It .

/
SIECE OF
GRAD
~ G E S OF PICTURES AND TEXT ,
"6
THIS IS THE EPIC STORY OF THE SIEGE
OF
STALINGRAD
TOLD IN PHOTOGRAPHS, WORDS AND MAPS
FROM
AUGUST 23,d, ]942, 'ro*FEBRUARY 3.d, ]943
The Communist Party of Great Britain dedicates this book to all men
and women fighting Fascism. Let the story of Stalingrad serve as an
inspiration and a reminder of the sublime heights to which courage
can rise in defence of the things which humanity holds dear
THE time is winter's end. 1943. The food
trains arc headed south now, from Saratov.
Tambov, and the regions of the Middle Volga.
And they say that in their wake the birds
arc flying the birds that have not been seen
on the Lower Volga since the Germans came
and stripped the forests and gutted the cities
and blasted the countryside with a hurricane of
steel and fire.
Now the Germans are gone from the Lower
Volga. Now there is a smell of life about. and
a smell of food in the starving villages. Even
the ruins arc beginning to pulse with warmth
again. So the birds are returning, strung out in
a long cloud behind the trains. The trains race
down by Aleksikovo, through Kachalinsk, and
not until the line branches off at Gumrak do the
passengers see what the birds had seen from
miles back. As the train stops for a breather
at Kratenkaya, the army officers, the young
technicians, the press correspondents, crowd at
the windows and point arms, hands, fingers, eyes,
field-glasses to the south-east. There, spread out
before them. and straggling for miles up and down
the river, is the unforgettable city, the capital of
glory-Stalingrad.
There it is, ill natura, undeniably. In that city
which once housed half a million people, hardly a
house stands in all the six miles between the Square
of the Heroes of the Revolution in the city's centre,
to the famous Red October Works in the north.
Around the central square tall buildings show
their bones to the air, the skeletons of
buildings that house the skeletons of men. The
trees, the lovely squares, the roofs which the birds
quitted last August are no longer there. Millions
of shell pocked bricks and mountains of twisted
metal are all that remain of the famous Dzerzhinsky
Tractor Works, the factories of Red October and
the Red Barricade. Deep 1,000 lb. bomb craters,
BEFORE THE FASCISTS CAME. STALINGRAD WAS A HAPPY. THRIVING CITY
filled with ice, pit the almost trackless streets.
And here and there a frozen corpse still stares
up pale through the icc. All over the city hangs
the sick smell of rubble and death. Even the
sparkling frost and the cheerful jets of steam from
the locomotives and the lively fussy comments
of the birds cannot dissipate that shocking death-
liness. And yet the city is coming back to life.
Sledges pulled by sturdy Kalmuk ponies go
dashing across the snow. Men arc drawing water
through holes in the ice, and walking carefully
over the rubble with their buckets. A couple
of German Dfisoners are fussing around. helping
to build a temporary memorial to a group of
Red Army officers and men. They try to hammer
nails in with an iron bar, but the nails buckle.
Without roughness, without politeness, a Red
Army man pushes them aside, as one who has
no feeling for dogs would push a dog aside.
He knocks in the nails himself. Behind a sheJl-
pitted wall shots are heard that echo sharply
through the ruins. A Soviet guardsman is u n f r e e L ~
ing his tommygun. A group of tiny figures trail
across the ice-women and children come out of
THE PEOPLE OF STALINGRAD WERE PROUD OF THE HANDSOME CITY THEY HAD BUILT
THEY LOVED PEACE AND THEIR FAMILIES-THEY WERE THAT KIND OF PEOPLE
4
IN SPITE OF THE WAR, THE BIG ;>;EW RAILWAY STATIO;>; WAS GOI'iG FORWARD
their holes in the ground and return to the city.
You can hear the children even from this distance.
when only a few weeks back a man shouting in
his comrade's ear would be inaudible above the
noise of battle. ow sound carries in desolate
Stalingrad. The battlefield is dead. and it is
sordid nnd horrifying as only a dead battlefield
can be. Round a fire a group of Red Army
men are melting snow in a bucket. One of their
comrades brings something to show them that he
has just caught among a pile of shallered brick and
plaster. In the cold sunlight he stands grinning,
stroking a mouse with the back of his finger.
Slowly the train steams past this dC50lation.
The technicians from Moscow slart getting their
luggage together. The young men from the
Tramway Trust, from the Commissariat of Light
Induslry and the Commissariat of Ri"er Transport
get up from their seats. The doctors sent down
from the Moscow Medical Institute oren their
carriage door as the train comes to a halt. All
are an\ious to get to work. And their work is
nothing less than the restoration of the beautiful
cilY of Stalingrad.
Only a few months ago these twisted gianl
skeletons of buildings \\-ere not so openly exposed.
Then they wore a decent mask of concrete and
cement. Then they \\ere skyscrapers, grain
dt;\awl's. theatrcs and museums. StalingraiJ,
with its \\- ide and himdsomc avcnues. its boule-
vards of sycamore and chestnut, its workers'
flats in the flo\l,cring parks. was a prize city.
Fe\\cr than 60.000 people lived in the wooden-
huued town of Ts.uitsyn. on the Volga. But
more than half a million li\cd in stntcly Stalingrad.
Yct they MC the same city. separated by a quarter
of a centur}.
It \I,as to Tsaritsyn that Stalin came in June.
1918. in the grim and hungry days of the Ci ... il
\Var. He came ilS commissioner for food supplies
in all South Russia.
The }oung SO\iet Republic \I,as hemmed in
by a ring of firc from the battlefronts. Intenen-
lion and counter-rc\olution \\cre tr}ing to strangle
50\ iet po\\-cr. The 50\ iet Republic was cut off
from its supplies of ra\\- materials and grain.
Moscow and Pctrograd \\ere staning. Hunger
had become thc second most dangerous enem)
of the \\-orling-c1ass re\.olution.
Tsarits}n \\-as the \\-cdge that di\ ided the counter-
re\oIutionary forces in the east and the south.
HO\\ THE BREAK-THROt.:GH HAPPE:\ED
Only Tsaritsyn prc\cntcd them from linling up
and dc.ding a great united blow at Moscow.
Besides this. though the South was not fat, there
\\-as grain. Stalin's job was I\\'ofold. To gather
food for the star... ing North: to prc\ent the
counter-revolution from taking Stalingrad. To
those 1\'<0 formidable aims, Stalin added a third
the total defe.1I of the counter-revolutionary armies
in the South.
The local commis!klrs and military chiefs turncd
out a gUilrd of honour to mect Stalin at the raih\ay
station. But he had stepped off thc train at a
siding further up the linc. and had arri\cd in
TSilrits)n on fool. In fi\c minutes' casual chat
\\-ilh factory \\orlers. do\\-n by the ri\er at their
lunchtime brcal. he had learned more than a \\-eel
of conduct.:d tours \\ould ha\e taught him. lie
learned \\hilt he had already guessed. th'1I cor-
ruption and inefficiency had undermined the cit)'s
po\\er to resist. that military confusion and trcach-
ery \\ere maling Tsarits)n an cas) mark for thc
forces of counter-le\olution.
S t a l i n ' ~ despatches to Lenin are historical
6
THEY S\\EEP LIKE WILDFIRE O\'ER THE DRY PLAI:\S TO STALI:-iGRAD
documents now. He \\e1ded together the forces
of the local Communist Party organisation. and
with their aid he restored order. The black
market wenl. The firth column went. The
v<icillatory army leaders went. Stalin himself
took over the military leadership. At Lenin's
command he converted the irregular Red forces
into regular units. Together with Voroshilov he
t.::realcd the army of the Tsaritsyn front-the first
regular unils of the Red Army.
For Stalin, military training and political train
ing go hand in hand. The paper he started in
Stalingrad.. Soldat Rc\'olyutsii;' helped to leach
his men and commanders how to fight and what
to fight for. The army rallied round Stalin. The
workers rallied round Stalin. Together they
changed Tsaritsyn into a formidable fortress.
