My brothers keeper, an OC/SI as the twin of Stalin

[Fellow Human]

I need a different perspective of Mikail from the angle of other nations or from the opposite side or from the angle of the people.

Click to shrink...

That will come, the problem in the Mussolini fic was it was repetitive bunch of talks going welp we can't do anything about that bastard.

The problem now is it seems like the central commitee is not doing anything, everything is done by SI. We know it isn't so, though he clearly is the most important, but there is a lack of perspective as it's only the SI talking and others reacting.

There's also a couple missing scenes. The Kornilev's defeat was just implied, never shown or explained, felt like I missed a chap.
Then the falling out with Trostsky. One chapter MC says to Stalin, we'll be great friends or I'll have to kill him. The next chap, he keeps dissing him in the commitee meetings.

It's implied that Trotsky proved too ideological and inflexible, but there wasn't a transition, or MC talking with Stalin where they decided to go against Trotsky.

 

[Alenco98]

"Any of you have any last words? No? Come now, don't be shy—this is the part where you beg for God's mercy or mine, though I'll admit I've had none for a long time. Would you like a cigarette before you meet your virgins in paradise? I hear Afghan tobacco is quite good for calming the nerves before I turn your skull into a Picasso painting. No takers? What about an imam to bless you? I can fetch one if you insist. I've got one on retainer these days—very cost-effective, really. I pay him by the corpse. Anyone? Anyone at all?"

— General Mikheil Jugashvili addressing a group of bound Saqqawist rebels in Charikar, Afghanistan, moments before personally executing them, January 16, 1929.

-----

January 7, 1918
Finland Station
Petrograd, Russia

The train gave that low metallic groan, the kind it makes before it decides to haul several dozen tons of steel and men across a frozen country. Outside, steam hissed in lazy bursts from the engine, wrapping itself around the platform like cigarette smoke from a giant's mouth.

I lit another cigarette. Aleksandra would have hated it — she used to wave her hands in front of her face and mutter about how the smell clung to people that smoked it. Funny thing is, I hated it too. Always did. My last life taught me what smoking does to your lungs, and it's not exactly a secret in this one either. That's why I tried to stop Joe from lighting up in my apartment back then. That's why I never touched them.

But now? What's the point?
The one person I'd kept myself clean for was in the ground, in a box, surrounded by frozen dirt.

Keke was still alive. Joe was still alive. The kids were still alive. But without Aleksandra, it was like someone had taken the part of me that cared and tossed it off a cliff. Everything since her death felt like an echo.

In front of me, the train loomed — the one that would carry me to Moscow. More raids. More purges. More… fun, if you could call it that.

The last six days had been mechanical. Wake up. Eat something tasteless. Round up the condemned. Shoot them. Spend the evening with the family — enough to keep them from thinking I'd gone completely mad with grief which I clearly was — then back to work. No breaks. No soft edges. Just rinse, repeat.

Yesterday had been more of the same. Church in the morning, executions in the afternoon, dinner in the evening. The Lord's work and my work — neatly compartmentalized.

Today was different. Today was her funeral. Father Patruchev led it, his voice even but his eyes looking anywhere but at me. The rest of my family stood together, bundled against the cold, while the wind blew snow over her grave as if the world was in a hurry to forget her.

I didn't cry — not like Joe had for Kato years ago, when the man jumped into her grave like he was trying to sink into the earth and die with her. My grief had already been burned into something else. Something harder.

Now, it was time to leave. I'd hugged the kids at Smolny. Kissed Keke on the cheek. Told them all I loved them in that voice that pretends it's steady. Then I left.

Only Joe and Aleksander came to see me off. I hugged them both — hard enough that they'd remember it. "Don't get yourselves killed while I'm gone," I told them. "Bulletproof vests and helmets. Guards at all times. And make sure Keke and the kids wear theirs too. I don't care if they complain — they comply. Make sure Yagoda keeps them safe, or I'll hang him with his entrails."

Joe just nodded, grim and silent. Aleksander gave me his usual verbal assurance: "I'll make sure they're always protected."

I turned toward Tukachevsky, who was already by the carriage steps, his posture screaming discipline. I climbed aboard and headed straight to my quarters. I'd be sharing the space with him and the rest of my staff — not that it mattered.

I sat on the cot, reached into my coat, and pulled out the wedding photo. The two of us smiling, hands clasped, the world still open in front of us. A few tears threatened, but I swallowed them back.

Couldn't look weak. Not here. Not now. I had thousands to kill. I couldn't afford it.

---

January 16, 1918
Moscow Nikolayevsky Railway Station
Moscow, Russia

I was the last one to step off the train, partly for dramatic effect, partly because I didn't trust the station crowd not to be full of knife-wielding SR lunatics, and partly because I'd been making sure my bulletproof vest was sitting comfortably under my coat. My wife's photograph rested against my ribs in the inner pocket—a reminder of her, it was all I had left. Everyone else but my family was nothing but numbers to me now.

The platform stank of wet wool, coal smoke, and the faint moral decay that comes from centuries of autocracy followed by three years of war. I scanned the crowd and found Tukachevsky, talking to some thin, fox-eyed fellow in a cap that looked like it had seen too many meetings and not enough laundry.

"Tukachevsky," I called, stepping over a puddle of melted snow that looked suspiciously red in the morning light. "Who's this?"

The stranger straightened. "Grigory Aleksandrovich Usievich. I take it you're Commander Jugashvili?"

"I am," I replied. He nodded, taking in my appearance the way one might size up a suspicious meat pie.

"You're shorter than I expected."

"Doesn't prevent me from murdering my enemies," I said, shrugging. My tone was casual; theirs wasn't. I gestured, and one of my men—bless him—tossed me a rifle. I caught it without looking, because what's the point of building a reputation if you can't punctuate it with theatrical nonsense? "Did Dzerzhinsky's men deliver the lists to you? Are the local Red Guards ready?"

"They are," Usievich said slowly, like each word had to be weighed for its possible role in a future tribunal. "I admit, though, comrade… it seems rather excessive, don't you think?"

"Excessive?" I repeated, widening my eyes as if he'd just told me water was wet. "Comrade, I am a member of the Central Committee—same as Lenin, same as Trotsky, same as my brother Stalin. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. The SRs have made it perfectly clear they'll keep trying. Either we kill them all, or they'll overthrow us and hand us gift-wrapped to the reactionaries. Your hesitation is touching, but frankly, the graveyard is full of men who respected proportionality."

He shifted uncomfortably. "I still think it's a bad idea."

"And I respect your opinion," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Unfortunately, respecting it is all I'll be doing with it. Now—status of the Left SRs?"

Usievich's expression was the same one you'd see on a man about to hand over bad news to someone with a reputation for shooting messengers.

"They know you're here," he said flatly. "Your little Petrograd purge… word spread before you even got halfway. Most of their leadership in Moscow's already gone underground. We've identified about a dozen safe houses—some confirmed, some just suspected—but they're moving between them constantly. They've stopped holding meetings, no more public agitation, no speeches, no leaflets. When they move, they move in twos and threes, and they're armed. If you want to find them now, it's house-to-house work."

I tilted my head, I was almost amused. "Any arrests so far?"

"A few," Usievich admitted. "A dozen local organizers, both grabbed on the street. We've got them in holding. The rest? We've been sweeping apartments and warehouses since yesterday, but they're spooked. Even their rank-and-file are ditching papers and weapons. They know the second we catch them with something, they're done for."

I couldn't help but grin. Finally, a challenge. Something to point the gun at besides my own mouth when I felt particularly sjitty.

"They're running? Good," I said, flicking ash onto the slush. "Makes the hunt more interesting. I didn't come all the way from Petrograd for a polite conversation."

I patted the stock of my rifle like a loyal dog. "I've got five thousand Revolutionary Guards with me — and not the parade-ground kind. These are the ones who smile while they're bayoneting someone. We'll dig in here, recruit more men, help your men spread our net across the whole city."

I stepped closer to Usievich, lowering my voice like I was about to share a dinner recipe. "Immediate curfew. Anyone caught outside after dusk officially is to be seized, but in reality, I want your men to tail them. Let's see who they meet, where they sleep, what they hide. Safehouses first, arrests second. We're not just plucking weeds here, we're burning the field."

I could see he didn't like where this was going, which only made me smile wider. "The ones we've already got in holding? We start with them. Today. I want to begin with a bang. Something Moscow will tell their grandchildren about, if they live long enough to have grandchildren. I'll personally put them down — clean, deliberate, in full view. Makes the rest of the Bolsheviks safer, too. If they want revenge, they'll come for me instead of everyone else. I'm generous like that."

I looked past him, toward the skyline, the red walls of the Kremlin glaring through the winter haze. "Clear out the space outside the Kremlin. I want them kneeling there before sunset. Get me a priest — last rites for the condemned, or a cigarette if they want, a courtesy they denied my wife."

I turned away, lighting another cigarette, already picturing the smoke curling through the frigid air as the shots echoed off the Kremlin's stones. Aleksandra would have hated the smell. I'd make sure the priests stood close enough to taste it.

January 16, 1918
Right outside the Kremlin
Moscow, Russia

The sun was bleeding into the horizon, casting long red shadows over the cobblestones. Appropriate, I thought — Moscow's sky was doing half my propaganda work for me.

A dozen of them stood in a neat line, hands bound, faces somewhere between pale terror and defiant stupidity. Left SRs, Moscow's finest pests. The crowd had been herded into place, shoulder to shoulder, craning for a view like this was the Tsar's coronation.

I stepped forward, my boots crunching on the frost, and held my hands behind my back like a man greeting guests at a formal dinner.

"Comrades," I said, my voice carrying over the cold air, "you've all been given the same choice. A priest, or a cigarette. I recommend both if you're superstitious — spiritual insurance and something to take the edge off."

One or two muttered cigarettes. Most asked for the priest. Not Father Sergey this time, he was back in Petrograd, someone needed to run religious affairs after all— today I had a local one, older, with a face that said he'd been watching men walk to their deaths since before I was born. He went down the line, muttering prayers and making the sign of the cross.

I waited until he stepped back, then drew my pistol. No speeches now. One step forward, one shot each. The sound cracked against the Kremlin walls like a drumbeat, the bodies dropping in neat succession. I took my time, no rush — they'd waited their whole lives for this moment, whether they knew it or not.

By the last shot, the square was so quiet you could hear the brass casing roll on the stone.

I turned to the crowd, my breath visible in the fading light. "As of this moment," I said evenly, "membership in the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party is a capital offense. You have one day — twenty-four hours — to come forward, renounce your allegiance, and confess your associates. After that, you will be hunted down and executed without exception."

I let the silence hang before continuing. "A curfew is now in effect. After dark, no one leaves their home without a permit. If you're caught without one, you will be detained and questioned. Resist, or act suspiciously, and you'll meet the same fate you've just witnessed. And I'll personally shoot you."

The priest crossed himself again. The crowd didn't move. Good — fear freezes people in place.

I holstered my pistol and stepped over a corpse on my way back toward the Kremlin gates, the last light of day dying behind me.

January 16, 1918
Kremlin
Moscow, Russia
Night time

The Kremlin was quiet in that way only a fortress can be — thick walls keeping the cold out but letting the silence in. My quarters were barely warm, the kind of room where a man could hear his own thoughts whether he wanted to or not.

I sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the photograph from my coat pocket. Aleksandra on our wedding day — smiling like she had no idea she'd eventually marry a man who'd become the executioner of Moscow. I kissed the photo, slowly, like it might kiss back if I did it just right.

"Evening, Sashiko," I murmured, pretending the still air between us was her voice answering back. "How was your day? Mine? Oh, you know… a bit of light killing, some administrative work, a priest… the usual."

