Soviet Union

The **Soviet Union** (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. *Sovetsky Soyuz*), officially the **Union of Soviet Socialist Republics** (ru: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, tr. *Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik*), is a country that spans Europe and Asia.
Template:Soviet Union

**History:**

**Background Lore and the Hungarian Revolution:**

The proletariat’s will for freedom did not only occur in Russia during the First World War but also in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The second Communist state in the world, after Russia, was proclaimed by Bela Kún in 1919 and emerged with a vast amount of support from the workers of Budapest and other industrial centers. The rural regions of the country, however, were vehemently against the new government. In an effort to unify his country around a common cause and to secure the support of the rural people, Kún proclaimed his support for Greater Hungary and attacked north into Slovakia.

Yet, not all had seen the enlightenment of Marxism. In the south, a counter-revolt led by Admiral Miklós Horthy found its footing. French arms and money trickled into the hands of the Whites all the while having no formal support... Despite this, the Hungarian Red Army managed to liberate large swathes of Slovakia and push the White Forces back. Then, Romania attacked; striking into Transylvania with their experienced army, they managed to overrun the Hungarian outposts in the region. As the forces of the proletariat desperately scrambled to swing around to face them, the White counter-revolution launched a series of attacks to create a pincer maneuver alongside the Romanian offensive.

While the Hungarian Red Army managed to hold on, the three-pronged assault meant that they were driven back and the front pushed back to Budapest. With defeat on the horizon, Bela Kún and his closest allies prepared to flee to Russia in order to maintain the flame of the revolution. They slipped away in the dead of night, lugging with them the gold reserve, a few hundred of the most loyal Red Army soldiers, and the hope of Revolution. The defeated men arrived in Russia in the winter of 1920 thanks to a series of delays across Europe and a storm in the Baltic. Bela Kún and his retinue, known by that point as the Hungarian Brigade, were now thousands of kilometers away from their home, defeated. The Revolution may have been extinguished in Hungary, but their time would come.

Meanwhile, the proletariat of Finland would have much greater fortune with their Revolution. In an ironic twist of events, it was the British and French that caused their revolution to succeed. The Germans, after an early stall in Operation Michael, lost their operational capacity to intervene in the Finnish Civil War. Moreover, the loss of major cities to the Reds further discouraged the German High Command from deploying Jäger forces, allowing the Bolsheviks to triumph in Finland. With this outcome along with the successful, albeit lucky, naval blockade that disrupted foreign aid to the Whites, the proletariat of the old Russian Empire stood united in their quest for a more equal world.

This is where our story turns to the Bolsheviks, and to be more specific, one Nikolai Bukharin and the ‘right’ faction that was beginning to emerge. With the sudden influx of cash, the Soviets were able to purchase more weapons and raise more troops pushing the Whites back. But by 1921, a famine struck that devastated the war-weary land. Millions died, and protests gripped Moscow. As the Kronstadt Rebellion broke out Lenin realized something had to give and thus came the New Economic Policy. The gold that came from the Hungarian revolutionaries was spent on establishing a system that could alleviate some of the problems of the Revolution that began to develop at a higher pace.

As the economy picked up and the USSR was thrown back from Poland in the Polish-Soviet war, the internal debate over the NEP grew fiercer. The side supporting it crystallized around Nikolai Bukharin and became known as the ‘Right’ faction of the Bolsheviks. Against the NEP emerged the ‘Left’ faction surrounding Leon Trotsky. The third and final faction under Joseph Stalin also emerged - suggesting a middle ground between the two. In May 1922, Vladimir Lenin suffered a severe stroke, which caused him to be partially paralyzed and bedridden. Thus, the power struggle began as the Father of the Revolution was going to need an heir.

**Nikolai Bukharin, Ascendent:**

Even partially paralyzed and bed-ridden, Vladimir Lenin could still dictate policy for the state, and Joseph Stalin, the opportunist and at the time Lenin’s right-hand man, took up the role as the messenger between him and the Council of People’s Commissars. Stalin did not let this opportunity go to waste, and began to accumulate more and more influence across the state apparatus. On December 30th, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was proclaimed to the world. In a moment of clarity after seeing the amount of immense power that this gave Stalin, Nikolai Bukharin, and Leon Trotsky aligned with each other and for a short time became political allies, and both of their comrades rallied under the ideological banner of Bolshevik-Leninism. The ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ versus the ‘Center.’ The competition between these two groups grew greater and greater over one-and-a-half years until in 1924 the great revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, the man who brought the Revolution to Russia, passed away and the power struggle neared its climax.

