Goals: analyze the causes of the war, the course of hostilities at different stages of the war, the results and consequences of the war.
Tasks:
Educational: to analyze the preparation of the parties for the war and the reasons for the defeats of the Red Army at the initial stage of the war; the course of hostilities in the second and final periods of the war; the role of military leadership, the contribution of the rear to the victory over the enemy; evaluate the results of the war.
Educational: fostering a sense of patriotism and love for the motherland on the examples of the heroism of soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army.
Developing: the ability to work with a map
Plan.
1. Causes of the defeats of the USSR in 1941-1942.
2. A radical change in the Great Patriotic War
3.Soviet rear during the Great Patriotic War. People's struggle in the occupied territory
4.Foreign policy of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War
1. Causes of the defeats of the USSR in 1941-1942.
In 1941 the Second World War entered a new phase. By this time, fascist Germany and its allies had captured virtually all of Europe. In connection with the destruction of Polish statehood, a joint Soviet-German border was established. In 1940, the fascist leadership developed the Barbarossa plan, the goal of which was to defeat the Soviet armed forces with lightning speed and occupy the European part of the Soviet Union. Further plans included the complete destruction of the USSR. To do this, 153 German divisions and 37 divisions of its allies (Finland, Romania and Hungary) were concentrated in the eastern direction. They were supposed to strike in three directions: central (Minsk Smolensk Moscow), northwestern (Baltic Leningrad) and southern (Ukraine with access to the Black Sea coast). A lightning campaign was planned in order to capture the European part of the USSR until the autumn of 1941. The beginning of the war. Implementation of the Barbarossa plan began at dawn June 22, 1941. extensive air bombardments of the largest industrial and strategic centers, as well as the offensive of the ground forces of Germany and its allies along the entire European border of the USSR (over 4.5 thousand km). In the first few days, German troops advanced tens and hundreds of kilometers. In the central direction, in early July 1941, all of Belarus was captured and German troops reached the approaches to Smolensk. The Baltic is occupied in the northwest. On September 9, Leningrad was blocked. In the south, Nazi troops occupied Moldova and the Right-Bank Ukraine. Thus, by the autumn of 1941, Hitler's plan to capture the vast territory of the European part of the USSR was implemented. The rapid offensive of the German troops on the Soviet front and their successes in the summer campaign were explained by many factors of an objective and subjective nature. Germany had significant advantages in economic and military-strategic plans. At the initial stage of the war, she used not only her own, but also the resources of the allied, dependent and occupied countries of Europe to strike at the Soviet Union. The Hitlerite command and troops had the experience of conducting modern warfare and extensive offensive operations, accumulated at the first stage of the Second World War. The technical equipment of the Wehrmacht (tanks, aircraft, communications equipment, etc.) was significantly superior to the Soviet one in terms of mobility and maneuverability. The Soviet Union, despite the efforts made during the years of the Third Five-Year Plan, did not complete its preparations for war. The rearmament of the Red Army was not completed. Military doctrine assumed the conduct of operations on enemy territory. In this regard, the defensive lines on the old Soviet-Polish border were dismantled, and new ones were not created quickly enough. The biggest miscalculation of I.V. Stalin turned out to be his disbelief in the beginning of the war in the summer of 1941. Therefore, the whole country and, first of all, the army, its leadership were not prepared to repel aggression. As a result, in the first days of the war, a significant part of Soviet aviation was destroyed right on the airfields. Large formations of the Red Army were surrounded, destroyed or captured. Immediately after the German attack, the Soviet government carried out major military-political and economic measures to repel the aggression. On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command was formed. On July 10, it was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. She entered I.V. Stalin(appointed Commander-in-Chief and who soon became People's Commissar of Defense), V.M. Molotov, S.K. Timoshenko, S.M. Budyonny, K.E. Voroshilov, B.M. Shaposhnikov and G.K. Zhukov. By a directive of June 29, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks set the task for the entire country to mobilize all forces and means to fight the enemy. On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee was established(GKO), concentrating all power in the country. The military doctrine was radically revised, the task was put forward to organize a strategic defense, wear down and stop the offensive of the fascist troops. Large-scale measures were taken to transfer industry to a military footing, mobilize the population into the army and build defensive lines. At the end of June, the first half of July 1941, major defensive border battles unfolded (the defense of the Brest Fortress, etc.). WITH July 16 to August 15 1941 in the central direction continued defense of Smolensk . In the northwestern direction, the German plan to capture Leningrad failed. In the south, Kyiv was defended until September 1941, and Odessa was defended until October. The stubborn resistance of the Red Army in the summer and autumn of 1941 frustrated Hitler's plan for a blitzkrieg. At the same time, by the fall of 1941, the capture by the fascist command of the vast territory of the USSR with its most important industrial centers and grain regions was a serious loss for the Soviet government. In late September, early October 1941, the German operation Typhoon began, aimed at capturing Moscow. The first line of Soviet defense was broken through in the central direction on October 5-6. Pali Bryansk and Vyazma. The second line near Mozhaisk delayed the German offensive for several days. On October 10, G.K. was appointed commander of the Western Front. Zhukov. On October 19, a state of siege was introduced in the capital. In bloody battles, the Red Army managed to stop the enemy; the October stage of the Nazi offensive on Moscow ended. The three-week respite was used by the Soviet command to strengthen the defense of the capital, mobilize the population into the militia, accumulate military equipment and, above all, aviation. On November 6, a solemn meeting of the Moscow Council of Working People's Deputies was held, dedicated to the anniversary of the October Revolution. On November 7, the traditional parade of the Moscow garrison took place on Red Square. For the first time, other military units also participated in it, including militias who went straight from the parade to the front. These events contributed to the patriotic upsurge of the people, strengthening their faith in victory. The second stage of the Nazi offensive on Moscow began on November 15, 1941. At the cost of huge losses, they managed to reach the approaches to Moscow in late November and early December, envelop it in a semicircle in the north in the Dmitrov region (dropped Moscow - Volga), in the south near Tula. On this, the German offensive bogged down. The defensive battles of the Red Army, in which many soldiers and militias died, were accompanied by the accumulation of forces at the expense of Siberian divisions, aviation and other military equipment. On December 5-6, 1941, the counteroffensive of the Red Army began, as a result of which the enemy was thrown back from Moscow by 100-250 km. Kalinin, Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga, other cities and towns were liberated. Hitler's plan for a blitzkrieg was thwarted. In the winter of 1942, units of the Red Army launched an offensive on other fronts as well. However, the breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad failed. In the south, the Kerch Peninsula and Feodosia were liberated from the Nazis. The victory near Moscow in the conditions of the military-technical superiority of the enemy was the result of the heroic efforts of the Soviet people.
2. A radical change in the Great Patriotic War
The Nazi leadership in the summer of 1942 staked on the capture of the oil regions of the Caucasus, the fertile regions of southern Russia and the industrial Donbass. I.V. Stalin made a new strategic mistake in assessing the military situation, in determining the direction of the enemy's main attack, in underestimating his forces and reserves. In this regard, his order for the Red Army to advance simultaneously on several fronts led to serious defeats near Kharkov and in the Crimea. Kerch and Sevastopol were lost. At the end of June 1942, a general German offensive was launched. Fascist troops in the course of stubborn battles reached Voronezh, the upper reaches of the Don and captured the Donbass. Then they broke through our defenses between the Northern Donets and the Don. This made it possible for the Nazi command to solve the main strategic task of the summer campaign of 1942 and launch a broad offensive in two directions: to the Caucasus and east to the Volga. In the Caucasian direction at the end of July 1942, a strong enemy group crossed the Don. As a result, Rostov, Stavropol and Novorossiysk were captured. Stubborn battles were fought in the central part of the Main Caucasian Range, where specially trained enemy Alpine riflemen operated in the mountains. Despite the successes achieved in the Caucasian direction, the fascist command failed to solve its main task of breaking through into the Transcaucasus to seize the oil reserves of Baku. By the end of September, the offensive of the fascist troops in the Caucasus was stopped. An equally difficult situation for the Soviet command developed in the eastern direction. To cover it, the Stalingrad Front was created under the command of Marshal S.K. Timoshenko.
In connection with the current critical situation, an order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief No. 227 was issued, which stated: “To retreat further means to ruin ourselves and at the same time our Motherland.” At the end of July 1942, the enemy commanded by General von Paulus dealt a powerful blow on the Stalingrad front. However, despite the significant superiority in forces, during the month the fascist troops managed to advance only 60-80 km and with great difficulty reach the distant defensive lines of Stalingrad. In August, they reached the Volga and intensified their offensive. From the first days of September, the heroic defense of Stalingrad began, which actually continued until the end of 1942. Its significance during the Great Patriotic War is enormous. During the struggle for the city, Soviet troops under the command of generals IN AND. Chuikov and M.S. Shumilova in September November 1942 they repulsed up to 700 enemy attacks and withstood all the tests with honor. Thousands of Soviet patriots heroically proved themselves in the battles for the city. As a result, in the battles for Stalingrad, the enemy troops suffered colossal losses. Every month of the battle, she sent about 250 thousand new soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht, the bulk of military equipment. By mid-November 1942, the Nazi troops, having lost more than 180 thousand people killed, 500 thousand wounded, were forced to stop the offensive.
During the summer-autumn campaign, the Nazis managed to occupy a huge part of the European part of the USSR, where about 15% of the population lived, 30% of the gross output was produced, and more than 45% of the sown area was located. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory. The Red Army exhausted and bled the fascist hordes. The Germans lost up to 1 million soldiers and officers, more than 20 thousand guns, over 1500 tanks. The enemy was stopped. The resistance of the Soviet troops made it possible to create favorable conditions for their transition to a counteroffensive in the Stalingrad region.
Even during the fierce autumn battles, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command began to develop a plan for a grandiose offensive operation designed to encircle and defeat the main forces of the Nazi troops operating directly near Stalingrad. A great contribution to the preparation of this operation, which received the code name "Uranus", made G.K. Zhukov And A.M. Vasilevsky. To accomplish this task, three new fronts were created: Southwestern (N.F. Vatutin), Donskoy (K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (A.I. Eremenko). In total, the offensive group included more than 1 million people, 13 thousand guns and mortars, about 1000 tanks, 1500 aircraft. On November 19, 1942, the offensive of the Southwestern and Don fronts began. A day later, the Stalingrad Front advanced. The offensive was unexpected for the Germans. It developed at lightning speed and successfully. On November 23, 1942, a historic meeting and connection of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts took place . As a result, the German group near Stalingrad (330 thousand soldiers and officers under the command of General von Paulus) was surrounded. Hitler's command could not come to terms with the situation. He formed the Don army group consisting of 30 divisions. She was supposed to strike at Stalingrad, break through the outer front of the encirclement and connect with the 6th army of von Paulus. However, an attempt made in mid-December to carry out this task ended in a new major defeat for the German and Italian forces. By the end of December, having defeated this grouping, Soviet troops reached the Kotelnikovo area and launched an attack on Rostov. This made it possible to begin the final destruction of the encircled German troops. January 10 to February 2, 1943 . they were finally eliminated.
Victory in the Battle of Stalingrad led to a broad offensive of the Red Army on all fronts: in January 1943 the blockade of Leningrad was broken; in February, the North Caucasus was liberated; in February March, in the central (Moscow) direction, the front line moved 130-160 km. As a result of the autumn-winter campaign of 1942/43, the military power of Nazi Germany was significantly undermined.
In the central direction, after successful operations in the spring of 1943, the so-called Kursk ledge was formed on the front line. The Hitlerite command, wishing to recapture the strategic initiative, developed an operation "Citadel" for a breakthrough and encirclement of the Red Army in the Kursk region. In contrast to 1942, the Soviet command unraveled the enemy's intentions and created a defense in depth in advance. The Battle of Kursk is the largest battle of World War II. About 900 thousand people, 1.5 thousand tanks (including the latest models of "tiger", "panther"), more than 2 thousand aircraft were involved in it from Germany; from the Soviet side more than 1 million people, 3400 tanks and about 3 thousand aircraft. Outstanding generals commanded in the Battle of Kursk: marshals G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky, generals N.F. Vatutin and K.K. Rokossovsky. Strategic reserves were created under the command of General I.S. Konev, since the plan of the Soviet command provided for the transition from defense to a further offensive. July 5, 1943 . began a massive offensive by the German troops. After tank battles unprecedented in world history ( battle near the village of Prokhorovka and etc.) July, 12 the enemy was stopped. The counteroffensive of the Red Army began. As a result of the defeat of the Nazi troops near Kursk in August 1943, Soviet troops captured Orel and Belgorod. In honor of this victory for the first time during the war years, in Moscow on August 5, 1943. a salute was fired with 12 artillery salvos from 120 guns.
