Stalingrad

by Vasily Grossman

  The 62nd Army remained in control of only a small area. To the north, they held the three giant factories: the Tractor Factory, the Barricades and Red October. Immediately to the south of these factories, they held a strip of land running alongside the river. This strip of land, about a dozen kilometres long and not more than two or three kilometres wide, was crossed by a number of gullies and ravines, all more or less at right angles to the river. In it were located a meat-packing plant, several workers’ settlements, railway lines leading to the giant factories, and some oil tanks, now covered by huge green, black and khaki splodges and squiggles. Beneath the transparent autumn sky, this attempt at camouflage made the oil tanks more conspicuous than ever.

  The dominant natural feature in the area was the hill referred to by the military as Height 102 and by the city’s inhabitants as Mamaev Kurgan. It was only a few weeks, however, before the civilians, growing accustomed to military maps, were calling it Height 102, and the military, now looking on Stalingrad as their home, were calling it Mamaev Kurgan.

  South of the oil tanks, towards the city centre, the strip of land held by Chuikov grew narrower still. Some central streets were already in the hands of the Germans and as you went further south—towards the mouth of the Tsaritsa and the grain silo—Chuikov’s strip of land dwindled to nothing. The Germans had reached the Volga.

  The large industrial area on the city’s southern outskirts—the Stalgres power station, Factory 95, Beketovka and Krasnoarmeisk—was held by the 64th and 57th Armies, but by mid-September the Germans had come between these armies and Chuikov’s 62nd Army.

  And German forces around Yerzovka and Okatovka had, by 23 August, isolated the 62nd Army from the Soviet armies to the northwest of the city.

  The 62nd Army thus held about fifty square kilometres of ground. There were German divisions to the north, west and south, and behind them lay the Volga.

  Chuikov had to relocate his command post three times. When the Germans first attacked Height 102, he moved to a disused mine tunnel above the River Tsaritsa. And two days later, when the Germans got too close to this second command post, he would be forced to move to a cliff above the Volga, behind Red October, near the oil tanks.15

  There is no need for military knowledge or vivid imagination. A glance at the map is enough to enable anyone to imagine the state of mind of the 62nd Army’s commanders as the Germans’ steel grip tightened around them.

  Exhausted, depleted infantry divisions, battered tank brigades, some military cadets, a few units of Volga marines and people’s militia—this is all Chuikov had at his disposal to counter an attacking force 100,000 men strong.

  In the morning of 14 September, Soviet units launched a second counter-attack in the central sector of the front. The Germans were pushed back a little. Soon, however, thanks to powerful tank and air support, they continued their advance into the central part of the city.

  By three o’clock in the afternoon they had seized the main railway station and occupied a great deal more of central Stalingrad.

  22

  CHUIKOV’S bunker was shaking. Bombs had been exploding nearby for some time.

  Chuikov was sitting on a bench covered by a grey blanket, resting his elbows on a small table and running his fingers through his hair. His eyes inflamed from lack of sleep, he was staring at a plan of the city. Thick lips, crinkly, tangled hair, a large, fleshy nose, lively dark eyes beneath prominent brows—these lent his rugged face a very particular expression. It looked grim and commanding, yet also attractive.

  Chuikov sighed, shifted his weight a little and blew on his wrist, which was itching painfully. He was suffering from severe eczema, equally tormenting at night, when he worked feverishly and without interruption, and during the deafening air raids of the day.

  The light bulb suspended over the table was swaying. The pale, still-damp boards lining the walls and ceiling creaked and sighed loudly, as if in pain. A revolver hanging on the wall in a yellow holster also began to swing, like a pendulum, then shook, as if preparing to fly off its nail. A spoon on a saucer beside a half-drunk glass of tea tinkled and trembled. And the swaying light bulb made the shadows of other objects move about the wall, quivering and shuddering, climbing towards the ceiling or plunging down to the floor.

  There were moments when this cramped bunker seemed like the cabin of a steamer on a rough sea and Chuikov felt almost seasick.