In August, 1918, the hard-fighting and merciless
Cossack troops of Denikin advanced on Tsaritsyn,
in order to surround it and to annihilate the Reds.
By all the rules of war the situation looked hopeless.
The text books of militnry strategy said: With-
draw or all is 1051. But the strategy of the re\<olu-
tion said: Stay put or all is lost. Stalin threw
the manual of academic strategy mer his shoulder
and worked out a revolutionary strategy of his
own. By the courage of the newly-born Red
Army, by the will and discipline of the Party that
inspired it, by the strategical and practical genius
of Stalin, the defenders of Tsnritsyn smashed three
fierce attempts of the White Army to surround the
city, and covered themselves with glory. The
e ~ l s t e r n and southern fronts of the counter-rc\olu-
lion \\erc prc\cnled from uniting. The southern
forces of the White Army \\-erc pre\ented from
ad\ancing to the T"'Orlh. And by the defence of
Tsarilsyn. in that t1crcc summer of 1918. Stalin
and the Red Army sa\ed the SO\ iet Republic
from stanat ion and COll'lpSC.
That much the history books tell us. And the
story is taken up by the geography books, which
inform us that Tsaritsyn. now renamed Stalingrad.
had a population of 445.000 in 1940. and that
population was daily bcing swollen by workers
from the occupied regions of the west. We
learn that Stalingrad is a 1110St imporlanl pOrl
on the Volga. and that al this point the ri\er is
just O\-er a mile \... idc. An uninteresling fact?
NOl to Ihe German Army Command. \"ho doubt-
less ringed this information in red. and \\fote in
Ihe margin:" New supplies to the Russian
Army must come by boat on the Volga. All
cmf[ can easily be cO\ered \,ilh gUlls by a force
on the \\-estern shore:' But "e anticipate. Let
us go on "ilh the geography lesson. Exact
figures for rher transport cannot be rc\ealed.
But e\en in 1937 the Volga system through Stalin-
grad carried mer 30 million tons of cargo. mainly
timber going south and oil going norlh. Sialingrad.
then. is a considerable port. But it is not ,IS a
port that it is 1110s1 famous.
Tsarilsyn was a dreary little pro"incial to",n
in a vast and dreary landscape. Stalingrad was a
giant city-the third largest industrial city in the
USSR. Stalingrad was the show city of the ri .... e-
Year Plan. What was but a blue-print on the
wall of thc Gipromcz--the State Dcpartment for
Planning of Metallurgical Plants-became an
actuality almost o....ernight. There it was in the
picture, as flat as your hand, the project for a
.... ast industrial city. with spotless smoke stads
clear against a \\-ater-colour sky, and grecn trees
throwing out long lifeless shadm... s. And there it
"as before you a year later. standing in real life
the biggest tractor factory in the world. and round
it. coming up like mushrooms. vast blocks of flats.
community centres, parks and gardens and pa\ed
squares, theatres, monuments, museums, fi\c

"WE STAND
AT THE
GATES:
STALl GRAD
IS AHOlJT TO

THE BOMBING OF STALINGRAD BEGINS
universities, twenty-one technical colleges. And
all planned for the benefit of the ordinary citizen
at the factory bench, without reference to land-
lords or contractors or the whims of privileged
gentry.
All this much, the geography books will tcll you.
Nowadays they might even include that last sen-
tence. But there is more to a city than you will
find in a text book. Nothing of what you have
just read above really explains why the Red Army
and the people of Stalingrad defended their l.:it)
with such determination and ferocity; they were
not merely inspired by the riches of (he Red
October Works and the Tractor Plant. nor were
they fired only by the knowledge that this sprawl-
. .
10
ing jumble of skyscrapers and elevators is one
of the strategic keypoints of the present campaign,
just as it was in 1918. A city is something more
than a dot on a map. It is something more than
an orderly arrangement of brick and cement and
steel and glass. A city is people, too, and what
people have put into it. Let us find out a little
about the people who built Stalingrad, and perhaps
we will understand better.
In the office of the manager of the Stalingrad
Tractor Plant there hangs the picture of a broad-
faced man with a small moustache, a neat collar
and tie, a pin-stripe suit. You can read on a
plate on the frame that he is Vassily Ivanov, Chief
of Construction and First Manager of the Plant.
Vassily Ivanov was indeed manager here. But
before he became manager of the Stalingrad
Tractor Plant he did not look like this; he wore
a sailor's hat with streamers and a bandolier,
and he carried a gun with which he fought for
his comrades and for the Revolution. In 1917
he was an electrician in the Navy. He taught
workers how to make a bayonet charge in the
factory yards. In the worst years after the
Revolution, big Vassily worked in the Cheka,
tracking down the enemies of the Revolution and,
with hiS sailor's commonsense, getting straight
to the truth in all their twisting evasions, .:is a hen
pecks a grain of wheat out of a heap of chaff.
In May, 1920, during the bitter Polish offensive,
he hunted down the Jew-baiting Ataman Maxi-
movich in the Dikanka forests that Gogol loved
so much. That year Nestor Makhno was scaveng-
ing across the steppes of the Ukraine with his
bandit army, the Green Army, fighting against
Reds and Whites alike, and looting and pillaging
as he went. Ivanov and his men chased Makhno
everywhere. They swept across the plains after
him, but he dodged them and refused them battle.
He was the most brutal and most cunning fighter
of them all-Makhno, the genius of the tachanka,
the two-wheeled cart. On the tachanka, Makhno
founded a new strategy, new tactics. He dis-
pensed with infantry, with cavalry, with artillery,
and replaced them with hundreds of machine guns
screwed down to light carts. Hay-earts trundling
across the sleepy steppe took towns by surprise.
A beribboned wedding procession, approaching
the headquarters of the local Soviet would open a
withering fire. A man would jump down from a
vehide painted with garlands of flowers and
demand the surrender of the town, of its girls,
its food, its wine. When the machine guns <Ire
hidden under hay and the t<'H:hanka:;. stand in
peasant sheds, they cease to be an army unit,
"HILE S ~ 1 0 K E DRIFTS O\'ER THE RUT:'\S, THE \\'O\IE:'\ A"D CHILDRE:'\ LEA\E THE CITY
THE O/,;LY CHILDREN WHO REMAINED: THE STOi'E DA/,;CERS OF THE CHILDRE/,;'S PARK
TWO THOUSAND BOMBERS RAI:-I DOWN STEEL AND FLAME ON THE CITY
Ma"-hno could gel a fighting force togcther in :In
hour. He ('ould l..Iemobilise it in less.
frunIe. the Red Arm)' leader. :.enI V"ls:-.ily
Ivano\ inlo M,t"-.hno-; (',lInp to condude a deci:-.i\e
Iruce. It was a long shot. Nobody expccted
Vassily to return. Ten Makhno gunmen mel
12
him al a little railway siding :md drove him 10
their ')ccrct headquarters in Starobelsk. In <.I
hut t h ~ homicidal degenerate Ma"-.hno lay, his
hed smashed by a bullet. He was surrounded b)
armed men, each with a shaggy hat over one ear.
Vassily stayed three months in Makhno's hide-
FOR MONTHS, THE SMOKE OF BLAZING STALINGRAD DRIFTS OVER THE VOLGA
out. For three months he reasoned and argued
and gradually WOIl over the Green Army com-
mander... He returned .dive. and successful.
E\erything Vassily turned his hand to ".. as
sw.xc ...rul. By 1921 the big cheerful sailor wa"
chief of the 801rd of Jndustries in
the Ukraine. Under control of the Board were
about 800 planh. turning OUI for"s,
cigarcllc lighkrs. All over the Ukraine the
'\-cre raked out. Vassily ..,el Iht" hea\)
industry on its feel again. The SOviet Govern-
ment mmed him south. and he built the first ore
13
notation plant in Vladikavkaz. He was an
organising genius. In 1C)27 he was in OreL
famous in the Tsar's davs for ils fine racehorses
and its miserable hovels. He set up vast co-
operative stud farms for the breeding of blood
horses. And round the collcctives modern setlle-
ments grcw Up. with boulevards and libraries.
