Ch.29Battle of Moscow (3)

# “Are you telling me to give up the revolution?!”

“We need to start over from the beginning. Petrograd still stands strong. You must go there and plan for the future.”

Go to Petrograd? How far would they have to go?

Had the situation become so dangerous that they needed to retreat from Moscow to Petrograd?

Petrograd was the symbolic city where the Soviet revolution had begun.

Returning there meant going back to square one.

Lenin didn’t want to accept this.

“No, not yet.”

“Comrade Lenin?”

Seeing Lenin’s unfocused gaze, as if his soul had left his body, Stalin, the People’s Commissioner for State Information Control of the Soviet Union, realized that Lenin’s former brilliance had completely disappeared.

Lenin spread out a map of the Moscow region.

“Semyon Budyonny’s Red Cavalry can stab the Grand Duchess in the flank and deliver a powerful blow to defeat those reactionaries Anton Denikin and Pyotr Wrangel.”

“Budyonny’s cavalry has been defeated by the Cossack reactionaries.”

“If Comrade Yegorov’s Red Guards strike Denikin’s rear, things will improve.”

“Comrade, Comrade Yegorov doesn’t have many combat troops to mobilize. Comrade Yegorov’s attack was unsuccessful.”

Stalin shook his head as he listened to Lenin.

Yegorov’s Red Guards? The Red Guards were the predecessor of the Red Army, existing before Trotsky built the Red Army.

How desperate must the situation be to call them Red Guards instead of the Red Army?

Even if there were enough Red Guards to strike at Anton Denikin’s rear, they lacked weapons.

“Where have all those troops gone! Stalin! If only you had held Tsaritsyn, this wouldn’t have happened!”

“I apologize, Comrade.”

“Everyone out!”

At Lenin’s dismissal, Stalin left Lenin’s office.

He thought to himself:

‘It’s been a complete failure.’

Their last real chance had been Semyon Budyonny’s Red Cavalry, which was supposed to break through the rear lines and capture or kill the Grand Duchess who stood as a symbol for the White Army. But according to rumors, the Grand Duchess was actually at the front lines, and the cavalry was defeated by the Cossacks instead.

They even captured her.

All that remained now was to throw the people into the fight to hold back the enemy.

But even if they succeeded in defense, the Bolsheviks would be finished. And it wasn’t even certain they could hold out.

Could the revolution’s symbol, Lenin, collapse so quickly?

Was the revolution really going to fall because of one surviving Grand Duchess?

The execution of the Tsar’s family had been Stalin’s own suggestion, but killing them so rashly rather than at an opportune moment had been a severe blow.

Lenin had become Satan in the eyes of the people, putting Bolshevik citizens at the front to die.

‘Of course, there are those who fight while blaming the Grand Duchess.’

But the situation wasn’t favorable.

This was because the Grand Duchess was despicably using aircraft to drop propaganda promising amnesty to those who surrendered.

‘Citizens of Moscow! Stop listening to the evil whispers of the Bolsheviks and rise up! Rise against those who cause Russians to kill their own kind, driving your husbands, children, and brothers to their deaths!’

She was spreading this message quite effectively.

Such propaganda might not work on the White Army, but it would certainly appeal to Moscow’s citizens.

This meant they would need to bring in hardcore Bolsheviks from the front lines to control the citizens, further depleting their manpower.

‘We’ve been completely defeated.’

Where had it all gone wrong?

It was as if Grand Duchess Anastasia had infiltrated the Soviets like the Okhrana, implementing reforms the Soviets had been planning before they could, leaving them with nothing. The people had been disappointed in the Soviets since then.

No, that wasn’t it. The mistake was failing to kill Anastasia.

Perhaps it would have been better to spare her and convert her.

If a converted member of the Tsar’s family had gone around promoting their cause, the White Army would have collapsed.

Later, when the Soviets controlled all of Russia, they could have executed the Tsar’s family then.

“Damn that Trotsky.”

To be fair, Stalin himself was partly to blame for not stopping it at the time.

Stalin had tacitly agreed back then.

If he had tried to prevent the execution in front of Trotsky, Trotsky might have branded him a reactionary.

Stalin had no intention of dying and becoming a martyr. His own life was precious to him.

Moscow was somehow holding out, but the power difference was clear, and the longer the battle continued, the more unrest would spread in Moscow.

In that case, Lenin needed to be used as a shield.

Stalin’s respect for Lenin had long since disappeared.

He could do nothing but agitate.

They had given away land, the Grand Duchess was always one step ahead, and they couldn’t even implement reforms.

Stalin was a communist who could coldly accept reality.

Lenin had been defeated by Anastasia, a girl whose blood had barely dried. At the very least, they should have been discussing countermeasures against Anastasia, but Lenin’s limitations were clear.

Russian communism had been defeated by Anastasia’s modified capitalism with its appealing facade.

By this point, even Stalin questioned whether what he believed in was right.

If this modified capitalism—capitalism with socialist advantages—took root in Russia, communism would be completely finished.

It would be difficult for communism to establish itself in Russia again.

Then they would have to go into exile in another country.

Chaotic China would be good, or perhaps the Ottoman Empire or Austria, which had tasted defeat in the Great War.

Or maybe Germany?

Yes, for the rebirth of communism, Lenin needed to die here as a symbol of the revolution.

The problem was that for this to happen, Stalin and his group needed to escape Moscow first, and only then could Lenin die.

But Stalin faced a problem.

Lenin had said he would stay here.

This meant that those who had started the revolution with him couldn’t flee either.

Would they have to die here?

Already among Moscow’s citizens, there were many who, while not openly hostile, no longer followed the Soviets.

