**Immediately After Ariana's Death – Gellert**
Gellert left England. It was a disaster! He had lost a powerful ally—Albus Dumbledore—and gained a formidable enemy capable of killing him. Now he had a new boggart: instead of seeing himself imprisoned and devoid of magical powers, he envisioned Albus Dumbledore killing him with every possible spell. He had lost an Obscurus. No, Ariana, as a woman, did not interest him. But an Obscurus! A controlled Obscurus! He wasn't planning to send her into battle, but this presented such an opportunity for research! No need to dissect her either! With his gift, he could consider the potential outcomes of dissecting her in various ways and gather answers! Answers to how a wizard could become truly immaterial! After all, the body was the only thing that connected a wizard with those weak Muggles. You could even confuse them in appearance!
Now, he would have to find a new Obscurus to continue his work! From now on, he did not want to search for the Deathly Hallows in England—an encounter with Albus was too risky. Previously, his plan was flawless: he would take power in Germany, while Albus would take power in England. Together, they would unite as two great wizards, transforming their alliance into an alliance of two Muggle countries, and then, through Muggle-borns and various wizards from the newly created "Order of Wizards," they would evolve their alliance into a single Muggle superstate and ultimately unify their Ministries of Magic into a magical superstate. This was victory: the combined resources of the English colonies plus German efficiency would create a Muggle superpower, dominating the rest of the world like a spindle. First, the smaller states of Europe, then the rest. A purely economic and political victory—a peaceful one.
The union of Albus and Gellert would be far more stable than merely the power of Grindelwald. For this, he could sacrifice some of his ideas and play along with Albus's naivety. In all seriousness, without the betrayal of an ally in the end. And Albus... He could be trusted. Now, he would not be able to take power in England peacefully—thanks to Aberforth's foolishness and Albus's stubbornness, he had lost everything! Where he once saw a luxurious, wide, and paved road to the future, only a winding path filled with obstacles and barriers appeared. He believed in himself; he would eventually seize power in Germany, but that was not enough! One country could not change the world! He always foresaw war ahead... He saw many problems. The primary one was the existing system of the magical world. There would always be a sufficient number of strong wizards over a hundred years old or more. While his father and grandfather might accept his ideas, the majority would undoubtedly oppose them. A talented loner like him would not be allowed to change anything.
He saw only one way out—before starting to act, he had to wait until all the strong wizards killed each other. Fortunately, he had seen this in the future. In the meantime, he needed to educate himself and understand both magical and Muggle cultures and civilizations. After all, he had to comprehend those he intended to rule. The magical world was a swamp where any innovation would drown. The Muggle world was different.
Where to begin his march to power? America looked the most promising. But that was just a glance—its successes were merely due to the fact that it was the only industrially developed country in the Western Hemisphere, a massive monopolist. But it was worth a try. In the Eastern Hemisphere, England appeared most advantageous. However, it was already losing its leadership due to inertia. Which Muggle countries held the most promise? With maximum labor productivity, which had emerged relatively recently from dozens of small territories? Germany. He was quite capable of taking power in Magical Germany—after all, he grew up there and knew what worked and how.
The so-called "exile" did not bother him much—he could work through frontmen. Following that, he would seize power over the Muggles, and then over the wizards, pushing forward toward the common good. Only the strengthening of Germany would not please its neighbors, leading to war. He always lost these wars because he faced many more enemies with too many resources! Even while fighting across multiple fronts, even against superior forces, he managed to inflict tremendous damage on the enemy, far more than was inflicted on him—but that was still not enough to achieve even a draw!
Not to fight with everyone? How can I explain this more simply... There are many women sitting in a room. If a new one enters, who is much more beautiful than all the others, what will happen? This is exactly what happened in the future!
Damn it! He needed allies, but he did not have any. Therefore, they must be created. Moreover, if it does not work out now, it may work out later when the world changes, because chaos is a ladder that will lead everyone to the common good. By the common good, he meant, for a start, absolute unity and the absence of large-scale conflicts—an eternity without wars. Then he could address public institutions and other matters. He had to do everything right. For the common good, of course. And he was not afraid of sacrifices. It would all pay off later. Better one big war now than an endless series of small wars later. A single superstate—and they could forget about wars. Instead, there would be police operations, which would allow for minimal bloodshed.