I laughed at my own joke, the kind of laugh that dies halfway out of your mouth and leaves a bad taste. "You would've told me to stop smoking. And I would've done it if you hadn't died."

I leaned the photo against my pillow and lay down beside it, like we were back in our old room in Smolny. "They all think I'm doing this for the Revolution," I whispered. "But it's really for you. Every bullet is a love letter written in gunpowder. And the best part? It scares the hell out of them. Keeps the rest alive. Keeps Joe alive. Keeps the kids alive. Keeps Keke alive." I swallowed. "But it doesn't keep you alive, does it?"

For a moment, I imagined she was there — warm beside me, her hair brushing my cheek. But I knew better. The bed was cold. The photo didn't move.

"You know, Sashiko… sometimes I hope an assassin gets me quick. Just one clean shot, and I'll be back with you. I'll stop smoking—we can make love everyday. I'll sing you those stupid songs you love, massage your back, hold you tightly in my arms and never let you go again. But not yet. There's still work. Still lists to check. There's still thousands that need to die. Maybe if there is a heaven and hell, you're probably in heaven. And lets be honest, given my track record, I doubt I'd ever join you, even if I took last rites. So maybe that day was the last time we saw each other." I sighed then looked up at the ceiling.

I stayed like that until the silence pressed so hard against me it cracked something inside. Then it came — not the clean sob of a grieving widower, but the uneven, ugly crying of a man who's been killing too much and sleeping too little. The kind you try to smother into the pillow so the guards outside don't hear.

Eventually, the tears stopped. I fell asleep with the photograph still in my hand, my face turned toward her, half-expecting her to still be there when I woke up.

But she wouldn't be.

Ever again.

 

[a guy1013]

Author is super motivated hope they don't burn out too soon and ouch MC lost his waifu

 

[Siryapsalot]

DAMN IT!!!!!!!!????????? we all know the Mikheil crashout but what about Aleksander man lost both his baby sisters Kato dying fine unavoidable but Aleksandra nah he probably doesn't give two shits about that dude's entire family getting merked.

Author is super motivated hope they don't burn out too soon and ouch MC lost his waifu

Click to shrink...

Trust me bro his crazy click on his profile and ignore this one look at his last two stories the completed one is 330k words and he only started it in April the other 140k JUNE 1ST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[a guy1013]

DAMN IT!!!!!!!!????????? we all know the Mikheil crashout but what about Aleksander man lost both his baby sisters Kato dying fine unavoidable but Aleksandra nah he probably doesn't give two shits about that dude's entire family getting merked.

Trust me bro his crazy click on his profile and ignore this one look at his last two stories the completed one is 330k words and he only started it in April the other 140k JUNE 1ST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Click to shrink...

i also look at his profile in ao3, some of his stories they literally told us they lost interest or something, but again im just hoping as this seems to be a fun read

 

[death734]

Thanks for the chapter, wordsmith.

 

[Alenco98]

Excerpt from a 1965 foreign Cadre Training Course Manual from the USSR:

Comrades,

We must once again emphasize, with utmost seriousness, that all self identified communists who attend these trainings and reside outside currently designated Frontline States in Asia, Latin America and Africa are strictly prohibited from initiating or participating in armed struggle within the territory of their current country of residence. The reckless use of arms outside approved theaters of operation serves only to slow down the march towards world communism, invite repression, and undermine the carefully cultivated work of the international proletarian cause.

If you reside in a nation where the Communist Party is legal, your path is clear:

Join your local Party immediately.

Work to strengthen it from within: raise funds for its activities, recruit new members, and establish membership in factories, universities, and communities.

Enter trade unions—these are fertile grounds for recruitment and agitation. Build influence among the workers and ensure the union's struggle aligns with Marxist-Leninist principles.

Engage in lawful activism: organize meetings, publish legal literature, participate in elections, and monitor parliamentary activity. In such states, your vote is more powerful than your rifle—use it to advance the revolutionary agenda.

If no Communist Party exists and it is not outlawed in your nation, you are to:

Register a Communist Party without delay.

Establish the party's foundational structure: a central committee, regional branches, and a clear program rooted in Marxism-Leninism.

Seek legal recognition where possible, and pursue political legitimacy through disciplined organizing.

If the Communist Party is outlawed in your country:

Maintain extreme caution. Operate only with individuals you have absolute trust in.

Form small, discreet study groups, introducing theory gradually.

Avoid public displays of ideology; patience is essential. The underground struggle requires years, even decades, to bear fruit.

For those unable to suppress the desire for armed struggle—and only those ready to accept full responsibility for their actions:

Report to the nearest Soviet diplomatic mission or accredited fraternal embassy and declare your intent to volunteer for the Internationalist Soviet Legion.

Understand that upon enlistment you will be subject to the full authority of military law and discipline.

You will be trained and deployed where the Party deems necessary—not where you wish to go.

Acts of cowardice, desertion, or insubordination will be treated as serious offenses punishable by death.

Comrades, the revolution advances not only through the barrel of a gun, but also through the discipline of the mind, the endurance of the body, and the loyalty of the heart. Know your role. Fulfill it with honor.

---

January 17, 1918
Moscow, Russia
The House of Anarchy

The convoy rolled to a stop outside what used to be a merchant's house, now proudly defaced into the "House of Anarchy" by the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups. Charming name. Really subtle. The place looked like someone had taken the dignity of the building out back and beaten it to death with black paint and slogans about "freedom."

I stepped out first, flanked by my guards—towering men in helmets and bulletproof vests who made the anarchists posted at the door look like they were about to piss themselves. I raised a hand to them, not the kind you wave with but the kind that says "I could have you gutted before breakfast, but I won't… for now."

"At ease," I said. "I'm only here to talk to your leader. I trust my envoy explained the terms?"

They nodded stiffly. One of them spoke up. "You must come in without your guards."

"Fine by me," I said. Behind me, my men looked at me like I'd just announced I was going to swim across the Neva in January.

I turned to them and grinned. "If I'm not out in an hour, call the men and tell them to burn this place to the ground. Kill everyone inside. Not just the men—women, children, the cat, the wallpaper, all of it. If they take me hostage, ignore it. Storm it anyway. If I'm dead, Voroshilov takes over. Doesn't really matter now, does it?"

The anarchist guards froze. Their expressions went from nervous to "this motherfucker is crazy" in about two seconds. To drive the point home, I unslung my rifle and tossed it to one of them.

"Go inside and tell your friends exactly what I just said," I told him. "Let them know I don't mind dying, but I do like being theatrical about it. Adds flavor."

I pulled a cigarette from my coat, lit it, and leaned casually against the wall beside the door. Smoke curled up into the Moscow cold. The other guard stayed outside with me, eyes darting between me and my men. Poor bastard looked like he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"Cigarette?" I asked, offering the pack.

"No thanks, I don't smoke," he muttered.

"Good man," I said, nodding. "This stuff will kill you. My wife hated it—why she al—" I stopped. My throat caught. The memories punched their way in again. My eyes stung. I turned away, blinking fast, but a few tears slid out anyway.

"Sorry," I muttered, wiping them away with the back of my glove. "SRs tried to kill me, hit her instead. Now it's my life's mission to kill as many of them as possible. Funny how that works out. Tell me, boy—are you married? Got a lover?"

"A lover," he said cautiously. "Just started seeing her."

I smirked without humor. "Love her. Hold her tight. Never let her go. You never know when she might die. Or you. Hell, maybe both. Depends on how today goes, really." I studied him. "What's your name?"

"Ivan. Ivan Kazachenko."

"Ohh, Ivan. Good name. You from Moscow?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "From Samara. My family moved here when I was a boy."

"I see."

We kept talking—small talk, of all things. A 19-year-old anarchist chatting with a man who might personally murder him and everyone he knows within the next two hours. Surreal, but then again, my whole life had become surreal. Isekai'd as Stalin's twin brother, married, widowed, and now casually walking into an anarchist stronghold without a weapon. Yay, I guess.

Eventually, the first guard came back out. "He's ready to see you."

"Perfect," I said, smiling like this was a tea party instead of a potential bloodbath. "Lead the way."

And I followed him in—no gun, no armor beyond the vest under my coat as well as my helmet and no fear worth mentioning. If they killed me, fine. If not, well… that would be the smartest choice they made today.

They led me through several narrow, creaking hallways reeking of damp wood, cheap tobacco, and that peculiar musk of unwashed coats in the Russian winter. Posters of Bakunin and Kropotkin stared down at me like disappointed relatives, and I stared right back.

The door opened into a modest room with a big desk shoved against the far wall. Behind it sat Lev Chernyi, the secretary of the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups. Tall, wiry, glasses slipping down his nose, and a beard that looked like it had been shaped with a bayonet. His eyes measured me the way a doctor might measure a tumor.

"Commander Jugashvili," he said, gesturing to the chair across from him.

I didn't sit immediately. I took a slow drag from my cigarette, flicked the ash onto the floor—deliberately—and then sat down.

"Lev," I began. "Let's make this quick. I have nothing against the anarchists. In fact, I respect you. Not just as fighters, but as thinkers. You've got fire, and the Bolsheviks need fire. But let me be clear—every last SR in Moscow is going to die by my hand. If they're breathing now, they won't be by the end of the month."

His eyes narrowed. He didn't interrupt.

"As long as you don't shoot at Bolsheviks and you stay peaceful, you can carry on doing your thing. Hand out pamphlets, organize your little workers' circles, drink tea and argue about philosophy—I don't care. We'll even look the other way when you break minor laws, so long as it's not our people bleeding."

I leaned in. "Lenin's edicts have been clear. Land reform and redistribution—three acres and a shovel for every man who works it. Nationalization of the big industries and factories. Eight-hour workdays. Safety regulations. Paid time off. Minimum wage. You know what that means, Lev? It means the workers are getting what they wanted without having to set the city on fire every two weeks. You've got a freer hand than you've ever had."

Chernyi's voice was calm but firm. "We've noticed. But your methods, Mikheil… they alarm my people. Mass executions in the street don't exactly build solidarity."

I chuckled, though it came out more like a cough from somewhere deep in my chest. "Lev, let me reiterate if we catch any of your people helping the SRs, we'll hunt you down like we're hunting them now. I don't want to do that. I genuinely like you folks. Hell, if you've got grudges against the SRs, join us. I'll even let you pick which ones to shoot."

I leaned back in my chair, casual, but my voice sharpened. "Before I came in here, I told my men: if I'm not out within an hour, burn this place down and kill everyone inside. Men, women, children—doesn't matter. If you take me hostage, they storm the building anyway. Ever since my wife died, Lev… I don't care if I live or die. So I dare you—try something."

The room went still.

After a beat, Chernyi folded his hands. "We're not aligned with the SRs. Their path is not ours. But I can't promise my people won't… react if they see you executing men in Red Square again."

"You don't have to promise perfection," I said, my voice low. "Just keep a leash on them. I've got enough pull in the Central Committee to draw the heat off you. But the moment one of your men steps out of line? It's over. No speeches, no trials, no appeals."

He studied me for a long moment, the kind of look that measures how close a man is to snapping. Then he gave a slow nod. "Understood. We'll stay out of your way. But don't expect us to clap for the hangman."

I smiled thinly. "I never ask for applause. Just silence."

We shook hands. His was dry and tense, mine steady. I got up, stubbed my cigarette out right there on his desk, and walked out without waiting to be shown the door.

The air outside was sharper than when I'd walked in, the kind of cold that stings your ears and makes the city feel hollow. My boots hit the wooden steps hard enough to echo, and I could feel every set of eyes in the building boring into my back through the windows. No shouting, no last-minute theatrics—just the dead, uncomfortable silence you get when people can't decide whether to shoot you or pray for you.

