Americans in Washington. They would continue with, and seek to expand, the programme of economic and military aid to the Soviet Union. Philanthropy was not the motive. The Western allies had realised that only the Red Army could hope to tie down the bulk of the Wehrmacht for the year it would take to bring the resources of the United States to bear. Any additional strain imposed on Anglo-American shipping was a small price to pay for keeping the Soviet Union in the war.
If it could be done. In early January Stalin’s government moved further east to Kuybyshev on the Volga, and so rejoined the rump of the administration and the foreign diplomatic corps. Kuybyshev was situated closer to the centre of unoccupied Russia; it was also likely to remain unoccupied rather longer than Gorkiy, which was little more than a hundred miles from the front line.
The Soviet military situation was far from enviable. The Red Army, its ranks thinned by the autumn battles, its morale lowered by constant retreat and the loss of the capital, its supply channels thrown into confusion by the loss of the Moscow railway node, had only been saved from complete disaster by the early arrival of winter and the transfer of some eighteen crack divisions from the Far East. These fresh troops, accustomed to the rigours of winter, had been deployed mainly in the Mius, Voronezh and Vladimir sectors. There were not enough of them to throw the Germans back but, with the help of the conditions and an enemy reluctance to mount any determined attacks, they had succeeded in stabilising the line.
But for how long? It was glumly recognised that winters do not last for ever, even Russian winters. It seemed highly unlikely that the Red Army would be able to cope with a renewed German offensive once conditions again became conducive to mobile operations. And so the measures being taken in Kuybyshev, like those under discussion in Washington, were primarily long-term defensive measures. Stalin too was playing for time. If the Soviet Union could somehow avoid the knock-out punch, then there was a good chance of winning the bout on points.
These points were now being totted up out of reach of the rampant Wehrmacht, first and foremost by the enlarging of the industrial base east of the Volga.
This process had been underway since the early ‘30s. The Soviet leadership had, unknown to the Nazi devotees of the blitz solution, demonstrated a rare prescience. Stalin had been preparing for this war for over a decade. By 1941 a substantial proportion of Soviet industry was located east of Moscow, and as the war began more industrial concerns were shifted, machine by machine, in the same direction.
As the panzers rolled through Belorussia, Soviet trains rolled east across the steppe carrying tank factories, steel mills, diesel plants and other vital equipment to the Volga, Ural, Siberian and Central Asian regions.
In the winter of 1941-2 this process went on, as those areas likely to be overrun in the coming spring and summer were denuded of industrial plants necessary for the continued prosecution of the war. This exodus even took precedence, in terms of rail capacity, over the movement of supplies to the hard-pressed troops in the front-line.
The major problem involved in this evacuation of industry was the time consequently lost to production. For example the huge aircraft factories of Voronezh, moved east in November and December, could not be expected to resume full production until May. The same applied to the Moscow aviation industry. Overall, only that thirty-five per cent of aircraft production already situated in the Urals would be turning out planes in the first five months of 1942. It was going to be a thin year for the Red Air Force, no matter how promising the prospects might be for 1943.
Industry could at least be evacuated; mines and agricultural land were not so mobile. New sources of production would have to be found. The food situation was difficult rather
If it could be done. In early January Stalin’s government moved further east to Kuybyshev on the Volga, and so rejoined the rump of the administration and the foreign diplomatic corps. Kuybyshev was situated closer to the centre of unoccupied Russia; it was also likely to remain unoccupied rather longer than Gorkiy, which was little more than a hundred miles from the front line.
The Soviet military situation was far from enviable. The Red Army, its ranks thinned by the autumn battles, its morale lowered by constant retreat and the loss of the capital, its supply channels thrown into confusion by the loss of the Moscow railway node, had only been saved from complete disaster by the early arrival of winter and the transfer of some eighteen crack divisions from the Far East. These fresh troops, accustomed to the rigours of winter, had been deployed mainly in the Mius, Voronezh and Vladimir sectors. There were not enough of them to throw the Germans back but, with the help of the conditions and an enemy reluctance to mount any determined attacks, they had succeeded in stabilising the line.
But for how long? It was glumly recognised that winters do not last for ever, even Russian winters. It seemed highly unlikely that the Red Army would be able to cope with a renewed German offensive once conditions again became conducive to mobile operations. And so the measures being taken in Kuybyshev, like those under discussion in Washington, were primarily long-term defensive measures. Stalin too was playing for time. If the Soviet Union could somehow avoid the knock-out punch, then there was a good chance of winning the bout on points.
These points were now being totted up out of reach of the rampant Wehrmacht, first and foremost by the enlarging of the industrial base east of the Volga.
This process had been underway since the early ‘30s. The Soviet leadership had, unknown to the Nazi devotees of the blitz solution, demonstrated a rare prescience. Stalin had been preparing for this war for over a decade. By 1941 a substantial proportion of Soviet industry was located east of Moscow, and as the war began more industrial concerns were shifted, machine by machine, in the same direction.
As the panzers rolled through Belorussia, Soviet trains rolled east across the steppe carrying tank factories, steel mills, diesel plants and other vital equipment to the Volga, Ural, Siberian and Central Asian regions.
In the winter of 1941-2 this process went on, as those areas likely to be overrun in the coming spring and summer were denuded of industrial plants necessary for the continued prosecution of the war. This exodus even took precedence, in terms of rail capacity, over the movement of supplies to the hard-pressed troops in the front-line.
The major problem involved in this evacuation of industry was the time consequently lost to production. For example the huge aircraft factories of Voronezh, moved east in November and December, could not be expected to resume full production until May. The same applied to the Moscow aviation industry. Overall, only that thirty-five per cent of aircraft production already situated in the Urals would be turning out planes in the first five months of 1942. It was going to be a thin year for the Red Air Force, no matter how promising the prospects might be for 1943.
Industry could at least be evacuated; mines and agricultural land were not so mobile. New sources of production would have to be found. The food situation was difficult rather
Similar Books
