Authors: Harrison Salisbury
“Where has the combat command post been prepared for the Supreme Command?” Voroshilov asked.
Tyulenev noted that the question “considerably embarrassed me.”
And with good reason. No underground bomb shelter for the Supreme Command existed. None had ever been provided. No orders had been given to Tyulenev. Neither Stalin nor his associates of the Politburo nor his top generals had lifted a finger to prepare for this simple eventuality. Admiral Kuznetsov had provided a concrete shelter for the Navy Commissariat. But he did so without orders and at his “own risk and fear.”
In the end Tyulenev gave to the Supreme Command his own Moscow District Command underground headquarters.
An even stranger circumstance: On Tuesday, June 24, a group of naval political workers arrived at Kronstadt from Moscow. These men had been studying in the Military Political Academy in Moscow. They heard about the war on June 22 while eating their Sunday midday meal. Two hours later they were assembled by the director of their courses, a battalion commissar, in a building on the Bolshaya Sadovaya. They were told to collect their things and meet at 6
P.M.
at the Leningrad railroad station. They were being sent to the front.
Each man was told to pack a white uniform, starched shirt and collar, and complete parade paraphernalia. They were told that victory would be forthcoming very soon and they must be prepared for the celebration.
The men, following instructions, arrived with their parade uniforms. It was a long time before they had a chance to use them.
What possible motivation could there have been for these orders? Whence did they come?
Stalin’s authority was so great that it went unchallenged until a fortnight or so before the attack. Only then did some officers begin to speak cautiously, questioning what was happening. But it was too late. And there were still too many commanders who took the attitude: since there are no orders from Moscow to prepare for war, there will be no war.
Thus it went to the end, Stalin trying in the final hours to stave off attack by ordering his armed forces not to fire at German planes, not to approach the frontiers, not to make any move which might provoke German action.
He held this conviction so stubbornly that (as Khrushchev was to point out) when the firing started on the morning of June 22, Moscow still ordered the Soviet forces not to return it. Even then Stalin sought to convince himself that he was only contending with a provocation on the part of “several undisciplined portions of the German Army.”
Between 7:15
A.M.
of June 22, when the Defense Commissariat first officially advised the armed forces to resist the German attack, and the speech to the Russian people at noon by Molotov informing them that war had started, Stalin was still trying to stave off war.
14
Russian historians make several allusions to the fact that even after the attack Stalin was casting about for diplomatic means of averting the fatal collision. “Only when it became clear that it was impossible to halt the enemy offensive by
diplomatic action”
says Karasev, one of the most precise of Soviet historians, “was the government announcement about the attack of Germany and the start of war for the Soviet Union made at noon.”
What was this “diplomatic” action? There is a clue in the Haider diary, which notes under date of June 22:
“Noon. Russians have asked Japan to act as intermediaries in the political and economic relations between Russia and Germany and are in constant radio contact with the German Foreign Office.”
15
The evidence is overwhelming that the Nazi attack came as a total surprise and shock to Stalin. Describing Stalin’s reaction to the events of June 22, Nikita Khrushchev pictured him in collapse, thinking “this was the end.”
“All that Lenin created we have lost forever,” Stalin exclaimed. In Khrushchev’s words, Stalin “ceased to do anything whatever,” did not for a long time direct military operations and finally returned to activity only when the Politburo persuaded him he must because of the national crisis.
Ivan Maisky paints a similar picture. From the moment of the Nazi attack, he says, Stalin locked himself in his office, refused to see anyone and took no part in the affairs of government. For the first four or five days of the war Ambassador Maisky in London was without instructions from Moscow, and “neither Molotov nor Stalin showed any signs of life.”
16
Why was Hitler’s assault such a stunning surprise to Stalin?
The real question, as Marshal Andrei Grechko puts it, was “not so much one of suddenness as of evaluation.”
“Probably,” Marshal Bagramyan remarks dryly, “certain figures among Stalin’s entourage shared this evaluation.”
The record strongly suggests that Stalin, Zhdanov and his associates were living in a world turned inside out, in which black was assumed to be white, in which danger was seen as security, in which vigilance was assessed as treason and friendly warning as cunning provocation. Indeed, had anyone in the inner circle suggested to Stalin that his estimate of the situation was mistaken, he would, in all probability, have been ordered to the firing squad.
