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The story of cowardice and deceit: how the truth about the heroism of the Soviet people is distorted during the War

Throughout the existence of Russia, the West has been striving to humiliate, slander and destroy it. A nation that created a great power and defended its freedom and independence, smashed to smithereens all western conquerors, Russophobes of the West declare inferior precisely because, in comparison with the heroic history of the Russian, the Soviet people, have a history of cowardice, meanness and deceit.

All the power of the Western media and the circles that support them within Russia seeks to hide from the world the heroism of the Soviet people during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The falsifiers of our history seek to replace heroism with fear of punishment. Their favorite topic is the topic of penal battalions, which they present in a quantity and form that is completely untrue.

Few people know that at first penal battalions appeared in the German army. There they were called "test units". The number of penal battalions in the Wehrmacht especially began to grow after Germany lost the Battle of Moscow. At this time, Hitler's military tribunals condemned 62,000 soldiers and officers for desertion, unauthorized withdrawal, disobedience, and so on.

They were removed from their positions 35 generals, including Field Marshals Brauchitsch, Bock, Colonel General Guderian.

For the presence of penal battalions in the troops can't be condemned neither Germany nor the USSR. In the conditions of conducting a large-scale war, in which all forces of society when a country is working and fighting to the limit of its capabilities, penal battalions are necessary. There are millions of people in the army, among whom there were those who committed crimes.

What to do with the persons who have committed crimes in the army? Send to the rear? Does this mean that criminals do not die in battles for their homeland, they are taken to the rear? It is obvious that such a solution is wrong in all respects. Therefore, the criminals were sent to penal battalions, where they fought the enemy.

The military leaders in the penal battalions were not persons who had committed any misconduct, but ordinary officers with combat experience. In the penal battalions of the Red Army, they fought to the first blood, that is, before being wounded, and after being wounded, they returned to ordinary army units as redeemed. The purpose of creating such structures was not to get rid of people, but to punish those who committed a crime.

The order to create penal battalions in the Red Army was issued when decided the fate of the whole country, all the peoples of the USSR - in July 1942 during the battle for Stalingrad in the Great Bend of the Don. On July 27, Stalin prepared the text of the famous Order No. 227. On July 28, 1942, Order No. 227 was signed by him and immediately sent to the troops.

« No step back!"- so called the order among the people. Order No. 227 of the People's Commissar of Defense of the Union of the USSR, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin stated:

“Every commander, Red Army soldier and political worker must understand that our resources are not unlimited. The territory of the Soviet state is not a desert, but people - workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children. The territory of the USSR, which the enemy has captured and is striving to capture, is bread and other products for the army and rear, metal and fuel for industry, factories, factories supplying the army with weapons and ammunition, and railways.

Pay attention to the purely symbolic number of penal battalions and penal companies : to the front - one to three battalions, to the army - five to ten penal companies.

This means that the front, numbering an average of 400-500 thousand people, according to the order, could have from 800 to 2,400 people who were part of the penal battalions, which consisted of delinquent officers, which is from 0.2 to 0.6% front troops.

And for an army of 100 thousand people, by order, the number of fighters of penal companies was from 750 to two thousand people, which ranges from 0.75 to 2% the size of the army.

It is natural to ask all these falsifiers of our history: why do they think that the war was won not by 98–99% of the Red Army soldiers, but by 1–2% fighters of penal companies and battalions included in its number?

It should be clear to any normal person that the military formations of the penalists, due to their meager numbers, could not play any significant role in the defeat of the Nazi invaders. And here representatives of the liberal press incomprehensible, and they stubbornly claim that 1-2% of the penalty boxers won the war. But these representatives create public opinion . They take advantage of the ignorance of readers and listeners, who are deprived of truthful information about the Great Patriotic War.

A lot of lies have been written and spoken by the same people about detachments. And according to the order, for a 100,000-strong army, there were from 600 to a thousand people serving in barrage detachments. It is clear that the 100 men behind the division they cannot stop ten thousand people, but only cowards and alarmists can stop. They existed to intimidate this category of fighters. It can be said that during the war, the barrage detachments served as border guards on the constantly moving border.

And these measures of intimidation were taken to save the population of the entire country at the most crucial time, when it was really impossible to prevent the further retreat of the Soviet army. They did not lead to unjustified losses. Rokossovsky writes that penal companies were mainly used for reconnaissance in force in order to locate enemy firing points. Then the artillery suppressed the detected enemy firing points, and the main forces went on the offensive.

Why is there so much noise?

And after the issuance of the order, our troops retreated, but retreated in an organized manner. After all, the order, in fact, only forbids arbitrarily, without an order from the high command, to leave their positions, introduces measures that contribute to its implementation, and determines the punishment for failure to comply with the requirements of the order. And above all, he addresses the consciousness of soldiers and commanders. explains everything mortal danger the situation that has been created.

