Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. Lenin.
The name on the decoded message was like a physical blow. Jake stood frozen in the middle of the street, the bustling sounds of Tbilisi fading into a distant, meaningless hum. The scrap of paper in his hand felt impossibly heavy, a direct, personal communication from the highest echelon of the Tsarist state, asking about the man who was the heart and soul of the Bolshevik movement.
"The agrarian question?" Kamo grunted, reading the message over Jake's shoulder. "What is that? Something about peasants?" To Kamo, it seemed like an absurd, academic query, a strange anticlimax after the brutal efficiency of the Menshevik raid. "Why would a man like Stolypin care about that?"
But Jake understood immediately. He knew from his 21st-century history lessons that the "agrarian question"—the issue of land reform for Russia's vast, impoverished peasantry—was not an academic topic. It was the single most explosive issue in the empire. It was the central plank of the rival Socialist Revolutionary Party's platform. Stolypin himself was in the midst of pushing through his own massive, controversial land reforms, trying to create a class of loyal, land-owning peasants to act as a buffer against revolution.
Stolypin wasn't just asking about party theory. He was conducting high-level political reconnaissance on his chief ideological opponent. He wanted to know Lenin's strategy, his arguments, his plans for co-opting the peasantry. This was a question of grand strategy, a query from one master of the game to another, with Jake's network as the unwilling intermediary.
He was in an impossible bind. His academic knowledge from 2025 was too broad, too historical. He could recite the general themes of Lenin's writings on the subject, but he couldn't know the man's specific, current thinking in the spring of 1907. He couldn't know the precise arguments being debated in the exile circles of London and Geneva. To give a vague, general answer would be a red flag to a man as astute as Stolypin. It would expose his asset, Danilov, as a fraud who was not privy to the party's inner-circle debates. To invent a specific answer was even riskier; if he guessed wrong, he would be caught in a lie, and the entire delicate structure of his double agent gambit would collapse.
He had to get the real information. And there was only one place to get it.
He had to ask Lenin himself.
The idea was audacious to the point of insanity. He, Soso Jughashvili, was a provincial committee man, a regional strongman whose reputation was built on bank robberies and, more recently, a brutal internal purge. He was a doer, a "practitioner," not a theorist. To write a direct, unsolicited letter to the party's chief intellectual leader, a man he had never met, was a monumental breach of revolutionary protocol. It would be seen as presumptuous, arrogant, an attempt to leapfrog the established party hierarchy.
But he had no choice. It was the only move on the board.
He spent the next full day locked in his cellar headquarters, a man possessed. He pushed aside the ledgers of his security committee, the maps of the city, the reports from his informants. Before him lay a single, clean sheet of paper and a pen. This would be the most important piece of writing of his life.
He couldn't simply ask, "What are you thinking about the peasants?" He had to frame the inquiry in a way that was politically astute, ideologically sound, and personally humble. He had to make it seem like a natural, necessary request from a loyal foot soldier on the front lines.
He began to write, crossing out lines, starting again, the floor around him slowly becoming littered with crumpled failures. He drew upon every book he had ever read, every lecture he had ever given on the period.
He framed the letter not as a personal query, but as a request for ideological ammunition. Comrade Ulyanov, he began, I write to you from Tbilisi, where the struggle against the Tsar is matched only by the struggle against the confusion sown by our supposed allies, the Socialist Revolutionaries.
He described the political situation in Georgia, using his historical knowledge to add details of stunning accuracy. He talked about the debates in the workers' circles, the arguments of the SRs, the difficulty in winning over the local peasantry who were being swayed by their promises of simple land redistribution. He was creating a plausible crisis that only Lenin's wisdom could solve.
He then demonstrated his own intellectual bona fides, a crucial step to prove he was worthy of a reply. He quoted from Lenin's 1903 work, "To the Rural Poor," referencing specific passages, showing that he was not just some uneducated thug, but a dedicated student of the master's work. Your analysis of the class divisions within the peasantry remains our guiding light, he wrote, but the SRs are twisting your words, claiming our call for the nationalization of land is a threat to the smallholder.
He then posed his questions, the questions Stolypin needed answered, but he framed them as a humble request for guidance. How do we best counter this propaganda? What is the correct dialectical approach to explain the benefits of nationalization versus simple division? What are the latest resolutions from the London group on this matter, so that we here in the provinces can remain in lockstep with the party's central ideological line?
It was a masterpiece of deception. It was layered with feigned humility, sharp political analysis, and a deep, (and in Jake's case, entirely genuine) understanding of Lenin's own thinking. He was using his future knowledge of history to prove his intelligence and loyalty to a past historical figure.
The final, crucial element was the signature. He could not sign it "Soso," the familiar name of a street brawler. He could not sign it Jughashvili. He needed a new name, a revolutionary pseudonym that conveyed seriousness, strength, and an ideological rigidity that would appeal to a man like Lenin.
He remembered a name he had used briefly in the past, a name derived from his childhood nickname, Koba, and a Russian word for "man of steel." It felt right. It felt true to the man he was being forced to become.
He dipped the pen in the ink one last time and, in a firm, clear hand, signed the letter: With revolutionary greetings, K. Stalin.
It was the first time he had actively, consciously, and in writing, claimed the name. It felt like an coronation and a death sentence, all at once.
He sealed the letter. It would be sent through the party's secret courier network, a message in a bottle cast into the vast, uncertain ocean of the revolutionary underground. It could take weeks, even months, to reach London and get a reply, if a reply came at all.
Now, he had to buy that time. He turned to a fresh sheet of paper and began to compose a different message, this one in code. A message for Stolypin. A holding action. Initial inquiries underway, he wrote. Ulyanov's position is complex, being debated internally. Factional disputes are delaying a clear statement. A full analysis will follow.
He was now juggling two of the most powerful and intelligent men in all of Russia. He was feeding calculated lies to one, while desperately begging for fundamental truths from the other. He stood alone in the cellar, caught between the Tsar's Prime Minister and the father of the revolution, the weight of these two titanic historical figures pressing down on him. His small, regional war for survival had just become a battle for the future of Russia itself.
To be the first to know about future sequels and new projects, google my official author blog: Waystar Novels.