My guards straightened as soon as I appeared, relief flickering across their faces. One of them, a younger lad who'd probably been rehearsing his obituary, muttered, "We were about 15 minutes from storming the place, comrade."

"Shame," I said, fishing out another cigarette. "Would've been a hell of a massacre."

Behind me, I could see silhouettes pressed against the upstairs glass—anarchists watching me walk away like they were studying some strange animal that had wandered into their kitchen. I gave them a little wave just to make them more nervous.

Tukachevsky was leaning against the convoy's lead car, arms crossed, reading my expression. "How'd it go?"

"They'll behave. Or they'll die. Either way, it doesn't matter." I climbed into the car, settling in with the wedding photo in my coat pocket pressing against my ribs like a reminder that none of this really mattered.

As the engines started and the convoy rolled away, I glanced back at the House of Anarchy disappearing into the frost. Inside, Chernyi was probably explaining to his people that I wasn't bluffing about the children. And all around me, my men were probably wondering how much longer before I picked a fight big enough to end me.

Truth was, I was wondering the same thing and hoping it was soon.

-----

February 14, 1918
Moscow, Russia
Outside the Kremlin

I stood in front of a little over 2000 left SRs, on Valentine's day of all. Well, technically it was February 1, but we had a new calendar. Just like the western calendar. But it didn't matter now.

We'd picked the unfortunate bastards standing in front of me yesterday. Our little "curfew" having worked wonders. My men shadowed SR couriers, not arresting them right away—just following, waiting, watching them scuttle to their nests. We'd mapped the whole network: safehouses, meeting spots, arms caches, the names of their mistresses, and the taverns where they liked to drink too much and talk too loud.

By the end of two weeks, the tail-and-track method had worked like a dream. And then, like pulling a trigger, it all happened at once.

At dawn, Moscow woke to the sound of boots and truck engines. Thousands of my revolutionary guards fanned out through the city. Red armbands flashing, rifles at the ready. The targets didn't even have a chance to scatter.

By mid-morning, Red Square was packed wall-to-wall with captured SRs. I'd ordered them brought in by the hundreds, each batch flanked by guards. Some were still in their nightshirts, shivering under the winter sky; others tried to look defiant, spitting and shouting slogans that didn't matter anymore.

I stepped out of the Kremlin flanked by my personal guard regiment, the bells of the Kremlin towers echoing above us. I lit a cigarette as I walked toward the makeshift holding pens we'd built along the edge of the square. "Well," I said loud enough for the nearest batch to hear, "I suppose this is what efficiency looks like."

One of my adjutants jogged up beside me. "We've got over 2000 confirmed SRs here, comrade. A few hundred suspected sympathizers too. Still bringing in more from the outer districts."

"Good," I said, blowing smoke into the frozen air. "We'll start sorting them. Today they'll learn how generous I can be."

I could feel eyes on me from every direction—my men, the SR prisoners, random Muscovites who had dared to peek from alleys. And I made sure to project it all: the man who was both in total control and completely willing to die. And the man who killed hundreds of these cretins back in Petrograd. But I was on a schedule, I had Czechoslovaks to escort, this was a side quest.

"Clear the square," I told my guards. "We're going to need space for the executions. I want the Kremlin in the background. Make sure the photographers get a good angle—it's not just about killing them, it's about making it a memory. Let the counter-revolutionaries shit their pants at the name Mikheil Jugashvili."

They nodded and moved off, already barking orders.

I took one last drag of my cigarette, flicked it into the snow, and thought of Aleksandra. If she were alive, she'd probably slap me for all this. But she wasn't, and that made everything so very simple.

A little later, the SRs stood in long, uneven rows, their breath steaming in the frozen air, their faces caught between rage and fear. I stepped forward, coat collar up, cigarette in one hand, pistol in the other, and projected my voice so even the ones in the back could hear.

"I'm feeling charitable today," I began, smiling like a priest about to hand out candy to children. "You're all here because you've committed crimes—treason, conspiracy, terrorism. But…" I dragged the word out and let the silence build, "…I am offering you a chance. A clean slate. A new life."

Murmurs ran through the crowd. Some of them tried to stand taller; others wouldn't meet my eyes.

"If you renounce your membership in the Socialist Revolutionary Party," I said, "you will walk to the right. Do so, and you will prove your loyalty by killing the ones who refuse." I paused, savoring the shift in their expressions. "Yes, that's right—your friends, your comrades, your lovers. Show me you're willing to spill their blood instead of mine."

A ripple of shock went through them.

I gestured, and a crate was brought forward. My men tipped it, and stones tumbled out into the snow. "No guns, no knives. Stones. You'll bash their skulls in with your own hands. Up close. Personal. It will tell me everything I need to know about your commitment to this new… arrangement."

Silence. Even the city seemed to hold its breath.

Finally, I tilted my head and chuckled. "You think I'm joking? Gentlemen—when my wife was shot, I learned something important: sentiment is a luxury for people who get to die in bed. So make your choice now. Right for life, left for death."

One or two began to move. Then more. About a third crossed to the right, eyes darting toward the rest.

I stepped back, letting my guards hand out the stones. The first blow would be the hardest; after that, I knew from experience, momentum took care of the rest.

The snow crunched under my boots as I stepped forward again, the divide now clear—those who had chosen survival stood to my right, clutching their stones; the condemned stood to my left, silent and pale.

"Before we begin," I said, voice carrying across the frozen expanse, "I'm going to offer you one last courtesy. Cigarettes… last rites… or both?"

I gestured to my men, who stepped forward with cartons and dozens of priests in tow. The condemned looked between them and me, as if weighing whether dignity mattered at this point. Some stepped forward to take a cigarette, some crossed themselves as the priest muttered Russian in the icy air, some did both.

I gave them another moment, then called out: "This is your final chance. If you want to save your skin, step right—kill your friends, prove your loyalty. If you hesitate…" I patted my pistol. "…I will put a bullet through your head myself. And believe me, I've got enough ammunition to make sure no one gets a pass."

A few more crossed over, faces twisted in shame.

I smiled thinly. "Good. Now—let's get this over with. The ones on the right—start."

The first swing was always the hardest. A few faltered, looking away, their stones trembling in their hands. I raised my pistol and, without hesitation, shot the first man who hesitated through the forehead. His blood steamed against the snow.

"That," I said, holstering my pistol, "is what hesitation gets you. Keep going."

The air filled with the sickening crunch of stone against bone, mingled with shouts, sobbing, and the occasional gunshot when someone froze up. My guards didn't wait for orders; they knew the drill by now.

I lit another cigarette, the smoke mixing with the fog of my breath, and thought briefly of Aleksandra. You'd hate this, my love. Then I exhaled and watched the slaughter really begin.

The killing went on in waves—stones rising, bones breaking, snow turning into a brown-pink slush beneath boots. I just stood there, cigarette dangling from my lips, watching as they did my work for me.

For a moment, I stopped seeing them. I saw her. Aleksandra in that blue dress she wore the summer before the revolution, laughing at some stupid joke I'd made. The way she'd swat my arm and roll her eyes when I teased her. Her hair in the lamplight. Her scent.

It hit like a rifle butt to the gut. My chest tightened. My throat burned. I sniffed hard and turned away for a moment, wiping my face with my glove. A few tears escaped anyway.

Then I straightened up, lit another cigarette, and forced a smile.

Without thinking, I began to hum—then sing—the Russian lyrics to Fly Me to the Moon, the Evangelion version I remembered from a life that no one else here would ever know existed. My guards stared at me, caught between awe and confusion, while a prisoner mid-swing froze just long enough for a blow to catch him in the side of the head.

I didn't care. I sang louder, the melody drifting through the square like some deranged requiem.

When I finished, I gave a mock little bow toward the piles of bodies.

"That," I said, gesturing grandly, "was for my wife. A proper send-off, don't you think?"

Silence. No one dared answer.

I pointed to the survivors—the ones still breathing, spattered in gore. "Burn them," I ordered flatly. "Every last one. You touch nothing else until this is ash."

They obeyed without hesitation.

By the time the flames were licking at the heaps, I had already turned on my heel and headed for the Kremlin. Tukachevsky was in the corridor outside my office when I got back.

"Make arrangements," I told him, brushing past. "Tell Usievich to handle the remaining SRs they capture the way we just did. In the meantime, we leave for Ukraine in 2 days. We're picking up the Czechoslovaks… and then we drag them to Murmansk. And if they complain about the cold, they can die for all I care."

 

[TrahKartolo]

Would someone ever record the notes for Mikhail's songs?
That would be so epic. Tortured artist inquisitor-comissar, Mikheil Jugashvili.
I wonder how would Soviet history books portray him.

 

[death734]

Thanks for the chapter, wordsmith.

 

[Angry_Crustacean]

"Clear the square," I told my guards. "We're going to need space for the executions. I want the Kremlin in the background. Make sure the photographers get a good angle—it's not just about killing them, it's about making it a memory. Let the counter-revolutionaries shit their pants at the name Mikheil Jugashvili."

Click to shrink...

And with this, Mikheil cements himself as the greatest crashout in history.

Would someone ever record the notes for Mikhail's songs?
That would be so epic. Tortured artist inquisitor-comissar, Mikheil Jugashvili.
I wonder how would Soviet history books portray him.

Click to shrink...

Im actually really interested in this. Compile an album and title it something edgy like "Symphony of Slaughter"

 

[Alenco98]

"The Japanese are so full of shit it's almost artistic. They spend weeks indulging in an Olympic-level orgy of rape, murder, and arson in Nanking and the world barely shrugs. But the moment I introduce them to the finer points of nerve gas and demonstrate the benefits of superior Soviet firepower, suddenly the UK and US start clutching their pearls and condemning me? Give me a fucking break.

If Tokyo doesn't stop their bullshit along the Far Eastern frontier, I'll make it simple: next time I'll march right into Manchuria and then Korea and I'll order my men to personally acquaint every Japanese man, woman, child and baby to the business end of a bayonet. Consider our last battle a crash course in humility."

— Field Marshal Mikheil Jugashvili, interview with The New York Times, October 7, 1939, Vladivostok.
(Shortly after his decisive victory against the Japanese at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol.)

-----

March 10, 1918
Outskirts of Kiev
Republic of Ukraine (German client state)

We arrived at some ungodly hour when the frost still bit at your nose and the fog made everything look like it was stolen from a depressing oil painting. It was awkward from the start—after all, we'd just strolled straight into German-influenced territory via train. Technically, they could've had us shot, interned, or sent back to Petrograd with a politely worded note telling Lenin to "control his lunatic Georgian ape." But politics makes for strange bedfellows, and in this case, our shared dislike of the Czechoslovak Legion meant we were tolerated.

The Ukrainians and their German overseers weren't exactly warm hosts, but they understood the arrangement. I wanted the Czechoslovaks gone—preferably back in their little corner of Europe or six feet under—and they wanted them gone for their own reasons. That's the beauty of war: you don't need friendship when mutual irritation will do.

It also helped that I had come bearing gifts. Not the diplomatic kind, like meaningless promises or signed treaties—real gifts. Chests of gold coins, bricks of opium, crates of fine liquor, the sort of things that make garrison life a little less suicidal. You'd be amazed how quickly ideological purity dissolves when there's brandy in one hand and morphine in the other. The Germans called it "black market corruption." I called it "accelerated diplomacy."

Now came the main event—my meeting with the head of the Czechoslovak Legion himself, Stanislav Čeček. The man was a soldier, a nationalist, and apparently, a humorless bastard.

