I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 197

“Hahaha! This is the place!”

I decided to take the Politburo members with me for a ‘field trip’ to the outskirts of Moscow.

This area, which was almost the size of a city, was a huge construction site that symbolized the future of the Soviet Union. 

As I took a deep breath, the fresh smell of soil filled my chest and I burst into a hearty laugh.

“Ahh! The future! This is the future of our motherland. Look! Take it all in! And tell the story someday. I have seen the future of our country!”

Moscow was an old city. 

It had been a capital for centuries since the Moscow Grand Duchy expanded and swallowed up most of the European Russia after the Mongol invasion.

It was also underdeveloped, and it was hard to build new things because there were many historical buildings in the city.

Stalin had even demolished some of the valuable historical buildings, such as the ‘Cathedral of Christ the Savior’, to undermine the authority of the Orthodox Church. 

There was a high demand for new buildings, but there was not enough space for them.

But now, with the development of a new city in the southwest of Moscow, that would be a thing of the past.

Unlike the old towns known as the ‘Golden Ring’ in the northeast of Moscow or the old Moscow city center, this place was a planned city that was designed with the possibility of further expansion in mind.

The core of the new city, which was designed with the most Soviet values, was this place, the <World Proletariat University>, which was still a shabby building site.

As soon as the supreme leader showed up unexpectedly, all the officers on the construction site ran out to greet me.

“Comrade Secretary General! What brings you here…?”

“Oh, I came to see the future!”

“The fu…ture?”

“Right here! This place that you are building is the future of the Soviet Union!”

It was just early evening, but there was not a single window in the building that was dark. 

Hundreds, thousands of students were probably studying, researching, and finding the future inside.

“Shh, be quiet. Don’t disturb the students’ studies.”

“Yes, yes! We understand.”

The Soviet Union had been planning this project since before the war and had prepared to accept thousands of foreign students.

We expanded the Moscow University and created a language institute for foreign students, and we offered a one-year language course for students who were not familiar with Russian.

Almost all of them were children of poor farmers or factory workers in their home countries, and they clung to the opportunity of education more passionately than anyone else.

At the <World Proletariat University>, these students who had completed the basic training course were assigned majors and studied. 

When they returned to their home countries, mostly from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, they would become the elite who had received higher education and would take charge of the development of their countries.

As I walked in, I saw dozens of newly built khrushchyovkas.

“Is this the dormitory?”

“Yes! We built the khrushchyovkas here as a priority for the convenience of the students. There are 12 rooms on each floor, and we grouped a few buildings according to gender and department.”

“Hahaha, good! Very good!”

Some students were walking around stretching their legs and looked surprised when they saw us. 

Among them, there were quite a few black and Asian people.

The Comintern or the communist organizations of the colonial powers had selected hundreds of foreign students from the colonies in Southeast Asia and Africa. 

Most of them had received secondary education, but they had no chance of higher education because of their poor family situation or because they were radicalized by leftist ideology.

These were the ones who came to the World Proletariat University and studied. 

They learned the subjects that could be used in their home countries, such as medicine, engineering, natural science, education, and agriculture, for free, and even received pocket money.

“Let’s go over there!”

“Yes! Comrade Secretary General.”

When they returned to their home countries, they would be valuable talents who would rise to prominence in their liberated countries.

Higher education was something that was hard to dream of in the colonial underdeveloped countries. 

Those who returned from the Soviet Union, one of the world’s most advanced countries, with a college degree or higher, would be the best elite in their countries.

Of course, the United States did something similar, but the Soviet Union succeeded in taking the lead. 

The so-called ‘Minnesota Project’, which represented the project of transplanting higher education to underdeveloped countries, started in the 1950s in the United States, but we entered 10 years earlier.

They either went there and became resentful of the United States because of racial discrimination, or they just stayed there because they longed for the prosperity of the United States. 

Unlike the Minnesota Project, we aimed to send them back thoroughly.

[On the condition that they serve the people of their country for three years after returning…]

If the Soviet Union simply needed more talent, there was no need to bring and teach foreigners who did not speak well.

There was a reason for building a planned city, building a new university, and even naming it <World Proletariat University>.

“What if the students who graduate from here return to their countries and become the leaders of their countries…”

They were initially selected for studying abroad because they were familiar with socialist ideology. 

If they received free education in the Soviet Union and succeeded in advancing, what would the Soviet Union be to them?

Perhaps the light, the truth, and the way of the third world?

In the modernization process, the ideology of the ‘industrialization generation’ determined a society. 

