Valentin Falin: West and Russia in the XX century: connection of times
The website of the Institute for Dynamic Conservatism (IDK) has published a transcript of a seminar at the IDK, at which a well-known politician, Dr. historical Sci. Valentin Mikhailovich Falin. Below is the text in full.V.Falin: Dear colleagues!
The problem to be covered is the relations between the West, on the one hand, and Russia, the Soviet Union and the new Russia, on the other hand, in the twentieth century, so capacious and complex, multi-step and multi-faceted, that it is crammed in an hour or two, a week and even a month is almost impossible. If you do not object, I will focus on some relatively little developed topics, as well as the controversial aspects of what really took place and, in my opinion, without revealing the roots of many phenomena that define the face of the 21st century.
Every creature has parents. And every social event has its progenitors. Most often, this composite accomplishment is put out of the brackets, for it is easier to adjust the reading of the past to the imperatives of the present and a narrow-gauge vision of the future. Each era, edited A. Einstein, arms us with new glasses. Of course, each era in a new way writes its own social, economic, political and other priorities. Nevertheless, the new is a continuation, albeit in the form of denial, of something that has already been experienced, and not just a kind of insight that has suddenly descended.
Today is full of so-called "national historical schools." Do these schools have the right to be called science? Or one should agree with A.I. Gertsen and A.P.Chekhov - there is no national science, just as there are no national universes. The wise ancient philosophers ascertained: even the gods are not able to make the former nebylym. Politicians and ideologues appropriating the right to tell the truth in the last resort, are driven by mania to leave a notch on the chronicle. Hence the inherent wisdom itch, the indefatigable desire to put everything upside down or head to foot, as it were, without looking back. And those who support them do not know that they are experimental experiments on cloning of consciousness, which lose their orientation in time and space.
I will make a reservation. Goethe once remarked: if you knew how rarely they understand you correctly, you would be silent. F.I. Tyutchev said the same thought in the words: "We are not given to predict how our word will respond." Of the other “classics,” I refer to the parables of Solomon: “Dissimilar scales, unequal measure, both are abominable to the Lord” (20 / 10). He: "The one who soweth wickedness shall reap trouble" (22 / 5). And further: "Who curses his father and his mother, the lamp will go out in deep darkness" (20 / 20). I will add L.N. Tolstoy: "Do not believe the words - neither yours nor others. Believe only deeds ..."
I fully share the stated speeches. Any simplification in the handling of the past is a distortion that does not help in any way finding an adequate answer to the challenges that our time is so rich with.
To make my reading of the twentieth century more understandable, let me remind you of a few moments from the nineteenth century. Crimean War. She personified British Russophobia. Albion was joined by France, Turkey, the Sardinian kingdom. In terms of goals, number of victims and theaters of war, it was not a regional conflict, but a world conflict. Close to Russia a window to Europe, clamping it in a vice from the east — that was the way the task was formulated. Anglo-French squadrons attacked Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky twice. British ships broke into the White Sea, fired on the Solovki monastery. Attempts were made to penetrate the Gulf of Finland to St. Petersburg. If you do not take this into account, we do not understand much.
After the Crimean War, an Anglo-Austrian alliance was formed. At the same time they began to lay the groundwork under the Anglo-German "agreement." Joseph Chamberlain, the minister of the colonies, took the initiative of uniting the branches of the Anglo-Saxon and German races against Russia. This theme was developed in his conversations with Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bulow. It was in 1898 that Mr. Bülow, echoing the Briton, stated that Russia, this semi-Asian, if not Asian country, had nothing to do in the Black and Baltic Seas.
Cunning Prime Minister Salisbury authorized Chamberlain to continue to revitalize the racial theme and promise the Germans fat colonial chunks — in Africa, Angola, in Asia, Samoa and parts of Thailand — on condition that Berlin ceases to support the Boers. The Germans surrendered the Boers to London. But he forgot his colonial offers at once. And the weather was completely spoiled by the eccentric Wilhelm II, who put forward an application for the right of the Reich to have a navy equal to that of the British. The British regarded this requirement as absolutely incompatible with their imperial claims. The naval theme later became one of the stumbling blocks in many combinations for the amicable separation of the interests of Albion and the Reich on the eve of the First World War.
The echo of the Crimean War made itself felt in the Balkans. It is understandable. However, historians are less likely to trace the connection between Russia's defeat in this war and the alignment of US positions in the Pacific Basin. Very briefly about Alaska, "ceded" to the United States for a nominal fee. In 1988, the APN published information that this deal was accompanied by extensive corruption grease. The agency was then instructed to trace how the Americans would respond to these revelations. Zero comments. Perhaps because under US law, a bribery transaction is declared null and void, regardless of the statute of limitations.
In 1875, Russia refused in favor of Japan from the Kuril Islands. Do not keep waiting for the turn of the Hawaiian kingdom. Washington introduced him, stopping the eyes of others, if any. We take note of the hardly disputable fact that London was the promoter of the Japanese expansion at the end of the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth century. The Anglo-Japanese tandem took - and more than once - very extraordinary forms.
Japanese-Russian War 1904-1905 In the British shipyards was built almost the entire Japanese fleet. In 1903, the British entered into a treaty with Japan, unleashing Tokyo’s hands to attack Russia. The aggression was not over yet, and London signed a new treaty with Japan in 1905. If the first treaty (1903) assumed that Britain would declare war on Russia, if any of the third countries were on St. Petersburg’s side, then under the 1905 treaty (the Portsmouth Peace was not yet concluded), the British pledged to join the war as Japan's accomplice, not expecting anyone to intercede for Russia.
Under the peals of the war between Japan and Russia, Washington was doing its own thing. President T. Roosevelt stated without hesitation: "Japan is a guard dog against Russia." However, Roosevelt added, you should not allow the Japanese to strengthen beyond measure so that the Russian-Japanese confrontation does not wilt. About the way it is now with the so-called "northern territories". All this is documented. These are not journalistic tales. This is the stuff of history.
In parallel, the United States delimited from Tokyo their claims in the Far Eastern region. The Japanese were blessed to seize Korea, and in response, the Americans recognized the “right” to own the Philippines. “Democratization” cost every fourth Filipino a life that, as we know, did not overshadow the American halo.
In the historical literature, the theme of the reaction of the Western powers to the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907 was not developed. Meanwhile, Germany put forward the troops to the borders of Russia, the Reich Navy was mobilized, meaning that it would move to the Baltic Sea in order to suppress sedition. There was no talk of any socialist revolution. Russophobes were given a chance to realize other plans. Domestic events alarmed T.Roosevelt. Paris and London tried not to miss the profit, which they promised erosion of the foundations of autocracy.
Petersburg was forced to swallow the annexation by Austria-Hungary of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He could not effectively support Serbia, his main ally in the Balkans. The statehood of Albania was framed in 1912 to close the Serbs (and thanks to them - Russia) access to the Adriatic Sea.
When it comes to unleashing the First World War, usually the first shot of Gavrila Principle as the heir to the Austrian throne is usually remembered. But. The initial plans for the war against Serbia were developed in 1913. Later, after the assassination of Ferdinand, William II wrote to his colleague in Vienna - the mistakes of 1913 could not be made when the Reich and Austria-Hungary did not use the chance to give the events of the desired trend . Franz Ferdinand died in June 1914, and the Reichswehr was brought to full readiness in March 1914, which is documented.
