BUTTERFLY AND FALCON (Part 36)


By KATZMAREK ©


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Author's note.


This is a work of fiction based on fact. Opinions and
interpretations of events expressed are my own and as such are
entirely contestable.


This remains my property and may not be used for gain without
my express permission in writing.


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Briyan Briyanovich Khrinhov stood on the fantail of the RFS Poltava as it slid smoothly through the heads outside Wellington Harbour. It had been a year since the RNZN's Te Kaha had paid a similar courtesy visit to Vladivostok. Now it was Russia's turn to establish a first. Not since the First World War had a Russian Naval Vessel called at a New Zealand Port. 


This was the second port of call for the Poltava. Previously, she'd tied up at Devonport in Auckland, the RNZN's main naval base. After Wellington, she was to call at Lyttelton, near Christchurch, in the South Island.


The Poltava sailed through into the harbour, a wide parabola considered one of the most beautiful natural harbours in the World. The South Pacific sun shone bright, bathing the seaside suburbs and the many beaches.


All the Russian crew were excited about visiting a place very few had ever seen before. For Briyan, however, it had a special significance. It was from this port that his Grandfather, John Greenhaugh, had sailed for Spain to join the Republican cause back in 1935.


Beside Briyan stood a New Zealand Naval Officer, Lieutenant Rashbrooke, who'd been seconded to the Poltava in Sidney, Australia. A specialist in Navigation, he was to advise the Russian command staff about navigating the sometimes treacherous waters around New Zealand's coast. Rashbrooke needn't have worried, though, the Poltava had a full suite of the most modern electronic navigation equipment. But it was a nice diplomatic touch all the same.


The Poltava tied up at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, once it was confirmed that the cruiser's overhang would not knock off the top floor of the terminal building. The bows of the ship flared widely, but there was sufficient clearance.


Rashbrooke had managed to organise a trip for Briyan to visit his Grandfather's birthplace. John himself, and his wife, Benin, were now well into their eighties and were no-longer capable of making the journey. They still lived in the city of Novgorod together with their friend, Jana Ivanova. Jana had moved in with the couple some 12 years ago after her Military pension had been wiped out by currency inflation.


John, now known by his Russian name, Ioann, had fared a little better as a retired General of Aviation. Their co-habitation had as much to do with economic circumstances as their long 'menage et trois' relationship.


In fact, they'd called themselves 'the Troika,' as long as Briyan could remember. Once upon a time they'd scandalised their neighbours, but now, they were just a trio of old friends sharing an apartment together.


The next day a Ministry of Defence car came for Briyan. A woman Army Lieutenant from the MOD's Public Relations Office called Silvia accompanied Briyan on the trip. Unmarried and hitherto unattached, he quite looked forward to the three and a half hour journey.


Briyan inherited his Grandfather's height and some of his good looks. His skin was darker, though, like his Grandmother's and he had black hair like a Spaniard.


They drove down State Highway 1 along a coast dotted with small seaside communities. Green farmland stretched on the landward side towards the distant mountains of the Central Tararua Ranges.


"Where is Mount Egmont?" he asked Silvia.


"Can't see it yet," she explained, "it's stuck out in the East. The Maoris say that once upon a time four mountains had an argument and Egmont was banished. The Maori call it Mount Taranaki."


"The mountain moved?" Briyan said in astonishment. He had a good grasp of English but found Silvia's accent hard to understand at times. He thought he must have missheard her.


"Legend... like a fairy tale?"


"Ah!"


Eventually, beyond the city of Wanganui, the mountain emerged like a ghost out of the humid air. It *was* a cone, just as John described, and it was capped with a mantle of white snow.


"Hawera's up ahead," Silvia explained, "as far as we're able to tell, your Grandfather lived on a farm a little inland from here... up that road there. Want to see?" Briyan nodded and Silvia turned the car onto the unsealed road.


New Zealand Government researchers had tracked down a relative of John's. Greenhaughs had not lived in the area for a good many years but the researchers had discovered that a descendent of John's Aunty had inherited the farm. The man was pleased to meet a distant cousin. He had local Maori blood and valued family ties highly.


