The Kingdom of God is Within You
Extract from ‘The Decade of Freedom: The 70s Remembered’ by Abigail Francis
The crowd that assembled in Red Square on November 7th 1971 were mostly captives under threat of losing their jobs (and consequentially being labelled ‘parasites’). In a nation that had already seen 100,000 people die that year from starvation alone, with the famine beginning to spread to the cities, this was not a warning to be taken lightly. Coincidentally, roughly 100,000 people were crowded around the Kremlin that day. The soldiers that had been chosen to parade down Red Square that day were primarily conscripts who knew that once the show in Moscow was over that they would be heading to Poland to fight the local resistance. Suslov was performing the main speech, having come down with a cold in prior days, which made his already uninspiring speeches even more infuriatingly unlistenable to the average Soviet citizen. All of this added to an environment that afternoon that made Moscow unbearably tense, though most of the Politburo had been in the dark of how bad the situation had truly gotten (with the exception of Malenkov, whose experience at local churches gave him greater insight into the feelings of the city at large). The final and most powerful reason for the uprising that followed was that it was the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s ‘Martyrdom’ for Socialism. It took primary focus in Suslov’s speech to the masses, with the dictator extolling how Gagarin had ‘Risked even his life to demonstrate the superior science of Socialism, which even the Capitalists accepted when they killed him’. At the moment the words left his lips and he took a breath to continue, a voice seemed to pierce through the crowd. Though the name of that man has been long lost to history, with many legends of his ultimate fate reaching far and wide (the only broad agreement being that he was very drunk at the time), the words he said have lived forever: “We all know he’s alive you shitass!” The words reached Suslov’s ears … and the dictator flinched. For several seconds, the dictator stood motionless as he stammered to find his place in the speech. Soldiers rushed into the crowd to try and find the offender but ended up harassing countless people who did nothing when no one cooperated. When one officer attempted to pistol-whip a worker into talking, another stole the gun and shot him. At that point, all hell broke loose in Red Square, with workers attacking the police, the police fighting soldiers, and the Politburo under lockdown inside the Kremlin. No one knew who was on who’s side. Television cameras turned off shortly after the first gunshots were fired, with a helicopter called into the Kremlin to get the Soviet hierarchy out of dodge as soon as possible. The only one who decided to stay in the Kremlin was Malenkov - something Suslov, Molotov and the others dismissed as the old man’s foolishness. Along with Andropov, the two departed eastwards by means of a hastily organised helicopter to plan their next move - leaving Malenkov the time to come up with his own masterstroke. He ordered the television cameras to resume broadcast to the shock of the marooned staff inside the Kremlin. He walked out onto the balcony of the Kremlin to see the madness that had consumed Red Square. Seventy people had already been killed in the streets below, with an angry mob assembling around the Kremlin, alternately chanting, “Death to Suslov” and “Bread, not War!” Malenkov boomed out the only words that could have quietened the crowd:
“Yuri Gagarin is alive!”
The shock that a Politburo member had said those words stopped the fighting in Red Square in an instant. Malenkov then proceeded to launch an unprecedented condemnation of the regime so oratorical that many historians believe that the riot was engineered by him and that the man who sparked the uprising was in his employ. He condemned the state’s policy on economics, war and especially religion. Under Malenkov’s guidance, the church had been allowed to significantly grow in power in the Soviet Union, aided by the constant presence of famine and misery about the current state of affairs. Thus, the crowd that was in Red Square that day was mostly sympathetic to such a message. Then Malenkov said, “Comrade Suslov has failed the Party, failed the country, but most of all he has failed the Russian [not Soviet] people! When Lenin came in, he promised peace, bread and land! Now we have
no peace,
no bread and
