Crossed Fates: Beria and Trotsky
The bastard probably didn’t care much about the first two points.
After all, that was exactly what he had done in real history. The third and final point must have been what truly gnawed at him.
He had thrown himself into the Cheka with everything he had, only for things to end up like this.
“You’re not seriously thinking of running off to Germany alive, are you?”
“Her Imperial Highness has already introduced Modified Capitalism, a compromise with reality. German communism will not last long either. How can well-fed people fall for communism?”
Looking into the bastard’s eyes, I could tell he was sincere.
That slippery, opportunistic glint—the look of a man clinging to the strong because he desperately wanted to live. This was the real Lavrentiy Beria.
He wasn’t some hardline Bolshevik willing to kill me to at least prove the revolution’s legitimacy. No, that wasn’t it at all.
He simply wanted to survive. He wanted another shot at climbing the ladder, and so he was latching onto me—the Tsarina.
“Why not cling to the Duma members instead?”
“Even if the Duma exists, what could possibly matter more in this era than receiving the Tsarina’s recognition?”
He was right. My symbolic value could not be ignored.
Even with the Duma in place, I would still be able to make my voice heard for quite some time.
“Let me be blunt. You’re the kind of man who will attach himself to anyone if it means advancing your career.”
“That is—”
“I’m not criticizing you for it. But men like you are capable of doing anything to succeed. Which also means you have real ability.”
That part, at least, I liked.
There were two types of people who schemed for success. One groveled beside an incompetent monarch, flattering and licking boots to gain power. The other was willing to get their hands dirty, showcasing their actual talents in the process.
This man was, for now, the second type.
“!!”
Communism was already finished in Russia.
Even if he fled to Germany, he had no real roots there. His faction differed from both Roza Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, so he would be treated as an outsider and given the cold shoulder.
And if he tried to run again, the Ohrana—which had suffered greatly under the Cheka—would hunt him to the ends of the earth.
In that case, it made far more sense for him to stay at my feet, licking my soles and securing a path to success through me.
Yes. Very well.
Many must have been disappointed in Lenin.
For those who had joined the revolution dreaming of a truly new and better world, the sight of today’s Russia would have stripped them of any remaining justification.
An Empress who enjoyed the absolute support of the military.
An Empress who had reclaimed Constantinople—the dream Russia had longed for—along with the Mongolian plains and North Manchuria.
An Empress who pursued reforms with a distinctly socialist flavor while guaranteeing workers’ welfare and fair treatment.
A futurist regime racing forward, breathing down the necks of the other great powers in its rush to catch up.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union—ruled by filthy red tyrants stained with violence and authoritarianism.
It was obvious who would win.
And so the quick-witted Beria had chosen this side.
Besides, there were a few people I had been wanting to recruit anyway.
“Enter the Ohrana as a provisional agent. Take charge of eradicating the Georgian Communist Party, then cross the Atlantic. There are people I want you to find—and people I want you to capture.”
Let’s see what you can do.
If you fail, I can always dispose of you.
This ambitious man would surely carry out my orders to the letter in his own way. Good. Let me see just how capable this Beria who has attached himself to the Tsarina truly is.
“Simply give the command.”
“In America, the first is a man named Robert Goddard. He develops rockets. Support his rocket research and persuade him—through words, not force—to come to Russia. The second is Igor Sikorsky. He will be the man responsible for Russia’s future aircraft.”
A man who developed rockets.
The German Wernher von Braun, influenced by him, had gone on to create the V2 and various other rockets.
Yet the missiles made by Robert Goddard had never received proper recognition in America.
That was precisely why I was bringing him here.
Tell him to do everything he can.
Of course, Russia’s situation was still poor, so I couldn’t give him a massive budget. But wasn’t it far more important that someone actually cared about his rockets?
“Then who am I supposed to capture?”
“Trotsky. He should be in Mexico or America. Think you can find him?”
In the original history, Trotsky had fled to Mexico.
Of course, with the timeline and history now completely altered, I couldn’t be certain he had gone there. According to Ohrana reports, Trotsky had slipped through Northern Europe into Germany before vanishing.
Given his personality, he wouldn’t have stayed long in Germany, where his faction clashed with the others. Nor would he have remained in France, where the Commune was barely clinging to life.
He had most likely crossed the Atlantic.
Whether America or Mexico, sending Beria after him seemed like a solid plan.
“So the priority is this Robert Goddard and Sikorsky?”
Correct. I would bring these men in to develop rockets and prepare for the Second World War.
Unlike real history, this would be a clash between a pathetic communist Germany and a Russia that had prepared for everything. Could Germany truly surpass White Russia?
“Yes. Finding Trotsky is secondary. For now, it’s enough to purge every last red inside Russia. Wipe out the Georgian Communist Party completely.”
“I will not disappoint you!”
Good. We’ll see how this plays out.
Take all that cruelty you displayed in the original history and use it for the Russian United States.
If you do that, I’ll at least let you grow old and die in peace.
Of course, if a dog can’t break its old habits, I’ll kill you.
Around this time, Trotsky was being forced into a grand march of his own.
After sailing to Sweden and entering communist Germany, he found he could not accept Roza Luxemburg’s ideology. Her vision of a gentler communist revolution clashed violently with his own radical temperament and with Lenin’s.
Roza Luxemburgism, born from the failure of the Soviet Union?!
To a man who had already fled for his life, this was tantamount to admitting defeat even among fellow communists.
Still, the German Communist Party helped Trotsky flee to another country.
He had briefly considered heading toward the Chinese Communist Party, but they were reportedly powerless at the moment.
And so he arrived in America.
In this land where communism could never truly take root, Trotsky was living a truly miserable existence.
