Stalin

by Edvard Radzinsky

  Stalin’s personal archives contain a “Biography of Yakov Dzhugashvili”: “His wife—Julia Isakovna Meltser.… Until 1935 he lived at his father’s expense, and studied. In 1935 he graduated from the Institute of Transport. In 1937 he entered the Artillery Academy.” Entering the academy had signified reconciliation with his father, who had always wanted his sons to be soldiers. Yakov had graduated from the academy on May 9, 1941, six weeks before the outbreak of war.

  He had left for the front on the first day of the war. His father had no time to see him before he left. Yakov had telephoned from his younger brother Vasily’s dacha, where a merry farewell party was in progress. Under interrogation by the Germans Yakov said: “On June 22 my father told me over the phone to ‘go and fight.’ ”

  “GO AND FIGHT”

  Many soldiers gave themselves up at that stage of the war, or ran home to their villages, where their parents hid them in the cellar. But many were taken prisoner only after heavy fighting, and because they were wounded. Stalin nonetheless decided to treat them all alike. He drafted a decree saying that “all service personnel taken prisoner are declared outside the law and their families are subject to punishment.” He further decreed that “men who find themselves surrounded must fight on to the last, try to break out and join their own side, while those who choose to surrender are to be destroyed by any means possible, and the families of Red army men who surrender are to be deprived of state grants and assistance.”

  That left his soldiers two possibilities: they could either fight and win, or they could die. And while he was contemplating this decree German planes were dropping leaflets telling soldiers that his son had surrendered. He had never loved Yakov, and he concluded that the wolf cub was seeking revenge—for constant humiliation, for his father’s neglect and dislike, for the arrest of his mother’s relatives the Svanidzes.… Stalin now hated everything connected with the traitor, including all the Svanidzes. It was no coincidence that Alyosha Svanidze, the traitor son’s uncle, was shot the following month, on August 20, 1941.

  Maria Svanidze, Yakov’s aunt, also had committed an irreparable mistake. Kira Alliluyeva-Politkovskaya, the daughter of Stalin’s mistress (and his wife’s sister-in-law) Zhenya, recorded in her memoirs: “Someone who happened to be passing through brought Mama a letter from Maria Anisimovna. She wrote that she was in a camp, that she was having a very hard time there, and that she was dying. When Stalin was in a good mood Mama gave him the letter. He read it and said, ‘Zhenya, don’t ever do this again.’ ”

  He had read Maria’s diary by then, and the thought that the traitor’s relative, Maria, had “observed him” with Zhenya, and had taken advantage of her discovery to petition him through Zhenya, infuriated him. Intrigue was forbidden to everyone except himself. As always, he chose a radical solution: the hated Svanidzes must all disappear. Maria and Mariko Svanidze, Alyosha’s sister, were shot early in 1942.

  So strong was Stalin’s belief that his son was a traitor that when the Germans offered through the Red Cross to discuss Yakov’s release he simply did not reply.

  In the army, rumor had it that the Germans had offered to release Yakov in exchange for a captured field marshal, but Stalin had said, “We don’t trade ordinary soldiers for field marshals”—to let everybody know that to Stalin they were all equal, that as far as he was concerned his son was like all other soldiers, and that all soldiers were his sons. At the same time a number of special operations groups were formed to try and snatch Yakov from his place of internment, or to kill him so that the Germans could no longer make use of him. They all perished.

  Yakov’s wife, Julia Meltser, mother of Stalin’s granddaughter, was duly consigned to the Lubyanka. She would be released two years later, when he finally learned that his son was not a traitor. For the time being, Mekhlis invented a story for dissemination in the army: Stalin’s son had enjoyed no privileges, and had been wounded before he was taken prisoner. The German leaflets were just lying propaganda.

  Documents in Stalin’s private archive prove his unfortunate son’s innocence. They include, for instance, a letter to Vasily, which was immediately passed on to his father.

