"Volodya, the results of the investigation are out!"

Manturov looked at his wife with a puzzled expression, "What investigation?" ”

Katia took a letter in her hand, walked up to Manturov, and said: "Since May of this year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has been investigating you on suspicion of embezzlement in the construction of fortifications, and not long ago reported to Stalin the progress of their investigation. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Manturov thought about it carefully and found out why he was being suspected.

Just a year ago, Manturov, deputy chairman of the People's Commissariat and People's Commissar of Construction, proposed to Stalin and the People's Commissariat of Defense a plan to build fortifications in the areas of Minsk, Kiev and Odessa, strengthening the defense capabilities of the three major western cities, which was accepted by Stalin and the People's Commissariat of Defense.

Since the 1920s, the Soviet Red Army has built a series of fortifications along the national border, from the Odessa Oblast on the Black Sea coast to the Leningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea coast, intermittently, stretching for more than 1,000 kilometers, like a Great Wall, defending the western border of the Soviet Union, which is called the "Stalin Line" by the Western media, but in fact, there is no specific collective name.

In addition to the borders, the Soviet government built a series of fortifications outside Kyiv, along rivers such as the Irpian River, to defend Ukraine's capital and the birthplace of East Slavic culture.

This series of defensive affairs, according to the standards of the construction, if there is no cutting corners, the defensive capability is still relatively strong. In particular, the official affairs around Kiev, even in history, during the Battle of Kiev, played a great role, successfully preventing the German Kleist cluster from attacking Kyiv from the front.

However, beginning in 1939, the Soviet Union acquired large tracts of land from Poland, Moldova from Romania, and annexed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, moving the entire border westward.

Since then, the Soviet Red Army has begun to build fortifications on the new border, and the "Stalin Line", which was originally located on the old border, has been disarmed, and has not made any improvements in response to the changes of the times, and as a result, after the outbreak of World War II, even if this line of defense has played a certain role, it has not been able to stop the German fascist army.

Historically, after breaking through the "Stalin Line", the German fascists were able to drive straight into the territory of the Soviet Union.

Manturov, who comes from the 21st century, is well aware of the importance of this line of defense. Because only he, and his wife, could foreshadow the future development of the Soviet-German war, and the historical development of the German army that would occupy large swathes of Soviet territory.

Preventing the Germans from breaking through the line of defense on the new border seemed to Manturov an impossible task, at least for now, the German army had completely broken through the line of defense built by the Soviets on the new border.

The "Stalin Line" was different, even if it was a bit old, but historically, it still caused a lot of trouble for the German army, at least historically, it took a lot of effort for the German army to break through this old line of defense, and not to break through it at a moment's notice, as was the case with the new one.

In order to make this line of defense more difficult for the German army, and even block the German army west of the old border line and prevent them from occupying Minsk and Kiev, in 1940, Manturov, as People's Commissar for Construction and Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, began to upgrade this old line of defense.

However, in the project plan, Manturov only mentions strengthening the defense of strategic towns such as Odessa, Kyiv and Minsk, and does not mention any upgrades to other parts of the defensive line.

After the plan was approved, Manturov not only carried out the upgrading of the "Stalin Line" in the vicinity of Kiev, Minsk and Odessa, but also carried out the upgrading work in the border fortified areas of Volynsky New Town, Ledychev, Gingisep, Pskov and Tiraspol, and even built some fortifications in the area of Uman to the east of the defensive line.

In addition, the scale of the upgrading of the Kyiv, Minsk and Odessa defense lines is much larger than what is written in the plan. The original plan was only to reinforce and upgrade some important fortified areas, but in the process of construction, the engineers found that the original fortress building did not meet the requirements and belonged to the "tofu scum project", so they demolished and rebuilt those substandard pillboxes and turrets, and spent a lot of resources.

As a result, the human, material and financial resources used in the project were far greater than those mentioned in the plan, far exceeding the expectations of Stalin and the People's Commissariat of Defense. But Stalin, who had been fooled by Manturov, never knew about it.

It was not until May 1941 that the NKVD discovered the problem in the financial report of the Ministry of Construction, and after more than a month of investigation, it was on the morning of June 22, the first day of the Soviet-German war, that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Lavrenty Beria, hurriedly reported the problem to Stalin, after all, it was a major matter of the war.

After listening to Beria's report, Stalin decided to transfer Manturov out of Moscow so that he would not use his power to destroy evidence and prevent the Ministry of Internal Affairs from investigating. So Stalin simply transferred Manturov to the South-Western Front as military commissar, after all, this was the only position he was qualified for, outside Moscow.

"Katyusha, when did you know that I was being investigated? Why didn't you tell me? Manturov gazed into Katya's beautiful eyes, observing her eyes closely.

"That's what I just found out."

"Then how did you know just now?" Manturov asked.

"Just now, my dad sent me a letter mentioning this."

"Really?" Manturov put his arm around Katya's slender waist and said, "Your father is a member of the Politburo and a deputy prime minister in charge of national defense, no wonder he knows about this."

Since he made the matter public in his letter, and I was not arrested, does that mean that I have been proven innocent? ”

"Innocence?" Katia took the letter out of her pocket and handed it to Manturov, "See for yourself, it's not innocent at all. ”

After reading this letter, Manturov learned the ins and outs of the entire investigation. After a round of investigations, the Ministry of Internal Affairs found that the "Stalinist Line" was built on a larger scale than mentioned in the plan, and more human, material and financial resources were used than originally indicated.

After the calculation, it was confirmed that all the money used by Manturov was used for the construction of the defense line, and he did not swallow a single ruble, which cleared him of the charge of "embezzlement", but could not wash away the fact that he made his own decisions and changed the plan without authorization.

"Bell bell bell! Bell bell bell! At that moment, the phone rang urgently.

(PS: First of all, I would like to apologize, because the author will be unusually busy in the coming months, from January to April, the update schedule will be changed to two days and one update, and the odd-numbered days of each month (such as January 3, March 21) will be updated around 5 pm to 7 pm.) For details, please refer to the "Update Arrangement" related to the work. (To be continued.) )