Chapter 873: If the Foundation Is Not Solid, the Earth Will Shake (Second Update)

"What should we do now? Comrade Kuznetsov, what should we do now?"

General Vlasov did not want to investigate what happened during the siege. What happened then had nothing to do with him. No matter how big the mess was, he would not be arrested for labor reform. He only cared about the present... The Fourth Battle of Leningrad had begun actively. As the commander of the Leningrad Front, he now had a heavy responsibility!

"Now... the top priority now is evacuation!" Kuznetsov's brows were getting tighter and tighter. "There are many people who need to be evacuated, and the evacuation channels are not smooth, so there must be a priority order, otherwise there will be a big mess."

"Big mess?" Vlasov was a little confused.

"That's right!" Kuznetsov said, "Because not everyone wants to leave Leningrad now... Because quite a few people know that as long as they leave, they will never be eligible to come back!"

Many people's Leningrad household registration may become Siberian household registration... This is indeed a big trouble!

Who will leave first? Who will leave later? Who will not leave? These are all troublesome things that make people feel embarrassed!

Although the siege of Leningrad was temporarily lifted, the overall military situation was still very serious. The Red Army was not winning but losing! Leningrad was relieved only because the German army's main target was Ukraine. When the situation in Ukraine was settled, there would be a large army heading north to attack Leningrad again.

So Leningrad is still a dangerous city now!

Since it is a dangerous city, of course some people want to leave, but not everyone wants to leave... Most of the revolutionary cadres with a clear conscience want to leave, and even if they don't leave, they have to find ways to send their families away.

And those who don't want to leave... I'm afraid not many want to die with the city. Most of them have lost confidence in the Soviet Union. They either collaborate with the enemy or become the family members of anti-GM elements. They naturally don't want to go to Siberia or Central Asia, but want to stay in Leningrad to prepare to welcome the "new master".

In other words, most of those who want to stay in Leningrad are unreliable! And those who are reliable now want to leave.

After listening to Kuznetsov's analysis, General Vlasov felt that he was one of those who wanted to leave... but he couldn't leave!

"What should we do?" Vlasov asked anxiously, "Comrade Kuznetsov, what do you think we should do? How should we evacuate the population of Leningrad?"

"What else can we do?" Kuznetsov sighed softly, "The Leningrad City Party has issued evacuation orders to the organs, schools, factories, hospitals and other units below, and allocated priority evacuation indicators. The specific evacuation list will be decided by the party committees of each unit... On the issue of personnel evacuation, we should trust the comrades of the grassroots party committees, because they are our foundation in Leningrad. Without them, the work of the Leningrad City Party cannot be carried out."

Now the Leningrad City Party seems to be caught in a paradox. On the one hand, it must rely on the grassroots party committees... They are the foundation. If the foundation is not solid, the earth will shake! On the other hand, the grassroots party committee's position on the evacuation issue will weaken the Bolshevik Party's foundation in Leningrad, because the grassroots party committee must give priority to evacuating more reliable comrades.

In fact, it was not only the grassroots party organizations in Leningrad that did this. Even the order issued by the Supreme Command to the Leningrad Front required the evacuation of the families of the Red Navy and the Red Air Force, the arsenals, shipyards, aircraft factories, military design institutes, and military-related majors in universities in Leningrad to be given priority.

Of course, the evacuated arsenals, shipyards, aircraft factories, design institutes, and military-related majors in universities also included corresponding family quotas. And those who were to be evacuated first were also those who supported the Bolshevik Party in Leningrad. Among those who were expelled during the siege, at least none of them were their immediate relatives.

In other words, when the priority evacuation task was completed, the Bolshevik Party's foundation in Leningrad became even less secure.

But knowing this, General Vlasov and Secretary Kuznetsov had no choice but to weaken the party's foundation in Leningrad.

Because they both knew that there were actually few comrades at the grassroots level who were truly willing to sacrifice everything for the cause of the party, including themselves and their families. If the people above really forced them to do so, I am afraid that people's hearts would be even more scattered and the team would be even more difficult to lead.

Therefore, more than half of the comrades in Leningrad who supported the Bolshevik Party the most must leave immediately! And those who can stay temporarily... are mostly the families of anti-G revolutionary elements, and 300,000 of them are armed!

And these armed anti-G revolutionary family members are the most troublesome problem for General Vlasov. It is definitely the best way to transfer these people out of Leningrad and then break them up and incorporate them into the front-line troops.

