Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

“Slava,” Director Nian handed over his coat, “it’s windy up in the mountains, put on some clothes.”

Slava responded and turned around to let Director Nian put his coat on him.

Just as Director Nian was draping his coat over her shoulders, her gaze fell on a stone by the roadside, and she casually read aloud:

"That damned dictator deserves to go to hell!"

Slava was in high spirits when he suddenly heard the key word and shuddered, turning his head sharply: "What are you babbling about?!"

He had just rolled out a series of forceful reforms and stripped the workers' soviets of power, making this the most sensitive time for him, the time when he was most vulnerable to the word "dictator." The moment he heard the word "dictator," he instinctively thought someone was stabbing him in the back.

Director Nian was amused by his reaction and pointed to the stone: "Look how nervous you are. Look, there's that line of text."

Slava looked in the direction she pointed and then saw clearly that it was a line of words painted in white on the stone, with a date below: August 23, 1939.

He immediately understood. On August 23, 1939, Stalin and Hitler signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow, which also led to the partition of Poland.

What the protesters in Latvia have been clamoring about all this time is the secret protocol behind the treaty—those shady secret clauses that brought the three Baltic states into the Soviet sphere of influence.

Stalin then led his troops in and annexed these three countries into the Soviet Union.

The Riga municipal party secretary, standing nearby, frowned immediately, an awkward smile on his face. He turned to his secretary, pointed to the line of text, and lowered his voice:

"Ugh! What is this thing! Why is it still kept? Let bygones be bygones, hurry up and wipe it off!"

Slava sighed, waved his hand, stared at the line of text for a long time, and then slowly spoke:

"Forget it, forget it! It's better to keep it as a warning."

He paused, a hint of self-deprecation in his voice.

“Now there are many people talking about me behind my back—'You, Ivanov, this dictator, are going to lead the people down the same old path as Stalin.'”

They even said I was a second Stalin. How could I possibly have that ability?

He looked at the line of white paint and said, "Keep it. First, to remind myself so that I don't lose my original intention and become a dictator one day; second, to serve as a warning for the mistakes our party has made in the past."

The Riga municipal party secretary paused for a moment, then gave an awkward laugh: "Alright, alright! Then... then keep it, keep it!"

As they were talking, the brother and sister caught up with them, panting, and reached the top of the mountain.

Katya reacted first, stopping abruptly and snapping to attention with a salute in greeting to Slava. Slava smiled and returned the salute, extending his hand to shake hers.

"Hello, General Secretary!" Katya said, both excited and a little embarrassed. "My name is Katya, and I'm a student at Leningrad Polytechnic University. We came to Riga for summer vacation, and when we heard you were here, we followed you all the way here!"

As soon as he said that, everyone around him laughed.

Katya turned around and pulled her somewhat reserved brother, who was standing behind her, to Slava's side.

Seryozha rubbed his hands together, a little nervous: "General Secretary, I'm sorry, I'm too excited... I, I'd like to give you a brief self-introduction..."

He gave his name, and then poured out all his gratitude—

We thank the General Secretary for his strong support of higher education and for expanding university enrollment. We are even more grateful to the General Secretary for ending the war in Afghanistan. It is these things that have given these young people hope again.

Behind these words lies a period of hardship. Before 1980, the Soviet Union's two years of compulsory military service were mandatory, but university students, along with those who went directly to university after graduating from high school, could defer their conscription until they finished university.

However, this policy was abolished in 1980, the year the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the front lines were demanding people.

This setback was disastrous: a high school graduate who failed to get into university and a university student who was studying in a classroom were now forced to fight in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Seryozha said that many college students he knew were called away by conscription order halfway through their studies, and their education was abruptly cut short.

“Back then,” Seryozha said, “I even wrote a letter to the Party organization asking for help!”

Slava blinked, glanced quickly at Director Nian, and mumbled an "Oh": "...It seems there is such a thing."

