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

[OverseerEX]

When is our Comrade joining the Central Committee? Or will he first join Dzerzhinsky in the GPU/OGPU? He has to help Lenin create the overall structure of the state and party constitution, after all...

 

[GarfRed]

I wonder what seat or position he is going to get by the end of this? Also the I want to see the faces of the Americans when the telegram comes and just states that the man who killed Kerensky apologized for killing him in a American Car.

 

[Alenco98]

I pledge allegiance, to the party, of the ideals of Marx and Lenin, and to the union, which it upholds, one nation, one party, fighting for the unity of the workers of the world

-The soviet pledge of allegiance, published by comrade Mikheil Jugashvili shortly after the end of the civil war

October 26, 1917 (Old style)
Smolny institute
Petrograd, Russia

I leaned against a column by the Smolny entrance and watched the parade of humanity that marched in and out: soldiers, officials, clerks—humans in state-issued seriousness—the whole lot of them flowing in and out like a very grim tide. A few spared me looks; a couple whispered and pointed, the sort of furtive gestures that say, Who invited him? I smiled, waved like a congenial lunatic, and took another drag from my cigarette.

As I exhaled, the smoke braided into the gray sky and I let my mind rewind the last few months since Joe and I found one another again. When we first met he was fresh from exile, the Bolsheviks were still the underdog in the Petrograd soviet, and I was…well, whoever you are before history gives you a title. Now look at us: government toppled, Kerensky shot—by me, thank you very much—and the nation teetered in our hands like a particularly volatile teapot.

Of course, the teapot was probably going to explode soon. Civil war hung in the air like cigar smoke—inescapable and likely to make someone cough. One of my men, a kid from a junker family who defected the day I took the palace (ambition is such a charming disease), whispered that the old officers were already grumbling before Kerensky hit the floor. Now they were probably plotting counterrevolutions in their sleep. Delightful.

I had plans—oh, the plans. I was due to see Dzerzhinsky; I intended to tell him about these budding mutinies so he could order me to march into their schools and show them how discipline is taught (with executions). Part of me just wanted to storm things, arrest things, and generally rearrange the furniture of dissent immediately. But bureaucracy, that majestic system of people managing people, had other ideas. Yesterday had almost been a shit-show thanks to me, and hierarchies are allergic to spontaneity. So I swallowed my temper and my impulses and waited. The waiting was fun in the way a toothache is fun: educational.

The best part of all this however was that I was no longer a nobody. I had Stalin's ear—probably Lenin and Trotsky's too. If I played my cards right I could nudge policy, tilt events, possibly even rewrite entire footnotes in the future history textbooks. Speaking of the future: Nazis, holocaust, World War II, Cold War—tens of millions dead—mountains of bodies that would make cartographers rethink topography. Charming. My new status felt like a third-division Spanish football team unexpectedly promoted to the first division and was now set to play versus Barcelona and Real Madrid. Which reminded me, when this was all over—if all was ever over—I'd like to go to Spain and watch some real fucking Football. Priorities, right?

I chuckled, which probably read as morbid to any nearby moralists. The image of those future mountains of corpses flitted through my head like an unfortunate postcard. And there I was: a degenerate, immature asshole from the twenty-first century dropped into the middle of this historical shit-show. "What a pain in the ass," I muttered and inhaled again.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and then a Georgian speaking voice emerged. "Who's a pain in the ass?" Joe's voice—calm, like a lake that has swallowed grenades and still looks serene.

"Hey Joe. Is Dzerzhinsky ready?"

"Yes. Follow me."

We threaded into the building, past the same fearful, awed faces who now looked as if history itself might bite them. We reached a heavy door; I assumed the person behind it was Dzerzhinsky, or paperwork dressed as a man. Stalin slipped a hand onto my other shoulder, close enough to be paternal and worrying enough to be tactical.

"Remember," he said, "everything you do or say reflects on me. Don't fuck things up and make me look bad."

I smiled, shrugged with the casual innocence of somebody who already had one or two things dangerously bent in his pocket. "Please. You and I both know I haven't fucked up so far."

"Keep it that way," he said, and the hand tightened, which was either encouragement or a warning. Both suited me.