Of course, such a regime would die with him. But he was a wizard. He would find a way to be eternal, like the Deathly Hallows. He was not afraid to get his hands dirty. And Albus? Let him continue to mess around! He saw in visions that he would get a job at a school! What next? Would Albus go light a fire for Muggles? Air out a pigsty? Heal with magic those who hurt their hands when baiting worms?
He wanted to start implementing the plan, but he couldn't. Many considered him a Great Wizard. But he knew he was only a larva of the Great Mage, a pale shadow of the mage he might become in the future. He saw himself in visions—knowing, powerful, immaterial, like an Obscurus, commanding demons, possessing an army of the undead, and wielding the Elder Wand. Capable of winning any battle alone.
He needed to start working on himself. When he acquired the Elder Wand and gained knowledge, a plan, and with no Dumbledore in his way, he would be unstoppable. He decided to travel in search of a familiar.
What is a familiar? An animal companion, ideally magical. One that would not betray you, that would carry out your commands, through whose eyes you could see the world. Hypothetically, one could even acquire some properties of a familiar—not to lay eggs, but to see better in the dark or use a certain type of magic with less effort. A familiar could be anything. Typically, to bind it, it sufficed to spend time with the animal, which is why domestic animals like owls and kneazles topped the list of familiars.
If he wanted to bind a strong magical creature to himself, a special ritual was recommended. Gellert once desired a dragon. History had shown that magicians with dragon familiars were exceedingly rare. They were usually renowned as warriors, which was not surprising: the magician protected the dragon from specialized spells, and the dragon would take down anyone. But in his case, he couldn't kill all his enemies with a dragon. Hiding a dragon and dragging it around the world would be difficult.
Then he decided that a royal wyvern would be a good choice. Slightly larger than a human and easy to conceal. In combat, it was exactly what he needed against other magicians: high magical resistance, sharp claws that could pierce magical defenses, acid breath, and a potent poison. The problem was different—he couldn't negotiate with the wyvern in his visions; it rejected him even after the familiar binding ritual.
In frustration, he used it as ingredients. But Albus convinced him of something. Against this backdrop, one of the visions looked rather strange. There was no certainty. He simply encountered it, and then he could not see anything. He traveled to Egypt, where the visions led him. A phoenix. He prepared for a fight—phoenixes were quite dangerous due to their mobility and fire magic; after all, being classified as XXXX in the magical creature classification is no small feat for a being that is not even aggressive.
But then disappointment awaited him. The phoenix didn't resist; it allowed itself to be stroked. It willingly sat there while he conducted more and more rituals to bind the familiar. But nothing worked. The bird remained completely alien to him, and its singing gave him a headache. This creature reminded him of someone he knew.
He attempted to mend things with Albus Dumbledore— to no avail. Albus-from-visions burned all the letters without reading them, and the Howlers met the same fate. But he wouldn't burn a living creature, would he? And if he did burn it—burning a phoenix was no trivial task, almost like attempting to drown a water sprite, and the phoenix itself was a message. He would tie a note to the phoenix's leg, naming it after a participant in the Gunpowder Plot in England—what was his name… "Guy Fawkes!" Albus would understand everything—he must not miss the opportunity to light it.
After packing the phoenix, which showed no signs of resistance, into a container with space expansion, he sent it to England via urgent mail. He mustn't forget to pay the duties…
---
**Albus Dumbledore's POV – Around This Time**
Albus Dumbledore entered the office of Hogwarts Headmaster Basil Fronsac. The Headmaster was a classic Muggle wizard with a beard and a crimson robe. He had graduated from Ravenclaw, where he distinguished himself with his extraordinary intelligence and sense of humor.
"Have a seat, young man," he invited Albus Dumbledore. "My condolences on the death of your sister. Careless handling of the Time-Turner has taken many of us."
