The myth of the mediocre leadership during the Second World War
Today we will try to look objectively at the myth about the mediocrity of the military leadership of the Red Army - the Soviet army - introduced into the public consciousness during the years of perestroika. Hundreds of times we have heard that the cannibal Stalinist regime threw gallant German troops into crowds of unarmed Soviet soldiers, because no one considered people to be people in the cannibal Soviet Union.
This is indicated by the "intelligent" cream of society - the democrats, the crazy Novodvorsky, the ingenious Svanidze, the same sentimental multi-part films of the type "Shtrafbat" are being filmed, in general, this myth has firmly taken root in the minds of the contingent processed by the domestic media.
Let's try to figure out whether the leadership of the Red Army and the Russian soldiers were so stupid.
But not with the help of Novodvorskaya’s curses and Radzinsky’s scoldings, but with the help of archival documents, figures and facts.
One of the most common today black myths about our stories - This is the myth of the supposedly exorbitant price of victory.
Say, the Germans were flooded with corpses - and they won.
Ask almost anyone - and in response you will hear the duty stamps that our ten killed one German killed, that people were not spared, that the mediocre and vile leadership compensated for their incompetence by the soldiers' victims. So, my dear reader is a lie. It is regrettable that so far these bullies confuse people's minds. It got to the point that ridiculous statements periodically emerge about the allegedly forty or even sixty million of our victims in the war - here’s the film director Stanislav Govorukhin publicly voiced this tsifir. This is generally complete nonsense - and this nonsense, as it should be delirium, is generated not by knowledge, but by problems in the brain of a delirious person. At present, the most complete study on the statistics of our losses is the work of a group of military historians under the leadership of Colonel-General GF Krivosheev, currently available to the general reader [1]. Why can this work be trusted? Firstly, it is a work recognized by historians, a scientific work - in contrast to the revelations of Govorukhin and others. Secondly, in this paper, the calculation methods are set out - so that one can understand the origin of information and evaluate possible inaccuracies or omissions, as well as cross-check data and results - demographic, as well as for losses in individual operations.
By the way, about the techniques. This is the first thing to be dealt with when studying such questions, because, as a rule, our ideas about the methods of accounting for military losses are completely untrue, which serves as a basis for doubts and absurd speculations around the issue of losses. This is how the human brain works, that even if it is not familiar with any question in detail, then even on the basis of life experience, a number of heard terms and some of its model concepts, a person still has a certain judgment on this issue. This judgment is intuitive, leading to a distorted perception - while the man himself is not well aware of the fact that he really knows too little about it to judge. That is, the problem is that a person too often does not think about the fact that he doesn’t know enough - while the scattered information in his head creates the illusion of knowledge.
This is why it turns out that when it comes to calculating losses, an inexperienced person who has never thought about this topic usually imagines that every soldier found by the search engines is added to the number of the dead, and this number is increasing from year to year. In fact, it is not. Such a soldier is already counted as dead or as missing - since the counting is not based on the number of graves or found medallions, but on the basis of data on the payroll of the units. And sometimes, directly from the commanders' reports of casualties in their subunits, sometimes by a calculation method under conditions when it was not possible to compile such reports.
The data obtained is subjected to a comprehensive cross-checking - for example, checking at the request of relatives in the military registration and enlistment offices and demographic checking. Also used information of the enemy. And the problem here is not the determination of the absolute number of irretrievable losses, which is known with a sufficient degree of accuracy - but the exact determination of the fate of those who are recorded missing and those who are counted twice or more. After all, a person could get into the environment with a part, be recorded as missing - and could die there, and could escape from the cauldron or escape from captivity and fight again, and die elsewhere, or be commissioned.
So it is absolutely impossible to reliably find out the number of the dead - it will still be inaccurate due to such ambiguities. However, in order to assess the nature of combat losses, such accuracy is more than enough. In addition, this method of accounting for losses is generally accepted, therefore, in a comparative analysis of losses, when it is important to assess whether these losses are higher or lower than in other countries, the uniformity of methodology allows these comparisons to be carried out correctly.
