War of Nikolai Nikulin: truth and lies of memoirs. Truth and lies about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War

What images arise in a Russian citizen who is told about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War? Most likely - downcast columns of prisoners, wandering under the protection of German machine gunners, Soviet tanks broken and stuck in the mud on the roadsides and in the field, planes burned at airfields ... The series can be continued.

Most of these images came from photographs taken in the summer of 1941. Almost all of these photos, and even the documentary chronicle, were taken after the battles, when days and weeks had passed. There are relatively few pictures taken in battle, not before. In addition, most of the pictures were taken on busy highways, where huge masses of Nazis walked and drove back and forth. But not all battles, the battles took place along the main roads, a significant number of equipment knocked out in battle could be found near thousands of villages, villages, in copses, on country roads.

Therefore, there was the myth of the small-scale mechanization of the Red Army, parts of which allegedly moved only on foot or with the help of horses, and the Wehrmacht only by car. Although if we compare the states of the infantry division of the Wehrmacht and the motorized rifle division of the Red Army, then there is no lag, the mechanization is almost equal. The Red Army had plenty of mechanized corps and tank brigades.

Against the background of such a picture was created the myth of the unwillingness of Soviet soldiers to fight for the Bolsheviks, Stalin. Although even in Soviet times, enough materials were published that tell about the difficult battles of the initial stage of the war, mass heroism, the exploits of border guards, pilots, tankers, artillerymen, and infantry.

These myths and other similar conjectures are born due to a lack of understanding of the real picture of the life of the country in the pre-war period and at the beginning of the war, or, even worse, they are created deliberately, waging an information war against our country and people. It must be understood that even the richest state cannot keep a multimillion-strong army under arms in a period when there is no war, tearing off millions of healthy men from real production. In the borderlands there are troops that will become the basis of the grouping for the first operation of the war, only with the declaration of war is the gigantic mechanism of mobilization launched. But even potential servicemen, who are mobilized in the first place, do not gather in peacetime in a zone of 50-300 km from the enemy, they are mobilized where they live and work. Even the current conscription and officers may not be on the border with the enemy, but in the Caucasus, in Siberia, in the Far East. That is, there are very limited troops on the border, far from the entire payroll of the peacetime army. Only in the case of mobilization, the troops are increased to wartime states, huge masses of people and equipment are being transported to the front, perhaps only still potential.

Mobilization can be launched even before the outbreak of hostilities, but this requires very important reasons, a political decision by the country's leadership. At this point created the myth that "intelligence reported", but the tyrant was stupid ... The beginning of mobilization is not just an internal event, but a step of great political importance, causing a huge resonance in the world. It is almost impossible to conduct it covertly, a potential enemy can use it as a pretext for war. Therefore, in order to actually start a war, very weighty, reinforced concrete grounds are needed. Starting a war, from a political and military point of view, was unreasonable, the main plans for defense construction were to be completed in 1942. The basis for such a decision could be intelligence or analysis of the political situation. But, despite the widespread opinion about the power of Soviet intelligence, the actual intelligence was highly inconsistent. Crumbs of important and useful information simply sank in a mass of gossip and outright misinformation.

From a political point of view, relations between the Reich and the Union were quite normal, there was no threat: financial and economic cooperation, the absence of territorial disputes, a non-aggression pact, delimitation of spheres of influence. In addition, which also played a crucial role in assessing the date of the start of the war, the Kremlin understood that it was very likely in the short term, the Third Reich was associated with a war with England. Until the issue with Britain was resolved, fighting the Soviet Union was an extremely adventurous step, beyond normal logic. Berlin did not send any diplomatic signals that usually start a war - territorial claims (as to Czechoslovakia, Poland), demands, ultimatums.

When Berlin did not react in any way to the TASS message of June 14 (it said that reports published abroad about the impending war between the USSR and Germany had no basis), Stalin began mobilization processes, but without announcing it: they advanced to the border from the depths of the border military districts of the division, the movement of non-mobilized troops by rail from the internal districts to the border of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers began. There were other events that completely reject the speculation on the topic: "Stalin did not believe."

The Red Army actually entered the war without completing the mobilization, so at the beginning of the war it had 5.4 million people, and according to the mobilization plan of February 1941 (MP-41) in wartime states, it was supposed to be 8 .68 million people. That is why in the border divisions, when they entered the battle, there were approximately 10 thousand people, instead of the prescribed St. 14 thousand. Even worse was the situation in the rear units. The troops of the border and internal military districts were divided into three operationally unrelated parts - units directly at the border, units at a depth of about 100 km from the border, and troops about 300 km from the border. The Wehrmacht got the opportunity to take advantage of the number of personnel, the number of pieces of equipment and destroy the Soviet troops in parts.

By June 22, 1941, the Wehrmacht was completely mobilized, its number was increased to 7.2 million people. Strike groups were concentrated on the border and crushed the Soviet border divisions before the Red Army could change the balance of power. Only in the process of the battle for Moscow could the situation be changed.

The myth of the superiority of defense over attack, on the new western border of the USSR in 1940-1941 they built a line of fortifications, fortified areas (URs), they are also called the "Molotov line". By the war, many structures were unfinished, uncamouflaged, without communications, and so on. But, most importantly, there were not enough forces on the border to hold back the blow of the German army, even relying on the URs. The defense could not hold back the onslaught of the Wehrmacht, the German troops had vast experience in breaking the lines of defense since the First World War, applying it in 1940 on the border with France. For a breakthrough, assault groups with sappers, explosives, flamethrowers, aircraft, and artillery were used. For example: on the 22nd, near the city of Taurage in the Baltic States, the 125th Infantry Division took up defensive positions, but the Wehrmacht broke through it in less than a day. The divisions and units covering the border could not provide the necessary density of defense. They were sparse over a vast area, so the German strike groups quickly broke into the defenses, though not at the pace they expected.

