The Price of Historical Alteration (1)
“You’re aware, aren’t you? That there’s a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl.”
“I am, sir.”
In truth, this was a fact everyone knew. The location of a nuclear power plant is, quite honestly, impossible to hide. The building stands there in plain sight; who wouldn’t know? However, the events taking place inside the facility were strictly classified, and the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was on the verge of a massive experiment.
“Why Chernobyl of all places at this timing? Is it truly a coincidence? Or is there a specific purpose behind their approach to Chernobyl?”
The director of the KGB smiled, a playful nuance coloring his expression.
“What do you think, Director?”
“It seems you’ve taken an interest as well?”
“……Yes, sir.”
Seemingly pleased with the answer, the director voiced his opinion.
“Looking at the situation, it’s more accurate to assume it was an intentional approach. After all, we only opened the door for foreign investment, yet the other party demanded the right to operate as a private enterprise.”
The director continued.
“Not only that, but their plans for future operations are overwhelmingly favorable to the Federation. Even if one considers the future, why come here when there are countless investment opportunities elsewhere that offer greater immediate returns? And to pinpoint Chernobyl specifically? It’s suspicious no matter how you look at it.”
The director of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s highest intelligence agency, certainly wasn’t just anyone.
“Then, what do you intend to do?”
“Well, in a normal situation, kidnapping them and forcing the truth out would be the right move. But I’ve decided not to.”
“Is it because the other party is the grandson-in-law of Guster?”
The director smiled and shook his head.
“Well, that’s part of the reason, sure. But that’s not it. If we want to use this guy, Choi Yoon-gi, there’s no need to torture him. It’s better to detain him secretly and use him to manipulate Guster.”
“Then, what is the reason?”
The reason the KGB was leaving Yoon-gi alone, despite their cold, calculated judgment. It was a reason that clearly revealed the KGB’s stance.
“Because we want Choi Yoon-gi to be a spy!”
At the director’s cheerful, almost loud exclamation, Putin wore a puzzled expression.
“Doesn’t it make sense to you?”
“No. It seems there’s a contradiction in what you just said.”
If the value of using Yoon-gi lay in controlling Guster, why would they want Yoon-gi to be a spy? Putin couldn’t easily reconcile this.
“Ah, we don’t want Choi Yoon-gi to be a spy to use Guster.”
“……?”
The director lowered his voice, his expression turning grim.
“If Choi Yoon-gi is a spy, Gorbachev, who allowed his entry into the country, will suffer a massive blow. Don’t you think?”
The KGB’s stance, revealed through the director’s mouth. Putin began to feel a sense of disgust that the director held such thoughts.
‘We finally have a reformist General Secretary, and yet…….’
Certainly, the Putin of the 2010s was a dictator. But the Putin of the 80s was one of the figures hoping for the reform of the Soviet Union. Acting as a KGB liaison, Putin had even extracted top-tier technology from Germany and delivered it to the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union lacked the technical capability to even analyze it. His motherland, the Soviet Union, was showing extreme inefficiency due to its rigid society of communism and totalitarianism. That was why Putin held a sliver of hope for General Secretary Gorbachev.
However, Putin showed no change in expression before the director.
“Look, Vladimir. Why don’t you return to duty? You’re an exceptionally talented agent. I haven’t processed your resignation yet, so you’re welcome to return at any time.”
“I still……, the sense of helplessness hasn’t faded. Personally, I would appreciate it if you processed my resignation.”
But the director shook his head.
“Not yet. Think about it some more. If Gorbachev falls, our world will truly arrive, you know?”
Unlike intelligence agencies in other countries, the KGB was an organization with immense influence over politics. That was why the ‘August Coup’ could happen, and the director was also unabashedly revealing his own lust for power. Of course, only in front of Putin, an agent he deemed excellent.
“I will……, think about it a little more.”
“Good, but keep in mind that opportunity doesn’t wait long. The longer you take to return, the more others will snatch up the rewards.”
Nodding before the director who dangled the bait, Putin left the room.
‘There’s nothing for me to do. And there’s nothing for the KGB to do either.’
Because of that, the construction of Yoon-gi’s factory in Chernobyl was proceeding smoothly.
***
The reason communism is inefficient is that even if you put in extraordinary effort, you receive the same rewards as everyone else. Of course, capitalism also shows similar patterns when income polarization becomes extreme. Right now, looking at Japan, the number of people giving up on ordinary office life and surviving only on part-time jobs is steadily increasing. However, communism is the pinnacle of this inefficiency. That was why, once the private enterprise YK entered, it began to show tremendous efficiency.
