What Stalin Knew (5 page)

Twenty-third Aviation Brigade as instructor in instrument navigation; his

superiors characterized him as a ‘‘highly disciplined officer.’’ His unit’s

party organization named him a delegate to a party congress and he was

promoted to senior lieutenant. The next year, 1935, Proskurov became a

member of the Soviet exhibition team attending an air show in Romania.

THE OUTSPOKEN GENERAL

9

In 1936 he made a record flight to Khabarovsk in the Soviet Far East

to deliver engineers and spare parts to the famous Soviet pilot Valery P.

Chkalov who had damaged his plane in an accident. Proskurov and his

navigator made it to Khabarovsk in fifty-four hours and thirteen minutes,

including refueling stops, a record for which Defense Commissar Kliment

Ye. Voroshilov awarded them certificates and engraved gold watches. It

was while Proskurov and his navigator were on a well-deserved leave that

they heard of the invasion of republican Spain by General Franco and his

troops. They both immediately volunteered to help the Loyalist forces.3

In Proskurov’s personnel file, the only reference to his service in the

Spanish civil war is a brief memorandum stating that ‘‘Sr. Lt. Proskurov

was on a special assignment abroad (Sept. 1936–June 1937) carrying out a

special task of the government for strengthening the defensive might of the

USSR.’’4 This opaque treatment isn’t surprising. The entire Spanish opera-

tion, from recruitment of advisers to weapons acquisition, was undertaken

and controlled by the Red Army’s Military Intelligence Directorate (RU).

The highly experienced former RU chief Jan K. Berzin ran the show in

Spain, while Semen P. Uritsky, RU chief in Moscow, bore responsibility for

keeping the defense commissar informed.5 There seemed to be a good

reason for this arrangement. None of the nations involved in assisting the

two sides in the conflict (that is, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union)

wished to enter the fray openly. Pretending they were not involved was a

face-saving bow to international diplomatic niceties insofar as the Ger-

mans and Italians were concerned. In the absence of declarations of war,

they had committed elements of their armed forces and made no special

effort to conceal this fact.

Not so the conspiratorial Soviet regime. Soviet personnel from Berzin

down to the lowest-ranking artillery adviser followed procedures intended

to conceal their true names and nationalities. The cases of Proskurov and

his navigator are instructive. Both were documented as representatives of

the Moscow Automobile Factory, planning to visit the French Renault

plant in Paris. Proskurov’s documents bore the Czech name ‘‘Soldatchik.’’

They flew on commercial flights from Moscow to Paris, where they met RU

guides who took them through France across the Spanish border to the

area of Albacete. When they arrived, they were assigned to the First Inter-

national Bombardment Squadron.

In February 1937 changes took place in the Soviet air effort. Boris

Sveshnikov was replaced as senior air adviser by Yakov V. Smushkevich,

and Proskurov replaced Ernst G. Shakht as commanding officer of the

10

THE OUTSPOKEN GENERAL

First Bombardment Squadron.6 Among the squadron’s engagements was

an effort in the spring of 1937 to disrupt operations of the Italian expedi-

tionary force participating in an offensive against Madrid from the north.

The squadron attacked from the east and largely destroyed an Italian troop

and supply train near the major rail center of Siguenza. Proskurov’s men

then turned their attention to an adjoining highway jammed with trucks

carrying Italian troops moving south toward Madrid. The squadron’s ma-

chine guns ripped into the truck columns, set vehicles ablaze, and sent

troops fleeing into the adjacent fields. Proskurov appeared indifferent to

personal danger and fatigue, as he did, too, when his squadron, along with

other elements of the republican air force, flew continuous sorties against

the rebels. His courage and endurance, combined with his careful atten-

tion to variations in attack plans, showed him to be an extraordinarily able

air commander.7

The last combat action in which Proskurov’s bombers took part un-

doubtedly brought him to Stalin’s attention. On May 29, 1937, the republi-

can air force was ordered to bomb Palma on the island of Mallorca. Two

Soviet-made and piloted bombers broke off and attacked the German bat-

tleship
Deutschland
at neighboring Ibiza. Thirty-one German sailors were

killed and seventy-four wounded. An angry Hitler retaliated by ordering

the bombardment of the republican port of Almeria. In a telegram sent

from RU headquarters in Moscow, top Soviet advisers were reminded that

the Boss ‘‘considers it unacceptable to have planes bomb Italian and Ger-

man ships, and this must be prohibited.’’8 Some sources have credited

Proskurov with participation in the raid.9 It seems doubtful that an officer

with his record would have disobeyed orders on his own or have made a

navigational error of this magnitude (Ibiza is at least 115 kilometers from

Palma). It is not, therefore, impossible that Proskurov had tacit approval

to attack the
Deutschland
but that when Stalin saw Hitler’s reaction, he

backed off and gave orders forbidding further actions of this kind. What-

ever the explanation, Proskurov returned to the Soviet Union shortly after

the event, and on June 21, 1937, he was promoted to major and made a

Hero of the Soviet Union. It was presumably the happiest day of what

turned out to be a very short and painful life.

In July 1937 Proskurov took command of the Fifty-fourth Bombard-

ment Brigade. On February 22, 1938, he was promoted ahead of schedule

to the senior rank of brigade commander (
kombrig
), and in May he as-

sumed command of the Second Special-Purpose Air Army, remaining in

that position until April 1939. During this time he acquired the reputation

THE OUTSPOKEN GENERAL

11

of a demanding officer who spoke out for what he believed was right. His

courage was not restricted to the battlefield. Gavril M. Prokofev, his former

navigator, recalls Proskurov’s attendance at a meeting of a commission

considering the design for a four-engine aircraft with retractable landing

gear. V. K. Kokkinadi, a prominent military test pilot, asked: ‘‘Why do we

need such an expensive and complicated aircraft? The Il-4 and TB-3 are

enough; with them we can easily fly from Moscow to Berlin.’’ After his com-

ments there was silence while all present waited for Stalin’s views. Normal

protocol consisted of ‘‘never expressing yourself until you’ve heard Stalin’s

view and then agreeing with him,’’ but Proskurov spoke out bluntly: ‘ You,

Kokkinadi, fly alone, for a record. We fly in squadrons and must maneuver.’’

