The Wheel Grinds On
Nikolai Bukharin At A Meeting of The Sub-Committee on Revolutionary Communist Ideology
A World of Rust
Moscow in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Civil War was a city of extreme contrasts. On the one hand there was the freedom necessary to create a cornucopia of leftist ideological expression, be it through street theatre, unions and syndicates competing for membership, public debates over matters of revolutionary ideology and policy as well as an incredible flowering of workers' and revolutionary literature and art meant to edify and electrify the proletariat. There were workers' and farmers' schools established throughout the lands held by Moscow through which to elevate the masses and a stunning array of news papers, pamphlets, magazines and more which bombarded the populace with a flurry of ideas. On the other hand, the Cheka infiltrated any suspected counter-revolutionary organization, hunted down suspected right-wingers and enforced leftist loyalty to the larger Communist Party and its Central Committee with extreme prejudice.
A complex web of committees, sub-committees and commissariats formed an incomprehensible and often overlapping mess of bureaucracy through which the members of the Central Committee duelled for power - promoting proteges, removing rivals and expanding official powers in bids to strengthen their faction of the party. The Communist Party itself was bound together by fraying ties of camaraderie and patronage, the centrifugal power of the Central Committee pulling together the government and steering it along a common path. Alongside an increasingly powerful, if contradictory, central government, Muscovite civil society blossomed under the leadership of powerful figures such as Maxim Gorky or Mikhail Tomsky, who sought to strengthen the country outside the state apparatus. As the challenges of reconstruction reared their heads, the Central Committee embarked on a mix of governmental-led and civil-society led efforts to rebuild Russia in the image of the revolution, mythologizing the events of the revolution and civil war.
It was also during this period that the Central Committee decided to push forward with the long hoped-for abolition of religion within Russia and the implementation of State Atheism. Under the doctrine of state atheism there was a government-sponsored program of conversion to atheism conducted by the Communist regime. The Communists targeted religions based on state interests, and while most organized religions were not outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools. In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution and conversion. Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the official structures and mass media and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions, such as teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers, to be openly religious. The vast majority of people in the Russian empire were, at the time of the revolution, religious believers, whereas the communists aimed to break the power of all religious institutions and eventually replace religious belief with atheism. "Science" was counter posed to "religious superstition" in the media and in academic writing. Generally, this meant that believers were free to worship in private and in their respective religious buildings, but public displays of religion outside of such designations were prohibited and, religious institutions were not allowed to express their views in any type of mass media, while many religious buildings were demolished or used for other purposes (1).
In the Urals, the Yekaterinburg Reds under Trotsky had worked hard to militarise the entire population, assigning the every inhabitant to various "regiments", "brigades" and "divisions" which were ordered about like military troops in domestic "campaigns" meant to aid in the reconstruction of society, operating from a village and neighborhood level up to the state as a whole. Factories were restored and mines across the region were rapidly reopened as the surviving populace of the region was pressed into the service of the state. Schools were set up across the region with in highly regimented and regulated manners in which the both adults and children could be directed firmly towards their purpose in life, teaching skills based on aptitude tests in the hopes of creating a state in which everyone got what they needed and exerted what they could. Cultural products such as film, books and art of all kind were carefully curated and censored into serving as propaganda for the Yekaterinburg regime, urging loyalty and fealty from the populace.
In the countryside the new Commissar of Agriculture, Lazar Kaganovich, set about creating a truly industrialised rural economy which would be able to cope with the needs of the state. Village communes were abolished and in their place were established local entities built along military lines, led by externally appointed local commissars who took charge of village law and order. Unsurprisingly, the result was the creation of a ruling commissariat and officer class which drew upon the carefully rationed national resources of a fully planned economy for their personal gain. The working classes were reformed as a carefully structured society under military discipline, meant to create the soldiers of the vanguard of revolution. While corruption and incompetence were rife, particularly in the more isolated reaches of Siberia, both were also punished brutally by the central regime. Rather than create a separate secret police, as had been done in Moscow with the Cheka, the Yekaterinburg regime would see the task of securing internal stability and loyalty delegated to the military police.
