Chapter 244

< World War II - The Spring of War (6) >

March 18, 1942

Kremlin Palace, Moscow, Capital of the Soviet Union

Josif Broz, the General Secretary of the Comintern-affiliated Yugoslav Communist Party, known as ‘Tito,’ was facing Andrei Zhdanov, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR.

“So, you’re saying I cannot meet Comrade General Secretary Stalin?”

“That is correct.

The Comrade General Secretary is unavailable due to circumstances.”

Tito subtly bit his lip.

‘It’s over.’

From the previous king of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia who had advocated for an absolute monarchy, to the regent Paul, and now the newly crowned King Petar II.

It was not easy for communists to survive in a Yugoslavia that had become a monarchy.

Thus, the young men of Yugoslavia, inspired by the Russian Revolution to devote themselves to communism, had mostly fled their fatherland’s oppression and sought refuge in the Soviet Union.

But the hope of communism they had expected was nowhere to be found in the Soviet Union. The razor-sharp blade of the Great Purge had devoured them even more fiercely, as they were foreigners with no connections.

Tito himself had managed to survive by volunteering for overseas missions or through his excellent social skills, but in the end, the long years of hardship endured by countless Yugoslav communists within the Soviet Union had gone unrewarded.

Now that the opportunity of the Yugoslavian Civil War had finally arrived, their loyalty, despite all those sacrifices, had been rendered worthless in the face of the crisis the Soviet Union now faced.

“In that case, will you at least permit the Yugoslav comrades conscripted into the Red Army to be assembled and returned home?”

“That, too, will be difficult.”

“What?”

At this point, Tito flared up, but Zhdanov, one of Stalin’s confidants, was resolute.

“The Comrade General Secretary’s own eldest son, Captain Yakov Jugashvili, is at the front preparing for the decisive battle. What would become of the Red Army’s morale if people started pulling out of the military for ‘personal’ reasons?”

Tito’s face crumpled as he threw out a question.

“Is this the Union’s answer to the loyalty the Yugoslav Communist Party has shown all this time?”

“I consider it regrettable. However, without the Soviet Union, there is no communism, and without communism, there is no Yugoslav Communist Party.

You cannot pull up the tree for the sake of a branch, can you?”

“…I understand perfectly.”

Tito turned his back on the spot.

Upon reaching the building’s entrance, he watched the downpour outside, took out his pipe, lit the tobacco, and took a drag.

The tobacco smoke blurred his vision.

Among the soldiers of the Red Army currently standing on the front lines against the Allied Forces was his own son, Zharko.

Was he supposed to abandon them all and return home with only the core members of the party?

As Tito was lost in troubled thought, a voice came from behind him.

“Good day, Comrade General Secretary Broz.”

Tito turned around to see a young man wearing glasses.

“Comrade Chairman Andropov. I don’t recall getting on the Party’s bad side recently.

Does the NKVD have business with me?”

The Party, however, has certainly gotten on my bad side, he thought. To this sharp reaction, Andropov replied lightly.

“Even if you return home without the Party’s sponsorship and having abandoned your followers, you won’t be able to achieve much.”

Tito took a drag from his pipe and feigned surprise.

“My, my, how astonishing. Has the NKVD finally added mind-reading to its interrogation techniques?”

Andropov smiled faintly.

“We don’t have mind-reading, but a person’s past and actions say a great deal.”

Tito smoked his pipe in silence, while Andropov continued to speak in a thoroughly dispassionate, explanatory tone.

“Given the Soviet Union’s situation, it will not be easy to captivate the people of Yugoslavia with the banner of communism alone. Yet without communism, and speaking frankly, neither you nor your followers have the background to replace the men who have already taken over the high command of the civil war-”

Tito raised a hand, restraining Andropov, and after exhaling another puff of smoke, he grinned.

“Let’s not tire ourselves by beating around the bush. What do you want from me, a dependent of the Soviet Union?”

Andropov smiled and opened his mouth.

“Shall we make a deal?”

-

March 20, 1942

Near Moscow, Capital of the Soviet Union – Stalin’s Villa

Stalin, whom Tito had so desperately wanted to meet, had taken a vacation and was down at his Blizhnaya Dacha, in the middle of a phone call.

-Father, did you really have to do that?

“Svetlana, my dear.

That damn Jewish bastard is a married man twenty years older than you. You deserve someone better-”

-And for that, you sent him to the front as a war correspondent?

Stalin sighed, his face weary.

He desperately needed some consolation, but his precious, doted-on daughter was thoroughly furious with him for sending the Jewish man who had been making moves on her to the front lines.

Stalin clicked his tongue and tried to speak as gently as possible.

“You’ll understand this father of yours one day. Is there anything else you want to say?”

