Be apart of the revolution
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Join the Revolution
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Petrograd December 1917
This evening I had decided to walk through the workers' quarters in disguise — no guards, no insignia. Just me and the foolishness of this endeavor, it wasn't my first time doing my undercover spying and it wouldn't be my last either.
I observed all I could, I listened where many gather as in this case where a small group of men sat near a fire barrel, speaking quietly.
"Say what you will about them," one said, "but at least the coal's coming again. My wife hasn't frozen for two nights straight."
"Yeah," another replied, "but they've got eyes everywhere now. Say the wrong thing, and the Party will come knocking."
The first man shrugged. "Maybe. But I'd rather have a knock than another famine."
I turned away before they could notice me smiling in the dark.
Fear and gratitude — two sides of the same coin. Both could build loyalty, if shaped correctly.
——— ———— ———
Back at Smolny
Trotsky was outraged once more. He yelled across the table profanities and accusations I would not admit to even if some were true.
"You're turning the city into a garrison. The goal of a revolution is to awaken people, not to control them!"
My faced morphed into that of frustrated annoyance before giving him a answer.
"And what would happen if they woke up just to starve? Socialism cannot be built by a corpse."
The man saw my efforts as bribing the population with food to garner influence.
Lenin scratched his temples as he sat between us. "Enough," he whispered. "We'll talk about methodology later. We currently have a semblance of stability which has seemingly routed the minds of a many to see the benefits of the new order, these efforts are to be applauded not criticized.
Trotsky gave a small scowl but remained silent. He was gradually discovering that the lines of influence was shifting more and more to my side . He was afraid , afraid of the fact that his opponent would soon be his equal in match.
*Scene break
And by the end of December, Petrograd was still cold and hungry, but it was also alive, productive, and breathing better. I had high hopes of what the new year shall bring , its challenges, its rewards and the changes that would ensue.
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Petrograd, January 1918
The new year arrived without celebration.
No fireworks, no parades — only the rumble of trains hauling coal south, and the steady creak of ice on the Neva. Even the bells of the old churches rang uncertainly, as though unsure which regime they now served.
Smolny was lit through the night.
We worked tirelessly by lamplight — ministers, secretaries, messengers — our desks buried under reports , messages and decrees.
The revolution had survived its birth, but now came the harder task: to make it truly alive.
"Comrade Stalin," Sverdlov began as he entered my office, "
'Damn the workaholic', I mentally grumbled.
"Lenin requests a full report on industrial output before the next council meeting. Trotsky wants to include railway efficiency in the same discussion."
I barely looked up from the papers. "He wants to include it so he can criticize it."
Sverdlov grinned slightly. "You're not wrong. He claims your detachments have been forcefully persuading foremen, engineers and officials "
I slid a chart toward him — black lines, percentages, figures written in my own hand.
"Coal output in Petrograd is up twelve percent since December. Railway throughput by nine. Factory discipline restored in Vyborg and Kolpino. If Trotsky wants to argue, he can argue with statistics."
He nodded, taking the folder. "I'll have it delivered personally. But between us, Koba… people are talking.They rumor of you building your own commissariat inside the state."
"And what do you believe Sverdelov?" I asked him.
He looked at me unperturbed by the question.
"I believe in you, and the nation we work to create where people can live better, without fair of starving and of poverty and inequality. A world of strength." He said in truth and credence.
"And that world shall be created my good friend, we shall ensure that it does no matter the circumstances," I said leaning back in my chair while giving him sheepish smile.
—— ——— ———- ———-
Outside, Petrograd was slowly thawing from paralysis.Train whistles sounded again in the mornings. Food convoys — escorted by Red Guards — arrived from the countryside.
And fir the first time since the uprising, bread queues began to shorten. It was not because of prosperity. It was because of proper planning of proper management.
I ordered new directives:
*Central Distribution Boards to coordinate fuel and food between cities.
*Work Certificates to replace the chaotic committee notes.