It was in this period that the last vestiges of the RSDLP were abolished and all governmental authority transferred to the military under Trotsky. This was combined with a massive expansion of the army into civilian life and the extension of authority across the entire population. Travel was severely restricted and any transportation was closely regulated in an effort to restrict access to the wider world. News was heavily censored, with only state-military news sources legalized. While there were feeble efforts at resistance across much of Yekaterinburg society, these were crushed with harsh measures, with starvation often used as a weapon against more stubborn resistance in order to break their will and to serve as an example to others, being covered in great detail by state media. While production margins and efficiency remained low, with sabotage and wastage common, by sheer force of will, Trotsky was able to push the engines of industry to work. As for Trotsky and his court of supporters, they lived a life of moderate luxury as they directed the machine they had built in search to power a global revolution (2).
At the heart of these developments, which to outsiders seemed rather counterproductive and worrying, was Trotsky's continued dream of a perpetual revolution which would spread across the globe and bring revolutionary rule to the workers of the world. While he was forced to accept the limitations of his regime outside the lands held by Yekaterinburg for the time being, he had a great many plans for the future. Perhaps the most significant element of these plans was his effort to join the Communist Central Committee in Moscow in order to weld his own domains to those of Moscow. While he acknowledged the bright light of Moscow as a thing of beauty and hoped to one day see it spread to the rest of the world, Trotsky had grown increasingly apocalyptic in his world views over the course of the long and bitter civil war. While Moscow was a look into the utopia a worker's revolution might become, it had to be protected. That was the role he envisioned for the peoples under the rule of Yekaterinburg, a shield and protector of the workers of the world, and a sword with which to spread the revolution.
Contacts were established to socialist and communist movements around the world and their most dedicated fighters were invited to Siberia to train alongside the Vanguard of the Revolution, grooming them for the revolutionary wars to come. The focus, to start with, would be on Persia where nearly 5,000 "volunteer worker-soldiers" would join in the fight to secure the Persian Socialist Republic's place in the world. These worker-soldiers would win world-wide renown for a holding action in northern Persia where a brigade was able to hold the line against an all-out attack by a division of Persian Gendarmes for over a week. Yekaterinburg would also become a secretive hub for radical revolutionaries of various sorts, as the regime sought to build a global network of radicals willing to do anything to promote the spread of the revolution.
The city of Yekaterinburg itself would be a viewed by the outside world with considerable interest and mystique, for a short time featuring heavily in dime store spy thriller novels. Efforts to infiltrate Yekaterinburg were undertaken on the part of many concerned states, but met with frequent failure as a result of the high level of opacity in government dealings. However, within a couple of years the city would become a dumping ground for failed ambassadors and staff, understaffed and underpaid, as a result of these failures and the seeming integration of Yekaterinburg into the Muscovite Communist fold. Trotsky's inner circle would shrink to a couple figures, most prominently Kamenev and Adolph Joffe, while Martov found himself completely sidelined and despairing at what had come of their revolution. The dissolution of the RSDLP was a body blow to the few dedicated democratic socialists left in the party, leading many to lose what little significance to international affairs they had left (3).
In the meanwhile, the relative cordiality and setting aside of differences which had characterised the Communist Central Committee during the years of the Civil War began to break down as pre-existing fractures, ambitions and ideological differences were allowed free reign in the post-civil war period. The act which would really kick off the infighting within the Central Committee would be the death of Felix Dzerzhinsky in early 1925, creating a vital opening on the Central Committee, ending the dominant position held by the original members of the Central Committee through their majority, while leaving Dzerzhinsky's control of Law Enforcement and Justice, crucially including the Cheka, up in the air.
During the preceding year, ties to the Yekaterinburg Reds had been strengthened, most significantly through military exercises and joint operations, which had brought the ambitious Tukhachevsky into contact with Trotsky and Frunze, developing a surprisingly good relationship between the three in the process. Tukhachevsky found himself fascinated and interested in the militarization campaigns and wider approach taken by Trotsky and his allies, and came to view Trotsky as a potential ally against both the Anarchist and Governing cliques of the Central Committee, the former consisting of Anarchist Lev Cherniy, former SR leader Maria Spiridonova and revolutionary hero Nestor Makhno, who had been given Bubnov's seat and significant power over military and collectivisation policy for his successes during the Civil War, and the latter consisting of the original three Committe Members Sokolnikov, Bukharin and Sverdlov.