1
This reconstruction of Stalin’s speech was obtained by Alexander Werth from Soviet sources. It coincides clÖsely with several other evaluations of Stalin’s attitude. For example, Stalin told Lord Beaverbrook in October, 1941, that he never doubted that war would come but hoped to hold it off for six months or so. Margaret Bourke-White, who was in Moscow in May, 1941, heard that the theme of Stalin’s talk was: “Germany is our real enemy.” She found gossip about the speech general in Moscow. The Soviet censorship killed dispatches on the topic, and one correspondent, she said, was expelled within a week for smuggling out the story. The suggestion of a “new compromise” was contained in a version of the remarks obtained by the German DNB correspondent and forwarded to Berlin by the German Embassy June 4. Some Soviet commentators suggest that the flight of Rudolf Hess from Germany to England on May 8, 1941, tended to disorient Stalin, reinforcing in some manner his Anglophobia. (Alexander Werth,
Russia at War, 1941–1945
, New York, 1965, pp. 122–123; Gustav Hilger and Alfred G. Meyer,
The Incompatible Allies
, New York, 1953, p. 330;
Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941
, Washington, 1948, p. 337; Henry C. Cassidy,
Moscow Dateline
, Cambridge, 1943, p. 2; Margaret Bourke-White,
Shooting the Russian War
, New York, 1942, p. 31;
Documents on German Foreign Policy
, Series D, Vol. XII, p. 964.)
2
Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941-194$
, Moscow, 1965, p. 58.
Survey
, June, 1967, mistakenly dates this discussion June 17, 1941, and makes the argument take place between Malenkov and Kuznetsov.
3
Kravchenko concluded that the “cult of personality” adversely affected Soviet military preparations throughout the prewar period. There were great delays in putting new military items into production. For example, in 1940 Germany produced 10,250 planes of advanced design; England 15,000. The Soviet turned out only 64 YAK-i’s, 20 MIG-3’s and 2 PE-2’s. In 1940 only 2,794 tanks were produced, mostly old model T-26’s and BT’s. Only 243 60-ton KV’s and 115 T-34’s were built. The production of the 45-mm antitank gun was phased out, but the 57-mm gun had not yet been put into production. Only 2,760 antiaircraft guns were manufactured. (G. Kravchenko,
Voyenno-lstoricheskii Zhurnal
, No. 4, April, 1965, p. 37.) In the first half of 1941 production of T-34’s rose to 1,110, according to I. Krapchenko.
(Voyenno-lstoricheskii Zhurnal
, No. 10, November, 1966, p. 48.) In the first half of 1941, 1,946 MIG-3’s, YAK-i’s and LAGG-3’s were produced, as well as 458 PE-2’s and 249 IL-2 Stormoviks. (A. Yakovlev,
Tsel Zhizni
, Moscow, 1966, p. 239.)
4
Aleksandr Rozen’s novel,
Fosledniye Dve Nedely
, Moscow, 1963, treats this subject extensively. The Soviet critic A. Plotkin finds Rozen’s account fully justified by the historical data. (A. Plotkin,
Literatura i Voina
, Moscow-Leningrad, 1967.)
5
On June 13 General M. I. Kazakov, flying from Tashkent to Moscow, saw below him on the Trans-Siberian railroad, train after train, headed west. He recognized the trains as troop convoys. He knew they did not come from Central Asia (his own command) and deduced that a large-scale movement from Eastern Siberia or Trans-Baikalia was in progress. The next day his guess was confirmed when he met General Lukin, the Trans-Baikal commander, in the Defense Commissariat. (M. I. Kazakov,
op. cit
., p. 68.)
6
The date of transmission is given as June 17 by M. Kolesnikov.
(Takim Byl Rikhard Sorge
, Moscow, 1965, p. 171.) Sorge’s information was transmitted to Stalin. (P. N. Pospelov,
Velikaya Otechestvennaya Voina Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941–1945
, Moscow, 1965, p. 58.)
7
The Soviet Defense Ministry’s study of the Communist Party’s role in World War II flatly says that Stalin had ample and excellent intelligence data on the date when he could expect war. He ignored it, and so, asserts the ministry, did Marshal Zhukov and the responsible Defense Chiefs. (I. M. Shlyapin, M. A. Shvarev, I. Ya. Fomi-
chenko,
Kommunisticheskaya Partiya v Period Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny
, Moscow
, 1958, p. 42.)
