The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

  THE 900 DAYS

  The Siege of Leningrad

  Harrison E. Salisbury

  THE 900 DAYS

  The Siege of Leningrad

  NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR

  Copyright © 1969 by Harrison E. Salisbury

  New introduction copyright © 1985 by Harrison E. Salisbury

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

  a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written

  permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

  Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is

  available from the Library of Congress.

  Maps by Daniel Brownstein and Andrew Sabbatini of The New York Times

  Portions of this book first appeared in

  The Reader’s Digest in somewhat different form.

  The lines on each of the six part-title pages in this book

  were drawn from a poem by Yuri Voronov, “Blockade Jottings.”

  They were translated by Harrison E. Salisbury.

  Second Da Capo Press edition 2003

  ISBN 0-306-81298-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-306-81298-9

  eBook ISBN: 9780786730247

  This Da Capo Press paperback edition of The 900 Days is an

  unabridged replication of the edition published in New York in

  1969, here supplemented with a new introduction and corrections

  by the author, by arrangement with whom it is reprinted.

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  To the people of Leningrad

  Introduction

  EACH PASSING YEAR DEEPENS OUR REALIZATION OF THE triumph of man’s spirit marked by the survival of the great city of Leningrad under the 900-day siege imposed by Hitler’s legions in World War II.

  Nothing can diminish the achievement of the men and women who fought on despite hunger, cold, disease, bombs, shells, lack of heat or transportation in a city that seemed given over to death. The story of those days is an epic which will stir human hearts as long as mankind exists on earth.

  This narrative has itself come to play a role in the Leningrad drama. Published on the 25th anniversary of the lifting of the siege, it has been printed in translation in almost every country around the world. It has been hailed in America, in Europe, and in Asia for its celebration of the extraordinary heroism of the people of Leningrad, whose conduct shines like a beacon in a world which is often murky and not precisely heroic.

  Only in one great country has The 900 Days not been published. That country is the Soviet Union. True, a Russian-language paperback edition was published —but in the United States. True, there are few citizens of Leningrad who are not aware of The 900 Days and tens of thousands of them have read its words and treasure them. Nowhere has The 900 Days been read more avidly and with deeper insight and appreciation than in Leningrad. But it has not been published there. Instead it was instantly attacked by the official Soviet propaganda agencies. Pravda published a full-page attack, charging that The 900 Days besmirched the heroism of Leningrad and demeaned the role of the Communist Party in the city’s defense. It was, Pravda declared, one more volley in America’s cold-war attack on the Soviet. The name of the venerable Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov was signed to these words—an ironic touch since Zhukov himself had been one of the most savage critics of the blunders and misjudgments (of Stalin and the Party) which led to Leningrad being subjected to the terrible siege.

  The drumfire of fatuous polemics was kept on for several years in article after article. In fact, with the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II this theme reappeared in several Soviet commentaries on American “distortions” and “disinformation” about the war on the Eastern Front in World War II. For many years the author was unable to obtain a visa to return to the Soviet Union, and Leningrad specifically. He was for practical purposes declared “persona non grata.”

  This, as Pravda itself would say, “was not accidental.” Although the great bulk of information in The 900 Days is drawn directly from Soviet sources, supplemented by the author’s personal observations of Leningrad when he went there in the days of the lifting of the siege and from interviews of survivors, the valuable and often surprisingly frank reminiscences of military figures published in Moscow and Leningrad at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s quickly dried up.

  That source of accurate and revealing information about the siege was a byproduct of the relative liberalism of the regime of Nikita S. Khrushchev. When he was supplanted in 1964 by Leonid Brezhnev, it halted. The lid was hammered down. From that day forward the revelations about what happened at Leningrad were suppressed. The story was tidied up. No more blunders. No more intrigue. No more stupidity by Stalin and his generals. Death tolls and suffering were soft-pedaled. In fact, for a long time nothing of consequence was published about Leningrad. Leningrad writers who wanted to write about the heroic event found endless difficulties with their own literary censors. Several Leningraders who assisted with materials for The 900 Days encountered special handicaps. One elderly historian found his own work held up until a rival writer published a potboiler on the same subject. A prescription for medicines to treat his heart condition was blocked until he was near death.

