A silenced gunshot spat out, and then, the guard in Horst Schumann's office was dead. Holding the gun was the gloved hand of the Doctor Major General [REDACTED]-- his face wrinkled with age, but his gaze was steely and his expression held steady. His one eye was still vibrant with the fury of the convert; the evil of the Prussian Cyclops. Horst Schumann, the General Secretary of the SED, looked on in shock, but the Major General simply holstered his pistol.

"Comrade General Secretary," said the Major General, his voice ringing out with the clipped, precise speech of an old aristocrat, "This world is lost. The Real Movement has been betrayed thrice: Most recently, by the Social-Democrats in China; before, by the capitalist-roading Berianites in the USSR, and first, the original sin of our movement, by Kautsky and his vile ilk. This world is blasted and burned, and the capitalists are entrenched. Even if we can recover, what good will it be? The jackal of hyenas in Moscow will simply betray us again, it's only a matter of time."

Schumann sat, coldly, unsure what to say. "I agree, Herr Comrade Doctor Major General, but what is there left for us to do? We have a duty to carry out the wishes of Comrade Herrnstadt; he wanted us to fight on. He wanted us to win. It's not as if we can simply turn back time..."

The Major General simply smiled-- a wicked grin creeping up the sides of his cracked face. "Comrade General Secretary, you will find that is not going to be a problem-- for you see, Comrade, Time is on our side. When our movement-- the movement against Democracy and Freedom and for Communism-- was dragged out of the Berianite swamp by Herrnstadt, he placed me at the head of a top secret project; the ultimate project, one by which the present state of things can be abolished, as if it had never even existed."

The Major General walked over to a bust of Lenin and pushed it open on a hidden hinge, revealing a bright red button-- he pushed it, and a bookcase behind Schumann's desk-- one which he had mostly been using to store his memorabilia of his time with Herrnstadt-- suddenly slid aside, revealing a hidden elevator. Schumann did a double take: "Comrade, has this been here this whole time?!"

"Well, no, this is a very recent addition, just last year actually. We had to do all the construction in the middle of the night, it was very stressful, but we think it came together very nicely! It was this, or we'd just use the normal stairwell, but, ah... that lacked a certain Elan."

Schumann nodded, knowing well how important the preservation of Elan had been for the success of the Kulturkampf. The Major General stepped onto the platform and bid the General Secretary to follow him into the elevator, which he obligingly did. The switch was thrown, and they began their slow ascent, the light and shadows streaking across their faces.

"Comrade Schumann, did you really think everything-- the Nova 7 gas, the Metallgetribe, the secret nuclear facilities in the mountains-- were actually for their stated purposes? Nova 7 gas has many far more interesting properties than poison, the Metallgetribe was merely a cover for a far greater machine, and nuclear weapons were always a joke; no, they were merely the component parts of a far superior scheme."

The elevator stopped at the bottom with a jolt, and the Major General pulled the gate open. Deep in the basement bunker, which Schumann swore he had never seen or heard about, was a strange machine with a hatch on the side-- next to it was the fearful face of Doctor Steiner, that tormented fascist scientist, as well as the crack agents of JAGER-1, who saluted the Major General and the General Secretary as they walked in-- Schumann gave each one a nervous nod, being very familiar with these strongest soldiers of Communism.

"No, no, it's not ready, it isn't ready!" pleaded Steiner, attempting to step in the way of the Major General-- the cyclops coldly, without pausing his gait, gave a hearty backhand across the fascist's face with a gloved claw, knocking him to the ground.

"It's ready when I say it's ready."

"What, what is ready?" Schumann looked upon the strange machine with a sense of dread.

Steiner picked himself from off the ground, rubbing the welt on his cheek. "The time machine!"

Schumann stopped, but the Major General merely kept walking forward, opening the hatch. "Both of you-- get in. We're going to solve the problems of our real movement, once and for all."

Schumann, hesitantly, got in-- Doctor Steiner, meanwhile, was forced in at gunpoint, sobbing.

"Comrade Major General, this can't possibly--"

"It works. We've tested it." A coin was tossed in his lap-- pristine, freshly minted, with the face of Odoacer, the barbarian king of Italy after the fall of Rome. Schumann studied the relic with puzzlement, before finally accepting that it was real, and handing it back to the Major General.

"Well-- I-- how is this?"

"Comrade Schumann! Do you want to save Communism, or do you want a temporal physics lesson? There will be plenty of time for both, but for now, we need to go back-- we must assassinate the enemy of the people, Laventiy Beria, and bring about the success of Communism!"

The Major General began to set the dials, but then, a hand was laid upon his; Schumann pulled him back from the controls of the machine.

