writing_shadows

Inspired, of course, by Rosie's comparison. Happy Halloween!

This city took him back.

Petrograd, 1917: a failed uprising in favour of the Bolsheviks landed him in jail. Or rather, kept his Fetch stationary long enough for hm to catch up with himself. He had been rather surprised to find himself amongst the leaders of a revolutionary group, but not overly perturbed: he was taken by an aristocratic creature, as far as he could tell every one of their kind were the Lords of one thing or other. A sweeping away of such titles from the real world could leave those dream-thieves with nothing left to mimick. It would be a vast task, requiring a revolution that swept through nations like a dagger through velvet, but all would be well worth the effort. They'd wipe out the reference points those fiends had with this world, & humanity would become impossible for them to find.

He'd struck his fetch in the skull with an ice-axe, inhabiting his place seamlessly shortly after he was released from his gaol. He'd joined up fully with the Bolsheviks, at last, because he could tell they were the lot who'd get things done. From there the rest had fallen into place: one revolution, another. Until the Civil War began he felt like he'd been carried by a breeze.

Then things had become somewhat more difficult.

He'd found himself forced into dealing with attacks upon two fronts: not only from the Whites militarily but by the Military Opposition (by Bolsheviks supposedly in favour of the Revolution he was attempting to save!) politically. As ever, the anarchists had caused problems; but thankfully the Whites were willing to expend a good deal of energy dealing with them for him. Things had gone unnervingly well. He'd fended off the attacks of Stalin while also fending off the offensives of seventeen reactionary armies, dispatched by every nation controlled by the bourgouis that could manage to send one.

A rag-tag pack of armed revolutionaries had been transformed into a massive force of conscripts, kept in check by ruthless discipline, mandatory obedience &, of course, fear. Fear was a force which he'd learnt to master in the course of this war: the endless litany of wholescale massacres belonged to both sides, they'd each done plenty of butchering when they came across villages and towns backing the opposing side. White Terror had wrestled with Red. The revolutionary army had simply done it far better.

& now they'd made their way to Petrograd. The Whites by this stage, October 1919, had been savaged, but General Yudenich was still in command of 20,000 men who he knew how to use. Using night attacks, cavalry strikes along their flanks & six British tanks he'd threatened the city. Zinoviev, Kamenev & Rykov all argued that it was worth losing, that so close to victory the risk of a major defeat was not worth taking. He, however, had other ideas: "It is impossible for a little army of 15,000 ex-officers to master a working class capital of 700,000 inhabitants" he'd argued, proposing firmly that the city be entrenched rather than abandoned.

He'd ordered troops transferred from the now secure city of Moscow, & set about enlisting every available hand to swell the ranks of the Reds. By now they must have outnumbered the pampered aristocrats by a margin of three to one. If it came to an offensive this still might not be enough: the weight they held over the Whites was obtained by putting into uniform many hundreds of men who'd never so much as dreamt of combat before. In an offensive was carried out with the precision they'd witnessed previously a rout was an absolute possibility. His plan of urban defence at the moment relied upon at least a few thousand of the recently enlisting valuing proletarian possession of their home city more than their own lives.

But that was to change. Strength of numbers could not be relied upon. But he could rely upon fear.

It was fear that had made this struggle such a great one: as predicted by Marx, the sight of the proletariat rising to power had caused the ruling classes to back the reactionary bid to re-claim Russia. They had feared emulation of the Revolution amongst their own populations. Quite rightly too: which he would be more than glad to assist once he was done dealing with the immediate menace. But the reactionaries also feared the workers. They knew that they were outnumbered, that they were against a foe who held no pity for their former masters. This had been of endless use, & would prove decisive tonight.

His request for a portrait of his leader had evoked bafflement from the captured White he'd demanded it of. He now held the paper clutched in his hand, staring intently at the visage. After a few minutes of rapt concentration he felt himself obtain access, slipping between the skeins.

He deposited there, directly into Yudenich's mind, the project he'd been working on for most of the month. It was amongst the finest pieces of propaganda he'd ever crafted. The visions it contained were those he had promised to the Whites: the city that they'd presumed to claim as their fiefdom instead becoming their tomb. A horde of workers opening fire, the jab of impacting bullets. Their attempt to find a foothold leaving them impaled. He let the general know that the workers were far easier to flee from than defeat.

Once it was done the portrait was crumpled, then tossed aside. He strode into his bed room, eager to reach tomorrow to watch the Whites' retreat.