“But what’s he doing here in the infantry?” asked Vavilov. “Why’ve they put him with us?”
“Oh that’s nothing,” said Zaichenkov. “He was caught a couple of times exchanging petrol for moonshine. His regimental commissar had him transferred.”
“Not exactly nothing,” Vavilov replied quietly.
Each of the two men had already told the other his age and how many children he had. Learning that Vavilov used to go regularly on kolkhoz business to the bank in the district town, Zaichenkov felt a particular goodwill towards him—the indulgent goodwill of a senior timber-depot accountant towards his country cousin.
During their first lessons Zaichenkov did what he could to help Vavilov and even gave him a slip of paper on which he had written out the names of all the different parts of a hand grenade and a sub-machine gun.
These lessons were exceptionally important, still more important than anyone understood at the time. The instructors—commanders and soldiers alike—had already survived long months of war. They had learned more than can be learned from any military manual. They understood combat not only with their minds but also with their hearts.
No manual can tell you what it is like to lie with your face pressed against the floor of a trench while the grinding, grating caterpillar of an enemy tank passes only a foot above your fragile skull—a skull already half-covered by earth and dust. No manual can prepare you to breathe in that peculiar blend of dry dust and thick, oily exhaust gases. No manual can describe the look in men’s eyes when they are woken by a night attack, as they hear the explosions of hand grenades and bursts of sub-machine-gun fire and see German flares climbing into the sky.
True knowledge of war includes knowledge of the enemy and his weapons, knowledge of war at dawn, in the mist, in bright daylight, at sunset, in the woods, on the road, in the steppe, in a village, on the banks of a river. It includes knowledge of war’s sounds and whispers and—above all—knowledge of yourself, of your own strength, stamina, experience and cunning.
In field exercises, in simulated night alarms, in cruel and terrifying exercises with tanks, the new recruits assimilated all these experiences.
The commanders were not teaching schoolboys who would soon leave their classroom and return to a peaceful home; they were teaching the soldiers who would soon be fighting beside them. And they were teaching only one subject: war.
There were dozens, perhaps hundreds of methods by which the commanders passed on their knowledge. The new recruits absorbed this knowledge from the tones of voice in which commands were given, and by observing the movements, gestures and facial expressions of commanders and battle-hardened Red Army soldiers. This knowledge was embodied in the stories Rysev told at night, in his mocking tone as he asked, “Know what Fritz enjoys more than anything?” This knowledge was present in the authority with which Kovalyov would call out, “Run, keep running and don’t fall. No one can touch you there . . . Why are you lying on the ground? That won’t protect you from mortars . . . Don’t expose yourself! Keep to the ravine! The valley’s covered by enemy mortars . . . Why leave the car there—do you want to be pounded by Junkers?”
This knowledge was present in Rezchikov’s buffoonery, in his contemptuous mockery of the Germans, in his casual tone as he talked about tricks he’d played on them.
A certain capacity for contempt can be a great boon to a soldier, but in 1941 it had taken the Red Army several months to acquire this capacity.
When the fascists first invaded, everyone—city dwellers and kolkhoz workers alike—had at once understood that this was the beginning of a long and bitter struggle. People saw the Germans as a strong, wealthy and warlike nation.
The war against France was now confined to the pages of books; the last people who remembered the year 1812 had died decades ago. War against Germany, however, was still a living memory, a part of people’s bitter experience.
In the summer of 1941, Vavilov had said to his wife, “Hitler wants to take all our land. He wants to be able to plough the whole globe.”
Vavilov thought of the terrestrial globe as a single vast field that it was the people’s responsibility to plough and sow.
Hitler had declared war on peasants and workers; it was the people’s earth he had invaded.
•
The division kept on with its training. New contingents kept on arriving. And there was always work to be done—roads to be laid, trees to be felled, logs to be chopped, more dugouts to be constructed.
