To say that the Red Army had doubled in size since the death of Leon Trotsky and the 80,000 men beneath his command at Saint Petersburg was an understatement. The new year had begun, and with it the winter was slowly starting to die out.
Ample preparations had been made after the citizens of Tsaritsyn had revolted, seizing control of the means of production and using them to enhance their military capabilities.
They knew it was only a matter of time until the Tsar’s forces launched a full scale offensive against them. And currently, Tsaritsyn was defended by 100,000 members of the Red Army. Which though they did not know it yet, would be 4x larger than the forces sent to take the city back from them.
Trotsky’s death was not the serious blow to the Bolshevik movement that Bruno thought it would be. At the end of the day, such an insidious and destructive ideology was harder to stamp out than a colony of roaches.
His death had earned him the fabled status of martyrdom. Not in some brave and heroic display of one’s faith in God. But rather in the most absurd and wicked kind. His cowardly death after sending 80,000 men to meet the devil to whom they owed their souls was not how the Bolshevik leaders depicted Trotsky.
It wasn’t exactly a noble and chivalric image to inspire the masses, after all. No, the Bolsheviks did what they did best: Lie, subvert, and manipulate. They painted Trotsky as a heroic defender of the masses. One fighting against a tyrannical monarch, a despotic aristocracy, and of course the savage presence of foreign mercenaries.
Never mind the fact that it was Trotsky who had besieged the peaceful city of Saint Petersburg and in doing so, shelled the city and the innocent civilians within it without any regard to civilian casualties.
Nor did they reveal the truth that the Tsarist Officers stood in the Trenches defending the city from the Red Army’s multiple attacks, whereas the Bolshevik Officers hid in the relative safety of their fortifications while sending the men beneath their command to their deaths.
No, such truths would not exactly inspire any man to pick up a rifle and fight for the spineless Bolshevik leaders who were the true despots and tyrants. Of course, when Bruno returned to Saint Petersburg and learned of such slanderous recruitment tactics. He devised a sinister propaganda campaign of his own.
The heritage of the Bolshevik leadership was quickly uncovered, as were their more atheistic tendencies and their affluent backgrounds. It was not exactly a secret, or at least not in Bruno’s past life that the overwhelming majority of Marxist revolutionary leaders throughout Europe were not what they preached to be.
Whether in Russia, or Germany. The leaders of the Marxist uprisings tended to have three things in common. They were primarily, if not exclusively, of Jewish heritage. They were atheistic to the point of being outright anti-religious, especially anti-christian, and they came from prominent backgrounds.
Considering this was an era where Christianity, nationalism and antisemitism were the norm in nearly all European societies. It was no wonder that the Tsar used this information to paint the loyalist Army as defenders of God and Motherland.
While simultaneously depicting their Bolshevik rivals as a bunch of atheistic Jews, not of the working class like they claimed to represent but rather from prominent and affluent families. Families who had gained their wealthy through the biblical sin of usury.
It was sort of a game of “No you!” where the Tsar blamed the miserable living conditions of the Russian working class on the Marxist leaders whose families had bled the people dry with the sinful practice of usury rather than their own excessive taxation, embezzlement, and well just general incompetency.
And this counter propaganda quickly revealed its results as recruitment for the Russian Army reached new heights. Especially after the victory at Saint Petersburg was depicted as a gift to the Russian people by God. Not only that, but the failed assassination attempt on Bruno’s life, for propaganda purposes was made out to be an attack by the Red Army.
Though Germany knew the truth that it was the French who had done so, and was preparing in the background for a proper retaliation. They did not inform this matter to the Russians, as Bruno suggested it would be better to paint his survival as a miracle bestowed by God, so that he could lead the Russian to people over the devil spawn known as the Red Army.
There was no mention that Bruno’s flask had saved his life. Rather, in all forms of Russian propaganda, it was God’s will and his light that saved Bruno. Turning the ultra-orthodox portion of the population into men willing to follow this foreign general chosen by God to protect the Russian people from their enemies.
Propaganda was a powerful tool. And it was unfortunate for the Bolshevik leadership that Bruno knew everything about their lives, which he could use to paint them as the enemy of all humanity.
Even if some of the things he used were distorted, or blatant slander. All their attempts to hide these things only further added to whatever the Tsarist propaganda said about them. It was perhaps because of this that the leaders of the Revolution were meeting underground in Moscow to discuss what was happening.
Though it was now common belief that they had ordered the hit on Bruno, these men knew this wasn’t the case. Even so, Vladimir Lenin was quick to ask his comrades if this was truly the case.
“I’m only going to ask this once, so if any of you are hiding something from me, now would be the time to reveal it. Though Bruno von Zehntner shot our comrade in the streets like a feral dog, any attempt to assassinate him would be incredibly unwise.
So, if any of you had anything to do with the attempt on the man’s life, now would be the time to confess. Because the Tsar is using this to rally the support of the Christian population towards his cause.
Sure, our recruitment has gone up, but the most recent series of anti-Bolshevik propaganda has caused uncertainty in the ranks of our followers, and has even caused several members of the Red Army to desert.”
Obviously, nobody in the room knew who had ordered the hit on Bruno. Nor were they willing to take responsibility for something they had no control over. It was perhaps because of this that Litvinov was quick to voice his opposition to Lenin’s sudden temper tantrum.
“With all due respect comrade…. None of us here knows who is responsible for this sudden assassination or why. It could very well have been an attack proposed by members of the Tsar’s own inner circle who still hold a grudge against them an for what he did in China and Manchuria. It’s not like his victory in Saint Petersburg has washed away the hatred that many in the Russian Military have for him.
And if anything, this new propaganda depicting the man as God’s chosen leader for the Russian army has further exacerbated this sentiment among those who still hate the man. It would not be all that surprising if another such attempt happened.”
While this was true to some extent. Many of those who held a grudge against Bruno for his previous actions against the Russian Empire were restraining themselves. Either by order of the Tsar himself, or simply because after Saint Petersburg they realized how significant the support of the Iron Brigade, and by extension the Kaiser who was backing them really was.
Because of this, there would be no move by the Tsar or his loyalists against Bruno any time soon. Nor would the Bolsheviks be aware of this, or the fact that the men responsible for the attempt on Bruno’s life were actually the French.
Hence why Litvinov tried to focus the attention of the Bolshevik leaders, especially Lenin away from what had already happened, and instead on how they could fix their current problems.
“Anyway, the point is we should not focus on who is responsible for this attack and the effects it has had on our movement, but rather on how to remedy this situation. What we need to do is convince the people that we are not Anti-Christian, Anti-Russian, or somehow responsible for the woes of the common man!”
Utter silence prevailed for some time after Litvinov said this. Not because the Bolshevik leaders were brainstorming, but rather because they were all thinking of the same thing. Which one of them had the nerve to say aloud.
“But aren’t all those things true?”
The moment the man said this all of his comrades glared daggers at him, causing him to backtrack to some extent.
“I mean, you know to some extent… Obviously the Tsar is using this as an opportunity to slander us!”
Sometimes it was better not to say what everyone was thinking aloud. And this was most certainly one of those cases. As for the man who had given voice to these suppressed sentiments, he would come to regret it very much.
And he would be chosen to repent for doing so by leading the defense of Tsaritsyn against the Tsarist Forces and the accompanying Iron Brigade.