"Yes. I was very careless," Albus replied. How could he explain the death of a person without a single wound? And then there was the broken Time-Turner, thanks to Grindelwald…
"If you have problems with the Department of Mysteries, I have some connections…" the Headmaster began.
"No need," Albus interrupted. "I have already been summoned to the Department of Mysteries for a detailed conversation." Their current head said that to obtain such personnel, he was "ready to pave the way to the Department of Mysteries with Time-Turners" and "will personally teach the best student at Hogwarts how to make Time-Turners, if he finally expresses a desire."
"It's good that you don't have issues on that side. I can subtly hint—the current head of the Department of Mysteries is a woman and, it seems, has a purely feminine interest in you…"
"And how old is she?" Albus clarified.
"It's hard to say… A little over two hundred in calendar years. But don't worry; she's a natural metamorph…"
"Let's get closer to the topic, Headmaster," Albus suggested.
"To be honest, I was caught off guard by your desire to become a teacher at the school. An even greater surprise for me was the letter from your brother: 'If you take Albus as a teacher, I will leave the school.' Perhaps you want to explain something to me?"
"Aberforth… blames me for Ariana's death… It was my Time-Turner… and I didn't notice…"
"I see. Perhaps someone else would ask you about Grindelwald's role in these events, but I will tactfully remain silent. He has a frightening reputation, and he is not yet eighteen calendar years old."
"What about my application?" Albus asked.
"All roads are open to you. The Ministry, the Department of Mysteries, travel abroad… Why Hogwarts?"
"It's my home."
"You can't stay in the house all the time."
"Does that mean no?"
"Why not? Let me send you on an internship for two years. Improve your qualifications, get some fresh air, travel. Then your brother will graduate from Hogwarts, and I will take you on as an assistant to the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, to begin with."
"I would like to teach Transfiguration," Albus clarified.
"Unfortunately, there are no vacancies there. But I believe in you—you can teach any subject."
"You are very kind, Professor," Albus said as he left the office. What did he expect from the word "internship"? Going through old graduation projects. Instead, Albus found himself running around England in search of visual aids for Defense Against the Dark Arts for seniors—Kelpies, banshees... It was almost as good as traveling around the world with Elphias Doge. Six months ago, he would have been happy. But now, nothing made him happy.
He would gladly exchange his freedom for a living Ariana. He was not angry with Aberforth. Gellert would not succeed, not because Gellert was bad, although that too. But because the idea itself was rotten. An idea that made you step over the corpses of others to move forward could not be good.
One day, while resting after work, he received an owl letter asking him to report to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Albus showed up, anticipating some problems from his work—"this kelpie was private property"—but that was not why he was called. First, they told him how much the "anonymous wizard" had paid, and then they handed him a parcel. They apologized for opening and reading it.
The package contained a phoenix with a note in Gellert's handwriting attached to its leg: "Name it after the Muggle Gunpowder Plotter, Guy Fawkes. He almost changed the world too." Surely he couldn't burn the note at the Ministry? Burning a phoenix would be pathetic and stupid and practically pointless—like blowing away the wind.
When he returned home, he burned the note. Then he let the phoenix go. The bird refused to fly away. Albus stunned it and left it in the forest. So what? Phoenixes had no enemies in England; they would recover and fly home to Egypt... or how did they travel there? But the phoenix returned. The next day and the next. It sang beautifully...
One day, while listening to the phoenix, he felt as if he were a phoenix singing because it felt right... And then he understood—he would be with Fawkes until one of them died, and given the nature of the phoenix, Albus Dumbledore would die first.
"You can stay, Fawkes," Albus said.
And the phoenix understood. Not Albus's words, but his emotional outburst. It was a pity that this bird did not respond to any other names...
In the meantime, he needed to get down to business. There was nothing left of Ariana; even her wand had been destroyed by Aberforth. Although... there was something left... Albus Dumbledore twirled the lighter in his hands. He would make an artifact out of it—the Deluminator. Because the Light cannot disappear. If the Light leaves somewhere, it means it has appeared somewhere else. And there will be Light there.
