Test all for the front all for victory. "Everything for the front, everything for the Victory!" (Soviet rear during the Great Patriotic War). Yugra during the Great Patriotic War
What orders appeared in the Great Patriotic War.
Order of the Patriotic War
On May 20, 1942, the Order of the Patriotic War became the first of the Soviet orders established during the war years, and the first Soviet award that was divided into degrees. The statute very clearly indicated the actions and feats for which the presentation for the award was made. Initially, the order was issued on a block, but since the award was often lost when worn in a combat situation, since 1943 the badge of the order received a more reliable pin fastening.
Captain Ivan Ilyich Krikliy, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 32nd Guards Artillery Regiment, became the first holder of the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class. On May 15, 1942, north of Kharkov, the division repulsed several attacks German tanks. Captain Krikliy himself destroyed five German combat vehicles from a gun, but was mortally wounded. Order No. 312368 was awarded to the hero's widow only in 1971. Since 1966, cities began to be awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, the first of which were Novorossiysk and Smolensk. Until 1977, this was the only Soviet order that was left to the family after the death of the recipient for storage as a memory.
A certain devaluation of the award occurred in 1985, when, on the 40th anniversary of the Victory, all participants in the Great Patriotic War, regardless of rank, were awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st or 2nd degree, and some veterans refused the award, indicating that they could not accept a high military award as a commemorative badge. For example, during the war, if a fighter shot down a plane with personal weapons, he was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. The well-known feat of the signalman M. M. Putilov, who restored the damaged line at the cost of his life, was also awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree (posthumously). In total, during the Great Patriotic War, 324 thousand people were awarded the 1st degree of the order, more than 950 thousand people were awarded the 2nd degree. In 1985, 2 million 54 thousand awards were made with orders of the 1st degree and 5 million 404 thousand - of the 2nd degree.
Order of Suvorov
The Order of Suvorov was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on July 29, 1942. The order had three degrees. "The Order of Suvorov is awarded to the commanders of the Red Army for outstanding success in command and control, excellent organization of military operations and the determination and perseverance shown in their conduct, as a result of which victory was achieved in the battles for the Motherland in the Patriotic War."
The Order of Suvorov 1st class No. 1 was awarded to Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. The Order of Suvorov No. 1 of the 2nd degree was awarded to Major General Vasily Mikhailovich Badanov, who, at the head of a tank corps, broke through to the village of Tatsinskaya, where several hundred aircraft were destroyed, from among those supplying the 6th German army surrounded in Stalingrad. In addition to military leaders, outstanding Soviet weapons designers were awarded the Order of Suvorov. Orders of Suvorov 1st and 2nd class were awarded to Vasily Alekseevich Degtyarev, Joseph Yakovlevich Kotin, Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin; Order of the 2nd degree - Georgy Semyonovich Shpagin. The Order of Suvorov of the 1st degree was awarded 391 awards, the 2nd degree - 2863, the 3rd degree - 4012. Among the awarded were 1528 units and formations of the Red Army.
Order of Kutuzov
The Order of Kutuzov was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on July 29, 1942. The order originally had two degrees (since February 1943 - three)
"The Order of Kutuzov is awarded to the commanders of the Red Army for a well-developed and carried out plan of operation - front-line, army or separate unit, as a result of which the enemy was severely defeated, and our troops retained their combat capability."
The first award of the 1st degree of the order was made on January 28, 1943. Among the 17 awarded were the commander of the Kalinin Front, Colonel General Maxim Alekseevich Purkaev and the commander of the Transcaucasian Front, General of the Army Ivan Vladimirovich Tyulenev. It is relatively rare to receive the Order of Kutuzov after the end of World War II. So, for example, Marshal Vasily Danilovich Sokolovsky was awarded the third Order of Kutuzov, 1st degree, for developing Operation Whirlwind in Hungary in 1956. In total, awards were made: orders of the 1st degree - 675, 2nd degree - 3326, 3rd degree - 3328. Today, the Order of Kutuzov belongs to the category of so-called "sleeping" orders, awarding which is possible only in the event of a big war .
Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky
The Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 10, 1943.
"The order is awarded to commanders and soldiers of the Red Army and the Navy, leaders of partisan detachments and partisans who have shown special determination and skill in operations to defeat the enemy, high patriotism, courage and selflessness in the struggle for the liberation of Soviet land from German invaders"
On October 26, 1943, the commander of the 12th Army, the hero of Stalingrad and the crossing of the Dnieper, General Alexei Ilyich Danilov, became the Knight of the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky, 1st degree No. 1. The Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky became the only Soviet order, the inscription on which was made not in Russian, but in Ukrainian. In total, awards were made: orders of the 1st degree - 323, 2nd degree - 2390, 3rd degree - 5738.
Order of Alexander Nevsky
The Order of Alexander Nevsky was established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on July 29, 1942 and became the youngest among the orders that received the name of the legendary commanders. Since the lifetime image of Alexander Nevsky has not been preserved, the artist Igor Sergeevich Telyatnikov took a bold step by placing on the medallion of the order a completely recognizable image of the film actor Nikolai Cherkasov in the image of the prince from Eisenstein's film "Alexander Nevsky". Thus, there was one of the few cases (and unique for the award system) when a historical personality of an earlier era is endowed with the external features of a person who lived several centuries later.
The Order of Alexander Nevsky No. 1 was awarded to the commander of the marine battalion of the 154th Marine Rifle Brigade, Senior Lieutenant I. N. Ruban, who organized an ambush of a German column in the area of the large bend of the Don in August 1942. In total, about 42 thousand awards were made. The modern Russian award system also contains the Order of Alexander Nevsky, although according to appearance and the statute, he is extremely far from the Soviet order.
Order of Glory
On November 8, 1943, the Order of Glory was established. There is a certain continuity of this award with the St. George Cross, which existed in the pre-revolutionary award system. The same consecutive awarding from the lowest degree to the highest (although the number of degrees has been reduced to three), the same St. George's Ribbon and largely similar statuses. Initially, the order was supposed to bear the name of Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration, becoming another order that received the name of one of the Russian commanders.
However, Stalin pointed out "that there is no victory without glory" and ordered that the commander's portrait be replaced with an image of the Spasskaya Tower. The Order of Glory was awarded to privates and sergeants, and in aviation - to officers. Here are just some of the points of the statute: “The Order of Glory was awarded to the one who, having burst into the enemy’s location first, with personal courage contributed to the success of the common cause”, “being in a tank on fire, continued to carry out a combat mission”, “in a moment of danger he saved the banner of his unit from being captured by the enemy "," from personal weapons, with marksmanship, destroyed from 10 to 50 enemy soldiers and officers, "in battle, with the fire of an anti-tank rifle, disabled at least two enemy tanks."
The badge of the Order of Glory, 1st class, No. 1 was received by a fighter of the 63rd Guards Rifle Division of the Leningrad Front, commander of the infantry squad of the guard, senior sergeant Nikolai Zaletov. Officially, the "Glory Battalion" was the 1st Battalion of the 215th Red Banner Regiment, which withstood a heavy battle on February 25, 1945, all of whose rank and file were awarded the Order of Glory 3rd degree. In total, awards were made: orders of the 3rd degree - 997815, 2nd degree - 46473, and 1620 people became full holders of the Order of Glory of three degrees.
Order "Victory"
On November 8, 1943, simultaneously with the soldier's Order of Glory, the highest military award of the USSR, the Order of Victory, appeared. The Order of Victory was awarded to senior officers for carrying out operations on the scale of one or more fronts, as a result of which the situation radically changed in favor of the Red Army. The order is made of platinum. The rays of the star are synthetic rubies (natural rubies of this size and the same shade cannot be found even for one order, let alone twenty). Between the rays are diamonds with a total weight of 14.22 to 16.25 carats. The first to be awarded the Order of Victory on April 10, 1944 were Marshals Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov and Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky (for the liberation of Right-Bank Ukraine). Kirill Afanasyevich became holders of the Order of Victory. Meretskov, Ivan Stepanovich Konev and not only.
In 1978, with a departure from the statute, the Order of Victory was awarded to Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (the only case when the Order of Victory was made with a hairpin rather than a pin mount). In 1989, Brezhnev was posthumously deprived of the highest military award, also in violation - according to the law, the recipient could be deprived of the award if he committed a serious crime or changed citizenship. In addition to the Soviet military leaders, five foreigners became holders of the Order of Victory: Field Marshal B. Montgomery, General D. Eisenhower, Marshal I. B. Tito, Marshal M. Zhymersky and the former King of Romania Mihai I (the only one of all those awarded who is still alive ).
Russian history. XX century Bokhanov Alexander Nikolaevich
§ 3. Everything for the front, everything for victory
The end of 1941 was marked by a sharp decline in military production. If in August 5 million artillery shells were fired, then in November - only 3.2 million, combat aircraft - 2046 and 448, respectively. machine guns and 221,200 rifles and carbines.
From June to December 1941, the Red Army lost 20.5 thousand tanks, and received only 5.6 thousand during this time; losses of combat aircraft over the same period amounted to 17.9 thousand, and replenishment - 9.9 thousand. The picture was about the same for artillery and small arms. There was a catastrophic shortage of tanks, aircraft and other military equipment, and Stalin personally distributed them along the fronts, at the same time threatening the heads of enterprises with punishment for disrupting the production program.
Not only the fear of punishment, but also the realization that the fate of the country depends on their work, helped the home front workers overcome numerous difficulties, solve organizational and technological problems and provide the army with a sufficient amount of high-quality weapons. AT eastern regions countries, the production capacities of old plants and factories were expanded, and evacuated enterprises were put into operation one after another. Many peaceful factories and factories switched to the production of military products. As a result, in October - November 1941, the lowest point of decline was passed, and from December a gradual increase in the production of weapons and military equipment began.
In 1942, the pace of military production was constantly growing. In the third quarter of 1942, armaments were produced more than in the pre-war second quarter of 1941: light and heavy machine guns - by 4.2 times, submachine guns - by 52 times, artillery pieces - by 6.3 times, tanks - by 5.2 times and aircraft - 2.1 times. The production of most types of weapons was transferred to the flow with the assembly of individual components and the final product on the conveyor. The designers sought to simplify the design of the weapon as much as possible, of course, while not allowing a decrease in combat and operational characteristics.
Improved production technology. Instead of casting and forging, the process of stamping parts was used. Invented by Academician E.O. Paton, the method of automatic welding of armor made a real revolution in tank building. The technology of heat treatment of parts with high-frequency currents was introduced. Thanks to the achievements of technologists, in the production of weapons and ammunition, it was possible to replace expensive non-ferrous metals and alloyed steels with less scarce and cheaper materials. Thousands of tons of nickel, molybdenum, brass, aluminum and other valuable metals were saved. Norms of consumption of materials in the production of the most important types of products of military engineering for 1941-1944. decreased by 30-35%.
Great savings have been achieved in the consumption of electricity and fuel. Mechanization and automation of production, the use of advanced technologies, conveyor assembly in the aircraft industry, in tank building, in the production of small arms and artillery made it possible to increase the production of weapons and military equipment from year to year without increasing the number of employees in these industries, while reducing the unit cost of production. Thus, the cost of the T-34 medium tank in July 1945 was 54.6% of the 1942 level. the cost savings were equivalent to an additional production of 25,700 T-34 tanks. In the aviation industry, the savings from cost reduction during the war years was equivalent to the delivery of 42,475 aircraft to the front.
The volume of production of the main types of weapons
and military equipment
Small arms of all types (in million units)
Tanks and self-propelled guns (thousand units)
Guns and mortars of all types and calibers (in thousands)
Aircraft of all types (in thousands)
Including combat (in thousands)
) Warships of the main classes (in pcs.)
The outcome of the armed struggle depended not only on the quantity of weapons, but also on their qualitative characteristics. This aspect of the matter received constant attention. At GKO meetings, the progress of work on the creation of new types of weapons was systematically reviewed, tight deadlines were outlined, and requirements for new tanks, aircraft and artillery systems were formulated.
The basis of the Soviet arsenal was Ilyushin’s attack aircraft adopted on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, Petlyakov’s dive bombers, Yakovlev and Lavochkin fighters, T-34 medium tanks designed by Koshkin, Morozov and Kucherenko, Shpagin submachine guns (PPSh) and Sudayev (PPS), Grabin guns , Ivanov and Petrov, Shavyrin's mortars. The armaments system created in the pre-war period has withstood the rigors of war. During the war, nothing radically had to be rebuilt in this area.
Losses of weapons and military equipment were great. Soviet troops; Every day of the war, an average of 30 aircraft, 68 tanks, 224 guns and mortars, and 11,000 small arms were lost. During the period of strategic operations, these average figures increased several times. However, in matters of providing the army with weapons, it was not without mistakes. Just before the war, the production of 45 and 76 mm caliber guns, which form the basis of the artillery armament of the ground forces, was stopped. The fallacy of this decision became clear already in the first days of the war. It was necessary to hastily restore the production of these guns not only at those factories that produced them before, but also at others, including civilian ones, that had suitable equipment. By the end of 1941, the army received 6.5 thousand 76-mm guns, and 68.8 thousand of them were fired during the entire period of the war.
People's Commissar for Armaments of the USSR D.F. Ustinov recalled how Stalin set the industry the task of providing the Red Army with effective means of fighting tanks. After 22 days, prototypes of anti-tank guns were designed, manufactured and submitted for testing. On August 29, 1941, the tested samples were examined in the Kremlin by members of the GKO. On the same day, anti-tank guns created by V.A. Degtyarev (PTRD) and S. Simonov (PTRS), were put into service, and the plant was instructed to urgently master their mass production
An outstanding achievement in the field of aircraft construction was the creation of an armored attack aircraft, unique in its qualities. AT different countries In the world, attempts have been repeatedly made to build an aircraft that combines strong armor protection, powerful weapons and good flight qualities. These attempts usually ended in failure: the presence of armor and strong weapons led to the aircraft becoming weaker, reducing speed and maneuverability, and too thin armor could not protect the pilot from enemy machine-gun fire. On the eve of the war, Soviet scientists managed to obtain sufficiently strong and relatively light aviation armor, and the talented aircraft designer S.V. Ilyushin skillfully used new material in the design of your aircraft. All the vital parts of the attack aircraft were in the armored hull (engine, gas tank and pilot's cabin). He was not afraid of automatic and machine-gun fire from the ground, so the attack aircraft could descend to strafing flight and, using its powerful weapons (9600 kg of bombs, 8 rockets, 2 automatic air cannons and 2 high-speed machine guns), destroy enemy manpower and military equipment.
The plane was criticized a lot for its low speed and insufficient altitude. All reproaches came to an end when, from the first days of the war, the IL-2 demonstrated its capabilities. Rapidly attacking from low altitudes, the attack aircraft smashed the German automobile and tank columns, destroyed bridges, field fortifications, artillery batteries and infantry.
The Soviet T-34 was recognized as the best tank of the Second World War. When most tanks in the world were equipped with gasoline engines, M.I. Koshkin installed a powerful diesel engine on his car, reliable and safe. A powerful engine and wide tracks provided the tank with good cross-country ability in off-road conditions. The optimal shape of the turret and hull increased projectile resistance. The German 37 and 45 mm guns did not penetrate the thirty-four armor, and the 76 mm gun mounted on the T-34 easily hit the German T-III and T-IV tanks even at extreme distances. The very first battles demonstrated the superiority of the T-34 over German vehicles.
This situation continued until 1943, when a new medium tank T-V ("Panther") was created in Germany, which embodied some of the best qualities of the thirty-four, a heavy tank T-VI ("Tiger") and a self-propelled gun "Ferdinand". During the war, the Germans were forced to re-equip the tank troops in order to eliminate the qualitative and quantitative superiority of Soviet tanks. For a while, they succeeded. The "Tigers" and "Panthers" had the best armor protection and a powerful 88 mm cannon, which allowed them to hit Soviet tanks at a long distance. To combat the Tigers and Panthers, Soviet designers created self-propelled artillery mounts: SU-76, SU-65, SU-100, ISU-122 and ISU-152. In addition, the T-34 was modernized: the new T-34-85 model was equipped with a long-barreled 85-mm cannon capable of hitting new German tanks. A more advanced heavy tank IS-2 (Joseph Stalin) was also created, armed with a powerful 122-mm cannon. Since 1944, the Red Army, having received these tanks, regained its superiority over the enemy both in terms of the quantity and quality of armored vehicles.
In 1941, many years of work on the creation of rocket mortars were completed in the USSR. On July 15, a battery of rocket launchers of 7 vehicles under the command of Captain Flerov dealt a crushing blow to the accumulation of enemy troops at the Orsha railway station. The results exceeded all expectations. One volley of batteries put the station out of action for a long time. The simplicity of the design of the new weapon made it possible to quickly establish its mass production at many enterprises that previously produced civilian products. In a short time, the Red Army received hundreds, and then thousands of powerful rocket launchers. Throughout the war, their design was improved, the scope of application expanded. The rocket artillery units received the name "Guards mortar units" (GMCh), were removed from the subordination of the head of the Red Army. Commander of the GMC V.V. Aborenkov became Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, which testified to the great importance that the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command attached to this type of weapon. Attempts by the enemy to organize the production of similar weapons were unsuccessful. But the Germans succeeded in creating medium and long-range missile weapons (V-1 and V-2), as well as jet aircraft.
Throughout the war, the confrontation between the aircraft designers of the USSR and Germany continued. Created by V.M. Petlyakov and A.N. Tupolev Pe-2 and Tu-2 dive bombers in their own technical specifications from the very beginning they were superior to similar products from Henkel and Junkers. The IL-2 attack aircraft has already been mentioned above. And in the field of fighter aviation in the first period of the war, the Me-109 had an advantage. Willy Messerschmitt constantly improved his offspring, increasing engine power, strengthening weapons, installing more modern equipment. Beginning in 1943, high-speed and well-armed FV-190 fighters from the Focke-Wulf company appeared on the Soviet-German front. By this time, the Soviet Air Force received the lightest and most maneuverable fighter in the world, the Yak-3, and a new model of the La-5 fighter with a powerful engine designed by Shevtsov. New aircraft A.S. Yakovleva and S.A. Lavochkin surpassed the Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs in speed, maneuverability and rate of climb, which allowed Soviet pilots seize air supremacy, first in separate sectors of the front, and then on a strategic scale.
The Soviet defense industry successfully made up for losses in weapons and military equipment. At the end of the war, by May 9, 1945, the Soviet Army had 32.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns (1.6 times more than it had on June 22, 1941), combat aircraft - 47.3 thousand ( 2.4 times), guns and mortars - 321.5 thousand units (an excess of 2.9 times).
Victories and defeats. In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, serious changes took place in the composition of the top military leadership. None of the generals who commanded the fronts in June 1941 held on to this position: one died in battle, the second was shot, and three were demoted. Created in July, the main commands of strategic directions, which did not have reserves at their disposal and were deprived of independence in making operational-strategic decisions, turned out to be an extra management link and were abolished. All three commanders in chief - Marshals Voroshilov, Timoshenko and Budyonny - did not justify Stalin's hopes, and he moved them to secondary posts.
