"Sweep them all away! Seize the City Hall and kill every last policeman!"
"Storm the palace! Hang the Count by his neck!"
"So, what do we do now?"
As the military defected and joined the ranks of the protesters, the people's fear for their lives began to ebb. It is a fundamental truth of the human animal: when their lives and interests are no longer under immediate threat, they reveal their true, unvarnished thoughts. Radical rhetoric began to pour from the mouths of the citizens like an unchecked torrent.
Talk of murdering the Count, seizing City Hall, and executing the butchers of January—along with their families under the law of collective guilt—rippled through the masses.
In that square, where countless workers, soldiers, and citizens gathered under a sea of fluttering red union banners and Party flags, a single podium stood ready.
Originally, it was the platform used by the Count to preside over military parades, a stage from which he would flaunt his authority before his subjects. Now, with the assistance of workers and soldiers, a man climbed that very platform. His face was a familiar sight to the people of Birmingham.
Whether from the propaganda posters of the Communist Party or the anti-communist flyers distributed by the Count and the Kingdom, his visage had been burned into the public consciousness.
It was Park Si-hun. It was me.
I gripped the megaphone and spoke.
"Greetings, citizens. I am Vladimir Park—an author currently holding the minor administrative post of General Secretary within the Communist Party."
Though my birth name is Si-hun, my pseudonym carries more weight here. I had to address them as Vladimir.
Standing before such a staggering number of people, my heart hammered against my ribs and my legs threatened to give way. Three hundred thousand people. To visualize such a crowd, one would need a thousand schools, each with three hundred students. Considering the regular army of 21st-century South Korea stood at 470,000, I was essentially delivering a manifesto to two-thirds of an entire national military force.
Naturally, my voice wouldn't reach those at the very back, but it didn't matter. Those in the front would hear and pass the word along.
I took a moment to compose myself, waiting for the cacophony of the crowd to subside. Before me lay a sea of people, their faces flushed with the heat of excitement. Their eyes were a volatile mix of righteous fury and desperate longing.
Someone—I—had to channel this raw thermal energy into a singular, precise direction: the fires of revolution.
I opened my mouth.
"Comrades!"
My voice amplified through the megaphone, echoing across the vast stone expanse. The crowd murmured briefly before falling into a heavy, expectant silence. They were waiting for the words that would define their future.
"Where do we stand today?"
I lifted my gaze, scanning the horizon of faces.
"We have gathered here in the square of Birmingham. But why? For what purpose have we assembled?"
I fell silent for a beat, looking at them as if searching for the answer within their souls. From the depths of the crowd, voices cried out: "Because of the war!" "Because we have nothing to eat!" "Because the nobility are bastards!" "Because we cannot ignore the sacrifices of January!"
It was the answer I wanted. I felt a surge of grim satisfaction, but maintained a solemn, resolute expression.
"Exactly! We are gathered in this square because of a war that has snatched our children from our arms! Because of the aristocrats who have plundered our harvests! And because of the violence and oppression that has left us starving, leaving our wives and children to drown in tears!"
Cries of "He's right!" and "That's the truth!" surged through the masses.
I raised my voice even higher.
"We are at a crossroads. Will you kneel once more before your executioners and crawl back to your hovels? Or will you seize the reins of fate with your own hands?"
I drew a sharp breath. My voice trembled with intensity through the speaker.
"Some of you believe that killing Archibald will solve everything. But I tell you plainly: that belief is a delusion. If we merely sever the Count's head only to install another 'Count' in his place, what changes? Nothing!"
My throat felt as if it were tearing from the strain of the oration. A soldier standing beside me offered a flask of water. I took a quick draft to soothe my parched throat and continued.
"If this archaic, exploitative apparatus is not dismantled, we will only see a second Archibald, then a third. Moreover, if the next man to claim the title is a more cunning jackal than the current one, the miracle we see today will not repeat. Instead, the number of corpses dangling from the gallows will only grow."
I paused, observing the reaction. Their eyes were those of the convinced. The Party members among them looked at me with something bordering on adoration. It felt strange—being looked at that way by men—but I pushed the awkward thought aside and shattered the silence.
"I state this clearly today: power must be stripped from the nobility, the bourgeoisie, the militarists, and the swindling politicians! Power belongs to the people—to the workers and the peasants, the soldiers and the students, and to every oppressed soul upon this earth!"
A thunderous roar erupted from the crowd.
"All power to the people!"
"All power to the workers!"
I raised my hand, and the roar died down into a sharp, focused silence.
"Comrades! The nobility forced their 'order' upon us. That order was our starvation. Their law was our death warrant. Their state—a state that belonged only to them—was a slaughterhouse that conscripted our children and marched them into the grave!"
