"Won't wipe your ass......" Stalin couldn't help laughing when he heard Vlasiko's report, "what a bunch of fools, but there's nothing wrong with that, just let their servants follow, after all, we still need these people." Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo”

It's really nothing, Comrade Marx didn't say that revolutionaries have to wipe their buttocks, right? Moreover, the Soviet Union and the international movement now needed these Indian Bolsheviks with their stewards and servants to lead the way - this was necessary at the present stage, otherwise the Soviet Red Army would look like an aggressor.

When they brought the Red Army into India and established revolutionary base areas, then their historical mission was accomplished, and it was time to clean up the revolutionary ranks......

Vlasiko only reported that what Stalin did had nothing to do with him, so he gave Stalin a military salute and turned away.

After the Kremlin's chief butler left, Molotov walked in with Hopkins, the special envoy of US President Roosevelt, and Pavlov, Stalin's secretary and interpreter.

Hopkins came to the Soviet Union for the purpose of joint operations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Pacific - now that the British mainland was controlled by Germany, the North Atlantic route could never be restored, so the North Pacific route became the only lifeline for the Soviet Union.

Moreover, the Atlantic Fleet of the Soviet Red Navy was useless in the Atlantic, and it was imperative to switch to operations in the Pacific Ocean.

And once the 4 Soviet-class and 2 Kronstadt-class ships of the Red Navy reach the Pacific Ocean, then it will be possible for the United States and the Soviet Union to jointly fight against Japan.

"Comrade General Secretary," said Hopkins, after greeting Stalin, turned to the question of a joint war against Japan, "because of the fall of Britain proper, much of the European continent will fall into a long and dark era. ”

Pavlov translated his words into Russian, and Stalin's face soon became very gloomy. Because Hopkins' words show that the United States has abandoned the "Europe first" strategy in favor of the "Pacific First" strategy.

However, there is no way to do this, as soon as Britain loses its homeland, the United States will have no springboard to invade Europe -- although Iceland is still in the hands of the United States, Iceland's geographical location is too remote, and the island's population, industry, and infrastructure are also seriously insufficient, and it is difficult to support the stationing of large troops.

"Therefore, President Roosevelt thought that we could consider pooling the forces of the two countries to fight together against Japan." Hopkins went on to say, "If we can defeat Japan and take control of the Pacific." In the future, then the Soviet Union and the United States will be able to join hands against Germany, the public enemy of all mankind. ”

His use of the word "confrontation" instead of "elimination" shows that Roosevelt had abandoned the idea of eliminating the Axis bloc in Europe.

"Concentrate the forces of the two countries to fight against Japan?" Stalin glanced at Hopkins, "But our forces must be used on the Western Front!" The Germans are still besieging Leningrad now, and they have also captured a lot of land on the Ukrainian side. We had to launch a new offensive in the spring of 1943 to alleviate the situation in Leningrad. ”

Leningrad cannot be thrown away! So the Soviet High Command had already decided to launch the Second Battle of Leningrad in the spring of '43. And in order to win the Second Battle of Leningrad, Stalin had already decided to draw large troops from the Far East. Under these circumstances, it was simply impossible for the USSR to go to war against Japan.

"Comrade General Secretary, we are aware of the situation," Hopkins laughed, "so we are ready to provide you with more assistance through the North Pacific route." But...... At the same time, we also need to make some preparations for a joint war against Japan in the future. ”

"Ready?" Stalin asked, "What preparation?" ”

"Several military bases were established in the Vladivostok region of the USSR to store supplies for attacks on Japan, and at least 20 air wings were stationed," Hopkins said. ”

It turned out that the United States wanted to secretly station aviation in Vladivostok, a fortress in the Far East of the USSR! In this way, once the Soviets and Japan went to war, the bombers and fighters stationed in the Far East would be able to launch air strikes on the Japanese mainland at the first opportunity.

"But this is likely to lead to a complete rupture of Soviet-Japanese relations," said Stalin, frowning, as he lit his pipe and took a puff as he spoke. "If that's the case, we risk getting into a two-front war."