The struggle for Dzerzhinsky's seat proved a rather bitter one, with particularly Tukhachevsky's support for Trotsky taking a seat rather bitterly opposed on both sides while the Governing clique pushed for Anatoly Lunacharsky, whose work with education and cultural development was viewed as particularly critical for the strengthening and empowerment of Communist Russia, while the Anarchists pushed for the appointment of the powerful department head of Zhenotdel - the Women's Department, which prescribed and defended women's freedoms, Alexandra Kollontai. To take over Dzherzhinsky's post at the head of the Cheka and Law Enforcement as a whole, the Governing Clique proposed Moisei Uritsky. While neither the military clique, as Tukhachevsky's single mandate was known, nor the anarchist clique were particularly happy about appointing a man who was clearly part of the governing clique, none of them could truly find a reason not to support his appointment.
With Dzerzhinsky's posts already passed on to Uritsky, the matter of the Committee seat took center stage. While neither major clique found anything significant to disapprove about the other's candidate, neither could they afford to allow the current power balance to swing too far in one direction, which would be the consequence of either was accepted without the other. At the same time, the idea of permitting Trotsky to sit on the Central Committee left a sour taste in the mouths of many, who viewed him as tyrannical and overly ambitious, out for his own gain. Both the Governing Clique and the Anarchist Clique contacted Tukhachevsky and sought to persuade him to join their camp. Significant incentives were presented by both sides, but Tukhachevsky held firm, certain that he would be able to win out if he could just position himself and Trotsky as the decisive swing vote. As week after week passed without decision, the matter grew increasingly heated and soon spread into the surrounding party bureaucracy.
A solution which none would enjoy but which would prove acceptable all was eventually proposed by Bukharin, who believed the governing clique a more cohesive unit than the anarchists, that rather than choose between the three candidates, they should instead expand the Central Committee to ten seats. This suggestion was immediately supported by Tukhachevsky, but both the Anarchists and Sokolnikov proved extremely hesitant to back the proposal. Ultimately, it would take Bukharin an additional week to convince his fellows and the Anarchists to back the proposal. Thus, in mid-March 1925 the Central Committee was expanded to ten seats, four each for the governing and anarchist cliques and two for what would come to be known as the Trotskyite clique, with tie breakers decided by the Chairman of the Central Committee - Yakov Sverdlov (4).
Footnotes:
(1) Basically, Communist Russia sees pretty wide-ranging acceptance of left-wing beliefs and significant press freedoms, but are far less welcoming of ideological frameworks outside that spectrum. There is a concerted effort to promote atheism and remove the power of religion. Perhaps most significant, and different from OTL, is the rather significant role played by non-governmental actors in civil society. While profit-based businesses are strictly regulated and severely limited in what they can do, coops, union-run factories and a whole host of non-profit organisations largely take their place. Mind you, law enforcement generally is rather spotty and corruption is still present in a number of places. There are also a lot of non-profit organisations in-name-only, effectively functioning as corporations but siphoning profits away through salaries, money transfers and the like.
(2) The Yekaterinburg Reds are basically using a mix of War Communism and the societal militarisation imagined by Trotsky late in the Civil War to create a military dictatorship. While Trotsky later abandoned some of these ideas, he was extremely interested in organising all of society along military lines and imposing military discipline on it. The result isn't exactly pretty and far from the most effective social system. Combine this deeply militarised society with highly coordinated educational efforts and a powerful ideological message like that present in socialism, and this quickly becomes a rather scary state. Just because the Yekaterinburg Reds are more of a military dictatorship than a socialist/communist dictatorship does not mean that Trotsky has completely abandoned those ideas.
(3) There are a couple reasons people aren't completely freaking out about the Yekaterinburg Reds and calling for their destruction. First of all, it was attempted and failed during the Civil War, and no one wants to go through that again. Second, it is in such a far-away corner of the world that few even give the region a thought, most don't really understand or differentiate between Yekaterinburg and Moscow, even on a governmental level, and those that do view Trotsky's entry into the Communist Central Committee as the effective end of his independent regime, which it isn't. The situation is a bit weird here, Trotsky rules the Yekaterinburg Reds with an iron fist as little more than a military dictator, while at the same time sitting as part of the Communist Central Committee. It is exactly as complicated and misunderstood a relationship as you imagine it is. I think the only person who actually understands exactly how all of this fits together might be Trotsky and Kamenev, the latter of whom plays a key role in convincing Trotsky to move forward with this effort. As for Yekaterinburg's sponsoring of foreign revolutionaries, it is very much in its early days and will grow into more of a menace the longer time passes by. As for Trotsky's view of the Yekaterinburg Reds - he sees them as the Arsenal, Training Grounds and Recruiting Grounds of the Workers' Revolution. That is how he justifies the harsh nature of his regime, he is shaping an army with which to spread revolution to the world - not creating a functional state.
