Russia at war
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clearly suggested in an article in Pravda that the Army was undergoing a process of transformation, which had not yet been completed, and that things were still far from perfect. 1941, he wrote, would be the year of the "great change" (perelom) in the Red Army, the year of "the reconstruction of the whole system of the soldiers' training and education". He congratulated himself on the changes that had already been made since the Finnish War, and pointed out that in August 1940 the officer's "single command" had been restored, which meant that the officer was no longer under the thumb of the
commissar; as a result the status, responsibility and authority of the officers had been greatly increased. This, Zhukov emphasised, was the "essential foundation" on which the other reforms would be built.
He stressed the importance of military "professionalism" and attributed the spectacular defeat of the French Army in 1940 largely to the French soldiers' low standard of
training, and to their un-familiarity with modern weapons. In the Red Army such "sloppi-ness" would not be tolerated: "An imperialist war is raging round us. In the reconstruction of our system of military training we have achieved some unquestionable successes. The training is taking place in near-combat conditions, and we have improved the tactical skill of our troops; but it would be a grave error to be smug and complacent about it; much still remains to be done."
The whole article, without sounding alarmist, nevertheless betrayed a certain feeling of uneasiness, though it is impossible to say whether a man like Zhukov anticipated a
German invasion only four months later; the whole suggestion underlying his article was that the "great change" in the Red Army was a fairly long-term affair which was not likely to be completed until 1942.
In reality the international situation in February 1941 was already rapidly deteriorating from the Russian point of view. The big question was whether Hitler would move west or east.
On February 16, the Soviet press quoted The Times—with some relief, one may suspect
—on the continued danger of a German invasion of England; on February 25 it reported another Hitler speech promising more victories over the British, but again, as on January 30, there was no mention of the Soviet Union. And then the trouble in the Balkans started in real earnest. On March 3, Andrei Vyshinsky, Deputy Foreign Commissar, informed the Bulgarian Government that he "disagreed" with its decision to let German troops enter Bulgaria "to protect peace in the Balkans". "On the contrary," Vyshinsky said, "we consider that this measure will merely extend the area of conflict to the Balkans, and the Soviet Government cannot, therefore, support the Bulgarian Government's policy." This was blunt enough; it was, in fact, the first open and official clash between Soviet and German interests.
There were now German troops in Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania. But on March 27
there was a popular uprising in Belgrade against Yugoslavia becoming a German satellite with the connivance of its rulers. A group of officers, with General Simovic at their head, had organised the coup, which took place two days after Premier Cvetkovic and his Foreign Minister, with Prince Paul's blessing, had signed in Vienna an agreement joining the Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan. The Simovic revolt aroused great popular enthusiasm amongst the Serbs and incensed Hitler.
Thinking no doubt that the Germans would still "reckon" with the Soviet Union, and obviously unaware of Hitler's decision to invade Yugoslavia, the Soviet Government
hastened to conclude a Friendship and Non-Aggression Pact with the new Yugoslav
Government. Significantly, it did not dare propose to Yugoslavia a Mutual Assistance Pact which would have committed Russia to immediate military action, should Germany
attack. Stalin and Molotov were wrong if they thought that such qualified support would frighten off Hitler.
On April 5 the Friendship and Non-Aggression Pact was solemnly signed in Moscow in
the presence of Foreign Minister Simic, Ambassador Gabrilovic and two of his assistants on the Yugoslav side and Molotov, Stalin and Vyshinsky on the Russian side. Less than twenty-four hours later the Germans invaded Yugoslavia and the Luftwaffe dropped
thousands of bombs on defenceless Belgrade. On April 7, Pravda carried on its back page, and in unspectacular type, a TASS message from Berlin saying that Germany had
declared war on Yugoslavia and Greece and that the German Army had started military
operations against these two countries. The massive bombing of Belgrade—Hitler's
revenge for the "unheard-of" affront he had suffered—was played down—even though, as time was to show, Yugoslavia's gallant revolt and tragic resistance providentially delayed the invasion of Russia by a few weeks.
There was no official Russian reaction to the German invasion of Yugoslavia. All the Soviet Foreign Commissariat dared to do in the next few days was to instruct Vyshinsky to inform the Hungarian Ambassador that "the Soviet Union could not approve of
Hungary's attack on Yugoslavia".
On April 11 the Soviet press reported Churchill's speech saying that, for several months past, the Germans had concentrated large armoured and other forces in Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania. But it refrained from any comment and, for the next few weeks, it reported in a routine and "objective" kind of way the Germans' progress in Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete. There were no lamentations over the tragic fate of the Yugoslavs with whom a Friendship Pact had so recently been signed. A showdown with Hitler seemed inevitable; Stalin's and Molotov's one aim now was to put off the evil hour—at any price.
