Burning Moscow

86 Military Parade on Red Square (Part 2

Half asleep and half awake, I felt that the car seemed to slow down, so I opened my eyes hard. Rubbing his eyes, he asked the driver next to him: “Are you going to the destination?”

“Quickly, Comrade Commander, we have arrived at Pushkin Square, and we will reach the Red Square in five minutes.”

I looked out of the car window. Pushkin’s bronze statue was on the left side of the erected road. It seemed that he had entered the martial law area. On both sides of the road, there was an armed man standing every few meters. From the uniform, except for the guards. The soldiers of the army, the police, the traffic police, and even the workers’ pickets, all of them were carrying bayonet rifles and standing on the side of the road like nails.

“Comrade Commander,” the driver spoke softly again.

“What’s the matter?” I looked at him and asked.

“Your clothes should be changed. I think everyone else is wearing a brown short fur coat. You are the only one in a white camouflage suit.”

After hearing what the driver said, I realized that the camouflage suit on my body should indeed be changed. It was really dirty. The blood and mud stained the clothes so that they can no longer see the original color. Besides, there is a shortage of water at the station, and I don’t have that condition to wash clothes, so I always wear this dirty clothes. But this little thing doesn’t bother me. I am still wearing an khaki short fur coat inside, so I first carefully moved the head of Krochkov next to me from my shoulder to the windowpane, and then Begin to untie the belt and take off his coat.

After taking off the clothes outside, even though he was in the car, he still felt a little bit of chill. I removed the medal from the camouflage suit and carefully pinned it on the short fur coat. Then he tied the belt and carried the briefcase. After all this was done, the car had reached its destination and stopped steadily next to the GUM shopping mall.

I pushed Krochkov next to me, and said, “Hey, wake up, Comrade Instructor, we are here.”

Krochkov, who was still asleep, immediately opened his eyes when he heard the place, and said excitedly: “Are you in the Red Square?!” After he opened the door, he jumped down.

I asked the driver: “Will you take us back later?”

“Of course, I will drive the car to the Moskva River and wait for you. As soon as the review is over, you can take the troops back to the front line.” He said this, and looked at the camouflage suit and my lap. The submachine gun, offered to say: “You can put the clothes and the submachine gun in the car, anyway, you will have to take the car back later.”

“Thank you!” I said, putting my clothes and submachine gun on the seat, and jumping out of the opened door.

“Comrade instructor, look, what do you look like, quickly gather the team and go to the square.” When I got off the car, I saw an officer wearing a lieutenant colonel’s collar training Krochkov.

“What happened?” I asked curiously as I walked towards them.

“What else can I do?! This commander got out of the car and stood here to stretch his waist. He didn’t know how to assemble the team and go to stand in line…” The officer turned to me while speaking and saw me standing. In front of him, the words stopped halfway through.

“Hello! Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I didn’t expect to see you here. It’s so delightful.” I recognized the officer standing in front of me at a glance. He was not someone else, and he almost came on with me. Lieutenant Colonel Bezikov on the execution ground.

He took the hand that I proactively stretched out, shook it vigorously, and said excitedly: “Lieutenant Colonel Oshanina, I didn’t expect to see you here. It’s so happy. How have you been? kind?”

“It’s okay, thank you for your concern….”

When the two of us were recounting the past, Kroshkov whispered to the side: “Comrade Commander, should we enter the field as a whole team?”

Hearing what he said, I realized that this time is really not suitable for reminiscence, and I replied to him: “You gather the team first, and I will be there soon.” Seeing Kroshkov greet the soldiers who just got out of the car, loudly. Yelling: “Come here, the whole team!” Taking this opportunity, I asked Bezikov in a low voice: “What happened just now? I just saw you criticizing the instructor Kroshkov when I got off the car.”

“It’s nothing big. It’s just that after he got off the car, he didn’t gather the team, and he still stood there to relax, which would damage the image of a soldier. From now on, let him pay attention.” He said lightly and shook hands with me. After holding his hand, he turned to continue his work. I have been in Moscow for many years, knowing that people who stretch out and sneeze in public will be looked down upon and disgusted, so it is no surprise that Bezikov treated Kroshkov like that.

The teams participating in the review are all neatly arranged in front of the GUM shopping mall on the east side of the Red Square, facing the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin, while our team is at the far north of the entire team. Standing opposite us were soldiers from the Central Guard Corps. They pulled a cordon along the west side of the Red Square with their backs to Lenin’s Tomb. The observatory on the left and right sides of Lenin’s tomb was full of people. They were all important party and government officials. Because they were so far apart, I didn’t know if anyone I knew was there.

Snowflakes fell from the sky one after another, not only dyeing the ground of the Red Square white, but even the shoulders and backs of the soldiers became white.

