The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

  31 ♦ Zhukov in Command

  BY THE SECOND WEEK OF SEPTEMBER VON LEEB’S ARMY Group Nord was driving on Leningrad for the kill. He had moved staff headquarters up to Gatchina, and from this front-line observation post he got a fine view of the city. All the grandiose architectural ensembles built by Peter and Catherine and the later Romanovs lay spread before him like a panorama—St. Isaac’s, the Admiralty spire, the Fortress of Peter and Paul. The dive-bombing and the great fires started by the 240-mm siege guns near Tosno could be followed with clarity. Von Leeb felt victory within his grasp. The Führer seemed pleased and graciously honored him with awards and congratulations on his sixty-fifth birthday. The aging Field Marshal had every reason to believe that he was on the verge of a success which would crown his earlier achievements in breaking the Maginot Line and occupying the Sudeten. Once Leningrad had been captured, he could look forward to pleasant retirement on his East Prussian estates, basking in glory. First, of course, he would participate in the envelopment and destruction of Moscow. That should not take long. The role of Army Group Nord had been clearly spelled out. It would wheel south after capturing Leningrad and approach Moscow from the rear. With good luck the war would be ended by mid-October at the latest—a bit behind schedule, but close enough.

  Von Leeb had been concerned about the strength of the forces which he had mustered against Leningrad in mid-August. But now with the armored and air reinforcements which the Supreme Command had finally (if belatedly in his view) given him, he felt that he could accomplish his task.

  He had at his disposal about twenty divisions. They comprised the Twenty-sixth, Thirty-eighth, Fiftieth and Twenty-eighth armies and the 41st and 39th motorized corps. However, not all of these units were available for the final assault on Leningrad. Von Leeb had a long flank to the south and southeast which had to be protected.

  For the closing attack on Leningrad he was able to concentrate about eleven divisions, and he had been busily engaged in regrouping them during the first week of September. Now he had packed eight divisions, including five infantry, two Panzer and one motorized, into the narrow southwest approach to Leningrad, roughly from Ropsha to Kolpino, facing the special fortified regions which the Russians had created from Gatchina to Slutsk-Kolpino. Von Leeb had created a concentration of one division to each three miles of front. Slightly to the east he had positioned his other three divisions in the area from Yam-Izhorsk to Ladoga.

  It was not too difficult for the harassed Leningrad Command to perceive von Leeb’s intention. He proposed to smash into Leningrad from the southwest, plowing through the suburbs of Krasnoye Selo and Ligovo (Uritsk) in the direction of the Kirov factory. At the same time he hoped to break into the city from the southeast along the Leningrad-Moscow highway just beyond Izhorsk and Kolpino.

  If it was easy to see what von Leeb intended, it was considerably more difficult to thwart him. The Soviet forces facing von Leeb’s eight-division task force in the southwest were four weak divisions of the Eighth Army (backed up toward Oranienbaum), two broken divisions of the Forty-second Army, four divisions of the Fifty-fifth Army and the command reserves—two infantry divisions and a brigade of marines.

  The numerical strength was about the same on each side. But the Nazi divisions were in infinitely better condition and close to full operational strength. They included two tank divisions. The Soviets had no tank divisions. The Germans also had complete control of the air.

  Von Leeb launched his attack September 9. The Thirty-eighth Army and the 41st Motorized Corps attacked toward Krasnoye Selo after very strong air and artillery preparation. They were met by a People’s Volunteer unit, the 3rd Guards, and in a day’s heavy fighting pushed ahead a mile or two on a six-mile front. Baltic Fleet artillery joined the battle during the night and the next morning, shelling the Germans heavily and slowing them down, but by midday the Soviet lines began to crumble after von Leeb had thrown in the 1st Panzers from his 41st Motorized Corps.

