My brothers Keeper, an SI as the twin brother of Stalin (Reworked)

[FlightlessPotato]

Elsa Brändström, the internationally known Red Cross worker later remembered as the "Angel of Siberia," and eventually Jugashvili's future wife.

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I like Elsa a lot, her character stands out in this story due, in no small part, to her strong moral fiber. Because of that I can't really see this marriage happening.

 

[BuilderOne]

Standing nearby was Elsa Brändström, the internationally known Red Cross worker later remembered as the "Angel of Siberia," and eventually Jugashvili's future wife.

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I'd half expect Elsa to be on a list of all intelligence agencies. A list of "Protected personnel, with all cost". After all Elsa is the only known figure who can control our man... and she can even publicly admonish him.

Also, a nice shadowing on future developments.

 

[OverseerEX]

Jugashvili himself later explained the logic bluntly in his private notes: "I needed to spread fear, throw them off balance. The fear of the stick will make people receptive to the carrot."

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I bet the historians are having a field day reading his notes. Man, what a guy.

 

[Alenco98]

Excerpt from the Wikipedia Page on the Great Terror

The Great Terror (German: Großer Terror), also known in Germany as the Bloody '44 and '45 (German: Verdammte 44 und 45) and the Reign of Yagoda (German: Die Herrschaft Jagodas), was a campaign of political repression, mass executions, and ideological purges carried out in Soviet-occupied Germany between 1944 and 1945. Initiated shortly after the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, the terror was overseen by Genrikh Yagoda, then Deputy People's Commissar for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union.

Originally framed as a campaign to eradicate remnants of National Socialism and militarism from German society, the purges rapidly expanded beyond the prosecution of major Nazi leaders into a broader restructuring of the German political, military, and social elite. The campaign began with a series of highly publicized show trials targeting prominent members of the fallen Nazi regime, followed by widespread arrests, deportations, forced labor sentences, and summary executions.

The purges were conducted primarily by the Soviet NKVD in cooperation with the Communist Party of Germany and its emerging intelligence apparatus, the M-Apparat, which would later be reorganized into the Stasi. Under Yagoda's direction, members of the Junker aristocracy, industrial magnates, former princes of the German states, SS personnel, Wehrmacht officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel, and senior Nazi Party officials; from regional Gauleiters to surviving members of the national leadership were subjected to systematic extermination. Executions were carried out publicly or in the presence of family members, who were subsequently compelled to bury the dead themselves.

The campaign extended beyond the upper crust of German Society. Rank-and-file members of the Nazi Party, former members of the Hitler Youth, supporters of the German Christian movement, and individuals affiliated with Nazi-aligned organizations were subjected to "struggle sessions," political indoctrination programs, and forced labor. Many were interned in former concentration camps repurposed by Soviet occupation authorities as re-education and labor facilities.

The terror reached its symbolic climax in April 1945 during the Auschwitz Trials, held within the grounds of the former Auschwitz concentration camp. Among those prosecuted were the signatories of the Industrielleneingabe ("Industrialists' Petition"), the 1932 letter urging President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. Following conviction, many defendants were executed by Zyklon-B gas in the same camp gas chambers previously used by the Nazi regime, with their families forced to dispose of the bodies in the crematoriums, the macabre spectacle was planned and overseen by Jugashvili himself.

Subsequent trials targeted surviving members of Hitler's inner circle, senior SS officers, influential industrialists associated with the Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft ("Circle of Friends of the Economy"), and high-ranking Wehrmacht personnel accused of complicity in war crimes or collaboration with the Nazi state.

August 3, 1922
Miri Baljuvon Fortress
Baljuvon Village, Bukharan People's Soviet Republic

I sat on a wooden stool near the center of the fortress courtyard while one of the Armenians in my detachment—a hard-faced cavalryman named Melkumov—gave his report. Dushanbe had fallen back into our hands in mid-June, and ever since then we'd been chasing Enver Pasha across mountains, valleys, villages, and whatever God-forsaken hole in Central Asia he decided to disappear into next.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked. "This is the tenth report we've gotten on him, and every other time the bastard slipped away."

