Redemption or replacement?
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Alenco98
Not too sore, are you?
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Excerpt from the Wikipedia page of Axis of evil
The phrase "Axis of Evil" is a political term coined by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to describe the three principal member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and the People's Soviet Republic of Korea, which the Reagan administration defined as the primary strategic and ideological adversaries of the United States and the London Pact.
Reagan first employed the phrase in his State of the Union address on January 19, 1978, delivered before a joint session of Congress. The speech came fewer than six months after the conclusion of the Shaba I Crisis (February–June 1977), in which Soviet-backed forces from the Republic of the Congo launched an incursion into the Shaba Province of Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire. The intervention was repelled following a coordinated military response by the United States, France, Morocco, and Belgium.
The address framed Shaba as a decisive victory against Soviet expansionism in Africa, while arguing that the West had for too long conceded ground to the CSTO bloc. Reagan cited a cascade of strategic setbacks in the last 10 years as evidence that détente was dead: the Great Middle Eastern Crisis and subsequent second oil shock, the loss of Southeast Asia, the Ogaden War, and the Soviet Union's sustained economic warfare campaign against the United States and its allies via its Victory by Endurance campaign and its constant proxy wars. Taken together, he argued, these reversals demonstrated that accommodation and peaceful coexistence had only emboldened Soviet aggression.
The speech is widely regarded as marking the formal birth of the rollback doctrine, committing the United States to active intervention against communist movements and governments worldwide at a scale and intensity without precedent in the postwar era.
Excerpt from the Wikipedia page of The London Pact
The London Pact, formally the Treaty of Mutual Defense and Cooperation (TMDC), is a collective defense alliance established by treaty on October 9, 1946, in London, United Kingdom, two years after the conclusion of the Second World War. The term "London Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant military alliance, the London Pact Organization (LPO; also known as the London Treaty Organization, LTO). The organization serves as a system of collective security and deterrence, whereby its independent members agree to defend each-other from attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against the territory of one member shall be considered an attack against them all.
The Pact was founded by fifteen nations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Canada, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. The inclusion of Japan and the Philippines alongside the Western European founding members reflected the alliance's explicitly global orientation from its inception, a clear response to the CSTO's own reach from the Rhine to the Pacific
September 1, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR
Elsa bent over the toilet, heaving until there was nothing left to bring up, then she took a slow careful breath. The nausea kept rolling through her in waves, receding only to surge back moments later. She stayed like that for a while, waiting it out, until it finally began to fully ebb. She pushed herself up, went to the sink, rinsed the taste of bile from her mouth, and washed her hands with soap, she was methodical about it, buying herself time so she could think. She looked down at her own hands for a moment, then let them drift to her stomach, resting there. A small sob escaped her before she could stop it.
She hadn't thought much of it when her cycle failed to come last month, it had been unreliable for years now, ever since she'd first come to serve in Russia. The country hadn't exactly offered ideal conditions, and even now, with the war and famine finally behind them things were only just beginning to settle.
But this week it should have come again, and instead she was on her knees in front of a toilet, exhausted in a way that sleep didn't relieve, her whole body felt wrong, as if something was missing. The vomiting had started nearly a week ago. At first she'd assumed it was something she'd eaten, or the early stirrings of the flu with the season turning. There was no mistaking it now for either of those things.
She left the bathroom and made her way toward their quarters. It was late Saturday afternoon, Mika usually kept half-days on Saturdays, so he should have been back by now. A soldier stood at attention outside their door and saluted as she approached, a formality she'd never quite grown used to, though there was no room in her right now to care about that. He opened the door for her, and her heart sank when she stepped through to find the room empty.
She turned back to the soldier. "Where is Mika?"
He straightened further, if that were possible. "He is in a meeting with Comrade Stalin. He asked that the meeting not be disturbed. He should be back by evening."
"Can you get a message to him? I need to speak with him. It's urgent."
