Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  Altogether the evacuation of Leningrad throughout July and August was very slow

  indeed. Only 40,000 people—mostly workers of plants earmarked for evacuation, and

  their families—left for the east, besides about 150,000 refugees from the Baltic

  Republics, Pskov, etc.

  Some local authorities regarded a refusal to be evacuated as a manifestation of patriotism, and actually encouraged such attitudes. One could often hear such officials say: "Our population is ready to dig trenches right in the front line, but it doesn't want to leave Leningrad." This was typical of Leningrad's mood, but it overlooked the fact that there were many people—children, old people and invalids, who were of no use to the defence of the city, and were merely a drain on the city's scant food reserves.

  [Pavlov, op. cit., pp. 58-59.]

  Moreover, in July and August, most Leningraders did not know exactly where the

  Germans were, and since during those two months, the city was not being bombed, they adopted an optimistically complacent attitude.

  The situation called for strong administrative evacuation measures, but the authorities hesitated to apply them. As a result there were caught in the blockade 2,544,000 civilians (including 400,000 children) in Leningrad proper, and 343,000 people in the suburbs and other localities inside the ring of the blockade—a total of nearly three millions.

  [ Pavlov, op. cit., p. 60.]

  To these "mouths to be fed" should, of course, be added the troops who were later to constitute the "Leningrad Front" proper. The mass-evacuation of civilians did not start until January 1942, across the Ice Road of Lake Ladoga. By this time, hundreds of

  thousands of civilians had already died of hunger.

  The whole extent of the disaster of Leningrad cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the food reserves available at the beginning of the blockade, of the

  rationing measures taken, and of the meagre supplies brought from outside against

  appalling difficulties.

  On September 6, two days before the land blockade was finally complete, Popkov, head of the Leningrad Soviet, cabled to the State Defence Committee in Moscow, saying that there was very little food left in the city and urging that as much as possible be sent by rail immediately.

  [On that day Popkov still hoped that Mga would be recaptured by the Russians. (Ibid., p.

  60.)]

  But the railways had already been cut, and two days later, all other land communications as well. On September 12 it was established that, on the basis of the rationing system that had been introduced on July 18 in Moscow, Leningrad and other cities, the stocks

  available in Leningrad for both troops and civilians only amounted to:

  Grain and flour ............... 35 days' supply

  Cereals and macaroni ......... 30 days' supply

  Meat, including live cattle ... 33 days' supply

  Fats .............................. 45 days' supply

  Sugar and confectionery ...... 60 days' supply

  In addition, the Army and the Baltic Navy had some small "emergency reserves" of food; but these did not amount to much.

  Short of breaking through the blockade, and re-establishing rail communications with the

  "mainland", there was little hope of replenishing these meagre reserves. Lake Ladoga was very poorly equipped, and what little shipping it had was under constant German air

  attack. The food reserves in Leningrad were, moreover, constantly threatened with further destruction by air raids. Considerable quantities of grain, flour and sugar had already been destroyed, notably on September 8, largely because even some of the most

  elementary air-raid precautions had not been observed. There was still no centralised control, and the food in the city was held by numerous organisations; thus, for several days after the ring of the blockade had closed, it was still possible to eat in "commercial"

  restaurants, which were not subject to rationing, and which used up as much as twelve per cent of all the fats and ten per cent of all the meat consumed in the city. Certain tinned goods, such as tinned crab, could still be bought in shops without ration-cards for some time after September 8.

  The explanation given now for all this carelessness is that both the civilian and the military authorities were so concerned with building defences and keeping the Germans out of Leningrad that they had "no time to give much thought to the problem of food.

  [ Pavlov, op. cit., p. 64.]

  An example of the general confusion, both in Leningrad and elsewhere, quoted by the

  same author, is the order sent from Moscow to Leningrad, several days after the blockade had begun, to despatch several wagon-loads of sugar and confectionery from Leningrad to Vologda!