"I'm sure, sir," Melkumov replied without hesitation. "One of the Red Guards brought the information in personally. Says Enver dismissed most of his men for a Muslim holiday. Eid al-Adha, I think. Claims he's only got a small escort left. Less than fifty."

I leaned back slightly and rubbed at my temple. "And this informant? He's still here?"

"He's with the men outside."

"Bring him in. I want to confirm a few things myself."

Melkumov nodded and disappeared through the doorway, returning a minute later with the informant in tow. The kid couldn't have been older than nineteen. Skinny, pale, red-haired, blue-eyed. Honestly, one thing I never got used to in Central Asia was the people. One minute you'd be talking to someone who looked straight out of Arabia, the next you'd meet some blond, blue-eyed bastard named Mohammedov who looked like the future wet dream of every racial theorist in Europe. Being raised in America had given me a very different mental picture of race. Central Asia repeatedly informed me that reality was under no obligation to make sense.

The boy stood stiffly in front of me, trying not to look nervous.

"So," I said, "you're the one who sold out Enver. Why?"

He hesitated before answering. "One of his officers belongs to the Fozilov clan. During one of Enver's raids, they killed my father. My family—the Musayevs—we already hated them before that." His voice tightened. "I don't care about Enver, Islam, the Soviets, or any of the rest of it. I just want to kill the son of a bitch who murdered my father."

I studied him for a moment. Anger was easy to fake. Resentment wasn't. The kid meant every word.

"Well then," I said, reaching for the pistol at my waist, "congratulations."

I handed him the revolver. His eyes widened slightly as he took it.

"How would you like to get your revenge with us?" I asked. "You in?"

He gripped the pistol tightly. "When do we leave?"

I looked around the room toward the assembled men.

"You all have ten minutes to get ready," I barked. "And somebody get me a new pistol."

The room immediately erupted into motion. Men checked rifles, ammunition belts, grenades, saddles. One of them handed me his sidearm and I holstered it while making my way toward the gate.

Finally.

Actual fighting.

Not wandering from village to village reopening mosques, threatening Party officials into accepting tribal elders and imams into the Communist Party at gunpoint, or supervising executions until I couldn't smell blood without getting hungry afterward. A real battle. A proper hunt.

I laughed quietly to myself as I crossed the courtyard. Somewhere along the line I'd become addicted to combat. Maybe I always had been. Maybe the revolution simply gave me permission to stop pretending otherwise.

Then I spotted Elsa.

Or rather, I spotted Elsa beneath the enormous black paranja she still wore outside the palace grounds. Even now I wasn't entirely sure whether she hated me for forcing the veil on her or merely enjoyed making me feel guilty about it. Probably both.

I walked over anyway.

"Hello, Elsa."

"Mika," she replied in her usual cool tone. The veil hid her expression, though I could imagine it perfectly well.

To be fair, I understood her irritation. I had, after all, forced a Swedish humanitarian into full Central Asian attire because I needed to play politics in front of half of Turkestan. But politics here was theater, and theater required costumes.

-----------------------------------------------

"Hey, Elsa. Thought I'd have a quick chat with you before I headed out."

"Headed out?" She stopped walking. "Let me guess. More families to execute? Another village to massacre?"

"Perhaps." I nodded casually. "If Enver Pasha decides to put up a fight, then the unfortunate little village he's hiding in will suffer for it. And if he doesn't…" I shrugged. "Well, you already know the answer."

She said nothing. I couldn't even see her face beneath the paranja, but I could practically feel the judgment radiating off her.

"I'm coming with you," she said finally.

"You don't ha—"

"The clinic here is already functioning," she interrupted sharply. "I'm going so you don't massacre everyone."

I sighed dramatically. "Whatever you say."

It had become a pattern by then. When I rode out alone, villages tended to end in smoke, executions, and chemical shells. When Elsa managed to catch me before I left, things usually ended with surrender negotiations, concessions, and me pretending I wasn't irritated by my own conscience. I couldn't really say no to her.

If Maria had been here…

No. If Maria had been here, it would've been exactly the same.

That was the problem. Elsa, Maria—they were different people, but somehow they occupied the same place in my head. The only women capable of grabbing the leash and pulling me back before I went full Joker.

