Among all electrical installation and installation products, lighting equipment has the richest assortment. This happens because lighting elements carry not only purely specifications, but also design elements. The possibilities of modern lamps and fixtures, their design diversity are so great that it’s easy to get confused. For example, there is a whole class of lamps designed exclusively for plasterboard ceilings.
Numerous types of lamps have a different nature of light and are operated under different conditions. To figure out what type of lamp should be in a particular place and what are the conditions for its connection, it is necessary to briefly study the main types of lighting equipment.
All lamps have one a common part: base with which they are connected to the lighting wires. This applies to those lamps that have a base with a thread for mounting in a socket. The dimensions of the base and cartridge are strict classification. You need to know that in everyday life, lamps with 3 types of bases are used: small, medium and large. On technical language this means E14, E27 and E40. The base, or cartridge, E14 is often called “minion” (in German from French - “small”).
The most common size is E27. E40 is used for street lighting. Lamps of this marking have a power of 300, 500 and 1000 W. The numbers in the name indicate the diameter of the base in millimeters. In addition to the bases, which are screwed into the cartridge using a thread, there are other types. They are pin type and are called G-sockets. Used in compact fluorescent and halogen lamps to save space. Using 2 or 4 pins, the lamp is attached to the lamp socket. There are many types of G-sockets. The main ones are: G5, G9, 2G10, 2G11, G23 and R7s-7. Fixtures and lamps always contain information about the base. When choosing a lamp, you need to compare these data.
Power lamps- one of the most important characteristics. On the cylinder or base, the manufacturer always indicates the power on which it depends. lamp luminosity. It's not the level of light it emits. In lamps of different natures of light, power has completely different meanings.
For example, Powersave lamp at the specified power of 5 W it will shine no worse incandescent lamps at 60 W. The same applies to fluorescent lamps. The luminosity of a lamp is calculated in lumens. As a rule, this is not indicated, so when choosing a lamp you need to rely on the advice of sellers.
Light output means that per 1 W of power the lamp produces so many lumens of light. Obviously, an energy-saving compact fluorescent lamp is 4–9 times more economical than incandescent lamps. You can easily calculate that a standard 60 W lamp produces approximately 600 lm, while a compact lamp has the same value at 10-11 W. It will be just as economical in terms of energy consumption.
Incandescent lamps
(LON) - the very first source electric light, which appeared in household use. It was invented back in the mid-19th century, and although since then it has undergone many reconstructions, the essence has remained unchanged. Any incandescent lamp consists of a vacuum glass cylinder, a base on which the contacts and fuse are located, and a filament that emits light.
filament coil made of tungsten alloys that can easily withstand the operating combustion temperature of +3200 °C. To prevent the filament from burning out instantly, in modern lamps some inert gas, such as argon, is pumped into the cylinder.
The principle of operation of the lamp is very simple. When current is passed through a conductor of small cross-section and low conductivity, part of the energy is spent on heating the spiral conductor, causing it to begin to glow in visible light. Despite such a simple device, there are types of LON huge variety. They vary in shape and size.
Decorative lamps(candles): the balloon has an elongated shape, stylized as a regular candle. Typically used in small lamps and sconces.
Painted lamps: Glass cylinders have different colors for decorative purposes.
Mirror lamps are called lamps, part of the glass container of which is coated with a reflective composition to direct the light in a compact beam. These lamps are most often used in ceiling lights to direct light downward without illuminating the ceiling.
Local lighting lamps operate under voltage of 12, 24 and 36 V. They consume little energy, but the lighting is appropriate. Used in hand-held flashlights, emergency lighting, etc. LONs are still at the forefront of light sources, despite some disadvantages. Their disadvantage is their very low efficiency - no more than 2–3% of the energy consumed. Everything else goes into heat.
The second disadvantage is that LON is unsafe from a fire safety point of view. For example, an ordinary newspaper, if placed on a 100 W light bulb, flares up in about 20 minutes. Needless to say, in some places LON cannot be used, for example, in small lampshades made of plastic or wood. In addition, such lamps are short-lived. The service life of LON is approximately 500–1000 hours. The advantages include low cost and ease of installation. LONs do not require any additional devices to operate, like luminescent ones.
Halogen lamps
Halogen lamps They are not much different from incandescent lamps, the operating principle is the same. The only difference between them is gas composition in a cylinder. In these lamps, iodine or bromine is mixed with an inert gas. As a result, it becomes possible to increase the temperature of the filament and reduce the evaporation of tungsten.
That is why halogen lamps can be made more compact, and their service life increases by 2–3 times. However, the heating temperature of glass increases quite significantly, which is why halogen lamps are made of quartz material. They do not tolerate contamination on the flask. Do not touch the cylinder with an unprotected hand - the lamp will burn out very quickly.
Linear halogen lamps used in portable or stationary spotlights. They often have motion sensors. Such lamps are used in plasterboard structures.
Compact lighting devices have a mirror finish.
On to the cons halogen lamps sensitivity to voltage changes can be attributed. If it “plays”, it is better to purchase a special transformer that equalizes the current strength.
Fluorescent lamps
Principle of operation fluorescent lamps seriously different from LON. Instead of a tungsten filament, mercury vapor burns in the glass bulb of such a lamp under the influence of electric current. Light gas discharge practically invisible because it is emitted in ultraviolet light. The latter makes the phosphor that coats the walls of the tube glow. This is the light we see. Externally and in terms of connection method, fluorescent lamps are also very different from LON. Instead of a threaded cartridge, there are two pins on both sides of the tube, which are secured as follows: they must be inserted into a special cartridge and turned in it.
