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

[Taps148]

I personally like flash forwards, get me curious about future Russia

 

[orion_053]

If he's going for a full split between church and state he can pull talent that would ignored or discrimination against in their country of birth. Bringing religious, racial and sexual minorities grants the future Soviet a workforce that is grateful to be there

 

[Alenco98]

ПРАВДА – Official Notice of Public Closure and Event Protocol
Issued by the Moscow Committee for Cultural Affairs in Cooperation with the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs
Date: May 30, 1932

COMRADES, ATTENTION:

The People's Committee for Cultural Affairs of the Moscow Soviet, in cooperation with the Ministry of Transportation and the Municipal Directorate of Parks and Public Spaces, hereby announces the temporary closure of Izmaylovsky Park for the purposes of logistical preparation and security arrangements related to the upcoming Moscow concert of internationally renowned vocalist and tenor from our cousin revolutionary republic of Mexico, Juan Arvizu.

As part of the ongoing First Five-Year Plan for Cultural Exchange and Socialist Upliftment, the performance of Comrade Arvizu is regarded as a significant milestone in the promotion of international proletarian solidarity through music and artistic appreciation.

Closure Schedule:

Izmaylovsky Park will be officially closed to the general public beginning at dusk on June 9, 1932, and will remain closed until dawn on June 12, 1932.

During this period, access to the park and its surrounding premises will be restricted to authorized personnel, stage crews, national guard, and technical staff responsible for sound, lighting, and maintenance operations.

All unauthorized persons found within the restricted perimeter will be subject to removal and possible administrative penalty in accordance with Article 127 of the Public Assembly and Safety Act (1930 revision).

Ticket Sales and Distribution:

Concert tickets for Juan Arvizu's performance at Izmaylovsky Park will be made available for public purchase at designated kiosks beginning the morning of Friday, June 10, and continuing through the end of Saturday, June 11, or until the allocation of tickets has been fully exhausted.

Tickets will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority access reserved for the elderly, the disabled, and veterans of the war of national liberation.

Notice on Speculation and Resale:

In accordance with directives from the People's Commissariat for Economic Planning and Supervision, the resale or private exchange of concert tickets for personal profit is strictly prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to:

The resale of tickets at inflated prices;

The hoarding or stockpiling of tickets for speculative purposes;

The use of proxies or third parties to circumvent rationing or distribution guidelines.

Any individual found engaging in speculative activity or violating this ordinance will be subject to criminal prosecution under the Anti-Speculation Act of 1926, with penalties including up to one year of corrective labor in the Siberian districts, loss of party membership, and permanent disqualification from future positions in the party apparatus.

Let this serve as a reminder that the fruits of culture belong not to the profiteer, but to the collective laboring masses of the Soviet people.

By order of the Moscow Cultural Committee
Approved by the Secretariat of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
Glory to the Soviet Union – Glory to the Workers of the World!

---

December 25, 1917
Finland Station
Petrograd, Russia

Almost two weeks on the rails, and now the grey skeleton of Petrograd finally rose out of the snow like a tired old ghost trying to remember its name. Finland Station—I recognized it by it's surroundings, the crooked skyline, the half-collapsed chimneys, the church spires leaning like drunkards. The signs hung motionless in the frost, frozen in mid-sentence, while the smoke curled upward instead of sideways like it was offering a prayer. That's how you knew you were back in Petrograd: even the smoke had given up.

It should've taken four days from Tyumen. Five, maybe six, if your conductor was a coward or you packed a samovar and a priest. But this was post-revolutionary Russia, and the trains didn't so much move as lurch. They creaked. They stopped. They groaned like they were reconsidering every life choice. Time no longer moved forward. It staggered like a dying horse—loud, slow, and liable to drop dead in a ditch without warning.

But hey—we weren't attacked. That's something.

Turns out, when your private train car holds over 300 Revolutionary Guards, a tsar and his family, and several locked crates containing confiscated Fabergé eggs, even the boldest Siberian bandits suddenly remember their grandmothers and choose to stay home. Even the wolves gave us space. Good animals, wolves. Smart. Better instincts than half the officers I used to serve with back in my old police days.

I spent most of the journey drifting between reports, inspections, and harmless psychological warfare. Read Marx to the children. Sang folk songs. Performed card tricks. Conducted a mock trial where Nicholas II was found guilty of being himself and sentenced to mop the floor. Made Alexei act as court stenographer with shaking hands. They thought it was theater. It was. But they didn't get the joke.

I don't believe in cruelty without rhythm.

And now, as the frozen silhouette of Finland Station crept closer through the icy mist, I felt a touch of—what was it? Melancholy? Sentiment? Maybe indigestion. Either way, I did what any self-respecting revolutionary warlord would do in my position.

I started to sing.

A soft, warm melody to cut through the frost. My voice at first low, barely above a whisper—just loud enough for the imperial family to wonder whether I was joking.

I wasn't.

"Ohhh baby, you're my baby… so happy Christmas tonight…"

Yes. That song. Singing in the Snow, by Mikiko Noda, a charming little city pop tune from 80s Japan I found on YouTube. Most of it was in Japanese, which the Romanovs of course did not speak. Not that they needed to understand the words. The melody was cheerful, the tone romantic, the context entirely unhinged. That was the point. That and I was so happy to see my wife.

