Speech by I.V. Stalin at a meeting of the command staff of the Red Army. April 17, 1940

Source: rusarchives.ru

Archive: RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 11. D. 1124. L. 8–43.

Stalin. I would like, comrades, to touch on some issues that either were not touched upon in the speeches, or were touched upon but were not sufficiently covered.

The first question is about the war with Finland.

Did the government and the party do the right thing by declaring war on Finland? This question specifically concerns the Red Army.

Could it be possible to do without war? It seems to me that it was impossible. It was impossible to do without war. The war was necessary, since peace negotiations with Finland did not produce results, and the security of Leningrad had to be ensured, of course, because its security is the security of our Fatherland. Not only because Leningrad represents 30-35 percent of the defense industry of our country, and, therefore, the fate of our country depends on the integrity and safety of Leningrad, but also because Leningrad is the second capital of our country. To break through to Leningrad, occupy it and form there, say, a bourgeois government, a White Guard one, means providing a fairly serious basis for a civil war within the country against Soviet power.

Here is the defense and political significance of Leningrad as an industrial center and as the second capital of our country. That is why the security of Leningrad is the security of our country. It is clear that since peace negotiations with Finland did not lead to results, it was necessary to declare war in order to organize, establish and consolidate the security of Leningrad and, therefore, the security of our country with the help of military force.

The second question is, wasn’t our government, our party too hasty in declaring war at the end of November – at the beginning of December? Couldn’t it have been postponed, waited two, three or four months, prepared and then struck? No. The party and government did absolutely the right thing by not postponing this matter and, knowing that we were not yet completely ready for war in Finnish conditions, they began active military operations precisely at the end of November - at the beginning of December. All this depended not only on us, but most likely on the international situation. There, in the West, the three largest powers are at each other's throats; when will the question of Leningrad be resolved, if not in such conditions when our hands are full and we are presented with a favorable situation in order to strike them at this moment.

It would be great stupidity, political myopia, to miss the moment and not try as quickly as possible, while the war is going on there in the West, to raise and resolve the question of the security of Leningrad. To postpone this matter by two months would mean to postpone this matter for twenty years, because you cannot provide for everything in politics. They are fighting there, but the war is kind of weak, either they are fighting or playing cards.

What if they decide to make peace, which is not impossible. Consequently, a favorable situation in order to raise the question of the defense of Leningrad and the provision of the state would have been missed. This would be a big mistake.

That is why our government and party did the right thing by not rejecting this case and opening military action immediately after the break in negotiations with Finland.

Third question. Well, war has been declared, hostilities have begun. Have our military authorities positioned our troops correctly at the front? As you know, the troops were stationed at the front in the form of five main columns. One of the most serious columns of our troops is on the Karelian Isthmus. Another column of our troops and the direction of this column was the northern coast of Lake Ladoga with the main direction to Serdobol. The third column - the smaller one - is directed towards Uleaborg. The fourth column is in the direction of Tornio and the fifth column is from north to south, towards Petsamo.

Was this deployment of troops at the front correct? I think that's right. What did they want to achieve by placing our troops at the front?

If we take the Karelian Isthmus, then the first task is this. After all, in war one must count not only on the good, but also on the bad, and even better, foresee the worst. The largest column of our troops was on the Karelian Isthmus in order to [exclude] the possibility of any accidents against Leningrad on the part of the Finns.

We knew that the Finns were supported by France, England, secretly supported by the Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, supported by America, supported by Canada. We know it well. It is necessary to provide for all possible possibilities in war, especially not to lose sight of the worst possibilities. Based on this, it was necessary to create a large column here - on the Karelian Isthmus - which could, first of all, protect Leningrad from any possible accidents.

Secondly, this column of troops was needed in order to reconnoiter with a bayonet the state of Finland on the Karelian Isthmus, its position of forces, its defense - two goals.

Thirdly, to create a springboard so that when we bring in more troops, they will have a springboard to jump forward and move further. And, fourthly, take Vyborg, if possible.

In any case, the deployment of troops on the Karelian Isthmus pursued three goals: to create a serious barrier against all possibilities and accidents against Leningrad; secondly, to arrange reconnaissance of the territory and rear of Finland, which we really needed, and thirdly, to create a bridgehead for the jump, where the troops would be transported.

The next section is north of Lake Ladoga. Our troops pursued two goals, also the goal of reconnaissance, in fact, three goals, the goal of military reconnaissance, I’m talking about bayonet reconnaissance, this is very serious and the most accurate intelligence of all types of reconnaissance. Creation of a bridgehead in order to reach the rear of the Mannerheim line with the supply of troops. The second main goal is to create a bridgehead and reach the rear, if possible.

