The image of the People's Palace on Volgograd appears on a screen midst of the giant screen of the red plaza, the other side of the planet. The light of the sun perfectly lines up with the tip of the palace, leaving it in a shining glance for the people in front of it as well as in front of the screen.
"... and it finally has been completed, the new office of our glorious new leader, Premier Mehmed Selim. Now that our beloved leader is back and available for the service of our nation, he has invited the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Sirius Coalition, Lidya Kravchenko Nikonova. Miss Nikonova is inside the building as the first person to see the Premier's office and to prepare everything for his arrival." The excitement in the moderator's voice was clear to be heard when the woman stepped aside to make place for the view of the people's palace. The light shined bright and lit up most of the large plaza in front of it. While many people were standing outside and celebrated cheerfully, Lidya was already waiting inside for the Premier's arrival, which was just about to occur.
The communication device was vibrating intensively as Lidya had noticed its presence. She jumped up a little, drowning in her paperwork which she was doing at the Premier's table before he himself would be sitting there. She picked the device up as quick as she could and started talking.
"Da, Lidya zdes'." She paused for a moment, the look on her face turned more serious with every second. "Already? Khorosho, I have prepared everything." The unhearable sound of a voice on the other end of the connection was filling the pressing silence in the room a little. "Da, glory to the revolution, spasibo." With a quick draw of her hand, she put the device in one of her pockets and sorted the papers one last time and put them in a folder with a golden hammer and sickle on it. She breathed a bit heavy while making her way to the front door of the big office, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Premier Selim. She laid down the folder on a smaller table next to the entrance and stood to taut and respectfully, just like she was taught.
Meanwhile, in low orbit of Planet Volgograd, yet still high above the cold domes a comet was streaking in the sky. This was no ordinary comet, though -- it was man-made, and it carried some of the Coalition's most valuable cargo. Due to the lack of a docking ring on Planet Volgograd the much simpler and still largely effective solution of regularly scheduled short-range Surface-to-Orbit Shuttles was the only safe means of landing on the planet. Premier Selim scheduled one such flight to attend to the imminent business of determining the path the Sirius Coalition would take in its continuing strive for revolution. The shuttle had arrived at landing and intake without any complications. Waiting on the other side of the airlock was a detachment of some of the finest Marines the People's Republic had to offer, who provided effective security and a buffer from the inevitable crowds which were eager to get a sight of their Premier. As much as adoration made any political leader feel good there was still business to be had, and no distractions would be brooked until the Premier reached the steps of the People's Palace.
Once Selim arrived at the People's Palace he made his entrance without delay and navigated the structure under the watch of his Marine detail. They all ended up at the doors to the Premier's Office, with the guard detail assuming positions throughout the hall. By the time First Secretary Nikonova opened the doors the guard would be in place and the Premier in front of her.
"Privetstvuyu, prem'yer-ministr Selim" Lidya said with a strong voice while saluting Selim. The men who accompanied him turned around and closed the door after Lidya gave them a small nod on either side, signaling that their services were no longer in need. "Premier Selim, I am honored to welcome you in your new palace, it took some time but it is finally finished, your new office." With these words she stood aside and made place for him to view the room.
Selim steps to the front of his new desk and takes in the view. " It's well done. The Duma must have a lot of confidence in the coming days." He sighed. " Get the necessary papers on hand, we have much to consider now."
Lidya nodded and turned to the side, fastly paced steps brought her to his desk and the piles of paper that were on it, sorted and stacked. "Have a seat-" She gestured over to the chair in front of the desk. "- and tell me what there is to discuss." She stood right in front of the big table with her hands behind her back in a strict posture.
Selim wasted no time in sitting down. The chair was definitely a step up in comfort from the CO's office of a warship. A more capitalistic leader might even have commented it was fit for a king. " As you're more than aware Secretary, the Duma is very eager to see what policies we have in mind. Everything from internal affairs to external plans is up for consideration as the new year comes upon us."
