“Are we truly ready, Comrade General? Will we win?” “If we have strategic surprise, and if the maskirovka succeeds, yes, I believe we should win,” Alekseyev said cautiously. “Not ‘we will surely win’?” “You have served in uniform, Comrade Minister. On the field of battle there are no certainties. The measure of an army is not known until it has been blooded. Ours has not. We have done everything we know how to do to make our Army ready—”