Continuing the offensive, the Soviet troops inflicted a crushing blow on the Nazis during Belgorod-Kharkov operation. In September Left-bank Ukraine and Donbass were liberated, in October the Dnieper was forced and in November Kyiv was taken.
In 1944-1945. The Soviet Union achieved economic, military-strategic and political superiority over the enemy. The labor of the Soviet people steadily provided for the needs of the front. The strategic initiative completely passed to the Red Army. The level of planning and implementation of major military operations has increased. June 6, 1944 Great Britain and the USA landed their troops in Normandy under the command of General D. Eisenhower. Since opening of the Second Front in Europe Allied relations acquired a new quality. The resistance of the peoples in the countries occupied by Germany intensified. It resulted in a broad partisan movement, uprisings, sabotage and sabotage. In general, the Resistance of the peoples of Europe, in which Soviet people who fled from German captivity also participated, became a significant contribution to the struggle against fascism. The political unity of the German bloc was weakening. Japan never came out against the USSR. In the government circles of Germany's allies (Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania), the idea of a break with her was ripening. The fascist dictatorship of B. Mussolini was overthrown. Italy capitulated and then declared war on Germany. In 1944, building on previous successes. The Red Army "carried out a number of major operations that completed the liberation of the territory of our Motherland. In January, the blockade of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days, was finally lifted. The northwestern part of the territory of the USSR was liberated. In January, Korsun-Shevchenko operation, in the development of which Soviet troops liberated the Right-Bank Ukraine and the southern regions of the USSR (Crimea, the cities of Kherson, Odessa, etc.). In the summer of 1944, the Red Army carried out one of the largest operations of the Great Patriotic War ("Bagration"). Belarus was completely liberated. This victory opened the way for advances into Poland, the Baltic states and East Prussia.
In mid-August 1944, Soviet troops in the western direction reached the border with Germany. At the end of August began Iasi-Kishinev operation, which resulted in the liberation of Moldova. An opportunity was created for the withdrawal from the war of Romania, an ally of Germany. These largest operations of 1944 were accompanied by the liberation of other territories of the Soviet Union in the Baltics, the Karelian Isthmus and the Arctic. The victories of the Soviet troops in 1944 helped the peoples of Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia in their struggle against fascism. In these countries, pro-German regimes were overthrown, and patriotic forces came to power. Created back in 1943 on the territory of the USSR, the Polish Army took the side of the anti-Hitler coalition. The process of re-establishing Polish statehood began.
The Soviet command, developing the offensive, conducted a number of operations outside the USSR ( Budapest, Belgrade and etc.). They were caused by the need to destroy large enemy groupings in these territories in order to prevent the possibility of their transfer to the defense of Germany. At the same time, the introduction of Soviet troops into the countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe strengthened the leftist and communist parties in them and, in general, the influence of the Soviet Union in this region. The year 1944 was decisive in securing the victory over fascism. On the Eastern Front, Germany lost a huge amount of military equipment, more than 1.5 million soldiers and officers, its military and economic potential was completely undermined. She lost most of the occupied territories. At the beginning of 1945, the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition coordinated their efforts to defeat Nazi Germany. On the Eastern Front, as a result of a powerful offensive by the Red Army, Poland, most of Czechoslovakia and Hungary were finally liberated. On the Western Front, despite the unsuccessful Ardennes operation of 1944, the allies of the USSR also inflicted decisive defeats on Germany, liberated a significant part of Western Europe and came close to the borders of Germany.
IN April 1945 Soviet troops began Berlin operation. She was aimed at the capture of the capital of Germany and the final defeat of fascism. Troops of the 1st (Commander Marshal G.K. Zhukov), 2nd (Commander Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky) Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian (Commander Marshal I.S. Konev) fronts destroyed the Berlin grouping of the enemy, took prisoner about 500 thousand people, a huge amount of military equipment and weapons. The fascist leadership was completely demoralized, A. Hitler committed suicide. On the morning of May 1, the capture of Berlin was completed and the Red Banner, a symbol of the Victory of the Soviet people, was hoisted over the Reichstag (German parliament).
On May 8, 1945, in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst, the hastily created new German government signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender. On May 9, the remnants of German troops were defeated in the region of Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. Therefore, May 9 became the Victory Day of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.
3.Soviet rear during the Great Patriotic War. People's struggle in the occupied territory
Mobilization of efforts to ensure victory in the Great Patriotic War was also carried out in the field of economics, social policy, and ideology. Main political slogan "Everything for the front, everything for victory!" played an important role in mobilizing the forces of the people, had concrete and practical significance. The attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union caused a powerful patriotic upsurge of the entire population of the country. Many Soviet people signed up for the people's militia, donated their blood, participated in air defense, donated money and jewelry to the defense fund. The Red Army was greatly assisted by millions of women sent to dig trenches, build anti-tank ditches and other defensive structures. With the onset of cold weather in the winter of 1941/42, an extensive campaign was launched to collect warm clothes for the army: sheepskin coats, felt boots, mittens, etc.
There are two periods in the economic policy of the government of the country. The first - June 22, 1941 - the end of 1942: restructuring the economy on a war footing in the most difficult conditions of the defeat of the Red Army and the loss of a significant part of the economically developed European part of the territory of the Soviet Union. Second - 1943 - 1945. - steadily increasing military-industrial production, achieving economic superiority over Germany and its allies, restoring the national economy in the liberated territories. From the first days of the war, extraordinary measures were taken to transfer the economy to a military footing.: a military-economic plan for the production of all types of weapons and ammunition was developed (in contrast to previous years - monthly and quarterly); the rigid system of centralized management of industry, transport and agriculture has been strengthened; special people's commissariats for the production of certain types of weapons, the Committee for Food and Clothing Supply of the Red Army, and the Evacuation Council were created. Extensive work has begun on the evacuation of industrial enterprises and human resources to the eastern regions of the country.
In 1941-1942. about 2,000 enterprises and 11 million people were moved to the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia. This process took place especially intensively in the summer-autumn of 1941 and in the summer-autumn of 1942; in the most difficult moments of the struggle on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. At the same time, work was organized on the ground to start the evacuated factories as soon as possible. The mass production of modern types of weapons (aircraft, tanks, artillery, automatic small arms) began, the designs of which were developed back in the pre-war years. In 1942, the volume of gross industrial output exceeded the level of 1941 by 1.5 times.
Huge losses in the initial period of the war suffered agriculture. The main grain areas were occupied by the enemy. The sown area and the number of cattle decreased by 2 times. Gross agricultural output was 37% of the pre-war level. Therefore, the work, begun even before the war, to expand the sown areas in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, was accelerated.
By the end of 1942, the restructuring of the economy to serve the needs of the war was completed. In 1941-1942. An important role was played by the military and economic assistance of the United States, an ally of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition. Deliveries under the so-called Lend-Lease of military equipment, medicines and food were not of decisive importance (about 4% of industrial production produced in our country), but they provided some help to the Soviet people in the most difficult period of the war. Due to the underdevelopment of the domestic automobile industry, transport supplies (American-made trucks and cars) were especially valuable.
At the second stage (1943-1945), the USSR achieved a decisive superiority over Germany in economic development, especially in the production of military products. 7,500 large enterprises were put into operation, which ensured a steady growth in industrial production. Compared with the previous period, the volume of industrial production increased by 38%. In 1943, 30 thousand aircraft, 24 thousand tanks, 130 thousand artillery pieces of all kinds were produced. The improvement of the military equipment of small arms (submachine gun), new fighters (La-5, Yak-9), heavy bombers (Ant-42, which received the front-line name TB7) continued. These strategic bombers were able to bomb Berlin and return to their bases. In contrast to the pre-war and early war years, new models of military equipment immediately went into mass production. In August 1943, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On urgent measures to restore the economy in areas liberated from German occupation.” On its basis, already during the war years, the restoration of the destroyed industry and agriculture began in them. At the same time, special attention was paid to the mining, metallurgical and energy industries in the Donbass in the Dnieper region. In 1944 and early 1945, the highest rise in military production was achieved and complete superiority over Germany, whose economic situation deteriorated sharply. The gross volume of production exceeded the pre-war level, and the military volume increased 3 times. Of particular importance was the increase in agricultural production.
Social policy was also aimed at securing victory. Extraordinary measures were taken in this area, on the whole justified by the situation of the war. Many millions of Soviet people were mobilized to the front. Compulsory general military training covered 10 million people in the rear. In 1942, labor mobilization of the entire urban and rural population was introduced, and measures to strengthen labor discipline were tightened. The network of factory schools was expanded; (FZU), through which about 2 million people passed. The use of female and adolescent labor in production has increased significantly. Since the autumn of 1941, a centralized distribution of food (card system) was introduced, which made it possible to avoid mass starvation. To alleviate the terrible situation of the rural population, the possibilities of the so-called collective farm market were expanded.
Together with justified harsh social measures, actions were taken that were generated by the cult of personality of I.V. Stalin. Illegal arrests of citizens continued. Soviet soldiers and officers who were taken prisoner were declared traitors to the Motherland. Entire peoples were deported - Volga Germans, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks.
In the ideological field, the line on strengthening patriotism and interethnic unity of the peoples of the USSR continued. The glorification of the heroic past of the Russian and other peoples, begun in the prewar period, intensified significantly. New elements were introduced into propaganda methods. Class, socialist values were replaced by generalizing concepts of Motherland and Fatherland. In propaganda, they no longer placed special emphasis on the principle of proletarian internationalism (in May 1943, the Comintern was dissolved). It was now based on a call for the unity of all countries in the common struggle against fascism, regardless of the nature of their socio-political systems. During the war years, reconciliation and rapprochement between the Soviet government and the Russian Orthodox Church took place, which on June 22, 1941 blessed the people "to defend the sacred borders of the Motherland." In 1942, the largest hierarchs were involved in the work of the Commission for the Investigation of Fascist Crimes. In 1943, by permission of I.V. Stalin, the Local Council elected Metropolitan Sergius Patriarch of All Rus'.
In the field of literature and art, administrative and ideological control was softened. During the war years, many writers went to the front, becoming war correspondents. Outstanding anti-fascist works: poems by A.T. Tvardovsky, O.F. Bergholz and K.M. Simonov, journalistic essays and articles by I.G. Ehrenburg, A.N. Tolstoy and M.A. Sholokhov, symphonies by D.D. Shostakovich and S.S. Prokofiev, songs by A.V. Alexandrova, B.A. Mokrousova, V.P. Solovyov-Sedogo, M.I. Blanter, I.O. Dunayevsky and others raised the morale of Soviet citizens, strengthened their confidence in victory, and developed feelings of national pride and patriotism. Cinema became especially popular during the war years. Domestic cameramen and directors recorded the most important events that took place at the front, filmed documentaries (“The defeat of German troops near Moscow”, “Leningrad in the fight”, “Battle for Sevastopol”, “Berlin”) and feature films (“Zoya”, “Guy from of our city”, “Invasion”, “She defends the Motherland”, “Two fighters”, etc.). Well-known theater, film and stage artists created creative teams that went to the front, to hospitals, factory shops and collective farms. At the front, 440 thousand performances and concerts were given by 42 thousand creative workers. An important role in the development of propaganda and mass work was played by the artists who designed the TASS Windows, creating posters and cartoons known throughout the country. The main themes of all works of art (literature, music, cinema, etc.) were plots from the heroic past of Russia, as well as facts testifying to the courage, loyalty and devotion to the Motherland of the Soviet people who fought the enemy at the front and in the occupied territories.