Becoming Supreme Commander, Stalin for a long time could not give up his outdated views on military art, when solving strategic issues he was guided not by military, but by political considerations, underestimated the role of the General Staff in planning operations, considered the shake-up of personnel, the replacement of some generals with others (for example, with June to October 1941, the post of commander of the Western Front was occupied by 5 people: D. G. Pavlov, A. I. Eremenko, S. K. Timoshenko, I. S. Konev and G. K. Zhukov). The same personnel leapfrog was on some other fronts and in the armies.
During this period, personnel changes were carried out by Stalin under the influence of mood, and not for reasons of strategic expediency. So it was on July 29, 1941, when Zhukov made the only possible proposal in the current situation to leave Kyiv and withdraw the troops of the Southwestern Front beyond the Dnieper in order to save them from encirclement and death. At the same time, it was proposed to launch a counterattack in the Yelnya region to eliminate the resulting ledge. Stalin called these proposals nonsense, Zhukov resigned from the post of chief of the General Staff. The Supreme Commander accepted his resignation with the words: “We managed without Lenin, and we will manage even more without you ...”
However, the war showed that it is impossible to do without professionals of this level. Already as the commander of the Reserve Front, Zhukov carried out the planned counterattack, as a result of which Yelnya was recaptured from the Germans. In these battles, the Soviet Guard was born: four rifle divisions that distinguished themselves in the offensive received the title of Guards. It was proved that our units can not only defend themselves, but also successfully attack.
Despite individual private successes of the Soviet troops, the enemy continued to own the initiative throughout the summer and autumn of 1941. First in one place, then in another, the German shock groups cut through the defenses and rapidly moved to the east, surrounded by entire armies. The 5th and 12th armies of the Southwestern Front ended up in the cauldron near Uman. Only 11,000 people out of 65,000 were able to escape from the encirclement. Kirponos. At the same time, the German and Finnish units surrounded Leningrad, and an unprecedented nine-hundred-day struggle of Leningraders against hunger, cold, shelling and bombing began. In the Moscow direction, Army Group Center launched an operation code-named Typhoon to capture the Soviet capital. In early October, the situation became catastrophic, in the Vyazma region five armies of the Western and Reserve fronts were surrounded, as a result of which the path to Moscow was practically open. These days, in a telephone conversation with the commander of the Western Front, I.S. Konev, the cowardly Commander-in-Chief, as if justifying himself, spoke of himself in the third person: “Comrade Stalin is an honest man. Comrade Stalin will do everything to rectify the situation."
General Zhukov, urgently summoned from Leningrad, again had to correct the situation. The front line these days approached the Kremlin at a distance of several tens of kilometers. There were almost no Soviet troops in this area. The encircled Soviet armies fought fiercely, diverting the attention of the Nazis and saving Moscow. The defense on the outskirts of the capital had to be created anew. A state of siege was declared in Moscow. The government, the Presidium of the Supreme Council, the General Staff and a number of other bodies were evacuated to the rear. The efforts of Muscovites built defensive structures. The last reserves were thrown into battle: cadets of military schools, militias and worker battalions. New armies were hastily formed, divisions were being transferred from the Far East.
The closer the enemy approached Moscow, the stronger the resistance of its defenders became. Despite the fact that the Germans were standing a few tens of kilometers from Moscow, on November 7, a traditional parade took place on Red Square, which inspired Soviet people confidence in the victory over fascism. On this day, the names of glorious ancestors who saved the Fatherland from foreign invaders more than once were heard from the podium of the Mausoleum: Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov. Turning to the heroic pages of Russian history during the critical days of the defense of Moscow aroused patriotic feelings among the defenders of the capital and strengthened the fighting spirit. Although the German newspapers trumpeted the imminent victory, reported on the new successes of Army Group Center, Operation Typhoon failed. And in early December 1941, the troops of the Western and Kalinin fronts under the command of G.K. Zhukov and I.S. Konev launched a counteroffensive. The enemy was thrown back hundreds of kilometers from Moscow.
In addition, success was also achieved on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front. Assisted by Black Sea Fleet troops landed in the Crimea, liberating Kerch and Feodosia. Victory in winter battles 1941–1942 demonstrated to the whole world the collapse of Hitler's blitzkrieg strategy, showed that the Red Army had recovered from summer failures and was capable of not only staunchly defending, but also successfully advancing. Red Army soldiers and commanders have accumulated the first experience of modern warfare. The legend of the invincibility of the Wehrmacht was refuted. The names of Soviet military leaders became known all over the world: G.K. Zhukova, I.S. Koneva, K.K. Rokossovsky, L.A. Govorov and other heroes of the battle for Moscow.
At a meeting at Headquarters on January 5, 1942, Stalin, inspired by the first successes, believed that the time had come for a general offensive. He demanded to liberate the Donbass and Crimea in the southwest, to defeat Army Group North and eliminate the blockade of Leningrad in the northwest, and to defeat the main forces of Army Group Center in the region of Rzhev, Vyazma and Smolensk in the western direction. The task was to drive the enemy without stopping all the way from Ladoga to the Black Sea, to grind the German reserves until spring, when the superiority over the enemy would be complete. The Supreme Commander decisively rejected the objections of those who did not share his optimism, and ordered to prepare an offensive on all fronts. At the cost of huge losses, it was possible in a number of places to push the front line to the west. From June 1941 to March 1942, the Red Army lost 3 million 813 thousand people in killed, captured and missing, sanitary losses over the same period exceeded 2.5 million people. By April, the offensive of the Red Army was exhausted, the manpower reserves were mostly used up and there were no forces left for the deployment of large offensive operations in the spring of 1942.
In this situation, it was important to unravel the plans of the enemy and, in accordance with this, coordinate their actions. The Soviet command believed that the Germans would strike the main blow in the Moscow direction in 1942, although in fact the enemy was preparing to attack in the south. Since the Soviet command did not have sufficient reserves at its disposal, and industry at that time could not yet supply the front with the necessary amount of weapons, the General Staff proposed limiting itself to active defense, exhausting and bleeding the advancing enemy, and then, having accumulated reserves, go over to offensive operations in the summer. Stalin did not agree with this reasonable plan and ordered private meetings to be held in the spring offensive operations in the Crimea, in the Kharkov direction and the north-west. He was supported by Voroshilov and Timoshenko. The objections of Shaposhnikov and Zhukov were not taken into account.
Another miscalculation by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command turned into a tragedy for hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers and millions of civilians. In the northwest, it was not possible to break the blockade of Leningrad. The 2nd shock army, which participated in the offensive, was surrounded and almost completely killed, and its commander, General Vlasov, surrendered. In the south, the Crimean Front, not having time to go on the offensive, was defeated. After a 250-day siege, Sevastopol fell, and the entire Crimea was in the hands of the Nazis. The offensive of the Southwestern Front with the aim of liberating Kharkov developed successfully in the first days. But soon the Germans, who had a strong grouping in the area, launched a powerful counterattack and surrounded the advancing troops. Thus, all three offensive operations (in the Crimea, near Kharkov and in the northwest) ended in failure. The strategic initiative again passed to Germany. An avalanche of German troops rushed to Stalingrad and the Caucasus. Rostov, Novocherkassk, Voroshilovgrad and many other cities fell. The country is again in mortal danger. There came a time when it became impossible to hide the bitter truth.
On July 28, 1942, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR signed Order No. 227, the essence of which was concentrated in three words: it's time to end the retreat. The order emphasized that after the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states and the western regions of Russia, the USSR no longer had superiority over the Germans either in human reserves or in grain reserves, each new piece of abandoned territory would in every possible way strengthen the enemy and weaken the defense of the country. Further retreat would mean the death of the Motherland. If in July 1942 Stalin declared that “our means are incalculable”, then a year later he assessed the situation differently: “... Our means are not unlimited. Territory Soviet Union- this is not a desert, but people, workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR, which the enemy has captured and is striving to capture, is bread and other products for the army and rear, metal and fuel for industry, factories, factories supplying the army with weapons and ammunition, and railways. The harsh truth about the danger looming over the country was combined in the order with silence about the true causes of this situation. Nothing is said about the miscalculations of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, which led to the catastrophe.
As always, the main culprits were found in the “lower classes”: in companies, battalions, regiments and divisions, where, according to Stalin, there was no firm order and discipline. Referring to the fact that in the Wehrmacht, after the introduction of penal units and barrage detachments, the discipline and combat effectiveness of the troops had significantly improved, Stalin ordered that this experience be transferred to the Red Army and ordered the formation of penal companies and battalions for the guilty soldiers and officers, who should fight on the most difficult sectors of the front . The order of the People's Commissar of Defense "227" played a big role in strengthening discipline and organization at the front. At the same time, in conditions of mobile warfare, the literal execution of the order "not a step back" fettered the initiative of the commanders, deprived the part of the possibility of maneuver, led to unjustified losses, and allowed the enemy to surround the troops. As for penal companies and battalions, their importance should not be exaggerated. They were really used in the most difficult areas when breaking through the enemy's defenses, but because of their small numbers they could not play any significant role in the war.
It is clear that the tasks facing the army could not be solved only by repressive measures. Along with punishment, incentives were used. Until the spring of 1942, servicemen who distinguished themselves were awarded the orders that existed before the war: Lenin, the Red Banner of War and the Red Star. The massive heroism of the Red Army soldiers and commanders led to an increase in the number of those awarded and the need to establish new orders associated not with the revolutionary tradition, but with Russian history. On May 20, 1942, during the period of major military failures, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st and 2nd class, was established. On July 29, the day after the harsh order No. 227, orders were established in honor of the great Russian commanders Suvorov, Kutuzov and Alexander Nevsky, designed to reward officers and generals of the Red Army who showed their ability to command troops and win victories. The first awards of military orders took place after the Battle of Stalingrad. Later, when Soviet troops liberated Ukraine, the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky was established. In March 1944, special naval orders appeared, bearing the names of naval commanders Ushakov and Nakhimov. The highest military award was the Order of Victory, which marked the outstanding merits of commanders in conducting the largest operations of the Great Patriotic War. The Order of Victory was awarded to 11 Soviet military leaders and 5 foreigners. Simultaneously with the highest military award, a soldier's Order of Glory of three degrees was established. (Here, the continuation of the traditions of the Russian army was clearly visible, in which the most honorary award for a soldier was the St. George Cross. A black and orange St. George ribbon was used for the Order of Glory. The award was given only for personal deeds. Heroes of the Soviet Union, enjoyed universal honor and respect.)
The dramatic events of the first war year seriously affected the balance of power in the top Soviet leadership. Convinced of the impossibility of leading the armed forces in the old fashioned way, relying only on intuition and experience from the period of the civil war, Stalin listened more and more to the opinion of military experts. In addition, during the year of the war, he himself learned a lot, acquired certain skills in command and control of troops, and became convinced of the need to correlate his plans with the real capabilities of the army. True, this study cost huge human, economic and territorial losses. Not possessing the full amount of knowledge required by the Supreme Commander, Stalin needed a qualified deputy. The war showed the unsuitability of many Stalin's nominees - Marshals of the Soviet Union Kulik, Budyonny, Voroshilov, Timoshenko. Recognized military theorist Marshal B.M. Shaposhnikov was seriously ill and his appointment to the post of First Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief was out of the question.
Stalin looked closely at the military leaders for a long time and opted for the candidacy of General of the Army G.K. Zhukov, who, commanding the troops of the Reserve, Leningrad and Western fronts, showed remarkable abilities, great will, courage. On all military-strategic issues, Georgy Konstantinovich had his own point of view, which he defended to the end. Stalin's opinions on Zhukov often differed on a number of military issues, which sometimes led to conflicts between the two strong personalities. But these details faded into the background when it came to the fate of the Fatherland. At the end of August 1942, Zhukov was appointed First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense and the only Deputy Supreme Commander.
Guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. An important factor in achieving victory over Nazi Germany was the armed struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazis in the temporarily occupied territory.
The possibility and expediency of such a form of struggle against the invaders was recognized by the Soviet leadership long before the start of the Great Patriotic War. At the end of the 20s. and the first half of the 30s. the theory of partisan actions in a future war was developed, the interaction of the Red Army troops with partisans was practiced at military maneuvers, bases, secret storages of weapons and equipment intended for use by specially created partisan detachments in the event of occupation by the enemy of this territory were laid in the western regions of the country.
A sharp turn in attitude towards the future partisan movement occurred in the second half of the 1930s. All preparatory work was curtailed, personnel training was stopped, the bases were liquidated, the personnel of intelligence officers and saboteurs were repressed. The reasons were as follows: on the one hand, Stalin feared that the conspiratorial network created in advance could be used by the opposition against him, and on the other hand, the then prevailing ideas about a future war did not allow the enemy to capture a significant part of Soviet territory. Thus, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, everything had to be started from scratch.
The occupation in 1941 of the Baltic states, the western regions of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine led to the fact that in these regions, before the retreat, they did not have time to organize work on the deployment of the partisan movement. In the directive of the USSR Staff and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of June 29, 1941, in the speech of the Chairman of the GKO on July 3, and in the decisions of the Central Committee of July 18, instructions were given on the preparation of underground groups and the organization of partisan detachments, the deployment of armed struggle against the German invaders.
The formation of partisan detachments took place in different ways: some were created from small groups specially left in the designated areas before the German troops arrived there or abandoned behind enemy lines, other detachments were created by servicemen who were surrounded. In a number of cases, the destruction battalions of the NKVD served as the base for the formation of partisan detachments. Tens of thousands of fighter fighters who had undergone preliminary training, knew their area of deployment well and had connections among the local population, played a significant role in the deployment of the partisan movement. In 1941, the number of partisan detachments ranged from a few dozen to hundreds of fighters each. By the end of the year, more than 2,000 detachments were operating in the occupied territory, in which there were more than 90,000 fighters. At the beginning of the war, the partisans acted independently, but as the movement grew, the problem of coordinating their activities became more and more acute. The military councils of the fronts and the underground regional committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks were tasked with uniting the combat work of the partisan detachments, making it more effective and purposeful, and coordinating the actions of the partisans and the Red Army.
At the first stage, many difficulties had to be overcome: the lack of experienced personnel, the lack of a material base, the weak armament of most partisan units and their disunity. These factors negatively affected the scope of the partisan movement. Until the spring of 1942, there was no single center for the leadership of partisans throughout the country. However, even in these difficult conditions, the partisans fought independently against the invaders: they raided small enemy garrisons, staged sabotage on the roads, derailed enemy trains, blew up bridges, destroyed communication lines, destroyed traitors and fascist accomplices and engaged in reconnaissance. Already in August 1941, the first Heroes of the Soviet Union from partisans appeared. They were the commander of the "Red October" detachment of the Polesye region of Belarus T.P. Bumazhkov and his deputy F.I. Pavlovsky. Together with one military unit, the detachment carried out a number of successful military operations in July 1941, destroying 300 fascists, blowing up 20 bridges, knocking out 20 tanks and more than 30 vehicles and derailing an armored train.
The partisan movement grew and grew stronger. Some detachments were enlarged and became partisan brigades, numbering thousands of fighters. Large partisan formations were commanded by the famous Kovpak, Fedorov, Shmyrov, Kolyada, Naumov, Saburov. Regional and republican headquarters of the partisan movement were created, and on May 30, 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD) was formed, which was headed by the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus P. K. Ponomarenkho. In the autumn of 1942, the post of Commander-in-Chief of the partisan movement was introduced, to which Marshal Voroshilov was appointed.
In the Soviet rear there were special schools that trained personnel for guerrilla war: scouts, radio operators, demolition workers and other specialists. The activities of the people's avengers were more and more subordinated to the interests of the front every month. If in the summer of 1942 only 30% of the detachments had radio contact with the "mainland", then by November 1943 almost 94% of the detachments maintained radio contact with the leadership of the partisan movement. The guerrillas built landing sites on which planes landed with " big land", delivering various cargoes. In 1943, long-range aviation and the civilian air fleet made 12,000 sorties, half of them landing at partisan airfields. TsSHPD sent 59,960 rifles and carbines, 34,320 machine guns, 4,210 light machine guns, 2,556 anti-tank rifles, 2,184 mortars, 539,570 hand grenades to the partisans.
War behind enemy lines in 1943 and 1944 gained unprecedented momentum. Partisan formations made long raids on the territory occupied by the enemy, destroying German garrisons, destroying military and economic facilities, inspiring the local population to fight the invaders. After such raids, the number of partisans in these areas increased significantly. At the direction of the TsShPD, in the summer and autumn of 1943, operations "Concert" and "Rail War" were carried out, in which 193 and 170 partisan detachments and formations, respectively, took part. Hundreds of thousands of rails were blown up, the capacity of railways decreased by 35-40%, and in a number of places traffic was completely paralyzed. The Red Army conducted successful offensive operations, and the actions of the partisans did not allow the Germans to carry out the transfer of troops and thus made a significant contribution to the defeat of the enemy.
The partisans carried out a lot of reconnaissance work, informed the Soviet command about the location of German units and formations, about their movements, about command staff and staffing. In a special detachment D.N. Medvedev, who was based in the Rovno region, acted intelligence agent Nikolai Kuznetsov. In the shape of German officer he appeared in the city, made valuable contacts among the German military and occupation authorities, and regularly informed the Center of the most important information. He was one of the first to report on the location of Hitler's Headquarters in the Vinnitsa region, on the preparation German offensive near Kursk and about the impending assassination attempt on the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain during the Tehran conference of the Big Three. Reports of partisan scouts allowed the command to carry out the necessary measures in a timely manner and frustrate the plans of the Nazis.
The combat activity of the partisans inflicted enormous damage on the Nazis, forcing them to strengthen the protection of railway lines, bridges and other objects, attracting for this not only police formations, but also regular military units, which were so needed at the front. Wanting to put an end to the partisans, the Nazis organized punitive operations, removing entire divisions equipped with tanks and aircraft from the front. The punishers suffered serious losses, but could not achieve the main goal. In the occupied territory formed " partisan territories"- vast areas where the occupiers preferred not to come, here people lived according to Soviet laws, civil administration, party and Soviet bodies operated.
During the victorious offensive of the Red Army in 1943-1944. the partisans rendered her invaluable assistance. In agreement with the military command, they struck from the rear on the defenders and retreating German units, disrupted the operational transfer of German troops, smashed headquarters, captured crossings and held them until the approach of Soviet divisions. In total, during the Great Patriotic War, the partisans destroyed, wounded and captured more than 1 million enemy soldiers and officers, put out of action 4 thousand taiks and armored vehicles, 65 thousand cars, 1100 aircraft, destroyed and damaged 1600 railway bridges, let them under the slope of over 20 thousand trains, which is comparable in efficiency to the success of a major military strategic operation that affects the outcome of the war.
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Goals:
For you children of another age, the war is long over.
For those who were born earlier, she remained in the memory.
In battle, soldiers died in truth, honestly, forever.
Some were awarded a medal, others - oblivion for years.
But our grandfathers went to victory, because behind her was she -
My country, my Russia, the one that is the only one.
The greatest test for the Armed Forces and the entire Soviet people was the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, which ended in complete victory over fascism. The Soviet armed forces delivered mankind from the threat of fascist enslavement and helped many peoples of Europe to free themselves from fascist slavery. The Soviet Armed Forces also fulfilled their internationalist duty with regard to the peoples of Asia enslaved by militaristic Japan, primarily China, Korea, and Vietnam. For exploits on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, 11,603 soldiers were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 104 of them received this title twice, and G.K. Zhukov, I.N. Kozhedub and A.I. Pokryshkin - three times. More than 7 million people were awarded orders and medals. Formations, units and ships of the Soviet Armed Forces were awarded 10,900 military orders.
