I decided to dive into some of the Battletech deeplore for this one. I found it interesting how in spite of the importance of the Soviet Civil Wars in the events which led to the formation of the Western Alliance and by extension Terran Alliance, there isn’t much detail on the conflict itself aside from minor excerpts of events by the ancestors of the future great houses. Because of that I decided to take some liberties and build on what lore is there to craft a scenario inspired by it, enjoy.
Less than a decade following Mikhail Gorbachev's Reformation of the Soviet Union into the Union of Sovereign Republics, the fledgling reformist government was deposed by Soviet Hardliners in the Red Army after a bloody military coup in Moscow on the 27th of July, 1997. The event sent shockwaves through the Western World who believed the Cold War was finally over. In contrast the restored Soviet Government would once again take up a belligerent foreign policy, cracking down on domestic opposition while also attempting to reassert Soviet pride with the Invasion and reoccupation of the Baltic States the following year in 1998. While the collapse of the Warsaw Pact could not be reversed, the USSR was not above invoking gunboat diplomacy or threatening to cut off the flow of Russian energy to the rest of Europe should its former satellite states refuse to comply with Soviet demands. While the Politburo had reformed the Duma back into the Supreme Soviet and appointed Alexander Rutsoky as Premier, on the surface the Second of the USSR would seem similar to the Soviet government, in reality the Red Army held much more sway over policy with the establishment of Soviet Armed Forces Executive Committee (SAFEC). A body consisting exclusively of high military personnel which would review government actions and officers to determine whether or not they were in line with Marxist-Lenninst ideals.
In 2003 the United States of America and Coalition forces invaded Iraq on the suspicion that the country was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, the Soviet Union had vehemently opposed such action beforehand in the UN though found itself unable to prevent the invasion. In response the USSR began cutting flows of natural gas exports to Europe, in particular those nations which had joined the Coalition against Iraq. Following this the United States threatened sanctions and the removal of the Soviet Union from several global financial organizations. The European Energy Crisis of 2004 would see the two superpowers come closest to direct conflict since the first Cold War though ultimately it would be the Soviets who gave in to American pressure and allowed Russian natural gas to once again flow into Europe. This was seen as a humiliating capitulation for the Soviet Government directly leading to Rutsoky stepping down from the Premiership and the accession of one Oleg Tikonov. Tikonov was a popular figure in the Soviet military, a charismatic hero of the War in Afghanistan and a key member of SAFEC who was believed would restore much needed national pride in the aftermath of the Energy Crisis. However, Tikonov was far from a Soviet hardliner, going so far as to even endorse the reforms of Gorbachev in private, Tikonov wished to bring lasting peace with the west and continued much needed reform in Soviet society, while he faced pushback from the Red Army, by sheer force of will he was able to convince such actions were imperative to the survival of the Soviet Experiment in 21st Century. Those Tikonov could not convince were purged and subsequently arrested, this included many who had served with him on SAFEC, a body which Tikonov would have dissolved by decree.
The Signing of the Tikonov Accords in the summer of 2005 would see a significant warming of relations between the United States and Soviet Union, the reforms would see the mass disarmament of nuclear stockpiles, the implementation of a more liberal economy, and the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Ukraine and the Baltic along with the promise of independence referendums to be held in 2012. With the hardliners purged and the military loyal, Tikonov would spend the next seven years modernizing the Soviet Union and allowing non-members of the Communist party to serve in government. However tragedy would strike on the 14th of January 2011, while returning from holiday with his family in Sochi, an unmarked military vehicle rigged with high grade breached the airfield where Tikonov’s plane was to depart from, in spite of the efforts by the Preimer’s security detail, the veichle crashed head on into the Limousine carrying Tikonov and his family before exploding, killing all within the immediate proximity of the blast. The group who carried out and quickly claimed responsibility for the assassination of Tikonov was an organization known as the Islamic Caliphate of Qafkuh. A coalition of several Chechen and Dagestani militias who sought to unfify all Muslims within the USSR into a new Islamic State in response to Soviet efforts to surpress the faith. In the aftermath of the Assassination, the Soviet Government itself was thrown into chaos, in many ways the Second USSR had become a cult of personality around Tikonov and without an appointed successor, many high ranking and figures close to him sought to seize control of the government themselves.
