History of the USSR in the years of the Second World War. The Great Patriotic War

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the territory of the USSR without declaring war. The Great Patriotic War began, which from the first days differed from the war in the West in its scope, bloodshed, the extreme tension of the struggle, the mass atrocities of the Nazis, and the unprecedented self-sacrifice of the citizens of the USSR.

The German side presented the war as a preventive (precautionary). The fabrication of a preventive war was intended to give the attack on the USSR the appearance of a moral justification. The decision to invade was made by the fascist leadership not because the USSR threatened Germany, but because fascist Germany aspired to world domination. The guilt of Germany as the aggressor cannot be questioned. On June 22, Germany carried out, as the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg found, a carefully prepared attack on the USSR “without any warning and without a shadow of legal justification. It was a clear attack." At the same time, some facts of the pre-war history of our country remain the subject of controversy among historians. So, in some works it is alleged that the USSR was allegedly preparing an attack on Germany. This far-fetched version is borrowed from Hitler's propaganda. As evidence, they refer to the draft directive on delivering a preemptive strike against German troops concentrated near the borders of the USSR. The draft of such a directive was actually prepared at the General Staff in May 1941 with the participation of A.M. Vasilevsky. But there was no political expediency, no real forces for delivering a preemptive strike, just as the directive itself did not exist. The project remained a project. Of course, this cannot change the assessment of the German attack on the USSR as an act of aggression. In the national historical memory of the people, the war of 1941-1945. will forever remain as Patriotic, liberation. And no details of interest to historians can obscure this indisputable fact.

In June 1940, the German General Staff began to develop a plan for a war against the USSR, and on December 18, Hitler approved the Barbarossa plan, which provided for the completion of the military campaign against the USSR during the "blitzkrieg" in two to four months. The documents of the German leadership left no doubt that they were betting on the destruction of the USSR and millions of its citizens. The Nazis intended to "defeat the Russians as a people", to undermine their "biological strength", to destroy their culture.

Germany and its allies (Finland, Hungary, Romania, Italy) concentrated along the border of the USSR 190 divisions (5.5 million soldiers and officers), 4.3 thousand tanks, 5 thousand aircraft, 47.2 thousand guns and mortars . In the western border military districts of the USSR, 170 divisions (3 million soldiers and commanders), 14.2 thousand tanks, 9.2 thousand combat aircraft, 32.9 thousand guns and mortars were concentrated. At the same time, 16% of the tanks and 18.5% of the aircraft were under repair or in need of repair. The blow was applied in three main directions: to Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv.

There are three periods in the history of the Great Patriotic War. During the first period (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942) the strategic initiative belonged to Germany. The Wehrmacht managed to seize the initiative, using the surprise factor of the attack, the concentration of forces and means in the main directions. Already in the first days and months of the war, the Red Army suffered huge losses. In three weeks of fighting, the aggressor completely defeated 28 Soviet divisions, and another 70 lost more than half of their personnel and equipment. The retreat of the Red Army units was often disorderly. A significant part of the fighters and commanders of the Red Army was captured. According to German documents, at the end of 1941 they had 3.9 million Soviet prisoners of war.

What were the reasons for the defeats of the Red Army at the initial stage of the war? First of all, it should be emphasized that the USSR was faced with the strongest and invincible army of the world at that time. The forces and means of Germany and its allies at the beginning of the war were 1.2 times greater than the forces and means of the USSR. In certain positions, the Armed Forces of the USSR were numerically superior to the enemy army, but inferior to it in strategic deployment, in the quality of many types of weapons, in experience, training and literacy of personnel. By the beginning of the war, it was not possible to complete the rearmament of the army: there were not enough modern tanks, aircraft, automatic small arms, and means of communication.

Secondly, serious damage was inflicted to the command cadres during the repressions. In 1937-1939. about 37 thousand commanders of various ranks were dismissed from the army, most for political reasons. Of these, 3-4 thousand were shot as "conspirators", 6-8 thousand were convicted. Although the vast majority of those dismissed and convicted were rehabilitated and returned to the army, the repressions undermined the combat effectiveness of the Red Army. A significant part of the command staff (55%) was in their positions for less than six months. This was due to the fact that the size of the Red Army had more than doubled since 1939.

Thirdly, serious military-strategic miscalculations made by the Soviet political and military leadership had an effect on the formation of the military concept, in assessing the strategic situation in the spring and summer of 1941, in determining the timing of a possible attack on the USSR and the directions of the main attacks of the German troops, which ensured strategic and tactical surprise and multiple superiority of the aggressor in the main directions.

Fourthly, miscalculations were made in the organization of defense and training of troops. The army was in the process of reorganization, the tank corps were not yet combat-ready, the pilots had not yet learned how to fight on the new equipment, the western borders had not been fully fortified, the troops had not learned to fight on the defensive.

From the first days of the war, the restructuring of the life of the country on a military basis began. The principle of maximum centralization of leadership was put at the basis of the restructuring of the activities of the party, state authorities and administration. On June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command was created, headed by People's Commissar of Defense Marshal S.K. Timoshenko. On July 10, Stalin was appointed chairman of the Stavka (Stavka of the Supreme High Command). On June 30, the State Defense Committee was organized under the chairmanship of Stalin. All power in the country was concentrated in his hands. The main activity of the State Defense Committee was the work on the deployment of the Armed Forces, the preparation of reserves, the provision of weapons, equipment, and food. During the war years, the State Defense Committee adopted about 10,000 resolutions. Under the leadership of the Committee, the Headquarters planned 9 campaigns, 51 strategic operations and 250 front-line ones.

Military mobilization work has become the most important direction of the state's activity. The general mobilization of those liable for military service made it possible by July to replenish the army with 5.3 million people. During the war years, 34.5 million people (17.5% of the pre-war population) were mobilized into the army and to work in industry (including those who served before the start of the war and volunteers). More than a third of this staff was in the army, of which 5-6.5 million people were constantly in the army. (17.9 million people were recruited to serve in the Wehrmacht - 25.8% of the population of Germany in 1939). Mobilization made it possible to form 648 new divisions during the war, 410 of them in 1941.

Military operations at the front in 1941 were extremely tragic. In the autumn of 1941, Leningrad was blockaded. On the central sector of the front, the Battle of Smolensk unfolded on July 10. A dramatic situation developed in September in the Kyiv region, where there was a threat of encirclement of Soviet troops. The enemy closed the encirclement, captured Kyiv, destroying and capturing more than 600 thousand soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. Having defeated the Kyiv grouping of Soviet troops, the German command resumed the offensive of Army Group Center on Moscow. The defense of Odessa continued for more than two months. From October 30, 1941, Sevastopol fought heroically for 250 days.

The attack on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) began on 30 September. Despite the heroic resistance of the Soviet troops, the enemy was approaching Moscow. From October 20, a state of siege was introduced in the capital. On November 7, a military parade took place on Red Square, which was of great moral, psychological and political significance. On the other hand, the morale of the German troops was significantly broken. Their losses on the Eastern Front were without precedent: in June-November 1941 they were three times more than in Poland and on the Western Front, and the losses in the officer corps were five times more than in 1939-1940. On November 16, after a two-week pause, a new German offensive began on Moscow. Simultaneously with the repulse of the enemy offensive, a counteroffensive was being prepared. On December 5, the troops of the Kalinin Front (I.S. Konev), and on December 6, the Western (G.K. Zhukov) and South-Western (S.K. Timoshenko) went on the offensive. The Soviet side had 1100 thousand soldiers and officers, 7.7 thousand guns and mortars, 774 tanks, 1 thousand aircraft against 1708 thousand enemy soldiers and officers, 13.5 thousand guns and mortars, 1170 tanks, 615 aircraft .

In the battle near Moscow from November 16 to December 5, German troops lost 155 thousand people killed and wounded, about 800 tanks, 300 guns and up to 1.5 thousand aircraft. In total, until the end of 1941, Germany and the allies lost on the Eastern Front 273.8 thousand people killed, 802.7 thousand wounded, 57.2 thousand missing.

For a month of fighting, Moscow, Tula and a significant part of the Kalinin region were liberated. In January 1942, the counter-offensive near Moscow developed into a general offensive of the Red Army. However, by March 1942 the power of the offensive dried up, the army suffered heavy losses. It was not possible to develop the success of the counteroffensive along the entire front, which lasted until April 20, 1942. The battle for Moscow was of great importance: the myth of the invincibility of the German army was dispelled, the plan for a blitzkrieg was frustrated, and the international position of the USSR was strengthened.

The partisan movement became an important direction in the fight against the enemy. Already in July 1941, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on organizing a partisan movement in the occupied territories. In May 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was formed (chief - first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Belarus P.K. Ponomarenko). The total number of partisans during the war years amounted to 2.8 million people. Acting as auxiliary forces of the Red Army, the partisans diverted up to 10% of the enemy's armed forces.

In the spring and summer of 1942, the German troops took advantage of the miscalculations of the Soviet command, which was expecting a new attack on Moscow and concentrated more than half of the armies, 62% of aircraft and up to 80% of tanks here. The German command was preparing an offensive in the south, trying to capture the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. Soviet troops in the south were not enough. Distracting offensive operations in the Crimea and in the Kharkov direction turned into major defeats. German troops occupied the Donbass, went to the big bend of the Don. On July 24, the enemy captured Rostov-on-Don. The situation at the front was critical.

On July 28, the people's commissar of defense issued order No. 227 (“Not a step back!”), Which was intended to stop manifestations of cowardice and desertion, categorically forbade retreat without an order from the command. The order introduced penal battalions and companies for military personnel to serve their sentences for criminal and military crimes. In 1942, 25 thousand people were sent to them, in the subsequent years of the war - 403 thousand. Within each army, 3-5 detachments were created (200 people each), obliged to shoot alarmists on the spot in case of panic and disorderly withdrawal of units . The detachments were disbanded in the autumn of 1944.

In August 1942, the enemy reached the banks of the Volga near Stalingrad and the foothills of the Caucasus Range. On August 25, the battle for Stalingrad began, which became decisive for the outcome of the entire war. Stalingrad became synonymous with the mass heroism of the soldiers and the resilience of the Soviet people. The main burden of the struggle for Stalingrad fell on the lot of the armies led by V.I. Chuikov, M.S. Shumilov, A.I. Lopatin, divisions A.I. Rodimtseva and I.I. Lednikov. The defensive operation in Stalingrad cost the lives of 324,000 Soviet soldiers. By mid-November, the offensive capabilities of the Germans dried up, and they went on the defensive.

The war demanded a change in the proportions in the development of the national economy, the improvement of the structure of state management of the economy. At the same time, the rigidly centralized management system created was combined with the expansion of the powers of economic bodies and the initiative of the workers. The first six months of the war were the most difficult for the Soviet economy. Industrial production more than halved, and the production of military equipment and ammunition dropped sharply. People, industrial enterprises, material and cultural values, and livestock were evacuated from the frontline zone. For this work, the Council for Evacuation Affairs was created (chairman N.M. Shvernik, deputies A.N. Kosygin and M.G. Pervukhin). By the beginning of 1942, more than 1,500 industrial enterprises were transported, including 1,360 defense ones. The number of evacuated workers reached a third of the staff. From December 26, 1941, workers and employees of military enterprises were declared mobilized for the entire period of the war, unauthorized leaving the enterprise was punished as desertion.

At the cost of the enormous efforts of the people, from December 1941 the decline in industrial production stopped, and from March 1942 its volume began to grow. By mid-1942, the restructuring of the Soviet economy on a war footing was completed. In the conditions of a significant reduction in labor resources, measures to provide labor force for industry, transport, and new buildings have become an important direction of economic policy. By the end of the war, the number of workers and employees reached 27.5 million people, of which 9.5 million worked in industry (against the level of 1940, this was 86-87%).

Agriculture was in an incredibly difficult situation during the war years. Tractors, motor vehicles, horses were mobilized for the needs of the army. The village was left practically without draft power. Almost the entire able-bodied male population was mobilized into the army. The peasants worked to the limit of their capabilities. During the war years, agricultural production fell catastrophically. Grain harvest in 1942 and 1943 amounted to 30 million tons compared with 95.5 million tons in 1940. The number of cattle was reduced by half, pigs - by 3.6 times. Collective farms had to hand over almost the entire harvest to the state. For 1941-1944 66.1 million tons of grain were harvested, and in 1941-1945. - 85 million tons (for comparison: 22.4 million tons were harvested in 1914-1917). Difficulties in agriculture inevitably affected the food supply of the population. From the first days of the war, a rationing system was introduced to provide the urban population with food.

During the war, extreme conditions were created for the functioning of the financial system. During the war years, revenues to the budget increased through taxes and fees from the population. Government loans and money emission were used to cover the deficit. During the war years, voluntary contributions were widespread - collections of funds from the population to the Defense Fund and the Red Army Fund. During the war, the Soviet financial system showed high mobilization capabilities and efficiency. If in 1940 military spending accounted for about 7% of the national income, then in 1943 it was 33%. Military spending increased sharply in 1941-1945. amounted to 50.8% of all budget expenditures. At the same time, the state budget deficit amounted to only 2.6%.

As a result of emergency measures and the heroic labor of the people, already from the middle of 1942 the USSR had a strong military economy, which provided the army with everything necessary in ever-increasing volumes. During the war years, almost twice as much military equipment and weapons were produced in the USSR than in Germany. We used material and raw material resources and equipment better than in the German economy. The Soviet economy proved to be more efficient during the war years than the economy of fascist Germany.

Thus, the model of the mobilization economy that took shape in the 1930s proved to be very effective during the war years. Rigid centralism, directive planning, the concentration of the means of production in the hands of the state, the absence of competition and market egoism of individual social strata, the labor enthusiasm of millions of people played a decisive role in ensuring economic victory over the enemy. Other factors (lend-lease, the labor of prisoners and prisoners of war) played a subordinate role.

The second period (November 19, 1942 - the end of 1943) is the period of a radical change. On November 19, 1942, the Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive and on November 23 closed the ring around the enemy troops. The cauldron contained 22 divisions with a total strength of 330,000 soldiers and officers. The Soviet command offered to surrender to the encircled troops, but they refused. On February 2, 1943, the grandiose battle near Stalingrad ended. During the liquidation of the encircled grouping of the enemy, 147 thousand soldiers and officers were killed, 91 thousand were captured. Among the prisoners were 24 generals, along with the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal F. Paulus.

The operation near Stalingrad developed into a general strategic offensive that lasted until the end of March 1943. Stalingrad raised the prestige of the USSR, led to the rise of the resistance movement in European countries, and contributed to the strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition.

The battle on the Volga predetermined the outcome of the battles in the North Caucasus. There was a threat of encirclement of the enemy's North Caucasian grouping, and it began to retreat. By mid-February 1943, most of the North Caucasus was liberated. Of particular importance was the breakthrough of the enemy blockade of Leningrad in January 1943 by the troops of the Leningrad (A. A. Govorov) and Volkhov (K. A. Meretskov) fronts.

In the summer of 1943, the Wehrmacht command decided to organize a powerful offensive in the Kursk region. The plan "Citadel" was based on the idea: with unexpected counter strikes from Orel and Belgorod, to surround and destroy Soviet troops on the Kursk ledge, and then develop an offensive inland. For this, it was supposed to use a third of the German formations located on the Soviet-German front. At dawn on July 5, the Germans attacked the defenses of the Soviet fronts. The Soviet units stubbornly defended each defensive line. On July 12, an unprecedented tank battle in the history of wars unfolded near Prokhorovka, in which about 1200 tanks took part. On August 5, Soviet troops captured Orel and Belgorod, and on August 23 they liberated Kharkov. The Battle of Kursk ended with the capture of Kharkov. In 50 days of fighting, German troops lost half a million soldiers and officers, 2952 tanks, 844 guns, 1327 aircraft. The losses of the Soviet troops were comparable to the German ones. True, the victory at Kursk was achieved with less bloodshed than before: if Stalingrad claimed the lives of 470 thousand soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, then 253 thousand died during the Battle of Kursk. The victory at Kursk secured a radical change in the course of the war. The omnipotence of the Wehrmacht on the battlefields is over.

Having liberated Orel, Belgorod, Kharkov, the Soviet troops launched a general strategic offensive at the front. The radical turning point in the course of the war, begun near Stalingrad, was completed by the battle for the Dnieper. On November 6, Kyiv was liberated. From November 1942 to December 1943, 46.2% of Soviet territory was liberated. The collapse of the fascist bloc began. Italy was withdrawn from the war.

One of the important sectors of the struggle against the Nazi invaders was ideological, educational, propaganda work. Newspapers, radio, party propagandists and political workers, cultural figures explained the nature of the war, strengthened faith in victory, instilled patriotism, devotion to duty and other high moral qualities. The Soviet side countered the misanthropic fascist ideology of racism and genocide with such universal values ​​as: national independence, solidarity and friendship of peoples, justice, humanism. Class, socialist values ​​were not discarded at all, but were largely replaced by patriotic, traditionally national ones.

During the war years, there were changes in the relationship between the state and the church. Already on June 22, 1941, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Sergius, blessed all the Orthodox to defend the Fatherland. The words of the metropolitan carried a huge charge of patriotism, pointed to the deep historical source of people's strength and faith in victory over enemies. Like the official authorities, the church defined the war as national, domestic, patriotic. Anti-religious propaganda has stopped in the country. On September 4, 1943, Stalin met with Metropolitans Sergius, Alexiy, Nikolay, and on September 12, the Council of Bishops elected Metropolitan Sergius Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. The Council adopted a document stating that “everyone guilty of treason to the general church cause and who went over to the side of fascism, as an opponent of the Cross of the Lord, let him be considered excommunicated, and a bishop or cleric - defrocked.” By the end of the war, there were 10,547 Orthodox churches and 75 monasteries in the USSR (before the war, about 380 churches and not a single monastery). Open churches became new centers of Russian national identity, and Christian values ​​became an element of national ideology.

The third period (1944 - May 9, 1945) is the final period of the war. By the beginning of 1944, the German armed forces had 315 divisions, 198 of which fought on the Eastern Front. Together with the Allied troops, there were 4.9 million soldiers and officers here. German industry produced a significant amount of armaments, although the German economic situation was steadily deteriorating. The Soviet industry surpassed the German one in the production of all major types of weapons.

1944 in the history of the Great Patriotic War became the year of the offensive of the Soviet troops on all fronts. In the winter of 1943-1944 the German army group "South" was defeated, the Pravoberezhnaya and part of Western Ukraine was liberated. Soviet troops reached the state border. In January 1944, the blockade of Leningrad was completely lifted. On June 6, 1944, a second front was opened in Europe. During the operation "Bagration" in the summer of 1944, Belarus was liberated. Interestingly, the operation "Bagration" almost mirrored the German blitzkrieg. Hitler and his advisers believed that the Red Army would strike a decisive blow in the south, in Galicia, where the prospect of an attack on Warsaw, in the rear of Army Group Center, opened up before the Soviet troops. It was in this direction that the German command concentrated reserves, but miscalculated. Going on the offensive in Belarus on June 22, 1944, the Soviet troops fought 700 km in five weeks. The pace of the offensive of the Soviet troops exceeded the pace of advancement of the tank groups of Guderian and Hoth in the summer of 1941. In the autumn, the liberation of the Baltic began. In the summer-autumn campaign of 1944, Soviet troops advanced 600-1100 km, completing the liberation of the USSR. Enemy losses amounted to 1.6 million people, 6700 tanks, more than 12 thousand aircraft, 28 thousand guns and mortars.

In January 1945, the Vistula-Oder operation began. Its main goal was to break the enemy grouping on the territory of Poland, reach the Oder, seize bridgeheads here and provide favorable conditions for striking at Berlin. After bloody battles, Soviet troops reached the banks of the Oder on February 3. During the Vistula-Oder operation, the Nazis lost 35 divisions.

At the final stage of the war, German troops in the West stopped serious resistance. Almost unopposed, the Allies advanced to the East. The Red Army was faced with the task of inflicting a final blow on fascist Germany. The Berlin offensive operation began on April 16, 1945 and continued until May 2. The troops of the 1st Belorussian (G.K. Zhukov), 1st Ukrainian (I.S. Konev), 2nd Belorussian (K.K. Rokossovsky) fronts took part in it. Berlin was fiercely defended by more than a million German soldiers. The advancing Soviet troops numbered 2.5 million fighters, 41.6 thousand guns and mortars, 6250 tanks and self-propelled guns, 7.5 thousand aircraft. On April 25, the encirclement of the Berlin group was completed. After the German command rejected the ultimatum to surrender, the assault on Berlin began. On May 1, the banner of Victory fluttered over the Reichstag, and the next day the garrison capitulated. On the night of May 9, an act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst. However, German troops still held Prague. Soviet troops liberated Prague with a swift throw.

The turning point in the war and the victory were the result of an incredible exertion of forces, the mass heroism of the people, which amazed enemies and allies. The idea that inspired the workers of the front and rear, uniting and multiplying their strength, was the idea of ​​defending the Fatherland. The acts of the highest self-sacrifice and heroism in the name of victory, embodied by: squadron commander Nikolai Gastello, 28 Panfilov soldiers led by political instructor V.G. Klochkov, underground fighter Liza Chaikina, partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev, sergeant Yakov Pavlov and his famous "Pavlov's House" in Stalingrad, underground worker from the "Young Guard" Oleg Koshevoy, private Alexander Matrosov, scout Nikolai Kuznetsov, young partisan Marat Kazei , Lieutenant General D.M. Karbyshev and many thousands of other heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

For courage and heroism, more than 38 million orders and medals were awarded to the defenders of the Motherland, more than 11.6 thousand people received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, among whom were representatives of most nationalities of the country, including 8160 Russians, 2069 Ukrainians, 309 Belarusians, 161 Tatar, 108 Jews, 96 Kazakhs. 16 million 100 thousand home front workers were awarded the medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." The title of Hero of Socialist Labor was awarded to 202 home front workers. Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" 14 million 900 thousand people were awarded, and more than 1 million 800 thousand people were awarded the medal "For the victory over Japan".