"Just make sure the damn paranja doesn't slip off," I muttered. "I'll have one of the men get you a saddle."

August 4, 1922
Outskirts of Chaghan Village, Bukharan People's Soviet Republic

The first rays of dawn spilled across the mountains, washing the valleys in pale gold. Central Asia had a haunting sort of beauty to it. The kind that made you momentarily forget you were standing in the middle of a war zone. For a brief second, I imagined myself as nothing more than a traveler wandering the world—not one of the greatest mass murderers of the modern age.

Unfortunately, reality tapped me on the shoulder.

I turned and saw Melkumov standing there.

"Comrade Jugashvili," he said, "the village is surrounded."

I looked toward the hills encircling the settlement. My men were already in position along the ridgelines, silhouettes against the growing light. I nodded once, then glanced back at Elsa, still hidden beneath the black folds of the paranja.

"Stay back," I told her. "You can come in once we clear the place out."

She didn't answer. She just stared at me silently through the veil, which somehow felt more judgmental than words.

I mounted my horse, securing myself awkwardly with one hand while raising my sword-arm toward the hills.

"Give the order," I said to Melkumov. Then, after a moment, I added, "And remember what I said. No shooting unarmed civilians. I wouldn't want to upset Lady Elsa."

Melkumov glanced at her, then back at me, and gave a slow nod.

A whistle cut through the dawn.

Immediately the hills erupted into motion. Men mounted horses, rifles raised overhead as screams echoed across the valley. From every ridge came shouting, war cries, the thunder of hooves. Then we charged.

I glanced back one last time toward Elsa and the small escort I'd left with her before turning my attention to the village ahead.

It woke violently.

Doors burst open. Villagers stumbled from mud-brick homes in confusion, some half-dressed, others clutching children. It was a small settlement. They never had a chance. We had the numbers, the horses, the machine guns, the rifles. Most importantly, we had momentum.

A few of the Tajiks serving in my detachment began shouting orders at the civilians. I only understood fragments of the language. "Inside." "Drop it." "Surrender." Things of that nature.

Then the actual fighters emerged.

I saw rifles in their hands.

The moment my men spotted them, gunfire exploded through the village. Several insurgents dropped immediately into the dirt. I pulled my revolver free as my horse pushed through the narrow streets, firing at anyone still carrying a weapon. Truthfully, it was disappointingly one-sided. I only managed to shoot two men myself before my soldiers had already overwhelmed most of the resistance.

"Try to wound and disarm them!" I shouted over the gunfire. "I'd prefer to take Enver alive!"

The shooting continued for several more minutes. A few of my own men fell. More of theirs did. Then, just as quickly as it began, the fighting died away.

Silence settled over the village, broken only by groans and distant crying.

I dismounted and looked around at the aftermath. Smoke drifted lazily upward from one of the houses. Chickens wandered through the street as if nothing had happened. War always had moments like that. The world refusing to care about human catastrophe.

I spotted Melkumov nearby.

"Gather the bodies," I ordered. "And get the kid who informed on Pasha. I need him to identify the corpse."

"Yes, sir."

The next half hour was spent dragging bodies into the village square. They were stacked in rows beneath the growing morning heat while villagers watched from doorways in terrified silence. Elsa eventually entered the settlement with her escort, still wrapped in black from head to toe. She didn't speak while the dead were arranged before us, though I knew her well enough by then to understand exactly what she was thinking.

Pity.

Too much of it.

Once the bodies had all been gathered, I looked toward the informant, Ilkhom.

"Well?" I asked. "Which one is Pasha? And don't bullshit me."

Ilkhom walked slowly past the corpses, examining each face carefully. He moved down the line in silence for nearly a minute before finally turning back toward me.

"He's not here."

"Are you kidding me?" I looked at the kid, more irritated than angry, though judging by the expression on his face, you'd think I was about to execute him on the spot.

"Wallahi, he's not among them," he stammered. "I saw him before. His body isn't here."

I exhaled slowly and looked around the village. Then my eyes drifted toward Elsa.

If she hadn't been here, this would've been simple. Line the villagers up, demand they hand over Enver Pasha, and if they refused? Shoot everyone and burn the village to the ground. Brutal, efficient, uncomplicated.

