by Stalingrad- The City that Defeated the Third Reich (epub)
Junior Sergeant Ivan Sleptsov of the 178th Artillery Regiment expressed this wish: “In the fight with beastly fascism I want to be a communist. I will smite the enemy until my eyes can see and my hands can rotate the elevation and traverse wheels of my cannon. I will not disgrace the lofty rank of a Bolshevik warrior in the fight for the motherland. I ask to be admitted to the ranks of the Communist party, I ask that my request be granted. In these trying times when the destiny of mankind lies in the balance, our party is leading us to victory. I want to become its member, and under its banner my strength and hatred for the occupiers will grow ever more. The single-mindedness of the party is my own single-mindedness, and should I fall in battle, the party will avenge me. I swear to be its faithful member, to be its faithful defender to my last drop of blood.”
And here is the application of Novitsky, a sergeant-major in our reconnaissance unit: “In these trying times when the destiny of mankind lies in the balance, our party is leading us to victory. I want to become its member, and under its banner my strength and hatred for the occupiers will grow ever more. The single-mindedness of the party is my own single-mindedness, and should I fall in battle, the party will avenge me. I swear to be its faithful member, to be its faithful defender to my last drop of blood.”131
The high casualty rates in the battle of Stalingrad supplied additional impetus to join the party. Party functionaries tried to persuade soldiers to submit their applications before combat. This way they could be certain of finding a place in the communist pantheon if they were killed. “They don’t want to join the Komsomol before entering combat,” reported 2nd Lieutenant Nikolai Karpov, the Komsomol secretary in the 38th Motorized Rifle Brigade. “They start looking for an excuse—‘let’s wait till after this fight.’ I put it to them bluntly: ‘How can you go fight? If you’re killed, you’ll die without being politically conscious. But if you die as a member of the Komsomol, you will die in glory.’ I got six people to join the Komsomol that way.”132 Several political officers reported that seriously injured soldiers asked to enter the party so they could die as communists. Sergeant Alexander Duka, also of the 38th Rifle Brigade, explained how the thought of death motivated him to join the party.133
COMMANDERS AND COMMISSARS
The Communist party was ultimately governed by Joseph Stalin, the general secretary of the Central Committee. Known as the “boss” (khozyain) and the “leader” (vozhd), Stalin headed every institution relevant to the war effort from 1941 on: the State Committee for Defense, the People’s Commissar for Defense, and the Supreme High Command of the Red Army (the Stavka). The party made its influence felt in the military through the Main Political Administration of the Red Workers and Peasants Army (GlavPURKKA). In the war’s first year the administration was led by the former Pravda editor and communist rabble-rouser Lev Mekhlis. In 1942 the Moscow party secretary Alexander Shcherbakov succeeded him. That same year, Shcherbakov became a Politburo candidate member, a promotion that underlined the prominence of his office in the Red Army.