(4) Whereas during the Civil War the governing clique remained firmly in power, consisting of five out of eight Central Committee seats, after the war and the loss of both Bubnov and Dzerzhinsky the governing clique finds its margin of power severely limited. The inclusion of Trotsky in the Central Committee is something neither the Anarchists nor the governing faction are particularly happy about, but it serves as an important step in incorporating the Yekaterinburg Reds into Communist Russia and allows the main cliques to strengthen their power. Interestingly, one fifth of the Central Committee is now female.
Pyotr Wrangel, Commander-in-Chief of The Russian Armed Forces
A Winter of Discontent
The situation in Rostov-on-Don following the end of the Russian Civil War was one of considerable tumult and uncertainty as disparate factions previously united in the struggle against the Reds found their temporary bonds loosened. With the influx of foreign influence beyond the Germans, most significantly in the form of the British and French, a series of disparate factions soon developed centred on these foreign backers. At the centre of all this was Aleksei Brusilov, serving as Commander-in-Chief and effective dictator of White Russia, who balanced precariously between the different sides. During the first few years following the end of the Civil War, Brusilov worked to slowly strengthen the anaemic civil administration of the Don Whites, turning to men like Pavel Milyukov, Alexander Guchkov and Mikhail Rodzianko, who were associated with a push for strong republican government, while asking for economic support in the reconstruction of southern Russia.
Exploiting the chaos created during the civil war, Brusilov's regime parcelled out unoccupied lands in the Ukraine and along the Don to veterans of the army. Economic exploitation of natural resources followed soon after, as German, French and British corporations were allowed access to the Don White lands in pursuit of raw resources for their production. Multi-crop rotations and the consolidation of farmlands into larger estates were undertaken in a bid to centralize and improve the efficiency of production. Business interests were welcomed with open arms and economic progress was prioritized in an effort to strengthen the Don White state. Most significantly, Brusilov would secure a major investment in the industrialisation of the lower Don River and the expansion of the rail network between the Volga and Don, working to create a strong and independent economy which might be able to stand on its own in the future.
Like in much of Russia in the years following the Russian Civil War, the population experienced a significant boom which prompted many to discuss the need for a strong and healthy population with which to defend the fragile Republic from the Communist hordes. By mid-1925, the Don seemed on the road to recovery but was increasingly looking forward to an oncoming succession crisis as Brusilov visibly weakened. While few could question the credentials of Pyotr Wrangel, Brusilov's long-time right hand man, it was felt on the part of many that allowing him to succeed Brusilov without some form of check on his power would fundamentally undermine any hope of creating a stable and democratic republic for the future, and place far too much influence with the Germans, who Wrangel had come to regard highly for their aid during the Civil War (5).
Brusilov remained stubbornly supportive of Wrangel despite the protests of Milyukov and his supporters, as well as a clique of generals surrounding the General Yudenich, who had spent the post-civil war period ingratiating himself with the British, and worked hard to secure his succession. However, the argument that if Wrangel was left with no check on his power it could well cause the end of the Don state was a persuasive one and Brusilov was eventually convinced into creating a body which could pose as a check. Despite some anger at what he viewed as ill-talk of his personal honor, Wrangel proved open to a solution and even set out a pretty proposal. Under Wrangel's proposal, he would become Commander-in-Chief of the Military and serve as the Head of State for the Republic, however a Council of Generals would be instated which would seat the generals of the Don Republic and serve as a check on Wrangel's command of military policy, with two-thirds vote to veto a decision and the capacity to propose actions. At the same time a civilian government would be established under the Speaker of the Duma with responsibility for the running of internal governmental matters and foreign affairs, requiring a two-thirds vote of the Duma to veto. In effect, Wrangel would serve as the balancing point between the military and civilian government, with authority over both but veto-able by either.
While many were suspicious of Wrangel's willingness to put boundaries on his own power, searching endlessly for some plot or plan to explain it, the proposal would eventually get the assent of all parties. With this in place, Brusilov declared his own retirement and handed over power to Wrangel. Brusilov would spend the next two years in relatively happy retirement with his wife on the Black Sea coast, enjoying a respite from worry while serving as advisor and a friendly ear when Wrangel needed it. Brusilov would pass in his sleep in early autumn 1927, marking the end of an epic career and considered by many the most brilliant Russian of his generation. His funeral in Rostov was a grand affair, attended by representatives from across Europe and Asia, as well as a couple from the Americas, and served as the coming of age for the Don Republic.