Now the horses were bred for the profit of the
people, not of the landowners merely.
1929 was Ihe first year of the first Five-Year
Plan, the gre:tt turning point in the history of Ihe
Sovict Union. In this ycar, on all fronts of
socialist ccmstruction, the country at last cast off
the age-long Russian backwardness. Stalin said:
We shall bccome a land of metals. a land of
automobiles, a land of tractors.
They made Vassily chicf of the construction
job of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the biggest
project of its kind in the \vorld. Beginnings were
slow. The open steppe lay littered with building
materials. hut everything was in disordcr. There
were no houses for the workers. The cor.struction
labourers lay around among the windswept, S l l n ~
scorched busl'cs, waiting for somebody to get
things organised. Vassily did it. Tearing round
on his bicycle, wearing ,In old leather coat, his
socks slipping down over his boots, talking sign
language to the American engineers and sailor's
14
slang to tne construction teams, he got things
under way,
Early in [C)30 he drO\e across America in a big,
black, luxurious Cord. He went to New York,
Pittsburgh, Cincinn3ti, Milwaukee, Chicago,
Detroit. He drove himself. He says he used
to touch 100 miles an hour sometimes, along the
state highways. He was in a hurry. He had
been sent to visit the hundred factories making
equipment for the fabulous Stalingrad plant. The
depression was on. Some of the factories he weill
to were only kept going by the orders placed by
the SO\ iet Union. He saw Henry Ford and
McCormick, the boss of the vast McCormick
Deering (ractor enterprises. then the higgesl in
the \\torld. Ford and McCormick thought Ivanov
would be easy. They, Ihe h3rdesl-headed business
men in the world, thought it a funny thing if they
couldn't put something across Vassily, a simple
sailor from a land notorious for its shiftlessness.
its lack of organisation and business sense. They
didn't think Stalingrad could ever be a success.
But they didn't want to lake any chances. At
the same time, with the world's greatest slump
on their hands. they could not afford 10 turn down
the SOviet orders. Vassily spent a long time in
Ihe offices of Henry Ford. lie spent a long time
with McCormick. And each time he came out
15
AFTER A HU:\,DRED DAYS' THE CITY IS GROU:\'D TO RUBBLE
What the German pilor sees. Fig. 1 strou's the ai/lauks. From Fi.f!.. :1 comes ,he /teariest flak. A13, ,he
railway Iille;s cw. Al J. and 5 are 'he fIIgboOIS. The re.H is fIJil/.
the winner. When he got back home he smiled
about it and said: .. They thought they could fool
me. Me, who W;:IS with the Cheka in 1918. Me,
who negotiated with Nestor Makhno. Me, \\ho
had to organise the hea... y industry of the Ukraine
in '21. They thought rd be easy. But they
learned:'
Vassily had much 10 do with the building of
Stalingrad. It was on his orders that grass and
trees and beautiful flower garden plots were laid
out round the factories, and all the avenues leading
to the workshops were kept swept ;:tnd clean.
16
In those early days of Stalingrad only ten short
years ago-many a truck driver. backing a lillIe
carelessly up to a factory entrance, had his first
introduction to Vassily Ivanov when a sixth
story window would be flung up. and a formidable
sailor's \ oice would cry, " Where the hell do you
think you're going, comrade? Mind our shrubs,
can't you 1"
If we ha\e spent a long time considering the
story of Vassily Ivanov, it is only because he
symbolises so much of Stalingrad, its fantastic
history, its technical impressiveness, its miraculous
organisation. its genial I:haracter above all,
the way in which it has been universally under-
valued. American capitalism grossly under-esti-
mated the spirit of Stalingrad when, embodied
in Yassily. it stood before them in the offices of
Ford. McCormick-Deering and General Motors.
German National Socialism grossly under-esti-
mated the spirit of Stalingrad when, in August,
1942, the city lay (almost so they
thought) In the path of von Bock s army. They
Ic.lrned. ho\\c\cr.
The Americans under-estimated Yassily. They
undcr-cstimated Sergei Krasa\in, too. the old
riggcr from R)azan, with his cap on the back of
his head. The American engineers. looking over
the Stalingrad plant. called him Uncle Whiskers.
Sergei used to work on the steam barges. Then
LIFE STILL GOES ON IN THE CAVES
cut the plateau 011 ll'hieh
The.' show abore as a dark claw. flere
- people Ih'e ill une.\".
he got a job in the old Dumeau metallurgical plant
in Tsaritsyn. The Dumeau Works had changed
its name to Red October, even before Tsaritsyn
became Stalingrad. Sergei joined the Communist
Party. They told him he should study. At the
age of 40 Sergei learned to read and write. He
had ideas of his own. When the new plants went
up in Stalingrad they made him the boss rigger.
With the new American machinery came Ameri-
can engineers. They stood and watched the
Russians fumbling with the unfamiliar gear.
They shook their heads. Then Sergei came in
with his gang. They gav'c him 480 hours to
instal a 120-ton hammer. He had it rigged up
in 180 hours. The second one he set up in
60 hours. the third in 30. Old Sergei lived for
Stalingrad. He used to bring his pillow to
work with him and sleep under the machines.
One of the astonished Americans. a fat. fair-
(C"II/illul'd on PUrtl' 20)
17
HO\\ THEY KEPT ALJ\ E
18
BELOW GROUND
III eel/an. ill cares. ill drain-
pipes, life J{oes 0". Deep ill
,lte city".\ underground belly,
womell \l'ork. Thel' make
Ulllfol'1lu (JI/(/ equljJllle;/l. rhe)'
fill shells allc! grenades.
Be/ween bombillgs. lltey crall'l
Oul for water, for jirell"Oocl, for
food.
THE BRAVE
WOMEN OF
STALlt\GRAD
Builtli"gs fall like
trees. The air is
lul/ajbullefs.
Calmly. lite 1/urses
0/ Stahl/grad go
their rounds from
halter." 10 bOffery,
from post to post.
19
OCTOBER: HEAVY BOMBARDMENT HERALDS THE GREAT GERMAN THRUST
TO THE VOLGA
haired engineer named Rollo Ward. said: .. Once
these guys get going there's no better mechanics
in the world." But old Sergei was not satisfied.
He told his sons, "You've got to study. Look
at me. rye had the e,perience. rye got the
scope. But rvc no theory. If I had, I'd be a
bencr man altogether."
Early in 1929 there was a drive through all the
local branches of the Young Communist League,
from Leningrad to the Urals. They said they
needed strong youngsters in the South for the
building of new plant. Those who were chosen
were given a hundred roubles and their railway
fare. Among those who arrived in Stalingrad
with the Komsomollabour gangs was little Fallya
20
Khloptunova. whom the American engineers called
" Alice."
Alice started work with the construction gangs
on February 30th in hard frost and biting wind.
The issue of mittens had failed to arrive. When
Alice pressed her hand against her check to warm
it she left white patches where her fingers had been.
Alice was a tough little girl from Saratov.
Eight years before the great Volga famine had
killed her father and her two brothers. Alice
was nine then. She remembered it very clearly.
Some soldiers had found her and looked after
her. Now here she was in Stalingrad. When
the workshops were up she became a gearcuttcr.
She learned and studied; she racked her young
STOR'\I TROOPS DRIVE DEEP INTO THE SUBURBS OF THE STRAGGLING CITY
brain mer curious terms: rOOl circle, involute.
tooth-cune, angle of action. She learned fast
and helped her comrades, like young Terkulov,
from Central Asia, who could not speak much
Russian. and who used to write his notes round
and round the page in a circle.
