Enemy at the Gates by William Craig

the southern fringes of the city. Instead, Yeremenko sent him north to the tractor factory to build a line girdling that plant. Another group, marines from the Soviet Far East Fleet, piled into a convoy of automobiles for a breakneck trip past Mamaev Hill to the trenches along the Mokraya Mechetka River, a mile above the tractor works. The marines rode to battle with their rifles sticking out the car windows.
     
     
    One traveler to the factory complex was Georgi Malenkov, Stalin's personal watchdog in Yeremenko's headquarters. If the general was nervous with Malenkov peering over his shoulder, Nikita Khrushchev was more so, for he and Malenkov were bitter rivals in the murderous world of Kremlin politics. Khrushchev knew that he had lost favor with Stalin because of his partial responsibility for the disastrous spring offensive at Kharkov which had resulted in the loss of more than two hundred thousand Red Army troops.* A master of intrigue himself, he realized that Malenkov would gladly report any of his mistakes to the premier.
    Malenkov had gone to the tractor factory, where under a broiling sun, his face flushed and hair hanging in wet strands, he exhorted the plant personnel to hold on until more help arrived. He spoke with great fervor while the pounding guns from the battle around Spartakovka to the north punctuated his sentences.
    After Malenkov finished speaking, the workers dispersed to the cavernous shops. Inside one of the rooms, Mikhail Vodolagin had finally brought out the emergency edition of Pravda, 500 singlesheet copies that he rushed out to the population with instructions to pass them on after reading. The main point of Vodolagin's special issue was to instill a sense of continuity, a feeling that the city was still functioning and would survive. He made an urgent appeal for everyone to stay calm and not to give in to panic. His editorial proclaimed: "We will destroy the enemy at the gates of Stalingrad."
     
     
    While the fledgling publisher moved his printing operations further south, to the less-threatened Red October Plant, civilian militia and regular troops rushed past the tractor factory toward the Mokraya Mechetka River where German combat groups were trying to overrun the stubborn Russian amateurs. The only German success had been the capture of the trans-Volga ferry terminus for the railroad to Kazakhstan. Around the approaches to the factories of Stalingrad, they had met constant and bloody rebuffs.
    One Russian woman, Olga Kovalova, dominated a section of the defenses protecting the tractor factory. Stalking the line, her head wrapped in a gaily colored kerchief, she screamed invective at militiamen whom she found derelict, clumsy, or incompetent. The men were used to her rough language. Olga had worked with them for twenty years, during which time she had become the first woman steel founder in the Soviet Union. Gruff and earthy, she had earned their respect and devotion.
    Her battalion commander, Sazakin, heard Olga badgering the workers and tried to get her out of the dangerous sector. "Olga," he implored, "this is no place for a woman. Go back where you belong."
    When she failed to respond, he ordered her to leave. Olga turned, fixed him with a malevolent stare and answered: "I'm not going anywhere."
    Sazakin threw up his hands and left her alone. Hours later, he spied a colorful splotch of clothing in a clump of high grass and went to investigate. He found Olga lying on her back, the bright kerchief smeared with blood. Her left eye was missing. She had been dead for some time.
     
     
    Once again the Germans tried to stampede the civilian population. The Stukas came back to bomb the jammed embankment beside the main ferry landing. With no place to hide, the masses 1 there weaved back and forth like a pendulum, first close to the cliff wall for shelter and then out again when the Stukas dove past. Clusters of bombs found them and the shoreline was slippery with blood. Medical teams pulled