A thick early morning mist was swirling over the Potomac valley. The gentle hills, green meadows, woods, orchards and settlements faded from view in its shroud. The Miami–Washington express train was approaching its destination and had reached speeds of up to 60kph. It sheared through the white cloud that wreathed the land as easily as an incandescent sword.
I woke frequently at the rhythmic swaying and the rapid knocking of the rails, and then went back to sleep again. I was alone in a two-berth compartment and therefore I was able to take off my street clothes and underwear, cover myself with a starched sheet up to my chin and rest in peace.
On the table beside me a small dictionary, three fingers thick, was shuddering from the motion. The supreme commander-in-chief of the USSR armed forces had kept his word. I found it convenient to carry the volume in my pocket. I leafed through it every day, usually towards bedtime, to check my own knowledge and see the neat autograph on one side of the title page: J. Stalin.
In the next compartment were Nikolai Krasavchenko and Vladimir Pchelintsev, my travelling companions on this two-week journey taking in mountains, deserts and the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. To be honest, I was a little weary of their constant presence. They were nice guys, but a sniper is a loner. He or she needs silence, calm, time for reflection, to observe the changes in the surroundings.
The relations which had developed between us were courteous and comradely, with clearly marked bounds as to what was and was not possible. When our ‘bi-gender’ party was dispatched in Moscow on its journey afar, we were given appropriate instructions. They looked each of us in the eye and laid things down strictly – more so, probably, in the case of the ballroom habitué Pchelintsev and the taciturn Young Communist League leader Krasavchenko than with me, because Mikhailov, the first secretary of the Young Communist League central committee, knew in broad outlines about the death of Alexei Kitsenko and my pledge to wreak vengeance on the enemy for him.
Nikolai held himself somewhat aloof, reminding us that he was the head of delegation. Pchelintsev and I inevitably grew closer and got on well, forgetting about the difference between our sniper tallies and our army ranks. During the prolonged stops – for instance, the three days in Cairo – we walked around the city together and made small purchases. Vladimir in particular could not restrain himself and bought a Swiss watch from an Arab in a shop for $40. It turned out that the various mechanisms in it enabled one not only to keep a count of the days and seconds, but even to record the distance away of a gunshot – an essential for a sharpshooter.
In Cairo we had had to meet the British and American ambassadors. Here for the first time I put on one of the elegant dresses I had picked in the basement store of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. I was very fearful that I would not be able to act freely and naturally in it. But it was the high-heeled shoes that gave me much more trouble. Over my year of military service I had become unaccustomed to them. Even without that, my feet were inclined to skid on the parquet in the luxurious palace, which had been polished till it shone. Vladimir had gallantly offered me his arm. The audience went very well. True, the British representative expressed some doubt that we were both front-line soldiers and snipers.
In Miami, where we had flown from Africa, we were delayed for a day. We could hear the ocean booming quite close by and Pchelintsev and I set off for the beach. The golden sand, slow, lazy, leisurely greenish-coloured waves and blinding sun kept us there for three hours. Krasavchenko, who had caught a cold en route, stayed in his hotel room.
The steward’s steps could be heard beyond the firmly shut door of the compartment. He was going around the passengers and notifying them that the end of their journey was thirty minutes away. There was a light knock on the door and a soft voice said:
‘Washington, Ma’am!’
‘Yes, thanks,’ I replied in English and began to get dressed.
The express arrived in Washington exactly on time: at 5.45 on 27 August 1942. Our carriage stopped under the canopy of the capital’s station. However, it was difficult to get a view of the building because it was still dark. In the meantime, quite a crowd had gathered on the platform. We did not guess that it was on our account and were getting ready to lug our weighty suitcases along the carriage corridor and the platform. We did not know that the news of the arrival of the Soviet student delegation in the USA had been broadcast on 25 August by the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) and some American newspapers had reprinted it.
Thus, we experienced no problems managing our luggage. On the contrary, we were surrounded by the delighted staff of the Soviet embassy and trade mission, and then by persistent American journalists. In the middle of this noisy crowd we walked from the platform to the square in front of the station, where, amidst much fuss and commotion, we piled into a big limousine and set off – just imagine it! – straight to the White House, the residence of American presidents.