He turned to look at the scenery in the distance, then turned back with a friendly expression: "But I can't quite remember your name right now—tell me, how's your school doing these days?"

Seryozha didn't care whether Slava remembered or not, he just kept thanking them: "Many of the senior students in our school who have returned after completing their military service thank you for creating this opportunity for us!"

Thank you for ending the war, thank you for your contribution to international peace, thank you for allowing us to go to university!

Slava smiled and nodded: "Good! Study hard and attend classes diligently. This is the most important task for you university students right now. Students should prioritize their studies."

At this point, he changed the subject, his face still bearing that kind smile:

“If you stay in your ivory tower and do not engage in productive labor, you are easily tempted by some forces with ulterior motives to make the mistake of becoming detached from the working masses.”

Looking at those young faces, he smiled and said, "Go for it, kids! The future of the Soviet Union belongs to you!"

Katya nodded repeatedly as she listened, then suddenly seemed to remember something. She took out a small booklet of Lenin's Selected Works from her satchel and eagerly handed it to Slava, hoping he would sign it.

Seryozha quickly reached out to stop her: "Hey, Katya, don't be so carefree..."

Slava waved his hand and stopped Seryozha with a smile: "It's nothing, it's just signing a document. It's a sign of our friendship and proof of the goodwill among the various nationalities of the Soviet Union in this big family."

He took the booklet and opened the title page.

The professor's portrait was printed on the title page.

Slava gazed at that face that had watched over countless people for a long time before finally picking up his pen and signing his name beneath Lenin's portrait.

Velikoslav Ivanovich Ivanov.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

As night fell, the students crowded into the tents at the foot of the mountain, chatting about the day's events.

Those who walked along the beautiful road on the right during the day are now incredibly envious.

"General Secretary Ivanov really went up the mountain?" a student exclaimed, his eyes wide. "You...you really saw the General Secretary in person?"

Seryozha stiffened his neck, beaming with pride: "Hey! Of course it's true!"

The Chinese student, Li Jianguo, slapped his thigh, wincing in regret.

"Oh dear! We've really made a huge mistake! We ran into Secretary Ivanov by taking the left road—why didn't you say so sooner! I would never have taken the right road if I'd known!"

Katya proudly waved the copy of Lenin's Selected Works in her hand; Slava's signature was prominently displayed beneath her mentor's portrait. She raised an eyebrow at Li Jianguo:

"Didn't I tell you before? Following us and taking the left path is the right way!"

Li Jianguo leaned closer, rubbing his hands together: "Oh, my good comrade, quick, tell me the details! What did the General Secretary say? What does he look like?...

The tent was filled with the laughter and chatter of young people.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

On the way back, the relaxed warmth of the day gradually faded away.

Slava leaned back in his seat, gazing out the window at the rapidly receding Latvian fields. After a while, he began to talk to Director Nian about the most pressing issue weighing on his mind—the national separatist movement.

"If you want to understand this, I suggest you look back seventy years." Director Nian, unusually, didn't eat any snacks, and his expression was serious.

"Don't think that the national question was peaceful during Lenin's time—quite the opposite, it was much bloodier then than it is now. Ukraine changed hands several times during the civil war, Basmach in Central Asia was fought until the 1930s, and the three South Caucasus countries were won by the Red Army with guns."

However, at that time, major events such as revolution, civil war, and world revolution were overshadowed, and the issue of ethnicity was suppressed, seemingly nonexistent.

What Director Nian said was true. Lenin's approach to the national question, to put it bluntly, was one of extreme tolerance in theory, coupled with unified control by the Party in practice.

In theory, Lenin was the most vehement opponent of Great Russian chauvinism among Marxists. He recognized the right of nations to self-determination until separation. When the Soviet Union was established in 1922, the constituent republics were nominally "voluntary unions," and the constitution clearly stated in black and white that the constituent republics had the right to secede—a clause that has remained to this day and has never been abolished.

