POST-WAR EUROPE:
RUSSIA
Members of the Moscow Free State uprising
The state of Russia in the post-war world was dire. Not only had Viktor promised supreme victory and a sack of Paris, famously stating that "Cossacks will ride to Brittany," Russia was also kicked out of the League of Tsars forever. For years he had built his own legend, a saga of reincarnation as the Great Khan, who would lead the peoples of Eurasia to peace and domination under a single banner. For years, ever since his return home from the war against Persia, Viktor had craved absolute control. Despite his brutal tendencies, he really had seen himself bringing about a
Pax Viktoria, where Eurasia was firmly under his control but also free of serfdom, and dreamed of a stable land for the rearing of future generations. It had been his destiny... or so he had thought. Like the Republican Union, his doctrine with which he entered the war declared that his victory was preordained, and that defeat could not even be imagined. When that defeat came, it hit like a ton of bricks. The Russian people's morale plummeted. They had fought and died, suffering over 5 million combat casualties on the Hungarian and Balkan Front alone, not even counting the Chinese Civil War or deaths from the Plague. It was as if God himself had struck Viktor down. Immediately, Russian citizens began to spread rumors that Viktor was a false savior and only used them for his own glory.
One of the main reasons for the Russian Civil War that was rapidly approaching was the fact that the former serfs, freed by Viktor himself, were now somewhat educated and worldly, mostly of the so-called "Kulak class." While Viktor had been off rampaging, a silent minority was forming that were educating themselves on the ideals of the Enlightenment era of the 18th century. One among these was a formerly semi-literate farmhand named Nikodim Maksimov, who now worked in Moscow as factory foreman and who had also now become a prolific reader of the great minds of centuries past. While the situation in Russia continued its deterioration after the war, Maksimov began to aspire to greater things. He viewed Viktor as a blow-hard tyrant and genocidal madman, and viewed his "liberal" reforms as simply a way for him to rally support for his vainglorious wars. Maksimov's brother Nikolai had been killed at Budapest, at the age of 25. Now, the 29 year-old Nikodim desired revenge. After reading the works of the great minds of the last two centuries, especially Knigge and Nietzsche, he realized he was in agreement with their philosophies. The year was 1914, and Russia was about to implode.
The crash of the Berlin Stock Exchange in August had devastated Germania and led to a multi-faction civil war. In Russia, there wasn't even a crash. It was just total defeat. The Allies hadn't needed to sanction or punish Russia for its part in the war. No decades of repayments, no surrender of land. The Allies knew full well the result of a Russian defeat. The economy was absolutely devastated. It cannot be understated how crippling losing the war really was. The entire economy was based around the war, and the defeat spelled economic doom. To pay for the war, taxation was levied to absurdly high amounts and war bonds were also issued. Now, those bonds were as worthless as the Imperial ruble itself. The war had also seen Viktor's implementation of the Army First policy, which saw the vast majority of grain and meat supplies going to fuel the military. In late 1914, millions of unemployed, often wounded, veterans flooded back home, some of the last to be released from Europan POW camps. They arrived in a broken, shattered nation on the cusp of anarchy.
Maksimov was not alone. Millions of veterans and the poor were out in the streets begging while the rich nobility cloistered in their mansions, patrolled around the clock by armed guards. In late September, when the Illuminist uprising in Germania was well underway, news finally hit that the downtrodden and the lower classes had joined with the philosophers and intellectuals to overthrow religion and the state. Millions across Russia viewed the Warsaw revolt as an amazing, even beautiful thing. In the fires of Illuminism burned hope for the masses of suffering Russians. Their faith in the church and the tsar had been shaken to its core. They viewed themselves as expendable pawns. Now, with boiling rage, they followed Warsaw's example. On October 1, 1914, Maksimov led a general strike at the auto factory he served as foreman at. Ulyanov Motors of Moscow had been the biggest supplier of vehicles to the army during the war, and its CEO, Vlad Ulyanov, was known as "Uncle
Cyka" by his employees. When news of the strike reached Vlad's desk, he ordered his company goons to go beat the strikers down. It turned into a bloodbath. Within minutes of the thugs' arrival, gunshots were heard and a riot erupted, leaving some 20 workers dead. Fearing an all out revolt, Viktor ordered General Alexander Kerensky to close down Moscow and declare marshal law. This was the beginning of the October Uprising. For the next month, Maksimov led any who would follow in his revolt. Vlad Ulyanov fled the city under government protection just as the main factory completely fell to the rebels. Declaring the Moscow Illuminist Worker's Free State, they raised an owl flag above the imposing, soot-stained factory and dared the government to come in after them. One of the local police stations was overran on October 20, by Maksimov's men and they raided the armory, finally securing some heavier weapons.