His tent was the sort of grim, orderly affair that screamed "I have no hobbies except hating Austria-Hungary." My guards escorted me in, rifles slung, eyes scanning the perimeter like we were about to be ambushed by an army of very angry violinists.

I didn't wait for pleasantries. I marched in, pulled out a chair, and sat down like I was at my grandmother's kitchen table. I reached into my coat and pulled out my cigarettes—good ones, not the sawdust-filled rubbish they hand out to conscripts.

"Cigarette?" I asked, holding the pack out toward him. My tone was friendly enough, but there was just the faintest suggestion that refusing me might result in his entire unit mysteriously losing their supply lines.

He didn't answer. Didn't even blink. Just sat there, staring at me like I was the world's ugliest painting that someone had just hung over his bed.

I took a slow drag from my own cigarette, exhaling deliberately into his personal space. "No? That's fine," I said, smiling in the way people smile right before they stab you. "I'm sure lung cancer is the least of your worries."

Behind me, my guards stood like statues. Behind him, his aides looked like they'd swallowed nails. Everyone in the room was tense, serious, bracing for… something. A threat? A bribe? An act of lunacy?

And me? I was just enjoying the smell of expensive tobacco and the delicious knowledge that everyone here wanted to kill each other but had to pretend otherwise for just a little while longer.

"Let's get to the point," I said, leaning forward, elbows on my knees. "You and your boys are going to Murmansk. Nice place this time of year. Cold, wet, but full of ships that will take you far away from here. You'll be allowed to keep your weapons—every rifle, every machine gun, every piece of artillery you've lugged halfway across Russia.

"And if any Red Guards get in your way?" I gave him my best, slow, measured smile—the kind that unsettles grown men. "I'll personally liquidate them. Every last one. I'll put their heads on pikes and line them along the road so your men can count them as they march. A little morale boost."

He stared at me like he couldn't decide if I was insane or just the most dangerously honest man he'd ever met. "And why," he finally said, "would we go to Murmansk?"

"Because, my dear Colonel," I said, gesturing lazily with my cigarette, "you should think of this as a… generous leave from your current campaign before the Entente sends you to the Western Front to fight the Germans. You'll get to see France. Wine, women, music—well, not the kind of women I'm about to show you, but good enough for you sentimental types."

He narrowed his eyes. "And if we refuse?"

I grinned, then snapped my fingers.

The tent flap swung open, and in came four of my guards, each carrying something different: one with a chest of gold coins, one with crates of liquor, one with a burlap sack that clinked suspiciously (opium, obviously), and one—well—escorting three very uncomfortable-looking women who clearly didn't know how they'd ended up here but had been promised absurd amounts of money to pretend they didn't mind. Thank you Aleksander, God I loved my commissariat of strategic resources, genius idea.

"This," I said, spreading my arms, "is my goodwill package. Booze, gold, opium, and the finest women Moscow had to offer. And believe me, Colonel, I drained every brothel in the city for you and your officers. You are now the single greatest recipient of Russian hospitality since Catherine the Great took in that lover of hers."

The aides behind him looked like they wanted to crawl under the floorboards. Čeček just stared at the pile of vice in front of him.

"There's more where that came from," I added. "Murmansk isn't far. Play along, and I'll keep you swimming in booze, opium and women until you're too exhausted to load your rifles."

He exhaled through his nose like he was considering whether to have me shot on the spot or just accept the inevitable. "We came here to fight," he said. "Not to be bribed into leaving."

"Oh, don't think of it as a bribe," I replied, sitting back. "Think of it as… hazard pay. You've been running up and down Russia for months now, killing Germans and scaring the peasants. Time for a little vacation before someone sends you into the German meat grinder. What's the harm in that?"

We went back and forth for the better part of half an hour—him insisting his men had honor and duty, me reminding him that honor doesn't keep you warm at night or stop a German shell from vaporizing your skull.

Finally, he sighed. "Murmansk," he said, like the word itself was poison.

"Murmansk," I confirmed, smiling. "You'll be there within a month. Weapons in hand, pockets full of gold, and more liquor than your men can drink without dying of liver failure."

He looked at me hard. "If you're lying—"

I held up a hand. "If I'm lying, Colonel, you'll know it. Because I'll be the last thing you see before the bayonet goes in."

We shook hands. His was cold and stiff. Mine was warm and… well… probably still smelled faintly of gunpowder and expensive tobacco.

The deal was done.

I stepped out of Čeček's tent like a victorious general who had just negotiated peace, except instead of treaties and borders, my spoils were measured in crates of alcohol and the collective relief of not having to shoot several hundred Czechoslovaks in a diplomatic incident.

The Legion was gathered in a loose formation outside—dozens of them, in varying states of fatigue, suspicion, and sheer boredom. I waved over my translator, a nervous Ukrainian lad who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Alright," I said, lighting another cigarette and letting the smoke curl theatrically from my mouth. "Tell them."

The translator hesitated, so I began pacing, gesturing broadly like a man unveiling the solution to all their problems.

"Gentlemen," I began, voice carrying across the camp, "you're going to Murmansk. From there, you will be shipped back to France. France! Wine, food, women who bathe at least once a week—paradise compared to the swamp of misery you've been slogging through here."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. The translator scrambled to keep up.

"But before you go," I continued, "I have prepared… a parting gift. No, more than a gift—a tribute. A reward for your gallantry in war. You have bled, marched, and fought your way across this frozen hellhole, and for that, you deserve more than empty speeches and stale bread."

I snapped my fingers again. Like clockwork, my men came forward: crates of liquor, sacks of gold, boxes of opium, and—most importantly—several women who looked like they were already regretting their career choices.

"I have," I declared with mock solemnity, "drained every brothel, every bar, and every opium den in Moscow for you. Do you know how exhausting that was? I made my men personally inspect some of the merchandise for quality control. The sacrifices we make for you people."

That got a few laughs—uneasy ones, but laughs nonetheless. Čeček was standing off to the side, arms crossed, watching like a man who'd just realized his army was about to turn into a mobile carnival.

"Think of your trip to Murmansk as a vacation," I went on. "You'll keep your weapons. Every rifle, every bayonet, every machine gun. And if any Red Guards dare to stop you—" I paused, tapping the ash off my cigarette. "—you may kill them all. In fact, I encourage it. Consider it recreational shooting. And should any of those bastards manage to survive long enough to be a nuisance, I will personally put a bullet in their skull myself."

The translator hesitated at that last bit, then repeated it verbatim. The crowd's mood shifted from wary to… amused? Encouraged? It's hard to tell with men who've been living in mud and blood for months, but I saw the beginnings of grins.

"Drink. Smoke. Fuck," I said, spreading my arms. "You've earned it. And remember—Murmansk is just the beginning. After that, it's home. Or at least somewhere that doesn't smell like horse shit and revolution."

The cheer that went up wasn't exactly thunderous, but it was real. Which, considering the circumstances, was good enough for me.

 

[Alenco98]

March 12, 1918
Kiev
Republic of Ukraine (German client state)

The platform stank of wet coal, piss, and people pretending they weren't about to die in a country they couldn't find on a map last year. I stood there in my coat, watching the Czechoslovaks board the miserable parade of trains I'd "acquired" — which is a polite way of saying I bribed, lied, robbed, and blackmailed every rail official in Kiev. Opium, vodka, surplus rifles, women — I dealt in every vice except mercy. The Germans and Ukrainians complained, of course. They always complained. I stopped listening to complaints after the second one; now they just sound like geese honking in the fog.

We were headed north to Murmansk to drop these bastards off. Once that was done I had a new target, Finland. Civil war had recently broken out there now. Another blood-soaked chessboard for me to make moves on until everyone's too dead to play. That's what I told myself, anyway. The truth was simpler: I wanted the noise, the chaos, the distraction. Because quiet nights were when I remembered Aleksandra's beautiful face. And I couldn't afford that.

I lit a cigarette from the pack one of the local prostitutes had given me. Pretty enough, I suppose. She'd offered herself for free — the benefits of being a revolutionary commander with an unpredictable temper. I said no. Not because I'm moral, but because there's only one woman I want right now, and she's buried under enough earth that even if I dug her up, the conversation wouldn't be the same.

So I smoked. And I hummed a song that didn't exist yet — Stay By Me by Anri. If anyone asked, I'd say it was an old Georgian folk tune. But the truth was, it was just the sound of my head trying to keep itself from collapsing inward.

My Revolutionary Guard Corps stood nearby, looking like wolves in human coats. Their job was to make sure my precious ten thousand Czechs didn't shoot anyone important before we reached the front. So far, the Czechs had been too drunk and drugged to kill much of anything — too busy turning the railway station into an open air opium den-cum-brothel. Which suited me fine. Dead Czechs don't ride trains well.

I was halfway through my cigarette when the screaming started. Shouting, boots scraping, something breaking. My song cut off mid-verse. I closed my eyes and muttered, "For fuck's sake," as if saying it would make the noise stop. It didn't.

When I got there, I found two Czechs — swaying, red-eyed, armed — surrounded by my guardsmen, whose fingers were already itching on the triggers. Between them, a railway clerk, barely old enough to shave, clutching his stomach where a bayonet had turned him into a leaking wineskin.

"Get the boy a doctor," I said, voice flat. Then I turned to the Czechs. "You two. Explain."

The bigger one started talking in Czech — a language that sounds like someone gargling glass while arguing with a dog. I waved for a translator before I put a bullet through the air out of boredom.

A Ukrainian stepped forward. "He says… the boy looked at him funny. Like a German."

I just stared at them for a long moment, and for a second I thought about my wife again — about how she'd laugh at the absurdity, how she'd say something clever, something that would make this whole ugly scene feel like a tavern joke instead of another reason to drink myself into the ground.

Instead, I laughed alone. "Tell him that if he stabs anyone else for looking German, when not a single bullet is being fired at us, I will personally strangle him with his own entrails."

The translator hesitated. I told him to say it. He did. The Czechs blanched.

"There's more opium in the train," I added. "Take it. Sleep. Stay out of my sight."

They nodded and staggered away. I lit another cigarette before the first had finished burning.

It would be a long trip. And I knew that no matter how far the rails took me, there wasn't a front, a victory, or a massacre in the world that would bring her back.

---

March 12–17
The Rolling brothel
The journey between Kiev and Tver

The train had stopped being a train somewhere after Poltava. Now it was a mobile brothel-opium den with occasional bursts of machine gun fire, usually from my own Revolutionary Guards when they got bored of watching the Czechs try to outdrink God. The air inside the carriages was a permanent haze of tobacco, cheap vodka fumes, sweat, and the acrid tang of black powder from someone "accidentally" discharging a rifle indoors.

Every so often we'd pull into some backwater station and be greeted by the local Red Guards — young men with eyes like starving dogs and rifles that were older than they were. They'd shout, wave their weapons around, and demand to know why a traveling circus of armed foreigners was tearing through their jurisdiction. That's when I'd step down from my carriage, hand them the sealed orders, and wait.

Most read them in silence, nodded, and stood aside. Some got clever, thought the papers were forgeries, and tried to block us. I'd warn them once. If they fired, even once, I'd have them tied to the nearest telegraph pole, open them up like a fish, and hang their entrails over their heads as a visual aid for the next village's garrison. After the second incident, word traveled faster than the train.

The Czechs, meanwhile, were drinking through their liquor reserves like they were racing the apocalypse. By the time we left Ukraine, half of it was gone — the other half was hidden in personal flasks, the location of which they guarded more fiercely than their rifles.

I started drinking too, at first. Why not? The train was already a rolling orgy of vice, and there's only so much opium smoke you can inhale before you want to blot the world out entirely. But Tukachevsky — damn him — sat down across from me one evening, clean uniform, sober as a nun, and said, "Mikheil, you should stop. We need you sharp."