"Mhm." Lidya made and lowered her eyes for a moment before snapping back at him with a response. "Is there anything specific you have mind, Premier? You have overseen the situation from the top. If there is nothing that is lingering in your mind, I would very much like to start talking about the future with Bretonia." She walked from left to right in front of his desk and kept her eyes on the direction she was looking. "We'll get to that in a bit. Our focus needs to start internally -- each Premier has more or less defined a whole era of the Coalition based on his style of leadership in the CPSC. Two of the three wings of the CPSC derive their names from the most influential and powerful Premiers of recent history. That said, factionalism has its issues in ensuring the most efficient governmental machine. My military duties have kept me well away from the People's politics for some time though, so I need your insight on the Duma. The way I see it we can keep things as it is, carve out another faction to champion the new policy line alongside the others, or try and consolidate all the existing factions and place 'Selimist' ideals on top of all of them."
Lidya nodded slightly and started to dig through one of the stacks of paper laying on his table. "Well..." She made until she suddenly crammed out a piece that showed the different influential groups within the Duma. "Why do we need to risk the conflicts of followers of long-gone Premiers when we can unite everyone under one banner? Do we risk them to coup us?-" A slight smirk formed on the right side of her face. "Certainly not, right? What would his watchful eyes think about that?" She started to lean onto his table with both of her arms, facing him more directly now. "Premier, you don't need to worry about Katzists, Alvinists, McIntosh's and any of that sort, I can have them all either behind you or locked up in two weeks." She ended her small speech, the last part uncomfortably serious which was reflected in her glance.
Selim softly chuckled under his breath. "His Watchful Eye? I think His Watchful Eye would enjoy filling up the GULAGs on Jiangxi with disposable labor. Mmm. Perhaps that's what we need. Revolution. A New Revolution under a firmly centralized Communism. Reunionists and Status Quo Katzists might not see far enough and the Mcintoshists rally behind an insane man who's either in stasis or worse, depending on what version of the story you buy into. A strong enough push ought to consolidate the CPSC effectively. I'd try to win over as much as we can before letting the Commissariat have their special ways with those who are too soft or too zealous. Brain Drain is an irritation we would need to avoid with such a widespread change in the Duma. Either way that should settle our potential internal issues." "Influence of others within our ranks is easily defeated and the word of the Premier is usually not being throught about twice. This will be an easy task. What is not following will either follow or be considered a disposable asset." She said with a cold voice while checking her nails. She realized how all that sounded and quickly came to a strict posture again with a bit of a smile on her face. "Right. Next on my mind is the economic policy. Social Credit has served us well and should continue to do so. What we need, though, is a general expansion of the means of production. We need efficient methods and the infrastructure to support it. The biggest idea coming to mind involves Volgograd Industrial. It needs to be firmly integrated into the People's Economy as a direct component of the state and the Army as opposed to its current autonomous status, and actual transport operations multiplied. We need to seek new imports and exports, and make the People the primary benefactor of its business."
"Food it is then? An army marches on its stomach. We'll never get rid of a few capitalistic methods as long as the rest of Sirius hasn't turned to us, it didn't work like this thousands of years ago and it won't now either." She stopped for a second and sunk into thoughts.
" Whether we keep the level of state control as it is or intensify it we're going to need those resources. Especially if we want to expand our military force and expand the People's Republic."
"Your suggestion?" She responded with a lighter voice as before and crossed her arms.
Selim put his left hand over his mouth and facial hair, pondering the matter at hand. He clenched his hand into a fist shortly after and gently laid his arm on the desk before speaking again. " I suppose economically we have a working system for our current needs and conditions, but we still need a general expansion of it. We'll start with the Volgograd transport fleet and make living adjustments as conditions dictate."
Lidya turned her head slightly to the side and had some thoughts running through her head. She nodded along with her own imagination. "That will bring us new workplaces, a good idea." She then looked at the stars on her shoulder indicating her Major rank. "But what I want most of all... is the elimination of the other ideologies amongst our ranks." Again, her voice sounded darker and her glance became slightly aggressive.
"Mmhm." Selim's fingers began to tap the table, his hand remaining flat against it. "There will perhaps be a time for that. But for now, we need to give the military arms their due consideration. In accordance with the rest of the plans the Army will be getting a major boost. We need to lay down capital hulls as fast as Volgograd can supply them, we need guns trained on our numerous enemies as fast as we can manufacture them." Selim stopped to catch his breath. "Then there is also the issue of the Militsiya. They are disorganized, ineffective and almost never available to assist the Army in head-on assaults. We need to get them under control." "Ugh, of course." Lidya turned around and shook her head. She made a few steps away from Selim's desk and stared at the walls of the room. A few seconds later she turned around again. "Let us bring some capable personnel in control of those people instead of the ones doing it right now. They'd be nothing but cannon fodder and our soldiers are better than that. Raise their potential and we will have a more useful militsiya."