Nazi Germany was defeated, but the world war was still going on. The USSR declared war on Japan. This step was dictated by both allied obligations and the interests of the Soviet Union in the Far East. Japan did not openly oppose the USSR, but throughout the war remained an ally of Germany. She concentrated near the borders of the USSR one and a half million army. The Japanese navy detained Soviet merchant ships, in fact blocked the ports and sea borders of the Soviet Far East. On April 5, 1945, the Soviet government denounced the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty of 1941.

By August, the Soviet command had transferred part of its forces from Europe to the Far East (over 400,000 men, over 7,000 guns and mortars, and 2,000 tanks). Over 1.5 million soldiers, over 27 thousand guns and mortars, over 700 rocket launchers, 5.2 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, over 3.7 thousand aircraft were concentrated against the Kwantung Army. The forces of the Pacific Fleet (416 ships, about 165 thousand sailors), the Amur Flotilla, and border troops were involved in the operation. The commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops was Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky.

On August 6 and 9, the US military dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union announced that from August 9 it would consider itself at war with Japan. Soviet troops defeated the main forces of the Kwantung Army within 10 days, which began to capitulate on August 19. In the second half of August 1945, Soviet troops liberated Manchuria, Northeast China, the northern part of Korea, captured South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The military campaign in the Far East lasted 24 days. In its scope and dynamism, it occupies one of the first places among the operations of the Second World War. The losses of the Japanese totaled 83.7 thousand people killed, more than 640 thousand prisoners. The irretrievable losses of the Soviet Army amounted to about 12 thousand people. September 2, 1945 Japan capitulated.

With the liquidation of the center of war in the Far East, the Second World War ended. The main result of the Great Patriotic War was the elimination of the mortal danger of the USSR-Russia, the threat of enslavement and genocide of the Russian and other peoples of the USSR. Soviet troops liberated, in whole or in part, 13 countries in Europe and Asia.

The USSR made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Germany and its allies. The Soviet Union was the only country that was able to stop Germany's victorious march in 1941. In fierce battles one on one with the main force of the fascist bloc, the USSR achieved a radical turning point in the world war. This created the conditions for the liberation of Europe and hastened the opening of the Second Front. The USSR eliminated fascist domination over the majority of enslaved peoples, preserving their statehood within historically just boundaries. The Red Army defeated 507 Nazi divisions and 100 divisions of its allies, which is 3.5 times more than the Anglo-American troops on all fronts of the war. On the Soviet-German front, the bulk of Wehrmacht military equipment was destroyed (77 thousand combat aircraft, 48 thousand tanks, 167 thousand guns, 2.5 thousand warships and vehicles). More than 73% of the total losses of the German army suffered in battles with the Armed Forces of the USSR. The Soviet Union was thus the main military-political force that determined the victory and defense of the peoples of the world from enslavement by fascism.

The war caused the Soviet Union a huge demographic loss. The total human losses of the USSR amounted to 26.6 million people, 13.5% of the number of the USSR at the beginning of the war. During the war years, the losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR amounted to 11.4 million people. Of these, 5.2 million people died in battle and died of wounds during the stages of sanitary evacuation; 1.1 million died of wounds in hospitals; 0.6 million were non-combat losses; 5 million people went missing and ended up in Nazi concentration camps. Taking into account those who returned from captivity after the war (1.8 million people) and almost a million people from among those previously recorded as missing, but who survived and were re-conscripted into the army, the demographic losses of the military personnel of the Armed Forces of the USSR amounted to 8.7 million people.

The war unleashed by the Nazis turned into a human tragedy for Germany itself and its allies. Only on the Soviet-German front, the irretrievable losses of Germany amounted to 7181 thousand military personnel, and with the allies - 8649 thousand people. The ratio between Soviet and German deadweight losses is 1.3:1. At the same time, one should keep in mind the fact that the number of prisoners of war who died in Nazi camps (more than 2.5 million people out of 4.6 million) was more than 5 times higher than the number of enemy soldiers who died in Soviet captivity (420 thousand people out of 4.4 million). The total irretrievable demographic losses of the USSR (26.6 million people) are 2.2 times greater than the losses of Germany and its satellites (11.9 million). The big difference is explained by the genocide of the Nazis against the population in the occupied territories, which claimed the lives of 17.9 million people.

During the war years, all the peoples of the USSR suffered great irreparable losses. At the same time, the losses of Russian citizens amounted to 71.3% of the total demographic losses of the Armed Forces. Among the dead military personnel, Russians suffered the greatest losses - 5.7 million people (66.4% of all dead), Ukrainians - 1.4 million (15.9%), Belarusians - 253 thousand (2.9%), Tatars - 188 thousand (2.2%), Jews - 142 thousand (1.6%), Kazakhs - 125 thousand (1.5%), Uzbeks - 118 thousand (1.4%), other peoples of the USSR - 8.1%.

The textbook reveals the main mechanisms of the development of the Soviet political system during the Great Patriotic War against the fascist invaders and in the subsequent, final decades of Soviet history. Against a broad socio-economic background, the complex issues of the evolution of the Soviet political system are revealed. Complex, debatable questions connected with the struggle for power in the highest echelons of the party and state bureaucracy are not passed over in silence. Based on the latest trends in historiography, the authors trace in detail the development of the communist ideology, which repeatedly changed its appearance during the period under review, highlights the processes of its necrosis, as well as the scope and consequences of this. The manual was prepared by the staff of the Department of Contemporary National History of the Moscow State Pedagogical University: E.M. Shchagin - Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Honorary Professor of Moscow State Pedagogical University and Ryazan State University. S. A. Yesenina, head. Department of Contemporary National History, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Ph.D. n. - ch. 12; D. O. Churakov - Deputy. head Department of Contemporary National History, Moscow State Pedagogical University, acting prof., d.i. n. - ch. 1, § 1, ch. 2, § 1–3; A. I. Vdovin - prof., doctor of science n. - ch. thirteen.

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by the LitRes company.

Chapter I. The Soviet country during the Great Patriotic War and post-war reconstruction

§ 1. Political development of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War: directions, results, discussions

The beginning of the war: a difficult road to truth

The Great Patriotic War became a serious test for the entire Soviet people. Despite the fact that the country was preparing to repel aggression, in the first weeks of the war, luck accompanied the fascist invaders who invaded our territory. Military conditions put on the agenda the solution of many cardinal tasks, including the restructuring of the entire political system of the USSR. In modern science, an understanding has been reached that there were plans for turning the country into a single military camp even before it began. But reality has made its harsh adjustments to the original intentions.

It was necessary to engage in the reconstruction of the state machine in emergency conditions. Under the blows of superior enemy forces, the Red Army with battles retreated deeper and deeper to the East. The channels and levers of control established in the pre-war decades, including by the army, were violated. A serious correction of ideological work was required, since before the war the belief prevailed that the enemy would be beaten on his territory, and victory would be achieved with little bloodshed. In a new way, it was necessary to build a system of relations between the government and society. Without a strong bond and mutual trust between them, one could not dream of victory. It was necessary to unite the will of millions of people and direct it to achieve a common goal. Each Soviet person - from a soldier to a generalissimo - had to fulfill his part of the common task. Only in this way it was possible to break the back of the enemy, who imposed on us a war of survival, a total war, never seen before in its scale and inhumanity.

The difficult conditions in which the USSR found itself in the first months of the war, the need for serious changes in the style and methods of governing the country gave rise to a whole trail of black mythology, the purpose of which is to prove the collapse of the Soviet pre-war model of development. Today, this mythology is actively being introduced into the mass consciousness. It was presented in a concentrated form, for example, in one of the programs of the cycle “The Court of Time”, during which the question was proposed for electronic voting: “Did the Stalinist system [during the war years] fail or survive”? Let's try without emotions, on the basis of facts, to understand this issue and see what happened in those fateful days?

According to one of the oldest war myths, Soviet head of state Stalin did not believe in Hitler's attack. Nowadays, the discrepancy between this myth and real facts is self-evident. Throughout the entire Third Five-Year Plan, the USSR was actively preparing for the defense of its Western borders. In his speech at the graduation of students of the Red Army Academies on May 5, 1941, Stalin publicly indicated the inevitability of war. He compared Hitler with Napoleon - for a Russian person, the parallel is more than understandable. Stalin addressed the young officers of the Red Army with a speech directly in those days when he officially headed the Soviet Government. It is clear that this appointment was not at all accidental.

At that moment, the Soviet leadership, following intelligence reports, expected an attack by Hitler on May 15th. The German General K. Tippelskirch, who at that time headed the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces, in his History of the Second World War, noted: “Of course, Russian intelligence did not hide that the center of gravity of Germany's military power is increasingly moving to the East. The Russian command took its countermeasures... On May 6, Stalin, who until now had been only the General Secretary of the Communist Party, although the most powerful man in the Soviet Union, succeeded Molotov as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and thus officially headed the government. This step meant, at least formally, strengthening the authority of the government and joining forces.”

The turning point in the preparations for the war should be considered the TASS statement of June 13, 1941, about which so much is written in modern historiography (including direct speculation). It openly called on Germany to confirm its peaceful intentions. The silence of Berlin in diplomatic language meant only one thing - a declaration of war. It is no coincidence that these days the first orders to bring troops to combat readiness and advance to defensive positions go to the border districts. The second order is accepted on June 18. The text has not yet been found. At the same time, the documents of the military districts adopted in pursuance of it have been preserved and are well known. In addition, exercises of a number of districts and fleets were scheduled for mid-June - several months earlier than usual. According to the memoirs of the military, it was clear that under the cover of exercises in the USSR, covert mobilization and the transfer of additional forces to the western borders began. So it is clearly not necessary to speak of a belated reaction of the political leadership.

No one had any illusions about the fact that the war could start specifically on June 22. This is evidenced by the intense activity of the leadership of the USSR on the last day of peace - June 21, 1941. This day is filled with continuous meetings and consultations on defense issues. In particular, the words of the leader of the capital's communists A.S. Shcherbakov testify to the preparation of the country's leadership for war, who told how on the evening of June 21 Stalin discussed in detail the state of Moscow's air defense. According to the memoirs of N. G. Kuznetsov, a little earlier, at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Stalin personally called I. V. Tyulenev (who at that time commanded the Moscow Military District) and demanded that the combat readiness of the air defense forces be increased. As you know, Moscow is located in the depths of Soviet territory, and if it were not for the threat of a massive invasion and possible retreat, such issues would hardly require increased attention from the head of the Government. The nature of the threat looming over the country was beyond doubt: according to the memoirs of the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow Council V.P. Pronin, on Saturday, June 21, Stalin ordered the secretaries of district committees to be detained at their workplaces and forbid them to leave the city. “A German attack is possible,” the head of the USSR emphasized.

Hard work was also carried out in the border regions of the country. After the 20th Congress, the story was widely circulated, as if the commanders of the Western districts on the night of June 22, suspecting nothing, were sleeping peacefully or spending their time carefree. It had to be refuted personally by G.K. Zhukov. Let us turn to the 13th edition of his memoirs. It is this edition that today is called the most objective, free from censorship. In addition, which is important, it was supplemented by the author's manuscripts preserved in the archives. “On the night of June 22, 1941, all employees of the General Staff and the People's Commissariat of Defense were ordered to remain in their places,” Zhukov reports. At this time, the people's commissar and I were in continuous negotiations with the district commanders and chiefs of staff, who reported to us about the increasing noise on the other side of the border.

Other measures well known to historians speak of preparations to repel the invasion on June 22:

- On June 12, an order is given from the Main Military Council to pull up the troops of the second echelons closer to the state border.

- Exactly the same measures are being taken in the Leningrad Military District.

- On June 19, 1941, the troops received an order to mask airfields, military equipment, warehouses, parks, as well as locations of military units.

- The mining of a number of sections of the border with Germany begins.

- In the western border districts, on command from the center, individual mechanized corps are put on alert and withdrawn to their areas of dispersal.

- Finally, on June 19, an order is given to the military councils of the border districts to form departments fronts, and most importantly, by June 22–23, 1941, bring them to field command posts.

Based on the analysis of these and other similar events that took place in June 1941, modern historians, such as R. S. Irinarkhov, A. V. Isaev, A. Yu. Martirosyan, conclude that by the second half of June 21, Stalin considered the outbreak of war inevitable, at least very, very likely. Already in the evening of that day, Stalin, People's Commissar of Defense S. K. Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff G. K. Zhukov prepared the well-known "Directive No. 1". This happened no later than 10:20 p.m. on June 21, since at that time both military men left the office of the head of the Government. In fact, the political decision to put the troops on alert had been made even earlier, at least by 8:50 p.m., when Timoshenko was summoned again to Stalin. He was no longer called to confer, but to give orders. At this time, Stalin was the captain of the 1st rank, the Naval attache at the USSR Embassy in the Third Reich M. A. Vorontsov. Vorontsov is a legendary and undeservedly forgotten face. A few hours before the war, he placed on the table of the head of the Soviet government a German official request to the government of Sweden obtained by our intelligence, in which June 22 was indicated as the date of the start of the war. On the basis of obvious facts, a decision is made to send "Directive No. 1" to the troops. Even before midnight, its text became known to the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov.

Another, perhaps the most common myth about the beginning of the war, speaks of a paralysis of will that struck Stalin after the news of the beginning of the fascist invasion. Its authorship belongs directly to Khrushchev. Since at the beginning of the war Nikita Sergeevich occupied an important, but still secondary post of head of one of the Union republics, on June 22 he was not in Moscow and he could judge the events there only by hearsay. To give his words the appearance of plausibility, he had to refer to the alleged story of L.P. Beria. According to Khrushchev, Beria assured that Stalin was shocked by the affairs at the front and went to his nearest dacha in Kuntsevo. There the dictator sat limply for some time. Seeing Beria and other members of the leadership come to him, Stalin seems to have been afraid of arrest. But when high-ranking visitors began to convince him to return and lead the country, he perked up and became the former Stalin.

It cannot be excluded that the basis for Khrushchev's story, as well as for the episode voiced at the 20th Congress of the CPSU with Stalin's planning of military operations on the globe, was film art. If in the episode with the globe the influence of Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" is read, then in the description of the visit of members of the Politburo to Stalin's dacha, a parallel with the film by S. M. Eisenstein "Ivan the Terrible" is clearly visible. In the life of the real Ivan the Terrible, there was an episode when the boyars came to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda to ask him to return to the throne, which he defiantly left. Today, some authors just write that this historical episode could lead Stalin to the idea of ​​checking the loyalty of his "boyars" in a similar way. That is how, with a touch of historical allegories, Stalin's act is interpreted in the book by A. Mertsalov and L. Mertsalova "Stalinism and War". It cannot be ruled out that Khrushchev also thought in the same way when he announced from the rostrum of the congress about Stalin's seclusion.

Khrushchev's version of events (later supported by A. I. Mikoyan, close to Khrushchev) became so firmly established in the minds of people that even the Stalinists took it at face value. In order to somehow justify their idol, they offered several historical myths at once. So, the writer V. Zhukhrai in the book "Stalin: Truth and Lies" reported on the sore throat that struck the leader. V. P. Meshcheryakov goes even further. He writes about the attempts of individual Soviet leaders to isolate Stalin. This is how he explains Molotov's speech on June 22, the absence of Stalin's signatures on some official documents, the impossibility for some high-ranking officials to get an audience with the head of the Government. That is, Meshcheryakov actually writes about a creeping coup d'état. The book in which he developed his argumentation bears an expressive title: Stalin and the Military Conspiracy of 1941. The conspiracy version at the top is vulnerable to criticism. Perhaps, in making his attack on the USSR, Hitler was counting on just such a scenario. In all the countries his armies entered, there was a fifth column, representatives of the elite, ready to buy their well-being through betrayal. But, as you know, this did not happen in the Soviet Union, which cannot be considered an accident. So why would anyone come up with various tall tales on this subject in hindsight?

Initially, according to Khrushchev and Mikoyan, it turned out that Stalin lost his temper in the initial hours of the war. Fearing retribution and not knowing how to justify himself, he refused to speak to the people, entrusting this to Molotov. Khrushchev and some of his supporters put into the mouth of Stalin a panic phrase, which, in a censored form, sounds like this: “What Lenin created, we have irretrievably lost it all.” Later in his memoirs “Time. People. Power" Khrushchev will "strengthen" his version of the beginning of the war, giving it more dynamism and color. At the same time, he will especially emphasize that Stalin, in addition to the manifestation of cowardice, also voluntarily removed himself from governing the country. ““I,” he says, “refuse leadership,” and left. He left, got into the car and left,” Khrushchev wrote about Stalin’s behavior.

In the system of power that Stalin created, the role of the leader was central. Because of this, as V. V. Cherepanov notes, Khrushchev accused Stalin of paralyzing the entire control system with his actions. It is not far from here to the conclusion that we read in the book of the Chechen dissident A. Avtorkhanov: the leader behaved like a deserter. Thus, the blame for the first defeats was completely shifted to Stalin. It was important for Khrushchev to voice this precisely at the 20th Congress. The reaction of his delegates to the “exposure of the cult of personality” was difficult to predict, and, in case of complications, Khrushchev might need the help of Zhukov and other military officers interested in ensuring that some obscure circumstances of the first days of the war were not revealed.

It was in this form that the version of "Stalin's prostration" became the subject of conversation in dissident kitchens in the 1960s and 1970s. It was in this form that it was put into the minds of the population of the USSR, when the policy of glasnost made it possible to translate Western history books. In particular, when the old domestic textbooks lost their authority, and new ones had not yet been created, the textbook by the Frenchman Nicolas Werth gained popularity. It was specifically about the long, almost two weeks absence of Stalin. However, during its greatest expansion in the 1990s, Khrushchev's version ran into an unexpected obstacle. In 1996, a journal of visits to Stalin's Kremlin office was published in the Historical Archive. It would seem that the myth has disintegrated, it can be handed over to the museum of the history of human delusions. But the followers of Khrushchev's version are our clue. If it is impossible to prove a two-week "Kuntsev's sitting", then one should try to defend at least the very fact of panic moods. The fact is that there is a gap in the visit log: entries in it end on the 28th, and begin again - only on July 1, 1941. And now General Volkogonov writes not about a few, but only about three days, during which "the first person in the state was in prostration and did not lead the country."

However, Khrushchev's version did not last long even in such a noticeably truncated form. The fact is that June 29 is clearly out of this scheme. On this day, Stalin actively worked on the "Directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the party and Soviet organizations of the front-line regions on the mobilization of all forces and means to defeat the fascist invaders." The fruit of collective creativity, the Directive was signed on the same day and played an important role in turning the country into a single military camp. In addition, as V. Cherepanov's reconstruction shows, on June 29, Stalin twice visited the People's Commissariat of Defense, where a showdown between the political and military leadership of the country took place. The head of the government was furious with the results of the activities of his people's commissar and the chief of the General Staff. It is even written in the literature that, with his rudeness, he brought the general to Zhukov's tears - in such cases, a strong and not inclined to sentimental person.

Analyzing the memoirs of the participants in the negotiations that took place that day in the People's Commissariat of Defense, V. Cherepanov noted: “The authors of the memoirs missed or kept silent about one, but fundamentally important point. We are talking about the manifestation of the first disagreements between the political and military leadership of the country and the suppression of a possible split by Stalin ... Stalin, as a wise politician, in this difficult hour made an attempt to unite the efforts of the political and military leadership, emphasizing the unconditional priority of the former. Although he did it in an extremely tough form. But the situation was such that there was no time to persuade subordinates. For Timoshenko and Zhukov, the main result of Stalin's visit will be the imminent loss of their high position (although you can’t call what happened to them “disgraced”, since both commanders will remain in the thick of things at the front). And for Stalin himself, probably, such a result was the idea of ​​​​creating a body that would unite the leadership of the front and rear, and at the same time allow better control over the activities of the military.

The question of Stalin's legal capacity in the first days of the war has no independent significance. I had to dwell on it in such detail only because its example can clearly show how black myths about our country are born. Having analyzed the actual course of events, we can state that the Soviet system, whether it was good or not, did not fall apart, withstood the first blows of the Nazis. If for us living today, the question of the strength of the system and the readiness of the Soviet leadership to continue the struggle is predominantly academic in nature (hence the discussions), then for people who survived the horrors of the beginning of the war, it was a matter of life and death. What people thought about their leaders depended on their life choice, their life position. The Soviet leadership has shown that it will not falter, will not give up, will not abandon its people, will not run abroad, as the leaders of Poland, France, Czechoslovakia and other countries did. From the very first hours of the war, the Soviet leadership showed a readiness to fight. Today, in comparatively prosperous days, it is not easy for everyone to understand what a colossal mobilizing value this had. The patriotic upsurge of the people and the firm will of the leadership of the USSR turned out to be soldered together. This became an important guarantee of future successes on the battlefields. The people warmly responded to the call for the Patriotic War, uttered by Molotov in his address to the people at noon on June 22:

“This is not the first time our people have had to deal with an attacking arrogant enemy. At one time, our people responded to Napoleon's campaign in Russia with a Patriotic War, and Napoleon was defeated and came to his own collapse. The same will happen to the arrogant Hitler, who has announced a new campaign against our country. The Red Army and all our people will once again wage a victorious patriotic war for the motherland, for honor, for freedom... The government calls on you, citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks even closer around our glorious Bolshevik Party, around our Soviet government, around our great leader comrade Stalin. Our cause is right. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours".

The heroism of the people, the fortress of the Soviet system and the active position of the top leadership already in the first days of the war frustrated the plans for a blitzkrieg, which means they brought victory closer. This, of course, does not mean that the Victory was already predetermined, that there were no miscalculations and difficulties on the way to it. Difficulties, mistakes, cowardice, desertion and betrayal in the individual lower levels of the apparatus of power were present. Miscalculations, sometimes very serious, were made at the level of the center. But only now, having abandoned both the ceremonial gloss and black mythology, it has become possible to objectively understand their causes and character.

