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The formerly clumsy, sluggish Red Army, subdivided into three army groups, has now been divided into many relatively small, fluid groups of armies which can be fused and split up again as the occasion demands. Three or five or seven groups may be thrown against one objective, regrouped and swung against another enemy sector under these tacticians and technicians of battle.
One of the most talented of these leaders is the blue-eyed, 6 ft. 4 in. Rokossovsky. He has not only Orel and Stalingrad on his record. He also commanded one of the seven armies which saved Moscow in the crucial year-end battle of 1941. Russian newspapers have marked him for his ability to inspire his men and learn the new lessons of war, his mastery of all military branches, his ability to outsmart the Germans.
Temperamentally and physically he is a product of Russia, huge and ebullient, fond of liquor, fond of women, a hearty man after the Muscovite heart. Militarily, he is a product of the Soviet system. He learned his fighting in World War I, in the civil wars of 1918-20 and in the Russo-Polish campaign of 1920. In Frunze Military Academy, nursery of Soviet generals, he studied tank and air warfare. The priestly-looking Rokossovsky fought in the great battle of Smolensk in July 1941, which was a Pyrrhic victory for the Germans. He learned the essence of German tactics the hard way, and how to parry them. "By studying German tactics we changed our own method of attack and step by step inflicted increasing losses."
He also acquired a disdain for the German Army, even while he recognized its mechanical strength. In a radio broadcast he was quoted as saying: "I fought against the fathers. Now I'm fighting the sons. ... I do honestly think the fathers were better soldiers. . . . Hitler has ruined the German Army. . . . The German Army is not a real army. It is an ersatz army. It is obsessed with the desire for gain. ... It is a commercial army, not a military one. . . . The quality of any troops must atrophy under such conditions."
And in August 1941, in a more speechifying mood: "Our army is the Soviet people. People are not machines and they cannot be destroyed. People are immortal. The German Army will disintegrate after the first heavy blows struck against it. It is the product of a lifeless, fascist idea, and is therefore doomed."
His colleagues have sopped up this contempt. Said one of his officers, when asked what errors the Germans made at Stalingrad: "The greatest error was in having Hitler for a strategist."
In the battle of Istra, north of Moscow, Rokossovsky's infantrymen stopped persistent German tank attacks with antitank rifles, Molotov cocktails and hand grenades. There he learned the staying power of foot soldiers properly equipped and properly led. This was the major blow in the Russian counterattack. Out of these engagements the towering blond man emerged with a shy, sly smile that hid his self-assurance. He had acquired a reputation as a brilliant, courageous leader.