary."

That, at least, drew something close to light into his tired eyes. He nodded, and for the first time there was real feeling behind the word. "Accepted." Quiet, but unmistakable.

"You will personally pledge loyalty to the Soviet government."

The discomfort returned instantly, his mouth tightening into something like a wince. "And the wording of that, mine as well?"

"Yes."

"Then... accepted." The word came out heavier than the others, dragged rather than spoken.

"Now." I braced slightly, because I already knew what was coming next. "We've discussed this one before. I know you won't care for it. But you and I both understand why it's necessary. An OGPU agent will be present in every church during services. They will transcribe each sermon as delivered and submit it to their local OGPU branch. Any sermon judged inflammatory, or interpreted as a call to violence, results in disciplinary action against the priest."

"We agreed to it, yes." His voice had gone flat, resigned. "But you remember what I asked for in return."

"Yes, yes." I raised a hand. "Your agents — our agents — sit in the back pew. No uniforms. No approaching the altar. No interrupting the service in progress. We'll establish a formal warning system before anything escalates to real disciplinary action, and the Church commits to ensuring compliance on its end as well. I'll have that language drawn up and sent to you."

He was quiet for a moment, staring at the paper between us like a man signing away something he could never fully get back. Then, finally: "Very well. Accepted."

The rest of the meeting moved in the same rhythm, point, argument, concession, agreement. OGPU troops would be stationed outside every church, officially "for the protection of believers," though both of us understood exactly what that phrase was really doing: a quiet, permanent reminder of who held the leash. The church would refrain from commenting on Soviet policy without prior clearance. The Patriarchate itself would continue past Tikhon's own death, though the Soviet state reserved the right to raise objections during the selection of his successor, and the church was obligated to inform the state of every candidate under consideration. A formal Commissariat of Religious Affairs would be established to oversee the whole arrangement going forward. Damaged churches could be repaired, though at the church's own expense, not the state's. New churches, seminaries, and monasteries could be built and maintained, again fully church-funded. Priests and clergy previously executed would be posthumously rehabilitated by the state. And any clergy currently imprisoned, or awaiting execution, would receive a pardon, contingent on their own pledge of loyalty to the Soviet government.

I looked at Tikhon, reached for the bottle of Coke I'd brought, and poured a measure into his glass before sliding it gently across the table toward him. "I know this is difficult Your Holiness." I filled my own glass after. "I doubt any of this is what you'd have chosen, given a real choice. But consider it this way, times change. As the revolution settles, as things quiet down, matters tend to drift back toward some version of the status quo. Think of Napoleon and his concordat. What we've built here isn't so different in substance."

"There's no need to be snide." His voice carried the particular exhaustion of a man who'd spent five months negotiating away pieces of his authority one clause at a time.

I laughed, genuinely. "Far from it. I mean that sincerely, I'm actually quite pleased with where we've landed." I let the smile settle, then leaned forward slightly. "And since we already have our agreement in hand, allow me to offer something extra. Call it a secret clause if you like."

He studied me, wariness sharpening behind his eyes. "What are you scheming now Jugashvili?"

"Nothing sinister, I promise." I leaned back into my chair. "Think of it as a personal gesture of good faith. You remember Father Budkiewicz, don't you?"

"Go on."

"My children," I said. "I intend to raise them Orthodox. Sacraments, Mass, all of it properly done. Once they're grown of course, what they choose to do with their own faith will be entirely their business. As for me, I'll keep bringing my mother to services, and I'll take communion publicly. I'll even let you administer it yourself if that carries weight for you." I paused, and let some of the performance drop out of my voice. "And there's someone in my life right now. You know I lost my wife, she was assassinated. But I've met someone since. I don't know yet what the future holds there. But if it comes to marriage, I wouldn't object to having it done properly, and by properly I mean in the Church. How would you feel about performing that ceremony yourself?"

That landed exactly the way I'd hoped it would. Something shifted in his expression, it almost looked like relief.

