MILITARY COUNCIL

WiHENEVERI enter a dugout or any other underground shelter oc-cupied by our fighting men I am Seized with a fervent desire topreserve for all time the remarkable features of this inimitable wayof life and its' setting: the crude wick lamps and stove pipes madeof empty artillery shell cases; the drinking vessels made of shellheads standing next to a crystal goblet; the queer old-time porcelainashtray with the inscription: "Wife, Humour Thy Husbimd" besidean anti-tank grenade; the huge frosted electric globe in the com-mander's office, and the smile on Chuikov's face when he said: "Ah,yes, the chandelier. This is a city after all"; the volume of Shake-speare in General Gurov's underground office with the steel-rimmedspectacles testing on the open page; the photographs in an envelopewith the words "To Daddy" on it lying on a map scored heavily inred and blue; the underground office of General K.rylov with thefine writing desk, seated at which the Chief of Staff did such fine'work; all those samovars and gramophone!", pale blue sugar bowlsand round mirrors in wooden frames hanging on the clay walls ofthe dugout-familiar peacetime objects rescued from flaming build-ings; the piano at the command post' of' the machine-gun battalionon which the men played to the accompaniment of the thunder ofthe German offensive; and, last but not least, the fine quality ofrelationships, the simplicity and frankness of men bound by ties ofblood, memories of the slain, the sweat and anguish of the Stalingradbattles,

When the Commander of the 62nd Army speaks to a runner anda runner to the Commander, when the telephone operator comes intothe Chief of Staff's office to test the phone, when Divisional Command-er Batyuk gives an order to a Red Army man or when a companycommander reports to Regimental Commander Mikhailov about thebattle the night before, there is in every word, gesture and glance a

calm dignity, a manner of behaviour compounded of that iron dis-. cipline which impels a thousand men to g.o into a deadly assault at

the utterance of a single word of command and the brotherhood andspiritual equality of all men of Stalingrad, generals and soldiersalike. This manner of behaviour, this quality of relationships shouldnot be forgotten by those who will write the history of the Battle ofStalingrad.

The Stalingrad epic has been described many times. It is to theeternal glory of our men, a tribute to their courage, their endurance,their devotion and self-sacrifice.

Among the many factors contributing to the success of our de-fence a place of honour belongs to the skilful leadership of the 62ndArmy. Our readers ought to know about it. Chuikov, the Commande~-in-Chief, member of the Military Council Gurov and Chief of StaffKrylov were not only the military leaders of the operation, theywere also the spiritual prime movers of Stalingrad's defence. Itrequired more than great military skill, iron will and stern resolu-tion to command the 62nd Army. One had to be in it heart and soul.And the stern orders issued during those memorable October dayswere often dictated by the heart as well as the brain. They searedthe hearts and minds of men like flames, inspiring them to superhu-man exploits of courage and endurance, for in those' days humanexploits were not enough for the solution of the problems that con-fronted the fighting men of the 62nd Army.

The Military Council of the army shared with the men all therigours of the defence. Eight times the Comm~nder of the army shift-ed his command post. Anyone who was in Stalingrad at the time knowswhat it meant to shift a command post in those days. It meant ex-posure to heavy bombs and close-range tommy-gun fire. Forty slaffworkers were killed by mortar fire in the dugouts of the MilitaryCouncil. There was one terrible night when thousands of tons' ofburning oil escaped from tanks blown apart by German shells andrushed in the direction of the dugout of' the Militarv Council. Theflames leapt to a height of 800 metres. The fiery stream poured intothe Volga, setting the river ablaze. The earth was in flames, a scorch-ing cascade poured down the steep embankment. Ceneral Krylov,who had been working quietly in his dugout was 'Unaware of whatwas happening until the last minute and was brought through theconflagration in the nick of time. All night long the Military Council

stood on a narrow strip of land by the river's edge surrounded byan inferno of roaring black flame. Rodimtsev, Commander of a GuardsDivision, sent his men to the spot. They returned with the reportthat the Military Council had gone. "Gone where?" they were asked,"To the left bank?" "No," was the reply, "closer to the firinglines."

