Simon Montefiore - Stalin

The magnates tried to steer a path between Stalin’s infallibility and Hitler’s reality: the absurdity of explaining how the army had to be ready to fight an offensive war which was definitely not going to happen, while claiming this was not a change of policy, was so ridiculous that they tied themselves in knots of Stalinist sophistry and Neroesque folly. “We need a new type of propaganda,” declared Zhdanov at the Supreme Military Council. “There is only one step between war and peace. So our propaganda can’t be peaceful.”

“We ourselves designed the propaganda this way,” Budyonny exploded, so they had to explain why it was changing.

“We’re only altering the slogan,” claimed Zhdanov.

“As if we were going to war tomorrow!” sneered the pusillanimous Malenkov, eighteen days before the invasion. 14

On 7 May, Schulenburg, secretly opposed to Hitler’s invasion, breakfasted with the Soviet Ambassador to Berlin, Dekanozov, whom he ambiguously tried to warn. They met thrice but “he did not warn,” said Molotov later, “he hinted and pushed for diplomatic negotiations.” Dekanozov informed Stalin who was becoming ever more bad-tempered and nervous. “So, disinformation has now reached ambassadorial level,” he growled. Dekanozov disagreed.

“How could you allow yourself to argue with Comrade Stalin! He knows more and can see further than all of us!” Voroshilov threatened Dekanozov during a recess. 15

On 10 May, Stalin learned of Deputy Führer Hess’s quixotic peace flight to Scotland. His magnates, remembered Khrushchev who was in the office that day, were all understandably convinced that Hess’s mission was aimed at Moscow. But Stalin was finally willing to prepare for war, admittedly in a manner so timid that it was barely effective. On 12 May, Stalin allowed the generals to strengthen the borders, calling up 500,000 reserves, but was terrified of offending the Germans. When Timoshenko reported German reconnaissance flights, Stalin mused, “I’m not sure Hitler knows about those flights.” On the 24th, he refused to take any further measures.

The paralysis struck again. Stalin never apologized but he very indirectly acknowledged his mistakes when he later thanked the Russian people for their “patience.” But he blamed most of his blunders on others, admitting that he “trusted too much in cavalrymen.” Zhukov confessed his own failures: “Possibly I did not have enough influence.” This was not the real reason for his quiescence. If he had demanded mobilization, Stalin would have asked: “On what basis? Well, Beria, take him to your dungeons!” Kulik caught the attitude of most soldiers: “This is high politics. It’s not our business.” 16

The intelligence was now flooding in. Earlier it had been presented in an ambiguous way but now it was surely clear that something ominous was darkening the Western border. Merkulov daily reported to Stalin who was now defying an avalanche of information from all manner of sources. On 9 June, when Timoshenko and Zhukov mentioned the array of intelligence, Stalin tossed their papers at them and snarled, “And I have different documents.” He mocked Richard Sorge, the masterspy in Tokyo who used his amorous and sybaritic appetites to conceal his peerless intelligence gathering: “There’s this bastard who’s set up factories and brothels in Japan and even deigned to report the date of the German attack as 22 June. Are you suggesting I should believe him too?”

On 13 June, Timoshenko and Zhukov, themselves depressed and baffled, alerted Stalin to further border activities. “We’ll think it over,” snapped Stalin who next day lost his temper with Zhukov’s proposal of mobilization: “That means war. Do you two understand that or not?” Then he asked how many divisions there were in the border areas.

Zhukov told him there were 149.

“Well, isn’t that enough? The Germans don’t have so many…” But the Germans were on a war footing, replied Zhukov. “You can’t believe everything in intelligence reports,” said Stalin.

On the 16th, Merkulov confirmed the final decision to attack, which came from agent “Starshina” in Luftwaffe headquarters. [178] On 14 June, Hitler held his last military conference before the beginning of Barbarossa, with the generals arriving at the Chancellery at different times so as not to raise suspicion. On the 16th, he summoned Goebbels to brief him. “Tell the ‘source’ in the Staff of the German Air Force to fuck his mother!” he scrawled to Merkulov. “This is no source but a disinformer. J.St.” Even Molotov struggled to convince himself: “They’d be fools to attack us,” he told Admiral Kuznetsov.

Two days later, at a three-hour meeting described by Timoshenko, he and Zhukov beseeched Stalin for a full alert, with the Vozhd fidgeting and tapping his pipe on the table, and the magnates agreeing with Stalin’s maniacal delusions or else brooding in sullen silence, the only way of protesting they possessed. Stalin suddenly leapt to his feet and shouted at Zhukov: “Have you come to scare us with war, or do you want a war because you’re not sufficiently decorated or your rank isn’t high enough?”

Zhukov paled and sat down but Timoshenko warned Stalin again, which aroused a frenzy: “It’s all Timoshenko’s work, he’s preparing everyone for war. He ought to have been shot, but I’ve known him as a good soldier since the Civil War.”

Timoshenko replied he was only repeating Stalin’s own speech that war was inevitable.

“So you see,” Stalin retorted to the Politburo. “Timoshenko’s a fine man with a big head but apparently a small brain,” and he held up his thumb. “I said it for the people, we have to raise their alertness, while you have to realize that Germany will never fight Russia on her own. You must understand this.” Stalin stormed out leaving an excruciating silence but then he “opened the door and stuck his pock-marked face round it and uttered in a loud voice: ‘If you’re going to provoke the Germans on the frontier by moving troops there without our permission, then heads will roll, mark my words’—and he slammed the door.”

Stalin summoned Khrushchev, who should have been monitoring the Ukrainian border, to Moscow and would not let him leave: “Stalin kept ordering me to postpone my departure: ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry. There’s no need to rush back.’” Khrushchev held a special place in Stalin’s affections: perhaps his irrepressible optimism, sycophantic devotion—and practical cunning made him a useful companion at such a moment. Stalin was in a “state of confusion, anxiety, demoralization, even paralysis,” according to Khrushchev, soothing his anxiety with sleepless nights and heavy drinking at endless Kuntsevo dinners. “You could feel the static,” said Khrushchev, “the discharge of tension.” On Friday the 20th, Khrushchev finally said, “I have to go. The war is about to break out. It may catch me here in Moscow or on the way back to the Ukraine.”

“Right,” said Stalin. “Just go.” 1

On the 19th, Zhdanov, who was running the country with Stalin and Molotov, left for one and a half months’ holiday. Suffering from asthma, and Stalin’s boa constrictor–like friendship, he was exhausted. “But I have a bad foreboding the Germans could invade,” Zhdanov told Stalin.

“The Germans have already missed the best moment,” replied Stalin. “Apparently they’ll attack in 1942. Go on holiday.” [179] Perhaps Stalin had encouraged Zhdanov to bolster his own wavering confidence: when Dmitrov passed on an Austrian warning, Stalin replied that there could not be anything to worry about if Zhdanov, who ran the Leningrad Military District and the navy, had gone on holiday. Mikoyan thought he was naïve to go but Molotov shrugged: “A sick man has to rest.” So “we went on holiday,” remembers Zhdanov’s son Yury. “We arrived in Sochi on Saturday 21 June.”