Was Stalin at the front?

Nikita Buranov

December 16, 2020

Recently, speculation by unscrupulous "historians" and "not indifferent" public about the trip of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army I.V. Stalin to the front. Today we decided to finally put all the all the points on this question.

For some reason, many believe that Stalin at the beginning of the war withdrew from the leadership of the country and the army (but this is complete nonsense). They are echoed by other commentators, who point out that the cowardly Stalin locked himself in the Kremlin and spent the whole war there, afraid to leave.

With full confidence, based on the documents, we can assert that such statements are an outright lie. Moreover, it is quite obvious that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was at the front, and more than once, as many might think. An experienced revolutionary and participant in many battles, Stalin had no fear of going to the front, but it was important to keep secrecy. Neglect of security is fraught with the loss of senior military leaders and is unacceptable in a war, an example of which is the tragic death of Army General N.F. Vatutin, who was ambushed while traveling to the location of the army.

Generals and the front

Of course, in ancient times, the commander was obliged to be personally present during the battle, since there was no other opportunity to control the troops except from the battlefield. But in antiquity, there was a purposeful hunt for commanders and leaders. Recall at least a case from the history of Ancient Rome, when Guy Muzio Scovola made his way into the Etruscan camp and killed a private who was dressed as the Etruscan commander Lars Porsenna, while the real Porsenna was elsewhere.

However, with the increasing complexity and ramification of the military structure and the development of communications, this need for conspiracy began to disappear. And the very figure of a commander, and of any rank, began to acquire more and more importance. In a war like the Great Patriotic War, where multimillion-strong armies met, the figure of each individual commander meant a lot, and with the increase in the commander's rank, the importance of him increased.

It is no secret that for special units, spies, saboteurs, snipers, the main target was precisely the representatives of the enemy's command echelon. Therefore, the trips of top leaders to the troops were sometimes spontaneous, and most importantly, strictly secret. That is why for a long time (even after the war) the documents documenting such trips (and there were many of them) of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief were kept secret.

Few documents

“Another myth is Stalin's panic fear of the front. With all that is known today about Stalin, I must object: the Supreme Commander went to the front.

"It turned out that I also had a chance to participate in one of the Supreme Commanders' trips to the front. In total, during the defense of Moscow, Stalin went to the front twice. I was amazed at the very organization of these trips. They were never planned in advance by anyone. For example, when he was leaving for the Volokolamsk region, he suddenly called Zhukov and my father and said that he intended to visit one of the front sectors with them that day. I repeat, no preliminary preparation. In this regard, I was convinced myself more than once, he was a very original person ... ” , - recalls S.L. Beria in the book: "My father is Lavrenty Beria."

In our time, archives and books of memoirs of direct participants in the events allow us to restore the picture and see that Stalin was not at all afraid of going to the front. Unlike his foreign colleagues and main enemy - Hitler, who only visited the occupied territories, Stalin more than once visited directly on the fronts and in the front-line headquarters. Let's take a closer look at where he appeared.

Senior lieutenant I.A. Sokolov, adjutant of Marshal Nikolai Voronov, recalled that Stalin appeared several times at the headquarters of the Western and Kalinin Fronts from August 1941 to August 1943.

These memories are confirmed by the long-published magazine for receiving visitors to Comrade Stalin in the Moscow Kremlin. Archival records allow us to see those intervals in the receptions of guests and visitors of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, when he was outside the Kremlin, at the front, for example, from 22.30 on August 1 to 21.55 on August 5, 1941.

Stalin visited the defense areas near Solnechnogorsk, Mozhaisk, Zvenigorod. He also visited the 16th Army of the future Marshal Rokossovsky in the most difficult - Volokolamsk direction.

After the famous parade on November 7, 1941, Comrade Stalin personally went to inspect the Siberian divisions unloading near Moscow, which were going straight to the front. And one of his guards, Rybin, mentions in his memoirs that Stalin even visited the battle area of ​​the famous 316th Panfilov Infantry Division.

"Push Eremenko to more active actions"

But the most famous recorded trip of Stalin to the front dates back to August 1943. We know about this not only from archival sources, but also from the recently published memoirs of General Ivan Serov, one of the high-ranking officers of the NKVD.

Once again, Stalin was going to go to the Western and Kalinin fronts , in the words of the commander-in-chief himself, in order "to push Eremenko to more active actions," as well as personally get acquainted with the plans of the commanders, and held a series of meetings and monitored the situation.

It is interesting that after Gzhatsk, where Comrade Stalin reached by train, he went further by cars. In his beloved Packard with a small guard, Stalin immediately went to the headquarters of the Western Front (in Yukhnov) with only two security vehicles. Stalin really did not like the scrupulous attitude towards him, he slept on a simple bed, which was literally prepared for him from improvised means by the signalmen who were on duty at the communications center along the way.

And when, by coincidence, she got lost and the car with household items did not come, Stalin calmly said:

"Why am I, prince, or something, I do not need a palace."

He ate a simple stew and meat for the second, of all the excesses - only a bottle of wine.

The next point was the Kalinin Front, where Stalin stopped in the village of Horoshevo, Rzhevsky District. It was here, during a meeting with Eremenko, that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief decided to celebrate the victories and liberation of Soviet cities with salutes:

“In old Russia, the victory of the troops was celebrated under Ivan the Terrible with the ringing of bells, bonfires, festivities, under Peter I — with fireworks, and we must also celebrate such victories. I think it is necessary to give salutes from guns in honor of the victorious troops. "

Headquarters and front

In total, you can count 10 trips of Comrade Stalin to the front. Perhaps there were more of them, but we do not have data due to the fact that they were passed in an extremely secrecy requirements. But any speculation about the fact that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was afraid of something, we can safely dismiss. Stalin, contrary to later stories, did not sit out at the dacha at the very beginning of the war and always tried to keep his hand on the pulse of events, as evidenced by the same log of visits to his office.

In 2015,  the Russian Military Historical Society opened the Museum " Kalinin front August 1943 in a small wooden house near Rzhev in the village of Khoroshevo, where Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin spent the night from 4 to 5 August 1943 and ordered the first salute to be held in Moscow in honor of the liberation of Orel and Belgorod.

In total, members and authorized representatives of the headquarters of the Supreme Command of the USSR during the war years made more than 60 trips to all fronts of the Great Patriotic War. Over 150 times, Stalin personally received reports from the front commanders who came to him. Also, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief held almost 1,500 meetings with representatives of the Headquarters and the General Staff of the Red Army during the war.

These facts and figures absolutely convincingly indicate that it was the Supreme Command Headquarters and personally I.V. Stalin made a significant contribution to the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.