Military conflict with Japan on the lake. Short Course in History

From 1936 to 1938, more than 300 incidents were noted on the Soviet-Japanese border, the most famous of which occurred at the junction of the borders of the USSR, Manchuria and Korea near Lake Khasan in July-August 1938.

At the origins of the conflict

The conflict in the area of Lake Hasan was due to a number of both foreign policy factors and very difficult relations within the ruling elite of Japan. An important detail was the rivalry within the Japanese military-political machine itself, when funds were distributed to strengthen the army, and the presence of even an imaginary military threat could give the command of the Korean Army of Japan a good opportunity to remind themselves, given that the operations of the Japanese troops in China, and did not bring the desired result.

Another headache for Tokyo was military aid coming from the USSR to China. In this case, it was possible to exert military and political pressure by organizing a large-scale military provocation with a visible external effect. It remained to find a weak spot on the Soviet border, where it would be possible to successfully carry out the invasion and test the combat capability. Soviet troops. And such an area was found 35 km from Vladivostok.

And if from the Japanese side a railway and several highways approached the border, then from the Soviet side there was one dirt road. . It is noteworthy that until 1938 this area, where there really was no clear marking of the border, was of no interest to anyone, and suddenly, in July 1938, the Japanese Foreign Ministry actively dealt with this problem.

After the refusal of the Soviet side to withdraw troops and the incident with the death of a Japanese gendarme shot by a Soviet border guard in a disputed area, tension began to increase day by day.

On July 29, the Japanese launched an attack on the Soviet border post, but after a heated battle they were driven back. On the evening of July 31, the attack was repeated, and here the Japanese troops had already succeeded in penetrating 4 kilometers deep into Soviet territory. The first attempts to knock out the Japanese with the forces of the 40th Infantry Division were not successful. However, everything was not going well for the Japanese either - the conflict grew every day, threatening to escalate into a big war, for which Japan, which was stuck in China, was not ready.

Richard Sorge reported to Moscow: “The Japanese General Staff is interested in a war with the USSR not now, but later. Active actions on the border were taken by the Japanese to show the Soviet Union that Japan was still able to show its power.

Meanwhile, in difficult off-road conditions, the poor readiness of individual units, the concentration of forces of the 39th Rifle Corps continued. With great difficulty, 15 thousand people, 1014 machine guns, 237 guns, 285 tanks were assembled in the combat area. In total, the 39th Rifle Corps had up to 32 thousand people, 609 guns and 345 tanks. 250 aircraft were sent for air support.

Hostages of provocation

If in the first days of the conflict, due to poor visibility and, apparently, the hope that the conflict could still be settled through diplomacy, Soviet aviation was not used, then starting on August 5, Japanese positions were subjected to massive air strikes.

Aviation was brought in to destroy the Japanese fortifications, including TB-3 heavy bombers. The fighters, on the other hand, launched a series of assault strikes on Japanese troops. Moreover, the targets of Soviet aviation were not only on the captured hills, but also in the depths of Korean territory.

Later it was noted: “To defeat the Japanese infantry in the trenches and artillery of the enemy, high-explosive bombs were mainly used - 50, 82 and 100 kg in total 3651 bombs were dropped. 6 pieces of high-explosive bombs 1000 kg on the battlefield 08/06/38. were used solely for the purpose of morally influencing the enemy infantry, and these bombs were dropped into enemy infantry areas after these areas were thoroughly hit by groups of FAB-50 and 100 SB bombs. The enemy infantry rushed about in a defensive zone, not finding shelter, since almost the entire main zone of their defense was covered with heavy fire from bomb explosions of our aviation. 6 bombs of 1000 kg, dropped during this period in the area of the Zaozernaya height, shook the air with strong explosions, the roar of explosion of these bombs in the valleys and mountains of Korea was heard for tens of kilometers. After the explosion of 1000 kg bombs, the height of Zaozernaya was covered with smoke and dust for several minutes. It must be assumed that in those areas where these bombs were dropped, the Japanese infantry was 100% disabled from shell shock and stones thrown out of the craters by explosions of bombs.

Having made 1003 sorties, Soviet aviation lost two aircraft - one SB and one I-15. The Japanese, having no more than 18-20 anti-aircraft guns in the conflict area, could not provide serious opposition. And throwing their own aircraft into battle meant starting a large-scale war, for which neither the command of the Korean Army nor Tokyo were ready. From that moment on, the Japanese side began frantically looking for a way out of the current situation, which required both saving face and stopping fighting, which no longer promised the Japanese infantry anything good.

denouement

The denouement came when, on August 8, Soviet troops launched a new offensive, with overwhelming military-technical superiority. The attack of tanks and infantry was already carried out on the basis of military expediency and without regard to the observance of the border. As a result, the Soviet troops managed to capture Bezymyannaya and a number of other heights, as well as gain a foothold near the top of Zaozernaya, where the Soviet flag was hoisted.

On August 10, the chief of staff of the 19th telegraphed to the chief of staff of the Korean Army: “The division's fighting capacity is declining every day. The enemy has been heavily damaged. He applies all new methods of warfare, intensifies artillery shelling. If this continues further, there is a danger that the fighting will escalate into even more fierce battles. Within one to three days, it is necessary to decide on the further actions of the division ... Until now Japanese troops have already demonstrated their power to the enemy, and therefore, while it is still possible, it is necessary to take measures to resolve the conflict through diplomacy.

On the same day, armistice negotiations began in Moscow, and at noon on August 11, hostilities were stopped. In strategic and political terms, the Japanese test of strength, and by and large the military adventure ended in failure. Not being ready for big war with the USSR, the Japanese units in the Khasan area became hostages of the situation that had arisen, when it was impossible to further expand the conflict, and it was also impossible to retreat, while maintaining the prestige of the army.

