Simon Montefiore - Stalin

Beria’s other mission was to stamp out the embers of treason among the ethnic groups in the North Caucasus. Hence he set up his own NKVD command. As a Georgian Mingrel brought up among non-Georgian Abkhazians, Beria possessed all the prejudices of one tiny Caucasian people for another. The Georgians had always been particularly suspicious of Moslem peoples like the Chechens: in Grozny, Beria investigated the reports that some Chechens had greeted the Germans with open arms. Sergo Beria, who accompanied his father, wrote that they sent delegations to show their support for Moscow, promising to fight like their national hero, Shamyl. Since Shamyl had defied Russia for thirty years, this analogy did their cause no good at all. Beria’s cheerfulness with the Chechens concealed his distrust.

Beria descended on Kaganovich and Budyonny in Novorossisk but was not impressed by their demeanour: “These two idiots disorganized everything,” wrote Sergo Beria, exaggerating somewhat. They found Budyonny “dead drunk” and in “a deep torpor” while Kaganovich was “sober” but “trembled like a leaf and crawled on his knees before my father.”

“Don’t make such an exhibition of yourself,” Beria told Kaganovich.

The German advance ebbed outside Ordzhonikidze and Grozny, undermined by the Soviet resistance at Stalingrad. Beria returned triumphant to Moscow where Stalin, who was viciously jealous of anyone else’s military glory, overheard him boasting to Malenkov of his exploits.

“Now Beria’s going to imagine he’s a military leader,” Stalin growled to Shaposhnikov. Beria recommended the sacking of Budyonny, who returned to Moscow from his last active command to be placed in charge of the cavalry. But he appealed to Stalin: “My soul longs to be in battle. Let me go to Stalingrad!” 2Stalingrad was indeed about to become the battle of battles, the focus of the world.

The Germans attacked by land and devastated Stalin’s city from the sky, destroying that industrial leviathan in an infernal bombardment that converted its stark Stalinist factories into a primeval landscape of caves and canyons. Stalin, in the office in the early hours, was beside himself, berating his envoys to Stalingrad, Malenkov and Chief of Staff Vasilevsky: “The enemy broke through… with small forces. You have enough forces to annihilate the enemy… Mobilize armoured trains… Use smoke screens… Fight day and night… The most important thing now is—don’t panic, don’t fear the impudent enemy and keep up your confidence in our success.” 3

The gravity of Stalingrad finally concentrated Stalin’s mind and brought about a revolution in his conduct of the war. Now he realized that the road to survival and glory lay with professional generals instead of his own impatient amateurism and his bungling cavalrymen. On 27 August, he ordered Zhukov to rush to Stalingrad and promoted him to Deputy Supreme Commander. Zhukov refused the promotion: “My character wouldn’t let us work together.”

“Disaster threatens the country,” replied Stalin. “We must save the Motherland by every possible means, no matter the sacrifice. What of our characters? Let’s subordinate them to the interests of the Motherland. When will you leave?”

“I need a day.”

“Well, that’s fine. But aren’t you hungry? It wouldn’t hurt to have a little refreshment.” Tea and cakes were brought in to celebrate the beginning of the war’s most successful partnership.

Zhukov met up with Vasilevsky in Stalingrad where he found the Germans creeping into the city. Stalin demanded counter-attacks but his forces were not yet up to it. Stalin was so anxious that he now slept on a couch in his office with Poskrebyshev waking him every two hours. He was so pale, tired and skinny that Poskrebyshev let him sleep an extra half-hour because he had not the heart to wake him: “A philanthropist all of a sudden. Get Vasilevsky on the line. Quick! The bald philanthropist!”

Stalin yelled at Vasilevsky: “What’s the matter with them? Don’t they understand if we surrender Stalingrad, the south of the country’ll be cut off from the centre and we’ll probably not be able to defend it? Don’t they realize that this isn’t only a catastrophe for Stalingrad? We’d lose our main waterway and soon our oil too!” But its importance was no longer merely strategic: Stalingrad bore his name because it had played a formative part in his life. There, at Tsaritsyn in 1918, he had gained his confidence as a man of action, learned how to govern by terror, won Lenin’s trust and Trotsky’s hatred. At the “Red Verdun,” he had met his cronies, from Voroshilov to Budyonny, and embarked on his marriage with Nadya.

“I think there’s still a chance we won’t lose the city,” replied Vasilevsky carefully. Stalin rang Zhukov and ordered the attack: “Delay’s equivalent to a crime.” When Zhukov reported that there would be a delay, Stalin sneered: “Do you think the enemy’s going to wait until you bestir yourselves?”

At dawn the Russians attacked again—but made limited gains. The Germans had almost taken the city but one force stood in their way: the 62nd Army under General Vasily Chuikov, spiky-haired, snub-nosed, gold-fanged, clung on to the Volga’s west bank, commanding from dugouts and fighting in the skeletal ruins of an apocalyptic industrial landscape, supplied only by ferryboats that crossed the burning Volga in which the destiny of Russia was reflected. The valour, nobility, despair and brutality is best described in Vasily Grossman’s epic Life and Fate . They fought with modern weapons and ancient ones, sniper rifles and grenades, spades, pipes and fingers, dying to win time: “Blood,” said Chuikov, “is time.”

The attention of virtually every minute of Stalin’s day was concentrated on one of the most intense battles ever fought: Chuikov’s direct commanders were General Andrei Yeremenko and Commissar Khrushchev, now back in favour, but it was much too important to be left to them. Stalin himself supervised the front with Zhukov and Vasilevsky in active command while Malenkov acted as his personal spy. They would appear in Yeremenko’s dugout. “I’d notice Vasilevsky and Malenkov whispering,” said Khrushchev, “preparing to denounce someone.” Malenkov summoned officers to be dressed down. They arrived in the dugout to find a “short man with a soft puffy face in a tunic” alongside ruffians like Zhukov and Yeremenko. During one dressing-down, Malenkov found himself addressing Vasily Stalin who, though banned from flying active missions himself, was commanding a division.

“Colonel Stalin!” Malenkov said, “the combat performance of your flyers is revolting…” Then he turned to another officer: “And you, the general in the skullcap? Did you intend to fight or simply play around?” After Malenkov had gone, Khrushchev and Yeremenko would be left alone again in their dugout “in an eerie silence… like a forest after a storm.” It was Khrushchev’s finest hour, [208] When Khrushchev was in power, he ordered his cronies like Yeremenko to inflate his heroic role at Stalingrad, just like Stalin himself. living in his dugout building the friendships with generals that were to be so useful after Stalin’s death. 4

On 12 September, the rival commanders of Stalingrad flew simultaneously to see their respective Supremos with a neat dictatorial symmetry. As Paulus met the Führer at his Werwolf headquarters, a stockade of wooden cabins and bunkers at Vinnitsa, Zhukov and Vasilevsky were on their way to see their Vozhd . As Hitler ordered Paulus to “capture as quickly as possible the whole of Stalingrad,” Zhukov and Malenkov, the rough-hewn soldier and the silky-palmed courtier, presented a report for Stalin proposing further offensives “to grind down the enemy… and simultaneously to prepare… a more powerful blow.” But what? Stalin looked at his own map and studied it quietly, ignoring the soldiers for a long moment, lost in his thoughts.