Stalingrad

by Vasily Grossman

  The man with the black beard, whose voice had been louder than anyone’s while they were talking, sang so quietly that he could barely be heard. He had the air of a diligent schoolboy, and he didn’t take his eyes off the young woman. She looked taller now; her white neck had grown long and fine, and her face had taken on a rare look of joy and kindness, of triumphant gentleness.

  Probably nothing but song could have expressed the trouble and anguish now weighing on these people. There was one song Krymov thought he might have heard before, long ago. It touched something deeply hidden, something he had not known was still present within him. Only rarely, as if suddenly able to look down from above and glimpse the whole length of the Volga, from the hidden springs of Lake Seliger to the salty delta where it enters the Caspian Sea—only very rarely is a human being able to bring together in their heart all the different parts of their life, the sweet years of childhood, the years of labour, hopes, passions and heartbreak, and the years of old age.

  Krymov saw tears running down the cheeks of their black-bearded host.

  The young woman was looking at him again. “There’s little cheer,” she said, “in our good cheer.”

  You can write down the words of a song. You can describe the singer, the melody and the look in the listeners’ eyes. You can write about the listeners’ sorrows and longings—but will all this conjure a song into being? A song that makes people weep? Of course not. How could it?

  “Yes,” said Krymov. “Sadly little cheer.” He went outside and walked over to his car. Semyonov had moved it—it was now close up against a fence.

  “Are you asleep, Semyonov?”

  “No,” said Semyonov. “I’m not asleep.” Childishly happy to see Krymov, he looked at him out of the darkness. “It’s very quiet now, and dark and frightening. That fire’s burnt itself out . . . I’ve spread out some hay for you in the barn.”

  “I’ll go and lie down now,” said Krymov.

  •

  What Krymov remembered afterwards was the half-light of the summer dawn, the smell and rustle of hay, and stars in the pale morning sky—or had it been the young woman’s eyes, against her pale face?

  He told her about his grief, about how hurt he had been by Zhenya. He told her things he had never even told himself.

  And she whispered quickly and passionately to him, begging him to stay with her. Not far from the village of Tsimlyanskaya she had a house and garden. There was wine there, and cream, and fresh fish, and honey. No one there would betray them. They would marry in church and she swore to love no one but him. She would gladly live all her life with him—but if he tired of her, he would always be free to leave her.

  She said she did not understand what had happened to her. She had known her fair share of men, had known and forgotten them. But Krymov, it seemed, had bewitched her. She was trembling all over, gasping for breath. No, she had never known anything like this.

  Her words and her looks pierced his heart. “Maybe this is it,” he thought. “Maybe this is happiness.” And then he answered himself, “Maybe it is, but it’s not happiness that I want.”

  He went out into the orchard. Ducking his head, he passed under the low branches of the apple trees.

  Semyonov called out from the yard, “Comrade Commissar, it’s Sarkisyan, it’s our mortars!”

  The joy in Semyonov’s voice made it clear how anxious he had felt earlier, listening to the hum of Heinkels and the rumble of Soviet bombers, looking up at the sky and the mute glow of the distant blaze.

  That evening they crossed the Don yet again. Running his tongue over his dust-parched lips, Krymov said, “It’s not the same soldiers on the pontoons. The two sappers from the other day must have been killed. They didn’t serve long, but they served honourably.”

  Semyonov did not answer; he was concentrating on steering. Once they were safely across and on their way east again, he said, “That Cossack was a real beauty, comrade Commissar. I thought we’d be staying a day longer.”

  67

  THAT NIGHT, after accompanying the mortar unit to Stalingrad, Krymov went to see Lieutenant Colonel Gorelik, the brigade commander.

  “Well,” Krymov began, “have you caught a few Volga sturgeon? Will you be treating me to fish soup?”

  Usually Gorelik liked to joke with his commissar. This time, however, he did not even smile. Instead, he went to the door and checked that it was firmly closed.

  “Read this, comrade Krymov,” he said, taking from his map case a folded sheet of cigarette paper.

  It was an Order from Stalin.

