Chapter 344
The car drove over the bridge over the Moscow River . The view towards the Palace of Soviets was blocked by the buildings on one side of the street and nothing could be seen. Yuri then withdrew his gaze and began to go over the contents of the report he had prepared in his mind.
No one could guess what kind of issues Comrade Stalin would mention, but there were only a few aspects of affairs in the Far East. Yuri had made sufficient preparations and was not worried about any mistakes. However, for the sake of caution, he still had to simplify what he wanted to say and state the most specific content in the most concise language.
The car entered the Kremlin, crushing the broken sunlight under the shade of the trees, and slowly stopped outside the cordon in front of the building. When Yuri pushed the door and got out of the car, he saw Kryuchkov jogging down the stairs. When he rushed to his side, he took the briefcase from his hand first, then handed him a piece of manuscript paper and said, "Comrade Chairman Yuri Arkhipovich, this is the record of the Executive Bureau's meetings in the past two months. I made a catalog. You can take a look."
Yuri smiled, took the manuscript, folded it, put it in the pocket of his military jacket, and said, "Thank you for your hard work."
Kryuchkov smiled naively and was about to say something else when he saw a man flash out from the entrance of the small building and reach towards him from a distance. It was Comrade Stalin's chief secretary.
Yuri didn't say anything more to his secretary. He nodded to Kryuchkov and walked up the stairs.
When Yuri reached the steps, Poskrebyshev took two steps forward, naturally stretched out his hand to hold his arm, and said, "Go quickly. Comrade Stalin has asked you three times."
Yuri nodded and subconsciously quickened his pace.
The two men went up to the second floor. Just as Yuri was about to turn into the corridor, Poskrebyshev stopped him and said, "On the third floor, in the conference room."
"Oh?" Yuri was stunned for a moment, but didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he followed the other party to the third floor.
Comrade Stalin's office building has a larger conference room on the third floor, but that conference room is not often used. After all, Comrade Stalin rarely convenes dozens of people here for a meeting. Generally speaking, if there are more people, they will go to the Grand Kremlin Palace to arrange the meeting, and will not use the third floor here.
Although he was confused, Yuri did not ask Poskrebyshev. He still had to understand the rules. If the other party could tell him, or wanted to tell him, they would tell him without him saying anything. If the other party didn't say anything, and he asked rashly, it would not only be embarrassing, but would also likely affect the relationship between the two of them, which would not be worth the loss.
Following Poskrebyshev, Yuri went straight to the third floor. The large conference room was right in front of the stairs. At this time, the purple double doors were open. Looking through the door, he could see that many people were already sitting in the meeting seats under the rostrum. Looking at the rostrum again, wow, there were five members of the Central Committee Presidium, which was quite a big event.
Yuri walked in from the door, and Comrade Stalin, who was talking to Zhdanov on the podium, immediately turned his eyes over. A young woman in a blue dress came up and led Yuri to the front row.
After finding out his seat from the woman who led the way, Yuri saw Zhdanov on the podium waving at him before he sat down. So he hurriedly went around the left side of the podium, walked quickly behind Zhdanov, bent down and got close to him, wanting to listen to what he was going to say.
In the end, Zhdanov did not speak, but Comrade Stalin turned around and said, "After the meeting, come to my office."
Yuri hunched over and waited for a few seconds, making sure that he had nothing else to say, before nodding and saying, "Okay, Comrade Stalin."
Only then did Zhdanov gesture to him to return to his seat.
Yuri returned to his seat, before he even settled down, the woman came trotting over and handed him a sealed document.
Yuri took the document and nodded to the other party, then sat back and looked at the cover of the document.
The seal on the document was obviously specially made, with eye-catching letters marking it: "For reading only during the meeting, strictly prohibited from taking it out after the meeting." It was obvious that this document was for him to read now, and he would need to hand it in after the meeting.
Yuri tore off the seal on the document, took it out and looked at it, and found that it was a piece of intelligence submitted by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. The general meaning was that the Americans had completed the test explosion of a nuclear bomb this month and succeeded. This means that in the research and development of nuclear weapons, the Americans are far ahead. At the same time, it also means that in the comparison of military power, the Americans have taken the initiative.
