NationStates Jolt Archive

"The Party's line is strong and true
It traces firm your path, Sulo
The Revolution's torch aflame
On Paektusan a becon plain
Dra-pol! Unite! Come storm the Zone!"

In perfect time a dozen dark little men sang, upright and tidy in their military dress uniforms, stoic though so out of place on the garishly upholstered seats of this swingin' English bus. The driver too was Drapoel, for Da'Khiem would not allow foreigners to take charge of its team, nor risk exposing them to espionage. And, besides, had any Englishman spoken Drapoel, he would have likely been rather intimidated by the astonishingly confrontational tone of the Party songs they sung en route to Ayresome Park.

Drapoel from the north, of course, had never seen a western city, so even dreary Middlesbrough challenged the players and their tiny staff with sights, sounds, and smells quite unfamiliar to them.

Having shocked the world in Phnom Penh by obliterating a confident Australasian side not once but twice, and advancing to the World Cup thanks to South Africa's suspension (due to apartheid) and South Korea's withdrawal (due to being asked to play qualifying matches in Stalinist Marimaia), the all-amature side were playing as North Dra-pol, since most involved nations refused to recognise the Choson People's Republic.

Being based -after much hassle from the Central Directorature- in the most deprived areas of the English north, the Drapoel were just about able to convince themselves of the Party's assertion that the outside world was still crumbling, still fighting an anarchic intercontinental conflict. Africa, after all, had already been completely obliterated, hence the total lack of participants from that continent, as had Japan, necessitating the moving of Asian qualifiers to Marimaia, a strong communist state set to out-last most of the other weak nations outside Dra-pol.

Unsettled by warmth at night, the players settle again into their hotel rooms.

Wang Kuo-Fang, unsure given the unnatural effect of this, 'central heating' whether to use the provided quilt, did not expect to sleep well tonight, but even so he was to be disappointed.

The let-down of the three-nil defeat against the USSR was made worse by the heavy covering of bruises that he and his comrades endured thanks to the nature of that game, in which the Drapoel were never given a chance by big, rough Soviet players, who certainly did not treat them as allies. This was probably because Sulo had sided with Mao, Wang supposed.

Kuo-Fang tried to settle his concerns over the team's chances by thinking back to Marimaia and the confrontation with those strapping Australasians. So confident had they been that the Aussies merely watched the Drapoel train and then returned to their fried breakfasts and pints of beer. Then Wang recalled the goals that he had scored, the goals that his playmaking had enabled comrades to score. 6-1, what a game! What an honour for the Suloist Revolution, to have vanquished a western team, one half-full of Englishmen at that! And then the second leg, 3-1! Even when the capitalists had seen their failings, had them explained in an hour and a half of Communist teamwork before their very eyes, still they could not match it on a second attempt!

Yes, it was all right to be beaten by the USSR. They may not be Suloists, but they at least have some Commuist spirit, and being so much larger than the Drapoel they were bound to come out on top. Oh, but the capitalists were all done for, big or small, because they could not play together, did not play for one another.

Then Wang tried, contented, for sleep. But he was thwarted again by these backwards hosts. He had not slept alone, without either family or comrades, ever in his life, and now he was expected to be shut up in a single room, the night before he must face Chile? How did this help the team? Why couldn't the English find a dormitory for their guests?

Wang's eyes ranged about the room, falling on the little window through which shon an eery light. He got up, crossed the room, and looked out over what turned out to be a church graveyard opposite the hotel. Disturbing enough, but worse was the source of the light... a statue of a woman clutching an infant, right outside the graveyard, all illuminated. He shuddered and hurried back to his bed, noticing now another attempt to unsettle him. A model on the wall representing a half naked man, tortured and bleeding, nailed to a cross. And hanging right over Wang's pillow!

The balding young man seethed with an aggressive contempt for the whole west and slept little that night. Take it out on the Chileans, tomorrow, Wang!

... oookay.

[OOC: always wondered how this story would have played out with Sulo in place of Kim]

There would be no Lyongese footballers in England this year, even if they had the capacity to outplay the plucky Choson... a poor showing and failure to qualify in '62 and lack of a professional-grade talent pool had led Party planners in Sithin to deem the whole thing 'not worth the effort'. The appearance of the Choson team in Middlesborough had certainly shaken that belief, and there was great excitement as Lyong's farmers and factory workers gathered around radios or the occasional television set in the wee hours of the morning, eagerly hanging on every bit of news. Few dared dream that the Drapoel would advance past the giants of Europe to sieze the championship, but just to have made it that far, Asian socialists standing tall in the face of feudal barbarians... a symbol of hope for the downtrodden of the world.