  Krymov began to read Stalin’s words to the retreating army. Full of sorrow and rage, these words expressed Krymov’s own pain, his own sorrow, his own faith and sense of responsibility.

  It was as if he were reading the words within his own being, as if they had lived within him throughout all the dust, fire and smoke of the retreat. Stalin’s words burnt with bitter truth. They summoned men to their highest duty. They spoke with shocking simplicity about mortal danger. But really they said only one thing: any further retreat would mean the end of everything. There was, therefore, no greater crime in the world than retreat. The fate of a great country and a great people—the fate of the world—was being decided. There could be no further retreat.

  “The very words we need!” said Krymov. He picked up the small sheet of cigarette paper in his two hands and returned it to Gorelik. The weightless paper felt as heavy as a slab of steel. The words were imbued not only with sorrow and anger, but also with faith in victory.

  It was as if he had heard the tocsin being rung.154

  68

  LIEUTENANT Kovalyov, commander of an infantry company, received a letter from Tolya Shaposhnikov, his recent travelling companion.

  Tolya had been posted to an artillery unit. His letter was cheerful and spirited: his battery had come first in a shooting competition. He was eating a lot of cantaloupes and watermelons and had twice gone on fishing trips with his commander. Kovalyov understood that Tolya’s unit was being held in reserve and must be positioned not far from his own unit. He too went fishing in the Volga and was eating his fill of all kinds of melons.

  Kovalyov made several attempts to write back, but he was unable to say what he wanted to say. He was angered by Tolya’s last line: “My unit is a Guards unit. So, greetings from Guards Lieutenant Anatoly Shaposhnikov.”

  Kovalyov imagined Tolya writing to his family in Stalingrad, to his grandmother, to his beautiful young aunt, to his cousins, and signing each letter “With warm greetings from Guards Lieutenant Shaposhnikov.” Kovalyov wanted to write something sarcastic yet good-natured, something both mocking and protective, but he was unable to find words for his contradictory feelings. This young boy, who had barely sniffed gunpowder, was already a Guards lieutenant. This upset Kovalyov.

  Kovalyov’s company was part of a battalion commanded by Senior Guards Lieutenant Filyashkin. This battalion was part of a regiment commanded by Guards Lieutenant Colonel Yelin. And this regiment was, in turn, part of a division commanded by Guards Major General Rodimtsev. It was a Guards division and so all its commanders could call themselves Guards commanders. To Kovalyov it seemed wrong that a man who had not seen fighting could call himself a Guards commander simply because he had been posted to a regiment in a Guards division. The veterans in his division had fought in the battle for Kiev in the summer of 1941, when the Germans broke through to Demievka and the Goloseyevsky Forest. All through the winter of 1941–42, with its snows and harsh frosts, the division had been a part of the Southwestern Front, fighting just south of Kursk. The division had then conducted a fighting retreat back towards the Don, suffering heavy casualties. After being withdrawn to reform and refit, it had returned to the front. It was not for nothing that it was titled a Guards division. But as for becoming a Guards commander just like that, without even seeing combat . . .

  Wartime experiences often evoked feelings of jealousy. These feelings arose from people’s sense t
hat they had witnessed a great deal and known great suffering, from their sense of closeness to others who had fought during the first hours and days of the war, and from their knowledge that they had seen things that no one would ever see again. War, though, is ruled by the simplest of laws. Past exploits are irrelevant; what matters is a man’s ability to cope with the present—the skill, strength, courage and intelligence with which he can carry out the hard work of the day.

  Kovalyov understood this—and he was severe and demanding in his treatment of new recruits and reinforcements brought up from the rear. His capacity for fault-finding had become legendary. Everyone under his command had to learn the countless small ruses he himself had had to learn during the previous year. This, of course, was invaluable—thousands upon thousands of novices quickly acquired a sound grasp of wartime experience that their predecessors had acquired only at the most terrible cost.

