Could it have been prevented. Could the First World War have been prevented briefly. And what happened from the side of the Soviet Union itself
In December 1991, the heads of the republics of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia signed an agreement in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on the creation of the SSG. This document actually meant the collapse of the Soviet Union. The political map of the world began to look different.
First, you need to decide on what caused the global catastrophe in order to try to objectively assess the situation. There are many such reasons. This is the degradation of the ruling elites of the "epoch of the funeral", which turned a powerful state into a not very powerful one, and problems in the economy that have long required effective reforms. This also includes strict censorship, deep internal crises, including increased nationalism in the republics.
It is naive to believe that the stars were formed in this way and the state fell apart due to coincidental events. The main political opponent of the Soviet Union did not doze off either, imposing an arms race in which the USSR, given all the existing problems, could not succeed. We must pay tribute to the intelligence and insight of Western geopoliticians, who managed to shake and destroy the seemingly unshakable "Soviet machine".
The USSR broke up into 15 states. In 1991, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan appeared on the world map.
The Cold War, which resulted in the collapse of the USSR, was by no means limited to indirect skirmishes on various fronts in countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. The Cold War took place in the heads and hearts of the citizens of the USSR and the USA. Western propaganda was more sophisticated. The United States and its allies turned all their mass riots and discontent into a show. Hippies could preach love instead of war, and the authorities quietly allowed them to express their point of view, nevertheless continuing to bend their policy. In the Soviet Union, dissent was severely suppressed. And when they were allowed to think “otherwise”, it was too late. The wave of discontent, fueled from the outside (and the fifth column took an active part) was unstoppable.
There were a lot of reasons for the collapse, but if we simplify everything, we can conclude that the USSR collapsed because of jeans, chewing gum and Coca-Cola. There were too many "forbidden fruits", which in fact turned out to be empty.
Options for resolving the situation.
Probably, it was possible to prevent the collapse of the USSR. It is difficult to say what solution would be ideal for the state, for the country, for the people, without knowing all the unknown factors. As an example, we can consider the People's Republic of China, which, thanks to the flexible actions of the authorities, managed to bypass the crisis of the socialist system.
However, the national component should not be underestimated. Although both the Soviet Union and the PRC are multinational states, the peoples of China and the Soviet Union are by no means identical. The difference between culture and history makes itself felt.
We needed an idea for the people. It was necessary to come up with an alternative to the "American dream", which teased Soviet citizens from across the ocean. In the 30s, when the inhabitants of the USSR believed in the ideals of communism, the country turned from an agrarian into an industrial one in record time. In the 40s. not without faith in a just cause, the USSR defeated the enemy, who at that time was stronger in military power. In the 50s. people were ready to raise virgin lands for the sake of the common good on bare enthusiasm. In the 60s. The Soviet Union was the first to send a man into space. Soviet people conquered mountain peaks, made scientific discoveries broke world records. All this happened largely because of faith in a brighter future and for the good of their people.
For more than 20 years, in most economic and social indicators, the newly formed countries have significantly rolled back.
Then the situation gradually began to deteriorate. The people began to understand the utopian ideals of the past. The country's government blindly continued to bend its line, not thinking about possible development alternatives. The aging leaders of the USSR reacted primitively to the provocations of the West, getting involved in unnecessary military conflicts. The outrageously growing bureaucracy thought primarily about its own good rather than about the needs of the people, for whom all these "people's" bodies were originally created.
There was no need to "tighten the screws" where the situation did not require it. Then the "forbidden fruits" would not have become so desirable, and the intriguers of the West would have lost their main weapon. Instead of thoughtlessly following obviously utopian ideals, it was necessary to pay attention in time to the needs of the people even at that time. And in no case do not alternate “thaws” and other liberalisms with strict prohibitions. Internal and foreign policy should have been justifiably tough for the benefit of national interests, but without excesses.