In my opinion, it was this order that gave grounds to speak and write that our troops fought under pain of punishment. Those who write this do not want to see the mass heroism of our soldiers both before and after the issuance of this order.

Oh oh mass heroism one might say, all our military leaders wrote both during the war and many years after it ended. The falsifiers do not understand, but rather do not want to understand, that it is impossible to force millions of people to fight heroically with weapons in their hands. If desired these people crush everyone. Only ardent love for the Motherland and hatred for the enemy raise the spirit of a soldier to the point of readiness to sacrifice his life in battle with him.

As for the fear of punishment, we all live today under the fear of punishment. There are many laws, including the Criminal Code, the Civil Code, the Labor Code, and other laws that punish us when we do something illegal. But this does not mean that we do not commit illegal acts only because of the fear of punishment.

The soldiers were waiting for this order, because for the most part they were heroes and could not calmly look at cowards and alarmists, disgracing and disorganizing combat units and formations. Officers were also waiting for him as a means of influencing individual negligent soldiers. He was waiting the whole army, which itself could no longer endure the shame of retreat.

And if earlier, on the way to the Volga, this was somehow justified by the need to get away from the encirclement by superior enemy forces, now, when Stalingrad stood behind them and the Germans reached the Volga, the soldiers and officers for the most part understood that an order was needed obliging them to stand to death until permission to leave positions. And this is understandable. Not everyone is psychologically ready voluntarily stand to the death. He especially helped the weak to endure. It is easier for a soldier to fight if there is an order forbidding to leave positions without permission.

The Soviet soldiers understood everything correctly and said: "There is no land for us beyond the Volga." With officers of the Red Army very strictly asked for unreasonably large losses, including for losses among penalty boxers. All these myths that the penalty boxers were thrown into battle unarmed, into minefields, are nothing but slander of the haters of the USSR and Russia.

As a rule, the offensive of the main troops was preceded by reconnaissance to determine the location of enemy firing points and their early destruction. Checking the enemy's defense was carried out in various ways, including reconnaissance in combat. For reconnaissance in battle, penalty boxers were involved.

When there was an opportunity and expediency, the penalty box went into battle under the cover of artillery. At the end of the war, when checking the enemy’s defenses in the offensive zone of rifle corps during major operations, each of the penal companies received a SU-76 battery and a platoon of sappers, that is, our penal soldiers went into battle with the same weapons, like other rifle formations.

Reconnaissance in force was carried out before many military operations, but not in order to needlessly destroy the lives of people, but in order to save thousands of lives of our soldiers and officers at the start of the offensive of the main forces.

The war, of course, was won by millions of soldiers of the Red Army, and not by a handful of fines, but both showed heroism. The heroism of the Soviet people manifested itself from the very first steps, when they hurried from their homes, from hospitals to the front to defend their homeland.

They loved their family, their homeland - the USSR, their leader Stalin, their people's system, their peaceful work, their peaceful life, and what they loved, defended, not sparing life itself. In this love lies the miraculous power of our Victory. Not a single country and not a single army in the world knew such mass heroism.

Stalin's penal battalions. Lies and truth about Order No. 227

Intelligence: Alexander Vasilyevich Pyltsyn about the penal battalion

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Bismarck believed that the Russians could not be defeated. Attempts at the military expansion of our country were made more than once, but ended in the same thing - the defeat of the aggressor.

theater of war

There was no enemy in the history of wars with Russia who would not complain about its vast expanses, frosts and impassability. For wars before the beginning of the 20th century, when losses from diseases, as a rule, exceeded combat ones by several times, this was an important factor. Frost, on the other hand, became one of the reasons for the death during the Northern War of the first-class for its time, but small Swedish army in Russia. By the time of the Battle of Poltava, Charles XII did not even have 30 thousand people in service; The Swedes also abandoned the use of artillery due to a lack of gunpowder. In fact, Poltava became the logical final point of the actions of the Swedish troops, who found themselves hundreds of kilometers from the supply bases, deprived of reinforcements, food and equipment. Any long-term campaign is a war of attrition, and the prolongation of hostilities leads to inevitable non-combat losses. The events of the Patriotic War of 1812 are indicative here. Thus, the number of French troops that invaded Russia is estimated by various experts in different ways, but by no means less than 500 thousand people. A month and a half later, Napoleon had about 135 thousand people on the Borodino field. The army was reduced by more than two-thirds without the pitched battle that the French commander so longed for. Part of the troops was left as garrisons and to guard communications. The losses from diseases were also huge - typhus mowed down the French units and the troops of their allies. The French cavalry on horseback suffered heavy losses, where a third of the cavalry had already turned into infantry by the Battle of Smolensk. The lack of roads and the likelihood of encountering a powerful guerrilla war stopped Russia's opponents during the Crimean War from invading the internal provinces of Russia, and forced them to limit themselves to actions in the coastal zone. Although here, too, epidemics, primarily cholera, mowed down much more in the ranks of the French and British than the allies lost in all the bloody deeds on the bastions of Sevastopol. So, for 22 thousand French soldiers who died in battle and died from wounds, there were more than 75 thousand people who died from diseases. During the First World War, German troops, having occupied Poland, part of the Baltic states and Belarus, were in no hurry to conduct serious offensive operations on the territory of Russia, fearing to leave the dense network of railways and lose mobility, which in a war on two fronts threatened to turn into a disaster.