---
**End of Albus Dumbledore's POV**
Gellert saw that Albus was now with the phoenix. It was strange, but it didn't change his plans. He needed to improve himself and think. He wrote to his father that he was ready to come out of his vacation. Living in Hungary, he trained using the Time-Turner. He contacted Laurier, who agreed to teach him an advanced course in necromancy outside of school.
He needed an army of supporters; there was practically no hope for people—a weak weapon with a will of its own. The dead were a much better alternative. He worked twelve hours a day on the bodies of people and magical creatures he had bought or stolen. He grew so accustomed to these half-decayed faces that when he went outside, the faces of living people seemed alien to him.
No, he would not refuse human allies, but if he could send the dead into battle, why not? His own must be protected! If possible. But strangers... He searched for specialists in sacrifices and found them. He was primarily interested in a way to recharge himself by killing others. There was no such method—alien energy was guaranteed to be deadly.
He knew there was a way, but for it to work, he needed the Elder Wand and sacrifices... Yet, nothing worked out with demonology: no teacher. Even with his gift as a prophet, delving into this area of magic was like a Muggle smoking in a gunpowder warehouse. There were two problems—he needed a good demonologist to teach him, and he would be trampled before he could get started.
So he had to wait. Someday the world would be in even greater disarray than it was now, and he would have an opportunity. That is, the first magical war he had seen would weaken the world. And he would organize the second magical war and bring the world together.
He studied, expanding his knowledge base, becoming stronger and more experienced. There was stagnation in the magical world, but in the Muggle world... The Muggles were boiling like water in a steam boiler.
He foresaw the Boer War breaking out among the Muggles, and he watched it first in visions, then in reality. Some of the methods used in that war surprised him. First, the Spanish used them to suppress the Cuban rebellion in 1896, then the British in the Boer War of 1899-1902. They gathered civilians in camps to prevent them from aiding the guerrillas. That was how the "concentration camps" came about.
The British pretended to be pacifists. But Gellert had a different opinion; just remember how the British exterminated the entire population of Tasmania. Now they were doing something similar, only they were exterminating the white Boers. The organization of concentration camps, in which the British kept two hundred thousand people, approximately half the white population of the Boer republics. Out of these, at least twenty-six thousand people died from hunger and disease.
The British sent captured Boer men as far away from their homelands as possible—to concentration camps in India, Ceylon, and other British colonies. After 1902, the British brought about fifty thousand Chinese to South Africa to work in the gold mines of the Witwatersrand. The British emerged victorious.
Gellert decided to remember this method and prepare to improve it. Albus was a great demagogue. But alas, it was often easier to destroy than to convince. The Europeans had killed millions of Indians and cleared space for themselves in America. Why not repeat it? Remove one population and replace it with another that would better obtain resources from the designated area. This would increase production and living standards. And there would be no conflicts because there would be no room for pluralism—the electorate would be one.
Have you tried to come to a consensus with a heterogeneous population? He had tried—Aberforth was enough for him for a lifetime. You cannot give absolute fools the right to vote. Everything would pay off in a generation or two. Very quickly, he arrived at a logical conclusion—everything that can be used should be utilized. The population and prisoners of the conquered territories were the same prey, like fuel. And using this fuel, he could achieve parity in resources. Then he would have a chance in the war.
Why station guards over the conquered, tolerate separatists, partisans, and malcontents, when the conquered could be used as sacrifices to summon demons to kill enemies? He was also influenced by the Russo-Japanese War, awakening in him an interest in Russia and Japan. What did the war look like? Muggles destroying each other while the wizards of the two countries prevented other wizards from interfering.
No, he did not intervene in the war, but he often observed—both in visions and in person—being present next to the battlefield. It seemed that Russia should have easily defeated Japan—it was larger, had more resources, population, and experience in Westernization since the beginning of the eighteenth century—but instead, Russia suffered a humiliating defeat.
He needed to remember the recipe: attack the dispersed forces of the enemy, strike when the Russian command says not to shoot.
It was unthinkable! The Russian fleet was three times larger than the Japanese one, yet half of it was sunk piecemeal. The Port Arthur fortress didn't even know the war had started when the fleet was sunk, and it wouldn't find out until the next day! The other half of the ships remained in the Black Sea and near St. Petersburg. Thus, the Russians were unable to gather into a single fist during the entire war!