An award is one of the forms of encouragement, evidence of recognition of special merits. The main awards are:
Assignment of the title of Hero of Russia, Hero of Labor, honorary titles,
Awarding orders, medals, certificates of honor, diplomas, prizes, badges
Entry in the Book of Honor or on the Board of Honor,
Thanksgiving, etc.
The main awards of the Great Patriotic War for many soldiers, officers and home front workers were orders and medals.
The Order is currently in most countries a badge of distinction, an honorary award for special merits.
Order of the Red Banner
Number of awards 581 300.
Established to be awarded for special courage, dedication and courage shown in the defense of the socialist Fatherland. The Order of the Red Banner was also awarded to military units, warships, state and public organizations. Until the establishment of the Order of Lenin in 1930, the Order of the Red Banner remained the highest order of the Soviet Union. Originally called the Order of the Red Banner. The Order of the Red Banner was awarded to the Komsomol, the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, the Baltic State Technical University Voenmekh, the cities of Leningrad (Petrograd), Kopeysk, Grozny, Tashkent, Volgograd (Tsaritsyn), Lugansk, Sevastopol.
The order of Lenin
Number of awards: 431,418.
The history of the order dates back to July 8, 1926, when the head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army V.N. Levichev proposed to issue a new award - the “Order of Ilyich” - to persons who already had four orders of the Red Banner. This award was supposed to be the highest combat insignia. However, since the Civil War in Russia had already ended, the draft of the new order was not accepted. At the same time, the Council of People's Commissars recognized the need to create the highest award of the Soviet Union, awarded not only for military merit. At the beginning of 1930, work on the project of a new order, called the "Order of Lenin", was resumed. The artists of the Goznak factory in Moscow were given the task of creating a drawing of the order, the main image on the sign of which was to be a portrait of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. From the many sketches, the work of the artist I. I. Dubasov was chosen, who took Lenin's photograph as the basis for the portrait. On it, Vladimir Ilyich is depicted in profile to the left of the viewer. In the spring of 1930, the sketch of the order was handed over to the sculptors I.D. Shadr and P.I. Tayozhny to create a layout. In the same year, the first signs of the Order of Lenin were made at the Goznak factory.
Order of the Red Star
Established for rewarding for great merits in the defense of the USSR, both in wartime and in peacetime, in ensuring state security.
The Order of the Red Star was awarded to:
Servicemen of the Soviet Army, Navy, border and internal troops, employees of the bodies of the USSR State Security Committee, as well as private and commanding officers of internal affairs bodies;
Military units, warships, formations and associations, enterprises, institutions, organizations.
The Order of the Red Star can also be awarded to military personnel of foreign states.
Order of Suvorov
Commanders of the Red Army were awarded for outstanding success in command and control, excellent organization of combat operations and the determination and perseverance shown in their conduct.
Order of Nakhimov
Established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 3, 1944, simultaneously with the Order of Ushakov, specifically for rewarding officers of the Navy.
Order of Ushakov
Soviet naval award of the Great Patriotic War. The order is saved in the award system Russian Federation.
Established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of March 3, 1944, simultaneously with the Order of Nakhimov, specifically for rewarding officers of the Navy. The seniority of the Order of Ushakov over the Order of Nakhimov was determined and put in correspondence:
Naval Order of Ushakov - to the military order of Suvorov,
Naval Order of Nakhimov - to the military order of Kutuzov.
Order of Kutuzov
Soviet award of the Great Patriotic War in honor of Mikhail Kutuzov. The order is preserved in the award system of the Russian Federation.
Established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 29, 1942, simultaneously with the orders of Suvorov and Alexander Nevsky. The Order of Kutuzov was awarded to commanders of the Red Army for well-developed and executed plans for military operations.
Order of Alexander Nevsky
Established on July 29, 1942 in the USSR simultaneously with the Orders of Suvorov and Kutuzov, to reward the command staff of the Red Army for outstanding services in organizing and directing military operations and for the successes achieved as a result of these operations in the battles for the Motherland. Saved in the award system of the Russian Federation. The Order of Alexander Nevsky was awarded to commanders of the Red Army who showed personal courage, courage and bravery in the battles for the Motherland in the Patriotic War and skillful command to ensure the successful actions of their units. The Order of Alexander Nevsky was awarded to the commanders of divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, companies and platoons:
Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky
Soviet military order of the Second World War.
Order of Glory
Persons of the rank and file and sergeants of the Red Army were awarded, and in aviation and persons with the rank of junior lieutenant, who showed glorious feats of courage, courage and fearlessness in the battles for the Soviet Motherland.
The Order of Glory consists of three degrees: I, II and III degrees. The highest degree of the order is the 1st degree. The award is made sequentially: first the third, then the second and, finally, the first degree.
Order of the Patriotic War
Persons of the rank and file and commanding staff of the Red Army, the Navy, the NKVD troops and partisan detachments who showed bravery, stamina and courage in the battles for the Soviet Motherland, as well as military personnel who, by their actions, contributed to the success of military operations of our troops, were awarded. The Order of the Patriotic War was awarded by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The Order of the Patriotic War consists of two degrees: I and II degrees. The highest degree of the order is the 1st degree. The degree of the order, which was awarded to the recipient, was determined by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Order "Victory"
The highest military order, established during the Great Patriotic War on November 8, 1943. This award was awarded to 17 people, of which 5 were foreigners. The Order of Victory is the highest military order. They were awarded to senior officers of the Red Army for the successful conduct of such military operations on the scale of one or more fronts, as a result of which the situation radically changed in favor of the Red Army.
For those awarded with the Order of Victory, a memorial plaque was established, as a sign of special distinction, to include the names of holders of the Order of Victory on it. The memorial plaque was installed in the Grand Kremlin Palace. This order was awarded only by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
The Order of Victory is worn on the left side of the chest 12-14 cm above the waist.
Medal - Medal (fr. medaille, lat. metallum) - a metal badge, often round in shape, with convex images, for heroism, special merits, in memory of an event or person. There are obverse (obverse), reverse (reverse) and edge (edge) of the stomron of the medal. Many medals are mounted on a block or bar. Such a block for a medal can be enameled or covered with a moiré ribbon of a certain color.
For the defense of Leningrad
Number of awards: 1470000.
The medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" was awarded to all participants in the defense of Leningrad:
Servicemen of units, formations and institutions of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops, who actually participated in the defense of the city;
Workers, employees and other persons from the civilian population who participated in the hostilities to defend the city, contributed to the defense of the city with their selfless work at enterprises, institutions, participated in the construction of defensive structures, in air defense, in the protection of public utilities, in the fight against fires from enemy air raids, in the organization and maintenance of transport and communications, in the organization of public catering, supply and cultural services for the population, in the care of the sick and wounded, in the organization of child care and other measures for the defense of the city.
Persons awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" had the right to be awarded the later established commemorative medal "In memory of the 250th anniversary of Leningrad." Among the awarded - 15 thousand besieged children and teenagers.
For the defense of Odessa
Number of awards: 30,000.
The medal was awarded to all participants in the defense of Odessa - servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops, as well as civilians who were directly involved in the defense. The period of defense of Odessa is considered August 10 - October 16, 1941. The medal was presented on behalf of the PVS of the USSR on the basis of documents certifying the actual participation in the defense of Odessa, issued by unit commanders, heads of military medical institutions, the Odessa Regional and City Councils of Workers' Deputies.
For the defense of Sevastopol
Number of awards: 52540.
The medal was awarded to all participants in the defense of Sevastopol - servicemen of the Red Army, Navy and NKVD troops, as well as civilians who were directly involved in the defense. The defense of Sevastopol lasted 250 days, from October 30, 1941 to July 4, 1942.
For the defense of Stalingrad
Number of awards: 759560.
This medal was awarded not only to persons who participated in the defense of the city during the entire period of its defense, but also to those who, as a result of injury, illness, or in connection with a special. government events was evacuated from Stalingrad during its defense. The medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad" was awarded to the defenders of this city, regardless of whether they were awarded orders or medals of the USSR for courage and courage in the defense of the hero city or not. On the reverse side of the medal there is an image of a sickle and a hammer and the inscription: "For our Soviet Motherland". To reward the participants in the defense of Stalingrad, at the request of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, the medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad" was established, and on May 1, 1945 the city itself was awarded the honorary title Hero City.
For the defense of Moscow
Number of awards: 1,028,600.
The medal "For the Defense of Moscow" was awarded to all participants in the defense of Moscow:
All servicemen and civilian personnel of the Soviet Army and NKVD troops who participated in the defense of Moscow for at least one month during the period from October 19, 1941 to January 25, 1942;
Persons from the civilian population who were directly involved in the defense of Moscow for at least one month during the period from October 19, 1941 to January 25, 1942;
Servicemen of the units of the Moscow Air Defense Zone and units of the MPVO, as well as civilians - the most active participants in the defense of Moscow from enemy air raids from July 22, 1941 to January 25, 1942;
Military personnel and civilians from the population of the city of Moscow and the Moscow region, who took an active part in the construction of defensive lines and structures of the defensive line of the Reserve Front, Mozhaisk, Podolsk lines and the Moscow bypass.
Partisans of the Moscow region and active participants in the defense of the hero city of Tula.
For the defense of Kyiv
Number of awards: 107540.
The medal "For the Defense of Kyiv" was awarded to all participants in the defense of Kyiv - servicemen of the Soviet Army and the troops of the former NKVD, as well as all workers who took part in the defense of Kyiv in the ranks of the people's militia, in the construction of defensive fortifications, who worked in factories and plants that served the needs of the front, members of the Kyiv underground and partisans who fought the enemy near Kyiv. July - September 1941 is considered the period of defense of Kyiv.
For the defense of the Caucasus
Number of awards: 870,000.
The medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus" was awarded to all participants in the defense of the Caucasus - the military personnel of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops, as well as civilians who were directly involved in the defense.
For the defense of the Soviet Arctic
Number of awards: 353,240.
The medal "For the Defense of the Soviet Arctic" was awarded to all participants in the defense of the Arctic - the military personnel of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops, as well as civilians who were directly involved in the defense. The period of defense of the Soviet Arctic is considered June 22, 1941 - November 1944.
Partisan of the Patriotic War
Number of awards:
- 1st degree - 56,883
- 2nd degree - 70,992
The medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" was awarded to partisans, the commanding staff of partisan detachments and organizers of the partisan movement for special merits in organizing the partisan movement, for courage, heroism and outstanding success in the partisan struggle for the Soviet Motherland in the rear of the Nazi invaders.
The medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" 1st degree was awarded to partisans, the commanding staff of partisan detachments and organizers of the partisan movement for courage, heroism and outstanding success in the partisan struggle for our Soviet Motherland in the rear of the Nazi invaders.
The medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" 2nd degree was awarded to partisans, the commanding staff of partisan detachments and organizers of the partisan movement for personal military distinction in carrying out orders and tasks of the command, for active assistance in the partisan struggle against the Nazi invaders.
The highest degree of the medal is the 1st degree.
Until 1974, this medal was the only medal of the USSR that had 2 degrees.
For the liberation of Belgrade
Number of awards: 70,000.
The medal "For the Liberation of Belgrade" was awarded to servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and liberation of Belgrade in the period September 29 - October 22, 1944, as well as organizers and leaders of military operations during the liberation of this city.
For the liberation of Warsaw
Number of awards: 701,700.
The medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw" was awarded to servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and liberation of Warsaw in the period January 14-17, 1945, as well as organizers and leaders of military operations during the liberation of this city.
Delivery was made:
Persons who are in the military units of the Red Army and the Navy - commanders of military units;
Persons who have retired from the army and navy - regional, city and district military commissars at the place of residence of the awarded.
For the liberation of Prague
Number of awards: 395,000.
The medal "For the Liberation of Prague" was awarded to servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and liberation of Prague in the period May 3-9, 1945, as well as organizers and leaders of military operations during the liberation of this city.
For the capture of Budapest
Number of awards: 362,050.
The medal "For the Capture of Budapest" was awarded to servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and capture of Budapest in the period December 20, 1944 - February 15, 1945, as well as the organizers and leaders of military operations during the capture of this city.
For the capture of Koenigsberg
Number of awards: 760,000.
The medal "For the capture of Koenigsberg" was awarded to servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and capture of Koenigsberg in the period January 23 - April 10, 1945, as well as the organizers and leaders of military operations during the capture of this city.
For the capture of Vienna
Number of awards: 277,380.
The medal "For the Capture of Vienna" was awarded to servicemen of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops - direct participants in the assault and capture of Vienna in the period March 16 - April 13, 1945, as well as the organizers and leaders of military operations during the capture of this city.
For the capture of Berlin
Number of awards: 1,100,000.
According to the Regulations on the medal “For the Capture of Berlin”, it was awarded to “servicemen of the Soviet Army, Navy and NKVD troops - direct participants in the heroic assault and capture of Berlin, as well as organizers and leaders of military operations during the capture of this city.”
Medal "For the Capture of Berlin" - round, 32 mm in diameter, made of brass. On the front side of the medal in the center is the inscription "For the capture of Berlin". On the lower edge of the medal there is an image of an oak half wreath intertwined with a ribbon in the middle part. Above the inscription is a five-pointed asterisk. The medal is bordered on the obverse side. On the reverse side of the medal, the date of the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops is minted: “May 2, 1945”; below is a five-pointed asterisk. All inscriptions and images on the obverse and on the reverse side of the medal are convex. In the upper part of the medal there is an eyelet, which is connected by means of a ring to the metal pentagonal block, which serves to fasten the medal to clothing. The shoe is covered with red silk moiré ribbon 24 mm wide. In the middle of the ribbon are five lobal stripes - three black and two orange.
For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.
Number of awards: 14,933,000.
Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" were awarded:
All military personnel and civilian employees who took direct part in the ranks of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops on the fronts of the Patriotic War or ensured victory by their work in military districts;
All military personnel and civilian employees who served during the Great Patriotic War in the ranks of the active Red Army, Navy and NKVD troops, but who left them due to injury, illness and injury, as well as transferred by decision of state and party organizations to another work outside the army.
For valiant work in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
Number of awards: 16,096,750.
Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" were awarded:
Workers, engineering and technical personnel and employees of industry and transport;
Collective farmers and agricultural specialists;
Workers in science, technology, art and literature;
Workers of Soviet, party, trade union and other public organizations- who ensured the victory of the Soviet Union over Germany in the Great Patriotic War with their valiant and selfless work.
For victory over Japan
Number of awards: 1,800,000.
The medal "For the Victory over Japan" was awarded to:
All military personnel and civilian personnel of units and formations of the Red Army, the Navy and the NKVD troops who took a direct part in the hostilities against the Japanese imperialists as part of the troops of the 1st Far Eastern, 2nd Far Eastern and Transbaikal Fronts, the Pacific Fleet and the Amur river flotilla;
- military personnel of the central departments of the NPO, the NKVMF and the NKVD, who took part in supporting the combat operations of the Soviet troops in the Far East.
It was awarded for personal or collective services to the state associated with the accomplishment of a heroic deed, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. It is the highest distinction.
The Gold Star medal is a state award of the USSR and the Russian Federation. Installed since 1939 as an additional insignia to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the medal was restored in 1992 as a distinction to the title of Hero of Russia.
The medal was established on August 1, 1939 for citizens awarded the highest degree of distinction - the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union". Initially, the medal was also called "Hero of the Soviet Union".
On October 16, 1939, an amendment was made to articles 2-4 of the Decree of August 1; henceforth it became known as the Gold Star medal.
On November 4, 1939, the medal for No. 1 was awarded to the Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot A.V. Lyapidevsky, who was awarded the high rank back in 1934.
For courage
According to the Regulations, the medal "For Courage" was awarded to soldiers, sailors, sergeants, foremen, as well as officers of the Soviet Army, Navy and border troops "for personal courage and courage in battles with the enemies of the Soviet Union in the theater of operations, while protecting immunity state borders or in the fight against saboteurs, spies and other enemies of the Soviet state. In accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 7, 1941, the medal "For Courage" after the death of the recipient is returned to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The certificate for the medal may be left in the recipient's family for storage as a memory.
During the Great Patriotic War, more than 4 million people were awarded the medal.
For military merit
Number of awards: 5,210,078.
The medal was awarded to:
Servicemen of the Soviet Army, Navy, border and internal troops,
Other citizens of the USSR,
As well as persons who are not citizens of the USSR.
The medal was awarded to distinguished persons for:
Skillful, enterprising and courageous actions in battle, which contributed to the successful completion of combat missions by a military unit, subunit;
Courage shown in the defense of the state border of the USSR;
Excellent success in combat and political training, mastering new military equipment and maintaining high combat readiness of military units and their subunits, and other merits during active military service.
Ushakov medal
The Ushakov Medal was awarded to sailors and soldiers, foremen and sergeants, midshipmen and warrant officers of the Navy and naval units of the border troops for courage and bravery shown in the defense of the socialist Fatherland in maritime theaters, both in wartime and in peacetime.
The Ushakov medal was awarded for personal courage and bravery shown by:
In battles with the enemies of the socialist Fatherland in the maritime theaters;
When protecting the state maritime border of the USSR;
When performing combat missions of ships and units of the Navy and border troops;
When performing military duty in conditions associated with a risk to life.
Nakhimov Medal
Number of awards: 14,000.
The Nakhimov medal was awarded to sailors and soldiers, foremen and sergeants, midshipmen and ensigns of the Navy and naval units of the border troops.
The Nakhimov medal was awarded to:
For skillful, enterprising and courageous actions that contributed to the successful completion of the combat missions of ships and units in maritime theaters;
For courage shown in the defense of the state maritime border of the USSR;
For dedication shown in the performance of military duty, or other merits during active military service in conditions involving a risk to life.
Badge “Guard”
Established for military units and formations awarded the title of Guards. On the basis of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 11, 1943, this sign was also placed on the banners of armies and corps that received the title of guards. The difference was that on the banner of the Guards Army the sign was depicted in a wreath of oak branches, and on the banner of the Guards Corps - without a wreath. In total, during the war, until May 9, 1945, the title of Guards was awarded to: 11 combined arms and 6 tank armies; horse-mechanized group; 40 rifle, 7 cavalry, 12 tank, 9 mechanized and 14 aviation corps; 117 rifle, 9 airborne, 17 cavalry, 6 artillery, 53 aviation and 6 anti-aircraft artillery divisions; 7 rocket artillery divisions; many dozens of brigades and regiments. In the Navy, there were 18 surface guard ships, 16 submarines, 13 divisions of combat boats, 2 air divisions, 1 brigade of marines and 1 naval railroad artillery brigade.
Let's return to the epigraph of our event.
Yes, not all soldiers, officers, partisans, home front workers who deserve a reward were awarded by them during and after the Great Patriotic War. But the following can be stated with certainty: each of them fought not for medals and orders, but for their homeland, family, relatives and friends.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awards_World_War_Second_War
- kadet.radugavl.ru/nagrada.html
- otvoyna.ru/bb.htm
- bigmuseum.narod.ru/Medals/E/Russia/vov.html
- www.podvignaroda.mil.ru/
- What? Who it? Publishing house "Pedagogy". M., 1975
Get up, huge country, get up for a mortal battle
With dark fascist power, with the damned horde!
