Stalin

by Ian Grey

  Stalin was curious to meet Churchill, an avowed enemy of Soviet Russia, who had actively promoted the Allied intervention twenty-three years earlier. The meeting brought together two men of contrasting background and outlook. Churchill, descendant of the Duke of Marlborough and popularly elected war leader with great histrionic talents, reveled in the high drama of war while hating the suffering and sacrifices which it brought. Stalin, coming from the humblest origins, had by ruthless ability become the national leader, supreme commander in chief, and father of the Russian people. For him, war was part of the savage struggle he had always known in Russia. He accepted as inevitable the terrible casualties. The Russian land was being ravaged, and Russia was fighting for survival. It was a predicament that Britain, sheltered by the sea, had not known for centuries.

  The first meeting, which lasted four hours, took place on August 12, 1942. Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov faced Churchill, Harriman, the president’s representative, and the British ambassador. The first two hours were “bleak and sombre.” Frowning, Stalin listened to Churchill’s careful explanation why the British and Americans could not attempt a landing on the French coast before 1943. Stalin rejected the explanation. He thought of Britain and the United States as the two most highly industrialized nations in the world, and both had powerful navies. If the Russian defense industries - so recently established, and many of them uprooted and evacuated since the war began - could overcome seemingly insuperable obstacles and turn out tanks and weapons in increasing quantities, surely these two industrial giants could achieve the output needed for a landing on the coast of France. He was convinced that they could do it, if, that is, their hearts were in it. Again his suspicion grew that the devious British were prevaricating and leaving the fighting to the Russians: They would act when the Germans had been weakened on the eastern front.

  Angrily he asked Churchill why the British were so afraid of the Germans. Troops must be blooded in battle. He rejected Churchill’s comment that Hitler had not invaded England because of the hazards of the operation. He suspected that British caution was grounded in fear of heavy casualties. Churchill and his generation were haunted by their losses of men in World War I. It was not an argument likely to move Stalin, who was keenly aware of the far greater Russian casualties in World War I and the even greater casualties suffered since the German invasion, which continued as they talked.

  Churchill then revealed details, still secret, of the offensive which the British and Americans were planning in the Mediterranean, known as Operation Torch. Stalin listened intently and with growing excitement. “May God prosper this undertaking,” he said. He asked questions and gave a concise summary of the importance of the operation. “I was deeply impressed with this remarkable statement,” Churchill wrote. “It showed the Russian Dictator’s swift and complete mastery of a problem hitherto novel to him. Very few people alive could have comprehended in so few minutes the reasons which we had all so long been wrestling with. He saw it all in a flash.”

  At their meeting on the following evening, there were further recriminations over the Second Front. A long aide-mémoire, signed by Stalin, accused the Allies of failing to honor their undertaking to make a landing on the French coast in 1942. Stalin asserted that the British Army was afraid of the Germans. Churchill became very angry and delivered a heated defense of his countrymen. Before his speech could be translated, Stalin, unbending, declared that he liked the spirit of Churchill’s reply. There were many sharp exchanges, but also many signs of the warm comradeship that was developing between them.

  Stalin repeatedly revealed a teasing sense of humor. When, in telling him about Operation Torch, Churchill stressed the vital need for secrecy, Stalin grinned and said that he hoped nothing about it would appear in the British press. Molotov was the embarrassed butt of a joke by Churchill, who referred to him going off from Washington to New York for a day by himself. Stalin laughed merrily. “It was not to New York he went,” he said. “He went to Chicago where the other gangsters live.” Churchill spoke of the Duke of Marlborough’s genius as a military leader who had put an end to a menace to Europe’s freedom, a menace as great as Hitler’s. Stalin listened and then remarked mischievously: “I think England had a greater general in Wellington, who defeated Napoleon, the greatest menace of all time.” He went on to display considerable knowledge of the Napoleonic wars and especially of Wellington’s Spanish campaign, which was directly relevant to the Second Front, now demanded by the Russians.