Scientists made a great contribution to ensuring victory over the enemy, despite the difficulties of wartime and the evacuation of many scientific, cultural and educational institutions inland. Basically, they concentrated their work in the applied branches of science, but did not leave out of sight research of a fundamental, theoretical nature. They developed technology for the manufacture of new hard alloys and steels needed by the tank industry; conducted research in the field of radio waves, contributing to the creation of domestic radars. L.D. Landau developed the theory of quantum fluid motion, for which he later received the Nobel Prize. The nationwide upsurge and the generally achieved social harmony were one of the most important factors that ensured the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War.
One of the important conditions that ensured victory in the Great Patriotic War was resistance to invaders in the occupied territories. It was caused, firstly, deep patriotism and a sense of national self-consciousness of the Soviet people. Secondly, the country's leadership carried out targeted actions to support and organize this movement. Thirdly, a natural protest was caused by the fascist idea of the inferiority of the Slavic and other peoples of the USSR, economic robbery and pumping out human resources.
The "Eastern policy" of Germany, calculated on the dissatisfaction of the population with the Bolshevik regime and national contradictions, completely failed. The brutal attitude of the German command towards Soviet prisoners of war, extreme anti-Semitism, the mass extermination of Jews and other peoples, the executions of ordinary communists and party and state officials of any rank, all this exacerbated the hatred of the Soviet people for the invaders. Only a small part of the population (especially in the territories forcibly annexed to the Soviet Union before the war) agreed to cooperate with the invaders. Resistance unfolded in various forms: special groups of the NKVD operating behind enemy lines, partisan detachments, underground organizations in captured cities, etc. Many of them were led by underground regional committees and district committees of the CPSU (b). They were faced with the task of maintaining faith in the inviolability of Soviet power, strengthening the morale of the people and intensifying the struggle in the occupied territories. In late June and early July 1941, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted resolutions on organizing the struggle in the rear of the German troops. By the end of 1941. on the territory captured by the Nazi troops, in extremely difficult conditions, without experience of underground struggle more than 2 thousand partisan detachments operated, numbering more than 100 thousand people. To coordinate the actions of partisan detachments, deliver weapons, ammunition, food and medicine to them, organize the removal of the sick and wounded to the mainland in May 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created, headed by P.K. Ponomarenko. The commanders of the active army provided significant assistance to the partisan detachments. As a result, vast territories were liberated behind enemy lines and partisan territories were created (in Belarus and the Russian Federation). The Nazi command was forced to send 22 divisions to suppress the partisans. The partisan movement reached its peak in 1943. Its peculiarity was the enlargement of partisan formations (into regiments, brigades) and coordination of actions with the general plans of the Soviet command. IN August-September 1943 operations "Rail War" and "Concert" for a long time, the partisans put out of action more than 2 thousand km of communication lines, bridges and various kinds of railway equipment behind enemy lines. This provided significant assistance to the Soviet troops during the battles near Kursk, Orel and Kharkov. At the same time, the Carpathian raid was carried out in the rear of the enemy under the command of S.A. Kovpak, who was of great importance in the general patriotic upsurge of the population in the western parts of Ukraine. In 1944, the partisan movement played an important role in the liberation of Belarus and the Right-Bank Ukraine. As the territory of the Soviet Union was liberated, partisan detachments joined the active army. Part of the partisan formations moved to Poland and Slovakia. The selfless struggle of the Soviet people behind enemy lines was one of the important factors that ensured the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War.
4.Foreign policy of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War
In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, an anti-Hitler coalition began to actively take shape as part of the USSR, Great Britain and later the USA. These were its main participants, to which other countries joined. The coalition was based on the common idea of fighting against fascism, preserving the sovereignty and independence of their states. Western democracies, despite their hatred of the Soviet system, understood the need for cooperation with the USSR. Thus, completely different socio-political systems began to converge in the face of a common danger. Each side pursued its own political goals. This determined the complex and contradictory nature of their cooperation. The Soviet Union sought to get out of international isolation and was ready to accept the help of Western countries to repel Hitler's aggression. The West intended to make the most of the human potential of the Soviet Union to achieve victory. Therefore, the question of opening the Second Front, i.e. the direct participation of Great Britain and the United States in large-scale military operations against Germany in the central European direction (in France and Belgium) became the main subject of negotiations between the allies. Moscow conference. In the autumn of 1941, the Moscow Allied Conference took place. The USSR, England and the USA considered a plan for economic deliveries to the USSR. In 1941-1942. The Soviet government concluded agreements with Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, France (their governments in exile in London) on the joint struggle against the fascist bloc and the future contours of the post-war reconstruction of Europe. On January 1, 1942, 26 states of the world signed the Declaration of the United Nations. This meant the creation of a coalition led by the USSR, Great Britain and the USA against the German bloc. However, the issue of opening the Second Front in 1941-1942, despite the diplomatic efforts of the USSR, was not resolved. The allies of the Soviet Union preferred to operate in the peripheral areas of the Second World War, strengthening their positions in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Pacific region. The landing of Anglo-American troops in Northern France was still delayed.
At the end of 1943 the first meeting of the three leaders of the leading powers of the anti-Hitler coalition took place (I.V. Stalin, W. Churchill, T. Roosevelt) Tehran Conference. The terms of the agreements concluded were largely dictated by the major military successes of the USSR in the summer and autumn of 1943. The United States and Great Britain pledged to open a Second Front in northern France no later than May 1944. Some questions of the post-war structure of Europe were discussed. The Allies decided to transfer part of East Prussia (now the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation) to the USSR. We agreed on the restoration of independent Poland within the borders of 1918. The important strategic position of Poland directly on the border of the USSR caused a constant discussion of the question of its future fate. Austria and Hungary after the end of the war were proclaimed independent and free states. The Allies recognized the accession of the Baltic States to the USSR, betraying its peoples because of their own interests. The decision on the future structure of Germany was postponed. In exchange for these concessions, the USSR agreed to assist the United States in the Far East and declare war on Japan no later than 3 months after the end of hostilities in Europe. Fulfilling the decisions of the Tehran Conference and in the conditions of a powerful, decisive offensive of the Red Army on the Eastern Front (with access to the Balkans and the countries of Eastern Europe), June 6, 1944. allied troops, crossing the English Channel and the Pas de Calais, landed in Normandy(Operation Overlord). The liberation of France began.
At the final stage of the Second World War, when the victory over Germany was beyond doubt, the Yalta Conference (February 1945). It addressed the issues of the post-war structure of Europe. Germany was divided by the allies into four occupation zones: British, American, Soviet and French. The USSR's demand for German reparations in the amount of 10 billion dollars was recognized as legal. They had to come in the form of the export of goods and capital, the use of human power. (This decision of the Yalta Conference was not fully implemented. In addition, morally and physically obsolete equipment was exported to the USSR, which prevented the modernization of the Soviet economy.) Based on the decisions of the Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union achieved the strengthening of its positions in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union at the conference confirmed its promise to enter the war with Japan, for which received the consent of the allies to join the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin. It was decided to establish the United Nations(UN). The Soviet Union received three seats in it for the RSFSR, Ukraine and Belarus, i.e. those republics that bore the brunt of the war suffered the greatest economic and human losses.
The Potsdam (Berlin) conference took place on July 17-August 2, 1945. Its task was to solve the global problems of the post-war settlement. The Soviet delegation was headed by I.V. Stalin, the American G. Truman (the new US President), the English first W. Churchill, then his successor as Prime Minister K. Atglie. The conference participants developed principles aimed at the implementation of the demilitarization, denazification and democratization of Germany, a plan for the eradication of German militarism and Nazism. It included the liquidation of the German military industry, the prohibition of the German National Socialist Party and Nazi propaganda, and the punishment of war criminals. An agreement was reached on reparations from Germany (one-third in favor of the Soviet Union). The conference considered a number of territorial and political issues. USSR transferred to Koenigsberg(capital of East Prussia). The territory of Poland expanded significantly in the west at the expense of Germany (the Polish-German border was established along the Oder-Neisse rivers). The foundations were laid for the signing of a series of peace treaties that took into account the geopolitical interests of the USSR and confirmed its borders established in 1939. Potsdam's decisions were only partially implemented, since at the end of 1945 and beginning of 1946 there was a significant divergence of the former allies. Since 1946, the era of the “cold war” began in international relations, the so-called “iron curtain”, an intensified confrontation between the two socio-political systems, appeared.
By virtue of the agreements reached at the Tehran and Yalta conferences, USSR August 8, 1945 declared war on Japan. By this time, its military and economic potential had been seriously undermined by the allies in the Pacific. Moral and psychological intimidation produced US atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), which had no military-strategic meaning. They killed more than 100 thousand people and injured about half a million civilians. At the same time, Japan still retained significant forces in the territory of Manchuria, Northeast China, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, where hostilities were unfolding between it and the USSR. In the summer of 1945, the Soviet command created in the east a significant superiority in livestock and equipment over the Japanese Kvashunskaya army. In this regard, in fact, within a month, Japan suffered a crushing defeat. Soviet troops occupied Manchuria, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, Northeast China and Korea. September 2, 1945 In Tokyo Bay, on board the American battleship Missouri, Japanese representatives signed the Act of Unconditional Surrender. They created the conditions for the demilitarization of Japan. Japan's signing of the Instrument of Surrender marked the end of World War II.
Even during the war, the Allies raised the question of the need to punish the leaders of Nazi Germany, who unleashed the Second World War. It was first proclaimed in the declaration of the Government of the USSR and the Polish Republic (London Government) in December 1941, enshrined in the Moscow Declaration of the USSR, USA, Great Britain in 1943, confirmed at the Yalta Conference in 1945. In connection with these decisions after the surrender of Germany in Nuremberg, the trial of the leaders of the III Reich took place, which took place from December 1945 to October 1946. It was carried out by a specially created International Military Tribunal of the victorious countries. The political and military leaders of fascist Germany, Goering, Hess, Ribbentrop, Kaltenbrunner, Keitel, and others, were put on trial. Leading industrialists (Schacht, Speer, G. Krupp, and others) who played a prominent role in supporting fascism and militarizing Germany were also charged. All of them were charged with organizing and carrying out a conspiracy against peace and humanity: unleashing a total war, killing prisoners of war and ill-treating them in concentration camps, plundering public and private property, and generally committing the gravest war crimes. The accusation was also brought against organizations: the National Socialist Party, assault (SA) and security (SS) detachments, the security service (SD), the secret police (Gestapo). At the trial, written testimonies and thousands of documentary evidence about the atrocities of the Nazis were considered. At the beginning of October 1946, the verdict was announced. In fact, all the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to prepare and wage aggressive wars, of criminal aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Greece, the USSR and a number of other countries. The main perpetrators were sentenced to death, the rest to life imprisonment. The Tribunal declared the SS, Gestapo, SD, and the leadership of the Nazi Party to be criminal organizations. The Nuremberg trials were the first court in world history to recognize aggression as the gravest criminal offense and to punish statesmen guilty of preparing, unleashing and waging aggressive wars as criminals. The principles enshrined by the International Tribunal and expressed in the verdict were confirmed by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 1946.
The initial period of the Great Patriotic War. Reasons for the defeat of the Red Army in 1941-1942
World War II was the result of a global confrontation that engulfed the planet. On the eve of the war, the foundations of two blocs were laid ( coalitions): Nazi (Germany, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Romania, etc.) and anti-Hitler (England, France, USA). Decisive importance in the plans of fascist Germany was attached to the defeat of the USSR. Patriotic War 1941-1945 became an important part of the Second World War.
By the beginning of the war, the USSR had superiority in tanks, was also not inferior in artillery and the size of the army (5 million 374 thousand people against 5.5 million people of the German troops). The process of introducing the latest weapons was slow. New samples (tanks T-34, KB, IL-2 aircraft) were just beginning to be mastered, the rearmament of the army was delayed, and many obsolete aircraft remained. Stalin's personal mistakes in determining the timing of the start of the war and assessing Germany's plans led to the disorientation of the military command. In an effort to delay the start of the war, Stalin ignored the intelligence data and refused to give the order to bring the troops to full combat readiness. The military concept adopted by the Red Army did not correspond to the situation and was aimed exclusively at conducting offensive operations and war on enemy territory.