Z.V. Krasilnikova, teacher of history and social studies, UKP at IK-1, Vologda
Essay on the topic "Was it possible to prevent the Second world war»
We were accustomed to the thought for a long time, and now, the day of the summer solstice of 1941 in the minds of everyone is firmly adjacent to the word “suddenly”. But treachery cannot explain why the war was not prevented, why the regular Red Army was almost completely defeated or captured in a matter of weeks? How to explain that the enemy reached Moscow in four months, and we paved the road to Berlin with the bones of our compatriots for four long years?
When answering the question of whether the war could have been prevented, historians use different approaches. First, yes, it would have been possible to prevent a war if a collective security system had been created through the efforts of Britain, France and the Soviet Union. Second, it was impossible to prevent the war, because all European states sought to redistribute the world.
To solve this problem, it is necessary to find out what is war, what is the mechanism of its occurrence?
War is a social phenomenon. One of the forms of solving socio-political, economic, ideological, national, religious, territorial contradictions between states, peoples, nations, classes, etc. by means of armed violence. The main element of the essence of war is politics, it is politics that determines the goals of war, its socio-political, legal, moral and ethical character.
The mechanism of the emergence of wars requires the study of all causes, objective conditions and subjective factors, both those that gave rise to it and those that counteracted it.
Among the missed opportunities to prevent war, it should be noted that the war could have been prevented at the stage of its inception. To do this, it was necessary to demand from Germany a clear implementation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919.
Art. 173. General compulsory service will be abolished. The German army can be built and manned only by voluntary recruitment.
1935 - Hitler introduces universal military service.
Art. 42. Germany is forbidden to maintain and build fortifications, both on the left bank of the Rhine and on the right bank of the Rhine.
1935 - the introduction of German troops into the demilitarized Rhineland.
The Soviet Union proposed to the League of Nations that collective measures be taken to effectively suppress violations of international obligations. But the voice of the USSR was not heard.
Mid-May 1938 German troops concentrated on the border with Czechoslovakia. In September, when the situation escalated to the limit, the leaders of England and France arrived in Munich for negotiations with Germany and Italy. There are few pages in world history that can be compared in shamefulness, the shame of the deed with what happened within two last days September 1938 in Munich. It was there that the Prime Ministers of Great Britain and France Chamberlain and Daladier, having met with Hitler and Mussolini, calmly put their signatures under what meant the end of the existence of Czechoslovakia as independent state. They probably felt like they saved the world at the last minute. The Munich Agreement consolidated the course of the Western powers to "appease" the fascist aggressors, satisfying Germany's claims to seize the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The American magazine The Times, in its issue of September 4, in connection with the Munich Agreement, when England and France betrayed Czechoslovakia, writes: “Chief of the General Staff Halder testified after the war that German generals were ready to overthrow the dictator if the Czechoslovak crisis of 1938 led to real military action. But when the British and French retreated in Munich, so did the German generals. Six months later, the Wehrmacht occupied the entire remaining territory of Czechoslovakia, capturing key positions in the center of the continent to attack Poland, to "blitzkrieg" in the west in the spring of 1940, to implement the "Barbarossa" plan. After Munich, in September 1938. was signed
Anglo - German, and in December of the same year Franco - German declaration. The parties declared their desire to "never again wage war against each other" and to resolve all issues through consultations. With the signing of these declarations, hopes for the possibility of creating a system of collective security were finally dispelled. An excerpt from a telegram from the representative of the USSR in Czechoslovakia S. S. Aleksandrovsky to the USSR People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of October 1, 1938: “In Munich, Hitler managed to convince Chamberlain and Daladier that in this situation it was not he, but the USSR, which was objectively Bolshevik, that posed a great danger to peace in Europe outpost and can play the fatal role of an arsonist new war. Consequently, this conviction was not a formal, but a factual basis for creating a bloc of four (Germany, Italy, England, France) against the USSR. If Czechoslovakia resists today because of this, a war starts, then it will immediately turn into a war between the USSR and all of Europe.
