Stalin's plan in the war of minds,, borrowed a part of the plan of the Tsar of Russia (Alexander I) when Napoleon decided to invade his country.

When (Napoleon) entered Russia in September 1812, he met the Russian army at "Smolensk".. and he was hoping that this battle would settle the matter.. and the Tsar would surrender.. but the Russian army surprised (Napoleon) by withdrawing eastward after they had destroyed (Smolensk) themselves.. and turned it into a ruin of charred remains.

(Napoleon) advances further and the Russian army withdraws further.. and he advances and they withdraw and so it goes on for three months.. and unfortunately the war did not end because the Tsar of Russia neither surrendered nor asked for a truce.. the battle is still going on.

And (Napoleon) enters Moscow.. and finds it, like every village and city he entered.. a heap of ashes.

But with the passing of those three months, December came.. and with it an unwanted guest.. winter.

And the French army is taken by surprise by an extremely low temperature.. to which it was not at all accustomed.. in addition to there being no food and no resources.. and (Napoleon) suddenly realizes the trap into which (Alexander I) had led him.

The trap of "Scorched earth". A strategy by which you burn your own crops and destroy your own facilities with your own hands in a town before the enemy enters it. That way the enemy will find no resources in the place he is heading to.. he will find no food.. no medicine.. he will find nothing on which to rely in his advance.

(Napoleon) is forced to set up a supply line from France to Moscow.. but this distance is very long and the line fails.. with the frost and the lack of food and exhaustion and the disease that strikes his soldiers.. (Napoleon) is forced to withdraw, and he comes back empty-handed.

(Stalin) follows the same strategy with the Nazi forces.. scorched earth.. and he adds to it a very old technique devised by the ancient Egyptians with which they fought the Persians.. "Attrition warfare".

And attrition warfare; is a strategy in which one party wears the enemy down to the point of collapse, by inflicting continuous losses on him in men and equipment, in a periodic and successive manner, through repeated operations. Victory in a war of attrition always goes to the owner of the land.. because the resources are in his hands.. especially if he forces the enemy to advance through scorched lands as (Stalin) did.

Despite that, the German air force sets off and bombs (Stalingrad) and turns it into ruins.. and the ground forces begin to besiege it in preparation for entering it.

And the fall of (Stalingrad) would have been a major catastrophe.. that (Stalin) could not bear. The city is named after him.. (Stalin - grad).. and if it fell, that would plant in the hearts of the Soviets that Stalin was defeated.. and their morale would suddenly collapse and he would lose the whole war.

And at the same time (Adolf Hitler) wanted the same city for the same reason.. this is not just a Soviet city.. this is a symbol and an icon.

This drives (Hitler) to take a fatal decision, so he rejects all requests for support for the wings of the Wehrmacht, which are busy fighting in other positions in the Soviet Union or Europe.. and he directs all the supplies to the forces besieging (Stalingrad).. and when the Chief of Staff (Franz Halder) opposes him, and explains to him that this will lead to defeat.. he dismisses him and appoints (Kurt Zeitzler) in his place.

If (Stalingrad) falls, Soviet morale collapses.. and he wins the war with an overwhelming victory.

Imagine a city at the time of the October War called "Sadat City".. and this city was occupied by the enemy.. and the effect of that on people's souls.. that is why the first decision taken by (Khrushchev), the commander of the battle of (Stalingrad), when he reached the leadership of the Soviet Union.. was to change its name to (Volgograd).. so that the tremendous pressure that happened would not be repeated in any other potential war.. and so that if it fell in a war.. it would be an ordinary city.. it fell and we will retake it.. without shattering the army's morale.

A fierce war for control of morale between (Hitler) and (Stalin).

A war between a mind.. and a mind.

On the outskirts of (Stalingrad) a ferocious, terrifying battle rages, one of the fiercest battles of the Second World War.. in which (Stalin) achieves a reasonable victory.. and although he loses the eastern bank of the Volga river, he does capture the commander of the German Sixth Army (Friedrich Wilhelm Paulus).

And German morale collapses.. but (Hitler) makes up for the matter and answers (Stalin) by snatching a most precious prize.

Soviet Lieutenant (Yakov Stalin).. (Stalin's) eldest son.. who was in the front ranks.. is captured by the Nazi forces.. and they call Joseph Stalin.. and they offer him a deal, that they hand him the boy in exchange for the Nazi commander.

And this time the morale of the Soviet soldiers collapses.

But (Stalin) makes a move of the utmost intelligence.

He goes out to address the soldiers that they are all his sons.. and that he will not single out his son from among them.. and that he will never exchange a lieutenant, however closely related to him, for a marshal commander.

And by September 1942, the Soviet Red Army is encamped on the western bank of the Volga river, and deep inside them all there is a single goal, that (Stalingrad) must not fall whatever the cost.

And (Stalin) asks them to hold out, while they are exhausted and tense and German aircraft are bombing them and guerrilla warfare in the industrial zone is draining their strength.. and they do not know exactly what (Stalin's) plan is.

The feeling of fear.. anxiety.. negativity.. makes you ready to believe anything. Self-destruction.

And on one of the days of the siege of (Stalingrad), and in one of the battles on the eastern bank of the city.. a Soviet officer finds himself trapped amid the bodies of his battalion.. which the Germans had crushed.. and amid this destruction he is surprised by an astonishing surprise.. he decides to raise it to (Khrushchev) himself, as a new step in the war of minds.

And this surprise we will talk about later...

And there remains more to say.

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