Fluorescent lamps have a low operating temperature. You can safely rest your palm on their surface, so they can be installed anywhere. The large glow surface creates an even, diffused light. That's why they are also called fluorescent lamps. In addition, by varying the composition of the phosphor, you can change the color light radiation, making it more acceptable to human eyes. The service life of fluorescent lamps is almost 10 times longer than incandescent lamps.
Disadvantages of fluorescent lamps is the impossibility of direct connection to the electrical network. You can’t just throw 2 wires over the ends of the lamp and plug the plug into the socket. To turn it on, special ballasts are used. This is due to physical nature glow of lamps. Along with electronic ballasts, starters are used, which seem to ignite the lamp at the moment it is turned on. Most luminaires for fluorescent lamps are equipped with built-in lighting mechanisms such as electronic ballasts (ballasts) or chokes.
Marking of fluorescent lamps is not similar to simple LON designations, which only have a power indicator in watts.
For the lamps in question it is as follows:
- LB - white light;
- LD - daylight;
- LE - natural light;
- LHB - cold light;
- LTB - warm light.
The numbers following the letter marking indicate: the first number is the degree of color rendering, the second and third are the glow temperature. The higher the degree of color rendering, the more natural the lighting is for the human eye. Let's consider an example related to the glow temperature: a lamp marked LB840 means that this temperature is 4000 K, the color is white, daylight.
The following values decipher the lamp markings:
- 2700 K - super warm white,
- 3000 K - warm white,
- 4000 K - natural white or white,
- more than 5000 K - cool white (daytime).
Recently, the appearance on the market of compact fluorescent energy-saving lamps has made a real revolution in lighting technology. The main disadvantages of fluorescent lamps were eliminated - their bulky size and the inability to use conventional threaded cartridges. The ballasts were mounted into the lamp base, and the long tube was curled into a compact spiral.
Now the variety of types of energy-saving lamps is very large. They differ not only in their power, but also in the shape of the discharge tubes. The advantages of such a lamp are obvious: there is no need to install electronic ballast to start using special lamps.
Economical fluorescent lamp replaced the conventional incandescent lamp. However, like all fluorescent lamps, it has its drawbacks.
Fluorescent lamps have several disadvantages:
- Such lamps do not work well when low temperatures, and at –10 °C and below they begin to shine dimly;
- long startup time - from several seconds to several minutes;
- a low-frequency hum is heard from the electronic ballast;
- do not work together with dimmers;
- relatively expensive;
- do not like frequent switching on and off;
- the lamp contains harmful mercury compounds, so it requires special disposal;
- If you use backlight indicators in the switch, this lighting equipment begins to flicker.
No matter how hard manufacturers try, the light of fluorescent lamps is not yet very similar to natural light and hurts the eyes. In addition to energy-saving lamps with ballasts, there are many varieties without built-in electronic ballast. They have completely different types of base.
Glow principle mercury arc lamp high pressure (DRL) - arc discharge in mercury vapor. Such lamps have high light output - 50–60 lm per 1 W. They are launched using ballasts. The disadvantage is the spectrum of the glow - their light is cold and harsh. DRL lamps are most often used for street lighting in cobra-type lamps.
LED bulbs
LED bulbs- this product high technology was first designed in 1962. Since then, LED lamps have gradually been introduced into the lighting market. According to the principle of operation, an LED is the most common semiconductor, in which part of the energy is in p-n junction is dumped in the form of photons, that is visible light. Such lamps They have simply amazing characteristics.
They are ten times superior to LON in all indications:
- durability,
- light output,
- efficiency,
- strength, etc.
They have only one “but” - the price. It is approximately 100 times the price of a conventional incandescent lamp. However, work on these unusual light sources continues, and we can expect that we will soon rejoice at the invention of a cheaper model than its predecessors.
Note! Due to unusual physical characteristics LEDs can be used to make real compositions, for example in the form of a starry sky on the ceiling of a room. It is safe and does not require high costs energy.
Each nation that took part in World War II has its own start date. Residents of our country will remember June 22, 1941, the French - 1940, the Poles - September 1939. The Chinese do not have such a date. For the Celestial Empire, virtually the entire beginning of the twentieth century was a continuous string of wars that ended about sixty years ago with the founding of the PRC.
In the second half of the 19th century, China experienced a period of anarchy and collapse. Qing Dynasty of Emperors, former descendants Manchu horsemen, who arrived from the Amur northeastern lands and captured Beijing in 1644, completely lost the militant determination of their ancestors, without at all gaining the love of their subjects. Huge empire, which at the end of the 18th century provided almost a quarter of world production, half a century later, suffering defeats from the army of Western states, made more and more territorial and economic concessions. Even the proclamation of the republic during the Xinhai Revolution, which took place under calls for the restoration of former power and independence in 1911, essentially did not change anything. Rival generals divided the country into independent principalities constantly fighting with each other. Control over the outskirts of the country was completely lost, foreign powers increased their influence, and the president of the new republic had even less power than the previous emperor.
In 1925, Jiang Zhongzheng, known as Chiang Kai-shek, came to power in the nationalist Kuomintang party, which controlled the southwestern lands of China. Having carried out a number of active reforms that strengthened the army, he undertook a campaign to the north. Already at the end of 1926, the entire south of China came under his control, and the following spring Nanjing (where the capital was moved) and Shanghai. These victories made the Kuomintang the main political force that gave hope for the unification of the country.
