Stalingrad (Grossman novel)

Stalingrad is a novel by Russian writer Vasily Grossman, first published in 1952 under the title For a Just Cause. A revised English translation, including additional material from Grossman's unpublished manuscripts, was published under the author's preferred title, Stalingrad, in 2019.[1] It is a prequel to Grossman's more widely read Life and Fate.

Historical context

Most of the events of Stalingrad take place in the Soviet Union starting in the months before Nazi Germany's invasion Operation Barbarossa, and up through mid-September in the first month of the Battle of Stalingrad. Hitler's invasion was a surprise to many Soviets, because Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 (see Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941), even though Hitler's speeches had been filled with war intentions before that agreement. Huge Nazi troop buildup in the border countries was reported. Many German airplanes flew over the border SSRs on reconnaissance missions. Soviet spy Richard Sorge was able to report the German units and their invasion assignments by May 15; by June 15, he gave the actual date and time for the invasion; his information was confirmed by at least one German deserter, as well as others. Stalin, however, refused to take steps to strengthen the Ukrainian and Belarusian forces. On June 22, 1941, three million German soldiers, with 650,000 troops from Finland and Romania, achieved tactical surprise along a thousand-mile front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The famed Eastern Front (World War II) was underway, and would claim more than 35 million lives in less than four years.

The book describes the individual shock of the June 20, 1940 invasion, for many of its characters. The German invasion completely altered life for Soviets everywhere. Hour by hour, and then day by day, news reported the slashing, merciless onslaught of German blitzkrieg total war. City after city was bombed, surrounded and overrun. Whole Soviet armies were surrounded and forced to surrender. Refugees flooded the roads, many on foot. Stalin did little in the way of reinforcements for his border SSRs, even as the Germans broke through the so-called "Stalin Line". By December 5, 1941, after months of retreat, Soviet forces were backed up to within 20 miles of Moscow. The Germans and Finns surrounded Leningrad. To the south, the Germans and Romanians held most of Ukraine. Stalin called on patriotism for "the motherland", more than on "communist ideals", to encourage partizan operations to scorch the earth and disrupt the German occupation.

Stalin's reluctance to commit reserves might be explained by his recent war experiences. In 1939, Stalin and his generals had defeated a sudden invasion by Japan, in the battles of Khalkhin Gol. It was the largest tank battle in history, at the time. In 1940, Stalin had received another lesson when the Soviets invaded Finland in the Winter War: the Soviets suffered heavy losses, and only prevailed by establishing a strong defense, letting the Finns attack repeatedly, and then attacking the exhausted Finns with rested reserves. In any case, Stalin did not commit reserves and instead let the Germans exhaust themselves against retreating defenses. Meanwhile, Stalin equipped fresh reserves with new equipment, trained them to winter battle readiness, and waited for Russian winter to set in. It is possible that Stalin hoped the Germans would focus an assault on Moscow - that would likely have been a Stalingrad-like disaster for the Germans. But the Germans did not launch a Battle of Moscow. On December 6, only a day before Pearl Harbor, winter arrived at Moscow. Stalin sent about half his "Siberian Reserve" forces (1,000,000 soldiers) to attack along the German lines, pushing the Germans back over a hundred miles. The Germans had not been able to prepare for winter warfare, nor were they ready for the new Soviet weaponry in the hands of fresh, motivated troops. From that point forward, the attitude for Russians in Moscow and eastern USSR became much more confident.

In 1942, Hitler launched an invasion towards the Caucasus oil fields. It was the only major offensive in 1942, reflecting the German's newfound respect for Soviet troops and weapons, as well as the depletion of German fighting strength in the long fighting of 1941. The Germans had lost between 1 and 1.5 million soldiers by March 1942. It also reflected the German need for oil. Operation Blue was intended initially to knife down towards Baku and the Caspian oil regions, in the Azerbaijan and Georgian SSRs. It was delayed slightly by mud and a Soviet offensive near Kharkov, but once it was launched it suddenly forced the Soviets back into steady retreat. The German's did take the oil region near Maykop, but it had been thoroughly destroyed by the Soviets and would not likely produce fuel for a year. Hitler also worried that Stalin would again launch his "Siberian Reserve" forces to cut off any German armies that reached the real oil area. Hitler's generals recommended protecting the German flank with defenses built along the high West bank of the Don river. Instead, Hitler ordered that they bring half their forced back out of the Caucasus and capture Stalingrad, closing off the Volga river. After so many successes in overrunning Ukrainian cities, it seemed like Stalingrad would be "easy" and should be in German hands by September, 1942.

