In general, the official discourse of the “liberation mission of the Red Army” not only fulfilled its pragmatic tasks, but mainly corresponded to the postulated high meanings with which their power was filled, and above all in the person of I.V. Stalin: the peoples of Europe were saved from enslavement, and in many ways from destruction by the racist regime of the Third Reich. The concept of the Red Army Liberation Mission fulfilled its tasks, ensuring both the internal mobilization of forces and the ideological design of the Red Army’s liberation campaign in Europe, contributing to the victorious end of the war, as well as the post-war promotion of the interests of the USSR in the liberated countries...

Stalin and his entourage were guided not by ideological dogmas and “class illusions,” the remnants of which were destroyed during the Second World War, but by the national-state interests of the USSR, that is, ensuring its security and creating the most favorable conditions for post-war economic recovery and further development.

* * *

When studying the history of the Liberation Mission, one of the most important questions is how the authorities understood (from the very beginning of the war until its end) the role of the USSR in the defeat of German fascism and the role of the Red Army from the moment it went beyond the borders of their country. How the supreme power formulated this understanding and conveyed it to the military, administrative and ideological structures, to the army and the entire people. This is extremely important, because the positioning of the goals and nature of the activity, defined not simply as liberation, but as the Liberation Mission, was not an empty phrase or naked propaganda, but was embodied in the orders of the Supreme High Command, the Supreme High Command Headquarters, the command of the fronts and armies, in state laws, in political and diplomatic events, in developing the legal basis for the entry of Soviet troops into foreign territory, regulating the behavior of military personnel, in special explanatory and propaganda work among military personnel, and finally, in disciplinary and punitive measures against violators of established norms of behavior in the Red Army, who harshly and even cruelly suppressed deviations from prescribed behavior.

The essence of the Liberation Mission was determined by the Soviet leadership at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War. In a report at a ceremonial meeting of the Moscow Council of Working People's Deputies with party and public organizations Moscow November 6, 1941 I.V. Stalin said about this: “Unlike Hitler's Germany, the Soviet Union and its allies are waging a war of liberation, just, designed to liberate the enslaved peoples of Europe and the USSR from Hitler’s tyranny... We do not and cannot have such war goals as the seizure of foreign territories, the conquest of foreign peoples, it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about about the peoples and territories of Europe, or about the peoples and territories of Asia... We do not and cannot have such war goals as imposing our will and our regime on the Slavic and other enslaved peoples of Europe, who are waiting for help from us. Our goal is to help these peoples in their liberation struggle against Hitler’s tyranny and then to give them complete freedom to settle in their land as they want” (18).

As noted above, the liberation tasks of the USSR in relation to the peoples of Europe enslaved by German fascism were voiced already on the first day of the war, June 22, 1941, in a radio speech by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars USSR and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov19 and in the speech of I.V. Stalin July 3, 1941 (20)

Where does the term “Liberation Mission” come from, and why is such a high syllable “mission” and not just “liberation”? November 7, 1941, when the enemy stood near Moscow and the fall of the Soviet capital was quite real, as a symbolic act that had enormous psychological significance for maintaining the spirit of the army and the people who found themselves in a very difficult situation, and propaganda and political-diplomatic significance on a global scale, A traditional military parade was held on Red Square in honor of the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution. I.V. gave a speech at it. Stalin. Having outlined the situation of the moment, comparing it with the situation of the country in 1918, when the situation was much worse, but victory was achieved, emphasizing all the advantages of the current situation of the USSR compared to the period of the civil war and foreign intervention of 14 states, Stalin thereby tried to instill confidence in victory and over Nazi Germany. And he ended his speech not with words about defense and the need to stop the enemy standing at the walls of Moscow, but with words addressed to the future: “Comrades of the Red Army and Red Navy, commanders and political workers, partisans and partisans! The whole world is looking at you as a force capable of destroying the predatory hordes of German invaders. The enslaved peoples of Europe, who fell under the yoke of the German invaders, look at you as their liberators. Great Liberation Mission fell to your lot. Be worthy of this mission! The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war” (21).

Another fundamentally important idea was voiced in the Order of the People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin dated February 23, 1942 No. 55. Once again emphasizing that “the strength of the Red Army lies, first of all, in the fact that it is not waging an aggressive, not an imperialist war, but a domestic war, a liberation war, a just one...”, I.V. Stalin (and this was at the beginning of the war, when a huge part of the country was occupied and the dominant feeling of the people was hatred of the aggressor, of the Germans, and this feeling was purposefully incited by propaganda in order to maximize the mobilization of the people's forces for the fight!) outlined two different approaches to the fascist state and to the German people, he called not “...to identify the Hitler clique with the German people, with the German state. The experience of history says that Hitlers come and go, but the German people and the German state remain” (22).

Thus, the task of fair retribution against the aggressor, and above all war criminals, was separated from the German people, and later the task of liberation from the fascist dictatorship was extended to them. In the Order of the People's Commissar of Defense I.V. Stalin dated May 1, 1942 No. 130 says: “For the German people it is becoming increasingly clear that the only way out of the current situation is the liberation of Germany from the adventurist clique of Hitler - Goering” (23).

Subsequently, despite the still very long path to liberation of his country, I.V. Stalin more than once addresses the topic of the liberation of Europe. Thus, in the Chairman's Report State Committee Defense at the solemn meeting of the Moscow Council of Workers' Deputies with party and public organizations of Moscow on November 6, 1942, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, along with others, the call was made: “Long live the liberation of the peoples of Europe from Hitler’s tyranny!” (24)

Political concept of the Liberation Mission, which was consistently implemented, included:
. suppressing the aggression of Nazi Germany, crushing its military strength and military-economic potential;
. liberation of their territories temporarily occupied by the enemy;
. assistance to the peoples of Europe in liberation from occupation;
. liberation of the people of Germany and its satellites from the tyranny of Nazi and fascist dictatorships.

