Ch.163The Chaotic Interwar Period (2)

Wait, did I hear that correctly?

“You really killed them?”

“There are reports that Zyklon B was used.”

“Zyklon B? Is it the one we provided?”

Technically, it is what we provided. Actually, what I provided.

I just sent it as a precaution, just in case.

And they’re using it to exterminate communists like vermin?

The Jewish Holocaust didn’t start until the 1940s, so I never imagined something like this would happen.

Was I too careless?

“Is there any backlash?”

“Hitler has long been promoting that communists are beings that must be exterminated. He calls them inferior creatures not even worthy of being called vermin. Citizens of former Austro-Hungarian territories seem to agree with this, so there hasn’t been much reaction.”

Right. Hitler’s silver tongue is quite something.

Austria was also a loser in the Great War, and at least there’s no more talk about being annexed by Germany due to Germany’s communist revolution and the massive influx of Germans.

But still, rounding up and killing communists like this already… hmm.

As someone backing Hitler, don’t I appear to be the power behind him?

“Austria under Hitler’s leadership is definitely on an anti-communist path.”

Hitler knows how to seize power.

Is he moving according to this world’s rules in this world?

“The problem is that people who should know will know that I support Hitler.”

This bastard is using me quite cleverly.

Any reasonably informed person would know I’m supporting Hitler, and that Hitler is now cracking down on communists.

It is the picture I want.

But isn’t it a bit much to throw people into camps and kill them as soon as I send Zyklon?

Well, thanks to that, it’ll be hard to find any Communist Party members in Austria.

“Yes, I was concerned that might cause problems.”

“We can’t abandon Hitler though. At the very least, Austria needs someone like Hitler to hold on right now.”

There’s no one but Hitler right now.

I understand that much. That’s why I’m concerned. I wish he would show a bit more restraint.

“That’s right. There’s no better anti-communist figure than Hitler. His rhetoric is uniting Austrians and Hungarians who had fallen into defeatism.”

“Hmm.”

All communists must be crushed! That’s correct, but…

Treating them as vermin and conducting a Holocaust is another matter.

This has crossed the line of common sense.

Later, might I be branded as someone who used Hitler’s hand to treat communists as vermin and kill them?

Even if communists are detestable, they’re still human.

If they must be killed, they should at least be tried and executed properly, not killed like actual vermin.

There are always those who cry out for human rights protection in any era.

“Your Majesty, what are you so worried about? Your authority is absolute. Can’t we just treat them literally as vermin?”

“Is that so?”

If I call them vermin, can we just conceptually define Bolsheviks as vermin?

“Your Majesty once defined them as a plague, and said that even in death, Bolshevik corpses should be purified by hanging them on crosses, didn’t you?”

Right. I did say that.

I did that to show hostility toward communists during the civil war.

There were executions of communists throughout Russia afterward. Hitler probably took inspiration from that, so it could be seen as him referencing me.

So I guess it started with me.

“I see.”

Now that I think about it, does this make sense?

Instead of directly calling them vermin, just say communists are beings that must be purified through death. That should be enough.

Honestly, it’s true.

While there are many bourgeois among communists, most are from the poor class.

The poor are infected with a plague, so they must be purified through death. That should be enough.

Russia was already treating them that way. That’s why even socialists maintain a moderate line.

Still, in this world, isn’t it something that Hitler is only conducting a Holocaust against communists?

Anyway, all the Jews have come over to our side, so even if Hitler wanted to go after Jews, it would be difficult. But communists are fair game.

“If this Hitler fellow has exploited Your Majesty’s authority, we could rightfully send the Okhrana to kill him, but if we’re going to support him anyway, we might as well make Bolsheviks truly plague-like vermin.”

Yes, that’s good.

I could protest to Hitler later, but for now, it’s fine to turn a blind eye.

At least the Soviet Union had the image of a superpower alongside America in the original history. Now it’s just a failed ideology with nothing.

