Conversations with Stalin (6 page)

If I set aside a biased, dogmatic, and romantic enthusiasm, I would today, even as then, rate highly the qualities of the Red Army, and particularly its Russian core. True, the Soviet commanding cadres, and the soldiers and underofficers in even greater measure, receive a onesided political education, but in every other respect they are developing initiative together with a breadth of culture. The discipline is severe and unquestioning, but not unreasonable; it is consonant with the principal aims and tasks. The Soviet officers are not only technically very proficient, but they also compose the most talented and boldest part of the Soviet intelligentsia. Though relatively well paid, they do not constitute a caste in themselves, and though not too much Marxist doctrine is required of them, they are expected all the more to be brave and not to fall back in battle—for example, the command center of the corps commander at Ia§i was three kilometers from the German lines. Stalin had carried out sweeping purges, especially in the higher commanding echelons, but these had had less effect than is sometimes believed, for he did not hesitate at the same time to elevate younger and talented men; every officer who was faithful to him and to his aims knew that his ambitions would meet with encouragement. The speed and determination with which he carried out the transformation of the top command in the midst of the war confirmed his adaptability and willingness to open careers to men of talent. He acted in two directions simultaneously: he introduced in the army absolute obedience to the Government and to the Party and to him personally, and he spared nothing to achieve military preparedness, a higher standard of living for the army, and quick promotions for the best men.

It was in the Red Army, from an army commander, that I first heard a thought that was strange to me then, but bold: When Communism triumphs in the whole world, he concluded, wars would then acquire their final bitter character. According to Marxist theories, which the Soviet commanders knew as well as I, wars are exclusively the product of class struggle, and because Communism would abolish classes, the necessity for men to wage war would also vanish. But this general, many Russian soldiers, as well as I in the worst battle in which I ever took part came to realize some further truths in the horrors of war: that human struggles would acquire the aspect of ultimate bitterness only when all men came to be subject to the same social system, for the system would be untenable as such and various sects would undertake the reckless destruction of the human race for the sake of its greater “happiness.” Among these Soviet officers, trained in Marxism, this idea was incidental, tucked away. But I did not forget it, nor did I regard it as being fortuitous then. Even if their consciousness had not been penetrated by the knowledge that not even the society which they were defending was free of profound and antagonistic differences, still they vaguely discerned that though man cannot live outside an ordered society and without ordered ideas, his life is nevertheless also subject to other compelling forces.

We became inured to all sorts of things in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, as children of the Party and the revolution who acquired faith in themselves and the faith of the people through ascetic purity, we could not help being shocked at the drinking party that was held for us on the eve of our departure from the front, in Marshal Konev's headquarters, in some village in Bessarabia.

Girls who were too pretty and too extravagantly made up to be waitresses brought in vast quantities of the choicest victuals—caviar, smoked salmon and trout, fresh cucumbers and pickled young eggplant, boiled smoked hams, cold roast pigs, hot meat pies and piquant cheeses, borsch, sizzling steaks, and finally cakes a foot thick and platters of tropical fruit under which the tables buckled.

Even earlier one could detect a concealed anticipation of the feast among the Soviet officers. Thus they all came predisposed to gorge and to guzzle. But the Yugoslavs went as if to a great trial; they had to drink, despite the fact that this was not in accord with their ‘‘Communist morality,” that is, with the mores of their army and Party. Nevertheless, they comported themselves splendidly, especially considering the fact that they were not used to alcohol. A tremendous exertion of will power and conscientiousness helped them withstand many “bottoms-up” toasts, thus escaping prostration in the end.

I always drank little and cautiously, using as my excuse headaches, from which I really suffered at the time. Our General Terzić looked tragic. He had to drink even if he did not feel like it, for he did not know how to refuse a Russian confrere who would raise a toast to Stalin just a second after not having spared himself for Tito.

Our escort seemed even more tragic to me. He was a colonel from the Soviet General Staff, and because he was “from the rear,” the Marshal and his generals picked on him, taking full advantage of their higher rank. Marshal Konev paid no attention to the fact that this Colonel was fairly weak; he had been brought back to work on the General Staff after having been wounded at the front. He simply commanded the Colonel: “Colonel, drink up a hundred grams of vodka to the success of the Second Ukrainian Front!” A silence ensued. All turned to the Colonel. I wanted to intercede for him. But he arose, stood at attention, and drank. Soon globules of sweat broke out on his pale high forehead.