Unification of weapons

Any major war leads to the restructuring of the economy and its subordination to military needs. So it was during the protracted Northern War, when the emphasis was placed on the development of production necessary for the needs of the army and navy: from cloth and canvas manufactories to arms factories. An important factor in the conditions of the great war was the unification of production. When it was necessary to dress and equip the largest army in Europe, the emphasis was on mass production, simplicity in the production and development of weapons. In order not to overload the material with a mass of statistical data, we confine ourselves to a few examples. Shortly before the Patriotic War of 1812, the calibers of Russian artillery were unified, which made it possible to simplify and reduce the cost of production. During the First World War, the unification affected, first of all, the production of small arms, when out of three samples of the famous "three-ruler" they focused on one - the dragoon. It is often said that this happened in Soviet times (and officially it really is) - but in fact, back in the years of the First World War. The factor of unification of weapons models manifested itself even more during the years of the Great Patriotic War - in conditions when millions of armies with a large saturation of equipment acted against each other. At the same time, priority, as before, was given, maybe not to an ideal, but easy-to-manufacture and master mass model. In Germany, everything was just the opposite and the emphasis was on the creation of superweapons - tanks, aircraft and small arms. Yes, the German "panthers" outnumbered the Soviet "thirty-four" - but how many were there? A little less than 6 thousand against several tens of thousands of Soviet medium tanks. And at the same time, having created a good medium tank, the enemy did not stop the production of the same "fours" - and this is a big waste of time and resources. The same applies to small arms - the Germans managed to create the "Sturmgever" - in fact an automatic machine, only now they used it en masse already near Koenigsberg and Berlin in 1945 - it was too late, and this weapon did not play a serious role.

Russian allies?

Often, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, waged war in coalition against a common enemy. True, there is still a dispute about what these allies brought more - harm or benefit. The first great experience was gained during the Great Northern War, when Denmark and Poland acted as allies of Russia. The Swedes finished with the Danes before the Russian troops had time to finish the concentration, and Poland and Saxony, although they fettered the Swedes for a while, giving Peter the Great the opportunity to reorganize the army, but in the military aspect, Russia still had to fight one on one, albeit with a small , but considered an exemplary Swedish army. The next big war, where Russia acted in alliance with European countries, was the Seven Years' War, where France and Austria acted as Russia's allies. However, for two years, the Russian troops, acting essentially in the interests of the Austrians, suffered heavy losses without a clear military-political result. And only when Saltykov, who showed enviable independence, was placed at the head of the army, was a crushing defeat near Kunersdorf inflicted on the Prussian troops. After him, the Prussian army ceased to exist as an organized force for some time. The road to Berlin was opened for allied Russian and Austrian troops. But then the Austrian allies refused to take the Prussian capital, fearing the strengthening of Russia's position. And Saltykov, with troops drained of blood by a heavy battle, had to abandon the march on Berlin alone. Similar trends can be noted in a series of Russian-Turkish and, above all, Napoleonic wars, when the interests of the allies were placed above their own political goals and military expediency. In 1799, this almost ended in the catastrophe of Suvorov's army in Switzerland, where only the military talent and tireless energy of the commander saved the Russian troops from captivity or destruction. Such is the fourth coalition war, during which the Russian troops entered the struggle at the moment when the main ally, Prussia, was defeated by the French, and after the bloody battles near Pultusk, at Preussisch-Eylau and Friedland, the Tilsit peace was concluded unfavorable for Russia. After the victorious campaign of 1812 during foreign campaigns in the high command of the troops of the anti-Napoleonic coalition, there was absolutely no place for a single Russian military leader, which to a large extent affected the course of the struggle. The apogee of political dependence in military operations for Russia was the First World War. It is no coincidence that a gloomy saying has developed that Marshal Foch is ready to fight to the last drop of Russian blood. And many Russian victories, whether it was Gumbinnen, the Battle of Galicia or the Brusilovsky breakthrough, were rather in the hands of the Entente allies, and the Russian army promised the appearance of new German divisions, urgently transferred by the enemy from the Western Front. The Russian troops had great independence on the Caucasian front, where the Russian army achieved truly outstanding successes. Separate is the participation of the Soviet Union in the anti-Hitler coalition. Here the picture was different, but similar to previous wars - until June 1944, the Soviet Union, in the most important land theater of operations, fought Germany and its satellites virtually one on one. Neither El Alamein nor the landing on Sicily is comparable in scale to the Battle of Moscow, Stalingrad or Kursk. Apparently, there was a great deal of truth in the words of Alexander III, who said that Russia's only allies are its army and navy.

