Chapter 220
The three of them walked around the Kremlin for a while before finally arriving at the Grand Kremlin Palace, where today's celebration was to be held.
The Grand Kremlin Palace is the most magnificent building in the entire Kremlin. Looking into the palace from outside the Kremlin wall on the banks of the Moscow River, the building with three-story large windows is the Grand Kremlin Palace.
After the snow, the sky cleared up and all kinds of cars were parked outside the Kremlin Palace, including some with license plates of various consulates. Obviously, the participants of today's celebration included not only commanding generals from the front line, but also embassy staff from various allied countries and newspaper reporters.
Today, the Grand Kremlin Palace seemed to be open to Western journalists. A large number of journalists gathered on the steps outside the palace. Seeing Yuri and the other two coming from the palace, the journalists rushed over. These three were the commanders of the three fronts of the Soviet Red Army. Not to mention interviewing them, just taking a photo with them was very valuable.
After all, they were not facing entertainment stars, but senior Soviet military officials. Although there were many reporters rushing over, the order was not chaotic. The nearest reporter was two or three meters away from the three people. He just asked questions from a distance, hoping to get an answer .
Although Yuri and the other two had smiles on their faces, they remained silent. Surrounded by the Internal Guard soldiers, they quickly went up the stairs in front of the palace and got rid of the reporters.
The celebration was held in the Andreevsky Hall, and the three of them walked past and were stopped at the door of the hall by a colonel wearing a blue hat.
All three knew the colonel, Alexander Alexandrovich Romanshev, the commander of the Kremlin Internal Guard. If the Kremlin was regarded as a community, then he was the security captain of the community.
Romenshev told the three that according to Comrade Stalin's request, when Yuri and Konev entered the Andreevsky Hall, they needed to be signed up by the Internal Guard to remind everyone in the hall that the heroic commanders of the Ukrainian Campaign on the southern front were coming.
This is an honor, learned from the Germans.
Three people came together, but in the end only two of them were qualified to register and enter the hall. One can imagine how Comrade Rokossovsky felt.
However, this handsome commander did not say anything. With his usual smile on his face, he first congratulated Yuri and Konev, and then turned around and walked into the hall alone.
Yuri was not qualified to comment on such matters. He could only say that his old superior was unlucky as he happened to be a Russian-Polish half-blood.
After tidying up his appearance, wiping the mud off his military boots, and putting on his military cap, Yuri was the first to stand at the door of the hall. Although his military rank was one level lower than Konev's, in addition to serving as a representative of the headquarters, he was also the chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff. Therefore, his position was higher than Konev, and it was natural for him to be ranked in front.
"Comrade General Yuri Arisipovich Kulyokov is here!" A loud-voiced Internal Guard soldier shouted from inside the hall. His voice drowned out the noise in the hall and echoed back and forth between the walls.
The entire Andreevsky Hall fell silent in an instant. Yuri nodded to Konev who was waiting on the side, and walked in first. Then, warm applause broke out in the hall.
Standing next to the red curtain at the entrance of the hall, Yuri saluted towards the crowded hall, then turned sideways and waited for Konev to come in.
"Comrade General Ivan Stepanovich Konev is here!" the Internal Guard soldier who had registered shouted again, and Konev walked in and, like Yuri, saluted everyone amid applause.
After a simple ceremony, Yuri and Konev walked towards the crowd side by side, and what followed was naturally a long period of socializing.
When the Internal Guard soldier at the door announced Zhukov's full name, Yuri was talking to two people, one of whom was Pavel Alexeevich Rotmistrov, the legendary commander of the 9th Guards Tank Army, wearing glasses and a big beard. The other was Yakov Nikolayevich Fedorenko, a tall but sickly-looking man who served as Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and Deputy Commander of the Soviet Tank and Mechanized Army.
Hearing Zhukov and the men from the 2nd Ukrainian Front coming in, Yuri applauded with everyone else. At the same time, he looked over and saw Vasilevsky and Stalin walking into the main door of the hall.
The only people allowed to attend the celebration, apart from the envoys of the Allies and some major international media reporters, were almost all generals from the Soviet military. The person in charge of the celebration was Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Timoshenko. As for the senior officials in charge of government affairs, none of them were present today, not even Beria, who rarely missed such celebrations.
