In some ways, the Soviets had always been ahead of the curve.
Receiving the joint decree from the Central Committee and the recently purged Council of Ministers, the USSR's Military Command activated the Warsaw Pact Master Plan at 3:15 AM on April 30th, 1995.
It had taken ten years of preparation, beginning with the appointment of CPSU General Secretary Grishin.
The attack was computerized on all fronts, with data and orders routed over the triple-redundant Bolsh-9 network. The primary goal of the integrated battle plan was to delay the use of nuclear weapons. By allowing NATO to block the invasion at selected points, while forcing them to fight harder elsewhere, the opponent would be weakened at a predictable rate.
The attack began with the launch of thousands of 'Kink' cruise missiles against Western command centers, bases and chokepoints. Ten thousand fighters and bombers followed in waves, outnumbering the defenders three to one. They hoped to strike a decisive blow on the first day.
The thunder of fifty thousand artillery pieces could be heard out to the North Sea.
Ten army groups penetrated the elaborately prepared defenses of West Germany, certain suicide for the lead elements. Much of the federal republic was soon covered by smoke from explosives and fires.
This was called the first 'fractal war', relying on distributed intelligence and initiative. There were thousands of small battles, planned defeats and cumulative victories. Most instances of heroism went unrecorded.
Hovercrafts and Ekranoplans swarmed across the Baltic. Denmark's main island was captured on the second day.
Northern Austria fell without a significant battle to an airborne assault.
Some of the most brutal fighting laid waste to Istanbul, while another army invaded and captured Greece in one week.
A dozen airborne divisions crossed the Alps and entered Italy, which had declared its neutrality two months earlier. Using 'non-lethal' bacteriological weapons to disable the population, the attackers were joined by a seaborne division from Yugoslavia, which had joined the Warsaw Pact after the Serbian resurgence of the Nineties.
The lead elements were stopped one hundred kilometers from Rome, but not before cutting off the peninsula.
Twice, Marshall Gorkhov in his Urals bunker halted the German offensive to allow American and British units to withdraw, giving them an honorable defeat. As predicted, NATO wasted its strength trying to save two surrounded West German armies.
By the end of the first week, Warsaw Pact forces had captured half of West Germany, and the northern half of the Netherlands.
Communism's greatest triumph was made possible by a single Western error. Ten years earlier, antinuclear demonstrators funded by Moscow had successfully blocked the deployment of cruise missiles and intermediate range missiles in Western Europe.
Now the USA found itself reluctant to use tactical nuclear weapons to stop the Soviet advance, as NATO doctrine dictated.
The French announced they would launch all their missiles before surrendering one meter of their territory.
The first Soviet setback came when an expeditionary force was wiped out in northern Denmark. The main defensive line slowly stabilized east of the Rhine.
By the end of the second week, more than a million Soviets and East European allies were dead.
Portions of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, including the large cities, were devastated by round the clock air strikes.
Precision attacks began to paralyze the Soviet heartland, as power stations, roadways, and factories were turned into rubble.
What remained of the planned economy began to collapse. Extensive civil defense preparations could only delay the disaster for a month.
In the third week, Backfire bombers detonated low-yield nuclear missiles high above the largest American cities. No one on the ground was killed immediately. The Soviet goal was to appear less than sane. The maneuver hurt American morale more than expected.
NATO retaliated with nuclear attacks against the bombers' bases, knocking out most of Soviet strategic aviation.
By now northwestern Europe was a wasteland. Tens of thousands of civilians perished by the hour, with few relief efforts.
It was time for the endgame. The Soviet goal was to retain the territories they had captured.
The new General Secretary announced his ceasefire proposal from a bunker in the Siberian forests. He was willing to negotiate a political solution. Even the principles of communism were open to discussion. But the captured territories would not be surrendered under any circumstances.
The world had twenty-four hours to agree. If an agreement was not forthcoming, the USSR would start launching one strategic nuclear missile per hour.
The West German government announced its compliance with these terms before the US president was even informed. Four other countries did the same before the deadline expired.
While NATO never agreed to anything, they found themselves in the middle of a new order. Their options were to accept the Soviet gains, or to end the world.
Survivors in the occupied territories were allowed to move west. In fact, most were encouraged to do so.
Those who stayed were too busy surviving to think about resisting, like most defeated populations before them. It was months before they dared to consider the future. By then it was too late.
What happened next should not have been unexpected. The only way to make a radical change was to start from nothing.
The emergency brought a grim order to the devastated Soviet empire. Uprisings in the satellite states were ruthlessly smashed by war veterans. Most of the European economy was soon controlled by Moscow, but the divide and rule policy allowed for temporary local autonomy.
Gradually, the controls became harsher, the rules more draconian. Within ten years, the number of bureaucrats and KGB agents tripled.
For the first time, the central planners' instructions were actually obeyed, no matter how difficult. As individuals became less important, even the men at the top felt their power begin to slip, something they had never imagined. The new Collective took on a life of its own.
On January 1, 2010, true communism was declared.
Infinite Thunder by Jack Arcalon
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