Chiiiirrrrrrrk—
The chicken gripped in Trotsky’s tongs danced wildly in the bubbling oil, frying to a delicious golden brown.
Staring at that chicken and realizing he was no different from it, Trotsky felt rage boiling up from the pit of his stomach.
“Why the hell am I reduced to frying chickens?!”
“Comrade, we have no choice if we wish to evade the Ohrana’s pursuit.”
Indeed.
To escape the Ohrana, Trotsky had been forced to rely on Russian-born communists in America and was now frying chickens.
He couldn’t even stand doing this anymore.
It would have been better to have died that day at the hands of the princess. In Russia now, the Soviet Union was being portrayed as a corrupt regime that talked about revolution but couldn’t even manufacture decent bullets.
They were completely tearing down both the Soviet Union and the revolution itself.
“If I had just died that day, I wouldn’t have to suffer this humiliation!”
“Comrade. There will be new opportunities here.”
New opportunities. Easy for him to say.
Suddenly Trotsky turned his gaze out the window.
Outside the shop stood a cheerful statue of a smiling Trotsky holding a bucket of fried chicken.
Yes. If that counted as an opportunity, then so be it.
If he buried his bones in frying chickens!
Trotsky hated a life like that.
“New opportunities my ass! This is all because of that damned princess!”
As he prepared to spend yet another day cursing the princess as usual, he noticed people shouting and fighting outside.
A white couple and a Black man being beaten beneath them.
“Ha! How dare this Black bastard look at my woman?!”
“I didn’t mean to! I just happened to see her! I wasn’t trying to look at your woman!”
The pervasive anti-Black racism running through American society.
Even after abolishing slavery, discrimination against Black people remained rampant. Beneath the surface of a nation that seemed to be soaring upward lay countless hidden social problems.
Maybe I can use this?
Trotsky’s eyes sparkled.
Yes. His revolution was not over yet—not until the moment of his death.
“Comrade Trotsky.”
“What?”
“You need to fry one more.”
Chiiiirrrrrrrrrk—
Right. First, he had to fry the hateful chicken in front of him.
Georgia
Around this time, a bloody storm was sweeping through the Georgian Republic, now part of the Russian United States.
Thanks to a timely collaboration between Britain and Russia, a pro-Russian government had been established in Georgia and incorporated into the Union.
But beneath the surface, the reds still lingered.
After the Soviet Union’s collapse, they had gone into hiding in Georgia, dreaming of the coming day of revolution.
That dream was now being crushed as White volunteer militias—sponsored by the Ohrana—began to move.
And behind those militias stood Beria.
Beria moved with ruthless efficiency, as if his time among the Bolsheviks had been nothing but preparation for this very day. He trampled his former revolutionary comrades without mercy.
The minimum punishment was torture. The average was immediate execution.
“How can Comrade Beria do this to us?!”
“Kuhuhuhu. Comrade? You worthless scum dare call me comrade? I was a White Army plant inside the Bolsheviks from the very beginning.”
Bang!
The red who had shouted at Beria with bloodshot eyes met his end with a bullet from Beria’s gun.
The one-sided purge of the Communist Party in Georgia, led by the Ohrana and the White militias Beria had organized, was more than enough to brand him as the revolution’s greatest traitor.
Even his fellow Ohrana agents were left speechless.
“I’ve been with the Ohrana a long time, but I’ve never seen a bastard like him.”
“Indeed. To hunt down people who were his comrades until the civil war with such thoroughness…”
Having completely eradicated every last subversive element in Georgia, Beria’s gaze turned far across Europe, toward the Atlantic.
If I can capture Trotsky as well… securing a seat in the Ministry of Internal Affairs wouldn’t be impossible.
His next target was Trotsky.
Of course, he would have to find that rocket person first.
After becoming Tsar, there were suddenly many more things to worry about.
First, the provisional government building in Yekaterinburg was hardly suitable for a Tsar. As soon as reconstruction allowed, I moved into the mostly intact Kremlin in Moscow.
Personally, I thought Yekaterinburg would make a fine capital.
Just think about it.
I had no intention of losing, but if communist Germany declared they would attack Russia, having the capital in Yekaterinburg would be perfect. Even if the German army crossed the border, the mere fact that they had to march all the way to Yekaterinburg would demoralize them before the war even began.
Anyway, back to the current topic.
In this altered history, Vera Gedroits—the female doctor who had treated the White Army of South Russia during the Red-White Civil War—had once again become the imperial physician.
And using the remaining medical records of Nicholas II’s family, she was currently giving me a full physical examination.
Especially since Anastasia had never been healthy. She was particularly concerned about that.
“How is it?”
“How is this even possible… The fact that you have been fighting on the front lines in person is nothing short of a miracle.”
“Is it that bad?”
Still, having her look at me with those eyes made me feel strangely uncomfortable.
That old man—whether he was a god or an immortal or whatever—why did he put me in such a frail body?
“Your Imperial Highness was born with poor health. You already suffered from bunions on your big toes for a long time, didn’t you? Your back muscles were also weak. This is… well, it cannot be explained by medicine. It is almost as if something has been protecting this body.”
Yes. I had heard that while Anastasia had a good personality, her health had been terrible.
In other words, the very fact that I had been running around waging war in her body was already beyond common sense.
Yet now she was saying it had improved?
“You’re saying it’s not bad now?”
“Yes. It should not interfere with daily life. Since you have already fought on the battlefield yourself, I believe Your Imperial Highness understands better than anyone.”
“I suppose so.”
It hadn’t actually felt that difficult.
That damned old man must have turned me into some kind of monster.
Rough Sketch
A portrait of a weary yet determined young woman in an officer's uniform, standing before the Kremlin with a faint, cynical smile.