I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 205:

Chapter 205

“We will never forget him. Under President Roosevelt’s leadership, we overcame two massive waves that swept over the United States. We… we… sob…”

The first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, broke down in tears as she read the eulogy.

Wallace, who was standing next to her, quickly handed her a handkerchief to wipe her tears.

FDR was no longer in power, but thousands, tens of thousands of people gathered for his funeral.

The hearse carried the coffin draped with the American flag to the burial site, and the crowd watched in black suits as the greatest American took his last breath.

Six white horses pulled the carriage that finally stopped in front of Independence Hall. People lined up with white flowers in their hands and waited for their turn to pay their respects.

“Flowers! Get your flowers!”

“Give me one, please.”

Among them, some quick-witted ones sold white condolence flowers in baskets while wearing black clothes. In no time, the pile of flowers turned into a pile of money.

FDR received sincere respect from many people.

He overcame the hardest time in America, the Great Depression, thanks to the New Deal.

He also survived two surprise attacks in another world war and eventually won.

In his era, America became a superpower in name and reality, and the guardian of the free world.

Just a decade ago, people who lost their jobs and starved while looking for work remembered FDR’s era as a remarkable time of progress and development.

People from all walks of life shared their memories of FDR’s era.

“Thanks to the New Deal, we could at least get a rented room…”

“Haha, are you talking about the Tennessee River Dam project? I went to Florida…”

“Although he failed to pass the anti-lynching bill, we black people could also get proper education and jobs.”

On the podium, famous politicians and businessmen took turns to express their opinions.

They probably wanted to turn the mourning for FDR into a boost for their popularity.

They constantly appealed to the crowd how similar their policies and claims were to FDR’s, and what kind of relationship they had with him in his lifetime.

When the pile of flowers in front of FDR’s photo was so high that his young face was no longer visible, someone climbed onto the podium.

The people who saw him gasped in surprise.

As the murmurs spread through the crowd, the short man on the podium opened his mouth in clumsy English.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little late.”

The people could tell who he was from his clothes and beard, even from afar.

“Joseph Stalin?”

“The Soviet leader??”

Although many influential politicians from Washington and other countries had come and gone, the fact that Stalin himself appeared here shocked many people.

He surprisingly started to give a speech in English, albeit awkwardly, to the people.

“I sincerely regret the d***h of the great president and comrade who faced the threat of the Axis powers with us, Mr. Roosevelt. With his excellent choices, we together! reversed Nazi Germany and Japan. I also thank the many Americans who fought with us in the war.”

“Why is his English so good?”

“Yeah, right?”

The people were restless here and there. Stalin’s English was fluent, although it had a thick Russian accent. In fact, the Soviet bureaucrats who followed the leader were also watching the speech with barely hidden shock.

‘When did he learn English…?’

‘He never even went abroad, did he?’

Anyway, this fact impressed the Americans. They felt proud that the highest-ranking person of another country spoke their language proficiently.

“I wanted to meet and talk to President Roosevelt, who is now deceased, someday. I never met him in person, but he was the best comrade. And, I always admired his insight. Sadly, illness took him away too soon.”

His tone was flat and monotonous, like reading a textbook, but it was full of sincere regret. It felt different from the hyenas of Washington.

“I finally met him now. But his unparalleled intelligence and insight are no longer with us. And… the small ‘gift’ I prepared for him, the surprising gift that I wanted him to accept and see his astonished expression… it became harder now.”

“Gift? What gift is he talking about?”

From Wallace, who had not been notified in advance, to the ordinary people who listened to the speech in silence, they began to whisper about the ‘gift’ that Stalin mentioned.

“I express my condolences for the great loss of our allied America, and I will leave now. I hope President Roosevelt rests in peace forever.”

Click! Click! Bang!

The reporters who came to cover the president’s funeral flashed their cameras several times for the unexpected scoop. As the cameras clicked and the flashes popped, Stalin bowed politely and went down the podium.

Some brave reporters who hoped to hear his comment ran to the leader who came down from the podium with a recorder, but they were blocked by the giant’s bodyguards.

“Mr. Leader? Mr. Leader! What is the gift you are talking about?!”

“Hey, let go of this! No, let me go! Aaaah!”

