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

He tried to save the alliance, much like the last Tsar.

When Slava returned to Moscow from Riga, he spent the entire journey on the ethnic issue pondering it, and ended up stuck in traffic at the Kremlin gate.

The car stopped when it reached Red Square. Special agents were deployed to clear the area, but Slava first held them back to prevent them from using force to disperse the crowd. He then got out of the car under the cover of his guards to see what was going on.

It turns out the bridge was blocked by the Tatars!

A large group of Crimean Tatars arrived in Red Square. Hundreds of people had gathered from outside the Kremlin walls and near Lenin's Mausoleum all the way to Pushkin Square, where their protest had been going on all day.

They held up signs that read "Give us back our homeland" and "Restore the Autonomous Republic of Crimea-Tatarstan" in Russian.

Many of these people were elderly veterans, with graying temples but upright postures, having followed Mustafa Demilev's path in the national movement.

This group of people are not hot-blooded college students. They have been tempered for decades and still maintain their most unwavering goals. This group of veteran comrades is the most difficult to deal with.

What they wanted had been weighing on their minds for forty-three years—in 1944, Stalin issued an order to uproot the entire Crimean Tatar nation, stuffing them into freight cars and exiling them to Central Asia. Hundreds of thousands of people from their ancestral homeland were wiped out just like that.

The Chechens and Ingush were at least allowed to return home under Khrushchev, but the Crimean Tatars were not. They endured over forty years in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan, waiting for just one sentence—to be allowed to go home.

Now this phrase has been shouted in Red Square.

This was the most conspicuous public protest by a minority group in the Soviet capital during Gorbachev's years of public advocacy.

According to the script in another timeline, Slava knew what would happen next—the authorities would relatively restrain themselves in dispersing and repatriating the people, and Gromyko, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, would meet with a Tatar delegation and promise to establish a State Committee headed by him to "study" the issue. And this committee would bury all of the Tatars' core demands a year later.

According to the bureaucratic tradition of the Soviet Union over the past few decades, whenever an important issue was put to a committee for "study and discussion," the outcome was inevitably that the issue would come to nothing.

Koslava doesn't intend to follow this script.

Slava first rejected the Secret Service's suggestion to use force to clear the area, and instead chose to take a detour back to the Kremlin to go to work, intending to convene a Politburo meeting to discuss in detail how to deal with the ethnic issues that had accumulated in the Soviet Union for decades.

...

"Slava, how do you plan to handle the Red Square incident?" Director Nian asked, munching on a sweet treat and propping his feet up on the coffee table in Slava's office.

"Or we could follow the old rules, send someone to clear them out and send them back to Uzbekistan, and that would be the end of it."

"Suppress them?" Slava shook his head. "You can suppress them for a while, but not forever. These people have been waiting for forty-three years. If we suppress them any longer, we'll have to use T-80s to suppress them."

He stood up, walked to the window, and looked towards the direction outside the Kremlin walls.

“Let me be frank with you, boss.” Slava pondered for a long time before bringing up the plan he had come up with on the way back.

"My approach to dealing with ethnic issues is different from Gorbachev's, and also different from that of the conservatives who want to use tanks to suppress them."

I have no intention of using some new alliance treaty to carve out pieces of power piece by piece in exchange for temporary peace—that's like drinking poison to quench thirst. I'm betting on something else.

"what?"

“Time,” Slava said. “I’m betting that the OGAS I’ve built, the economic recovery I’ve created, the national identity I’ve fostered… will accumulate faster than the speed at which the separatist movement can organize.”

As the benefits of staying in the alliance become more and more apparent each day, the allure of separation will diminish day by day!

This was a race—and Gorbachev lost this race on another front because his economy collapsed, his reforms went awry, he lost the support of the military, and ultimately handed the opportunity to the separatists.

Gorbachev made the worst choice of all options; he valued the West too much and took the praise from the Western media too seriously.