The third group had the same goal - reconnaissance of territories, population, creation of a bridgehead and, under favorable conditions, making an approach to Ku..... This is a possible task, but not probable, not entirely real.

The fourth group is heading towards Torneo, we need to reconnoiter in this direction, create a bridgehead for troops that will then be brought up, and under favorable conditions approach...

Fifth group Petsamoskaya. Reconnaissance - creating bridgeheads, striking the city. All these groups pursued one specific goal - to force the Finns to defeat their forces. We have more reserves than they do, weaken the direction on the Karelian Isthmus, and finally break through the Karelian Isthmus and go north to the Gulf of Finland.

The group north of Ladoga set itself the task of taking Serdobol and going to the rear. Ulebovskaya group - occupy Ulebo. The Kondopoga group - go to Tornio, the Petsamo group - connect with the Kondopoga group.

We did not reveal our cards that we had another goal - to create a bridgehead and conduct reconnaissance. If we showed all our cards, we would cool down our army units. The task was this. Why did we approach this issue so carefully and with some hidden purpose, why couldn’t we strike from all five sides and squeeze Finland? We did not set such a serious task, because the war in Finland is very difficult. We know from the history of our army, our country, that Finland was conquered four times... We tried to shake it for the fifth time. We knew that Peter I fought for twenty-one years to recapture all of Finland from Sweden. Finland was then a province of Sweden, and it is precisely the region that we now have - the region of Kolajärvi and Petsamo. This does not count, the entire Karelian Isthmus to Vyborg, including the Vyborg Bay, and Peter did not receive the Hanko Peninsula then, but he fought for twenty-one years.

We knew that after Peter I, the war for the expansion of Russian influence in Finland was waged by his daughter Elizaveta Petrovna for two years. She achieved something, expanded it, but Helsingfors remained in the hands of Finland. We knew that Catherine II waged war for two years and achieved nothing special.

We finally knew that Alexander I waged war for two years and conquered Finland, conquered all the regions.

Exactly the same stories happened with the Russian troops then as now: they were surrounded, captured, headquarters were taken away, the Finns surrounded, captured, the same as it happened. We knew all this stuff and believed that perhaps the war with Finland would last until August or September 1940, which is why, just in case, we took into account not only the favorable, but also the worst, and started from the very beginning of the war by preparing bridgeheads in five directions. If the war continued and if any neighboring state intervened in the war, we had in mind to place 62 infantry divisions and 10 in reserve, 72 in total, in these directions, where there are already ready-made bridgeheads, in order to discourage interference in this matter. But it didn’t come to that.

We only had 50 divisions. The reserve remained a reserve - 10 divisions, but this is because our troops did a good job, defeated the Finns and pinned down the Finns. Since the beginning of the war, we have posed two questions to the Finns - choose one of the two: either make big concessions, or we will disperse you and you will get the Kuusinen government, which will gut your government. That's what we told the Finnish bourgeoisie. They preferred to make concessions so that there would be no popular government. Please. It’s an amicable matter, we agreed to these conditions because we received quite serious concessions that fully provide for Leningrad from the north, south, and west and which threaten all the vital centers of Finland. Now the threat to Helsingfors comes from two sides - Vyborg and Hanko. Consequently, the big plan for a big war was not carried out and the war ended after 3 months and 12 days, only because our army did a good job, because our political boom set for Finland turned out to be correct. Either you, gentlemen of the Finnish bourgeoisie, make concessions, or we give you the Kuusinen government, which will gut you, and they preferred the first.

A few more questions. You know that after the first successes in terms of the advancement of our troops, as soon as the war began, we discovered inconsistencies in all sectors. They showed up because our troops and the command staff of our troops were unable to adapt to the conditions of the war in Finland.

The question is, what especially prevented our troops from adapting to the conditions of the war in Finland? It seems to me that they were especially hampered by the previous psychological campaign created in the troops and command staff - let’s throw our hats in the air. The Polish campaign harmed us terribly; it spoiled us. Entire articles were written and speeches were made that our Red Army is invincible, that it has no equal, that it has everything, there are no shortages, it never existed and does not exist, that our army is invincible. In general, there have never been invincible armies in history. The best armies that fought here and there, they suffered defeats. We, comrades, boasted that our army was invincible, that we could throw hats at everyone, that there were no shortages. In practice there is no such army and there never will be.

