"Mikhail. Nikolayevich, what do you think of the tanks of the Germans? ”

"Not as good as ours," Tukhachevsky said truthfully, "their No. 2 tank is significantly inferior to our T-26, BT-2, BT-5, the total combat weight of the No. 2 is just over 7 tons, while our three tanks are all over 10 tons and 11 tons." And the second is also underpowered, with only one 140 hp engine, while our BT-2 and BT-5 both have a 400 hp engine, which has a clear advantage. As for the third tank, which has not yet been finalized in Germany, the performance of the BT-7 is similar and is not at all an opponent of the T-28 tank. However, their No. 4 tank is likely to surpass the performance of the T-28, which needs to be taken seriously. ”

"Four?" Stalin smiled indifferently, "Development only began last year, and at the pace of the Germans, it would be good to be able to mass-produce in 1939, and then we will have more powerful tanks." ”

Although the Soviet-German relations were good at this time, the Soviet Union was still very vigilant and was always wary of Germany. And Tukhachevsky, as a rare "student" in the highest echelons of the Soviet Red Army, paid special attention to the German threat.

"But the level of use of mechanized units by the Germans, as well as their wheeled vehicles, is significantly better than ours."

"Oh?" Stalin smoked his pipe and said nonchalantly, "It's normal that their wheeled vehicles are better than ours, and our automobile industry was imported from Germany." ”

In 1935, Germany produced more than 500,000 automobiles (nearly double the number in history), which was much worse than the millions of units produced in the United States a year, but still ranked first in Europe, more than twice as many as the Soviet Union's 150,000 units. The automobile industry in the USSR was built with the help of Germany. Many of the models were copied from Germany, and although they began to design their own during the Second Five-Year Plan, they were not as good as their German teachers.

"But how can their mechanized troops surpass us?" Stalin asked again with some puzzlement. "We began to form mechanized units in the midst of the civil war, and in the early 30s, we began to build mechanized forces on a large scale."

"Comrade General Secretary. We started early in mechanized troops, but their officers and soldiers surpassed us in technology. "We are building socialism on the basis of a backward country, which has always been an advanced country, especially leading in education, with many high-level schools and a level and number of technicians far superior to those of the Soviet Union." Therefore, their army also has many high-level technical personnel, and the level of using high-tech troops is naturally higher than ours. Our level of performance in this area is far from satisfactory. Not only is the level of the military technicians poor, but even the level of engineers and skilled workers in the factories is not very good, so the quality of the products is ......."

It is actually said that the level of education and engineering and technical personnel in the USSR is inferior to that of Germany...... This is a criticism of the party's intellectual policy, right?

Stalin frowned slightly, analyzing Tukhachevsky's words in his heart.

In fact, Tukhachevsky's complaint is not unreasonable. Because of the successive purges in Soviet Russia, intellectuals, especially the old intellectuals of the Tsarist period, have always been the targets of blows. Even before the purge began, many "old professors" and "old engineers" in universities and factories were already unlucky as "assassins" - the purge within the Soviet Union did not begin with the "Great Purge" of 1934.

It was only from the beginning of the "Great Purge" that the leading cadres of the Bolshevik Party began to suffer on a large scale. And before the "Great Purge". In addition to the Trotskyites and various spies, the intellectuals were the main targets of the purge. The most famous of these is the "Schacht case" - which has nothing to do with the current President of the Reich Bank, Schacht. It was caused by a coal mine accident in the city of Shakht in Kazakhstan, and gradually spread to all walks of life, mainly against old intellectuals, and also referred to the USSR Academy of Sciences as "a center of counter-revolutionary activity against Soviet power", where 650 people were purged in the autumn of 1929 alone.

After the "Schacht case". The "Industrial Party" and the "Working Peasants' Party" case once again dealt a heavy blow to the old intellectuals of the Soviet Union and to the expert cadres in charge of industry in the party, because more than 3,000 technical cadres and intellectuals were arrested in these two cases.

Although the number of arrests in the Schacht, Industrial, and Workers' and Peasants' cases cannot be compared with those of the later purges, most of the top experts left over from the Tsarist era were hit - considering that most of the scientific and technical personnel of the Tsarist era fled abroad, the number of these old experts was already small, and they were all leaders in their professions. Hence the cleansing of them. It did have some adverse effects on the level of education and technical research in the USSR.