Gorbachev was hesitant to use force when faced with situations that required it, fearing criticism from the West, fearing the West would sever diplomatic relations and impose economic sanctions. Yet, when faced with situations where force was inappropriate, he would always rely on various extraordinary maneuvers to force the issue to the point where force was the only option.

Thanks to the mentor for giving the Soviet Communist Party a new choice. The two in-laws who replaced Goethe will surely give the Father of the Nation, who has one foot in the coffin, a mixed doubles match and endless surprises to the West!

Director Nian paused for a moment as he ate the sugar granules in his hand, a knowing glint in his eyes.

"I understand. So you need to put in extra effort for the first three years, first extinguish the fire and then unravel the mystery bit by bit."

“You really understand me.” Slava casually took a chocolate from the paper bag on Nian Dao’s lap and gave her a fist bump.

"In the first three years, I didn't expect to 'solve' the ethnic issues. I just wanted to stall them—stall them until I had a firm foothold and until my things started to show results."

This first phase, from now until the end of next year, will last about a year and a half, and I have only one goal:

"Don't let ethnic issues escalate into a systemic crisis before I've firmly established myself."

He said that by the end of next year, no decent, established national front organizations should emerge in the Baltic states, no bloodshed should occur between ethnic groups in the Caucasus, and no communist party in any of the constituent republics should openly break with Moscow.

“These three,” Slava said firmly, “cannot be broken even one of them!”

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.

Slava's first move landed on the Baltic Sea.

He knew better than anyone what the separatist movement's sharpest weapon was—the secret protocol behind the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939.

It was these secret treaties that brought the Baltic states into the Soviet sphere of influence, which prompted Stalin to invade and annex them. For decades, the Soviet government has maintained that this secret protocol "has no record." But the more they try to cover it up, the more serious the matter becomes.

The Baltic states have small populations and limited land. Once the marches and demonstrations have gone around a few times, everyone knows what's going on. When a secret becomes an open secret, trying to cover it up will backfire.

Slava decided to address the core demands of the Baltic National Front before the crisis escalated.

On another timeline, on August 23, a massive demonstration erupted in the Baltic states, with millions of people joining hands to form an epic human wall, demanding that the Soviet Communist Party release the agreement.

In late July, Slava chaired a Politburo meeting, which approved the establishment of a "Committee on Historical Issues." In early August, the committee quietly released a preliminary report on the region—

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union acknowledged the existence of that secret protocol.

But Slava's admission was done with great tact.

This report is not made public to the international community; it is only intended for residents of the three Baltic states.

The authorities did not publicize it extensively, but instead emphasized "low-key recognition" and "allowing scholars to access the information."

The tone of the report was also adjusted, with the official acknowledgment of the limitations and errors of the historical resolution itself, but the criticism was cleverly directed at Nazi Germany at that time, and at the complex situation of the Soviet Union in the late 1930s, which was beset by internal and external troubles and surrounded by enemies.

In short: There were mistakes, but these mistakes were forced out by specific historical conditions, and Hitler was the primary culprit!

What if they keep causing trouble? Then we'll just have to meet in Siberia.

After all, the central government has already apologized, what more do you want?

This was the limit of Slava's concessions, because he was calculating an even bigger issue in his mind:

If this secret protocol were to be made public in a grand manner, it would expose far more than just the Baltic Sea as a problem!

The historical grievances accumulated over decades within the Soviet Union, all sorts of trivial matters, will be ignited all at once, which will also hand NATO a knife for no reason.

The most critical situation is Poland—Poland's situation was already precarious. Back then, Solidarity had already mobilized millions of young workers to join, which is more than a third of the country's young workforce! If the blood debt from the Katyn massacre were also brought up, Poland would most likely be thrown into chaos.

At that point, we'll just have to recreate the 1956 Hungarian story.

PS: The Hungarian wave was also outrageous. It wouldn't have escalated to the point of tanks running over people, but the Hungarian opposition radicalized the situation, causing the Soviet army to turn the riot control into a counterinsurgency.