The Khasan conflict did not lead to a reduction in Soviet military assistance to China either. At the same time, the fighting on Khasan revealed a number of weak points of both the troops of the Far Eastern Military District and the Red Army as a whole. The Soviet troops apparently suffered even greater losses than the enemy, and the interaction between the infantry, tank units and artillery turned out to be weak at the initial stage of the fighting. Not at a high level was intelligence, unable to reveal the positions of the enemy.

The losses of the Red Army amounted to 759 people killed, 100 people died in hospitals, 95 people went missing and 6 people died as a result of accidents. 2752 people was injured or ill (dysentery and colds). The Japanese acknowledged the loss of 650 killed and 2,500 wounded. At the same time, the battles on Khasan were far from the last military clash between the USSR and Japan on Far East. Less than a year later, an undeclared war began in Mongolia at Khalkhin Gol, where, however, the forces will no longer be Korean, but Kwantung Army Japan.

On September 4, 1938, an order was issued by the People's Commissar of Defense USSR No. 0040 on the causes of failures and losses of the Red Army troops during the Khasan events.

In the battles on Lake Khasan, Soviet troops lost about a thousand people. Officially 865 killed and 95 missing. True, most researchers argue that this figure is inaccurate.
The Japanese claim to have lost 526 killed. True orientalist V.N. Usov (doctor historical sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of the Far East of the Russian Academy of Sciences) claimed that there was a secret memorandum for Emperor Hirohito, in which the number of losses of Japanese troops significantly (one and a half times) exceeds the officially published data.

The Red Army gained experience in conducting combat operations with the Japanese troops, which became the subject of study in special commissions, departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, the General Staff of the USSR and military educational institutions and worked out during exercises and maneuvers. The result was an improvement in the preparation of units and units of the Red Army for combat operations in difficult conditions, an improvement in the interaction of units in battle, and an improvement in the operational-tactical training of commanders and staffs. The experience gained was successfully applied on the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939 and in Manchuria in 1945.
The fighting at Lake Khasan confirmed the increased importance of artillery and contributed to further development Soviet artillery: if during the Russo-Japanese war the losses of Japanese troops from the fire of Russian artillery amounted to 23% of total losses, then during the conflict near Lake Khasan in 1938, the losses of Japanese troops from artillery fire of the Red Army amounted to 37% of the total losses, and during the fighting near the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939 - 53% of the total losses of Japanese troops.

Work has been done on the bugs.
In addition to the unavailability of the units, as well as the Far Eastern Front itself (which is discussed in more detail below), other shortcomings were revealed.

Concentrated Japanese fire on the T-26 command tanks (which differed from the linear handrail antenna radio station on the tower) and their increased losses- led to the decision to install handrail antennas not only on command tanks, but also on line tanks.

"Charter of the military sanitary service of the Red Army" 1933 (UVSS-33) did not take into account some features of the theater of operations and the situation, which led to an increase in losses. The battalion doctors were too close to the combat formations of the troops and, moreover, were involved in organizing the work of the company sections for the collection and evacuation of the wounded, which led to big losses among doctors. As a result of the battles, changes were made to the work of the military medical service of the Red Army.

Well, about the organizational conclusions of the meeting of the Chief Supreme Council The Red Army and the order of the NPO of the USSR I will quote the story of a comrade andrey_19_73 :

. Hasan's results: Organizational conclusions.

On August 31, 1938, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held in Moscow. It summed up the results of the July battles in the area of Lake Khasan.
At the meeting, the report of the People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal K.E. Voroshilov "On the position of the troops of the DK (note - the Far Eastern Red Banner) Front in connection with the events on Lake Khasan." The reports of the Commander of the Far East Fleet V.K. Blucher and the head of the political department of the front, brigade commissar P.I. Mazepova.

VK. Blucher

P.I. Mazepov

The main outcome of the meeting was that it decided the fate of the hero of the Civil War and the fighting on the CER Marshal Soviet Union Vasily Blucher.
He was blamed for the fact that in May 1938 he "questioned the legality of the actions of the border guards on Lake Khasan." Then com. The Far East Front sent a commission to investigate the incident at the height of Zaozernaya, which discovered a violation of the border by Soviet border guards to a shallow depth. Blucher then sent a telegram to the People's Commissar of Defense, in which he concluded that the conflict was caused by the actions of our side and demanded the arrest of the head of the border station.
There is an opinion that there was even a telephone conversation between Blucher and Stalin, in which Stalin asked the commander a question: “Tell me, Comrade Blucher, honestly, do you have a desire to really fight the Japanese? If there is no such desire, tell me straight .. .".
Blucher was also accused of disorganizing command and control and as "unfit and discredited himself in the military and politically"He was removed from the leadership of the Far Eastern Front and left at the disposal of the Main Military Council. Subsequently arrested on October 22, 1938. On November 9, V.K. Blucher died in prison during the investigation.
Brigadier P.I. Mazepov escaped with "a slight fright." He was removed from his post. political directorate of the Far Eastern Fleet and was appointed with a demotion, head of the political department of the Military Medical Academy. CM. Kirov.