Despite the early hour, we were met at the entrance by Eleanor Roosevelt herself, the president’s wife. She congratulated the Russian visitors on their safe arrival and said that we would spend our first days on the territory of the USA under the roof of the White House. That was the decision of her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the thirty-second president, who was loved by his people and the only man in US history to be elected for a third presidential term.
The First Lady herself conducted us up to the second floor, showed us our rooms, suggested that we rest a little after the trip, and told us that breakfast would be served at 8.30 in the small dining room on the first floor.
I went to the window in my small and simply, but cosily, furnished room. The sun had risen, and its first rays were illuminating the area in front of the White House. It was surrounded by superbly kept gardens in classical French style, with paths sprinkled with yellowish river sand, mown lawns, bright flowerbeds and small clumps of trees here and there. The sound of gushing water came from a fountain in a pool in front of the main entrance. The president’s dwelling was reminiscent of the country estate of some gentleman with an income which was regular, but certainly not extraordinary.
At the appointed time we went down to a small dining room and found there not only President Roosevelt’s wife, but other people as well. First to be introduced to us was Gertrude Pratt, general secretary of the American committee of the International Student Service, which, it turned out, had organized the international assembly. A striking, slim blonde of about twenty-five, Mrs Pratt vigorously shook everyone’s hands, said that she was extremely glad to see the Russian visitors and introduced us to Henry Lush, vice-president of this self-same International Student Service.1 The conversation was helped along by three young men in American army officer’s uniforms who could express themselves quite well in Russian.
Mrs Roosevelt invited us to the table. Smiling, she said that we could begin our acquaintance with the American way of life right there with a traditional American breakfast. It had inherited some things from the no-less-traditional English breakfast, but it had some distinctive features of its own. On the table were not only fried eggs, strips of grilled bacon, sausages (or ‘bangers’), and marinated mushrooms, but also small puffy pancakes – among ourselves we called them ‘oladi’, which are thicker than ‘blini’ – with maple syrup. The food could be washed down with orange juice, coffee or cold tea.
Food is an excellent ice-breaker among people who do not know one another well. But the breakfast continued, and, as head of the delegation, Nikolai Krasavchenko launched into a boring speech about the agenda for the first session of the international student assembly. The Americans were more interested in accounts of the military action on the territory of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Pchelintsev took pleasure in informing them about the particulars of the sniper’s art: rifles with telescope sights, camouflage, observing the enemy. I did not take part in the conversation, but listened attentively, not to him, but to the interpreters. They translated too hurriedly and imprecisely.
Suddenly Eleanor Roosevelt addressed a question to me, and this question was translated into Russian by a young man with lieutenant’s epaulettes: ‘If you had a good view of the faces of your enemies through telescope sights, but still fired to kill, it would be hard for American woman to understand you, dear Lyudmila.’
The interpreter tried to soften the force of this sentence somehow. It sounded polite, but had a certain unpleasant undertone. The First Lady looked at me intently, without dropping her gaze. Why she had asked this question was not quite clear. Maybe she had decided to subject me to a test. We had already been told about publications in some British and American newspapers which suggested that we were not front-line soldiers or snipers, but merely Communist propagandists specially sent to address the international student assembly. This meant that the president’s wife would have to be given a clear and comprehensible answer.
‘Mrs Roosevelt, we are glad to visit your beautiful, prosperity country. Many years you do not know the wars. Nobody destroys your towns, villages, plants. Nobody kills your inhabitants, your sisters, brothers, fathers,’ I said slowly, and for some reason my words took those present by surprise.
Of course, my speech was not notable for its elegance: there were some mistakes in pronunciation, in the use of tenses, and the sentence construction was too basic. But the Americans got the meaning of it. I explained to those living in a state far from the struggle against Fascism that we had come from a place where bombs were destroying towns and villages, blood was being spilt, where innocent people were being killed, and my native land was undergoing a severe ordeal.
An accurate bullet was no more than a response to a vicious enemy. My husband had lost his life at Sevastopol before my very eyes and, as far as I was concerned, any man I saw through the eyepiece of my telescope sight was the one who killed him.