In particular, the following facts, which are well known today, can be noted. Thus, the Soviet military leadership on the eve of the war overestimated the combat power of the Red Army units. General K. A. Meretskov at the January 1941 meeting of the leadership of the army, for example, stated: “When developing the charter, we proceeded from the fact that our division is much stronger than the division of the Nazi army and that in a meeting battle it will certainly defeat the German division . On the defensive, one of our divisions will repulse the blow of two or three enemy divisions. It is not clear on what such capricious conclusions were based, but it was they that were reported to the political leadership. It was they who were laid down in the plans to cover the western borders. It was they who found a place in the field regulations of the Red Army. The very first clashes with a well-armed and trained enemy showed their groundlessness.

Or one more moment. Much is said today about Soviet defensive installations on the old and new borders of the USSR: the Stalin Line and the Molotov Line, respectively. There is even a corresponding myth according to which, after moving the border far to the West, Stalin ordered the destruction of the old defensive line. In fact, there was no such order. According to the directive of the Chief of the General Staff in 1940, the old fortified areas were not only not destroyed, but even initially they were not mothballed. Only in the future, as new SDs were built, the old ones were ordered to be mothballed by organizing their protection. Arms and ammunition should be stored in special warehouses "in full combat readiness for being thrown out to the border." Another thing is that in some military districts this work was organized very badly. The seized weapons were not guarded, the structures themselves fell into disrepair and fell into disrepair. This was the case, for example, in the Minsk fortified area, which was in the zone of responsibility of the commander of the ZOVO D. G. Pavlov. At the same time, special observers from the center repeatedly recorded failures in the implementation of plans for the construction of the Grodno fortified area. Things were no better with the Polotsk fortified area. During their construction, among other things, secrecy was not respected. The enemy, using this circumstance, could know the state of our defenses.

It is not entirely clear why the military, despite the emergency measures that were taken back in May and intensified in mid-June 1941, met the enemy in varying degrees of readiness? For example, the fleet met the enemy in full combat readiness. Here one has to face another ingrained misconception that the command of the RKKF put the fleet on alert, against the will of the center. It is not clear whether the author of this myth is Admiral Kuznetsov himself, or whether his party editors added the corresponding words for him. In any case, Kuznetsov is actually accused of rebellion - this is how the unauthorized actions of people who have weapons in their hands are qualified. The rest of the content of Kuznetsov's books refutes the words about the unauthorized actions of the admiral in the critical hours for our country on June 21-22. It is known that on June 19, by order from Moscow, the fleet was transferred to combat readiness No. 2. Later, confirmation came from Moscow that the fleet could repel an enemy attack if it followed. The readiness of No. 1 in the fleet was announced on June 21 at 23 hours 15 minutes - that is, immediately, as the content of "Directive No. 1" was brought by Zhukov to Kuznetsov. In addition, not only the sailors met the enemy fully armed, but also the border guards who were subordinate to Beria. The troops of the Odessa Military District turned out to be in the proper degree of combat readiness. Not fully, but they were ready to meet the invasion in KOVO and PribOVO. They were completely late with the deployment of troops only in the ZapOVO. In addition, there is still no clarity on the question why some orders on the ZAPOVO contradicted the directives of the center, did not increase, but, on the contrary, lowered the combat readiness of personnel and equipment. Among them, for example, are:

- Seizure and transfer to warehouses of ammunition from pillboxes, tanks, aircraft (many warehouses, at the same time, were located too close to the borders, as a result, in the first two days they were set on fire by enemy aircraft or they had to be blown up by the retreating Soviet units).

- An order to remove automatic weapons from the frontier posts, allegedly for inspection.

- Received on the very eve of the attack, June 21, an instruction to dry the fuel tanks of aircraft.

- Prohibition on dispersal of district aviation, etc.

The list of such orders and orders that cannot be explained from the point of view of normal logic can be continued, delving into ever smaller details. The finale is known - the capital of Belarus, one of the main cities of the USSR, Minsk was already captured on June 28. The fate of General Pavlov was also tragic. He himself, as well as some other senior officers of the ZAPOVO, were shot. The prosecution was based on article 58, "Treason to the Motherland", but in the end the verdict was passed under the articles "Negligence" and "Dereliction of duty."

Not at the height of the situation were also some party and Soviet leaders. The Reader on the History of 1914–1945, prepared by the staff of the Department of Recent National History of the Moscow State Pedagogical University in the mid-1990s, contains an interesting selection of documents on this subject for history students. So, in his letter to the Chairman of the GKO Stalin dated July 7, 1941, a member of the CPSU (b) since 1925, S. Bolotny, reported on the shameful behavior of the leadership of the Lithuanian SSR. “On the day of the treacherous military attack of fascist Germany on our homeland, i.e. June 22 of this year,” the document says, “the government and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Lithuania shamefully and thievishly fled from Kaunas in an unknown direction, leaving the country and people to fend for themselves, without thinking about evacuating state institutions, without destroying the most important state documents ... Kaunas, a small city, the wary population saw a caravan of government vehicles moving at top speed in the direction of the station, loaded with women, children and suitcases. All this brought demoralization among the population.”

Suitcase moods also seized some leaders of the Ukrainian SSR. Here are the sharp tones in which Stalin wrote to the leader of the Ukrainian communists, Khrushchev, on July 10, 1941: “Your proposals for the destruction of all property contradict the guidelines given in Comrade Stalin’s speech, where the destruction of all valuable property was discussed in connection with the forced withdrawal of Red Army units. Your proposals mean the immediate destruction of all valuable property, grain and livestock in a zone of 100-150 km from the enemy, regardless of the state of the front. Such an event can demoralize the population, cause dissatisfaction with the Soviet government, upset the rear of the Red Army and create, both in the army and among the population, moods of obligatory withdrawal instead of determination to repulse the enemy. Stalin, in fact, covertly accused Khrushchev of alarmism. Was it not these reproaches that Khrushchev belatedly responded to at the 20th Congress, creating the myth of Stalin's prostration?

Unfortunately, such negative manifestations of bureaucratic negligence and unscrupulousness were enough not only in the first days of the war, but also later, when the enemy began to move deep into the territory of the USSR. Of course, this could not but cause justified discontent among ordinary citizens. As an employee of the British embassy J. Russell, who worked in the USSR at that time, put it, the spontaneous discontent that had accumulated among the people for years was directed against the Communists and Jews. So, in October 1941, mass spontaneous demonstrations took place in the homeland of the first Soviets - in the Ivanovo region. The workers expressed dissatisfaction with the methods of mobilization for the construction of defense installations, the state of state and cooperative trade. Protests were heard: "All the chiefs have fled the city, and we are left alone." When representatives of the district committee tried to dispel the rumors spread by provocateurs, people shouted back: “Don’t listen to them – they don’t know anything, they have been deceiving us for 23 years now!”

Similar sentiments, according to the head of the UNKVD of Moscow and the Moscow Region, M.I. Zhuravlev and other sources, from which secrecy has been removed in recent years, appeared in Moscow during the panic of October 14–16, 1941. Not only former oppositionists or representatives of the overthrown classes were in a hurry to dissociate themselves from the Soviet past. According to G. V. Reshetin, a Muscovite who survived the October tragedy, a reaction of a purely protective nature (according to the principle “one’s own shirt is closer to the body”) was widely manifested among ordinary citizens: “On the evening of October 16, in the corridor, a neighbor, Aunt Dunyasha, flooded the stove. Bright fire devours ... books, magazines. Stirring the poker, she endlessly repeats so that everyone can hear: “And my Misha has long been non-party, and in general he didn’t even go to meetings.”

It should be noted that events like those in Moscow became possible only under conditions when, for several hours, the faint of heart had the illusion that the Soviet system had collapsed. Under these conditions, the maximum that ordinary Muscovites could organize themselves for was to block the roads leading to the East and smash cars with refugees' belongings. Moreover, not only cowardly bosses, but also representatives of the intelligentsia were subjected to reprisals and humiliation. But at the gates of Moscow there was a fascist, and it was necessary to think how to protect the city! It is just as significant how the crisis was overcome. As soon as it became known that Stalin remained in Moscow, all panic and pogrom moods passed. Stalin was only a symbol of the Soviet regime. Just like him, many other people remained at their workplace or at their combat post: red directors, policemen, soldiers and officers, militias, workers, employees - in a word, all those who did not succumb to panic and defended Moscow. Pronouncing his famous toast “to the Russian people” on May 24, 1945 in the Kremlin at a reception in honor of the commanders of the Red Army, Stalin recalled: “Our government made many mistakes, we had moments of desperate situation in 1941–1942, when our the army retreated, left our native villages and cities in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Leningrad region, the Karelian-Finnish Republic, left because there was no other way out. Another people could say to the Government: you have not lived up to our expectations, go away, we will install another government that will make peace with Germany and ensure peace for us. But the Russian people did not agree to this, because they believed in the correctness of the policy of their Government and made sacrifices in order to ensure the defeat of Germany.

Changes in the Soviet political system in 1941–1945: the difficult road to victory

Often, as evidence of the crisis and defeat of the Soviet system during the war years, they cite the fact that, after the very first shots fired on the Soviet-German border, its transformation began. Management methods that seemed unshakable even in the late 1930s were rejected. Instead, there was a transition to new, often more democratic ones. However, one should be aware of two circumstances of a general theoretical and practical nature. First, the Soviet system changed during the war years not only under the pressure of the negative factors discussed above, including protest moods in society. The very abrupt transition from peace to war required a serious adjustment of the apparatus of power, taking into account the rapidly changing situation. Secondly, changes have been going on for all previous decades, since 1917. Democratic and anti-democratic tendencies struggled in society. And today, many scientists, including those in the West, are in no hurry to state unequivocally that this struggle ended as soon as the civil war ended. We should also not forget the fate of tsarist Russia. The inertia of political institutions, unwillingness to take into account the trends of the time ultimately led her to death. Accordingly, the flexibility of the Soviet system is evidence of its stability rather than crisis.

The restructuring of the state mechanism on a military footing begins already in the first hours after the Nazi aggression. Some of the activities were thought out in advance, others were a response to a rapidly changing situation. Already on the first day of the war, June 22, the Politburo, and then the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, adopted four important documents that determined the nature of mobilization measures. These are decrees: No. 95 “On the mobilization of those liable for military service”; No. 96 “On the declaration of martial law in certain areas of the USSR”, No. 97 “On martial law”; No. 98 "On approval of the Regulations on military tribunals". The Decree "On Martial Law", with reference to the Constitution, explained that martial law in certain areas or throughout the country could be introduced to ensure public order and state security. In areas declared under martial law, all power in terms of defense was transferred to the military. For disobedience to the orders of the military authorities and for the crimes committed, criminal liability was provided for under the laws of war. Violators were to be dealt with by special tribunals, whose sentences were not subject to appeal. An important provision was contained in the final paragraph of the decree, which explained that the jurisdiction of this decree "also extends to areas where, due to emergency circumstances, there are no local bodies of state power and state administration of the USSR." It was about the territories occupied by the enemy.

The next day, June 23, the Politburo adopted a resolution "On the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR." Without delay, it was formalized by a joint closed resolution of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Thus, the headquarters became the first emergency management body created during the war years. Its competence included the leadership of the armed forces. Timoshenko was appointed Chairman of the Headquarters. It also included Stalin, Molotov, K. E. Voroshilov, S. M. Budyonny, Zhukov and Kuznetsov. Soviet historiography did not like to emphasize this fact, but, as is easy to see, most of the "ordinary" members of the rate were incommensurably higher than its formal leader in terms of their position, and most importantly, their authority in the country. This could not but create certain difficulties. Apparently, Timoshenko himself understood the state of affairs, who signed the documents emanating from the Headquarters not as its Chairman, but with a vague formula: "From the Headquarters of the High Command, People's Commissar of Defense S. Timoshenko."

Later, the composition and even the name of this important body of military control underwent repeated changes. So, on July 10, as it was officially explained, in connection with the formation of the High Commands of certain directions (North-Western, Western and South-Western), it was renamed the Headquarters of the Supreme Command. Attention is drawn to the fact that on the same day, instead of Timoshenko, Stalin became the Chairman of the Stavka. At the same time, B. M. Shaposhnikov was introduced into it, as it soon became clear - with a long-range sight: on July 30 he would head the General Staff, replacing Zhukov, who was less experienced in the staff turnover. A little earlier, on July 19, 1941, Tymoshenko will lose his high post. Instead, the NPO will be personally headed by Stalin. Finally, on August 8, Stalin was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Accordingly, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command will be transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. Thus, the organization of army management acquires its finished form. As A. M. Vasilevsky emphasized in this regard, as a result of the reorganizations carried out, "management of the Armed Forces, their construction and support" has significantly improved.

An important role in the transfer of the political system and the country as a whole to a military footing was played by the above-mentioned "Mobilization Directive" of June 29, 1941. As the leading modern historians rightly remark, it formulated "the main program of action to turn the country into a single military camp." The directive was extremely concise, but succinctly formulated the essence of the events. “The perfidious attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union continues. The purpose of this attack is the destruction of the Soviet system, the seizure of Soviet lands, the enslavement of the peoples of the Soviet Union, the robbery of our country, the seizure of our bread, oil, the restoration of the power of the landlords and capitalists ... In the war imposed on us by Nazi Germany, it was noted in it, to be the peoples of the Soviet Union free or enslaved." The document noted that, despite the not all seriousness of the threat looming over the Motherland, “some party, Soviet, trade union and Komsomol organizations and their leaders have not yet realized the significance of this threat and do not understand that the war has dramatically changed the situation”, that “the Motherland has found itself in the greatest danger." It was necessary to throw off the veil of illusions and complacency and, rolling up our sleeves, take on the difficult task of organizing a rebuff to the aggressor.

The document called for "fighting to the last drop of blood", "showing the courage, initiative and ingenuity inherent in our people." The rear was to be strengthened "by subordinating its activities to the interests of the front." To help the wounded, it was proposed to adapt the premises of schools, clubs and even government agencies. With deserters, alarmists, saboteurs there was a call to crack down mercilessly, to give the court a military tribunal. As a special weapon of the enemy, provocative rumors were called. The directive realistically assessed the situation, recognized the possibility of leaving part of the Soviet territory to the enemy. In the document, there was a call in the event of a forced withdrawal of the Red Army "not to leave the enemy a single locomotive, not a single wagon, not to leave the enemy a kilogram of bread or a liter of fuel." Collective farmers were called upon to steal cattle and export grain. Anything that could not be evacuated had to be “unconditionally destroyed.” The directive required in the occupied areas to create unbearable conditions "for the enemy and all his accomplices, to pursue and destroy them at every step." To do this, it was supposed to kindle a partisan war in the enemy rear, as was the case during the Patriotic War of 1812. The directive ended with words addressed directly to the communists: “The task of the Bolsheviks,” it said, “is to rally the entire people around the Communist Party, around the Soviet government for the selfless support of the Red Army, for victory.”

The creation of the above-mentioned State Defense Committee becomes a logical consequence of the Directive almost immediately after its adoption. The need for it was dictated solely by the conditions of the war. The decree of June 30, from which it begins its history, indicated that the State Defense Committee was being created “in view of the state of emergency that has arisen and in order to quickly mobilize all the forces of the peoples of the USSR to repel the enemy who treacherously attacked our Motherland.” There are only three short paragraphs in the document. In the first, the composition of the GKO was listed: Stalin (chairman), Molotov (deputy), Voroshilov, G. M. Malenkov, Beria. In the second paragraph, there was a demand "to concentrate all power in the state in the hands" of the new body. Finally, in the third paragraph, all citizens, all party, Soviet, Komsomol and military organizations were obliged to "unquestioningly carry out the decisions and orders" of the State Defense Committee, which, in fact, acquired the force of wartime laws. In the hands of the GKO was concentrated "all the power in the state." Never again - neither before nor after the war - did there exist a body with such powers, which existed for more than 4 years and was not provided for by the Constitution.

In historical science, there are different points of view on who owns the idea of ​​creating a GKO. Not all historians agree that it came from Stalin himself. Some authors name such figures as Molotov, Malenkov, Beria. In particular, according to Yuri Zhukov, the creation of the GKO was a kind of palace coup. Stalin, however, was included in its composition only to give the State Defense Committee the appearance of legitimacy and greater efficiency. Only when Stalin realized that no one intended to remove him from power did he get involved in the work in full force. In addition to Khrushchev's and Mikoyan's evidence on this score, there are, for example, the notes of V. S. Semenov, who at one time was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 1964, he entered in his diary a story allegedly heard from K. E. Voroshilov at one of the Kremlin receptions:

“Stalin believed the Germans. He was so affected by the treachery of the Germans: to violate the treaty a few months after signing! .. This is vile. Stalin was so upset that he went to bed ... Only gradually Stalin mastered himself and got out of bed. And at this time, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich began to say that it was necessary to drive Stalin away, that he could not lead the party and the country. We began to explain to him that Stalin was trusting and that he had such a character. But Molotov did not want to hear, he did not understand the peculiarities of Stalin.

As you can see, the version about Molotov as the initiator of the creation of the State Defense Committee is based on the same scheme as in relation to the "prostration of Stalin." However, this point of view is based only on the sources of the memoir plan. Apart from them, there is nothing at its core. As has already been shown above, Stalin did not fall out of the leadership of the country. And if Stalin did not find himself in a situation of inaction for a single day, then all constructions in the spirit of the “conspiracy theory” lose their meaning. Their groundlessness is evidenced, among other things, by further events. It is unlikely that Stalin, given the severity of the struggle for power in the Soviet elite, would have kept close to him the people who encroached on his leadership. The mere fact that all those considered “conspirators” by contemporary writers continued to hold important positions and enjoyed Stalin’s confidence throughout the war is reason enough not to take the “conspiracy theory” too seriously.

In turn, studies of the newest period rather testify to the opposite, namely, that Stalin himself was the initiator of the creation of the State Defense Committee. He was dissatisfied with the impotence of some civilian and military leaders, he wanted to decisively turn the tide. It cannot be ruled out that the legacy of the “Tukhachevsky case” also played a role, when the political leadership felt distrust of the generals. The solution to the emerging problem lay precisely in the plane of creating such a body that would unite all branches of power in one hand. Only Stalin, of all the leaders of the USSR that survived at that time, had experience in working in such a body. This refers, of course, to the Leninist Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (later transformed into the Council of Labor and Defense).

As you know, V. I. Lenin established the Defense Council also with the aim of curbing the power of the military, headed by Trotsky. Such a need arose when Trotsky, together with Sverdlov, after the assassination attempt on Lenin, formed the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic. In fact, the RVSR had wider powers than the Leninist SNK. By creating the Defense Council, Vladimir Ilyich restored the status quo, since the RVSR also had to submit to the newly created body. The parallel between the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense and the State Defense Committee was always obvious.

The idea of ​​the State Defense Committee was born by Stalin, apparently on June 29, 1941. This happened either, as already suggested, after visiting the NPO, or at the time of work on the Directive on the mobilization of the country to repel the aggressor. The content of his speech on July 3, 1941, among other things, testifies to the fact that it was Stalin who could be at the origins of the GKO. Not only in meaning, but also in style, it followed from the directive of June 29 and the decree on the creation of the State Defense Committee. In all three documents, there are not only semantic repetitions, common images and turns, but also textual coincidences, which cannot be called accidental and confirms their common authorship.

Rising as a kind of superstructure above all state bodies, the State Defense Committee did not have its own large apparatus. He acted through party and state bodies, as well as public organizations. In the future, when the need for prompt resolution of a number of issues becomes apparent, a special institution of authorized GKOs will be established. They will operate at the fronts, in the people's commissariats, individual union republics, territories and regions, at the most important enterprises and construction sites. In special cases, special committees and commissions were created under the State Defense Committee. For example, at different times there was a Trophy Commission, an Evacuation Committee, a Radar Council, a Transport Committee, etc.

In the front-line areas, the function of emergency authorities was carried out by the city defense committees created by the GKO in 1941-1942. In total, city defense committees were created in more than 60 cities, including such hero cities as Sevastopol, Odessa, Tula, etc. Just like the State, city defense committees were called upon to unite all the levers of power: the party, army, local government. As a rule, they were headed by the first secretaries of the regional committees or city committees of the CPSU (b). Representatives of local Soviet and military bodies became members of city defense committees. The sphere of activity of emergency bodies on the ground included the management of the production and repair of military equipment and weapons, construction, the creation of a people's militia and other volunteer formations.

In areas declared under martial law, all power in terms of defense, public order and state security passed directly to the military councils of the fronts (districts), armies, and where there were no military councils, to the high command of the formations operating in these territories. The decree of June 22, 1941 gave the military authorities the broadest powers. They controlled entry and exit from the area declared under martial law. By order of the military, any undesirable persons could be administratively evicted from this zone. The decrees issued by the military authorities for the population of the given area were generally binding. For their failure to comply, the perpetrators were subjected to administrative imprisonment for up to 6 months or a fine of up to 3 thousand rubles. If necessary, the military could mobilize vehicles, establish military housing and labor service. They also received the right to regulate the operation of enterprises, institutions, trade and public services. The procedure for holding meetings and processions also passed into the jurisdiction of the military authorities.

Martial law could be introduced not only in areas that were under the threat of enemy occupation, but also in individual sectors of the national economy that were especially important from a defense point of view. In particular, taking into account the experience of World War I, martial law was declared on transport. Here it meant the introduction of military discipline in the system of transport departments. In fact, transport employees and workers were equated with military personnel and, on an equal footing with them, bore disciplinary, and in some cases also criminal liability for committed misconduct and crimes. Such measures helped to maintain high transport efficiency throughout the war.

Under the conditions of the immediate threat of the capture of the cities of the frontline zone by the enemy, a state of siege could also be introduced in them. The state of siege differed from the military state of siege by even more rigid regulation of the regime. A state of siege by a decree of the GKO was introduced, for example, in October 1941 in Moscow. It also acted in Leningrad, Stalingrad and some other cities and areas of the front line, especially important in military terms. In cities declared under a state of siege, a curfew was introduced, the movement of vehicles and the population was ordered and subject to control. Public order was strengthened. Violators of the state of siege could be prosecuted with the transfer of the case to a military tribunal. Anyone who was convicted of provocative activity, espionage or called for a violation of order was subject to execution on the spot.