The result of the meeting was the order of the NCO of the USSR No. 0040 issued on September 4, 1938 on the causes of failures and losses of the Red Army troops during the Khasan events. The order also determined the new state of the front: in addition to the 1st ODKVA, another combined arms army, the 2nd OKA, was deployed in the front line.
Below is the text of the order:

ORDER
People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR
On the results of the consideration by the main military council of the issue of the events on Lake Khasan and measures for the defense preparation of the Far Eastern theater of operations

Moscow

On August 31, 1938, under my chairmanship, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held, consisting of members of the military council: vols. Stalin, Shchadenko, Budyonny, Shaposhnikov, Kulik, Loktionov, Blucher and Pavlov, with the participation of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR Comrade. Molotov and deputy. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs comrade Frinovsky.

The Main Military Council considered the issue of the events in the area of Lake Khasan and, after hearing the explanations of Comrade Comrade. Blucher and deputy. member of the military council of the KDfront comrade. Mazepova, came to the following conclusions:
1. Combat operations near Lake Khasan were a comprehensive test of the mobilization and combat readiness of not only those units that directly took part in them, but also all the troops of the KDfront without exception.
2. The events of these few days revealed huge shortcomings in the state of the KDfront. combat training troops, headquarters and commanding staff of the front turned out to be at an unacceptably low level. The military units were pulled apart and unfit for combat; the supply of military units is not organized. It was found that the Far Eastern Theater was poorly prepared for war (roads, bridges, communications).
The storage, saving and accounting of mobilization and emergency supplies, both in front-line warehouses and in military units, turned out to be in a chaotic state.
In addition to all this, it was discovered that the most important directives of the Main Military Council and the People's Commissar of Defense were not carried out criminally by the front command for a long time. As a result of such an unacceptable state of the troops of the front, we suffered significant losses in this relatively small clash - 408 people were killed and 2807 people were wounded. These losses cannot be justified either by the extreme difficulty of the terrain on which our troops had to operate, nor by the three times greater losses of the Japanese.
The number of our troops, participation in the operations of our aviation and tanks gave us such advantages that our losses in battles could be much less.
And only thanks to the laxity, disorganization and combat unpreparedness of the military units and the confusion of the command and political staff, starting from the front and ending with the regiment, we have hundreds of killed and thousands of wounded commanders, political workers and fighters. Moreover, the percentage of losses in the command and political staff is unnaturally high - 40%, which once again confirms that the Japanese were defeated and thrown out of our borders only thanks to the combat enthusiasm of the fighters, junior commanders, middle and senior command and political staff, who were ready to sacrifice themselves, protecting honor and inviolability of the territory of their great socialist motherland, and also thanks to the skillful leadership of operations against the Japanese Comrade. Stern and the correct leadership of Comrade. Rychagov by the actions of our aviation.
Thus, the main task set by the Government and the Main Military Council for the troops of the KDfront - to ensure the full and constant mobilization and combat readiness of the troops of the front in the Far East - turned out to be unfulfilled.
3. The main shortcomings in the training and organization of troops, revealed by the fighting near Lake Khasan, are:
a) it is unacceptable to criminally steal fighters from combat units for all kinds of extraneous work.
The Chief Military Council, knowing about these facts, back in May of this year. by his resolution (protocol No. 8) categorically forbade the squandering of the Red Army on different kind chores and demanded the return in part by July 1 of this year. all fighters on such missions. Despite this, the front command did nothing to return the fighters and commanders to their units, and in the units there continued to be a huge shortage of personnel, the units were disorganized. In this state, they acted on combat alert to the border. As a result of this, during the period of hostilities, it was necessary to resort to putting together units from different subunits and individual fighters, allowing harmful organizational improvisation, creating an impossible confusion, which could not but affect the actions of our troops;
b) the troops marched to the border on combat alert completely unprepared. The emergency stock of weapons and other combat equipment was not scheduled in advance and prepared for handing over to units, which caused a number of outrageous outrages throughout the entire period of hostilities. The head of the front department and the commanders of the units did not know what, where and in what condition weapons, ammunition and other combat supplies were available. In many cases, entire artillery [Illerian] batteries ended up at the front without shells, spare barrels for machine guns were not fitted in advance, rifles were issued unshot, and many soldiers and even one of the rifle units of the 32nd division arrived at the front without rifles and gas masks at all. Despite the huge stocks of clothing, many fighters were sent into battle in completely worn out shoes, half-bare, a large number of Red Army soldiers were without overcoats. Commanders and staffs lacked maps of the combat area;
c) all branches of the military, especially the infantry, showed an inability to act on the battlefield, maneuver, combine movement and fire, apply to the terrain, which in this situation, as well as in general in the conditions of the Far East [east], replete with mountains and hills, is the ABC of combat and tactical training of troops.
Tank units were used ineptly, as a result of which they suffered heavy losses in materiel.
4. The commanders, commissars and chiefs of all levels of the KDfront, and in the first place, the commander of the KDF, Marshal Blucher, are guilty of these major shortcomings and of the excessive losses we suffered in a relatively small military clash.
