by Ian Grey
During these frantic months, Stalin was also selecting his top military commanders. Voroshilov, his close colleague from the Tsaritsyn days, belonged to the revolutionary tradition, and, as he had shown in the Finnish war, had not developed as a military commander. He was replaced on May 8, 1940, by Semyon Timoshenko as kommissar for defense. Stalin used Voroshilov in other capacities, for he was popular and completely loyal. Budënny, the dashing cavalry commander, had failed to master modern warfare, but, like Voroshilov, was kept active.
Shaposhnikov was in a different category. He had gained his commission in the tsarist army in 1903 and had qualified at the General Staff Academy in 1910. He had a broad outlook and a keen analytical mind. In the 1920s, he had written The Brain of the Army and other basic works on military organization and strategy. He was modest and benevolent, but also a man of strict discipline. Tall and dignified, he was still in manner the tsarist officer, referring to brother officers as “old chap” (golubchik) and usually prefacing his orders with “Would you be so kind” or “I beg you,” but he was exacting and he got results. He might have seemed an anachronism in the midst of the new generation of commanders, but Stalin and others held him in high respect.
Meretskov differed from Shaposhnikov in nearly every way. He was a bluff revolutionary who had served in the Red Guards and was largely self-educated. In August 1940, Stalin appointed him chief of the general staff in place of Shaposhnikov. He showed concern for Shaposhnikov’s feelings in explaining gently to him that the time had come “to show the world that there has been a complete change in the military leadership since the Finnish War.” He also had in mind the need to promote younger men and the fact that Shaposhnikov’s health was poor. He valued his ability, however, and retained him at this time as deputy kommissar for defense with special responsibility for military engineering and fortifications. Later he was to make him chief of staff again.
Meretskov remained chief of the general staff for only a few months. Large-scale maneuvers played an important part in this period of intensive training. The first of the war games under Meretskov’s direction took place in Belorussia in the late summer of 1940, and Stalin accepted the evaluation of these maneuvers. Shortly after the second war game, held at the end of the year, however, Meretskov and the senior commanders were unexpectedly summoned to the Kremlin to report personally. Stalin and other members of the Politburo and the Chief Military Council were present. Meretskov proved incapable of evaluating the main features of the maneuvers. Nikolai Vatutin, his deputy, tried to come to his aid, but Stalin silenced him. When Meretskov referred to the Soviet field regulations to support an argument, Stalin dismissed them as propaganda, adding that “here among ourselves we have to talk in terms of our real capabilities.” Stalin had seen through Meretskov’s bluff façade of confidence and mastery.
On February 1, 1941, Zhukov became chief of general staff. He had been a noncommissioned officer in the tsarist army and was, like Meretskov, largely self-educated. He had gained distinction commanding armored divisions near Khalkhin Gol in the Far East in 1939. He had a natural ability, honesty, and strength of character, and he was to prove the outstanding Russian field commander in World War II. His relations with Stalin were on occasions stormy, but they were based on mutual respect. From many incidents related by Zhukov in his memoirs, written after Stalin’s death, it is clear that he never questioned Stalin’s authority, regarding him as a leader of profound wisdom and mastery of affairs, even in the military field.
Timoshenko, kommissar for defense, had apparently requested Zhukov’s appointment. Summoned to Stalin’s office, however, Zhukov was taken by surprise by Stalin’s terse statement that the Politburo had decided to make him chief of the general staff. He protested that he had had no experience of staff work and was a field officer. Stalin listened to his protestations and then repeated curtly: “The Politburo has decided to appoint you,” laying emphasis on the word “decided.”
A few days later, when Timoshenko told him that Stalin had asked how he was settling into his new post, and wanted him to report in person, Zhukov was disturbed. “What will he be liable to ask me about?” “Everything,” Timoshenko replied, adding, “but remember he won’t listen to long reports. What it takes you several hours to tell me, you’ll have to tell him in ten minutes.” “What can I tell him in ten minutes? They’re serious questions and require serious consideration. . . .” “He knows for the most part what you want to tell him,” Timoshenko said, “so try to concentrate on the key problems.”