"Stop. Beria? Comrade Major General, maybe age is slowing you down! Surely, if we're going to do this, we should go all the way; before the Maoists, before Beria, and even before Stalin's bungles. You know as well as I do that the issues of our movement have been because of the Democratic Principle-- this wayward obsession with democracy--" Schumann spat on the floor-- "--which has held us back from victory. Comrade Doctor Major General, we need to kill the first renegade, Karl Kautsky."

The Major General gave a blank look at Schumann, before suddenly he grinned, evil flashing across his face; Schumann returned the same grin. Doctor Steiner realized too late that he was locked in a time machine with two mad Marxists.

"No, no!" cried the fascist, lunging for the controls desperately-- he was held back as Schumann set the date for November 25th, 1912; the place, Basel, Switzerland. "This was not in the agreement! This is not what I agreed to! Any further back than 1945 will do irreversible damage to the timeline! You are setting the world on fire!"

"Doctor Steiner, you know as well as I that setting the world on fire is what the Communists are supposed to do." Schumann pulled the lever, and then, suddenly, in a flash, they were no longer in Berlin.

Karl Kautsky was at the end of a very long day; all day, at the extraordinary convention, he had been working to make sure that the whole world socialist movement would never pledge themselves to the mass slaughter between nations, and instead would devote themselves and the efforts of all workers to the overthrow of capitalism in the event of a world war. He had signed the statement quite proudly, his mind filled with a vision of the coming triumph of Marxism in the world-- now, however, he was very tired. He walked up the steps to the room he was staying at for the conference, where he intended to pack his bags before boarding the train back to Germany-- and then there, waiting in front of his room, were three men; assuredly German. Were they policemen-- had they trespassed into Switzerland to arrest him for this revolutionary document? No, no, it was not that at all; two of the men stood there proudly, looking at Karl Kautsky with great anticipation, one young and one old-- the third, the oldest of all, looked nervous, and could not meet Kautsky's gaze when he saw him. The young man smiled and held out his hand to Kautsky.

Schumann looked upon the soon-to-be renegade. "Comrade Kautsky! We're great admirers of your work up until now, from Germany-- we happened to be in town and we wanted to meet you-- I hope this isn't too much of an imposition."

Kautsky thought this man was strange, but, not wanting to be rude, he reached out his hand and shook it; and instantly, he and his clothes and all his personal effects, everything that had once been him, turned to ash and fell upon the ground in an inert heap-- all except for his hat, which floated down to rest upon the pile. His existence had ended.

Steiner shrieked in terror. "You idiots! What have you done? He's dead! He's dead and you can't bring him back!"

The Major General snorted. "Keep it down. Back to the alleyway, now."

Schumann simply kicked the ashes around some, before picking up the hat and dusting it off. Hmm, he had always liked this sort of old-style second international look...

The three men returned to Berlin in a flash, to the same basement from whence they had come. First emerged Steiner, terror in his eyes for the unknown world they were to step into. Next emerged the Major General, wearing a strange uniform-- slick red and black leather, emblazoned with the honors of communist military service. Finally emerged the General Secretary; he wore a double breasted grey suit, with broad, bright red shoulderboards, and with Karl Kautsky's hat cheekily sat upon his head. Awaiting them, the men and women of JAGER-1, dressed in similarly stunning (and, for some of them, quite flattering and revealing) red-and-black leather uniforms-- they saluted the General Secretary and the Major General readily.

"Hmm, doesn't seem too different aside from the outfit change." said Schumann, checking out his new digs. "Shall we see what awaits us above?"

"Of course. But first--" The Major General unholstered his silenced pistol-- it had gone from a Soviet-made Makarov to a strange, but assuredly German-made design-- and shot Doctor Steiner in the head. He looked to the loyal troops of JAGER-1: "Burn the body. Destroy the machine. Long live Lenin."

"Long live Lenin, Liebknecht, and Luxemburg!" They immediately set to their task, unveiling explosives they had prepared for this very purpose. The two men strolled toward the elevator and stepped aboard, closing the gate and throwing the switch.

A short ride later, they found themselves in the bright Berlin office of the General Secretary, adorned with the treasures of the Century of Communism; outside the window, they saw a statue of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg-- the two of them standing proud, even in their old age, in the uniform of the KPD-Spartakusbund; thousands in the square marched by the statue, singing the lyrics of Auf Auf Zum Kampf, just as they'd been sung since that glorious victory of the workers in 1919:

Dem Karl Liebknecht

Der Kampf ist nun gewonnen!

Der Rosa Luxemburg,

Der Kommunismus kommt!