Consequently, it is possible and necessary to carefully read the transcripts of the interviews of the chief of the Foreign Office with the Austrian Ambassador Mansfield and the German Ambassador Likhnovsky. Gray's leitmotif - England will not intervene in the conflict of the four powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary with Serbia and Russia). In the interests of Berlin, did not get tired of repeating Gray, to take care that the local quarrel did not turn into a continental explosion, and, therefore, not to hurt France too much. Omit the details. They would take too much time. When Wilhelm II declared war on Russia, Gray "explained" to Likhnovsky: if the Germans limited themselves to military actions only against Russia and Serbia, the British would take care that the conflict did not spread to Western Europe. The British assured the German ambassador that he would not object to the "local model". The French, having learned about Gray's demarche, protested against London’s attempts to broadcast on their behalf and confirmed that they would fulfill their allied obligations to Russia.
This, however, is not the end of the tale. The troops of the Reich captured Luxembourg and prepared to cross the border with Belgium and Holland. Gray handed Likhnovsky a very ambiguous proposal: if the Germans stopped moving west, then the British would remain outside the war. Wilhelm II exulted. He ordered the general staff to reshape the plan of the operation. General Moltke and the company objected to the emperor that the order would not be technically executed, because the main forces of the Reichswehr are concentrated against France. Just in case a provocative maneuver was undertaken. They promised Paris to show "restraint" if he surrendered Verdun and other fortresses to the Germans as a "pledge of neutrality". The French rejected the ultimatum. Berlin, in turn, did not accept the British demand to refrain at least from the occupation of Belgium. After that, the same "moderator" Gray declared in the House of Commons that England would not tolerate attempts by one power to establish control over the European continent and would be included in the war.
Let's compare the stated with the English strategy and tactics and with all Albion's evasions in 1935-1939. Almost a carbon copy, one to one repeated techniques. Nothing at least in the words "Democrats" have not invented. The document that Stalin kept until his death in the working cabinet will save us from many questions. Namely: the recording of Churchill's conversation with the grandson of Bismarck, the first secretary of the German embassy in London, held in October 1930 of the Germans - idiots, Churchill argued. Be thoughtful, they would concentrate all forces in World War I on defeating Russia. In this case, the British would take care that France did not interfere with the Germans. Summarizing the lessons of 1914, Churchill called for Russia to declare an economic and technical blockade to thwart plans for the industrialization of the country. The destiny of Russia is to be an agrarian appendage of Europe.
Many key documents of the First World War by the West have not yet been declassified. Moreover, the German documents that fell to the British and Americans in 1945 and questioned the official versions of the prehistory and history of the First World War, remain inaccessible in secret vaults or destroyed. First of all, we are talking about Hitler’s personal archive, which the Americans had withdrawn from the Führer’s last headquarters, Olga, in Thuringia. According to some reports, it is “thinned out”, like other captured document stores. Thus, the dossiers that captured the treatment of German prisoners of war in the American zone of occupation of Germany were emaciated. What the "democrats" will bestow on researchers and the public in 2045, when promised to declassify key documents of the Second World War, time will tell.
The Soviet Union also practiced shrinking and archival archives. True, for other reasons. Should not have suffered a halo of rulers. NS Khrushchev, who seized evidence of his ardent participation in the struggle against "the enemies of the people", was especially good at this field. At the same time, by his order, the wiretaps of Tukhachevsky and other military commanders' conversations, which formed the basis of the charge of treason against them, were destroyed.
Comprehending the past, we should mention such a moment. In 1913, Nikolai II approved a program for the restructuring of the land and sea forces of Russia. Its implementation was to begin in 1914 and ended in 1917. After the Finnish war, Stalin decided to reorganize the Red Army during 1940-1942. Berlin possessed agent information (from Myasoedov and the wife of the Minister of War Sukhomlinov) about the royal plans. William II’s conclusion said: "We should not wait until Russia regains her strength. We must use the moment of her weakness. Therefore, we must begin to realize our plans, regardless of any external circumstances." At the same time, William and his Reich Chancellor Betman-Golweg emphasized that everything must be done to make Russia look like the instigator of the war. In unison with them, Gray sang, who in contacts with foreigners and with his family strongly pressed the condition of Russia, which was fixated on Serbia’s support.
Germany fell into an oshchip - in the war on two fronts. The Schlieffen Plan did not work. The "warm-up" against France and the "walk to the east" against Russia turned into a confrontation against exhaustion. "Democrats" waged their war on two fronts. Not without the participation of, first of all, the French and the English in the Russian power structures, the masons became more active. High lords, Duma deputies, aristocratic "elite", financial tycoons were involved in their lodges. From 1915, General Alekseev joined the Freemasons, soon taking over the post of chief of staff of the Supreme High Command headquarters, i.e. Nicholas II. Later, the same function will be transferred to Alekseev at Kerensky. The meaning of Masonic activity was to deprive the Russian policy of national accents, to fit it into the orbit of "democracies."
In 1916, as you remember, an open campaign was launched against Nicholas’s wife. Alexandra Feodorovna was accused of treason, demanded her arrest and impart to court. In the event that the king stood up for her, the use of certain measures against the imperial family was not ruled out. It is true that at that time, along Alexandra Fyodorovna’s line, in particular, through her relatives in Hesse, probes took place for Russia's possible withdrawal from the war. It was not only the country's fatigue from bloodshed, but also outrage that the British and French viewed the Russian soldier as cannon fodder, had an effect. I remember that in 1926 in England a book of an emigrant officer was published, in which the facts of the “democrats” consumer attitude towards a Russian ally were cited.
Indeed, double-dealing, the striving by the lives of Russians to pay for the realization of their plans, the attempts behind Russia to come to terms with the Germans have long been no secret. Churchill's Dardanelles adventure 1915-1916 in order to hang the Anglo-French castle on the straits covered more in the studies of military historians. The operation was carried out against the formal obligations of the “democrats” to transfer Constantinople and the adjacent region under the control of Russia. The adventure has failed. It cost a lot of sacrifices, ended in demotion (not for long) of W. Churchill to the rank and file and a crisis in Russian-British relations. Nicholas II rubbed his eyes. Once again, he was convinced that, being in the same boat, the rowers drove in different directions. The warnings of Rasputin, Vandam and others were justified. No one can guarantee that Nicholas was not remembered by the words of Peter I - everyone around him was playing the law, like cards, picking up a suit in a suit, and tirelessly laying mines under the fortecia of truth; every man is a lie.
General MV Alekseev assumed a special role. In fact, he forced Nicholas II to abdicate the throne, and immediately, after the emperor signed the corresponding paper, “arrested” him. Another well-known general Kornilov took into custody the family of Nicholas. We will not be mistaken and divide the whole into parts. The British were involved in the murder of Rasputin, as well as before the strangulation of Paul I and later the organization of the assassination of Lenin. The French were implicated in the assassination of the German ambassador Mirbach. No need to cast a shadow on the fence, digging up, on whose initiative in Sverdlovsk the house was destroyed, in the basement of which Nikolai and his relatives were shot.
1917 d. The Masonic revolution took place in Russia. Of the 26 members of the provisional governments who inherited royal power, 22 were Freemasons, including Prince Lvov and Kerensky. The “dual power” thesis became the talk of the town - the parallel existence of the government of Kerensky and the Petrograd Soviet, which immobilized the government. Linden it was a "diarchy". In the Petrograd Soviet, both the chairman and his two deputies were masons.
I will not touch upon the position of G.V. Plekhanov, his destructive role in subsequent development. This is a special article. Take the book "Year in the Homeland". It contains comments and Plekhanov’s speeches about Russia’s withdrawal from the war, his polemic with Lenin. They will tell you a lot, but they will raise more questions.
