Characters / TNO Far East

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Far Eastern Unifiers

Irkutsk

^{Flag of the Far Eastern Soviet Socialist Republic/Siberian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic/Union of Soviet Socialist Republics}

Official Name: Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Far Eastern Soviet Socialist Republic (regional unification), Siberian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (superregional unification), Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (national unification)

Ruling Party: Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov)^note All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

Ideology: Bolshevism^note Communism

Irkutsk, the current seat of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, is the official remnant of Bukharin's Soviet Union. When Moscow fell, NKVD chief Genrikh Yagoda claimed the Chairmanship and evacuated the Presidium to Irkutsk, and maintained Soviet authority through harsh political repression. However, Yagoda's disastrous war with the Central Siberian Republic collapsed his domain, and Valery Sablin's mutiny threatens to end the old Union for good.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: After Sablin's mutiny is crushed, Yagoda initiates the Great Purge, executing or removing officials deemed a threat to the Soviet Union, gathering evidence of their corruption or incompetence to justify their purge.
• Armies Are Evil: Subverted. The Red Army is the main political faction opposed to the NKVD's abuses and a major power behind Bessonov's deposition of Yagoda in favor of greater funding to the military.
• Authority in Name Only: If Yagoda triumphs over the Party in the power struggle, he will practically gut the Presidium into powerless rubber-stamp institution by merging the duties of the General Secretary and Premier to himself, as well as nullifying any vote to remove him from power.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Trans-Siberian Railway, which they own the regional stage, is the lifeblood to the Far East's economic prosperity, but it only connects the southern cities to each other and isolates other important centers, like Magadan. Expanding it northward will take a good amount of effort.
• Big Brother Is Watching: With the rest of Russia collapsing into warlordism, the remnant Soviet government has degenerated into an NKVD securocracy, with all internal and external threats monitored and quietly suppressed. After Sablin's rebellion is crushed, the NKVD's presence is only heightened.
• Big Good: After unifying the Far East, the Soviet government proclaims itself to be the spearhead of socialism around the world, sponsoring and aligning with foreign left-wing movements, like the PALF in Africa or the NAJUA in Korea.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: As more "anti-corruption" reforms are passed by Yagoda, he receives a letter from a party official who gets interrogated for supposedly embezzling funds, where he admits to his repentance after two "brave and intrepid" NKVD officers "visited" him before offering to give up the names of other corrupt officials and retire from the government.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Desperate to end Sablin's revolution, the Ministry of Defense will issue "museum pieces", which are outdated weapons from before the Second World War and given to reserve units to hunt down partisans.
• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: If Bessonov takes over the Soviet Union, he will pass more measures to outlaw gender-based discrimination, commencing a campaign to recognize female "Heroes of Socialist Labor" and soldiers, as well as create a committee to investigate future cases of institutional sexism.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The NKVD resort to an assortment of brutal tactics to extract confessions from their victims. One event shows an officer torturing his own cousin over missing funds, which somehow involved tweezers, a cigarette lighter, a pair of blades, and scissors for seventeen minutes.
• Death from Above: Aviation warfare is studied during the regional stage, where a group of theorists are invited to make up lost expertise and rearm their air force to modern standards. Their efforts pay off after the Far East is reunified, adopting an air supremacy doctrine and building a modern air force from the planes they've captured from the other warlords.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • One NKVD agent defects to aid a group of Sablinite mutineers, but once he's put in command of them, he doesn't have much of a plan beyond charing Yagoda's soldiers head-on. He also never considered NKVD soldiers tracking his group down and ambushing them, which wipes out the partisans with ease.
  • The NKVD commission responsible for carrying out the Great Purge didn't have any idea of what to do to the men they arrest, something that embarasses Yagoda when he finds out after two weeks.
• The Dreaded: Exploited by Yagoda when he designs "mobile interrogation centers", trucks that have been retrofitted into interrogation methods of prisoners. Yagoda wants the brutal actions in these centers to be heard across the country so that even the most veteran partisan will think twice of rebelling.
• Dystopia Is Hard: Yagoda's political repressions is what drove so many to join Sablin and start a mutiny that has a fair chance of defeating Irkutsk. Once the mutiny is finished, Yagoda learns from his mistakes and makes some token reforms to fix the Union's worst excesses, even if the general authoritarian atmosphere remains in place.
• Easy Logistics: Averted.
  • Irkutsk needs to deliver food and munitions to their trenches, if they are to hold out for long against Sablin's mutiny. Meanwhile, citizen infrastructure is converted to support the war effort and rations are implemented to conserve as much as possible.
  • Even in the regional stage, logistical issues persist and must be resolved by creating a specialized logistics branch for the army and reaching out for material aid from the OFN.
  • Though the government is on better footing during the superregional stage, integrating Central Siberia is still a logistical nightmare, with many administrative zones being messy and chaotic in the immediate aftermath. It's clear from the beginning that they'll need to put in extra work to fully integrate their new territories.
• Elite Army: Downplayed. While the Red Army, or rather what's left of it under Yagoda's command, is a shadow of its former glory, it's still one of the most heavily armed and regimented warlord armies in Siberia. The NKVD, meanwhile, also double as elite troops to bolster the military's ranks, and could be reformed into an even more efficient fighting force in its own right under Yagoda.
• Enemy Mine: Still vulnerable to logistical shortages in the regional stage, the Soviet government will open trading relations with the United States to fill their supply shortages.
• Expert Consultant: A reform that can be passed by the Party faction is hiring new bureaucrats who are more knowledgeable of the Siberian terrain than Yagoda's older, more close-minded experts.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Since Yegorov took most of the Red Army with him to West Russia, the Soviet remnant government has relied upon paltry divisions of conscripted soldiers and the NKVD to become their armed forces. However, they will heavily overhaul the military in the regional stage to bring it up to modern standards as a formidable force.
• Full-Circle Revolution: The Nomenklatura are an upper class of prominent bureaucrats who hold significant influence in the party and lord over the working class, eerily similar to a highly stratified capitalist society. Bessonov recognizes the disturbing parallels and will reduce their influence to bring the Soviet Union closer to its Leninist roots.
• Heel–Face Turn: One veteran NKVD officer, responsible for conducting acts of terror upon innocent civilians, goes AWOL out of regret for his crimes and retires to become a poet.
• Hero-Worshipper: The NKVD still worship Lenin as the great hero of the Soviet Union and claim every trouble that destroyed the country came after his death.
• Historical Downgrade: Konstantin Chernenko, the second to last Premier of the USSR in our world, is only Irkutsk's foreign minister and never gets the opportunity to rule. At the very least, it beats only being known for barely being in charge for a year before dying.
• Historical In-Joke: In real life, Yagoda and his cabinet were among the defendants in the Trial of the Twenty-One.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: Since conventional warfare is impossible in the barren Siberian landscape, the military relies on hit-and-run tactics by small units to wear the enemy down.
• Hope Spot: A busy regulatory officer gets excited over the prospect of taking a vacation with his wife, but when he comes one day to work before he can request a break, Yagoda has escalated anti-foreign censorship of goods and the list of items he needs to check doubles. The worker doesn't even sigh in reaction, knowing that he won't be getting his needed break.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The powerful Nomenklatura class end up losing most of their power under Bessonov and the Party faction's watch, with many of them being given unimportant paperwork jobs to humble them. One member of the Nomenklatura is particularly incensed that he's being sent to a distant village to manage grain shipments, considering himself too unimportant for such business.
• Humiliation Conga: History has not been kind to the Soviet remnants in Irkutsk. In little over two decades, they've lost Moscow to Germany, splintered into numerous statelets after the disastrous Siberian War, and now face a Sablinite mutiny that threatens to wipe them off the map. Needless to say, this has left the Yagoda and the Presidium very bitter.
• Hypocrite: Yagoda and the NKVD denounce Sablin's mutiny as an evil force out to suppress and harm the working class of Russia. In the next few sentences, they announce their merciless approach to any treasonous elements and warn the people that there will be severe consequences for committing "anti-Soviet" behavior.
• Hypocrisy Nod: They acknowledge the hypocrisy of trading with capitalist countries in the regional stage, but deem it necessary to rebuild their economy and keep the revolution alive.
• The Infiltration: The NKVD is one of Yagoda's greatest assets and he uses them to infiltrate Sablin's ranks to sabotage his mutiny, as well as his country's towns to monitor dissent.
• Interservice Rivalry: To undermine Yagoda and the NKVD, the Party faction advocates the creation of a separate security agency, the KGB.
• Join or Die: Irkutsk sends planes over to Sablin's mutiny in Buryatia to deliver pamphlets that offer amnesty to anyone willing to join Yagoda's side. They warn that failure to comply will result in severe consequences.
• Just a Kid: If the Party hires younger bureaucrats as part of their reforms, the newly hired junior supervisor becomes unwelcomed by his colleagues for being younger than them, even given an "office" that's just a repurposed broom closet. However, the supervisor works through the discrimination and becomes more confident in his work as more people his age are hired in his department.
• Just in Time: During the Irkutsk Trials, a group of prisoners is taken to a concrete room to be lined up and shot, but they can optionally be saved when last-second pardons come through and spare them.
• Kangaroo Court:
  • Once the perceived traitors are rounded up in the Great Purge, the Irkutsk trials are held to invariably deem them guilty and remove them from the party, either through death or expulsion.
  • As Irkutsk conquers the other Far Eastern warlords, they organize rigged trials against them, with the punishment usually concluding with death.
• Loophole Abuse: The NKVD wields so much control because Yagoda's left enough bureaucratic loopholes for them to circumvent the rules. To rein them in, Bessonov will need to plug these holes in and empower the Presidium to keep a closer watch on them.
• MegaCorp: Under the Transitional Approach, Yagoda invites various foreign corporations to invest in his country, including the Boeing Company.
• Never-Forgotten Skill: Subverted. The warlord period has not done wonders for the Red Army, as they've forgotten important lessons like tank and aerial warfare, as well as combined arms. Hybrid training programs must be instituted to reteach these skills in the regional stage.
• Not So Similar: The government tries to distinguish itself from the bandits and other repressive warlords by establishing a system of law enforcement, making them appear more legitimate. It also tries to maintain some semblance of the old Soviet administration, befitting Irkutsk's claims of being the last vestige of Bukharin's USSR.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Inverted, if the Party faction institutes universal identification. Through this reform, the government reduces the amount of paperwork needed to travel around the country and streamlines the process to be more convenient. Even better, it gives more freedom for the worker to travel far and choose a job that they actually want.
• Outliving One's Offspring: After Sablin's rebellion is defeated, a father is given a letter by an NKVD officer, informing that his son was killed in the conflict. The father is traumatized by the news.
• Pet the Dog: One of Yagoda's soldiers befriends a small rabbit he finds, giving it a drink of water and naming it "Maxim".
• Plagiarism in Fiction: When Bessonov encourages an open cultural exchange, a local singer, Dominika Kuznetsova, performs a song at Ulan-Ude Opera House, which receives much acclaim from the audience. However, a resident from Tomsk accuses Kuznetsova of plagiarizing the song from another piece that originated in his city, only making several awkward changes to be more palatable to the communist government. Kuznetsova refuses to identify the songwriter and there are a couple of odd notes when the song is reviewed, so the accuser might be onto something, but it's ultimately never resolved.
• Police State: The Soviet Union under Yagoda's rule has completely degenerated into a police state controlled by the NKVD. After Irkutsk unites up to the regionals, Yagoda gradually downplays this by bringing civilian life back to normal, though his Securocracy still plays a heavy role in state control.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • As NKVD agents raid an apartment, the Comrade Major tells his subordinates to keep their targets alive because killing them would be a "waste" of paperwork.
  • If Bessonov overthrows Yagoda, he and the Party faction will reform the Soviet Union to be less repressive, which means curbing the uncontrolled authority of the NKVD. Most from the organization grumble about losing their power, but never act against Bessonov because he's too well-supported to topple in a coup.
• Propaganda Machine: The Ministry of Propaganda does exactly what their title implies, spreading glorifying stories of soldiers performing brave acts against bandits and other enemies to the state. They also produce propaganda to discredit the message of their enemies, such as portraying Sablin's ideology as deceitful and proclaiming themselves to be the inheritors of Lenin's legacy.
• Realpolitik: Despite their hatred of the United States and Japan as an antithesis to communism, they will peacefully co-exist or even trade with either one to prepare for war against their common enemy, Germany.
• Reign of Terror: Irkutsk's unification of the Russian Far East is unmistakably this, especially as the NKVD executes each leader of the defeated factions. The term is even used in the reaction quote when Irkutsk unifies the Russian Far East.
• The Remnant: While not in the most optimal position for reunification as far as communist warlords go (this title goes to Alexander Yegorov and his potential successors), Genrikh Yagoda in legal terms certainly has the strongest claim to it, as Irkutsk is the only part of Russia actually administered by the direct continuation of the pre-collapse Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, of which Yagoda is chairman.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: There is a power struggle within the Soviet remnants between the Party faction and the State faction (i.e. the NKVD). The Party faction represented by Bessonov argues that the state should be subordinate to the will of the Party, and is more idealistic, while the State faction led by Yagoda argues for the reverse and is more pragmatic. Depending on what reforms are passed and how the conflict is managed, the Soviet Union will fall to the hands of either of these two leaders.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: A son from a family in Irkutsk will defect to Sablin's mutiny in Buryatia, deeming his own state to be in the wrong and having faith that Sablin will create a more benevolent incarnation of the Soviet Union.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: The image for the event announcing to the world that Irkutsk has united the Far East features a NKVD Executioner doing this. Especially more appropriate considering the executions of everyone who stands in Yagoda's way during said unification.
• Secret Police: The NKVD, already one of the most dreaded organizations in the pre-war Soviet Union, became even more omnipresent in Yagoda's Irkutsk, taking most of the state functions for themselves and helping their chief to eliminate any opposition to his tyrannical rule. Yagoda can even strengthen them immensely in the regional stage by acknowledging them as a co-equal branch in the military.
• Sibling Rivalry: Two brothers end up on opposite sides during Sablin's revolt, both refusing to see the other's perspective and agreeing to be enemies during the last time they see each other.
• Slain in Their Sleep: During Sablin's mutiny, a group of NKVD agents flawlessly dismantle a partisan cell by killing most of them in their sleep and ambushing the rest.
• Starter Villain: If playing as Buryatia, the player will first need to deal with Irkutsk and finish Sablin's mutiny before they can do anything else.
• The Stool Pigeon: Citizens are instructed to report their family or friends of suspected counter-revolutionary activity, which will warrant an arrest by the NKVD.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The 8th Five Year Plan is initiated by the Soviet Development and Reform Commission to industrialize the nation. Unfortunately, they are conflicted between Yagoda's support of a dual economic system and Bessonov's support for a more orthodox approach.
• Trading Bars for Stripes:
  • Needing manpower to suppress Sablin's mutiny, Irkutsk creates labor battalions from their gulag prisoners, offering to reduce their sentences in exchange for their volunteer work.
  • In the regional stage, the government holds many smugglers captive in POW camps, but they will offer them amnesty in exchange for serving in their nascent, but growing navy.
• Vestigial Empire: Genrikh Yagoda's petty warlord state based in Irkutsk is the "official" Soviet Union, as it contains the remnants of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. After the fall of Moscow, this rump USSR controlled most of the Russian Far East, but as time went on, many of Yagoda's lieutenants refused to follow his orders or turned to the reactionaries of the Harbin Three, leaving Yagoda only with his personal domain in Irkutsk. Sablin's revolt has a chance to put the final nail in the coffin and end the Soviet Union for good.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The State faction, composed of conservative members of the Presidium, is filled with mediocre bureaucrats who have no passion and only work for a paycheck. Initially, they're kept around because they're pragmatism was useful for a small warlord state, but in the regional stage, their skills become less useful and most of them will be fired en masse, now that there's no reason to work with them.

