Stalin полностью

Stalin’s last office visitors on the evening of December 23, members of the inner circle, departed at 10:05 p.m. Whether they accompanied him for supper at the Near Dacha remains unknown. At 5:00 a.m., he awoke with a temperature of 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9 Celsius), which had not fallen as of 12:20 p.m., ten minutes before he received Yezhov. An entry made that day in his medical record by Professor Valedinsky and Kremlin hospital chief Pyotr Mandryka noted “general weakness, slightly hyperemic nostrils, and conjunctiva. Not severe exterior pallor, some puffiness of the face. A heavy head. . . . A slight pain on the right when swallowing, serious congestion in the back on the right. Posterior wall of the pharynx is covered with mucus, slightly hyperemic.” Their diagnosis was “follicular angina” (inflammation of the lymphoid ring in the throat) and “myasthenia” (chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease). The illness proved to be prolonged. Stalin slept poorly. On December 30, for example, he awoke at 12:40 a.m., after four hours’ rest. A urine sample was taken at 1:45 a.m. (these were frequent). He requested warm milk at 2:25 a.m. At 3:45 a.m. he requested a glass of hot water to shave. He brushed his teeth, went to the toilet. At 5:40 a.m. he fell back asleep, rising three hours later and asking for tea and breakfast. At 4:00 p.m. he fell back asleep until 8:20 p.m., drank some tea, and fell back asleep at 11:15 p.m. for twenty-five minutes, then had supper. He was further diagnosed with streptococcus. No visits were recorded in his office logbook from December 24 through January 6.

RED ARMY VERSUS WEHRMACHT

At the annual year-end gathering of the Main Military Council—which happened before Stalin took ill, but which he did not attend—the recently named commander of the South Caucasus military district (a strategic border area), Nikolai Kuibyshev, had pointed out that new commanders of divisions had never before led even a battalion. Voroshilov, who had to formally approve such appointments, feigned shock. “I assure you, Comrade People’s Commissar, that we could not find anyone better,” Kuibyshev stated, adding that everyone else was in the hands of the NKVD. It was a searing moment of truth. But it passed. Voroshilov, in his closing speech, noted that “the gangrene” had not been fully cut out. Kuibyshev soon fell among the victims.²³¹ To be sure, some Soviet military officers who were framed and shot had been more skilled at embezzling state funds than at commanding troops.²³² Still, their replacements—to the extent that vacant officer positions could even be filled—were not always more honest or competent.²³³ The Red Army had problems before the terror; the massacres created more.

Hitler presented a stark contrast. German army officers swore their service oath to him personally, an innovation instituted by the war minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, but even so, Hitler, unlike Stalin, experienced significant loyalty issues with the brass. Behind the Führer’s back, Wehrmacht officers did not shrink from discussing how his approach to matters of war was irresponsible and dilettantist. On November 5, 1937, Hitler convened a meeting in the Chancellery to discuss the jockeying over steel supplies between the Luftwaffe (Göring) and the navy (Erich Raeder); army chief Colonel General Werner von Fritsch and Foreign Minister Neurath were also invited. Instead of adjudicating the dispute, Hitler used the occasion to hold forth on Germany’s position in the world, its need for raw materials, and Lebensraum. “The aim of German policy was to make secure and to preserve the racial community and to enlarge it,” he said. “It was therefore a question of space.” But this need for more space ran up against “two hate-inspired antagonists, Britain and France, to whom a German colossus in the center of Europe was a thorn in the flesh.” The Führer outlined scenarios of when—not if—Germany would have to fight a general European war: not later than 1943–45, and possibly before. In the meantime, Hitler said he had “to settle the Czech and Austrian questions” through small wars of plunder, which, he predicted, Britain and France would not oppose militarily.

Two exceedingly noteworthy things happened during the four-hour harangue. First, Hitler mentioned the Soviet Union merely in passing, and he made no reference to “Judeo-Bolshevism.” Second, Blomberg and Fritsch had the temerity to object to the Führer. They “repeatedly emphasized the necessity that Britain and France must not appear in the role of our enemies” (as Blomberg’s adjutant recorded in his notes).²³⁴ Within three months, both Blomberg and Fritsch would be removed, and the army, navy, and air force chiefs would be reporting directly to Hitler.²³⁵ This turnabout was long in coming, but oddly triggered.