Heroic symbols of the Great Patriotic War: reality and mythology of war. Mythology of the Great Patriotic War Who won - the main versions

During the Second World War, the Soviet Union and China suffered the most, and not the Jews, Poles or other peoples, who were occupied for several years twice by the Soviet Union and once by Nazi Germany. But no - only Russians and Chinese. The Russian mythology of the Great Patriotic War is based on a "competitive" approach to history.

Today Russia is the first fighter for "historical truth". In 2009, then-President Dmitry Medvedev created a special commission to "prevent attempts to falsify history." It was designed to stop attempts to deheroize Soviet soldiers, call the liberation an occupation, and generally change the image of the USSR in World War II.

The current president, Vladimir Putin, in turn, ordered the creation of a unified history textbook that would correspond to the official position of the Kremlin. And it, in relation to the Great Patriotic War, is unequivocal. By the way, the rest of the world calls this war "World War II". And this is symbolic. For the Russians, it was their war. And their victory in their interpretation.

In February this year, Liberal Democrat member of the Russian Duma Roman Khudyakov proposed introducing even harsher penalties for distorting Russian history. Since 2014, anyone who spreads lies about the actions of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War has been threatened with a term of up to five years. However, what is true is up to the Kremlin to decide.

The myth of the enmity of the USSR and Germany

Russian children in schools are still not told anything about the Soviet-German alliance until June 1941, when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, as well as about what was happening in the territories that were before the USSR, in collusion with the Germans (the Molotov Pact - Ribbentrop), occupied. It is strictly forbidden in Russia to say that in reality military operations were started by two countries, Germany and the USSR, having jointly attacked Poland in September 1939.

According to independent Russian historians, their science has turned into mythology. This week, Pskov Duma deputy Lev Shlosberg even said that the Russian state is cynically turning the memory of the Great Patriotic War into an oath of allegiance to the policies of the current rulers.

The mythology propagated by President Putin concerns, in particular, the immense suffering of the Soviet, or rather the Russian people. Yes, the suffering was immeasurable, but to exaggerate it by ignoring the suffering of others is simply a manipulation of historical facts.

If human suffering can be measured at all, then the Russians, given the very small part of the occupied territory, had a huge advantage compared to the Jews (in the post-war USSR it was forbidden to mention the Holocaust), Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles. What happened in German-occupied western Russia was by no means as horrific as what happened in what the American historian Timothy Snyder calls the "Bloody Lands."

The myth of the need for millions of losses

Besides, Russian schoolchildren are told practically nothing about the role of the US and Western allies. Related to this is the myth about the need for huge losses (they are estimated at 20-30 million).

In the 1990s, many Russian historians, including the historian Georgy Mirsky, dared to openly declare that the Soviet command was at first criminally amateurish, and the losses were the result of illiterate warfare. For example, during the German attacks on Stalingrad, the “lifetime” of a Russian soldier on the front line averaged only seven hours. The successes of the Red Army were achieved only thanks to the completely unprecedented waste of the lives of soldiers.

In addition, Russian propaganda often talks about "Russian" losses. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of the fallen soldiers and killed civilians were Ukrainians, Belarusians and residents of the territories occupied by the Soviet Union after 1939, including the population of the Baltic states and Poles. Some of them did not die at the hands of the Germans - they were captured or killed by units of the Soviet NKVD. These people were included in the Soviet losses for propaganda reasons: this increased the suffering of the Soviet (Russian) people.

The myth about the unity of the Soviet people in the fight against Nazism does not correspond to reality either. First of all, Western Ukraine and the Baltic States were not at all loyal to the communist government. But even many soldiers did not want to die for Stalin: in the first six months of the war, about 3 million of them surrendered to the enemy. The victory came at the cost of huge losses, for example: out of every hundred young men born in 1921-1923 who went to the front, only three returned.

Robberies and sexual assault are taboo

The topic of looting and rape of women by Soviet soldiers in the liberated territories and in Germany is an absolute taboo. It is rare that a brave eyewitness of those events appears, such as Lieutenant Leonid Rabichev, a poet and artist, who describes how in Eastern Poland the Red Army raped all the women who did not run away.

One of the episodes concerns a gang rape using glass bottles. But his book cannot be found in Moscow stores. When commentators on Ekho Moskvy radio spoke about it, they remarked to readers: “You will read it in one breath, but then you will become depressed.”

Everything. They fired back.

The Chinese pyrotechnics died down, troops of various colors passed, the Russians shouted "Hurrah", the Russians crossed themselves or spat - some on the red flag, some on the tricolor, some on the St. George ribbon. Everyone else celebrated the day off.

Bosses made speeches, propaganda office and hired servants echoed, migrants swept and washed the streets after the celebrations.

Now let's talk calmly.

War as a myth

Any major historical event cannot be "digested" by the public consciousness as a whole - in the flourishing complexity of various events and facts, mutually exclusive opinions, petty lies and big statistics. All this must be further chewed up by a mighty bunch of professional historians and propagandists, and then taught to the public in the form of a Big Myth.

Its correlation with real events in practice is very conditional. Historical reality is too complex for the perception of an unprepared person, which is why it is usually replaced in everyday life (i.e. locally) by a system of values ​​such as “friend or foe”, and in public perception (i.e. globally) by mythology. For convenience, one and the same event can be mythologized from several sides at once. From the waste of one large myth, you can mold another smaller one or several small ones. For example, the revolutionary events of 1917 can be served as " the result of the class struggle of workers and peasants against damned tsarism», « conspiracy of world Jewry from the Rothschilds to Shif" or " God's punishment for apostates". Under each of the versions there is a lot of factual material, scientific calculations and eyewitness testimony.

War between the USSR and Germany in 1941-45. has long become a myth - the "Great Patriotic War". Moreover, this war was indeed the Great and, undoubtedly, Patriotic. And both at once for both sides. Only the Russians won this war in order to lose almost all the fruits of victories in the future, and the Germans lost, having managed to gradually rebuild themselves and “build” the winners. Yes, the German Patriotic War ended only with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but it was worth it.

In the Soviet period, the military myth was absolutely organic, since it was built into a long chain of all other Soviet myths, which we will give credit to - they were worked out quite firmly and reliably. They did not stand the test of time, but in the short term they went “with a bang”: “The Great October Socialist Revolution” and “The Triumphant March of Soviet Power”, “the fundamental leadership of the Communist Party”, the “WWII” itself, “restoration of the national economy”, “building a developed socialism”, etc. “Perestroika” turned out to be the final apotheosis. Then the USSR collapsed against the backdrop of the huge popularity of T-shirts with red stars and watches with the inscription "CPC".

Over the following years, all Soviet myths were dismantled. (Note - so far without a clear replacement for new ones). And only "WWII" stands in the middle of the ruins as a lonely monument. The entire Soviet “support group” has left, but with the new mythology, which in theory could support the “military theme”, it’s generally a disaster - you can’t customize much from the assortment of a souvenir shop. So is the clumsy renovation of the last decade. Under the weight of all-penetrating St. George ribbons, Nashist dressing up as a “warrior-liberator”, praises to the point and out of place of the “fraternal peoples” that have long quarreled among themselves, the “veteran political officers” suddenly crawled out and the pogrom “anti-fascism” the whole structure visibly sinks.

What does it look like now

Before the war, the USSR was a typical aggressor. Even the Poles are already being pointed out that the sufferers of them are very specific, and the Second World War actually began with the capture of Czechoslovakia by Germany, during which Poland also managed to eat a piece from the defeated country. And if the division of Poland between the Reich and the Soviets is sometimes justified on the Soviet side as the return of mostly territories captured by Poland less than two decades earlier from incompetent Soviet military leaders, then the war with Finland can no longer be justified. This is aggression in its purest form. That is why they try to remember the “winter war” less often.

Suddenly, on June 22, 1941, exactly at four o'clock, the USSR became a model of virtue - the Great Patriotic War began. And he remained in this capacity until May 9, 1945. Although already in the last period, i.e. after leaving the USSR, and subsequently hundreds and thousands of kilometers from their native land, the "homeland" of the war does not look entirely organic.

After the victory over Germany, the USSR again took up the old and attacked Japan. Exclusively with predatory intentions, since this war (and the additional death of Russian people) was not justified by any military goals - the “allies” of the Americans with atomic bombs themselves would have coped.

That is, it turns out that the same persons - Stalin and his henchmen were ferocious executioners and bastards (both inside the country and outside), then suddenly taught almost holiness, conducting a "holy war", and then again oskotinilis.

So this is pure schizophrenia. Split consciousness.

But at the moment - this is the only well-developed interpretation of the above events for the "broad masses". There is simply no other. The main feature of the modern myth about the Great Patriotic War is its absolute lack of alternative at the moment. (Unlike, say, the same "revolutionary").