Alice was in her clement among the big Gleason
machines. Before she was nineteen she was
assistant foreman of the gear-cutting plant, and
whenever anything went wrong the operatives
would shout for her through the shop, good-
naturedly imitating the accent of the American
engineers, "All Ill-us 1" Khloptunova was one of
the leaders of the Stalingrad Young Communist
League. One sunny May Day morning a lot of
Young Communists stood on the flat roof of the
tractor plant, looking out over the city. with its
coloured flower beds and red banners. and its tall
white buildings shining in the sun. Alice, the little
waif from the Volga. waved her arm over the land-
scape and said, "Look. kids. We made all this."
One of the who arrived in Stalingrad
at the same time as Alice was Tolya Fandyushin.
lie had lost his parents during the Civil War and
took up with a wandering mob of child bandits.
sleeping under bridges or in crllars, thieving food.
railway luggage. anything he could lay hands on.
With his comrades he was rounded up and sent to
school, but he broke out, and to show what he
thought of the world he caught a fox and went
21
through the park and around the
flicking the girls across the mouth with the vi\en's
brush. He 'Was founeen then. At fifteen he was a
freight handler in the Ovsyanaya yards. At sixteen
he was \\-orking in the Lugansk steel mills. When
he heard they were recruiting youngsters for
Stalingmd he applied. There was in
the idea that pleased his adventurous spirit.
When he arrived. all he saw was dust and bare
steppe. He lived under canvas. He \\-orked
hard. He sobered up. He studied in the evenings
at the factory school and, rolled up in his coarse
blanket, he pUllled out problems in the dark.
He was set on being a shock-brigader. When the
plant got going, Tolya was put on to making
connecling rods. In a shorl time he was turning
out the "American quota" of 450 rods a shift.
By the spring he was turning out 800. The Mos-
cow papers had a cartoon: young Fandyushin
",orking his steam hammer, the connecting rods
!lying out under it and hitting McCormick, the
American tractor king. on the head.
Of the people who built Stalingrad some had
passed through the hard school of the class struggle
under capitalism. They had experienced civil war
and famine and ruin. Others. in the words of a
Stalingrad foreman. \\ere so young that they
had nevcr set e)cs on a pair of handcuffs. There
\\-ere not many. ho\\-cver. like "American" Ivan
Pashchenl...o. who had migrated to the U.S.A.
in 1906 and worked first for McCormick and
then for Ford. Pashchenko was a tall, thin,
thoughtful man. Henry Ford used to come into
the llloulding shop where he was inspector and
talk 10 him. Now nnd then he would give him a
cigar. Pashchenko worked twenty years for Ford.
and then he asked him for three monlhs' leavc,
to see the new project in Stalingrad. rord raised
hell about it. and said he would have to forfeit
the pension he was due for the nc\t year. but
and he got the sack. When the mobilisation dri\c
for Stalingrad started. off he went. with one suit
of undcnvcar and all his belongings in a rush
bas)..ct. It \\.IS the first time he was e"cr in a
town. In Stalingrad his history follO\vcd the
snmc olltlines as most of his comrades. Con-
struction ,vork. Factory school. P.lrty school.
Grigori RCl1lilOV became a )oun Communist.
He \\as taken into the plant as a smith. He made
good mene). With his first month"s \\ages he
bought a suit. a shin. a doc!... a lool..ing-glass.
three volumes of Lenin (at 2 roubles :W kopecks a
time). :\ portrait of Lenin, a portrait of Stalin, and
BoeSE BY HOLSE THEY STRUGGLE 0'\
p \\cm. And \vhat he saw
him so much that ne never returned to America.
He "cnl to \\01'1.. in the Stalingrad Tractor Plant.
and the people of the Soviet nion were very glad
he did. ocl.:ausc it turned out that Ivan Pashchenko
(and Henry Ford h'ld never discovered this) was
one of (he world's greatest authorities on the use
of carth in moulding metal. They say that Ford
ncarl\. had a fIt \vhen he heard about it, and he
tried-his hardest to get Pashchenko to comc back.
Pashchcnko wrote him an open letter. beginning:
"Dcar Mr. Ford. I will not return 10 work for you.
Do you remember how often you told me that the
indi\ idual has no chance in the Soviet Union.
Now I llnd this is nOI so ..."
A hero of Ihe defence of Stalingrad one
of the organisers of the opolchellie. the tough
$0\ iet equivalenl of the Home Guard. is Grigori
Remi/ov. the die-forger. In 1915. when he waS
only hvo \cars old. his father was killed "in the
German War." At seven. a barefooted boy. he
herded callIe for Sukhov the kulak, who waS later
c\ccuted for conspiracy against the Soviet power.
\Vhcn he \vas tweh-e he went to the village of
Chcrnushkin. to school. That was the first time
hc ever "'l\V a train. He. a ragged twehe-year-old.
s,lI in cla...s \\ith IOfants of six. In 1929 he \\as
... i"tccn. He iltlended tractor-driving courses. but
he muld not resist fiddling with the machinery, FACTORY BY FACTORY THEY CREEP FORWARD
23
THEY THRUST DEEP 1:"1'0 THE FIGHTI:"G HEART OF STAU:"'S CITY
a reproduction of The Shooting of the Baku
CommisS<1rs...
Grigori got used to wearing a tie. "Everyone
I look at is wearing a tie," he once remarked with
surprise. On his ne\t pay-day he bought a radio
set and a watch. ("In the village, time never
mattered. But here on the job I need to look at
the time every minute.") When the big university
opened in Stalingrad, Grigori enrolled as a pupil.
His subject: philosophy. His speciality: dia-
lectical materialism.
Now you see \vhat the builders of Stalingrad
\\ere like. People \\-ho had nothing. but who
took m a l l e r ~ into their Q\vn h'lOds, \\-ho changed
their \\orld, and then found they had c\er)thing.
People \\-ho, in the \\-ortls of old Sergei Krasavin.
had experience (and \\hat e,perience !). scope (and
what score !). theory (and \\-hat theory!). A
24
people loving peace and culture. A people with
everything to defend. and with all the stamina to
defend it. Do you think. Adolf Hitler, that you
can defeat these people with your army of neuro-
tics 1
Il may turn out that their failure to take Stalin-
grad has lost the war for the Germans. It may
turn out that the spirit of the city of Vassily, of
old Krasavin, of Talya Fandyushin and Alice
Khloptunova, has saved Britain from drowning
under the wave of German Fascist occupation.
It is not safe to bank on that. Stalingrad has not
yet won the war. But this much is certain:
Stalingrad was the greatest defeat that Fascism has
e\er suffered.
As is '\-ell kno\\-n. the Germans planned to
capture Stalingrad in a fe\\- days, and then "'heel
right and left, to take Moscow and the Caucasus
FROM EVERY WINDOW FRAME AND DOORWAY THE RUSSIANS FIGHT BACK
Grenades alld firebotrles raill
(i"om roofs or through
"A tornado q{ machine-gull
bullets flies from street fa
street. 01/11' GOO \'artls (rom
the Vol.l!.a. jie,:('est barrIe
ill history hegins. the mid
October baIlIe hetween 1!11'
German (Jilt Amn' and rhe
magl/ificellt fj:lm' " Army of
Gen. Chuikol>.
25
BOTH SlOES SET A THOUSA'iD TRAPS
before winter. Thai was the intention. Stalin-
grad was much more than ,ll1other milestone in
the race for oil.
On August ::!3rd the Fascists struck their first
blow against Stalingrad. At fOUf o'clock on the
sunny afternoon. a thousand planes came o.... er the
city and bombed and pounded it to pieces. For
miles along the Volga. the city was in flames.
The Germans 100,," it for granted that Slalingrad
would surrender. They counted on gaining the
city by August 25th. They dropped leaflets to
that effect. The leaflets \\ere in ashes before they
rcached the grollnd.
