by Ian Grey
Paulus and his troops rejected two calls to surrender. But, completely cut off and without supplies, they had no hope of survival and finally on February 2, they surrendered. Zhukov stated that total enemy losses in the Volga-Don-Stalingrad area were 1.5 million men, 3,500 tanks, 12,000 guns, and 3,000 aircraft. Russian losses were probably far higher. It had been a decisive battle, fought with incredible ferocity and courage by Russians and Germans, and it had completely turned the tide of the war.
On February 4, 1943, Rokossovsky and Voronov were summoned from the fronts to the Kremlin. Stalin greeted them warmly and congratulated them on their victory. And, as Rokossovsky commented, this was an occasion when he “could literally charm a person by his warmth and attention.”
At the time when the Battle of Stalingrad was raging, Stalin found himself beset with family problems. He had tried to be a father to his two younger children, Vasily and Svetlana, but inevitably, he had been remote from their everyday lives, and he had also made the mistakes commonly made by fathers. He had been strict with his son, seeking to bring him up as a disciplined and hard-working citizen. Vasily turned into a lazy, pleasure-loving young man, given to drink. His mother had indulged him, and since her death, there had been no lack of people eager to fawn on the son of Stalin. Indeed, at the age of twenty-four, he was appointed a general of the Air Force, a promotion unlikely to have been made by Stalin; but he was not entrusted with any war duties. He had made sporadic attempts to live up to the image expected of him, but, lacking the ability and character, he always lapsed into drinking bouts and bad habits. Feeling that there was nothing that he could do, Stalin, apart from occasional explosions of anger, washed his hands of him.
Svetlana, grown to be a pretty red-headed girl, was his great comfort. But she was at school, and during the desperate months of war when he was involved throughout the night, snatching brief rests on the couch in his office, he saw little of her. Their walks in the woods at Zubalovo and their meals together were things of the past, and he missed her company. She was a lonely emotional girl, living a quiet life of routine lessons and visits with her few friends, accompanied always by her father’s NKVD guard, General Nikolai Vlasik. The shadow of her father’s position enveloped her and she felt imprisoned by it.
One day in October 1942, Svetlana was at the dacha at Zubalovo, where her brother had invited a number of his friends. Among them was Aleksei Kapler, a film producer in his forties, married, and a Jew. Svetlana became deeply infatuated with him. He was gentle, fatherly, and highly intelligent. He brought her books, especially novels of Ernest Hemingway, which were hard to come by and were eagerly read in Soviet Russia. Together they went to private viewings in the Ministry of Cinematography of films like Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Young Lincoln, and early Hollywood classics. Overwhelmed by the attention of this cultured man of the world, she believed herself to be in love with him. Kapler himself appears to have been captivated by this lonely sixteen-year-old girl, Stalin’s daughter, and by her eager curiosity about books, music, and films. It was an innocent affair.
Stalin received NKVD reports of his daughter’s new friendship, and it distressed him deeply. Puritanical in matters of personal morality, he suspected the worst and could not understand how his daughter could have allowed herself to be attracted by this middle-aged Jew, who should have been at the front like all true men instead of playing about with films and trying to seduce young girls. If his wife had been alive, she could have handled the matter. He was probably on the point of speaking to his daughter several times, but Stalingrad and the great counteroffensive demanded his full attention.
Suddenly on the morning of March 3, 1943, as Svetlana was getting ready for school, he burst into her room. He was in a rage, and both she and her nurse looked at him in fear. “Where - where are they all?” he exclaimed. “Where are all these letters from your ‘writer’? I know the whole story! I’ve got all your telephone conversations right here!” He patted his pocket as he said it. “All right! Hand them over. Your Kapler is a British spy! He’s under arrest!”
Svetlana took from her desk the letters, inscribed photographs, notebooks, and the new film script on Dmitri Shostakovich, which Kapler had given her, and handed them to her father.
“But I love him!” she protested at last.
“Love!” he shouted, and for the first time in his life, he slapped her, twice across the face.
“Just think, nurse, how low she’s sunk!” he went on. “Such a war going on and she’s busy the whole time . . .”
He spoke with bitterness and anger. He had lost his daughter to a middle-aged filmmaker. He was undoubtedly overwrought from the strains of months of working long hours under the pressures of war, but he was also a lonely isolated man, and he probably felt a keen sense of betrayal. In her way, his daughter had betrayed him as her mother had betrayed him. For months, father and daughter were estranged and did not see each other. Kapler was removed by a five-year sentence to Vorkuta, where he was allowed to work in the theater.
Impatient after the Battle of Stalingrad to liberate all Russian territory, Stalin had ordered an advance on a broad front. It was intended that the Red Army should reach the Dnieper by the spring of 1943. This objective was overly ambitious, but on many fronts, the winter offensive achieved important gains.
The Stalingrad victory and the rapid advances along the whole front had bred overconfidence among the commanders there. Stalin shared, too, in the general elation, declaring in his Order of the Day on November 7, 1942, that soon “there will be a holiday in our street!” But with his instinctive wariness, he knew that excessive optimism was dangerous. It was necessary to caution not only the armed forces but the civil population, who were exulting over the victories and the liberation of occupied territories.