But now the war is tight, and the Red Army is preparing for the fourth Leningrad Campaign. Therefore, the Central Front and the Kalinin Front (they are the main force of the fourth Leningrad Campaign) are the key supplementary targets. Not only should the troops originally under these two fronts be supplemented, but also a large number of new forces newly established or coming from the Far East should be transferred in.

As for the Leningrad Front, whose combat mission was not too difficult (it was just defending the city), it was not the focus of replenishment.

Even if Stalin had given instructions, the Red Army High Command had no place to mobilize 300,000 fresh troops to replace the 300,000 armed anti-GM family members in Leningrad... at least it was impossible before the end of the Fourth Battle of Leningrad.

However, under the repeated request of General Vlasov, the Red Army Supreme Command agreed to assign some fresh troops from Siberia to the Leningrad Front, so that the Leningrad Front could be mixed with Leningrad militia (anti-GM family soldiers) to form dozens of relatively reliable infantry divisions as the main force to defend the city.

On the night when Kuznetsov, the second secretary of Leningrad City W, took the "night flight" to Moscow to meet Stalin, the Red Army Captain Bronislav Kaminsky, who came from Siberia, was walking on the road to Leningrad with an infantry battalion.

Captain Kaminsky and his superior, Major Konstantin Voskoponiko, were both elderly uncles, one 44 years old and the other 45 years old. They are older than General Vlasov, the commander of the Leningrad Front (Vlasov is 43 years old), and their "revolutionary qualifications" are also older than General Vlasov. Both of them joined the Red Army in 1918 (Vlasov joined the Red Army in 1919).

Two "old comrades" who joined the revolution in 1918, one is now a major and the other is a captain. There is certainly a reason for their bad luck... Before the outbreak of the "Great Patriotic War", they were both traitors to the revolution, undergoing soul-touching labor reform in faraway Siberia!

It turned out that they both had problems during the Great Purge. One became a Polish spy (Kaminski was half Polish) and the other became a Petliurist (Voskoponiko had a little Ukrainian ancestry). In 1935, they both received their own ten-year labor reform. From engineers who were originally revolutionary cadres, they became anti-GM criminals at the bottom of Soviet society overnight.

After seven years of hard reform, when both of them fully realized their sins and no longer expected to be forgiven by the people, the leaders of the labor camp came to these two "old revolutionaries" and asked them to take the lead in signing up for the Red Army to defend the motherland - anti-GM can actually join the Red Army!

In addition, the leaders of the labor camp also assured them that as long as they took the lead, they would have the opportunity to restore their reputation and become a glorious revolutionary cadre again!

Although both of them did not dare to believe that there was such a good thing in the world, they took the lead in asking to join the army to serve the country with a speculative mentality, and the result was that their reputation was actually restored, of course, as well as party membership and corresponding cadre level.

However, their reputation, party tickets and level can be restored, but their original jobs cannot be returned, because the party and the people need them to lead the troops - lead those Red Army soldiers who went directly from the labor camp to the barracks!

Anyone with a little social experience knows that it is very difficult to change bad people into good people through labor reform, but it is very easy to change good people into bad people. Another feature of the reform camps in the Soviet Union is that there are fewer criminals and more political prisoners... Now it is not a question of bad people being educated, but that bad people all understand politics!

Moreover, bad people not only understand politics, but also many bad people like Kaminsky and Voskoponiko have participated in revolutionary wars and served as revolutionary cadres. Some have even gone abroad to support the world revolution and are real revolutionary experts!

If these bad people understand revolution, then there will be chaos! How dare the Red Army Supreme Command let those officers and political workers who have just graduated from school manage them? Don't let them be killed and don't know what happened?

Fortunately, there are also wise people in the Red Army Supreme Command, so they came up with a method of "fighting poison with poison", selecting some people with military experience from the labor reform prisoners who understand revolution to restore their reputation, let them serve as officers to control the soldiers below, and at the same time select some "blue hats" (referring to cadres in the internal affairs system) from the labor reform camp system to serve as political workers.

However, these troops (usually in battalion or company formation) coming out of the labor camps were not very popular because they had poor discipline, were too experienced, and were difficult to command. No one wanted them if they could choose.

So these "labor reform soldiers" were sent in large numbers to Leningrad, a dangerous place where fierce fighting would not break out (this was the judgment of the Red Army Command) - because there was a high possibility of being surrounded again, so no one was willing to enter the city.