With Trotsky’s help, Bukharin was able to recover Lenin’s Last Testimony which urged for reform within the party’s ruling elite, and that Stalin should be removed from his position of power. Following this, he also managed to convince the Bolsheviks to give him the position of General Secretary. For Stalin, already a figure who faced severe criticism for his ruthlessness both in the Russian Civil War, as well as the Soviet-Polish War, this was the final nail to his political career.

On January 21st, 1924, Nikolai Bukharin became the heir of Lenin, immediately ending his alignment with Trotsky. While it would take a few more years for all of his rivals to be removed, he had effectively united the USSR beneath his leadership following a speech at Lenin’s funeral.

One of Bukharin’s first orders of business was the stripping of Joseph Stalin’s power. Although a purge was on the table, there were many reasons why he did not choose this course of action. First, he refused to begin his reign with something as brash as carrying out a purge on a large number of public officials, second, the Union was in too much of a fragile state for such an action that would lead to massive instability, and lastly, it simply was not in his nature. Stalin, later on, was exiled from public life and was mysteriously killed in a tragic sledgehammer incident. From then on, his protégés took his place and rallied around Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich. Although weakened, their time would come.

Partly because of Bukharin’s deliberation against the opposite, and because Stalin never came to power, factionalism was never banned, and thus, limited political discourse within the CPSU was allowed. This would simultaneously be one of the Communist Party’s greatest strengths, as well as its greatest weaknesses. Rising figures such as Leonid Krasin and his Orthodox Leninist faction found many supporters, including a man named Mikhail Suslov. He also began to ferment his own support base after becoming a member of the All-Union Communist Party in 1921.

A particular Andrei Zhdanov turned heads in the Leningrad Communist Party and it is through this political discourse that the Stalinists under Lazar Kaganovich were able to survive. General Secretary Bukharin used Lenin’s Last Testimony as justification to reposition party leadership within the Council of People’s Commissars, the Central Committee, and the Politburo, all in his favor. Through finding political allies such as his greatest friend and ally Second Secretary Alexei Rykov, Elena Stasova, and many others; the position of the man who took the mantle from Lenin was secured as can be. Diplomacy opened up to the bastion of the Revolution, as friendly governments opened up trade with the Soviet Union. Most notable among them, the newly appointed Labour Government of the United Kingdom.

**Consolidating Power and the Road to Barbarossa:**

From 1924 to 1929, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics enjoyed four years of peace and economic growth, as it used its ties with the Labour Government to build a prosperous trade relationship, for the return of British assets and honoring Russian debt from the Empire during the First World War. After a close call with the All-Russian Co-operative Society, in which they were almost discovered, a healthy trade relationship bloomed, and British designed farming equipment spread throughout the breadbasket of the Union: Ukraine.

Agricultural technology advanced Soviet farming technology for years, as well as through some shady ties, Russian gained access to the then-new computer technology. The real prize, however, was its great strides in the importation of British industrial equipment. The USSR avoiding economic and political isolation was an achievement that Nikolai Bukharin boasted, and when criticized by working with the capitalists remarked that it was only for the greater good of the Union. Even after the collapse of the Labour Government 8 months after its formation, the Conservative Party, keeping their "Honour of British Diplomacy'', decided to continue this deal set up by the Labour Government.

During these 5 years, the economic growth and the building of a better life for the Soviet worker nearly eliminated the General Secretary's most noisy opponents: Trotsky’s Left Opposition, to the point that following popular demand of the various factions of the Party, Leon Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union and his Left Opposition was dissolved. All the while the Stalinists centralized in West Siberia continued to have great strides in military-industrial equipment. Nobody knew, however, just how much the Soviet Union would need it in just over 10 years.

