章 179: 179
Episode 179: Time between dogs and wolves (5)
From the moment he got off the train to catching the truck heading to his hometown, Sergei took out the vacation card from his pocket and looked at it carefully.
The 6 nights and 7 days vacation certificate he received was as valuable as the gold nugget he risked his life to win.
In fact, he did not risk his life by jumping into an enemy tank for a vacation, but he captured two tanks anyway, and the news reached the division commander.
With the news of subsequent defeats and retreats, the superiors were thirsty for good news that could raise the morale of the soldiers, who were sinking increasingly low, even if they could not turn the tide of the war.
Meanwhile, news of Sergei's activities was spread.
Sergei, who was a ubiquitous private, was awarded the Red Banner Medal for his actions and his photo was featured on the front page of Pravda.
The following text was engraved under a photo of Sergei standing with an awkward smile holding an SVT-40:
A brave soldier of the proud Red Army.
In addition to the medal, Sergei was given a week's vacation as a reward.
He was able to go on vacation on the same day that he received his vacation permit.
While everyone else was heading to the front, he was the only one who could legally go to the rear.
Sergei's hometown was a small village on the outskirts of Vologda that was not even marked on the map.
When Sergei got off the train, the station was full of people. Half of them were soldiers in the same situation as him, and half were family members of soldiers who came to meet them at the station.
Soldiers spent time with their families until the train to the front arrived.
There were tears in the eyes of the family as they thought this might be their last meeting in their lives.
The mother could not let go of her son's hand, and the father held the newborn baby in his arms.
A young lover kissed passionately while surrounded by many people.
However, no one frowned at this because they thought it was vulgar.
Everyone was stained with worry and despair.
"Hold on there."
An officer stopped Sergei as he was leaving the station.
"You mean me?"
"okay. "You, you."
The officer took his identification card out of his pocket and showed it to Sergei.
An ID card as red as blood. It was evidence that the officer belonged to Smersh (СМЕРШ).
The main task of Smersi, a unit under Stalin's direct control, was the search and arrest of spies and deserters.
As an organization whose motto is 'Death to spies!', Smersi was famous for showing no mercy to deserters.
Smersi was an object of fear for front-line soldiers, to the extent that there were rumors that even soldiers who simply lost their way or escaped after being captured were treated as deserters and were randomly killed.
"Take out your ID."
"Here it is."
The Smersi officer stared at Sergei's identification card and then handed it back to him.
"What brought you here?"
"It's vacation, comrade lieutenant."
"Vacation? Well then, shouldn't we also give them a vacation permit? Take it out quickly!"
Sergei was somewhat taken aback by the sight of the officer screaming without warning, but he quietly took out his leave card.
The opponent is not an ordinary officer, but a member of Smersi. Depending on what the other person said, he could go home safely or, on the contrary, he could be dragged away on suspicion of being a spy. Even if it's annoying, you have no choice but to follow instructions.
"Here it is."
"Give it to me."
The officer snatched the vacation card that Sergei carefully held out and returned it to Sergei a minute later.
"good. "You can go now."
"Yes, comrade lieutenant."
"for a moment."
"?"
"You said you came home on vacation, right? "Then I guess I'll meet her family too?"
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant."
Why are you asking the obvious? Sergei's irritation grew slightly, but he answered without changing his facial expression.
"Even if your family asks, don't even mention anything related to the war situation. To lead a war to victory, the morale of the people is most important. But what happens if you can't raise morale but lower it?
Keep in mind that a single word spoken without thinking can determine the fate of this country. Because what the Soviets need most now is victory and absolute faith in Comrade Stalin. Do you understand?"
"Yes, comrade lieutenant. "I will keep that in mind."
"Go."
I wasted time and was in a bad mood, but I was glad that it ended without incident.
After Sergei left the station, he stopped a random truck passing on the street and asked its destination.
"Flora Village? "Why are you going there?"
"ah! I'm going there too. Can you give me a ride? "I'm on vacation."
Sergei found a truck heading to his hometown and showed his vacation card and the Red Flag medal attached to his military uniform, as he had used up until now.
The old truck driver, who drove an old British truck, obediently allowed him to sit in the passenger seat.
Upon arriving at the village, Sergei thanked the driver and headed straight to his home. When I opened the door, I saw an old couple sitting at his table.
They were Sergei's grandparents.
"Grandma, grandpa!"
"Sergei?"
"oh my god!"
Sergei did not recognize his parents' faces.
This was because both of them died due to an accident and illness when Sergei was a newborn.
It was his grandparents, Stepan and Anna, who raised Sergei, who was alone, until now.
"I saw your picture in the newspaper! "Great job, our grandson!"
