Chapter 232: The Eagle of the Komsomol
Now it was only Andrei's speculation, but soon the Soviet top brass received the news that the German army was going to attack Kursk by Lucy SpyRing, a spy in Switzerland. Pen | fun | pavilion www. biquge。 info Subsequently, their spy John Cairncross in Bletchley Park, England, reported the German code cracked by the British side to the Soviet troops. As early as March 27, 1943, Stalin became aware of a possible offensive in the Kursk direction. Zhukov suggested waiting for the Germans to make a move, thwarting the offensive and then counterattacking. In early April, the Soviets were already intensively planning their defense.
Vatutin's Voronezh Front defended Manstein's Army Group South to the south, and Rokossovsky's Central Front defended Moder's 9th Army in the north. Konev's steppe front served as a strategic reserve. Zhukov and Vasilevsky coordinated the various armies as representatives of the base camp.
The Soviet army was well armed, with 711575 personnel (510983 in combat units) and 625591 personnel (446236 in combat units) in the Voronezh Front. The Steppe Front had 573195 personnel (449133 in combat units). So the total number of Soviet troops participating in the battle was 1910361, of which there were more than 1.42 million combat troops.
At the same time, new equipment and additional troops are constantly being transferred to the front line, T-54 tanks are finally starting to be installed, RPGs are also starting to be distributed, and this battle has more variables than in history!
But Andrei didn't know this, after leaving the General Staff, Andrei went to the residence arranged by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after all, his identity is different now, and it is not suitable to go to the base, and the residence arranged by the Ministry of Internal Affairs is not bad, it is a confiscated house of the Russian nobles, an elegant villa, and the guard company is also stationed nearby, the first thing Andrei did when he went in was to go to the bathtub to take a comfortable bath, but unfortunately the shower gel has not yet been invented, and can only use soap, Andrei lives alone in this big house, There is no service staff, comfortable hot water, this bath is really refreshing!
And then Andrei lay down on the big bed in the bedroom, and fell asleep comfortably, and when he woke up, it was the next morning, and he called someone to bring food, and then Andrei also asked Yushchenko to come, after all, there was no other person to find in the early morning, and soon the person who delivered breakfast arrived, a very ordinary Russian breakfast bread, ham, milk, such a nutritious match, plus eggs, cheese, fresh tomatoes, etc., they are men's favorites and a bowl of oatmeal, Unlike Chinese porridge, there will be some fresh fruits, raisins, fresh berries or something, after breakfast, Andrei suddenly felt a little bored, he wanted to know something about agriculture next, so he asked Yushchenko to invite someone.
Well, Yushchenko drove a jeep with a guard squad, and came to the family area of the Institute of Botany of Moscow University, and the two experts happened to be together, and the arrival of Yushchenko and his party made them feel that the end was coming, and the expressionless Yushchenko walked up to them and showed his ID and said: "Two comrades, please come with me." "The family members next to them couldn't stand up directly, they still remember that a few years ago, the internal affairs army in the blue hat arrested a large group of people, and now they have been invited by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to come back!
However, Andrei didn't know that he would have a little trouble next, because Yushchenko and they came to find someone early in the morning, but the movement was not small, and it happened that a person who graduated from Moscow University and is now the secretary of the Moscow Komsomol saw this scene, and he felt very angry, so he came over and identified himself and said: "I am Alexander Nikolayevich Shelepin, the secretary of the Moscow Komsomol, this comrade, I would like to ask, what did the two professors do, and you have to take people away without any formalities?" ”
And Yushchenko didn't expect to come out, although a cadre is not very high in terms of status, but he is also a leader of the Moscow Municipal Party Committee, but it would be too embarrassing for him to go back in such a gloomy way, and what else does the Ministry of Internal Affairs need to explain?
So, Yushchenko said to Shelepin: "Comrade Secretary, let my superiors explain this matter to you!" So he asked Sherepin to get into the car with him, and Sherepin should have guards according to his rank, but he didn't want guards. Later, Brezhnev asked about this: why did Sherepin travel without the protection of guards? Sherepin said: Do we need protection?
