The young man stepped off at the station.
He had spent three full days rattling across the rails from the countryside; his ankles were swollen with tension and his eyelids felt a layer heavier.
Yet, he did not close his eyes.
Perhaps it was because his heart was thumping against his ribs.
A surge of humanity flooded onto the platform.
The air was a thick slurry of coal smoke and grease, mingled with the dust settled by the train's massive wheels and the rhythmic creak of weathered wooden planks.
They said this train was a product of the Central Research Bureau's latest breakthroughs—safer because it functioned without Originium—but the stench seemed even more pungent than the old models.
Regardless, he felt it instantly: he had entered a completely different world.
The square was choked with a massive throng.
Clerks draped in heavy coats, mothers clutching ration cards, discharged soldiers still wearing their tattered uniforms, and youths from impoverished villages like himself were all pouring into the city's gullet.
They dispersed and merged, each driven by their own frantic pace.
Upon the station wall hung a colossal poster.
[WE WILL OVERTAKE OUR ENEMIES AT SOVIET SPEED!]
The crimson letters glistened, rendered in the currently fashionable style of Socialist Realism. It depicted a sturdy worker clutching a sledgehammer against a backdrop of massive interlocking cogs.
The youth stared at the poster for a moment before turning his gaze away.
The slogan seemed to have little to do with his immediate, gnawing hunger.
At the newsstands, the cries of vendors cut through the industrial din.
"Get your People's Daily! Total Union production exceeds 200% this month! Full statement from the Central Committee included!"
The front page was crowded with portraits of high-ranking officials, and every article led with rows of daunting figures.
The young man reached for a paper, then set it back down.
He lacked the necessary kopek coins.
He didn't want to go through the bureaucratic hassle of exchanging his meager rubles into kopeks just to read the news.
In the square before the station, another banner draped from the eaves.
[FOR THE SOCIALIST MOTHERLAND! YOUTH, BECOME THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS OF THE REVOLUTION!]
For a fleeting second, he looked up as if his own name had been called.
But not a single passerby spared a glance for the banner.
They were too preoccupied with the documents in their hands, the queues they had to join, and the precious jobs they were struggling to maintain.
The youth adjusted his small leather bag and merged into the crowd.
The sounds of the city were heavy, sharp, and relentless.
The trolley wires shrieked as they tore through the wind, and the scent of baking bread wafted from a distant bakery.
Beside one building, a distribution center had a line that stretched into the distance.
Ration coupons were gripped tightly in every hand.
A faded notice, printed on cheap yellowing paper, was pasted to the wall of the center.
[SHOE VOUCHERS INCLUDED IN THIS WEEK'S DISTRIBUTION. BEWARE OF COUNTERFEIT RATION CARDS!]
The youth looked down at his own feet.
The old boots he had worn from the village were cracked and split.
It looked as though his toes might burst through at any moment.
The thought crossed his mind that if he stood in that line, he might secure a new pair.
However, today he had to find work first.
As he approached the shipyards, the atmosphere shifted.
Colossal steel skeletal structures pierced the heavens, and hundreds of workers clung to them like insects.
Steam and sparks erupted in bursts, accompanied by the unending cadence of hammering.
A massive platform, perhaps the foundation for a new nomadic city, sat nestled between the steel beams like a beached whale.
A foreman bellowed over the noise.
"Applications over there! Technicians, welders, carpenters—we take them all! If you're from the country, you start as an auxiliary laborer!"
The young man's eyes widened.
It seemed he had found his first potential foothold in this city.
Yet, a long queue already snaked in front of the registration booth.
Everyone there shared the same face: a mask of hunger, hope, exhaustion, and fear.
With three shifts running, there seemed to be no shortage of work, but the line was long, and he was forced to wait.
While standing there, the youth stared at yet another poster on the wall.
[MAY EVERYONE BE HAPPY. — Produced by the All-Union People's Commissariat for Welfare]
The poster depicted students engrossed in books, a girl playing a violin, and children kicking a ball in a gymnasium.