The only way to stop the enemy's breakthrough was counterattacks with their own mechanized corps. The border districts had mechanized corps, where new types of tanks, the T-34 and KV, were sent in the first place. On June 1, 1941, the Red Army had 25,932 tanks, self-propelled guns and tankettes (although some of them were in combat readiness (as at the present time, there are a certain number of units in the parks, and 60 percent ready to go into battle immediately), in western special districts had 13 981. The mechanized corps were "hostages" of the general unfavorable situation, due to the collapse of the defense in several directions at once, they were forced to scatter between several targets. In addition, the mechanized corps were inferior in the organizational part, the German tank groups numbered 150-200 thousand .people from several motorized corps, reinforced by artillery, motorized infantry and other units.The Soviet mechanized corps numbered about 30 thousand people.Wehrmacht tank units, having fewer tanks than the Red Army, reinforced them with more powerful motorized infantry and artillery, including anti-tank.

The general strategy of the leadership of the Red Army was absolutely correct - operational counterattacks, only they could stop the enemy strike groups (there was no tactical atomic yet). Unlike France, the Red Army, with its fierce counterattacks, was able to buy time, inflict heavy losses on the enemy, which ultimately led to the failure of the "blitzkrieg" plan, and hence the entire war. Yes, and the leadership of the Wehrmacht drew conclusions, became more cautious (not Poland and France), began to pay more attention to the defense of the flanks, slowing down the pace of the offensive even more. It is clear that the organization of the counterattacks was not up to par (but it is not for us to judge, the current cabinet prosecutors could not organize their similarities), the concentration was weak, there was not enough air cover, units rushed into battle from the march, units. The mechanized corps were forced to go on the attack without suppressing the enemy's defenses with artillery, it was not enough, and the one that was behind. There was not enough of their own infantry to support the tank attack. This led to heavy losses of armored vehicles, the Germans quite easily burned old types of tanks. Tanks of new types were more effective, but they could not replace a full-fledged attack with the support of aviation, artillery and infantry. The myth of the invulnerability of tanks T-34, KV for the Wehrmacht just another guess. Like, if Stalin had ordered them to be “riveted” in sufficient quantities, then the enemy would have been stopped at the border. The Wehrmacht had 50 mm PAK-38 anti-tank guns that could penetrate even KV armor using sub-caliber shells. In addition, the Wehrmacht had anti-aircraft guns and heavy field guns, which also pierced the armor of the latest Soviet tanks. These tanks still required fine-tuning, were technically unreliable, for example, the V-2 diesel engine, in 1941, its passport resource did not exceed 100 engine hours on the stand and an average of 45–70 hours in the tank. This led to the frequent failure of new tanks on marches for technical reasons.

But it was the mechanized corps that saved the infantry from complete annihilation. They delayed the movement of the enemy, saved Leningrad from being captured on the move, and held back the advance of the German tank group E. von Kleist in the South-West direction.

The myth about the decrease in the combat capability of the command corps due to repression does not stand up to criticism. The percentage of those repressed from the general command staff is very small, the decline in the quality of training of command personnel is associated with the rapid growth of the armed forces of the USSR in the pre-war period. If in August 1939 the Red Army numbered 1.7 million people, then in June 1941 - 5.4 million people. In the high command, a number of commanders came to the top, who later became the best commanders of the Second World War. A significant role was also played by the lack of combat experience among a significant part of the Red Army, and the Wehrmacht was already an army that “tasted blood” and won a number of victories, the French army, for example, was then considered the best in Europe.

We must also understand the fact that the huge columns of prisoners of war, which are often shown on TV, may not be military personnel at all. The Wehrmacht in cities and other villages drove to the camps all those liable for military service from the age of 18. In addition, one must understand that not all first-line fighters are in the division - about half of them. The rest are artillerymen, signalmen, there were many builders (before the war, large-scale work was carried out to strengthen the border), military rear services. Getting into the environment, the units fought, tried to break through, while there was fuel, ammunition, food. The operational summary of Army Group Center for June 30 stated: “A lot of trophies, various weapons (mainly artillery guns), a large number of various equipment and a lot of horses were captured. The Russians are suffering huge losses in the dead, there are few prisoners. The "rear guards" were worse trained, their mental training was also worse than that of the front line fighters, who mostly died with weapons in their hands. Or were injured. An impressive newsreel column of grooms, signalers and builders could easily be recruited from one corps, and entire armies were surrounded.

The Wehrmacht crushed the border divisions, the so-called "deep" corps 100-150 km from the border, they could not stop the enemy, the "weight categories" were too different, but they did the maximum - they won time and forced the enemy to throw into battle the units that they planned to introduce into fight in the second stage of the "blitzkrieg". A huge minus was the fact that the retreating Soviet units had to abandon a huge amount of equipment that ran out of fuel and which could, under other conditions, be restored. The mechanized corps burned down in the fire of war, and so far there was nothing to restore them - if in June and early July 1941 the Soviet command had mechanized corps in the hands, then by August - October they were gone. This was one of the causes of other disasters in the first year of the war: the Kyiv "boiler" in September 1941, the Vyazemsky, Bryansk and Melitopol "boilers" in October 1941.

German soldiers inspect the damaged and burnt-out T-20 Komsomolets artillery tractor. A burnt driver is seen, killed while trying to get out of the car. 1941

Sources:
Isaev A.V. Antisuvorov. Ten myths of World War II. M., 2004.
Isaev A.V., Drabkin A.V. June 22. Black day of the calendar. M., 2008.
Isaev A. V. Dubno 1941. The greatest tank battle of World War II. M., 2009.
Isaev A.V. "Boilers" of the 41st. WWII, which we did not know. M., 2005.
Isaev A.V. Unknown 1941. Stopped blitzkrieg. M., 2010.
Pykhalov I. The Great Slandered War. M., 2005.
Pykhalov I., Dyukov A. et al. Great slanderous war-2. We have nothing to repent of! M., 2008.