  Voroshilov was in a state that fluctuated from frenzy to despair. It was not only the Krasnoye Selo front which was crumbling. The Germans had begun their terrible air attacks on the city. The Badayev warehouses had gone up in flames. The capture of Shlisselburg had sealed the ring. For practical purposes the city had been in a state of siege for ten days, since the fall of Mga cut the last rail route. To the north the Finns pressed closer and closer to the outer suburbs. Inside the city Nazi long-range bombardment had shaken morale.

  Nor was this all. The pressures upon Voroshilov and Zhdanov from Moscow had risen. Stalin’s tongue on the VC line had grown sharper and sharper. He seemed to think Voroshilov was preparing to abandon Leningrad. And worse followed.

  Voroshilov had tried to hold back the news of the fall of Mga. He thought he could recapture Mga before the Germans solidified their hold. But he had not. And Stalin had caught him out. Voroshilov had done the same with Shlisselburg. He simply could not bring himself to report its loss. But Stalin discovered what had happened and demanded explanations.

  The world of the old revolutionary warrior seemed to be collapsing about him. Nothing he did could halt the Germans—or halt them for long. He had virtually no reserves left. On the shaky Forty-second Army front he threw in the 500th Rifle Regiment at Taitsy. But it was unable to occupy its assigned positions before falling back in wild disorder under air attack, abandoning the key Sparrow Heights to the Germans and opening their way to Krasnoye Selo and the vital Pulkovo Ridge. Voroshilov rushed up from Vasilevsky Island in Leningrad a brigade of marines, the 1st Brigade, commanded by Colonel T. M. Parafilo who had seen service in the Tallinn encirclement. Voroshilov ordered them into the breach at Krasnoye Selo.

  The breach could hardly have been more dangerous. The Germans at 3 P.M., September 10, hurled at the little village of Payula two hundred tanks, including a number of flame-throwers. They burned out the concrete bunkers which the 3rd Volunteer Guards occupied.

  The Baltic Fleet warships were ordered to pour fire into the area while the marines were being brought up.1

  On the morning of the eleventh Colonel Bychevsky reported to Voroshilov at the field headquarters which the Marshal had established at Krasnoye Selo. Voroshilov seldom had a good word for Bychevsky. He had none this morning.

  “Look here, Bychevsky,” Voroshilov snarled, his pale blue eyes snapping fire, “why haven’t the marines been supplied with entrenching tools? How are they supposed to protect themselves?”

  Bychevsky knew that the marines had been rushed to the front. He had no idea why they had no trench shovels. Maybe they had never been issued any. Maybe the shovels had been supplied by the factory without carrying cases. He admitted to Voroshilov he just didn’t know what had happened.

  “You haven’t any consideration for the troops,” Voroshilov barked. “I’ll give you half an hour. I don’t care where you get them but get them and personally deliver them to the brigade.”

  Voroshilov was in no mood to be argued with. Bychevsky got the shovels. By the time he had them the marines were assembled for attack. They had taken up positions in the thin birch thickets, and Bychevsky could hardly see their long black cloaks beyond the underbrush. No Soviet outfit was more feared by the Nazi troops than the “black death"—the Red marines in their black wool capes. Around the marines roared the battle. The dust of exploding shells filled the air. High in the sky a dogfight was in progress between Nazi and Soviet fighters.

  In front of the marines Bychevsky saw Voroshilov, his solid figure firmly planted. The wind carried Voroshilov’s words down the ranks as the old commander called on them to fight for the Motherland, for the Party, for their sailor’s honor. Many of the young sailors had thrown off their steel helmets. They stood, listening to Voroshilov, their blond hair tousled in the wind, their faces fresh, their chins grim. They stood quietly, concentrating on Voroshilov’s words.

  For a moment Voroshilov stood silently before them.

  Then he said simply, “Let’s go.”

&nbs
p; The youngsters began to move, slowly and steadily toward the German positions.

  They shouted a quick “Hurrah!” Then they hurried on, overtaking the sixty-year-old Marshal.