The door sighed open and let me into a room that could charitably be called spare. A battered desk, three chairs that had seen better revolutions, and a single lamp throwing a pool of tired light. Behind the desk Dzerzhinsky sat like a punctuation mark: abrupt, immovable, the room's only human full stop. The rest of the space belonged to paperwork—an empire of paper, all of it being politely strangled by his pen.

I closed the door behind me, inclined my head in that courteous way people do when they're trying to look smaller than the trouble they've just caused. "Comrade Dzerzhinsky."

"Have a seat, Comrade Jugashvili." His voice was flat, not unkind—more like a statement of policy. I sat opposite him. We'd exchanged a few words back when we were both tasting Kresty's brick walls after the July Days; he'd been a man of few syllables then, and that core of silence hadn't softened. If looks could bore holes, his would have drilled straight into the underside of my soul and left me more honest than I felt.

"Comrade Dzerzhinsky, to what do I owe the honour of a one-on-one?" I asked, keeping the tone breezy, which is to say I grinned like someone who enjoys being dangerous in a cardigan.

"To assess you." He tapped his pen. The sound was businesslike—the sound of decisions being made at the scale of lives.

"Assess me?" I let the word hang, like a particularly enjoyable noose.

"Yes." He nodded once. "Comrade Lenin has put me in charge of managing counterrevolutionary activity. After yesterday's events…and your service over the last months…I am interested in recruiting you to serve under me."

Well. Not a bad week's work: one coup, one assassination, and now an interview with internal security. New regime, new jobbing opportunities.

"What would the job consist of?" I asked, as though I were asking whether the office came with coal or electric heat.

"Putting down and repressing counterrevolutionary activity," he said, the understatement of the century. He might as well have said "making tea."

"So, a Soviet Okhrana, then?" I raised an eyebrow. It is important to introduce your metaphors with a wink. It keeps people on their toes.

He scowled. "Not exactly."

"Please." I waved a hand. "No need to bullshit me. Revolutions demand unpleasant housekeeping in their initial stages. If you require a willing butcher, I can arrange an apron."

He didn't flinch. He made a note—small, precise. He liked details, and I liked that he liked details. It made him predictable, which is useful.

"A little exam," he said finally. "Imagine you supervise a city. You capture a prisoner with vital information about an imminent attack. He stubbornly refuses to speak. He spits in your face. What do you do?"

He was probing for gentleness—wanted to know whether I slept with a conscience. The obvious answer would have been to describe some textbook brutality. But that is the language of amateurs and dinner-party fascists. I decided to show him the mind behind the hands.

"Well it depends, is he a local from the town? Do I know who his friends and family are?"

"Let us assume you do."

"Then its simple, I bring him into a room, have my men bring out tools, knives, scalpels, hammers, pincers, needles, cleavers. Then I bring his family and friends in, his mom, wife, lover, father, children, anyone and everyone remotely related to him. Then I tell him, 'tell me everything you know. Or I will have my men work on your mother, then your children, then your wife. I will have them all tortured, beaten and used by my men for their amusement until they finally do the world a kindness and die'. Torture is too simple, inefficient, if you torture a man he will do anything to make it stop. If you have their family in your hands. He will do anything to protect them, and you can keep them around to ensure the information was accurate."

Dzerzhinsky didn't say anything. He merely wrote down what I said onto his paper. He looked at me once he finished. "And if you can't get access to anyone. What if he is alone, no friends, family, or other co-conspirators?"

"A mix of good cop and bad cop. One day I torture him until he can't handle it, another I tend to him, bathe him, fix up his wounds, another day I merely starve him and deprive him of sleep. A constant cycle of uncertainty to keep him off balance and allow more leverage."

"And if time is running short?"

"Same as above, but with a faster time-table."

He set the pen down. "Enough. You may go now, Comrade Jugashvili."

"One more thing," I said, because one always keeps a last thing in reserve—an ace, a joke, a detonator.

He lifted his head. The blankness at the edge of his face sharpened into interest. "Tell me."

"The Junkers," I said. "Several defected yesterday when I took the palace. I've spoken to some of them. Many of their former comrades in the academy keep reactionary sentiments and are from the aristocracy, the same aristocracy we oppose. They're probably going to try something. With your permission, I'd like to place men around their academies and have a chat with them."