The implementation of the “external” part of the concept moved into practice only in mid-1944, when Soviet troops reached the state border of the USSR. Order No. 220 of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of November 7, 1944 states: “Having completed the liberation of their native land from Hitler’s evil spirits, the Red Army is now helping the peoples of Poland, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia to break the chains of fascist slavery and restore their freedom and independence” (25). The supreme power of the USSR clearly positions the entry into the territory of neighboring states as liberation.

The second time in the orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief the concept of “liberation mission” is used on February 23, 1945 (order No. 5): “During the 40 days of the offensive in January-February 1945, our troops expelled the Germans from 300 cities... As a result, the Red Army completely liberated Poland and a significant part of the territory of Czechoslovakia, occupied Budapest and withdrew Germany’s last ally in Europe - Hungary - from the war, captured most of East Prussia and German Silesia and made their way to Brandenburg, Pomerania, to the approaches of Berlin... Our fighters, inspired by the consciousness of their great liberation missions, show miracles of heroism and selflessness... (26)"

The policy of the Soviet command and the Soviet leadership was very differentiated in relation to different countries and the peoples who participated in the war on Hitler’s side or, on the contrary, who were victims of the aggressor (and even among the German satellites - depending on the degree of activity and the nature of resistance at the final stage of the war).

The division of the German people and the Hitler regime according to the degree of responsibility for world war does not mean that the Germans did not suffer deserved punishment. The theme of the collective responsibility of the German nation for the crimes of the Hitler regime, which the Germans allowed and for the most part supported for many years, including Hitler’s aggression against many European countries, and the policy of enslavement and destruction of racially “inferior” peoples, and the policy of seizing “living space” “in the East, for which they carried out a policy of “cleansing” territories of indigenous inhabitants, primarily Slavs, - this topic emerged in world politics and sounded most strongly at the end of the war and in the post-war years. Germany was entrusted with huge reparations (although they only partially compensated for the largely irreparable damage caused to the USSR: it was impossible to compensate for the loss of almost 27 million lives, destroyed artistic and cultural values, etc.), it lost vast territories in which the Germans lived centuries, and millions of people were resettled to the west, etc. These territories went to the USSR and Poland. Hungary lost Transylvania, which was transferred to Romania, which, although an ally of Hitler, was less loyal than the Magyars, and at the final stage of the war participated together with the Red Army (as well as Bulgarian units) in the final defeat of Germany. Relations were more complicated with the Poles, a significant part of whom (mainly Home Army formations) were ready to resist the Red Army, although the Polish Army was formed from the Poles, which liberated Poland together with the Red Army.

For example, in the Directive of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 220145 dated July 14, 1944, the Commander of the 1st Ukrainian, 3rd, 2nd and 1st Belorussian Fronts said: “Our troops operating on the territory of the Lithuanian SSR and in the western regions Belarus and Ukraine came into contact with Polish armed groups led by the Polish émigré government. These detachments behave suspiciously and often act against the interests of the Red Army. Considering these circumstances, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command orders: 1. Do not enter into any relations or agreements with these Polish detachments. Upon detection, the personnel of these detachments are immediately disarmed and sent to specially organized collection points for inspection. 2. In cases of resistance from Polish units, use armed force against them. 3. Report to the General Staff about the progress of the disarmament of Polish detachments and the number of soldiers and officers gathered at assembly points” (27).

In this regard, two directives of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 220255 of October 31, 1944 to the Commander of the 4th and 1st Ukrainian Fronts and No. 220282 of December 18, 1944 to the Commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front on the attitude towards the population of Czechoslovakia are characteristic: “ The headquarters of the Supreme High Command orders: 1. Explain to all military personnel that Czechoslovakia is our ally and the attitude of the Red Army troops towards the population of the liberated areas of Czechoslovakia and towards the rebel Czechoslovak units should be friendly. 2. Prohibit troops from unauthorized confiscation of cars, horses, livestock, shops and various property. 3. When deploying troops in populated areas, take into account the interests of the local population. 4. Everything necessary for the needs of our troops can be obtained only through the local bodies of the Czechoslovak civil administration or through the command of the Czechoslovak rebel units. 5. Persons who violate this order will be subject to severe liability. 6. O measures taken convey” (28).

In relation to other countries that in one way or another carried out activities hostile to the USSR, similar directives at the level of the Supreme Command Headquarters, unambiguously protecting the material and other interests of the local population, the role of the local civil administration were not found.

Thus, in advancing a political strategy, it is important not only a clear definition of goals, but also ideological support (i.e., in this case, value content that has great motivating power).

In general, the official discourse of the “liberation mission of the Red Army” not only fulfilled its pragmatic tasks, but mainly corresponded to the postulated high meanings with which their power was filled, and above all in the person of I.V. Stalin: the peoples of Europe were saved from enslavement, and in many ways from destruction by the racist regime of the Third Reich. The concept of the Red Army Liberation Mission fulfilled its objectives, ensuring both the internal mobilization of forces and the ideological design of the Red Army’s liberation campaign in Europe, contributing to the victorious end of the war, as well as the post-war promotion of the interests of the USSR in the liberated countries.