  The bunker’s thick ceiling and double doors blurred the individual explosions, turning them into an incessant din, into a viscous substance endowed with weight and mass. This substance weighed on your temples, scratched at your brain, burned your skin and made your eyes ache. It penetrated deep inside you, scrambled your heartbeat and interfered with your breathing. It was more than mere sound; it incorporated the feverish shivering of stone, wood and the earth itself.

  This was how mornings usually began—from dawn to dusk the Germans would pound one or another sector of the Soviet front. Chuikov ran his tongue over his dry lips and gums; he had been chain-smoking all night. Still staring at the map, he bellowed out to his adjutant, “How many today?”

  The adjutant couldn’t hear a word, but Chuikov’s first question of the day was always the same, and so he answered, “Twenty-seven, I think.” Then he bent down and said into his commander’s ear, “The fuckers are ploughing the earth. They’re diving almost to the ground, in relays. There are bombs falling 150 metres away.”

  Chuikov looked at his watch. It was twenty to eight. Usually the Stukas stayed until eight or nine in the evening. Only another twelve or thirteen hours left. Eight hundred minutes, he calculated. Then he yelled, “Cigarettes!”

  “Tea?” asked the adjutant. Seeing Chuikov frown, he quickly said, “Ah, cigarettes!”

  A stout man with a broad, balding forehead entered the bunker. This was Divisional Commissar Kuzma Gurov, the member of the army military soviet. He wiped his forehead and cheeks with his handkerchief and said, somewhat breathlessly, “I was almost blown out of bed. The German alarm clock went off on the dot of seven thirty.”

  “You’re in a bad way, comrade Gurov,” Chuikov shouted. “Is your heart all right?”16

  Gurov’s fellow political workers did not see a great difference between the man they remembered as director of the Military-Pedagogical Institute and the divisional commissar they encountered in Stalingrad. Gurov himself, however, thought he had changed completely, and sometimes he wished his daughter could have seen her dear “Pápochka” in spring 1942, as he escaped in a tank from encirclement, or now, as he made his way, escorted by a sub-machine-gunner, to an army command post under constant bombardment.

  “Hey!” Chuikov shouted down the half-dark corridor. “Bring us our tea!”

  A young woman in kirza boots, who understood what kind of tea was required on a morning like this, brought in plates of caviar, smoked tongue, and salted herrings and onion. Seeing her place two small, faceted glasses on the table, Gurov said, “Make it three. The chief of staff will be here in a minute.” Then, pointing to his head and rotating one finger to indicate what the constant bombing had done to his brain, he said to Chuikov, “How long since we last saw each other? Four hours?”

  “Less,” Chuikov replied. “The meeting didn’t finish till after four. And Krylov stayed behind for another forty minutes. There was a lot to talk about—no men, no equipment, but we have to patch up the gaps all the same.”

  Gurov looked crossly at the swaying light bulb and raised a hand to still it.

  “Poverty is no vice,” he said. “Especially since we will soon be rich, very rich indeed.” He smiled. “Yesterday I went to see Major Kapronov, the commander of an infantry regiment. He and his staff are sitting underground in a huge sewer, eating watermelons. And he says, ‘These things are diuretic, so here I am in a sewer. No need to walk far.’ And all around him is sheer hell—it’s a good thing he can laugh.”

  Chuikov struck his fist on the table. He was shouting from pain and fury, not bec
ause of the din outside. “I’m asking for the impossible—the superhuman—from my commanders and soldiers. And what can I give them? A single light tank, three or four guns, a company to guard a command post! And what men they are, what fighters!” He struck the table a second time. Plates and glasses jumped about, as if yet another bomb had exploded nearby. “If we don’t get reinforcements soon, I’ll have to hand out grenades to my HQ staff and lead them into combat myself. What the hell! Better than sitting here in this mousetrap or floundering about in the Volga. And people will remember. They’ll say I did what I could to reinforce the troops entrusted to my command!”

  Placing his hands on the table, he looked at Gurov and frowned. After a moment’s silence, he began to smile. Born in the corners of his eyes, overcoming the sullen fold of his lips, this smile slowly lit up his whole face. He put his hand on Gurov’s shoulder and said, with a little laugh, “You’ll lose weight here, comrade Divisional Commissar . . . Yes, Kuzma, you certainly will.”