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Arsen Martirosyan: The military conspiracy of 1937-1938 was not uprooted to the end

Hitler, indeed, did not transfer German industry and the industry of the European states occupied by the Third Reich to a military footing. They did it easier - they robbed the occupied countries. For example, 5,000 steam locomotives, more than 5 million tons of crude oil, hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel and lubricants, a huge number of tanks, motor vehicles, and various other military-purpose materials were taken out of France alone. The supply of weapons, equipment and ammunition from occupied Czechoslovakia also played a colossal role. In fact, the West handed it over to Hitler, so that he could quickly and better prepare for an attack on the USSR. At that time, the Czechoslovak military-industrial complex was one of the largest arms manufacturers, providing more than 40% of the world market with its supplies.

According to the calculations of Hitler and his generals, the loot should have been enough for the blitzkrieg. After all, as Soviet intelligence managed to document, on the fifth day of the aggression, the Nazis planned to capture Minsk! It was planned to defeat the border grouping of the Red Army within a week, and in a couple of months - the "victory parade" of the Third Reich in Moscow. Alas, many of these plans came to fruition.

“But according to official history, they learned about Directive No. 21 almost on the day it was signed ...

Yes, they did, but not right away. The first information that Hitler had adopted a certain plan of aggression, indeed, came at the very end of December 1940. Further, intelligence has made tremendous efforts to detail this information. The main directions of strikes, numbers, combat composition, strategy and tactics of the Wehrmacht, and much more were established. And in the interval from June 11 to June 21, 1941, the Soviet intelligence services were able to 47 times either relatively accurately or absolutely reliably name the date and even the hour of the beginning of the aggression. Why only in this interval? Because the date of June 22 appeared on paper only on June 10 in the form of a directive from the Chief of the General Staff, Franz Halder.

-According to the version of "liberal" historians, Stalin did not believe this information ... He even wrote an obscene "resolution" on the intelligence report.

—Stalin believed intelligence information, but only verified and repeatedly rechecked. And the obscene resolution is nothing more than a clumsily made fake. In fact, this has long been documented.

Questions of war and peace do not imply sudden movements and hasty decisions. Too much is at stake. Relying precisely on verified intelligence information, Stalin gave the order to bring the troops of the First Strategic Echelon to combat readiness as early as June 18, 1941. And before that, for more than a month, the military had been repeatedly warned about the imminent start of German aggression. Moscow sent relevant directives, the movement of troops from the internal districts was authorized, and much more. In general, they did everything to arrange a "decent meeting" for the aggressor.

But the local command did not carry out all the orders, or did it extremely negligently, which means a crime for the military. But there were also facts of direct betrayal, for example, in the form of a direct cancellation of combat readiness, in particular, in the Air Force - immediately the day before the attack. Although they already knew for sure that it would be.

Even worse. When the war had already been going on for several hours, the Germans were bombing our cities, killing Soviet people, shelling the positions of the Red Army, the commander of the Kiev Special Military District, General Mikhail Kirponos, forbade bringing troops to combat readiness until the middle of the day on June 22. And then he did everything possible to break out the catastrophe of the South-Western Front in the form of the tragedy of the "Kyiv cauldron".

- General Kirponos then died heroically ...

“More like he was just 'heroically slapped'. There is a record of identification of his body, drawn up in November 1943, it was published back in Soviet times. According to the official "heroic" version, the corpse of a general who fell in an unequal battle with the Nazis, from which they removed insignia, orders, medals and took away all the documents, was thrown somewhere in the forest, showered with branches and leaves. And after a couple of years, the “responsible comrades” for some reason instantly identified the remains that had completely decomposed in two years ...

But it seems that the “military conspiracy” was liquidated back in 1937? ..

In 1937-1938, only the visible top was liquidated, and they did not get to the bottom of the second and third echelon of the conspirators. For reasons of state security, Stalin was forced to put a harsh end to the orgy of repression unleashed by Yezhov, including against the military.

The idea of ​​a coup d'etat in the USSR against the backdrop of a military defeat has been developed in the highest army circles of the Soviet Union since 1926. In 1935, a GRU report landed on Stalin's desk, in which this scenario was clearly outlined. Then the NKVD presented the relevant evidence. That is why 1937 followed.

In June 1941, the scenario that had been conceived five years earlier was realized. “The plan for the defeat of the USSR in the war with Germany”, compiled by Tukhachevsky and his accomplices - his arrested marshal in 1937 outlined already on the Lubyanka on 143 pages in an even handwriting. However, earlier, in September 1936, Jerome Uborevich took this plan to Germany. Having received it, the Germans in the late autumn of the same year held a command-staff game on the cards, where Minsk was captured on the fifth day of the still “virtual” aggression.

Did our people know about this game?

- Yes. On February 10, 1937, its results were reported to Stalin. And in 1939, one of the participants in that game fell into the hands of Soviet intelligence - a Russian emigrant, the staff captain of the tsarist army, Count Alexander Nelidov. An outstanding Soviet intelligence officer Zoya Voskresenskaya worked with him. And he also confirmed that during the game the Nazis captured Minsk on the fifth day. And in May 1941, the agent of Soviet intelligence, a member of the Red Chapel, Jon Sieg, who was one of the leaders of the Berlin railway junction, provided Soviet intelligence with a sealed written order from the Wehrmacht high command - on the fifth day from the start of hostilities against the USSR, to head the Minsk railway node.

Was Stalin informed about this?

Why did military leaders surrender their country to the enemy? After all, the Soviet generals then already enjoyed all the benefits of life.

They wanted more - to receive for personal use the “specific principality” cut off from the dismembered Russia-USSR. Fools, they did not understand that no one would give them anything. Nobody likes traitors, their fate is always sealed.

- Can you briefly talk about the “Tukhachevsky plan” and how it was implemented in June 1941?

- Tukhachevsky proposed to deploy the main groupings of covering armies, taking into account the location of the border fortified areas, so that they occupy a flank position in relation to those directions where enemy strikes are most likely. According to his concept, the border battle should take on a protracted character and last for several weeks. However, the slightest sudden blow, especially inflicted by forces concentrated on a narrow section of the breakthrough front, automatically led to a bloody tragedy. This is exactly what happened on June 22, 1941.