No, some analysts predicted Japan would win at sea, but that Japan would lose on land... How, when Russia's mobilization potential exceeded Japan's population? He decided to study this phenomenon carefully. Everything was clear with the magicians: Japanese magicians were classic feudal lords, only with magic.
Magical Russia was a triumph of anarchism. No, the Ministry existed and even attempted to maintain order, the Statute of Secrecy and international treaties to the best of its ability, but the real power was dictated by hundreds of local provincial clans, whose motto was: "If you want love, pay for it." This had always been the case; only the number of clans in the de facto confederation changed.
But the Muggles... Muggle Japan quickly became an example for him. Some pathetic sixty years ago—a backward, feudal country with samurai in wooden armor. The Americans had a little fun, threatening to shoot the city of Shimonoseki with naval guns—and the Japanese surrendered, signing enslaving treaties. It seemed like another colony was ready.
But the Japanese took a different path, proving the power of planning and organization. They formally fulfilled all the treaties, suffering losses and humiliation. They created production, an army, and a navy. They did not oppose the colonizers just to lose and face worse conditions. They waited for their chance.
And they waited. Russia climbed into China. Nobody liked it. Both England and the USA began to support Japan to stop Russia. It succeeded unexpectedly easily. The problem was that Japan had not suffered any damage, and now it either had to disband its army and navy or attack someone else...
But if the Japanese had more ships and equipment, they could dictate their terms not only to Russia but also to England and the USA! But if everything was clear with Japan, then with Russia... Muggle Russia was... a specific... country... It claimed to be peace-loving. Perhaps this was true, considering that in Russian the word "peace" is used to mean "all that exists" and "the absence of war." It would not have refused such peace either!
In confirmation of this, the peace-loving country grew on average by one Holland per year. It had expanded from Germany to the Pacific Ocean, from the North Sea to India. The history of Russia was terrible. Initially, in the tenth century, the Vikings united certain territories under their rule to establish the transit of goods to Byzantium. Along the way, they became monopolists in the slave trade. Previously, slaves were called "servus"—from the Latin word for servant; now they were referred to as "slaver"—derived from the word Slav.
This is how the state was formed, whose only function was to trade resources abroad and slaves from its own delinquent inhabitants. No, this is not a unique case—Germany during the Roman Empire started with the same thing, only there the Germans united themselves. African states did similar things—a king would march with an army, collecting tribute from the people through banditry and racketeering, gradually developing into a state.
But the Russians did not develop it. A bunch of "principalities" hated each other, slaughtering one another and not even attempting to resist the Mongols together. No, some Slavs became conditionally normal—they accepted help from the West, paying for it by changing their faith and relinquishing the monopoly of power of the king. This is how Lithuania was born. Western Rus' freed itself from the Mongols a century earlier. But the eastern... The principalities continued to happily slaughter each other until the most shameless among them was found—Muscovy.
As the proverbs say, "Muscovites sow rye, speak lies." Judging by proverbs like "Shemyakinsky court"—their court is a relative concept, something like a market. The government itself resembled a stock exchange—it issues and sells securities under the guise of laws. In essence, Muscovy was engaged in killing its Russian competitors, bribing the Golden Horde—a fragment of the once-great Mongol state—with money, collecting this money from other Russian regions.
And Muscovy screamed, "We are not guilty! We were forced!" And anyway, "we are not there—it was all the Mongols! We were merely guarding the convoy because we had no choice!"
The state system of Muscovy resembled the satrapy of ancient Persia: there was a sovereign and the sovereign's serfs. The vassals had no rights, only duties. In fact, it was a state-army. Its sole goal was to ensure independence, allowing the tsar to live well and do as he pleased, effectively having absolute power. Such a state was doomed in peacetime.
To survive, it had to always fight, which it did. And thanks to the fact that no one took it seriously—neither Sweden, nor huge Lithuania, nor the great Ottomans, nor even the Nogai Horde—it grew. Slowly and inexorably. The paradox is that this was precisely what was destroying Muscovy—there was no growth in labor productivity. In order to live, Muscovy had to expand. If there were no opportunities for extensive development—death.