I didn't care that it was Christmas. I didn't care that I was carting the last Tsar of Russia like a sack of potatoes into the capital he used to rule.

"Shining down free in your eyes… hold me tightly in your free arms…"

I tapped the rhythm on the window glass, boot bouncing gently on the floorboards. The train swayed with me, like we were dancing. I imagined myself a lounge singer on the Titanic, if the Titanic had been hijacked by a communist militia and the first-class passengers were shackled to their seats, stewing in the faint aroma of powdered soap and disillusionment.

To their credit, they didn't scream.

They just stared. A gallery of pale wax faces. Olga and Tatiana rigid, lips tight. Maria blinking too often. Anastasia glaring with that teenage fury that made her briefly likable. Alexei coughing quietly into a handkerchief embroidered with a crest that no longer mattered.

And Nicholas…

He looked at me like I was a dream he couldn't quite wake from. Like he kept expecting me to disappear.

I paused between verses, turning my head just enough to meet his eyes.

"What?" I asked in English, tone light and airy. "You didn't know I spoke English? Or that I could sing?"

Nicholas blinked. "You never told us."

I smiled, thin as a knife. "You never asked."

Silence followed. A long, cold silence, broken only by the soft mechanical wheeze of the train and the faint clatter of distant pistons. Then—clang—the bell echoed down the corridor.

Arrival.

Minutes now.

I stood slowly, adjusting the collar of my greatcoat, brushing imaginary lint from my lapel like a man preparing for a recital. I cleared my throat theatrically, stepped toward the aisle, and let my gaze sweep the length of the car.

"Well then," I said, raising my voice. "Get your coats on."

The guards stiffened. The Romanovs didn't move.

My smile dropped, clean and sharp.

"Welcome home," I said in Russian now. "Now get your shit and get off the train."

I gestured toward the doorway with a casual flick of the wrist.

Then I turned to Alexei, the boy shaking in the corner like porcelain on the verge of cracking.

"Except you. My men will get your things. Can't have you dying on me yet. Once you're in the Winter Palace, you're no longer my problem."

He stared up at me, eyes wide and wet as his family began packing. I almost felt bad for a moment. He looked a lot like my little brother back in my old life before I died. I remembered them again, and I just sighed and shook my head.

I'd accepted long ago this was life, but the memories occasionally hit me and it just got me. I guess this is probably why people don't normally remember their old lives when they reincarnate. It's like going in and out of depression at random times. But I had a job to do, and I supervised the Romanovs as they packed their shit.

It only took them two minutes—just two minutes—for the Romanovs to bundle themselves in their coats, gather their imperial rags, and shuffle off the train like miserable ghosts in a snowfall.

We disembarked into a world of crisp uniforms, frostbitten tension, and the gray breath of revolution curling in the air.

"Salute!" a young voice barked. I looked up—and there they were. One hundred guards lined up like chess pieces, steam rising from their nostrils. The lad in front gave a perfect revolutionary salute. His posture was sharp enough to cut steel.

I returned the gesture.

"At ease."

Hands dropped. Boots shifted. Eyes forward.

And then the Romanovs emerged, one by one, draped in fox furs and failure. They looked smaller outside the train. Like they'd shrunk in the cold. It was hard to believe these were once the ornaments of an empire. Now they were just excess luggage in a changing season.

I pointed at the young man who'd called the salute. "You. You're in charge, I assume?"

He stiffened. "Yes, Comrade."

"Good. Get the Romanovs and their belongings into one of the armored cars. Do not help any of them carry their own suitcases. Not one. Except the boy—he's got hemophilia and if he dies before Lenin sees him, I'll be explaining that to the Party with my head in a box. Once they're loaded, take them straight to the Winter Palace. And reserve a second car for me. Lenin's probably already pacing barefoot in a conference room and muttering in German about me."

"Understood." He snapped another salute.

I squinted at him. "What's your name, by the way? You look like you were just weaned off your mother's tit."

"Tukhachevsky. Captain Mikhail Tukhachevsky."

I grinned wide. "Well, fuck me bloody."

He blinked.

"My name's Mikheil. Seems we've got a thing going. Mikhail times 2. Tell you what—I'll hitch a ride in your car. I like hearing new voices before they disappoint me."

I left him standing there, gears turning behind his eyes, and turned toward the reason I still believed in something better than execution squads and ideological purity.

"Aleksandra!"

I practically shouted her name and ran into her arms like I hadn't just spent two weeks terrifying a former monarch and reciting Das Kapital at gunpoint. Her warmth hit me like a Georgian summer. I buried my face in her neck. God, I missed her. The way she smelled—like vanilla, ink, and something else I could never name. I missed her laughter, her scolding, her hands, her hips, everything. I missed waking up next to her and not next to a bolt-action rifle and a stack of communiqués. I missed making love without worrying about when the next telegram would arrive.

She kissed me. Then kissed me again.

"You miss me?" I murmured into her hair.

"Shut up." She laughed, then pulled me into another kiss that should've been illegal under martial law.

The family came next. Keke, crossing herself three times and hugging me like I was still a child. Aleksander, my brother-in-law, who always looked like he was trying not to roll his eyes. The kids—Kato, Iosif, and Aleksander—all wide-eyed and bouncing. Besarion stayed behind at Smolny. The cold was too much, and this wasn't 2025—here, the flu could still kill a baby faster than a bayonet. I wanted more kids, not potential dead baby jokes.