  The first sign that the authorities were alarmed by the food situation in Leningrad was the decision, on September 2, to cut down rations to 22 oz. of bread a day for workers, 14 oz.

  for office workers and 11 oz. for children and dependants. On September 12, there was a second cut in rations—the bread ration now was just over 1 lb. for workers, 11 oz. for office-workers and children and 9 oz. for dependants.

  There was also a reduction in the meat and cereals rations [By cereals (krupa) are meant millet, rice, semolina, buckwheat, etc.], but, to make up for this, the sugar, confectionery and fats ration was increased as follows:

  Sugar and conf.

  Fats

  Workers

  4.5 lb. monthly

  2 lb. 2 oz.

  3 lb. 12.5 oz.

  Employees

  1 lb. 2 oz.

  monthly

  Dependants

  3 lb. 5 oz. monthly

  11 oz.

  Children (to

  3 lb. 12.5 oz.

  1 lb. 2 oz.

  12)

  monthly

  These sugar and confectionery rations of three to four pounds a month and of fats of one to two pounds a month, though by no means generous by ordinary standards, were wholly out of proportion with Leningrad's miserable food reserves; those in charge of

  Leningrad's defence still had the over-optimistic idea that the blockade would, somehow, be broken before long.

  This did not happen, and to economise on "real" flour, the authorities soon had to embark on a feverish search for substitutes, which could be used as admixtures in the baking of bread. When, in September, several barges carrying grain were sunk by the Germans on Lake Ladoga, a large proportion of the grain was recovered by divers and though,

  normally, it would have been unfit for human consumption, this mouldy grain was to be used as an admixture. As from October 20, bread was composed of 63% rye flour, 4%

  flax-cake, 4% bran, 8% wholemeal, 4% soya flour, 12% malt flour, 5% mouldy flour; a

  few days later, with the malt flour reserves running out, new substitutes began to be used, such as cellulose, after it had been processed in a certain way, and cotton cake. "During that highly critical period, these substitutes represented a saving of twenty-five days'

  rations." True, the cellulose and mouldy flour gave the bread a mouldy and bitter taste,

  "but, in those days, taste was what people stopped worrying about".

  Needless to say, oats which was intended as fodder for horses, was consumed by people, and horses—at least a small number of which it was essential for the Army to keep—

  were fed on tree leaves and the like. Other incredible substitutes for proper food were devised. In the port of Leningrad a stock of 2,000 tons of sheep guts was discovered; this was turned into a horrible jelly, the smell of which had to be neutralised through the admixture of cloves; at the height of the famine, this sheeps' gut jelly was often to be supplied to ration-card-holders instead of meat.

  As distinct from all other cities in the Soviet Union during the war, where people could buy a few extras in the kolkhoz market, the population of Leningrad was absolutely and solely dependent on its ration cards.

  There were, of cours
e, some black sheep. In September and the first half of October there were numerous cases of fraud; many people managed to have two or more ration cards;

  often the cards of people who had died or left the city. There were also many cases of forged cards; since there was scarcely any lighting in the shops, the sales staff were often unable to distinguish between real and forged cards. Particularly atrocious were cases when ration cards were stolen. The loss of a card was often equal to a death sentence.

  An employee of the printing works where ration cards were printed, was found in

  possession of 100 such cards; she was shot. It was also suspected that some forged cards had been dropped on Leningrad by German planes, to add to the confusion. In the middle of October a "re-registration" of all ration-cards holders was ordered; this showed that some 70,000 ration cards had, before that, been unnecessarily honoured. People had used the cards of the absent, the dead, or of some who were now in the Army.

  At the height of the famine in December there was a "epidemic" of lost ration cards; in October 5,000 ration cards had been genuinely or fraudulently lost; in November the

  figure rose to 13,000, in December to 24,000. The usual story was that the card had been destroyed in an air-raid. It is perhaps surprising that not more people should have resorted to this subterfuge, since the difference between one and two ration cards in December often meant the difference between life and death. The authorities' refusal to replace these lost ration cards, except when such loss and destruction could be more or less

  satisfactorily proved, soon put an end to the "epidemic".