"Do as you see fit," he said. "However, I want them crushed the moment they even show a shred of defiance."

"As you command."

He dismissed me like a man signing off an execution roster, and I stood, bowed once more for ceremony and left. The corridor smelled of wet wool and boots—normal smells for revolutionary mornings. I felt my cigarette pack in my pocket as an old, ridiculous comfort. There was one left. My mother, in my previous life, used to tell me smoking was bad for you in the way saints advise sinners—earnest and irritating. She was right, of course, which is why I shrugged, laughed softly at her ghost, and tossed the pack onto the floor of Smolny.

A small, pointless act of rebellion against a city already breathing revolution. Then I walked away—leaving paper, pens, and the new machinery of power to do their work—while I went to get my men and crush the silly little junkers.

October 27, 1917 (Old style)
Outside Mikhailovsky Castle
Petrograd, Russia

The midnight moon hung over the city, pale and a little stingy with its light—waning, like a miser counting change. I'd pulled together several Red Guard units under Dzerzhinsky's authority: lads from Vyborg who smelled of brine, dockworkers with oil under their nails, and a handful of factory men who could dismantle a machine with a glare. There was something intoxicating about authority: point a badge and a bloodied pistol in the right direction and strangely obedient humans appear. Add to that the small reputational boost of having shot the unpopular prime minister yesterday, and people followed orders almost as if they liked me.

I had roughly six hundred men cupped around the castle; the Vladimir Military School and the School of Ensigns of the Engineering Troops were ringed by another five hundred apiece—Red Guards with rifles, bayonets, and the kind of cheerful brutality that does paperwork later. My new junker subordinate, Sergey Megeryev, swore those academies were where the Junkers were made—fancy boys in neat uniforms, taught how to look commanding at balls and murderous on parade grounds. Charming.

So here I was: me, a makeshift general with a cigarette habit I'd acquired like a bad souvenir and was now trying to kick, surrounding a clutch of military academies full of young officers who, according to military logic, were effectively just stupid children in epaulets. I chewed my thumb—instinct, anxiety, nicotine withdrawal; take your pick—then accepted a white flag from one of my sergeants. White flags make you feel diplomatic even as you prepare to do unpleasant things.

I stepped out of our barricade, boots crunching on mud and the gusts of discarded slogans, and marched up to the castle gates waving the flag like a man who'd misunderstood what a parley looked like. "I am here to have a parley!" I bellowed, which is a public service announcement in case anyone was hoping for theatrics.

There were silhouettes on the walls: machine guns trained, rifles cocked, fingers that could've once written letters now curled on triggers. Cute. Hope is an ugly accessory on soldiers; it never matches the uniform.

"We're sending someone out!" someone called from within.

A few minutes later the castle doors eased open and a man emerged—middle-aged, bald, with a handlebar mustache and the facial expression of someone permanently displeased with the world's playlist. He wore disdain like a sash. "And who am I speaking with?" he demanded.

"Mikheil Jugashvili," I announced, with all the modesty of a man who'd recently been on the front page of more than one poster. "The man who murdered your prime minister yesterday. Your name?" I smiled and held his gaze. You could almost see his scowl harden into something animal and offended.

"I am Georgy Petrovich Polkovnikov." He spat. "And you have some nerve to show yourself like this."

"And you have the nerve to remain a counterrevolutionary after the government's been overthrown." I patted his shoulder, a casual intimacy designed to be insulting and oddly paternal. "Here's my offer. Three options. One: any of you who want to join me — go on, keep your ranks, we'll feed you, give you ammo, and you might even enjoy it. Two: you can leave the city with your families and go back to your lands. Three: you can fight. If you choose that, I'll order my men to kill you to the last man. One hour to decide. Tell your men exactly what I've offered."

He went pale, then red, then moral outrage; a spectrum of offended monarchism. "You're a monster. A butcher."

"Yeah, I get that a lot. One hour, or I shoot everyone. Those are the parameters. Play fair." I turned and walked back to the barricade, handing the flag to a man who looked pleased to be involved in something history-shaped.

"Did your friends deliver the messages to Vladimir and the School of Ensigns?" I asked Megeryev without looking at him.