  The day before, to seal their friendship, they had exchanged the traditional three kisses, but they were still hesitant, a little unsure how to address each other, shifting between the formal Vy and the informal Ty.17

  “I know,” said Gurov with a smile. “And it won’t only be the Germans making me lose weight.”

  “True. It’ll be me and my gentle good nature. Never mind, it’ll be good medicine for your heart.” He bellowed down the phone, “Get me Krylov!” And then, still down the phone but in a different tone, he continued, “Enjoying the morning bombardment, are you? Is that what’s keeping you? Or have you dozed off? Come along now, or our tea will get cold.”

  A spoon tinkled on a saucer. Gurov stilled it and said soothingly, “All right, you can stop shaking now!” Then he raised his hand, trying once again to still the swaying light bulb.

  Krylov, the chief of staff, came in. Everything about him gave off an unusual sense of calm. His large head and smoothed-down hair, a forehead without a single wrinkle, his large, rather tired brown eyes, his freshly shaven cheeks that smelled of eau de cologne, his pale hands and oval fingernails, the thin white stripe above the collar of his jacket,18 his quiet movements, the thoughtful smile with which he looked at the food and drink set out on the table—all these testified to a man of unshakable, fundamental calm.

  Unlike the others, he did not need to shout; somehow his voice was always audible above the general din. Either he spoke only at moments of relative quiet or else his voice had some special timbre that allowed it to carry above all the thunder of war. Or perhaps his inner calm was so strong that it always rose to the surface, like oil on water, regardless of storms round about.

  He had spent the last year in one besieged city after another, and he was clearly accustomed to constant bombardment—a hammerer, accustomed to the crash of a hammer.

  In the autumn of 1941 he had been chief of staff of the army defending Odessa; then, for 250 days, chief of staff of the army defending Sevastopol. Along with Petrov, the commanding officer, he had escaped in a submarine when the Germans captured the city. And now he had been appointed chief of staff of the army defending Stalingrad.

  Gurov was smiling; he evidently took pleasure in contemplating Krylov’s calm face. “How are things further south?” he asked.

  “The heavy artillery on the east bank are doing a grand job. They’re giving the Germans hell—a good thing they were relocated. They keep it up all day long, a steady fire on the southern outskirts. Katyushas too. But my colleagues calculated 1,100 sorties by German planes.”

  “To hell with their calculations,” Chuikov replied crossly.

  “Time on your hands—measure the sands!” joked Krylov. He went on, “Our KVs repelled a tank attack.19 Our losses yesterday were less than the day before—but probably only because we’ve got less tanks to lose. The general picture’s clear enough. But that doesn’t make it any better. The Voroshilov district’s been flattened. There are air attacks everywhere and ground attacks along the same axes as before—from Gumrak, Gorodishche and Beketovka. From papers found on the German dead, we know they sent in two new divisions yesterday. In the south we’re holding our ground. During the night, the enemy concentrated tanks and infantry around the Tractor Factory. It seems they’re regrouping, as if they think they’ve completed their task in the city centre. They’re flying a lot of sorties over the factories now.”

  “And what am I to do?” asked Chuikov. “While the enemy regroups for a decisive attack, how am I meant to regroup? Where can I find the men? I have my duty. My duty to myself! But we’ve lost the railway station. We’ve lost the grain silo and the State Bank building. We’ve lost the House of Specialists.”

  There was a silence. The explosions, growing swiftly louder, drew ever closer to the bunker. A plate near the edge of the table fell to the ground and appeared to break into pieces without a sound, as in a silent film.

  Krylov put down his fork, half opened his mouth and narrowed his eyes. Both the earth and the air were vibrating; it was unbearable, like a red-hot needle being plunged into the brain. The men’s faces froze. Then the entire bunker shook and squealed. It was like a concertina being stretched, pulled out of shape, then crushed by wild, drunken hands.

  All three men looked up. Here it was. Death.

  Then came a silence, a silence that deafened and dazed.

