Christopher Nuttall - The Long Hard Road

He sobered. This was too important for little jokes. “The regime of the criminal Stalin is over,” he said. “For the moment, a provisional government will run the country until democratic elections can be held, hopefully in six months. During that time, we ask you to be patient; it will take time to rebuild enough to hold the elections, ensure food supplies and demobilise most of the army. We will seek a truce with the British and Americans, against whom Stalin flung thousands of our young men, a truce that will ensure that we have the time to rebuild and become strong once again.”

He sensed Natasha’s concern, but ignored it. “Now… I must speak to those who enforced the rules of Stalin,” he said. “Those of you who guarded the gulags , who enforced impossible production values, those who forced men in to fight and shot them for ill-timed words. This is your once chance to walk away with your lives. Surrender – now – to our people, and you will be allowed to live. Resist – and you will perish. Release your prisoners, surrender to them, and you will be permitted to leave.”

He sighed to himself. He knew that most of them would not listen, or they would be murdered by their own people. It didn’t matter. “Thank you for listening,” he said. “Please tune in again tomorrow for an update.”

Irina turned off the recorder. Trotsky sat down and put his head in his hands. “Are they going to listen?” She asked. “Will they even care?”

“It’s hard to be certain,” Trotsky admitted, remembering embarrassing times in peasant villages. “They will give us a chance, yes, but not a very big one. Once we start moving the captured forces from Iran – those that agreed to work for us – into the country, we can clean up the NKVD units, those that refuse to surrender or dissolve.” He sighed. “Irina, it’s going to be very difficult indeed; it could take months before the country is working again.”

“We have to secure the nuclear and biological plants,” Natasha said. Trotsky nodded; he knew better than to believe that the British would let them go. Hanover had promised him nuclear power plants, but not plants that would produce bomb material. Trotsky privately agreed; there was too much risk of someone else taking control to allow the plants to continue to exist. Later, perhaps…

“Have you got a list of them?” Natasha asked. “We have to move quickly.”

“Here,” Molotov said. The former foreign minister sighed. “And now… what are you going to do with me?”

Trotsky grinned. “Vice President?” He asked. His new constitution prohibited the Vice President from running for President himself. He took the list of research cities. “German plants as well?” Molotov nodded. “What was Stalin thinking?”

Irina shrugged. “Forget that,” she said, sounding more the teenager than ever. Her face, so un-Russian in attitude, if not appearance, crinkled. “Where the hell is he now?”

The giant railway junction and station, three miles outside Moscow, which had held thousands of the new, standardised rolling stock, was in ruins. Somehow – Gregor Pantovich had no idea how – it had been bombed; the blast had shattered the entire station. With the NKVD’s sudden disappearance from the site, the Zeks who had been lucky enough to draw the job of loading countless trains – and had survived the experience of having the station bombed – were milling around, wondering what to do. They were miles from their homes – many of them were Poles or Russians from the Far East – and they had no idea of where to go. The handful that had lived in Moscow had headed towards the city at once.

Gregor felt his stomach rumble and eyed some of the Poles. If they had been the fat capitalists Radio Moscow had branded them, he might have tried to eat them, but they were as thin and scrawny as the rest of the Zeks . They were all hungry, they urgently needed food, but there was none to be found.

“Look,” a Zek called, as their unease grew. A single train was heading towards the station, clearly unaware of the massive devastation that had hit the track and ruined it. The Zeks jeered as the train flew over a damaged railway link and crashed to a halt.

“Food,” a Zek shouted. “There must be food in there.”

Gregor didn’t need any more encouragement and he lunged forward with the rest of the Zeks , storming the engine and breaking into the single carriage. It was armoured and secured, but the Zeks had their crowbars and their hunger was driving them on and on. Moments later, the main door crashed open and they poured their way into the carriage. There was only one man in the carriage, staring at them. Gregor recognised him at once; the man whose face adorned every wall in the station, every building he’d been since he’d been arrested on suspicion of something. The NKVD hadn’t even bothered to tell him what they thought he’d done, just grabbed him and shoved him into a camp.

“You,” he breathed. The sheer terror of the man held them in place, staring at him, looking at the man looking at them. The Zeks behind Gregor, unable to see, pushed forward; the man winced in sheer terror… and the spell broke. The Zeks forced themselves forward, piling onto the man and dragging him down by sheer weight of numbers. Years of pent-up rage demanded vengeance.

It took Comrade Stalin a very long time to die…

Geneva, Switzerland

3 rdSeptember 1942

It had taken a week of arguing between the various interested parties to agree on a location for the peace conference. Both Hanover and Truman had wanted to hold it in their respective capitals, but the desire to avoid a second Versailles disaster had prevented them from simply demanding that the defeated powers attend – or else. In the two months since the death of Stalin and the end of the formal war, the world had been almost on the brink of starting the war again, a civil war that would have torn Europe apart.

Hanover sighed. Trotsky’s forces, with some limited help from British and American units, had suppressed the remains of the NKVD and the handful of people who had remained loyal to Stalin. Once the Dictator had been confirmed dead – and British and American forces had secured positions in the Ukraine and Belarus – the bulk of the resistance vanished. Even so, it had taken a month to gain even partial control over the vast lands of Mother Russia – and discovering that the Ukraine and Belarus were sincere about leaving Russian control had nearly started the war up again.

He shook his head. The Russians had been furious about the new Siberian Republic’s decision to leave Russia as well, and horrified at American support for a single large country that would have nearly two dozen different ethnic groups, from Russian to Japanese, living within its borders. Hanover understood Truman’s motivations, but he did wonder if that had been a good idea, in the long run. British interests in the Far East, apart from India, were limited to Taiwan and Hong Kong; the China morass could go to America or the devil – he didn’t care which.

Worse, the French situation had nearly brought Britain and the German provisional government back to blows. The French Communists had seized power – and the Germans had demanded that the British intervene, or they would send in the Bundeswehr . Enough remained a mystery about the strange agreements between the former ambassadors for Hanover to agree, even though the Bundeswehr didn’t have much of an offensive capability anymore.

He sighed. The French had proven to be their usual selves – and the Algerians had offered to supply troops for an occupation. That, more than anything else, had convinced the third French government that resistance was futile; France would become democratic or else. The thought of thousands of Arabs extracting revenge for French actions in Algeria hadn’t pleased them at all, particularly Ambassador Duchamp.