Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov is the same age as the century, the son of a peasant from the village of Serebryanye Prudy, Tula province. He writes about himself: “My ancestors are farmers. And if I was drafted into the tsarist army, my highest rank would be a soldier or sailor, like my four older brothers. But at the beginning of 1918, I volunteered for the Red Army to defend my native Fatherland of workers and peasants. Member of the Civil War, from the age of 19 he commanded a regiment."
According to Nikolai Vladimirovich Chuikov, the commander's grandson, “if you remember the number of wounds that my grandfather received in the Civil War, he was cut down very hard. And climbed into the thick of it. Once, in a snowfall, they stuck in a column of whites. They were looking - officers were all around, and let's chop them down. He also has a checker mark on his forehead, apparently he removed his head in time, and the wound is quite deep. And he was shot through. His toughness, I believe, was brought up in the Silver Ponds. She came from his father, Ivan Ionovich, who was the groom for Count Sheremetev. Mother, Elizaveta Fyodorovna, a believer, headman of the St. Nicholas Church, was also a very staunch person - after all, one had to have the courage to go to the Kremlin in 1936 to ask not to destroy the church. And the son of the brigade commander … I made my way to an appointment with Stalin, then - to Kalinin. And her request was granted. Ivan Ionovich, to be honest, did not really go to church - he was known as a fist fighter. When I was still little when I came to Serebryanye Prudy, my aunt Nyura Kabanova, who was married to Pyotr Chuikov, told me: “At Shrove Tuesday, fist fights, at the neighbor of Baba Liza (Elizaveta Fedorovna. - Wanchai, he says, Ionovsky hit him with a pound fist, you have to lie on the stove. And by morning he died. Ivan Ionovich laid down on the spot with one blow. They tried not to go out with him directly - they fell, grabbed their boots to hold down movements, but you can't beat a lying person. So he jumped out of these boots and ran barefoot along the ice of the Osetr River, across the bridge - and swing again. He was a terrible person in this respect. " And for the war, they are needed - brave, desperate, daring, who can, without flinching, look death in the eyes. Chuikov and Chuikovites are very strong warriors. And let the grandfather risked, but he practically did not retreat with his units. He walked forward all the time. And the losses were less than those of the others, and the tasks were carried out."
In 1922, Vasily Chuikov, who already had two Orders of the Red Banner, entered the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze, continuing his studies at the Chinese branch of the Oriental Faculty of the same academy, which trained intelligence officers. In his book Mission in China, he writes: “We, the Soviet commanders, who under the leadership of the great Lenin defeated the troops of the White Guard generals and repulsed the campaigns of foreign invaders, considered it an honor for ourselves to take part in the national liberation movement of the Chinese people … studied the history of China, traditions and customs”.
Vasily Chuikov went on his first business trip to China in 1926. Later he recalled: “Siberia was familiar to me from my combat youth. There, in the fight against Kolchak, I received the baptism of fire and in the battles near Buguruslan became the commander of the regiment. The campaign against the troops of Kolchak and other generals of the tsarist army was harsh. Now peaceful platforms flashed outside the carriage window. Villages and villages have healed their fiery wounds. Trains ran - albeit with frequent delays, but not according to the timetable of the Civil War. In 1919 g.from Kurgan to Moscow, our regiment moved by rail for more than a month."
It is from these Kurgan steppes that our clan Vedyaevs originate. In his memoirs, Aleksey Dmitrievich Vedyaev writes: “In 1918-1919 the situation in the Trans-Urals was difficult … In the area of Presnovka, Kazanka, Lopatok, Bolshe-Kureynoye, Malo-Kureynoye (the family of my great-grandfather, blacksmith Dmitry Vedyaev lived in this village.. V.) Fought the 5th Infantry Division as part of the 1st and 3rd brigades, six regiments. The commander of the 43rd regiment was V. I. Chuikov, who then commanded the 62nd Army at Stalingrad. There were battles with varying success. Kolchak's men in Bolshe-Kureinoye shot the priest, burned many houses, believing that the Red Army men had hidden in the church. … In memory of those battles, there are obelisks in Bolshe-Kureyny and near Lake Kisloe. In World War II, near Rzhev, in this 5th Red Banner Rifle Division, renamed the 44th Guards Division, I had a chance to fight, and under the command of V. I. Chuikov - in Ukraine, Moldova as part of the 8th Guards Army. God works in mysterious ways.