An analysis of the official discourse of the “Liberation Mission of the Red Army in Europe” (at the level of the country’s top state and military leadership) shows that it was formed, although not immediately, but very quickly at the very beginning of the war and then went through a certain evolution, filling it with specific content.

Even at the initial stage of the war, when the USSR found itself in a difficult situation, when Soviet troops were retreating with heavy defensive battles, when the enemies, and even the Western allies, were counting how many more weeks the Soviet state could hold out, resisting German aggression, when the threat of losing the capital was real, the supreme power formulated the basic ideas and the very concept of the Liberation Mission: from the statement of the enslavement of a number of countries and peoples by Nazi Germany, through setting the goal of the nationwide Patriotic War - not only eliminating the danger to the USSR, but also helping the peoples of Europe who found themselves “under the yoke of German fascism” , to the mission of the liberators of Europe, and the very meaning of the war is fair, liberating. The Patriotic War turns out to be great, having worldwide significance. Of course, all these public presentations of goals and meanings, primarily by I.V. himself. Stalin, had a multi-level orientation - political, ideological, diplomatic, propaganda, psychological, etc., the objects of information messages from the authorities were also varied - from broad layers of the Soviet people and the Red Army (including the corresponding state and military structures) to foreign addressees, both opponents and allies, also in a wide range from ordinary people to heads of state. The supreme power of the USSR thus carried out complex communication aimed at mobilizing own strength, attracting allies and assuring them of their reliability (and the trustworthiness, positivity and constructiveness of their goals), intimidating the enemy, etc.

* * *

Of course, the concept of the Liberation Mission was only part of a whole system of tools and factors that ensured the achievement of Victory. The German “new order” gave way to our organization; their superior economic potential (the total potential of Europe subjugated by Germany) gave way to the efficiency of using ours, albeit less; their “will to power” over the world was crushed by the Russians national character, unity of peoples Soviet Union in pursuit of victory over aggressors and enslavers. But the formation and evolution of the official discourse of the Red Army Liberation Mission in Europe was an important part of the USSR’s political strategy in moving towards Victory and consolidating the significant place of the USSR in the post-war world.

At the same time, the concept of the Liberation Mission has not only a political-strategic, but also an ideological dimension, and fits into the general ideological system of the USSR, which underwent significant changes during the war years.

Every big war in a new and modern history had its own ideological design (explicit or implicit), a unique ideological motivation, which could be expressed both in the official definition of war by the highest political and ideological institutions, and in direct slogans used in propaganda work among the troops.

In the Great Patriotic War, it was ideology and psychology, in their close relationship from all elements and levels of consciousness of the Soviet people, that were decisive for resisting the aggression of the Nazi occupiers and their satellites. The misanthropic ideology of German Nazism was opposed by Soviet ideology with all its characteristic features, just as the psychology of the Soviet peoples who defended their land was opposed to the psychology of the invaders.

At the same time, in the very first days of the war, the reaction of the population in the rear generally corresponded to the propaganda cliches that were developed in the pre-war period, and did not correspond to the drama of the situation. Therefore, a very common reaction to German aggression was a mood of sabotage.

If class illusions persisted before the war, as well as the hope that the German proletariat would not fight against the Land of the Soviets, against its “class brothers” and would even provide assistance, they were dispelled in the very first days of the war. Soon even the key propaganda slogan “Workers of all countries, unite!” was supplanted by the slogan “Death to the German occupiers!” It was the awareness of the scale and drama of the war that forced the authorities to push aside Marxist ideological postulates, and even in a speech on July 3, 1941, through the mouth of Stalin, to call the war against Nazi Germany a national, Great and Patriotic War. It was the mortal threat to the country, state, and people during the dramatic period when the enemy stood at the walls of Moscow that forced Stalin, in his speech at the Red Army parade on November 7, to recall heroic events and names from a thousand years of Russian history.

Class illusions about the “brotherly German working class” melted away in the very first days of the war, but the government quickly “restructured”: the reasons, meaning and goals of the war were clearly and clearly outlined by the supreme power. They affected the vital interests of every Soviet citizen and were communicated to every soldier. The question was stark: win or die, in the “best” case – end up enslaved, in the position of “subhumans.”

Of decisive importance were both a clear policy in emergency conditions of war (to ensure internal security, informational, psychological and ideological influence on all categories of society and the army), and the institutions for its implementation.

From the very beginning of the war, government guidelines were translated into clear, precise formulas and slogans, which were usually formulated by I.V. Stalin brought them to the attention of every soldier, and in the rear - to every citizen. “Our cause is just - victory will be ours!” — convinced the people of the just nature of the war on the part of the USSR and inspired confidence in the inevitability of Victory. “All the forces of the people - to defeat the enemy!”, “Everything for the front, everything for Victory” - was the meaning of the mobilization of the people in the Soviet rear. “Death to the German occupiers” was the instruction for the Red Army soldiers.

Radio, the press, and films played a huge role, conveying propaganda messages to the population with varying degrees of efficiency and different means. The authority of the head of state, I.V., was “nurtured” and protected in every possible way. Stalin, who did not often “reveal himself to the people,” but each such “appearance” was significant and symbolic. He himself turned into a symbol of the wise leader of the people opposing a formidable enemy. His authority was strengthened not only with each victory, but also with his behavior in situations of mortal danger. For example, when Stalin did not leave Moscow in the fall of 1941, despite the fact that there was a real threat of the enemy taking the capital.

All major decisions in the country were made personally by I.V. Stalin in consultation with his inner circle, while the party acted as an instrument of mobilization. He also worked out the main changes in the ideological course.

