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"During the whole war Stalin never visited any section of the front or any liberated city, except for one short ride on the Mozhaisk Highway during a stabilized situation at the front. To this incident were dedicated many literary works full of fantasies of all sorts and so many paintings."
GLOBAL PLANNING
"After the war began, the nervousness and hysteria which Stalin demonstrated, interfering with actual military operations, caused our army serious damage . . . When there developed an exceptionally serious situation for our army in 1942 in the Kharkov region ... I telephoned Vasilevsky [Chief of Staff] and begged him: 'Alexander Mikhailovich, take a map and show Comrade Stalin the situation which has developed . . .' We should note that Stalin planned operations on a globe. Yes, comrades, he used to take the globe and trace the front on it ... [But] Stalin didn't want to hear any more arguments on the matter. I telephoned to Stalin at his villa . . . but Stalin did not consider it convenient to raise the phone and stated that I should speak to him through Malenkov [then Stalin's secretary], although he was only a few steps from the telephone. After 'listening' in this manner to our plea, Stalin said, 'Let everything remain as it is!' And what was the result of this? The Germans surrounded our army concentrations and consequently we lost hundreds of thousands of our soldiers. This is Stalin's military 'genius'; this is what it costs us."