The silence of the Russian spetskhrana
In Soviet times, official historians were absolute monopolists on historical the truth, and their works were published in runs of hundreds of thousands of copies. Independent historians (underground historians) in these years lurked underground, and all their activity was reduced to kitchen talk and self-publishing. And this did not suit the KGB, which periodically conducted a search in "bad apartments" and often sent those caught red-handed to places not so remote. Since 1991, everything has changed. The works of official historians simply stopped buying, and the works of underground historians by numerous private publishers began to produce no less huge print runs. But most importantly, to the pleasure and at the same time to the resentment of underground historians, their works crawled across the Internet in countless electronic copies without knowledge.HISTORICAL MONOPOLY
What happened? The fact is that until 1991 our military history was full of white spots and frank lies. To whom this wording cuts the ear, another term can be used - “wartime propaganda”. Indeed, lies (military propaganda) are also weaponnot worse than guns and tanks, and the warring parties are actively using it in the course of hostilities.
But then the war ends, and wartime propaganda becomes dangerous for the state and for its manufacturer. For example, in Western countries after the war more than 95% of incriminating information was published on politicians and generals. Part of it was brought to the general reader in the media and in popular literature. A fair amount of "unpleasant information" was almost never mentioned in the media, but was described in detail in open but small-circulation academic works. Typical examples are the execution of a French squadron by a British fleet in Mers-el-Kebir, the landing and bloody battles of the Americans for the island of Kysku, where the Japanese were not, and all the losses were from mines and "friendly" fire. And only a few particularly scandalous stories are still under the heading "top secret." For example, the details of the flight of Rudolf Hess to England, the correspondence of the British royal house with Hitler, other prominent Nazis, etc.
In the USSR, due to the monopoly of the state in the field of history, our generals and professors apparently decided that they could leave intact the numerous white spots of our history, as well as blatant lies or, correctly speaking, elements of wartime propaganda. And it concerned not only the Great Patriotic War. For example, until now no official historian recognizes or denies the participation of Suzdal Prince Andrei Yaroslavich and his Suzdal “forged” ratification in the battle on the ice of Lake Peipsi in 1242. Official historians have also forgotten about the participation of the Russian army and navy in suppressing the rebellion of the “boxers” in China in 1900, in the capture of Beijing and the looting of the Forbidden City.
And from the history of the Civil War, the 52-thousandth North-Western army of Prince Avalov fell out. Our “wise” historians did not know how to classify this army, because Bermont-Avalov mercilessly scolded the Bolsheviks, but did not fire a single shot at them, but beat only the Baltic nationalists and the Anglo-French interventionists.
But what is remarkable. The ignorance of our historians has led not only to oblivion of their works after 1991, but also turned out to be a formidable weapon in the hands of Russophobes. Thus, the capture of Baturin by Menshikov in 1708 was exaggerated to the utmost by “independent” historians and became one of the fundamental pillars of “Ukrainian history”. Naturally, the Ukrainian man in the street believed the nationalists, and it’s not for nothing that the ominous Muscovites classified the “genocide of the Ukrainian people” perpetrated by Peter I.'s assistant.
Unfortunately, even now our official historians very slowly and reluctantly discover the secrets of the military history of Russia. And we are talking not only about battles, but also about collisions around military equipment.
FANTASY OF TUHACHEVSKY
Zamnarkom defense for armament Marshal Tukhachevsky was fully rehabilitated in 1956 year. Khrushchev praised the "genius marshal" almost in every speech he gave about the war and the cult of the individual. The name Tukhachevsky was called 79 streets, 6 lanes and one embankment. But here is a weighty (720 pages) folio “History of Russian Artillery”, volume 3, dedicated to the period from 1921 to June 1941 of the year. I look at the nominal index: the deputy commander for armaments, that is, the one who led the development of weapons and military equipment, including artillery, is mentioned here only once - on the 339 page. It says that Tukhachevsky was very attentive to the work of GIRD in 1932. And that's it! And that is something published in 1964 year, when the whole country for eight years glorified "brilliant strategist."
Even worse, this book does not mention any of Tukhachevsky's favorite brainchildren, which he, contrary to all rules and laws, launched into mass production without successfully passing field and military tests. So, for example, Tukhachevsky, together with the head of the Ostekhbyuro, the technical adventurer Bekauri, decided to turn the Red Army into an army of radio-controlled robots - remote-controlled aircraft, tanks, armored trains, armored tires, pillboxes, submarines. By the beginning of the war, about 300 units were riveted by remote-controlled torpedo boats alone. During the war, only two remote-controlled boats were used, and both times unsuccessfully. In total, more than a thousand radio-controlled "toys" of Comrade Bekauri were made, but not a single German suffered from them (not to be confused with radio-controlled mines created by the NKVD. - A.Sh.).