Strangely enough, Eleanor was embarrassed. She hurriedly looked away and said that she had not wished to offend me; however, she thought this conversation was very important and we would continue it in a more suitable setting, but now, unfortunately, it was time for her to go. The First Lady rose from the table and, hurriedly bidding us goodbye, left the small dining room.
‘What did you just say to her?’ Nikolai Krasavchenko knitted his brows and, exploiting his status as head of the delegation, looked me very sternly in the eye.
‘Nothing in particular.’ I brushed him off. ‘We can’t let the cheeky Yanks get away with things.’
After breakfast Gertrude Pratt arranged a short tour of the White House for us. We visited the ministerial cabinet room, the First Lady’s office, and the president’s oval office. There, our attention was caught by a photograph of some smiling lads in military uniform. They were Roosevelt’s sons: Eliot, a captain in the air force, Franklin, a sub-lieutenant in the navy, and James, who was in the marine corps reserve. Eleanor had borne her husband six children and only one of them had died in infancy.
Our delegation’s time was now subject to a strict schedule. Pchelintsev and I hurried back to our rooms and changed into military dress. This was the first time we had had the opportunity to wear it since leaving Moscow. The order was given by the Soviet ambassador to the USA, Maxim Maximovich Litvinov. At ten o’clock in the morning photographers and film cameramen gathered at our embassy. They wanted to catch the heroes of the anti-Fascist struggle in all their military splendour for photographs in tomorrow’s newspapers.
We arrived in an embassy car. A crowd of journalists immediately surrounded us. We had trouble getting onto the porch, where we stopped at the request of the press representatives, so that the photographers and cameramen could take a few shots. The cameras were quickly squeezed out by reporters. They thrust microphones in front of us and yelled out their questions. The interpreters were operating flat-out. It gradually became clear that a large proportion of the questions were addressed to me.
After thirty minutes this pandemonium ceased and we entered the embassy building. An elderly, full-figured, round-faced man in pince-nez – Ambassador Litvinov – stepped forward to meet us, and congratulated us on our safe arrival. We had to go out onto the porch once again, this time with him, shaking hands in friendly fashion. The public appearance continued and must have been of maximum benefit to the Soviet Union.
The official banquet at the embassy was formal and quiet. In attendance were staff of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and their wives. There were toasts in Russian and conversation appropriate to the occasion; in particular, Krasavchenko gave a detailed account of our flight from Moscow to Tehran, Cairo and Miami. Now and then he looked round at me. He was apparently apprehensive that, here too, I would come out with something unforeseen by diplomatic protocol.
His concerns were totally without foundation. Unless provoked, I am a reasonable, calm and quiet person. At six o’clock in the evening there was one more, two-hour, press conference, which was broadcast by radio to the whole of America. Present at it were representatives of fifty-two newspapers and magazines and twelve radio stations. This time everything was organized differently. The floor was first given to the members of the student delegation. In a short speech, the main points of which he had been given in Moscow by Alexandrov, Krasavchenko outlined the situation in our country as a whole: the rear was assisting the front. Pchelintsev talked about the state of the Red Army. It was ready to inflict new strikes on the German armed forces.
I also had in my hands a text agreed upon with the central committee of the Communist Party:
Dear friends! I am glad to convey greetings from Soviet women and young Soviet people who are fighting in the front ranks against the bloodthirsty Fascists. The Soviet Union is fighting not only for its own freedom, but also for the freedom of all nations and peoples on earth. From the first days of the struggle the Soviet people switched all their potential, all their energy, to defending their country. Soviet women have replaced their husbands, fathers and brothers on the production line.
They have done everything to enable the men to fight. The Soviet people thank you for your help, but the struggle which Russia is leading is demanding more and more resources. We await active assistance, and the opening of the second front. I want to tell you that we will win, that there is no force which could hinder the victorious march of the free peoples of the world. We must unite. As a Russian soldier, I extend my hand to you. Together we must annihilate the Fascist monster!
I then added, off my own bat, in English: ‘Fellow soldiers, forward to victory!’
The journalists applauded feebly, but then became animated. Ambassador Litvinov, who conducted the press conference, gave them the opportunity to ask questions. When it was their turn they had to rise from their seat, give their name, state the publication they represented and indicate which member of the student delegation their question was directed to.
