The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

  Meretskov’s first task was to restore order and confidence. He began to call in Yakovlev’s surviving commanders. Among them was General Degtyarev, Yakovlev’s artillery chief, worn and dirty, just in from Tikhvin, where he stayed to the last, trying to get supplies out. Degtyarev was worried. He knew that Meretskov was stern and demanding. He did not relish having to go before the new commander in chief directly from fallen Tikhvin, for whose loss he regarded himself as guilty. Meretskov froze him with a long, searching look. The General was a heavy-set man of forty, with thick lips and cold gray eyes which narrowed as he gazed at Degtyarev.

  “I want to ask you,” Meretskov said, “why it was that during the retreat your artillery was not able to carry out its assignments.”

  Degtyarev’s heart sank. He did not know whether Meretskov was aware that he was among the many Red Army officers who had been purged in 1938 and “rehabilitated” on the eve of World War II. But he recognized the familiar terms in which guilt was to be assigned. He braced his shoulders and said, “I am prepared to take the responsibility for the failures which we suffered at Tikhvin.”

  What Degtyarev meant, in the language of the Red Army, was that he was prepared to be shot. He stood silently. Meretskov got up, emerged from behind his desk and began to pace the room. He stared long and hard at Degtyarev. Then he sat down, picked up a pencil, put it down and said, “It is good that you are ready to take the responsibility. But the chief thing is not that. It is how we go on from here, in order not to repeat our mistakes.”

  Degtyarev could breathe again. He was not going before the firing squad.

  The task ahead would not be easy. Already the Germans were turning north toward Volkhov. They were within a few miles of Volkhovstroi, site of the big power station serving the Leningrad region, a monument of the Revolution. It had been completed in 1926, the first unit in Lenin’s program for the electrification of Russia.

  The loss of Volkhov would put the seal to Leningrad’s fate—if Tikhvin had not done so.

  Volkhov was defended by the Fifty-fourth Army, which, since he had traded jobs wth General Khozin on October 26, was commanded by General Ivan Fedyuninsky, an energetic and able officer. With the fall of Tikhvin he had asked Leningrad for reinforcements and had been given one division— the 3rd Guards.

  “We’ve nothing more to give you,” Khozin said, “now or in the future.”

  As Fedyuninsky watched his right flank where the remnants of the Fourth Army, under Chief of Staff General Lyapin, were falling back, his concern mounted. Lyapin was, in Fedyuninsky’s view, indecisive and unsound. He had set up his rear bases so far from the front that he was unable to maintain his supply lines.

  Fedyuninsky sent a telegram to Supreme Headquarters November 10 asking that the remaining Fourth Army units under Lyapin’s command be turned over to him. He added: “If this can still be done today, then the situation may be saved. If it is done tomorrow, then it will be too late. Volkhov will fall.”

  Fedyuninsky was directing his army from a command post in the forest, located in a dugout so small that it could accommodate no more than four or five persons at one time. As he awaited an answer to his telegram, Dmitri V. Pavlov, the Leningrad food chief, arrived with Captain V. S. Cherokov, commander of the Ladoga fleet.

  Pavlov went right to the point.

  “What do you think?” he risked. “Can we expect to hold Volkhov or should we begin to evacuate the stores? I want a frank answer.”

  Fedyuninsky told them about his telegram. As they sat there, he was called to the telegraph apparatus. A message in the clear was coming in. His request was granted. He was to take over the remaining Fourth Army troops, and the defense of Volkhov was placed on his shoulders. A confirming telegram came in late on the evening of November 11. The transfer was to take place at 6 A.M. the next day.

  Fedyuninsky, Pavlov and Cherokov immediately started for the village of Plekhanovo, where General Lyapin had his headquarters. It was a big, peaceful settlement. Smoke was coming out of the chimneys and women were drawing water from the village well. A red dog came barking out of a barn. They spotted the headquarters hut by the telephone wires and an automobile which stood outside, carefully camouflaged with cut fir branches.

  “Where is General Lyapin?” Fedyuninsky asked the duty officer.

  “He is resting and ordered that he not be disturbed,” the officer replied.

