Germany: The Thousand Year Empire

Stalin took the seat at the head of the table, the tobacco in his pipe sizzling softly.

Yezhov followed close behind him, his chilling gaze sweeping across every participant in the conference room.

A smile hung on his face.

Yet no one believed the butcher was truly smiling. The expression only made him seem more sinister.

It was difficult to feel even the slightest goodwill toward a man known for torturing children and using their suffering to force confessions from their parents.

The conference room fell into an unusual silence.

The staff officers who had been arguing passionately only moments earlier now barely dared to breathe.

Had Stalin come alone, the meeting might still have remained within the boundaries of military discussion.

But with Yezhov, that mad dog, standing behind him, everything had already moved beyond professional debate.

Stalin had not come to listen to opinions.

He had come to announce an order.

And that was exactly what he did.

"Kirill, within one month, I want to see our soldiers proudly assembled in Leningrad and ready to march."

Stalin's gaze settled on Meretskov.

"This is the greatest predicament the Bolsheviks have faced since the founding of Soviet Russia."

"The only way out is to strike first."

"Victory in Finland will be a powerful slap across the face of the European Union, that anti-Bolshevik bloc gathered against us."

Once military action had been elevated into a matter of class struggle and political direction, Boris understood that the discussion was already over.

He could only nod with the other officers.

"Yes, Comrade Stalin."

Not far away, in the corridor outside the conference room, a secretary of about thirty stood watching Yezhov with cold eyes.

Khrushchev noticed his expression.

He patted his new secretary on the shoulder and offered a quiet warning.

"Be careful, Makar."

"Sometimes, a single glance is enough to kill a man."

He lowered his voice further.

"Do not concern yourself too much with a mad dog simply because it holds power. It will not be howling forever."

"Comrade Khrushchev, I simply do not understand."

Makar's voice carried restrained anger.

"Are all those targeted in the purges truly bad people? Those men…"

The rest of his words died beneath Khrushchev's stern gaze.

"Be careful, Comrade Makar."

"You must understand that politics does not require truth."

"It requires endurance."

"Do not take the present predicament or your dissatisfaction too seriously."

Khrushchev glanced toward the closed doors of the conference room.

"The world is not immutable."

"And time is terribly fair to everyone."

He understood Makar's feelings.

Many comrades who had risen alongside him from the grassroots had died in interrogation rooms or vanished into the Gulags of Siberia.

But understanding was one thing.

Surviving was another.

As soon as Stalin emerged from the conference room, Khrushchev returned to his usual respectful demeanor.

He leaned closer and whispered, "Comrade Stalin, the political propaganda campaign in Ukraine has been completed."

"The local people have spontaneously erected a statue in your honor."

"When you have time, I will personally drive you there to see it."

Hearing this, Stalin smiled and patted Khrushchev's shoulder.

"Comrade Khrushchev, I knew I had not chosen the wrong man to lead political work in Ukraine."

"But now is not the time to discuss statues."

His tone changed.

"Have the labor camp prisoners from Latvia and Lithuania arrived in Ukraine?"

"They have arrived, Comrade Stalin."

Khrushchev answered immediately.

"We are currently transferring them to the Gulags before assigning them to transport labor."

Following the direction of the conversation, Yezhov stepped forward.

"Comrade Stalin, we are about to attack Finland and confront the German threat directly."

"I propose that we first deal with those Trotskyist officers who colluded with Germany."

"Many of them have undergone several years of labor reform, yet still show no genuine remorse."

"For such stubborn elements, I believe no amount of labor can correct their corrupted will."

Yezhov's suggestion made Stalin fall silent for a long time.

At last, he gave a simple answer.

"Then clean them up."

The next day.

Siberian Gulag No. 2.

After several years of torment, Zhukov had become almost unrecognizable.

The brutal cold had left him suffering from pneumonia, while the meager rations barely allowed him to retain the shape of a living man instead of becoming a walking skeleton.

Even so, he still discussed military affairs with an officer named Chirya.

It was the only method he had left to give himself a reason to continue living.

Looking through the frost-covered window at the biting wind outside, Zhukov could not help recalling another winter.

Back then, the Roman Military Academy had still existed.

Strategies and theories had blossomed inside its many discussion rooms.

They had debated operations across the burning sands of the Middle East.

They had studied how to dismantle defenses in densely populated urban areas.

They had argued about armor, aviation, supply lines, encirclements, and the future of warfare.

The academy itself might have been part of a conspiracy, but Zhukov could not deny that those had been some of the happiest days of his life.

Every day, he had learned something new.

Every day, the world of military science had opened a little wider before him.

But now, all of it had become a fleeting memory.

As far as he knew, every Soviet-affiliated cadet from the academy had either been exiled or killed.

The Gulag system continued to expand.

This year, an especially large number of new prisoners had arrived, including Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians.

The fragments of information carried by those prisoners had become Zhukov's only source of news from the outside world.

Through them, he had learned of Germany's dominance over Europe.

He had heard how Heinz Guderian and other German officers were shining across the European battlefields.

Zhukov understood that a German attack on Soviet Russia was only a matter of time.

When it came, the border would be like a thin paper screen before a fist.

Cough, cough, cough.

A violent fit of coughing pulled him back to reality.

As long as he could endure until that day, he believed he would certainly be reinstated.

When war came, Soviet Russia would need every officer it had discarded.

He would return to the battlefield.

He would stand before a command table again.

Clinging to that hope, Zhukov pulled on his clothes and climbed down from the bunk.

Only then did he notice that the bed below his was empty.

A faint sense of unease rose in his heart.

He turned to the old man in the neighboring bunk.

"Where is Chirya?"

"You mean the young officer?"

The old man lowered his voice.

"The guards took him away last night."

"He has not returned."

The old man was about to make the sign of the cross, but suddenly seemed to remember where he was.

His raised hand stopped halfway and quickly fell back to his side.

The next moment, a voice rang out from the doorway.

"Prisoner 3101."

Two soldiers entered carrying a roll book.

Behind them walked a neatly dressed, middle-ranking Cheka official.

After glancing at Zhukov, the official opened the file in his hands and compared the photograph with the haggard prisoner standing before him.

His brows rose in disbelief.

"Are these two supposed to be the same man?"

"Yes, Comrade."

One of the soldiers nodded.

"That is Zhukov. Do you need me to retrieve the supplementary…"

The Cheka official waved impatiently.

"Forget it."

"I am not spending half an hour digging through dusty files."

He reached into his coat.

"Give him a cigarette."

When Zhukov saw the cigarette being offered, his eyes lit up.

For one desperate moment, he thought the hope he had clung to for years had finally come true.

The once high-ranking officer now behaved like an eager orderly trying to please a superior.

"Comrade, may I ask…"

His voice trembled.

"Am I being released?"

The two soldiers could not suppress their laughter.

A sneer appeared on the Cheka official's face.

"Released?"

"In a sense, yes."

He signed the document and waved one hand.

"Take him away."

On the frozen Siberian permafrost, Zhukov shivered uncontrollably.

Beside him lay Chirya's body, already stiff with ice.

Ahead, two soldiers stood cheerfully with rifles in their hands, waiting for the Cheka official to complete the countdown.

"Three."

"Two."

Zhukov trembled beneath the savage cold.

In that final moment, it was not the bullet that first made him feel despair.

It was the cold.

A despair so deep that it seemed to freeze the marrow inside his bones.

....

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