Seeing that the people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs were actually going to take him away, Xie Leping was not afraid, he said directly: "Okay, I want to see what kind of explanation your superiors will give me!" The two professors also got into the car, they waved goodbye to their families, and their families cried.
And back at the villa, as soon as Andrei heard Yushchenko's report, he was directly shocked, you say it again, Shelepin! Andrei really felt that the day was over, and his own guard company commander actually arrested Sherepin Oh and did not invite him, speaking of which Sherepin was the opposite of the Soviet cadre class, the eagle of the Komsomol, against the appearance of portraits everywhere. Sherepin said that he was ashamed that he stood on Lenin's tomb during the procession and the workers held his portrait, so why should the portrait of the leader be displayed everywhere? The members of the Presidium of the Central Committee were silent. At this time, Suslov, secretary of the Central Committee, interjected: This is a tradition. This reflects the prestige of the party. , renovate the apartment as per the order to pay. Sherepin moved into an apartment, which had been renovated, and he asked how much it would cost. After finding the slip and showing it to him, he instructed his assistant to pay according to the bill. The occurrence of such an unprecedented event made the Politburo members indignant: Sherepin embarrassed them too much! Do you want to let them pay for everything at their own expense now? Fourth, unceremoniously expressed support for the newspaper. Komsomolskaya Pravda published a scathing article exposing the activities of Solyanik, the captain of the Odessa whaling fleet, who was very popular with the authorities. The Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee decided to severely punish journalists. Only Sherepin was the only one who immediately said: Why? Can anyone deny these facts? Fifth, they oppose the Politburo members conferring medals on themselves. While working in the KGB, Sherepin himself renounced the rank of general. Moreover, Sherepin also said that the members of the Politburo were divorced from the masses. Also, the Politburo proposed to reconsider a set of privileges for leaders. This involves salaries, villas, special offerings, cars, and so on. Xie Lepin, who has an upright personality, is not good at beating around the bush, so that the members of the Politburo are afraid of him and begin to avoid him.
The strongman is also an extremely conceited person, but then in the future he was one of the important figures in the Soviet Union, and the key is that he also served as the chairman of the KGB in the future! The future boss is now being captured by his own men!
Then, Andrei had to ask Yushchenko to invite Sherepin in, and as soon as Sherepin came in, he saw Andrei, and the first thing he saw was Andrei's chest full of medals, the Order of the Golden Star, the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov, and a total of 13 medals!
As soon as he saw his face, Sherepin immediately guessed the identity of the general of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in front of him, so Sherepin asked directly in an unkind tone: "I can't imagine that our Soviet combat heroes actually abused their power to mobilize the internal affairs troops to arrest people for a trivial matter, Comrade Yakov, I ask you not to forget that you swore to defend the country and protect the people, and those medals on your chest are also the people's reward for your heroic killing of the enemy, and your current behavior makes people very angry!" ”
And Andrei did not speak, but handed over a document, and Sherepin flipped it up, but he was shocked that it was a material about the agricultural situation.
Between 1941 and 1942, after the outbreak of war in June 1941, all the residents of the countryside who had a labor force worked in the fields, from the young to the elderly. Women have always been a great force in collective farms and state farms, and now almost all the burden falls on their shoulders. Hundreds of thousands of women have learned to drive tractors and combines. Within a month and a half to two months after the outbreak of the war, the machine tractor station trained 198,000 tractor drivers and 48,000 combine harvesters, nearly 175,000 of whom were women.
In 1941, the harvest of crops was delayed due to a lack of labor in the countryside. Workers in the cities of the country went to support collective farms and state farms. Millions of urban dwellers, including students from colleges, middle schools, and elementary schools, took part in field work, and in July and August 1941, after intensive training, 25,000 to 155 college students became tractor drivers and 16,000 college students became combine harvesters.