In the global community of irreconcilable Russian oppositionists, they comprehend the new reality.

In general, the Russian irreconcilable opposition is, perhaps, the most international of all oppositions. It includes not only residents of Russia and citizens of the Russian Federation living abroad, but also former citizens of the Russian Federation who have long become citizens of other countries. In its ranks there are even citizens of one country that claims that it is at war with Russia (and try to expel them from the ranks of the opposition guards).

…So. The question that this world community now has to deal with is severe: why did the protest campaign launched in Runet not work from the word “absolutely”?

The presence of implacable anti-Putinists in the Internet media and social networks was, if not overwhelming, then at least equal to “pro-Putin”. And the total output of the protest efforts of “anti-systemic candidates” and the boycotting “politician whom Putin is afraid of” turned out to be somehow miserable.

No, their result is pitiful, not in the sense that the couple of millions of our fellow citizens who voted for K. A. Sobchak and G. A. Yavlinsky are pathetic, insignificant individuals. And not in the sense that tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who really consciously heeded the call to “boycott the farce” are pathetic. No, they are all full citizens of the country.

Their problem is elsewhere. Despite the fact that these people are a minority, at the same time they are a minority, so to speak, informationally hyperactive. And that is why this minority usually considers itself not just full-fledged, but something more.

This is for a normal user and the Internet is normal. That is, for personal purposes - mainly for correspondence with loved ones, watching movies and storing music.

And an advanced anti-Putin user, even if he is an Israeli housewife in years, is a daily factory of likes, comments and reposts, producing and distributing kilotons of political content. Not to mention the army of Baltic, Ukrainian, Transcaucasian and Central Asian couch fighters against the empire. Not to mention the couch corps of anti-imperial resistance in Russia itself - Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Urals and Siberia.

But the main thing is that this minority is accustomed to consider itself not only active, but also informationally effective. By virtue of its near-intellectual diplomas and simply class traditions, it is used to thinking that it has much greater skill in presenting its political position. Much more convincing and brighter finds words. Much better able to "get through".

And so the conclusion was made: each representative of this intellectual minority, of course, is worth hundreds of ordinary passive users of the information space. Simply by the level of informational noise it produces and the impact it has.

And it’s not that they didn’t have any reason to count on success. At least limited.

Firstly, on the side of the global international of the Russian opposition there was a rather impressive package of media. Starting from the British and American, who with desperate persistence repeated the mantra about “Putin’s main competitor, who called for a boycott of the elections,” and ending with the German ones, who thoughtfully explain to the Russian reader how best to express their protest against the Kremlin: “Stay at home, as Navalny calls, or ruin the ballot as advised by Khodorkovsky? How does a boycott differ from a protest vote and how will the decision made affect the electoral process?”

(At this point, it was necessary to ask rhetorically: and these people accuse Russia of trying to interfere in their elections? But this question has long been answered. The right countries interfere in other people's elections correctly, for the sake of good. The wrong countries, like Russia, in the name of evil. )

Secondly, the informationally hyperactive minority is also mastering new media spaces at a faster pace. For example, among the popular political telegram channels, the clear majority is clearly oppositional in nature.

Thirdly, the audience of this minority is the Russian "media class" - including a fairly large stratum of semi-official media workers who are accustomed to walking around with figs in their pockets and consider themselves victims of circumstances. That is why they like and repost information that scourges modern Russia with redoubled enthusiasm.

…So.

As practice has shown, all this Internet self-esteem of the hyperactive anti-state minority turned out to be exaggerated. That is, it failed to convert into either a boycott or a protest vote. It read itself a lot, liked it and reposted it, but for some reason it remained in its three percent ghetto.

I have a version why.

The thing is that there is probably no society on the planet that would be more resistant to information pressure than Russian society.

Even before the massive advent of the Internet (and the advent of the established “Putin era”), the Russian voter/reader/viewer lived for a decade and a half under a natural information dictatorship. From morning to night, every iron told a Russian citizen that his country was falling apart and that it was good, that his past was criminal, his pride was false and the best prospects were to dump him in a normal country. And if it doesn’t work out, sit and not twitch.