Directing every aspect of the buildup of the armed forces from the selection of senior personnel to the mechanization program, especially the introduction of the T-34 tank and the new rocket mortars (Katyusha), Stalin did not rely on formal meetings of the Politburo, the Chief Military Council, and other bodies. He valued direct personal contacts and firsthand reports by the men responsible. At his dacha in Kuntsevo, he had frequent late-night discussions with Timoshenko, Zhukov, Voroshilov, Beria, Mekhlis, Shchadenko, and others.
About this time, he told Shaposhnikov to prepare a general staff paper on the probable German plan of invasion. The paper was considered by the Politburo in September 1940 and rejected by Stalin. Shaposhnikov argued that the main German attack would fall between the Baltic and the Pripet Marshes, directed at Smolensk and Moscow. Stalin was convinced that on economic grounds, the German strategy would concentrate on the south because of the need for the grain of the Ukraine, the coal of the Donets, and the oil of the Caucasus. Soviet defenses were based on this appreciation of the enemy strategy. Shaposhnikov was proved more accurate than Stalin in his forecast.
In the spring and summer of 1940, the lightning advances of Hitler’s forces in the West gave added urgency to Soviet preparations. The German occupation of Norway and Denmark was followed in May by the invasion of the Low Countries and the evacuation of British troops at Dunkirk. But most shattering to the Russians was the abysmal collapse of France and the German occupation of Paris on June 14. Stalin had expected that the French Army, secure behind the Maginot Line, would be more than a match for Germany. Attention focused on Britain, now under Churchill’s leadership. But mixed with admiration for its solitary stand against Germany and Italy, there was a general fear that Britain would make peace with Germany, freeing Hitler to turn eastward.
Stalin was meticulous in observing the terms of the pact with Germany. Toward Britain, he maintained a strict neutrality. But, alarmed by the fall of France, he hurriedly occupied the Baltic states and forced Romania to cede Bessarabia and Bukovina. Soviet industrial output was stepped up. Everyone was required to work longer hours.
At this time of tension, an event took place in faraway Mexico, which passed almost unnoticed in Russia. The announcement in the Soviet press read: “London, August 22 (TASS). London radio reports that Trotsky has died in hospital in Mexico City of a fractured skull, the result of an attempt on his life by one of the persons in his immediate entourage.”
Banished from Russia in 1929, Trotsky had applied for permission to live in Germany, France, and England. None was prepared to receive this troublesome revolutionary whose activities were now dominated by a relentless hatred of the man who had defeated him and had become supreme ruler of Soviet Russia. Bereft of power, Trotsky’s remarkable intellect and energy and his vitriolic pen were concentrated against Stalin and his regime.
In January 1937, he arrived in Mexico, where he had been offered asylum. He was housed in Coyoacán, a suburb of the city in what he called “the little fortress.” It had heavily barred doors, electrified wires, automatic alarm signals, and mounted machine-guns. Ten Mexican policemen were on duty around the house, and four or five guards were posted inside. From here, he continued his campaign of polemics and vituperation.
In May 1940, notwithstanding the strong defenses, a machine-gun attack was made on the house. Trotsky, his wife, and grandson were unharmed. Indeed, their escape seemed so miraculous that the Mexican police strongly suspected
Trotsky himself had staged the attack in order to discredit Mexican Stalinists. Trotsky insisted that “the author of the attack is Joseph Stalin through the medium of the G.P.U.,” but the Mexicans were not convinced. About this time, Ramón Mercader, known also as Jacques Mornard and Frank Jacson, insinuated himself into the household. On August 20, while standing by Trotsky’s desk, he suddenly attacked him with an ice ax, smashing his skull.