However, not everyone drank: those who were on duty and in contact with the front did not. Nor did the staff drink at the front, except in moments of a definite lull. They said that during the Finnish campaign Zhdanov proposed to Stalin that he approve of one hundred grams of vodka a day per soldier. From that time on, the custom remained in the Red Army, except that the portion was doubled before attacks: “The soldiers feel more relaxed!” it was explained to us.

Nor did Marshal Konev drink. He had no superior to order him; besides, he had difficulties with his liver, and so his doctors forbade him to. He was a blond, tall man of fifty, with a very energetic bony face. Though he abetted gluttony, for he held to the official “philosophy” that “the men have to have a good time now and then,” he himself was above that sort of thing, being sure of himself and of his troops at the front.

The author Boris Polevoy accompanied us to the front as a correspondent for
Pravda
. Though he became all too easily enthusiastic over the heroism and virtues of his country, he told us an anecdote about Konev's superhuman presence of mind and courage. Finding himself at a lookout post under fire from German mortars, Konev pretended to be looking through his binoculars, but was actually watching out of the corner of his eye to see how his officers were taking it. Every one of them knew that he would be demoted on the spot if he showed any vacillation, and no one dared point out to him the danger to his own life. And this went on. Men fell dead and wounded, but he left the post only after the inspection was over. On another occasion shrapnel struck him in the leg. They took off his boot, bandaged the leg, but he remained at the post.

Konev was one of Stalin's new wartime commanders. He was less an example of rapid promotion than Rokossovsky, for his career was neither as sudden nor as stormy as the latter's. He joined the Red Army just after the revolution as a young worker, and gradually rose through the ranks and through the army schools. But he, too, made his career in battle, which was typical of the Red Army under Stalin's leadership in the Second World War.

Generally taciturn, Konev explained to me in a few words the course of the campaign at Korsun'-Shevchen-kovsky, which had just been completed and which was compared in the Soviet Union with the one at Stalingrad. Not without exultation, he sketched a picture of Germany's final catastrophe: refusing to surrender, some eighty, if not even one hundred, thousand Germans were forced into a narrow space, then tanks shattered their heavy equipment and machine-gun nests, while the Cossack cavalry finally finished them off. “We let the Cossacks cut up as long as they wished. They even hacked off the hands of those who raised them to surrender!” the Marshal recounted with a smile.

I cannot say that at that moment I did not feel joy as well over the fate that had befallen the Germans. In my country too Nazism had, in the name of a superior race, inflicted a war devoid of all erstwhile humane considerations. And yet I had another feeling at the time—horror that it should be so, that it could not be otherwise.

Sitting to the right of this extraordinary personality, I was eager to clarify certain questions that interested me in particular. First of all: Why were Voroshilov, Buděnny, and other high commanders with whom the Soviet Union entered the war shifted from their commanding positions?

Konev replied: “Voroshilov is a man of inexhaustible courage. But—he was incapable of understanding modern warfare. His merits are enormous, but—the battle has to be won. During the Civil War, in which Voroshilov came to the fore, the Red Army had practically no planes or tanks against it, while in this war it is precisely these machines that are playing the vital role. Buděnny never knew much, and he never studied anything. He showed himself to be completely incompetent and permitted awful mistakes to be made. Shaposhnikov was and remains a technical staff officer.”

“And Stalin?” I asked.

Taking care not to show surprise at the question, Konev replied, after a little thought: “Stalin is universally gifted. He was brilliantly able to see the war as a whole, and this makes possible his successful direction.”

He said nothing more, nothing that might sound like a stereotyped glorification of Stalin. He passed over in silence the purely military side of Stalin's direction. Konev was an old Communist firmly devoted to the Government and to the Party, but, I would say, staunch in his views on military questions.

Konev also presented us with gifts: for Tito, his personal binoculars, and for us, pistols. I kept mine until the Yugoslav authorities confiscated it at the time of my arrest in 1956.