To solve specific problems during the war years, highly specialized emergency bodies were also formed. In particular, such a body was the Extraordinary State Commission for establishing and investigating the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices and the damage they caused to citizens, collective farms, public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR. It was created by a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces of November 2, 1942. N. M. Shvernik, Secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, was appointed chairman of the commission. In addition to representatives of the party, such as A. A. Zhdanov, it included well-known, authoritative public figures: writer A. N. Tolstoy, patriotic historian E. V. Tarle, neurosurgeon N. N. Burdenko, breeder and agronomist Academician T D. Lysenko and others. A number of researchers, in particular the German historian Dieter Pohl, are trying to cast doubt on the objectivity of the commission (which, however, in the context of growing attempts in the West, including even in Germany, to revise the position of the USSR in World War II, quite understandable - one of the methods of belittling the role of our country's contribution to the common victory is increasingly downplaying the scale of the atrocities of Nazism, whitewashing war criminals). In addition to the national commission, there were similar commissions in the republics, krais, oblasts, and cities. The results of their investigations were presented by the Soviet side at the Nuremberg trials as irrefutable evidence of the criminal activities of the occupiers.

Emergency authorities could not completely replace the entire peacetime government system, and this was not required. Along with them, the constitutional bodies of power and administration continued to operate. The war made its own adjustments to the organization and order of their work. In particular, the conditions of the war and the occupation of large territories of the USSR did not allow the regular elections to the Soviets of all levels to be held within the time limits prescribed by law. The Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces and the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics repeatedly postponed their holding, but during the war years they were never organized. Elections took place only after the war, when the political and economic situation began to stabilize. Despite this, the Soviet authorities had to continue their work. It was decided that the deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Supreme Soviets of the republics and local Soviets, elected in the pre-war period, would continue their work as long as the need persisted.

The activity of the Soviet bodies was complicated not only by the impossibility of ensuring the holding of elections in a timely manner. It was also not easy to meet the deadlines for convening regular sessions and to ensure a quorum for them. This was due to the fact that many deputies, feeling their patriotic duty, went to the active army. The following figure is indicative: by January 1, 1945, more than 59% of the deputies elected before the war and more than 38% of the members of the executive committees of the Soviets left the local Soviets. Most of them fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. As a result, serious compromises had to be made with the law, and the sessions of the Soviets, which were attended by 2/3 of the current composition of deputies, were recognized as plenipotentiary, while in peacetime, according to the Constitution, this required the presence of 2/3 of the elected deputies. In total, during the war, sessions of the USSR Armed Forces were convened only three times, while before the war from 1937 to 1941 - 8 times. The situation was even more complicated in the union republics that had become the object of aggression. So in Ukraine, the first session of the supreme legislative body of the republic was held only at the beginning of March 1944. In addition, the war changed the face of the deputy corps, in which women now played a much larger role than before the war.

In the same way as during the years of the civil war, the ratio of executive and representative bodies of power has changed dramatically. The former, in the person of the executive committees of the Soviets, have grown noticeably stronger. Among other things, the executive committees of the higher Councils received additional rights in relation to the executive committees of the lower Councils. In particular, if necessary, the executive committee of the higher Council could, without additional elections, by co-optation, replenish the composition of the executive committees of the lower Councils. As a rule, the deputy corps was replenished with proven people, representatives of the party and Soviet activists. This practice was especially widely used in the territories liberated from the enemy, where it was necessary to restore not only the economy, but also the Soviet organization of power.

The processes that led to the strengthening of the vertical of the executive bodies took place not only in the localities, but also in the center. Thus, the role of the USSR Armed Forces somewhat decreased, but at the same time the role of its Presidium and, to an even greater extent, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR strengthened. Sessions of the USSR Supreme Council were held only in exceptional cases. So, the 9th session took place only a year later, after the start of the war - on June 18, 1942. It ratified the Soviet-British Treaty of Alliance with England in the war against Nazi Germany. Even longer had to wait for the 10th session of the USSR Armed Forces, which opened on January 28, 1944. Finally, the final 11th session of the USSR Armed Forces for the period of the Great Patriotic War was held on April 24-27, already in 1945. Most of the changes in the country's legislation during the war years were adopted by the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces. Among the legal acts approved by him during these years, one can name decrees on mobilization; the introduction of martial law; the structure of the Armed Forces; state awards; finally, about the creation of new (including emergency) state bodies and many others.

An even greater burden during the war years fell on the Soviet Government and its subdivisions. On some, the most important, primarily military-economic issues, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR made joint decisions with the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The competence of the Council of People's Commissars included issues related, for example, to the evacuation of enterprises from the front-line to the eastern regions of the country. To do this, a new structure was created under the Council of People's Commissars - the Evacuation Council, headed by N. M. Shvernik. The Evacuation Council under the Council of People's Commissars relied in its activities on front-line evacuation commissions under the executive committees of local Soviets, evacuation departments created in the apparatus of people's commissariats, as well as authorized branch people's commissariats responsible for the evacuation of individual enterprises. On the ground, the placement of evacuated enterprises was controlled by regional party and Soviet structures. The emergency body was created to optimize activities in such an important area as agitation and propaganda. It becomes the Sovinformburo that arose already on June 24, 1941 under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War, its activities were led by the leader of the Moscow Communists A.S. Shcherbakov and Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs S.A. Lozovsky.

Under the Council of People's Commissars, other new structures were also created. Among them are Glavsnabneft, Glavsnabugol, Glavsnabless and other institutions that were in charge of supplying the national economy. In addition, a committee for the accounting and distribution of labor force, the Department for the Evacuation of the Population, the Department for State Provision and Household Arrangements for the Families of Military Personnel were formed. When in 1943 the Red Army drove the enemy to the West and Soviet territories began to be liberated en masse, the task of their economic revival arose. Work in this direction was entrusted to the Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR for the restoration of the economy in areas liberated from German occupation, which was led by G. M. Malenkov. The tasks that were solved during the war years required the creation of such new People's Commissariats of the USSR as the People's Commissariat for Ammunition, the Tank Industry, Mortar Weapons and a number of others. In addition, new structural units were created in the already existing people's commissariats. For example, in the People's Commissariat of Trade, a Glavvoentorg is being created, in the People's Commissariat of Health - a department of hospitals, in the People's Commissariat of Railways - the Department of Military Road Construction, etc.

It is important to note that during the period of war hard times, the improvement of the management mechanism proceeded not only along the line of centralization, but also through its democratization, through increased responsibility and freedom of maneuver of its links. So, already on July 1, 1941, a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the expansion of the rights of people's commissariats in wartime" was adopted. People's Commissariats were given the right to redistribute material resources. Plant directors also received the right to issue subcontractors the necessary materials from their stocks, if this was required to fulfill planned targets. Moreover, the people's commissariats received the right to freely maneuver finances, even direct them to completely different objects than previously envisaged. It was allowed to put into operation objects without directives of the center only with the subsequent notification of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. It was allowed to reserve up to 5% of the approved salary fund. In addition, the rights of departments in the field of capital construction and restoration of what was destroyed by the war were expanded.

Historian V. Cherepanov singles out the Stalinist personnel policy as one of the main ways to increase the efficiency of the state mechanism. Even before the war, its main content was molded into the formula "Cadres decide everything." Nowadays, many historians admit that during the war years, when selecting leading personnel, the cornerstone was not personal devotion to superiors, but, first of all, professionalism, responsibility for the assigned area of ​​work. In the conditions of the struggle for the survival of the Soviet system, Stalin boldly got rid of people who showed their unpreparedness for work in the new conditions. This happened even with figures whom historians call a kind of "leader's favorites" - Mekhlis, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and others. Young and talented leaders were appointed in their place.

So, M. G. Pervukhin during the war years became the people's commissar of the chemical industry, I. T. Peresypkin - the people's commissar of communications and the head of the Main Directorate of Communications of the Red Army, A. I. Shakhurin - the people's commissar of the aviation industry, A. V. Khrulev - the people's commissar of communications and at the same time the head of the Main Directorate of Logistics of the Armed Forces of the USSR, I. A. Benediktov - People's Commissar of Agriculture, N. K. Baibakov - People's Commissar of the Oil Industry. Being very young specialists, they made a significant contribution to the organization of the Victory. In his book “Stalin's People's Commissars Speak,” Academician G. A. Kumanev cited several interviews with these and other figures representing the young, active generation of leaders who had grown up and strengthened already under Soviet rule and showed their best qualities just during the war. In addition to those presented in this book, D. F. Ustinov (People's Commissar of Armaments), B. L. Vannikov (People's Commissariat of Ammunition), I. F. Tevosyan (People's Commissar of Ferrous Metallurgy), A. I. Efremov (People's Commissar of Tank Building) industry), A. N. Kosygin (since 1943 - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR) and many others.

The years of the Great Patriotic War account for the finest hour of another young politician - N. A. Voznesensky. During this difficult period for the country, he headed the State Planning Committee of the USSR. The military situation also made important adjustments to the work of this institution, which should be mentioned. The most important element of the Soviet economic system in the pre-war decade was long-term planning. It represented a significant step forward from the short-term planning of the era of war communism. However, in the conditions of the war with the Nazis, long-term planning could no longer play its leading role. The situation at the front changed too quickly and unpredictably. This required great flexibility from the economic management. The need to make operational decisions objectively increased the role of current planning. Quarterly, monthly and even ten-day economic plans become the tool of such planning.

The mobilization national economic plan for the third quarter of 1941, developed with the participation of the State Planning Commission and adopted by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR at the very beginning of the war, can serve as examples of the successful activity of planning bodies in emergency conditions. And already in August of this year, the same plan for the fourth quarter of the year was approved. In addition, during the war, plans were adopted for individual regions of our large country. So, for 1942, a plan was approved for the Urals, the Volga region, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The following year, 1943, a plan for the development of the Ural economy was adopted. When the Soviet troops drove the invaders to the West, the State Planning Committee launched the preparation of plans for the restoration and development of the economy in the areas liberated from the invaders. Voznesensky later summarized the experience of his work and the development of the country's economy in those years in the book "The Military Economy of the USSR during the Patriotic War."

The restructuring affected the administrative apparatus at the republican level as well. The rights of not only union, but also republican departments were expanded. If necessary, new administrative structures were created in the republics. Thus, in the Union republics, which were especially hard hit by the war, new republican people's commissariats for housing and civil construction arose. Their functions included working not only with economic objects, but also with ordinary people who lost their homes.

The changes affected not only the management of the national economy, but also more important areas of activity of the republican bodies. So, on February 1, 1944, the law “On granting the Union republics powers in the field of foreign economic relations and on the transformation in connection with this of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs from the all-Union to the Union-Republican” was adopted. It, among other things, established "that the union republics may enter into direct relations with foreign states and conclude agreements with them." This step was dictated by the desire to strengthen the role of the USSR in the international arena, in particular to expand its influence on the United Nations, the creation of which was planned after the defeat of the bloc of fascist states. Stalin sought to include all 16 union republics in the UN (the corresponding proposal was announced at the conference of the three great powers in Dumbarton Oaks on August 28, 1944). At the same time, it is obvious that such a decision strengthened the democratic principles in the state mechanism of the USSR and was a kind of step towards our allies - the so-called. Western democracies.

Then, on February 1, 1941, a similar law was adopted on the transformation from the union to the union-republican People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. His first article contained a very important provision that allowed the union republics to create their own military formations. Corresponding changes were made to the Constitution of the USSR. So, a new article appeared in it, which read: "Each union republic has its own republican military formations." It should be noted, however, that national formations operated during the war and earlier. They were created, for example, in Transcaucasia, Central Asia, and the Baltic states.

Within the framework of the topic raised, one should also dwell at least briefly on the activities of the Soviet administrative apparatus in the territories occupied by the enemy. It would seem that here, behind enemy lines, the crisis of Soviet power should have manifested itself especially clearly. The totalitarian Hitlerite machine of suppression was supposed to eradicate all the shoots of the political system created by the Russian Revolution of 1917. It is no secret that this goal was designated by Hitler as one of the priorities at the dawn of his political biography, including in the program book "My Struggle". To implement their plan, the Nazis used a variety of measures: from flirting with collaborators to the merciless destruction of all recalcitrants. But all these measures did not give the desired results. The aggressor in the occupied regions of the USSR failed to completely liquidate the Soviet organs, whether they were party or state.

Eloquent facts testify to the collapse of the Nazis' plans to eradicate the Soviet organs. At various times, 2 regional party centers, 35 regional party committees, 2 inter-county committees, 40 city committees, 19 district committees in large cities, 479 rural district committees and other party bodies at various levels developed their activities in the rear of the Nazis. The network of state bodies also remained ramified. The Soviets of different levels were able not only to survive, but also actively performed their main function of mobilizing the population of the occupied territories to fight the enemy. Operating behind enemy lines, councils at various levels contributed to the preservation of the Soviet way of life, the maintenance of Soviet traditions, even in emergency conditions of occupation. For these purposes, underground sessions of village councils and district councils were convened, and underground deputies and partisans held meetings with their voters, as in peaceful years. Such work was practiced, for example, in Ukraine, Belarus, the occupied regions of the RSFSR (Leningrad, Oryol, etc.). Sometimes emergency Soviet bodies formed behind enemy lines in the form of district troikas authorized by the Soviet government and other institutions.

The highest republican bodies of those union republics whose territories were completely occupied also played their role in organizing the victory. At the beginning of the war they were evacuated. Their main task is to organize an anti-fascist underground. For example, the central government bodies of the Ukrainian SSR were evacuated to Saratov. Later they will be transferred to Ufa and finally to Moscow. Being evacuated, the central party and Soviet organs of the republics sent their representatives to the occupied territories. They delivered information about the life of the "Great Earth", directives, instructions. In addition, experienced workers were thrown into the German rear to strengthen underground organizations and collect intelligence information. Along with information obtained by military intelligence, intelligence obtained through local Soviet and party organs played an extremely important role in organizing the offensives of the Soviet army. When the enemy was driven to the West, the leadership of the republics joined in the restoration of the Soviet system in the liberated territories. So, the leadership of Ukraine already in 1943 resumed its activities in Kharkov.

The backbone of the existence of Soviet power in the territories occupied by the Nazis was a powerful partisan movement. In a number of cases, when the invaders managed to temporarily suppress the activities of the Soviet authorities, their functions were taken over by the command of the partisan detachments. During the period of the highest rise of the partisan movement in the summer of 1943, more than 200 thousand square meters were under the complete control of the partisans. km of Soviet land behind enemy lines. In the territories liberated by the partisans, peaceful life and traditional authorities were being restored. In turn, the Soviet and party organs provided every possible assistance to the rise of the partisan movement. It is important to emphasize that all Soviet authorities operating behind the front line, even in underground conditions, were guided by the principle that the occupation does not stop the operation of Soviet laws. Thus, despite all the atrocities and demagogy committed, the aggressor failed to break the united body of the Soviet country and deliver a mortal blow to its political system, even in the temporarily occupied territories.

The problems of the evolution and activity of the Soviet political system in 1941-1945 will be the subject of scientific discussions and public interest for a long time to come. Without prejudging the main results of the forthcoming work on these plots, we will present several generalizing conclusions from the facts considered above.

The control system that existed at the end of the 1930s, which in general confirmed its effectiveness in the peaceful pre-war five-year plans, required restructuring in war conditions to achieve fundamentally new tasks related to the need to repel enemy aggression, turn the USSR into a single military camp and achieve Victory.

Modern historiography (works by O. Rzheshevsky, M. Myagkov, E. Kulkov, V. Cherepanov, A. Vdovin, E. Titkov and others) shows that the priority political and legal principles of restructuring and the operation of the power system at that time were:

1. Unity of political, state and military leadership.

2. The principle of maximum centralization and unity of command in management (due to which, during the war, the previously existing merger of the party and state apparatuses at all levels intensified significantly).

3. The principle of clarity in the definition and setting of tasks for each link of management.

4. The principle of responsibility of subjects of management for solving the problems of public administration.

5. The principle of Soviet legality, law and order and strict state discipline.

6. The principle of control over the army by the political leadership and some others.

The model of political power in the USSR that developed during the war years was genetically connected with the pre-war one, it was a continuation of it, and not something fundamentally new. With the unique diversity of the regions of the country and the underdeveloped system of communications, the leadership of the USSR managed to ensure the unity of the front and rear, the strictest discipline of execution at all levels from top to bottom with unconditional subordination to the center, but at the same time develop personal initiative and responsibility of each performer. Such a combination of centralization and democracy during the war undoubtedly played a positive role; it enabled the Soviet leadership to concentrate its main efforts on the most important, decisive sectors. The motto is "Everything for the front, everything for victory!" did not remain only a slogan, it was embodied in life. Wars have always been a serious test of society's strength. K. Marx called this ability of wars their “redemptive side”. He compared social institutions that had lost their vitality to instantly disintegrating mummies exposed to fresh air. Soviet society did not collapse, it was able to get rid of everything that interfered with the fight against the enemy. His political system showed viability and withstood the most difficult conditions. This is seen as one of the most important reasons for our Great Victory in 1945.

§ 2. Creation of the collective-farm-state-farm system in the Soviet countryside and its significance in the historic victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.

The Russian revolution, which went through two interrelated stages in its development - the February-March, bourgeois-democratic, and the October-November, Bolshevik-proletarian - liberated the peasantry, which constituted the absolute majority of the country's population, from the centuries-old oppression of feudal landownership in origin and transferred it to labor use of almost all privately owned agricultural land. Under the influence of these changes, the agrarian system of post-revolutionary Russia acquired a peculiar small-peasant character.

Ten years after the revolution, the country, on the basis of the compromise NEP course of the Soviet government, was able, in the main, to restore the national economy of Russia, which had been destroyed by two wars - the First World War and the Civil War, as well as by the revolution itself. In 1927, there were 24–25 million peasant households in it, each of which, on average, sowed 3–5 acres of arable land, most often having a work horse, a cow, and several heads of small livestock. Among the arable implements, a wooden plow was preserved, and among the harvesting implements - a scythe and a sickle. Only approximately every sixth or seventh farm had some kind of machine, mainly horse-drawn.

But even under these conditions, the recovery process in the agrarian sector of the country on the basis of the new economic policy proceeded much faster than in the field of industry and the national economic infrastructure. True, here, too, it had an uneven pace: the starting and subsequent jerks of the 1924/25 and 1925/26 economic years, which in the 1920s covered the time from October of one year to September 30 of the next, were replaced by periods of slow growth that fell on the third and final years. NEP. These failures were associated with the marketing crisis of 1923 and the policy of redistribution of national income in the interests of the industrialization of the country, proclaimed by the XIV Congress of the RCP (b). In order to come close to the pre-war (1913) level of agricultural production, it took no more than five years, which eloquently testified to the successful use by the Russian peasantry of the modest possibilities of the New Economic Policy. Let the unequal, but still "cooperation between the state and the private economy", according to the apt definition of the famous agrarian economist B. Brutskus, underlying the NEP policy, took place. The peasantry not only restored the productive forces of the countryside, but also helped the state to pull the entire national economy out of the quagmire of the deepest crisis. It paid with food and raw materials for industry for depreciated paper money, taking upon itself the brunt of the financial reform of 1924. Now, not half the burden of the state budget, but three-quarters of it fell on the shoulders of the peasant, who lost 645 million full-weight NEP rubles on an unequal exchange with the city .

The drop in the marketability of the peasant economy was especially sharply felt. Before the revolution, half of the grain was collected in the landlord and kulak (entrepreneurial type) farms, which provided 71% of marketable grain, including export grain. The semi-proletarian and medium-sized small-scale farms of the peasants produced (without kulaks and landlords) the other half of it, and consumed 60%, and in the second half of the 20s. respectively 85 and 70%. In 1927/28 the state procured 630 million poods of grain against the pre-war 1,300.6 million. But if the amount of grain at the disposal of the state now turned out to be half that, then its export had to be reduced 20 times.

The high naturalization of the majority of peasant farms was the deep basis of the grain procurement crises that constantly threatened the country at that time. Grain procurement difficulties were exacerbated by low agricultural prices, especially grain prices. Before the First World War, the agricultural ruble was equal to 90 kopecks, and in the mid-1920s. - about 50. In addition, the bread producer got only half the price, since the rest was absorbed by the swollen overhead costs of the Foreign Trade, state and cooperative bodies involved in the procurement and sale of bread in the domestic and foreign markets.

The peasant also suffered significant losses due to the deterioration in the quality of manufactured goods purchased in exchange for bread and other agricultural products, the disappearance of imports and the constant shortage of goods in the countryside, which, according to the authoritative opinion of another expert on the small peasant economy of post-revolutionary Russia, N. Chelintsev, received less than 70% manufactured goods.

Under the NEP conditions, forcible measures by the state to confiscate food from the peasants began to be relatively widely used for the first time in the conditions of the grain procurement crisis in the winter of 1927/28. Formally, kulaks were declared to be the object of violent measures, delaying, in order to increase the price of bread, the sale of it to the state. A directive was issued to bring them to justice under Article 107 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which provides for imprisonment of up to 3 years with confiscation of all or part of their property. As in the days of the notorious "war communism", in order to interest the poor in the fight against the holders of large surpluses, it was recommended to distribute 25% of the confiscated grain among them at low state prices or in the form of a long-term loan.

The positions of the kulaks were also undermined by increased taxation, the withdrawal of their land surpluses, the forced purchase of tractors, complex machines, and other measures. Under the influence of such a policy in prosperous households, the curtailment of production began, the sale of livestock and implements, especially cars, their families increased their desire to move to cities and other areas. According to the Central Statistical Bureau of the USSR, the number of kulak farms in the RSFSR decreased by 1927 from 3.9 to 2.2%, in Ukraine by 1929 - from 3.8 to 1.4%.

