Part II
ARDUOUS TIMES
Chapter Three. BLITZKRIEG PLAN FRUSTRATED
Chapter Four. THE SOVIET UNION BECOMES A UNITED MILITARY CAMP
Chapter Five. THE BATTLE OF MOSCOW
Chapter Six. BATTLES IN THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1942
Chapter Seven. MOBILISATION OF THE REAR IN 1942
THE OTHER WAR THEATRES
THE FIRST PERIOD OF WAR. A BRIEF SUMMARY
“UNDER THE BANNER OF LENIN, FORWARD TO VICTORY!”
Poster by A. P. Voloshin, 1941
“THE MOTHERLAND CALLS!”
Poster by I. M. Toidze, 1944
Chapter Three
BLITZKRIEG PLAN FRUSTRATED
- Sneak Attack on the USSR
- First Steps by the Party
- The Battle of Smolensk
- At the Approaches to Leningrad
- The Battles in the South
1. Sneak Attack on The USSR
In the morning of June 22, 1941, Radio Moscow interrupted its regular broadcast to announce that in the middle of the night nazi Germany had invaded the Soviet Union without declaring war.
That was the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The peoples of the Soviet Union were gripped by anger and grim determination to repel the aggressor. Workers, farmers, intellectuals, people of all nationalities, trades and professions pledged loyalty to their country. Like an oath of allegiance the song “Holy War”, forceful and austere, resounded across the country:
Arise, arise great land,
For mortal strife arise.
Let noble anger seize you,
And surge up like a wave,
The war you wage is holy…
The nazis howled that Germany’s only objective was to “deliver civilisation from the deadly Bolshevik peril”. This time, however, Hitler and his clique did not deceive anyone. The peoples in the capitalist countries gave their sympathies to the Soviet Union. The Communist and Workers’ Parties stood at the head of this solidarity movement. The Western governments realised that if the nazis won, the balance of strength on other fronts would change and the independence of the European states, as well as the interests of the ruling classes, would be in jeopardy. This prompted them to range themselves with the Soviet Union. The interest of the British, American, Soviet and other nations in smashing the fascist bloc provided common ground for a joint effort. It was this that lay behind Winston Churchill’s well‑known declaration of June 22, 1941, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration of June 24 stating their intention to assist the USSR in the war against Germany.
For the Soviet Union the beginning was an arduous one. The Red Army was at a disadvantage. When the enemy struck, troops of no more than company and battalion strength were building fortifications in the immediate proximity of the border—three to five kilometres from the frontier posts, whereas most of the divisions assigned to cover the frontier were far away, engaged in combat training. The artillery of many divisions and corps, anti‑aircraft units and troops of the military districts were at firing practice far from their headquarters. Many of the signals units were laying cables and building communication centres.
The pertinent directive was sent off by telegraph at 23.45 hours on June 21, i.e., four hours and fifteen minutes before the nazi invasion commenced. It stated that a German attack, which would in all likelihood begin with provocations, could be expected on June 22‑23. While ordering all units of the border districts to be alerted, the People’s Commissariat for Defence warned that troops should not react to provocations “liable to create serious complications”. Within an hour and a half of receiving this directive the district commanders issued their orders to their armies, but these orders reached many of the units too late, after hostilities had broken out.
At 04.00 hours on June 22, true to their “principle” of beginning hostilities without a declaration of war, the nazis opened up with thousands of field guns, shelling Soviet frontier posts, unit headquarters, communication centres and troop cantonments. At the same time, thousands of German bombers invaded Soviet air space to a depth of 250‑300 kilometres, barbarously raiding many towns in the Baltic republics, Byelorussia, the Ukraine and Moldavia and striking military objectives in the border area. Military airfields were the hardest hit with the result that nearly 900 Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground. Many communication lines and centres were put out of action a few minutes after the fighting broke out, disorganising troop control.
Frontier guards stood up to the initial assault, displaying extraordinary staunchness. Thus, Post No. 9 of the 92nd Detachment was defending a bridge across the river San near Radymno, 18 kilometres north of Przemysl. Attacked at dawn and caught by surprise the post commanded by Lieutenant N. S. Slyusarev repulsed repeated assaults by a numerically superior enemy. Finally, the Germans brought in tanks. True sons of the Soviet people, the men fought to their last breath.
The first to meet and repulse an enemy air strike along the naval frontier were the seamen at Sevastopol. In the Baltic area the 67th Division, 8th Army, stationed at Liepaja, a naval base, foiled a nazi attempt to seize the city and port in a lightning thrust. For several days till July 1 the troops, supported by naval units and local workers, held off a numerically superior enemy. The Navy owed its good preparedness to the fact that the alert to fleets and flotillas had been transmitted without delay and appropriate measures taken beforehand.
Soviet pilots displayed indomitable courage. During the very first minutes of the war a flight of the 46th Fighter Regiment led by Senior Lieutenant I. I. Ivanov joined battle with German bombers. When Ivanov’s ammunition ran out he chopped off the tail of a German He‑111 aircraft with the screw of his I‑16. This was one of the first actions in the war in which an enemy aircraft was rammed in the air. On August 2, 1941, I. I. Ivanov was posthumously decorated with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. On that same day enemy planes were rammed by pilots L. G. Butelin, S. M. Gudimov, A. S. Danilov, D. V. Kokorev, A. I. Moklyak, Y. M. Panfilov and P. S. Ryabtsev.
When the main German force mounted its offensive, its numerical superiority was overwhelming—4:1, even 5:1, in the main directions. This enabled the enemy to sweep over the forward Red Army units at many points. Soviet defence disintegrated into isolated pockets. Cover troops joined the fighting at different times in an unorganised manner. Requisite reserves were unavailable in the vicinity of the enemy’s main blows. The absence of a close‑knit front allowed enemy tanks and motorised units to detour and strike at points of resistance from flank and rear. As a result, the Soviet troops were compelled either to fight on in pockets or retreat eastward.
Army guidance had to be reorganised. On the first day, the Special Baltic, Western and Kiev military districts were reconstituted into the Northwestern (8th, 11th and 27th armies), Western (3rd, 10th, 4th and 13th armies) and Southwestern (5th, 6th, 26th and 12th armies) fronts respectively, while the Odessa Military District became the 9th Army. On June 24 the Leningrad Military District was converted into the Northern Front (14th, 7th and 23rd armies), and the 9th and 18th armies were reformed into the Southern Front (Map 1). In command of the fronts were: Northern Front, commander—General M. M. Popov; member of the Military Council—Corps Commissar N. N. Klementyev; Northwestern Front, commander—General F. I. Kuznetsov; member of the Military Council—Corps Commissar P. A. Dibrova; Western Front, commander—General D. G. Pavlov; member of the Military Council—Corps Commissar A. Y. Fominykh; Southwestern Front, commander—General M. P. Kirponos; member of the Military Council—Corps Commissar N. N. Vashugin; Southern Front, commander—General F. V. Tyulenev; member of the Military Council—army commissar 1st Rank A. I. Zaporozhets.
The military and political leadership of the Armed Forces before the war was exercised by the Central Military Council, which consisted of the People’s Commissar for Defence, the Chief of the General Staff and two members of the Politbureau.
On June 23, by a decision of the Party Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars, the General Headquarters of the High Command was set up to provide strategic leadership of the armed struggle. Its members were People’s Commissar for Defence Marshal S. K. Timoshenko (Chairman), Chief of the General Staff General G. K. Zhukov, J. V. Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Marshals K. Y. Voroshilov and S. M. Budyonny, and People’s Commissar for the Navy Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov. It had a panel of permanent advisers drawn from among prominent military leaders and statesmen.
At the end of the first day a precarious situation arose at the junction of the Northwestern and Western fronts. The main forces of Army Group North under Fieldmarshal W. Loeb and the left wing of Army Group Centre under Fieldmarshal von Bock lunged at the line defended by General V. I. Morozov’s 11th Army and units of the 8th Army (General P. P. Sobennikov), Northwestern Front, on the right, and the 3rd Army (General V. I. Kuznetsov), Western Front, on the left. The enemy advanced swiftly. Forward units of the 4th Panzer Group broke through to the Dubisa River 35 kilometres northwest of Kaunas, while divisions of the first echelon, 3rd Panzer Group, crossed the Niemen 60 kilometres south of Kaunas. Cut to pieces, the 11th Army retreated hastily towards Kaunas and Vilnius, exposing the flanks of the 8th and 3rd armies.
Almost as tense was the situation on the left wing of the Western Front. Ten divisions of Army Group Centre, including four panzer divisions, pounded four divisions of General A. A. Korobkov’s 4th Army. Caught by surprise, the 4th Army failed to man the prepared line of defence at Brest. Its units joined battle at random and could not stem the superior enemy force. The small garrison of Brest Fortress was invested. Its officers and men showed courage beyond compare, holding out in the tiny pocket for as long as a month, demonstrating the unbending tenacity and prowess of the Soviet soldier. The exploit was nothing short of legendary, with most of the fortress defenders falling in battle. In tribute, it was awarded the title of Hero‑Fortress, the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star.
