Q: And what about you, the other one? You were tucked away inside the sidecar, wrapped ep in your raincoat — you had plenty of time to think, didn’t you?
P—; Yes, As far as I remember I thought about a whole lot of things, but they hadn’t got anything to do with the order wë were supposed to be delivering. As a matter of fact… I don’t know if…
Q: Speak out! You’re not supposed to hide anything from the Party.
F—: That’s right…Well, I was thinking about a girl I intend to get engaged to…About certain suspicions her behaviour had inspired in me lately …In short, I was afraid she was deceiving me…
Q: Well, here’s a fine member of the People’s Army! A fine communist, I must say! He can’t think of anything but his own happiness, he’s obsessed by the thought of being deceived by his fiancée, and meanwhile what does he care if he betrays the Party, even unwittingly! And then what happened?
S—; We delivered the order. To an officer whose first name was Arian, if I remember rightly. That’s right — Arian Krasniqi. He listened to the order, asked me to repeat it, then he frowned. He was going to say something, but changed his mind. He just growled, “Very well, you can go back where you came from — we’ll sort things out with H.Q over the radio”…That’s all
Q; And then?
5. —; We went back through the rain.
Q: Since, as you remember so clearly and so often, it was raining. why didn’t it occur to you that you didn’t have to deliver the order verbally? — that you could have sent it by radio?
S—: I didn’t think of it. But even if Î had I’d still have told myself the order came from H.Q. and,…
Q: And you didn’t think about anything on the way back, either? S—: 1 told you — the road was very bad.
Q: And you, the other one — I suppose you were still thinking about your fiancée, and wondering if she was cheating on you?
P—; Yes.
Extracts from the autocritique of radio operator Dh—: I have nothing to say in my own defence. It was an offence, a grave offence on my part. I can’t think of a worse one. There’s only one thing I’d like to say: you can’t imagine what it’s like in that sort of situation. The confusion, comrades! You think you’re going mad. Your head’s ringing, but everyone wants to be put in touch with everyone else as fast as possible. They’re all huffing and puffing, and you’re in the middle of it all, the one who’s supposed to answer everyone. The buzzing in your ears makes you think you must be in hell! Not to mention that you haven’t had a wink of sleep for three days and nights. And as if that isn’t enough, the weather’s unspeakable, with flashes of lightning all the time. You’ve no idea of the effect lightning has when you’re trying to use the radio — maddening! And then you hear some bloke telling you he’s not going to carry out an order you’ve never even heard of! That’s what it was like that day. A tank officer said he wasn’t going to carry out an order, and proceeded to explain why not. But was I in any position to pass on all the details of his justifications to headquarters? Of course it was wrong of me, of course it was a serious offence on my part, but at the time I didn’t realize it. I just started to transmit the essence of what he’d said to H.Q. But H.Q. interrupted me and said: No need for explanations — just see the order’s carried out! I sent that message back, but the officer at the other end kept on arguing the toss with H.Q. So I lost my temper, too. If he could shout, so could I… Yes, I committed an offence, a very serious offence, when I started shouting and bawling into the mike. I admit it, comrades — I shouted all kinds of wild insults. I told him, “You can stick Shanghai up your mother’s …” I admit I’m guilty, but at that moment I didn’t know what I was doing.
My head was already splitting, and this blessed tank officer starts to talk to me about Shanghai!! ask you! In the middle of all that was going on, all! needed was the Chinese! So that’s how I came to say it. “You can stick Shanghai up your mother’s …‘’ I’m in the wrong, I know. Seriously at fault…
The staff officer at H.Q., in bis autocritique, admitted that he gave the couriers the verbal order to take to the tank group, and it was also he who heard the tank officer refuse, over the radio, to comply with it. In both cases he reported to the chief of staff, who in the first case told him the order had come directly from the minister, and in the second — the tank officer’s refusal to obey — told him to report to him, i.e. the minister. [Marginal note by delegate: Are we sure what this “him really means?!]
When asked if the motives for the refusal were clear, or rather, if he’d managed to explain to the minister why the tanks had refused to obey the order (“It’s not done to- encircle a Party committee,” “This isn’t Shanghai,’ etc.), the staff officer (M—) answered that he wasn’t sure: in the first place because what he’d heard over the radio was intermittent, because of the bad weather (there was a lot of lightning that day); and ie the second place — and this is very important — because the minister hadn’t let him explain himself properly.
Why not?
Because he was shouting at the top of his voice. As soon as I opened my mouth to say the tanks had refused to obey, he started bellowing. He wouldn’t listen to any explanations.
Why not?
It was only natural. He felt outraged. Such a thing had never happened to him before. His own dignity…
And so you didn’t manage to explain to him why the order had been disobeyed?
No. I did get to say something, but I’m not sure he took it in, he was so furious. And on top of that our coenversation took place in the open, outside his tent, and the weather was awful. The wind was blowing great guns.
So that you couldn’t hear yourselves speak?
Not as bad as that, but it made conversation difficult. Especially since, as I said, he was practically foaming at the mouth.
How do you explain that?
I don’t know-,… He’s a minister a member of the government…What’s more, he isn’t at this meeting… But this is a Party meeting, where everyone is equal, and since you ask me I'll tell you frankly what I think. If you ask me, I think his anger was a sign of morbid pride.
There’s another question on which we’d like to have your personal opinion, M—: why, when you had radio transmitters at your disposal, was the order to encircle the Party committee sent to be delivered orally?
M— didn’t answer the question directly. He merely said there were certain orders which by their nature were better delivered orally rather than by radio,
M— didn’t give a clear answer to the last question of all, either — namely, if in the course of this whole business there had been any mention of commandos. He said he had a feeling they had been referred to during his conversation over the radio, but neither at the time, still less now, was he able to say in what connection. At this point he started talking about the bad weather and the lightning again…
Extracts from the explanations provided by Z—, leader of the commando group acting as the enemy during the manoeuvres: If you want me to say what I really think, well, as far as I’m concerned, I can’t make head or tail of this business. According to the plan — approved in detail by staff H.Q — the parachutists were to be dropped over Zone 04VS. But late on the Tuesday evening, the 11th, I was expressly ordered to send in my commandos straight away, not only before the agreed time but also over another zone, i.e. Zone 71T [where the Party committee was — note by delegate]. Try as I might to find out what the hurry was, I couldn’t get any satisfaction. The fact is, radio conditions were very bad because of the weather, especially the lightning. [It was this same evening that the tanks received the order to encircle the Party committee — note by delegate]. I was therefore obliged to go ahead, carry out the order, and parachute my men in. I need hardly say the operation was not successful Apart from the weather, the terrain itself was unsuitable, and hadn’t been reconnoitred. Some of my men got lost, communications got into a horrible muddle, and, as you probably know, three soldiers were drowned. What else could you expect, asking people to grope their way about in the dark?