There were days when the Military Council was closer to the.enemy than the divisional and even regimental command posts. Thedugouts shook so violently that they might have been in the epicentreof a devastating earthquake. The stout logs supporting the roof bentlike twigs and the earth heaved underfoot. Beds and tables had to beattached to the floor, as is done on shipboard in' rough weather.Sometimes the crockery on the tables would' fall to pieces from theincessant vibration. Radio transmitters refused to work as hour afterhour of bombing put Jhe tubes out of commission. The ear ceased toreact to the din, instead it seemed that two steel needles were piercingthe eardrums and pressing painfully on the brain. So much for thedays. At night when the bombing died down, Army CommanderChuikov, his map spread out before him, issued orders to his divi-sional commanders. Gurov, calm and friendly, would make the roundsof the divisions and regiments. Krylov pored over maps, tables andplans, writing reports, checking thousands of figures, and thinking.And all would glance at the clock and sigh: "Soon the sun will beup and pandemonium will break loose again."

. Those were the conditions under which the Military Council ofthe 62nd Army worked. I once asked Chuikov what he consideredthe worst aspect of that 'battle. He replied without hesitation:

"The occasions when our communication with the forces 'weredisrupted. Picture it for yourself. There were days when the Ger-mans cut all our wire communications with the divisions, and theradio stopped functioning as a result of the vibration. You send outa liaison officer and he gets killed. You send out another and he getskilled too. Everything is roaring and crashing about you, and youhave no means of communication. That waiting for nightfall whenyou could finally get in touch with the divisions was terrible. Forme there was nothing worse than that feeling of being cut off fromeverything."

It was a long night in Decembe~. As we talked Chuikov pausednow and again to listen.

"Quiet, isn't it," he said, then added laughingly: "I miss theracket, honestly 1 do."

He is a tall man with a large, swarthy and somewhat puffy face,a large hooked nose, full lips, curly hair and a powerful voice, The

. son of a Tula peasant, Chuikov for some reason reininds one of aRussian general of the period of the Napoleonic wars. Once upon atime he had made spurs in a Petrograd workshop; silver spurs hadbeen his specialty. At the age of 19 he had commanded a regimentduring the Civil War and had been in the army ever since,

For him the defence of Stalingrad was more than a military prob-lem, notwithstanding its. vast strategic importance. For him therewas also something romantic about the battle, he sensed the grimand rugged beauty of the titanic contest. For him the Battle ofStalingrad was also a glorious· moment of supreme triumph for theRussian infantry. And indeed, when the German air forces and tanks,artillery and mortars concentrated by von Bock, Todt and Paulus forthe main blow crashed down on our line of defence, when the thickblack smoke blotted out the sun and the granite foundations of build-ings crumbled like sand, when waIls shook from the vibration oftank motors and it seemed that no living thing could survive in thishell-the immortal Russian infantry rose from its trenches and fox-holes and struck back.

The Russian infantryman stood up to the combined mechanizedforce of the German army, and Chuikov, for whom this blood-soakedearth was more precious and beautiful than the gardens of paradise,said: "What! Retreat, after shedding so much blood, after rising tosuch heights of glory? Never!" He taught his commanders to adopta calm and 'sober attitude to the enemy. "The devil," he said, "is notso black as he is painted," although he knew that there were dayswhen the German devil was very black, especially in the .directionof the main thrust. He' knew how important it was to appraise Theenemy correctly. '~''Fo overestimate the enemy's strength is harmful."he would say, "to underestimate it is dangerous.'" He spoke to hiscommanders of the pride of a Russian soldier, he said that it wasbetter for an officer to lose his head than to bow' to'~1 German shell

. in front of his men. He believed implicitly in the cool-headed courage.of the Russian soldier. And with panicmongers and cowards he wasmerciless.

Major-General Krylov shared Chuikov's faith in our infantry.