no land! There is no doubt about it! Suslov must go!” The ovation from the crowd was deafening - even the soldiers joined in, actual support of the Communist regime now almost nonexistent, even among ethnic Russians. By the time Suslov and co had landed in Nizhny Novgorod, they were blindsided by reports of spontaneous Anti-Suslov riots in Leningrad, Stalingrad and Kiev due to Malenkov’s speech. The speech had been broadcast to the farthest ends of Russia and Suslov had been totally outplayed. Suslov in a rage ordered the army to clamp down on the protestors, but was shocked when the word came back: mutiny. No soldier was willing to die for the Suslov regime - though word had come back that political commissars were being killed by individual units. Now desperate, Suslov demanded the KGB do something about it. Andropov, fearing that the KGB would be obliterated if it tried to make a move against the now overwhelmingly supported uprising, lied and stated that the KGB was also in a state of rebellion - in reality, he had never transferred the order to lower commanders. Suslov, by now cognisant of the scale of what was happening, knew the time had come and accepted his defeat. After Andropov and Molotov both intervened to convince him to stand down, he contacted Malenkov in Moscow and stated that he would be content with resigning from his position as Soviet Premier if he could be guaranteed no reprisal. Malenkov replied, “Neither myself nor any Soviet citizen shall harm you in any way - you have my word as a Christian”. As Molotov recalled, “Upon seeing that last line, Suslov turned around and smashed the table so hard that he broke a bone in his hand.” Suslov banished himself to the Russian hinterland with bodyguards to keep him safe from inevitable attempts on his life from enraged peasants with Malenkov’s approval. Malenkov’s first order was to halt the movement of further troops into the increasingly brutal meat grinder that was Poland - negotiating a ceasefire with the PLA in quick order that allowed the situation to settle down, a situation which soon repeated itself in Slovakia and East Germany - with the rebels still being sent mountains of supplies from ITO and the Roman Alliance. The Berlin Blockade was likewise lifted, ending the short but sharp difficulties that the city had faced. Resources earmarked for war were sent to producing and purchasing foodstuffs that helped significantly alleviate the famine and calmed down the population immensely. The ‘Second October Revolution’, had seen roughly one hundred and seventy people killed but things could certainly have gone far worse. The takeover was viewed with cautious optimism in the West, though Malenkov’s associations to the old elite had imbued him with terrible baggage. While Jenkins may have been more sympathetic, Begin, Balbo and Corley stated that more needed to be done to convince them that any worthwhile change had come around in Moscow. This wasn’t helped when Molotov and Andropov maintained their old jobs as Foreign Minister and the Head of the KGB, with only Suslov and his advisors being sent out to pasture (though this was due to Malenkov not wanting to torment a rift within the party). He had taken over the Party however, no question about it, and promised to implement a new brand of Socialism that he had spent a considerable time working on in private: ‘Tolstoyism’.
Tolstoyism was based on the Socialist-inspired Christianity of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, of ‘War and Peace’ fame, though the meat of Malenkov’s policy was from Tolstoy’s ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’, which is considered the foundational text of Tolstoyism (which escaped being tarnished with the same brush as Communism). The foundational principle was non-violence, which naturally deeply undermined the authority of the central government if it was to be fully implemented. When the policy was announced by Malenkov on January 6th in St. Basil’s Cathedral at the first state-supported Orthodox Mass in living memory (with Molotov and Andropov acting as extremely reluctant attendees), the contents were the source of significant shock and disbelief among all quarters. It called for the immediate release of political prisoners, moving away from Central Planning to a devolved communal model with help of the Orthodox Church, and even the end of the occupation of all the subservient states of the Stalingrad Pact. When Malenkov announced his intention for free elections to resume, Andropov supposedly turned to Molotov and said ‘We have to stop him’. The declaration was met with unbridled enthusiasm amongst ITO, with the Roman Alliance and Israel still expressing their concern. But to the Communist Party veterans, what Malenkov had endorsed in his St. Basil’s speech was nothing more than pressing the self-destruct button on the Soviet state. Still underestimating Malenkov, they felt like they could manipulate and control him behind the scenes to ensure their power could be continued without taking the flak from a monstrously unpopular leader like Suslov. Instead, they were now faced with with not so much a fool as a maniac hellbent on destroying everything they had ever worked for. Together with the head of the Soviet Army in Andrei Grechko, the three began planning to reassert the supremacy of the Hardline Communist Bloc within the Party, with an eye to reestablishing Soviet control over the Stalingrad Pact and obliterating the influence of the Orthodox Church in society with a new Anti-Clerical campaign not seen since the 1920s. The Gang of Three, as the Molotov-Andropov-Grechko alliance was known as with one group representing the party, KGB and army respectively, would make their move on February 20th 1971.