Returning to the hotel, an exhausted Wang Ku-fang felt at first ashamed and doubt-filled. But as the bus passed ever more cheering Englishmen, he and his team mates began to believe their coach's assertions.

Pak Seung-zin's goal against Chile, and the one-all draw it gave Dra-pol, represented success... vindication, even, for Wang's theories of communist supremacy. The USSR had done Italy a number, too, and looked set to sweep the group.

The plucky Drapoel, anyway, had won a few light-hearted admirers even as they were crushed by the menacing Soviets, and holding Chile to a draw now made a real pop fad of the Asian minnows.

Still, back in their lonely beds, the players all realise that despite their local support as something of a novelty, Italy await, and millions of football fans anticipate a jolly exhibition of Mediterranean flair at the expense of that weird little Korean place we fought in' '50.



"...I suppose that is their game plan. Italy's famous defence won't be broken by sitting back and hoping, so the Drapoel feel they've no choice but to attack all out, no matter the risk.

"Of course, the Italians will counter at the first opportunity, and the Drapoel could be very vulnerable...

"...The game just gets older, and Italy still content to wait. It looks as if they're expecting to take a single goal whenever they choose, and happy to win by one... wait, what's this? Dra-pol now breaking forward, again, I don't know what's keeping them going at this point, they haven't paused all day! Oh! A clearly well-practiced one-two between Wang and Seung, and this time it's worked! And here comes Pak Doo-ik! Oh, my word! North Dra-pol has scored! Pak has beaten Albertosi, and Dra-pol lead Italy! Have the Italians left it too late? The Drapoel are surging forwards again, hardly even waiting to win the ball back from kick off, they want more!"

Liverpool supports the Central Directorature's global-collapse line even better than could the northeast. Parts of the city are neglected still since the Blitz of twenty-odd years previous, which made a ruin of docklands once enriched by cotton, and, uhm, those nice African fellows who volunteered to help-out at no charge.

But now the Drapoel face Portugal. Not just any Portugal: Eusabio's Portugal.

This team of amatures -part-time soldiers, Party clerks, tobacco-industry workers, and, in Wang's case, the kid who was granted a year-out before moving from school to higher-education- that never played abroad before the drubbing of Australasia, now finds itself in the quarter-finals of the most massive sporting competition in human history, the World Cup. And it must confront possibly the greatest player of the game in the world today.

Entering the stadium Wang can see Middlesbrough fans in the stands. Hundreds have come from east coast to west in order to support a distant and alien nation in its hopeless quest against the living-legend, to cheer-on Dra-pol in its kamikaze mission against Portugal.

"And we're underway here in Liverpool, and I think that the Drapoel will have to use every bit of the impressive teamwork we saw against Chile and Italy if they're to have any chance of even worrying the Portuguese, especially with Eusabio on the field. Even so... wait a moment, now, as I speak the ball has fallen to Pak Seung-zin, he's going to try for... oh, he's got it! He's done it again! Just one minute played and Dra-pol has taken the lead!"

The crowd was stunned, Portugal had blundered. Still, they'd sort it out, that's what most people assumed, save in one corner of the stadium where song erupted in support of the Koreans' little triumph. The Drapoel kept up their frantic pace, running like hares but with such instinctive co-operation and awareness that they resembled better a flock of sparrows.

Portugal, despite individual superiority of skill, were kept on the backfoot by repeated passing attacks and supporting runs from the communist team. Then, with only twenty-two minutes on the clock and one goal already on the board, Lee Dong-woon saw to it that the lead was extended.

Every non-Portuguese in England was now a convinced Dra-pol supporter. "We want three! We want three!" they cheered, the match commentator chuckling as he called the fans, "optimistic". The crowd continued to applaud every pass, ever touch made by Wang and his comrades.

And, not more than three minutes later, Yang Sung-kook struck home a third goal, and the Drapoel looked to be running rampant, smashing a team made of some of the world's finest players completely to pieces.

"Easy! Easy!" Chanted the crowd.

Portuguese heads were down. It could only get worse from here with their spirits shattered and the Drapoel refusing to sit on their healthy advantage, coming forwards with as much force time after time.

It was Australasia all over again!

Except... Australasia had no Eusabio.

Two minutes after Yang's goal, the master could only be watched as he cut through an organised but totally out-classed communist defence, receiving little help from his own discouraged teammates. Eusabio made it 3-1. The little Drapoel keeper had little chance against that strike, himself a mere speck in the gaping mouth made of his goalposts.