The locals had prepared a reception for their visiting Russian relation and Briyan left well-lubricated by their hostpitality later that afternoon. He was adopted into the local 'iwi', a sub tribe of the mighty Ngati Toa, and wore the gift of a traditional whalebone pendant around his neck.


Back at the ship, Briyan couldn't wait to cable home telling his Grandfather all about his experiences.


He explained to Silvia on the way back how his Grandfather had not been able to set foot on the soil of his birthplace because of the Cold War. Now that things were different, John was too old. It seemed a pity, he thought, because he was sure John would've been welcomed back into the community like a long lost son.


"Yeah," Silvia agreed, "New Zealand's kind of like that. We forgive and forget pretty quickly."


"It wasn't his fault, you know," Briyan told her, "he got caught up, like a rat in a trap. Y'know, once, a KGB man took him to West Berlin before they built the wall. It was easy, then, to go from East to West, West to East. Grandfather said he could've made a run for it then. Do you know why he didn't?" Silvia shook her head. "Family! Just like those Maori people. It was family. He couldn't go and leave his family behind. See? Underneath it all, he is still a 'Kiwi,' yes?"


"Yes," Silvia agreed.


THE END


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NOTES


Spain


Some years ago I saw a Spanish movie set during the Civil War. It concerned a group of Mujeres Libres, the Free Anarchist women. In it a group of Women Anarchist fighters share their lives and loves all with that terrible conflict in the background. I found it deeply moving and provided the initial inspiration for this story.


I began researching about a year ago and found a profound contradiction between conflicting sources. Some wanted to picture them as early feminists, sterling fighters for the cause of women's liberation. Some depicted them as teachers and doctors to the poor and underpriviledged working class women of Spain. Did they fight in the front line or were they relegated by the male chauvinist CNT/FAI to nursing and filling shell casings? There appeared to be some dispute.


One source claimed that the CNT/FAI fighters, horrified at the loose morals of some ex-prostitute ML, had them sent away! If true, it would be an unusual bout of ethical behaviour for irregular front line soldiers, I would've thought!


So, I found a truth muddied by political bias and retelling. Franco's Spain didn't help. Virtually nothing concerning the war, except Nationalist propaganda, was written there during his reign. Communist sources, too, had nothing good to say about the CNT/FAI and nothing at all about the ML. The lot of them were branded 'Syndicalists and Trotskyites' which, for those in the know, are terms of abuse.


The ML were but a tiny fraction of the 4 million strong Anarchist movement. They nearly all hailed from Barcelona and tended to be from the middle class. (The only class where women had any hope of a broad education in Catholic Spain) It seems some working class women joined, particularly those educated in Anarchist schools in Catalonia from 1931. Some may have been prostitutes, the red light industry in Spain at that time was huge, but then that may've been Nationalist propaganda. It's difficult to judge with this passage of time.


The POUM's case is a little better documented with copius quantities of information available from various Fourth Internationalist sources. George Orwell paints a very clear portrait from his perspective also. Since the demise of the Soviet Union the 4th International had a brief resurgence, saying that they could now reclaim the Communist label stolen by the 'Stalinists.' It did them little good, in hindsight, as 'Communism' had now been relegated to the very fringe of radical politics.


The war itself is difficult to write about with any real authority. The bare statistics are horrific enough but it became a sort of sideshow to the main European conflict. The course and conclusion of the slugfest of the Ebro is largely imaginary. It was just too long and bitter for the context of the story and would've become the central theme if I'd plumbed it in any depth. Some bits I used, such as the charge of the George Washingtons against the Blackshirts. But the tank battles I put together using topographical maps and some sketchy contemporary data and is largely conjecture.


Apparently no Soviet Naval units were present during the blockade. The 'Tchervoniya Ukrainiya' was serving in the Black Sea at the time. 


Gorshin, Rhykov and Retvizan are fictional characters. Generals Miaja and Modesto were real. Prieto, I made into a Fascist thug to exemplify a certain type of soldier who was part of the Nationalist cause.


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Russia


In 1938 Russia was still in a state of shock as a result of the Purges of the Party and Military. Beria's, and the NKVD's star was dimming a little as a result of the wholesale brutality and illegality of what went on. Even Stalin was coming to the realisation that things had spiralled out of control and Beria was responsible. The Purges savaged the military, depriving the Red Forces of some of their most capable, and professional, senior officers. There is speculation that had not the War intervened, Beria might well have ended up executed himself.