Khrushchev did not come to attend the celebration, he did not even come to Moscow. Most of Ukraine had just been liberated, and as the General Secretary of Ukraine he had a lot of things to do, so it was normal that he could not come.
As the host of the celebration, Timoshenko first stated the great achievements made by the Soviet army in the entire Ukrainian campaign, and then specifically stated the respective achievements of the four major Ukrainian fronts.
In the crowd, Yuri did not listen to what Timoshenko said, his attention was mainly focused on Comrade Stalin.
It can be seen that Comrade Stalin was in a good mood today. He was smoking a pipe and had a smile on his rather old-fashioned face. Zhukov and Vasilevsky stood on either side of him, occasionally coming over to say something to him. As for Voroshilov and Budyonny, they stood a little further back.
Just by looking at this position, one can realize that the time of renewal among the Soviet military's top brass has arrived. Old generals like Voroshilov, Budyonny, and even Timoshenko have gradually withdrawn from Comrade Stalin's center of attention, and have been replaced by a group of people who quickly emerged in the war.
Originally, Yuri had no intention of getting close to Stalin. In such a situation, trying to get close to Stalin was not necessarily a good thing. People who were too high-profile were generally not liked.
However, his unwillingness to go there did not mean that others would forget him. When Timoshenko was talking about the achievements of the Fourth Ukrainian Front, Stalin looked around, as if he was looking for someone, but he did not find anyone. He leaned back and said something to Poskrebyshev, who was following him. The latter pointed to where Yuri was. Stalin immediately looked over here, and then smiled and said something to Zhukov beside him.
When Timoshenko mentioned his name, Yuri turned his eyes to the stage, so he did not see what happened on Stalin's side. It was not until Solomatin beside him poked him and told him that Zhukov was waving at him that he realized that Stalin was looking at him with a smile.
It would be inappropriate not to go over now, so Yuri thanked Solomakin and walked quickly towards where Stalin and his gang were.
"Comrade Ivanov," Yuri walked closer , saluted Stalin, and called him by the code name he had used during the Ukrainian campaign.
"When did you arrive in Moscow?" Stalin asked directly without calling his name.
"An hour ago," Yuri replied, "I received the comrade the day before yesterday. He made some arrangements for the specific affairs of the front yesterday and boarded the plane this morning."
"Georgi proposed that you take over his position and coordinate the work of the First and Second Ukrainian Fronts," Stalin nodded and asked, "and Comrade Yelyomenko will take over your position in the Fourth Ukrainian Front. Do you think it is appropriate?"
Yuri's expression was very calm. He was silent for a while, as if he was thinking. After about half a minute, he said, "As for the selection of the Fourth Ukrainian Front, I propose that Comrade Popov take over. Compared with Comrade Yelyomenko, Comrade Popov is better at commanding large troop offensive operations. In the previous Battle of Bryansk, he has already proved his outstanding ability in this regard."
Yeremenko refers to Andrei Ivanovich Yeremenko, who previously commanded the 1st Baltic Front, but was relieved of his post as commander of the front due to unfavorable combat performance.
Popov refers to Markian Mikhailovich Popov, who was also very powerful. The German defense master Model was defeated by the Bryansk Front under his command, and he advanced 200 kilometers in the defense depth in four days, and the entire German Ninth Army almost collapsed. However, when he was commanding the Second Baltic Front, Popov also made mistakes and was relieved of his post as the commander of the front.
Both Yeremenko and Popov suffered defeat in the battle against the German 16th Army. Their situations were similar. Since Zhukov used the credit that Yuri was about to get to help Yeremenko, Yuri would naturally not let him get away with it.
Zhukov recommended Yeremenko, and Yuri recommended Popov. Success or not is not the key point, as long as it makes you unhappy.
The most important thing is that Stalin asked him two questions. If Yuri readily said that Yeremenko was competent, then he would immediately answer the first question without objection. But Yuri didn't want to answer this question now. He needed to explain to Stalin the importance of the Belarusian campaign and then asked to coordinate the work of the Central Front in the Belarusian direction, instead of taking over Zhukov's plate handing over the results of the Belarusian campaign to others.
Sure enough, after Yuri put forward his recommended candidate, Stalin frowned and fell silent, temporarily ignoring the first question.