  After an official dinner in the Kremlin on August 14, 1942, there was a more informal final meeting on the following evening. Churchill was saying good-bye when Stalin proposed that they go to his apartment for a farewell drink. He led the way along corridors into a narrow street, still within the Kremlin, and into another building, followed by Churchill and A. H. Birse, the British interpreter, and two or three NKVD guards. Stalin’s apartment comprised a dining room, work room, bedroom, and a large bathroom, all very simply furnished. There was no trace of luxury. An elderly housekeeper in white overalls, wearing a head scarf, was setting the table. Svetlana, Stalin’s daughter, then aged fifteen, entered the room, kissed her father, and was presented to Churchill. He noted that Stalin “looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, as if, so I thought, to convey, ‘You see, even we Bolsheviks have family life.’” Molotov joined them, and it was 2:30 a.m. when the homely, pleasant occasion came to an end. At dawn, Churchill flew from Moscow to return to London.

  As the battle for Stalingrad approached, Hitler began to ascribe to the city an importance far transcending its strategic and economic value. It was Stalin’s city, the symbol of Soviet Russia. He became so obsessed with the capture of Stalingrad and with the humiliation and defeat of his great foe that he lost sight of his grand strategy. He angrily rejected the advice of his chief of staff to break off the offensive before winter began. He was deaf to reason, and he exposed his armies in the east to a disastrous defeat which was the start of Germany’s collapse.

  Stalin insisted that Stalingrad must be held. He may have seen it as the symbol of his own authority. He may have feared, too, that after the long succession of defeats, relieved only by the Battle of Moscow, the fall of Stalingrad would seriously damage Russian morale at the fronts and in the rear. But the chief reason for his determination to hold Stalingrad was strategic. He was convinced the capture of the city was part of a German plan to envelop Moscow from the east, cutting the capital off from the Volga and the Urals, and by taking it, to end the war in 1942. The German drive to seize the oil centers of Grozny and Baku was, he believed, mainly intended to distract the Russian Stavka from the defense of Moscow. In fact, he misjudged Hitler’s intentions and for some time remained unaware that the assault on Moscow had been postponed.

  On August 23, 1942, the Germans began the final stage of their attack on Stalingrad. Stalin was tense and ill-tempered at this time. He was evidently plagued with doubts about the fighting spirit and the competence of the city’s defenders. He sent a radio message to Eremenko, calling on him to stand firm: “The enemy forces involved are not large and you have sufficient resources to annihilate them; concentrate the air forces of both fronts; mobilize the armoured trains and bring them forward on the city loop line; lay smoke to confuse the enemy and strike home by night and by day, using every gun and rocket launcher that you have. Above all, do not give way to panic! Have no fear of this insolent foe and do not lose faith in victory!”

  At the time when this message was sent, Stalingrad was already ablaze from incendiary bombs. Communications between the Front and Moscow were disrupted. Vasilevsky, sent as the Stavka representative to oversee operations, was unable to telephone Stalin with his daily report on August 23. When, on the night of August 24, he got through, he met with a spate of “insulting, painful, and mostly undeserved abuse, directed not only at the Chief of General Staff but at all Red Army Commanders.” Vasilevsky had difficulty in convincing the supreme commander that the city was still in Russia
n hands.

  In this mood of mistrust of his front commanders, Stalin recalled Zhukov from the West Front and on August 27 appointed him deputy supreme commander. At this time, the crucial southwest part of the Stalingrad Front was, it seems, removed from the control of Eremenko and Khrushchev and brought under Moscow’s direction.

  Fighting with great bravery and determination, the Germans pressed forward. They met with heroic resistance by the Russian defenders. Shortages of weapons and equipment had contributed to past Russian defeats, but by the end of the summer, an increasing flow of armaments was coming from the factories beyond the Urals. Reserves of troops were also massing to the east of the Volga. The invaders, far from Germany, were now beginning to suffer from shortages, and their ranks were being decimated in the savage fighting.

  On September 13, 1942, the Germans made an attempt to capture Mamai Hill at the center of the city. The plight of the Russian defenders was critical. Stalin at once ordered Alexander Rodimtsev’s Thirteenth Guards Division into action. Rodimtsev’s men pushed back the enemy and recaptured Mamai Hill.

  Stalin followed the battle closely. He had daily reports from Zhukov and other commanders at the front. He authorized the bringing up of reinforcements and ordered counterattacks. On September 12, he called Zhukov to Moscow to discuss the situation, Zhukov reported on the strength of the enemy positions, and Vasilevsky spoke about the fresh German units arriving in the Stalingrad sector from the Kotelnikovo direction.