The ideological factor, purposeful political work in the troops and in the rear played a huge role in mobilizing the people for victory. However, in order for ideology to work effectively in war conditions, it had to undergo significant transformation. The beginning of the Great Patriotic War marked a period of significant transformation of Soviet ideology, caused by a threat to the existence of the Soviet state and the established system, and as a result, by the need to mobilize additional non-systemic resources. In the field of mass consciousness, these resources lay outside the boundaries of the dominant ideology. The necessary changes involved shifting the emphasis from classism to state-patriotic ideas, from “proletarian internationalism” to national-state values, and an appeal to historical national-state traditions, national and religious consciousness. And very quickly the class revolutionary-cosmopolitan tone was replaced by a patriotic one, clear and understandable to the entire population in conditions of military danger and adequate to the situation.

Despite the miscalculations made on the eve and at the beginning of the war, which cost the country enormous human, territorial and material losses and led to an almost hopeless situation, the Stalinist regime managed to turn the tide of events, including thanks to a change in ideological vectors. In ideology, while its class essence was preserved, a huge pragmatic turn was made, which testifies to the ability of the USSR leadership to renounce ideological dogmas and approach policy, including foreign policy, from a purely rational position. What did this mean for the implementation of the course towards the Liberation Mission of the Red Army in Europe (and post-war policy there)? The most immediate: the concept of the Liberation Mission fit organically into the general political and ideological context of the political strategy of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War, with an eye to the structure of the post-war world and determining the place of the Soviet Union in it.

Stalin and his entourage were guided not by ideological dogmas and “class illusions,” the remnants of which were destroyed during the Second World War, but by the national-state interests of the USSR, that is, ensuring its security and creating the most favorable conditions for post-war economic recovery and further development. And the main factors for this were seen as the development of, if not friendly, then partnership relations with the USA and England, with the West in general, and on the borders (primarily Western, from where wars repeatedly came to Russia) of the country - the creation of a belt of loyalists (not necessarily - communist) states. Guided by realistic considerations, Soviet leaders skillfully prioritized their foreign policy goals, with politics (and geopolitics) being much more important than ideology. They understood the complexity of the communist transformation of the USSR's neighbors in Eastern Europe and did not at all seek to force events, much less impose their development model. Moreover, their priority at the end of the Second World War was to preserve in the post-war world positive relationships with the Anglo-Saxon world, necessary both to ensure security and prevent new war, and for the recovery of the war-torn Soviet country and its economy. The failure in this scenario occurred not through Soviet fault, but in the context of the unfolding confrontation with the West, the growing threat of a new military catastrophe from it, so priorities, foreign policy, and attitudes towards the situation in the countries of the “security belt”, where the Soviet leadership had to change, changed push aside potential allies of the militant West and rely on the most reliable political forces, which were the ideologically close communist and leftist parties.

Not everything turned out to be as good as the Soviet leadership initially planned and indicated in a number of messages, for example, statements that the USSR has no other goals other than helping peoples in their liberation from fascist occupation (Stalin November 6, 1941: “ No interference in the internal affairs of other nations!”). But that’s why it’s realpolitik: even during the war, our Western allies nurtured plans that were far from friendly towards the USSR, including those of a geopolitical nature.

In general, the official discourse of the “Liberation Mission of the Red Army” not only fulfilled its pragmatic tasks, but mainly corresponded to the postulated high meanings with which their power was filled, and above all in the person of I.V. Stalin: the peoples of Europe were saved from enslavement, and in many ways from destruction by the racist regime of the Third Reich. And then another, post-war history began (in which, despite all the difficulties and costs, the Eastern European countries actively developed economically, socially, and culturally, increasing the level and quality of life, the level of education is significantly higher than most countries in the world , including many European ones, with the help, and in many ways at the expense of the USSR, to the detriment of its population and its own development).

________________________________________ _______________________
11. The Soviet factor in Eastern Europe. Documents 1944-1953 In 2 volumes. T. 1. 1944-1948. M., ROSSPEN, 1999. pp. 53-54.
18. Ibid. P. 34.
19. True. 1941. June 24.
20. Stalin I.V. About the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Ed. 5. M., 1947. P. 16.
21. Ibid. pp. 39-40.
22. Ibid. pp. 45, 46.
23. Ibid. pp. 52-53
24. Ibid. P. 76.
25. Ibid. P. 172.
26. Ibid. pp. 178-179.
27. Russian archive: Great Patriotic War. Headquarters of the VKG: Documents and materials 1944-1945. T. 16 (5-4). - M., 1999. P. 111.
28. Ibid. pp. 165, 182.

Having liberated the territory of the USSR from the Nazi invaders, the Red Army fulfilled its liberation mission - it returned freedom to 11 countries of Central and South of Eastern Europe with a population of 113 million people. As Soviet troops approached, the partisan movement intensified, and uprisings against the fascist yoke began. Germany's isolation grew.

Crimean (Yalta) conference– February 4–11, 1945 went down in history as a convincing example of the possibility of effective military and political cooperation between states with different social systems. The decisions she made about the post-war structure have stood the test of time. They have largely contributed to the fact that on the European continent two new generations are already enjoying the fruits of a peaceful life.

By February 1945 the war had entered its final period. The victories of the Soviet Armed Forces, as well as the Allied troops after their landing in France, led to the fact that Germany found itself sandwiched between two fronts. Her imminent defeat became inevitable. Therefore, the participants of the Yalta meeting devoted Special attention a set of issues related to the end of the war in Europe and the common policy of the three powers in implementing the conditions for the unconditional surrender of Germany. The question of establishing the supreme power of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in relation to Germany, including the right of its complete disarmament and demilitarization, reparations and other measures necessary to ensure future peace and security, was also considered.