But Beria's supporters claim that he wasn't responsible, and that he only held responsibility for the NKVD at the end. Regardless, Beria was a shrewd politician whose luck eventually ran out when he made a bid for power in 1953.


The air war on the Eastern front, in my opinion, has been deliberately downplayed here in the West. Soviet aces amassed a considerable number of victories over Luftwaffe aircraft, at least as good as those in the Western Front and North Africa. True, they were slow to get going, and initially flew aircraft far inferior to German types. But the RAF, too, had a learning curve in 1940. Remember the Fairy Battle, the Bolton-Paul Defiant? I recall that in 1940 five 'Battles' were shot down from a formation of 7 by Messerschmitts.


Similarly, the JNAF had it all over the USN in the early days, both in quality of aircraft and pilot training. But the Americans learnt the important lessons and came back stronger than ever.


So, too, with the Red Air Force. The Lavochkin and Yakovlev fighters, the Ilyushin 'shturmavik' and Tupolev bombers wrenched back air superiority in late 1943 and maintained it to the end of the war.


I may have over emphasised the degree Western technology kick-started the Soviet post war aircraft program. To balance the ledger, British and American aircraft industries benefited hugely from German research, also. The Bell X-1 was an development of the Messerschmitt Me-263. Some claim Wolfgang Spate flying a Me-163 broke the sound barrier in 1944 over Rechlin, but that is unlikely to be ever proven. The Handley-Page Victor carried a wing planform designed by Heinkel in 1944. The axial flow turbojet itself was a German creation and its features were rigourously copied by British, American and Russian engine makers.


So Russian designer Klimov got his hands on a Rolls Royce Nene and reverse engineered it to produce the VK-1? British makers were generous to the Americans, too, who, also, got their hands on a Nene. That time, however, Westinghouse obtained manufacturing rights.


Western sources cite the Boeing B-29 as introducing modern aircraft technology to the Russians. Four B-29s landed in Eastern Siberia during the war, one crashed, and these were taken apart and copied to produce the Tu-4. But Tupolev's had been designing giant aircraft since the thirties. Petlyakov produced the Pe-8, with little Western assistance. It was a very successful 4 engine bomber that followed the fate of Mikulin's AM-35 Vee 12 engine. The cancellation of that engine also buried the MiG-3's development.


While trying not to labour the point, a considerable amount of cross fertilisation of expertise has always gone on between the various countries' aircraft industries.


Much has been written about the 'cult of personality' that revolved around Josef Stalin. It's my view, however, that the Great Patriotic War saved his regime from an almost certain coup by the Military.


By the end of 1938 the Red Forces and the Party were in state of trauma, having seen some of the old guard, as well as the youngest and brightest, admit to a host of crimes and wind up shot. Make no mistake, Stalin faced a 'real' political crisis in the thirties. His disregard for the Law, manipulation of Party systems and organs, his promotion of supporters to the various committees within Party and Government (pretty much one in the same under his rule) had alienated a great many influential people. Guys like Buddenny, Zhukov, Timoshenko and even Viroshilov weren't particularly happy with his administration. The Left Opposition, too, were far stronger in the thirties than has been acknowledged by the West. Stalin was feeling the heat and so unleashed the Purge.


But he'd gone much further than cleaning house of a few malcontents. The Party and Military had been traumatised, but I don't think they would've remained so for long. I believe his enemies would've got him in the end had not the war intervened.


To prove a point, when Beria launched his bid for power following Stalin's death he found the Politburo united against him. Beria was one of Stalin's most loyal supporters. Bearing in mind the Politburo had long been stacked with Stalin's men, is there a lesson in that or what?


Through the scrum in 1953 came a young Khrushchev. Here was a man the Politburo thought they could control, a man from Kursk who was outside of the Party elite. A peasant, perhaps, but one who came to be associated with a reformist vision. He may not have thought up all the ideas himself, but he permitted the liberal aparatchniks to shake up the system. He gave the Soviet people a little room to breathe and, with the Space program, something to be proud of.


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KATZMAREK ©