At first the journalists’ behaviour bewildered us. We expected them to ask questions about our statements, to ascertain and clarify what had been all too briefly expressed in them. But there was nothing of the sort. The Americans simply ignored these fairly official reports and tried to fish for something that had not been voiced. Most of the questions were addressed to me. As I viewed the excited people sitting in the hall and shouting out their questions – sometimes simply stupid questions, in my opinion – I was reminded for some reason of the Romanian and German ‘psychological attacks’. In those situations the enemy wanted to frighten, shock and dislodge us from our positions and finally annihilate us. Here one felt roughly the same aspiration: to shock, to force us to say something that went beyond official bounds, to show the speakers up in an unfavourable light, to laugh at them. Here is an excerpt from the verbatim record of the press conference.
QUESTION: Lyudmila, can you take hot baths at the front?
ANSWER: Absolutely, and several times a day. If you are sitting in a trench and there is an artillery attack, it gets hot. Very hot. That’s a real bath, only it tends to be a dust bath.
QUESTION: Did you have any protection?
ANSWER: Only my rifle.
QUESTION: Are women able to use lipstick when at war?
ANSWER: Yes, but they don’t always have time. You need to be able to reach for a machine gun, or a rifle, or a pistol, or a grenade.
QUESTION: What colour underwear do you prefer, Lyudmila?
ANSWER: In Russia you would get a slap in the face for asking a question like that. That kind of question is usually only asked of a wife or a mistress. You and I do not have that relationship. So, I will be happy to give you a slap. Come a bit closer . . .
QUESTION (from a woman journalist): Is that your parade uniform or your everyday uniform?
ANSWER: We have no time for parades at the moment.
QUESTION (also from a woman): But the uniform makes you look fat. Or don’t you mind?
ANSWER: I am proud to wear the uniform of the legendary Red Army. It has been sanctified by the blood of my comrades, who have fallen in in combat with the Fascists. It bears the Order of Lenin, an award for military distinction. I wish you could experience a bombing raid. Honestly, you would immediately forget about the cut of your outfit.
QUESTION: The tobacco company Philip Morris is offering you a contract. They are ready to pay half a million dollars to put your portrait on cigarette packets. Will you agree to it?
REPLY: No. They can go to the devil.
Litvinov was standing beside me. At first I did not know how he would react to such a slanging match. But I could not answer the Americans in any other way, because passion and excitment had got the better of me. At first the ambassador looked at me with surprise, then smiled and began to encourage me: ‘Well said, Lyudmila. Serves them right, Washington cockroaches!’
After the press conference the student delegation went back to the White House. Awaiting us there was the president’s close adviser and long-time friend, Harry Lloyd Hopkins. On a commission from Roosevelt he had visited the USSR in 1941, when Hitler’s Germany had violated the borders of our country, and met with Stalin, who liked him a lot. This sympathy turned out to be mutual. On returning to the USA, Hopkins spoke out in favour of rapprochement with the Soviet Union. He assured the president that the Russians would be able to withstand a blow of unprecedented force and that they needed help. Now, Hopkins, a thin man with a sickly appearance, questioned us front-line soldiers thoroughly about the fighting at Leningrad, Odessa and Sevastopol. He was genuinely interested in the events of our war and wanted to know all the details. Why did the American press not want to know?
In the middle of our conversation Mrs Roosevelt entered and announced that we were invited to supper at the home of Virginia Haabe, daughter of Joseph Davies, the former US ambassador to the USSR. Hopkins said that he would go with us. There had been some miscommunication with regard to the car. The Cadillac could only accommodate Krasavchenko, Pchelintsev, Hopkins and two interpreters from the Soviet embassy. Then the First Lady suggested that I go with her in a two-seat convertible, which she drove herself.
I was surprised, as I did not expect that this illustrious lady would so soon forget my impertinent reply during that day’s breakfast conversation. However, from her full height of 5ft 10in, the president’s wife gave me a thoroughly kind look and repeated her invitation.
