by Ian Grey
It was later alleged that on this evening or during the following weeks when news of terrible defeats were reaching him, his nerve snapped and he surrendered to black despair. Khrushchev stated that about this time, Stalin thought the end had come. He exclaimed: “All Lenin created, we have lost for ever!” After this outburst, he did nothing “for a long time”; he returned to active leadership only after a Politburo deputation pleaded with him to resume command. But Khrushchev’s allegations are not supported by others who were at his side. In fact, Stalin had never been more in command than during these critical days when all seemed lost.
At the dawn meeting on June 22, Stalin came out of his brooding silence to authorize Directive No. 2, calling on all military districts to attack the invaders. The order was unrealistic. The Red Army was falling back in confusion. The breakdown in communications was posing acute problems. Moscow lost touch with the forces to the north of the Pripet and with other commands.
About 1:00 p.m. on June 22, Stalin telephoned Zhukov and said that, since front commanders lacked combat experience and were confused, the Politburo was sending him to the Southwest Front as the representative of the Stavka. Khrushchev would join him there. Shaposhnikov and Grigory Kulik were going to the West Front. In reply to Zhukov’s query as to who would manage the general staff at this critical time, Stalin answered tersely, “Leave Vatutin in your place. Don’t lose time! We’ll get along somehow!” He flew at once to Kiev and, joined by Khrushchev, traveled by car to Ternopol, where Mikhail Kirponos, the front commander, had his command post. Already on the first day of the war, Stalin was following Lenin’s practice in the Civil War of sending trusted personal representatives to critical areas. For him, it was not only a matter of keeping direct contact with the front and a watchful eye on unproven commanders but also a demonstration of his presence.
Shattered by the German onslaught, the Red forces fell back. Directive No. 3, sent by Stalin on the night of June 22, ordering the Southwest, the West, and the Northwest Fronts to attack, was utterly impracticable. The situation was confused, and information was not reaching Moscow. Stalin himself had no conception of the speed of the German advance or the chaos in the Red Army positions.
On June 26, Stalin phoned Zhukov in Ternopol, ordering him to return to the general headquarters at once. The enemy was approaching Minsk, and Dimitry Pavlov, commanding the West Front, had evidently lost control. Kulik had disappeared and Shaposhnikov was ill. On June 28, Russian troops surrendered Minsk, the capital of Belorussia. German troops carried out a savage massacre of the inhabitants and destroyed most of the city.
Twice on June 29, Stalin came to the general headquarters. He was in a black mood and reacted violently to the chaotic situation on the West Front. Zhukov conferred by telegraph with General Pavlov, but it was clear that the situation was hopeless. The next day, Stalin ordered Zhukov to summon Pavlov to Moscow. On his arrival, Zhukov hardly recognized him; he had changed so much in the eight days of the war. Pavlov was removed from his command, and with other generals from this front, he was put on trial. All were shot.
Stalin held them responsible for the destruction of the West Front. He attached special importance to this front against which he believed the Germans would deliver their main assault. But they were, in fact, victims of the war and specifically of his own miscalculations. The most serious mistake was that the troops were not deployed in depth along the extensive western frontier with the result that the German armored divisions, advancing at speed, were able to outflank and encircle strategic positions.
The court-martial and execution of Pavlov and his senior staff also had the effect of undermining the confidence of the troops and of the people in the army’s commanders. Many doubted the allegations of their treachery and feared a new purge was being planned. This fear was increased by the decree of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet on July 16, 1941, restoring the powers of the military kommissars. Stalin was quick to realize, however, that by this drastic action, he had not stiffened morale as he had intended but had aggravated the critical uneasiness within the Red Army at a time when cool and stubborn resistance was needed. He did not repeat this mistake. In future, commanders who failed were demoted, or they simply disappeared, and their fate remained secret.
The need to set up military and civil command structures had been overlooked in the preparations for war. Stalin had been concentrating on the defense industries and the equipping and training of the armed forces. He personally disliked time-consuming committee work and, since all major matters came to the Politburo and finally to him for decision, he may have thought he could dispense with supreme command organs. The outbreak of war had shown at once that many responsibilities had to be delegated.