This prevented our army from immediately understanding its shortcomings and rebuilding itself in relation to the conditions of Finland. Our army did not understand, did not immediately understand that the war in Poland was a military exercise, not a war. She did not understand and did not understand that in Finland there would not be a military walk, but there would be a real war. It took time for our army to understand this, to feel it, and for it to begin to adapt to the conditions of the war in Finland, so that it began to rebuild.

This most of all prevented our troops from immediately, immediately adapting to the basic conditions of the war in Finland, from understanding that she was not going on a military excursion to win with a bang, but to go to war. This psychology that our army is invincible, with boasting, which is terribly developed among us - these are the most ignorant people, that is, big braggarts - we must put an end to. This boasting must be ended once and for all. We need to hammer into our people the rules that there is no such thing as an invincible army. We need to hammer home Lenin’s words that defeated armies or defeated armies fight very well later. We need to hammer home to our people, from the command staff to the rank and file, that war is a game with some unknowns, that in war there can be defeats. And therefore we must learn not only how to attack, but also how to retreat. We must remember the most important thing - Lenin's philosophy. It has not been surpassed and it would be good if our Bolsheviks adopted this philosophy, which fundamentally contradicts the philistine philosophy that our army is invincible, has everything and can conquer everything. This psychology - let's throw our hats in - must be put to an end if you want our army to become a truly modern army.

What prevented our army from quickly, on the fly, rebuilding and adapting to the conditions, preparing not for a walk, but for a serious war. What prevented our command staff from reorganizing themselves to wage war not in the old way, but in a new way? After all, keep in mind that during the entire existence of Soviet power we have not yet waged a real modern war. Minor episodes in Manchuria, near the lake. Hassan or in Mongolia - this is nonsense, this is not a war, these are individual episodes in a strictly limited area. Japan was afraid of starting a war, we didn’t want that either, and some testing of strength on the patch showed that Japan had failed. They had 2-3 divisions and we have 2-3 divisions in Mongolia, the same number in Khasan. Our army has not yet waged a real, serious war. The Civil War is not a real war, because it was a war without artillery, without aviation, without tanks, without mortars. Without all this, what kind of serious war is this? This was a special war, not a modern one. We were poorly armed, poorly dressed, poorly fed, but we still defeated the enemy, who had much more weapons, who was much better armed, because the spirit mainly played a role here.

So, what prevented our command staff from immediately waging the war in Finland in a new way, not like a civil war, but in a new way? In my opinion, the cult of tradition and the experience of the civil war got in the way. How do we evaluate the command staff: did you take part in the civil war? No, I did not participate. Go away. Did he participate? Participated. Give him here, he has a lot of experience and so on.

I must say, of course, the experience of the civil war is very valuable, the traditions of the civil war are also valuable, but they are completely insufficient. It was precisely the cult of tradition and experience of the civil war, which must be ended, that prevented our command staff from immediately adapting to a new way, to the rails of modern war.

Comrade commander is not the last person we have, the first, if you like, in terms of the civil war, he has a lot of experience, he is a respected, honest person, but he still cannot adapt to a new modern way. He does not understand that it is impossible to immediately conduct an attack without artillery processing. He sometimes leads the shelves with a bang. If you conduct a war like this, it means ruining the matter, it doesn’t matter whether it’s cadres or not, first class, it will ruin it anyway. If the enemy is sitting in the trenches, has artillery, tanks, then he will undoubtedly defeat you.

The 7th Army had the same shortcomings - a lack of understanding that artillery decides the matter. All this talk about how you need to spare shells, whether you need self-loading rifles, that they take a lot of ammunition, why you need a machine gun that takes so many rounds, all this talk about how you need to shoot only at the target - all this is old, this area and traditions of the civil war. It doesn't contain anything modern.

Where is all this talk coming from? Conversations were not only held there, conversations were also held here. Civilians - me, Molotov - found something regarding military issues. Non-military people deliberately argued with the heads of the military departments, out-argued them and forced them to admit that we were waging a modern war with the Finns, who were being trained in modern warfare by three states: Germany trained, France trained, England trained. To take a modern war in the presence of fortified areas and at the same time raise the question that only targets should be shot means utter wisdom.

Conversations about why the production of Degtyarev assault rifles was stopped. He only had 25 charges. It was stupid, but they stopped anyway. Why? I can not tell.

