The liberation of a number of countries in Europe and Asia from Nazi enslavement as a result of the victories of the Soviet Army and the establishment of a people's democratic system in these countries is an unforgettable page in world history, a natural manifestation of the international policy of the Soviet Union. “Having defeated and expelled the invaders from the territory of the liberated countries,” noted Marshal of the Soviet Union A. A. Grechko, “the Soviet Armed Forces at the same time helped many peoples of Europe and Asia get rid of corrupt reactionary regimes, take power into their own hands and take the path of democracy development" 1.
1 (The liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Second World War. M., 1974, p. 8.)
Reactionary US historians are spreading the far-fetched theory of “exporting revolution”, declaring that the Soviet Army entered the territory of the countries it liberated, allegedly against the will of their peoples, and maliciously distorting its relations with the local population.
The author of the theory of “export of revolution” belongs to Churchill, who many years ago introduced a “plot” into bourgeois propaganda about the so-called division of “spheres of influence” between England and the USSR in the Balkans. In various versions, speculation about this “partition” is repeated by many reactionary historians and memoirists. Ch. Bohlen also repeats them in his memoirs “Witness to History” and Ch. Mi in the book “Meeting in Potsdam.” They are also referred to by F. Lovenheim, H. Langley and M. Jonas in their comments on the documents of the secret correspondence between Roosevelt and Churchill 1 . The essence of the speculation is that Churchill, during a meeting with I.V. Stalin in October 1944, allegedly received consent from the Soviet leadership to divide the “spheres of influence” 2 .
1 (Roosevelt and Churchill. Their Secret Wartime Correspondence, p. 584.)
2 (S. Bohlen. Witness of History 1929 - 1969, p. 161 - 163; S. Mee. Meeting at Potsdam I, p. 118.)
What is the truth here and what is a lie?
It is worth recalling the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the version of the division of “spheres of influence” in the Balkans.
October 1944 Final defeat fascist Germany, squeezed in the grip of two fronts, remained a matter of time. The heroic Red Army, grinding the enemy's manpower and equipment in fierce battles, liberated the peoples of Europe from fascist slavery. Soviet troops completed the liberation of Romania, expelled the Nazis from the eastern regions of Poland, had already entered the territories of Bulgaria, Hungary, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and, relying on the help of the peoples of these countries, developed an offensive further to the West. As a result of the expulsion of the fascist occupiers and the growth of the democratic movement in the liberated countries of Europe, the revolutionary situation grew.
It was in this situation that W. Churchill flew to Moscow. The “Balkan strategy” of the Western allies was collapsing, the essence of which was to send the Anglo-American armies located in Italy through the Lublin Gap to the Balkans, to establish reactionary regimes in the Balkan countries with a pro-British and pro-American orientation. Churchill, wrote one of his ministers, Oliver Littleton, "emphatically drew attention to the advantages that could be obtained if Western allies, and not the Russians will liberate and occupy some capitals, such as Budapest, Prague, Vienna, Warsaw, which form part of the very foundation of the European order." 1 Recently a memorandum from one of the leading American diplomats, W. Bullitt, addressed to President Roosevelt was published in the United States , dated August 10, 1943, is further evidence of the existence of such plans. It said, in part: “Our political objectives require the presence of British and American forces in the Balkans and in Eastern and Central Europe.” - Bullitt continued, “there will be a defeat of Hitler’s Germany, the second will be the creation of an obstacle to the advance of the Red Army into Europe” 2.
1 (Quote by: V. G. Trukhanovsky. Winston Churchill. Political biography. M., 1968, p. 367.)
2 (Quote by: V. L. Israelyan. The contribution of Soviet diplomacy to great victory. - "New and Contemporary History", 1975, No. 3, p. 15.)
K. Greenfield believes that the initiative in developing the “Balkan version” of the strategy of the Western allies belonged to Roosevelt! In 1942, he “supported Churchill’s ardent aspirations” and ordered that the chiefs of staff explore the possibility of an offensive “in the direction of Sardinia, Sicily and other Balkan (emphasized “Balkan”) areas, including Turkish assistance to attack the German flank from the Black Sea.”1 .
1 (K. Greenfield. American Strategy in World War II: A Reconciliation, p. 17, 70.)
In October 1944, the real military-political situation no longer allowed us to count on the implementation of these plans. Then Churchill set himself the task of getting the Soviet Union to agree to some kind of “division of influence” in the Balkans, but, naturally, he was defeated. In his memoirs, Churchill retroactively tried to rehabilitate himself and attribute to the Soviet Union the very imperialist policy that the ruling circles of the Western powers sought to implement in relation to the Balkan countries.
Thus, under his pen, a version of the “division of influence” in the Balkans was born, which was taken up by many bourgeois historians.
An explanation of the meaning of the events is provided by the Soviet recording of the conversation between J.V. Stalin and W. Churchill on October 9, 1944, stored in the Archive Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. It records the following: “Churchill declares that he prepared a rather dirty and crude document on which shows the distribution of influence of the Soviet Union and Great Britain in Romania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria. The table was compiled by him in order to show what the British think on this issue."
The Soviet record confirms that Churchill did indeed put forward the idea of dividing certain countries into spheres of influence during these negotiations. As a result, it became completely clear to the Soviet government what the British ruling circles were striving for. However, Churchill's assertion that JV Stalin agreed to the division of spheres of influence is a fiction 1 .
1 (See "International Affairs", 1958, No. 8, pp. 72 - 83.)
Finally, convincing evidence refuting Churchill’s speculation was the recently declassified English recording of this conversation, which also confirms that I.V. Stalin did not give any consent to the partition proposed by Churchill 1 .
1 (Public Record Office. Prem 3.434/4, p. 6.)
Some American historians of the liberal-critical movement questioned both Churchill’s version and the reactionary historiography’s interpretation of the USSR’s policies in the countries liberated by the Soviet Army. In particular, G. Kolko points to the realism of Soviet policy. In his opinion, by October 1944 it was already quite clear that “the Soviet Union pursued a diverse policy in the countries of Eastern Europe, based on the specific political conditions that existed in each of these countries” 1 .
1 (Quote by: J. Siracusa. New Left Diplomatic Histories and Historians... p. 96.)
The documents, further, make it easy to establish that the Soviet government, sending its Armed Forces to liberate the countries of Europe and Asia, acted strictly in accordance with the norms of international law, provided enormous assistance to the peoples who rose up to fight German-Italian fascism and Japanese militarism 1 .
1 (For more information on this issue, see: The liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Second World War; S. S. Khromov, N. I. Shishov. Combat commonwealth of peoples in the fight against fascism. - "Questions of History", 1975, No. 5, pp. 3 - 21; M. I. Semiryaga. The great liberation mission of the Soviet Army and bourgeois falsifiers. Information bulletin of the Institute of Military History of the USSR Ministry of Defense M., 1970, pp. 39 - 53.)
The bourgeois version of the “export of revolution” is nothing more than a tribute to anti-Sovietism. V.I. Lenin pointed out: “Revolutions are not made to order, are not timed to coincide with one moment or another, but mature in the process of historical development and break out at a moment determined by a complex of a number of internal and external reasons" 1 .
1 V ( . I. Lenin. Full collection cit., vol. 36, p. 531.)
It is known that in a number of countries on whose territory Soviet troops were located (Norway, Denmark, Austria, Iran), the bourgeois system still dominates. It is obvious that in these countries at that time there were no internal prerequisites that would ensure the success of the revolution. At the same time, there were no Soviet troops in Albania, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Cuba, and yet a revolutionary coup took place there.
As for K. Howe, who categorically declares that “the Red Army used all its troops, weapons and material resources in order to establish Soviet power...”, 1 he should have inquired about the opinion of contemporaries of the events on this matter. The New York Herald Tribune published an article in June 1945 that said: “The Red Army actually turned out to be the army that liberated Europe and half the world in the sense that without this army and without those limitless sacrifices that the Russian people suffered, liberation from the cruel yoke of Nazism would simply be impossible."
1 (Q. Howe. Ashes of Victory, p. 294.)
1 (J. Toland. The Last 100 Days, p. 258, 557 etc. K. Ryan's book is almost entirely “dedicated” to slanderous accusations against the Soviet Army. last fight", which has already received due rebuff from Soviet historians. See D. Kraminov. Falsifiers. Who does Mr. Ryan want to please. - Pravda, July 10, 1966; I. Zaitsev. Mr. Ryan’s long lie. - “For abroad", No. 34 (323), August 19 - 26, 1966, pp. 19-20; War, history, ideology, pp. 164 - 166.)
But these accusations are misplaced. Soviet soldiers, brought up in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, never proceeded in their actions from a feeling of revenge either towards the German people or towards the peoples of the countries that acted as allies and satellites of Germany. The Communist Party and the Soviet government have repeatedly emphasized that the USSR is waging a war against German fascism, and not against the German people. In connection with the approach of Soviet troops to the borders of Germany on January 19, 1945, Supreme Commander-in-Chief J.V. Stalin demanded that cases of rude treatment be prevented to the German population 1 .
1 (See 50 years of the USSR Armed Forces, page 394.)
The Soviet Army entered German territory with the sole purpose of fulfilling the agreed decisions of the Allied powers, completing the defeat of Hitlerism and assisting the German people in getting rid of the fascist yoke and in building a new life on democratic principles. All actions of Soviet soldiers on German soil were imbued with the spirit of internationalism and exceptional humanity. Let's give an example. The Nazis, holding one of the residential buildings in Berlin, impeded the advance of our assault group. Nevertheless, the Soviet soldiers turned to the artillerymen and tankmen supporting them with a request not to destroy the house, since there were children and women in its lower floors and basements2. The nobility and humanism of the Soviet soldier is evidenced by the act of Nikolai Masalov, who, under heavy enemy fire, risking his own life, saved a German girl3. There were many such examples.
1 (See F. D. Vorobyov, I. V. Parotkin, A. N. Shimansky. The Last Assault, page 338.)
2 (Ibid., p. 339.)
K. Ryan, D. Toland and others declare that the German population was “panic afraid” of the Soviet Army, but they are silent that the unreasonable fear of the Soviet Army was whipped up by Goebbels propaganda, the fascist press and radio. They insisted that “falling into the hands of the Russians is worse than death itself.” Let us also recall that on April 28, on the orders of Hitler, the dams separating the Landwehr Canal from the metro tunnels were blown up in Berlin. Water began to flood the tunnels. This was a complete surprise for the Berliners, who were hiding in the tunnels from bombs, shells and bullets. Thousands of people, mainly children, women, old people and the wounded, drowned that day in the metro tunnels.
