Russia at war 1941-1945

example, in Paris in 1940; this was a war of extermination, and the Germans never made a secret of it. Secondly, the local pride of Leningrad had a quality of its own—it was composed of a great love of the city itself, of its historical past, its extraordinary literary associations (this was particularly true of the intelligentsia) and also of a great proletarian and revolutionary tradition amongst its working-class; nothing could have so blended these two great loves for Leningrad into one thing as the threat of the annihilation of the city. Perhaps even quite consciously, there was also the old competition with Moscow: if Moscow were to fall in October 1941, Leningrad at least would hold out longer, come

what may; and, once Moscow had been saved, it was a point of honour for Leningrad to do as well, and even better. Some of the most bitter anti-Stalinists like Olga Bergholz, were also the most fanatical Leningrad patriots. But sentiment, however praiseworthy, was not enough. No doubt, the army's record, right up to the moment when it retreated to the outskirts of Leningrad, had been disappointing; and the Leningrad authorities had, obviously, done a great deal of bungling too during those first two and a half months of the German invasion. The whole problem of evacuation, especially of children, had been grossly mishandled, and little or nothing had been done to lay in food reserves. But once the Germans had been stopped outside Leningrad, and once the decision had been taken to fight for every house and every street, the faults of the army and the civilian authorities were readily forgotten; for now it was a case of defending Leningrad at any price. It was only natural that very rigid discipline and organisation were necessary inside the besieged city; but this had little to do with "an ingrained habit of obedience to the authorities", or, still less, with "the Stalinist terror". Obviously, food had to be severely rationed; but to say that people in Leningrad worked and did not "rebel" (for what purpose?) in order to have a ration card—which, to many, did not even mean "the difference between life and death"—is to misunderstand the spirit of Leningrad completely. And there is little doubt that the Party organisation, after many initial blunders, played a very important role in keeping Leningrad going: first, by making rationing as fair as was humanly possible in incredibly difficult conditions; second, in organising civil defence inside the city on a vast scale; third, in mobilising people for cutting timber, peat, etc.; fourth, by organising the various "roads of life". And there is also no doubt that, in the midst of the most appalling hardships of the winter of 1941-2, organisations like the Komsomol showed the greatest self-sacrifice and endurance in helping people.

There can really be no comparison with London; the blitz was terrible enough, though it was not comparable to what German cities got a few years later. The bombing of London was really worse than the bombing or shelling of Leningrad, at least in terms of

casualties. But only if one imagined that everybody in London was starving during the blitz winter, and ten or twenty thousand people were dying of hunger in London every day, would it be possible to put an equation mark between the two. In Leningrad the

choice lay between dishonourably dying in German captivity or honourably dying (or,

with luck, surviving) in one's own unconquered city. Any attempt to differentiate

between Russian patriotism, or revolutionary ardour, or Soviet organisation, or to ask which of the three was the more important in saving Leningrad is also singularly futile: all three were blended in an extraordinarily "Leningrad" way.

Local "Leningrad" patriotism gave a special flavour to all three. In Leningrad in 1943 I could observe this on every occasion; to the people of Leningrad, their city, with all that it had done and endured, was something unique. They spoke with some contempt of the

"Moscow skedaddle" of 1941 and many, among them that very remarkable man, P. S.

Popkov, head of the Leningrad Soviet, felt that, after what it had done, Leningrad

deserved some special distinction. One idea, very current at the time, was that Leningrad should become the capital of the RSFSR, i.e. of Russia proper, whereas Moscow would

remain the capital of the USSR.

This Leningrad particularism was not at all to Stalin's liking. He must have known that there were much fewer pictures of him there than in any other city in the Soviet Union, and that Leningrad tended to look upon itself as being something rather distinct, both militarily and politically, from the "mainland". It was suspected in Moscow that Zhdanov (who had been a great chief in the days of the siege—quite regardless of all his previous