The 900 Days Read Online Free Page B

Neva passenger-freight port a conviction grew on Saturday, June 21, that something strange was afoot. Exactly what no one was certain. Most disturbing was the silence in Moscow, the silence of the People’s Commissariat.
    It had begun on Friday. When Nikolai Pavlenko, deputy chief of the Political Department, came to his office Friday morning, he found a cryptic radiogram on his desk signed “Yuri.” The message—sent in the clear—had been received just before dawn. It said: “Being held. Can’t leave port. Don’t send other ships. . . . Yuri . . . Yuri . . . German ports holding Soviet ships. . . . Protest. . . . Yuri . . . Yuri . . .”
    The message almost certainly had been transmitted from a Soviet freighter, the Magnitogorsk , which was unloading cargo in the German port of Danzig. The radio operator of the Magnitogorsk was Yuri Stasov, and the message center recognized his characteristic sending style.
    What did it mean? What should be done? The Magnitogorsk did not respond to wireless messages. There were five other Soviet ships in German ports. No word from them either. The “Yuri” message was relayed to Moscow. No reaction.
    Pavlenko didn’t leave the matter there. He telephoned Aleksei A. Kuz-netsov, secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Committee, and asked for guidance. Kuznetsov suggested that precautions be taken but warned that “the question evidently is being dealt with in Moscow.” For the moment nothing could be done about ships already in German waters, but the fleet authorities decided not to send any more to the west until they knew what was going on. The motor ship Vtoraya Pyatiletka and the steamer Lunachar-sky , bound for German ports, were told to stand by in the Gulf of Finland and be prepared to put into Riga or Tallinn.
    All day Saturday the Merchant Fleet waited for instructions from Moscow. None came. Pavlenko consulted Secretary Kuznetsov again. He agreed that the Vtoraya Pyatiletka be diverted to Riga and the Lunacharsky returned to Leningrad. It was an unusual demonstration of initiative for Soviet bureaucrats—to act without orders from Moscow. Meanwhile, ships in Baltic waters were told to keep in constant communication with Leningrad.
    Toward evening the chiefs of the Merchant Fleet met. Sunday was a free day, but .they decided that top personnel should come to work. The others would stay in town, ready for a quick call in an emergency. The chief administrative and political officers and their deputies, including Pavlenko, remained at their desks most of the evening, then went home.

    The Leningrad Military Command embraced a vast area. In event of war it would become the command center for the region extending from the Baltic Sea to the Arctic reaches of the Kola Peninsula. Subordinate to it, so far as land operations were concerned, was Admiral Arseny G. Golovko, commanding the Northern Fleet at Polyarny on the Murmansk shore. Admiral Golovko had been reporting more and more alarming intelligence. For the past week flights of German reconnaissance planes had been observed over Soviet installations. What should he do? The response was: “Avoid provocation. Don’t fire at great altitudes.”
    Golovko grew increasingly restive. On the previous Wednesday, June 18, Lieutenant General Markian M. Popov, commander of the Leningrad Military District and Golovko’s immediate superior under the interlocking Soviet command system, had arrived in Murmansk. Golovko hoped for enlightenment, but none was forthcoming. Popov confined himself to questions of construction of fortifications, new airdromes, supply depots and barracks. If he had any intelligence on the current situation, he did not divulge it.
    “Apparently he knows no more than we,” Golovko noted in his diary on June 1 8.
    Sad. Such vagueness is not a very pleasant perspective in case of sudden attack. In the evening Popov left for Leningrad. I accompanied him to Kola. He treated us to a farewell beer in his special