Chapter IX THE LAST WEEKS OF PEACE
In Soviet novels and films produced both during and since the War, the news of the
Invasion of June 22, 1941 is often represented as a complete surprise. "Life was so peaceful and happy, and we were preparing to go on holiday when suddenly, on that
lovely Sunday..." Oddly enough, that is precisely what happened to a great many ordinary Soviet citizens, who had been conditioned for years into thinking that the Red Army was the finest army in the world, and that Etitler would never dare attack Russia. Others, more sophisticated, reacted the way the hero of Simonov's novel, The Living and the Dead did:
"It seemed that everybody had been expecting the war for a long time and yet, at the last moment, it came like a bolt from the blue; it was apparently impossible to prepare oneself in advance for such an enormous misfortune." But the politically minded people in Russia must have known for some time that the danger of war was immense, and there
can be no doubt that the invasion of Yugoslavia must have deeply shaken both Stalin and Molotov.
For some months past, the Kremlin had been receiving specific and grave warnings. As early as February, after his visit to Ankara, Sir Stafford Gripps had told the Soviet Foreign Commissariat that the Germans were preparing to invade the Balkans and that
they were also planning an attack on the Soviet Union "in the near future". About the same time, similar information had been given by Sumner Welles to Konstantin
Oumansky, the Soviet Ambassador in Washington. And then, in April, there was
Churchill's famous message to Stalin.
In the post-war History these warnings are treated somewhat ungraciously—they were
"not disinterested warnings", the suggestion being that the British and Americans were merely trying to drag the Russians into the war and turn them into "England's soldiers".
Instead, the History claims that Soviet Intelligence in Poland, Czechoslovakia and even Germany had kept the government fully informed on what was going on.
Be that as it may, it seems certain that Molotov and Stalin were both fully aware of the danger of a German attack but still hoped that they could put off the evil hour—at least till the autumn, when the Germans would not attack; and then by 1942, Russia would be better prepared for war.
Russia's Friendship Pact with Yugoslavia had not deterred Hitler; it had turned out a lamentable fiasco. True, there had been a number of subtle little
"anti-German"
demonstrations before that—a few pinpricks in the press, as we have seen, and a few
other little demonstrations, such as the award of a Stalin Prize in March 1941 to
Eisenstein's ferociously anti-German film, Alexander Nevsky, as well as to some other strongly-nationalist and implicitly "anti-invader" works like Alexei Tolstoy's novel, Peter I, Shaporin's oratorio, The Field of Kulikovo, and Sergeiev-Tsensky's novel on the Siege of Sebastopol. Behind the scenes at the end of March, Manuilsky, Vice-President of the Comintern, had even declared that, in his opinion, "a war with Nazi Germany could now scarcely be avoided". The story got round Moscow. Better still, in March a number of Russian officers of Timoshenko's entourage had invited the British Military Attaché to a party. The conversation had been guarded and non-committal until the atmosphere had
warmed up— no doubt helped by the vodka—and, in the end, some of the officers went
so far as to drink to "the victory over our common enemy".
In the course of the evening they had made no secret of their deep concern about the general situation, especially in the Balkans.
[Having heard about this, I asked Cripps in Moscow in July 1941 whether it was true.
"Yes, that is, roughly, what happened. It was certainly something of a pointer. It was all the more significant since I, as Ambassador, continued to be as good as boycotted by both Stalin and Molotov." The story was also later confirmed to me by Colonel E. R.
Greer, the British Military Attaché, though he was uncertain about the exact date of the incident.]
Officially, no doubt, both Stalin and Molotov had to go on pretending that they were not frightened. After the signing of the Soviet-Yugoslav Pact Gabrilovic, Yugoslav
Ambassador in Moscow (as he later told me himself), asked Stalin: "What will happen if the Germans turn on you?" To which Stalin replied: "All right, let them come!"
On April 13—the day Belgrade fell—the Soviet-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact was
signed. It was a doubtful insurance, but still an insurance that the Russians took in view of the growing German menace. Everybody in Moscow was startled by Stalin's
extraordinary display of cordiality to Matsuoka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, who had come from Berlin to Moscow to sign the Pact. He took the unprecedented step of seeing Matsuoka off himself at the railway station. He embraced him and said: "We are Asiatics, too, and we've got to stick together! " To have secured Japanese neutrality in these conditions, and the promise by Japan not to attack Russia regardless of any commitments she had signed "with third parties" was, in Stalin's eyes, no mean achievement. As long as Japan stuck to her word, it meant the avoidance of a two-front war, if Germany attacked.
On that station platform Stalin was in an unusually exuberant mood, even shaking the hands of railwaymen and travellers as he walked down the platform arm-in-arm with
Matsuoka.
True, he also threw his arm round the neck of Colonel von Krebs, the German Military Attaché, who had also come to see Matsuoka off, saying "We are going to remain friends, won't we?" But what mattered most to Stalin that day was his pact with Japan. Stalin had no great illusions about the Germans. Significantly, at the end of April, he telephoned Ilya Ehrenburg saying that his anti-Nazi novel, The Fall of Paris, could now be published. (Ehrenburg concluded from this call that, in Stalin's view, war with Germany was now inevitable.)