"I'll try," he said, though his tone carried little confidence. "He made clear it was an important meeting with Comrade Stalin. I'll see what can be done."
"Thank you." She paused. "It's Anatoly, isn't it?"
"Yes, Comrade Brandström."
"Thank you, Anatoly. Tell him I'll be waiting."
He shut the door gently behind her, and she was alone. She sat at the edge of the bed, eyes drifting to the nightstand, a lamp, and a handful of framed photographs. One of Mika alone. One of the two of them with Mika's children. One of Mika with Maria.
She'd only met Maria a handful of times, early in the Civil War, on the occasions she'd gone to Smolny to have Mika petition the government on her behalf, fighting to keep red cross operations running while the war tore the country apart. Mika would sometimes have Maria with him during those visits, and she and Maria would exchange a few words, they were mostly courtesies, introductions, nothing deep. Elsa's Russian had never been strong; and Maria spoke to Mika almost entirely in Georgian. But she'd heard enough in the tone between the two of them to know they'd loved each other completely, whatever disagreements Mika later admitted they'd had.
She lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, one hand still resting over her stomach. It was a strange little habit of Mika's, this staring into nothing. It helps me think, he'd told her once, weeks ago at Lenin's dacha, the two of them stretched out on the grass after lunch. Running the security services, let alone helping run a country is exhausting work. I need somewhere empty to put my mind or I'd go insane.
She'd doubted it at the time. But lying there now, doing the same thing herself, she felt something in her chest loosen, just slightly. She kept staring, and little by little her eyes grew heavy, until she drifted off entirely, no dreams, nothing she could later recall, only the sensation of floating, weightless, somewhere far from the room.
Then something brushed her cheek, and a voice, low and close. "Elsa... Elsa... Elsa."
She opened her eyes. Mika was leaning over her, one hand still resting gently against her face.
"Mika." Her voice came out thick with sleep.
"Elsa." He straightened slightly, studying her. "Anatoly said you needed to speak with me. That it was urgent. What happened?"
She pushed herself upright, meeting his eyes, and pressed her hand flat against her stomach. "I'm pregnant Mika."
He went still. His face gave away nothing at all, no shock, no smile, nothing she could read, and for a long moment he simply breathed steadily without interruption, only watching her. Then, slowly, he nodded. "I see." His voice was calm, careful. "What do you want to do about our baby?"
"Our?"
"Well duh." A faint laugh crept into his voice, as if the question itself slightly offended him. "The child is obviously mine." He continued, gentler now. "What do you want to do? Keep the baby, or not?"
"What do you want?"
"Whatever you want." He took her hand in his. "I'm not against it, if that's what you're asking. If you want to keep the baby, that's more than fine, I'll claim him or her as mine without hesitation. I'll marry you tomorrow too if that's what you'd like. And if you'd rather not go through with it, that's fine too. I won't think less of you either way." He paused, and something firmer entered his voice. "The one thing I won't accept is abandonment. If you have the child and want no part of raising them, that's your right, but I will raise them myself. I have more than enough money and standing to see they have a good life. You as well, if you'll let me."
"You'd really marry me if it came to that?"
"Yes." He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. "I love you Elsa. Whatever makes you happy, that's what I'll do. All of it, without question or hesitation. I would have done the same for Maria. And I won't fail this time." He stopped for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "This time I'll make sure to protect you. I won't fail you like I failed Maria." He sobbed a little. "I love you Elsa."
She said nothing at first, only held him tighter, burying her face against him. "I love you too, Mika."
September 1, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR
Stalin sat at the head of the family table, as he always did, working through dinner with a slow, deliberate patience he had cultivated over the years. Part of him despised these evenings even now, he felt he was wasting time, time that could be spent on Party administration, on the endless grinding work of extracting every last useful detail from Mika's journal. Instead this time was wasted instead on soup and small talk. Mika. Even now, months into knowing the truth, the name still caught somewhere in his throat before he could say it naturally. He was different. The journal had made that clear enough, and he'd confirmed it himself, watched the proof of it with his own eyes. And still some stubborn part of him resisted believing it, even as the rest of him had no other explanation left standing. After all, how could he explain the way his brother carried himself, the way he looked at the world compared to everyone else around him.