The first of which being the then head of the KGB, Vladimir Putin, he had been instamenral in Tikonov’s purge of the Soviet hardliners and had cut deals with powerful figures in the military and economic sector to place himself in a position to succeed Tikonov when the time was right. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Putin stormed the Supreme Soviet with troops loyal to him personally and practically held the body hostage until they named him the new Preimer. Putin’s violent seizure of power though did not sit well with a number of figures within the government and military who responded with outright mutiny, with several subnational oblasts and Republcis declaring themselves in Rebellion against Moscow with the support of local military and paramilitary support. The Declaration of Independence by the Amur Free State after the munity of the Soviet Pacfiic Fleet, is often viewed as the official start of the Soviet Civil War. In response to the Government of the Ukrainian SFSR demanding an immediate independence referendum, Putin sent sent Red Army troops to violently suppress the Anti-Russian protests in Kiev and arrest disadent officials. As violence was qucikly spreading all across the USSR, The United States and other NATO countries were monitoring the situation closely, Putin had already proved a far more repressive leader than Tikonov and with the nation on the brink of civil war, the mass stockpile of Soviet nuclear weapons were now at risk of falling into the hands of individuals far more willing to use them against Western Nations. Believing Putin needed to be removed if peace was to be restored, Western intelligence agencies setup back room dealings with a member of Putin’s inner circle and member of the Politburo, Dmitry Medvedev who agreed to cooperate with the West in exchange for being recognized as the new Head of State. On 21st September 2011, Medvedev’s Pro-Western faction launch a coup in Moscow, in spite of initially setbacks and issues with coordination, the Medvedev managed to seize control of the capital within 12 hours, in part thanks to the efforts of British and American military contractors who had been sent to reinforce Medvedev’s forces. Unable to arrest Putin, the now rebel Preimer fled east where he would establish a government in exile at Novosibirsk with those still loyal to him. While in Moscow, Medvedev’s newly formed Provisional Government would declare the dissolution of the USSR and its reformation under the Union of Sovieign Russian Republics, more commonly referred to as the Republic of Russia and at the time of the Soviet Civil War, simply West Russia.
With a significant Soviet Fleet and Army garrison in Kaliningrad still pledging loyalty to Putin’s government and Medvedev being unable to free up a force large enough to force their surrender. The West Russian government requested military aid from NATO in early 2012, while intially hesitant to directly intervene in the civil war, the Soviet force at Kaliningrad belived an attack by NATO was imminent and thus initiated a preemptive invasion into Poland along the coast with the goal of crippling the Polish Navy and Air Force in an effort to delay Western forces. However the Polish military proved much more resilient than the Soviets had expected and managed to inflict heavily casualties on the invading force as the Soviet Offensive ground to a halt at Gdańsk. In the immediate aftermath of the incursion, Poland invoked Article 5 of NATO, which obligated all member states to come to their defense. By mid March, the NATO forces hastily assembled in the region, including significant British, French, and American military personnel, initiated Operation Baltic Storm. A combined air, land, and sea offensive which quickly drove the Soviet forces out of Poland and saw NATO troops take Kaliningrad itself in less than two weeks of fighting. It was during this operation, as well as I’m future engagement with the Red Army, that the vast disparity in technology between the Western and Soviet militaries were on full display as small formations of NATO units were able to outgun and force the surrender of much large Red Army formations. In one famous instances, the entire Soviet 4th Guards Tank Divison surrendered to a single detachment of the German 1st Panzer Divison, commanded by one Jonas Steiner, after a night of heavy fighting which saw the lose of more than two dozen Soviet tanks at the cost none under Steiner’s command. Even the Soviet’s much feared heavy artillery was rendered inoperable due to precision air stikes by the British RAF and U.S. Air Force.
