Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

  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?”

  32

  The Countdown: 22 June 1941

  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 Luftwa fe headquarters.178 “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 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.”

  On 20 June, Dekanozov, back in Berlin, warned Beria firmly that the attack was imminent. Beria threatened his protégé while Stalin muttered that “Slow Kartvelian” “wasn’t clever enough to work it out.” Beria forwarded the “disinformation” to Stalin with the sycophantic but slightly mocking note: “My people and I, Joseph Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise prediction: Hitler will not attack us in 1941!”

  At about 7:30 p.m., Mikoyan, the Deputy Premier in charge of the merchant navy, was called by the harbourmaster of Riga: twenty-five German ships were setting sail, even though many had not yet unloaded. He rushed along to Stalin’s office where some of the leaders were gathered.

  “That’ll be a provocation,” Stalin angrily told Mikoyan. “Let them leave.” The Politburo were alarmed—but of course said nothing. Molotov was deeply worried: “The situation is unclear, a great game is being played,” he confided to the Bulgarian Communist Dmitrov, on Saturday 21 June. “Not everything depends on us.” General Golikov brought Stalin further evidence: “This information,” Stalin wrote on it, “is an English provocation. Find out who the author is and punish him.” The fire brigade reported that the German Embassy was burning documents. The British government and even Mao Tse-tung (a surprising source, via the Comintern) sent warnings.

  Stalin telephoned Khrushchev to warn him the war might begin the next day and asked Tiulenev, the commander of Moscow: “How do things stand with the anti-aircraft defence of Moscow? Note the situation’s tense . . . Bring the troops of Moscow’s anti-aircraft defence to 75 percent of combat readiness.”2

  Saturday the 21st was a warm and uneasy day in Moscow. The schools had broken up for the holidays. Dynamo Moscow, the football team, lost its game. The theatres were showing Rigoletto, La Traviata and Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Stalin and the Politburo sat all day, coming and going. By early evening, Stalin was deeply disturbed by the persistently ominous reports that even his Terror could not disperse. Molotov joined him again around 6:30.

  Outside the Little Corner, Poskrebyshev sat by the open window, sipping Narzan water: he called Chadaev, the young Sovnarkom assistant. “Something important?” whispered Chadaev.

  “I’d say so,” replied Poskrebyshev. “The Boss talked to Timoshenko, he was very agitated . . . They’re waiting for . . . you know . . . the German attack . . .”

  At about seven, Stalin ordered Molotov to summon Schulenburg to protest about the German reconnaissance flights—and find out what he could. The Count sped into the Kremlin. Molotov hurried along to his office in the same building. Meanwhile180 Timoshenko telephoned to report that a German deserter had revealed the German invasion plan for dawn. Stalin swung between the force of reality and the self-delusion of his infallibility.

  In Molotov’s office, Schulenburg was relieved to see that the Foreign Commissar was still oblivious to the enormity of his
country’s plight. The Russian asked him why Germany seemed dissatisfied with their Soviet allies. And why had the women and children of the German Embassy left Moscow?

  “Not ALL the women,” said Schulenburg. “My wife is still in town.” Molotov gave what the Ambassador’s aide, Hilger, called a “resigned shrug of the shoulders” and returned to Stalin’s office.

  Timoshenko then arrived, along with most of the magnates: Voroshilov, Beria, Malenkov and the powerful young Deputy Premier Voznesensky. At 8:15 p.m., Timoshenko returned to the Defence Commissariat whence he informed Stalin that a second deserter had warned that war would begin at 4 a.m. Stalin called him back. Timoshenko arrived at 8:50 with Zhukov and Budyonny, Deputy Defence Commissar, who knew Stalin much better than they did and was less frightened of the Vozhd. Budyonny admitted that he did not know what was happening at the frontier since he was only in command of the home front. The outspoken Budyonny had played an ambiguous role in the Terror but even then he was willing to speak his mind, a rare quality in those circles. Stalin appointed him commander of the Reserve Army. Then Mekhlis, newly restored to his old job—head of the army’s Political Department, Stalin’s military enforcer, joined this funereal vigil.