The front abounded in examples of the personal heroism and unyielding tenacity and initiative of the common soldiers. Russia was all last-ditch resistance and deprivation and will for ultimate victory. In those days Moscow, and we with it, abandoned itself childishly to “salutes”—fireworks that greeted victories behind which loomed fire and death, and also bitterness. For this was a joy too for Yugoslav fighters suffering the misfortune of their own country. It was as though nothing else existed in the Soviet Union except this gigantic, compelling effort of a limitless land and multimillioned people. I, too, saw only them, and in my bias identified the patriotism of the Russian people with the Soviet system, for it was the latter that was my dream and my struggle.

It must have been about five o'clock in the afternoon, just as I had completed my lecture at the Panslavic Committee and had begun to answer questions, when someone whispered to me to finish immediately because of an important and pressing matter. Not only we Yugoslavs but also the Soviet officials had lent this lecture a more than usual importance. Molotov's assistant, A. Lozovsky, had introduced me to a select audience. Obviously the Yugoslav problem was becoming more and more acute among the Allies.

I excused myself, or they made my excuses for me, and was whisked out into the street in the middle of things. There they crammed me together with General Terzić into a strange and not very imposing car. Only after the car had driven off did an unknown colonel from the State Security inform us that we were to be received by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. By that time our Military Mission had been moved to a villa in Serebrennyi Bor, a Moscow suburb. Remembering the gifts for Stalin, I worried that we would be late if we went that far to get them. But the infallible State Security had taken care of that too; the gifts lay next to the Colonel in the car. Everything then was in order, even our uniforms; for some ten days or so we had been wearing new ones made in a Soviet factory. There was nothing to do but be calm and listen to the Colonel, and ask him as little as possible.

I was already accustomed to the latter. But I could not suppress my excitement. It sprang from the unfathomable depths of my being. I was aware of my own pallor and of my joyful, and at the same time almost panic-stricken, agitation.

What could be more exciting for a Communist, one who was coming from war and revolution? To be received by Stalin—this was the greatest possible recognition for the heroism and suffering of our Partisan warriors and our people. In dungeons and in the holocaust of war, and in the no less violent spiritual crises and clashes with the internal and external foes of Communism, Stalin was something more than a leader in battle. He was the incarnation of an idea, transfigured in Communist minds into pure idea, and thereby into something infallible and sinless. Stalin was the victorious battle of today and the brotherhood of man of tomorrow. I realized that it was by chance that I personally was the first Yugoslav Communist to be received by him. Still, I felt a proud joy that I would be able to tell my comrades about this encounter and say something about it to the Yugoslav fighting men as well.

Suddenly everything that had seemed unpleasant about the USSR disappeared, and all disagreements between ourselves and the Soviet leaders lost their significance and gravity, as if they had never happened. Everything disagreeable vanished before the moving grandeur and beauty of what was happening to me. Of what account was my personal destiny before the greatness of the struggle being waged, and of what importance were our disagreements beside the obvious inevitability of the realization of our idea?

The reader should know that at that time I believed that Trotskyites, Bukharinites, and other oppositionists in the Party were indeed spies and wreckers, and that therefore the drastic measures taken against them as well as all other so-called class enemies were justified. If I had observed that those who had been in the USSR in the period of the purge in the mid-thirties tended to leave certain things unsaid, I believed these had to do with nonessentials and exaggeration: it was cutting into good flesh in order to get rid of the bad, as Dimitrov once formulated it in a conversation with Tito. Therefore I regarded all the cruelties that Stalin committed exactly as his propaganda had portrayed them—as inescapable revolutionary measures that only added to his stature and his historic role. I cannot rightly tell even today what I would have done had I known the truth about the trials and the purges. I can say with certainty that my conscience would have undergone a serious crisis, but it is not excluded that I would have continued to be a Communist—convinced of a Communism that was more ideal than the one that existed. For with Communism as an idea the essential thing is not what is being done but why. Besides it was the most rational and most intoxicating, allembracing ideology for me and for those in my disunited and desperate land who so desired to skip over centuries of slavery and backwardness and to bypass reality itself.