Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  “Do you really think I would fail to be there?” replied Molotov urbanely.

  Back at Kuntsevo, Churchill lay full length on Stalin’s sofa, “started to chuckle and to stick a pair of gay legs in the air: Stalin had been splendid . . . What a pleasure it was to work with ‘that great man.’ ” As Churchill, undressed to reveal a “skimpy crumpled vest” whence “a pair of wrinkled creamy buttocks protruded,” he continued to rave, as he finally climbed into a bath, “Stalin this, Stalin that.” It was already dawn; the alliance was saved; Molotov arrived to take him to the airport.4

  38

  Stalingrad and the Caucasus: Beria and Kaganovich at War

  Stalin recuperated from his Churchillian carousal at home but at 11:30 p.m., he arrived at the office to face the deteriorating crisis in the North Caucasus where the Germans were approaching Ordzhonikidze and Grozny. Budyonny, commander of the North Caucasus Front, had just been joined by Kaganovich who had demanded the right to redeem himself at the front after being sacked as railway boss. Stalin agreed, saying he “knows the North Caucasus well and got on well with Budyonny in the Civil War.” The bow-legged Cossack and the Jewish Iron Commissar struggled to stop the Germans. Budyonny lost none of “his dash and sense of irony,” refusing to go into his shelter during raids: “Never mind: let them bomb!” but “the Locomotive” at war was not a pretty sight.

  Surrounded by a “suite of officers from his personal bodyguard and consultants from Moscow . . . toadies, wranglers and intriguers,” working all night in a permanent state of bellowing hysteria, always playing with his trademark worry beads or a key chain, Kaganovich fancied himself “a great strategist . . . issuing orders all on his own” and insisted on interfering in every military plan, setting impossible deadlines, shouting, “Report personally . . . on the fulfillment of the order—or else!” When some trucks blocked the path of his limousine, “Lazarus,” as his officers nicknamed him, went berserk, bellowing: “Demote! Arrest! Court martial! Shoot!” But these bawlings did not stop the Germans.

  “What’s the good of a defence ridge if it isn’t defended?” Stalin reprimanded Kaganovich. “And it seems you have not managed to turn the situation around even where there is no panic and the troops fight quite well.”

  Kaganovich however came closer to war than many others. He was hit by shrapnel in the hand, a badge of honour of which he was deeply proud. He was the only Politburo member to be wounded.206 When Kaganovich flew back to Moscow for meetings, Stalin, whom he regarded as “our father,” tenderly inquired about his health and then toasted his wound. However, he was also incensed that one of his closest comrades had risked his life in this way.1

  As the Germans pushed southwards, Stalin feared the Transcaucasus Front would collapse, yielding the oil fields, possibly bringing Turkey into the war, and tempting the restless Caucasian peoples to rebel. Four days after Churchill’s departure, Stalin turned to Beria: “Lavrenti Pavlovich,” he respectfully addressed him. “Take with you whoever you like and all the armaments you think necessary, but please stop the Germans.”

  As the Germans took Mount Elbrus, Beria and Merkulov recruited Stalin’s staff officer, Shtemenko, ordered Sudoplatov to bring 150 Georgian Alpinists, assembled his flashy entourage, as well as his son Sergo, aged eighteen—and all flew down in a fleet of American C-47s stopping in Tiflis on the way. The generals were contemplating a strategic abandonment of Ordzhonikidze but on the 22nd, Beria, accompanied by his posse, arrived there to terrorize the Transcaucasus commanders. Charkviani, the Georgian boss, was in the room when Beria “peered coldly round the table with a piercing stare” and told them: “I’ll break your back if you mention a word of this retreat again. You WILL defend the town!”

  When one general suggested placing 20,000 NKVD troops in the front line, Beria exploded into “foul abuse and threatened to break my back if I ever mentioned it again.” Though Charkviani (no great admirer of Beria) thought the NKVD chief saved the day, the generals, all writing after his downfall, complained that his progress along the front was simply “showiness and noise” which seriously disrupted their work.

  Beria also had to destroy any oil that might fall into Nazi hands. Back in Moscow, Stalin summoned Nikolai Baibakov, thirty, Deputy Commissar of Oil Production, to his office. He was alone: “Comrade Baibakov, you know Hitler wants the oil of the Caucasus. That’s why I’m sending you there—you’re responsible on the pain of losing your head for ensuring no oil is left behind.” But he would also “lose his head” if he DID destroy the oil too early. As he left, with his head spinning, Stalin added: “Do you know that Hitler has declared that without oil, he’ll lose the war?”