His complex calculations and forecasts were based on this faith. Ithad been his lot to be Chief of Staff of the army that defendedOdessa all through the fighting for that city, then Chief of Staffof the heroic army that held Sevastopol for seven months, and final-ly Chief of Staff of Stalingrad's 62nd Army. This calm, thoughtfulman with his quiet deliberate manner of speaking, unhurried move-ments and gentle ismile was perhaps the most experienced of all thegenerals in the world in the defence of cities.

General Krylov accumulated his grim experience amid roaringfires and the thunder of explosions. He taught himself to work me-thodically, to fathom out complex problems, to divine the intentionsof the enemy, to work out in detail manceuvres and plans underconditions in which no scholar would have been able to concentratefor a moment .

.In Stalingrad he sometimes felt that the Battle of Sevastopolhadnot yet ended but was continuing here, that the thunder of Ruma-nian guns on the approaches to Odessa was merging with the roar ofthe German dive bombers that hammered at Stalingrad's plants. InOdessa the fighting took place some fifteen to eighteen kilometresfrom the city proper, in Sevastopol it moved up to the outskirts ofthe city, here it was being fought in the city itself, on its squaresand streets, in itsbackyards and houses, in its factory shops. Thefighting here was as intense as at Sevastopol, but the scale, the mas-ses of fighting men involved, were immeasurably greater. And .herethe battle was finally won. It seemed to Krylov that this was a vie-torynot only for the Stalingrad army but for Odessa and Sevastopolas well.

What had been the enemy's tactics in all three battles? In all threeoperations the Germans had employed the method of consistent meth-odioal gnawing at our defences, splitting up our combat formationsand destroying and crushing them piecemeal whenever they were ableto break them up. These blows depended for success on mechanicalpower, on the massed employment of concentrated materiel, on over-whelming the opponent with sheer preponderance of strength. Fromthe military standpoint there was nothing wrong with such tactics. Onthe contrary, they were the correct tactics, but they had one organicdefect which the Germa~s were unable to avoid-the discrepancy be-tween the power of engine and armour plate and the weakness of jtsinfantry. Into' this gap the splendidly armed staunch and valorous

Russian infantry divisions defending Stalingrad thrust themselves likea wedge of steel. At Odessa Krylov realized fully What a colossal forcethis was, he tested its potentialities inSevastopol and now he helpedit to triumph in Stalingrad on the banks of the Volga.

If the men who commanded the 62nd Army should chance to meetthe commanders of the Stalingrad divisions a quarter of a centuryhence they most likely will greet one another like brothers. Old menby then, they will embrace, brush away a furtive tear and plunge intoreminiscences of the great days of Stalingrad. They will rememberBolvinov who was killed in action and whom his men loved dearly be-cause he quaffed the soldier's bitter cup to the dregs, Bolvinov who,belting himself with grenades, crawled over to the field patrol andsaid to the men: "Can't 'be helped, boys. Hold 'the fort." They willrecall how Zholudev when he was buried with his staff in a dugoutbegan to sing: "Ho, ho, brothers, life is good!" They will rememberRodimtsev and recall how on the day his division crossed the Volga,staff officers from Army Headquarters manned tanks and hel ped toprotect the bridgehead, They will remember how Guttiev and his staffwere buried in a cave by exploding shells and how friends dug themout. They will remember how a heavy German shell barely missedDivisional Commander Batyuk as he was on his. way to report to theArmy Commander and how Batyuk had shaken his head andwalked on, his hand thrust inside his greatcoat, when the shell failedto explode. They will recall how General Gurtiev telephoned to hisfriend General Zholudev and said: "Courage, friend, I am unable tohelp you," They will remember how Gorishny and Lyudnikov met onthe frozen river bank.

They will remember many things. And, of course, they will re-member how Chuikov ruled with a firm hand and how hot they felt .under the collar not only en route to the Commander-in-Chief's dug-out but in the dugout itself. Yes, there will be a great deal to re-member. It will be a joyous, triumphant meeting. But it will betouched with sadness too, for many will be absent, many who willnever be forgotten, And neither army nor divisional commanders willever forget the great exploits of the Russian fighting man who sogenerously shed his blood in defence of his country.

December 29, 1942Stalingrad '..