Why Is the General Secretary Here?
Why is the General Secretary showing up here?
“Right, then. This is our plan.”
One week before departure, I gave a brief rundown of the Chevron acquisition and the schedule for meeting Lenin in Switzerland.
“So we prop up the Bolsheviks in order to weaken Russia… Pasha, your plans always seem to leave our ordinary thinking in the dust.”
Is it that impressive?
“Anyone can imagine backing an opposition to weaken an enemy state.”
“Even so, the idea of joining hands with the Bolsheviks is a bit much.”
Well, it was a meeting of right and left, after all.
Strictly speaking, we aren’t exactly right-wing ourselves.
“Aren’t you afraid of their agents?”
Russian intelligence was certainly terrifying. Just meeting them felt like it would end with your throat cut.
“That’s why I brought you along. You’re the one who’ll go talk to them.”
“…What?”
Ismet’s eyes went round.
Did you think I padded the roster with you for no reason?
“I-I’m going?”
“Your face isn’t known yet.”
That was true. Better a single artillery officer like Ismet than me—already famous as the leader of a revolution. If I went and got caught by the Russians, an international incident would be unavoidable.
“Scared? You can still run if you want.”
“…No, sir. I’ll carry it out.”
Oh? The kid’s got some guts.
“Honestly, you don’t need to be that afraid of Russian agents.”
“What do you mean?”
“Their government’s so incompetent that even if word got out I’d met Lenin in Switzerland, the Tsar wouldn’t even care.”
“Come on. No government could possibly be that useless.”
Even I found it hard to believe—intelligence services reporting something and the supreme ruler simply ignoring it. From Ismet’s point of view I probably looked like a man with a death wish.
But what can I do? It’s the truth.
Right now Nicholas II was completely absorbed in caring for Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia. And the man who “treated” the boy was the infamous mystic Rasputin—a story everyone knew. Rasputin had no capacity whatsoever for governing a state. A weak, incompetent emperor had fallen into the arms of a charlatan whose head was full of flowers.
Our time to strike back was drawing near.
America.
The place that wore the word “dream” better than any other. A land that took whatever you desired and stamped it with longing and admiration until it became something to affirm. And of all its cities, we had come to the most advanced, the most progressive of them all.
“So this is New York?”
“Whoa…”
Beside me the other two were staring around with wide, astonished eyes. Day one: sightseeing in New York. Day two: meet Rockefeller. Then a week of roaming the city before setting off for Switzerland.
“Get all the gawking out of your system now. When we see Rockefeller, don’t act like country bumpkins.”
“You’re saying that while looking plenty excited yourself.”
“Of course I’m having fun!”
The twentieth-century America I had only ever seen in movies and books was standing right in front of me. How could I not be happy?
There are so many places I want to visit—where do I even start?
It still felt unfair that I had never gotten to see twenty-first-century New York before being dumped into the twentieth, but for now I decided to enjoy the present.
“Broadway first!”
“….”
“….”
Why does the atmosphere feel like this?
The long rows of high-rises and neon signs helpfully announced that this was New York, yet the people themselves seemed listless and dark. A strange mixture of noise and silence hung over everything, and it was hard to bear.
“Excuse me—has something bad happened around here?”
“…Oh, are you travelers?”
I asked a woman nearby. She gave our appearance a quick once-over before answering.
“There was a big fire at a factory near here yesterday. Lots of people died, I hear.”
She sounds awfully casual about it for something that bad.
I bought a paper from a newsboy and read. The same story appeared in greater detail.
Fire at the Asch Building… The Doors Were Locked
Many Workers Perish in Triangle Garment Factory Blaze
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
I saw a documentary about this once.
This was the spark that finally forced American society to confront workers’ rights and workplace safety. In its wake came laws mandating safety equipment and expanding labor protections.
Going there now wouldn’t accomplish much, but maybe—just maybe—I could get in early on people who would become giants later.
“Let’s head to the site.”
The distance between Broadway and the burned building was shorter than I expected. A casual walk filled with conversation brought us there before we knew it. The murmur of the crowd made the location easy to find.
The upper floors of the building were blackened with soot. People around the perimeter were calling out names. Yellow tape sealed the front while policemen held the line.
“Urgh…”
“Bodies.”
“Yeah. Bodies.”
Firefighters were carrying out something black and charred from the extinguished building. Covered in white cloth, the soot-darkened shapes swallowed the light with a dense, heavy color that might have come from shadow or from the things themselves.
“Hey—neither of you is bothered?”
“What, after everything we’ve already seen…?”
Ismet had fought on the front lines; I had grown somewhat used to corpses during the coup. For Esra, though, a burned body was still something that turned the stomach.
“Come here.”
I pulled her firmly against my chest, burying her face, and steered us sideways.