At the direction of Tukhachevsky, four artillery factories from 1931 to 1936 were tormented with universal guns, that is, guns, which were supposed to simultaneously serve as divisional and anti-aircraft guns. If we create universal guns, then we do not need anti-aircraft guns, Tukhachevsky considered. As a result, all the work on anti-aircraft guns caliber 20 – 37 mm was failed.
The funny thing is that in 1930, the company Rheinmetall secretly supplied the USSR with 2-cm and 3-cm anti-aircraft guns - the ones that successfully operated on airplanes, infantry and tanks throughout the war. The delivery included samples of the machines themselves, semi-finished products for the manufacture of two dozen products and a complete set of technological documentation. But Ostap, sorry, Mikhail Nikolayevich, carried - give him universal tools! As a result, by August 1 1939, the USSR was the only European country that did not have anti-aircraft guns. The Finns, Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs were, but we have not. Already after the arrest of Tukhachevsky, the VNKX 40-mm automatic rifle machine was urgently “blasted” and received the 37K 61-K and the 70-K marine. But in parts and on ships they began to arrive at the very end of 1940 of the year. And in June 1941, units of the Red Army defended themselves from low-flying German aircraft, mainly the Maxim 7,62-mm machine gun.
And further. At the direction of Tukhachevsky, another adventurer, Kurchevsky, has riveted over 5 thousand dynamo (recoilless) guns. In the Great Patriotic War, none of them were used. Moreover, all DRP (dynamo-reactive tools) of Kurchevsky were created according to the unsuitable “loaded barrel” scheme. Since 1943, not a single state of the world, including the USSR, has created recoilless guns under this scheme, preferring the “widened-chamber” scheme - a scheme with an inert mass.
In the 1920 year, even before the appointment of Tukhachevsky as the Deputy Commissar for Armaments, in the USSR a group of people, either technically inadequate or pests, began experiments on the creation of anchorage-free projectiles. And the marshal zealously supported the transfer of the Red Army to the bomber shells. As a result, dozens of guns from 37 to 368 mm caliber were redone, tens of thousands of such shells were made, which were continuously tested on artillery landfills right up to the end of 1938.
I am sure that now some “expert” will admire: “Oh, what brilliant gunners we had! In the middle of the 1920-ies created snapping shells! ”Calm down, gentlemen! Before the armor-piercing shells, these guys and the marshal did not think of it. They have a 368-mm three-ton gun fired with a high-explosive projectile already at 120 km! But the explosives in the shells were about the same as in the 76-mm projectile conventional battalion cannon.
In the Central State Archive of the Soviet Army, I found a letter from an engineer sent to the People's Commissar of Defense at the end of 1938. It is popular in numerous examples demonstrated falsification in testing of projectile shells from 1920 to 1938 year and the fact that these tests only confirmed the conclusions made by Russian gunners during firing as early as 1865 — 1875 at the Volkovo polygon range. And here is the conclusion: engineers began to deal with sabot shells in 1860-ies from despair, having failed to create an effective system for cutting the bore.
The first effective cutting system was created by Krupp engineers with the assistance of the Russian officers of the Artillery Division of the GAU (Main Artillery Directorate - NVO) in 1867 year. And after 10 years, they created a unique system of rifling the “sample 1877 of the year”, which is still being used with minor changes. After that, the leadership of the State Agrarian University considered the topic of the projectile projectiles forever closed. But the conclusions of the tsarist generals to the genial marshal were not a decree. However, the fact is that the engineer who sent the above note to Voroshilov sent a copy to Comrade Beria. However, in 1956 – 1958 years, Comrade Khrushchev posthumously rehabilitated all the fans of the projectile bombs.
ONCE AGAIN ABOUT SEVASTOPOL
Now about the pride of Russian sailors. About the heroic defense of Sevastopol 1941 – 1942 in Russia did not write just lazy. But, alas, so far no official historian has told about the true role of the people's commissar Kuznetsov and the commander of the Oktyabrsky Black Sea Fleet in defending Sevastopol. As you know, in the Black Sea, our glorious admirals were preparing to fight the superior forces of the Italian fleet. However, the "scoundrel" Mussolini was frightened and did not send a single warship to the Bosphorus. Therefore, the warhead with the Italian fleet was imposed "sovsekretno", valid to this day.
And the real tragedy of Sevastopol was the installation on the approaches to it about 6 thousand of their own mines. True, our admirals left three fairways - passages between minefields, but only one fairway could be used, and even that was too narrow. And according to this, from November 1941, Oktyabrsky regularly sent minesweepers "to expand the fairway," that is, to trawle by themselves the delivered mines.
On the "native" mines in 1941 – 1942, 12 of Soviet ships were killed and another two dozen were damaged. Without a mine, a cruiser or a destroyer could approach Sevastopol at a speed of 30 – 35 knots, and along the fairway, among the mines, he could follow only minesweepers in a three-four-node course. And this is all under the bombs of the Luftwaffe. But not a single enemy ship to minefields near Sevastopol even prodded. But the Soviet ships were undermined on their mines right up to the year 1955.