Brest Fortress pinned down a large nazi force. But the enemy was vastly superior, blocking it with infantry units and hooking round it north and south on the first day of the offensive. The 2nd Panzer Group, involved in that operation, advanced eastward. By the evening of June 22 enemy tanks were 50‑60 kilometres inside Soviet territory approaching Kobrin. The threat of a deep enemy breakthrough and investment of the left flank hung over the Western Front.
In the Southwestern Front sector, Fieldmarshal Rundstedt’s Army Group South delivered the main blow south of Vladimir‑Volynsk against General M. I. Potapov’s 5th Army and General I. N. Muzychenko’s 6th. Unprepared, the two armies retreated 10‑20 kilometres inside the border during the very first day.
The avalanche of German tanks, supported by aircraft, pressed eastward. The commands of the Soviet fronts, armies and even corps often lost contact with and control of their troops, because the enemy kept cutting communications. For this reason, neither the various Front headquarters nor GHQ and the General Staff had anything like a complete picture of the developments in the frontier zone. In the evening of June 22 the People’s Commissar for Defence ordered an offensive for the morning of June 23 to counter the enemy’s main thrusts. Specifically, it demanded the encirclement and annihilation of the enemy groups at Suwalki and Lublin.
The offensive mounted by the Northwestern and Western fronts on June 23‑25 yielded no tangible results. By the evening of June 23 German armour had widened the breach at the junction of the two fronts to 130 kilometres and by the evening of June 25 forward enemy units penetrated the operational area of the Northwestern Front to a depth of 120‑130 kilometres. Nazi troops that had rolled over both wings of the Western Front advanced nearly 180 kilometres towards Vilnius‑Minsk and as much as 250 kilometres towards Baranovichi‑Minsk. Gradually, the pieces fell into a pattern: it became clear that the enemy intended to encircle the main forces of the Western Front and cut them off from the Northwestern and Southwestern fronts.
The Northwestern Front was in difficulties. Units of the 11th Army, poorly controlled, suffered heavy losses; cut off from their neighbours, they retreated fighting. The 8th Army, a valid fighting unit, attacked constantly from the air, rolled back towards Riga under frontal attacks and harassment along the open left flank. A large breach appeared between the 11th and 8th armies, of which the nazi tanks took immediate advantage in developing a rapid drive on Daugavpils.
To forestall the total encirclement of the Western Front, on June 25, GHQ ordered it to withdraw from Western Byelorussia. However, panzer forces rapidly converged on Minsk. On June 29 they reached the vicinity east of the Byelorussian capital, cutting off retreat for 11 Western Front divisions. Part of the encircled troops broke out after heavy fighting, some joining the partisans, while a large number were either killed in battle or taken prisoner.
The Air Force assisted the ground troops to the best of its ability. A feat of heroism was performed on June 26 by Captain N. F. Gastello, squadron leader of the 207th Air Regiment, 42nd Bomber Division, and his crew: Lieutenants A. A. Burdenyuk and G. N. Skorobogaty and Senior Sergeant A. A. Kalinin. They had fulfilled their mission and were leaving the target area when an enemy shell pierced their petrol tank. Within seconds the aircraft was enveloped in flames. The choice before the crew was death or captivity. They chose death. The commander piloted the flaming aircraft into a cluster of enemy lorries, petrol cars and tanks. Captain Gastello was posthumously created Hero of the Soviet Union, and his crew were decorated with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Grade. This was an immortal feat, and it was repeated time and again by Soviet flyers during the Great Patriotic War.
Developments in the southwest were somewhat more favourable. There, the Soviet Command deployed a considerable force, engaging the enemy in the sector of his main effort. A tank battle ensued in the Lutsk‑Brody‑Rovno sector on June 23, the biggest tank engagement of the early period of the war, with some 2,000 tanks taking part on both sides. The Soviet forces supported from the air inflicted considerable losses on the enemy and held him up for a week, frustrating the nazi plan of investing the main forces in the Lvov area. But the Southwestern Front, too, paid a heavy price: the losses were great and the troops wearied by the unintermittent fighting. On June 30, GHQ ordered the Front to withdraw to the line Korosten‑Novograd‑Volynsky‑Proskurov, some 70‑90 kilometres.
In all the crucial sectors, Soviet troops failed to stem the enemy advance in the border area, to fill in the deep breaches and afford cover for the concentration and deployment of the main Red Army forces. This, naturally, affected the operations of the initial period.
By the end of June GHQ realised that the disorganised and depleted troops in the border area would not halt the enemy. It called in reserves from the far rear to build up a new strategic line of defence.
The group of reserve armies (22nd, 20th, 21st and 19th) under Marshal Semyon Budyonny, formed by decision of the Political Bureau of the CC CPSU(B) on June 25, was ordered to deploy along the line Velikiye Luki‑Vitebsk‑Gomel‑Chernigov‑Desna River‑Dnieper River (up to Kremenchug), manning combat positions and preparing for defence.
But the enemy forestalled the Red Army forces. On June 26 the 4th Panzer Group captured Daugavpils on the march and three days later seized the area near Krustpils. The 21st Motorised Corps, sent by the Soviet Command to slow down the nazi advance, engaged the enemy at Daugavpils on June 28 and stood firm for some time.
To hold up the nazis at the approaches to Pskov, along the last large natural line of defence, the Velikaya River, the 50th Engineers Battalion was ordered to blow up the bridges. By midday July 8 seven of the eight bridges were demolished. In the meantime, Soviet rearguard units, pursued by German tanks, were withdrawing across the remaining bridge. A group of sappers under Junior Lieutenant S. G. Baikov was ordered to blow up the bridge. They let enemy tanks approach the bridge, but when they turned the switch they found that the electric wire had been severed. In face of enemy fire the sappers connected a fuse and detonated it, blowing up the bridge with the German tanks on it. For this action the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decorated Junior Lieutenant Baikov with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
On July 9 the enemy captured Pskov, creating a threat to the town of Luga.
Meanwhile, the Western Front delayed the advance units of Army Group Centre along the Berezina. The fighting was particularly fierce at Borisov on the Minsk‑Moscow Highway. Colonel Y. G. Kreizer’s 1st Moscow Motorised Division delivered a well‑timed counter‑blow, stopping the enemy for two days and nights on the Berezina. Guderian, the nazi panzer general, admitted later that in this battle his troops learned of the formidable Soviet T‑34 tanks, which were impervious to German anti‑tank shells. Kreizer was one of the first Soviet officers to be created Hero of the Soviet Union. General I. N. Russiyanov’s 100th Division acquitted itself splendidly in holding the river bank. Enveloped on the flanks and later totally cut off from the main force, it broke out of the enemy ring and rejoined the units of the Front near the Dnieper. In so doing, the division destroyed considerable enemy personnel, some 150 tanks, 300 motorcycles and 30 lorries.
But when units of the 2nd and 3rd Panzer groups arrived on the scene the balance changed in favour of the nazi troops. The enemy forced the Berezina and headed for the Dnieper. It was at the approaches to this important water barrier northwest of Orsha that Soviet resistance was most tenacious.
Towards the close of the first decade of July the Germans encountered resistance along the Dnieper and in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina from the Red Army’s second strategic echelon.
Early in July the situation on the southern wing of the Soviet‑German front deteriorated. On July 1 Rumanian and German troops struck from Rumania at the junction of the Southwestern Front (which was holding the line Rovno‑Dubno‑Kremenets) with the Southern Front. The enemy advanced 60 kilometres in six days. Also, the Germans crashed through the Soviet defences on the right wing of the Southwestern Front, seizing Zhitomir on July 9, with part of the force wheeling against Kiev. It was clear that the simultaneous assault on the flanks of the Southwestern Front was part of a nazi plan to surround the main Soviet force. Counter‑attacks from north and south and a last‑minute withdrawal of the central armies averted total encirclement and enabled the Soviet Command to straighten out the Front. By mid‑July a certain stability was achieved at Novograd‑Volynsky, Zhitomir and Berdichev.
A breakthrough by the German 11th Army at the junction between the Southwestern and Southern fronts compelled the withdrawal of the left‑wing armies of the Southwestern Front and the 18th Army (under General A. K. Smirnov) of the Southern Front.
In the Extreme North hostilities erupted in the Murmansk direction on June 29, when the left flank of the German Army Norway under General Falkenhorst mounted an offensive. On the following day, Finnish troops attacked towards Ukhta and on July 1 German and Finnish forces struck from the Kuolajarvi area towards Kandalaksha. The operations were local and did not vitally affect the general strategic situation on the Soviet‑German front.
Soviet warships and naval planes attacked enemy sea communications, airfields and bases, and provided cover and support with artillery, shore batteries and planes to troops fighting along the seaboard. Jointly with the ground forces and volunteer workers’ battalions the warships defended the naval bases of Liepaja and Riga in the first week of the war and those of Odessa and Tallinn somewhat later, with a large part of the ships’ crews ashore helping the infantry. The sailors acquitted themselves splendidly on land, while the fleets laid mines and guarded sea communication lines.