Words from a song… can someone who has not been there understand what war is? And war, if you want to know, is, first of all, the smell of blood, feces, sweat and corpses.
From a conversation with a veteranSooner or later, all secrets will certainly be revealed.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.
Mikhail Prishvin, geographer, writer
There are many sad and joyful dates in the history of our Russia. But the distant Sunday date of June 22, 1941 is as if burned by fire in our hearts. It looks like a deep wound, which, although it has healed, still hurts, and will always remind of itself.
Today this day is called the Day of Remembrance of the Defenders of the Fatherland. It's not red on our calendar. Ripped off the bed by the deafening roar of shell explosions, people then rushed towards the war! And everything went away somewhere: a pensive dawn, touched by a light crimson, the clear peace of the skies, serene silence ...
On that day, a message came to every house about the threat looming over the Fatherland, and mothers and wives soon began to receive letters called so terribly - "funerals."
The human memory of that fateful first day, the first hour, will probably never disappear.
The author is daily reminded of the Great Patriotic War by its relics, located in a bookcase nearby. In a square glass vase are fragments of shells, grenades, cartridge cases (ours and Germans), found on the passes. Nearby - the case of a mortar mine and a case of a German grenade
For the author, the memory is also sacred because in the summer of 1942, between Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog, his paternal grandfather first went missing. And a little earlier, in March, near Kharkov - maternal grandfather. It is not known how they died or where they are buried. Only pre-war photographs remained in memory.On the night of May 8-9, 1945, a great-uncle was killed by a Nazi girl in Berlin. He stood on the balcony and, together with his friends, watched thousands of rockets rise above Berlin, announcing the victory to the world, and at that time “mädchen” came out of the opposite room and shot him in the back ...I finally realized the loss of my grandfathers when I entered the age of their death. And they were 40 years old.
Having lived in this world until the time of summing up the senile results, he began to constantly feel in his soul the damned question: what the hell, what the hell, what the devil, what the hell did humanity actually get into the horror of world wars? What happened to people? What kind of madness struck them? And blind haze instead of an answer.For the author, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Kharkov and Berlin are now not just cities - these are places where his father fought, where his unfamiliar grandfathers died.
Father Pavel Nikolaevich (1924-1998), miraculously not dying, in 1944 came from the front as a 20-year-old war invalid. One of those who were modestly named - a participant in the Great Patriotic War, he was awarded the medals "For Courage" and "For Military Merit", the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree. Like all front-line soldiers, he was a small part great war. The war was part of it. But he survived in it and gave life to me.
Reading the works of scientists Soviet period, who wrote, of course, not out of ignorance, but according to the social order of the authorities, and memoirists who lied "as eyewitnesses", it is difficult to link events at the front and in the rear. It turns out some kind of "black hole". At the front, our pilots, tankers, artillerymen and sailors constantly fought against superior German forces. And this at a time when in the rear our workers and engineers produced several times more weapons than the Germans. Nothing is clear.
After Stalin's death, it turned out that it was not the leader who led the Soviet people to Victory, but "the faithful Leninist Khrushchev." He accused Generalissimo Stalin of not wanting to listen to intelligence data, smart advisers, or his Nikita Sergeevich advice. The Red Army, they say, would not have been defeated if it had been commanded by the commanders Blucher, Tukhachevsky, Yakir - there would have been no losses, no retreat to Moscow. For example, when Stalin sent him, Khrushchev, as a member of the Military Council of the front near Stalingrad, the result was immediate: the Germans were defeated. How!
In the mid-1960s, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, the History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945 was published. (in 6 volumes). Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1960-1965. Khrushchev's ".... leases" now called a different number of losses: not 7 million, as before, but 14, and then - even 20. Well, Stalin was always to blame for everything, who made erroneous decisions, did not save the lives of soldiers, exterminated a cohort of brilliant generals. But they did not tell the truth about the war.
After the displacement of "Nikita", historians suddenly "discovered" that Stalin and Khrushchev had nothing to do with it. The people were rallied against the enemy by an even more loyal Leninist, Marshal of the Soviet Union, four times more hero than Stalin, "dear and beloved Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev." He made only one small addition. In 1978 - "with tears in his eyes" - the sycophants who were constantly spinning around him, who created a new cult of personality in the USSR, tried to impose Malaya Zemlya on the whole country. They argued that it was there, near Novorossiysk, that the fate of the whole country was “decided”, the most cruel and fateful battle of the war took place. There, on Malaya Zemlya, the key participant in the events was the political officer Colonel Brezhnev, ”who ... gave smart advice even to Zhukov.
By the way, it is known for sure that Leonid Ilyich did not really like the increased attention to his person. When they began to make a second Stalingrad out of the battle on Malaya Zemlya, Brezhnev was indignant, but his inner circle did their job.
For what battle won did they award Brezhnev the Order of Victory a quarter of a century later? What front did he command? After all, the statute of the order has not changed since 1943.
Under Brezhnev, the History of the Second World War 1939-1945 was published for 10 years. in 12 volumes. Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1973-1982. At the same time, about 35% of the volume was devoted to the actions of the allies. Again, there was no reliable information about the war.
Well, after the death of Brezhnev, all our victories: near Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, in Berlin, were due only to him - "the faithful son of the Soviet people, four times Hero of the Soviet Union, the great commander Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov." During the years of Brezhnev's leadership of the country, with all the power of communist propaganda, the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Suslov, the Minister of Defense Grechko and the head of the GPU of the army, Epishev, the cult of Marshal Zhukov was inflated to obscenity, who, suddenly turning into an ardent opponent of Stalinism, began to bravely kick the shadow of the dead leader even under Khrushchev .All this is sad and sad. But Rokossovsky did not succumb to Khrushchev's persuasion ....
We inherited some strange mix of military history research from the USSR. It is no secret that there was a politicized historical literature, littered with discussions about the role of the CPSU. The authors of such large-circulation works often moved away from factual history to purely vulgar propaganda. This type of historical literature has its roots in propaganda articles and essays from the time of the war, designed to inspire feats and teach by the example of heroes, which was also important at that time.
At the same time, many authors were driven by the desire to show the war through the eyes of direct participants in the events. However, this approach requires an objective selection of participants from the very thick of things. Without the skeleton of a coherent general description of the battle, it turns out to be jelly. The description of tactical episodes, of course, is entertaining, but often leads to the loss of the thread of the narrative about the development of general events and serious errors. This has long been known to historians. And from the short pants of describing the war as a mosaic of tactical episodes, it is high time for us to grow up.
In the USSR, there were works closed with the stamps "DSP" and "Secret", focused on the training of future commanders in schools and academies. As a rule, stamped works were not overloaded with the role of the party and quite clearly described the development of events in various battles. Often even with impartial assessments of decisions made by commanders and commanders. This type of historical research also has its roots in wartime. Then, in order to exchange experience, information bulletins and collections of materials on studying the experience of the war were issued. However, the predominantly educational functions significantly reduced the value of these books as historical works. First of all, it concerns the topic of losses. Data on the losses suffered by the troops in stamped works, as a rule, are not available. Meanwhile, the losses incurred are an important criterion for assessing the intensity of hostilities, the skills of the troops and the correctness of the decisions taken by the command.
In addition to covering the issue of losses, it is necessary to write honestly about penal companies and battalions. The silence of their actions has led to a completely unnecessary secrecy around the actions of the penalty box.
Throughout the war, there were only 65 penal battalions and 1037 penal companies on all fronts. But not at the same time! From 1942 to 1945, only one battalion existed - the 9th separate penal. Usually these units were disbanded after a few months. Experts have long calculated that 34.5 million people passed through the army during the entire war. And 428 thousand were sent to penal units. And they could not win the war, as the "experts" say. Less than one and a half percent! Although this is a lot.
When the forgetful 1990s came, and complete indifference to everything that was not for the “grandmothers”, in our “zero” years of the 21st century, the old interpretation of the history of the war began to be considered excessively ideological, but there was no new one. No, of course, there were talented works, but only specialists knew them. And without a correct understanding of our past, we have no future.
At the time of Gorbachev's publicity, the people learned about the huge losses of the Red Army, but the perpetrators of the defeats of 1941-1942. the same faces remained - Stalin, Beria, Molotov and others. Gorbachev's "liberals" under the leadership of the 2nd person in the CPSU A. N. Yakovlev then explained the history of the war simply: we ourselves are to blame for everything. It turns out that this terrible Stalin, just before the war, criminally concluded a criminal act with Hitler, so we are guilty before all of humanity, and now we must constantly ask for forgiveness and repent.
In books and newspapers, new myths about the war were composed by literally everyone who was not lazy, and for any reason. Only official publications on the history of the Great Patriotic War were still very scarce.
Gradually disappearing from the face of the earth is a generation of people who knew the Patriotic War in the bastions of the Brest Fortress, in the icy trenches of the Moscow region, in the snowy mountains of the Caucasus, in the ruins of Stalingrad, on the steps of the Reichstag, in the offices and bunker of the Reich Chancellery. All the marshals and almost all the generals of Victory have gone to another world. Those who knew the truth about the war reliably and deeply.
There is no longer the country in which war veterans lived. She became different. Fifteen union republics, which stood shoulder to shoulder in defense of the Motherland and won victory in 1945 thanks to their unity, began to live separately. But the people will not soon figure out where the truth of that war is.
Catherine II left behind a well-known aphorism: "History is written by the winners." You can add: and as you wish.
There were textbooks where the war was called not the Great Patriotic War, but the "Soviet-Nazi War of 1941-1945." This is the name of the chapter in the textbook “History of Russia. XX century. Volume II - 1939-2007" edited by A. B. Zubov (M., 2009).
And they, dumb-headed, did not know that we defeated Nazi Germany, not because the “wise Comrade Stalin” led our fathers and grandfathers into battle, but because very quickly that very “Soviet-Nazi war” turned into the Great Patriotic War. Hitler had to fight not with the Stalin regime, but with the people who defended not the state, but the Motherland, their Fatherland. And the Patriotic War of the Russian people can never be won. And at no cost. History fully confirms this!
AT Soviet times, any schoolboy, even a loser, knew what time the Great Patriotic War was, and from the generals he could name not only Marshal G.K. Zhukov. Today, many do not even know who I. V. Stalin was, when this war took place at all. Some "wise men" even claim that Moscow was handed over to the Germans without a fight. Like Kutuzov in 1812 to the French.
Alas, official propaganda did not take root among ordinary Russian soldiers. We are not so “lazy and incurious”, as the great A. S. Pushkin said. Among hundreds of thousands of living eyewitnesses of the tragic events of 1941-1945. there were people who did not believe the facts of the fakes about the war.
“Everything was not like that in the war!..” – after watching the next movie about the war, the front-line soldiers proudly declared, who on the 40th anniversary of the Victory the government awarded the Order of the Patriotic War without exception.
In 1985, the Order of the Patriotic War was revived as a commemorative award for veterans, its production and mass awarding resumed - on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Victory, it was awarded to all front-line soldiers, regardless of rank and merit, as well as to all partisans, underground workers and participants in the war. The Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree in 1985 was received by all veterans who survived and had at least one military award. The order was cast in its former form, but still there are differences. Due to the huge number of awarded veterans, it was decided not to use gold. For the manufacture took silver. Separate details, to give the award an appropriate look, were gilded. Everything else award badge was no different. It had a number and the inscription: "The Mint". The order book was attached to the order.
Since the abolition of the Soviet Union in 1992, this order has not been awarded, but forever it has remained a symbol of the feat of the people, their military labor and their Great Victory.
Then, for the most part, many former front-line soldiers were still alive. And they did not like to talk about the war, just as they did not like “fantasies” about it. These are warriors who survived until the 21st century, mostly with commemorative medals on their chests, they liked to say how brave they were. And those are not...
Having received the opportunity to study some of the declassified archival materials, modern publicists M. Baryatinsky, A. Isaev, O. Kozinkin, A. Martirosyan, M. Meltyukhov, Yu. Mukhin, V. Savin, M. Solonin, A. Shirokorad and others. argued showed all our miscalculations and their causes during the war years. There were difficulties, but there was heroism and a feat of the Soviet people. And no matter what, he won.
One thing is needed from us: to understand how hard it was for our fathers and grandfathers during the Great Patriotic War, to remember their military and labor exploits, thanks to which we survived and live today.
What happened in the pre-war and war years in Cherkessk, in the country? What did the inhabitants of Cherkessk, and indeed our parents in general, face at the front, in the occupation and rear? Why, during the first weeks of the war, was the Red Army swept away, crushed, routed, and for the most part taken prisoner? Why did the Wehrmacht manage to reach the Caucasus Mountains? There are many questions.
We, the heirs of the Great Victory, must know the truth about the war so as not to repeat the mistakes.
▲ At the beginning of January 1941, in almost 29,000-strong Cherkessk, life proceeded as usual. Over the city, where New Year trees were especially desirable for children, the spirit of the New Year's holiday was still hovering. By the last peaceful Christmas tree in Cherkessk, there were unusually many sweets, and in a variety of wrappers (candy wrappers). Old-timers said that after the annexation of the Baltic States, a stream of sweets gushed out from there, which began to be sold in the shops of Cherkessk. After the end of the New Year holiday, most of the purchased sweets remained intact. The sweets were put into boxes and hidden in chests until the next holiday. Out of habit, because it was customary.
▲ Local newspapers increasingly published reports of the "Anglo-German War" (as the press then called the war, which began on September 1, 1939 with the German attack on Poland). But while the war, which will involve dozens of states, and hostilities will take place on the territory of forty of them, was outside our country and therefore seemed far from Cherkessk.
▲ On April 9, 1941, the new composition of the National Defense Committee, created back in 1937, was approved. Instead of seven, it was reduced to five people: K. E. Voroshilov (chairman), A. A. Zhdanov (deputy chairman), N. G. Kuznetsov, I. V. Stalin and S. K. Timoshenko.
▲ The air of May Day 1941 intoxicated the inhabitants of Cherkessk with spring freshness. The smells of the first greenery gave rise to thoughts about the upcoming summer - about countryside vacations, travel and warm feelings. Just like always, the apple trees were in bloom. And the “beautiful girls”, dressed in light dresses, hurried to the holiday of “peace, labor and May”. And in their hands are rustling bouquets of lilacs, azures and tulips.And they were still alive!
▲ We are often told: the war crept up unnoticed. It is not true. The war was expected, although the common people did not want war and lived on their own worries. They even prepared for it. Moreover, both sides: both Germany and the USSR. It has never been a secret.
At the May Day demonstration, captured by the atmosphere of the holiday, students of the male secondary school No. 8 in the city of Cherkessk walked with BGTO badges (“Be ready for work and defense”) on their chests. Passing by the podium of local leaders, they enthusiastically sang a song from the movie “If there is war tomorrow”:
Let's take new rifles - flags on the bayonet,And with a song let's go to shooting circles.When the war comes like a blizzard againKnow how to aim then, know how to shoot.The guys did not know that the war would come in 53 days.
Composers-songwriters who composed their creations at the request of the head of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army Lev Mekhlis, what they just didn’t come up with! And the people sang these songs:
“We will defeat the enemy with little blood, with a mighty blow!”
The country sang the song of Lev Oshanin to the music of Zinovy Kompaneyts:
"We are ready for battle, Comrade Voroshilov,We are ready for battle, Stalin is our father!”
They sang about the tankers and artillerymen, to whom "Stalin gave the order," that "our armor is strong and our tanks are fast," and even about the enemies who "never walk around our republics."
From all the loudspeakers rumbled: "And if the mother enemy comes to us, he will be beaten everywhere and everywhere."
▲ The sober-minded understood that the war with the West could not be avoided, that it was already on the threshold. Many residents of Cherkessk tried to believe the government and especially "comrade Stalin." The non-aggression pact signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop did not reassure anyone. People understood: the contract is only a delay.There was not a day in the schools when the students were not told that there would be a war with Germany. It is no coincidence that many girls wore GSO badges - “Ready for sanitary defense”, and boys from the age of fourteen studied at the school of YuVV (“Young Voroshilov riders”) and knocked out the right to be called “Voroshilov shooter” from rifles in shooting galleries. In the military technical circles - shooting and PVHO (Air Chemical Defense) Osoaviakhima (Society for the Promotion of Defense, Aviation and Chemical Construction) studied the effect of toxic substances, mastered a set of individual chemical protection, passed military sports standards. In gymnastic circles, exercises were performed corresponding to the third or second sports category, on a trapezoid, rings, parallel bars. During frequent training alarms, including, separately, chemical ones (then instead of a siren they hit a hanging rail), Cherkessk schoolchildren put on gas masks and continued to study in classes while sitting in them.
All young people were required to pass the standards for the BGTO badges (“Be ready for work and defense”) and the TRP “Ready for work and defense”.
We can say more: ideologically, psychologically, everyone was brilliantly prepared for the war, which became one of the factors of the Victory. But there was no physical opportunity to really prepare - you can’t pump up muscles in a short time!
▲ On May 6, 1941, the inhabitants of Cherkessk learned that I. V. Stalin, retaining the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, became Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Prime Minister), replacing V. M. Scriabin (Molotov ). This, too, was a no-brainer. Premonitions of the war, first of all, came from the newspapers.Reading between the lines, it was even strange to people that the war did not start today. Sometimes they were surprised - why didn’t it flare up yesterday? And they went to bed in alarm - as if the war would not break out tomorrow!
▲ In June 1941, in Teberda, the film studio Mosfilm was filming the film The Pig and the Shepherd. Some residents of Cherkessk were even lucky enough to get on the set and see the shooting for the first time, the main characters of the film Marina Ladynina, Nikolai Kryuchkov and other artists.
▲ On June 14, 1941, TASS reported on the radio a statement refuting rumors about a possible German attack on the USSR. “Germany is just as steadfastly observing the terms of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact as the Soviet Union…” the Soviet government assured its people. He was echoed by the statement of the Nazi command about the introduction of their troops into East Prussia and Poland, allegedly "for rest, replenishment and maneuvers."
Both statements tried to inspire hope for the future, but the townspeople, fearing accusations of "alarming" and "spreading false rumors", whispered in the corners and asked each other the same question: "Will there be a war or not?"
Indeed, well, what's the point of Hitler throwing himself at Russia when he has an unfinished England behind him, when the guns are still rattling in Greece? War?! Common sense protested, disagreeing. Absurd. Germany sought "its own" in Europe, and there was no need for her to look for trouble. The Soviet Union also complied with the agreement with Germany, and until the last day of the eve of the war, by land and sea, sent the Germans cargoes with Russian grain, oil, and ore.
▲ War, beneficial to few, was, nevertheless, recognized by all as inevitable. Stalin's actions on the eve of the German attack show what a difficult situation he was in. Unreasonable repressions, personnel confusion, unwillingness to recognize the reality of the attack time, delay in rebuilding the first defense echelon - you can't get it anywhere. Stalin's miscalculation is considered his decision not to declare a general mobilization and not to send troops into fortified areas before the German attack.
But it was not a miscalculation, but a conscious decision that took into account all the pros and cons.