The almost two decades after 1919, however, would spell misfortune for the worker's paradise. Because of its economic ties to the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in this timeline was not impervious to the hardships of the Great Depression, and the United Kingdom showed its true colors when it ended its trading relationship with the Soviet Union and proclaimed the Imperial Preference. The Soviet economy practically collapsed following this depression and the only thing that saved them from disastrous results during the Great Patriotic War was Bukharin’s continued support of factions within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It is through the exchanging of different ideas - from Moscow Party Secretary Mikhail Suslov's proposal of the first Gosplan to Kaganovich's factories in West Siberia, and to the continued support of the New Economic Plan - for the next decade, and the combination of the economic policies emerging from the discussions, would attempt to keep the Soviet Economy afloat.

Although thousands starved during the Soviet Union's Great Depression, Bukharin's Communist Party held onto power with a steel grip, and while the Stalinist regions of West Siberia fared relatively better than the rest of the Union, it was not by much. Over 10 years, the spirit of Soviet Communism would be tested, with the vast majority of the economy being affected by Bukharin’s efforts to pull the Union out of the depression. Darker days came to Europe and Asia alike, with radicals such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo rising to power, the Revolution was becoming forever more threatened.

The Soviet Union barely pulled off successes in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol and the conflict was concluded with a peace agreement formed by Foreign Minister Andrei Zhdanov. It was then shown that Nikolai Bukharin’s leadership had rectified Imperial Russia's failures to enforce its borders with Japan.

As history goes, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939. Seeing this as a threat to Soviet sovereignty, as the German border would be pushed closer to Moscow, two days later, Bukharin sent the go-ahead for an invasion of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. A small exchange of bullets occurred on the border of Białystok, however, an all-out war did not break out. The General Secretary deflected the criticisms of many by making the point that he was not going to send the Soviet citizens to war yet again over “a war of the bourgeoisie and the monster they created themselves” and that the Soviet Union still did not possess an economy able to handle the stress of war. In retrospect, he only bought the Motherland a little more time before it was plunged into conflict and even then, it was in the midst of a slow economic recovery.

While Europe was set aflame by the outbreak of the Second World War, the Soviet Union was not involved. However, on Saturday 22nd of June 1941, the German Reich crossed the border of the Soviet Union. And the Union was far from ready for what was about to come.

**The Great Patriotic War: Mother Russia Bleeds**

“We will stop the Fascist Advance, at any cost!

We will crush their dreams of cruelty and oppression!

We will prevail!

Forward to victory!” – Nikolai Bukharin, June 24th, 1941.

The Wehrmacht marched into the Soviet Union with over a million men from across the Western borders, storming forward to extinguish the burning light of the Revolution all the while the Red Army tried desperately to defend it. Despite the best efforts of the Soviet forces, the Germans pushed forwards. The Red Army was broken at Minsk, Kyiv, Vilnius, all across the Baltic States, and Leningrad was besieged. Yet as the Germans advanced into the vastness of Russia, a number of Red Army units drew back, encirclements became rarer, and more often than not soldiers slipped away to fight another day than die in the field. On the 17th of September, German troops saw the outskirts of Moscow for the first time. The Battle of Moscow had begun. Against them stood exhausted men led by Georgy Zhukov who had been retreating since the beginning of the war, beaten back again and again. The Reich crashed down onto Moscow, and they were thrown back thanks to a series of effective recon missions along with pincer counter-attacks to the north and south.

Like water being drawn down the gutter, German troops raced south after their first defeat on the Eastern Front toward Voroshilovgrad, as Hitler was eager to make reparation and take the city before winter had set in. As the Army Group Center split, Wehrmacht divisions were sent to assist with Army Group South’s siege of Voroshilovgrad. During this occurred many battles, including the Battle of Oryol. Mikhail Tukhachevsky was the one who commanded the defense of the town against the might of Guderian and the 2nd Panzer Group. With only a few thousand men including the Polish Regiment, he held the Germans off for a week inflicting twice as many casualties on them. Then the news came that the Army Group South along with detachments from Army Group Center had reached the gates of Voroshilovgrad.

For Soviet Marshal Rokossovsky, the radio call from Tukhachevsky warning him of the approaching Army Group Center B, and of reports from the Kyiv Resistance that Army Group South nearing Voroshilovgrad, alerted him to the upcoming siege. He only had 8 hours to prepare for the invasion, gathering every single man and woman alike to the defense of the city, and everyone who was remotely essential stayed while the rest were evacuated. As winter set in, Bukharin and the newly formed STAVKA, began to plot a series of counter-offensives under the general name Operation Rurikovich.