The Soviet Army treated the German population differently. Immediately after the announcement of Berlin's surrender, measures were taken to provide the population with food. Already on May 2, 1945, Soviet field kitchens were installed in many places in the city. From these, German children, women, old people and soldiers who surrendered received food. The four-year war, the atrocities that the Nazis committed on Soviet soil, did not cause the Soviet soldiers to become cruel and vindictive towards the German people.
The Soviet command took urgent measures to restore power plants, water supply, sewerage, and public transport in Berlin. By the beginning of June, the metro was already operating in the city, trams were running, and water, gas and electricity were supplied to houses. The care shown by the Soviet troops dispelled the dope of fascist propaganda. “We did not expect such generosity towards the German people,” said one German doctor shortly after the liberation of the city 1. A Berlin electrical worker, assessing the new situation in the city, said: “The nightmare weeks are behind us. The Nazis scared us that the Russians would send all Germans into eternal slavery in cold Siberia. Now we see that it was blatant lie" 2 .
1 (Quote by: F. D. Vorobyov, I. V. Parotkin, A. N. Shimansky. The Last Assault, page 376.)
2 (Right there.)
However, nothing is said about the generous assistance of the Soviet Army to the population of Berlin in the works of Toland, Sulzberger, Ryan and other bourgeois authors, although they like to refer to the “objectivity” of the material they present. Thus, Toland states that everything he wrote is based on the testimony of people with whom he personally talked. But even Brigadier General S. Marshall, who was not known for his sympathy for the Soviet Union, expressed doubts about the reliability of such testimony. “Towland places special emphasis on the testimony of participants and witnesses of events collected many years later,” writes Marshall in a review of Toland’s book “The Last 100 Days.” “Although this deserves all praise, such testimony, as all historians know, represents is an extremely unreliable material."3. In this case, S. Marshall correctly noted one of the features not only of D. Toland’s book, but also of the majority of American bourgeois literature about the armed struggle on the Soviet-German front - the falsified nature of the source base of this literature.
1 (S. Marshall. Gotterdammerung. - "The New York Times Book Review". February 3, 1966.)
The international feat of the Soviet Army brought it worldwide fame. The Soviet Armed Forces completely or partially liberated the territories of 13 countries in Europe and Asia with a population of about 200 million people. The losses of the Soviet Army in these battles amounted to over 3 million people, including more than a million killed.
The USSR, having fulfilled its international mission during the war years, then provided the peoples of these countries with comprehensive assistance in strengthening freedom and independence, protecting them from the counter-revolutionary machinations of international imperialism. “Whoever survived the Second World War and took part in the anti-fascist struggle,” said the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia G. Husak, “will never forget the exceptional role of the Soviet Union in the battle for the freedom of peoples, its sacrifices, the heroism of its people and army. He will not forget that this struggle and the sacrifices of the Soviet Union made it possible for many peoples to regain their national freedom and state independence, and also to begin the struggle for the victory of the working class, for the path to socialism" 1 . This is the truth of history.
1 (International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. Documents and materials. Moscow, June 5 - 17, 1969. M., 1969, pp. 180 - 181.)
downloaded a video for adults with a thematic description
Chapter 1.
Theoretical and methodological aspects of the problem
1.1. Liberation mission of the Red Army in 1944-1945.
as a historical phenomenon
TO Like the First World War, the Second World War was a war not only of armies, but also of states, countries and peoples, which was based on geopolitical goals - the global redistribution of spheres of influence and territories. At the same time, World War II is a unique war that has no analogues in human history. And not only in its scale and number of victims, but also in its essence and character. It was not only another struggle for the redivision of the world (now radical), not only for dominance in different regions of the globe, but also an uncompromising death struggle between three alternative world order projects, three irreconcilable ideologies, three that stood behind them and grew on their basis ( with all internal differences) political and state forms, three centers of power. One of them - conventionally “liberal democratic” (backed mainly by the Anglo-Saxon elites - Great Britain and the USA) - had a long history, the other two - left-radical (communist) and right-radical (Nazi and fascist) - ideologically originating in the 19th century ., received the opportunity for political implementation, finally took shape, acquired state forms and became centers of power in the interwar period, and it was the course, outcome and consequences of the First World War that were the historical impetus and context for the rise to power of the left (in Russia) and the right (in Italy , Germany, and a number of other countries) radicals.
The “democratic” (Anglo-Saxon at its core, “Atlantic”) West, which dragged the Russian Empire into the First World War and used it against the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, was the only one to receive an indisputable (albeit temporary) gain from the victory: Great Britain retained its colonial empire, and the United States, having thrown off the burden of debt to Europe, became a financial and economic giant, beginning for the first time to play an active role on the world stage as a great power. The Russian Empire and the empires of its opponents collapsed, burning in the “flames of revolution” and losing a significant part of the territories that fell under the direct or indirect control of the victors. Having suffered from liberalism and “democratic republicanism” after the overthrow of the monarchy, Russia, brought to economic collapse and the collapse of statehood, accepted left radicalism (Bolshevism) as a lesser evil, which turned out to be capable of reviving statehood and defeating all its opponents in the civil war, including foreign invaders, supported by the “opponents” of the Bolsheviks - from monarchists to “democrats”. Bolshevism itself fell ill with the idea of a “world proletarian revolution”, was largely able to “digest” its ideological basis - the Marxist doctrine, and the government in Russia, recreated in a “revolutionary synthesis” in the form of the USSR, began to revive and develop the country based on own strength, to the broadest segments of the population and in their interests.
Results of the First World War and the conditions established for the defeated post-war life meant that there was no lasting peace, but only some “respite.” This was obvious to all even competent politicians and analysts back in 1919. The national humiliation and ruin of Germany was fraught with the emergence of radical forces on the left and right sides of the political spectrum, the polarization of society, and the displacement of “centrists.” The left looked for a way out along the paths of the proletarian revolution, the right - along the paths of revanchism, which immediately manifested itself in the emergence of many radical nationalist groups. political organizations, most of whose activists were gradually absorbed by Hitler’s party, the NSDAP. The Great Depression, which hit the West in 1929, became a factor that radicalized German society, increasing its polarization, including the growing popularity of the Nazis, and at the same time frightening the bourgeois elite, who feared the coming to power of the left - the German communists. As a result, the National Socialists, led by Hitler, come to power, whose racist and expansionist doctrine suits both the German bourgeoisie and the leaders of “Western democracy” who dream of pitting a militarizing dictatorial Germany against communist Russia. Despite Hitler’s hatred of France, which humiliated Germany with the Treaty of Versailles, his main enemy is the USSR, and not only because communism is the ideological antipode of Nazism, but also because Russians, and indeed all Slavs in general, are considered by Nazi doctrine as an inferior race, and the territories inhabited by them - as a “living space” for the settlement of Aryans - the German nation. With the coming to power of Hitler, who proclaimed the task of creating the Third Reich and began the “rebirth of Germany” by persecuting any oppositionists and persecuting Jews, curtailing democracy and increased militarization, the rulers of the West, fearing the growing German power and at the same time trying to direct Nazi Germany to the East, pursued a policy of appeasement . But they miscalculated, and Austria, Czechoslovakia and Lithuania (Memel annexed) became victims of Hitler’s aggressive aspirations. Realizing the growing military threat from Germany, the USSR government persistently tried to create a system from 1935 collective security in Europe, but, not finding support from the “Western democracies” and trying to delay the inevitably approaching war, was forced to conclude a Non-Aggression Treaty with Germany on August 23, 1939. England and France, playing a dishonest game, ended up outplaying themselves: Hitler attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, thereby marking the (official) beginning of a new world war. Moreover, the day before, England and France concluded a mutual assistance agreement with Poland, which forced Hitler to postpone for 5 days, but not abandon the attack on it. And despite the fact that the Allies did not provide real help to the Poles, but waged a “strange war,” a big war began. Thus, Germany started the war not in the East, as British and French politicians had hoped, but in the West. It was the great powers of Europe who raised Hitler, allowing him to annex the demilitarized Rhineland, Anschluss Austria, occupy Czechoslovakia, and attack Poland with impunity. And soon they themselves found themselves victims of German aggression.
During September, Poland was defeated (the USSR entered the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus only on September 17, when Poland had actually been defeated, and these territories could have been occupied by the Germans; thereby not only reuniting relatives East Slavic peoples, but also moved the borders of the USSR to the west, improving its position in the light of the inevitably approaching war with Germany). The division of Poland involved Slovakia, part of whose lands had previously been annexed by Poland, and Lithuania, which received Vilnius. In April-May 1940, German troops occupied Norway, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium and broke through the front in France, which capitulated after occupying Paris in June. In the spring of 1941, Germany captured Greece and Yugoslavia, and on June 22 attacked the USSR.
The goal of this fascist German aggression was not simply to conquer and subjugate other states, but was fundamentally different. For the first time in modern history, one of the powers laid claim to world domination. Not just coalitions of states, but social models and ideologies came together in mortal combat. For the first time, one of the states declared the racial superiority of its nation, setting the task of not simply conquering foreign lands, but also the destruction of entire peoples as “racially inferior” and the slavish subordination of the remaining inhabitants of the conquered countries.
The revanchism of Germany, which was defeated in the First World War, was clothed in the idea of “living space for the German nation,” which became not just one of the pillars of ideology German Nazism, but also a strategic attitude of a political force that has set itself the goal of establishing a “new order” in Europe and in the world, building a hierarchy of states along racial lines, and turning the Germans into a “master race.” The crazy idea grew first into internal and then external political practice. With this idea, with the connivance of the “Western democracies,” Nazi Germany revived its military-industrial potential, tore up the Treaty of Versailles without encountering opposition, and launched an expansion that grew into a real war, in which the Germans easily conquered almost all of Europe. The behind-the-scenes games of the “democratic West,” which sought to avert the threat from itself and direct Hitler’s aggression against the USSR, turned into a disaster for Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, France, and a number of other countries, with a direct threat of a German invasion of the British Isles.