While they worked, the war would be forgotten and Vavilov would ask people about their lives in peacetime: “What’s your land like? Does your wheat grow well? Are there droughts? And millet—do you sow millet? Do you get enough potatoes?” He spoke to many people who had fled the Germans: young women and old men who had plodded east with their cattle; tractor drivers who had driven from Ukraine and Belorussia, bringing with them all the kolkhoz’s most precious tools. He came across people who had lived under German occupation and then escaped across the front line; he questioned them in detail about what life had been like under the Germans.
Vavilov soon realized that the Germans were simply bandits. The only small items they brought with them were flints for cigarette lighters; the only pieces of larger machinery they brought were threshing machines. In exchange for a few flints, Hitler hoped to acquire the entire land of Russia. And Hitler’s new order, with its Gebietskommissars and Parteien Chefs,156 brought no good to anyone. The Germans did not, after all, want to plough the whole globe; they just wanted to eat other people’s wheat.
Vavilov’s curiosity did not escape notice. At first, the other soldiers made fun of him. “There he goes again,” they would say. “Our kolkhoz activist has detained yet another peasant for interrogation.” “Hey, Vavilov!” they would shout, “We’ve got some women here from Oryol. Want to organize a discussion?”
But they soon realized that they were wrong to make fun of Vavilov; he was asking about matters of vital importance to all of them.
Two incidents in particular made Vavilov into a generally liked and respected figure. The first was when the division was about to move west, towards the front. Usurov had agreed to leave his dugout to an old woman whose house had burnt down—but only in exchange for two litres of moonshine. If she brought him a bottle, he’d line the walls with new boards; if not, he’d level the whole dugout. The old woman did not possess any moonshine. When Usurov completed the work, she brought him a woollen shawl instead.
When Usurov laughed and held the shawl up in the air to show everyone, there was a general silence. Then Vavilov went up to him. In a quiet voice that made everyone present look around, he said, “Give it back to her, you shit!” Vavilov seized the shawl with one hand, made the other into a powerful fist—and held this fist only a few inches from Usurov’s face. Everyone expected a fight. They all knew that Usurov was strong, and that he had a violent temper.
But Usurov let go of the shawl and said, “Oh all right! What do I care? Take it back to the woman.”
Vavilov threw the shawl down on the ground. “You took it from her,” he said, “and you’ll be giving it back to her.”
The old woman had been quietly cursing Usurov, wondering why it was that German bullets finished off fine, honourable men while sparing such vile, shameless, good-for-nothing parasites. When Usurov returned her shawl, she was at a loss for words.
Back again with his comrades, Usurov tried to cover his embarrassment. “We drivers lived quite a life in Central Asia. Yes, we did all right for ourselves! I didn’t want that shawl anyway—our defender of the oppressed could have saved his breath! And I didn’t steal the damned rag, it was payment for work completed. Back home, I used to earn a bit on the side too. After I’d finished work for the day, my truck would be jam-packed. My passengers paid as they could—with money, with vodka, with tobacco, even with dried apricots. There was one young woman who paid me with love. I owned three suits—all cut from the finest cloth, believe me! On my
days off I’d put on a tie, a coat and my yellow shoes—no, no one would have taken me for a truck driver. I’d go to the cinema, then to a restaurant. I’d order lamb shashlyks, half a kilo157 of vodka, some beer. Yes, that was the life, all right! What do I want with some peasant woman’s shawl!”
The second incident, which made a still greater impression, was during an air raid. Their train was being held in a siding, outside a large junction station. The German planes appeared late in the afternoon and dropped bomb after bomb—half-tonners and even a few tonners. They were probably trying to destroy the grain silo. The raid had begun without warning and everyone simply flung themselves to the ground where they were; many did not even manage to jump out of the wagons. Dozens of men were killed or maimed. Fires broke out in several places, and shells began to explode in an ammunition train not far away. Amid the smoke and the terrible din, amid the howls of locomotive whistles, death seemed inescapable. Even the exuberant, fearless Rysev went white as a sheet. If there was the slightest lull in the bombing, everyone began rushing about, looking for safe nooks and crannies in this black, hostile earth that glistened with spilt oil. Everyone was certain that where they were was the worst place of all, that anywhere else must be safer. It was this desperate, futile to-ing and fro-ing that caused the most deaths and injuries. Vavilov, meanwhile, just sat there beside a wagon, smoking a cigarette. Everyone remembered him calling out, “Stay put! Don’t panic! Think!!”
