Power, Lenin mused, was not a sword. It was a hammer, and the art was knowing exactly where, and how hard, to strike.
He sat alone in his office at the Smolny Institute, the hour sliding past midnight. The intoxicating fervor of the October seizure of power had faded, replaced by the relentless, grinding reality of governance. The revolution was a machine, and he was its chief mechanic, up to his elbows in grease.
A single, bare lightbulb hung over his desk, casting a harsh glare on a chaotic landscape of paper. Grain shortages in Tambov. A railway strike in Moscow. A border dispute with Ukrainian nationalists. Every report was a new fire he had to extinguish before it burned down their new world. The air was thick with the smoke from his neglected cigarettes, which curled around his bald head like a halo of sheer exhaustion.
His thoughts, escaping the drudgery of logistics, drifted to Koba.
The man was a profound annoyance. As the "Golden Demon," he had been the perfect tool for chaos, a wrecking ball to shatter the old regime. But as the Commissar of Nationalities, he was an unpredictable variable. A piece that didn't fit neatly on his chessboard. A loyal but dangerously independent attack dog.
The door opened without a knock.
Leon Trotsky swept into the room, electric with an energy that defied the late hour. He carried himself with the supreme confidence of a man who believed he was history's chosen instrument. He placed a thin folder on the sliver of uncluttered space on Lenin's desk.
"The Koba problem continues," Trotsky announced, his voice crisp.
Lenin sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "What is it now, Leon? Has he offended another intellectual with his manners?"
"Worse. He's learning," Trotsky said. "His new decree. On the surface, it's utter nonsense. Something about preserving the culture of goat-herders in the Ural Mountains."
Lenin picked up the document, his eyes scanning the dense, bureaucratic text with impatience. "It is exactly the kind of useless work we gave him the post for. Let him count goats. It keeps him out of Petrograd and away from the sailors."
"Read the fine print, Vladimir Ilyich," Trotsky insisted, tapping a perfectly manicured finger on the third page. "Read clause seven, subsection B."
Lenin's gaze dropped to the indicated paragraph. He read it once. Then he read it again, more slowly.
"…all authority over regional Red Guard militias, rail transport, and supply chain logistics in the designated Ural territories is temporarily transferred to the direct oversight of the People's Commissariat of Nationalities…"
Lenin went still. The fatigue vanished from his eyes, replaced by a sharp, analytical gleam. The trick was clever. Devious. It was a move of stunning bureaucratic audacity, wrapped in the most boring package imaginable. This wasn't the work of a simple thug. It wasn't the blunt-force trauma he expected from Koba. This was the subtle, precise incision of a surgeon.
A flicker of genuine surprise—and a sliver of grudging respect—cut through his annoyance. He had tried to put his dog in a cage, and the dog had just legally declared the cage his personal fortress.
"He is more dangerous than I thought," Lenin said, his voice quiet.
"His ambition is a threat," Trotsky countered, seizing on the agreement. "We disarmed him in Petrograd, so he is building a new army a thousand miles away, using our own laws against us."
The conversation had shifted. This was no longer about management. It was about containment. If they couldn't control Koba directly, they had to sever his connections. Isolate him completely.
Trotsky, ever prepared, slid another document across the desk. It was a copy of a Cheka surveillance summary.
"Dzerzhinsky's men have been watching him, as you asked," Trotsky said. "No secret meetings with military men. No conspiracies with the Kronstadt leadership. Just… this." He pointed to the last entry. It detailed Koba's personal visit to a makeshift hospital, and the subsequent issuing of a letter of commendation.
"A German nurse," Trotsky said, his tone dripping with contempt. "'Sister Anna.' He used his new authority to give her official protection. It was his first and only significant act as Commissar, the day after we took his soldiers away."
Lenin's sharp mind connected the dots instantly. It was a clear pattern of behavior. "A new asset," he murmured, piecing it together. "When we took his hammer, he went and found a scalpel."
"She is his only visible connection to a world outside our control," Trotsky pressed, leaning forward. "His only piece on the board that isn't one of ours. We take her, we leave him completely isolated. Blind and deaf. A Commissar of nothing, with no one to call."
This was where the two men worked in perfect, ruthless sync. The intellectual and the pragmatist, the strategist and the tactician, united against a common threat. They would not make the Tsar's mistake of underestimating the man from Georgia.
"An arrest would be crude," Lenin said, already thinking several moves ahead. "It would make a martyr of her and might provoke Koba into doing something foolish and public. We cannot afford instability right now."
"Then we don't arrest her," Trotsky replied, a cruel smile playing on his lips. "We discredit her. We expose her."
The plan formed in Lenin's mind, cold and logical. They needed to prove she was a spy. A simple task for the Cheka. But the choice of instrument was critical. Dzerzhinsky was too much of a fanatic. He would see a German spy and simply have her shot in a cellar, creating the very incident they sought to avoid. They needed someone subtle. Someone efficient.
Someone without imagination.
"I have a man," Lenin said, leaning back in his chair. The decision was made. "One of Dzerzhinsky's deputies. A Pole. He is meticulous, quiet, and ruthlessly efficient. He follows orders without question, which is a virtue in this case."
"What's his name?" Trotsky asked.
Lenin looked at Trotsky, his eyes cold and clear as ice.
"Menzhinsky. Vyacheslav Menzhinsky."
He picked up the phone that connected directly to the Cheka headquarters. "Tell him to find a reason, any reason, to put Sister Anna under complete surveillance. I want to know everyone she talks to, every breath she takes. I want her reputation ruined. I want her neutralized."