Stalin полностью

Yakovlev recalled wondering: “What would the designers and other figures of our aviation think of me as a deputy commissar—I, the youngest among them?” He got a new apartment in the commissariat’s new residential complex, but without a telephone. Stalin called for him. Not wanting to again bother the one neighbor in the building who had a home phone and had received the call, Yakovlev went to the street to return Stalin’s call, which prompted the despot to ask what had taken him so long to respond. Yakovlev answered that he had had to use a pay phone. “What, you have no telephone?” Stalin remarked. The next day when Yakovlev got home from work, he found a city phone installed in his apartment. At some point, Stalin called again and began asking questions about a specific airplane, but Yakovlev responded, “It is forbidden to discuss those kinds of questions on a city line.” “Yes, right, I forgot,” Stalin said, then asked, “What, you don’t have a government line in your apartment?” “Of course not,” the despot answered his own question. “By rank it is not specified for you.” Stalin laughed. The next day, Yakovlev came home to find a second phone installed in his apartment, a Kremlin vertushka.¹⁸⁶

This is how it worked for countless young functionaries: Stalin would summon them to his inner sanctum. Many would learn only then where he worked and the nickname for his inner sanctum—the “Little Corner,” magical words they could now whisper to other intimates. Stalin had brought them into his confidence. Invariably, they were startled at his command of detail: the different specifications of the various artillery pieces, the distinguishing characteristics of the various types of steel, even the number of shops in their factory. He had done his homework, he understood technology, he knew the challenges they confronted. Speaking with restraint, he would patiently explain the rightness of a line of action, the necessity of their taking on a certain assignment and of meeting his impossible demands. They came to feel he was watching them, mentoring them. Some would be summoned frequently, others just once in their lifetimes, but even a single visit could last that entire lifetime.

Another young protégé, Vasily Yemelyanov (b. 1901), the deputy commissar for defense industry, was summoned to the Little Corner on January 13. He had studied at Krupp’s factories in Germany and been tasked with production of Soviet armored plating. Yemelyanov arrived with a group that included the Izhorsk Factory director and industrial designer, who were supposed to produce a lightweight armored shield for infantry on skis. Poskryobyshev showed them in. They found themselves in the presence of Voroshilov and Molotov, among others, as well as armaments commissar Boris Vannikov, who had brought a new version of an automatic rifle. Stalin was said to have taken the shield prototype and the rifle, hit the floor, and rolled around, adopting various positions while aiming the weapon through the shield’s opening. Then he rose and offered suggestions, such as slightly increasing the size of the shield and creating a small shelf on it for spare ammunition. The designer recorded the instructions in a notebook.¹⁸⁷

Despite Stalin’s impromptu floor show, the armored shield prototype—still to be mass-produced—was not going to save the situation in Finland. That would fall to Timoshenko, who arrived in the Little Corner, with Alexander Vasilevsky from the general staff, right after Yemelyanov and the others had departed. Plans were being finalized for an offensive.

SUSPICIONS