Even worse. Like Tukhachevsky, the high command of the Red Army, represented by the "Kyiv mafia" that had formed there, stubbornly pushed through the idea that for the German General Staff the most likely direction of the main attack was the Ukrainian one. That is, the historically established main route of all aggressors from the West, the Belarusian one, was completely denied. Timoshenko and Zhukov completely ignored Belarus as the direction of the main attack. Just like Tukhachevsky, who, in his affidavit at the Lubyanka, indicated that the Belarusian direction is generally fantastic.

Simply put, knowing exactly where and with what forces the Germans would attack, and even hoping that the Germans would not change their minds about inflicting their main blow on Belarus and the Baltic states, Timoshenko and Zhukov diligently misled Stalin about this. Both stubbornly proved to Stalin that the main forces of the Germans would oppose Ukraine, and therefore the Red Army should keep its main forces there. Even after the war, they stubbornly talked about it.

On June 22, the tragedy happened exactly according to the treacherous scenario. Divisions, corps and armies were forced to occupy lines of defense that were tens, hundreds and thousands of times greater than their capabilities. The division had from 30 to 50-60 km of the defense line, although according to the Charter it was supposed to be no more than 8-10 km. It reached microscopic 0.1 soldiers (and more) per 1 meter of the front line, although it was known in advance that the Nazis would trample down with a density of up to 4.42 infantrymen per meter of the breakthrough line. Simply put, one of our divisions was supposed to withstand at least five, or even more, enemy divisions. As a result, the Nazis in the literal sense of the word "out of thin air" were granted unprecedented strategic superiority. And this is not to mention the fact that frank holes were generally organized in our defense system. The largest - 105 km - in the Western District.

Anti-tank defense was planned in the same way. Only 3-5 barrels per 1 km, although it was well known that even according to the charter of the Panzerwaffe, they would go into a breakthrough with a density of 20-25 vehicles per kilometer. But in fact, at the time the aggression began, there were 30-50 tanks per 1 km, depending on the sector of the breakthrough front, and the General Staff of the Red Army had this data.

What Tymoshenko did (by the way, a nominee of Tukhachevsky) and Zhukov (he enjoyed the special favor of Uborevich), the former later called "an illiterate scenario for entering the war." In fact, it was an illegal, uncoordinated, criminal plan supposedly to repel aggression.

What kind of defense plan did our country have before the development of Tukhachevsky was launched? And did he exist?

“Of course it existed, it was just “replaced”. Officially approved by the Soviet government on October 14, 1940, the plan to repel Germany's aggression prescribed to contain and repel the first blow of the aggressor by active defense and active actions to fetter the enemy's actions. Moreover, the central attention was paid to the Pskov-Minsk direction. Those. the main forces of the Germans were expected to the north of Polesye, in Belorussia and the Baltic states, and our main forces were to be there as well.

Under the cover of active defense, the main forces were to be mobilized and concentrated. And then, and only in the presence of favorable conditions (!), a transition to a decisive counteroffensive against the enemy could be carried out. Moreover, depending on the deployment option - there were two of them, southern and northern - the transition to this very counteroffensive was possible no earlier than on the 15th or 30th day from the start of mobilization. But not an immediate counter-frontal counteroffensive by our main forces in Ukraine against the non-main forces of the enemy - against the allies of Germany, which was staged by Zhukov and Timoshenko, ruining almost the entire border grouping of the Red Army. Especially tank troops, primarily on the Southwestern Front.

As a result of their actions, especially taking into account the advancement of mobile depots to the border, in the very first days of the war, the Red Army lost 6 million rifles out of 8 million available at the beginning, millions of shells of all calibers, tens of thousands of tons of food, fuel, ...

Therefore, there was a shortage of weapons, ammunition and everything else?

— Exactly, but they still prefer to keep quiet about it. Remember, in Konstantin Simonov’s The Living and the Dead, the old worker Popkov, regretting that the Red Army does not have everything, says: “Yes, in the most extreme case, I would give this apartment, I lived in one room, I would live on an eighth of bread , on the gruel, as in Civil, he lived, if only the Red Army had everything ... ". The worker, as well as Simonov himself, did not know what actually happened, why such an incredible shortage of everything and everything had formed. And today, few people know this. Hide.

Even worse. Right on the eve of the war, when the advance of troops to the border had already begun, they started exercises for artillery. Anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery was taken far to the rear, and heavy, on the contrary, to training grounds close to the border. The defending group was left without air cover and completely defenseless against tanks, and heavy artillery, in fact, had to be recreated - it was instantly captured by the Germans. Little of. Right on the eve of the war, the artillery was blinded in the truest sense of the word, that is, they removed all the optical devices in separate howitzer regiments in the Baltic States and Belarus, without which it cannot work, and sent them "for repairs." And at the same time they immobilized under the pretext of replacing horse-drawn transport with a mechanical one - they took the horses away, but did not give tractors.

In units of the Air Force, especially in the Western District, on the eve of the war, combat readiness was canceled and the pilots were allowed to rest. Even holidays are allowed! Forward-based aviation stood as if on parade, or rather, as an excellent target. In many parts of the Air Force on the evening of June 21, they ordered to remove weapons and drain fuel. Have you ever wondered why our pilots started counting heroic deeds with rams? Yes, because there were no weapons on their planes, guns and machine guns were dismantled before the start of the war. Supposedly for verification. And ordinary Russian men went to ram to stop the enemy ...

Didn't people see it?

