Vladimir Lenin believed that in the country of a victorious proletariat there would be no need for a regular army. In 1917, he wrote the work “State and Revolution,” where he advocated replacing the regular army with the general arming of the people.
The arming of the people by the end of the First World War was indeed close to universal. True, not all the people were ready to defend the “gains of the revolution” with arms in hand.
At the first clashes with “cruel revolutionary reality,” the idea of the voluntary principle of recruitment into the Red Guard detachments showed its complete unviability.
“The principle of voluntariness” as a factor in inciting civil war
The Red Guard detachments, assembled from volunteers at the end of 1917 and beginning of 1918, quickly degenerated into semi-bandit or outright bandit formations. This is how one of the delegates to the VIII Congress of the RCP(b) recalls this period of formation of the Red Army: “...The best elements were knocked out, died, were captured, and thus a selection of the worst elements was created. These worst elements were joined by those who joined the volunteer army not in order to fight and die, but did so because they were left without something to do, because they were thrown out onto the street as a result of a catastrophic breakdown of the entire social structure. Finally, it was just the half-rotten remnants of the old army that went there...”
It was the “gangster deviation” of the first Red Army detachments that provoked the expansion of the civil war. Suffice it to recall the uprising of the Don Cossacks in April 1918, outraged by the “revolutionary” lawlessness.
The real birthday of the Red Army
Around the holiday of February 23, many spears were and are being broken. His supporters say that it was on this day that the “revolutionary consciousness of the working masses” awoke, spurred by the just published appeal of the Council of People’s Commissars of February 21, “The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger,” as well as the “Appeal of the Military Commander-in-Chief” Nikolai Krylenko, which ended with the words : “Everyone to arms. Everything is in defense of the revolution.” In large cities of central Russia, primarily in Petrograd and Moscow, rallies were held, after which thousands of volunteers signed up to join the ranks of the Red Army. With their help, in March 1918, it was difficult to stop the advance of small German units approximately on the line of the modern Russian-Estonian border.
Another 15 (28) January 1918 Council of People's Commissars Soviet Russia issued a Decree on the creation of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (published on January 20 (February 2), 1918). However, it seems that the real birthday of the Red Army can be considered April 22, 1918. On this day, by decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee “On the procedure for filling positions in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army,” the election of command personnel was abolished. Commanders of individual units, brigades, and divisions began to be appointed by the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, and commanders of battalions, companies and platoons were recommended for positions by local military registration and enlistment offices.
During the construction of the Red Army, the Bolsheviks once again demonstrated the skillful use of “double standards”. If, in order to destroy and demoralize the tsarist army, they welcomed its “democratization” in every possible way, then the above-mentioned decree returned the Red Army to the “vertical of power”, without which not a single combat-ready army in the world could exist.
From democracy to decimation
Leon Trotsky played an important role in the formation of the Red Army. It was he who set the course for building an army on traditional principles: unity of command, restoration death penalty, mobilization, restoration of insignia, uniform uniforms and even military parades, the first of which took place on May 1, 1918 in Moscow, on Khodynskoye Field. An important step was the fight against the “military anarchism” of the first months of the existence of the Red Army. For example, executions for desertion were reinstated. By the end of 1918, the power of the military committees was reduced to nothing.
People's Commissar Trotsky, by his personal example, showed the Red commanders how to restore discipline. On August 10, 1918, he arrived in Sviyazhsk to take part in the battles for Kazan. When the 2nd Petrograd Regiment fled without permission from the battlefield, Trotsky applied the ancient Roman ritual of decimation (execution of every tenth by lot) against deserters. On August 31, Trotsky personally shot 20 people from among the unauthorized retreating units of the 5th Army.
At the instigation of Trotsky, by decree of July 29, the entire population of the country liable for military service between the ages of 18 and 40 was registered and military service was established. This made it possible to sharply increase the number armed forces. In September 1918, there were already about half a million people in the ranks of the Red Army - more than two times more than 5 months ago.
By 1920, the number of the Red Army was already more than 5.5 million people.
Commissioners are the key to success
The sharp increase in the number of the Red Army led to an acute shortage of competent, military-trained commanders. According to various sources, from 2 to 8 thousand former “tsarist officers” voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army. This was clearly not enough. Therefore, in relation to the most suspicious from the point of view of the Bolsheviks social group also had to resort to the method of mobilization. However, they could not rely entirely on “military experts,” as the officers of the Imperial Army began to be called. This is also why the institution of commissars was introduced in the troops, looking after the “former” ones.