I stared at him for a long moment, wondering if I could get away with throwing him out the window. Then I sighed, pushed the glass away, and lit a cigarette instead.

From then on, I spent most of my time on the rear platform, smoking and staring into the endless blur of snow and dead trees. I'd stand there for hours, the wind clawing at my coat, imagining that maybe if I stared long enough, the horizon would shift, and she'd be there — standing by the tracks, smiling, waiting for me.

She never was.

And so I kept smoking. The cigarettes burned down to the filter faster than I could flick the ash away. I could still hear the chaos inside the train — the laughter, the shouting, the moans, the clinking of bottles — but out there on the platform, with only the cold and the wind, I could almost pretend it was just me and the winter.

Almost.

March 18–19
Tver
Russia

By the time we reached the frozen approach to Tver, the countryside had stopped pretending it wasn't starving. Villages looked like they'd been robbed by the wind, the houses leaning under the weight of snow, the windows dark. People stared at the train as we passed — not in awe, but with the dull, slow hatred of those who know they'll never see the inside of one.

The first real obstacle came from a Red Guard garrison stationed in some miserable siding just before the city proper. The commander waddled up to me, all fur hat and false confidence, and announced that we would not be passing unless my "initial fee" — yes, he used the word — was doubled.

I smiled at him. I even clapped him on the shoulder. Then I had two of my men hold him down while another doused him in lamp oil. He screamed the way all men scream when they realize they've made a career-ending mistake. I struck a match, dropped it, and stepped back as the fire took him. The smell was instant — burning hair, boiling fat. The garrison just stood there, frozen.

"Now that the negotiation's over," I said, "we'll be on our way."

We rolled into Tver itself later that afternoon. The station there was manned by another Red Guard unit, more disciplined, better armed, and apparently under the impression that they had the authority to halt us for inspection. I invited their officers aboard the lead carriage, smiling like a host at a dinner party. I poured them tea, offered cigarettes, and handed over the sealed orders authorizing our passage.

"This should settle it," I said.

They read the orders. Looked at each other. Then shook their heads.

"No," the lead officer said flatly. "The train stays here."

I sighed. It was the kind of sigh my wife used to mock me for — the one that meant I'd already decided someone was going to die. I leaned back in my seat, tapped ash into a cup, and said, "Gentlemen, this is your only warning."

They ignored it.

I gave a nod. My Revolutionary Guards drew their revolvers and put all three officers down in front of their own men. The carriage erupted as did the train station. Bullets snapped past my ears, shattering windows and ricocheting off steel. My Guards returned fire, and the Czechoslovaks, half-drunk and delighted for the excuse, joined in. Within minutes, the Tver station was ours.

I gathered the surviving Red Guards in the yard — maybe 100 of them, disarmed and shaking. I told them they would decide who lived. Ten men would die. They would vote.

The voting was fast, brutal. No speeches, no appeals. When the count was done, the condemned were lined up. There were no guns for this part. They stoned them — the whole garrison, their own comrades, hands red and trembling by the end of it. Some cried. Some didn't.

By the time the last man stopped moving, the snow was dirty with blood and pulverized bone.

We left Tver a little behind schedule. Not much. Just enough for me to light another cigarette and watch the station disappear behind us, another ugly little memory to file away with all the rest.

-------

March 19–21
Final Push to Petrograd

After Tver, the countryside got quieter. Not peaceful — just quieter, the way a corpse is quieter than the man it used to be. Every village we passed stared at the train like it was some kind of metal leviathan carrying the plague. Which, to be fair, wasn't far from the truth.

The tracks were half-frozen, the stations half-abandoned, and the air so cold it could split wood. Inside, the Czechoslovaks kept drinking, though now they rationed it with grim ceremony, as if they were preparing for siege. My Revolutionary Guard Corps stayed alert, rifles across their knees, watching for the next garrison with more enthusiasm than I had for life.

We still had a few "incidents."

On the 20th, a small Red Guard detachment tried to flag us down at a rural siding. I had the train slow just enough for them to climb aboard, then met them on the platform. They didn't have sealed orders. They didn't have much of anything, except the belief that if they got lucky, they could rob a warlord in transit. I told them to climb back down and go home. They didn't. So we tossed them off while the train was still moving. Some landed in the snow. Some didn't.

That night, as the lamps flickered in the carriages, I stood outside on the rear platform again. The smoke from my cigarette whipped away into the dark, and the wind made my eyes water. I told myself it was the cold, but I knew better. I could feel her absence like a missing limb, an ache that no drink, no killing, no victory could numb.

On the 21st, the sprawl of Petrograd appeared out of the grey like some tired, frostbitten beast. The air was heavier here — smoke, coal, human breath all mixing into something that felt almost solid. As we rolled through the outskirts, the factories loomed like black fortresses, their chimneys vomiting clouds into the sky.

At the final checkpoint before the city, a Red Guard unit waved us down. Their commander approached, saw the orders, and didn't argue. He just looked at me — really looked — like he knew exactly what kind of man was stepping into Petrograd today.

We pulled into the station just after noon. The brakes screamed, the wheels ground against steel, and the whole damn train shuddered like it was relieved to stop.

The Czechs poured out first, loud, drunk, and reeking of everything they'd consumed in the last week. My Guards followed, disciplined, eyes scanning the crowd for threats. I stepped down last, boots hitting the platform with a dull thud.

The city was waiting — tense, brittle, a spark away from burning. I could feel it in my teeth. And for the first time since we left Kiev, I felt… awake.

It wouldn't last.

I stepped out of the train, the Finland Station was colder than the rest of Petrograd, and that was saying something. The wind came off the Neva like it wanted to peel the skin from your face. The platform was lined with a Soviet Army detachment — not the usual mix of half-starved conscripts and barefoot factory workers that Trotsky got together, these guys seemed different. Tall, silent, armed and uniformed, with faces like carved granite and eyes that had seen more executions than weddings. Looks like Trotsky was starting to whip his army into shape, good for him.

Their commander stepped forward, saluted, and said in clipped Russian, "Comrade Jugashvili, the Central Committee requests your presence immediately."

Not invites. Not asks. Requests. Which in Bolshevik-speak meant, "We've decided your schedule for you, and we'd like you to pretend you have a choice."

I took a long drag on my cigarette, exhaled, and nodded. "Fine. Lead the way."

Before following them, I turned to Tukachevsky, who was standing on the platform with that military stiffness of his, looking at my Czechs and Guards like he was already counting corpses in his head.

"Make sure they don't kill each other while I'm gone," I told him.

He opened his mouth to say something about discipline, about control, about how the Revolutionary Guard Corps and ten thousand drunk Czechoslovaks were a powder keg in the middle of Russia's most unstable city. Well, not anymore after I slaughtered the SRs

I cut him off with a raised hand. "No speeches. Just make sure that when I come back, I don't find a pile of bodies taller than the locomotive."

The soldiers didn't smile. I don't think they even blinked. They just turned and began walking toward the waiting convoy. I flicked the cigarette away, stepped into the cold, and followed.

Petrograd's streets swallowed us up — grey buildings, grey sky, grey faces watching from windows. Somewhere in this frozen maze, the Central Committee was waiting to decide whether I was their loyal comrade or their next example.

I lit another cigarette. It was going to be a long day.

 

[Angry_Crustacean]

As bad as he was before, he somehow managed to get even worse once his wife died

 

[BuilderOne]

This story is fascinating. In a highly morbid manner. But interesting nonetheless. Can't wait to see your next update.

 

[Alenco98]

An excerpt from Leon Trotsky's 1936 book, the revolution betrayed

The Revolutionary Guard Corps cloaks itself in the rhetoric of vigilance, proclaiming its sacred mission to be the defense of the party from Bonapartism. But history has a taste for irony, and in this case, irony has sharpened itself into mockery: the Guard has itself become Bonapartist—not by the lightning seizure of state power, as Bonaparte did, but by the slower and more insidious process of degeneration. It has congealed into a monstrosity at once ancient and modern: a Revolutionary Praetorian Guard grafted onto the corpse of the Janissaries.

This transformation was not accidental. By monopolizing the protection of the Communist Party in its entirety, and by ensuring that its command rests in the hands of Stalin's own brother, the Guard has been converted into a private weapon. It serves as both the invisible threat and the visible bludgeon of the General Secretary, a dagger that gleams just enough for all to see, yet strikes only when its master wills it. In this arrangement lies the essence of personal rule under the mask of collective leadership: an armed phalanx whose loyalty is pledged not to the Revolution, not to the working class, but to the person of Stalin himself.

The final, unmistakable stamp of degeneration is found in the Corps' composition. Today, two-thirds of its rank and file hail from the Caucasus—Georgians, Armenians, Azeris—while half its officers are Georgians alone. And who does not know that the Georgian mountains cradled both Stalin and Jugashvili? From this soil has emerged a new martial caste, a neo-Cossack nobility, bound not by class solidarity but by blood, dialect, and the unspoken laws of tribal loyalty. Here, within the very heart of the so-called workers' state, the Revolution has permitted the rebirth of an armed aristocracy—its banners dyed not red with the lifeblood of October, but with the private colors of a family dynasty.

------

March 21, 1918
Winter Palace
Petrograd, Russia

I walked back into the Winter Palace with Trotsky's men at my flanks, the rhythmic clack of their boots on marble echoing like the world's most humorless metronome. The palace smelled faintly of dust, candle wax, and the kind of stale perfume that lingers long after the nobility has either fled or been introduced to the finer points of proletarian justice.

They led me into what was now called the Central Committee Room — though, in reality, it was still the old throne room.

Everyone was there — except Trotsky, of course. He was probably off somewhere, whipping the army into shape. But Lenin was present, perched forward like a vulture over some unseen carcass. Kamenev had that look of permanent constipation he always wore in meetings. Svanidze sat stiffly, pretending to take notes. Stalin was there too, impassive as a marble statue — though one carved by an amateur mason with blunt tools.

I felt all their eyes turn toward me as I entered, that unblinking stare you get when you walk into a room where people have already decided you're either a savior or a bastard, but haven't yet agreed on which.

"Comrades," I said, sliding into a chair with the gracelessness of a man who had been marching for days. "I'm guessing you want a status report on the Czechoslovaks?"

The room was silent, expectant. Lenin nodded for me to continue, but my mind drifted for a moment, as it so often did lately. I thought of Aleksandra. Every time I walked into these rooms, filled with men who spoke in slogans and plotted in whispers, I half-expected to see her there instead — maybe with tea, maybe with that look of amused disapproval she wore whenever I came home with another half-mad story.

But she wasn't here. She would never be here again.

It's funny — you can lead men into battle, watch them die in agony, burn enemies alive, and feel nothing more than a grim satisfaction. But the absence of one woman can hollow you out so completely that even the sound of your own voice feels like it belongs to someone else.

I blinked, forcing myself back to the present. The Czechoslovaks. Yes. That was what they wanted. A tidy little report about a mercenary legion in a nation whose civil war had just begun. Not grief. Not longing. Just numbers and outcomes.

So I gave it to them.

"They're intact," I began, "more or less. No riots, no desertions — a miracle, given their temperament. I've kept them busy, kept them fed, and most importantly, kept them pointed in the right direction. Which is more than I can say for half our forces."

Kamenev scribbled something. Stalin's eyes narrowed slightly, perhaps in amusement, perhaps in suspicion — with him, it was always both.

"And your… methods?" Lenin asked, his voice neutral, though I saw the flicker of curiosity behind it.

"My methods," I said, leaning back, "are effective. Whether or not they're palatable is a matter of taste. And comrades, I've never been one for delicate cuisine."

