CCCP

CCCP Chapter Five

Comrade Horsechev

Rainbow Dash shot her eyes open at the screech of her alarm clock. 8:30 in the morning; waaaay too early. She went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee only to realize her rations had just run out and there will be no more coffee for 2 more days. However, something about this day felt good, it just felt like a day worth celebrating. Maybe she’d go somewhere later today, maybe she’d even take Crimson to go with her. Yes, that is a good idea. Crimson’s phone rang, and she picked it up with her free hoof.

“Hello.”

“Good morning comrade Crimson, how is your day?”

“Well I feel great actually, very good. How are you?”

“Very much the same. Want to do something later today?”

“Absolutely, comrade Rainbow. I just brought the new Izvestia, maybe there is a new restaura-“

...

“Comrade Crimson?”

...

“Are you there?” Rainbow yelled. No answer. She hung up the phone and ran outside. The ponies that normally follow her around stood at the door with blank faces. Behind them was a throng of ponies all in a line, marching solemnly down the streets of Stalliongrad, holding candles, and marched on to St. Poniesburg.

The line of stallions and mares, colts and fillies, lined the bridges and swarmed into the center of St. Poniesburg. Among the swarm was Crimson. The crowd was gradually forced to one side of the street behind a metal barricade as a division of soldiers marched through the main street, holding posts with portraits of Stallion. Once the parade passed, the barrier was removed and the civilians were allowed to follow the army. They stopped in front of the towering red walls of the Kremlin, upon which was a wall coated with flowers, as well as a coffin on a pedestal. A line had formed for all those who wished to give their last words to the former leader of their country for 30 years. On the coffin was inscribed a short but concise message: “The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal.”

★

A stallion in a gray suit adorned in medals paced through the halls of the Kremlin. He was met by another Stallion of similar dress and greeted him.

“Comrade Nikita...”

“Please, refer to me by my last name.”

“Ok, Horsechev, why so grumpy today? Did your poor uncle Joe die?” he said, spitting at the ground.

“That’s funny, just the other day you knelt before him in his presence and kissed his hand” Horsechev replied condescendingly.

“Comrade!” he shouted, getting up close to his face. “You shall bow before my position as chairman of the counsel!”

“Oh yeah, and how many divisions do you have to make me?”

...

“Let me tell you something, counselman. Control only what you have enough steam to control. This universal mindset is not as in the past; whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise. If now there is not a communist government in Paris, this is only because the CCCP has no an army which can reach Paris in 1945. Now I know you disapprove of Stalin, as you have quite clearly shown. I knew that after his death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on his grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.”

“Well, you fool, Stallion said to me personally he would have me to take his place upon his death, and it is unwise to make enemies with the new Secretary-General.”

There was a clicking sound and Horsechev removed an old service pistol from a concealed location. He cupped his left hoof under the magazine and pointed the weapon at the chairman. “That same stallion you just spit upon moments ago? Please, don’t waste my time.”

“You plan on assassinating your chairman?” the chairman asked smirking, anticipating such action.

“No, but I know who will be General-Secretary, and I think you know too.”

“NEVER!” the chairman cried, pulling out a pistol of his own. “I refuse to be your subordinate!” and turned the gun on himself and fired.

★

*knock knock knock*

“Who is there?” Rainbow asked the door.

“KGB; open up!”

Rainbow’s eyes shot open from lounging on her kitchen chair. She opened the door to see 2 stallions in gray military uniforms armed with rifles and shackles. Her knees quivered.

“Ms. Rainbow Dash, you were not in attendance to Stallion’s funeral.”

“... uh, yes I was.”

“It says here on our intelligence report you indeed were not.”

“uh... I didn’t know?”

A heavy set of shackles clattered around her fetlocks and a restraining rope was wrapped around her wings.

“Now it says here you are formerly an Amareican, so I will read you your rights... done!”

The two officers laughed and hoof-fived each other, and proceeded to throw Rainbow into the back of a police carriage which was crowded with a handful of other ponies in her same position, after which she was thrown into a holding cell.

After what seemed like hours of sitting on the cold linoleum jail floor, a uniformed stallion approached her cell.

“Sir... what’s going on?”

“You failed to show up to Stallion’s funeral; pity. It says here you will await trial, which in case you don’t know can take anywhere between 5 minutes and 5 years, and then after your trial you will be carted off to Kamchatka.”

“W-wait what’s the trial for-“ Rainbow began, but the uniformed stallion moved on farther down the cell block and ignored her.

★

“And so I, Nikita Horsechev, accept the position of Secretary-General of the Communist Party.”

There was applause throughout the Kremlin’s auditorium as Stallion’s successor took his first speech as the leader of the CCCP.

“And now for my first action, I would like to denounce the regime of the late Stallion.”

And the room instantly grew silent, as shocked party members listened to what Horsechev would say.