And then, of course, there was Joe.

Stalin.

My brother.

We hugged. Brief but tight. His arms were hard. His coat stiff. His eyes were heavier than I remembered.

"You look like shit," I said in Georgian, smiling like I wasn't half-worried he'd stab me for hugging him too hard.

"Negotiations went as well as they could," he replied curtly.

"Germany will lose," I said. "I promise. By this time next year, they'll be chewing boot leather in Berlin."

"If they don't," he said, "Trotsky will be the least of my problems."

We both knew what that meant.

The moment passed. I turned to my family and told them to return to Smolny. Joe, Aleksander, and I moved toward the car where young Tukhachevsky waited, straight-backed and eyes alert.

He opened the door for us like a good soldier, letting us in one by one, then entering last and shutting it behind him.

I slid in second to last. Wanted the window seat. Also wanted to talk to the kid. See what kind of steel he was made of.

As the car began to rumble through the icy streets of Petrograd—quiet now, watchful—I turned to him.

"So, Captain Tukhachevsky?" I said, stretching out my legs, cracking my knuckles, and giving the boy my most dangerous grin. "You look awfully young to be a captain. You'd better impress me. I've killed men for less than a boring answer."

I leaned forward slightly.

"Let's start simple, shall we? What kind of woman is your type?"

There was a moment of silence so thick you could've buttered bread with it.

I glanced at Joe, his eyes narrowed like he'd just bitten into a lemon. Aleksander turned his head and stared out the window, suddenly deeply invested in the snow-covered buildings of Petrograd. I could feel them both radiating the same thought:

What the actual fuck are you even doing?

Idiots. Cultural illiterates. They'd never had the joy of watching Jujutsu Kaisen. They didn't know the name Aoi Todo, the philosopher-king of friendship and fists. But I did.

And today—I was Todo.

"And before you answer," I added, wagging a gloved finger, "don't give me some boring, generic shit like 'someone nice' or 'someone who's kind and loyal.' That's drivel. That's something you say to a priest before he sends you to war. No. I want something real. Specific. From the heart. A man's type reflects everything about him."

I thumped my chest.

"My type, for example? A proper Georgian woman. Classy. Keeps herself looking good. Keeps the kids in line. Knows how to party when it's time to party, and when we're in public? Always takes my side. Always. But behind closed doors? She'll beat my ego into submission with a wooden spoon and call it foreplay."

I looked over at the young captain.

"Now, your turn. Impress me."

Tukhachevsky didn't blink.

Didn't even hesitate.

He crossed one leg over the other, smoothed a wrinkle from his coat like he was sitting in a café on the Nevsky with a glass of wine instead of sharing an armored car with three men, two of whom. had personally shot people.

And then he said:

"My type?" His voice was cool, confident, and laced with that hint of challenge only young men with dangerous ideas carry.

"A woman who can shoot straighter than me, walk faster than me in boots, and knows how to fake requisition forms by the time I've finished breakfast. Someone who doesn't flinch or cry when I say we might not come back alive. Who irons her own uniform, not mine, because she has her own medals to polish."

I grinned.

He kept going.

"She's ambitious, but not loud about it. Doesn't smile unless it's real. Carries a revolver in her purse and a copy of Tolstoy in her coat. A woman who only calls me 'Misha' when I've done something truly unforgivable. Someone who would smuggle me out of Moscow one day and hand me over to the National Guard the next—if she thought I'd become a threat to the revolution."

A pause.

Then, he added, almost as an afterthought:
"And if she can fence? I'll propose on the spot."

I couldn't help myself.

I let out a loud, delighted cackle that echoed off the car walls.

Joe rolled his eyes and muttered something in Georgian that was probably a prayer or a curse. Aleksander looked like he was considering opening the door and throwing himself into traffic.

I clapped my hands once, sharply.

"Now that's an answer. Goddamn! You've got taste, kid. I like you."

Tukhachevsky smirked, but just a little. Just enough to show me he knew exactly what he was doing.

That was the moment I decided I liked him. Not trust—never trust—but like. A rare thing.

"You pass," I said, leaning back. "For now."

He gave a small nod. "I intend to keep passing, sir."

"Don't call me sir," I grunted. "It makes me feel like a Tsar."

"Then what should I call you?"

"Comrade, obviously." I grinned again. "Or Mikheil. Just not boss—I already have enough men trying to polish my boots with their tongues."

Outside, the streets of Petrograd passed by in quiet reverence. The Winter Palace loomed ahead—dark, vast, and filled with questions.

Inside the car, I rubbed my hands together and chuckled again.

"Now," I said, "next question: if you had to execute a traitor in front of their mother, would you do it before or after dinner?"

Aleksander audibly groaned.

And Joe just sighed.

Tukhachevsky didn't even flinch.

He leaned forward just slightly, resting his elbows on his knees like a man preparing to recite poetry or describe an artillery drill.

"Before dinner."

"Why?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He didn't hesitate. "Because if I do it after dinner, I'll be distracted. Too much blood, stomach's full, might get sleepy. But before? That's clean. Efficient. Besides—" and here he tilted his head slightly, "—the mother will cry harder on an empty stomach. Easier to read her sincerity."

