The Moscow Crisis of October 1941

Abstract

In the whole disaster-ridden first year of the Soviet Union’s war with Nazi Germany, no threat to the viability and survival of the Soviet state was so severe as the Moscow crisis in the middle of October 1941. Surprised by Hitler’s decision to launch Operation Typhoon in the late autumn and by the speed of the Wehrmacht’s advance on Moscow, the Soviet leadership was galvanised into the most drastic of actions by the German break-through of the capital’s main strategic defence, the Mozhaisk line, on the night of 14–15 October. The decision of the State Committee of Defence (GKO) on 15 October to order the immediate evacuation of most of the government to Kuibyshev and other cities far in the rear, and the preparation of factories, offices and warehouses for destruction, reflected its belief that the imminent capture of Moscow by the Germans was likely. The highly visible departure of members of the elite, combined with the sudden reduction or cessation of normal services, and the virtual disappearance of the police from public view, caused alarm among the public to turn to panic. Many people fled from the city, among them officials who abandoned their posts; while on the streets of Moscow, law and order broke down to an extent unparalleled in Soviet history before or after. The panic, however, subsided almost as quickly as it had arisen.