“Stallion... is a brutal despot. He has painted a graphic picture of a regime of suspicion, fear, and terror built up under himself. He is a dictator. And now I want to break the Stallion cult that has held Union citizens in its thrall for 30 years. In his purges he ordered the deaths of many of our finest revolutionaries like Poniev. He then executed many great officers after trying them for murder of such figures. As a matter of fact, in 1937-1938, 98 of the 139 members of the КСОЛ were shot on Stallion’s orders. Despite obvious warning signs, he was oblivious during the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. As an ally of Germany, Stallion refused to believe they would invade the Union-despite warnings from the prime minister of England and the British Ambassador in St. Poniesburg at the time. When the initial attacks into our motherland were launched, Stallion ordered the Red Army not to retaliate saying the raid was merely indiscipline on part of some of Germany’s units. And as some have known but this fact was suppressed, Lenin advised against having Stallion be General-Secretary. However, what I have just said should not be revealed to the media at this time. You understand, comrades, that we could not spread this information to the people at once. It could be done either suddenly or gradually, and I think it would be more correct to do it gradually.”

A stunned audience of high-ranking officers and political officials sat, glued to their chairs, listening to their mindset of decades unravel before them.

“In another action, the country will begin a process of de-Stallionization, where we will shrink the gulags, better conditions, reduce our dependence on forced labor, and end persecution. And as so, my first action would be to officially pardon anypony jailed for political crimes committed in the Stallion era, including government officials who were found guilty of treason and ponies who failed to show up to Stallions funeral. It is so ordered.”

Finishing his speech, he stepped back and left the stage. The crowd began to murmur about themselves, and eventually left, uncertain of what will happen to the union now. And more importantly on their minds: Was Stallion a brilliant leader or terrible dictator? Was he both? And was he more good than bad, or more bad than good? A uniformed KGB officer approached Horsechev and gave him an envelope; news of the chairman.

“Oh, so that shit survived? That useless excuse can’t even shoot straight!”

★

Rainbow arrived home that night with stinging marks on her where the restraining devices were held. Crimson sat on her doorstep, looking at her when she walked up.

“Hello Crimson. Sorry I wasn’t able to return your calls, I-“

“I know you didn’t show up to his funeral, and I am disappointed.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t read the news! How was I supposed to know?”

“How about ask anypony in the streets? How about ask me?”

“I did but you just hung up!”

Two ponies, one from each affiliate, began arguing on the side over who is right. Eventually, punches were being thrown and a crowd of ponies on both sides circled around to see the action. Both mares, grown adults, watched the fight happen with no intent to stop, because they wanted their followers to be perceived as stronger than the others. Rainbow, seeing the fight start to look like a stalemate, pushed in another colt into the fight, while Crimson saw this and snuck the fighter on her side a sharp rock. The fight didn’t last more than a few minutes, but out of it emerged 3 ponies, bloody and bruised, hating each other and the pony the other was following. Rainbow and Crimson exchanged blank glances and went their separate ways.

★

The following spring as an act of diplomacy, Horsechev decided to visit Amareica with a meeting with Eisenhayer. No Unionist leader had ever ventured into the states, and the Cold War was nearing its peak, with fallout shelters being built all across the land and foals learning duck-and-cover drills in school. Most Amareicans knew little about Horsechev except that he had jousted with Vice President Longface Nixon in the famous "kitchen debate" in St. Poniesburg that February and had uttered, three years before, the ominous-sounding prediction, "We will bury you." Horsechev also noted that he would like to visit some cities across Amareica, and Eisenhayer reluctantly agreed.

Reaction to the invitation was mixed, to say the least. Hundreds of Amareicans bombarded Congress with angry letters and telegrams of protest. But hundreds of other Amareicans bombarded the CCCP Embassy with friendly pleas that Horsechev visits their town or their home. "If you'd like to enter a float," the chairman of the Minnesota Applebucking Festival wrote to Horsechev, "please let us know."

Horsechev landed at Hoofdrew’s Air Force base on April 15, 1955. Bald as an egg, he stood only a few inches over five feet but weighed nearly 200 pounds, and he had a round face, bright blue eyes, a mole on his cheek, a gap in his teeth and a potbelly that made him look like a stallion shoplifting a watermelon. When he stepped off the plane and shook Eisenhayer's hand, a woman in the crowd exclaimed, "What a funny little man!"

Things got funnier. The next day, he toured a farm in Maryland, where he petted a pig and complained that it was too fat, then grabbed a turkey and griped that it was too small. He also visited the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and advised its members to get used to communism, drawing an analogy with one of his facial features: "The wart is there, and I can't do anything about it."

Early the next morning, the premier took his show to New York City, accompanied by his official tour guide, Carrot Lodge, the United States ambassador to the United Nations. On Wall Street, Horsechev argued with capitalists, yelled at hecklers, shadowboxed with Gov. Nelson Rockefilly, got stuck in an elevator in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and toured the Equine State Building, which failed to impress him. "If you've seen one skyscraper," he said, "you've seen them all."