However, the application of emergency measures by the state was not limited only to the farms of the kulaks and wealthy peasants, but soon it began to hit the middle peasantry more and more often and more and more strongly, and sometimes even the poor. Under the pressure of unbearable grain procurement tasks and the pressure of secretaries and members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - I. Stalin, V. Molotov, L. Kaganovich, A. Mikoyan and others - specially sent to the grain regions - local party and state bodies took the path of general searches and arrests, the peasants were often confiscated not only supplies, but seed grain and even household items. During harvesting from the harvest of 1929, the orgy of violence became even more widespread. Thus, on June 17 of this year, the North Caucasian Territory Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent out a directive “On measures to eliminate kulak sabotage of grain procurements”, in which it ordered to carry out through meetings of the poor peasants and gatherings “decrees on eviction from the villages and deprivation of land shares of those kulaks who have not completed the layouts and who will be found with grain surpluses, hidden ... or distributed for storage to other farms. In a report on the conduct of this campaign, the secretary of the regional committee A. Andreev wrote to Stalin that all forces were thrown into grain procurement in the region - more than 5 thousand workers of the regional and district scale, property from 30-35 thousand farms was fined and largely sold, nearly 20,000 were put on trial and about 600 people were shot. The same arbitrariness was going on in Siberia, the Lower and Middle Volga regions, in Ukraine, in the republics of Central Asia.

These and similar facts allow us to consider the grain procurement emergency of 1928, especially 1929, as a prelude to the deployment of complete collectivization and mass dispossession of kulaks, as well as a kind of reconnaissance in force, which the Bolshevik regime carried out before deciding on a general battle in the struggle for a “new » village.

Observant contemporary eyewitnesses at the same time noticed a close relationship between the one and the other economic and political campaigns in the countryside. A specific feature of the Soviet party campaign was that “it was a direct continuation of the grain procurement campaign,” emphasized G. Ushakov (a student and follower of A. Chayanov), who saw and recorded how it began and went Stalin's "revolution from above" in the West Siberian and Ural villages. - For some reason, this circumstance, - he continued, - is not properly taken into account. The people sent to the districts for grain procurements mechanically switched to shock work on collectivization. Together with the people, they mechanically switched to new work and methods of the grain procurement campaign. Thus, errors and excesses, both existing ones, doubled, and the ground for new ones was created.

The genetic relationship of both phenomena was captured by an inquisitive eyewitness absolutely correctly. Let us only add that the reconnaissance in force, carried out for two years in a row, allowed Stalin and his entourage, firstly, to make sure that the village, in which the policy of the class approach deepened the socio-political delimitation, was no longer capable of as unanimously as it was in late 1920 - early 1921, to resist the radical breakdown of the traditional foundations of its economic life and life, and, secondly, to test the readiness of its forces (the Bolshevik-state apparatus, the OGPU, the Red Army and the young Soviet public), to extinguish the scattered outbreaks of the peasant dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities and its individual agents. At the same time, Stalin and his associates managed to successfully complete the fight against the former political opponents in the ranks of the party: L. Trotsky, L. Kamenev, G. Zinoviev and their supporters, and then manage to identify new ones in the face of the so-called right deviation, creating certain prerequisites for its subsequent ideological and political defeat.

The new course of the socio-economic policy of the Soviet government, as the actions of the ruling elite of the Bolsheviks, associated with the implementation of the forced industrialization of the country and the departure on this basis from the principles of the New Economic Policy, the outstanding domestic economist N. D. Kondratiev, would characterize a little later, was expressed, on the one hand, in that unprecedentedly fast rates of industrial development were determined, and on the other hand, that the development of the industry itself took place unevenly in relation to its different sectors, with clear priorities for the production of means of production to the detriment of the production of means of consumption. In search of the necessary capital investments to ensure accelerated industrialization, the state had to take the path of redistributing the country's national income by transferring a significant part of it from the countryside to the city, from agriculture to industry.

However, the small-scale peasant economy, on which the agrarian sector of the Russian economy was based, limited the possibility of such transfer. This circumstance, as well as the tasks of creating a socially homogeneous and politically monolithic society, predetermined the accelerated socialization of the country's small peasant economy. The same was demanded by the interests of strengthening the country's defense capability, especially if we take into account the real increase after the "military alarm" of 1927, the threat of an armed clash. Similar considerations were reflected in the report of the defense sector of the USSR State Planning Committee to the Labor and Defense Council of the country, devoted to taking into account the interests of defense in the first five-year plan. The significant increase in the share of socialized peasant farms envisaged by the plan was recognized in this document as a measure that fully met the requirements of the defense of the USSR. “There is no doubt,” the report emphasized, “that in a war, when it is especially important to preserve the possibilities of regulation, the socialized sector will be of exceptional importance. Just as important is the presence of large production units that are more easily amenable to planned influence than the large mass of small, dispersed peasant farms.

The XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in December 1927, outlined the course for transferring peasant farms to large-scale production. At the same time, he put forward the task of “further developing the offensive against the kulaks,” towards socialism.

The policy of attacking the kulaks left a sad memory, mainly because in the tense situation of those years, the label "bourgeois kulak" was often hung on an independent, strong, albeit tight-fisted owner-worker, able under normal conditions to feed not only himself, but also the whole country. In many ways, the arbitrary intensification of measures of class violence against the kulaks sharply increased with the publication in the summer of 1929 of the decree “On the inexpediency of accepting a kulak into the collective farms and the need for systematic work to cleanse the collective farms of kulak elements who are trying to decompose the collective farms from the inside.” By this decision, already economically and politically ostracized, many wealthy families were literally placed in a hopeless situation, having been deprived of a future. With the active support of the villagers, such as Ignashka Sopronov, whose collective image was talentedly recreated on the pages of the novel "Eve" by Vasily Belov, a campaign was launched to purge the collective farms from kulaks, and the very entry of the latter into the collective farms was considered a criminal act, and the collective farms created with their participation qualified as pseudo-collective farms.

But no matter how cruel these measures were in relation to the kulak, the main vector of the new course in the countryside, as subsequent events showed, were the decisions of the XV Congress of the CPSU (b), which dealt with the transfer of the small economy of the peasants to large-scale production.

On their basis, in the spring of 1928, the People's Commissariat for Agriculture and the Kolkhoz Center of the RSFSR drafted a five-year plan for collectivization, according to which by the end of the five-year plan, that is, by 1933 ... it was planned to involve 1.1 million farms in collective farms (4% of their total number in the republic) . A few months later, the Union of Agricultural Cooperation Unions increased this figure to 3 million (12%). And in the five-year plan approved in the spring of 1929, it was planned to socialize already 4-4.5 million farms, that is, 16-18% of their total number.

How can one explain the fact that in just one year the figures of the plan increased three times, and their last version was four times higher than the original? Firstly, this is due to the fact that the pace of the collective farm movement in practice overtook what was planned at the beginning: by June 1929, there were already more than a million households in the collective farms, or about as many as originally planned for the end of the five-year plan. Secondly, the leadership of the party and the state hoped to speed up the solution of the grain problem, which became extremely aggravated in 1928 and 1929, by the accelerated creation of collective farms and state farms.

And from the second half of 1929, the scale and pace of collective-farm construction jumped even more significantly. If by the summer of 1929 the collective farms consisted of about one million households, then by October of the same year - 1.9 million, and the level of collectivization rose from 3.8 to 7.6%. The number of collective farms grew much faster in the main grain regions: the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga Territory. Here the number of collective farmers for four months (June - September 1929) increased by 2-3 times. And in the middle of this summer, the Chkalovsky district of the Middle Volga Territory was the first to come up with the initiative to achieve complete collectivization. By September, 500 collective farms (461 partnerships for the joint cultivation of the land, 34 artels and 5 communes) were created here, which included 6,441 farms (about 64% of their total number in the region) with socialized 131 thousand hectares of land (out of all available on the territory of the district is 220 thousand hectares). On the territory of the region, a similar movement soon appeared in some other regions of the republic.

To support this initiative, the department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for work in the countryside convened a meeting in August at which the question of the socialization of the peasant farms of entire regions was considered. The idea of ​​complete collectivization began to be put into practice. Following the Middle Volga Territory, areas of continuous collectivization began to appear in other areas of the country. In the North Caucasus, seven districts almost simultaneously began to collectivize, five in the Lower Volga, five in the Central Black Earth Region, and three in the Urals. Gradually, the movement spreads to certain areas of the consuming lane. In total, in August 1929, there were 24 districts in the RSFSR where there was a complete collectivization. In some of them, collective farms united up to 50% of peasant households, but in most of them the coverage of collective farms did not exceed 15-20% of households.

On the same Lower Volga, an initiative arose and became a kind of symbol of the entire "revolution from above" to carry out a complete collectivization on the scale of the whole district - Khopersky. Here the district committee of the Bolsheviks decided to complete the complete collectivization by the end of the five-year plan. A week later, the Kolkhozcenter of the RSFSR supported the initiative of the Khoperites, recognizing the need for "carrying out a complete collectivization of the entire district within a five-year period." At the same time, the district's initiative was approved by the Bureau of the Lower Volga Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and the Council of People's Commissars of the republic declared it experimental and demonstrative in collectivization. On September 15, a month of collectivization was held in the district. As usual, about 400 employees of party and other government bodies were sent to the “lighthouse” district as “pushers” (as popular rumor would later dub them). The result of all these efforts was 27 thousand households, which by October 1929 were listed in the collective farms of the district.

Such quasi-successes were achieved mainly by methods of administration and violence. This had to be recognized by the instructor of the Kolkhoztsentr in a letter read at the November 1929 Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. “Local authorities are implementing a system of shock and companionship,” the letter emphasized. - All work on the organization was carried out under the slogan: "Who is more." On the ground, the directives of the district were sometimes refracted into the slogan "Who does not go to the collective farm is the enemy of Soviet power." Broad mass work was not carried out ... There were cases of broad promises of tractors and loans: “They will give you everything - go to the collective farm” ... The totality of these reasons formally gives 60%, and maybe, while I am writing a letter, and 70% of collectivization. We have not studied the qualitative side of the collective farms... If measures are not taken to strengthen the collective farms, the matter may compromise itself. Collective farms will start to fall apart.”

In other words, the Khoper training ground “solidly” demonstrated with his own eyes the typical ailments of the village “revolution from above”, which, after spreading on an all-Union scale, will receive the name “excesses” of the general line from the lips of Stalin, who redirected them to the local Soviet-party and other activists who lost their heads.

In order to better understand the origins and nature of the collective-farm euphoria, which will soon overwhelm all links of the country's party-state system, it is necessary to at least briefly characterize the state of domestic socio-political thought on the fate of small peasant farming in connection with forced industrialization. After the XV Party Congress, this problem, which had long been of interest to many domestic politicians and scientists, as the wheels of the Bolshevik NEP in the second half of the 1920s. increasingly began to slip (until during the years of the emergency they did not stop at all) is being moved to the forefront of the socio-economic and party-political life of Soviet society. In the ranks of the Bolshevik Party, Stalin's bet on "revolution from above" as a more painless option for solving the problem of "socialist modernization" of the countryside was opposed by the views of the leaders of the "right deviation", which in modern literature have been called the Bukharin alternative.

N. I. Bukharin, after his rehabilitation in 1987, began to be considered by some domestic agrarian historians (V. P. Danilov and his supporters), who considered the collective farm system at first a kind of third edition of serfdom in Russia, and now the triumph of “state capitalism” in the Soviet village) one of the consistent promoters of Lenin's views on cooperation, through which the small private farms of the peasants, including the kulak ones, will, under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as he (Bukharin) put it, "grow into socialism." At the same time, opinions also appeared that he allegedly “developed his own plan for the cooperative development of the countryside”, which in many respects echoes V. I. Lenin’s article “On Cooperation” and A. V. Chayanov’s book on peasant cooperation. But they cannot be justified. After all, if Lenin and Bukharin basically similarly looked at cooperation as the best form of introducing the peasants to socialism, then the non-party Chayanov, who was by no means a blind admirer of V. I. Lenin and the entire Bolshevik regime of power in the country, understood it fundamentally differently.

Firstly, he considered the presence of market relations in the country to be a natural, normal condition for the life and activity of cooperation, while Lenin and Bukharin considered these relations as a temporary phenomenon, designed only for the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. Secondly, Lenin and Bukharin conceived the socialist cooperation of the peasants exclusively under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As for Chayanov, he directly connected the true successes of cooperating the small-peasant village with the democratic regime of power in the country, which should replace the dictatorial, Bolshevik power in a peculiar evolutionary way, counting on the so-called degeneration of Bolshevism. According to Chayanov's concept of peasant "self-collectivization", the implementation of his version of the modernization of the countryside would mean a painless, evolutionary type of restructuring of the country's agricultural sector, which, along with increasing labor productivity and raising the agricultural level of agriculture, would also solve the country's complex social problems, since cooperation was supposed to cover and to help strengthen all social strata of the village.

In most of the above parameters, it was fundamentally different from Stalin's forced "revolution from above", based not so much on the strength of example and the voluntary socialization of the peasant economy, but on the violent destruction of the individual way of life and production activities of the Russian peasantry, which turned into a tragedy for several hundred thousand families of dispossessed and the death of an even larger number of the population from the famine of 1932–1933, as well as a significant, although certainly temporary, drop in the productive forces of the countryside in the first years of collectivization.

But the tasks of large-scale transfer of material and labor resources from the countryside to the city in order to ensure the industrial leap that the country made during the years of the pre-war five-year plans, Chayanov's method of solving the agrarian-peasant problem under the specific conditions of that time did not guarantee. Moreover, under the existing political regime, it was simply not feasible. Both the scientist himself and his like-minded people were relatively soon convinced of this. That is why their hopes and practical actions are to try to repeat the attempt to “envelop” the Bolshevik government, which was successfully implemented by the Kadet-progressive opposition in relation to the tsarist autocracy, using their position as “specialists” at the relevant Soviet people’s commissariats and other state institutions, before to overthrow him in February 1917. Chayanov, as I showed more than 10 years ago, made corresponding proposals in the circle of associates in cooperative work, starting from the years of the civil war. "Nepovsky economic Brest of Bolshevism", as characterized by the reformist line of the Soviet leadership in the early 20s. the theoretician of change of Vekhovism, N. V. Ustryalov, gave Chayanov and his like-minded people even greater confidence that the tactics of "enveloping" are much more effective than an open confrontation between the opposition-minded strata of the intelligentsia and the communist government.

Chayanov outlined the essence of his political thoughts in a letter to a relative by his second wife, an emigrant and a prominent publicist, an activist of Russian political Freemasonry, E. D. Kuskova. To the concessions of the West, the writer of the letter advised for the recipients to seek political guarantees. The scientist saw the meaning of these guarantees in the fact that "one by one, non-Soviet people, but working with the Soviets, will enter the Soviet government." How can all this be done in practice? - he asked and answered - “We must come to an agreement ourselves, that is, everyone who understands what is happening in Russia, who is able to accept the new Russia. We need private influence on Western European figures - we need an agreement with them and some kind of common front. He associated the tactics of "enveloping" Soviet power with intervention, but not military, but economic. “It seems to me inevitable,” he explained to the addressee, “in the future, the penetration of foreign capital into Russia. We won't crawl out on our own. This intervention ... is going on now in the most ruinous forms for Russia. This intervention will intensify, because with a monetary economy in Russia, the pressure of the West will always be more real. After all, if gold coins are quoted in the West, then any reputable bank can get a concession - it is worth threatening and scaring. This is much worse than Wrangel and any military campaigns(my italics - E.Shch.).

The quoted considerations of Chayanov, expressed in a letter written and sent during his business trip abroad about five years before the 15th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted the course towards collectivization, essentially anticipated the program guidelines of the so-called Labor Peasant Party (TKP), which were set out on interrogations in the case of the Central Committee of the TKP and the group of N. N. Sukhanov - V. G. Groman A. V. Chayanov, N. D. Kondratiev and other agricultural scientists arrested in the summer - autumn of 1930.

Stalin and his entourage interpreted the testimony of those arrested as confirmation of the existence of such an anti-Bolshevik organization and, most importantly, as a justification for the start of political reprisals against them. Of course, the “leader of the peoples” at that time could not have known the content of Chayanov’s letters to Kuskova, since they ended up in the Soviet archives only after the end of World War II. But, as his correspondence of the late 20s - mid-30s shows. 20th century with V. M. Molotov, according to the protocols of interrogations of arrested scientists, the Kremlin leader appreciated the danger of the political views of Chayanov, Kondratiev and their associates for the Bolshevik regime. First of all, he was worried that the tactics of the TKP assumed its blocking with the right wing of the CPSU (b) during the transfer of power to it, because this block was considered by Chayanov and Kondratiev and their like-minded people as "a stage towards the implementation of the democratic principle." But a day after Kondratiev made this confession, Stalin would write to Molotov: “I have no doubt that a direct connection (through Sokolnikov and Teodorovich) will be revealed between these gentlemen and the rightists - (Bukharin), Rykov, Tomsky) Kondratiev, Groman and a couple “The other bastards must be shot.”

Despite the fact that Chayanov and Kondratiev denied such a connection during subsequent interrogations, there is reason to believe, if not it, then the ideological dependence of the views of representatives of the “right deviation” on the so-called. "bourgeois specialists", however, existed, and the latter did not reject it.

But be that as it may, the organizational disunity of the political opponents of the Bolsheviks objectively poured water on the mill of Stalin and his entourage. Using this disunity, the “leader of the peoples” and his comrades not only dealt with them one by one, but even resorted to defamation of some political opponents through the mouths of others. For example, a campaign of shameless mockery of Chayanov, Kondratyev and others was launched at the end of 1927 by one of the leaders of the "new opposition", and then the Trotskyist-right bloc - G. Zinoviev, calling them "Smenovekhites" and "internal Ustryalovites". And after him, from the rostrum of the April Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Chayanov, Kondratiev and their supporters were smashed by the leader of the right-wing deviators - Bukharin, who characterized the ideas of scientists regarding the balanced development of industry and agriculture as "a decisive shift from industrialization towards kulakization of the country ". With the light hand of modern Western researchers (M. Levin, S. Cohen, T. Shanin, etc.), in the domestic modern literature on the history of collectivization, it has become fashionable to elevate not only Chayanov's, but also Bukharin's options for solving the problem of modernization of agriculture in the USSR to the rank of supposedly real-life alternatives to Stalin's "revolution from above" in the Soviet countryside.

However, neither the original ideas of Chayanov, nor the more eclectic judgments of Bukharin and his so-called. schools did not get any good chances for implementation in the specific conditions of the country at the end of the 1920s and 1930s. In other words, the Russian village turned out to be, as it were, historically doomed to forced collectivization.

It is precisely this character that collective-farm construction throughout the country acquires in the last two months of 1929 and in the first months of 1930. To a large extent, this was facilitated by the Stalinist article “The Year of the Great Break”, published by Pravda on November 7, 1929. Passing off wishful thinking, it stated that the party “managed to turn the bulk of the peasantry ... to a new, socialist path of development; managed to organize a radical change in the depths of the peasantry itself and lead the broad masses of the poor and middle peasants.

In fact, everything was not so simple. Both throughout the USSR as a whole and within the framework of the RSFSR, a turning point in the minds of the majority of peasants not only did not take place, but was not even clearly marked. Indeed, as of October 1 of this year, the collective farms of the Union and the RSFSR had, respectively, 7.6 and 7.4 of the total number of peasant households. However, the whole tone of Stalin's article oriented the party towards an all-round acceleration of the pace of collectivization and had a direct impact on the course and decisions of the November (1929) Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. It is no coincidence that in the report of the chairman of the Kolkhoztsentr on the results and tasks of collective farm construction, the participants of the Plenum stated that this “movement is gaining such momentum, the influence of collective farms ... on individual farming is growing so much that the transition to the collective rails of the rest of the mass of peasants will be a matter of months, not years” .

Without limiting itself to the fact that the party had systematically fed the collective-farm movement with its cadres before, the Plenum decided to send 25,000 industrial workers with organizational and political work experience to the countryside at a time. This measure was intended to speed up collectivization. Since the collective farm movement began to outgrow the boundaries of districts and regions and caused the emergence of such all-Union or republican organizations as Kolkhoztsentr, Traktortsentr, Zernotrest, etc., it was decided to create an all-Union People's Commissariat of Agriculture, which, as the first task, was entrusted with the management of the construction of a large public economy in the countryside.

Considering the kulak as the main class force interested in disrupting this construction, the Plenum obliged the party and the state to intensify the struggle against the capitalist elements in the countryside, to develop a decisive offensive against the kulak, stopping his attempts to creep into the collective farms in order to destroy the latter. And although his documents did not contain direct instructions on the use of administrative and repressive measures in order to eliminate the kulaks, the experience of the emergency of 1928-1929. and the entire course of the discussion of the issue at the Plenum was leading up to this.

The transition to a policy of complete collectivization under the slogans "You give a frantic pace" logically put forward on the agenda the question of the fate of not individual kulak farms, but the whole of the kulaks as a class. Forcing collectivization meant the inevitable deployment of dispossession as a policy of forcibly depriving the kulaks of the means of production, buildings, etc., in order to eliminate them as the last exploiting layer in the countryside. Both were imposed under powerful pressure from above. In the view of Stalin and his like-minded people, the end here justified the means. The leaders of the country were well aware that otherwise it would be impossible to break the resistance of the middle peasantry to join the collective farm (i.e., solve the immediate task of accelerating the formal socialization of the peasant economy), and, all the more, the agrarian sector of the country in practice (i.e., to carry out the main and perhaps the most difficult task of the long-term policy of the Bolsheviks in the countryside).

And the matter rested not only in the fact that the kulaks resisted collective-farm construction in every possible way. The main thing is that for the majority of rural workers they personified the vital ideal of self-management, property and other prosperity, and thereby essentially nullified the Bolshevik propaganda of the advantages of the collective form of farming. That is why, with the transition to mass collectivization, the fate of the kulak stratum was a foregone conclusion. Realizing this, its most far-sighted representatives, as noted above, were in a hurry to "dispossess themselves" and move to cities, to construction sites.

However, even after the announcement of the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class, the question of how to carry out dispossession and what to do with the dispossessed remained unresolved. The Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of January 5, 1930 “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction”, prepared by a commission chaired by A. Yakovlev and personally edited by Stalin, did not bring proper clarity to it, limiting itself to just confirming the inadmissibility of accepting kulaks to collective farms.