  “Well what now?” the pacing Stalin asked them. There was silence. The Politburo sat like dummies. Timoshenko raised his voice: “All troops in frontier districts” must be placed on “full battle alert!”

  “Didn’t they send the deserter on purpose to provoke us?” said Stalin, but then he ordered Zhukov: “Read this out.” When Zhukov reached his order of High Alert, Stalin interrupted, “It would be premature to issue that order now. It might still be possible to settle the situation by peaceful means.” They had to avoid any provocations. Zhukov obeyed his instructions exactly—he knew the alternative: “Beria’s dungeon!”

  The magnates now spoke up diffidently, agreeing with the generals that the troops had to be put on alert “just in case.” Stalin nodded at the generals who hurried next door to Poskrebyshev’s office to redraft the order. When they returned, the obsessive editor watered it down even more. The generals rushed back to the Defence Commissariat to transmit the order to the military districts: “A surprise attack by the Germans is possible during 22–23 June...The task of our forces is to refrain from any kind of provocative action . . .” This was only completed just after midnight on Sunday 22 June.

  Stalin told Budyonny that the war would probably start tomorrow. Budyonny left at ten, while Timoshenko, Zhukov and Mekhlis left later. Stalin kept pacing. Beria left, presumably to check the latest intelligence reports, and reported back at ten-forty. At eleven, the leaders moved upstairs to Stalin’s apartment where they sat in the dining room. “Stalin kept reassuring us that Hitler would not begin the war,” claimed Mikoyan.

  “I think Hitler’s trying to provoke us,” said Stalin, according to Mikoyan. “He surely hasn’t decided to make war?”

  Zhukov phoned again at twelve-thirty: a third deserter, a Communist labourer from Berlin named Alfred Liskov, had swum the Pruth to report that the order to invade had been read to his unit. Stalin checked that the High Alert order was being transmitted, then commanded that Liskov should be shot “for his disinformation.” Even on such a night, it was impossible to break the Stalinist routine of brutality—and entertainment: the Politburo headed out through the Borovitsky Gate to Kuntsevo in a convoy of limousines, speeding through the empty streets with their NKGB escorts. The generals, watched by Mekhlis, remained tensely in the Defence Commissariat. But elsewhere in the city, the weary commissars, guards and typists who waited every night (even Saturdays) until Stalin left the Kremlin, could stagger home to sleep. By Stalin’s standards, it was early.

  Molotov drove to the Foreign Commissariat to send a final telegram to Dekanozov in Berlin, who was already trying to get through to Ribbentrop, to put the questions Schulenburg had failed to answer. Molotov then joined the others at Kuntsevo: “we might even have watched a film,” he said. At around 2 a.m., after an hour or so of dining, drinking and talking (the memories of Zhukov, Molotov and Mikoyan are confused about that night), they headed back to their Kremlin apartments.181

  Far away, all along the Soviet border, Luftwa fe bombers were heading for their targets. On the same day that Napoleon’s Grand Army had invaded Russia 129 years earlier, Hitler’s over three million soldiers—Germans, Croats, Finns, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians and even Spaniards backed by 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorized vehicles, 7,000 artillery pieces, 2,500 aircraft and about 625,000 horses, were crossing the border to engage the Soviet forces of almost equal strength, as many as 14,000 tanks (2,000 of them modern), 34,000 guns and over 8,000 planes. The greatest war of all time was about to begin in the duel between those two brutal and reckless egomaniacs. And both were probably still asleep.3

  PART SEVEN

  War: The Bungling Genius 1941–1942

  33

  Optimism and Breakdown

  Stalin had retired when Zhukov called Kuntsevo. “Who’s calling?” the sleepy voice of the NKGB general answered.

  “Zhukov. Chief of Staff. Please connect me to Comrade Stalin. It’s urgent.”

  “What, right now? Comrade Stalin’s sleeping.”

  “Wake him immediately,” Zhukov told the duty officer. “The Germans are bombing our cities.”

