Russia at war

by Alexander C Werth

  embarking.

  The Stalingrad victory brought about a number of other changes. Whereas in 1941 and

  1942 the whole emphasis in Soviet propaganda was on Russia, on the great Russian national heritage that was in danger, and so forth, after Stalingrad, the word Soviet came into its own again. More and more was made of the fact that a victory like Stalingrad was not just a question of "Russian guts"; these "guts" would have been quite helpless—as the 1914-18 war had shown— but for the stupendous Soviet organisation behind them. And who was the real backbone of this organisation but the Party!

  Another development after Stalingrad was the systematic build-up of Stalin as a military genius. After Stalingrad, but not before.

  We may here usefully look back a little. Russia, in terms of personal security and habeas corpus, had never been a comfortable place to live in, either under Lenin or under Stalin.

  The ruthless collectivization drive had brought about fearful hardships, but by 1936—the year of the "Stalin Constitution"— zhit' stalo legche, zhit' stalo veselei: life had become

  "easier and more cheerful". Stalin was taking the credit for it, and the vast propaganda machine of the Party had by now embarked on the "personality cult" in earnest. And there was a Five-Year Plan mystique in the country.

  Then came the Purges: in the Party, in the Army, among the intelligentsia. There were hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who were directly affected ("many thousands"

  of officers in the Red Army alone, Khrushchev said), and millions more who had lost

  relatives and friends in the Purges. "Thirty-seven"—the height of the Purges—became a fearful memory. And yet Stalin's personal prestige had been surprisingly little affected.

  There was a kind of obsession with "capitalist encirclement" and, above all, with Nazi Germany, and it seems that countless people believed, or half-believed that there could be no smoke without fire, and that there must have been "some" reason for the great public purge trials of Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Piatakov, Bukharin, Radek and the rest. In many minds, Trotsky had been built up into a diabolical figure with countless

  accomplices inside Russia. There were also many—including many of those arrested—

  who were genuinely convinced that much injustice was being done without Stalin's

  knowledge, and that it was the fault first of Yagoda and then of Yezhov. When the Purges more or less came to an end, and Yezhov vanished in 1939, to be replaced by Beria, the story was put about by Party propagandists, that Stalin himself had stopped the Purges.

  [In reality the purges continued, though on a smaller scale, even in 1939. Kosarev, for example, head of the Komsomol for several years, was shot on Stalin's instructions, in March 1939, for having more or less openly protested about the earlier purges. This was revealed in Pravda in December 1963.]

  The glorification of Stalin—helped by better economic conditions, a sense of great

  industrial achievement and the feeling that Russia had become "invincible"—reached quite fantastic proportions in 1939. For Stalin's 60th birthday, Prokofiev wrote an

  exquisite piece of music, called Ode to Stalin, with incredible words like these: Never have our fertile fields such a harvest shown,

  Never have our villagers such contentment known.

  Never life has been so fair, spirits been so high,

  Never to the present day grew so green the rye.

  O'er the earth the rising sun sheds a warmer light,

  Since it looked on Stalin's face it has grown more bright

  I am singing to my baby sleeping in my arm,

  Grow like flowers in the meadow free from all alarm.

  On your lips the name of Stalin will protect from harm.

  You will learn the source of sunshine bathing all our land.

  You will copy Stalin's portrait with your tiny hand.

  [S. Prokofiev. Zdravitsa {Ode to Stalin). For Chorus and Orchestra. State Music Publishers, Moscow (1946 reprints of both orchestral score and piano score). It is not stated who was responsible for the English translation of the "folk texts", described as being of Russian, Ukrainian, Kurdish, Belorussian, Mariisk and Mordva origin. The rest of the libretto is at least as adulatory of Stalin as this short quotation.]

  No doubt Prokofiev wrote the music to this with his tongue in his cheek, making the

  rapturous kolkhozniks sing some of their words in a C-major scale going up and down and up and down again; but he wrote it all the same.

