Will General HQ be based in Moscow? That might be smart for a defensive war, or for its initial phases, but not for the kind of war the Politburo has been building up to and which it is activating today. No, General HQ will be set up near Vilnius -- not in deep defensive bunkers, of course, like the Zhiguli bedrock-bunkers, because General HQ isn't meant to stay there long. Pokrovsky is already there setting up.
The new Soviet Main Forward Command Post ("GPKP" in Russian acronym) is almost exactly the same distance from the Nazi border forces, as Rastenburg in East Prussia from the Soviet border forces. Who is in Rastenburg? Hitler is arriving there today to oversee the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union tomorrow.
Is the new Soviet Main Forward Command Post a bunch of tents out in a field? Ha, no, that would be silly! -- other army headquarters and even Front HQs get those, not the GPKP!
No, the Main Forward Command Post is a set of railway cars covered by several NKVD armored trains, plus three more trains from the People's Commissariat of Communications.
Unlike a set of tents in a forest, or even a set of tents in a field, the GPKP provides relative mobility -- relative because the tracks are jammed with incoming armies right now, and with outgoing empty cars to bring in more armies and supplies! But in theory the GPKP can move itself to be near major war developments. The GPKP already has a number of meticulously screened and camouflaged stops, which are themselves already hooked up to government communication lines. The communication equipment on the trains just have to be plugged in upon arrival.
In a war of defense against a major air power, like for example Nazi Germany, this would be practically the same as Russian Roulette! -- the command staff might as well be clicking revolvers at their heads every six or four hours! But just like the Oberkommand Heer when setting up a railway headquarters to oversee the invasion of Poland, Stalin isn't planning for that kind of war.
Back on June 6th, Nazi high command had uncovered (cough) "secret" plans to move the Soviet government east to Sverdlovsk. A few days later, the government began secretly moving west to somewhere on the rail line between Minsk and Vilnius, but closer to Vilnius. That's why Pokrovsky is already there, ready to activate General Headquarters. The People's Commissar for Communications, Communication Forces Marshal Peresypkin, is also arriving today to check whether the advanced comms teams have gotten everything already ready already, for when his commander arrives with his commander's HQ team.
This is all very standard according to Soviet, and indeed worldwide, protocol for setting up a headquarters, whether at company size or a front of armies; and whether the newly activating HQ is in a bedrock-bunker under the Zhiguli mountains, or in a mobile armored train group outside Vilnius. But what rank is this HQ? General HQ, the ultimate military command for a war. And which of Peresypkin's ultimate military bosses is on the way? He only has one boss: the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars -- Comrade Josef Stalin.
Peresypkin travels to the borders of East Prussia cloaked in understandable secrecy, riding an ordinary, regularly scheduled train, in a day coach attached to the end. The encrypted cables Peresypkin receives from Moscow are signed in his own name! Later in 1972 (in "Communications", p.17) he will recall, "Literally on the very eve of the war, Stalin directed me to go out to the Baltic republics. For some reason, I saw a connection between this critically important assignment and imminent military developments." Well, duh! He's going out to a Special Military District where a wartime Front already exists, to check final comms for General HQ -- the ultimate Soviet combat operations center! The only reason that the Marshal in charge of all communications in the Soviet Union would be going to a General HQ, would be to handle wartime coordination of military, governmental, and state communication systems. "The evening of June 21, 1941, together with a team of senior officials from the People's Commissariat for Communications, I left for Vilnius. We were en route when the war began..." More on this later.