Instead, I had a Swedish humanitarian attached to my conscience like a restraining bolt from Star Wars.

"Fuck," I muttered, more frustrated than enraged. "Form a perimeter around the village. Nobody gets in or out until he's found. Search every house. Tear the damn things apart if you have to."

My eyes settled on one of the nearby homes. I pulled out my pistol and motioned toward several soldiers.

"You. Follow me. We're searching that one."

Then I turned toward the others scattered through the village square.

"And stop standing around like idiots and start searching!"

I began walking toward the house when Elsa's voice stopped me.

"Mika."

I turned. She was already following behind me.

"I'm coming with you."

"Elsa, what if he's in there? What if he shoots you?"

"And will you show restraint if I'm not?"

"I…"

"Exactly," she said coldly, brushing past me. "I'm going."

I sighed and followed after her.

We approached the house and pushed the door open. Inside sat several women huddled together beneath their paranjas. At least, I assumed they were women. At this point in Central Asia I'd learned not to trust anything covered head to toe in cloth during a manhunt.

Behind me, soldiers began overturning furniture and ripping through the house.

Then a thought struck me.

"Search the women too!" I shouted. "Unveil them! Maybe Pasha's disguised himself as one!"

The soldiers hesitated for half a second before moving toward the group.

An older man sitting in the corner immediately began shouting in protest—which, honestly, was fair enough. We were storming into his house and unveiling the women one by one at gunpoint. Revolutionary justice rarely scored high on etiquette.

There were five of them.

The soldiers began pulling the veils back one at a time.

Then suddenly one of the figures screamed and lunged directly at Elsa.

I saw the knife flash in the dim light.

Instinct took over before thought did. I shoved myself in front of her just as the blade slammed into my side beneath my ribs. Pain exploded through me.

"Son of a bitch!"

I drove my forehead into the attacker's face. The impact cracked against their jaw hard enough to stagger them backward. They were taller than I expected—stronger too. I ripped the veil away and immediately realized why.

It was a man.

And not just any man.

He slammed into me again, trying to force the knife deeper. With one arm and a metal prosthetic, I was losing that contest quickly. So I did the only thing left.

I bit him.

Hard.

My teeth sank into his throat and I clamped down like a starving animal. Blood flooded into my mouth instantly, hot and metallic. He screamed, trying to pry me off, but I kept biting harder. If I couldn't overpower him, I could at least make this horrifying enough that he'd regret being born.

"What are you doing?!" Elsa screamed at the soldiers. "Help him!"

Finally my men rushed forward, dragging the attacker off me. Blood poured from the man's ruined throat as he collapsed onto the floor, choking violently.

More soldiers flooded into the house, including Ilkhom. The kid froze the moment he saw the dying man.

"That's Enver Pasha," he said, pointing at him.

"Well," I grunted, looking down at the knife still lodged in my side, "that's nice to fucking know."

I looked up at my men, blood dripping down my chin.

"And somebody get me a fucking doctor."

August 15, 1922
Hisar fortress
Hisar, Bukharan People's Soviet Republic

I lay back on the bed, my side still throbbing from where Enver Pasha had managed to stick a knife into me before I bit half his throat out like some rabid animal. Rain hammered softly against the fortress walls outside. Odd weather for August in Central Asia. Apparently God himself had decided to contribute to the atmosphere.

The door creaked open. Elsa walked in carrying fresh linen bandages.

I looked down instinctively toward the wound and placed a hand over it carefully before forcing myself upright. Elsa set the bandages down on the nightstand beside the bed.

"Hey, Elsa," I said quietly as I began pulling my shirt off, exposing the layers of bandages wrapped tightly around my torso.

"It seems the wound is healing properly," she said in that same calm, clinical tone she always used whenever my body was involved. "Stand still. I'm going to remove the old bandages and redress it."

I obeyed while she carefully began unwrapping the cloth from around my ribs.

"This is the second time you've saved my life," I said. "If you manage it a third time, I'll have to get you another chest full of money."

"Please let me do my job," she replied flatly. "If you keep moving while talking, the wound could reopen."