Seeing the strengthening of China, the Japanese decided to intensify their forces on the mainland. And there were reasons for this. The leadership of the Land of the Rising Sun was very dissatisfied with the results of the First World War. Like the Italian elite, Japan saw itself as deprived after the overall victory. Unresolved issues after a military confrontation usually lead to a new struggle. The Empire sought to expand living space, the population grew and new arable land and raw material bases for the economy were required. All this was located in Manchuria, where Japanese influence was very strong. At the end of 1931, an explosion occurred on the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway. Under the guise of a desire to protect their citizens, Manchuria was overrun by Japanese troops. In an attempt to avoid open conflict, Chiang Kai-shek led the attention of the League of Nations to restore China's rightful rights and condemn the actions of the Japanese. The lengthy proceedings completely satisfied the conquerors. During this time, individual parts of the Kuomintang army were destroyed, and the capture of Manchuria was completed. On March 1, 1932, the founding of a new state, Manchukuo, was announced.
Seeing the impotence of the League of Nations, the Japanese military turns its attention to China. Taking advantage of the anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai, their aircraft bomb Chinese positions, and troops land in the city. After two weeks of street fighting, the Japanese captured the northern part of Shanghai, but Chiang Kai-shek's diplomatic efforts yield results - arriving ambassadors from the USA, England and France manage to stop the bloodshed and begin negotiations. After some time, the League of Nations renders a verdict - the Japanese should get out of Shanghai.
However, this was just the beginning. At the end of 1932, Japanese troops added the province of Zhehe to Manchukuo, coming close to Beijing. In Europe, meanwhile, there was economic crisis, tensions between countries grew. The West paid less and less attention to protecting China's sovereignty, which suited Japan, opening up wide opportunities for further actions.
Back in 1927, in the Land of the Rising Sun, Prime Minister Tanaka laid out the memorandum “Kodo” (“The Emperor’s Way”) to the emperor. His main idea was that Japan could and should achieve world domination. To do this, she will need to capture Manchuria, China, destroy the USSR and the USA and form the “Greater East Asia Prosperity Sphere.” Only at the end of 1936 did the supporters of this doctrine finally win - Japan, Italy and Germany signed the " Anti-Comintern Pact" The main enemy of the Japanese in the coming battle was Soviet Union. Realizing that for this they needed a strong land bridgehead, the Japanese staged provocation after provocation on the border with China to find a reason to attack. The last straw The incident took place on July 7, 1937, near the Marco Polo Bridge, located southwest of Beijing. Conducting night training exercises, Japanese soldiers began firing at Chinese fortifications. Return fire killed one person, which gave the aggressors the right to demand the withdrawal of Chiang Kai-shek's troops from the entire region. The Chinese did not respond, and on July 20 the Japanese launched a large-scale offensive, capturing Tianjin and Beijing by the end of the month.
Soon after, the Japanese launched attacks on Shanghai and Nanjing, the economic and political capitals of the Republic of China. To gain the support of the Western community, Chiang Kai-shek decided to show the world the ability of the Chinese to fight. All the best divisions under his personal leadership attacked Japanese landing, who landed in Shanghai at the end of the summer of 1937. He appealed to the residents of Nanjing not to leave the city. About a million people took part in the Shanghai massacre. Three months of continuous fighting brought countless casualties. The Chinese lost more than half personnel. And on December 13, Japanese soldiers, without encountering resistance, occupied Nanking, in which only unarmed civilians remained. Over the next six weeks, a massacre of unprecedented scale took place in the city, a real nightmare, known as the “Nanjing Massacre.”
The occupiers began by bayoneting twenty thousand men of military age outside the city, so that they would never again be able to fight against them. Then the Japanese moved on to exterminating the elderly, women and children. The killings took place with particular brutality. Samurai tore out the eyes and hearts of living people, cut off their heads, and turned their insides out. No firearms were used. People were bayoneted, buried alive, and burned. Before the murder, adult women, girls, and old women were raped. At the same time, sons were forced to rape their mothers, and fathers were forced to rape their daughters. Residents of the city were used as “stuffed animals” for training with a bayonet, and were poisoned with dogs. Thousands of corpses floated down the Yangtze, preventing ships from landing on the banks of the river. The Japanese had to use the floating dead as pontoons to get on ships.
At the end of 1937, one Japanese newspaper enthusiastically reported on a dispute between two officers who decided to find out which of them would be the first to kill more than a hundred people with a sword in the allotted time. A certain Mukai won, killing 106 Chinese against 105.
In 2007, documents from one international charitable organization, working in Nanjing at the time. According to them, as well as records confiscated from the Japanese, it can be concluded that in twenty-eight massacres, more than 200,000 civilians were killed by soldiers. About 150,000 more people were killed individually. The maximum number of all victims reaches 500,000 people.
Many historians agree that the Japanese killed more civilians than the Germans. A person captured by the Nazis died with a 4% probability (excluding residents of our country); among the Japanese this value reached 30%. Chinese prisoners of war had no chance to survive at all, since in 1937 Emperor Hirohito canceled the action against them international law. After Japan surrendered, only fifty-six Chinese prisoners of war saw freedom! There are rumors that in some cases, poorly provisioned Japanese soldiers ate prisoners.
The Europeans who remained in Nanjing, mostly missionaries and businessmen, tried to save the local population. They organized an international committee, headed by Jon Rabe. The committee fenced off an area called the Nanjing Security Zone. Here they managed to save about 200,000 Chinese citizens. A former member of the NSDAP, Rabe managed to obtain from the interim authorities the status of inviolability of the “Security Zone”.