It was the same for Korea and the Soviet Union. 

Those who grew up in the Stalin era and rose to prominence at a young age during the expansion period led the Soviet Union for a long time.

Khrushchev was like that, and Brezhnev, who became the secretary general after him in the actual history, was like that. 

Those who experienced rapid growth in the Stalin era thought with Stalinism as the center, and whether it was Khrushchev who tried de-Stalinization or Brezhnev who claimed to be the heir of Stalinism, it was no different.

It was only when Gorbachev, who was much younger and born in the ‘Soviet Union’ rather than Russia, appeared and spent his college days during Khrushchev’s thaw that the Soviet Union could get rid of Stalinism.

I was going to complete the opening policy with my own hands, so they probably would not be completely immersed in Stalinism. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union would remain a suzerain.

“Here it is…”

“Ah! This is it…”

In the actual history, there was a style called ‘Stalin’s Seven Sisters’, which included the Moscow State University. 

It was a name that referred to seven buildings that were built in a splendid style with a majestic skyscraper as the center, but here, the World Proletariat University would replace the Moscow State University.

It was still under construction, but the outline showed how much the Soviet Union was investing in this place.

“Hehe, this is really huge!”

“Yeah! It has to be. This place is the symbol of the new Moscow city!”

A skyscraper of 240 meters would be the highest building in Europe for a while. 

This massive building was planned to be the main building of the World Proletariat University, as well as the medical school building and the university hospital.

As soon as it was completed, a direct subway line connecting it to the old Moscow city center would be opened, and patients from Moscow and the whole Soviet Union would be able to come here.

“But why did you decide to build such a large medical school, Comrade Secretary General?”

“Yes. The capacity… up to 30,000? This size would probably be the largest single university in the world!”

“It has to be that big. It has to be.”

I couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction as I looked at it. 

A capacity of 30,000 was equivalent to the total capacity of a large comprehensive university in modern Korea.

And yet, it had to be that big, I thought. 

In the actual history, Cuba established the ‘Latin American School of Medicine’ (ELAM) and operated it with a capacity of nearly 20,000.

If a small country like Cuba could do that, why couldn’t our Soviet Union do more? Anyway, the Secretary General could do whatever he wanted. 

This huge building alone would be a university hospital, and some of the officers seemed to be shocked by that.

“Hahaha… this way, there will be no one who can’t get treatment.”

“That’s right! That’s it! You nailed it!”

This was also a propaganda for the Soviet system. Our country provided free treatment to people in this huge and magnificent hospital!

Also, it was necessary for humanitarian aid to the third world. 

There was no need for this hospital to operate only for Soviet patients. It would be a system propaganda for the patients of rare diseases from the third world to come to the Soviet Union and get treatment and go back alive.

There were four categories of good suppliers for revolutionaries. Students, teachers, lawyers, and doctors.

They had the intellectual ability to understand social contradictions by receiving higher education, and they faced the scene of those social contradictions every day. 

How could they not devote themselves to the revolution? Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, Lu Xun, Norman Bethune were the living witnesses.

The ones who learned medicine at the medical school of the World Proletariat University and returned to their home countries would be the red bombs that fell on the anti-feudal and anti-capitalist society of the colonies.

The students who entered the medical school wrote a longer pledge than the other students.

[I pledge to use what I learned at this school for the poorest and most marginalized people in my country for three years…]

It was not just ‘service for the people of the motherland’. Work for the poorest and most marginalized people. We will pay you as much as you want!

“We can pay you as much as you want. The US is providing aid, so how hard can it be? The key is, how can we reach their hearts?”

The US would probably follow a similar way to the actual history.

Covering the country with an overwhelming money bomb. 

Of course, here, the Soviet Union sucked up a lot of money for the overseas aid as a price for handing over the nuclear weapons, so it wouldn’t be as crazy as the actual history…

But on the other hand, this method also caused a lot of backlash. 

The Americans ran amok in many places in the world, not just in Korea, and the US became a ‘grateful country’ and a ‘vulgar people who only know money’ at the same time.

We decided to adopt a slightly different route. We built hospitals and schools in the poorest areas, placed foreign students from the countries, and fed and taught the poor students for free and made them intellectuals. 

This was our strategy.

“I never thought the students would look so lovely…”

The sight of the students studying hard all night with the lights on was beautiful beyond words.

Someday, this place would be the heart of the advancing world revolution. 

Even among the desolate construction sites, my eyes were already looking at the campus bustling with people.