  Beria added more gruesome threats. “I was just weighed down by the great responsibility,” says Baibakov who was not afraid but perhaps should have been. “I underestimated the danger of my personal position.” The correct oil fields were dynamited with minutes to spare. Baibakov kept his head.207

  Beria’s other mission was to stamp out the embers of treason among the ethnic groups in the North Caucasus. Hence he set up his own NKVD command. As a Georgian Mingrel brought up among non-Georgian Abkhazians, Beria possessed all the prejudices of one tiny Caucasian people for another. The Georgians had always been particularly suspicious of Moslem peoples like the Chechens: in Grozny, Beria investigated the reports that some Chechens had greeted the Germans with open arms. Sergo Beria, who accompanied his father, wrote that they sent delegations to show their support for Moscow, promising to fight like their national hero, Shamyl. Since Shamyl had defied Russia for thirty years, this analogy did their cause no good at all. Beria’s cheerfulness with the Chechens concealed his distrust.

  Beria descended on Kaganovich and Budyonny in Novorossisk but was not impressed by their demeanour: “These two idiots disorganized everything,” wrote Sergo Beria, exaggerating somewhat. They found Budyonny “dead drunk” and in “a deep torpor” while Kaganovich was “sober” but “trembled like a leaf and crawled on his knees before my father.”

  “Don’t make such an exhibition of yourself,” Beria told Kaganovich.

  The German advance ebbed outside Ordzhonikidze and Grozny, undermined by the Soviet resistance at Stalingrad. Beria returned triumphant to Moscow where Stalin, who was viciously jealous of anyone else’s military glory, overheard him boasting to Malenkov of his exploits.

  “Now Beria’s going to imagine he’s a military leader,” Stalin growled to Shaposhnikov. Beria recommended the sacking of Budyonny, who returned to Moscow from his last active command to be placed in charge of the cavalry. But he appealed to Stalin: “My soul longs to be in battle. Let me go to Stalingrad!”2 Stalingrad was indeed about to become the battle of battles, the focus of the world.

  The Germans attacked by land and devastated Stalin’s city from the sky, destroying that industrial leviathan in an infernal bombardment that converted its stark Stalinist factories into a primeval landscape of caves and canyons. Stalin, in the office in the early hours, was beside himself, berating his envoys to Stalingrad, Malenkov and Chief of Staff Vasilevsky: “The enemy broke through . . . with small forces. You have enough forces to annihilate the enemy . . . Mobilize armoured trains . . . Use smoke screens . . . Fight day and night . . . The most important thing now is— don’t panic, don’t fear the impudent enemy and keep up your confidence in our success.” 3

  The gravity of Stalingrad finally concentrated Stalin’s mind and brought about a revolution in his conduct of the war. Now he realized that the road to survival and glory lay with professional generals instead of his own impatient amateurism and his bungling cavalrymen. On 27 August, he ordered Zhukov to rush to Stalingrad and promoted him to Deputy Supreme Commander. Zhukov refused the promotion: “My character wouldn’t let us work together.”

  “Disaster threatens the country,” replied Stalin. “We must save the Motherland by every possible means, no matter the sacrifice. What of our characters? Let’s subordinate them to the interests of the Motherland. When wi
ll you leave?”

  “I need a day.”

  “Well, that’s fine. But aren’t you hungry? It wouldn’t hurt to have a little refreshment.” Tea and cakes were brought in to celebrate the beginning of the war’s most successful partnership.

  Zhukov met up with Vasilevsky in Stalingrad where he found the Germans creeping into the city. Stalin demanded counter-attacks but his forces were not yet up to it. Stalin was so anxious that he now slept on a couch in his office with Poskrebyshev waking him every two hours. He was so pale, tired and skinny that Poskrebyshev let him sleep an extra half-hour because he had not the heart to wake him: “A philanthropist all of a sudden. Get Vasilevsky on the line. Quick! The bald philanthropist!”

  Stalin yelled at Vasilevsky: “What’s the matter with them? Don’t they understand if we surrender Stalingrad, the south of the country’ll be cut off from the centre and we’ll probably not be able to defend it? Don’t they realize that this isn’t only a catastrophe for Stalingrad? We’d lose our main waterway and soon our oil too!” But its importance was no longer merely strategic: Stalingrad bore his name because it had played a formative part in his life. There, at Tsaritsyn in 1918, he had gained his confidence as a man of action, learned how to govern by terror, won Lenin’s trust and Trotsky’s hatred. At the “Red Verdun,” he had met his cronies, from Voroshilov to Budyonny, and embarked on his marriage with Nadya.