  “What does the Stalingrad Front require to be able to smash the enemy corridor and join the Southwestern Front?” Stalin asked.

  “A minimum of one more fully-fledged combined army and tank corps, three tank brigades, and at least 400 howitzers. Besides, for the time of the operation an additional concentration of not less than one air army is necessary,” Zhukov replied. Vasilevsky agreed with his estimate.

  Stalin listened carefully. They were men whose views he respected. He took out the map, showing the positions of the general headquarters’ reserves, and studied it in silence.

  Zhukov and Vasilevsky stepped away from the desk and, speaking quietly, agreed that apparently, they would have to find “some other solution.”

  “And what other solution?” Stalin asked suddenly, looking up from the map.

  Zhukov was taken by surprise, not realizing that he had such acute hearing. They went back to the desk and talked briefly about a large-scale operation. Then Stalin sent them away to the general staff to produce a plan and to report to him at nine the next evening.

  Working through possible variations of strategy, Zhukov and Vasilevsky finally agreed on a plan. It was to continue wearing down the enemy by active defense at Stalingrad while preparing a massive counteroffensive.

  The next evening, shaking hands with them on their arrival in his office, Stalin exclaimed angrily: “While hundreds of thousands of Soviet people are giving their lives in the struggle against fascism, Churchill is bargaining over a score of Hurricanes. And these Hurricanes of his are junk - our pilots don’t like them!” And then he continued calmly in the same breath, “Well, what are your views? Who’s going to report?”

  This was, according to Zhukov’s account and supported by Vasilevsky, the beginning of the great counteroffensive, called Operation Uranus. It was planned as a pincer movement by two main armored thrusts, one from the north by Vatutin’s Southwest Front and Rokossovsky’s Don Front, and the other from the south by Eremenko’s Stalingrad Front.

  Zhukov and Vasilevsky flew between the Volga-Don region and Moscow to consult with Stalin and in the later stages of the planning, to brief the front commanders. In the course of some sixty days from the conception of the plan, the Russians concentrated in the Stalingrad-Don area a total of 1 million men, supported by 13,500 guns and mortars, and over 300 rocket batteries, as well as some 1,100 aircraft. It was a brilliant feat of planning and organization, carried out by Zhukov and Vasilevsky, under the active direction of Stalin at every stage; it was crowned by a resounding victory.

  Stalin maintained personal control over the organization and reserves of the Air Force. All tactical air forces had been transferred from the ground armies to the fronts early in the summer of 1942. Increasingly, however, the air forces of the fronts were combined for special air strikes, and the Stavka’s representative, overseeing these operations, made a personal report to Stalin daily. Stavka air reserves were limited at first, but Stalin carefully built them up. Nikitin, a deputy commander in chief of the Air Force, wrote that Stalin kept a check on aircraft production, “daily noting in his own notebook” the deliveries of new planes. He personally allocated equipment to air forces. Having witnessed the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe, he attached the greatest importance to the air support for the Stalingrad offensive. Only five days before the operation was to begin, he was prepared to suspend it temporarily if the Air Force was not yet adequate in strength.

  Zhukov and Vasilevsky were assigned to coordinate the fronts for the offensive. On November 17, 1942, however, Stalin withdrew Zhukov and sent him to prepare offensives to be made in the north by the Kalinin and West Fronts, and designed to prevent the Germany Army Group Center from detaching forces to go to the aid of Paulus at Stalingrad and Manstein to the south.

  Vasilevsky was left with the heavy responsibility of coordinating the three fronts at Stalingrad. He was surprised when making his daily telephone report to Stalin, on November 17, to receive an order to return at once to Moscow. Stalin had received a personal letter from Volsky, commander of the IV Mechanized Corps, expressing the view that “the plan was unreal and doomed to failure.” Volsky, who had commanded the Thirty-seventh Cavalry Regiment, was known and respected. Stalin asked Vasilevsky to comment. He answered firmly that the offensive was soundly planned and should go ahead. Stalin at once spoke to Volsky by telephone and “to the amazement of everybody present,” he did not dismiss him or even reprimand him for lacking confidence, but spoke in a kindly manner, reassuring him. Stalin then told Vasilevsky to forget the incident, adding that “the final decision regarding Volsky would be made in accordance with his performance during the next few days.” Volsky performed with distinction and was later appointed commander of the Fifth Guards Tank Army.