This document set strict deadlines for the completion of collectivization: for the North Caucasus, the Lower and Middle Volga - autumn 1930 or “in any case” - spring 1932. For the rest of the regions it was indicated that “within five years we ... will be able to solve the problem of collectivization of the vast majority peasant farms. This formulation focused on the completion, mainly, of collectivization in 1933, when the first five-year plan ended.

The agricultural artel was recognized as the main form of collective farm construction. When editing the text, Stalin deleted an explanation of the degree of socialization of the means of production in the artel from the draft of this document, as a result of which the grass-roots workers did not receive due clarity on this issue either. At the same time, the agricultural artel was interpreted as a form of farming that was transitional to the commune, which also aimed the local collectivists at strengthening the socialization of the means of production of peasant households and testified to the unwillingness of the party leaders to reckon with the interests of the peasants, to underestimate the strength of the peasant's attachment to his farm.

End of introductory segment.

* * *

The given introductory fragment of the book The political system of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War and the post-war decades. Textbook (D. O. Churakov, 2012) provided by our book partner -

Lecture 11. THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR.

PLAN:

1. USSR on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.

2. About some problems of the Great Patriotic War.

3. Foreign policy of the USSR. Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition.

1. USSR on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War.

In the 30s. 20th century In Europe, a political situation has developed that has led to the possibility of a military conflict. Nazi Germany was building up its military potential and preparing for war. Britain, France and the USSR did not take serious measures to prevent war. On the contrary, the Soviet leadership intensified negotiations with Germany and expressed a desire to establish good relations with her, regardless of ideological differences.

On August 23, 1939, a non-aggression pact was concluded in Moscow, and on September 28, it was supplemented by a treaty of friendship and borders. Both sides signed a secret protocol to the non-aggression pact, which delimited the spheres of interests of Germany and the Soviet Union. Latvia, Estonia, Finland, the eastern part of Poland, Bessarabia and Lithuania fell into the Soviet sphere, for the concession of which the Soviet government was obliged to pay Germany 7.5 million dollars in gold. It was nothing more than a conspiracy between Stalin and Hitler to divide Europe.

By signing the secret protocol, the Soviet government actually ignored the norms of international law and morality, and compromised not only the strategic interests of its country, but also the interests of the peoples of Europe.

September 1, 1939 Germany made a treacherous attack on Poland. The Second World War began. Until the very last moment, the Soviet leadership tried to assure the whole world and its people of the strength of the Soviet-German friendship, of the correctness of the course begun on August 23, 1939. The strategic miscalculations, unscrupulousness and adventurism of the foreign policy of the Stalinist regime cost the Soviet people dearly.

USSR DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

/I941-I945/

On June 22, 1941, fascist Germany, violating the 1939 non-aggression pact, treacherously attacked the USSR. The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people against Nazi Germany began, which was a serious test for our state. The plan for the attack on the USSR was developed by the German General Staff after the defeat of France in May 1940, which Hitler approved on December 18, 1940, called Directive No. 21 or the Barbarossa plan. "The German armed forces, the document says, must be ready to defeat Soviet Russia in the course of a short campaign even before the war against England is over ... I will give the order for the strategic deployment of the armed forces against the Soviet Union, if necessary, eight weeks before the scheduled start date for operations...

Preparations that require a longer time, if they have not yet begun, should begin now and be completed by May 15, 1941. Decisive importance must be attached to ensuring that our intentions to attack are not recognized.

The balance of forces in human and material resources at the initial stage of the war was not in favor of our country. Germany and her allies were overwhelmingly outnumbered.

By the summer of 1941, 5.5 million soldiers and officers were concentrated on the border of the USSR from the Barents to the Black Seas as part of I90 divisions, incl. 153 German, almost 5,000 combat aircraft, over 3,700 tanks, over 47,000 guns and mortars.

The Soviet armed forces in the border military districts were concentrated in 170 divisions, which numbered 2.9 million people. The remaining 1.5 million were located on the eastern and southern borders of the country. In terms of the number of military equipment, armored vehicles and aircraft, the Soviet troops were not inferior to the German ones, but a significant part of the tanks and aircraft were of obsolete designs. What were the reasons for the temporary failures of the Red Army?

The miscalculation of the country's leadership about the timing of a possible attack by fascist Germany on the USSR.

The fallacy of the military doctrine of the political and military leadership, which underestimated the need for defensive tactics.

The military-economic resources of Germany and its satellites were 2.5 times higher than the resources of ours.

Germany had more than 2 years of experience in modern warfare.

The repressive policy of Stalin in relation to the senior and middle command personnel caused enormous damage to the combat capability of the Red Army.

The program for re-equipping the Red Army with the latest types of weapons was not completed in a timely manner.

The Great Patriotic War in its development went through 4 major periods:

1942 – 1943 /; liberation of the USSR and the defeat of Nazi Germany / 1944 -

The losses of the Soviet troops were huge. June to December 1941

The Red Army and the Navy lost in killed, died from

wounds, captured and missing 3 million 138 thousand people; wounded, shell-shocked, ill 1 million 336 thousand people: lost more than 6 million small arms, 20 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns, 100 thousand guns and mortars, 10 thousand aircraft. The territory of the USSR occupied by the Wehrmacht exceeded 1.5 million square kilometers. Before the war, 74.5 million people lived on it.

In the first days of the war, the fascist troops met with serious resistance from the Soviet troops and our people, although the preponderance of forces was on the German side. According to the Chief of the General Staff of Nazi Germany, General Halder, on June 3, 1941. "Losses from June 22 to June 30 of the German army amounted to a total of

41,067 people - 1.64% of the available staff / with the number of troops equal to 2.5 million people /. Killed 524 officers, 8,362 non-commissioned officers and privates. 966 officers and 28,528 non-commissioned officers and privates were wounded. Of course, these are not such significant losses, but every day, month and year they are becoming colossal.

The turning point in the course of the war is the battle for Moscow, which lasted a total of about 7 months / September 30, 1941 - April 20, 1942 / and became the largest battle in World War II. On both sides, more than 3 million people, up to 3 thousand tanks, more than 2 thousand aircraft, over 22 thousand guns and mortars took part in it. The balance of power was in favor of the enemy. The Wehrmacht by the beginning of the Soviet counter-offensive /December 5, 1941/ had superiority in manpower by 1.5 times, in artillery - by 1.4 times and in tanks - by 1.6 times. In aviation, the Red Army was 1.6 times superior to the enemy.

During the counter-offensive near Moscow, Army Group Center was dealt a crushing blow. 38 Nazi divisions suffered a major defeat. By the end of March 1942, only 140 combat-ready vehicles remained in 16 tank divisions at the front. The loss of personnel in the Moscow direction, according to the enemy, amounted to 772 thousand people.

US President F. Roosevelt highly appreciated the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops, speaking on the radio on April 27, 1942: “The United States pays tribute to the crushing counteroffensive of the great Russian armies against the mighty German army. Russian troops destroyed more of the armed forces of our enemies - soldiers, aircraft, tanks and guns than all the rest of the United Nations put together."

The significance of the Moscow victory over the fascist hordes was that:

She marked the beginning of a radical turn in the course of the Great Patriotic War.

Hitler's plan for a blitzkrieg against Germany was thwarted.

THE USSR. The war is becoming protracted, which was unfavorable for the German side;

As a result of the victory near Moscow, an attempt was prevented

Japan invaded the limits of the Soviet Far East and the USSR did not find itself in a war on two fronts;

This victory contributed to the development of a mass partisan movement in the country and the resistance movement in Western Europe;

Our allies - Britain and the USA - were forced to conduct concrete negotiations on the consolidation of the forces of the anti-Hitler coalition in the fight against a common enemy, etc.

The second largest battle of the Great Patriotic War is the Battle of Stalingrad / July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943 /. More than 2 million people participated in this battle on both sides, which lasted 200 days and nights. By this time, the maximum enemy forces in the entire war were concentrated on the Soviet-German front. 266 divisions / over 6.2 million people /, about 52 thousand guns and mortars, over 5 thousand tanks and assault guns, 3.5 thousand combat aircraft.

The heroic defense of Stalingrad and the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops led to the defeat of the 6th German Army, led by Field Marshal F. Paulus, on February 2, 1943. he surrendered with the remnants of the 6th Army numbering 91 thousand people.

The victory at Stalingrad marked the beginning of a radical change

during the Great Patriotic War. The military-strategic initiative passed into the hands of the Red Army.

Completes a radical change in the Great Patriotic War

battle near Kursk / July - August 1943 /. To conduct a military operation called "Citadel", the Germans concentrated large forces: 50 divisions, including 16 tank divisions. As part of percussion

enemy groupings were over 900 thousand people. In the historic battle of Kursk, the Germans lost 30 selected divisions, including 7 tank divisions, over 500 thousand soldiers and officers, 1.5 thousand tanks, more than 3.7 thousand aircraft, 3 thousand guns. Since that time, the expulsion of the Nazi troops from the territory of the USSR actually begins. There were still major military battles near Leningrad, in the Ukraine, in Belarus, but the fate of the military campaign was already a foregone conclusion in favor of the Soviet people. The strikes of the Red Army in the winter-spring campaign of 1944 forced the German command to transfer 40 new divisions to the east, where by the time the allies landed in Normandy / June 6, 1944 / there were approximately 2/3 of the most combat-ready divisions of the Wehrmacht. June 23, 1944. The Soviet military leadership successfully carried out one of the largest military operations of the Second World War, Belorussian. More than 4 million people, about 62,000 guns and mortars, more than 7,500 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, and more than 7,100 aircraft took part in the battle on both sides.

By the end of August 1944, Soviet troops completely defeated the Army Group Center. The Red Army liberated Belarus, part of Lithuania and Latvia, entered the territory of Poland and approached the borders of East Prussia, crossing the Narew and Vistula rivers.

By mid-April 1945, the main forces of the fascist army were defeated on the Soviet-German front, almost all of Poland, Hungary, the eastern part of Czechoslovakia and Austria were liberated. The last decisive battle for Berlin was coming. The Fascist Reich was in complete international isolation. The Berlin operation was the first in which the planning took into account not only the forces, grouping and possible actions of the enemy, but also the actions of the allied Anglo-American troops. The allied troops had the task of preempting the Soviet army in capturing Berlin and were turning from an ally into a competitor, a rival. For the first time in the entire war, an entire front was fighting in one huge city, which could not but cause huge casualties on both sides. Berlin was taken in 9 days and on April 30, 1945. The Banner of Victory was hoisted over the Reichstag

Strengthening the country's defense capability on the eve of the war
The Second World War, which began on September 1, 1939, forced the Soviet government to pay serious attention to strengthening the country's defense capability. The Soviet Union had every opportunity to solve this problem. Bolshevik modernization, carried out under the leadership of I.V. Stalin, turned the USSR into a powerful industrial power. By the end of the 30s. The Soviet Union came second in the world and first in Europe in terms of total industrial production. As a result of the industrial market, in a short historical period (13 years), such modern sectors of the economy as aviation, automotive, chemical, electrical, tractor building, etc. were created in the country, which became the basis of the military-industrial complex.

Strengthening the defense capability was carried out in two directions. The first is the build-up of the military-industrial complex. From 1939 to June 1941, the share of military spending in the Soviet budget increased from 26% to 43%. The output of military products at that time was more than three times ahead of the general rate of industrial growth. In the east of the country, defense plants and backup enterprises were built at an accelerated pace. By the summer of 1941, almost 20% of all military factories were already located there. The production of new types of military equipment was mastered, some samples of which (T-34 tanks, BM-13 rocket launchers, Il-2 attack aircraft, etc.) were qualitatively superior to all foreign analogues. In June 1941, the army had 1225 T-34 tanks (design bureau M.I. Koshkin) and 638 heavy tanks KV (design bureau Zh.Ya. Kotin). However, it took at least 2 years to completely re-equip the tank fleet.

On the eve of the war, Soviet aviation was also in the stage of rearmament. By this time, most of the aircraft that brought world fame to the country and set 62 world records had already lost their superiority over foreign technology. It was necessary to update the aircraft fleet, to create a new generation of combat vehicles. Stalin constantly followed the development of aviation, met with pilots and designers.

The slightest changes in the design of mass-produced machines were made only with the permission of Stalin and were formalized by resolutions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Since the beginning of 1941, the aviation industry has completely switched to the production of only new aircraft. By the beginning of the war, the army received 2.7 thousand of the latest aircraft: Il-2 attack aircraft (Design Bureau S.V. Ilyushin), Pe-2 bombers (Design Bureau V.M. Petlyakov), LaGG-3 and Yak-1 fighters (Design Bureau S A. Lavochkin, A. I. Mikoyan and A. S. Yakovlev Design Bureau). However, new types of aircraft accounted for only 17.3% of the aircraft fleet of the USSR Air Force. Only 10% of combatant pilots managed to master the new machines. Thus, the process of re-equipping the Air Force was in full swing and it took at least 1.5 years to complete it.

The second direction of strengthening the country's defense capability was the reorganization of the Red Army, increasing its combat capability. The army switched from a mixed to a territorial-personnel system of organizations, which was introduced in the 1920s in order to save money. in the personnel system. On September 1, 1939, a law on universal conscription was introduced. The number of armed forces from August 1939 to June 1941 increased from 2 to 5.4 million people. The growing army needed a large number of qualified military specialists. At the beginning of 1937, there were 206,000 officers in the army. Over 90% of the command, military medical and military technical staff had higher education. Among political workers and business executives, from 43 to 50 percent received military or special education. At that time it was a good level.

Tens of thousands of officers received new assignments every year. Personnel leapfrog had a negative impact on the level of discipline and combat training of the troops. A huge shortage of commanders formed, which increased from year to year. In 1941, the ground forces alone lacked 66,900 commanders at their headquarters, and in the Air Force, the shortage of flight personnel reached 32.3%.

The Soviet-Finnish War (November 30, 1939 – March 12, 1940) exposed shortcomings in the Red Army's tactical training. Stalin removes Voroshilov from the post of People's Commissar for Defense. Analyzing the results of the war, the new People's Commissar of Defense S. Timoshenko, in particular, noted that “our commanders and staffs, having no practical experience, did not know how to really organize the efforts of the military branches and close interaction, and most importantly, they did not know how to really command ".

The results of the Finnish war forced Stalin to take a whole range of measures aimed at strengthening the command staff of the Red Army. So, on May 7, 1940, new military ranks were introduced in the Soviet Union, and a month later over 1,000 people became generals and admirals. Stalin made a bet on younger military leaders. People's Commissar of Defense Tymoshenko was 45 years old, and Chief of the General Staff K.A. Meretskov - 43. The Navy was headed by 34-year-old Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, and the air force - 29-year-old General P.V. Levers. The average age of regimental commanders at that time was 29-33 years old, divisional commanders 35-37 years old, and corps and army commanders 40-43 years old. The new nominees were inferior to their predecessors in terms of education and experience. Despite their great energy and desire, they did not have time to master their duties of leading troops in difficult conditions.

L. Trotsky, being in exile and waging an active struggle against Stalin, repeatedly publicly stated: “In the Red Army, not everyone is devoted to Stalin. They still remember me there." Realizing this, Stalin began a thorough cleaning of his main support - the army and the NKVD - from all "unreliable elements." Faithful ally of Stalin V.M. Molotov told the poet F. Chuev: “1937 was necessary. Considering that after the revolution we cut right and left, we won, but the remnants of enemies from different directions existed and in the face of the imminent danger of fascist aggression, they could unite. We owe to 1937 that we did not have a "fifth column" during the war.

On the very eve of the Great Patriotic War, as a result of the implementation of the non-aggression pact with Germany, the Soviet Union pushed its borders to the west by 400-500 km. The USSR included Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, as well as Bessarabia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The population of the Soviet Union increased by 23 million people. As Tippelskirch noted, many leading German generals regarded this as Hitler's blunder. In the spring of 1941, the General Staff of the Red Army, together with the headquarters of the districts and fleets, developed the "Plan for the Defense of the State Border of 1941", according to which the troops of the border districts were supposed to prevent the enemy from invading the territory of the USSR, firmly cover the mobilization, concentration and deployment with stubborn defense in fortified areas the main forces of the Red Army; active air operations to delay the concentration and disrupt the deployment of enemy troops, thereby creating the conditions for a decisive offensive. Covering the western border of the USSR with a length of 4.5 thousand km was assigned to the troops of 5 military districts. It was planned to include about 60 divisions in the first echelons of the covering armies, which, as the first strategic echelon, were supposed to cover the mobilization and entry into battle of the troops of the second strategic echelon. Despite the TASS statement of June 14, 1941, which refuted rumors of an impending war, starting from April 1941, urgent measures were taken to increase the combat readiness of the army. A number of these measures were built taking into account the proposals of the General Staff of May 15, 1941, according to which it was planned to defeat the main forces of the Nazi troops concentrated to attack the USSR (some historians, without sufficient grounds, believe that this document was "practical preparation on the instructions of Stalin preemptive strike against Germany).

In April-May, 800 thousand reservists were called up (under the guise of training camps) to replenish the troops of the western districts. In mid-May, a covert redeployment of 7 armies (66 divisions) of second-echelon troops from the inner districts to the western ones began, bringing them to full combat readiness. On June 12, 63 divisions of the reserves of the western districts moved secretly, by night marches, into the composition of the covering armies to the border. On June 16, from the places of permanent deployment of the second echelon of the covering armies, the transfer (under the guise of exercises) to the places of concentration of 52 divisions began to be carried out. Although the Soviet troops were pulled up to the border, their strategic deployment was carried out without bringing the covering troops to repulse the aggressor's preemptive strike. The mistake of the military-political leadership at the moment consisted in an inadequate assessment of the state of the Armed Forces: the Red Army was not capable of launching a counterattack and did not have real capabilities for defense. The plan for covering the border, developed by the General Staff in May 1941, did not provide for the equipping of defensive lines by troops of the second and third operational echelons.

Preparing for a war against the USSR, the German leadership tried to hide its intentions. It saw the suddenness of the attack as one of the decisive factors in the success of the war, and from the very beginning of the development of its plans and preparations, it did everything possible to disorient the Soviet government and command. The leadership of the Wehrmacht sought to hide from the personnel of its troops for as long as possible all the data on Operation Barbarossa. In accordance with the instructions of the OKW headquarters of May 8, 1941, the commanders of formations and units had to inform the officers about the upcoming war against the USSR about 8 days before the start of the operation, the privates and non-commissioned officers - only in the very last days. The instruction required to create among the German troops and the population the impression that the landing on the British Isles was the main task of the summer campaign of the Wehrmacht in 1941, and the activities in the East "are of a defensive nature and are aimed at preventing the threat from the Russians." From the autumn of 1940 to June 22, 1941, the Germans managed to carry out a whole range of measures aimed at large-scale disinformation against England and the USSR. Hitler managed to drive a wedge of mistrust between Stalin and Churchill. The warnings of Soviet intelligence officers were contradictory and the country's leadership justifiably refused to listen to them. In addition, there was a belief that Hitler would not risk a war on two fronts, and England and the United States were provoking a premature clash between Germany and the USSR. According to Stalin's calculations, Germany could defeat England only not earlier than the spring of 1942.

However, the iron logic of Stalin did not take into account the adventurous spirit of Hitler. The well-known West German historian of the Second World War G.-A. Jacobsen writes that for Hitler the following considerations had much more weight in deciding to attack the USSR. “If the Soviet Union - England's last continental sword - is defeated, there is hardly any hope left for Great Britain for future resistance. She would have to stop fighting, especially if she could get Japan to act against England and East Asia before the US entered the war. If, in spite of all this, she continues to fight, Hitler decided, by capturing European Russia, to carry out the conquest of new huge economically important areas, using the reservoir of which, if necessary, he can withstand a longer war. Thus, his great dream was finally realized: Germany acquired in the East the living space that she claimed for her population. At the same time, no state in Europe could no longer challenge Germany's dominant position ... Not the least role was played by the fact that the "final clash" of both systems - National Socialism and Bolshevism - one day would still become inevitable; the moment seemed to Hitler the most favorable for this, for Germany had a strong, battle-tested armed force and, in addition, was a country highly equipped for war.

At a meeting at the Berghof on July 31, 1940, Hitler stated the following: “If Russia is defeated, England's last hope will fade. Germany will then become the ruler of Europe and the Balkans... In the course of this clash with Russia, it must be finished. In the spring of 1941... The sooner Russia is defeated, the better. The operation makes sense only if we defeat this state with one blow. Another major historian, the Englishman A. Taylor, notes that “the invasion of Russia can be presented (it will be presented by Hitler as such) as a logical consequence of the doctrines that he proclaimed for about 20 years. He began his political career as an anti-Bolshevik, set himself the task of destroying Soviet communism ... He saved Germany from communism, as he himself claimed; now he will save the world. "Lebensraum" (living space) was Hitler's doctrine, which he borrowed from geopolitics in Munich shortly after the First World War. Germany must have living space if she wants to become a world power, and it can only be mastered by conquering Russia.

Traditionally, in the history of the Great Patriotic War, there are three main stages:
. the initial period of the war - from June 22, 1941 to November 19, 1942,
. the period of a radical turning point in the course of the war - from November 19, 1942 to the end of 1943,
. the period of the victorious end of the war - from the beginning of 1944 to May 9, 1945

On the night of June 22, 1941, the German invasion of the USSR began without a declaration of war. Hitler's allies were Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, who also sent their troops. Actual support for Germany was provided by Bulgaria, Turkey, Japan, formally remaining neutral. The factor of surprise played a decisive role in many respects in the temporary failures of the Red Army. In the very first hours and days, the Soviet troops suffered huge losses. On June 22, 1,200 aircraft were destroyed (800 of them at airfields). By July 11, about 600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers were captured. Within a month, German troops advanced 350-500 km, reaching the old border. Another important factor in the failure of the Red Army was the lack of experience in modern warfare. German troops, who captured almost all of Europe, tested the latest schemes of battle tactics. In addition, as a result of the robbery of the occupied countries, the Nazis got various materials and property worth 9 billion pounds, which was twice the pre-war national income of Germany. At the disposal of the Nazis were weapons, ammunition, equipment, vehicles captured from 12 British, 22 Belgian, 18 Dutch, 6 Norwegian, 92 French and 30 Czechoslovak divisions, as well as weapons accumulated in the occupied countries, and the current production of their defense enterprises. As a result, the German military-industrial potential by June 1941 was 2.5 times higher than the Soviet one. It should also be taken into account that the main blow of the German troops was expected in a southwestern direction, towards Kyiv. In fact, the main blow of the German troops was inflicted by the Army Group "Center" in a westerly direction towards Moscow.

