On New Year's Day, 1935, CPSU General Secretary Stalin delivered his New Year's address in St. Petersburg rather than Moscow. In his speech, General Secretary Stalin stated that 1935 would open a new chapter of unity between Soviet workers and peasants, and that all Soviet peasants would possess full household registration (hukou).

As General Secretary Stalin's close comrade-in-arms, Commissar Kirov also stayed up late to complete his report. Rubbing his sore eyes, he modified the title, finally settling on "The Development Course of Rural Work in the Past Decade."

Putting down his pen, Politburo member Kirov closed his eyes. His secretary entered just then, and seeing Kirov resting with his eyes closed in the chair next to the radiator, intended to quietly withdraw. However, Commissar Kirov spoke up, "Wait a moment."

Seemingly resting with his eyes closed, Kirov was actually considering candidates. Zinolenko from the Secretariat had good writing skills and was a strong candidate. But Zinolenko was politically mild, and this document was important. Therefore, he needed to find someone politically tougher to pick holes in it.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of hardliners within the CPSU. Commissar Kirov said to his secretary, "Please ask Comrade Petrov to come here."

Before entering the central government, Petrov was the secretary of a small city in the Russian Republic and had rich work experience. He soon appeared before Commissar Kirov with the secretary. When Kirov pushed a document in front of him, Petrov was startled, his first reaction being to wonder if he was in some kind of trouble.

"Comrade Petrov, please read this document and then tell me your emotional response," Kirov ordered.

"I resolutely support the Central Committee's decision!" Petrov answered without hesitation.

Kirov rubbed his somewhat red eyes. "Comrade Petrov, I know you are loyal to the revolution. Therefore, I ask you to finish reading this document with a revolutionary attitude. Then, you don't need to consider anything else, just tell me your emotions after reading it. Can I trust you to complete this task in the spirit of the revolution?"

Hearing that he wasn't being questioned or asked to make a decision, Petrov immediately felt much more at ease. And Commissar Kirov's proposal truly piqued Petrov's curiosity. After a slight hesitation, he answered loudly, "Please rest assured, Comrade Kirov, I will definitely complete the task."

Kirov nodded and had his secretary arrange for Petrov to read the document in the small room next to Kirov's office. Petrov sat down, nervously placed the document in front of him, and was about to read when he couldn't help but take out a cigarette and light it. After taking a drag, his spirits lifted slightly, and he began to read.

The content of the document was not difficult to understand. Since 1925, the Soviet Union had been using light industrial goods to exchange for agricultural products in some areas to collect grain. In addition to the normal payment for the grain handed over by the peasants, rewards were given based on the total amount of grain submitted.

From small items like clothing, fabric, candy, and alcohol, to large items like household appliances, farm tools, motorcycles, and automobiles. This model greatly stimulated the production enthusiasm of Soviet peasants. As the new grain collection method was gradually promoted throughout the Soviet Union, the problems of product output and collection volume that had plagued the Soviet Union were resolved.

After 1931, the countryside had gradually become a strong economic pillar of the Soviet Union. Those cunning Soviet peasants, for their own interests, were producing more and more products. Not only did the output of agricultural products increase, but the production of livestock, poultry, and wool also rose.

For a long time, CPSU grain collection teams would go to the countryside with guns. Their methods included tearing down houses, destroying doors, arresting peasants suspected of hiding grain, or publicly whipping them—these were basic operations. With the popularization of the new grain collection model, the method of taking guns to the countryside to collect grain was no longer common in the Soviet Union. In most areas where socialist transformation had been relatively successful, the local secretary would return to the countryside with a document listing the demand checklist and reward details, and the greediest peasants there would try every means to produce.

The changes in these peasants were very obvious. After they had some cooperation with the government's agricultural experts, the greedy peasants would even actively request the government to send technical experts to the countryside to guide their production. These cunning peasants were even willing to give up their traditional small plots of land to farm and operate on large tracts of land planned by Soviet government experts.

Under the wise leadership of General Secretary Stalin, the CPSU executed a very efficient policy. Although the peasants still possessed a reactionary nature, this reactionary nature had been reduced. With the deepening of socialist transformation, a portion of the peasants would be thoroughly transformed and become new-style laborers under the socialist system.