"Yes, Comrade Jugashvili."

"Good. Now we wait."

Waiting has a taste: copper, anticipation, and a little sweetness if you like watching people decide their value. I lay down on the cold ground, boots pressing into the dirt, and stared up at the waning gibbous moon. It threw a thin silver on our circle—romantic, if you ignore the part about imminent slaughter.

My mind drifted to the throne room, to the faces that had been carved into my memory that day: Lenin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Trotsky, Sverdlov, Bubnov, Milyutin, Dzerzhinsky, Muranov, Rykov, Kalinin, Bukharin…names that had been textbook notes until February turned them into people. I'd only known Stalin, Trotsky, and Lenin from school; the rest were abstract until they weren't. Dzerzhinsky, of course, was a walking interrogation manual. The more I thought of it, the tighter the idea squeezed my ribs: these names, these faces—where had the others gone? Why had I never been taught about them? The simplest, ugliest conclusion leaked through: maybe Stalin killed them all.

The thought chilled me like a draft under a door. Would he kill me? His own brother? We'd shared everything: I'd pulled him out of the path of a carriage, I took the beating meant for him from our father, dipped my hand into his fever when smallpox nearly took him, helped him with Russian and seminary lessons. I'd even raised his son for a time and was arranging a marriage that would bind our families further. Loyalty is the strangest capital: you spend it, and you hope it pays dividends.

But history doesn't care for past investments. I couldn't run to America anymore; the line between exile and spectator had blurred; there was no ticket home. The only honest way forward was through—through blood, through bureaucracy, through choices that tasted like pennies and frightened pigeons.

I drew my knees up against my chest and stubbed out a mental cigarette on the reality of it all. Somewhere beyond the gate, men debated their options; somewhere above, the moon watched like an indifferent magistrate. I laughed softly to myself—half a joke, half a small, resigned prayer—and kept waiting.

About twenty minutes later the castle doors sighed open again and a line of cadets filed out, hands up like apologetic choirboys. "Let them through!" I shouted as they reached our positions. We processed them fast — the sort of efficiency you only get when everyone's future is on the line. About a third wanted to join us, eager or sensible; the remaining two-thirds wanted only to shuffle home to their mothers and Sunday suppers. We frisked them, stripped off weapons and ammo, and sent the walking ones on their way with the tacit promise that the city gates would still be standing when they got there.

The ones who wanted to switch sides did not get to keep their toys. I had their rifles taken and marched straight to Smolny with a squad of my men; ideological education is a time-consuming business, and there are worse things than being bored into orthodoxy. I did run a quick interrogation — conversational, if you will — and extracted a headcount: roughly 230 men in the castle, of which some ninety had already defected or simply decided desertion was preferable to heroics. Not bad, I thought. Numbers are everything until they aren't.

Megeryev returned about half an hour later wearing the sort of face people wear when they're delivering bad news that is, in fact, perfectly expected. He checked his watch like a man who kept time for the revolution. "Comrade Jugashvili — time's up."

I nodded, took back the white flag, and strode to the barricade where the mud met purpose. "This is Jugashvili!" I bellowed. "Polkovnikov — last chance! Once you fire, we will not spare you. Mercy is cheap now, but it's still available: think of your mothers, your wives, your children. Go home today and argue with history another day!"

"Go fuck yourself!" he roared from the parapet, which is a respectable, if predictable, reply.

"Are you sure about this?!" I called up, directing it not at him so much as to the men behind his guns. "To the men on the wall — you can still betray your commander. Bring him down and you and your comrades will be spared."

Their answer came like a drumbeat. "Never!"

I smiled, which felt faintly obscene under a moon that had already seen worse. "So be it, then," I murmured, which was the nicest way I could find to say, prepare to die. I shrugged as if shrugging off old clothes, turned toward my men and let my voice do the work it had practiced on many other nights.

"Get ready to assault the castle."

"Yes, sir." One of them snapped a salute with a kind of wet, hungry precision. The sort of salute you give when you expect to be given orders that will make you famous or infamous — the market will be open either way.

