Chapter 140:

Chapter 140:

Chapter 140

There was a simultaneous strike at the major ports of Joseon.

The workers, who had experienced a strike in the 1920s, quickly organized themselves into several unions.

The Incheon Port Workers’ Association, the Wonsan Dock Workers’ Federation, and other labor unions occupied the ports where rice was exported and staged a sit-in strike.

The strike also spread to other sectors, reaching rubber and oil factories.

“No more cooperation with the invasion war! Japan, get out! You bastards with cloven hoofs, get out!”

“Th-th-those... red bastards!”

The workers, who had suffered from the harassment of the Japanese directors, the long and hard labor, and the meager wages, began to shout radical slogans in an instant.

“If we scatter, we die! If we waver, we die!”

“We unite and march on until the day of victory~ We will keep our comrades’ promise, even if we lose both our skulls!”

Songs rang out at the docks and ports.

The workers raised their strong arms to the sky as they listened to the resounding strike song.

Red flags rose, and people with red headbands began to shout in various places.

“Strike! It’s a general strike!”

“Imperialism is nothing but a paper tiger!”

The Japanese authorities were not completely unaware of the situation. It would have been foolish to think that the Communist Party had not intervened at this point.

But they could not figure it out. Where did that money come from?

The red elements of the Joseon Communist Party, who had hidden somewhere after the repression of the 1930s, seemed to have gotten hold of a huge amount of money.

[Let’s collect 5 jeon a day for the strike fund]

[Let’s abstain from alcohol and tobacco until the strike is over]

Of course, they were collecting money from the union members for the strike.

They took the money they received from their daily wages by saying, ‘A penny of waste is a reaction,’ and abstaining from drinking and smoking, but it seemed that they had more money than they could explain.

“Could it be the subversive groups in the mainland?”

“That... that might be possible.”

The Japanese Communist Party also grew like wildfire in the underground and in the dark, despite the authorities’ repression.

Most of the key members were arrested and tortured to death, but new people appeared from somewhere and carried the torch of resistance.

“We can’t just trample them down... Hmph...”

In the previous Wonsan general strike, they were able to organize a pro-Japanese labor group and pressure them to end the strike through their livelihoods.

This time, the situation was a little different.

The strike was more advantageous for their livelihoods as it blocked the export of rice, and they could not kill it because of the unknown funds.

The pro-Japanese workers who tried to do their job were lynched and beaten to death, and the police who knew it were trembling that they might suffer the same fate.

Also, if they just stomped on them, who would work there?

There was an absolute shortage of manpower.

“All the young men were dragged into the war, so if we put all those tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of red bastards in prison, the loading and unloading would be paralyzed just the same...”

“What are you going to do?”

“Why are you asking me... No, wait.”

Even if they went from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, Britain, who held Suez and Gibraltar, would not allow Russia or the Soviet Union to expand.

But if they took the Korean Peninsula and Japan in the Far East, the exit to the vast Pacific would open. If they subdued Turkey, took over Italy, and established nationalist regimes through the leftist uprising in Iran, Egypt, and Algeria, they could go south to the Indian Ocean.

The United States would try to exert its influence on the European continent through its allies in Britain and Western Europe, but what if they pushed back Germany with tanks and took over the regime with the cooperation of the French Resistance? Britain would be ‘just an island’.

This was roughly the post-war world strategy of the Soviet Union, and at least in the Far East, the gears started to fit together.

“How is Italy doing?”

“We are smuggling Partisans across the Adriatic Sea. We will soon be able to start a strike in Bologna and Milan.”

The generals seemed to hate Beria, who was trying to grab the world in his hands while they were held by the German army. But what could they do?

The weather was getting colder and there was a limit to how fast they could move the army. Probably not until late spring of next year, 43, would the Soviet army be able to advance again. So now they had to focus on espionage.

“The only regrettable thing is... that most of the organizations in Germany have been annihilated by the brutal repression and espionage is difficult. The military intelligence network is alive, but the mass organizations that could be the vanguard party...”

“Let’s just crush Germany and set up a new regime. Don’t we have quite a few people who fled here?”

“Ah, then I will proceed accordingly.”

In real history, too, the Soviet Union appointed Wilhelm Pieck, a German politician who fled to the Soviet Union in 35, as the head of state after occupying the eastern part of Germany. He was the leader of the Comintern, but anyway, he was no different from our puppet.

Here, too, Germany, the strongest country in Europe, had to be controlled by us, so the preparations for launching the Soviet military government in Germany were ongoing.

“Let’s tear Germany apart like this...”

“Hooh...”

As my finger ran across the map, people’s eyes darted back and forth.

Unified Germany was too powerful. It had crushed France and Britain several times, and even after losing two world wars, it was able to lead Europe again.

The two halves of east and west could not stop the rise of German nationalism.

They had to tear it apart and trample it with communist France.

That was the only way to prevent Germany from becoming the Soviet Union’s rival.

“Let’s give the eastern territory of the Oder-Neisse line to the new Poland. Let’s merge East Prussia with Lithuania...”

The east was roughly similar to the share that East Germany had in real history. They also gave away the western part of the Oder-Neisse, including Szczecin, to Poland.

“But for the sake of the port to the Atlantic, let’s give Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg to this eastern Germany, the ‘Brandenburg Republic’. Let’s tear apart the southern Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg...”

And ‘West Germany’ had to be torn into at least two pieces. The potential of Germany, which had risen to the strongest country in Europe even after losing half of its territory from the imperial era, could not be ignored.

“Comrade Secretary, if this happens, won’t Poland be too big? If we give Poland so much power...”

“Well, it’s the least compensation.”

The Katyn Forest Massacre did not come to light in this world. Smolensk was always the front line, so the Germans had no time to dig around for bones.

Of course, the Soviet Union was now raising the ‘Polish Liberation Army’ composed of Polish exiles.

They were the ones who would establish the front line in the liberation of Poland and control Poland under the Soviet command.

The free Polish exile government, which was nothing compared to the Polish Liberation Army, which had two field armies, would not be able to do anything.

If they controlled with the whip of military force, they would need a carrot.

The Prussian territory that Germany had diligently developed would be the best carrot for Poland.

The Polish exile government, which had fled with the British exile government, was doing nothing, so they had to push them to the back of history.

With the development of nuclear weapons, the world strategy was gradually taking shape.

“Now... just crush the German army quickly. Got it?”

“Yes! Comrade Secretary!”