The political administration exerted its power primarily via the commissars. At the highest levels, at the front and in the army, the commissar served on the military council, a cooperative body consisting of commanders, political delegates, and the chief of staff. Stalin’s confidant Nikita Khrushchev served as the commissar for the Stalingrad Front. Along with front commander Yeryomenko, he was the most important figure in the military council. This dual system extended to all levels of the army, though most of the political work took place in the regiments. The system provided for two offices and their respective secretaries, one for the party, the other for the Komsomol, as well as a club for the soldiers and a library, all under the oversight of the regiment’s commissar. In the companies the politruks served as agitators in political discussions with soldiers and were responsible for finding suitable candidates for party membership. In 1942, the political administration installed party cells in the companies as well.134
Military council of the Stalingrad Front, 1942. Left to right: Commissar Nikita Khrushchev, Lieutenant General Alexei Kirichenko, regional party secretary Alexei Chuyanov, and Colonel General Andrei Yeryomenko. Photographer: Oleg Knorring
All Red Army newspapers, from Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda), the official military broadsheet, to division newsletters, were under the control of GlavPURKKA. The Main Political Administration also recruited war correspondents, among them the notable Soviet writers Ilya Ehrenburg, Vasily Grossman, Konstantin Simonov, Vsevolod Vishnevsky, and Alexei Tolstoy—and pursued a variety of cultural initiatives to raise the morale of Red Army soldiers such as the circulation of army songs and literary works. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, also had a broad presence in the Red Army. In every division, a Special Department (Osoby otdel) of uniformed secret police officers investigated cases of murder, suicide, theft, espionage, and desertion, made arrests, and delivered suspects to military tribunals—tasks that in other armies fell to the military police. The Special Department was also charged with ensuring the political loyalty of soldiers, commanders, and political officers and with reporting signs of counterrevolutionary sentiment. Working together with the military censor, also under the control of the NKVD, and with secret informers, the Special Department prepared weekly reports (sometimes more frequently) about the troops’ “political-moral moods” for Stalin’s desk.135 The men of the Special Department, known as Osobists, were widely feared.136 Every soldier and officer, regardless of rank, faced general political and moral suspicion. In an anonymous letter to Stalin, Mekhlis, and several leading military brass, a commander described the allure of being an Osobist. The letter, written in May 1943, provides insights (some unintended) into the habits of powerful men in the Red Army.
A commander cannot make a decision without an Osobist. Women have been taken away from commanders, and each Osobist has one or two. At each step they threaten Mekhlis, and the commanders now are in quite an unenviable state. Most of them have been defending their motherland, risking life and limb, and are decorated with four to eight orders. Why is it so? Can it be that 1937, 1938 is back?137
Being interviewed by a historian in Stalingrad, Major Anatoly Soldatov, of the 38th Motorized Rifle Brigade, described how he nearly shot an Osobist during the capture of General Paulus. The intelligence officer had brashly inserted himself into the action in a bold attempt to claim Stalingrad’s greatest trophy for the NKVD.138
On October 9, 1942, Stalin issued an order that eliminated the system of Red Army commissars and reinstituted single command authority. Many historians have argued that Stalin intended the order to strengthen the status of army officers and weaken the party’s influence on the Red Army.139 It is true that the decision bolstered the authority of commanders—former commissars now served as subordinate “deputies for political affairs”—and that the commissars’ vague mandate (keeping military officers in line) ran the risk of “trammeling” effective troop leadership, as stated explicitly in the order.140 But the reform contained no barbs directed at the party or its presence in the military. Ever since the Red Army’s establishment, the commissar system had come into effect whenever the political climate grew uncertain—during the Civil War, in the period from 1937 to 1940, and then again starting in July 1941. Abolishing the commissars in 1942—the wording of the edict left no doubt—expressed Soviet leaders’ confidence that the army had become stable enough ideologically to obviate external supervisors. Another reason for the reform arose from the constant demand for capable officers. A separate order issued by Stalin the same day mandated special training for eight hundred erstwhile commissars to prepare them as battalion and regimental commanders.141
Several of the Stalingrad interviews made plain that the military commanders now called the shots, with the new political deputies only assisting.142 Others described a harmonious cooperation.143 Yet some political officers continued to call themselves commissars in defiance of the reform, trying, as before, to set the tone in their rela
tions with the military command.144 One outspoken example was Brigade Commissar Vasiliev, who referred to himself by his old rank when he was interviewed in 1943. Vasiliev demanded that commanders be subject to aggressive “ideological education” from the political apparatus, a task he believed had faded into the background because the political apparatus prioritized infantry in the initial phases of the war.
The commander of the 45th Rifle Division, Major General Vasily Sokolov (left), and his political deputy, Colonel Nikolai Glamazda (right).