And the Russian citizen withstood this informational occupation.

And then came the era of the mass Russian Internet. And although the “irreconcilables” certainly had a head start (the Internet first of all spread to megacities, where its founding fathers were people who later went to Bolotnaya almost in full force) - the majority already in the 2010s began to inexorably catch up with them and overtake. Simply because even very hyperactive minorities, who assert themselves at the expense of the majority, will not read and listen to the latter if they have a choice.

And the majority had a choice. And in the form of "state" media, and in the form of self-made patriotic blogosphere.

And in the end, it turned out that all the campaigning and propaganda powers of the opposition telegram and YouTube channels, and Facebook groups, and VK publics, and powerful Prague and Riga Russian-language publications with advanced design and cool stray, and everything like that, are closed actually on yourself. To the international Russian-speaking opposition media class.

In particular, this happened also because this closed community has not been able to develop a normal, respectful language of communication with the majority. They did not come up with anything more creative than “pitiable” stories about how “I met an old woman in a store who was trying to buy two oranges for a promotion” about citizens. Basically, all their political lyrics were based on a mockery of the “obedient / gullible majority”. On tragic self-love, smart and beautiful. And on listing the differences between smart and talented selves and a gray monochrome mass.

That is, these guys have mastered some new media, new formats and new networks.

But in the main they never learned anything. For example, a simple truth: “If you are addressing people who, for the most part, have voted for V.V. Putin for ten years, then why the hell are you mocking his choice? Are you sure that's how hearts are won?"

... As a result, today the information troops, defeated during the next storming of the Kremlin, are discussing the future.

Some, as after every election in Russia, gloomily prophesy that now the stupid majority will cry, and we won’t feel sorry for him, it’s our own fault.

Others try to steer into a constructive and offer instead of fighting an irresistible force to join it and change it from the inside: “We all need to learn how to sacrifice. Your pride, your attachments, your love, your destiny and your life. We can't beat Putin. No processions, boycotts and notes. The mode can only be changed from the inside. If you want to change Russia, love Putin. Love him and be faithful to him. To ever give you power, he must be sure that you will not betray him. Go to work in power” and so on.

A true patriot is one who knows or at least strives to know the real history of his country, and not the false chronology of solid victories.

In general, only a person with no brain at all can assume that the Russian army was invincible and legendary throughout its history.

Elementary logic suggests that this simply cannot be.

Even the ancients said that almost every major victory begins with a defeat. And if in the history of Russian weapons there were the first, then there were the second. Here are the loudest ones.

1. In 1382, 2 years after the victory of Dmitry Donskoy in the Battle of Kulikovo, Khan Tokhtamysh struck back: he plundered and burned Moscow.

A.M. Vasnetsov. Defense of Moscow from Khan Tokhtamysh, XIV century. 1918

In general, the story of the Mongol yoke is the biggest black spot on the military pride of the Great Russians. How it was possible for 300 years, unlike Europe, to endure the occupation of some nomads - it is now difficult to explain to patriots.

There are in the great history of Iga and its local mysteries. How was it possible to remain under the rule of the Tatars for another 100 years after the victory at Kulikovo Field? Apparently, either the battle was not so large-scale, or it did not decide anything, or it did not exist at all.

2. In 1558 - 1583, the Livonian War with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden and Denmark

Ivan IV the Terrible waged this war for a quarter of a century, and it ended in his complete defeat. Russia practically lost access to the Baltic Sea, was devastated, and the north-west of the country was depopulated. Also in the 17th century, Russia lost one war to Poland (1609-1618) and two to Sweden (1610-1617 and 1656-1658).

3. Prut campaign, 1710-1713

In the 18th century, after the victory in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Peter I went on the inglorious Prut campaign to pursue Charles XII, who had fled to the Danubian possessions of the Ottoman Empire.

The campaign turned into a lost war with the Turks of 1710-1713, during which Peter I, instead of capturing the Swedish king, was miraculously not captured, and Russia lost access to the Sea of Azov and the newly built southern fleet. Azov was again captured by the Russian army only a quarter of a century later under the Empress Anna Ioannovna.

Russia, before defeating the “Great Army” in the Patriotic War of 1812 and reaching Paris, was defeated in the battle of Austerlitz in 1805 and actually lost the subsequent war with Napoleon in 1806-1807, which ended for Russia in the humiliating Peace of Tilsit.

5. Crimean War of 1853-1856

In the book Crimean War: The Truth Behind the Myth, historian Clive Ponting notes that three terrible armies clashed in the Crimean War and one more or less tolerable French one.

