Burning Moscow

Section 22 In the days in Moscow (4)

There was an officer standing in the door, just listening to him repeating a sentence: “Please take off your coat, comrades commanders, please take off your coat…”

I saw the officers in front of them all took off their coats, and lined up in front of the cloakroom to store their clothes. I also took off the soldier’s uniform and walked over.

The female sergeant at the check-in counter looked at me curiously when she took over the coat, and asked me hesitantly: “Comrade Lieutenant, is this your coat?”

“That’s right!” I think her question is quite superfluous. I personally handed it to her. Who else could it be if it wasn’t mine, “This is the military coat I am wearing.”

“But this is an ordinary army coat worn by a soldier. You are a lieutenant, and the rank on the coat is a sergeant. I’m afraid you are mistaken, so ask. Are you sure you are right?” She was very friendly, after all This is a special period, and no ordinary people can enter the Kremlin.

“Oh.” It turned out to be so, I quickly explained to her: “My dear, when I came to Moscow, I was in a hurry. I didn’t bring any winter clothes. I borrowed it temporarily from the hotel comrades.”

“Understood.” She handed me a number plate, “Please keep it, this is for when you come out to pick up clothes. Good luck!”

“Thank you!” After I took the number plate, I walked quickly into the conference hall and found a seat in the last row.

There are several long rows of long tables covered with red woolen cloth on the rostrum. Not long after I sat down, the members of the presidium made their debut.

Walking in the forefront is a man in a gray uniform with all the buttons buttoned up. He is wearing a pair of shiny boots with oil on his feet. He is holding a pipe in his right hand half raised at his waist. , Took brisk steps, walked on the podium calmly, and behind him two or three steps away were followed by a group of marshals and high-level generals.

I have seen his photos more than a thousand times. I will often see his imitators on the Red Square in later generations. His classic big beard impressed me even more. So when he appeared on the stage, I didn’t hesitate to admit it. Come out: He is Stalin!

After Stalin came out, everyone in the hall stood up from their seats, and I was no exception. The sudden thunderous applause was mixed with the sound of the chair flipping backwards.

There was not much greeting, after the members of the presidium took their seats, someone announced the start of the meeting. However, it was not Stalin who presided over the meeting, but Marshal Shabosnikov, chief of the general staff of the Red Army. The Marshal Voroshilov I knew was also on stage, but Zhukov was not seen.

My eyes have never left Stalin, I saw him sitting in the farthest row next to the presidium. After a few minutes, he stood up and lit his pipe, and began to walk slowly around behind the presidium. He walked back and forth quietly, sometimes sitting in his distant seat for a while, then stood up again to continue his slow, peaceful walk.

Stalin interrupted the spokesperson from time to time, asked them a few questions, or wrote some brief interruptions.

The hall was silent, but when Stalin slowed down his already slow silent footsteps, looked at the speaker intently, or slightly raised-tightened his pipe, the silence in the audience became It’s even more obvious, because everyone knows: what he has to say. At that time, the person standing on the podium couldn’t help being silent, and turned to Stalin’s side.

The meeting lasted for several hours. The military chiefs of all fronts came to the podium one after another to speak. Most of their names are very strange to me. After all, I know only the famous generals of World War II such as Zhukov and Cuikov, and Voroshilo. Marshals of the older generation such as husband, Timothy, Budjoni.

Almost all the speakers pointed out that although the equipment and quality of our soldiers are at an absolute disadvantage compared with the Germans, the soldiers behaved very tenaciously, facing the enemy’s three-dimensional attack, they are still like nails. Nailed to the battlefield, without stepping back, until the last person in the fight. Even the generals of the Southwest Front who broke out of the German encirclement had the same argument.

I am not interested in listening to this cliché. As someone from future generations, I know clearly that before the outbreak of the war, the Soviet Union was not sufficiently prepared for Germany’s offensive. Although he believed that the Soviet-German war was inevitable, he still wished to postpone the outbreak of the war as much as possible. The whole country was paralyzed, and before the war, it also exported a large amount of strategic materials such as grain, coal and non-ferrous metals to Germany in accordance with the “Soviet-German Non-Aggression Treaty”. It was Stalin’s misjudgment that made the Soviet army materially prepared, but not mentally prepared. The sudden outbreak of the war left many officers and men at a loss, from the front army headquarters to the troops at all levels in chaos. The mental unpreparedness and the swift and violent German offensive led to the entire Soviet army’s defeat. After the material reserves that had been fully prepared were seized by the Germans, they naturally became enemy materials.

The German generals have fought in Europe for many years and have rich combat experience, knowing how to form a local advantage over the Soviet army in terms of strength. Although the Soviet army had a large number of weapons, its quality was far inferior to that of the German army. In addition, the German army was a surprise attack, and the Soviet army’s quantitative advantages were not fully utilized, which put the overall strength of the weapon at a disadvantage, which was also one of the reasons for the defeat of the war.

