As Germany began rising again in Europe and China began to devour itself in an orgy of corruption and privatization in Asia, the writing was on the wall. It was a time for action. After years of quiet resistance and subversion, all the work and planning of the Soviet hardliners would finally pay off. 1991 would be a hell of a year. The first step would be to take a page out of Washington's book.
Since the mid-eighties a cabal in the upper echelons of the Red Army had been hard at work discretely laying the groundwork for action in Africa. They had supported the consolidation of the regime in Angola, and their investment had paid off handsomely, giving them a stable and well supplied proxy force to support communist insurgents in southern Africa. Always on the cusp for forty years, 1991 would finally see the end of apartheid, and the horrifying breakup of South Africa.
With the death of Nelson Mandela under suspicious circumstances, communists within the African National Congress gained an increasingly large influence to the terror of the white minority and the National Party that represented their interests. This would lead to a reactionary crackdown on the ANC that would push its members into more desperate acts of resistance, creating an escalating cycle as both sides continued a steady slide toward violent radicalism. This escalation would reach its ultimate conclusion in February of 1991 when State President du Plessis would be killed in a car accident.
Forced to chose a new leader and in the grips of an existential fear of growing Soviet influence in the country, the party would make the only choice they felt they could: Eugène Terre'Blanche, formerly of the AWB, was selected to lead the party and defend South African tradition. His first act would be to bring in his former movement as a sanctioned paramilitary. Reprisals against the ANC were swift and savage, retaliatory bombings and attacks by Angolan auxiliaries followed in turn, and they were of to the races by the start of March. The South African Race War had begun.
Closer to home, traditionalists in the diplomatic bureaucracy set to work winning allies in Europe to counter a perceived threat on their western flank. Much less flashy than the overtly military support offered in Africa, these moves would in many ways be considered the higher achievement, and with far fewer crimes against humanity involved to boot. These diplomatic victories would seal the Iron Curtain and render it impermeable for decades to come, with only one unforseen chink in the armor.
First and foremost was the growing crisis in Yugoslavia. An ungainly frankenstate at the best of times, the nation had been under escalating strain since the death of Tito in 1980. There was simply no-one else who could step in and keep the nation united through charisma and sheer force of will. Although Gorbachev would attempt mediation, the distractions at home would prevent him from taking a more active hand. And so it fell to Soviet diplomats, secretly the same people who were hamstringing him domestically, to offer aid to the negotiating parties of the simmering conflict.
Meanwhile, the Republic of Turkey was driving itself insane with worry over Kurdistan. Given their own Kurdish insurgency it was completely unthinkable that they could maintain a partnership with the United States in the wake of such a betrayal. Despite the fact that the rebellious PKK was a more ideologically-aligned ally there was no way the Soviet deep state would look this gift horse in the mouth, and they would begin an extensive effort to lure away the disgruntled nation from the NATO umbrella, right under Haig's nose.
Certain their actions had made their position more secure and convinced the public was on their side in the face of American bellicosity and the hideous capitalism beginning to ravage the PRC, the conspirators knew it was time to act, lest all these geopolitical moves pay off while that weakling Gorbachev was still around to reap a political windfall. After months of frantic action, while the world looked on in horror at the mounting death toll in South Africa, the shadow government of the Soviet Union would launch a coup.
On August 19th, the so-called State Committee on the State of Emergency would seize control of the airwaves. Declaring that General Secretary Gorbachev had "over his tenure threatened the peace and stability of the Soviet Union" and "laid bare [its people] to the capitalist depredations of American imperialism, German aggression, and bourgeois immorality" (referencing the situation in China), Gennady Yanayev declared himself "President of the Soviet Union" and called on "all true New Soviet People" to "take to the streets in defense of the Revolution of Lenin and Stalin" to "usher our shared grand proletarian experiment into the twenty-first century".
The people would answer his call, and in what some observers called a Velvet Revolution the hardliners were able to quickly consolidate power. Yeltsin would be shot "attempting to leave house arrest" and what popular resistance their was would be quickly suppressed by the new regime. There would be some setbacks in the chaos, of course. The Baltic states would secede, but the new Baltic Federation remained a firm member of the Warsaw Pact. More troublesome was Kaliningrad.
Caught off guard by the coup and distracted propping up the government in South Africa, the Haig administration had missed the chance to do to the Evil Empire what it had done in the PRC. Ultimately, American arms would only enable the newly renamed Königsberg to escape the Soviet yoke under a German aegis, though the nation assured the world that it would merely protect, rather than reabsorb, the region. It would fuel Soviet resentment well into the next century, but could be allowed to wait for a time.
It would be Pat Buchanan that would coin the term Year of Calamity, as in the seeming blink of an eye the Unfree World was surging, devouring territory in Africa and consolidating behind the Iron Curtain. Turkey would announce its withdrawal from NATO in mid-November, becoming an observer nation, rather than a member, of the Warsaw Pact. For magnate Ross Perot it was too much. The Republican Party had failed America, and only he could set it right.
The question was how, the Democrats were anemic in the wake of repeated losses and Haig's massive program of domestic subversion, and going left wouldn't be the answer anyway. The two party system was a joke, so he resolved himself to seek the presidency, with new ideas and a new movement. Ruling out running as an independent, he decided he would shatter the old system. He had to reach the White House, and so he founded the Reform Party to get him there.
Although overlooked at the time, with hindsight the most important moment of the Year of Calamity would occur near its end. Daniel Sutter would be born December 11, 1991, an average baby to average parents. A date that would come to live (for some) in infamy. Cosmicism was inevitable now.
AD ASTRA PER ASPERA!