During 1940, relations between the Soviet Union and Germany remained formally correct, but were increasingly strained. Hitler had strong misgivings about the Russians being so near to the Romanian oil fields. Stalin was alarmed by reports of German troops in Finland and of German designs on the Balkans. The ten-year pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan, signed in Berlin on September 27, 1940, and excluding Soviet Russia, added to his anxieties.
On November 12, on the invitation of Ribbentrop, Molotov arrived in Berlin to discuss “a long-term delimitation of interests.” He found that Hitler was concerned only with the division of the British Empire between the Soviet Union and the Axis powers. Molotov showed no interest and infuriated Hitler by firing question after question at him and demanding specific answers about German intentions in Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Hitler was not accustomed to interrogation of this kind, and he was antagonized by the rocklike obstinacy of the Soviet minister. As early as the summer of 1940, he had started thinking about the invasion of Russia, but this meeting with the persistent and imperturbable Molotov probably influenced him in deciding finally to launch Operation Barbarossa.
The façade of cordial relations was maintained in the first months of 1941. But tension was mounting. In March, Bulgaria joined the Axis; Yugoslavia also agreed to join. On March 27, however, a revolt in Yugoslavia against the pro-German policy resulted in the formation of a new government which looked to Moscow. Stalin was quick to sign a pact of friendship and nonaggression with the new Yugoslav regime but could do nothing when German forces invaded the country and Belgrade was mercilessly bombed.
On May 5, in the Kremlin, Stalin addressed several hundred young officers, newly graduated from the military academies. He emphasized the importance of modernization and re-equipment in building up the power of the Red Army. He went on to warn them that the situation was grave and a German attack in the near future could not be ruled out. He told them bluntly that the Red Army was not yet strong enough to smash the Germans easily; it suffered from shortages of modern tanks, aircraft, and other equipment, and its troops were still under training. The Soviet government by diplomacy and other means was striving to delay the Germans until autumn when the approach of winter would postpone any attack until 1942. If Soviet tactics succeeded, then the war with Nazi Germany would come almost inevitably in 1942, but valuable months would have been gained. The period “from now until August” was the most dangerous.
This meeting was followed by a series of desperate attempts to appease Hitler. Friendly economic and diplomatic gestures were made. Painful efforts to avoid even the semblance of provocation were continued. On June 14, 1941, TASS, the Soviet news agency, issued a communiqué emphasizing friendly relations with Germany, which was “unswervingly observing the conditions of the Soviet-German Non-aggression Pact, just as the U.S.S.R. is doing” and denying rumors, emanating from London, of an “early war between the two countries.” Berlin ignored these gestures. Hitler had already made his decision.
The tension in the Kremlin became unbearable during these weeks of waiting. Stalin felt the strain. He was irascible, and reports on relations with Germany could only be submitted to him “in fear and trepidation.” He had concentrated “all his thoughts and deeds” on averting war in 1941; he was confident, but not positive, that he would succeed. In the midst of the conflicting intelligence reports and rumors, he was deeply uneasy. The German chief of staff had issued on February 15, 1941, a special “Directive for Misinforming the Enemy” to provide cover for Operation Barbarossa. False information was leaked that German troop movements in the east were part of the “greatest misinformation manoeuvre in history, designed to distract attention from final preparations for the invasion of England.”
Stalin was undoubtedly influenced by this misinformation. He did not believe, however, that in the last resort, Hitler would depart from the traditions of Bismarck’s Ostpolitik, requiring that Germany should avoid military involvement in Russia while engaged in the west. At the same time, he had an exaggerated conception of the power and influence of the German generals even to the extent of believing that, contrary to Hitler’s specific instructions, they were trying to precipitate war against Russia.
Among members of the Politburo and the Soviet High Command, the firm opinion was that war would be averted in 1941. Zhdanov held that Germany was taken up with war against Britain and incapable of fighting on two fronts. On March 20, 1941, General Filipp Golikov, head of military intelligence, submitted to Stalin a report on German troop concentration in the borderlands, but expressed the opinion that the information must have originated from the British and German intelligence services. Early in May, Kuznetsov sent a similar report to Stalin, giving information received from the Soviet naval attaché in Berlin on the imminence of war. Like Golikov, he nullified the value of the report by adding that in his opinion, the information was false and planted by some foreign agency.
