I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 140

There was a simultaneous strike at the major ports of Joseon. 

The workers, who had experienced a strike in the 1920s, quickly organized themselves into several unions.

The Incheon Port Workers’ Association, the Wonsan Dock Workers’ Federation, and other labor unions occupied the ports where rice was exported and staged a sit-in strike. 

The strike also spread to other sectors, reaching rubber and oil factories.

“No more cooperation with the invasion war! Japan, get out! You bastards with cloven hoofs, get out!”

“Th-th-those… red bastards!”

The workers, who had suffered from the harassment of the Japanese directors, the long and hard labor, and the meager wages, began to shout radical slogans in an instant.

“If we scatter, we die! If we waver, we die!”

“We unite and march on until the day of victory~ We will keep our comrades’ promise, even if we lose both our skulls!”

Songs rang out at the docks and ports. 

The workers raised their strong arms to the sky as they listened to the resounding strike song. 

Red flags rose, and people with red headbands began to shout in various places.

“Strike! It’s a general strike!”

“Imperialism is nothing but a paper tiger!”

The Japanese authorities were not completely unaware of the situation. It would have been foolish to think that the Communist Party had not intervened at this point.

But they could not figure it out. Where did that money come from? 

The red elements of the Joseon Communist Party, who had hidden somewhere after the repression of the 1930s, seemed to have gotten hold of a huge amount of money.

[Let’s collect 5 jeon a day for the strike fund]

[Let’s abstain from alcohol and tobacco until the strike is over]

Of course, they were collecting money from the union members for the strike. 

They took the money they received from their daily wages by saying, ‘A penny of waste is a reaction,’ and abstaining from drinking and smoking, but it seemed that they had more money than they could explain.

“Could it be the subversive groups in the mainland?”

“That… that might be possible.”

The Japanese Communist Party also grew like wildfire in the underground and in the dark, despite the authorities’ repression. 

Most of the key members were arrested and tortured to death, but new people appeared from somewhere and carried the torch of resistance.

“We can’t just trample them down… Hmph…”

In the previous Wonsan general strike, they were able to organize a pro-Japanese labor group and pressure them to end the strike through their livelihoods.

This time, the situation was a little different. 

The strike was more advantageous for their livelihoods as it blocked the export of rice, and they could not kill it because of the unknown funds. 

The pro-Japanese workers who tried to do their job were lynched and beaten to death, and the police who knew it were trembling that they might suffer the same fate.

Also, if they just stomped on them, who would work there? 

There was an absolute shortage of manpower.

“All the young men were dragged into the war, so if we put all those tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of red bastards in prison, the loading and unloading would be paralyzed just the same…”

“What are you going to do?”

“Why are you asking me… No, wait.”

Nishihira Tadao, who had just taken office as the director of the police bureau after the former director was killed by terrorists, scratched his head and looked confused.

“Damn it… Let’s ask for cooperation from the army. If that doesn’t work, let’s deploy the garrison and suppress them and make them work for the army.”

“Yes! I understand!”

They had to suppress them harshly. They had to show them who’s boss.

Most people thought that the empire was doing well, but the high-ranking officials knew. How the war was going.

In the Pacific, the United States had succeeded in blocking Japan’s advance into the East Pacific with a desperate resistance. 

The ace pilots who had trained in the advance to China had oxidized one by one in the Pacific, and the United States had pushed back the invincible fleet of the empire with an overwhelming number of aircraft.

The situation of the army that went to China was a little better. 

With the tacit consent of the Chinese Communist Party, the Japanese army was able to push back Chiang Kai-shek’s National Revolutionary Army to the end of the continent.

But that was all. The continent was endlessly wide. 

Even if they annihilated tens of thousands of Chiang’s troops, more troops were conscripted from somewhere. 

The Japanese army was gradually pushed back by the supply and exhausted.

And the Soviet Union, which kept creeping up in the Far East.

‘Is this strike also orchestrated by the Soviet Union?’

Suddenly, he thought of that. Wasn’t the Soviet Union manipulating the leftist groups in Joseon and Japan?

The Soviet Union was cooperating with the United States more closely than anyone else. The United States would dry up and kill Japan with Agent Orange, and the Soviet Union would incite the workers’ strike to induce political instability and bring down the empire.

“Damn, they’ve gone too far…”

Of course, there was no way to deny the existence of the spontaneous reds and unions. The economic situation was definitely worsening, and the people were burdened with excessive burdens.

And, it was meaningless to infer the behind-the-scenes. What would they do if the Soviet Union was behind it? Would they declare war on the Soviet Union?

***

“Send the aid money to the Far East as soon as it is available. We’ll need every penny.”

“Yes! I understand, Comrade Secretary!”

If they sprayed Agent Orange all over Japan and killed them, they would try to plunder Manchuria and Joseon to make up for the shortage.

To prevent such a disaster, they organized a strike through the Communist Parties of Joseon and Japan. 

The Joseon Communist Party actively participated in the strike to show off its power and induce popular participation after the reconstruction.