8
General Bagramyan was in command of the headquarters detachment which left Kiev for Ternopol on the morning of June 21. He had been too busy to read the papers, and en route he looked at
Red Star
, the army paper. Nothing alarming struck his eye, but he was seriously disturbed by the intelligence reports from the frontier. About 5
A.M.
the morning of the twenty-second his column passed through Brody, just as the fighter field was bombed by Nazi planes. The headquarters detachment arrived at Ternopol between 6 and 7
A.M.
after going through two Nazi air attacks. (Bagramyan
Voyenno-lstoricheskii Zhurnal
, No. 3, March, 1967, p. 61.)
9
Vice Admiral V. N. Yeroshenko recalls that the Black Sea Commander, Admiral F. S. Oktyabrsky, visited the refitting yards at Nikolayev in mid-June to warn his commanders of the imminence and possibility of a Nazi attack. (V. N. Yeroshenko,
Lider Tashkent
, Moscow, 1966, p. 22.)
10
However, General Kazakov was astonished to find Defense Commissar Timo-shenko and General Zhukov spending Wednesday night, June 18, watching a long—and poor—German documentary film rather than coping with urgent defense problems. Two days later, June 20, General P. I. Batov was received by Timoshenko and given a new command—the land defenses of the Crimea. Batov had heard much talk and rumor of German preparations for attack, but Timoshenko assured him there was nothing dangerous in the frontier situation and that Batov’s apprehensions were groundless. Batov received no special instructions, no contingency orders in the event of war, no plans for cooperation with the Black Sea Fleet nor for preparing the Crimea for military operations. “This was the twentieth of June, 1941,” Batov wryly recalls. (P. I. Batov,
V Fokhodakh i Boyakh
, Moscow, 1966, p. 7.) On the other hand, on June 19 General S. I. Kabanov, in chargé of the Soviet base at Hangö on leased Finnish territory, learned that the Soviet military attaché in Helsinki and the Soviet political representative had suddenly removed their families from a country villa near Hangö. He guessed correctly that they acted in the belief that war was imminent. (Vice Admiral N. K. Smirnov,
Matrosy Zashchishchayut Rodinu
, Moscow, 1968, p. 16.) Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov claims S. I. Zotov, the Soviet emissary in Finland, warned Kabanov June 19 of the impending Nazi attack.
{Oktyabr
, No. 8, August, 1968, p. 164.)
11
The strategic deployment of troops to cover the Soviet frontiers was carried out according to plans which had been worked out by the General Staff in autumn 1940. However, the very extensive movements up to the western Dvina and Dnieper river lines were not designed to be completed before the latter part of July. By that time the Red Army was fighting for its life around Smolensk. (General V. Ivanov,
Voyenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal
, No. 6, June, 1965, p. 80; P. Korodinov,
Voyenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal
, No. 10, October, 1965, p. 30.) General S. M. Shtemenko reports that five armies had been ordered to move from the interior to western areas: the Twenty-second under General F. A. Yermakov, the Twentieth under General F. N. Remizov, the Twenty-first under General G. F. Gerasimenko, the Nineteenth under Konev and the Sixteenth under Lukin. (S.
M
. Shtemenko,
Generalnyi Shtab v Gody Voiny
, Moscow, 1968, p. 26.) V. Kvostov and A. Grylev
(op. cit.)
contend the Trans-Baikal and Far East commands were ordered April 26 to prepare to send a mechanized corps and two infantry corps west.
12
I. F. Filippov, Tass correspondent, heard these rumors from Schneider, editor of the
National Zeitung
, in the latter part of May. (Filippov,
op. cit
., p. 194.)
13
Marshal A. M. Vasilevsky noted that the more the evidence of German preparations for war mounted, the more firmly Stalin denied its authenticity. (M. Bragin,
Novy Mir
, No. 9, September, 1961, p. 268.)
14
A. Yakovlev, one of the Soviets’ leading military aircraft builders and Deputy Commissar of Aviation Construction at the moment of the outbreak of war, writes: “It is perfectly incomprehensible why our troops were forbidden (in Timoshenko’s 7:15
A.M.
directive) to cross the frontier without special permission.” He called the directive “more than cautious, even confusing.” “Why was the air force forbidden to attack at a depth of greater than 100-150 kilometers into German territory? War had already started, but the command didn’t know what it was: An isolated incident? A German mistake? A provocation? Not to mention that the Commissar’s directive was extremely tardy and didn’t reflect knowledge of what was happening at the front.” (A. Yakovlev,
Tsel Zhizni
, Moscow, 1966, pp. 240–240.)