**"Turn, Hellhound Turn!": The Soviet Union Strikes**

Case Blue was Hitler’s gamble to secure the vast oil fields of Baku and to reach the Volga to anchor his flank. Along the way stood the city of Voroshilovgrad. The stage was set for the greatest battle of the war. 270,000 Germans stormed the city under the command of then Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. Against them, 190,000 Soviets under Semyon Timoshenko, 190,000 men determined to defend the city until their last breath. For seven months the city was turned into hell; its blocks were reduced to rubbles, and intense urban fighting defined the battlefield. Yet, Timoshenko’s men held on, defended until Soviet reinforcements managed to isolate the Germans in the area.

In the end, the hounds of Hitler were utterly crushed - through sheer Soviet will and ingenuity. With the successful defense of Voroshilovgrad, the tide had begun to turn in the Soviet’s favor. Despite the fall of Grozny to the Germans, the plans for Operation Rurik were unleashed. The Siege of Voroshilovgrad would prove to be the largest siege in the history of Europe. But in the end, Zhukov, Tukhachevsky, and Rokossovsky had done it. Moscow had stood, Voroshilovgrad stood, the Union stood, and the wrath of the Red Army was on the path to destroy the Hitlerite scum once and for all.

The three main strikes were the Northern Front under the command of Voroshilov aiming to resupply Leningrad, the central thrust under Zhukov to push the front back from Moscow, and Tukhachevsky in the south to liberate Grozny. Operation Rurik is generally regarded as a mixed bag of success. Bravely defended by Soviets and Finns alike, Leningrad was relieved and the worst part of the siege ended, the front was pushed around a hundred kilometers back from Moscow, and the Grozny corridor was narrowed to a few short kilometers. However, the Germans maintained their footholds in the main regions and began to dig in over the Winter. Even as the last of the guns fell silent, planning was underway for an even greater Operation aimed to throw the Germans out of Russia entirely: Operation Engels.

Over a million men were gathered together under the banner of the Red Army, preparing for Summer and as the harsh grip of winter retreated, the Soviets struck. Storming into the German lines, the Red Army struck with the great wrath and vengeance of a people defending their homeland. Utilizing the “Deep Battle” tactics of Marshal Tukhachevsky, the charisma of Zhukov, the administrative qualifications of Vasilevskiy, and the competence of Voroshilov against the Germans. An estimated 1,250,000 men were unleashed against the Germans aiming to bring the war to their land, to their people, to their blood.

Within three days Grozny was cut off from German forces with the forces within the pocket left to wither as Marshal Tukhachevsky swept north driving the front towards Ukraine. Zhukov smashed through the front ten times over two hundred kilometers. T-34s rolled forwards and the infantry swept along with them. The newly formed Red Air Force scoured the Luftwaffe from the skies. Against the might of the Soviet Union, the ‘Thousand Year Reich’ collapsed. In a single Operation, the front went from a hundred kilometers from Moscow to well into Belarus. With the help of Finnish forces furiously fighting alongside the Soviets, Leningrad was liberated with the front reaching as far as the Estonian border in some places. Soviet forces reached the Dnieper River a few days before Grozny surrendered to Marshal Tukhachevsky. With the victories of Operation Engels, the Soviet Union stood on the front foot. The time had come to break the fascist hordes once and for all.

Despite a series of German counterattacks, the frontline barely nudged as the Soviets drew up their plans. Operations Bagration, Uranus, Marx, and Magister were all drawn up aiming to break the German occupation once and for all. Uranus was the first to launch with Tukhachevsky sweeping over the Dnieper aiming towards Kyiv, German forces in the region were broken in battle after battle as the Ukrainian people rose against the occupiers. The Second Battle of Kyiv was one of the greatest triumphs of Tukhachevsky’s career, encircling an entire German army group under the command of Guderian. When news came that Guderian had been captured, the Soviet people knew that the end of the war was in sight.