Rabe failed to impress the Japanese military who captured the city with the seal of the International Committee, but they were afraid of the swastikas. Rabe wrote: “I had no weapons except a party badge and a bandage on my arm. Japanese soldiers constantly invaded my house, but when they saw the swastika, they immediately left.”
The Japanese authorities still do not want to officially acknowledge the fact of the massacre, finding the data on victims too inflated. They never apologized for the war crimes committed in China. According to their data, in the winter of 1937-1938, “only” 20,000 people died in Nanjing. They deny calling the incident a “massacre,” saying it is Chinese propaganda aimed at humiliating and insulting Japan. In their school textbooks history simply says that “many people died” in Nanjing. Photos massacres in the city, which are indisputable evidence of the nightmares of those days, according to the Japanese authorities are fakes. And this despite the fact that most of the photographs were found in archives Japanese soldiers taken by them as souvenirs.
In 1985, a Memorial to those killed in the Nanjing Massacre was built in Nanjing. In 1995 it was expanded. The memorial is located at mass grave of people. Mass grave covered with pebbles. The huge number of small stones symbolizes the countless number of dead. There are also expressive statues on the museum grounds. And here you can see documents, photographs and stories of survivors about the atrocities committed by the Japanese. One room shows an eerie cross-section of a mass grave hidden behind glass.
Chinese women forced into prostitution or raped have petitioned Tokyo authorities for compensation. The Japanese court responded that the corresponding verdict could not be made due to the statute of limitations of the crimes.
Journalist from America Chinese origin Iris Chan has published three books about the destruction of the Chinese in Nanjing. The first work remained among America's bestsellers for ten weeks. Influenced by the book, the US Congress held a series of special hearings, adopting a resolution in 1997 demanding an official apology from the Japanese government for war crimes committed. Of course, Chan's book was banned from publication in Japan. During subsequent work, Iris lost sleep and began to experience bouts of depression. The fourth book about the Japanese takeover of the Philippines and the death march in Bataan took away her last mental strength. Having survived 2004 breakdown, Chan ended up in a psychiatric clinic, where she was diagnosed with manic-depressive psychosis. The talented journalist constantly took risperidone. On November 9, 2004, she was found shooting herself with a revolver in her car.
In the spring of 1938, the Japanese finally suffered their first defeat - near Taierzhuang. They were unable to take the city and lost more than 20,000 people. After retreating, they turned their attention to Wuhan, where Chiang Kai-shek's government was located. Japanese generals believed that the capture of the city would lead to the surrender of the Kuomintang. However, after the fall of Wuhan on October 27, 1938, the capital was moved to Chongqing, and the stubborn Kai-shek still refused to give up. To break the will of the fighting Chinese, the Japanese began bombing civilian targets in all unoccupied areas. major cities. Millions of people were killed, injured or left homeless.
In 1939, a premonition of world war arose in both Asia and Europe. Realizing this, Chiang Kai-shek decided to buy time to hold out until the hour when Japan clashed with the United States, which looked very likely. Future events showed that such a strategy was correct, but in those days the situation looked stalemate. Major Kuomintang offensives in Guangxi and Changsha ended without success. It was clear that there would be only one outcome: either Japan would intervene in the war Pacific Ocean, or the Kuomintang will lose control over the remnants of China.
Back in 1937, a propaganda campaign began to create good feelings towards Japan among the Chinese population. The goal was to strike at the Chiang Kai-shek regime. At the very beginning, residents of some places actually greeted the Japanese as brothers. But the attitude towards them very quickly changed to the exact opposite, since Japanese propaganda, like German propaganda, too strongly convinced its soldiers of their divine origin, which gave them superiority over other peoples. The Japanese did not hide their arrogant attitude, looking at foreigners as second-class people, like cattle. This, as well as heavy labor service, quickly turned the inhabitants of the occupied territories against the “liberators.” Soon the Japanese barely controlled the occupied land. There were not enough garrisons; only cities, key centers and important communications could be controlled. IN rural areas The partisans were in full control.
In the spring of 1940, in Nanjing, Wang Jingwei, a former prominent Kuomintang figure removed from office by Chiang Kai-shek, organized the “Central National Government of the Republic of China” under the slogan: “Peace, anti-communism, nation building" However, his government was unable to gain much credibility with the Chinese. He was deposed on August 10, 1945.
To action partisan detachments The invaders responded by clearing the territories. In the summer of 1940, General Yasuji Okamura, who led the North Chinese Army, came up with a truly terrible strategy, “Sanko Sakusen.” Translated, it meant “Three All”: burn everything, kill everything, rob everything. Five provinces - Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, Chahar and Shaanxi were divided into sections: “peaceful”, “semi-peaceful” and “non-peaceful”. Okamura's troops burned out entire villages, confiscated grain and herded peasants to work digging trenches and building many kilometers of roads, walls, and towers. the main objective consisted in the destruction of enemies pretending to be local, as well as all men from fifteen to sixty who behaved suspiciously. Even Japanese researchers believe that their army enslaved about ten million Chinese in this way. In 1996, scientist Mitsuyoshi Himeta made a statement that the Sanko Sakusen policy led to the death of two and a half million people.
The Japanese also did not hesitate to use chemical and biological weapons. Fleas were dropped on cities, spreading the bubonic plague. This caused a number of epidemic outbreaks. Special units of the Japanese army (the most famous of them being Unit 731) spent their time betting on prisoners of war and civilians. creepy experiments. While studying people, the unfortunates were subjected to frostbite, successive amputations of limbs, infection with plague and smallpox. Likewise, Unit 731 killed over three thousand people. The cruelty of the Japanese varied different places. At the front or during the Sanko Sakusen operations, soldiers, as a rule, destroyed all living things along the way. At the same time, foreigners lived freely in Shanghai. The camps for American, Dutch and British citizens, organized after 1941, also featured a relatively “soft” regime.
