It just so happened that they try to bring up boys strong and courageous, but ...
In the second half of the 1930s. Hitler behaved extremely aggressively towards Russia. He openly proclaimed a future war. However, the Anglo-French leaders generally pursued a policy of "appeasement" of Hitler, trying to direct his aggression to the east. In March 1939, Stalin sharply criticized this policy, stating that it was they, and not Germany, who were the warmongers. Nevertheless, on April 17, 1939, the Soviet government offered England and France to conclude an agreement on mutual assistance in case of aggression. But these negotiations turned out to be unsuccessful, since their participants sought not so much to real agreements as to exert pressure on Germany.
On August 23, 1939, a non-aggression pact for a period of 10 years and a secret protocol on the delimitation of spheres of influence were signed between the USSR and Germany. On September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland without declaring war. And already on September 3, Poland's allies, England and France, declared war on Germany.
The main causes of the war: economic and political contradictions and the struggle for the redivision of the world; contradictions between capitalism and socialism; the establishment of fascist regimes in a number of countries.
In mid-September, when the Polish troops were defeated, Germany led the army to
borders of the Soviet Union. Finland rejected Stalin's proposal to move the border away from Leningrad in exchange for territory in Karelia. On November 30, 1939, the Soviet-Finnish war began, which lasted until the spring of 1940, on March 12, the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was signed, according to which the USSR withdrew the territory of the Karelian Isthmus. The League of Nations expelled the USSR from its membership, condemning its actions. In May of the same year, Germany attacked Belgium and Holland. On May 14 and 28, Holland and Belgium capitulated respectively. On June 10, Italy entered the war against France and England. On June 22, 1940, a Franco-German armistice was signed. According to him, Germany occupied most of its territory, and France paid huge sums. On June 25, Italy signed an armistice treaty with France.
On June 14 and 16, 1940, the USSR government demanded that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia change the composition of their governments and allow the introduction of additional troops. In August 1940, these states joined the USSR.
After the defeat of France, England remained the only country that continued the war with Germany. In May 1940 the British government was headed by Winston Churchill. America helped the country. In March 1941, the US Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act.
After Hitler's plan to seize An-glia failed, Germany began preparations for a war against the USSR. A plan was being developed for the attack of the Barbarossa. On September 27, 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan, according to which they promised to support each other. It was soon joined by Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. German troops were stationed in these territories.
On October 28, Italy attacked Greece with the expectation of a short-lived war, but faced stubborn resistance. At Mussolini's request, on April 6, 1940, Germany attacked Greece and Yugoslavia. Surpassing them in power, she quickly broke the resistance of the Yugoslav and Greek armies.
By the summer of 1941, 12 European countries were occupied by Germany and Italy. In them
the so-called "new order" was established, prohibiting demonstrations, eliminating democratic freedoms. A huge number of people were imprisoned in concentration camps. The economies of these countries were used in the interests of the occupiers. An anti-fascist and patriotic Resistance movement arose against the "new order".
At the beginning of 1939, the last attempt was made to create a system of collective security between Britain, France and the Soviet Union. but western states did not believe in the potential of the USSR to resist fascist aggression. Therefore, they dragged out the negotiations in every possible way. In addition, Poland categorically refused to give a guarantee of the passage of Soviet troops through its territory to repel the anticipated fascist aggression. At the same time, Great Britain established secret contacts with Germany in order to reach an agreement on a wide range of political problems (including neutralizing the USSR in the international arena).
On April 17, 1939, the USSR proposed to Great Britain and France to conclude a trilateral agreement, the military guarantees of which would apply to the whole of Eastern Europe from Romania to the Baltic states. On the same day, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin informed the State Secretary of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the desire of the Soviet government to establish the best relations with Germany, despite the mutual ideological differences.
Two weeks later, MM Litvinov, who headed the NKID of the USSR and made a lot of efforts to ensure collective security, was amused; his post was transferred to VM Molotov. There was a change in the course of Soviet foreign policy towards the improvement of Soviet-German relations. In May, the German ambassador to Moscow, Schulenburg, was tasked with preparing negotiations with the Soviet Union in connection with Germany's decision to occupy Poland. Soviet diplomacy simultaneously continued to negotiate with France and Great Britain. Each of the participants in the negotiations had their own hidden goals: the Western countries, trying, first of all, to prevent the Soviet-German rapprochement, dragged out the negotiations and at the same time tried to find out the intentions of Germany. For the USSR, the main thing was to achieve guarantees that the Baltic states would not end up in the hands of Germany in one way or another, and to get the opportunity, in the event of a war with her, to transfer their troops through the territory of Poland and Romania (since the USSR and Germany did not have a common border). However, France and Great Britain shied away from resolving this issue.
Seeing that the negotiations had reached an impasse, the British and French agreed to discuss the military aspects of the agreement with the USSR. However, representatives of England (Admiral Drake) and France (General Dumenc), sent by sea on August 5, arrived in Moscow only on August 11. The Soviet side, represented by the People's Commissar of Defense K. E. Voroshilov and the Chief of the General Staff B. M. Shaposhnikov, was dissatisfied with the fact that their partners were low-ranking officials who (especially the British) had little authority. This excluded the possibility of negotiations on such important issues as the passage of Soviet troops through the territories of Poland, Romania and the Baltic countries or the obligations of the parties on a specific number military equipment and personnel to be mobilized in the event of German aggression.
On August 21, the Soviet delegation postponed the negotiations to a later date. By this time, the Soviet leadership had already finally decided to conclude an agreement with Germany. A trade agreement was signed (it provided for a loan of 200 million marks at a very insignificant interest). On August 23, 1939, the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact was signed for a period of 10 years. The Non-Aggression Pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) included a secret protocol, a photocopy of which was later discovered in Germany, but whose existence in the USSR was nevertheless denied until the summer of 1989. The protocol delimited the spheres of influence of the parties in Eastern Europe. The fate of the Polish state was diplomatically passed over in silence, but in any case, the Belarusian and Ukrainian territories included in its composition under the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921, as well as part of the “historically and ethnically Polish” territory of the Warsaw and Lublin Voivodeships should have been Poland to go to the USSR.
Eight days after the signing of the treaty, Nazi troops attacked Poland.
Great Britain and France on September 3 declared war on Germany. However, they did not provide real military assistance to the Polish government, which ensured a quick victory for Adolf Hitler. The second has begun World War.
In the new international conditions, the leadership of the USSR began to implement the Soviet-German agreements in August 1939. On September 17, after the defeat of the Polish army by the Germans and the fall of the Polish government, the Red Army entered Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. On September 28, the Soviet-German treaty "On Friendship and Border" was signed, who secured these lands as part of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the USSR insisted on concluding agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, gaining the right to deploy its troops on their territory. In these republics, in the presence of Soviet troops, legislative elections were held, which were won by the communist forces. In 1940 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became part of the USSR.
In November 1939, the USSR began a war with Finland. The goals of the war: firstly, the creation of a pro-communist government in it, and secondly, the need to ensure the military-strategic security of Leningrad (by transferring the Soviet-Finnish border from it to the Karelian Isthmus). The hostilities were accompanied by huge losses on the part of the Red Army. The stubborn resistance of the Finnish army was provided by Mannerheim's defensive line. Western states provided Finland with political support. The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations under the pretext of its aggression. At the cost of tremendous efforts, the resistance of the Finnish armed forces was broken. In March 1940, the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was signed, according to which the USSR received the entire Karelian Isthmus.
In the summer of 1940, as a result of political pressure, Romania ceded Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. Significant territories with a population of 14 million people were included in the USSR, the country's borders were expanded (at a distance of 300 to 600 km).
Thus, at the end of the 30s. The Soviet state agreed to an agreement with fascist Germany, the ideology and policy of which it had previously condemned. Such a turn, on the one hand, was made under forced conditions (the USSR found itself without allies), on the other hand, it could be carried out only under the conditions of the state system, all internal means of propaganda of which were aimed at justifying the actions of the government and forming a new attitude in Soviet society to the Hitlerite regime.
War is a social phenomenon, one of the forms of resolving socio-political, economic, ideological, national, religious, territorial contradictions between states, peoples, nations, classes and other means of armed violence. The main element of the essence of war is politics, it is it that determines the goals of the war, its socio-political, legal and moral-ethical character.
The mechanism of the emergence of wars requires the study of all causes, objective conditions and subjective factors, both that gave rise to it, and those that opposed it. There were several such factors in relation to World War II.
At first, in the system of ordering the world after the First World War, created by the victorious powers, the embryo of a new world conflict and a new redivision of the world was laid. World economic crisis 1929-1933 sharply exacerbated the contradictions between the capitalist powers. There were two groups (Germany, Italy, Japan - England, France), striving for world domination. The defeated states were the most aggressive. The Munich Agreement (September 1938) of England, France, Germany and Italy reflected their desire to solve their geopolitical problems at the expense of other states and peoples.
Secondly, the imperialist essence of the policy of the capitalist states nullified any attempts to prevent a military redivision of the world. Western democracy coexisted peacefully with an inhuman foreign policy.
Thirdly , the decisive factor in the outbreak of the war was the rise of the fascists to power in Germany, Italy and Japan. The world community, including the USSR, until June 22, 1941, could not realize that fascism was a mortal danger to all mankind.
Fourth, the catalyst for the world conflict was anti-Sovietism. Hitler had a plan for the destruction of the USSR long before its final approval. In 1936-1937. was created "Anti-Comintern Pact" with the aim of overthrowing the Soviet system. The governments of England and France at that time pursued a policy of "appeasement" of fascism in order to direct Germany against the USSR, which allowed her to start the war in the most favorable conditions for her. A significant share of the responsibility in this lies with the political leadership of the USSR.
Fifth, the Bolsheviks' belief in the inevitability of a world socialist revolution determined their belief in the inevitability of an imperialist world war, which would result in the victory of world socialism. Stalin did not believe in the possibility of peaceful tendencies on the part of any capitalist powers. The Soviet leadership considered it fair to resolve the USSR's foreign policy problems by military means. The Red Army, in Stalin's opinion, could wage a victorious war in foreign territories, where it would meet the support of the working people. The Soviet Union was focused on such an offensive war. military strategy until June 22, 1941
At sixth, the political regime created by Stalin and his entourage closed the possibilities of searching for and implementing alternative options if they did not coincide with Stalin's point of view. This had a particularly negative impact on the decision to sign the USSR secret protocols to the non-aggression pact with Germany (August 1939). An objective assessment of this historical fact was given at the II Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (December 1989).