After Stalingrad, Chuikov's 62nd Army, renamed the 8th Guards Army, liberated Donbass, Right-Bank Ukraine and Odessa, Polish Lublin, crossed the Vistula and Oder, stormed the Seelow Heights - the gateway to Berlin. Chuikov's guards, with 200 days of experience in fighting in completely destroyed Stalingrad, skillfully fought street battles in Berlin. It was at Chuikov's command post that on May 2, 1945, the head of the Berlin garrison, General of the Artillery Helmut Weidling, surrendered, who was also trying to organize the defense of the city, fighting for every house.
But he did not succeed. But Chuikov held out in Stalingrad - which means he was stronger both as a commander and as a person.
“Chuikov felt the essence of every battle,” says Colonel-General Anatoly Grigorievich Merezhko, who during the war years served as assistant to the chief of the operations department of the headquarters of the 62nd Army. - He was persistent and stubborn … Chuikov embodied all the features that are traditionally attributed to Russians - as the song says: "Walk like that, shoot like this." For him, war was a lifelong affair. He possessed an irrepressible energy that infected everyone around him: from commanders to soldiers. Were Chuikov's character different, we would not have been able to keep Stalingrad."
The first blow of the Germans rushing to the Volga was taken on August 2, 1942 by the Chekists. In his memoirs, Marshal Chuikov writes: “To the soldiers of the 10th division of the Internal Troops of the NKVD, Colonel AA Sarayev had to be the first defenders of Stalingrad, and they withstood this most difficult test with honor, bravely and selflessly fought against superior enemy forces until the approach of units and formations of the 62nd Army."
Of the 7,568 fighters of the 10th NKVD division, about 200 people survived. During the night from September 14 to September 15, the combined detachment of State Security Captain Ivan Timofeevich Petrakov - two incomplete platoons of fighters of the 10th NKVD division and employees of the NKVD, totaling 90 people - essentially saved Stalingrad at the last line at the very crossing, repelling it on a narrow strip the shores of the attack of an entire battalion of German infantry. Thanks to this, the 13th Guards Division of Major General Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev was able to cross from the left bank and join the battle.
Both the Chekists of Alexander Saraev and the guardsmen of Alexander Rodimtsev were part of the 62nd Army of Vasily Chuikov. Therefore, one can imagine their bewilderment after the publication of the book "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
“When I read in Pravda,” writes the Marshal, “that in our days there was a man who attributed the victory at Stalingrad to the penal battalions, I did not believe my eyes… I repeat again: during the Stalingrad epic, there were no penal companies in the Soviet Army or other penal units. Among the Stalingrad fighters there was not a single penalty box fighter. On behalf of the Stalingrad people who lived and died in battle, on behalf of their fathers and mothers, wives and children, I accuse you, A. Solzhenitsyn, as a dishonest liar and a slanderer of the heroes of Stalingrad, of our army and our people."
In fact, the backbone of the armies of the Stalingrad Front were not penalties, but paratroopers. In 1941, 10 airborne corps (airborne corps) were formed, each numbering up to 10 thousand people. But due to the sharp deterioration of the situation in the southern sector of the front, they were reorganized into rifle divisions (GKO decree of July 29, 1942). They immediately received guards ranks and numbers from 32 to 41. Eight of them were sent to Stalingrad.
The personnel of these divisions continued to wear the uniform of the Airborne Forces for a long time. Many commanders had jackets with fur collars instead of greatcoats and high fur boots instead of felt boots. All guardsmen, including officers, continued to wear finca, intended for use as "sling cutters".