During the first three weeks of the war the Red Army abandoned Latvia, Lithuania, part of Estonia, almost the whole of Byelorussia, Moldavia and a large part of the Ukraine. Nazi troops penetrated some 450‑500 kilometres into the country in the northwestern direction, 450‑600 kilometres in the western and 300‑350 kilometres in the southwestern. They threatened Leningrad, Smolensk and Kiev.
But the price the Germans paid for their advance was high. Their losses were incomparably greater than those incurred in Western Europe. According to official, undoubtedly minimised, nazi figures, the Wehrmacht lost more than 92,000 effectives by mid‑July, with tank losses at some 50 per cent of their initial number. The Luftwaffe lost 1,284 aircraft from June 22 to July 19.
Fighting as it did in extremely unfavourable conditions, the Red Army suffered heavier casualties. The loss of brave and deeply devoted men was aggravated by huge losses of equipment. Suffice it to say, that the Western Front lost nearly all its artillery depots containing more than 2,000 carloads of ammunition. Thus, numerical superiority in weapons and equipment passed to the Germans for a fairly long time.
The reasons for the early setbacks of the Soviet Armed Forces were many, traceable to political, economic and military factors of an international as well as domestic nature. The Soviet Government’s efforts to create a system of collective security and organise a collective rebuff to nazi aggression received no support from the ruling circles of the Western powers. Their short‑sighted policy enabled the nazis, who had been preparing for a predatory war for a long time, to conquer a number of European states one by one, substantially strengthen their strategic and economic position and build up a temporary economic and military superiority over the USSR. When nazi Germany attacked the USSR she was in control of the economic and military resources of nearly the whole of Western Europe. By June 1941 her equipment was of the latest and her troops had acquired considerable combat experience.
The Red Army had no such experience. Its officers, many newly appointed shortly before the war, had no practical experience of controlling large units and operational groups. And few had yet learned to handle properly the up‑to‑date equipment available at the outbreak of the war.
All these circumstances, favourable for Germany and unfavourable for the Soviet Union, were aggravated by the element of surprise achieved by the nazis. The attack was sudden both for the nation and the Soviet Armed Forces.
The Theses of the CC CPSU on the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution stated that “there were miscalculations in determining the time of a possible nazi attack against us, and shortcomings in the preparations for repelling the first blows”. Until the very last moment Stalin believed that he could delay the outbreak of war by political and diplomatic means. This is mentioned, in particular, by Marshal G. K. Zhukov in Reminiscences and Recollections.
Even during the last days before the nazi invasion, the Soviet Government sought to delay the outbreak of war by diplomatic means. An attempt was made on June 13, 1941, through the German Ambassador Werner Schulenburg to obtain an assurance from the leaders of nazi Germany that they would abide by their commitments under the 1939 treaty. In the evening of June 21 the Soviet Government asked the German Ambassador to say why German aircraft were frequently intruding into Soviet air space and violating the Soviet frontier. No reply was given. Some of the senior officers of the Soviet Armed Forces likewise miscalculated the possible time of a nazi invasion. Correct conclusions were not always made from the communications of intrepid Soviet intelligence men, Richard Sorge* in particular, who reported that nazi Germany was preparing to attack the USSR. As a result the Armed Forces were not fully readied for action in time.
* When military ranks were introduced by a Government decree of September 22, 1935, political officers were given the following ranks: political instructor, senior political instructor, battalion commissar, regimental commissar, brigade commissar, divisional commissar, corps commissar, and army commissars 2nd and 1st rank. The rank of senior battalion commissar was introduced on September 1, 1939. A Supreme Soviet decree of October 9, 1942, instituted the same military ranks for political as for combat officers.
The pressure on the western border military districts and the heavy losses sustained by them placed the Red Army in an exceedingly difficult position. The breakdown of communications with troops at the firing lines and with subordinate headquarters deprived commanders and staffs at all levels, GHQ and the General Staff included, of the possibility of receiving regular reports from the fighting units.
The Soviet forces had no continuous line of defence. The swift enemy drives prevented them from digging in along tenable positions. The enemy, who had compact forces in the main directions, was thus able, as a rule, to keep the initiative and, all too often, encircle Soviet troops.
The Red Army was poorly equipped with vehicles, and this affected its mobility. Troops were brought up with delays to deployment areas and moved too slowly when it was wiser to evade an enemy blow. The nazis, on the other hand, were amply supplied with vehicles and were highly mobile. Another factor adversely affecting the operations of the Soviet troops was that before the war the accent in combat training had been on offensive tactics. However, in the initial stage of the war, the situation was such that the Red Army had to fight defensive battles and acquire the necessary experience of repulsing a powerful enemy in savage fighting.
Those were the main factors operating against the Red Army and Navy in the initial period of the war.
The withdrawal of the Soviet forces from the frontier areas disrupted the planned mobilisation of material and manpower resources for the requirements of the war. Huge numbers of people and vast material values had to be urgently evacuated to the eastern regions. The situation was desperate—and it was not possible to carry out this task in full, with the result that there was a temporary diminution of the country’s military and economic potential.
The great Bolshevik Party, created and reared by Lenin, found in itself the strength and ability to surmount the consequences of mistakes and mobilise the Soviet people for organised resistance.
2. First Steps of The Party
As soon as war broke out the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) took urgent steps to organise nation‑wide resistance to the enemy. The Politbureau considered and approved an appeal to the people in connection with the nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. This appeal was broadcast at 12 o’clock on June 22 by V. M. Molotov. The mobilisation of able‑bodied citizens born in the period 1905‑18 got under way. A state of emergency was proclaimed in a number of republics and regions.
The Party Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars passed a decision defining the war‑time tasks of Party and Government bodies. A joint Party and Government directive to Party and Government bodies in the war‑affected areas, dated June 29, was the basic document, the main points of which were also set out by Stalin in a radio speech on July 3. Stating that mortal danger threatened the country, the directive called on the nation to switch to a war‑time footing in the shortest possible time and fight for every inch of Soviet territory.
* Richard Sorge, citizen of the USSR, member of the CPSU(B) and grand‑nephew of Friedrich Sorge, prominent leader of the international working‑class movement and pupil and associate of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.
** With the exclusion of those resident in Central Asia, the Transbaikal area and the Soviet Far East.
While rallying resistance, the Party did not conceal the difficulty of fighting the strong and treacherous enemy. It emphasised that victory would come only if the nation mustered all its strength and redoubled its vigilance. Also, it demanded that the nation make a realistic appraisal of its strength and of the enemy’s potentials because, it pointed out, lack of confidence bred confusion and panic.
Importance was attached to launching a partisan movement in nazi‑occupied territory. The Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) issued orders to Party, Government and trade union organisations in the war‑affected areas to take the lead in the people’s struggle behind enemy lines. Where Soviet troops withdrew, these orders said, it was up to them to ensure that no locomotives, carriages, grain or fuel fell into nazi hands.
The Party and Government appeal had a visible impact. To a man, Soviet people voiced support of the programme. The flow of volunteers to the Armed Forces increased.
Love of country gave impetus to a mass movement for civil defence. Vigilance battalions were formed at factories, collective and state farms and offices to fight spies, saboteurs and air‑dropped infiltrators. Self‑defence units learned the craft of war after working hours.
The prime economic task was to put the economy on a war‑time footing in the shortest possible time, to supply the Army with the needed arms and equipment, notably tanks and planes.
At the very outset of the war the Party Central Committee placed the members and alternate members of the Politbureau in charge of various sections: military, economic and ideological. One‑third of the members and alternate members of the Central Committee and also many secretaries of regional and territorial committees and Party central committees of the Union republics were appointed to political posts in the Armed Forces. They included L. I. Brezhnev, M. A. Burmistenko, A. A. Zhdanov, A. A. Kuznetsov, A. P. Matveyev, P. K. Ponomarenko, M. A. Suslov, N. S. Khrushchev and A. S. Shcherbakov. Altogether 47,000 leading Party, Government, trade union and Komsomol functionaries were mobilised to enlarge the officers’ corps of the Army and Navy. Central Committee Secretary A. A. Andreyev and Central Committee members M. I. Kalinin, Y. E. Kalnberzin, A. N. Kosygin, O. V. Kuusinen, V. A. Malyshev, D. Z. Manuilsky, A. I. Mikoyan, M. G. Pervukhin, V. P. Potyomkin, A. I. Shakhurin, N. M. Shvernik, I. F. Tevosyan, V. V. Vakhrushev, B. L. Vannikov, N. A. Voznesensky, Y. M. Yaroslavsky, A. I. Yefremov, R. S. Zemlyachka, A. G. Zverev and others were charged with building up Red Army reserves, evacuation and the reorganisation of the economy.
To secure operational guidance of the armed struggle and of the work behind the firing lines, the Party and Government altered the structure of their various bodies, adapting them to war‑time conditions. Prompted by Civil War experience, the Party accentuated centralisation in government and demanded that all its organisations bear greater responsibility in matters of state.
All power was concentrated in one body capable of co‑ordinating the efforts of the front and rear and quickly adopting and giving effect to decisions. This extraordinary body, the State Defence Committee, headed by Stalin, was formed on June 30, 1941, by decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the Party Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars, with several new all‑Union commissariats, administrations and committees set up to secure better operational guidance.
