On June 21 he was informed that, according to a German deserter, a sergeant major, war would begin at dawn the next day. Reason told him that this was a provocation. But reports of German troop movements kept coming in from the frontier throughout the day, and that evening he felt bound to issue a cautious order: “In the course of June 22–23 a German attack in front-line areas is possible. The attack may begin with provocative operations. Our troops must not be taken in by any sort of provocation, but must at the same time be completely ready for action, so that they can withstand a sudden assault by the Germans and their allies. During the night they should surreptitiously occupy weapon emplacements in fortified areas. All aircraft should be dispersed to field airstrips and thoroughly camouflaged. The air force must be on permanent alert.” Admiral Kuznetsov, chief of naval forces, was ordered to contact fleet commanders: the navy must be ready for battle.
At 9:30 P.M. Molotov summoned Ambassador Schulenberg to express his government’s anxiety. Molotov asked the ambassador, “what is the reason for the mass departure of your embassy staff? Why is Germany dissatisfied—if it is? Why was there no reply to Tass’s pacific declaration?” Schulenberg’s reply was unintelligible. He was obviously depressed. Molotov must have known just what it meant. But no one must ever think—heaven forbid!—that Molotov had understood what the Leader had failed to understand. He chose not to understand Schulenberg’s embarrassment.
The Politburo was in session all day long. After the meeting, the black limousines carried the Boss and his comrades-in-arms to his dacha. He needed distraction. Molotov recalled that “on June 21 we were with Stalin at his dacha until 12:00 P.M. We may even have watched a film.” But Stalin’s forced cheerfulness was a failure, and he instructed Molotov to send an encoded telegram to the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, telling him to put to Ribbentrop the questions which Schulenberg had been asked.
Molotov drove to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and a telegram was sent to Berlin at 12:40 A.M.
At 3:30 A.M. German planes bombed Belorussia. At 4:00 A.M. the Germans were already bombing Kiev and Sevastopol.
At that time the Boss was sleeping peacefully at the nearer dacha. Zhukov tells us in his memoirs:
The Commissar ordered me to ring Stalin. The man on duty asked me in a sleepy voice, “Who’s calling?”
“Zhukov, Chief of Staff. Please connect me with Comrade Stalin, it’s urgent.”
“What, right now? Comrade Stalin is sleeping.”
“Wake him up immediately, the Germans are bombing our cities.”
Three minutes later Stalin was on the telephone. Zhukov reported the situation, and was answered by silence.
“Did you understand what I said?” Zhukov asked. Again there was silence. Then, finally, “Where’s the Commissar? Bring him down to the Kremlin. Tell Poskrebyshev to summon the whole Politburo.”
That was how, on June 22, the war began, three days after the opening of Tamerlane’s sarcophagus.
23
THE FIRST DAYS OF WAR
THE WITNESS
The street lamps were still burning when his car drove into the Kremlin. The Germans had attacked on Sunday—attacked a country that took its day of rest seriously. So many hungover citizens were sleeping off Saturday nights revelries. Stalin anxiously awaited news of casualties.
He was the first to arrive at the Kremlin. The other members of the Politburo, awakened by Poskrebyshev, filed into his office shortly afterward.
I am looking again at the entries in Stalin’s visitors’ book on that terrible day. Or, to be exact, for the first, warm daylight hours.
On June 22 he saw Molotov, then Beria, Timoshenko, Mekhlis, Zhukov, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Kaganovich.… Among those who entered his office was one whose name was not recorded, because he was not a visitor.
Y. Chadayev, chief administrative assistant to the Council of People’s Commissars, had been chosen to take brief notes at all meetings of the Politburo and of the government held in Stalin’s private office. Chadayev mentions several times in his memoirs that he was “the only one whom Stalin allowed to take notes.” His recollections of the beginning of the war, in the manuscript of his memoirs (written after Stalin’s death), are therefore of the greatest interest. When he himself died, his manuscript seems to have made the rounds of various secret archives before coming to rest in the Secret Fund of the Archive of the October Revolution. That was where I managed, during Gorbachev’s perestroika, to read these still unpublished memoirs, to which the author gave the title In Time of Dread.