And there are no easy ways out of this situation yet. The classic way to change the polarity, from minus to plus and vice versa, will not work in this case. After all, it will turn out to be a form of idiocy. Even a few timid attempts to throw Vlasov and the “Vlasov movement” into the public discourse as a “third way” failed. There is no Russian analogue of Shukhevych and Bandera (for whom, nevertheless, some part of Ukrainians “voted with their hearts”) and is not expected.

Who won - the main versions

Stalin won. The version is good, if you consider the "father and genius" really a genius in military affairs. The facts, however, do not support this. Stalin was an excellent politician, both as a practitioner of behind-the-scenes struggle, who outright beat such luminaries as Trotsky, Zinoviev and Bukharin, and as a strategist in the international arena, fully corresponding to the level of Western professionals - Churchill and Roosevelt. But the military from it was mediocre. Brutal orders such as "not a step back" were extremely harmful, primarily in the military sphere, with senseless losses of soldiers and officers. Stalin, of course, tried very hard to win the war, yet it was directly about his life. But he did it extremely amateurishly.

The people won.(Variations: past - Soviet, current - Russian). This version is much closer to the truth. Still, the Russian people constituted the main military force of the USSR, and they also suffered the main losses. Yet a people without leadership is an unruly mob. The people win only under some leadership.

Zhukov won. The cheapest and simplest version. The mythological Zhukov is, of course, an ersatz-Stalin. We do not take the generalissimo - after all, there was a tyrant and, most importantly, "destroyed the Leninist guard." We are replacing the marshal, who, firstly, was much more knowledgeable in military affairs and, secondly, due to absolute political mediocrity (Khrushchev defeated him elementarily and without any problems) did not have time to do business in other areas. The disadvantages of the “Stalinist” version are the monstrous orders that caused the mass death of soldiers (“he didn’t know how to feel sorry for people” - from the mildest assessments of memoirists about the marshal, less tolerant - “butcher”), frequent orders for executions in the troops for the purpose of intimidation, etc. , Zhukov's general insignificance is added both before and after the war. With the exception of the latest doxology - quite an ordinary "Stalin's falcon". Is this the large-scale “Winner” we need?

The Russian people won under the wise leadership of Stalin- version-synthesis of the first two and the most schizophrenic. The tyrant, who had destroyed millions of people before the war, led the rest into battle and won. Then he continued to kill again, almost in large quantities. At the same time, the people look like some kind of brainless cattle, joyfully dying for the tormentor, shouting "For the Motherland, for Stalin!" So this is also the most anti-patriotic version, if not latently Russophobic, i.e. continuing the traditional fairy tale "about the slavish nature of Russians".

It would seem, wherever you throw - everywhere a psychological ambush. However, in my opinion, there is a clearly underestimated participant in the events: regular officers are the main organizing force acting directly "on the ground."

Armies are not spawned out of nowhere like mice in the underground. Mobilized yesterday's peasants or townsfolk is better than a crowd, but it is not yet an army. To train a regular army capable of operating effectively, a significant layer of regular military personnel is needed, who, in turn, must also be trained and trained by someone.

And there were such teachers, and in a fair amount. Even in the Civil War, quite large masses of the so-called began to pour into the Red Army (some voluntarily, some under duress). "military experts", i.e. former officers of the imperial army. For obvious reasons, subsequently, both Soviet and émigré memoirists and researchers tried not to particularly touch on this fact, instead of generalizing conclusions, confining themselves to individual destinies.

At the end of the Civil War, many of the "military experts" continued to serve. They were joined by officers who returned from exile. In addition to organizing a professional army, many went to teaching - to universities for the training of command personnel and military academies. (So ​​the returned General Slashchev was a teacher of tactics at the Shot command staff school).

It was these people who basically prepared the new army shift in military theory and practice, doing exactly what, in principle, semi-literate Soviet nominees from small-town commissars could not do. Implicitly instilling in the already "red" soldiers and officers the seemingly gone forever "pre-revolutionary" principles of military prowess and love for Russia. By the way, the very concept of the war "For the Motherland!" clearly of pre-Soviet origin. The Bolsheviks still put the class struggle and the world revolution at the forefront, i.e. concepts of non-national and non-territorial.

Thus, it turns out: the war was won by the great Russian people under the leadership of regular officers who inherited the skills and traditions of the classical imperial army. Only such a formulation can fit the victory in the war into the context of centuries-old Russian history, and also save us from schizophrenic throwing "to Stalin and back."

War crimes

It's time to finally separate the lambs from the goats and answer the accusations of war crimes. Recall that looting was considered the most serious crime in the Russian army, the guilty officers fell under the “court of honor” and were expelled from the regiments, severe corporal punishment was applied to the soldiers, such as “running through the ranks”, etc.

However, in addition to the centuries-old traditions, the legacy of the civil one also remained. (Zhukov was exactly the same executioner of the Antonov uprising as Tukhachevsky, who was liquidated "in advance"). And the “commissar” component and the upstarts who had risen on the party zeal were far from being completely cleaned out of the army. It is they who, for the most part, are responsible for the crimes, many of which are still waiting for their researchers and accurate calculations.

Such a "two-part" formula of our army, which fought on the fronts of the Second World War, only at first glance seems difficult to perceive. The Orthodox Church can be cited as an example of a fairly close situation. The restoration of the Patriarchate and other "relaxations in the religious sphere" carried out on the orders of Stalin (just as a number of elements of the imperial army were restored on his orders - shoulder straps, etc.) raised the church from the ruins - many sincerely believing people came to it. But at the same time, the church structures themselves were infiltrated by Soviet "religious nominees" and this practice continued until the very fall of Soviet power. (Although whether it ended after - that is the question!).

Sooner or later to assess the war crimes of 1941-1945. still have to. After 1991, there was no time for that - Gaidar's "reforms" made millions of people think about survival, and not about restoring historical justice. But now is the time to think.

First of all, the crimes committed during the war years against their own people should be investigated. Since the set of crimes of the Soviet regime at that time was significantly replenished. New areas of activity were added to the already practiced executions, camps and exiles. Moreover, if information, say, about detachments or about the practice of using people in penal battalions is still gradually (albeit extremely slowly) processed and summarized, then a number of other “innovations” often remain in the “dead zone” for historians.

So only in connection with the case of the famous Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command No. 0428 of November 17, 1941, signed by Stalin, which remained secret for decades, was made public. Deprive the German army of the opportunity to deploy in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all settlements into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all premises and warm shelters and make them freeze in the open. Destroy and burn to the ground all settlements in the rear of the German troops at a distance of 40-60 km in depth from the front line and 20-30 km to the right and left of the roads. To destroy settlements within the indicated radius of action, immediately drop aircraft, make extensive use of artillery and mortar fire, teams of reconnaissance, skiers and sabotage groups equipped with Molotov cocktails, grenades and explosives. With the forced withdrawal of our units ... take the Soviet population with them and be sure to destroy all settlements without exception so that the enemy cannot use them».

Such orders characterize the true attitude of the Soviet elite and its leader to the Russian people much better than any post-victory toasts “for health”.

By the way, the Russian peasant woman, who, for burning her house, hit the captured saboteur Kosmodemyanskaya with a stick and her fellow villager, who also resented the arson, was executed after the return of the Red Army - as "fascist henchmen." The crafty neo-Soviet historiography still lists a significant number of ordinary employees of institutions in the occupied territories as "accomplices of the Nazis", up to cleaners and secretaries who went to this job to feed their families. What can we say about those who dared to publicly express their dissatisfaction with the Soviet order after the arrival of the Germans.

But having dealt with "internal affairs" you can already move on to "external" in the "liberated from the Nazis" territories. In any case, this must be done, otherwise the dirty "commissar" minority will continue in the historical perspective to soil the exploits of the Russian people and their army.

It is possible to wash off the Patriotic War of the Russian people only by revising the Great Mythology of the Second World War. Simply increasing the cost of the next parade and improving the quality of fireworks will not help.

An important point in maintaining the spirit of the troops is the appeal to heroic examples, purposefully presented as a model for mass imitation. This is a common, widespread phenomenon in history. However, its peculiarity during the Great Patriotic War was that an unprecedented role in the formation of symbols was played by the state, which had a monopoly on the media. Therefore, the symbols created at that time were a bizarre combination of real facts and fiction, genuine events reflected in the distorting mirror of propaganda.