Lower‑echelon Party organisations were refashioned to make them more dynamic, and they assumed important tasks in the political and economic spheres. The Central Committee also laid a strong accent on educational and ideological work among the people, encouraging initiative and urging activists of local Party, government and trade union organisations to concert their efforts. The drive improved Party guidance in all economic, military and ideological fields.
Local government bodies were vehicles for the Party programme of mobilising all available forces to repulse the enemy. Much attention was devoted to military matters, enlisting civilians to man local anti‑aircraft defences, ensure chemical defence and generally prepare for the eventualities of war. It was up to them, too, to care for the families of frontline soldiers, for war invalids and pensioners.
The trade unions helped the Communist Party mobilise the working class, and played an important part, hand‑in‑hand with the economic bodies and public organisations, in training personnel. They took the lead in the socialist emulation movement started by the people, assuring the speedy fulfilment of war orders and encouraging the patriotic movement for fulfilling double and triple daily assignments. They also showed continuous concern for the living conditions and cultural needs of workers in the rear.
The Komsomol helped the Party in every possible way. Its membership of more than ten million responded to the Party call, devoting themselves to the war effort. On the second day of the war, the Komsomol Central Committee defined the tasks of its local branches and called on all Komsomol members to display vigilance, cohesion and firm discipline, urging them to be prepared to fight for their country with dedication. Throughout the country young men and women were eager to enlist in the Army or work at the war factories, devoting their strength and vast store of energy to the war effort.
Soviet women made a priceless contribution, learning difficult trades and replacing their husbands, sons and brothers at the work benches. They did splendid work in the factories and on the farms. Schoolchildren, most of them Young Pioneers, displayed lofty patriotism, many enrolling in vocational schools or learning a trade directly in the factory shop.
The Communist Party’s giant political and organisational effort provided impetus for mass heroism at the front and inspired Soviet people behind the firing lines. The guiding role of the Party and its closeness to the people were an earnest that the ordeal of war would be overcome and that the enemy would pay dearly for the grief and suffering of the people, the war‑ravaged cities and gutted villages.
3. The Battle of Smolensk
At the price of tremendous effort, the Red Army slowed the enemy advance in the main directions. By July 10 the front had been stabilised, at least for a brief spell, running somewhat north of the southern borderof Estonia in the northwestern direction along a line north of Pjarnu-Tartu and the Velikaya River, and in the centre along the Dnieper, while in the southwestern direction the enemy was halted at the approaches to Kiev.
The German General Staff believed that the Soviet Command had not more than 66 combatworthy divisions at its disposal along the entire front (with the exception of the Finnish sector). It was sure that it had triple numerical superiority over the Red Army and that this would allow it, fully in accordance with the Barbarossa plan, to conduct a non-stop offensive in all three main directions: Leningrad, Smolensk-Moscow and Kiev. The nazi leadership overrated its own forces and underrated the Red Army’s ability to resist. In mid-July the enemy had a numerical superiority of nearly 3:2 over the Red Army, and he was better equipped. But the Red Army was strong enough to contain the powerful enemy pressure for a long time and thereby disrupt his plans for a blitzkrieg.
The Soviet Command had reason to believe that the enemy would continue his offensive along a broad front, but concentrated mainly on organising defences in the Smolensk-Moscow sector. Counter-action there was planned to eliminate the threat of an enemy breakthrough to Moscow and inhibit the offensive ability of the nazis in other directions.
The hostilities expanded to immense proportions. Events developed rapidly. It was difficult for General Headquarters to control the troops directly. On July 10, therefore, the State Defence Committee passed a decision forming three main commands: Northwestern (commander— K. Y. Voroshilov; member of the Military Council—A. A. Zhdanov), assigned to control the Northern and Northwestern fronts and the Northern and Baltic fleets; Western (commander—S. K. Timoshenko; member of the Military Council—N. A. Bulganin), controlling the Western Front and the Pinsk Naval Flotilla; and Southwestern (commander—S. M. Budyonny; member of the Military Council—N. S. Khrushchev), controlling the Southwestern and Southern fronts and the Black Sea Fleet. These commands had to co-ordinate the fronts operating in the corresponding strategic area. The same decision converted High Command General Headquarters into Supreme Command General Headquarters. The members of GHQ were J. V. Stalin (Chairman), V. M. Molotov, Marshals S. K. Timoshenko, S. M. Budyonny, K. Y. Voroshilov and B. M. Shaposhnikov, and the Chief of the General Staff General G. K. Zhukov.
In preparing for the coming battles the State Defence Committee substantially changed the structure of the Army formations and units. Particular attention was devoted to bolstering the morale and political awareness of the troops. All the efforts of the Party and political apparatus in the Army and Navy were directed towards this end. Extensive work was started to form and train reserve armies and special units.
At the beginning of July the Smolensk direction was covered by troops of the Western Front, of which Marshal Timoshenko assumed command on July 2. In effect, it was a new Front formed of armies of the GHQ Reserve. Five of them (22nd, 19th, 20th, 13th and 21st) were deployed along a wide front from Idritsa in the north to Rechitsa in the south. Part of the 4th Army was withdrawing from Bobruisk into the sector held by the 13th and 21st armies, commanded respectively by Generals V. F. Gerasimenko and F. I. Kuznetsov. General M. F. Lukin’s 16th Army of the GHQ Reserve was moving towards Smolensk.
Facing the Western Front was Army Group Centre and part of the nazi 16th Army, with 28 divisions, including nine panzer and six motorised divisions, and one motorised brigade, in the first echelon, while thesecond echelon (34 divisions and two brigades) advanced to the middle reaches of the Western Dvina and the Dnieper after the battles west of Minsk.
When the battle for Smolensk began, the balance on the Western Dvina-Dnieper line was still tilted in favour of the nazis. The enemy had a nearly 2:1 advantage in manpower, 2.4:1 in guns and mortars and as much as 4:1 in the air. In tanks, however, the ratio was 1.3:1 in favour of the Red Army.
When they mounted the offensive, the nazis thought the Western Front had no more than 11 divisions against Army Group Centre. But this was a serious miscalculation. The Western Front was much stronger, and several reserve armies were deployed behind the battle-lines, going into action effectively at the end of the battle for Smolensk and stemming the German drive against Moscow.
On July 10, the 2nd and 3rd Panzer groups struck from the vicinity of Vitebsk at Dukhovshchina and from south of Orsha at Yelnya. The left flank of the 3rd Panzer Group advanced from north of Polotsk towards Velikiye Luki, and the right flank of the 2nd Panzer Group from south of Mogilev towards Krichev-Roslavl. They intended to dismember the Front, envelop the 19th, 20th and 16th armies covering Smolensk, and capture the city.
The battle gained in intensity. The Germans pounded at narrow sectors, driving deep wedges into the Soviet lines at Polotsk, Vitebsk and north and south of Mogilev, compelling the right wing of the Western Front to roll back to Nevel.
In the heavy fighting for Mogilev, part of the 13th Army (four infantry divisions and the remnants of the 20th Mechanised Corps) was surrounded. General F. A. Bakunin, commander of the 61st Corps, assumed command and organised a perimeter defence. A succession of enemy attacks was heroically repulsed until July 26. Jointly with the right-flank divisions of the 21st Army, which counter-attacked towards Mogilev from the south, Soviet troops pinned down part of the nazi 46th and 24th motorised corps, 2nd Panzer Group, and inflicted heavy losses.
While the nazis pressed their attack east of the Dnieper, the 21st Army, Western Front, struck back on July 13. L. G. Petrovsky’s 63rd Infantry Corps was committed in the main direction, forcing the Dnieper with other units, recapturing Rogachev and Zhlobin, and advancing northwest towards Bobruisk.
The staunchness of the Soviet troops in defence and their determined counter-blows are recorded in the feats of thousands of men of all ranks and of entire units. The ground troops were effectively supported by the Air Force, reinforced with planes from the GHQ Reserve and long-range bombers. Soviet artillery acquitted itself splendidly. At the beginning of the Smolensk battle the Red Army was supplied with rocket launchers, whose devastating effect was a surprise for the enemy. The first such rocket assault was made on July 14 at Orsha by Captain J. A. Flerov’s battery. The new weapon was fondly christened ‘““Katyusha” by the Soviet soldiers.
Partisans rendered the Red Army effective assistance. The Party organisation of Byelorussia, active in the Western Front sector, built up a powerful partisan force and organised a Party underground behind the enemy lines. On June 30 and July 1, 1941, the Central Committee of the Byelorussian Communist Party issued two successive directives, instructing local Party organisations to form underground Party groups and partisan detachments. Underground (three-man) centres appeared almostovernight in 80 districts and towns in Eastern Byelorussia and in Pinsk Region. The Central Committee of the Communist. Party of Byelorussia and the regional committees had left some 1,200 Communists behind the enemy lines for this purpose. By August 1 more than 12,000 partisans were fighting the enemy in Byelorussia. One of the areas in which they were active was Oktyabrsky District, Polessye Region. ‘German tanks appeared in our area one day in July,” T. P. Bumazhkov, commander of the Krasny Oktyabr detachment, subsequently recalled. “They were heading for the river with the objective of crossing it and capturing the district centre. That was when we went into action. At an opportune moment we blew up the bridge and opened up on the enemy with machineguns and rifles. Hand-grenades landed under the tank tracks. We put to good use also our incendiary bottles. The tanks did not get across the river.”