Behind the bombers came \-on Bock's arm).
the proud ,lrmy that had raced acro....s
the dry plains of Poland in the first days of ''''ar.
that had rushed through the Ukraine like .... ildfirc
through a rorc\l. Ie,,\ ing ruin and desolation

HERE AND THERE NAZI TROOPS MANAGE TO REACH THE VOLGA
behind. Now, with superiority in tanks, aircraft,
artillery, mortars, they were going 10 take Stalin-
grad in their stride. On August 27th Hitler
issued an order of the day: "The fight for
the mighty Bolshevik bastion of Stalingrad has
begun. Stalingrad will fall.' In Britain, in
America, the pessimists looked up glumly from
their evening papers. The holding of cities is
not what it was. Things looked black.
For days, for weeks, von Bock's men raged at
city's approaches. They struck in a score of
places. Their bombers would blast a wedge in
the Soviet defences, and the Germans would pour
in tanks, guns, infantry. After twelve hours of
solid fighting they would find they had advanced
perhaps 500 yards. Then suddenly the forces
would dwindle, the offensive would peter oul.
The Germans would regroup at night, and in the
morning they would try again. somewhere else.
28
Repulsed once more they would try a fresh sector,
or go back to the first one.
Fire danced day and night over the grey smoking
city. Dust and ashes floated in the air. Ferry
boats plied back and forth to the charred shore,
carrying supplies to the embattled city, and dead
and wounded to the east bank. The wounded
would go to hospital. The dead would be laid
out for burial under the burnt-out wharves.
Monitors-the Russians call them cannon-boats
-of the Volga flotilla raced up and down the river,
shelling the German mortar positions. At night
Soviet marines would make commando raids
behind the German lines, blowing up ammunition
dumps and grenading the tanks as they camped
for the night. Down by the landing stages logs
drifted about the foreshore. Logs '! No. The
bodies of women and children trapped in the ferry
steamers, when the first big blanket raids occurred.
THIS IS STALl:\'GRAD AS THEY SEE IT THROUGH THEIR SCISSOR TELESCOPE
Abo\c the foreshore rises the city. The moon
",as aly.ays blotted out by the smoke screens
that blew back and forth over the river. The
streets would be black, except when a bomb
landed. Then, for a moment, the jagged outline
of the buildings would be silhouetted against the
sky like a photo negative. A tall block of flats
would fall to its knees and sprawl across the
street.
Those flats would be empty. The women and
children of Stalingrad had mostly left the city.
In the deep ravines which cut the plateau on which
the city stands. in the cliff-like banks that run down
to the rher. they had dug their poor C3\es. They
had jammed old boards and twisted bits of corru-
gated iron across the entrances, they had stuffed
up the cracks with newspaper and burlap, and
here. in holes in the ground, they prepared to
spend their ~ i n t e r .
B e t ~ e e n the bombings the wives and children
and grandparents \\-ould crawl out and root
around for water, for firewood, for scraps of
food. With their hands swathed in cloths, they
would search among the rubble for herbs. They
would hear the roar of bombers in the air, the
tanks rumbling along the cliff top above them,
the clatter of lorries and troop carriers over the
bridges across the ravines.
In the Stalingrad Tractor Plant the workers
continued at their benches. with intervals for
fighting. Once, in mid-September. the Germans
broke through to the factory repair shop. Repair
shop hands jumped straight into the tanks they
had just finished work on and drove them out
of the factory gates and into the battle. They
\\ere followed by a battalion of opolchellu)',
workers' infantry, commanded by the Dean of the
Mechanical Institute of Stalingrad's Technical
19
O:-lE OF THE \1 \:-;Y WHO REFUSED TO LEA\ E THE CITY THEY LOVED
30
WHERE\ER THE FASCISTS COME THEY BRI:-iG RUIN, DESTRUCTlO:-l, DEATH
Uni\ersit). His name (are you listening. Henr}
Ford?) is Professor Ivan Pashchcnko.
The workers' detachments fought in overalls,
with bandoliers slung over their shoulders. just
as their fathers did in the Re\-'olution. They met
the Germans on a stone bridge. the only wa)
across a deep ravine. All day long the battle
",-cnt on around the bridge and along the valley.
About the factory the streets were transformed.
They used everything for barricadcs- boiler-plates.
tank barrels. hrid.s. sandb'lgs. Wi\cs
brought fresh supplies of ammunition to their
husbands. Daughters h'lndled rifles by their
lathers' sides. And when the reinforcements of
Red Guardsmen came up to take over the workers
marched back to the factory to get on \\ilh their
job of making tanks.
Running parallcl with the Volga. about a milc
\'vest of the river, is the old Tartar burial ground.
the all-important height of the Mamacv Kurgan.
From the Kurgan you can see all the city. all
the factory area, all the river crossings. From the
Kurgan you could. with a battcry of 76-millimctre
guns, rain death on your enemy wherevcr he might
try to hide. The Mamaev Kurgan controlled
e\erything. And carly in September the Kurgan
captured by the Gcrmans. Whcn it fell the
Berlin radio announcers cried abO\e the bnl) of
trumpets. "St'llingrad is about to fall. This
victory overshadows all other victories. Jt is of
31
BUT THE RUSSIANS HAVE TWO ALLIES: DARKNESS ..
By night, the monitors of the Volga flotilla race up and down the ril'er, shelling the German positions. By
night, boats bring up food, ammunition, medical supplies,
decisive importance to the war as a whole."
Now the Germans threw 2,000 tanks, 2.000
planes against the narrow ten-mile strip of city
along the Volga. Six divisions, two of them
armoured, tried to thrust their way through to the
river. The attack was concentrated against the
northern factory belt. At the same time a Soviet
Guards division. with three rine regiments, artillery,
transports. ambulances and auxiliaries, was sweep-
ing south towards Stalingrad. The men travelled
in lorries. The halts en route became shorter
and shorter. The men had barely time to gulp
down a drink of water and ease their cramped
limbs before the long line of trucks moved off
again. General Rodimtsev was in a hurry.
When he reached the Volga he split his troops
up. The heavy artillery remained on the eastern
32
bank. Two regiments ran the gauntlet of a river-
crossing under fire from dive bombers, and landed
in the factory district. One regiment crossed at
the lower reaches. The two sections could not
maintain a solid front line. German troops held
the ground between them. The outlook, on the
face of it, was gloomy.
General Rodimtsev's men, however, were not
gloomy. This shock division is formed from the
flower of the Moscow and Ukrainian military
schools. They are all youngsters. And never
was a division better disciplined or more cocky.
To hear them talk no division ever took such care
of its tanks, no division ever had cooks who bake
such wonderful cakes or barbers who play the
violin so well. Its chief of staff is 29. He looks
no more than 20. He wears an elegant uniform,
.. A"\D THEIR BELOYED RIVER VOLGA
11I.\teame,s uud 1l1gs, ill roll"ing boars and skiffs, they work their way across. They make commaudo raids
bl'hi"d the German/illes. They blolV lip ammu"it;oll dumps, destroy German tanks.
to the old Hussars' winter dress. Major-
Geocr.11 Rodimtsev himself is a slight, fair-haired
m.m of 37, smnrt, elegant and precise, even in
battle.
Rotlimtscv attacked with all his regiments.
The regiment which had crossed the lower reaches
stormed the enemy-occupied streets. They took
fortified buildings by SlQrm, they (ought their
\\JY through brush\\ood and timber in the city
parks. they fought through narrow alleys hemmed
in by tall buildings. they fought mer mountains
of rumed \\alls. They raced along shattered
cOrridors inside big faclOries, they stumbled
o\er telephone wires and kitchen tables and
wardrobes. Here and there in buildings where the
Germans were strongest entrenched, the Soviet
sappers would bring up hundredweights of ex-
plosi\'e and blow the Fascists skyhigh \\ ith the
heavy walls. Meanwhile the other 1\"0 regiments
fought the Germans back and forth over a few
hundred yards of blood-soaked earth, which
before the war were a beautiful terraced garden
of acacia trees, in which Stalingraders walked
and rested after their day's work \\as done. At
last the three regiments joined forces. Their
front held. The great German drive on the Volga
was checked.