The problem of symbols carries with it an initial contradiction. On the one hand, symbols are a product of the propaganda machine, on the other hand, they are a phenomenon of mass consciousness, which reflects the processes taking place in society, including the “cult” moods of the masses. In the atmosphere of the "cult of personality" and the cult of individual heroes became natural. Of course, he did not in the least compete with the "main cult", but only served him, being under the complete control of the system, which ensured that the "cult of heroes" did not go beyond what was permitted. She selected and polished the facts that suited her, creating symbols as abstract generalized role models, when a specific form (for example, the name of a hero) was invested with a special content: the features of an ideal, from the point of view of the system, personality were attributed to a real person, according to which every citizen of the country had to “equal”. “When the country orders to be a hero, anyone becomes a hero in our country ...” And the people readily absorbed the symbols presented to them, sincerely believing that such were their heroes, flesh of his flesh. So simple and typical were their destinies that everyone could imagine himself in their place. It seemed so easy to become a hero! And they became - millions, whose nameless graves were lost all over Russia. Their exploits are no less than those of famous heroes. But fame did not come to them: only a few could become a symbol.

Heroes-symbols served as a support for the system, because the first and main quality that propaganda endowed them with was selfless devotion to the same system. And it was this quality that they had to instill in millions of fellow citizens. Transformed into symbols, the heroes no longer belong to themselves. They become part of the ideological machine that gave birth to them. Dead or alive, they are called upon to perform the functions assigned to them, and the system will make sure that no one gets to the bottom of the truth in the form in which it really took place - before it has passed through the scissors of censorship and the poster brush of propaganda. Any attempt to "debunk the legend" is declared slander and deheroization. As if real character traits and "non-traditional" facts from a biography can belittle the significance of a feat, or a grateful memory of one hero can belittle the glory of another! For the propaganda machine, such arguments did not exist: heroes as such were not important for it, but only the symbols that it itself created mattered.

As in other areas, the system created symbols in the field of military heroics. Of the many heroic events and facts, only those that were necessary for the system at the moment were selected and built into a generalizing example. There were many mechanisms for such selection.

What kind of feats most often turned into symbols; why and how one hero was singled out from a number of many others who accomplished a similar feat; what social institutions (army command, political agencies, mass media, literature, art, etc.) participated in the formation of the symbol and to what extent; whether this symbol had a meaning for repetition, "replication" of a similar feat; how much the symbol reflected the reality of the event and what was artificially introduced into it by the propaganda machine, up to elements of falsification; what kind of heroes were needed by the Stalinist ideology and how living people were "customized" under the framework of stereotypes; at what stages of the war, what kind of symbols were created and most widely used, what is the reason for this? The answers to these and many other questions should clarify a more general problem: what significance did heroic stereotype symbols have for the creation of the system of Stalinist ideological mythologies; what was the contradiction between the objective need to maintain the fighting spirit of the army and the people with the help of heroic symbols and its role in strengthening the mythological consciousness of society under Stalinism. Let's start with some general trends.

Symbols could be real facts that meet the requirements of the system, and facts that have been processed in order to meet these requirements. Silence about one thing, fiction about another, special attention to the third - and the event acquired the right sound. Sometimes they resorted to direct falsifications, but, as a rule, in less significant cases. The need to report by the next memorable date, the system of assignments for awards, "socialist competition" between units - all this led to postscripts in reports and, much worse, to senseless victims, when the assault on some high-rise building was caused not by the requirements of the combat situation, but birthday of the Supreme Commander. Indicative in this regard is the report of the political department of the 19th Army dated 10/24/42: “... I report that work continues in the Pilot units on preparations for the 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution ... All work on preparations for the holidays takes place under the slogan of the practical implementation of the order Comrade Stalin No. 227 - strengthening iron military discipline and restoring order in units, strengthening the combat activation of units and combat training of personnel. Among the personnel, between the subunits, contracts of socialist competition were concluded for greater extermination of the German invaders, increased discipline, improved quality of combat training ... Political workers and commanders organized a check on the progress of the socialist competition in a number of subdivisions, about the results of which conversations and political information are held in departments and platoons. On November 7, the results of the pre-holiday competition will be summed up in the units in order to identify the best squads, platoons and units, which will be noted by special orders for units and formations. In such situations, each political worker considered it his duty to distinguish himself, often without regard for human losses.

Feats that were at odds with the official version of events were discarded or hushed up. So, for example, it happened to the soldiers of the 2nd Shock Army, when the shadow of the betrayal of General Vlasov fell on thousands of soldiers and officers who had fulfilled their duty to the end and remained lying in the forests and swamps near Novgorod. There was such a criterion as distrust of the encircled, classifying all prisoners as traitors. Is that why the defenders of the Brest Fortress, thousands of other heroes of the first days and weeks of the war, remained unknown for so long? Their courage came into conflict with political attitudes, with the explanation of defeats at the beginning of the war not by pre-war crimes and strategic miscalculations of the top leadership, but by the intrigues of "enemies of the people", betrayal of commanders, instability of fighters. Once again, the system sought to shift all responsibility onto others, attributing its mistakes to those who paid for them with blood. And, of course, she could not recognize and publish the exploits of those whose help she was forced to resort to at the most difficult moment, when there was no other way out for her either. As, for example, in the case of the Polar Division, as a whole, including the command staff, formed from prisoners. In 1941 she defended Murmansk. Until now, nameless, those who, instead of sleepers and rhombuses, then wore license plates of the Vorkuta camps, perished in it.

By keeping the process of awards under its control, the system could also weed out the person it did not like. There were various kinds of restrictions that did not allow those who performed a feat, but for a number of reasons did not suit the system, to rise to the highest level - the title of Hero. For example, belonging to a repressed nationality, family ties with “enemies of the people”, own conviction under a political article, inappropriate social origin, etc. Although there were exceptions: to a large extent it depended on the courage of the commander who presented his subordinate for an award and managed to defend their point of view to their superiors. Indicative in this regard is the fate of the former intelligence officer, now famous writer Vladimir Karpov, who received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, despite the "spot" in his biography: although in his case the resistance of the system was quite strong, but the command insisted. An example of another kind is the fate of the legendary submariner A. I. Marinesko. On January 31, 1945, a submarine under his command sank the largest German liner "Wilhelm Gustloff", on board of which there were more than 6,000 Nazis, including about 3,700 submariners. Hitler declared Marinesko a personal enemy, estimating the merits of the Soviet sailor higher than the system did. The presentation of Marinesko to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was not approved by the command: his misconduct before the campaign in January 1945 interfered with his connection with a foreign citizen, for which he almost fell under the tribunal. Justice triumphed only on the eve of the 45th anniversary of the Victory. AI Marinesko became a Hero of the Soviet Union, but - alas! - already posthumously. And how many similar fates there were, when a quarrelsome character, inability to establish relations with superiors, or some other circumstances were a more compelling argument for the system than a perfect feat, and the hero did not receive recognition and a well-deserved reward, and sometimes lost even the award already presented. Already after the war, all attempts to restore justice ran into bureaucratic indifference and the decision of the highest Soviet and party bodies of 1965 to stop awarding for feats and military distinctions during the Great Patriotic War, which, however, did not stop showering the same party officials with awards on all kinds of anniversaries for non-existent merit.

So, the system rigidly selected heroes, more often paying attention to formal signs than to the essence of things. In doubtful cases, she did not bother to search for the truth. Mistakes, slander, hasty conclusions, hastily pasted labels broke and maimed destinies, depriving both the living and the fallen of a worthy place in the ranks. Former Soviet prisoners of war, members of the Resistance movement, many of whom became national heroes of those countries in whose partisan detachments they fought, were considered traitors in their homeland according to Stalin's order No. 270.

The fate of many underground workers, scouts, "fighters of the invisible front" turned out to be tragic. Strictly conspiratorial under the conditions of occupation, they sometimes became victims of this conspiracy, when after the arrival of our troops there was no one to confirm to the special officers that they were working on the instructions of the partisans, and were not accomplices of the enemy. Sometimes the accusations against the patriots were a provocation by the Nazis and the policemen themselves. And the Stalinist system, with its suspicion of everyone and everyone, followed their lead. So, for many years a shadow was cast on the good name of the young guard Viktor Tretyakevich. By the way, the forensic examination of the documents of the underground organization, carried out at the initiative of the employees of the Central Archive of the Komsomol, confirmed that it was he who was the commissioner of the Young Guard. But the debate about this on the pages of the press is still ongoing. Any attempt to look at a symbol that has established itself in the minds of several generations is perceived painfully and sharply, and there will always be forces for which the preservation of a legend is more important than establishing the truth.

The system created the symbols it needed. Each stage of the war was associated with symbols that carried a certain semantic load, corresponding to the next tasks of propaganda at the moment. It couldn't be otherwise. The feats of the beginning of the war are the feats of a defending, fighting retreating army. The main task was to survive, to stop the enemy at any cost. And the words of political instructor Klochkov turned out to be very timely for the symbol: “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - behind Moscow!” And whether they actually sounded or were put into the mouth of the hero by a journalist, it did not matter.