The Soviet thrust towards Bobruisk, hooking round the large enemy force at Mogilev, alarmed the Army Group Centre Command. To repulse the threat, it withdrew several divisions and regiments from other sectors, reinforcing them with reserves to block the 21st Army. All the same, eight nazi infantry divisions took a bad beating.
Bitter fighting continued in the central sector against the group heading for Smolensk. The 20th Army, whose flanks were harassed from Vitebsk and Orsha, made a succession of counter-attacks but failed to halt the nazi 9th Army, which entered Smolensk on July 16.
The threat of a German breakthrough to Moscow mounted steadily. Although Smolensk had fallen, the fighting to the east of it raged for nearly a month longer along a wide sector.
While the fighting for Smolensk was still at its height, GHQ began reinforcing the Western Front with reserves. An echelon of reserve armies (29th, 30th, 24th, 28th, 3lst and 32nd) was deployed in its rear with orders to hold the Staraya Russa-Bryansk line.
In the latter half of July the fighting in and east of Smolensk gained in fury. Everywhere the enemy came up against stiff resistance. On July 18 GHQ formed the Mozhaisk Defensive Line Front west of Volokolamsk, Mozhaisk, Maloyaroslavets. It was manned by the 32nd, 33rd and 34th armies, whose task was to prepare the defences at the distant approaches to Moscow. It was under the control of the Moscow Military District Command. On July 23 the Western Front hit strongly from around Roslavl in a northwesterly direction towards Pochinok. On July 24 and 25 thrusts followed from south of Bely and Yartsevo. By July 27 the 16th Army assisted by the 20th had driven the Germans back to Smolensk, recapturing the northern part of the city. The enemy pummelled the flanks of the 16th and 20th armies, surrounded them and brought them to a halt. After heavy fighting many units of these armies broke out of the enemy ring and linked up with the Front’s main forces at their starting positions.
While Army Group Centre rolled forward, the Luftwaffe raided Moscow, seeking to put its industries out of operation, paralyse life, crush morale and help the panzer divisions gain possession of the city. The first air-raid was at night, July 21-22, but was effectively repulsed. Later raiders were also driven back. Between July 22 and October 1, Moscow’s anti-aircraft forces warded off 36 attacks.
Heavy fighting was in progress also on the left wing of the Western Front, between the Dnieper and the Berezina. In late July a successful Soviet offensive towards Bobruisk-Slutsk imperilled the flank of Army Group Centre’s main force. This sector thus gained considerable importance, and GHQ formed a Central Front there on July 24, consistingof the 13th and 21st armies. General F. I. Kuznetsov was put in command, with P. K. Ponomarenko as the Front’s member of the Military Council.
To firm up the defences in the Western sector GHQ issued an order on July 30 forming a Reserve Front consisting of the 34th, 31st, 24th, 43rd, 32nd and 33rd armies, which were deployed along the Rzhev-Vyazma line.
At the end of July the enemy blocked the Soviet thrust at Bobruisk, forcing the Red Army to draw back across the Dnieper. Northeast of Bobruisk Soviet troops held positions on the Sozh River along the line Mstislavl-Krichev until August 1 and Krichev-Propoisk until August 8. The Red Army was also still in possession of areas on the western bank of the Dnieper north and south of Rechitsa. The Western Front inflicted heavy losses on Army Group Centre and compelled the main nazi strike force to disperse.
Resistance also increased on the flanks of the Soviet-German front. The line in Karelia was stabilised, while Army Group South was pinned down along the Dnieper at the approaches to Kiev.
On July 30, after much hesitation, the nazi Command ordered Army Group Centre to halt its drive to Moscow and assume the defensive. This signalled a new stage in the fighting for the nazi troops. The enemy’s main effort shifted from the central sector to the flanks. In contravention of Operation Barbarossa, the 2nd Panzer Group and the 2nd Army veered south from their original eastward route, striking at the rear of the Southwestern Front, which had dug in along the Dnieper.
Early in August GHQ* still thought that the main German force would make an effort to capture Moscow. It expected the enemy to try and outflank the main forces of the Western Front after its head-on blow had failed, and ordered the Western Command to hold the Velikiye Luki and Gomel salients, retain the pincers round Army Group Centre’s positions and continue to pound the main nazi forces.
On August 14 GHQ decided to form the Bryansk Front in order to repulse possible assaults by the enemy 2nd Panzer Group northeastward on Moscow via Bryansk or southeastward into the rear of the Southwestern Front’s Kiev group. This new front (commander—General A. I. Yeremenko; member of the Military Council—Divisional Commissar P. I. Mazepov) consisted of the 50th and 13th armies and the units of the Central Front dissolved on August 25.
Throughout August and in early September the Western and Reserve fronts struck counter-blows at various points. There was particularly heavy fighting in the environs of Yelnya, which the enemy meant to hold at all costs. Yelnya was recaptured on September 6. The nazis were defeated at Dukhovshchina as well. But this costly operation exhausted the Soviet troops. In accordance with GHQ orders, the Western Front went on the defensive on September 10 and the Reserve Front on September 16.
The two months’ Battle of Smolensk ended. When Army Group Centre assumed the defensive it as much as admitted the failure of its headlong drive on Moscow. That was the main outcome of the gallant Soviet stand. Displaying unparalleled courage the Red Army not only survived the ferocious assault, but had hit back. Although in the two months Army
* On August 8, 1941, GHQ of the Supreme Command was reconstituted into GHQ of the Supreme High Command, with Stalin appointed Supreme Commander-inChief.Group Centre advanced some 170-200 kilometres east of the Dnieper, it was far short of the objectives originally envisaged.
Bitter fighting continued in August against the 2nd Panzer Group and the 2nd Army advancing towards Konotop and Chernigov. Operating against them were the Central Front units and, as of August 16, also units of the Bryansk Front.
Stiffening Soviet resistance slowed down the enemy offensive in the Smolensk direction. In July the Germans advanced an average of some six or seven kilometres a day as against 30 in the first days of the war. Enemy troops were deployed along a huge front from Velikiye Luki to Mozyr, with the main forces of the 3rd Panzer Group, which the nazis had intended to send against Leningrad, pinned down in the western direction, greatly easing the pressure on Leningrad.
For tenacity in defence and extraordinary courage in attack, four divisions of the Western direction—100th, 127th, 153rd and 161st—were renamed Guards divisions on September 18, 1941, being the first to be so distinguished. Their commanders were General I. N. Russiyanov and Colonels A. Z. Akimenko, N. A. Gagen (promoted to General on November 9) and P. F. Moskvitin, respectively. About 1,000 men were awarded Orders and medals, epitomising the mass heroism and improved combat skill of the Soviet soldiers.
Successful resistance by the Western Front was in many ways facilitated by the patriotic devotion of the people of Smolensk Region, who had helped build fortifications and air strips, and assisted in air defence. More than 50,000 collective farmers and factory and office workers came out to dig trenches daily in the course of July and August, the wounded were taken care of by civilians, and the best buildings in the area were turned into hospitals. Local Party and government bodies assisted in evacuating people, property, factory equipment, livestock and food supplies. Harvesting was made part of the war effort, with factory and office workers, students and schoolchildren helping the farmers in the field. A large part of the harvest was shipped to safety. The Smolensk Regional Party Committee, evacuated to the east of its region, supervised civilian resistance. More than twothirds of its members and more than 70 per cent of the leading Party and government officials were assigned to the Army, anti-paratroop battalions, partisan detachments and for underground work behind the enemy lines. Fifty-four partisan detachments, aggregating 1,160 men, were formed in July. On July 29 the Regional Committee took steps further to promote the partisan movement and establish underground Party cells behind the enemy lines.
4. At the approaches to Leningrad
The nazis presumed that once they captured Leningrad, Kronstadt and the Murmansk Railway they would gain complete control over the Baltic and the Extreme North, and also corner and destroy the Baltic Fleet. Moreover they expected thereby to come into possession of convenient sea and land supply lines for Army Groups North and Centre and of a springboard for hitting the Soviet forces covering Moscow.
The nation was determined to hold Leningrad, the cradle of the Revolution. The Military Council of the Northern Front, in conjunction with Leningrad Party and government bodies, drafted a plan for the construction of fortifications round the city as early as the close of June. Work started at the beginning of July along a 900‑kilometre line through Pskov, Luga, Novgorod, Staraya Russa and along the Karelian Isthmus. Leningrad was to be girdled by a deep system of defences. Civilians helped the troops, hundreds of thousands coming out daily in July and August. Ten civil guard divisions were formed, while dozens of partisan detachments of Leningrad volunteers harassed the enemy behind the lines. Arms were made day and night at the factories. After shifts, the workers learned to handle weapons, and formed anti‑paratroop battalions.