This was imprinted in the state's code. In the East, everything was wonderful—wild, unpopulated Siberia, where the Russians would conquer the locals. But Siberia was not enough for them. In the West... The Muscovy army turned out to be too weak. If it could cope with a Western country one-on-one due to its immense numbers, the union of Western countries—the Livonian War—sent Muscovy into oblivion.
What struck Gellert most was the oprichnina. What a thing to invent—an army that would roam its own country and destroy its own people to seize their property! These Russians were completely irrational. If they treated their citizens like this, what would they do with their enemies?
Muscovy died after losing to a coalition of Western countries, and from its ashes, Russia was slowly and painfully reborn in the 1700s. How was it different? The Russians outwardly adopted Western ways of life and thinking.
Their war with Sweden... A disgrace! Sweden fought against many countries simultaneously: the Danish-Norwegian Union, the Electorate of Saxony, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Only this prevented it from defeating Russia in the first year! The victories celebrated by the Russians? The Battle of Poltava. The Russians outnumbered the Swedes in infantry and cavalry. The Russians defended themselves while the Swedes advanced through redoubts and fortifications.
To top it off, the Swedes had already exhausted their artillery shells, meaning they went into battle without cannons. How can one lose under such conditions?
And what about the Battle of Gangut at sea? The Swedes had one pram, six galleys, and three skerryboats, with 941 sailors. The Russians had ninety-nine galleys, a scampaway, and a 15,000-strong landing force. But that didn't concern him. The Russians had chosen the same path as he had: planning. Part of the population had civil rights. And property. They lived like Westerners, speaking French better than Russian.
The nobles were working, paying for military escapades. They received nothing for victories. Nothing at all. They were told how great the tsar and the state were!
This was the triumph of spiritual currency! There was also a clergy that insisted everything was as it should be; the main thing was to be patient; after death, you would be rewarded. At least you wouldn't have to eat turnips.
Nothing interesting, it seemed. But this strange system emerged in Russia when it had already outlived its usefulness in the West! That is, the vassals were given rights, and here they were taken away! The taxes were... strange... The Russians simply did not know how to count or did not want to.
Instead of calculating how much each earned and taking a share for security or roads, they simply imposed a set amount that had to be paid on the peasants. And they squandered it as they pleased!
It wasn't the individual who paid, but the community! Someone died? The amount does not change. Someone went on a drinking binge? The amount does not change.
And to ensure that none of the peasants became rich and bought their freedom, the land was periodically redistributed. This year you cultivate it; next year, he does. That is, there are no incentives to fertilize the land and build capital buildings!
The merchants were not in much better conditions: any of them could be killed without explanation, and everything confiscated. This was the norm. Until the thirteenth century.
In Russia, they enacted this practice in the eighteenth century! And it worked! Gellert was amazed; he didn't understand how, but it worked! He quickly revised his model of Russia, ejecting it from the category of dictatorships like satrapies and placing it into a new, unique category, where, in addition to Russia, there were African states that sold their citizens in exchange for guns to maintain control over the region—he linked it all with the term "self-occupation."
When the Napoleonic Wars erupted in the Muggle world, the Russians were losing to Napoleon for years—just as everyone else was.
Soon, a stalemate developed: France, having captured most of continental Europe, could not reach England, and England only blockaded France at sea. Napoleon faced a choice: lose the economy and die of hunger or defeat Russia to obtain resources and a path to England's colonies. France attempted to befriend Russia, including through a dynastic marriage. It didn't work.
The Russians began to concentrate troops on the border with France and disregarded the continental blockade. Thus, began the war between France and Russia, from which, as always, England emerged victorious.
The oddities in Russia kept mounting. In England, everything was clear—there was the mother country and colonies where the native population lived worse, and resources were extracted from there. But in Russia... The core of the mother country lived worse than the annexed territories! Because the Russians wrote a constitution for themselves and granted it to the Poles, aimed at freeing all the peasants, while they liberated peasants in the Baltics and, as for the annexation of Finland... Under such conditions, he would have joined anyone: Finland did not pay taxes and did not supply recruits to the army.