So what happened on the night of 7 on November 8 in a new style? Omit parts and mutually exclusive versions. Let's look at the chronology. The change of landmarks was marked by the publication of the Decree on Peace and a number of other fundamentally important manifestos. By the way, a number of requirements put forward by October will be reflected in Wilson’s “Fourteen Points”. Among other things, the American president recognizes Russia's right to choose its own path of development. According to House’s commentary, this choice, however, should have been adapted to American patterns — the intention of the “democrats” to divide Russia into independent states and territories, each of which would depend economically and otherwise on foreign countries. In addition, a claim was made for the legalization of support for "democratic movements" in Russia, to which, of course, the Social Democrats in any publication were not counted.
On November 10, the American ambassador Francis invited General Alekseev to his office and instructed him to raise counter-revolution with American money. The ambassador instructed Alekseev: raise the Cossacks first. If any information leaks that the Americans finance chieftains, refute such reports and say that the French and the British are doing this.
Note that at this time, Peter continued to live a normal life. There was no shooting. As noted by the British and other eyewitnesses, the restaurants of the city were filled with people, not a single performance has been canceled. Sturm Winter was invented by director S.Eizenshteyn on the 10 anniversary of the revolution. Power from the provisional government of Kerensky (in the absence of the latter) was transferred to the provisional government of Lenin after the blank shot of the Aurora. Soldiers and sailors who entered the Winter Palace did not damage a single piece of art, but all stocks of wines and other drinks were killed so that the guard around the palace would not get drunk.
There are no decrees on nationalization, on refusal to pay debts to foreign creditors. It will happen sometime in February 1918. At the end of December 1917 - early January 1918, the provisional one-party government of Lenin replaced the four-party government. However, on December 26, the British and French are negotiating the division of Russia into "spheres of action." The Americans joined this decision, specifying Siberia and the Far East as their sphere of action. "Spheres of Action" should be understood as armed intervention to suppress sedition, which the "Democrats" agreed on weeks earlier. It was believed that the United States, Britain and France would be able to bring "order" in Soviet Russia without a broad attraction of internal forces to their side. Perhaps it was the fact that almost 80% of the tsarist officers then swore allegiance to the Soviet power. For information. When, following the violation of the Brest peace by the Germans, the Soviet government made a decision to form one hundred field armies, the commanders of 83 of them were not members of the party, but Tsarist officers. The commander-in-chief of the Red Army was Vatsetis and Kamenev, former officers of the tsarist general staff.
The topic of Lenin’s insistence on the restoration of the Patriarchate’s November 18 1917 in November remains undeveloped. As far as can be judged from fragmentary documents, the church was asked to focus on spiritual matters and not to interfere in the affairs of secular power. To my deep regret, everything went differently. Not to forget, the church was separated from the state by the Kerensky government. Why the masons decided on this is also not clarified. Logic dictates that after the overthrow of autocracy, external forces undermined the second pillar, on which order was kept in Russia for centuries.
I consider it necessary to disclose the concept of "civil war." If we strictly adhere to the facts, all the facts and only the facts, then, probably, one would have to admit that at first there was no civil war in Soviet Russia as such. Just as there was no civil war in Spain in 1936-1939. and just like what we see today in Africa, in the Near and Middle East. At that time, on the territory of Soviet Russia, 350-360 thousands of interventionists raged. In the second half of 1918, they were going to add about another 600 thousand bayonets. The French especially insisted on expanding external intervention. However, on second thoughts, Wilson spoke against and doubted Lloyd George.
That's when they began to cherish Kolchak and others. The admiral called himself an American conquistador. Who was Kolchak in reality? Information about the October coup caught him in the United States. Kolchak decided not to return to Russia and filed an application for enrollment in the British navy. A mentor from Albion thought that the admiral would come in handy in another field. While in the States, he met with the US Secretary of State, the US Navy Minister. He was received by President Wilson. From the States, the admiral was transferred to Manchuria, and after a short time in Mukden, arrived in Tomsk, where he was proclaimed "the supreme ruler of Russia." Kolchak was advised by B. Donovan, an American intelligence officer. In the second world war, he led the management of strategic services. Donovan offered Washington to repeatedly increase military aid to Kolchak - to 300 million dollars. Translated into current money is billions. Wilson, however, decided that the game is not worth the candle.
In November, 1917, the Soviet government turned to all the warring parties with a proposal to immediately begin negotiations to end the war without annexations and indemnities. It took the Westerners more than a month to send a reply that was worth nothing - they will be ready to enter into negotiations with a "stable Russian government" when such is created and will earn respect. Meanwhile, without losing time, Washington came into contact with the Austrians, London - with the Austrians and Germans for a possible reversal of all forces against Russia. Subject almost untouched. It is only known that the Germans once again put forward counter-demands that the “democrats” considered unacceptable. Clemenceau was especially tough. He owns words that do not require undue comment: the Treaty of Versailles is not the end of the war, but the continuation of the war by other means. Marshal Foch articulated the position of Paris in a military manner: if the First World War does not end with the destruction of Soviet Russia, one must consider that this war is lost. It begs one curious parallel. In the Donovan memorandum, which was discussed in August 1943 at the meeting of Roosevelt and Churchill in Quebec, the same idea is expressed as follows: if at the end of the Second World War a state can determine development in Europe without the consent of the United States, that the United States did not win the war.
In 20-s. Foch called for the creation of a three million army capable of killing Russia without royal generals or with their minimal participation. In this context, I am interested in the fundamental question that I propose for discussion. Churchill, as we all remember, demanded to destroy the Soviet heresy in a cradle, surrounding Russia with a ring of furiously hating Bolshevik states. In my youth, I read the following thought in the memoirs of S. Yu. Witte: "The idea cannot be killed, but it can be made so that it dies." I learned it as a criterion for assessing everything that happened in the Soviet Union, and remains so when analyzing everything that is happening now. What program did the Bolsheviks take power with? The state must hand over the reins to the archives, for the people themselves must rule. In the first months of the Soviet regime, everything was decided everywhere by the example of the Novgorod Chamber. University professors, commanders from regiments to armies, etc. were chosen. Lockhart in his memoirs, published, if I am not mistaken, in 1934, noted: the Russian public accepted the October coup more sympathetically, and if there were any worries, then about criminal elements and anarchists. Everything changed with the beginning of the civil war, which took place "not without our help." In other words, everything went awry with the replacement of democracy by military communism.
War communism with its authoritarian attributes existed in various forms and subspecies from the autumn of 1918 until the collapse of the Soviet Union. It flowed from the logic of confrontation, the edge against the edge. The logic of war is not combined either in time or in space with the logic of the world. For a short period, the press has weakened under the new economic policy. It is worth remembering that Lenin then demanded the reorganization of the entire system of state power. He believed that the party should not directly govern the country. Experts should be in charge of management, and parties should influence state affairs through their representation on the Soviets. As it became, we know from experience.
In short, the unanswered question remains: what kind of system existed in the Soviet Union? When I was drawn into the Gorbachev team, I suggested telling the truth about which coast we were going to sail off in order to get closer to “socialism with a human face”. To tell the truth not only about Stalin’s personality, but about Stalinism as an ideology and system of power. Alas, my efforts did not meet the response in the management.