Hitler could not believe it. Over a radio hook-
up that spread across all Europe. he cried: "To
push forward to the Don. along the Don, and
finally to the Volga-that is our army's objective.
Stalingrad will be taken. You may be sure of
that ," Jt was the last broadcast he was to make
for many a long month. But now, on October 14th,
33
HOW THE GERMANS ENCIRCLED STALINGRAD-AUGUST 24th TO END OF OCTOBER, 1942
In lhis map. approximately September 7th, the Germans ha\'e formed a semi-circle round the city \\ilh the
lIorthern tip north of Dubovka and the southern tip S.W. of Krasnoarmeisk. Black shows the German
positions. MoWed grey sho\\s the Russian positions. Dotted line is a key raih\ay.
began the 1110st savage battle of all. Hitler
had ordered the capture of Stalingrad at all costs.
Stalin had ordered "Not a step back:' The
Russians were hard pressed. Betting was slill on
the F;:lscisIS.
The Germans brought up five new divisions.
two of them tank divisions. and hurled them in
on a front only three miles wide. Black smoke
covered the city. Pilots could not see to bomb.
The Volga was in flames. The enemy \\ere fiJr in
34
the ruined suburbs. But there they stuck. And now
set in the most frightful phase of the whole of the
battle for Stalingrad. the fight from house to house.
from floor to floor. from room to room. Plans of
attack would be prepared for each single house.
The plan would show the sub-machine gunner at
the third window of the second floor. the snipers
on the fourth floor. the mortars in flats o. 21a,
305. and 480. Every detail relating to each floor,
each window. each entrance. even the front garden,
Nov. 24, 1942.-Russians advancing on Kalach from t\\O
points, attacking the Germans in the rear and threatening
them with complete encirclement.
0\'. 30. J942.-Red Army begins battle of Lo\\er Jan., 19-t3.-Russians advancing on Rosto\!, and in the
l)n. Ring around von Hoths army of assault completely Caucasus. Von Paulus's forces surrounded and lost.
closed. Russians continue ad\!ance north and south.
~ N D HOW THE RUSSIANS ENCIRCLED THE ENCIRCLER5-NOVEMBER, 1942, TO JANUARY, 1943
35
FAR BEHI'\D THE BATTLE FRO'\T A :"EW ARMY HAS BEEN TRAI:"ED
36
GUNS ARE BROUGHT
SECRETLY ACROSS THE
RIVER
A" October 16th, Chuikol"s
army halts the German all-oul
at/ock. No .... the SOI'fets are
ready for the great counter
attack. Now the relief armies
of Gen. Zhukov sweep do..'n
lOt\"Qrds the city.
AR:\1Y OF SHOCK TROOPS HAS PREPARED FOR THE GREAT ArrACK
would be shown. The newspaper reports read
like some fantastic fairy tate. .. Red Army troops
have occupied flats Nos. 5. 14 and 128 in the
apa,tment house at No. 27. Ordzhonikidze Street.
The Germans still hold two flats on the ground floor
and one on the third:'
In the buildings Nazi tommygunners sal at
the attic windows and under the slats of the tite-
less roofs. Every window on e\-'cry floor was a
loophole for a mortar, a machine-gun, an auto-
matic rifle. Soviet sappers would tunnel into the
houses from below. At night little groups would
cut a lane through the barbed wire entanglements
protecting the buildings. Perhaps one would
drop his cutters. Then lights blazed. Alarms
shrilled. A curtain of lead would drop over the
street, from houses on every side. Then nil would
be still again. Red Army men would hide in
the dusty bushes in the gardens. They would
burrow down into heaps of air-raid rubble with
their entrenching tools. When the fire had ceased
they \\ould mo... e forward again.
Relief parties and reinforcements would make
their way over roofs, through cellars. At the
given moment grenades would fly at the walls.
With a roar of fl<.1me a breach would be made, and
the Soviet troops would be in the building.
Nothing in war is more ferocious than handto-
hand fighting inside a house. othing is more
(ConlinlWd Oil 40)
37
ON NOVEMBER 19th THE GREAT SOVIET COU1\TER-OFFENSIVE BEGINS
38
FASTER A'\D FASTER THE RELIEF ARMIES BITE .'\TO THE :-;AZI POSITIO,\S
39
horrifying than the ambushes behind half-open
doors, the bayoneting in corridors choking with
dust and smoke, the machine-gun fire through
holes in the floor-boards. The fight for the ground
floor of a block of flats might take a day, for the
second floor thiny-six hours, for the third floor
farly-eight. For the Russians there was but one
way to victory-that way was to destroy the great
German 6th Army. And as the battle raged
from house to house throughout the bitter months
of October and November the defeat of the 6th
Army began. While the unnatural Indian summer
lasted the Germans hurried to snatch their victory.
While the sun shone and the mud was dry, and
the skies were dear, they attacked from dawn to
dusk. But as the sk.y clouded over, ~ l l 1 d the earlh
first softened, then hardened bitterly, ::md the
steppe to the west became a wilderness of snmv,
the Germans knew they were done for. On
November 15th German wives and mothers wept
40
when a radio commentator announced: "He who
dares to look into our soldiers' faces can only
shudder with horror."
Meanwhile Zhukov's relief armies, pressing
down towards the city from the north-west, bit
deeper and deeper into the Fascist positions.
They attacked from Serafimovich. They attacked
from Kalach in the west. The encirclement of
the encirclers had begun. And as Rokossovsky's
forces began to squeeze the Germans inwards, the
unforgettable 62nd Army of General Chuikov,
who had held the city all this time, began to
squeeze out. The great counter-offensive had
commenced.
Faster and faster the relief armies swept over
trenches, dug-outs, deep antitank ditches, mas-
sively fortified gun sites abandoned by the fleeing
'l
FROM STALINGRAD'S SKIES, SOVIET AIRCRAFT ARE TAKING THEIR TOLL
Germans. Dro\cs of lost horses wandered over
the plains, rooting in the snow, to get at short
prickly gr"55. The steppe was strewn with black
and green German helmets, with gas-masks, shell-
cases, bodies, bodies, bodies. The big Russian
KV tanks cut deep into the snow; they swept
westward like a huge torrent, wiping out every-
thing in their path. They clattered past the
horrifying" RavincofDeath,"which once had been
the enemy's second defence line. They skirted
the roads blOl.'kcd by vehicles, the verges
with abandoned motor-eycles.
dO\,;ument:-. and The) rushed through the
liberated \l1lages, when: the l.:ountry people had
l.:ome out of their holes .md "..ere pottering around
in the ruins of their homes, sweeping the floor
of a cottage to which there was no roof,
setting to rights a picture which still miracu-
lously remaincd on the wall, though the
other three walls had been blown away. The
tank commanders, looking out of their turrcts
over the scene of devastation, threw down
their half-smoked, bitter, makhorka cigarettes and
hurried on.
On Deccmber 10th thc German radio broad-
cast the story of an observer on the Stalingrad
fronL He ...aid : ......or four days the enemy's
artillery has pounding our position"
".ith murderou'> lire. At four o'doc,," this morn-
ing shoUb ring through the trenches: . The Rus-
sians have broken through on our left: A few
moments after they are in among us, hundreds of
41
.. HE WHO DARES LOOK I-;TO OUR SOLDIERS' FACES
42
them. in e\er fr
masseS. The air
full of the clatter
machine-guns. Th
another shout rin
throughthctrenche
"They have broke
through to OUf righ
We arc cut off. T
commanding om
cannot belie"e h
cars. \-1achine-gu
are out of actio
We hope again
hope. When will r
inforccmcntscomc.