▲ It was no secret to Stalin that Hitler carefully studied the deeds of the kings of Germany, tried to imitate some of them, and always carried a portrait of Friedrich Barbarossa in his pocket. His admiration for this German emperor, who initiated a new stage in German politics - "Drang nach Osten", could not but alarm Koba.
Stalin knew about the concentration of rifle, cavalry, tank and motorized divisions, airborne and anti-tank brigades near the western borders of the USSR - trained and prepared in the best traditions of the Prussian military. The leader never believed Hitler, but entered into relations with Germany proceeding only from the security interests of the Soviet Union.
▲ Even on June 21, nothing foreshadowed trouble in Cherkessk. Many citizens who survived the revolutionary events, the Civil War, post-war famine and devastation, who fell into the hungry days of the 1930s, actually began to eat enough bread only by the beginning of the war. They carelessly rejoiced at everything, were happy. The radio installed in the center of Cherkessk was still playing peacefully and cheerfully. Until late in the evening, the songs “Katyusha”, “If there is war tomorrow ...”, “Konarmeyskaya”, “Oh, Andryusha”, “Lyuba-Lyubushka”, “Easy on the heart from a cheerful song” sounded.
At the cinema. Gorky was shown the film Cutter from Torzhok released in 1925, and from June 24 a new feature film Volga-Volga was to be shown here.
They went to bed in peacetime, and woke up in wartime.
▲ Sunday 22 June is a day of rest. Early in the morning the whole country was still asleep. Some of our border guards, with their caps on their backs, probably lay in the grass, and maybe even counted the stars in the clear June sky...
Elderly generals and officers, after visiting the theaters, continued to relax in summer restaurants or in their companies, puffing on tobacco in the fresh air. They went to bed about midnight and slept soundly in the morning.
Young officers, having watched Chapaev in the evening in the cinemas, or maybe Volga-Volga, then circled the waltzes on the summer dance floors, and in the morning they could not part with the beautiful female representatives.
Former tenth-graders, girls and boys, after the graduation ceremony, traditionally prepared to meet the dawn.
The milkmaids had already woken up by this time and were pulling the cows by the peaceful chicks. Undoubtedly, many men were already sitting in ambush in the bushes with a fishing rod and fishing in the river, having met the upcoming weekend with a glass of “strong drink”. But the bulk of the population was still snoozing peacefully in their beds, having been drenched in production or in the field.
And at that time, what happened happened.
▲ 129 years later - day by day - after Napoleon crossed the Berezina River, the Germans followed his path. Hitler believed that he would fight the Stalinist regime. A naive fool who repeated the mistake of Napoleon Bonaparte. He had to fight with the people who defended not the state, but the Motherland and Fatherland. He did not know the history of Russia well: the Patriotic War against Russia can never be won at any cost.
There is only one way to defeat the Russians - if all of them are exterminated without exception.
The Germans surprisingly had no ill presentiment. It didn’t occur to them that, after all, as the American historian Weinberger writes, “an attempt to push the Red Army across the entire USSR could have been unsuccessful, if only because the tracks of German tanks could not help but wear out in a country of such size ...”.
On June 22, 1941, in the early hours of the far west, German planes were preparing to take off to bombard Soviet cities and airfields. The crews of fascist tanks brought their vehicles to their original positions. Hitler's generals of the German army groups, having received the prearranged signal “Dordmung” at night, which meant to begin the advance of troops into the border zone, increasingly looked at the dials of their watches. Their arrows were approaching the fatal mark ...
At 03:12 Berlin time, the military vehicle of the "Third Reich" set in motion, after 3 minutes thousands of guns and mortars of the German army opened fire on the border outposts and the location of the Soviet troops.
At 0330 hours the first wave of German bombers crossed the western border of the USSR. In the morning twilight, 10 major Soviet airfields were hit.
The second wave of bombers also lay on course for their intended targets.
To achieve surprise, the aircraft of the German Air Force flew over the Soviet border in all areas at the same time. Already at sunrise, the main forces of the Luftwaffe struck at railway junctions, sea and river ports, clusters of Soviet tanks, headquarters Soviet armies, warehouses and 66 airfields, on which 1489 aircraft were concentrated (including the latest types). The pilots of the Messerschmites could not believe their eyes: hundreds of Soviet aircraft were standing at the runways, without any cover, not disguised. Most of them did not even have time to take off.
▲ V last years publications appear in which the authors are trying in every possible way to shift the responsibility for the start of the Great Patriotic War from Germany to the USSR. One feels like telling them: yes, read the pre-war diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the German Land Forces F. Halder! Everything is clear there: who started and how.
According to him, in June 1941, near the Soviet border, the Nazis had 92 infantry, 17 tank, 13 motorized, one cavalry division and 16 separate brigades as part of the first operational echelon.
According to the German historian Paul Karel, on June 22, 129 German divisions of the first line (7 armies, 4 tank groups and 3 air fleets) invaded the territory of the USSR, in which there were about 4 million well-trained, trained, combat-experienced soldiers and officers who began to act in a strictly planned direction. And with them - 600 thousand pieces of equipment, 750 thousand horses, 3580 armored combat vehicles, 7184 guns and 1830 aircraft.
These were the most grandiose forces of the Wehrmacht that have ever participated in battles in the history of wars.
The number of our divisions standing on the border, in military literature, is indicated from 110 to 227! Well, our General Staff officers and military scientists of the post-war period did not have enough to count all the divisions on the fingers. We still do not have a complete official list of all the Soviet divisions that existed before the war. If you look through the books and compare all the indicated figures (the number of equipment and people), then you get a complete nonsense.
▲ The first blow of the enemy was received by border guards and engineering battalions, who were engaged in construction work and did not have military skills. Thousands of the first victims of the war appeared. But not a single one of the 455 frontier outposts on the western border withdrew without an order. Left alone with the enemy, many times superior to them, the border guards died, but they did not receive help from the regular Red Army. Having suffered significant losses, she was forced to retreat and, without an order, began to withdraw military units from the border directly to the east. The Germans broke through the gaps in our defense to the rear of the Red Army troops.The mass heroism of the border guards was later hushed up, because it emphasized the competence of Beria, against the backdrop of the incompetence of the army command.
▲ On the first day of the war, events in the city of Brest and its fortress unfolded according to the worst-case scenario on the entire Soviet-German front. Neither the command of the 4th Army, nor the commanders of formations and units, nor the Soviet and party organizations of the Brest region expected the invasion of the German Nazi troops and did not think that it would happen in a few hours. Therefore, no measures were taken to bring the troops to combat readiness on the evening of June 21 in the Brest direction.
In Brest itself, 18 fully equipped tank, rifle, artillery, engineer-engineer and motorized rifle regiments were concentrated, plus a border detachment (regiment) of the NKVD. There was also a district military hospital, a huge number of various military warehouses, etc. Not counting the many small units and rear units, not counting the divisions located in the immediate vicinity of Brest. If this mass of troops were withdrawn from the border, dispersed and put on the defensive, the defense of Brest could become a heroic page in military history countries.
But two railway and four road bridges across the navigable Western Bug near Brest, as well as others, not blown up, located along the border, the enemy captured already in the first hours of the war, which was a complete surprise for him. At 7 am, two German infantry divisions, without experiencing the resistance of the divisions of our 4th Army, occupied Brest.
▲ The rivers Bug and Mukhavets, and their branches, additionally gave impregnability to the Brest Fortress, built by the Russians in 1842 and which has long lost its significance as a fortification. A solid two-story brick barracks ran along the outer circumference of the citadel, which had 500 casemates for accommodating troops (under them were basements, and even lower - a network of underground passages) and at the same time was a fortress wall.
Having concentrated troops in the area of the Brest Fortress by the summer, the commanders of the Red Army, not without the approval of the commander of the Western District, D. G. Pavlov, did not philosophize for a long time. Instead of setting up tents for personnel, it was decided to use the capital premises of the fortress to accommodate troops and warehouses of the 6th and 42nd SDs of the 4th Army, which was prohibited by the governing documents.
The Germans sent their first shells exactly into the midst of the bodies of soldiers and officers sleeping in the fortress. And by seven in the morning, only memories remained of two rifle (34 thousand people) divisions and a tank division (11 thousand). Soldiers and officers died, mowed down by German machine guns while trying to get out in a panic through the two narrow gates of the mousetrap citadel. Under normal conditions, it took more than 3 hours to withdraw troops and institutions inside the fortress through these gates.
The inhabitants of Cherkessk, V.V. Doroshnenko (here he fell into German captivity) and A.A. Evstafiev, A.A. Savoskin managed to stay alive in this pitch hell and return home after the front roads of the war.
▲ The tsarist engineers who built the Brest Fortress never dreamed that the enemy was able to break into the citadel on the very first day, and all the equipment and warehouses would go to him as trophies.
The surviving about 4 thousand soldiers and commanders of the 6th SD and 42nd SD, trapped in the Brest Fortress, together with the border guards of the 9th outpost and the escorts of the 132nd NKVD battalion, then made up the "immortal garrison" famous book writer Sergei Smirnov.
An unknown defender of the fortress scratched with a bayonet on the stone wall of the citadel: “I am dying. But I don't give up. Farewell, Motherland. 20.VII.41. But it is not known how many days the defenders of the Brest Fortress fought. More precisely, how many weeks, months. From the German chronicle, there are cases of nameless defenders who were alive even in the spring of 1942.
Today under the slabs memorial complex The "Brest Fortress" contains the found remains of 962 dead, the names of only 272 of them have been established. How many thousands of soldiers actually died in the Brest Fortress, as they say, only God knows...
▲ In the turmoil of the first weeks of the war, a terrible miscalculation was immediately revealed - our inability to competently retreat. But it is also art. But such was the attitude: the Red Army must only move forward. The result immediately affected. Retreating, the armies of the Southwestern Front suffered huge losses, and then generally fell into the cauldron. They were cut off and didn't know what to do.
For example, on the first day of aggression, the Germans broke through only 40-50 km deep into our territory. Having met resistance, the enemy quickly bypassed the military units of the Red Army, attacked them from the flanks and rear, sought to advance their tank divisions as far as possible in depth. Subversive groups thrown out by parachute, German intelligence agents from among local residents, as well as submachine gunners on motorcycles rushing to the rear, disabled communication lines, captured bridges, airfields, and other military installations.
In order to create a panic among the defending soldiers of the Red Army, to create the appearance of their encirclement, German motorcyclists fired indiscriminately from automatic weapons. Continuous air bombardment, artillery shelling, dense machine-gun fire, fumes from conflagrations (due to dry weather, forest fires began) forced our encircled troops to rush from side to side. As a result, a large number of rifle divisions of the Red Army were dismembered or surrounded.
▲ On June 22, some residents of Cherkessk met the unexpected enemy with weapons in their hands. Already then, in the very first days of the war, even in its very first hours, our countrymen shed their blood in battles or gave their lives.
At about 4 o'clock in the morning, near the town of Litovo of the Lithuanian SSR, Pavel Ivanovich Lykov met the enemy with weapons in his hands, near Lvov - Nikolai Semenovich Karaulov and Ivan Romanovich Medvedsky, at 5 o'clock in the morning, in Transcarpathia, on the Prut River - Mutalib Adamovich Shebzukhov.
Near Brest (until 1939 - Brest-Litovsk) a war began for Konstantin Ivanovich Ivanov and Alexander Timofeevich Klyuev, Chisinau - Vasily Ignatievich Oseredko, Dorogobush - Alexei Ivanovich Lemeshukov, Shauliai (Lithuanian SSR) - Fitsa Shagabanovich Nartokov, Smolensk - Galim Umarovich Kantemirov, on border with Poland - Vasily Ivanovich Deduk, in Ukraine - Vasily Grigorievich Tishchenko, in Leningrad region- Kaspot Soslanalievich Kunupov, in Belarus - Vasily Sergeyevich Karpenko, Ivan Vasilyevich Likhobabin, Pavel Petrovich Malyakin, Nikolai Kirillovich Pechenkin, Stepan Fedorovich Semenenko, Zinovy Ageevich Sibirtsev.
“From west to east, along the roads where the corpses lay, there were women, children, old people, girls with small bundles. Mostly they were Jewish refugees. Refugees made their way away from the roads, and the Germans, having adapted to this, bombed just on the sides of the roads. The Germans themselves did not spoil the roads: they were going to go quickly and without hindrance. And civilian young men were walking towards the refugees. They went to their recruiting stations. Mobilized, who did not want to be considered deserters. And at the same time, they knew nothing, did not understand where they were going. They were led forward by a sense of duty and disbelief that the Germans could be here, so close, ”recalled at one of the meetings with the youth the Honorary Citizen of the city of Cherkessk, Colonel Z. A. Sibirtsev.
▲ On the morning of June 22, 1941, the Berlin radio informed the whole world about the beginning of the German war against the USSR, and only Moscow maintained a profound silence. Only by noon the members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - Molotov, Malenkov, Voroshilov and Beria - prepared the text of the statement of the Soviet government.
On that Sunday morning, many residents of the city of Cherkessk, according to the old tradition, went to the market for shopping, the children ran to swim in the Abazinka and Kuban. During the day, sports competitions were to be held in the city, in the evening mass celebrations and a concert were planned in the central square. The day was sunny. Many townspeople began to gather on the Green Island, but at ten o'clock a rumor began to spread around the city with lightning speed that at 12 o'clock an important government message would be broadcast on the radio.
Time passed terribly slowly. Many people, still cheerful and carefree, joined the crowd that had gathered at the intersection of Pervomaiskaya and Krasnoarmeyskaya streets near the Post Office building. Alarmed and agitated, like a bee hive, this crowd looked at the large plywood bell of the loudspeaker.
Finally, the announcer's voice was heard: "Moscow is speaking!"
▲ In the lively concentrated silence of Cherkessk, Molotov called the war a war: “Citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union! The Soviet government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following statement. Today, at 4 o'clock in the morning, without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union, without declaring war, German troops attacked our country, attacked our borders in many places and bombed our cities - Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Sevastopol, Kaunas from their planes and some others, moreover, more than two hundred people were killed and wounded. Enemy aircraft raids and artillery shelling were also carried out from Romanian and Finnish territory ... ".
Comrade Molotov nevertheless deceived the Soviet people in his appeal. And then, for about 70 years, they also lied to us with rapture that the war was not declared, that the enemy attacked treacherously.
It is now known for certain that the Imperial German Foreign Minister J. von Ribbentrop declared war on the Soviet Union on behalf of the German government. But the text of the memorandum, which Ribbentrop handed over to the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Germany V. G. Dekanozov at 4.00 on June 22, 1941, is still not available to citizens of the Russian Federation (formerly citizens of the USSR), as it is kept “with seven seals”. The German government declared war on the USSR! And on dozens of examples, she explained her actions as the only possible ones in the current situation. Apparently it is impossible to refute Germany's accusations, or maybe you don't want to answer such questions. The text of the memorandum contains something that can turn our attitude towards the war.
In the first words of Molotov sounded a clear note of justification. In addition, words were spoken that became the tuning fork of the entire struggle: Patriotic War! For the first time - on the very first day - this war was called Patriotic by Molotov. On July 3, in a speech on the radio, Stalin called her Great. The name has been given. Thus began the Great Patriotic War.
People stood, afraid to breathe.
“Now that the attack on the Soviet Union has already taken place,” Vyacheslav Mikhailovich continued, “the Soviet Government has given our troops an order to repel the piratical attack and drive the German troops from the territory of our Motherland.”
The appeal ended with the words: “... The government calls on you, citizens and citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks even more closely around our glorious Bolshevik Party, around our Soviet Government around our great leader Comrade Stalin.
The finale of the speech sounded like an alarm bell: “Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours".
▲ After listening to the end of Molotov's speech, many townspeople still did not understand everything that had happened to the end. There was a stamp of dull shock and bewilderment on their faces: how could this be? Without a quarrel, without ultimatums, without mobilization, out of the blue? A few days ago, many men of Cherkessk often talked about the Germans, about their military equipment and the victories they won so easily in Europe. They even admired their operations and did not feel much hatred for them. And now? Now the Nazis have crossed our border to kill us.
▲ Then the crowd dispersed, spread out. Some hurried home, subconsciously feeling the need to stay - maybe for the last time - with the family, with the kids. Others, catching up with each other, speaking with restraint, went to the city committee of the party and the House of Defense. Still others - there were some - rushed to the shops to buy salt, matches, cereals, everything that was still on the shelves. Who - for the sake of self-interest, who - in the naive hope of stocking up on acquisitions for the whole war.
▲ “In 1941, before graduating from school No. 11, I was then 16 years old, I became a Komsomol member. Immediately she began to fulfill the first Komsomol assignments: she was on duty at the polling station, assisted the elderly, attended the choir, - recalled the Komsomol member of the 40s, holder of the Order of Lenin and the silver medal of VDNKh, a teacher with many years of experience Lidia Mikhailovna Popytaeva.
On June 22, our school choir, led by teacher Alexandra Vasilievna Durakova, was supposed to perform on the radio. But the inhabitants of Cherkessk did not hear our songs. The war has begun."
▲ Anna Dmitrievna Bryantseva recalled: “I was a little over fifteen and a half years old. I was at my friend's high school prom. Came home in the morning and fell asleep like a log. My grandmother woke me up around noon because my mother was not at home. “Are you sleeping, granddaughter, and you don’t know anything?” “No, I don't know. Today a brass band has been invited to the Green Island. All the graduates of the city will gather there.” “Already all of us will have a wind ... Do not bare your teeth! War".
Thoughts overcame one more bitterly than the other. Unthinkable, incomprehensible to the mind: a German on Soviet soil.
▲ “June 21, on a warm summer evening,” recalled Yury Melnikov, a resident of Cherkessk, “we walked past the House of Soviets on Komsomolskaya Square without speaking. Excitement fettered, my heart was sad and joyful. The last time we went to the 10th. Stalin's school (now gymnasium No. 9 - S.T.), in which the best years passed. More than half of my life. Even though the prom was still more than an hour away, we were greeted at the front porch by a whole gang of classmates. But only an hour ago we parted after an exciting run around the shops, decorating the club, a short rehearsal. And here again, like a magnet, it pulls back, to school, to comrades, and it is hard to believe that now we will not gather daily within the walls of our native school.
The graduation party began at eight o'clock. By this time parents of graduates have gathered. In a solemn atmosphere, they presented certificates of maturity and flowers, and then, to the sounds of a brass band, they whirled in an eternally young waltz.
After the gala evening, both graduating classes gave a small concert. Long after midnight, a noisy gang - to the Green Island to meet the dawn: we discuss plans, consult about the future, argue which specialty is better. Then the morning dawn sang, and we moved back to the school. And from her, holding hands, they went in wide ranks through the streets of their native Cherkessk. The lyrics of the song: “We left the school building forever...” disturbed the peacefully sleeping residents.
Themselves - excited, joyful, we joked, met graduates of other schools with salutatory cries, congratulated them, they - us. None of us knew that our plans would not come true. It is not known how the rumor spread around the city - WAR!
▲ On June 22, the former red partisan V.S. Solyanoy, a participant in the Civil War, whose feat was noted in those years, came to the Circassian regional military registration and enlistment office the highest award: Order of the Red Banner. He put three statements on the table: from himself, from 17-year-old son Nikolai and 16-year-old daughter Nina.