So, the 5th Airborne Forces, withdrawn in March 1942 to the reserve of the Supreme Command Headquarters, was replenished with personnel trained under the Airborne Forces program, and in early August was reorganized into the 39th Guards Rifle Division, which was commanded by Major General Stepan Guryev in As part of the 62nd Army, she fought in the south-western direction, and then in Stalingrad itself on the territory of the Krasny Oktyabr plant. On the near approaches to Stalingrad, and then in the city itself, the 35th Guards Rifle Division (formerly the 8th Airborne Division) fought. The division's guards are one of the first defenders of the Stalingrad grain elevator.
It was the paratroopers who cemented the ranks of the defenders of Stalingrad, and among them my grandfather, Andrei Dmitrievich Vedyaev, who fought in Stalingrad as part of the 36th Guards Rifle Division (formerly the 9th Airborne Forces). Grandfather “despite his explosive nature and liberties … was not noticed in any violations of discipline,” my father writes about him. - Apparently, he knew how to control himself, was brave and resourceful, knew and loved the service well, found satisfaction in it. We decided that Andrey Dmitrievich Vedyaev should be sent to the rear of the enemy in the interests of the cause as a company commander, and they appointed him to this position."
The guardsmen of Major General Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev, who received his first Gold Star of Hero (No. 45) in Spain, gained particular fame. His son Ilya Aleksandrovich, with whom we were recently in the homeland of Marshal Chuikov in Serebryanye Prudy, says: “In the Rodimtsev family, Chuikov's name was always pronounced with special love. The first time Vasily Ivanovich and my father met in Stalingrad. On the night of September 15, 1942, the 13th Guards Division, commanded by my father, crossed into burning Stalingrad. For the first day and a half, my father could not even get to the headquarters of the 62nd Army, because the Germans were near the Volga itself. The soldiers immediately entered the battle to drive the Germans out of the city center and ensure the passage of further units. By the evening of September 15, at the headquarters of the 62nd Army near the Mamayev Kurgan, Rodimtsev reported to Chuikov that he had arrived with his division. Vasily Ivanovich asked: “Do you understand the situation in Stalingrad? What are you going to do? " My father replied: "I am a communist and I will not leave Stalingrad." Vasily Ivanovich liked this answer, because a few days before that, on September 12, when Chuikov was appointed army commander, the front commander Andrei Eremenko asked him the same question. Chuikov replied that we could not give up Stalingrad and would not give it up. This is how the Stalingrad saga began. For 140 days and nights my father was in Stalingrad, never went to the left bank. Chuikov had many divisions in the army, and everyone fought with dignity. However, Vasily Ivanovich himself, remembering his commanders, always singled out three: Alexander Rodimtsev, Ivan Lyudnikov and Viktor Zholudev. After the war, my father met with Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov many times, their friendship remained for life. When his father died in 1977, Vasily Ivanovich came to our family, recalled Stalingrad and said the following words: “It’s hard to say how all this would have ended if it were not for the 13th Division, which saved the city in the last hours.” Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov is a very large figure. A person was needed for which the soldiers would go. The soldiers could only believe in the commander, about whom they knew that he was with them, that he was near. This was exactly the formula of the commander Chuikov: "The commander must be with the soldier."All the participants in the Battle of Stalingrad remember as one that their commander, their divisional commanders were always among them: they saw them at the crossing, in the ruins of the houses they defended, in their trenches. Subsequently, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus asked Chuikov: "Mr. General, where was your command post?" Chuikov replied: "On the Mamayev Kurgan." Paulus paused and said: "You know, intelligence reported to me, but I did not believe her."
But the Germans believed the Soviet intelligence, which, during the Chekist operation "Monastyr", transmitted disinformation to the Abwehr that the Red Army would go on the offensive not near Stalingrad, but near Rzhev. It was handed over by the agent "Heine" who was implanted in the Abwehr, who was then abandoned by the Germans in Moscow under the pseudonym Max. According to legend, in Moscow he was enrolled in the General Staff as a liaison officer. His image was partially derived by Oleg Dal in the film "Omega Variant" (1975).