Now, granting peasants the same full household registration and passports as urban workers could more effectively promote the socialist transformation of the countryside and promote the continued high-speed development of the Soviet economy...

After reading this document, Comrade Petrov was moved. In the document, Commissar Kirov used relatively negative vocabulary to describe the peasants and positive vocabulary to describe the role of the Soviet government, which completely aligned with Petrov's personal philosophy.

Since Commissar Kirov wanted Petrov to report his emotional reaction, Petrov immediately stood up and took the document to see Commissar Kirov, recounting his feelings. "Commissar Kirov, I also think the peasants are very reactionary, but when writing documents, I can't describe the peasants' reactionary nature and the achievements of socialist transformation as appropriately as you have..."

Kirov observed Petrov's reaction and felt he saw considerable sincerity. Petrov was not blindly praising just to flatter.

Petrov's level of ability was not within Kirov's consideration at this moment. The upper echelons of the CPSU generally believed that peasants adopting backward production methods were enemies to some extent, so rural work was very crude. Since a moderate rural policy was now to be implemented, the wording of Kirov's document on this matter had to make the comrades of the CPSU Central Committee feel that they were not being accused or made into scapegoats. Once these committee members felt offended, it would trigger a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Judging from Comrade Petrov's reaction before him, the hardliners obviously did not feel threatened, and this document had achieved the appropriate expression of attitude. There were indeed still people within the party who believed that traditional CPSU grain collection methods should be used, but those people were a minority. If those people were willing to openly confront General Secretary Stalin, let them go ahead. Kirov himself had at least united the majority of comrades.

***

After reading this document, Stalin's first reaction was "Kirov is quite cunning." But Stalin was not unhappy; Kirov was "cunning" in a very appropriate way. In Stalin's view, this document covered everything, especially mentioning "imported light industrial goods" lightly in passing.

This sentence was inconspicuous and seemed like a formulaic description, but it precisely hit the vital point of the Soviet Union's current high-speed development. The Soviet Union itself did not have the capacity to produce so many cost-effective light industrial goods to meet the needs of Soviet workers and peasants; currently, the output of domestic light industrial goods could only barely meet the needs of urban workers. Chinese light industrial goods filled the gap.

The core Soviet leadership knew about this matter, but none spoke of it. This matter could not be spoken of, nor could it be known by others. The current propaganda within the Soviet Union was that the Soviet Union exported a large amount to China every year, and the Chinese Yuan earned could not be used within the Soviet Union and could only be used to purchase Chinese goods. In fact, China had undertaken the financial work for the Soviet Union; if this important financial channel were lost, Soviet trade would be very uncomfortable.

Kirov's "cunning" way of narration made the party and government think that everything was due to Comrade Stalin's capable leadership, and even China had to act according to the Soviet baton under Comrade Stalin's arrangement. This was loyalty to the "Socialism in One Country" line proposed by Stalin, a proof of loyalty. General Secretary Stalin was very satisfied with Kirov's loyalty.

After reading the document, General Secretary Stalin did not make any comments. Instead, he continued the work of his trip. The secretary entered to report, "General Secretary, the KGB person in charge of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) has arrived and is waiting for your further orders."

"Please show him in," Stalin ordered in a happy mood.

The KGB person in charge of the Northwest region centered on Leningrad looked a bit tired, but even so, he puffed out his chest and saluted upon seeing Stalin.

"Please sit. Comrade, you've worked hard," Stalin said in a very mild tone.

The person in charge felt warmth in his heart. After sitting down, he began to report his work to Stalin. Since he had learned in advance some of the questions that would be asked, the KGB Northwest region person in charge picked the most important ones to speak about first. "General Secretary, most of the KGB's strength in this region is currently used to prevent illegal border crossings. After the natural disasters of '32 and '33 ended, the number of stowaways in '34 decreased a lot. However, the number of foreigners with Russian blood applying to immigrate to the Soviet Union has increased a lot, and there are already over 40,000 applications that haven't been processed yet. Some of these applicants couldn't wait and carried out illegal crossings with the help of their domestic relatives."