Selim tracked Lidya's movements throughout the room. "A good sweep of combat talent will do the Militsiya well. Once they're in top shape we can see about putting them to use."
"Why not send them first into the battle that is facing Bretonia?"
"Something we're about to get to. Foreign policy. Probably the biggest divider between the traditional Duma factions."
Lidya snapped with her fingers. "See? Again the non-followers are posing a problem." Her glance turned reproachful.
Selim's own facial expression turned increasingly firm. The actual matters at hand were of more importance than the cleanup of trouble at this particular moment to him. "We have plans and means to deal with them. For the moment, we need to consider our outward direction. Expansion of the Coalition and securing its allies is the obvious level of decisions, I think those need no further discourse. What does, though, is how pragmatic and open we are in finding new ones. Some say our existing ties are more than enough and yet others still entertain the idea of full House reconciliation regardless of the ideological consequences. Either way this won't be an easy choice."
"Expansion is what every group in Sirius would love but with us it is extra tough. Communism isn't seen as highly by non-Coalitioners as our past excursions have shown. Convincing people became a nuisance." Lidya walked to the other end of the office and sat down in one of the two seats next to a smaller table.
With the distance between the two increasing and Selim not feeling the need to shout he stood up and approached Lidya. "People are so willing to cling to what they believe. This often tends to be what their families believed in, and the trend often shows across generations. Most people in Sirius as a result tend to cling to capitalist modes of economics and bourgeois governments since that's all they've ever lived with. Occasionally you get more progressively minded people but the governmental system is designed to placate and disillusion those who don't want to stand by tradition."
"Ugh...." She leaned her head into her right hand while rubbing her forehead. "Too few, too few, too few to make a change. We need a mass that is ready to even listen to us." She shook her head slightly.
Selim slowly nodded his head in approval. "Of course, the problem with that is the name "Coalition" is more or less a synonym for "Terrorist" in most governmental circles. Their propaganda machine has the benefit of population and nationality... and we're eight hundred years behind in effort more or less. It probably doesn't help the propaganda war that shooting people is our go-to means of handling problems, but we might be well too far over the cliff to reverse that."
"Then how else will we spread our influence and win supporters?" She asked in a slightly annoyed voice, not because of what Selim said but because it was true.
" We have to make it especially palatable compared to what they already have. It won't be easy and we might have to make considerations that are not so palatable to ourselves. We can still break the chains of the People everywhere but we need to do it in such a manner that the Houses have not arrayed the very working class we set out to save against us in arms. " He sighed. "It's important not to weigh pragmatism and idealism unequally here. We still must fight the houses, don't mistake me. But there are some cases in which we can slowly and eventually bring them into sympathy. This will allow us to focus our brute military efforts on the more stubborn Houses first."
In opposition of what could be expected, Lidya just raised her eyebrows and gave Selim a quesntioning glance. "And which one of those houses do you think is ready to comply with us?" She asked with a voice that expressed how barely she could believe it herself.
Selim rubbed his hands together for a moment before continuing. "I believe you already know the answer. You mentioned them when I first came in here. And think of the other possibilities anyways -- Rheinland is too imperialistic as of late, Kusari is too far away and Liberty is too stubborn."
Lidya chuckled a little, turning into a slight laughter. She couldn't keep the eye contact with Selim while doing that and crossed her legs with amusement. "You... you are not talking about the bretonians, are you?"
"There's a bit of an idea floating around the Army's strategic circle and it's one that probably won't win us a lot of popularity."
"That pretty much hits the nail on the head. Premier I won't let anyone get the idea of couping you for such throughts when you haven't been able to change something. Do you want your first action to be repulsive?" She raised her eyebrows, a slight tone of panic rose in her voice.
Selim chuckled a bit to himself. "I think it's a surprise to no one that Gallia's about to be on the march again. Take Crayter as a prior example. When imperialistic warmongers get involved, all bets are off. At that point, liberal democrats beat reactionary monarchs by a landslide."
A bit of an awkward pause seemed to be filling the office, in Selim's eyes. "You think in times like these, the bretonians will... magically start to comply with us?" The doubt in Lidya's voice was audible, the whole scenario made little sense for her but she knew if Selim would want it, it had to happen. "No, not magically. But they are in a moment of especially apparent weakness. We can play a partially truthful hand -- in one, honest assistance against Gallia, a common foe. In the other, we poison them, prepare them for Socialism, if not full-out Communism. With a properly sized audience our propaganda machine can surely become effective at the international scale we need."