For Germany and other countries fascist bloc it was a war for world domination, a war not just of conquest, but a qualitatively new one in the history of mankind - a war for the reorganization of the world under the slogan of the Nazi “new order” under the hegemony of the Third Reich. The essence of the Nazi goals, for the sake of which they started the world war, was clearly reflected in Hitler's Mein Kampf. Hitler's Germany sought not just to conquer and subjugate a number of neighboring countries and peoples, which happened many times in both world and European history, but specifically to conquer “living space” for the German nation, and, on the basis of racial doctrine, “purify “by means of total genocide from “non-Aryan”, according to Nazi ideologists, “racially inferior” peoples. And on the way to this Nazi “ideal” - to the enslavement and use for many decades, in fact, as slaves of “subhumans” - first of all, the Slavs. At the center of the post-war world of victorious Nazism was supposed to be Germany, the Third Reich, the German nation of masters, which was supposed to include the Germanized “Aryan elements” of a number of other peoples, and the rest, surviving after systematic direct extermination, were supposed to be evicted far beyond the Reich, to create conditions for them for a “natural” population decline. But Hitler and whole line His henchmen were not happy with the state of the German nation, which, after the victory, was supposed to not only be cleared of “Jewish impurities” for the “purity of the race,” but also get rid of all “non-Aryan elements.” Moreover, Hitler, obsessed with mysticism, believed that the Germans of his time had lost their “energy potential,” and Nazi scientists conducted large-scale research and experiments to breed a new race — “supermen.” Thus, the Nazis had a not very clear, but monstrous and maniacally persistent strategy to remake humanity, in which their “new order” was only the initial stages. It is difficult to imagine what would have happened to Europe and its peoples (including the peoples of Germany’s satellite countries) in the event of Hitler’s victory in the World War, since in relation to many of them he expressed his contempt as non-Aryans who belonged to the lower classes. races, or “spoiled” (Italians, French, Romanians, etc., not to mention the Slavic ones), and they were needed while the war was going on. But even in war conditions, a gigantic machine for the systematic extermination of millions of people in concentration camps, which by May 1945 had crushed more than 8 million lives. If Hitler's Germany had won, and its resources had been freed from solving military problems, the mechanism for the reconstruction of Europe (primarily based on the extermination of peoples, mass migrations, “cleansing” of territories for the Third Reich, degradation of peoples for the prosperity of the Reich) would have worked at full power .
During their time in power in Germany, the Nazis developed a number of plans regarding the post-war reconstruction of Europe, and although they were not officially approved, a significant part of their elements began to be implemented during the war. For the USSR, a plan “Ost” (General Plan East) was prepared (developed with German care!), dooming its peoples to extermination, and the remaining people to a gradual resettlement beyond the Urals, to annual extinction and reduction by several million people, to the liquidation of cities and culture , education, health care, hygiene, that is, the reduction of the Russian and most other peoples from the level of high modern civilization to a state of savagery for the purpose of slave exploitation by the “Aryan race”. In the event of victory, which the Nazi elite had no doubt about, it was planned to gradually Germanize the western regions of the USSR with their subsequent inclusion in the Reich, the borders of which were supposed to expand as the German and Germanized population increased. The Nazi doctrine in practice turned into a total war against the Soviet peoples, primarily against the Russians, a war to destroy not only military force, but to an even greater extent civilians (primarily Jews and Gypsies were targeted for destruction, but in practice everyone was subjected to mass destruction Eastern Slavs - Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians; but if the concept of the Holocaust is “imprinted” into the modern world consciousness, then it is about the genocide of the Eastern Slavs carried out Nazi Germany, for some reason is almost not mentioned not only in world historiography and media, but also in domestic ones).
To a large extent, similar to the German Nazi “concept”, the policy of “co-prosperity” of peoples was implemented by Hitler’s allies, the Japanese militarists, in Asia, building a hierarchy of puppet quasi-states subordinate to Japan through military expansion, and in the course of armed aggression, carrying out genocide of a number of peoples, primarily Chinese and Korean.
The war of the Anglo-American allies of the USSR against Nazi Germany was just, because Germany was the aggressor. However, this justice was very limited: it was a war of competitors for key geopolitical positions, in the struggle for world hegemony. The Anglo-Saxons sought to at least maintain their dominant position in the world, and Great Britain wanted to prevent the collapse and division of its colonial empire , and the United States - to overcome the economic depression, get rid of huge debts and establish financial and economic dominance in the world. The defensive nature of the Anglo-Saxon war was very relative. Firstly, pursuing the traditional policy of “divide and conquer”, the policy of pitting the most powerful continental powers in Europe against each other, in the new historical conditions of the interwar period, the Anglo-Saxons actively contributed to the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany and militarism in Japan, tried to solve their own problems by cultivating and bringing to power in Germany radical revanchist forces led by Hitler, in order to further direct his aggression to the East, against the USSR - not only a growing geopolitical rival, but also an ideological adversary. Thus, the Western “democracies” not only wanted to avert the blow, but also to pit “two totalitarian regimes” against each other, so that they would weaken and destroy in battle, and their people (as some politicians were frank) would kill each other as much as possible. Secondly, even when the danger of German Nazism (especially in alliance with Italian fascism and other pro-fascist regimes in Europe and Japanese militarism in Asia) for the “Western democracies” was already becoming obvious, neither England, nor France, nor the USA stopped the assertion of revanchist forces in Germany and militaristic in Japan, when this was not at all difficult to do. Moreover, it was the policy of connivance with the aggressors that became the most important factor that determined the outbreak of the Second World War. Thirdly, with all the severity, risks and victims of the Second World War, for Great Britain and the USA it was mainly a war of armed forces against the military force of the enemy - the countries of the German-Japanese bloc. They conducted military operations on foreign territory, and no enemy soldier set foot on the British Isles (although they were bombed by German aircraft), and not a single enemy bomb fell on the continental United States of America (the most dramatic episode was the Japanese attack on the military naval base Pearl Harbor). The “price” of waging war, the sacrifices made during it for the “Western democracies” were incomparably small compared to the victims of both other objects of fascist aggression (USSR, China, Poland, Yugoslavia, etc.) and the countries that were the main opponents (Germany, Japan). The combined military casualties of the United States and Great Britain - less than half a million people, mostly military rather than civilians, seem negligible in comparison with 27 million Soviet and about 20 million Chinese losses - those countries that, unlike the Anglo-Saxons, were in no way involved in the outbreak new world carnage.
Our country was not yet ready for such a war, because we had to fight not against Germany alone, but actually against all of Europe. Trying to delay a direct confrontation with a powerful enemy, without finding understanding among the Western democracies that were playing their game, the Soviet leadership in the late 1930s. was forced to make temporary agreements with Germany. Thanks to this, it was possible to return part of the territories of the former Russian Empire, which otherwise, like Poland, would have been occupied by the Wehrmacht. By moving its borders to the west, the USSR significantly improved its military-strategic position, which played a significant positive role in the most difficult initial period of the war and allowed it to gain time.
But it was not possible to avoid the Nazi attack. Hitler, who underestimated neither the mobilization potential of the USSR nor the moral spirit of the Soviet people, who relied on the blitzkrieg, inciting interethnic, political, and social contradictions, began a bloody adventure that ultimately led not only to the collapse of the Nazi regime, but also to the national catastrophe of Germany. Without a declaration of war, German armed forces invaded Soviet territory. The previously invincible German military machine, overcoming the stubborn resistance of Soviet troops, moved east.
The Soviet Union was one of the main participants in the Second World War, and therefore its general parameters were also characteristic of it. However, the war waged by the USSR was fundamentally different in its essence and character from the war waged by other countries participating in World War II, even by its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. The stakes in that war for Western countries were qualitatively different than for Slavic peoples and even more so for the peoples of the USSR: for German racists, the Anglo-Saxons were still “theirs,” and even in case of defeat, they only risked the loss of dominance in the world and the loss of “Western democracy” (more of a propaganda decoration than a social reality), but not at all right to life.
For the USSR the situation was fundamentally different. This was clearly understood by the Soviet leadership and expressed by I.V. Stalin in his speech on July 3, 1941: “The matter is... about the life and death of the Soviet state, about the life and death of the peoples of the USSR, about whether the peoples of the Soviet Union should be free or fall into enslavement” (1). It was no coincidence that his participation in the World War received the name and entered into the historical consciousness of our compatriots as the Great Patriotic War, which, of course, cannot be considered in isolation from the Second World War: the Patriotic War became a natural consequence of the incitement and unfolding of the world conflict, subjugation by Nazi Germany (by means of ideological and diplomatic expansion, and then by direct military force) throughout almost all of Western, Northern, Southern and Central Europe. Then Hitler attacked the USSR, and not just a defensive war of the Soviet people against another aggressor began (of which there were many in the history of our country), but a life-and-death struggle of Russian civilization against the invasion of the forces of almost all of Europe. The question was stark - who will win, and if for Germany defeat threatened only a change in the regime of power, Nazi (and racist) ideology, the loss of some territories and reparations that would not compensate for even a small part of the damage caused, for the Anglo-Saxons - the loss of world hegemony and “democratic values” when being integrated into the Nazi “new world order” on completely privileged terms (as their own, “Aryan” peoples, especially since racism arose in the depths of the English colonial culture, which glorified the “white man’s burden”, and German Nazis were just students of social Darwinists and eugenicists), then for the USSR defeat threatened the loss of a thousand years of Russian statehood, genocide of a number of peoples, enslavement in literally words, reducing the rest of the population to the state of “subhumans”.
In addition to the fate of the war that had begun, in which the question of “to be or not to be” was decided, not only Soviet state, but also to its peoples, the leaders of the Soviet Union immediately understood its nationwide and domestic character. Already on June 22, who gave a speech on behalf of the Soviet leadership, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov drew parallels with the liberation Patriotic War of 1812, emphasized the justice of the war on the Soviet side and confidence in the victory of the USSR, saying: “The Red Army and all our people will again wage a victorious patriotic war for the Motherland, for honor, for freedom. Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours” (2). July 3, 1941 in an address by I.V. Stalin to the Soviet people called this war not ordinary, but great, after which its official name “Great Patriotic War” was established: “The war with Nazi Germany cannot be considered an ordinary war. It is not only a war between two armies. At the same time, it is a great war of the entire Soviet people against the Nazi troops" (3)
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It was a war of a country - a victim of aggression from almost all the countries of Europe, either united by Nazi Germany or already conquered by it. It was here, in the East of Europe, that the Nazis were looking for “living space for the German nation,” and only the USSR - both in its potential and in its determination to fight to the death - in 1941 represented the only real obstacle to Hitler’s path to world domination. Insular Great Britain, although it could not be immediately occupied by the Wehrmacht, no longer posed a serious threat to the Third Reich, and the United States overseas was busy with the war with militaristic Japan. And the outcome of the world war was decided in the confrontation between the USSR and the Third Reich, which became fatal for the aggressors: it was the Eastern Front that was the main theater of military operations for Nazi Germany and its satellites, where ¾ of their divisions and military-economic potential were ground up. Of the ten German soldiers killed, eight were destroyed on the Soviet-German front. Finally, it was the victorious completion of the Great Patriotic War with the fulfillment of the Red Army's Liberation Mission in Europe that put an end to the war on the European continent and predetermined the early conclusion of the Second World War in the Far East against militaristic Japan. That is, the contribution of the USSR to the Victory over the forces of the brown plague was certainly decisive.