The book follows the members and friends of the Shaposhnikov family as they work and then fight or flee from Western SSRs to Stalingrad by 1942. The German attack on Stalingrad began August 23, 1942, with 1600 bomber sorties dropping high explosives and incindieries, completely destroying the city; about 40,000 civilians died in the bombings - about as many as the entire year-long blitz against all of Britain. Some of Grossman's characters are allowed to flee the city; some die fleeing; some fight or work while the immense battle continues around them. The bombing continued at 1000 sorties per day for months, while the German armies, led by tank corps, tried in vain to crush the last little rubble fortresses of Stalingrad.

The book asserts that the Germans effectively lost World War II by mid-September 1942, after they failed to take Stalingrad. The Russians had, from 1936 and the Spanish Civil War, studied German weapons and tactics, and had designed countermeasures that they were busy building. The counterattack of December 1941, when the Russians had driven the Germans back from Moscow, was made possible by new weapons, especially T-34 tanks, Katyusha multiple-rocket launchers, effective long range artillery, and Ilyushin Il-2 ground-attack planes. Although these Soviet weapons were still evolving, they were already impressively effective. In 1942, the Germans had to revamp their arsenal to counter these new weapons: to penetrate T-34 armor they retrofitted bigger anti-tank guns to make "tank-killers" like Sturmgeschütz III and Marder II; completely new heavy tanks like the Tiger I had their renowned 88mm cannon; they built Flakvierling quad-cannons to shoot down ground attack planes; they copied the Katyusha rockets as their 8 cm Raketen-Vielfachwerfer. But this took time - in 1942 the German attacks were forced to use mostly 1941-era weaponry.

In Stalingrad, Stalin let the Germans come on against regular forces, even after Hitler foolishly commanded the core of the German strength to take Stalingrad in a no-quarter city fight. Stalin and Zhukov organized, equipped, trained and deployed a huge counterattack force while the Germans were obsessively grinding into and then iced into Stalingrad. The Soviets also designed and built a whole new air force of fighters, notably the Lavochkin La-5 and Yakovlev Yak-1, to wrest air-superiority from the Germans over southeastern Russia. By the end of 1942, the Soviets effectively ended German air support of the troops in Stalingrad.

When the Russians launched their huge counterattack in mid-November 1942, they had superior numbers, superior weapons, superior conditioning, and growing air power. Had Hitler allowed it, the Germans might have attempted to fight out of Stalingrad and withdraw, but it is unlikely: they had little ammunition, food, clothing or fuel. With air power above Stalingrad, the Soviets could savage any Germans retreating on the winter steppes. The Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of World War II. The Nazi armies and allies lost 800,000 soldiers, about half of their tanks and airforce, and were not able to mount another successful major offensive for the rest of World War II.

The Book Itself

Grossman wrote "Stalingrad" starting in 1943. The book was extensively edited through a number of editions. It was intended to be the “War and Peace” of World War Two (“the Great Patriotic War” in Soviet parlance.) It was published in pieces at first, but was subject to extensive political censorship and pressures. While Stalin ruled, Grossman could not criticise Stalin or the Soviet central command. As Stalin's government shifted, Grossman had to add or subtract pieces: he added new pieces to more broadly cover the Soviet war experiences, such as mining and food production; he subtracted parts that too strongly lauded Jewish contributions. By 1953, Stalin had become paranoid over a Jewish conspiracy: he feared that Jewish doctors were trying to assassinate him. Grossman, himself Jewish, was lucky to escape arrest at this point - fortunately for him, Stalin did suddenly die. In the next few years, his book was again edited and republished - as "part 1" of Grossman's “War and Peace” for the Great Patriotic War.

The “Stalingrad” book, as translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, tries to include all Grossman's texts. The Chandlers' general rules were based on guessing Grossman's wishes: include any text that Grossman “liked”, even if it was on a topic that was forced on him by outside forces; conversely, don't add anything that would cause a plot conflict or that Grossman himself had deleted. The result is a book that in some ways seems to be “designed by committee”. There are many plot lines, but many are left unresolved or even unmentioned in the later parts of the book. The near-1000 page “Stalingrad” book is only the prelude to his more popular second novel “Life and Fate”, written in 1959, well after Stalin's death, and first published in 1980. The second book does take up most of the incomplete plot lines of “Stalingrad”.

Since this book was written primarily before Stalin's death, it is necessarily laudatory of that deadly dictator and his kind of Communism. It describes the basic ideas for “inevitable” Soviet victory, mostly through friends and relatives of the Shaposhnikov family. Simply put: every Russian is a hero working together to save the Motherland.

“What we call the soul of the [Russian] people is determined by a shared understanding of strength, labor, justice, and the common good.” It is “present both in the people as a whole and, though often latent, in each individual.”

Main characters

Grossman has a plot line to emphasize each key Soviet strength. However, in this "Stalingrad" book, these roles are not fully developed when it ends in mid-September 1942. The characters are loosely connected to the Shaposhnikov family of Stalingrad.