  Gurov took out his handkerchief and began to fan his face. Krylov put his large pale hands to his ears.

  “I put my fork down on the table,” said Krylov. “I imagined everyone laughing if they dug me out with a fork in my hand.”

  Chuikov gave him a sideways look and said, “Admit it now. It wasn’t as bad as this in Sevastopol, was it?”

  “Hard to say. . . but you could be right.”

  “Hah!” said Chuikov. This Hah! was an expression of joy, bitter pride and triumph. Chuikov was evidently jealous with regard to Sevastopol. He wanted to feel that no one in the war had taken on a burden greater than his. And this, of course, may well have been true.

  “Sevastopol was child’s play,” said Gurov, with a knowing smile. “We all know what an easy time General Petrov had of it.” Chuikov laughed, pleased that Gurov understood his feelings.

  “Things seem to be quietening down,” said Chuikov. “Let’s drink to Sevastopol.”

  As he spoke, there was another howl up above them. A dreadful blow shook the bunker. There were sharp cracks from the timber frame. Some of the boards split, and sawdust and other debris rained down on the table.

  A cloud of dust drowned everything—faces and objects alike. There was only the sound of explosions, now to the right, now to the left, blurring together into a kind of drumming.

  When the dust began to settle and Chuikov, coughing and sneezing, was able to look around him—at the table, at the ash-grey pillow, at the miraculously still-shining light bulb, at the telephone now lying upside down on the floor, at his comrades’ pale, tense faces—he merely smiled and said, “So here we are, for our sins—in Stalingrad!”

  There was such childish surprise in his smile, such human, soldierly simplicity in his words that the others began to smile too.

  Chuikov’s adjutant, looking bewildered and rubbing his bruised head with his hand, came in and reported, “Comrade Commander, one member of HQ staff has been killed and two wounded. The commandant’s bunker has been destroyed.”

  “Re-establish communications immediately!” Chuikov said brusquely, once again looking harsh and severe.

  “Compared to this,” Gurov said wryly, pleased with his words from a few minutes earlier, “Sevastopol was child’s play.”

  “Stalingrad’s a hard place to construct a defence,” said Chuikov. “Short, straight streets, and all sloping down to the Volga. Makes it all too easy for the German guns.”

  The duty officer came in. “Let me see,” said Chuikov. He reached out for the file of messages, not giving the man time to report in the proper manner.

  “The 13th Guards
Division is now under my command,” he said clearly and solemnly. “They’re approaching the Volga.” Gurov and Krylov leaned forward, wanting to look at the telegram too.

  “Damn it all!” said Chuikov, jumping to his feet. “‘Today we will reach the crossing.’ If only they could have crossed yesterday! I’d never have let the Germans so deep into the city!”

  “Just one day,” said Gurov. “That’s what students always say about their exams—if only they could have had just one more day to prepare. We’re no different.”

  “I want all remaining tanks down on the quays, to cover the crossing,” said Chuikov. “But not a single man to be taken from combat units! The tanks to be manned by staff commanders.”

  “A full-strength division,” said Krylov. “It should get us out of what seemed, only a minute ago, to be one hell of a pickle.”

  “Rodimtsev has come to rescue me,” said Chuikov, with a grim smile.

  •

  The first half of September 1942 saw three events of particular importance for the defence of Stalingrad: the Soviet offensive to the north-west of the city, the concentration of heavy artillery on the east bank, and the transfer of Rodimtsev’s Guards division, and other fresh divisions, to the west bank.

  The fighting to the north-west drew several German and Italian divisions away from the city. This made it possible for Chuikov to hold out until the arrival of reinforcements, at a time when the German High Command was expecting, within days or even hours, to be able to announce the capture of Stalingrad.

  The Front commander fully understood the value of his new concentration of firepower; it was as if he had a pistol in his hand and could point it at the enemy just like that. And it would be hard to overestimate the importance of Rodimtsev’s role. But the artillery commander was not a favourite of the Front commander. Nor was Rodimtsev much loved by Chuikov. Men with strong characters do not like those who rescue them during a moment of weakness and help them to become strong again. This is an inescapable fact of life.