Slava cannot bear any of these consequences.

In mid-August, Slava delivered a televised address.

The core of this speech was to link the resolution of the national question with the banner of "Leninism against Great Russian chauvinism." He knew very well that the national question in the Soviet Union was far more than just the Baltic states; he needed to appease the entire region from the Baltic to Central Asia. Therefore, he had to don Lenin's most legitimate robe and repeatedly preach national unity and socialist unity.

But it's just wearing this shell.

Underneath the table, the other two hands were moving simultaneously.

One hand was the KGB. Slava sent KGB agents to the Baltic states to specifically target and "de-radicalize" the radical factions within the ethnic separatist forces one by one.

Anyway, the person has vanished. As for whether they went to Siberia or some mysterious archipelago that even American satellites can't find, only God knows.

The other approach was political consultation. Slava sent people to sit down and talk with truly influential ethnic scholars in the local area—the result of which was to give these scholars an opportunity to have a voice and influence in local governance and the protection of ethnic cultures. By keeping these influential figures in check, those who followed the crowd below wouldn't be able to cause any major disturbances.

On August 23, the Baltic demonstrations took place as scheduled.

The effect was excellent; the power of the demonstration was almost completely neutralized, leaving only an empty shell.

Slava himself had a certain degree of goodwill among the Soviet minority groups, which was based on a certain foundation;

The radicals within the separatist forces have been purged by the KGB;

The Soviet Communist Party officially admitted the truth, thus removing the opponent's biggest card, and the focus was shifted to Nazi fascism and the complex situation at that time.

The economy has begun to recover in the last two years, and the variety of goods in stores has become visibly richer.

Influential nationalist intellectuals were appeased one by one;

Those in the Baltic states' party organizations who were loyal to Moscow received covert support from the secret service.

Slava tackled the issue from three directions: economy, politics, and security. What was originally a massive protest on another timeline was reduced to a few scattered, peaceful rallies in Slava.

The successful first step of the Slava plan has greatly encouraged the Politburo.

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.

The impending devastation in the Baltic Sea was temporarily averted, and Slava's next move was to focus on the rehabilitation of the exiled peoples.

This was a deal he had calculated to be low-cost and high-return in a short period of time, and one that he had to make as soon as possible.

Regarding the Crimean Tatars on Red Square, he didn't follow the usual script. He did, however, have Gromyko form a committee—Koslava set a rule for the Politburo:

He assured the Politburo that as long as the three Baltic states did not cause trouble on August 23rd, the anniversary, the Crimean Tatar issue would be handled according to his plan.

He knew perfectly well that, according to the other timeline, the Gromyko Committee should have been a respectable grave, and the committee would have offered three reasons to reject the Tatars:

One argument is that Crimea was objectively no longer Tatar territory. After the exile in the 1940s, the area was repopulated by Russians and Ukrainians, and the Tatar population percentage dropped from 25% before the war to single digits. Restoring the original state was practically impossible.

Secondly, they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that the exile in 1944 was a collective punishment targeting the "entire nation," and only admit to "individual illegal acts"—because once they admit that it was illegal at the national level, compensation, land, criminal prosecution, and so on can be initiated.

Third, it is said that the Tatars in Uzbekistan are currently in "good socio-economic conditions," and their return migration would impact the labor force structure of Central Asia.

This was the original answer given by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In fact, Ukraine's stance on the issue of Tatar repatriation was as firm as a rock—the then First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Sherbitsky, explicitly opposed any attempt to reopen the Crimean issue.

After all, Crimea had been ceded to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954. Restoring Tatar autonomy would either require taking a piece of flesh from Ukraine or planting a nail for national autonomy within Ukraine. Kyiv could not accept either option.

The situation in Uzbekistan is also delicate. The Tatars have long been a considerable skilled workforce there. Uzbekistan is the largest cotton-producing region in the Union and has always lacked labor. With this relocation, it will be difficult for local officials to meet the production quotas allocated by Moscow.