I slammed my fist against the wooden podium.
"Now, we must establish a new order! A new law! A new state! We must build a nation that truly represents the people!"
The old order must be razed so the new may rise. This archaic system established by kings and dukes had to collapse. The communist revolution was a historical inevitability, a progression that would serve as the world's only true justice until the arrival of Rhodes Island.
"I demand of you: Seize the City Hall! Seize the police stations! Seize the barracks! Seize the factories! we must confiscate the wealth of the nobility and distribute it to the hungry! We must shatter the power of the aristocrats and establish our own! Soviet power!"
What is Soviet power? The essence of this new authority—which the majority of nations either cannot or will not understand—is that the management of the state, once the exclusive domain of the rich and the capitalists, is now, for the first time, being handled by the classes that were previously oppressed and persecuted.
That was Lenin's famous definition. It applied perfectly to this revolution. Even now, perhaps sixty to seventy percent of our Party members viewed communism merely as a 'good idea.' But we would deviate from the path of Lenin's Soviet Union.
What kind of revolution initiates a Soviet only to dissolve it upon losing an election? We would never commit such an indignity, even if it cost me my life. Proletarian democracy must be preserved to prevent the Party from succumbing to corruption and reactionary stagnation.
"The three hundred thousand gathered in this square are our first Soviet people! The representatives elected here are the seeds of our authority! Establish autonomous Soviets in every factory, every school, every barracks, and every village! This city, this nation, now belongs to the people!"
I spread my arms wide and shouted.
"Long live!"
"Long live the Soviet!"
"Long live the Revolution!"
The square vibrated with the collective scream of the masses. In that moment of transcendence, I lowered my hands and exhaled, my chest tight with emotion. My throat burned despite the water, but I could not stop.
"Comrades!" I cried one last time. "The path ahead is not an easy one. But we have nowhere left to retreat. We refuse to be the hounds of the nobility any longer. We desire to be free men! We desire to be equal brothers and sisters!"
I delivered the final decree.
"Therefore—all power to the Soviets! Proletarians of all countries, unite!"
The square shook. Red flags danced in the freezing wind like flames. Workers, soldiers, students, the elderly, and children all cried out until their lungs neighed.
"Long live liberty!"
"Long live the global Proletariat!"
"Long live the Soviet!"
Listening to the roar from atop the platform, I quietly closed my eyes. I whispered to myself: Never. I will never let this fail.
***
"Burn it all! It's a relic of the past!"
"Why? Why are you doing this?! This is my factory!"
"From this day forth, this steel mill belongs to the Birmingham 3rd Steelworks Soviet! How is it yours?!"
The workers and soldiers who occupied City Hall began burning every ledger, every deed, and every document of land ownership. They were erasing the paper chains of the old world.
"There's the Count! Catch him!"
"H-Eeeek! How did you see through my disguise?! Please! Take the jewels, take the gold, just spare my life!"
"Do not kill the cur here! Drag him to the People's Tribunal!"
The Birmingham Supreme Soviet, established in a heartbeat, formed the Central Revolutionary Committee through an emergency summary vote. The Committee immediately began issuing directives to local Soviets.
Count Archibald had attempted a desperate escape from his palace disguised as a woman, but he was betrayed by a servant who had been a secret member of the Communist Party. He was promptly apprehended by the revolutionary forces and thrown into a cell.
All political prisoners previously held in the dungeons had been liberated. Now, the cells were filled only with the Count, his fellow nobles, high-ranking police and administrative officials, and those complicit in the massacres. Given that the citizens of Birmingham had personally witnessed the slaughter in January, it was a foregone conclusion that their sentences would range from execution to decades of hard labor.
The only mercy afforded them was the abolition of collective punishment—viewed as a foul vestige of the feudal system. Their families, for the most part, remained unharmed.
This entire transformation occurred in a mere forty-eight hours. Everything was settled before the central government of the Victorian Empire could even grasp the gravity of the situation.
And to truly solidify our communist ideals, we needed to sever the imperial tether completely. Thus, on April 20th, we issued a proclamation: the Declaration of Independence against Victoria.
In the name of the Birmingham Supreme Soviet, we appeal to the people of the world.
Soldiers of Victoria, lay down your arms!
Workers of Victoria, go on strike!
All oppressed people, rise up!
Stand with us!
We declare that from this day forward, Birmingham is free.
Birmingham belongs neither to the Royal Family, nor the nobility, nor the bourgeoisie. It belongs to the people.
As of today, Birmingham is a Soviet city and a Soviet state.
And so too shall Victoria and the rest of the world become.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
All power to the Soviets!