The turning point in the war, the liberation of the occupied regions of the country, brought the troops a qualitatively different psychological state, set them different tasks: inculcating an offensive impulse, merciless revenge on the enemy. Here the exploits were "offensive". And symbols, of course, too. The martyrs of the Young Guard and Private Yuri Smirnov, a participant in a tank landing behind enemy lines, wounded, taken prisoner and crucified by the Germans on the dugout wall, are the most famous of the symbols of 1943 and 1944, calling for revenge on the Nazis for their atrocities, to free relatives and friends from the horrors fascist occupation, to the end to be faithful to civil and military duty.

When under the slogan "Forward to the West!" The Soviet Army entered the territory of European countries, the propaganda machine responded to this event with new symbols. For example, the poster "Free Europe from the chains of fascist slavery", which depicts a Soviet soldier breaking the chains with a swastika. After all, works of art also sometimes served as a symbol. The most famous of them was the song by B. A. Aleksandrov to the verses of V. I. Lebedev-Kumach “The Holy War”. (By the way, according to one version, her words were written not in 1941, but in the spring of 1916, at the height of the First World War, by the teacher of the Rybinsk male gymnasium A. A. Bode, and at the end of 1937, shortly before his death, sent by the author to V. Lebedev-Kumach, who on the second day of the Great Patriotic War, slightly altered, published them under his own name... And the song dedicated to one war became a symbol of another, completely different in spirit and nature of the war, although with the same enemy. ) After the Victory, the monument to the Liberator Warrior by sculptor E. Vuchetich became a symbol, the “co-author” of which, instead of a machine gun, “putting” a heroic sword into the hand of a bronze soldier cutting a swastika, turned out to be none other than Stalin - a circumstance that is also very symbolic.

But let us return to the actual heroic symbols. What criteria guided the propaganda machine, raising an individual feat to the level of a symbol? Let us again turn to the opinion of Vyacheslav Kondratiev: “The whole war was an unprecedented and genuine feat of the whole people. One being on the front line, one step on the battlefield - all this is a great overcoming of oneself, all this is a feat. However, the political departments needed “special” feats: single combat of soldiers with one grenade or a Molotov cocktail against a tank, or throwing their chests at pillbox embrasures, or hitting them with a shot from their native, model 1891/30 trilinear aircraft, and so on and so forth. The political departments especially liked throwing them at embrasures.

For some reason, not military skill, resourcefulness, courage, which primarily determined the outcome of battles and battles, were mainly promoted by the system, but self-sacrifice, often bordering on suicide. “An apology for sacrifice, a purely pagan idea,” as defined by the historian A. Mertsalov, or replication of the experience of the Soviet “kamikaze,” according to V. Kondratiev, clearly characterizes the cruel methods of leading the war that were characteristic of Stalinism. “A regime that did not spare people even in peacetime could not spare them, especially in war, saving its own existence.” Very indicative in this sense are the symbols of soldiers in encrypted reports and telephone conversations at the front - “matches”, “pencils” and other “trifles”, very reminiscent of the famous Stalinist “cogs”. How many "matches" burned out? Matches are not a pity ...

A kind of polemic with this official tradition seems to us another symbol - a literary character close to a truly popular understanding of heroism - Vasily Terkin:

"The hero is not the same as in the fairy tale -

carefree giant,

And in a hiking belt,

A man of simple leaven,

That in battle is not alien to fear,

Bold and resourceful, alien to thoughtless risk, but crushing the enemy prudently and skillfully, in order not only to defeat him, but also to stay alive, to return home with a victory - such is the Russian soldier in Alexander Tvardovsky. It is impossible to imagine him as a suicide bomber, he himself fights with death and defeats it. But the image of Terkin is a rare exception in Soviet literature, which became possible thanks to the talent of its author.

In general, the creation of symbols was the exclusive prerogative of the system. All the awards depended on her, the media were in her hands. If “by oversight” the hero turned into a symbol himself (there were also such folk symbols), he was urgently assigned the official status of a Hero with the corresponding attributes and regalia: the system did not tolerate amateur performance. "Pavlov's House" and "Tarakulya Redoubt" in Stalingrad, "Tyurpeka Hill" in Karelia are proof of this. Arose among the soldiers as a tribute to the heroes who did not give up their positions, these names moved onto military plans and maps, were adopted by the system and used as propaganda tools. Senior Lieutenant Ya. F. Pavlov was subsequently awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And the height, which in September 1942 was captured by senior sergeant S.T. Tyurpek with his platoon and died the death of the brave, repelling all enemy attacks, was officially named after him by decision of the Military Council of the Karelian Front on November 6, 1942.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union existed as the highest degree of distinction in the USSR. However, it is not yet a symbol. The title was a necessary, but by no means sufficient condition for the transition to a new quality. There are too many characters to remember them all. Before the war, there were no number of order bearers and they could enter the tram car from the front platform. Heroes of the Soviet Union over eleven thousand - just for the war. Symbols - from the strength of two dozen. "The people must know their heroes." Symbols are just those that everyone knows about - but only what is supposed to be.

Of the many thousands of heroes, only those whose images were worked hard by propaganda and who were remembered from childhood from school textbooks, films and books gained fame. The possibilities of human memory are limited. This also needs to be taken into account. This is probably one of the reasons for the personification of feats.

But when a heroic deed, which was widespread during the war years, is associated with the name of one person, one involuntarily asks the question: why did this name become well-known, how did one hero stand out from a number of many others who accomplished a similar feat? So, an air ram is associated almost exclusively with the name of V. Talalikhin, a fiery ram with the name of N. Gastello, saving comrades at the cost of their own lives, closing the enemy’s firing point with their body - with the name of A. Matrosov, although there were hundreds of such cases. Apparently, each of these and many other examples has its own explanation. In the case of pilots, it is quite simple: similar feats were performed before, but due to objective reasons, they were the first to learn about these heroes. The fact that air and fire rams were committed already in the first hours of the war on June 22 became known much later, years after the Victory. Talalikhin, on the other hand, used a night ram in an air battle over Moscow, where it was simply impossible not to notice his feat.

What is an air ram, which some call the "standard of feat of arms", while others consider it a fatal act of self-sacrifice, characteristic of Japanese kamikaze pilots? The illustrious Soviet ace Ivan Kozhedub claims that the air ram was used as an active, attacking method of air combat, requiring not only courage and fearlessness, but also accurate calculation, strong nerves, quick reaction, excellent piloting technique, knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the enemy machine, etc. ., while the death of the pilot did not seem inevitable, although the degree of risk, of course, was great. An interesting point of view on the ram Konstantin Simonov. We will give here an excerpt from his interview with Vasily Peskov, considering it necessary to pay attention not only to the answer, but also to the form of the question posed:

« IN.: In stories about the first year of the war, in memoirs, in poems, in old newspaper files, the word “ram” is often found. Everyone understands that this is a heroic act - to hit the enemy's car with your plane. But this way of fighting is clearly irrational - your own plane also dies. Why were battering rams frequent in forty-one? Why did they sing? And why later did they shoot down planes with cannons and machine guns, and not with a propeller and a wing?

ABOUT.: I think so. At the first stage of the war, our aviation equipment was weaker than German. In addition, the pilots lacked experience: he wasted his ammunition, and the enemy leaves, anger makes him hit at least something - a propeller, a wing. Most often, a bomber was beaten like this - there are four people in it, and the car is more expensive than a fighter. This underlying arithmetic undoubtedly mattered. And we must keep in mind: the attacker still had a chance to stay alive, and sometimes they even managed to land the car. They wrote a lot about rams, because in this act the readiness to sacrifice one's life for the sake of the Motherland was clearly manifested. And then, in the forty-first, it was important to talk about this readiness. And, of course, the law was in effect: the more often they write about something, the more often it resonates in life ... Later, when the quality of German and our aircraft equalized and when the pilots gained experience, they rarely resorted to rams.

This view of the writer is fully supported by the facts. Indeed, during the Great Patriotic War, the dynamics of rams in the sky closely correlated with its periods. If in 1941-1942. about 400 rams were made, then in 1943-1944. - over 200, and in 1945 - a little over 20. "As our aviation gained air supremacy, the objective need to sacrifice one's life and machine decreased."

In cases with a fiery ram, a qualitatively different situation arose before the pilot, independent of the stage of the war and air supremacy: the plane was shot down, on fire, it would not make it to its own airfield, to jump with a parachute over the territory occupied by the enemy means to be captured. And the pilot sent the wrecked car into the thick of enemy equipment, knowing that he himself would inevitably die. In a multi-seat aircraft, such a decision was made by the entire crew, however, as a rule, one commander was awarded for the feat. Even in the legendary crew of N. Gastello, only he himself was awarded the highest award - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and his comrades G. Skorobogaty, A. Burdenyuk and A. Kalinin were awarded the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, and then only 17 years after death. Fate is one, but glory is different, even for people from the same crew. And how many “fiery pilots” have not been awarded at all ... Raising one hero to the level of a symbol, the system was no longer interested in others, because only a symbol could perform certain ideological functions, and for this it required a lot of work on it, discarding objectionable facts, polishing biographies, to turn a person into a monument, into a slogan, into a legend, into a model for mass imitation. And it didn't matter who was first. The main thing is who the system noticed first and how much he corresponded to the stereotype of the hero she needed.

