How the Soviet Union Stole Christmas
A Satire by Rory Brennan-Jones
A Satire by Rory Brennan-Jones
How the Soviet Union Stole Christmas: The Cold War between Russia and the North Pole
By Rory Brennan-Jones
A satire
Recently, the Federation of Russia has been declassifying Soviet secrets, but none have been more shocking than the most recent release. Apparently, Santa Claus exists, and his capitalist enterprise and his Northern civilization were almost wiped out.
A Northern Civilization
Until only a few hundred years ago, the Americas were completely unknown to the rest of the world (except the Native Americans). While the secret that was the Americas is impressive, it is dwarfed by the seemingly-legendary Santa Claus. Santa Claus, possibly a god of some obscure religion who got his fair share of the holiday “Christmas”, is known to be nonexistent to all but the minds of small children and the immature. However, he exists.
According to the Soviet files, we learned several things about the Santa Claus civilization, or, as the native inhabitants call it, “Toyland” (or ‘Coldelvenlandia’). First, Santa Claus is the current king of the Claus dynasty, and he rules over Toyland. Toyland’s inhabitants are elves. Except in factories, there are no cars in Toyland--flying reindeer are used instead. The elves have remained isolated on the top of the world for thousands of years, but in the 1920s the elves had a secret expedition into Canada and the United States and discovered capitalism. Soon, the North Pole became the secret capitalist center of the world (hence the sending of Christmas gifts to many children) and even rivals China in production today.
Now Russia can prove the existence of our favorite fat man in a red and white suit, and his Northern Kingdom. How? During the Cold War, the Soviet Union located Santa Claus and tried to put an end to his capitalist society.
Interests and Explorations on Ice!
For almost if not the entirety of its civilization, Russia has been an arctic country, and a powerful one at that, too. Russia has controlled the entire Arctic Ocean coast of Asia and still does today. And when Russia was the Soviet Union and a superpower, it wanted more power and fewer threats. Then, Siberian explorers came across Santa’s workshop.
Sometime in the 1950s, explorers from the Russian Far East were making their way northward to discover the unknown and then conquer it and make Russia great. They quickly came across the problem of the Arctic Ocean. Do you know why there is almost never a North Pole on the map or a globe? That is because there is no land in the North Pole aside from some Arctic Ocean islands. A vast stretch of thick ice during most of the year makes up for this, but the ice changes and no permanent shelters are possible. No land, no place to farm, no place to be warm, extremely cold water, no year-round ports, and more problems color this white, unforgiving, and forgotten region of the world. But that didn’t stop Russia! The Soviet Union was interested in the North Pole, because it was right on their doorstep and it was a place for them to dominate. Also, the Soviet Union was developing structures that could endure the challenges of the Arctic.
The Siberian explorers crossed the ice of the Arctic Ocean and rode towards the true North on dog sleds. After much ice crossing and several hungry polar bears, the Russians came across something that surprised them very much-- Toyland.
First Encounter
It is quite common in science fiction films for there to be a “first encounter” with alien kinds, but the Russian first encounter with the elves gives bigger presents. The Siberian explorers were welcomed by the elves and they got to look around Santa’s town. Despite its hostile Arctic setting, the elves were able to endure the cold with the help of advanced technology. There is a reason why Toyland is called “the Wakanda of the North.” Heat-trapping domes, jet-propelled reindeer, and “toy-teleporters” are only part of the Elven technology. The most important thing the explorers discovered was the elven society was very capitalist, with huge amounts of pollution-free factories and markets. Ever since the Christmas Act of 1932, in the wake of the Great Depression, the elves have given away the rest of their presents to the rest of the world. The explorers wanted to stay, but they had a duty to Mother Russia.
It was several months after the initial expedition that the explorers returned. The government thought the explorers were mentally unstable, but with the help of Sputnik the Russians discovered and proved the existence of this Northern Wakanda. Things are going to get slippery from here on out.
Cold War for Control of a Cold Place
The Soviet Union was shocked-- the part of the world it thought it dominated, the North Pole, contained a secret capitalist and emerging superpower in its center that opposed Soviet institutions. A new, secret Cold War had commenced.
The Soviet Union first made sure the rest of the world did not find Toyland, seeing as they figured they could handle this themselves, without pointless international conventions or costly war. They had everything from random signs in the Arctic to orbiting spacecraft to keep their discovery a secret and isolate the elves even further. After securing this area, the Soviet Union began the process of defeating the elves.
Russians, disguised as elves, were sent to Toyland. Their mission was to spread communism. With a communist Toyland, the Soviet Union could lose a threat and gain an important ally that could give the Soviet Union a technological advantage. The results of the Cold War began to lean in the Soviet Union’s favor.
Soon enough, Toyland was exposed to communism. Seeing as all elves are generally nice people, some were in favor of communism because they wanted everybody to have everything, and others were in favor of capitalism because it made more than enough presents for everybody and it kept the North Pole a wealthy place. The communist elves accused Santa Claus as some random guy who was overweight with wealth that really should belong to the people. The communists also accused Santa Claus of stealing from the houses in which he delivered presents. Was Santa Claus in fact a Grinch? A deep divide was started.
The communists began to gain in numbers, and the capitalists started to hide in gift boxes to keep safe, although there was never any violence. Eventually, Santa Claus was forced to hide in his sack of presents to maintain his safety. By the early 1960s, the communists gained full control of the North Pole.
The spread of communism was gradual. By 1974, there was no Christmas. The communists figured that the factories weren’t all that necessary, and the Christmas tradition of gift giving should be focused on helping the Soviet government. No presents or gifts were delivered. This is the lasting legacy of the Communist State of Toyland.
In the early 1980s, the capitalists, Santa Claus, his family, and a faction of capitalist elves then migrated to Alaska. Here they got an even better taste of America than their expedition in the 1920s. It was starting to feel a lot like Christmas. The capitalist elves prepared to return to the North Pole and use the power of the Christmas spirit to liberate their occupied homeland.
When the capitalists returned to Toyland, they brought with them several presents. They were prepared for a battle of ideas. But then, the Soviet Union collapsed. Toyland gave up communism because their sponsor had just ceased to be a country. Capitalism then returned to Toyland, but democracy came along as well. In the end, Toyland became a constitutional monarchy with good amount of capitalism in the name of Christmas.
Santa Claus’s followers were able to undermine the Soviet Union and get it to fall by controlling the children. The Russian children were given Christmas presents and were turned against their communist government. The Soviet Union could not defeat the next generation.
Conclusion
Santa Claus exists, and he is the leader of a technologically-advanced civilization on the North Pole. Capitalism, Communism, and the Soviet Union has shook this civilization up, but it is doing well now. Toyland is starting to come out of the shadows, and may became a superpower along with China.