Just once the 6t
Army \\-as nearl
rescued. by the gr
German offensi
from KotelnikO\
,",hich aimed a
breakin(? throug
the encircling rin
to relic\-c Paulus'
beleaguered force i
Stalingrad. But a
Kotelni"'o\ oGene
Rodion Malinmsk
carried out his bril
liant counter-orren
sivc, and the Gcr
mans hastilyevacua
ted Kotelnikovoan
were rolled bac
across the step
1\1alinO\sk)'s cou
ter-offensi\e b c g ~ l
on .Christmas Day
That day a showe
Sow the defeat 0
lheproudfjlltGermu
Army Itus bet:ulI
Tlte air is full (I
snoll' alld maclti/l
gun bulleIs. Tit
Jo/diers call only se
fll'e yards ahead Io
.mwJ.e and steel.
f leaflets
down on frccllng
and Ger-
mans in
The leaflets s;lId.
"The fuehrer
not )Ol!.
Noy,. inside Stalm-
grad life fan-
tastic. When the Red
Army man stcPflC
d
out of his dug-out he
could straighten
himself and \\alk up
the street c.llmly
y,.ithout haste. On
the far bank men
\\ould \\histlc in the
sunlight as the). ':In-
loaded ammunition
from the trucks.
)ards the
German positions
army cooks uncon-
cernedh ca rried
great dixies of soup.
not bothering about
cmer. Half-groy,.n
girls c!1me out of the
holes m the cliff face
to carry ",ater from
the \\aler holes.
Children played
cheerfull:r among the
ruins. A whole fam-
ily ",ould sit out in
the open watching
pancakes siule. as if
nothing unusual was
going on,
El'eryw!tl'Y(! the Fas
ciSIS are surrounded.
They are short of
ammunitiol/. slllJrt oj
fiwt!. They ji"t'e:t'.
They .'talTt'. Tht'I'
/..'1011' lh('.\' are t!0I/l'
Jor.
. .. CA'I O'iLY SHUDDER WITH HORROR"-Berli" Radio
43
SOVIET T\,\;KS A:-OD ARMOURED CARS CLEAR THE WI:-'TRY STREETS OF STAUI'CRAD
And do\\n in the drain-pipes and sewers and
water conduits the star\ ing Germans \\ould be
crouchedmd nothing short of a grenade \\ould
get them out. No\\ it is they \\ho \\ere li"ing in
holes. ne\er seeing the sun. ne"er breathing fresh air.
Each of them was given 25 cartridges a day,
with strict instructions to fire only at attacking
troops. From their holes they watched the
Rus"iians sk)larking aboul. or eating (and all they
had \\as four ounces of bread and horseflesh a
day \"hen they got it). At night the Russians
\.... ould sing round the fires and how those Volga
choirs can sing! The freezing Germans would
huddle in their drain-pipes and close their ears.
'0 doubt many longed to break up the Russians'
party \... ith just onc burst of tomm)gun iirc but
they d"lre nct. For they knew it \\ould unloose
upon them such a storm of steel. they would have
no chance of survi\al. Sometimes at night. des-
perate for air. they would come out of the sewers
and plead for fair pia). "Russ! Russ!" they
44
\vould cry. "Fire at our legs. can't you? Why
must you always shoot to kill?" In sc\enty days
after the iron trap \\as sprung on 'member 13rd.
330.000 Fascist troops underthecomm.md ofGen-
eral Paulus were reduced to a handful of typhus-
ridden. frost-bitten. half-starved and hopeless men.
On January 8th two Russian officers in a car
flying a \\hite flag dro\e up to \\hat \\as left of
the German lincs. They \\ere fired on. but they
persisted. They carried surrender terms. \\hich
the Germans refused. All through the night Soviet
loudspeakers roared out appeals to the Germans
to be sensible. 1O givc in and save their li\es.
Then in the morning began another kind of roar.
the roar of an artillery and mortar barrage. The
final chapter in the annihilation of Paulus's army
had begun. On January 10th the Russians
stormed the last great stronghold of the Germans,
thc heights of the Mami.lev Kurgan. They went
in with bayonets and grenades. not counting their
10s')Cs. nder \\ithering machine-gun fire from
OYER BLILDI:\G AFTER RECAPTURED BUILDI:"G THE RED BA:\'OER IS RU'O LP
the \\-utcr towers the Gcrm<lns had turned into
strong roints. the attacking tfOOPS picked their
v.'ay. Nothing could stop them. A tank would
attempt to counter-attack. Russian soldiers would
throw themselves on it with hand grenades and
destroy it and themselves. On the Mamacv
Kurgan, where Dmitri Donskoi routed the Tartars
in 1380. and where, in the Civil War, Stalin rallied
the Bolshc\'ik troops for the defence of Tsaritsyn.
the last of the great and bloody battles for Stalin-
grad \\as fought. One by one the water to\\Cr5
were captured and the red flag fluttered from their
tops. And once the Kurgan was cleared the
Ru tans ne\er looked back. Driving down the
southern lopes they \\cot straight for the city.
In 24 hours the} captured 36 blocks of streets.
By January 26th. \\ hen Stalin issued his
famous order of the day, congratulating the
Red Arm)-. the commanders and political workers
of eight fronts on their victories over the Fascist
imader, the mopping up was nearly complete. A
big Junkers 52 circled abo.. e the littered steppes
outside Stalingrad. It circled a long time. Ger-
man and Russian eyes watched it. At last, .... ilh
shells bursting about it, the plane gained height and
vanished into the black clouds. Then the Germans
knew they were finished. The machine, laden with
ammunition, with food and medical supplies, was
the last transport plane from outside they .....'ere to
see. It had circled so long and then disappeared
because its commander had to confirm the f.lct thai
the last landing fields-- those at Gumrak had
fallen to the Soviet troops. The final chapter in the
battle for Stalingrad had practically concluded.
At 7 o'c1ock on the morning of January 31st
the Red Army troops had got right round the
central square of Stalingrad. and their field guns
and mortars opened up as if they intended to
suffocate the Germans ..... ith steel. They con-
centrated particularly on a big store where, accord-
ing to information from three captured l\jazi
(Continued on page 48)
45
46
THE
DELI' ERERS
HAVE COME
Set, determim
triumphanf, I
adrallcing S O ~
armies race
From 0/1 sides, t/,
tanks 0/1(1 earn
clauer through
liberated rilla,l
Tighter Gild rig.
the German arl
are squeezed iI/
iron ring.
47
THE GERMANS ATTEMPT
TO SUPPORT HIE 6th ARMY
BY AIR ...
the German commander of 6th Army
had his headquarters. After fifteen minutes' blitz
shelling. just as the Russians prepared to storm
the building. an adjutant came out with a white
flag. He asked for the senior Russian officer
The senior Russian officer was a IHughing freckled
peasant boy, 21-year-old Lt. Fedor Yclchenko, of
Col. Burmakov's motorised sharpshooter brigade.
Let Ye1chenko describe what happened in his OWn
words: "They asked me for a big boss to meet
their big boss. L said: Tm the handiest here.
What do you want?' He said: 'Surrender: I
s..,id: 'Righto.'"
Yelchenko went in with fifteen men. They
had to push their way past hundreds of terrified
Germans packing the basement corridors of the
store. When he reached Paulus's room Yelchenko
entered with two comrades. He was recei....ed by
General \on Raske. With him Yelchenko dis-
cussed the terms of the ultimatum. Von Paulus
\\as lying on a bed. Says Yelchenko : "1 didn't
ha\e to talli. with him, but 1took a good look at him.
He didn't look iII, but sort of unhappy. Raske
asked me 10 see that Paulus wasn't manhandled or
treated like a tramp. We thought that was rather
funny. As a matter of fact we got him a good car
and a good guard to take him off to our H.Q."
As the car bearing the captured generals bumped
over the littered and snow-eovered streets it met
an astonishing procession. In dress uniform, with
German frlUlSport planes drop food
by parachute. But Ihe Red Army
has recaplllred the Terri/ory.
They elll the sausage intended
for Paulus.