The Second World War began on June 22, 1941. Its beginning was extremely unfavorable for the Red Army. During the first 3 weeks, our troops suffered huge losses in manpower - 850 thousand people, and in general, as a result of the summer-autumn campaign of 1941, more than 5 million people were killed, wounded and captured. Almost all aircraft and a significant part of the tanks were lost. Reasons for failure in the initial period of the war: the miscalculations of Stalin and his inner circle in assessing the military situation and the timing of the start of the war; strategic mistakes of the military command (extension of troops along the entire border, weak fortification of the "new" border in the west, bareness of the rear); the suddenness of the attack of the Wehrmacht, the advantages of the "first strike" and its power in the name of implementation blitzkrieg, extensive combat experience in modern warfare, accumulated by that time by the Wehrmacht; repressions in the highest echelons of the Red Army, knocking out some of the experienced generals and officers, instilling fear in military commanders, lack of initiative and independence; the offensive nature of the Soviet military doctrine, which provides for the immediate defeat of the enemy in the event of an attack and the transfer of the war to his territory; moral and psychological unpreparedness for war as a result of the "Non-Aggression Pact" and the efforts of official propaganda; lack of understanding by the military leadership of the nature of the war, insufficient training of personnel, poor organization of communications, supplies and medical care. In addition, the Soviet leadership mistakenly considered the main direction of a possible enemy strike to be the South-West, in fact it turned out to be the West.
A number of shortcomings in the then Red Army should be recognized. It was a large, but not yet mobile enough army. The soldiers were badly trained. The army learned to fight already during the war, at the cost of great sacrifices. At the same time, new command cadres grew up, understanding the nature and methods of conducting modern military operations.
On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command was created for the strategic leadership of the armed forces (then Headquarters of the Supreme Commander). It was headed first by S.K. Timoshenko, then by I.V. Stalin. On June 29, 1941 martial law was introduced in the country. June 30, 1941 established State Defense Committee(GKO), which was also headed by I.V. Stalin. All power in the state was concentrated in the hands of the GKO. Initially, it included I.V. Stalin, L.P. Beria, V.M. Molotov, G.M. Malenkov, K.E. Voroshilov. Then L.M. Kaganovich, N.A. Bulganin, N.A. Voznesensky.
The offensive of the German troops was carried out simultaneously in three directions: the army groups North, Center, South advanced respectively in the directions of Leningrad, Moscow and Kyiv. German troops advanced 300-600 km deep into Soviet territory. They occupied Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, right-bank Ukraine, Moldova. The huge Western Front collapsed in a matter of days. In early July, the front command, headed by General D.G. Pavlov was arrested, convicted and shot. On August 16, Stalin issued order number 270, according to which all those who were surrounded and surrendered were declared traitors.
On September 30, 1941, the general offensive of the German troops of the Army Group Center began in the direction of Moscow ( Operation Typhoon). The evacuation began in the capital. On October 20, a state of siege was introduced here, panic began. Divisions quickly formed militia, which plugged the gaps at the front. Only at the cost of enormous efforts and heavy losses was it possible to stop the advance of the Nazis.
In the autumn of 1941, our troops suffered a heavy defeat in Ukraine, its capital Kyiv fell, a large group of troops was surrounded, and losses in people and military equipment were great. The stubborn defense of Kyiv temporarily diverted the German tank forces from the Moscow direction, which allowed them to gain time to prepare the defense of Moscow. A similar role was played by the heroic defense of Leningrad, which found itself in a blockade, but chained significant enemy forces to itself.
On December 5 - 6, 1941, the counteroffensive of the Red Army began. 38 German divisions were defeated, the enemy was driven back 100-250 km. The defeat of the Germans near Moscow and the subsequent offensive of the Red Army in December 1941 - March 1942 thwarted the German plan lightning war and contributed to the exposure of the myth of the invincibility of the German army.
After the victory near Moscow and the winter campaign, it became possible to stabilize the front and build up forces. But in the first half of 1942, in order to consolidate the successes, Stalin demanded to launch a series of offensive operations. This mistake of the Commander-in-Chief led to a series of heavy defeats and huge losses.
The new offensive of the German armies, which began after the unsuccessful operations of the Red Army near Kharkov in May 1942, developed to the south, which was unexpected for Stalin. Having occupied Kharkov and the Crimea, the German troops again seized the strategic initiative. They occupied the Donbass, went to the North Caucasus and the Volga. Our command plugged the gaps with unfired recruits, often poorly armed. The troops suffered heavy losses, but could not withstand the powerful onslaught of the Wehrmacht. At the end of August 1942, the German advanced units reached the Volga. Soon the fighting unfolded in Stalingrad itself. The city was almost completely destroyed, but the Nazis did not succeed in taking it.
49. A radical change during the Great Patriotic War
According to most historians, radical change during WWII began with the defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad. In the counteroffensive during the Stalingrad operation, which began on November 19, 1942, it was supposed to defeat the German troops in the southern direction and improve the situation near Moscow and Leningrad. The troops of the Southwestern (commander N.F. Vatutin), Don (commander K.K. Rokossovsky) and Stalingrad (commander A.I. Eremenko) fronts participated in the offensive. In the battles for Stalingrad, the German army lost 700 thousand killed and wounded, more than 1 thousand tanks and 1.4 thousand aircraft. 91 thousand people were captured, including 24 generals led by Field Marshal F. Paulus. As a result of the Battle of Stalingrad, the strategic initiative passed to the Red Army, which marked the beginning of a radical change in the course of the war.
The next stage was the Battle of Kursk. In the summer of 1943, the Wehrmacht command transferred more than 34 divisions to the Eastern Front to make up for losses, facilitating the operations of the Anglo-American troops in North Africa and Italy. Another strategic offensive operation (" Citadel”), the German command planned to conduct in the area of the Kursk ledge with the participation of 50 divisions, of which 20 were tank and motorized with a total of 900 thousand people.
The Headquarters concentrated a powerful group of troops on the Kursk Bulge, which outnumbered the enemy forces. The Soviet command decided to switch to a deliberate defense in order to defeat the tank groupings and go on the counteroffensive. The troops of the Central Front (General K.K. Rokossovsky), the Voronezh Front (General N.F. Vatutin), and the Steppe Fronts (General I.S. Konev) participated in the counteroffensive operation. During the Battle of Kursk (July 5 - August 23), Orel, Belgorod, and Kharkov were liberated. These events marked end of the turning point in the war, the strategic initiative finally passed to the Red Army.
In August 1943, the battle for the Dnieper began, which lasted 4 months. As a result of fierce battles, the Eastern Wall (a system of powerful fortifications erected by the Nazis) was broken through and the path to the Right-Bank Ukraine, Moldova and Eastern Europe was opened.
In the summer of 1944, a large-scale offensive began in Belarus (June 23 - August 29), in Western Ukraine (July 13 - August 29) and in Moldova (August 20 - 29). During the Belarusian operation (code name " Bagration”, June 23 - August 29, 1944) Army Group Center was defeated and Belarus, Latvia, part of Lithuania, and eastern Poland were liberated. Soviet troops reached East Prussia. During the Iasi-Kishinev operation in the south, the enemy army group "South" was surrounded and destroyed.
50. Results and lessons of the Great Patriotic War. The role of the USSR in the defeat of Nazi Germany
Berlin operation, which was led by marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. On May 8, 1945, the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. Day 9 May in the USSR was announced Victory Day.
The question of the fate of Germany began to be decided as early as the beginning of 1945. On this issue, conferences of the Big Three were held in Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July - August 1945), the focus of which was questions related to the fate of Germany. The country was divided into four occupation zones, its disarmament was envisaged ( demilitarization), liquidation of the German military industry and the fascist party ( denazification). The Allies also recognized the demands made by the USSR for German reparations ($10 billion)
In exchange for agreeing to start a war with Japan (no later than 3 months after the end of hostilities in Europe), the Soviet Union received consent to the return of South Sakhalin and the Kuriles. East Prussia was divided between the USSR and Poland, as a result, the city of Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad) went to the USSR, Poland received Danzig (Gdansk) and access to the Baltic Sea. By decision of the allies, it was created United Nations(UN) as an instrument for maintaining peace and developing cooperation. The governments of the three powers Declaration on Liberated Europe.
World War II ended with the complete defeat of German fascism and Japanese militarism. The Great Patriotic War was its most important component. On the Soviet-German front, 607 enemy divisions were defeated. Germany lost up to 10 million people in the war with the USSR, i.e., the relative losses of Germany were the largest among all the warring countries. This forced the Nazi leadership to draft 14-year-old boys into the army at the end of the war. The losses of the Soviet Union were the largest in absolute terms. Specialists in historical statistics and historical demography estimate the loss of the killed at 14-15 million people, of which 8.7 million are military personnel (of which 2.9 million died in Nazi captivity). The youngest age group, drafted into the Red Army in the fall of 1944, but who did not have time to take part in hostilities, is 17-year-olds. About 2.3 million people, mainly from among those who collaborated with the occupiers, emigrated. During the Second World War, a third of the country's national wealth was destroyed. The Soviet people defended their independence and, with the support of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, made a decisive contribution to the victory.
The victory placed the USSR among the leading powers of the world and raised its prestige high in the international arena. Subsequently, the USSR took part and became a full member of various international organizations, primarily the UN. The result of the post-war reorganization of the world was a new geopolitical situation, based on a two-block confrontation - the United States and Western Europe against the USSR and Eastern Europe.
The Great Patriotic War had a liberation character for the USSR. In the fight against fascism, the Soviet people defended their national independence and territorial integrity, although they paid a very high price for victory.
Successes at the front were achieved at the cost of a huge number of soldiers' lives. Many losses were irreplaceable. It was "a victory with tears in the eyes." However, it was during the war that the possibilities of the system itself were realized - super-centralized management, the utmost exertion of all forces, the mobilization of huge natural and human resources for the struggle. The victory in the war and the defeat of fascism had a direct impact on the socio-psychological atmosphere in the country. The war caused an upsurge of patriotic feelings among the Soviet people, a manifestation of heroism, a readiness to defend the Fatherland against any external enemy. There were hopes for a better life, the weakening of the press of the Stalinist dictatorship.
51. Soviet rear and partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War
June 24, 1941 was created Evacuation Council, and on June 30 - State Defense Committee(GKO), which exercised full power in the country and led the restructuring of the economy on a war footing. The State Defense Committee was subordinate to the Operational Bureau for Control over the Fulfillment of Military Orders, the Evacuation Council, the Transport Committee and other organizations.
June 29, 1941 in the Directive of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the slogan " All for the front, all for victory Along with this, the main directions for restructuring the economy were outlined:
1) evacuation of industrial enterprises, material assets and people from the frontline to the east. The evacuation took place in two stages: summer - autumn 1941 and summer - autumn 1942. The first stage was the most difficult: due to the advance of the Nazis in August 1941, the evacuation from Belarus was suspended, in September - from Leningrad and the region. In total, 7 million people, 1530 large enterprises were evacuated at the first stage. A quarter of the rolling stock of the railways is involved. By the middle of 1942, the equipment of 2,500 industrial enterprises and over 10 million people had been moved to the east;
2) the transition of factories and factories in the civilian sector to the production of military equipment. For example, the Kirov Leningrad Plant and the Kharkov Diesel Plant were merged with the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant for the production of tanks ("Tankograd"). Similar enterprises have developed in the Volga region and the Gorky region;
3) accelerated construction of new industrial facilities. In the first year of the war alone, 850 factories of various profiles, mines, mines, etc. were built.
Emergency measures were taken to organize production - from June 26, 1941, compulsory overtime work was introduced for workers and employees, the working day for adults was increased to 11 hours with a 6-day working week, holidays were canceled. In December 1941, all employees of military industries were declared mobilized and assigned to work at these enterprises.
As a result, by the end of 1941, it was possible to stop the decline in industrial production, and at the end of 1942, the USSR was significantly ahead of Germany in the production of military equipment, not only in quantity (2,100 aircraft, 2,000 tanks monthly), but also in qualitative terms - from June 1941 year, mass production of mortar installations of the type " Katyusha", later modernized T-34/85 tanks, heavy IS tanks, new self-propelled artillery mounts, etc. appeared. Methods for automatic welding of armor (E.O. Paton) were developed, automatic machines for the production of cartridges were designed. Its maximum the level of arms production reached in 1944. At the end of this year, part of the military enterprises began conversion.
partisan movement. In the autumn of 1942, German troops captured the vast territory of the USSR. About 80 million people ended up in occupation, who were forced to perform various labor duties related to mine clearance, construction and repair of bridges, railways, and military installations.
