Chapter 109
Chapter 109
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 109
Chapter Title: RED
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The Russian Empire was an antiquated nation.
Its politics, its society, and even its people were all worn out and obsolete.
When citizens in the West began raising their voices to claim their rights, Russia's serfs remained blindly obedient to their masters, unaware that anything was wrong.
Even as monarchs and nobles in the West, to varying degrees, started relinquishing portions of their power to the people, the Tsar and the nobility continued to lord over the entire Russian populace as absolute rulers.
However, after the great revolution erupted in the revolutionary city of Paris, where citizens severed the head of their inept king, winds of change began to blow across Russia as well.
Ironically, the dictator Napoleon spread the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity across Europe. Russian young officers who tasted French liberalism while battling Napoleon's Grand Armée attempted to transform Russia through the Decembrist Revolt.
But the Decembrist officers failed. Most were executed or exiled to Siberia, which inadvertently turned Irkutsk—a trading hub in Siberia—into "the Paris of Siberia," sparking a cultural and artistic boom.
Yet the Decembrist Revolt was merely the opening shot in the long war between the Tsar, who sought to preserve Russia's obsolescence, and revolutionaries determined to innovate it.
The revolutionary fervor did not cool after the revolt. The Tsar and nobility hanged revolutionaries or banished them to the frigid Siberian wastes to safeguard their power and wealth, while the revolutionaries retaliated with bombs and pistols.
Still, revolution remained a distant dream for the Russian Empire—far too distant.
Fugitives from the empire's repression and the Okhrana's pursuits resorted to bank robberies just to scrape by.
Then, on December 13, 1904—November 30 by the outdated Julian calendar still clung to by the Russian Orthodox Church—opportunity finally knocked.
The Saint Andrew's Day Massacre.
Or Bloody Sunday, if you preferred.
Whatever the name, innocent workers peacefully demanding bread and peace in front of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg were slaughtered by the Tsar's forces.
The blood of the poor and powerless soaked the soil of Mother Russia, igniting uprisings across the land.
The long-awaited moment of revolution had arrived.
Revolutionaries who had fled abroad to escape imperial persecution returned to Russia.
They led general strikes, assassinated nobles, and fanned the flames of chaos in the empire.
This time, they would topple the decrepit empire and the Tsar.
But Sergei Witte and the newly rising Interior Minister Pyotr Stolypin—now the revolutionaries' primary target—ruined everything.
They promised reforms to quell public discontent while ruthlessly crushing revolutionaries wherever they surfaced.
And as Stolypin mobilized the Okhrana to systematically arrest revolutionaries, the dream known later as the First Russian Revolution shattered once more.
August 1905, somewhere in Russia, an abandoned building.
"Comrade Lenin! You're safe!"
"You comrades managed to evade the Okhrana as well."
"Just luck."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin—the Red Heavenly Demon who would one day topple the Russian Empire, found the Soviet Union, and plunge the world into crimson terror—bit his lip at the sight of his revolutionary comrades smiling bitterly with darkened faces.
Lenin had left the Russian Empire in 1900, wandering Western Europe. Upon hearing of the Saint Andrew's Day Massacre, he rushed back, led the general strike, and insisted that this was the moment to overthrow the empire by force and place power directly in the workers' hands.
But factional infighting unique to the socialist camp tripped him up again.
Conflicts arose during the formation of the editorial board for their party organ, Iskra. Yuli Martov, who split from Lenin, led the Mensheviks in protesting that Lenin and the Bolsheviks' methods were too violent.
In a situation where unity was desperately needed, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks clashed fiercely.
Lenin raged at Martov and the Mensheviks for clinging to the futile ideal of peaceful revolution and ignoring reality, but it was no use.
Some even withdrew, claiming Tsar Nicholas II's July Manifesto was sufficient.
Lenin couldn't comprehend it.
Would an inept Tsar, blind to the tide of the times, honor his promises?
Not a chance, in Lenin's view.
Once the flames of revolution across Russia subsided, the Tsar and nobility would surely renege on their pledges to the people and revert to the old ways.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks cheered the Tsar tightening the noose around his own neck—they had no intention of stopping him.
After all, the dumber the government acted, the higher the odds of revolutionary success.
In that sense, Lenin eyed the rising star in St. Petersburg, Stolypin, warily.
The man was too competent—far too competent.
And aligning with reformist Witte made him, to Lenin and the revolutionaries, a greater threat than Nicholas II himself.
Paradoxically, for revolutionaries, cruel incompetents were assets, while capable reformers were obstacles incarnate.
