Struggle in Soviet Russia

Plotnikovo, the 30th Army of the Kalinin Front is on the offensive front.

Since the Soviet army will be assembled under the German army to defeat the city of Moscow, the German army has retreated all the way, and finally established a solid line of defense from Lezhev to Seckovka. Originally, in accordance with the combat intention of the German Central Army Group, it was intended to withdraw the German troops from Sablino to the Gerza River and the Yauza River to further consolidate the Lezhev line of defense.

However, the Supreme Command issued a death order, and the head of state forbade the German troops in the Moscow area to retreat to the rear, asking them to guard strictly, even if they were the last soldier in the battle, they were not allowed to give up their positions. According to this order, any unit's retreat must be approved by the commander of the group army, otherwise it will be sent to a military court.

As a result, a large number of German troops were stranded in the area east of the Vazuza River and the Gezhadi River, forming a very dangerous protrusion. On the left and right wings are the Bryansk Front and the Kalinin Front of the Soviet Army.

However, after entering late December, the Soviet offensive forces also encountered trouble. Due to the eastward relocation of a large number of arsenals in the Moscow area, the Soviet troops in the offensive state had insufficient ammunition supplies, and some were corrupted. The Soviet army, which had made adventurous advances, also suffered a big loss in the pursuit.

The situation that it finally formed was that the fighting between the two sides temporarily stopped. In all directions, except for some small-scale exchanges of fire, neither side did much.

On the outskirts of Plotnikovo, at the position of the 30th Army’s direct artillery, Victor climbed a low hill with great difficulty stepping on the thick snow. He stood under a dry poplar tree and held up. The telescope in his hand looked straight ahead.

Today, the commander of the Kalinin Front is Konev. In Viktor’s view, this comrade commander is a guy who is good at tailwinds, but he will panic once there is adversity, and his commanding ability is not excellent. When it first took over the command of the front army level, weaknesses were exposed in many aspects.

Before coming out of Moscow this time, Victor saw the telegram sent by Yelemenko to the General Staff. He believed that Konev lacked sufficient control over the troops of the Front Army and lacked communication and cooperation between the various armies, so that the 30th Army The front is too long and the deployment of troops is very dangerous.

In addition, Comrade Konev, who was eager to prove that he was too aggressive, tried to find loopholes in the German defense line, so as to achieve the purpose of capturing Polunino and advancing along the Volga River. But the reality is that his front German defense line is very high. Strong, the troops suffered great losses during the offensive process. The current Kalinin Front needs to consolidate its own line of defense, while restoring the troops.

In order to clarify the specific situation of the Kalinin Front, the base camp sent a delegation headed by Budjoni. Victor was the representative of the NKVD in the delegation-this was also the first base camp representative sent by the Soviet Army in World War II. In many subsequent battles, the base camp representative system will become customized.

In the telescope's field of vision, a figure was shaking on the white snowy field in the distance, which was the position of the Soviet army. Because of the severe cold, it is almost impossible for the soldiers to dig out reciprocating trenches in the frozen ground. Therefore, most of the positions are foxholes with weak defensive effects. It's hard to say what other places are, but at least in this area, the defense force is too weak.

However, Victor will not make any comments on this. It is not his scope of responsibility. His current task is only to provide information and consulting services for the delegation. After two days, he will return to Moscow to deal with his own affairs. work.

Three days ago, the People’s Committee of National Defense issued the “Resolution on the Liquidation of Defects during the Defense War in Moscow”. According to this order, during the Defense War in Moscow, 1,437 cadres of party and government organs, The staff will be investigated and punished by the People's Committee of the Interior.

Yes, although in the external propaganda of the propaganda department, during the entire Moscow campaign, Moscow’s party and government personnel, and even ordinary citizens, united as one to fight against German fascism, but in fact, there were still some people who fled. And there are quite a few.

Some people use the excuse of official duties to move the family to the rear; some give reasons to visit relatives; more people, without any excuse, just leave their jobs and take the family with them. Ran away.

When the war in Moscow was tense, no one could take care of these things. Now that the German army under the city has been repelled, the Kremlin can relax, so the work of liquidation was immediately put on the agenda.

Think about it, even Comrade Stalin did not choose to retreat in the face of the tense situation. How could these guys dare to escape?