  Dear Vasily Iosifovich, I am the colonel who came to your dacha with Yakov Iosifovich on the day he left for the front. On July 12 the regiment was sent into battle with a handful of infantry and without ammunition, and outnumbered ten to one.… The divisional commander abandoned them and left the battlefield in a tank. He drove past Yakov Iosifovich showing not the slightest interest in what became of him.… [Signed] Ivan Sapegin, Commanding Officer, 303rd Light Artillery Regiment.

  The Boss was to learn soon afterward that the story thought up by his propagandists was no more than the truth. His suspicions had been unjustified. His son had been loyal to the end. Zhukov remembered this conversation:

  “Comrade Stalin,” I said, “I’ve been wanting for some time to ask you about your son Yakov. Is there any more news of his fate?” He did not answer my question immediately. He took at least a hundred steps around the room, then said in a strangely muffled voice: “Yakov will never escape. They’ll shoot him, murdering swine that they are. From what we’ve been able to learn he is kept isolated from the other prisoners and is under pressure to betray his Motherland.” He was silent for a moment, and then added confidently that “Yakov would sooner die than betray his Motherland.” … He sat at the table for a long time in silence without touching his food.

  He would not know the whole story until Hitler was finally defeated. Stalin was then sent the record of Yakov’s interrogation, impounded in Germany. What follows is an excerpt from the report of interrogation at Luftwaffe headquarters on July 18, 1941:

  “Did you come over to us voluntarily, or were you captured in battle?”

  “I had no choice. We were surrounded. It caused such a panic that everybody started running. I was with the divisional commander at the time.… I started running toward my own battery, but a group of Red army men who wanted to break through to the Soviet side called out to me and asked me to take command and lead them in an attack on your forces. I did so, but the soldiers took fright and I found myself alone.… If my own ranks had retreated, if I’d seen my own division retreating, I’d have shot myself, but these weren’t my men, they were infantry.… I was trying to join my own unit.… I exchanged clothes with a peasant in some village—gave him my uniform in exchange for civilian clothes.… I went into the cottage and the peasant said, ‘Go away now or we’ll report you.’ … The woman couldn’t stop crying. She said they’d kill her and her children and burn the house down. There was nothing else for it … I was surrounded and had nowhere to go. So I came along and said, ‘I’m surrendering.’ ”

  “Does the Red government consist mainly of Jews?”

  “That’s all rubbish, stupid talk. They have no influence at all. On the contrary, I personally don’t mind telling you that the Russian people has always hated the Jews. All I can say about them is that they are incapable of work.… From their point of view all that matters is trade.”

  “You know, don’t you, that your father’s second wife was Jewish? Because Kaganovich is a Jew, isn’t he?”

  “Nothing of the sort. She was Russian. What are you talking about? Nothing like that ever happened. His first wife was Georgian and his second was Russian, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Wasn’t his second wife’s name Kaganovich?”

  “No, no, that’s just rumors, nonsense!… His wife died … Alliluyeva. She was Russian. He’s sixty-two now. He was married. Now he isn’t.”

  “About this business of burning all the foodstocks when they’re abandoning a place. That’s a dreadful disaster for the whole population.… Do you think it’s right?”

  “Frankly, I do.”

  “Do you know that we’ve found a letter—from a Russian officer. It says in part, ‘I’m doing my exam for second lieutenant in the reserve. I should like to come home this autumn, but I can only manage i
t if we aren’t sent on an outing to Berlin. June 11. Viktor.’ ”

  [The interrogator made a note of his immediate reaction:] He read the letter and said “I’ll be damned!”

  “Was there really any such intention?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  In conclusion Yakov said, “I don’t know how I could face my father. I’m ashamed to be alive.”

  Stalin did not make this interrogator’s report public. His son was right: it was a disgrace that he was still alive. His son had realized it when the decree on prisoners of war, signed by his father, had reached him. It was an order to him to die. Yakov obeyed his order in the following year.