"Your face is half cut!"
"did you eat? "Sit down quickly."
"yes. "Can I visit Marian's for a while before that?"
"Maria? "Are you talking about the Maria who lives next door to us?"
"yes. "Now that I've had a long-awaited vacation, I'm going to show her face at least once."
From an early age, Sergei played with Maria, who lived next door.
As they got older and their hair grew thicker, there was some distance between them from the past when they played freely, but they were still close friends.
"That's it, that… .."
"Sergei."
Stefan sighed softly.
"Maria is no more. Neither Anton, nor Olga, nor Boris. All."
"… ..what do you mean by that? "You mean it's not there anymore?"
Sergei asked, still not fully understanding the situation.
"You know Boris?"
"I know."
Boris is Maria's older brother, who is three years older than her. He received a conscription warrant and enlisted a year before Sergei enlisted.
"It happened two days ago. "The NKVD suddenly barged in and dragged Marian's family away."
"No, why?"
"They say it was because Boris was a deserter. Didn't you hear the news? According to the secretary's order, from now on, all family members of deserters are subject to punishment. That's why I was taken away."
***
As the German army advanced toward Leningrad, Stalin sent Tymoshenko of Smolensk to Leningrad to defend it.
Despite Order 227, the war situation showed no signs of recovery.
Even though orders were issued to severely punish not only the deserters themselves but also their families, the number of deserters was steadily increasing rather than decreasing.
Stalin was so frustrated that he saw that despite the ban on retreat, the front line was not maintained but was being pushed back day after day.
The main reason why the front continued to be pushed back was because of the ban on retreat that Stalin had issued, but Stalin did not know that. No, I didn't even try to find out.
Although the war situation was not bad anywhere on the front from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea, the situation in southern Kiev was even more serious.
Kiev, the capital of the Ukrainian SSR and the largest city after Moscow and Leningrad, was a city of great strategic importance as well as the symbolism of the city itself.
Losing this place to the German army meant not just losing a city, but also losing influence in Ukraine.
Not only would the morale of the Soviet people fall further, but it could also have fueled the activities of the anti-communist partisans who were already active in the rear.
Therefore, Stalin wanted to protect Kiev at all costs.
However, Major General Mikhail Kirponos, Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern Front in charge of defending Kiev, said that the war situation was hopeless and suggested to Stalin that Kiev should be abandoned and troops withdrawn before the German army's encirclement was completed.
"You coward! "This guy is a general, so we're losing the war!"
Stalin could not hide his anger at Kirponos' report. And immediately sent him a warning.
There is no change in the order to defend Kiev, and all Kiev defenders are to defend the position. Any reports related to the retreat will not be received from now on, and those who ignore this will be held appropriately responsible.
The number of Soviet troops stationed in the Kiev area was 800,000. Stalin judged that even though the Germans were behind in terms of the quality of equipment and troops, there was strength that came from numbers, so this would be sufficient to protect Kiev.
It was not an important issue to Stalin that many of the troops in the 800,000-strong army were not properly fed and had poor weapons, making it difficult to expect them to perform well.
While the 800,000-strong army was held in Kiev, unable to move even a single step due to a hold-and-run order issued by Stalin, Kleist's Army Group South began the siege of Kiev.
The 11th Army and the 14th Panzer Corps occupied Chernigov and moved south, while the 6th and 17th Armies crossed the Dnieper River and advanced to the rear of Kiev.
The armies of Germany's allies - Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and Albania - were responsible for protecting the rear of the advancing German army.
Kirponos and his staff had no choice but to watch with open eyes as the German army formed a huge siege network surrounding them and Kiev, coughing up blood.
The scope of the Red Army's actions permitted by the Kremlin was only to advance and defend the current position; retreat was not permitted and was a serious act of treason that should not have occurred.
Even if it is packaged in nice words, doesn't retreat ultimately mean giving up our territory to the enemy?
Rather, Stalin's argument was that the worst-case scenario would occur where all the defensive positions that had been prepared would be abandoned and units desperate to escape would withdraw in a hurry, which would accelerate the German army's entry into Kiev and prevent the defense from being properly defended.
Therefore, he did not give up on his insistence that the Kiev garrison must defend Kiev until the end in order to slow down the German army's advance even a little.
The longer the German army's advance in Kiev is delayed, the more time it will have to relocate the rear industrial complex beyond the Ural Mountains.
For the same reason he did not permit Zhukov of Smolensk to retreat.
Smolensk is the gateway to Moscow. But if you abandon the gate and run away, what will happen to Moscow?
Fight with all your might. Large-scale conscription has already been implemented throughout the Soviet Union, and new divisions are being created every day and heading to the front.
