Why did the Russians survive and Hitler's lightning war failed?
P.A.Krivonogov. Defenders of the Brest Fortress. 1951 g.
Disaster of 1941
The summer and autumn of 1941 were terrifying for Russia and our people. One military disaster after another! It seemed that the Germans had already won! A significant part of the cadre of the Red Army was beaten or captured on the western borders! We have lost almost all aviation and most tanks... The Baltic Fleet suffered heavy losses and was trapped in the Gulf of Finland, where it was threatened with complete destruction after the fall of Leningrad. The Germans immediately captured the Baltic States, Belarus, the ancient Russian capital - Kiev, surrounded Leningrad - the second capital of the Union, rushed to Moscow.
We have lost three of the four main industrial regions of the country. Much of the industry was partially paralyzed by the hasty, emergency evacuation. Millions of Soviet people were under occupation, significantly weakening the mobilization potential of the USSR. Huge reserves were abandoned or lost in the western regions of Russia weapons, ammunition, equipment, ammunition, provisions and fuel. The west of the country plunged into disaster. Fear, panic or apathy gripped millions of people.
In essence, everything happened as the Nazis planned. They could have written the 1941 summer campaign on their list of triumphant victories. Together with the campaigns of 1940 - spring 1941. They also thought in London and Washington. A red colossus with feet of clay was believed in the West to fall. A small fraction of such a catastrophe that befell Russia would be enough for any Western country to kneel down and ask for mercy.
But Soviet civilization not only did not fall, it intensified its resistance. The Russians continued to fight fiercely, tried to counterattack, died, but did not surrender! The Soviet government, which, as the West thought the people hated, not only held on, but organized defense, adjusted the war economy machine, and mobilized the country and the people. Moreover, the Soviets still managed to engage in propaganda, education and culture.
Soldiers of the underground garrison. Artist N. Ya.But, 1964
Battle of two technomagic civilizations
This did not fit in the minds of not only the Germans, but also the British, Americans and other Frenchmen.
How? Why? How are the Russians still holding out?
The Germans, having started a war with the USSR, faced a new type of enemy. With a different civilization.
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, France and England belonged to Western civilization. These were industrial (or industrial-agrarian) societies with a democratic trade system based on a collegial, democratic beginning and the rule of contractual principles.
Outwardly, the Soviet Union was also part of this group. The country most of it stories was governed by a collegial body (Central Committee, Politburo), which acted according to certain rules (the charter of the Communist Party). The USSR in the 30s became an industrial state, with a predominance of the urban population and trade and production activities.
However, for all its proximity to the West, Russia-USSR was a different civilization.
With a developed tradition, archaic principles. In particular, the Russian community, which under Soviet rule was transformed into collective farms, state farms, production artels and factory collectives. Where the general is higher than the particular, spirit is higher than matter, and truth is higher than formal law.
Russia, like the Third Reich, was a technomagical civilization with a strong communal, corporate beginning. People united in structures dedicated to a great idea, goal and common cause. The people could act as one superpersonality. In unity.
The USSR, like the Reich, was an ideocracy (with the rule of ideas and ideals). In this he was fundamentally different from other, Western social systems.
As a result, one technomagic civilization collided with another.
One "guest from the future" tried to destroy the other. A battle of titans and priests broke out. The "black sun" of the Reich attacked the red civilization of the future.
And the Russians withstood such blows that struck everyone else on the spot!
Hitler's fatal mistake
Having attacked us on June 22, 1941, Hitler was counting only on a blitzkrieg. To shock and awe. Only to the complete destruction of the consciousness of Russians and their demoralization. For internal disintegration, with the possibility of military revolts, peasant, urban uprisings against Soviet power. To the "parade of sovereignties", to the uprising of the national separatists.
Otherwise, the war could lead to very grave consequences for Germany. The Reich, people, army and economy were not ready for a protracted war. To a war of attrition. The economy and people were only partially mobilized. The army was not ready to fight in the winter. Lack of strategic resources. With the threat of a second front.
Hitler's plan was clear. It partly coincided with the thoughts of his French predecessor, Napoleon. He wanted to inflict such terrible blows on the Russians at the beginning of the war, after which the campaign would be won before winter came. Moscow will ask for peace on any, even the most humiliating conditions. Option Brest-2.
Or a catastrophe on the external fronts and a complete collapse inside will force the Soviet leadership to flee abroad (as the Polish government and high command fled). A disorganized and demoralized country will be easily occupied.
It was also possible a variant of a military coup, which would displace Stalin and bring to power the generals who would pursue a policy in the interests of Germany, focus on it. But here the Germans missed the fact that Stalin before the war was able to destroy most of the "fifth column", including the military opposition.
Therefore, the German armies rushed to the three main cities of Russia - Kiev, Leningrad and Moscow. The capture of three sacred centers for Russian meant a deep psychological defeat of our consciousness. The auxiliary effects of Hitler's blitzkrieg against the USSR should have been the entry of Japan and Turkey into the war against us. This could lead to the complete collapse of the Soviet (Russian) statehood and civilization. Hence the fierce resistance of the Russians near Moscow.
"Russia is great, but nowhere to retreat!"
The words of M. Lermontov echoed from the past:
"Guys! Isn't Moscow behind us? Let us die near Moscow, as our brothers died! "
The Russian genetic code has worked!
The Russian people-hero woke up! The German "superior race" faced an enemy that was roughly the same test. But the ideal of the Russian (Soviet) people was not a slave-owning order, but a "bright future", a society based on the principles of justice, love, labor and help to one's neighbor. A society of knowledge, service and creation. The Nazis paved their bright future with the bones and blood of enemies, turning the survivors into slavery. The Russians proposed an alternative world - the co-prosperity of peoples, without parasitism and exploitation.