In his opinion, Russia had the largest and least effective force: “the troops were mainly slave soldiers, armed at best with 18th-century guns that fired at a quarter of the distance and at half the speed of the Anglo-French barrels.”

The tactics were also at least half a century old, the specialist adds: the troops were led by a field marshal, 72-year-old Ivan Paskevich, a veteran of the war with Napoleon (1812).

As a result of the war, about a million Russians died, many times more than the allies. The treaty then threw the empire even further away from Mediterranean ambitions - after the Crimea, the West destroyed the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.

6. Battle of Tsushima 1905.

The naval battle in May 1905 near Tsushima Island - the Russian 2nd squadron of the Pacific Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Rozhdestvensky suffered a crushing defeat from the Imperial Japanese Navy under the command of Admiral Heihachiro Togo.

Video: The Japanese are still proud of the victory over the Russians at Tsushima

The battle became the decisive naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. As a result, the Russian armada was completely defeated. Most of the ships sank or were scuttled by the crews of their ships, some capitulated, some were interned in neutral ports, and only four managed to reach Russian ports.

7. Defeats in World War I

Patriotic demonstration in 1914.

We didn’t like to remember about the First World War before, except perhaps about the successful Brusilovsky breakthrough in the summer of 1916. And this is no coincidence, because the Russian army in that war was pursued by defeats.

The most famous of them, perhaps, is the defeat of the Russian armies in East Prussia in August 1914 (one of the best novels by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “August the Fourteenth”, was written about this), although General Denikin, for example, called the greatest tragedy of the Russian army in the First World War retreat from Galicia in the summer of 1915.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, the Red Army won the civil war. But in the war with Poland in 1920, she lost miserably. The campaign against Warsaw turned into a "miracle on the Vistula" - an unexpected defeat of the army of the future Soviet Marshal Tukhachevsky by the troops of the Polish Marshal Pilsudski.

8. Day of the "holiday" - February 23, 1918

In February 1917, on the eve of the revolution, the Russian Empire was a participant in the First World War and was preparing to attack Germany with the advent of spring. The outbreak of the coup averted these plans, as well as the chances of worthily exiting the war - the Bolsheviks, dissatisfied with the defeat, seized power by force in October 1917, and the country entered the stage of civil war.

In this situation, the army began to disintegrate, tired of the already protracted war. The enemy did not fail to take advantage of this. On February 18, 1918, German and Austro-Hungarian troops launched an attack on scattered and small troops, but the tired Russians responded only with a stampede and desertion.

The newspaper Delo Naroda wrote in February 1918: “Narva was taken by a very small detachment of Germans, only about 40 people, who arrived on motorcycles at 8 o’clock in the morning. The flight from the city began the day before, at about 12 noon. Soldiers and committees were the first to flee, leaving everything to the mercy of fate. However, some managed to sell the state property remaining from the plunder.”

9. Winter war with Finland (1939-40)

(Finnish propaganda leaflet)

In 1939, the Soviet leadership wanted to gain control over Finland in order to create a buffer state. The Finns, of course, were against it. The desire for independence turned out to be stronger than Stalin's plans: a 4 million people defeated an army of 5 million.

According to most historians, the strategy of the USSR was based on deadly self-confidence - the army invaded Finland completely unprepared for a long polar war. Ironically, "General Frost" in this case defeated the Russians, who were proud of the harsh climate.

In addition, there were enough simply military stupidities - Soviet tanks painted in black were perfectly visible in the snowy landscapes of Suomi, and many soldiers were dressed in khaki suits, and often did not have winter clothes.

Being in a tangible minority, the Finns were ironic: “So many Russians! Where are we going to bury them?" As a result of the failed war for Moscow, Finland lost about 26 thousand soldiers, the Union - about 70-100 thousand (estimates of historians differ).

10. Summer-autumn 1941

The “brilliant” strategist Stalin, who had been preparing for war since 1929, but for some reason shot the command staff of the Red Army the day before, put almost the entire economy of the USSR to work for the war, but, as it turned out later, did not create an economic base for the defense of the country, managed to the first months of the war to lose almost the entire army, fleet and aviation of the USSR and half of the European territory of the Soviet Union.

During the summer-autumn of 1941, the Red Army went through a series of severe setbacks, flowing one into another, before managing to stop the Wehrmacht advance near Moscow in early December.

The end of June 1941 - the defeat near Minsk, more than four hundred thousand losses.

In September - the Kiev cauldron, which could have been avoided if they had retreated across the Dnieper in time. Another seven hundred thousand killed, wounded, captured.

By September 1941, the number of soldiers who had only been captured by the Germans was COMPARED WITH THE ENTIRE PRE-WAR REGULAR ARMY.

