Chapter 180
Chapter 180
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Chapter 180 - 독재자의 사후 (1)
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Translator: crow
Chapter 180: After the Dictator's Death (1)
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Stalin enjoyed listening to records after work.
"Comrade General Secretary dislikes people coming and going while he's working, so be careful."
"Understood."
Nikolai Vlasik—who had since been purged—had instilled one unspoken rule in the entire guard detail that everyone had to follow.
Do not disturb Comrade Stalin's routine.
If you disrupted the Comrade's daily life and irritated him, no one knew who would end up suffering for it.
The guards stood watch in front of Stalin's room, staring straight ahead.
Thud.
Then came a heavy thud from inside the room.
It sounded like a large object had toppled over.
'Is the Comrade on the floor?'
'Check on him? Don't even think about it.'
The guards exchanged glances but didn't dare touch the door.
The fear of provoking Stalin's ire kept them rooted in place.
The next morning, Stalin's human butcher, Beria, appeared at the General Secretary's office.
"I need to see Comrade General Secretary. Step aside."
The guards, accustomed to Beria's comings and goings, immediately made way.
The moment Beria opened the office door, a faint stench hit him.
The smell of urine and feces.
Peering inside, he saw Stalin lying on the floor, foaming at the mouth.
'Ha. Even a man like you has a day like this.'
Beria felt a strange mix of emotions watching the giant he'd once revered reduced to a pathetic worm writhing on the ground.
"You human butcher. Trash. Senile old bastard who deserves to die."
Beria leaned close to Stalin's ear and unloaded all the insults he'd always wanted to hurl.
Soon after, Party officials rushed into the office upon hearing that Stalin had collapsed.
"Where is the Comrade?"
"He's lying over there."
People approached Stalin but recoiled in shock after stepping in the puddle of urine on the floor.
"First, let's move Comrade General Secretary to the bed."
At Kaganovich's suggestion, they pooled their strength to carry Stalin to the bed.
They tried to call a doctor to treat the General Secretary, but a serious problem arose.
"The doctors are plotting to assassinate me."
Thanks to Stalin's paranoia-fueled purge of the Kremlin's physicians, there was no one left to treat him.
In a panic, the Party officials rounded up retired doctors from the city and brought them to the Kremlin.
They finally got a diagnosis.
"There's no chance of the Comrade recovering?"
"That's correct."
The atmosphere grew subtly tense at those words.
The absolute ruler Stalin would never issue another command.
Didn't that leave a power vacuum?
'Who will be next in this case?'
Just then, Stalin opened his eyes.
"Comrade General Secretary has regained consciousness."
At that announcement, everyone quickly buried the impious thoughts swirling in their heads.
Beria was horrified.
He surely hadn't heard all those insults, had he?
Pretending the thought had never crossed his mind, Beria rushed to Stalin's side and fussed over him.
The moment the absolute ruler opened his eyes, the world reverted to Stalin's domain.
Even unable to speak a word, he was still Stalin.
Just his gaze alone deterred anyone from challenging him.
Stalin briefly raised a hand, pointing at something, glancing at people.
'Bring me a photo of my son, Yakov.'
He issued the command, but no one understood.
The others were too busy frantically interpreting what they assumed must be profound gestures from the General Secretary.
In the end, Stalin waited desperately for his son's photo before drawing his last breath.
"Comrade General Secretary has passed away."
Only then did the people sigh in relief.
Even in full-body paralysis, the terrifying dictator wielded his fearsome power.
But not even such terrifying authority lasted beyond Stalin's death.
Immediately after the General Secretary closed his eyes, the Soviet Council of Ministers temporarily appointed Georgy Malenkov as the leader to guide the Federation.
"George, you're handing the Federation to that idiot?"
Of course, prominent Party officials like Nikita Khrushchev viewed this as a mere interim measure.
In truth, the puppet Malenkov wasn't who they were watching.
They were wary of Lavrentiy Beria, head of the MGB, who sought to seize real power from behind Malenkov.
"Even for the sake of our comrades killed by that human butcher, we have to get rid of him."
"True, but can we take him down?"
"The Red Army will side with us. You can count on that."