As for the post-war structure, the Crimean Conference considered the creation of the United Nations, including those sections of the UN Charter on which the parties could not agree in the fall of 1944 at Dumbarton Oaks.

The most difficult and time-consuming problem was the Polish problem. Then the Yugoslav question was discussed. The participants in the Yalta meeting considered the problems of the Far East and the conditions for the Soviet Union to enter the war against Japan. Various aspects of cooperation between the three powers were also discussed, both in the conduct of the war and in the organization of the post-war world and the signing of the Declaration of a Liberated Europe.

« Big three» (J.V. Stalin, F. Roosevelt, W. Churchill) approved the agreement developed by the European Advisory Commission “On the zones of occupation of Germany and on the management of Greater Berlin”, “On the control mechanism in Germany”.

Agreed: on the disarmament of German troops, the demilitarization of the German economy, on the punishment of war criminals, on the creation of a democratic Germany; on the collection of reparations from Germany for the damage caused (the protocol was signed only in 1947), the issue of the borders of Poland was resolved; The USSR confirmed its agreement to join two or three months after Germany’s surrender in the war with Japan, subject to the return of the Kuril Islands and the southern part of Sakhalin to the USSR.

The Crimean Conference demonstrated the strength and unanimity of the anti-Hitler coalition.

In the communique of the Crimean Conference, the three Allied powers expressed “the determination to preserve and strengthen in the coming period of peace that unity of purpose and action which has made victory in modern war possible and certain for the United Nations.”

Berlin operation– April 16 – May 8, 1945 – 2.5 million Soviet troops, 7.5 aircraft, 41.6 thousand guns and mortars, 6250 tanks participated.

Attention should be paid to the fact that Hitler ordered the defense of Berlin to the last man. The fortification of the city began on January 6, 1945. G. Goebbels was the Imperial Commissioner for the Defense of Berlin. More than 400 special reinforced concrete bunkers were built in the city center, each of which housed from 300 to 1000 people and up to 32 guns. The thickness of the walls in some of them reached 3 m.

Soviet troops, moving forward with heavy fighting, freed more and more prisoners who were in various camps in the suburbs of Berlin, many prisoners of war, including foreign workers. Among those released was former French Prime Minister Edouard Herue. He was flown by a special plane to Moscow for medical care.

The SS and Nazis shot and hanged everyone who left their positions or was suspected of desertion.

20 April- the beginning of the historical assault on the capital of Nazi Germany. Overcoming the fierce resistance of the enemy, Soviet soldiers fought day and night, using the experience of street fighting and the tactics of dismembering the enemy’s defense into pieces.

On April 25, 1945, Soviet and Anglo-American troops struck from the east and west, tearing apart the German front - Allied meeting on the Elbe in the Torgau region.

26 April– division of the enemy’s defense into 2 isolated parts: most of the troops were surrounded in the city itself, the smaller part in the Potsdam area.

Fact: when crossing the river. Sprees in the city itself the 1st Bobruisk brigade of ships of the Dnieper flotilla boldly operated. For the heroism and courage shown by the sailors, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Lieutenant M.M. Kalinin, foreman G.G. Dudnikov, G.P. Kazakov and A.P. Pashkov, sailors N.A. Baranov, A.E. Samokhvalov, M.T. Sotnikov, N.A. Filippov, V.V. Cherikov.

Night from 28 to 29 April- the beginning of the battles for the Reichstag, the building of which the Nazis turned into the most important stronghold in the system of the central defense sector of Berlin, adapted for all-round defense.

April 30, 21:50- the flag was raised over the Reichstag. For heroism and courage, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to V.I. Davydov, S.A. Neustroev, K.Ya. Samsonov, M.A. Egorov and M.V. Kantaria.

Fact: in the battles for the Reichstag, 2.5 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were killed and wounded, 2.6 thousand prisoners were captured, 28 guns were destroyed, 1,800 rifles and machine guns, 15 tanks and self-propelled guns were captured.

Results Berlin operation: 90 enemy divisions were defeated, 480 thousand soldiers and officers, 4.5 thousand aircraft, 500 tanks and much other equipment were captured.

The defeat of the Berlin group of fascist German troops was a decisive factor in completing the defeat of Germany.

Our victory in this operation came at a high price: from April 16 to May 8, the troops of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts lost more than 361 thousand people, 2156 tanks and self-propelled guns killed, wounded, or missing. , 220 guns and mortars, 527 aircraft.

You should pay attention to that fact, that the Berlin operation fully revealed to the peoples of the world such a trait of the Soviet soldier as a high sense of humanity for to the defeated enemy. Fighting was still going on in Berlin, and near our soldiers’ kitchens, hungry German children, women, and old people received food. Until the end of May, ration cards were issued in Berlin and the distribution of food on them was organized. For this purpose, almost 6 million pounds of flour and grain, about 100 thousand tons of potatoes, and 150 thousand heads of livestock were allocated from front-line reserves.

The Soviet command organized medical care for the population, restoration of water supply, power plants, and metro.

Conclusion: The Red Army brought the residents of Berlin not only liberation from the Nazi regime, but also did everything possible to save the city's population from hunger and epidemics.

Late in the evening May 8 in a specially prepared hall of the military engineering school in Karlshorst, decorated with the state flags of the Soviet Union, USA, Great Britain and France, representatives of the high commands of the allied countries gathered, Soviet marshals, whose troops stormed Berlin, journalists. The Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K., took their places at the table. Zhukov, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, British Air Chief Marshal A. Tedder, Commander of the US Strategic Air Forces General K. Spaats, Commander-in-Chief of the French Army General J.-M.G. de Lattre de Tassigny.