Why are there no mortars? This is not a new thing. During the era of the imperialist war in 1915, the Germans escaped from Western and Eastern troops - ours and French, mainly by mines. Few people - many mines. 24 years have passed, why do you still not have mortars? No answer, no hello.

What explains all this? Because the traditions of the civil war reigned in everyone’s heads: we did without mines, without machine guns, that your artillery, our wonderful people, heroes and all the others, we will bear it against all odds. These speeches remind me of the Red Golders in America, who opposed rifles with clubs and wanted to defeat the Americans with clubs - to defeat the rifle with a club - and killed them all.

This cult of tradition and experience of the civil war is developed among people and has taken away from them the psychological opportunity to quickly adapt to new methods of modern war. It must be said that after 2-3-4 weeks they began to rebuild: first ... then the 13th Army, Stern also managed to rebuild, also not without a creak. Comrade behaved well. Frolov, 14th Army. Comrade fared the worst. Kovaleva. Since he is a good fighter, since he is a hero of the civil war and achieved glory in the era of the civil war, it is very difficult for him to free himself from the experience of the civil war, which is completely insufficient. The traditions and experience of the civil war are completely insufficient, and whoever considers them sufficient will certainly perish. A commander who believes that he can fight and win, relying only on the experience of the civil war, will die as a commander. He must complement this experience and the value of the civil war... supplement it with the experience of the modern one. What is modern war? An interesting question is, what does it require? It requires massive artillery. In modern warfare, artillery is a god, judging by the artillery. Anyone who wants to rebuild in a new modern way must understand that artillery decides the fate of the war, mass artillery. And therefore, talk that you need to shoot at the target, and not at areas, to spare shells, is utter stupidity that can ruin the matter. If you need to fire 400-500 shells a day in order to smash the enemy’s rear, to smash the enemy’s leading edge, so that he is not calm, so that he cannot sleep, you must not spare shells and cartridges. As Finnish soldiers write, they could not get enough sleep for four months, only getting enough sleep on the day of the truce. That's what artillery means. Artillery is the first priority.

The second is aviation, mass aviation, not hundreds, but thousands of aviation. And anyone who wants to wage war in a modern way and win a modern war cannot say that they need to save bombs. Nonsense, comrades, we need to give more bombs to the enemy in order to stun him, turn his cities upside down, then we will achieve victory. More shells, more ammunition, fewer people will be lost. If you skimp on cartridges and shells, there will be more losses. We have to choose. Give more shells and cartridges, spare your army, conserve strength, give a minimum of killed, or spare bombs and shells.

Next are tanks, the third, also decisive, we need massive tanks, not hundreds, but thousands. Armored tanks are everything. If tanks are thick-skinned, they will work wonders with our artillery and with our infantry. We need to give more shells and ammunition to the enemy, spare our people, and preserve the strength of the army.

Mortars, fourth, there is no modern war without mortars, mass mortars. All corps, all companies, battalions, regiments must have 6-inch and 8-inch mortars. This is terribly necessary for modern warfare. These are very effective mortars and very cheap artillery. A wonderful thing - a mortar. Don't spare the mines! Here's the slogan. Feel sorry for your people. If you spare bombs and shells, but do not spare people, there will be fewer people. If you want us to have a war with little bloodshed, do not spare mines.

Next is the automation of hand weapons. There is still debate about whether we need self-loading rifles with a 10-round magazine? People who live by the traditions of the Civil War are fools, although they are good people, when they say: “Why do we need a self-loading rifle?” And take our old 5-shot rifle and a ten-shot self-loading rifle. After all, we know that - aim, turn, shoot, if you hit a target - aim again, turn, shoot. But take a fighter who has a 10-round rifle, he will fire three times more bullets than a person with our rifle. A fighter with a self-loading rifle is equal to three fighters. How can one not switch to a self-loading rifle after this, because it is a semi-automatic machine. This is terribly necessary, the war showed this in the army. For our reconnaissance, for night battles, to attack in the rear, make noise, such horror is created in the rear at night and such panic, my respect. Our soldiers are not such cowards, but they ran from machine guns. How can one not use this thing?

This means infantry, hand weapons with a semi-automatic rifle and an automatic pistol are required.

Further. Creation of cultural, qualified and educated command staff. We do not have such a command structure, or there are only a few.

We are talking about a combined arms commander. He must give tasks, that is, lead aviation, artillery, tanks, a tank brigade, mortar men, but if he does not have at least a general understanding of this type of weapon, what instructions can he give? The current combined arms commander is not a commander from the old Civil War era, there is a rifle, a 3-inch machine gun. Now the commander, if he wants to be authoritative for all branches of the military, he must know aviation, tanks, artillery with different calibers, mortars, then he can give tasks. This means that we need a command staff that is qualified, cultured, and educated.

