**Chapter 849: Aiding the Soviet Union (6)**

On September 17, 1942, when Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev looked through the window and saw two KGB agents stepping out of a newly parked car, his first thought was whether he had been slandered.

Although the purge of the "traitorous group" led by Marshal Tukhachevsky was essentially over, Lebedev had originally worked at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and had been evacuated just before the Wehrmacht encircled the region. After many dangers, he had finally escaped and reached Moscow. Among the experts who escaped with him, some had already been arrested for alleged ties to the Tukhachevsky anti-party group.

Thinking of the fate of impending arrest, Lebedev trembled, paralyzed by a mix of grievance and terror.

Footsteps in the corridor stopped outside his door. It was pushed open, and two KGB agents stepped in, showing him their IDs. The leader said, "Comrade Lebedev, you have been mobilized. Please come with us immediately."

It was only when he heard he was being "mobilized" that Lebedev felt his heart beat again. The KGB didn't conduct secret arrests in broad daylight, and they certainly didn't tell a target they were being mobilized. In the current life-or-death crisis of the war, they would only say to a designated enemy: "XX, you are under arrest for counter-revolutionary crimes!"

The sense of safety allowed Lebedev's brain to function normally again. He recalled that the agents had called him "Comrade," which proved he was not an enemy.

Despite his relief, he saw the icy expressions on their faces and quickly stood up. "When do we leave?"

"No need to bring anything. We leave now!" One of the agents stepped aside to clear the way to the door, while they flanked him.

Moments later, as figures peeked from behind the windows of the Moscow Academy of Sciences, Lebedev emerged from the building. A dozen cars were parked outside. Some individuals were already being "assisted" out by KGB agents; Lebedev recognized a professor of mathematics. An automation professor was being led out, shouting "I am not a counter-revolutionary!" before being shoved into a car.

This caused Lebedev's mood to plummet into an abyss once more. But before he could speak, he was ushered into a car, which started up and drove out of the Academy courtyard.

Within ten minutes of arriving at the destination, Lebedev realized he truly had been mobilized. The General Staff personnel hadn't handed the experts a rifle and sent them to a unit; instead, they had been brought to an independent, heavily guarded compound. It looked like a barracks, but contained a building with several large meeting rooms.

Lebedev and the other scientists, who had finally regained their composure, had no idea what the building was for. If they had known it was a training site for senior Red Army officers, they would have been stunned.

Half an hour later, when these brilliant minds in mathematics, electronics, and automation finally understood they had been invited to learn about vacuum-tube computers, they were shocked. Computers were not a new concept in this era:

1614: John Napier (1550–1617) of Scotland published a paper on a device capable of four-function arithmetic and square roots.

1623: Wilhelm Schickard (1592–1635) built a "calculating clock" that performed addition and subtraction up to six digits and signaled the result with a bell, operated by gears.

1625: William Oughtred (1575–1660) invented the slide rule.

1668: Samuel Morland (1625–1695) of England built a non-decimal adding device suitable for currency.

1671: Gottfried Leibniz designed a multiplying tool with results up to sixteen digits.

1822: Charles Babbage (1792–1871) designed the Difference and Analytical Engines, with forward-thinking designs similar to computers a century later, especially the use of cards for data and programming.

1834: Babbage envisioned a general-purpose Analytical Engine using read-only memory (punched cards). By 1840, he had increased the word length to 40 bits and realized the concepts of a central processor (CPU) and stored programs with conditional branching, capable of additions in seconds and multiplication/division in minutes.

1848: George Boole established Boolean algebra, paving the way for modern binary computers nearly a century early.

By 1900, mechanical computers could be analog (using smooth mechanisms like cams or slide rules) or digital (using gears). They reached their peak during World War II, forming the basis for complex bombsights like the Norden and similar naval fire-control equipment.

The Soviet Union had its own mechanical computer research departments. With new electronic developments, scientists worldwide, including in the USSR, were envisioning electronic computers.

Now, learning that China had actually developed an electronic computer, the Soviet scientists were skeptical. Lebedev was among the few who fully believed it. Being in the field of automation, he had long been perplexed by the quality and quantity of Chinese versus Soviet industrial output. The gap was far beyond what logic could explain.

China's population was four times the USSR's, so theoretically its capacity should have been about four times as well. In reality, it was far more, and the gap wasn't in artisanal products but in identical assembly-line production.

Automated lines relied entirely on machines linked by precise control devices. Lebedev had judged that China might have mastered more effective machine control capabilities.

Now there was a more logical explanation: China possessed computers capable of more complex calculations and logic, allowing them to control intricate automated lines and thereby increase production.

With excitement, Lebedev and the others went to the lecture. The instructors were Chinese experts, provided with three interpreters by the Red Army to ensure accurate translation into Russian.

This rigor paid off, as misunderstandings soon arose regarding the Russian translations. Thus, the lecture turned into a dialogue. To avoid future confusion, the Soviet scientists sought to understand every "newly coined" term.

Though progress was slow, enthusiasm was high. They wanted to keep learning deep into the night.

Alongside the scientists were Red Army officers, who made up half the class. The officers were truly exhausted, and since it was late, they requested the lecture continue the next day. Only then did the session end.

The next day, September 18th, the first thing Lebedev did upon waking was dive to his desk to annotate his notes while the content was still fresh. This was his learning style; many points became especially clear the next morning.

Some scientists shared this style, others did not. Regardless, everyone prepared thoroughly before class resumed.

Before the second day's lecture, the Chinese experts provided a glossary of terms asked about the previous day. Lebedev was deeply moved by such meticulous preparation.