This step almost played a role main role in the outcome Civil War. It was the commissars, who were all members of the RCP(b), who took upon themselves political work both with troops and with the population. Relying on a powerful propaganda apparatus, they clearly explained to the fighters why it was necessary to fight for Soviet power “to the last drop of workers’ and peasants’ blood.” While explaining the goals of the “whites,” an additional burden fell on officers who mostly had a purely military education and were completely unprepared for such work. Therefore, not only ordinary White Guards, but also the officers themselves often did not have a clear idea of what they were fighting for.
The Reds defeated the Whites by numbers rather than skill. Thus, even in the most difficult period for the Bolsheviks at the end of summer - autumn 1919, when the fate of the world's first Soviet republic hung by a thread, the strength of the Red Army exceeded the combined strength of all white armies at that time, according to various sources, from 1.5 to 3 times.
One of the outstanding phenomena in the history of military art was the legendary red cavalry. At first, the clear superiority in cavalry was with the whites, for whom, as you know, the majority of the Cossacks supported. In addition, the South and South-East of Russia (territories where horse breeding was traditionally developed) were cut off from the Bolsheviks. But gradually, from individual red cavalry regiments and cavalry detachments, the transition began to the formation of brigades, and then divisions. Thus, the small cavalry partisan detachment of Semyon Budyonny, created in February 1918, within a year grew into a combined cavalry division of the Tsaritsyn Front, and then into the First Cavalry Army, which played an important, and, according to some historians, decisive role in the defeat of Denikin's army. During the Civil War, in some operations the red cavalry accounted for up to half of the total number of Red Army troops involved. Often horse attacks were supported by powerful machine gun fire from carts.
The success of the combat operations of the Soviet cavalry during the Civil War was facilitated by the vastness of the theaters of military operations, the extension of the opposing armies on wide fronts, and the presence of gaps that were poorly covered or not occupied by troops at all, which were used by cavalry formations to reach the enemy’s flanks and carry out deep raids in his rear. Under these conditions, the cavalry could fully realize its combat properties and capabilities: mobility, surprise attacks, speed and decisiveness of action.
I didn’t know where to put this article in, so I decided to go here, I apologize in advance for the confusion:KILL A MAN
Artem DENIKIN
"Analytical newspaper "Secret Research"
In July 2005, the National Geographic TV channel showed viewers new project– multi-part documentary about a person's ability to kill a person. Much in this project turned out to be a real discovery for society. The facts presented by the film's authors are truly shocking, and the results scientific research in this matter they force you to look differently at both the person himself and the war. This radically changes our ideas, which seemed established and unshakable. Why does a normal person, even drafted into the army and fighting for his homeland, still not want to kill? Science has found biological explanations for this.
DENIAL OF MURDER
The texture of the film is shocking, and at first it’s even hard to believe. In 1947, the American General Marshall organized a survey of World War II veterans from COMBAT infantry units in order to determine the behavior of soldiers and officers in actual combat operations. The results were unexpected. Only less than 25% of the soldiers and officers of the combat infantry units of the US Army fired towards the enemy during the battle. And only 2% deliberately aimed at the enemy. The picture was similar in the Air Force: more than 50% of enemy aircraft shot down by American pilots were accounted for by 1% of the pilots. It turned out that in those types of battles where the enemy is perceived as a person and an individual (these are infantry battles, air fighter duels, etc.), the army is ineffective, and almost all the damage caused to the enemy is caused by only 2% of the personnel, and 98% are not capable of killing. The picture is completely different where the military does not see the enemy in person. The efficiency of tanks and artillery here is an order of magnitude higher, and bomber aircraft have the maximum efficiency. It was precisely this that caused the maximum damage to enemy personnel during the Second World War (approximately 70% of all military and civilian losses of the enemy). As for face-to-face infantry combat, their effectiveness is the lowest among other branches of the military. The reason is that soldiers cannot kill. Since this is a serious issue of the effectiveness of the armed forces, the Pentagon involved a group of military psychologists in the research. Amazing things came to light. It turned out that 25% of soldiers and officers urinate or defecate out of fear before each battle. This was generally the norm in the US Army. As an example, National Geographic cites the memoirs of a World War II veteran. A veteran soldier says that before the first battle in Germany he wet himself, but his commander pointed to himself, who was also wet, and said that this is a normal occurrence before every battle: “As soon as I wet myself, the fear disappears and I can control myself.” Surveys have shown that this is a mass phenomenon in the army, and even in the war with Iraq, about 25% of US soldiers and officers urinated or defecated out of fear before each battle. Bowel movement and Bladder before the fear of death is a normal animal instinct inherited by man from animals: with bowel movements and bladder It’s easier to save yourself and run away. But psychologists could not immediately explain something else. About 25% of soldiers and officers experienced temporary paralysis of either the hand or the index finger. Moreover, if he is left-handed and must shoot with his left hand, then the paralysis affected his left hand. That is, exactly the hand and finger that are needed for shooting. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the archives of the Reich showed that the same scourge also haunted German soldiers. On the eastern front there was a constant epidemic of “frostbite” on the hand or finger that had to be shot. Also about 25% of the composition. As it turned out, the reasons lie deep in the psychology of a person sent by force to war. In this search, the researchers first discovered that 95% of all violent crimes are committed by men, while only 5% are committed by women. Which once again confirmed the well-known truth that women are generally not suitable for the State to send them to war to kill other people. Research has also shown that man is not an aggressive creature at all. For example, chimpanzees display monstrous aggressiveness in their behavior towards their relatives, which is evolutionarily absent in humans, since, according to scientists, aggressive individuals of the human race inevitably died in the course of human history, and only those who were inclined to compromise survived. Analysis of dog behavior showed that INSTINCT prohibits dogs from killing their own kind. They have clear biological limits on such behavior, putting the dog into a state of stupor if it begins to cause injuries to another dog that threaten its life. It turned out that even a normal person in such situations becomes like dogs. Pentagon scientists, studying the stress of a soldier during combat, found that the soldier’s forebrain, responsible for conscious behavior, completely switches off, and the parts of the brain that control the body and consciousness with the help of animal instincts turn on. This is precisely what explains the paralysis of the soldiers’ hands and fingers – the instinctive prohibition against killing one’s own kind. That is, these are not mental or social factors, not pacifism or, on the contrary, fascism of human ideas. When it comes to killing one’s own kind, biological resistance mechanisms are activated, which the human mind is generally unable to control. As one example, National Geographic cites Himmler’s trip to our newly captured Minsk, where the Nazis of Germany and Belarus massacred Jews. When a Minsk Jew was shot in front of Himmler, the ideologist and organizer of the extermination of Jews, the head of the SS began to vomit and began to faint. It’s one thing to write orders far away in an office to kill “abstract” millions of people, and another thing to see the death of a very specific person sentenced to death by this order. The leading American psychologists Swang and Marchand, working on behalf of the Pentagon, discovered something astounding. The results of their study were shocking: if a combat unit conducts continuously fighting within 60 days, then 98% of the personnel go crazy. Who are the remaining 2%, who during combat clashes are the main combat force of the unit, its heroes? Psychologists clearly and convincingly show that these 2% are psychopaths. These 2% had serious mental problems even before conscription. The scientists' answer to the Pentagon was this: the effectiveness of the actions of armed forces in close combat contact is achieved only by the presence of psychopaths, and therefore reconnaissance or shock breakthrough units should be formed only from psychopaths. However, in this 2% there is also a small part of people who are not classified as psychopaths, but can be classified as “leaders”. These are people who usually go to the police or similar bodies after military service. They do not demonstrate aggressiveness, but their difference from normal people is the same as that of psychopaths: they can easily kill a person - and not experience any worries about it.
GENERAL MURDER
The essence of American human research is that biology itself, instincts themselves prohibit a person from killing a person. And this was, in fact, known for a long time. For example, similar studies were carried out in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century. A regiment of soldiers at the shooting range hit 500 targets during the test. And then, in a battle a few days later, all the fire from this regiment hit only three enemy soldiers. This fact is also cited by National Geographic. A person cannot biologically kill a person. And psychopaths, who make up 2% during war, but are 100% of the whole impact force armies in close battles, as US psychologists report, are equally murderers in civilian life and, as a rule, end up in prison. A psychopath is a psychopath: both in war, where he is a hero, and in civilian life, where his place is in prison. Against this background, any war itself appears in a completely different light: where 2% of the psychopaths of the Fatherland fight with the same 2% of the enemy’s psychopaths, while destroying a lot of people who do not want to kill a person. And 2% of psychopaths are charging for a political war in order to maintain their personal power in the country. Ideology does not play any role here, since even Himmler vomited from the execution of one Minsk Jew, although he was “ideologically savvy.” War is made by 2% of psychopaths who don’t care at all why they kill someone. The main thing for them is a signal from the political leadership for reprisals. This is where the soul of a psychopath finds its happiness, its finest hour. The studies of American scientists concerned only the behavior of the US Army during the Second World War. Our domestic military