Thus, the Second World War was the result of the interaction of many objective causes and subjective factors. Its main culprit was German fascism. Attempts to present him as a victim, no matter what they may be supported, are not only unscientific, but also immoral. Reasoning about this is nothing more than a hypothesis.
The main reasons for the war were:
1) the struggle of competing systems claiming global domination: National Socialism and Communism;
2) Germany's desire to conquer "living space" by capturing the resource base of the USSR.
Germany's plans and goals:
Plan "Barbarossa" - a plan for conducting a military campaign against the USSR - was developed during the summer of 1940 in line with the strategy of a lightning-fast (6-7 weeks) war. It provided for the simultaneous delivery of strikes in three main directions: Leningrad (Army Group North), Moscow (Center) and Kiev (South). The goal of the plan is to reach the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line, to capture the European part of the USSR. Germany's strategy consisted in delivering strikes with large armored formations with the support of aviation, encircling the enemy and destroying him in "cauldrons". The order for an offensive across the border of the USSR was signed by Hitler on June 17, 1941;
Plan "Ost" - the plan for the dismemberment of the European territory of the USSR after the war and the exploitation of its natural resources - provided for the destruction of a significant part of the population of the USSR (up to 140 million people in 40-50 years).
The war plans of the USSR were based on the doctrine of the "red package" ("To beat the enemy on his territory with little blood"), developed by K. Ye. Voroshilov, S. K. Timoshenko. All other military theoretical developments (for example, M. N. Tukhachevsky) were rejected. The doctrine was based on the experience of the Civil War. The value of only offensive actions was recognized. Defense strategy was not considered in detail.
There are three main periods in the history of the Great Patriotic War:
1.22 June 1941 - 18 November 1942 - the initial period of the war. The strategic initiative, that is, the ability to plan and carry out large-scale offensive operations, belonged to the Wehrmacht. Soviet troops left Belarus, the Baltic States, Ukraine and fought defensive battles for Smolensk, Kiev, Leningrad. Battle of Moscow (September 30, 1941 - January 7, 1942) - the first defeat of the enemy, disruption of the plan of a lightning-fast war. The war became protracted. The strategic initiative temporarily passed to the USSR. In the spring and summer of 1942, Germany again seized the initiative. The beginning of the defense of Stalingrad and the battle for the Caucasus. The transfer of the economy to a war footing in the USSR has been completed, and an integral system of the military industry has been created. A partisan war began behind enemy lines (Belarus, Bryansk, Eastern Ukraine). Creation of an anti-Hitler coalition.
2.November 19, 1942 - end of 1943 - a period of radical change, that is, the final transition of the strategic initiative to the USSR. The defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad (February 2, 1943), the surrender of the 6th Army of General F. Paulus. Battle of the Kursk Bulge (July 1943). The collapse of the offensive strategy of the Wehrmacht. Battle of the Dnieper - the collapse of the defensive strategy of the Wehrmacht, the liberation of the Left-Bank Ukraine. Strengthening the Soviet war economy: by the end of 1943, an economic victory over Germany was secured. Formation of large partisan formations (Kovpak, Fedorov, Saburov). Liberated areas appeared behind enemy lines. Strengthening anti-Hitler coalition... Tehran Conference of 1943 Crisis of the fascist bloc.
3. 1944 - May 9, 1945 - the final period. The liberation of the entire territory of the USSR, the liberation mission of the Red Army in Europe (the liberation of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other countries). Defeat of Nazi Germany. Conferences in Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July-August).
On June 22, 1941, Germany, violating the non-aggression pact, began a war against the USSR. From the very beginning, events took an unfavorable turn for the Soviet Union, as the Germans used the factor of surprise. The upcoming war was not a secret for the country's leadership, but the power and swiftness of the first strike, achieved due to the maximum concentration of forces on the borders with the USSR, was a complete surprise. Up to 90% of all available troops were immediately put into action by the Germans. The Soviet troops were not yet ready for war, many units were understaffed in personnel and equipment. In addition, the Germans managed to deliver massive strikes against our aviation. This is especially true of the Western Special Military District, where hundreds of aircraft on the ground were destroyed. One cannot but take into account the fact that the German army already had two years of experience in modern warfare in Europe, and on its account were victories over the armies of Poland, France, England, Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway. The Red Army had no such experience.
Nevertheless, from the very first hours of the war, she began to provide fierce resistance to the German troops, often trying to attack and go over to counterattacks. In the border battle in June 1941, the command of the Red Army brought several mechanized corps into battle, which for some time, especially in the southwestern direction, delayed the advance of German tank columns. In the initial period of the war, significant units and formations of the Red Army were encircled, tk. German troops were distinguished by greater mobility, better equipment with radio communications, and superiority in tanks. The largest encirclements were in the Bialystok ledge, near Uman and Poltava, near Kiev, near Smolensk, near Vyazma. The German command relied on the "blitzkrieg". But the rapid advance due to the stubborn resistance of the Red Army was thwarted from the very beginning. Moreover, for the first time in the entire Second World War, German troops had to go on the defensive during the Battle of Smolensk, when a large German grouping near Yelnya was seriously defeated. By the fall of 1941, German troops were on the outskirts of Leningrad, but they could not take it. Soviet troops under the command of G.K. Zhukov stopped them. Thus began the 900-day siege and defense of Leningrad. Under the leadership of Zhukov, the Red Army also managed to stop the German troops on the near approaches to the capital in December 1941 and launch a counteroffensive, inflicting a heavy defeat on Army Group Center. This was the first strategic defeat suffered by the German army during the Second World War. The offensive of the Red Army continued until April 1942.
In 1942, after unsuccessful, with heavy losses, attempts to attack the Red Army in the Crimea and near Kharkov, the German army began an offensive on the southern flank of the front to capture the Caucasus and the Volga region. At Stalingrad, one of the major battles Great Patriotic War. The Germans failed to take Stalingrad, and the Red Army, having exhausted the enemy in defensive battles, went on the offensive, encircling a large German grouping. 1942 was the year of the maximum advance of German troops across the territory of our country.
Talking about the position Soviet people in the occupied territories, one cannot fail to mention the fascist methods of managing the occupied territories. The robbery of property, the hijacking of the population to Germany for work, repression and terror at the slightest insubordination caused resistance quite soon. Underground groups operated in the cities, countryside- partisans. Their purpose was to destroy small enemy garrisons, disrupt communications and prevent the occupiers from using the economic potential of the occupied territories. I must say that in many cases the activities of partisans and underground fighters were very effective, but they entailed huge sacrifices. After the defeat at Stalingrad, the Germans tightened the occupation regime, turning to total terror. Nevertheless, the partisan movement expanded, inflicting heavy losses on the German army and diverting significant forces from the front.
The main event of 1943 was the Battle of the Kursk Bulge - the last attempt at a German strategic offensive. German shock tank units did not manage to break through the defenses of the Red Army, and she, having launched a counteroffensive, liberated Oryol, Belgorod, by the end of the year - Kiev and reached the Right-Bank Ukraine.
The year 1944 is marked by decisive victories for the Red Army, the largest of which was the defeat of Army Group Center in Belarus. In the same year, the blockade of Leningrad was finally lifted, most of the Baltic States were liberated, Soviet troops reached the state border of the USSR. Romania and Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. On June 6, 1944, the allies of the USSR - the USA and Great Britain - opened the Second Front in northern France. The situation in Germany became even more difficult.
1945 was marked by the final defeat of Nazi Germany. A series of crushing attacks by the Red Army ended with the storming and capture of Berlin, during which Hitler and Goebbels committed suicide.
During the war, the USSR, the USA and Great Britain formed an anti-Hitler coalition. In May-July 1942, it already included 26 states. Before the opening of the Second Front, allied assistance to the Soviet Union consisted in the supply of weapons, equipment, foodstuffs and some types of raw materials.
After the end of the war with Germany, the Soviet Union, fulfilling its allied obligations, entered the war with Japan, transferring appropriate forces and means from Europe. On August 6 and 8, the Americans carried out an atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declares war on Japan, which ends in defeat 24 days later. On September 2, 1945, the act of Japan's unconditional surrender was signed aboard the American battleship Missouri. The Second World War is over.
The Second World War became the bloodiest and largest conflict in the history of mankind, into which 80% of the world's population was drawn.
The most important result of the war was the destruction of fascism as one of the forms of totalitarianism. This became possible thanks to the joint efforts of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition. The victory won contributed to the growth of the prestige of the USSR and the United States, turning them into superpowers. For the first time, Nazism was tried internationally. Conditions were created for the democratic development of countries. The disintegration of the colonial system began.
The anti-Hitler coalition formed during the war years became the basis for the creation of the United Nations, which opened up opportunities for the formation of a collective security system, the emergence of a fundamentally new organization of international relations.
The price of the victory won over the fascist bloc is very high. The war has brought great destruction. The total cost of destroyed material assets (including military equipment and weapons) of all the warring countries amounted to more than $ 316 billion, and the damage to the USSR - almost 41% of this amount. However, first of all, the price of victory is determined by human losses. It is believed that the Second World War claimed more than 55 million human lives. Of these, about 40 million deaths are accounted for by the states of Europe. Germany lost over 13 million people (including 6.7 million soldiers); Japan - 2.5 million people (mainly military personnel), more than 270 thousand people - victims of atomic bombings. Losses of Great Britain amounted to 370 thousand, France - 600 thousand, USA - 300 thousand people perished. Direct human losses of the USSR for all the years of the war are enormous and amount to more than 27 million people.
Such a high number of our losses is primarily due to the fact that a long period Since then, the Soviet Union is virtually alone in opposing Nazi Germany, which initially set a course for the mass extermination of Soviet people. Our losses were numbered killed in battles, missing in action, died of disease and hunger, and perished during the bombing, shot and tortured in concentration camps.
Huge human losses and material destruction changed the demographic situation and gave rise to post-war economic difficulties: the most capable people by age dropped out of the productive forces; the existing structure of production was disrupted.