Pyotr Wrangel's early government, from 1925 to 1927, would be marked by a series of efforts to improve what had been increasingly deteriorated relations with the Germans while efforts were made to make the Ukrainians feel invested in the Don regime. The Ukrainian language was spoken openly and even used in education across the western reaches of the Don Republic, while local autonomy and self-government was implemented in many areas. Wrangel's experience fighting alongside the Cossacks saw him in good stead, and he was able to secure them as some of his fiercest proponents, even as both civilian and military contenders to power plotted and planned against him. The liberal economic policies embraced under Brusilov were continued, and economic growth occurred in spurts. By the end of this period, the industrial development of the Lower Don would finally become self-sustaining, setting off an industrial boom across the region as trade along the rivers and coasts of the Don Republic exploded (6).
In the opposite end of Russia, the Siberian Whites under Tsar Roman von Ungern-Sternberg were discovering that being ruled by an eccentric and murderous warlord might not be the most productive of situations. While the influx of refugees caused by the famine provided a major population boost to the region and were able to be settled with relative ease, life was hard in the region and much of the population often skirted hunger, kept alive only by the monthly shipments of foodstuffs from China and the United States. This dependence allowed the Siberian state to exert an immense amount of power and control over its subjects, who were left with little choice but to follow the government's directives. Chita experienced rapid and significant growth as new ministries were founded and a governmental bureaucracy was established through which the Tsar might direct his government.
While the Tsar himself proved surprisingly disinterested in the day-to-day running of his new empire, his wife Olga Romanova would exert considerable influence in his place, creating a web of her supporters in the higher echelons of the government and slowly freezing out the Tsar from governance of the realm. In the meanwhile, Roman engaged himself in restructuring and strengthening his military, conducting exercises and directing the development of the army alongside his cronies. However, at this point he had already begun to look outward in hopes of spreading his own pan-monarchist beliefs. He travelled regularly south to Beijing, and even provided aid in the suppression of northern Chinese warlords. Perhaps most significantly, he was able to secure the support of Zhang Zuolin for the creation of a vassal Mongolia under the Bogd Khan, who would swear fealty to the Xuantong Emperor, but with the actual governance and control of the region to be split equally between Chita and Beijing.
Olga Romanova truly came into her own in this period, both serving as the administrative nexus of the Siberian regime and as a patron of clever men. A surprising spurt of innovative developments in agriculture and mining would occur in this period which would slowly allow for the stabilization of the Siberian realm and an end to its reliance on food imports by 1926. Olga was well loved and celebrated by many, enjoying a surprising degree of popularity even in the United States, serving as the subject of several movies and books, while her husband was widely feared. This was a fact which became increasingly clear to the Tsar as one year after another passed and his own power waned steadily. After placing the Bogd Khan atop the throne in Mongolia, he returned to a Chita seemingly changed beyond all recognition. In meetings and councils it was clear that most looked to Olga first and Roman second. This was a source of considerable bitterness to the Tsar who, despite his love of monarchism and the Romanov as a dynastic ideal, viewed his sidelining by his own wife as an assault upon his personal honour. By mid-1925 the tension between the Tsar and his wife was clear to members of the court, news of which was soon to spread to the various foreign delegations which had set up in Chita (7).
In August of 1926, the Siberian court was visited by the Tsaritsa's sister, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, who had spent the better part of the last decade in the United States. Anastasia was closely connected to the former Wood government and had quickly become a fixture of New York and Washington society, scandalising many with her closeness to Quentin Roosevelt, and through him the wider Roosevelt machine. Anastasia was a target of considerable anger and scorn by various nativist sections of the population as well as various sections of White Russian factions which continued to contest the Romanov-Ungern regime's right to rule. She had even been the target of three separate assassination attempts over the last four years, only narrowly avoiding the third due to the assassin missing his shot and killing a bystander. It was this third assassination attempt, and what Anastasia viewed as a complete failure by the police to follow up on it, that prompted the trip to Chita.
