VICTOR NEKRASOV
61
The Vanka of my day, who at the same age wore a star on his cap, froze
in trenches and leaped into battle, even though his father had perhaps
been punished for being a
kulak .
He didn't know that only a few years
before we had seized the Baltics, or maybe he had forgotten. He just
defended his country.
Three hundred thousand prisoners passed through our hands in Stal–
ingrad. I personally handled several hundred "transistors." Of course, we
accumulated in our dugouts quite a horde of watches, pens, and cameras.
But generally we did not ask prisoners to turn over photo albums with
snapshots of blue-eyed Gretchen or Mom and Dad. A soldier muttered,
"Danke schon, Danke schon," and pulled a pocket watch out of his
pants for me. I wore it for some time after the war. Watches, to say
nothing of cameras, were a rarity for a Soviet officer.
Three years later, in Germany, it was different. I was not there. I did
not see it with my own eyes, but I read about it. A down-like blanket
covered the sky, and no women were left in the country. Vanka was
given free reign to loot the homes of the .well-to-do; Stalin unambigu–
ously gave orders to pillage the country. The victor's prerogative, as his–
tory attests. Then came the order to punish and even to execute people.
Now our Vanka, the occupier of the people's democracies, sits in bar–
racks, drinks, and awaits his orders. The officers drink, too. It's a differ–
ent matter altogether, as someone will no doubt write about someday.
Bu that is now. Let us go back to the trenches of Stalingrad.
I often hear, "Many consider that you wrote the first truthful book
about the war. Did you tell the whole truth? Or was something hidden
which they removed? If you were to sit down and write the book again,
this time with your hands untied, would you produce the same work?"
Let me start with the last point. I would not change a thing. Books
like mine are written in an extended burst of energy, right after the
event. It took me less than a half a year to complete, without excessive
effort. As for the requirements of socialist realism, Vladimir Borisovich
Alexandrov was right; I didn't have the foggiest. I expected the scenes
about the retreat to meet with a cold response. But they did not; only
one of the collaborators at the journal viewed them negatively. As for
the Party's role, I never gave it much thought while I was writing the
book. Vishnevsky never pressured me. It is true that his assistant, Tolya
Tarasenkov, scratched his neck. "Hmm," he said, "If only the word
'Communist' appeared in your book at least once . Can it be that there
was no decent Party representative in your battalion?"
"The commandar of the battalion, Major Mitilev. A spineless charac–
ter of a commissar. Abrosimov. He has another name. You know how it