Early in April 1941, Churchill sent a personal message to Stalin, warning him of German troop movements and the imminence of attack on the Soviet Union. This was followed by an urgent warning given to the Soviet ambassador in London on June 18. Reports from the Soviet Embassy in Berlin and from Dr. Richard Sorge, the brilliant Soviet spy in Japan, gave the exact date of the German invasion.
Stalin regarded these reports with skepticism. He remained deeply mistrustful of Britain. There was, it seems, no limit to the perfidy of which he believed Britain capable. He was convinced that Britain and the United States were doing everything possible to incite Hitler to attack Russia and that Britain, in particular, saw a German campaign in the east as the one way to save itself from catastrophe. He believed that the British government had recently held secret talks with Nazi officials, seeking to reach an agreement at the expense of Russia. The solo flight of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, to Scotland on May 10–11, 1941, intensified his suspicions of British secret diplomacy.
On the evening of June 21, Zhukov learned by telephone from Kiev that a German sergeant major had crossed to the Soviet lines and informed the Soviet commander that the German forces would attack at dawn on the following morning.
Zhukov at once telephoned Stalin and Timoshenko. Stalin summoned them to the Kremlin. He received them alone and heard Zhukov’s report.
“But perhaps the German generals sent this deserter to provoke a conflict,” was his first response.
“No, we think the deserter is telling the truth,” they replied.
Members of the Politburo arrived. He asked for their opinions, but there was no response.
Timoshenko produced a draft directive, alerting all commands. But Stalin had not given up hope that it might be a false alarm. He had the directive redrafted and finally approved its dispatch. It ordered all units on the fronts of the Leningrad, Baltic, Western, Kiev, and Odessa military districts to come to immediate readiness for a possible sudden German attack. Transmission of the directive was completed by 0030 hours on June 22, 1941. At 0400 hours, the invasion began.
The German forces, comprising 3 million troops in 162 divisions with 3,400 tanks and 7,000 guns, advanced in three groups: the north group toward Leningrad, the center group toward Moscow, and the south group into the Ukraine. The sixteen months that followed were for the Germans, a period of immense gains; for the Russians, they were months of disastrous defeats and horrifying casualties and devastation.
By dawn on June 22, 1941, Timoshenko, Zhukov, and his deputy chief of the general staff, Vatutin, were receiving frantic communications from front commanders. All reported air attacks and request
ed orders. Timoshenko told Zhukov to telephone Stalin.
Stalin heard his report and proposal to order troops to retaliate. There was a long silence during which Zhukov could hear the sound of his breathing on the line. Then Stalin ordered him and Timoshenko to come to the Kremlin and to tell Poskrebyshev to summon the members of the Politburo.
At 4:30 a.m., all were assembled in Stalin’s office. He stood by the table, his face white, with an unlit pipe in his hand. He was visibly shaken.
Molotov hastened into the room from a meeting with the German ambassador. He reported that Germany had declared war.
Stalin sank into his chair and sat in silence. This was one of the most shattering moments in his whole life. He had used every means at his disposal to avert this war. He had desperately willed it to be delayed at least until the following spring. He thought he had succeeded, but he had failed. Armaments were beginning to flow to the armed forces from the defense industries, and the intensive training programs were bringing daily improvements in discipline and efficiency. Six months would have made a vast difference.
Stalin knew he had made a tragic miscalculation. The Politburo and senior military commanders, with all of whom he had discussed his decisions, had shared his views. But they were dominated by him and conscious of his intellectual superiority and his supreme authority. He was honest enough to recognize that it was wholly his responsibility. He had misjudged Hitler’s intentions. Soviet Russia was threatened now with a holocaust which could sweep away the communist regime and all that it had achieved.