World War II

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World War II
Time
Previous	World War I
Concurrent	Korean War, Chinese Civil War
Next	World War III
History
Beginning	1949
End	1955
Place	Entire World
Outcome	Cease-fire/Truce
Major Battles	See below
Combatants
Allied Nations Mediterranean Syndicate Japan	Soviet Union
Commanders
• Field Marshal Gunter Von Esling † • General Nikos Stavros • General Benjamin Carville • Colonel Ernst von Volte †	• Generalissimus Joseph Stalin • General Radik Gradenko † • General Georgi Kukov † • Colonel Gennady Topolov †
Strength
Casualties
At least one million. Exact figure unknown.	Exact figures classified. Estimated two million, worldwide
Civilian casualties
Exact figure unknown, though thought to be within the region of three million.

Background

" If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a "peace conference," you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and aeroplanes."

- Joseph Stalin

War was inevitable, so the historians say. Joseph Stalin had taken control of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin, and before long was already twisting his already-bleeding nation into a weapon in his hand. Stalin had decades to plan his assault, based on nothing more than a wish to rule the world, a hugely influential advisor driving him away from his earlier plans for Socialism in One Nation. As justified are the many nations of Europe to complain about how their nations suffered, none did more than Russia.

To begin with, Stalin realised he would need many, many people; to man his factories, and more importantly, to fight at the front. To that end, Stalin began initiating his “True Spirit Measures”, supposedly in response to the bourgeoisie decadence of the 1920s. In truth, however, these measures did the opposite, as its whole intention was to dramatically heighten the birth rate. Contraceptives were completely banned, presumably for moral reasons, while a tax on having fewer than five children was imposed to encourage more people to have children and have more children, further bolstered by increasing rewards for having more children. Infertile spouses were systematically divorced from their partners, and often sent to Gulags. Most insidiously, Young Pioneer camps, while still segregated by gender, were constructed much closer together than would ever be allowed outside of Stalin’s Russia. Lacklustre chaperoning meant that the teenagers would often sneak off to have sex, and often become pregnant, which was exactly what Stalin wanted. Over the years the populace of the Soviet Union swelled to an all time high, despite already the third most populous on earth.

Unknown forces were setting up a conflict that would once again engulf all of Europe after Foch's prediction that the Versailles treaty was an armistice for twenty years came to nothing due to a coalition of Social Democrats, Restructurists, and Monarchists steering Germany into a line more compliant with the Versailles treaty and with much less stomach for war than what could have been. So they turned their eyes towards the Soviet Union, helping Stalin build an increasingly larger industrial machine until it surpassed even the United States. Stalin had set most of the nation’s industries to war machines and weapons, producing more rifles than there were soldiers in the Red Army, and more tanks than he would ever use if he lived a century. Propaganda began whipping the populace into a hateful riot against the capitalist nations; they were told they were massing up to steal the great wealth of the Soviet Union.

The European nations saw the writing on the wall. Post-war restrictions on arms were dissolved unanimously (save for with the Soviet Union), most notably with Germany. Germany began a rapid and massive rearmament campaign, finally free to build tanks and battleships. Poland bankrupted itself (and was given low-interest loans by the United Kingdom and France) in the process of militarising itself, conscripting much of the populace and even evacuating those unfit for service to the relative safety of the east. However, none of the nations were sure how hard the Soviets would attack, and if their nation was really going to be involved. Some even dared to hope that Stalin wouldn’t be so bold as to attack such strong neighbours. Even if Stalin had noticed the build up of military forces against him, he made no change in his plans. Perhaps he knew his army could smash any force in the world, and he may have been correct.

Across Europe, the battle lines had been drawn. Now everyone waited for the first shot.

Incursion

"Soviet forces have crossed the border. This is a Red Alert, repeat, this is a Red Alert!"

- Transmission to all Polish military units

On October 31, 1949, that first shot was fired.

In a broad, armoured front composed of tanks and supporting infantry behind, the Red Army attacked without warning, Stalin’s ability to hide such an attack still being studied today. The divisions of the Polish Army, already mobilised, counterattacked, but each one was turned back simply by the sheer size of the Soviet invasion. Seeing the situation, the Polish government enacted previously drawn up plans to completely evacuate the voivodeships of Wilno, Nowogródek and Polesie. Even more importantly, the government fled Warsaw for Kraków, as Warsaw was severely threatened due to its position.

