Some of the German concern about the trade deal was due in part to the fact that the Soviets expected in return sophisticated military and industrial technology. Private firms, the I.G. Farben conglomerate, for example, were alarmed that the Kremlin wanted access to its chemical secrets and expected the company eventually to build a complete factory to produce the materials in the Soviet Union. Farben warned the armed forces that such a project would entail giving away vital military secrets. Thus Hitler’s own private reservations about long-term trade with the USSR dovetailed with those of private industry and the German military.73
Stalin saw the deal as adding to the might of the Soviet Union, which would be able to offer a stiff defense against a future attack and go on the offensive if the opportunity arose to add further to the burgeoning Red Empire. In the short term, he remained convinced that before Hitler attacked, he would make more demands or at the very least issue an ultimatum about another trade treaty.74 Thus the Soviets continued faithfully shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of war matériel right up to the moment the German invasion began. Any news conflicting with Stalin’s view was written off as “disinformation.”
At a meeting only three days before the attack, he again ridiculed army leaders Zhukov and Timoshenko for daring to ask that troops on the borders be put on full alert. He was obsessed about avoiding “provocations.”75 Yet Soviet leaders could see for themselves that the British diplomatic mission began leaving Moscow in mid-June and that their German, Italian, and Hungarian counterparts applied on June 19 for “urgent exit visas.”76 Late that Saturday (June 21) the Politburo gathered at Stalin’s dacha. Commissar Timoshenko, General Zhukov, and Chief of Operations of the General Staff Nikolai Vatutin reported that a German sergeant had deserted and warned of an attack in the morning. Stalin asked: “Isn’t this defector there just to provoke us?” The most anyone could do was persuade him to notify troops along the border of a “possible surprise attack.” They were to take some defensive steps before dawn but avoid “provocative actions.”77
The German invasion began at three A.M. (Soviet time) on June 22. Word of it flooded in from all fronts to Zhukov, who had the unpleasant task of phoning Stalin. Orders were then given for a meeting at the Kremlin, where the logbook notes that military leaders and the Politburo joined him at 5:45. Stalin amazed them when he asked: “Is this not a provocation by German generals?”78
STALIN ALMOST DEFEATED AND THEN RESCUED
Stalin’s blunder led to a tragedy of biblical proportions, for which many millions of soldiers and citizens paid with their lives. In their memoirs more than one Red Army general blamed Stalin for leaving the country open to attack. Many border units had no ammunition or live artillery shells. Chief Marshal of Artillery N. N. Voronov, who was at supreme headquarters at that time, noted that if the Germans had met an organized and strong rebuff on crossing into Soviet territory, then the Red Army almost certainly would not have sustained such appalling initial casualties.79
In the first week of the war “virtually all of the Soviet mechanized corps lost 90 percent of their strength.”80 Whole divisions disappeared. General Dmitri Volkogonov, writing about the first eighteen months of the war, is pained to record that the Germans took around 3 million prisoners, or a shattering 65 percent of the existing Soviet armed forces.81
When the harried Stalin finally admitted that the invasion was for real, he remained in his office all day and most of the next one, meeting nonstop with key figures.82 By nine A.M. on the day of the attack, the general staff had prepared a new Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces (Stavka).83 The fact that it had to be created in the emergency underlined again how ill prepared the country was. The following day they established a new evacuation council to move people, cultural institutions, and whole factories and their workers to the East. That was a gargantuan task in itself. Stalin had miscalculated so badly that he had no stomach for informing the nation of the attack, a job he gave to Molotov.84 The hope was that in two or three weeks the front would be stabilized. Then the leader himself would make an appearance.85
Like many citizens, the top figures in the Kremlin were in disbelief at how quickly the Germans advanced. On the evening of June 29, Stalin went to the Commissariat of Defense to get answers from Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Vatutin. When he heard they had lost contact with the front in Byelorussia, he exploded at Zhukov, who left the room “sobbing like a woman,” or so Mikoyan later said. He added that it was perhaps at that moment that Stalin finally realized the scope of his mistakes.86 The next day he fled to his dacha outside Moscow.
Lavrenti Beria came up with the idea of a new State Committee of Defense (GKO) that would streamline the bureaucracy. Besides Beria, it would include Molotov, Voroshilov, and Georgi Malenkov. The four, along with Mikoyan and Nikolai Voznesensky, went to Stalin’s dacha on the evening of June 30. When he saw them, he expected they were there for his arrest or at least to force him out. But when Molotov told him about the GKO, all he did was raise the question of who would be its chairman. They still thought they needed him, for even amid the crisis that started on June 22, no one had dared suggest he should be kicked out.87
On July 3, Stalin finally went on national radio for more than half an hour. Many were struck by the opening phrase: “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Men of our army and navy! I am addressing you my friends!” He underlined the gravity of the situation but admitted no mistakes, saying it would have been right for any “peace-loving country” to try the nonaggression pact. The people were told to support the troops and recognize “the immensity of the danger.” He ended by calling on them “to rally round the Party of Lenin and Stalin, and round the Soviet Government for the selfless support of the Red Army and Navy, demolish the enemy, and secure victory. All the strength of the people must be used to smash the enemy. Onward to victory!”88
He went back to work in the Kremlin the next day and gradually assumed more authority. On July 19 he took over as commissar of defense and by August 8 allowed himself to be “appointed” as the verkhovnyi glavnokomanduyushchii—supreme commander of the armed forces, or Supremo. For all that, his personal dictatorship was somewhat diminished, and given the scope of the challenges of the war, real power had to be delegated to political deputies and the military.
Prime Minister Churchill was thankful that the focus of German firepower now shifted away from Britain. He announced immediately that Britain would be on the side of Russia, its old foe. He admitted that “no one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism,” of which he would “unsay no word.” Nevertheless Churchill vowed to “give whatever help we can” to the Soviet Union. “We shall appeal to all our friends and allies in every part of the world to take the same course.”89 Britain itself was already in dire straits and not in a position to provide the kind of aid the USSR desperately needed, so that would be left to the Americans.