  “Wake him up!” Fedyuninsky ordered. In due course General Lyapin appeared. He had taken his time about dressing. Fedyuninsky told him of the change of command. “By tonight I suggest that you get up to the front,” he added.

  Fedyuninsky’s next step was to obtain permission to destroy the Volkhov Hydroelectric Plant, if necessary, to keep it from falling into German hands. He got the authorization November 12. Then he called in Major General Chekin of the engineering corps and ordered him to prepare the plant for destruction. Most of the power machinery had already been evacuated. The last shipment had gone out on November 5. Of ten turbines only two small ones remained—mostly to supply the little city of Volkhovstroi and the military command. Only twenty-six power station workers, headed by Director I. F. Zhemchuzhnikov, were still on hand. They had orders that if the Germans broke through they were to drain off the oil and run the turbines on dry bearings, destroying them. A detachment of sappers under the personal direction of Major General Chekin placed explosive chargés under the power plant. General Chekin had orders not to detonate the chargés without personal word from General Fedyuninsky. Fedyuninsky was determined that destruction would be carried out only as a last resort because of the historical association of the plant with Lenin and the Revolution.

  The Germans were already within a few miles of the station. But Fedyuninsky thought he could save it. All of his forces had been categorically ordered not to retreat. The order was issued by Fedyuninsky and countersigned by his Military Council member V. A. Sychev and by G. Kh. Bumagin, a Leningrad Party secretary. Word was taken to each unit by political agitators and commissars. It meant one thing: any soldier or officer who retreated would be subject to summary court-martial and execution.

  Fedyuninsky was dead serious. The 310th Infantry Division was the last unit holding the Germans back from the Volkhov station. Colonel Zamirov-sky, an old friend from service together in the Far East, telephoned. The Germans were attacking his command post. What should he do? Obviously he expected Fedyuninsky to permit him to retreat. Fedyuninsky said, “Go on righting. If you can’t hold the enemy at a distance, then hold on in the command post.”

  “Yes, sir,” Zamirovsky replied. Two hours later he called again. He had driven the Germans back half a mile.

  “Good,” Fedyuninsky said. “If you drive him back half a mile every two hours, your command post will be secure by dark. Good luck.”

  Fedyuninsky’s hopes rose. But he suffered a blow from an unexpected quarter—a blinding toothache. He chewed tobacco. He put a hot water bottle on his cheek. He rinsed his mouth with vodka. Nothing helped. And there was no dentist at hand. Finally he called in a woman military doctor.

  “Which tooth is it?” she asked. “You have three close together on the right side.”

  “How do I know?” Fedyuninsky wailed. “You can see how my cheek is swollen. Take them all out.”

  The woman shrugged, got out her instruments and yanked the three teeth. Fedyuninsky went back to the task of trying to save Volkhov.

  November those in chargé of Leningrad’s fate came to remember as the most alarming of many alarming months. Each new communiqué of the Soviet Information Bureau was more depressing than the last. The Battle of Moscow raged on. No one knew whether the Soviet capital would hold out. And no one knew whether the second iron collar would remain around Leningrad’s choking neck. Indeed, there were even more urgent fears. Would the Germans press on, sweep around the eastern shores of Ladoga, make contact with the Finns and drive east to Vologda, the junction point northeast of Moscow? Might not Moscow soon find itsel
f cut off, just as Leningrad was? Such a possibility could not be excluded.

  In this critical situation Mikhail I. Kalinin, the President of the Soviet Union, himself a Leningrader, an old Leningrad worker, an old Putilov worker, an ancient and respected figure—one of the few in the government —wrote a personal letter to the State Defense Committee, that is, to Stalin. He said:

  The difficulty and danger of the Leningrad situation have obviously increased. It seems essential to me that we must seek out and establish reliable routes for supplying Leningrad in winter conditions—by sledge, automobile and plane. The Germans obviously are driving for a distant goal, aiming for Vologda in order to cut us off from possible connections with America.

  Kalinin proposed that a member of the State Defense Committee or some equally responsible figure work out practical measures to thwart the German objective.

  Stalin, for once, was not deaf to a proposal by Kalinin.