The conditions of war necessitated the development of military art and various types of weapons (including those that have become the basis of modern ones). Thus, during the war years in Germany, the serial production of A-4 (V-2) missiles was launched, which could not be intercepted and destroyed in the air. With their appearance, the era of accelerated development of rocket and then rocket and space technology began.
Already at the very end of World War II, the Americans created and for the first time used nuclear weapons that were best suited for installation on military missiles. The combination of a missile with a nuclear weapon has led to a dramatic change in the general situation in the world. With the help of rocket nuclear weapons it became possible to deliver a surprise strike of unthinkable destructive force, regardless of the distance to the enemy's territory. With the transformation in the late 1940s. The arms race intensified in the USSR as a second nuclear power. In the post-war world, the question began to be raised not so much about achieving victory over the enemy, but about preserving the life of mankind and all life on Earth through joint peacekeeping efforts. The problem of war and peace has become global.
At the final stage of the war, the Red Army liberated the territories of Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Austria, Norway, Denmark, China, and Korea. Great and indisputable is the merit of our soldiers in the preservation and rescue from destruction of many medieval cities in Europe, outstanding monuments of architecture and art.
Under the influence of the Stalinist diktat and the prevailing conditions, some of the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe made a socialist choice; the world socialist system was formed as a counterbalance to the capitalist one. For several decades after the war, the confrontation between these two systems determined world development.
As a result of the victory over fascism, the Soviet Union not only strengthened its international authority, but also expanded its borders: Pechenga was obtained in the North, the Konigsberg and Klaipeda regions, Transcarpathia, South part O. Sakhalin, Kuril Islands.
The country was undergoing a process of further strengthening of the totalitarian regime, the cult of the individual with a clear growth and manifestation of the civic position of the population. And although the anti-fascist war of liberation did not open the way to democracy in the USSR, the contribution of the Soviet people to the defeat of fascism, the heroic deed they performed and the displayed courage cannot be devalued, no matter how reevaluated over time certain events of that period were subjected.
The main lesson of World War II is that war for humanity can no longer be a continuation of politics. Obviously, you cannot ensure the safety of your people at the expense of the safety of another. The countries of the world are obliged to observe the norms of morality and international law... And so that the future does not become unpredictable, there should be only one policy - the policy of peace.
Literature
Tests for topic number 12
1. What was the reason for the USSR attack on Finland in 1939?
a) Finland's refusal to move the state border 70 km from Leningrad;
b) Finland's territorial claims;
c) Provocations of Finnish troops on the border with the USSR.
2. Year of the opening of the second front in Europe:
3.The USSR and Germany, having signed a non-aggression pact and a secret protocol to it, agreed on:
a) the division of spheres of influence between Moscow and Berlin in Eastern Europe;
b) the date of the German attack on England and France;
c) the division of spheres of influence in the Balkans and Asia.
4. The main result of the Moscow battle:
a) the "lightning war" plan was thwarted;
b) the strategic initiative passed into the hands of the Soviet command;
c) a second front was opened in Europe.
5. The main meaning of the Battle of Stalingrad:
a) marked a radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War;
b) the myth of the invincibility of the German army has been dispelled;
c) put an end to the offensive operations of the Wehrmacht.
USSR in the post-war years: 1945 - 1964
Socio-economic and political development USSR in 1945 - 1953
An attempt to implement political and economic reforms in 1953 - 1964.
Foreign policy of the USSR in the post-war period. Cold War.
After the end of the war, the tasks of restoring normal life came to the fore. National economy... The human and material losses caused by the war were very heavy. She claimed the lives (according to rough estimates) of 27 million of our fellow citizens. Total material losses amounted to RUB 2,569 billion. (500 billion dollars), which was equal to 30% of the national wealth of the USSR. According to American experts, it took the Soviet Union 20 years to restore the destroyed national economy. However, the victory over German fascism instilled in millions of Soviet people confidence in their own strength and optimism in their plans for the future.
The restoration of the national economy was the main task of the fourth five-year plan. Already in August 1945, the development of the plan began. The government promptly outlined amendments to the state budget and quarterly plans for 1945, provided targets for 1946 and subsequent years in the direction of reducing military spending, increasing allocations for the national economy and the socio-cultural sphere. Overtime work and labor mobilizations were canceled at enterprises and institutions, work holidays were resumed, and socialist emulation developed everywhere.
When considering the draft plan, the country's leadership revealed different approaches to the methods and goals of restoring the country's economy: I) a more balanced, balanced development of the national economy, some mitigation of coercive measures in economic life; 2) a return to the pre-war model of development based on the predominant development of heavy industry. Supporters of the first option (A.A.Zhdanov, N.A.Voznesensky, M.I. redistribution of colonies, in which the United States and England will clash first of all. Therefore, a relatively favorable international climate is developing for the USSR, which means that there is no need to continue the policy of accelerated development of heavy industry. Supporters of the second option (G.M. Malenkov, L.P. Beria, heads of heavy industry), on the contrary, viewed the international situation as very alarming. Capitalism, in their opinion, at this stage was able to cope with its difficulties; the nuclear monopoly gave the imperialist countries a clear superiority over the USSR. Hence the course is again aimed at accelerating the development of the country's military-industrial base.
On March 18, 1946, the first session of the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a law on the fourth five-year plan for the restoration and development of the national economy for 1946-1950. The main economic and political task of the five-year plan was to restore the affected regions of the country, restore the pre-war level of industry and agriculture, and then surpass this level on a significant scale. The five-year plan meant a return to the pre-war slogan: the completion of the construction of socialism and the beginning of the transition to communism. The organizational restructuring of state bodies was carried out. In September 1945. GKO was abolished, all management functions were again transferred to the Council of People's Commissars.
In order to accomplish the most complex tasks of the fourth five-year plan, the government attached great importance to the development of socialist emulation. If in 1946 competition in industry covered 81% of the country's workers, then in 1950 - 90%. New forms of it have also appeared: high-speed methods of work, production of only excellent quality products, comprehensive saving of raw materials and materials, profitable work of the enterprise, excess savings, etc.
As a result, already in 1948 the pre-war level of the national economy was surpassed. By the end of the five-year plan, the volume of industrial production increased by 73% instead of 48% according to the plan. By 1950, 6200 enterprises were built and restored. The sources of industrial success were: high mobilization capabilities of the directive economy, which remained under conditions of extensive development (due to new construction, additional sources of raw materials, "fuel, labor, etc.). Reparations also played a role. which were planned to be paid out of the seizures from the Soviet zone of occupation of German foreign assets in Bulgaria, Hungary, Finland, Romania and Eastern Austria, complete industrial equipment from the western zones of occupation, including 15% of it in exchange for goods, and 10% without any compensation ...
In addition, the growth of industry was achieved, among other things, due to the free labor of the GULAG prisoners and prisoners of war, the redistribution of funds from light industry and the social sphere to industrial sectors; transferring funds from the agrarian sector of the economy to the industrial one.
At the same time, the development of the post-war economy was one-sided. Of 93% of capital investments in industry, 88% went to mechanical engineering. The production of consumer goods grew extremely slowly. Transport and construction of railways lagged sharply. Housing construction assignments were not completed. Agriculture by 1950 did not reach the pre-war level (according to the five-year plan it was supposed to exceed it by 27%), it was reached only in 1951. main reason failures in this sphere of development of the national economy consisted in the colossal losses of the agricultural sector during the Great Patriotic War. The population of villages and villages decreased by 15%, the able-bodied population - by 35%. 17 million heads of cattle, 7 million horses, 42 million goats and sheep were destroyed and removed. Thousands of agricultural machines were destroyed. In addition, for development Agriculture in the 4th five-year plan, only 7% of capital investments were allocated. The severe drought of 1946, which caused the famine of 1946-1947, also affected. in a number of regions of Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. However, the main thing was that agriculture was kept, as before the war, on non-economic compulsion to labor. In the first post-war years, the village lived very hard. In 1950, in every fifth collective farm, cash payments for workdays were not made at all. Poverty stimulated a massive outflow of peasants to the cities: about 8 million rural residents left their villages in 1946-1953. In order to prevent further deterioration of the economic and financial situation in the countryside, it was decided to strengthen the collective farms. By 1952, 94 thousand collective farms had been formed instead of the 252 thousand that were available. The enlargement was accompanied by a new and significant decrease in the individual allotments of peasants, a reduction in payment in kind.
An important role in the stabilization of the country's financial system was played by the monetary reform and the abolition of cards for food and industrial goods in December 1947 To relieve the pressure of the money supply on the market, a monetary reform was carried out.
In the course of the reform, the State Bank of the USSR exchanged old money for new ones in a ratio of 10: 1. The monetary reform contributed to the improvement of the financial system and ensured the subsequent growth in the well-being of the people as a whole. It became a prerequisite for the abolition of cards, which happened earlier than in most European countries. At the same time, the government began to consistently reduce retail prices.
Summing up the results of the economic development of the USSR in the post-war 10 years, it should be noted that by the beginning of the 50s, significant raw materials had been created in the country for the successful development of the national economy of the Soviet Union in the future.
In the post-war burden, the government's internal policy followed two directions. On the one hand, measures were taken to revitalize the social, cultural and scientific life of the country. Some democratization of Soviet society. Thus, for the first time, direct and secret elections of people's judges were held. Re-elections of Soviets at all levels took place, which made it possible to renew the deputy corps. Collegiality in the work of the Soviets has increased due to the greater regularity of convening their sessions. After a long break, congresses of public and political organizations were held (in 1948 the I congress of the Composers' Union, in 1949 the congresses of the Komsomol and trade unions, in 1952 - the XIX congress of the CPSU, etc.). Changes took place in the system of state administration: in 1946 the Council of People's Commissars was transformed into the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the People's Commissariats were renamed into ministries, the Red Army - into the Soviet Armed Forces.
Despite the extremely difficult situation in the state budget, the government was able to find funds for the development of science, public education, and cultural institutions.
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the expectation of greater freedom, getting rid of the fetters of command became more and more conscious among the Soviet people. The pathos of the winners and at the same time the growth of critical sentiments is not a paradoxical combination, but a reality. The latent discontent with the system of administrative leadership, which was ripening in the minds of the people, was expressed primarily by front-line soldiers, and among them - the communists. It was in the first year or two after the war that a tendency to democratize internal party life in the lower party organizations emerged. Criticism increased against the elected bodies, those leaders who violated the statutory norms.