I burst out laughing.

Joe muttered something about "burguois humor" under his breath.

"Goddamn." I said. "You really are a monster."

Tukhachevsky gave a polite shrug. "Only on the clock, Comrade."

I pointed at him like I'd just found a new pet snake that could juggle.

"All right, next one. Imagine you're betrayed. Stabbed in the back by a man you trusted. You've captured him. He's bound. Helpless. Do you kill him with your own hands? Or do you hand him to the Party for a show trial?"

He took a breath.

"Depends," he said. "If it's personal? I kill him myself."

"And if it's political?"

"Show trial," he said. "Make it public. Make it poetic. Let the people see that even betrayal has structure."

"Smart boy," I muttered, narrowing my eyes.

"But," he added, "I'll make sure he knows that I chose the poet who writes his sentencing statement."

That made me grin like a wolf.

"You know, most men sweat when I do this."

"I'm not most men," he said.

I exhaled, slowly. "That's what they all say."

Another bump in the road. Aleksander grunted as the car jolted.

I leaned forward again.

"Fine. Let's go deeper. If your best friend—your comrade, your brother in arms—starts slipping. He's getting lazy. Soft. Dangerous to the movement. What do you do?"

This time, there was a pause.

A long one.

Good.

He looked at me dead in the eye.

"I talk to him first. Once."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"Then I shoot him." His voice was flat now. "Quickly. Publicly, if I must. Privately, if I can. But I do it myself."

"You wouldn't warn him twice?"

"No," he said. "Because if he's really my friend, my comrade, he'd only need once."

We stared at each other for a moment—two men separated by age, rank, and a half dozen war crimes. And yet…

I saw something in him. Arrogance, yes. But beneath that—a coldness that hadn't calcified into cruelty yet. Still flexible. Still growing.

Good.

I leaned back again, smiling.

"All right, another question," I said. "This one's important."

He nodded.

I gave him a moment.

Then said, in the most serious voice I could muster:

"If you could only bring one condiment to the front—one, and only one—which would it be?"

Aleksander nearly choked.

Joe actually turned and looked at me like he wanted to throttle me.

Tukhachevsky didn't blink.

"Mustard."

"Mustard?" I asked. "Explain yourself, Captain."

"Versatile," he said. "Hides the taste of canned meat. Keeps the sinuses clear. Symbol of strength. Napoleon's favorite, too."

"Didn't Napoleon die in exile?"

"Yes," he said. "But with dignity."

I howled. Full belly laugh this time.

"Holy shit. You might make general before you hit puberty."

He smiled, just a little. "That's the plan, Comrade."

The car turned a corner.

The Winter Palace came into view—gray, looming, half-lit by dying sun and revolution.

But I was still thinking.

Captain Tukhachevsky. Bright, dangerous, confident. Good taste in hypothetical executions and mustard. A little too good. A little too poised. Something about him scratched at my brain like a fingernail on glass.

I studied him again. Young. Calculating. Ruthless. Ambitious. Clever in that performative, low-key way. The kind of clever that made you forget how clever he really was. I'd seen it before.

In the mirror.

So I decided to test the most insane theory I had.

A long shot. The kind of idea that only creeps in when you've been an outsider looking into this world for decades.

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, voice low.

"Hey, Tukhachevsky," I said. "Can I ask you a few weird questions?"

He straightened slightly, not alarmed—curious. "Go ahead, Comrade."

I gave him the grin I reserved for people I liked enough to eventually destroy.

"You ever heard of this one novel… Fullmetal Alchemist? What about code Geass?"

He blinked. "Is that… German?"

"Nope. Japanese."

Pause. "No, never heard of it."

"Huh," I nodded. "Okay. What about The Outsiders? It's American. Young adult fiction."

He frowned, puzzled. "We're… talking about American youth literature now?"

"Sure. Humor me."

"No. Not familiar with it either."

"American Idol?"

"Is that… a religion?"

I barked out a short, sharp laugh. Stalin stared at me like I'd grown a second head. Aleksander groaned quietly into his gloves.

I leaned back against the seat, exhaled.

"I'm fucking with you."

Tukhachevsky gave a polite chuckle, but I could tell he was off-balance now. Good. I like to keep people off-balance. Makes them easier to throw.

But inside?

Inside I was disappointed.

Not much. Just a flicker.

For a moment I really thought—maybe. Maybe he was like me. Another ghost from the future stuffed into a character from history and trying to survive. Another lunatic with Google, YouTube and too much anime in his bloodstream.

But no.

He was just smart.

That made him dangerous.

Smart men don't sleep well in revolutions. They either die early or live long enough to become problems. Tukhachevsky might be a general someday. Or a martyr. Or a traitor.

I'd keep him close. Keep him useful. But I'd never forget he existed.

And if I ever had to?

I'd kill him.

The thought made me laugh inside.

God, I sound like Stalin.

I glanced at my brother, sitting in the corner like a human glacier wrapped in wool and suspicion. Always watching. Always calculating. I used to think he was paranoid. But now?

Now I understood.

Power isn't a throne. It's a balance beam above a pit filled with people you used to love.

You survive by assuming everyone will push you. Because eventually, they might.