Another opportunity to create a system of collective resistance to the enemy was missed in May-August 1939. Stalin and his entourage did not use all the opportunities for the effectiveness of the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations. We know the exact date of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. But the war did not start on June 22, it started two years earlier. And its first volleys were not gunshots, but the kind smiles of Molotov and Ribbentrop at the conclusion of the non-aggression pact. It is well known that the first attempts to reach rapprochement with the Soviet Union Nazi Germany undertook in March 1939. But no one has yet been able to explain what caused such a sharp change in the political course in relations between the two states. It is unlikely that Hitler would have risked such an adventure in his political game, not having strong trump cards in his hands. Hitler had them, this is a document called “A Brief Review of the Soviet Armed Forces”, compiled by the General Staff ground forces Wehrmacht January 28, 1939. It is now clear that the data from this survey has turned the war machine fascist state to a dangerous war with the Soviet Union. Even during the first years of the war, Hitler could not get rid of the thinking formulated by the document. Even today, it is sad to read some assessments of the level of combat capability of the Red Army…….” Command staff makes a worse impression than in 1933. Russia will take years to reach its previous level. After the execution of Tukhachevsky and a number of generals in the summer of 1937, only a few personalities remained from among the military leaders.
The signing of secret protocols to the treaty with Germany (August 1939) of the Treaty of Friendship and Borders (September 1939), negotiations in November 1940 on the possibility of the USSR joining an alliance with Germany, Italy, Japan against England and France disorientated Soviet people. Even on June 14, a TASS statement stated that Germany would not attack the USSR. Therefore, June 22, 1941 was an unexpectedly tragic day for most Soviet people. It took a lot of time, many innocent victims, to tune in to fight with those with whom they had recently been friends and traded. Stalin and his entourage made a miscalculation, behind which the burning villages of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, numerous columns of captured Red Army soldiers are visible. Crying refugees wandering east with their children - the first days of the war are visible. Bitterly, inconsolably mourned in each of our families, who did not wait for fathers, husbands, sons from the front.
We won the Great Patriotic War. Hitler, an experienced political player, nevertheless miscalculated with his trump cards. We beat them in 1941 with Brest and Smolensk, and in 1943 near Stalingrad, and in 1945 we entered Berlin. But what a terrible price for victory! After all, not with trump cards - people filled up the approaches to Moscow and the bend of the Don. 27 million human lives for winning a war that could have been prevented if………. . But history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood, it believes in facts.
For more than 20 years of liberal lies, the people have been stubbornly and persistently slipped and are still slipping a completely false idea that the civil war is some kind of evil into which the Bolsheviks plunged the whole country. And if not for a handful of these scoundrels, the country would live in peace and prosperity.
In reality, such a formulation is false a priori and leads away from the class essence of the question itself.
After all, what is a civil war? The civil war is nothing but the concentrated expression of the class struggle. In other words, this is a struggle for power between the class of the exploited, that is, the proletarians, and the class of exploiters, that is, those who were in power until recently, lost it and would like to return it.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote: "Whoever recognizes the class struggle cannot but recognize civil wars, which in any class society represent a natural, under certain circumstances, inevitable continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle." (THE MILITARY PROGRAM OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION).
Could there not have been this sharp struggle? No, it could not, because the proletarians - workers, peasants and soldiers - tried to retain and defend the power they had won in October 1917. And a miserable bunch of rich people, not having powerful support within the country, naturally tried to rely on foreign interventionists and their bayonets, who did not fail to rush to plunder Russian wealth. Fortunately, the White Guards, not without pleasure, sold their own country to them wholesale and retail, not very ashamed of their actions and not noticeably sad about the prosperity of Mother Russia.
So, let's fix that the civil war was a war or a struggle for power, between a handful of rich people, i.e. minority, and the working majority, or proletarians.
Does this mean that "brother went against brother" or, in other words, that the rift of discord ran, so to speak, right through families?
