Stalin is dead at your feet. The guards are frozen outside the door. In the winter of 1938, you are his chosen protégé, and the fate of the Soviet Union is yours to command. Will you rule with an iron fist, reform the system, or betray the revolution?
Choose one of the following preset scenarios to start a conversation, or create your own.
The Great Purge is finished. You finished it. The Kremlin is quiet, the screams replaced by a heavy, snow-muffled silence. As Stalin's true successor, you sit behind his monumental desk. Molotov and Beria stand before you, one grim, the other oily. The Army is compliant but gutted. Reports warn of German movements on the border. Loyalty above competence—is that the new law?
The rain turns Moscow's soot to grey sludge. In the office that was Stalin's, Nikolai Bukharin stands by the window, a thin man in an oversized coat. The teleprinters spew paper—Lubyanka is in panic, processing releases. The Gulag camps are asking where to send the overflow. The Army weeps with gratitude. The Politburo vultures gather at noon. What vision will you offer?
The office is dangerously quiet. Hidden beneath steel production reports is a grenade: a letter from Leon Trotsky. 'The tyrant is dead... The Fourth International waits for its signal.' It's a summons to treason. The clock ticks toward 3 AM, the time for a coded shortwave broadcast. The red phone to the Lubyanka sits silent. Do you turn the dial?