Magister was the second operation to launch under the command of Leonid Govorov, Soviet forces punched into Finland. Soviet troops pushed over the pre-war border and advanced towards Helsinki. Despite spirited resistance, Helsinki fell to Soviet forces in early June and the front began to swing north, liberating the entire country within a matter of weeks. Meanwhile, Marx and Bagration, the two largest operations, launched over the same general region with a single aim: to bring the war to the Germans. With Zhukov and Voroshilov working in tandem, they pushed deeper and deeper to the West at an overwhelming rate. This was considered an absolutely inconceivable loss by the German High Command, and on July 19th 1944, An attempt was made on Hitler’s life.

It had become clear to General Secretary Bukharin, and his STAVKA that the German military was no longer capable of any military offenses, after these great losses. Red Army forces previously stuck in a pocket in the Courland Peninsula were liberated by Grand Marshal Tukhachevksy himself after liberating Riga on August 3rd, 1944. It was becoming increasingly clear that Soviet supply lines were reaching dangerously close to the point that catastrophe could strike, as there was a severe automotive shortage. Mikhail Tukhevevsky, a man never making the same mistake twice, recognized the need for logistic theory and practice that were consistent with other components of strategy, operational art, and tactics.

Despite the many changes in the political, economic, and military environment and the quickening pace of technological change, logistical doctrine was an important feature of Soviet thinking. The STAVKA eventually concluded that they were in no position to conquer Berlin. Even after Vyacheslav Molotov’s many attempts to petition the Americans for aid in locomotives, time and time again they were denied. Thus, under much deliberation, was the last major offensive for months as it was deemed strategically more sound to simply bleed the Germans out, especially after the liberation of the industrial sectors of Ukraine.

After several Western victories throughout the months, the final operations were put in place for the defeat of the Reich. STAVKA and the forces of the Proletariat had months to prepare for this, and as a charged swing of a sword, the forces of Marx began their final crusade of the Reich while it was weakened. Minsk was liberated on the 3rd day of October 1945, Soviet troops crossed the pre-war border and into Ruthenia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, the Reich began to collapse. The last forces in Ukraine fled overnight as their route home began to be cut off. Tukhachevsky leaped on the opportunity and pushed forwards, chasing the Germans out of Ukraine and over the border into Romania. The Axis began to collapse in the Balkans. By November the Soviets had liberated large swathes of Slovakia, northern Romania had fallen, Poland was beginning to be liberated and Königsberg was encircled.

As the winter set in, the final plans were drawn up for the total liberation of Europe. The war had finally come to their people, their land, and their blood. Operation Jupiter was the name of the overall final operation to crush the Hitlerite menace. By now over six million men stood ready to annihilate the Fascists from the face of the Earth. The attack had four prongs. The northern strike - Operation Ganymede - was to strike the Finnmark towards the port city of Narvik, accompanied by a lightning advance - Operation Adrastea - into the Balkan Peninsula under Marshal Tukhachevsky; ordered to reach the Aegean, the Danube offensive - Operation Io - under Voroshilov aiming to liberate the rest of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Finally the drive to the Elbe aiming straight for Berlin, and to tear out the bloody, black heart of Nazism forever. This was named Operation Europa.

The Axis forces shattered as across Europe the people rose against their collapsing rule. Despite the inevitability of defeat, the Wehrmacht and the SS stubbornly fought against the overwhelming wrath of the Soviet Army. By June, Soviet forces under Marshalls Zhukov and Voroshilov had encircled Berlin. The Battle of Berlin had begun.

Two million Soviet soldiers stormed the city. Artillery fire lit up the skies for days on end, SS men were beaten to death with their weapons and the front drew closer to the Reichstag. On the 29th of February 1946, the Red Flag was raised over the gutted ruins of the Reichstag, while fighting would drag out in the city for another week until September 4th. Hitler managed to escape the city fleeing, ironically to Weimar where he would proclaim a never-ending struggle until the Endsieg came. Of course, at that time the last German forces were already collapsing. Gathered in Denmark, Hamburg, and Bavaria; pockets of resistance were isolated and on the verge of death. The drive to the Elbe and into Denmark was mostly uneventful.

With the fall of Berlin, the Germans were collapsing in on themselves, Hitler’s proclamations were ignored by even the remnants of the Wehrmacht. Still, his capture on the 5th of September by the Red Army is generally regarded as the end of the war. While German forces remained in isolated starved out pockets along the Baltic and in the depths of the Alps, the Great Patriotic War was over. Sensing an opportunity as Japan burnt in the fires of Operation Downfall the Red Army stormed the Kuril Islands, southern Sakhalin, and most importantly into Manchuria.

