Simon Montefiore - Stalin

That March, Stalin ordered an assault from Kerch towards the centre of the Crimea to relieve the besieged Sebastopol. Mekhlis, who like his amateur Supremo believed himself a true soldier, gleefully took over the command of these 250,000 men, terrorizing their general, Kozlov, and ignoring the front commander, Budyonny. In this sensitive and complicated battle, Stalin had exchanged an inept and corrupt drunkard for an inept and incorruptible maniac. As Stalin pressured Mekhlis to launch the offensive on time, “the Shark” replied that his ammunition was low but “I’ll arrest [the officer] if he doesn’t straighten out the situation in two days… We’re organizing the big music for the Germans!”

On 2 March, Mekhlis launched his “big music” in a fiasco that proved to be the insane apogee of terror applied to military science. He banned the digging of trenches “so that the offensive spirit of the soldiers would not be undermined” and insisted that anyone who took “elementary security measures” was a “panic-monger.” All were “mashed into a bloody porridge.” He bombarded Stalin with demands for more terror: “Comrade Beria,” Stalin wrote on one of Mekhlis’s notes. “Right! In Novorossisk, make sure that not one scum, not one scoundrel is breathing.”

Mekhlis himself, speeding around the front in his jeep waving a pistol trying to stop the retreat, displayed “irreproachable personal courage and did nothing for his own glory” yet the “stupid tyranny and wildly arbitrary ways of this military illiterate,” in the words of the poet Konstantin Simonov, a witness, proved disastrous.

On 7 May, Manstein’s counter-attack drove Mekhlis off the Crimea altogether, capturing an awesome bag of 176,000 men, 400 planes and 347 tanks. Mekhlis lashed about him, blaming Kozlov and begging Stalin for a great general, a Hindenburg.

Stalin was beside himself: “You take the strange attitude of an outside observer not responsible for the Crimean Front,” he castigated Mekhlis. “It’s a very comfortable position—but it absolutely stinks! You’re not an outsider but the representative of Stavka… You demand the replacement of Kozlov by someone like Hindenburg. But… we don’t have any Hindenburgs… If you had used aviation against tanks and enemy soldiers and not for sideshows, the enemy would not have broken the front… You don’t have to be Hindenburg to understand this simple thing…” It was a mark of the obsolete standards of Stalin’s court that Hindenburg, the German hero of 1914, was still their paragon in 1942: they needed Guderians not Hindenburgs.

On 28 May, a haggard Mekhlis was waiting in Stalin’s anteroom where one could always see the Supremo reflected in the attitudes of his assistants. Poskrebyshev ignored him, then said: “The Boss’s very busy today. Dammit, there are many troubles.”

“Probably something’s gone wrong at the front?” asked Mekhlis disingenuously.

“You’d know,” replied Poskrebyshev.

“Yes, I want to report our unfortunate business to Comrade Stalin.”

“Apparently,” said Poskrebyshev, “the running of the operation wasn’t equal to the task. Comrade Stalin’s very unhappy…”

Mekhlis blushed. Young Chadaev joined in: “I suppose you think the defeat was caused by circumstances?”

“What did you say?” Mekhlis turned on the whippersnapper. “You’re not a soldier! I’m a real soldier. How dare you…” Then Stalin emerged from his office.

“Hello Comrade Stalin, may I report…” said Mekhlis.

“Go to hell!” snarled Stalin, slamming his door. Mekhlis, according to Poskrebyshev, later “almost threw himself at Stalin’s feet.” He was court-martialled, demoted, sacked as Deputy Defence Commissar.

“It’s all over!” sobbed Mekhlis but Stalin remained amazingly loyal: twenty-four days later, he was appointed a Front Commissar and later promoted to Colonel-General. 5

As if Stalin, Kulik and Mekhlis had not wrought enough defeat, the worst was befalling the South-Western Front where Timoshenko and Khrushchev were launching their offensive from a Soviet salient to retake Kharkov, oblivious of Hitler’s imminent attack. Zhukov and Shaposhnikov wisely warned against it but Timoshenko, Stalin’s favourite fighting general, insisted on proceeding and the Supremo agreed.

On 12 May, Timoshenko and Khrushchev, both uneducated, crude and energetic, successfully attacked and pushed back the Germans. If Stalin was delighted, Hitler could not believe his luck. Five days later, his Panzers smashed through Timoshenko’s flanks, enveloping Soviet forces in steel pincers so that the Russians were no longer advancing but simply burrowing deeper into a trap. The Staff begged Stalin to call off the operation and he warned Timoshenko of the German forces on his flank, but the Marshal jovially reassured him that all was well. By the 18th, 250,000 men were almost encircled when Timoshenko and Khrushchev finally realized their plight.

Around midnight, Timoshenko, the “brave peasant” terrified of Stalin, persuaded Khrushchev to beg the Supremo to cancel their offensive. At Kuntsevo, Stalin asked Malenkov to answer the phone. Khrushchev asked to speak to Stalin.

“Tell ME!” said Malenkov.

“Who’s calling?” Stalin called out.

“Khrushchev,” replied Malenkov.

“Ask him what he wants!”

“Comrade Stalin repeats that you should tell me,” said Malenkov. Then, “He says the advance on Kharkov should be called off…”

“Put down the receiver,” yelled Stalin. “As if he knows what he’s talking about! Military orders must be obeyed… Khrushchev’s poking his nose into other people’s business… My military advisers know better.” Mikoyan was shocked that Khrushchev “was calling him from the front line in battle with people dying around him” and Stalin “would not walk ten steps across the room.”

The trap snapped shut on a quarter of a million men and 1,200 tanks. The next day, Stalin called off the offensive but it was too late. The exhilarated Germans pushed on towards the Volga and the Caucasus: the road to Stalingrad was open. 6

Timoshenko and Khrushchev feared they would be shot. The two friends soon fell out in the scramble to save their careers and lives. There is a story that Khrushchev suffered a nervous breakdown after the encirclement, flying to Baku where he stayed with Bagirov, Beria’s ally, who naturally reported Khrushchev’s arrival. An unstable Khrushchev started vehemently denouncing Timoshenko, who repaid him in kind.

“Comrade Stalin,” wrote Timoshenko by hand, “I must add something to our report. The increasingly nervous state of Comrade Khrushchev influences our work. Comrade Khrushchev has no faith in anything—one can’t make decisions in doubt… The whole Council think this is the reason for our fall!” He seems to confirm that Khrushchev did have a mental breakdown: “It’s difficult to discuss—Comrade Khrushchev is very ill… We gave our report without saying who was guilty. Comrade Khrushchev wants to blame only me.”

Stalin played with the idea of appointing Bulganin to investigate the situation. Bulganin, sensing Stalin’s reluctance and, perhaps, guilt, begged to be excused for the un-Bolshevik reason that he and Khrushchev were such friends. Stalin did not insist but reflected mildly on Khrushchev’s simplicity: “He doesn’t understand statistics,” said Stalin, “but we have to put up with him” since only he, Kalinin and Andreyev were “real proletarians.” Instead Stalin summoned Khrushchev for a threatening history lesson: “You know in World War One, after our army fell into German encirclement, the general was court-martialled by the Tsar—hanged.” But Stalin forgave him and sent him back to the front. Khrushchev was still terrified since “I knew of many cases when Stalin reassured people by letting them leave his office with good news and then had them picked up.”