IN TIME OF DREAD
There is a persistent legend that in the first days of the war Stalin, stunned by Hitler’s attack, was at his wits’ end, incapable of action. He then left the Kremlin for the nearer dacha, where he remained, bewildered and inactive. Knowing Stalin’s character as I did, I found this behavior strange. And my knowledge of his biography (the lesson he had learned in the Civil War, when the Bolsheviks lost three-quarters of their territory and still emerged victorious) made it seem doubly strange.
It was only after reading Chadayev’s memoirs that I began to understand Stalin’s behavior. They, together with the dispassionate visitors’ book, give us a quite different picture of those first days after the catastrophe.
Chadayev writes that “at dawn all the members of the Politburo, plus Timoshenko and Zhukov, were assembled. Timoshenko made his report: the German attack must be considered an accomplished fact, the enemy had bombed the main airfields, ports, and major arterial junctions.… Then Stalin began speaking. He spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully, occasionally his voice broke down. When he had finished everybody was silent for some time, and so was he. In the end he went up to Molotov and said: ‘We must get in touch with Berlin again and ring the embassy.’ ” He was still clinging to the hope that it was just a “provocation.” Chadayev goes on: “Molotov rang the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs from Stalin’s office and said to somebody there, with a slight stammer, ‘Tell him to come.’ He explained that Schulenberg was asking to see him. Stalin just said ‘Go!’ ”
Vatutin, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, left the office for a few minutes to get the latest news, and announced on his return that German troops were rapidly moving deep into Soviet territory, without meeting any strong resistance.
Molotov went to his own office in the Kremlin, the one looking out on the church of Ivan the Terrible, and Schulenberg was shown in to him. Chadayev continues: “After talking to Schulenberg Molotov returned to Stalin’s office, and said: ‘The German government has declared war on us.’ The Politburo were thrown into confusion.” They had believed him, and had gone on hoping that it was all a mere provocation, a trial of strength, and that Molotov’s talk with the ambassador would sort it all out.
Chadayev writes: “Stalin said calmly, ‘The enemy will be beaten all along the line.’ Then, turning to the military leaders: ‘What do you recommend?’ Zhukov said: ‘Order the troops on the frontier to attack along the whole front and halt the enemy—he’s gone too far too fast.’ Timoshenko: ‘Not halt—destroy.’ ”
It was decided that “our armies will fall upon the enemy with all the forces and all the means at their disposal, and destroy them in areas where they have breached the frontier. Pending further orders the frontier will not be crossed. Our planes will bomb enemy forces including those on occupied territory. On that first day of war everyone was in a quite optimistic mood … they believed that this was a short-lived venture which would shortly fail.”
There, I think, Chadayev was wrong. Timoshenko and the Politburo were simply playing up to the Boss. They dared not say anything different. He would never forgive them, he would harbor a grudge, and he would make them pay for it later. The Boss was also feigning optimism: he realized, of course, that what had happened was a disaster. Hitler had all the advantages of the aggressor. But what were the dimensions of the disaster? Chadayev writes, “I caught a glimpse of Stalin in the corridor. He looked tired, worn out
. His pockmarked face was drawn and haggard. During the first half of the day the Politburo approved an appeal to the Soviet people, and Molotov read it over the radio at noon.” He put Molotov on display deliberately: Molotov had signed the pact—let him take the consequences. But he and Molotov—both of them Party journalists, both former editors of Pravda—had drafted the appeal together. Molotov said that “Stalin did not want to come forward first … he wanted to get the picture, decide what the tone should be and what approach to take.”
The country heard the governments appeal on June 22. In many towns and cities, people heard it with bombs crashing around them. Molotov was obviously embarrassed. He spoke with difficulty, stammering slightly, and ended his speech with words written by Stalin: “Our cause is just, the enemy will be smashed, victory will be ours.” All through the war this sentence would be endlessly repeated, drummed into peoples minds. It would become the Boss’s mantra.
Chadayev writes: “At 2:00 P.M. I was called to Molotov’s office, and Stalin came along. He said, ‘Well, you sounded a bit flustered, but the speech went well.’ ” Molotov was happy. He knew the Boss: he would start looking for people to blame. But Molotov would obviously not be one of them.