For about 4 years, 7 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 22 hours, Soviet blood was spilled on the most devastating war in Russian history: The Great Patriotic War has ended. Adolf Hitler, the scourge of Europe was tried for his Crimes Against Humanity. Representing himself, he attempted a repeat of Munich - to convince the populace of his cause and his vision. He only earned himself a death sentence. On 15:18, on the 21st of April - originally on the 20th, however, it was moved to not occur on his birthday - Adolf Hitler was hung until death. Orchestrated by executioner John C. Woods, inside the Nuremberg Prison Gymnasium, his last words were:

"Deutsche, hier stehe ich.", which translates into "Germans, here I stand". The location of his ashes is classified, and will most likely never be identified.

And there was one thing for certain: the Union could not rely on the West when world-ending terrors strike the world. Almost no help came from the Americans, nor the Imperialists even when facing a common enemy. For them, whenever the Great Patriotic War ended, the Cold War had already begun. Just 3 months after the Nuremberg Trials, in 1947, a great conference was held in the city of Berlin while it was still being reconstructed. This very conference was where the Weimar Pact was proclaimed, an alliance that was created to ensure that forces like the ones that threatened the advance of socialism in the Great Patriotic War would never occur again. This global alliance was to be built for and by the proletariat, led by the armored hands of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

No more deals with Imperialists like the Zhdanov-Ribbentrop Pact, no more compromise with capitalist-imperialist powers. The Soviet Union would forever stand its ground as it did with the Greek Civil War. Socialist Republics were created across lands liberated by the Soviet Union during World War 2.

**On the Hills of Manchuria:**

Hello, this is Offensive Orangutan, head of China development here. To take over from Comrade Jon, I will introduce the most independent-minded of the Weimar Pact members, the Dongbei Soviet, also known as the Dongbei People's Government. Reeling from the loss of Mao Zedong and most of the 7th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party due to a surprise attack by Sun Li Jen's 1st New Army at the beginning of 1946, the CPC was quick to regroup in a few selected areas. Namely Gansu, under Xi Zhongxun and Peng Dehuai, Shandong under Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, and last but not least, Dongbei, under Lin Biao and Gao Gang.

At this time, the Soviets had withdrawn from Dongbei (the Chinese name for Manchuria), and a protracted melee had broken out between PLA and NRA forces. Led by the erstwhile Chen Cheng in the North, NRA forces had pushed the CPC out of the cities and into the countryside, harshly punishing hanjian members of the Manchukuo elite and peasants while allowing the IJA to go free on condition of handing over arms and equipment. Leaping onto this opportunity, the CPC had formulated key social alliances with these former collaborators, forming a temporary alliance. Lin Biao initially utilized a system of passive defense, but when he found out that the bulk of the best NRA units were in Yan'an, he pushed hard and fast, crippling the already loosely guarded sectors of NRA forces. This was compounded by the help of Soviet arms and advisors, who fully folded into siding with the CPC after Chiang, pushed by better relations with the Americans, refused to work a diplomatic agreement out with the USSR.

Lin Biao's forces laid siege to Changchun, taking it after a heartbreaking victory that left 150,000 civilians dead. Shenyang fell quickly afterward, as did Harbin surrender peacefully, Qiqihar, Yingkou, and Dalian. The forces of Lin Biao and Gao Gang, by the beginning of 1948 thus, had settled a new regime into Manchuria. Other regions were not so fortunate. Kang Sheng had gone off the map, Shandong had fallen, and Gansu had lost communications with the Northeast Army.

Despite this, a few members of the 7th Central Committee would make their way to Dongbei, namely Zhou Enlai, Wang Ming, Bo Gu, Wang Ruofei, Ye Ting, and Ye Jianying. Despite heavy losses, they would not be demoralized, and the revitalized CPC would push southwards. East Hebei was quick to fall, but as the 1st and 6th New Armies were pushed towards Beijing, they found themselves in a stalemate. It was here in the densely populated areas of North China that the CPC was unable to push past the ardent defense of the American-trained and armed troops. And so, by the end of 1948, a quiet lull had set in, as the Dongbei People's Government was formed.