Early on June 22, 1941, Timoshenko had submitted a draft plan to set up a high command with Stalin as commander in chief. Before signing the decree on the following day, Stalin redrafted it, naming Timoshenko as supreme commander and establishing a general headquarters of the high command, which consisted of a council of war with Timoshenko as chairman and a membership of Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Budënny, Zhukov, and Kuznetsov. This arrangement, according to Zhukov, complicated the command, for there were in effect, two commanders in chief, Timoshenko de jure and Stalin de facto. The general headquarters took the title of Stavka, which had been used for the tsarist supreme military headquarters. Stalin’s Stavka did not, however, have the same large support staff, but was at first merely a group of advisers.
The general headquarters’ orders and instructions were discussed and agreed in Stalin’s study in the Kremlin. It was a large, light, austerely furnished room, paneled in stained oak, with a long table, covered in green cloth. Portraits of Marx, Engels, and Lenin hung on the walls, and portraits of eighteenth-century military heroes Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov joined them later in the war. Stalin’s desk, covered with maps and papers, was to one side. Poskrebyshev’s office adjoined the study and next to it was a small room, occupied by security guards. Behind the study were a lounge and signal room with all the equipment used by Poskrebyshev to connect Stalin with the front commanders. This was the main communications center. Stalin’s office and sometimes the dacha at Kuntsevo served as the supreme headquarters of the Soviet armed forces throughout the war.
On June 30, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was set up. It was the supreme organ, and its orders were executed by the Council of People’s Kommissars through the machinery of the kommissariats. The Stavka, responsible for the conduct of military affairs, was renamed the Stavka of the Supreme Command. Its council now comprised Stalin as chairman, and Molotov, Timoshenko, Voroshilov, Budënny, Shaposhnikov, and Zhukov as its members. On July 19, 1941, Stalin became kommissar for defense, and on August 8, 1941, he was appointed Supreme commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R.
One of the first and most important directives of the State Defense Council (GKO), issued on July 4, was to transfer industries to the east. The evacuation of 1,523 industrial units, many of them enormous, including 1,360 major armament plants, was a tremendous undertaking and in human terms, a heroic achievement. But the dismantling and removal of these industries brought an immediate drop in production. Armament shortages were acute in the autumn of 1941 and spring of 1942. By the summer, production was reviving rapidly.
In the first fury of invasion, Stalin had been taken up with the collapse of the Soviet defenses, the organization of the high command, and resisting the invader. For a short time, he forgot the people and the need to invoke their fighting spirit and strengthen their morale. The nation was shaken and bewildered by the sudden devastating invasion. They had believed the Red Army would never permit an enemy onto Russian soil. Stalin himself was in some degree a victim of this propaganda. Although he knew better than anyone the weaknesses of the Red Army, he had not accepted in his heart that an invader could cross the frontiers. He had approved the Draft Field Regulations in 1939, which enshrined the themes that “the Soviet Union wi
ll meet any enemy attack by a smashing blow with all the might of its armed forces” and that “the military activity of the Red Army will aim at the complete destruction of the enemy and the achievement of a decisive victory at a small cost of blood.” This confidence had been shattered, and he knew that it was vital to rally the Russian people for the bitter ordeal ahead of them.
On July 3, twelve days after the invasion, Stalin broadcast to the nation. It was a historic speech, devoid of rhetoric, which appealed to the national pride of the people and to the sturdy Russian instinct to defend their homeland. He spoke as friend and leader, and it was this assurance that they had been waiting for. Russians everywhere and especially in the armed forces felt, as they listened, an “enormous enthusiasm and patriotic uplift.” General Ivan Fedyuninsky, who was to play a distinguished role on several fronts, wrote: “We suddenly seemed to feel much stronger.”
“Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, fighters of our army and navy! I am speaking to you, my friends,” were Stalin’s opening words. They differed strikingly from his usual form of address, and at once united them with him. Then, with a profound instinct for the mood and needs of the people, he described their predicament, and every word burned with his own implacable will to victory.
At points, Stalin exaggerated and excused, but he did not obscure the truth. “Although the enemy’s finest divisions and the finest units of his air force have already been smashed and have gone to their death on the field of battle, the enemy continues to push forward.” The Soviet-German Pact had been designed to give peace or at least delay the war, but Hitler had perfidiously broken their agreement and had attacked with the advantage of surprise. He would not benefit for long.
Using simple concrete language, he brought home to the people what the war would mean for them. “The enemy is cruel and implacable. He is out to seize our lands, watered by the sweat of our brows, to seize our grain and oil, secured by the labour of our hands. He is out to restore the rule of the landlords, to restore tsarism . . . to germanize [the peoples of the Soviet Union] to turn them into the slaves of the German princes and barons.”
He told them bluntly that they were locked in a life-and-death struggle with a vile enemy and that they must be ruthless, utterly ruthless, in beating him. They must eradicate the chaos and panic in the rear of the lines. Then he stressed in detail the scorched-earth policy which they must follow. “In case of a forced retreat . . . all rolling stock must be evacuated, the enemy must not be left a single engine, a single railway car, a single pound of grain or gallon of fuel. The collective farmers must drive all their cattle and turn over their grain to the safe keeping of the authorities for transportation to the rear. All valuable property, including metals, grain and fuel, that cannot be withdrawn, must be destroyed without fail. . . . In areas occupied by the enemy, guerrillas, mounted and on foot, must be formed; sabotage groups must be organized to combat the enemy, to foment guerrilla warfare everywhere, blow up bridges and roads, damage telephone and telegraph lines, set fire to forests, stores and transport. In occupied regions, conditions must be made unbearable for the enemy and all his accomplices. They must be hounded and annihilated at every step, and all their measures frustrated.”
He expressed gratitude for the “historic utterance,” made by Churchill in a prompt broadcast on the evening of June 22 when he declared: “We shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people.” Stalin went on to speak of Napoleon’s invasion and of Russia’s victory over the French, adding that Hitler was no more invincible than Napoleon had been. Then as now, the Russian people were fighting “a national patriotic war,” and they were fighting for the freedom of all peoples. He called upon the Russians “to rally round the party of Lenin and Stalin.”
The summer of 1941 was a time of disaster. The German advance built up a terrible momentum which, it seemed, nothing could halt. The West Theater was created by Stalin on July 10 and embraced the West, Reserve, and Moscow Fronts. Timoshenko was in command, and he found that the Germans had in a rapid pincer movement closed on Smolensk. Russian troops fought desperately, knowing that the fall of the city would leave open the way to Moscow.
Stalin flew into a fury over the fall of Smolensk on August 1941. At the end of July, when the defeat was imminent, Zhukov was phoned by Poskrebyshev. “Stalin orders you and Timoshenko to come to his dacha without delay!”
Thinking they had been summoned to discuss the military situation, they were surprised to find almost all of the Politburo present, Stalin was standing in the middle of the room, wearing an old jacket and holding an unlit pipe in his hand which, Zhukov remarked, was “a sure sign of bad temper.”
“Now,” said Stalin, “the Politburo has discussed Timoshenko’s activities as commander of the West Front and decided to relieve him of his post. It proposes that Zhukov take over. What do you think of that?” he asked, turning to them.
Timoshenko was silent. Zhukov finally responded by pointing out that frequent replacement of front commanders was having a bad effect, Timoshenko had held this command for less than four weeks. He had done everything possible in the battle for Smolensk. The troops believed in him, and it would be unjust and inexpedient to remove him at this time.
“I rather think he’s right,” Kalinin commented.
Stalin lit his pipe, eying the others present. “What if we agree with Zhukov?” he asked.
“You’re right, Comrade Stalin,” several of them chorused. “Timoshenko may put things right yet.”