The crowd was agitated, and the politicians cursed Stalin for stealing the attention that should have come to them.

And Wallace, who might have been killed if he got more attention, was simply curious about Stalin’s ‘gift’.

America had sent a lot of materials to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union repaid by delivering the final blow to Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire.

The friendly relationship was not suitable for the superpowers that divided the world.

But what was the gift that the Soviet Union, which secretly sent nuclear weapons and kept it confidential to the public, boasted so openly?

He couldn’t wait for the next scheduled summit.

***

<Honor the great president! The Soviet Union proposes cooperation to eradicate disease!>

The day after the funeral, the headlines of all the newspapers were about FDR’s funeral.

And some faster papers were able to reveal the identity of the ‘gift’ that the Soviet Union brought.

The Soviet ambassador to the United States, Alexandra Kollontai, wrote a short article about the Soviet gift.

[It is widely known that polio (infantile paralysis) had a negative impact on the health of President Roosevelt, who is now deceased. Besides, many people died or became disabled from polio. Fortunately, our Soviet Union succeeded in developing a vaccine that can eradicate it. In honor of the leader of the allied country and the victim of polio, President Roosevelt, we want to provide the polio vaccine to the United States for free.]

Polio, or infantile paralysis, was one of the worst epidemics that caused over 10,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths every year nationwide.

Most of the infectious diseases in this era had subsided due to improved sanitation and drug development, but polio was still baffling the scholars.

Fortunately, some joint research by several universities revealed that polio was transmitted through healthy carriers.

But the problem remained: how to culture this pathogen that grew in the nervous system, and how to produce a practical vaccine.

“Our Soviet Union will provide the production technology and facilities for this vaccine to the United States for free. We don’t have enough manufacturing facilities to supply it immediately, but we will provide it to other countries sequentially, starting with the United States.”

But the Soviet Union declared that it would provide not only the finished vaccine, but also the technology and production facilities to the United States for free.

“What is the Soviet Union trying to gain from this measure?”

“If the United States has the capacity, we hope you will cooperate in supplying the polio vaccine worldwide. Also, our Soviet Union is planning to propose the establishment of a World Health Organization for the promotion of global health at the United Nations signing ceremony scheduled for June this year, and we ask you to express your support for this.”

At the press conference, the Soviet foreign minister Molotov and the ambassador to the United States Kollontai spoke calmly about the shocking contents.

The Soviet Union had certainly gained a lot from the United States, but it also paid a huge price for it. A tremendous amount of gold, victory in the war, and even nuclear weapons!

Yet the Soviet Union offered all that to the United States for free, and only asked for ‘cooperation for the sake of justice’ in return.

Molotov explained the Soviet intention as follows:

“We believe that we can do many things by cooperating with the two superpowers. We have together resisted the totalitarian attack that threatened freedom and peace, and we believe that we can expand our cooperation to other areas as well. Polio eradication is just one of the many areas where the Soviet Union and the United States can cooperate.”

“Is there any economic benefit for the Soviet Union from this?”

When a young reporter raised his hand and asked, Molotov and Kollontai both laughed.

“We don’t intend to patent the sun. Why should we keep the technology for the public good secret?”

The reporter closed his mouth.

As Molotov’s answer ended, the cameras flashed. Many Americans who watched this scene on TV also said nothing.

“Those commies… no, communist friends… are amazing.”

“Yeah. Maybe the commies aren’t as bad as we thought.”

The first to issue a statement of support was the American Polio Survivors Association.

“We applaud the Soviet Union’s great decision! For a long time, many scholars in various fields have tried to eradicate polio, but they couldn’t find a clue. But the Soviet Union not only made this amazing discovery first, but also declared that they would use it for the public good. This will be a ray of hope for many Americans!”

And after a moment of hesitation, the spokesman stood up in front of the reporters.

“Long live the Soviet Union! Long live Stalin! Long live the brotherhood of America and the Soviet Union!”

Thousands of doses of vaccine flew across the Atlantic to the United States by plane.

Tens of thousands of doses were shipped from the port of Budennovsk in East Prussia, ready to depart for the United States.

Wallace gripped Stalin’s old and wrinkled hand tightly at his first official event and summit after taking office.

“Mr. Leader! Thank you!”