Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

aide, Hilger, called a “resigned shrug of the shoulders” and returned to Stalin’s office.

Timoshenko then arrived, along with most of the magnates: Voroshilov, Beria, Malenkov and the powerful young Deputy Premier Voznesensky. At 8:15 p.m., Timoshenko returned to the Defence Commissariat whence he informed Stalin that a second deserter had warned that war would begin at 4 a.m. Stalin called him back. Timoshenko arrived at 8:50 with Zhukov and Budyonny, Deputy Defence Commissar, who knew Stalin much better than they did and was less frightened of the Vozhd. Budyonny admitted that he did not know what was happening at the frontier since he was only in command of the home front. The outspoken Budyonny had played an ambiguous role in the Terror but even then he was willing to speak his mind, a rare quality in those circles. Stalin appointed him commander of the Reserve Army. Then Mekhlis, newly restored to his old job—head of the army’s Political Department, Stalin’s military enforcer, joined this funereal vigil.

“Well what now?” the pacing Stalin asked them. There was silence. The Politburo sat like dummies. Timoshenko raised his voice: “All troops in frontier districts” must be placed on “full battle alert!”

“Didn’t they send the deserter on purpose to provoke us?” said Stalin, but then he ordered Zhukov: “Read this out.” When Zhukov reached his order of High Alert, Stalin interrupted, “It would be premature to issue that order now. It might still be possible to settle the situation by peaceful means.” They had to avoid any provocations. Zhukov obeyed his instructions exactly—he knew the alternative: “Beria’s dungeon!”

The magnates now spoke up diffidently, agreeing with the generals that the troops had to be put on alert “just in case.” Stalin nodded at the generals who hurried next door to Poskrebyshev’s office to redraft the order. When they returned, the obsessive editor watered it down even more. The generals rushed back to the Defence Commissariat to transmit the order to the military districts: “A surprise attack by the Germans is possible during 22–23 June… The task of our forces is to refrain from any kind of provocative action…” This was only completed just after midnight on Sunday 22 June.

Stalin told Budyonny that the war would probably start tomorrow. Budyonny left at ten, while Timoshenko, Zhukov and Mekhlis left later. Stalin kept pacing. Beria left, presumably to check the latest intelligence reports, and reported back at ten-forty. At eleven, the leaders moved upstairs to Stalin’s apartment where they sat in the dining room. “Stalin kept reassuring us that Hitler would not begin the war,” claimed Mikoyan.

“I think Hitler’s trying to provoke us,” said Stalin, according to Mikoyan. “He surely hasn’t decided to make war?”

Zhukov phoned again at twelve-thirty: a third deserter, a Communist labourer from Berlin named Alfred Liskov, had swum the Pruth to report that the order to invade had been read to his unit. Stalin checked that the High Alert order was being transmitted, then commanded that Liskov should be shot “for his disinformation.” Even on such a night, it was impossible to break the Stalinist routine of brutality—and entertainment: the Politburo headed out through the Borovitsky Gate to Kuntsevo in a convoy of limousines, speeding through the empty streets with their NKGB escorts. The generals, watched by Mekhlis, remained tensely in the Defence Commissariat. But elsewhere in the city, the weary commissars, guards and typists who waited every night (even Saturdays) until Stalin left the Kremlin, could stagger home to sleep. By Stalin’s standards, it was early.

Molotov drove to the Foreign Commissariat to send a final telegram to Dekanozov in Berlin, who was already trying to get through to Ribbentrop, to put the questions Schulenburg had failed to answer. Molotov then joined the others at Kuntsevo: “we might even have watched a film,” he said. At around 2 a.m., after an hour or so of dining, drinking and talking (the memories of Zhukov, Molotov and Mikoyan are confused about that night), they headed back to their Kremlin apartments.[181]

Far away, all along the Soviet border, Luftwaffe bombers were heading for their targets. On the same day that Napoleon’s Grand Army had invaded Russia 129 years earlier, Hitler’s over three million soldiers—Germans, Croats, Finns, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians and even Spaniards backed by 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorized vehicles, 7,000 artillery pieces, 2,500 aircraft and about 625,000 horses, were crossing the border to engage the Soviet forces of almost equal strength, as many as 14,000 tanks (2,000 of them modern), 34,000 guns and over 8,000 planes. The greatest war of all time was about to begin in the duel between those two brutal and reckless egomaniacs. And both were probably still asleep.³

Part Seven WAR The Bungling Genius 1941–1942

33. OPTIMISM AND BREAKDOWN

Stalin had retired when Zhukov called Kuntsevo. “Who’s calling?” the sleepy voice of the NKGB general answered.

“Zhukov. Chief of Staff. Please connect me to Comrade Stalin. It’s urgent.”

“What, right now? Comrade Stalin’s sleeping.”

“Wake him immediately,” Zhukov told the duty officer. “The Germans are bombing our cities.”

There was a silence. Zhukov waited for what seemed like an eternity. He was not the only one trying to report the invasion to Stalin, but the generals remained as petrified of their own leader as they were of the Germans. At 4:17 a.m. (Russian time) the Black Sea command called Zhukov at the Defence Commissariat to report a swarm of bombers. At 4:30 a.m. the Western Front was on the line, at 4:40, the Baltic was under attack. Around the same time, Admiral Kuznetsov was telephoned by his Sebastopol commander: the German bombing had started. Kuznetsov immediately phoned the Kremlin where he encountered the bureaucratic narrow-mindedness that is so characteristic of tyrannies. It was meant to be a secret that Stalin lived at Kuntsevo, so the officer replied:

“Comrade Stalin is not here and I don’t know where he is.”

“I have an exceedingly important message which I must immediately relay to Comrade Stalin personally…”

“I can’t help you in any way,” he replied and hung up, so Kuznetsov called Timoshenko who, deluged with such calls, was afraid to inform Stalin. Kuznetsov tried all the numbers he had for Stalin but to no avail, so he called the Kremlin again.

“I request you to inform Comrade Stalin that German planes are bombing Sebastopol. This is war!”

“I shall report it to the proper person.” A few minutes later, the Admiral discovered who “the proper person” was: flabby, quiet-spoken Malenkov called, asking in “a dissatisfied, irritated voice”: “Do you understand what you’re reporting?”

Even as German bombers strafed Kiev and Sebastopol and as their troops crossed the borders, Stalin’s courtiers were still trying to bully away reality. Malenkov rang off and called Sebastopol to check the story.

Timoshenko was not alone in his office: Mekhlis, “the Shark,” spent the night with the generals. Like Malenkov, he was determined that there would be no invasion that night. When the head of anti-aircraft artillery, Voronov, hurried in to report, Timoshenko was so nervous that he handed him a notebook and absurdly “told me to present my report in writing” so that if they were all arrested for treason, he would be responsible for his crimes. Mekhlis sidled up behind him and read over his shoulder to check that he was writing exactly what he had said. Then Mekhlis made him sign it. Timoshenko ordered anti-aircraft forces not to respond: Voronov realized “he did not believe the war had begun.”

Timoshenko was called by the Deputy Commander of the Western Special Military District, Boldin, who frantically reported that the Germans were advancing. Timoshenko ordered him not to react.

“What do you mean?” shouted Boldin. “Our troops are retreating, towns are in flames, people are dying…”

“Joseph Vissarionovich believes this could be a provocation by some German generals.” Timoshenko’s instinct was to persuade someone else to break the news to Stalin. He asked Budyonny: “The Germans are bombing