  If, in September and October, most rations were still honoured, this was no longer true in November; the shortage of cereals, meat and fats was particularly serious, and card-holders had to accept substitutes. Some of these, such as 6 oz. of egg-powder instead of 2

  lb. of meat, were not "equivalents" by the widest stretch. Other meat-substitutes were the horrible jelly from sheep's guts, or an evil-smelling jelly made out of calves' skins, of which a stock had been discovered in a warehouse. In November and especially

  December, there were practically no fats (butter, oil or margarine) left, nor any kinds of substitutes.

  During the first few months of the blockade the distribution of food was rather chaotic; in theory, anyone could have his ration coupon honoured anywhere; but this often produced queues of unequal length. In December, everybody had to register in a particular shop; the distribution centres were thus able to send each shop approximately its correct share

  —not that this meant that all ration coupons could be honoured.

  In November and December, the whole of Leningrad was living on starvation rations;

  even many privileged ration holders (workers and technical and engineering staffs)—

  representing 34.4% of the population—died of hunger; still lower ration cards were held by office workers (17.5%), dependants (29.5%) and children (18.5%). This system has

  been severely criticised by Soviet authors—especially in relation to children's ration cards: a child of eleven certainly needed more food than a child of three, and it was particularly unfair to put children on the even lower dependants card once they had

  reached the age of twelve.

  As we have seen, the first cut in rations was decided on September 2; the second was on September 10, the third, on October 1, the fourth on November 13, and the fifth, the all-time low, on November 20. Already after the fourth cut, people began to die of hunger.

  Apart from the food shortage, there was also a catastrophic fuel shortage in Leningrad.

  Both oil and coal supplies were virtually exhausted by the end of September. The only hope was to cut whatever timber was still available in the blockaded territory.

  On October 8, the City and Provincial Committees decided to cut timber in the Pargolovo and Vsevolozhsk areas north of the city...

  The wood-cutting teams consisted mostly of women and adolescents; they arrived in the woods without proper instruments or clothing, and there was no housing and no transport there. The whole plan was threatened with collapse. Ely October 24 only one per cent of the plan had been fulfilled... in one area, only 216 people were working, instead of 800 as originally planned... In the circumstances the Komsomols, mostly girls, were sent out to Pargolovo and Vsevolozhsk. Without warm clothes and shoes, and sometimes wearing

  only light shoes and overcoats, and suffering from hunger and cold, these girls of the Leningrad Komsomol nevertheless did wonders. Thus the girls of the Smolny area built, in forty degrees of frost [Centigrade], a narrow-gauge line from the forest to the nearest railway line. They built barracks, supplied them with rudimentary stoves, and so

  delivered substantial quantities of timber to Leningrad.

  [ Karasev, op. cit., pp. 237-8.]

  This slightly eased the fuel situation in Leningrad, without, however, solving it. By the end of October, the city's electric-power supply was only a small fraction of what it had been. The use of electric light was prohibited everywhere, except at the General Staff, the Smolny [The headquarters of the Leningrad Defence Council under Zhdanov, and of the

  City Soviet and other central organisations. Originally a famous school for young

  gentlewomen, it had been the headquarters of Lenin and the Bolsheviks during the 1917

  Revolution.], Party offices, civil defence stations, and certain other offices; but ordinary houses, as well as most offices had to do without light throughout the long winter nights.

  Central heating was abandoned in flats, offices and houses, and in factories central heating was replaced by small wood stoves. Owing to the lack of electricity, most

  factories had to close down, or use the most primitive methods for making the machines turn at all—such as bicycle pedals. Tram-cars were sharply reduced in number in

  October, and in November they stopped running altogether. No food, no light, no heat, and, on top of it all, German air-raids and constant shelling—such was the life of

  Leningrad in the winter of 1941-2.