The ultimately failed coup (now ironically known as the ‘Second February Revolution’, reversing the roles of the First February and October Revolutions), began when Malenkov was arrested by the army and put under house arrest in the Russian countryside. Soldiers soon marched through the streets of Leningrad and Moscow, taking control of strategic positions while the new junta gave a television address explaining that Malenkov had ‘taken ill’ and that order was shortly to be restored by the army. Of course, after the Gagarin debacle, not even the loyalest Communist believed what was coming out of the uninspiring Molotov’s mouth. What the Communists also failed to realise was how deep the groundswell of Anti-Communist feeling had swollen, even in the mere four months that Malenkov had been premier. Unions had been allowed, churches met openly, and both groups immediately rallied their supporters in support of Malenkov. Workers began a General Strike that was broadcast nationwide, soon spreading to the tottering Stalingrad Pact states in Europe alongside North Iran. The Church did their best to give food and shelter to the strikers to dig down for the battle while the Gang of Three held out in a remote location just outside of Moscow. On February 21st, roughly 150,000 people descended on Red Square with pictures of Malenkov, the cross and the flag of Russia (with Tolstoyism having inspired a new kind of Russian nationalism). In order to scare off the protestors, Molotov - who had become the unofficial head of the interim government - made another terrible speech where he affirmed that “This government will save the country from the evil of Tolstoy”. Somehow, despite even reading his speech from paper, he had mistaken ‘Tolstoyism’ for ‘Tolstoy’, which greatly offended countless Russians who had no firm opinion on the new ideology but took great pride in Tolstoy’s literary achievements. Boris Yeltsin, a hitherto unknown politician, soon riled up the crowd to walk towards the Kremlin, which was surrounded by soldiers. Despite orders to fire on the intruders, the soldiers stood down. One of Malenkov’s early reforms were to remove the political commissars from amongst the soldiery, thus giving the common soldier the easy chance to mutiny when the opportunity came about. The Kremlin was thus left open to ransack, so beginning ‘The Battle of the Kremlin’ between the tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers outside and the few hundred KGB agents within. The KGB agents inside held their ground, firing from the halls of the fortress with all their might. While the Kremlin may have avoided destruction in November, it certainly faced it in February, as the protestors simply decided to burn the building down. The remaining KGB fighters were lynched when they tried to escape the flames, which consumed the Kremlin and destroyed the central bureaucracy of the Russian government. In the chaos, Lenin’s body was taken from its preservation by the rioters and thrown into the flames. All control in Moscow had been lost. The army had likewise joined protesters in Kiev, Leningrad, the Baltic states, even Stalingrad. By February 23rd, it was clear the situation had become hopeless. Molotov announced that Malenkov would be released from his imprisonment to raucous ovation from the Soviet citizenry. Malenkov took provisional charge from Leningrad - soon renamed to St. Petersburg - and announced the full reform of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. The Burning of the Kremlin would mark the symbolic end of the Soviet Union, though the details would have to wait.
Upon his popular re-ascension, Malenkov fired the Gang of Three and ordered them sent into exile, alongside Suslov, who many suspected to have been behind the failed coup attempt. After much debate and negotiation, they all took their separate paths. Molotov made the most remarkable choice, offering himself to Western authorities by means of the Hague in the Netherlands on the condition that the death penalty was off the table, that he would have significant comforts in his detention (“An imprisonment almost identical to the one I was in before” he quipped with reference to Soviet isolation) and “that he would be able to choose his own lawyer”. The years in Soviet isolation had so thoroughly twisted Molotov’s mind to what justice was that he was suspicious he couldn’t get a lawyer in a Dutch court. Most of the remaining Soviet hardliners went to Korea, including Suslov, Andropov and others. This was due to the fact Korea was the only remaining Communist state with some level of independent support within the population - even then, it was not much. Molotov’s arrest was an international sensation, with his landing into Amsterdam to what seemed like half of the cameras on Earth. His testimony was in the news almost every day, with his resolute condemnations of Suslov doing much to soften his image in the Western mindset. Ultimately, Molotov would receive a life sentence, though he was given prison release in 1980, two years before his death in 1982 from a failing heart. Suslov, Andropov and others received a much more quiet reception in Korea, still resolutely under Kim’s grasp. However, their ‘freedom’ would quickly prove to be quite inferior to the imprisonment Molotov experienced. They were provided small apartments in Pyongyang little better than local party officials. When they complained to Kim, the Korean dictator replied that, “Tough circumstances require it”, which was the exact wording used in a letter sent to Kim two years ago when it forced the Korean to hand over grain to the starving Soviet Union. They would soon be put under unofficial house arrest, with Kim taking pains in his delusions of grandeur and control to make the people who controlled him know what it was like to be at someone’s mercy. The Red Exiles would soon include Erich Honecker, alongside Gustáv Husák and Edward Ochab - all knew that once Soviet protection vanished that their governments were finished. Korea soon became an international retirement home for Communist dictators, all taking small, degrading apartments over the popular wrath that awaited them. One of the few who refused to budge was Tito, saying he would fight against what he saw as the inevitable Croatian invasion (though Italy had privately ruled out such an operation due to the resource sink that Ethiopia had become). Fearing that Serbia was finished if the Roman Alliance fell upon it, a group of military officers led by Slobodan Milosevic organised a putsch that arrested Tito on March 20th