He speared a piece of pork with his fork, brought it to his mouth, chewing slowly. He would allow himself this much, the knowledge Mika had was useful. If even half of what he claimed turned out to be true, he let a small, private smile cross his face at the thought, half of Europe, laid out before him like a map with the borders already drawn. The war Mika had described, the plan already taking shape. The world within his grasp. All he needed now was for Lenin to die, and for Trotsky to be swept away, and it would all be his.
His eyes drifted to Kato as she fussed over her plate while Yakov seated beside her. They sat close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Something in him still recoiled faintly at the sight of the two of them together. But he understood the calculation behind it well enough by now, Mika was handing him his own daughter as a hostage, tying himself to him in a way that couldn't be undone. It was a leash, one he had willingly made and handed to him. He watched Mika eat from a plate that bore no resemblance to the borscht in front of everyone else, two slices of bread, a piece of chicken between them, breaded, fried, dusted with some foreign blend of spice. Mika claimed he'd discovered it in Cuba and fell in love with it. Stalin knew better. Another scrap pulled forward from that other life of his. He'd had the kitchen prepare him a taste of it earlier that afternoon, during their meeting, he found it over-seasoned, too sharp on the tongue, and yet there Mika sat, working through his portion with obvious, uncomplicated pleasure.
Stalin said little, letting the rest of the table carry the conversation, watching Mika joke with the children, with Nadezhda, with their mother, with Elsa, with the servers drifting in and out with fresh plates. One of them, a young woman, reached to collect his own plate, and he looked up at her.
"I'd like another." His voice came out flatter than he'd intended.
She froze mid-motion, plate half-lifted, something like fear flickering behind her eyes before she caught herself. "Yes, Comrade Stalin."
"What is your name?"
"Tatiana." The word came out rushed, and she pulled the plate free and turned to go almost before he'd finished thanking her.
"Yes... thank you, Tatiana."
She was gone. He kept his eyes on his own hands for a moment, then glanced sideways. Mika was still talking, still easy and unbothered, hadn't so much as looked over. Stalin felt the exchange settle into his chest like a stone. He should not have spoken to her that way. It had come out wrong, stiff, almost pleading, and he replayed it once, twice, feeling something curdle low in his stomach each time. His jaw tightened. Beneath the table, his fist closed slowly around nothing.
A hand settled over his. Nadezhda, beside him. "Is everything all right, Soso?"
"It's fine." Sharper than he meant it, and he watched her flinch, very slightly, before she withdrew her hand and returned her attention to her plate without another word.
Dinner went on. He kept watching Mika, unable quite to stop himself. Something about him tonight sat differently than usual, looser somehow. One of the guards had interrupted their meeting that afternoon, murmuring something about Elsa needing to speak with him, and Mika had ended the session early without a flicker of irritation, which was, in itself, unlike him. Now, at the table, whenever his eyes found Elsa, something in his face changed. Softened. Stalin filed the observation away without quite naming what it cost him to notice it.
As the meal wound down, Mika rose, lifting his glass and tapping it once with his fork until the table quieted. "Everyone." He was smiling, that same easy, unguarded smile he wore so freely and so often. He turned first to the children. "You're going to have another sibling." A pause, just long enough to let it land. "Elsa's pregnant."
Stalin's fork came to rest against his plate, deliberate, silent.
Pregnant. The Swede was pregnant.
Which meant she would not be leaving. Not now, not soon, not ever, another permanent fixture lodged inside his own household, in his brother's life. His hands folded together beneath the table, knuckles whitening slowly against each other, and for one unguarded second his eyes cut toward her, sharp and cold. The Swede was here to stay. I should have killed her after Kronstadt.
