"Damn you Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn! Who does he think he is?"
After the last bombing, Solzhenitsyn went quiet all of a sudden. Andrei figured he finally got scared, or maybe the British government told him to shut up. Either way, good riddance, or so he thought.
Then out of nowhere, Solzhenitsyn published House of Mirrors.
Andrei almost lost it.
The book didn't just criticize him. It accurately laid out all the secret, shady backdoor deals that brought Andrei to power. Worse, it included a shameless (infuriatingly true) account of Andrei's personal life, especially his years as an incel. Solzhenitsyn didn't even pretend to be subtle.
That alone would've been bad enough.
But he went further. He dug up Andrei's high school photos. Found his old classmates. Got them to testify. Piece by piece, he exposed everything including that dark, disgusting truth that his mother had been a prostitute.
Andrei was beyond furious. This wasn't just politics or propaganda.
This was personal.
Andrei suspected this is CIA hitjob, but Pugo assured him it's unlikely. After all they are both ruling class, there's honor among thieves.
Which was confirmed when CIA director himself came to testify.
Which meant only one thing.
Solzhenitsyn did this on his own.
How dare he?
Publicly, Andrei denounced the book as slander and unleashed his loyal bootlickers to tear Solzhenitsyn apart in the media. He knew it was useless.
What made it worse was that Andrei just defended those godawful movies. One of them depicted President Reagan as gay, which sent parts of the Republican Party into a meltdown and got the film banned in several places.
When reporters asked Andrei about it, he just shrugged.
"Freedom of speech, If it applies to them, it applies to us."
That answer came back to haunt him fast. Hollywood studios were already developing dramatizations of Andrei's school years.
If he censored Solzhenitsyn now, not even his mother could defend him.
Andrei knew it. And that made him even angrier.
He could feel it in the room. Too many staff members had that weird smile on their faces. Especially the women. They didn't look impressed anymore , just pitying.
Like they'd just discovered that the omnipotent, domineering god standing above them had once been a bullied kid hiding in the back of a classroom.
Andrei briefly considered nuclear option. The KGB hurriedly offered Assassination instead.
"No," Andrei snapped. "That would be too easy. Too merciful. I want him to suffer!"
He sounded like a Disney villain, but he didn't care.
Death had a nasty habit of turning people into saints, and Solzhenitsyn already had enough halos floating around his head. Killing him would only make him shine brighter.
No. He wasn't going to let him off that lightly.
Then Andrei stumbled across a government newsletter.
The Harmful Effects of Vodka.
He recognized it immediately. Ryzhkov.
A cover-up for the price increase. They had dragged in academicians, doctors, "experts," all producing thick reports filled with charts and numbers proving that excessive alcohol was bad for the human body.
What a revelation.
Of course, it caused an uproar. Vodka lovers were furious. Petitions flew around demanding Ryzhkov's dismissal.
But Ryzhkov didn't actually care if people drank less. He didn't care if they drank themselves to death, as long as they didn't cause him trouble. All he wanted was to raise prices and squeeze more profit out of it.
And that was when an idea began to form.
"Hehe… slaves of the West," Andrei muttered to himself, lips curling upward. "It's me. Andrei. The Satan of your dreams."
This was perfect. Not just to deal with vodka. But to deal with authority.
Which authority?
Solzhenitsyn, for starters. The great writer of the Soviet empire. Nobel laureate. Professional dissident. Even under strict propaganda controls, The Gulag Archipelago was still circulating quietly among intellectuals like a sacred text. What does drinking have to do with undermining authority?
Everything.
You just forge quotes.
If Andrei says it's yours, then it's yours.
People aren't apathetic they're just uninterested in things that don't affect their daily lives. The moment someone touches what they eat, drink, or enjoy, public opinion turns vicious. Anyone trying to "educate" the masses about their pleasures usually gets torn apart. And this time, it'll be working beautifully.
Imagine a famous writer saying your county's food are backward and disgusting, while Western habits represent progress. That kind of statement have this ability to incite hatred is off the charts; it will unite people from all sides against him.
Andrei knew how this worked. With that much influence, Solzhenitsyn could claim that excrement was edible and a crowd would still rush forward, chewing enthusiastically and praising the taste.
Those people always existed. And they were going to be useful.
With the help of these brainless allies, Solzhenitsyn would end up carrying the blame for the vodka price hikes, becoming an enemy of the people overnight. His words would eventually collapse under their own stupidity, and the masses would realize just how ridiculous he sounded.
And Solzhenitsyn wasn't the only target.
Zinoviev. Others like him. Writers with "conscience" and so called moral authorities.
Andrei planned to tear their halos off one by one.