The small dark-blue car looked elegant. It was capable of a decent speed. And though she was a fifty-eight-year-old woman, Eleanor drove the car like a true speedster. In an instant we broke away from the security patrol accompanying the Cadillac and tore through the Washington streets like a tornado. At corners Mrs Roosevelt would sharply reduce the engine’s revs and it roared like a beast. At crossroads with traffic lights she would step heavily on the brakes, and the screaming wheels left black stripes on the asphalt. I had not expected anything like this, and I would alternately grasp the door handle in fright and squeeze myself back into the soft seat beside Eleanor. She gave me knowing looks, but did not reduce her speed. And I did not even ask her to drive more slowly.
We soon found ourselves in a suburb lined with wealthy mansions set in green gardens. When the convertible stopped, I drew breath in relief. Naturally I was unaccustomed to such reckless car trips. We were infantry, and we were more at home walking on the ground on our own two feet.
Virginia Haabe, a nice-looking woman of about thirty, came out onto the steps to meet the First Lady. Virginia had lived in Moscow for several years with her diplomat father and knew Russian quite well. She was a great admirer of Russian classical music, as she immediately informed me. We chatted as we went up to the table with aperitifs in our hands. Bowls filled with various salted nuts and small dry biscuits were set out alongside glasses and bottles containing different kinds of beverages.
How was one to know that they were very strong drink? I had generally supposed that biscuits and nuts could only be accompanied by juice, and when a waiter in a white shirt, black waistcoat and bow-tie pointed to a bottle containing a brown-coloured liquid, I nodded in assent. He filled about a third of a glass for me. I drank it with a single gulp, coughed loudly and clutched my throat. In the glass was real Scottish moonshine, that is, whisky.
‘Be careful!’ said Mrs Roosevelt sympathetically. She took me by the hand and led me into the dining room.
From all appearances, the supper was attended by people who had long been acquainted with one another and held the same views on life. For them the arrival of a Soviet youth delegation had become an important event which could influence the current policy of the USA. Conversation came easily and was of equal interest to both guests and hosts. But Eleanor sat me down beside her and distracted me from the conversation with various questions.
‘Your English is not bad,’ she whispered.
‘Thank you. But that’s just a compliment. Unfortunately I don’t speak it well.’
‘Where did you learn the language?’
‘My first lessons were from my mother, when I was a child.’
‘Is she a teacher?’
‘Yes.’
I tried to make my replies brief because I wanted to hear what Mr Davis, the former US ambassador in Moscow, was saying just then, as he described the diplomacy of Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s.
‘And your father?’ Eleanor continued the interrogation.
‘After the Revolution he served as an officer in the Red Army.’
‘Does your love of weapons come from him?’
‘Perhaps . . .’
At the instructional sessions before the trip we had been told about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) came from a rich aristocratic family, had received a wonderful education at home, spent three years in London at the Allenwood finishing school, and then made a trip around Western Europe. In March 1905 Eleanor married her distant relative Franklin, a student in the law faculty of Columbia University. In place of her father, who had died early, she was given away by her uncle, the US president at the time, Theodore Roosevelt.
As First Lady, she sponsored various youth and women’s organizations, was constantly engaged in charity work and became a very well-known and respected public activist, journalist and ‘minister without portfolio’ in the government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Since 1921, when her husband had become seriously ill with poliomyelitis and lost some of his mobility, she had run all his election campaigns, touring the country, speaking at gatherings and meeting with constituents. She was known as the ‘eyes, ears and legs of the president’ because she went where he could not go and influenced his decisions. Eleanor won the love and respect of the people. It was not without good reason that, according to a poll in 1939, the First Lady ranked higher than her husband in popularity. Her record was viewed as ‘good’ by 67 per cent of Americans, while Franklin received 58 per cent.
Mrs Roosevelt was not noted for her beauty. Her facial features were coarse and not quite symmetrical. But her enormous charm, intelligence and kindness made her irresistible and drew many, many people to her. To tell the truth, at the start of the US trip, I was prejudiced against Eleanor: aristocrat, millionairess, member of the exploiting class, I thought. It never occurred to me that I could be of interest to this remarkable woman.
The morning newspapers, which were delivered to the White House by breakfast time on 28 August, testified to the success of our press conference. Our photos adorned the front pages. The ‘free press’ of the USA even accorded my modest personage some attention. They gossiped about the cut of my tunic, quoted my replies to questions and considered whether representatives of the weaker sex could really serve in military units. There were some who called me a cold-blooded killer with no pity for unfortunate German soldiers who were merely fulfilling the orders of their senior command.