Instead of honestly giving all his strength to the cause of eliminating the consequences of sabotage and combat training of the KDfront and truthfully informing the People's Commissar and the Main Military Council about the shortcomings in the life of the troops of the front, Comrade Blucher systematically, from year to year, deliberately covered his bad job and inactivity with reports of successes, the growth of the combat training of the front and its general prosperous state. In the same spirit, he made a report for many hours at a meeting of the Main Military Council on May 28-31, 1938, in which he hid the true state of the KDF troops and argued that the troops of the front were well trained and combat-ready in all respects.
Numerous enemies of the people who were sitting next to Blucher skillfully hid behind his back, carrying out their criminal work to disorganize and disintegrate the troops of the KDfront. But even after the exposure and removal of traitors and spies from the army, Comrade Blucher was unable or did not want to really realize the cleansing of the front from the enemies of the people. Under the flag of special vigilance, contrary to the instructions of the Main Military Council and the People's Commissar, hundreds of positions of commanders and chiefs of units and formations were left unfilled, thus depriving military units of leaders, leaving headquarters without workers, incapable of performing their tasks. Comrade Blyukher explained this situation by the absence of people (which does not correspond to the truth) and thereby cultivated an indiscriminate distrust of all commanding and commanding cadres of the KDfront.
5. The leadership of the Commander of the KDfront, Marshal Blucher, during the period of hostilities near Lake Khasan was completely unsatisfactory and bordered on conscious defeatism. All his behavior during the time preceding the hostilities, and during the battles themselves, was a combination of duplicity, indiscipline and sabotage of the armed rebuff to the Japanese troops who had captured part of our territory. Knowing in advance about the upcoming Japanese provocation and about the decisions of the Government on this matter, announced by Comrade. Litvinov to Ambassador Shigemitsu, having received a directive from the People's Commissar of Defense on July 22 to put the entire front on alert, Comrade. Blucher limited himself to issuing the appropriate orders and did nothing to check the preparation of troops to repulse the enemy and did not take effective measures to support the border guards with field troops. Instead, on July 24, quite unexpectedly, he questioned the legality of the actions of our border guards near Lake Khasan. In secret from a member of the military council comrade Mazepov, his chief of staff comrade Stern, deputy. People's Commissar of Defense Comrade Mehlis and Deputy. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs comrade Frinovsky, who was at that time in Khabarovsk, comrade Blucher sent a commission to the height of Zaozernaya and, without the participation of the head of the border station, investigated the actions of our border guards. The commission created in such a suspicious manner discovered a "violation" by our border guards of the Manchurian border by 3 meters and, therefore, "established" our "guilty" in the outbreak of the conflict on Lake Khasan.
In view of this, Comrade Blucher sends a telegram to the People's Commissar of Defense about this alleged violation of the Manchurian border by us and demands the immediate arrest of the head of the border station and other "culprits in provoking the conflict" with the Japanese. This telegram was sent by Comrade Blucher also in secret from the comrades listed above.
Even after receiving instructions from the Government to stop fussing with all sorts of commissions and investigations and to strictly carry out the decisions of the Soviet government and the orders of the people's commissar, Comrade Blucher does not change his defeatist position and continues to sabotage the organization of an armed rebuff to the Japanese. Things got to the point that on August 1 of this year, when talking on a direct wire, TT. Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov with comrade Blucher, comrade. Stalin was forced to ask him a question: “Tell me, Comrade Blucher, honestly, do you have a desire to really fight the Japanese? I would think that you should go to the place immediately."
Comrade Blyukher withdrew himself from any leadership in military operations, covering this self-withdrawal with a dispatch from the front of Comrade. Stern to the war zone without any specific tasks and powers. Only after repeated instructions from the Government and the People's Commissar of Defense to stop the criminal confusion and eliminate disorganization in command and control, and only after the people's commissar appointed comrade. Stern as the commander of a corps operating near Lake Khasan, a special repeated requirement for the use of aviation, which Comrade Blucher refused to introduce into battle under the pretext of fear of defeats for the Korean population, only after Comrade Blucher was ordered to leave for the scene Comrade Blucher takes on operational leadership. But with this more than strange leadership, he does not set clear tasks for the troops to destroy the enemy, interferes with the combat work of commanders subordinate to him, in particular, the command of the 1st Army is actually removed from leadership of its troops without any reason; disrupts the work of front-line administration and slows down the defeat of the Japanese troops stationed on our territory. At the same time, Comrade Blyukher, having left for the scene, avoids in every possible way establishing a continuous connection with Moscow, despite the endless calls to him by direct wire by the People's Commissar of Defense. For three whole days, in the presence of a normally working telegraph connection, it was impossible to get a conversation with Comrade Blucher.
All this operational "activity" of Marshal Blucher was completed by the issuance of an order on August 10 to conscript 12 ages into the 1st Army. This illegal act was all the more incomprehensible because in May of this year, the Main Military Council, with the participation of Comrade Blucher and at his own suggestion, decided to call for war time on the D[alny] East [east] there are only 6 ages. This order from Comrade Blucher provoked the Japanese to announce their mobilization and could draw us into a big war with Japan. The order was immediately canceled by the People's Commissar.
Based on the instructions of the Main Military Council;