So, in order to assess whether our army fought well or killed the Germans with corpses, we need to find out the number of our irretrievable losses of the army - and compare with similar data on the Germans and their allies on the Eastern Front. It is the irretrievable losses of armies that should be analyzed - and not to compare our total losses with German combat losses, as unscrupulous amateurs usually scream about losing their bodies with corpses - since we decided to count the corpses. What is the irretrievable loss? These are those killed in battles, missing at the front without a trace, died from wounds, died from diseases received at the front, or died at the front from other causes, captured.
So, German irretrievable losses on the Soviet-German front for the period from 22.06.41 to 09.05.45 amounted to 7 181,1 thousand, and together with their allies - 8 649,2 thousand people. Of these prisoners - 4 376,3 thousand people .. Soviet losses and losses of our allies on the Soviet-German front were 11 520, 2 thousand people .. Of these prisoners - 4 559 thousand people .. [2] These numbers did not include the German losses after 9 in May 1945, when the German army capitulated (although probably should have added to this number the 860 thousandth Prague German group, which continued to resist le 9 of May and wrecked only 11-th - they too should be considered as underdogs in the battle, just do not capitulate - but still they considered not accepted, rather, one must think only of the dead and captured up to 9 of May). And the losses of the people's militia and partisans from our side, as well as the Volkssturm from the German side, did not come here. In essence, they are about equivalent.
I also especially note the fate of the prisoners. More than 2,5 of millions of ours did not return from German captivity, while in Soviet captivity only 420 of thousands of Germans [2] died. This statistics for statistics screaming about the inhumanity and crime of the communist regime does not affect the ratio of irretrievable losses that interest us, since the prisoners — whether they survived or not, returned after the war or even before its end — were recorded as irretrievable losses. Their number serves as the same measure of the effectiveness of the army’s actions as the dead. In fact, war is not at all one gunfight, who will shoot more of whom, some people think. The war, in terms of losses, is first and foremost boilers, into which enemy groups are taken in offensive operations. The fate of those taken into the cauldron, as a rule, is either death or captivity - very few people leave the encirclement. It was the Second World War, due to the presence of highly mobile motorized troops and previously unprecedentedly destructive weapons, that gave so many boilers - and, accordingly, so large combat losses compared to previous wars.
As you can see, the ratio of military losses 1: 1.3, no ten of us for one Fritz and does not smell, does not smell any kind of "filling up with corpses". Yes, and it is necessary to understand - it is impossible such a powerful army, instantly defeated France and Poland, the army, which all continental Europe worked for, just to cover with corpses. To defeat such an enemy, great stubbornness and courage of the soldiers, a high level of their motivation, excellent weapon, excellent command, powerful industry and agriculture.
Yes, at the beginning of the war, our army suffered heavy losses, but later our army won many outstanding victories. Recall the Stalingrad offensive - the 22 of the German divisions and the 8 of the Romanian were eliminated in that boiler, plus the huge losses of the German army outside the boiler. And in 1944, our company carried out a number of brilliant strategic offensive operations, known as the “Ten Stalinist strikes of 1944 of the year”, which led to the elimination of a number of German groups in the same order. And of course, we must not forget about the Berlin operation - when the price of 78 000’s life for our soldiers [3] was eliminated by more than a million German group. The howls on the subject of "murder" in their howls are completely overlooking the fact that the Berlin operation is not at all taking the city of Berlin itself for the sake of political games, as they like to imagine, but first and foremost the rout of the millionth group of German troops, it’s a blow ended the war. That is, by the end of the war a mirror situation took place - already the Germans and their allies suffered heavy losses under the blows of the Red Army recovering from the first defeats.