The car rolled to a stop. The brakes hissed. The door clanked.

We had arrived.

Tukachevsky reached for the handle and opened the door. He held it open for us.

"Let's go see the boss," I said as I walked out. "Maybe he'll give us medals. Or a lecture. Or just a list of people to shoot. And Tukachevsky, you'll be my adjutant from now on. Get ready, I'll be working you to the bone. You might regret sucking up to me."

He gave me a cocky smile. "I'll manage."

Manage to get himself killed if he pisses off Joe. I thought to myself.

 

[Project Black Souls]

Mikheil, the absolute LAD be like:

 

[Xodarap]

Wow just Wow
Man played the role almost perfectly perfectly as a amoral monster but is still budding into a Mikheil copy

 

[iceknight90]

Sorry Bear, but there's a new sidekick in town!

And it's Mikhail 2!

 

[Alenco98]

December 25, 1917
Winter Palace
Petrograd, Russia

We entered the Winter Palace at dusk, stepping over the palace grounds like intruders in a cathedral desecrated by its own parishioners. Stalin walked first, as always—prim, stiff, pretending not to enjoy the sound of his boots on imperial marble. I followed behind, half a step off, as protocol—and fraternal politeness—demanded. Then came my newly minted adjutant, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who towered over me at 6'1 like some Aryan opera villain, all cheekbones and ambition. His face looked like it had been carved with a bayonet and powdered with arrogance. He made me look like his half-Georgian, bastard little brother who had gotten into daddy's vodka stash. Charming.

Trailing in the rear like a forgotten ghost was Aleksander Svanidze—our brother-in-law, our Georgian ballast, part of the old Troika: Stalin, Svanidze, and me. The band was back together. How festive. Like a Christmas special, if Christmas had been co-written by Nietzsche and a pack of jackals.

The throne room was colder than a nun's corpse and dimly lit, with the chandeliers swaying slightly from the draft. The once-lavish imperial hall had been stripped down to its bones—porcelain vases gone, velvet banners burned, and the Romanov throne itself removed. A tragedy, really. I had plans for that chair. Something theatrical. A pig, perhaps, or a performing circus bear trained to relieve itself ceremoniously while the former Tsar was made to watch, nose to filth. But no, the stage had already been cleared for "dignity" and "professionalism." Dull, practical men ruin everything.

The long conference table had been dragged to the center of the room. Around it sat the new lords of Russia, the revolutionary equivalent of the Legion of Doom, if they swapped capes for peacoats and ideals for paranoia. The Bolshevik Central Committee: some of the most dangerous men in the world... and also Joffe.

Attendance was taken. Fifteen voting members, counting myself, Joe, and Svanidze. Non-voters—Teodorovich, Kalinin, Milyutin, and Krestinsky—sat in silence, decorative and inert, like potted plants in a boardroom. They would speak only if spoken to, and even then, preferably not.

I scanned the faces of my comrades. Only a few mattered: Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Sverdlov, Bukharin, Dzerzhinsky, Stalin, myself, and Aleksander. The rest were static. Especially Joffe. God, Joffe. The man was a parasite with a pocket watch, Trotsky's pet parrot who squawked whatever line the messiah of Mezhraiontsy fed him. I would've respected him more if he had a spine, or even just a unique opinion. But no—always nodding, always defending, always fucking Joffe.

Still, my loathing could wait. Tonight's entertainment was the fate of the Romanovs.

Lenin cleared his throat and leaned forward, fingers templed in that signature pose of his—half messiah, half mortician. "Comrade Makarov," he said, his voice calm but sharp, "I would like to formally commend you on the secure and efficient retrieval of the royal family."

I nodded modestly, suppressing the grin clawing its way up my face. "Thank you comrade. How soon can we put them to work in the factories and hospitals? The sooner they're seen sweating in linen smocks, the more valuable they become as living propaganda."

He nodded, approving. "Dzerzhinsky, Svanidze, Bukharin—you'll handle the logistics. Bukharin, have Pravda prepare a series on the Romanovs' arrival and 'transition to proletarian life.' Paint them as penitent, humbled. Icons of the new order. Svanidze, coordinate with local soviets—assign the family to visible and useful positions. Hospitals, textile plants. No desk jobs. Dzerzhinsky, ensure full security. If there's even a breath of defiance, remove the problem... discreetly."

The room murmured assent. Heads nodded. Pens scratched. Revolution by paperwork. I waited a beat, then raised my hand.

Lenin's eyes flicked toward me. "Yes, Comrade Makarov?"

I leaned back in my chair, fingers drumming idly, a picture of casual sadism wrapped in civility. "Just one minor item. The boy, Alexei. He's frail. Hemophiliac. If we put him to physical labor, he'll die. Publicly. And a dead tsarevich is worth less than a humbled, obedient one."

Trotsky raised an eyebrow. "You want us to pamper the princeling?"

"Hardly," I said, smiling thinly. "Make him Lenin's personal secretary. Keep him close. Let the people see the former heir to the empire sharpening pencils and blotting ink for the man who shattered his dynasty. It's powerful optics. It humanizes us. Plus, he's pathetic. The boy's practically translucent. He reminds me of a sad puppy."

No one laughed. I wasn't joking.