Pushing away a cup of hot coffee, Eleanor gave me a fresh copy of the bulky New York Post and pointed to a long column signed ‘Elsa Maxwell’. ‘She is an old acquaintance of mine,’ said the First Lady. ‘She was at your press conference and she liked everything about it. You carried yourself well. Elsa is experienced, observant and a superb master of the pen. In my view, she described you accurately. Or rather, the impression you give.
What Lieutenant Pavlichenko possesses is something more than just beauty. Her imperturbable calm and confidence come from what she has had to endure and experience. She has the face of a Madonna from a Correggio painting and the hands of a child, and her olive-coloured tunic with its red markings has been scorched by the fire of fierce combat. One of those at the press conference, a woman journalist sitting beside me, in a fashionable, elegantly sewn dress, asked Lyudmila with a certain measure of sarcasm: ‘I wondered if that was your everyday or your parade uniform?’
Lyudmila looked at my well-dressed neighbour with a certain indifference and said: ‘Let me inform you that in Russia there are no parades at the moment. Our thoughts are occupied by other matters.’
The echoes of the women’s arguments about clothes also occupied the men, it turned out. They reached the pages of the highly informative business paper Daily News. The issue carried a full-length photograph of me and a long caption under it: ‘Sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko: I wear my military uniform with pride! It is sanctified by the blood of my comrades in arms who have fallen on the field of battle. Therefore, I value it more than the most beautiful dress from the best tailor!’
After breakfast Eleanor bade us a cordial farewell. Our time in the White House had come to an end and we set off for the Soviet embassy. Awaiting us there was a new press conference, this one for staff of the international telegraph agencies Reuters and Associated Press.
While packing the voluminous newspapers carrying my picture, which would be needed for my report in Moscow, it occurred to me that the new section of the front to which the Red Army command had assigned me was gradually acquiring clear outlines. It was the battle against journalists. Not that they were such noxious and revolting people, but merely that they had their own idea of what was good or bad, what was interesting and what was boring. They were standing between me and those millions of readers, listeners and viewers in America to whom Comrade Stalin had entrusted me with telling the truth about the war. That meant that one had to be sincere, confident in oneself, extremely collected, jovial and witty. Then they would believe us.
That evening the three of us – Krasavchenko, Pchelintsev and I – went to a performance at the National Theater, the oldest in the USA and situated on Pennsylvania Avenue, not far from the White House. There was a performance of the opera Madame Butterfly by the Italian composer, Giacomo Puccini. The auditorium was filled with well-dressed, wealthy members of the public. At first nobody paid attention to us, for we were in civilian dress. But when the lights went on in the interval between the second and third act, the manager went up onto the stage and announced that sitting in the audience were the members of the Soviet student delegation. There was tumultuous applause. We had to go up onto the stage. Vladimir Pchelintsev spoke on behalf of the delegation and his speech lasted no more than five minutes. After that some smartly dressed girls appeared in the auditorium with coloured boxes and began to collect money for the fund to assist the Red Army.
The collection went very well. Many who had given money got up and came over to the stage, tried to shake our hands, and voiced words of support. Similar scenes were repeated a number of times subsequently during our trip through America. All in all, our delegation collected and transferred to the Soviet embassy approximately $800,000, a significant sum. But we often argued among ourselves as to what attitude we should take towards this process. Pchelintsev said there was something humiliating in it – as if our great country and its invincible army were begging loaded Americans to give alms to the poor. As head of the delegation, Krasavchenko never wearied of explaining the facts of the matter to the hot-headed Vladimir: this money would buy foodstuffs and essential items for Soviet people who had been deprived of a roof over their head, lost all their property and ended up being evacuated. That was all correct, but somehow left an unpleasant taste.
Nevertheless, our trip was an official visit and TASS published the following communique about it on 30 August 1942:
The attendance of the Soviet delegates at the
International student congress in Washington.
On arrival in Washington, the Soviet delegates to the international student congress, Comrades Krasavchenko, Pchelintsev and Lyudmila Pavlichenko were invited the same day to the White House, where they spent the night as guests of the US president. On the third day the Soviet delegates spoke on the radio. Their speeches were broadcast by a major Washington station. The Soviet delegates recounted their experiences fighting the Nazis.