  Stalin would receive information about Yakov’s tragic end, a statement made by Gustav Wegner, the officer commanding the SS battalion guarding Yakov’s camp. Wegner wrote: “Late in 1943 the prisoners were taking their exercise—Dzhugashvili wouldn’t go with them, and asked to see the commandant of the camp.… An SS man went to the phone to call the commandant. While he was telephoning the following happened: Dzhugashvili was walking around, and absentmindedly crossed the no-go area and went toward the (electrified) fence. The sentry shouted ‘Halt!’ Dzhugashvili kept straight on. The sentry shouted ‘I’ll shoot!’ The sentry fired at his head and killed him.… As the shot was fired Dzhugashvili simultaneously seized the high-tension wire and immediately collapsed onto the first two rows of barbed wire. He hung there in that position for twenty-four hours, after which his body was taken away to the crematorium.”

  The dreadful month of July went by, with the Soviet armies rolling back toward Moscow. Marshal Konyev remembered receiving a telephone call at Vyazma from Stalin. To his surprise, it was an impassioned monologue. “Comrade Stalin is not a traitor. Comrade Stalin is not a turncoat. Comrade Stalin is an honorable man … he will do everything in his power to correct the present situation.” He did just that. He began by re-creating an atmosphere of terror, so that he would never again have to deliver pathetic monologues for the benefit of generals. His decrees on deserters were accompanied by the shooting of soldiers and officers. Then some of the generals were executed. The former High Command of the western front were court-martialed on July 22. The generals asked to be sent to the front as ordinary soldiers, to atone with their blood for the defeat of their armies, but their duty now was to help him restore unquestioning obedience to the new Supreme Commander. He decreed that “army general D. Pavlov, formerly commanding the western front, V. Klimovski, a former chief of staff, A. Grigoriev, former chief of communications, western front … being guilty of cowardice, inaction, mismanagement, and deliberate disorganization of the troops … are to be shot.” This made his generals remember 1937, and who had the power.

  In mid-July German troops belonging to the “Center Group” were already outside Kiev, and a mere 150 miles from Moscow. The German front was moving forward along a line from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Outwardly, everything was just as it had been when Poland was attacked: the Germans took many prisoners, whole Russian armies were surrounded, mindless confusion reigned in the retreating units. But right from the start there was a difference. The German General Blumenrit wrote: “The conduct of the Russian troops in retreat was strikingly different from that of the Poles or the Western Allies. Even when they were surrounded they did not leave their positions.” Partly, of course, this was because his soldiers were brave, but the terrible decree also had a considerable effect. General Haider’s diary is even more interesting: “Russia, a colossus that deliberately prepared for war, was underestimated by us.… When the war began we had 200 divisions against us.… Now, on August 11, 1941, after the bloody losses they have suffered, we estimate the number of divisions is 360. Even if we smash a dozen of them the Russians will organize another dozen.” Stalin could afford to sacrifice millions. There were other millions where they came from. Hitler believed that Stalin would be overthrown by his own people as soon as he suffered a heavy defeat in the field: “One good kick at the door and the whole rotten structure will collapse immediately,” Hitler told General Halder.

  But the Soviet people did not even dare ask why their Leader had been caught napping by the German invasion, why the army was unready to defend itself and go on to win. Independent thought had evaporated almost completely in the white heat of Terror. He had created a new society, united by an aggressive pagan creed. And by fear, the great engine of despotism. The people dared not doubt the God Stalin. The armies had meekly retreated, dying with the words “For the Motherland! For Stalin!” on their lips. With this war cry, coined by him and his ideologies, the generals led their soldiers into futile attacks. His name was often the last sound men heard before they died.

  “If you only had come earlier!” This was how White officers, who had miraculously survived the purges, greeted the Germans. But Hitler was a help. The bestial atrocities of the Germans stiffened resistance and made former White Russians rescind their greeting in a hurry.