  There was a silence. Zhukov waited for what seemed like an eternity. He was not the only one trying to report the invasion to Stalin, but the generals remained as petrified of their own leader as they were of the Germans. At 4:17 a.m. (Russian time) the Black Sea command called Zhukov at the Defence Commissariat to report a swarm of bombers. At 4:30 a.m. the Western Front was on the line, at 4:40, the Baltic was under attack. Around the same time, Admiral Kuznetsov was telephoned by his Sebastopol commander: the German bombing had started. Kuznetsov immediately phoned the Kremlin where he encountered the bureaucratic narrow-mindedness that is so characteristic of tyrannies. It was meant to be a secret that Stalin lived at Kuntsevo, so the officer replied:

  “Comrade Stalin is not here and I don’t know where he is.”

  “I have an exceedingly important message which I must immediately relay to Comrade Stalin personally . . .”

  “I can’t help you in any way,” he replied and hung up, so Kuznetsov called Timoshenko who, deluged with such calls, was afraid to inform Stalin. Kuznetsov tried all the numbers he had for Stalin but to no avail, so he called the Kremlin again.

  “I request you to inform Comrade Stalin that German planes are bombing Sebastopol. This is war!”

  “I shall report it to the proper person.” A few minutes later, the Admiral discovered who “the proper person” was: flabby, quiet-spoken Malenkov called, asking in “a dissatisfied, irritated voice”: “Do you understand what you’re reporting?”

  Even as German bombers strafed Kiev and Sebastopol and as their troops crossed the borders, Stalin’s courtiers were still trying to bully away reality. Malenkov rang off and called Sebastopol to check the story.

  Timoshenko was not alone in his office: Mekhlis, “the Shark,” spent the night with the generals. Like Malenkov, he was determined that there would be no invasion that night. When the head of anti-aircraft artillery, Voronov, hurried in to report, Timoshenko was so nervous that he handed him a notebook and absurdly “told me to present my report in writing” so that if they were all arrested for treason, he would be responsible for his crimes. Mekhlis sidled up behind him and read over his shoulder to check that he was writing exactly what he had said. Then Mekhlis made him sign it. Timoshenko ordered anti-aircraft forces not to respond: Voronov realized “he did not believe the war had begun.”

  Timoshenko was called by the Deputy Commander of the Western Special Military District, Boldin, who frantically reported that the Germans were advancing. Timoshenko ordered him not to react.

  “What do you mean?” shouted Boldin. “Our troops are retreating, towns are in flames, people are dying . . .”

  “Joseph Vis
sarionovich believes this could be a provocation by some German generals.” Timoshenko’s instinct was to persuade someone else to break the news to Stalin. He asked Budyonny: “The Germans are bombing Sebastopol. Should I or shouldn’t I tell Stalin?”

  “Inform him immediately!”

  “You call him,” beseeched Timoshenko. “I’m afraid.”

  “No, you call him,” retorted Budyonny. “You’re Defence Commissar!” Finally, Budyonny agreed and started calling Kuntsevo. Timoshenko, who could not spread this task widely enough, ordered Zhukov to telephone Stalin too.

  Zhukov was still waiting on the line to Kuntsevo as Stalin was roused. Three minutes later, he came to the phone. Zhukov reported and asked permission to counter-attack. There was silence. He could just hear Stalin breathing.

  “Did you understand me?” asked Zhukov. “Comrade Stalin?” He could still only hear heavy breathing. Then Stalin spoke: “Bring Timoshenko to the Kremlin. Tell Poskrebyshev to summon the Politburo.” Mikoyan and the Politburo were already being rung:

  “It’s war!” Now Budyonny reached Stalin at the dacha and added that Riga was being bombed as well. Stalin called Poskrebyshev, who was sleeping in his study: “The bombing’s started.”182

  Stalin sped into town: he had banned the Politburo from staying in their dachas so they were already there. Stalin rode up in the lift to the second floor, hurried along the red-carpeted corridors with their wooden panelling and snapped at Poskrebyshev as he walked into his office: “Get the others here now.” Zhukov claimed the Politburo assembled at 4:30 a.m. but Molotov thought it was earlier. However, Stalin’s office logbook shows the meeting started at 5:45 a.m. just over an hour after the full German attack. Molotov, who lived in the same building, not far from Stalin’s flat, arrived first, swiftly joined by Beria, Timoshenko, Zhukov and Mekhlis.