I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 204:

Chapter 204

While a storm was raging in India, the other side of the world, the United States, was quieter than expected.

“Shh, be quiet. You must never reveal what you saw.”

“Yes! Yes! Oh, I understand.”

The burly bodyguard in a black suit wrapped his fingers, which were covered with fur, around his mouth.

The skinny painter, who was very dry, was terrified and gasped for breath.

The painter hardly watched TV.

He was not wealthy enough to do so, and he mostly listened to radio broadcasts and picked up bits and pieces of information. FDR, who had been president for the past 12 years, had four more years left in his term, and he seemed to be president forever.

‘How could this happen…?’

In his memory, the president was always the person who smoked Camel cigarettes and smiled brightly 12 years ago. Not this old and tired, who seemed to die and fall apart at any moment.

“Hmm… are you here?”

“Yes! Mr. President. Was your nap okay?”

The painter, who had come to Georgia’s villa to record, was in a daze and couldn’t wake up in front of FDR.

The bodyguard, who was used to it, supported him as he got up.

He pushed FDR, who barely sat in a wheelchair, and the bodyguard approached the painter.

“…Leave out the wheelchair.”

“Yes? No… I mean, yes.”

The painter, who had a face full of black mushrooms, dark circles under his eyes, and wrinkles all over his face, did not understand his tone of voice, which meant to leave out everything.

As he drew the sketch in front of the canvas, he wondered if he knew something he shouldn’t have known, and he suddenly noticed something strange.

“Sir…? Sir!”

“…My… my head hurts… it hurts a lot… call a doctor…”

His hand was shaking more than FDR’s twisted knuckles.

He barely raised his hand and touched his head, and he collapsed forward from his chair.

“Sir! Sir! Call a doctor!!”

My head hurts.

That was the last thing FDR left in this world.

***

“The president has passed away.”

“!!!”

Wallace, who had returned to the White House after hearing that there was an urgent matter, was stunned by the calm words of the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

He had just been discussing with Soviet diplomats and foreign affairs officials how to lead the newly established ‘United Nations’ in the face of unexpected news.

“…What can I do for you, ma’am?”

Wallace managed to hide his shock and stammered to the first lady, who was trying to suppress her grief at losing her husband. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was known for her assertiveness, bit her lips and shook her head.

“No, rather, I’d like to ask you what I can do for you. What can I do to help you, Mr. President? You seem to have a lot to do in the future.”

“…It feels like the whole world is collapsing on me.”

Wallace sighed briefly.

The giant had fallen too early.

FDR had joked that he would finish his four-year term to the end, and he kept his word, so Wallace also thought he would do so in his heart.

In just two months, in the early spring of 1945, Franklin Roosevelt, the politician who had held the presidency for the longest time in American history and had influenced the era, died.

“First, we have to tell the people about this. And…”

And what?

The future of U.S. foreign policy, the establishment of the United Nations, the joint project proposed by the Soviet Union to promote friendship and cooperation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and domestically, the fierce anti-communists who were still running wild, and MacArthur, who seemed to be ready to launch a coup with the military at any time…

He had to accept his new title without having time to prepare himself.

“And… would you please take care of the funeral arrangements for the president, ma’am?”

“Yes, I will. Mr. President.”

Mrs. Eleanor called him Mr. President (Mr. President) over and over again. In that simple combination of words, Wallace felt an infinite pressure.

He had a low approval rating. If he had run for the election on his own without FDR’s halo, he might not have beaten Dewey or MacArthur, or he might not have beaten either of them and never dreamed of the presidency.

He inherited a long term of three years and ten months. Outside, the confrontation between Southeast Asia and India’s colonies and the imperialist powers was spreading like a wildfire, and inside, there was opposition to massive foreign aid and witch hunts by radical anti-communists.

“I… I have to go to Congress.”

Now the congressmen and the dogs of Washington would tear him apart and destroy him.

The Republican dogs for the next election, and the Democratic dogs for the next election or their position within the party.

But he had to endure. He had to protect what he had, FDR’s legacy, world peace, and friendship and cooperation between the powers that would now be possible.

***

“What? FDR is dead?”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary General. It’s an urgent report that just came in.”

Damn it. I was hoping he would hold on a little longer…

In real history, FDR died around this time. But I thought he might be able to hold on because the war ended a little earlier and the workload was lower, but he died even earlier.

Was it because of that damn McCarthy?

My chest was tight.

“I see. As soon as the news is delivered through the official route, send a condolence with the utmost courtesy. I’ll go myself… to America.”

“Yes???”

“It’s sudden, but prepare a delegation to the U.S. I think it’s best for me to go.”

Actually, I wanted to see FDR’s last appearance.

In real history and here, he was one of the giants who divided and led the world with Stalin.