The Japanese Communist Party, which had hidden underground because of the repression, led the strike to ‘save the people from the imperialist invasion war’. 

The Japanese workers, who were already dissatisfied with the soaring food prices, cooperated actively with the Communist Party’s strike agitation.

As a result, Japan was now shaken from the roots.

“With this, we can pay back the debt we owe to the United States, right? And we can also intervene enough in the post-war adjustment.”

It was too much to invest troops and resources in the Far East, as they had to push back Germany and develop nuclear weapons. 

The model was retreating step by step, but they were using the German blood to the last drop to efficiently grind the Soviet army.

In order not to hand over this region entirely to the US sphere of influence, they needed a foothold.

If the Soviet Union shook Japan and helped the US war effort, the US would not be able to suppress the organizations that had fought against the government unilaterally.

“If we can bring Western Europe and the Far East under our influence, we can secure dozens of ports that Tsar wanted so much! Hahaha!”

“Yes! You are truly great, Comrade Secretary!”

Peter the Great built St. Petersburg, or Leningrad, on the Baltic Sea to get an exit to the sea for Russia. But the exit of the Baltic Sea could be blocked by Denmark and Germany.

Another exit to the sea, the Black Sea, was blocked by Britain and France, who manipulated the Ottoman Turks in the Crimean War. 

Even if they went from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, Britain, who held Suez and Gibraltar, would not allow Russia or the Soviet Union to expand.

But if they took the Korean Peninsula and Japan in the Far East, the exit to the vast Pacific would open. If they subdued Turkey, took over Italy, and established nationalist regimes through the leftist uprising in Iran, Egypt, and Algeria, they could go south to the Indian Ocean.

The United States would try to exert its influence on the European continent through its allies in Britain and Western Europe, but what if they pushed back Germany with tanks and took over the regime with the cooperation of the French Resistance? Britain would be ‘just an island’.

This was roughly the post-war world strategy of the Soviet Union, and at least in the Far East, the gears started to fit together.

“How is Italy doing?”

“We are smuggling Partisans across the Adriatic Sea. We will soon be able to start a strike in Bologna and Milan.”

The generals seemed to hate Beria, who was trying to grab the world in his hands while they were held by the German army. But what could they do?

The weather was getting colder and there was a limit to how fast they could move the army. Probably not until late spring of next year, 43, would the Soviet army be able to advance again. So now they had to focus on espionage.

“The only regrettable thing is… that most of the organizations in Germany have been annihilated by the brutal repression and espionage is difficult. The military intelligence network is alive, but the mass organizations that could be the vanguard party…”

“Let’s just crush Germany and set up a new regime. Don’t we have quite a few people who fled here?”

“Ah, then I will proceed accordingly.”

In real history, too, the Soviet Union appointed Wilhelm Pieck, a German politician who fled to the Soviet Union in 35, as the head of state after occupying the eastern part of Germany. He was the leader of the Comintern, but anyway, he was no different from our puppet.

Here, too, Germany, the strongest country in Europe, had to be controlled by us, so the preparations for launching the Soviet military government in Germany were ongoing.

“Let’s tear Germany apart like this…”

“Hooh…”

As my finger ran across the map, people’s eyes darted back and forth.

Unified Germany was too powerful. It had crushed France and Britain several times, and even after losing two world wars, it was able to lead Europe again.

The two halves of east and west could not stop the rise of German nationalism. 

They had to tear it apart and trample it with communist France. 

That was the only way to prevent Germany from becoming the Soviet Union’s rival.

“Let’s give the eastern territory of the Oder-Neisse line to the new Poland. Let’s merge East Prussia with Lithuania…”

The east was roughly similar to the share that East Germany had in real history. They also gave away the western part of the Oder-Neisse, including Szczecin, to Poland.

“But for the sake of the port to the Atlantic, let’s give Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg to this eastern Germany, the ‘Brandenburg Republic’. Let’s tear apart the southern Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg…”

And ‘West Germany’ had to be torn into at least two pieces. The potential of Germany, which had risen to the strongest country in Europe even after losing half of its territory from the imperial era, could not be ignored.

“Comrade Secretary, if this happens, won’t Poland be too big? If we give Poland so much power…”

“Well, it’s the least compensation.”

The Katyn Forest Massacre did not come to light in this world. Smolensk was always the front line, so the Germans had no time to dig around for bones.

Of course, the Soviet Union was now raising the ‘Polish Liberation Army’ composed of Polish exiles. 

They were the ones who would establish the front line in the liberation of Poland and control Poland under the Soviet command.

The free Polish exile government, which was nothing compared to the Polish Liberation Army, which had two field armies, would not be able to do anything.

If they controlled with the whip of military force, they would need a carrot. 

The Prussian territory that Germany had diligently developed would be the best carrot for Poland. 

The Polish exile government, which had fled with the British exile government, was doing nothing, so they had to push them to the back of history.

With the development of nuclear weapons, the world strategy was gradually taking shape.

“Now… just crush the German army quickly. Got it?”

“Yes! Comrade Secretary!”