by Bart Gauvin
“Assuming you are correct in all of this,” Pavel waved his hand in the air, “speculation,” he said acidly, “what do you believe we should do about it? Any fool can poke holes in a plan, tovarich Major. Much more difficult is patching them up. You said you could help. What path do you advocate?”
“War, tovarich President,” Khitrov said simply, spreading his hands as if the answer were obvious. “Surprise, pre-emptive war against NATO to achieve our aims and reshape the strategic balance of the world in our favor. Escalate to de-escalate. The defense minister is an intelligent man. I am sure his military plans are good, but they require surprise to succeed. The circumstances of the world situation in the coming year offers a favorable opportunity to achieve this surprise. If we escalate the situation quickly enough, and in a way that frightens NATO leaders and their people enough, then the west will be more inclined to give us what we demand, if only to pull themselves back from the brink of destruction.”
“Go on,” Medvedev said, unconsciously leaning forward as he grew more intrigued.
“First, sir, some principles for political violence,” Khitrov explained. “Do you remember the advice I gave you that night in Moscow? No? I told you that people are prone to learn lessons from violence different from those you wish them to learn. The message sent is rarely the same as the message received. Therefore, each act of violence must be aimed at a material target as well as a political one. Destroying material resources forces people to act in the way you wish, and if they are forced to act, then they are more likely to learn the lesson you intend.”
Medvedev nodded. This is logical.
“If one can make an opposing country’s population learn the proper lessons through violence,” Khitrov continued, “one can very quickly sap their will to continue the struggle. This is one of the weaknesses of our opponents’ ‘democratic’ societies. Even if we cannot force the western governments to demand peace, properly applied violence can tie down large enemy forces in tasks that do nothing more than make the people feel safe. Do you know how many resources the Americans expended securing their west coast from phantom fleets and phantom air armies during their war with Japan? All because local officials demanded that they be protected from non-existent threats.”
Khitrov was becoming animated now, clearly excited by the opportunity to present his thoughts to such an elevated figure, to try to influence the course of world events. He took his cigarette between two fingers and asked politely, “Another light, my President?”
Medvedev admitted to himself that he was starting to enjoy listening to this brash young man’s thoughts. He fished his lighter from his pocket again and produced a flame, allowing the major to puff his smoke to life.
After a long pull, Khitrov began again. “As I said, my President, I have given this problem much thought. Your Christmas invasion will not work, for the reasons I have given you. But there is another opportunity, if you are willing to make war on NATO from the start. Here is what I propose…”
For several minutes Khitrov outlined his thoughts. Very quickly Medvedev began to marvel at the grandeur of this junior officer’s vision, the way it attacked their opponents on so many levels, hitting them militarily, politically, economically. Before long the president was nodding in agreement as each individual attack was described with clear material and political objectives. Soon Pavel pulled a world map out of the folio and the two men stood around it as Khitrov pointed and gestured at one key point after another. Medvedev was taken aback when Khitrov revealed his timing for the proposed war, but after the other man explained his reasoning, Medvedev found himself in full agreement. Why has no one else thought of this?
The two men talked into the early hours of the morning, polishing off the remainder of the bottle of vodka and Khitrov’s pack of cigarettes between them. Finally, Pavel sat back in his chair, exhausted but mentally energized.
He looked up and said, “Major Khitrov, I thank you for this. Before you came in here, I could not see a way forward out of the trap that our opponents are laying. Now my vision is restored. Do you believe in this plan?”
Khitrov sensed an opportunity, and he seized it. He looked Medvedev in the eye and said, “With all my heart, my President.”
“Good!” Medvedev answered. “Then prepare yourself. When we leave here you will come with me to Moscow and brief the defense minister on your ideas. I do not know how you have done it, but your thinking on this matter will nicely compliment the plan he and STAVKA have devised.”
Khitrov nodded, not the slightest hint of trepidation creeping into his expression.