I ORDER:

1. In order to quickly eliminate all identified major shortcomings in the combat training and condition of the military units of the KDF, replace the unfit and discredited itself militarily and politically command and improve the conditions of leadership, in the sense of bringing it closer to the military units, as well as strengthening measures for defense training of the Far Eastern theater as a whole, - to disband the administration of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front.
2. Marshal comrade Blucher from the post of commander of the troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front to remove and leave him at the disposal of the Main Military Council of the Red Army.
3. Create two separate armies from the troops of the Far Eastern Front, with direct subordination to the People's Commissar of Defense:
a) the 1st Separate Red Banner Army as part of the troops in accordance with Appendix No. 1, subordinating the Pacific Fleet to the military council of the 1st Army in operational terms.
Office of the army to deploy - Voroshilov. To include the entire Ussuri region and part of the regions of Khabarovsk and Primorskaya into the army. The dividing line with the 2nd army - along the river. Bikin;
b) the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army as part of the troops in accordance with Appendix No. 2, subordinating the Amur Red Banner Flotilla to the military council of the 2nd Army.
Office of the army to deploy - Khabarovsk. Include in the army the Lower Amur, Khabarovsk, Primorsky, Sakhalin, Kamchatka regions, the Jewish autonomous region, Koryak, Chukotka national districts;
c) to turn the personnel of the front department being disbanded to staff the departments of the 1st and 2nd Separate Red Banner armies.
4. Approve:
a) Commander of the 1st Separate Red Banner Army - commander comrade. Shtern G.M., a member of the military council of the army - divisional commissar comrade. Semenovsky F.A., chief of staff - brigade commander comrade. Popova M.M.;
b) the commander of the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army - commander comrade. Koneva I.S., a member of the military council of the army - brigade commissar comrade. Biryukov N.I., chief of staff - brigade commander comrade. Melnika K.S.
5. The newly appointed commanders of the armies form the army directorates according to the attached state project No. ... (note - not attached)
6. Prior to the arrival in Khabarovsk of the commander of the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army, Comcor Corps Comrade. Koneva I.S. Comrade Comrade Comrade to enter temporary command. Romanovsky.
7. Start the formation of armies immediately and finish by September 15, 1938.
8. To the head of the department for the command staff of the Red Army, use the personnel of the disbanded department of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front to staff the departments of the 1st and 2nd Separate Red Banner armies.
9. To give the Chief of the General Staff an appropriate instruction to the commanders of the 1st and 2nd armies on the distribution of warehouses, bases and other front [of] property between the armies. At the same time, keep in mind the possibility of using the chiefs of the armed forces of the Red Army and their representatives located in given time in the Far East, to quickly complete this work.
10. To the Military Council of the 2nd Separate Red Banner Army by October 1 of this year. to restore the controls of the 18th and 20th rifle corps with deployment: 18 brigade - Kuibyshevka and 20 brigade - Birobidzhan.
To restore these corps administrations, turn the disbanded administrations of the Khabarovsk Operational Group and the 2nd Army of the KDfront.
11. To the military councils of the 1st and 2nd Separate Red Banner armies:
a) immediately begin to restore order in the troops and ensure, as soon as possible, their full mobilization readiness, report on the measures taken and their implementation to the military councils of the armies to the people's commissar of defense once every five days;
b) ensure the full implementation of the orders of the People's Commissar of Defense No. 071 and 0165 - 1938. Report on the progress of the implementation of these orders every three days, starting from September 7, 1938;
c) it is strictly forbidden to drag fighters, commanders and political workers to different kind work.
In cases emergency the military councils of the armies are allowed, only with the approval of the people's commissar of defense, to involve military units in the work, provided that they are used only in an organized manner, so that there are entire subunits led by their commanders, political workers, always maintaining their full combat readiness, for which the subunits must be replaced in time by others.
12. The commander of the 1st and 2nd Separate Red Banner armies should report to me by telegraph in code on September 8, 12 and 15 about the progress of the formation of directorates.

People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union K. VOROSHILOV Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Army Commander 1st Rank SHAPOSHNIKOV

At the origins of the conflict

Another headache for Tokyo was military aid coming from the USSR to China. In this case, it was possible to exert military and political pressure by organizing a large-scale military provocation with a visible external effect. It remained to find a weak spot on the Soviet border where it would be possible to successfully carry out the invasion and test the combat capability of the Soviet troops. And such an area was found 35 km from Vladivostok.

After the refusal of the Soviet side to withdraw troops and the incident with the death of a Japanese gendarme shot by a Soviet border guard in a disputed area, tension began to increase day by day.

Hostages of provocation

Having made 1003 sorties, Soviet aviation lost two aircraft - one SB and one I-15. The Japanese, having no more than 18-20 anti-aircraft guns in the conflict area, could not provide serious opposition. And throwing their own aircraft into battle meant starting a large-scale war, for which neither the command of the Korean Army nor Tokyo were ready. From that moment on, the Japanese side began frantically looking for a way out of the current situation, which required both saving face and stopping hostilities, which no longer promised anything good for the Japanese infantry.

denouement

On August 10, the chief of staff of the 19th telegraphed to the chief of staff of the Korean Army: “The division's fighting capacity is declining every day. The enemy has been heavily damaged. He applies all new methods of warfare, intensifies artillery shelling. If this continues further, there is a danger that the fighting will escalate into even more fierce battles. Within one to three days, it is necessary to decide on the further actions of the division ... Until now, the Japanese troops have already demonstrated their power to the enemy, and therefore, while it is still possible, it is necessary to take measures to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means.

On the same day, armistice negotiations began in Moscow, and at noon on August 11, hostilities were stopped. In strategic and political terms, the Japanese test of strength, and by and large the military adventure ended in failure. Not being ready for a big war with the USSR, the Japanese units in the Khasan area became hostages of the current situation, when it was impossible to further expand the conflict, and it was also impossible to retreat, while maintaining the prestige of the army.

The Khasan conflict did not lead to a reduction in Soviet military assistance to China either. At the same time, the fighting on Khasan revealed a number of weak points of both the troops of the Far Eastern Military District and the Red Army as a whole. The Soviet troops apparently suffered even greater losses than the enemy, the interaction between the infantry, tank units and artillery turned out to be weak at the initial stage of the fighting. Not at a high level was intelligence, unable to reveal the positions of the enemy.

The losses of the Red Army amounted to 759 people killed, 100 people died in hospitals, 95 people went missing and 6 people died as a result of accidents. 2752 people was injured or ill (dysentery and colds). The Japanese acknowledged the loss of 650 killed and 2,500 wounded. At the same time, the battles on Khasan were far from the last military clash between the USSR and Japan in the Far East. Less than a year later, an undeclared war began in Mongolia at Khalkhin Gol, where, however, the forces of not the Korean, but the Kwantung Army of Japan, would be involved.