Soon representatives of the German High Command were brought into the hall. The first paragraph of the “Act of Military Surrender” they signed read: “We, the undersigned, acting on behalf of the German High Command, agree to the unconditional surrender of all our armed forces on land, sea and air, as well as all forces currently in under German command - to the Supreme Command of the Red Army and at the same time to the Supreme Command of the Allied Expeditionary Forces."

The criminal fascist regime and the Nazi state it created were finally defeated.

On Victory Day, May 9, 1945, Moscow, on behalf of the Motherland, saluted the troops of the Red Army, units and ships of the Navy with thirty artillery salvoes from a thousand guns in honor of an event that will forever remain in the memory of the Soviet people and all humanity. On that day, the Pravda newspaper wrote: “The ninth of May! Soviet people will never forget this day. How he will not forget June 22, 1941. A century passed between these dates. And as happens in folk epics, during this time the Soviet people grew fabulously. He grew up so that a Red Army soldier standing by a waving banner in Berlin is visible to the whole world. We did not wait for the twenty-second of June. But we longed for the day to come when the final blow would knock down the monster that had insulted life. And we delivered this blow. I feel incredibly happy today. And the night sky over Moscow seems to radiate a reflection of the joy that the Soviet land is full of. We witnessed events about which volumes could be written. But today we fit them all into one word: victory!”

Potsdam Conference (near Berlin)– July 17 – August 2, 1945: confirmed the decisions of the Crimean Conference regarding Germany, considered territorial issues about the borders of Poland, the transfer of Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad) to the USSR; created a Council of Foreign Ministers to prepare treaties with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland. Although some differences emerged on the issue of the post-war structure of Europe, everyone was interested in preserving peace.

Fact: the highest award - the Order of Victory - was received by 12 Soviet commanders (I.V. Stalin, Marshal G.K. Zhukov, M.K. Vasilevsky had two orders) and five foreigners: American General Eisenhower, British Field Marshal Mangomery, King Mihai Ι of Romania , Polish Marshal Rolya-Zhimierski, Yugoslav Marshal Broz Tito.

Historical memory is the basis of national identity, which has a decisive influence on the development of the country, the viability of the people and the state, especially in conditions of severe national-state crises. Traumatized and disoriented mass consciousness, including in relation to the historical past of their country, is one of the strongest factors undermining national security, which can lead to disaster.

As a result of powerful information war Over the past two decades, our compatriots’ ideas about the Great Patriotic War, including its final stage, have especially suffered. In the modern geopolitical situation, the term “Liberation Mission” is subject to the most violent attacks by anti-Russian forces both in the West and within the country. The desire to rewrite the history of the Second World War comes from the states of the former socialist camp, which today find themselves members of NATO, and from the former union republics of the USSR, gravitating towards the West, and from countries - former opponents of the USSR in World War II, and from countries - former allies in the Anti-Hitler coalition . The general leitmotif of these attacks is an attempt to replace “liberation” with “occupation”, accusations not only against the USSR and the Soviet army, but also against Russia as the legal successor of the Soviet Union in imposing totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, in crimes against the civilian population, demands to her to “repent” and “make reparation.”

The position of the Western allies of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition throughout the entire post-war period was to attribute decisive role in Victory for himself, in particular, exaggerating the importance of other theaters of military operations - in the Pacific Ocean, in Africa and in Western Europe after the belated opening of the Second Front in 1944 and the landing of Anglo-American troops in Normandy. IN last years this position is aggravated by the desire to present the USSR Liberation Mission in Europe not as liberation, but as “new enslavement” of countries that found themselves in the sphere of Soviet influence. Hence the frank revision of the Yalta system, on which the post-war peace in Europe was built, and even equating it with the Munich Agreement. In this regard, the statement made by US President George W. Bush at the celebration of Lithuania’s invitation to NATO on November 23, 2002 is very indicative: “ We knew that the arbitrary borders drawn by dictators would be erased, and those borders disappeared. There will be no more Munich, there will be no more Yalta"Thus, the recent head of the American state identified the Yalta system with fascist aggression, and actually put the great president of his country, F. Roosevelt, on the same level not only with the leaders of England and France who allowed the treacherous Munich Agreement, but also with Hitler.

The peak of massive attacks on the role of the USSR in World War II occurred in 2005 - the year of the 60th anniversary of the Victory. The Western media reacted especially actively to this information occasion. Thus, K. Eggert from the BBC complained that “the war remains the only bright spot of the Soviet period of history for the majority of the Russian population, and therefore has been declared outside the zone of critical study and discussion.” And, calling on Russia to “rethink the past,” he rather openly hinted that “only a deep national crisis is capable of returning Russians today to the situation of the late eighties, when the discussion about Soviet history". In a special review by RIA Novosti, prepared on the basis of monitoring the television and radio broadcasts of 86 foreign radio stations and television companies on April 19, 2005, it was stated: "The information fuss over the historical interpretation of the Great Patriotic War is not complete without an arsenal of horror propaganda. Journalists' reliance on subjective memoir memory, personal experience former participants in battles and frank speculation of Goebbels's propaganda leads to the fact that images associated with revenge, hatred and violence come to the fore, which do little to consolidate public opinion and resurrect previous foreign policy guidelines. The presence of a “dark side” of the liberation feat of the Red Army, which is allegedly hushed up in modern Russia, is postulated.

