I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 192

“Comrade Secretary General?”

“What is it?”

“Well… I don’t mean to question your policy, but there is something I need to ask you about your intentions.”

Molotov, who had been traveling around the world day and night at my command, came to me with a quiet question, as if he had something suspicious.

It was new for him to ask a question, as he had always been a mindless bureaucrat type. Whenever I ordered him something, he would always shout “Yes, Comrade Secretary General!” or “Understood, Comrade Secretary General!” and work hard. But maybe his training had paid off?

“Alright, let me hear it.”

“Sir… Is our relationship with the United States a friendly one or a hostile one? Our foreign ministry and overseas operations department are not sure how to proceed…”

“Both.”

“Both… I see… Yes?”

When I cut him off like that, Molotov’s eyes widened in disbelief. Both. A relationship of both hostility and friendship.

But this strategy, the so-called dual-front strategy (和戰兩面戰術), would be the word that symbolized our policy.

“I’ve told you many times, diplomacy is about getting along with the United States. The United States is the strongest power of this era, and we can’t compete with them with just a few nuclear bombs. Haven’t you seen it?”

“Yes… Yes, I have.”

The food, materials, and industrial production that poured out of that vast land! 

As soon as they started producing, they built a fleet larger than the one they lost at Pearl Harbor in just a few years. 

The high-ranking officials who saw the power of the United States were quite intimidated.

Some of the more aggressive ones argued that the Soviet army and its allies could still overwhelm the United States on land.

But was there any need to fight?

“Rather than wasting our national power by fighting, it is important to foster friendship by various means and grow our national power to match the United States.”

“Is… Is that so…?”

Maybe we won’t be able to catch up with the United States. But if the Soviet Union and the United States reach a similar level of economic development, the Soviet Union will win.

Why?

“Their internal contradictions are paradoxically resolved by war, by tension. You know that, don’t you? Imperialism, as the final stage of capitalism, solves the problem of overproduction by consuming military power, which is utterly useless.”

“Yes, yes. Of course, I do…”

Molotov, who was not well-versed in Marxist theory, seemed to ponder for a moment, but soon nodded as if he remembered.

It was simple to explain. Capitalism, as the productive force increases, does not always follow it with consumption, and falls into overproduction. 

Who would want to raise the wages of the workers? 

This overproduction would eventually lead to depression and ruin, according to Marx’s thought.

But, in actual history, there was a slightly different solution. 

Roosevelt’s New Deal policy, for example, solved the depression by expanding government spending and stimulating consumption. 

And the easiest and fastest thing to increase in government spending was military spending. As Hitler did.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union, which controlled the productive force by the state, did not have to worry about the problem of overproduction. 

It was just that the people were dissatisfied with the vulnerability of the light industry sector due to the waste of limited productive force in the arms race with foreign countries.

In the end, if the United States and the Soviet Union fought, the United States would gain more strength to last longer, but the Soviet Union would eat away at its own flesh and collapse. 

That was my conclusion.

“We don’t need to join that game. Instead!”

“Instead?”

“We have to stimulate their internal contradictions.”

Any system had internal contradictions.

The Soviet Union was still less so, but the so-called nomenklatura, the communist aristocracy, was expected to emerge, and the United States was, well, needless to say.

The gap between the rich and the poor, the racial problem, was still bubbling under the surface, but it had the power to turn the society upside down.

“Look! That country! They are poorer and hungrier than us, but even so, education and health care are free, and no one falls into extreme poverty because they are sick. Not like some places where women are treated as second-class citizens in society, or where people of color, including blacks, are treated as beasts. Wasn’t Comrade Lenin himself a quarter Mongolian?”

“…!”

“A country where you don’t get money and power by graduating from a prestigious university because you are white and your father is rich and graduated from a prestigious university, but where a man who was an illiterate farmer and a miner can prove his ability and become the secretary general of this country! This Soviet Union is closer to the utopia than they are. We just have to show them that.”

I believed that.

The Soviet Union, free from the paranoid fear of invasion and red imperialism, would be a better hegemon than the United States.

When the Soviet Union existed, many oppressed peoples were able to shake off the imperialist powers with the help of the Soviet Union. 

When the Soviet Union existed, even the capitalist countries had to introduce welfare systems to solve the contradictions of their systems, and the workers could live in a fairly decent society.

After the Soviet Union disappeared? 

Russia fell into a snow-covered Nigeria. 

The Middle East became hell with war, and South America never escaped the banana republic.

“Do you think the United States can be hostile to us? Do you think they can, if at least half of the Americans have a favorable impression of us?”

“Hmm…”

“Women, people of color, workers, and countless intellectuals who came to study at our universities. As long as they are there, as long as they see the Soviet Union positively, ‘hostility’ will never start. In the meantime, we just have to realize our ideals in the more backward parts of the world.”