By 7:00 PM, the officers requested the class end. By 7:30, all the Soviet students gathered for discussion. The military men were dazed, while the scientists were exhilarated—Lebedev especially so. The first asked to speak was the mathematician Kolmogorov. This genius of probability theory was pale with excitement, his voice trembling as he said, "I believe the principles provided by the Chinese are entirely feasible! Even after just these two days, we could build an electronic computer."

Lebedev fully agreed, and the other scientists nodded and voiced their opinions without waiting for a turn. Lebedev hadn't seen such a sincere meeting atmosphere in a long time.

The military personnel remained skeptical. Though they were academy graduates with science backgrounds, their knowledge wasn't enough to grasp the complexities of an electronic computer. But the scientists' emotional reaction moved them, giving them an intuition that what China had provided was of genuine value.

On the third day, September 19, under heavy military escort, equipment from China arrived at the training center. The Chinese experts worked through the night to assemble and tune it. A day later, on September 20, the Soviet scientists and officers saw an electronic computer in operation for the first time.

Lebedev was spellbound, especially by the logic gates, which opened a new world to him. Programming the Chinese computer was achieved through the switching of these logic gates to design the calculations.

Amidst his excitement, Lebedev saw the look of pain on the officers' faces and felt a surge of sympathy. To understand such programming required profound mathematical foundations. One who could not truly grasp calculus could not understand the application of a computer, let alone program one. Even Lebedev only understood the *methods* of programming and didn't fully grasp the model about to be run.

While the Soviets held their breath, Kolmogorov walked to the whiteboard by the computer and wrote an equation. This drew everyone's attention. Lebedev had only read half of it before he felt intense admiration. Kolmogorov's equation was precisely the one the computer was about to run. Though he hadn't finished it, his mathematical genius commanded Lebedev's heartfelt respect.

The lecture ended that evening, but the scientists didn't leave the room. They asked the soldiers to bring in bunk beds, discussing the machine while they studied it. Those too exhausted would squeeze onto a bed for a nap. Due to the discomfort, sleep was brief—exactly what the scientists wanted. They only wanted a short rest so they could resume learning as soon as they woke.

In the Red Army Air Force headquarters, Commander Novikov was listening to the dejected reports of officers who had attended the course. The briefing was short, as there wasn't much they could report with precision. But Novikov understood: the Soviet Air Force couldn't handle this new equipment.

Novikov was not discouraged. He asked, "The equations the Air Force gave you—did you get results?"

The officers realized they had forgotten and quickly produced the calculations. Novikov compared them with results produced by Soviet mechanical computers and human calculation teams. His expression grew increasingly strange. The Chinese computer's results were identical to the Soviet ones, yet while the Soviets had used expert personnel and a long time, the Chinese machine had done it in a single afternoon—and with five extra decimal places of precision.

After a long silence, Novikov made a decision. "Tomorrow, you will consult the Chinese experts about the Chinese model for air force scheduling."

After finishing with his subordinates, Novikov reflected before finally calling Zhukov. They talked for a long time until Zhukov decided Novikov should see Stalin the next day.

Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe had completed a massive redeployment. All 231 jet fighters previously assigned to Army Group Center were transferred to the Southern Front. At the headquarters of Army Group South, Reichenau finally breathed a sigh of relief. To obtain the jets, he had personally returned to Berlin to analyze the stakes for Hitler.

Manstein, though calm, was clearly excited. With the jets, they could seize air superiority over Stalingrad, where reinforcements were converging for a desperate struggle. They had to take the sky to deal a crushing blow to those reinforcements.

Even more excited was General Rommel. Once the line was breached, his unit was to ignore its rear and strike toward Samara, destroying hundreds of kilometers of track before winter to ensure no large-scale Chinese aid could reach the USSR for months.

Although Rommel had done something similar in France, this raid was far more dangerous in both distance and timing. It was an offensive that defied military common sense—a nine-out-of-ten chance of death.

Sensing his subordinates' concern, Reichenau called Manstein and Rommel into a field tent. He said to Rommel first, "General Rommel, I allow you to decide again whether to accept this order. If you refuse, I will not blame you."

Rommel's heart was in turmoil, but he finally reached a decision. "Field Marshal, I accept the order."

Despite his resolve, he knew he was taking a massive risk. But the thought that he might be the first general to deal a massive blow to the Trans-Siberian Railway offered him some solace.

The Trans-Siberian is the world's longest railway. Construction began in 1916 at Vladivostok and expanded from Chelyabinsk in 1892, with the main line completed in 1904. The branch through Chinese Manchuria (the Chinese Eastern Railway) linked to Vladivostok, while the Lake Baikal section was initially bypassed via ferry. Later construction through the Amur region and around Baikal formed the current route.

The second track was completed in the 1930s, and electrification began in 1929. Rommel remembered these details; as for the extent of electrification, he didn't care. If the whole line ran on electricity, it would be easy: destroy the power plants and lines instead of the track. But that was a pipe dream.

Manstein then asked, "Field Marshal, do you believe using paratroopers alongside the panzers would increase efficiency?"

Reichenau gave a cold snort. He rarely did such a thing, but he couldn't help it now, as Hitler had said the same in Berlin.

In Reichenau's view, Hitler had been somewhat blinded by the early victories and wanted Army Group Center to drive straight into Moscow for a crushing psychological blow. Reichenau had bluntly told him: "My Führer, Napoleon captured Moscow, and look what happened. I don't believe the current USSR is any weaker than the Tsars were then!"

Hitler had looked at him with an expression that seemed almost hurt. This surprised Reichenau; such an expression represented weakness. He hadn't expected Hitler to be so soft!