I sighed dramatically but nodded anyway.

The last layer came off, exposing the ugly stitched wound beneath. Elsa had cleaned it, sewn it shut, disinfected it again, and somehow kept me alive despite my repeated attempts to get myself killed in increasingly theatrical ways.

She began wrapping fresh bandages around my torso. The entire process took more than ten minutes. By the end of it I was genuinely close to falling asleep from boredom. It made me respect her even more. I would rather charge machine guns than spend my days changing dressings and sewing flesh back together.

"Thank you, Elsa," I said quietly once she finished. "Seriously. You saved my ass again."

I chuckled weakly before sliding off the bed and sitting beside her.

"Then again," I continued, "this probably means thousands—no, millions more people are going to die because I'm still alive."

I looked at her. Her expression remained cold and unreadable, though by now I understood that was simply how she survived listening to me.

"You say millions as though you've seen the future."

"If you knew what I knew, Elsa…" I shrugged and smiled faintly, though there wasn't much humor in it anymore. My mind drifted toward what was coming. Another world war. Camps. Cities burning. Entire families fed into gas chambers. Humanity bureaucratizing murder with criminal efficiency.

Knowledge really was a terrible burden.

"But it doesn't matter," I continued with a sigh. "No matter what I do, I'm only one man. All I can really do is go with the flow and try to mitigate the damage."

"You call what you've done 'mitigating'?" she asked, sounding almost amused despite herself.

"Like I said," I replied, "if only you knew."

She studied me carefully now. "You sound so certain all the time. Tell me, what exactly do you supposedly know that makes you so certain?"

"Certain about what?"

"That millions will die at your hands." She tilted her head slightly. "Why do you believe that?"

"Germany," I answered immediately. "You saw the treaty they signed after the war. Do you honestly think they're just going to accept that humiliation forever?"

I stood up slowly and began pacing the room.

"They'll go the way of Italy. Fascists and socialists tearing each other apart in the streets until eventually the fascists win, which they will, I'm certain of it. Then Germany will get its own version of them. They'll rearm, rebuild, and start another great war. And we'll get dragged into it because Europe has the collective survival instincts of a drunken lemming."

I glanced toward her.

"You thought the First World War was terrible? The next one will make it look civilized."

The rain outside intensified slightly.

"And if we want to survive it," I continued, "we'll have to industrialize this country at absurd speed. We'll have to drag Russia kicking and screaming into the modern age."

I laughed bitterly.

"And the peasants won't exactly volunteer for that."

I raised my hand like a pistol and mimicked a gunshot.

"Eventually the state is going to collectivize agriculture. Seize land. Force people into factories. And guess who's going to be responsible for making sure terrified peasants obey?"

I pointed directly at myself.

"Like I said Elsa. Millions."

For a brief second, my hand trembled.

Then I forced myself to smile again and placed my hand gently on her shoulder.

"But…" I said quietly, "with you around, maybe some of your goodness rubs off on me. Maybe on Joe too. Maybe on the rest of us."

I looked at her carefully.

"Because you're the only person who keeps me from going insane."

Before she could respond, I pulled her into an embrace, holding her tightly with my remaining arm. I felt her body stiffen immediately.

"I'm sorry for putting this burden on you," I murmured into her shoulder. "But I love you. I truly do. And I need you."

I closed my eyes for a moment.

"That day we hunted down Enver… I was going to line up the entire village and burn every house to the ground to kill him."

I laughed softly, though there was nothing funny about it.

"But because you were there, I chose restraint. I killed him without killing everyone else."

I pulled back slightly, enough to look at her again.

"You'll save an unimaginable number of lives if you stay with me."

Then I smiled faintly.

"And yes," I admitted openly, "I am absolutely manipulating you right now."

For a moment she said nothing.

Then I heard it. A faint sniffle.

Then another.

And finally, quiet sobbing.

I tightened my arm around her gently.

"I'm sorry," I whispered again, trying to console her even while fully aware I was probably the source of half the misery in her life. "I'm sorry for forcing this burden onto you."