Genrikh Yagoda

Role: Head of State

Party: Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov)^note All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

Ideology: Bolshevism^note Communism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Back in the days of the old Soviet Union, Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda was a name that many knew, and were terrified of. As the Director of the NKVD, Yagoda was responsible for cementing the stability and security of Bukharin's regime, whom he had supported even in the initial power struggle that had led to his rise to power. With little more than a simple order from him, even the most prominent Bolsheviks could suddenly disappear or be executed for counter-revolutionary behavior.

Then, when war broke out, large parts of the Union, even Moscow itself, fell under the German jackboot. In the ensuing chaos, Yagoda used the power he had been trusted with to evacuate much of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to the east, as far away from the Reich as possible. In the end, he was able to establish control in the depths of Siberia. From there, he governed one of the most powerful successor states of the Union.

The state that the old Presidium built did not last, however. Again and again, enemies and traitors carved their own fiefdoms as Yagoda's empire slowly crumbled; from the hated reactionaries from Harbin, to the "democrats" of Central Siberia and its generals, to the treasonous revisionists just across Lake Baikal. Yet, despite all the blows the Irkutsk government has suffered, it still stands as yet another warlord state. What sets it apart, though, is its legitimacy - no other warlord can claim to be a direct continuation of the old government. Yagoda now controls a regime where the NKVD is responsible for protecting the final stronghold of the revolution, and only a handful of Bukharinist politicians can govern. That's all Yagoda has been left with, but it will suffice.

The NKVD director under General Secretary Bukharin, now the Union's head of state after Bukharin's disappearance. With the Union on its last legs after facing WWII, the Siberian War, and the Sablinist mutiny, Yagoda has doubled down on state security to preserve what's left, still bitterly fighting on for a chance to restore Bukharin's Union.

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• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • Yagoda's philosophy and its indoctrination are named Yagodaschina, named after the Zhdanov Doctrine or Zhdanovshchina. They're also based off Bukharin's actual plans, taken to their logical conclusion.
  • Yagoda in the regionals will declare a "Transitional Approach to Economics", stating that the Union is currently in a transitional phase between market economy and true communism. He will then reduce state intervention in the economy, invite foreign investment, and open up Special Economic Sectors with free markets. These economic reforms are a dead ringer for the Chinese economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping.
  • Aside from Deng Xiaoping, Yagoda's economic reforms also aesthetically mirror the OTL 1965 Soviet economic reforms under Premier Alexei Kosygin. Yagoda also has the special (free market capitalist) economic system known as the System of Khozraschyot, which is the Soviet term for profitability in a planned economic system, and has been applied in Lenin's New Economic Policy, the Kosygin reforms, and Gorbachev's perestroika.
  • Yagoda's efforts to overhaul the NKVD into a more efficient security force and intelligence service bear more than a passing resemblance to how the KGB emerged in OTL.
  • One of his political reforms in the superregional stage is termed "Project Glasnost", allowing minor "counter-revolutionaries" to speak against the state so that dissent against the regime can be closely monitored and defused in a way that they don't explode into a more violent revolt.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Although merely captured instead of killed, if Yagoda is defeated by Buryatia, Sablin and his allies almost unanimously celebrate Yagoda's defeat with a wild night of drinking. Similarly, if Amur defeats Irkutsk, the citizens of Zeya join the Blackshirts with glee and genuine enthusiasm as Yagoda is brought to the gallows.
• Bad Boss: As shown in the Great Purge, Yagoda does not taken kindly to corruption, treason, or incompetence, seeing it as reason to have the person purged or killed.
• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Downplayed. Yagoda is initially portrayed as a hyper-authoritarian NKVD dictator with constant mass purges and widespread political repression, and players may initially believe that he's gonna remain like that for the rest of his campaign and turn all of Russia into a massive Gulag. However, these are merely his initial wartime measures; once he properly begins unifying Russia, he scales down the repression (to a still-authoritarian but not outright dystopian degree), modernizes Russian society, and introduces liberal economic reforms.
• Bait the Dog: Yagoda passes Project Glasnost to free up some limits on the freedom of speech, allowing critics to speak their mind against the government. However, Yagoda doesn't do this out of kindness, but rather so that the NKVD can determine who to closely surveil and make their jobs easier.
• Bald of Evil: Yagoda is completely bald, as well as one of the most brutal and oppressive warlords in Russia.
• Bullying a Dragon: Recognizing the Sphere as a crumbling Paper Tiger, Yagoda, under the Transitional Approach, will antagonize Japan by becoming one of their key economic rivals in Asia.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: If Yagoda succeeds in maintaining power from the Party faction and from Bessonov's attempted coup, he's shown calmly looking at his would-be usurper breaking down from an upstairs window before casually turning away. It's implied that for him, attempts like Bessonov's failed bid are just another day in Irkutsk.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Even after curbing the Party's power, Yagoda opts to keep the Presidium intact, albeit as a powerless tool for advancing his agenda, rather than dissolve it altogether. This is in part to maintain his pretensions of representing the legitimate Soviet Union and to keep would-be dissidents in line.
• Cincinnatus: Subverted. Yagoda promises to limit the NKVD's presence when it's safe to do so, but this is a shallow statement used to make himself seem more palatable and he actually has no intention of leashing his most powerful key to power.
• Cult of Personality: Through the philosophy of Yagodaschina, he has built a cult of personality around himself, including rejected propaganda photos which involve a shirtless Yagoda hunting, fishing, and riding on horseback through the wilderness. In the superregional stage, Yagoda descends further into this trope, expanding the security apparatus to root out more corrupt and revisionist party officials who would dare question his authority.
• Cruel Mercy: If Sablin spares Yagoda, the latter is put at the receiving end. He gets to witness the rekindled Leninist revolution unfold, but stripped of any relevance or political status. Ultimately, he dies alone and un-mourned.
• Didn't Think This Through: One of his few bad economic policies is trying to increase industrial efficiency of munitions like artillery shells by cutting some inspection points in the production line. However, some workers can't keep up with the fast pace that goods are being rushed out the door and thus results in lower quality products from them.
• Dirty Communists: Yagoda is absolutely brutal during his campaign to reconquer the Far East. After reuniting the region, Yagoda improves his nation and liberalizes the economy, but remains highly autocratic and politically repressive.
• The Dreaded: Yagoda may not bother to try rehabilitating his reputation of a repressive tyrant after Sablin's revolution is crushed, thinking that he only needs their loyalty and fear over their admiration.
• Dying Alone: If Irkutsk is defeated by Buryatia and Valery Sablin decides to spare Yagoda's life, nobody gives him a second glance when he walks the streets of Irkutsk after being released from the prison farm, and nobody is there to hear his final words, as he realises that all he did in his life has meant nothing.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Though his Siberian Plan approach will copy the Manchurian Model to optimize the economy, Yagoda makes it clear that he won't be politically adopting their fascist ideology, considering it a step too far.
• Evil Old Folks: Yagoda is 71 by 1962, and he maintains a tyrannical rule over Irkutsk.
• Evil Virtues: To reform the bureaucracy, Yagoda cultivates a culture of hard work and honesty, which will make his regime more efficient and centralize power to himself.
• Face Death with Dignity: Subverted when defeated by the Principality. Yagoda tries to keep a stoic face as he is led to the gallows, but he eventually collapses in fright over his impending doom.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: After conquering a warlord, Yagoda presents himself as a great liberator of the people, even though he's really subjecting them to another form of oppression by being surveilled by the NKVD.
• Frame-Up: In the power struggle between the State and Party factions, Yagoda frames many of his opponents for corruption to weaken the latter's influence and remove further restrictions on his power.
• Heel Realization: Downplayed. If Yagoda crushes Sablin's mutiny, he starts wondering whether his ruthless policies and the fear he's inspired among his supporters have only made things worse. He brushes those thoughts aside, rationalizing that circumstances forced his hand and that said draconian measures are necessary to restoring order to the Far East. It's only afterwards that he feels confident enough to put his take on Bolshevism into action.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Yagoda leaves a loophole in the Presidium so that not every deputy has to be present to pass a decree, which he's abused to circumvent their authority. This same exploit may be used to guarantee his removal as Premier when the Party initiates a vote of no confidence without his consent.
• Honor Before Reason: Many in the State faction criticize Bessonov's abolition of the gulag system, arguing that it will cripple the country's capacity to pursue large infrastructure projects. Bessonov and the Party faction retort that the pragmatic benefits do not outweigh the moral cost of using unpaid labor.
• Internal Reformist: While Yagoda is politically more oppressive than Bukharin was, only rivalling the Stalinists and Tukhachevsky, economically he’s one of the most reformist Communist unifiers available for Russia, pushing for China-like reforms of the command economy into state capitalism.
• Irony: Nikolai Yezhov, the man who executed Yagoda on Stalin's orders in real life, was executed by Yagoda some time in the 1950s, after the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet moved to Irkutsk.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: In the face of Sablin's mutiny, Yagoda centralizes even more power to himself to ensure that another rebellion will never occur again, but also clamping down on the Presidium's powers and the people's liberties.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After purging so many of his personal enemies, Yagoda finds himself in a similar fate when he is stripped of his titles as Premier and General Secretary by the Party faction.
• Long Game: Yagoda's economic recovery plans are careful and slow, focusing on reviving key industrial centers so that it can benefit the whole Soviet Union in the long-term.
• Manly Man: Invoked. As part of his Cult of Personality, Yagoda has propaganda pictures of himself taken doing "manly" activities like riding horses, fishing, and hunting a leopard while shirtless. If Yagoda is overthrown by the Party faction and replaced by Bessonov, the Presidium passes around these posters with great amusement, seeing it as another example of the ridiculousness of Yagoda's regime.
• Meet the New Boss: Yagoda views himself as Nikolai Bukharin's legal successor and tries to continue his old boss' policies as much as possible, such as collectivization or a potential continuation of the Siberian Plan; that said, Yagoda's reforms are his own ideas, and many in the party see them as a deviation from Bukharin's old policies.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Downplayed. Yagoda does care for the Soviet Union's well-being, but in an abstract sense. So long as productivity numbers are up and the nation's macro-level stability is secure, he couldn't care less about what's actually happening on the ground.
• Necessarily Evil: The most charitable description one could give for Yagoda's brutal measures, and what the man himself seems to believe.
  • Yagoda can refuse to pass reforms in the pre-regional stage under the excuse that a vanguard party is needed to efficiently run the country, as well as that the NKVD needs to be expanded to restore order after Sablin's mutiny.
  • Later on, his economic reforms are similarly justified as being both a transitional phase towards true socialism, and a means to rebuild Russia as anything other than a backwater.
  • If Yagoda establishes the Bureau of Socialist Media to regulate all forms of art, he will publicly acknowledge the harshness of his actions, but justify it as a necessary defense against counter-revolutionaries.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Though he absolutely hates Sablin, he does admire the way he armed many rebels so quickly and will adopt his tactics for his own gain.
• Order Is Not Good: Yagoda justifies his crimes as necessary measures to stabilize and protect the Soviet Union, yet these moves are often shown to negatively harm the people and be used as excuses for Yagoda to hold on to his power.
• Patriotic Fervor: One lesson he learns from Sablin's mutiny is the power of patriotism and he will try to ignite similar feelings of pride from the populace to earn their loyalty.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Though he is repressive, Yagoda is not prejudiced or, at least, doesn't enact it into policy. In his incarnation of the Soviet Union, minorities are treated fairly and given fairer schooling.
  • Instead of clamping down on artistic expression, Yagoda can devote more funds to the cultural arts and allow famous artists to realize their ambitions.
  • Yagoda raises the salaries of public servants and gives them more benefits, like vacation time, as a reward for their work and an honor to the exemplary Klavdiy Antonovich, head of the Antonovite Movement.
  • After purging his government of unneeded bureaucrats, Yagoda allows the Presidium to overhaul the education system and prop up new schools to educate the next generation of Russians.
• Politically Correct Villain:
  • As part of his continuation of Bukharin's policies, Yagoda establishes Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics so that ethnic minorities can enjoy a degree of autonomy in his country. Yagoda could lean further into this direction, if he expands their rights even more to minimize their economic exploitation.
  • Yagoda disdains the academia's potential silencing of scientists based on discrimination and invests in more egalitarian schooling.
• The Purge:
  • If he crushes Sablin's mutiny, Yagoda will initiate a Great Purge to round up incompetent and corrupt administrators to either be shot, imprisoned, or expelled from the party.
  • Fighting against the Party faction's influence, Yagoda will have many of them found guilty of supposed corruption to justify their expulsion and consolidate his hold over the country.
  • Yagoda purges the Soviet judiciary after he passes stricter guidelines and examinations of who is qualified to work in the department. He justifies it under the pretense of ensuring that competent people are working in the judiciary, but it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to curtail more of the Party faction's influence.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Even after consolidating power towards himself, Yagoda makes a point to give the Party, or what's left of it, its fair due. Not only does this bolster his legitimacy, but it also disarms what remaining dissent is left against his rule.
  • During his Great Purge, Yagoda can refrain from a zero tolerance policy and offer redemption to those who were spared, where they could regain their original positions under the strict condition that they don't repeat their mistakes.
  • After crushing the Buryat mutiny, Yagoda recognizes the public discontent that started this revolution and will implement some minor Sablinite reforms to appease his integrated supporters.
  • In the pre-regional stage, Yagoda can start the 1000 Letters campaign so that the people can voice their thoughts on their living conditions and bridge a connection to the party. Upon receiving their feedback, Yagoda will implement some reforms to appease them, such as pay increases or lowered five year grain quotas.
  • Yagoda will send the military to patrol the rural regions to secure a more reliable agricultural supply for the country's urban population, strengthening his regime's influence.
  • While reforming the securocracy, Yagoda offers pay raises and bonuses to those who serve the NKVD loyally, increasing their loyalty and expanding the organization's influence.
  • While rebuilding the agriculture sector, Yagoda revives Machine-Tractor Stations to allow weaker Sovkhozes to modernize with state investments, helping the peasants, but more importantly, increasing their agricultural output.
  • Unifying the Far East makes Yagoda realize that his military is unwelcomed by the newly conquered populations and may try to rehabilitate their reputation so that they don't destabilize his regime.
  • After conquering Central Siberia, Yagoda will rehabilitate dissidents, regardless of political alignment, from the region and give them a chance to adopt orthodox Bolshevism, since their talents could be useful in rebuilding.
  • Yagoda is aware of his negative reputation among the workers for his repressive tactics and tries to restore some of his lost reputation by starting a public relations campaign.
  • A key economic focus in the superregional stage is distributing resources fairly through "scientific socialism" and keeping the people well-fed because it makes them less inclined to listen to demagogues and other enemies of Yagoda.
  • Yagoda purges many party officials that he has no use for, which includes corrupt politicians.
• Realpolitik: He believes that socialism can be achieved when a society is made ready for the transition by working with capitalists. As such, Yagoda will sell some state-owned factories to foreign investors to access the technology needed to further develop the Soviet Union, sacrificing ideological doctrine in the short-term.
  It's better to have a rich oppressed nation than a poor oppressed nation
• Reassigned to Antarctica: If the Party faction triumphs over Yagoda's State faction, General Secretary Yagoda is demoted to just another Party member and internally exiled to a podunk town where he can never rise to power again.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Though politically repressive and occasionally hypocritical, there's no denying the wonders of Yagoda's economic policies in rebuilding the Soviet Union into a powerhouse, with a growing middle class and quickly developing industry.
• Skewed Priorities: Contrary to what some of his subordinates recommend in the regional stage, Yagoda initiates a renovation of Irkutsk to become the "Paris of Siberia", hoping to impress the rest of the world before reunifying Russia. Fortunately, this gets Subverted when similar projects are tentatively authorized in other cities to helpfully improve transportation and rebuild the education system.
• State Sec: Yagoda eventually reforms the NKVD into an efficient military and security force not too dissimilar to the KGB in OTL, complete with its own spec-ops divisions.
• Take a Third Option: In the debate to institute protectionism or open markets, Yagoda adopts a mixed approach of importing contracts scaled to the goals of his economic plan, domestically producing a certain level of goods without resorting to autarky.
• Toppled Statue: After being overthrown by Bessonov and the Party faction, the people rejoice in their newfound freedom by tearing down the old dictator's personality cult, which includes destroying his statues and replacing them with ones of Lenin, Marx, and Bukharin.
• Uncertain Doom: If defeated by Matkovsky, Yagoda is nowhere to be found, either dead or disappeared, though the Vozhd doesn't care which because he's out of the way, regardless.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • If the Presidium votes to remove him from the Premier, Yagoda is left speechless at what has happened, especially since the vote was near unanimous.
  • Yagoda falls further into despair when the Party removes him as General Secretary and reduces his powers even further, so much that he has to be dragged by two Red Army sergeants from the Central Committee.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: In the superregional stage, Yagoda is still frustrated by corrupt officials stealing money from the budget, considering his previous purges too merciful because he wasn't being more repressive and thinking that everyone should be grateful about this "privilege".
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Yagoda genuinely believes that he's doing what is best for the Soviet Union, and that only after his draconian and ruthless measures see their fruition could he consider bringing his real plans to light.