  Forward the troops went, Voroshilov at their head. They moved over the highway and drove the Nazis out of the village of Koltselevo. Again and again the Nazis counterattacked. Ten times the marines beat them off. But there were no reserves behind them. In the end they had to fall back. Within hours Krasnoye Selo was lost.

  Word of Voroshilov’s action spread quickly over the front by the soldiers’ telegraph. Within a day or so the 109th Division heard it. General Dukhanov learned of it the next day. It entered into the legend of the Leningrad siege. Not everyone thought it just an heroic act by the aging commander. Not a few believed that Voroshilov, in despair at halting the Germans, had determined to die rather than suffer the disgrace of defeat— or the fateful penalty which Stalin might mete out to him.

  Whatever the old commander’s motivation, September 11 had not come to an end before he was removed as Leningrad’s defense chief. The indictment: passivity in the face of the enemy.

  Did Voroshilov know that he was being relieved of command when he marched out at the head of the black-clad marines? Perhaps not. But he may have had a premonition.

  In his final report of September 11 to the Supreme Command, Voroshilov had replied to the indictment of failure to halt the Germans, of failure to grasp the initiative. The reasons, he felt, were clear. As early as August 13 he had reported to Moscow: “All our reserves, including aerodrome battalions and the headquarters security detachment, have been sent into action.” And on August 27 he had said again: “Almost all our troops are committed to battle.”

  “For two months,” Voroshilov wrote,

  all our strength has been directed toward creating a strong shock group with which to seize the initiative from our enemy and go over to the offensive. It seemed that this would be possible through the formation of our four divisions of People’s Volunteers, the rifle division of the NKVD and four infantry divisions sent from the Stavka.

  Regrettably these divisions, formed at different times, completely untrained and weakly armed with automatic weapons, had of necessity to be thrown into the most threatened parts of the front.

  This was in the second half of July at the time of the enemy’s simultaneous blows at Petrozavodsk, Olonets and Ivanovskoye.

  In the middle of August this was repeated on a bigger scale when the enemy simultaneously with the breaking of our front in the Novgorod direction cut off the Eighth Army in Estonia and went on the offensive in the Gatchina (Krasnogvardeisk) direction and on the Karelian isthmus.

  In these conditions to talk of mounting a counteroffensive was impossible. The best Voroshilov had been able to do was to carry out local counterattacks.

  Voroshilov’s presentation was accurate. It was supported by Zhdanov and Secretary Kuznetsov. But it was not accepted by Stalin.

  No full account of what happened on the night of September 11-12 has been made public. But it is probable that the culminating point in the indictment of Voroshilov was his failure to admit the loss of Shlisselburg.

  Some time on the twelfth—possibly in the early morning hours, as this was Stalin’s usual time for making important decisions—the Supreme Command in Moscow decided to send Marshal Zhukov into Leningrad.2

  A day was spent by Zhukov in collecting a staff. One member was Army General Ivan I. Fedyuninsky, a first-class officer who had been on the western Ukrainian frontier commanding the 15th Rifle Corps when the war started. He had fought through the desperate summer campaigns in south and central Russia. He had just been called in by Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky, Deputy Chief of Staff, to take over the Thirty-second Army which was being formed for the reserve front. Hardly had he gotten to Vyazma to join the Thirty-second Army staff than he was summoned to Moscow. He flew back on September 12 and was instructed to be ready to go to Leningrad in the morning.

  On the Li-2 transport which lifted off Moscow’s Vnukovo airport early on the morning of September 13 with three fighters to protect it from German attack en route to Leningrad there were four generals: Zhukov, the toughest troubleshooter in the Red Army, the man who had been Chief of Staff at the war’s outbreak, who had been thrown in at Yelnya on the Western Front when the going got rough and who was now facing the most difficult assignment in his career; General M. S. Khozin, a solid man of no special brilliance, who was to be Chief of Staff; General P. I. Kokorev; and Fedyuninsky.