"I don't know." She said and got up from the seat, taking a look outside of the window where she could see the many people still cheering. "One operation won't make us seem more sympathetic, consider how others within the republic see it, maybe as a traitorous act against our own people for allying with royalists?" She remained at place in front of the window.
Selim adjusted his uniform a bit while Lidya was looking out the window. "The Houses seem to take unpopular action twenty-four-seven and their governments tend to get away with it. Granted, we're not them and don't stoop to the same level of corruption that they do. I will admit any sort of rapprochement with the Houses goes against everything we stand for, if you stick to the dated strands of nationalism that pervade modern thinking. In line with our progenitors from the long-lost archives of Sol though we need to approach the problem from an internationalist viewpoint once again." He paused to take a breath. "Where we cannot simply directly institute Communism, we must fall back on the principles of gradual yet inevitable socialization of the People. When the sick men of Sirian wars awaken from their mindless struggles they will wake up to a socialized and internationalized world, and the Coalition will at last have humanity under its thumb, directly or indirectly."
She turned around while he was monologuing, simply eye-ing him as he seemed to be lost in his philosophing about theories, she, however, remained skeptical. "Communism will never be achieved until every single human lives under its rule, we would have to start with a blink of socialism, but I cannot see which house would be ready for a regiment of the proletariat, or even a revolution. Bretonia might be crumbling but the war unites its people against an enemy, even if they would see us as friendlier due to help against Gallia, they won't accept our ideals, they are not ready for it, indoctrinated." She stopped for a moment, knowing that what she would say now would sound almost crazy. "We need to raise their children to become communists, we need to kill the remnants of capitalism first or people will fall back to it, it is like a drug, harmful but still addictive."
With Lydia now facing him, Selim quickly made eye contact and locked into an ironclad gaze. "Hah. I'm not sure an economic ideal is truly as poisonous as a real drug, like that damned Maltese Cardamine, but there is merit in that. Some say the youth are the future, after all, and we would be wrong to ignore them. Hm. Completely exterminating Capitalism might be our ultimate goal, but again it is still a long and subversive path to achieving it." "What shall it be, Premier?" She walked to the seat again, folding her hands on her lap and giving him a smugly glance. "Do you really want to risk your position by allying with the royalists that suck on everything that is hanging down their pathetic queen?"
" I don't think anybody in this state of ours necessarily wants to align with practitioners of archaic and ineffectual forms of government. Although, some of the best takeovers never happened from completely external pressures, but rather internal corruption. As they corrupt their people with money and blind patriotism we can corrupt them with the People's ideal.If we fill our heads with defeatism as soon as we think of a plan that doesn't follow the established political line we're no better than them in the end. "
She stood up once more, pulling her clothes straight with a serious look once more. She sighed deeply and approached him with a few steps. "You were sure about your plans right from the start, Premier." She said and looked at him from her lower position into the eyes. "You have my... blessings... I will make sure the people think the same." It was obvious that Lidya seemed skeptical about it but she already planned a way to prevent internal chaos in her head. It didn't go after her way, a spectator would have thanked god for that.
The de facto and de jure Premier crossed his arms. " It's about time we stopped planning our policy, First Secretary, and actually put it into motion. The sooner we get into action the sooner we realize the conclusion of the People's final conflict."
"I could discuss with you all day, be glad I am not in your position, otherwise things would look pretty... different here." She smirked a little as she turned away from him again.
Selim headed back to his relatively new desk and sat in the big chair once more. "I believe we each have our duties to handle now. Have the people downstairs send up a bottle of Vodka. I feel I'm going to need it."
"Sure, turning up drunk at the start of your regiment will surely look good." She opened the door and was halfway out before turning around once. "I suppose you stay clean until the paperwork is done." She pointed at the piles of paper next to Selim. "Slava narodu, slava revolyutsii, Premier." She said with a smirk before closing the door behind her.
Selim was a more responsible man than that, but having the pure, liquid revolutionary spirit of the Coalition at his side would prove to be a good motivator. After all, there was much to be done now. Calls to be made, proposals to enact, and plans set forth to handle the capitalists.