Rodric Braithwaite: Moscow 1941. A City and its People at War. NY: Knopf, 2006. 398 pp.
Rodric Braithwaite tells the story not so much of the battle of Moscow, but, as his subtitle indicates, the story of the city and its inhabitants at war, more a portrait of a capital under attack than a description of military operations. Far from rehashing previously available material, the former British ambassador has interviewed participants and their surviving family members, then recorded their stories, some of them no doubt for the first time, at least in English.
The book begins not with an account of the German assault on the Eastern Front, but with a history of the city. Braithwaite combines a felicitous style with an eye for architecture, an interest in city planning and public transportation, communal living arrangements, the cinema and popular music. He gives the reader a feel for what it was like to live in the capital – where some things haven’t changed: “Nobody ever said, ‘Mind your own business,’ because the business of each was the business of all.” (pg. 35) Reading him is a bit like listening to a particularly well-informed tour guide.
On the military side, he shows understanding for the plight of those like General Pavlov, whose urgent recommendations before Operation Barbarossa began were ignored, and who was then made a scapegoat when the Germans did strike. On the south-western front, General Kirponov likewise foresaw the need to prepare for an attack, but was more creative in finding ways to do what he deemed necessary. Knowing that sending a reconnaissance patrol up to the border would never be authorized, he resorted to a ruse: the 32nd Division requested permission to check the roads “for rain damage,” which was granted, even though at the time there was no trace of rain. Such demonstrations of initiative were alas too few and far between.
In “Mobilizing the Masses” (Chpt. 7), Braithwaite turns to a topic close to his heart, the role of cultural figures in maintaining morale. His focus is mainly on dancers, singers, writers and actors (the appendix includes a filmography ranging from the 1930s to 2004, pp. 371-372). Reflecting, perhaps, his own personal tastes, the book provides detailed information on ballet and movie stars, rather less on instrumental musicians. In any event, he succeeds in giving the reader a feel for the radical changes that came over the lives of both artists and ordinary Muscovites, how their lives were turned upside down from one day to the next.
Can a book with this theme have a hero? If so, it is the cultured Marshal Konstantin Rokossovski, who comes off rather better than Marshal Zhukov, who was brutal by nature and indifferent to his men’s loss of life. Rokossovski was just as capable a general, but combined this with a gentleman’s respect for his subordinates and courteous treatment of others, even after having suffered years of unjust imprisonment at the hands of Stalin.
Chapter 12, “Panic,” is the most consistently absorbing in its picture of a city gripped by fear at the prospect of occupation. If the Nazis had managed to take Moscow, the Soviets planned to destroy everything useful beforehand, starting with factories, then train stations, bridges, the Central Telegraph Office and finally the Bolshoi Theater. One inhabitant steeled herself for the torture she anticipated by sticking needles under her own fingernails. Braithwaite cites two sources indicating that by October 15 Stalin had resolved not to leave town, and regards as a myth the legendary trip to Kazan Railway Station when he allegedly refused to board the train waiting to take members of the Politburo to safety. But the author does not stop there. He tracked down a man who was sent ahead to Kuibyshev to construct a bunker for Stalin. Years later, this man went back to the site, which still existed at the time, and heard from locals another urban myth: For security reasons, all the construction workers had allegedly been executed. This is the kind of personal, eye-witness detail that most historians only dream of uncovering.
Braithwaite locates the period from October 16-20 as the low point for Muscovites: public transportation stopped working, public offices began burning files they feared they would be unable to evacuate, along with undesirable books such as the classics of Marxism-Leninism. With the authorities themselves trying to escape, law and order broke down, and looting occurred. Popular anger turned against a traditional enemy, the Jews. Citizens lost their fear of the authorities, and for a few days their frustration could be expressed openly. Later, even though the city had not been occupied, there was a breakdown in food supply, medical services, heating and the sewage system. Cases of starvation were not uncommon, though not on the massive scale of Leningrad.
A turning point came in early November, first with the broadcast of Stalin’s address to party leaders from Mayakovski Metro Station, the deepest in the capital. The next day came the famous parade on Red Square, with the troops marching straight to the front past the empty Mausoleum (Lenin’s body having already been evacuated). Holding the parade was a gamble that paid off – it boosted morale, and provided a memorable marker in popular imagination.
Braithwaite also records Stalin’s blunders. In the months before June 1941, his “appeasement of Hitler became increasingly desperate. What had originally been a sensible policy began to fall part.” (pg. 47) From the war against Finland, followed by the equally disastrous war games of January 1941, Stalin concluded that everything must be done to win time so that the USSR would be prepared when conflict inevitably came, which he expected would happen in 1942. In the final days before the attack, Stalin refused to listen to specific warnings that an invasion was imminent. Braithwaite is unsparing about the wasteful, even suicidal attacks Stalin ordered (over the objections of Rokossovski) before the gates of Moscow in mid-November, and notes his unrealistic expectation that once Hitler’s assault was blunted, the war would be won in little more than a year at most.
Early on, while Soviet military victories were still rare, they did rack up some impressive propaganda triumphs, such as the legend of the twenty-eight Panfilov fighters who died defending Moscow and were posthumously made Heroes of the Soviet Union. While the facts surrounding their resistance are in dispute, there is no question that the Russians often refused to surrender even when the situation was hopeless. Nazi propaganda, as everyone knows, was guided by the principle of incessantly repeating the Big Lie. Soviet propaganda followed above all the directive: Reveal nothing to the enemy that he doesn’t already know. As a result, a great deal of misinformation about the war was spread by word-of-mouth and unsubstantiated rumor. Yet in the end, Stalin’s propaganda somehow proved far more effective in creating enduring legends. Perhaps because they contained a kernel of truth: the battle of Moscow did expose German invincibility for what it was – a myth.
© Hamilton Beck
Update: For more on the Panfilov controversy, see this from the Guardian, Nov. 23, 2016.
When Anthony Beevor complained about the myth-making in “Enemy At the Gates,” about the sniper duel in Stalingrad that never happened, the director (Jean-Jacques Annaud) blithely responded, “But Anthony, who can tell where myth ends and truth begins?”
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