-What’s the use, even if I have something to say? Now I think I know why Mother committed suicide…

Feeling the blood rush to his head, Stalin unwittingly shouted.

“Your mother died of illness!”

-That’s what the Party announced.

“You, you! How long are you going to live so childishly! Do you think I can look after you forever! You need to-”

-Did you ever look after our family? You’re not ignorant of where my big brother is right now!

Stalin was at a loss for words as Svetlana’s tearful voice struck his ear.

-To you, there’s only the Union and the Party! If you want to say you’re taking care of us, you should have at least pulled my big brother from the front!

“My dear, I, I am…”

-You made our whole family miserable!

With those final words, the phone went dead with a click.

Stalin, with a dumbfounded look on his face, held the phone for a moment before setting it down.

He slowly raised a hand and wiped his face.

If he were gone, would that childish girl be able to live well?

If he were gone, would his family be harmed?

Wouldn’t it be better to just send her abroad?

But where would he send her? He was surrounded by enemy nations.

That child needs a protector.

With that thought, Stalin unwittingly picked up the phone and ordered a connection.

Only when chaos erupted on the other end did Stalin finally realize what he had just done.

Should I hang up now?

While Stalin dithered, a familiar voice came through.

-Soviet Ura, Comrade General Secretary! This is Captain Yakov Jugashvili!

At the sound of his eldest son’s voice, Stalin squeezed his eyes shut.

-…Comrade General Secretary?

A long silence followed.

Finally, after the long silence, Yakov’s voice could be heard, murmuring cautiously in a very small voice.

-…Father?

His eldest son, Yakov, had been reluctant to join the Communist Party, and because he had married a Jewish woman, their relationship had always been strained.

It had improved somewhat when he began studying to become a soldier, but still, Stalin knew he wasn't a good father to him.

Svetlana was right.

“Yakov.”

-Yes, sir!

It was the attitude of a captain addressing the General Secretary, rather than a son addressing his father.

Stalin, Ioseb Jugashvili, after a long moment of deliberation, spoke in a dry voice.

“Don’t overdo it.”

-…I understand.

“…And look after Svetlana.”

-Pardon? …Yes.

Stalin put the phone down.

His second son, Vasily, that bastard, was one thing, but Yakov was kind-hearted and got along well with Svetlana. He would take good care of her even if he was gone.

He sincerely hoped nothing bad would happen to Yakov, but in the end, he could not bring himself to make the choice to pull him to the rear.

What if something happens to Yakov?

The thought of Khrushchev came to mind, and Stalin shook his head vigorously.

It would be better to speak to Andrei Zhdanov, that friend of mine.

Having made his decision, only the sound of raindrops striking the windowpanes echoed in the office where Stalin sat alone.

After a moment, Stalin spoke as if tossing a word into the air.

“Don't mock me.”

But the apparitions, including Trotsky, did not listen.

Apparitions.

They must be apparitions. Figments of his own making, born from excessive fatigue and exhaustion.

If so.

Is this laughter my own scorn?

Stalin’s lips twisted into a smirk.

It won’t be long now.

-

March 23, 1942

Near Roslavl, Western Russia – Free Russian Army Garrison

The Smolensk Theater.

From the speakers of the Free Russian Army garrison, the passionate voice of Andrey Vlasov echoed.

[Friends and brothers! Bolshevism is the true enemy of the Russian people! Bolshevism has brought us immeasurable disasters!]

Penenko Nikolayevich, once Enrique Líster’s adjutant and now a lieutenant in the Free Russian Army, was cleaning his Mosin-Nagant rifle.

[In the name of preparing against the imaginary threat of the capitalists, countless people have starved to death!]

Nikolayevich finished cleaning the barrel and set the rifle down.

Outside, a downpour had been raging for days.

He wondered where his former superior officer was.

[The countless weapons the Soviet Union created for war were built through the forced labor of so many of our people! So, did the capitalists start a war, as they claimed? Who was it that started a war with those weapons!]

At first, he had been resentful of being made the adjutant of a foreigner who seemed to have lost his mind, but he thought that, from the moment he had come to his senses, he had been a pretty decent person.

-I don’t want to resent you, General. Please don’t make me…

He hadn’t been ignorant of the man's situation, but he wished his final words hadn’t been what they were.

[Friends, brothers, people of Russia! We have endured enough! We have suffered enough of the torment of the Bolshevik torture chambers! Now, rise up and join the struggle for freedom!]

But even if it wasn't what he had wanted, he had given up on him and his men.

-Re-Retreat, we have to retreat!

-What nonsense is this! Advance! Soviet Ura!

He had abandoned them, left him and his men to die a senseless death in that hellish penal unit.

The Soviet Union and he had, in the end, abandoned him.

