1. Konstantin Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pokoleniya. Razmyshleniya o I. V. Staline (Moscow: APN, 1988), 429 (in Russian). A detailed analysis of problems in the Soviet airplane industry in 1938–42 in Mark Solonin, Na mirno spyashchikh aerodromakh… 21 iyunya 1941 goda (Moscow: Yauza-Eksmo, 2006) (in Russian).
2. Politburo decision P31/132, dated April 19, 1941. Document No. 162, Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 263–4.
3. A. Pechenkin, ‘Chernyi den’ Krasnoi Armii,’ Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, February 21, 2003 (in Russian), http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2003-02-21/5_redarmy.html, retrieved September 5, 2011.
4. L. Ye. Reshin and V. S. Stepanov, ‘Sud’by general’skie,’ Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal [hereafter, VIZh], no. 2 (1993), 4–15 (in Russian).
5. L. Ye. Reshin and V. S. Stepanov, ‘Sud’by general’skie,’ VIZh, no. 6 (1993), 21–28 (in Russian).
6. Pages 785–6 in Document No. 2 (appendix), in Reabilitatsiya: Kak eto bylo. Fevral’ 1956-nachalo 80-kh godov, edited by A. Artizov et al., 671–788 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 2003) (in Russian).
7. Arkadii Vaksberg, Neraskrytye tainy (Moscow: Novosti, 1993), 59 (in Russian).
8. Merkulov’s report to Stalin, dated May 15, 1941. Document No. 165, in Lubyanka. Stalin i NKVD, 285–87.
9. Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 229–45.
10. Page 467 in G. A. Kumanev, Govoryat stalinskie narkomy (Smolensk: Rusich, 2005) (in Russian).
11. Document No. 17, in Stalinskoe Politburo v 30-e gg., edited by O. V. Khlevnyuk et al., 34–35 (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1995) (in Russian).
12. Stalin’s toasts quoted in A. Pechenkin, ‘Sekretnoe vystuplenie Stalina,’ Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, April 25, 2003 (in Russian), http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2003-04-25/1_stalin.html, retrieved September 5, 2011. For Stalin’s speech on May 5, 1941, see Document No. 437, in 1941 god. Kinga vtoraya, edited by L. Ye. Reshin et al., 158–61 (Moscow: Demokratiya, 1998) (in Russian).
13. On the general military events in 1941–45, see, for instance, Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941–1945 (London: Hodder, 2005).
14. Notes of the meeting of Molotov with the German ambassador to Moscow, Friedrich Werner von Schullenburg, on June 22, 1941. Document No. 876, in Dokumenty vneshnei politiki. 1940–22 iyunya 1941. T. 23, pt. 2 (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1998), 753–4 (in Russian).
15. For the updated discussion, see, for instance, Mark Solonin, 22 iyunya, ili Kogda nachalas’ Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina? (Moscow: Yauza, 2005) (in Russian).
16. A. Sharavin, ‘Velikaya Otechestvennaya voina 1941–1945 gg.: Sovetskie karty byli luchshe nemetskikh,’ VIZh, no. 6 (1999): 16–25 (in Russian).
17. Report by T. Volsky to Lt. General Ya. N. Fedorenko, in ibid., page 16.
18. P. I. Ivashutin, ‘Sovetskaya voennaya razvedka dokladyvala tochno,’ VIZh, no. 5 (1990), 56–59 (in Russian).
19. Records of visitors to Stalin’s office in 1941 in 1941 god. Kniga vtoraya, edited by L. Ye. Reshin, et al. (Moscow: Materik, 1998), 298–301 (in Russian). Surprisingly, many historians ignored Vorontsov’s presence at this decisive meeting and omitted or replaced his name.
20. N. G. Kuznetsov, Kursom k pobede (Moscow: Golos, 2000), 12–13 (in Russian). Kuznetsov did not mention that the conversation with Vorontsov occurred at the Politburo meeting in Stalin’s office.
21. Draft of the Politburo decision on June 21, 1941, written by Georgii Malenkov. Document No. 596 in 1941 god. Kniga vtoraya, 413–4.
22. Directive to the military councils of five military districts, dated June 21, 1944. Document No. 121, in Russkii arkhiv. Velikaya Otechestvennaya. Prikazy narodnogo komissara oborony SSSR, T. 13 (2-1) (Moscow: TERRA, 1994), 283 (in Russian).
23. Detailed biography of L. Z. Mekhlis (1889–1953) in Yurii Rubtsov, Alter ego Stalina (Moscow: Zvonnitsa, 1999) (in Russian).
CHAPTER 7
The Scapegoats: Hunting for Generals
The German attack on June 22, 1941 provoked total chaos in Red Army troops at the Soviet–German border. The Red Army appeared not to be ready for defense. Soon Stalin ordered that some generals be considered traitors, making them scapegoats for the defeat.
The War Begins
The Politburo meeting on June 21, 1941 ended at 11:00 p.m., but even after all preparations had been made Stalin was not psychologically ready for the German attack. Four and a half hours later, at 3:25 a.m., Zhukov woke Stalin up with a phone call and told him about the German invasion. As Zhukov recalled in 1956, ‘Stalin was breathing heavily into the receiver, but for a few minutes he couldn’t say a word. To our [Zhukov and Timoshenko’s] repeated questions he answered: “This is a provocation of the German military. Do not open fire to avoid giving them an opportunity to widen their activity.” …He did not give permission to open fire until 6:30 am.’1 Interestingly, this episode disappeared from Zhukov’s later published, refined and smoothed memoirs.
Three German army groups invaded the Soviet Union. Army Group North went through the Baltic region toward Leningrad, Army Group Center advanced toward Moscow, and Army Group South moved through Ukraine toward Kiev. The Soviet Union’s difficulty in the Winter War had convinced Hitler that the Soviet Union could be quickly conquered, and at first it seemed to be true. The German invaders moved rapidly forward, causing mass fear and chaos among the Soviet troops.
The German attack and the Soviet military disaster that followed deeply shocked the Soviet population. Almost all Soviet citizens had seen the propaganda movie If War Begins Tomorrow, filmed in 1938 at parades and military training exercises. In the movie, the Red Army destroys a military aggressor in four hours on the enemy’s soil by using all kinds of weapons, including poisonous gas, and the war triggers a rebellion of the proletariat at the enemy’s rear. The lyrics of an extremely popular song from the movie—‘We’ll destroy the enemy on the enemy’s soil / Shedding little of our blood, using a mighty blow’—gave voice to the widely held Soviet opinion that they would win a quick and relatively painless victory against Germany. Stalin was a big fan of this movie; he watched it during and after World War II, even inviting foreign guests to join him in the screening room.
On June 29, Stalin visited the general staff twice. Beria, Anastas Mikoyan, and Georgii Malenkov accompanied him. These visits were an unpleasant surprise for Georgii Zhukov, head of the General Staff, and Timoshenko, the Defense Commissar. After listening to Zhukov’s report, Stalin yelled at him: ‘What kind of a general staff is this? How is it that a head of the general staff has lost all self-control during the first day of the war, has no communication with the troops, doesn’t represent anybody, and doesn’t command anybody?’2 Stalin spent the next day at his dacha in what was generally believed to be a state of extreme frustration.