Vladimir Ulyanov, in a painting set in front of his personal UMM garage. Ulyanov was one of the richest businessmen in Europe and profited immeasurably from the war, but he was known for treating his workers like dirt.
On October 31, Viktor ordered Kerensky to crush the rebels. "Proceed, no matter what danger, and kill every traitor you see." It was clear that the tsar very much feared a general revolution at this point. As rumors spread of rebel cells in various regions, from Karelia to Ukraine, Viktor's sanity, or what little remained of it, began to vanish completely, as he sat in St. Petersburg sweating out his and the nation's fate. Kerensky's assault on the factory was an atrocity, with Maksimov and his men being butchered with axes and bayonets. Kerensky and his men then hung the corpses along the streets of Moscow on the gaslights. What was supposed to be a warning to any potential revolutionaries now became a rallying cry.
"Remember Maksimov!" was heard all across the land, his story being told and retold countless times by traveling radicals, each new telling making the legend grow bigger and bigger. In mid-January, 1915, the revolution truly began. Citizens of Moscow, mostly veterans, took up arms against Kerensky's emergency rule and began to assault government buildings. Before long the mobs were upon Kerensky himself. Placing him under "citizen's arrest," the Illuminist-inspired rebels marched him to Krasivaya Square, in front of the palatial Kremlin, and commenced with a mock trial that ended with him being beheaded for all to see.
When Europe found out about the revolution, panic became terror. First Germania was falling to Illuminism, and now here was its direct neighbor, one of the largest empires in earth's history, also blazing hot with Illuminist flames. Napoleon IV said of the event, "Cheering for Viktor's downfall is foolish. Better the devil we defeated then a wave of of populist Jacobin radicalism." The final clincher was, however, when newspapers ran headlines about Saint Basil's Cathedral. On the night of January 28, radicals set the ancient building on fire, and by morning most of the building was destroyed. In Ukraine, Nadia Holub, a disciple of Grand Master of Illuminism Otto Werner, arrived back in Kiev from her exile in the Helvetic Confederation. The 30 year-old had published "Luciferian propaganda" during the war, which were newsletters that called for an end to the war and for the establishment of a true constitution. Now radicalized from her time with Werner, she became "Mother Ukraine," leading some 15,000 marchers through Kiev waving flags and burning the homes of the rich. Churches were looted for gold and jewels before being torched.
Nadia Holub, Ukrainian Illuminist and nationalist
Viktor fled St. Petersburg on March 2, 1915. The situation was hopeless. The entirety of the European portion of the Empire was collapsing and cannibalizing itself. Admiral Alexander Kolchak, the Tsar's chief military advisor since the sacking of General Anton Denikin following the loss of the war, said of Viktor's flight, "So this is how it ends. Hundreds of years of glorious history only for this braggart showman to flee like a dog with his tail between his legs. He goes to lick his wounds in Mongolia with the subhumans there. We must fight to the last man to save our motherland. Holy Mother, God save Russia." The Admiral learned of Viktor's flight a mere hour after it began and immediately moved to secure St. Petersburg. Well-respected by most of the general staff and the government, Kolchak ordered an immediate emergency council to form a new government. It was quickly decided that Kolchak would take power as Prince Regent of the Empire. Viktor II, the crown prince, had followed his father into exile, along with the rest of the Imperial family. Kolchak addressed the nation by radio on March 4, 1915.
"Citizens and patriots of Russia! It is during dark times such as this that the Empire has proved itself century after century! From the ancient times to now, the Russian people have never faltered or slackened in their drive to a glorious future. But such things are not freely given. Millions of dead later, the Great Patriotic War is done! Our sons lay slain and buried in mass graves. Citizens! The fault for our suffering lies with one man, and that man is the Tsar. One day ago, the so-called Scourge of God fled from the capital dressed as a commoner and headed east, toward his beloved Orient. The bloody and treacherous demon led us to disgrace and indignity at the hands of the Papist scum! His meddling in the Orient and the bombastic and unfathomably dimwitted management of the war lost us millions of sons. It lost us command of the League of Tsars. It lost us everything. It made us question who we were as a people and society. But now is not the time to back heinous, atheistic, Luciferian revolutionaries that wish to destroy our nation from within. Now we must fight for our survival! Not conquest or for glory, but for our grandchildren! The government has named me Prince Regent of the Empire, but I seek to be the chief servant of its people. I do not want this position, and the responsibility that now rests on my shoulders is near-crippling. But I have been on knees in prayer! I have placed my fate in the hands of Almighty God! Citizens and patriots of the Empire! We must purge our lands of the cancer within! Death to the traitors! Death to Viktor! Long live the holy Motherland! Urah!"