“We saw, talked, wrote, protesting the decisions of the higher command as extremely dangerous. And after the tragedy happened, they openly accused the command of betrayal. This thought took possession of the whole army. With colossal difficulty, this epidemic of distrust was quelled, because it was necessary to fight. For this, Stalin had to promptly put some people against the wall. For example, there is still the “lament of Yaroslavna” of democrats and anti-Stalinists about the fact that innocent Air Force generals were shot en masse. And what, they were not supposed to answer for their betrayal, expressed in the abolition of combat readiness right on the eve of the war, when officially, with the sanction of Stalin, combat readiness was already declared by the high command? After all, the ground troops were left without air cover, and how many of them died only because of this - no one counted ...

The General Staff was headed by Georgy Zhukov. What, and he too? ... After all, the future "Marshal of Victory" in the same December 1940, in the course of operational-strategic games on cards, playing for the Germans, defeated the defending commander of the Western Special Military District Dmitry Pavlov.
- There was no such thing, this is another lie that was thrown into the masses, including through cinema, in the famous film by Yuri Ozerov. But in reality, the defending Pavlov, acting within the framework of the "official" defensive strategy developed by Boris Shaposhnikov, won against Zhukov. That is, repulsed the attack of the "Germans".

The documents describing the course of that game were declassified more than 20 years ago and now they are available, and everyone can see what really happened then.

We survived, we won. What happens, the traitors "re-educated" and became the defenders of the Motherland?

- Survived and won, first of all, His Majesty the Soviet RUSSIAN SOLDIER, together with his adequately thinking and acting officers, who fought under the command of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V. Stalin - an outstanding statesman, geopolitician, strategist and diplomat, a brilliant organizer and business executive.

And he did not forget what the generals did, this is evidenced by the special investigation he launched into the causes of the disaster on June 22 (general Pokrovsky's commission).

Here are the famous five questions that Colonel General Alexander Pokrovsky asked his "wards":
Was the plan for the defense of the state border brought to the attention of the troops in the part that concerns them; when and what was done by the command and staffs to ensure the implementation of this plan?
From what time and on the basis of what order did the covering troops begin to reach the state border, and how many of them were deployed before the start of hostilities?
When was the order received to put the troops on alert in connection with the expected attack by fascist Germany on the morning of June 22?
Why was most of the artillery in training centers?
To what extent were the headquarters prepared for command and control, and to what extent did this affect the conduct of operations in the first days of the war?

Isn't it interesting questions? Especially in light of what we've been talking about. Unfortunately, the investigation was not completed at that time. Someone did everything to make the case "released on the brakes."

Three quarters of a century have passed since those events. Is it worth it to stir up the past, to expose the traitors who died long ago?

Martirosyan: Worth it. And it's not even about specific names. It's about historical justice, honesty. Stalin made Zhukov a symbol of victory. Because he deeply respected the Russian people and understood what he had to endure during this war. Although he himself knew very well that the true Suvorov of the Red Army, truly the Great Marshal of the Great Victory, the most brilliant commander, was the most intelligent and noble Konstantin Rokossovsky. But the state-forming people in the USSR - the Great Russian People - needed their own symbol. So Zhukov became him, because Rokossovsky was "let down" by the fifth count - he was a Pole.

But how did the "Marshal of Victory" thank Stalin? In a letter addressed to Khrushchev dated May 19, 1956, in which he so slandered and slandered his Supreme Commander-in-Chief that even the notorious Trotskyite maize could not stand it and soon expelled Zhukov from the post of Minister of Defense.

Stalin was not betrayed only by two marshals - Rokossovsky and the creator of Soviet long-range aviation, Marshal Alexander Golovanov. The rest blamed all the blame for June 22 on the leader. It's like they have nothing to do with it. It is somehow not customary to remember that Zhukov even offered to surrender Moscow to adversaries ...

The current generation should know EVERYTHING about that war. After all, he is being told that our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers were useless defenders of the Motherland, that they surrendered by the millions and voluntarily, and the "evil communists" did not give them weapons. Many already sincerely believe that it was Stalin who was guilty of the tragedy of June 22 - he did not heed the warnings of the wise Zhukov. A great many myths have spread, including those planted by foreign intelligence services.

On the altar of the Great Victory, the Soviet people placed 27 million lives full of strength and bright thoughts of our compatriots. And this should not be forgotten. Therefore, we must know everything, no matter how bitter this truth may be. Otherwise, we won't learn anything. We must clearly understand with whom our glorious ancestors had to fight.

In terms of the level of reliability and sincerity of the presentation, I can only compare it with Shumilin's memoirs "Vanka company".
Reading it is as hard as looking at the mutilated corpse of a person who had just stood nearby ...
While reading this book, my memory involuntarily restored almost forgotten analogous pictures of the past.
Nikulin "drank" in the war disproportionately more than I did, having survived it from beginning to end, having visited one of the bloodiest sections of the front: in the Tikhvin swamps, where our "glorious strategists" laid down more than one army, including the 2nd Shock. .. And yet I dare to note that many of his experiences and sensations are very similar to mine.
Some statements of Nikolai Nikolaevich prompted me to comment on them, which I do below, quoting from the book.
The main question that arises explicitly or implicitly when reading books about the war is what made companies, battalions and regiments resignedly go towards almost inevitable death, sometimes even obeying the criminal orders of their commanders? In numerous volumes of jingoistic literature, this is explained in an elementary simple way: inspired by love for their socialist homeland and hatred for the perfidious enemy, they were ready to give their lives for the victory over him and unanimously went on the attack at the call “Hurrah! For motherland for Stalin!"