However, already in the second half of 1943, a spontaneous onslaught on the party administrative system coming from the bottom began to fade. The struggle of the Stalinist leadership against dissent also intensified.
In the post-war years, the party's control over social life and the ideological diktat in the sphere of spiritual culture were tightened. In 1946- 948. a number of resolutions were adopted by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): in the areas of literature - "On the magazines" Zvezda "and" Leningrad ", after which AA Akhmatova, MM Zoshchenko were expelled from the Writers' Union; cinematography - some films, including V.I. Pudovkin and S. M. Eisenstein; musical - the opera of V.I. It should be noted that the persecution of the creative intelligentsia in the post-war period was not accompanied by repressions against the persons named in these resolutions.
In 1947-1951. pogrom "discussions" were organized on philosophy, linguistics, political economy, history, physiology, during which unanimity and administrative command style were implanted in science.
1946-1953 were the apogee of Stalinism as a political system. 1948 - the beginning of the 50s were marked by a new wave of repression. The "Leningrad affair" became a reflection of the internal party struggle in the leadership. The rivalry between GM Malenkov and AA Zhdanov ended in favor of the latter, but after his death in 1948 Malenkov and Beria organized a major purge of the party, state and economic apparatus of Zhdanov's supporters. In 1952, the "case of poisoning doctors" was fabricated; a group of persons associated with the work of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (S. Lozovsky, I. Fefer, P. Markish, L. Stern, and others) was convicted.
In the second half of the 40s - early 50s. a huge system of special settlements continued to exist, reaching its maximum size by the beginning of 1953. The massive use of expulsion to solve national problems was widely practiced during this period as well. The number of special settlers as of January 1 was 2,753,356 people. Among them were Germans, representatives of the peoples of the North Caucasus (Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, Balkars, Kabardians), Crimea (Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, Bulgarians), Georgia (Turks, Kurds, Iranians), Kalmyks, anti-Soviet population of the territories included in composition of the USSR at the end of the 30s. (Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, the Baltic States, Moldova), persons who collaborated with the Nazis, representatives of some religious sects and other categories.
But the repressions could not ultimately solve the problems that faced the Soviet society. The growing economic imbalances, the contradiction between the needs of production in the era of the scientific and technological revolution and the rigidly centralized system of economic management, deepening the gap between the government and society, the growth of doublethink in the ideological sphere determined the strengthening of society's need for reforms. However, the existing regime of power became the main obstacle to the development of society, conserving the growing contradictions.
Stalin's death on March 5, 1953 became a milestone in the history of our society, opening a new stage in its development. Strengthening the political system objectively required reforming the life of society, on the success of which the historical fate of our people depended.
The administrative-command system of the country's leadership could be strong enough under the conditions of the personal power regime of the political leader. But the death of the leader led to the system losing its stability, and those contradictions that were successfully suppressed, pushed inside in the past years, came to the fore at the moment of the system's destabilization.
Stalin's death objectively facilitated the possibility of carrying out reforms in the country, the need for which did not raise doubts among the absolute majority of members of the party and state leadership. The choice of this or that reform scheme and the pace of its implementation largely depended on the country's new leader. The struggle for leadership that unfolded after Stalin's death thus became a struggle for the option of carrying out reforms.
The so-called "collective leadership" established after Stalin's death actually meant the system of government of the three most influential persons - G.M. Malenkov (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR), L.P. Beria (First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR) and NS Khrushchev (Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee). The "Triumvirate" ruled the country from March to June 1953. Having united the repressive organs of the country under his leadership, Beria posed a great danger to his colleagues in the "triumvirate". The anti-Beria conspiracy that took place in June 1953 was crowned with success. On June 26, Beria was arrested by the generals and officers who participated in the conspiracy - GK Zhukov, KS Moskalenko, and others. In December 1953, the court sentenced Beria to death, which was carried out.
G.M. Malenkov became the recognized leader of the country. In the flames of a short period of his political leadership (June 1953 - January 1955), cardinal reforms began in various areas of public life. But it was not possible to fully implement the proclaimed course. By 1954, Malenkov began to lose leadership, which was the result of a change in the balance of this in the struggle for power. This was largely due to the ongoing rehabilitation of victims Stalinist repression... Beria's trial made obvious the falsification of a number litigation, such as, for example, the "Leningrad affair", one of the main organizers of which, along with Beria, was Malenkov. The rehabilitation of convicts in the spring of 1954 dealt a blow to Malenkov's political positions.
In January 1955, a plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU was held, at which Malenkova was actively criticized. In his speech at the plenum, Khrushchev called the course of priority development of light industry deeply mistaken. On February 8, 1955, he was relieved of his duties as chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. As head of the Soviet government, he was replaced by N. A. Bulganin. A new stage of the struggle for leadership in the Soviet leadership began (February 1955 - June 1957). Nikita Khrushchev, who in September 1953 became the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, came to the fore.
The vicissitudes of the political struggle for leadership and the feeling of inevitable changes in society put Khrushchev at the head of the supporters of reforms. The struggle for reform inevitably led to criticism of Stalin's personality cult. Ideas of criticism of the personality cult became an integral part of party politics in 1953. But the name of the deceased leader was never added to the phrase “personality cult” at that time. For the first time this addition was made to food in February 1956 at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, at which, against the wishes of the majority of the members of the party leadership, Khrushchev made a report "On the personality cult and its consequences." The provisions of Khrushchev's report at the XX Congress of the CPSU became the basis of the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences" adopted on June 30, 1956. In these documents, the cult of personality was considered as "the source of a number of major and very serious perversions of party principles, party democracy, revolutionary legality ”, Khrushchev's fight against the personality cult was not consistent. He did not see the roots of the personality cult in the administrative-command system of leadership and exaggerated the role of Stalin's personal qualities. Khrushchev also failed to resolve the issue of his personal responsibility for repression in collectivization, during the period of leadership of party organizations in Moscow and Ukraine.
Khrushchev's "thaw" was not one-line and consistent. The Hungarian crisis that broke out in the fall of 1956 also influenced the internal policy of the Soviet leadership. In its ranks, the oppositional tendencies of Khrushchev's activities were strengthened. A group of members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU formed (Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, and a number of others), which decided to oppose Khrushchev in June 1957 and remove him from party and state posts. But in this dispute, the plenum participants supported Khrushchev. His opponents were declared an "anti-party group" and lost their posts. In October 1957, Minister of Defense of the USSR G.K. Zhukov was dismissed, whose political independence in the party and state leadership aroused Khrushchev's concern.
The period began when Khrushchev's leadership in the party and state leadership became indisputable (June 1957 - October 1964). The combination of the posts of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (February 1958) only fixed this fact.
The reforms of the 50s-early 60s are traditionally associated with the name of Khrushchev. in a number of areas of public life. The de-Stalinization of public life has already been indicated above. Its peak can rightfully be called the decisions of the XXV Congress of the CPSU (October 1961), which revealed a number of crimes committed in the 30s - early 50s. organs of internal affairs and state security, and the role in them of Stalin's closest circle (members of the "anti-party group"), but who kept silent about the role of Khrushchev in the events of those years. By the decision of the congress, Stalin's body was taken out of the mausoleum on Red Square and buried near the Kremlin wall.
The evolution of the public administration system was determined by the desire to weaken the rigid and petty trusteeship of the center over the regions, characteristic of the previous period. In 1954-1956. the rights of the union republics in planning and financing were expanded, a large number of enterprises were transferred from all-Union subordination to the jurisdiction of republican ministries. In February 1957, the union republics were given the right to independently resolve issues of the administrative-territorial structure.
In the mid 50s. the question of raising the rate of scientific and technological progress in the country's economy was raised. But at the same time, the basic principles of the party doctrine of economic development remained unshakable. State ownership and the planned economy remained the foundations of the economic system, not subject to change or reform. The solution to the problems arising in the economy was seen in the improvement of the state administration apparatus.
In 1957, it was decided to transfer the management of industry and construction to specially established economic councils of administrative and economic regions. 25 ministries were abolished, and the enterprises subordinate to them were transferred to the economic councils (collegial bodies that were in charge of the branches of the national economy in a certain territory). In 1960, to coordinate the work of economic councils in the RSFSR, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, republican economic councils were created, and in 1962, the USSR National Economy Council was formed.
N.S. Khrushchev intended to ensure the rise of agriculture through a significant increase in state purchase prices for collective farm products and a rapid expansion of cultivated areas at the expense of virgin and fallow lands (which meant the continuation of the extensive path of agricultural development).
In 1954, the development of virgin lands began. By the decision of the Central Committee, more than 30 thousand party workers and more than 120 thousand agricultural specialists were sent there. In the first five years, 42 million hectares of virgin and fallow lands were developed by the labor heroism of the Soviet people.
Along with this, purchase prices for agricultural products were increased, debts of previous years were written off, government spending on social development sat down. One of the important decisions was the abolition of the tax on personal subsidiary plots and the permission to increase the size of the farm itself fivefold.
On the initiative of Khrushchev, the principle of planning from below was proclaimed and began to be implemented. Collective farms received the right to amend their charters, taking into account the specifics of local conditions. For the first time, pensions were introduced to collective farmers. They began to issue passports.
These measures contributed to the rise of agriculture. For 1953-1958 the increase in agricultural production was 34% compared with the previous five years. The village has not known such a pace since the days of the New Economic Policy.
However, these successes instilled in the party leaders and in Khrushchev himself confidence in the power of administrative decisions. The rapid improvement in the well-being of the peasants gave rise to fear of his possible "degeneration" into the kulaks. And the strengthening of the role of economic incentives objectively weakened the need for administrative intervention in the affairs of the villagers.
This largely explains the fact that since the end of the 50s. economic incentives are beginning to be supplanted by administrative coercion.
In 1959, the reorganization of the MTS began, during which the collective farms, in order not to be left without equipment, were forced to buy it out for only one year, and at a high price. In this way, the state was able to compensate for almost all of its expenses of previous years on the development of agriculture in one year. A negative consequence of this event was also the loss of the personnel of machine operators, previously concentrated in the MTS. Instead of moving to collective farms, many found work in regional centers and cities.