Lenin stared at me for a moment—judging whether this was sentiment or strategy. I gave him nothing. Just the smile. That waxy, cold smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

"Approved," he finally said. "Svanidze, reassign one of your clerks to train him."

"Of course," Svanizde said, voice crisp as a saber. He looked at me curiously, as if trying to determine whether I was kind or cruel. As if the difference mattered.

The meeting resumed. Rail schedules. Grain quotas. Murders to be done in the dark and called justice in the morning. But there was another elephant in the room—this one armed, stranded, and bored.

The Czechoslovaks.

Tens of thousands of them, scattered mostly through Ukraine, still clutching the rifles we'd so generously handed out when the Tsar's regime and then Kerensky's provisional circus had promised them independence. They'd been told they were heroes. Now they were unemployed heroes, which is the most dangerous kind. With the war over for us, they no longer had an enemy to kill—except, perhaps, us.

"I'll take care of it," I said as soon as their name crossed Lenin's lips. Quick. Firm. Like a surgeon claiming a tumor for himself. If I pulled it off, I'd win prestige for myself and Joe. If I failed… well, I didn't plan to fail. I don't plan for things that won't happen.

Naturally, Trotsky leaned forward with that predatory smile of his, the one that says I'm about to correct you with historical inevitability.

"And what exactly would your plan be, Comrade Makarov?" he asked, in that grating, smug lecturer's tone. I swear, if Trotsky hadn't been born in Russia, he'd have been one of those Paris professors who never pay their tab and seduce their students.

I smiled back at him like I was selling him a house with a body in the basement.
"Simple," I said. Glancing at Tukachevsky and pointing to the nearby map on the nearby wall. "Bring it here."

Tukachevsky complied like a good dog and handed me the map. Which I then put on the table and pointed north.

"We march them north to Murmansk. The British North Russia Squadron is sitting there right now. They're bored, cold, and waiting for a reason to sail somewhere warmer. Let them ferry the Czechoslovaks out. The Entente will need every rifle and body they can find once Germany throws everything west for one last hurrah before the Americans arrive in force. We get the Czechs out, we get the British fleet out, and in the process we secure Murmansk and the entire northern coast against British landings."

Trotsky leaned back in his chair, smirking like a man watching a dog try to play chess. "You trust the British to just leave?"

"No," I said, "I trust them to go where the war's hotter. And they will, because they're rational when it comes to blood and profit."

I could feel the room shift slightly—half listening, half calculating the angles. I pressed on.

"And once Murmansk is ours, we can move on Finland."

That got their attention. Even Trotsky stopped preening for a moment.

"Yes, Finland," I said, as if I were explaining basic arithmetic to children. "They just declared independence last week remember? Brand new state. Barely any army worth the name and a decent Bolshevik presence. If we leave them alone, the Entente will stroll in and turn Helsinki into a launchpad for the counter-revolutionaries. If we take it now, we secure the north and deny the Entente another foothold. Plus, we get a lovely frozen buffer between us and any entente meddling. Think of it as… early spring cleaning."

Lenin was silent, fingers tapping lightly on the table. Dzerzhinsky's eyes flickered with interest; Sverdlov was scribbling notes like an obedient clerk at a hanging.

Trotsky, of course, had to get the last word in. "Your plan assumes the Czechoslovaks will happily march to the Arctic without complaint. It assumes the British won't decide to stay. It assumes—"

"It assumes," I interrupted, "that I can make them march and that I can make the British leave. Which is why you should leave it to me. You have the military to finish organizing then march, the south is on fire with all the lovely cossacks kulaks, mensheviks and everything else in the middle rising up. You may not like me, but we need each other. You clean the south, I'll take the north then help you out down south."

The tension between us was as familiar as an old wound. Trotsky and I had been circling each other since the revolution began. He saw me as a thug with too much rope; I saw him as a narcissist who mistook his own speeches for divine revelation. We were both right.

Lenin finally spoke, his voice flat. "If you can do it, Comrade Makarov, then do it. The Czechoslovaks are a problem. The British are a potential problem. Finland is a future problem. Remove them all."

Trotsky's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. I leaned back, savoring the small victory. Three birds, one stone. And if the stone was me, well, I always enjoyed the sound of skulls cracking.

Outside, the snow was coming down harder. I imagined the Czechoslovaks trudging through it, rifles slung, boots crunching, their breath freezing in the air while I walked among them like a priest leading his flock to salvation—or exile. The British ships would wait, the Finns would shiver, and somewhere in all that frozen geography, I'd carve a little more space for myself in the map of the new Russia.

The meeting ended not with thunderous applause, but with the quiet shuffle of papers, muttered plans, and the scent of cold tobacco. I lingered behind, chatting with Stalin and Svanidze.

Mostly to remind them that Aleksandra was probably making dinner to celebrate my glorious return from imperial babysitting duty—and that if they didn't show, I'd drag them there by their ears. Aleksander, ever the civilized one, agreed at once. Stalin only grunted—his way of saying "yes" without wasting syllables. They'd probably stay here for hours, hunched over maps, grinding their teeth over imagined conspiracies, before showing up late and pretending they were doing me a favor.

I had other business.

"Tuka," I said, turning to my new adjutant. "With me. Time you met the rest of the family. Well, your new coworkers."