He cited numerous cases in which he observed political officers fighting in an exemplary manner while the military commanders assigned to them left the troops high and dry. “I have always thought and I still maintain that a commander has to be trained. If a soldier is trained and a commander is not, some things won’t get done and we’ll fall short of the desired results.” Despite the differing perspectives, the degree to which almost every interviewee understood himself as a part of a single unit joined by common interests is striking. Political officers also provided technical training and input on military tactics, just as commanders also looked out for the ideological and moral well-being of their troops.145
POLITICS, UP CLOSE
The current understanding of political activity in the Red Army draws mostly on the orders and directives of the Main Political Administration. Thanks to the Stalingrad transcripts, we now have a vivid description of the continuing efforts of political officers and commanders to commit soldiers to their combat missions and shape them into fearless, self-surpassing heroes in the Bolshevik voluntarist mold. The interviews also describe the coercive measures that accompanied these mobilizing efforts and the impact of officers’ entreaties in battle.
Persistence and improvisation alike characterized the modus operandi of the political administration on the Stalingrad Front. Pyotr Molchanov, battalion commissar of the 38th Rifle Division, explained that during the defensive struggles of summer 1942 in the protected ravines of the Don steppes, political assemblies, singers, and accordionists strengthened morale. In Stalingrad such things were not possible. The incessant fighting forced the cancellation of the regular meetings and lectures stipulated by the communist playbook.146 Colonel Glamazda, the political representative of the 45th Division, depicted the situation of his men on the west bank of the Volga as follows:
It is hard to imagine that bombing: low-flying airplanes that kept coming in exact thirty-minute intervals from September to November. It was a real hell. Everything was covered in smoke. At night the planes didn’t fly and it was possible to move. It was cold and damp but that didn’t get to you as much as the planes, the shells, and the mines.
He then explained how the political officers carried out their work:
What we did was talk to the men in person and then lead by example, showing them how to fight. And in absolutely every battle the party members were the first ones to throw themselves into the fight. I could give you dozens of examples from the lives of communists and Komsomol members who demonstrated how to fight and were then killed in combat.147
For particularly critical zones of combat, commanders made sure to distribute communists, Komsomols, and battle-tested soldiers among the companies. According to Lieutenant Colonel Yakov Dubrovsky, director of the political department of the 39th Guards Rifle Division, it was the communists, the Komsomols in particular, who provided the army’s moral backbone:
We established a standing practice that an assault group would always include Komsomol members. How was it done? The secretary of a Komsomol bureau, knowing that a storm group was being formed, would approach the battalion commander and tell him to include two or three Komsomol members. He would then personally instruct them, as well as the squad commanders. The idea was to have the Komsomol members, in addition to carrying out the combat mission itself, undertake all measures to ensure that that mission is transmitted to the personnel.148
Brigade Commissar Vasiliev seconded Dubrovsky’s views about the young communists: “As for the leading role of communists [ . . . ] It was considered disgraceful if a communist didn’t take a step forward and lead his soldiers.”149
With the front under relentless fire by day, political work in the trenches moved to night. Alexander Levykin, commissar of the 284th Rifle Division, explained how he prepared his staff:
This is what I used at divisional headquarters. I would listen to the latest news from all fronts, and then would go out at one or two in the morning and order the loudspeakers turned on. I would then inform the communications people, and from them company politruks would go to the battalions and inform people about the latest developments at the front. [ . . . ] They would distribute newspapers to the men. [ . . . ] Only at night was it possible to conduct political work individually with every soldier. The political department would brief its instructor staff and dispatch them to the units. A political officer would be able to cover two or three trenches in a night, but no more than that.150
Captain Olkhovkin reported that his regimental commander assembled the political officers and directed the agitators to inspect individual companies:
I was sent to the 2nd Battalion. In the evening we made it to the 4th Company. There were four people in the dugout. I talked to the people at night when it was quieter. We gathered low-ranking agitators at the company command post, which was in a school basement. It was at three o’clock in the morning. The enemy was about forty meters away from the school. A front-page article had just appeared in Pravda about the fighting in Stalingrad.151 I instructed them on that subject. I explained how significant Stalingrad was, why Hitler was pushing so hard for it. I connected it with the order to set up an unbreakable defense.
