Crimean Front,” he castigated Mekhlis. “It’s a very comfortable position—but it absolutely stinks! You’re not an outsider but the representative of Stavka… You demand the replacement of Kozlov by someone like Hindenburg. But… we don’t have any Hindenburgs… If you had used aviation against tanks and enemy soldiers and not for sideshows, the enemy would not have broken the front… You don’t have to be Hindenburg to understand this simple thing…” It was a mark of the obsolete standards of Stalin’s court that Hindenburg, the German hero of 1914, was still their paragon in 1942: they needed Guderians not Hindenburgs.
On 28 May, a haggard Mekhlis was waiting in Stalin’s anteroom where one could always see the Supremo reflected in the attitudes of his assistants. Poskrebyshev ignored him, then said: “The Boss’s very busy today. Dammit, there are many troubles.”
“Probably something’s gone wrong at the front?” asked Mekhlis disingenuously.
“You’d know,” replied Poskrebyshev.
“Yes, I want to report our unfortunate business to Comrade Stalin.”
“Apparently,” said Poskrebyshev, “the running of the operation wasn’t equal to the task. Comrade Stalin’s very unhappy…”
Mekhlis blushed. Young Chadaev joined in: “I suppose you think the defeat was caused by circumstances?”
“What did you say?” Mekhlis turned on the whippersnapper. “You’re not a soldier! I’m a real soldier. How dare you…” Then Stalin emerged from his office.
“Hello Comrade Stalin, may I report…” said Mekhlis.
“Go to hell!” snarled Stalin, slamming his door. Mekhlis, according to Poskrebyshev, later “almost threw himself at Stalin’s feet.” He was court-martialled, demoted, sacked as Deputy Defence Commissar.
“It’s all over!” sobbed Mekhlis but Stalin remained amazingly loyal: twenty-four days later, he was appointed a Front Commissar and later promoted to Colonel-General.5
As if Stalin, Kulik and Mekhlis had not wrought enough defeat, the worst was befalling the South-Western Front where Timoshenko and Khrushchev were launching their offensive from a Soviet salient to retake Kharkov, oblivious of Hitler’s imminent attack. Zhukov and Shaposhnikov wisely warned against it but Timoshenko, Stalin’s favourite fighting general, insisted on proceeding and the Supremo agreed.
On 12 May, Timoshenko and Khrushchev, both uneducated, crude and energetic, successfully attacked and pushed back the Germans. If Stalin was delighted, Hitler could not believe his luck. Five days later, his Panzers smashed through Timoshenko’s flanks, enveloping Soviet forces in steel pincers so that the Russians were no longer advancing but simply burrowing deeper into a trap. The Staff begged Stalin to call off the operation and he warned Timoshenko of the German forces on his flank, but the Marshal jovially reassured him that all was well. By the 18th, 250,000 men were almost encircled when Timoshenko and Khrushchev finally realized their plight.
Around midnight, Timoshenko, the “brave peasant” terrified of Stalin, persuaded Khrushchev to beg the Supremo to cancel their offensive. At Kuntsevo, Stalin asked Malenkov to answer the phone. Khrushchev asked to speak to Stalin.
“Tell ME!” said Malenkov.
“Who’s calling?” Stalin called out.
“Khrushchev,” replied Malenkov.
“Ask him what he wants!”
“Comrade Stalin repeats that you should tell me,” said Malenkov. Then, “He says the advance on Kharkov should be called off…”
“Put down the receiver,” yelled Stalin. “As if he knows what he’s talking about! Military orders must be obeyed… Khrushchev’s poking his nose into other people’s business… My military advisers know better.” Mikoyan was shocked that Khrushchev “was calling him from the front line in battle with people dying around him” and Stalin “would not walk ten steps across the room.”
