Reincarnated: Vive La France-Chapter 176: “Two more professors. A librarian. And a painter.”

The bullet holes in the Lubyanka courtyard had already been plastered over.

The trial was over.

The executions done.

The foreign press had published their revelations and left.

But inside the Kremlin, the real operation was only beginning.

In Stalin’s office, the fire crackled beneath a portrait of Lenin.

Across from him sat Molotov and Kaganovich. Between them lay a red-inked decree.

"Effective immediately," Stalin said, tapping the paper, "Yagoda is relieved."

Molotov frowned. "He delivered Zinoviev and Kamenev."

"He delivered confession," Stalin said flatly. "Not conviction. The gardener let weeds grow. He’s lucky I don’t bury him in the soil he failed to till."

Kaganovich adjusted his spectacles. "Yezhov?"

"Loyal," Stalin said. "Hungry. Sharp."

He folded the document with care. "More useful than tired and comfortable."

At Lubyanka, Genrikh Yagoda stood before the sealed door of his own office.

A wax stamp crossed the handle.

Restricted – Authority Transferred

Inside, he could hear the shuffle of feet, low voices.

But no one opened the door.

A colonel young, unfamiliar stood beside it.

"By whose order?" Yagoda demanded, voice clipped.

The officer didn’t blink. "Yours no longer count."

Yagoda stared long. "I built this place," he said at last.

The colonel nodded. "And now you leave it standing."

In a quiet annex room an hour later, Yagoda packed his things.

Framed citations.

Old directives.

He paused over a photograph himself beside Stalin and Dzerzhinsky in 1924.

His finger brushed the faded edges, but he left it behind.

A junior aide entered, pale.

"I... I wasn’t told," the boy muttered.

"No one is," Yagoda said, voice calm. "They just stop being invited to listen."

He pulled on his coat. "You’ll learn that soon." ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

That night, Yezhov met Stalin in the Kremlin.

Georgian wine was already poured.

A folder sat between them.

"You’ll have full authority," Stalin said. "Internal threats. Military surveillance. Intellectual suppression."

Yezhov flipped through the names.

"Writers. Scientists. Officers. Wives."

"Guilt is social," Stalin murmured. "It spreads like fire."

"And the public?"

"They cheer what they fear."

Yezhov met his gaze. "How sharp do you want the knife?"

Stalin smiled faintly. "We’re not pruning for beauty. We’re clearing space for obedience."

Across Moscow, Komsomol units gathered in factory halls and schools.

At one meeting, a youth secretary read from a trembling paper.

"Comrade Antonov once lived with Radek. Comrade Levina was heard quoting Trotsky."

A murmur passed.

Members were told to vote denounce or face questions.

A teacher raised a hand. "Comrade Levina taught my daughter to read..."

The room turned toward her.

She lowered her voice. "Perhaps with... outdated texts."

The vote passed.

Levina’s name was marked in red.

At the Central Committee, Comrade Fomin, a veteran of the Revolution, stood.

"We purge not traitors but memories," he said. "Some of these men built the nation."

Kaganovich was quick. "The Revolution does not honor its past. It survives it."

By morning, Fomin’s access pass no longer worked.

His driver changed.

No arrest.

Just absence.

In the Lubyanka briefing hall, fifty NKVD recruits sat in rows as Yezhov addressed them.

"There is no neutral," he said. "There is only loyalty or silence. And silence is treason."

He raised a protocol card.

"This authorizes arrest. If they confess, they’re processed. If they resist convince them."

An officer asked, "How do we define guilt?"

Yezhov didn’t hesitate. "With ink. With rope. With bullet. You choose."

Elsewhere in Moscow, Marshal Tukhachevsky met Yakir and Uborevich in a secure Ministry room.

"They asked for my academy lectures," Yakir said.

"They reassigned my driver," Uborevich muttered. "Without explanation."

Tukhachevsky ran a hand through his hair. "We are targets. Not because we failed. Because we succeeded."

"What now?" Yakir asked.

"We write nothing. Trust no one. Wait."

"For what?"

"For the storm to run out of names."

In the basement of Izvestia, editors gathered by candlelight.

One read aloud.

"New headline. ’The Enemy Beneath the Flag.’"

"Approved?"

"Yezhov liked it."

A young journalist whispered, "Didn’t we run that in ’34?"

"Yes," came the reply. "And we’ll run it again in ’36."

At a parade in Red Square, soldiers marched beneath fluttering banners.

Children waved flags.

Among the crowd, a professor from the Institute of History clapped softly, eyes fixed on the rhythm.

He whispered to his wife, "See how precise their feet fall?"

She nodded. "Fear trains all things."

In Stalin’s study, Molotov arrived with a red folder.

"Seventeen Central Committee members questioned. Nine removed. One missing."

Stalin poured tea.

"And the people?"

"They chant louder."

Stalin nodded. "That’s not celebration. That’s breath control. No one shouts in a collapsing theatre unless they want attention."

He turned back to the window. "We’re not hunting rebels. We’re teaching survival."

That night, a minor Party clerk named Viktor Feldman returned home to find his door ajar.

Two men in plain coats waited inside.

"Comrade Feldman," one said, "your name has appeared on a list."

"What list?"

"The kind that ends with an empty desk."

His wife asked, "Is there a mistake?"

The second man shrugged. "There always is."

Back at Lubyanka, the lists were being updated hourly.

Files labeled "Review" now bore fresh stamps:

Process Immediately

In one office, an NKVD officer flipped through a stack.

"Two more professors. A librarian. And a painter."

His partner frowned. "A painter?"

"He titled his last work ’The Silent Republic.’ They didn’t like the tone."

Marshal Tukhachevsky entered his office early on Thursday.

On his desk was a note, unsigned.

Do not return tomorrow. They’re watching.

He read it once, burned it in an ashtray, and opened his daily file as though nothing had changed.

In a rehearsal hall of the Bolshoi Theatre, ballerinas practiced under low lights.

From the balcony, an NKVD officer took notes.

"Scene four," he wrote. "Choreographer frowns at state anthem placement."

He didn’t applaud.

He just recorded.

Yagoda sat across from three minor officials in a dusty interior Ministry room.

"You are reassigned," one read. "To the Commissariat for Communications."

Yagoda’s face didn’t move. "Reason?"

"Administrative necessity."

"Does Stalin still trust me?"

The youngest looked up. "He trusts you know when to be quiet."

Yezhov returned to the Kremlin that evening.

"All twenty-seven names from the October directive have been processed," he reported.

Stalin nodded, drawing on his pipe.

"And the press?"

"Koltsov is preparing a piece. ’The Knife Must Be Sharp.’"

"And the military?"

Yezhov hesitated. "Initial surveillance in place. Tukhachevsky remains... highly regarded."

Stalin exhaled slowly. "Not for long."

At midnight, Stalin walked alone through a private garden behind the Kremlin.

Snow had started falling again.

He muttered, almost to himself.

"You don’t control a nation with applause. You control it with anticipation."

He paused beneath a frost-covered oak.

"The future belongs to those too afraid to change it."