Only in 1996 was the title of Hero of Russia awarded to Captain Alexander Maslov and members of his crew, who were brother-soldiers of N. Gastello and died in the same battle on August 26, 1941, like him, having gone to ram. Their remains were discovered in 1951 at the supposed site of his death. But then information about this was classified, and in 1964 the personal file of A.S. Maslov in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense was destroyed along with all documents confirming the circumstances of the feat. Copies were miraculously preserved in the personal file of gunner-radio operator G.V. Reutov, which made it possible 55 years later, having overcome the resistance of the system with great difficulty, to achieve rewarding for the heroes. And the true place of burial of the crew of N. Gastello still remains unknown.

With Matrosov, the situation is even more complicated, although here the situation is similar: he was not the first to cover the enemy’s firing point with his body, but it was his feat that was given special importance. An element of chance? Perhaps the expressive style of the political report drew the attention of the command to this fact, and therefore it was reported to Stalin? This is where the coincidences end. The propaganda machine took up the matter with its inherent thoroughness. And now the real date of the feat - February 27, 1943 - is being replaced by another, not corresponding to reality, but beautiful and convenient, dedicated to the glorious anniversary - the 25th anniversary of the Red Army. And it sounded for the first time in Stalin's order No. 269 of September 8, 1943, from where it entered all history textbooks. The order of the People's Commissar of Defense read: “... The feat of Comrade Matrosov should serve as an example of military prowess and heroism for all soldiers of the Red Army.

To perpetuate the memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union Guard Private Alexander Matveyevich Matrosov, I order:

1. The 254th Guards Rifle Regiment is given the name "254th Guards Rifle Regiment named after Alexander Matrosov."

2. Hero of the Soviet Union Guard Private Alexander Matveyevich Matrosov to be enrolled forever in the lists of the 1st company of the 254th Guards Regiment named after Alexander Matrosov.

This was the first order in the history of the Patriotic War to enroll forever in the lists of units of soldiers who accomplished outstanding feats.

And a catchphrase flew out, absurd from the very beginning: someone "repeated the feat of Matrosov." But after all, everyone had their own feat! A feat cannot be "repeat", it is performed anew each time - by different people, in different circumstances. Let us give as an example a description of the feat of one of the unknown "sailors" - corporal Vladimir Dmitrienko, found by us in the report of the political department of the 19th Army of the Karelian Front dated September 29, 1944: while performing the task of reconnaissance of enemy firing points, he voluntarily went into reconnaissance. During the performance of a combat mission, the Germans opened heavy fire on the scouts, which forced the unit to lie down and made it impossible to advance. Corporal Dmitrienko decided to drown out the left-flank bunker. He quickly got up and, with a cry of “Forward!”, rushed in grenades in his hands to the bunker, from where the Germans fired continuously. Running up to the bunker itself, Dmitrienko waved a grenade, but at that moment an enemy bullet hit him and he fell, covering the bunker's embrasure with his body. Inspired by the feat of Dmitrienko, the fighters irresistibly rushed forward, broke into the trenches and bunkers of the Germans, where they destroyed the fascist scoundrels with grenades and fire from machine guns. The Germans were driven out of the stronghold. Only at the bunker, where the communist Dmitrienko fell, our soldiers counted more than 10 killed Nazis. About the feat Dmitrienko published material in the newspaper "Heroic campaign" and "Stalin's fighter" ". But there were few publications in the divisional and army newspapers to turn the hero into a symbol. He could only become a symbol of a local scale, a source of pride for commanders and political workers: "We also have our own Matrosov in the unit." Like many other heroes, Dmitrienko found himself "in the shadow" of this name, as a result of which his feat was involuntarily perceived as imitative, "brought up by example."

A feat of equal importance was evaluated unequally. In the Active Army, there were quite frequent cases when the unit commander presented a distinguished subordinate for one award, and the higher authorities awarded him another, lower in status, based on some of their own considerations, sometimes simply due to the lack of the required number of orders in the award department .

Of course, the transformation of the hero into a symbol depended not only on the whim of the system, but also on a whole series of accidents. The feat itself could be exceptional, but, accomplished far from the authorities and political departments, it could remain unknown to anyone. In another case, reports could be written by people who did not shine with the beauty of style. And, finally, in a difficult combat situation, it was sometimes simply not up to it.

An important role in the creation of the symbol was played by a journalist who, by the will of fate, found herself at the scene. Now few people remember that simultaneously with Pyotr Lidov's article "Tanya" in Pravda - about a partisan girl executed by the Nazis in the village of Petrishchevo, an article was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda by his colleague S. Lyubimov, who visited there together with him. However, Lidov's material was noticed and noted as more expressive. According to legend, Stalin, having read in the newspaper the answer of the partisan to the question of the Nazis: "Where is Stalin?" - "Stalin is on duty!", Said the words that decided the posthumous fate of the girl: "Here is the national heroine." And the car started spinning, turning the unknown Komsomol member Tanya into Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the first woman to receive the title Hero of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War.

Despite the huge volume of literature devoted to the feat of the girl, some circumstances of her death were carefully concealed for ideological reasons. So, not a word was said about the ambiguous reaction of the inhabitants of the village. Petrishchevo for sabotage, as a result of which several families were left homeless in winter. Not everyone sympathized with the partisan captured by the Nazis. Here are some documents. The wife of P. Lidov - G. Ya. Lidova - keeps extracts from criminal cases against S. A. Sviridov, A. V. Smirnova and other residents of the village of Petrishchevo, made in 1942 after their conviction by the military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Moscow District . A day after the partisans set fire to three houses belonging to c. Smirnova A.V., Solntsev I.E. and Korenev N., a resident of the village of Sviridov S.A., who guarded his house and garden, noticed a man leaving the village and reported this to the Nazis. The captured partisan turned out to be a girl. Word spread through the village that the arsonist had been caught. And then the following happened.

From the testimony of Petrushina (Kulik) Praskovya Yakovlevna:

“The next day after the arrest, Zoya was brought to us at 10 p.m., exhausted, with her hands tied. In the morning at 8-9 o'clock Smirnova, Salynina and others came. Salynina several times told Smirnova to beat her. Smirnova tried to hit me, but I got between her and Zoya, didn’t let me beat her and kicked her out. A German soldier took me by the collar and pushed me away, I went into the closet. A few minutes later Smirnova and Salynina returned. Smirnova on the move took the cast iron with slops, threw it at Zoya and the cast iron broke. I quickly left the closet and saw that Zoya was covered in slops.

From the testimony of Solntsev Ivan Yegorovich:

“Arriving at Kulik’s house, I told the Germans that she set fire to my house. They let me through right away and the Germans ordered me to beat Zoya, but my wife and I categorically refused. When, during the execution, Zoya shouted: “German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender, victory is ours,” Smirnova came up and hit her hard on the leg with an iron stick, saying: “Who did you threaten? She burned my house, but didn’t do anything to the Germans, “and swore.”

The publication of such facts would undoubtedly come into conflict with the official thesis about the nationwide support of the partisan struggle by the inhabitants of the occupied regions. Much more convenient was the version that Zoya was betrayed by her groupmate Vasily Klubkov, who was captured, like her, in Petrishchevo and turned out to be less resistant. The case of a single betrayal did not go against the general direction of the propaganda of that time, while the behavior of the local residents acquired the character of a dangerous trend in the eyes of the system. Another curious document testifies to how carefully the system protected the inviolability of the symbol in the form it desired. This is a memorandum from the instructor of the department of school youth of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League Tishenko to the secretaries of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League Mikhailov N. A. and Ershova T. I. dated December 30, 1948: “The director and teachers of school No. conducting excursions to the place of execution and the grave of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya should eliminate the existing shortcomings. Many excursions come to the village of Petrishchevo, where Zoya was brutally tortured by the Nazis, most of which are children and teenagers. But no one leads these tours. The excursions are accompanied by E.P. Voronina, 72 years old, in whose house the headquarters was located, where Zoya was interrogated and tortured, and by citizen Kulik P.Ya., who had Zoya before the execution. In their explanations about Zoya's actions on the instructions of the partisan detachment, they note her courage, courage and steadfastness. At the same time, they say: “If she continued to visit us, she would bring a lot of loss to the village, burn many houses and livestock.” In their opinion, this, perhaps, Zoya should not have done. Explaining how Zoya was captured and taken prisoner, they say: “We really expected that Zoya would be released by the partisans, and were very surprised when this did not happen.” Such an explanation does not contribute to the correct education of young people.

Until now, the history of the tragedy in Petrishchevo keeps many mysteries and awaits its objective study.