By mid-1940, it became abundantly clear that undeclared war in China will continue for a long time. Meanwhile, the Fuhrer in Europe subjugated one country after another, and the Japanese elite were drawn to join the redivision of the world. The only difficulty they had was the direction of the attack - southern or northern? From 1938 to 1939, the battles of the Khalkhin Gol River and Lake Khasan showed the Japanese that there would be no easy victory over the Soviet Union. On April 13, 1941 it was concluded Soviet-Japanese pact about neutrality. And even without paying attention to the insistent demands of the German command after June 22, its conditions were never violated. By this time, the Japanese army had firmly decided to fight the United States, liberating the Asian colonies of European states. An important reason was the ban on the sale of fuel and steel to the Japanese, proposed by the United States to its allies. For a country that does not have its own resources, this was a very significant blow.
On December 7-8, 1941, Japanese aircraft bombed Pearl Harbor, the base of the American navy on the island of Oahu. The very next day, Japanese planes attacked British Hong Kong. On the same day, Chiang Kai-shek declared war on Italy and Germany. After four years of struggle, the Chinese had a chance to win.
China's help came in very handy for European allies. They were shackling maximum number Japanese armed forces, and also helped on neighboring fronts. After the Kuomintang sent two divisions to help the British in Burma, President Roosevelt directly announced that after the end of the war, the situation in the world should be controlled by four countries - the USA, the USSR, Great Britain and China. In practice, of course, the Americans ignored their eastern ally, and their leadership tried to command the headquarters of Chiang Kai-shek. However, the fact that after a hundred years of national humiliation China was named one of the four major powers of the planet was very significant.
The Chinese coped with their task. In the summer of 1943, they held Chongqing and launched a counteroffensive. But of course final victory The allies brought it to them. Nuclear bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. In April, the Soviet Union broke the neutrality pact with Japan and entered Manchuria in August. Nuclear bombings and a record-breaking offensive Soviet troops made it clear to Emperor Hirohito that it was futile to continue to resist. On August 15, he announced surrender on the radio. It must be said that few people expected such a development of events. The Americans generally assumed that hostilities would last until 1947.
On September 2, on board the US battleship Missouri, representatives of Japan and allied countries signed the act of unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces. The Second World War is over.
After the surrender of Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which met in Tokyo, sentenced 920 people to death, 475 to life imprisonment, and about 3,000 Japanese received various prison sentences. Emperor Hirohito, who personally signed most of the criminal orders, was removed from the list of defendants at the request of the commander of the occupation forces, General MacArthur. Also, many criminals, especially senior officers, were not brought before the tribunal due to suicide after the emperor ordered them to lay down their arms.
There were horrors happening in this theater of war that, even by the standards of World War II, eclipsed everything else. But Europeans and Russians know almost nothing about this.
Many Russian Stalinists like to dream of an alliance between Russia and China, directed against the West. For all their “Sinophilia,” they have not the slightest idea of the outstanding role that China played in saving the regime of their idol during the Second World War. And if you tell them about it, they will probably vehemently deny it. The trick is that it was Kuomintang China, anti-communist.
The victory parade over Japan, held for the first time by the PRC authorities, gave rise to speculation among some “analysts” about whether Beijing was thereby laying claim to the legacy of the Kuomintang regime. In particular, are the PRC authorities planning to integrate the island of Taiwan in the near future according to the principle of “two systems - one country”, as was done in their time with Macau and Hong Kong. In principle, the greatest reasons to hold a victory parade on September 3 of this year. were in Taiwan, that is Republic of China- a direct successor to the Kuomintang one. But - again the irony of history: this Republic found refuge on an island that belonged to Japan during the Second World War!
However, we are not currently interested in these fortune-telling about future relations between Beijing and Taipei. Our task is different - to show few people (especially neo-Soviet “patriots”) famous role China in World War II. After all, mainly the heroic resistance of China, which fettered about two-thirds of all ground forces Japan, did not allow the latter to attack the USSR Far East in 1941-1942. This, in turn, allowed Stalin to freely transfer divisions from the Far Eastern military districts to the Soviet-German front at critical moments of the battles for Moscow and Stalingrad.
The Soviet Union owed much of its survival in World War II to Kuomintang China and its 450 million (at that time) people.
Unknown World War II
When full-scale hostilities began between Japan and China on July 7, 1937 (Japan by that time already controlled Manchuria and most so-called Inner Mongolia), then the total population of the warring countries exceeded that of the European countries that began World War II on September 1-3, 1939 (excluding the population of the British and French colonies). Based on this fact, some historians prefer to consider 07/07/37 as the start date of World War II, rather than 09/01/39.
However, most Chinese historians are more modest. They even call this war, which can rightfully be called the Chinese “Great Patriotic War,” only the “War of Resistance against Japan.” However, most likely, the main deterrent role is played by the fact that China at that time was led by the Kuomintang party and its leader, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
War 1937-1945 raged entirely on Chinese soil, in its most populated parts - in Eastern and South-Eastern China. Almost the entire population of then China lived in the Chinese theater of war (taking into account the territories subject to regular Japanese air raids) - about 400 million people. Huge masses of people were involved in the war, especially on the Chinese side. It is not known exactly how many people were put under arms by the government of Chiang Kai-shek, as well as by the Chinese communists, who were then waging a civil war against the Kuomintang, but from time to time concluded a truce to jointly resist the Japanese invaders. The Japanese army in China during periods of highest tension numbered 3.2 million, and approximately another 900 thousand fought at a time in Chinese collaborationist formations.