Note: As you can see, Mika will be a Chekist

 

[OverseerEX]

But history doesn't care for past investments. I couldn't run to America anymore; the line between exile and spectator had blurred; there was no ticket home. The only honest way forward was through—through blood, through bureaucracy, through choices that tasted like pennies and frightened pigeons.

Click to shrink...

I mean, he still could. It would be hard, especially since he has family, and to bring them would more than double the risks involved, but it could still happen. On the other hand, even if he did, would the intelligence agencies and states leave him be? I think not. Unless he can barter some sort of asylum for himself and his family. Then with modern knowledge, become filthy rich, and live life to the fullest. Maybe as a last resort if all else fails.

 

[Alenco98]

Glory to the first man who dies!

-Mikheil Jugashvili addressing his troops on the eve of the battle of Petrograd, 1919

October 27, 1917 (Old style)
Outside Mikhailovsky Castle
Petrograd, Russia

The afternoon sun sat on us like an indifferent overseer, baking the courtyard of Mikhailovsky Castle and spotlighting the pile of bodies we'd made of it. True to my word, I had them all killed — even after they surrendered, after the pleading and the stubborn, shameful last-minute heroics. Mercy would have been interpretive; sparing them would've painted me as a man who reneged on his bargains. Reputation, like terror, has value.

My right shoulder pulsed under the bandage where some lucky bastard's bullet had struck true. I rubbed it absentmindedly, the motion more superstition than relief. Another nicotine craving crawled up my throat. I chewed my thumb instead, an old, ridiculous habit, and told myself I'd be a better man tomorrow — or at least a slightly less twitchy one.

Megeryev came up, face clean and serious as if this all were paperwork. "Comrade Jugashvili," he said. "Reports from the other schools: They're secure."

"Good." I nodded, feeling the prose of victory in the stiffness of my jaw. "Have the men here and at the other two schools buried. They fought like soldiers; give them that. Afterward, your squads can rest. You've earned it."

"Yes, sir."

I left the courtyard and stepped into sunlight that felt absurdly ordinary for a day that had tasted of gunpowder. Outside, Patruchev waited by a truck with half a dozen men who looked at me the way people look at rare animals in cages. I climbed in without ceremony. "Get me to Smolny." I ordered.

We rumbled through the city. Everyday life unfolded around us — vendors hawking bread, a child chasing a ragged hoop — and every so often people glanced our way. Some red guards waved, a few women craned their necks, even a child pointed with the brave, blunt curiosity of youth. Celebrity has its perks: strangers' eyes on you, a new kind of applause. It also has liabilities. I thought, not without grim amusement, of the extra guards I'd soon need for my family. Lovely.

We pulled up at Smolny about fifteen minutes later. As I stepped from the truck I saluted the Red Guards posted at the entrance. "Hail Lenin," I called, and they answered in kind, their voices neat and automatic as a new chorus. They raised their arms as I passed inside — a ritual performed by men who'd practiced obedience into an art — and I walked into Smolny feeling simultaneously triumphant, tired, and faintly ridiculous, like a man who'd just survived a storm and realized his hat was slightly askew.

October 27, 1917 (Old style)
Smolny Institute
Petrograd, Russia

He entered the room like he owned the damn place. That same swagger, that same bright, childish grin, and that damned salute. "Hail Lenin!" Mikheil shouted, raising his arm like some actor on a stage.

The words cut through the air like an axe splitting wood. The others laughed softly — Trotsky with his fox's smirk, Kamenev hiding amusement behind a cough, even Lenin allowed himself the faintest chuckle. He felt his jaw tighten. Did he not realize how foolish that looked? Did he not see how such theatrics cheapened the solemnity of their victory?

He forced a polite smile, though his stomach twisted. To them, it was just Mikheil being Mikheil — the "hero of the Winter Palace," the "man who led the charge." To him, it was another reminder that he could make a mockery of himself and still be adored for it.

Lenin turned toward him, beaming. "Comrade Jugashvili," he said warmly. "I assume the military academies have been repressed?"

"Yes, sir," Mikheil replied, his voice crisp and confident. "The three main academies within the city have been secured. The defenders slaughtered to the last man. They won't trouble us again."

"To the last man?" Trotsky raised an eyebrow, trying to look moral while sitting on a throne of corpses.