*A National Inspection Office, answerable only to my commissariat, to root out corruption and sabotage.
Lenin approved each decree with curt efficiency. Trotsky, of course, protested.
And by mid-January, I left Petrograd for the first time since the storming of the Winter Palace. My destination: Moscow, where the rail junctions had become a choke-point for the entire republic. The journey was slow — frozen rails, engine failures, endless checkpoints — but each station told me more than any report could.
Men in ragged coats stood around fires made of stolen wood. Children begged for bread crusts from soldiers. And yet, behind the misery, there was a strange current of belief — that all this suffering meant something.
At every stop, I asked the same question:
"Who commands here?"
And too often, the answer was, "No one does anymore." By the time I reached Moscow, I knew what needed to be done.
*Scene break
The Moscow rail offices were draped in chaos — papers piled like barricades, telegraph lines dead, clerks asleep on benches.I gathered them all in the central hall and spoke bluntly.
"Comrades, the new order has no use for ghosts of the old order. You want food? Coal? Shelter? Then you will work. You will report to the Commissariat. You will run these stations as soldiers run a front line."
Some stared in question and anxious, while others in silent relief. They understood that at least someone was giving direction. By nightfall, the telegraph lines buzzed again.
I returned to my quarters and drafted a new directive:
Order No. 47 — On the Coordination of Transport and Industry
All outer rail, coal, and industrial authorities are hereby subordinated to the Commissariat for Internal Administration and Economic Reconstruction until further notice.
Regional Soviets will comply. Non-compliance constitutes sabotage.
The next morning, Trotsky telegraphed his fury from Petrograd.
"You are assuming powers that belong to the whole Council not yours!"
I wrote back only four words:
"And yet it's working"
I could only imagine the look on his face.
———- ————- ————
Lenin summoned me back to Smolny by the end of the month. When I entered, he was already speaking quietly with Sverdlov.
He looked up, smiling faintly.
"Comrade Stalin, it seems your hand has brought stability to half the republic. The trains run without delay, the furnaces blaze through the night, and even the Mensheviks dare not whisper. Perhaps, one day, the historians will see fit to thank you."
"Hopefully they do comrade Lenin" I jested back.
He chuckled — that dry, rasping sound of a man both tired and pleased.
"Then make it a story that will live on forever."
——— ———— ———— ———
"The first months after the Bolsheviks seized Petrograd were quieter than the storming of the Winter Palace — but far more dangerous.
Hunger, cold, and chaos threatened to undo what the revolution had achieved.Amid this turmoil, one man — Joseph Dzhugashvili, better known as Stalin — began to carve out a new role for himself: not as a speaker, but as an organizer."
——— ———- ————
[Cut to: Historian 1 – Dr. Elena Volkova, Leningrad State University]
"In early 1918, Lenin's government was still improvising. Trotsky had the army, Lenin had the ideology — but no one was keeping the trains running or the factories supplied.
Stalin, as Commissar for Internal Administration and Reconstruction, stepped into that void almost unnoticed."
——— ———- ———- ————
[Historian 2 – Prof. Andrew Michaels, Cambridge University]
"It's here we see the first signs of what Stalin would later perfect — control through bureaucracy. He wasn't just building an ideology; he was building a system of obedience tied to practical necessity.
It was subtle, almost invisible at first, but incredibly effective."
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[Narrator (over footage of railway workers shoveling coal)]
"The Commissariat's orders spread through the telegraph lines….. ration priorities, production quotas, arrest directives.
Stalin called it The Network: a chain of loyalty bound not by belief, but by efficiency."
———- ——— ———
[Historian 3 – Dr. Tatiana Orlova, Russian Academy of Sciences]
"He called it administration. Others called it encroachment.Trotsky in particular saw Stalin's growing influence as dangerous. The argument between them wasn't just personal — it was about who truly commanded the revolution: those who spoke, or those who made it function."
——— ———-
Be apart of the revolution
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Join the Revolution