Chapter 93: Creating a Good Communist
It had been nearly a year and a half since the revolution began, ultimately scaling into a full- blown civil war, before miserably ending in a failed guerilla campaign. The leaders of the Russian revolution, every last one of them, except for Lenin, of course, had been found and executed in the streets.
Not a single trial had been held for them. Meanwhile, the million or so members of the Bolshevik Party and the Red Army had been thoroughly rooted out and destroyed. Those who took up arms against the Tsar and the Russian Empire had miserable ends.
Those who betrayed their comrades and denounced Marxism as a whole had been granted some form of clemency. Though they would never fully be accepted by those who knew they once followed the teachings of Karl Marx.
Speaking of Marxism and all of its derivatives were thoroughly outlawed in the Russian Empire and deemed a form of heresy by the Orthodox Church. Anything related to the subject that did not wholly denounce it was burned in the streets by the Black Hundred and the other loyalists who supported the Tsar.
Any Party which declared any sympathy towards the Marxists was outlawed and disbanded, its members arrested for political extremism and support of the Bolshevik revolution. A similar sentiment began to stir in the German Reich. With the Kaiser being convinced by the German Conservative Party, who were the party of Monarchists, social conservatives, and nobleman to enact similar policies.
And while Germany didn't go to the same extent as the Russians did following the victory of the Tsar in the civil war, they did outlaw the teaching of Karl Marx's theories, and any line of thinking derived from his work. They also outlawed any political parties expressing support for socialism, communism, and any other form of political thought, disbanding any that already existed.
Marxism became a form of political extremism that was outlawed throughout Russia, Germany, and Austro-Hungary. Each of which took different approaches to deal with them. As for Russia, the Tsar began to westernize his empire. Forming a proper constitution, that while protecting the rights of the Tsar, allowed for some form of representation of the people, as it became abundantly clear that absolute monarchies were a thing of the past.
The State Duma was enacted, much like it had been in Bruno's previous life. And suffrage was granted to some degree to all men who were Russian citizens and were over the age of the majority. Much like it existed in the German Reich.
In many ways, the new Constitution of the Russian Empire resembled that of the German Reich, and for the first time in a year and a half, some form of stability spread across the Russian Empire. The Tsar's power, while limited compared to his previous autocracy, had been retained.
And the result of the Civil War was a new wave of Pro-Tsarist sentiment. But Bruno was not done, one of the names on his list had eluded him. And it was not until the spring of 1906 where he was personally alerted by German Military Intelligence of where this little rat was hiding.