Early in July fighting broke out at the distant approaches to Leningrad. The Northwestern Front, holding a sector 455 kilometres long, had 31 divisions, 22 of them depleted by more than 50 per cent, and two brigades facing Army Group North’s 21 divisions. To avert an enemy breakthrough to Leningrad, GHQ deployed part of the Northern Front from the south along the line from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ilmen. The outermost natural barrier covering Leningrad in the south was the Luga River, but when the Germans attacked the planned fortifications along its banks were not yet completed. The Luga Operational Group (six infantry divisions, two civil guard divisions, two Leningrad Military Schools and a separate mountain brigade) under General K. P. Piadyshev was swiftly moved there, digging in along the Mshaga River and a line near the town of Luga. A strong artillery group under Colonel G. F. Odintsov was brought in for support.
On July 12, the German 41st Motorised Corps, which drove along the Leningrad Highway towards Luga, was met by concentrated shellfire and halted. Moving part of the troops secretly southeast of Kingisepp, the enemy crossed the Luga and captured two bridgeheads on its right bank. Heavy fighting ensued. Soviet troops fought with unyielding tenacity. Cadets of a Leningrad military school and the 2nd Civil Guard Division repulsed fierce attacks and mounted a series of counter‑assaults in a gallant attempt to drive the nazis back across the Luga. Yet, at a heavy price, the Germans clung on to their bridgeheads. Signalmen of the 22nd Infantry Corps, which defended the important Dno railway junction, displayed supreme heroism in the fighting at the approaches to Luga. On July 17 a handful of signalmen hurled back all the enemy attacks in the course of several hours. The senior officer was A. K. Meri, deputy political instructor of the 415th Battalion’s radio company, who, despite his wounds, continued directing the battle. Several score of the enemy were killed. Meri was created Hero of the Soviet Union.
Enemy motorised forces appeared west of Shimsk in the Novgorod direction on July 14. The 11th Army, defending the area, engaged them at Soltsi with air support, and flung them back 40 kilometres in four days of fighting. The 8th Panzer Division broke out of a Soviet ring with heavy losses, and was out of action for a month; rear units of the nazi 56th Motorised Corps were also badly mauled. Thus, the German threat to Novgorod was temporarily lifted.
Stunned by the Soviet operation, the nazi Command on July 19 halted the offensive on Leningrad until the main forces of Army Group North could reach the Luga. Until August 10 the front along the river was stable.
The Finnish offensive on Petrozavodsk and Olonets began on July 10. General F. D. Gorelenko’s 7th Army resisted stoutly and brought the enemy to a halt by July 30.
Developments in Estonia were less favourable. The 8th Army under General F. S. Ivanov held the line Pärnu‑Tartu‑Lake Chudskoye until July 22. But with three additional divisions shifted to the Estonian border, the Germans breached this line, reaching the Gulf of Finland near Kunda on August 7. The 8th Army was cut in two, the 11th Infantry Corps retreating under fire to Narva and the 10th Infantry Corps to Tallinn. The defence of Tallinn, the main Baltic naval base, was organised by the Military Council of the Baltic Fleet (commander—Admiral V. F. Tributs; member of the Military Council—Divisional Commissar N. K. Smirnov). The 10th Corps withdrew to the city and was merged with its garrison, which was hastily putting up fortifications with the help of local workers’ detachments.
The nazis opened the battle for Tallinn on August 19 with a powerful artillery bombardment. The defenders withstood fierce enemy attacks for five days and nights, the ground troops being supported by warships, the coastal defence and aircraft of the Baltic Fleet. Coastal anti‑aircraft guns, employed as artillery supporting the infantry, performed splendidly. Men and officers of all service arms displayed extraordinary heroism, firing until they exhausted their ammunition. During the fighting round the village of Harku, the nazis captured Y. A. Nikonov of a reconnaissance unit, who was badly wounded. He was a member of the Komsomol. Unable to get any information about the Soviet forces from him, they gouged his eyes, tied him to a tree and burned him alive. Y. A. Nikonov was posthumously created Hero of the Soviet Union and entered eternally in the crew roster of the destroyer leader Minsk, on which he had served. Tallinn’s factory workers also made a heroic stand.
Towards the evening of August 24, pressed by superior enemy forces, Tallinn’s defenders withdrew to the city proper. In view of the highly unfavourable situation and needing all available forces to defend Leningrad, on August 26 the Northwestern Command ordered the fleet and garrison of Tallinn to withdraw to Kronstadt and Leningrad.
Steaming out of Tallinn harbour, the warships and transports were shelled from shore, attacked at sea by torpedo‑boats and strafed and bombed from the air. The fleet sailed without air cover through the heavily‑mined waters of the gulf. Yet thanks to the courage and seamanship of their crews, none of the warships was sunk by the Luftwaffe, while the German torpedo‑boats were repulsed by gunfire. After dark a new peril, floating mines, had to be faced. The mine‑sweepers were too few to ensure safety for the many ships. As a result 53 of the 197 ships, troop transports and auxiliary vessels were lost. On August 29, the main fleet arrived in Kronstadt and Leningrad, bringing most of the garrison. The enemy intention of destroying the Baltic Fleet was thus thwarted.
With the loss of Tallinn the situation in the Baltic Sea deteriorated. The off‑shore islands were virtually abandoned, though in Hanko and on some of the islands the garrisons continued to resist.
The Finnish troops were the first to mount the offensive against Leningrad. They attacked General P. S. Pshennikov’s 23rd Army along the Karelian Isthmus on July 31, and on August 8 a German strike force thrust in the direction of Kingisepp. Two days later a southern group went into action against Novgorod, a support group against Luga, and Finnish troops north of Lake Ladoga.
On the Karelian Isthmus after a month of heavy fighting the 23rd Army rolled back to the 1939 frontier, holding it until the summer of 1944. General K. A. Meretskov’s 7th Army, supported by the Ladoga Flotilla, fought a two‑months’‑long battle with the Finnish group advancing northeast of Lake Ladoga. The enemy was finally halted on the Svir River, the sector there stabilising until the summer of 1944.
Staunch resistance frustrated the enemy attempt to break through to Leningrad. In a month, the nazis advanced no more than 60 kilometres.
A large battle broke out north of Lake Ilmen, where the enemy mounted his main blow against Leningrad. On August 12 the nazis, with nearly triple numerical superiority, breached the Soviet defences at Shimsk, capturing Novgorod on August 19.
From Novgorod the Germans launched a strong thrust at Chudovo. But the Soviet 34th Army and part of the 11th Army, with strong air support, delivered a sudden northwesterly counter‑blow from south of Staraya Russa, advancing nearly 60 kilometres by the evening of August 14, investing the enemy’s right flank at Staraya Russa and threatening his rear at Novgorod.
This compelled the nazis to shift motorised troops from Novgorod and Luga to the Staraya Russa area and redeploy the main forces of the 8th Air Corps. The nazi 39th Motorised Corps was brought in from Smolensk. As a result, the scales again tilted in the enemy’s favour. Barely blocking nazi thrusts, the 34th Army withdrew to the Lovat River by August 25. The threat to Leningrad increased. General Headquarters responded to the peril on August 23 by dividing the Northern Front into the Karelian and Leningrad fronts and assigning the latter to defend the city proper.
On August 25 a German force renewed the advance on Leningrad from Chudovo. It reached Kolpino on August 29, but was stopped by the 55th Army (under General I. G. Lazarev). Leningrad’s civil guard units fought heroically together with the 55th Army.
On September 8 the nazis crossed the Mga River, captured Schlisselburg (Petrokrepost), and blockaded Leningrad from the mainland. The nazi ring enclosed the 42nd, 55th and 23rd armies, as well as units of the Baltic Fleet. Contact with Leningrad was maintained solely across Lake Ladoga and by air, which made defending the city doubly difficult. On reaching Schlisselburg, the Germans tried to cross the Neva and make contact with the Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus, but were repulsed.
On September 9 a new offensive on Leningrad began, with the main blow aimed from the south in a northerly direction from west of Krasnogvardeisk. Before starting the assault the enemy heavily shelled and bombed the city. The situation was extremely tense. The Germans broke through to the city’s approaches, and to stiffen the defences the Leningrad Front Command, which had been taken over by General G. K. Zhukov on September 13, drew up a new plan. On Zhukov’s orders some units were transferred from the Karelian Isthmus to the most threatened sectors, reserve units were reinforced with volunteers, and a large number of sailors was transferred from the ships to shore duty. The Front Command took the resolute step of using part of the city’s anti‑aircraft guns against tanks. The powerful defence line held by the 42nd Army, supported by the fire power of land artillery, naval vessels and the coastal defence, was now impregnable. A bold manoeuvre aimed at striking a strong counter‑blow was planned in the sector of the 8th Army.
In the course of nine days of uninterrupted fighting in the vicinity of Krasnogvardeisk, General I. I. Fedyuninsky’s 42nd Army wore down the enemy, stopping him along the Ligovo‑Pulkovo line on September 18. However, the situation deteriorated in the sector of the 8th Army. By mid‑September, despite desperate resistance, the Germans had reached the Gulf of Finland near Strelna and cut off the depleted units of the 8th Army from the main force. That was the origin of the Oranienbaum beachhead, which played an important part in defending Leningrad and, later, in smashing the besieging enemy force.
