Six-Day Purge

***The Six-Day Purge appears only in the Alternative Canon. For its Main Canon equivalent, see the Solstice Day Coup.***

## Six-Day Purge

### Result(s)

OPFOR Victory* Trotskaya regime comes to power
* Red Guard disbanded
* National People's Senate suspended

## Introduction

The **Six-Day Purge**, sometimes referred to as the **March Revolution** or **Sunikagrad Putsch**, was a military coup that transpired in Sunikagrad at the beginning of 2153. It saw the transition between the Stahlrim regime to the Trotskaya one, and is regarded as one of the most significant moments in Mecharussian history since the founding of the nation.

## Causes

### The Black Scare and the rise of Kaffarov

The Sixteen July conspiracy and the subsequent unveiling of the Imperium of Sidhae to the world sent shockwaves throughout extant civilisation. Most of all, however, it had a powerful psychological effect upon the Mecharussian population. Prior to the 16th of July 2152, such an attack as the one on Sunikagrad that day was wholly unthinkable, even the Singaporean Federative Republic of Vodorazdel and Primorskiy, for all of its bluster, never getting even close before. The rapid connection made by people between the Imperium's appearance and the attacks in Sunikagrad made people begin to fear what these new extradimensional neighbours could or intended to do. The resultant hysteria that arose from the impact of Sixteen July is known in contemporary history as 'the Black Scare' (referring to the black powered armour associated with the Imperial military).

The first response by the State to the growing panic was an enormous propaganda campaign to present the benefits of befriending the Sidhae and show them that they were, indeed, no threat at all. This attempt to pacify the population backfired hideously when Narodnaya Volya hacktivists published highly-classified information that a rogue Imperial Judicator had not only nearly slain the legendary Elena Trotskaya, but had eluded capture and was still on the loose. The same hack also unveiled the fate of Zinoviya Marilova, who during the *Lenin* Affair had been torture-raped by another Judicator.

The leak was a huge embarrassment to the State: not only was there now actual evidence to fear the Imperium, but the fact that their secure data servers had been compromised by *civilian hacktivists* cast their abilities to defend the country against a similar attack by the Imperium into serious doubt. The most ironic part of the State's predicament was that the hacktivists were not even responsible for the hack itself - the Imperial Intelligence Agency, which at the time was conducting extensive research into the Sidhae, was. Narodnaya Volya was merely a beneficiary of it.

The hack led up to the creation by radical populist Varfolomei Kaffarov of the Remember Zina Movement in August. The firebrand tone adopted by the ever-stoical populist during the Movement's lifetime, posing the Imperium as a figure to be loathed rather than feared, was a considerable departure from other attempts to solve the problem. Striking a chord with many millions of ordinary Mecharussians, the Movement - which essentially made Marilova a (needless to say, unwilling) martyr of the Popular Front - was a huge success virtually overnight.

In yet another low blow to the State's credibility, the Movement actually did a far better job of calming the Black Scare than any state-sponsored propaganda campaign. The government now had no choice but to lend Kaffarov their assistance, all while going to considerable lengths to hide his anti-Sidh philippics from their intended target (whose government was keeping a lazy eye on goings-on in the Mechanocracy) at least until Grand Marshal Gordon Kravchenko's declaration of martial law.