It is also very likely that we will never know exactly the extent of Chinese losses. If the Japanese did not lose so much (although here the data varies - from 380 thousand to 1.1 million killed alone; the Chinese collaborators lost up to 1.8 million killed, that is, the combat strength of the pro-Japanese Chinese troops went through a threefold rotation by death ), then the anti-Japanese Chinese armed forces lost, according to various estimates, from 2 million to 3.2 million killed (with the communists accounting for approximately one tenth of these losses).
The relatively small losses of the Japanese are explained by their superiority over the Chinese in the quality of weapons, level of organization and tactical skill. In addition, the Japanese army often used weapons against Chiang Kai-shek’s army, as well as against communist military formations. mass destruction- chemical and bacteriological. Horrors happened in this theater of operations, which even by the standards of World War II eclipsed everything else. But Europeans and Russians know almost nothing about this.
However, taking into account the losses among Chinese collaborators, the losses of both sides in the war in China were almost equal. The Japanese, with their skillful occupation policy, managed to place the brunt of losses in the war with China on their Chinese allies. Given the number of Chinese who fought on Japan's side, the war was largely a civil war within China—between Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang and Wang Jingwei's Kuomintang, in addition to a civil war waged by the Communists against both Kuomintangs.
However, the bulk of Chinese casualties were civilians. It died in droves not only from air raids, artillery shelling, occupation terror, trilateral civil war, but also from the defensive measures of its own government. Thus, in the summer of 1938, the Japanese offensive in the Zhengzhou area was stopped only by the destruction of the dams that contained the Yellow River flood. As a result, not only the Japanese army lost a lot of people and equipment. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of unknown victims of this action amounted to Chinese residents of both sexes and all ages.
Losses civilian population China in 1937-1945 Western historians estimate at 17-22 million. Together with the Chinese military killed on both sides of the front line, this amounts to 21-27 million, which is approximately equal to the losses of the USSR in World War II. Some Chinese historians estimate total number dead Chinese in 1937-1945. at 35 million. If this is so, then absolute number casualties - the worst-hit country in World War II.
In terms of population, China's losses were greater than those of Russian Federation, counted separately from other republics of the USSR. But also about these huge sacrifices The Russian public is not aware of China, thrown on the altar of common victory in World War II.
At the same time, the Chinese army, according to the conditions of armament, was forced to conduct only defensive war. Her fighting spirit was not warmed up major victories, similar to the victories of the Red Army near Moscow and Stalingrad. Japanese aviation constantly dominated the air. The general course of military operations for all eight years was one-directional - successive Japanese offensives in one place or another, a constant expansion of the occupied territory. Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese army was sometimes capable of local counter-offensives, but no more (the only exception was 1945). All the more amazing is her resilience, which did not allow the Japanese to suppress the last pockets of Chinese resistance.
The Japanese army captured Beijing in July 1937, Shanghai in November, and Nanjing, the then capital of China, in December. Chiang Kai-shek's government moved to Wuhan, which, after a long defense, fell in October 1938. Chongqing, which was no longer taken by the Japanese, became the new residence of the Kuomintang leadership.
By December 1941, the time of their attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese occupied a territory in China (including Manchuria) with a population of about 225 million people. Half (and later even more) of the human potential of the then China came under the control of the invaders and their local accomplices (the Republic of China of Wang Jingwei). In addition to the vast territories in the lower reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow River and the wide coastal corridor that connected them, the Japanese also captured Guangzhou in southern China and the vast area adjacent to it, as well as the important ports of Shantou and Xiamen.
The attack on American and British possessions in the Asia-Pacific region forced the Japanese to temporarily reduce offensive activity in China. But this did not bring much relief to China, since at the same time the United States was forced to reduce military aid to China by yuan. After Japanese troops captured Burma in early 1942, they cut the road, which was the only transport artery along which goods were delivered to China from Western allies, the situation of the Republic of China became especially critical. However, Chiang Kai-shek's army repulsed all Japanese attempts to invade South China from Burma and continued to maintain a tough defense.
A new intensification of military operations in China occurred in 1944. At this time, the Empire of Japan was almost unable to withstand the mighty onslaught of the American fleet and air force. But the Chinese theater of operations represented the only field where it was possible to somehow make up for failures and get additional resources. As a result of offensive operations in the first half of 1944, the Japanese created an additional corridor between their troops in the Yellow River and Yangtze valleys.
At the same time, the troops of the 10th military region of the Republic of China found themselves cut off from the rest of the forces of Chiang Kai-shek’s army. In the second half of 1944, Japanese troops completely captured the line railway Changsha - Liuzhou - Pingxiang, thus establishing land communications with their troops in Indochina, and along the Xijiang River valley with their bridgehead around Guangzhou. A large group (3rd, 7th and 9th military regions) of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang troops in Southeast China was cut off from the rest of the country and at the same time split in two. Even earlier, the Japanese captured the ports of Fuzhou and Wenzhou, Hainan Island and the Leizhou Peninsula.
But this was not yet the peak of Japanese success in China. Almost until the very end of the war, the imperial ground army continued to conduct offensive operations. True, the winter (January-February 1945) Japanese offensive against the cut-off Kuomintang troops in Southeast China ended in complete failure. The Japanese were forced to withdraw starting positions. But in the spring of 1945, the Japanese carried out successful offensive operations in Central China, and they managed to capture two large air bases of American bombers.