The night has another benefit, remarked Lieutenant Colonel Dubrovsky, his words revealing the total penetration to which the political administration aspired. “At night a soldier is more disposed to speak candidly, you can really make him spill his guts.” Dubrovsky and his colleagues redoubled their efforts whenever their units were about to mount an assault or an enemy attack was expected.
Political officers repeatedly emphasized the frequency of their talks with individual troops. Each Red Army soldier had to be convinced of the war’s necessity, each had to become politically aware, able to act on his or her on own initiative. “I consider personal talks the best mode of political work during the defense,” noted Battalion Commissar Molchanov. “So, a soldier is sitting in his little trench for a whole month, he sees no one other than his neighbor, and suddenly a commissar or somebody else drops in on him and tells him something or just greets him or says a friendly word—that has great importance. To get him a sheet of paper so that he can write to his loved ones or to write a letter for him—that really cheers a soldier up.” Commissars saw themselves as responsible for not only the mental health of the soldiers but also their physical well-being, and took note whenever food rations and warm clothing ran low. During crisis moments, they handed out delicacies—chocolate bars, mandarin oranges—sent to the front by workers’ organizations. As Brigade Commissar Vasiliev put it, “It’s not so much the food itself as the soldier’s moral gratification because he feels that people care for him.” The arsenal of the political officer also included military counsel, with instruction on how, say, to perform a hedgehog defense or build sturdy shelters. “We clarified every detail, every moment, every tactical move to the soldiers, doing our best to aid the soldiers and the commanders so that they may be more successful in combat,” explained Vasiliev. The agitator152 Izer Ayzenberg of the 38th Rifle Division employed a curious instrument of political education known as the “agitcult case.” Procured by his regimental commissar, this portable device resembling a magician’s case was especially well suited for use in the trenches. When open, the words of the Soviet military oath, presented on red velvet, could be read on the left; a command from Stalin and the portraits of Lenin and Stalin were displayed on the right. In the middle were brochures, books “about our proletarian commanders
,” a topographical map, and a political world map, in addition to a checker set and dominos. Ayzenberg explained how soldiers used the case’s contents:
This is how it works: one group takes a map, hangs it up, and circles with a finger the cities that our bombers and the German bombers are attacking. The soldiers show interest in other military theaters. They ask what’s happening in Tunisia,153 and so on. Another group is playing checkers, another is reading brochures, riddles, and songs—soldiers are laughing cheerfully. Serious brochures are being read in the corner. Also in the briefcase there are envelopes and paper, so they take paper and put together a newsletter. There is also a large mirror. Sometimes when you got it out a line would form up: one would ask to take a look, another would say ‘I think I need a shave, let me see.’ In the heat of such work the agitator asks for attention and conducts a ten- or fifteen-minute talk or reads an interesting article. We had one of these in each regiment. That’s how we used it: I would come to the 1st Battalion headquarters, leave them the briefcase for a day, then take it to the 2nd Battalion, and so on.154
The political officers taught soldiers what they were fighting for and what motivated the enemy. They exploited Stalingrad’s symbolic capital, spinning the battle into a world-historical event with the aid of voices from the international press. Even a “person with a modicum of awareness knew that the enemy wanted to encircle our capital from the east, take the Volga, take our oil sources—Baku. We knew that thanks to the work of political officers,” remarked Senior Sergeant Mitrofan Karpushin of the 39th Guards Rifle Division. Karpushin then explained how the information reached him and the other soldiers: “We still were able to read newspapers, albeit by fits and starts. There were enough newspapers for each soldier. We were reading the division and army newspaper, the central newspaper Pravda and Red Star. The latter two were particularly numerous. When there was fighting, the newspapers would arrive seven or eight days late. I always managed to take a look at the front page. There was enough light: transformer oil was available—as much as you needed.”155