Alexandra Vladimirovna Shaposhnikov: About 65, matriarch “granny”, widowed, bacteriology teacher, chemist, headed a small lab to monitor factory working conditions, loved people and her work.

Ludmilla Nikolaevna Shaposhnikov: About 46, eldest daughter of Alexandra. Nearly a Ph. D. in Chemistry. Briefly married to renegade-type named Abarchuk, had one son ("Tolya") and was divorced. Remarried Victor Shtrum, had a daughter ("Nadya") and tended house until the war started. Withdrew 400 miles east to Kazan, getting a job as a factory chemist.

Victor Pavlovich Shtrum: Ludmila's current husband of 20 years, a brilliant physicist, running a big experiment needing high quality steel in Moscow in 1942. He invented and deployed a new way to control steel-alloy smelting; Russian steel was the best military grade in the world; it and its innovative casting was the main reason that Russian T-34s could be much lighter and faster but still have very strong armor.

“Tolya” Lt. Anatoly Shaposhnikov: About 22, Ludmila's son by Abarchuk; as the war began, he volunteered and was commissioned a Lieutenant in Artillery. In this book he is mentioned mainly as a worry for his mother Ludmila.

“Nadya” Shaposhnikov: About 18, Ludmila's daughter, by Shtrum. She is mentioned only as a high school student.

Marusya Spiridonova: About 43, Alexandra's second (middle) daughter, ran a children's hospital in Stalingrad. She was among those allowed to evacuate across the Volga.

Stepan Fyodorovich Spiridonova: About 50, Marusya's husband, director of the main Stalingrad coal-power generating station. This station remained open through the first month of the battle, despite daily bombing, shelling and direct assaults. It supplied electricity to the T-34-making Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the "Red October" Krasny Oktyabr (steel plant), and the Titan-Barrikady arms factory. These huge plants all stayed productive for weeks into the battle. T-34s famously got their first crew in that tank factory, who then drove them right into front-line battle a mile away.

Vera Spiridonova: About 20, daughter of Marusya and Stepan, hospital worker. She worked as a nurse.

Sergeant Viktorov: About 22, a fighter pilot, in love with Vera, in Vera's hospital recovering from crash wounds.

Dmitry Shaposhnikov: About 40, Alexandra's son, arrested by Russian police in 1937, sentenced to help build the White Sea Canal. He is not mentioned much in this volume.

Sheryoza Shaposhnikov: About 17, Dmitry's son, adopted by Alexandra after Dmitry's arrest; joined the Stalingrad militia (lied about age) in July 1942. He was assigned to a mortar squad commanded by a martinette named Kryakin. His squad included the scrounger “deserter” Gradusov, the smart and confident Komsomol engineer Chentsov, and the over-age veteran carpenter Polyakov.

“Zhenya” Yevgenia Nikolaevna Shaposhnikov: About 22, Alexandra's third (and youngest) daughter, an attractive art/dance student in Moscow who had married and the divorced Colonel Krymov. She had returned to the "safety" of Stalingrad during the retreats of 1941.

Krymov (Nikolay Grigorievich): About 45, Zhenya's former husband, had fought in 1918-22 civil war. He was reassigned as a Red Army Political commissar before this war. After being surrounded in the 1941 blitz in western Ukraine, Krymov led 200 soldiers and civilians on a heroic and desperate fighting retreat through 500 km of German-held territory. He became a key leader in the Stalingrad defense.

Novikov (Colonel Pyotr Pavlovich): spends a lot of the 1942 summer waiting to be assigned. He wanted to marry Zhenya. He was eventually given a tank corps command, which would be a very respected position in 1942. The book ends before his exploits, which presumably include commanding a brand new corps of T-34s in the Stalingrad Operation Uranus “pincher” that destroyed the Germans in Stalingrad.

Ivan Novikov (Novikov's brother): a coal mine shaft driller, providing heroic quantities of high quality coal to enable Russian steel quality. His story was included by the request of Soviet politicians, to represent the sacrifices of workers.

Mostovskoy (Mikhail Sidorovich): About 65, a longtime Bolshevik, who knew Alexandra even in 1910 when he was a clandestine Communist organizer. He fought in the 1917-1922 Russian Civil War; at least part of that time he was a guerilla behind the White movement lines. He was inexhaustible, agile, capable, committed, and an inspiration to those he met.

Andreyev (Pavel Andreyevich): About 68, an old friend of Alexandra and the best worker in the Krasny Oktyabr (steel plant).

