ONE MORNING in August 1942, Ivan Pavlovich Pryakhin entered his office and paced about it for several minutes, from the door to the window and back again. Then he flung open the window—and the room filled with noise. It wasn’t just the usual city hubbub. There was a struggling car engine, the tramp of feet, the rumble of wheels, the neighing of horses, the angry voices of the horses’ drivers, the grinding and clanking of tanks and, now and again—obliterating all these terrestrial sounds—the piercing howl of a fighter in a steep climb.
Pryakhin stood for a while by the window, then went over to the large safe in the corner. He took out a stack of papers, sat down at his desk and pressed the bell. Barulin appeared immediately.
“So, how did you get on?” asked Pryakhin.
“Very well, Ivan Pavlovich. Once we’d crossed the Volga, I took the road to the right and we got there almost without trouble. There was just one moment when we nearly ended up in the ditch. We were driving without headlights. We grazed the back axle.”
“Has Zhilkin got everything organized?”
“Yes. And he couldn’t have chosen anywhere better. Safe—not too close to the railway. Zhilkin says he hasn’t once seen a German plane overhead.”
“And the countryside there? What’s it like?”
“There’s one hell of a lot of it . . . That is, there’s all the countryside you could ask for. Of course, it’s a full sixty kilometres from the Volga, but there’s a pond. Zhilkin says the water’s clean. And an orchard. With an above-average apple harvest—I made inquiries. Needless to say, a reserve battalion was stationed there—and I’m afraid they did help themselves a bit . . . So, just give the command and we’ll move the whole obkom straightaway.”
“Are people starting to arrive for the meeting?”
“Yes, they are.”
Just then came a knock on the door. A voice called out, “Open up, boss, there’s a soldier to see you!”
Pryakhin tried to put a name to the voice: Who could be speaking to him with such self-assurance?
The door opened and Colonel General Yeromenko walked in with his usual limp. He greeted Pryakhin, then rubbed his forehead, straightened his glasses and asked, “Has Moscow phoned you?”
“Greetings, Commander! But the answer’s no—I’m expecting a call any minute. Please sit down.”
Yeromenko sat down and began to look around the office. He picked up the heavy inkwell, weighed it in his hand, nodded his head respectfully and returned it carefully to its place. “Quite something,” he said. “Before the war I was trying to get hold of one like that for myself. I saw one at Voroshilov’s.”15
“Comrade General, we’re holding a meeting here in fifteen minutes. For Party workers and factory directors. Please say a few words to the comrades about the situation at the front.”
Yeromenko looked at his watch. “Certainly, but I won’t have much in the way of good news.”
“Has the situation deteriorated during the night?”
“The enemy has crossed the Don near Tryokhostrovskaya. According to my reports, only isolated sub-machine-gunners got across, and they have already been eliminated. But I doubt this. There were also determined attacks further south. I fear some isolated comrades may not have been reporting the full truth. I understand them: they’re afraid of the Germans, but they’re afraid of their superiors too.”
“So the Germans have broken through our line of defence?”
“What line of defence?”
“We’ve been constructing defences all year. The whole city, the whole province has been working on them. A quarter of a million cubic metres of earth has been moved. It was a strong line of defence, I think, but it seems that our forces have been unable to exploit it to the full.”
“Out in the steppe there’s only one effective line of defence—and that’s men and firepower,” said Yeromenko. “The one plus is that our ammunition stores are still intact. Artillery fire, that’s the only thing that keeps the enemy back. Thank heavens we still have ammunition.” Once again he picked up the inkwell and weighed it in his hand. “Quite something. Almost an optical device, I’d say. Is it crystal?”
“Yes, probably from the Urals.”
Yeromenko leaned forward toward Pryakhin and said dreamily, “The Urals, autumn. There’s fine shooting out there. Geese, swans. But not for us. For us soldiers it’s just blood and mud. Oh, if only they’d send me two fresh infantry divisions, two full-strength divisions!”
“I understand, but we must start to evacuate the factories, before it’s too late. In a single day the Barricades produces enough guns to equip an artillery regiment. The Tractor Factory sends out a hundred tanks each month. These factories are our giants, our titans. Is there still time to save them?”
Yeromenko shrugged. “If one of my army commanders comes and says, ‘I’ll defend my sector, but please allow me to move my command post further back,’ then I know he doesn’t really believe he can hold out. And the divisional commanders then come to the same conclusion: ‘That’s it, now we’re retreating.’ The same thing happens with the regiments, the battalions, and the individual companies. Deep down, everyone ends up believing they’re about to retreat. It’ll be the same here. If you want to stand your ground, then stand your ground. Don’t allow a single vehicle to move east. Don’t look behind you—that’s the only way. And if anyone crosses to the east bank without authorization, you must have them shot.”
Pryakhin replied at once, in a loud voice, “For you, comrade General, a defeat means the loss of a line of defence, of a commanding height, of a hundred vehicles—but here in Stalingrad defeat means the loss of an industry of national importance. Stalingrad is no ordinary line of defence.”
“Stalingrad . . .” At this point Yeromenko got to his feet. “What we are defending here, on the Volga, is not an industry. What we are defending here is Russia herself!”