Not only for the USSR, as the historical state form of Russian civilization, but also for the Russian people and other peoples who entered its civilizational orbit, the Great Patriotic War was a fateful war, on the outcome of which their freedom and very existence depended, a just war - defensive and liberating . Therefore, it is quite legitimate to talk about the Liberation Mission of the Red Army not only from the moment when it entered the territories of other countries in 1944, but also from the very beginning of the war - from the moment of the treacherous attack of the enemy on June 22, 1941, because the Soviet people had to first to free ourselves from aggression and occupation by an enemy superior in military potential, preparedness, organized military force and military art. But from the very first days the USSR’s struggle for its freedom was connected with helping other peoples in their liberation from Nazi enslavement. On June 22, in the already quoted speech by V.M. Molotov spoke of a clique of “bloodthirsty fascist rulers of Germany who enslaved the French, Czechs, Poles, Serbs, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece and other peoples” (4), which imposed war by attacking the USSR. And on July 3, 1941, in his speech, Stalin for the first time made a connection between the Patriotic War of the Soviet people for the liberation of their country with the help of other peoples who became victims of German aggression: “The purpose of this nationwide Patriotic War against the fascist oppressors is not only the elimination of the danger hanging over our country , but also help to all the peoples of Europe groaning under the yoke of German fascism. ... In this great war we will have faithful allies in the people of Europe and America. Our war for the freedom of our Fatherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for democratic freedoms. This will be a united front of peoples standing for freedom, against enslavement and the threat of enslavement from fascist armies Hitler" (5)
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But victory was still very far away, the path to it was long and difficult. The outbreak of war revealed considerable problems and miscalculations in the USSR's preparations for war: in providing troops with weapons and military equipment, in strategic planning, and in command and control. Having received the resources of European countries and the combat experience of European campaigns, the Wehrmacht seized the strategic initiative and, despite major defeats (in the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, etc.), owned it until 1943. Believed in quick victory Hitler, who had no doubt that Russia would be broken, miscalculated: neither the treacherous surprise of the attack, nor the temporary military-technical and organizational superiority, nor the criminal barbaric cruelty of the Nazis helped them. Despite everything, the Soviet people survived.
But ahead - from the moment of the fascist attack until the Victory - there were almost four long years of difficult confrontation with a powerful, unprecedentedly cruel, merciless enemy, which required the exertion of all forces to grind countless fascist divisions into bloody battles and battles. The war, unprecedented in history, just, defensive and liberating for the Soviet people, against the hordes of Nazi Germany and its satellites lasted 1418 days and nights. It will forever remain for our compatriots the Great Patriotic War, every day of which was filled with the inhumanity and extreme cruelty of the enemy, the unprecedented scale of destruction on our land, the pain of irreparable losses, the unparalleled courage and mass heroism of Soviet soldiers at the front and the dedication of home front workers. On March 27, 1944, Soviet troops for the first time reached the state border of the USSR in one of the sectors, crossed the Prut River and entered foreign, Romanian territory, but only by mid-1944 were they able to finally clear all their lands from the occupiers. The liberation mission of the Red Army on its own Soviet soil was carried out, but this was only its first part, the most important for the peoples of the USSR, but not the only one necessary to end the war.
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Having experienced the bitterness of retreats and defeats at the beginning of the war, hundreds of Wehrmacht divisions and satellite armies were ground in defensive and offensive battles III Reich, without waiting for the opening of the Second Front in the most difficult periods for itself, the Red Army, having liberated its temporarily occupied territory, reached the western borders with other states in order to begin a military campaign across the countries of Europe and then finish off the fascist beast in its lair, in Germany .The second part of the great Liberation mission of the Red Army began - the liberation of Europe.
Today, sometimes even domestic historians pose a question that at the end of World War II was unthinkable for our compatriots and, in principle, could not be asked by our allies: did the Red Army need to cross the state border of the USSR and go to Europe?
However, to achieve victory it was necessary to completely destroy the enemy’s armed forces, withdraw Germany’s allies from the war, liberate Nazi-occupied Europe and occupy the territory of the main enemy - the Third Reich, achieving its unconditional surrender. Without the complete and final destruction of the military power of Nazi Germany and its satellites, there could be no victory: the enemy still had enormous military-economic and mobilization potential; he could regroup his forces and then continue the war against the USSR. We must not forget about the race in the military-technical sphere: the German Nazis accelerated the development of both the latest “conventional” weapons (airplanes, tanks, etc.) and “miracle weapons” - primarily missile and nuclear weapons, achieving impressive successes . Therefore, time could work in Germany’s favor against the USSR. No less important was the problem of the USSR’s allies, who were very unreliable: intelligence reported to the Soviet leadership that Western “partners” were attempting secret contacts with representatives of the highest circles of the Reich, who were ready to conclude a separate peace with the West, including under the condition of eliminating Hitler. In particular, the attempted coup in Germany undertaken by its elite in 1944 (Staufenberg’s attempt on Hitler’s life with the participation of a significant part of the generals, the leadership of the Abwehr, etc. in the conspiracy) if successful, threatened the Soviet side with the implementation of a scenario in which Germany without Hitler could unite against the USSR with the “Western democracies”. But even without this last resort Influential circles among the allies sought to return the geopolitical situation (the borders of the USSR and the spread of its influence in Europe) to the state of 1939, or, in extreme cases, 1941.
Stalin and the Soviet leadership, on the contrary, proceeded from historical experience (aggression in recent centuries has always come from the West). The USSR sought to secure its western borders and rid the country of war for at least half a century, which could be done provided there was a belt of friendly or at least neutral states. In any case, there is no “vacuum of power” in politics, and if Soviet troops had not entered Eastern and Central Europe, the British and Americans would have done so. Soviet diplomacy at the highest level had to make enormous efforts to agree with the United States and Great Britain on the division of spheres of influence so that the Eastern European countries were in the zone Soviet control. Accordingly, these countries became objects of liberation operations of the Red Army. But even after these agreements in Tehran and Yalta, the Western allies tried to intrigue, pushing their scenario of ousting the USSR from Eastern Europe through attempts to restore the pre-war regimes (provocations with the unprepared and doomed to defeat Warsaw and Slovak uprisings at the command of the emigrant governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia, attempts to introduce their own troops to Bulgaria, etc.). At the same time, the “democratic West” saved the lives of its citizens (including by delaying the opening of the Second Front), preferring to pay for the crushing of Nazism with the lives of Soviet soldiers, but wanted to keep the fruits of victories for themselves. However, at the end of the war, the Reich leadership concentrated enormous manpower and equipment in Germany itself and surrounding countries (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia): the front narrowed and the density of weapons, manpower and military equipment (artillery, tanks, aircraft) per kilometer of the front increased several times. Therefore, even after the landing of troops in Normandy and their advance towards Germany, the allies understood that without the Red Army, the cost of defeating the enemy would be prohibitive, if, in principle, victory was possible.
So the reasons liberation campaign of the Red Army in Europe are quite obvious, and the main one among them is the need for the complete and final defeat and destruction of the enemy’s armed forces with the occupation of his own territory (this is the ABC military theory and world historical military practice). And on the way to this goal there were both states - satellites of the Nazis (Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, etc.), which needed to be withdrawn from the war, and the countries occupied by them (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc.), and in In all these countries there were significant or huge contingents of German troops present, as the Germans tried to defend Germany on the distant approaches to its territory. Thus, the German troops offered the most fierce resistance on the territory of Hungary (together with the Hungarian troops), and the battles with those who did not surrender by German units in Czechoslovakia they continued for a long time, even after the official surrender, until May 12-13.
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1. Truth. 1941. July 3.
2. News. 1941. June 24. No. 147 (7523)
3. Truth. 1941. July 3.
4. News. 1941. June 24. No. 147 (7523)
5. Truth. 1941. July 3.
Speech at a round table at the Institute of Russian History (IRI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War on the topic “The liberation mission of the Red Army in Europe in 1944-1945: historical realities and historical memory”
Vladimir Pavlenko
As a result of the Second World War, a certain European and global architecture emerged. Countries exempt from Nazi invaders The Red Army stopped following the anti-Soviet policies of the West. The “cordon sanitaire” of the Black Sea-Baltic Intermarium strategy, which was implemented by Polish intelligence under British leadership, collapsed. It was in its depths that the corresponding anti-Soviet plan “Prometheus” was developed.
After 1945, Russia, in the form of the USSR, acquired not only geopolitical, but also civilizational influence in eastern Europe. It was based not on force, but on the unconditional authority of the country that defeated fascism and liberated the peoples of Europe from it. And unlike the Western powers, it did not have a hand in the emergence of the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini.
But as long as the memory of the war was alive, the USSR remained a natural attractor for Eastern European countries that feared the revival of Germany. And it is no coincidence: as soon as it united in 1990, the same things began to happen in Europe as three quarters of a century ago, for example, the collapse of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It is indicative: the authorities of the united Germany acted according to Hitler’s patterns, relying on Slovaks and Catholic Croats, opposed to the Czechs and Orthodox Serbs.
I would like to emphasize: carrying out a liberation mission and consolidating its results are far from the same thing. Where this was possible, the imperial model worked interethnic relations. The formula “The indestructible Union of free republics / Great Rus' united forever...” turned out to be effective not only in the USSR, but also in the Warsaw Pact and CMEA countries.
The strategic depth of Stalin’s ideas about the unification of Europe and Asia into a single Eurasia under Soviet leadership and the displacement of the maritime Anglo-Saxon powers to the periphery of global politics was clearly manifested in a number of telling episodes:
“The Russian and German peoples, who suffered the most significant losses in the Second World War, have proven their ability for historical action like no other,” said the congratulatory telegram Soviet leader heads East Germany Wilhelm Pieck and Walter Ulbricht in connection with the formation of the GDR in October 1949;
Another example: at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, one of the members of the American delegation, intending to flatter Stalin, told him that he was “glad to see Soviet troops in the center of Europe.” And in response he received from the leader the famous aphorism that “Tsar Alexander reached Paris.”
I note that in the Far East, too, the Soviet liberation mission was focused on displacing American influence beyond the Eurasian continent.
It is legitimate to assert that with the help of the GDR and the Asian countries allied with the USSR, J.V. Stalin built the Eurasian axis, which was projected for the entire continental Europe, all the way to France. The axis, which was subsequently distorted beyond recognition, was limited to Europe and called “Paris - Berlin - Moscow”. They just proclaimed its center not Russia, but NATO Germany, and included in this project a content opposite to Stalin’s. As a result, this continental axis turned into a myth, which, in turn, hid the belonging of this project to another, the Atlantic axis “Washington - London - Berlin”.