Zhukov and Timoshenko were then given permission to leave. Timoshenko was ordered to return to his front immediately.
In the north, the German advance was equally rapid. German troops occupied the Baltic states. On July 12, 1941, they took Pskov. Leningradtsi labored desperately to build defense works and fight off enemy attacks on the approaches to their city. By the end of August 1941, the German forces had cut Leningrad off from the rest of Russia. The morale of the people nevertheless remained high. Many of them were angry with the government and, in particular, with Voroshilov, Zhdanov, and Pyotr Popkov, the chairman of the city’s Soviet, for their shortsightedness and incompetence in preparing defenses. Some were critical, too, of the Red Army for failing to stop the German advance. The approach of the enemy and the air bombardment had apparently reduced Voroshilov to a state of panic. In September, Stalin sent Zhukov to take command. He quickly brought the defenses into order. Leningrad was prepared for the long and tragic siege of winter 1941–42.
In the south, the German advance was halted briefly at Lvov and other points, and then it surged forward, directly threatening Kiev. On July 29, Zhukov asked to see Stalin to make an urgent report. He was seen in the presence of Mekhlis, who was hostile to him. Zhukov spread out maps and gave a detailed survey of the situation. He then made his proposals, first to bring at least eight divisions from the Far East to strengthen the Moscow sector, and second to withdraw the Southwest Front to the east beyond the Dnieper. Stalin at once asked about Kiev. With great trepidation, knowing that his answer would provoke anger, Zhukov replied, “Kiev will have to be surrendered.”
Stalin exploded. “What are you talking about? What nonsense is this? How can you think of giving up Kiev to the enemy?”
Zhukov took umbrage and replied that, if Stalin “thought that the Chief of Staff talked nonsense, then he requested his release from office and posting to the front.”
“Don’t be so hotheaded!” Stalin retorted. “But if that’s the way you want it, we can get by without you! . . . Carry on with your job. We’ll talk it over and call you.”
Some forty minutes later, Zhukov was summoned.
“We have talked it over and decided to release you from the duties of Chief of Staff,” Stalin said. “The new Chief of Staff will be Shaposhnikov. True, his health is not too good, but we’ll help him.”
Stalin then asked Zhukov where he would like to go and agreed that he should take command of the counteroffensive which he had propo
sed on the Yelnya salient.
When Zhukov asked permission to withdraw, Stalin smiled and invited him to sit down for a glass of tea. He valued him as a proven front commander and did not want him to go in a mood of grievance. They drank tea together, but their conversation did not flow. Zhukov’s umbrage had not subsided, despite Stalin’s attempts to placate him. Before they parted, however, Stalin reminded him that he was still a member of the general headquarters of the supreme high command.
The German high command was agreed in August that their offensive should now be directed at Moscow. Heinz Guderian, in particular, claimed that a massive attack, spearheaded by his panzer divisions, would take the city. Hitler now rejected this plan and decided to turn the main German advance southward into the Ukraine. On August 8, 1941, Guderian’s group attacked the Russian Central Front near Gomel. This new advance was seen by Stalin and Shaposhnikov as part of a movement to outflank the West and Reserve Fronts and then to make a major advance from Bryansk against Moscow. On August 14, Stalin hurriedly created a new Bryansk Front, commanded by Andrey Eremenko, who had impressed him - but not Zhukov or Shaposhnikov - as an able commander. An attack from Bryansk was, in fact, what the German commander in chief proposed, but Hitler had not given his approval. Guderian’s group was halted at the Desna River, waiting for orders to move to the east or the south. Eremenko’s offensive failed, and, despite Stalin’s angry messages, his troops fell back in disorder.
At the beginning of September 1941, Guderian received firm orders to advance to the south. His armored divisions moved rapidly and were soon threatening the rear of the Russian Southwest Front. Farther to the south, another German force took Dnepropetrovsk, and, although Stalin had stated forcefully that the Dnieper line must be held, it crossed the river and moved northward. Kiev was now threatened with encirclement.