There were also new weapons made by the Soviet people.
The T-34-85, which has more firepower than the existing T-34-76, the SU-203, which can dispatch Nazi heavy tanks in one shot, and the La-5, known for its performance on par with the German Air Force's Bf109 and Fw190, are on the front lines. They have begun to be sent, and development of a new heavy tank and a new fighter YaK-9 are also nearing completion.
And the most important oil… ..
"Comrade Molotov, couldn't you ask the United States to provide a little more fuel support?"
"I tried asking the U.S. before, but the only response I received was that it was impossible. They say there are concerns that the opposition party and the public will rise up just because of the existence of the oil they are currently providing... ."
"Keueuung."
Stalin's face scrunched up in disapproval at Molotov's report.
A shocking report has emerged showing that the Baku oil field will have to wait another three to four months at most to recover, and that even that will not reach the level of output before the bombing.
Roosevelt, who was pro-Soviet, was providing fuel support to the Soviet Union in extreme secrecy, but rather than providing official support, it was being done in a rather embarrassing way, with the Soviet Union stealing fuel that was supposed to go to China with the connivance of the United States.
Even this became difficult to openly steal as the Chinese Nationalist government noticed that the amount arriving did not match the number written in the ledger and protested to the Soviet Union.
Although Britain formed a united front with the Soviet Union against Germany, there was no official support for the Soviet Union, perhaps because of the lingering bitterness of the Cambridge Incident.
The Soviet Union was making every effort to please Britain, such as providing blueprints for its own tanks as part of reconciliation, but Britain's response was still not as friendly as before.
'Should I consider myself fortunate that I jumped into the anti-Germany war?'
Britain's long-awaited entry into the war finally took place, but it had no impact on the situation on the Eastern Front.
Of course, this was partly because Britain had only entered the war for a few days, but it was also partly because small-scale airstrikes were conducted on western German occupation areas such as France and Belgium, let alone the second front, so they did not inflict any damage on the entire German army.
"The British must open a second front as soon as possible to gain some breathing room… . However, since there is a Cambridge issue, even if you ask, I think they will ignore it."
Still, since Churchill declared participation in the war, Britain will definitely make an attempt to open a second front, be it later or sooner.
The problem is that we don't know when that will happen, but for the Soviet Union, the distance between the German army and Moscow is narrowing every day, and blood is drying up every day.
Stalin was willing to kiss the back of Churchill's hand if he could get Britain to open a second front somewhere in Europe, even tomorrow.
That is why the formation of a second front was very important to the Soviet Union.
"Comrade Molotov. "I think I have to ask my comrade a slightly difficult favor."
"Please speak, Comrade Secretary."
"Meet with the British ambassador and ask whether the UK has plans to open a second front, and if so, when it will open a second front. In particular, refrain from making comments that may offend the ambassador as much as possible. "I'm sorry, but given the current situation in the Soviet Union, the British's help is essential."
"All right. "I will meet with the British ambassador tomorrow."
Unlike Stalin, who was anxious, Molotov's face had become lively recently.
Although the war situation was at its worst and the German army was approaching Moscow day by day, Molotov's position was growing day by day.
Stalin, who became more desperate for help from Britain and the United States, frequently called Molotov, who was in charge of communication with foreign countries, and gave him various tasks, and lessened the frequency of harassing him (it seemed like it would take a little more time to disappear altogether).
Above all, Molotov was very happy that Beria, a scum of a human being who held tightly to all information within the Soviet Union and enjoyed scaring his opponents by frequently making threatening remarks to their faces, was dead.
I guess I can finally breathe a little easier.
"And this is a noble family… .. no no. That's it."
Stalin stroked his hair as if he was tired and motioned for him to leave.
With a single wave of his hand, people who prided themselves on being able to move around in the Soviet Union with some strength on their shoulders rushed out the front door of the conference room.
Completely alone, Stalin poured some Scotch whiskey into a glass and drank it down in one go.
He sank down in his chair, feeling the intoxication boiling deep inside his body.
If Britain has no plans to open a second front for the time being, and if Order No. 227 cannot stop the German army's advance.
What should I do then?
Should we just end the war?
The Baltic countries and Belarus have already been swallowed up by Germany, and more than half of Ukraine has also been swallowed up.
Therefore, Hitler would only be satisfied if he handed over the Caucasus and southern Russia.
Anyway, let's say we managed to stop the war by satisfying Hitler. What next?
Of course, the responsibility for defeat should be placed on appropriate scapegoats and killed.
But what if this doesn't quell the people's anger? And what if the military does not obediently offer up a scapegoat?
What should I do then?
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