  Khozin knew Leningrad intimately. He had commanded the Leningrad Military District until the eve of the winter war with Finland, when he was transferred to the Ukraine. He not only knew Leningrad but was well acquainted with the Karelian isthmus. He was a bear of a man with a figure which one of his associates described as monumental. He moved slowly and spoke with great precision.

  What Fedyuninsky was to do in Leningrad was not very clear—either to him or, apparently, to Zhukov.

  “For the time being,” Zhukov said, “you’ll be my deputy. Then well see.”

  The flight to Leningrad was uneventful. Fedyuninsky looked about with interest as their cars sped from the airport to Smolny. The city seemed lovely. The weather was still sunny and warm. It was as though summer did not wish to leave the northern capital. But war’s grip was easy to see. There were not many people in the great squares or avenues. Fedyuninsky noticed that the golden dome of St. Isaac’s had been camouflaged a dirty gray. Under the red and orange leaves of the trees in the parks there were firing points and AA guns. Great silver balloons, which went up each evening at dusk to protect the city against low-flying German planes, nested on the ground in squares and open places. The sun sparkled on the gray waters of the Neva, and Fedyuninsky thought how natural it was for the Lenin-graders to love their beautiful city with such passion. He was surprised at the camouflage which had transformed Smolny. Under its daubing of paint and huge nets it looked like a park.3

  Zhukov and his aides found Voroshilov, Zhdanov and Party Secretary Kuznetsov awaiting them at Smolny. The ceremonies were curt. After Zhukov had signed for the operational charts he went to the VC telephone and called Moscow. Marshal Vasilevsky was at the Moscow end of the line. Zhukov said, “I have taken over command. Report to the High Command that I propose to proceed more actively than my predecessor.” That was all. Voroshilov did not talk to Moscow. He left the room without a word.

  Voroshilov called to his office his chief commanders—Generals A. A. Novikov, V. P. Sviridov, N. A. Bolotnikov, P. P. Yevstigneyev, and Colonels I. N. Kovalev and Bychevsky. He gloomily shook each man’s hand.

  “Farewell, comrades,” he said. “They have called me to headquarters. . . .” Voroshilov paused and then continued: “Well, I’m old and it has to be! This isn’t the Civil War—it has to be fought in another way. . . . But don’t doubt for a minute that we are going to smash those Fascist bastards right here. . . . Their tongues are already hanging out for our city, but they will choke on their own blood.”

  Within the hour Voroshilov and most of the staff which had been with him since he took over the Northwest Front had flown off to Moscow.

  Voroshilov, almost certainly, expected to be shot on his arrival in Moscow. This was the fate which Stalin meted out to generals who were relieved of command. That this was his expectation is strongly hinted by Dmitri V. Pavlov, the State Defense Committee’s supply representative in Leningrad. In a tribute which emphasizes Voroshilov’s personal bravery and the risk to which he subjected his life, Pavlov stresses the shock of Voroshilov’s removal and the fact that Voroshilov did not know—nor did anyone—that he would ever again step foot in Leningrad.

  Pavlov absolves Voroshilov of responsibility for the disasters which befell Leningrad from July to September. The fault lies elsewhere, he feels, and he urges the “deepest study and enlightenment” of this phase of the war.4

  One villain he singles out—as does almost every Soviet writer—the criminally in
ept and vicious “police” general, G. I. Kulik. Kulik had been put in command of the Fifty-fourth Army with orders to prevent the breakthrough to Mga and, then, to recapture Mga. He failed miserably. In part, the fault was sheer military illiteracy. In part, it was tardiness, bureaucracy, dilatory movement. Kulik, in Pavlov’s opinion (and that of many other commentators), could have saved the day. He lost it. But the legend of the “savior army,” the Fifty-fourth, lived on for weeks in Leningrad. The besieged residents expected again and again that the Fifty-fourth Army would drive through the German lines and free them. It never did. Kulik was removed from command of the Fifty-fourth in late September. But the damage had been done.