From the first days of the beginning of the war, resistance to the invaders began on the territory occupied by the enemy. Underground party cells were created and operated, which took over the organization of the resistance. On June 29, 1941, in the directive of the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Executive Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a call was made for the deployment of a resistance movement. It set the tasks of disorganizing enemy communications in the occupied territories, destroying transport and communications.
It was planned to create sabotage groups to destroy the Nazis and their accomplices, to disrupt military operations and food supplies. Despite the fact that the directive was approved by a resolution of the Central Committee of the party on July 18, the partisan movement was initially spontaneous.
The first partisan detachments were formed in the winter of 1941-1942. in the Tula and Kalinin regions. They included communists who went underground, the local population and soldiers of the defeated units. At first, not all partisan detachments had radio contact with " Big land» and a regular supply of weapons and ammunition.
In 1942, a Central headquarters of the partisan movement, which was headed by P.N. Ponomarenko. At all army headquarters, departments for relations with partisan detachments were created. Since that time, the partisan movement has acquired an organized character, and its actions began to be coordinated with the actions of the army.
To fight partisan movement punitive actions were carried out in the occupied territories. However, the partisan detachments multiplied and grew stronger. Entire regions were liberated from the Germans. Since the autumn of 1942, the partisans controlled a number of regions of Belarus, the northern part of Ukraine, Smolensk, Bryansk and Oryol regions. By 1943, underground and sabotage work was carried out in almost all the occupied cities. Large partisan formations, regiments and brigades began to form. In the summer and autumn of 1942, the Germans were forced to transfer 24 divisions from the front to fight the partisans.
At the head of the partisan formations were commanders who had great authority, who knew how to unite and lead people. Among them were career military, party and economic leaders: S.A. Kovpak, A.N. Saburov, A.F. Fedorov, N.Z. Kolyada, S.V. Grishin and others. The real basis of the mass partisan movement was small detachments who knew the area well and had contact with the population.
Since the summer of 1943, partisan formations began to interact with the advanced units of the Red Army in conducting combined arms operations.
During the offensive near Kursk, operations were carried out " rail war" And " Concert”, aimed at undermining enemy communications and disabling railways. As the Red Army advanced, partisan formations were merged into subdivisions of regular units.
During the years of the Second World War, partisans destroyed 1.5 million enemy soldiers and officers, blew up 2 thousand trains, 12 thousand bridges, 65 thousand cars, 2.3 thousand tanks, 1.1 thousand aircraft, 17 thousand km of lines connections. More than 50 thousand Soviet citizens, mostly prisoners of war who escaped from concentration camps, took an active part in the resistance movement in Europe.
52. Main battles and commanders of the Great Patriotic War
In a number of battles of the initial period of the war, victory was not won, but serious losses were inflicted on the enemy in manpower and equipment, and, perhaps more importantly, time was taken away from him, he was not given the opportunity to implement the plan lightning war.
Smolensk battle lasted from July 10 to September 10, 1941. Soviet troops under the command of S.K. Timoshenko, G.K. Zhukov, F.I. Kuznetsov and A.I. Eremenko in a number of defensive and offensive operations stopped the offensive of the Nazi Army Group " Center» in the Moscow strategic direction. At the turn of Yartsevo - Yelnya - r. Desna was thwarted by an enemy plan for a lightning-fast capture of Moscow.
Battle for Kyiv happened from July 11 to September 26, 1941. The capture of Ukraine and its capital became the most important task of the German army group " South". Soviet troops of the Southwestern Front under the command of M.P. Kirponos in July-August repelled Army Group South from the West. After that, the German command transferred tank troops from the Moscow direction to the Kiev direction, as a result of which the attack of the Army Group Center on Moscow was initially carried out only by infantry divisions, i.e. slowly. Having received reinforcements in the form of tank groups, in September the enemy broke through the defenses of the North-East and South-East of Kyiv. Most of the troops of the Southwestern Front were surrounded, on September 19 Kyiv fell. But the German command irrevocably lost time. Only at the very end of September 1941, the tank troops were returned to the Moscow direction.
Battle for Leningrad in July 1941, when the troops of the German army group " North”, having superior forces, launched an attack on the city and managed to reach its outskirts and Lake Ladoga in September. The city was cut off from the rear of the country. During the 900-day blockade, the troops of the Leningrad Front, which were successively commanded by G.K. Zhukov, I.I. Fedyuninsky, M.S. Khozin and L.A. Govorov, the forces of the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga military flotilla repelled all enemy attacks.
It is extremely important that due to the stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops, Army Group North in the autumn of 1941 practically did not help the Nazi offensive on Moscow. She did not fulfill her task of taking the city, and she sent tank units to help Army Group Center very late.
In January 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken through in a narrow section, and at the end of January 1944, it was completely lifted.
The really decisive Battle for Moscow, Stalingradskaya And Battle of Kursk(for their description, see the questions “The initial period of the Great Patriotic War…” and “The radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War”).
In August 1943, the battle for the Dnieper which lasted 4 months. As a result of fierce battles, the Eastern Wall (a system of powerful fortifications erected by the Nazis) was broken through and the path to the Right-Bank Ukraine, Moldova and Eastern Europe was opened.
In the summer of 1944, a large-scale offensive began in Belarus (June 23 - August 29), in Western Ukraine (July 13 - August 29) and in Moldova (August 20 - 29). During Belarusian operation(codenamed "Bagration", June 23 - August 29, 1944) Army Group Center was defeated and Belarus, Latvia, part of Lithuania, and eastern Poland were liberated. Soviet troops reached East Prussia. During Iasi-Kishinev operation in the south, Army Group South was surrounded and destroyed.
Liberation of the states of Central Europe and the defeat of Germany. During Vistula-Oder operation(January 12 - February 3, 1945) an enemy group defending on the territory of Poland was defeated (600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers died during the operation). On February 3, 1945, Soviet troops reached the Oder, providing favorable conditions for delivering a decisive blow to Berlin. At the end of March - the first half of April 1945, Hungary and the eastern part of Austria were liberated.
From April 16 - May 8, 1945, the final Berlin operation, which was led by marshals G.K. Zhukov, K.K. Rokossovsky and I.S. Konev. On May 8, 1945, the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed. May 9th was declared Victory Day in the USSR
Commanders of the Great Patriotic War
A.M. Vasilevsky from the summer of 1941 he was deputy chief of the General Staff. In the spring of 1942, he participated in the preparation of plans for the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. In the summer of 1942, he became chief of the General Staff and coordinated the actions of the fronts. In 1943, after the Battle of Stalingrad, he was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. He directly participated in the planning and development of the most important military operations, solved the issues of providing the fronts with material and technical means and people and providing reserves. In February 1945 A.M. Vasilevsky was introduced to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and appointed commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front. In June 1945 he was appointed commander in chief of the Soviet troops in the Far East. Under his leadership, an operation was planned and carried out to defeat the Kwantung Army on August 9 - September 2, 1945.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov during the Second World War he proved himself to be a great strategist. Commanded the Reserve Front. During the Elninsk offensive, he defeated 5 enemy divisions. Commanding the troops of the Leningrad Front, he used tough measures, thereby achieving stabilization of the front and not surrendering Leningrad. In the Battle of Moscow, he organized the troops of the Western Front for a successful counteroffensive. In 1942-1943. Zhukov coordinated the actions of the fronts in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, the crossing of the Dnieper, the liberation of Kyiv. In 1944, he defeated the enemy in the Korsun-Shevchenko and Prokurov-Chernigov operations. Coordinated the actions of the fronts in the Belarusian operation. In 1944-1945. commanded the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts in the Vistula-Oder and Berlin operations. May 8, 1945 G.K. Zhukov was the chairman of the meeting of representatives of the allied command to sign the Act of unconditional surrender of Germany and sign it on behalf of the USSR. In June, the Victory Parade took place on Red Square in Moscow.
I.S. Konev with the beginning of the Second World War, the 19th Army under his command took on the blow of the tank units of the Army Group "Center" and held the Nazis for 2 months. Carried out command in September 1941 in the battle of Smolensk. Then he was appointed commander of the Western Front. In October 1941 he became commander of the Kalinin Front. Participated in the preparation of the counteroffensive near Moscow. From August 1942 to February 1943 he again led the Western Front. In mid-March 1943 he was appointed commander of the North-Western Front, and in June - Steppe. In August 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front liberated Kharkov and successfully completed the Belgorod-Kharkov operation. In the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, troops under the command of I.S. Konev was surrounded and completely destroyed the enemy group. Carrying out command of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, he did not allow the enemy to escape from the "cauldron". He participated in the Berlin operation and the liberation of Prague.
R.Ya. Malinovsky WWII met by the commander of the 48th rifle corps on the border of the USSR along the river. Rod. In August 1941 he was appointed commander of the 6th Army and fought heavy defensive battles. In 1941-1942. commanded the Southern and North Caucasian Fronts. In 1942, he defeated the fascist group, which was going to the aid of the German troops, who were surrounded near Stalingrad. From 1943 he commanded the troops of the Southern and then the Southwestern Front. His troops liberated Nikolaev and Odessa. In the Iasi-Kishinev operation, he defeated the Army Group "South". The troops under his command played an important role in the liberation of Romania, Hungary, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Heading the Trans-Baikal Front, he dealt the main blow to the Japanese Kwantung Army.
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky from August 1941 to July 1942 he was at the head of the 16th Army, then commanded the Bryansk, Don, Central, Belorussian, 1st Belorussian, 2nd Belorussian fronts. Participated in the battle of Smolensk, the battle of Moscow, the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. The troops under his leadership fought in the Belarusian, East Prussian, East Pomeranian operations. June 24, 1945 commanded the Victory Parade.
S.K. Timoshenko from May 7, 1940 to July 19, 1941, he served as People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR. From September 1941 to June 1942 he was Commander-in-Chief of the South-West direction. He led the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops near Rostov-on-Don in the autumn of 1941, thereby preventing the Nazis from breaking through to the Caucasus. In July 1942 he was appointed commander of the Stalingrad Front, and then the North-Western. From March 1943 until the end of the war, he was a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, coordinated the actions of a number of fronts, took part in the development and conduct of a number of offensive operations.
ABSTRACT
on the course "History"
on the topic: "The USSR during the Great Patriotic War and in the post-war period"
1. Soviet-German front
Traditionally, there are three main stages in the history of the Great Patriotic War: the initial period of the war - from June 22, 1941 to November 19, 1942, the period of a radical turning point in the course of the war - from November 19, 1942 to the end of 1943, the period of victorious completion war - from the beginning of 1944 to May 9, 1945
On June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO), headed by Stalin, was created to lead the country's defense. On June 23, 1941, the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces was formed. On July 19, Stalin became People's Commissar for Defense, and on August 8, 1941 - Supreme Commander. As early as May 6, 1941, Stalin became chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Thus, in the hands of Stalin, now formally all the party, state and military power in the country was united. Other emergency bodies were also created: the Evacuation Council, the Committee for the Accounting and Distribution of Labor, etc.
Already in the first days of the war, many units of the Red Army showed courage and steadfastness. Nevertheless, in four months, German troops reached Moscow, Leningrad, captured 1.5 million square meters. km with a population of 74.5 million people. By December 1, 1941, the USSR lost more than 3 million people killed, missing and captured.
On September 30, 1941, the battle near Moscow began. In accordance with the Typhoon plan, German troops surrounded five Soviet armies in the Vyazma region. But the encircled troops fought courageously, pinning down the significant forces of Army Group Center, and by the end of October helped stop the enemy at the Mozhaisk line. From mid-November, the Germans launched a new offensive against Moscow. By this time, having received clear information from R. Sorge's group about Japan's plans, the Soviet command concentrated troops from the Far East near Moscow, which received the name "Siberian divisions" in history, and launched a counteroffensive near Moscow (December 5, 1941), which ended in defeat armies "Center".
The failure of the blitzkrieg in the east made Hitler's position difficult. But Stalin's miscalculations created the prerequisites for new successes of the German troops in 1942. The enemy seized the strategic initiative and in July 1942 broke through to Stalingrad (the defensive stage of the battle from July 17 to November 18, 1942) and the North Caucasus. The main event of the war in late 1942 - early 1943 was the Battle of Stalingrad. The advance of the enemy by November 1942 was stopped. From November 19, 1942 to February 2, 1943, Soviet troops surrounded and destroyed the Nazi troops near Stalingrad. In December 1942 - March 1943, the Nazis were driven out of the North Caucasus and the Kuban. On January 18, 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken. The liberation of the territory of the USSR began. The Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in the course of the war.