It became clear that despite their early formations, the plan was shifting towards one massive but narrow thrust along the north of Poland. Mostly, this was composed of Anvil Tanks, along with older models and other vehicles, whose brutally simple yet versatile design allowed it to face practically any role that was needed as the spearhead (and spear) of the Soviet attack. From the line at strategic points, Anvil tanks would detach and sweep south across the countryside or attack a specific target. The target of this large line was unclear as of yet, but seemed to be between the 52nd and 53rd Parallel. Meanwhile, infantry trying to keep up would mop up any resistance that had been penetrated by the tanks. Any strong points were strafed by Soviet YaKs, with the Soviets having a very strong aerial presence despite the capability of the Polish Air Force, due to early strikes on Polish airfields.

Soon, the Polish Army completely abandoned its preferred mobile defensive formations to the defence of fortified lines. The twin-turreted 12TP main battle tank and the TK-8 tankette, both considered leading armoured vehicles, simply could not stand against the Soviet Anvil. The 12TP couldn’t stand against the numbers of the Anvils and the TK-8s would be caught in the open and destroyed before they could engage Soviet infantry. Instead, both tanks were relegated to sallying forth from fortified points or kept in reserve for when the Polish pushed the Soviets out of their nation. However, the Poles did have one highly successful unit; the cavalry. The Poles never abandoned horse-carried infantry as the rest of the world had, and they formed an elite core in the Polish Army. Contrary to the propaganda of the Soviet Union, they were not overbred nobles charging with lances against tanks, but a cheap yet still effective form of mechanised infantry, who dismounted their horses before battle and simply used them to move quickly. They were difficult to spot by aircraft due to their ability to take cover, and they could subsist on the land with fewer supplies. They inflicted a good amount of damage on vulnerable Soviet targets in Poland (and in the Ukraine) before withdrawing.

Despite the dogged determination of the Polish armed forces, the Soviets were rapidly overrunning the nation, even as it became clear they weren’t even the primary target in this invasion. Major cities were besieged and attacked, with the countryside already emptied of people due to the Polish government if they had been lucky, or Soviet soldiers if they weren’t. The cities could not hold out for as long as the campaign might last, despite the superb preparation of defences for them years in the making. Worse, the Polish Navy was completely obliterated by submarines in the first few days, allowing the Soviets free reign of the Baltic. This led to the city of Danzig being taken by the Soviet Navy, which the Soviets used to resupply their forces at the front. Warsaw, in a dangerous position already, was hit by most of the Red Army and was quickly reduced. As punishment for further resistance, the city itself was completely demolished and its populace dragged away to prison camps in the Soviet Union. In these dark days, however, help was on the way for the besieged Polish.

Fires of Industry

It has been said that in war, the most precious resource of all is not ore, fuel, or ammunition, but bodies. And the Soviet Union needed a lot of bodies.

To keep up their overwhelming advantage in manpower, Stalinist Russia instigated conscription to a level that would not be matched until the later stages of the Chinese Civil War. Collective farms, city blocks, and villages of factory workers were swept up and shipped to the front lines; men and women, young and old, the Soviet Army took anyone they could get their hands on.

While this gave the Soviet Union a huge army, this left the factories unattended and the fields empty, and even the world's single most powerful nation couldn't make use of that if it had no people actually doing economic work, the strain was beginning to be felt in the Union’s production. Stalin needed more tanks, more planes, and more rifles (also more food, more clothes, and more medicine, not that Stalin himself ever paid much mind to that), but didn’t want to use Russian people who could be fighting to build them.

So he used European people instead.

The Soviet Army began to mass-conscript the citizens of occupied nations and sent them inland to work on collective farms and in war factories. Men, women, and children, both POWs and civilians by the thousands became little better than slave labour for the Soviet war machine. Conditions for the workers were horrid: The elderly, infirm, or disabled where expected to do the same work as everyone else. Children were often put into dangerous jobs that took advantage of their small size, in a manner reminiscent to the Industrial Revolution. Food, medical attention, rest, and shelter were of subpar quality and the Soviets proved harsh task masters.

The atrocities where finally brought to an end with Cherdenko’s coup. Most of the officials in the forced-labour program were part of Stalin’s inner circle, and were therefore purged. Not wanting to deal with them, thousands of displaced Europeans where allowed to return back across the border to their home countries.