"Think about what that actually means," I pressed gently. "You don't just get your concordat. You get me, personally, standing visibly on your side of this. After that, nobody touches a hair on your head or your clergy. Nobody would dare. And when Stalin takes over, lets just say I'm more than willing to change the terms of the arrangement.

"This is... unexpected." Tikhon leaned forward, studying my face for any trace of a trick. "Do you mean this genuinely?"

"You know I've never once failed to follow through on my word, Patriarch. You have it now, same as always."

"How soon will this proposal reach the Politburo?"

"It'll be in my brother's hands by tonight. We present it formally tomorrow. I expect they'll want a public pledge of loyalty from you in return."

"So be it." He exhaled, long and heavy, the sound of a man setting down a weight he'd carried for months. "When will I hear back?"

"Within a few days most likely."

"Then I'll see you soon I suppose."

"Probably." I stood, drained the last of my glass, and set it down carefully. "Keep the Coca-Cola, whatever's left in the bottle is all yours. If you'd like more, just tell the guards outside, and I'll have it sent over." I gave him a small nod and made my way toward the door, leaving him alone with the paper, and everything it meant, still sitting on the table between us.

August 1, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR

I sat across from Joe, watching him work through the document Tikhon and I had signed. He'd technically approved every individual term as I'd brought them to him over the past weeks. But this was the first time he was seeing the whole framework laid out together in one unbroken piece. I watched his expression shift as he read, displeasure sliding slowly into something closer to grim acceptance.

"No uniforms. No interrupting services." He set the paper down flat on the desk. "This is what we're agreeing to."

"He wouldn't move on pre-approval of sermons. You signed off on that compromise weeks ago, don't tell me it's a problem now. Because I really don't want to go back and re-negot-"

"I never liked it." He cut me off. "You already know how I feel about this whole effort. If you were anyone else proposing it, I would have shut it down before it started."

"But I'm not anyone else." I held his gaze steady. "And if this doesn't go through, I promise you I'll end up putting a bullet in the first Komsomol brat who harasses Mama for walking into a church."

"Do you even consider her your mother?" He tapped a finger against my journal, still sitting on the desk between us. I exhaled and rolled my eyes.

"She raised me. She nursed me. She did everything within her power to give us something resembling a decent life, and she sacrificed more than most people ever will for their children." My jaw tightened. "I may not view her the exact same way I once viewed…." I felt really uncomfortable saying it, I took a deep breath. "The exact same way I once viewed my old mother." I stopped for a moment, taking another deep breath, "I still carry pieces of my old life with me, whether I want to or not. But I'm not the kind of person who walks away from someone like that, I owe her too much. And beyond that, I do care for her. Genuinely. I pity her too honestly, for everything our father put her through." My hand closed into a fist against my knee.

He only scoffed, eyes rolling with the particular contempt he reserved for anything he considered sentiment. "I'll bring this to Lenin first. From there, it goes to the Politburo."

"I'll come with you."

"Do as you like." His tone sharpened. "But understand this, you carry the responsibility for what happens next. If the Church fails to hold to its side, if they refuse to learn their place in this arrangement, you will be the one to crush them. Personally."

"Joe. I'll strangle Tikhon with my own two hands if that's what you order me to do." I said it flatly, and meant every word of it.

"Good. Now, Ilya and Aslan. What are they doing at the moment?"

"Getting everything ready for our newspaper."

"Your newspaper." Something almost like disdain colored his voice. "You understand I won't dirty my hands with it either. Not publicly. Not ever."

"Yes, yes, I know." I waved a hand, unbothered. "For now," I leaned back, letting a slow smile spread. "There's something else I've been working on. You might not love it at first. But it's exactly why my whole arrangement with the Church is going to work." I switched into Georgian without waiting for him to ask.

"What are you thinking now?" Genuine unease crept into his voice, the particular flavor reserved only for me.