Dense and compacted as it was, the earth itself was trembling and cracking. It was ripping apart, like rotten calico.
When the raid was over, Rysev said to Vavilov, “You’re made of strong stuff, Grandad!”
Kotlov had singled out Vavilov from the first day. He had long conversations with him, entrusted more and more tasks to him and drew him into general discussions during newspaper readings and political-instruction sessions. Kotlov was intelligent and he recognized in Vavilov a clear, pure strength he knew he could rely on.
The soldiers didn’t notice this happening, and Vavilov himself was still less aware of it. Nevertheless, by the time the division was ordered to the front, Vavilov had become a trusted figure, central to the company’s life. It was he, above all, who brought everyone together, regardless of age or background: Rysev the former paratrooper, Zaichenkov the accountant, pockmarked Mulyarchuk, Rezchikov from Yaroslav and Usmanov the Uzbek.
Kovalyov, the young company commander, was aware of this, and so was the sergeant major.
Rysev had done active service before the war and had taken part in the first clashes by the Soviet border and the cruel battles on the outskirts of Kiev. Somehow even he did not resent Vavilov’s growing authority.
Only Usurov remained hostile. When Vavilov addressed him, he frowned crossly and seemed reluctant to answer. Sometimes he did not answer at all.
The divisions held in reserve were about to enter their last stages of training. Everyone—from generals to rank-and-file soldiers—was excited to learn that their final combat-readiness exercises would be supervised by Marshal Voroshilov.
Voroshilov, who had led the miners’ divisions defending Tsaritsyn158 during the Civil War, was again being sent to the Volga—to review the people’s army.
The exercises began. Thousands of men, out in the field with all their weaponry, saw the marshal’s grey head.
Afterwards Voroshilov convened a meeting. In the classroom of a village school he conversed at length with the commanders of divisions and regiments, and with their chiefs of staff. Everyone was delighted by the marshal’s positive assessment of their combat-readiness.
They all understood: the hour of battle was approaching.
PART TWO
1
AT THE BEGINNING of August 1942, Colonel General Yeromenko arrived in Stalingrad. The Stavka had ordered the creation of two new Fronts: the Southeastern Front and the Stalingrad Front. The task of the former was to protect the lower Volga, the Kalmyk steppe and the southern approaches to Stalingrad; the task of the latter—to guard the north-western and western approaches to the city. The Stavka had appointed Colonel General Yeromenko to the command of the Stalingrad Front; the chief political officer—the member of the Front military soviet—was to be Nikita Khrushchev.
The position of both Fronts was critical. The Germans had considerable forces at their disposal: 150,000 men, 1,600 pieces of artillery and 700 tanks. Richthofen’s 4th Air Fleet offered powerful support.
In manpower and weaponry alike, the German forces were far superior to those of the two Soviet Fronts.
There was every indication that the offensive Hitler and Mussolini had discussed in Salzburg was nearing a successful conclusion. The German army had advanced an enormous distance. Columns of German tanks had broken through the Southwestern Front. The Front’s right wing had retreated towards the Don, around Kletskaya, while its left wing was retreating towards Rostov and the Caucasus. The main German forces were now advancing swiftly towards Stalingrad; their vanguard was only thirty or forty kilometres from the Volga.
In the last days of July, after regrouping, the Germans had embarked on the final stage of their offensive, aiming to capture Stalingrad.