while announcing that Democracy was to be restored to Serbia. In reality, it was little more than a rigged system that the Serbian military managed to control, but it provided enough of an excuse that could keep the Roman Alliance out of Serbia due to ITO pressure about ‘standing up for democracy’. Tito would be handed over to the Hague, where he would ironically become highly useful to ITO in highlighting Croat atrocities in the Croat-Serbian War. Tito was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in 1977. On April 1st, Soviet troops began to withdraw from East Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Serbia, thus leaving all these new states open to Anti-Soviet forces. Local soldiers did not even bother attempt to stop resistance forces from taking command of all strategic points within their respective nations. By April 19th, the old slave states had all fallen and had leaders pledged to the multiparty democratic system. Both ITO and the Roman Alliance had agreed that none of the four East European states were permutable to join one or the other’s blocs, much like Israel. Instead, democracy was allowed to take its course, with Right-Wing parties seizing power in all four regions. The only sticking point was East Germany. When East Germany’s government fled and the citizens of West Berlin walked unhindered into the East to find that Soviet troops (and Stasi officials) were nowhere to be seen, jubilation was seen across the country. Many thought it would inevitably lead to the reunification of Germany. But due to Italian pressure, reunification remained strictly off the table, much to the outrage of both Germanys. In reality, France and Britain likewise privately supported continued separation, but the bluntness of the Italians was able to take all the PR flak in their stead. The anger would receive some catharsis, when the united German football team (made due to an agreement with both football associations in West and East Germany) won the 1974 World Cup by beating Italy in the final, the winning team receiving the trophy from none other than the Kaiser himself. Despite fears among ITO leaders of nationalistic vengeance, openly pro-Fascist parties failed to get elected in any of the new states (though Serbia was the closest - albeit in opposition to the Roman Alliance). In Poland Witold Pilecki (a stalwart democrat who trusted ITO far more than the Roman Alliance) finally became the President of the new Polish state, having finally succeeded in liberating his country from not one, but two foreign invasions. His international fame would ensure Poland in particular would receive large amounts of foreign aid, especially in rebuilding Warsaw, which had once again been smashed by the Soviet Union. As if to reclaim a lost heritage, the capital was rebuilt as it was in 1939 before the Nazi invasion. They even rebuilt the Great Synagogue of Warsaw with Israeli money, turning it into a memorial to commemorate the Jewish population of Poland that had been slaughtered by both Nazi and Soviet Anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, in Slovakia, the attitude was more in wishing to destroy the state than rebuild it. The evident gap in living standards between Slovakia and Czechia had shown how obviously inferior the Communist system was, but it also struck right at the heart of Slovakian national identity. The Slovakian state had ironically been quite nationalistic, arguing that they were now free of Czech dominance. What the failed Communist program had effectively done was discredit not only Marxism, but much of Slovakian nationalism itself. Upon the resignation of Slovakia’s government, the Czech (and old Czechoslovakian) flag fluttered up and down the streets of a jubilant Bratislava. Czech politicians, who had grown up only knowing a Czechoslovak state, gladly announced they would accept the hastily reorganised referendum that Slovakian officials created. That September, 72% of Slovakians voted to rejoin Czechia and recreate Czechoslovakia. The occasion was met with jubilation among both citizens, though in recent years a Czech independence movement has blossomed under the belief that Slovakia is a hinderance, rather than a help to Czech growth. Bulgaria was also able to fill the Dobruja gap while Romania and Hungary announced their open support of the Western powers. Yet the collapse was only beginning.
On April 5th, Kurdistan officially announced that it was joining ITO, thus establishing its independence from former loyalties to the Soviets - though the obvious reason was to prevent Turkish aggression. Turkey, hoping it could launch an attack through Iraq, was disappointed that their enemy now hid behind the ITO umbrella, but soon found something to focus on just next door. North Iran’s Radmanesh had attempted against all hope and reason to hang on against protestors. After the Soviets pulled out of North Iran on May 2nd 1972, nationalists, royalists and clerics marched in the street to demand an end to the Tudeh regime. Having somehow survived decades, the regime had finally run its course. Radmanesh fought back by ordering soldiers to fire on protesters, killing twenty people. This was the cue for action for the Roman Alliance. Turkey and South Iran demanded in response to the May 2nd Massacre that unless the Tudeh Party resigned by May 5th, they would take “Make them” step down. Hoping that he could leverage ITO, Radmanesh would be disappointed as President Corley publicly endorsed the invasion with Prime Minister Jenkins keeping quiet. Balbo would provide symbolic air support but the vast majority of operations would be performed by the South Iranians and Turks to indifference from their northern neighbour and former overlord. The North Iranian regime, with almost no popular support, fell like a house of cards. Tehran fell to South Iranian forces within two weeks of the initial invasion, with people coming out in the streets to wave the Flag of South Iran with the Lion holding aloft the sword alongside the Pahlavi crown. Mossadegh had fulfilled his dream of reunifying his country, all the while creating a powerful network of puppets that ensured Iran had an entire third of the world’s oil directly under its control. Radmanesh, alongside most Tudeh leaders were imprisoned and later executed for crimes committed during the Mujahideen Era around the reign of Stalin. There was no need even for a referendum - North Iran was unceremoniously removed from existence and by January 1st 1973, Iran was officially once again a single country, united and in the Roman Alliance.