But the shoulders of the men in the queue were hunched, and dark circles were etched deeply beneath their eyes.
An old man nearby muttered under his breath.
"Eight hours? Hah. If you don't live on the nomadic city, it takes five hours just to commute back and forth."
The youth remained silent.
His mind, however, grew more convoluted.
The people barely spent a second glancing at the propaganda posters churned out by various Commissariats.
They turned their heads away immediately, focusing instead on the paperwork in front of them, the overseer's shouts, and the handful of rubles they might earn by the day's end.
The young man surrendered himself to that flow.
The city sky was already beginning to bleed into the hues of dusk.
From a loudspeaker hanging outside a radio shop, the news began to blare once more.
"Today, the Supreme Soviet, entering its sixth session, announced industrial production metrics. Over the past two years, coal extraction has reached 180%, steel production 210%, and power generation 195%. These historic achievements…"
The radio voice overflowed with statistics.
But in the young man's mind, there was room only for tomorrow's labor and his next meal.
Passing through streets plastered with posters, notices, and flyers, he whispered to himself.
'In this city... how long can I survive?'
Then, night descended.
*********************************
At long last, excellent news arrived at my office.
The fruits of the Second Five-Year Plan were approaching us like a sweet dream.
"Now this—this is economy!"
An average annual growth rate of 12%!
The extraction of steel, Originium, coal, oil, and various other ores has doubled compared to the pre-plan levels!
Power production increased by 50%, and four new nomadic cities were constructed!
We have achieved extraordinary results over the past three years.
Boosting agricultural and light industrial output during the First Five-Year Plan became the very bedrock for our current heavy industrial surge!
Even if we had to slash the defense budget... quite significantly, to pay for it...
Even if we had to eliminate or reduce rations for anything that wasn't a bare necessity...
Regardless, the results were dazzling.
The numbers proved everything.
Growth is growth, and growth is good!
I rose from my chair, buttoned my coat, and headed toward the banquet hall.
The hall was already boisterous.
High-ranking officials, People's Commissars, and deputies huddled in groups, tilting their glasses.
The clink of glasses was light and merry, punctuated by the traditional dances of those particularly talented in such arts.
As trumpets and accordions took turns blaring, people laughed and spun in a circle dance.
Everyone was jubilant.
Because we... we were the victors.
We were the heroes of the Revolution!
I looked upon these proud individuals and raised my wine glass (it wasn't a fine vintage, of course, just a simple table wine).
"Comrades!"
As my voice rang out, the music cut off and the cheers died down instantly.
Anticipation shone in every pair of eyes.
"Over the last eight years, in the name of the Revolution and by the hands of the people, we have wrought this miracle. The First Five-Year Plan established the foundations of agriculture and light industry. Tractors rolled across once-barren fields, and utility poles were erected in every village. Children began to read by electric light. That was our starting point."
I paused.
Smiles spread across their faces.
I let my voice boom louder.
"And now, with the Second Five-Year Plan, we have inaugurated the era of heavy industry! Steel production has doubled! Originium extraction has doubled! Coal and oil have likewise surged past the double mark! Power generation has increased by 50%, and our newly built power stations have turned night into day. Four new nomadic cities have been launched over the past three years, their tracks carving a path forward!"
"Ura!" a roar of cheers erupted.
Some swung their caps in the air; others hammered on the tables in approval.
I looked down at my glass.
The red wine shimmered under the chandeliers.
"Comrades, we do not view this merely as a set of statistics. Look at the imperialist nations to our west. Iberia, despite its superior wealth, considers 5% annual growth a grand feat. The reactionaries in Southern Victoria have squandered the glory of the Industrial Revolution, clinging to life with a mere 2 or 3%. Gaul is gasping under military expenditures, unable to meet civilian demand. But what about us? An average annual growth of 12%! Is that not a velocity two, three, four times their own?"
The room buzzed at my words.
Pride filled the air like a physical presence.
Indeed!
What took them a century to achieve, I have overtaken in eight years.
