This is part of the “War-time Notes” by Soviet journalist and writer Kochetov, a feature during the Patriotic War. During the war, he worked as a reporter for “Leningrad Pravda,” writing news reports and articles about the defense of Leningrad by the military and civilians against the German invaders.
During the Cultural Revolution, some of his novels published during the Soviet revisionist period were translated, partly because they contained exposing material and data about the darkness of the Soviet revisionist society, which caused some shock in the then Soviet revisionist society. Although some called him a “Stalinist” to attack him, Kochetov was actually not fit for this title at all. When criticizing the darkness in the Soviet revisionist society, he never directly pointed to the Soviet revisionist traitor group. The comments made during the translation and publication of his works in the Cultural Revolution also pointed out that he held a bourgeois world view during the Soviet revisionist period.
This is a brief section from “War-time Notes,” with a title I devised myself. This part introduces two young women who, during the Patriotic War, took completely different paths due to their thoughts. When I first read it, I was deeply shocked by the lessons it contained, and the principles reflected in it are also beneficial for our ideological struggles.
We took Berya Village and its headquarters as a base, and went to the front lines commanded by General A. Merezkov. The fighting was still fierce. After the Germans retreated from Zhekhvin, they regrouped and stabilized somewhat. We failed to quickly capture Kirish. Now, there is a strong German defensive position there: in Pohoskye, we suffered heavy casualties.
We also went to the combat command of the Fourth Army, spending a lot of time analyzing the deployment map of the enemy and ourselves near Leningrad. Leningrad is a strategic point. Since autumn, the Germans have been very close to the suburbs. The battle at Zhekhvin made it possible for them to collude with the Finns in the Onega Lake area.
All the situation was marked on the map. From Lenovo Village and the estuary to Pytelgof, along the Gulf of Finland, there is a small piece of land in our hands, about forty to fifty kilometers long and at most twenty kilometers wide. Through binoculars, you can see the Kalanstada Rakhte and Orikino, Vasileyevka, Goloda Y and Yelakin Islands. From these islands, heavy artillery bombards the streets of Leningrad every day. From Uritsk through Pulkovo to Pushkin, Yams—Yezhura, Korpino—from the Gulf to the Neva, and at the border of Leningrad, there is a small piece of land that has been held by our army since several battles in September. Northeast of the Neva River, leading to the Karelian narrow strip, there is a protruding piece of land on Lake Ladoga. If these small areas are combined, they form a small piece of Soviet territory. This land was fought back from the enemy’s iron fist. It is constantly attacked by shells of various calibers from all directions. Bombers and reconnaissance planes fly back and forth, even during broad daylight, shamelessly bombing. Leningrad also had such anti-aircraft guns of this model. In the cold winter, these anti-aircraft guns could not hit the target. Along the shore of Lake Ladoga, fifteen kilometers east of Shrishelburg, there are German troops stationed, cutting off our route to the rear. An irregular quadrilateral protrudes from the lakeshore to Muga. This area cuts off the route to Leningrad. The Vorhof front passes through the Western Silver Vino peatland, and a small highland of Western Silver Vino extends toward the trenches of Leningrad: the Leningrad troops also attack these troublesome places, striving to meet with Vorhof.
We write heroic deeds of major battles, send military telegrams or passersby through Lake Ladoga to the editorial office of “Leningrad Pravda.”
The headquarters administrator let us stay in a house belonging to a female member of Berya Village. It is a large village with beautiful scenery. Luckily, we avoided the burning bombs dropped by the Germans. We were not seriously damaged. Our accommodation was warm. The hostess was kind, hospitable, and talkative. Her daughter was twenty years old. The hostess told us daily about the period of German enslavement, her fears for her daughter:
“They are all very rude, uncultured soldiers, acting arbitrarily, treating us like talking livestock. ‘Bring, take, wash, make the bed’… About twenty people live in our house. They play dominoes all night, want playing cards, play the lute, sing, but the accordion can’t stay in tune, and singing is just shouting. We sleep on the fireplace, terrified to death, just staring at each other, waiting for disaster. Such torture is a great misfortune. A bunch of foreigners came, and every day and hour we are on tenterhooks, not knowing what kind of suffering they will bring. My daughter is simply asking for trouble. If only she kept her mouth shut, it would be better. No, she always provokes them. She is quick with her words, like a knife, not letting anything go. She is a Communist Youth League member, very active. ‘Bring water!’ they shout at her loudly. She fetches it herself, not a big shot! ‘Talk to them like this. Take your boots to brush!’ ‘Lick them with your tongue!’ and other things she said. More importantly, she speaks some words in German. She learned German very well at school. Once, I was stunned. A soldier sat on this bench. Leaning against the window, others sat beside him. They took off their undershirts and caught lice together. One soldier saw me watching them, listen, he deliberately said: ‘This is your leader, this is so-and-so…’ putting lice on the bench, squeezing them to death with nails, laughing loudly, one laugh, and everyone followed. My daughter said they are crazy long yellow cucumbers. ‘Nonsense,’ she said, ‘What are you shouting for! This is your Hitler, this is your Goebbels, this is Göring!..’ I thought, this is the end, quickly draw a cross on my chest, stand stiffly on the ground. But those catching lice laughed even more. Only one insidious person stood up and slapped my silly girl, not hard. He didn’t want to hurt her, just to maintain order. Nao nao nao! he said, ‘Hitler - Götter, Goebbels Götter, Göring Götter.’ The ‘Götter’ they say means ‘good.’
