There was an officer standing in the door. He kept repeating: "please take off your coat, comrades, please take off your coat..."

I saw the officers in front of me all take off their overcoats and wait in line in front of the cloakroom to deposit their clothes. I also took off the soldiers' overcoats and followed.

When the female sergeant in the deposit office took the coat, she looked at me curiously and asked me hesitantly, "Comrade lieutenant, is this your coat?"

"That's right!" I think she asked a lot. I handed it to her personally. It's not mine. Who else can it be? "This is my military coat."

"But this is an ordinary military coat for soldiers. You are a lieutenant, and the rank on the coat is a sergeant. I'm afraid you've made a mistake, so I'll ask. Are you sure? " She has a very friendly attitude. After all, this is a special time, and people who can enter the Kremlin are not ordinary people.

"Oh." It turned out that this was the case. I quickly explained to her, "honey, when I came to Moscow, I was in a hurry. I didn't bring any winter clothes. I borrowed them from my hotel comrades temporarily."

"I see." She handed me a number plate. "Please take care of it. It's used when you come out to pick up the clothes. Good luck

"Thank you After I took the number plate, I quickly walked into the conference hall and took a seat in the last row.

On the rostrum were rows of long tables covered with red cloth. As soon as I sat down, the members of the presidium made their debut.

At the front, a man in a grey uniform with all the buttons on. He was wearing a pair of polished boots with oil on his feet, holding a pipe in his right hand, and walking leisurely on the rostrum. Two or three steps behind him were a group of marshals and high-level generals.

I've seen his photos more than a thousand times. On the red square of later generations, I often see his imitator of the old people. His classic beard impresses me even more. So as soon as he appears, I recognize him without hesitation: he is Stalin!

After Stalin came out, everyone in the hall stood up from their seats, and I was no exception. Suddenly, the thunderous clapping and the crashing of the chair flipped backwards were mixed together.

Without too many greetings, after the members of the presidium sat down, someone announced the beginning of the meeting. However, it was not Stalin who presided over the meeting, but Marshal Changsha bosnikov, the general staff of the Red Army. Marshal voroshlov, whom I knew, was also on the stage, but there was no sign of Zhukov.

My eyes have never been away from Stalin, only to see him sitting in the furthest row next to the presidium. After a few minutes, he stood up, lit his pipe and began to walk slowly around the back of the presidium. He walked quietly back and forth, sometimes sitting in his distant seat for a while, and then rising again to continue his slow, peaceful walk.

From time to time, Stalin interrupted the speakers, asking them a few questions or making brief interruptions.

There was silence in the hall, but when Stalin slowed down his already slow silent steps and looked at the speaker, or raised his pipe hand a little, the silence under the stage became more obvious, because everyone knew what he was going to say. At that time, the people standing on the platform could not help but silence and turned to Stalin's side.

The meeting lasted for several hours. One by one, the military leaders of all front armies came to the podium to speak. Most of their names are very strange to me. After all, I only know World War II famous generals like Zhukov and trakov, as well as senior marshals like voroshlov, timoshingo and bujoni.

Almost all the speakers pointed out that although the equipment and quality of our soldiers are absolutely inferior to those of the German army, they are all very tenacious. In the face of the enemy's three-dimensional attack, they are still nailed to the position like nails and never retreat until they fight to the last person. Even the generals of the southwest front who broke out of the German encirclement had the same view.

I'm not interested in listening to such platitudes. As a person of later generations, I clearly know that before the outbreak of the war, the Soviet Union was not fully prepared for the German attack. Although he thought that the war between the Soviet Union and Germany was inevitable, he still dreamed of delaying the outbreak of the war as much as possible. Before the war, a large number of strategic materials such as grain, coal and non-ferrous metals were exported to Germany in accordance with the Treaty of non aggression between the Soviet Union and Germany. It was Stalin's misjudgment that made the Soviet army not mentally but physically prepared. The sudden outbreak of the war left many officers and men at a loss. From the headquarters of the front army to the troops at all levels, they were in chaos. The unprepared spirit and the rapid attack of the German army led to the collapse of the Soviet army. After the German army seized the well prepared material reserve, it became the enemy's material.

The German generals have been fighting in Europe for many years, and they have rich operational experience and know how to form a local advantage over the Soviet army. Although the number of weapons of the Soviet army was large, its quality was far inferior to that of the German army. In addition, the German army was a surprise attack, and the Soviet Army's advantage in quantity was not brought into full play, which made the overall strength of weapons at a disadvantage. This was also one of the reasons for the defeat in the war.