  At the same time what the Boss had hoped for all along began to happen: Hitler’s resources were dwindling. He decided to halt the advance on Moscow temporarily and concentrate his efforts on the Ukraine and the Caucasus. He needed grain and oil to continue the war. Hitler counted on the traditional animosity toward Russia of the Ukraine and the descendants of Cossacks, who had special reasons to hate the Bolsheviks. But the inevitable happened: the fascists made enemies even of those who originally sympathized with them. The brutality and the looting of the occupying armies in the Ukraine gave impetus to the partisan war which the Boss so skillfully organized. Hitler’s desire to exterminate the Jews mobilized the most dynamic section of the population against him: yesterday’s timid intellectuals became selfless heroes. Throughout the whole period, there was only one serious defection: Lieutenant General Vlasov and his army were surrounded in summer 1942, and went over to the Germans.

  Vlasov, second in command on the Volkhovo front, had distinguished himself in the fighting near Moscow. His very modest part in the Civil War, his obscurity in the Trotsky period, and his lack of contacts with old Leninists had enabled him to make a career during the years of terror. Did he go over to Hitler because he saw no hope for himself once he was taken prisoner? Or did he really hate Stalin and dream of a new Russia, as he claimed? But how could Vlasov hope to build a new Russia in alliance with Hitler, who meant to destroy Slavdom?

  Vlasov called his units the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). He was joined by White generals well known to Stalin from the battles for Tsaritsyn—Ataman P. Krasnov and General Shkuro.

  After his victory he would find Vlasov, Krasnov, and Shkuro, and make them all pay. The NKVD would hunt soldiers who had served in the ROA all over Europe. They would be shot, or more often end on the gallows. The gallows at Gori had remained in his memory from childhood, as a symbol of disgrace. Besides the ROA the Germans created Caucasian, Turkestanian, Georgian, and Armenian legions. These were all small formations, useful mainly for propaganda purposes. Only in the North Caucasus, in the Chechen-Ingush and Kabarda-Balkar “autonomous republics” did Hitler obtain some semblance of collaboration by exploiting the hatred of Moslems for Russians.

  The Boss could claim that the empire had stood the test.

  UNDER THE WALLS OF MOSCOW

  At the beginning of October 1941, the offensive against Moscow was resumed. Hitler announced that “the enemy is prostrate. The territory to the rear of our armies is twice as large as that of the German Reich in 1933.”

  But the Boss knew that there was still plenty of territory ahead of Hitler’s troops. And also ahead was the winter, for which the German army was unprepared.

  The Germans continued their attack, but it was already getting difficult as the autumn rains washed away nightmarish Russian roads, causing trucks, tanks, and artillery to sink into the mud.

  And then—a miracle happened. Metropolitan Ilya had spoken the truth. The Mother of God had not deserted the land. Heavy snowfalls began earlier than anyone remembered—
at the beginning of October. In the Moscow area the weather is usually fine and warm at that time of year, but in 1941 the first snow fell on October 7. “There was never a hint that we would be getting winter uniforms,” wrote General Blumenrit. On November 3 the temperature dropped to –8 [16°F]. Petrol and lubricating oil began to freeze in the engines of tanks. The Germans lay down on the ice under their tanks and lit fires, and General Guderian begged in vain for winter clothing.

  Meanwhile, around Vyazma and Bryansk, five Soviet armies had been surrounded because their commanders had blundered, and were now fighting to the death. They did what he meant them to do, and pinned down the Germans who were gradually destroying them, bleeding them dry. They perished, but the German troops emerged on the road to Moscow drained, exhausted.

  By mid-October German units were within twenty miles of Moscow. Hitler was getting ready for a victory parade through the Moscow streets. On October 15 the Boss decided to evacuate the city. Government departments and foreign embassies began withdrawing to Kuibyshev, deep in the rear.