"You know Lenin's going to die eventually. There's no version of this where he doesn't." I kept my tone light, almost conversational. "So here's the plan. Ilya's a priest. When Lenin's in his final hours, and Elsa's still the one managing his care, I'll have her dose him with enough morphine to put him under. I'll clear the room myself, or find a window where nobody's watching. I'll bring Ilya in quietly, and he'll administer last rites." I let that sit a moment before continuing. "No one will ever know it happened. Lenin dies. The funeral happens. The power struggle plays out exactly as it was always going to. And once we've got the advantage over Trotsky locked in, that's when the story starts to spread. Quietly, at first. Lenin took last rites. Lenin embraced the faith, right at the very end." I brought my palm down against the desk, sharp and final. "And just like that, religion comes roaring back into relevance. The Church falls in line behind you completely. And so do the masses. The peasants. The laborers. Every last one of them."

Something shifted across his face, his unease gave way to something closer to genuine revulsion and disgust. For a heartbeat I thought I'd overplayed it and pushed one step too far even for him. But there was no walking it back now. Better to lean into it than flinch.

"It's disgusting, yes." I kept my voice level, unapologetic. "But you and I have done considerably worse to people who never deserved any of it. I don't see much point pretending to be squeamish about this one of all things."

"This is reckless." His voice had gone low. "Even for you Mika."

"My whole life's been one reckless gamble stacked on the last." I shrugged. "Kronstadt was more dangerous than this if we're being honest. This is just some Maskirovka."

"How many people know about this plan?"

"Just you. That's the entire list, and it stays that way. Elsa will believe she's only easing his pain with the morphine, nothing more sinister than that. Ilya will believe Lenin personally requested him for last rites, a dying man's private wish. You and I are the only two people who will ever hold the complete picture."

That seemed to ease something in him, though the distaste hadn't fully left his eyes. "I understand you don't believe in the cause itself. I know you do all of this for me, and for nothing beyond that. But th-"

"Don't tell me you're going soft on me now, Joe." I let a small laugh slip out, though there was nothing warm in it. "Do I need to say it again? Bukharin. Trotsky. Dzerzhinsky. Every single person in the fucking Politburo, every last one of them could drop dead tomorrow by my hand and I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep over it." I leaned forward and tapped two fingers against my journal, sitting closed on the desk between us. "I never once heard those other names mentioned in school. Only Trotsky. And I already told you, you have him killed years from now. So it stands to reason the rest of them meet similar ends eventually, one way or another. If it ever comes down to Lenin himself, I won't grieve him either." My voice didn't waver. "I never even heard of Mikoyan, Sergo and Kirov. Which tells me you'll get around to them too eventually. Just say the word when the time comes Joe. Their lives don't weigh on me at all. At this point, only my family and the handful of people I actually call friends mean anything to me."

Disgust flickered openly across his face this time, unmistakable, though whether it was aimed at me, or at himself for needing someone like me at all, I honestly couldn't say. He reached out and pulled the document toward himself without another word.

"I'll go to Lenin's tomorrow."

"So I take it you accept the plan."

"I heard nothing of the sort just now." His eyes met mine, flat and final. "This conversation never happened."

"Of course." I stood up, "Have a good night Joe."

 

[iceknight90]

Something shifted across his face, his unease gave way to something closer to genuine revulsion and disgust. For a heartbeat I thought I'd overplayed it and pushed one step too far even for him. But there was no walking it back now. Better to lean into it than flinch.

Click to shrink...

Even Stalin is shocked, appalled (and probably secretly impressed), at the sheer depths of Mikhail's iconoclastic depravity. Mikhail might be soft and sentimental in many ways that Stalin disagrees with, but he's hilariously willing to put on the most disgusting political theatre because he holds very little sacred.

 

[valaraanth]

God is dead and they killed it for coke. A-fucking-men.

 

[iceknight90]

God is dead and they killed it for coke. A-fucking-men.

Click to shrink...

Damn. Judas Iscariot needed at least thirty pieces of silver.