Unfortunately, in the late USSR there were many of its adherents, who perfectly understood the scale of the perversion of I.V. Stalin’s plans. But ideological omnivorousness and the desire to “be one of our own” in the West outweighed national interests THE USSR. The course towards the entry of its “Slavic core” into Atlanticist Europe, which undermined not only the class, but also the civilizational foundations of the Soviet project, continued even when it became clear complete collapse. Namely: after the deployment in Europe of American medium-range nuclear missiles - Pershings and Tomahawks - in 1982.
It was within the framework of this course that preparations were made for the inclusion of the USSR in the notorious “Euro-Atlantic”, for example:
Construction of oil and gas pipelines to Europe, which put the Soviet economy on the “oil needle”;
The participation of Soviet intellectuals in the work of the Club of Rome and its institutions, which was supervised by academician Jermain Gvishiani and protected by his high-ranking father-in-law A. N. Kosygin;
Inclusion of the USSR and socialist countries in the creation and work of the International Institute of Applied Sciences systems research(IIASA) in Vienna and the Vienna Council, which laid the foundation for “convergence” with the West on its terms;
The establishment under Yu. V. Andropov of the secret Commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee on economic reform(N.A. Tikhonov - N.I. Ryzhkov - D.M. Gvishiani - S.S. Shatalin). The entire future Gaidar team was included in it; The implemented developments were subsequently used during Gorbachev’s “perestroika” and Yeltsin’s “reforms”.
A separate topic was the creation of a total commodity shortage in the country and, thanks to it, the inculcation of the cult of petty-bourgeois consumerism. In the book by A. A. Sazonov, at that time deputy head of the Office of the President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev, “Who destroyed the USSR and how? Archive documents”, provides a transcript of the conference of the Moscow Association of Voters (MOI), held on September 16-18, 1989 at the Moscow Energy Institute (MPEI). Here is a fragment from Gabriel Popov’s speech: “To achieve general popular indignation, bring the trading system to such a state that it is impossible to acquire anything. In this way it is possible to achieve general strikes of workers in Moscow. Then introduce a full card system. The remaining goods (from the cards) should be sold at arbitrary prices” (M., 2010, pp. 45-46).
Such relapses have not yet been eliminated. Mention of the “Euro-Atlantic”, for example, is contained in the current version of the 2013 Russian Foreign Policy Concept.
As we see, late Soviet elite, like the tsarist one, not to mention the post-Soviet one, not only allowed itself to be drawn in, but also actively participated in establishing direct non-state ties with the elites of the West.
But it must be said that Washington and London themselves tried to gain a foothold in the Western European and Japanese-Korean bridgeheads, turning them not only into potential theaters of military operations (TVD), but also into civilizational fault lines that separated the West from the East. It is with this that the current dominance of the Anglo-Saxon subcivilization over the Romano-Germanic subcivilization within the West itself is connected, as well as the pro-Western degeneration of the civilizations of the East, primarily Japan and South Korea.
In accordance with the postulates of Halford Mackinder, the founder of classical maritime Anglo-Saxon geopolitics, Europe, this small peninsula-appendix of the vast Eurasia:
On the one hand, it was declared a stronghold of the “civilized sea” against the “land Asian”. Having consolidated the “old” Europe with the help of the “Marshall Plan” and NATO, the Anglo-Saxons set a course for its unification with the “new”. Part of this course was the reorganization of the LIBERATION mission of our army into an OCCUPATIONAL one;
On the other hand, it has been proposed that "the tail-peninsula wags the continent-dog." For this reason, they launched the idea of Russia’s alleged belonging to Europe, which was readily taken up by our liberal intellectual “fifth column”. Towards civilization, or rather ANTI-CIVILIZATION, which exchanged the birthright of Christian identity for the “lentil stew” of an Anglo-Saxon vassal.
I don't have time to go into details. Therefore, I will limit myself to stating that the basic principle of controlled global transformations is REGIONALISM.
Specialists in the field of global studies are well aware of two phenomena. One of them - “glocalization” - means the erosion of states and the transfer of their powers upward - to transnational and global structures and downwards - to local ones: regional and local. The second - "phragmegration" - connects the fragmentation of religious, cultural, historical and social identities with the integration of their economies.
In evolutionary form, these phenomena are represented by the controlled crisis strategy of “new assembly” of the liberated historical roots humanity, which is being implemented in Europe. This is the concept and practice of “Euroregionalization” - as a tool for fragmenting and reorienting autochthonous identities into European Union. It is implemented by the Council of Europe and has acquired dozens of official institutions - from PACE to the EU Committee of the Regions.
The revolutionary form is used in the Near and Middle East: American plan“Greater Middle East”, based on the concept of chaos management - the so-called “self-organizing criticality”; for applied purposes it was developed by the Complexity Institute in Santa Fe.
In the form of war, as a concept and strategy of the “caliphate,” the combination of the phenomena of “glocalization” and “fragmegration” is tested and honed with the help of Islamic fundamentalism, for example, the ideology and militants of the Islamic State (Iraq and Levant) group.
Currently, these three forms - controlled crisis, revolution, war - are united in the already proclaimed and implemented American project of the “Black Sea Theater of Operations,” which integrates events in Ukraine and the eastern Mediterranean into a single whole, connecting them with common strategic planning and management.
This is already a kind of “double Intermarium”, with a purely anti-Russian orientation. In words, a new line of containment for our country is drawn along the Warsaw-Bucharest-Baku line, but in fact it runs through Ukraine, Dagestan and Uzbekistan.
It is very important that all models for reforming the UN Security Council are built in strict accordance with the principle of regionalism. In them, Russia is not assigned the independent role of the main winner of fascism, but a subordinate one - a modest participant in the European regional group. It is not always included in influential global institutions, where permanent members of the UN Security Council are not endowed with exclusive status and veto rights.
Thus, the trans-regional “Great Game”, which the British Empire waged against the Russian Empire in the 19th century, resumed in the second half of the 20th century already in on a global scale, but now between the USA and the USSR. Outside of Europe, the “anaconda” strategy was used for this - the invention of another Western geopolitician, the American Admiral Alfred Mahan, which consisted of enveloping the USSR, more precisely, the Russian people from the south and displacing and strangling them in the “uninhabitable” northern latitudes.
In addition to the power confrontation, the West opened new front- information and psychological warfare for images, models and meanings of the past, present and future.
Due to lack of time, I will not focus on the main “layouts” that formed the disposition of this front. In particular, on the “long telegram” of the founder of Cold War ideology, George Kennan, which is well known to international relations specialists. Winston Churchill's Fulton speech, delivered in the presence of US President Harry Truman two weeks after this telegram, on March 5, 1946, obviously followed from it.
It is in this sense that one should consider the substitution of concepts, the essence of which was not recognized by Soviet ideologists (and what kind of ideologist was the Trotskyist Khrushchev!). The highest in terms of meaning, the genuine, metaphysical confrontation of the Great Patriotic War is the Third Rome against the Third Reich (Divine light against the eternal darkness), which objectively put the absolute majority of humanity on the Soviet side, leaving the Western elites and, to a much lesser extent, Western elites on the other side. the peoples, a significant part of which also sided with the USSR in this struggle, were replaced by ANOTHER, false confrontation.
The high transcendental, metaphysical meaning was vulgarly discarded, reducing it to the immanent, ontological formula of the “worldwide transition from totalitarianism to democracy.” And Khrushchev’s ideological apparatus bought into this, putting forward a counter formula of “a worldwide transition from capitalism to socialism.” For this purpose, in the Third Party Program the concept of “world revolution” was essentially revived, only in the “tolerant” form of the “world revolutionary process”.
As a result, from the Third Rome - Catechon, the force that “keeps” humanity from universal catastrophe, the USSR in the eyes of surrounding nations turned into one of the contenders for world domination, only less predictable and, most importantly, less financially wealthy than the usual bourgeois West.
This is precisely what undermined trust in Moscow, and with it the formation of not even a civilizational, but a supra-civilizational unity of the peoples of the socialist countries, which constituted a real GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE to the Western world order. Everything that was connected with the notorious “Brezhnev Doctrine” flowed only from this, acting as a catalyst for increasing mistrust, which turned into a civilizational breakdown, rupture and disintegration.
In the 21st century, this next, already “supernova”, edition of the “Great Game” acquired the outlines and scale of the second round of the Cold War.
The main consequence is the return of dividing lines and borders to Europe. Before our eyes, the formation of a new “Iron Curtain”, a new “Berlin Wall” is taking place. And its movement to the Baltic states, to Ukraine and Belarus, and further to Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus.
This “wall” is endowed with a value-based, system-forming meaning and also exploits the crisis of our own identity. “We used to go to Moscow to touch the treasury of world Russian culture - Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky. Now - for a textbook on marketing, published in London. So isn’t it better to learn English and read it in the original if Russia has ceased to be interested in its own classics?” - one Central Asian professor once asked such a bitter but fair question.
This is the most innocent question, there are others, more serious and painful:
Who are our heroes - still Stakhanov, Sailors and Gagarin? Or already Abramovich, Urgant and Kushchevsky Tsapok?;
Is Moscow still the Third Rome? Or “the city of the yellow devil”? (blame, “world financial center”). Etc.
As a result, having begun to return to the path of sovereign politics, we today find ourselves no longer the center, but only a “sideline” (at least not a “ditch”) of a new GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE, which is being formed within the framework of the BRICS and SCO associations - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-system typology, it is the “semi-periphery” of this alternative.
On the one hand, Russia cannot yet objectively lay claim to more. Obstacles:
Deideologization and deconsolidation of society (the consolidation that exists is not fundamental - ideological, but situational, personalistic in nature),
A gigantic value gap between the individualized-consumer elite and society, which remains predominantly in the Soviet collectivist paradigm, although in some places it slides into cave “swamp” nationalism,
Preservation of representatives of the comprador “fifth column” in leading positions and positions in the economic, political and information spheres, institutions and structures of state and corporate governance.
On the other hand, and here I turn to the concept of WORLD-PROJECT COMPETITION by Sergei Kurginyan, as well as to the theory of GLOBAL PROJECTS by Mikhail Khazin, one can hopelessly oversleep one’s place in such competition. And lose the future: according to Arnold Toynbee’s typology, world history includes at least 21 civilizations, of which only less than a dozen are active.
The new LIBERATION MISSION, as during the Great Patriotic War, must acquire a PROJECT character. And it starts with the internal cleansing of the country from the alliance of liberal and “diminutive-nationalist” comprador occupiers. Only after this can it be carried first within the boundaries of the former USSR, and then beyond its borders.
God grant that this new October turns out to be a conservative revolution from above. Because there is simply no alternative compatible with the survival of the country! Life will either force you to move in this direction or harshly punish you for procrastination, and even more so for refusing to follow it.
Pavlenko Vladimir Borisovich- Doctor of Political Science, full member of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems.