N.N. Nikulin:

“Why did they go to death, although they clearly understood its inevitability? Why did they go, although they did not want to? They walked, not just fearing death, but terrified, and yet they walked! Then there was no need to think and justify their actions. It wasn't before. They just got up and walked, because it was NECESSARY!
They politely listened to the parting words of the political instructors - an illiterate transcription of oak and empty newspaper editorials - and walked on. Not at all inspired by some ideas or slogans, but because it is NECESSARY. So, apparently, our ancestors also went to die on the Kulikovo field or near Borodino. It is unlikely that they thought about the historical prospects and greatness of our people ... Having entered the neutral zone, they did not at all shout “For the Motherland! For Stalin!”, as they say in novels. A hoarse howl and thick obscene language were heard over the front line, until bullets and shrapnel plugged the screaming throats. Was it before Stalin when death was near. Where, now, in the sixties, did the myth again arise that they won only thanks to Stalin, under the banner of Stalin? I have no doubts about this. Those who won either perished on the battlefield or drank themselves, overwhelmed by the post-war hardships. After all, not only the war, but also the restoration of the country took place at their expense. Those of them who are still alive are silent, broken.
Others remained in power and retained their strength - those who drove people into camps, those who drove them into senseless bloody attacks in the war. They acted in the name of Stalin, and they are now shouting about it. Was not at the forefront: "For Stalin!". The commissars tried to hammer it into our heads, but there were no commissars in the attacks. All this scum ... "

And I remember.

In October 1943, our 4th Guards Cavalry Division was urgently moved to the front line in order to close the gap that had formed after an unsuccessful attempt to break through the front by infantry. For about a week, the division held the defense in the area of ​​the Belarusian city of Khoiniki. At that time I worked at the divisional radio station "RSB-F" and I could judge the intensity of hostilities only by the number of wounded people riding in carts and walking to the rear of the wounded.
I am receiving a radiogram. After a long cipher-tsifiri in plain text the words "Change of linen." The encoded text will go to the headquarters cipher, and these words are intended by the corps radio operator for me, who is receiving the radiogram. They mean that the infantry is coming to replace us.
And indeed, rifle units were already walking past the walkie-talkie standing on the side of the forest road. It was some kind of battle-worn division, withdrawn from the front for a short rest and replenishment. Not observing the formation, soldiers walked with the floors of their overcoats tucked under the belt (there was an autumn thaw), which seemed humpbacked because of raincoats thrown over knapsacks.
I was struck by their downcast, doomed appearance. I realized that in an hour or two they would be at the forefront ...

Writes to N.N. Nikulin:

“Noise, roar, rattle, howl, bang, hoot - a hell of a concert. And along the road, in the gray haze of dawn, the infantry wanders to the front line. Row after row, regiment after regiment. Faceless figures hung with weapons, covered with humpbacked capes. Slowly but inexorably they marched forward to their own destruction. A generation going to eternity. There was so much generalizing meaning in this picture, so much apocalyptic horror, that we acutely felt the fragility of being, the pitiless pace of history. We felt like pitiful moths destined to burn without a trace in the hellish fire of war.

The dull obedience and conscious doom of Soviet soldiers attacking fortified positions inaccessible to a frontal assault amazed even our opponents. Nikulin cites the story of a German veteran who fought on the same sector of the front, but on the other side.

A certain Mr. Erwin X., whom he met in Bavaria, says:

What kind of strange people? We laid a rampart of corpses about two meters high under Sinyavino, and they keep climbing and climbing under the bullets, climbing over the dead, and we keep hitting and hitting, and they keep climbing and climbing ... And what dirty prisoners were! Snotty boys are crying, and the bread in their bags is disgusting, it is impossible to eat!
And what did yours do in Courland? he continues. - Once the masses of Russian troops went on the attack. But they were met with friendly fire from machine guns and anti-tank guns. The survivors began to roll back. But then dozens of machine guns and anti-tank guns hit from the Russian trenches. We saw how rushing about, dying, in the neutral zone of the crowd of your soldiers distraught with horror!

This is about detachments.

In a discussion at the military-historical forum "VIF-2 NE "None other than V. Karpov himself - the hero of the Soviet Union, in the past ZEK, a penal scout, the author of well-known biographical novels about commanders, said that there were no and could not be cases of shooting retreating Red Army soldiers by detachments. “Yes, we would shoot them ourselves,” he said. I had to object, despite the high authority of the writer, referring to my meeting with these warriors on the way to the medical squadron. As a result, he received a lot of offensive remarks. You can find a lot of evidence of how courageously the NKVD troops fought on the fronts. But about their activities as detachments, it was not necessary to meet.
In the comments to my statements and in the guest book of my site ( http://ldb1.people. en ) often there are words that veterans - relatives of the authors of the comments categorically refuse to remember their participation in the war and, moreover, write about it. I think the book of N.N. Nikulina explains this quite convincingly.
On the website of Artem Drabkin "I remember" ( www.iremember.ru ) a huge collection of memoirs of war veterans. But it is extremely rare to find sincere stories about what a comfrey soldier experienced at the forefront on the verge of life and inevitable, as it seemed to him, death.
In the 60s of the last century, when N.N. Nikulin, in the memory of the soldiers who miraculously survived after being at the forefront of the front, the experience was still as fresh as an open wound. Naturally, remembering this was painful. And I, to whom fate was more merciful, was able to force myself to take up a pen only in 1999.

N.N. Nikulin:

« Memoirs, memoirs... Who writes them? What memoirs can those who actually fought have? Pilots, tankers and, above all, infantrymen?
Wound - death, wound - death, wound - death and all! There was no other. Memoirs are written by those who were near the war. In the second echelon, at headquarters. Or corrupt hacks who expressed the official point of view, according to which we cheerfully won, and the evil fascists fell by the thousands, slain by our well-aimed fire. Simonov, "honest writer", what did he see? They took him for a ride in a submarine, once he went on the attack with infantry, once with scouts, looked at the artillery preparation - and now he “saw everything” and “experienced everything”! (Others, however, did not see this either.)
He wrote with aplomb, and all this is an embellished lie. And Sholokhov's "They fought for the Motherland" is just propaganda! There is no need to talk about small mongrels. ”

In the stories of real comfrey soldiers, there is often a pronounced hostility, bordering on hostility, towards the inhabitants of various headquarters and rear services. This is read by both Nikulin and Shumilin, who contemptuously called them "regimental".