Eusabio, visibly irritated with his countrymen, wasted no time celebrating what might have been only a consolation goal on another day, and retrieved the ball himself before jogging back to the centre circle and very deliberately placing the ball ready for kick-off. A clear signal that he was not done, and an inspirational moment so far as the Portuguese were concerned.

The match wasn't thirty minutes old. Still an hour to go, but the Drapoel had only one speed: all ahead, fast. Wang and his comrades attacked the Portuguese third again and again, though they'd built a comfortable two goal lead that could have been defended. Inexperience told as the Portuguese let the Drapoel stretch themselves and then attacked with elaborate ball play that left the little Asians with little recourse. Menacing breaks into the Drapoel defence by Eusabio and others lead to increasingly desperate challenges from the organised but out-classed defenders. Eventually more and more missed, and Portugal peppered the Koreans' goal with countless free kicks. And then, just before the break, a penalty. Eusabio stepped up.

Half time, 3-2. The lead collapsing and Portugal's belief restored...

What a calamity!

Wang and his comrades were bound for home, beaten 5-3 after leading 3-0!

Kuo-fang imagined the disappointment of the Director, the scorn of the people, and he flinched in spite of his almost inate discipline as he wondered what the world must think of the failure.

But he was to be confounded once again. The team bus could hardly move for thronging crowds of English people, all out to see-off the strange little Asians who had so surprised and entertained them, the conquerors of mighty Italy. Hey, with the Italians gone, perhaps England even had half a shot at the cup!

These crazy English devils! We lost!

It wouldn't be, in fact, until the host nation did reach the final and face the old enemy, the Germans (or at least half of them), that northern England began to forget the Drapoel heroes.

As the Italians returned home to a hail of rotten vegetables and unending ridicule, the world was left to wonder at the fate of the Drapoel, who never again ventured from their hermit kingdom. Shot on arrival for failing to defend their lead against Portugal, that was a popular opinion.



"Student Wang, please wait behind. All other comrade students are dismissed."

The lecture hall emptied in an orderly fashion, eventually leaving Wang Kuo-fang alone with Professor Chao Shih-an, where upon the Professor made certain that the doors were all closed.

"Congratulations once again, comrade Wang. Your award must make you feel pride in what was accomplished... I hear that you met the Director himself? On account of his being so impressed at how you never sought personal glory and always gave posession to a team-mate better placed to score? May I ask, what were your impressions on meeting Director Sulo?"

Wang, still unaware of the Professor's purpose here, answered in the only way that he could.

"The Director was positive, yes, warm and humble at once. I was never given cause to doubt his wisdom and authority. It was a great honour, a shame only that my parents are not still here to know of it. Still, I was only before him for a moment."

Chao did not reply right away, but perched on the edge of his desk, left leg cocked over his right, arms folded, and then leaned back a little and fixed his eyes on Wang and smirked knowingly.

Eventually he said, carefully and softly, "Come now, Kuo-fang. I know you better than that, eh? I have been watching you closely."

Wang felt a scorching inside as if all his black bile were turning to hot oil and leaking through his veins. What was this? The Professor working for the Banat, perhaps? What could he have done? Was he under suspicion for having spent so much time abroad?

"Very well" Chao continued, "if you won't say it, I shall just have to trust you. Moreover I must trust myself that I am right about you.

"Danger is coming for Dra-pol. The Great Leap has failed in China, and we can only see the same here since the ruralisations... while you were in England the Central Directorature began moving people around. Everyone has been dispersed... Da'Khiem is empty now, you know? All of the cities are bare, people go there to work and then leave, even if it takes all night to get home and all morning to return. A disaster. Sulo is going to make us all blacksmiths over a million little furnaces.

"I kept you from it by securing your place at this university based largely on the merit you secured with your goals in Phnom Penh. Now I want you to do something. I am asking you to go to China. To a town in the west. I have let others go elsewhere, on fact-finding missions and friendship drives, officially. But I want you to experience things far from prying eyes.

"I have papers prepared, tickets, all you need. Mao is hailing a cultural revolution. Go and see what Sulo shall soon be planning for Dra-pol. Do what you must, and then return next semester."

After a brief, "Oh, of course I must make the best of the opportunities you have given to me, though I would gladly have done my duty in the fields, were it so Directed!" Wang returned to his dorm and waited until the others were asleep before slipping out to examine the documents.

Passes, identification, advice, tickets, information on a KCP adjunct in Xinjiang, and a destination there. "Hm, Hotan." Wang mused. "Never heard of it."

The British, of course, were rather amused at the antics of the visiting Dra-Poel team, and the strange little men were cheered as they left London via Heathrow Airport. The British, no stranger to the position of underdog, had nursed a quiet and half-joking hope that the Dra-Poel would get further in the cup, although when it came down to it most were pleased to see their home team win. Even so, the British admired the team's spirit and co-operation, and they were given a fair bit of honour from sports fans as they left the British Isles.