  Propaganda had also drummed into the people that the Soviet-German Pact had been an

  act of wisdom—or at any rate the least of all evils, and, for a time, there was undoubtedly some satisfaction at the thought that, with the occupation of Western Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia, Russia had virtually regained her old frontiers. At the same time, there was unquestionably a growing feeling of anxiety, especially after the rapid collapse of France and, even more, after the German invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. Yet there was still the widespread feeling that Stalin—the boss, the khoziain—knew what he was doing.

  Then came the Invasion which seemed at first like an apocalyptic kind of disaster.

  Millions wondered how "Great", "Wise" Stalin had allowed all this to happen. Had there not been some fearful miscalculations somewhere? It is said that Stalin lost his head at first, and even uttered in a moment of despair that—perhaps genuine —phrase about "the whole work of Lenin being destroyed." But if he felt desperate, he certainly did not show it—except once in a letter to Churchill in August 1941. His broadcast of July 3, for all its alarming undertones, had a reassuring effect on the country. The general feeling among the people seems to have been that, for better or for worse, Stalin was with them, that he, like the country, had been let down, and that he was now asking for the country's

  confidence. And, since there was nowhere else to turn to, the people "accepted" Stalin's leadership.

  In the first few months of the war—right up to the Moscow Victory—the references to

  Stalin in the press became much fewer and the pictures of him were now few and far

  between. But after the Moscow victory his prestige was again largely restored—though there were still a great many mental reservations about him, above all in Leningrad. Two points undoubtedly counted in his favour: first, that he had not lost his nerve on October 16, and had not fled from Moscow; and the idea that "Stalin had stayed with us" had a very important psychological effect on both the Moscow population and on the Army.

  Secondly, there was that Red Square parade on November 7 at which his Russian

  nationalist speech made a tremendous impression.

  [ See pp. 247-9.]

  To the Army, Stalin became, more than before, something of a father-figure. And the

  soldiers did go into battle crying "za rodinu, za Stalina". Victor Nekrasov, the novelist, who did not like Stalin—for he had lost many of his friends in the Purges —told me in 1963 that he, too, had led his men into battle with that cry. Stalin, as he put it, had bungled things terribly at the beginning of the war; and yet, later, people instinctively felt that here was a man with nerves of steel, who, when things looked blackest of all, had pulled himself together and had not lost his head.

  After the Battle of Moscow Stalin's stock went up and the poets began to sing his praises again. But by that time Stalin was willing to share the credit for the victory of Moscow with others, particularly with generals like Zhukov and Rokossovsky.

  Then came the Black Summer of 1942. In a sense, Stalin's position was even more

  difficult then than it had been in 1941. His great argument in 1941 had been that a

  powerful army launching a surprise attack on a country, however strong, had an immense initial advantage. But now, in 1942, this argument no longer held good, except that

  Russia was still suffering economically from the "surprise attack". So when the black days came—first with Kerch, Kharkov and Sebastopol, and then wi
th the German

  advance on Stalingrad and the breakthrough to the Caucasus—explanations were needed.

  As we have seen, scapegoats were found: first, the Allies who had not started the Second Front, and secondly, the Army itself. What was happening was not the fault of the Party, still less of Stalin, but was due to lack of discipline in the Army, bad leadership, and so on.

  There may well be very good reasons to suppose that the post-Rostov army reforms,

  which began to work wonders, were in reality much more the work of Zhukov and

  Vassilevsky than of Stalin, and that things had come to such a pass that he had to agree to them whether he liked them or not. But the credit for them was given to Stalin. This, with his "not a step back" order, was built up into the idea that all would be well now that Stalin had taken things in hand.