With the expulsion of the enemy from the country, that stage of the struggle, which can rightfully be called the Great Patriotic War, essentially ended. In 1812, the Patriotic War ended with the expulsion of Napoleon from Russia, although there was still a long way to go before his final defeat. Of course, the difference was significant: for the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens, the continuation of the war outside the country was inseparable from its general. The circumstances were such that without the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, it was impossible to even think about ending the Second World War. “Finish off the fascist beast in its lair,” such was the public mood. Front road signs measured how many kilometers remained to Berlin, although in the summer of 1944 most of the countries of Eastern, Southern and Western Europe were still under the heel of Hitler's Reich.
The tasks of the powers of the anti-Hitler coalition included not only the liberation of these countries from Nazi tyranny, but also overthrow of one of the most aggressive, cruel and bloody regimes in world history, changing the post-war political map.
For the time being, the common interest of the Allies in the defeat of Germany and its satellites was stronger than the clash of their interests. Hitler's leadership It was in vain that he hoped that he would be able to play on inter-allied contradictions and thus stay in power. In this scenario of events, the attempts of part of the German generals, who realized the inevitability of defeat, to dissociate themselves from Hitler and, by eliminating him, change the fate of Germany, were doomed. The Nazi machine, despite the growing discontent and resistance in the country, firmly controlled German society.
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Staufenberg, representing a group of radical officers of the German army, organized an assassination attempt on Hitler, which ended in failure. However, even if it had succeeded, it would most likely have led to the nomination of a new Nazi Fuhrer. The events that followed the assassination attempt, the discovery of the entire network of conspirators, mass arrests and executions testify in favor of this option.
The question of the liberation mission of the Red Army
In Soviet historiography, the war outside the borders of the Soviet Union was called the fulfillment of the liberation mission of the Red Army. Such a mission cannot be denied. Soviet soldiers went to Europe not to conquer it, but to quickly defeat the enemy and end the war. At the same time, it would be natural to believe that the Stalinist leadership would try to impose its will and its order on the bayonets of the Red Army, regardless of the desire of the citizens of the liberated countries to choose one or another path of socio-economic and political development. The closer victory became, the more obvious this tendency was expressed and the sharper the contradictions between
The USSR and the Western powers, also, by the way, were not sinless in their desire to take advantage of the fruits of victory.
The duality that was inherent in the “liberation mission of the Red Army” from the very beginning largely determined the attitude towards it in post-war Europe, which makes it possible to understand why today they prefer not to talk about it, and in some places they overthrow and desecrate “monuments to Soviet liberating soldiers ".
Warsaw Uprising
Perhaps for the first time, the quite acute contradictions inherent in Stalin’s policies were revealed in connection with the history of the Warsaw Uprising. In the summer of 1944, the territory of Poland east of the Vistula was liberated from the Nazis. Starring Soviet partisans detachments of the Guard or the Army of Ludova were created. At the same time, a large underground armed organization was operating in the occupied territory of Poland - the Home Army, led by the exile government in London, with which the Kremlin clearly did not have good relations. On July 21, the Soviet Union announced the creation of the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PKNO), known as the "Lublin Committee" - in fact, an alternative communist government of Poland. These political games turned out to be a great tragedy for the Polish people.
As the Soviet fronts approached Warsaw, the Polish government in London and the commander of the Home Army, General Bur-Komorowski, incited by the British, decided to raise an armed uprising in Warsaw. If it were successful, the Red Army troops that entered the Polish capital would have to deal with the only legitimate and recognized government of Poland, its administration and armed forces.
From the point of view of the military-strategic situation, the moment for the uprising was chosen poorly. The Soviet offensive in Belarus was nearing completion. Most of the formations were extremely exhausted and needed rest and replenishment with people and equipment. Moreover, to repel the attacks of the Soviet troops, the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Model, managed to gather all the forces that could be used in the Vistula region. The attack of the 1st Belorussian Front southeast of Warsaw was repulsed, and the tank corps that broke through to the Warsaw bridgehead was surrounded and destroyed. This allowed the German command to concentrate large forces in Warsaw itself and around it.
The fact that the uprising was launched without his consent allowed Stalin to regard it as an adventure. However, it was impossible to completely stay away from him, since he participated in the fight wide range Polish patriotic forces. In addition, the allies constantly made persistent requests for help to the rebels. During August - September, the Soviet fronts, albeit with weakened forces, attempted to go on the offensive in Belarus and Poland, which, however, did not give significant success and only led to additional casualties. Nevertheless, on September 14, the troops of the 1st Belorussian Front managed to capture Prague, a suburb of Warsaw, and establish contact with the rebels. The 1st Army of the Polish Army began crossing the Vistula and captured a number of bridgeheads in Warsaw itself. But it turned out to be impossible to hold on to them. A few days later, under the attacks of the 9th German Army, they had to be abandoned, and with heavy losses. The Germans, however, needed several more days of brutal and stubborn fighting before the last pockets of resistance were suppressed in the city. On October 2, the Warsaw insurgents, having lost all hope of outside help, surrendered.
Iasi-Kishinev operation
Soviet military leadership adhered to a strategy of consistently striking at the weakest areas German front and was not going to radically change it not in its own interests. In August 1944, favorable conditions developed for the Red Army to advance in the south. Hitler's command noticeably weakened the Army Group "Southern Ukraine", transferring 12 divisions from it to other sectors, primarily to Belarus. On August 20, troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts in the area of Chisinau and Iasi broke through the enemy’s defenses. Pressed to the sea, the 3rd Romanian Army ceased resistance. The main forces of the 6th German Army, facing the threat of encirclement, desperately rushed to cross the Prut, leaving mountains of corpses and abandoned equipment. Tolbukhin's troops, moving along both banks of the river, cut off the enemy's retreat routes.
Romania's transition to the camp of the anti-Hitler coalition
The scale of the disaster on the southern flank of the German front was impressive. Under her influence there occurred in Romania coup d'etat. On August 23, dictator Antonescu, who stood for continuing the fight on the side of Germany, was overthrown. King Michael formed a new government based on a broad coalition of different parties. It pledged to ensure an immediate cessation of hostilities against the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. On August 25, a statement was broadcast on behalf of the Soviet government. It stated that the Soviet Union had no intention of acquiring any part of Romanian territory or changing the existing one in Romania social system, or infringe in any way on its independence. The statement noted that if Romanian troops cease military operations against Soviet troops and, together with them, wage a liberation struggle against the Germans, then the Red Army will not disarm them. The raid on Bucharest gave the Romanians reason to turn their arms against Germany. Hitler's attempts to "liquidate the putsch" caused an armed uprising in the Romanian capital, where the communists played the leading role.
The front of the retreating German troops was mixed up. Everywhere where Romanian troops held the defense, they opened the way for the advance of the Red Army or went over to the Soviet side. Separate parts of the Germans made their way west to the Carpathians, while the armies of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts were uncontrollably rolling south. On August 29, Constanta, the main naval base of Romania, was occupied. On August 30, through the joint actions of Soviet and Romanian troops, Ploiesti, the main center of oil production for the German Reich, was liberated. The next day, the troops, wildly welcomed by the rebel residents, entered Bucharest. The column was led by the 1st Romanian Volunteer Division named after Tudor Vladimirescu. As a result of the armistice, Romania dropped out of the list of Germany's allies and joined the camp of the anti-Hitler coalition.
The transition of Bulgaria to the camp of the anti-Hitler coalition
Next it was Bulgaria's turn. The government of this country has repeatedly declared its neutrality in the war against the Soviet Union. However, on September 5, Moscow, allegedly based on the fact that “Bulgaria has been practically at war with the USSR for a long time,” announced the start of military actions against it. Soviet troops, meeting no resistance, quickly advanced through Bulgarian territory. Varna and Burgas were busy. Germany lost the opportunity to use the last ports on the Black Sea. The population of Bulgaria greeted the Soviet troops in a friendly manner, remembering the long-standing historical connections Bulgarian and Russian peoples. In a country led by
Communists have long been fighting against the pro-German regime. On September 9, a government was created in Sofia Fatherland Front, and on September 16, Red Army units solemnly entered the capital of Bulgaria. By agreement with the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition The Bulgarian army joined the war against Germany and Hungary.
Finland's withdrawal from the war
Important political changes took place in Finland. The country's new president, Field Marshal Mannerheim, deeply convinced of the futility of the struggle, informed Hitler that Finland could not continue the war, since it jeopardized the very existence of the Finnish people. On September 4, the Finnish Diet by a majority vote accepted the terms of the truce put forward by the Soviet leadership. Finland recognized the 1940 border, pledged to break off relations with Germany, demobilize its army and liquidate the troops located on Finnish territory. On September 19, a truce was concluded, and in the north of the country the Finns even had to conduct fighting to dislodge the German formations stationed there.
Offensive on the Western Front
At the end of July, the Allied offensive began on the Western Front. In the area between the Seine and Loire, German troops were defeated. In mid-August, the Americans and French began landing on the southern coast of France; their armies then began to successfully advance into the interior of the country. On August 25, the Allied troops, supported by the rebel residents, entered Paris. It became clear to the German command that it would not be able to keep France in its hands. Army Group B began to retreat to the German borders to the so-called Siegfried Line. The Allied forces advanced in the general direction of Antwerp and Aachen. German Army Group G was retreating from southern France to the northeast. By mid-September, both army groups united and organized a common defense front. The Allies' attempt to break through it and invade Germany failed.
Allied relations
In relations between the coalition powers during this period, outward goodwill and cordiality prevailed. At the same time, new features clearly emerged. Economic assistance The USSR was built with the goal of linking the Soviet economy more closely to the world economy after the end of the war and influencing its “liberalization.” One of the levers of pressure on the Soviet Union was supposed to be a world organization that was in line with the American concept of the post-war world order. An important step in the implementation of this plan was the conference in Dumbarton Oaks near Washington, which took place from August 21 to October 7, 1944. It considered the draft of the future United Nations (UN). Along with the governing bodies (General Assembly, Security Council, etc.), it was planned to create a whole network of international economic organizations with the participation of the USSR, which would not only gradually integrate into the world economic system, but also, by becoming involved in the work of its governing bodies, take on certain responsibilities and obligations. This, naturally, could not help but worry the Stalinist leadership, who understood perfectly well the threat such integration would pose to the isolated economy of the Soviet Union, built on rigid ideological foundations and centralized planning and directive management. No less fearful was the possibility of becoming economically and financially dependent on the United States. For these reasons, the USSR refused to enter the whole
To ensure order in the areas occupied by the Red Army, general management of the organization and control of the implementation of civil administration throughout the territory of Romania liberated by Soviet troops was entrusted to the Military Council of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. The Resolution especially emphasized: “Keeping in mind that the entry of Soviet troops into Romania is dictated solely by military necessity and does not pursue any other goals other than the goals of breaking and eliminating the ongoing resistance of enemy troops, councils and bodies of Soviet power should not be created in areas occupied by the Red Army. To preserve without changes all the existing Romanian authorities in these areas and the existing economic and economic system in Romania. political structure. Do not interfere with the performance of religious rituals and do not touch churches and houses of worship. Don’t break the Romanian order and don’t introduce the Soviet order” (12).