In his memoirs “Special Operations. Lubyanka and the Kremlin. 1930-1950 "the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov (in the film under the name of Simakov he is played by Evgeny Evstigneev) writes:" On November 4, 1942, "Heine" - "Max" reported that the Red Army would strike the Germans on November 15 not near Stalingrad, but in the North Caucasus and near Rzhev. The Germans were waiting for a blow near Rzhev and repelled it. But the encirclement of Paulus' group at Stalingrad came as a complete surprise to them. Unaware of this radio game, Zhukov paid a dear price - in the offensive near Rzhev, thousands and thousands of our soldiers, who were under his command, were killed. In his memoirs, he admits that the outcome of this offensive operation was unsatisfactory. But he never found out that the Germans had been warned about our offensive in the Rzhev direction, so they threw so many troops there."
The deputy of Sudoplatov was the senior major of state security Naum Eitingon, who at one time was invited to the central office of the Cheka by Felix Dzerzhinsky himself. Just like Chuikov, he graduated from the Eastern Faculty of the Military Academy and in 1927-1929 was a resident of the INO (foreign intelligence) of the OGPU in China under the guise of the post of vice-consul of the USSR in Harbin. At the same time, in the same years, Vasily Chuikov also worked in Harbin through the IV (intelligence) Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters. In 1928, his daughter Ninel was born in Harbin. In the book "At Maximum Altitude", which was written by the son and daughter of General Eitingon, there is a unique photo taken in Harbin. In the photo, three are playing chess. Two of them are Chuikov and Eitingon.
At that time, the task of the Soviet stations in China included military assistance to the Chinese Communist Party, including the supply of weapons, since by the fall of 1927, the commander-in-chief of the Chinese Revolutionary Army, Chiang Kai-shek, had carried out a counter-revolutionary coup. “By the nature of my work, I traveled a lot around the country,” Chuikov writes in his book Mission in China. "I traveled almost all of North and South China, learned to speak Chinese quite fluently."
Working from illegal positions under the name of Karpov, he interacts with a group of militant agents of Christopher Salnyn. The military intelligence advisor in the group was the Bulgarian Ivan ("Vanko") Vinarov, later the Minister of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. On June 4, 1928, Eitington and the Salnyn group blew up a train carrying the pro-Japanese dictator of North China and Manchuria Zhang Zuolin (Huangutun incident).
In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in uniting all of China under his rule and strengthening his influence in Manchuria. On May 27, 1929, the Chinese police defeated the Soviet Consulate General in Harbin, arresting 80 people and seizing documents. Chuikov returned to Vladivostok in a roundabout way through Japan and was sent to Khabarovsk, where a Special Far Eastern Army was formed to repel the aggression of the Chinese, supported by White Russian emigres and Western powers.“We, who speak Chinese and know the situation in China, were assigned to the army headquarters,” Chuikov writes. During the elimination of the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway, he was next to the commander of the army, Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher, and became the chief of the 1st (reconnaissance) Division of the army headquarters. The Salnyn and Vinarov group also took part in reconnaissance and sabotage operations against the Chinese.
In 1932, Chuikov was demoted: he was transferred to Zagoryanka as head of the Advanced Training Courses for intelligence command personnel under the IV Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters. The reason was a conflict with a member of the Military Council of the army. According to Nikolai Vladimirovich Chuikov, at one of the anniversaries, he said something offensive to his grandfather and immediately received it in the face. “Chuikov was saved by his military past - a hero of the Civil War, and a peasant origin. But the main thing is that the Lord saved him, as if preserving him for a more important mission. After graduating from the Military Academy of Mechanization and Motorization of the Red Army in 1936, he took part in the Polish liberation campaign (1939) and the Soviet-Finnish war (1939-1940) already with the rank of army commander.
Eitingon, meanwhile, under the name of General Kotov, visited Spain as the NKVD deputy resident for partisan operations, including sabotage on the railways, and in 1940 he led Operation Duck to eliminate the worst enemy of Soviet power, Leon Trotsky. In 1941, he became Sudoplatov's deputy and, together with Vanko Vinarov, went to Turkey to eliminate the German ambassador Franz von Papen. Chuikov in the same year was sent to China as the main military adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek with the task of organizing a united front against Japan. As a result of all these actions, neither Turkey nor Japan dared to attack the USSR.