historians, I already foresee, are ready to argue that “the Americans are bad warriors, but our army has shown the heights of courage and heroism.” This is why articles are published everywhere saying that we “didn’t give up, but died.” This is a bluff. How many Americans surrendered to Hitler? A mere trifle. But the USSR showed a record that no one has surpassed (and never, I’m sure) in how to surrender to the aggressor. Hitler attacked the USSR with an army of only 3.5 million. And in 1941, 4 million soldiers and officers of the regular Red Army surrendered to this army. Someone, of course, fought and did not give up, which is what propaganda with lanterns is looking for. But how almost the entire personnel army of the USSR (4 million out of 5.5) surrendered to the Germans in six months is of no interest to anyone. What was at work here, of course, was not the desire not to kill anyone, but something else - an attempt to get rid of the hated USSR, when in 1941 Hitler was seen as the “liberator” from the “Jewish Bolshevism” of the damned Stalin, who was in the people’s hearts. That is why our valiant people’s army surrendered to the “liberator” Hitler. That is why our experience of the war, at least in its first three years, cannot in any way be compared with what happened in the US Army. There is no purity for any general conclusions. Only since 1943 did Russians and other nationalities of the USSR stop surrendering en masse and voluntarily to the Germans, and only since 1943, apparently, did the war turn from Civil into truly Patriotic. And then everything fell into the norms of war: and almost everyone in our country – even already extremely wanting to kill Germans – could not kill because of the biological ban on murder, and the “locomotive” was 2% of psychopaths, as in all warring countries. Including Germany. US veterans of World War II, Vietnam, Iraq, and Russian veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya all agree on one opinion: if there was at least one such psychopath in a platoon or company, then the unit survived. If he was not there, the unit died. Such a psychopath almost always solved the combat mission of the entire unit. For example, one of the veterans of the American landing in France said that one single soldier decided the entire success of the battle: while everyone was hiding in a shelter on the coast, he climbed up to the Nazi pillbox, fired a machine gun into its embrasure, and then threw grenades at him, killing him there everyone. Then he ran to the second pillbox, where, fearing death, he was ALONE! - all thirty German soldiers of the pillbox surrendered. Then he took the third pillbox alone... The veteran recalls: “In appearance, this is a normal person, and in communication he seems quite normal, but those who lived closely with him, including me, know that he is a mentally ill person, a complete psycho "
IN SEARCH FOR PSYCHOPATHS
The Pentagon made two main conclusions. Firstly, it is necessary to organize military operations so that the soldier does not see the face of the enemy he is killing. To do this, it is necessary to develop remote warfare technologies as much as possible and focus on bombing and artillery shelling. And secondly, those units that inevitably come into direct close combat contact with the enemy must be formed from psychopaths. Within the framework of this program, “recommendations” for the selection of contract workers appeared. Psychopaths have become the most desirable. Moreover, searching for people for contract service ceased to be passive (selecting from those who applied), but became active: the Pentagon began to purposefully look for psychopaths in US society, in all its layers, including the very bottom, offering them military service. This was the implementation of a scientific approach: the army needs psychopaths. Namely, into close combat contact units, which in the United States today are formed only from psychopaths. The USA is a big country and its population is twice as large more population the same Russia. And there are an incredible number of psychopaths to be found there for military service after 20 years of the “scientific approach”. This is probably the origin of the victories of the US Army in current wars. Not a single army in the world today can resist the US army, not only because of technology, but primarily because the US was the first in the world to understand the science of murder and forms strike units only from psychopaths. Today, one professional US Army soldier is worth hundreds of soldiers from other armies because he was found and selected as a psychopath. As a result, the armies of other countries still suffer from the same disease - in close combat, only about 2% are able to actually fight, and 98% are unable to kill. And only the United States here has significantly changed the effectiveness of contact combat of its troops, bringing it from 2% in World War II to 60-70% today. Only through the active calling of psychopaths. But all this makes us look at any war itself as a manifestation of psychopathy. Moreover, only psychopaths can fight successfully. In normal society we treat psychopaths. Isn’t it time for us to recover from war itself, if, according to scientific research, a person does not want to fight, cannot fight, is not intended by Nature or God to fight. A person should not fight. This is the norm. And everything else is psychopathy, a disease.
(Addendum)
10 years ago the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was created. Under various names (Red Army, Soviet army) it became the predecessor of the modern Russian army, at its peak, played a decisive role in victory in World War II, and in the post-war period it became the most formidable armed force in the world. The centenary is an occasion to remember the history of the creation of the Red Army and its first years.