11. Operation Mars, 1942

The idea of the Soviet operation Mars appeared at the end of September 1942 as a continuation of the first Rzhev-Sychevsk operation (July 30 - September 30). Its task is to defeat the 9th German Army, which formed the basis of the Army Group Center, in the area of Rzhev, Sychevka, Olenino, Bely.

By the autumn of 1942, the Red Army leveled the front, pushing the Germans back from Moscow, but a potential boil remained in the line, threatening Moscow. Operation Mars was supposed to cut off the "neck" of this ledge.

The Germans preferred to strengthen their positions instead of attacking. On the day the operation began, heavy snowfall and fog prevented aircraft and artillery from attacking the "citadels" of the Nazi army. In the chaos, the Soviet army missed the positions of the Germans, as a result, the deployment of the Germans and the Soviets mixed up. The Nazi counterattack cut many supply lines and cut off communications between field commanders.

Despite the numerous losses - both tanks and soldiers - the commander of the operation, Georgy Zhukov, tried for another three weeks to catch up with the successes of the "competitor operation" near Stalingrad. As a result, in a month the Soviet army lost about half a million soldiers killed, wounded and captured, the Germans - about 40 thousand.

12 Huge Losses In World War II

Fallen in World War II is an interactive documentary about the cost of this war in the lives of people and the decline in the number of victims in conflicts after World War II.

Fifteen minutes of data visualization in a cinematic storytelling format introduces viewers to this turning point in world history with new drama.

The tragic proportions between the losses of the USSR in comparison with other countries participating in this war are especially evident in the film.

The film is accompanied by a sequential commentary, which can be paused at key moments to study the numbers and graphs in more detail.

A separate story is the human losses in the USSR during the Second World War. Such a huge number of lost lives, according to various estimates, up to 30 million over 4 years of the war, even in the event of a military victory, dealt such a blow to the country that it eventually lost all subsequent historical competition with developed countries.

13. War in Korea

In 1950, when North Korea, with the support of the USSR and China, launched a war against South Korea, trying to establish a communist regime throughout the peninsula.

The USSR did not officially participate in the war, but provided assistance to the Kim Il Sung regime with money, weapons, military advisers and instructors.

The war ended, in fact, with the political defeat of Moscow - in 1953, after the death of Stalin, the new Soviet leadership decided to stop interfering in the conflict, and Kim Il Sung's hopes to reunite the two Koreas under his rule collapsed.

14. War in Afghanistan, 1979-1989

The USSR was actually defeated in the Afghan war of 1979-1989. Having lost almost 15 thousand people, the Soviet Union was forced to withdraw troops from Afghanistan without achieving its goals.

They wanted to Sovietize Afghanistan, almost to make it the sixteenth republic of the USSR, they fought for almost ten years, but they could not defeat not only the “miners and tractor drivers” - illiterate Afghan dekhkans who picked up grandfather’s rifles from the time of the Anglo-Afghan wars of the end instead of hoes XIX - early XX century (however, over time, they also had American "Stingers").

But the main thing is that the war in Afghanistan was the last blow to the USSR, after which it could no longer exist.

15. Defeat in the Cold War with the USA

The USSR lost to the United States in the arms race, overstrained under the unbearable burden of military spending due to the inefficient state economy and collapsed in 1991.

16. Assault on Grozny and the Chechen wars

On the eve of the operation, Russian General Pavel Grachev boasted: “Give me a detachment of paratroopers, and we will deal with these Chechens in a couple of hours,”

It turned out that Russia eventually needed 38 thousand soldiers, hundreds of tanks and almost two years to suppress the Chechen militias. As a result, Moscow de facto lost the war.

In its course, there was not only an unsuccessful assault on Grozny in 1994-1995, but also the defeat of Russian troops in August 1996, when armed detachments of Chechen separatists captured Grozny, Gudermes, Argun, and Moscow was forced to sign the Khasavyurt peace, humiliating for it. The first Chechen war was lost.

In the global community of irreconcilable Russian oppositionists, they are comprehending a new reality.

In general, the Russian irreconcilable opposition is perhaps the most international of all oppositions. It includes not only residents of Russia and citizens of the Russian Federation living abroad, but also former citizens of the Russian Federation who have long become citizens of other countries. In its ranks there are even citizens of one country that claims that it is at war with Russia (and try to expel them from the ranks of the opposition guard).

…So. The question that this world community now has to solve is severe: why did the protest campaign launched in Runet not work from the word "completely"?

The presence of implacable anti-Putinists in the Internet media and social networks was, if not overwhelming, then at least equal to the “pro-Putin” one. And the total output of the protest efforts of the “anti-system candidates” and the boycotting “politician whom Putin is afraid of” turned out to be somehow miserable.

