I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 5

From ‘my’ perspective, Hitler was not a complete idiot.

His strategic choices were quite useful and rational – albeit only with internal rationality and lacking much external rationality – within the limits he faced. 

That was ‘my’ small conclusion after living buried in books related to World War II and shedding many of my prejudices.

For example, about attacking the Soviet Union in June of 1941, it may seem like a colossal blunder to do so without finishing off Britain, but what other options were there? 

Not many. 

Britain was not a target that could be dealt with in the near future at that point, and to break Britain’s will to fight, it was necessary to crush the Soviet Union, a potential ally on the continent. 

And the Soviet Union was constantly growing its strength and building a massive army. 

They already had 10,000 tanks and 10,000 aircraft in June of 1941, and they were building formidable fortifications. 

If they didn’t strike then, when would they? In 1942? In 1943?

Hitler was a veteran of World War I and he hated the total war system and trench warfare that he had experienced himself. 

Therefore, his armament expansion speed was bound to be slower than that of the Soviet Union, which felt the threat from the west deep in its bones, and ultimately, the conclusion was that only the fastest possible war could guarantee victory.

In the actual history of Operation Barbarossa, they succeeded in collapsing the Soviet army with a series of strategic surprises! 

The army deployed on the front line was 3 million, but by December, the Soviet army’s manpower losses reached 5 million, and they lost 20,000 tanks and 20,000 aircraft. 

They destroyed a much larger scale than what they had. 

The problem was that despite this, the Soviet Union mobilized millions more to block the front line… Hitler or OKH (German Army High Command) underestimated the Soviet Union’s war performance and will.

Hitler and OKH had different solutions for this. 

OKH thought that another Moscow offensive would be the answer to break their will to fight. 

Hitler? 

On the contrary, he ordered to destroy their war performance through the conquest of Ukraine in southern Soviet Union. 

That’s why he tried to take over Ukraine’s wheat, coal, and oil fields in the Caucasus. 

Here, a fight broke out to take over Stalingrad, which was the gateway to the Caucasus, and the symbolism that came from the ‘name’ Stalingrad made the fight grotesquely bigger. 

The subsequent developments? 

Doesn’t everyone know?

That’s how it was in actual history. Budenny was in charge of the southern front and lost 100,000 in Uman and 600,000 in Kiev due to Stalin’s irrational local defense orders. 

He also lost the Dnieper River, which was a huge defensive line. 

This also had something to do with the shit flowing back from the center… 

Anyway.

It’s different now. Zhukov and Kirponos are spreading solid defenses based on the troops and equipment that ‘I’ pushed for. 

The Bryansk Front Army played an umbrella role in blocking the shit that could flow back from the center based on the natural defense line of the Dnieper River. 

I wish winter would come like this…

I sank into a soft chair with hopeful expectations for the future. 

Oh man… My brain is in my twenties, but my body is in my sixties. 

I get tired whenever I do anything. 

No, if I were the secretary general of the Soviet Union, I would have some Russian sisters! 

This! That! And that! 

I wanted to try everything… But it doesn’t work! 

Crazy! 

Why doesn’t it work when I see this typist sister’s huge chest??

I could somehow understand why Stalin became the incarnation of power-hunger and committed purges. 

The original me used to do it at least two or three times a week, but my body couldn’t keep up with my psychological desire.

Sigh… Should I develop Viagra? 

In actual history, Viagra came out in the 90s. 

The chemical synthesis technology itself is not nonexistent, so it might be possible if I give them the concept. 

It might be trolling to order them to make such a thing that doesn’t help the war effort, but shouldn’t the secretary general have a clear head to lead the war well?! 

Damn! 

This medicine could also contribute to the national budget by selling it, and it would be a very good export product. 

In order to avoid relying on raw material sales in the future, the Soviet Union should also invest in such advanced chemical industries!

And to restore the population that was reduced by post-war deaths, they had to somehow increase the birth rate. 

The middle-aged and older people should actively… Ahem

“Comrade Secretary General! Comrade Secretary General!”

No, I meant middle-aged and older people, but not those old men with mustaches… 

They looked dignified in the photos, but Budenny’s mustache was overwhelmingly lush when I saw it in person. 

Wow, I want to touch it once! ‘My’ body also had a mustache, and it was decent enough to fiddle with, but that… that’s big and beautiful!

But why did Budenny come? 

As many generals testified, he was a human who knew nothing but horse-riding. 

‘I’ purged Tukhachevsky who asked me for 40,000 tanks and 40,000 aircraft with ‘my’ hand, but that didn’t mean I could deny the usefulness of tanks. 

At that time, he claimed that Tukhachevsky sabotaged because the armored-mechanized forces were so inferior to the cavalry forces. 

How could I use him moderately?

“No, sir, you can’t go in alone… Ahem, hello Comrade Secretary General?”

Why did he come too? 

Voroshilov, who was famous as Stalin’s best friend, peeked into the door and entered with a trot. 

I’m sure these two guys were completely excluded from the war command… 

At least Budenny was a cavalry commander during the Civil War and ran across the endless plains of Eastern Europe and earned his merit. 

He could have been a great Khan if he was born 500 years earlier and 7,000 kilometers east of here. 

But this guy was a complete waste as a commander?! 

He could shoot well, fight well, and had charisma, but that was only at the battalion level. 

In ‘my’ memory, Voroshilov was quite competent when we robbed banks together and he even saved me once, but that was back then! ‘I’ was handsome back then too?

“This is the offensive operation plan that Comrade Voroshilov and I made with the staff of the General Staff, Comrade Secretary General! Please review it.”

“What did Shaposhnikov and Vasilevsky say?”

Shaposhnikov old man, you know very well that Budenny and Voroshilov are incompetent even if they are ‘my’ cronies. Vasilevsky too. 