 

[spectre678]

the Auschwitz Trials,

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Following conviction, many defendants were executed by Zyklon-B gas in the same camp gas chambers previously used by the Nazi regime, with their families forced to dispose of the bodies in the crematoriums

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well well well
i assume the Nazis failed to get arrested by the Americans before the red army got their hands on them

"I'm sorry for forcing this burden onto you."

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elsa: i don't want it
leaves
mc: kek

 

[Siryapsalot]

Well at least some CERTAIN filthy rich families in Germany didn't get away.

 

[iceknight90]

Elsa and Mikhail's future marriage is pretty much a hostage situation.

She's at the whim of a hostage taker, with the hostage being countless lives across the Soviet Union.

Very romantic.

 

[BuilderOne]

"And remember what I said. No shooting unarmed civilians. I wouldn't want to upset Lady Elsa."

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If Mikhail or Joe wants to kill you, Lady Elsa (Angela of Siberia, the Merciful of Soviet) will try to save you and succeed.
But if Lady Elsa wants you dead, you are just a dead man walking.

 

[Alenco98]

March 26, 1913
Okhtinsky district
St. Petersburg, Russian Empire

I entered my apartment, yawning as I stretched my back. It had been a long day at work: roughing up criminals, taking bribes, working for other criminals. Nothing beat being a corrupt cop in the capital of the Russian Empire.

It was unfortunate really. A few years ago, after Kato was born, I'd originally planned to move to America. Start over. Quiet life. Open McDonalds before it became a thing, then eat hamburgers and die fat and happy with my millions.

But Joe was still out there somewhere, neck-deep in his idiotic Bolshevik activism, and Mama refused to leave if Joe didn't come too.

So I settled for the next best thing: the capital.

All the money I'd saved in Georgia, every bribe I'd pocketed, every dirty ruble I'd scraped together, I traded it all in just to secure a transfer. And now here I was. I'd only arrived last summer, but I was already making the money back. More importantly, I was making connections. Connections that could get me the fuck out of this hellhole once the revolution finally exploded.

Because there was no way in hell I was staying in this country once the Communists took over. Fuck that. I had zero interest in starving in a snow-covered dystopia or getting shipped off to a Gulag because some bureaucrat decided my face looked counterrevolutionary.

I stepped into the kitchen and spotted Maria cooking something on the stove.

"Hey sweetie," I said, walking over to her. She turned around just in time for me to wrap my arms around her and kiss her.

Maria was one of the few genuinely good things in this life. In this country to be honest. Her, the kids, Joe, and Mama. That was about the entire list.

"Whatcha cooking today?"

"Just some borscht and pelmeni."

"They smell delicious."

"A letter came in. Along with a newspaper."

"A letter? From who?"

"It's from Iosif."

That stopped me cold.

I hadn't heard from him since October. He'd been in St. Petersburg before getting arrested and shipped off to Siberia. Then he came back again around the same time I moved here, but we were both too busy to actually meet. Me with police work, him with Party work. Though I had managed to slip him some money through one of his Party intermediaries so he could go abroad.

"Where is it?"

"I left it in our room."

"Thank you."

I kissed her again before leaving the kitchen.

The letter sat on our bed beside a copy of Prosveshcheniye — Enlightenment in English. A Bolshevik magazine. One of several revolutionary publications I subscribed to.

Not because I believed any of this shit, obviously. I followed it to keep tabs on the Party, see what Joe was up to, and figure out whether the lunatics were gaining or losing ground this week.

And, well... history.

Technically, I was living through it. Curiosity was inevitable.

I picked up the letter and immediately recognized Joe's handwriting.

Dear Mika,

I am writing this letter from the village of Turukhansk, deep in Siberia. I was arrested back in St. Petersburg in February. I am sorry I was unable to visit you or Yakov, but unfortunately Party work keeps me busy.

I hope you find the current article in Prosveshcheniye interesting, for I have finally published my first theoretical work in it. Please let me know what you think of it should you write back. And if possible, would you be able to send some funds? Siberia is cold, and even in the best of times the weather is unkind.

I know I have put a great deal on you, with you raising Yakov and helping me travel abroad last year. I assure you, Mika, I will never forget what you have done for me, and I will be sure to pay you back once our movement has triumphed.