The sector at the approaches to Leningrad was finally stabilised at the close of September. The city was besieged by nazi troops, whose flanks had reached the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. All of Leningrad’s land communications with the rest of the country were severed. But the enemy failed to capture the city. The State Defence Committee and GHQ kept a close watch on developments in the Leningrad sector and took the necessary steps to prevent the enemy from entering the city. Skilful leadership by GHQ and the heroism of Leningrad’s defenders gave the operations the nature of a battle of attrition.
On failing to capture Leningrad, the enemy decided to bring its defenders to their knees by a long siege, methodical shelling and continuous air‑raids. A report to Operational Headquarters of the German High Command, dated September 21, said among other things: “…b) At first we shall blockade Leningrad (hermetically), and, if possible, destroy the city by artillery and air…. d) The remainder of the ‘fortress garrison’ will stay there for the winter. In spring we shall penetrate into the city … and ship all survivors to the heart of Russia, or shall take them prisoner, raze Leningrad to the ground and give the area north of the Neva to Finland.”
This monstrous plan was frustrated by the heroic efforts of the Soviet troops and the people of Leningrad, who were deeply conscious throughout the ordeal of the continuous concern shown for them by the Communist Party and the country as a whole.
At the approaches to Leningrad ground troops fought in close co‑operation with the Air Force, the Baltic Fleet and the Chudskoye and Ladoga flotillas.
More than 4,300 enemy planes took part in the raids on Leningrad in July‑September, but in all only 508 bombers broke through to the city. As many as 312 enemy planes were shot down in air battles.
Warships of the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga Flotilla ferried troops to the city from the coast of Lake Ladoga, the Vyborg Bay and Oranienbaum. By the autumn of 1941 the Baltic Fleet Command began to form naval brigades, separate detachments and battalions to help defend Leningrad. These units numbered some 80,000 men.
The Baltic Fleet performed independent missions as well. It protected islands of the Moonsund Archipelago and drove off enemy ships trying to enter the Riga and Finnish gulfs. Soviet submarines raiding the enemy’s Baltic supply lines operated via the Moonsund Islands, and island‑based bombers raided Germany. On the night of August 7‑8 Baltic Fleet bombers under Colonel Y. N. Preobrazhensky took off from Saaremaa (Ezel) Island for Berlin. Before September 4, 1941, Soviet planes made a series of raids on the German capital, debunking the nazi claim that the Soviet Air Force had been destroyed.
The nazi Command was determined to capture the Moonsund Islands and gain control of the Baltic Sea. On September 8 a nazi force landed on Vormsi Island and on September 14 on Muhu, connected by a dam with the island of Saaremaa. For ten days the Soviet troops retreated slowly under fire to Sirve Peninsula, where the battle raged for another fortnight.
On the night of October 5‑6, under cover of darkness, the garrison crossed from the peninsula in motorboats, fishing vessels and rafts to the Latvian shore, leaving behind only a tiny rearguard.
Early in the morning, on October 12, the enemy landed a task force simultaneously at several points on Hiiumaa Island. Its defenders fought staunchly for 10 days, then over 500 troops withdrew by sea to Hanko Peninsula, while some forces pulled back into the heart of the island and continued resistance in the enemy’s rear.
The nazi grip on the Gulf of Finland tightened, complicating the situation for the Hanko garrison, which displayed great courage, standing its ground under General S. I. Kabanov until orders were received to withdraw. Between October 26 and December 2 the Baltic Fleet secretly evacuated more than 22,000 troops together with their armaments to Leningrad and Kronstadt, whose garrison and the naval vessels rebased there harassed the enemy throughout the period from 1941 to 1944.
In the Extreme North the enemy was engaged by the Karelian Front (commander—General V. A. Frolov; member of the Military Council—A. S. Zheltov). The ground troops covering Murmansk were supported by seamen of the Northern Fleet under Admiral A. G. Golovko (member of the Military Council—A. A. Nikolayev). The fleet also operated independently off‑shore. As many as 260 transports and hundreds of coastal ships worked the internal lines in 1941, with 53 transports from Britain putting into Soviet northern ports.
Submarines, the main attack force of the Northern Fleet, sank more than 30 enemy warships, totalling about 100,000 tons, before the end of 1941. The fleet contributed greatly to the defence of the Extreme North and ensured uninterrupted communications, guarding important military convoys.
5. The Battles in the South
In the middle of July 1941 the Southwestern Front fought hard defensive engagements south of Polessye, at the approaches to Korosten and Kiev, while the Southern Front blocked an enemy drive in Moldavia.
The Southwestern and Southern fronts faced the main forces of Army Group South, 64 nazi divisions and 16 brigades assaulting the depleted 5th, 6th, 12th, 18th, 26th, and 9th armies. In the Southwestern theatre, the enemy had a 2:1 advantage in men, guns and mortars, and a 1.5:1 advantage in aircraft, the advantage being considerably greater in the areas of the main blow.
Bitter fighting was in progress all along the sector held by the Southwestern and Southern fronts, the situation near Kiev being most desperate.
On July 7, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukraine, its Council of People’s Commissars and the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee called on the Ukrainian people to perform their civic duty. The influx of volunteers into the Red Army and the civil guard swelled greatly as more than 200,000 Kiev citizens joined the ranks. The city’s Party organisations sent more than 30,000 Communists to the Armed Forces. Kiev’s civil guard had 29,000 men by mid‑July, and there were more than 60,000 in Kiev Region. Anti‑paratroop groups totalling over 200,000 men were formed.
Squads were trained to fight behind the enemy lines. On July 5 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine issued a decision to form partisan detachments and underground groups in districts likely to fall into enemy hands. In Kiev alone, 11 partisan detachments were organised, with nearly 1,800 men.
Young workers and students responded enthusiastically. More than 13,000 young men and women joined the Army and 1,500 joined partisan detachments. Some 2,500 girls went to the Front as nurses, and nearly 3,500 people became blood donors.
On July 11 enemy motorised troops drove forward, but were stopped some 15‑20 kilometres from the city on the Irpen River along prepared lines, where they were held for more than two months. A new army, the 37th, which bore the brunt of the fighting, was formed in the Kiev area.
Troops operating north and south of Kiev helped stem the assault. The Soviet 5th Army, operating from Korosten, was particularly effective. The Germans deployed eight divisions in an effort to neutralise it. Continuous Soviet counter‑attacks on the right wing of the Southwestern Front from the Korosten and Kiev fortified districts, helped by Kiev’s civil guard, pinned down the German 6th Army and the main forces of the 1st Panzer Group.
On August 10 Army Group South went on the defensive along the Korosten‑Kiev line. On the left wing, however, the enemy continued to advance to Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye. Fighting costly rearguard actions, the Soviet 6th and 12th armies retreated to the east and southeast. The main forces of the 1st Panzer Group jointly with the German 17th Army succeeded in cutting the route of the two Soviet armies on August 2 and closed the pincers in the vicinity of Uman. Surrounded, the Soviet armies fought heroically up to August 7, with resistance continuing here and there until August 13. Some units broke out of the pocket, many others joined the partisans, but thousands of men fell in battle and large numbers were taken prisoner.
The Southern Front was in considerable difficulties, the situation deteriorating when the Rumanian 4th Army breached the lines of the 9th Army under General Y. T. Cherevichenko to the west of Tiraspol. GHQ ordered the Front to withdraw to rear defensive lines, while the left‑wing divisions of the 9th Army, which had been cut off from the Front’s main forces, were formed into a Separate Maritime Army under General G. P. Sofronov. At the same time GHQ reinforced the units operating in the Southwestern theatre with 24 newly formed divisions.
On August 4 Stalin had ordered the Southwestern and Southern fronts to form a strong defence line along the Dnieper up to Kremenchug, embracing the Kiev area, and running farther through Krivoi Rog, Kakhovka and Kherson. Throughout August the Germans made repeated attempts to capture Kiev and force the Dnieper in the sector held by the Southwestern Front. The German Command then wheeled a considerable force southward, so as to strike the flank and rear of the Southern Front. The Soviet Command opportunely got wind of the enemy’s intention of detouring Kiev from the north and south. On August 19, GHQ passed this information on to the Military Council of the Southwestern sector and the commanders of the Southwestern and Southern fronts, ordering them to hold the Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk districts and cover the areas of the Ukraine along the eastern bank of the Dnieper and also the Donets Basin and the North Caucasus.
The enemy delivered several blows at the junction of the 9th and Separate Maritime armies, compelling the former to pull back east, to crossings on the Southern Bug at Nikolayev and the Separate Maritime Army to retreat south to Odessa.
When the enemy reached the Dnieper on August 25‑30 the Southwestern and Southern fronts found themselves in a desperate position. The nazis could now effect a deep pincer movement from around Kremenchug, hitting the rear of the Southwestern Front and driving the Southern Front to the Black and Azov seas. A threatening situation arose at the junction of the two fronts. Moreover, developments in the sectors held by the Central and Bryansk fronts added to the complications at Kiev and in the territory to the east of the Dnieper.