True, already in May 1945, Chiang Kai-shek’s army launched a counteroffensive against the Japanese corridor Changsha - Indochina, and by the end of the month this corridor was cut. By the end of July 1945, the Japanese had abandoned almost all of the territory occupied here at the end of the previous year, with the exception of the Changsha area. Chiang Kai-shek also recaptured the ports of Fuzhou and Wenzhou.
This was the situation at the time of the announcement of Japan's surrender (August 15, 1945). However, the conditions of the organization of the Japanese army were such that the Allies had to accept the surrender of each individual group in different theaters of war. Only on September 9, 1945, Japanese troops in China surrendered, and Chiang Kai-shek’s army began the rapid liberation of their country. But she was not allowed into Manchuria - Soviet troops had settled here even earlier, and the Soviet leadership decided to make a base in this territory for the purpose of bringing her to power throughout China.
Crossing interests
Many interesting pages of the Second World War are still waiting for their discoverers. Thus, it is of great interest that the USA and the USSR, long before concluding a military alliance between themselves in 1941, simultaneously provided military assistance to the Chiang Kai-shek regime against Japan. It is absolutely impossible, therefore, for this activity not to be somehow coordinated between the two powers at the level of the relevant services. It is obvious that contacts between the Soviet and American military on the basis of joint activities in China should have begun in the late 30s, if not earlier. However, there is still not a single publication about this in Russian, at least in translation.
Further, few people know that until the end of 1936, military supplies to China were carried out... by Nazi Germany! Only on November 25, 1936, the Anti-Comintern Pact, an agreement on a military alliance between Germany and Japan, was signed. Until this moment, Germany had sold to China some of its weapons and uniforms, which seemed superfluous and outdated for a future war. True, in the summer of 1937, when Japan attacked China, these supplies were no longer carried out. However, many Kuomintang soldiers were armed with German Mauser rifles and wore German helmets (see photo).
Of particular interest is that help Nazi Germany China in 1933-1936. was also carried out simultaneously with Soviet aid this country. Was this not used by the intelligence services of both countries for subsequent rapprochement in 1939? There is still no clear work on this topic. This page of history pre-war years is still covered in impenetrable darkness...
Soviet attempt to establish control over Western China
Western China or Xinjiang at that time was more often called East Turkestan.
After the Xinghai Revolution of 1911, China was one country only with a large degree of conditionality, and after 1937 the separatist movements in it intensified.
The Soviet Union confidently controlled Xinjiang in the late 1930s through the Kuomintang, but actually pro-communist governor Sheng Shicai. He felt completely independent from the government of Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, Xinjiang was used as a supply corridor Soviet weapons Chiang Kai-shek's army.
In 1942, due to military difficulties, the USSR's control over Sheng Shicai weakened, and he submitted to Chiang Kai-shek. Fulfilling the latter's demands, Sheng carried out reprisals against the communists.
He took revenge in 1944. At his direct instigation, the uprising began Turkic peoples Xinjiang, which has long been dissatisfied with Chinese domination. On November 12, 1944, the creation of the East Turkestan Revolutionary Republic was proclaimed in Gulja. Its government included representatives of the Turkic peoples of Xinjiang, as well as two Soviet military men as a kind of curators of the new republic on the part of the USSR.
However, at the end of World War II, it controlled only a smaller part of Xinjiang. Chiang Kai-shek expressed his readiness to negotiate. On the other hand, Stalin was not yet ready to spoil relations with the United States, and they recognized Chiang Kai-shek as the only legitimate leader of China. The autonomy agreement was signed in June 1946. However, armed clashes soon began again. As in Manchuria, the USSR provided assistance to anti-Kuomintang forces. Attempts by the Kuomintang Army to establish full control over Xinjiang failed. And in 1948-1949. In the main theater of the civil war in China, the Communists won decisive victories.
The USSR at this time changed its strategy regarding East Turkestan. If earlier the Stalinist leadership expected to retain this area if the Kuomintang retained power over most of China, now that the CPC took control of all of China, the task of eliminating the puppet pro-Soviet republic came next. In August 1949, Mao Zedong invited representatives of the VTRR government to Beijing for negotiations on the terms of reunification with China, already communist. The plane carrying the VTRR government delegation crashed under unclear circumstances. All delegates died. It is known that they were ready to defend broad autonomy for East Turkestan before Mao. The new government delegation of the VTRR agreed to join the PRC on all Beijing's conditions.
It is reported that the Russian military brought up the rear at the victory parade in Beijing on September 3 this year. Although it is not known exactly for what reasons such a procedure for the passage of foreign military personnel was established, but if it was so, then it is deeply symbolic. The Soviet Union entered World War II in the Asian Far East only at the very last moment to reap the benefits of victories won by others. First of all, of course, a vital role in the defeat of Japan belonged to the United States. But we must not forget about the role of China. Against the background of the Japanese and collaborators destroyed by Chiang Kai-shek’s army, the successes of the USSR, which defeated Kwantung Army, general combat strength which by August 1945, as established by modern Russian researchers (K.E. Cherevko, A.A. Kirichenko. Soviet-Japanese War: Declassified archives. - M., 2006), was only 357.5 thousand! The presence of almost 600 thousand Japanese prisoners of war among the Soviet troops is explained by the capture of all support personnel of the Japanese troops, as well as the Manchukuo army.
70 years ago, on September 2, 1945, the Second World War ended World War. On the battleship Missouri, Japan signed an act of “unconditional surrender.” Many books have been written about the most destructive war and scientific works. But two questions still cause controversy among historians. This is the question of the real human losses of the countries participating in the war and the question of the real hour of the beginning of the global catastrophe. Kazakh researcher, associate professor Vladimir Oskolkov offers his vision of the problem.