Send my regards and love to Mama and Yakov. And send my regards to your wife and children.

Regards,
Iosif V. Stalin

P.S. I have adopted a new alias which I would like for you to refer to me by once we are reunited and in front of Party officials. My name is now to be Comrade Stalin.

I slowly lowered the letter.

Then I opened the magazine.

I flipped through the pages until I found the article.

Marxism and the National Question, By J. V. Stalin.

I closed the magazine immediately.

Then I set both the letter and the magazine down on the bed before collapsing backward onto it with a long sigh.

"Stalin," I muttered to myself.

No response. Naturally.

"Stalin."

Another sigh.

"Fuck."

No. No, this couldn't be happening. Joe? My brother? My older twin brother?

It was one thing for me to have died and reincarnated. I'd already accepted that around puberty. Modern soul. Peasant body. Weird shit happens. Fine. Whatever.

But this?

Joe was Stalin.

That Stalin.

The Stalin.

And I was his brother.

I closed my eyes and internally cursed the American school system for somehow spending twelve years talking about algebra and the mitochondria without ever properly explaining Stalin's early life.

My thoughts raced ahead anyway. Revolution. Civil war. World War II. The Holocaust. The Cold War.

Stalin.

Stalin.

Stalin.

The man who shaped half the twentieth century with paranoia, industrialization, and a body count large enough to make Satan himself raise an eyebrow.

"No." I shook my head. "Nope. Fuck that."

I wasn't getting involved. Absolutely not. I wanted a quiet life. An easy life. McDonald's. The golden arches. That was my destiny. I just needed enough startup money and I'd be set for life in America.

Then another thought crept into my head.

Who the fuck would willingly accept Stalin's brother?

The scenario immediately played out in my mind. I escape to America, build a nice life, maybe own a restaurant or a business, maybe finally relax for once in my miserable existence — and then some Russian émigré with a grudge against Stalin figures out who I am.

Boom. Dead.

Or worse, they go after my children instead.

Then came the even more terrifying possibility.

Stalin was paranoid. Historically paranoid. Weaponized schizophrenia levels of paranoid.

If Joe ever realized I was living comfortably in the United States, with his son of all people. I'd become a liability. The twin brother of one of the most feared men on Earth living overseas as a successful businessman? That practically screamed loose ends.

What if he decided to remove loose ends?

What if one day I got shot in an alley because my own brother didn't want me talking about the time he pissed himself during winter as a child?

I started laughing. Not because anything was funny, but because the absurdity of it all was finally crushing my brain under its own weight.

I was trapped between a rock and a hard place.

I couldn't flee. Not if Joe really was Stalin.

I picked the letter back up and reread one specific line.

I will never forget what you have done for me, and I will be sure to pay you back once our movement has triumphed.

"Pay me back," I muttered.

I stared at the ceiling.

"How exactly are you planning to pay me back?" I asked myself. "Are you going to shoot me or make me a Field Marshal?"

Silence.

Which, honestly, wasn't reassuring.

Looks like I was staying in Russia after all.

God, I hated this fucking country.

 

[iceknight90]

Perhaps in the future Mikhail and Elsa can create Marxburgers. The most beloved fast food chain in the Greater Soviet Union.

Order a Young Comrade Meal for the children and they too can delight in the little Marx, Lenin, and Stalin collectables.

Hoarding toys is filthy bourgeois behaviour, but not in the service of furthering revolutionary thought!

 

[T_D]

Seeing Mikheil's descent from an average joe into a full blown Walter White-esque psycho (like the type female AO3 writers like to make) but played completely straight has been a wonderful experience

 

[OverseerEX]

I'd become a liability. The twin brother of one of the most feared men on Earth living overseas as a successful businessman? That practically screamed loose ends.

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Worse, comrade. You being a successful businessman would look poorly on Comrade Stalin's reputation as a man "redder than red". Having a filthy capitalist brother would not be good for the entire family image. Not to mention Stalin's son being raised as a capitalist... Think of the political ammunition the counter-revolutionaries will have!

Hoarding toys is filthy bourgeois behaviour, but not in the service of furthering revolutionary thought!

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Absolutely brilliant, Comrade Knight.