As for whether they can actually withdraw, the US federal government next door also said they could withdraw.

P.S.: When the Latvian Soviet referendum ended its rebellion against the Soviet Union, Soviet troops simply ran over them with tanks. Gorbachev then blamed the military, claiming all the bloodshed was their fault and that he was the good guy. Later, the military, having been betrayed too many times, stopped respecting him.

Constitutional provisions were never Lenin's real trump card. His core was the party—the communist parties of each constituent republic were branches of the entire Union Communist Party, not independent parties.

Although the state structure was federal, the party structure was singular. Local ethnic minority cadres could become heads of government or chairmen of Soviets, but the Party's First Secretary was appointed by the Central Committee!

Lenin also employed a strategy called "localization." He promoted a large number of cadres from ethnic minority regions, promoted their languages, literature, and newspapers, and mandated that they be used in official offices. As a result, the 1920s became a golden age for the revival of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Central Asian, and Caucasian languages ​​and cultures.

Lenin's calculation was: the more space you give to national culture, the less reason nationalism has to oppose the Soviet Union—because opposing the Soviet Union is tantamount to opposing the defenders of one's own national culture.

However, this plan has one premise: as long as the national culture prospers, its prosperity cannot threaten the unity of the Party.

Once a communist party of any nation began to demand real autonomy, and not just cultural space, Lenin would immediately change his tactics—the Georgian events of 1922 are a case in point.

"When Stalin came to power, things changed. He didn't believe in compromise."

The agricultural collectivization of the 1930s had a far harsher impact on ethnic minority regions than on the Russian heartland—the great famines of Ukraine and Kazakhstan, in which agricultural collectivization struck down rich peasants and landlords, also took a blow to culture.

This was followed by the Great Purge of 37 and 38, during which almost the entire generation of ethnic minority cadres and intellectuals cultivated by Lenin's localization policies were sent to Siberia. Then, during World War II, the German blitzkrieg was too swift, forcing the Soviet Union to evacuate its people to the rear—especially those ethnic groups considered "destabilizing factors."

For example, Germans, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, and Turks from Meshrepti... more than two million people were crammed into boxcars and dumped in Central Asia and Siberia.

Stalin's approach seemed to "solve" the problem, but he merely froze it. This is known as the "refrigerator effect"—as long as the refrigeration machine keeps running, the contents inside won't spoil; but if the machine stops one day, the frozen traumas, memories, and repressions inside will all rot away.

"Brezhnev was using the nice-looking cloak of 'developed socialism' to cover up the holes underneath."

The first secretary of each constituent republic was a member of their own ethnic group, while Russians held the second-highest position and wielded actual control; ethnic cultures and languages ​​were nominally respected, but in reality, they were inferior to Russian culture.

Key positions and university admissions all require passing the Russian language test; additionally, there's the super-national identity of "Soviet People" to rely on.

There's also that quota system for ethnic minority cadres—but the quotas are given to obedient ethnic minority cadres, not true ethnic leaders.

This system appears stable on the surface because life is gradually improving, and the elites of the tribe have also been granted a real privilege.

After Gorbachev destroyed so many local loyalists cultivated during the Brezhnev era, the newly appointed local cadres were no longer accommodating to Gorbachev.

This apparent stability rested on two pillars—an improving economy and a firmly controlled ideology. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, both pillars collapsed simultaneously:

The economy stagnated, and ideology was exposed openly.

“So you see,” Director Nian turned to look at Slava, “the current outbreak of ethnic issues is not something that came out of nowhere. It’s the result of several things that have been accumulating for decades being unlocked at the same time.”

Gorbachev's most heinous crime was his openness, which allowed people to openly discuss things that were previously untouchable—the Great Purge, collectivization, ethnic exile, and the secret protocol of the 1939 treaty.