"Yes, Comrade Trotsky. I gave them an hour to surrender, defect, or desert. A third took the offer. The rest refused — brave, but foolish. Hence their status as corpses."

He said it so casually — like he was discussing the weather. The room went quiet for a moment. Even Dzerzhinsky looked impressed, which irritated me more than it should have.

"Unfortunate," Trotsky muttered, "but necessary."

"Indeed," Lenin agreed, nodding slowly.

Then Dzerzhinsky spoke — the vulture always waiting to swoop. "If I may add something," he said.

Lenin gestured for him to continue.

"I have been... impressed with Comrade Mikheil Jugashvili's efficiency. I would like to make use of his talents in the suppression of counterrevolutionary activity. We spoke yesterday, and his methods are exactly what I require."

His hands clenched under the table. Of course he wanted him. They all did. Trotsky admired his audacity, Lenin admired his charisma, Dzerzhinsky admired his ruthlessness — and he, his older brother? He had to sit here and pretend to admire him too. But they didn't understand. Mikheil wasn't just another comrade. He was his. His brother. His shadow. His responsibility. To use him would be like stealing from him, and no one stole from Stalin without paying the price.

He leaned forward, tone polite but cold. "Comrade Dzerzhinsky should remember that Mikheil is my second-in-command. Replacing him would take time — time I don't have."

Trotsky glanced up with that smug, knowing expression. "A fair assessment," he said. "Perhaps a dual appointment, then? Comrade Jugashvili could serve both roles — second-in-command to Stalin's Red Guards, and deputy to Dzerzhinsky in security matters. It would serve us all."

Lenin nodded. "Yes. Let it be so. Stalin's Red Guards have proven invaluable, especially under Comrade Jugashvili's direction."

He nodded automatically, but the words burned in his chest. Under Comrade Jugashvili's direction. Not his, but Mikheil's.

Everyone in the room knew who had taken the Winter Palace. Who had improvised the storming, who had rallied the men, who had turned chaos into triumph, who killed Kerensky. He didn't do it. It was his brother.

Mikheil stood silently beside the table, hands clasped behind his back, that familiar smirk tugging at the corner of his lips — the same smirk he had worn as a boy when he outdid him in school, when their mother praised him for being the clever one. That damned smirk again. He often dreamed of wiping it from his face. Yet he couldn't, he had saved his life, he sent him money when he languished in Siberia, he gave him a home to stay when he returned to Petrograd again, his red guard gave him power and prestige.

Inside, a pit opened in his gut. If this went on, if Mika gained more prestige and glory. They would all realize that he was nothing more than a name attached to his deeds — the "commander" who never commanded, the "strategist" who borrowed someone else's victories. And when they did, they would discard him like a used cartridge.

But Mikheil? He would still smile. He would still charm. He would still walk through the ruins of the old world as if it were his garden.

Lenin's voice pulled him back. "In that case, Comrade Jugashvili, you are dismissed for today. Report to us tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." He saluted again, light glinting off his belt buckle. "Long live the Revolution."

He turned to leave, and for a moment, his eyes met his. There was no mockery there, only something worse — affection. He nodded slightly, as if to say, You'll always be my older brother, Joe. What's mine is yours.

The door closed behind him, and the room felt colder. The others began speaking again — about ministries, committees, decrees. I nodded, contributed when expected, but my mind was elsewhere.

He has their eyes now, he thought. Their praise, their trust, their future.

A strange thought crept in then, quiet but poisonous: Perhaps I was the impostor all along — just a man standing in the light cast by his brother's flame.

October 27, 1917 (Old style)
Smolny Institute
Petrograd, Russia

The corridor smelled of boiled cabbage, wet wool, and the faint, bureaucratic tang of earnest papers. I padded out of Smolny's main room, yawning like a man who hadn't slept since the Tsar still had his hat. These last few days had been a brutal mixtape of sidewalk naps, toppling a government, shooting a prime minister (that was me—front page material), embassy visits, and a bewildering sequence of interviews. What I wanted—desperately—was a warm bed and a sleep so long it would erase the sound of men shouting and the taste of gun metal.

