I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 33

“What? Is that true?”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary. We suspect that there was a personnel change within the German army.”

“Get out! All of you, get out! Damn it…”

While I was receiving the regular report, I had to hear a shocking news. 

What do you mean, Manstein, Guderian, and Model have already become army group commanders?

 How is that possible?

The conference attendees were startled by my scream-like cry and ran out of the meeting room. 

They must have been afraid of facing my anger.

Actually, I was angry. Not at our generals, but… at this old body of mine. 

Stalin’s body was old and worn out, as if it had witnessed the years he had lived, and he was suffering from various medical problems.

What do you mean?

I just peed a little. Shit. How embarrassing…

“Ahem… Let me hear your plans.”

About 30 minutes later, the Secretary who seemed to have calmed down after his outburst asked, and the important figures of Stavka had to rack their brains.

Even though it was a clear advantage that these unverified people had become commanders, the Secretary reacted as if a great disaster had struck. 

The generals, including Zhukov, who had never seriously thought about it, were speechless.

“Comrade Secretary, we will crush them with our overwhelming forces. And also some diplomatic work…”

“Yes. Since you mentioned it, let me report that the young king of Romania has agreed to cooperate with us.”

“Is that true?”

Zhukov was so flustered that he passed the baton to Molotov. 

Molotov quickly told me a good news that would improve my mood.

Ah, this is better.

“We informed them that we would relocate the Ukrainian population in the area to Ukraine and guarantee Odessa to the Soviet Union on the premise that they would give up Bessarabia and Bukovina.

Upon this, King Michael I of Romania pledged to cooperate fully with us. It also helped that we promised to repatriate all the Romanian prisoners we had captured. The negotiation terms are as follows…”

“Good, good. You did very well! Giving up those small pieces of land won’t cause any problems for the Soviet state.”

Of course, it was Stalin’s order that we kept nagging the neighboring countries to give us those small pieces of land… 

Anyway, this move would dramatically reverse the situation on the southern front.

Among Germany’s allies, Romania had provided the most troops in terms of numbers. 

If we only look at combat power, Finland might be considered the strongest with its winter war experience and burning fighting spirit, but numbers were not easy to ignore.

What if about a third of Germany’s southern army group betrayed and turned their guns? 

Even though they had poor combat skills, what if more than 400,000 troops left the allied camp and joined the Soviet side? 

It would be a nightmare for the Germans.

Molotov roughly guessed what I was thinking and explained the situation.

“The young king of Romania, Michael I, who just turned twenty, was tired of being a puppet of General Ion Antonescu, who seized power through a coup.

He had been through several times of being treated like a puppet before he even turned twenty. He was ready to do anything to get rid of Antonescu, a fascist dictator and Germany’s lackey.”

“Even if it means joining hands with us? Hahaha!”

In actual history, Michael secretly negotiated with the Soviet Union when the Soviet army pushed the German army to the border. 

He drove out the military dictators and brilliantly stabbed them in the back, but he ended up being stabbed in the back himself.

The Romanian socialist forces controlled by the Soviet Union did not intend to leave the king alone anyway. 

He had to step down from the throne again and go into exile. 

The boy king could not return to his homeland until he was in his sixties.

“Haha, Comrade Secretary is right. The military factions who were dissatisfied with Antonescu, especially the anti-Hungarian-Romanian nationalist faction also agreed to ally with our supported socialists and royalists for ‘the greater good’.”

“Hmm, very good.”

Manstein and Model were like chess pieces on a board. 

They were not simple pawns, but powerful pieces that could change the game, but they were still on the board anyway.

And the players of this board were me and Hitler. 

No matter how much a piece ran wild, it could not escape from the board. But the players could play various tricks outside the board.

For generals who could not intervene in diplomacy and politics… The situation must be very distant now. 

The reinforcements they thought were allies suddenly turned against them for political reasons. 

And even if they tried to encourage their soldiers to fight, they faced a shortage of oil.

Similarly, our generals who could not intervene in politics looked at me with admiration. 

They must have thought it was magic to see the tanks I pulled out, the additional troops I brought from somewhere, and the supplies I kept enough.