Well, the fact that among the Germans, to this day, more veterans are walking - it’s not because they fought so well compared to us, but because they were spared in captivity, unlike our prisoners of war, whose 2,5 million were killed by the Germans. Let us also remember that it was on the Soviet-German front that 72% of the total total number of fascist units [4] acted - that is, it was ours who bore the brunt of the war with Hitler, and therefore we shouldn’t point the finger at our allies from the USA and England, for whom The war was much easier and which, because of this, cannot be considered the standard of respect for their soldiers. They could afford to sit behind the sea and drag out while Ivan fought for them.
What, then, is the story of a "rifle for three" and "waves of fighters thrown at machine guns." The war of multimillion armies is always a colossal confusion, which was enough for us and the Germans. In such conditions, anything could happen - including cases where a newly formed unit, still unarmed and understaffed, could face the Germans that had broken through. Or such a unit could throw a plug in a breakthrough, when there was no time and nothing else at hand, and when the price of such a breakthrough was a cauldron into which a huge group could please, and when literally one company could decide everything that had timed up the breakthrough. In the same way, sometimes a local assault with great sacrifices, such as the assault on Sapun Gora, leads to great military success.
From here it could well be the notorious cases with a “rifle for three” - as incidents (unlike the First World War, when the lack of small arms in the Russian army was a general phenomenon). Also, quite someone from the front-line soldiers could see unjustified (from his point of view) victims in local operations, without seeing the big picture. Anything can happen - but can an ordinary judge judge the whole front? Whether specifically his commander was a fool, or the meaning of the loss was hidden for him. And the Germans had such cases - in any case, stories about how we mowed chains of drunken Fritz with machine guns also seem to have a basis.
But these are precisely the cases, but you should not build them into the system, while you can get an idea of the overall picture by comparing the final results. Which, as we see, very worthy. It is a pity that many of our people succumbed to the howls of a number of writers and other sovereigns of the minds who emerged on the perestroika wave of self-mockery hysteria, such as V. Astafev, who was a driver during the war, who saw neither the front line, nor anything at all, but speculating with his own "I there was' and on the ground, regardless of his true knowledge of the judge of everything, from punitive companies to Stakes.
Now let's discuss the general demographic loss.
Quoted Krivosheev [5]:
The total loss (dead, dead, missing and out of the country) during the war years was 37,2 million people (the difference between 196,7 and 159,5 million people). However, this entire value cannot be attributed to casualties caused by the war, since even in peacetime (in 4,5 year) the population would undergo a natural loss due to ordinary mortality. If the mortality rate of the population of the USSR in 1941-1945. taking the same as in 1940, the number of deaths would be 11,9 million. Excluding this figure, casualties among citizens born before the outbreak of war are 25,3 million. To this figure it is necessary to add the losses of children born in the war years and at the same time who died due to increased child mortality (1,3 million). As a result, the total human losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, determined by the method of demographic balance, are equal to 26,6 million people.
Curious detail. If we look at the total population decline in the number of people living on 22.06.1941, we will see 37,2 million people. Obviously, it was this number that formed the basis of the manipulations on the issue of losses. Taking advantage of the carelessness of the average reader, who does not usually ask the question “what about natural mortality?”, Some deceitful people put into circulation “40 millions”, to which both Govorukhin and Solzhenitsyn, who saw the terrible Truth, Which they hid from them.
As for the total enemy losses, their number is 11,9 million [2]. So, 11,9 of a million Germans and their allies against 26,6 of millions of our lives. Yes, we have lost more people than the Germans. And what is the difference between total and military losses? These are lost civilians. Killed in the occupation, during the bombing and shelling, killed in concentration camps, killed in besieged Leningrad. Compare this number with the number of dead German civilians. That such scum were fascists. Eternal memory and glory to those who gave their lives so that this plague leaves our world! We are proud of you, grandfathers. And we will not allow anyone to steal your Victory from you, we will not allow anyone to capture with your greasy fingers, to belittle your great feat.
[1] Krivosheev GF, Andronikov V.M. and others. Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century. The loss of the armed forces. Statistical research., M .: OLMA PRESS, 2001.
[2] ibid., Page 518
[3] ibid., Page 307
[4] ibid., Page 415
[5] ibid., Page 229
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