Chapter 284
With the urgent discussion of the departmental establishment plan of the Disarmament Working Committee, the grand celebration of the victory of the Great Patriotic War is also under intensive preparation. In this grand celebration, Yuri also has his own work to do. He is the commander-in-chief, the man who rides a white horse in the front of the parade troops.
The military parade was scheduled to be held on July 14. As the commander-in-chief, Yuri did not spend much time on the preparations for the parade, and Zhukov, the commander-in-chief of the parade, did not put much energy into it either. Yuri spent most of his time on the work of the disarmament committee. In addition, he was in solitary confinement for four days. As for Comrade Zhukov, he had already gone to Berlin to take up his post as the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Army in Germany. Before the disarmament, he was the most powerful and supreme general in the Soviet Union's huge military system, with more than two million troops under his direct command.
Recently, Yuri also received some news about Comrade Zhukov. He heard that he was very comfortable staying in Berlin. There were various cocktail parties all day long, and most of them were hosted by the Western Allies.
News about Comrade Zhukov can be found everywhere in Western newspapers, and of course, more are the comments about him by Western bigwigs, such as the comments of US President Roosevelt: "He is the commander among commanders", Eisenhower: "He is a responsible general who has commanded important battles and has more combat experience than anyone else in the same period", and Churchill: "He is an outstanding tactician with a spirit of innovation".
The latest issue of Time magazine once again put Comrade Zhukov on the cover, describing him as a brave and fearless soldier; it was he who did his utmost to save the entire country from collapse when the Soviet Union was facing danger; it was he who turned the tide when Nazi forces were rampant around the world; he was the greatest general in the entire World War II and the hero who defeated brilliant military exploits are a legend that will forever go down in history.
Well, I must admit that when I saw these comments, especially when I saw the new issue of Time magazine, Yuri felt a little indignant: Oh, Zhukov is the commander of commanders? Who does he want to command? He saved the Soviet Union, he turned the world around, he defeated Hitler, and there is nothing else for others, right?
Of course, even if he was a little dissatisfied, Yuri would not show it. He knew the purpose of the Western media praising Zhukov so highly, and he also knew that this was definitely not an honor, but a danger. As Khrushchev said before, this was a complete flattery. The key point was that I didn't know whether Comrade Zhukov himself realized this.
Presumably, this meritorious marshal comrade should not have realized this, otherwise, when Comrade Stalin asked about the disarmament of the German group, this marshal comrade would not have given a figure of 200,000 disarmament.
Recently, with the gradual advancement of the establishment of the Disarmament Working Committee, the voices against disarmament have gradually become louder. There are many people who oppose disarmament, including Voroshilov, Timoshenko, and Chief of General Staff Antonov. Of course, these people have their reasons for opposing disarmament. After all, the Soviet Union’s foreign wars have not completely ended. The day of declaring war on Japan is approaching, and the situation in the Balkan Peninsula is becoming complicated. In addition, in Turkey, those Turks who don’t know what’s good for them are trying to make trouble for the Soviet Union. In the face of this complex situation, maintaining a strong military force is the basic guarantee to curb the ambitions of Western countries and ensure the geopolitical security of the Soviet Union. Disarmament is obviously not in line with reality.
In fact, among many reasons, neither the complex environment of the Balkan Peninsula nor Iran’s energy problem is the most urgent issue at the moment. Instead, Turkey’s problem has been put on the table.
In fact, when the Transcaucasian Campaign was going on, the Soviet Union had already begun to put forward a series of territorial demands on Turkey, and Stalin also raised this issue at the Yalta Conference. Specifically, the Soviet Union hoped to recover the two regions of Kars and Ardahan occupied by Turkey during World War I, and at the same time, revise the so-called "Montreux Convention" established in 1936.
The Montreux Convention is a strait convention that establishes the principles of passage through the Black Sea straits. According to this convention, the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits, which lead in and out of the Black Sea, have become Turkish fortified straits. According to the provisions of this convention, if a war breaks out, if Turkey is a neutral country, then warships of any belligerent country cannot pass through the straits. If Türkiye is a belligerent country, then whether to allow warships to pass through will be decided by Türkiye.
