Stalin placed the blame for this defeat squarely at the feet of his commanders, although they were not castigated as harshly as those involved in the Crimean debacle.92 A few months later, on 24 September 1942, Georgy Malenkov, who had been sent to represent Headquarters at the Stalingrad Front (constituted primarily from the forces of the Southwestern Front), wrote to Stalin: “While we’re on the subject of Timoshenko.… Now that I’ve been able to see how he’s been working here, I can say that Timoshenko looks like a good-for-nothing, indifferent to the fate of the Soviet government and the fate of our motherland.”93 Given Malenkov’s usual caution, we can assume that he was expressing an opinion with which he knew the vozhd would agree. As with Mekhlis, however, Stalin kept Timoshenko within his inner circle but used him for less critical assignments.
Accusing generals of mistakes and a lack of decisiveness was a leitmotif of Stalin’s directives throughout 1942. The generals themselves took a different view. Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, for example, wrote in his memoirs that the defeats during the summer of 1942 stemmed from the fact that Headquarters kept repeating the mistakes of the early stages of the war. Commands from the top “did not correspond to the situation” and “only played into the hands of the enemy.” Instead of gradually pulling troops back to lines prepared in advance (in the summer of 1942, the River Don), Headquarters kept demanding counterattacks. Troops hurriedly moved toward the Germans “with no time to concentrate, on the fly, went into battle disorganized against an enemy that under these circumstances enjoyed a huge numerical and qualitative advantage.… This was all done in a manner that had nothing to do with the military science we were taught in the colleges and academies, during war games and maneuvers, and it went against all the experience we acquired during the two previous wars.”94
Refusing to recognize any fault on the part of the Supreme Command, Stalin continued to attribute failure solely to the cowardice, treachery, or, at best, incompetence of his subordinates. The ultimate expression of this logic was the notorious Order No. 227, issued on 28 July 1942, just when the German advance in the south seemed unstoppable. Stalin, who undoubtedly wrote the order himself, was exceptionally harsh: “Panic-mongers and cowards must be exterminated on the spot.” Commanders “who retreat from battle positions without an order from above [are] traitors against the Motherland.” He demanded that commanders be put on trial, starting with army commanders who sanctioned unauthorized retreat. The order provided for the creation of penalty battalions and companies, the ranks of which would be filled by people arrested for violating the Stalinist code of conduct, to be used as cannon fodder at the start of attacks. Anti-retreat units became a regular part of the army and were tasked with “shooting on the spot panic-mongers and cowards in the case of panic and disorderly retreat by division units.”95 These units were not disbanded until October 1944.
The fight against “panic-mongers,” “cowards,” and “saboteurs” was a centerpiece of Stalin’s military policy during the summer of 1942, and fear and panic were indeed a problem. Given the hardships of battle and the long string of defeats, troop morale was inevitably low. But as during the Terror, Stalin’s tendency to see saboteurs and wreckers as the root of all failures had no basis in reality. The mental state of Soviet soldiers in the face of the well-organized might of the German Army was just one of many threads in the tangled web of reasons for Red Army retreats. Often orders were disobeyed because they were poorly conceived or simply not realizable. Draconian measures at the front did not guarantee victory. A few weeks after Order No. 227 was issued, the Germans reached the outskirts of Stalingrad.
Beside cowardice and treason, another explanation for Soviet defeats that featured prominently in Stalin’s mind was that Hitler was not distracted by a second front in Western Europe. Within the top leadership, the Nazi leader’s ability to concentrate his forces on the Soviet front due to inaction by the Allies was a frequent source of anger and frustration. After heavy pressure from Stalin, during a visit by Molotov to Great Britain and the United States in May and June of 1942, Churchill and especially Roosevelt expressed their intention to open up a second front that autumn. These vague promises began to look increasingly chimerical as the situation worsened on all fronts. To soften the blow of his failure to open a European front, Churchill went to see Stalin in Moscow.96 On 12 August 1942 the two men had their first face-to-face meeting. Stalin found himself in a weakened position due to the numerous defeats suffered by the Soviet side. Meanwhile, the Allies’ losses in North Africa and the Mediterranean gave them an excuse for delaying a French landing.
Stalin did not hide his irritation at Churchill’s explanation. The atmosphere during the first hours of negotiations was extremely tense. The Soviet leader, abandoning diplomacy, disparaged the Allies’ wavering and advised them not to fear the Germans. Churchill was just as blunt. He reminded Stalin that Great Britain had been battling the Nazis for a full year, an unmistakable reference to the fact that Britain was already at war with Hitler while Stalin was helping him carve up Poland. With these reproaches out of the way, the allies, who greatly needed one another, settled down to serious discussion. Having given a great deal of thought to his negotiation strategy, Churchill delivered his good news: a landing of American and British forces was planned for the northern coast of French Africa that fall. Stalin took this opportunity for conciliation. He praised the new plan, and subsequent talks went more smoothly. Stalin made the friendly gesture of inviting Churchill to his Kremlin apartment for his last night in Moscow, 15 August, where the evening passed convivially.
The conclusions to be drawn from Churchill’s visit were clear. The USSR would be able to count on its allies mostly for material assistance. Stalin told Churchill that his country particularly needed trucks and aluminum. For now, the Germans could continue fighting on the Eastern Front without worrying about a serious challenge from the West, and the Red Army would continue to suffer defeat and failure. In the south the Germans had entered Stalingrad, had captured the important Don and Kuban agricultural regions, and were drawing near to the petroleum deposits of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia. According to official Soviet statistics, from January through October 1942 alone, 5.5 million Red Army soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured.97 Gradually, however, the formation of new armies and the heroism of the defenders of Stalingrad and the Caucasus allowed the front to stabilize. Hitler’s shortage of manpower, as he simultaneously pursued several difficult objectives, also helped shift the momentum. In the ruins of Stalingrad, Soviet troops fought German divisions in pitched battle. By all appearances, this was a replay of late 1941. The battered German armies could advance no farther. Having inflicted huge losses, the Red Army now had an opportunity to seize the initiative. The question was how and when to strike back.
The counterstrike came outside Stalingrad. This famous Soviet victory was the culmination of heroic efforts and huge sacrifices by the entire country. It showed that Stalin, too, had finally learned from past defeats. The well-prepared Soviet offensive outside Stalin’s namesake city began on 19 November 1942. A few days later, Germany’s 330,000-man force in Stalingrad, led by General (soon to be Field Marshal) Friedrich Paulus, was surrounded. After thwarting German attempts to break through the encirclement, on 2 February 1943 Soviet forces finally compelled the enemy to capitulate. The protracted battle cost the Germans hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers. More than 90,000 were taken prisoner, including Paulus himself. The victory marked a major turning point in the war.