Further. Well-built and skillfully working headquarters are required. Until recently they said that such and such a commander had failed, hat, we need to go to his headquarters. Or, for example, a person with a “vein” accidentally came across at the headquarters, he can command, they say: he has no place at the headquarters, he is needed at the command post.

If you look at headquarters this way, then we won’t have a headquarters. What does the absence of headquarters mean? This means the absence of a body that both carries out the order and prepares the order. This is a very serious matter. We must establish cultural, skillfully operating headquarters. Modern war requires this, just as it requires mass artillery and mass aviation.

Then modern warfare requires well-trained, disciplined, proactive fighters. Our fighter lacks initiative. He is individually underdeveloped. He is poorly trained, and when a person does not know the matter, where can he take the initiative, and therefore he is poorly disciplined. New fighters like these need to be created, not the same kind of fighters who went into the civil war. We need a new fighter. It is necessary and possible to create it: proactive, individually developed, disciplined.

For modern warfare, we need political workers who are politically stable and knowledgeable in military matters. It is not enough that a political worker repeats in words: the party of Lenin-Stalin is like hallelujah-hallelujah. This is not enough, this is not enough now. He must be politically stable, politically educated and cultural, he must know military affairs. Without this, we will not have a good fighter, well-organized supplies, or well-organized replenishment for the army.

These are all the conditions that are required for us, the Soviet people, to wage a modern war and to win this war.

Do you think we had such an army when we entered the war with Finland? No, I wasn't. Partly she was, but with regard to these conditions, she lacked a lot. Why? Because our army, no matter how much you praise it, and I love it no less than you, it is still a young army, unfired. She has a lot of equipment, she has a lot of faith in her abilities, even more than necessary. She tries to show off, thinking she is invincible, but she is still a young army.

Firstly, our modern Red Army was shelled on the fields of Finland - this is its first baptism. What came to light here? That our people are new people. Despite all their shortcomings, very quickly, within just 1.5 months, they transformed, became different, and our army emerged from this war as an almost completely modern army, but something is still missing. The “tails” remained from the old one. Our army has become firmly planted with both feet on the rails of a new, real Soviet modern army. This is the main advantage of the experience that we learned on the fields of Finland, giving our army good fire to take this experience into account. It’s good that our army had the opportunity to gain this experience not from German aviation, but in Finland with God’s help. But that our army is no longer the same as it was in November last year, and the command staff is different, and the fighters are different, there can be no doubt about it. The very appearance of your blocking groups is a sure sign that our army was becoming a completely modern army.

After this, it is interesting to ask yourself, what is the Finnish army like? Many of you saw her mobility, discipline, saw how she used all sorts of tricks, and some envy showed through towards the Finnish army. The question is, can it be called a completely modern army? In my opinion, it’s impossible. From the point of view of the defense of fortified lines, the Finnish army is more or less satisfactory, but it is still not modern, because it is very passive in defense and it looks at the line of defense of a fortified area like the Mohammedans look at Allah. Fools, they sit in the pillboxes and don’t come out, they think that they can’t cope with the pillboxes, they sit and drink tea. This is not the attitude towards the defensive line that a modern army needs. A modern army cannot treat the line of defense, no matter how strong it is, passively.

It is this passivity in defense and this passive attitude towards the defensive lines that characterizes the Finnish army as not quite modern for defense when it sits behind the stones. The Finnish army showed itself that it is not completely modern also because it is too religious about the superiority of its fortified areas. Like the Finnish offensive, it is not worth a penny. For three months of fighting, do you remember at least one case of a serious mass offensive by the Finnish army? This never happened. They did not even dare to launch a counterattack, although they were sitting in areas where they had pillboxes, where the entire space was measured out, like on a training ground, they could close their eyes and shoot, because the entire space was measured out, drawn out, and yet they very rarely went on a counterattack, and I don’t know of a single case where they didn’t fail in a counterattack. As for any serious offensive to break through our front, to occupy any line, you will not see a single such fact. The Finnish army is not capable of large offensive actions. The main drawback of this army is that it is not capable of large offensive actions; in defense it is passive and very stingy in counterattacks, and it organizes counterattacks extremely clumsily and always, at least always, it left with losses after a counterattack.