Regardless, it cemented Stalin as a monster in the minds of the people of the Allies. More Europeans where killed in the forced labour program than soldiers on the battlefield. Even after WW3 demonstrated that the Soviet Union, while still locked under Cherdenko's authoritarianism, still had standards, to this day thousands of Europeans are still deeply embittered to the Soviets. Combined with the recent Allied capitulations to the USSR, many descendants of work camp survivors have joined the Freedom Guard in hopes of forcing the Allies to restart the war no matter what the cost.

Steel Comrade

"I have phantom pains like you wouldn't believe!"

- Captain Volkov

The defending Europeans weren’t the only ones with heroes, however. A Spetsnaz commando known only as Volkov was already well known when the NKVD abducted him in the middle of the night to be part of a very dangerous, inhuman experiment. For years, the Soviet Union had been doing ghastly experiments on dogs, in particular cutting off their heads and attempting to keep them alive with machines. The Soviets had success in this, but it wasn’t until the head of a dog named Chitzkoi not only survived, but learned the ability to work motors with his remaining notochord, that the project had military value. Chitzkoi was mounted on a mechanical body that could jump and run farther than any biological dog could ever. Better still, since it no longer needed to eat or breathe, its entire mouth could be replaced by a hydraulic clamp that could bend steel plates.

For Volkov, an entire slow moving but powerful body was built for him … below the neck. Like the dogs before him, Volkov was surgically decapitated and kept alive with machines inside the body acting as the lungs and the heart. As he needed to talk, his mouth was retained, though the artificial throat he had meant he had a very coarse, almost mechanical voice. Meanwhile, the lenses of both his eyes were removed and replaced by special screens that connected to the miniature camera over his eye sockets, which could zoom and see in infrared (which gave them their characteristic red glow). Unsurprisingly, the whole process also completely numbed him to pain. After a sufficient rest period, he was given a special issue ADK-45 prototype, as well as a recoilless rifle mounted on his left arm. Occasionally fatal training exercises showed the promise that the Soviet Union had created the ultimate soldier, who could destroy entire platoons by himself. Before being shipped out, he gave one request as he doffed his trademark trench coat and officer’s cap; that he be allowed to bring Chitzkoi with him.

Volkov and Chitzkoi would blaze a path of hell through the already weakened Allies in the coming months. Their first mission was to assault the heavily fortified Neuesgeistland Armour Works facility in Austria, which was providing much of the vehicle armour for the Allied front. The pair were parachuted in and proceeded to tear the facility apart from the inside. Little seemed to be able to stop them; they were fast enough to avoid vehicle fire, and infantry weapons just bounced off them. They were deployed again and again to the front, savaging the front line each time. However, his service was cut short when during one fight, a sniper took aim at Chitzkoi. The bullet by sheer chance managed to hit the dog’s head in the one place it was vulnerable; the tubing bringing air from its body.

Chitzkoi fell over, spasming as it in vain tried to breath in with its non-existent mouth. Volkov reacted in horror and ignored everything else as he solemnly put his only friend out of its misery before it asphyxiated. After a brief mourning, he roared with a coarse voice, and over the course of a few minutes killed every living thing within sight; Soviets, Allies, animals, even the trees. With no one left alive to provide an account of what happened, it is unknown what happened next, though he apparently fled the area and has not been seen since.

The Sun Rises

"There is a time and a place for use of weapons. "

- The Book of Five Rings

The Allied Nations were stretched to the breaking point simply in Europe, and didn’t have the resources to fight the Soviets over every backwater campaign. In particular, the Pacific Rim was dangerously vulnerable, as Australia was the only nation of notable strength in the general area. The Soviet moves to support Kim Il Sung and Mao's communist revolutions scarcely received so much as an obscene gesture, nevertheless any sort of actual combatants to help the besieged South Koreans, and simply arming them wasn’t doing enough. However, there was a power that had been rising since the Industrial Revolution and harboured no fondness for the Soviets; Japan.

Though Japan hadn’t been much contacted in decades following its Vassalization of Korea, the Allied Nations sent envoys to Emperor Yoshiro in an attempt to get the Japanese to form an alliance. As risk to the home islands was low, many Japanese did not think the prospect of dead Imperial soldiers for another’s cause was justified. Beyond that, many military officials worried about its effects on the secret rearmament program that had just started. The United States being an Allied nation was another worry; while not exactly enemies, the two nations were obvious rivals for the Pacific Ocean. Negations stalled until the United States offered the barely developed territory of Hawaii and parts of Alaska along with a massive bribe of cash, effectively ceding control of the Pacific to Japan and paying for Japan's development with American dollars, and providing a badly needed naval base to boot. Emperor Yoshiro was pleased, and immediately began inspecting the new 48th prefecture of Japan. Amid this inspection Emperor Yoshiro, with several leis dangling from his neck, announced to the world in a live broadcast that Japan had declared war on the Soviet Union, and joined the Allied Nations.