Maintenance public order in the occupied Romanian territory it was prescribed to carry out through the local Romanian administration under the control and supervision of the command of the Red Army, and the military commandants were obliged to carry out the necessary activities in the interests of the army through the existing local authorities. The commandants were instructed, immediately upon taking office, in each district and volost center, as well as in the largest populated areas, to publish (by announcing in the press and posting up) Order No. 1 in Russian and Romanian, which should indicate: a) civil authorities to continue execution your responsibilities; b) all owners of commercial and industrial enterprises to continue their activities; c) schools, hospitals, outpatient clinics, etc. provide assistance to institutions in ensuring their normal operation; etc. The cost of all consumer goods and industrial goods requisitioned or voluntarily sold for the needs of the Red Army is paid in lei at prices that existed before the entry of Soviet troops. It was ordered not to interfere with the performance of their duties “... to all Romanian officials (officials of government agencies, municipal authorities, police, siguranza, judicial officials, etc.) who remained in place. Only those officials who oppose the measures of the Red Army should be removed from work” (13). It was announced that “... all personal and property rights of Romanian citizens and private companies, as well as property belonging to them private property, are under the protection of the Soviet military authorities" (14). Considering that this was a secret official document that was sent to the highest civilian and military leadership of the country, there is no reason to doubt the real intentions of Stalin and his inner circle. The published appeal to the Romanian people reflected all the positions of the Resolution, which became a guide to action. Soviet command and military authorities on Romanian territory. That is, both the real and public policy of the USSR on the issue of the liberation of European countries in 1944-1945. in essence completely coincided.
Thus, from the document follows a clear and consistent policy towards Romania, which was determined by the Resolution for the command of Soviet troops entering the territory of a country that for several years was a satellite of Germany, a military enemy of the USSR and an occupier, whose troops showed cruelty and war crimes, in including in relation to the Soviet civilian population. Firstly, this Soviet policy is fully consistent with the spirit and letter of the Hague Conventions; secondly, moreover, it goes much further in terms of humanity and mercy, and, despite the ongoing hostilities between the USSR and Romania, it retains a significant part of its sovereignty. (Romania announced its withdrawal from the war on the side of Germany and its transition to the side of the anti-Hitler coalition only after the August uprising and the overthrow of the military-fascist dictatorship of I. Antonescu, after which an armistice agreement was concluded on September 12, 1944.) Thirdly, this is not was an unfounded statement, and such a course indicates that the Red Army is really going to liberate the Romanian people, leaving them the right to choose the future life of society and the state.
It is enough to compare such Soviet policies with the goals of Nazi Germany in the war, its policies and cruel practices on the territory of the USSR in order to understand the fundamental differences between the German occupiers and the Soviet liberators. Moreover, in the event of a possible victory of Nazi Germany, the occupied countries and conquered peoples would face the deployment of even more large-scale long-term terror and mass extermination, especially of the Eastern Slavs.
A similar political line was pursued by the Supreme Command and senior leadership of the USSR in relation to other countries into whose territories the Red Army entered. On July 31, 1944, an appeal was prepared in connection with the entry of Soviet troops into Polish territory. Diplomatic relations with the government of this country were interrupted, and corresponding agreements were concluded with the Polish Committee of National Liberation, to which power was transferred in the territory liberated by the Red Army. A similar resolution was adopted upon the entry of Soviet troops into Hungary. Naturally, in relation to each country, its specifics were taken into account, as well as the specifics of the situation developing around these countries.
Germany strove to keep its satellites as allies until the last possible opportunity. In those countries where their exit from the war was planned, coups were carried out (Hungary), German troops were brought in, and counterattacks were launched (Romania). The Red Army assisted anti-fascist forces in their struggle for liberation from German occupation and dictatorial regimes. Thus, in Romania they conducted more than four months heavy fighting four Soviet combined arms and two tank armies, and when the anti-fascist uprising began on August 23, 1944, more than fifty divisions were sent deep into the country to support the rebels, after whose victory Romania declared war on Germany. Almost without fighting, welcomed by broad sections of the people, Soviet troops marched across Bulgaria to help the rebels on September 9. Soviet troops provided enormous assistance in the liberation of the eastern part of Yugoslavia and the capital Belgrade. Huge forces of the Red Army were involved in the liberation of Poland and in Prague operation for the liberation of Czechoslovakia. The peoples of Europe, who fought for their freedom against fascism with its monstrous manifestations - racism and genocide, mass terror and the enslavement of tens of millions of people, were united in their struggle with the Soviet Union and its Red Army by common goals and jointly shed blood for liberation. The total losses of the Red Army amounted to more than 3 million killed, wounded and missing, including more than a million dead.
Forces of resistance to fascism in Europe and Asia in different forms(people's liberation armies, partisan movement, etc.) received enormous assistance from the USSR, with whose assistance dozens of military units and formations of other countries were created total number over 550 thousand people. Thus, to ensure the combat effectiveness of the people's armies of Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, over half a million rifles and carbines, almost 200 thousand machine guns, more than 40 thousand machine guns, 17 thousand artillery pieces and mortars, and many tanks and aircraft were given to them free of charge. They were also given food and equipment worth a huge amount of more than 1.5 billion rubles. And this help - both on the battlefields and in material form— was selfless.
Denying liberatory character actions of the Red Army in Europe and replacing it with the concept of “occupation”, modern political forces in Eastern Europe cite the “implantation” of communist regimes in these countries as the main argument. However, one should not confuse the event with its consequences (especially rather distant ones): the policy of the USSR in the post-war period underwent a significant evolution over a number of years, primarily under the influence of the unfolding of the Cold War, which was by no means in the interests of the USSR and which, of course, was the initiator , there was the West, first of all, the Anglo-Saxon world represented by the USA and Great Britain. On the contrary, the USSR was objectively interested in long-term post-war cooperation with its Western allies. However, having found itself the object of an escalation of total post-war pressure from the consolidated West, as well as in a situation of balancing on the brink of a new “hot” war, where the USSR, destroyed, devastated and weakened by the Nazi invasion, would have found itself in even more difficult situation than in 1941, the Soviet Union was forced to build a more rigid system of its own alliances with the countries of Eastern Europe. At the same time, by means of its consolidation and more effective control on the USSR side became ideologically and politically the closest Soviet system communist forces, whose support was increased in response to increasing external pressure on the Soviet country. Although even in that post-war period, the Soviet military-political presence in Eastern Europe was by no means equivalent “ occupation regime”, and its meaning was not to carry out Sovietization by force.
But in 1944-1945. The goals of the USSR in the post-war world (and therefore its policy towards the liberated countries of Eastern Europe) were qualitatively different. In this regard, a very important document is “Note from the head of the Commission of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs (NKID) of the USSR on compensation for damage caused to the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and its allies, I.M. Maisky to People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov on the future of the world and the post-war structure" dated January 10, 1944, the main provisions of which became the guideline for the foreign policy of the USSR at the end of the Second World War and after its completion and for the most part found practical implementation. The Soviet leadership saw the main task in preventing the recurrence of possible aggression from the West, primarily on the European, western borders, and the means of this considered, on the one hand, the creation of a “security belt” of loyal and friendly countries, and on the other, maintaining cooperation with Western powers, primarily on an anti-German basis.
Among the most important lines post-war politics USSR I.M. Maisky calls “strengthening friendly relations with the USA and England” (15). “It seems to me,” I.M. wrote in the Note. Maisky, what is our specific goal in building the future world and post-war order there must be a situation created in which the security of the USSR and the preservation of peace, at least in Europe and Asia, would be guaranteed for a long time. ...If we assume that the USSR will need about 10 years to heal the wounds inflicted by the war, then the “long term” of security and peace that we should strive for in eliminating the current war should be at least 30, maximum 50 years. Roughly speaking, we are talking about the life of two generations” (16). To achieve this goal, I.M. Maisky considered it necessary for the USSR to exit the war “with profitable strategic boundaries”, which he saw as the borders of 1941 (with “partial modifications of these borders with Poland, Romania, Finland, etc., not fundamental, although important adjustments, which, basically, were carried out). That is, the USSR did not strive for expansion or expansion of its territory. Further, he considered it desirable to conclude mutual assistance pacts with a number of countries. THEM. Maisky wrote about the “main issue” - from the point of view of ensuring future security, namely about Germany: “... We should strive for the most complete “neutralization” of Germany for the period indicated above (30-50 years), i.e. to create conditions under which Germany could not even think about any aggression against anyone” (17). And we are talking here about the occupation, fragmentation and disarmament of Germany.
But when it comes to other Eastern European countries (with all the negative assessments of Poland and Hungary, historically opposed to Russia), then there is no talk at all about the establishment of communist regimes, but options for establishing loyal and friendly, allied relations are being considered. At the end of the Second World War, Soviet diplomacy was looking for such a flexible line in politics that would make it possible to maintain cooperation with the Western allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, and for this purpose not to irritate them with straightforward Sovietization even in countries that fell within the sphere of predominant influence of the USSR, but within these countries to find balance of power to ensure constructive development. This was later defined as the development of "people's democracy", that is, the formation of democratic governments with heterogeneous political forces, albeit with mandatory participation communists, but, as a rule, without their dominance.
The situation at the end of the Second World War and in the first post-war years was the result of a successful military offensive by the Red Army against Nazi Germany and its satellites. At the same time, it took shape in accordance with an international legal act and the decisions of the “Big Three” on the anti-Hitler coalition. These decisions were determined by the common goals of the Allies to defeat the Third Reich. The occupation of the countries of Eastern Europe by the Red Army was a necessary condition for reaching the borders of Germany and provided their rear. The actions of the Red Army implemented the Declaration of a Liberated Europe, which was adopted in February 1945 at Crimean Conference. Yalta and Potsdam agreements, bilateral treaties of 1943 and 1945. (Soviet-Czechoslovak, Soviet-Polish, Soviet-Yugoslav), as well as the Armistice Agreements with Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania recorded the international legal results of the war. Of course, they opened up significant opportunities for the USSR to influence internal political processes, since in most countries of Eastern Europe (except Albania, Yugoslavia, and since December 1945, Czechoslovakia) there were Red Army units and Soviet military commandant's offices functioned. In addition, in accordance with the international agreements of the allies in the Axis countries - Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania - decisive role Soviet representatives played, Soviet diplomatic structures were active, a system of political, economic and military advisers was formed, etc. However, the USSR began to actively use these possibilities of influence to strengthen the positions of the communist parties only after the deployment of open confrontation on the part of the United States and England, and even then not immediately, but insofar as there was a significant adjustment to the entire system of Soviet foreign policy. However, this was already a different, post-war story, the vector of which was far from predetermined, and the impetus for it was the West’s course towards confrontation of the USSR with the direct threat of a military attack with the massive use of nuclear weapons, the monopoly of which the United States had for several years. It was under the influence of this factor - the real threat of new external aggression - that in the second half of the 1940s the policy of the Soviet leadership evolved - from supporting the tactics of the democratic bloc to its curtailment and the establishment of the dominance of the communist parties.