Sergey Bessonov

Role: Foreign Minister (Yagoda cabinet), Head of State (Yagoda removed)

Party: Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov)^note All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

Ideology: Bolshevism^note Communism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show (Warning: Unmarked Spoilers)} A career Soviet politician, diplomat, and Communist Party official, as well as a staunch Bukharinist besides, Sergey Alexeyevich Bessonov followed along with the evacuation of government from Moscow during the German invasion. Remaining with the core of the Presidium, despite numerous defections and splinters, he settled with the others in Irkutsk, where his diplomatic experience earned him a position as Foreign Minister within General Secretary Yagoda's cabinet.

However, Bessonov grew increasingly disillusioned with Yagoda's approach to governance, and in particular strongly opposed his concentration of power towards the State faction and away from the Communist Party - the natural font of authority in any true Bukharinist state. As the power struggle between the Party and Yagoda's clique deepened, Bessonov knew where his loyalties lay, and when the time was right to depose Yagoda and once again empower the Party, he stood ready to play his part.

Named Premier by the grateful Presidium after Yagoda's fall, Bessonov moved quickly to eject Yagoda supporters and loyalists from positions of authority, replacing them with reliable Party officials. He intends fully to return the Presidium and the Union back to their Bukharinist roots, and in so doing, decisively - and permanently - dismantle the so-called 'Yagodaschina.'

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• Berserk Button: An event at the superregional stage shows that the thought of his old boss, Yagoda, makes Bessonov positively furious, as he sees Yagoda as a traitor to the core values of socialism.
• Chummy Commies: Bessonov is a firm believer in Bukharin's doctrine, but he considers Yagoda to be an opportunistic dictator who has betrayed the ideology that he's supposedly fighting for. After overthrowing him, Bessonov vows to reorient the Soviet Union under the party's direction, guaranteeing more civil liberties and reducing the NKVD's oppressive influence.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Bessonov recalls some of the more amusing measures Yagoda did to preserve his personality cult, such as nearly sharing photos of him shirtless to emphasize his manliness. However, he's also quick to point out the underlying and troubling significance of these actions, namely in how they're a symptom of Yagoda's unrelenting campaign to trample on the people's liberties and rule as an absolute dictator.
• Foil: Bessonov is one to Mikhail Suslov in Komi. He similarly holds firmly to the Party's supremacy over the rule of any one man and abhors how Yagoda is effectively pursuing a "revisionist" approach to Bukharin's rule. Unlike Suslov, however, Bessonov is considerably less dogmatic about enforcing Bolshevist tenets as seen in his willingness to hire non-socialist bureaucrats out of pragmatism by the superregional stage, and prioritizes making socialism accountable, at least so long as it remains true to the USSR's roots.
• Heel Realization: Bessonov and his supporters in the Party eventually come to the conclusion that while Sablin and his mutineers went too far, they were right in seeking positive change and stopping Yagoda's nascent Cult of Personality.
• Historical In-Joke: After curbing the NKVD's power, Bessonov has it replaced outright by a new security organization called the KGB.
• Humble Hero: Bessonov is careful to not repeat Yagoda's cult of personality for himself, instead emphasizing the collective power of the people. He likewise expects all of his successors to follow in his footsteps, introducing limits on how much they can broadcast of themselves.
• I Did What I Had to Do: After conquering Central Siberia, Bessonov needs to lower bureaucratic restrictions to hire non-socialists. Though contrary to his beliefs, Bessonov justifies himself by arguing that the Soviet Union has taken in too much territory to properly manage and that more bureaucrats are needed to keep the country functioning.
• The Idealist: Contrary to what most have told him, Bessonov has hope for a democratic incarnation of the Soviet Union and gets his wish after overthrowing Yagoda.
• Internal Reformist: Bessonov opposes Buryatian praxis but agrees with much of Sablin's ideals, and is a democratic reformer who seeks to make the USSR less oppressive by dismantling the gulags and Yagoda's cult of personality. He also expands minority autonomy by opening cultural exchanges and presenting his Soviet Union as a more multicultural nation. At the same time, this is partly inverted, since his faction of the party is also the economically conservative one, favouring a traditional Soviet command economy instead of limited market reforms.
• Manly Tears: When "promoted" by Yagoda to a powerless position, Bessonov breaks down into sobbing, knowing that his power play to reform the Soviet Union as failed.
• Meet the New Boss: Even more so than Yagoda, a successful Bessonov-led Party represents a return of sorts to the original Soviet status quo, albeit with considerable effort made to make it accountable to the people.
• Necessarily Evil: Bessonov acknowledges Lenin's use of gulags as such, noting the need to imprison dangerous enemies, but acknowledging Yagoda's abuse of it to lock away anyone who dares criticize him. After taking over the Soviet Union, Bessonov reviews those who have been imprisoned and frees political prisoners who were unjustly arrested.
• Nice to the Waiter: Bessonov makes a conscious effort to not only mingle with the working class, but also hear them out with a sympathetic ear, in contrast to Yagoda not having the time of day for knowing what goes on, unless it's for PR or getting productivity numbers.
• The Purge: Bessonov eventually curbs the NKVD's influence until it's little more than just another extension of the Party that's accountable to the Presidium.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Bessonov believes that socialism must serve the people, and that Yagoda is oppressing the people and forcing the people to serve him. After securing the rest of Siberia, he's also willing to make concessions to Bolshevist dogma, such as hiring non-socialists to help keep the rapidly-expanding country functioning.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: If Bessonov's gamble to coup Yagoda fails, he finds himself informed by a guard that he's been "promoted" at the last minute to a high-ranking agricultural post in the ass-end of Siberia. He breaks down upon realizing this, knowing that he's lost his chance to seize power and doomed to languish in obscurity.
  • This is hinted at much earlier if Yagoda consolidates power sufficiently enough. Bessonov can find himself being forced out of the Presidium by the NKVD as he's stripped of his original office. As far as the upper echelons of power are concerned, he's already an Unperson.
• Redeeming Replacement: Replacing Yagoda as the new leader of the Soviet Union, Bessonov expands on many of his predecessor's most benevolent policies, while dismantling his negative ones. He continues the Soviet Union's protections of minority rights and expansion of the education system, but leashes the NKVD's oppressive influence and passes limited democratic reforms to reverse Yagoda's tyrannical policies.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Even though Bessonov frees many gulag prisoners who were unfairly arrested and offers them good wages to work in "construction camps", there is a degree of uncertainty that all will accept his offer, since many will just want to leave Russia altogether.
• Status Quo Is God: Downplayed. For all their efforts to undo Yagoda's policies and make socialism serve the people, Bessonov and his Party supporters still seek to preserve the original spirit of Bolshevism and the traditional Soviet command economy.
• Taking Up the Mantle:
  • Downplayed. Upon assuming power, he takes it upon himself to go back to the Union's Bolshevist roots, albeit in a much less radical manner than Sablin.
  • In a more straight example, Bessonov inherits Bukharin's Siberian Plan and intends to finish it by the superregional stage by expanding the factories and potentially surpassing the plan's original vision.
• Token Good Teammate: Out of Yagoda's cabinet members, Bessonov is the most inclined to keep the party accountable to the people, being the first to suggest that they should align the government closer to Sablin's ideals. He doesn't carry out his reforms at the same quick pace as Sablin, as shown when he temporarily limits the democratic vote to registered communists, but it's a start for the Party.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Inverted, as it's the benevolent leader who overthrows the tyrant here. As Premier, Bessnov will try to redeem the reputation of communism after Yagoda's tyranny by making the government more accountable, permitting measured democratic reforms.