Joseph Stalin was enraged, and immediately fortified Vladivostok, conscripting most of the city’s populace and effectively turning the city into one massive military base. Huge fortifications and rows of Tesla Coils defended the city from the inevitable attack from the Rising Sun. This most impressive fortification would remain unused throughout the entire war. Instead, the Japanese struck where the Soviets were most vulnerable, a strategy that would serve them well in the future. At the time, the Imperial Army was little different from any other nations. The Imperial Warriors carried conventional semi-automatic rifles and wore military fatigues, though each man still carried a katana. Most notable were crude mecha that were seeing their first military action; the light Striker, the flying Tengu, and the heavy Daidarabotchi. Barely resembling later mecha, these vehicles were nevertheless a shock to the Soviets. The Rising Sun also had armour, the Type-48 Kazan Tank, but it was lightly armed and armoured compared to the Anvil, as it had been designed and built without reliable experience in armoured warfare.

The Japanese’s first action was to quietly invade Siberia and destroy the Trans-Siberian Railroad in several places. It was so completely clandestine that the first Soviets to notice it were a derailed eastbound train. This further convinced Stalin that Vladivostok was about to be attacked (as it was cut off from reinforcements and supplies) and promised to burn the city to the ground if they fell to the Japanese invaders. The Japanese, however, had already accomplished their objective in the Soviet Union, and instead landed in Inchon and rapidly moved across country to counter-attack the Soviet forces who decided to launch an open assault on the Empire of Korea, seeking to destroy them in mass battle.. Engaging in open warfare beyond occasionally beating the Chinese over the head to wring out more and more concessions out of the KMT was a shock to the Japanese, though, and the hateful resistance many Koreans showed after years of cruel mismanagement by the Empire of Korea and their own punitive means of dealing with Communist rebels was further surprising (the answer to such was of course; more harshness). The Kazan tank was thoroughly outmatched even by indigenous tank designs, and was quickly withdrawn from the front and military service, and then the collective memory of the Japanese people. The mecha fared much better, often slicing behind the lines and attacking the Anvils from behind.

Near the end of the war, the Soviets responded by consolidating most of their forces around the city of Pungsan, goading the Japanese to fight. The Japanese accepted the challenge and surrounded the city. Emperor Yoshiro personally flew to watch the battle from Kaema Plateau, taking along the young Prince Tatsu and guarded by Shinobi. Under the sight of their emperor, the Japanese forces could not lose and pounded the Soviet army with swift and devastating assaults. The Soviet army was destroyed to a man. With the majority of Soviet forces dead or captured, the Soviet Union withdrew to consolidate (only possible because Stalin was sleeping while the order was given) while Chinese forces under Mao poured across the Yalu river and dealt the Japanese a stunning reversal bolstered by a counter-offensive by the Soviets and a surge of Korean Communist forces that pushed the battle lines to the 38th parallel when the peace agreement was finally signed.

Chrono Defence

I don't remember THAT on the list! This article (World War II), or a section of this article, is not considered canon until Team Paradox has considered it so. It may or may not be part of Paradox, in either the game or the Lore. Usually, its status will be debated in the the discussion page of the appropriate article.

"You ... disappoint me, colonel!"

-Joseph Stalin to Colonel Topolov

Despite the best efforts of the Allied coalition, Stalin's Red Army continued to advance inexorably across Europe. However, for all the battles and campaigns the Soviets had won, the GRU discovered something that threatened to reverse all that.

Working off the notes left behind by the German physicist Albert Einstein before his mysterious disappearance in 1927, scientists from the Dutch-based corporation "FutureTech" had been working on a secret project that could potentially help the Allies win the war: the Chronosphere.

The Chronosphere project, initially located in Lich, Germany, had to be evacuated as the Soviets closed in on the testing facility where the prototype Chronosphere had been housed. Though the facility personnel were all evacuated safely, the entire project was delayed by a full twelve months while the scientists were relocated to a new facility located near the German border with Switzerland. With Switzerland having remained neutral up to this point, the facility managed to evade notice by the Soviets, and any Soviet forces who stumbled across the facility were promptly taken care of by the garrison, allowing the facility to maintain its secrecy.