  In view of Khrushchev's allegations in his "Secret Report" to the XXth Congress that Stalin was a military ignoramus, and of the comments of foreign observers that though he was polite to foreigners he was extremely rude to Russians of whatever rank, it is

  interesting to have Marshal Yeremenko's account of a Defence Committee meeting in the first week of August 1942, just before Stalingrad. Yeremenko had been in hospital,

  recovering from a leg wound, when he was summoned to the Kremlin:

  Leaving my stick in the hall, I carefully but briskly entered the study of the

  Commander-in-Chief and Head of the State Defence Committee. .. Standing at his

  desk, Joseph Vissarionovich had just finished a telephone conversation. Several

  other members of the Defence Committee were in the room.

  ... J. V. Stalin came up to me, shook hands, and closely looking at me said: "So you consider you are fit again?" "Yes, I have fully recovered," I replied.

  One of those present then said: "Looks as if his wound was still bothering him; he's limping badly." "Please don't worry," I said, "I am quite all right."

  "That's fine," said Stalin, "Let's consider that Comrade Yeremenko has fully recovered, and let's get down to business. We need you very badly."

  ... The Defence Committee was working on the measures to be taken for

  straightening things out in the Stalingrad area. The problem under discussion was the appointment of the commander to a new Front.

  Summing up the discussions, J. V. Stalin turned to me: "The situation at Stalingrad calls for urgent measures... The Defence Committee has decided to divide the

  Stalingrad Front into two distinct fronts, and to appoint you commander of one of them."

  Yeremenko accepted the post, and Stalin then told him to go to the General Staff and study there all the necessary operational and organisational details, and to return in the evening with Vassilevsky, the Chief of Staff. The final decisions would be taken then.

  Saying good-bye, Stalin then said: "Will you work out a schedule, so as to be able to leave for Stalingrad the day after tomorrow."

  Yeremenko then relates how he spent the day at the General Staff and what he learned there about the very threatening outlook in the Stalingrad area.

  In the evening I returned to the Commander-in-Chief. Here were also the Chief of

  Staff, General Vassilevsky, Major-General Ivanov, also of the General Staff, and

  General Golikov... After the usual welcome, J. V. Stalin ordered Comrade

  Vassilevsky to report on the draft decision about the new re-arrangement of the

  army groups.

  While Comrades Vassilevsky and Ivanov were spreading out the maps, J. V. Stalin

  came up to me and feeling the two gold wound stripes on my tunic, remarked: "It was quite right to introduce these wound stripes. People should know those who

  have been shedding their blood fighting for the country..."

  After Vassilevsky's clear and laconic report, there was a long discussion, in the course of which Yeremenko argued against the splitting of the Stalingrad Front in two, since the border between two fronts always tended to be vulnerable.

  Having said my piece, I stopped, waiting for observations, if any. Rather to my

  surprise, and apparently to that of the others, Stalin reacted rather nervously to my suggestion. This nervousness may well have been caused by the telephone

  conversations he had just had, in our presence, with a number of fronts... We could feel that he was being given bad news, and that they were all asking for help. The situation was, indeed, very tense. Our troops were continuing to retreat. At that moment I could not help thinking of the great responsibility for the future of our country, of the fearful burden that had been placed on the shoulders of Joseph

  Vissarionovich, who was both head of the Government and Commander-in-Chief.

  After a few minutes, Stalin said to Vasilevsky, with a touch of irritation:

  "Let us stick to our decision. Cut the Stalingrad Front in two, with the river Tsaritsa ... as the border-line."

  There followed a discussion on how the new fronts were to be named; and when

  Yeremenko again asked for permission to speak, Stalin smiled, and now said very

  calmly: "Go ahead." Yeremenko then asked that he be appointed to the command of the South-East Front, i.e. to the right flank of the two army groups at Stalingrad, since it was from this area that the main blow could be struck at the Germans.

  I added that my "soldier's heart" was more attuned to offensive than even to the most responsible defensive operations.

  All those present carefully listened to me. Having stalked up and down the room,

  Stalin then said: "Your proposal deserves serious attention; but it's a matter for the future. Our present job is to stop the Germans."