In the same year, it was concluded that "personal subsidiary farming will gradually lose its significance," since it is more profitable for collective farmers to receive products from the collective farm. This essentially meant the beginning of a new offensive against subsidiary plots. At the suggestion of Leonid Brezhnev, Secretary of the Central Committee, who spoke at the Plenum, an order was given to state bodies to buy livestock from workers of state farms in 2-3 years and to recommend collective farms to take similar measures. The result of these measures was a new decline in personal subsidiary farming and an aggravation of the food problem in the country.
In 1957-1960. decentralization and democratization of economic management have borne fruit: the reproduction process has accelerated, technical and economic indicators in industry have increased, specialization and cooperation have improved, and the efficiency of capital construction has increased. However, in subsequent years, the growth of production slowed down, and the main drawback of the new management system emerged: the restriction of the development of sectoral specialization led to a slowdown in scientific and technological progress in the economy. The creation of sectoral state committees of the Council of Ministers of the USSR with scientific, design and design institutes subordinate to them could not radically correct the situation.
In the early 60s. the reorganization also affected the party apparatus. The charter adopted in 1961 at the XXII Congress of the CPSU provided for the constant renewal of the leading party bodies. So, at each regular election to the Central Committee and its Presidium, at least a third of new members were to be introduced. There were also restrictions on staying in the Presidium of the Central Committee (three consecutive terms). However, the proviso that an exception to these norms is permissible for the most "authoritative figures" actually nullified the practical result of this requirement.
In November 1962, a decision was made to split the party bodies according to the production principle: into industrial and agricultural. It was assumed that this measure would help to overcome the "campaign" in party work, when the main attention of the party organs was focused either on the development of industry, then on the rise of agriculture. As a result, two regional committees emerged in each region, which significantly disorganized local government.
Numerous reorganizations of the state apparatus that caused the nervousness of the bureaucracy, the debunking of the Stalinist cult of personality and the growing tendencies to exalt the role of Khrushchev himself, the failure of reforms, social unrest created the conditions for the emergence of an anti-Khrushchev conspiracy within the party-state leadership. In October 1964, Khrushchev resigned from all his posts. Leonid Brezhnev was elected first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, and A.N. Kosygin became the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers.
Domestic policy in 1965-1985 The change of the party-state leader in October 1964 entailed a rejection of the permanent reorganizations of the governing apparatus, destabilizing the country's political system. In the coming months, a decision was made to unite industrial and rural party organizations. In 1965, the transition from the territorial to the sectoral principle of management took place, and the management of the economy was restored through the ministries. The system of economic councils introduced earlier was abolished. On their basis, line ministries were again established. In 1966, there were about 600 union and republican ministries, state committees and other departments in the USSR, in which 15 million employees worked.
The decisive contribution of the Soviet Union and its peoples to the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition over fascism led to serious changes in the international arena.
The borders of the USSR expanded significantly, it included a part of East Prussia, renamed the Kaliningrad region, the southern part of about. Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, as well as a number of other territories.
The world authority of the USSR as one of the victorious countries in the struggle against fascism grew, and it was again perceived as a great power. The dominant influence of our state was in Eastern Europe and China. In the second half of the 1940s. in these countries, communist regimes were formed. This was largely due to the presence of Soviet troops on their territories and the large material assistance from the USSR. But gradually the contradictions between the former allies in World War II began to worsen. The parties did not trust each other. So, at one of the meetings with I.V. Stalin, Marshal S.M. Budyonny declared it a big mistake that the Red Army stopped at the Elbe and did not move further into Western Europe, although militarily, in his opinion, it was not difficult.
The Americans did not lag behind in this either. In the fall of 1945, a memorandum was drawn up in the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, which planned an atomic attack on 20 cities of the USSR “not only in the event of an impending Soviet attack, but also when the level of industrial and scientific development of the country would make it possible to attack the United States .. . "
The confrontation manifesto was the speech of W. Churchill "The Muscles of the World" at Westminster College in the American city of Fulton on March 5, 1946, where he called on Western countries to fight the "expansion of totalitarian communism."
In Moscow, this speech was perceived as a political challenge. March 14, 1946 J.V. Stalin sharply replied to W. Churchill in the newspaper Pravda, noting: "in fact, Mr. Churchill now takes the position of warmongers." The confrontation intensified further, and the cold war broke out on both sides.
Then the initiative for the development of confrontational actions in line with the Cold War goes to the United States. In February 1947, President H. Truman, in his annual message to the US Congress, proposed specific measures against the spread of Soviet influence, which included large-scale economic aid to Europe, the formation of a military-political alliance under the leadership of the United States, the deployment of American military bases along the Soviet borders, and also providing support to opposition movements in Eastern Europe.
An important milestone in American expansion was the program of economic assistance to countries affected by Nazi aggression, proclaimed on June 5, 1947 at Harvard University by US Secretary of State J. Marshall. The paradox was that the Soviet Union was not included in this plan, since it was believed that it had a positive foreign economic balance.
In addition, the examination of the "Marshall Plan" made for the top Soviet leadership by Academician E.S. Vargoy, stated its disadvantage for the Soviet Union not so much economically as politically. Moscow defiantly refused to participate in the "Marshall Plan" and put pressure on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, forcing them to do the same.
The Kremlin's original response to the "Marshall Plan" was the creation in September 1947 of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties (Cominform) with the aim of strengthening control over the communist movement in the world and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Cominform focused only on the Soviet model of the formation of socialism, condemning the previously existing concepts of "national paths to socialism." In 1947-1948. at the suggestion of the Soviet leadership in the countries of Eastern Europe, a series of revelations took place against a number of party and state leaders accused of sabotage and deviations from the agreed line of socialist construction.
In 1948, relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia sharply deteriorated. The head of this state, I.B. Tito strove for leadership in the Balkans and put forward the idea of creating a Balkan federation under the leadership of Yugoslavia, due to his own ambitions and authority, he refused to act under the dictates of I.V. Stalin. Cominform in June 1948 issued a resolution on the situation in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, accusing its leaders of deviating from Marxist-Leninist ideology. Further, the conflict deepened, which led to the rupture of all relations between the two countries.
Refusing to participate in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, the countries of Eastern Europe, at the initiative of the Soviet Union, created in January 1949 their own international economic organization - the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). Its main tasks were material support for the countries of the pro-Soviet bloc, as well as their economic integration. All activities of the CMEA were based on planning and directive principles and were permeated with the recognition of the political leadership of the USSR in the socialist camp.
In the late 1940s - early 1960s. the confrontation between the USSR and the USA intensified in Europe and Asia.
As part of the implementation of the "Marshall Plan" on the initiative of the United States on April 4, 1949, a military-political alliance was created - the organization of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), which included the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Iceland. Later, Turkey and Greece (1952), as well as the FRG (1955) joined NATO.
The confrontation in Germany occupied by the allied forces, in which the process of dividing the country into two parts: western and eastern, was taking place, remained an acute problem. In September 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was formed from the western zones of occupation, and in October of the same year, in the Soviet zone, the German Democratic Republic.
In the Far East in 1950-1953 the Korean war broke out between the North and South, which became an almost open military clash between the opposing blocs. The Soviet Union and China provided political, material and human assistance to North Korea, the United States to South Korea. The war went on with varying degrees of success. As a result, neither side managed to achieve a decisive military advantage. In July 1953, peace was established in Korea, but the country remained split into two states, which have survived to this day.
Foreign policy pursued by N.S. Khrushchev was contradictory and sometimes spontaneous. Two contradictory tendencies constituted its essence: peaceful coexistence and irreconcilable class struggle against the forces of imperialism in the conditions of the continuing cold war. Apparently, we can talk about a certain liberalization of the foreign policy course.
In 1955, diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia were restored, which had been severed under I.V. Stalin, and also a peace treaty was signed with Austria, in accordance with which its neutral international status was established and Soviet and other occupation troops were withdrawn from Austrian territory.
In response to the FRG's entry into NATO on May 14, 1955 . the military-political organization of the socialist countries was created - the Warsaw Pact.
1956 became very difficult for the foreign policy of the USSR. In Poland and Hungary, under the influence of the decisions of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, processes of de-Stalinization began, which led to an increase in anti-Soviet sentiments. If in Poland it was possible to stabilize the situation mainly by peaceful means, then in Hungary it was necessary to send troops and suppress the popular uprising with the use of military force.
The situation in the center of Europe, connected with the split of Germany and the division of Berlin, remained acute and explosive. The western sector of Berlin was ruled by the occupying forces of the United States, Britain and France. East Berlin was controlled by the GDR and the USSR. In essence, it was a direct confrontation between two military-political blocs. As a result, in August 1961, the leaderships of the USSR and the GDR decided to erect the separation Berlin Wall, which became a symbol of the Cold War until the end of the 1980s.
Since the late 1950s. relations between the USSR and China began to deteriorate. This was due to the rejection of the Chinese leadership, criticism of the personality cult of I.V. Stalin, the struggle for leadership in the international communist movement and the refusal of the USSR to transfer nuclear weapons to China.
In the fall of 1962, the Cuban missile crisis broke out, putting the world on the brink of a nuclear missile war. The Soviet leadership decided to deploy nuclear missiles aimed at the United States in Cuba. Cuba, where rebels led by Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, announced the construction of socialism and was an ally of the Soviet Union. NS. Khrushchev, perhaps, was seized by the desire to somehow correct the balance of strategic forces, to increase the number of nuclear carriers that could hit the territory of the United States from close range. “Moscow clearly improved its nuclear-strategic positions, but poorly calculated the moves of the enemy.
The United States of America imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. The war was avoided only thanks to mutual concessions of the leaders of the countries (NS Khrushchev and D. Kennedy). The Soviet Union removed the missiles, the United States guaranteed Cuba's security and promised to eliminate missile bases in Turkey aimed at the USSR.
The Caribbean confrontation proved the impossibility of using nuclear weapons to achieve political goals and forced politicians to take a fresh look at atomic combat components and their testing.
On August 5, 1963, in Moscow, the USSR, the USA and Great Britain signed an agreement banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space and under water. This was a very important step in the international control of deadly weapons of mass destruction.
