I'll Meet You in Stalliongrad

At the time, you couldn’t find Soviet Equestria on any map. In diplomatic truth, it didn’t actually exist. It was but one territory among the many that fell under jurisdiction of the vast, expansive Crystal Empire. But it was there, a crucible in the frozen plains, slowly warming, steadily growing more and more unstable until it hit its inevitable flashpoint. This crucible, Equusia, had no lines of its own on the map of Equestria. It was simply another stretch of land, dotted with cities and villages, within the dividing lines of the Crystal Empire.

But the ponies of this region were markedly different from the denizens of the Crystal Empire. Any foreigner could have made that judgment. You could see it in the cities – in the architecture, the conduct of life, the daily rituals, and the mentality of every last pony walking the streets. And the differences were not purely aesthetic - you could hear it. Their spoken language was similar to that of the imperials and the rest of Equestria, but there were enough idiosyncratic rules (and four different written characters) that brought linguists to consider it a unique tongue. The air about all of Equusia was something unique, often described as brutal and bizarre by outsiders – “it was like their weather, cold and unforgiving,” as it was put by a crystal royal. The ponies there were rougher and more stolid by nature, and they looked nothing like the imperials – they weren’t even crystal ponies. And they did nothing to hide their detestation for the Crystal Empire.

           Perhaps if these pangs of individuality had been ignored, the whole situation never would have boiled over from bad to worse. But to the royalty of the Crystal Empire, Equusia was a festering pool of separatism that required near-immediate action. Over time, the imperials became steadily more unsettled with the widening gap between the Empire and the territory that would later identify as a Soviet republic. Mandates to the local nobility, the Breiyars, went ignored, as did mandatory audiences with the crystal crown. After a series of debates and deliberations, the Crystal Empire revised domestic policy. The imperial movement to stifle the disparity was known as the Crystallization, and it consisted of three distinct components.

The first move was known as the Re-Coronation, which rendered the Breiyars conditionally powerless. Saphirov III, a long-time elite of the Crystal Empire, was declared duke-regent of Equusia, making the territory a de-facto dukedom. The second prong of the operation was the Crystal Script, a manifesto that, among a number of other regulations, declared the tongue of the Crystal Empire the official language in Equusia, and required fluency of the mother tongue among all of the territory’s subjects. The final act of Crystallization was essentially occupation – the territory was to be under constant control by battalions of crystal soldiers. Saphirov III was tasked with the wrapping of Equusia in the cloak of total assimilation.

           To the dismay of the Crystal Empire, total assimilation never came to be. The fiasco was largely the fault of Saphirov III, who rushed Crystallization with the ferocity and brutality of a tyrant. Ponies were jailed or executed for anything and everything that fell under “heinous nationalism,” a vague expression that decorated Saphirov’s law codes (and later the third and seventh additions to the Crystal Script). “Beautification” plans were adopted to reconstruct parts of the Equusian cities to make them appear more crystalline. Schools and institutions were censored mercilessly. The Breiyars were afraid to do anything other than what Saphirov wanted. And the Equusians… they were all afraid of Saphirov. They were afraid of everything.

           But somewhere down the line, fear had turned into anger. Staggering stories began to seep out from the alleyways and side streets of Stalliongrad, the largest city in the region. Ponies spoke of a new item on Saphirov’s agenda. They claimed he had met with mages from all across Equestria to discuss a new initiative – to permanently convert the ponies of Tondranka into crystal ponies by means of spellcraft. To this day, it is unknown whether such an idea was actually presented by Saphirov or the story was a malicious lie, fabricated by the Stalliongrad intelligentsia to agitate the masses. But the story spread. No longer was it confined to the few “safe places” in Stalliongrad. Soon, word had made its way to all the great cities  – Maremansk, Foalgograd, and Saddlestopol, among the others. And eventually it reached the countryside, and even the isolated villages caught wind of the heinous plot to once and for all wipe the very identity of Equusia from the face of Equestria. The local intelligentsia, working underground and in the dark of night, did what they could to rally the masses. A new, great fear erupted. That fear became fury, and fury then became revolt.

           Then came the time when the plans of the Equusia intelligentsia finally became reality. Marches and demonstrations were arranged to protest the food shortages stemming from the poor autumn harvest that had angered the city and country alike. Mass protest action was coordinated by academics in opposition to new additions to the Crystal Script. General protests were assembled against the arrests and occupation in the workers’ districts. And the intelligents had planned these public uprisings such that they all came together at the same place, at the same time, on the same day.

           One frigid morning, on the square before the newly-constructed Sapphire Palace, residence of Duke Saphirov III, the masses converged. The intelligents rallied their followers, who seethed and raged, filling the crisp morning air with shouts and cheers of insurrection. There, at the heart of Stalliongrad, the crystal soldiers found themselves defending the palace from the Equusian commoners, outnumbered nearly thirty to one. Crystal halberdiers were plowed aside. Gates were kicked down by hundreds of pairs of hooves as windows and ornaments shattered in the square. But mere words cannot properly convey the power and emotion that lived on the square that day. Had you been there that morning, at the heart of Stalliongrad, to see the doors of the palace get smashed into tiny crystalline shards, and had you heard the roars and whinnies of victory that erupted from the mass of ponies that raced to flood the vestibule, your heart would too have pounded in your chest as the thrill of revolution filled every nerve and vein.