Another symbol - 28 Panfilov guardsmen - also owes its appearance to journalists. Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent V. Chernyshev and Krasnaya Zvezda special correspondent V. Koroteev, who did not even visit the battlefield, did not talk with their participants, used the information received at the division headquarters. In their initial publications, along with some inaccuracies, they generally gave an objective and fair assessment of the heroism of the fighters of the 8th Panfilov Division, noting that they fought hard battles in all sectors and showed exceptional courage in each. Particularly distinguished soldiers of the 4th company of the N-th regiment were mentioned, who fought with fascist tanks in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe Dubosekovo junction. Before the battle, this company numbered up to 140 people, after the battle, about 30 remained in it. More than 100 fighters died with the death of heroes. But Koroteev, who did not have exact data, upon arrival in Moscow, in a conversation with the editor, significantly underestimated the number of participants in the battle, saying that the company, apparently, was incomplete, about 30 people, of which two turned out to be traitors. Another journalist, A. Krivitsky, based on these words, wrote an editorial "Testament of 28 Fallen Heroes". So, in a very irresponsible way, this figure appeared, depriving hundreds of heroes of a company, regiment, division from well-deserved glory. What was printed in the newspaper, and even in the editorial, could not be questioned. 28 heroes became the Symbol. Names for this figure were chosen especially carefully, although there were some punctures: six were alive, two of them then long and unsuccessfully proved their belonging to the "list" of heroes. Another thing is also interesting: according to the book of irretrievable losses, it is clear that the people included in the list of names died at different times in different places, and not on the same day at the Dubosekovo junction. However, such “little things” no longer mattered to the system: once a symbol is created, there is no turning back.

Finally, in the creation of such a symbol as the "Young Guard", an exceptional role belongs to Alexander Fadeev. And here the question arises about the moral responsibility of the writer, who did not change the names of real people in the work of art, who served as prototypes of his characters. As a result, historical reality was replaced by literary fiction in the minds of the entire people. The young guards were judged not so much by the documents and testimonies of the participants in the events, but by the novel, which, according to A. Fadeev himself, did not claim to be documentary accuracy. So, several innocent people were labeled as traitors, they were subjected to repression, and persecution of their families followed. Only recently they were fully rehabilitated, but they continue to remain hostages of the legend created by A. Fadeev. This list can be continued.

Undoubtedly, there were symbols, the emergence of which was prepared by the system in advance. One of them was the Banner of Victory. Now it is difficult to say whether by chance or not one of the banner groups that stormed the Reichstag included a Russian and a Georgian. But there is no doubt that the system did not ignore this fact and presented it as a special gift to Stalin. There were several banner groups, as well as flags hoisted by them in different parts of the Reichstag. The feat of each of them is worthy of the highest award. So, the scouts of the group of Lieutenant S. Sorokin, who fixed the flag on the sculptural group above the main entrance to the Reichstag, were presented to the titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union. Their feat was described in detail in the award lists signed by the corps command, but the army command did not sign the submission on them. There could only be one Victory Banner, which means that members of only one group could become Heroes, in order to then turn into a symbol. The logic of the system was truly ironclad.

Let's sum up some results. Among the methods used by the system to create the symbols it needed were the following:

Unfair silence about one hero or feat and purposeful exaltation of another using all available means of agitation and propaganda;

The selection of one hero from a number of others who have accomplished a similar feat, i.e., an unequal assessment of an equal feat, a personification of a feat;

Creation of a propaganda cliché, a stereotype of a hero, under which living, really existing people were artificially "adjusted";

Falsification - complete or partial, including the substitution of one hero for another, appropriation of other people's merits, distortion of the circumstances of a feat, incorrect interpretation of events, etc.

It is possible to identify a certain pattern and classify the types of feat most often used by the system to turn them into symbols:

Single combat with superior enemy forces, holding combat positions at the cost of one's own life (with a grenade under a tank; calling fire on oneself; undermining oneself and enemies with grenades in case of a threat of captivity; etc.);

Mass heroism, collective feat (fortitude of entire units);

Acts of self-sacrifice, saving comrades at the cost of their own lives (breast on the embrasure);

Martyrdom under torture in captivity of the enemy, fidelity to duty and oath in the face of death;

Destruction of the enemy by ramming in the absence of other means of combat (air ramming); causing the maximum possible damage to the enemy at the cost of one's own life, refusing the opportunity to escape (fire ram);

Unity and friendship of the Soviet peoples (feats of multinational military teams; heroism of fighters of different nationalities) - (If there is a ban on representing representatives of exiled peoples to the title of Hero!);

Salvation of the battle banner and other military and Soviet symbols.

For symbols of a local scale - "Heroes of our unit", "Heroes of our Army", etc., which arose directly at the front without the participation of the main political structures, the most characteristic features are soldier's resourcefulness, ingenuity, combat skill, which allow inflicting damage on the enemy with their own minimal losses. It is to this kind of symbols that Vasily Terkin also belongs, who, however, has risen to the level of the people.

A historical view of the Great Patriotic War is impossible without knowledge (recognition) of the following things:

1. The war with Germany is a direct consequence of 1917, a historical retribution for it.
— The Russian Empire (or democratic Russia), which survived until the end of the First World War and became one of the victorious countries, would never allow the revival of a militarily strong Germany. While the military-political flirtation of post-war Germany with the USSR was based precisely on the fact that both countries were among the losers; the same interest in the revival of their own power and the consciousness of political isolation pushed them towards rapprochement with each other.
- In the "peaceful" coming of the Nazis to power in 1933, a huge role was played by the erroneous policy of the International, the German Communists and Social Democrats, as well as Comrade Stalin personally.
— Nazism itself is, first of all, anti-communism. Without this core, it turns into ordinary German chauvinism, which made itself felt back in 1914-1918. Consequently, the existence of historical Russia in itself knocked out of the hands of the Nazis the main ideological trump card of the "struggle against Judeo-Bolshevism" with all the practical consequences that follow from this.
— Bolshevik policy 1918-1939. became the reason that the Great Patriotic War acquired the features of the "second Civil" war, which significantly weakened the resistance to the Wehrmacht and led to additional demographic losses.

2. The Great Patriotic War is the final and decisive part of World War II.
— But the USSR has been one of the main participants in the Second World War since its first day. The specificity is that for more than a year and a half he avoided direct military confrontation with both sides of the conflict (England, France and Germany).
- Pre-war Germany and the USSR had plans to expand their borders at the expense of their neighbors, although for different reasons and for different purposes. These plans were implemented to some extent, which led to the emergence of the Soviet-German border. Without this key factor, a surprise attack on the USSR would not have been possible and, therefore, it was the pre-war policy of the Soviet government that was responsible for the disastrous results of the 1941 summer campaign.

3. The special cruelty of the war was due to the "fascist" political thinking of all the main participants in WW2.
This was expressed in the fact that the governments of both belligerents (including the "democratic" countries) recognized violence (including mass terror) as a decisive way to achieve military-political tasks. But the Hitler and Bolshevik regimes, in addition, practiced mass repression against entire national and social groups, as well as their political opponents within the country. Thus, the "destructive" nature of the war was predetermined from the very beginning.

4. The role of Stalin in the Victory is undoubted, and at the same time contradictory.
They say that the war will write off everything - and this is true. If Stalin had died in 1940, he would hardly have been able to remain in folk mythology and on the windshields of trucks. But in his life there was not only a struggle for power, there was also a Victory over fascism in it. During the war years, Stalin's outstanding political and organizational abilities were finally directed not to strengthening personal power, but against a terrible enemy that brought our country something worse than collective farms and the Gulag.
Of course, Stalin made major miscalculations in assessing the military-political situation, the military catastrophes of 1941-42 were largely on his conscience. But after all, in that war, neither side had invincible commanders and infallible strategists. To say that on June 22 Hitler outplayed Stalin is at least strange, knowing how the Third Reich and its Fuhrer ended. If you managed to pull the tiger's whiskers, this does not mean that you outplayed him.
Having recovered from the shock of the first days of the war, Stalin managed to mobilize the country to repel the enemy. As a result, under his leadership, the Soviet army inflicted a defeat on Germany, Japan and their allies unprecedented in history. “Undoubtedly, he was a worthy Supreme Commander,” concluded Zhukov. “During the Great Patriotic War, Stalin’s military authority in the eyes of the commanders of the fronts and armies was high,” Konev stated. “One thing is indisputable,” emphasized the famous naval commander Kuznetsov, “one cannot belittle the outstanding role of Stalin during the Great Patriotic War.”
Another thing is that Stalin quickly got used to the idea that the Battle of Stalingrad and all subsequent strategic offensive operations were, first of all, his personal merit. Although he was able to fulfill his role as Supreme Commander-in-Chief only thanks to the presence of outstanding military leaders in the Armed Forces. It was from them that Stalin learned the art of war.
The defeat of fascism, the victory over Japan turned the Soviet Union into a superpower, and Stalin into one of the most authoritative leaders of that time. In defending the interests of the country, Stalin showed himself to be an uncompromising politician, which earned him the respect of Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle and other Western leaders.
It is only a pity that the Victory strengthened Stalin in the consciousness of the infallibility of the pre-war course. No concessions were made to the victorious people. The leader prepared new hardships for him and expected new victims from him.