From the Tsar's Ministry to the Military Commissariat
The Red Army was created by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 15 (28), 1918. The document emphasized the need to create an army to support the future socialist revolution in Europe. The army was created on a voluntary basis and for a salary - each fighter had to receive, in addition to full allowance, 50 rubles a month. The decree was signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Vladimir Lenin, and on behalf of military leaders - the Bolshevik Supreme Commander-in-Chief Nikolai Krylenko and the People's Commissars Pavel Dybenko and Nikolai Podvoisky.
The emergence of the Red Army occurred at a time when the old Russian army had already disintegrated and lost its combat effectiveness, the soldiers did not want to fight, and had lost discipline and military appearance. However, Russia had not yet emerged from the First World War. In addition, pockets of resistance to Bolshevik power arose within the country, and the issue of organizing the defense of the Soviet state was quite acute. It was necessary to create an effective and loyal army. For these reasons, only conscientious fighters could get into it if they had recommendations from committees or organizations that stood on the platform of Soviet power, or from party or trade union organizations.
The army was created on the same material and technical base. Some old military administration bodies and military educational institutions were preserved, and in some cases the signs were simply changed.
It is no coincidence that one of the first generals to go over to the side of the new government, Nikolai Potapov, entitled his essay about those events: “How the Tsar’s War Ministry became the People’s Commissariat for Military Affairs.” Many pre-revolutionary governing bodies, after the demobilization of the old army, continued to function in the new conditions in the spring of 1918 and even later. Some old headquarters became headquarters for the new army. For example, the basis for the formation of the headquarters of the White Sea Military District was the personnel of the headquarters of the Southwestern Front of the old army, the headquarters of the 1st Army of the Northern Front was reorganized into the headquarters of the Volga Military District.
Tens of thousands of former officers and non-commissioned officers joined the Red Army. All this predetermined the continuity from the old army. If you look at the first Soviet military theorists, they are, as a rule, former officers.
At first, the army was recruited on a voluntary basis, the election of commanders was preserved, but the election was canceled already in March 1918, and mobilizations began in the summer. The politicization of the armed forces increased sharply, and increased attention was paid to the loyalty of personnel. An extensive political apparatus was created. Many conscientious commanders appeared, although without proper qualifications. At the same time, in connection with the abolition of ranks, careers were built on the principle of promotion. And this contributed to the selection of more effective commanders for leadership positions and, to a greater extent than before, took into account the effectiveness of the command. The road to command posts was given to nuggets, “people's commanders,” which was practically impossible in the old army or among the whites. The most famous from this category are Semyon Budyonny and Vasily Chapaev.
Former officers were under the control of the commissioners, and not a single order could be carried out without the signature of the commissioner. At the same time, the commissioners carried out a lot of propaganda work. Has changed and organizational structure army - instead of a corps system, a divisional system arose with a three-brigade and three-regiment organization, which was a progressive innovation. It was the Reds who later developed the cavalry armies necessary for a maneuverable Civil War.
Baptism of fire
Less than a month had passed since the decree on the creation of the new army was issued, when its baptism of fire took place. After the breakdown of Soviet-German peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk on February 18, the German offensive began on Eastern Front. The Germans advanced rapidly, encountering almost no resistance along the way. On February 19, a joint meeting of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik parties and their allies, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, was held, at which Lenin spoke out for the need to repel the enemy. On February 21, the Committee for the Revolutionary Defense of Petrograd was created, headed by Yakov Sverdlov. On the same day, a decree-appeal of the Council of People's Commissars "The Socialist Fatherland is in danger!" was signed and published the next day. In connection with this call, on February 23, a mass mobilization of the Petrograd proletariat took place to fight the enemy, which became a symbol of the patriotic impulse of a completely ordinary people, sometimes who had not even served in the army, to defend their country.
This day, both then and today, clearly indicates the indisputable fact that no matter how difficult the situation Russia and its army are in, it will always have its own reliable defenders capable of repelling the enemy.
The first detachments of the Red Army were sent to the front near Pskov to defend the Petrograd direction. By February 27, about 13,000 people had already joined the Red Army in Petrograd. These actions brought results, since the Germans, after several military clashes that were successful for the Soviet side, stopped the attack on Petrograd from Pskov. In this regard, February 23 began to be celebrated as the Day of the Red Army and Navy, and in modern Russia This is Defender of the Fatherland Day.
Military experts served upon mobilization and conscientiously
An outstanding contribution to the creation of the army was made by the People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Leon Trotsky, who took up military issues in March 1918. It is impossible not to note the most important role of a number of former generals. First of all, Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich and Nikolai Potapov.