“Pasha, should we try those people with the cameras?”
“Let’s. Esra—can you walk?”
“Mm…”
The reporters with cameras, however, paid us little attention. After several attempts it became clear they simply couldn’t follow our heavily accented English. Preferring not to think of it as racism, I decided it was the accent’s fault.
Looks like we’ll need to hire native English teachers for the public schools.
We were about to give up and return to the lodging when a short, skinny young man who had been standing behind us approached.
“Looking for something? I’ve been around this neighborhood since yesterday—I can tell you more than those reporters.”
The English was twisted in a familiar way.
That accent…
He didn’t sound local either.
“Hah—if you would, we’d be grateful. Shall we move somewhere else to talk?”
Judging by Esra’s condition, lingering here would do no good. I also wanted distance from the sharp, clinging smell of smoke that never quite became familiar no matter how long you breathed it.
“There are a few decent cafés that way. I’ll show you.”
“Thank you, sir. May I ask your name?”
“Dzhugashvili. Iosif Dzhugashvili.”
Stomp—
“Hey, stop shaking.”
Esra stepped on my foot and whispered a scolding. Ismet looked back and forth between me and Stalin, equally rattled.
How the hell am I supposed to stop shaking, damn it?
Stalin was standing right in front of me.
…This is the Man of Steel?
A sunny smile and a scrawny frame. Completely different from the image everyone knew.
More importantly—why is he even here?
Wasn’t Stalin supposed to be in Siberian exile at this time?
Does he somehow know we’re meeting Lenin…?
Think calmly. He introduced himself as Dzhugashvili, so he hadn’t started using the name Stalin yet.
“Mr. Dzhugashvili. I’ve heard a great deal about you. You work with Lenin, don’t you?”
“Oh—you know of Lenin?”
Stalin’s eyes lit up.
“Of course. The man fighting to change a rotten empire.”
“Hoh…”
I glanced around, then spoke quietly.
“Are you also a man who seeks to make a revolution?”
Stalin’s eyes widened.
“My introduction is late. I am Ismail Enver.”
I explained in detail how we had staged the coup, deposed the Sultan and installed a puppet, then carried out the reforms and built a ruling party.
“Fascinating. Now that you mention it, I believe I have heard of you—the leader of a revolution…”
“I’m embarrassed. I merely did what I could for my country.”
“But you are of the right. Why the sudden interest in socialists like us…?”
Stalin regarded me with open suspicion.
“I too am a man who made a revolution for his homeland. Your plan has workers; ours simply had soldiers playing that role.”
“Though our political directions differ, we support those of you who mean to overturn the Russian Empire.”
Because if you don’t stop Russia, we die.
The crease between Stalin’s brows smoothed.
“I had thought, Mr. Stalin, that you were exiled in Siberia. How is it you are here?”
“Ah—I escaped. This is the sixth time.”
That Stalin had escaped Siberia seven times in total was famous. But even in the original history I had never heard of him being in America. Where exactly had the timeline tangled?
“Is Lenin here as well? What brought you all the way to the United States?”
“No, he remains in Switzerland.”
Then Stalin explained how he had come to America.
“The Tsar spent so much on the Balkan War that the finances are in ruins. Siberia is essentially ungoverned now.”
Shit.
I knew Nicholas II had thrown money around, but not this badly.
“I had prepared train tickets for Switzerland myself, but then I heard America had a socialist party of its own.”
The Socialist Party of America. This period was, in fact, the high-water mark of American socialism—though “high-water mark” still meant single-digit percentages of the vote.
“When I actually met them, they turned out to be worthless dreamers. I was about to head back when I ran into you.”
“Head back—to Russia?”
“The Social-Democratic Party needs money right now.”
So he plans to go back and rob banks again?
Dangerous. Stalin should not be in this place at all. There was no need to introduce the variable of his death into a history already altered.
“How much do you need?”
“Pardon?”
“I asked how much you need.”
This was an opportunity. A chance to buy Stalin at the bottom. No matter how tight Ottoman finances were, an opening like this had to be seized.
Stalin named a figure more concrete than I had expected.
…That’s a little rough.
After adding and subtracting everything, we were talking hundreds of millions of rubles? I knew the treasury had been gutted after the Russo-Japanese War, but this far?
“Ismet—can we even cover this…?”
“Ah, I forgot to mention something.”
What Stalin said next was even more shocking. Nicholas II had poured so much money into the Balkan War that the already ragged finances left by the Russo-Japanese War had been driven into outright crisis. The exchange rate had collapsed; two hundred million rubles, once converted into dollars or Ottoman lira, was not actually an impossible sum.
“Could you explain that in more detail?”
“Esra—this is…”
“….”
This is stagflation.