J. V. Stalin and the Red Army high command during the Great Patriotic War

The article discusses some important features of the Stalinist control system of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Its practices and the development of this control system during the first year and a half of hostilities are analyzed in the article through the manner of communication of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief J. V. Stalin with the high command of the directions and fronts of the Red Army. Transcripts of negotiations that took place via telegraph machines are the main source base of the article. The main attention is paid to Stalin’s manner of communication during direct wire negotiations with the front command, the direction command and representatives of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s Headquarters. The author also analyzes the rhetoric of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in his one-way communication, that is, when sending telegrams to high-ranking military leaders and the Bolshevik Party officials. The author comes to the conclusion that Stalin’s manner of communicating with subordinates was not of the same type. In direct communication, the general tone of Stalin’s conversation was more loyal to the interlocutors than in indirect communication. In addition, the degree of friendliness of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s rhetoric strongly depended on which generation of Soviet military leaders and the Bolshevik Party officials the interlocutor or addressee belonged to.