No one will deny that during the twentieth century the Russian Empire, then Soviet Russia and, finally, post-Soviet Russia did not know a single peaceful hour. The vast majority of government decisions were made under the gun and outside pressure, often in an atmosphere of blackmail and direct threats. For example, the Locarno Treaty, which confirmed the inviolability of the borders of Germany with its neighbors in the north, west and south, and the lability of the territorial structure in the east of Europe. The Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republic Stresemann noted that Locarno had destroyed the foundations of the Versailles system. When, after the conference in Locarno, Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, they were insistently demanded that it accept the charter of this organization without reservations and, in particular, agreed with Article 16 of the charter. This article provided for the possibility of measures, sanctions and actions against any state that "threatens democratic values." The Germans stipulated the fulfillment of these obligations by the equation of the Third Reich in the rights relating to the building up of military potential with other states, i.e. with England and France.
Do not forget another thing: if President Hoover was in power, if the world economic crisis did not break out in 1929, the Soviet state would probably not have been able to avoid the slaughter at the turn of 20-30. The crisis itself was tied by American and not only American ideologues to "Soviet intrigues." At the same time, the fashion of the accusations of our country in the suppression of freedoms and human rights. The United States did not declassify many documents of that period. Who brought Hitler to power? The American representatives established the first contact with Hitler in November 1922. Following the meeting, the assistant to the US military attache in Germany Smith sent a telegram to Washington, quoting Hitler's bravado: “Don't wait for you to encounter communists on the battlefield. Assign us deal with them. " In 1923, German-American Ernst Ganfshtengl was attached to Hitler. In his mansion, Hitler was hiding from the police after the failure of the "beer putsch". Ganfshtengl not only composed marches for SA and SS marches. He did other things as well - hemmed Hitler, introduced him to the respectable salons of Munich and other cities, helped the future Fuhrer run in the wording "Mein Kampf". His services to the NSDAP were highly appreciated. Ganfshtengl became a foreign press attache of the party and deputy head of the press bureau at Hess headquarters.
Take note, "Mein Kampf" - not a confession of Hitler. The book recounts the ideas of General Ludendorff, who commanded the armies of the Reich in the First World War, his recommendations to put the Führer at the head of Germany, who would personify the thoughts and aspirations of the people and to which the people would obey without any reservations. It is important to keep in mind if there is a desire to understand what a solid base the Nazi regime relied on. The January meeting of 1933 in Schroeder’s villa in Cologne, where the fate of the Weimar Republic was decided, was preceded by the appeal of 160 industrial corporations, banks, in short, the oligarchs to President Hindenburg with an ultimatum about Bruening’s shift and the transfer of Reichskanzler Chitler. Let me remind you that this happened after the elections of 1932, in which the Nazi party lost approximately 2 million votes. Who is the Cologne Schroeder? His father, Kurt von Schröder, emigrated to the United States before World War I, where he advanced in the financial sector and became co-owner of the law office of Sullivan, where the well-known Dulles brothers served. The main deals of the American and German monopolies, in particular, Stinnes, were executed through this office. Stinnes controlled enterprises in Germany in various industries, which employed approximately 600 thousand people. In the United States, documents stating financial flows, including contributions to the Nazi cash desk throughout 20-30-s and 40-s, are stored with seven locks in the United States. I doubt that these secrets will be revealed by the centenary of the formal end of the Second World War.
After Hitler came to power, the tone of relations between the USSR and Germany abruptly declined. On our initiative, cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Red Army was canceled. Apparently, you know that for some time V.Kaitel taught at the Frunze Academy. It is widely known that General Guderian mastered new types tanks at the Soviet training ground. Junkers built its branch in Fili, and in the Samara region there was a laboratory for the development of toxic chemicals. There was a flying school in the Lipetsk region, in which German instructors trained Soviet pilots and trained German ones. When some design and production experience was gained at the Fili plant, the country's leadership was made a proposal, even before Hitler came to power, to curtail cooperation with the Junkers. It was also considered advisable not to bring work in the field of chemical weapons to industrial readiness. All areas of cooperation between the Red Army and the Reichswehr were canceled in the middle of 1933.
There are many more publications on this subject in Russia than in the west. It is understandable. Until the data are disclosed, how many German pilots have been trained in the so-called. private flying schools of the United States, as well as in Italy, Sweden and other countries. There are fragmentary data at the disposal of researchers about the transfer from the USA, Sweden and Switzerland to Germany of the latest military technology in the 20 and 30. It is mentioned that almost all German factories for the production of aircraft engines were equipped with American equipment and manufactured products under American licenses. Judging by the volume of investments from overseas - it was three times or more than the size of reparation payments in Germany, the cooperation of the Weimar Republic, and then the Third Reich, with American partners was very, very intensive. The axis of this cooperation was Russophobia.
In April, 1939. Hitler ordered the introduction of the Weiss plan. The attack on Poland was to take place no later than 1 September of the same year. Obviously, it is overwhelmingly giving the assertion that the Nazi leader finally and irrevocably fixed on the military solution of the "Polish problem." Judging by the testimony of Burckhardt, a delegate to the League of Nations in Danzig, even 10-12 of August, Hitler did not burn the bridges for collusion with the "democrats". The card he played out at that moment - the new “Rapallo” - can be regarded as an integral part of the political poker, which was pushing, first of all, the UK to the next “Munich”. But it went, how it went. In fact, Poland was defeated in 17 days. This is a mystical figure. After 17 days, the Red Army units entered Western Belorussia and Western Ukraine. It was 17 of September that the Japanese informed us that they were stopping operations at Khalkhin Gol. Thus, the Arita-Craigy agreement, concluded by London and Tokyo at the height of the fighting on the Mongolian border, according to which the British recognized the Japanese reading of China’s external borders and actually legalized samurai aggression against this country, was somewhat devalued. In essence, the Anglo-Japanese agreements of 1903-1905 were repeated, which ended so badly for Russia.
It is worth mentioning that, both for the Western powers and for Stalin, the quick defeat of the million-strong Polish army was an unpleasant surprise. For example, the famous French general Homilen (and, apparently, not only him) proceeded from the fact that the Poles will hold out for six months or even longer. Even less explicable and understandable for Stalin was the blitz defeat of France. The main part of the operation also lasted 17 days. After all, the French army was not inferior to the invading forces, and, together with the British expeditionary force, surpassed the Wehrmacht in tanks, artillery, airplanes and numerical strength. It is fashionable to talk about how badly the Red Army prepared for the Nazi invasion. But sorry. 3.09.1939. England and France declared war on the Germans. How much time did they have to prepare to repel threats, to digest the experience of the Polish Wehrmacht campaign? What prevented them from building an effective defense? If you like, I can comment on what happened on the basis of documents. But for now let us return to our sheep.
In 3 hours 30 minutes 22 June 1941 Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union. That aggression was treacherous, no one argues. The question remains as to how unexpected it was. The first information about "Barbarossa" Stalin received through 8 days after the signing of the relevant directive by Hitler. Unfortunately, we have not received any complete picture of the content of the plan. The United States, on the other hand, received the text of the Barbarossa plan on 10 in January 1941. Washington did not devote anyone to it, including the British, although this information became a corrective moment in the American policy of 1941. Lees, Republicans insisted that his provisions not extend to the Soviet Union. Fr.Roosevelt dismissed this amendment, bearing in mind, obviously, the preparation of the Third Reich for an attack on the USSR.
Another important detail. The Department of State has prepared an instruction for ambassadors in the event of the implementation of the Barbarossa plan, based on the fact that the Germans' eastern campaign will be fleeting. According to the text of the instruction, it was intended to withdraw the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, to deny Ambassador Umansky the right to broadcast on behalf of the USSR and to prohibit the establishment in the United States of the Soviet government in exile. This instruction was sent out on the night of June 22 to all US overseas offices.