Conflict at Lake Hassan

“In July 1938, the Japanese command concentrated 3 infantry divisions, a mechanized brigade, a cavalry regiment, 3 machine-gun battalions and about 70 aircraft on the Soviet border on the Soviet border ... On July 29, Japanese troops suddenly invaded the territory of the USSR near the Bezymyannaya height, but were driven back. On July 31, the Japanese, using their numerical advantage, captured tactically important Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya heights. A reinforced 39th corps was detached to defeat the Japanese troops that had invaded the territory of the USSR... At Lake Khasan, for the first time since the Civil War, the Soviet Army entered into battle with an experienced imperialist cadre army. The Soviet troops gained a certain experience in the use of aviation and tanks, and in the organization of artillery support for an offensive. For heroism and courage, the 40th Infantry Division was awarded the Order of Lenin, the 32nd Infantry Division and the Posietsky Border Detachment were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. 26 fighters were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 6.5 thousand people were awarded orders and medals, ”this is how the international conflict on the Soviet-Japanese border is presented in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

When reading the above TSB article, one gets the impression that for the Red Army the battle on Lake Khasan was something like an exercise, as close as possible to combat conditions, and the experience she gained was extremely positive. Of course, this is a delusion. In fact, everything was not so simple.

During the 1930s, the situation in the Far East gradually heated up. By capturing Manchuria and invading Central China, Japan turned out to be a neighbor of the USSR and "set its sights" on the Soviet Primorye. A large group of troops was concentrated here, the samurai from time to time staged provocations on the border, repeatedly violating it. Even 5 months before the start of the conflict, intelligence officer Richard Sorge warned Moscow about the impending Japanese attack. And he was not wrong.

The first armed incident between the border guards of the Soviet Union and Japanese soldiers occurred on July 15, 1938, when a group of the latter crossed the border and began photographing military fortifications. Fire was opened on the violators, in response to this, the Japanese captured Mount Sirumi. The situation was becoming critical, but the reaction Soviet command was inadequate. The border troops received an order: "Do not open fire." Fulfilling it, they did not respond to the shelling of the detachment by the Japanese in the area of the border sign No. 7. In the meantime, the samurai continued to build up their forces, which by July 28 amounted to 13 infantry battalions with artillery. The Soviet side could only oppose this force with 3 battalions. In such a situation, the command of the frontier outposts began to ask for reinforcements, which was refused. Marshal Blucher commented on this as follows: “The border guards themselves got involved. Let them get out on their own."

We really had to "get out" ourselves. On July 29, a battle broke out at the height of Bezymyannaya, in which the border guards had to retreat. Within hour 11 Soviet soldiers held the defense and retreated only after the death of 5 comrades. Reinforcements arrived in time from two border groups "saved" the situation: the advancing Japanese were thrown back beyond the border line. Only then was the order given: "Immediately destroy the Japanese advancing on the Zaozernaya height without crossing the border." This significantly hampered the actions of the border guards. On the night of July 31, as a result of the attack, the Japanese captured the Zaozernaya height, as well as the Bezymyanny, Chernaya, and Bogomolnaya heights. The losses of the Soviet troops amounted to 93 people killed and 90 wounded.

The conflict ceased to be a frontier incident. Only towards the end of the day on August 1, reinforcements arrived, but the conditions in which the troops were placed seriously hampered the fulfillment of the combat mission. The advancing Soviet units were squeezed between the border line and Lake Khasan, which put them under Japanese flanking fire. Following the order, the border guards could not use either aircraft or artillery. It is not surprising that in such a disadvantageous position, the attack of the Soviet troops bogged down.

Immediately they began to prepare a new offensive, and this time the command allowed them to operate also on enemy territory. The assault on the Zaozernaya height was carried out by the forces of the 39th Rifle Corps and lasted 5 days - from August 6 to 11. The task was completed, the Japanese were thrown back abroad. Immediately after the end of the assault, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR gave the order to end hostilities. The victory was won, the provocations at the border stopped. The conflict ended, the Japanese were rebuffed, but the miscalculations made were worth analyzing more carefully.

So, for example, the reinforcements that arrived were not fully staffed: in some battalions there were only 50% of their headcount. Artillery did not count the prescribed ammunition. Weakly organized logistic support. Field hospital arrived at the scene of hostilities seven days late, and only three of the prescribed doctors arrived. In addition to all this, Soviet military leaders made decisions only after their approval in Moscow. Of course, in last case it is not so much individual commanders who are to blame, but the excessive centralization and fear of taking initiative and responsibility that dominated the country and the army.

The fighting on Lake Khasan cost the Red Army 472 men killed, 2981 wounded and 93 missing. But in fact, the consequences of the mistakes made and then uncorrected were much worse. As the head of the Far Eastern Directorate of the NKVD noted later, the victory was achieved "only due to the heroism and enthusiasm of the personnel of the units, the fighting impulse of which was not provided high organization combat and the skillful use of numerous military equipment. The experience of 1938 was not sufficiently taken into account both from the point of view of the organization of the army and from the point of view of the tactics of conducting modern combat. It is no coincidence that the Red Army will make similar miscalculations in the summer of 1941. If all the misses of the fighting on Lake Khasan were taken into account, the consequences of the first months of the Great Patriotic War might have been for Soviet people not so tragic.