In the Soviet Union itself, Malenkov removed all traces of Suslov supporters and sympathisers from the ranks, leaving the Party effectively under his sole influence. The Communist Party was abolished as ‘tainted’ and Malenkov created the ‘Christian Socialist Party’, which would win the elections in a landslide that September. He symbolically rename Stalingrad to Tolstoygrad to symbolise the new direction of the new state. Boris Yeltsin, who had proven his valour due to his charging into the Kremlin, would become a senior member of the new Politburo. Malenkov would meet President Corley, Prime Minister Jenkins, President Pompidou, Kaiser Ferdinand and even Prime Minister Balbo in Dublin on July 3rd 1972, the first time in years a Soviet leader was seriously entertained as a foreign dignitary. Malenkov was able to astonish the attendees with his promises of phasing out Communism and ‘Rescuing Socialism’ from the pit it had found itself in. The trip had done precisely what it needed to do, with all foreign powers, with the exception of Begin’s Israel, agreeing to reopen their embassies in Moscow if they hadn’t already. Grain shipments were promised, alongside increased economic liberalisation, championed in the Politburo by Yeltsin. Balbo, under pressure from Rhodesia and South Africa especially, was able to secure a guarantee of liberalisation in the emigration process. Despite the improvements at home, most people wanted a significantly better life than the misery living in the Soviet Union had become. Rhodesia and South Africa threw open their doors to the new arrivals, reviving their flagging immigration figures and supercharging them, putting them both back on course for their targets of being White Majority states by the end of the Millennium. Malenkov also agreed to the principle of the Baltic States and Finland deciding their own destinies. Not only did the four states all secede at the first chance (with Finland actually leaving with more territory than she entered with as the remainder of Karelia had been part of the Finnish SSR), but the call came from far and wide, with every SSR demanding session, including some ASSRs like Chechnya, often due to fear of being controlled by an Orthodox Theocracy. In keeping with his religious beliefs, Malenkov eschewed control and domination, allowing the three Baltic States, Finland, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, the Central Asian Republics, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Chechnya, Tuva, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan to go independent. In reality, even if Malenkov wanted to, the Soviet state was too exhausted to even begin to keep these uprisings down. But Malenkov went even further than that. On August 4th, he travelled to Hiroshima, sight of the first Nuclear detonation in hate, at the sight of the newly constructed Hiroshima Peace Museum. That was where Malenkov dropped the bombshell that would deliver him a Nobel Prize - the Soviet Union would unilaterally and totally abolish its nuclear weapon supply. It was estimated that nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons were in Soviet possession, making up roughly a third of the world’s nuclear weapons. By 1975, the Russians had destroyed every single one. The move was extremely controversial around the world, with questions over what do with each country’s own nuclear arsenal now becoming a serious issue. Ultimately, as Italy still had nukes and insisted they would die before giving them up, Western leaders merely made noise about negotiations with Italy. Behind the scenes however, the denuclearisation argument was actually weakening, with both Spain and South Africa on the brink of detonating their first nuclear devices, the former detonating in February 1973, the latter detonating their first device in August 1973. They argued that the Russian move (as by 1973, the state had abolished the name of the Soviet Union to the more proper and accurate title of ‘The Russian Federation’) was simply an act of astonishing self-harm that they were giddy to take advantage of. But Malenkov’s move had done something that few Fascist powers realised for the moment - he had removed Communism from the international equation. Communism was no longer an international menace but a handful of scrawny states scrambling for life. International attention was about to be focussed on the Italian regime for its continued atrocities in Ethiopia, with the cries of ‘Free Enrico Berlinguer’ getting louder and louder across the nations of the world. However, there still remained a slew of Communist states in East Asia, whose fall was destined to be bloodier, harsher and far more bitter than the relatively tame affairs elsewhere.