Twentieth Century Fox had invited Horsechev to watch the filming of the Shoulder Mounted Friendship Launcher, a jazzy Broadway musical set among the dance hall girls of fin de siècle Paris, and he had accepted. It was an astounding feat: a Hollywood studio had persuaded the communist dictator of the world's largest nation to appear in a shameless publicity stunt for a second-rate musical. The studio sweetened the deal by arranging for a luncheon at its elegant commissary, the Café de Paris, where the great dictator could break bread with the biggest stars in Hollywood. But there was a problem: only 400 ponies could fit into the room, and nearly everypony in Hollywood wanted to be there. "One of the angriest social free-for-alls in the uninhibited and colorful history of Hollywood is in the making about who is to be at the luncheon," Erin Bro-nett stated on EqD.

Everypony who was anypony wanted to be in attendance, however, the studio was determined that Miller's wife attend. At first, Marilyn, who never read the papers or listened to the news, had to be told who Horsechev was, however, the studio kept insisting. They told Marilyn that in the CCCP, Amareica meant two things, Coca-Cola and Marilyn Monroe. She loved hearing that and agreed to go; she told that the studio wanted her to wear the tightest, sexiest dress she had for the premier.

The studio swarmed with uniformed police, both Amareican and Unionist. They inspected the shrubbery outside, the flowers on each table and both the men's and women's rooms. In the kitchen, an LAPD forensic chemist named Ricky Pinkie ran a Geiger counter over the food. "We're just taking precautions against the secretion of any radioactive poison that might be designed to harm Horsechev," Pinkie said before heading off to check the soundstage where the premier would watch the filming of the play.

As the waiters delivered lunch—squab, wild rice, Parisian potatoes and peas with pearl onions—Plum Juice, who'd once played Princess Celestia, attempted to make small talk with Sergey Sputnik, the Union novelist who would win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. "I have read excerpts from your works," Plum said.

"Thank you," Sputnik replied. "When we get some of your films, I shall not fail to watch a few excerpts from them."

As Carrot Lodge ate his squab, Los Angeles Police Chief Shiny Handcuffs suddenly appeared behind him, looking nervous. Earlier, when Horsechev and his entourage had expressed interest in going to Disneyland, Shiny had assured Lodge that he could provide adequate security. But during the drive from the airport to the studio, somebody threw a big, ripe, juicy, and absolutely delicious tomato at Horsechev's limo. It missed, splattering the chief's carriage instead. Now, Shiny leaned over and whispered into Lodge's ear. "I want you, as a representative of the president, to know that I will not be responsible for premier Horsechev's safety if we go to Disneyland."

That got Lodge's attention. "Very well, chief," he said. "If you will not be responsible for his safety, we do not go, and we will do something else."

Someone in Horsechev's party overheard the conversation and immediately got up to tell the Unionist leader that Lodge had canceled the Disneyland trip. The premier sent a note back to the ambassador: "I understand you have canceled the trip to Disneyland. I am most pissed."

He had a long conversation with a Greek immigrant who worked his way up to CEO of 20th Century Fox. They cracked jokes at each other, deciding who was more humbler, whose country gave the most opportunities, and how Horsechev had never seen a ballet until he was 30. He rambled on, then apologized for rambling. After 45 minutes of speaking, he seemed to be approaching an amiable closing. Then he remembered Disneyland.

"Just now, I was told that I could not go to Disneyland," he announced. "I asked, ‘Why not? What is it? Do you have rocket-launching pads there?' "

The audience laughed.

"Just listen," he said. "Just listen to what I was told: ‘We—which means the Amareican authorities—cannot guarantee your security there.' "

He raised his hooves in a vaudevillian shrug. That got another laugh.

"What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there? Have gangsters taken hold of the place? Your policemen are so tough they can lift a bull by the horns. Surely they can restore order if there are any gangsters around. I say, ‘I would very much like to see Disneyland.' They say, ‘We cannot guarantee your security.' Then what must I do, commit suicide?"

Horsechev was starting to look more angry than amused. His fist punched the air above his red face. "That's the situation I find myself in," he said. "For me, such a situation is inconceivable. I cannot find words to explain this to my people. If you want to go on with the arms race, very well. We accept that challenge. As for the output of rockets--well, they are on the assembly line. This is a most serious question. It is one of life or death, ladies and gentlemen." The audience was baffled. Were they really watching the 65-year-old dictator of the world's largest country throw a temper tantrum because he couldn't go to Disneyland?

Before long, Horsechev's tantrum—if that's what it was—faded away. He grumbled a bit about how he'd been stuffed into a sweltering limousine at the airport instead of a nice, cool convertible. Then he apologized, sort of: "You will say, perhaps, ‘What a difficult guest he is.' But I adhere to the Russian rule: ‘Eat the bread and salt but always speak your mind.' Please forgive me if I was somewhat hot-headed. But the temperature here contributes to this. Also"—he turned to the CEO—"my Greek friend warmed me up."

Relieved at the change of mood, the audience applauded. They shook hooves and slapped each other on the back and the two old, fat, bald stallions grinned while the stars, who recognized a good show when they saw one, rewarded them with a standing ovation.

Author's Note