  The new recruits were of all ages and backgrounds: a young boy of a metalworker who had never touched a rifle; older men who until recently had been exempt from conscription; young kolkhoz workers; boys fresh from ten years of schooling in one of the big cities; accountants; evacuees from towns and villages to the west; volunteers who believed there was no higher calling than that of a soldier. And there were men who had been sent to the front in lieu of completing their term in a labour camp.

  Among all these new recruits was a forty-five-year-old kolkhoz worker, Pyotr Semyonovich Vavilov.

  69

  KOVALYOV’S company was being held in reserve, not far from Nikolaevka, in the monotonous steppe extending east from the Volga. Like every social unit—from village to small workshop or large factory—the company had its particular way of being, not all of which was obvious to an outsider. There were men whom everyone loved—men who were bold, loyal and honest—and there were troublesome, slippery figures whom everyone complained about but who for some reason enjoyed the favour of the political instructor and the commanders. Among these troublesome figures were Usurov—a coarse, greedy bully—and Senior Sergeant Dodonov, who was overfond of tobacco and extra rations, rude to his subordinates, obsequious to his superiors and a dangerous telltale. And then there was Rezchikov, a joker and gifted teller of stories. People liked him, but they also enjoyed making fun of him. They respected him, but this respect concealed a trace of mockery; he was treated, in short, the way Russians often treat their village and factory poets, their storytellers and domestic philosophers.

  There were men whom few knew by name, faceless, silent men who remained silent even when this upset others. People addressed these men with such phrases as “Hey, redhead!” or “You, you idiot over there!” One such “idiot” was Mulyarchuk, who was seldom out of trouble. If there was a large pothole on the road, Mulyarchuk would fall into it. If the company was being examined for lice, no one turned out to have more lice on him. When there was a uniform inspection, it was Mulyarchuk who had missing buttons and a side cap with no star.

  There was Rysev, a bold, strong, agile paratrooper who had already taken part in twenty attacks. Everyone always spoke of Rysev with pride. When they were in a train and coming into a station, he would leap down onto the platform well before the train had come to a stop. Bucket in hand, he would run to the station boiler, turn the brass tap and lean against the boiler-room wall, bracing himself so that none of the crowd clattering after him could push him aside until he had filled his bucket with boiled water. His mates, meanwhile, would have been watching from the door of the freight wagon, calling out, “Yes, Rysev’s first again. He’s left them all standing!”

  After spending a little time with Kovalyov’s company, after watching and listening to the men, after eating with them and marching alongside them, any observer would have understood that the company had its laws and that the men all lived by these laws. He would have noticed that the sly and the shameless were always able to gain some small but significant advantage: to ride on a supplies cart during one section of a long march, to grab a pair of new boots just the right size, or to be excused from duty at a crucial moment. But he might not have noticed the working of the most important law of all—the law that binds men together and is often the key to an army’s victory or defeat.

  This law, simple and natural as the beating of the heart, was unchanging and inescapable. During Hitler’s years in power, for all the proclamations of fascist “philosophy,” faith in the equality of nations and love of the Soviet land did not die; this faith and love endured in the depth of soldiers’ hearts, in their night-time conversations and in the speeches of their commissars. The brotherhood of all Soviet workers continued to live and breathe in the churned-up mud of the front line, in half-flooded trenches, in summer dust and winter snow-drifts. This was the law that brought men together, that united companies, battalions and regiments. The most ordinary of men had created this law and at the same time they obeyed it unquestioningly, often unaware of it yet always seeing it as the only true measure of character and deed.

  Vavilov had worked all his life. He understood that labour was both a burden and a joy.

  Rowing upstream against a powerful current, looking at a field he had just ploughed or at a mountain of turf he had dug out from a trench, hearing the sudden crack as he drove a wedge into a stout, gnarled log, measuring by eye the depth of a pit or the height of a wall he had just built—labour of every kind afforded him a calm sense of his own strength that he felt almost ashamed to acknowledge. It was indeed both a burden and a joy. Day after day it brought him the same reward as it brought scientists, artists and great reformers: the excitement of struggle and the satisfaction of victory.