However, so far our people are in demand mythology and romanticization of war in the spirit of "absolute good against absolute evil", "angels against demons", and this is also not without reason. So, now it is necessary for the "well-being" of our society. Who, if not historians, understand such things.
________________________________________ ________________ __________
Fans of historical reading are invited to my new book of historical miniatures"Dwarf of Peter the GREAT"
My book is out

Introduction

THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR left many legends. This happened largely because the communists had to constantly prove the advantages of the socialist way of development. Therefore, Russia was proclaimed the birthplace of elephants and ingenious designers. And if history had given us a little more time, and they (the designers) had not been interfered with, then we would have slapped everyone. Although if the war had delayed a little, then our propeller-driven aircraft would have had to meet with the German JET on the FIRST DAY of the war.
I have already written articles T-34 WITHOUT LEGENDS AND HYSTERICS, IL-2 IN LEGENDS AND ON THE BATTLE FIELD, ZIS-3 POPULAR LEGENDARY AND NOT NECESSARY TO ANYONE, but the number of legends is endless.

Legendary KATYUSHA

The BM-13 KATYUSHA rocket fire system is truly legendary. In the sense that there are plenty of legends about her. And you probably know them yourself.

Here is nonsense from Wikipedia - and the detonation of the warhead from both sides with ONE fuse, and the length of the projectile was confused, and the year of testing the thermite shells was not guessed. What really happened?
In the beginning there was a primitive rocket with a thermite charge. A thermite charge is something like a big sparkler. Yes, if you put it on a barrel of gasoline, it will undoubtedly burn through the wall and ignite the gasoline. And if it falls on your back, it will hit a bump (unlike napalm, a sparkler does not stick to your back). And if it falls next to you, then you will remember the new year. That's basically all the damage a thermite charge can do. The Germans bombarded Leningrad with such bombs, but there were no fires in those houses where girls with blacksmith tongs sat on the roofs and dropped these bombs into the yard or a box of sand. The test of combat units with thermite balls took place in the thirty-eighth year at the training ground near Leningrad. Usually, all authors mention that grass still does not grow there. Even if this is true, it is not from the hellish flame of a thermite charge, but from poisoning the earth with combustion products.
Quickly realizing the safety of the thermite charge for the enemy, they put a conventional high-explosive warhead on the rocket, which had almost five kilograms of TNT. For comparison, a 130 mm caliber projectile contains three and a half kilograms of TNT, and a 152 mm caliber projectile contains six to seven kilograms.
Why did I call the rocket primitive? Because it was like that, that is, it differed from the Chinese missiles of the Ming or Qing dynasty only in the composition of the powder charge. The new composition of gunpowder allowed the rocket to fly further, but it chose the direction of flight itself.

Look at this or any other photo of a KATYUSHA salvo, you can even see with the naked eye that the missiles, to put it mildly, fly in more than one direction.
In meters it was expressed as follows. When firing at three thousand meters, the lateral deviation was 51 meters, and 257 meters in range.

Therefore, when I come across such pictures, accompanied by stories about the fight against enemy tanks with direct fire, I frankly do not believe it. Even if we allow an accidental hit, WHAT CAN A HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELL DOING TO A TANK with a maximum speed of three hundred and fifty meters per second?
It remains to understand why the rockets flew so crookedly? Here is what the expert on artillery SHIROKORAD A B writes. The main reason for the low accuracy of rockets was the eccentricity of the thrust of the jet engine, that is, the displacement of the thrust vector from the axis of the rocket due to the uneven burning of gunpowder in checkers.
Here he is exactly half right. The displacement of the thrust vector was, is and will always be, but uneven combustion has nothing to do with it. The damned laws of physics state that in a closed space, gas presses at any point with the same force. And no matter how hard the powder charge tries to change the thrust vector with its uneven combustion, it cannot do this. Thrust vector ALWAYS warps the CURVED NOZZLE. They fight this by replacing one large nozzle with many small ones, in the hope that each nozzle will bend the thrust vector in its own direction and the sum of these distortions will be close to zero.

In the photographs, an aircraft rocket of the end of the war with many small nozzles, which flew almost straight and our rocket.

The second way is to give the rocket rotation - the thrust vector will be directed in a new direction every moment of time and its negative influence will again decrease to zero.
Our launcher did not give the rocket rotation - that is, the same was primitive.
Why am I telling you all this in such detail and tediously? In order for the reader to understand - THE GERMANS HAVE NO NEED TO HUNT FOR THE BM-13 KATYUSHA JET SYSTEM. Well, she didn’t have any secrets worthy of attention, at least for the Germans. But we, if possible, blew up the launchers, and then the combat crews that did not have time to blow up their launchers themselves were shot.
The secret was in the technology of manufacturing a powder charge for a rocket engine. Our method was more productive, but in order to steal it, it was necessary to capture the gunpowder factory in the Urals and not the launcher.
Another legend about the first use of KATYUSHA.

To be honest, I don’t know if there were Germans at the Orsha station at the time of the strike or not. But I know for sure that there were no German trains at the station and could not be, by definition. We have a DIFFERENT WIDTH of the railway track. The Germans physically could not come to Orsha by train. The Germans, unlike the compilers of the legends, knew this very well and understood that EVERYTHING WILL HAVE TO BE DRAWED ON YOUR HUMP.

And judging by the photos, they took great care of it.

The combat effectiveness of KATYUSHA

As we have already determined, the warhead of the rocket was a SIMPLE HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELL slightly weaker than a 152 mm howitzer projectile, but more expensive and less accurate. To deliver six kilograms of TNT to a distance of eight kilometers with the help of a howitzer, two kilograms of gunpowder are needed, and to deliver five kilograms of TNT to the same distance with the help of KATYUSHA, seven kilograms of gunpowder are needed.
Many publications happily report that KATYUSHA was used in breaking through the front in all major operations. This shows a complete misunderstanding by our command of the purpose of KATYUSHA. Its true purpose is UNEXPECTED strikes against troops located OPENLY and having the opportunity to QUICKLY get out of the strike. Shooting from KATYUSHA at the trenches is nonsense - the trenches will not run away anywhere.
At the end of the war, however, Katyusha began to be included in the advanced mobile groups. When the enemy tried to knock out such a group from a occupied line, a KATYUSHA volley usually dispersed the advancing infantry.
In total, about seven million rockets for the BM-13 KATYUSHA were fired. For comparison, conventional shells in the Stalingrad operation spent thirty million in the Kursk fifty.

And another legend

That's exactly what you haven't heard. It was told to me by a drunk front-line soldier.
At night, on our hands, we roll the BM-13 KATYUSHA to our trenches. We lower the front wheels into the trench. Rocket fuses set to maximum delay. After a salvo, the rockets do not fly, but slide along the ground and fall into the enemy's trenches. And the engine is still running. Here the rocket runs along the trench until it jumps into the dugout. There it explodes.

The legend about automata

The legend goes something like this. Before the war, either the military or Comrade Stalin did not understand the meaning of machine guns. And then the Germans appeared, without exception, equipped with machine guns and constantly shooting from them from the belly. And then we began to urgently make machine guns and defeated everyone.
In fact, everything was a little different. Before the war in the Soviet Union, they were very persistently engaged in automatic weapons. There were a million contests on various topics. The TOKAREV SELF-LOADING RIFLE won them all. In the thirty-eighth year, she was the best. Then it was improved by the whole world to the SVT-40 model. It was released in the amount of one and a half million. The Germans did not make so many machine guns during the entire war.