The room gave a faint, humorless ripple of acknowledgment. They were all deadly serious. I, meanwhile, was trying not to think about how Aleksandra used to tease me for speaking like this, for turning every answer into a performance. She'd have told me to cut the theatrics and tell them the truth plainly.

But she wasn't here.

Lenin leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers, and gave me that look — the one he reserves for comrades who've just admitted to doing something appalling but effective.

Kamenev cleared his throat, his pen tapping nervously against his notebook.
"There are… concerns," he began, the bureaucrat's way of saying we're all horrified but no one wants to take responsibility.

"Concerns," I repeated, rolling the word around my mouth like a sip of bitter coffee.

Sverdlov shifted in his seat, visibly uncomfortable. "The opium, the alcohol, the… ah… prostitutes you've made available to the Czechoslovaks," he said, each word like it had to be dragged out with pliers. "And now they are here, heavily armed… in Petrograd."

There it was. The moral outrage, wrapped neatly in the packaging of political caution.

I sighed. "Comrades, it's either that or they mutiny."

A ripple went through the room — not quite outrage, more like the low thrum of a building's foundation when a train passes nearby. Stalin's lips twitched in what might have been a suppressed smile. Lenin, though, said nothing, which meant he was thinking about it.

"You think the only options are vice or rebellion?" Kamenev asked, his voice rising slightly, betraying that he'd never spent more than ten minutes with soldiers outside of a parade ground.

"Kamenev," I said, leaning forward, "these are men who have been killing for years — not in the abstract, not in the way you all kill with orders and signatures, but with their hands, their rifles, their bayonets. They have marched through mud and blood from one end of Russia to the other. They've buried friends in shallow graves and looted their enemies before the corpses were cold. Now they're stuck in this shit stain of a city, surrounded by more politics than they can drink away, and you expect them to spend their evenings playing chess and discussing the finer points of Marxist theory?"

Lenin's mouth twitched, but he still didn't speak.

I sat back. "They're mercenaries, not monks. And if giving them something to smoke, drink, and fuck keeps them from turning their rifles on you, then yes, comrades — I'll keep doing it. In fact, I'll buy out every opium den and brothel tonight."

The silence after that was the heavy kind — the kind where everyone is trying to decide if you're dangerous, indispensable, or both.

I glanced down at the table, letting my eyes unfocus. For half a second, I imagined Aleksandra sitting beside me, hand on my arm, whispering you could try a gentler answer, you know. I almost smiled. Almost.

Lenin finally broke the silence, his voice measured.

"There's also the matter," he said slowly, "of your… dealings with our own Red Guards."

Kamenev jumped in like an overeager prosecutor. "The executions, the firefights through the countryside— the executions in Tver— and the fact that you seem to conduct these actions with… a certain enthusiasm."

Sverdlov added, almost whispering, "Some of those men had families, comrade."

I leaned back, stretching my legs out under the table like I owned the place. "Yes, and I showed them the paperwork first. I warned them. I told them exactly what the consequences would be if they disobeyed orders. And yet, they still decided to test me."

Kamenev frowned. "So you simply—"

"Murdered them," I cut in. "When a man's stupidity is so profound that he steps willingly in front of a moving train, you don't blame the train. You blame the man."

Lenin raised an eyebrow. "A train?"

"Yes," I said, gesturing vaguely toward the window. "I'm the train in this metaphor, if that wasn't clear. I gave them the choice — step aside or be crushed. They chose the latter. I didn't do it out of bloodlust; I did it because when one Red Guard garrison sees another ignore my orders and live, they start to think they can do the same. And then the whole damned railway is blocked."

Sverdlov looked at me like I'd just confessed to eating children. Stalin, meanwhile, sat stone-faced, though I caught the faintest flicker of approval in his eyes.

"I make examples," I continued. "Not because I enjoy it — though I won't deny there's a certain… satisfaction in watching discipline return to the ranks — but because if I don't, chaos spreads. It's not my fault they're stubborn and stupid. My fault would be letting that stupidity go unpunished."

The room went quiet again, thick with that mix of revulsion and reluctant understanding.

I glanced at the grand, peeling walls of the old throne room. Once, this was where emperors commanded armies with a wave of their hands. Now it was a place where half-starved revolutionaries debated whether I was a necessary evil or just an evil that happened to be useful.

In the back of my mind, I could hear Keke's voice: You keep talking like that, and one day you'll be the example.

Lenin tapped his fingers against the tabletop, studying me like a chess player deciding whether sacrificing the rook was worth the trouble. Finally, he spoke.

"Keep it to a minimum for now," he said. "We don't need Petrograd turning into a circus just because the Czechoslovaks can't function without… certain amenities. How long will you be in the city?"

"Three days," I said without hesitation. "Enough time to get supplies — mostly food. But also booze, opium, and prostitutes. The holy trinity of keeping mercenaries from bayoneting the locals."

Kamenev's pen froze in mid-scribble. Svanidze stared like I'd just admitted to personally assassinating Christ. Stalin didn't blink.

Lenin just nodded slightly, the corners of his mouth twitching. He didn't like it, but he understood.

"Once I've finished escorting the Czechoslovaks to Murmansk," I continued, "I'm still planning to secure Finland. That hasn't changed. But there's something else — more Czechoslovaks are scattered through Russia. I'll probably head east once I'm done with Finland, all the way to Siberia, and take the remaining ones to Vladivostok."

Lenin's eyes narrowed, trying to see the catch.

"It'll be a good opportunity to secure the east as well," I said. "Right now it's a collection of poorly disciplined garrisons, reactionaries, bandits, and people who think 'revolution' means they can loot without consequences. My presence will… clarify matters."

"Meaning you'll shoot people until order returns," Kamenev muttered.

"Exactly," I said cheerfully.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. "And for that, I'll need permission to recruit more men. I want to expand the Guard Corps — enough to keep discipline without stretching our lines too thin. We'll have the numbers to protect our supply lines, enforce our authority, and make sure the Czechoslovaks don't decide they're better off running the show themselves."

Lenin looked at me for a long moment. "You're asking for a lot of autonomy."

I shrugged. "Autonomy is just efficiency without the paperwork. Besides, the alternative is chaos — and chaos costs more lives than I do."

For a moment, nobody spoke. You could almost hear the sound of the chandeliers creaking above us. In my head, I imagined Keke watching this exchange from the corner of the room, her arms folded, her expression saying you've just told them exactly how dangerous you are… again.

But she wasn't here, and I was still alive, so I just smiled faintly and waited for Lenin's answer.

Lenin's gaze flicked briefly to Stalin, as if weighing his unspoken opinion. He just stared straight at Lenin, impassive as stone, and gave the slightest nod. A tiny gesture, but enough to say yes, he's dangerous, but he's ours.

Svanidze, sat with his usual bureaucratic stiffness, but I caught the quick dart of his eyes toward me, the faintest tilt of his head. In this room, that was the equivalent of standing on the table and shouting, give him what he wants.

Kamenev was clearly against it, as was Sverdlov. Kamenev's pen started scratching again like he was already drafting my obituary. "Lenin, if we give him more men, more autonomy, we are effectively creating a second army loyal only to—"

"—the Party," Stalin interrupted, his voice low but carrying across the table. "My brother is loyal to the Party." He said it with that same blank tone he always used when daring someone to contradict him.

"Your brother is loyal to you," Kamenev shot back.

Stalin didn't blink. "And who was it that personally stormed the winter palace again?

Svanidze coughed into his fist, the polite way of stopping himself from laughing in the middle of a political knife fight.

Lenin leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Comrade Mikheil, you understand that what you're asking is not without risk. Armed men loyal to one commander — even you — can be a problem if…" He let the sentence trail off, waiting to see if I'd fill in the blank.

"If I decide to become a problem," I said, smiling faintly. "But the truth is, I'm too busy trying to not go insane from grief at the moment."

The room was quiet again, except for the distant drip of water somewhere deep in the old palace.

Finally, Lenin sat back. "Very well. You may recruit. But I expect results. No theatrics, no excesses, and no… unnecessary headlines."

I nodded. "I'll do my best. But with me, 'minimum excess' is still quite a lot."

That drew the faintest flicker of amusement from Stalin. Svanidze kept his face neutral, though I could tell he was relieved. Kamenev scribbled something furiously, probably a note about how this decision would haunt us all.

Inside, I felt the old, familiar hollowness rise again — the thought that none of this mattered without Aleksandra. She would've been proud, maybe, or maybe she would've rolled her eyes and told me I was building myself into a future cautionary tale. Either way, she would've been here to say it.

But she wasn't. So I smiled, accepted the victory, and already started thinking about how much booze, opium and cigarettes I could buy before my three days in Petrograd were up.

The meeting broke up with the usual scraping of chairs and low murmurs of men who didn't want to be overheard. Lenin disappeared first, trailed by Kamenev, who was still muttering to himself. Stalin lingered just long enough to make it clear he was waiting for me. Svanidze fell in beside him, the three of us walking out into the dim, echoing corridors of the Winter Palace.

Once we were far enough from the others, I asked the only question that mattered.
"How are my kids? Kato, Iosif, Aleksander, Besarion — how are they doing?"

Svanidze's face softened, just a fraction. "They've been… quiet," he said. "Depressed since Aleksandra died. The house feels different now. Keke does her best, but…" He trailed off and glanced at me. "You should see them."

I stopped walking for a moment, staring down the long stretch of marble floor ahead of us. The air smelled faintly of dust and oil lamps, and I could almost hear Aleksandra's laugh in the distance — the way she used to kiss me every time I came home.

"I want to," I said finally, my voice was low, I started to sob. "God knows I want to. But if I see them now… I might not want to leave again."

Stalin glanced at me but said nothing. He understood.

"Tell them I love them," I said to Svanidze. "All of them. Tell them I'm busy, but I'll come back. Once Finland is done, I'll come home for a bit before going east."

Svanidze nodded. "They'll want to hear it from you, not me."

"Then tell them anyway," I said, forcing a small, humorless smile. "They can be disappointed in person later."

We walked on in silence after that. The high ceilings of the palace loomed above us like the inside of a cathedral, and every step felt heavier than the last. The war, the politics, the corps — all of it felt like a game I knew I couldn't stop playing, even when I wanted to.

But for the first time in months, I caught myself imagining the quiet of home. Kato reading by the fire. Iosif pretending not to be interested in my stories. Aleksander trying to act older than he was. Besarion — still a baby, I pitied him the most, he would never truly know his mother, not even from the memories. I sobbed again at that thought.

But I couldn't see them, if I let myself walk into that house, I might never walk out again.

So I kept moving. I had work to do.

The rest of the day was a blur of transactions and quiet threats. I spent the hours moving between warehouses, back rooms, and dingy storefronts, collecting the usual mix of supplies the Czechoslovaks considered essential to human survival: sacks of flour, crates of canned meat, barrels of dried fish — and, of course, the more specialized goods. Booze from a sympathetic Kronstadt sailor who'd "accidentally" offloaded more than the manifest listed. A crate of opium wrapped in burlap and marked as "machinery parts."

By the time I made it back to the train station, dusk had fallen, and the place looked less like a transit hub and more like a fortress that had grown out of the rails. Sandbags were stacked in haphazard barricades, machine gun nests were tucked between the freight cars, and a tangle of barbed wire ran along the outer perimeter. The Czechoslovaks had turned it into an armed camp — their camp.

From the rail yards came the unmistakable din of a party. Shouting, laughter, the rhythmic clatter of boots on metal, a fiddle playing something that sounded suspiciously like a marching song until it broke into a drunken waltz.