The situation was growing increasingly absurd. Russia needed to expand because intensive development was impossible under the current conditions for the population.
To change the initial conditions meant breaking Russia into pieces because this chimera could only be held together through coercion and lies. Without development—death from competitors in a changing world.
There could be no change—if they won, there was no need for change. If they lost, it meant they had invested too few resources, necessitating a new draft and tax increases. Naturally, from the lower classes, of course.
Gellert looked at the Russians and simply divided them into castes—the lower class, who worked and died, and the upper class, who either came up with crazy plans unrelated to reality or worked as overseers.
He really did not understand how to tell them apart; they were like magical porcupines: really the same. But they somehow distinguished themselves. It was not about the people—their emigrants were entirely normal; it was just that their state was turning out to be... absurd... like a pink thestral.
However, this could not continue indefinitely. What is the Muggle economy based on? A person thinks about how to earn more to live better. They try, which increases labor productivity. Everyone is their own overseer and accountant.
According to the recollections of magicians, in Russia, serfs thought during work about how to escape, not overexert themselves, or, in extreme cases, how to rest at home. Their ideal was work where they wouldn't have to think. They could only think for themselves, and most of the population did not work for themselves. The discrepancy between thoughts and work caused extremely low labor productivity. They needed an army of overseers.
And they had strange customs—such as singing during berry picking, so that none of the berry pickers would eat the berries! But this can be solved simply: everyone picks their own berries! If you want to eat, you eat; if you want to sell, you sell.
After the Napoleonic Wars, Europe surged forward. Russia increased production by sixty percent in half a century, while Europe increased by twelve times. Naturally, the military encounter in the Crimean War ended in disaster for Russia, and it could not have been otherwise: the Allies delivered shells along the railroad they built in the Crimea, while the Russians transported supplies via oxen. The delivery of cartridges from England to Russia was cheaper than from Russia to Russia!
Advertising
After the military defeat in the mid-nineteenth century, the Russians decided to change something. To Gellert's surprise, they succeeded. They rid themselves of Alaska. It was unthinkable—the Russians got rid of land! It was like a niffler tossing out glitter. Even though a couple of years after selling Alaska, they discovered far more gold there than the amount they received for it—the fact remained.
The Russians abolished serfdom, freeing not only the nobles from slave service but also the peasants, which should have been done in 1761; they did it in 1861! How can this be explained more simply? First, they abolished the commodity—the service of the nobles—and then, a hundred years later, they abolished the payment for it—the slave labor of the peasants.
Of course, freedom in Russia was very conditional—part of the land was taken away from the peasants for free, while the rest had to be purchased with interest over the next forty-nine years. Refusing the contract and leaving without land was possible only through a bribe; the same idiotic "community" with regular land redistribution... But this was a step forward.
Russia began to slowly transform into a normal Western country... The Russian tsar who enacted these changes was met with hatred from many. The nobles, whom he had left without slaves, and the peasants, who were ordered to pay. The patriots who did not forgive Alaska.
They constantly attempted to kill him. Explosions, shots... But his enemies were fools. They blew themselves up with their experimental explosives or fired a revolver point-blank at a horse. Among them, there was no one who would buy a carbine in a store and practice for a month on ducks before using it on the tsar.
But every success comes to an end—the reforming tsar died in an explosion, and the reform project he had approved was buried by the next tsar. That is how the story of Alexander II ended.
Gellert, with effort, looked into the future: across the vast territory of the Russian Empire, there would be one monument to Alexander II, and that one in Finland. But a monument to Peter I, who won the war with Sweden, would be in every Russian city.
Perhaps these people love slavery and murder. Debates erupted in Russia regarding the nation's direction. Two classes emerged: "Russophobes," who believed the country's ugliness should be corrected and that they should live like Western Muggles, and "Russophiles," who believed they should take pride in and nurture the country's flaws.