The fact that they didn’t know how to fight and eighty percent simply abandoned it is not a rifle problem. In forty-one, neither the Kalashnikov assault rifle nor the T-90 tank would have helped. We must look elsewhere for the origins of our defeats.
PPSh, of course, was easier to manufacture, and the same in circulation. The actual firing range was about fifty meters. That is, it was a distance at which it was possible not only to shoot, but also to hit. And what did you want from a machine gun with a powerful enough but still PISTOL CARTRIDGE?
A small lyrical digression. The topic of small arms is very interesting, but no matter how insulting it is, the quality of small arms has very little effect on the result of the battle. No, of course there are conditions when everything depends on small arms. For example, in the mountains of Afghanistan, a soldier with PPSh will lose to a soldier armed with SVT-40. But the battle in the ruins of the house will be won by a soldier armed with PPSh. A submachine gun chambered for a pistol cartridge is a weapon of self-defense. And oddly enough, but for the competent conduct of hostilities this is enough. In defense, it can be used to stop an attack in the last fifty meters. And in the initial phase of the offensive, you don’t need to shoot at all. You just need to crawl to the enemy trenches at a minimum distance during artillery preparation, and then run up to them with a jerk and finish off the survivors. The offensive that is shown in the movies is just stupidity. It is impossible to shoot down the soldiers firing back from the trenches on the run, all the more so you can neither run up nor crawl up to the machine gun. Of course, if the machine gunner is a complete nerd and left unreachable areas, then yes. But the Germans had few of these, and for all sorts of beams and ravines there were mining and mortars.
The only way out is the use of artillery or an offensive will simply give a mass of corpses without result. Recently there was a fairly honest film about pilots. There, trenches were dug all night at the airfield, and in the morning the Germans simply crushed everyone with mortars.
There is indeed a Chinese way of conducting an offensive, when one hundred and twenty lines run and only the first line has weapons and boots. After the first hundred ranks are destroyed, the defenders either run out of ammo or overheat their machine guns. At this time, the last ranks take weapons and shoes from the dead and finish off the defenders. What our strategists wanted to oppose to such tactics, read at the end of the article PNEUMATIC WEAPONS.
A small technical digression. At one time, experiments were carried out on shooting at emerging targets from a Kalashnikov assault rifle, both single shots and bursts. When firing bursts, the number of hits increased as expected. But it increased by such a MINOR amount that it became clear that if a person cannot hit the target with a single shot, then the queue will not help him much.
Everything said in the technical digression is said in defense of the self-loading rifle. There was a case when one, very good shooting, man with several self-loading rifles defended the position of the platoon. You ask what the rest of the fighters did? They loaded his rifles and eliminated delays in firing. Do you think the Germans took machine guns and went at him shooting from the belly? No, they just leveled the positions of the platoon with artillery. And since a mortar of a caliber of one hundred and twenty millimeters could best compare the trenches with the ground, the Germans quickly copied it from us and put it into production. You can read about this in the article - FORGOTTEN WEAPON OF VICTORY.

And now just photos of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR with comments.

Germans, Mauser rifles, long-handled grenades, but there are no machine guns. Although the platoon commander definitely had to have a machine gun, maybe he just didn’t get into the frame.

The offended face of a German soldier. Well, he didn’t have enough German machine gun, so he has to fight with ours.

Everything seems to be in order - a German, a machine gun at the belly, I really forgot to roll up my sleeves. Everything is fine, but the picture is STAGED - a village destroyed and burned down in places, but no smoke or dust.

Elite German troops, but there is only one machine gun (new) and two machine guns. And it's true - the Germans had more machine guns than machine guns.

As for the ideal small arms of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, one rifle squad had to have two self-loading rifles (for those who can shoot) and machine guns for the rest.
For all the years of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, a little more than six million machine guns were produced. And the army in the forty-fourth year was 11 million people. So we didn’t all run with machine guns at the end of the war.

Anti-tank guns

Everything is as usual here - at first they did not understand what a formidable weapon it was, and then how they did it and how they defeated everyone.
In fact, the 14.5x114 mm cartridge was designed even before the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR and still feels good. It is used in the Vladimirov heavy machine gun, which is still on many armored personnel carriers, and recently even a pedestal installation for civilian ships appeared - however, the pirates tortured it.

But the fact that anti-tank rifles made under this cartridge are a formidable weapon was not understood then. And there were only two, but very good reasons for this. First, we had a huge amount of anti-tank artillery. The Germans, who had about the same number of anti-tank guns, but of a smaller caliber, managed to destroy all our tanks, including the invulnerable T-34 and KV. Secondly, anti-tank guns did not penetrate tank armor. Usually, in the articles of the cheers of the patriots, data are given that anti-tank rifles pierced twenty millimeters of armor at a distance of five hundred meters. Firstly, it is not clear where such information comes from - the tests were carried out on armor 22 mm thick and at a distance of FOUR HUNDRED meters. Secondly - WHERE DID YOU SEE GERMAN TANKS ARMOR 20 MILLIMETER THICK?

No, the shooter's manual talks about two points at the bottom of the hull above some road wheels. But no one has ever seen them. Many times I looked through the scope at the tanks in real conditions - the bottom of the hull is NEVER visible. Grass or snow and uneven ground ALWAYS cover the bottom of the tank hull. According to statistics, there are practically no hits there. And one more sarcastic question - HOW TO BE FROM THE SIDE of a German tank? Yes, even at an angle of strictly ninety degrees, because at a different angle it will not break through.
But the most common side armor of German tanks with a thickness of thirty millimeters did not break through at any distance. Why? Because at the beginning of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, the armor of German tanks was of the highest quality, and even optimized against small-caliber shells with a high initial speed. And we made an armor-piercing core from (mat was banned on the Internet). A normal core appeared only in December of the forty-first year. It is called BS-41. But the Germans hung screens on the sides of the tanks and forgot about our anti-tank guns once and for all. In addition, our armor-piercing shells of 7.62 and 85 mm caliber, which had TNT filling, were detonated on these screens.

This is with regard to the question whether it was broken or not. What if they hit it? A core with a diameter of EIGHT millimeters pierces armor. And what? A tank is not a balloon from which air has escaped and yeah.
There are two questions: WHY DID THEM BE DONE? and WHY DID YOU MAKE A LEGEND?
It’s clear about the legend - it was necessary to explain to the people why they retreated (we didn’t have machine guns and anti-tank rifles).
Why did they do it? Anti-tank rifles are not the funniest thing they did during the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR. Voroshilov in the forty-first year ordered a lot of PIKs in order to stab the Germans if they break into Leningrad.
By the way, anti-tank rifles continue their victorious march, although now they are called -
Optimism (let's call it that so as not to offend people who stood up in the twenty-first century to fight the Nazis) is a national Russian quality. Recently, near Slavyansk, militia fired from an anti-tank rifle from the times of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR at a T-64 tank. Moreover, the shooting was carried out at a distance of one thousand two hundred meters.

Soviet aircraft machine gun on Hitler's desk

With the light hand of a certain Novikov and the magazine YOUTH TECHNIQUE, about the seventieth year of publication, this legend went for a walk. I myself was not in the imperial office, so I’m just arguing whether the ShKAS machine gun was so good and whether the Germans needed it so much.
There is such a thing - BALANCE of aviation weapons. If it's simple, then all parts of the weapon should work with the same degree of tension. The most balanced scheme is the multi-barreled revolver gun, although it has an unrecoverable drawback - it slowly reaches the maximum rate of fire.
Constructor Shpitalny had no idea about balance. It was a maniac who thought only about the rate of fire. The ShKAS machine gun had an OVERLOADED barrel. That is, he could shoot quickly but not for long. Then he was wedged from overheating.

In the lower photo, a ShKAS machine gun with a powerful radiator is an attempt to solve an unsolvable problem.
The second point is the CALIBER of aviation weapons. There is such a thing - OPTIMAL caliber. For each level of technological development of society, it is different. For the middle of the GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, the optimal caliber was approximately 23 mm. But the Germans were bombed by large American and British planes. Therefore, they began to produce thirty-millimeter caliber aircraft guns, and they were absolutely right in this.

Photos of the German gun MK-108 caliber thirty millimeters. The barrel is short, the cartridge, judging by the size of the cartridge case, is weak, but for any of its projectiles, when firing at an air fortress, it will be more effective than a bullet from a ShKAS machine gun
And now the question arises - WHY DID THE GERMANS NEED A 7,62 MILLIMETER NON-FIRRING MACHINE GUN?

Brilliant designers who were not allowed to create

There was a brilliant aviation designer Polikarpov and his fighter, which had the highest ESTIMATED technical characteristics. That is, he flew fast but only on paper. Moreover, these characteristics were achieved with an engine that was never put into production until the end of the war. When the usual ASh-82 was put on the plane, the fighter did not have any advantages over the LA-5.

Brilliant designer Kurchevsky. When they say that he designed recoilless rifles, everyone immediately imagines an anti-tank grenade launcher. But he did not have an anti-tank grenade launcher because there was no shaped charge in the country. But there was a recoilless anti-tank gun. True, she did not penetrate armor of thirty millimeters even from ten meters. And there were hundreds of crazy projects for recoilless rifles up to and including five hundred millimeters. Do you represent a tank recoilless gun? Barrel, bolt and nozzle protruding from the bolt. That is, he loaded it, got out of the tank, fired, ventilated the fighting compartment and loaded it back into the tank. That is, they spent a lot of people's money, fired five thousand barrels, dispersed a normal artillery design bureau. And the great commander Blucher covered all this. And although his last name is not literally translated from English, he brought enough harm to the country. In general, both were shot absolutely fairly, although belatedly.

NOW I WILL DRINK COFFEE AND I WILL END THE ARTICLE