...............
The very next day, major outlets rolled out full-length features dissecting Solzhenitsyn's latest book.
According to them, buried deep inside were several "memorable remarks" about vodka.
"The Soviet nation is the most despicable nation in the world, as can be clearly seen from its drinking habits."
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"A nation that loves to drink is a hopeless nation."
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Of course, Solzhenitsyn's real writing was rarely this crude.
But Andrei only had people like cheep comrade Belkov.
The articles went on to confidently explain that vodka was not merely alcohol, but a conspiracy a deliberate weapon used by the evil empire's high command to numb the population, crush their desire for freedom, and sabotage their pursuit of democracy. According to "Solzhenitsyn," vodka was what made the nation degenerate.
TV and newspapers lied openly, shamelessly. They even cited foreign newspapers that didn't exist.
By then, it didn't matter. Solzhenitsyn's "famous quotes" had already spread everywhere, turning him into one of the most hated figures inside the evil empire almost overnight.
Vodka lovers were furious. Solzhenitsyn's supporters rushed out to defend him. Arguments erupted everywhere kitchens, factories, university dormitories. Friends fought. Families split over dinner tables.
Andrei didn't need to lift a finger.
Taking full advantage of the chaos, he quietly washed his hands of the vodka price hike.
As far as the public was concerned, this wasn't about policy anymore. It had turned into something much more, a cultural war between Solzhenitsyn's followers and ordinary people who just wanted to drink in peace.
Nothing unites people like a shared enemy.
The operation was such a success that Andrei was in unusually high spirits during his yearly address to the nation.
Declaring himself the godfather of liberalism, he announced the end of political exiles and then casually dared the West to do the same.
Anyone who tried to compete with Andrei for the loyalty of the masses was destined to suffer defeat.
Because in the evil empire, there could only be one authority, one myth.
And that would be Andrei Ivan Kornilov, your handsome dictator....
_______________________________________
"No, I didn't say that."
"Then why don't you drink vodka?"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wanted to slap the man.
The BBC reporter wasn't even being hostile. That was the worst part. He was just... moving through his checklist. "I mean, that's true, isn't it? You don't." The studio lights made everything look cheap. Made Solzhenitsyn look old.
He was old. He was seventy-two. He had survived the camps, the cancer, the exile. He had written words that brought the Soviet empire to its knees, or so he'd believed. And now he was standing trial for vodka.
Recently, his days had been going from bad to worse. In the past, his audience had been sympathetic liberals, intellectuals, people who already agreed with him and showered him with praise. They quoted him, defended him, elevated him.
Now, for the first time, he was facing the public.
What he didn't realize was that he wasn't just facing "public opinion." He was up against the two-ruble army personally funded by Soviet Dictator.
"If you didn't say those things," the reporter continued casually, "then it should be simple. Have a drink. Right here. Clear it up."
Solzhenitsyn stared at him.
He understood the trap immediately. The moment he touched that glass, it would be spun as an admission.
"It is not my responsibility to perform to disprove lies," Solzhenitsyn snapped,"Those quotes are fabricated. Manufactured. This is the work of Andrei and his cronies. He cannot win with truth, so he floods the world with filth."
The reporter nodded vaguely, but there was no real interest in his eyes.
He thought about the letters that had been arriving at his flat. Workers. Ordinary people.
You think you're better than us?
My father fought at Stalingrad. He drank. You think he was despicable?
You live in London. What do you even know about us?
He had tried to answer. He had written careful responses, explaining that he never said those things, that the quotes were invented by Kornilov's propagandists, that the real enemy was—
The reporter tapped his pen lightly against the table, already moving on.
"And what about the recent declaration?" he asked. "The Soviet leadership claims political exiles are free to return. That includes you."
"A hoax," Solzhenitsyn let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Nothing more than theater. A performance designed to impress outsiders. They want people like me to walk back into their hands."
He could feel it slipping. The narrative had already moved on without him. His words no longer landed the way they used to. He had given up everything for this his country, his home, his life and now he was being reduced to a punchline about vodka.
Across from him, the reporter's eyes glazed over..
Solzhenitsyn knew its about to end , just another dissident he was probably thinking. The reporter clearly cared more about the next headline than ideological defense of capitalism.
"No," he said. "I will go."
The reporter blinked. Finally, some life in his face.
"I thought you said it was a trap."
"It is." Solzhenitsyn could feel the words forming before he fully decided them. "Which is why I will go back and prove it. I will stand there myself. And I will show the world the truth of the tyrant tsar. Even if it is the last act of my life."
The reporter's pen flew across the notebook. The next headline was already writing itself.