"Mm," Stalin listened to the report in a relaxed mood. The Soviet system attached great importance to welfare. In the current situation where there was no shortage of goods, the living standards of the Soviet people had improved rapidly, fully surpassing their European neighbors. This led people with Russian blood in neighboring countries to have thoughts of living in the Soviet Union.

Those who carried out illegal border crossings basically had relatives within the Soviet Union, and they went to stay with these relatives, which greatly disrupted the Soviet household registration system. The reason for mentioning the establishment of a complete household registration and passport identity system in the countryside in the New Year's speech was also to deal with the chaos caused by hundreds of thousands of stowaways.

After the KGB person in charge detailed the arduous work of the KGB, he paused to drink some tea because of thirst, while carefully observing Comrade Stalin's reaction. He saw that Comrade Stalin looked relaxed and thoughtful at the same time. This made the Northwest region KGB person in charge happy. It seemed that his department's work at least did not make Comrade Stalin unhappy.

Soon, Comrade Stalin asked a few other questions slightly and ended the meeting.

Lighting his pipe, Stalin considered the problems brought about by immigration. The aroma of tobacco filled the air. Stalin still believed that immigration into the Soviet Union should be controlled. If the Soviet people wanted to help their poor foreign relatives, let them take the money and supplies abroad.

Given the Soviet Union's management capabilities, hundreds of thousands of stowaways would indeed cause certain troubles, but these troubles were far from enough to disturb the entire Soviet Union. In Stalin's view, the true value of these stowaways lay not in supplementing the Soviet labor force, but in giving the Soviet Union legal jurisdiction over the places where these ethnic Russians lived.

Last year, in the border demarcation agreement between China and Britain, China used the Tibetan people as the reason for demarcation to demand a large area of land back from British India. If those people had been suddenly migrated there by China, China's demand would have caused a huge shock in Europe. Forced migration followed by a claim of sovereignty over that land was considered an act of aggression in Europe. But the Tibetan people had lived in that area for a thousand years, so China's territorial claim to that land possessed undeniable legitimacy in European concepts.

Of course, it wasn't that no one in Britain expressed a different opinion. Those opponents believed that whether the Tibetans belonged to one of China's ethnic groups was open to question. However, this questioning was limited to the purely civilian level. If British officials spoke like this, China could view it as a hostile act and take measures including war against Britain.

Facing the declining Qing Dynasty, the British upper class had proposed the view that the Tibetans were an independent nation. Facing a China capable of driving Britain out of India, the British upper class simply did not mention this view. If the Qing Dynasty's strength were the same as present-day China, the British upper class would absolutely not have raised the question of whether the Tibetans were an independent nation, a question that could potentially trigger a war.

The Soviet Union had given up a lot of territory back then out of helplessness. Stalin believed that the Soviet Union must never lose the opportunity to recover those lost Russian territories. For this purpose, the Soviet Union could allow its own people to take property abroad to help poor Russian relatives, but it could not let those Russians all run back to the Soviet Union.

Time passed quickly. By March, the Soviet Union had dispatched a large number of KGB personnel to conduct investigations in rural and urban areas in the border regions, successively repatriating more than 180,000 ethnic Russian foreigners.

The KGB chief rushed to a resort on the Black Sea on March 24th to specifically report the latest situation to Comrade Stalin, who was on vacation. The originally scheduled time was postponed. The KGB chief was a bit puzzled; what could be more urgent than his current work to actually change the agreed meeting?

General Secretary Stalin was smoking his pipe relaxedly at this time, listening to the report of Molotov, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. "...According to our judgment, the purpose of France proposing to conclude the 'Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance' is to hope that we can divert the Nazis' attention and let the Nazis attack us on their own initiative."

Russians rarely smiled, and Commissar Molotov looked relatively serious, but at this moment, a smile hung on the corner of his mouth, showing how happy Commissar Molotov was.

General Secretary Stalin's expression was very flat. Britain and France had been blockading the Soviet Union. Now that the Soviet Union and Germany did not share a border, Britain and France had been helping Poland strengthen its military forces, trying to use Poland to threaten the western Soviet Union.