  “I think there’s still a chance we won’t lose the city,” replied Vasilevsky carefully. Stalin rang Zhukov and ordered the attack: “Delay’s equivalent to a crime.” When Zhukov reported that there would be a delay, Stalin sneered: “Do you think the enemy’s going to wait until you bestir yourselves?”

  At dawn the Russians attacked again—but made limited gains. The Germans had almost taken the city but one force stood in their way: the 62nd Army under General Vasily Chuikov, spiky-haired, snub-nosed, gold-fanged, clung on to the Volga’s west bank, commanding from dugouts and fighting in the skeletal ruins of an apocalyptic industrial landscape, supplied only by ferryboats that crossed the burning Volga in which the destiny of Russia was reflected. The valour, nobility, despair and brutality is best described in Vasily Grossman’s epic Life and Fate. They fought with modern weapons and ancient ones, sniper rifles and grenades, spades, pipes and fingers, dying to win time: “Blood,” said Chuikov, “is time.”

  The attention of virtually every minute of Stalin’s day was concentrated on one of the most intense battles ever fought: Chuikov’s direct commanders were General Andrei Yeremenko and Commissar Khrushchev, now back in favour, but it was much too important to be left to them. Stalin himself supervised the front with Zhukov and Vasilevsky in active command while Malenkov acted as his personal spy. They would appear in Yeremenko’s dugout. “I’d notice Vasilevsky and Malenkov whispering,” said Khrushchev, “preparing to denounce someone.” Malenkov summoned officers to be dressed down. They arrived in the dugout to find a “short man with a soft puffy face in a tunic” alongside ruffians like Zhukov and Yeremenko. During one dressing-down, Malenkov found himself addressing Vasily Stalin who, though banned from flying active missions himself, was commanding a division.

  “Colonel Stalin!” Malenkov said, “the combat performance of your flyers is revolting . . .” Then he turned to another officer: “And you, the general in the skullcap? Did you intend to fight or simply play around?” After Malenkov had gone, Khrushchev and Yeremenko would be left alone again in their dugout “in an eerie silence . . . like a forest after a storm.” It was Khrushchev’s finest hour,208 living in his dugout building the friendships with generals that were to be so useful after Stalin’s death.4

  On 12 September, the rival commanders of Stalingrad flew simultaneously to see their respective Supremos with a neat dictatorial symmetry. As Paulus met the Führer at his Werwolf headquarters, a stockade of wooden cabins and bunkers at Vinnitsa, Zhukov and Vasilevsky were on their way to see their Vozhd. As Hitler ordered Paulus to “capture as quickly as possible the whole of Stalingrad,” Zhukov and Malenkov, the rough-hewn soldier and the silky-palmed courtier, presented a report for Stalin proposing further offensives “to grind down the enemy . . . and simultaneously to prepare . . . a more powerful blow.” But what? Stalin looked at his own map and studied it quietly, ignoring the soldiers for a long moment, lost in his thoughts.

  Zhukov and Vasilevsky retreated from the green baize table, talking to one another in low voices. There might be “some other solution.”

  “And what does ‘another solution’ mean?” asked Stalin, suddenly raising his head. “I never thought he had such a keen ear,” noted Zhukov. Before the generals could answer, Stalin added: “Go over to the General Staff and think over carefully what must be done . . . We’ll meet here at nine tomorrow night.” Victory has many fathers and many claimed paternity for Stalingrad but it was really the child of the unique collaboration between Stalin, Vasilevsky and Zhukov, all gifted in their own ways.

  At 10 p.m. on 13 September, Stalin welcomed Zhukov and Vasilevsky to his study with an unusual gesture—a handshake: “Well, what are your views? What have you come up with? Who’s making the report?”

  “Either of us,” Vasilevsky replied. They handed over their map which showed their basic plan to launch a massive offensive against the German flanks, held by the weaker Romanian forces, smashing into their rear and linking up to encircle them: Operation Uranus. Just at this moment, the German attack, ordered by Hitler at Vinnitsa earlier that day, descended on the embattled 62nd Army. Poskrebyshev entered the room—Yeremenko was on the line from Stalingrad. Chuikov was just maintaining his bare-knuckle grip on the west bank of the Volga while Stavka prepared the operation. Sending both generals straight back to Stalingrad to reconnoitre Uranus, Stalin said portentously: “No one else knows what we three have discussed here. No one beyond the three of us is to know about it for the time being.”