Fulfilling the decision of the Bureau of the Circassian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Vasily Semyonovich led a hundred horsemen, which became part of the cavalry corps of General L. M. Dovator. Nicholas fought in the 75th Cavalry Regiment. In 1943 he was seriously wounded and returned home. In the 1950s left to restore the mines of Donbass, in 1960 he retired for health reasons and, returning to Cherkessk, worked for a long time as an instructor in the city fire department. Becoming a nurse, Nina endured the blockade of Leningrad, was awarded the medal "For Courage".
▲ On June 23 (on this day the "Union of militant atheists" was dispersed in the country) a meeting of workers was held in the city, which was opened by the first secretary of the Circassian regional committee of the CPSU (b) G. M. Vorobyov. In the adopted resolution, "expressing indignation at the intrigues of presumptuous dogs," the working people of the city unanimously declared: "... we will defend sacred borders of their Fatherland, for fascism is disgust, it is the Middle Ages, barbarism and arbitrariness.
In Cherkessk (Kubanskaya st., 73) the recruiting office of the regional military commissariat began to work. As of June 27, only 213 applications were submitted from those liable for military service who were not subject to conscription, about the desire to voluntarily go to the front; of these, 124 applications were submitted by women.
From the nationwide construction (for 10 years they planned to build a dam along the Kuban River - S.T.), nurses A. Vasilenko and M. Protasova were taken to the front. What war is, they learned by rescuing the wounded near Rostov n / a and Millerovo as part of the surgical group of the 426th medical battalion of the 351st SD of the 37th Army. In May 1942, near Kharkov, the nurses were surrounded, but miraculously escaped. And then there was Stalingrad, Kursk, the liberation of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland. May 9, 1945 Art. Lieutenant m / s A. Vasilenko met in Lardsberg on the Warta River.
▲ On June 24, V. M. Molotov's speech was published in all central, regional and regional newspapers. Placed next to big photo I. V. Stalin, and the impression was created that the general secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the head of the Soviet state, was addressing the people. Then, on June 22, the Soviet people did not hear the voice of Stalin. We still do not know where Stalin was at that moment. On June 18, he sent his directive and on June 19-21 was in the Kremlin, where he received the top leaders of the country and the army quite intensively. This can be seen in the journal of Stalin's visits to the Kremlin, accessible for review today.
His alleged absence from the Kremlin from June 22 to June 25, 1941 due to unexplained circumstances, some researchers now explain with the version of the attempt on the leader (they tried to poison Stalin in those days). At the same time, from the "Journal of visits to JV Stalin in his Kremlin office" it is clear that the leader received visitors in the Kremlin on the following days of June, that is, from June 22 to 28.
There is also a version according to which German generals led by Hitler, they hoped for additional help, in the person of the "opposition", a kind of "fifth column" in the Soviet Union. Some German generals in their memoirs spoke of this without a hint and pinned great hopes on a political coup in Russia and the overthrow of Stalin in June 1941.
The date of the German attack after May 15 was always "floating", until the last day. The Germans were always waiting for something. The long-awaited signal "Dordmung" was received by the troops only on the night of June 21.
According to Khrushchev, there was an opinion that on June 22 Stalin lost his composure, in short, out of fear, he fled to his dacha and did not appear in the Kremlin for several days. Knowing the firm and resolute nature of Stalin, this seems strange. In the Brezhnev era, Khrushchev's remark about Stalin's cowardly flight was toned down. Like, he didn’t get scared, but just worried about why Hitler deceived him and suddenly attacked the USSR.
Zhukov also claimed that the leader was in the country, and then, after him, Zhukov, a call about the beginning of the war, he arrived in the Kremlin.
Mikoyan, on the contrary, wrote in his memoirs that the leader was in the Kremlin, and on June 22 at 4:30 he gathered all the members of the Politburo and the military in his office.
▲ In the newspapers, under the text of Molotov's speech, the inhabitants of Cherkessk read the first reports of the High Command of the Red Army for June 22 and 23, telling about the battles in the border areas.
Both then and later, there was very little concrete information in the newspapers. Moreover, she was often far from the truth and bordered on mockery. The purpose of such articles is to leave the reader in complete ignorance of what is happening. There was only one main source of useful information - rumors!
▲ On June 24, the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo), or SIB for short, was formed in Moscow. Programs began to air regularly - “At the Last Hour”, “Letters from the Front”, “Sovinformburo Reports”. Several times a day, the announcer of the All-Union Radio Yuri Levitan read out the reports. His voice captivated everyone, even if the message was sad. And the whole of Cherkessk, with bated breath, clung to the loudspeakers, listening to the voice of Moscow.
There was little truth in the reports at first. It is clear that ours praised themselves. How else? After all, it was necessary to maintain our fighting spirit. Naturally, the population of the country was disoriented. If there is no real threat, then the attitude towards the war was the same. Among the inhabitants of Cherkessk, for a certain time, hatred moods reigned. Everyone lived in anticipation of a turning point in the coming days and hours, lived in anticipation of the speedy victory of the "invincible Red Army." Eagerly listening to the words of Moscow, the townspeople were still waiting for them to report that the enemy had been stopped, knocked over, that he was running, leaving everything behind. And our troops with red banners are already marching through the streets of the surrendered fascist cities.
But, despite this, the loudspeaker has become for the inhabitants of Cherkessk the most expensive necessary thing, the most necessary source of information, a window to the world.
▲ On June 24, local newspapers - the regional Krasnaya Cherkessia and the regional Ordzhonikidzevskaya Pravda - informed their readers that, since June 22, on the basis of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, on the territory of 14 military districts of the country (Leningrad, Special Baltic, Western , Odessa, Kharkov, Orlovsky, Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Ural, Siberian, Volga, North Caucasian and Transcaucasian) mobilization was announced, which was subject to those liable for military service born from 1905 to 1918 inclusive. June 23, 1941 was considered the first day of mobilization.It became clear that they would have to fight on their own territory and that the war would be long and bloody.
▲ On June 24, the newspapers Izvestia and Krasnaya Zvezda published the poems "Holy War". The head of the Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble of the Red Army A. V. Aleksandrov (1883-1946) was so shocked by the words that he immediately wrote music for them.
On June 27, 1941, the song “Holy War” (“Get up, huge country ...”), which became the anthem of the Great Patriotic War, was first performed by the ensemble at the Belorussky railway station in Moscow in front of the soldiers leaving for the front.
The newspaper "Arguments and Facts" (No. 13, 1991) reported that the author of the lines "Holy War" was a native of the village. Klintsy of the Chernigov province, a graduate of the philological faculty of Moscow State University, teacher Alexander Adolfovich Bode (1865-1939), who taught ancient languages in Livonia, at the Arensburg gymnasium and Russian literature in Rybinsk. He was a holder of the orders of St. Stanislaus 3rd and 2nd class, St. Anna - 3rd class.
Under the influence of the First World War in 1916, he had poems:
“Get up, great country,Get up for the death fightWith dark German powerwith the Teutonic horde.May noble rageRip like a waveThere is a people's warHoly war.Let's go break with all our might,With all my heart, with all my soulFor our dear landFor the Russian native land.Black wings do not dareFly over the homelandIts fields are spaciousThe enemy does not dare to trample!Rotten Teutonic evil spiritsLet's put a bullet in the foreheadThe scum of mankindLet's build a strong coffin.Get up, great country,Get up for the death fightWith dark German powerWith the Teutonic horde.
But then the song was not in demand. Considering the songwriter V. I. Lebedev-Kumach a great patriot, Bode sent him a letter with a poem in 1937 in order to get a response, and maybe publication, but did not wait for an answer.
AT " holy war» Lebedev-Kumach only slightly revised the text, leaving the main meaning unchanged. By the way, earlier the poet was accused of having appropriated the words of the popular pre-war foxtrot “Masha” from a resident of Yalta F. M. Kvyatkovskaya, they said that poems surprisingly similar to “May Moscow” (“Morning paints with a gentle light ...”) were published in the magazine "Spark" even before the revolution.
▲ On June 24, 1941, many teachers of secondary school No. 10 im. Stalin. Among them were the teacher of physics Lev Bogumilovich Levbich, mathematicians - Terenty Fedorovich Stupakov, who later died near Sevastopol, literature - Maryana Mikhailovna (surname not established) and others. “Farewell, the sonorous splash of the Kuban, and you, our beloved Cherkessk!” - was written on one of the slogans of the school building.
▲ “After the declaration of war, we boys drank in the newspapers, listened to the then rare radio broadcasts from the “black plates” installed in the city center. Our boys’ eyes lit up: “Well, now we will give them, these bastards, because the Red Army is the strongest of all ...” recalled Art. master ChZKhM A. I. Kulyabtsev. “But the first reports of the Soviet Information Bureau were laconic:“ Fierce battles are going on all along the front from the Black Sea to the Barents Sea. Both sides are suffering huge losses."
▲ Before the war, people were drafted into the army at the age of 20. With its beginning, this law was, of course, violated. Already in the second half of 1941, young people born in 1922 and 1923 left for the active army. In the next, 1942 - born in 1924 and even 17-year-olds, 1925. The call of children under the age of majority later became commonplace. In the spring of 1943, the remaining youths of 1925 went to the front, and in the fall - 1926. In November 1944 - young men born in 1927, many of whom turned 18 in the middle or even at the end of the victorious 1945.
▲ Cherkessk - a peaceful, sunny city - together with the whole country began to change its appearance, began to switch to war, subordinating all life to its strict requirements. At the workplace, residents were advised not to panic: the war is temporary, it will end soon.
In the early days of the war, the queues in the stores became longer and longer, and the list of products that were difficult to buy was growing. The demand for bread, salt, matches, soap, cereals, pasta, and tobacco increased sharply, so their unlimited sale ceased. Moreover, for a number of goods in stores and warehouses, insignificant stocks remained. Sugar, cheeses were almost gone for sale. Due to the fact that drunkenness began in the first days of mobilization (conscripts were escorted to the army with heavy booze), the open sale of vodka was banned, and then the prices for alcohol, tobacco and perfumes were generally raised.
In the market, food prices jumped three to four times.
In the queues, they told about the arrests by the NKVD of alarmists (for spreading rumors) and speculators (some were found with boxes of soap, others had bags of salt, and others had matches).
After June 22, citizens were forbidden to withdraw more than 200 rubles from their savings books. per month. New taxes were introduced across the country and loans were stopped. The townspeople stopped accepting bonds of the state winning loan, at the same time obliging all workers and employees to buy bonds of loans of new, military ones (in total, they were issued throughout the country for 72 billion rubles).
The NKVD authorities confiscated hunting rifles from all residents of Cherkessk. An order was issued for the surrender of radios, and citizens hurried to the reception points to get rid of a wooden box with a speaker covered with a cloth mesh. Many had the "SI" model: these were probably the initials of the leader. Now everyone was spared from enemy propaganda. An exception for the delivery of radios was made only for some Chekists and policemen. All the news (they were "blacker than clouds") came from a loudspeaker hanging on the Post Office building.
The windows were glued crosswise with paper tapes. So that the glass does not fly out from the explosions.
▲ Since the announcement of the mobilization, a member of the CPSU (b) Zuychenko has dramatically increased his performance in work. From June 22 to June 30, he gave output of 300% of the norm, and on June 30 - 500%. The Stakhanovka of the Promkombinat artel of A. Pronin sewed 58 gymnasts and 48 trousers for the soldiers of the Red Army within two days. Under normal conditions, this work required at least 5 days to complete. Candidate member of the CPSU (b) Martynenko fulfilled the plan by 300%.
▲ At the end of June, the newspapers published the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the working hours of workers and employees in wartime." It provided for the introduction of "from one to three hours a day of overtime with pay at one and a half times", the replacement of vacations with monetary compensation.Vacations were prohibited. Compensation for unused vacation went to passbooks, but it was impossible to get them until the end of the war. Since everything is for the front, everything is for victory, personal money too.
At the enterprises of Cherkessk, the Decree was everywhere met with deep approval, as it met the aspirations of people to devote all their strength to defeating the enemy.
▲ By the end of June, the clothing, shoe factories and a number of other industrial artels of Cherkessk switched to the production of army footwear and uniforms. The Molot plant, the Krasny Metallist industrial artel and other enterprises within a short time mastered the production of parts for artillery and mortar weapons, shells of mines and grenades, products for the aviation industry, saddles, harnesses and horseshoes for cavalry units. Artel "Khimprom" launched the production of anti-tank bottles with a combustible mixture.
Great importance for the country was the supply by the Molot plant of chaises (steam-horse passages) for army carts. Then in all collective farms there were special funds: "Horse for the Red Army", "Brichka for the Red Army". Every month, Circassia and Karachay sent 400-450 steam-horse passages and thousands of wheeled parts.
▲ Until the end of June, about two thousand conscripts were called up from Cherkessk to the front. Fathers, sons and husbands have gone to beat the enemy. Their jobs were taken by women and teenagers. An example was shown by the wives of the workers of the Molot plant. At the plant, among other posters, this one appeared: “Women - to the machines!”
On June 23, nine women took the jobs of turners and locksmiths in the machine shop, where their husbands, who were called to the front, worked. About 30 women without a specialty were hired for auxiliary work and apprentices. The plant began training women for the professions of locksmiths and turners. The slogan "Everything for the front, everything for victory!" became the law of life of the townspeople in those harsh days. They worked seven days a week, 14-16 hours a day. When there were urgent tasks, they slept at their workplaces, or in clubs and red corners.
▲ After Stalin's death, under Khrushchev, it was first published that from June 30, 1941, all power in the country was concentrated in the State Defense Committee (GKO), formed at the suggestion of Beria. Agree, it's strange - the war went on for more than a week, and there was no governing body for the defense of the country yet. Where did the leadership go? Khrushchev, apparently, had not yet decided how to present the events of the beginning of the war to the population of the country.
JV Stalin, naturally, became the chairman. His deputy V. M. Molotov oversaw tank building, and GKO members: G. M. Malenkov - aviation, K. E. Voroshilov - recruitment of troops (in 1941 he also headed the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR), L. P. Beria - coal, oil, timber industry, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, the NKVD. On behalf of the GKO, from February 1942, Beria also began to exercise control over the people's commissariats of weapons, mortars, ammunition, and organized the production of military products in the Gulag. From December 1942, instead of Molotov, he began to oversee the tank industry. Later, N. A. Bulganin, N. A. Voznesensky and A. I. Mikoyan were introduced to the GKO.
Until May 9, 1945, the GKO concentrated all power in the USSR and united in its hands the military, political and economic leadership of the country. All structures of the party, government and army were subordinate to him. The Communist Party was also the executor of the will of the State Defense Committee. The Central Committee of the CPSU (b) never met during the war. The highest party bodies, congresses and party conferences from the beginning of the war until October 5, 1952 were also not convened.
▲ In the office of the Circassian JSC "SOYUZTRANS", the training of women drivers and car mechanics began. Six women successfully mastered the profession of drivers and replaced the men who went to the front. Among them are Maria Podsvirova, Ksenia Denisenko, Anna Zhitlova and others. The city's enterprises began training women in the professions of a milling machine, turner, and planer. Many women began to be trained in special courses in the mechanical workshops of the MTS. After 2-3 months, they became turners and locksmiths, after which they improved their skills directly in production.
▲ The Machine and Tractor Station (MTS), located in the city of Cherkessk, within a few days after the outbreak of the war, attracted more than 60 tractor drivers who had stopped working before the war to study at short-term courses on driving steering combines. All of them joined the ranks of machine operators instead of those who had gone to the front. Turner Tatyana Mikhailenko, having a baby, came to production on June 23 and immediately mastered her workplace. By the end of August 1941, with a shift rate of 22, she was turning 45 parts needed by the country with high quality workmanship.
▲ A resident of Cherkessk, Daria Vasilievna Petrova, submitted an application to the regional committee of the CPSU (b) with a request to use her house as an infirmary, and she herself expressed her willingness to be a nurse there to care for the wounded.
▲ NOTICE. To the military reserve comrade. Tsarkov Ivan Kuzmich, city of Cherkessk, Svobody street, 79. June 23, 1941. I order you on June 28 of this year by 5 o'clock in the morning to come to the military training camp at the address: Circassian regional military commissariat. Hundreds of citizens received similar notices.On June 27, the first rally was held in Cherkessk dedicated to the dispatch of conscripts to the front. Breathing into each other's necks, and stretching their necks, people clung to a tiny square. They spoke briefly, most of the speeches were like a report: the workers of the Molot plant are waiting to be sent to the front, the Komsomol members of the Khimprom artel and the shoe factory consider themselves mobilized ...
“Let’s stand up with our breasts in defense of our Motherland!”, “The Soviet people will give a crushing rebuff to the enemy!” - this was unanimously heard in the speeches of workers, collective farmers, intellectuals, who came to see off the first conscripts. People not realizing that many of them see each other for the last time. From Cherkessk went to the front and those liable for military service called up from the Karachaev Autonomous Okrug. The radio first thundered with marches, and then transmitted decrees for the call of fourteen ages. Steamed, excited, people dispersed from the rally, ready - as in films about civil war- immediately stand in line for rifles.The second rally to send the mobilized took place in Cherkessk on 9 July.
▲ Among the first volunteers, the chairman of the Circassian City Executive Committee, S. N. Kosenko, went to the front. By July 1, the military registration and enlistment office and the city committee of the Komsomol received more than 400 applications from the Komsomol members of Cherkessk with a request to send them to the army. Only girls-Komsomol members submitted 250 applications.
▲ On Thursday, July 3, 1941, Stalin addressed the Soviet people on the radio. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the inhabitants of Cherkessk heard his speech on the radio, which began with the famous appeal: “Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Soldiers of our army and navy! I turn to you, my friends!”
With his simple words, the leader threw away party dogmatism and seemed to say: “Russian people! It's about whether we should be or not be." He said that the enemy had captured Lithuania, part of Latvia, the western part of Belarus, part of Western Ukraine.
In fact, the situation was even worse. At this time, the Germans were already in control of Riga and were approaching Bobruisk. Exactly one week after Stalin's speech, the Wehrmacht troops completely occupied Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, a significant part of Estonia, Moldova and Ukraine. There was a threat of a breakthrough of enemy troops to Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv.
In his excitement, Stalin drank water, and the inhabitants of Cherkessk heard his teeth chattering on the edge of the glass.
After the leader's speech, many residents of Cherkessk wrote statements to the military registration desk: "Please send me to the front." People were burning with the desire to quickly engage in battle with the enemy and fight him until complete victory.
▲ It is quite another thing to stay in the rear. Many townspeople, especially at first, felt very badly. The feeling of some kind of guilt and even shame did not leave them for a minute. It seemed to them that everyone was looking askance at them: young, they say, guys and girls, but they were walking around Cherkessk at such a time!
And there was no time to walk around, however, from the very first days of the war. There were not enough people in the workshops, and each person was counted. They returned home late in the evening. We returned, as in a hotel. Just to stay overnight.
The slogan is “Everything for the front! Everything for the Victory! - hung on many walls of industrial premises. He was the main and, perhaps, the only principle of life in Cherkessk, as well as throughout the country. And that was okay. Everything was sent there, to that front, where their husbands, brothers and children went to win victory over the Nazi invaders with their blood. Without any talk, both food and clothes were given to the front. And ourselves - somehow ... We'll survive ... It's good that it's not under bullets, not under bombs ...