On the day Nazi Germany attacked the USSR, War Minister Stimson reported to Roosevelt the assessments and considerations of his military advisers: the Germans would need at least one and a half, maximum three months to get their feet out of the Russian quagmire. US Ambassador to Moscow Steingardt predicted that the jubilant population of Moscow would welcome the Germans in a week. As the State Department (Roosevelt called him a den of anti-Sovietists), so the military departments opposed any assistance to the victim of aggression.
But it would be more useful to take note of something else - the Germans hoped that they would need five months to complete the eastern campaign. The turn of Arkhangelsk - Volga - Astrakhan - Caucasus, when the Soviet leadership will have to admit defeat, can be reached by October 1941. The British carried out practically the same line on their maps. From her, according to their estimates, the encirclement of the encirclement and the strangulation of the Third Reich was to begin. Such a coincidence, you see, causes many question marks.
Take the Atlantic Charter, signed by 12 and published by 14 on August 1941. It does not say a word about the German attack on the Soviet Union or the Japanese aggression against China. In general terms it is said about the need to overthrow tyranny, etc. and to equip the future world on the basis of freedoms in their Anglo-Saxon interpretation. Churchill proposed to send the text of the charter to Tokyo with the note: "Further expansion is intolerable." The key concept is a further one, i.e. everything that happened at the time of the meeting of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain off the coast of Newfoundland is taken into account; further possible changes should be agreed upon. Apparently, it is not by chance that a number of prominent German historians are inclined to believe that the Atlantic Charter had anti-Soviet overtones.
Before turning to the main point, I would like to emphasize that the Moscow Battle was the largest and toughest battle of the Second World War. As for the number of military and equipment participating in it from both sides (more than 4 million people), and losses. In the Battle of Stalingrad half the number of personnel was involved, in the Battle of Kursk the same. Against the background of the confrontation near Moscow in December 1941, Hitler uttered the fateful words: Germany lost the war; need to find a political way out. He instructed Ribbentrop to establish contact with emissaries of the Western powers.
At the moment when Barbarossa finally got off the schedule, namely: in August 1941, for the first time, the question arose about moving to Stalingrad and about preparing for the winter campaign. I would like to advise attentively to study the military diary of the Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht Land Forces Halder. There you will find the recognition that the Eastern Colossus was underestimated and that the Soviet leadership was able to use the peaceful respite from 1939 to 1941 to upgrade equipment and increase the overall defense potential. Halder found the improvement in the quality of strategic maneuvering by the Red Army command impressive, but he still recorded our failures in the operational and tactical driving of the troops.
The defeat of the Germans near Moscow meant a qualitative change in the Second World War. The doctrine of lightning wars suffered irretrievable defeat. Berlin had no reserve doctrine for winning. There were objective prerequisites for turning the collapse of the concepts with which Hitler began the struggle for regional world domination into a total defeat of the Third Reich. In March, 1942 Roosevelt held a meeting with military leaders. The question was discussed whether a large grouping (up to 30 divisions) of American ground forces with appropriate equipment for joint operations against the Wehrmacht should be sent to the Soviet Union. Only the result of the discussion is known - it was considered inexpedient to render the USSR "direct assistance." It was a purely political decision. According to the calculations of the Americans themselves, with the organization of effective interaction between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, the war in Europe could end before the end of 1942, at the latest by the summer of 1943. My corresponding commentary on this topic was painfully perceived in England. Churchill played a decisive role in the political reversal of the war, which cost Europeans millions and millions of victims.
The theme of the second front remains far from closed. But another problem turned out to be even less illuminated. When and how did the concept of conducting a war on London and Washington on two fronts take shape at the highest level: against Germany and against the Soviet Union? A couple of weeks before the Red Army launched a counteroffensive at Stalingrad, Churchill, in an interview with the Turkish Foreign Minister, did not hesitate to say openly: it is necessary to detain "Russian barbarians" as far as possible in the east; but in the meantime, to complicate, where possible, Moscow’s relations with other countries. After Stalingrad, the anti-Soviet bias in British politics, which Washington played up to, was even clearer.
The Battle of Kursk, as we know, ended on 23.08.1943, and on August X, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their chiefs of staffs gathered in Quebec on 20. The materials of this meeting are strictly classified to this day. In National Librari, one can familiarize oneself with a fragment of the protocol of the meeting of the military, where the question was asked: would the Nazi generals not help the landing of the Anglo-American troops on the continent in order to give a joint response to the Russians. In Quebec, two plans were adopted - Overlord, which Stalin will be introduced to in Tehran, and Rankin, which is not declassified today. On my instructions, L.A.Bezymensky traveled to London for excavations in the British archives. He appealed to the Ministry of Defense with a request to show him a document called “Rankin”. In response, Bezymensky was told that this document was not declassified. Lev went to the Foreign Office, and it turned out that the security classification was removed from the text of "Rankin" without the consent of the Ministry of Defense. The plan existed in two variants: the first was adopted in August of 1943, the second, extended, was approved in November of the same year.
What is a "Rankin"? The plan was based on the fact that, in collusion with the Germans, the Anglo-American troops would land on the continent, the western front of the Wehrmacht would be dispersed, the liberated troops would be transferred to the eastern front to delay the advance of the Red Army. French, Belgian, Dutch territories, the Balkans are transferred under the control of the "democrats". The Germans are supporting the landing of British and American landings at key points in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. For the Soviet Union, the war was supposed to end somewhere on the line 1939, in the "worst" variant for the West on the line 1941.
In January, 1944 Mr. Eisenhower, who was appointed commander-in-chief of Operation Overlord, was given a directive: if there are favorable prerequisites for the implementation of Rankin, despite all possible coordination with the Soviet General Staff for joint actions, all resources should be redirected to the implementation of the Rankin ". The organization of the assassination attempt on Hitler, in which the American special services played a significant role, was also part of the idea of a reversal of the Second World War on an anti-Soviet channel. But it turned out how it happened.
Referring to March 1945. Forget Churchill's panegyrics on the occasion of the anniversary of the Red Army February 23. The prime minister gives the order to collect the captured weapon for its possible use against the USSR and after that instructs the headquarters to prepare the operation under the code name "The Unthinkable". The start date of the third world war was to be 1 July 1945. The goal was to inflict a "total defeat" on the Soviet Union and its submission to the will of the United States and Great Britain. The operation was planned to collect 110 divisions, including 10 of the captured divisions of the Wehrmacht, interned and kept in full readiness in the territory of Southern Denmark and the land of Schleswig-Holstein. Washington did not support this dastardly idea of Churchill, because the Americans at that time were occupied by the prospects of using nuclear weapons.
Today's message would be completed with three quotes. The first is Marshall’s words: “At that time (1942), Germany and Japan were so close to conquering world domination that we still didn’t really realize how thin the thread on which the fate of the United Nations hung was. For fairness that our role in preventing a catastrophe in those days does us no honor. " United States Secretary of State (from 1933 to 1944) Hull recorded in his memoirs: “We must always remember that with their heroic struggle against Germany, the Russians obviously saved the allies from a separate peace. Such a world would have humiliated the allies and opened the door for the next thirty years of war. " Hella's successor as Secretary of State Stettinius in his book "Argonaut" (code name for the Yalta Conference) stated: "The Soviet Union saved the United States from defeat in World War II."
Ready to answer your questions.