Unlike the conspiracies brewing beneath the surface, the situation above it was remarkably sunny.
"Now, let's call a truce."
With the final obstacle to a truce—Stalin—gone, the Soviet Communist Party decided to abandon the Italian War.
The military demarcation line would follow the current front.
This made it look like the communist bloc had lost, but the blame for defeat could fall on the dead Stalin.
"Finally, those reds are backing off."
The truce in Italy brought a thaw to the frozen Cold War.
The new Soviet leadership triumvirate of Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov—aiming to soothe a populace battered by long war and purges—proposed grand reconciliation with the West.
Bewildered by the Soviet Union's sudden shift, the West tentatively accepted the overture.
"The reds seem different, but let's watch and see."
The Soviet gesture extended beyond the West.
They reached out to Pyongyang as well.
"We'll also contribute to preventing nuclear proliferation in China."
Sino-Korean relations, slightly strained after the Yushin repeal, were thus neatly mended.
Three months after Stalin's death.
The world basked in a momentary warmth.
*
That was a delusion.
I sneered.
If you asked 21st-century people who came after Stalin, they'd all say the same thing.
"Stalin, then Khrushchev, right?"
Few even knew Malenkov existed.
That's how insignificant he was.
What weight did words from a man like that carry?
The only one who could make real promises was the power player poised to claim the top spot: Khrushchev.
At the cabinet meeting, I drew a line on the Soviet issue.
"Soviet power is still in a vacuum, so don't say anything for now."
"Pardon? Isn't the Malenkov triumvirate in control?"
Yeah, no.
The real power in the Soviet Union had always been—and still was—the military.
And its top figure, Zhukov, utterly despised Beria.
Whose side Zhukov would take in the power struggle between Beria and Khrushchev was decided from the start.
So we just had to wait until a clear winner emerged.
"Your Excellency, Soviet General Secretary Malenkov has conveyed a desire for a summit."
"Tell him we'll discuss the schedule after some time."
Outright refusal would bruise the superpower Soviet Union's pride.
So, stall.
Through the Soviet embassy, I discreetly reached out to the Soviet military.
Contacting Khrushchev now would just be a nuisance, so this was the right move.
Marshal Zhukov, hero of the Great Patriotic War, reacted with puzzlement to our approach.
"What business does Korea have with me?"
"Nothing specific—we're having trouble gauging the Federation's situation as an imperial ally, so we seek the insights of a true power like Your Excellency the Marshal."
"Is that so?"
Zhukov gave us a rundown of their internal affairs.
He didn't lie outright, but he omitted a few key facts.
From my conversation with Zhukov, I gained one certainty.
He had no intention of sitting idly by in the current mess.
That left only one action for him: a coup.
Whether this was faster or slower than original history, it was clear he was contemplating a coup remarkably early.
Gil Tae-hwan, who had taken over as Army Minister in Kim Seong-ju's place, looked grave upon hearing my analysis.
"If the Soviet military launches a coup and fails, it could lead to a very serious situation."
I agreed.
In original history, what happened right after the Soviet Communist Party's failed 1991 coup?
The vast Federation disintegrated.
The current Soviet Union might not take that big a hit, but a failed coup would surely deal it a mortal wound.
'I hadn't considered failure, but it's not impossible.'
Beria had Moscow firmly in his grip.
If the coup plotters didn't strike swiftly and exploit a vulnerability, the tide could turn.
"Should we intervene, then?"
Of course, our means of intervening in a superpower like the Soviet Union were limited.
The most we could do was provide funding.
"It's best to avoid direct intervention if possible. Even if we help topple the regime, the Soviets would grow wary of our involvement."
"True, the Federation has its pride—no neighbor likes meddling in its internal affairs."
So, observation was the best course for now.
Still, doing absolutely nothing in this chaos felt uneasy.
I decided on a simple dirty trick.
"Just in case, send a bunch of international mail to Beria."
The coup forces might lack a pretext to attack Beria, so I planned to gift them one: collusion with foreigners.
'If you still lose after this, fine. I'll acknowledge it, Beria—you're the Soviet Union's number one.'