The phrase "Axis of Evil" is a political term coined by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to describe the three principal member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and the People's Soviet Republic of Korea, which the Reagan administration defined as the primary strategic and ideological adversaries of the United States and the London Pact.
Reagan first employed the phrase in his State of the Union address on January 19, 1978, delivered before a joint session of Congress. The speech came fewer than six months after the conclusion of the Shaba I Crisis (February–June 1977), in which Soviet-backed forces from the Republic of the Congo launched an incursion into the Shaba Province of Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire. The intervention was repelled following a coordinated military response by the United States, France, Morocco, and Belgium.
The address framed Shaba as a decisive victory against Soviet expansionism in Africa, while arguing that the West had for too long conceded ground to the CSTO bloc. Reagan cited a cascade of strategic setbacks in the last 10 years as evidence that détente was dead: the Great Middle Eastern Crisis and subsequent second oil shock, the loss of Southeast Asia, the Ogaden War, and the Soviet Union's sustained economic warfare campaign against the United States and its allies via its Victory by Endurance campaign and its constant proxy wars. Taken together, he argued, these reversals demonstrated that accommodation and peaceful coexistence had only emboldened Soviet aggression.
The speech is widely regarded as marking the formal birth of the rollback doctrine, committing the United States to active intervention against communist movements and governments worldwide at a scale and intensity without precedent in the postwar era.
Excerpt from the Wikipedia page of The London Pact
The London Pact, formally the Treaty of Mutual Defense and Cooperation (TMDC), is a collective defense alliance established by treaty on October 9, 1946, in London, United Kingdom, two years after the conclusion of the Second World War. The term "London Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant military alliance, the London Pact Organization (LPO; also known as the London Treaty Organization, LTO). The organization serves as a system of collective security and deterrence, whereby its independent members agree to defend each-other from attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against the territory of one member shall be considered an attack against them all.
The Pact was founded by fifteen nations: the United States, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Canada, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. The inclusion of Japan and the Philippines alongside the Western European founding members reflected the alliance's explicitly global orientation from its inception, a clear response to the CSTO's own reach from the Rhine to the Pacific
September 1, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR
Elsa bent over the toilet, heaving until there was nothing left to bring up, then she took a slow careful breath. The nausea kept rolling through her in waves, receding only to surge back moments later. She stayed like that for a while, waiting it out, until it finally began to fully ebb. She pushed herself up, went to the sink, rinsed the taste of bile from her mouth, and washed her hands with soap, she was methodical about it, buying herself time so she could think. She looked down at her own hands for a moment, then let them drift to her stomach, resting there. A small sob escaped her before she could stop it.
She hadn't thought much of it when her cycle failed to come last month, it had been unreliable for years now, ever since she'd first come to serve in Russia. The country hadn't exactly offered ideal conditions, and even now, with the war and famine finally behind them things were only just beginning to settle.
But this week it should have come again, and instead she was on her knees in front of a toilet, exhausted in a way that sleep didn't relieve, her whole body felt wrong, as if something was missing. The vomiting had started nearly a week ago. At first she'd assumed it was something she'd eaten, or the early stirrings of the flu with the season turning. There was no mistaking it now for either of those things.
She left the bathroom and made her way toward their quarters. It was late Saturday afternoon, Mika usually kept half-days on Saturdays, so he should have been back by now. A soldier stood at attention outside their door and saluted as she approached, a formality she'd never quite grown used to, though there was no room in her right now to care about that. He opened the door for her, and her heart sank when she stepped through to find the room empty.
She turned back to the soldier. "Where is Mika?"
He straightened further, if that were possible. "He is in a meeting with Comrade Stalin. He asked that the meeting not be disturbed. He should be back by evening."
"Can you get a message to him? I need to speak with him. It's urgent."
"I'll try," he said, though his tone carried little confidence. "He made clear it was an important meeting with Comrade Stalin. I'll see what can be done."