This is the main drawback of the Finnish army. It was created and trained not for offensive, but for defense, and not active, but passive defense.

Defense with a deep fetishized faith, faith in an invulnerable land. I cannot call such an army modern.

What is she capable of and what were some of her comrades jealous of? For small performances, for encirclement with entry into the rear, for rubble, they know their conditions - and that’s all. All these rubble can be reduced to tricks. Focus is a good thing - cunning, ingenuity, etc. But it is impossible to live on focus. Once he deceived, he went to the rear, the second time he deceived, but the third time you cannot deceive. An army cannot win back on tricks alone; it must be a real army. If she doesn't have this, she is inferior. Here is your assessment of the Finnish army. I take the tactical aspects, without touching on the fact that it is weak, that it has little artillery. Not because she's poor or anything like that. But she only now began to understand that without artillery the war must be lost. I'm not talking about another drawback - they have little aviation. Not because they didn't have money for aviation. They have quite a lot of capital, they have developed cellulose factories that produce gunpowder, and gunpowder is expensive. They have more cellulose factories than we do, twice as many: we produce 500 thousand tons of cellulose per year, they have now received factories that will produce 400 thousand tons per year, and they have twice as much left. This is a rich country. If they don't have aviation, it's because they haven't understood the power and importance of aviation. This is also a disadvantage for you.

An army that is trained not for offensive, but for passive defense; an army that does not have serious artillery; an army that does not have serious aviation, although it has every opportunity for this; an army that conducts good guerrilla offensives - goes to the rear, makes blockages and everything else - I cannot call such an army an army.

General conclusion. What did our victory amount to, who did we defeat, strictly speaking? So we fought for 3 months and 12 days, then the Finns knelt, we gave in, the war ended. The question is, who did we defeat? They say Finns. Well, of course, the Finns were defeated. But this is not the most important thing in this war. Defeating the Finns is not a task. Of course, we had to defeat the Finns. We defeated not only the Finns, we also defeated their European teachers - we defeated German defensive technology, we defeated English defensive technology, we defeated French defensive technology. Not only the Finns were defeated, but also the equipment of the advanced states of Europe. Not only the technology of the advanced states of Europe, we defeated their tactics, their strategy. The entire defense of Finland and the war was carried out at the behest, at the instigation, on the advice of England and France, and even earlier the Germans helped them a lot, and half of the defensive line in Finland was built on their advice. The result speaks about this.

We defeated not only the Finns - this task is not that big. The main thing in our victory is that we defeated the technology, tactics and strategy of the advanced states of Europe, whose representatives were the teachers of the Finns. This is our main victory. (Stormy applause, everyone stands up, shouts of “Hurray!”)

Shouts: “Hurray comrade. Stalin!

(The meeting participants give a stormy ovation in honor of Comrade Stalin.)

Sandpiper. I think, comrades, that each of us in our souls, in our blood, in our Bolshevik consciousness will carry those words of our great leader, Comrade. Stalin, which he said from this rostrum. Each of us must follow the instructions of Comrade. Stalin. Hurray, comrades! (Exclams of “Hurray!”)

Comrades, it is proposed to elect a commission that should summarize the work on the proposals made, introduce into our charters and instructions all the amendments that were made in the proposals and that need to be made in connection with the latest wars and, in particular, the war with Finland.

In addition, the commission must consider the shortcomings that were made during the war, the shortcomings that were felt before the war. We had gaps, they need to be corrected.

Perhaps we can develop technical requirements for individual elements. Therefore, it is proposed to select a single commission, which will be tasked with working on all these issues for presentation to the Main Military Council. The list is proposed as follows. (Reads out the list.)

Mehlis. Shchadenko is not there.

Stalin. He didn’t have the courage to write it down.

Kuznetsov. There are no scouts, comrade. Sandpiper.

Sandpiper. Proskurov, Smorodin.

Voice. I propose to introduce Comrade. Kopec and the commander of the 37th regiment, Major Vasiliev.

Vasiliev. I would ask to be released. Now the regiment is in such a state that it needs to be put in order. I don't have a deputy. The young chief of staff remained. I ask you to release me.

Sandpiper. Can I accept a commission? That's where we end today. 19th at 12 noon. day a commission meeting in the former building of the Revolutionary Military Council, in the first building. Tomorrow afternoon we will organize a viewing of “Kutuzov”.

Mehlis. Maybe you can ask Comrade. Stalin to join the commission.

Sandpiper. It is proposed to include comrade. Stalin. (Applause.)