However, Anastasia's presence could not have proven more volatile to the stability of the court if she had tried. Her arrival alongside her long-time right-hand, Boris Savinkov, and a host of other supporters destabilized the previously precarious balance at the court, turning what had previously been a slow but growing advantage for her sister Olga into a landslide. The sudden arrival of Anastasia set off the Tsar's paranoia and soon provoked a series of intrigues and conspiracies as Roman sought to reclaim his power and authority. To make matters worse, Roman's poor treatment of Olga resulted in visible marks, which set whispers swirling and earned the Tsar the enmity of his sister-in-law. The attempted arrest of Boris Savinkov in mid-September 1926 by forces loyal to the Tsar was swiftly betrayed to Anastasia, who directed an immediate and heartfelt response. When the men set to arrest Savinkov arrived at his temporary residence, they were met with machinegun fire, while Roman only barely escaped the bullets of a pair of assassins.
Rather than remain in Chita, which Roman had come to realize was firmly in his wife and sister-in-law's pocket, the Tsar fled the city for the safety of his former stronghold of Dauria, a walled and heavily protected fortress in the middle of the steppes, wherefrom Roman believed he would be able to direct the reclamation of his proper position. While the Tsar's supporters rushed about, searching for aid from foreign and domestic sources, Roman gave himself over to paranoia. Dauria quickly became a charnel house as anyone suspected of the slightest treason or treachery was tortured and confessions extracted. Dozens were killed and an elaborate conspiracy was slowly pieced together from their tortured ramblings which gave the Tsar what he believed was a clear picture of the enemy he faced, increasingly certain that Anastasia, his wife Olga, Trotsky and a wider Zionist conspiracy had joined together to murder him and place Siberia under Jewish rule.
In his paranoia, the Tsar targeted any Jew he could get a hold of over the course of the next two months while Anastasia and Olga did what they could to minimize the critical situation and contained the Tsar's madness as best they could. There was, however, one man who Roman had felt no reason to suspect, his long-time aide, executioner and head-torturer, who had served the Tsar since early in the civil war, the Colonel Laurentz. This would prove a major mistake, for the colonel would be the one who opened Dauria's gates in the late hours of the night to permit a force aligned with Anastasia, having long since been turned by Olga against his former master. The Tsar was captured alive and transported to Chita where he was placed under a close house arrest, officially continuing to hold the crown but in effect left completely powerless, trapped in paranoid madness (8)
Footnotes:
(5) While the Don Republic, as the lands of the Don Whites are increasingly referred to, is experiencing a relatively swift recovery from the Civil War, it comes at the cost of selling out completely to foreign interests. The companies who dominate the Don Republic are German, French and British, with a firm grip on the state's national resources. While tolls, taxes and tariffs are paid and maintained, the sums collected are paltry when compared to the benefits these companies reap. However, all of this does, as mentioned, allow for an economic boom in the region.
(6) I really hope that the framework set out for the Don Republic makes sense. Essentially, it remains under military leadership and the Council of Generals proves a powerful force in the governance and leadership of the state, but it is not a proper Military Dictatorship. Instead the military and civilian spheres are set alongside each other - hell, many will come to compare the Council of Generals to a House of Lords, and it will to some degree function as such. However, the Council of Generals also happens to essentially amount to a General Staff, where military actions are planned and action is determined. Wrangel remains a powerful and dominant figure, but there are ways of limiting his power. One thing to note is that Wrangel's support for Ukrainian cultural development won't exactly be popular with Great Russia proponents and the civilian government won't enjoy sharing authority and power with the military in the long term.
(7) The Siberian Whites are starting from scratch, with little in the way of infrastructure or resources with which to manage their domains. In a surprisingly short period of time, Olga Romanova is able to address many of these challenges and over the course of the first few years of the post-civil war period she is able to build something out of nothing. However, her husband finds himself neutered and does not exactly enjoy the experience.
(8) Tsar Roman lasts longer as a figure in power than one might expect, but he was never particularly suited to this game and eventually finds himself completely outplayed. He is kept alive mostly so that Olga doesn't have to worry about suitors and because, while the Tsar's authority has taken quite a beating, it was always easier to run a functional government in this period if the ruler, at least nominally, was a man. While many are happy to follow and obey Olga or Anastasia, the idea that they can call on the feared and respected Mad Tsar helps keep those who might object to the government in check.
End Notes:
I don't know when the second part will be available, these updates are taking me more time and I have a lot of other stuff to work on, but I hope to have it up within the next half week or so.
That said, this division actually works out quite well, as it is focused exclusively on events in Russia. Let me know what you think.
