I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 71

It seemed like it would never pass… but a year that I never expected to come in the first place had gone by.

On the last day of 1941, and to celebrate the first day of the upcoming 1942, we held a modest party where we reviewed the past year.

“To victory!”

“To victory!”

It was too grandiose to call it a review, it was more like let’s drink as much as we can and die while we have an excuse! since we couldn’t drink much while working.

I reduced my alcohol intake to a minimum in case of a possible cerebral hemorrhage, but as I drank the alcohol that my subordinates politely offered me – mostly vodka that easily went over 40 degrees! – I felt a slight buzz.

‘Oh man… No wonder Russia is in such a mess.’

They noticed that I looked quite happy and took it as a signal that it was okay to drink and die today, so they kept pouring and drinking.

“Hey, hey, wait a minute…”

“Wooooo!”

It sounded like an old fart… but I had to say something at this time.

As I cleared my throat, the crowd cheered enthusiastically with a mix of drunkenness and flattery.

Since I had absolute power… they always followed me like this.

They all agreed with what I said, and never dared to say I was wrong. 

Even if the results showed that I was wrong, they tried to hide it, and shifted the blame to other subordinates, making innocent people suffer.

I was honestly just an ordinary college student… I was far from the real Stalin, and even though I vowed not to fall for the obvious flattery, I felt good and sometimes tempted.

“Everyone… the comrades of the party and the government. Our brothers who have been with us for a year. You have all worked hard.”

“Hooray! Hooray!”

Yeah. They really worked hard.

This was not a lie or a courtesy, it was true. The staffs, the secretaries, the lieutenants, they all worked hard until they had dark circles under their eyes and sometimes bled from their noses.

I was the one who made them do that, but what could I do? I had to apologize in advance at this time. 

Anyway, they seemed happy after receiving praise. Not that I could give them a few days off, but I could let them be late tomorrow.

“We must win this war. Those wicked fascist bastards attacked our motherland by surprise and trampled on our land. They abused our people and territory! Remember our people who are suffering. Always!”

This was not a mere lip service or a courtesy. It was real. 

The staff, the secretaries, the lieutenants, they all worked hard until dark circles formed under their eyes and sometimes their noses bled.

I was the one who made them do so, but what could I do? I had to apologize in advance for this. 

Anyway, they all seemed happy after receiving my praise. 

Not that I could give them a few days off, but I could at least let them be late tomorrow.

“We must win this war. Those vile fascists have invaded our motherland’s soil by surprise and trampled on it. They have violated our people and our territory! Remember the people who are suffering too much. Always!”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary!”

“We are working here for the people. Each and every one of you! You are all representing the will of the people. Do your best in your positions, and devote yourself for the state and the proletariat masses, not for your own interests.”

It was neither too long nor too short, but anyway, speeches should not be too long. 

I ended it with a moderate and good lesson and after a round of toast, I felt exhausted.

The bureaucrats who were invited to the banquet were all enjoying their dinner while chatting with the people next to them, and I also watched them from the seat of honor while chewing on seasoned pork rib pieces.

Those bureaucrats could fly away with just one word or gesture of mine, but they themselves could also torment the front-line soldiers in the same way. 

If they embezzled or sabotaged something for their own interests, the soldiers had to pay with their blood.

‘Even though they are laughing and talking… They are the ones who can cause a huge disaster.’

The real Stalin controlled the factionalism and nepotism within the bureaucratic organization with harsh punishment and promotion based on ability, and established the second Rome of the Soviet Union.

But could I do that, having only Stalin’s memory when I was just a college student?

Sometimes I felt that I was being eroded by Stalin’s memory and personality.

For example, I thought Beria was a terrible pedophile, a cruel trash. 

Stalin probably thought of him as a loyal subordinate or a confidant.

But at some point, something like… fusion? erosion? 

Something like that started to happen.

The thought about the bureaucrats just now was more similar to what came from Stalin’s memory. 

If I were a college student in Korea, I would probably think of the office workers at the district office or civil service exam, administrative exam, something like that when I heard ‘bureaucrat’. Would I think of purging and controlling them? Well…

Honestly, I had no idea who I was. 

The body was clearly Stalin’s body, a 60-year-old body that didn’t stand well. 

I was so tired from drinking a little that I wanted to go to bed as soon as possible. 

The memory…? The personality? Was it ‘me’ or Stalin?

And what would happen to me when Stalin’s body died? Could I go back to my original memory? Or… what would happen?

‘Damn it, damn it… what… I’ll have to see when it happens.’

Wouldn’t it be better to live well and die as a victor than to be captured and executed by Nazi Germany and just die? 

Even though I couldn’t stand up and eat anything without getting sick the next day, and I had too many things to deal with to live well…

What would happen in the future? I was most curious about that.

As someone who was rewriting history with my own hands, could the world become a better place? 