While the Chronosphere prototype in Lich had been destroyed by explosives to prevent it from falling into Soviet hands, it did not escape notice entirely. Operatives of the GRU had taken notice of the smoldering ruins of the facility, at the time still quite fresh. Immediately suspicious, they investigated further into the incident, eventually managing to locate the new testing facility. Upon learning of the project from General Kukov, Stalin immediately ordered that the prototype Chronosphere be captured, dispatching one of his most decorated commanders, Colonel Gennady Topolov, to make sure the operation was a success. In a fit of anger, he also ordered the Red Army to make preparations to invade Switzerland, believing that the Swiss had been secretly collaborating with the Germans.

Fortunately for the Allies, the lack of subtlety on the Soviets' part in moving three regiments to assault the facility quickly made the Allies realise that the Chronosphere project was in danger. At the speed the Soviet forces were moving, however, there wasn't enough time to evacuate the facility, and since the project's scientists were about to conduct a crucial test, Field Marshal Von Esling dispatched whatever reinforcements that could be spared by air, along with the veteran commander Colonel Ernst von Volte, who was already famed for acheiving several victories against the Soviets, to take command of the facility and organise a defence. While the relatively small garrison stationed at the facility couldn't hope to hold out forever against a vastly larger enemy, Von Esling hoped that the facility could hold out long enough for reinforcements from the Swiss (whom the Allies were attempting to negotiate with after learning of the impending attack on the facility) to arrive and drive off the Soviet attackers. The garrison protecting the Chronosphere project was spread out among three outposts and the facility housing the Chronosphere itself, and had just been reinforced by airborne cavalry a few days ago.

The advancing Soviet regiments soon encountered the first sign of Allied resistance in the form of a Ranger patrol. While quickly destroyed, the driver was able to get an brief radio transmission out, alerting the nearby outpost to the fact that something was wrong. More forces were dispatched to investigate, and while the Soviet forces quickly took care of the Allied tanks, by now the facility garrison had been fully alerted to their presence. Colonel Topolov quickly deployed his Mobile Construction Vehicle and began to establish a field base. Knowing from Soviet intelligence that each of the Allied outposts contained a transmitter that could send a remote signal to the Chronosphere to cause it to self destruct, Topolov ordered two Anvil tank battalions to assault and destroy the first Allied outpost. Despite the best efforts of the Allied forces defending the outpost, they were eventually overrun, and the outpost was razed to the ground, though not without losses on the Soviet side.

Having established several field airstrips and helipads for a squadron of MiG-9s and several KA-6 Hinds to land, Colonel Topolov now ordered the fully fuelled aircraft to destroy the second outpost, which scouting had determined to be unusually light on anti-air defences. Allied tanks were strafed by MiG-9s, while the Hind Gunships descended on the outpost itself, slaughtering what remained of the outpost's personnel. With the coast clear, Topolov could send in a force of tanks and infantry to take the outpost and destroy it.

Now only the third outpost and the facility's defenders themselves stood in the way of victory. Topolov ordered his all of remaining forces to assault the outpost and destroy it. By now, Swiss aircraft were arriving over the border, so the MiG-9s had to be diverted from their attack runs on the Allied outpost to deal with the new threat. After a swift and devastating assault on the outpost, it too was reduced was soon to ruins. The Hind helicopters quickly dealt with resisting soldiers, and now Topolov's force converged on the facility, with Topolov himself leading in his command JS-2 Mammoth Tank. A brief, bloody fight broke out as the Soviets invaded the facility. Soon, only the Chronosphere stood in the middle of the compound, the rest of the compound levelled and every last defender dead. The Chronosphere was nearly in Topolov's grasp, and victory seemed assured for the Soviets.

However, as the Soviets converged on the Chronosphere prototype, it exploded, leaving nothing but a useless pile of debris. The Chronosphere and its secret had slipped out of the Soviet reach. Angrily, Topolov demanded to know what had happened. Soviet engineers soon were able determine that a signal had been sent to detonate the Chronosphere, and they quickly pinpointed its source. A fourth outpost, missed by the Soviets, having only been erected in the past few days to serve as a command post for Colonel von Volte. Topolov ordered his remaining Hind helicopters to surround and destroy the fourth outpost, even as the Swiss ground forces closed in.

