Colonel-General V. I. Chuikov
Published in the Stalingradskaya Pravda, 2 February 1948
Dear comrades, workers of Stalingrad!
On 2 February 1943 at 16 o'clock, the last shot announced to the whole world about the brilliant victory of the Soviet troops at Stalingrad, about the end of that heroic battle that predetermined the further outcome of the war. Five years have passed since that day, and the hero-city once again rises from ruins and ashes, proud and majestic, as a symbol of the victory of culture and progress over the black forces of fascism.
The wars of the former 62nd Army, from an ordinary soldier to a general, participants in the heroic epic, are forever connected with the Stalingrad people by close ties of friendship. What could be nobler and stronger than friendship born in battles and welded together by shed blood.
Our common glory was born in the city that bears the name of the great leader. No matter where our wars fought after Stalingrad, they sacredly cherished this friendship, the military glory of Stalingrad. They were recognized by their grip, endurance, courage and resourcefulness, not only by their brothers in arms, but also by the fiercely resisting Germans on the Oryol-Kursk Bulge, on the Dnieper and on the Bug, in Poland and in Germany itself. The Nazis knew that they were beaten by the Stalingraders. The Nazis felt the punishing hand of those whose hatred was boiling in the fierce battles of Stalingrad.
The legendary glory of the Stalingradites, which thundered all over the world, lives and will live on for centuries. In your heroic work, dear friends, our wars now see this glory. She is in thousands of tons of rolled metal and steel, given out by you beyond the plan, in new powerful tractors plowing the vast fields of our Motherland, She is in the bloom of wonderful gardens, in rich harvests, in slender lines of buildings rising from ruins and chaos.
On 2 February, we bow our victorious banners and bare our heads over the graves of those who fell for Stalingrad, for the honor and independence of our Motherland, for our happiness and our generations. On this day, we glorify our Motherland, the Soviet people - the victorious people, our party and the greatest of the great commanders of our native Stalin, who ensured our victory.
All the fighters of the former 62nd Army, those who have been demobilized and are now working in factories and plants, and those who now bear a combat watch abroad, their native land, proudly call themselves Stalingradites. We all closely follow your work on the labor front. With the greatest sense of pride and joy, we read in the newspapers about your commitments to fulfill the post-war Stalinist five-year plan in four years ahead of schedule.
I, the former commander of the 62nd Army, on the momentous day of the fifth anniversary of the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad, send you my sincere greetings, dear friends. I wish you to successfully fulfill and overfulfill the plan of the post-war Stalinist five-year plan in four years, so that the workers, collective farmers and working intelligentsia of Stalingrad were, as they should be, in the vanguard of the great socialist construction project.
I wish the Stalingrad people that the squares of Stalingrad, the Mamayev Kurgan and the islands "Zaitsevsky" and "Golodny" and others were covered with blossoming gardens and parks for recreation of Stalingrad citizens, that the Stalingrad river docks would turn into a powerful port on the Volga, so that the fields, gardens, meadows of Stalingrad the regions, abundantly watered with blood, brought the richest harvests, so that big herds grazed on the meadows and in the steppe.
I congratulate you on the day of victory over the enemy! Once again I wish you the best and, most importantly, to be the same vanguard in the struggle for communism, which you were in the days of the Great Patriotic War.
V. Chuikov,
Colonel General, Twice Hero of the Soviet Union
Translated by Igor Musienko
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