Stalin, who might have been expected to be angry, rose, went to the globe,

and asked, ‘‘Comrade Kokkinadi, what if you have to fly to Berlin via the

Baltic, Finland?’’ Kokkinadi admitted that the older aircraft couldn’t. The

matter was decided. As future events suggest, it is doubtful that Stalin

forgot Proskurov’s show of independence.∞≠

Proskurov was made chief of the RU on April 14, 1939. On May 21,

1937, Stalin had declared that ‘‘the Intelligence Directorate and its appara-

tus have fallen into the hands of the Germans,’’ signaling the virtual de-

capitation of the RU in the purges and the loss of valuable cadres. It was

probably to restore confidence in the service and improve morale that a

Hero of the Soviet Union with combat experience in the Spanish civil war

was chosen. The story is told that two months earlier, in February 1939,

Defense Commissar Voroshilov had asked a gathering of RU officers if they

would accept Aleksandr G. Orlov, the acting chief, as their permanent

head. The officers demurred, noting that, while Orlov was a good analyst

who spoke several languages, he was no operations chief. What RU needed

was a fresh face.11

Accompanied by his wife and two daughters, Proskurov arrived in

Moscow as chief of the RU and deputy defense commissar. His rank en-

titled him to an apartment in the famous House on the Embankment, for

many years the residence of the privileged in Soviet society.12 His medals

entitled him to a raise, which he refused to accept for doing what he

considered his duty. He was also given a two-story dacha in the prestigious

area of Arkhangelskoye, west of Moscow. Proskurov never used this dacha;

instead he turned it over to his colleagues in military intelligence for their

children to use as a summer camp. His younger daughter, then seven,

attended it.

Usually Proskurov vacationed at Sochi on the Black Sea and on

12

THE OUTSPOKEN GENERAL

summer Sundays visited with colleagues at their dachas on the outskirts of

Moscow. His favorite pastimes were his visits in his new Renault to the

elaborate dacha of Admiral Nikolai G. Kuznetsov, the people’s commissar

of the navy, whom he knew from their service in the Spanish civil war;

many of the veteran volunteers would gather at the dacha to reminisce.13

Proskurov was also a close friend of Mikhail V. Vodopianov, one of the

earliest Heroes of the Soviet Union and famous as an explorer of the polar

region.

By virtue of his position as a deputy defense commissar, on June 9,

1939, Proskurov was made a member of the Main Military Council (Glavny

Voenny Soviet). This council, chaired by Defense Commissar Kliment

Voroshilov, was created in March 1938. Composed of senior military of-

ficers and party leaders (including Stalin himself), it served as a forum for

discussion of major issues of military policy. Orders on such topics pro-

mulgated by the defense commissar were first discussed and approved by

the council. In the period from June 1939 until his dismissal in July 1940,

Proskurov regularly attended council meetings at which Stalin was also

present. As we follow Proskurov’s career it is important to recognize that

he was involved in important policy decisions and must have been well

known to Stalin.14

Why was Proskurov chosen for this major position? Some have pointed

to his acquaintance with Jan Berzin, whom he met in Spain when Berzin

was chief soviet adviser there. Others have noted his youth and his rapid

rise in rank and position. On his return from Spain he spent a few weeks in

Paris, and his frequent absences suggest he was carrying out clandestine

tasks of some sort, although no available information sheds light on that

speculation. Stalin may simply have been determined to insert someone

into the position who had no previous ties to RU personalities. This was,

indeed, the pattern he followed in filling the vacancies in the armed forces

caused by his purges.15

It is true, of course, that reports reaching Stalin from the Soviet Mili-

tary Intelligence Service were couched in Marxist-Leninist jargon, but

they still tended to reflect the realities of the noncommunist world faced by

the USSR. In addition, the Red Army inherited a military tradition from

the tsarist past that in practice demanded intellectual discipline and obe-

dience to one’s immediate superiors. It was nearly impossible for senior

officers of the Red Army to find a balance between the atmosphere in

which they lived their lives and the insatiable demands of Josef Stalin

for complete subservience. This balancing act was even more difficult for

THE OUTSPOKEN GENERAL

13

members of the Military Intelligence Service. On the one hand, they dealt

with foreign matters, spoke foreign languages, and lived long periods of

their lives abroad. The best of them were trained to be totally objective in

their reporting. On the other hand, these traits guaranteed that Stalin’s

normally conspiratorial mind would interpret such behavior as treason.16

The integrity and competence of the RU chief, his insistence on fair-

ness in dealing with his subordinates, and his ability to stand up to the

pressures exerted on the intelligence process by the Soviet leadership all

combined to determine how effective the service would be in meeting the

1939–41 crisis. The chief was responsible for directing the entire effort

from the collection to the analysis, production, and dissemination of infor-

mation. He was also responsible for selecting the personnel needed to staff

the system. In the four years preceding Proskurov’s arrival, changes in the

RU leadership had hardly been conducive to good management. In 1935,

after accepting responsibility for a serious security flap in Western Europe,

Berzin resigned as chief, although by 1936 he was sent to Spain as senior

adviser. He was replaced by Semen P. Uritsky, a person with little intelli-

gence experience, who lasted in the job until June 1937. He was arrested in