On February 23, 1943, the twenty-fourth anniversary of the Red Army, Stalin’s Order of the Day proclaimed: “The enemy has suffered defeat, but still has not been conquered,” and he called on the Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Force to redouble their efforts.
The warning was timely. Manstein had mounted a counteroffensive on February 19. Moving northeastward, he retook Kharkov and Belgorod and was soon threatening Rokossovsky’s Center Front, but then he was halted.
Toward the end of March, a pause came in the fighting, which lasted until early July 1943. It was a period of furious preparation for the summer campaign. The Kursk salient was to be the arena for this crucial trial of strength. Holding Orel in the north and Belgorod to the south of the salient, the Germans believed themselves to be in a strong position to carry out a decisive pincer movement, which would reverse their losses of the winter of 1942-43.
Soviet industry had, however, achieved phenomenal results since the great evacuation of the autumn and winter of 1941–42. The industrial expansion had brought a dramatic improvement in the equipment of the Red Army. Moreover, it was not only in quantity but also in quality that the Russian forces now had the upper hand.
Stalin took a direct interest in the development of weapons, and, indeed, his approval was needed before any prototype or major change went into production. The improved T-34 medium tank and the IS heavy tank were, the Russians claimed, the most effective tanks in the war, and most German officers admitted their superiority. The Russian artillery, and especially the rocket artillery, had a devastating fire power. By 1943, Russian rifles and machine-guns had a more rapid rate of fire and greater endurance. The leading aircraft designers, Andrei Tupolev, Yakovlev, and Semyon Lavochkin, who reported directly to Stalin on their work, produced more effective planes, and gradually, he had built up under his control a powerful air force. The main deficiency was motor transport, and this was met partially by the supply of American trucks and jeeps.
The war had forged a new generation of young and dynamic commanders. A large proportion of the best-trained officers and troops of the Red Army had been lost during 1941–42, but by 1943, this loss had been made good by men with battle experien
ce. The new generals were mostly under forty and were professional, rather than political, in outlook. An example was General Ivan Cherniakhovsky, who commanded a tanks corps at the start of the war and in spring 1944, at the age of thirty-six, was made commander of the Third Belorussian Front. When Rokossovsky had asked for the removal of Alexander Zaporozhets, a trusted old Bolshevik who was the political member of the Sixtieth Army, because Cherniakhovsky found it impossible to get on with him, Stalin immediately had Zaporozhets recalled. It was men like Cherniakhovsky who could take bold action and accept responsibility, and who were the professionals, whom Stalin had promoted.
As the summer approached in 1943, the buildup of Russian and German forces and armaments at Kursk mounted in intensity. Stalin became increasingly strained and worried during these weeks. His obsession, which Zhukov shared, was still the defense of Moscow. Both considered that the German strategy might be to strike northeast from Kursk and envelop the capital from the east. But the immediate problem was whether to mount a preemptive attack against the German positions north and south of the salient. Stalin had received conflicting proposals from his senior commanders. His own instinct was always to attack. Now he hesitated. On April 12, 1943, he called a meeting to consider the tactics to be adopted. Zhukov, Vasilevsky, and the general staff argued strongly against a pre-emptive strike; the Soviet forces should let the enemy attack and wear himself down against their impregnable Kursk defenses. Stalin was, however, unsure even now about the capacity of the Red Army to withstand a mass German attack. He had in mind the fact that Russian offensives had succeeded against the Germans in winter conditions. A summer offensive might present unforeseen problems. At the meeting, he listened to the different views but reached no decision.
Vatutin from the Central Front, supported by Khrushchev, began pressing for a pre-emptive offensive. Rokossovsky from the Voronezh Front sent a report in which he argued that the enemy should be left to attack first and to break his strength against the Soviet positions. Pressure on Stalin to make a decision increased. Vasilevsky wrote that it took all the efforts of Zhukov, Antonov, and himself to dissuade the supreme commander from adopting the repeated proposals of Vatutin to take the offensive.
According to Zhukov, Stalin reached a firm decision in mid-May to await the German attack. It would be met with fire of all types from defenses in depth, with air attacks, and with counterblows from operational and strategic reserves; after wearing the enemy down, a counteroffensive would be launched in the Belgorod-Kharkov and the Orel directions.
The long wait for the opening of the enemy offensive had everybody on edge. This was the underlying factor in a fearful scene in the Kremlin office when Stalin lost his temper. He had received a personal letter, written by a group of fighter pilots, complaining about the fabric paint used on the wings of the Yak-9 interceptor planes, which caused them to break up in flight. At once, Stalin sent for Vasilevsky, Voronov, and Yakovlev, the designer. He swore at them all, calling them “Hitlerites.” Yakovlev, who had had long and close relations with Stalin, wrote that he had never seen him in such a rage, and that he himself was trembling with fear. They undertook to have all planes repaired within two weeks; it was an impossible undertaking, but it appeared to mollify him. He ordered, nevertheless, that the military prosecutor’s office should investigate the matter and find the traitors responsible.