- Admiral Kolchak, Prince Regent of the Russian Empire (March 4, 1915)
Kolchak did indeed win over many who hated the Tsar but were still devout Orthodox Christians and patriots, an element of society that was terrified of the growing Illuminist outbreak. In Karelia, a revolutionary committee of Illuminists took control of the state duma in Petrozavodsk on March 10. But Kolchak rallied his supporters and had General Pyotr Wrangel lead a force of some 15,000 men to stamp out the fires of revolution in the northern region. Wrangel did as he was told and destroyed the moderately-sized Illuminist militias and hanged the leaders of the rebellion. In order to keep Karelia and the other separatist-leaning regions of the Empire under control, Kolchak knew he had to do something. On April 20, 1915, he announced an arrest warrant for Viktor, declaring him an enemy of the people. Finally, on April 27, he called for a council of the government once more. The next morning, he announced the end of the Russian Empire and the abolition of the monarchy. He would now become emergency supreme chancellor of the newly-christened Russian Federation. Now, states and territories within the old Empire could become de facto independent entities but would still bow to St. Petersburg at the end of the day. Celebrations erupted in many cities, seeing it as a calm and logical answer to the pleas for reform without destroying the foundations of society itself. Wrangel installed himself as emergency governor of the Karelian Republic on May 4, 1915. Slowly but surely, areas still loyal to the old ways and the Orthodox Church began to declare themselves as Republics within the Federation. Crimea declared the Crimean Republic on May 15, followed by Komi and Mordovia later in the month. But these claims of sovereignty were not unchallenged. All across Russia, Illuminism was spreading like a plague. Moscow remained steadfastly loyal to the revolution and was quickly arming and sending troops to fight against Kolchak's "Holy Knights," as he called the Federation Army. In Ukraine, Nadia Holub declared herself "Protector of the People" and launched a massive invasion of the Crimean Republic, slaughtering the meager defenses set up by Igorek Borisovich and executing the emergency governor himself. The summer of 1915 would see unbelievably savage battles between the Federation and the Revolution. Smolensk would see a bloody fight where Federation forces only just barely prevented a huge force of revolutionaries from seizing St. Petersburg, largely thanks to a volunteer force of soldiers from as far away as Sweden, Portugal, and even a tiny handful from the Republican Union. Northern Russia, as far as Komi, held out under Kolchak's banner, but the rest succumbed to the Revolution.
Supreme Chancellor Kolchak of the Russian Federation
Pyotr Wrangel, Governor of the Karelian Republic
Flag of the Mordovian Republic
Flag of the short-lived Crimean Republic
Flag of the Karelian Republic
Flag of the Komi Republic
The war would continue to rage for several years. 1917 would see the capture of the Tsar in China by mercenaries. Viktor was shipped to St. Petersburg on an armored train. However, that train came under assault in Siberia by Illuminists. In the world's strangest game of "capture the flag," the revolutionaries kidnapped Viktor for themselves and began the march to Moscow, only for them, in turn, to be attacked by Kolchak's men. The disgraced monarch was once again seized by the Federation and he finally arrived in St. Petersburg. In a massive show trial, Viktor was condemned to hang for treason, cowardice, desertion of duty, destroying the Russian state, and abuse of the people. On July 13, 1917, Viktor was marched to a gallows to meet his fate. It reportedly took over ten minutes for him to finally die. He was not allowed last words. The Imperial family itself was spared death, but Viktor II was permanently sent to a Siberian labor camp and the rest of the family, including his two sisters, was exiled to Turkey and forbidden from ever returning to Russia. The Hannoverian and Romanov bloodline was to live to see another day, despite the entire world turning on them.
However the same could not be said for the Federation. Despite valiant effort and much sacrifice, the power of the Revolution could not be held back forever. Illuminist troops seized Komi and Mordavia in 1918, signally the beginning of a long end for the Russian Civil War. With the rise of Oleg Volkov, another student of Otto Werner, through the ranks of the revolutionary army, the Illuminists finally had a leader. After years of fighting, Supreme Chancellor Kolchak watched from the balcony of the Chancellery as fires burned bright on the horizon. He had done his best. He had fought on in the face of the impossible. As Illuminists laid siege to the building later that day, September 1, 1920, Kolchak gathered his men for one final attack. At high noon, the Supreme Chancellor received communion with his men before riding their horses out of the gates of the Chancellery one last time. After that final glorious charge, the Supreme Chancellor lay dead on the cobblestones, still clutching his sword. The Russian Civil War was over. Volkov and his troops burned the Chancellery, the old Imperial Palace, was burned to the ground. Huge mobs walked the streets, burning Bibles, posters, crucifixes and anything relating to the Empire or the Federation. Minervan Owl banners hung from every streetlamp. The history of the Illuminist People's Republic of Russia was just about to truly begin....
Oleg Volkov, Protector of the People of the I.P.R.R.
Polish Illuminist volunteers fighting for the I.P.R.R. (circa 1920)