Buryatia

^{Flag of the Far Eastern Soviet Republic}

^{Flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics}

Official Name: Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Far Eastern Soviet Republic (regional unification), Siberian Socialist Republic (superregional unification), Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (national unification)

Ruling Party: Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov) - Sablintsy^note All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - Sablinists

Ideology: Communism

The Buryat ASSR, once ruled with an iron fist by Genrikh Yagoda and his NKVD, was overthrown by its people in a revolution led by the young Red Army commissar Valery Sablin. Sablin, following the ideals of Lenin's October Revolution, desires to build a truly revolutionary socialist society that would shine a light of hope in a world of despots.

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• Anti-Mutiny: The people of Buryatia rallied under Valery Sablin and broke off from Genrikh Yagoda's rump Union because they believe that Chairman Yagoda has betrayed Vladimir Lenin's ideals.
• Chummy Commies: If Sablin sticks to his guns and remains true to his vision of a free and equal Soviet Union, the Buryat ASSR becomes, one of the brightest lights possible in a timeline full of darkness. Even if he gives into the temptation of authoritarianism, Sablin remains one of the better unifiers of the USSR overall, as he still strives to realize Leninist ideals, even if through Hobbesian means.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Buryatia, as mentioned, is one of the hardest warlord states to effectively lead in-game to a new player. You start in a war against a numerically-superior faction and are plagued with a massive amount of financial and resource issues starting out. It's often not surprising to see Buryatia conquered by Irkutsk if you're playing as another nation without having custom AI settings in place to ensure Buryatia wins the war. It's also far more tempting to take the Bukharinist options due to providing far better rewards in the short term than the Sablinist path. Soldier through all of it and unite Russia while sticking to your ideals, however, and you get arguably the best possible ending for Russia outside of contenders such as Humanist Tomsk and so on.
• Early Game Hell: Buryatia starts off as little more than a reformist mutiny of young idealists and Buryats who got fed up with Genrikh Yagoda's tyranny, fighting an uphill battle against Irkutsk's experienced, professional army; for this reason, Buryatia is usually one of the first Russian warlord states to be conquered when controlled by the AI. It becomes a little more manageable once Buryatia defeats Irkutsk, but nevertheless, Buryatia is designated as one of the hardest Russian warlord states for this reason.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Buryatia has one of the most difficult paths to reuniting Russia, as the odds are stacked against Sablin from the very beginning. However, if you manage to fully reunite Russia while staying true to Sablin's principles, the end result is an optimistic USSR that stays true to Lenin's dream, and by far one of the best possible outcomes of the warlord era.
• Evil Pays Better: A lot of the potential Bukharinist options for Sablin offer greater bonuses than the Leninist ones, forcing Sablin to consider whether he should stick to his guns in spite of it being an uphill struggle, or compromise on his ideals to ensure his revolution will survive. This is actually deconstructed, as while a lot of the Bukharinist options pay better in the short term, in the long term it results in a far more repressive and inefficient Soviet Union than one where Sablin stuck to his ideals. Granted, Bukharinist Sablin is still one of the better options in general even after all this, but it still doesn't erase the sacrifices made just to make Sablin's revolution possible.
• Good Pays Better: Albeit in ways that are not entirely obvious, at least at first. The Bukharinist options generally pay far better than the Sablinist options, but in the long run, most of the Sablinist focuses result in a far freer society and a post-unification economic miracle. While Bukharinist Sablin ultimately creates a livable state, a fully-Sablinist USSR is what actually lives up to the ideals Lenin and Marx had in mind and creates a classless, democratic utopia.
• Historical In-Joke: The flag of Sablin's Buryatia features the hammer and sickle drawn inside of a large red star (rather than one being drawn over the other, as on the actual Soviet flag), similar to the flag of the Weimar-era German Communist Party. This is rather appropriate given that Sablin's more democratic approach to Marxism, while ostensibly based on Leninist principles, more resembles German Luxemburgism. It also fits with how one of Sablin's main subordinates is an exiled German Communist in Otto Braun.
• History Repeats: If Buryatia ends up fighting Omsk, the Black League scoffs at Sablin's idealism, presumes that the reborn USSR will be weak due to their focus on the people's well-being, and insists that it will lose another war against Germany.
• Karma Meter: The entire nation's gimmick runs on a "idealistic vs. cynical" variant like Paragon and Renegade in Mass Effect. The game gives numerous moral decisions on whether to stick to your ideals of a utopian socialist revolution or eschew those ideals to achieve success in the short term. Whatever degree of focuses you, well, focus on for your playthrough determines whether Buryatia becomes a borderline-utopia Socialist democracy like Lenin envisioned or an authoritarian dictatorship that nonetheless manages to be a more livable place than OTL Soviet Union due to smarter reformist policies.
• Licked by the Dog: If Sablin pursues diplomacy with America and sends his delegation to accompany the establishment of cultural museums there, Susanna Pechuro will disgruntedly go about her mission and then be seen by a little girl and her mother, with the daughter being in awe of the soldier. Pechuro can't help but sigh and admit that some good for their nation's image will come out of their visit.
• Old Master: Otto Braun, an old German Communist activist and Comintern spy, joined Sablin's revolt against the Irkutsk government and sometimes serves as his political guide. The fact Braun frequently encourages Sablin to take Bukharinist options, gives him shades of being an Evil Mentor as well.
• Please Select New City Name: At the superregional stage, the capital of Buryatia is renamed from Verkhneudinsk to Ulan-Ude by Valery Sablin and Mikhail Markheev, to commemorate the role the Buryat people played in defeating Yagoda.
• La Résistance: If Amur unifies the Far East, the remaining Sablinites will organize a resistance against the fascists, now led by Sash Minikin. Unfortunately, their activities are ultimately futile as they don't stand a chance against the better equipped RFP. When they hesitate to save a village being wiped out by the numerically superior All-Russian Army, it's implied that they disband out of shame.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Sablin leads a Leninist revolution against the extremely despotic rule of Genrikh Yagoda. Further events in his path shows how this idealism continues to define his movement, from liberating a concentration camp run by Vozhd Rodzaevsky, to letting "Tsar" Mikhail II go back to Australia, under the "punishment" of exile, after Sablin realizes Mikhail was basically abducted and forced to serve as a Puppet King for the White forces, with or without a bit of forced labor first. However, it's also possible to Subvert this if Sablin takes too many "Bukharinist" focuses, as he winds up purging any opposition to his rule, much like his idol Lenin did in the first Russian Revolution.
• Worthy Opponent: Yagoda and his top men acknowledge the revolutionary zeal and competence of Sablin's mutiny, in which they will adopt his practices for their own benefit.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Otto Braun, one of Sablin's ministers, is an exiled German Communist who fled to the USSR after being arrested and broken out of prison.

Valery Sablin

^{70s Sablin portrait}

^{70s Sablin portrait with coat}

Role: Head of State

Party: Vsesoyuznaya Kommunisticheskaya Partiya (Bolshevikov) - Sablintsy^note All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - Sablinists

Ideology: Communism, Bolshevism^note Communism (Authoritarian Path)

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show} Born in Leningrad amidst the New Years' celebrations of 1939, Valery Sablin was only a child when his family was evacuated eastwards with the shattered remnants of the Presidium, even as his father, a naval officer, sailed forth to meet his doom against the Kriegsmarine. This sacrifice was never lost on Sablin, who had grown up dreaming of the Union he had barely known, and of the Revolution his father's father had fought in. Despite having reservations with Yagoda's leadership, Sablin willingly enlisted into the army as a commissar still, not out of a sense of loyalty to Yagoda's totalitarian empire, but out of perhaps foolish hope that deep within the halls of the few ramshackle military academies that still stood, he would find answers to his questions. Was this really what those who came before him wanted? All he found was disappointment. What few books he could find were censored beyond measure, and he knew the NKVD watched his every step.

When the Central Siberian War set the east ablaze, Sablin did his duty, inspiring his men to fight for socialism and equality - the more those under his command looked to him for guidance, the more he wondered if he was truly on the right side. Eventually, the dam broke. Sablin, accompanied by a few loyal soldiers, stormed a radio tower and broadcast a message for all the east to hear. In it, Sablin spoke earnestly of the hardships the people of Russia faced, and spoke of his dream for a truly equal socialist state, free of the terror Yagoda imposed upon the people. He expected no one to listen - but they did. Men and women flocked to join him, the dreamers, the dissidents, and the youths. Now, Sablin and his revolutionaries fight for the future, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for their dream.

A young army commissar turned leader of the Leninist mutiny aimed at topping Chairman Yagoda. Raised in a war-torn Russia under Yagoda's authority, Sablin's learnings attracted him to Lenin's revolutionary idealism, in contrast to Yagoda's empty teachings. Witnessing Yagoda's tyranny on full display in the Siberian War, Sablin chose the path of revolution to follow and truly realize Lenin's revolutionary footsteps.

