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The newspaper he was to be working for was a small, quite literally underground Bolshevik operation called Pravda. It was run from the basement of a nondescript and unsuspecting building, where a noisy printing press was operated by a handful of party workers. These were people like Molotov (what he was calling himself now— it came from the word for sledgehammer, and he found it to be rather proletarian) who were not military men nor particularly cemented in a given workplace, but still made an important contribution. He was meeting with a fellow editorial staff member to begin discussion of what he was to be writing.
The man he was meeting was named Koba, and that was the only information he got. In the courtyard behind the office they used, Koba seemingly materialized and scared Molotov with his suddenness. Yet, this appearance was just as he suspected. It was how professional revolutionaries were, masters of their trade. Koba was some years older, a mustachioed man with a hat covering his great plume of hair and trench coat that obscured much of the rest of him. They saw quite literally eye-to-eye as they first began to talk, Koba showing him around their print room. The room felt like it went on forever yet their tour was over seemingly as soon as it started.
“We’d like you to be an organizer for the party as well,” Koba said after he’d walked Molotov around, “write propaganda, distribute it and bring people closer to a more unified stance; when we bring people together, we want everyone to know what it is they’re together for.” He leaned against the frame of the door, which shook a bit with the February wind. He was confident, and did not let his work get the best of him it seemed. It was obvious he’d spent time in and out of jail and exile, since he was a bit rough around the edges and had some injuries not many working in printing alone had. There were pockmarks decorating his face too, and he held parts of him with care that meant he’d been injured here and there more than others. His rugged look and personality attracted Molotov to him immediately, even in just this first interaction. He was the type of person Molotov was drawn to, a strong personality despite his soft voice.
“I can do that,” Molotov agreed, thinking of all he’d done so far. It was a similarly daunting task to be writing and distributing as it was to have been traversing through factory after factory, a never ending trial of near-misses and arrests as he organized workers for the party. People, places ran into one another, a great array of life whom he handed this pamphlet or that one, feeling he was doing what he was meant to. It was a dedication Molotov was comfortable with. He knew it would be similar, still as harrowingly close to encountering the Okhrana on any given day as ever, but this time it felt like they were getting somewhere even further, like it was not years of organizing for naught.
As he thought about it, he realized they’d ended up down the street, though it seemed he was so preoccupied he couldn’t even remember walking down the street with Koba, and certainly couldn’t discern what their in-progress conversation was about, though he spoke as if he did. Luckily, Koba changed the topic.
“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” It wasn’t for a few more days, actually, but he doubted they would see each other again anytime soon and what was a birthday spent with a comrade if not a good one? “Come on, then.” Koba walked with him and it seemed like they walked only a block down the street towards the center of Moscow when they arrived at a cafe where they took a seat. The cafe was familiar, though its name escaped him despite being able to read it on the menu before him. How odd.
Molotov lost his focus for a second, and rooted around for the glasses in his coat. This wasn’t quite right, he thought as he put his glasses on, they didn’t meet in February. Wasn’t Koba in jail then? Or was that later, and the dates are mixed up…? The thought rescinded as he looked around.
Stalin sat at the dining table in Kuntsevo dacha, it was snowing outside and the wind was making the walls creak. His face was more filled out than when they'd still been young revolutionaries, and his outfit was much less elaborate and more stately. They had only drinks before them, the good Georgian wine that Stalin only liked to get out for special occasions. It was juicy and strong, the way Stalin preferred. They’d had fish for dinner, he was pretty sure, or maybe some sort of bird, he didn’t remember. Molotov never ate much meat anyway, it tended to be too rough for him.
Without much thought, Molotov raised his wine glass, “to your belated birthday.”
Stalin reciprocated with a smile, “and to your premiership.” They drank, though an occasion was not necessary for drinking this time of year. It was cold, might as well get something in you to feel it a little less.
“It's nice to finally sit down with you again,” Molotov lamented. “It’s been too long, and we haven’t had a good get-together between us since,” he stumbled over his words, clearing his throat as the dates shuffled through his mind, “since a few years ago.”