When the bell on the bell tower began to ring, Stalin, wearing a gray coat and hat, accompanied by a group of heavyweights, slowly walked onto the podium on Lenin’s tomb. After the bell struck the ninth time, the military band under the palace wall sounded the horn.

As soon as the horn was over, Stalin’s familiar voice came out through the loudspeaker placed on the wall of the GUM Mall: “Red Army and Red Navy soldiers, commanders and political workers, male and female guerrillas, comrades! The whole world Watching you, seeing you as a force capable of destroying the German invaders and bandits. The people of enslaved European countries under the oppression of the German aggressors are watching you and seeing you as their liberators. Great. The mission of liberation has fallen on your shoulders. You must not let down this mission! The war you are fighting is a war of liberation and a just war.”

I can feel that Stalin is very excited at this time, his speech speed is much slower than on the Kremlin podium. Stalin paused for a while, took a deep breath, and then continued with a firmer tone: “Let our great predecessors-Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Dmitry The heroic images of Li Pocharsky, Kozma Minin, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov, in this war will inspire you and let the banner of the victory of the great Lenin guide you With you, under the banner of Lenin, march towards victory!”

As soon as his voice fell, cheers broke out from the audience. Thousands of throats shouted neatly together: “Ula ! Ula ! Ula !!!”

When 　　 shouted, I was very calm, and I even had time to recall the scene when I arrived on Red Square in 2002. When that day came, the Red Square was closed, and the police on duty used iron fences to separate tourists from the square. At that time, there was a group of middle-aged and elderly people holding up the flag of the Soviet Union standing outside the fence. One of them, a middle-aged man with a beard, saw many foreign tourists watching, waving the flag and shouting loudly: “Great The 85th anniversary of the October Revolution, Wula!” When the shouts of “Wula” rang into one, he opened his throat and sang the Internationale.

The commanders on the square yelled “Ula!” over and over again, so I couldn’t help but yell. I didn’t stop until someone pulled my sleeve next to me.

The one who pulled my sleeve was a soldier with a red sleeve on his left arm. He approached my ear and said loudly: “Comrade Commander, take your troops to the front of the History Museum immediately, and the inspection will begin soon. ”

I nodded and saw that the soldier went to another queue to inform the other commanders one by one, and then turned to call Krochkov: “Comrade instructor, take the troops to the museum. The inspection is about to begin. .”

Krochkov happily agreed, and then began to give orders loudly: “All of them, listen to my command: turn right and go together!”

Today’s review ceremony was arranged very tightly, almost as soon as Stalin finished his speech, the military parade began. Walking in front of us was an army from Siberia. The soldiers in the phalanx carried their bayonet-mounted rifles, followed behind several commanders, and walked forward with great strides.

Our phalanx followed closely. I stood on the far right of the front row of the phalanx, which means that when I passed Lenin’s tomb, I was the closest commander to Stalin. Before starting, an officer of the guard regiment next to us reminded us: Don’t go straight ahead, just keep walking in unison.

For this strange command, I can fully understand. The ground of the Red Square is paved with strips of stones. Once it rains or snows, the ground will be very slippery. Before the military parade in previous years, the commander of the reference unit and the leader of the traffic police unit will draw a path on the square, and a special person will be responsible for the snow removal work in the square. However, the decision of this military parade was sudden, so some early stage The preparatory work was not carried out. UU reading www.uukanshu.com coupled with the Soviet army’s forward movement, the legs are raised at a 90-degree right angle to the ground, it is difficult for ordinary troops to complete this action. Because of the slippery road and the fear that everyone’s actions are not standard, the rule of walking forward when crossing the reviewing platform was cancelled.

In this kind of situation, I was very nervous, so when I left, I couldn’t help but look to the left and right. Our phalanx had only taken a few steps, and I found that Krochkov had raised his hand to the sideburn and began to salute the army. No way, I can only follow him obediently and lift my hands up.

When the phalanx passed by Lenin’s Tomb, I clearly saw Stalin standing on it, and put his hands on the sideburns, saluting the commanders who passed by him. The man who saluted with him was a bearded soldier in a leather hat and a marshal uniform standing beside him. I easily recognized that this was the Marshal Budjoni who attacked me on the Kremlin podium. He seemed to recognize me from the queue, and he smiled and nodded to me.

I didn’t put my hand down until I got down the Vasily slope, and let out a sigh of relief. Coming to the Moskva River, from time to time, officers from the guard regiment came over, directing the troops coming from the Red Square to turn left or right, and someone was assigned to lead these troops to find the means of transportation that belonged to them.

We walked west along the river and passed by a long string of trucks parked on the side of the road, but we never saw the three trucks that sent us just now. I can’t help but worry. If I can’t find those trucks, will my submachine gun be lost soon?

While I was in a hurry, the door of a truck not far in front opened. A driver leaned out of the cab and shouted: “Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, here.”