But it was Trotsky who became an ardent supporter of the idea of broadly recruiting military professionals into the Red Army - former officers or military specialists (military experts), as they were called in the Red Army. Military experts played a vital role in the creation and strengthening of the Red Army. In archival documents there is evidence that about 100,000 former officers of the Russian army passed through the Red Army.
For the most part, officers served in the Red Army upon mobilization, however, as a rule, in good faith. Former officers were involved in all elements of the Soviet war machine, at the front and in the rear.
All the commanders-in-chief of the Soviet armed forces, the chiefs of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the All-Russian Main Headquarters, 85% of front commanders, 100% of front-line chiefs of staff, 82% of army commanders, over 91% of army chiefs of staff, over 90% of teaching staff were military experts. military educational institutions. In 1920, Lenin openly admitted that without military experts there would have been neither the Red Army nor its victories.
By the end of the Civil War, the Red Army was a powerful armed force. By January 1, 1921, it numbered 4,213,497 people, and the combat strength included 1,264,391 people or 30% of the total. At the fronts there were 85 rifle divisions, 39 separate rifle brigades, 27 cavalry divisions, 7 separate cavalry brigades, 294 light artillery divisions, 85 howitzer artillery divisions, 85 field heavy artillery divisions (4,888 guns in total) different systems). Total in 1918-1920. 6,707,588 people were drafted into the Red Army.
So why did the Red Army win?
An important advantage of the Red Army was its comparative social homogeneity (by the end of the Civil War, in September 1922, 18.8% of workers, 68% of peasants, 13.2% of others served in the Red Army), while the white armies had a more varied composition.
The reasons for the victory of the Red Army in the Civil War are manifold. The most important factor became the military-political unity of Soviet Russia, which was opposed by scattered white armies, corroded by internal conflicts of the command. On the other hand, the Bolsheviks’ ability to make compromises and temporary alliances even with hostile forces worked for victory. For example, with the Makhnovists. Despite the critical attitude of the officer masses towards the Bolsheviks, the latter managed to attract tens of thousands of former officers into their army.
The main principles that led the Bolsheviks to military success in the Civil War were: consistency, scale and strict centralization. The Bolshevik leaders understood the social nature of the Civil War, which was reflected in strategic decisions.
The most important advantage of Soviet Russia was its reliance on the industrially and culturally developed densely populated center of the country. There were not just more people in the center, the center also had a significant superiority over the outskirts in qualified personnel, including military personnel. The Bolsheviks had at their disposal virtually all of the top management bodies of the old army, which immediately allowed them to rely on a ready-made apparatus. Possibility of long-term strategic planning in matters of military development has become another main advantages red camp.
The Soviet leadership paid close attention to providing the army with everything necessary. A course was taken towards the centralization of production and distribution, and the widespread use of emergency measures of the policy of “war communism”. The planned supply of food to the army was carried out through surplus appropriation, which covered bread and grain fodder in 1918, and all products in 1919-1920 Agriculture subject to a trade ban. In 1918, the Bolsheviks carried out the nationalization and mobilization of military and other industries, centralized its management, registered qualified workers, and implemented the militarization of labor (transferring workers and employees to the position of conscripts with attachment to enterprises, the unauthorized abandonment of which was equivalent to desertion ).
Powerful propaganda, the political apparatus of the Red Army, strict discipline, and an extensive mobilization and punitive apparatus played a role, which made it possible to carry out mass mobilizations in post-revolutionary Russia.
The Reds were superior to their opponents in almost everything - from the size of the army and the scale of preparations for it to the quality of the system for recording military specialists, the number of leaflets issued and the number of enemies shot. White's fatal mistakes only widened this gap. No wonder that new power in the end she prevailed.
2. On the morning of June 22, 1941 fascist Germany invaded the USSR without declaring war. At the beginning of the war, the Nazis suffered heavy losses. In the first 20 days of the war, Germany lost more equipment and people than in two years of war in Europe. However, our Army suffered even greater losses. Until December 1, 1941, losses in killed, missing and captured amounted to 7 million people, about 22 thousand tanks, up to 25 thousand aircraft. In the first months of the war, the country lost up to 40% of its economic potential.
The failures of the Red Army were due to the following reasons:
1. Miscalculation in determining the timing of a likely clash with Germany. Stalin was confident that the attack would occur no earlier than the end of spring 1942. By this time, it was planned to complete all preparations for war.
