I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 19:

“Gratitude is an illness suffered by dogs.”

― Joseph Stalin

Chapter 19

“…is expected.”

“Good. The next report is… Molotov, Zhdanov. You two are the only ones left, everyone else can leave.”

As the Politburo meeting was coming to an end, I ordered the Politburo members to leave like a bunch of fatheads. 

Everyone looked at me.

Borosilov, I don’t care how close you are to ‘me’, but can you stop looking at me with those pitiful eyes of a young child? 

You’re old enough to know better. 

If you look at me like that… I might waver.

“And Khrushchev?”

“Yes, Comrade Secretary?”

“On your way out, tell Zhukov, Vasilevsky, and Beria to come in. They should be waiting outside by now.”

The faces of the attendees stiffened as they left. 

It was understandable, Zhukov was not very popular for his arrogant and fiery personality.

But since the war, he had been appointed to the most important positions, and the military leaders who had been in charge before, like Borosilov, Budenny, Timoshenko, and Popov, were demoted or even dismissed.

And ‘I’ openly clashed with Zhukov and decided the command of the Soviet army with him. 

The old politicians did not like this sudden change in the balance of power.

Molotov and Zhdanov were still respected by the other party members as the senior Bolsheviks.

But calling Zhukov from the front and having a closed-door meeting with him meant… that ‘my’ absolute power could shift to Zhukov.

Not to mention Vasilevsky, who was also excluded from the General Staff… And Beria? Beria, who had control over the intelligence power?

If Beria whispered a fabricated conspiracy of treason in my ear, even my closest relatives could be dragged to the gulag and executed. 

Who would welcome Beria and me getting closer?

But I had no choice. 

The fewer people knew the secret, the better.

The heavy door of the meeting room closed. 

Before leaving, the NKVD agents searched the room thoroughly for any listening devices.

Zhukov and Vasilevsky, who were thoroughly searched as they entered, looked somewhat nervous. 

In fact, Molotov and Zhdanov were too.

Only Beria had a strange smile on his round face and waited calmly for me to open my mouth with a cheerful expression. 

He knew. 

If I wanted to carry out a ‘secret’ project, Beria was the best option.

In that respect, Beria seemed to feel superior. 

As if he believed that he was the person I trusted most. It was good to throw him a carrot as an intelligence chief. 

I didn’t want to correct that perception.

The two Politburo members I left here, Molotov and Zhdanov, were loyalists who stayed on ‘my’ side until the end of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign after Stalin’s death.

Zhukov and Vasilevsky were clearly the top brains of the Soviet army. 

And Beria was here because he was in charge of the ‘factory’ construction, not because of human trust. 

In history, he was a sadist filled with lust for power, and he was coveting my position anyway.

“Comrades, you are… the highest leaders of our Soviet Union, and the ones I trust most.”

As I started with a flattery, their expressions changed subtly.

“The topics we are going to discuss here must never be leaked outside. Never, no matter what happens. Don’t take notes, don’t write anything down. Just think in your head and forget when you go out.”

The attendees swallowed their saliva nervously. 

What if they don’t forget? 

What if it leaks? 

There was no need to worry about that. 

The result was clearly death or worse.

“I want to ask for your ‘opinions’, first… Zhukov. You are my most trusted general.”

“Thank you, Comrade Secretary! Please tell me.”

He clearly looked tense. 

Was it because my introduction was too long? 

When I said ‘most trusted’ general, the other attendees made strange expressions. 

Vasilevsky nodded slightly, and Beria’s cheerful smile cracked. 

Well, it wasn’t important right now.

“What if, just what if… we have a… hmm… a huge bomb.”

“Yes? A huge bomb?”

All the attendees looked puzzled by this sudden remark. 

A huge bomb? 

What could one bomb do? 

Of course, after witnessing how a bullet from a Serbian youth’s pistol changed world history, one might think that a bomb could have such value.

Beria also knew about the ‘factory’ construction since he was in charge of it, but he didn’t seem to know that it was a process to make a bomb. 

He looked doubtful.

“Yeah. A huge bomb. Its power is… enough to turn a medium-sized city into ruins in one shot. Imagine that our bomber flies over and drops this bomb, and it blows up one of the fascist cities so that they can’t use it for years. How would you use it then?”

Zhukov avoided answering my question right away and closed his eyes to think deeply. 

The other attendees also seemed to be desperately trying to come up with an answer.

“Comrade Secretary, I have a question. Is this huge bomb only possessed by us? How many do we have?”

Zhukov asked. 

Hmm, should I tell him this?

“From the point of having that bomb… for a year, or at least six months, we will be the only ones who have it. After a year, the United States will also have that bomb. Germany is… Germany is unknown.

But we will have the ‘bomb superiority’ for at least six months. 

During those six months, I think we can make about five or six.”

The attendees’ brains seemed to be spinning faster than I could hear as they got a more concrete answer than they expected.

“If I could decide how to use that bomb, Comrade Secretary. Then I would use it for Operation Decapitation.”

“Operation Decapitation?”

Vasilevsky finally started to give his answer. 

Everyone listened with interest to his suggestion.

“Yes, sir. The biggest challenge facing the Red Army right now is the Nazi German fascist army. You said it could destroy a city-sized area, so it wouldn’t be very efficient to use it on their field army.

Then we should blow up their top political and military leadership with one bomb and force the remaining army to surrender.”

“Would they surrender? Just because they lost their leadership?”

This time Zhukov answered. 

In fact, most of the attendees seemed to agree with Vasilevsky’s opinion.

“Maybe, there is a chance. First of all, Berlin, where their political leaders are located, and Königsberg, where their military leaders are located, are both their core industrial cities. If we destroy these core industrial cities with one bomb… we can eliminate their ability, manpower, and will to wage war.

