The historian debunked the myth of the mass executions of retreating soldiers of the Red Army by detachments

There is a myth among the inhabitants that the barrage detachments in the Red Army specialized mainly in "penalty boxes", and also massively shot retreating soldiers and deserters.

Russian historian Aleksey Isaev refuted this misconception by talking about the specifics of the work of these formations, and also gave specific figures characterizing their activities.

The expert began by saying that, oddly enough, the detachments appeared on the initiative from below. The first such unit in early July 1941 was organized by the quartermaster of the 1st rank Maslov in the city of Tolochin (Belarus).

The detachment stopped the units of the Red Army retreating from Minsk, put them in order and formed units from them to protect Tolochin and Borisov.

In addition, the functions of the first Soviet detachment included mining bridges and crossings, which made a significant contribution to slowing down the offensive of the Wehrmacht units.

Later, in the same month, by order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrenty Beria, barrage detachments were formed in divisions, corps and armies.

According to Isaev, the functions of the officially created detachments practically did not differ from Maslov's unit. The main activity of the formations was still the detention, and then the return to the front of the retreating and deserters. In addition, the barrage detachments kept order in the rear, and, as the historian put it, carried out checks on various "loitering" personalities to identify potential spies and saboteurs.

The expert noted that from July to December 1941, more than 600 thousand people passed through the barrage detachments. At the same time, only 10 thousand were shot, which corresponds to just over 1,5%. Let's just say, a lot. But not hundreds of thousands, as ultra-liberal pseudo-historians claimed.

Finally, Isaev added that by order No. 227 of July 28, 1942, the detachments were no longer directly subordinate to the commanders of the formations in which they operated. At the same time, this change did not affect their functions and work statistics in any way.

Comments

[rocket757]

The historian debunked the myth of the mass executions of retreating soldiers of the Red Army by detachments

. The difficult period of the beginning of the war ... to maintain the combat effectiveness of the army, to maintain order in the front line, tough measures were taken to restore order ... a necessity, nothing more.

[Ulan.1812]

Those who studied the topic even before Isaev understood that this was a crudely concocted liberal myth.
The functions of the detachments are fixed in the position on the detachments.
A lot of cases are described when detachments went into battle.

[Non-fighter]

"House of the Bolsheviks" in Stalingrad, also known as the "Red House", also known as the plant management. The basis of the defense detachment. The Germans took the building with great difficulty.

[kor1vet1974]

The historian debunked the myth of the mass executions of retreating soldiers of the Red Army by detachments

And who concocted it? And most importantly introduced into consciousness?

[NDR-791]

Quote: kor1vet1974

And who concocted it? And most importantly introduced into consciousness?

Mainly the media. Remember who they belonged to. Both "Ogonyok" and "Komsomolskaya Pravda" were very distinguished. And our directors are without fail for state money (Shtrafbat, Rzhev, etc.) And all this had nothing to do with history and historians. So do textbook writers.

[kor1vet1974]

And who concocted it? And most importantly introduced into consciousness?

Cut off their hands..

[YOUR]

Who concocted the movie Shtrafbat? In the same way, fiction, films, little by little, were introduced into the consciousness, then "historians" appeared. In the same feature films, starting from the 90s, the more they cheat our history, the better the film. Well, people's brains simply turn off from the desire to find out something "forbidden" that has been "hidden" for years, and this is what appeared.

[Galleon]

A few thoughts after reading the article.
Isn't the answer too late for liberal pseudo-historians, a quarter of a century, no less? Is that the answer then?
"Invincible" argument about the initiative of detachments from below. How it reminds "people, people asked!"
According to Isaev, it turns out that the detachments of the Ukrainian national battalions and their actions against the defense and military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are something new under the sun? I doubt.

[vovochkarzhevsky]

Isaev simply changes his shoes in the air for the current moment. And in fact, he criticizes too obvious shoals of liberal propaganda.
But otherwise, nothing has changed, the same old song: "they threw corpses."

[Maxim G]

Isaev talks about Afghanistan, and about the Falklands, and about the war in the Pacific, and the Spanish Civil War.

What for a historian - who have been dealing with one single topic all their lives, and a very narrow one, not comme il faut.

[vovochkarzhevsky]

And what else did he lie about Afghanistan?

[Maxim G]

Don't know. Because off topic.

But about the Pacific Ocean, he came out powerfully.
https://sidorenko-vl.livejournal.com/41267.html
Actually, a skirmish in LiveJournal with him.
DR_GUILLOTIN is Isaev.

[kaa]

What did he change into? The same facts as in his lectures today, I read in books 5 and 10 years ago. Only in the text is more detailed than orally.

