Kings Gambit:
In the game of chess, the first opening moves among the opponents have the tendency to shape the entire game. An entire score of choregraphed movements, called openings and their responses, it's almost a discipline among those enthusiasts of the game. It's considered a rare move among the modern grandmasters to use the King's Gambit; it can go wrong very quickly if not well managed, or if done recklessly by someone who believes they possess more skill or knowledge of the game than they actually have. If done right, or against an untalented or skilled opponent, it can lead to an intrepid offensive or an early victory for its user. Grigory Romanov was not an insane drunk, but he was a man, capable of excesses in his vices, his pride especially, it's a common theme in history of what starts to happen when one actually starts to believe in the personality cult and propaganda surrounding oneself. Romanov was not there yet, completely, but those influences were beginning to shape his actions. Despite his increasing hubris, its important to keep in mind there was no indication at the time of his succession that the Soviet Union was going to collapse as in our OTL, he had no notion that his leadership had caused this much of a difference, yet he still was clearly a good leader, he achieved results, forcing Yugoslavia into the Warsaw Pact, was a historical victory. Managing to crush the first wave of liberal revolutionary opposition in the 80's was too. Of course, he personally didn't do these things, rather his policy decisions and directions to institutions made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals. He represented something, the will of a minority of the population, but a strong political force, the hardline Marxist Leninist element of the CPSU. Romanov was a veteran of the second world war, he personally felt war, the presence of totalitarianism and it's subsequent upheaval and his own personal relief at the hands of Khrushchev. He had no desire to be a tyrant, he didn't personally enjoy killing, nor did he disregard it completely, but total power and the feeling of winning victories have the tendency to create the kind of mindset, where one's great, glorious and perhaps worthwhile objectives are worth the cost, any cost. He wanted to put the Soviet flag on the Moon, he wanted to outcompete the Americans and demonstrate to the world that there was in fact an alternative to capitalism. Yet these idiots and traitors, wanted to sabotage these goals.
On that day, we experienced history at it's personal. While of course it was inevitable that these subversive networks would be noticed, and something would have to be done about them, the way in which it happened dictated the way in which it will occur, the haste. Ideally a secretary would have read this, created recommendations or a more measured reasonable response to curb the extremists. Instead, the most powerful man in the Soviet Union read a report about how people, were colluding with foreign enemies, enemies who he knew conspired to not only destroy their country, but had the most destructive force in the world constantly aimed at them. He had fought for his country, and to in his mind traitors who either knew nothing of the struggles and sacrifices it took to fight for it, or even to rebuild it, or did and still chose betrayal (even worse) incensed him. In a perverse way, it interested him, a challenge. But unfortunately as will see, Romanov did in fact allow his vices to corrupt his judgement, and like two old friends having a drink, playing chess, he thinking of himself as a great man, and genius, made a move in which may prove to be reckless.
Central Intelligence Agency, Soviet Division - Langley, Virginia
Thomas Twetten looked spiffy in his fine suit, he was a confident man. He knew that his career prospects didn't look so good with the new president, but he had a great tenure with the last and looked forward to his retirement. But he remembered the frustration during the height of the eighties, having to watch the communists act with impunity, to get away with using heinous weapons and then costing American lives in the Gulf War. He wanted the one last move of his career to be a big one. He addressed the conference room of department heads, annalists and many of the best the CIA had to offer.
"We have it on good authority that they're going to act soon, both sources three and eight in the KGB have confirmed that there is talk of a massive operation, source two, our highest asset, has said he hasn't been told anything. Our analysts think this is major, clearly they're getting something ready but they haven't told middle management about it. Now some of our resources have been poached for South Africa, but I don't need to tell anyone in this room that we are still operationally capable. We also have it on good authority that there have been arrests, snatch and grabs and disappearances in Kazakhstan. We knew Kazakhstan was the weakest link, and by far the most porous, it offered us a tripwire. Operation Tsar's Folly has been authorized, the president has been hesitant, but we managed to present this in the most delicate way, that regardless of whatever foreign policy he wishes to take, we have to remove any and all American assets, and of course 'destroy the evidence'; to do this we will have to alert the networks and organizations of what is coming, allowing them to put their own contingencies into place."