In addition, in November-December 1941 of the two admirals managed to remove half of the Black Sea Fleet ammunition from Sevastopol. Before the war, 99% of naval ammunition was stored in the arsenals of the main base. October also took out more than half of anti-aircraft artillery from Sevastopol to the Caucasus, despite the fact that there were many anti-aircraft guns of the country in Poti and Batumi. And the main thing is that the Germans did not bomb Poti or Batumi.
At the end of 1941, the People's Commissar Kuznetsov ordered the removal of the best transport ships from the Black Sea through the straits, allegedly needed for use in the north and the Pacific. And this is a very strange decision, since Nikolay Gerasimovich personally participated in the negotiations with the United States on the supply to the USSR of dozens of Liberty-class transport vessels for 10 thousand tonnes of displacement each. They were well used in other theaters of war, but the Black Sea Fleet was practically left without transport.
And now (after 1991 of the year), the professors of the Naval Academy, with foaming at the mouth, prove that by July 1942 could not be defended by Sevastopol due to the lack of ammunition and anti-aircraft artillery. And in order to deliver them there, Oktyabrsky did not have transport vessels ... I will not point to the ignorance of the calculation of these professors, because they ignore the mobilized transport vessels turned into minesweepers, the floating bases, and the fishing seiners and other small vessels do not take into account. But the main thing is that the naval professorship keeps silent about the fact that the Germans sank about 20% of transport ships, while the remaining 80% were sunk or disabled by their own mines or withdrawn through the Bosphorus by order of Kuznetsov.
... As a result, the Admiral Oktyabrsky, when the clock of Sevastopol was numbered, threw on a civilian raincoat, pulled a greasy cap on his ears, climbed the ladder into the Douglas and landed in the Caucasus an hour later. And in the area of Cape Chersonese were thrown to the mercy of fate from 60 to 100 thousand heroic defenders of Sevastopol. There was not enough space for them either in the Douglas or on the deck ...
All of the above is described in detail in the books of dozens of independent authors, including mine. And again, service historians do not confirm or deny (with numbers) the circumstances of the surrender of Sevastopol. Saying, thus, without noticing or commenting on uncomfortable facts, they defend the honor of the Red Army and Navy. What, one wonders, from the truth? Then it is not even the “decline of military history science”, but its complete degradation. There is little interest in such a story. That is why costly, in excellent polygraphic execution of the book, official historians buy only libraries and the service historians themselves.
IN DAMAGE TO YOURSELF
Their right. But official historians who hide the blank spots of history from the people do great harm to the interests of the state. I will confine myself to a small example. Polish historians and the media have made the execution of 4 thousand Polish officers in Katyn the main national problem. Regardless of who did it, the Germans or the Russians, this is still not a very significant episode of the Second World War. The same British, for example, killed about 10 thousand French, their former allies, but for decades nobody remembers those killed, including France. But the voices of the Poles about Katyn, the Warsaw Uprising, the capture of Vilna in the 1944 year and the other turn into a demand of multi-billion compensation from Russia. But our academicians and generals have such trump cards against the Poles in the secret archives that publishing them will lead to many heart attacks and strokes in Warsaw.
Recall that at least 700 thousand ethnic Poles served in the Wehrmacht and the SS. By the way, among them was Joseph Tusk - the grandfather of the current chairman of the European Council, the former Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk. Donald began to make excuses that the grandfather was forcibly mobilized. But this, I'm sorry, babble. Forcibly, no Poles in the Wehrmacht and the SS did not mobilize. In order to undergo a forced mobilization, Joseph Tusk needed to prove to the Germans that he was not a Pole, but a natural German. By the way, the Germans checked it very strictly. But "he called himself a grudge - get into the body," go protect the Fatherland.
By the way, 53 thousands of ethnic Poles in the form of the Wehrmacht and the SS were captured by the Red Army. For some reason, our official historians have forgotten about them. And what happened to the hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical weapons that the Poles had prepared for the 1939 year to attack the Soviet Union? The answers are in our archives. But why is the Institute of Military History silent? Why is he silent about human testing of bacteriological weapons in the same Poland? By the way, one of the centers for testing this weapon was located in the Berg fort of the Brest Fortress. By the way, access to the fort under the specious pretext is closed so far.
Now about the allies who shared the Victory with us. London is unlikely to enjoy the publication of the correspondence of the British royal house with Hitler and other prominent Nazis. In April 1945, the British king George VI gave a secret assignment to his distant relative, Anthony Blunt, to steal all this correspondence in occupied Germany. Anthony brilliantly performed the task and presented to the king a report on the work done. Well, a copy of the report sent to his other chief - Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. It is not hard to guess that all this correspondence today lies somewhere in the archives of the FSB. Why lies? When the head of the British royal house changes, the TNT equivalent of publishing correspondence will decrease by a factor of two. But official military historians still continue to play with the society in silence. As usual.
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