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• All-Loving Hero: Sablin, if he fully commits to his Sablinist ideals, ends up becoming this. He ends up showing far more leniency and forgiveness to criminals that by all means would be imprisoned for life if not executed to almost any other faction, ends up allowing Men and his faith to exist in peace and even comes to see him as a friend, and if he succeeds in unifying Russia, becomes one of the biggest rays of hope at the end of the story.
• Anti-Hero: By contrast to the above, Sablin in a full Bukharinist path ends up slowly becoming this. He still has undeniably good intentions and helps avoid a lot of the pitfalls that the OTL Soviet Union had, and even in this path is one of the better unifiers of the post-anarchy Russia in general. However, he fully submerges becoming a Type I and Type III anti-hero, as his actions — from purging all counterrevolutionaries in his army to brutally executing most of the faction leaders to even abandoning his ideals of a free, democratic Leninist republic to see it be done — end up having the weight of his leadership pressure him as he looks on in sorrow at what he had to sacrifice to get this far.
• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • In real life, Sablin led a mutiny in 1975 in the hope of starting a Leninist revolution in the Soviet Union, which ended in failure and his execution. In this timeline, he also mutinied and revolted against the Soviet Union (or what remains of it) in the name of Lenin's ideals, albeit under very different circumstances.
  • Sablin and his allies hijack several radio towers in Irkutsk to broadcast a message for revolution under new Soviet ideals, mirroring his OTL hijacking of the Storozhevoy to spread a message from the frigate.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's absolutely an idealist and a Sablinist USSR is flat-out the most benevolent version of the Soviet Union achievable in the game, and Sablin is one of the kindest leaders in Russia aside from Shostakovich, Veinberg and Men. Even in this version, however, he shows no mercy to the Amur fascist leadership, having them all hung and wiping out all top-staff, because even he knew that reasoning with a fascist state in this world was a bad idea.
• Big Good: Sablin if he sticks to his ideals and unifies Russia becomes this for arguably the entirety of the Eurasian sphere, being a kind leader who's compassion and idealism helped break the cycle of violence and authoritarianism that has plagued Russia since the Mongols took over. Doubly so if he's willing to downplay some of his idealism and create an alliance with the USA despite otherwise being fully committed to his ideal of democratic Leninist socialism, as that basically forces Germany and Japan to contest with both a nuclear-capable, borderline-superpower Red Bear and the most powerful remaining democratic superpower left in the world. Basically, regardless of how good things are going for Japan or Germany (i.e. Takagi reforming Japan and exposing the Dai Li Conspiracy, and Speer executing the GO4 and fixing most of the rot problems with Nazi Germany), a fully-empowered Sablinist Russia is one of the worst possible outcomes for either of the two fascist superpowers, and extremely overdue good news for anti-fascist factions across the world.
• The Chains of Commanding: While Sablin consistently feels the weight of his actions regardless of which path he takes, this is especially pronounced in his Bukharinist outcome. By the time he reunifies Russia, the sacrifices made to get to that point finally bring him to the verge of tears.
• Classical Anti-Hero: While he refuses to let himself show weakness in public due to his status as a leader, he grows into this in a Bukharinist path in private, as he genuinely wonders if it was really worth discarding his ideals in the name of making the revolution succeed.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: If Sablin takes too many Bukharinist options, he's still trying to follow Lenin's ideals, but also purges anybody who stands in his way. This is subverted as he fully unifies Russia, however, as he realizes the price he paid in the name of his revolution.
• Deal with the Devil: Not with any other entity, but with Sablin himself. He can choose to go down more Bukharinist branches that will provide better buffs than options that stick closer to his ideals. The consequence is seeing him abandon his more idealistic plans and purge anyone standing in his path.
• Defector from Decadence: Disappointed by Yagoda's tyrannical leadership and degradation of Lenin's ideals, Sablin chose to revolt in order to inspire the people into a new Leninist revolution.
• Defiant to the End: If defeated, captured and sentenced to death by any warlord other than the Father, Sablin will use his last words to denounce his captors before his execution is carried out.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Valery Sablin is shown being courteous to other defeated warlords (even such a brute as Yagoda, who was OTL involved in brutal purges, is only submitted to the equivalent to community service), but executes the brutal genocidal Fascist Konstantin Rodzaevsky, saying it was to ensure peace returns to the Russian Far East.
• Exact Words: Sablin consistently believes that he's fulfilling Lenin's vision, regardless of which path he takes.
• Fallen Hero: Downplayed. Should Sablin take too many Bukharinist options on his tree, he essentially begins purging anyone who gets in the way of Leninist ideals. Upon being expelled from the Party, a disappointed Susanna Pechuro says to his face that Sablin used to be better, though in practice a Bukharinist Sablin's USSR remains a livable (if flawed) country, and far less repressive than Yagoda's.
• Foil: Is this to a couple of other Russian warlords:
  • First of all, there is of course Yagoda, Sablin's first enemy and former superior. Whereas Yagoda represents the old Soviet Union that has largely abandoned the principles of democracy and liberty that it was first founded on (to the point of basically restoring capitalism), Sablin represents the idealism of the early Soviet era, and a chance to rebuild the Union without its original flaws. Yagoda is one of the oldest Russian warlords, Sablin is one of the youngest. Yagoda wears a dark uniform, Sablin wears a white one. Yagoda is overthrown by Bessonov if he abandons his pragmatism, while Sablin turns towards his Bukharinist path if he ceases to be an idealist and turns to Yagoda's ruthless measures.
  • Like Gutrum Vagner of the Aryan Brotherhood, Sablin is very young at the start of the game, and unlikely to unite all of Russia. Unlike Vagner, who's a delusional Nazi LARPing fanboy who'd enslave most of Russia for failing to meet his criteria of "Aryan", Sablin wants to free Russia from the likes of Yagoda and Rodzaevsky, unlike Vagner who will actively make Russia a miserable hellhole for anybody besides the "Aryans". They even both idolise historical leaders: Sablin, of course, sees himself as a new Lenin, while Vagner believes he is following in the footsteps of Tsar Peter the Great, the great Westerniser of Russia. But while Sablin has the potential to improve upon the legacy of Lenin and avoid sliding into authoritarianism as he did, Vagner will be even more unhinged and violent than Peter ever was, and his "Westernisation" will bring nothing but misery to the people of Russia.
  • Svetlana Bukharina also seeks to make a free and equal Soviet Union and fix the mistakes of Nikolai Bukharin. While Sablin looks to the USSR's Leninist roots and sliding into authoritarianism is considered a bad path, Bukharina has no such compunctions against using the power of the state to stamp out any threats to her Council Communist vision.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Downplayed, but otherwise played straight in a Bukharinist path. Having formed Buryatia in a mutiny to liberate the region from Yagoda's tyranny, he ended up becoming what he hated the most about Yagoda: a dictator. Unlike most examples, though, Sablin is still sympathetic and it hits him like a truck realizing what he had to sacrifice to make his revolution possible.
• Good Is Not Dumb: A fully-committed idealist Sablin is a ray of hope in the downright-bleak world of TNO, but he's not remotely stupid. Even he recognizes letting the Amur Nazis and Rodzaevsky live is a terrible decision, and agrees to have them executed. He also quickly intuits that Mikhail II didn't want to even be in Russia and just wants to go home, with his "punishment" being exile back to his home nation of Australia, an option he wouldn't have even in victory. He can also potentially end up taking the more pragmatic Bukharinist choices, but this isn't always going to work out in the long run.
• Good Is Not Nice: Downplayed, in that his government typically prefers terms of rehabilatative labor to execution, but Sablin doesn't always have a soft hand with those he defeats. Played up on his Bukharinist path, where he remains one of the better unifiers of Russia, but takes ruthless action to root out what he sees as threats to his revolution and its future.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Throughout the warlord stage, Sablin is haunted by the possibility that he might find himself becoming a tyrant, or fail his people as a young and untested leader, or both, and he sees a part of himself even in the brutal fascist Rodzaevsky after defeating Amur. This fades away during his Sablinite route, but if he instead leans into authoritarianism, it sadly proves rather prophetic.
• Hero-Worshipper: Of Vladimir Lenin, thinking that Bukharin straying away from Lenin's ideals is what allowed the Nazis to defeat them. In the Leninist path, Sablin stays true to these principles, and ensures the new USSR will be a socialist democracy. In the Bukharinist path, Sablin ends up following what Lenin had to do in real life, purging any opposition to his vision.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Played With and Downplayed in the case of fully-idealist Sablin. Sablin OTL and Sablin in TNO actually had most, if not all, of the same beliefs as each other; both were charismatic idealists who staged a revolt against a corrupt Communist state with intent to dramatically reform the nation into a better place. The differences, however, is twofold: OTL Sablin was a committed Leninist through and though, and though his desires for a corruption-free USSR that lived up to the ideals of Lenin meant undoing the authoritarian structure altogether, there was no way to know for sure if he'd have actually succeeded to follow through with it; he was caught and executed in the OTL. Here, he not only can potentially succeed in his mutiny, but unify Russia under the most democratic interpretation of the Soviet Union achievable in the game and have it as one of the best possible endings for Russia in the game.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Moreso Historical Anti-Hero Upgrade, but this is also Played With and Downplayed in the case of Bukharinist Sablin. Sablin in the OTL would most likely balk at his TNO self's usage of authoritarianism to ensure control, but it's impossible to know for certain whether Sablin in the OTL wouldn't have been forced down the same path or not; he was caught and executed before he could complete his mutiny. Even then, Sablin is still one of the better unifiers even in a full Bukharinist path, but makes clear a lot of what Sablin sought to achieve had to be seriously diluted or compromised just to get where he's at.
• Historical In-Joke:
  • When asked to name the first ship built for the Red Navy in many years, Sablin chooses Storozhevoy (meaning sentry), which was the name of the ship on which the real Sablin conducted his unsuccessful mutiny in 1975.
  • His plans for diplomacy with America involves him meeting many executives and other officials from the US to discuss support. Just then, the Soviet leader is presented Pepsi and appreciates it after having a drink. It mirrors Khrushchev being introduced to Pepsi during a visit to America and falling madly in love with the beverage.
• History Repeats: Should Sablin take too many Bukharinist options, he ends up purging anyone he deems a threat to his Leninist ideals, becoming an authoritarian no better than Yagoda and repeating the same actions his idol made.
• Hope Bringer: A fully-committed Sablinist path sees Sablin eventually becoming this with his sheer idealism ending up genuinely bringing socialist democracy to Russia for the first time ever and breaking the Vicious Cycle of authoritarian rule and Full-Circle Revolutions through his kindness and compassion. The story openly acknowledges this, with Sablin ultimately being a major win-state for Russia and ensuring that the Germans and Japanese effectively have hell to worry about as a result of now having a cold war on two fronts.
• I Did What I Had to Do: In his Bukharinist path, Sablin feels no satisfaction at the hard choices he has to make, but sees them as necessary to continue Lenin's work.
• Irony:
  • If Sablin is able to peacefully reunify with Vasilevsky's People's Revolutionary Council, he could get Leonid Brezhnev, the man whose regime was the one he mutinied against, as a general.
  • Doubly so as a fully-committed idealist Sablin ends up showing much of the qualities described of Christ himself; compassionate to practically everyone, a beacon of hope to the world around him and ends up genuinely committing to changing Russia and the world for the better with his revolutionary compassion. Which becomes hilariously ironic and something he'd likely be offended being compared to, as Sablin is a communist.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: A Bukharinist Sablin, despite ultimately discarding much of his ideals in the name of completing the revolution, is still arguably one of the best unifiers among authoritarian socialist factions aside from Zhukov due to allowing extensive reforms to avoid a lot of the pitfalls that would've befell the OTL Soviet Union, on top of never losing his sense of empathy as well as feeling grief for what he had to do to get this far.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: If Buryatia is defeated by the Principality, Sablin's last words are a long speech◊, during which the Tsarist executioners get impatient and shoot him before he's done.
• Magnetic Hero: Especially early on, one of Sablin's greatest assets is his sparkling personal charisma and skill as an orator. It's to the point that Buryatia's default foreign policy move is to have visitors meet personally with Sablin, knowing that they'll be charmed and taken with him. And even after unifying to the superregional level, Sablin takes a personal, boots-on-the-ground approach to many domestic protests that more often than not wins them over, such as arriving in an armored car to personally negotiate with striking workers in the former Novosibirsk, or holding council with the former anarchist communes.
• My God, What Have I Done?: By the time Sablin reunifies Russia under his Bukharinist path, he's practically on the verge of tears upon realising just how much he had to sacrifice, and how many people he lost to pursue Lenin's vision.
• Naïve Newcomer: Sablin became a commissar under Yagoda's leadership in hopes that he can help the people in spite of the deceitful and cruel system around him. He quickly became disappointed with his career choice, as he saw that the regime he served was not interested in the ideals foreseen by the Communist elders.
• Nice Guy: Sablin is ultimately a caring and kind idealist whom, if he succeeds in his path, ends up bringing one of the best endings possible for Russia. Even a Bukharinist path Sablin still has his kindness in tact, as he expresses regret for what he had to do to get as far as he did and weeps for the lives taken by him as a result.
• Platonic Life-Partners: While he and Pechuro are Happily Married to other people for most of the story, they're tied at the hip in his Sablinite story path. Notably, when Sablin is having doubts about the future on his wedding night, it is she, rather than his wife, who meets up with and comforts him.
• Pragmatic Hero: Sablin recognizes the value in Otto Braun's advice and Bukharinist beliefs, and can potentially take them to ensure the revolution wins. This is potentially deconstructed, as a Bukharinist Sablin's USSR, while still livable at worst, sees to it thousands dying from purges and execution to get this far, with Sablin feeling the moral cost didn't make it worth it in the long run.
• The Purge: In his Bukharinist path, Sablin removes the Leninist Maya Ulanovskaya and Susanna Pechuro from the Party for opposing his decisions.
• Realpolitik: Sablin can ultimately take a lot of the more pragmatic or amoral choices as given by his advisor Otto Braun to help ensure the revolution is a success; stuff like purging counterrevolutionary elements, executing faction leaders and even allying with the USA the ensure that either of the fascist superpowers lose the Cold War. This is deconstructed in practice, though; while Sablin's pragmatic choices pay better in the short-term, in the long-term it leads to a far more repressive and inefficient nation than one liberalized like he originally intended to have it as.
• Rebel Leader: Formerly a commissar in Chairman Yagoda's Buryat ASSR, Sablin realized that Yagoda was just another tyrant ruling under the guise of socialism, and thus inspired the people of Buryatia to rebel and expel the NKVD.
• Religion Is Wrong: This is Sablin's main conflict with Alexander Men, despite them otherwise being similar in terms of idealism. In Sablin's Leninist path, this is Downplayed, as while he disagrees with the religious trappings of Men's Divine Mandate, he orders his men to treat Men's followers fairly under the rules of war, punishes those who ransack churches, and maintains a secular government with freedom of religion for his people. In Sablin's Bukharinist path, this is played completely straight, as Sablin orders his forces to "Crack Down On The Opiate" by any means.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Sablin was a former commissar in Yagoda's wing of the Red Army who became disillusioned with what he saw as a deeply revisionist and corrupt state of affairs in the leadership, favoring a restoration of Leninism through an open mutiny staged in inland Buryatia. This was much the same as in OTL, except for a very notable difference - Sablin was a commissar in the Soviet Navy, and he launched his Leninist rebellion by hijacking an anti-submarine frigate and attempting to sail it to Leningrad, thereafter broadcasting a nationwide message of revolution.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Sablin can notably fall onto both ends of the scale, despite being ultimately an idealist himself. Depending on whether he chooses his Sablinist beliefs or agrees with Otto Braun's Bukharinist beliefs, he can either fully push forward with an idealist, borderline-utopian Soviet Socialist democracy, or end up assuming a Hobbesian stance regarding ensuring order and the success of the revolution. The story ultimately shifts on the scale as a result; a fully-committed Sablinist path is one of the most optimistic endings in general, while a Bukharinist path ultimately really hammers home the cynicism involved to get that far.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: The various Bukharinist options for Sablin start off relatively minor, starting with using a light amount of centralization to promote efficiency and invoking emergency powers to overturn the decisions of local democratically elected governments. But then they start to take on darker options, from ruthlessly executing Yagoda (which, even if arguably deserved, wouldn't be much different to how Yagoda's NKVD operated) to letting his forces "Crack Down On The Opiate" of the Divine Mandate (in comparison, his Leninist option has him encourage his men to follow the rules of war against Men's followers, and punishes those who ransack churches). By the time Sablin turns fully he is purging anybody who opposes his vision. However, this is actually fully subverted and downplayed in the ending of the Bukharinist path, as Sablin breaks down in tears at how hollow his victory feels after so much death and despair and seeks not to put all those sacrifices to waste by giving up now. Even in this scenario, Sablin is still one of the better unifiers for Russia and contests with Zhukov for the best authoritarian socialist path by extension.
• Was It Really Worth It?: After succeeding in a Bukharinist Sablin path, Sablin breaks down in tears feeling that after all the purges, killing and stratocratic displays of authoritarianism, the sacrifices he made to ensure his vision succeeded wasn't worth it at all. He still ends up being one of the better unifiers even then, but the costs associated with his sacrifices are sky-high indeed.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: A Bukharinist Sablin ends up becoming this; he has undeniably good intentions, but ends up using whatever means necessary to have the revolution succeed. This ultimately is deconstructed, because while Sablin gets more benefits from this pragmatism in the short-term, the long-term still leaves a lot of the repressive and inefficient structure of the old Soviet Union in tact.
• What You Are in the Dark: Sablin has the opportunity to become more authoritarian as the game progresses, but he can choose to stick to his ideals even though it's more convenient and easy to rule with an iron fist.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Sablin's idealism won him the support of the people when contrasted with the brutality of Yagoda, but Sablin is an inexperienced leader, and Russia is a mad, mad place. Sablin will have a difficult time trying to make Buryatia succeed. This is ultimately subverted in practice, though; though he's idealistic and inexperienced, Sablin is most definitely not stupid. Even his Sablinist path has him recognize that letting Rodzaevsky and his men live would be a mistake and has them executed, and is willing to adopt pragmatic methods to ensuring his Soviet revolution succeeds... but even he may take options he feel ends up being too far to be worth it.
• Young and in Charge: Valery Sablin is 23 in 1962, which makes him one of the youngest leaders in the world.