Let's just say that this phrase cannot be taken literally. Of course, there were separate cases when one brother was in the camp of the whites, and the other in the camp of the reds, there were cases. However, such a situation could arise only due to delusion and misunderstanding by individual proletarians of their class interests due to political illiteracy.
It is significant, as Demyan Bedny wrote about this at that time, referring to the lost proletarians who stood up to protect the interests of their exploiting masters, the tsarist guardsmen and fat-bellied bourgeois:
But I feel sorry for the real sufferers - the poor,
It is a pity for those who, trembling in difficult times,
He is ready to put on his old fetters,
He himself asks for himself and prisons and shackles,
Former "owners" he substitutes his shoulders ...
I note that before the Great October Revolution, the so-called "brothers" who stood on the other side of the barricades did not hesitate to rob the common people like sticky, and gnaw them to the bone, without thinking at all about some kind of "mythical brotherhood" there.
Therefore, in civilian the oppressed stood up against the oppressor, and not "brother" against "brother", only in this way and not otherwise, and it was impossible to avoid this, except that once again bending the neck under the yoke and whip of the exploiter.
Thus, those who cry today that civil war is an evil are far from concerned with the desire for peace and non-shedding of blood, but for the rejection of the struggle in general, for power in favor of the bourgeoisie and landowners, who were removed from it by the will of the people in October 1917 of the year. And such their position, by definition, is deeply anti-people.
Lenin wrote in his "Response to P. Kievsky (Yu. Pyatakov)": "The goal of the civil war is to conquer banks, factories, plants and other things (in favor of the proletarians), to destroy any possibility of resistance by the bourgeoisie, to exterminate its troops."
It is clear that such goals could not please those who until recently fattened themselves at the expense of the oppressed majority. It was this clash of interests that caused the bitter struggle - civil war, the rejection of which would be tantamount to surrender to the bourgeoisie and those fragments of tsarism, which, unfortunately, still survived.
History does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. Therefore, I will not fantasize what would happen as a result of a change in certain historical decisions. I just want to take a small step towards understanding whether the war of 1941-45 as such could have been avoided.
The illustration shows a cartoon by Clifford Barryman, 1939.
Consideration of the prerequisites of World War II traditionally begins with a mention of the Treaty of Versailles. It was a humiliating agreement for Germany, limiting it in the military-political sphere. The Treaty of Versailles was one of the reasons Adolf Hitler came to power.
In 1933, Germany ceases to comply with the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and begins to build up its armed forces.
In 1936 Hitler seeks Mussolini's consent to the annexation of Austria. In the same year, Germany concludes the Anti-Comintern Pact (a pact against communism) with Japan. In 1938 Germany annexed Austria. In the same year, as a result of the Munich Agreement, Germany divides Czechoslovakia with the participation of Poland and Hungary.
In 1939 Germany starts the Polish campaign. The division of Poland is being carried out ... together with the USSR, in accordance with the secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
In 1940 Germany occupies Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. In the same year, France capitulates. Germany goes to war with Britain.
From the listed facts it is clear that the war was gaining momentum and Hitler was not going to stop there. It is especially noteworthy that Germany consistently attacked everyone with whom it had previously concluded agreements on the division of other countries. With the participation of Great Britain and Poland, Czechoslovakia was divided. After that, Poland itself was occupied and war on Great Britain was declared. The division of Poland was carried out with the participation of the USSR - is it any wonder that the USSR itself became Hitler's next target?
And what was on the part of Soviet Union?
1939-1940 - Soviet-Finnish War. 1940 - accession to the Soviet Union of the Baltic States, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (before that part of Romania). The participation of the USSR in the division of Poland has already been mentioned.
And although the Soviet Union did not conduct such large-scale takeovers of neighboring territories as Germany, it would be wrong to call the policy of the USSR passive.
Both states - both Germany and the USSR pursued a policy of seizing and annexing neighboring territories. The two totalitarian powers moved towards each other.