  Copies of The 900 Days sent to residents in Leningrad who helped with the book were seized by customs. American tourists who brought it in their baggage found it again and again confiscated. When I congratulated a young Soviet diplomat who proudly said he possessed a copy, I asked him how he got it. “Oh,” he said, “I have a friend in customs.” One Leningrader who had contributed time and material to The 900 Days first saw the finished book in the hands of an American tourist walking down Nevsky Prospekt. He shyly asked if he could look at the book and then asked the tourist if he would part with it. Unfortunately the tourist, not understanding what was at stake, declined to part with it even when the elderly Leningrad man said: Tm in that book.”

  After all these years no work like The 900 Days has been published in Leningrad, There was a flurry of reminiscences, some very touching, a fine collection of interviews of individuals, some sensitive poetry —but the best historical and personal accounts came out twenty-five years ago and are drawn on in this volume.

  Leningrad did not fit the propaganda picture of the war. Its epic was sui generis. The people played more of a role than the Party (this was one of the major criticisms of The 900 Days in Moscow). It suffered not only from poor planning and conflicts among high military and party figures but also from Stalin’s prejudice against or even fear of Leningrad. Historically, Stalin seems to have felt that because Leningrad (under the name of Petrograd) gave birth to the 1917 Revolution, the city might ultimately rise against him. In a sense, this reflected an historic prejudice of Moscow against the new capital which Peter the Great built to be his “window on the west.”

  Nor has Moscow’s antagonism toward Leningrad declined with the death of Stalin, the fall of Khrushchev, and a succession of lesser Soviet leaders. There is considerable evidence that it exists to this time. During the regime of Politburo member G. V. Romanov as Party Secretary of Leningrad, extraordinary host
ility toward the survivors of the 900 Days began to be manifest. It was widely believed in Leningrad that Romanov hoped to remove from the city its very large number of invalids, disabled, and prematurely retired citizens —the victims and survivors of the blockade. They were regarded as an economic drag on the city, unable to take their places at the work benches and on the assembly lines—costing the city heavily, moreover, in medical expenses and pensions.

  At the same time hundreds of millions of rubles were spent in restoration and rehabilitation operations of the great palaces and structures destroyed by the Germans. None of these restorations was more impressive than the extraordinary work carried out at Peterhof. This magnificent palace and its grounds had been almost totally demolished. The wrecked palace was still burning when the writer first saw it in the early days of February, 1944. Today it is hard to believe that it had ever been touched by Nazi hands. Not only has the façade been put back just as it was in the heyday of the Czarist regime, but the gutted interior has been done over as nearly as possible, even down to the bric-a-brac. Many Americans and Russians who saw the burning palace in 1944 felt it should be left in ruins as a monument to Nazi brutality.

  Peterhof is not alone. Work still goes forward in a program which obviously has as its goal the restoration of Leningrad to its past beauty and glory—but this time only as a kind of living museum. The important governmental, party, artistic, and scientific functions have for the most part (except for the Palace and Hermitage collections) long since been transferred to Moscow. Even the famous Kirov ballet has become kind of a feeder station for the Bolshoi in Moscow.

  Historically speaking, no really new revelations have been turned up about Leningrad and the siege. Details have slipped out here and there, but nothing of even secondary consequence. The story as told here is complete. Of course, the details of human suffering and sacrifice can never be collected in toto. Many Leningrad survivors have come forward with their stories since the original publication of The 900 Days. Some day there may be a revised edition which will take account of these.