What's more, a large number of experienced military leaders were washed out in the big clean-up a few years ago. It was replaced by a large number of low-level and young officers, which resulted in the low military and cultural quality and lack of experience of Soviet commanders from the army to the battalion, and the obsolete and rigid tactical thinking, which led to the low overall combat effectiveness of the army. This situation can be seen in the Soviet Finnish War: as many as one million Soviet troops attacked the Finnish army with only 200000 people, but they were repulsed by the Finnish army because of their poor command. Although the Soviet Union won in the end, it paid a heavy price for casualties. The Soviet army was so inferior to the Finnish army, and even worse than the German army.

Although I know the reason why the Soviet army lost in the early days of the war very well, if I speak on the stage, I will take this suggestion as if someone asked me to jump off the plane without parachute. It's just an international joke. On such an occasion, you know what's going on, but you can't even say it. Rashly speaking, it's light to be sent to Siberia for labor reform. If you annoy someone, it's possible for you to evaporate.

I had planned to live below until the end of the meeting, but the dispute between admiral konev and shaposnikov changed my mind.

General konev, the former commander of the Western Front Army, said: "the German army gained the initiative in the battlefield entirely through their superior forces, especially tanks and air force. In order to illustrate the power of the enemy's assault, I can just cite one example to prove that the enemy used 20 divisions against the four infantry divisions of the 30th group army, while the enemy invested more than 400 tanks. The soldiers of the 30th group army were very stubborn and had to retreat. Retreat, as you know, is the most complex form of combat. It requires high fighting quality. "

"Come on." Shaposnikov interrupted him, "when will your complex form of fighting end and when will our troops retreat? When can we fight tenaciously? This is also a strategic issue for me. You also said that the soldiers had no experience of retreating when they brought down the Red Army. "

"Yes, we didn't study this form of fighting before the war. We are preparing to fight on the territory of the enemy,... I don't want to argue, but we paid a huge price in the war on this point." Konev did not give in and argued with him tit for tat.

"Oh, it turns out that all the mistakes you have made are my fault,... I think the leaders of the Western Front Army are completely lack of strategic foresight and are not good at commanding the combat forces according to circumstances,..."

I think what general konev said is very reasonable. As for shaposnikov, I look down on him very much. Although he had a high prestige in the Soviet army, he always stuck to the idea of the first World War: to organize a strong defensive position with artillery and machine guns, waiting for the enemy to come and smash his head and blood, and scoffed at the advanced theory of armored warfare at that time. The fact is that in the face of Guderian's tank attack, the Soviet army, which lacked experience in anti tank warfare, although armed to the teeth, still showed no way to do anything but to retreat.

I took the pen and notebook of the commander next to me, and wrote on it without hesitation: "I request to speak", and also wrote my rank and name. When I wrote about my army, I considered whether I should write "Leningrad front army" or "Leningrad"? Finally, he wrote down Leningrad's front army. Then he tore the paper apart and touched a colonel in the front row on the shoulder with a purely mechanical gesture.

The man turned his body half around, glanced at me from the corner of his eye, and then stretched out a five finger hand over his shoulder. Then I put the folded note into the general's palm.

It took me a minute to realize that I had a fever in my head and had done an irreparable stupid thing: unlike most of the spokesmen, I understood the real reason for the Soviet defeat. Without preparing the speech in advance, I rashly asked to speak at such a meeting. It was easy for me to say too much without losing.

The next thought was: take back the note quickly and don't let it go to the presidium. I even slightly raised my body and looked at the back of the people sitting in front of him, trying to judge from their actions who they handed this piece of paper to. However, all this is in vain! It seems that all the people in the front row are sitting still or taking notes.

At this time, I began to comfort myself with fantasy. Maybe the note disappeared after a long journey among the commanders, or someone was busy taking notes, so I put the note aside and forgot to send it to the front.

When I saw a tall soldier with a tight belt and a well-trained posture coming out from somewhere nearby, and collected a lot of notes from the front row, ready to hand them to the presidium, I was almost completely relieved that no one would notice my note for so many notes demanding to speak.

Even so, I always looked at the soldier mechanically. With easy steps, the man stretched out his straight hand with the note to his chest and climbed the small ladder leading to the presidium. He walked a few steps, bypassed several rows of seats, and seemed to want to squeeze into Shaposhnikov, who presided over the meeting. But when he saw Stalin coming straight to him, he turned around in a hurry, then ran back a few steps, put the note in front of a general at the end of the table, ran down the small ladder and disappeared. The general sorted out the notes, folded them into piles, and passed them to the people next to him, one by one. The notes soon passed to shaposnikov, who was quarreling.

When Stalin came between the two debaters, the dispute came to a sudden end. After konev left the platform, shaposnikov looked at the pile of notes in front of him, then stood up with a frown and handed one of them to Stalin standing in front of him. Stalin took it with his left hand, which did not hold a pipe, looked at it, did not speak, then handed the note back to shapusnikov, nodding silently. Then the whole audience heard shaposnikov announce: "next, let's invite Comrade oshanina to speak, the leader of Leningrad's front army!"