Just as the Soviets did! Just as Stalin did!
Without betraying the revolution like certain others, and without grinding the people into the dust as Stalin might have, we have prevailed!
If we maintain this trajectory for the next ten years, we will win the war of systems!
"Of course, there have been sacrifices."
Such growth naturally demands a price.
It was a manageable cost, so there was no need to hide it.
I lowered my voice intentionally.
"We reduced the defense budget, and many items vanished from ration lists. Socks, soap, sugar... there are things the people must now pay for in shops with coin. Salt has been constantly scarce, as our production struggled to meet demand when mining personnel were redirected to iron mines. But those sacrifices were not in vain. Because they served as the foundation for a greater, sturdier future!"
Applause erupted once more. A deputy, face flushed with alcohol, shouted, "Hear, hear!"
I thrust my hand into the air.
"Comrades, within a generation, we shall overtake those empires. Our children will read more books than the children of the Iberian bourgeoisie. Our youth will master more machines than the aristocratic youth of the Southern Victorian reactionaries. Our workers will forge steel with more passion than the workers of Gaul!"
The cheers exploded.
Some stood on their chairs, waving their hats.
One shouted "Long live the Revolution!" in Iberian.
I raised my glass as high as it would go and shouted one last time.
"Comrades! We do not stop. We do not falter. We—"
I forced my voice to vibrate through the very walls of the hall.
"We will overtake our enemies at Soviet speed!"
The sound of countless glasses clinking at once shook the ceiling.
The singing resumed, and the cheers spread like a tidal wave.
Surely... nothing could go wrong?
***************************************
"We're fucked! We are absolutely fucked!"
"C-Comrade Commissar James, there's still a chance for recovery if we—"
"Don't you see this chart? We are in a severe deficit. A catastrophic deficit!"
Robert, a young official at the People's Commissariat of Finance, knit his brows.
Mostly because the 'Comrade' Commissar before him was acting in a way that warranted such a reaction.
He was the one who had mismanaged the finances into this state, and now he was throwing a tantrum?
Robert felt a surge of irritation; he and his team had offered alternatives months ago, only for this Commissar to brush them aside and bulldoze ahead with his own ideas.
But as a dutiful civil servant, he managed to suppress his emotions.
"Is there not... some possibility of recovery?"
"Recovery? Recooooverryy?"
Oh, here we go again.
He had no choice but to listen to his superior's whining.
Despite his incompetence, the man before him was a four-term deputy from an impregnable district and one of the party's heavy hitters.
This idiot was managing to bankrupt the Union's treasury in a mere two years.
'Like I'm ever voting for the Social Revolutionary Workers' League again,' Robert thought privately.
He only had room for such idle thoughts because his superior was busy launching a bombardment of nagging—or more accurately, nonsense.
The Commissar stopped talking, and Robert snapped back to attention.
"Anyway, getting to the point... we need to fabricate the documents."
What did this bastard just say?
Robert's mind went blank for a split second.
If they were caught, a letter of apology would be the least of their worries; this was a felony that would land them in a high-security prison.
But he couldn't object.
Mainly because he was the one who had drafted the initial policy proposal five years ago, during his naive university days.
In truth, Robert felt wronged.
Who in their right mind builds national fiscal policy based on a thesis written by a mere graduate student, using economic data from three years before they even took office?
...Well, that man was standing right in front of him.
"So... handle the concealment properly. You understand?"
"I... understand."
Ultimately, he had no choice but to nod.
But... at the same time, he felt a strange sense of confidence.
A confidence that he wouldn't let things deteriorate further than this.
As long as the current economic growth rate held, the fiscal deficit wouldn't become a fatal issue.
Surely... what could possibly happen?
He stabilized his racing heart with that thought.
And so, the Union's financial state was fabricated.
Accompanied by a treasury that continued to spiral into the abyss.
Accompanied by ruble notes churning out of the Central Bank like endless streams of paper.
...Accompanied by an approaching war.
********************************
Organization Chart of the Union (If it's not clear, view on PC for higher resolution.)