“We have the factors to succeed in this winter operation… General Zhukov, use them well. You can inflict a fatal blow on the German bastards.”

“Yes! Thank you, Comrade Secretary!”

As this hopeful conversation went on, I noticed something. 

The air force commander Novikov kept looking at me nervously.

“General Novikov, what are you hiding!”

“Eek! Comrade Stalin, it’s nothing but…”

He hesitated. The attendees were puzzled. 

Did the air force screw up something? 

Did they blow up some valuable factory equipment they got from America? 

He looked like he had done something very big.

Most of the people in this place were from the army. 

They didn’t care much since it wasn’t their responsibility. 

They probably thought it would end with Novikov being punished. 

Oh well… I had been holding back my urge to punish for a while. Hehe…

“It’s about your son, Comrade Secretary. The… second son, that is.”

“What? Why is he here?”

I had completely forgotten about my family story and the attendees, including the generals, looked awkward and avoided my gaze.

‘My’ eldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili and second son Vasily ‘Stalin’ Dzhugashvili were both serving in the army. Yakov, who was diligent and hardworking, received the same treatment as other comrades and was serving as an artillery lieutenant on the front line – maybe in Smolensk now?

His performance evaluation was decent considering that he was the son of the Secretary. 

He was a brave and leading captain who was loved by his subordinates. 

The political officer’s report said so. 

And also the injury report from saving a fallen subordinate.

But Vasily, unlike his brother, was notorious for being a jerk. 

He got drunk and caused trouble, and took advantage of his father’s aura to get special treatment.

My eldest son, Yakov, used Stalin’s real name, Dzhugashvili, as his own. But my second son, Vasily, called himself ‘Vasily Stalin’ and boasted that he had the backing of the General Secretary. 

In real history, Stalin was angry at this behavior but tolerated it.

According to the original history, Stalin’s eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, was captured by the German army a month after the war broke out. 

After several escape attempts, he died in a prisoner-of-war camp in 1943. 

So the only remaining son of the General Secretary, Vasily, could get away with some mischief.

“What the hell did that bastard do this time?”

In this era, most people over 40 remembered the Tsarist era. 

Who could stop Stalin’s son from becoming the next Tsar of Russia, or rather, the Soviet Union?

But ‘I’ had no intention of treating him like a prince. 

He was not ‘my’ son. 

He was Stalin’s son.

I had served as a soldier in the Korean army, which was not as bad as the Soviet army during World War II, but still shitty enough. 

I hated those bastards who sucked honey with their father’s influence as much as any other veteran.

Fuck, does being the son of the head of state make you special?

Novikov hesitated, though. 

He must have seen something before.

Until now, Stalin had verbally scolded him but actually sided with Vasily. 

That’s why Novikov couldn’t help but hesitate. 

It was only after I vowed to punish Vasily severely several times that Novikov opened his mouth.

“He sexually assaulted a female nurse while drunk. He shot at his fellow officers who tried to stop him and wounded them… One of them is in critical condition.”

“What a scum?”

The generals murmured. 

The summary sounded bad enough, but the actual situation must have been worse.

From what I could infer from his words… Drinking on duty, sexual misconduct in the barracks, disobeying superiors, deserting military service during wartime. 

Each one was a crime worthy of execution.

Even by the standards of the 21st century Korean army, if he had done such things, he would have been dragged away and shot. 

By the standards of the harsher wartime Soviet army… It was only now that Novikov’s report became a problem.

A trace of sympathy rose within me. 

It was because his father raised him wrong, because of that he went astray. 

Haha, it seemed like there was really some Stalin left in me.

The solution was simple.

“Send him to a penal battalion. How many times do they have to go out to return to a regular unit?”

Everyone was shocked and widened their eyes. 

My cronies, especially those who knew my sons well, were startled and got up from their seats. But I had no intention of sparing him.

“Speak up. General Novikov.”

“Yes, yes, that… Normally they receive 10 years of punishment and reduce their sentence by one year for each sortie. Of course, there are hardly any survivors during 10 sorties…”

“Give Vasily Dzhugashvili 30 years of punishment. Can he survive 30 sorties?”