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This armed conflict between the USSR and Japan matured gradually. Japan's policy in the Far East did not imply an improvement in relations with the Soviet Union. The aggressive policy of this country in China carried a potential threat to the security of the USSR. Having captured the whole of Manchuria in March 1932, the Japanese created a puppet state there - Manchukuo. The Japanese Minister of War, General Sadao Araki, said on this occasion: “The State of Manjugo (so in Japanese Manchukuo - M.P.) is nothing more than Japanese army, and Mr. Pu Yi is his mannequin. In Manchukuo, the Japanese began to build military infrastructure and increase the size of their army. The USSR sought to maintain normal relations with Japan. At the end of December 1931, he proposed to conclude a Soviet-Japanese non-aggression pact, but a year later he received a negative answer. The capture of Manchuria fundamentally changed the situation on the CER. The road ended up in the zone of direct control of the Japanese armed forces.

Provocations were organized on the road: damage to the tracks, raids to rob trains, the use of trains to transport Japanese troops, military supplies, etc. The Japanese and Manchurian authorities began to openly encroach on the CER. Under these conditions, in May 1933, the Soviet government expressed its readiness to sell the CER. Negotiations on this issue were held in Tokyo for 2.5 years. The problem was the price. Japanese side believed that in the current situation, the USSR was ready to give way on any terms. After lengthy negotiations that lasted more than 20 months, on March 23, 1935, an agreement was signed on the sale of the CER for following conditions: Manchukuo pays 140 million yen for CER; 1/3 of the total amount must be paid in cash, and the rest - in the supply of goods from Japanese and Manchurian firms on Soviet orders within 3 years. In addition, the Manchurian side had to pay 30 million yen to the dismissed Soviet employees of the road. On July 7, 1937, a new Japanese invasion of China began, the capture of which was seen as the threshold of a war against the Soviet Union. Tension has increased on the Far Eastern border.

If earlier the main violators on the border were the armed detachments of white emigrants and the so-called white Chinese, now Japanese military personnel are becoming more and more violators. In 1936-1938, 231 violations of the state border of the USSR were registered, of which 35 were major military clashes. This was accompanied by the loss of border guards, both from the Soviet and from the Japanese side. Japan's aggressive policy in China and the Far East forced the Soviet Union to strengthen its defenses. On July 1, 1938, the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army (OKDVA) was transformed into the Red Banner Far Eastern Front. Marshal of the Soviet Union V.K. was appointed its commander. Blucher. The front consisted of two combined arms armies - the 1st Primorsky and 2nd Separate Red Banner, commanded by brigade commander K.P. Podlas and commander I.S. Konev. The 2nd Air Army was created from the Far Eastern Aviation. 120 defensive regions were being built in the most threatened directions. Until the end of 1938, the number of privates and commanders was supposed to be 105,800 people. The military conflict between the two states arose at the southernmost tip of the state border - at the previously unknown Lake Khasan, surrounded by a ridge of hills, just 10 kilometers from the coast of the Sea of Japan, and in a straight line - 130 kilometers from Vladivostok. Here the borders of the USSR, the puppet state of Manchukuo and Korea, occupied by the Japanese, converged.

On this section of the border special role two hills played - Zaozernaya and its neighbor from the north - Bezymyannaya Hill, along the tops of which the border with China passed. From these hills it was possible to view in detail the coast, railways, tunnels, and other structures adjacent to the border without any optical instruments. From them, direct artillery fire could fire on the entire section of Soviet territory south and west of Posyet Bay, and threaten the entire coast in the direction of Vladivostok. This is what caused the special interest of the Japanese in them. The immediate reason for the outbreak of an armed conflict was the border incident on July 3, 1938, when Japanese infantrymen (nearly a company) advanced to a border detachment of two Red Army soldiers on Zaozernaya Hill. Without firing any shots japanese squad left this place a day later and returned to Korean locality, located 500 meters from the hill, and began to build fortifications. July 8 Soviet reserve frontier outpost occupied the Zaozernaya hill, established a permanent border guard, thereby declaring it Soviet territory. Here they began to build trenches and barbed wire. The measures of the Soviet border guards, in turn, caused the escalation of the conflict in the following days, since both sides considered the hills to be their territory.

On July 15, Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs B.S. Stomonyakov, in a conversation with Charge d'Affaires of the Japanese Embassy in the USSR, Nishi, tried to document the question of the legality of the presence of Soviet border guards on the shores of Lake Khasan and at the height of Zaozernaya. Stomonyakov, relying on the Hunchun Protocol signed between Russia and China on June 22, 1886, as well as on the map attached to it, proved that Lake Khasan and some areas west of these shores belong to the Soviet Union. In response, the Japanese diplomat demanded to remove the Soviet border guards from the height of Zaozernaya. The situation seriously escalated on July 15, when Lieutenant V.M. Vinevitin killed the Japanese intelligence officer Sakuni Matsushima, who was on the Zaozernaya hill. This provoked a massive violation of the section of the border guarded by the Posyet border detachment. The violators were the Japanese - "postmen", each of whom had a letter to Soviet authorities demanding to "cleanse" the Manchurian territory. On July 20, 1938, the Japanese ambassador to Moscow Mamoru Segemitsu at a reception at the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs M.M. Litvinova, on behalf of his government, demanded the withdrawal of Soviet border guards from the Zaozernaya hill because of its belonging to Manchukuo.

At the same time, the ambassador, in an ultimatum form, stated that if this territory is not liberated voluntarily, then it will be liberated by force. In response, on July 22, the Soviet government sent a note to the Japanese government, which rejected the demands of the Japanese side for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the height of Zaozernaya. Commander of the Far Eastern Front V.K. Blucher tried to avoid a military conflict. He proposed to “exhaust” the border conflict by recognizing as a mistake the actions of Soviet border guards who dug trenches and carried out simple sapper work not on their territory. The “illegal” commission he created on July 24 established that part of the Soviet trenches and wire fences on the Zaozernaya hill were installed on the Manchurian side.