Well, yes, they did not sit in the trenches, because they were born a little later than the guys of military age. But they also had a good time. The war touched them too, licked them with a fiery tongue. Directly or indirectly, they also suffered from it. After the death of fathers and brothers, a load not due to age fell on the shoulders. And life didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.
Home front workers who worked seven days a week, fell from their feet from hunger and fatigue, survived the occupation of Cherkessk, wandered through the barracks after its liberation ... Children whose childhood fell on difficult war years ... They were malnourished, sick, developed improperly. Because they are now gnawed by diseases that could have been avoided. And they all have bad teeth. Or even no teeth at all ... Previously, they were not reimbursed for anything and were not compensated. They didn't wait. They thought life was just the way it was. They had such a time.
▲ On July 4, a self-defense squad and public protection of all means of communication was created in the Circassian regional communications office.On July 6, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on responsibility for the dissemination of false rumors in wartime that aroused alarm among the population. The perpetrators were punished by imprisonment for a term of 2 to 5 years, "unless this action, by its nature, entails a more severe punishment by law."
▲ On July 8, the staff of the garment factory gave the following daily output: the team of Ozova - 166%, Kisileva and Dronichkina - 150% each, Dotsenko - 130%, K. Shenkao and Gayvoronskaya - 125% each.
In order to provide enterprises with a labor force, the responsibility of workers for labor discipline was tightened, vacations were canceled. From July 1, the working day was extended to 11 hours, mandatory overtime work was introduced, which together increased the load on equipment by a third without involving additional workers.
▲ From July 10, it was necessary to comply with the instruction on blackout. The windows in the houses of Cherkessk began to darken, after which the city plunged into a black, hopeless darkness. The police and special units warned everyone not to let a streak of light through the windows. The blackout was supposed to confuse enemy pilots, who, however, the townspeople in Cherkessk, far from hostilities, were not expecting yet.
▲. Small, until recently quiet, Cherkessk became unrecognizable. The city seemed to swell, became cramped. This is how a teenage shirt crackles, put on a hefty uncle out of need. In addition to the owners, families who fled from the invasion of the Nazi armada appeared in many houses. Near the two-story buildings of secondary schools, now not children with oilcloth briefcases were running, but wounded soldiers began to walk around, nursing their plastered hands or bouncing on crutches. The “flea market” has grown, where a police whistle often squealed.
▲ The first military hospital train with 650 seriously wounded arrived in Cherkessk on July 15. The next day - another 600 wounded, then another 500. All of them needed medical attention. People ran to the station, thinking: “Maybe there is my dear little son, husband, father, brother. If only he were alive!” But, not having met a relative, they helped the local sanitary troopers unload the wounded, carried them on a stretcher to the nearest hospital buildings.
The flow of the wounded was so great that the medical staff, especially surgeons and operating nurses, had to stay awake for days. There was a struggle for the life and health of the wounded. It took a lot of blood. Lots of. And the townspeople went to the donor points. And when there was a need for things, beds, dishes, bedding and underwear, the inhabitants of Cherkessk again came to the aid of evacuation hospitals, and the collective farms of the Cherkess Autonomous Region supplied them with food.
▲ V different time, from July 18, 1941 until the arrival of the Germans, the following evacuation hospitals of the People's Commissariat of Health were stationed in Cherkessk (the time of stay is indicated in brackets):
No. 2046-NKZ (07/18/1941 - 07/09/1942),No. 3189-NKZ (09/05/1941 - 07/09/1942),No. 4571-NKZ (03/10 - 08/01/1942),No. 4931-NKZ (20.05 - 08.08.1942),No. 3959-NKZ (15.07 - 08.08.1942),No. 1797-NKZ (29.07 - 04.08.1942)and one field mobile hospital: No. 219-PPG (08/05 - 08/08/1942).
▲ Evacuation hospital No. 3189-NKZ, for 1500 beds, was created on the basis of buildings of secondary schools No. 7, 8 and 13. From October 1941 until the arrival of the Germans, hospital No. 3189-NKZ was also located in the new building of secondary school No. 11. During this period, students studied in three shifts in a small pre-revolutionary building of school No. 7, located opposite the Church of the Intercession.
The junior medical and attendants of the evacuation hospital were recruited from citizens living in Cherkessk. Mikhail Andreevich Shishkov, head of the evacuation hospital, was appointed head. surgeon - Anastasia Vasilievna Kurmoyarova (surgeon of the Circassian Medical School), eye doctor - Nikolai Nikolaevich Petrov, head. department of infectious diseases - Vera Stepanovna Zozulya, doctors Khalit Magomedovich Shidakov and his wife Shura, Art. m/s - Nadezhda Vasilievna Dontsova and Valentina Vasilievna Rozhdestvenskaya, m/s - Alexandra Vasilievna Nebratenko, Tatyana Yakovlevna Grishina, Lyudmila Krylova, nurses - Olga Vasilievna Shevchenko, Alexandra Pavlovna Shkodina and others.
▲ Among the first to die in evacuation hospital No. 3189-NKZ was a soldier Sobolev (both his arms were torn off and his jaw crushed), tanker Pavlov (according to eyewitnesses, he looked like a charred tree), Rappoport from Leningrad.
On February 6, 1942, Vorontsov Aleksey Iosifovich, born in 1902, died of wounds. Batalpashinsky, Red Army soldier of the 1149th joint venture; On July 7, 1942, R.-D. Arguyanov died from his wounds in battle. B., called up by the Mikoyan-Shahar city military registration and enlistment office
All of them, and others who died in evacuation hospitals, were buried, moreover, without coffins, in a mass grave of a cemetery located on the southern outskirts of Cherkessk (now not far from secondary school No. 7). On their last journey, the dead soldiers were sent on carts covered with tarpaulin.
▲ After the organization of military hospitals in the city, seventh-grader Zoya Khvostenko (in the marriage of Puchkin), together with her friends Lipa Likhodeeva and Sveta Martynenko, received an order as a Komsomol order to look after the wounded soldiers in the hospital, under which the building of the teacher's institute was adapted. However, the girlfriends soon left Cherkessk with their parents, and Zoya remained to work in the hospital until the last wounded left him before the arrival of the Germans.
“My father, Sergeant Kirill Aleksandrovich Khvostenko, born in 1906, was called to the front from Cherkessk. In 1942, in Stalingrad, he disappeared without a trace. (His name is carved on one of the slabs of the Motherland memorial on Mamaev Kurgan - S.T.). But before that, he wrote a letter from Kharkov that he was in the hospital, Zoya Kirillovna recalled. And so I, who had recently joined the Komsomol, came to the city committee and asked to be sent to a hospital where I could help the front. With the direction came to Ch. doctor Colonel m / s Larisa Nikolaevna (unfortunately, I don’t remember her last name). Seriously wounded fighters were placed on the first floor of the building next to the sanitary checkpoint. On the second floor lay all the others; the operating room and dressing room were also located here.The wounded were delivered by rail, and then transported by cars to hospitals. Usually it was in the evenings at night. They assigned me two wards for seriously ill patients. I helped them as much as I could. My duties included, first of all, making an inventory of the soldier's duffel bag. The wounded dictated to me what was in their bags, and I wrote it down. In addition, my wards were the 16th and 17th, where I took the temperature of the wounded soldiers, delivered food. Today there is an office of the director of the teacher training school and a reception room. I still remember Bryantsev, a fighter from the Krasnodar Territory, who was wounded in the stomach. I wrote to his family. Wife and son arrived. How he rejoiced at their arrival!
I got used to the hospital very quickly. She took the temperature of the wounded, fed them, wrote letters to relatives, and helped unload trains with the wounded. And I was a little girl, no strength. Once on the steps she stumbled and dropped the stretcher with the wounded. Then, in the hospital, he called me and said: “Did you drop me, little sister?” I began to apologize. And he said: "Will such little hands hold a peasant." He was a sailor, and his last name was Khochin. He arrived at the hospital without his arm, which he had lost in battle. He also had a uniform. When I get well, he said, I will run to the girls. He did not have to wear this uniform - he died in the hospital.
And here's another memorable one. There was only one cinema in our city at that time - to them. Gorky. Can't get tickets. And the wounded ran away from the hospital, went into the auditorium, sat down where it was convenient for them. And the visitors did not dare to pick them up, they stood at the walls. The director of the cinema called our duty officer - they say take away your patients. They sent me once. I go up to one wounded man, they don't go to another. I stand at the exit and roar. We had one convalescent - a scout. I saw that I was crying, how the whole hall was whistling, all of us got up and followed me.
▲ A native of Cherkessk, Ksenia Buchneva, recalled: “When the war began, I was 17 years old. She was working in a hospital at the time. I remember when the first wounded began to arrive, we, still teenagers, donated blood so that they would survive. Those were difficult times, but they are very dear to me. People were very different back then. Nobody cared about personal gain. Everyone tried to help each other, support.
▲ In December 1941, the Ordzhonikidzevsky Regional Military Commissariat proposed to split the evacuation hospital No. 3189-NKZ into two independent evacuation hospitals. The new evacuation hospital No. 4571-NKZ was allocated 700 beds in the premises of the Collective Farmer's House, the teacher's institute and the gynecological building of the regional hospital. The head of this evacuation hospital was appointed doctor D.N. Guryev, who before his appointment worked in the regional health department:
▲ In July 1942, when enemy troops began to approach Cherkessk, the wounded were delivered to the evacuation hospitals directly from the battlefield on wagons lined with straw. They were transferred to stretchers and distributed to unequipped wards. But every day the number of wounded arrived increased and they even had to be placed not in the wards, but in the courtyards of hospitals.
Literally before the arrival of the enemy in Cherkessk, all evacuation hospitals were sent to Pyatigorsk.
Due to the fact that there were only real operating rooms in the city hospital located above the Kuban, all seriously wounded soldiers were sent only there. Before the arrival of the Germans, a serious situation arose with the dead. It got to the point where there was no time for a funeral. The dead soldiers, from privates to officers, began to be buried in a mass grave, dug right there in the courtyard of the hospital. After the war, a large round flower bed was located at this place for a long time. But at the beginning of the 21st century, it was razed to the ground and covered with asphalt. The medical staff repeatedly raised the issue of reburial of the remains, or making a flower bed into a mass grave (the author personally saw notes by former nurses on this topic in the Leninskoye Znamya newspaper), but everything remained the same.
▲ The concepts of "front" and "rear" were erased. Many of the seriously wounded were taken in by the inhabitants of the city. And the nurses, staggering from hunger, had to have no less courage than the fighters at the front, in order to breathe life into the remaining fighters, save them, forgetting about themselves, about hunger, about their family losses.
▲ Just before the war, Olga Vasilievna Yurchenko buried her daughter. And when the war began, her husband went to the front. In 1995, a nurse recalled: “I was left alone. It was so hard on my heart! At that time, an evacuation hospital began to open in Cherkessk. I got a job at the hospital at the eighth school. Soon the wounded began to arrive. Dirty, lousy, no hands, blind. How many of them, the poor, are now in the old cemetery?! (meaning the cemetery near secondary school No. 7 - S.T.).
... The sheets were not enough to cover. Folded in underwear. The soldiers did not want to die. We responded to every moan, to every cry. One lieutenant, as he felt that he was dying, hugged me by the shoulders and did not lower me. It seemed to him that if someone was near him, if the nurse was nearby, then life would not leave him. He asked: to live five more minutes, two more minutes... A person dies, but still does not think, does not believe that he is dying. I kiss him, I hug him: what are you, what are you? And a tear jumped out of his eye and floated into the bandages, hid. And that's it. He died ... The surname has now been erased, gone from memory, but the face remains ...
In August 1942, our people began to retreat, the hospitals were evacuated, and the seriously wounded people were taken to themselves. We also took one 18-year-old wounded man. They called him Vanya. He dug a shelter for us in the garden. Soon his leg healed, and he began to get ready to go home, and he lived in the Donbass. We dressed him in a woman's dress, escorted him across the bridge that led to Psyzh, and said goodbye. The war ended, Vanya came to us in military uniform, said that he works in the organs. We never saw him again…”
▲ At the end of the 90s of the XX century, Derkacheva Nadezhda Mikhailovna, Dontsova Nadezhda Vasilievna, Ermilova Anastasia Petrovna, Zabaznaya Olga Nikolaevna, Zozulya Nina Ivanovna, Kozyreva Nina Nikolaevna, Kuznetsova Maria Panaetovna, Mikhailovskaya Maria Semyonovna, Nebratenko Alexandra Vasilievna, Ovcharenko Maria lived in Cherkessk Stepanovna, Lyubov Dmitrievna Petrova, Nadezhda Semyonovna Podsvirova, Valentina Vasilievna Rozhdestvenskaya, Maria Mikhailovna Romanenko, Nina Nikolaevna Serkova, Tatyana Nikolaevna Storozhenko, Olga Vasilievna Yurchenko, Efrosinya Egorov Yunnikova...It was they, and many others, then still young girls, who went to work as nurses in the evacuation hospitals of Cherkessk. And although it was not the front line, but here the girls saved from death those who were brought from firing positions. How many wounds their tender hands bandaged, how many sleepless nights they spent at the beds of the seriously wounded, won them back from insidious death! And if blood was needed to save a warrior, then, without hesitation, the sisters offered their own.
▲ On July 20, the inhabitants of Cherkessk learned that Stalin had taken over People's Commissar defense of the USSR (from August 8, 1941 he became the Supreme Commander Armed Forces USSR).
▲ On July 27, Komsomol members and pioneers of secondary school No. 13 in the city of Cherkessk organized a Sunday to collect scrap metal for a tank column. A group of Komsomol member Valandina collected 45 centners of scrap metal in a day, and a group of Komsomol member Arkhipov collected 50 centners in 3 hours. Others followed suit educational establishments city and over the next 20 days, the Soyuzutil collection points received 700 centners of non-ferrous and ferrous scrap from schoolchildren.
▲ On August 1, on a nationwide initiative, fundraising began in Cherkessk for the country's defense fund. In total, this fund received 52.3 million rubles in Circassia, the fifth part was contributed by the residents of Cherkessk.
The collectives of the wool-spinning, clothing and shoe factories, and other enterprises of the city decided to deduct their three-day earnings every month to the defense fund. The members of the Pyatiletka promartel contributed to this fund all the profits payable to them for the first half of the year - 9.6 thousand rubles, and decided to deduct one-day earnings every month.
▲ At the initiative of Cherkessk residents, more than 500,000 rubles were collected for the construction of aircraft. The country's Air Force received from the townspeople a link of heavy bombers "Red Circassia".
▲ According to the decision of the Bureau of the Circassian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of August 4, 236 tractor drivers and 116 combine operators were trained in Cherkessk. All the women replaced the men who went to the front.
▲ In the first months of the war, the Circassian driving school trained 135 female drivers and 170 motorcyclists from youth of military age.
▲ In August, in an editorial, the Krasnaya Cherkessia newspaper reported that many enterprises and institutions in Cherkessk “...have already organized military training for the population. Bayonet fighting techniques, grenade throwing, methods of anti-aircraft and anti-chemical defense are being studied ... All male citizens aged 16 to 50 years old who are able to carry weapons are taken into account. For 100 hours of training, they must undergo tactical, fire, drill, physical education, sapper, chemical, sanitary training and study the Regulations of the Red Army.
▲ By August 20, Cherkessk schoolchildren harvested more than 30 tons of wild-growing apples, pears and berries. Of these, 300 centners of various juices were produced, including 50 centners of high-quality raspberry juice. In addition, the children collected and handed over to the pharmacy 1107 kg of medicinal herbs and wild rose berries. The children gave the money they earned for picking fruits and medicinal plants to build tanks and planes for the Red Army.
▲ The problem of refugees has become a serious problem for local authorities. In July, people evacuated from Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova began to arrive in the Cherkess Autonomous Okrug. All of them needed housing, food, work. Many citizens from the evacuated population had neither clothes nor shoes. To receive refugees in Cherkessk, an evacuation center was created. The townspeople helped them as much as they could, fraternally divided the meager rear rations, provided them with clothes, provided shelter.
▲ According to Stalin's order No. 320, from August 25, 1941, all personnel of the active army began to receive 100 grams of vodka daily. Such "doping" was required to restore labor costs and reduce mental stress.
▲ On the basis of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR published on August 28, 1941, in the second half of the year, many Soviet Germans, including those living in the North Caucasus and Cherkessk, underwent forced migration. They were deported to the Novosibirsk and Omsk regions, the Altai Territory, Kazakhstan and Buryatia allegedly "for close ties with the Third Reich."
▲ Natives of Batalpashinsk, Kurman Aliyev and Chashif Bayramukov, after graduating from the seven-year period, studied in absentia at the technical school and worked at its construction sites. In June 1941, the guys arrived in Leningrad, where they were going to spend their holidays. But then the war broke out. The guys turned to one of the district military commissariats of the city with a request to send them to the front. Their desire was granted, and on their way to the unit, in September they found themselves at an unnamed junction. Not far from the Mga station, located 49 km east of Leningrad, during a raid by Nazi aircraft, they took out a stretcher with Leningrad children deprived of the ability to move from burning cars. During the shelling of the echelon, Chashif was struck down by a Nazi pilot and buried at the junction. The fate of K. Aliyev is unknown.
▲ On September 7, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution "On universal, compulsory military training for citizens of the USSR." In the autumn, compulsory military training was introduced in Cherkessk, which thousands of citizens underwent. Special schools prepared for the front nurses, signalers, motorists, paratroopers, snipers, horsemen. Every third resident of the city has been trained in defense against enemy air and chemical attack. The entire population aged 16 to 60 was subject to training.
Small articles in local newspapers were devoted to the issues of equipping bomb shelters and slots to protect against aerial bombs, measures to combat incendiary and high-explosive bombs, blackout, the ability to use gas masks, behavior in time of chemical alarm and air attack.
In addition, the population was taught to recognize the silhouettes of enemy aircraft. At that time, any boy living in the front line could determine by sound which plane was flying: "Messer", "Junkers" or "Foker".
▲ The norms of allowance for the Red Army, in force until the end of the war, were established by the Government and set out in the Order of the Minister of Defense No. 312 of September 22, 1941.
According to proteins, fats and carbohydrates, the composition of the daily ration and its calorie content were established: 3450 kcal for combat units, 2950 kcal for the rear of the active armies, 2820 kcal for spare parts (here kcal are kilocalories; at the front they were called "big calories").
In practice, due to supply difficulties, these norms were often not met and reached up to 1600 kcal. This norm was a physiological limit, below which the soldiers, although they did not yet die of hunger, quickly lost their combat effectiveness. There were cases when the norm reached 410-700 kcal per day. And this is hunger, which, with exhausting campaigns, can only be sustained for a very short time.
By the way, one "standard cracker" prepared from "eight" from a kilogram loaf of rye bread corresponded in calories to 125 grams of bread (240 kcal).
▲ On October 1, 1941, the Krasnaya Cherkessia newspaper published a letter from Fisenko, a worker at the Molot plant. She wrote: “In June my husband was drafted into the Red Army. I went to the company where he worked and stood at the milling machine. I have mastered the work and now I promise to fulfill the plan by at least 200 percent every month.”