Novikov opened his mouth wide in shock and couldn’t say a word. The other attendees also doubted their ears. 

‘The Stalin inside me’ was shocked and screamed. 

I had to put my hand on my chest to hide my pounding heart.

Among those who recovered quickly from the shock, my crony and acquaintance of my sons, Zhdanov raised his hand slightly.

“Speak up, Zhdanov.”

“Yes, Comrade General Secretary. That… For the sake of military discipline, but such a harsh punishment is…”

I slammed the table and everyone flinched. 

Harsh punishment? Harsh? 

For someone who drank and molested his comrades and shot at them during wartime?

“Shut up Zhdanov! He deserves death right away for such a harsh punishment? According to military law, he should be executed but considering it’s wartime I changed his punishment so that he could kill at least one more enemy for the sake of the Soviet Union!

There is no need for his punishment to change during wartime just because he is my son. Novikov, 30 years it is. 30 years. Don’t reduce his sentence by even one year and give him 30 years of punishment. And make sure he is sent to the front line.”

Novikov nodded quickly without answering. 

Everyone was trembling under my pressure and fear. 

Especially Zhdanov who had vomited at my words clenched his teeth and shivered. 

Hey, there’s no need for you to tremble? 

Punishment should be fair.

“Is there anyone here who has a child on the front line? Raise your hand.”

Quite a few raised their hands. 

I pointed out one by one those who didn’t raise their hands and asked them why. 

They all had different reasons.

Some were like Zhukov who had only four daughters. 

Some had no children at all and didn’t raise their hands. 

Or some were not of conscription age.

One of them said that his only son had died on the front line and there was no one in his family who was in the war. 

I walked over to him and hugged him tightly.

“Here are the most exemplary communists. We have dedicated our lives to building this great country! My life and my children too! Even if Vasily Dzhugashvili dies fighting the fascists, it’s nothing but a necessary sacrifice. Just like the sacrifices of other people.

No, rather beneficial. It’s better for him to die and inspire the people’s resolve than to live and cause trouble. He’s better off dead. Do you understand, Novikov?”

As I spoke, an irrational urge to cancel it surged inside me, but I suppressed it hard. 

Novikov swallowed his saliva and answered that he understood.

I looked around and everyone seemed flustered. 

Yes, you are human too and you love your children, so you would try to keep them from going to the front line.

But are only the children of the powerful human, and those who have to die on the front line, the children of the workers, are they not human? 

Is it okay to do such things in the Soviet Union, the country of the proletariat?

“As I have already said, all communists must fight ahead of non-communists and retreat later than non-communists. There is no mercy for cowards and defeatists!”

Everyone rose from their seats with a vigorous yes answer. 

As I walked out of the meeting room, everyone applauded me.

How many of them would follow my instructions? 

I should ask Beria. 

Come to think of it, Beria had a son too, how old was he…?

Beria soon came to my office with a pile of documents. 

As I went through the documents that recorded in detail the personal information and whereabouts of the children of senior officials and generals, I realized that there was nothing about Beria himself.

“How old is your son?”

It was the first time I saw confusion on his face and I couldn’t help but laugh. 

This man also cherished his son.

“Yes, he is seventeen years old. He is not old enough to go to war yet and he is receiving officer training at a military academy.”

Oh he’s still young… Well that’s fine. 

We don’t have a shortage of human resources yet and we don’t need to scrape and deploy promising talents who attend military academies. 

Only in extreme situations like the Siege of Leningrad.

Anyway, Beria’s expression was not very good. 

He must have thought I was a person who would send all the children to war and let them die. 

Hey, am I you?

“Hmm… They’re all fine.”

There was less nepotism among the Soviet elites than I thought. 

Was it because not much time had passed since the revolution? 

Or because I set an example.

As time went on, bureaucrats became corrupt communist nobles who regarded the state as their own property under the name of Nomenklatura. 

I had to nip that possibility in the bud as soon as possible. 

To prevent the emergence of Chinese princelings.

The best thing might be to kill them all in war. 

To kill them and eradicate their roots.