Even if they try to build defenses, they will be destroyed by one bomb… They will need some other way.

The soldiers seemed shocked by Molotov’s opinion. 

That’s right, if a simple plane and a bomb from a factory could wipe out tens of thousands of soldiers in one shot, the value of a soldier would be only a fraction of that bomb.

No matter how well-trained and organized a great army is, what if one bomb can?

“Also, the way to obtain that ‘material’ is a problem… Is there a source of the material? Comrade Secretary? If not, eventually all countries will be armed with that bomb and there will be no advantage in armament.

It would be best if it was limited, especially if a large part of it was in our Soviet territory…”

“The material is easy to obtain, but the process of refining it is quite complicated. We have enough sources of the material in our territory.

We are building a ‘factory’ to refine the bomb material in Siberia, and thanks to Comrade Molotov’s efforts, we were able to get many things from the United States for the factory equipment. 

That was the most important matter I mentioned, related to this bomb.”

Molotov nodded as if he finally understood. 

He must have thought it was strange why I ordered him to get so many metals he had never heard of and graphite that was used for pencil leads. 

And then, he suddenly widened his eyes.

“No, Comrade Secretary, then do the Americans also know about this bomb?”

“What did I say? We will probably develop it six months to a year earlier than them. According to our intelligence network, they haven’t figured out some important numbers yet. And… they don’t even realize how necessary it is.”

The room was silent. 

They had been inflated by a dream of a powerful weapon that had never existed in this world, and suddenly they realized that it wasn’t just ours.

They looked like children who had their big candy taken away.

“It’s important how much advantage we can gain in those six months. The fascist bastards have taken over all of Western Europe. All the land west of our original border has fallen under their domination. But if we can make them surrender at once with Operation Decapitation as General Zhukov said, we can take everything into our hands, can’t we?”

Zhdanov, who had been quiet, suddenly offered his opinion.

“Is that possible? Blowing up one or two of their cities is possible, but will countries that are not directly hostile to us, like the United States who will soon have the bomb, tolerate us using such a… ‘cruel’ weapon as you said?”

“Comrade Zhdanov’s point is also valid. Even if Vichy France is practically a puppet state of Germany, the French people won’t listen to our orders after Germany’s surrender. We will be just another occupying force for them. Even if they are afraid of the weapon, they will have an ally in the United States soon.

The same goes for our ally Britain and neutral Spain. And then there are only Italy and the Balkan countries left, but we will have to share them with our allies. The Soviet’s sphere of influence in the Balkans will be recognized by Britain and the United States, so only Italy remains…”

“Crucially, we don’t have enough bombs to destroy all those cities. Even if we can destroy a city-sized area, we won’t have enough to wipe out all the large cities…

There are many large cities in eastern Germany alone: Berlin, Königsberg, Warsaw under occupation, Prague, Dresden, Vienna. And if we drop one on Budapest and Bucharest… five or six as you said won’t be enough.”

Molotov and Vasilevsky also gave their skeptical opinions one after another. 

Beria was fiddling with his glasses with a disgusting smile on his face and added his opinion as soon as Vasilevsky finished.

“I understand Comrade Vasilevsky’s concern, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

What? 

Does that mean we can make more bombs? 

Of course it’s possible. 

It doesn’t have to be a Little Boy/Fat Man type bomb using uranium-plutonium. 

We could use cobalt-60 to make a dirty bomb and spread it over the city.

That might be invented someday, but I didn’t want to do that with my own hands. 

It would be hypocritical to drop nuclear bombs on civilians’ heads and say that radioactive materials are not allowed, but dirty bombs were different from the nuclear bombs used in history…

Anyway.

“They won’t know how many bombs we can make. Even if they do, do they have the courage to count one of their cities for one bomb? Hitler, that madman might do it, but he will be dead after the first attack anyway.”

Ah… deception operation. 

If we say we can make at least ten bombs, we can hit not only large cities but also medium-sized or small cities.

Then what? 

When their citizens don’t know when their city will be vaporized by us, they will want to surrender. 

The Nazis were pushed back until they said <Victory or Siberia>… Wouldn’t Siberia be better than hellfire?

“One on Berlin, one on Königsberg. We destroy one city at a time with a short interval and demand surrender from those who resist.

If we destroy several cities at once with all our power, they might fight back desperately, and we will destroy their industrial facilities that we need with our own hands. We just have to give them one choice as we destroy one city after another. Which city will be destroyed next?”

Beria’s face twisted into a full smile. 

This disgusting sadist seemed to enjoy the idea of tens or hundreds of millions of Germans burning and dying and their cities being annihilated, even though it was just a ‘hypothetical’ situation.

Of course, I wouldn’t feel guilty about dropping a few bombs on Japan, but I couldn’t show such blatant pleasure.

“Tell them. Well, Berlin and Königsberg are burned and gone, so what’s next? Cologne? Hamburg? Frankfurt? Munich? Let them choose the city they will kill with their own hands.

They will destroy each other by fighting. Heh, hehehe, oops… I can’t help laughing. 

If you don’t surrender and hand over your fleet to us right now, we will destroy Stuttgart! Kill yourselves! Or we will burn all your families in the rear! Hahahahahaha!”

Everyone swallowed their saliva.

Maybe by now someone had realized. 

I had heard enough stories about the threat of nuclear war from the future and could think of it right away, but it was fear that saved humanity from nuclear war.

We could destroy them, but I and my family could also perish together. 

We are talking about destroying Germany literally right now, but they could do the same to us.

The fear of mutual assured destruction. 

That fear saved mankind. 

But what if someone doesn’t know fear?

I felt a chill down my spine.