World: No Alternative

Herds of Nazi tanks gored a gaping wound in Russian defenses between the Volga and the Don. Day by day they dug deeper toward Stalingrad and Russia’s Volga artery. Northeast from Kotelnikovski and southeast from Kletskaya they came, clamping a giant pincers around the strategic city.

Already the industries which help to make Stalingrad vital to Russia were disrupted by the approaching siege lines. Thousands of factory workers laid down their tools and streamed westward to take up guns with the embattled Red Army. Bunker by bunker, from every concrete pillbox and every swallow’s nest hollowed nastily from the earth, the Russians were putting up a defense of Stalingrad that would rank at least with those of Sevastopol and Rostov. Unquenchable in their hearts was the hope that in the end it would rank with Leningrad and Moscow—prizes that once were within the enemy’s grasp, but never taken.

Every Russian knew what it would mean to lose Stalingrad, to lose control of the Volga, to have the Red Army cut off from the Caucasus with its oil, steel and supply route to sources outside. From Moscow Soviet Writer Emelian Yaroslavsky broadcast this meaningful message to the Russian people: “Not only can we not afford to retreat any farther, but we must, at all costs, throw the enemy back. Hitler must be destroyed and destroyed this year. There is no alternative.”