In this context, the widespread mythology regarding the mass rape of German women by Soviet soldiers, despite the alleged absence of similar facts in the offensive zone of the Western Allies, is noteworthy. This topic, in the context of general pressure on Russia, is actively discussed in Western media. So, in 2002, the famous English historian Anthony Beevor’s book “The Fall of Berlin. 1945” was published. Its content can be judged from the author's advertising article in the newspaper "The Daily Telegraph" under the eloquent title "Red Army troops even raped Russian women whom they liberated from the camps." This publication caused angry letter to the ambassador's office Russian Federation in Great Britain by Grigory Karasin on January 25, 2002.

The “scientific integrity” of the English author can be judged by a specific example. Having placed in his work the lines that caused the greatest stir in the Western media, he referred to my book “Psychology of War in the 20th Century. Historical Experience of Russia” as the source of the information received. This link was placed in the following context: "The most shocking, from the Russian point of view, are the facts of violence Soviet soldiers and officers committed against Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian women and girls liberated from German work camps<Сенявская. — 2000. — С. 184. — # 27.>.Many girls were only sixteen or even fourteen years old when they were taken to forced labor in Germany. Cases of this kind make completely untenable any attempt to justify the behavior of Soviet soldiers by saying that they were taking revenge for the crimes of the Nazis in the Soviet Union." . We open page 184 of my monograph (“# 27” is my footnote to the book: Semiryaga M.I. How we ruled Germany. Politics and life. M., 1995. S. 314-315.). We read what can indirectly be attributed to the issue raised by Mr. Beevor (in order not to break the context, I quote the entire paragraph, the beginning of which is located on the previous page 183): “Worldviews and the moral and socio-psychological qualities that flowed from them were also manifested in relation to the enemy. Already in the spring of 1942, in one of the divisional newspapers of the Karelian Front there was an essay by a Red Army soldier under the eloquent heading “We have learned to hate.” And this just hatred was one of the dominant feelings in the active Soviet Army throughout the war. However, depending on its specific stage and the conditions associated with it, the attitude towards the enemy acquired different shades. Thus, a new, more complex range of feelings began to appear among Soviet soldiers and officers in connection with transferring hostilities beyond the borders of our country, to foreign, including enemy, territory. Many military personnel believed that as victors they could afford everything, including arbitrariness against the civilian population. Negative phenomena in the liberating army caused tangible damage to the prestige of the Soviet Union and its armed forces could negatively affect future relationships with the countries through which our troops passed. The Soviet command had to again and again pay attention to the state of discipline in the troops, conduct explanatory conversations with the personnel, adopt special directives and issue stern orders. The Soviet Union had to show the peoples of Europe that it was not a “horde of Asians” that had entered their land, but the army of a civilized state. Therefore, purely criminal crimes in the eyes of the USSR leadership acquired political overtones. In this regard, on the personal instructions of Stalin, several show trials were organized with death sentences imposed on the guilty, and the NKVD regularly informed the military command about their measures to combat the facts of robbery against civilians". Well, where are the “facts of violence by Soviet soldiers and officers committed against Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusian women and girls liberated from German work camps”? Perhaps Mr. Beevor meant that this is mentioned in the work of M .I. Semiryagi, to which I refer? But there is nothing like that there either: neither on pages 314-315, nor on any others! However, in the West, Mr. Beevor’s statements are considered absolutely reliable. Thus, Konstantin Eggert in the article “Memory and the truth", written in 2005 for a BBC project to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, wrote: “When Anthony Beevor’s book “The Fall of Berlin” was first published in London in 2002 (now translated in Russia by AST publishing house), the Russian ambassador to Great Britain Grigory Karasin wrote an angry letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper. The diplomat accused the famous military historian of slandering glorious feat of Soviet soldiers. The reason? Beevor, based on documents from the main military archive in Podolsk, spoke, among other things, about the atrocities that Soviet soldiers committed in liberated Poland, East Prussia and in Berlin itself. Historians from the Russian Academy of Sciences book "The Fall Berlin" was condemned almost earlier than the ambassador. Meanwhile, the reference apparatus of Beevor's book is in perfect order: incoming and outgoing numbers of reports, a folder, a shelf, and so on. That is, you cannot accuse the writer of lying [emphasis mine - E.S.]" . But if such obvious fraud was allowed in this particular example, where is the guarantee that the other so-called “facts” cited in Mr. Beevor’s book were not fabricated using the same “methodology”? Many falsifications are based on this simple calculation: the reference apparatus looks solid and convincing, especially for an inexperienced reader, and hardly anyone will check each of the 1007 author’s footnotes in the archive and library.

However, even if we assume that the author refers to real archival documents, this does not prove anything. The Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation actually stores materials from political departments with reports, which contain protocols of Red Army, Komsomol and party meetings describing cases of deviant behavior of military personnel. These are really plump folders, the contents of which are pure black stuff. But they were compiled precisely “thematically,” as evidenced by their very names: “Emergency Incidents and Immoral Phenomena” for such and such a period in such and such a military unit. By the way, these names already show that this kind of phenomenon was considered by the army leadership not as a behavioral norm, but as an emergency event requiring decisive measures. The archive also contains materials from military tribunals - investigative cases, sentences, etc., where you can find many negative examples, because that is where such information is concentrated. But the fact is that the perpetrators of these crimes accounted for no more than 2% of the total number of military personnel. And authors like Mr. Beevor extend their accusations to the entire Soviet army as a whole. Unfortunately, not only foreign ones. It is noteworthy that Beevor's book was translated into Russian and published in Russia in 2004 - just on the eve of the anniversary of the Victory.