There were not a few Soviet students who went to study at American universities, but there were also quite a few Americans who came to study in the Soviet Union.

They were mostly poor or talented but unable to go to college for some reason.

“If the United States goes to war… They will stain their own name as the land of the free.”

***

“Hey! Give me your money! Hand over your wallet!”

“Hmm… Here’s my wallet.”

The middle-aged man was calm, even with a masked robber pointing a gun at him. He slowly took out his wallet and opened it with a smirk.

This is all the money I have. Don’t bother trying to rob me and add to your criminal record…

Add to what?

Have you eaten?

???

Ignoring the robber’s suspicious glare, the man turned around and walked away, whistling.

Follow me! 

There’s a place nearby that has delicious bacon and pancakes.

…

The robber looked at him incredulously, but then he smelled the savory bacon carried by the wind and his stomach growled.

Damn it, what is this…

He stuffed his mask and gun into his back pocket and followed the man, laughing in disbelief.

Is it really good here?

“…Munch, munch…”

The man looked down at the young man who was stuffing pancakes into his mouth with difficulty, a playful gleam in his eyes.

He had curly brown hair and a face that looked younger than he was. His eyes were full of defiance, as if saying that he was eating only because he was hungry, not because he trusted him.

“How old are you?”

“…Nineteen.”

“Hahaha, impressive, huh?”

A nineteen-year-old gunman. The man laughed hollowly, as if he found something funny. The boy, who had managed to eat five pancakes, asked him curtly.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, just the state of this country. Making kids do things like this…”

“When did they ever care about us, huh?”

“Some things are just wrong.”

“Ugh…”

The boy finished his pancakes and reluctantly ate his bacon and fried eggs with ketchup, then snorted and tried to walk away.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“I have to go back to work…”

“Have some coffee before you go.”

“…”

He snorted again, but eventually sat back down. A steaming hot and strong coffee was brought to them.

“Mmm… this is good…”

“Why are you meddling in other people’s lives, mister?”

“That’s my job.”

“Really?”

The man rummaged through his chest pocket and took out a business card from his wallet, which had only a few coins left.

“John Williams? American… Communist Party? Are you a commie, mister?”

“Well, most people call me that. I prefer the term socialist myself.”

“Ugh, I hate commies.”

“Why?”

The man raised his eyebrows and looked sternly at the boy, who was whining. The boy frowned at the sudden question.

“Why? Because people say they’re all bad.”

“So if many people say that blacks are lazy and stupid and deserve to be slaves, you would believe that?”

“…That’s different…”

The man laughed as he saw the boy speechless. Another coffee here! With lots of sugar and cream! He shouted cheerfully and looked at the boy again.

“Taking away what belongs to others and giving it away… That’s violating their ‘property rights’, isn’t it?”

“Wow, where did you learn that word?”

“At school.”

“You must have studied well.”

The boy scowled as soon as the topic of school came up. He quickly relaxed his face when he saw the man smiling warmly and kindly at him.

“Yes, I did pretty well. But I quit now.”

“Really? Why did you do that?”

“…My teacher told me to. He said I should be realistic when I told him I wanted to be a lawyer… How can a black kid like me ever become a lawyer? So I just gave up and left.”

The man’s smile faded and he listened to the boy’s story with a serious expression.

His father was a pastor, but he died in an accident, and his mother was admitted to a mental hospital. 

He grew up in a foster home, where he also did well in school, ranking first in his class. But his teacher crushed his dream…

The boy poured out his life story as if to vent his frustration. The man quietly ordered another cup of coffee and listened to his lament.

“…You’re right, sir. Damn it, my life is already messed up. Who would make a thief like me a lawyer? If I’m lucky, I’ll die in a flash from a cop’s bullet. If I’m unlucky, I’ll rot in jail for the rest of my life.”

“Do you want to go to school?”

“What??”

“Do you have any thoughts of going to school?”

The boy’s eyes widened at the man’s sudden question.

“There’s a night school run by the party. It’s mainly for elementary and middle school courses, but you can also complete high school courses. If you get a high school diploma and go to law school… Well, you might become a lawyer.”

“No, no, is that true? I don’t have any money?”

“We reds, you see… We only rip off the rich, not the poor! Hahahahaha! The truth is, we have money coming from the Soviet Union. There are probably a few more places like this, but you’re lucky.”

“…I’ll do it, I really want to. I’ll definitely go to that school. Don’t change your mind now.”

“Good! That’s great. Um… What’s your name?”

The boy hesitated for a moment. Was this real? It seemed too good to be true.

But he had nothing to lose in his life.

“Malcolm. Malcolm Little.”