  “Your observations regarding Leningrad and Vologda,” he replied, “are perfectly correct and timely. We will take all essential steps.”

  A special airlift was ordered on November 16 to bring not less than 200 tons of high-calorie foods daily into Leningrad, including 135 tons of concentrated cereals and soup, 20 tons of sausage and canned pork, 10 tons of dried milk and egg powder, 15 tons of butter and 20 tons of fats. The air force was ordered to provide 24 heavy transports and 10 heavy bombers to fly the food in. It was far from enough to save the city, and the quotas were seldom met. But it was a help.2

  At Stalin’s call the Supreme Command ordered an immediate offensive to relieve the pressure on Volkhov and free Tikhvin. What would be the result was far from clear. Meantime, Leningrad stood at the brink of catastrophe.

  Party Secretary Zhdanov summoned the Leningrad Military Council to his Smolny office to explore what aid could be given the forthcoming operations. Lieutenant General M. S. Khozin, the front commander, was absent. He was spending almost all his time with the Fifty-second, Fourth and Fifty-fourth armies as they prepared their plans.

  Zhdanov seemed very, very tired to Colonel Bychevsky, the chief of engineers. Zhdanov’s asthma was much worse. His breath came in sharp, uneven gulps. His heavy face was puffed with fatigue and only his dark eyes glowed. He took a long Russian cigarette, creased its cardboard tube, lighted it, blew a ring of smoke and said, “The situation of Leningrad is very serious, and if we do not take steps, it will become critical. We must think of every way in which we can help the troops on the Volkhov front.”

  The discussion turned to the possibility of strengthening the Red Army foothold south of the Neva River at Nevskaya Dubrovka. Enormous efforts had gone into maintaining this position. The last light tanks in the Leningrad reserve had been put across the river the night before. Eight already had been destroyed by the Nazis, and the remaining six had been dug in as stationary firing points.

  “To talk about an offensive from the place (Tonnes in such conditions borders on the senseless,” the front’s armored commander, General N. A. Bolotnikov, observed. “If you want to help the Fifty-fourth Army, then you need heavy tanks. Without them the infantry can do nothing. You can ask Bychevsky about trying to put KV tanks across. He hasn’t any pontoons, and there is ice over almost the entire Neva.”

  Party Secretary Kuznetsov interjected nervously: “Are you proposing that we give up the place d’armes to the Germans?” Kuznetsov looked even more tired than Zhdanov. His face was hatchet-thin, his crooked nose pencil-sharp, his eyes fever-bright.

  The discussion underlined the precariousness of Leningrad’s position. To move tanks across the ice Bychevsky needed enormous quantities of wire netting. He thought he might find it somewhere in the city. But pontoons had to be produced by a factory. He asked Zhdanov to approve 5,000 kilowatts from the city power stations to power the machines. Zhdanov pulled a battered notebook from his pocket. “I can’t give you 5,000,” he said. “Maybe I can get 3,000.” Bychevsky sighed so loudly Zhdanov raised his eyebrows. Bychevsky said his pontoon men were on a rear-echelon ration of 300 grams of bread a day. They didn’t have the strength to carry on. Zhdanov promised to boost their ration to front-line levels, 500 grams a day, for the duration of the effort.

  The strain was beginning to tell on Zhdanov and the other leaders as well. These men, civilian and military commanders alike, worked normally eighteen, twenty or twenty-two hours a day. Most of them snatched a few moments’ sleep, head down on a desk, or a cat nap on a couch in the office. They ate a little better than the general population. Zhdanov and his associates, like the front commanders, received a military ration: a pound or more of bread a day plus a bowl of meat or fish soup and possibly a little cereal or kasha. They had a lump or two of sugar to suck with their tea. They lost weight on this diet, but did not become emaciated, and none of the principal commanders or Party chiefs fell victim to dystrophy. But their physical strength was exhausted, their nerves were frayed, and most of them suffered permanent damage to their hearts and circulatory systems.

  Zhdanov, more than some of the others, showed visible signs of fatigue, exhaustion and nervous debilitation. One November day he went to the front for a firsthand look at winter fighting conditions. He saw through the telescopic observation lenses that the Nazi troops around Shlisselburg had white winter camouflage coats and skis. The Red Army men were still wearing dark greatcoats and cotton-padded jackets. They had no skis.