"Comrade General Secretary," Hopkins smiled, "I would like to ...... Japan's blockade of the North Pacific route depends not on whether we deploy aircraft in the Soviet Far East, but on whether their combined fleet can gain a clear upper hand in future operations. If their situation becomes more and more urgent, then your Far East will be very safe. ”

Stalin smoked a cigarette, thought for a moment, nodded and said: "That's right, once the Japanese take full control of the Pacific Ocean, they will definitely cooperate with Germany and strangle our Soviet Union." But...... You're not going to allow that to happen, are you? As far as I know, 1943 will be the year of mass service of your aircraft carriers. ”

"1943, 1944, 1945 and 1946 were all years in which our aircraft carriers were massively served!" "Because we don't need to build ships for a counter-attack on Europe and the lifeline of Britain," Hopkins said slowly, "and all of our shipbuilding forces will be used to produce warships against Japan!" Among them, the construction plan of the Essex class has been increased to 40 ships, the Independence class has increased to 30 ships, and the Midway-class aircraft carrier with a displacement (full load) of nearly 60,000 tons is planned to be built 10 ships! All these projects were to be completed by the end of 1946. ”

This is 80 fleet aircraft carriers!

After the fall of Britain itself, the U.S. government and Congress no longer think about world leadership, but the Pacific and South America must definitely get their hands on it, otherwise the United States will be trapped in North America, and the future will not be easy.

And to take control of the Pacific and South America, the navy is, of course, the key. Even the fighting on the South American continent is dominated by the navy – unlike North America and Europe, where there is no easy road and rail network, and in northern South America there are impassable tropical rainforests.

Therefore, the inland areas of South America are very underdeveloped, the population is also very small, and the best areas are all by the sea, and whoever controls the sea power controls South America.

Therefore, after the United States gave up its counteroffensive in Europe, its strategic thinking has become clear and simple -- that is, to use its powerful industrial strength to focus on developing its navy and aviation units that can be used in naval operations. And aircraft carriers are the top priority!

Because if the United States wants to dominate the Pacific Ocean, it must take the Hawaiian Islands. And the Hawaiian Islands are too far from the west coast of the United States to be reached by shore-based aircraft. Therefore, we can only build a large number of aircraft carriers and use carrier-based aircraft to compete for air supremacy with Japan's shore-based aircraft deployed in Hawaii.

Considering that shore-based aircraft have certain advantages over carrier-based aircraft in terms of performance (provided that the technical level is comparable), the US Navy believes that they must invest several times more aircraft than the Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands to win.

At the same time as the aircraft carrier was being built, the U.S. Navy did not completely abandon the plan to build large battleships and cruisers -- this was also related to the fact that the Atlantic Ocean was controlled by Germany, and the United States no longer needed to build ships to aid Britain and send troops to Europe, and now the United States had enough shipbuilding capacity and resources for large surface ships -- not only the six Iowa class ships were being built rapidly, but the five powerful Montana class were all under construction in 1942 (which was also related to the Yamato crisis).

However, the six Iowa-class and five Montana-class plus six Alaska-class cruisers (all six large cruisers that were supposed to belong to the battle cruisers were also under construction in 1942) also seemed difficult to compete with at least four Yamato-class Japanese super-battleships and super-battleships of Germany, France, Italy, and Britain (the Bloody Queen).

And to start construction of new battleships, the US Navy is also reluctant to do so. Because the construction period of battleships is long, super battleships of this class such as the Montana class will take at least 3 years from the laying of the first keel to the service of the ship. It would be nice if the additional order could be completed in early 1946.

And with the continuous advancement of aviation technology, battleships have become a gradually obsolete weapon, so the US Navy is also reluctant to build too much.

The combination of the German JU288 and remote-controlled gliding bombs allowed the United States to lose sea power in the Atlantic. The Americans themselves have made considerable progress in remote-controlled gliding bombs, and they have also taken the lead in carrier-based twin-engine aircraft - the development contract for the development of the carrier-based twin-engine multirole fighter, codenamed XF7F, was signed on June 30, 1941, and after the fall of the Hawaiian Islands, the United States urgently needed a carrier-based heavy aircraft, so the Admiralty made a huge additional investment in Grumman, so that they could hire more engineers for research and development. The prototype of the XF7F had already been contracted (with serious delays in history) and made a test flight in October 1942.

In this case, the Americans thought of using 4 Soviet-class and 2 Kronstadt-class ships of the USSR to strike at Japan.

Hopkinston paused for a moment, then continued: "Comrade General Secretary, if you can transfer your four Soviet-class and two Kronstadt-class ships to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean route (the Soviet-class cannot pass through the Panama Canal), and at the same time allow us to deploy powerful air power to the Far East and strengthen the military forces of the anti-fascist camp in the Far East with military assistance, then we will be able to deal a devastating blow to Japan after 1944." (To be continued.) )