Nikulin:

« A striking difference exists between the front lines, where blood is shed, where there is suffering, where there is death, where one cannot raise one's head under bullets and shrapnel, where there is hunger and fear, overwork, heat in summer, frost in winter, where it is impossible to live, and the rear. Here, in the rear, another world. Here are the authorities, here are the headquarters, there are heavy guns, warehouses, medical battalions are located. Occasionally, shells fly here or a plane drops a bomb. The dead and wounded are rare here. Not a war, but a resort! Those on the front line are not residents. They are doomed. Their salvation is only a wound. Those in the rear will remain alive if they are not moved forward when the ranks of the attackers dry out. They will stay alive, come home, and eventually form the backbone of veterans' organizations. They will grow bellies, get bald heads, decorate their chests with commemorative medals, orders and will tell how heroically they fought, how they defeated Hitler. And they themselves will believe in it!
It is they who will bury the bright memory of those who died and who really fought! They will present a war about which they themselves know little, in a romantic halo. How good everything was, how wonderful! What heroes we are! And the fact that war is horror, death, hunger, meanness, meanness and meanness will fade into the background. The real front-line soldiers, of which there are one and a half people left, and even those crazy, spoiled ones, will be silent as a rag. And the authorities, who will also largely survive, will be mired in squabbles: who fought well, who fought badly, but if only they had listened to me!

Harsh words, but largely justified. I had to serve for some time at the headquarters of the division in the communications squadron, I had seen enough of smart staff officers. It is possible that due to a conflict with one of them, I was sent to the communications platoon of the 11th cavalry regiment (http://ldb1.narod.ru/simple39_.html )
I have already had to speak on a very painful topic about the terrible fate of women in the war. And again, this turned out to be an insult to me: the young relatives of the mothers and grandmothers who fought, felt that I had outraged their military merits.
When, even before leaving for the front, I saw how, under the influence of powerful propaganda, young girls enthusiastically enrolled in courses for radio operators, nurses or snipers, and then at the front - how they had to part with illusions and girlish pride, I, a boy inexperienced in life it hurt a lot for them. I recommend M. Kononov's novel "The Naked Pioneer", it's about the same thing.

And here is what N.N. Nikulin.

“This is not a woman's business - war. No doubt, there were many heroines who can be set as an example for men. But it is too cruel to force women to suffer the torment of the front. And if only this! It was hard for them to be surrounded by men. True, the hungry soldiers had no time for women, but the authorities achieved their goal by any means, from rough pressure to the most exquisite courtship. Among the many cavaliers there were daredevils for every taste: to sing, and to dance, and to talk eloquently, and for the educated - to read Blok or Lermontov ... And the girls went home with the addition of a family. It seems that this was called in the language of the military offices "to leave by order of 009." In our unit, out of fifty who arrived in 1942, only two soldiers of the fair sex remained by the end of the war. But “leave on order 009” is the best way out.
It's been worse. I was told how a certain Colonel Volkov lined up female reinforcements and, passing along the line, selected the beauties he liked. Such became his PPZH (Field mobile wife. The abbreviation PPZH had a different meaning in the soldier's lexicon. This is how hungry and emaciated soldiers called an empty, watery stew: “Goodbye, sex life”), and if they resisted - on the lip, in a cold dugout, on bread and water! Then the baby went from hand to hand, got to different mothers and deputies. In the best Asian traditions!”

Among my brother-soldiers was a wonderful brave woman medical officer of the squadron Masha Samoletova. About her on my website is the story of Marat Shpilyov “Her name was Moscow”. And at a meeting of veterans in Armavir, I saw how the soldiers she pulled from the battlefield were crying. She came to the front at the Komsomol call, leaving the ballet, where she began to work. But she also could not resist the pressure of the army Don Juan, as she herself told me.

And the last thing to talk about.

N.N. Nikulin:

“Everything seemed to be tested: death, hunger, shelling, overwork, cold. So no! There was something else very terrible, almost crushing me. On the eve of the transition to the territory of the Reich, agitators arrived in the troops. Some are in high ranks.
- Death for death! Blood for blood!!! Let's not forget!!! We won't forgive!!! Let's take revenge!!! - and so on...
Prior to this, Ehrenburg had thoroughly tried, whose crackling, biting articles everyone read: “Dad, kill the German!” And it turned out Nazism on the contrary.
True, they behaved outrageously according to plan: a network of ghettos, a network of camps. Accounting and compilation of lists of loot. A register of punishments, planned executions, etc. With us, everything went spontaneously, in the Slavic way. Bay, guys, burn, wilderness!
Spoil their women! Moreover, before the offensive, the troops were abundantly supplied with vodka. And it's gone, and it's gone! As always, the innocent suffered. The bosses, as always, fled ... Indiscriminately burned houses, killed some random old women, aimlessly shot herds of cows. A joke invented by someone was very popular: “Ivan is sitting near a burning house. "What are you doing?" they ask him. “Yes, the footcloths had to be dried, the fire was lit” ... Corpses, corpses, corpses. The Germans, of course, are scum, but why be like them? The army has humiliated itself. The nation has humiliated itself. It was the worst thing in the war. Corpses, corpses...
At the railway station of the city of Allenstein, which the valiant cavalry of General Oslikovsky captured unexpectedly for the enemy, several echelons with German refugees arrived. They thought they were going to their rear, but they got there ... I saw the results of the reception that they received. The station platforms were covered with heaps of gutted suitcases, bundles, trunks. Everywhere clothes, children's things, ripped pillows. All this in pools of blood...

“Everyone has the right to send a parcel home once a month weighing twelve kilograms,” the authorities officially announced. And it's gone, and it's gone! Drunk Ivan burst into the bomb shelter, fucked the machine on the table and, terribly bulging eyes, yelled: “URRRRR! ( Uhr- hours) Reptiles! Trembling German women carried watches from all sides, which they raked into the "sidor" and carried away. One soldier became famous for forcing a German woman to hold a candle (there was no electricity) while he rummaged through her chests. Rob! Grab it! Like an epidemic, this scourge swept over everyone ... Then they came to their senses, but it was too late: the devil flew out of the bottle. Kind, affectionate Russian men have turned into monsters. They were terrible alone, but in the herd they became such that it is impossible to describe!