The arrival of Pavlichenko, Krasavchenko and Pchelintsev was described in detail in a special radio programme broadcast throughout the USA. The morning papers featured photographs of the Soviet students, a conversation with them and a detailed description of their arrival in Washington.
In conversation with journalists Krasavchenko asked them to pass on to the youth of America and all the entire American nation greetings from the Soviet people who were fighting at the front against the Nazi hordes. Krasavchenko briefly described the many aspects of Soviet young people’s participation in the struggle against the aggressor. Lyudmila Pavlichenko conveyed military greetings from Soviet women to American women and described the self-sacrificing toil of Soviet women, who were inspired by hatred of the enemy. Pchelintsev talked about the art of the sniper and said in conclusion: ‘We can be victorious and we will be victorious. So said Stalin, and so it will be.’
The Soviet students expressed their gratitude to Mr Roosevelt for the hospitality accorded them in the White House.
On the morning of 2 September we got ready for the first session of the international student assembly. We put on our uniforms, checked that everything was in order, everything in place and, not without some nervousness, speculated on how the session would go and how we would be greeted. ‘International assembly!’ We repeated the words to one another without realizing that the Americans were past masters at pulling the wool over your eyes. Sitting in the hall were no more than 400 people – such was the total international representation. True, the students had come from fifty-three countries. There were Latin Americans, Africans, Asians and Europeans. It went without saying that there were no delegates from Germany and the states allied with it.
Having looked through the list, experienced Young Communist League functionary Nikolai Krasavchenko said that the aim of the organizers of the international student assembly was clear to him. A solid majority of them were representatives of the USA, Great Britain and Canada. Consequently, they would also influence the voting. Whatever they wanted, they would impose on all the rest by using this voting majority. This meant, Nikolai concluded, that it was necessary to demand that the rules prescribe one vote per delegation rather than one vote for every person in attendance.
Because we arrived in Red Army uniform, we immediately attracted general attention. Correspondents again assailed us at the entrance. Camera bulbs flashed and the questions came thick and fast. After struggling to squeeze our way through to the vestibule, we found Mrs Roosevelt there. She was greeting the delegates. Journalists instantly surrounded the First Lady and asked her to have her photo taken with us.
Eleanor did not object. On her left stood Senior Lieutenant Pchelintsev and I was on her right. She took us both by the hand. In this way the Russian–American military alliance against Fascism was given a vivid and concrete embodiment. The following day the photograph appeared in the newspapers and commentators excelled themselves in suppositions, interpreting it this way and that.
Apart from the introduction of delegations and voting on the agenda, the first day of the assembly was made up of a plenary session and a discussion on the topic ‘Universities in Wartime’. One of the addresses came from Nikolai Krasavchenko, who gave a thorough and detailed account of Soviet students in military operations and work in the rear. The evening saw the formal opening of the event, which was attended by numerous honorary guests: representatives of US civic organizations, official persons from the presidential administration, and the president’s wife. The reception had still not finished when Mrs Roosevelt came up to us and said that the Soviet delegation was invited to supper at the White House and they would have to leave immediately.
We soon learned the reason for this haste. As if by accident, in the White House we ended up meeting the president of the USA, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was in one of the rooms, sitting in a wooden chair with a high back and broad arms, which his own arms were resting on. His legs were covered by a Scottish tartan plaid.
‘Frank,’ said the First Lady, ‘I want to introduce our new Soviet friends to you.’
Without question he was a very exceptional man, possessing a sharp mind and a strong will. That thought immediately went through my head when I encountered his penetrating gaze and pressed his lean, sinewy palm. He listened closely as the interpreter introduced us and repeated the names of the cities from which we had come: ‘Moscow . . . Leningrad . . . Odessa and Sevastopol . . . How wonderful! A real brief history of the Germans’ current war in Russia!’ Like a true gentleman, he spoke with me first, asked what fighting I had been involved in, what I had received my military decorations for, how my regimental comrades had fought. Generally, he was aware of the operations on the various fronts, but he was interested in the details, the impressions of those directly involved.