King's Gambit Accepted:
Romanov usually choose to recover from his hangovers in his personal sauna, or some of the hot bathes he had at his villa. The latter he only had installed on the recommendation by his physician, it was therapeutic, for stress of course. Although he was stressed, he started to think of some of the lessons his predecessor had taught him, not to be hasty, that the KGB could be relied on but there were always going the possibility of moles. But as these thoughts swam around his head, he disregarded the anxieties. What could these subversives even hope to do against him, against the might of the state? He did desire détente with the US, what right did they have to dispute him dealing with literal bought off criminals and bandits in his own country. He wanted this done before the next May victory parade.
The most radical of the networks, some in very remote locations and others in urban centers were equipped by the CIA with satellite phones. The Soviets could pick up these signals sometimes but assumed they were part of some kind of electronic intelligence gathering or interference and usually disregarded their faint and short distortions. The Americans alerted the opposition that the hammer was coming down, that they needed to 'destroy their evidence'. The radical groups had no intentions of destroying any evidence, but they did do the service of sending the word to the moderate or nationalist groups, to ready rallies and protests as soon as possible.
On March 29th, at 4 AM, after intensive surveillance efforts backed up by electronic information gathering, CCTV and the use of informers. The KGB and OMON did most of the work and many of the arrests proceeded without any significant incident in Russia and the Baltic States. The KGB was successful in hounding out a few of the radical but more of the moderate groups, the latter had taken less effort to hide themselves, many believing that they hadn't even committed a crime, some even considered themselves communists, but only very few were members of the party.
In Chechnya, at approximately 4:35 AM, an attempt to raid an apartment building resulted in an immediate firefight. Two KGB agents and one OMON soldier was killed. Reinforcements were immediately called in, but the brazen attack on the government forces and the use of both HE and smoke grenades allowed them to escape. As the hour progressed, violence spread in Chechnya as the scene was repeated. In cases where the rebels were sure to be overwhelmed, they surrendered with live grenades or explosives, taking as many soviet lives as possible. This started occuring in Azerbaijan, in Southern Kazakhstan and in the Central Asian Republics, especially those bordering Afghanistan. The Army was specifically prepared for the latter possibility and immediately began mobilizing. As a convoy moved towards Grozny, it came under fire, and the BMP-2D heading towards it had to pour rounds at the forested heights from which the fire was coming from, suddenly an RPG was fired from 300 meters and missed. The BMP crew were Afghanistan veterans, they popped smoke and directed the soft vehicles to hide behind trees, they opened their hatches and called for reinforcements. More RPG volleys, and 30mm rounds were exchanged for a while until the rebels retreated and more BMPs and BTRs of the 42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division arrived. The KGB proceeded with their operations within the city, but mostly found deserted warehouses or apartments. They also found raided armories, police stations, suicidal fanatics and more easily arrested moderates. By the end of the day, the Soviet air force was running reconnaissance flights over the Caucasus.
In Azerbaijan the first noted act of terrorism occurred, in the afternoon, while the raids were happening. The target specifically chosen to cause as much economic damage as possible. A lada, laden with hundreds of pounds of plastic explosive, was driven into an oil refinery, and detonated. The explosion devastated the area around it killing a few civilians, but the explosion could be seen from Baku. The raids were halted as confusion turned to frenzy, the local authorities declared a state of emergency. The second act of that day would occur at 7 PM, a man dressed in soviet army clothing, acting as if he was on official business entered the lobby of the local communist party headquarters in Baku, and pushed a button. The suicide bomb would blast the first two levels of the concrete building, killing forty five people, many coordinating the response to the refinery bombing.