In the early hours of July 5, the Germans attacked, striking south from Orel and north from Belgorod, intent on encircling the Soviet Central and Voronezh Fronts within the Kursk salient. For eight days, the battle raged. It involved a clash of tanks and artillery on a scale never before known in the history of warfare. The German forces suffered appalling losses and could make no impression on the Russian positions. On July 13, Hitler gave orders to break off the offensive.
The Russian counteroffensive was launched on July 12, as soon as the German drive had lost its impetus. At a meeting of general staff, front, and army commanders, called by Stalin in his Kremlin office some days earlier, Antonov gave a clear exposition of the plans of action. Stalin asked a few questions and expressed his approval. Bagramian, who then commanded the Eleventh Guards Army, wanted to propose modifications to the plan as it affected his role on the left flank. He hesitated to speak in the presence of the supreme commander. All were rolling up their maps, and the meeting seemed to be over when Stalin suddenly asked if anyone had contrary views. Bagramian said he had. Stalin looked at him, an expression of surprise on his face, and told him to speak. Bagramian felt so nervous that he had to take a grip on himself. All present unrolled their maps again. He explained how he saw the part to be played by his army in the coming offensive and the changes he recommended. Silence followed. He was expecting his proposals, coming from an army commander, to be squashed by the supreme commander, the general staff, and the front commanders, whom he called the “great trinity.” Stalin and the others studied their maps, and then Stalin told him his proposals were accepted subject to minor changes.
According to Zhukov and Vasilevsky, Stalin was always prepared to listen to views contrary to his own, provided they were based on facts and presented lucidly. But his attitude toward the general staff and his commanders had changed after the successful counteroffensives at Stalingrad. Indeed, he went so far as to declare that front commanders should themselves decide the timing of their counteroffensives. But the habit of command was deeply ingrained, and he always took control.
During the counteroffensives from the Kursk salient, he was constantly pressing Zhukov and Vasilevsky and the front commanders to attack without delay. Toward the end of July, both men firmly insisted that the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts needed eight days to replenish stocks before mounting their counterattacks. Stalin finally yielded to their insistence that the plan could be ruined by haste. Zhukov wrote subsequently: “Today, after Stalin’s death, the idea is current that he never heeded anybody’s advice and decided questions of military policy all by himself. I can’t agree with it. When he realized that the person reporting knew what he was talking about, he would listen, and I know cases when he reconsidered his own opinions and decisions. This was the case in many operations.”
The strategy in the south, after the enemy had been smashed at Belgorod-Kharkov, brought some conflict of views. Stalin rejected the proposals, put forward by Vatutin and supported by Khrushchev, that the Voronezh, Southwest, and West Fronts should press southward deep into the Ukraine to recover the industrial and agricultural lands, and from there prepare for the invasion of Romania and Hungary. He objected that this strategy would leave Kiev in enemy hands and the German Army Group Center, which stood only some 200 miles from Moscow, could not be left intact. His own strategy, which was adopted, was to strike from Poltava to recover Kiev and then to advance to separate Army Group Center from Army Group South, thus threatening both groups with envelopment. This strategy was to provide the basis for the great Russian victories in central and southeastern Europe in 1943–44.
The nation was elated by the victory at Kursk and by the counteroffensives. The morale of the troops was transformed, and there was no more talk of the invincibility of the enemy. The Red forces had at Stalingrad halted the German advance. In the battle of the Kursk salient, they had not only crushed the German summer campaign but had also destroyed the German capacity to mount another major offensive. From this time onward, the Germans could only retreat, following a defensive strategy. The Russians renewed their westward drive with furious energy, confident they were now invincible.
While sharing this confidence of the Red Army commanders, Stalin did not underestimate the German Army. He remained on guard against overoptimism and any slackening in discipline. As supreme commander, he kept a close control over operations and did not hesitate to censure even the most senior commanders. Zhukov and Vatutin received a strongly worded telegram when the Voronezh Front failed to envelop the enemy at Kharkov and suffered severe casualties in the German counterattack. They were guilty of “dissipa
ting their forces by attacking everywhere to cover as much ground as possible.”
Vasilevsky, chief of the general staff, received a shattering reprimand on August 17, 1943, which read: “Marshal Vasilevsky. It is now already 0330 hours 17 August and you still have not seen fit to send to the Stavka a report on the outcome of operations on 16 August and your appreciation of the situation. . . . Nearly every day you forget this duty. . . . Again you have been pleased to ignore your responsibility to the Stavka by not reporting. It is the last time that I give you notice that in the event of your allowing yourself to forget your duty you will be removed from the post of Chief of the General Staff and recalled from the front. I. Stalin.”
Vasilevsky, shaken by this rebuke, claimed that he had never failed to send his report, although for good reasons his report of August 16, 1943, was a few hours late in arriving. At once, he phoned Antonov in the Kremlin, who told him that Stalin was disappointed by the results of the offensives. He added that Vasilevsky’s report was already in Stalin’s hands when he dictated the message. He may have been in a perverse mood, or have considered that Vasilevsky was growing lax, or he may have been concerned to remind him of the supreme commander’s authority. Vasilevsky accepted the reprimand, writing later that “the absence of any indulgence toward us was in the interest of the conduct of the armed struggle.”