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A Model War y 275

cratic nation in Korean history. . . . As a result of Japan’s defeat, favorable conditions were
created in China, North Korea, and North Vietnam for the victory of people’s revolu-
tions. . . . e Chinese People’s Army of Liberation received huge reserves of trophy arms,
military equipment, and supplies. . . . e defeat of Japanese militarism opened the way
for national liberation movements throughout Asia. On September 2, when the Japanese
foreign affairs minister Sigemitsu and Chief of Staff Umedzu signed the pact of total
capitulation, President Ho Chi Minh declared the birth of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam. On October 12, the Laos patriots pronounced the birth of Phatet-Lao.
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For many years, Soviet officers have been taught the lightning war of 1945 as an
example. at was how one must fight: in two weeks, hundreds of millions of people were
under Soviet control. One should be amazed by the assault of the 6th Tank Guards Army,
the thrust of the Amur flotilla up the Sungari River, the bold actions of the paratroops. e
most amazing was the coordination among the troops. Tankers, pilots, artillerists, sailors,
communications men, paratroops, railroad workers, sappers, and the High Command staff
in the Far East, the administrations and staffs of the three fronts and one fleet, eighteen
armies and one flotilla, tens of corps, divisions, and brigades, hundreds of regiments and
thousands of battalions, performed like one symphony orchestra under the direction of the
great maestro Vasilevsky.
I reread many times Marshal Vasilevsky’s biography, his book, and his articles, before
I stumbled across a sentence that made me pause for breath: “Since May 1940, the deputy
head of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff worked on the operational part of
a plan of strategic deployment of Soviet armed forces in the northern, northwestern, and
western directions.” In other words, between May 1940 and June 1941—that is, for more
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than a year—Major General Vasilevsky worked on preparing a plan for war against Germany.
He personally prepared war plans for the Northern, Northwestern, and Western Fronts—in
other words, for the Soviet troops in the Karelian, Baltic, and Byelorussian regions. ese re-
gions were precisely where the Soviet troops were hit the hardest in the summer of 1941. e
troops of the Northern Front let the Finnish troops from the north through to Leningrad,
and the worst blockade in human history ensued. e formations of the Northwestern Front
fell apart, letting German troops through to Leningrad from the south. e troops of the
Western Front in Byelorussia were almost instantly surrounded and crushed, leaving the way
to Moscow wide open.
Stalin didn’t criticize or punish Vasilevsky for such planning. On the contrary, a month
after an unprecedented catastrophe for the Red Army, Stalin appointed Vasilevsky to the posi-
tion of head of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff, entrusting him with drafting
all plans on all fronts and in all directions. Vasilevsky walked the path from Major General
to Marshal of the Soviet Union faster than anyone else—in just one and a half years. Stalin
entrusted him personally with planning the defeat of German troops near Stalingrad, the vic-
tory at Kursk, the brilliant operation in Byelorussia, and then the war against Japan.
e selection of other high commanders for the task of the lightning defeat of Japanese
troops in 1945 was also surprising. In June 1941, Lieutenant Colonel S. P. Ivanov was the
chief of the operations division of the 13th Army headquarters on the Western Front. e
significant part of the 13th Army was surrounded and perished on the sixth week of the war
with Germany. Ivanov miraculously stayed alive and climbed the peaks of military power. He