In the spring of 1943, a strategic pause was established on the Eastern Front, during which the command of the Red Army took into account the lessons of the summer of 1942 and, having received information about the offensive plan near Kursk (Operation Citadel), decided to organize a strategic defense in order to exhaust enemy in defensive battles, and then go on the offensive.
From July 5 to August 23, 1943, the Battle of Kursk took place, which completed a radical change. From August to November, Soviet troops carried out more than 20 offensive operations on the front from Leningrad to the Black Sea, liberating a significant part of the territory of the RSFSR and Ukraine. From the moment of the Battle of Kursk, Soviet troops held the strategic initiative until the end of the war. The attempts of the Nazis to stay at the turn of the Dnieper were not successful. In November 1943 Kyiv was taken. During the period from November 1942 to December 1943, 50 percent of the occupied territories were liberated. The last period of the war began, culminating in the complete and unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany.
2. Soviet rear during the war
There are three stages in the development of the military economy of the Soviet Union. The first was in the second half of 1941 - the first half of 1942. This was the most difficult stage in the history of the Soviet state, when the territory was torn away from it, in which 40% of the population lived before the war, 68% of cast iron, 58% of steel and aluminum, 40% of railway equipment, 65% of coal, 84 % - sugar, 38 % - grains.
At this stage, measures were taken to establish the activities of industrial enterprises in the eastern regions of the country. During the year, about 2.5 thousand industrial enterprises were evacuated here. 700 of them were accepted by the Urals.
At the second stage, which took place in the second half of 1942-1944, the Soviet military economy began to act as a well-oiled mechanism. By the end of 1942, the USSR was producing more weapons than Nazi Germany. By the end of the war, the Soviet country produced more aircraft, tanks, artillery and automatic weapons than all other countries that participated in the Second World War, second only to the United States in the production of aircraft. During the war years, the Urals provided 40% of military products.
Since already in 1944 it became clear that the Soviet economy had produced enough weapons to ensure victory, in the second half of 1944 measures were taken to partially reconvert industrial enterprises, and the third stage in the development of the Soviet economy began, which lasted until end of the war. The need for this was explained by the fact that the production of consumer goods in the Soviet Union during the war years was at the level of the early 1920s, and agriculture was in a severe crisis.
During the Great Patriotic War, the way of life of the Soviet people changed radically. Almost all of them have changed their living conditions. The male population was mobilized into the army, the number of which reached 11 million people. Women, children, yesterday's peasants came to industrial production. Their work during the war years was hard, with a long working day, with virtually no days off and holidays. In order to secure the support of the peasantry, the government was forced to lift some of the restrictions introduced during the period of collectivization. This was influenced by the desire of the Germans in the occupied territory to decollectivize. A major concession to the Soviet peasantry during the war years was the stake on its personal interests. Personal subsidiary farms were allowed in the countryside, and the peasants received a certain freedom in selling products from subsidiary farms. In addition, it was for the peasantry that the freedom of religion received was the most relevant.
Already in July 1941, the population of Moscow and Leningrad was transferred to card supply. In 1942, 62 million Soviet people were served with cards, and in 1945 - 80 million. The entire population of the country was divided into several categories according to the level of consumption, depending on the labor and military contribution, while the norms of their supply with cards fluctuated significantly . Throughout the war, collective farm markets functioned in the country, where food products could be purchased at a high price. However, not every person could do this, because in the Urals 1 kg of meat cost more than a worker received per month. From April 1944 a system of commercial shops and restaurants was introduced.
3. Popular struggle in the occupied territory
In the occupied territories, the Nazis created the so-called "new order". There was a special program for the export of food, material and cultural values. About 5 million people were taken to Germany for forced labor. Collective farms were retained in many districts with appointed elders to take food. Death camps, prisons and ghettos were created.
The majority of the population rejected cooperation with the invaders. This became the basis of the mass resistance movement. It manifested itself in various forms: harboring escaped prisoners of war and Jews, helping partisans and underground workers, armed struggle against the enemy. In May 1942, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created. In Moscow in 1942, meetings of the commanders of the largest partisan formations were held. The partisan movement acquired its greatest scope in the North-West, in Byelorussia, a number of regions of Ukraine, and in the Bryansk region. At the same time, underground organizations were engaged in reconnaissance, sabotage, and information of the population about the situation on the fronts. A wide scope was adopted in 1942-43. the actions of partisans on the railway lines that ended up in the territory occupied by the enemy. The symbol of courage was the name of the 17-year-old Moscow Komsomol member Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the daughter of the repressed, who voluntarily went behind enemy lines and was hanged by the Nazis.
4. Russia's foreign policy during the war
The emergence of new moments in domestic politics was also calculated on international public opinion. The Stalinist regime tried to create the impression, especially at the initial stage of the war, which was especially difficult for it, that it was capable of moving towards Western democracies. The concession to religion, and not only Orthodox, was also made under pressure from the United States, which insisted, in the case of assistance, on the exercise of freedom of conscience in the USSR. In addition, the flirtation with the religion of the German authorities in the temporarily occupied Soviet territories was taken into account, which was one of the sides of the "new order".
Odious in the eyes of the Western world was the course of the Soviet leadership towards world revolution. The instrument of this course was the Comintern, the existence of which caused concern in Western countries and disbelief in the sincerity of the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence. In order to reassure his allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, I.V. Stalin decided to liquidate this body and on May 15, 1943, the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Comintern adopted a resolution on the dissolution of the Communist International.
The proof of the movement of the USSR towards democracy was, according to I.V. Stalin, to serve and the fact of expanding the rights of the Union republics in foreign policy. In January 1944, at a session of the Supreme Soviet, the issue of amendments to the Constitution of the USSR was discussed, which would give the union republics greater rights in the field of defense and foreign policy. To consider this issue, the only Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the entire war was convened, which recommended the creation of appropriate union-republican people's commissariats to exercise these powers.
The specific reason for this was that in 1944, at a conference in Dumbarton Oaks, representatives of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and China developed the Charter of the United Nations. The USSR insisted that all Soviet republics, which had the right of independent diplomatic activity, be considered founders of the UN. Stalin managed to insist on his own, and along with the USSR, the Ukrainian and Belarusian Soviet republics became the founders of the UN.
The effectiveness of Soviet foreign policy during the Great Patriotic War should be recognized. Its main goal was to break the blockade of the Soviet Union and assist him in the war with Germany. After the German attack, the USSR became an equal member of the anti-Hitler coalition and played an important role in it. Although his efforts to open a second front in Europe were crowned with success only in the summer of 1944, however, the USSR managed to convince the Western countries to provide him with diplomatic and especially economic support already in 1941.
It is known that at the beginning of the Second World War, the United States adopted a law on lend-lease, that is, the transfer on loan or lease of weapons, ammunition, strategic raw materials, food, and other countries - allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. This law was extended to the USSR after a trip to Moscow by adviser and special assistant to President F. Roosevelt G. Hopkins at the end of July 1941. types of supplies and over 80 medical supplies.
5. Post-war restoration and development of the USSR (1945-1952)
The Soviet Union ended the war with huge losses. On the fronts, in the occupied territory, over 27 million Soviet citizens died in captivity. 1710 cities, over 70 thousand villages and villages, 32 thousand industrial enterprises were destroyed. The direct damage caused by the war exceeded 30% of the national wealth.
In March 1946, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the fourth five-year plan for the development of the economy. It was planned not only to restore the national economy, but also to surpass the pre-war level of industrial production by 48%. It was planned to invest 250 billion rubles in the national economy. (the same as for the three pre-war five-year plans).
During the war years, the entire economy was rebuilt on a war footing, the production of consumer goods was actually stopped. A huge mass of money, not backed by goods, has accumulated in the hands of the population. To relieve the pressure of this mass on the market, in 1947, a monetary reform was carried out. The money that was in the hands of the population was exchanged at a ratio of 10:1.
The reform made it possible to abolish the card system introduced during the war years. As in the 1930s, state loans were made from the population. These were tough measures, but they made it possible to improve the financial situation of the country.
The restoration of the destroyed industry proceeded at a rapid pace. In 1946, there is a certain decline associated with the conversion, and from 1947 a steady rise begins. In 1948, the pre-war level of industrial production was surpassed, and by the end of the five-year plan it exceeded the level of 1940. The growth was 70%, instead of the planned 48%. This was achieved by resuming production in the territories liberated from fascist occupation.
After the war, the government of the USSR continued the course begun during the years of the first five-year plans to increase the industrial power of the country.
Industrial giants are being built: the Kaluga Turbine Plant, the Minsk Tractor Plant, the Ust-Kamenogorsk Lead-Zinc Combine, etc. State reserves at the beginning of 1953 increased compared to the pre-war level: non-ferrous metals - 10 times; oil products - 3.3 times; coal - 5.1 times.
The Baltic republics, Moldova, the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, which became part of the USSR on the eve of the war, are turning from agrarian into industrial ones.
The nuclear industry is rapidly emerging. In 1948, the Mayak plant (Chelyabinsk-40) was put into operation in the Urals, where the first domestic nuclear reactors were built - converters for plutonium production. The Mayak plant became the country's first nuclear center. It was here that the first kilograms of plutonium -239 were obtained, from which the charges of the first atomic bombs were made. In parallel with the development of the production of atomic weapons, the formation of the rocket industry is taking place.
The unfolding arms race, the tough confrontation between capitalism and socialism, the restoration of the destroyed national economy of the USSR required, first of all, colossal funds for the development of industry, hence in the post-war years much less funds were directed to the development of light and food industries - the production of consumer goods grew slowly, there was a shortage of the most necessary.
The situation was difficult in agriculture. Of the total amount of appropriations in the fourth five-year plan, only 7% was directed to its development. As in the years of the first five-year plans, the main burden of the restoration and further industrialization of the country fell on the countryside. The state was forced to withdraw in the form of taxes and obligatory deliveries more than 50% of the products of collective farms and state farms in order to develop the industry. Purchasing prices for agricultural products have not changed since 1928, while for industrial products they have grown 20 times during this time. In terms of workdays, the collective farmer received less per year than the worker earned per month.
At the end of the 40s. household plots were heavily taxed. The peasants began to get rid of livestock, cut down fruit trees, as they could not afford to pay taxes. The peasants could not leave the village because they did not have passports. Nevertheless, the rural population in the conditions of the accelerated development of the industry was declining - the peasants were recruited for construction sites, factories, and logging. In 1950, the rural population was halved compared to 1940.
In February-March 1954, a program for the development of virgin and fallow lands was adopted. More than 500,000 volunteers (mainly young people) went to Siberia and Kazakhstan to introduce additional land into circulation. Over 400 new state farms were created in the eastern regions. The share of grain harvest on newly developed lands amounted to 27% of the all-Union harvest.
With the beginning of the Cold War, the domestic policy of the USSR sharply tightened. The situation of a "military camp", a "besieged fortress" demanded, along with the struggle against an external enemy, the presence of an "internal enemy", an "agent of world imperialism".
In the second half of the 40s. renewed repression against the enemies of Soviet power. The largest was the "Leningrad case" (1948), when such prominent figures as the chairman of the State Planning Commission N. Voznesensky, the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU A. Kuznetsov, the Presovmina RSFSR M. Rodionov, the head of the Leningrad party organization P. Popkov were arrested and secretly shot and etc.
When the State of Israel was established after the war, there began a mass migration of Jews from all over the world. In 1948, the arrests of representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia began in the USSR, the struggle against "rootless cosmopolitanism." In January 1953, a group of doctors of the Kremlin hospital, Jews by nationality, were accused of having killed, through improper treatment, the secretaries of the Central Committee Zhdanov and Shcherbakov and were preparing the assassination of Stalin. These doctors allegedly acted on instructions from international Zionist organizations.