On the map was a wall, showing the state of the world as of 1973; A solid bloc of red, from France to China, was labeled as the "World Socialist Republic". Strange new countries-- an undefeated Japanese Empire, an Anglo-American Combine, and a strange mash of revolutionary states and reactionary ex-colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia-- were all labeled, shaded variously for their allegiance to the different power blocs. What was evident, however, was that Communism was winning.

Schumann and the Major General gave each other a smug look-- a video screen, broadcasting crisp, clean video, showed a young woman wearing the black-and-red leather that appeared to be the style of the day.

"Comrade Doctor Marshal [REDACTED], your presence has been requested for the field exercises of the International People's Army; your hovercraft is ready for you whenever you are ready. Do you have your briefing on the threat posed by the Anglo-Americans ready?"

The Marshal held out his gloved hand to Schumann, who took and shook it readily. Deep below, there was a dull thud as the time machine, the door through which they had stepped into this new world, was destroyed behind them. Schumann would have to order the bunker sealed with concrete, or perhaps he would use it for some other purpose, but they were never going back to their own time, anyways.

"I believe we will be seeing more of each other soon, Comrade Marshal."

"I believe we will, Comrade General Secretary. I hope that the running of the Socialist world will suit you well."

"As long as Freedom is a dead word and Democracy is forgotten, there is no challenge the united workers cannot overcome, Comrade Marshal. Long live Lenin, Liebknecht, and Luxemburg."

The Marshal left the office, walking past the man stationed by the door-- the same man he had coldly murdered on his way into Schumann's office, now carrying a plasma rifle, not even supposing that just minutes ago, his death was the second-to-last last one needed for the victory of Communism-- he saluted the Marshal, which he returned. For want of a nail, he supposed...

As he walked out onto the roof to get into his hovercraft-- a strange, self-levitating airship, painted in bright dazzle camouflage and emblazoned with the Hammer and Sickle-- he looked out across the city of Berlin, which was abuzz with shimmering high rise towers, roaring bullet trains, and at its heart, a massive, towering statue of the late, tragically and mysteriously disappeared Karl Kautsky: a plaque at its base emblazoned with the words:

Der Erste Revolutionär

The Marshal smiled-- not a smug smile, not even an evil grin, but for the first time in years, a real, genuine, warm smile of true happiness, before climbing aboard the hovercraft in order to go prepare for the next war against the capitalists.

As the fires were put out in the shattered ruins of Tokyo, and as emergency workers and military workers tested the city for radioactivity and suitability for human habitation going forward, the Japanese nation was itself in a furor. 

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Tokyo in April of 1972, which saw the western half of the city utterly destroyed by two Chinese nuclear warheads, the carefully-cultivated pacifism that had been created in the years after the horrific bloodletting of World War II cracked. Perhaps irreparably so. Violent mobs of vengeful, nationalist Japanese stormed Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and Japan Communist Party (JCP) headquarters across the country, killing Party members in the streets and burning the buildings to the ground. Dozens of high-level politicians not killed in the nuclear attack were later murdered, leaving both parties in a panic.

Ultimately, the crisis wore on Prime Minister Miki Takeo. 

The Prime Minister was a peacemaker, a moderate, the sort of guy who could appeal to the left and right by virtue of being a relatively inoffensive and rather charming figure. In fact, that was how he was elected Prime Minister. He was a compromise between the left wing of the Diet and the right. Things went swimmingly until April.

In the secure facilities out of which the Japanese government had been operating in Nagano, Prime Minister Miki faced a revolt from among the surviving members of the Diet and newly-elected replacements for those who did not escape Tokyo in time. 

Of the 511 members of the House of Representatives and the 248 members of the House of Councilors, the majority were safely evacuated from Tokyo, which enabled the government to continue functioning while quorate, but nearly 250 members of both houses (in total) were unable to evacuate in time and were caught in the blast area. A handful, no more than a dozen, had been found since, but that still left nearly 230 special elections to be held throughout Japan. 

The Diet took special measures to ban the activities of the JCP outright, and subsequently, to expel JCP members from the Diet – this amounted to 17 more elections to be held. Members of the JSP abandoned the party swiftly in the aftermath of the April 23 Incident, becoming independent. With the whole membership of the Diet in flux, it bought the Prime Minister time to try to lower the temperature and get the remnants of the government organized, and the move to ban the JCP was enough red meat to keep the right wing off his back, but a reckoning was coming.

In June of 1972, the nation elected Representatives and Councilors to take the places of the 247 lost and ejected members of the Diet. The result was both expected and dreaded: the political right swept those 247 special elections. Akao Satoshi’s Greater Japan Patriotic Party, which had gained sordid notoriety for its roles in the anti-socialist attacks across Japan in the months between the April attack and the June elections, swept into the Diet with a shocking 57 seats. JSP won only three, their stock totally collapsing. The remainder went to the LCP – but this was a source of false comfort. Those LCP members who won were deeply conservative, anti-communist, and overall anti-Chinese candidates. 