Tukhachevsky appeared at my side, looking as if someone had just asked him to explain Marxism to a brick wall. "They were getting restless," he said bluntly. "I had to dole out the last of the opium and booze or there would have been a riot."

I looked at him for a long moment. "So what you're telling me is that I left you in charge for one day, and now we're dry."

He shrugged. "Better dry than dead."

Fair point.

I sighed, laughed and headed off toward the seedier edge of the rail yards, where commerce of another kind was thriving. The local prostitutes had clearly seen the opportunity in a station full of foreign soldiers flush with stolen roubles and gold. Rates had tripled since I was last in Petrograd. Some of the more enterprising ones had even set up shop in empty rail cars — curtains strung across the doorways, candles flickering inside, the faint perfume and laughter spilling out into the cold night air.

One woman, leaning against the doorway of a converted sleeping car, grinned at me. "Special price for you, commander," she said, naming a figure that would have bought me a crate of rifles last month.

I shook my head. "At that rate, I could just marry you and save on the hourly fee."

She laughed, but didn't budge on the price.

By the time I was done negotiating, I'd secured a few willing participants for the Czechoslovaks' ongoing morale program, though at a cost that would have made a Tsar blush. Still, better an expensive garrison than a mutinous one.

As I walked back toward the carriage I used as my quarters, the cold night air bit at my face, and I caught myself wondering what Aleksandra would have said if she'd seen me bargaining with prostitutes like I was buying artillery shells. Probably something along the lines of you've built an empire of sin and you're proud of it.

And maybe she'd have been right.

March 22, 1918
Petrograd Rail Yards
Petrograd, Russia

Morning began with the kind of crisp winter air that makes you think, maybe today will be quiet. It's a lie the weather tells you so you'll let your guard down.

By midmorning, a pack of drunken Czechoslovaks — still reeling from last night's opium-and-booze blowout — decided the city needed "improvement." Specifically, they took issue with an old SR propaganda office across from the station. The posters inside had faded into yellow ghosts of their former revolutionary zeal, and apparently, that was an insult to their sense of aesthetic.

So they "redecorated" it.

I stood on the station platform, smoking, as I watched them haul cart after cart of manure — actual horse manure from the stables — into the building. They packed the place to the rafters with the stuff, cheering like they were laying bricks for a cathedral. Then someone tossed in a lit rag, and the whole thing went up in a choking, sulfurous blaze.

The stench rolled across the street like divine punishment, sending the last few SR diehards gagging into the gutter. The Czechoslovaks sang a marching song as the roof collapsed. One of them even saluted me as if I'd personally commissioned the project.

It was the most civic-minded thing they'd done all week.

Later that day, business came knocking in the form of the National Guard, who dragged three suspected SRs into the stationmaster's office. Their uniforms were neat, but their faces carried that half-smirk people get when they think they're too clever to be caught.

I was halfway through a glass of vodka when they shoved the first one in front of me. The man opened his mouth, probably to launch into some tedious speech about loyalty to the revolution, but I wasn't in the mood.

I drew my revolver and shot him in the chest. He went down without ceremony. The second started praying — I put one through his head before he finished the first line. The third just stared at me, breathing hard. I let him see the muzzle before I pulled the trigger.

Three shots. Three bodies. No last rites, I wasn't feeling it today.

I didn't spill a drop of vodka.

For a moment, I just stood there, glass in one hand, revolver in the other, the faint smell of cordite mixing with the ever-present scent of coal smoke and human sweat. The National Guardsmen shifted uneasily, waiting for me to say something that would make the scene less obscene.

"Clear them out," I said finally, setting the glass down. "And next time, bring me proof before you bring me suspects. Saves me the trouble of guessing."

They nodded and dragged the corpses away, boots scraping across the floor.

I picked up the glass again and took a long drink. The burn was welcome — sharp, clean, uncomplicated. Nothing like this city.

Somewhere deep in the station, I could hear the Czechoslovaks still singing, their voices echoing down the steel corridors. For a moment, I let myself imagine Aleksandra walking through the door, wrinkling her nose at the smell, shaking her head at the mess I'd made of my life. She'd tell me this wasn't living — it was just a long, noisy way of dying.

She'd be right.

But the trains still had to move.

So I finished the vodka, reloaded my revolver, and got back to work.

March 23, 1918
Petrograd Rail Yards
Petrograd, Russia

If hell had an administrative wing, it would look like the Petrograd rail yards on the morning of our departure. I spent the entire day wading through a swamp of requisition forms, station masters with sudden memory loss about which trains were "available," and Czechoslovaks who seemed to believe "boarding" meant wandering off to buy bread and getting into fistfights with strangers.

By noon, I'd finally secured enough rolling stock to move the entire contingent. The trick, as always, was to act like the trains were already mine and to threaten anyone who said otherwise. It worked on most people. On the rest, it worked better.

Then came the real crisis.

Tukhachevsky, looking like he'd just been told his mother had joined the Whites, informed me the city had officially run out of opium. The last few grams had vanished overnight into the bloodstream of men who now looked dangerously close to rediscovering their taste for mutiny.

I felt my stomach drop — not out of sympathy, but out of sheer logistical horror. If I put 10 thousand armed, hungover mercenaries on a train with nothing to sedate them, we'd be peeling corpses out of the baggage cars by the second day.

So I did the only thing I could: I bought out every single bottle of vodka and every cigarette pack I could get my hands on. By the end of the afternoon, the train smelled like a distillery married to a tobacco factory. It wasn't opium, but it would keep them calm — or at least too drunk to stage a counter revolution before Murmansk.

By nightfall, I had everyone loaded. The station looked like the aftermath of a small war: crates stacked haphazardly, soldiers slumped in corners with bottles dangling from their fingers, prostitutes counting roubles like victorious warlords.

We had only been in transit for barely half an hour when another Red Guard patrol, out in the outskirts, decided to make a name for themselves by blocking our way. The commander — barely old enough to shave — started shouting about unauthorized movements and "counter-revolutionary elements."

I shot him before he could finish the sentence. My men shot the rest.

The gunfire echoed off the warehouses and then faded into silence. A few of the Czechoslovaks started singing again, as if the whole thing had been scheduled entertainment.

I stood on the platform for a moment, watching the smoke curl into the night sky. Somewhere in that black emptiness, I imagined her voice again — not scolding, just tired. She'd tell me I'd turned travel into a blood sport.

She wouldn't be wrong.

But the whistle blew, the wheels began to turn, and the train carried us away from Petrograd, leaving behind the stink of manure, gunpowder, and the kind of memories that only rot when you try to bury them.

Murmansk, then Finland was ahead. And after that, maybe — maybe — home.

If I didn't die first.

 

[Xodarap]

Oh hell he's literally killing most everyone that crosses his path now while the whores are making themselves into millionares.
Opium was probably a piss poor choice to introduce a mercenary band to compares to all the rest of the vices and it showed when Petrograd ran out.

 

[sports-information]

Thank you for keeping a blistering pace of updates! As a heads up, in the chapter headers, you have a few 1917s that should be 1918s.

 

[Aureus]

Should have stuck with the old classic cocaine & chocolate.

 

[death734]

Thanks for the chapter, wordsmith.

 

[Alenco98]

Field Marshall Mikheil Jugashvili and his Soviet Guards have been both our salvation and our undoing. Their men, tanks and aircraft carve through the fascists with frightening ease, yet their presence weighs on us like a second occupation.

Since the anarchist revolt in Barcelona back in January this year, their cruelty has been unrelenting. I have seen boys as young as fifteen hanged from lampposts, bayoneted as Jugashvili looked on, cigarette in hand, offering them the option of a last smoke or last rites before killing them with the calmness of a man settling accounts. It is not the chaos of war but something colder—violence administered like policy.

The anarchists are unruly, exasperating even, yet they are Spaniards fighting in their own land. To watch them crushed by an ally is a bitter spectacle. One cannot help but fear that even if Franco is defeated, Spain will simply exchange his tyranny for another—this one draped in the red flag of Moscow.

If Jugashvili is the future, then victory may taste no sweeter than defeat.

Excerpt from George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia

------

March 22 – April 1, 1918
Into the North of Russia

The journey toward Murmansk was less a train ride and more a prolonged hostage situation against the elements. The tracks were in a state that could only be described as "posthumous" — warped, frost-heaved, and cut in places by sabotage. We'd grind to a halt every few hours to dig the rails out of snowdrifts or replace sleepers that had rotted into mulch.

The spring thaw was coming in fits and starts, which meant we were trading ice for mud. Not better — just a different color of hell. Wheels spun in the sludge, men slipped under the weight of crates, and every stop was a chance for some local partisan to take a potshot from the treeline.

I kept it together, because someone had to. I chain-smoked like a man on a dare, two packs a day at least. The smoke wasn't for the nerves — it was for the silence, for keeping my hands busy so they wouldn't start shaking. Depression sat in me like a stone. I rationed the alcohol, rationed the cigarettes. If I'd let the Czechs and my Guards have their way, we'd have drunk the last of the vodka by the time we reached Karelia and been reduced to boiling rifle stocks for soup.

Prostitutes — of which the train had acquired more than I could count without using a ledger — were paid in cigarettes, food, and vodka. A grim barter economy that kept morale up and discipline down. You could measure the state of the men by how quickly a carton of cigarettes changed hands.

I slept little. Spent my nights staring at maps under the dim light of an oil lamp, listening to the wind batter the carriage. Every time the train jolted over a repaired section of track, I wondered if it was the rails giving out or if some bastard had planted another charge.

When we were finally about to cross into Karelia, the snow was back with a vengeance — blinding white under a sky the color of lead. Murmansk was still ahead, but I knew already: by the time we arrived, every man on this train would be either twice as hard or half as human.

-------------

April 2, 1918

We were maybe an hour into Karelia when another halt was called. Something about snow-packed rails and a section ahead needing to be cleared. Normally, this would mean men with shovels, cold fingers, and a lot of swearing. But the Czechoslovaks had been itching for entertainment, and boredom is more dangerous than hunger.

It started with one shot — a sharp crack from the far end of the train. Then another. By the time I stepped off my carriage, half a dozen of them were leaning out from the embankment, rifles up, grinning like boys at a county fair. They were shooting at distant Red Guard positions — maybe 600 meters away — just for sport. No orders, no provocation, just… target practice.

I followed the line of their barrels and saw the Reds scrambling in the snow like ants under a magnifying glass. Some were trying to get to cover, others just stood there in disbelief, as if they couldn't quite process that they were being picked off during what was supposed to be a routine standoff of mutual apathy.

"Wonderful," I muttered, lighting a cigarette. "Nothing says discipline like slaughtering your own allies before breakfast."

Tukachevsky appeared beside me, jaw tight. "Do you want me to stop them?" he asked, like it was a serious question.

"No," I said. "Let them have their fun, it'll keep them out of trouble. Maybe the Reds will learn to keep their heads down." I took a drag, exhaled. "Besides, morale's important."

A Czech with a beard like a winter bear popped his head up from behind a crate, shouting something in his ugly, consonant-choked language that I assumed was along the lines of Got one! The others laughed. Another volley went out. One of the Reds fell, the rest finally melting into the treeline.

After a while, the ammunition ran low, the snow-clearing was done, and the Czechs reluctantly shouldered their rifles and trudged back aboard. The train lurched forward again, and the bodies in the distance got smaller until they vanished.

I stayed out on the platform, the cigarette burning down between my fingers, wondering how many more days of this I had in me before I either drank myself blind or started shooting for sport too.

--------------

April 3–6, 1918 — Karelia's Spine

By the time we were deep into Karelia, the monotony had turned heavy, like wet wool draped over the whole train. The snow still clung to the pines, the sky hung low and grey, and the cold had a way of settling into your bones no matter how close you sat to the stove.

