Meir Henoch Wallach-Finkelstein, better known by the Russian name of Maxim Litvinov, was one of the major leaders of the Bolshevik Party and later the primary manager of Soviet diplomatic efforts in the interwar period, was a figure that Bruno deeply despised.
After all, it was his diplomatic efforts that would ultimately cause the iron curtain to befall over all of Eastern Europe. The Litvinov pact helped secure the doom of nations such as Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, and Finland, all of which would either become subordinate to the Soviets via the dreaded Warsaw Pact or outright invaded militarily by the Soviet Union in the coming decades.
Peace was a lie. It was nothing more than an effect of smoke and mirrors. And often times peace was merely a way to buy time for more insidious endeavors. Something that Litvinov had promised these eastern European countries only to undermine their sovereignty or outright break his promises to them.
Throughout all of human history, there were only 268 of them that could be claimed to have been peaceful. But this number was mostly a fabrication, as it did not count for the tribal conflicts taking place in areas of the world that had failed to civilize until the arrival of foreign forces who recorded their history going forward.
To be honest, Bruno doubted there was a single decade in human history where the entirety of humanity was free from some form of bloody conflict. It was simply a part of human nature to fight over everything under the sun, political ideology, religion, land, resources, hell there was one war that was quite literally fought over a wooden bucket.
You give a reason for humans to justify killing each other, and they will take it in a heartbeat. Such was the nature of the species. But it was truly insidious from Bruno’s perspective to promise peace, only to shove a knife in the back after the fact.
And it was for this reason Litvinov was one of the men on his list. Luckily for Bruno, Litvinov’s location was given to him by one of the men directly under his command. And the little rat was hiding in Saint Petersburg, no less.
Curious choice, hiding directly beneath the nose of your most hated enemy. But then again, it was not something Bruno had expected. Should the man not have been betrayed by those close to him under the promise of clemency, then perhaps he would have hidden from Bruno’s hunt throughout the duration of the war.
But unfortunately, loyalty was a rare quality in humans, a species whose nature was to prioritize their own wellbeing and prosperity above all others. To earn the unwavering loyalty of the men beneath your command, well, let’s just say Litvinov was not a man capable of such a feat of charisma.
No, he had been sold out to the Iron Division, and it was perhaps because of this that the man’s eyes bulged in shock when he opened his door after hearing a knock upon it to find Bruno staring at him with a wicked smirk on his face.
“Mr. Finkelstein, the Tsar would appreciate your cooperation with our investigation. We have recently received reports of Bolshevik activity in the area, and we are afraid you have been named specifically in about a dozen or so counts of high treason. Will you come peacefully, or do you intend to make me sick the hounds on you?”
The black uniform which Bruno wore, along with the skull and bones insignia pinned to his cap, was truly a menacing sight. Especially when one considered the fact that Bruno was surrounded by an entire platoon’s worth of men from the Iron Division who were pointing their rifles at him.
Litvinov truly did not know how to respond. Not only did Bruno appear to know his real name, but he had come in person to apprehend him… Just what kind of vendetta did he have against Marxists for him to go to such sinister lengths?
Naturally, the members of the Iron Division did not wait for a response. They immediately forced Litvinov to his knees while apprehending him. At the same time, other members of the Iron Division entered the man’s safe house and began tearing it apart. Arresting everyone else within it who was stunned to find themselves suddenly raided by the Tsar’s German hounds. Some resisted and were immediately shot on the spot, while one man was dragged before Bruno. He was a member of the Bolshevik party and a rather high ranking one at that. At least relatively so. Even then, he was not a member of the militant Red Army, and thus had not actually killed anyone directly.
The party member quickly professed himself as the traitor to the communist cause, who had revealed Litvinov’s location to his enemies. And in doing so hoped to secure the protection of the Tsarist forces as an informant. One who was promised mercy for his acts of treason against the Communist leaders.
“Sir! It was me. I was the one who tipped you off! I was told that if I give the authorities any information that may lead to the arrest of any Bolshevik revolutionaries, then I would be granted clemency, yes?”
Bruno looked over at the man, changing his focus from Litvinov, who was staring furiously at the man who had betrayed him. He shouted at the man in a language Bruno did not comprehend. It was not Russian but rather Yiddish, and Bruno did not bother learning such a language during his formative years, as it was irrelevant to his aspirations.
The man who was being yelled at apparently didn’t understand it either as he was an ethnic Russian who had been duped into fighting for the Communist cause by men like Litvinov, Trotsky, Sverdlov, and Lenin all of which had no love for Russia, its people, its culture, or its history.
As for Bruno’s response, he nodded his head towards his soldiers, who were holding the informant hostage, where they let go of him. Bruno then assured the man he would indeed be granted his freedom after his identity, as the informant could be properly verified.
“Assuming you are not lying to me about your identity, then yes, my offer still stands. Any man who strikes down the accursed banners of the Bolsheviks that he once swore loyalty to and turns on his former comrades will be granted immunity for any actions taken in the name of the Revolution.
Go with my men here and they will confirm your identity. Afterwards, you will be processed and pardoned. The Tsar thanks you for his cooperation.”
The man had a smile on his face as he heard this. Quite frankly, he had indeed gotten caught up in the ideas of workers’ rights and owning the means of production. But after seeing how doomed the cause was, as well as witnessing the cruelty of the Bolshevik leaders as they began gunning down their own troops who retreated without permission to do so, he like many others had lost faith in the movement he had so fanatically followed until this point. Bruno’s suggestions of clemency towards those who turned against the Bolshevik Party, and gave actionable intel against their masters, had been approved by the Tsar after much convincing by both the Generals beneath his command, and the ministers by his side.
Quite frankly, it had taken longer than Bruno’s right to receive permission to take such actions. But its tangible benefits could not be denied. Without the promise of mercy, he would not have gotten his hands on Litvinov, which was something Bruno most certainly desired.
With Trotsky and Sverdlov killed by his hands, and Litvinov currently in his custody, Bruno had crossed off three names on his list, with two more to go. Once the evidence collected here at Litvinov’s safe house was collected and processed.
Bruno would personally see to his public execution in the streets of Saint Petersburg. After which he would hunt down Joseph Stalin, before finally putting the nail in the coffin of the would-be Soviet Union by killing Vladimir Lenin.
But his hunt for these men would take longer than Bruno had expected it to. After all, it had been roughly six months since the war began. And during this time, he had cut off three heads of the demonic serpent, which called itself Bolshevism.
In doing so, Bruno had stifled the Red Army’s development before it could become the million-man army it was destined to become. However, he had also made the surviving members of the Bolshevik leadership much more paranoid, as they began to go deep underground to avoid detection by the Tsar and his forces.
Even so, more informants would appear following Litvinov’s execution, as they began to divulge the actions of the Red Army, or what they had planned now that they had resorted to guerilla tactics. Which in and of itself would prevent many assassinations and ambushes from befalling the Iron Division and the Tsarist forces which they supported during this Civil War.
No matter what, Bruno would not be returning home before the year came to an end. Instead, he would continue here in Russia until the last of the Bolsheviks were converted or
annihilated.