The Third World War: The Untold Story

Power was soon to come flaming from the barrel of a gun, when Duglenko was invited to represent the KGB Chairman and present his report and, instead, drew a revolver and shot the unfortunate Vorotnikov, President of the Soviet Union, through the heart. As Duglenko saw it, whoever was in the chair which would otherwise have been occupied by the General Secretary was the only proper target, if he were to achieve his aim of establishing control over the gathering. The room now quickly filled up with Ukrainian security personnel, and as Malinsky, Supreme Party Ideologist, began to speak asserting his own claim to the leadership, two of these removed Vorotnikov's body. Duglenko promptly occupied his chair. The man with the black box (who, as it had been contrived, was also a Ukrainian and a party to the conspiracy) ostentatiously moved in behind him, confirming the newly established leadership with this obvious demonstration that it was well on the road to nuclear command. Duglenko then announced his assumption of supreme authority. A few of the members of the Politburo who protested were quickly removed and the others, including Malinsky, forced smiles and came out with a round of ritual applause.

As for the General Secretary, it was known before the morning was out that he had been struck down by a heart attack and was dead. This caused no surprise and curiously little sadness. It also had almost no effect on the course of events, for the General Secretary had already for some time been seen by his colleagues as a burnt-out case and largely disregarded. The man who once bestrode the narrow world — or a great part of it anyway — like a Colossus as the successor in a line from Lenin, through Stalin and Khrushchev, in the exercise of absolute power over huge domains, had simply failed and faded out like a candle in the wind. He had done much to increase the worldwide power and influence of the Soviet Union, and the absolute dominion within it of the Communist Party. It was here, in the attempt to protect and perpetuate the position of the Party, that he had himself sharpened the contradictions which in the end would bring it down.

Duglenko was faced with an almost impossible task. It is to his credit that he put first things first and dealt with some of them, erecting at the same time a few breakwaters against the engulfing chaos. What were the priorities? First of all came the situation in Belorussia and all that arose from it. The relief of the appalling human suffering which resulted from the Western response to the nuclear destruction of Birmingham threw a huge and immediate burden on the Soviet Union. This and its associated security problems could certainly be carried, given a little time. There was, however, already widespread fear, almost amounting to panic in some western areas — in the Ukraine for example, and the Baltic republics, apart from Warsaw Pact states — about what would happen next. Supposing this disaster were not the last but only the first of many? What comfort would the citizens of Kharkov find in the confident assurance that if they and their own city were destroyed the incineration of Detroit would follow? Could any governmental structure, however absolute, however well provided with the apparatus of repression by brute force, contain the consequences if questions such as these were asked? If the structure were one forced upon unwilling men and women whose aspirations to national independence, though deeply hidden, were still strong, might not these now explode and so destroy the hard case in which they had been hitherto enclosed?

Relief of the position in Belorussia, the stilling of panic fears in central Europe and an end to the fighting were all aspects of one problem. There had to be a nuclear stand-down and a ceasefire ending the war in such a way as to avoid a general sauve-qui-peut of the Soviet armies. Then there was the nationality problem, that is, as Duglenko saw it, the independence of the Ukraine and its defence against Poland. And finally there was food. The food shortages, leading to riots (which we look at in the next chapter) were a phenomenon of the great cities but, since government also perforce resided in great cities, the food had to be brought in if government was to continue. Returning armies, too, needed food if they were not to turn into a rabble of looters.