Amur

Official Name: All-Russian Government of Amur

Ruling Party: Rossiyskaya Fashistskaya Partiya^note Russian Fascist Party

Ideology: Clerical Fascism^note National Socialism

For its tropes, see the dedicated Harbin Three subpage.

Magadan

Official Name: Free State of Magadan

Ruling Party: Rossiyskaya Fashistskaya Partiya^note Russian Fascist Party

Ideology: Corporatism^note Fascism

For its tropes, see the dedicated Harbin Three subpage.

Chita

Official Name: Transbaikal Principality

Ruling Party: Rossiyskaya Tsarskaya Liga^note Russian Royal League

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

For its tropes, see the dedicated Harbin Three subpage.

Non-Unifiers

Divine Mandate of Siberia (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Official Name: Divine Mandate of Siberia, Divine Mandate of Russia (national unification)

Ruling Party: Bratskiy Soyuz^note Fraternal Union

Ideology: Christian Socialism^note Socialism

The most remote reaches of Siberia are utterly devoid of authority, and no political force in the Far East has managed to exert any influence over these scattered villages and inhospitable wilderness. It seems likely that these regions will remain lawless until the warlords gather enough power to reconquer them... But whispers are gathering in these lands, heralding the coming of a Northern light.

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• Anarchy Is Chaos:
  • Downplayed. Initially, the Divine Mandate is plagued with bandits who take advantage of the anarchy to plunder the villages, requiring Men to exert further control to crack down on these "sinners".
  • Subverted when the aforementioned bandits are taken care of. The Divine Mandate advocates anarchism and a system of independent villages to govern themselves, but one of their focuses elaborates that they don't want chaos and believe that it can be contained within an anarchic system if a powerful leader like Men can unite them.
• Capitalism Is Bad: The Divine Mandate rejects all material wealth as a source of greed and sin. Instead, they promote the production of basic necessities that will be available to everyone, such as shelter and food.
• Commune: The villages of Siberia cooperate through communalist activities like farming or housebuilding, in which no one will face unequal treatment of any kind.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Take one of the least populated, least developed places on Earth, recruit a movement through preaching, and take peasant and tribal militias loyal to an eccentric form of Christian Anarchism against the established states of Russia and the meddling of superpowers? To anyone else it would be insanity. To Alexander Men, it is God's Will, and he will carry out God's Will or fall in the process.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Currently, if the Divine Mandate unifies the Russian Far East, it is doomed to undergo collapse.
• The Golden Rule: Cited by Men as the fundamental law of the Divine Mandate, preaching that everyone must treat their neighbors like how they would want to be treated themselves.
• Interface Spoiler: Downplayed, but Omolon does have an adjustable difficulty slider under the Custom Game tab.
• Paper Tiger: When it first spawns in, the Divine Mandate starts with a good amount of territory, but most of it isn't industrialized and the military is relatively weak to its rivals. The combination of these factors actually makes the Divine Mandate one of the least likely to unify the Far East.
• Saintly Church: The Divine Mandate of Russia is a genuinely nice faction of Christian anarchists who promote cooperation between communities.
• Walking Spoiler: There is no indication that these territories can and will unite and try to unify the rest of the nation. They aren't a starting warlord state and "No Authority" is on display when you glance at them, so when Alexander Men arrives from Omolon moving to unite the rest of the area, he seemingly comes out of nowhere.

Alexander Men

Role: Head of State

Party: Bratskiy Soyuz^note Fraternal Union

Ideology: Christian Socialism^note Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show} Alexander Vladimirovich Men never asked to be a shepherd to so many, to have his flock's lives entrusted in his care, or to feel the weight of Heaven upon his shoulders - and yet he is all of these things, the Father of the North.

And yet this was not always so. A Jewish child baptized as an infant, Men's father was taken from him when he was six years old, dragged to the Gulags by the NKVD on false charges, leaving the young boy with a strong conviction against the fear and tyranny so many throughout the world felt. Despite the dangers of underground worship in the Union, Men remained a devout Christian, albeit a very unorthodox one. A firm believer in equality transcending class, sex, race, and even faith, Men's ideas were almost an unknown within the Church, or even the Union as a whole.

In the dark times following the death of the Union, Men found himself in the frozen north, comforting the struggling peasantry, offering them God's love - and his own words if they did not accept the Lord's. He told them of his hopes for a land of truly freed men and women, a land of egalitarianism, a place of communes and villages where all would be unchained.

His beliefs and actions began to gather support among the isolated communities of Siberia. Slowly at first, then all at once, the isolated villages of the north pledged their belief in their Father. Today the North marches against the chaos that has inflamed the Holy Motherland for so long, and with their Father's watchful gaze, they will bring deliverance and salvation to all who suffer.

In the remote wilderness of Northeast Siberia, a mysterious, charismatic preacher is gaining popularity. Entire villages are packed with ecstatic worshippers chanting and praying to him. He unites his followers in spirit and leads his people to liberation. People call him "The Father", but his real name is Alexander Vladimirovich Men. As Russia divides and suffers under warring despots, Men unites all under God's divine mandate and fights to liberate all of Russia.

---

• Anarchy Is Chaos: Averted if not Inverted. Men's Democratic Christian Anarcho-Socialism and personal charisma are the only things that prove able to unite the sparse populations of Northeastern Siberia.
• All-Loving Hero: Men is easily one of the most caring leaders in all of Russia, comparable to the likes of Sablin and Bukharina. His Christian Union accepts all kinds of people: men, women, the rich, the poor, the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, the atheists, the Russian majority, the minority ethnic groups, even sexual minorities - Men accepts everyone as equals under God.
• Allohistorical Allusion: Men's rise to political dominance reminds of Antônio Conselheiro–a Brazilian religious leader, preacher, and pilgrim from the 19th century, who was noted for his unorthodox beliefs and dedication to abolitionism. During a period of political instability in the country, Conselheiro eventually started his own communitarian commune called "Canudos" (members of which were mostly composed of freed black slaves and bankrupted farmers). The growing size of his commune (upwards of 50,000 people) as well as his criticisms against the newly Republican government caused such hysteria that Brazilian officials launched a full military siege against them. Ending with his death along with 50% of the Canudos population.
• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Despite his mysterious background, religious zealotry, and ominous entrance, Men's actual rule isn't oppressive at all, and his Christian anarchist Divine Mandate of Russia is a fairly pleasant country overall. To add to this impression, his focus tree in the pre-regional unification stage has quite a few focuses with ominous names and descriptions, giving off the impression that Men is a Knight Templar Church Militant until you read the Mandate's events proper (which you can only do as the Mandate).
• Chummy Commies: Men heads one of the most unusual variations of socialism in Russia, hybridizing it with devout Christianity, one of socialism's classic moral antitheses. The result is one of Warlord Russia's most tolerant, humanitarian governments, a society of equals which has largely been purged of bigotry and uplifts its lower classes.
• Good Counterpart: He serves as this type of Foil to Taboritsky in Komi. Both are secret paths for their nation and were teased as Warlord Russia's greatest mysteries. When revealed, both of them are shown to come out of nowhere, yet amass numerous followers for their ideologies that invoke Christianity in some way. However, Men's and Taboritsky's true leanings are the complete opposite of each other. Taboritsky brings Esoteric Nazism to Russia, creating a totalitarian theocracy in the name of serving a long-dead Prince, with his path being Russia's worst in the game; in contrast, Men subscribes to a form of benevolent and egalitarian Christian Anarchy, and is tolerant even to those who don't share his faith, all in the name of serving Jesus Christ's compassionate values in one of Russia's most pleasant paths. Finally, both Men and Taboritsky are Orthodox Christians of Jewish descent, but whereas Men does not seem bothered by his ancestry, Taboritsky's self-loathing drove him to become the most hateful out of all Russian unifiers. The two even have a unique event if both managed to unify their respective halves of Russia and subsequently come into conflict.
  • He is even more of a Foil to Velimir, another secret Russian leader. Both are young, religious but in a highly unorthodox way, and associated with the North (indeed, the "North Awakens" teasers alluded to both of them). Yet while Men's faith is that of peace and equality and the man himself a benevolent ruler, Velimir is a bloodthirsty dictator whose twisted religion glorifies hate and death. Men starts as his faction's leader, and can be overthrown by his second-in-command Sudoplatov, while Velimir begins as the second-in-command and can overthrow his superior Vagner.
• Good Is Not Dumb: He starts out as a simple preacher, and his socialistic Christian Anarchism means he largely ends up like that. However, Men is a highly literate, learned man who is able to match wits with the other warlords of the Russian Anarchy.
• Good Is Not Soft: Men is one of the most wholesome of the leaders in the game, and especially in the dog eat dog world of the Russian Anarchy as an utterly sincere, compassionate preacher who wishes to free humanity and will give even his most hated enemies a chance to repent. However, one should not forget that he commands the loyalty of fervently dedicated militias that will happily tear people limb from limb.
• Good Samaritan: He performs charitable acts to help the poor and disadvantaged out of the goodness of his heart.
• Good Shepherd: Men is an unorthodox priest who believes in equality transcending class, sex, race, and even faith, and hopes for a land of truly freed men and women, a land of egalitarianism, a place of communes and villages. His faith is core to his belief system, but it motivates him in generally positive ways, and he allows non-Christians to freely practice their religions in his Russia.
• Good Versus Good: His conflict with Sablin is essentially his. On one side: A young, idealistic socialist who wants to create a egalitarian Russia for all its inhabitants. In the other, a Good Shepherd who wants to create a society of equals, free of tyranny and suffering based on the teachings of Jesus. Telling, if Men ends up conquering Buryatia, he forgives Sablin for any past misdeeds and the former ends up joining Men in his reunification.
  • Downplayed in the case of conflict with Chita. While many of the White Army are corrupt, militarist authoritarians many others are not, and almost none of them are brutal Fascists like are prevalent in Amur or Magadan or the totalitarian interpretation of communism in Irkutsk. So it turns into a bitter conflict between a libertarian socialist peasant rebellion fighting for freedom and a group of Old Soldier monarchists headed up by a reluctant but increasingly duty bound puppet Tsar who hopes to free Russia.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: In real life, Alexander Men was an Orthodox priest who gained considerable popularity as the head of a religious revival towards the end of the Soviet Union. In The New Order, he leads a holy war to unify Russia in the name of egalitarian Christianity.
• Hope Bringer: Known far and wide for his benevolence and charisma, Men is treated as a symbol of hope by his people, believing that he can reunify Russia and liberate the oppressed in Moskowien.
• Humble Hero: Men refuses to indulge in earthly extravagances and pursues a more simple lifestyle because to do otherwise would lead him astray from God. When he personally visits one village, he rejects the chance of enjoying a massive feast with them just so that he can help a depressed, old man nearby.
• The Idealist: Despite being surrounded by all sorts of cruel despots in the world, Men does not give up hope that humanity is lost in sinfulness, citing the book of Genesis where God can be the "light of the world".
• Just the First Citizen: He has no extravagant title as the Divine Mandate's leader, noting that God is their true ruler.
• Messianic Archetype: Alexander Men is a religious leader working to bring a vision of an equal society of egalitarianism and friendship to all of Russia, guided by the teachings of Christ.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: You'd be entirely understandable in thinking some guy who calls himself "The Father" and leads a strange ecstatic church would be a bad guy. You'd also be wrong; Men is quite clearly not a fan of actual cults, and his ideals of commune living and universal equality come before his zealotry.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Alexander Men in OTL was a Russian Orthodox priest and theologian, notable for his progressive views on Christianity that tries to accommodate secular, scientific, and non-Christian beliefs^note He was criticized by conservative Orthodox leaders in Russia due to his apparent sympathies to Catholicism, and some even outright declared him a heretic due to his "syncretic" views., and whose efforts led to a popularization of Christianity in the Soviet Union. In TNO, Alexander Men became the political leader of a Christian Anarchist movement that seeks to liberate Russia from despots and create an egalitarian Russia.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: The enigmatic cult leader who preaches strange forms of faith and rebellion against any form of the old government is in reality a completely sane and peaceful Good Shepherd who believes in equality of all men.
• The Spook: Outside of his circle, Men is only known as the Father, a religious preacher who has been increasingly influential among the people of Northeast Siberia.
• Turbulent Priest: Men opposes every post-Soviet warlord, seeing them as corrupt tyrants who wish to lead the masses astray from the path of God, and rallies the masses to liberate Siberia from their rule and build a Christian union built on Jesus' principles of charity, mercy and love of the meek and poor.
• Universally Beloved Leader: His sermons and messages make him one of the most beloved men in Siberia and the adoration surrounding him is all that keeps the Divine Mandate together.
• Walking Spoiler: The Father was hinted pre-release (his news event is in the demos), but nothing about his identity and his actual in-game role was revealed (other than the fact that he was a potential unifier of Russia). Even after release, he is still a walking spoiler; he is not a starting leader, and there is no hint that he would actually become the leader of Northeast Siberia until he seemingly pops up out of nowhere.
• Young and in Charge: Having been born in 1935, the 27-year-old Father is one of the youngest leaders in the world.