MI6, for its part, continued to watch Dra-Pol closely. Although it was difficult to see within the backward nation and information was heavily controlled, rumours suggested a number of young men and women were being sent abroad on unknown errands. They were watched when possible, but watched from afar. No sense in tipping off the Directorate, after all.

OOC: Glorified tag!

"Yes, my section of course supports you, and we have had much success in the National Union of Revolutionary Students. You will have its backing for the vacancy."

Chao Shih-an cocked his head a little and replied to Wang Kuo-fang in his own time, placing a fatherly hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Thank you, comrade... Hotan."

Wang's eyes widened and he almost welled-up with pride and admiration, but at that moment the students around him, all returned from different parts of China, all with the same quality of blood on their radical hands, fired left-fisted salutes to the ceiling and, looking to Chao, exclaimed in unison, "Chao Shih-an, Secretary Kurosian!"

The Quinntonian government, in its power and arrogence just didn't care. It had more important fish to fry. No one watches soccer when hockey or football or baseball are available, you know, real sports. And the fact that some insignificant nation was showing pith in some tournament no one cared about, well, we had a Cold War to win.

Anyways, how does what the Choson do affect USQ...?

WWJD
Amen.

Demons in many forms adorn walls that might be taken for ancient but that they were raised not thirty years previous. Dragons are made of fish and ducks, the Drapoel style.

A thin man with slender limbs and sharp features, all points and wedges, looks tall without a frame of reference, tall until he stands next to another of the world's shortest national grouping and suddenly is reveiled for little more than five feet. He wears otherwise traditional peasant garb that is coloured unusually in olive and darker greens.

"All dead?"

"Yes, Director. Our delegate in Xinjiang was the last."

"My cousin's son?"

"Yes, Director. He too appears to have been caught up in the political violence. He was beaten and executed, beheaded according to what sources we can best trust."

"Mao's opponents are trying to sabotage us."

"And so shortly before the Party Conference, where surely your reforms are set to pass with unanimous approval, comrade Director."

"Unless... the Central Committee here couldn't be somehow involved? Those dogs, after all, stand to lose most, so far as our nation is concerned."



Not Central, perhaps, Sulo, but ask the local government in the Paegam University District what it thinks of the Cultural Revolution...

A mechanical thunderstorm of clapping at uniform pace greets the end of the national anthem, bleeted out by eight gramophones started somehow around the room within a fraction of a second of one another.

The 30th Party Congress is under way in the upper-levels of the monolithic Central Directorature in the centre of Da'Khiem.

Speeches are made, best-wishes are granted to the ailing Secretary, who can not attend owing to his unfortunate condition, respects are paid to the Director, present in the balcony seats, and discourse ensues.

"A wave of progress is at our backs! A Drapoel immitation of China's practices speaks of the old internationalism, when we must really think first on the needs of our own people! Why even try to compete, with all of these production targets and projections? Why speak of exports at all?"

Factionalism in the Korean Communist Party is a new affair, and one with which the Old Guard -all for staying the course and initiating a Drapoel Cultural Revolution- was unprepared to deal. Sulo, to his credit, was at least aware of its coming and hoped that a purge in the Maoist mould may save his side. He even established a new organisation -Hong Juk, the Red Bamboo- in preparation for political violence akin to that seen across the Yalu.

"You would let us become weak?" someone answers, "Put up no fight while comrade Mao struggles?"

"Ah!" an almost unprecedented interruption from a young female Party member, "What does it matter? The outside world is collapsing! Why get us involved? Why tie Dra-pol to China's sinking corpse?"

"Internationalism had even been abandoned in the USSR until comrade Stalin's demise" a comrade joins her in support.

"Comrade Stalin was a coward! Socialism in one country to him meant only freedom to abandon Dra-pol to the foreign devils that divided us!"

"Why don't you go and sweat in a Central American jungle? See what good this internationalism does you! See if you don't end up like your Trotsky! Go and wither away with Soto and his Indian exile, this Igo!"

The new wave was winning. Bong Hsin-ro, Sulo's tubby Secretary, had succumbed to what the best Drapoel doctors called hysterical idiocy, and needed replacing.

Comrade Doctor Chao Shih-an ceased to exist on the Party's landslide election of Secretary Kurosian, architect of the Juche Idea that each nation must build its own revolution in accordance with its particular conditions. A serious blow to the Director, Mao's devoted comrade who delighted only in denouncing revisionism at every opportunity.