“We are calling it Plan Boyar,” Pavel went on, feeling relaxed from the vodka, “and I want you in charge of integrating and implementing these schemes into it. You can expect a promotion and a transfer to Moscow to go along with this responsibility. No more languishing with the bumpkins around Pskov, da?”
Medvedev leaned forward in his seat and clapped the younger man on the shoulder.
“So,” Khitrov ventured after a moment, “What will the Politburo say?”
“I haven’t agreed just yet,” Medvedev answered in a jovial tone, “but I am intrigued. This plan has great risks, but perhaps you are correct, that we should ‘escalate to de-escalate’ the situation, as you say. I like the concept. I came to power on a roll of the dice, a roll that you helped turn in my favor. Perhaps just such a gamble is necessary in this dilemma as well. But, either way, do not concern yourself with the Politburo. I can handle them.”
Khitrov flashed his predatory smile, showing his teeth. The image no longer made Medvedev uncomfortable. This man is a wolf, but he’s my wolf. The major raised his tumbler towards the president in salute, the last swallow of vodka sloshing around the bottom of the glass. He downed the drink in one fluid motion.
Pavel Medvedev’s headache was gone. He could see Russia’s way forward. The path was dangerous, and he had not decided to take it yet, but in his heart he knew he would, soon.
CHAPTER 12
1128 MSK, Sunday 5 July 1993
0828 Zulu
Trinity Cathedral, Pskov, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
THE PRIEST FINISHED chanting the scriptural litany with a long, low, “Amen,” sung over his chest-length gray beard. As the sound echoed in the vaulted ceiling, the red-robed clergyman blessed the congregation, making the sign of the cross using three extended fingers in the Russian Orthodox fashion.
Guards Colonel Ilya Romanov, standing among the other congregants, crossed himself and repeated the amen. Beside him, his wife Elena and their two teenage children did the same. The priest was adorned in striking embroidered vestments, worn today to commemorate Saint Elizabeth Romanov and her attendant nurse Barbara, who were martyred by the Bolsheviks in 1918. He retrieved his incense censer from the altar and progressed down the cathedral’s aisle, swinging the smoking orb as he went. As he exited the cathedral, the congregation filed up to the altar and crossed themselves before the crucifix beyond. Ilya, his family in tow, did the same.
Romanov always felt calmed by the solemn reverence of the Orthodox service, happy to share his faith with his family and others of their community. He put his hand lightly in the small of Elena’s back as they walked back towards the cathedral’s entrance, their son Petya and daughter Irina walked ahead. They emerged from the cool, white interior of the church into the brilliant blue sky and bright, warm sunshine of a beautiful Pskov summer day. Father Yevgeny was greeting his flock with single-pump handshakes as they departed.
Ilya regarded the priest warmly as they waited in the queue to exchange Sunday greetings. Persecution of the church had been the on-again, off-again pastime of the Communist government since 1918, and not all Orthodox priests were so well-respected, but Father Yevgeny was a shepherd in the best clerical sense of the word. The Orthodox faith in the Soviet Union had survived and even thrived due to people like him. He
was slow to judge those around him, quick with a word of grace during confession. Perhaps his most impressive trait was his ability to show deference to the laws of the nominally atheist State in which he ministered while not compromising the core tenets of his religion.
In turn Petya, Irina, and Elena filed past to greet the clergyman. Finally, Ilya stepped forward and took the priest’s hand, saying, “Thank you for your sermon today, Father. I had not considered the example of the Savior washing his disciples’ feet as an example for leadership. I believe your message is relevant in my own profession. I would like my officers to follow this example.”
“Thank you, Colonel Romanov,” responded the priest with a smile, “I am pleased the message touched you. It was also the Savior who said, ‘greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.’ Quite an example of leadership for a soldier, da? Ah, speaking of laying down one’s life, do you claim any relation to the saint we honor today?”
Romanov shook his head. “No father, as far as I know there is no link to the old royal family. Romanov is not so uncommon a name,” he answered.