According to the Barbarossa plan, it was supposed to destroy the main forces of the Red Army in 10 weeks. The result of the plan was to expand the eastern border of the Reich to the line Arkhangelsk - Astrakhan. On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created to lead the country's defense, headed by I.V. Stalin. On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces was formed (from July 10 - the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command). It included A.N. Antonov, N.A. Bulganin, A.M. Vasilevsky (Chief of the General Staff since June 1942), N.G. Kuznetsov (Commissar of the Navy), V.M. Molotov, S.K. Timoshenko, B.M. Shaposhnikov (Chief of the General Staff in July 1941 - May 1942). On July 19, Stalin became People's Commissar for Defense, and on August 8, 1941 - Supreme Commander. As early as May 6, 1941, Stalin became chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Thus, in the hands of Stalin, formally, all party, state and military power was now united. Other emergency bodies were also created: the Evacuation Council, the Committee for the Accounting and Distribution of Labor, etc.

The outbreak of the war was an unusual war. A war began, in which it was not only about maintaining the social order or even statehood, but about the physical existence of the peoples inhabiting the USSR. Hitler emphasized that "we must wipe this country off the face of the earth and destroy its people."

According to the Ost plan, after the victory, the dismemberment of the USSR, the forced deportation of 50 million people beyond the Urals, genocide, the destruction of leading cultural centers, and the transformation of the European part of the country into a living space for German colonists were envisaged. “The Slavs must,” wrote Nazi Party Secretary M. Bormann, “work for us. If we don't need them, they may die. The health care system is not needed. Births among the Slavs are undesirable. They must use contraception and practice abortion, and the more the better. Education is dangerous. As for food, they should not receive more than necessary. During the war years, 5 million people were driven to Germany, of which 750 thousand died as a result of ill-treatment.

The inhuman plans of the Nazis, their brutal methods of warfare intensified the desire of the Soviet people to save the Motherland and themselves from complete extermination and enslavement. The war acquired a national liberation character and rightly went down in history as the Great Patriotic War. Already in the first days of the war, units of the Red Army showed courage and steadfastness. From June 22 to July 20, 1941, the garrison of the Brest Fortress fought. Heroic defense of Liepaja (June 23-29, 1941), Kyiv (July 7 - September 24, 1941), Odessa (August 5 - October 16, 1941), Tallinn (August 5-28, 1941), Moonsund Islands (September 6 - October 22, 1941), Sevastopol (October 30, 1941 - July 4, 1942), as well as the Battle of Smolensk (July 10 - September 10, 1941) made it possible to disrupt the "blitzkrieg" plan - a lightning war . Nevertheless, in 4 months the Germans reached Moscow and Leningrad, captured 1.5 million square kilometers with a population of 74.5 million people. By December 1, 1941, the USSR lost more than 3 million people killed, missing and captured.

The GKO in the summer and autumn of 1941 took a number of emergency measures. The mobilization was successfully carried out. Over 20 million people applied for enrollment in the Red Army as volunteers. At the critical moment of the struggle - in August - October 1941 - a huge role in the defense of Moscow and Leningrad and other cities was played by the people's militia, numbering about 2 million people. In the vanguard of the fighting people was the Communist Party; by the end of the war, up to 80% of the members of the CPSU (b) were in the army. During the war, almost 3.5 million were accepted into the party. In the battles for the freedom of the motherland, 3 million communists died, which amounted to 3/5 of the pre-war membership of the party. Nevertheless, the size of the party grew from 3.8 to 5.9 million. The lower levels of the party played a big role in the first period of the war, when, by decision of the GKO, city defense committees were established in more than 60 cities, headed by the first secretaries of the regional committees and city committees of the CPSU (b). In 1941, an armed struggle began behind enemy lines. On July 18, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the organization of the struggle in the rear of the German troops”, which obliged the party committees to deploy underground party and Komsomol committees behind enemy lines, organize and lead the partisan movement.

On September 30, 1941, the battle for Moscow began. In accordance with the Typhoon plan, German troops surrounded five Soviet armies in the Vyazma region. But the encircled troops fought courageously, pinning down the significant forces of Army Group Center, and by the end of October helped stop the enemy at the Mozhaisk line. From mid-November, the Germans launched a new offensive against Moscow. However, by the beginning of December, the forces of the German group were completely exhausted. On December 5-6, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive. By mid-January 1942, the enemy was pushed back 120-400 km. This victory of the Red Army was of great military and political significance. It was the first major German defeat since the start of World War II. The myth of the invincibility of the Nazi army was dispelled. The lightning war plan was finally thwarted. The victory near Moscow significantly strengthened the international prestige of our country and contributed to the completion of the creation of the anti-Hitler coalition.

Under the cover of the Red Army retreating in bloody battles, the most difficult work to mobilize the national economy was unfolding in the country. New people's commissariats were created for the operational management of key industries. Under the leadership of the Evacuation Council (Chairman N.M. Shvernik, Deputy N.A. Kosygin), an unprecedented transfer of industrial and other facilities to the East of the country took place. 10 million people, 1523 large enterprises, huge material and cultural values ​​were taken there in a short time. Thanks to the measures taken, by December 1941 the decline in military production was stopped, and from March 1942 its growth began. State ownership of the means of production and the strictly centralized system of economic management based on it allowed the USSR to quickly concentrate all resources on military production. Therefore, yielding to the aggressors in terms of the size of the industrial base, the USSR was soon far ahead of them in the production of military equipment. Thus, based on one metal-cutting machine in the USSR, 8 times more aircraft were produced, for each smelted ton of steel - 5 times more tanks.

A radical change in the work of the Soviet rear predetermined a radical change in combat operations. From November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943, the Soviet troops of three fronts: Stalingrad (commander A.I. Eremenko), Don (K.K. Rokossovsky) and South-Western (N.F. Vatutin) - surrounded and destroyed Nazi troops near Stalingrad. The Stalingrad victory became a radical turning point in the course of the war. She showed the whole world the strength of the Red Army, the increased skill of Soviet military leaders, the strength of the rear, which provided the front with a sufficient amount of weapons, military equipment and equipment. The international prestige of the Soviet Union grew immeasurably, and the positions of fascist Germany were seriously shaken. From July 5 to August 23, 1943, the Battle of Kursk took place, which completed a radical change. From the moment of the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops held the strategic initiative until the end of the war. During the period from November 1942 to December 1943, 50% of the occupied territory was liberated. G.K. Zhukova, A.M. Vasilevsky, K.K. Rokossovsky.

The partisan movement provided significant assistance to the Red Army. In May 1942, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created, and the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks P. Ponomarenko was appointed chairman. In Moscow in 1942, a meeting of the commanders of the largest partisan formations was held (S.A. Kovpak, M.A. Naumov, A.N. Saburov, A.F. Fedorov and others). The partisan struggle gained its greatest scope in the North-West, in Belarus, a number of regions of Ukraine, and in the Bryansk region. At the same time, numerous underground organizations were engaged in reconnaissance, sabotage, and information of the population about the situation on the fronts.

At the final stage of the war, the Red Army had to complete the liberation of the territory of the USSR and liberate the countries of Europe. In January - February 1944, the Leningrad-Novgorod operation was carried out. On January 27, the blockade of the heroic Leningrad was liquidated, which lasted 900 days. In April - May, Odessa and Crimea were liberated. In the context of the opening of the second front (June 6, 1944), Soviet troops launched strikes in different directions. From June 10 to August 9, the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation took place, as a result of which Finland withdrew from the war. From June 23 to August 29, the largest summer offensive operation of the Soviet troops in the war took place - Operation Bagration to liberate Belarus, during which Belarus was liberated, and Soviet troops entered Poland. The Iasi-Kishinev operation on August 20-29 led to the defeat of German troops in Romania. In the autumn of 1944, Soviet troops liberated Bulgaria and Yugoslavia from the Nazis.

At the beginning of 1945, ahead of schedule, at the request of the Allies, who experienced difficulties due to the German offensive in the Ardennes, Soviet troops launched the Vistula-Oder operation (January 12 - February 3, 1945), as a result of which Poland was liberated . In February - March 1945, Hungary was liberated, and in April, Soviet troops entered Vienna, the capital of Austria. On April 16, the Berlin operation began. The troops of three fronts: the 1st and 2nd Belarusian and 1st Ukrainian (commanders - Marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev) - within two weeks defeated the 1 millionth enemy group and on May 2 captured the capital of Nazi Germany. On the night of May 8-9, the surrender of Germany was signed. From May 6 to May 11, 1945, Soviet troops carried out the Prague operation, coming to the aid of the insurgent Prague and defeating German troops in Czechoslovakia.

The Soviet Union made a huge contribution to the victory over Japan. Within three weeks, from August 9 to September 2, the Soviet Army defeated the most combat-ready and powerful Kwantung Army of 1 million, liberating Manchuria, as well as South Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and North Korea. September 2, 1945 Japan capitulated. The Second World War ended with the victory of the peace-loving, democratic, anti-militarist forces over the forces of reaction and militarism. The decisive contribution to the defeat of fascism was made by the Soviet people. Heroism and self-sacrifice became a mass phenomenon. The exploits of I. Ivanov, N. Gastello, A. Matrosov, A. Maresyev were repeated by many Soviet soldiers. During the war, the advantage of the Soviet military doctrine was revealed. Such generals as G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky, I.S. Konev, A.M. Vasilevsky, R.Ya. Malinovsky, N.F. Vatutin, K.A. Meretskov, F.I. Tolbukhin, L.A. Govorov, I.D. Chernyakhovsky, I.Kh. Bagramyan.

The unity of the peoples of the USSR has stood the test. It is significant that representatives of 100 nations and nationalities of the country became Heroes of the Soviet Union. The patriotic spirit of the Russian people played a particularly important role in the victory in the war. In his famous speech on May 24, 1945: “I raise a toast to the health of the Russian people first of all,” Stalin acknowledged the special contribution of the Russian people. Created in the late 30s. the administrative-command system made it possible to concentrate human and material resources in the most important directions for defeating the enemy.

The historical significance of the victory of the USSR in the war lies in the fact that the totalitarian, terrorist model of capitalism, which threatened world civilization, was defeated. The possibility of a democratic renewal of the world and the liberation of the colonies opened up. The Soviet Union emerged from the war as a great power.

Causes, nature, main stages of the Great Patriotic War
September 1, 1939 Germany attacked Poland. Thus began the Second World War. England and France, bound with Poland by a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance, declared war on Germany. During September, Poland was defeated. What the Anglo-French guarantees cost Poland was shown by the first month of the bloody war. Instead of 40 divisions, which the French headquarters promised the Polish command to throw against Germany on the third day of the war, only on September 9, individual units of 9 divisions carried out an unsuccessful operation in the Saar. Meanwhile, according to Jodl, Chief of the Wehrmacht General Staff, the Allies had 110 divisions on the Western Front against 22 German ones, as well as an overwhelming advantage in aviation. However, England and France, having the opportunity to conduct a major battle against the Germans, did not do this. On the contrary, Allied planes dropped leaflets over the trenches of the German troops with calls to turn their weapons against the Soviets. The so-called "strange war" began, when there was practically no fighting on the Western Front until April 1940.

On September 17, 1939, when German troops reached Warsaw and crossed the line specified in the secret protocol, by decision of the Soviet government, the Red Army troops were ordered to "cross the border and take under their protection the life and property of the population of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus." The reunification of the peoples of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus with Russia into a single statehood was the end of their centuries-old struggle to restore historical justice, since the entire territory from Grodno, Brest, Lvov and the Carpathians is primordially Russian lands. For the majority of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the arrival of the Red Army in 1939 meant a truly historic deliverance from cruel national, social and spiritual oppression.

On September 28, 1939, an agreement "On Friendship and Borders" was signed between Germany and the USSR. According to the treaty, the western border of the USSR now ran along the so-called Curzon Line, recognized at one time by England, France, the USA and Poland. One of the secret protocols of the treaty stipulated that a small part of southwestern Lithuania would remain with Germany. Later, according to a secret protocol dated January 10, 1941, this territory was acquired by the USSR for 31.5 million Reichsmarks (7.5 million dollars). At the same time, the USSR managed to solve a number of important foreign policy tasks.

In the autumn of 1939, the USSR concluded treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Baltic states. On their basis, garrisons of Soviet troops were placed on the territory of these states. The purpose of this Soviet foreign policy action was to ensure the security of the Baltic states, as well as to prevent attempts to draw them into the war. Under an agreement dated October 10, 1939, the USSR transferred to Lithuania the city of Vilna and the Vilna region, which belonged to Belarus.

In the conditions of the aggravated military-political situation in Europe, the urgent task for the USSR was to ensure the security of the northwestern approaches to Leningrad, the country's largest industrial center. Finland, which occupied pro-German positions, refused Soviet proposals to lease the port of Hanko to the USSR for 30 years to set up a military base, transfer part of the Karelian Isthmus, part of the Rybachy Peninsula and several islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland - a total of 2761 km2 in exchange for 5529 km2 of the Soviet territories in East Karelia. In response to Finland's refusal, the USSR declared war on November 30, 1939, which lasted until March 12, 1940. Britain, France, the USA, Sweden, Norway, and Italy provided military assistance to Finland. On December 14, 1939, the Council of the League of Nations adopted a resolution excluding the USSR from its ranks. Under the peace treaty of March 12, 1940, Finland agreed to move its border with the USSR. The USSR undertook to withdraw its troops from the Petsamo region, which Finland voluntarily ceded to them under the 1920 treaty. The new border was extremely beneficial for the USSR not only from a political (security of Leningrad) point of view, but also from an economic point of view: 8 large pulp and paper enterprises ended up on Soviet territory , HPP Rauhala, railway along Ladoga.

The provision of a German loan to the USSR in the amount of 200 million marks (at 4.5% per annum) allowed the USSR to strengthen the country's defense capability, because what was supplied was either just weapons (ship weapons, samples of heavy artillery, tanks, aircraft, as well as important licenses ), or what weapons are made on (lathes, large hydraulic presses, etc., machinery, installations for producing liquid fuel from coal, equipment for other types of industry, etc.).

By April 1940, the so-called "strange war" was over. The German army, having accumulated significant human and military-technical forces, switched to an all-out offensive in Western Europe. On April 5, Germany invaded Denmark; a few hours later, the Danish government capitulated. On April 9, they captured Oslo, but Norway resisted for about 2 months. By May 10, 1940, Germany had already captured Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. France was next. As a result of Operation Gelb, France was defeated, resisted for only 44 days. On June 22, the Petain government signed a surrender, according to which most of the territory of France was occupied.

The quick victory of Germany over France significantly changed the balance of power in Europe, which required the Soviet leadership to adjust its foreign policy. Calculations for the mutual attrition of opponents on the Western Front did not materialize. In connection with the expansion of German influence in Europe, there was a real danger of blocking certain circles of the Baltic countries with Germany. In June 1940, the USSR accused Lithuania of anti-Soviet actions, demanding a change of government and agreeing to the deployment of additional military units in Lithuania. On June 14 such consent was received from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The measures taken by Moscow decisively influenced the further course of events in this regard: the People's Seimas of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia (State Duma) on July 21-24, 1940 adopted a declaration on the proclamation of Soviet power in their countries, entry into the USSR. In August 1940, the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by its decision, accepted Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia into the USSR.

In the summer of 1920, at the request of the USSR, Romania transferred Bessarabia to it, which was annexed to Moldova by the ASSRS (1929 - 1940 Tiraspol). Thus, the USSR found itself in close proximity to the oil regions of Romania, the exploitation of which served the Reich as "an indispensable prerequisite for the successful conduct of the war." Hitler retaliated by making an agreement with the Fascist government of General Antonescu to transfer German troops to Romania. The tension between the USSR and Germany escalated even more with the signing on September 27, 1940 in Berlin of a pact between Germany, Italy and Japan on the actual division of the world. The trip of V.M. Molotov to Berlin on November 12-13, 1940 and his negotiations with Hitler and Ribbentrop did not lead to an improvement in the situation. An important achievement of the foreign policy of the USSR was the conclusion of the Neutrality Treaty with Turkey (March 1941) and Japan (April 1941).

At the same time, until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, economic and trade relations were intensively developing between the two countries. According to Goebbels, Hitler assessed these agreements as a specifically Stalinist policy, calculated on the economic dependence of the Reich on the supply of industrial raw materials, which Germany could be deprived of at the right time. These are agricultural goods, oil products, manganese and chromium ores, rare metals, etc. The USSR received from German firms industrial products and armaments worth 462.3 million marks. These are machine tools, high-strength steel, technical equipment, military equipment. At the same time, extremely scarce raw materials were flowing into Germany from the United States or through branches of American corporations in third countries. Moreover, deliveries of American oil and petroleum products were carried out until 1944. 249 US monopolies traded with Germany throughout the war.

The foreign policy of the USSR during the Second World War
The foreign policy of the Soviet Union was one of the factors of victory in the Great Patriotic War. Its main task was to create the best conditions in the international arena for defeating the enemy. The main goal also identified specific tasks:

1. Strive for the "bourgeois" states that were at war with Germany and Italy to become allies of the USSR.

2. To prevent the threat of an attack by Japan and drawing neutral states into the war on the side of the fascist aggressors.

3. To promote the liberation from the fascist yoke, the restoration of sovereignty, the democratic development of the countries occupied by the aggressors.

4. Strive for the complete elimination of fascist regimes and the conclusion of a peace that excludes the possibility of a repetition of aggression.

The threat of enslavement imperiously demanded the unification of the efforts of all countries that fought against fascism. This determined the emergence of an anti-Hitler coalition of three great powers - the USSR, the USA and England. About 50 countries joined them during the course of the war, including some of Germany's former allies. The international legal registration of the coalition took place in several stages. The steps of its creation were the signing in Moscow on July 12, 1941 of the “Agreement between the governments of the USSR and Great Britain on joint actions in the war against Germany”, the conclusion of similar agreements between the USSR and the emigrant governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland, the exchange of notes on August 2 between the USSR and the USA on the extension of year of the Soviet-American trade agreement and economic assistance from the United States to the Soviet Union.

An important stage in the formation and strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition was the Moscow Conference of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the three powers (September 29 - October 1, 1941), at which the United States and Britain pledged from October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942 to supply us with 400 aircraft, 500 tanks, 200 anti-tank rifles, etc. The USSR was granted an interest-free loan in the amount of 1 billion dollars. However, lend-lease deliveries were carried out during this period slowly and in small quantities. To strengthen the alliance with Britain and the USA, on September 24, the USSR joined the "Atlantic Charter", signed on August 14, 1941 at a meeting between W. Churchill and F. Roosevelt. For the USSR, this was not an easy decision. In this document, the United States and Britain declared that they did not seek territorial acquisitions in this war and would respect the right of peoples to choose their own form of government. The legitimacy of the borders that existed before the outbreak of World War II was emphasized. The Allies did not consider the USSR as a real force on the world stage, and therefore there was not a word about it or the Soviet-German front in the text of the document. In essence, their charter was of a separate nature, expressing the claims of the two powers to maintain world domination. The USSR expressed in a special declaration its agreement with the basic principles of the charter, emphasizing that their practical implementation should be consistent with the circumstances ...

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, located in the Hawaiian Islands, without declaring war. On December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. England did the same. On December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The World War II zone expanded significantly. On January 1, 1942, in Washington, 26 states of the anti-fascist coalition, including the USSR, the USA, Britain and China, signed a declaration under which they pledged to use all their military and economic resources to fight against the fascist bloc. These countries became known as the "United Nations".

On May 26, 1942, an agreement was signed between England and the USSR on an alliance in war and post-war cooperation. In June 1942, the US and the USSR signed an agreement "On the principles applicable to mutual assistance and the conduct of war against aggression." However, our allies were in no hurry to open a second front. During the London talks in May 1942, Churchill handed Molotov a note to Stalin stating: "We do not bind ourselves to act and cannot make any promise." Churchill motivated his refusal by the lack of sufficient funds and forces. But in reality, political considerations played a major role. The British Minister of Aviation Industry M. Brabazon bluntly stated that "the best outcome of the struggle on the Eastern Front would be the mutual exhaustion of Germany and the USSR, as a result of which England could take a dominant position in Europe." The infamous statement of the future US President G. Truman echoed this thesis: “If we see that Germany is winning, then we should help Russia, and if Russia wins, we should help Germany, and thus let them kill like as much as possible." Thus, the calculations for the future leadership in the world of maritime powers were already based on the fight against fascism in World War II.

On June 12, 1942, Anglo-Soviet and Soviet-American communiqués were published stating that "complete agreement was reached on the urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942." However, not only 1942, but also 1943 passed, and the second front in Western Europe was never opened. In the meantime, Allied forces launched major amphibious operations in North Africa and later in Sicily and Italy. Churchill even proposed replacing the second front with a strike "in the soft underbelly of Europe" - a landing in the Balkans in order to bring Anglo-American troops into the countries of South-Eastern Europe before the Red Army, advancing from the east, approached, and thereby establish the dominance of the maritime powers in this region, which played an important geopolitical significance.

The victories of the Red Army near Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk were of great international significance. They demonstrated to the whole world the increased power of the Soviet state. The heavy losses of Nazi Germany on the Soviet-German front sharply weakened both its armed forces and the German rear. The resistance movement intensified - Stalingrad became the beginning of a new stage of this movement in France, Belgium, Norway and other occupied countries. Anti-fascist forces also grew in Germany itself, disbelief in the possibility of victory more and more seized its population. Under the influence of the defeat of the Italian army on the Soviet front and the operations of the allies in the Mediterranean basin, Italy capitulated on September 3, 1943 and broke with Nazi Germany. Mussolini was overthrown. Soon allied troops landed in Italy. The Germans responded by occupying the northern and central parts of the country. The new Italian government declared war on Germany.