If the Russian Empire reformed into a normal state, no one would support revolution anymore.
Thus, Lenin believed Stolypin had to be eliminated for the revolution to succeed.
"Any word on the others?"
"Yuli Martov was arrested by the Okhrana. Comrade Trotsky too."
"Comrade Trotsky?"
"Yes. Exiled to Siberia."
Lenin couldn't suppress a groan at the news of Trotsky's arrest—a major revolutionary after himself and Menshevik leader Martov.
Fortunately, it was Siberia rather than the gallows, so he'd return soon enough.
Escaping Siberia was routine for Lenin, Trotsky, and their ilk.
Unlike Stalin's era, Siberian exile in the imperial days had lax security, and revolutionaries slipped out as casually as eating breakfast.
So Lenin sighed in relief at Trotsky's exile.
It was still before Stolypin's daughter fell victim to a communist bomb, so his infamous "necktie" reprisals hadn't begun.
"I must flee abroad soon too. Stolypin won't leave me be."
"Where to this time?"
"Switzerland first, to lie low."
Lenin's face was filled with regret and reluctance as he spoke.
Exile was familiar, but leaving Russia now meant years before he could return.
In actual history, after the 1905 revolution's failure, Lenin fled abroad and didn't return until 1917, smuggled back in a sealed train by the German Empire hoping to use him to knock Russia out of the war—which he did, sparking revolution and toppling the empire.
But that was over a decade away, and unaware of it, Lenin couldn't hide his frustration.
The others felt the same.
"In the end, the revolution failed."
"Comrade..."
"Even after workers were massacred before the Tsar's palace, the empire didn't fall. Comrade Lenin, will we live to see the Tsar and nobles toppled and a socialist homeland built?"
One revolutionary pleaded desperately for an answer, but Lenin had none.
Even this iron-willed revolutionary had asked himself that countless times, never finding easy reply.
It was right after the 1905 revolution—which had seemed poised for true success—ended in defeat.
Even Lenin's steel heart wavered.
Could they really achieve revolution?
Topple the empire and Tsar to build their dreamed socialist homeland?
Everyone, Lenin included, silently questioned themselves.
Then—
An unnamed worker beside Lenin suddenly broke the heavy silence by belting out the song.
The Internationale.
The red anthem of revolution, sung by forerunners dreaming of an equal, free world in the glorious first communist state, the Paris Commune, echoed through the air.
Lenin stared blankly before joining in.
That sparked it. Everyone present began singing the Internationale in twos and threes.
Duets became trios, trios quartets, quartets quintets, and soon a fervent chorus filled the dim ruins.
Lenin and the revolutionaries wept, vented their rage, and bellowed the Internationale at the top of their lungs.
Ah, stand up, stand up—this is the Internationale, the song of those who dream of revolution in death and life alike.
As the chorus faded, Lenin addressed his comrades—as much a vow to his shaken self.
"Never forget this song, comrades. Never forget these tears, this burning passion. The revolution isn't over. We will return here!"
The day we return.
The decrepit empire will crumble, and upon its ruins, a revolutionary nation shall rise anew.
As Lenin steeled his resolve once more before departing Russia—
In the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra witnessed a miracle before their eyes.
"Oh, Alexei sleeping so peacefully like this!"
"A miracle, Your Majesty. A true miracle!"
"Thank you. Truly, thank you!"
"Hahaha, what have I done? It's all thanks to the Lord."
Their precious son Alexei—who they loved more than their own eyes—was no longer writhing in agony but slumbering more tranquilly than ever. Tears streamed down Nicholas II's face as he repeatedly thanked the burly priest before him.
Yet the priest humbly praised only the Almighty Lord.
The imperial couple was deeply moved by his humility and profound faith.
This man was a noble sent by the Lord, who pitied them and Alexei.
Initially, Empress Alexandra had heard rumors among the nobility of a priest blessed by God and invited him to the palace half in skepticism, grasping at straws. But the rumors were true.
Behold: Alexei, whom no doctor could heal, was improving.
What else could this be but the Lord's miracle?
"I need a man like you by my side, Rasputin. Stay with me henceforth—aid me, my family, and the Russian Empire."
Witte would nag if he found out, but Nicholas didn't care.
His cousin Wilhelm II had defied noble backlash to keep Hans Choi—the boy who saved his life—close, reaping great success.
Nicholas II could do the same; he wasn't inferior.
This priest would be his—and Russia's—Hans Choi.
"How could I refuse, Your Majesty? This humble soul is overjoyed to serve you."
Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin—the holy man who would contribute to the downfall of the Romanov dynasty—smiled and bowed.