“I suppose not. Yet the name is noble. Fitting for a noble man such as yourself. Please, enjoy this lovely weather. Go with God’s blessing,” Father Yevgeny said.
Ilya caught up with his family on the lawn next to the church. Pskov’s Trinity Cathedral dominated the center of the medieval Krom, the fortress at the confluence of the Pskova and Velikaya Rivers. The church’s four black and one golden onion domes towered over the Krom’s squat, ancient walls, overshadowing the Romanov family as they crossed the peaceful green inside the castle and exited the fortress through the south gate into the bustling Karl Marx Square, where trolleybuses and trucks rumbled past.
Not quite as bustling as it was two years ago, Ilya recalled, remembering the heady days before the coup in 1991. Then the USSR had appeared to be on the brink of collapse and western goods were flooding the informal markets in every Russian city. Petya, his son, had taken a liking to blue jeans and American rock music. Now, with increasingly harsh sanctions imposed by the west, no such luxuries were evident in the kiosks scattered around the square.
The Romanovs maintained a tradition of taking a family walk around downtown Pskov each Sunday after church regardless of the season, if the colonel’s duties permitted of course. Both Ilya and Elena were from Moscow, but in the last two years they’d fallen in love with this smaller, older city on the western margin of their country. The pace of life here was slower, the architecture less dominated by Brezhnev-era concrete slab apartment buildings. This was a city that was proud of “their” desantniki from the 76th Guards Airborne Division, garrisoned at the airbase on the southeast edge of the city.
The family walked south along the tree-lined sidewalks flanking Leona Pozemskogo street, looking at the sparse merchandise being offered by the street merchants on the way. After a few dozen meters, Petya was hailed by some school friends on their way to play football at a nearby field. Ilya let his boy join them. Boy? Ilya thought, He’s seventeen, nearly a man himself. Irina, two-years-younger, went as well. That left Ilya and his bride of nearly two decades on their Sunday walk. Elena strolled ahead, admiring a kiosk offering the season’s first apples, probably trucked in from the mountains around Almaty.
As she turned, Romanov caught sight of the slight bulge beneath her Sunday dress. She was a vision, thin and willowy with golden hair, more beautiful than the day they had married, and his heart swelled with love. The new baby had come as a shock to both of them. Both had considered her too old for another pregnancy.
The vision took Ilya back to the early days of their marriage, when Elena carried Petya in her womb. The two of them would walk through markets like this and admire the produce. Fresh food had been scarce in those days under the mismanagement of the socialist government, and Romanov’s pay as a junior officer did not allow him to spend much outside the state-managed Universam food stores. Mostly they just admired the colorful produce at a distance. On some days, especially as the pregnancy progressed, Ilya would splurge to buy his bride an apple or a pear, thinking all the time about the health of their child.
Romanov understood at the time that his country was capable of so much more, that the brand of socialism forced on them by the Party was holding the Soviet Union back from its true potential. The USSR produced more apples than any country on earth, and yet the fruit that Elena touched, then as now, was clearly of inferior quality, small and in many cases worm-eaten. At the time Ilya had not failed to make the direct connection between communist mismanagement and the health of his unborn child. This fact did much to explain why he had never become a Party member. Well, that and the fact that the Party never accepts the openly faithful, Ilya thought wryly, not for the first time.
The food scarcity this summer was different. The reason was obvious; in fact, Romanov could see it from where he strolled. It was trumpeted by the headline of yesterday’s Izvestia in a newspaper rack at the street corner: Soviet president demands end to Imperialist encirclement, insists that sanctions against USSR are illegal. President Medvedev was continuing and even expanding the economic reforms of his predecessor, practically throwing the USSR’s doors open to foreign trade. The problem was that none of the world’s most important economies were interested. The Americans, in conjunction with the European Economic Community, soon to become the European Union, refused to conduct business and pressured others to forsake the Soviet markets as well. The Soviet economy was forced to rely heavily on internal resources, hobbling the president’s reforms and causing hardships for ordinary citizens.
