Chapter 68: Propaganda

Chapter 68: Propaganda



To say that the Red Army had doubled in size since the death of Leon Trotsky and the 80,000 men beneath his command at Saint Petersburg was an understatement. The new year had begun, and with it the winter was slowly starting to die out.

Ample preparations had been made after the citizens of Tsaritsyn had revolted, seizing control of the means of production and using them to enhance their military capabilities.

They knew it was only a matter of time until the Tsar's forces launched a full scale offensive against them. And currently, Tsaritsyn was defended by 100,000 members of the Red Army. Which though they did not know it yet, would be 4x larger than the forces sent to take the city back from them.

Trotsky's death was not the serious blow to the Bolshevik movement that Bruno thought it would be. At the end of the day, such an insidious and destructive ideology was harder to stamp out than a colony of roaches.

His death had earned him the fabled status of martyrdom. Not in some brave and heroic display of one's faith in God. But rather in the most absurd and wicked kind. His cowardly death after sending 80,000 men to meet the devil to whom they owed their souls was not how the Bolshevik leaders depicted Trotsky.

It wasn't exactly a noble and chivalric image to inspire the masses, after all. No, the Bolsheviks did what they did best: Lie, subvert, and manipulate. They painted Trotsky as a heroic defender of the masses. One fighting against a tyrannical monarch, a despotic aristocracy, and of course the savage presence of foreign mercenaries.Fiind updated novels at novelhall.com

Never mind the fact that it was Trotsky who had besieged the peaceful city of Saint Petersburg and in doing so, shelled the city and the innocent civilians within it without any regard to civilian casualties.

Nor did they reveal the truth that the Tsarist Officers stood in the Trenches defending the city from the Red Army's multiple attacks, whereas the Bolshevik Officers hid in the relative safety of their fortifications while sending the men beneath their command to their deaths.

No, such truths would not exactly inspire any man to pick up a rifle and fight for the spineless Bolshevik leaders who were the true despots and tyrants. Of course, when Bruno returned to Saint Petersburg and learned of such slanderous recruitment tactics. He devised a sinister propaganda campaign of his own.

The heritage of the Bolshevik leadership was quickly uncovered, as were their more atheistic tendencies and their affluent backgrounds. It was not exactly a secret, or at least not in Bruno's past life that the overwhelming majority of Marxist revolutionary leaders throughout Europe were not what they preached to be.

Whether in Russia, or Germany. The leaders of the Marxist uprisings tended to have three things in common. They were primarily, if not exclusively, of Jewish heritage. They were atheistic to the point of being outright anti-religious, especially anti-christian, and they came from prominent backgrounds.

Considering this was an era where Christianity, nationalism and antisemitism were the norm in nearly all European societies. It was no wonder that the Tsar used this information to paint the loyalist Army as defenders of God and Motherland.

And if anything, this new propaganda depicting the man as God's chosen leader for the Russian army has further exacerbated this sentiment among those who still hate the man. It would not be all that surprising if another such attempt happened."

While this was true to some extent. Many of those who held a grudge against Bruno for his previous actions against the Russian Empire were restraining themselves. Either by order of the Tsar himself, or simply because after Saint Petersburg they realized how significant the support of the Iron Brigade, and by extension the Kaiser who was backing them really was. Because of this, there would be no move by the Tsar or his loyalists against Bruno any time soon. Nor would the Bolsheviks be aware of this, or the fact that the men responsible for the attempt on Bruno's life were actually the French.

Hence why Litvinov tried to focus the attention of the Bolshevik leaders, especially Lenin away from what had already happened, and instead on how they could fix their current

problems.

"Anyway, the point is we should not focus on who is responsible for this attack and the effects it has had on our movement, but rather on how to remedy this situation. What we need to do

is convince the people that we are not Anti-Christian, Anti-Russian, or somehow responsible for the woes of the common man!"

Utter silence prevailed for some time after Litvinov said this. Not because the Bolshevik leaders were brainstorming, but rather because they were all thinking of the same thing. Which one of them had the nerve to say aloud.

"But aren't all those things true?"

The moment the man said this all of his comrades glared daggers at him, causing him to backtrack to some extent.

"I mean, you know to some extent... Obviously the Tsar is using this as an opportunity to

slander us!"

Sometimes it was better not to say what everyone was thinking aloud. And this was most certainly one of those cases. As for the man who had given voice to these suppressed sentiments, he would come to regret it very much.

And he would be chosen to repent for doing so by leading the defense of Tsaritsyn against the Tsarist Forces and the accompanying Iron Brigade.