  Back at Smolny he summoned Lieutenant General Lagunov, chief of supply services, and asked why the Soviet troops were not yet equipped for winter. Lagunov said orders for winter camouflage capes had been given tardily, and they would not be ready for five or six days. There were few skis in the army warehouse. There were skis in the hands of civilian sports clubs, but it would take time to assemble them.

  Lagunov was one of Zhdanov’s best friends, an intelligent, precise, honest officer. But Zhdanov turned on him in towering rage. He chargéd Lagunov with lethargy and carelessness.

  “I give you three days!” he shouted. “If in that time you haven’t gotten the skis and capes—remember we are in a besieged fortress and the Defense Act is strictly applied to all violators.”

  In a word, Lagunov was to get the skis and capes within seventy-two hours or be shot. Fortunately, he fulfilled the order.

  On November 24 the Supreme Command issued its directive calling for coordinated blows by three armies—the Fifty-fourth, the Fourth and the Fifty-second. The Fourth was to act first, followed by the Fifty-second on December 1 and the Fifty-fourth on December 3.

  General Meretskov met with his Military Council on November 30. His face was ashen with fatigue. The VC high-security telephone from Moscow rang. Meretskov answered. “The Kremlin is calling,” the operator said. General Degtyarev and his colleagues sat silently, listening and watching. Obviously a member of the State Defense Committee was talking. By Meretskov’s answers it was apparent he was speaking of the terrible situation in Leningrad.

  “I very well understand the situation of the defenders of Leningrad,” they heard Meretskov say. “But it is not so easy for us either. At Tikhvin a fresh division of Germans has appeared, the 61st Infantry. The enemy still has a large superiority in strength.”

  Then they heard someone saying, “Wait a minute!”

  Meretskov was silent. He nervously rubbed his prominent high forehead. It was clear to the listeners. He was waiting for Stalin. The members of the Military Council froze in their chairs.

  Meretskov offered no more explanations. Now he listened, simply interjecting, “I understand. ... I will take measures. ... It will be done.”

  The talk was short. He hung up. Again he ran his hand over his brow. He went silently to the map, looked at it for a long time and then turned to the council, a grim smile on his lips.

  “Well, that’s the way it is,” he said. “And you are offended when I put you on the griddle!” He walked back and forth from one end of the room to another. Then he spoke.

  “We will joi
n the troops within an hour. All of us.”

  Stalin was not toying. Three days later he sent a special commission to Meretskov’s headquarters. It was headed by that ugliest of police bullies, G. I. Kulik, a lieutenant of Beria’s.3 Kulik was the police general who was personally responsible for much of the present difficulty. His ignorant and cowardly direction of the Fifty-fourth Army in September was credited by many Soviet military men with the major role in the Leningrad disaster. Marshal Voronov, for instance, put the blame on Kulik for the whole Leningrad encirclement. But Kulik still had the confidence of Stalin and Beria, and now he had been sent out to check the plans for the Tikhvin offensive.

  Kulik cross-examined each of Meretskov’s commanders in turn. Degtyarev outlined the artillery preparations, noting that the Germans had no shortage of ammunition. He conceded that the Fourth Army had a superiority over the Germans in number of guns.

  Kulik attacked savagely: “With this superiority in artillery why haven’t you cleared a way for the infantry into Tikhvin?”

  Degtyarev tried to point out that his artillery concentration was only five or six guns per kilometer.

  “You are sitting in your headquarters and you don’t know what is going on with the troops!” Kulik shouted. “You should have been shot long ago. Tikhvin was lost because of you.”

  “It is hard to say how this might have finished for me,” Degtyarev recalled later. But Meretskov came to his defense, and Kulik finally subsided, muttering threats. Meretskov opened his offensive on the morning of December 5 with Kulik watching every move. There was one final row. Meretskov and Kulik tried to get more ammunition from Moscow. Moscow, just launching the historic offensive which was to drive Hitler back from the capital and administer his first serious defeat, said they needed all the shells they had themselves.