However, neither Moscow nor Tokyo wanted to hear about a peaceful, diplomatic settlement of the border conflict. Blucher, by his actions, caused Stalin and the People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov doubts whether he is able to decisively fight and follow the instructions of the country's leadership. On July 29, Japanese troops, up to an infantry company, launched an offensive to capture the top of the Bezymyannaya hill, where the Soviet garrison, consisting of 11 people, was located. to the Japanese a short time succeeded in capturing the height. Six out of 11 border guards survived. The head of the outpost, Alexei Makhalin, who became a posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union, also died. Having received reinforcements, the height was again at the Soviet border guards. The Japanese command brought up large artillery forces and the 19th Infantry Division in order to capture both hills - Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya. On the night of July 31, the Japanese regiment, with the support of artillery, attacked Zaozernaya, and then Bezymyanny. By the end of the day, these heights were captured, and within three days trenches, dugouts, firing positions, barbed wire were built there. The commander of the 40th Rifle Division of the Far Eastern Front made a decision - on August 1, to attack the enemy on the heights and restore the status quo on the border. However, the commanders fought on maps that were compiled by the cartographic division of the NKVD marked "top secret".

These maps were deliberately made with changes, that is, they did not reflect the actual geography of the area. These were "cards for foreign tourists". They did not indicate swampy places, and the roads were indicated completely different. When hostilities began, Soviet artillery bogged down in the swamps and was shot by the Japanese with direct fire from the commanding heights. The artillerymen suffered especially heavy losses. The same thing happened with tanks (T-26). August 1 at telephone conversation with the commander of the Far Eastern Front, Blucher, Stalin sharply criticized him for commanding the operation. He was forced to ask the commander a question: “Tell me, Comrade Blucher, honestly, do you have a desire for real fight the Japanese? If you do not have such a desire, say it directly, as befits a communist, and if you have a desire, I would think that you should go to the place immediately. August 3 People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov decided to entrust the leadership of military operations in the area of Lake Khasan to the chief of staff of the Far Eastern Front, commander G.M. Stern, appointing him at the same time commander of the 39th Rifle Corps. By this decision, V.K. Blucher was actually removed from the direct leadership of hostilities on the state border. The 39th Rifle Corps included the 32nd, 40th, and 39th Rifle Divisions and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade. Directly in the area of hostilities, 32 thousand people were concentrated; on the Japanese side, there was the 19th Infantry Division, numbering about 20 thousand people. It should be noted that the possibility of ending the military conflict near Lake Khasan peace talks still was. Tokyo understood that there would be no quick victory. And the main forces of the Japanese army at that time were not in Manchukuo, but were conducting military operations against Chiang Kai-shek in China. Therefore, the Japanese side sought to end the military conflict with the USSR on favorable terms. On August 4 in Moscow, Japanese Ambassador Segemitsu informed M.M. Litvinov about the desire to resolve the conflict through diplomacy.

Litvinov stated that this was possible provided that the situation that existed before July 29, that is, before the date when the Japanese troops crossed the border and began to occupy the Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya heights, is restored. The Japanese side offered to return to the border before July 11 - that is, before the appearance of Soviet trenches on the top of Zaozernaya. But that didn't work anymore the Soviet side, as protest rallies were held throughout the country, demanding to curb the aggressor. In addition, the leadership of the USSR, headed by Stalin, had the same sentiments. The offensive of the Soviet troops on the positions of the Japanese, in whose hands were the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills, began on August 6 at 16:00. The first blow was delivered by Soviet aviation - 180 bombers under the cover of 70 fighters. 1592 air bombs were dropped on enemy positions. On the same day, the 32nd Rifle Division and a tank battalion advanced on Bezymyannaya Hill, and the 40th Rifle Division, reinforced by a reconnaissance battalion and tanks, advanced on Zaozernaya Hill, which was captured after two days of fierce fighting on August 8, and on August 9 they captured Bezymyannaya Hill . Under these conditions, the Japanese ambassador Segemitsu sued for peace.

On the same day, an armistice agreement was signed. Hostilities ceased on August 11 at 12 noon. Two hills - Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, because of which a military conflict broke out between the two states, were assigned to the USSR. Until now, there is no exact data on the number of losses of the Red Army. According to declassified official data, during the fighting on Lake Khasan, irretrievable losses amounted to 717 people, 75 were missing or captured; 3279 were wounded, shell-shocked, burned or ill. On the Japanese side, there were 650 dead and 2,500 wounded. Commander of the Red Banner Far Eastern Front V.K. Blucher was removed from his post and soon repressed. 26 combatants became Heroes of the Soviet Union; 95 - awarded the Order of Lenin; 1985 - Order of the Red Banner; 4 thousand - the Order of the Red Star, medals "For Courage" and "For Military Merit". The government has established a special badge "Participant of the Khasan battles." It was also awarded to home front workers who helped and supported the soldiers. Along with the courage and heroism of the soldiers and, the Khasan events also showed something else: poor training of command personnel. Voroshilov’s secret order No. 0040 stated: “The events of these few days have revealed huge shortcomings in the state of the KDV front. The combat training of the troops, staffs and commanding staff of the front turned out to be at an unacceptably low level. The military units were pulled apart and unfit for combat; the supply of military units is not organized. It was found that the Far Eastern Theater was poorly prepared for this war (roads, bridges, communications) ... ".

Polynov M.F. USSR/Russia in local wars and
armed conflicts of the XX-XXI centuries. Tutorial. - St. Petersburg,
2017. - Publishing house Info-Da. – 162 p.