More importantly, a large number of experienced military chiefs were washed out in the great purge a few years ago. Instead, there are a large number of low-level and young officers, resulting in the low military and cultural qualities of the Soviet commanders from the army to the battalion, lack of experience, outdated and rigid tactical thinking, and the overall combat effectiveness of the army is not high. This situation can be seen in the Soviet-Finnish war: as many as one million Soviet troops attacked the Finnish army, which had only 200,000 people, but because of poor command, the Finnish army was repelled across the board. Although the Soviet Union finally won, it paid a tragic price of casualties. The Soviets were even better for the Finnish army, which was far less powerful than its own, and even worse for the German army, which was far stronger than the Finnish army.

Although I know very well the reasons for the defeat in the early Soviet war, if anyone I take the stage to speak, then I will treat this suggestion as if someone asked me to jump off a plane without a parachute. It’s an international joke. On this occasion, some things are clearly known, but they can’t be said to be killed. If you say it rashly, being sent to Siberia to reform through labor is fairly light. If you annoy someone, it’s possible that you will evaporate directly from the world.

I originally planned to live here until the end of the meeting, but then the dispute between Admiral Konev and Shaposnikov changed my mind.

Admiral Konev, a former commander from the Western Front, said: “…Germans gained the initiative on the battlefield, relying entirely on their superior strength, especially tanks and air forces. To illustrate the power of the enemy’s assault, I Just cite one example to prove: the enemy used 20 divisions against the 4 infantry divisions of our 30th Army, and the enemy invested more than 400 tanks. The soldiers of the 30th Army were very tenacious and had to retreat. Retreat, As you know, it is the most complicated form of combat. It requires high combat qualities….”

“Come on.” Shabosnikov interrupted him, “When will your complicated form of fighting end? When will our troops retreat? When can we fight tenaciously? This is for me. It is also a strategic issue. If the Red Army was brought down, you said that the soldiers had no experience in retreating.”

“Yes, we have not studied this form of combat before the war. We are preparing to fight on enemy territory…. I don’t want to argue, but on this point, we paid a huge price in the war.” Konev Without backing down, he started a tit-for-tat argument with him.

“Oh, it turns out that this is the case. All the mistakes you made are my fault…. I think that the leaders of the Western Front are completely lacking in strategic foresight and not good at commanding combat troops on the fly,…”

I think what General Konev said is very reasonable. As for Shaposnikov, I despise him very much. Although he has high prestige in the Soviet army, he has always adhered to the concept of World War I: using cannons and machine guns to organize strong defensive positions, waiting for the enemy to meet and break his blood, and sneered at the advanced theory of armored warfare at that time. The fact is that in the face of Guderian’s tank attack, the Soviet army, lacking in anti-tank warfare experience, even though armed to the teeth, still behaved helplessly and could only retreat steadily.

I took the pen and notebook from the commander next to me and wrote on it without hesitation: “I ask to speak”, and also wrote my military rank and name. When I wrote about my unit, I thought about it. Should I write “Leningrad Front Army” or “Leningrad”? Finally, he wrote the Leningrad Front. Then he tore the paper and touched the shoulder of a colonel sitting in the front row with a purely mechanical gesture.

The man half-turned his body, glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and then stretched a hand with five fingers across his shoulder. Then, I stuffed the four-folded note into the general’s palm.

After a minute, I realized that I had just been hot-headed and had done an irreparable stupid thing: Unlike most spokespersons, I understood the real reason for the Soviet army’s defeat, and I didn’t prepare to speak beforehand. In the case of drafts, if you rashly request to speak at such a meeting, it is easy to make mistakes if you speak too much.

The next thought was: Take back the note quickly and don’t let it pass to the presidium. I even lifted my body slightly, looking at the back of the people sitting in front of him, trying to judge this from their actions—in an instant, people passed this mildewy note to whom. However, all this was in vain! It seems that everyone in the front row is sitting motionless or taking notes attentively.

At this time, I started to comfort myself with fantasy. Maybe this note disappeared after a long journey among the rows of commanders or someone was busy taking notes, so I took the paper The article lay aside, forgetting to send it to the front.

When I saw a tall soldier with a tight belt and a well-trained posture, he emerged from somewhere nearby and collected a lot of paper slips from the front row, ready to hand them to the presidium. At that time, I was almost completely relieved: with so many notes for speaking, no one would have noticed my note.

Even so, I still looked at the soldier mechanically. The man stepped on relaxed steps, stretched his straight hand holding the note to his chest, and boarded the small ladder leading to the presidium. He walked a few steps, bypassing several rows of seats, and seemed to want to squeeze to the side of Shaposnikov who was presiding over the meeting, but when he saw Stalin walking straight towards him, he hurriedly turned around and went to He ran a few steps later, put the note in front of a general sitting at the end of the table, ran along the small ladder to the stage, and disappeared. The general sorted out the notes, folded them neatly into a pile, and passed them to the people next to each other. They passed them one by one, and these notes were quickly passed to Shaposnikov, who was arguing.

After Stalin came between the two debaters, the debate came to an abrupt end. After Konev left the podium, Shaposnikov immersed himself in the pile of papers in front of him, then stood up frowning, and handed one of them to Stalin who was standing in front of him. Stalin took it with his left hand without holding a pipe and looked at it without speaking. Then he handed the note back to Shaposnikov and nodded silently.

Then the audience heard Shabosnikov announce: “Next, Comrade Oshanina, please speak, from the Leningrad Front!”