The thousands of people who were previously liquidated all left Moscow with their families without any excuses. When they were dealt with, it was the turn of those who fled under various guise. The principle of the NKVD is: Since these people are unwilling to share difficulties with the Alliance and Moscow, they are not eligible to enjoy the treatment granted by the Alliance and are not eligible to remain in Moscow. The only way for them to atone for their sins was to pick up their guns, but to fight on the front line, and to fight in the cruelest place.

Victor has always been very cautious about the work of liquidation and punishment. Therefore, after taking over this work, he must have some basic understanding of everyone included in the list to determine them. It's not innocent indeed.

In addition to this tedious task, Victor has recently suffered a headache from the heavy losses suffered by the guerrillas behind enemy lines.

During the Battle of Moscow, the German army began a large-scale encirclement and suppression of the Soviet guerrillas active in West Ukraine and Belarus. There were originally thousands of guerrillas active in the two regions. After this round of encirclement and suppression. , There are only more than two hundred remaining ones that can be contacted.

The heavy losses suffered by the guerrillas behind enemy lines not only greatly affected the work of harassing the German logistics, but also brought difficulties to the intelligence work of the NKVD. For this reason, Victor formulated a new plan, and he decided to hide The intelligence personnel were separated from the guerrillas. Intelligence personnel no longer participate in the military operations of the guerrillas and cut off the direct contact between the two. Intelligence personnel will always use internal single-line contact methods. After all, for a lurker, the fewer relevant contacts, the safer he can be.

In addition, Victor has also sent a report to the Committee, suggesting the formation of a headquarters dedicated to command guerrilla operations. In this report, he explained the importance of guerrilla operations behind enemy lines with detailed data and emphasized the importance of guerrilla operations behind enemy lines. Guerrilla warfare is a strong cooperation with the front-line battlefield. At some point, it may even become a key factor in the victory of a certain battle.

With Victor's current position and status, as long as he does not love the front line like Serov, it is difficult to have the opportunity to go to the front line in person, and it is unlikely that he will be personally responsible for a specific and detailed job. Now, what he mainly does is to select the more important parts from the various intelligence information submitted by the intelligence analysis department, analyze and summarize them, and submit them to the Committee and the People's Committee of National Defense in the form of reports.

He didn't even need to write the report himself. The Committee Department arranged six working secretaries for him, and the corresponding report would be drafted by the corresponding working secretaries, and then he would add, add, and modify.

But even so, Victor’s job is definitely not easy. Take intelligence analysis as an example. When the intelligence analysis department performs intelligence analysis, it may not be able to screen out all the important information. , Some seemingly insignificant, but terrible intelligence information may be missed.

This is not to say that the intelligence analysis department is careless in its work, but because intelligence analysts have certain flaws in their grasp of the overall situation.

To give an example: intelligence came from Vyazma, saying that in the recent period, the number of freight trains passing through the Salisway freight station has been suddenly reduced by two, and the number of the two reduced trains is "1047" and " 1093". The personnel responsible for intelligence analysis in Belarus may not pay attention to such a piece of information.

But at the same time, the personnel responsible for the intelligence work in the direction of Ukraine got a piece of information on the Cherkasy direction Irazovo freight station, which suddenly added several freight trains, and the newly added freight trains included The trains numbered "1047" and "1093" were removed.

In this case, the intelligence personnel of the Ukrainian direction may report that it is the German army that has increased the supply of materials to the Ukrainian direction, and the German army in that direction may take action.

But in this, some of the more critical intelligence was ignored. For example, the German offensive attempted to launch an offensive in the direction of Ukraine was at the expense of strength in the direction of Belarus. They were unable to launch an offensive in the direction of Ukraine at the same time. In the direction of Belarus, enough pressure was given to the Soviet army.

At this time, the Soviet army can launch an offensive in the direction of Belarus based on this intelligence. On the one hand, it can try to break through the German defense line, and on the other hand, it can also contain the German army's actions in the direction of Ukraine.

In order to avoid such omissions in intelligence information, Victor not only asked the intelligence analysis department to form an integrated catalog of all intelligence information, and communicate with each other between the departments, he himself also carefully read the catalogue every day to find out Important information that may have been missed.