In the following months several additional military operations would be taken against the Soviet Alligned forces by the United States and NATO. The U.S. Pacific Fleet and Japanese SDF would seize the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka Peninsula. While elsewhere a large Turkish contiegent would spearhead NATO efforts in the Caucasus figthing back the rapidly expanding Qafkuh Calipahte. At the beginning of 2013, the tide was quickly turning against Putin’s Soviet Rump state in Siberia, in the independences forces in the Far East had proven much more formidable than he had expected while his supposed ally Sergei Shoigu in the Tuvan Soviet only offered token support to the Government in exile. Recognizing it would only be a matter of time before he would be overwhelmed by the West Russian and NATO forces assembling on the western front, Putin ordered a large scale offensive through the Urals, throwing the West Russian forces into chaos with the objective of retaking Moscow. On the 25th of May 2013, Soviet forces launched the largest land offensive seen since the Second World War. The intially assault saw the cities of Perm and Yekaterinburg reduced to ruins via artillery barrage, the summer of 2013 would see the most brutal figthing of the war as the Soviet Army drove westward towards Moscow, the offensive only stalling at the Volga River. Unable to take the strategic city of Gorky, the bulk of the Red Army advanced north where they overwhelmed the West Russian defense at Yaroslavl before beginning the final advance on Moscow. Overextended but high on morale, the Soviets were poised to entered the capital though it was here where it would all begin to fall apart. The defense of Moscow fell largely on the NATO coalition force that by now was well entrenched and waiting for the Soviet Army when they arrived. Just on the outskirts of the city, Putin’s forces fell into the coalition’s trap, their rearguard and supply train was devastated by air strikes, entire columns of tanks were lost within hours, and the British and American counteroffensive had left the bulk of the Soviet Army encircled. The Battle of Moscow lasted 3 days and saw the effective destruction of Soviet Army. One of the most distinguished figures of the battle was British Brigadier Arthur Davion of the Royal Marines 3rd Commando Brigade, who’s force held back an attempted Soviet breakthrough before counterattacking and forcing the surrender of 8th Guards Army after cutting off their escape. As a Field Officer, Arthur had placed himself in thickest of the fighting though the entire engament though managed to escape the battle unscathed. The young officer’s exploits in the Civil War would see Arthur rewarded by Queen Elizabeth II with a Knighthood as well as the honorary title 1st Baron of Moscow, of which the ever eccentric Arthur would use to style himself “Arthur of Moscow” for the rest of his life.
2014 would see the finally advance of the NATO and reorganized West Russian forces into Soviet territory, additionally Tier One units would conduct raids deep behind enemy lines to seize control or render inoperable all nuclear silos before the ever desperate Putin or any rouge officer could bring them into play. With most of the breakaway states once pledging alligence to West Russia by the day. It was clear to Putin that the war was over and he had lost, when he received word that West Russian troops had entered Omsk and Shoigu had dissolved the Tuvan Soviet on the same day, Putin announced his resignation as Primer of the Soviet Union and handed over power to General Oleg Salyukov who subsequently requested terms of surrender from the government in Moscow. On 25th March 2014, the Soviet Civil War officially came to an end with the Western aligned Republic of Russia emerging victorious and reunifying the country under the new government. While it would still take almost a decade to suppress the insurgencies by various Islamists groups and Red Army holdouts, a new age was beginning for both Russia and the Humanity as a whole, as in the aftermath of the conflict, a new order was beginning to take shape. A project spearheaded by the United Kingdom and several other nations which would see greater intergration between NATO and European Union memeber states under a series of new economic and defense agreements leading to the creation of a new International organization to safeguard the interests of the Western World against the rising power of the Chinese and Korean led Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Soviet Civil War and formation of the organization referred to simply as the Western Alliance would mark the beginning of a series of events over the next century which would see the unification of Earth under the Terran Allaince and Mankind’s first steps into the Space beyond the Solar System which would one day become the Inner Sphere.