He followed me out of Smolny, through the chill, to the armored car convoy idling outside. The vehicles squatted like iron beetles in the snow, engines purring low and dangerous. We climbed into the lead car, and with a lurch we were off—Petrograd's streets flashing by in a blur of grey stone and half-starved pedestrians who paused to watch us pass, like they were waiting for the Revolution to spit out their name next.

The silence lasted about ten seconds.

"So," I said, leaning back against the cold leather seat, "what's your story, Tuka?"

He glanced at me, wary. "My story?"

"Yes. Your… narrative arc. Your sweeping epic. The tragic opera of Mikhail Tukhachevsky. I like to know the people who might end up taking a bullet for me. Or from me."

He hesitated, then began, his voice clipped, professional. "I was in the Imperial Army. Served on the western front against the Germans. Captured early in 1915."

I made a sympathetic noise. "Ah, the joys of being an honored guest of the Kaiser."

He ignored me. "I tried to escape. Four times."

"Four? That's… enthusiastic."

"Failed each time. Recaptured, punished, watched more closely." His jaw tightened. "On my fifth attempt, I succeeded."

I grinned. "So you're the kind of man who learns from his mistakes."

"Yes. Eventually."

I nodded, approving. "That's good. I like persistence in my adjutants. Means if I send you to steal something and you get caught, you won't just give up and write me an apology letter. You'll try again. And again. Until they either shoot you or you succeed. I can work with that."

He gave the faintest smile. "I imagine you can."

I studied him for a moment. "Do you speak anything besides Russian?"

"French," he said simply.

My smile widened. "Magnifique. Then we can talk without the riffraff eavesdropping. Comment vous êtes-vous échappé mon ami?" (How did you escape my friend?)

He told me in French, his accent crisp—about the forged papers, the night march, the border crossing. I threw in the occasional theatrical gasp, just to annoy him.

When he finished, I leaned back, satisfied. "You'll do fine, Tuka. You have the right combination of determination and poor impulse control. Just try not to get killed before dessert."

He shook his head, amused despite himself. "You're insane."

I patted his shoulder. "Yes, but I'm your type of insane."

The cars rolled through Petrograd's icy streets, past shuttered shops and idle factories, until the looming bulk of Smolny reappeared in the distance, lit from within like a lighthouse in a sea of snow.

As we pulled up, I glanced at Tukhachevsky and smiled. "Welcome to the family business, Tuka. Just remember—ours is the kind of family where you're more likely to inherit a firing squad than a fortune."

We then got out of the car and entered Smolny, making for the wing that served as the Guard Corps' nerve center—a cramped but heavily fortified warren of offices, maps, and men who could kill you with either a rifle or an unconvincing accident. The place smelled of damp wool, cheap tobacco, and the faint metallic tang of too much gun oil.

I made a mental note to ask Lenin for our own building once the war ended and Moscow became the capital. Something grand. Something intimidating. The Kremlin itself, perhaps. Let the peasants whisper that the Georgians had moved in like a conquering clan and nailed the doors shut behind them.

I stepped into my office with Tukhachevsky in tow, gestured for him to sit, and rang the little brass bell on my desk. A few minutes later, a young soldier appeared, back straight, eyes sharp.

"Sir?" he said, saluting.

"Get me my command staff. All of them."

"Yes, sir." He saluted again and disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later, they filed in—my lieutenants, my weapons, my insurance policy against boredom.

Yagoda first: head of security, counterintelligence, and the man responsible for keeping me alive… or at least ensuring I didn't die without paperwork. Lenin had recommended him, which meant he was almost certainly a plant. Related to Sverdlov, too. Definitely there to keep an eye on me. Not that it mattered—I wasn't plotting anything.

"Genrikh Yagoda," I said, gesturing. "Mikhail Tukhachevsky—my new adjutant. Mikhail, this is the man who makes sure nobody poisons my tea or puts a bullet in my spine without an appointment."

"A pleasure," Yagoda said, offering his hand. Tukhachevsky shook it.

Next came Voroshilov, Ter-Petrosian, and Budyonny. Voroshilov and Ter-Petrosian each commanded half of the infantry; Budyonny commanded our cavalry with the enthusiasm of a man who believed horses could win the next century. Stalin had sent me these men—loyalists, friends, drinking companions of his youth. They watched me as much as they served me, which was fine. Everyone watches everyone here. It's how we sleep at night.

"A pleasure," they each said in turn as Tukhachevsky shook their hands.

Finally, Sergo Ordzhonikidze—logistics and supplies. Another Stalin man. Smiled like a genial uncle, but if I asked for six hundred rifles and three boxcars of flour, they'd appear before breakfast.

"Nice to meet you," Sergo said, shaking hands with Tukhachevsky.

Once the pleasantries were over, I stood behind my desk and looked them over. "Gentlemen, we have a new assignment."

I let that hang in the air a moment, watching for the flicker of curiosity—or dread.

"I'll be taking some of the Guard Corps," I continued, "Voroshilov's men primarily, to Ukraine. Our friends, the Czechoslovaks, have been loitering there like an unwanted dinner guest. We're going to retrieve them and escort them north to Murmansk. There, the British North Russia Squadron will take them off our hands and sail them far away, where they can annoy someone else."