However, the shortage of agricultural machinery affected the course of agricultural labor. Spare parts are also insufficient. Almost all of the heavy diesel tractors, most of the trucks and a considerable number of horses were transferred to the combat army. Fifteen horsepower for agricultural use
The total number of towed planes was 683,800 in 1940 and decreased to 440,000-1,800 by the end of 1941. The number of trucks was 228,200 in 1940 and 66,000 in 1941. Therefore, in the first year of the war, in addition to machines, it was necessary to use manpower to harvest crops. Sixty-seven percent of the cereal crops on the collective farms in the rear and thirteen percent on the state farms were harvested by machines and manpower pulled by animal power.
The unfavourable development of events on the front line has seriously affected agriculture. In 1940 there were 236,900 collective farms, which by the end of 1941 had been reduced to 149,700; The number of state farms decreased from 4,159
to two thousand six hundred and ninety-thousand; The number of machine-tractor stations was reduced from seven to sixty-nine to four thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight. Total grain production was 95.6 million tons in 1940 and decreased to 55.9 million tons in 1941. Tens of millions of tonnes of sugar beets, sunflowers and potatoes have been underharvested across the country.
The total number of livestock has fallen sharply. In December 1941 compared with the same period of the previous year: the number of cattle decreased from 54.8 million to 31.4 million; the number of pigs decreased from 27.6 million to 8.2 million; the number of sheep decreased from 9,000 to 7,700,000; The number of horses was reduced from twenty-one million (estimated to be eleven million) to ten million. State purchases of agricultural products have also decreased accordingly.
There are 77 million residents and soldiers who are distributed by the state, and about 1.2 million horses are distributed with unified feed.
The level of agricultural production in 1942 continued to decline. Agriculture has undergone a more complex process. Total grain production reached only 29.7 million tons, compared with 95.5 million tons in 1940; The total cotton production is only one hundred
300,000 tons, compared to 2.2 million tons in 1940. On 1 January 1943, the total number of cattle was 48 per cent lower than on 1 January 1941, the number of pigs was 78 per cent, and the number of sheep and goats was decreasing
Twenty-three percent. Under such circumstances, the amount of state purchases of agricultural products will naturally decline significantly.
By the end of 1942, the number of workers on collective farms had been halved compared to the pre-war period. As a result of the enemy's temporary occupation of large areas of the country, the number of collective farms was reduced by forty per cent, and the state farms were almost halved. machine
The total number of agricultural machinery at tractor stations and state farms was also reduced. There was a shortage of fuel, and the supply of mineral fertilizers was almost completely cut off.
Compared with 1940, by the end of 1942, the total number of workers in the country had decreased from 31.2 million to 18.4 million, and the number of industrial workers had decreased from 11.2 million to 7.2 million. This is the lowest figure for the entire war years.
At the end of 1942, there was a great change in the number of workers and their ages in the national economy. The vast majority of those working in the rear are youth, teenagers and women. Their numbers have increased from 51.1 percent to 59.5 percent in the industrial sectors and power stations of aircraft manufacturing, weapons building, shipbuilding, non-ferrous metally, and heavy machine building, from 62.4 percent to 69.5 percent in the ammunition, mortar, machine tool building, and food and dairy industries, and 82.4 percent and 84.5 percent of the total number of workers in the textile and light industries, respectively.
Then Andrei said: "Comrade Sherepin, you should know what this means! The most important thing in the war is not only the army but also logistics, especially our army is now preparing a large-scale counterattack and then recovering the lost territory, and the pressure on food is very huge! ”
Then Andrei took out his own records, seeing the situation at the front and Stalingrad, Sherepin was also shocked, he didn't have access to so many things at his level, but as a young cadre with a bright future, he also knew that the Soviet Union's agriculture was not good, and now Ukraine has lost it again, and now this grain is already a huge problem, in order for the Red Army to be able to feed the people, the rations of the common people have been reduced again and again, but they are still tight!
I have to say that Sherepin was fooled by Andrei into changing his goal all of a sudden, and Sherepin also began to be full of worries about the next agricultural production, so Andrei asked: "Comrade Sherepin, now you know what I'm going to do, right?" ”