Genrikh Yagoda
Genrikh Yagoda (born 7th November 1891) is the General Secretary and leader of Irkutsk and a former NKVD member. Yagoda is perhaps the most legitimate successor of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, because his government is led by the remains of Bukharin's cabinet.
Evacuation to the east
When the Bukharin regime collapsed during the German invasion of Russia, Yagoda mobilized the NKVD to evacuate the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to the Far East. The Soviet government started losing its control over the land as warlords, local Siberians, and fascists gradually carved up the land. Eventually, Yagoda controlled only Irkutsk and Buryatia.
The NKVD state
Yagoda attributes the decline of the Soviet Union to the perceived incompetence of the Presidium. Yagoda has thus empowered the NKVD to the point where it is now the main power of Irkutsk. The new NKVD state, dubbed the "NKVD securocracy" ruined Yagoda's reputation among dissatisfied Buryatian revolutionaries such as Sablin. Sergey Bessonov, leader of the party faction in Irkutsk, opposes Yagoda's empowerment of the NKVD.
In-game
At the start of the game, Yagoda will only control Irkutsk, having to deal with a mutiny led by Valery Sablin. If both Buryatia and Irkutsk are controlled by the AI, it is very likely that Irkutsk will win; however, if Buryatia defeats Irkutsk, Yagoda will be captured.
Yagoda will build up a cult of personality and among other things, have himself photographed doing various "manly" activities, such as fishing, horseback riding, and hunting a leopard shirtless. If overthrown by Bessonov, these photos are used to mock him, with many passing them around in amusement.
Although Yagoda is arguably the unifier who has the strongest claim to be the successor of Bukharin's old Soviet Union, he will liberalize the economy with his own ideas by making the economy more compatible with the market economy. Similar to Novosibirsk, he can choose to interact with either the United States of America or the Empire of Japan at the regional stage, although unlike Novosibirsk, this is not only limited to economics.
Similar to Konstantin Rodzaevsky, Yagoda will not live past the regional stage if he is defeated by the majority of other Far East warlords - the one exception is Yagoda's rival Sablin, provided he opt to agree with the Sablinite wing of Buryatian politics and not execute Yagoda. While Alexander Men will not execute Yagoda, Yagoda will attempt to shoot Men, only to discover that he forgot to load his gun, which results in the crowd surrounding Men stoning Yagoda to death in retaliation. As shown if Buryatia or Amur defeats Irkutsk, Yagoda's reign was one of fear, as the citizens of Buryatia and Zeya will celebrate upon his defeat.
While his regime may be one of terror, Yagoda is somewhat surprisingly capable of peaceful unification with other warlords, as he can peacefully unify with the People's Revolutionary Council at the regional stage and at the super-regional stage, he can unify with Tyumen led by Nikita Khrushchev, Komi led by Mikhail Suslov, and the West Russian Revolutionary Front led by Georgy Zhukov.
Should he be replaced by Bessonov, Yagoda is exiled to an unimportant community to live out the rest of his days. He remarks that he would not have been so merciful to Bessonov had their roles been reversed.
Quote upon unification
"A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified."
Trivia
- Ironically, one of Yagoda's victims in TNO during the 1950s was Nikolai Yezhov, who in real life, was the one who executed Yagoda on the orders of Joseph Stalin. Appropriately, Yagoda and many of his cabinet members are defendants of the Trial of the Twenty-One.
- Many of Yagoda's economic reforms are very similar to those of Deng Xiaoping, as while he does not liberalize the rights of the citizens of his realm, he does liberalize the economy. The most prominent example being special economic zones, which are very similar to what Deng introduced.
- Yagoda's cult of personality, and in particular, him being photographed doing "manly" things, is very similar to the techniques used by most real-life "strongmen," such as Vladimir Putin and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who are often portrayed doing these things to establish cults of personality surrounding them. The reaction that many in the party have upon Yagoda being overthrown by Bessenov (namely, using the posters around as a source of amusement) is, amusingly, closer to that of how a foreigner from outside the regime (or a talk show host poking fun at the regime, such as John Oliver) would react.
- When LGBT rights were an element in the game, Yagoda's Irkutsk strangely had them as decriminalized, despite the fact that in real life, Yagoda was the one who was responsible for having homosexuality criminalized in the Soviet Union. Presumably, this was due to the fact that the majority of warlords had said rights as decriminalized. A more realistic scenario would've either had them illegal under Yagoda, and decriminalized if Bessonov took power, or made illegal under Yagoda after Bessonov was outmaneuvered.
- Despite the lore originally having Vasilevsky refusing to rejoin with Yagoda due to him fearing that Yagoda would execute him for desertion, when the PRC was a unifier, Yagoda is able to unify peacefully with the PRC. It's possible that at one point, Andrei Zhdanov was meant to be in Yagoda's place, as Zhdanov's Komi was the only communist unifier that Vasilevsky was unable to peacefully unify with.