"Thank you." She paused. "It's Anatoly, isn't it?"
"Yes, Comrade Brandström."
"Thank you, Anatoly. Tell him I'll be waiting."
He shut the door gently behind her, and she was alone. She sat at the edge of the bed, eyes drifting to the nightstand, a lamp, and a handful of framed photographs. One of Mika alone. One of the two of them with Mika's children. One of Mika with Maria.
She'd only met Maria a handful of times, early in the Civil War, on the occasions she'd gone to Smolny to have Mika petition the government on her behalf, fighting to keep red cross operations running while the war tore the country apart. Mika would sometimes have Maria with him during those visits, and she and Maria would exchange a few words, they were mostly courtesies, introductions, nothing deep. Elsa's Russian had never been strong; and Maria spoke to Mika almost entirely in Georgian. But she'd heard enough in the tone between the two of them to know they'd loved each other completely, whatever disagreements Mika later admitted they'd had.
She lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, one hand still resting over her stomach. It was a strange little habit of Mika's, this staring into nothing. It helps me think, he'd told her once, weeks ago at Lenin's dacha, the two of them stretched out on the grass after lunch. Running the security services, let alone helping run a country is exhausting work. I need somewhere empty to put my mind or I'd go insane.
She'd doubted it at the time. But lying there now, doing the same thing herself, she felt something in her chest loosen, just slightly. She kept staring, and little by little her eyes grew heavy, until she drifted off entirely, no dreams, nothing she could later recall, only the sensation of floating, weightless, somewhere far from the room.
Then something brushed her cheek, and a voice, low and close. "Elsa... Elsa... Elsa."
She opened her eyes. Mika was leaning over her, one hand still resting gently against her face.
"Mika." Her voice came out thick with sleep.
"Elsa." He straightened slightly, studying her. "Anatoly said you needed to speak with me. That it was urgent. What happened?"
She pushed herself upright, meeting his eyes, and pressed her hand flat against her stomach. "I'm pregnant Mika."
He went still. His face gave away nothing at all, no shock, no smile, nothing she could read, and for a long moment he simply breathed steadily without interruption, only watching her. Then, slowly, he nodded. "I see." His voice was calm, careful. "What do you want to do about our baby?"
"Our?"
"Well duh." A faint laugh crept into his voice, as if the question itself slightly offended him. "The child is obviously mine." He continued, gentler now. "What do you want to do? Keep the baby, or not?"
"What do you want?"
"Whatever you want." He took her hand in his. "I'm not against it, if that's what you're asking. If you want to keep the baby, that's more than fine, I'll claim him or her as mine without hesitation. I'll marry you tomorrow too if that's what you'd like. And if you'd rather not go through with it, that's fine too. I won't think less of you either way." He paused, and something firmer entered his voice. "The one thing I won't accept is abandonment. If you have the child and want no part of raising them, that's your right, but I will raise them myself. I have more than enough money and standing to see they have a good life. You as well, if you'll let me."
"You'd really marry me if it came to that?"
"Yes." He leaned in and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. "I love you Elsa. Whatever makes you happy, that's what I'll do. All of it, without question or hesitation. I would have done the same for Maria. And I won't fail this time." He stopped for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "This time I'll make sure to protect you. I won't fail you like I failed Maria." He sobbed a little. "I love you Elsa."
She said nothing at first, only held him tighter, burying her face against him. "I love you too, Mika."
September 1, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, USSR
Stalin sat at the head of the family table, as he always did, working through dinner with a slow, deliberate patience he had cultivated over the years. Part of him despised these evenings even now, he felt he was wasting time, time that could be spent on Party administration, on the endless grinding work of extracting every last useful detail from Mika's journal. Instead this time was wasted instead on soup and small talk. Mika. Even now, months into knowing the truth, the name still caught somewhere in his throat before he could say it naturally. He was different. The journal had made that clear enough, and he'd confirmed it himself, watched the proof of it with his own eyes. And still some stubborn part of him resisted believing it, even as the rest of him had no other explanation left standing. After all, how could he explain the way his brother carried himself, the way he looked at the world compared to everyone else around him.
