Evening star., 1941-09-26
leninqrud


gantuan as the rest of this titanic
death struggle which we call the
Russo German war. The only par
allel in modern times was the siege
of Paris during the Franco-PruSSian
War of 1901, but that beleaguer-
ment was child'S play compared to
the present horror of high explo-
Sives shot by long-range artillery or
dropped from fleets of bombing
planes.
The second city of the Soviet
Union may be compared in size and
population to Chicago. Leningrad
normally has about 100000 inhabi-
tantS. With the suburbs and the
large Russian army garrison, the be-
sieged mass of humanity may total
4,5OO 900. This vast multitude, wedged
in between the Finnish German
forces working down the Karelian
Peninsula and the main German
armies coming up from the south, is
described by German dispatches as
being an increasingly cloSe-packed
target in what Berlin calls "a
slaughter pen" Russian reports
speak of furious counterattackS by
the regular garrison reinforced by
modified worker battalions. Ger
tainly, the Russian command has
plenty of man power to eXpend in
what the Germans admit will be
last-ditch defense, destined to make
the assailants pay dearly for every
inch of ground. Yet conditions must
be growing desperate in a great
metropolis exposed to continuous
bombardment and cut off from all
supplies.
The fall of RuSSia'S Baltic metrOp-
oils would produce important con-
sequences on the general military
situation. In the first place, the
Leningrad area accounts for over
one-tenth of Soviet industrial pro-
duction, including almost one-fifth
of the machine tool output. 1t con-
tains not only important consumers
goods industries but also the great
Putilov steel and iron plant, said to
be the largest munitions factory in
the Soviet Union. This, combined
with the threatened loss of the
Donetz Basin area, would leave Mos
COW as the sole major center of heavy
industry in European Russia.
The fall of Leningrad also would
involve the, destruction of Russian
sea power in the Baltic. Already
Kronstadt, the great naval base just
off Leningrad at the entrance to the
Gulf of Finland, seems to be taking
a terrific hammering, with many
WarShipS damaged or sunk. Once
the Baltic is cleared of Russian
naval forces, it becomes safe and
easy highway for German troops
and supplies, thus short-circuiting
lengthy overland communications.
Strategically, the fall of Leningrad
would spell both the annihilation of
Russias northern army and the re-
lease of large German forces for a
southwark drive on Moscow, pre-
sumably in conjunction with two
other German thruStS-one directly
eastward from the now Stalemated
SmolenSk sector, the other north
ward from the Ukraine Nowhere
else in Russia are rail and highway
communications so good as those
between Leningrad and Moscow, the
Soviet capital.
1t is to avert, or at least to delay,
so dangerous a combined operation
that the defenders of Leningrad
have orders to defend the city to the
last. The stubborn courage of the
Russian soldiery and the proverbial
fanaticism of Leningrad'S Commu-
mist workers are guarantees that
those orders will be carried out to
the bitter end. The indications are,
therefore, that the Storming of
Leningrad would entail a holocaust
of mass horror unprecedented in
human annals.
III