The trap snapped shut on a quarter of a million men and 1,200 tanks. The next day, Stalin called off the offensive but it was too late. The exhilarated Germans pushed on towards the Volga and the Caucasus: the road to Stalingrad was open.6
Timoshenko and Khrushchev feared they would be shot. The two friends soon fell out in the scramble to save their careers and lives. There is a story that Khrushchev suffered a nervous breakdown after the encirclement, flying to Baku where he stayed with Bagirov, Beria’s ally, who naturally reported Khrushchev’s arrival. An unstable Khrushchev started vehemently denouncing Timoshenko, who repaid him in kind.
“Comrade Stalin,” wrote Timoshenko by hand, “I must add something to our report. The increasingly nervous state of Comrade Khrushchev influences our work. Comrade Khrushchev has no faith in anything—one can’t make decisions in doubt… The whole Council think this is the reason for our fall!” He seems to confirm that Khrushchev did have a mental breakdown: “It’s difficult to discuss—Comrade Khrushchev is very ill… We gave our report without saying who was guilty. Comrade Khrushchev wants to blame only me.”
Stalin played with the idea of appointing Bulganin to investigate the situation. Bulganin, sensing Stalin’s reluctance and, perhaps, guilt, begged to be excused for the un-Bolshevik reason that he and Khrushchev were such friends. Stalin did not insist but reflected mildly on Khrushchev’s simplicity: “He doesn’t understand statistics,” said Stalin, “but we have to put up with him” since only he, Kalinin and Andreyev were “real proletarians.” Instead Stalin summoned Khrushchev for a threatening history lesson: “You know in World War One, after our army fell into German encirclement, the general was court-martialled by the Tsar—hanged.” But Stalin forgave him and sent him back to the front. Khrushchev was still terrified since “I knew of many cases when Stalin reassured people by letting them leave his office with good news and then had them picked up.”
Stalin was also astonishingly tolerant when Timoshenko asked for more men, having squandered so many: “Maybe the time has come for you to wage war by losing less blood, as the Germans are doing? Wage war not by quantity but by skill. If you won’t learn how to fight better, all the armaments produced in our whole country won’t be enough for you…” This was highly ironic from the most wasteful Supremo in history. Even as they retreated, Stalin remained sarcastically mild to Timoshenko: “Don’t be afraid of Germans—Hitler’s not as bad as they say.”
Khrushchev thought they were spared because Mikoyan and Malenkov had witnessed his call to Kuntsevo but it was perhaps simpler: life and death was Stalin’s prerogative, and he liked[203] Khrushchev and Timoshenko. Either way, this was Khrushchev’s greatest crisis until, as Stalin’s successor, he blundered into the Cuban Missile Crisis twenty years later. Later, Stalin humiliatingly emptied his pipe on Khrushchev’s head: “That’s in accordance with Roman tradition,” he said. “When a Roman commander lost a battle, he poured ashes on his own head… the greatest disgrace a commander could endure.”7
On 19 June, a
Timoshenko and Khrushchev fell back towards Stalingrad. When Timoshenko asked for more divisions, Stalin replied sharply: “If they sold divisions in the market, I’d buy you one or two but unfortunately they don’t.” Once again, Timoshenko’s front was in free fall. On 4 July, Stalin sarcastically quizzed the Marshal: “So is it a fact that the 301st and 227th Divisions are now encircled and you’re surrendering to the enemy?”
“The 227th is retreating,” replied Timoshenko pathetically, “but the 301st—we can’t find it…”
“Your guesses sound like lies. If you continue to lose divisions like this, you’ll soon be commander of nothing. Divisions aren’t needles and it’s a very complicated matter to lose them.”8
Dizzy with over-confidence, Hitler divided his forces into two: one pushed across the Don to Stalingrad while the other headed southwards towards those Caucasian oil fields. When Rostov-on-Don fell, Stalin drafted another savage order: “Not One Step Backwards,” decreeing that “panic-mongers and cowards must be liquidated on the spot” and “blocking units” must be formed behind the lines to kill waverers. Nonetheless, Hitler’s southern Army