  Back on the kolkhoz, his sense of his own power and ability had merged with his sense of the unity and strength of the people and of their shared purpose. At times of year when everyone had to work together—during ploughing, harvesting and threshing—Vavilov sensed that the sheer scale of kolkhoz labour had brought something new into their lives. The hum of cars, the roar of tractors, the measured progress of the combine harvester, the determination of tractor drivers and brigade leaders—all this constituted a single communal effort towards a shared goal. All these hundreds of hands—hands dark from machine oil, hands dark from wind and sun, men’s hands, young girls’ and old women’s hands—shared in the work of lifting layers of soil, of mowing and threshing the kolkhoz grain. And everyone there knew that his or her strength derived from the ties that gathered the strength and skills of individuals into a single collective skill.

  Vavilov knew that there was much in which Soviet peasants could take just pride: tractors and combine harvesters; motors to pump water to the pig farm, the cow shed and the experimental field; portable engines and diesel engines; small hydroelectric power stations on the bank of a river. He had witnessed the first appearance in the village of bicycles, trucks and tractor stations manned by skilled mechanics—and of tarred roads, agronomists, trained beekeepers, Michurin gardens,155 poultry farms, and stables and cowsheds with stone floors. Another ten or fifteen years of peace—and his kolkhoz could have been cultivating the finest grain on a vast expanse of fields.

  But the fascists had not allowed this to happen.

  The company’s first hour of political instruction was held in the open air. Politinstructor Kotlov—bald, with a broad forehead—asked Vavilov, “Who are you, comrade?”

  “A kolkhoz activist,” replied Vavilov.

  “Guards division kolkhoz activist,” murmured Rezchikov. Vavilov’s reply had amused everyone. The correct reply was “Red Army soldier, 3rd Company, such and such a regiment, such and such a Guards division, Order of the Red Banner.”

  But Kotlov chose not to correct Vavilov. He simply said, “Very good.”

  Despite being from a village, Vavilov turned out to know more than most of his comrades. He knew about recent political developments in Romania and Hungary. He knew when Magnitogorsk had been founded, and who had commanded the defence of Sevastopol in 1855. He talked about Napoleon’
s invasion in 1812. When Zaichenkov the accountant made a mistake, Vavilov surprised everyone by saying, “Hindenburg was not war minister—he was a field marshal under Kaiser Wilhelm.”

  None of this passed Kotlov by. When he failed to explain something clearly and one of the soldiers had to keep asking questions, Kotlov turned to Vavilov and asked, “Well, how would you put it, comrade Vavilov?”

  That evening, the mischievous Rezchikov made everyone laugh by standing to attention before Vavilov and rattling off the words “Comrade Kolkhoz Activist, allow me to ask if you happen to be related to Regimental Commissar Vavilov, commissar of this Guards division?”

  “No,” said Vavilov. “Seems we just have the same surname.”

  At dawn, Lieutenant Kovalyov sounded the alarm; he was sleeping badly—as they all knew—because of his unrequited love for medical instructor Lena Gnatyuk. He had the company do a shooting exercise then and there. Vavilov proved to be a poor shot; he did not once hit the target.

  During his first days with the company, Vavilov felt overawed by the complexity and diversity of the weaponry: rifles, sub-machine guns, hand grenades, light mortars, light and heavy machine guns, anti-tank rifles. He also went to some of the neighbouring units and inspected the larger guns, heavy mortars, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. From a distance he glimpsed a radio post and caterpillar tractors.

  A single infantry division evidently had a vast store of arms at its disposal. Vavilov said to Zaichenkov, whose place on the bedboards was next to his own, “I can remember the old army. Russia certainly didn’t have weapons like this in those days. There must be thousands of factories working non-stop!”

  “And even if the tsar had been able to supply weapons like these,” Zaichenkov replied, “no one would have known what to do with them. All a peasant knew then was how to harness and unharness a horse. While today’s new recruits understand everything already. They’re fitters, tractor drivers, mechanics and engineers. Look at our Usurov. In Central Asia he worked as a driver—so when he joined up, they got him to drive a caterpillar tractor.”