From Remarks at the Stavka, January 5

Source: Tom 18

From Remarks at the Stavka, January 5, 1942

It is time to shift from defense to offensive along the entire front... The Germans have been thrown into disarray by their defeat outside Moscow, and they have not yet recovered. Now is the most favorable moment for the transition to a general offensive. The Germans are hoping to hold out until spring to resume their offensive operations in the spring. They want to gain time. Our task is not to give the Germans this breathing room, to drive them westward without stopping, to force them to exhaust their reserves before spring... and thereby ensure the complete defeat of the German forces in 1942.

At the same time, we must not fall into complacency, we must not get carried away. We must firmly instill the practice of coordinated operations between different branches of the armed forces, particularly between infantry and artillery.

Note

Among those who had a more cautious assessment of the situation was G.K. Zhukov, who proposed concentrating offensive operations at the decisive sectors where the main enemy groupings were deployed, rather than attacking all along the front simultaneously.