A couple of nods. Yagoda's pen was already scratching in his notebook.

"While I'm away," I said, "Budyonny will be in charge of day-to-day operations here. As usual, you'll report directly to Stalin. I expect the cavalry to keep the city looking disciplined.."

They all nodded of course, they may be plants but they knew the job description.

"This is a clean job," I went on. "Two birds with one stone—we remove an idle, armed foreign legion from our backyard, and we give the British a reason to move their fleet out of our waters. Once Murmansk is secured, we can look at Finland. They've just declared independence, and I'm not in the mood to let the British buy themselves a Scandinavian summer home."

They were listening now, really listening, which was the best kind of silence in a room full of killers.

"Questions?" I asked.

No one spoke. Perfect.

I smiled thinly. "Good. Pack for cold weather. And remember—this isn't just an escort. It's a statement. We're not here to ask people to leave Russia. We're here to make sure they never come back."

The meeting adjourned soon after. I told Tukhachevsky he'd be coming with me on this little southern holiday, which seemed to make him absurdly happy—as if I'd invited him to a seaside retreat instead of a march through frostbite and potential mutiny. I dismissed him with a wave, telling him we'd leave a little after New Year's. Coordinating logistics takes time, and besides, I wanted the Czechoslovaks good and restless before I arrived. Restless men make rash decisions, and rash decisions make good examples.

I made my way back to my quarters. Dinner was waiting, the table set like some bourgeois painting we'd all pretend wasn't decadent. It was the usual sentimental affair, and yes, I'd missed them—every voice, every face, every scrap of normalcy that kept me from thinking too much about what I'd done that day.

Keke did her prayer. I joined her, as did the kids and Aleksandra. Ironic, given my growing résumé as a war criminal, but God and I have an understanding—He doesn't judge me for the things I do, and I don't ask Him for help getting away with them.

We ate. Stalin and Aleksander arrived late, which earned them a proper tongue-lashing from Keke. She scolded them the same way she'd scold a child who'd forgotten to wash their hands. Stalin, conqueror of factions, scourge of dissenters, nodded solemnly through it like a schoolboy caught cheating. It wasn't often they were late, but when they were, she made sure they remembered it.

I didn't care much about the food or the conversation. My attention was elsewhere. I was watching my wife the way a hawk watches the only warm thing in a frozen field. Like Quagmire eyeing his next target, if Quagmire had the sense to know when he'd already found the best.

Dinner wrapped up. Normally, I'd linger, maybe smoke with Stalin, maybe tease the children until they rolled their eyes. But duty called—different kind of duty.

Soon enough, I was in my room with her.

We made love like we were making up for lost time. I'd missed her—her scent, her hair, her laugh, her moan, her voice. Everything. Being away from her sharpened the hunger in a way that nothing else could. There's no propaganda photo that can capture that kind of truth.

Afterward, I lay there, her body curled against mine. Even after four children and nearing forty, she was still as beautiful as the day we married. More, maybe, because now she carried the weight of our years together, and wore it like a crown.

I loved her. Which, for me, is more dangerous than hating someone.

The snow was falling outside, muting the city into a soft white silence. I found myself softly singing that song—that city pop Christmas tune by Mikiko Noda from my last life, singing in the snow. The notes felt warm in my chest, absurd and out of place in this century, which only made it sweeter.

"Ohh baby you're my baby… so happy Christmas tonight… shining down free in your eyes… hold me tightly in your sweet arms."

If I had died right then—her arms around me, the snow falling outside, the faint warmth of the meal still in my stomach—it would've been a good death.

---------

Excerpt from The Crisis, February, 1931 Issue— W. E. B. Du Bois

It is a curious and bitter thing that I, a Negro born beneath the shadow of the Stars and Stripes, may tread the boulevards of Moscow without once hearing the diminutive "boy" spat at my back; without being told, in some shop or café, that they "do not serve my kind." Here, in this land so long caricatured by our American press, I may enter where I will, sit where I please, and walk the streets without the furtive terror that my glance, should it fall too long upon a white face, might earn me a rope and a tree.

This is not to paint Russia as a paradise, nor to forget that she, too, struggles with her own sins. But it is to indict, with all the weight of my pen, a Republic that dares call itself the land of liberty while, in its own cities and countryside, the Black man lives as a stranger—suspect in his own home, despised in his own land.

If such courtesy, such human recognition, can be extended to me here, under the red flag and far from the soil of my birth, why is it denied in Georgia or Mississippi? Why in the very streets of New York or Chicago? The shame does not belong to Moscow, nor to me; it rests squarely upon America's conscience. And it is upon that conscience that I now knock, and knock loudly.

For until the Black man may walk unmolested through the streets of his own country—until he may eat at any table, drink from any cup, and meet the gaze of any man without fear—then the words "freedom" and "democracy" are but a hollow echo, mocking the land that utters them.

-------

Note: Imagine Mikheil humming and singing this while executing/torturing prisoners or just commiting war crimes in general:

 

[AAAustinYu]

He's my favourite psychopath, and with good taste!

 

[Xodarap]

Mikheil actually has turned his minders into assets simply from trusting them always acting out his orders he can explain to Lenin as a collar he willingly puts on while making enough rope for his brother Stalin to come from outside then untie any knots MIkheil makes on his potential Noose.