Since then, I hid her in the hayloft, strictly forbidding her to go out. Sometimes they ask where the beautiful girl went, why they can’t see her. I lied to them that she went to her aunt’s in the neighboring village to get grain. That way, I avoided a disaster. If she shows up again, these devils will definitely not spare her.”
The newspaper published many reports describing the activities of our Soviet guerrillas behind enemy lines. Reports about the struggle of the Soviet people in the occupied areas depicted their brave and steadfast spirit. These are all people with rich thoughts and strong principles, among them old and young, men and women. Looking at the daughter of the hostess, I seemed to see the characters from the reports I had read before. To hold off the German troops in Berya Village for a long time, undoubtedly, this patriotic girl would also join the fight. She ran into the woods to join the guerrilla, shooting at the Germans, burning down enemy-occupied houses, destroying bridges, and setting up roadblocks. Such patriots cannot be bought, nor can their ideological armor be dismantled, nor can their faith be shaken.
A few days later, in Budagosha, I heard another story. I went to the special operations office. The room was warm with a stove. Someone told us about the situation after the Germans occupied Zhekhvin.
“Just three steps from here, a girl has been imprisoned,” said a captain involved in espionage. “She’s only eighteen, already a traitor.”
“What happened?”
“Let me tell you. It’s not a happy thing, of course, everyone will learn from it. This beautiful girl lives in the village, not far from here. Her parents spoil her and love her endlessly. She graduated from high school but is not eager to work. ‘Let her have fun,’ they comfort themselves, ‘she’ll get married soon anyway.’ She wears silk dresses, high heels, and dances all day with a gramophone. Generally, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? We often say: ‘Living standards are higher now, happier than before.’ But when the Germans came, some German officers quickly took a liking to her and asked her to work as a spy. Besides her, the Germans also selected two or three other girls like her. The German officers showed them very beautiful dresses from Berlin! Champagne from France, chocolates from the Netherlands, oranges from Italy, necklaces and bracelets from Czechoslovakia! All records are fox-trot music. They started living a ‘good life.’ Then they were all placed in ‘collective dormitories.’ They said they were learning German to be translators later, claiming their fanaticism was completely different from the local wild girls, and they were Westernized young ladies. Later, they wore refugee clothes, begged along the front lines, carrying bread they begged for and our troop’s intelligence about artillery positions, headquarters, and airfields in the woods. Now, the military court is going to interrogate her. She said she now understands everything. She only has one request: not to tell her father her identity. He cannot bear such shame.”
“What does her father do?”
“A railway worker, a train driver.”
Both girls, one from Berya Village and the other from near Budagosha, come from working-class families, and are about the same age. They both attended Soviet middle schools, were Young Pioneers and Communist Youth League members. But their paths diverged so dramatically. One girl was prepared to dedicate herself to her communist beliefs, while the other agreed to become a traitor for a few silk dresses, chocolates, and small glass toys. What exactly happened?
“Would you like to talk to her?” the espionage officer asked me.
Honestly, I wanted to talk to her. I needed to unravel this mystery of life.
She sat in a narrow cell. The iron window was rusted, and she was looking out from above the window. Because the window below was nailed shut with wooden planks.
“Please tell me,” I said, “do you understand what you have done?”
“Yes, yes, yes, I understand! I understand very well. I have become a despicable spy. I saw such people in books before, and I hated them. But now, I am no different from such people.”
“Exactly,” I said, “You couldn’t stand firm in front of foreign clothes and chocolates. Honestly, you are still very young. That’s nothing strange. But why didn’t you act in time? After accepting the German mission and crossing the front line, you could have turned to your own people and told them everything.”
She was silent at first, then shook her head.
“No, no, you don’t understand. They already won’t let me stop, won’t let me turn back. They control me. I was completely confused at that time, deceived. Their clothes and chocolates cost me a very high price.”
“How do you call control? How does the control work?”
“The officer who assigned me tasks always said he loved me, wanted to take me to Germany, to Europe, to let me see the world. Later, this person disappeared. Another took his place. He didn’t make any promises, only threatened. If I didn’t obey, he said: ‘Our dear, we will hang your mother on a street lamp.’ When that happened, my father went by train, and my mother stayed behind, she was old.”
After talking with this girl, my heart felt like a cold, heavy stone had been left inside. I couldn’t help but see: what pains her isn’t what will happen to her in the future, but her deep remorse for what she has done. As long as this past is not there, she is willing to sacrifice her young life. Previously, in her eyes, that German officer was gentle and elegant, always wearing a military cap proudly. The girl thought that returning his smile with her own, having a drink with him, accepting his small gifts, was not out of line; they are also human, and from a country that has made great contributions to world culture and science. But the girl from Berya Village simply ignores others’ smiles. She responds tenfold to every sentence. The Germans think she is a potential fighter. Such a person can be killed but cannot be subdued. Therefore, they didn’t bother trying to subdue her. Her mother was right; sooner or later, they will put her to death. This imprisoned girl is spoiled by her parents, who don’t let her work, and she is extremely fragile. Under material temptations, she cannot stand firm in her stance. The veteran of Hitler’s reconnaissance agencies exploited this, using her as their weapon. I wonder if anyone has counted how many officers, soldiers, and residents have died in Zhekhvin, Lazarevka, Lugoy, and here, in Budagosha, because of this weapon.