There is not much content in the document, and I believe there are still many things that need to be mentioned in the later meeting.
After finishing reading the document, Yuri breathed a sigh of relief , folded the document again and stuffed it back into the seal.
It is certain that this news will bring tremendous pressure to many people. There is no doubt that today's meeting must be for the research and development of nuclear weapons. Comrade Stalin should be prepared to encourage all those involved in this work, hoping that they can succeed in the shortest possible time so that the Soviet Union can also have its own nuclear weapons.
But encouragement is more often a form of pressure, especially when Comrade Stalin personally came out to "encourage". After all, no one knew what means he would use to achieve his goal if encouragement did not work.
More people came to the venue one after another. After waiting for about seven or eight minutes, a noise came from the loudspeaker. At the same time, the door of the conference room was slowly closed from the outside, and the meeting officially began.
The meeting was chaired by Comrade Zhdanov himself. Without further ado, he pointed out the reality that the Americans had successfully tested a nuclear weapon. At the same time, he also talked about the enormous power of this weapon. According to the analysis of the General Staff, this is a new weapon with strategic significance. Its birth means that hot weapons warfare has reached an epoch-making milestone. Nuclear-weapon countries and non-nuclear-weapon countries will no longer be of the same size in military terms.
Subsequently, Zhdanov introduced the progress of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons research. He commended a large number of people and confirmed that the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons research had basically solved several key technical problems. Considering the intelligence obtained by the intelligence agencies from the United States, Zhdanov believed that the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons research should also have entered the final stage. Based on this, he believed that it was realistic for the Soviet Union to test its first nuclear weapon within the next two months.
In this way, Zhdanov drew a timeline for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons research work. He only gave two months and believed that two months was enough.
Yuri didn't know the specific progress of nuclear weapons research, but in his opinion, this strict timeline work method was nonsense. However, he also thought that this work was indeed urgent, because the term nuclear blackmail was born with the emergence of nuclear weapons. Americans are not a peace-loving race. They are always good at using their advantages to the extreme, even if the means are despicable and shameless.
Fortunately, although Yuri was also involved in the nuclear weapons development project, he was only responsible for the peripheral coordination work. As an outsider, it was not his turn to speak about research and development, and of course it was not his turn to take responsibility. Therefore, at this time, the pressure on him was actually not that great.
Zhdanov spoke for more than ten minutes on the stage , but it was Comrade Stalin who spoke casually.
Compared with Zhdanov's speech, Comrade Stalin's speech was much briefer. He simply reiterated the importance and urgency of this work, and then made a series of promises, but the potential pressure in it was not small at all.
After Comrade Stalin finished his speech, the remaining members of the Presidium gave speeches. Perhaps because he didn't get enough sleep last night, Yuri fell asleep while the big guys were speaking. Fortunately, he was a light sleeper, so every time there was applause, he would wake up and instinctively follow the applause of the big guys.
After finally waiting for the meeting to end, Yuri returned the document and followed the members of the presidium out of the meeting room through the side door.
Comrade Stalin seemed to have a cold. When he walked in the corridor, he coughed from time to time, and his sharp face looked a little pale. In short, he gave people the feeling that he was not very healthy.
Sure enough, when the group arrived at his office, six or seven doctors were already waiting there, and some simple medical monitoring equipment had been brought over.
"Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich, please tell me about the situation in Tokyo," Comrade Stalin walked to the sofa and sat down, signaling the doctors to start their work, and then said without turning his head.
Yuri first glanced at Khrushchev who was standing not far away, and seeing that there was no strange expression on his face, he began to briefly describe the situation in Tokyo according to his previous summary.
According to Yuri, the Americans seem to be focusing their efforts on stabilizing Japan's political and social order. They have not taken an aggressive stance on the issue of the four northern counties of Kyushu, as if they have tacitly accepted this reality. This makes Yuri feel a little puzzled, but he is worried that if the Americans succeed in testing nuclear weapons, they will use this advantage as a bargaining chip to force the Soviet Union to make concessions in subsequent negotiations.
