Hmm...
Oh fine ^_^ I don't have the screenies, so you'll have to put up with a text update. Hope everyone's fine with it?
I awoke, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. The events of the previous night came back to me, a dribble at a time. After the retaking of Vladivostok, I had been rushed to Moscow by air to be honored for the Eighth Route Army's final assault that had broken the Japanese hold on the Soviet port. I had never seen quite so much vodka in my life, nor had I ever realized just how bad Marshal Konev's singing voice was, until last night. Comrade Stalin could barely stand as he handed General Zhang, commander of 5. Juntuan, one of my light divisions, the first Guards Banner to be awarded a non-Soviet unit.
Stumbling out of bed, I pulled on my uniform, eventually finding my boots under my pillow. How they got there, I have little desire to find out. My only purpose at that time was to obtain some tea to perhaps quell my headache.
As I staggered down the halls of the Kremlin, wincing at the bright lights, a lance of pain buried itself in my brain. Some idiot functionary was running down the hall with a kettle of tea and some mugs in his hands, shouting something indecipherable. To be honest, all I cared about was that tea. I grabbed him, threw him into a chair, took the kettle out of his hands, poured myself a mug, and continued on my way, hopefully to find Marshal Zhukov.
By the time I arrived at Stavka, I realized something was wrong. The staff there were deathly quiet, and the usually boisterous Comrade Stalin was sitting in his chair staring at a piece of paper as if it declared the end of the world. When I approached, he handed it to me wordlessly. A moment later, I heard a crash. Looking down, I realized that my hands were shaking so badly that I had dropped my tea. With disbelieving eyes, I read the paper again. No mistake.
It was from the Northern Front HQ. A massive German spearhead of over sixty divisions, led by von Rundstedt, the Black Knight, had smashed into our defenses in the Baltics this morning. We had already lost radio contact with three Corps HQs, and it had not yet been six hours from the start of the offensive. I made a rough estimate of German progress from the positions where we had lost contact with divisions, and was stunned to realize that the bulk of the German armor was almost at Kaunas.
A sudden call from the nearest telegraph startled all of us. In a few minutes, the operator stood up woodenly with the transcribed message in his hands, and gave it directly to Comrade Stalin. The sudden change in the color of his face, from white to red to purple, was fascinating.
Then he exploded.
"Yeb' tvoyu mat, Hitler! Nyekulturny viblyadok! Listen up, and listen well, men of the Red Army! That son-of-a-bitch sitting in his chair at that house of whores they call the Reichstag has some big brass ones, to accuse US of beginning a border incident and declaring war on the Comintern! The hell with him! We'll kick him and his dogs back into Germany, tails tucked between their legs! I want every train running Red Army soldiers expedited to the front! I don't care if we burn out half the locomotives in the Union to do it, I want that bastard stopped! Listen up, soldiers! The Germans come with their Fuhrer black, trying to force the Revolution back, but from Chinese cliffs to Russian snows, the Red Army will crush its foes! Kick some Fascist ass!"
"ZA RODINAAA!"
- Marching for Mao, an autobiography of Lin Biao. Excerpt dated (date unknown, likely the start of the Great Patriotic War)