Pavel Sudoplatov

Role: Military Commander

Party: Sibirskoye Vozrozhdeniye

Ideology: Provisional Government^note Paternalism

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• 0% Approval Rating: If he accidentally kills Men in an attempted coup, Sudoplatov will become denounced throughout Eastern Siberia as a "new Judas" for killing his superior and destroying any chance for his movement to unify Russia. Not even his NKVD followers trust him anymore and they only tolerate him as a means to accumulate more power for themselves.
• Ambiguously Evil: Sudoplatov starts out as an ambiguous character in Men's government, having once served Yagoda's dictatorship, but seemingly seeking redemption for his past actions. He advocates harsher militarist measures that are either intended to strengthen the Divine Mandate or selfishly build his own powerbase. In the regional stage, it's revealed to be the latter, but whether he uses said power against Men is dependent on certain focus tree choices.
• Anti-Villain: He's the Divine Mandate's primary domestic antagonist and can potentially cause its collapse, but he genuinely believes that his coup is necessary to reunify Russia under a strong state and repents to the Father if he doesn't perform it.
• The Coup: If Sudoplatov's influence goes too high, he will attempt a coup on Men and turn the Father into his puppet. However, his coup always fails as the Father dies and the Divine Mandate collapses.
• Foil: To Ivan Stepanov, his opposite number in the Siberian Black Army. While both men are hard-headed cynics backing idealistic leaders with military muscle with plans to attempt to usurp them eventually, Stepanov is Not in This for Your Revolution and ultimately just using Siuda to gain a foothold in power while plotting to dispose of him eventually. Sudoplatov, meanwhile, only actually attempts his coup if his influence has grown too great, doesn't plan to kill the Father (whose death is an inevitable accident), and does on some level genuinely want to make the Divine Mandate strong and prosperous; his coup plans are an attempt to achieve this goal rather than purely to seize power and wealth for himself. This even comes out in their results; Sudoplatov survives if he never attempts his coup in the first place and lives to see the results of Men's idealism in action, and collapses the Divine Mandate if he actually goes through with it, while Stepanov only survives if his coup succeeds and he has become either the de jure or de facto dictator of the Black Army.
• Heel Realization: If he betrays Men and accidentally causes the Mandate to collapse, Sudoplatov will be devastated over what he's done and repent to God in a vain effort to absolve his guilt. When that fails, Sudoplatov resigns himself to the desperate situation he's led himself into, waiting for death to claim him.
• The Infiltration: To prepare for the Divine Mandate's invasion of the Far East, Sudoplatov sends his agents to outside villages and preaches Men's message to incite peasant revolts from within the other warlords.
• Necessarily Evil: Pavel Sudoplatov, the NKVD agent formerly under Yagoda who defected to Men and provided him with the military strength that Men needed to unite the Far East, offers Men several temptations of more military power after Men unites the region. These include the integration of NKVD men into the army, the establishment of a police force, and the authorization of a spy network. Should Men cave in to too much of these temptations, Sudoplatov and his NKVD clique will gain immense amounts of influence and eventually perform a coup on the Father.
• Obviously Evil: Downplayed. To employ Men's Biblical metaphors, Sudaplatov is a fairly invokedObvious Judas. He is a former NKVD officer who is described as offering "temptations" to Men, pushing him to be more authoritarian and working behind the Father's back. Should he gain too much influence, his coup attempt will cause Men's death, even if unintentionally. Unlike the Biblical Judas, however, he can choose not to go through with his betrayal.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov in OTL was a Soviet Lieutenant General and intelligence officer who conducted many famous intelligence operations, most famously the assassination of Leon Trotsky. In TNO, Sudoplatov was originally working in Irkutsk under Yagoda, but later defected to Men in what's suggested to be a Heel–Faith Turn according to Men's vague focus descriptions.
• State Sec: One of the temptations he offers Men is the creation of a paramilitary spy agency that will carry out dishonorable tactics to quietly take down their enemies, up to sabotage and assassination.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: If Sudoplatov does not perform his coup, then he will try to repent to the Father and explain that his coup plans were an attempt to strengthen their position and give them a better chance at reunifying Russia.

Gleb Yakunin

Role: Security Minister (Men cabinet), Head of State (Divine Mandate collapse)

Party: Bratskiy Soyuz^note Fraternal Union

Ideology: Theocracy^note Despotism

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• Allohistorical Allusion: Gleb Pavlovich Yakunin in OTL was a Soviet priest and dissident who turned to Christianity directly because of Alexander Men's influences. This also happens in TNO, but under different circumstances.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Despite his urges for Men's followers to not lose hope, Yakunin simply lacks the charisma or vision that Men had, and cannot save the Divine Mandate from collapse when Sudoplatov's coup accidentally kills Men.
• The Remnant: Upon the Divine Mandate's dissolution, Yakunin leads one of the few remaining states that try to keep Men's vision for Russia alive, however vain it may be.

Sakha Republic

Official Name: Sakha Republic

Ruling Party: Partiya Narodnogo Edinstva^note Party of People's Unity

Ideology: National Liberalism^note Liberalism

An isolationist Yakut state broken off from Yagoda's Far Eastern Soviet government.

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• Corporate Samurai: Many corporations in Yakutia are so powerful that they have their own paramilitaries to more easily conduct operations.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: In order to hold on to their monopolies in the mining industries, many Yakut companies affiliated themselves with criminal gangs and founded their own paramilitaries, all in the name of profit.
• Defector from Decadence: The Yakuts originally broke off from Yagoda's Far Eastern Soviet when it descended into even more desperate authoritarianism and oppression after it’s loss in the Siberian War.
• Disaster Democracy: During the Siberian War, the Yakuts drove out Genrikh Yagoda's troops and set up a democratic government, albeit one plagued by organised crime and predatory corporations.
• Historical In-Joke: Yakutia's flag is a recolored version of the flag of the Russian city of Aykhal.
• The Mafiya: Crime is rampant in Yakutia, with the oligarchs entangled in organised crime that freely function without government interference.

Georgy Basharin

Role: Head of State

Party: Partiya Narodnogo Edinstva^note Party of People's Unity

Ideology: National Liberalism^note Liberalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Georgiy Prokopievich Basharin is said to be the face of the independent Yakut spirit in an era of chaos and uncertainty. Born into a large and poor family of peasants, he was determined to succeed in education. He studied history and literature in Moscow, before returning to his homeland in the last few years of peace for Russia. He avoided conscription both in the war against the Germans and during the Siberian War, when he joined a movement of liberal nationalists aiming to fight for the freedom of the Yakut nation. Soon enough, the troops of the Supreme Soviet were driven out, and the circle of intellectuals seemed to have achieved their dream.

A democratic government was set up, proclaiming a new Yakut Republic and promising grand reforms and liberty for the people. However, no sooner had the fledgling nation been founded than it was struck by reality. The abundance of natural resources like diamonds, thought to be of help in developing the country, became a curse upon it. Local companies formed monopolies in the mining industries, financing their own projects with the profit. Inside Yakutia, they accumulated power, even forming their own "states within the state" with separate militaries to more easily conduct operations. Crime is rampant in the country, with the oligarchs entangled in mafia organizations that freely function without government interference. Amidst all this, Georgiy Basharin remains a bastion of honesty and transparency, running the republican government the best he can. While he may be universally respected, there is little he can do to fight the oligarchy that has been built around him. For now, all he can hope for is that the fire of Yakut nationalism burns bright.

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• Puppet King: Basharin genuinely wants to help the people he rules over, but he can't because he holds little authority of his own and remains tied to the powerful oligarchs that rule over Yakutia.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Basharin in OTL was a Soviet professor and a distinguished Yakut scholar. In TNO, he joined a Yakut liberal nationalist movement during the Siberian War, and was elected to lead the new Yakut republic.
• Universally Beloved Leader: In the midst of rampant crime and predatory capitalism, Basharin remains a universally respected bastion of honesty and transparency. However, he can't do much against the oligarchy that has been built around him. Or the Russian unifiers about to conquer his little republic, for that matter.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: When he set up a democratic government in Yakutia, Basharin promised even grander reforms, but the difficulty of achieving his dream proved much harder than he imagined. Not long after the nation's creation, Yakutia's diamond reserves attracted the attention of local companies that mined and turned into monopolies from them, accumulating enough power to exceed even Basharin's and form their own "states within the state." As a result, Yakutia is effectively a shadow battlefield between influential oligarchs with their own militaries and ties to mafia organizations, leading to rampant crime that the government can't do anything about.

Kamchatka

Official Name: Soviet Pacific Fleet

Ruling Party: Klika Yumasheva^note Yumashev's Clique

Ideology: Communism

The remote peninsula of Kamchatka is controlled by remnants of the Red Banner Pacific Fleet, under Admiral Ivan Yumashev. The fleet initially went under the command of Genrikh Yagoda's Soviet rump state after Moscow was lost, but when Yagoda's regime collapsed, the fleet fled to Kamchatka, creating a makeshift naval base out of abandoned cities and fishing villages. With no way to obtain supplies, the sailors of the fleet have adopted piracy and smuggling just to survive.

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• Even Evil Has Standards: While the surviving Red Navy members are pirates, they explicitly denounce Matkovsky's dictatorship and flee to the United States rather than serve him.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: Formerly sailors of the Red Navy, the Pacific Fleet was forced to turn to piracy simply in order to survive in the wastes of Kamchatka.
• Necessarily Evil: Admiral Yumashev doesn't like the fact that his fleet has turned into a pirate fleet, but he's not going to just let his men starve to death in the middle of nowhere.
• The Remnant: Kamchatka is controlled by the remnants of the Soviet Pacific Fleet, headed by Admiral Ivan Yumashev. They were under Yagoda for a little while, but when Yagoda's government collapsed they fled to Kamchatka.
• Renegade Russian: The Pacific Fleet is made up of the battered remnants of the Soviet Navy who have deserted what remains of the Soviet Union and turned to piracy in order to survive.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: Due to their desperate situation, the sailors of the Far Eastern Red Navy have adopted piracy and smuggling as their main source of livelihood.
• Starter Villain: The Pacific Fleet is the first target of the Father after he rises up in Siberia and has to be defeated before the rest of his focus tree can be accessed.
• Tragic Villain: While Ivan's fleet has essentially been reduced to piracy, the reason behind that is quite tragic: After Moscow was lost, his fleet went under the command of Yagoda, but after his regime also ended up collapsing, Ivan was forced to flee to Kamchatka, leaving him with no means of acquiring supplies. Forced to choose between letting everyone under his command starving to death and stealing to survive, Ivan decided to go with the latter out of respect for his own men.