A.V. Yakovlev. Valentin Mikhailovich, some researchers are advancing the version that in Yekaterinburg not the royal family was shot, but the family of their twins, that it was a delicate move of Lenin, so that, on the one hand, and so please, and with this, on the other, keep the argument for extreme cases . Have you heard about this version and what do you think about this? And the second question. In the 18th century in Russia there was such a monk Abel, who, unlike the French Nostradamus, made specific oracles about the fate of Russia and its rulers. There is information that these prophecies stretch to the XXIII century, that in tsarist Russia they were in one copy and are now stored somewhere. Did you hear anything about it during the Soviet period?
V.M. Falin. As for the first question. Lenin should not be involved in this matter. He advocated that the king be brought to justice. As for his children, there were no plans at all. The decision to liquidate Nikolai and his family was taken by the Yekaterinburg Council, Sverdlov informed Lenin after the fact. Reaction - once happened, you will not change anything.
Your second question. There are many unexplained. Allegedly, some document was placed in the sarcophagus of Paul with the permission to open the bookmark only after a certain number of years. According to them, Alexander III and Nikolay II got acquainted with him. As to whether the Soviet leaders got acquainted with the document, if it existed, it is difficult to assert something definite.
In 1986, LM Kaganovich agreed to meet with me in order to tell about the decisions taken with his participation in a narrow circle with Stalin. Without reflection of motives in any protocols. Lazar Moiseevich hinted that V.Molotov could probably join our conversation. I wrote a note to the Politburo. After a month and a half, V. Boldin, head of the general department of the Central Committee, calls and informs: "Your proposal has been considered. It has been recognized as inexpedient to revive political corpses." Like this.
Then I tried to save Stalin’s extensive library for posterity. Many of the books, who knows, perhaps in Mein Kampf, had his notes and comments in the margins. Unfortunately, the library was squandered. Now you will not collect it. Lost the chance to deal more deeply with this person - a villain and a brilliant politician - to understand what, how and why ...
That is our political culture. By way of illustration, I will give an example from the 40's. In 1948, Mr. Stalin took countermeasures for Berlin, which are included in the historical chronicle under the label "blockade". As such, the blockade was not introduced, for West Berliners could buy food and everything else in East Berlin and East Germany. At that time, our leader was not informed that the report of the Control Council for 1947 to the Council of Foreign Ministers recorded the following in black and white: Big Berlin is the seat of quadripartite control bodies, Big Berlin is the "capital of the Soviet zone". If Stalin knew this, then surely everything would have gone differently. The division of Berlin would hardly have taken place, and if the Westerners had produced it, then we had every reason to block the air corridors created by the decision of the same Control Council.
When Khrushchev made a proposal to turn West Berlin into a “free city” at 1958, he also did not know about the report of the Control Council of 1947. In 1959, I was made a diplomat. I showed Gromyko this document. The minister grumbled: "Why didn't anyone tell me about this?" The conversation ended with his phrase: a thing of the past, we will not stir it up.
M.V. Demurin. Valentin Mikhailovich, and in the 1947 year, something not reported by stupidity or purposefully?
V.M. Falin. It was legal illiteracy.
M.A.Smirnov. Russia as the Soviet Union became the winner in the second world war. How would you, Valentin Mikhailovich, now have a list of those whom the Soviet Union won in this war? It is clear that we should begin with fascist Germany and its allies, but who else?
V.M. Falin. I would like to draw your attention to the speech of Roosevelt 1 in March 1945 at the joint session of the House of Representatives and the US Senate. The essence of the statement - the world we are building can not be the American world or the British world, or the Russian, French, Chinese world. It cannot be the world of large or small nations. It must be peace for all. Further, the president said that all the previous experience of mankind shows that wars do not solve problems, they only create new ones. In conclusion, Roosevelt stressed: Americans cannot have an average solution; The United States must take responsibility for international cooperation, or they will be responsible for a new world conflict. Of interest is the unresolved speech that was due to take place on April 13 on Jefferson’s Day. For April 12, as you remember, Roosevelt died. In it, an unspoken speech, these words are written: the perpetrators of the horrors of the Second World War are doubts and fears, ignorance and greed. Today we are faced with a fundamental fact, the meaning of which is that if civilizations are destined to survive, then we must improve the science of human relations, the ability of all people, no matter how different, to live together and work together, on the same planet. in terms of peace.
I believe that, not without impact, the speech of the US President on 1 in March, Stalin at a meeting of the commissions entrusted to work out recommendations on a post-war policy regarding Germany and its satellites, said: splitting Germany is contrary to our strategic interests; if Germany is split, the Americans will have no competitors on world markets, because neither England, nor France, nor Japan can be their competitors.
The day after the death of Roosevelt, all US government agencies were given a directive - not to follow instructions received before April 12, to wait for new directives. Like this. April 23 Truman held the first meeting of his administration, at which he declared (within the meaning): the Moor did his job, the Moor may retire. Cooperation with the Soviet Union has become obsolete. America without help will put Japan on its knees. Etc. Generals and admirals rebelled. Japanese soldiers did not surrender to the Americans. By this time, the living Americans had captured about 10 thousand people. Landing on the islands of the metropolis, according to the calculations of the military, could cost the United States a million - one and a half victims, which is unacceptable. Truman did not argue with the military. Let the Soviets provide the last service, then draw a line under cooperation with them. Note that at this time Truman did not yet have information about the Manhattan project.
V.V. Simindey. Valentin Mikhailovich, you mentioned Rosenberg today. To date, several exhibits are devoted to him in the Estonian National Museum; it is presented as one of the greatest people born in Tallinn. What does this have to do with it: the fact that such a figure was involved in the Nazi elite, or the fact that the Estonian "comrades" know that Rosenberg was associated with British intelligence?
V.M. Falin. In the Nazi elite, not only Rosenberg maintained contact with British intelligence. Since May 1941, contacts with MI-6, or as they were otherwise called, were supported by Himmler. Goering on the British went even earlier. Motley public. Everyone pursued their own interest. Rosenberg, however, was known as an ideologue of Nazism in his extreme guises. German researchers attribute to him the responsibility for the blunders that contributed to the defeat of the Third Reich in the war. What is it about? Rosenberg opposed those who recommended Hitler to issue an attack on the USSR for the "liberation action." The Nazis turned to the slogan of "liberation", to flirting with different ethnic groups after the defeat at Kursk.
J. Hurter published a solid work - "Hitler's Generals". The author examines how the Nazis picked up generals and officers on the eastern march. They had to settle scores with the Russians: for the stab in the back of the second German Reich, for the revolution that overthrew the monarchy and violated the habitual lifestyle of the elite. The book is written according to documents, including letters, which military leaders sent to their wives, acquaintances, etc. Having rushed against the USSR, the participants of the campaign proceeded from the fact that the destruction of everything and everything should have been accomplished in 1941 and forgotten to the winners, who are not judged, with fanfare. Rosenberg advocated precisely for this concept and especially zealously, as well as some other "faulty Aryans."
V.V. Simindey. Just a couple of weeks ago, it was reported that German historians had found documentary traces that the first more or less approved plans to attack Hitler against the USSR belong to the 1938 year. What do you know about this and how can you comment on this?
V.M. Falin. The information is correct. In 1936, Hitler set himself the task of rearming the army so that it could defeat any regional adversary. In 1937, he raised the stakes and talked about building up military capability to degrees that would enable him to successfully fight any adversary or any group of adversaries. Roosevelt responded to this swing "quarantine speech." In 1938, Hitler specified: the main opponent in the execution of the program "providing the Germans with living space" is the USSR. In 1939, after the seizure of Poland, he began to argue in a circle of trusted representatives - "Should the Wehrmacht descend to the east?" The generals laid siege to the Fuhrer: on the bow off-season season. Russia is also not Poland. Confrontation with it requires a different preparation. Hitler did not argue, but ordered to turn the territory of Poland that came under his control into a springboard for a future war with the Soviet Union.