The Russophiles prevailed. They retained the artificial construct created nearly two hundred years ago to facilitate tax collection—a redistribution community among the peasants—and, using the funds extracted from the peasants, began to fashion the country into a Western-style economy.
In the absence of a qualified population and solvent demand... In a country where the majority were illiterate, they marshaled people from the redistribution community into the army and the modern world... Russia returned to its previous trajectory of development: it needed land. More land. If the semi-wild Asian countries with muzzle-loading guns submitted, then Japan, with the support of the West, did not.
Russia was not content with a military defeat by Japan—a country the size of two Sakhalin Islands, where the Russians exiled prisoners. They lost politically! It all began with the shooting of a peaceful demonstration by soldiers at point-blank range in the capital—"Bloody Sunday."
No, all sorts of incidents occurred in Russia: during a coronation, a couple of hundred people would be crushed to death, someone would be trampled during the launch of a ship, countless hundreds would be shot among strikers, and some official—what was his name, Stolypin—who allowed the peasants to leave the community would be shot.
But this was the first time it happened so brazenly and on such a large scale! And against the backdrop of military defeats!
And the fact that the soldiers were ordered not to spare bullets, while six months later, during a general battle with the Japanese fleet, they were instructed to conserve ammunition... It made no difference who you shot at; your own enemy was worse. In Russia, a revolution occurred due to an unsuccessful war. The seeds of parliamentarism and trade unions began to sprout. Only the Russians developed an instinct—development in terms of freedom and politics was only possible with the defeat of the existing state. First from the Crimean War, now from the Russo-Japanese War.
That is, the worse it was for the country, the better it was for them. Tax evasion and avoidance of military service led to an increase in their standard of living and that of the state as a whole! The parasitic state undermined itself. With great difficulty, it figured out the structure of the Russian Empire and began to observe further. The beginning of the twentieth century was especially tumultuous in the Balkans. All the Eastern European countries were fighting against Turkey. They were winning, but most of the land went to Bulgaria.
Now everyone was fighting against Bulgaria, joined by an offended Turkey. The world divided into two camps: the satisfied, the Entente, and the dissatisfied, who did not make it in time for the division of the world—Germany and its allies. The former wanted to keep what they had seized; the latter sought to claim more for themselves.
He almost missed the beginning of the war but managed to escape to neutral Spain in time. Because of the murder of the Muggle heir, the Austrians would be offended by the Serbs, and Russia would stand up for them. Austria-Hungary and Russia were already part of different military blocs, making conflict inevitable.
Prevent this murder? And why? He had read many Muggle books and found the answer in two authors who shared his perspective—Engels and Marx. Marx and Engels predicted a world war and its duration of at least 15, 20, or even 50 years. Such a prospect did not frighten them. The authors of the "Communist Manifesto" did not call for preventing the war; on the contrary, they considered the coming world war desirable. War was the mother of revolution, and a world war was the mother of world revolution.
The results of the world war, if one believed them, would be "general exhaustion and the creation of conditions for the final victory of the working class." Gellert was not interested in the working class, nor in anything else in the book, but he agreed with the main idea—a big war was needed for significant changes. He wouldn't even initiate it; he just wouldn't stop it from starting. Chaos was a ladder.
No one believed the war would begin. It seemed they would exchange threats, and that would be the end of it. But no. He watched as the Muggles began to fight. How the German Muggle army advanced toward Paris, capturing Belgium along the way. The Mudbloods, instead of watching like him, decided to intervene: "My Muggle brother was killed at the front! No!" Even he did not know who was the first to use magic—but soon Muggle-borns from both countries began to wield it.
To hide this, active intervention began by the official structures of the Ministries of the warring countries, which initially tried to maintain neutrality. But there was too much bloodshed, and too many countries became involved in the conflict. A strange situation developed: magic could not be used, or the Statute of Secrecy would collapse, but if one side did not use it, they would lose. So everyone used it.
No, there were no attacks by wizards in a single line with Muggles. There was not even Apparition to the enemy's rear. Some wizards merely cast curses and erected protections while their opponents did the same. And it turned out that nothing changed. Soon the wizards began to fight each other in parallel with the Muggles. And all this transpired in just a few days!