Exhaling a mouthful of fragrant smoke, Stalin couldn't even be bothered to express an opinion on this. Now, ethnic Russians on Poland's eastern border were setting off a large-scale movement of immigration and illegal crossing back to the Russian Republic. Among ordinary Poles, a portion also tried to leave Poland and immigrate to the Soviet Union to live.

Molotov continued, "We have already notified the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the news in this regard. Judging from the reaction of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French side should have also informed China. The Diplomatic Committee believes that China will not interfere with this agreement."

Although he didn't answer, Stalin at least nodded, indicating he knew.

***

At this time in Guangzhou, He Rui was at a resort preparing to return to the capital. Upstairs in the resort, his wives and children were preparing to go home, while He Rui listened to Foreign Minister Li Shiguang introduce the latest news from Europe, especially the "Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance."

"The treaty stipulates that when either France or the Soviet Union becomes the object of aggression by a European country, the two countries guarantee to immediately provide mutual support and assistance. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that France, as the initiator, is trying to divert the disaster eastward. But France seems a bit too wishful," Li Shiguang finished and subconsciously scratched his cheek. As a very experienced Foreign Minister, France's line of thought seemed "very unserious" to Li Shiguang.

He Rui had little interest in the "Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance," but he was interested in Li Shiguang's reaction. "What consequences does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs think this treaty will trigger if signed?"

Li Shiguang scratched his chin subconsciously again and said with some confusion, "If this treaty is signed, theoretically, a possibility will arise. Poland might suspect that France wants to sell out Poland's interests to the Soviet Union.

"Perhaps France will strengthen its relationship with Poland next, but what is the significance of doing so? According to the news we have obtained, Britain has already expressed dissatisfaction with the Franco-Soviet Mutual Assistance Treaty. France believes Germany is the biggest enemy, but Britain believes the Soviet Union is the biggest threat to Europe. With the development of the Soviet Union, it is a country beyond the capacity of Britain's continental balance of power policy."

After finishing, Li Shiguang quickly added, "Unless Britain insists on diverting the disaster eastward, hoping Germany will actively attack the Soviet Union. But this possibility is too small!"

He Rui felt that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also beginning to mature, and his heart was truly much more relaxed. As long as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had such strength, He Rui could save the time that might have been spent on diplomacy. To confirm his view, He Rui asked, "Where does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs think the war hotspots will be in the next few years?"

"Spain," Foreign Minister Li Shiguang answered immediately. "The Spanish left wing has actually split, and every faction is trying to expand its influence by showing more radical means. The situation in Spain is clearly developing towards civil war.

"Germany is currently rebuilding its army, and I'm afraid no military adventures will occur in the short term. In the medium term, Germany's military expansion plan will likely be restricted. Britain cannot allow Germany to possess a powerful navy.

"As for other directions, Britain and France have already completed border demarcation with our country. After Britain completed the border demarcation with our country, France expressed approval at the first opportunity. On the contrary, the Soviet Union and the United States expressed approval even later than the European countries."

After speaking, Li Shiguang stopped. He reminded He Rui a bit but was unwilling to analyze too much. It was easy to understand that the United States was not happy to see China and Britain basically resolve territorial issues. If China and Britain fought, the United States could benefit. But the Soviet Union's late statement was not so pleasant.

Finally, Li Shiguang added, "Although Britain did not explicitly support our country's Eleven-Dash Line claim, it did not oppose it. France recognized the Eleven-Dash Line, and the Soviet Union recognized it. The United States expressed objection to this but did not take any action."

He Rui already had a basic judgment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' strength—qualified, but not necessarily outstanding, though this level was more than enough to deal with the current situation. He Rui said, "Germany's level of military expansion determines the probability of war. Our attitude must be clear: China absolutely does not seek to acquire colonies, and China opposes all racism. Adhering to these two points is enough."

"What if a civil war breaks out in Spain?" Li Shiguang asked about what he considered the near-term hotspot.

He Rui answered decisively, "China is very concerned, but China upholds a neutral stance, calling on all parties in Spain to endure for the sake of the country, end the war as soon as possible, and restore peace on the basis of negotiation."

Hearing this tone-setting that was no different from nonsense, Li Shiguang only answered with one word, "Yes."