The country was waiting for the omniscient one to speak, but the God was for the moment silent. He was waiting to see what would happen at the front, and selecting his first culprits. Chadayev writes, “That evening Stalin was in a somber mood, and said angrily: ‘Pavlov [commander on the western front, who had taken the first blow from the Germans] isn’t even in communication with the headquarters of his army groups, he says the order reached him late. Why was it late? And what if we hadn’t managed to give an order? With or without orders, surely the army ought to be completely ready for action, surely I shouldn’t have to give my watch orders to keep working?’ ” The first culprit had been identified. Stalin, says Chadayev, went on to say, “We must order them to evacuate the population and the enterprises eastward. Nothing must fall into the hands of the enemy.”
This sentence implied the burning of towns, villages, and factories by retreating armies—the “scorched earth” tactic. At that moment of retreat and panic, it was wishful thinking. But it would become reality in the near future.
The day of madness continued. Desperate news arrived from the front. Chadayev writes:
Timoshenko reported that the attack had exceeded all expectations. In the first hours of war enemy planes had made mass attacks on airfields and troops.
Stalin: “I expect many Soviet planes were destroyed right there on the ground?” He worked himself up into an indescribable state of indignation, pacing up and down the office. “Surely the German air force didn’t manage to reach every single airfield?”
“Unfortunately it did.”
“How many planes were destroyed?”
“At a preliminary estimate around seven hundred.”
In reality it was several times more.
The western front suffered the heaviest losses. Pavlov was anathematized all over again. According to Chadayev, “Stalin said, This is a monstrous crime. Those responsible must lose their heads,’ and immediately instructed the NKVD to investigate the matter.”
The twelve-hour workday ended at 5:00 P.M. Beria was the last to leave the Boss’s office, no doubt after the usual parting instruction: shoot those responsible! The culprits, however, were lying dead beside their planes.
Work began again during the night. From 3:30 A.M. to the middle of the following night he received an uninterrupted succession of visitors. In the course of the day an instrument which he had thought of in May was finally created. This was the GHQ of the High Command, now the highest administrative organ for the armed services. He called it “Stavka” (General Headquarters), like its equivalent in the days of the deposed Nicholas II. This was no accident. Nor was it by accident that he shortly brought back the officers’ epaulettes which all revolutionaries had loathed. Internationalism and world revolution went at once to the bottom of the agenda. The emphasis was on the nation, the Russian state, the idea of the Fatherland.
While he looked around for a commander for his military, he appointed Timoshenko as chief of GHQ High Command ad interim.
It was now June 24, and Stalin’s last visitors, Molotov and Timoshenko, did not leave his office until 6:00 A.M. The mask of impassivity, his favorite, was dropped. Now he could be himself. There was no sign of exhaustion, of helplessness. His constant state was one of rage. He hated everybody and everything—for the error he had committed. Chadayev writes: “ ‘Although our troops are bravely endeavoring to carry out the orders to counterattack,’ Timoshenko reported, ‘they have not yet achieved the expected results.’ Stalin, when he heard all that Timoshenko had to say, flew into a rage. He blamed the western command for everything. Then he heaped reproaches on Vatutin and Timoshenko. They turned pale, but hid their resentment and asked to be sent to the front. ‘The front can wait for you a bit longer,’ he said, ‘but who’s going to clear up the mess we have here at GHQ, who’s going to correct the present state of affairs?’ ” Their request had only fueled his indignation. The People’s Commissar for Tank Production, V. Malyshev, was then summoned to the meeting. “Stalin interrupted his report: ‘You’re a long time getting a move on,’ he said, and started asking concrete questions about ways to expand arms production, and how best to organize production of armor plating. It was decided to create a new base for tank production in the Urals and Siberia.”
If worst came to worst, if the Germans occupied the whole of European Russia, then the limitless expanses of Siberia, and the Urals, with their great mineral wealth, would still be left. The war could be carried on from there.
Chadayev writes: “In conclusion, he instructed Vasilievsky, Deputy Chief of the General Staff, by telephone to ‘convey immediately to the commanding officers on each of the fronts our extreme displeasure that the troops have retreated.’ ” This “most attack-oriented of armies,” trained only to attack, had proved helpless in defensive warfare. The army was in headlong retreat.