  Chapter IV THE LADOGA LIFELINE

  With Leningrad firmly encircled by the Germans by the beginning of September,

  desperate remedies had to be devised for bringing supplies to the city. It could no longer be assumed that the blockade on land would be broken within a short time. Therefore, on September 9, the Leningrad War Council decided to build a harbour in the small bay of Osinovets, on the west bank of Lake Ladoga near the end of a suburban railway line,

  some thirty-five miles north-east of Leningrad. Through it some capital equipment could, it was reckoned, be evacuated from Leningrad, and food and other supplies brought in.

  The port was intended to handle twelve vessels a day by the end of September. The

  Ladoga naval flotilla, supplied with some anti-aircraft guns, was supposed to protect the new port.

  Needless to say, with the Germans only some twenty-five miles south of Osinovets, their planes not only kept a constant watch on the new harbour, but also on the primitive little harbour of Novaya Ladoga on the south side of the lake through which the supplies went, as well as on any cargoes crossing the lake between the two points. Many tugs and barges were sunk during the first weeks of the "Ladoga Lifeline", including several with women and children evacuees from Leningrad.

  *

  This flimsy lifeline proved inevitably disappointing. During the first month in which the new improvised harbour of Osinovets was open, only 9,800 tons of food were brought

  from beyond Lake Ladoga. This represented an eight-days' food supply for Leningrad,

  which was thus reduced to living on its reserves during the remaining twenty-two days.

  This was all the more disastrous as, by November, the half-frozen lake would be unusable for either vessels or road transport. Some urgent measures were therefore taken, and, between October 14 and 20, 5,000 tons of food were brought from Novaya Ladoga to

  Osinovets; but this was st
ill very little. Between October 20 and the beginning of

  November, 12,000 tons of flour and 1,000 tons of meat were rushed from inside Russia to Lake Ladoga, and, despite constant German air attacks, and autumn gales that were now sweeping the lake, most of this food was safely delivered in Leningrad. Apart from food, a considerable quantity of munitions was also transported.

  But by November 15, Lake Ladoga ceased to be navigable. Summing up the results of

  this stage of the Ladoga lifeline, Pavlov writes:

  The water lifeline in the autumn of 1941 was a great help to the besieged city.

  Between September 12 and the end of navigation on November 15, 24,000 tons of

  flour and cereals, 1,131 tons of meat and dairy produce were delivered, besides

  considerable quantities of munitions and fuel. The 25,000 tons of food represented only a fraction of what was required, yet this enabled Leningrad to hold out an

  extra twenty days, and in a besieged fortress every day counts. The workers of the Volkhov river fleet, the sailors and dockers of Ladoga, the soldiers and officers who took part in these operations, many of them losing their lives, were defending every ton of food against storms, fires, enemy aircraft and looting. The work they did is unforgettable.

  [Pavlov, op. cit., p. 118.]

  By November 16 a new phase was reached in the ordeal of Leningrad. The city could

  now be supplied only by air. Although the Battle of Moscow was at its height, the State Defence Committee gave Leningrad a few transport and fighter planes to fly supplies

  from Novaya Ladoga to Leningrad—a distance of about 100 miles. Thereupon the

  Germans proceeded to bomb the Novaya Ladoga airfield, and two-thirds of the supplies had to be flown from airfields further inland. Moreover, the air convoys were constantly attacked by the Germans while flying over the lake, and a number of Russian planes were shot down. In view of the very limited cargo space, only pressed meat and other

  concentrated foodstuffs were delivered to Leningrad in this difficult and costly way. This small-scale "air-lift" could not, in the long run, solve the problem of feeding nearly three million people.

  On top of it all, there now came some truly disastrous new military reverses. At the beginning of November, the Germans attempted to capture the whole southern bank of