Red Line

The Red Line, where vodka and purges never go out of fashion. In the early 20th century, the desperate people of Russia flocked around an ideology, one that promised destruction to their enemies and a shining new world for them. It didn't turn out too well then, and neither has it in the Metro. 

Years ago, people began flocking around the ideology once again, in the station of Preobrazhenskaya Ploschad on the Sokolnicheskaya Line, the Red Line. From all over the Metro they came, the intellectuals, the former Komsomol youths, the old Soviet citizens who remembered their past more fondly than others, members of the Communist Party of Russia - and some of the National Bolshevik Party - and the new citizens of the Metro who had never seen Russia, let alone the USSR, yet dreamed of glorious days long gone. Nostalgia and lies goes a long way.

Their enthusiasm spread like a plague to nearby stations. Initially rather chaotic, they soon organised a central committee - the Interstational. This union of stations, now officially known as the Red Line, grew quickly under the firm leadership of General Secretary Moskvin. Radical propagandists and revolutionary preachers were sent out, and in one station after the other insurgencies erupted. Other groups, mainly the Hansa and the Arbat Confederation, feared their spread and banded togeher in an anti-communist alliance.

The following war was more brutal than any other the the Metro had seen, with the Reds deploying wave after wave of cannon fodder against their enemies. It was a war none could win without losing, and eventually a deal was reached in secret. The Reds would give up any ambition to spread the revolution, and the Ring Line stations crossed by the Red Line would stay in Hanseatic possession, while they in return received the rest of the Line and the stations of Teatralnaya and Ploshchad Revolyutsii. This proved strategically good for both Hansa and the Reds, and a symbolic victory for the Interstational.

While the war with the Hansa is over, tensions still remain at an all-time high. The Hansa willingly trade, but that's it. Dissident after dissident try to make it out to other stations, but are mostly shot by either the Reds or the guards of their would-be sanctuary - everyone fears the arrival of Red spies. The few that live to tell their horrifying tale speak of severe famine and oppression.

The Red Line is a tight police state, where paranoia is the name of the game. Each person reported by their neighbours and friends are hauled off to Lubyanka by the KGB, never to be seen again. Like their Nazis counterparts, the Communists emulate Soviet society the best they can. Let's just say that [i]Иосиф[/i] is a common name for the newborn, and that commissar caps are very popular. Also like their Nazi counterparts, with whom they are fighting a costly war of attrition in the darkest tunnels of the Metro, they have little understanding of their ideology - "Communism" resembles itself even less than under the most vicious days of the USSR.