The palace was stormed. The doors of every last room were either thrown open or battered down, but Saphirov was nowhere to be found. Though, for the moment, it didn’t matter. The city was free. And the doors to the balcony of the Sapphire Palace swung open as one young revolutionary stepped to the balustrade and tore down the purple flag “of many hues,” replacing it with the crimson flag he had been holding in his teeth. The ponies of Stalliongrad cheered as the new flag waved above the crowded street below. And then the young revolutionary propped himself on top of the balustrade with his forelimbs and called to every last pony in the square:

           “Comrades! Today is a day that will be remembered until the end of time itself. Today is the day that a tyrant has fallen, that the masses have awakened, and that we again have sampled the sweet taste of freedom. But today is not the day for celebration and revelry, for there is much work to be done. We must work to solidify the gains of our glorious revolution. But as it solidifies, it must too spread! To Foalgograd! To Maremansk! To Saddlestopol! To every farm and dacha in the corners of our Motherland! And even then our struggle will not end, for the Crystalline Menace will come again to steal from us our new-found freedom. Comrades! We must not let the Crystal Dogs take what we so rightfully deserve. Let them cower in the face of our new republic! Let them tremble before our people, united and free! Our submission to the monarchy ends today, comrades, under the bright sunshine of freedom!”

           The roars and cheers that rang out from the square filled the chilly winter air, rattling the windows of every building. Stalliongrad was a liberated city, the epicenter of the revolution. And in the coming days, word of the abdication spread. In mere weeks, the occupation forces of the crystal empire found themselves suddenly outnumbered in every city by armies that somehow materialized from nothing. Street by street, the land of the new Republic was taken back from the Crystalline Menace. In the meantime, the intelligentsia was working day and night in the newly-nationalized Saphire Palace, constructing the framework of the new Council of Deputies – a soviet, as it was called – that would become the new governmental assembly of the Republic. They took special care to remove the old hierarchy of Breiyars from the ranks, arguing that the Breiyars did nothing to help the people during the worst of the Crystallization and that they essentially were a vestige of the old system, nearly the same as crystal royalty. Now, the new Republic was to be led by representatives elected to the new Party, which sought to safeguard the progress of the revolution.

           With the meeting of the first official Party Congress one week later, Soviet Equestria finally declared itself a new, independent republic. But independence also ushered in a strange, new era for the territory. It was an era of suspicion and uncertainty. According to the Party, you could never be too trusting. There were, after all, spies from the Empire afoot, seeing to undo the progress of the glorious revolution from the inside out. The Party extolled the virtues of selfless labour, explaining that the new SSR could only make it through the difficult times ahead if workers met their quotas. The Party’s commissars began to appear, at first only here and there, but later at every train station, outpost, and district checkpoint. They were looking for suspicious activity, for spies, and for anything that might contradict the will of the people and the ideals of the new state. There were new mandatory training drills for all citizens and mass conscription to prepare for the day that the Crystal Empire would attack in an effort to reclaim its lost territory. Two months after the revolution, the preparations were put to the test.

           When the Crystal Empire made its move, they launched a two-pronged offensive. The first prong, marching on Maremansk, was fought off again and again by the legendary Bashkirskiy Legionnaires. Never once did a crystal hoof enter Maremansk, and the Bashkir ponies intended to force them back as many times as necessary. But the second prong of the offensive blasted Foalgograd with relentless force. On this front, the Yakutian ponies and the Kalmuks faltered, and the city was retaken by the imperials in three weeks. It was a staging ground from which all new offensives by the Empire would be launched in the massive effort to bring the new republic to its knees. At the same time, Foalgograd became the new symbol of unity and perseverance. It was a new national focal point around which the ponies of Equusia rallied in the long, hard fight to preserve the ever-endangered revolution and to free their comrades. And the Party never let anypony forget that all hope for the SSR rested on the liberation of Foalgograd.

           For over a year, the battles raged. The Crystal Empire tried repeatedly to break the line at Maremansk. Meanwhile, the Kalmuks, Yakutian ponies, and volunteer militias fought to enter Foalgograd. The fronts stood still. Supplies began to dwindle. Quotas were raised. Spirits plummeted. The Party beseeched the ponies of Equusia to never lose hope and maintain the loyalty they demonstrated during the early revolutionary days. Of course, that was easier said than done. The masses were accustomed to rough life, as that was simply the way in Equusia. But now, tough times in the Republic proved to be more abrasive than anything through which they had ever before lived.

           But our story doesn’t begin in the midst of the war. It doesn’t even begin in Stalliongrad, the cradle of the revolution. No, our story will take us far outside of Stalliongrad, to a collective farm nestled among the tundra and the plains in the countryside. Our story begins on the day when important news reached the ponies of Collective 23, a day when, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the future began to look bright and fortuitous.

           It was the day when the commissar arrived, bearing news of the liberation of Foalgograd.