Able Archer and one pelmeny too many

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1. Bad dreams
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    • ferdi254

    Banned
    Hi Folks,

    this is my first try on an ATL. Trying to make it as realistic as possible with a few caveats: I will invent characters below the government level meaning I will not look up names on advisors, generals... and the USSR leadership will suddenly get some influx of flexibility and ability to accept bad information. Reason see title and first chapter. And English is not my mother language, I have a spell checker on but please bear with me.


    Moscow, Kremlin, 12th of November 1983, 2 am local time

    The second most powerful man of the world, Yuri Andropov had trouble falling asleep. The scare of the last four days with the USA seemingly preparing a first strike on the USSR had taken its toll. Plus the opulent dinner he had that evening. The pelmenies were to die for and now his stomach was telling him that dying might have actually been a good idea. After hours of rolling around in the bed he finally fallen asleep, only to be haunted by the worst nightmares in his whole life.

    He saw rockets getting started, heard the alarm sirens go up and then the flashes, cities in Russia incinerated, people trying to flee, all the horrors of a nuclear strike. And then he saw Ronald Reagan standing victorious over a crowd cheering “USA, USA, USA…”[1]

    He woke up screaming and lay panting for a while. After calming down a bit and thinking about the next steps he asked his aide de camp to call in the politburo at 9 in the morning. He suddenly felt very relaxed and calm and just knew what to do. The old promise “Never again” shall not be broken on his watch. Determined he went off to the meeting.


    [1] Yes, the soviet leadership was afraid of a first strike of the USA
     
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    • sloreck

    Yuri. A pelmeny is a Russian "ravioli", stuffed with a number of different possibilities I love the ones meat stuff, and of course eaten with smetana (sour cream).
     

    ferdi254

    Banned
    Yuri changed, and as I had couple of dozens of pelmeny in my life (plus Piroggi), yes, having had too many can give you bad sleep.
     
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    Decisions 1.0
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    • ferdi254

    Banned
    Moscow, Kremlin, 12th of November, 9 am local time.

    “Comrades” Andropov greeted the politburo “let us be honest, we all were afraid that the NATO and especially the USA would start a war against us the last days. Given the rhetoric and political measures of the USA we all thought it was what they were planning. And we all have been trained in dialectic long enough to know that if you fear something it means it might happen”

    Silence, a silence which meant agreement. It seems nobody had had a good night of sleep.

    “Comrades, most of us have seen 14-18 and we all have seen 41-45. We all know that whatever happens our first and foremost priority is to make sure that no one ever dares attacking us again, that if someone attacks us, he will get hurt but the USSR is not getting devastated again. We have the Warsaw Pact as our glacis, we do have an army in the GDR which is perfectly capable not only to repel any attack but bring the war to the other side fast but it seems, we are in a situation which requires us to reassess our situation. If we were afraid, does this mean, the old promise “Never again” cannot be kept?

    There were murmurs around the table with one open comment coming from one of the older members: “Do you want to tell us we did something wrong”.

    The answer was sharp and crisp: “Do not imply that I did something wrong here. But we have seen Stalin changing politics when needed and we all saw what happened when the Red Army was not ready for the fight the enemy was going to deliver.” “And I fear that is the case right now. We have Kohl, Thatcher and first and foremost Reagan all intend to overthrow us and they are investing into their armies like never before. Thatcher being so anticommunist that McCarthy looks left wing compared to her, Reagan the fool with his SDI wishing us on the garbage heap of history and Kohl still dreaming of a unification to his terms and all the revanchistic “Vertriebenen” in his party who want their land in Poland and the CSSR back[1].”

    Gromyko spoke up: “What do you suggest?”.

    “We all know that the reports we get are skewed to some extent.” Great unrest in the room.

    “If you disagree remember the reports you sent up in the past.” Silence in the room.