  The heavy duties of chief of the general staff were complicated for Vasilevsky by the fact that Stalin frequently sent him away to the fronts. Vasilevsky tried to find a deputy, but this presented special difficulties. “Stalin was a careful and mistrustful person, particularly of new faces,” he observed. In May 1942, he suggested that Vatutin, who was at that time chief of staff of the Northwest Front, be brought back to Moscow. “Why?” asked Stalin. “Isn’t he any good? Vatutin was appointed commander of the Voronezh Front.

  Vasilevsky searched again. Finally, he chose A. I. Antonov, who had been a junior officer in the tsarist army, and who was then chief of staff of the North Caucasian Front. Zhukov was to describe him as “a peerlessly able General and a man of great culture and charm.” Reluctantly, Stalin agreed to the appointment. The unfortunate Antonov found, however, that Stalin avoided direct dealings with him. He asked to be relieved of his post, and, despite Vasilevsky’s intervention, he was sent to the Voronezh Front as deputy Stavka representative. He served there with such marked ability that three months later, he was back in Moscow as deputy chief of the general staff. Stalin had learned to accept him.

  On the morning of November 19, Vatutin and Rokossovsky launched their attack from the north. On the following day, after a few hours’ delay due to thick fog, Eremenko advanced from the south. By November 23, they had met near Kalach, encircling the German Sixth Army and a corps of the Fourth Panzer Army.

  Stalin at once directed Vasilevsky to concentrate on the launching of Operation Saturn, which involved a bold offensive to draw a second ring around the enemy trapped at Stalingrad. The Russian forces were then to occupy the whole of the territory within the Don-Donets corridor, so that with Rostov in Russian hands the escape route of the Germans
in the Caucasus would be closed.

  Two days later, from the Southwest Front, Vasilevsky reported directly by telephone to Stalin on strengthening the Voronezh and Southwest Fronts against German counterattacks. The reinforcements he proposed were heavy, but Stalin agreed they were necessary. He then instructed Vasilevsky to concentrate on the Don and Stalingrad Fronts. Vatutin would remain responsible for the lines of the outer circle down to the Chir, and Eremenko would be responsible for the rest of the circle. Stalin said he was giving Voronov command of Operation Saturn. Vasilevsky was evidently taken aback by these changes in responsibility. He asked for his orders in writing, and Stalin sent them at once by teleprinter.

  The Germans had hurriedly reorganized their forces in the south, creating Army Group Don under the command of Field Marshal Manstein. By skillful tactics, he managed to fight his way to within twenty-five miles of Paulus’s lines. Paulus made no attempt to break out and join him, presumably because Hitler had ordered him to stand fast. Russian forces halted the German advance. On December 24, a counteroffensive, which Stalin had approved on December 19, hurled Manstein back to Kotelnikovo and then sixty miles farther to the southeast. Manstein gave up his attempt to relieve Paulus. He concentrated now on guarding the Rostov-Taman gap so that the German forces in the Caucasus and the Kuban could escape.

  To the west, Operation Saturn, amended because of Manstein’s offensive, and known now as Maly (Little) Saturn, was successful, advancing 150 miles in five days. In the north, Zhukov coordinated offensives forced the Germans from the Vyazma salient and made a seven-mile gap in the enemy lines blockading Leningrad.

  At a meeting of the General Defense Committee in late December, Stalin pointed out that one man only should direct the final destruction of the enemy forces encircled at Stalingrad, and there were two front commanders. “Who gets the mission?” he asked. Someone suggested Rokossovsky. Stalin turned to Zhukov, who replied that both commanders were worthy, but that Eremenko would feel very hurt if Rokossovsky got the job. “It’s not the time to feel hurt,” Stalin answered curtly and told Zhukov to inform Eremenko of the decision. Eremenko was extremely hurt. He tried to phone Stalin but was told by Poskrebyshev that he had to approach Zhukov. Finally, Zhukov tried to intercede. “Stalin was none too pleased and said a directive should be issued at once to place the three armies of the Stalingrad Front under K. K. Rokossovsky.” The directive was issued on December 30.