And due to the "compositional theory" of the Soviet education system, many students from bad backgrounds, but with very good academic performance, could not enter universities. As a result, the quality of Soviet university students was also slightly low.

In the case of a large number of old experts who are either reformed through labor or put aside, these newcomers, who are very politically reliable, are naturally reused. became the technical backbone of all walks of life, so the quality of Soviet products in this period was always poor, and it was very difficult to maintain, and the quality of the personnel responsible for maintaining the technical equipment of the army was often worse than the people who produced them......

"The quality of the product and the level of technical personnel cannot be improved in a period of time," Stalin interrupted Tukhachevsky, "and we have no possibility of war with Germany now." ”

"Comrade General Secretary," Tukhachevsky interjected with some concern, "we should not underestimate the threat posed by Germany, which is now pursuing a policy of war, and they are preparing for war, and the preparations are going very well. ”

"I know, aren't we preparing?" Stalin waved his pipe-holding hand, "But until White Poland is wiped out, there is no possibility of war between us and Germany." ”

Tukhachevsky wanted to speak - he did not approve of the policy of uniting Germany to destroy Poland, since Germany was clearly a more dangerous enemy than Poland - but Stalin had no interest in listening any further.

"Mikhail. Nikolayevich," said Stalin, "is now entrusted to you with the task of leading a military delegation to Germany with Comrade Berzin to visit their tank factories and mechanized units." This time they will be open without reservation, be sure to watch carefully. ”

"Comrade Berzin is also going?" Tukhachevsky was slightly strange, Berzin was the head of military intelligence, in charge of intelligence work, he did not understand tank production and mechanization.

"Yes," Stalin nodded, "he will go with you." ”

……

"Jan. Karlovich, "Natalie. Lesinskaya called out the name of the very handsome-looking middle-aged man who was passing by Arbat Street in the car with her, "I didn't expect General Secretary Stalin to send you out in person." ”

"Why didn't you think of it?" The man's name was Jan. Karlovich. Berzin, he smiled silently, "I have experience in this." ”

Tsar Nicholas II was brought down by him along with Yulovsky, who is now a Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously) and has a full-length statue of him in the Cheka headquarters at Lubyanka Square 2. Berzin, for his part, escaped capture and is now the head of the Red Army intelligence.

"I thought there would be a smaller character," Natalie said. Leshinskaya looked at Berzin, "I know you must have some other mission, and Hirschmann must know about it...... I'm afraid your task will be difficult to complete. ”

She came to the Soviet Union as a special envoy to Hersmann, bringing with her the "Summary Report of the "Iron Fist-1935" Military Exercise and the drawings of tanks No. 2 and No. 3.

After receiving the report and drawings, Stalin did not shirk anything, and decided to send Berzin, the "gold medal killer" of the Bolsheviks, to personally preside over the "Slovak Incident" -- that is, the plan proposed by Hessman for the Slovak Bolshevik Party to expose the "truth about the death of Štfanik" (the leader of the Slovak ethnic group) and assassinate the president of Czechoslovakia, thus creating unrest in Slovakia.

And in the event of a change in Slovakia, which involves the assassination of the president (whether dead or not), the Czechoslovak authorities will definitely suppress it. At this time, politicians from the Slovak National Socialist Party will go to the League of Nations to "sue the Emperor", demanding national self-determination and the separation of Czechoslovakia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine.

The League of Nations, on the other hand, would receive the complaint and send an investigation mission to Czechoslovakia, the results of which, of course, could not be doubted to the benefit of the Czechoslovak authorities. After the conclusion of the investigation, the League of Nations will most likely make a decision to hold a referendum to decide the future of Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine...... Of course, in order to ensure the fairness of the referendum, Czechoslovakia would be temporarily occupied by German, Austrian, Polish and Hungarian troops before the referendum began.

Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, lost half of its territory and at least 40% of its population after losing Slovakia and Carpathian Ukraine - since Czechs and Slovaks were mixed, ethnic Czechs would also lose part of their population after the referendum. Czechs could also become minorities in Bohemia and Moravia (later the Czech Republic).

This would allow Hersmann to push for a new referendum in the Czech Republic - a referendum on Czech accession to the German Empire!

Berzin listened to Natalie's words and nodded with a smile, "Although there is little hope of success, it is still worth trying." (To be continued.) )