  Filling his pipe, he paused. I took advantage of this and said: "I mean the future, and I agree that now we must stop the Germans at any price."

  "You understand the position correctly," said Stalin. "That is why we decided to send you to the South-East Front, where they are advancing from Kotelnikovo to

  Stalingrad. The new front must be built up quickly and along new lines. You have

  the necessary experience; you did it with the Briansk Front. So go off, or rather fly off, to Stalingrad tomorrow... " In concluding, Stalin stressed, as he turned to me, that it was essential to reinforce discipline among the troops, and to take the most drastic measures.

  At 3 a.m. all questions were settled, and Stalin wished me military success... We all left filled with thoughts of our immense responsibility. . .

  [A. I. Yeremenko. Stalingrad (Moscow, 1959), pp. 33-39.]

  Although later, in 1963, Yeremenko joined in the fashionable game of criticising Stalin as a war leader, and made much of his "erroneous" decision to split the "Stalingrad Front"

  in two (a decision which, as we have seen, was to be reversed a few weeks later), several important points emerge from Yeremenko's 1959 description of his meeting with Stalin.

  First, that the Defence Committee was doing important team work, and that the

  "erroneous" decision about the Stalingrad Front may have been taken by others, and only endorsed by Stalin; second, that he had a good grasp of military affairs (an impression borne out by Churchill, Hopkins, Deane and many others); thirdly, that he and his team were in direct communication with the entire Front and had to take vitally important decisions every day; finally, that, despite moments of "nervousness" and "irritation", understandable in the highly critical atmosphere of August 1942, Stalin could be a good listener when his generals had anything to say. Nor does the Yeremenko story suggest that in the grim days of 1942 Stalin was either arrogant or overbearing; on the contrary, he could be both friendly and considerate. His closest associates in 1942 were, as we know, Zhukov and Vassilevsky, and it was they, in fact, who planned the Stalingrad

  counter-offensive—with Stalin's blessing.

  This was made perfectly clear in the official announcements on the Stalingrad operations; and it was not till February 1943 that new phrases like "Stalini
st strategy", the "Stalinist military school of thought" and even "the military genius of Stalin" first made their appearance in the Soviet press, and not least in the Red Star. What the military artisans of the victory of Stalingrad—men like Zhukov, Vassilevsky, Voronov and Rokossovsky—

  thought of this in private is anybody's guess. But these very first phrases in the Soviet press, soon after Stalingrad, about "Stalin's military genius" started a new process which was to lead to some curious and, in the end, some highly pernicious results.

  The destruction of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad was part of a vast military plan, the "ideal" aim of which was to carry the Red Army along a wide front all the way to the Dnieper before the spring. Long before the Germans had capitulated at Stalingrad, the Russians were moving westwards in a number of places. But German resistance in the

  Don country and east of Rostov had stiffened very considerably since the beginning of January, and the plan for closing the "Rostov Gap" had failed. The Russians did not capture Rostov until the middle of February; and by this time the German forces in the Caucasus had either entrenched themselves on the Taman Peninsula, or had slipped

  through the Rostov Gap.

  [See pp. 570 ff.]

  Much more successful for the Russians—at least until the German counter-offensive

  began—were their operations in the Upper Don and East-Ukrainian areas. On January 26, Voronezh (now a heap of ruins) was liberated by troops of General Golikov's Voronezh Front, and the first half of February was marked by a quick succession of Russian

  victories. After their liberation of Voronezh, they inflicted a major rout on the Hungarian 2nd Army at Kastornoye, west of Voronezh—where, according to the Russians, over

  100,000 Hungarians were killed or taken prisoner; German commentators do not deny

  that the Hungarians were virtually eliminated from the Eastern Front by the Kastornoye rout. Although in the south (i.e. north of the Sea of Azov) the Germans firmly held the Mius Line defending the southern part of the Donbas, the Russians were now on the