“When I went to Taiwan,” says Nikolai Vladimirovich Chuikov, “their archive aroused my particular interest. Before that, I tried to find at least something about Chuikov in Nanjing and Chongqing. But there is nothing there. And the President of Taiwan gave me Chiang Kai-shek's diary for 1941-1942. His notes confirm that Chuikov really pressed hard on Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong to unite against Japan, and not engage in civil strife. For example, the entry dated June 30, 1941:
民国 三 十年 六月 30
晚 公 为 德苏 战事 ， 约 俄 总 顾问 崔克夫 来 见 先 予以 慰问 ， 并 对该 国 正在进行 之 战事 表示 关怀 之 意 ， 继 告 之 谓 俄 在 远东 应 先 与 中国 合力 解决 倭寇 ， 然后 再 以全力 西 向 对 德 ， 如此 则 俄 在 东方 地位 可以 安全 ， 而 对 德 亦可 进退自如 矣 ， 最后 并 请 转告 其 军政 当局 中国 决 尽力 相助 也。
In the evening, he invited Chuikov, the chief adviser of the USSR, to discuss the war between Germany and the USSR. First he inquired about his health and the situation at the fronts, then he said that Russia must first fight the Japanese in the east together with China, and then fight the Germans with all its might in the west … In conclusion, he asked to convey to the USSR government that China would provide him with all possible support.
January 16, 1942
In the morning he returned to Chongqing and met with the chief military adviser and military attaché of the USSR, Chuikov.
Chuikov. Today I received information that the enemy's high command, in order to implement the plan for an offensive to the south, has decided to gather 17 divisions and regiments, many air forces and navies on the islands in the South China Sea. I'm afraid the enemy is spreading such information not to go south … but is going to attack Central and North China. In addition, the day before yesterday, enemy aircraft quietly attacked the province of Sichuan. Their goal is to determine the deployment of the Chinese army in the interior provinces, not its bombing.
Chiang Kai-shek. I think that in the spring the enemy will launch an offensive against Central and North China.
Chuikov. Yesterday I learned that there were clashes between your troops. What's happening? I need to report to our Generalissimo.
Chiang Kai-shek. This matter still needs to be sorted out.
Chuikov. As I was leaving, our Generalissimo told me that I must support Chairman Chiang Kai-shek. Now your country is threatened by the Japanese. The army must rally under your leadership. No internal conflicts are allowed … I heard that 70,000 people are involved in the conflict. Both sides suffer losses, the army commander and chief of staff were taken prisoner. I ask you to send people as soon as possible and sort it out on the spot.
Chiang Kai-shek. As soon as I receive the report from the front, I will send a person to you.
Chuikov. Thank you very much for today's meeting and conversation. Stay healthy. And I hope that the army and people will rally under your wise leadership and will resist the Japanese aggressors.
Chiang Kai-shek. Stay healthy!.
“The problem was,” Nikolai Vladimirovich continues, “that Mao did not follow the orders of the commander-in-chief, Chiang Kai-shek. It seems to me that Chiang Kai-shek got tired of this, and a blow was struck at the column of the 4th Army, which formed the basis of the Red Army of China. Its commander Ye Ting was sent to prison, 10 thousand communists were shot. Mao was about to retaliate. These events put Chuikov's mission at risk. He came to Chiang Kai-shek - he shrugs his shoulders, they say, he did not give such orders. Then the grandfather tried to clarify this issue with the chief of the General Staff. Chuikov's character was explosive, and in a conversation in raised tones, he threw a palace vase at him, frightening that if this happens again, then there will be no more help from the USSR. The threats worked - Chiang Kai-shek was afraid that we would remove all military advisers and stop military-technical assistance. Grandfather also managed to get in touch with Georgy Dimitrov, and he put pressure on Mao through the Comintern. As a result, Chuikov sorted out this situation. Returning from China, he reported to Stalin that the task had been completed: it was possible to combine the efforts of the CPC and the Kuomintang, the 4th and 8th armies. That is why the Japanese did not attack us, but began bombing Pearl Harbor. But if the Japanese invaded the USSR, and at the level of Siberia and the Urals, where we evacuated industry, it would be a nightmare."