Senior Lieutenant Filyashkin: About 22, he does not appear related to the other characters. His story is included because it is the true story of a key episode in the battle, though his actual name was Lieutenant Anton Kuzmich Dragan. The Germans had planned to be victorious by the end of September, and indeed had driven the few defenders into a tiny slice of land along the Volga. On September 13 they launched two tank-led armies at these defenders. Soon Stalingrad's "line" was held only by 15 tanks and a few scattered combat groups. Aleksandr Rodimtsev's 13th Guards Rifle Division was ordered to cross the Volga as reinforcements, and to hold the city at all costs. They lost almost half of their 3000 soldiers during the crossing, as German planes and artillery raked their small boats. Filyashkin led an inexperienced anti-tank brigade, but made it across with few loses. He was ordered to make a tiny counterattack against the supposedly victorious Germans, to take back a small area around the Stalingrad train station. The Germans had already reported victory - indeed the Nazi world's newspapers reported that Stalingrad was taken. The Germans mounted a series of increasingly powerful attempts to overrun Filyashkin, but try after try just cost more German tanks and lives. After three days of constant fighting, Filyashkin and his entire brigade were annihilated - but their sacrifice allowed the Russians to ferry six divisions of regular army into Stalingrad. If anything, the real life effort was even more impressive: Dagan commanded only about 60 men, took the train station, and held it for several weeks; he and four of his men survived.

The Book as propaganda

The intensity, skill, bravery and patriotism of the Soviet people is a constant theme of the book. Given the actual Battle of Stalingrad, that is not in question.

Because the book was written during Stalin's rule, Grossman could not be truthful about anything critical of Stalin. While Grossman emphasizes the long Soviet retreat from the June 22, 1941 invasion, all the way across Russia to the Volga, he does not critique that retreat. He does not critique Stalin's decision to abandon both Leningrad and Moscow to their own devices in 1941. Leningrad went on to endure a million deaths in a 1000-day siege. Moscow was dangled like a plum in front of the German army in November 1941, with reinforcements kept behind the city for training, equipping and resting.

Stalin again does not commit forces to stop the German invasion of the Caucasus in 1942. Again he kept his main reinforcements behind the Volga, training, equipping and resting. Stalin's "support" of Stalingrad was mostly limited to telling Stalingrad's soldiers and civilians to fight or die. The book does not directly quote Stalin's infamous Order No. 227 to hold Stalingrad on pain of death: “not one step back,” “miscreants and cowards” could be immediately shot; instead it is suggested that all the true patriots (nearly everyone, in other words) wanted “not one step back.” The “immediately shot” threat was not emphasized in the book. The soldiers in Stalingrad did stand heroically against the Germans, though they were at first hugely out-numbered and out-equipped. Stalingrad had not been extensively fortified except by its own citizens. The Germans had already taken many similar-sized cities, like Kharkov, Odessa, Minsk, Kursk and Rostov. Why did Stalingrad hold out?

The book describes Soviet victory as essentially inevitable. Grossman's characters do represent some of the exceptional strengths that would underpin an eventual Soviet victory. Some other factors for the Soviet victory at Stalingrad were not mentioned:

The German bombing of the Stalingrad created standing hulks of subterranean-connected semi-rubble was ideal for defense - because the Germans had not built heavy bombers and “block buster” bombs.

Stalin deployed large numbers of excellent snipers to pin down German troops. Stalin was paranoid and did not want snipers amongst those he oppressed, such as Ukrainians. On the other hand, Stalin trusted the Eastern, especially Siberian, Russians and allowed them to improve their already excellent sniper capabilities. Stalin's many East-Russia snipers became a big factor in the war and in Stalingrad in particular.

The Germans were chronically low on fuel. The Soviets had thoroughly destroyed the few Caucasus oil fields that the Germans did capture, so there was not enough fuel for German tank movements.

The Soviets understood winter clothing. The Germans had expected to be done fighting by October, and so were unclad for cold.

The Soviets had developed vaccines against tularemia, a very common war-time disease. The Germans suffered a severe outbreak that sickened about one third of their occupiers, with a very high (70%) lung involvement.[2]

While these strengths go unmentioned, Grossman does include a number of long diatribes against the Nazis and also raw propaganda for Soviet Communism.
Key themes:

“No task is beyond the working class” in defence of their homeland.

Workers are empowered when “their own good, wise strength is united with the strength of others.”

Workers will feel truly free only when “they have yielded their strength to others,” subordinating themselves to their commanders.

Russia's industrialization from 1920 to 1942 was a miracle of communism.

Grossman wrote the second half of his story, Life and Fate, after Stalin's death. It was not published until 1980. It has a lot more to say about Stalin, as well as in completing the stories of the Shaposhnikova family and friends.

References

1. Theroux, Marcel (2019-06-07). "Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman review – the prequel to Life and Fate". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-08-24.
2. Croddy, Eric; Krčálová, Sarka (2001). "Tularemia, Biological Warfare, and the Battle for Stalingrad (1942–1943)". Military Medicine. 166 (10): 837–838. doi:10.1093/milmed/166.10.837. PMID 11603230.