Ding-ding-ding—! As the bell signaling lunch rang, the workers smiled brightly and began lining up to receive their meals. Today’s menu was traditional Korean gukbap (rice soup). Of course, they gave bread instead of rice, but the hot, meat-filled broth was perfect for soothing the stomachs of the workers suffering in the cold.
“Kuaaa, f*ck, yeah!”
The exclamations of the people who gulped down the broth echoed everywhere.
“I’ve never tasted such delicious soup in my life.”
“It’s packed with meat, too. It’s much better than the meat soup or stew we’re used to.”
“It would be perfect with a shot of vodka.”
“You’ll get kicked out the moment you’re caught! Everything here is great, but if you break the rules even a little, you’re out immediately.”
“True. Right now, the guys waiting outside are praying for us to get kicked out.”
The advantage of communism is that you don’t get fired even if you work very sloppily, and the disadvantage is that if others don’t work, you have to do it. Furthermore, when the disadvantages of communism are maximized, everyone just stops working. That was why, at the site where the Chernobyl factory was currently being built, there were a great many people slacking off just a few days ago. Because they were steeped in inertia. They had worked sloppily all this time and thought they could do the same here.
However, YK was a cold-blooded capitalist enterprise. The YK supervisors dispatched from Korea reported every single person who slacked off to the Communist Party members. The Communist Party members were there to monitor YK to ensure they didn’t do anything foolish, while also facilitating work exchanges. Thus, whenever they received requests from YK’s supervisors, they kicked those individuals out of the site and brought in those who were waiting. Of course, the Communist Party members were just as steeped in the inertia of communism, but YK solved it very simply.
[Bribes]
Even if it wasn’t a huge bribe, it was quite a lot of money for the Communist Party members, so they were very cooperative with YK. Truly, people under a communist system getting a full taste of capitalism. Yoon-gi, watching the scene through the glass on the top floor of a temporarily rented building, chuckled.
“Others would call me an idiot.”
To Yoon-gi’s words, Kang Seok-ho gave a bitter smile instead of an answer. Because, from an external perspective, it certainly looked like an idiotic move. But if he really thought he was being an idiot, Yoon-gi wouldn’t have started this work in the first place.
“What do you think, Secretary Kang? About the prices under communism?”
“For starters, I think they are cheap.”
The current time was February. During their time traveling from Moscow to Ukraine, Yoon-gi and Kang Seok-ho had experienced various parts of the Soviet Union. Among them, the one they focused on most was, naturally, the prices. Because they had to know the basic prices to adjust the prices of the products they would sell later.
“But you realize there’s a problem, right?”
“Yes. The prices are cheap, but there are no goods.”
“Exactly.”
As Kang Seok-ho answered, prices under communism are cheap. But there are no goods. Communism essentially operates on a ‘rationing system,’ which meant that when items in a store were sold out, they weren’t immediately restocked. Goods were stocked monthly or weekly, and once those items were sold out, no more goods entered that store. So, did the store close? No. People assigned to work at the store still had to show up for work. While turning away the people who came looking for goods.
If you needed an item for any reason, if there were no goods in the store, that was the end of it. That was why black markets were so highly developed under communism. Even if it involved basic necessities. In a capitalist market, the black market deals in extremely dangerous items. However, in the communist black market, basic necessities were traded. People who had gone to the store early and bought the goods sold them at high prices to those who couldn’t buy them. That was why prices under communism showed a highly dualistic appearance.
“If you can buy goods at the store, you can buy them at an unbelievably cheap price. But the moment the store runs out of goods, that price goes up at least 10 times, no, 100 times. This is a truly interesting place.”
“I think so, too. At first, looking only at the store prices, I wondered, ‘Can we really be competitive?’ but looking at the black market prices, I think we can be competitive enough.”
A private enterprise entering a communist country? This is a much more complex problem than one might think. In communism, the state determines production volume, but a private enterprise decides its own production volume. What if the citizens, who effectively received the rationing rights, spent all those rights on the products of a private enterprise? Normally, it should be normal for goods to run out and be unavailable, but since a private enterprise continues to produce goods as long as there is demand, it is possible to monopolize the rationing rights. A private enterprise entering a communist country is something that can create a massive social phenomenon, and Gorbachev had made this monumental decision. Even without Yoon-gi, it was a reform that would have actually been implemented internally in ’87. Yoon-gi just succeeded in entering a year earlier than others, but the butterfly effect this one year would bring was clearly going to be enormous. Right now, the workers at the Chernobyl construction site were showing a very favorable public opinion toward YK, and they were looking forward to what kind of products they would make.
“Come to think of it, Chairman. To finalize the factory facilities, we need to decide to some extent what products to make. Have you thought about what kind of food we should sell?”
To Kang Seok-ho’s question, Yoon-gi said only three words.
“Grease!”