He speared a piece of pork with his fork, brought it to his mouth, chewing slowly. He would allow himself this much, the knowledge Mika had was useful. If even half of what he claimed turned out to be true, he let a small, private smile cross his face at the thought, half of Europe, laid out before him like a map with the borders already drawn. The war Mika had described, the plan already taking shape. The world within his grasp. All he needed now was for Lenin to die, and for Trotsky to be swept away, and it would all be his.
His eyes drifted to Kato as she fussed over her plate while Yakov seated beside her. They sat close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Something in him still recoiled faintly at the sight of the two of them together. But he understood the calculation behind it well enough by now, Mika was handing him his own daughter as a hostage, tying himself to him in a way that couldn't be undone. It was a leash, one he had willingly made and handed to him. He watched Mika eat from a plate that bore no resemblance to the borscht in front of everyone else, two slices of bread, a piece of chicken between them, breaded, fried, dusted with some foreign blend of spice. Mika claimed he'd discovered it in Cuba and fell in love with it. Stalin knew better. Another scrap pulled forward from that other life of his. He'd had the kitchen prepare him a taste of it earlier that afternoon, during their meeting, he found it over-seasoned, too sharp on the tongue, and yet there Mika sat, working through his portion with obvious, uncomplicated pleasure.
Stalin said little, letting the rest of the table carry the conversation, watching Mika joke with the children, with Nadezhda, with their mother, with Elsa, with the servers drifting in and out with fresh plates. One of them, a young woman, reached to collect his own plate, and he looked up at her.
"I'd like another." His voice came out flatter than he'd intended.
She froze mid-motion, plate half-lifted, something like fear flickering behind her eyes before she caught herself. "Yes, Comrade Stalin."
"What is your name?"
"Tatiana." The word came out rushed, and she pulled the plate free and turned to go almost before he'd finished thanking her.
"Yes... thank you, Tatiana."
She was gone. He kept his eyes on his own hands for a moment, then glanced sideways. Mika was still talking, still easy and unbothered, hadn't so much as looked over. Stalin felt the exchange settle into his chest like a stone. He should not have spoken to her that way. It had come out wrong, stiff, almost pleading, and he replayed it once, twice, feeling something curdle low in his stomach each time. His jaw tightened. Beneath the table, his fist closed slowly around nothing.
A hand settled over his. Nadezhda, beside him. "Is everything all right, Soso?"
"It's fine." Sharper than he meant it, and he watched her flinch, very slightly, before she withdrew her hand and returned her attention to her plate without another word.
Dinner went on. He kept watching Mika, unable quite to stop himself. Something about him tonight sat differently than usual, looser somehow. One of the guards had interrupted their meeting that afternoon, murmuring something about Elsa needing to speak with him, and Mika had ended the session early without a flicker of irritation, which was, in itself, unlike him. Now, at the table, whenever his eyes found Elsa, something in his face changed. Softened. Stalin filed the observation away without quite naming what it cost him to notice it.
As the meal wound down, Mika rose, lifting his glass and tapping it once with his fork until the table quieted. "Everyone." He was smiling, that same easy, unguarded smile he wore so freely and so often. He turned first to the children. "You're going to have another sibling." A pause, just long enough to let it land. "Elsa's pregnant."
Stalin's fork came to rest against his plate, deliberate, silent.
Pregnant. The Swede was pregnant.
Which meant she would not be leaving. Not now, not soon, not ever, another permanent fixture lodged inside his own household, in his brother's life. His hands folded together beneath the table, knuckles whitening slowly against each other, and for one unguarded second his eyes cut toward her, sharp and cold. The Swede was here to stay. I should have killed her after Kronstadt.
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