At this time, some latent processes developed, we note, that are still poorly studied. The Nazi leader tried to turn the "strange war" in the west into a no less strange reconciliation with the "democrats." In February-March, 1940 was traveling around Western Europe. US Secretary of State S.Weles, a traditional Russophobe and unconventional in other ways. As was the case with the Munich Agreement, as well as the 1933 "Pact of Four", Mussolini acted as a mediator in his efforts to build bridges between England, France and Germany. In a January (1940) letter to Duke Hitler, he condemned the “tolerant” attitude of the Reich to the Soviet invasion of Finland and warned: another such test, and the “steel axis” could break. Hitler sent Ribbentrop to Rome for clarification: the Reich punishes ungrateful Finns for serving the Americans and the British. Stalin, he stressed, was by no means a communist. He is a new edition of the Russian autocrat.
VG Budanov. Valentin Mikhailovich, it is known that Hitler was a man deeply mystical. It is possible that he possessed mediumistic abilities, he was very interested in these things. Himmler, too. Sacral and cultural-historical bases, the concepts of "blood" and "soil" were very important for them. My question is related to the fact that in the history of scattered Germanic tribes there are very powerful periods associated with Frederick Barbarossa and the second Frederick, and on the other hand, we have the ideals of Sergius of Radonezh, and, when necessary, they suddenly in some mysterious way return to the life of the people and help to solve some supertasks. In this regard, you can remember Gumilyov and the Chinese, who know how dynasties live. In the German elite such an understanding was. There are also more subtle models that make it possible to calculate that these spiritual victories of the ancient Germans, to which they appealed, should have ended somewhere in the 1943 year. In any case, in my models this is exactly what happens. Today I heard that the predictions of Hitler himself converged on the 1942 year, who believed that before that time they had to be in time, and the British understood this well, and the course of history itself shows it to us. So whose clue was this, that while there are forces, they need to be spent on such a giant as the Soviet Union was? Hitler had his own thoughts on this subject, why should he turn to the East, or in terms of the time schedule, he was primarily a puppet in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons?
V.M. Falin. Hitler was not a puppet of the Anglo-Saxons. Unlike most generals and other advisers, he carefully calculated the components of planned operations. Including their economic components. The Fuhrer considered the lightning seizure of the main industrial and raw materials centers of the USSR concentrated in the European part of the Union to be a guarantee of victory in 1941. We honestly admit that in the first year of World War II we were literally on the verge. Read Zhukov’s memoirs, refer to the materials of the General Staff and you will see that in October 1941 a gap of 500 km widened in the central direction of defense. If Moscow had fallen, 27 Turkish divisions from the south and a millionth Kwantung army from the east would have moved against us. Sweden, perhaps Switzerland would have postponed their neutral status until better times. We are fortunate that the forces of Field Group Marshal Bok’s army group are also exhausted. Hitler considered that the fate of Moscow was a foregone conclusion and transferred a significant part of the armored formations to Ukraine in order to take control of the Donetsk industrial region. Moreover, he ordered to curtail the release of tanks, to redirect funds to the development of the naval fleetfar aviation etc. to prepare for the next war - against the United States. I note in brackets: the researchers have not yet comprehended too much what influence the “fifth column” achieved in the USA, how skillfully the Nazis played on the fact that 40% of Americans, not counting the Indians, were either immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Germany. When the colonies separated from Great Britain declared independence, the US "fathers" discussed the question of whether to choose German as the state language.
Let us return, however, to Germany. Reich attacked the Soviet Union, not translating the German industry on a war footing. It was believed that thanks to the expansion of the military industrial complex at the expense of the factories of France, Belgium, Austria, Czechoslovakia and other captured countries, the development of the captured weapons by the Wehrmacht — tanks, artillery, military transport aircraft, cargo transport — cash would be enough to break the military range of the Soviet Union.
Stalin admitted to 1938-1941. a lot of miscalculations. For example, from the autumn of 1940 to June of 1941, he thought that he was communicating through delegates personally with Hitler. The reality was different. After the defeat of France and the decision to go to the Soviet Union, the Nazi leader instructed him not to report on the economic component of relations with the USSR. Moscow did not take into account how large reserves of fuel, non-ferrous metals, rubber, etc., the Germans seized in France, Belgium and the same Poland. Reich did not experience special stress with raw materials for industry. True, the poor harvest of 1940 prompted the Germans to insist on supplying additional volumes of our grain.
Perhaps Stalin owned some information about the time parameters of the main operations of the Wehrmacht, originally planned for 1942-1943. After all, the Italians used shifts in the calendar to avoid participation in the war of Germany against Poland. The Japanese, in turn, did not share Hitler’s “haste”. According to their estimates, the main blow to the Anglo-Saxons should have been inflicted in 1946 after the expiration of the agreements on American bases in the Philippines.
Hitler, on the contrary, was convinced that the inertia and malleability of the "democracies", superiority, including technological, of the Reich in armaments makes it possible to build on success, to translate quantity into quality, that chance should not be missed. Almighty, he said, favors endowing the Germans with "living space" and no one but Hitler can fulfill this mission.
In 1941, we were objectively helped to avoid the worst partisans of Tito. They shackled almost 20 German and Italian divisions in the Balkans, which were so lacking in Operation Typhoon. Then, with the start of this operation, few people in England, and especially in the USA, believed that the Soviet Union would keep Moscow. Roosevelt’s Churchill telegram from 15.10.1941 was indicative: "The Japanese are turning north, you and I have a two-month respite." The commander of the Pacific Fleet, Kimmel, received orientation - to proceed from the assumption that the Japanese would go to war against the Soviet Union. How many weeks left before Pearl Harbor? Could Pearl Harbor fail if Moscow fell?
A few words about clairvoyants. In 1943, Himmler instructed his masseur to contact the soothsayer Schmidt, who lived in Hamburg, and ask how he sees the future of Germany. The clairvoyant spoke: in July 1944, an assassination attempt would be made on Hitler, he would survive it; in April 1945. Hitler will commit suicide. As in the case of Wang, all these unsolved puzzles.
At the planning stage of the campaign against the USSR, Goering, Ribbentrop, some generals expressed doubts about the ability of the Wehrmacht to defeat Russia. Before coaching on the USSR, they argued, it was necessary to get rid of England. The war on two fronts - call a capricious fate. Napoleon did not get along with her. Curious detail. During the operation "Typhoon", the Germans used the French expeditionary force in the Borodino area to pay Russians for Napoleon. The result - our resistance in this area has increased dramatically, and the Germans urgently removed the French. Such details are extremely important for understanding the overall picture of what was happening.
M.V. Demurin. Valentin Mikhailovich, judging by what you said, in his strategy for the USSR in the summer and autumn of 1941, Hitler considered it most important to break the economic ridge of the Soviet Union and gain as much economic potential as possible. In other words, he underestimated the importance of breaking the spiritual ridge of the Soviet Union and the Soviet people. If he believed that it was important to finally break the spirit of the Russian man, then he probably would have focused on the capture of Leningrad and Moscow, would have broken the spiritual core of resistance, and then he would have taken up economic potential.