They were beating them all down, but if the Okhrana could infiltrate to this extent, how long could Moscow hold out?

Surrender to the Grand Duchess?

Though young, she was an imperialist.

Wasn’t it obvious from how she appointed a governor for Mongolia during the civil war, advanced south into Northern Manchuria, and called for the restoration of the empire?

A communist could not kneel before an imperialist.

Besides, even if he wanted to beg for his life, wasn’t it the death of the Grand Duchess’s parents and siblings that had brought her to this point?

It would be difficult to preserve his life.

Not the best option, but the lesser evil.

How to kill Lenin here and escape to Petrograd?

No, he didn’t necessarily have to kill him.

It would be enough to render him unconscious for a while.

Once they reached Petrograd, they could prepare for exile somewhere.

The question was how to capture Lenin, but yes, there was only one way.

‘I’ll have to take drastic measures.’

Fortunately, his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva was working in Comrade Lenin’s office.

Yes, that was the only way.

Stalin didn’t want to die in a place like this.

* * *

As the Battle of Moscow progressed, Moscow’s defense line was crumbling.

When people died, their positions were continuously filled, but those people were also being ground down, truly becoming nothing more than meat shields for maintaining the Bolshevik regime.

Yet why did this defense line hold?

“Comrades! The reactionary leader, the Grand Duchess, is coming! Are you going to tuck your tails and run now?”

It was thanks to the hardcore communists pointing guns at the people from behind.

It was too late to turn back, and as Anastasia had said, they couldn’t escape being communists unless they died.

These true Bolsheviks shot and killed people who were scared and trying to flee.

Between the fingernail-sized chance of survival and the bullets flying from behind, the former was clearly preferable.

But even that effect was wearing off.

“Then you go fight! Do you think we’re your meat shields?”

“You’re worse than the Tsar!”

“Y-you reactionaries!”

As a Red Army officer was about to shoot a citizen infected with reactionary thoughts against the Soviets…

Bang!

He was killed first by the citizens’ guns.

If one showed weakness, bullets might fly from somewhere and lodge in one’s head. The people who had fought for this reason had changed their minds after clearly seeing their comrades being torn to pieces.

Just until recently, comrades who had laughed and talked together were crushed under the wheels of those massive steel machines, becoming carpets of flesh.

Would seeing this inspire vengeance and anger?

Vengeance requires a realistic possibility.

Though called comrades, they were merely people from all over the country who had been dragged here and become friendly through sympathy for their shared predicament.

When one witnesses such scenes firsthand, the survival instinct takes precedence.

The White Army was coming like a wave, and the officers pushing them to die were few.

Moreover, they didn’t even have to fight.

After all, they had been promised amnesty if they surrendered.

“I-I’m going to surrender. The Grand Duchess said she would pardon everyone except the Bolshevik leaders if we surrender.”

“I’m surrendering too.”

Seeing the leaflets dropped from White Army aircraft, the Red Army soldiers felt they had nothing to lose.

If they could survive, it was better to join the White Army.

Red Army officers had become walking targets.

If they threatened with guns, they would be killed by their subordinates’ guns, and the soldiers were busy surrendering.

As reports of this reached higher levels, Red Army officers, fearing bullets in their own heads, shifted from pushing their soldiers too hard to trying to persuade them.

“Comrades, think carefully. Do you really believe they’ll spare us?”

“‘Us’? Speak correctly. We’re not hardcore communists like you—we were dragged here by you!”

Some soldiers, looking down on officers who tried to persuade them, proudly raised white flags.

Of course, there were still more Red Army soldiers filling the positions of those who surrendered.

Mikhail Frunze was trying to maintain the defense line by increasing rations for soldiers and persuading them that a Soviet paradise would unfold if they just won the defensive battle. But no matter what he did, the collapsed war situation was impossible to recover.

“The Black Baron is indeed strong.”

Anton Denikin’s army could be held back by Trotsky and Yegorov working together, but the Black Baron Pyotr Wrangel was different.

With the Grand Duchess at the front raising morale, the army commanded by the Black Baron was exceptional.

The blitzkrieg tactics using those tanks were smashing through Moscow’s fortresses and defenses, making them feel like candles before a fierce storm.

Even Budyonny’s Red Cavalry, which had tried to ambush the Grand Duchess and end the war, was thoroughly defeated by the Cossack cavalry under the Black Baron and returned as scattered troops.

How long could they hold back the Black Baron?

The fact that he was in charge of the defense line in the Battle of Moscow was because there were no great generals from the imperial era in the current Red Army.

No matter where he looked, he couldn’t see a way to stop them.

The people were clinging to tanks to immobilize them and render them useless, but the bullets from the infantry following behind the tanks were just as fierce.

The Red Army was merely fodder for the White Army, a test subject for their combat effectiveness.

Mikhail Frunze, who had defeated Pyotr Wrangel’s White Army in actual history, was now being pushed back by the Black Baron.

The imperialist powers must be rejoicing at the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It was hard to hold out even with defensive battles.

Recently, even officers from the imperial era were surrendering to the White Army.

The Red Army was maintained almost by force and intimidation.

If they had more time, things might be different, but the Red Army had thoroughly failed and couldn’t win the hearts of the people.

As a hardcore communist, he couldn’t surrender to the imperialist Grand Duchess.

This meant they really had to retreat from Moscow.

He needed to tell Comrade Lenin that they had to retreat from Moscow, but how should he do it?

At that moment, a soldier rushed into the barracks.

“Commander Comrade!”

“What is it?”

Could it be that the Black Baron’s army had finally broken through the defense line?

That didn’t seem to be the case.

“C-Comrade L-Lenin has collapsed!”

The worst situation was unfolding.