By 1941 the situation was that on the same continent there were two totalitarian regimes and each of them declared his idea as the only correct one. The general idea of German Nazism was the idea of superiority Aryan race over others. The general idea of communism was the idea of the superiority of the Soviet system over all others. The goal of Nazism is to ensure the well-being of its people at the expense of other nations. The goal of communism is the so-called " world revolution". Both totalitarian regimes each moved towards their goal, planting their ideas in the border areas. They moved at different speeds, but their meeting was inevitable and given the territorial proximity - the meeting could not be postponed for a long time.
What were the theoretical possibilities to avoid a clash of two totalitarian regimes?
1 - The fall of one of the modes due to internal problems. However, we know that the Stalinist regime was internally stable enough to last until the death of the "father of all peoples." The Hitler regime also did not experience serious internal problems until the moment when the war became unfavorable for Githrel. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that one of the regimes could disintegrate by itself before a collision would occur. Even if this clash was delayed by several years.
2 - Destruction of one of the modes by external opponents. But who could destroy Hitler faster than the USSR? Great Britain was focused on its own defense, France capitulated, Italy became an ally of Hitler, the United States - purely geographically located too far to destroy Hitler before he went to war with the USSR.
Was it possible for two totalitarian regimes to meet and coexist peacefully? I guess not.
The plan of attack on the USSR (Barbarossa) was developed by the Wehrmacht in the middle of 1940 and approved by Hitler by the end of the year. Thus, the USSR became the target of Hitler in advance, long before the start of the war. It should be remembered that back in 1936, Germany concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. There is not a single serious reason to believe that in 1941 Hitler could change his mind and forget about his long-term plans (which, it should be noted, he hatched not alone, but together with his party comrades).
There are versions that Stalin had similar plans to attack Germany and seize Europe. But even without them - one desire of Hitler to the east was enough to clash and start a war.
What else could stop Hitler? Atomic bomb? But in 1941 it did not exist. With the most intensive developments that were carried out during the war, the atomic bomb did not appear until 1945.
Based on these historical facts I come to the conclusion that the clash of the totalitarian regimes of Germany and the USSR with a large-scale war - starting from 1940, was already inevitable.
Maybe earlier, in 1936-1939, there were some opportunities for Great Britain, France and the USA to restrain the growth of military power Nazi Germany and thereby "defuse" this bomb. But they did not take advantage of those opportunities. Apparently, they simply did not want to interfere with Hitler, because they considered not him, but Stalin, to be more dangerous. Hitler - in 1936 was considered a very progressive respectable politician. Time magazine featured his portrait on the cover. There were no concentration camps yet. There was a successful European politician, Adolf Hitler, who rallied his nation and brought Germany out of a protracted crisis. They were not afraid of him. They were afraid of Stalin.
By 1940 it was already too late.
All that could change in 1940-1941 was the order of events. Hitler could postpone the attack on the USSR to a later date in order to first break the resistance of Great Britain. What would change from this? Basically, nothing. The German attack on the USSR could not have been so sudden, but a situation could have arisen in which the USSR would have attacked first. I will not discuss how the course of the war, its duration and losses would have changed as a result of some changes in the timing and order of the attack. In any case, the losses would be comparable-huge. Two totalitarian systems, two war machines set up for the total destruction of the enemy - they could not confine themselves to a short war, they would not have retreated from their goal either in 1941 or in 1942. They wouldn't fall apart on their own. Everything developed in such a way that these systems had to collide and fight until one of them was destroyed. The story turned out so that these systems collided on June 22, 1941, and in a brutal bloody war, the Soviet Union defeated with the support of the allies - Great Britain and the United States, which, of course, should not be forgotten.
We won that inevitable war.
We suffered huge losses, but we won.
And no matter what mistakes in the preparation and conduct of the war were made by Stalin and / or Soviet military leaders, but the main thing historical event 1941 - the beginning of the Great Patriotic War- it's not their fault. As of 1941, this was a historical inevitability.
I came to this understanding as a result of studying the historical background of World War II. Perhaps you have learned or understood something new for yourself with me.