Ivan Yumashev

Role: Military Commander, Head of State

Party: Klika Yumasheva^note Yumashev's Clique

Ideology: Communism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Admiral Ivan Stepanovich Yumashev has spent several decades in the Red Navy, even though the country he once sailed for no longer exists. The seas he has sailed span from the Baltic to the Okhotsk, but these days he mostly finds himself staring at the Bering. He spent the entirety of the Great Patriotic War commanding the Pacific Fleet, patrolling the waters and occasionally getting into skirmishes with Japanese vessels. He heard of the news of the Union's defeat when he was stationed in Vladivostok, and quickly sprang into action and removed the fleet from the harbor before the Japanese jackals could arrive.

When the dust settled, Admiral Yumashev and his officers pledged their loyalty to the regime of Yagoda, who helped them find them a temporary job. As the reactionaries pushed forward, the navy forces of Yumashev had to find another home, far away from the besieged forts of Priamurye. The city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky had been abandoned by the Soviet government and most of its residents, and little infrastructure remained here aside from a few villages. The shores of Kamchatka became the Red Navy's landed headquarters, and the small fishing town was converted into a makeshift naval base.

Far away from civilization, the Far Eastern Red Navy has done nothing but chip ice off the sides of their ships, impotently watching as the region fell into chaos and infighting. Without any reasonable way to obtain supplies and fuel, the sailors started to earn their living through piracy and smuggling across the Pacific, becoming an additional obstacle for Japan and the US in their competition in the ocean. It can be said that Admiral Yumashev isn't fond of what his men were turned into - but it also can be assured that he will not deprive his men from their only viable way of living on the edge of the Earth.

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• The Bus Came Back: If Petlin reaches the superregional stage, Yumashev returns to Russia and walks in the streets of Petropavlovsk, proud of Petlin's efforts to create a truly benevolent republic.
• A Father to His Men: Even when trapped in such miserable and dire circumstances, Yumashev will do everything in his power to ensure the survival of his men, even if that means recurring to piracy.
• The Men First: No matter how dire the situation is, Admiral Yumashev is determined to do everything he can to ensure that not one of his men will die of hunger.
• Old Soldier: Ivan Yumashev has served five decades in the Imperial Russian Navy and the Red Navy, even though the country he once sailed for no longer exists.

No Authority

The Wilderness of Northeastern Siberia

In-Game Description ^{Click to Show}In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, no successor or splinter states have emerged in the most isolated peripheries of Siberia. Without any centralized bureaucracy, infrastructure, industry, large-scale trade, or long-distance communication to unite the region, the villages have largely reverted to the lifestyle they have held for centuries: subsistence farming, hunting, and animal herding. The local Yakut, Eveny, and Chukchi peoples have returned to practicing their shamanistic beliefs free of interference, and the Orthodox Russian villages do not bother to trouble them. The furthest anyone usually goes is over to the next village over, and residents may go many years before hearing a single scrap of news from the outside world.

While the region may be rich in resources, the warlords in more habitable climes to the south and west see no point in conquering them. The size of the region, the lack of roads, and the harshness of the winters are enough to deter any sensible despot from attempting such a foolish action. And there is little danger in simply ignoring them - the closest most of the villages have to an army is a few old men armed with even older hunting rifles. It seems that unless the people of Siberia are able to somehow unify themselves or are conquered by a successful claimant to Russia's legacy, they will continue to eke out an existence as they always have: isolated and alone, on the edge of the world.

Northeastern Siberia had always been home to isolated villages living under primitivistic lifestyles, a reality that has continued uninhibited following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lacking in roads or industry, the Far Eastern authorities found little reason to retake the region anytime soon, and it seems that the local villages will continue to live the lives of their ancestors: isolated and alone.

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• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Many Russian warlords were content with ignoring Northeast Siberia because there is practically no organized armed force there. For the villages, the closest thing to an army is a band of old soldiers with outdated rifles, who would stand no chance against an actual military. That is, until Alexander Men manages to unite the region and mobilize some working army for his cause.
• Cynicism Catalyst: If Alexander Men unifies the Far East, but then perishes in Sudoplatov's coup, the most isolated regions of Northeastern Siberia will slide back into anarchy, with everyone disillusioned of potentially unifying Russia, since Men's demise.
• Hidden Elf Village: Due to its isolation, no centralized bureaucracy or large-scale infrastructure has developed in the Northeastern parts of Siberia. As such, the local Yakut, Eveny, and Chukchi people have reverted back to their old village lifestyle, free to practice their shamanistic beliefs and with nobody to bother them, until Alexander Men appears.
• Nature Is Not Nice: In spite of its many natural resources, Siberia's temperature extremes and lack of roads have dissuaded any warlord at the game's start to claim the territory as their own, so the region is largely left alone during the pre-regional stage.
• Small, Secluded World: No long-distance communication exists in this region and the roads are too sparse for any Russian warlord to properly control. Until the Divine Mandate forms, the villages of Northeast Siberia are content to remain isolated from the rest of Russia and the world at large.

Divine Mandate Collapse (Spoilers)

Partisan Republic of Buryatia

Official Name: Partisan Republic of Buryatia

Ruling Party: Brigady Ochirova^note Ochirov's Brigades

Ideology: Partisan Movement^note Despotism

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• Civil War: Engages in one with Zhambal-Dorzhi Gomboev's spiritual communists.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: When the Divine Mandate collapses, some disillusioned Buryat patriots secede and form an independent Buryat state, free from Russian occupation and Christianity.

Gurzhap Orchirov

Role: Military Commander, Head of State (Divine Mandate collapse)

Party: Brigady Ochirova^note Ochirov's Brigades

Ideology: Partisan Movement^note Despotism

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• The Cynic: Witnessing the betrayal of Sudoplatov to Men, Ochirov grows disillusioned with the idea of Russians or Christians cooperating with the Buryat people, which is why he hates Gomboev for following Men's example of governance and opposes him in a civil war.
• The Determinator: Viewing Gomboev as a traitor to Buryatia for continuing to follow Men's ideology after his demise, Ochirov is set on defeating him in a civil war and securing the independence of Buryatia, even if he dies trying.
• Patriotic Fervor: Having served both Yagoda and the Father and seen both fail in turn, Ochirov has no interest in following any particular ideology. His only loyalty to Buryatia and the security of its future.

Spiritual Autonomy of Buryatia

Official Name: Spiritual Autonomy of Buryatia

Ruling Party: Sotsialisticheskaya Partiya Buryatii^note Socialist Party of Buryatia

Ideology: National Communism^note Communism

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• Civil War: Engages in one with Gurzhap Ochirov's partisans.

Zhambal Gomboev

Role: Head of State

Party: Sotsialisticheskaya Partiya Buryatii^note Socialist Party of Buryatia

Ideology: National Communism^note Communism

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• Defeat Means Friendship: Suspicious of Alexander Men and how Christians have abused Buddhists in the past, Gomboev rallied a Buddhist resistance movement against him. If Men unifies the Far East and defeats Gomboev, he'll forgive him for his past transgression and promote him as the chief representative of Buddhism in Russia. After Men's death, Gomboev takes his example to heart, and attempts to govern according to the same principles of peaceful coexistence.
• Taking Up the Mantle: If the Divine Mandate collapses, Gomboev will return to Buryatia, intent on building a prosperous socialist nation, built on the ideals of Men.
• Undying Loyalty: While most Buryats sided with Sablin's mutiny, Gomboev remained by Yagoda's side, largely out of a sense of loyalty to him. Later, after Men's death, he continues to try to follow the priest's example.

Transbaikal Governorate

Official Name: Transbaikal Governorate

Ruling Party: Zabaykalsky Oboronitelnyy Soyuz^note Transbaikal Defense Union

Ideology: Controlled Democracy^note Paternalism

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• The Remnant: If the Divine Mandate collapses, Chernykh will be called to lead the remnant White Army faction that survived in Chita.

Leonid Chernykh

Role: Military Commander, Head of State (Divine Mandate collapse)

Party: Zabaykalsky Oboronitelnyy Soyuz^note Transbaikal Defense Union

Ideology: Controlled Democracy^note Paternalism

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• The Cameo: In a post-Taboritsky Russia, Chernykh is a general for Alexei II/Michał Goleniewski's Russian Empire.
• The Cynic: Disillusioned with the restoration of a Tsar or any sort of political ideology after the Divine Mandate unifies Eastern Siberia, Chernykh becomes willing to aid any side, regardless of ideology, if it means protecting his people. In one instance, he's willing to offer up his forces to stabilize Sudoplatov's state in exchange for food and supplies, even though he's defected from the Divine Mandate.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Downplayed. If the Father unifies the Far East, Chernykh will submit to serve under Sudoplatov, but this was largely done out of self-preservation than out of genuine fondness for Men's movement and once the Divine Mandate collapses, he returns back to the White Army movement.

Siberian Protection Committee

Official Name: Siberian Protection Committee

Ruling Party: Sibirskoye Vozrozhdeniye^note Siberian Renaissance

Ideology: Provisional Government^note Paternalism

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• The Remnant: If Sudoplatov attempts to coup Men and accidentally causes the Mandate's collapse, he'll take his remaining followers and retreat to Magadan and Amur under the "Siberian Protection Committee," representing a smaller continuation of Men's former government.

Pavel Sudoplatov

Role: Head of State (Divine Mandate collapse)

Party: Sibirskoye Vozrozhdeniye^note Siberian Renaissance

Ideology: Provisional Government^note Paternalism

See his entry in the Divine Mandate of Siberia folder.

Kolyma Developmental Zone

Official Name: Kolyma Developmental Zone

Ruling Party: Klika Nikishovskaya^note Nikishov Clique

Ideology: Warlordism^note Despotism

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• The Remnant: The Kolyma Developmental Zone was set up by Sudoplatov to develop the region for Men's war effort, but the Divine Mandate's collapse will sever all ties to Kolyma and thus the Zone emerges as a remnant state of Men's old government.

Ivan Nikishov

Role: Head of State

Party: Klika Nikishovskaya^note Nikishov Clique

Ideology: Warlordism^note Despotism

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• Historical In-Joke: Ivan Fedorovich Nikishov in OTL was an NKVD officer who served as the director of Dalstroy in the Kolyma region from 1939 to 1948. His leadership of the Kolyma Developmental Zone in TNO is a reference to his OTL job.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Nikishov cares less about Men's cause than even Sudoplatov. The only reason why he's stuck around is so that he can plunder Kolyma for his own gain.
• The Starscream: The second that Men dies, Nikishov splits from the Divine Mandate to form his own state and continue his corrupt governance over Kolyma.

First Army "Dmitry Donskoy"

Official Name: First Army "Dmitry Donskoy"

Ruling Party: Pervaya Armiya Dmitriy Donskoy^note First Army "Dmitry Donskoy"

Ideology: Personalistic Dictatorship^note Despotism

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• Bilingual Bonus: The Russian text on their flag translates to "First Army 'Dmitry Donskoy'", their name on the game map.
• The Remnant: The First Army is a remnant of Men's old government after the Divine Mandate's collapse, in which it becomes a rival for succession against the Siberian Protection Committee.

Vladimir Kuroedov

Role: Head of State

Party: Pervaya Armiya Dmitriy Donskoy^note First Army "Dmitry Donskoy"

Ideology: Personalitic Dictatorship^note Despotism

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• Gone Horribly Right: Assigning him to lead the 1st Army of the Divine Mandate, Sudoplatov hoped that his personal experience with religious administrations would win the locals to Men's side and ensure his unification of Russia. However, if the Divine Mandate splinters, Kuroedov will exploit his popularity to set up a rival state to Sudoplatov and his own clique.
• Historical In-Joke: Vladimir Alekseevich Kuroedov in OTL was a Soviet statesman who served as the chairman for the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church (later the Council for Religious Affairs) from 1960 to 1984.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Kuroedov models his appearance and behavior from Men, hoping to capture his charisma and popularity, even though it's clear that he's nowhere near as well-intentioned or benevolent as Men.

Kamchatka Naval Authority

Official Name: Kamchatka Naval Authority

Ruling Party: Kilka Ivanovskaya^note Ivanov Clique

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

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• The Remnant: When Men dies and the Divine Mndate dissolves, the Pacific Fleet will return back to Kamchatka, resuming their old pirating activities.

Nikolay Ivanovsky

Role: Head of State

Party: Kilka Ivanovskaya^note Ivanov Clique

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

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• The Friend Nobody Likes: Prior to the Divine Mandate's collapse, Ivanovsky was distrusted throughout the entire Pacific Fleet for his lack of military discipline, which was the reason why he was demoted in the navy.
• Meet the New Boss: After the Divine Mandate's collapse, Ivanovsky will secede the Pacific Fleet from his government and resume the pirating activities that Yumashev pursued previously.
• The Starscream: Initially an ally to Sudoplatov, Ivanovsky quickly betrays him as soon as Sudoplatov aids his return to power in Kamchatka and has outlived his usefulness.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Hoping to make a potential ally after his coup against Men makes him widely reviled, Sudoplatov aids Ivanovskyrise to power in Kamchatka. As soon as Ivanovsky takes over the Pacific Fleet, he wastes no time in backstabbing Sudoplatov and raiding his ships, along with any other vessels his fleet comes across.

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