I'd stopped talking much. Most days, I sat by the carriage window with a cigarette burning down to my fingers, staring at the blur of forest and frozen swamps, my mind somewhere else — somewhere warmer, somewhere that didn't smell like boiled meat and wet uniforms.

The men started to notice. Especially Tukachevsky. They'd all glance at me when they thought I wasn't looking, unsure if the silence meant I was plotting something or if I'd simply gone hollow. Truth was, I wasn't sure either.

And then the firefights would come. A Red Guard patrol taking shots from the treeline. A partisan sniper thinking he was clever. The moment bullets started flying, something in me would snap back into place — not joy, not rage, relief.

One afternoon, after a sharp crack from ahead sent some of the more drunken Czechoslovaks scrambling, I stepped off the carriage with my guardsmen, drew my revolver, and put a single round through the face of the nearest Red Guard I found before anyone else could react. The man dropped like a sack of grain, his rifle clattering into the snow. I wiped the blood spatter off my coat sleeve with slow, methodical care, holstered the weapon, and went back inside.

I spent the rest of that skirmish reading a tattered copy of War and Peace I'd found abandoned in the station at Tver. I'm not sure if anyone noticed I'd stopped turning the pages halfway through — it didn't matter.

Inside the train, discipline wasn't faring much better. On April 5, three accidental discharges went off in the dining car in the space of twenty minutes. One tore through a cupboard, one shaved a man's ear, and the last one — the real tragedy — blew a hole clean through our samovar. Tea poured out onto the floor in a steaming puddle while everyone just stood there, staring like they'd witnessed a priest get shot during mass.

I said nothing. Just lit another cigarette, took a long drag, and kept reading. God I missed Aleksandra.

April 7–19, 1918— The Hunt

By now, the locals had given up trying to make sense of us. Word had spread across the villages: a train full of screaming, drunk foreigners kept rolling through, stopping at random to "hunt counter-revolutionaries." Nobody seemed clear on what qualified as a counter-revolutionary — it could be an armed Red patrol, a shopkeeper who didn't wave fast enough, or an old woman selling bread at the wrong time of day.

We were averaging two firefights a day. Sometimes the ambushes were real — Red detachments waiting in the treeline, rifles already shouldered. Other times, it was just my Czechs or Guards deciding a group of "suspicious" villagers would make for good target practice. To their credit, they were never bored for long.

I'd stopped caring about politics in these encounters. If someone interfered with track repairs, I didn't bother asking which banner they fought under. Reds, Whites, locals with no affiliation — if they delayed the work, I had them lined up against the nearest fence or telegraph pole and shot. No speeches, no trials. My Guards started taking souvenirs from the bodies — belts, knives, watches. I said nothing, partly because I didn't care, partly because the trophies kept them from asking for more pay.

Somewhere in a half-burned village, the Legion acquired a bear cub. No one could explain where it came from, only that a group of soldiers marched back from the woods carrying it like a prize roast. It was small, still clumsy, and promptly named "Lenin." Everyone thought it was hilarious.

By day three, Lenin had bitten a soldier's ear clean off during feeding. There was some debate about whether to shoot it or keep it. I told them to keep it and threatened to hang them if they killed it. If it was already drawing blood, it fit right in.

Between the gunfire, the drunken singing, and the occasional bear-related screaming, the journey to Murmansk had settled into its own warped rhythm. I kept smoking — a cigarette always burning between my fingers — and wondered vaguely if I was holding this train together, or if I was just the only one sober enough to notice it was falling apart.

--------

April 20–22, 1918 — The Bottom of the Barrel

By the 20th, the cigarette supply was circling the drain. We'd been rationing for days, but now the tins were nearly empty, and tempers were running high. My own patience was hanging by a thread — I was down to my last pack, and even the idea of handing one away made my skin itch.

The Czechs and Slovaks had found their own pressure point: the last few kegs of brandy. By the afternoon, the first fistfight broke out in the dining car. By nightfall, it had escalated into full-blown company-on-company brawls — boots, fists, rifle butts. One unlucky bastard went out the window at low speed and landed in a snowbank. He crawled back aboard at the next stop, covered in frost and still swearing.

The shortage wasn't just alcohol. It was the fact opium was gone — burned all the way back in Petrograd. Without it, the train's general noise shifted from drunken singing to shouting matches in three languages. Even the bear, Lenin, seemed more irritable, pacing the baggage car and snapping at anyone who got too close.

I tried to keep order, but the truth was, I was just as on edge as they were. Every time someone lit a cigarette in my presence, my eyes followed the smoke like a starving man watching bread bake. I caught myself calculating how many I could steal before anyone noticed. Would I have to shoot him for it?

By the 22nd, we were one bad day away from the whole expedition turning into a rolling mutiny. And I knew, when that day came, I'd have to make an example so brutal it would scare everyone back into line — or burn this train to the rails trying.

-------

April 23–25, 1918 — Breaking Point

By the 23rd, the shortages had crossed from "inconvenient" into "existential crisis." The cigarettes were gone. The last bottle of brandy had been drained by a group of Slovaks in the early hours, and the Czechs responded by sabotaging their rations with a handful of salt. Fistfights were now a daily event, sometimes breaking out in two carriages at once.

I'd seen enough. That night, I called the officers both the czech and Slovak sides into the freight car, locked the doors, and told them we weren't leaving until someone took responsibility. They denied everything, naturally. So I changed the game. I told them they would choose one man from each company to die — failure to agree would mean ten from each. I reminded them most of their men were half intoxicated and my men weren't and we could massacre them all right now if we wanted to. I was about to do it honestly.

Once they realized the writing on the wall however they voted. vote was tense, angry, but it got results. The chosen men were executed right there in front of the rest, their bodies shoved out into the snow. The room went dead quiet after that. Not peace — but fear. And fear would carry us the rest of the way.

By the 25th, discipline had returned in a brittle, brittle way. Men saluted faster. The arguments were quieter. Even the bear seemed calmer.

---

April 26, 1918 — The Bridge

It was almost evening when we hit the sabotage. A small bridge, barely big enough for a single carriage at a time, had been blown apart ahead of us. The wreckage was still smoking. My scouts reported movement in the treeline — a Socialist Revolutionary Guard unit, maybe a dozen men, covering the approach.

I didn't delegate. I got some of the boys, then I holstered my pistol, took a rifle for backup, and led the counterattack myself. The snow crunched underfoot, the air sharp in my lungs. The first SR I saw was leaning over the wreckage, reloading. I put a round through his chest before he even looked up. The second caught it in the throat. The third tried to run; I shot him in the back.

One of them rushed me at close range — I dropped the revolver, swung the rifle up, and drove the butt into his jaw hard enough to hear it break. He went down like a sack of potatoes, blood blooming in the snow.

All while bullets flew around me and I shot and stabbed for the next several hours. All while humming signing in the snow cause I needed some absurdity while killing and cause I missed Aleksandra.

When it was over, I was standing there breathing hard, the cold air turning my breath into fog. I looked at the bodies, then at my men, and said — flat, almost bored — "I think I enjoyed that more than sex lately."

Nobody laughed. They just went to work clearing the wreckage. The bridge would be repaired by morning.

I lit another cigarette and watched the treeline, half-hoping for another ambush.

---

Night of April 26–27, 1918 — The Camp by the Bridge

We couldn't move until morning. The engineers needed hours to rebuild the bridge, and that meant the entire convoy camped along the frozen riverbank. Fires went up fast — fueled by chopped wood, broken crates, and the odd splintered wagon board.

The Czechs and Guards raided the nearest villages for supplies to supplement our rations, By nightfall, we had two pigs, three goats, and a suspiciously well-fed cow roasting on makeshift spits. Someone found a 100 barrels of something that smelled halfway between beer and cleaning solvent, and suddenly the air was thick with singing — mostly obscene songs about Trotsky's mother, Trotsky's beard, Trotsky's wife; all courtesy of me and my twisted mind. A chorus of around 15 thousand drunken voices roaring insults into the Arctic night, their breath steaming like the smoke from the fires.

I sat a little apart, cigarette in hand, watching the flames throw shadows across faces already lined from the cold. My men were happy in that ugly, temporary way soldiers get when they've convinced themselves tomorrow might never come.

---

April 27–30, 1918 — The Last Stretch

With the bridge repaired, we rolled forward again into the endless grey-white expanse toward Murmansk. The mood shifted — not exactly calmer, just… more deliberate. Fights broke out less often, replaced by a kind of mutual understanding: the journey was almost over, and nobody wanted to die in sight of the finish line.

Not that the road was quiet. We still had the occasional potshot from the treeline, or a mine buried shallow in the snow. On the 28th, a shell from some ancient mountain gun landed thirty meters short of the tracks, spraying snow over the lead engine and making the bear, Lenin, scream loud enough to startle half the convoy.

The shortages were still biting. Without opium, tempers smouldered just below the surface. I rationed whatever vodka and cigarettes we scrounged up from the nearby villages as tightly as ammunition, handing it out only after firefights. It kept the men obedient, if sullen.

By the 30th, we were deep in the northern wilderness. The forests thinned into windswept tundra, the air sharp enough to make your teeth ache. Murmansk was close — you could feel it in the way the men glanced forward more often, counting the miles in their heads.

I kept smoking. My last carton was nearly gone. Every drag felt like spending gold. And I knew that when we reached the port, there'd be no quiet welcome — just another set of orders, maybe another fight, another list of names to be crossed off.

But at least we'd be done with the rails for now.

---

May 1, 1918 — Murmansk, Arrival

The trains limped into Murmansk like a wounded animal — filthy, bullet-pocked, and wearing the journey like a scar. Soot streaked the carriages, bullet holes stitched along the siding, and the whole thing stank of cordite, alcohol, wet wool, and unwashed men.

The Czechoslovaks staggered off first. Some carried looted Russian flags like hunting trophies; others hauled unconscious prostitutes over their shoulders with the casualness of men moving sacks of grain. A few still had dried blood on their coats — not all of it their own.

I followed them down the platform at an unhurried pace, a cigarette between my lips, coat still bearing the dried, flaking stains from April's bridge fight. I didn't walk like a conquering hero or a defeated man — just someone who had closed a deal, ugly but profitable, and was already thinking about the next one.

Locals watched from the edge of the platform with that mix of curiosity and fear usually reserved for wild animals that haven't decided whether to attack. The British liaison officers, however, just looked horrified — staring past me at the chaos spilling out of the train like they'd been handed a diplomatic incident with teeth.

I stopped in front of them, exhaled smoke, and in clean, deliberate English said,
"Gentlemen — your Czechoslovaks. I'd like to speak to your leader."

They blinked — the surprise on their faces was almost funny. They hadn't expected the bloodstained Georgian warlord to speak their language, let alone like a man asking for a business appointment.

Then I turned back to the Legion, voice carrying over the platform noise.

"The bear stays with me," I said in Russian. "Non-negotiable."

Lenin, the bear cub, was gnawing on the corner of a crate. No one argued.

 

[Xodarap]

I'm fucking laughing my ass off at this shit show of a journey and the future stories that get spread around the world over how batshit insane a mercenary army and their good companions the Revolutionary Guard spent a 100 plus miles drunk off their asses shooting at armies and villages like modern day raiders.
Lennin the bear was just gold glorious gold hilarity now he needs to get him drunk high and berserk while charging Finland rebels.
Edit
Just realized a dark joke Mikheil being the Party Commisar for religious affairs looks like when he gives people last rites and cigarettes.

 

[Angry_Crustacean]

When he's all grown maybe Mikheil can recreate the putin riding on a bear picture