At the time, people saw little but tragedy in the defensive battles about to be fought on the Volga cliffs. The smoke and flames of the fighting around the Don and the Volga blinded them to the changes that had taken place in the course of the year. The Stavka, however, was aware of these changes; its members knew that Soviet power was now in a position to defeat fascist violence. Soon this would become clear to the entire Soviet nation, and to the world.
In the summer of 1942, Hitler was still able to advance, but he did not realize that for all its apparent success, this offensive would bring him no real gains. Only a blitzkrieg—a lightning war—could have brought him true victory. Hitler had made a wild gamble—and the Red Army had already denied him his only chance of success.
The battle fought within the city of Stalingrad took place at a time when the Soviet Union was just beginning to produce more gun barrels and military vehicles than the Germans, when a year of struggle—in factories and on battlefields alike—had wiped out the Germans’ initial superiority in weaponry and military experience. And it was at this same time that the Soviet forces first truly mastered the art of strategic manoeuvre and that the Germans, for their part, began to feel the dangerous lure of the vast spaces behind them, calling them to retreat. It was here that the Germans first learned the fear of encirclement—that cruel illness that afflicts the hearts, minds and legs of both soldiers and generals.
Throughout the grim months of the battle the Stavka was elaborating the details of the still secret Stalingrad offensive. While they struggled to keep defending the city, Soviet strategic planners could already see the red arrows soon to flash out from the middle Don and the lakes in the southern steppe and strike both flanks of the German forces.
Eventually the reserves received the order to move forward. A great iron river—the hidden energy of the Red Army and the Soviet people—split into two streams. One stream went to reinforce the divisions defending the city; the other was preparing to attack. The commanders planning the offensive already had a clear image of the moment when the two steel pincers would meet and Paulus’s army would be encircled by a tight ring of artillery divisions, tank corps, Guards mortar regiments, and infantry and cavalry units newly equipped with a wealth of firepower.
The boundless river of the Soviet people’s anger and grief had not been left to drain into the sand. The will of the people, the will of the Party and state had transformed it into a river of iron and steel and it was now flowing back, from east to west. Its immense weight would soon tilt the scales.
2
WHEN PEOPLE read obscure novels, when they listen to over-complex music or look at a frighteningly unintelligible painting, they feel anxious and unhappy. The thoughts and feelings of the novel’s characters, the sounds of the symphony, the colours of the painting—everything seems
peculiar and difficult, as if from some other world. Almost ashamed of being natural and straightforward, people read, look and listen without joy, without any real emotion. Contrived art is a barrier placed between man and the world—impenetrable and oppressive, like a cast-iron grille.
But there are also books that make a reader exclaim joyfully, “Yes, that’s just what I feel. I’ve gone through that too and that’s what I thought myself.”
Art of this kind does not separate people from the world. Art like this connects people to life, to other people and to the world as a whole. It does not scrutinize life through strangely tinted spectacles.
As they read this kind of book, people feel that they are being infused with life, that the vastness and complexity of human existence is entering into their blood, into the way they think and breathe.
But this simplicity, this supreme simplicity of clear daylight, is born from the complexity of light of different wavelengths.
In this clear, calm and deep simplicity lies the truth of genuine art. Such art is like the water of a spring; if you look down, you can see to the bottom of a deep pool. You can see green weeds and pebbles. Yet the pool is also a mirror; in it you can see the entire world where you live, labour and struggle. Art combines the transparency of glass and the power of a perfect astronomical mirror.
All this applies not only to art; it is equally true of science and politics.
And the strategy of a people’s war, a war for life and freedom, is no different.
3
COLONEL General Yeromenko, the new commander of the Stalingrad Front, was a burly man aged about fifty. He had a round face, a short nose and quick, lively eyes. He had a crew cut and his forehead was broad and wrinkled. His spectacles looked like a village school-teacher’s—the very simplest of metal frames. He had a slight limp from a leg wound.
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