“Hmm. I see. But officially, I didn’t kill them, right?”

“Yes. Austria is claiming that the communists in the camps committed suicide out of fear of standing trial.”

It’s a case of covering your eyes and pretending no one can see you.

Right. That’s understandable enough.

If they say they didn’t do it, we can’t exactly say, “You really did kill them deliberately!”

However, those who died in the camps shouldn’t be portrayed as martyrs.

“Hmm. Don’t we also have some who committed suicide in our camps?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s use them as examples. We can say that dirty communists who committed suicide out of fear of trial, wanting to be treated as martyrs, exist in Austria too. With this framing, Hitler will also ensure communists can’t become martyrs.”

This Hitler fellow is becoming a nuisance.

At this rate, we might need to put a leash on him.

“Wouldn’t it be dangerous if Hitler goes out of control? He might tarnish Your Majesty’s authority.”

“You’re right. We need to put some restraints on him.”

Restraints, huh.

Well, if you ask if there’s a proper way to restrain him, there isn’t.

It’s not like we can kill him.

At most, we could warn him to be a bit more careful.

What good would putting restraints on Austria do?

I don’t intend to make Russia that kind of thuggish country.

If anything, rather than the brutish bear image, I’d prefer to attach a kind title like “land of the holy maiden.”

“Recently, the communist camp has even published cartoons depicting Your Majesty marrying this Hitler fellow.”

Alexei Gastev presented a cartoon to me.

Hitler as the groom and me as the bride.

Isn’t that insane? Me with none other than Hitler? With this one-balled man?

Why am I in this? This is bullshit.

First of all, Benito Mussolini and Karl Liebknecht will never live this down.

To create such a cartoon. Ah.

“How dare those communist scum create such a thing! We must march on Berlin and Rome immediately!”

Honestly, I feel the same way right now.

The problem is that the current situation isn’t good.

The picture I’m painting is a perfect Russian victory without any interference.

Not now, and if war broke out over something like this, war would just become people’s daily life.

Then we can respond with our own cartoon.

“Let’s make a cartoon of our own. One where Karl Liebknecht and Benito Mussolini are passionately kissing.”

I don’t like BL content, but I can tolerate it to get back at the communists.

“Oh, making them out to be homosexuals.”

“If they’re going to be childish, we have no choice.”

They publish such cartoons?

Then we should get back at them too. At least ours depicts heterosexuals. Theirs depicts homosexuals.

Let’s see how they like being portrayed as gay.

“Understood. I’ll instruct the propaganda department.”

That was Alexei Gastev’s answer.

Seeing how excited he is, he seems quite eager to do it.

“So we’re just going to leave Hitler alone?”

Hitler. Hitler. He’s still our dog. And he has no choice but to remain our dog, right?

“Let’s leave him alone for now.”

There’s no need to put restraints on Hitler right now.

Haven’t they already caught many communists?

We can understand once or twice.

This won’t happen every time, and if Hitler goes out of control, he’d be starting an Austria-Russia war.

Is that even possible for Austria’s weight class?

They’re already struggling to defend against Germany and Italy.

Hitler killing communists on our behalf is good for us.

If it comes to that, Communist Germany and Communist Italy won’t leave Austria alone as it openly kills communists in their front yard.

They’ll try to take Austria first, even if just to protect communists.

“Anyway, he won’t have time for that soon enough.”

Killing communists will only be temporary.

There will certainly be some controversy, but at least he’s not killing Jews.

History belongs to the victors anyway.

If you think about it, other powers did all sorts of terrible things too, but Hitler took all the blame after World War II, which whitewashed the other powers.

No matter what Hitler does, after World War II, communism will be branded as the true plague.

Hitler’s Holocaust against communists might even be evaluated positively.

And whether Hitler goes out of control or not, it’s at least beneficial to us.

As long as he doesn’t do something crazy like attacking Germany preemptively, believing in us while calling communists an inferior race.

“Wouldn’t it be better to warn him anyway?”