2. The main reason for the failures of K.A. at the beginning of the war there were unjustified repressions in the country. Only for 1937-1938. More than 40 thousand commanders and political workers were exterminated. In 1937-1940 out of 264 military leaders (from marshal to division commander), 220 were repressed, out of 108 representatives of the highest political composition of the Red Army - 99. The command and political composition of brigades and regiments were subjected to widespread repression.
3. Inability to organize available resources to repel the enemy.
4. K.A. was in a state of reorganization and rearmament. The reorientation of the defense industry towards the production of military equipment began belatedly. Stalin’s subjectivist assessments and incompetence in assessing the situation played an extremely negative role.
5. On the eve of the attack, the troops of the border military districts were not put on high alert. This allowed the enemy to easily win border battles and inflict heavy damage on K.A.
6. The construction of defensive lines on the new USSR border was not completed, and the fortifications on the old border were mostly dismantled.
7. It is also negative that the army and people were oriented toward an easy victory. They said that if there was a war, it would be fought on enemy territory and would end with little bloodshed.
However, Stalin considered the main reason for the retreat to be the betrayal of commanders and Red Army soldiers. On August 16, an order was issued for troops in the western direction. By this order, a large group of military specialists, heads of military production, and generals were arrested: People's Commissar of Armaments B.L. Vannikov, deputy. People's Commissar K.A. Meretskov, designer Taubin, more than 10 military generals. Many of them were shot on October 28, 1941 in Kuibyshev and Saratov.
12. Restructuring the life of the country on a military basis. 1941
On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was formed under the chairmanship of I.V. Stalin. All power was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee. Centralization became the main principle of leadership even more than before the war. All military organizational work has been seriously restructured, and has acquired enormous proportions:
1. In the first 7 days of the war alone, 5.3 million people were drafted into the army. A conscription was announced for 32 ages (from 1890 to 1922, the reserve was large 30 million).
2. The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command was created.
3. The institution of military commissars was introduced.
4. A system for training command personnel and reserve personnel has been created and established (universal compulsory military training has been introduced).
5. Military militia units from the people began to form.
6. The redistribution of communists from territorial to military party organizations began, and the conditions for admission to the party at the front were eased.
7. From the first days of the war, the organization of the partisan movement began behind enemy lines. There were 70 million people in the occupied territory. They behaved differently: some joined the partisans, and some went over to the side of the enemy. There were approximately the same number of both – about 1 million people. 500 thousand took part in the partisan movement in Ukraine, 400 thousand in Belarus. There were few partisans in the newly annexed (before the war) territories.
The country's economy was put on a war footing; its main directions were:
1. Redistribution of material and financial resources for the needs of the front.
2. Strengthening centralization in economic management.
3. Solving the problem of workers: legislative consolidation in production, mobilization on the labor front, attracting housewives, pensioners, teenagers (13-16 years old), canceling vacations and days off. The working day was 11 hours.
4. Tightening of sanctions for violation of labor discipline: for being late, from 3 months to 1 year in prison, for unauthorized leaving the enterprise from 6 to 8 years.
5. Taxes and loans were introduced, deposits were frozen, income tax was doubled, and a card system was introduced.
6. Churches and houses of worship have been opened, some clergy have been returned from the Gulag.
7. There was a relocation of industrial enterprises to the east. In July - November 1941 alone, 1,523 enterprises were evacuated to the east, incl. 28 in Tyumen. Production was established in the shortest possible time.
8. Party leadership of the national economy has sharply strengthened.
Within the country, the party and state leadership of the USSR focused on total mobilization and use of all available resources in order to repel aggression. In this regard, the USSR surpassed all other countries that participated in the Second World War. AKS demonstrated its advantages under extreme conditions of war. The Soviet government was able to determine the main directions of the people's activities. Even slogans were developed for each category of the population: for the army - fight to the last drop of blood; for the rear - everything for the front, everything for victory; for the occupied territories - the creation of a party-Komsomol underground and a partisan movement.
Hundreds and thousands of books and articles have been written about the initial period of the Great Patriotic War, films have been made, and many “copies” have been broken in various disputes. But there is still a question - how can this be? Why did the powerful Red Army, which, as it turned out in the last two decades, have a large number tanks, planes, could not stand on its borders and allowed the enemy to break through to Leningrad, to Moscow, to the Volga?
Anti-Stalinists have a simple answer: they say, the Stalinist regime is to blame for everything - it destroyed the best commanders, believed Hitler, did not trust intelligence, poorly prepared the army, etc. But archival documents and the latest research by Russian authors (for example, you can read the series “War and Us” ") they say the opposite: there was no accurate intelligence data, there was a huge amount of contradictory information; the army, economy, society were prepared for war for real (without concessions). The “purge” of the officer corps did not worsen the combat effectiveness of the country’s officer corps, but rather increased it; opportunists were repressed, drunkards were fired, and so on; real military leaders who had gone through combat school began to come to the fore - from a simple soldier to a division or corps commander. For example, you can read about this in Igor Pykhalov’s book “The Great Slandered War.”