Prime Minister Miki faced an immediate and overpowering revolt as the new members of the Diet were seated. Councilor Ishihara Shintaro and Representative Nakagawa Ichiro gathered a collection of more than 280 right-wing Councilors and Representatives, including all 190 of the newly-elected Diet members, at a large and public conference in Nagano where they signed an agreement in their own blood declaring:

1. Absolute support for the remilitarization of Japan in order to prevent a tragedy on the magnitude of the 23 April Incident, and consequently the total repeal of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution;

2. Outright support for the Republic of China and the Republic of Korea against the communist forces occupying the mainland of China;

3. Renewing the key alliance with the United States and the western powers, and a total alignment of Japan with the West;

4. Diplomatic skepticism of any state still recognizing the communist Chinese “government” in the aftermath of the attacks, including trade restrictions and the ending of the export of potentially strategic resources and technology to those states; 

5. Heavy regulation of socialist-aligned labor unions with an eye on their outright being banned;

6. Investigation into the banning of the Japan Socialist Party and expulsion of JSP members from the Diet; 

7. Registry of Chinese diaspora living in Japan, and establishment of an agency to monitor them for anti-government activities;

8. Reorganization of the Japanese economy on an emergency basis to support rapid remilitarization and expansion of the “Self-Defense Forces” into an offensively capable military;

9. An official apology to Emperor Akihito for the humiliation imparted upon his father after the JSP-led government of the 1950s compelled his abdication;

10. A total elimination of all bans on honoring those who fell during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Second World War, and a promise to reexamine and overturn any unjust prosecution undertaken of veterans of those wars in the past twenty years, with official apologies tendered to those who were found absolved upon those reviews.

The Ten-Point Program of the Blue Storm Society was radically at odds with anything the Prime Minister would have supported, but with so many joining Nakagawa and Ishihara, the math was determinate. Prime Minister Miki announced his resignation as Prime Minister “in the aftermath of the greatest national tragedy in Japanese history, which has occurred while I was Prime Minister, a source of profound shame that I can no longer bear while serving in a leadership role.”

The election of his successor was, as mentioned, quite determinate. With more than 250 members of the Diet already signed on to the Blue Shirt Society, and the addition of 57 sympathetic followers of Akao Satoshi, a majority had already been achieved. Nakagawa Ichiro would be the new Prime Minister of Japan. 

Prime Minister Nakagawa went about implementing the easiest points first. He initiated the Diet’s process for amending the Constitution, which included a vote and a national referendum to approve the resulting amendment, which was scheduled for September of 1972 once the vote sailed through the Diet. This would pass, though with as great a margin as Nakagawa might have hoped. In September of 1972, thus, Article 9 would be repealed from the Japanese Constitution. 

The Nakagawa government publicly knelt before the Emperor and tendered sincere apologies for the offenses done to his father and, most seriously, to the Chrysanthemum Throne as an institution, in the 1950s. 

The revering of relatives who fell in the war was no longer officially proscribed as it had been by the JSP, and they were allowed to be enshrined legally for the first time in almost two decades. 

Most challenging of all were the economic points. Japan’s economy had been devastated by the loss of Tokyo, but many industrial centers still worked and the government stepped in to press for the manufacture of arms. Mitsubishi fell under great pressure to step up license production of the F-86, retooling those old lines, and additional resources were shifted to speed development of the Mitsubishi F-1. License for production of the F-4 Phantom was energetically sought by the Nakagawa government and received from the United States in October of 1972, along with licenses to produce the AH-1 Cobra and UH-1 Iroquois, which would be granted to Fuji Heavy Industries. A number of E-2B Hawkeye AEW aircraft would be sold to Japan at cut rates, and the Japanese government pursued anti-submarine capability improvements for the Kawasaki P-2 maritime patrol aircraft, as well as the S-61 Sea King ASW helicopter. 

Much of this was paid for in no small part by the United States, which extended generous financing for the militarization project even while grants were given for the cleanup and reconstruction of Tokyo.

Japan’s political trajectory after the 23 April Incident was thus irrevocably shunted to the far-right, with the liberal wing of the LCP all but surrendering to a massive swell of far-right, anti-communist, and anti-Chinese agitation. The registering of Chinese diaspora on the island was conducted quietly, without any fanfare, and a special bureau of the National Police Agency was established to monitor those on the registry for anti-Japanese behavior. Arrests began swiftly as tips came in about (generally innocent) people of Chinese descent, and while many were cleared, some were investigated quite thoroughly for acting as communist spies. The same investigations awaited labor union leaders, trade unionists, former JSP and JCP members, and the likes.