Of course, it’s not all bad, Romanov thought, as ahead he spotted a towering green and yellow pyramid across the street from Lenin Square. Some of what we produce is actually quite good.
“Ilya, look,” Elena said, happily tugging his arm, “melon season is here!”
They hurried to where the mountain of melons was piled four meters high. Every summer trucks from the southern reaches of the USSR brought millions and millions of melons to cities across the Soviet Union. Swarthy-skinned southerners from Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Central Asian Republics piled the fruit on seemingly every street corner and then lived beside their produce until it had all been sold off to eager city-dwellers. Elena loved the oblong yellow-skinned melons that Russians called “torpedoes,” similar to western cantaloupes, but sweeter, while Ilya preferred the traditional red-fleshed ones with green rinds.
As they approached, Romanov saw that the vendor was negotiating price with a familiar character.
“…and you call these ripe? They don’t even sound hollow when you tap them,” Major Ivan Sviashenik was saying incredulously, bending over and rapping his knuckles on a melon as he did so. “Your prices are outrageous!”
Romanov walked up and clapped his regimental zampolit on the back. “Expounding on the virtues of socialism, eh Major?” Ilya asked in a teasing tone.
The younger man turned and smiled, slightly embarrassed upon meeting his colonel in public. “Good day, Colonel. This man and I were just discussing the concepts of supply and demand. Yes, demand for his melons may be high,” he indicated the mountain of fruit with his hand, “but so is his supply. As one of his first customers, I should receive, what do they say in the west, a discount, da? Especially for fruit that is not even ripe.”
The vendor waved his hand dismissively.
Ilya made a show of examining the produce himself while Elena said, “Good day, Ivan,” to Sviashenik with the warm, motherly tone she reserved for officers in her husband’s unit.
Rapping his own knuckles on a pair of melons and hefting them to judge their weight, the colonel rendered his judgment. “These are excellent melons!” he addressed the olive-skinned southerner, “What’s your price?”
“For someone like yourself who is a good judge of fruit, two hundred for the green ones, three hundred of the torpedo
es,” answered the smiling salesman.
“Wait!” cried Sviashenik, incredulously, “that is half the price you told me!”
The vendor shrugged his shoulders and said, “He asked nicely.”
Before the political officer could go on, Romanov said, “One of each if you please, and one for my friend here.”
“Of course, tovarich,” the man said, turning to select the fruit from the mound.
“You see, Ivan Avramovich,” said Ilya with a playful smile, “not all is capitalism versus socialism. Sometimes you just need to see people as people.” He accepted the two melons from the vendor with thanks, and handed the yellow one to Elena to carry.
Sviashenik gave the melon-monger a dirty look as the man handed him a specimen that was significantly smaller than the first two, but held his tongue.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Sviashenik muttered as they walked away. “I will be sure to repay you at the base.”
“Nonsense!” Ilya assured him. “Consider it a gift. You’ve earned it. Are you heading to the trolley stop?”
“Thank you again, sir,” the major said, and then in answer, “Yes, I’m taking the trolley back to base.”
“Good,” announced Romanov. “We’ll walk with you as far as Rizhsky Prospekt.” He then immediately dove into talking shop, “We are getting more contract soldiers, up to twenty percent of the levy coming this September. That along with those already in the regiment will mean that nearly a quarter of the men are contracted. Tell me, Ivan Avramovich, what do you make of them?”
The political officer considered his response, then said, “I am perhaps not qualified to comment on their technical training. From a political standpoint, they are no great socialists—”
“Neither are you,” Romanov cut in, with a sidelong smile.
Sviashenik smirked. “Neither is our president, or our young Major Medvedev,” he said. “Do not tell the Politburo I said that.” Pausing, he went on, “Whoever we get, I think they had better start learning Polish.”