Stalin had a bit of a mischievous look on his face, the two of them finally getting to reunite outside of their work after years of putting the new government together— no small feat. He still admired Stalin, though as they aged it became more of a companionship than a mentorship as it once had been. He was sure if Stalin found out there was some admiration in his eyes beyond their comradery he’d be upset at it, so he reveled in the fact that they did manage to maintain their friendship despite all they’d been through, as well as continuing to work alongside him. Something about how he always felt like this was what he was meant to be doing since the day he joined the RSDLP and started handing out pamphlets as a nobody. He wondered what Lenin would have to say about this. At the end of the day, he’d always still be the stricken propagandist meeting his first professional revolutionary before becoming one himself, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere as the professionals in his mind always could. To him, it felt like they had only just met and yet they’d known each other for two decades now. Koba was as much a figure in his mind as Stalin, though the real person was someone Molotov had gotten to know underneath it all.
His thoughts spun, drowning their point in the nostalgia of these days. This dinner really did happen, he remembered it, though hadn’t more people been here? Voroshilov and Sergo, at least, common faces to be seen around Stalin, though he recalled Kaganovich too, and perhaps Kirov. Maybe they were off playing billiards while the two of them drank, though as he went to take another sip of wine, more people were around him, not quite all the ones he was thinking of.
The room was much louder, and larger too, and the wine was drier than he liked though the food was quite good. Stalin still sat on his left, and across from them was their translator, Berezhkov, going back and forth with Stalin and Churchill at a pace so fast it felt as if he were not there at all, though maybe that was just because they'd become used to these sorts of conversations. Voroshilov sat beside the translator, drinking vodka and chatting with another Marshall at the table behind him— he was dressed in white, which meant it was probably about halfway done. What was? Wondered Molotov, though the thought didn’t elaborate on itself.
Stalin looked over at Molotov and silently beckoned him away, though where they were going was not at all clear. The General Secretary sometimes came up with ideas he needed to talk to Molotov about, diplomacy or strategy among the other leaders he could get out of someone who’d served as Premier for ten years. He was walking at a brisk pace through the hallways of the conference hall, faster than even Molotov could keep up with and much too fast for either of their ages. Molotov was going to call out to him, but he couldn’t quite tell where Stalin had gone. Walking down the hall further led him to an ornate wooden door with a brass handle, which he opened out of curiosity if nothing else.
Time slowed down as he walked through the doorway. Molotov felt distant, half-awake. Stalin was speaking behind him, yet whichever way he turned he couldn’t seem to find him. Many of his other comrades surrounded him, though their faces were obscured and no matter how hard he tried, no one was recognizable. An air of sorrow loomed over the figures surrounding him, their murmuring and moving all leading him to one central place, somewhere he was having trouble looking.
The voice he was hearing was a recording from this spot, which had been always behind him when he refused to accept it was there. Looming as it always did. He heard the berating voices of his comrades as tears welled in his eyes, but no one stood out and there was no one for him to take issue with. Stone-assed Molotov, they said, having trouble keeping it in? It was as if they were recorded too, set up to remind him there was nothing he could do. It was all over. This wasn’t in private anymore, he shouldn’t be crying like this, he shouldn’t be here at all. None of it was real, but what else could it be?
Finally a face became clear to him, but Molotov jammed his eyes closed. No, they didn’t need to speak. No, they couldn’t, because he was lying there in state, wasn’t he? He’d carried many caskets with him, but he never thought the next would be his. No, this was a loss Molotov wasn’t sure how to handle— it wasn’t like any of them before, this was unique. What were they to do?
When Molotov opened his eyes again he heard that same voice he’d heard what felt like only a moment ago, yet he knew it was from forty years prior, “it’s your birthday, isn’t it?” The voice was nowhere to be seen, and Molotov was standing before a crowd all in black. He knew what this was. Someone screaming pierced his ears, but he didn’t think it was him. Who would scream at a funeral?
In the pale morning, Molotov woke up. The phone was ringing. “Hello?”
It was Beria, “Comrade Stalin has fallen ill.”