  There has been one major development. The great Piskarevsky cemetery, with its hundreds of thousands of Leningraders buried in the mass grave, has become a place of genuine national popular pilgrimage. And a new popular custom has come into being. Young couples with their wedding parties come straight from the marriage “palaces” in their bridal gowns and formal dress to lay wreaths in tribute to the dead. Thus, the living generation pays tribute to the dead. And so the generations go on. Leningrad and the siege will not be forgotten. As Olga Berggolts cautioned, “Let no one forget; let nothing be forgotten.” And nothing will. The stones of Piskarevsky make that certain and, in the words of one man born in Leningrad and a survivor of the siege: “Your book is destined to be a monument to our dead, more fine and durable than the stone statues in Piskarevsky Cemetery” That is a tribute which to this author is finer than any prize in the world.

  HARRISON E. SALISBURY

  New York City

  April, 1985

  Maps

  Western U.S.S.R. & Eastern Europe

  The City of Leningrad

  Leningrad and Environs

  A section of photographs follows

  Principal Personages

  AKHMATOVA, ANNA: Leningrad poetess, victim of oppression after World War II.

  BERGGOLTS, OLGA: Leningrad poetess and vivid diarist, survivor of the blockade.

  BERIA, LAVRENTI P.: Stalin’s chief of secret police.

  BUDYONNY, MARSHAL SEMYON: Early Red Army cavalry commander, named to head “Reserve Army” the night the Nazis attacked Russia.

  BYCHEVSKY, COLONEL B. V.: Chief of Army Engineers in Leningrad.

  DUKHANOV, GENERAL MIKHAIL: Former Leningrad staff commander, chief of Sixty-seventh Army.

  FEDYUNINSKY, MARSHAL IVAN I.: Commander of important Leningrad front operations.

  GOVOROV, MARSHAL LEONID: Artillery specialist and commander of Leningrad front from April, 1942.

  INBER, VERA: Moscow writer who spent the blockade in Leningrad, diarist,.

  KETLINSKAYA, VERA: Leningrad writer, close friend of Olga Berggolts.

  KOCHETOV, VSEVOLOD: Cub reporter on Leningradskaya Pravda at start of war, diarist.

  KUZNETSOV, ALEKSEI A.: Party Secretary in Leningrad, No. 2 to Leningrad’s Party boss, Andrei A. Zhdanov.

  KUZNETSOV, GENERAL F. I.: Commander of Special Baltic Military District (Northwest Front) at start of war.

  KUZNETSOV, Admiral N. G.: Naval Commissar at start of war, prolific writer of memoirs.

  LUKNITSKY, PAVEL: Leningrad correspondent of Tass news agency, diarist.

  MALENKOV, Georgi M.: Member of Communist Party Secretariat, alternate member of Politburo, bitter rival of Leningrad Party leader Andrei A. Zhdanov.

  MERETSKOV, MARSHAL KIRILL A.: Leading commander on Leningrad front.

  MIKHAILOVSKY, NIKOLAI: War correspondent attachéd to Baltic Fleet.

  MOLOTOV, VYACHESLAV M.: Member of Politburo, close associate of Stalin.

  PANTELEYEV, L. (ALEXEI) : Resident of Leningrad, writer, diarist.

  PANTELEYEV, ADMIRAL YURI A.: Chief of Staff of Baltic Fleet.

  PAVLOV, DMITRI V.: Leningrad food chief, chronicler of the blockade.

  POPKOV, PETER S.: Mayor of Leningrad, associate of Zhdanov.

  ROZEN, ALEKSANDR: Writer, diarist.

  SAYANOV, VISSARION: Leningrad writer, diarist.

  SHTEIN, Aleksandr: Leningrad playwright, diarist.

  STALIN, Iosif: Soviet dictator.

  TARASENKOV, A. K.: Soviet war correspondent, Leningrad diarist.

  TIMOSHENKO, MARSHAL SEMYON K.: Soviet Defense Commissar at war’s start.

  TRIBUTS, ADMIRAL VLADIMIR F.: Commander of Baltic Fleet.

  VISHNEVSKY, VSEVOLOD: Naval correspondent, playwright, diarist.