The German 2nd Army and 2nd Panzer Group had mounted an offensive towards Gomel and Starodub on August 8 in an effort to outflank the Southwestern Front. Exhausted by long defensive battles, Central Front units rolled back. In this situation GHQ ordered General A. I. Yeremenko, Bryansk Front commander, to attack the flank of Guderian’s panzer group, which was advancing southward. General Yeremenko assured Stalin and the Chief of the General Staff Marshal B. M. Shaposhnikov that the enemy panzer group would be destroyed. But all of the Bryansk Front’s attempts to carry out these orders fell short of the objective: it failed to prevent the enemy from gaining the rear of the Southwestern Front. An air operation by a relatively small force of planes against the 2nd Panzer Group proved ineffective. Reserves of the Southwestern Front, deployed to block the nazi troops, failed to change the situation. On September 7 German tanks reached Konotop, east of the Dnieper, while other enemy units were highly active along the entire sector held by the Southwestern Front. Southeast of Kremenchug several divisions of the German 17th Army forced the Dnieper and by September 9 captured a large bridgehead.
The Southwestern Command realised that the disaster looming on the right wing could not be averted with the available forces. Large additional strength was needed to restore a continuous front. However, neither the Front Command nor General Headquarters had the necessary reserves. The sole alternative was to withdraw immediately from the Kiev salient and dig in more strongly along some favourable line. Stalin rejected the Southwestern Command’s plan of September 11 and, instead, ordered that Kiev should be held at any price. S. M. Budyonny, who had been in command, was replaced by S. K. Timoshenko, who assumed his duties on September 13, when enemy troops advancing from north and south had straddled the communication lines of the Southwestern Front in and south of Konotop. The 5th, 37th and 26th armies, as well as part of the 21st and 38th armies, found themselves encircled. The surrounded units continued to put up a fierce resistance until September 27.
At the beginning of the Kiev operation, the Southwestern Front had 677,085 effectives. By the time it ended this number was reduced to 150,541 men. The losses before the encirclement and in the subsequent ten days of fighting were immense. The Pinsk Naval Flotilla, which supported the encircled units, was destroyed. Front commander General M. P. Kirponos, member of the Front Military Council M. A. Burmistenko, the Front Chief of Staff General V. I. Tupikov and most of the staff and political officers of the Front fell in the fighting. A large number of troops broke out of the enemy ring. Part of the men and officers joined the partisans, the others were taken prisoner. The number of prisoners did not exceed one‑third of the original strength of the armies that were encircled.
Kiev and part of the Ukraine east of the Dnieper were captured by the enemy as a result of this defeat inflicted on the Soviet forces. The enemy was now able to develop his offensive eastward. GHQ had no alternative but to transfer precious reserves to the Southwestern Front. With these reserves and with the 40th, the reactivated 21st and 38th armies, as well as the 6th Army transferred from the Southern Front, the Southwestern Front finally stabilised the situation along a line running through Belopolye, Lebedin, Krasnograd and Novo‑Moskovsk.
The reasons for the catastrophe suffered by the Southwestern Front are analysed in Hero‑City on the Dnieper, a book by Marshal I. K. Bagramyan, who participated in the fighting in that sector of the Front. Until the very last moment, Stalin, he writes, hoped that “units of the Bryansk Front would, in the end, smash Guderian’s panzer army”. To a certain extent this “adversely affected subsequent developments, which predetermined the tragic end of the operation conducted by units of the Southwestern Front”. Stalin’s hopes that the Bryansk Front would be successful against the enemy panzer group were “one of the serious reasons behind GHQ’s dogged reluctance to withdraw the troops of the Southwestern Front in the middle of September”. Moreover, a negative role was played by the indecision of the Southwestern Front Command and the Chief of the General Staff, who did not firmly insist on withdrawing the troops from the region of Kiev.
But the enemy, too, paid a high price, for a considerable force of Army Group Centre had been assigned to the Kiev operation. The Red Army smashed more than 10 veteran divisions, German casualties running to more than 100,000 officers and men. This won for the Red Army over a month’s precious time, upsetting the nazi plan of capturing Moscow and completing the war against the Soviet Union before the winter.
Soviet forces put up a heroic resistance in the Ukraine. They were supported by the whole people. Kiev was created a Hero‑City and decorated with the Order of Lenin, and all the veterans of the battle were awarded the medal “For the Defence of Kiev”.
Heavy fighting commenced in the Odessa area. Clashes at the city’s distant approaches broke out at the beginning of August. On August 5 the Southern Front was ordered to defend Odessa. The Separate Maritime Army (two infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade) withdrew in face of superior numbers to the suburbs of the city on August 10.
The naval forces had built a fortified ring round the port‑city some time before the enemy began his thrust. The local Party organisations had begun preparations well in advance. In response to their call, some 100,000 people assisted in building the fortifications. By the beginning of September the city was girdled with defensive installations totalling more than 250 kilometres. Inner defence zones were built within the city limits, providing cover in case of a retreat and evacuation. The streets were heavily barricaded.
Reinforced by the Separate Maritime Army, the capability of the city’s defenders was considerable. By joint efforts the army and fleet were to organise impregnable defence of the city. On August 8 the Black Sea fleet (commander—Admiral F. S. Oktyabrsky; member of the Military Council—N. M. Kulakov) formed two marine regiments, committing 8,000 seamen to the battle for Odessa. A civil guard division fought shoulder to shoulder with the regular troops and naval units. Nine out of every 10 Odessa Communists saw action.
Starting on August 10, the Rumanian 4th Army of 18 divisions with 5:1 numerical superiority mounted attack after attack to capture Odessa on the march, but made little headway. All subsequent attempts collapsed in face of the unexampled tenacity of the defenders. After August 15 the enemy halted the offensive along the Front and started heavy attacks on the flanks, to which the Soviet troops responded with counter‑blows, frustrating the nazi plan.
On August 19 the troops defending Odessa were reformed into the Odessa Defence Area under Admiral G. V. Zhukov, commander of the Odessa Naval Base. Ground troops totalled 34,500 officers and men.
On August 20 the enemy renewed his assault. With every passing day the fighting grew fiercer. For an entire month Soviet forces repulsed the successive Rumanian assaults, the enemy suffering considerable losses and halting 8‑15 kilometres from the city. On September 22 a counter‑blow flung the enemy some 15 kilometres back in the southern sector.
However, by the end of September the situation in the Southern Front sector deteriorated. Having captured a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, near Kakhovka, at the beginning of the month, the Germans started a powerful offensive towards the Crimea on September 9. Their advance units reached the Perekop Isthmus, and then Chongar Most and the Arabat confluence, cutting off the Crimea. An enemy offensive developed along the entire southern sector, rolling forward rapidly to Kharkov, the Donets Basin and Rostov.
Due to the complications in the south, the Supreme High Command issued permission on September 30 for the evacuation of the Odessa Defence Area. The withdrawal proceeded secretly, in orderly fashion, with the last warship steaming out of the port at 09.00 hours on October 16. Troops evacuated from Odessa reinforced the defence of the Crimean Peninsula.
The defence of Odessa had been militarily and politically important. The city’s defenders had pinned down more than 18 enemy divisions (nearly half the Rumanian Army) for quite a long time, inflicting heavy losses. This gave the Southern Front a chance to withdraw across the Dnieper and organise new defences. Besides, the fact that Odessa was in Soviet hands was also of help to the Navy in the northwestern part of the Black Sea. In tribute to the heroism of the city’s defenders, the Soviet Government instituted a medal, “For the Defence of Odessa”, on December 22, 1942.
On October 18 the German 11th Army started an all‑out assault on the Crimean Isthmus. The 51st Separate Army held its lines tenaciously, but the forces were unequal. Units of the Separate Maritime Army (commanded by I. Y. Petrov since October 5), hurrying to the rescue from Odessa, came late. Only advance units reached the battle area by October 23.
This was not the help the 51st Army needed. On October 25 the enemy breached its positions and compelled it to withdraw to Kerch. But it had no chance to dig in, and was evacuated to Taman Peninsula on November 16. In the meantime, the Separate Maritime Army retreated to Sevastopol, which had been prepared for defence beforehand. There, operating jointly with the Black Sea Fleet, it stood firm until the summer of 1942.
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When they started the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler and his General Staff boasted that their troops would be in Moscow in two or three weeks. They expected to consummate their eastern campaign as swiftly as their conquests in Western Europe. But the unexampled bravery of the Soviet troops upset the nazi forecasts. Contrary to what Hitler had expected, the war was clearly becoming one of attrition. The blitzkrieg plan had fallen through.
In the summer‑autumn campaign the Red Army inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, bleeding his finest divisions. The German Command hastened to modify its Operation Barbarossa. While part of the troops advanced in the Leningrad and Kiev directions, Army Group Centre went over to the defensive. In September the Red Army halted the enemy in the Extreme North, at the approaches of Leningrad and on the rivers Svir and Volkhov. The nazi offensive in the sector held by the Northwestern Front bogged down. However, after the unfavourable outcome of the Kiev operation the situation in the south remained precarious. Again, the enemy could concentrate a large force in the central direction for a thrust to Moscow. The Red Army’s main task was to stem any further advance and win time to prepare for a counter‑offensive in the decisive directions.