**The "Stalin-ist" Revolt and "Bloody August":**

After a crisis in 1955 involving Voroshilov putting down an insurrection in Poland, and a change of management in the region of Silesia, Second Secretary Rykov makes the decision to retire, and that he is going to need a successor. This kicks off the power struggle where Stalinists led by Kaganovich, after collaborating with Bukharin since his coming to power, attempt to play their hand in the power struggle. As Tukh Stan suggested, it is given to us by TNO that Kaganovich did not sit and do nothing in Siberia, instead, forming a network of connections large enough to secure a state from Sverdlovsk to Omsk.

In TRO’s timeline, the reasons for this quickly become apparent, however, and the Stalinists have many more years to accumulate influence. However, at most, they’ve accumulated soft power, holding positions within the government all the while still remaining the least influential faction. Time and time again throughout this timeline, Stalinists have mostly avoided direct conflict with the other factions, whether it be the loss of the Polish-Soviet War, the Great Depression, the Great Patriotic War, to the establishment of the Weimar Pact. However, by the ’50s, times were changing, and there’s not enough room for everyone. The Stalinists believed that Rykov’s resignation could be the only chance they would gain influence once more, perhaps with some help from some of the hawks in the Supreme Soviet - most notably, Ivan Konev.

This attempt fails and backfires significantly because word gets around about Ivan Konev’s endorsement of Kaganovich for Second Secretary, meaning that Konev’s clique within the Red Army is aligned with Stalinism. Marshal Tukhachevsky immediately views this as a threat to his doctrine of Vanguard Socialism, as does Director Yagoda. The NKVD and Army quickly start pushing for the cleansing of all Stalinists. Yagoda uses his influence within the NKVD to frame, fabricate, and accuse Kaganovich and the Stalinists of anti-Soviet activity all the while Suslov, while still playing for the Second Secretary, gets the wind of this and agrees to cooperate with Yagoda and Tukh. This allowed him to establish enough control over the Supreme Soviet, which in turn granted more powers to the Army and NKVD. This creates one of those rare moments where the 3 (technically 4) work together. Meanwhile, Zhdanov finds allies among those who are afraid that this purge will target them next, and those who fear a coming Purge and see it as a naked power play.

This, of course, makes Kaganovich and his clique of Stalinists desperate, as they see the other factions bandwagoning against him and thus he begins to take action and attempts to come into contact with Ivan Konev for support. This becomes all Yagoda needs to spring into action with the support of both Tukhachevsky and Suslov. Bukharin simply cannot act as everything happens through the back channels and he only catches up when the orders to execute the traitors must be given. And he cannot simply deny it at this point, because it would create too big of a rift in the Party.

To make matters worse still, Rykov, upon dealing with the power dilemma, dies of a heart attack. Bukharin has no choice but to tie all of this to Kaganovich, and Ivan Konev. Yagoda then uses this as a blank check and all those associated with the Stalinist clique, whether included in this plot or not, are executed with the charges of treason. The only survivor is Ivan Konev himself, who is sent to exile to “oversee” the garrison in North Norway. The '56 Purge also forms enough dissent within the party that reformists can appear, slowly getting numbers as people notice the stagnation. This new clique presents itself as a power base for Zhdanov, who already has enough sway by being the Foreign Minister. After this, Suslov ascends to Second Secretary, Yagoda -through the NKVD- gains more power, Tukhachevsky gains influence within the Red Army, and Zhdanov finds influence and an alliance with the LGC.

And above all, it becomes all the more clear that Bukharin is getting far too old for his position.

Thus, the arena is set for 1962, when the game for power will begin. Who will prevail in the power struggle following Great General Secretary Nikolai Bukharin’s stroke? Will it be Mikhail Suslov? Leader of the Orthodox Leninists, and heir to Leonid Krasin, who had a grand vision of an orthodox CPSU which would return to its roots as a pure Vanguard of the Revolution? Will it be Andrei Zhdanov and his hardy band of reformists, the Leningrad Clique, who see the Soviet System as something to be transformed… to a Soviet Democracy? Will it be Genrikh Yagoda, ever loyal to the Revolution and the proletarian state, and a visionary for a new economic system that will propel the Soviet Economy into the next century? Or will it be the paternalistic Red Napoleon, Mikhail Tukhachevksy, whose watchful eye will protect all?