Literature
1. Derevyanko A.P., Shabelnikova History of Russia. M., 2006
2. Zakharevich A.V. The history of homeland. M., 2008
3. Kirillov V.V. Russian history. M., 2006
4. Munchaev Sh.M., Ustinov V.M. Russian history. M., 2003
5. Nekrasova M.B. The history of homeland. M., 2002
6. Orlov A.S., Georgiev V.A., Georgieva N.G., Sivokhina T.A. Russian history. M., 2008
7. Semenikova L.I. Russia in the world community of civilizations. M., 2006
Tests to topic number 13
Who of the named leaders did not participate in the struggle for supreme power in the party and state after the death of J.V. Stalin?
a) G.M. Malenkov;
b) V.M. Molotov;
c) L.M. Kaganovich;
d) Leonid Brezhnev.
2. At the XX Congress of the CPSU was (a)
a) the personality cult of I.V. Stalin was exposed;
b) a new party program has been adopted;
c) the course for restructuring has been approved;
b) N.S. Khrushchev was removed from the post of First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
3. The aftermath of World War II was
a) the conclusion of the Soviet-American cooperation agreement;
b) the expansion of the influence of the USSR;
c) strengthening ties between the USSR and the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition;
the formation of the League of Nations.
4. In what year important events took place - the tests of the first nuclear bomb in the USSR, the creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the creation of the North Atlantic Pact (NATO) - in
5. The period in the history of the USSR from the mid-50s. until the mid-60s, characterized by the beginning of the renewal of the spiritual life of society, the exposure of the cult of personality, was called the period
1) "de-ideologization";
2) "publicity";
3) "thaws";
4) "new political thinking".
USSR in the mid 1960s - 1980s. Growing crisis phenomena.
More than seven decades have passed since then, discussions about what helped the Soviet Union survive and win the Great Patriotic War continue. There are different opinions about the state of the country in 1941. Moreover, these opinions often reflect diametrically opposite points of view. Some argue that the country was at its peak after the industrialization of the 30s, while others consider the achievements of industry and agriculture rather sham. So, what was the USSR like on the eve of World War II?
Undoubtedly big influence collectivization and industrialization, carried out in the 30s, had an impact on the course of the future war. You can argue a lot about the course of the agricultural and technical revolution in the USSR, however the main objective- the transformation of the state from an agrarian country into a leading industrial power has been achieved. Specific gravity heavy industry in the gross output of the national economy only in the first five-year plan (from 1928 to 1933) increased from 54.5% to 70.4%. V short time whole areas in industry, production and scientific and technical base were created, the illiteracy of the population was reduced. All this reduced the gap between Soviet Russia and the leading European countries in the economic sphere.
One of the main goals of industrialization was to build up the military power of the communist state. In the late 1920s, the country lived in anticipation of a war against the capitalist countries, and these expectations were not as ephemeral as it might seem now. Relations between the USSR and Britain were hopelessly ruined in 1927 due to the support of the Chinese Communists by the Soviets. The result of the confrontation was the rupture of diplomatic relations between the countries. The Soviet embassy in Beijing was bombed, and representatives of the ROVS, supported by the British, staged a series of terrorist attacks against Soviet citizens. The situation in the Far Eastern regions of the country was also tense. Internal problems, crop failure and opposition of ideological attitudes to the real situation in the country became an additional factor of nervousness.
All this forced the country's leadership to develop a plan to build up the country's economic and military power as soon as possible. At the December congress of the CPSU (b) in 1927, directives were adopted, on the basis of which a plan for future industrialization was later prepared. The first stage was designed for five years (from October 1, 1928 to October 1, 1933) and included a carefully worked out set of measures, which included not only the construction of new plants, but also the complete creation of the entire chain from personnel training to design and construction. giant objects. During industrialization, the authorities recruited foreign specialists, including American and German ones.
Forced industrialization could not but affect agriculture. To ensure greater productivity, collectivization was carried out, uniting disparate agricultural producers into giant collective farms. Forced collectivization and miscalculations on the initial plan led to disastrous consequences, the result of which was famine in many regions of the country in 1932-1933. However, the transition to direct control of the reform process by the party made it possible in 1935 to stabilize the situation and abandon the rationing system.
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the USSR was no longer a backward agricultural state. All the measures taken made it possible to significantly reduce the country's dependence on external supplies of machinery and equipment. The Soviet Union alone produced tractors in the 10 pre-war years in the amount of 700 thousand units, or 40% of the total world production. It must be understood that these dual-use products, with the beginning of the Second World War, the same factories switched to the production of weapons and instead of tractors they were already producing tanks.
Industrialization in the USSR made it possible to fulfill one of the main goals - building up military potential. Armored vehicles, tanks and aircraft of various types entered the troops in droves. Their number in 1940 exceeds the armament in 1932 by an order of magnitude. On the eve of World War II, new types of equipment were developed and introduced in the USSR - the KV heavy tank, the T-34 medium tank; aircraft: fighters Yak-1, LaGG-3, MIG-3; Il-2 attack aircraft, Pe-2 bomber; rocket launchers on cars ("Katyushas") and much more. Such developments became possible thanks to the creation in the country of a whole system of training scientific and technical personnel, education at the enterprises of design bureaus and experimental workshops.
Some historians believe that all the successes of industrialization were nullified in the early years of the Great Patriotic War. By the winter of 1941, German troops seized the territory in which 42% of the population of the Soviet Union lived, 63% of coal was mined, 68% of pig iron was smelted, etc. However, this approach is not entirely correct. Industrialization affected the Urals and Siberia to the greatest extent, and pre-revolutionary industry was located in the occupied territories. In addition, even before the war, a number of measures were taken to prepare for the evacuation of enterprises to the regions of the Urals. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in the first three months alone, more than 1,360 large factories and plants were moved to safe areas.
The experience gained during the two pre-war five-year plans helped to move the industry to the regions of the Urals with minimal losses from the beginning of the war. Although the Soviet industry by 1943 smelted steel four times less than Germany (8.5 million tons against 35 tons), she managed to overtake the German industry in the production of weapons. So in 1942, the USSR produced tanks 3.9 times, combat aircraft 1.9 times, guns of all types 3.1 times more than Germany. At the same time, during the war years, the organization and production technology were rapidly improved. All this was impossible without the experience gained in the pre-war years.
Industry
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the main focus was on the development of the eastern regions of the country, where it was planned to build a significant number of backup enterprises. Particular importance was attached to the fuel and energy base - the expansion of the Kuznetsk coal basin and the creation in the area between the Volga and the Urals of a new oil base - "Second Baku". However, before the start of the war, none of the backup enterprises had been commissioned.
The second feature was the all-round development of the defense industry. In 1938-1940. the annual growth in defense production was almost 40%, which was approximately three times higher than the overall growth rate of industrial production. The production of agricultural machinery and vehicles for civilian purposes was curtailed. Tractor factories switched to tank production. Housing construction was stopped.
Agriculture
The victory of the collective farm system made the peasants directly dependent on the state. Public labor was almost free labor for the state. Labor in a personal subsidiary farm was self-employed. Leaving at the disposal of the peasants a personal subsidiary farm (LPH), the state relieved itself of the concern about the food of the collective farmers. Natural care for themselves and their families forced the peasants to focus on their garden and orchard. There were able-bodied collective farmers who did not work out a single workday in a year. On the eve of the war, the leadership of the USSR tightened its agrarian policy. First of all, under the banner of the struggle against "squandering" and "plundering" of public lands, the struggle against private households began. By measuring the personal plots of collective farmers and individual farmers, their size was reduced.
Agricultural resettlement became the second direction of the pre-war agrarian policy. In the course of two years (1939-1940), 137 thousand families of collective farmers were resettled from the central land-poor regions to the Far East, Transbaikalia and other eastern regions of the country in a planned manner. At the same time, the struggle against farms began, mainly in the territories that became part of the USSR in 1939-1940. Finally, in order to strengthen labor discipline on collective farms, the Party Central Committee established a mandatory minimum of workdays per year (from 60 in grain crops to 100 in cotton regions of the USSR). Able-bodied collective farmers who did not work out a minimum of labor were excluded from the collective farm and sent to forced labor.
Work question
Difficult living and working conditions forced huge masses of workers to wander from place to place in search of better conditions... The country's leadership at the turn of the 1930s-1940s. decided to end the high turnover of the labor force by emergency measures - anti-labor legislation. First, since 1939, workers and employees who quit at their own request were obliged to notify the administration about this a month before their dismissal. Those who were three times late for work within a month by 20 minutes. fired as truants (during the war they were tried and sent to labor concentration camps). Secondly, since January 1939, a unified employment history, without which it was impossible to get a job. Thirdly, in June 1940, an eight-hour working day was introduced, a seven-day work week and unauthorized departure from work of workers and employees is prohibited. Fourth, in the fall of 1940, the USSR people's commissars received the right to transfer workers and employees from one enterprises and institutions to others without their consent. This measure was aimed at providing labor for new buildings, especially located in remote areas. Moreover, the government passed a decree to reduce piece rates and higher production rates, which led to severe wage cuts for workers.
Military establishment
On September 1, 1939, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Law "On General Military Duty", according to which men who have reached the age of 19 were called up for active service, and those who graduated high school- 18 years of age. This made it possible to dramatically increase the size of the Red Army, which by the beginning of the war exceeded 5 million people.
In 1938-1939. the territorial-militia system of manning the armed forces was replaced by a personnel one. At the same time, the number of military universities increased. This led to improved learning personnel... To enhance the role of the highest command personnel, the ranks of generals and admirals were established in 1940, and the institution of military commissars was abolished (introduced in 1937). In the summer of 1940, the formation of large armored formations (mechanized corps and separate tank divisions), interrupted in 1937, resumed in the Red Army, and at the beginning of 1941, the formation of airborne corps.
At the beginning of June 1941, troops began to move to the western borders from the internal military districts. However, the boundaries themselves, established in 1939-1940. during the expansion of the USSR, were not properly strengthened.
Mass repressions against the command staff in 1937-1938 came as a heavy blow to the combat capability of the Armed Forces of the USSR. They were started in 1937 by the execution of the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union M.N. Tukhachevsky and affected more than 40 thousand commanders. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, 2/3 of the highest command personnel of the Red Army were destroyed.
THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 1941-1945
1. Fighting at the front
USSR and Germany before the war
Great Patriotic War became a severe test for the Soviet state. By 1941, it turned out to be unprepared for war, having suffered a crushing defeat at its first stage. The main reasons for this defeat were the better preparedness for the war of Nazi Germany, which put at its service the military-economic potential of almost all European countries *, as well as the defeat of the command staff of the Soviet armed forces during the repressions on the eve of the war. Pro-German regimes were established in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Germany's allies were Italy, Japan, Turkey.
* By the summer of 1941 Germany occupied France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Greece, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland.
The plan of attack on the USSR - Barbarossa - was approved by Hitler on December 18, 1940. It was designed for lightning war and assumed the defeat of the USSR armed forces during the summer campaign of 1941. By the summer of 1941, 5 , 5 million soldiers and officers of Germany and its allies, almost 5 thousand combat aircraft, more than 3700 tanks, over 47 thousand guns and mortars. The number of Soviet armed forces in this section of the border was 2.9 million people. The remaining one and a half million people were dispersed in other areas, primarily in the Far East and South, where the invasion of the troops of Germany's allies - Japan and Turkey - was expected.
The Great Patriotic War went through three major periods in its development: the first - initial period(June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942); the second - the period of radical change (November 19, 1942 - the end of 1943); the third - the period of liberation of the territory of the USSR from the aggressor and the defeat of Nazi Germany (early 1944 - May 9, 1945). The participation of the USSR in the Second World War continued with a period Soviet-Japanese war(August 9 - September 2, 1945).
The initial period of the war
The war began early in the morning on June 22, 1941 with powerful attacks from the German air and mechanized armies. On the very first day, German aviation bombed 66 airfields and destroyed 1,200 Soviet aircraft, gaining air supremacy by the summer of 1943.
On June 29, 1941, the country introduced martial law. The next day was created State Committee Defense (GKO), in whose hands all the fullness of state, party and military power (functions of the Supreme Council, Government and Central Committee of the party) was concentrated. JV Stalin became the chairman of the State Defense Committee. For the strategic leadership of the armed forces, on June 23, the Headquarters of the High Command (later the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command) was created, which was also headed by Stalin.
Already in the first month of the war, the Red Army left almost the entire Baltic region, Belarus, Moldova and most of the Ukraine. She lost about 1 million soldiers, including 724 thousand prisoners. Almost all the armies of the Western Front were defeated, on which Germany struck the main blow, seeking to seize the "gates of Moscow" - Smolensk. It was a disaster. To divert the blame from themselves, the country's leadership organized a trial of a large group of generals led by the commander of the Western Front, Colonel-General D.G. Pavlov. They were accused of treason and shot.
On the central, Moscow, direction, the enemy was temporarily stopped 300 km from Moscow during a two-month Smolensk battle(July 10 - September 10, 1941). The strategic plan of the German command to seize the Soviet capital by the middle of the summer cracked. At the same time, at the end of September, Soviet troops suffered a serious defeat near Kiev. Five armies were surrounded. An insignificant part of the encircled escaped from the ring, more than half a million people were captured, most of the soldiers died in the battles along with the command led by the commander of the Southwestern Front, Colonel-General M.D. Kirponos. Having seized Kiev, the enemy was able to reverse the situation in the Moscow direction, breaking through the defense of the Red Army. Since the end of September, a four-month Moscow battle has unfolded here, in the first weeks of which five militia armies were in the "cauldron". 600 thousand people were surrounded (every second defender of Moscow).
During the summer-autumn campaign of 1941, the Red Army lost almost 5 million people by the winter of 1941, of which 2 million were killed and about 3 million were taken prisoner. On August 16, 1941, order No. 270 was issued, declaring all those in captivity to be traitors and traitors. According to the order, the families of the captured commanders and political workers were subject to repression, while the relatives of the soldiers were deprived of the benefits provided to the families of the participants in the war.
The first and only victory of the Red Army in initial stage war has become Moscow battle(September 30, 1941 - January 1942). The German General Staff called the operation to capture Moscow "Typhoon". He believed that Army Group Center, like a typhoon, would sweep away the Soviet defenses and capture the capital of the USSR before winter. By the end of November, the Germans approached Moscow at a distance of 25-30 km. From October 20, the capital was in a state of siege. In October, three fronts were created for the defense of Moscow: Western - directly defending Moscow (commanded by General of the Army G.K. Zhukov), Kalininsky (commanded by General I.S. Konev), South-Western (commanded by Marshal S.K. Timoshenko). On December 5-6, at the cost of incredible efforts from Kalinin (Tver) to Yelets, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive. Along the entire front, within a month, the enemy was driven back 100-150 km from Moscow. The entire Moscow and Tula, a significant part of the Kalinin region were liberated. During the counteroffensive, the Red Army lost more than 600 thousand people; the enemy, retreating, - 100-150 thousand. Near Moscow, the German troops suffered the first major defeat since 1939. The plan of "lightning war" finally failed. Since the Battle of Moscow, there has been a radical turn in the course of the war in favor of the USSR. The enemy switched to a strategy of a protracted war.
However, the successes of the counter-offensive along the entire front, which lasted until April 1942, in directions other than the western one, turned out to be fragile and soon turned into large losses. In the northwest direction, an attempt to break through the blockade of Leningrad, established by the enemy in August 1941. Moreover, the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front, on which the Stavka pinned special hopes for breaking the blockade, was completely defeated, and its command, led by Lieutenant General A.A. Vlasov, was captured ...
After the Moscow defeat, the German command could no longer carry out an offensive along the entire Eastern Front. Determining the tasks of the 1942 summer campaign, it decided to strike the main blow in the south, seeking to seize the Caucasus and the Lower Volga region. The Soviet command was expecting a new offensive against Moscow in the summer of 1942. It concentrated here more than half of the armies, almost 80% of the tanks, 62% of the aircraft. And in the south against the main forces of Germany - only 5.4% of our divisions, 2.9% of tanks. Simultaneously with the strengthening of the defense of Moscow, Stalin, contrary to the opinion of the General Staff and its chief B.M. Shaposhnikov, gave instructions to carry out several distracting offensive operations in the south - in the Crimea, in the Kharkov direction, in a number of other places. The spread of forces doomed this plan to failure, which turned into a new disaster. In May 1942, in the Kharkov region, the Germans surrounded three armies of the South-Western Front, 240 thousand people were captured. In the same month, the Kerch operation ended in defeat. In Crimea, 149 thousand people were captured. The defeat led to a new strategic retreat of the Soviet troops: in August, one group of enemy forces reached the banks of the Volga in the Stalingrad region, and the other in the Caucasus.
By the fall of 1942, more than 80 million people turned out to be in the territory occupied by the Nazis. The country has lost not only huge human resources, but also the largest industrial and agricultural areas. The Soviet command was forced by the iron hand of terror to stop the flight of troops. On July 28, 1942, Order No. 227 was signed by Stalin ("Not a step back!"). Henceforth, any retreat without an order from the command was declared a betrayal of the Motherland. The order introduced penal battalions (for commanders and political workers) and penal companies (for privates and sergeants), and defensive detachments were also created, located behind the backs of the belligerent soldiers. They had the right to shoot retreating people on the spot.
On August 25, 1942, a state of siege was introduced in Stalingrad. Started Battle of Stalingrad. The main burden of the struggle for the city, into which the enemy burst into, fell to the lot of the 62nd Army under the command of Lieutenant General V.I. Chuikov. The German command attached particular importance to the capture of Stalingrad. His capture would have made it possible to cut the Volga transport artery, through which bread and oil were delivered to the center of the country.
Period of radical fracture
During the year, from November 1942 to November 1943, a radical turning point was made in the course of the Great Patriotic War, when the strategic initiative passed into the hands of the Soviet command, the armed forces of the USSR switched from defense to a strategic offensive.
The main events of the second period of the war were: the defeat of German troops at Stalingrad (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943); Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23, 1943); battle for the Dnieper (September - November 1943); liberation of the Caucasus (January - February 1943).
The turning point separating the second period of the Great Patriotic War from the first was the turning point in the course of the Battle of Stalingrad, that is, the transition from defense to a counteroffensive by the Red Army. The historical counteroffensive of Soviet troops at Stalingrad began on November 19, 1942. Troops of the South-West (commander N.F. Vatutin), Donskoy (commander K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (commander A.I. Eremenko) fronts surrounded 22 divisions of the enemy number of 330 thousand people. In December, Italian-German troops were defeated in the Middle Don, trying to break through the cauldron from the outside and help the encircled. At the final stage of the counteroffensive, the troops of the Don Front carried out an operation to eliminate the encircled enemy grouping. The command of the 6th German Army, led by Field Marshal F. Paulus, surrendered. Over the entire period of the battle at Stalingrad, the armies of the fascist bloc lost up to 1.5 million people, a quarter of all the forces then operating on the Eastern Front. The Red Army lost more than 2 million people. The victory at Stalingrad played an important role in the radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War and the Second World War.
The final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad grew into a general offensive of the Soviet troops. In January 1943, a second, this time a successful attempt was made to break the blockade of Leningrad. A corridor 8-11 km wide was formed to the south of Lake Ladoga. Through him, Leningrad and the troops defending it received direct land communication with the country.
The radical change in the course of the Great Patriotic War, which began at Stalingrad, was completed during Battle of Kursk and the battle for the Dnieper. The Battle of the Kursk Bulge (Oryol - Belgorod) was one of the largest battles of the Second World War. The German leaders were planning in the summer of 1943 to conduct a major offensive operation(code name "Citadel") in the Kursk region. The Germans hoped to defeat the entire southern wing of the Soviet troops, thereby changing the military-political situation on the Soviet-German front in their favor. For the operation, the enemy concentrated up to 50 divisions, incl. 16 tank and motorized. Great hopes were pinned on the new Panther and Tiger tanks.