    “I will ask our economic, military and scientific advisors to send in some of their younger members who have shown too much initiative and own thinking in the past and yet survived to come to meet us tomorrow at 8 am sharp and present their take on the situation. And to make it clear to them that we expect total honesty and openness. Afterwards we will go into a two day session to decide how to move on”[2]


    [1] The one with Maggie is a picture to a certain extent the other two are OTL.

    [2] I know this is a huge step for Andropov but there is a similar report about a large mindchange in Reagan in pretty short time concerning nuclear weapons.
     
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    • Koenig von Poposia

    sloreck said:
    Yuri. A pelmeny is a Russian "ravioli", stuffed with a number of different possibilities I love the ones meat stuff, and of course eaten with smetana (sour cream).
    Click to expand...

    I have eaten something that sounds like "pee-rosh-kee" that had fried dough filled with mashed potatoes and cheese, or meat, or sauerkraut. Really good! However, as much as I liked the ones with sauerkraut, they did not like me. I did not enjoy having to tie a rope around my ankle and attach the other end to a heavy piece of furniture so that I did not sail away while I being transformed into a gas-filled zeppelin ("Oh, the humanity!"). I can only imagine what might happen if one were to try to eat one of these pelmenies and then sleep on it.
     
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    ferdi254

    Banned
    GeographyDude, Able Archer happens exactly as it did OTL, the POD is the night afterwards in the Kremlin. What Andropov had for dinner I do not know (and maybe nobody can find out) but a negative epiphany in a nightmare is something that can easily happen imho.
     
    KuboCaskett

    KuboCaskett

    I wonder if this will be more akin to Giobasita's take in that the incident in question lead to a conventional WWIII that then got nuclear just a few months later?
     
    Decisions 2.0
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    • ferdi254

    Banned
    Moscow, a bar in the city, 12th of November, 8 pm local time.

    Colonel Yevgeny Stepanowitsch was drinking his 5th vodka when his old friend Yuri Andrejewitsch entered the room, sitting down at the table, noticed the emptiness of the bottle and asked for a vodka and what was going on.

    He got both: “Yuri, we know each other since our studies and we have also shared our experiences that the likes of us who would not take reports at facts and investigate what´s going on and make independent reports have not always been well received by our superiors” “Yes, you can say so.” “So you in your economic academia circles and me in military intelligence, we have always been the ones who disputed and discussed matters and now…. I am a dead man!” “What happened?”

    “I am summoned to the politburo and I am to give them an open and honest appraisal of our situation.” “Yevgeny, stop right there, because I am a dead man as well” “Yuri, do not tell me you have to be there first thing in the morning too.” “Yes.”

    And with this they ordered another bottle of vodka.[1] But they were in for surprise. Being Russians and having had 40 years of learning to keep their mouths shut and their voices down had been not so important that evening because if you are dead anyway… so they were visibly shaken when suddenly a man sat down next to them. “Comrades, my name is Ivan Ivanovich[2] and it seems we share the same fate. I did overhear your conversation and my boss has ordered me to the Kremlin tomorrow morning to brief the politburo about the situation. Can I also have a vodka please?”

    They shared the bottle on the table and another one and decided how to proceed in the morning. And a consensus was reached to go down in glory, for if they painted the situation too rosy they would be dead if found out (or even immediately) and if they told the truth most likely they would be dead anyway. So the truth it was.

    What they did not know was that they have been also overheard by a KGB agent who reported this back to Andropoy who was happy to hear it. He knew what he wanted was not easy to get through.


    [1] 7 drinks at sto gram (100 gram) empty a bottle.

    [2] I know, I know
     
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    • mrmandias

    The normal Anglicization is 'Yevgeny,' 'Evgeny,' or even just 'Eugene.' The normal patronymic is 'Ivanovich'

    I like the low comedy of that scene.
     

    ferdi254

    Banned
    Sorry, that´s where me being German comes through I am more familiar with the germanization of the names. Will Change.
     
    Information 1.0
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    • ferdi254

    Banned
    Moscow, Kremlin, 13th of November, 8 am local time.