This was tantamount to unplugging Stalin's refrigerator. All the frozen wounds thawed at once—Estonians remembered the annexation of 1940, Ukrainians remembered the Great Famine, and Chechens remembered the exile of 44. The "story" that the nationalist movement wanted to tell now had officially stamped material.

The second issue was the collapse of Brezhnev's national contract. The rule established by Brezhnev was that local elites would exchange political loyalty for material privileges. But this rule crumbled with the anti-corruption campaign—Andropov's anti-corruption efforts in those years first targeted the corrupt networks of ethnic officials in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Last year in Almaty, Gorbachev dismissed Kunayev and parachuted in a Russian, Korbin, effectively announcing to all ethnic minority cadres:

Comrade Brezhnev's protective umbrella is gone!

The third issue is that economic crises lead to disputes over distribution. When supplies become scarce, each constituent republic begins to re-evaluate its gains and losses within the alliance. In the end, not a single republic feels it has benefited from the alliance.

This is itself a failure of the system's design. For the first time in the open, this feeling that "everyone feels they've been taken advantage of" has been openly expressed.

After explaining her analysis, Director Nian paused for a moment before stating her final judgment.

"Therefore, the ethnic issues at the end of the 1980s were actually an inevitable result of the collapse of Lenin's 1920s plan after the premise of unified party control was shattered."

Lenin's system relied on "a loose federal framework combined with a tight party unity"—two things tightly interlocked.

But once the party’s unity began to crumble—which was precisely the inevitable result of openness and democratization—that loose federal shell quickly became the ready-made legal foundation for the independence movement.

The right to withdraw from the constituent republics, which had been hanging on the wall for decades and ignored, suddenly became a card that could be played at any time.

"So you want to go back to Lenin's vision? The current state of the union will only tear it apart. This union is no longer the one Lenin had during the October Revolution. Those policies from back then are no longer applicable to today's specific national conditions!"

She paused.

"You are presented with only two paths: either you forge a new path based on the work of your predecessors;

Alternatively, you could accept partial secession—for example, letting the three Baltic states go while keeping the remaining fourteen. But as you know, Gorbachev did exactly that in history. He even wanted to sign a new union treaty, but the Americans didn't give him a chance to breathe, showering subsidies and money on all the countries that had seceded from the Soviet Union, just to encourage more republics to break away.

The American approach didn't stop until after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The carriage fell silent, with only the sound of tires rolling over the road remaining.

Slava did not speak.

He looked out the window as dusk slowly crept into Latvia, shrouding the pointed-roof villages and the woods at the edge of the fields in a gray-blue hue.

He recalled the copy of Lenin's Selected Works signed with his own name on the mountaintop during the day, and the face of his mentor on the title page, gazing upon those who would follow.

Throughout his journey, Lenin has always been the guiding principle in his heart. He wants to follow in his mentor's footsteps and find a key from the knowledge his mentor left behind that can unlock the knot he is in today.

But at this moment, the mentor from history cannot provide him with this ready-made key. Lenin's plan was tailor-made for Lenin's era and that alliance; while Slava is standing on an alliance that has long since changed beyond recognition.

Every generation has its own revolution to go through.

The mentor has already fought his battle; the rest of the journey—

Slava gazed at the darkening sky outside the window and made up his mind.

He's leaving now.

Chapter 76 The Final Solution

Only after becoming General Secretary did Slava realize how difficult it was to save a collapsing edifice, turn the tide, and rescue the alliance from dire straits.

He carried the burden of tens of millions of square kilometers of Soviet territory and its contradictions on his shoulders. Successive veterans passed the explosives to the next generation, trusting in the wisdom of their successors, and then went to meet their mentors with an open and honest heart. Only Slava was left as the last person in the game of passing the buck, holding all the bombs left by his predecessors.

The fuse of that bomb is almost burned out, and he must do everything in his power and pay every price to extinguish the spark. For this, he can compromise and make concessions, retaining only his most unwavering principles.