No, their result is pitiful, not in the sense that the couple of millions of our fellow citizens who voted for K. A. Sobchak and G. A. Yavlinsky are pathetic, insignificant individuals. And not in the sense that tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who really consciously heeded the call to "boycott the farce" are miserable. No, they are all full citizens of the country.

This is for a normal user and the Internet is normal. That is, for personal purposes - mainly for correspondence with loved ones, watching movies and storing music.

And an advanced anti-Putin user, even if he is an Israeli housewife in years, is a daily factory of likes, comments and reposts, producing and distributing kilotons of political content. Not to mention the army of Baltic, Ukrainian, Transcaucasian and Central Asian couch fighters against the empire. Not to mention the couch buildings of the anti-imperial resistance in the Russian Federation itself - Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Urals and Siberia.

But the main thing is that this minority is used to considering themselves not only active, but also informationally effective. By virtue of its near-intellectual diplomas and simply class traditions, it is used to thinking that it has much more skill in presenting its political position. Much more convincing and brighter finds words. Where better able to "get through".

And so the conclusion was made: each representative of this intellectual minority is certainly worth hundreds of ordinary passive users of the information space. Simply by the level of informational noise it produces and the impact it has.

And it’s not that they didn’t have any reason to count on success. At least limited.

Firstly, on the side of the global international of the Russian opposition there was a rather impressive package of media. Starting from the British and American, who with desperate persistence repeated the mantra about "Putin's main rival, who called for a boycott of the elections," and ending with the German ones, who thoughtfully explain to the Russian reader how best to express their protest against the Kremlin: "Stay at home, as Navalny calls, or ruin the ballot "How does Khodorkovsky advise? How is a boycott different from a protest vote, and how will the decision affect the election process?"

(At this point it was necessary to ask rhetorically: And these people accuse Russia of trying to interfere in their elections? But this question has long been answered. The right countries interfere in other people's elections correctly, for the sake of good. The wrong countries, like Russia, - in the name of evil).

Thirdly, the audience of this minority is the Russian "media class" - including a fairly large stratum of official media workers who are accustomed to walking around with figs in their pockets and consider themselves victims of circumstances. That is why they like and repost information that scourges modern Russia with redoubled enthusiasm.

…So.

I have a version why.

The thing is that there is probably no society on the planet that would be more resistant to information pressure than Russian society.

Even before the mass advent of the Internet (and the onset of the established "Putin era"), the Russian voter/reader/viewer lived for a decade and a half under a natural information dictatorship. The Russian citizen was told from morning to night that his country was falling apart and that it was good, that his past was criminal, that his pride was false, and that the best prospects were to dump him in a normal country. And if it doesn’t work out, sit and not twitch.

And the Russian citizen withstood this informational occupation.

And then came the era of the mass Russian Internet. And although the “irreconcilables” certainly had a head start (the Internet first of all spread to megacities, where its founding fathers were people who later went to Bolotnaya almost in full force) - the majority already in the 2010s began to inexorably catch up and overtake them . Simply because even very hyperactive minorities, who assert themselves at the expense of the majority, will not read and listen to the latter if they have a choice.

And the majority had a choice. And in the form of "state" media, and in the form of self-made patriotic blogosphere.

In particular, this happened also because this closed community was never able to develop a normal, respectful language of communication with the majority. They did not come up with anything more creative than "pitiable" stories about how "I met an old woman in a store who was trying to buy two oranges at a promotion" about citizens. Basically, all their political lyrics were based on a mockery of the "obedient / gullible majority." On tragic self-love, smart and beautiful. And on listing the differences between smart and talented selves and a gray monochrome mass.

That is, these guys have mastered some new media, new formats and new networks.

But in the main they never learned anything. For example, a simple truth: "If you are addressing people who, for the most part, have voted for V.V. Putin for ten years, then why the hell are you mocking his choice? Are you sure that this is how hearts are won?"

... As a result, today the information troops, defeated during the next storming of the Kremlin, are discussing the future.

Some, as after every election in Russia, gloomily prophesy that now the stupid majority will cry, and we won’t feel sorry for him, it’s our own fault.

Others try to steer in a constructive way and offer instead of fighting an irresistible force to join it and change it from the inside: “We all need to learn how to sacrifice. Our pride, our attachments, our love, our fate and our lives. We cannot defeat Putin. and notes. The regime can only be changed from within. If you want to change Russia, love Putin. Love him and be faithful to him. To ever give you power, he must be sure that you will not betray him. Go work in power "and etc.

The call is, of course, frightening (from the point of view of us, the majority). But hardly realizable - after all, in order to fulfill it, the militant irreconcilable minority will have to abandon their own nature. And this is hardly possible.