As I made for the gates, a cluster had gathered—a knot of soldiers arguing with women in Red Cross armbands. The center of the group was a tall blond woman whose Russian was excellent if one could still hear the foreignness in the vowels. Natural curiosity is a dangerous thing; I drifted closer.

"What's happening here?" I asked. The soldiers straightened the way curtains pretend to be innocent when someone opens the window.

"Comrade Jugashvili?!" They snapped to attention. "Hail Lenin!"

"Hail Lenin," I returned, performing the part because the uniforms liked being acknowledged. I looked at the women more closely. "Name. Affiliation. Business?"

"My name is Elsa Brändström," the tall woman replied in accented but precise Russian. "I am from the Swedish Red Cross. We wish to petition the Central Committee to continue our humanitarian operations in Russia despite the recent change of government."

I lifted an eyebrow. "And what do these operations entail?"

"We provide medical treatment to German and Austrian prisoners of war across Siberia," she said. She spoke with the quiet steadiness of someone used to holding hands through blood and details.

"Understood." I glanced at the soldiers. "Let miss Elsa through. The rest of her group can wait out here."

"Sir—"

"Did I fucking stutter?" The guards shuffled aside like curtains with better manners.

"Follow me," I said to Elsa, and we walked back into Smolny. My hair had the attractive, accidental dishevelment of a man who'd been in a bar fight with fate. "Apologies for looking scruffy. Overthrowing a government and shooting a prime minister is exhausting work."

"Are you joking?" Elsa asked, incredulous.

"Wish I were." I grinned—never a good thing to do to nervous people. "I'm the fellow who put a bullet through Kerensky and killed him. I stopped his car out of boredom, and—well—history happens. Then I improvised a coup and tidied up a few revolts with the usual civic enthusiasm. Exhausting, but efficient."

She regarded me the way one regards a charmingly deranged animal—equal parts fascination, revulsion, clinical curiosity, all of this wrapped around moral alarm. "Judge me if you must," I said easily. "If I don't, someone less tasteful will."

We reached the Central Committee door. I knocked. The door swung open and Lenin peered out like a man asking why the cat had brought in a dead pigeon.

"Comrade Jugashvili? Why are you here? Who is this woman?" he asked, bewildered in that efficient sort of way that suggested he'd rather reorganize a country than be curious about small talk.

"She's miss Elsa Brandstrom of the Swedish Red Cross," I said. "She wants to know if the red cross will be allowed to continue medical relief for POWs in Siberia."

Lenin's expression synchronized from puzzled to furious like a clock striking. "Comrade! You don't parade foreign agents into the Revolution's nerve center without clearance!"

"She's unarmed, and she's Red Cross," I replied, calm as a man ordering tea. "I could her right now and her people outside if you want." I drew my pistol and clicked it with theatricality that would make the dramatists proud. The Red Cross workers went very small. I chuckled. "So, what would you prefer: execution or authorization?"

The Central Committee offered the usual chorus line of opinions. Dzerzhinsky liked bullets; Trotsky preferred paperwork with a side of rhetoric. They volleyed for ten minutes and then Lenin cut through the noise with a practical scalpel. "Let them operate," he decided, "but Dzerzhinsky will supervise them. We cannot allow counterrevolutionaries to hide behind humanitarian work."

"Shall I supervise them then?" I asked, offering the sins of convenience like gifts.

"They are your responsibility," Lenin said. "But Comrade Jugashvili—if anything goes wrong, it will be on your head."

"Understood." I swallowed the implied guillotine and the lighter quip about career advancement.

We left Smolny together, the heavy doors closing behind us like a verdict. Outside, I turned to Elsa and her small delegation. "Apologies for the pistol theatrics. Revolutions favor those who appear eager to apply violence—it's an ugly truth. Luckily, I am quite enthusiastic when necessary. But I can also be reasonable."

"Right," Elsa said, the one-word admission of someone who'd just met a man who might be both savior and psychopath.

"I'll visit you tomorrow to arrange details." I tilted my head toward the city's map of streets. "Where are you based?"

"Millionnaya Street—near the Field of Mars," she replied.

"Perfect. I'll see you then." I offered that brittle kind of smile that could either mean comfort or warning. As we walked away I felt the ridiculous mix of fatigue and purpose wrap around me: a man who'd shot a prime minister, carried it through a revolution, and still had to pretend to be a reasonable host to humanitarian visitors. Life, I thought, was gloriously inconvenient.