The deepest concern is the word "precedent"—once this is opened, the Germans in the Volga and the Turks in Meshreti will immediately follow suit with the same demands, and the foundation of the Soviet Union's official narrative of "voluntary accession and equality and friendship" will crack.

Slava was aware of the Politburo's concerns, but the success in the Baltic Sea on August 23 emboldened the Politburo and gave him the confidence to speak.

On August 27, 1987, the Politburo passed a resolution.

The resolution allowed Crimean Tatars to return to Crimea, but Slava did not impulsively suppress the opinions of the Ukrainians. Taking into account the thoughts of the local Ukrainians and the reality of decades of population changes, the new resolution did not restore the complete "Autonomous Republic of Crimea Tatarstan," but instead took a step back and established a small ethnic autonomous region on the Crimean Peninsula.

At the same time, the CPSU also established a special committee for coordinating ethnic relations in this autonomous region to deal with the inevitable land and housing disputes between Tatars and local Russians and Ukrainians.

Slava knew very well that once this matter was settled, the local Russians in Crimea would inevitably react negatively—after all, if you let the Tatars who had been gone for more than forty years come back, they would need a place to live and a place to farm. Where would they come from?

This is also a big problem.

Next came the Germans of the Volga.

Slava's actions in this matter were primarily intended to be a message to Germany.

It should be noted that East Germany was almost the only member state in the entire Eastern Bloc that still had the capacity to provide financial assistance to other countries!

Slava hoped to secure more favorable terms in future collaborations with Honecker and West Germany. Therefore, he announced that between 1987 and 1988, the German autonomous regions along the Volga River would be gradually restored—not necessarily the autonomous republic of 1941, but with tangible cultural and administrative space provided.

This move was a major positive for Soviet-German relations, and it would also reduce the obstacles to the reunification of Germany in the future.

As for the Chechens and Ingush, the matter is much simpler. Khrushchev had already allowed them to return to their homes as early as 1957, but the exile of 1944 was never officially recognized in law.

These two groups are small in number, and the symbolic significance of taking care of them far outweighs the actual cost. Therefore, the Politburo planned to give a legal definition to this exile in 1988, along with some symbolic compensation—building a monument and establishing a memorial day.

The most troublesome group is the Turks in Meskhti. This is the most difficult case—because the area in southern Georgia they want to return to is already full of Georgians!

Slava clearly remembers that in 1989, on another timeline, a tragedy broke out in Fergana, Uzbekistan, because of this group. Uzbeks attacked the Maskhti Turks, and the two sides fought each other.

He had to intervene early and absolutely could not let this fire reignite! But right now, if all the issues concerning so many ethnic minorities were dealt with at once in a short period of time, it would inevitably trigger a political upheaval.

After careful consideration, Slava postponed the Meskhti plan until after 1989—following the same path as other ethnic groups:

Allow some to return, and then build them an alternative Meshherty cultural district.

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.

Then came that damned Caucasus problem.

In February 1988, on another timeline, a conflict would have erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh—Armenians and Azerbaijanis slaughtering each other's ethnic groups over the region.

That was the first real ethnic violence in the Soviet Union, the beginning of dragging the entire country into a death spiral of ethnic conflict!

Once this kind of ethnic bloodshed occurs, the nature of the matter changes completely.

So, at Slava's urging, the Politburo decided to send a special task force into the Karabakh region in September to find out the true extent of the ethnic tensions in Sumgayit and the Karabakh area.

Slava's plan is to come up with a solution to Karabakh before the conflict erupts next February—even if it's just a temporary transitional solution!

As for why Tutu was chosen, the reason was that after the Soviet regime conquered the South Caucasus in 1921, the borders of the three republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) needed to be redrawn.

The Karabakh region (Armenian majority) and Nakhchivan (Azerbaijani majority but separated from Azerbaijan by southern Armenia) were two points of contention. Stalin attended the Caucasus Bureau plenary session of the Russian Communist Party on July 4, 1921, as the representative of Moscow.