Lightly defended, the final outpost's defenders quickly fell to the guns of the Hind heliccpters. As Soviet infantry surrounded the sole remaining structure in the outpost, rather than let himself be captured, Colonel von Volte instead chose to self destruct his Construction Yard, killing himself in an explosion that engulfed what was left of the outpost. The battle was over. With Swiss forces having just arrived across the border, Topolov chose to withdraw rather than to fight a now pointless battle.

With his failure to capture the Chronosphere, Colonel Topolov was quickly brought before Stalin, and was demanded to explain to Stalin why he had not succeeded. In a fit of anger, infuriated by the failure of the colonel, Stalin personally killed Topolov, breaking his neck. It later transpired that it was not the fault of Colonel Topolov, but rather General Kukov, who had failed to inform the colonel of the fourth outpost despite learning of it just prior to the attack. Stalin had Kukov shot the following day.

Cherdenko’s Coup

"Brothers! We have thrown back the despotic Allies from the Motherland! Comrade Stalin looks at each of you fondly! You have fought well … well, long, and hard. And now each of you can expect to be rewarded by Comrade Cherdenko for your honourable service. For Mother Russia! "

- Commissar giving a speech by radio to the soldiers at Kiev

While the Allies had withdrawn, the Soviet Union was not without strife. Though the Soviet Union was technically victorious, the whole war and the loss of prestige from gaining scarcely more than the Baltic states and parts of Poland (that the Poles hardly cared for due to being empty and indefensible) from it had left Stalin in a very vulnerable position. He stayed more and more in the Kremlin, refusing to leave for his beloved Kuntsevo Dacha lest someone try to assassinate him, despite a road being paved to it straight through Moscow and fortified with thick walls, Tesla Coils, and constant military patrols. He started ordering purges that made no sense, often decimating entire units of veterans returning from the front for no reason. Even die-hard communists were disgusted by this behaviour, and plots against him trebled. As it turned out, his brooding agoraphobia would be his undoing.

In the morning of November 12th, Stalin was in an uncharacteristically good mood. He was meeting with several military men, including one no one seemed to recognise, though had been seen around Stalin for a while. Stalin had just accepted a cup of tea from Nadia, and was extolling how good it was when he began coughing uncontrollably. Recognizing that he was poisoned by his own assistant, he spat out his last insult before choking on his own saliva. He was further shot in the head several times by Nadia, making sure he was truly dead. Josef Stalin, a hated and feared tyrant over an entire continent, was killed by the treachery he was so fond of. Nadia began to blabber to the shocked military men about “black hands” and “brothers”, which was assumed to be a reference to the supposed death of her family by Stalin’s hands. She began to take out a grotesque mask, before the stranger took her gun that she had casually discarded and shot her in the back.

The stranger identified himself as comrade Anatoly Cherdenko, and he was technically next in line for the Premiership. When asked, he produced stacks of documents saying that he was, including a picture of himself sitting with Lenin. When it was pointed out that the decades-old picture had Cherdenko just as he looked that day, Cherdenko then pointed out that his Black Guard (unrelated to Stalin’s) that was taking control of the capital would be glad to discuss such inconsistencies. Heavily armoured men with PPSh-500s pointed at them dissuaded any further complaints, and the accumulated leadership of the Red Army sided with Cherdenko. In short order, the Red Army destroyed any unit still loyal to Stalin, and fortified the Polish border to prevent the Allies from trying to take advantage of the chaos. By the end of the week, Premier Cherdenko had full control of the Soviet Union.

Cherdenko wasted no time in consolidating his rule. Immediately, he ordered a purge of the nomenklatura, using Stalin's death as an excuse to find the "traitors" responsible for his assassination and bring them to "justice". This way, he was able to remove from power those who were still loyal to Stalin. However, a few people whose deaths were specifically ordered didn’t follow the trend. Most notably, Alexander Romanov of the Politburo was one of the first shot, despite a reputation as being inoffensive and having no real ambition (though being of the Tsarist Dynasty was a strong mark against him). Of the Red Army, Colonel Vladimir Vorobyov and Captain Bronislav Morozov met the same fate, as well as the young officer Zofia Solovyov, still in the training program for military intelligence who was "promoted" to a post in the middle of Kazakhstan. Most odd was a Romanian man whose assassination was so complete that no one even knows his name who was said to be managing Stalin's psychic warfare program. Regardless, soon everyone was afraid to double cross Cherdenko, but power in itself did not seem to be his goal. Instead, he made clear his intention; revenge against the Allied Nations.