- Nikolai Vladimirovich, what were the features of Chuikov's tactics in Stalingrad?
- Chuikov, being a professional intelligence officer, noticed that the Germans attacked in a rather stereotyped manner. At the same time, the scheme of their offensive was clearly worked out. First, the aviation rises, starts bombing. Then the artillery is turned on, and it works mainly in the first echelon, and not in the second. Tanks begin to move, infantry is walking under their cover. But if this scheme is broken, their attack drowns. My grandfather noticed that where our trenches approached close to the Germans, the Germans did not bomb. And their main trump card was aviation. Chuikov's idea was simple - to reduce the distance to 50 m, before throwing a grenade. Thus, they knocked out the main trump card - aviation and artillery. The task was to keep this distance all the time, to penetrate the Germans. And then the use of small reconnaissance and sabotage groups (RDG), the capture and retention of individual buildings - such as, for example, Pavlov's house. After all, the Germans broke into the city on the courage, marched in tank columns almost with harmonicas. And bang them! first car, bang! the last - and let's shoot, burn with Molotov cocktails. As recently as Chechens in Grozny. And it is imperative to counterattack, to conduct an active defense. Grandfather realized that the Germans most of all do not like hand-to-hand combat and night combat. They are comfortable people - they have fought since dawn, as it should be. They press us towards the Volga during the day, and we counterattack them at night and actually push them back to their original positions or even further. That is, it turned out to be a kind of swing. Separately, snipers. I studied at a military school according to the Combat Regulations, which Chuikov developed. The actions of these small RDGs are clearly spelled out there. They are ordered to advance. You go in dashes, two fighters of the firing sector are taking to cover you. You ran to the door - first a grenade flies there, then a line, then a dash. And again - a grenade, a turn, a dash.
- Subsequently, this tactic was used by the special forces of the KGB of the USSR, for example, the Zenit and Thunder groups during the seizure of Amin's palace in Kabul.
- It is no coincidence that in 1970 my grandfather was awarded the highest award of the KGB of the USSR - the badge "Honorary State Security Officer".
- By the way, after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, both Chuikov and Eitingon were awarded the highest military orders: Lieutenant General Chuikov - the Order of Suvorov, I degree, and Major General Eitingon - the Order of Suvorov, II degree. Captain Demyanov (agent "Heine"), already awarded the Iron Cross by the Germans, received the Order of the Red Star …
- My grandfather always said that everyone who has gone through Stalingrad is a hero. Therefore, Zhukov took Chuikov to himself, because the 8th Guards Army was transferred to the 1st Belorussian Front from the south of Ukraine and from Moldova. Because he needed a man whose soldiers could masterfully take the bastions, the "general assault."
- Yes, and Vasily Ivanovich himself was a model of courage and perseverance, never leaving Stalingrad and not leaving for the left bank.
- It even happened that the artillery threshed, they came running to the headquarters: "Comrade commander, the Germans broke through there." And he sits quietly and plays chess with his adjutant. After all, he represents the situation: "Have you broken through?" And he gives the command to enter such and such a battalion. Or redeploy part of the regiment, deploy artillery fire. At the same time, there is no fear, no fuss. For 200 days, he washed only in parts. Once he went to the bank of the Volga to go to the bathhouse, he saw the soldiers watching. Turned around - and back, so that someone does not think. In general, I do not know how my grandfather was able to keep Stalingrad. At that time, if you had offered someone to take his place, they wouldn't have agreed. Because, consider, you find yourself for certain death. There is still a grain of miracle that he managed to survive there and to hold on.
In July 1981, Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: “Feeling the end of life approaching, I am in full consciousness make a request: after my death, bury the ashes on the Mamayev Kurgan in Stalingrad … Stalingrad ruins, there are buried thousands of soldiers whom I commanded …
July 27, 1981 V. Chuikov.