The Soviet command, in contrast to 1941 and 1942, managed to correctly establish the composition of the enemy's troops and determine the direction of his main attack in the summer of 1943. German offensive The headquarters concentrated on the Kursk direction up to 40% of the combined-arms formations, all five tank armies. The balance of forces in the region of the Kursk salient was in favor of the Soviet troops: in people - 1.4: 1; in tanks and self-propelled guns -1.2: 1; in airplanes - 1.3: 1; in guns and mortars - 1.9: 1. From the Soviet side, the following troops took part in the Battle of Kursk: Central (commanded by General K.K. Rokossovsky), Voronezh (commanded by General N.F. Vatutin), Stepnoy (commanded by General I.S. Konev) and other fronts.
The battle lasted from July 5 to August 23. At the first stage, the German troops went on the offensive and wedged into our defenses from 10 to 35 km. Their offensive ended on 12 July with a tank battle in the area the village of Prokhorovka- the largest oncoming tank battle in the Second World War. 1200 tanks participated on both sides. Prokhorovskoe field entered the chronicle military history Russia along with the Kulikov and Borodino fields. At the second stage of the battle, Soviet troops defeated the main enemy groupings. On August 5, Belgorod and Orel were liberated. In honor of this victory, the first artillery salute in the years of the Great Patriotic War was fired in Moscow. On August 23, Kharkov was liberated - the most important political, economic and strategic center south of the country. The Battle of Kursk ended with the liberation of Kharkov. In its course, 30 enemy divisions were defeated, which lost more than 50 thousand people. The victory at Kursk hastened the collapse of the fascist coalition. Hitler was unable to transfer from Eastern Front not a single division in Italy, where at that time there was a political coup and the threat of an ally's withdrawal from the war was brewing. The Resistance movement intensified in occupied Europe. The credibility of the USSR as the leading force of the anti-fascist coalition was strengthened.
The counter-offensive near Kursk grew in August into a strategic offensive of the Red Army along the entire front, Soviet troops advanced 300-600 km westward. Left-bank Ukraine, Donbass were liberated, bridgeheads in the Crimea were seized, the Dnieper was forced. Battle of the Dnieper ended on November 6 with the liberation of Kiev. Hitlerite Germany went over to strategic defense on all fronts.
Third period warriors
During this period, the territory of the USSR was completely cleared of the enemy. The armed forces of the USSR helped the peoples of Europe to liberate themselves from the fascist occupation. During this period, the forces of the USSR and its allies defeated Nazi Germany.
In January 1944, the troops of the Leningrad (commanded by General L.A. Govorov) and Volkhovsky (commanded by General K.A. Meretskov) fronts finally lifted the blockade of Leningrad. In January-April 1944, Right-Bank Ukraine was liberated. During the offensive, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian (commanded by General N.F. Vatutin) and the 2nd Ukrainian (commanded by General I.S. Konev) fronts surrounded the enemy's Korsun-Shevchenko grouping. On March 26, 1944, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front reached the state border of the USSR with Romania. At the beginning of May 1944, the grouping of enemy forces in the Crimea was defeated. With the liberation of Crimea, the winter-spring offensive of the Soviet troops was completed.
In the summer of 1944, in the central direction, our troops carried out one of the largest military operations of the Great Patriotic War under the code name "Bagration" - the liberation of Belarus (June 23 - August 17, 1944). It was attended by three Belorussian fronts under the command of Generals K.K. Rokossovsky, G.F. Zakharov, I.D. Chernyakhovsky and the 1st Baltic Front under the command of General I.Kh.Bagramyan. In June-August 1944 Karelia was liberated. Finland withdrew from the war and severed relations with Germany. In July-August 1944, Soviet troops liberated Western Ukraine. By the end of August, in the foothills of the Carpathians, the offensive was stopped by fierce enemy resistance.
In August 1944, the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts held Iasi-Chisinau operation, during which Moldova, part of Romania was liberated and 22 German divisions of the army group were destroyed " Southern Ukraine". In Romania and Bulgaria, the pro-fascist governments were overthrown, these countries declared war on Germany. In July-October 1944, Soviet troops liberated the Baltic republics. In October 1944, the Soviet Arctic was liberated, the enemy was expelled from the Murmansk region. Our troops also cleared the northeastern regions of Norway from the Nazis.
By November 7, 1944 Nazi troops were finally expelled from Soviet territory. The state border of the USSR was restored from the Barents to the Black Seas. Simultaneously, in 1944, the liberation campaign of the Soviet Armed Forces in Europe began. Soviet troops liberated Romania, Bulgaria, part of Poland, Norway, Hungary. At the end of September 1944, at the request of the Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia I. Broz Tito, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front entered the territory of Yugoslavia. In October, a joint Belgrade operation was carried out to liberate the Yugoslav capital. During the Vistula-Oder operation (February 1945), the territory of Poland was completely cleared from the Nazi occupiers. 600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers died on Polish soil in the struggle for its liberation. The Vistula-Oder operation saved the Allied forces in the Ardennes from defeat, where the Americans lost 40 thousand people. By the beginning of April 1945, Soviet troops had completely liberated Hungary and Austria, while losing 250 thousand people. In May, Soviet troops liberated Czechoslovakia. On May 9 they entered Prague.
During the winter-spring offensive of 1945, the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union carried out two major operations in Germany. The battles for East Prussia, the bridgehead of militarism and German campaigns to the East, continued for 104 days. On April 13, the fortress city of Konigsberg was taken.
The final battle of the Great Patriotic War was battle for berlin(April 16 - May 8, 1945). It was attended by three fronts - 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian, which were commanded, respectively, by Marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. Berlin surrendered on May 2, Hitler committed suicide. On May 8, 1945, representatives of the defeated German armed forces were delivered to Berlin at the disposal of Soviet troops. On the same day, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, in the building of the former military engineering school, representatives of the armies of the USSR, USA, England and France, on the one hand, and representatives of the defeated country, on the other, signed an act of complete and unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and its armed forces ... On behalf of the Soviet Supreme Command, the act was signed by Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov. The Great Patriotic War ended in an unconditional victory for the Soviet people.
A special period of the USSR's participation in World War II was the war with militarist Japan (August 9 - September 2, 1945). On August 8, the USSR, fulfilling its allied obligations, declared war on Japan. Troops of three fronts took part in the hostilities: Transbaikal (commanded by Marshal R.Ya. Malinovsky), 1st Far Eastern (commanded by Marshal K.A.Meretskov), 2nd Far Eastern (commanded by Army General M.A. Purkaev). During the 24-day military campaign was defeated Kwantung army enemy in Manchuria. Japan lost the largest military-industrial base on the Asian mainland and the most powerful army. Soviet troops expelled the Japanese from Manchuria and Korea, South Sakhalin and Kuril Islands... Japan lost all military bases and bridgeheads that it was preparing against the USSR. She was unable to conduct an armed struggle.
On September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay, on the American battleship Missouri, Japan signed an act of complete and unconditional surrender. The act was also signed by representatives of the winning countries - USA, China, Great Britain, USSR, Australia, France, Holland, New Zealand, Canada. This act ended the Second World War between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and the countries of the fascist bloc.
In 1941-1945. the Soviet Armed Forces carried out 50 strategic operations, including 35 offensive ones. 30.6 million people passed through the Armed Forces of the USSR in 4 years of war, 8.5 million of them died on the battlefield, 2.5 million died from wounds, 3.9 died in Nazi concentration camps; during the occupation, during the shelling, bombing, 7 million civilians were killed. In total, the irrecoverable losses of the population of the USSR during the war years amounted to 26.5 million people.
2. Fight behind enemy lines
Occupation regime
The popular struggle in the territory occupied by the enemy was conducted in two ways - in the form of a partisan and underground movement. The struggle behind enemy lines solved two main tasks - reconnaissance and destruction of enemy manpower, his accomplices and military equipment.
The first partisan detachments began to be created in the summer of 1941. The Red October detachment became the first partisan detachment in Belarus. The commander of the detachment T. Bumazhkov and his deputy F. Pavlovsky were the first among the partisans to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. From the end of 1941, in a number of areas, the unification of small detachments into larger ones began. All the detachments of the south united in three brigades Leningrad region... They began to carry out their military operations together with the detachments of the Kalinin region. In the area of Lake Ilmen, the first "partisan land" was created, which controlled more than 300 settlements. In April 1942, the 1st Belarusian Partisan Brigade was created on the basis of a partisan detachment led by M. Shmyrev ("Batko Minai"). By the end of 1941, more than 2 thousand partisan detachments with a total number of over 90 thousand people were operating in the occupied territory. They disorganized the rear of the Hitlerite troops in all directions of the Soviet-German front.
By the summer of 1942, the leadership of the partisan movement was centralized. On May 30, 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme Command of the State Defense Committee, he created the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement, the head of which was appointed the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Belarus P. Ponomarenko, and the republican headquarters. The headquarters of the partisan movement were also created under the military councils of the fronts.
From the autumn of 1942, aid was sharply increased " Big land»Partisans and underground workers with specialists and weapons. Since that time, partisan raids began to be carried out in the deep rear of the enemy, the purpose of which was to activate the partisan movement in the occupied territory and strike at the enemy's communications and manpower. In September-November 1942, deep raids were undertaken by two formations of Ukrainian partisans under the command of S.A. Kovpak and A.N. Saburov. In two parallel columns, which included about 3 thousand people, they passed more than 700 km from the Bryansk forest to the north of the Right-Bank Ukraine, crossed the Desna, Dnieper, Pripyat. Later, partisan raids were carried out in other strategically important regions.
On the eve of the Battle of Kursk, the partisans organized massive sabotage behind enemy lines, striking at its most important transport lines. About 10% of the troops were removed by the Germans from the front to carry out punitive expeditions against the partisans. During the strategic offensive in the summer and autumn of 1943, Operation Rail War was carried out.
By the end of 1943, there were 122 thousand partisans in Belarus, 43.5 thousand in the Ukraine, 35 thousand in the Leningrad region, more than 25 thousand in the Oryol region, more than 11 thousand in the Crimea, and in Lithuania about 10 thousand, in Estonia - 3 thousand. The maximum number of the partisan army reached by the summer of 1944 - 280 thousand people. Then most of the partisans became part of the active army. More than 230 partisans and underground fighters were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The exploits of the young partisans Liza Chaikina and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the underground heroes of Krasnodon and the group of Vladimir Sechkin in Orel, as well as many other well-known and nameless heroes of the Great Patriotic War, will forever remain in the people's memory.