    Ivan, Juri and Yevgeny were sitting in the meeting room of the politoffice getting addressed by Juri Andropov: “Comrades, you have all been appraised by your superiors as very knowledgeable, fast thinkers with a deep knowledge and the ability to make up your mind and speak it out. That brought you here today”. The double meaning of this sentence was obvious for everyone in the room. “We are here to hear your open opinion about how we stand compared to the NATO and the USA and what your best prognosis for the next 10 years is.”

    They had decided that Yevgeny would start. If he got through without getting shot right away the others would have much better chance. So the situation of the army it was.

    “Comrades we do have the most powerful army in the world, we outnumber each and every potential opponent in the number of soldiers, tanks, planes, nuclear warheads… you name it, we have the most. The latest addition to our Arsenal, the SS 20, is sending the NATO on panic.

    But as much as the surface looks good a deeper analysis shows weaknesses and the future is pretty bleak. NATO has introduced a new generation of tanks and once they got their teething problems solved and have introduced newer versions not only will the already now obsolete T 34 and T 54 only be target practice but all our tanks will most likely be and we cannot upgrade that much anymore. The newest versions of the planes will have the same effect on our planes with the exception of the Mig 29. NATO invests big time into the military and is upgrading equipment, training and doctrine, while we spend less and less on training and maintenance. If their cruise missiles are as accurate as reported they could in a first strike seriously degrade our logistics and our command and control system, and we have no answer to those. My best estimate is 7 years from now they will be able to beat us conventionally with the worst case being 4 years.[1] And that is still assuming we get our allies up to fight with the force they have in the books and I would not bet too much on the Polish Army and the Volksarmee to show up in full strength.

    If we want to keep parity in the fighting power of the armies we would need to do what the NATO is doing right now and that is, to invest heavily, or we will be outpaced.”

    “Comrade Yevgeny, do you think Able Archer was a preparation for a first strike”

    “It could have been the first step to get us used to that kind of exercise. At the moment even a good strike at our headquarters and infrastructure would let the NATO run into a superior army especially if the motivation gets fueled by a first strike. By 4-6 years from now with regular Able Archers…”

    With that he turned to Yuri.

    A huge unrest filled the room until Andronpov called for silence


    [1] A conventional war in 1989 would most likely have been a disaster for the WP, which they knew already 1987, so the interval is OTL.
     
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    • ferdi254

    Banned
    Moscow, Kremlin, 13th of November, 9:30 am local time

    Yuri had the attention of the audience after Yevgeny did pave the way:

    “Let me summarize the situation. We do have a lot of civil unrest in the Warsaw Pact nations. To mitigate this we have allowed them to take loans from the west to raise the standard of living. That was good as long as the price for oil was high and we got enough Dollar to pay for those. Now that price is going down…” “Of course manipulated by the USA” “Of course comrade, but no matter why, it is down and so effectively our economy is shrinking. We already spend a huge part of our GDP for the army. Increasing this money, paying money to keep the Pact states happy, not making our population too unhappy and keeping up Afghanistan, is something we simply cannot afford” “That´s bland and harsh, Comrade”. “Yes, but I was asked to be just this. And of course long term we all know that Capitalism will perish due to its internal problems and that the labor class will raise against its suppressors but not in the next 10 years or so at least. Comrades, you can kill me for that but the fact stays the same. We are nearly broke. Any big investments in the army are impossible. Please remember that the FRG, UK, Italy and France together have a higher GDP than more or less the whole Pact united. If we add the USA, they can easily outspend us, but maybe science has an answer to that.”[1] Again the way was paved and again Andropov had to call for silence.


    [1] Normally not agreeing with Helmut Kohl but his explanation for Gorbachevs´ behavior (given much later) was “Er hat sich das Hauptbuch zeigen lassen und wusste er war am Arsche des Propheten“. Best translation I can do (without expletives): He had the books shown to him and knew the USSR was done for.
     
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