In the field of diplomacy, the USSR also showed itself with the best side, having won a number of victories on the diplomatic (foreign policy) front: the issue of the security of Leningrad was resolved, the borders were significantly moved to the west, a number of their territories were returned, and time was gained for preparation. Militarily, the Red Army gained experience in fighting in Spain, Khasan, Khalkin-Gol, China, Poland, and in the war with Finland, despite all the cruelty of it, but without such a “school” one cannot learn to fight.
An interesting version was put forward by the writer Yuri Mukhin, he suggested that one of the main factors of the defeats initial period The war was the so-called “problem of the military class.” This is not a disease only of the Red Army, this problem originated in Russian Empire, passing by inheritance to the USSR, and then to Russian Federation. Its essence is this: after the nobles had the opportunity not to serve, or to serve immediately as an officer, the officer corps of the empire began to degenerate. Before this, commanders began their service from the very bottom (for example, Peter the Great forced the children of the aristocracy to serve as soldiers and sailors), so Suvorov, Kutuzov were “fathers” to their soldiers. They knew their psychology thoroughly, ate with them, slept with them, stood in the same formation, “did not bow to bullets,” they were an indisputable authority for the soldiers, they were loved, trusted in them and were ready to complete any task. After the liquidation of this system, a mass of inexperienced people, often opportunists and careerists, became officers. For them, the army was a place of “warm”, high-status life, a place to make a career. This was one of the main reasons for the defeat in Crimean War, when, behind the external splendor and window dressing, horrifying vices were revealed, when real heroes (such as Kornilov, Nakhimov, Istomin, hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers) died to correct the mistakes of others and prevent the collapse of the empire. This became the reason for the protracted Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, defeat in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905, failures in the First world war. And it became the cause of catastrophic failures in the Great Patriotic War. Mukhin names the main reasons as incompetence, cowardice, lack of will, and unprofessionalism of the senior command staff. And even outright betrayal. Thus, according to Yuri Mukhin, the command of the Western Military District (front) - Pavlov and K., simply allowed the forces stationed in the Central Strategic Direction to be destroyed. Opening the road to Smolensk and Moscow.
Yuri Mukhin
Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why the border guards were not prepared for the attack, the Baltic and Black Sea fleets were on alert, the Kiev Military District withstood the attack and even counterattacked, and a catastrophe occurred in Belarus.
But, apparently, still main reason the catastrophes of the initial period are the power of the blow. None of the armies existing at that time would have withstood it. To withstand such a blow, you had to be a Red Army model of 1944-1945. People, including a significant part of the commanders, did not have the psychological readiness to die, but not to retreat. Some (everyone knows the heroic example of the Brest Fortress, and there are many such examples) survived and fought until their last breath. And the majority, especially where there were no passionaries (in Russian, fierce, full of vitality) capable of leading and inspiring mortal combat, retreated and surrendered. Even from the columns being led into captivity, everything is clear - if there are no people who will lead the attack on the few escorts, the rest will simply go to the slaughter.
This confirms the complete superiority of the Wehrmacht in the main directions of attack - 3-5 times superiority in manpower and equipment.
It is also very important that Wehrmacht soldiers were already a fighting army, and not peaceful (like most of the Red Army), they have already “tasted blood” in Poland, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. They had psychological readiness kill, were absolutely sure that they were right– this is very important in battle, to be absolutely confident in your strength. They are the superior race, and against them are “subhuman orcs”, the program worked.
But soon the situation changed, their ancestral memory awakened in the Russians, they again became Warriors. The Russian people, Rus' cannot be defeated on their territory, in open battle, the Russian Spirit awakened, and all the lying programs of the Nazis could not withstand its blows.
Sources:
The Great Slandered War – 2. Under general ed.. A. Dyukova. M., 2008.
Isaev A. Antisuvorov. Ten myths of the Second World War. M. 2006.
Lebedintsev A.Z., Mukhin Yu.I. Fathers-commanders. M., 2004.
Mukhin Yu. If not for the generals! Problems of the military class. - M., 2006.
Mukhin Yu.I. Crusade to the East - M., 2004.
Pykhalov I. The Great Slandered War. M, 2006.
Human factor. Under general ed. Yu. I. Mukhina. M., 2003.