  On 9 October, Stalin restored the unitary command of the armies to the generals. He again celebrated by shaking hands with Zhukov and Vasilevsky, whom he used as special representatives at the fronts: he did not like them “sitting around” in Moscow. Chief of Staff since May, Alexander Vasilevsky, aged forty-seven, was the third of the extraordinary Stalingrad team. In many ways, he was closer to Stalin even than Zhukov.

  Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested but with a sensitive expression and a gentle, courtly charm, Vasilevsky had been groomed by Shaposhnikov. This outstanding staff officer was his successor not only professionally but also as the sole gentleman among cut-throats, and as Stalin’s special confidant. His decency puzzled, impressed and amused Stalin who so lacked it himself: “You command so many armies,” he reflected, “yet you wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Vasilevsky also hailed from a vanished world that fascinated Stalin: his father had been a prosperous village priest on the Volga and he was educated for the priesthood but became a captain in the Tsar’s army. When he joined the Red Army, he had had to forsake his priest-father and cut off relations. After meetings, Stalin frequently asked Vasilevsky to stay behind to discuss whether he was tempted by the priesthood: “Well, well, I didn’t want you to be,” laughed Stalin. “That’s clear. But Mikoyan and I wanted to be priests but were rejected. Until now, I can’t understand why!” Then: “Did your religious education do anything for you?”

  “No knowledge is entirely wasted,” Vasilevsky replied cautiously: “Some of it turned out to be useful in military life.”

  “The thing priests teach best is how to understand people,” mused Stalin, who once said his father was a priest. Perhaps he sometimes thought about his own paternity, for around this time, he told Vasilevsky: “One shouldn’t forget one’s parents.” On a later occasion he asked him: “When did you last see your parents?”

  “I’ve forsaken them,” replied the General, worried that this was a test. “My father’s a priest, Comrade Stalin.”

  “But is he a counter-revolutionary?”

  “No, Comrade Stalin, he believes
in God as a priest but he’s not a counter-revolutionary.”

  “When the war’s quieter, I think you should take a plane, visit your parents and ask for their forgiveness.” Stalin did not forget Vasilevsky’s father: “Did you ever fly and see your parents and ask their blessing?” he asked later.

  “Yes, Comrade Stalin,” replied Vasilevsky.

  “It’ll be a long time before you pay off your debt to me.” Stalin then opened his safe and showed him some papers. They were money orders in Stalin’s own name that had been sent to Vasilevsky’s father throughout the war. The son, amazed and somewhat moved, thanked Stalin profusely. Now, Vasilevsky’s special responsibility was Stalingrad.5

  The two messianic tyrants almost simultaneously prepared their peoples for victory. “There will be a holiday on our street too,” Stalin hinted in his 7 November speech.

  The next day, Hitler boasted to his people: “I wanted to reach the Volga . . . at a particular city. By chance it bore the name of Stalin himself . . . I wanted to capture it and . . . we have as good as got it!”

  The Little Corner was now a-quiver with tension. Stalin agonized that the Germans would guess what was afoot. On the 11th he was worrying that he did not have enough aircraft. On the 13th, as Paulus launched a last attempt to dislodge Chuikov, now holding a ruined splinter of territory only fifty yards deep, Zhukov and Vasilevsky flew into Moscow for a final briefing. “By the way Stalin smoked his pipe, smoothed his moustache and never interrupted once, we could see he was pleased,” wrote Zhukov. Afterwards, Vasilevsky returned to Stalingrad.

  On the 18th, Stalin, accompanied by Beria, Molotov, Malenkov, and Zhukov, who remained to command Operation Mars209 before Moscow, worked in the Little Corner until 11:50 p.m. Three hours before the attack, the three fronts facing Stalingrad, under Generals Yeremenko, Rokossovsky and Vatutin, were informed they were to attack imminently. Presumably Stalin and his comrades then went to dinner or watched a movie to pass the time. Stalin rarely slept before 4 a.m.—“the need just passed,” he later told Churchill—so he surely stayed up to hear that the troops had gone in. At 7:20 on the misty morning of 19 November, the 3,500 guns on the northern sector opened up. When this Jupiterian thunderclap was unleashed, the earth shook thirty miles away. A million men, 13,541 guns, 1,400 tanks and 1,115 planes smashed into Hitler’s forces.6