[The Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia is with you! Together with the army of Free Russia, let us fight against the threat of Bolshevism!]

If he had just one wish.

[When Bolshevism meets its end, the people of Russia will no longer have to tremble in the threat and pain of war! Long live an honorable peace with the Allied Powers!]

It was that he would not have to face him as an enemy on the battlefield.

-

March 24, 1942

Near Rzhev, Western Russia - ‘Spaniard’ Army Corps Garrison

During Russia’s rainy season, the rain pours down relentlessly.

The mud created by this downpour, the Rasputitsa, is the last barrier holding back the Allied offensive.

No one was ignorant of the fact that once this rain stopped and the mud dried up, the Allied Forces would launch an all-out offensive against the cornered Soviet Army.

They were just hunkered down, hoping that the defense lines they had so painstakingly prepared during the last winter, enduring frostbite, would not be too severely damaged by the torrential rain.

Enrique Líster was in his garrison in the Smolensk Theater, watching the downpour from his barracks window.

The ceaseless rain, the resulting fog, and the mud.

It was a landscape he would rarely see in his fatherland, Spain, a reminder that he was a foreigner here.

Defeat in Spain, defeat in Poland.

He had already lost all his men twice.

The first time, it was the result of defeat. The second time, it was entirely by his own choice.

After paying such a price, would he be able to achieve anything?

“Comrade General, a telegram.”

Hearing his adjutant’s call, Líster turned and accepted it.

[Operation plan unchanged. -Georgy Zhukov]

The defense plan is unchanged.

…And the other plan, too.

Líster stared at it silently for a moment before turning his gaze to his adjutant.

An adjutant whose name he couldn’t even remember.

It had been the same with Nikolayevich, whose name he only learned after they were surrounded.

Would it have been better if he had talked with him sooner?

If, after losing all his men in Spain, he hadn't thought only of revenge and treated his subordinates as expendable items.

If, even after coming to his senses, he hadn't deliberately avoided paying attention to his men, afraid of getting attached to them.

If he had done that, would things have been a little better?

A sudden thought occurred to Líster, and he opened his mouth.

“What was your name again?”

“Uh, Lieutenant Guskov Kirill, Comrade General.”

Lieutenant. A rank that, in this colossal war, could die and be forgotten at any moment without it being strange at all.

There was a time when he thought a name attached to such a low-ranking company grade officer held no importance.

“…I see.”

But that was why the Union had ended up in this state, and if he thought the same way as the ones who made the Union this way, nothing would change.

Lieutenant Kirill looked a little flustered, so Líster let out a small laugh and made a joke.

“What, is it strange for me to talk to you? I hear the rumors say I’m a cold-blooded man who abandoned all his men in Spain and Poland.”

“Gasp, no, not at all, sir!”

It was true that such rumors circulated about their taciturn general, and the adjutant stammered in his fluster, but Líster just laughed it off.

Just then, the sound of the rain, now so familiar to his ears, began to fade.

The two men, who had unwittingly turned their gazes to the window, watched as the rain, which had been slowly subsiding, finally stopped.

“The rain…”

“It’s stopped.”

The end of the long confrontation was approaching.

Líster turned his gaze to the south.

And he thought of the politician leading the Allied Forces, who would be in the south.

An enemy who had destroyed his fatherland, Spain, and who was now fighting against the Soviet Union he was a part of.

And yet.

-Someday, the day will come when Spain has a government of the people, not that dictator.

He had said it with a strange conviction, something he couldn't understand.

-When that day comes, I hope Spain will be able to proudly hold Germany accountable for the sins it committed.

The words of a man much younger than him, standing on the complete opposite side, may have become something akin to hope for him.

Líster slowly closed his eyes.

He had experienced countless failures and defeats.

If only he had intervened more actively in Spain.

If only he had refused that idiotic order at the Battle of Brunete.

If only he had made a different choice in Poland.

He had spilled too much blood, and piled up too many sins.

He had more than enough regrets.

So many that the weight was almost too much to bear.

But.

-We have already committed evil deeds, so did we have to just stand by and watch our fatherland commit even greater evils and head for ruin, paying the price for what we'd done?

He had met an enemy who, at the end of refusing to be crushed by his sins, had changed everything.

-You are right, comrade. But if we do nothing, nothing will change.

We are moving forward, little by little.

There was a man who acknowledged him, a foreigner, as a comrade and extended a hand, asking him to risk everything together.

-I hope you have no regrets about your choice, General.

-I hope you have no regrets about your choice, Minister.

His final exchange with Dietrich Schacht.

Líster opened his eyes and gazed at the sight of rays of light, like a dawning, beginning to shine through the breaking clouds.

“Never again.”

The spring of war had arrived.