When this convention was signed, the Soviet Union actually had a lot of objections, but at that time the Soviet Union did not have much say in the international community, so it could not affect the final signing of this convention. Today, the Soviet Union has won great international prestige through its victory in the war against Germany. At the same time, its military power is unprecedentedly strong. In order to ensure that it can freely enter and exit the Black Sea at any time, it is inevitable to abandon or modify this convention.
Just after the Battle of Berlin ended, Molotov, as the Soviet Foreign Minister, submitted a note to the Turkish government, proposing territorial and convention amendment demands. After being rejected by the Turkish government, the Soviet Union abolished the Soviet-Turkish Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality signed in 1925, and relations between the Soviet Union and Turkey began to become tense.
Of course, given Turkey's strength, it is not worthy of the Soviet Union's excessive attention, but the key to the issue is that the attitudes of Britain and the United States on this issue are very ambiguous, so a question that directly arises is what the direction of the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Western world will be after the war.
The main position against disarmament is that the Western world still has the desire to destroy the Soviet Union. The end of the Soviet-German War or the Soviet-Japanese War does not mean the end of the entire war. There may very likely be a Soviet-British, Soviet-French or even Soviet-American war afterwards. Therefore, disarmament at this time is actually tantamount to suicide.
As the originator of the disarmament issue, Yuri might even be considered a "capitalist spy".
Yuri was the first to raise the issue of disarmament. He knew from the beginning that he would offend people. Moreover, the disarmament plan he proposed was huge in scale, involving the reduction of nearly nine million troops.
Comrade Zhukov obviously saw through Stalin's position, so he also advocated disarmament and believed that post-war disarmament was necessary. However, the scale of disarmament he proposed was less than four million, and it was mainly concentrated in the border guard system. As for the troops stationed in Eastern Europe and Germany, the disarmament amount was less than 500,000.
On one hand, he offended countless people over the issue of disarmament, while on the other hand, he had nearly 2.5 million troops but was only willing to cut less than 200,000 troops. Moreover, this person seemed to have taken away all the glory of the anti-fascist war and frequently went to cocktail parties in capitalist countries as the savior of the Soviet Union. Not to mention Comrade Stalin, anyone would probably have some thoughts about the latter, right?
Therefore, Yuri was not worried about the current situation at all. As for the minor punishment, he had forgotten it completely. In the past two days, not only did he not sever his relationship with Ligia, he also directly placed her in the residence newly allocated to him by the General Affairs Bureau of the National Security Council.
He just made a self-examination and then went his own way. It seemed like he was courting death, but Yuri knew very well that this was the best way for him to protect himself at the moment. Keeping a low profile, not sticking to a group, and having stains were simply the three ways to stay out of trouble at the moment.
Although Yuri's political sense was not very sensitive, he could still feel the tense atmosphere in the Kremlin, which was a very bad sign.
Just yesterday, Comrade Stalin rejected Zhdanov's proposal to hold the 19th Congress of the CPSU in the next two years, and scolded his relative-in-law. There are obviously some reasons behind this .
In fact, since the 18th Congress of the CPSU in 1939, the CPSU has never held a plenary session. In the past few years, the war could be used as an excuse not to hold a plenary session, but now that the war is over, this excuse is naturally no longer valid.
From a broader perspective, with the end of the war, Comrade Stalin was preparing to reorganize the Council of People's Commissars, the People's Commissariat of Defense, the State Security Committee, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and was also preparing to implement a large-scale disarmament plan, and was also preparing to formulate a fourth five-year plan aimed at post-war reconstruction, etc. These were matters that concerned the national economy and people's livelihood, and major policies, so how could it be justified not to hold a National Congress?
But it was useless. Comrade Stalin's veto made everyone stare in amazement. As a person who was reborn, Yuri could more or less understand Comrade Stalin's thoughts. He was worried that the convening of the National Congress would affect his personal status and prestige.
Yuri could also sense that it would not be long before Comrade Stalin took action against Zhukov. He hoped that Comrade "the commander-in-chief of the commander-in-chief" would not make any mistakes, otherwise his fate would probably not be very good.
Yuri sincerely hoped that Zhukov could hold on for a while longer, because with this shining marshal in front, Comrade Stalin would not notice this humble general. And he needed to use this time difference to belittle himself and hide himself as much as possible, and at the same time, do more things that would make Comrade Stalin happy.