On May Day, there was a particularly impressive military parade in Red Square,
complete with motorised units, many new KV and T-34 tanks, and hundreds of planes. It was rumoured in Moscow that all these troops were on their way to Minsk, Leningrad
and the Polish border. Ambassador Count Schulenburg noted on May 2 that the tension in Moscow was growing, and that the rumours of a Soviet-German war were becoming
increasingly persistent. On that day Hitler made his speech on the Balkan campaign; as in his two previous speeches, there was again no mention of the Soviet Union.
On May 5 a reception was given in the Kremlin to hundreds of young officers, new
graduates of the military academies. Stalin spoke at this meeting. Officially, nothing was disclosed beyond what Pravda was to write on the following day. The article was entitled: "We must be prepared to deal with any surprises." "In his speech, Comrade Stalin noted the profound changes that had taken place in the Red Army in the last few years, and emphasised that, on the strength of the experience of modern war, its
organisation had undergone important changes, and it had been substantially re-equipped.
Comrade Stalin welcomed the officers who had graduated from the military academies
and wished them all success in their work. He spoke for forty minutes and was listened to with exceptionally great attention."
Obviously he had said much more than that in forty minutes.
After the outbreak of the war, I was given a fairly detailed account of this meeting, to which great importance was attached in Moscow at the time. I gathered that the main
points that Stalin had then made were these:
1) The situation is extremely serious, and a German attack in the near future is not to be ruled out. Therefore, "be prepared to deal with any surprises".
2) The Red Army is not, however, sufficiently strong to smash the Germans easily; its equipment is still far from satisfactory; it is still suffering from a serious shortage of modern tanks, modern planes and much else. The training of large masses of
soldiers is still far from having been completed. The frontier defences in the new territories are far from good.
3) The Soviet Government will try, by all the diplomatic means at its disposal, to put off a German attack on the Soviet Union at least till the autumn, by which time it will be too late for the Germans to attack. It may, or may not, succeed.
4) If it succeeds, then, almost inevitably, the war with Nazi Germany will be fought in 1942—in much more favourable conditions, since the Red Army will have been
better trained, and will have far more up-to-date equipment. Depending on the
international situation, the Red Army will either wait for a German attack, or it may have to take the initiative, since the perpetuation of Nazi Germany as the
dominant power in Europe is "not normal".
5) England is not finished, and the weight of the American war potential is likely to count more and more. There is a very good chance that, after the signing of the Non-Aggression Pact with Japan, that country will stay quiet as far as the Soviet Union is concerned.
Stalin reiterated that the period "from now till August" was the most dangerous of all.
[I have compiled this from several Russian verbal sources; all of them agreed in the main, and particularly on one of the most important points: Stalin's conviction that the war would "almost inevitably" be fought in 1942, with the Russians possibly having to take the initiative.]
Immediately following this Stalin speech to the young officers, there was a succession of desperate Russian attempts to "appease" the Germans in order to at least postpone the invasion, if there was to be one. On May 6 an ukase of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet appointed Stalin, until then "only" Secretary-General of the Party, President of the Council of People's Commissars, i.e. head of the Soviet Government. Molotov became
Deputy-President, whilst remaining at the same time Foreign Commissar.
The general public, not unnaturally, saw a danger signal in this appointment of Stalin as head of the government; in more normal conditions this would not have happened. One
of the men most impressed by this government change was Count Schulenburg who, in a
series of dispatches to Berlin, argued that Stalin was the most determined opponent of any conflict with Germany. But his counsels of moderation fell on deaf ears in Berlin; Hitler had decided long ago to attack Russia, regardless of what Schulenburg, an
exponent of the traditional Bismarckian Ostpolitik, thought or advised.
/> The next few weeks were marked by a kind of cold-footed opportunism on Stalin's part; to impress Hitler with his "friendliness" and "solidarity" he took such incongruous and gratuitous steps as closing down the embassies and legations of countries now occupied by the Germans, such as Belgium, Greece and Yugoslavia, which implied a sort of de facto, if not de jure recognition of their conquest by Germany.
[ This measure was, of course, not extended to the French "Vichy" Embassy in Moscow which had existed since 1940. The Ambassador was the erstwhile left-wing politician
Gaston Bergery, whose American wife, a former Schiaparelli model, would tell Russians how nice Paris was under the German occupation: "Les Allemands sont tellement corrects."]
For good measure, the strictest instructions were reiterated to the military authorities in the frontier areas and elsewhere on no account to shoot down any of the numerous
German reconnaissance planes flying over Soviet territory. In May 1941, the Soviet
Government went so far as to give official recognition to the short-lived pro-German and anti-British government of Rashid Ali in Irak—a country with which the Soviet Union
had not had any diplomatic relations before.
Also in May, only a few days after Stalin had become head of the government, the
Russians were puzzled and alarmed by the startling news of Hess's arrival in Britain. The news was presented in a highly confusing manner. TASS reported from Berlin on May 12
that, according to the Germans, Hess had "gone insane"; but this was not borne out by TASS dispatches from London, and the suspicion immediately arose of an Anglo-German deal—needless to say, at Russia's expense.
However, the Soviet press said very little about Hess; he was an awkward subject at a time when top priority had to be given to the development of cordial relations with Nazi Germany. Everything was done to keep the Germans happy, and considerable quantities