  VORONOV, MARSHAL NIKOLAI N.: Soviet chief of artillery, adviser on Leningrad front.

  VOROSHILOV, MARSHAL KLIMENT: Associate of Stalin’s, commander of the Leningrad front until September u, 1941.

  ZHDANOV, ANDREI A.: Party Secretary and boss of Leningrad, leading candidate to succeed Stalin.

  ZHUKOV, MARSHAL GEORGI K.: Leading Soviet commander, in chargé of Leningrad front September 12-October 7, 1941.

  Let no one forget;

  Let nothing be forgotten.

  —OLGA BERGGOLTS

  PART I

  The Night Without End

  Let this tale live forever

  In our hearts, forever heard!

  Let its memory be our conscience.

  1 ♦ The White Nights

  COLD AND WIND, COLD AND WIND—THIS WAS SPRING 1941 in Leningrad. There had been snow as late as May Day, and the sodden demonstrators slogged past the Winter Palace in wet boots and soaking coats. The cold persisted into June, and it seemed that the Baltic fogs would never lift. Not that this was unusual. Peter the Great did not found his brooding capital on the Neva marshes with any concern for climate or comfort in mind.

  The weather began to change with thunderstorms on Thursday, June 19, and again the next day. Finally on the summer solstice, June 21, the sun broke through and sudden bright blue skies blessed the city. Leningrad lived by Pushkin’s aphorism that “our northern summer is a caricature of a southern winter,” and the solstice by tradition was a special day—the year’s longest day, a day which had no end, the whitest of “white nights,” when midnight is less than dusk and night never falls.

  The shift in the winds, the soft warmth of the sun, the alchemy which transformed the Neva from gray to sparkling blue, the flowering of the limes, the forsythia, the jasmine, brought a holiday mood to the city. In the cream and yellow eighteenth-century buildings of the old university, examinations were finished on the twenty-first of June and classes dismissed. Youngsters in pressed blue suits and girls in white voile flowed across the Palace Bridge from the University Embankment for their gulyaniye, the promenade of the White Nights, the singing to bayans and guitars, the rendezvous
at cafés along the Nevsky Prospekt, the meetings at the Café Ice Cream at eleven, at the Green Frog at midnight, at the corner by Elise-yev’s store at 1 A.M. All evening long there were lines outside the Astoria Hotel and the Europa. Within youngsters fox-trotted to the current hit, “We’ll Meet Again in Lvov, My Love and I,” a song which Eddie Rozner and his Metropole Hotel Jazz Band had made popular.

  It had been an uncertain spring in Leningrad—not only because of the weather. Precarious peace prevailed in the Soviet Union, but with World War II deep into its second year who could say how long the peace might last? The government assured Leningrad (and the rest of Russia) that the Nazi-Soviet pact, signed on the war’s eve in August, 1939, would guarantee the country against attack. At the meetings of Party cells in the Leningrad factories Communist propagandists stressed again and again that under the treaty each nation pledged itself to carry out no aggression against the other. Any suggestion to the contrary, they hinted, was almost tantamount to treason. Pravda editorials hailed the unprecedented era of collaboration in which Russia shipped wheat and oil to the Third Reich in exchange for machinery (and war materials). But the men and women of Leningrad still worried. They harbored a gnawing distrust of the Nazis. Nothing in the course of the war had indicated they could put real confidence in the pledges of Adolf Hitler, no matter what Stalin said. After Poland had been partitioned between Germany and Russia in the autumn of 1939 they had watched the Nazi Panzers quickly overrun Denmark, Norway and France in 1940, and they had been stunned by the savage blitz of the Luftwaffe on England. These demonstrations of Nazi power brought consternation to ordinary Russians.

  What made the spring of 1941 more nervous for Leningrad was the new campaign of the Wehrmacht—the quick, successful war against Yugoslavia, the swift conquest of Greece, the occupation of Crete, the threat to the Suez by Rommel’s fast-moving desert forces.