The fact that Stalin and Roosevelt, the two giants, were together made the 1940s a turning point in human history and created the world we know (The World as we know it).

Fortunately, history changed and Truman, an anti-Soviet, was not the president, but Wallace, a pro-Soviet.

The Soviet Union may have seemed the strongest now, developing nuclear weapons and winning the war. But in reality, it was no different from the most vulnerable time.

Millions died and were injured.

The nominal economic growth rate was recorded very high, but the people’s lives did not improve drastically because it was a fixed infrastructure investment.

Millions who were drafted and returned could find jobs quickly, but they could not be without complaints.

“While I’m gone… first, supply the necessities generously. That alone will solve half of it.”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary General!”

“Borosilov, Zhukov, Basilievsky. You will participate as representatives of the victorious country’s military. Molotov will oversee the negotiations, and consult closely with Colonel Tai Nui and handle the agenda as quickly as possible on the working line. I trust you.”

“Yes!!!”

The multilateral check-and-balance system to prevent a military coup was not yet complete because the NKVD was split.

But it was reassuring to take all three of Borosilov, the Spetsnaz commander and political commissar who was no different from the guard, Zhukov, the defense minister who had no combat troops but had a great influence on the military, and Basilievsky, the former chief of staff and commander-in-chief of the Western Military Administration who had a huge combat force in his hand.

What else should I do? There were too many issues to coordinate with the United States. So far, if I see Wallace, I guessed that if I concede on some of the key issues on this side, the Soviet line would be officially or unofficially established.

If I analyze it on the working line, I’ll have time to review it again on the plane.

“Ah! And…”

The Politburo members perked up their ears and paid attention as I tried to emphasize. Was it a habit to announce important information after this?

Somehow I was nervous.

“While I’m away, Khrushchev, you will chair the meeting and proceed. Do you understand? I won’t let it go if something goes wrong.”

“Yeees???”

“I will devote my life and loyalty to you, Comrade Secretary General!!!”

Khrushchev jumped up and shouted to the sky as if his tension exploded and saluted.

Khrushchev’s current position was a candidate member of the Politburo and the chief people’s representative of the ‘People’s Living Committee’. People didn’t know what this position was because it was a new title.

This institution, which was established to improve the ‘people’s living standards’, was involved in many fields of the Soviet Union. First, production management in the heavy industry and agriculture sectors, overseas imports and budget execution of light industry products, construction, land development, power plant installation, etc. passed through Khrushchev’s hands and came to me.

At first, he didn’t know what he was doing and thought it was a sign of purging and shivered.

Khrushchev, who was a miner and illiterate, but came to this position through hard work, was smart and competent except for his hot-tempered and hasty personality.

The fact that FDR was dying… somehow made him expect.

‘I won’t be here for a thousand years.’

The doctors reassured me several times that my health level was not that of the late 60s. Nevertheless, I wondered if they were flattering me.

There were only eight years left until the death of the flesh in 1953.

At 75, it was no different from enjoying a long life by the standards of this era, but I was worried about what would happen after that.

Would Khrushchev, Malenkov, Zhukov, etc. fight for power and ruin this country?

According to my plan, by then, we should have diplomatic and political influence equal to or more than the United States, even if we are not economically equal.

The problem was that the plan went wrong from the moment it started.

Among the people who ran to their positions, I left the conference room and headed to the office. My footsteps were not light.

“The age of giants is fading away…”

“Yes? Comrade Secretary General? What did you say?”

He shook his head.

The secretary general, Poskrebeshev, stuck his head back into the document and started to underline the content to be reviewed.

The World War was a clash of various ways of managing a surprisingly complex society.

The First World War could be summarized as a fight between empires.

The British-French colonial empire and the Russian Empire were on one side, and Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire were on the other side.

The war brought down all the empires that participated.

The multi-ethnic empires of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman, and Russia, could not cope with the backwardness of their social structure and fell apart.

The British and French had a more solid system, so they only shook, and Germany was sucked into the vortex of extremism.

In this clash, new modern ‘nation-states’ were born to manage society.

The Second World War was a fight between these nation-states and ideologies.

The nation-states that shed the fat of the empire and became stronger clashed with the former colonial empires of Britain and France, and they won but were shattered.

In the end, what remained in the place where the pseudo-imperialists disappeared was Stalin’s Soviet Union and Roosevelt’s United States. But the two giants did not see the beginning of the era they created and collapsed.

After that, there were no giants. ‘Little giants’ like de Gaulle, Mao Zedong, Nasser, and Tito advanced in their respective areas, but they never created an era.

‘The funeral of the century…’

And so the short 20th century began to tilt as the full moon rose and fell.

My chest hurt at the thought of soaking in the last moonlight.