Here, as they say, comments are superfluous.

We will soon celebrate a wonderful national holiday, Victory Day. It carries not only joy in connection with the anniversary the end of a terrible war that claimed every 8th inhabitant of our country (on average!), but also tears for those who did not return from there ... I would also like to remember the exorbitant price that the people had to pay under the “wise leadership” of the greatest commander of all times and peoples " . After all, it has already been forgotten that he endowed himself with the title of Generalissimo and this title!

Vladimir Beshanov

Cadres decide everything:

the harsh truth about the war of 1941-1945.

Atrocities large and serious are often referred to as brilliant and, as such, are recorded on the tablets of History.

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin

Introduction

First came the ghost - the ghost of Communism. This phenomenon was first recorded in 1848 by the outstanding scientist-mediums Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, armed with the most advanced and infallible theory of their own composition. The ghost wandered around Europe, shaking the chains borrowed from the proletariat, assured that the workers had no fatherland, suggested that they “unite”, enroll in the ranks of the gravediggers of the bourgeoisie and “destroy everything that hitherto protected and ensured private property.” The prophecies of the communist Spirit were set forth by two friends, who are the classics of a new type of ideology, in the famous Manifesto.

The manifesto, "with brilliant clarity and brightness" outlined a new, communist "world outlook", called on all the oppressed to forcibly overthrow the existing social and political system, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and destroy classes and private property. Following this, according to the authors, sooner or later, Communism inevitably had to come - the highest and final stage in the development of human society, heaven on earth: factories - for workers, land - for peasants, women - in common use.

The international proletarian anthem - "The Internationale" - defined a clear program of action and the ultimate goal of the communist movement:

We will destroy the whole world of violence
To the bottom and then
We are ours, we will build a new world,
Who was nothing will become everything.

True, along with passages about the "conquest of democracy", terms like "expropriation", "despotic interference", "confiscation of property" slipped through the Manifesto - of course, exclusively in relation to "exploiters", but also "industrial armies", into which for the convenience of building a new world, it was proposed to mobilize the liberated proletarians.

It is preferable to make a revolution in advanced industrial countries where the proletariat is most concentrated and organized. Therefore, for a long time communists of all stripes, including Russian Social Democrats, tried to rouse the workers to a just cause in some Germany or Switzerland. But the weakest link "in the imperialist chain" was the Russian Empire.

They immediately dubbed the coup d'état, carried out with German money by the bayonets of the "internationalists" and sailors stupefied with idleness, "proletarian dictatorship", their own power - "the power of the workers and peasants" and on behalf of the latter began to exterminate both, as well as all those who disagree.

Seven decades of the history of the world's first socialist state show that its domestic policy exactly corresponded to the three points of the "International": destruction, construction, appointment to office.

What relation to the proletariat did the writer V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin), Caucasian abrek I.V. Dzhugashvili (Stalin), Polish militant F.E. Dzerzhinsky, cosmopolitan journalist L.D. Bronstein (Trotsky) or Yekaterinburg "mafia" Ya.M. Sverdlov - it's hard to say.

Why did they do all this?

Is it really just to eat to satiety of chum salmon caviar, which Trotsky, driven by Stalinist wolfhounds into the Mexican outback, recalled with nostalgia even 20 years later: “... the first years of the revolution are painted not only in my memory with this unchanging caviar”?

Rob all the citizens? Restore feudalism in a single country? On the mountain to all the bourgeoisie to inflate the world fire? What difference does it make, the main thing is the Power itself. This is what Lenin wrote to the members of the Central Committee a day before the coup: “The seizure of power is a matter of insurrection; its political purpose will become clear after the capture.

As early as the end of the 18th century, Georges Danton, a figure in the great French revolution, gave a clear and intelligible definition: "A revolution is simply a redistribution of property." Simply put, the basis of the worldview of any revolutionary is Sharikov's "select and divide."

Indeed, in the first place in Lenin's program of action was the item on the "expropriation of the expropriators." It means total robbery. In the future, the population was promised a bright future, toilets made of gold and cooks who would run the state. In the meantime - "rob the loot", destroy the "world of violence."

The simplest thing is to destroy. True-believing Marxists, defenders of the oppressed and disadvantaged, saviors of the Fatherland, confidently determined what exactly needed to be destroyed.

The “world of violence” included: all members of the ruling dynasty, the government and the state apparatus, the army and navy, the gendarmerie and the police, border and customs guards, the church, all owners of capital, all owners of large, medium and small enterprises, estates of nobles, merchants, Cossacks and clergy in full force, including babies, most of the peasantry (the rich, that is, "kulaks", as well as the middle peasants and the notorious "podkulakniks"), "bourgeois" writers, poets, philosophers, scientists, journalists and the intelligentsia in general, works of art created "for the needs of the exploiters", etc. and so on. In a word, everything that makes up the content of such concepts as the state, history, culture, traditions, national pride.

As a result, a lot had to be destroyed and destroyed, because those “who were nothing, but became everything” had rather specific views, in the complete absence of such “bourgeois” concepts as conscience and morality:

“We do not believe in eternal morality and expose the deception of all fairy tales about morality ... For us, morality is subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.”

Under the noise of general robbery with the help of the Cheka and the “overflowing energy of the masses”, the Bolsheviks quickly established the “highest form of statehood” in the country - the power of the Soviets.

But what could Lenin and his company offer the country instead of a monarchy or a bourgeois republic?

In April 1918, in the article "Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power", Vladimir Ilyich briefly outlined his model of an ideal society:

“The first step in the emancipation of the working people ... is the confiscation of the landed estates, the introduction of workers' control, the nationalization of the banks. The next steps will be the nationalization of factories and factories, forced organization of the entire population into consumer societies, which are at the same time societies for the sale of products, the state monopoly of trade in bread and other necessary products ...