BUT THE SURRENDER
CONTINUES
Throughollt January, Ihe mopping-
up goes 011 apace. Between Jan-
uar)' 10th alld February 21/d, the
Russians take 91.000 prisoners.
48
GEC'lERAL VON DANIEL ON HIS WAY TO SURRENDER PASSES A DEAD GERMAN SOLDIER
fur-Coed coats, came four German colonels.
Behind them followed several lieutcnant-colonels,
majors, captains. Then came a column, miles
long, of soldiers. A great grey-black river of
men stretched through the snow-covered ruins
and out to the sparkling steppe beyond. Their
heads were wrapped in shawls, in sweaters, in
",omen's skirts. Their frozen hands were stuffed
pitifully into their trousers pockets. They shuffled
along on swollen frost-bitten feet. The German
generals who looked out of the window of the
R u s ~ i a n car must ha\c found it hard to recognise
in these men the Aryun Oower of German man-
hood; the proud 8th Infantry Corps. \",ho broke
into Grodno and plundered Minsk and Smolensk
and Gzhatsk. the 16th Tank Division, part ofvol1
Kleist's army which took Sokal, Dubno. Kirovo-
grad, Dnepropelrovsk and Rostov, the proud 3rd
Motorised Division. parl ofGuderian's tank army.
all of them Berliners, who had fought al Moscow.
near Tula, in Voronezh and \\ho had been the first
to hurl themsel... es on Stalingrad. Perhaps alone
of all the divisions of the 6th Army, the young-
sters of the 3rd Motorised Division had an inkling
49
of \\ hat might happen. For they had a ~ n g from
the last ycar's campaigning against MoscO\\, a song
Ihat threw long shadows:
Als wir vor Moskau lagen
Da lagen wir im Schnee.
Kaputt sind aile Wagen,
Erfroren as' und Zeh.
Und langsam dcckt LOr Winterruh
Dcr Schnee die letzten Reste zu
Dcr stolzen Mot. l. D.
Der dritten Mot. 1. D.
(When \\c lay before Moscow there we lay
in the snow. All our vehicles are done for, our
,0
nose and feet are frozen. Aod 510\\1) for their
winter sleep the SoO\\ cO\ers the last remains of
Ihe proud Motorised Infantry Di\ision, the Third
M. I. D.)
Now the great dark ri\cr of mcn flows slowly
on tOwards the prison camps of the east, O\er
the plains littered \\ith corpses, young, thin bodies.
mutilated or stripped naked by blast, frozen into
grotesque attitudes. The swaggering hangmen of
the occupied villages, the dashing violators of
young girls. the brave murderers of Soviet children
stare dully at the horrible panorama through which
they trudge. Among the scores of thousands of
TillS IS ALL THE NAZIS SAW OF HIE RIVER VOLGA
pus<ners \\ 0 go slouching b)-. e\ery single (.ICC
IS a P' ftf .1 af defeat -defeat in the bloodiest
b of all me.
And how \\-as this dcfcilt brought about? The
Gcrnun ha\c comphlined of cra.!y strategies.
of the lal,;UCs of "drunken men:' But in fact the
slr.ltcgy of Stalingrad \\as .of a classical. even a
tc'\tbook nature. In their appro.lch to the
problem of taking Stalingrad, the Germans did
not f1Ut a rOOl wrong. But the Russians
them at their o\'.n game. out\\"itted them at their
0\\11 str teg)'. The idol of the German Geoer 1
SI..lrf, the rcnO\'vned \.on Schlielfen. once c\'ol\ed
the prindplc of a modern Cannae. At Cannae in
216 B.c.. Hannibal rouled the Roman troops.
.... hlch he surrounded and mostly annihilated. It
ow, s a d. S'IC.i1 "ictor). Schlieffen maintained th.lt
In modern \...Ir. too. thi'\ form of strategy was the
OC'\I Thc German Army is dcvoted to the
principle of "umfasscn. einschliessen, vernichten"
outfbn" cm. envelop em. destroy em. That
thcn was to be the classical strategy of Stalingrad.
-\nd so it turned out. But not as the Germans
h d meant. General Paulus can record in detail
a classical e,ample of Cannae. for the adornment
of German military history. He h"ld a direct
hand in it himself. But he can only sreal... for the
Romans. not for Hannibal. It be forthe SO\ iet
Command. for \1arshal Ro,,"ossO\s"y. to fill in the
details on Hannibal's beh"llf. ror at Stalingrad
the outflan"ers \vere outflan"ed. the e","elopers
\vere emeloped. the destroyers were destroyed.
Military doctrine defines a breach of the enemy
defences as a very difficult operation. It states
that an enveloping blow is:.l manceU\ re demanding
a high degree of mobil it) and preparation of troops.
-\t St"llingrad. hO\\e\er. these operations succeeded
one another. and also follO\\ed from one another.
Put simply. the SO\iet troops pierced the sur-
rounding German defences: they strue!.. emelop-
ing blo\\s: the} concluded \\ith the encirclement
of the enemy. All this demanded a high le\'el
of skill. and the utmost precision of calculation.
The blow from two directions \....<lS struck by
grours of three fronts...lnd only the full co-
ordination of their operation'\ ensured success. A
delay by one group. a re\crsc suffered by another.
..md the \\hole operation \\ould ha\e been ruined.
51
The flower of the German Army and the *of the Volga. The engineers from Mosco\\
Luftwaffe faced the Russians. The Fascists arc finding out which of Stalingrad's buildings
were constantly being reinforced. The mobilit) can be restored. and which must be pulled
on which the success of the Soviet offensive cn- down. The mcn from the Tramway Trust are
tirc1y depended could never have been achievcd at work with their tape measures and slide-
had not the truck drivers been ready and able rules. Cranes and winches for the dock works
to stick at the wheel for 24 hours at a stretch, in tem- have already arrived frolll Gorky.
peratures more than 20 degrees below zero Fahren- Danger has withdrawn from Stalingrad. But
heit. The offensive would have been impossible the German Armies are not beaten yet. Crippled,
had not General Chuikov's tough men and girls- they certainly are, by an army which fights as no
Siberians for the most part-hung on to a narrow army ever fought before. But, given a breathing
strip of city near the Volga bank, taking punish- space, the German Armies will sweep back into
ment for weeks on end without hope of relief or the attack again. And not only against Russia.
even rest. The offensive would have failed had but against Britain, too. The crushing victory of
not the workers ofStnlingrad stayed at their posts. Stalingrad has put into our hands a glorious
organised by Chuyanov and his comrades of the opportunity for launching simultaneous blo\vs
Stalingrad Communist Party. keeping a steady flow with the Red Army, blows that can ensure the
of arms and ammunition to the front line soldiers decisive defeat of the Nazi armies now. Re-
and, at critical moments, themselves grabbing member the strategy of Stalingrad outflank 'em,
weapons and turning out to drive the enemy back. surround 'em, destroy 'em! A Second Front in
In the last analysis that was what triumphed at Stal- Europe can repeat that strategy on a grand scale.
ingrad-the Bolshevik will of the Soviet people. The Governments of Britain and the United States
Now the birds are singing again in Stalingrad. agreed to open the Second Front jn Europe. The
The technicians step out of the trains and hurry British people have shown they support this
through the ruins to temporary offices hastily strategy, and are prepared to do everything in their
rigged up. with canvas flapping in the Vvindows, tremendous power to make it a success. For victory
c:ind old planks for desks. Already Karo Alabyan, over Fascism, no price is too high to pay. Let us
the famous architect. has drawn rough sketches face whatever lies before us as cheerfully and
of the noble buildings that are to rise on the banks proudly as the glorious people of Stalingrad.
THE END OF THE STORY OF STALINGRAD-THE LO:"G SLOW L1i\E OF PRISO:"ERS
Prin/cd /'Y Hu:dl, 1\ II/SOlI <: \'111(\', Ltd.. ,'):1 L(mg .Ierf. ILl" 2.- -H2.0-lj