Simon Montefiore - Stalin

There were 2.2 million people trapped in Leningrad. That December alone, 53,000 died and there would be many more to follow. People dropped dead in the streets, in their beds, whole families died one by one. There were too many bodies and everyone was too weak to bury them. Cannibalism flourished: it was not rare to find a body lying in the hall of an apartment block with thighs and breasts carved off. Between the start of the siege and July 1942, it is estimated that a million people died in Leningrad.

Zhdanov, assisted by his respected Second Secretary, Alexei Kuznetsov, won back Stalin’s respect and that of the Leningraders. They gradually became heroes as they shared the plight of their citizens, personally living on a full military ration of a pound of bread a day plus a bowl of meat or fish soup and some kasha . While hundreds of thousands were dying in the streets, the leaders worked day and night. Kuznetsov, a tall, gangly young man with a long handsome face, kept Leningrad together during Zhdanov’s moments of weakness, touring the trenches accompanied by his little son. Stalin himself praised Kuznetsov: “The Motherland won’t forget you!” he wrote.

In November, they ordered the building of the “Road of Life” across the ice of Lake Ladoga which became the city’s only channel for the supply of food. During the famine, Zhdanov assigned food supplies in such detail that, at one point, he was the only man allowed to replace a lost ration card. He sometimes displayed flashes of human decency: when dysentery broke out in a school, he suspected the staff of stealing the children’s food and sent in a general who reported that the children were taking the food in jars to their families—but he did not stop them.

“I’d have done the same thing,” Zhdanov admitted and ordered the evacuation of the children. After the war, Zhdanov was quoted as saying that “people died like flies” but “history would never have forgiven me had I given up Leningrad.” 15

Still Stalin became furious when Zhdanov showed dangerous independence: “Do you imagine Leningrad under Zhdanov is not situated in the USSR but is somewhere on an island in the middle of the Pacific?”

“We admit our mistake,” replied Zhdanov, who then reported a problem with the operations on Lake Ladoga which he blamed on the “cowardice and betrayal” of the commanders of the 80th Division. “We send a demand to let us… shoot the chief of 80th Frolov and his commissar Ivanov… The Council needs to fight panic and cowardice even among officers.”

“Frolov and Ivanov should be shot and tell the media,” replied Stalin.

“Understood. All will be done.”

“Don’t waste time,” said Stalin. “Every moment’s dear. The enemy concentrates power against Moscow. All other fronts have the chance to counter-attack. Seize the moment!” 16

Zhdanov ended his handwritten reply: “We’re waiting the start of the German defeat outside Moscow. Be healthy!” Then he added this: “PS: I’ve become as ferocious as a dog!” 17 [194] Perhaps as a reward for his ferocity, on 11 December, Zhdanov, who had not seen Stalin since 24 June, flew to Moscow and began to climb back to the top.

Hitler switched his Panzers to Operation Typhoon, the grand offensive against Moscow, designed to deliver the knockout blow to Soviet Russia. Guderian’s Panzers surprised and then outflanked the Briansk Front just as Stalin welcomed Lord Beaverbrook, the puckish Canadian press baron and member of the British War Cabinet, and Averell Harriman, the handsome lantern-jawed railway heir and American envoy, who had come to negotiate military aid to keep Russia in the war.

The two plutocrats observed Stalin play the gracious host while facing catastrophe. “Stalin was very restless, walking about and smoking continuously and appeared to both of us to be under an intense strain,” recalled Beaverbrook. As always, Stalin swung between rudeness and charm, sketching wolves on his notepad one moment, and then tossing aside an unopened letter from Churchill to exclaim: “The paucity of your offers clearly shows you want to see the Soviet Union defeated.” He was “sallow, tired, pock-marked… almost emaciated.”

By 1 October, the Moscow front was collapsing just as Stalin laid on a lavish banquet in the Great Kremlin Palace. At 7:30 p.m., the hundred guests chattered loudly in the eighteenth-century Catherine Hall, with its chairs and divans covered in the monograms of Catherine the Great, green silk wallpaper, and the old portraits in their golden frames. Just before eight, the Russian guests began to glance anxiously at the high, gilded door and on the hour, silence fell as Stalin, in a tunic that “seemed to hang off his wasted frame,” walked slowly down the line.

At dinner, he placed himself between the tycoons, with Molotov in his accustomed seat opposite him and, down the table, Voroshilov and Mikoyan, who henceforth negotiated the Western aid. [195] Even Stalin admitted how this Western assistance decisively aided his war effort. Mikoyan reported to him in detail as the aid arrived, whether trucks via Persia or weapons via Archangel. Such was the urgency that in November 1941, Stalin totted up the number of planes (432) in his red pen on Mikoyan’s notes. As the waiters unleashed upon the guests a barrage of hors d’oeuvres, caviar, soup, and fish, suckling pig, chicken and game, ice cream and cakes, washed down with champagne, vodka, wine and Armenian brandy, Stalin toasted victory before Molotov took up the baton. There were thirty-two toasts before the night was done. When Stalin enjoyed a toast, he would clap his hands before drinking to it but he happily talked on while others were speaking. He “drank continuously from a small glass (liqueur),” wrote Beaverbrook, who recorded everything with the avidity of one of his Daily Express columnists. “He ate well and even heartily,” nibbling caviar off his knife, without bread and butter. Stalin and Beaverbrook, two mercurial rogues, jousted mischievously. Pointing at President Kalinin, Beaverbrook, who had heard about his taste for ballerinas, asked if the old man had a mistress. “He’s too old,” chuckled Stalin. “Do you?”

Stalin then led the way, with hands behind his back, to the cinema where he intently watched two movies, drinking champagne and laughing. Even though it was already 1:30 a.m., the omnipotent insomniac suggested a third movie but Beaverbrook was too tired. As the Westerners departed, the Germans broke through towards Moscow. 18

On 3 October, Guderian took Orel, 125 miles behind the supposed Russian front line. Yeremenko’s Briansk and Budyonny’s Reserve Fronts were smashed: 665,000 Russians surrounded. On the 4th, Stalin lost contact with the shattered Western Front under Koniev, leaving a twelve-mile hole in Moscow’s defences. Early on the 5th, the Moscow air commander, Sbytov, reported the almost incredible news that a long column of German tanks was heading for Moscow along the Ukhnovo highway, 100 kilometres from the Kremlin. A second reconnaissance plane confirmed the same sight. “Very well,” Stalin told the Moscow Commissar Telegin. “Act decisively and energetically… mobilize every available resource to hold the enemy…”

Simultaneously, Stalin’s entourage tried to crush this news as they had tried to deny the German invasion. “Look,” Beria threatened Telegin, “do you take every bit of nonsense as the truth? You’ve evidently received information from panic-mongers and provocateurs!” Minutes later, poor Colonel Sbytov ran into Telegin’s office, “pale and trembling.” Beria had ordered him to report at once to the feared chief of the Special Department, Victor Abakumov, who threatened Sbytov and his pilots with arrest for “cowardice and panic-mongering.” When a third plane confirmed that all three fronts had collapsed, the hyenas were called off. 19