Weren’t you guys competent people? 

Why did you make them come up to me? 

Is it a gesture that you want to go back and rest because you’re not feeling well? 

Do you want me to make you rest forever? 

Huh?

As soon as he heard the name Basil Lepsky, Borosilov suddenly smiled and slammed the file on my desk. 

I remembered that he only made that expression when he had a great opportunity… I felt uneasy.

“That’s right! Comrade Basil Lepsky praised this plan as a revolutionary one, Comrade Chief of Staff! Please review it.”

Basil Lepsky, it was you?

Youuuu… I should seriously consider calling Zhukov to the General Staff as soon as Shaposhnikov retires. 

No matter how high-ranking you are, one of the original five marshals and my closest confidant, didn’t you see him trolling in the Winter War? How can you praise a good plan like that?

Anyway, it was hard to resist Borosilov’s sparkling eyes full of anticipation and Budenny’s twitching mustache full of pressure. 

I opened the file and a map of the Pripyat Marshes popped out. 

Nearby railways, the current advance of the Nazi German army, the situation of two divisions and an airborne brigade surrounded and fighting in Minsk…

“Why is this here? Explain it to me.”

“Yes, Comrade Chief of Staff! Come on in!”

I opened the door of my office and almost a platoon of officers came in with a huge blackboard. 

Budenny pulled out a baton from somewhere and started briefing me on the main points.

“Currently, the Fascist bastards’ Central Army Group is advancing towards Mogilev and Smolensk. The Southern Army Group is blocked by the heroic defense of Comrades Zhukov and Kirponos in Zhitomir, but they are expected to be pushed back when the enemy’s elite 6th Army arrives. Meanwhile, in Minsk, our 20,000 troops are defending the city, but they are cut off from supplies and will soon be encircled and annihilated. This is a plan to rescue them and break the spearheads of both the Central and Southern Army Groups at the same time!”

It sounded plausible… But let’s hear more.

“The main strength of the Fascist bastards is their armored and motorized units. But they have a very fatal flaw: their mobility is extremely low in rough terrain – especially in marshes. And we have a very good way to exploit this weakness. That is to concentrate cavalry units in the marshes.”

Budenny’s mustache trembled as he spoke passionately. 

The more he spoke, the more excited he became, and he began to bang on the blackboard with his baton. 

But somehow he seemed to be filled with a strange passion.

“They left only some units like security divisions behind to clear up their rear and used their main force to advance towards Smolensk. The railway lines in the Pripyat Marshes are still alive, and some divisions that escaped from the encirclement are digging trenches and holding out in the marshes. Through this railway network, we can deploy about 10 cavalry divisions, strike their rear supply lines, and provide supplies and reinforcements to our troops fighting in Minsk.”

“Our railway network is still alive up to Malcovich, a village in the marshes. If we raid and destroy Baranovichi, a railway junction about 130km away from this village, they will have a huge supply problem until they reach the Dnieper River, as they have not yet fully secured Minsk. They have not secured the Minsk-Smolensk railway line either, and if we raid Baranovichi now, they will have to use the railway line that goes around to Bityevsk across the Dvina River to supply their troops on the Smolensk front.”

Huh? 

It seemed plausible. 

The points that Budenny pointed out on the map with detailed railway lines and geographical features were all reasonable. 

Even if the German army had 4 million men, they could not spare hundreds of thousands of troops to guard their rear. 

Especially since it was not yet time for partisans to rise up. 

Then there was a chance to push dozens of regular divisions armed with machine guns, 76mm guns, and 122mm howitzers into their rear.

They had not suffered many large-scale encirclements in Operation Barbarossa yet, so they had some leeway in their strength. 

Since they mainly sent armored and infantry forces to the south, there was not much need for cavalry divisions waiting for deployment. 

If I gave them to Budenny, a specialist in cavalry warfare…

There was a reason why Basil Lepsky agreed. 

Budenny himself said that vehicle mobility was difficult in marshes, so he could exclude even a few armored vehicles assigned to regular cavalry divisions from his plan! 

There was a shortage of tanks on every battlefield, but if he gathered dozens of BT-7 light tanks or T-60s assigned to cavalry divisions, he could form a large and beautiful armored unit that could be used as a direct reserve at the front line. 

It was a poor armored unit without T-34s or KV-1 heavy tanks compared to regular armored divisions or brigades, but it was not bad if he used it as a motorized infantry or tank desant.

The problem was that Budenny was the commander.

No matter what the Chief of Staff thought, Budenny had no way of looking into his head. 

But he was not thinking about such ‘trivial’ things. The battlefield was calling him from the front.

Budenny had already received a ‘warning’ once. 

The Red Army’s cavalry was considered half his soldiers, and he never tried to correct the soldiers’ perception. 

The Politburo was wary of factionalism in the army and tried to purge him along with other marshals. 

He was able to survive by begging for his friendship with Stalin, and by promising never to step forward again, and to end his life as a soldier. 

In times of peace, soldiers were just useless hunting dogs, and hunting dogs that could bite at any moment, and that was no different for Budenny, the hero of the Civil War and the Soviet-Polish War.

But now it was time for soldiers to shine. He couldn’t help it if he was accused of being a traitor who wished for the country’s turmoil. 

While his body was still strong and his mind was clear, he wanted to run to the battlefield again.

The battlefield was calling him.

My heart skipped a beat. 

The Chief of Staff seemed to be thinking hard about something, and Budenny prayed silently to the god he had left long ago. 

Everyone in the room, except for Budenny himself, could probably see his nostrils – and his overwhelming mustache – flaring. 

The officers began to wonder how much more his mustache could swing back and forth when the Chief of Staff finally spoke.

“Fine. Let’s do it,” he said with a nod.