Colossus on clay feet
To be honest, Hitler had good reason to fully believe in his success.
Interestingly, the United States, Britain and the whole world also believed in Germany's victory in a very short time. The successes of the Third Reich in Western and Southern Europe were evident. The world community has not yet discerned the new Red Empire. The Soviet state was just born. As well as the new imperial Russian (Red) army. An industrial power, education and science have recovered from the ashes. High culture and art.
The whole world, including Germany, saw the Russian catastrophe of 1917-1920. The Russian empire exploded with terrible force. She had to disappear from the historical arena, like the Habsburg Empire or the Ottoman Empire. Turn into a bunch of new territories that will be colonized and "mastered" by the West. In place of Russia, not only Finland, Poland, the three Baltic republics, the Transcaucasian and North Caucasian republics and imamates arose, but also independent Ukraine, the Kuban and Don, the Tatar Crimea, Novorossia, the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Republic, Eastern Belarus, North-Western, Northern and Central republics, Siberia (controlled by the Americans and the Japanese) and Primorye. It is possible that the Kazan (Tatar-Bashkir) republic, plus the fragmented Turkestan.
There were also other plans for the creation of various "independent" states. For example, the idea of an independent Kamchatka. It was proposed there to withdraw ship-repair equipment from Vladivostok and create a small state under the rule of one of the Romanovs. The Reds, they say, will not be able to keep the navy, the remnants will ruin. And it is very difficult to get there on dry land. Therefore, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky can live off fishing, hunting, shipbuilding. Establish trade with the United States and Japan. It is clear that in this case Kamchatka would immediately become a protectorate of Japan or America. The Japanese or the Americans would receive a territory rich in raw materials, a base for fleet and aviation.
It is obvious that all these independent, "banana" republics, khanates and chieftains were doomed to become beggars, agrarian, raw material bantustans. With paper currencies mired in debt to banks in England, France, the United States and Japan. With weak and backward armies that could easily defeat the punitive forces of the great industrial powers. Their main role is raw materials, suppliers of coal, oil, ore, timber, flax, food, etc. Sources of cheap labor and sales markets, strategic positions (Sevastopol, Odessa, Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Vladivostok, etc.).
At the head of all these "sovereignties" would be democrats, socialists, constantly gnawing at each other, feudal lords or weak military dictators. All of them would be sold, would have had their own "business", would have taken out personal capital and families to the "civilized world."
A similar situation was in China at the beginning of the XNUMXth century: a beggar, hungry and dying people in drug dreams, the comprador bourgeoisie selling people's wealth (including values from the graves of their ancestors), a corrupt and completely corrupt bureaucracy. The territory divided between foreigners, regional generals and barons, drug dealers and other gangs, nationalists, rebels, etc.
As a result, the wreckage of the Russian Empire would sooner or later be mastered by the great powers and neighbors.
All our neighbors - Finland, Poland, Japan, Turkey and even barely living China - had their own views of the Russian lands. Millions of Russians faced the fate of second and third class people, subhumans and slaves of foreign masters. Plus oppression and oppression on the part of various national regimes, which would immediately remember about the "Russian colonialists" and the "prison of peoples". Under these conditions, the Russian superethnos became ethnographic material for other more viable nations. Russians were erased from world history. Then it was only necessary to rewrite the history, which is written by the winners, once again. Come up with new peoples - Ukrainians, Krivichs, Siberians, etc. Destroy the name of Russia and the Russians as if they never existed.
Soviet civilization
Thank God, the Bolsheviks broke all these plans for the dismemberment and "development" of Russia. They literally performed a miracle.
They raised the red banner of the working people, managed to defeat the main forces of the enemy (whites, interventionists, nationalists, Basmachi, bandits), and almost completely reunited the collapsed empire. And Stalin completed this process. And even improved strategic positions in the west and east. Russian communists created a new world, a planet-country called "USSR". In fact, it was a breakthrough into the future, a leap forward for centuries.
In literally one decade, Russians have not only caught up with the leading Western countries in the field of economics, science, technology and education. They escaped from the bestial present into the future. They offered mankind an alternative to the slave-owning, predatory order. A world without social parasitism, exploitation of man by man. A world of social justice, ethics of honest labor and conscience (instead of religions that served the ruling classes). A society of knowledge, service and creation. Where is a person, not a slave or master-slave owner, but a creator, a creator. Where he can fully reveal his physical, intellectual and spiritual potential.
But in the early 20s, Russia was a typical finished country. There are no friends and allies, the world around us is completely hostile. The economy and transport were destroyed during the world and the most brutal Civil War. The industrial potential, which was already weak, was severely degraded. Agriculture fell back into archaism, to subsistence farming. The gold reserves were taken out and plundered. Western countries will not give loans for development. A significant part of the educated, scientific and technical personnel fled the country. The society is sick, demoralized, permeated with nihilism. The confrontation between town and country persists, which at any moment can cause a new outbreak of turmoil, a second peasant war. A powerful fifth column that the West can use. That is, at any moment Soviet Russia could again collapse into chaos. And without any chance of salvation.
However, the communists performed a second miracle.
The evil fate was deceived again. With a dazzling dream, a great and beautiful idea, an incendiary word, and somewhere with "iron and blood" they again mobilized the country. And in an unprecedentedly short time, they built a great power with a powerful industry, developed agriculture, advanced science and education, and powerful armed forces. Literally in an instant they put an end to illiteracy, banditry, unemployment and homeless children, trained millions of specialists in science and technology, education and culture.
The dash of the 1930s looks fantastic!
The USSR was much ahead of its time, looked like an alien from a beautiful far away.
To be continued ...
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