Post-war repressions did not reach the scale of the 1930s, there were no high-profile show trials, but they were quite wide. It should be borne in mind that only in national formations from among the peoples of the USSR during the war years, from 1.2 to 1.6 million people fought on the side of Nazi Germany. So a large number of those repressed for collaborating with the enemy is understandable. Former prisoners of war were repressed (by order of the Commander-in-Chief Stalin, all those who were captured fell into the category of traitors to the Motherland). The war and the difficult post-war situation in the country also led to a colossal increase in criminality. In general, by January 1953, the Gulag contained 2,468,543 prisoners.
After the death of I. Stalin, a collective leadership of the country and the party was created. G. Malenkov became the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, his deputies were L. Beria, V. Molotov, N. Bulganin, L. Kaganovich. K. Voroshilov became the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and N.S. Khrushchev. Domestic policy softening began. Immediately, on April 4, 1953, rehabilitation took place in the “doctors' case”. People from camps and exiles began to return.
In July 1953, the plenum of the Central Committee discussed the “Beria case”. L. Beria led the security and internal affairs agencies, was the direct leader of the repressions. On charges of "collaboration with imperialist intelligence" and "conspiracy to restore the rule of the bourgeoisie." L. Beria and six of his closest associates were sentenced to death.
After the execution of L. Beria, mass rehabilitation of those convicted for political crimes began. The first timid criticism of the “cult of personality” begins in the press, but the name of I. Stalin is not mentioned yet. The period that went down in history under the name "thaw" begins.
The revision of the "Leningrad case" undermined the positions of G. Malenkov. In February 1955, he was released from the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, N. Bulganin was appointed to this post. This led to a change in the balance of power at the top - N.S. Khrushchev.
As a result of the Second World War, the balance of power in the world changed. The victorious countries, primarily the Soviet Union, increased their territories at the expense of the defeated states.
The situation within the Western world has changed. The aggressor countries - Germany and Japan - were defeated and lost the role of great powers, the positions of England and France were significantly weakened. At the same time, the influence of the United States grew, which controlled about 80% of the gold reserves of the capitalist world, they accounted for 46% of world industrial production.
A feature of the post-war period was the people's democratic (socialist) revolutions in the countries of Eastern Europe and a number of Asian countries, which, with the support of the USSR, began to build socialism. A world system of socialism was formed, headed by the USSR.
During the World War, a single anti-fascist coalition was formed - an alliance of great powers - the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France. The presence of a common enemy helped to overcome differences between the capitalist countries and socialist Russia, to find compromises. However, the Second World War was replaced by the "cold war" - a war without combat operations. The term "cold war" was coined by US Secretary of State D.F. Dulles. Its essence is a political, economic, ideological confrontation between the two socio-economic systems of socialism and capitalism, balancing on the brink of war.
The basis of the confrontation was the relationship between the two superpowers - the USSR and the USA. In Western Europe, in 1949, the North Atlantic bloc of NATO was created. In response, Stalin demanded the creation of a system of joint defense of the Black Sea straits of the USSR and Turkey, the establishment of joint guardianship by the allies of the colonial possessions of Italy in Africa (while the USSR planned to provide a naval base in Libya).
The confrontation between the capitalist and socialist camps is also escalating on the Asian continent. Since 1946, a civil war began in China. The troops of the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek tried to occupy the territories controlled by the communists. The capitalist countries supported Chiang Kai-shek, and the Soviet Union supported the communists, giving them a significant amount of captured Japanese weapons.
The final disintegration of the "world" into two warring socio-economic systems is associated with the nomination in 1947 by the United States of the "Marshall Plan" (named after the US Secretary of State) and the sharply negative attitude of the USSR towards it.
In opposition to the bloc of capitalist countries, an economic and military-political union of socialist countries began to take shape. In 1949, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance was created - an organ for economic cooperation between the socialist states; in May 1955 - the Warsaw military-political bloc.
After the adoption of the Marshall Plan in Western Europe and the formation of the CMEA in Eastern Europe, two parallel world markets developed.
Bibliography
1. World history / Ed. G.B. Polyak, A.N. Markova. – M.: Culture and sport, UNITI, 2007.
2. History of the Fatherland: people, ideas, decisions. Essays on the history of Russia in the 9th - early 20th centuries. - M., 2005.
3. History of Russia from ancient times to the present. Lecture course. Part 1. / Ed. Academician B.V. Lichman. - Yekaterinburg: Ural State. those. un-t, 2006.
4. Klyuchevsky V.O. Works: T.5 - M., 1989.
In 1941 the Second World War entered a new phase. By this time, fascist Germany and its allies had captured virtually all of Europe. In connection with the destruction of Polish statehood, a joint Soviet-German border was established. In 1940, the Nazi leadership developed the Barbarossa plan, the goal of which was to defeat the Soviet armed forces with lightning speed and occupy the European part of the Soviet Union. Further plans included the complete destruction of the USSR. For this, 153 German divisions of 37 divisions of its allies (Finland, Romania and Hungary) were concentrated in the eastern direction. They were supposed to strike in three directions: central (Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow), northwestern (Baltic-Leningrad) and southern (Ukraine with access to the Black Sea coast). A lightning campaign was planned to capture the European part of the USSR until the autumn of 1941.
Having conquered almost all of Western Europe, Hitler's Germany, without declaring war at 3 hours 15 minutes. June 22, 1941 violated the state border of the USSR. As a result of the movement of tank formations and massive bombardments, by the end of September 1941, the enemy had advanced 600-850 km deep into our territory. In just three weeks of the war, Soviet troops lost 3,500 aircraft, 6,000 tanks, and more than 20,000 guns and mortars. Of our 170 divisions on the Soviet-German front, 70 lost half of their strength in men and military equipment.
The entire multinational people of the USSR rose to defend their homeland. The nature and goals of the Great Patriotic War from the first days were clearly outlined in legislative, government and party documents. The political leadership of the USSR counted on the fact that in the struggle against Nazi Germany the balance of international forces would change in favor of socialism.
The Great Patriotic War predetermined the outcome of World War II. The Soviet-German front was decisive in defeating the fascist aggressors. There are five periods in the historiography of World War II, four of which are directly related to the military actions of the Soviet Armed Forces against the Nazi aggressors and Japanese militarists.
First period World War II (September 1, 1939 - June 22, 1941), as you know, is characterized by the fact that fascist troops manage to capture most of the countries of Europe. Hitler and the largest German monopolies set about establishing a "new order" in Europe. In the countries occupied by the Nazis, a movement of resistance to aggressors is growing.
Second period World War II (June 22, 1941 - November 18, 1942) was initially characterized by major failures of the Soviet Armed Forces, total mobilization of forces and means to fight fascism, the creation of a flexible but complex system of state administration based on the transfer of all economic and intellectual potential countries on a war footing.
A vertical structure of military centralization is being established in the USSR. The State Defense Committee (GKO) is established and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command is created, headed by I.V. Stalin. He, being the chairman of the State Defense Committee, concentrates in his hands all the fullness of state power. Plans for decisive combat operations are being developed at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. The most important event of this period was the defeat of the Nazi troops near Moscow. The myth of a lightning victory for Germany was completely dispelled.
In the first period of the Great Patriotic War, the Barbarossa plan failed, which was the most important condition for strengthening the anti-Hitler coalition consisting of the USSR, the USA, England and France.
It must be emphasized that not only soldiers of the Red Army fought heroically against the Nazis, but also home front workers and residents of the occupied regions.
In the occupied territories, the Nazis brutally treated the local population. In Belarus, 628 villages were burned as punishment for supporting the partisans. In the village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943, 149 inhabitants died in a fire. Among them were 76 infants and young children. The Jewish population was subjected to especially severe persecution. Jews were systematically exterminated in concentration camps and shot on the spot. Of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Second World War, 1 million 50 thousand lived in the USSR. There were many such tragic events. Everyone rose to fight the enemy: from children to the elderly.
Universal patriotism became one of the decisive conditions for the successful completion of the first period of the Great Patriotic War and the second period of World War II.
Third period World War II (from November 18, 1942 to the end of 1943) is characterized by a radical change in the course of World War II. The initiative on the Soviet-German front is passing to our Armed Forces. The crushing blows of the Soviet troops inflicted on the fascist aggressors near Stalingrad and Kursk laid the foundation for the mass expulsion of the enemy from the territory of the USSR.
During this period, the military rear was finally formed, Soviet military equipment, both in quality and in quantity, surpassed the enemy air and ground forces.
The international prestige of the USSR is growing immeasurably. At the conference of the leaders of the three allied powers - the USSR, the USA and England in Tehran (November 28 - December 1, 1943), Soviet diplomacy seeks from the allies a commitment to open a second front in Europe no later than May 1, 1944.
Fourth period World War II (from the beginning of the year to May 9, 1945) ends with the defeat of the Nazi army on the territory of its country and the signing on May 8 of the Act of unconditional surrender of the Nazi Wehrmacht to the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition. On May 9, 1945, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was promulgated declaring this day a national holiday - Victory Day.
The fourth period of the Second World War showed the possibility of a peaceful solution of international issues, regardless of the socio-political system and the ideological orientation of the states interested in them. On February 4-11, 1945, the Crimean (Yalta) conference of the heads of the three powers took place: I.V. Stalin (USSR), F. Roosevelt (USA) and W. Churchill (England). The military plans of the allied powers were determined and coordinated, and the basic principles of the post-war order of the world were outlined. In particular, an agreement was reached on the creation of the United Nations as the successor to the League of Nations, on the punishment of Nazi criminals, and on the democratization of post-war Germany. The leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain agreed that two or three months after the surrender of Germany and the end of the war in Europe, the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan on the side of the Allies.
Fifth, the final period of World War II (May 9 - September 2, 1945) is characterized by negotiations held between the heads of the anti-Hitler coalition at the Berlin (Potsdam) conference (July - August 1945). Here again the immutability of the decisions of the Crimean Conference was confirmed.
During this period, the US desire for world domination began to manifest itself, as evidenced by the atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (August 6 and 9, 1945).
One of the decisive factors in the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition was the entry on August 9, 1945 of the USSR into the war against Japan. The Soviet Armed Forces defeated the Kwantung Army, and Japan was forced to sign the Act of Unconditional Surrender.
On June 22, 1941, at 4 o'clock in the morning, fascist Germany treacherously invaded the USSR without declaring war. This attack ended the chain of aggressive actions of Hitlerite Germany, which, thanks to the connivance and instigation of the Western powers, grossly violated the elementary norms of international law, resorted to predatory seizures and monstrous atrocities in the occupied countries.
In accordance with the Barbarossa plan, the fascist offensive began on a broad front by several groupings in various directions. The army was stationed in the north "Norway" advancing on Murmansk and Kandalaksha; an army group was advancing from East Prussia to the Baltic states and Leningrad "North"; most powerful army group "Center" had the goal of defeating units of the Red Army in Belorussia, capturing Vitebsk-Smolensk and taking Moscow on the move; army group "South" was concentrated from Lublin to the mouth of the Danube and led the attack on Kyiv - Donbass. The plans of the Nazis boiled down to delivering a surprise strike in these areas, destroying border and military units, breaking through to the rear, capturing Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv and the most important industrial centers of the southern regions of the country.
The command of the German army expected to end the war in 6-8 weeks.
190 enemy divisions, about 5.5 million soldiers, up to 50 thousand guns and mortars, 4300 tanks, almost 5 thousand aircraft and about 200 warships were thrown into the offensive against the Soviet Union.
The war began in exceptionally favorable conditions for Germany. Before the attack on the USSR, Germany captured almost all of Western Europe, whose economy worked for the Nazis. Therefore, Germany had a powerful material and technical base.
Germany's military products were supplied by 6,500 largest enterprises in Western Europe. More than 3 million foreign workers were involved in the military industry. In Western European countries, the Nazis looted a lot of weapons, military equipment, trucks, wagons and steam locomotives. The military and economic resources of Germany and its allies greatly exceeded those of the USSR. Germany fully mobilized its army, as well as the armies of its allies. Most of the German army was concentrated near the borders of the Soviet Union. In addition, imperialist Japan threatened an attack from the East, which diverted a significant part of the Soviet Armed Forces to defend the country's eastern borders. In the theses of the Central Committee of the CPSU "50 years of the Great October Socialist Revolution" an analysis of the reasons for the temporary failures of the Red Army in the initial period of the war is given. They are connected with the fact that the Nazis used temporary advantages:
- the militarization of the economy and the whole life of Germany;
- lengthy preparations for a war of conquest and more than two years of experience in conducting military operations in the West;
- superiority in armament and the number of troops concentrated in advance in the border zones.