▲ As of October 3, 230 jerseys, 220 bloomers, 86 pairs of boots, 42 sheepskin coats, 49 sweaters, 53 blankets, 10 cloaks and 812 meters of manufactory were handed over to the soldiers of the Red Army from the inhabitants of the city of Cherkessk. 465 housewives worked at home, knitting socks, gloves, woolen hats. The wives of the commanders of the Red Army collected 6.5 thousand rubles. In addition to warm clothes, the workers of Cherkessk collected 55 thousand rubles in money for the front-line soldiers.
▲ In October, the railway bridge across the Kuban was camouflaged. The spans of the bridge were painted to match the color of the river water, pillboxes were built on both sides of the bridge, and security was strengthened. As in other cities and towns of the region, by the decision of the executive committee of the Ordzhonikidzevsky regional council of deputies of workers in Cherkessk, cards for bread, sugar, and confectionery were introduced. They were received by workers, employees, dependents, children under 12 years old.
On the day of the worker and employee were given 400-500 grams of bread, dependents - 300-400. The personal consumption of the population of the region with products, with the exception of nomenklatura workers who retained special distributors and high-calorie rations, has decreased by almost half. Collective farmers did not receive food cards. Bread and other products were sold to them according to coupons and lists.
▲ The Circassian Regional Defense Committee began to operate. Regular units of the NKVD could not take under protection all the most important national economic objects of Circassia: factories, factories, railways, bridges, power plants, communication lines. Effective assistance in this matter was provided by the fighter battalions. On October 23, 1941, a fighter battalion was created in Cherkessk to combat enemy paratroopers and saboteurs. At night, the soldiers of the battalion carried out patrol duty.
The battalion commander was appointed deputy. chief of the NKVD for the ChAO, police lieutenant Keshokov, commissar - Bespalchenko, beginning. headquarters - Sukhachev, beg. communications - Labushkin, early. ammunition - Erin, early. supplies - Pustovalov.
In the first days of August 1942, at midnight, Ivan Shambarov, who was on duty in the reception room of the regional committee of the CPSU (b), was informed by telephone that the Germans had dropped paratroopers in the Salt Lakes region. Raised on alarm by the first secretary of the regional party committee Vorobyov, the fighter battalion took an active part in the destruction of this landing force.
▲ In the summer-autumn of 1941, the 53rd Caucasian Cavalry Division was formed in Voroshilovsk, which became part of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps under the command of General L. M. Dovator. During the war years, the cavalrymen of this division fought on the fronts near Moscow, in Belarus, Poland and Germany.
The first dovatator soldiers from Cherkessk were mobilized by the Circassian Regional Military Commissariat on July 8, 1941. The gathering took place on the same day at Pokrovskaya Square, and on the morning of July 9, the future cavalrymen were loaded into wagons and sent to the front. They were seen off by the first secretary of the Circassian regional committee of the CPSU (b) G. M. Vorobyov and the chairman of the Circassian regional executive committee A. M. Akbashev. Initially, 76 people from Cherkessk and 150 people from Mikoyan-Shakhar fought in the division. Horses, uniforms and weapons of the division were provided by stud farms, collective farms and state farms of Stavropol, Karachay, Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Don.The workers of Voroshilovsk handed the banner to the 44th cavalry regiment of the 53rd division, the workers of the Karachaev Autonomous Okrug to the 50th regiment, the workers of the Cherkess Autonomous District to the 74th regiment.
On behalf of the regional party committee and the regional executive committee, Suslov presented the banner to the 53rd division. In November 1941, the 53rd Cavalry Division, after receiving the Guards banner, became known as the 4th Guards.
▲ In the mechanical workshops of the Circassian AK "SOYUZTRANS" for the 53rd, which later became the 4th Guards Cavalry Division, the production of blades (sabers and checkers) was organized, which was carried out until August 1942. By January 1941 alone, about 800 of them were made things. Parts for tanks were also machined here.In the 90s of the XX century, in one of the old houses of Prokhladny, in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the attic, a cavalry saber with a wooden handle and an inscription on the blade was found: “In memory from the team of workers of the Circassian AK to Zavgorodniy Ivan Stepanovich. 1942". The find was transferred to the Prokhladnensky City Museum. Attempts to track down the owner of the saber or establish his fate were unsuccessful.
▲ On October 30, the staff of the Circassian shoe factory deducted seven days' earnings for the purchase of warm clothes for soldiers, which amounted to more than 9 thousand rubles.
▲ While peaceful Cherkessk was slowly moving to military life, major events took place on the fronts of the war, moreover, not in favor of our country.There are no stupid people in world politics. But this is exactly how our fooled youth of Hitler are presented. The war he started is by no means a revenge of the German imperialists, although Hitler personally longed for revenge for the defeat in the First World War. He wanted to do everything so that the defeated, humiliated and robbed Germany would rise again from the ashes. Believing in the dominance of the "new race", in the emergence of a "new order", the Fuhrer tried to replace capitalism in Europe with an alternative system with a thousand-year Reich and the National Socialist system. Having come to power, Hitler outlined the path for the development of Germany through war and with the help of war. And in this he was no different from Lenin, Trotsky and other supporters of the world revolution, who saw its solution in the world war.
But, having set a daring task - to conquer the whole world, Hitler led the Germans to overestimate their own capabilities. It is impossible to subjugate the whole world with the idea of national superiority!
▲ One of Germany's main goals in World War II was the complete extermination of Jews, Gypsies and the mentally ill. And the Germans attacked Russia not in order to free the Russian people from the internationalists. Hitler needed Russian spaces without Russians. At one of the meetings, Hitler said "Russia is our Africa, Russians are our blacks." And already then one of his generals whispered to a neighbor: "With this opinion of Hitler, the war is lost."
By the way, not all German generals were eager to fight the Red Army. The commander of the Army Group "South" Field Marshal K. Rundstedt from the very beginning was against the war with Russia, which he studied well back in the First world war. From his point of view, it was an incomprehensible country with a difficult climate, unlimited spaces and bad roads. And the Russian soldier was generally unpredictable.
▲ The Nazi leadership, as well as the bulk of the leaders of Russian emigrants, hoped that after several blows from the Wehrmacht, an anti-Bolshevik uprising would begin in the USSR, as a result of which Stalin would be overthrown. But Hitler and his entourage miscalculated. The actions of the NKVD, both before the war and after it began, did not allow the creation of a "fifth column" in our rear. The vast majority of the tens of thousands of saboteurs, abandoned during the war in the rear of the Red Army, were neutralized by the NKVD and SMERSH.
▲ It has long been customary in history that the winners are not judged. Many Soviet military leaders also escaped trial. And those who in the summer of 1941 could not fulfill their duty to manage the military units entrusted to them in battles near the border. And those who commanded our armies 200, 500, 1000 km from the front line, but did not meet the advancing Germans with hostility! But they had to meet the enemy.
Why did it happen that in the summer of 1941 we were weaker than the enemy? Any person has every right to ask the question: “What is the reason for our failures?”. True, some argue differently: why stir up the past, why deal with the reasons ...
▲ You can refer to the leak of top-secret information from the upper echelon of the military leadership abroad (now it has been proven that it was from Marshal of the USSR Tukhachevsky), to conspirators from the "fifth column" of the USSR (and they could be not only from the top of the military of the Red Army, but also large political figures).
History with the "right hand in the lead Nazi Party» Rudolf Hess, classified by England after the war for 50 years, and then, it is not known for what reason, until 2017, proof of this. It was the Soviet-party post-Stalinist leadership, headed by Khrushchev, who did not want to release Hess, imprisoned for life, as they were interested in keeping the secret of Stalin's "neutralization" in June 1941.
▲ It can be explained that the repression of the military leadership was to blame for everything, that we did not know the exact date of the attack, that all our failures and miscalculations occurred due to the "sudden attack" of the Germans. Marshal Zhukov was the first to come up with this excuse in the post-war period and let it roam around the world. He wanted to justify the miscalculations of the high command of the Red Army and put the blame for the defeats at the beginning of the war on the late Stalin (for some reason he did not do this when the leader was alive?!). Many "warriors" and "politicians" liked Zhukov's excuse: there is no need to study, analyze and rack one's brains in search of the truth.
▲ It can be said that Stalin was a “burdock” and did not understand military affairs (such information is still slipping in the media), although in fact he understood very well, was a talented self-taught person and constantly updated his military knowledge.
They repeatedly tried to prove to us that the idiot Stalin and his entourage of nerds are to blame for the tragedy of the first months of the war. Even compared with Hitler. But it has long been proven that none of the statesmen of the world did more for the comprehensive (political, military, economic, organizational, ideological, moral) defeat of Nazism and its eradication than Stalin.
Having given his whole life to the idea of socialism, Stalin eliminated all his political opponents on this issue, and along with the competitors who stood in his way. And he did this in order to subjugate a great country and raise it to a great cause. The system he created forced the bulk of the people to clearly follow his orders. She did not do without excesses, but she cleared the army of the enemies of the people and subordinated it to the indomitable will of the leader.
Everything that the country had, by order of Stalin, was given to the military industry. Thousands of tons of gold were spent on German, French, British, American, Italian, Swiss technology and equipment.
For the leader, this was a continuation of the imperial policy, an offensive against the aggressor, which was Hitler's Germany. The main thing was that by that time the West was trying to get away from the war, which was unnecessary to it from any point of view, and was trying by all means to set Hitler against Stalin.
▲ In this situation, Stalin officially declared that the USSR was ready to cooperate with the capitalist countries, that it was in favor of maintaining peace. However, he warned: if soviet state will be attacked, the enemy will be defeated, and fighting transferred to its territory, as was the case in the Patriotic War of 1812 with France.
Stalin openly warned that he would use the war to plant socialism in Europe. Therefore, the Comintern was dissolved only in 1944, otherwise the Allies would not agree to open a second front.
What is Stalin's fault if even in the spring of 1941 our military leaders did not really prepare for war, and in May 1941 they let a German plane through to Moscow? What is Stalin's fault if, on the night of June 18, 1941, he personally issued a directive to bring all the troops of the border districts to full combat readiness? The directive also passed along the party line, but, in the most criminal way, it was not carried out to the end. In the afternoon of June 21, Stalin already recognized a clash with Germany, if not inevitable, then very, very likely ...
The only army on the entire Soviet front from the Black Sea to the Barents Sea, which fulfilled Stalin's directive and the task assigned to it in the Arctic region, was only the 14th Army of Lieutenant General V. A. Frolov.
▲ For the entire pre-war decade, the leader dealt with defense issues comprehensively and systematically, but at the same time he did not attend maneuvers or exercises, did not communicate with the Red Army soldiers and commanders, did not know their problems. He saw the Red Army only from the side - at parades and in the cinema, and assessed its combat effectiveness only according to the reports of the leadership of the People's Commissariat of Defense, which he believed that it reflected the real state of affairs.
But it turned out that the leader was deeply mistaken: the "big-star" military leaders reported only successes and hid shortcomings. Brave lies cost our country too much.
From June 22 to October 10, 1941, 10,201 servicemen of the Red Army were shot for desertion and treason by the tribunals and the Special Departments of the NKVD. In total, over 994 thousand people were convicted during the war years, of which 157,593 people were shot (10 divisions !!!)
But Stalin laid the blame for the catastrophic start of the war on the generals. From July 1941 to March 1942, 30 generals were shot.
▲ When talking about the war, it is not at all necessary to lie. And why not - reality almost always turns out to be scarier and brighter than any fiction. It is no secret that many of our memoirists were members of the CPSU. And the well-known aphorism that in war is like in war is well known to many readers. To tell the truth is a betrayal. To deceive is a matter of valor and heroism. But this is if you are in the hands of the enemy, and secret information is being extracted from you under torture.
That was at war. And why make meek “rams” out of us after the war is not clear. After all, one must learn from mistakes, and not hide them. This common truth has been known for a long time.
Do not think that I am boasting, but the main reason for our defeat in 1941 is known to me: this is a heavily armed enemy, which was Germany. I always cackle maliciously when I read that our tanks, guns, mortars, etc. were not abandoned, but lost during the retreat. As I understand it, if there had been no war, then our Red Army would not have lost a single gun? Wow? The enemy brazenly, unceremoniously, and even unexpectedly, prevented us from fighting with a sense of dignity, calmly and with alignment! The ill-fated "retreat" is perceived by our marshals as a natural disaster, as a respectful, "objective" reason, independent of the action or inaction of the soldiers, justifying the loss of an astronomical amount of weapons. Disgusting to read!"On the 15th day of the war, the headquarters of 11A was at a distance of 450 km in a straight line from the state border." How can you go that far in 15 days? It's impossible. You can run away, but it is extremely tiring. But if you drop everything (rifles, grenades, machine guns, mortars, cannons ...), then you can just be in time! But our generals wrote "the enemy followed our retreating units with caution and apprehension", "we retreated due to the situation." That's how it is.
Not a complete defeat and disorderly retreat, not the loss of military equipment and mass desertion (what else can explain the loss of 60% of the retreating troops on the 5th day of withdrawal and the almost complete absence of personnel on the 13th day of this "strange" withdrawal.
In his “Memoirs” Zhukov writes: “Neither the Commissar of Defense (Tymoshenko), nor I, nor B. M. Shaposhikov and K. A. Meretskov (who died long ago), nor the leadership of the General Staff expected that the enemy ... etc. .".
It turns out that our marshal, being the chief of the General Staff, did not expect such agility from the enemy, did not expect him to inflict "crushing scattering blows." What was he waiting for? A gentle pat on the pope, a strong kiss on the lips, and an invitation to “tea”? Moreover, from an enemy several times smaller in strength! After all, any rifle division of the Red Army was not inferior to the infantry division of the Wehrmacht, even in terms of such an indicator as anti-tank defense. In addition, in 178 tank divisions of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front there were half as many tanks (3266).
The war in Spain "taught the Germans", where they finally understood - "what kind of tanks are needed." But even in the summer of 1941, the Wehrmacht did not have weapons with which to repel a massive attack large connections new Soviet tanks. But, equipment is equipment, and most importantly, there must be a complete relationship between units (infantry, artillery, aviation, engineering units, reconnaissance on the ground and from the air, communications, medical battalion, rear services - fuel, ammunition, uniforms and food). And we never had it. We had like in the fable of the fabulist Krylov: "swan", "crab" and "pike".
▲ It can be assumed that 20 years of the dictatorship of the Lenin-Stalin party greatly contributed to the moral decay of the army; that dispossession, the "holodomor" and the system of collective farm slavery significantly reduced the readiness of the mobilized peasants to fight for such a life and for such power. There is no doubt that the fact that mass repression 1937-1938 turned a significant part of the command personnel into mortally and life-long frightened people. In the first two months of the war alone, the Red Army lost as many soldiers as the Russian Army lost in the three years of the First World War.
By the end of August 1941, the pre-war regular Red Army ceased to exist. For the remaining four years of the war, reservists fought against the German army. And another 5.36 million people liable for military service, who did not have time to be drafted into the Red Army, remained in the territory occupied by the enemy.
▲ In the summer of 1941, we lost 5.3 million soldiers and officers killed, captured and missing (VIZh, 1992, No. 2, p. 23). Wounded, shell-shocked and crippled soldiers were not included in this figure.
Over 2 million fighters were captured in 4 months: in July 323 thousand near Bialystok and Minsk, in August 328 thousand near Smolensk, in September 665 thousand near Kyiv, in October 662 thousand near Bryansk and Vyazma. The Germans captured 100,000 Red Army soldiers near Melitopol and Uman.
Crowds of prisoners appeared when units of the Red Army found themselves in a stalemate, left without supplies in the encirclement. In addition to them, there were rear guards, signalmen, artillerymen who did not have infantry training and could not fend for themselves on the battlefield. Actually, they then formed columns of downcast prisoners.
▲ The war found most of the military formations of the Red Army in echelons stretching along the railroad from the Volga to the Dnieper. There were 47 thousand wagons with military cargo on the railway. And this was the main target for the fascist aces. Many regiments entered the battle with the Nazis, leaving the wagons or platforms. That is why there was a mass capture of our soldiers and officers.
One only Western Front lost 4,216 railway wagons with ammunition at the border, which were waiting to be unloaded (VIZH, 1980, No. 5, p. 71). The aces of the Luftwaffe, captured in border warehouses and in stacks by Soviet air bombs, later bombed Moscow and Leningrad, wiped Sevastopol and Stalingrad off the face of the earth, and destroyed Voronezh and Rostov.
The enemy also got tanks filled with fuel, and wagons that contained equipment and food.
VIZH (1975, No. 1, p. 81) reported that “by the end of June 1941, on railways 1320 trains with cars stood idle. The standard military echelon of that time consisted of forty-five 20-ton wagons or platforms. If there was at least one car in each wagon or on the platform, which is unlikely, then it means that 59400 (45 x 1320) Red Army vehicles were expected to be unloaded and were bombed!
At the same time, the proximity of our warehouses to the border, which the Germans destroyed or captured in an instant, is not one of the reasons for the catastrophic start of the war for the Red Army, as the media write. This is just a consequence of our failures in the frontier battle. Smart Germans would have done exactly the same. The stretching of communications, that is, supply lines, is always the weakest point of any army. Neither the Wehrmacht nor the Red Army intended to retreat in the upcoming war, and therefore pulled up their material reserves as close to the border as possible.
Throughout the war, the warehouses of the Germans during their retreat also fell into our hands. War is war. And this was repeated many times. Although, of course, not on such a large scale as in the early days of the war with us.
▲ Using our H-2P pontoon-bridge park, the best in the world, Wehrmacht crossed (without him he could not have crossed at all) the Dnieper River below Kyiv. The Germans were very "grateful" to the Soviets when they captured the pontoons abandoned on the border. There were no such pontoons, not only in Germany, but even in England and the USA.
▲ "Defense must be taken across the river" - this common truth is known to all the military. The river is a natural moat with water, which the enemy has to cross on rafts, boards and other auxiliary materials to the whistle of bullets, shells, mines and bombs. We had no defense near large rivers. Sorry, but it was. True, in front of the Neman, and not behind it. This led to the death of Soviet soldiers in this very river! All drowned.
▲ Throughout Europe, the railway track is much narrower than ours. And the Germans must be so contrived that in the first three months of the war they shoveled 15 thousand kilometers of Soviet routes in their own way. The enemy understood that it was impossible otherwise - the supply of troops would choke, and the war would be lost.
▲ In the most tragic way, events unfolded for us in the zone of the Western Front, where the Wehrmacht delivered the main blow with the troops of Army Group Center.When a large gap formed between the Northwestern and Western fronts, which there was nothing to close, the Red Army became uncontrollable. During the 18 days of the war, a continuous front of defense did not work out. Like a castle built of sand on the seashore, the Western Front crumbled at the first roll of the military wave of the Germans. The 4th Army was defeated, 3A, 10A and 13A were in the ring. Of the 44 Soviet divisions that were originally part of the front, 24 were completely lost, 20 lost from 30 to 90% of their composition. The total losses were in the thousands: both people and equipment.
A significant part of the aircraft of the Western District was taken by surprise not only on the first, but even on the third and fourth days of the war. After the first bombing, many air formations urgently brazenly darted deep into Soviet territory to the east, instead of helping the ground forces.
Three thousand tanks were not involved in repelling the enemy's aggression due to the lack of fuel, which for some reason turned out "by mistake" in Maykop (Adygea) - thousands of kilometers from where it was supposed to be.