In just six months, the world had drifted far away from the actual historical flow. 

It was not all my fault, but someone on the other side who was suspected to be Hitler also intervened.

Western Europe had all fallen into Germany’s clutches, Britain had collapsed, and the German army had crushed their last resistance and seized the entire British Isles.

There were still resistance groups carrying out terrorist activities, but that was no different from ‘Elan’, France that surrendered in six weeks… The United States, after getting hit hard in Panama and Pearl Harbor, was literally giving up one island after another to the Japanese army that was attacking them fiercely. 

Guam, Wake Island, Malay Peninsula and the Philippines.

“Comrade Secretary! We will surely drive out the fascists from our motherland’s soil by next year!”

“Um, um, your determination is good.”

Zhukov said that with a drunken face, and among the Allies, only our Soviet Union was doing well.

If I evaluated the current front line, it had reached the level of 43~44 years in terms of territory.

In the south, Romania had surrendered and Hungary had to completely withdraw from the front line to defend its homeland, so it was worth evaluating as the situation of 44 years. In the north, Leningrad was not threatened, so also 44 years after Leningrad’s liberation?

In the center, landmark cities such as Smolensk, Vitebsk, Gomel were in German hands, so 43 years.

Before the year 42, when the German army would have advanced triumphantly to Ukraine and the Caucasus in actual history, I had achieved this much of a result.

Phew… Even though I had received a lot of help from the United States, I think I did pretty well.

“Zhukov, you did a good job.”

“Thank you! Comrade Secretary!”

Beria glanced at me with regret. 

Beria was really competent and good, except for his cruelty, but that cruelty was the biggest problem.

He hated Zhukov and tried to belittle him by babbling loudly.

“Isn’t this all thanks to the new weapons that Comrade Secretary created? I am amazed by Comrade Secretary’s amazing talent!”

“That’s enough. What’s with the flattery in this place… Haha.”

Well, I did raise the tech very fast and well.

The new medium tank that faced the Panzer V Panther deployed by Nazi Germany, which was called Stalin tank in the original world and Budenny tank in this world, had entered the test deployment stage.

The Budenny-1, or SB-1 tank, which improved some of the drawbacks of the actual Stalin tank in advance and became similar to the design of IS-3, had not yet experienced many battles, but it received quite good reviews from the results of the experiments.

I was able to solve the chronic problems of Soviet tanks, such as reliability and interior space utilization, with the help of the engineers and designers who came from the United States. Productivity? If I gave a definite order, I could produce about 150 units a month.

Compared to the actual history, and considering the time point of early 42, it was a tremendous achievement.

A new fighter, ‘Molniya’ (Lightning), inspired by the design of the American Thunderbolt, was also under development, and research was underway to produce a supercharger, a turbo-supercharger, that would allow it to perform well at high altitudes.

The pilots were also being trained in tens of thousands, as the United States did during World War II. 

And even copying the V1 missile that Germany used and pouring it back on Germany, I expected that the Soviet Air Force, which had always been beaten up, would do its part.

As for the infantry level, they were armed with AKs and RPGs, which were 50s style weapons, so they were about 10 years ahead!

I felt proud for no reason. 

Hey, I did this much! 

Of course, I only gave some concepts and a few designs, and the ones who actually developed them were the engineers and scientists who were devoted to research in the special gulag…

Anyway. Um. When the war was over and I had some spare time, I would reward them.

I felt the alcohol rising up as I drank several glasses of vodka thanks to the people below who offered me a drink. My face was hot. 

Ah, was it because of the compliments?

“I think I’ll go now. No, shh! Don’t ruin the good mood because of me…”

I wanted to sleep. Ugh… I liked management simulation or strategy simulation games, but it seemed like my body couldn’t handle doing it in real time.

Actually, I think I perceived this as a multiplayer strategy simulation game rather than the secretary’s job of a country called the Soviet Union. I thought it was a single player game at first, but it turned out to be a multiplayer game with someone in Germany…

The problem was that bastard was more crazy than I imagined.

Really… Was it normal to send Jewish women as comfort women for the army, and to burn down London completely?

He ordered to shoot the civilians who tried to go out with white flags after starving them to death by blockading a city with hundreds of thousands of people. And that bastard happened to be the leader of the most insane country in the world.

I had to win. I was afraid of what he would do to the world if he won.

To avoid being a sinner of history, and to make our country a better place while I was at it, I had to win.

And to do that… I had to sleep a little and work again tomorrow… Huh, I’m crying.

“Stalin Comrade Ura! Ura!”

“Waaaaaa! Hooray!”

“Hey, don’t do that, okay?”

Geez… I had to do something about this cult of personality. 

As they threw exaggerated praises and cheers at me, I left my seat. 

The more splendid the treatment I enjoyed, the more the people who worked together suffered.

‘I have to work tomorrow to make up for what I drank today…’