Chadayev writes: “G. M. Popov, Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Party, and the city district secretaries, who had been sitting in the waiting room, were called in. Stalin stroked his mustache with the telephone receiver and said: ‘The Central Committee is receiving a large number of requests from the Soviet people for the creation of a citizens’ militia.… To meet the wishes of the citizens of Moscow we shall set up a number of volunteer divisions of citizen-soldiers.’ ” A murderous scheme was taking shape in his mind. He would husband his reserves, hold back and keep fresh the new divisions then being formed in Siberia, a land of hunters, full of young men skilled in fighting. For the present he would plug the holes at the front with cannon fodder—the people’s militia, the “four-eyed” intelligentsia, who could hardly be taught to fire a gun, boys fresh from universities and technical colleges, together with the hemorrhaged remnants of the retreating armies.
The patriotic call to the militia was sounded. Joining up was supposedly voluntary. But that was “in-depth language.” Those who refused to sign on were showered with contempt and promises of retribution.
Meanwhile the search for scapegoats went on. Chadayev writes: “In Molotov’s office Stalin said to Dekanozov, lately ambassador in Germany: ‘A duckling knows the water while it’s still in the egg, and you’ve been around a bit. In our private conversations you repeatedly asserted that we need not expect an attack before 1942.… How could you.… In a word, you have not lived up to our expectations.’ … He came down heavily on Marshal Kulik, an incompetent soldier, one of those whom he had substituted for the purged marshals. That good-for-nothing Kulik needs a kick in the ass.’ ” Day after day was filled with frantic activity, fits of rage, and tireless drudgery. By now there was no disguising the real dimensions of what had happened. It was a military catastrophe. Chadayev writes: “Timoshenko reported that our forces were regrouping to check the enemy’s advance. Stalin: ‘Y
ou mean you are no longer getting ready, as you were previously, to smash the enemy quickly?’ ‘No, that can’t possibly be done right off, but after we’ve concentrated our forces we shall undoubtedly smash him.’ ” He began to lose his temper more and more frequently. This was now his normal condition. “Stalin stood in front of the map, with his comrades-in-arms looking reproachfully at his back. Before they had time to do one thing he was asking them to do something else.” He decided that it was time to stop playing games. He must begin cautiously speaking the truth. The others still dared not speak it. “Stalin said, ‘We were hoping against hope that the enemy was about to be halted and smashed at any moment, but he continues to edge forward.’ He fell silent. He looked tired and worried.”
THE BLACK CAPITAL
Chadayev reports: “At 3:00 A.M. on June 24 an air-raid warning sounded. The zonal commander of antiaircraft artillery reported that enemy planes were flying toward Moscow, sirens hooted, the population took refuge in air-raid shelters, antiaircraft guns opened fire.” Damaged planes left a fiery trail as they crashed to the ground. (How often we wartime children drew pictures of those blazing planes!) Chadayev continues: “But clarification soon followed. The district commander of antiaircraft telephoned to say: ‘Our people have made a bit of a mess of things. It turns out we’ve been firing on our own planes coming back from a bombing raid.’ ” He omitted to add “and succeeded in shooting them down.”
From the very first days of the war, panic and fear reigned in Moscow. Windows were blacked out. Street lamps were unlit. “A paradise for lovers—they could kiss out in the streets,” one poet wrote.
Chadayev says, “On June 25, Poskrebyshev summoned me urgently to Stalin’s waiting room. Someone was needed to take minutes. I went straight into the office. There was no one there except Stalin, Timoshenko, and Vatutin. Vatutin was just finishing his report. Stalin said: To sum up briefly, the situation is extremely serious on all fronts.’ After this Timoshenko asked Stalin whether or not his son Yakov, who was very keen to go, should be sent to the front line. Stalin, trying to contain his anger, said: ‘Some—to put it mildly—inordinately zealous officials are always trying too hard to please their superiors. I don’t include you in that number but I advise you never to ask me questions like that again.’ ” What did an unloved son matter? His country was perishing.
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