In connection with the decisive successes of the Red Army by the end of 1943, the essence of the problem of the second front also changed. Victory over Germany was already a foregone conclusion; it could be achieved by the forces of the USSR alone. The Anglo-American side was now directly interested in opening a second front in Western Europe. From October 19 to October 30, 1943, a conference of foreign ministers of the three states was held in Moscow. The conference adopted a "Declaration on the responsibility of the Nazis for the committed atrocities", and also prepared the conditions for a meeting of the heads of government of the USSR, the USA and England. This was also facilitated by the dissolution of the Communist International in May 1943. In an interview with a Reuters correspondent, I.V. Stalin pointed out that the dissolution of the Comintern exposes the lie about Moscow's intention to Bolshevize other states, that the Communist Parties act not in the interests of their peoples, but on orders from outside. The dissolution of the Comintern was positively received by the leaders of the allies, primarily the United States. Relations between Moscow and other communist parties have changed; more emphasis was placed on bilateral contacts between the leadership of the CPSU (b), primarily I.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov, with leaders of foreign communist parties.

On the eve of the Tehran meeting of allied leaders, US President Franklin Roosevelt said that "the United States must occupy Northwest Germany ... We must reach Berlin." From the point of view of the Americans, Churchill's Mediterranean strategy, which was supported by the US government until mid-1943, had exhausted itself. The second front in the West gave America the opportunity to "keep the Red Army out of the vital areas of the Ruhr and the Rhine, which an offensive from the Mediterranean would never achieve." The growing superiority of the Americans in manpower and technology forced Churchill to accept their plan.

The Tehran Conference, at which I. Stalin, F. Roosevelt and W. Churchill met for the first time, was held from November 28 to December 1, 1943. The main issue of the conference was the question of opening a second front. Despite Churchill's attempts to put forward his "Balkan" option for discussion, the Anglo-American side was forced to set a deadline for the start of the Overlord plan - May 1944 (in fact, the landing began on June 6). At the conference, the Allies put forward projects for the dismemberment of Germany. At the insistence of the USSR, the question of the Anglo-American plans for the dismemberment of Germany was submitted for further study. The conference participants exchanged views on the issue of the borders of Poland, and the Soviet delegation proposed to accept the "Curzon line" as the eastern border, and the "line of the river" as the western border. Oder". Churchill agreed in principle with this proposal, hoping that he would be able to return the émigré "London government" to power in Poland. The conference adopted the "Three Powers Declaration on Iran". In 1941, Soviet and British troops were brought into Iran in order to prevent the Germans from violating the sovereignty of this neutral country. The declaration provided for the withdrawal of allied troops and the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of Iran after the war. The question of war with Japan was also discussed. The USSR agreed to enter the war against Japan. However, no specific agreement has been reached. The first meeting of the Big Three was a success. Despite the presence of sharp disagreements on certain issues, the leaders of the three great powers were able to work out agreed solutions. The results of the Tehran Conference were a great success for Soviet foreign policy.

The help of the allies was of great importance for the USSR at the final stage of the war. It was a well-thought-out Western foreign policy strategy from beginning to end, or, in the words of Western historians, "an act of calculated self-interest." Until 1943, inclusive, assistance to the USSR was provided by the Americans in such a way as to prevent it from gaining a decisive advantage over Germany. The overall Lend-Lease supply plan was estimated at $11.3 billion. Although the total volume of industrial supplies amounted to 4% of the gross industrial production in the USSR during the war years, the volume of deliveries for individual types of weapons was significant. So, cars - about 70%. 14450 aircraft were delivered (since 1942, the USSR produced 40 thousand aircraft annually), 7 thousand tanks (with 30 thousand tanks produced annually), machine guns - 1.7% (of the level of production of the USSR), shells - 0.6 %, pistols - 0.8%, mines - 0.1%. After the death of F. Roosevelt, on May 11, 1945, the new US President G. Truman issued a directive to stop supplies to the USSR for military operations in Europe, and in August an order to stop all supplies to the USSR from the moment the act of surrender of Japan was signed. The refusal of unconditional assistance to the USSR testified to a fundamental change in the position of the United States, while it should be noted that the USSR, returning debts under Lend-Lease, was obliged to pay 1.3 billion dollars (for 10 billion loans), while England paid only 472 million dollars for a loan of 30 billion dollars.

From February 4 to February 11, 1945, the Crimean Conference of the leaders of the three great powers was held in Yalta. At the conference, its participants solemnly proclaimed that the goal of the occupation and allied control of Germany was "the destruction of German militarism and Nazism and the creation of a guarantee that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace." The agreements "On the zones of occupation of Germany and on the management of greater Berlin" and "On the control mechanism in Germany" were adopted. At the insistence of the USSR, the three occupation zones - Soviet, American and British - were joined by an occupation zone for French troops. Also, at the insistence of the Soviet side, the issue of German reparations was considered. Their total amount was about 20 billion dollars, of which the USSR claimed half. Roosevelt supported the Soviet position on this issue. The Polish question was acute at the conference. England and the USA linked their hopes of influencing Poland with the return of the exile government there. Stalin did not want this. Post-war relations with the USSR depended on the composition of the government in Poland. In response to W. Churchill's remark that Poland is "a matter of honor" for England, Stalin remarked that "for Russia this is a matter of both honor and security." The USSR managed to achieve the legal termination of the Polish government in exile. The conference determined the conditions for the USSR to enter the war against Japan two or three months after the end of the war in Europe. It was decided to convene a United Nations conference on 25 April 1945 in San Francisco to adopt the text of the UN Charter. The Crimean Conference adopted the "Declaration on a Liberated Europe" and the final document "Unity in the organization of peace, as well as in the conduct of war." Both documents outlined specific joint actions to destroy fascism and reorganize Europe on a democratic basis.

The Potsdam Conference (July 17 - August 2, 1945) summed up the joint actions of the USSR, the USA and England in World War II. The USSR delegation was headed by I.V. Stalin, USA - President G. Truman, Great Britain - first W. Churchill, and from July 29 the new Prime Minister C. Attlee. The main issue of the conference is the question of the future of Germany. In relation to it, the so-called "plan of 3 D" was adopted; demilitarization, denazification (liquidation of the Nazi party) and democratization of Germany. The issue of German reparations was settled. At the conference, the allies confirmed their consent to the transfer of the city of Konigsberg to the USSR with the surrounding areas and came to an agreement on the western border of Poland. The Soviet delegation confirmed in Potsdam the agreement concluded at Yalta on the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan within the agreed timeframe. The Council of Foreign Ministers (CMFA) was also established, to which the Allies entrusted the preparation of a peace settlement, primarily the drafting of peace treaties with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland. The Confederation confirmed the intention of the Allied Powers to bring Nazi criminals to justice.

Despite the agreed decisions, the Potsdam Conference showed that the maritime powers had their own program of action in Germany, which differed both from the Soviet proposals and from the obligations they assumed. During the days of the conference, the first experimental explosion of the atomic bomb was carried out in the United States, which the Americans soon used in Japan, barbarously destroying hundreds of thousands of people in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki without any military necessity. This was an attempt at threatening political influence on the USSR, heralding the approach of the Cold War era.

The history of homeland. Edited by M.V. Zotova. - 2nd ed., corrected. and additional
M.: Publishing House of MGUP, 2001. 208 p. 1000 copies

Chronology

• 1941, June 22 - 1945, May 9 The Great Patriotic War
• 1941 October - December Battle of Moscow
• November 1942 - February 1943 Battle of Stalingrad
• 1943, July - August Battle of Kursk
• January 1944 Liquidation of the blockade of Leningrad
• 1944 Liberation of the territory of the USSR from fascist invaders
• 1945 April - May Battle of Berlin
• May 9, 1945 Victory Day of the Soviet Union over Germany
• 1945, August - September Defeat of Japan

Great Patriotic War (1941 - 1945)

The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945 as an integral and decisive part of the Second World War of 1939-1945. has three periods:

June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942. It is characterized by measures to turn the country into a single military camp, the collapse of Hitler's strategy of "blitzkrieg" and the creation of conditions for a radical change in the war.

Early 1944 - May 9, 1945. Complete expulsion of the fascist invaders from Soviet soil; the liberation by the Soviet Army of the peoples of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe; final defeat of Nazi Germany.

By 1941, Nazi Germany and its allies captured virtually all of Europe: Poland was defeated, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg were occupied. The French army resisted for only 40 days. The English expeditionary army suffered a major defeat, and its formations were evacuated to the British Isles. Fascist troops entered the territory of the Balkan countries. In Europe, in essence, there was no force that could stop the aggressor. The Soviet Union became such a force. The great feat was accomplished by the Soviet people, who saved world civilization from fascism.

In 1940, the fascist leadership developed a plan “ Barbarossa”, the purpose of which was the lightning defeat of the Soviet Armed Forces and the occupation of the European part of the Soviet Union. Further plans included the complete destruction of the USSR. The ultimate goal of the Nazi troops was to reach the Volga-Arkhangelsk line, and it was planned to paralyze the Urals with the help of aircraft. For this, 153 German divisions and 37 divisions of its allies (Finland, Romania and Hungary) were concentrated in the eastern direction. They had to strike in three directions: central(Minsk - Smolensk - Moscow), northwestern(Baltic - Leningrad) and southern(Ukraine with access to the Black Sea coast). A lightning campaign was planned to capture the European part of the USSR until the autumn of 1941.

The first period of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1942)

The beginning of the war

Implementation of the plan Barbarossa”began at dawn June 22, 1941. extensive air bombardments of the largest industrial and strategic centers, as well as the offensive of the ground forces of Germany and its allies along the entire European border of the USSR (over 4.5 thousand km).

Nazi planes are dropping bombs on peaceful Soviet cities. June 22, 1941

In the first few days, German troops advanced tens and hundreds of kilometers. On the central direction in early July 1941, all of Belarus was captured, and German troops reached the approaches to Smolensk. On the northwestern- the Baltic states are occupied, Leningrad is blocked on September 9. On the south Nazi troops occupied Moldova and the Right-Bank Ukraine. Thus, by the autumn of 1941, Hitler's plan to capture the vast territory of the European part of the USSR was carried out.

153 Nazi divisions (3,300,000 men) and 37 divisions (300,000 men) of Nazi Germany's satellite states were thrown against the Soviet state. They were armed with 3,700 tanks, 4,950 aircraft, and 48,000 guns and mortars.

By the beginning of the war against the USSR, as a result of the occupation of Western European countries, weapons, ammunition and equipment of 180 Czechoslovak, French, British, Belgian, Dutch and Norwegian divisions were at the disposal of fascist Germany. This not only made it possible to equip the fascist troops in sufficient quantities with military equipment and equipment, but also ensured an advantage in military potential over the Soviet troops.

In our western districts, there were 2.9 million people, armed with 1,540 new types of aircraft, 1,475 modern T-34 and KV tanks, and 34,695 guns and mortars. The fascist German army had a great superiority in forces.

Describing the reasons for the failures of the Soviet Armed Forces in the first months of the war, many historians today see them in serious mistakes made by the Soviet leadership in the prewar years. In 1939, large mechanized corps, so necessary in modern warfare, were disbanded, production of 45 and 76 mm anti-tank guns was stopped, fortifications on the old Western border were dismantled, and much more.

The weakening of the command staff caused by pre-war repressions also played a negative role. All this led to an almost complete change in the command and political composition of the Red Army. By the beginning of the war, about 75% of commanders and 70% of political workers had been in their positions for less than one year. Even the chief of the general staff of the ground forces of fascist Germany, General F. Halder, noted in his diary in May 1941: “The Russian officer corps is exceptionally bad. It makes a worse impression than in 1933. It will take Russia 20 years to reach its former height.” It was necessary to recreate the officer corps of our country already in the conditions of the outbreak of war.

Among the serious mistakes of the Soviet leadership, one should also include a miscalculation in determining the time of a possible attack by fascist Germany on the USSR.

Stalin and his entourage believed that the Nazi leadership would not dare to violate the non-aggression pact concluded with the USSR in the near future. All information received through various channels, including military and political intelligence, about the upcoming German attack was considered by Stalin as provocative, aimed at exacerbating relations with Germany. This may also explain the government's assessment, transmitted in a TASS statement on June 14, 1941, in which rumors of an impending German attack were declared provocative. This also explained the fact that the directive on bringing the troops of the western military districts to combat readiness and occupying combat lines by them was given too late. In essence, the directive was received by the troops when the war had already begun. Therefore, the consequences of this were extremely severe.

At the end of June - the first half of July 1941, large defensive border battles unfolded (the defense of the Brest Fortress, etc.).

Defenders of the Brest Fortress. Hood. P. Krivonogov. 1951

From July 16 to August 15, the defense of Smolensk continued in the central direction. In the northwestern direction, the German plan to capture Leningrad failed. In the south, until September 1941, the defense of Kyiv was carried out, until October - Odessa. The stubborn resistance of the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1941 frustrated Hitler's plan for a blitzkrieg. At the same time, by the fall of 1941, the capture by the fascist command of the vast territory of the USSR with its most important industrial centers and grain regions was a serious loss for the Soviet government. (Reader T11 No. 3)

Restructuring the life of the country on a war footing

Immediately after the German attack, the Soviet government carried out major military-political and economic measures to repel the aggression. On June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command was formed. July 10 it was converted to Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. It included I.V. Stalin (appointed commander-in-chief and soon became People's Commissar of Defense), V.M. Molotov, S.K. Timoshenko, S.M. Budyonny, K.E. Voroshilov, B.M. Shaposhnikov and G.K. Zhukov. By a directive of June 29, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks set the task for the entire country to mobilize all forces and means to fight the enemy. On June 30, the State Defense Committee was created(GKO), concentrating all power in the country. The military doctrine was radically revised, the task was put forward to organize a strategic defense, wear down and stop the offensive of the fascist troops. Large-scale measures were taken to transfer industry to a military footing, mobilize the population into the army and build defensive lines.

Page of the newspaper "Moskovsky Bolshevik" dated July 3, 1941 with the text of I.V. Stalin's speech. Fragment

One of the main tasks, which had to be solved from the first days of the war, was the fastest restructuring of the national economy, the entire economy of the country on military rails. The main line of this restructuring was defined in the Directive of June 29, 1941. Specific measures for the restructuring of the national economy began to be carried out from the very beginning of the war. On the second day of the war, a mobilization plan for the production of ammunition and cartridges was introduced. And on June 30, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR approved a mobilization national economic plan for the third quarter of 1941. However, events at the front developed so unfavorably for us that this plan turned out to be unfulfilled. Given the current situation, on July 4, 1941, a decision was made to urgently develop a new plan for the development of military production. The GKO decree on July 4, 1941 noted: develop a military-economic plan for ensuring the defense of the country, referring to the use of resources and enterprises located on the Volga, in Western Siberia and the Urals”. Within two weeks this commission developed a new plan for the fourth quarter of 1941 and for 1942 for the regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

For the speedy deployment of a production base in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, it was decided to bring industrial enterprises of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, the People's Commissariat for Armaments, the People's Commissariat of Aviation Industry, etc.

Members of the Politburo, who were at the same time members of the State Defense Committee, carried out general management of the main branches of the military economy. The issues of the production of weapons and ammunition were handled by N.A. Voznesensky, aircraft and aircraft engines - G.M. Malenkov, tanks - V.M. Molotov, food, fuel and clothing - A.I. Mikoyan and others. Industrial People's Commissariats were headed by: A.L. Shakhurin - aviation industry, V.L. Vannikov - ammunition, I.F. Tevosyan - ferrous metallurgy, A.I. Efremov - machine tool industry, V.V. Vakhrushev - coal, I.I. Sedin - oil.

The main link in the restructuring of the national economy on a war footing has become industrial restructuring. Almost all mechanical engineering was transferred to military production.

In November 1941, the People's Commissariat for General Engineering was transformed into the People's Commissariat for the Mortar Industry. In addition to the People's Commissariats of the aviation industry, shipbuilding, armaments and ammunition, created before the war, two People's Commissariats were formed at the beginning of the war - for the tank and mortar industries. Thanks to this, all the main branches of the military industry received specialized centralized management. The production of jet mortars, which existed before the war only in prototypes, was started. Their production is organized at the Moscow plant "Compressor". The front-line soldiers gave the name "Katyusha" to the first missile combat installation.

At the same time, the process workforce training through the labor reserve system. In just two years, about 1,100,000 people were trained through this sphere for work in industry.

For the same purposes, in February 1942, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the mobilization of the able-bodied urban population for work in production and construction” was adopted in February 1942.

In the course of the restructuring of the national economy, the main center of the war economy of the USSR became eastern industrial base, which was significantly expanded and strengthened with the outbreak of war. As early as 1942, the proportion of the eastern regions in all-Union production increased.

As a result, the main burden of supplying the army with weapons and equipment fell on the eastern industrial base. In 1942, the production of military products in the Urals increased by more than 6 times in comparison with 1940, in Western Siberia - 27 times, and in the Volga region - 9 times. On the whole, industrial production in these regions more than tripled during the war. It was a great military and economic victory achieved by the Soviet people during these years. It laid a solid foundation for the final victory over fascist Germany.

The course of hostilities in 1942

The Nazi leadership in the summer of 1942 staked on the capture of the oil regions of the Caucasus, the fertile regions of southern Russia and the industrial Donbass. Kerch and Sevastopol were lost.

At the end of June 1942, a general German offensive was launched in two directions: on Caucasus and east to Volga.

Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (July 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945)

On the Caucasian direction at the end of July 1942, a strong Nazi group crossed the Don. As a result, Rostov, Stavropol and Novorossiysk were captured. Stubborn battles were fought in the central part of the Main Caucasian Range, where specially trained enemy Alpine riflemen operated in the mountains. Despite the successes achieved in the Caucasian direction, the fascist command failed to solve its main task - to break through into the Transcaucasus to master the oil reserves of Baku. By the end of September, the offensive of the fascist troops in the Caucasus was stopped.

An equally difficult situation for the Soviet command developed on eastbound. Created to cover it Stalingrad Front under the command of Marshal S.K. Timoshenko. In connection with the current critical situation, an order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 227 was issued, which stated: “To retreat further means to ruin ourselves and at the same time our Motherland.” At the end July 1942. enemy in command General von Paulus dealt a powerful blow to Stalingrad front. However, despite the significant superiority in forces, during the month the fascist troops managed to advance only 60-80 km.

From the first days of September began heroic defense of Stalingrad, which actually lasted until the end of 1942. Its significance during the Great Patriotic War is enormous. Thousands of Soviet patriots heroically proved themselves in the battles for the city.

Street fighting in Stalingrad. 1942

As a result, in the battles for Stalingrad, the enemy troops suffered colossal losses. Every month of the battle, about 250 thousand new soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht, the bulk of military equipment, were sent here. By mid-November 1942, the Nazi troops, having lost more than 180 thousand people killed, 500 thousand wounded, were forced to stop the offensive.

During the summer-autumn campaign of 1942, the Nazis managed to occupy a huge part of the European part of the USSR, but the enemy was stopped.

Second period of the Great Patriotic War (1942-1943)

The final stage of the war (1944 - 1945)

Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (July 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945)

In the winter of 1944, the offensive of the Soviet troops near Leningrad and Novgorod began.

900 day blockade heroic Leningrad, broken through in 1943, was completely removed.

Connected! Breaking the blockade of Leningrad. January 1943

Summer 1944. The Red Army carried out one of the largest operations of the Great Patriotic War (“ Bagration”). Belarus was completely released. This victory opened the way for advances into Poland, the Baltic states and East Prussia. In the middle of August 1944. Soviet troops in the western direction reached border with Germany.

At the end of August, Moldova was liberated.

These largest operations of 1944 were accompanied by the liberation of other territories of the Soviet Union - Transcarpathian Ukraine, the Baltic states, the Karelian Isthmus and the Arctic.

The victories of the Russian troops in 1944 helped the peoples of Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia in their struggle against fascism. In these countries, pro-German regimes were overthrown, and patriotic forces came to power. Created back in 1943 on the territory of the USSR, the Polish Army took the side of the anti-Hitler coalition.

Main results offensive operations carried out in 1944, consisted in the fact that the liberation of the Soviet land was completely completed, the state border of the USSR was completely restored, military operations were transferred outside our Motherland.

Front commanders at the final stage of the war

A further offensive of the Red Army against the Nazi troops was launched on the territory of Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet command, developing the offensive, conducted a number of operations outside the USSR (Budapest, Belgrade, etc.). They were caused by the need to destroy large enemy groupings in these territories in order to prevent the possibility of their transfer to the defense of Germany. At the same time, the introduction of Soviet troops into the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe strengthened the leftist and communist parties in them and, in general, the influence of the Soviet Union in this region.

T-34-85 in the mountains of Transylvania

AT January 1945. Soviet troops began broad offensive operations in order to complete the defeat of fascist Germany. The offensive was on a huge 1,200 km front from the Baltic to the Carpathians. Polish, Czechoslovak, Romanian and Bulgarian troops acted together with the Red Army. The French aviation regiment "Normandy - Neman" also fought as part of the 3rd Belorussian Front.

By the end of the winter of 1945, the Soviet Army had completely liberated Poland and Hungary, a significant part of Czechoslovakia and Austria. In the spring of 1945, the Red Army reached the approaches to Berlin.

Berlin offensive operation (16.IV - 8.V 1945)

Banner of Victory over the Reichstag

It was a difficult battle in a burning, dilapidated city. On May 8, representatives of the Wehrmacht signed an act of unconditional surrender.

The signing of the act of unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany

On May 9, Soviet troops completed their last operation - they defeated the grouping of the Nazi army that surrounded the capital of Czechoslovakia - Prague, and entered the city.

The long-awaited Victory Day has come, which has become a great holiday. The decisive role in achieving this victory, in carrying out the defeat of fascist Germany and ending the Second World War, belongs to the Soviet Union.

Defeated fascist standards