“Comrade Commander, I’ve put my heart and soul into building these factories and this city. And this city is named after Stalin. Do you think it was easy for Kutuzov to abandon Moscow? Remember the council of war at Fili? I was reading Tolstoy again yesterday. There were many people then who saw Moscow as a final line of defence.”
“It’s good that you’re doing your homework. Nevertheless, we fought on the outskirts of Moscow, and we’d have gone on fighting even inside the city.”
Pryakhin was silent. Then he said, “For us Bolsheviks, while we still live, there can be no final line of defence. We stop fighting only when our hearts stop beating. Nevertheless, no matter how hard this may be for us, it is our duty to take the current military position into account. The enemy has crossed the Don.”
“I’ve made no official statement to that effect. Our intelligence data is being checked as we speak.” Yeromenko then leaned forward again and asked, “Have you evacuated your family from Stalingrad?”
“The obkom is about to transfer a number of families to the east bank, including my own.”
“Quite right. What’s happening now is not for families. It’s more than many soldiers can bear—let alone women and children. Send them to the Urals! Those bastards won’t be able to bomb them there. No—not unless I let them get through to the Volga!”
The door opened a little. Barulin announced, “The directors and workshop heads, all present.”
And the organizers of the city’s economic life, the Party officials, factory directors and workshop heads made their way in and sat themselves down on chairs, armchairs and sofas. As they exchanged greetings with Pryakhin, some said, “I’ve carried out your orders,” or “The Defence Committee’s instructions have been passed on to the workshops.”
Spiridonov was last to come in. Pryakhin said to him, “Comrade Spiridonov, I need to have a few words with you in private. Stay behind after the meeting.”
As if he too were now a soldier, Spiridonov acknowledged this: “After the meeting—understood!”
Gently making fun of him, someone else said, “Our Spiridonov would make a fine Guards commander!”
When everyone was settled and the noise made by their chairs had subsided, Pryakhin said, “Everyone here? Then let’s start. Well, comrades, Stalingrad is now a front-line city. Today we must check how well each of us has prepared our sector for the conditions imposed by the war. How prepared are our people, our enterprises and our workshops? What have we achieved so far as regards the transition to new working conditions, and the evacuation of our factories? Here with us is the commander of the Stalingrad Front. The obkom has asked him to speak about the situation at the front. Comrade Commander!”
Yeromenko smiled. “It’s easy enough now to find out about this for yourselves. Just get on a lorry heading west. A few minutes’ drive—and you’ll be at the front.” Yeromenko then looked around the room, caught sight of Parkhomenko, his adjutant, who was standing by the door, and said, “Give me the map, not the working map—the one you were just showing to the journalists.”
“It’s already been taken across the Volga. Allow me to go and fetch it in a U-2.”
“You must be joking. You carry too much weight for one of those maize-hoppers. The plane would never get off the ground.”16
“I fly like a god, comrade Commander,” Parkhomenko replied, adopting the same jocular tone as his boss.
But this seemed only to annoy Yeromenko. He glared at Parkhomenko, then addressed the meeting as a whole, “Come over here, comrades, we can use this map on the wall. It’ll do just as well.”
And, like a geography teacher surrounded by pupils, intermittently moving either a pencil or his index finger over the map, Yeromenko began his account: “You’re strong men, I’ve no wish either to frighten you or to comfort you. And the truth has never yet harmed anyone. So, this is the situation today. Here to the north the enemy has reached the right bank of the Don. This is his 6th Army, which comprises three army corps and twelve infantry divisions. There’s the 79th Division, the 100th and the 295th—I could almost call them old friends by now. There are also two divisions of motor infantry and two armoured divisions. All this is to the north and the west. Commanding these forces is Colonel General Paulus. So far he has achieved more successes than I have, as you well know. Now—to the south-west. Here we have a tank army threatening to break out from Kotelnikovo. Supporting it is another German army corps and one of the Romanian corps. Their aim, it seems, is to advance on Krasnoarmeisk and Sarepta. Here’s where they want to attack, along the Aksay River and the railway line from Plodovitoye. The enemy’s intentions are very simple—to concentrate their forces, make their preparations and strike. Paulus from the north and the west, and this tank army from the south and the south-west. Apparently, Hitler has publicly declared that by 25 August he will be in Stalingrad.”
“And what forces do we have to pit against this colossus?” someone asked.
Yeromenko laughed. “That’s not something you’re supposed to know about. All I can say is that we have the forces, and we have the ammunition. We will not yield Stalingrad.” And then, turning to Parkhomenko, he said in a voice choked with rage, “Who the hell dared send my belongings across the Volga? I want every last thread, every last scrap of paper brought back by this evening! Is that clear? And I can tell you—someone will pay for this!”
Parkhomenko stood to attention. The men standing nearby looked at Yeromenko questioningly. Just then Barulin hurried up to Pryakhin’s desk and said in a loud whisper, “You’re being called to the telephone.”
Pryakhin got quickly to his feet and said, “Comrade Commander, this is a call from Moscow. Please come with me.”
Yeromenko followed Pryakhin towards the door.