They had at their disposal the economic and military resources of almost all of Western Europe. The miscalculations made in determining the possible timing of an attack by Nazi Germany on our country and the related omissions in preparing to repulse the first blows played their role. There were reliable data on the concentration of German troops near the borders of the USSR and the preparation of Germany for an attack on our country. However, the troops of the western military districts were not brought to a state of full combat readiness.
All these reasons put the Soviet country in a difficult position. However, the enormous difficulties of the initial period of the war did not break the fighting spirit of the Red Army, did not shake the stamina of the Soviet people. From the first days of the attack, it became clear that the blitzkrieg plan had collapsed. Accustomed to easy victories over the Western countries, whose governments betrayed their people to be torn to pieces by the occupiers, the fascists met stubborn resistance from the Soviet Armed Forces, border guards and the entire Soviet people. The war lasted 1418 days. Groups of border guards bravely fought on the border. The garrison of the Brest Fortress covered itself with unfading glory. The defense of the fortress was led by Captain I. N. Zubachev, regimental commissar E. M. Fomin, Major P. M. Gavrilov and others. (In total, about 200 rams were made during the war years). On June 26, the crew of Captain N.F. Gastello (A.A. Burdenyuk, G.N. Skorobogaty, A.A. Kalinin) crashed into a column of enemy troops on a burning plane. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers from the first days of the war showed examples of courage and heroism.
Lasted two months Smolensk battle. Born here near Smolensk soviet guard. The battle in the Smolensk region delayed the enemy advance until mid-September 1941.
During the Battle of Smolensk, the Red Army thwarted the plans of the enemy. The delay of the enemy offensive in the central direction was the first strategic success of the Soviet troops.
The Communist Party became the leading and guiding force for the defense of the country and the preparation for the destruction of the Nazi troops. From the first days of the war, the Party took urgent measures to organize a rebuff to the aggressor, carried out a huge amount of work to restructure all work on a war footing, to turn the country into a single military camp.
“For a real war,” wrote V. I. Lenin, “a strong organized rear is necessary. The best army, the most devoted to the cause of the revolution, people will be immediately exterminated by the enemy if they are not sufficiently armed, supplied with food, and trained ”(V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 35, p. 408).
These Leninist instructions formed the basis for organizing the struggle against the enemy. On June 22, 1941, on behalf of the Soviet government, V. M. Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, spoke on the radio about the "robber" attack of Nazi Germany and a call to fight the enemy. On the same day, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was adopted on the introduction of martial law on the European territory of the USSR, as well as the Decree on the mobilization of a number of ages in 14 military districts. On June 23, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution on the tasks of party and Soviet organizations in war conditions. On June 24, the Evacuation Council was formed, and on June 27, the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the procedure for the export and placement of human contingents and valuable property” determined the procedure for the evacuation of productive forces and the population to the eastern regions. In the directive of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated June 29, 1941, the most important tasks for mobilizing all forces and means to defeat the enemy were set out to party and Soviet organizations in the front-line regions.
“... In the war with fascist Germany imposed on us,” this document said, “the question of life and death of the Soviet state is being decided, of whether the peoples of the Soviet Union should be free or fall into enslavement.” The Central Committee and the Soviet government called for realizing the depth of the danger, reorganizing all work on a war footing, organizing all-round assistance to the front, increasing the production of weapons, ammunition, tanks, aircraft in every possible way, in the event of a forced withdrawal of the Red Army, to remove all valuable property, and to destroy what cannot be taken out , in the areas occupied by the enemy to organize partisan detachments. On July 3, the main provisions of the directive were outlined in a radio speech by IV Stalin. The directive determined the nature of the war, the degree of threat and danger, set the tasks of turning the country into a single military camp, strengthening the Armed Forces in every possible way, restructuring the work of the rear on a military basis, and mobilizing all forces to repulse the enemy. On June 30, 1941, an emergency body was created to quickly mobilize all the forces and means of the country to repel and defeat the enemy - State Defense Committee (GKO) headed by I. V. Stalin. All power in the country, state, military and economic leadership was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee. It united the activities of all state and military institutions, party, trade union and Komsomol organizations.
Under war conditions, the restructuring of the entire economy on a war footing was of paramount importance. approved at the end of June "Mobilization national economic plan for the III quarter of 1941", and on August 16 "The military economic plan for the IV quarter of 1941 and for 1942 for the regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia". In just five months of 1941, more than 1360 large military enterprises were relocated and about 10 million people were evacuated. Even according to bourgeois experts industry evacuation in the second half of 1941 and early 1942 and its deployment in the East should be considered among the most amazing feats of the peoples of the Soviet Union during the war. The evacuated Kramatorsk plant was launched 12 days after arriving at the site, Zaporozhye - after 20. By the end of 1941, the Urals produced 62% of iron and 50% of steel. In scope and significance, this was equal to the largest battles of wartime. The restructuring of the national economy on a war footing was completed by the middle of 1942.
The Party did a great deal of organizational work in the army. In accordance with the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, on July 16, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree "On the reorganization of political propaganda bodies and the introduction of the institution of military commissars". From July 16 in the Army, and from July 20 in the Navy, the institution of military commissars was introduced. During the second half of 1941, up to 1.5 million communists and more than 2 million Komsomol members were mobilized into the army (the party sent up to 40% of the entire membership to the active army). Prominent party leaders L. I. Brezhnev, A. A. Zhdanov, A. S. Shcherbakov, M. A. Suslov and others were sent to party work in the army.
On August 8, 1941, I. V. Stalin was appointed Supreme Commander of all the Armed Forces of the USSR. In order to concentrate all the functions of managing military operations, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was formed. Hundreds of thousands of communists and Komsomol members went to the front. About 300 thousand of the best representatives of the working class and intelligentsia of Moscow and Leningrad joined the ranks of the people's militia.
Meanwhile, the enemy stubbornly rushed to Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Odessa, Sevastopol and other major industrial centers of the country. An important place in the plans of fascist Germany was occupied by the calculation of the international isolation of the USSR. However, from the very first days of the war, an anti-Hitler coalition began to take shape. Already on June 22, 1941, the British government announced its support for the USSR in the fight against fascism, and on July 12 signed an agreement on joint actions against Nazi Germany. On August 2, 1941, US President F. Roosevelt announced economic support for the Soviet Union. September 29, 1941 gathered in Moscow tri-power conference(USSR, USA and England), which developed a plan for Anglo-American assistance in the fight against the enemy. Hitler's calculation for the international isolation of the USSR failed. On January 1, 1942, a declaration of 26 states was signed in Washington anti-Hitler coalition about the use of all the resources of these countries for the struggle against the German bloc. However, the allies were in no hurry to provide effective assistance aimed at defeating fascism, trying to weaken the belligerents.
By October, the Nazi invaders, despite the heroic resistance of our troops, managed to approach Moscow from three sides, simultaneously launching an offensive on the Don, in the Crimea, near Leningrad. Heroically defended Odessa and Sevastopol. September 30, 1941 the German command begins the first, and in November - the second general offensive against Moscow. The Nazis managed to occupy Klin, Yakhroma, Naro-Fominsk, Istra and other cities of the Moscow region. Soviet troops fought a heroic defense of the capital, showing examples of courage and heroism. The 316th rifle division of General Panfilov fought to the death in fierce battles. A partisan movement unfolded behind enemy lines. About 10 thousand partisans fought near Moscow alone. On December 5-6, 1941, Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive near Moscow. At the same time, offensive operations were launched on the Western, Kalinin and Southwestern fronts. The powerful offensive of the Soviet troops in the winter of 1941/42 drove the fascists back in a number of places at a distance of up to 400 km from the capital and was their first major defeat in World War II.
Main result Moscow battle consisted in the fact that the strategic initiative was wrested from the hands of the enemy and the blitzkrieg plan failed. The defeat of the Germans near Moscow was a decisive turn in the military operations of the Red Army and had a great influence on the entire subsequent course of the war.
By the spring of 1942, the production of military products was established in the eastern regions of the country. By the middle of the year, most of the evacuated enterprises were deployed in new places. The transfer of the country's economy to a military footing was largely completed. In the rear - in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Siberia, the Urals - there were more than 10 thousand industrial construction projects.
Instead of men who went to the front, women and youth came to the machines. Despite very difficult living conditions, Soviet people worked selflessly to ensure victory at the front. They worked one and a half to two shifts to restore industry and supply the front with everything necessary. All-Union socialist competition developed widely, the winners of which were awarded Red Banner GKO. In 1942 agricultural workers organized overplanned crops for the defense fund. The collective farm peasantry supplied the front and rear with food and industrial raw materials.
The situation in the temporarily occupied regions of the country was exceptionally difficult. The Nazis plundered cities and villages, mocked the civilian population. At the enterprises, German officials were appointed to oversee the work. The best lands were selected for farming for German soldiers. In all occupied settlements, German garrisons were kept at the expense of the population. However, the economic and social policy of the Nazis, which they tried to pursue in the occupied territories, immediately failed. The Soviet people, brought up on the ideas of the Communist Party, believed in the victory of the Soviet country, did not succumb to Hitler's provocations and demagogy.
Winter offensive of the Red Army in 1941/42 dealt a powerful blow to fascist Germany, to its military machine, but the Nazi army was still strong. Soviet troops fought stubborn defensive battles.
In this situation, the nationwide struggle of the Soviet people behind enemy lines played an important role, especially partisan movement.
Thousands of Soviet people went to partisan detachments. A partisan war developed widely in the Ukraine, in Belorussia and in the Smolensk region, in the Crimea and in a number of other places. In cities and villages temporarily occupied by the enemy, underground party and Komsomol organizations operated. In accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of July 18, 1941 No. "On the organization of the struggle in the rear of the German troops" 3,500 partisan detachments and groups, 32 underground regional committees, 805 city and district party committees, 5,429 primary party organizations, 10 regional, 210 inter-district city and 45 thousand primary Komsomol organizations were created. To coordinate the actions of partisan detachments and underground groups with units of the Red Army, by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on May 30, 1942, at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the central headquarters of the partisan movement. Headquarters for the leadership of the partisan movement were formed in Belarus, Ukraine and other republics and regions occupied by the enemy.
After the defeat near Moscow and the winter offensive of our troops, the Nazi command was preparing a new major offensive with the aim of capturing all the southern regions of the country (Crimea, the North Caucasus, the Don) up to the Volga, capturing Stalingrad and tearing Transcaucasia from the center of the country. This posed an exceptionally serious threat to our country.
By the summer of 1942, the international situation had changed, characterized by the strengthening of the anti-Hitler coalition. In May - June 1942, agreements were signed between the USSR, Britain and the USA on an alliance in the war against Germany and on post-war cooperation. In particular, an agreement was reached on the opening in 1942 in Europe second front against Germany, which would have greatly accelerated the defeat of fascism. But the allies in every possible way delayed its opening. Taking advantage of this, the fascist command transferred divisions from the Western Front to the Eastern. By the spring of 1942, the Nazi army had 237 divisions, massive aviation, tanks, artillery and other types of equipment for a new offensive.
intensified Leningrad blockade, almost daily subjected to artillery fire. In May, the Kerch Strait was captured. On July 3, the High Command ordered the heroic defenders of Sevastopol to leave the city after a 250-day defense, since it was not possible to keep the Crimea. As a result of the defeat of the Soviet troops in the area of Kharkov and the Don, the enemy reached the Volga. The Stalingrad Front, created in July, took upon itself the powerful blows of the enemy. Retreating with heavy fighting, our troops inflicted huge damage on the enemy. In parallel, the fascist offensive was going on in the North Caucasus, where Stavropol, Krasnodar, Maykop were occupied. In the Mozdok area, the Nazi offensive was suspended.
The main battles unfolded on the Volga. The enemy sought to capture Stalingrad at any cost. The heroic defense of the city was one of the brightest pages of the Patriotic War. The working class, women, old people, teenagers - the entire population rose to the defense of Stalingrad. Despite the mortal danger, the workers of the tractor factory daily sent tanks to the front lines. In September, fighting broke out in the city for every street, for every house.