“Do that. Tell them not to give the other side a pretext for war yet.”

Moreover, this Hitler fellow is actually thinking of me.

Not in terms of liking me, but in terms of respecting me.

Hitler probably sees me as a great monarch who has brought inferior Slavs this far?

* * *

United States of America

Around this time, the United States was in turmoil.

The reason was now known to every American.

The full-fledged emergence of KFC.

As KFC grew in influence, its leader Leon (Trotsky) was loudly proclaiming ways to deal with the Great Depression everywhere.

Meanwhile, the White House had to welcome a new occupant.

But.

“Franklin Roosevelt! Die!”

“Argh!”

In this process, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was supposed to become president in the original history, was assassinated just before his inauguration.

In the original history, he was threatened with assassination by Giuseppe Zangara under the direction of the Chicago mafia, but in this history, he was threatened by Giuseppe Zangara under the direction of KFC.

Perhaps it was due to the snowball effect of KFC’s emergence exacerbating the social chaos of the Great Depression.

Giuseppe Zangara, an honorary member of KFC acting under their direction, shot Roosevelt, who died a few days later.

Considering that in the original history, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak died instead of Roosevelt, this was the worst outcome for Roosevelt.

After this, in the extremely chaotic United States, John Nance Garner also died in a communist terrorist attack, and Huey Long was inaugurated as president.

The Huey Long administration had to rack its brains over the KFC problem.

“We need to solve this KFC problem immediately!”

“Solve it? How do you propose to solve it?”

“Obviously, we need to round up and kill all those Black communist bastards! If their power grows any larger, it will be difficult!”

The White House discovered through the FBI that KFC was behind Giuseppe Zangara, but it seemed somewhat unreasonable to suppress KFC by force right now.

Huey Long had to make a choice here.

Whether to suppress KFC or not.

But it seemed that trying to suppress them now would only allow KFC to grow its power even more.

If that’s the case, the Great Depression should be overcome through compromise.

“We need dialogue and compromise here. How can we have internal strife among fellow Americans?”

“Mr. President, this is not the time for that. Those guys are using the Great Depression to build their power. The time for compromise has passed!”

While everyone was making a fuss, Huey Long was surprisingly calm.

“KFC has announced solutions for the Great Depression, and we need to solve this first. Then, they will quiet down too. If we point guns now, it could lead to bigger problems.”

“…”

“The government needs to step in and redistribute some of the wealth of the rich and big corporations to the people. At least this much is necessary to block communism.”

Huey Long had been closely observing the Russian Civil War.

He also took note of White Russia’s welfare policies.

Seeing that the Bolsheviks failed to properly implement any policies afterward, Huey Long analyzed that the Tsarina had preemptively implemented worker policies that the Bolsheviks would have done.

Therefore, the current situation in America is not different from that.

If they try to maintain the status quo and suppress KFC without compromise, America would fall into greater chaos and might even risk civil war.

While his predecessor Herbert Hoover had established measures such as government financial support, Huey Long set more radical conditions for a quick escape from the Great Depression.

“Isn’t that what a socialist would say?”

“It’s just the government intervening to deal with the Great Depression. That’s the extent of it. The government must directly utilize KFC’s Great Depression countermeasures to block KFC’s activities and deal with the Depression. Look at Russia. Isn’t Russia’s Empress safely overcoming the Great Depression by implementing many policies through government intervention as part of Russia’s reconstruction?”

“Hmm. But the situations are different.”

“Once things improve, we can suppress KFC then. America, as always, can overcome this crisis.”

Huey Long’s words were plausible.

For now, compromise with KFC and to deal with the Great Depression, to prevent the spread of communism, the government should lead the redistribution of wealth.

This reform policy gained the support of many U.S. citizens, and citizens who had supported KFC naturally applauded Huey Long’s reform declaration.

Of course, KFC’s Black issues were buried in this process, but anyway, the Great Depression was the priority, so Huey Long pushed this reform radically.