When considering the essence of the post-war policy of the USSR in Eastern Europe, it should be remembered that it was a mirror reflection of the Anglo-American influence on the internal political development of Western Europe, which the USSR recognized in the same way as Soviet influence was recognized by both the USA and England and recorded in international treaties. At the same time, no one called this American-British policy occupational and does not call it, while after the collapse of the USSR its role in the countries of Eastern Europe was “renamed” from liberation to “new occupation.” As we see, this has neither factual nor legal basis. But the moral aspect of the “black ingratitude” of the countries and peoples that were saved by the Soviet soldier from Nazi slavery, terror and extermination remains. And it is quite obvious that this approach is due to the short-sighted political situation and is provocative in relation to modern Russia character.
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The main thing that allows us to determine the actions of the Red Army is the goals for which it came to other countries, and this is the final defeat of the enemy, and the allied duty, and the moral duty to other peoples who groaned under the yoke of Nazism and fascism, who were under the yoke German occupation and the terror of their fascist dictatorships. The entry into foreign territory was determined solely by military necessity: the continued resistance of enemy troops (the continuing state of war against the USSR of a particular country, the presence of German troops on its territory), as well as the need to liberate peoples from German occupation or from their own regimes of fascist dictatorship. There was no other force other than the Red Army for the liberation of Eastern Europe, and its successes became inspiring for the rise of the resistance movement, its organization and activation of the national liberation struggle. We should also not forget that the Red Army saved from enslavement not only dozens of peoples, but also hundreds of thousands of people languishing in concentration camps (almost 8 million people had already died in them during the years of Nazi terror by that time).
The logic of events of that time made the entry of the Red Army into Eastern Europe logical, inevitable and legitimate. Corresponding agreements were concluded with the countries into which Soviet troops entered, specifically with the leadership of the anti-fascist forces representing that country.
Thus, in the most difficult battles, our troops not only expelled the Nazis from their land, but also fulfilled the great Liberation mission - they saved the countries of Europe from the brown plague and from fascist enslavement. Then, true to its allied obligations, the USSR struck a blow against Germany’s satellite, the Japanese aggressor in the Far East, liberating North China and Korea and putting a victorious point in World War II. And no political situation can change these indisputable historical facts.
The Great Patriotic War was an extreme situation on the verge of life and death for the USSR, many of its peoples, for Soviet society and the state. In that war, the USSR confronted a much more powerful enemy - in fact, the military-economic potential of almost all of Europe, conquered by Hitler. And the outcome of the Second World War largely depended on how the leadership of the USSR built a political strategy (along with military, economic, ideological, etc.).
A strategy is the most general plan of action to achieve a goal, especially when there are insufficient resources to directly achieve it. And political strategy is a general plan for managing political phenomena and processes.
The Second World War, in addition to the military confrontation itself, was an area of clashing political wills and political strategies. And strategically, Stalin outplayed Hitler in all respects, and the Western democracies too (although not in all respects). And the decisive victory took place even before the start of the war.
Before the outbreak of World War II, there was a complex, multilateral geopolitical and strategic confrontation in which the “Western democracies” played the most unpleasant role. The fundamental geopolitical context was Britain's policy of provoking clashes between the continental powers of Europe in order to weaken them. The infringement of Germany by the outcome of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, and the system of international relations that arose on its basis programmed the emergence of revanchist sentiments of the Germans, on the basis of which Hitler came to power. The desire of the “Western democracies” to direct aggression against the USSR (reborn after the revolution and civil war power, and even ideologically hostile to capitalism) led to the sponsorship of the Nazis by US financial capital, which also found itself in the conditions of the Great Depression (and war was seen as the best way out).
Stalin is today accused of concluding the so-called “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact” with Nazi Germany, according to which Stalin and Hitler allegedly committed a division of Europe, which allegedly became the trigger for the start of World War II. It's not like that at all. The conclusion of this agreement on the part of the USSR was a natural response to the unscrupulous game of England, France, Poland, who did not want to form a European security system, and the Munich Agreement, which handed Czechoslovakia over to the Nazis. Poland, which participated in the division of Czechoslovakia, was ready to move together with Germany against the USSR. Moreover, even when it was already “ strange war"(since England and France hoped to come to an agreement with Hitler at the expense of the USSR) and at the same time the “Winter” war of the USSR with Finland, France and England were preparing expeditionary forces for the war against the USSR. The Soviet leadership rightly feared that the “Western democracies” could come to an agreement with Hitler and move a united front against the USSR. Why be surprised and indignant that Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with Germany?
Strategically, in the main positions in the pre-war game, Stalin won. There were at least a few of these wins. First of all, Stalin outplayed the diplomacy of the “Western democracies,” which from the very beginning wanted to pit the USSR and Germany against each other, turning Hitler’s aggression to the East. Instead, as a result of the pact with the USSR, Hitler directed his first blow against Western countries.
Thus the USSR:
1) prevented possible coalitions and agreements between Nazi Germany and “Western democracies”;
2) broke through the international isolation that actually developed as a result of the “Munich Agreement”;
3) in the future, received potential military-political allies in the form of Western countries, which became real with the beginning of German aggression;
4) gained time used for the accelerated transfer of industry to a military footing, modernization and mobilization of the army;
5) weakened the potential blow of Nazi Germany, which was forced to disperse forces and keep them in the West, participating in hostilities, as well as in occupied countries;
6) pushed the borders back several hundred kilometers, thereby “extinguishing” the force of the German strike due to the stretching of communications, preventing the immediate capture of Leningrad and postponing the forced advance deeper into Soviet territory in conditions where every week was of significant importance;
7) by concluding a pact with Germany (August 23, 1939) during the conflict with Japan (Khalkin Gol, May-August 1939), Stalin weakened Anti-Comintern Pact and actually deprived Hitler of an active strategic ally in the Far East, ready, simultaneously with Germany, to launch a military strike on the Soviet eastern borders. Soon Japan also concluded a non-aggression agreement with the USSR (April 13, 1941)
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Let us turn to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. There was a treacherous attack by Nazi Germany, with which there was a non-aggression pact, and a heavy defensive war began (and by no means an offensive one, as planned in the Voroshilov doctrine - “with little blood, on foreign territory”). The enemy was very strong. The USSR had to fight not only with Germany, but with the military-economic potential of all of Europe, which Hitler easily conquered.
What strategic goals do the country's leadership face in such a situation? There are two main ones: 1) to reverse the unfavorable beginning of the war and bring the war to a victorious end; 2) take maximum advantage of the fruits of victory, and above all, form a world post-war system that would ensure a worthy position for the USSR great power(the winner) and ensured security (primarily military). To realize each goal, a whole had to be accomplished hierarchical system tasks.
They can be divided into 2 large groups - internal and external.
Internal tasks:
. First of all, the tasks in relation to one’s people, including psychological ones: on the one hand, to bring the country and population out of the shock of a surprise attack and failures at the fronts; on the other hand, to get rid of mischievous moods; motivate the country's population to fight to the death, to endure a long and grueling struggle, and to be ready for mass self-sacrifice at the fronts and in the rear.
. Organize a worthy rebuff to the enemy’s superior strength, mobilization of the army, training of military personnel (we must not forget that on the German side it was mainly city dwellers who fought, and on the Soviet side - recent “bast-foot” peasants who urgently had to master complex military equipment and weapons). What does it mean to organize a fight back? Put the country on a war footing, rebuild the economy on a war footing, evacuate enterprises from the west into the interior of the country; carry out a mass mobilization of citizens (mobilize millions) into the army; etc.
External tasks:
. Attract potential allies to your side, make them real, establish relationships with them, coordinate actions, get help. Here the main task was to achieve the opening of a “second front” in Europe, which, alas, could not be done for a long time, because the Western allies “save their blood”, sought to “German Nazis” and “ soviet communists“They destroyed each other as long as possible and as much as possible (one of the Western politicians frankly expressed this, but the elite of the “democratic West” thought so). It was opened only when it became clear that the USSR was capable of ending the war in Europe alone and finally defeating Germany.
. Ensure the security of the western borders of the USSR, which could only be done by gaining control over Central and Eastern Europe (and this was done not only on the battlefields, but also at the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam conferences)
. To achieve international condemnation and elimination of Nazism and fascism as criminal ideologies (achieved through the conviction of war criminals by the Nuremberg Tribunal)
. Create a new system of international relations (the creation of the UN; the USSR received its place in the Security Council with the right of veto among the five largest powers - permanent members).
Why does the Liberation Mission of the Red Army deserve a special place in the political strategy of the USSR during the war? Because this ideological concept, the formation of which began almost from the first days of the war, concentrated the key meanings of the USSR’s participation in the world war, which became the Great and Second Patriotic War for our country.
The Great Patriotic War - the most important part Second World War. It was on the Soviet-German front that the overwhelming amount of manpower and equipment of the fascists was ground up, it was the USSR that bore the brunt of the confrontation with the most powerful military-economic machine, it was the Soviet people who brought human sacrifices to the altar of Victory, which exceeded the total losses of all others who fought in Europe countries. Vast territories of the Soviet Union were subjected to occupation and desecration, plunder and destruction of the economy and cultural values. The Red Army, offering heroic resistance, was forced to retreat with heavy defensive battles, fight bloody battles on its own soil, exhausting and destroying hundreds of enemy divisions, ultimately ensuring a radical turning point in the course of the war and starting an inexorable movement to the West. Having cleared his land of occupiers, the Soviet soldier came as a liberator to foreign lands - both the countries occupied by Nazi Germany and his opponents.
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11. The Soviet factor in Eastern Europe. Documents 1944-1953 In 2 volumes. T. 1. 1944-1948. M., ROSSPEN, 1999. pp. 53-54.
12. Ibid. P. 54.
13. Ibid. P. 55.
14. Ibid. P. 55.
15. Ibid. P. 47.
16. Ibid. P. 23.
17. Ibid. pp. 23-24.