V.M. Falin. Hitler qualified Moscow as a geographical concept. He needed the capture of Leningrad to deprive the Soviet Union of access to the Baltic Sea. Crimea was important to protect Ploeshti, the storehouse of oil, intact. I repeat, the consciousness and psyche of Hitler turned out to be programmed for the next war - a war with the United States. Mastering resources, if possible not destroyed, in the central regions of the Russian Federation and in Ukraine was the alpha and omega for celebration.
Preparing recently one material for N.I. Ryzhkov, I singled out the merits of those who ensured the movement of industrial enterprises and personnel that were unprecedented in history into the country. In the second half of 1941, over the Volga, closer to the Urals and beyond the Urals, equipment of 1523 factories, including 118 aviation enterprises, 9 main tank vehicles, two-thirds of the factories producing gunpowder, 31, the People's Commissariat of Arms, were removed. Approximately one thousand factories were additionally evacuated from the front-line zone in 1942. N.Shvernik became the head of the evacuation council, A.N. Kosygin and MG Pervukhin became his deputies. I think their feat, as well as the merits of thousands and thousands of workers who participated in the evacuation of factories, should be captured in the exposition of the pantheon of our victory on Poklonnaya Hill. They made an invaluable contribution to the salvation of the country.
V.Yu.Volchkov. I was particularly interested in your story concerning the fact that England inspired Japan to the Russian-Japanese war. It is known that the Japanese financed the 1905 revolution of the year through American Jews.
V.M. Falin. This is not entirely true. The Jacob Schiff group reimbursed the Japanese for half of their spending on the war with Russia. Prior to this, in 1893, Jewish banks had ensured that the United States refused to provide loans to Tsarist Russia. In 1915, American loans to France were allocated with the proviso that Paris would not transfer them to St. Petersburg.
V.Yu.Volchkov. There is a version that the plot of Locke in 1918 was intended to overthrow the Bolsheviks and establish the dictatorship of Trotsky. There is reason to think so?
V.M. Falin. There are more mysteries about Trotsky than clues. Take Yuriev in Murmansk. He headed the local government and “invited” the Anglo-American landing force to the city (later the Italians, Latvian riflemen and other strangers had entered it). Yuriev referred to Trotsky's instructions. Trotsky’s behavior at the Brest-Litovsk talks is completely provocative. No better is his order to shoot thousands of officers who, on parole, laid down their arms after the departure of Wrangel's troops from the Crimea and received permission to return home. What did Trotsky achieve with this?
Historical phenomena should be investigated and described without exception, not put a full stop. It is usually written that documents are found confirming that Parvus received a million marks from the German general staff. Those who thoroughly studied these documents continue - there is not a single confirmation that money came from Parvus to the Bolsheviks. It is possible that Parvus used this money for his speculations. Or we heard about Kutuzov. When his army reached the western frontier, expelling Napoleon, the field marshal ordered: let's not go further. In fact, the order sounded different: we will not go further, since the British have to have at least one enemy in Europe - France.
A.V. Yakovlev. I have information that may cause your comments. My good friend was friends with a certain Avdiev, our very famous psychic. This Avdiyev gave him a book, the name of which was “Bormann is my father”. The bottom line is that his father was also a very big psychic and was very similar to Bormann, and our intelligence somewhere in 1942 had an operation to replace the real Bormann with him. What do you think of it?
V.M. Falin. Borman died when he tried to slip away from the Reich Chancellery. The witness indicated the place where the body of Bormann was buried. Excavation did not give anything. The legend of the rescue of the Nazi criminal continued to walk. Later, literally a meter from the place where the search was previously interrupted, they dug a trench under the pipeline. Workers discovered human remains. Genetically established that this is Bormann.
Need to look for many others. Say, Gestapo chief Muller. Where did he go? According to some reports, Muller settled in Latin America and came into contact with the United States. In the post-war years, the American special services actively collected all this rag-tag and put it in their service. Was Muller among them? Such archives will obviously never be revealed. If a curtain is lifted above them, then purposefully. In 1986, the United States declassified documents about the European Social Democrats, which were held during the war as an agent connection to the OSS. There are no publications about persons from the right-wing German camp yet.
A.Sofradyan. Valentin Mikhailovich, you said today that Hitler made the final decision on the attack on the USSR in June 1940. In this regard, I have a question regarding Molotov's visit to Berlin in November 1940, where he met Ribbentrop and Hitler. From the documents it is known that Hitler proposed that the USSR enter into some quadripartite alliance with Germany, Italy and Japan. In addition, as you noted today, there was talk in Berlin that Stalin was reborn and could no longer be regarded as a communist, he is a man of imperial ambitions, oriented to the geopolitical expansion of the borders of his empire, a man who thinks in real politics. Did these conversations in November 1940 have any real basis either from the Soviet Union or from Germany or was it just a sounding of the soil from one side and the other?
V.M. Falin. It was a trick of Hitler. She pursued one goal - to convince Moscow that flirting continues, and not to overstrain in defense activities. I don’t really understand, however, why the Soviet side should have swallowed the bait, let alone exchanged letters. Indeed, at this time information was received by Stalin that Hitler transferred forces to the east, settling his initial positions in Poland and East Prussia. The conclusion, in my opinion, can be only one - the Soviet leader was delaying an hour of truth. It is at the end of 1940 - the beginning of 1941. engaged in the economic pacification of Germany, which convincingly showed the German researcher Shvendemann. The British, Americans, French actively did the same in the 20 and 30. Moscow decided to buy off, gain time to delay the war, at least until the autumn of 1942. Army General Lyashchenko told me personally about how Stalin 05.05.1941 met with graduates of military academies. He told me the words of Tymoshenko about the pre-war conversation between him and the Chief of the General Staff with Stalin about the note of Vasilevsky and Vatutin. The latter said: we should not wait for the attack of the Wehrmacht, it is necessary to begin our active actions. When asked if he saw this note, Stalin allegedly replied: you didn’t report anything to me, and I didn’t read anything. What was said on May 5 (namely, the war on the threshold) was meant for officers who were supposed to leave for the destination in units full of faith that the leadership was keeping everything under control. Your task, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff, is to prevent a war in 1941. You must carry it out at any cost.
Refer to the operation "Sea Lion". Hitler threw us information that the transfer of troops from France to Poland and East Prussia was a trick to mislead the British. In fact, in the summer of 1940, the Sea Lion did not intend to jump on the British Isles.
And the last. Recently M.A.Gareyev told me that, having got acquainted with the military intelligence archive, he compared the number of reports that warned of the possibility of German aggression with the number of reports that said the opposite - Hitler was not going to attack in 1941. So here. The last three times or four times more than the first. The agents who delivered the calming messages were also reputed to be trusted and trustworthy. Stalin, as you understand, proceeded from the fact that he is smarter and smarter than everyone, that he will replay Hitler and, of course, he believed more in what he wanted to believe.
I.Ilichev, chief of strategic military intelligence (he was my chief in the Soviet Control Commission and the Third European Department of the Foreign Ministry), said that intelligence on the concentration of German troops along the front line at the time of the attack differed from reality by only two divisions! Moreover, these two divisions were not deployed, they were only on the way. In other words, our intelligence was quite knowledgeable, and the effect of its reports to the country's leadership depended on a culture of perception, on the ability to listen, hear and understand.
M.V. Demurin. Valentin Mikhailovich, thank you very much for an interesting conversation. We hope for its continuation.
V.M. Falin. Agreed In conclusion, let me quote Peter I. He wrote this down: "When protecting the Fatherland with safety from the enemy, you should try to find the glory of the state through art and science," but "everyone plays the law around like a card, picks up the suit and suits, and tirelessly mines under the fortecia of truth. " These thoughts and observations have not lost their relevance to this very day.
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