[Alexga]

The first such unit in early July 1941 was organized by the quartermaster of the 1st rank Maslov in the city of Tolochin (Belarus).

Currently, there are memories of those events of a person who inspires confidence. These are the front-line diaries of Konstantin Simonov, they were not published for a long time, but he already wrote about this in The Living and the Dead. Yes, and the Network has an Order on the formation and tasks of detachments. This is an army order, not the NKVDeshny.

[solar]

The detachments were formed both in the NKVD system and in the army at different times, and sometimes in parallel. The functions were quite broad, it is clear that the execution itself was not an end in itself. But they were shot, of course.

Instructions for special departments of the NKVD of the North-Western Front on the fight against deserters, cowards and alarmists

… § four
Special departments of the division, corps, army in the fight against deserters, cowards and alarmists carry out the following activities:
a) organize a barrage service by setting ambushes, posts and patrols on military roads, refugee roads and other traffic routes, in order to exclude the possibility of any seepage of military personnel who arbitrarily left combat positions;
b) carefully check each detained commander and Red Army man in order to identify deserters, cowards and alarmists who fled from the battlefield;
c) all established deserters are immediately arrested and investigated to bring them to trial by a military tribunal. The investigation shall be completed within the 12-hour period;
d) all those lagging behind part of the military are organized by the platoon (porotnoy) and under the command of trusted commanders, accompanied by a representative of the special department sent to the headquarters of the relevant division;
e) in especially exceptional cases, when the situation requires decisive measures to immediately restore order at the front, the head of a special department is given the right to shoot deserters on the spot. The head of a special department reports on each such case to a special department of the army and the front;
f) enforce the sentence of the military tribunal on the spot, and, if necessary, before the formation;
...

If necessary, such functions were performed not only by detachments, but also by ordinary army units.
For example, in the memoirs of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Dmitry Loza, there is a moment when he received an order to fire from tanks at our retreating troops. He writes that, contrary to orders, he ordered his tankers to shoot over the heads of the retreating, but after the battle he went and found the corpses of our dead soldiers in this place. It is clear that in memoirs such memories are an exception.
In general, there were about 300 thousand official death sentences of the tribunals during the war, about half were actually shot (something about 12-15 divisions), the rest were replaced by penal divisions. That is, for the army, only 1 percent of the personnel received official death sentences from the tribunal.
How many were shot without tribunals, in fact, no one knows so far.

[Alexga]

I can’t say for sure, but you are talking about the order of the NKVD of the USSR No. 00941 of July 19, 1941. I was talking about the first document, this is the directive of the Third Directorate of the NPO No. 35523 of June 27, 1941, and the directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command No. the creation of barrage detachments in rifle divisions. Well, of course, Order 001919 dated: 12/1941/227. Somewhere in the year 28.07.1942, Simonov came to our school and talked about the events of the end of June 1970. For Simonov, the war began near Brisov.

[Bingo]

Yes, the liberals just clung to the thing that existed in all the armies of the world and always - in desertion and, accordingly, in the fight against it - and away we go ... And about the detachments of the same Germans who were in WWI and in WWII - silence ...

When it comes to the question of why the USSR won in World War II, and the Russian Empire lost in World War I, I often use the term of one department of the Military Institute - "resilience coefficient" (although I myself always understood it completely differently :-) - the ratio of the dead to the number of prisoners. So to speak, an indicator of the readiness of the troops to fight to the end. For example, the symbol of the courage of the Russian army - the battle of Borodino - gives a "resistance coefficient" = 12-20 (the number of dead, according to various estimates, is from 12 to 20 thousand, prisoners - about 1 thousand people). If we compare the similar "resistance coefficients" for the Tsarist Army and the Red Army, it turns out that they died for Stalin six to eight times "more willingly" than for the Tsar-Father. This is the reason for victories and defeats. "Justifying" the resilience of the Soviet troops, usually in such cases they like to recall Order No. 227, detachments and the "bloody hell" ...

How was it in the royal army? Were you fed gingerbread?

[solar]

The tsarist army is a bad example. Finished badly.

[mat-vey]

Quote from Bingo

How was it in the royal army?

In the tsarist army, A. Brusilov came up with such an initiative ..

[Vladimir Mikhalev]

I won’t say anything about the detachments, but they did it. My grandfather served in the 323rd Tambov division. In August, I volunteered. Missing. Began to collect information. So they entered the battle in October and the division fought without replenishment until June 1942. Less than a hundred people remained from the division. Why drew attention to this came across a document of the commissar of this division where he described the composition of the division. There were many old Antonovsky warriors and their sympathizers. They simply did not replenish and simply eradicated.

[Alexfly]

Here, just the bridges in the area of ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthese cities were taken by the advancing German units safe and sound ..