October 28, 1917 (Old style)
Mikheil's apartment
Petrograd, Russia

I woke up yawning, stretching like a man who'd been hit by history and survived the concussion. I rolled out of bed, pulled on a shirt that didn't smell too revolutionary, and walked into the living room.

Keke was sitting there reading her Bible — still trying to save my soul after all these years — while the kids were sprawled on the floor, turning wooden toys into artillery.

"Mama," I asked, scratching the back of my neck, "where's Maria?"

"In the kitchen," she said without looking up. "Making lunch."

"Lunch?" I blinked. "What time is it?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"Damn, I slept that long?"

She gave me that maternal look that could bend steel. "What did you expect? You haven't slept properly in days."

"Fair," I said with a chuckle. Killing prime ministers and improvising coups really took it out of you.

I walked over and hugged each of my kids in turn — Iosif, Kato, Aleksander, Besarion — and, of course, Yakov. Technically my nephew, but at this point, semantics were for people not raising Stalin's kid.

I sat on the couch and watched them play. Yakov and Kato were laughing together — sweet little Kato, my insurance policy in pigtails. Maria had named her after her dead sister — conveniently Stalin's dead wife — and, even more conveniently, she looked like a miniature version of her.

The moment I realized Joe was Stalin, the survival instincts kicked in. If I wanted to make it past the first round of purges, I needed leverage. And leverage, in Russia, was spelled family. So I started planning.

Kato would marry Yakov. It was simple. Horrible, yes. Immoral, absolutely. But practical? God, yes.

I sent her to an all-girls school, forbade her from talking to any boys except her brothers and Yakov. Did the same for Yakov — all-boys school, no female friends, no distractions. When Kato turned seven, I even had her start sharing a bed with him. Disgusting? Certainly. But so was dying in Siberia. I wasn't pimping my daughter out for money — just survival.

The wedding would be perfect. Kato would wear her namesake's wedding dress, have the same hairstyle, the same flowers. Stalin would drown in nostalgia, too sentimental to kill me without strangling his own grief. And me? I'd be his right hand, his Beria (I'd seen death of Stalin once, bite me) — minus the pedophilia, obviously. Every revolution needs a monster; I just planned to be one with better taste.

I leaned back on the couch, still groggy, yawning as the smell of boiled beets crept through the air. Maria emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

"About time you woke up," she said, half smiling.

"Hey," I replied, "killing a prime minister and pulling off a coup takes effort. I deserved the nap."

She rolled her eyes. "Not in front of the kids."

Iosif — my little namesake of irony — turned to me, wide-eyed. "Papa? What's Mama talking about?"

"We'll talk when you're older," I said, trying to sound mysterious and responsible.

"Oh, come on, Papa—"

"Soso, listen to your father," Keke cut in, voice sharp as a priest's sermon.

"Okay, Grandmama," he muttered, sulking back to his toy soldiers.

I looked at Maria. "What's for lunch, sweetheart?"

"Borscht and rye bread."

"Great." I rolled my eyes. "Truly, Petrograd's finest dining experience."

She shot me a look. "And how exactly is it my fault the city has a food shortage?"

"Fair," I shrugged, lighting a cigarette. "Still, you'd think a man who toppled a government could at least get a decent meal out of it."

The kids kept playing. Maria went back to her kitchen. And I sat there — revolutionary, father, accidental statesman — thinking how absurd it all was. The world was changing outside, but inside, it was still borscht for lunch.

 

[iceknight90]

The world was changing outside, but inside, it was still borscht for lunch.

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Mikhail: (Sighs in depressed fatalistic Russian) Can't have shit in Petrograd.

 

[OverseerEX]

Glory to the first man who dies!
-Mikheil Jugashvili addressing his troops on the eve of the battle of Petrograd, 1919

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FOR THE EMPEROR, aahh... Comrade, don't shoot, I meant, FOR LENIN!!!

To him, it was another reminder that he could make a mockery of himself and still be adored for it.

Click to shrink...

They hate us cause they ain't us. Bro is jealous of our Mika's happy personality.