Inferno - Max Hastings [205]
Stalingrad transformed the morale of the Red Army. A soldier named Ageev wrote home: “I’m in an exceptional mood. If you only knew, then you’d be just as happy as I am. Imagine it—the Fritzes are running away from us!” Vasily Grossman was disgusted by what he perceived as the gross egoism of Chuikov and other commanders, vying with one another to claim credit for the Red Army’s victories: “There’s no modesty. ‘I did it, I, I, I, I, I …’ They speak about other commanders without any respect, recounting some ridiculous gossip.” But, after the horrors and failures of the previous year, who could grudge Stalin’s generals their outburst of triumphalism? The struggle for Stalingrad had cost 155,000 Russian dead, many of them consigned to unmarked graves because superstition made frontoviks, as Russians termed fighting soldiers, reluctant to wear identity capsules, the Red Army’s equivalent of dog tags. A further 320,000 sick or wounded men were evacuated. But this butcher’s bill seemed acceptable as the price of a victory that changed the course of the war.
The Allied world rejoiced alongside Stalin’s people. “The killing of thousands of Germans in Russia makes pleasant reading now,” wrote British civilian Herbert Brush on 26 November 1942, “and I hope it will be kept up for a long time yet. It is the only way to convert young Germans. I wonder how the Russians will treat the prisoners they capture … it will show whether the Russians are really converted to civilised life.” The answer to Brush’s speculation was that many German prisoners were killed or allowed to starve or freeze, because the contest in barbarism had become unstoppable.
The Red Army achieved stunning advances in the first months of 1943, gaining up to 150 miles in the north, before coming to a halt beyond Kursk. Soviet generalship sometimes displayed brilliance, but mass remained the key element in the Red Army’s successes. Discipline was erratic, and units were vulnerable to mass panics and desertions. Command incompetence was often compounded by drunkenness. Capt. Nikolai Belov recorded scenes during an attack that were not untypical:
The day of battle. I slept through the artillery bombardment. After about 1½ hours, I woke and ran to the telephone to check the situation. Then I ran up the communication trench to 1st Rifle Battalion, where I found its commander Captain Novikov and chief of staff Grudin dashing about with pistols in their hands. When I asked them to report, they said they were leading their men to attack. Both were drunk, and I ordered them to holster their weapons.
There were piles of corpses in the trenches and on the parapets, among them that of Captain Sovkov, whom Novikov had killed—I was told that he had shot a lot of [our own] soldiers. I told Novikov, Grudin and Aikazyan that unless they joined the forward company, I would kill them myself. But instead of advancing towards the river, they headed for the rear. I gave them a burst of sub-machine-gun fire, but Novikov somehow found his way back into the trench. I pushed him forward with my own hands. He was soon wounded, and Grudin brought him in on his back. Both of them, notorious cowards, were of course delighted. Assuming command of the battalion myself, in the evening I crossed the Oka river to join the leading company of Lieutenant Util’taev. When night fell, I advanced with three companies, but