In nearly three years of war, the Anglo-Americans had not succeeded anywhere in resisting their enemies as long as the Russians had done at Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and Sevastopol. The president wanted to find out how we managed it. Was it due to Russia’s traditionally strong military spirit, the soldiers’ military training, the skill of the officers, the strategic talents of the generals, excellent weaponry or the main thing – the unity between the army and the people who were taking up arms against the invaders? Most likely, Roosevelt was already making plans for the future.
Since 7 December 1941, when Germany’s ally, Japan, destroyed the US naval fleet in Pearl Harbor, and then quickly pushed the Americans out of South-East Asia, the president had been looking for an answer to the question: who would help America to get back there? The states in the anti-Nazi alliance did not inspire him with particular hope. The might of the British Empire had weakened in the course of military operations. The Nazis had occupied half of France and the other half was under the Vichy regime, which collaborated with Hitler. In China there was civil war. That left Soviet Russia – if, of course, Russia could defeat the Germans at Stalingrad and drive their forces from its territory, if it could restore its industrial potential.
Roosevelt concluded his conversation with me by asking: ‘How do you feel in our country?’
‘Excellent, Mr President,’ I replied.
‘Are the Americans cordial towards you?’
‘We are greeted everywhere as welcome guests. True, sometimes we are subjected to sudden attacks.’
‘Really?’ The president was surprised.
‘I mean attacks from your reporters,’ I said, maintaining the conversation on a serious level. ‘They’re very persistent people. It’s simply impossible to withstand their pressure. You have to bare everything.’
The president smiled. He liked that remark.
I could have gone on joking, but I wanted to ask Roosevelt that most important question – about more active assistance for the Soviet Union, about the opening of a second front in Western Europe which would draw away some of the German divisions now fighting on the banks of the Volga.
Roosevelt seemed to guess what I was thinking. ‘Tell the Soviet government and Mr Stalin personally’, he said pensively, ‘that it’s difficult for me at the moment to render more real assistance to your country. We Americans are still not ready for decisive action. We are held back by our British partners. But in their heart and soul the American people are with our Russian allies.’
The proceedings of the international student assembly took their course. There were some interesting addresses, and there were also heated debates, during which the participants almost came to blows. For example, during discussion of the so-called ‘Indian Question’, a turbaned student from Bombay University yelled at a Briton from Oxford: ‘Colonial cur! We’ll beat you all sooner or later and win independence!’ The Indians and the British were only separated with difficulty and the Bombay delegate ran over to the Russians to complain. We were very sympathetic towards the oppressed people of Asia Minor and South-East Asia, but as for making a scene at an international function – nobody in Moscow had ordered us to do that.
Let me say at the outset that it proved impossible to include a clause about the opening of a second front in Europe in the declaration adopted at the final session of the international student assembly. However, the organizers still came to a compromise with us. The delegates adopted a ‘Slavic Memorandum’ which harshly condemned German Fascism and called for the union of all peoples in the struggle against it. Many newspapers and radio stations reported the adoption of this memorandum, while TASS gave it the most extensive coverage.
The assembly’s participants spent the warm sunny evening of 5 September 1942 on the green next to the White House. The US government had arranged a reception there to mark the completion of this international student congress. It was run by Eleanor Roosevelt. Dozens of young men and women with paper plates, sandwiches and bottles of cooling drinks strolled either alone or in groups along the paths of the amazing classical French gardens and discussed the aims and objectives of the democratic youth movement.
The First Lady paid most attention to our delegation. She already knew five Russian words: spasibo (thank you), khorosho (good), da, nyet and konyechno (of course). Our chats with her were no longer quite so formal, and we felt more at ease. Eleanor joked, laughed and told us how she had come up with the idea of this function and planned for it. In her vision the assembly was meant to have a profoundly cultural and educational nature and to promote the spread of American values in an international youth context. The appearance of the Russians had changed many things. We spoke about the war with too much passion, too much emotion. We knew a lot about it. Thus, the war, which had previously been distant and incomprehensible to the Americans, suddenly acquired visible features: the sufferings of ordinary people, blood spilt in combat, instant death. Mrs Roosevelt thanked us for this and voiced the hope that other residents of her native land, of the entire continent, would hear what we had to tell.