World War II began in 1931
— If we count according to official data, then the total losses in last war amounted to more than 76 million people,” says the scientist. - If you take my point of view - much more. Judge for yourself. In 1931, Japan invades Manchuria and within a few months seizes territory larger than France, seizes it from China, installs a puppet government and creates a base for further expansion in Asia. Now, if effective sanctions had been introduced against Japan then, if classical democracies and everyone who stood for peace had come to the aid of the victim of aggression, international development, in my opinion, it would be different.
It was there, on the rails of Mukden, that the train that led humanity to disaster started moving.
To certain forces in the West, primarily the British, it seemed that they were solving their imperial problems by encouraging all these actions of Japan and pushing it to the North.
And in 1933, Japan invaded other provinces of China. In 1935, aggression expanded, and two years later a large-scale war against China began. However, even in 1937 the British did not believe that Japan was at war. They called it "action". And since this is just an “action”, no Hague Conventions were applied there.
In this “action”, for example, no prisoners were taken Chinese soldiers, they were shot on the spot. It is said that in World War II chemical weapon was not used, but in China the Japanese used it more than 530 times. They also used bacteriological weapons.
The Japanese also conducted “experiments” to reduce the Chinese population in the Canton area.
They brought people to an area of 25 by 30 kilometers and left them without food, water or medicine. They were starving to death. It is unknown how many people have gone through this...
Beginning of hostilities in Manchuria, 1931
According to established terminology, World War II began on September 1, 1939 with the German attack on Poland. But let's ask ourselves: Was China a member of the anti-Hitler coalition or not? Was. So when did the war start? According to currently accepted definitions, World War II began after the major political players of the time took part in it. This theory is quite Eurocentric and we, living in Asia, need to overcome it, but this is quite difficult and requires considerable time.
Up to 35 million people died in China! The fact that this country suffered great losses and that these losses were the earliest and most significant in the time period is an indisputable fact.
But this fact was not recognized (and is still recognized “through gritted teeth”) by Western countries. We must not forget that at that time it was the West that was the “center of the world” and what was happening on the periphery was not very interesting to the “central” countries.
Italian invasion of Abyssinia, 1935
In Abyssinia, approximately a third of the population was destroyed. But there has never been an official census in the country, so there is no accurate data.
Or another question. When did World War II begin for Czechoslovakia? The German attack on Poland in 1939 or the German attack on Czechoslovakia in 1938?
Archives of the war years are not available to us
The outbreak of World War II was not a one-time act. It was a process. Humanity was crawling into this war. They didn’t stop the Japanese in 1931 - new Japanese aggressions followed, followed by Italian aggression in Abyssinia, German and Italian aggression in Spain, the Anschluss of Austria, the division of Czechoslovakia... And many “uncomfortable” questions still arise.
And that explains why key documents The captured archives captured by the Americans at Hitler's last headquarters in Thuringia are still inaccessible to historians.
What's secret in these archives? No one, not even American historians, is allowed to look there. For example, one cannot find a record of Hess’s conversations with US First Deputy Secretary of State Welles, who, on Roosevelt’s instructions, traveled to Europe in February-March 1940 in the hope of concluding, if not peace, then an armistice between Germany, France and England so that Western countries, with the blessing of the United States, they came together in defense of Finland against the USSR.
Soviet soldiers stand on the banks of the Songhua River in Harbin. The occupied city was liberated on August 20, 1945
Finally, we must identify the main promoters of war. The British, for example, prevented the consideration of the Chinese request in the League of Nations to condemn Japanese aggression. They removed this issue from the agenda. A Brussels conference of states interested in discussing events in the Far East was convened. The USSR and the USA participated in this conference. The United States took a curious position there: they were not ready to either condemn the aggressor or sympathize with the victim of aggression. The American ambassador recommended resolving the conflict “on the basis of a political solution.” So, if we begin the periodization of the war from 1931, then responsibility for humanity’s creep into this catastrophe would fall on those who condoned it or did not interfere.
Why is this important? Here are the statistics. Of the 28 international crises of the 20th century where international diplomacy was not used, 23 ended in war. And the picture is completely different where the disputing parties sat down at the negotiating table: 68 crises were resolved through diplomacy and only three resulted in wars.
Casualties in World War II
Countries of the Anti-Hitler Coalition:
USSR - 27 million people.
France – 600 thousand people
Belgium – 86 thousand people.
Great Britain – 450 thousand people.
Luxembourg – 2 thousand people.
Netherlands – 246 thousand people.
Denmark – 3.2 thousand people.
Poland – 6 million people.
Yugoslavia – 1.7 million people.
Albania – 28 thousand people.
Greece – 300 thousand people.
China – 35 million people.
Indonesia – 4 million people.
India – 1.5 million people.
Indochina (French) – 1 million people.
USA – 418 thousand people.
Burma - 270 thousand people.
Ethiopia – 100 thousand people.
Allies of Nazi Germany:
Germany – 7.3 million people.
Norway – 9.5 thousand people.
Finland – 97 thousand people.
Czechoslovakia – 326 thousand people.
Austria – 400 thousand people.
Italy – 454 thousand people.
Hungary – 580 thousand people.
Romania – 850 thousand people.
Bulgaria – 25 thousand people.
Spain – 4.5 thousand people.
Japan – 2.7 million people.
Neutral countries:
Sweden – 2.2 thousand people.
Ireland – 200 people.
Switzerland – 100 people.
Portugal – less than 100 people.