In 2005, another revealing “sensation” followed from former allies in the Anti-Hitler coalition: “ In the West, the new book by British military historian Max Hastings, “Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945,” dedicated to the crimes of the Soviet Army against the civilian population of Germany and German prisoners of war, is being widely promoted in the West. The historian depicts literally ritual retribution inflicted by the Soviet Army on the Germans who were losing the war, and even calls it “primitive “rape” of an entire nation.”" .

In 2006, a book by the German author Joachim Hoffmann, “Stalin’s War of Extermination (1941-1945). Planning, implementation, documents,” was published in Russian; it was widely distributed abroad since the mid-1990s and went through four editions in Germany alone. At the same time, the preface to the Russian edition states that this work “is one of the best historical studies of the “dark spots” of the Soviet-German war,” and its author is “one of the most prominent representatives directions of West German historical science, which defended the postulate that in 1941-1945 the war was fought between two criminal regimes: Hitler’s Germany and Stalin's USSR". Naturally, several chapters are devoted to the last months of the war from a very specific perspective, as evidenced by their titles: ""No mercy, no leniency." Atrocities of the Red Army while advancing onto German soil", "Woe to you, Germany!" The atrocities continue." The list of literature of this kind, reviving the spirit and letter of Goebbels's propaganda in new historical conditions, can be continued for quite a long time.

However, the morality of war is completely different from the morality of peacetime. And those events can only be assessed in a general historical context, without separating, and certainly not replacing cause and effect. One cannot equate the victim of aggression with the aggressor, especially one whose goal was the destruction of entire nations. Fascist Germany itself placed itself outside morality and outside the law. Is it any wonder at the acts of spontaneous revenge on the part of those whose loved ones she coldly and methodically destroyed over the course of several years in the most sophisticated and savage ways?

Throughout the Great Patriotic War, the theme of retribution was one of the central ones in agitation and propaganda, as well as in the thoughts and feelings of the Soviet people. Long before the army approached the enemy border, passing along the tormented occupiers native land Seeing tortured women and children, burned and destroyed cities and villages, Soviet soldiers vowed to take revenge on the invaders a hundredfold and often thought about the time when they would enter enemy territory. And when this happened, they were - they couldn’t help but be! - psychological breakdowns, especially among those who lost their families killed by the occupiers.

The pattern of hatred towards Germany on the part of the Soviet troops entering its territory was understood at that time by the Germans themselves. In April 1945, a 16-year-old Berlin resident wrote in his diary the words of one of the Wehrmacht soldiers addressed to a crowd of refugees: " Stop whining! We must win this war, we must not lose courage. If others win - Russians, Poles, French, Czechs - and do to our people even one percent of what we did to them for six years in a row, then in a few weeks not a single German will be left alive. This is being told to you by someone who himself spent six years in occupied countries!"He knew what he was talking about.

But the leadership of the Soviet Army took measures against violence and outrages against the German population, declaring such actions criminal and unacceptable, and bringing those responsible to trial by military tribunal, up to and including execution. Thus, having entered the lands of East Prussia, the commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front, Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky, issued order # 006, designed to “direct the feeling of hatred of people to exterminate the enemy on the battlefield,” punishing looting, violence, robbery, senseless arson and destruction. The danger of such phenomena for the morale and combat effectiveness of the army was noted. On April 20, 1945, a special directive from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on the conduct of Soviet troops in Germany was adopted. Political work in the troops was also aimed at “directing the feeling of hatred towards the enemy in the right direction.” And although “it was not possible to completely prevent incidents of violence, they managed to contain it and then reduce it to a minimum.” According to the military prosecutor's office, “in the first months of 1945, 4,148 officers and a large number of privates. Several show trials of military personnel resulted in death sentences being imposed on the perpetrators."

At the same time, if we turn to the documents of the German side, we will see that even before the start of the war against the USSR it was announced in advance that “in the fight against Bolshevism it is impossible to build relations with the enemy on the principles of humanism and international law,” thereby initially allowing any violations of international law in the future relations of German troops towards civilians and Soviet prisoners of war. As one of the many examples of policy statements of the German leadership, we quote the Decree of Hitler as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht of May 13, 1941 on military proceedings in the war with the Soviet Union: " Acts against enemy civilians committed by members of the Wehrmacht and civilians will not necessarily be prosecuted, even if the act constitutes a war crime or misdemeanor... A judge orders military prosecution of acts against local civilians only when we're talking about about non-compliance with military discipline or the emergence of a threat to the safety of troops" Or let's remember the famous "Memo of a German Soldier" (which became one of the prosecution documents for Nuremberg trials), where the following “humane” calls were made: “ Remember and do: 1) ...No nerves, heart, pity - you are made of German iron... 2) ...Destroy pity and compassion in yourself, kill every Russian, don’t stop if there’s an old man or a woman in front of you, girl or boy... 3) ...We will bring the whole world to its knees... The German is the absolute master of the world. You will decide the fate of England, Russia, America... destroy all living things that resist in your way... Tomorrow the whole world will kneel before you"This was the policy of the fascist leadership of Germany towards “racially inferior peoples,” among which it included the Slavs.

With regard to the German population or prisoners of war, the Soviet leadership never set such tasks for its army. Consequently, we can talk specifically about isolated (especially in comparison with the actions of the German side) violations of international law in the conduct of war. Moreover, all these phenomena were spontaneous, not organized, and were suppressed with all severity by the Soviet army command. And yet, as the German historian Reinhard Rürup noted, in a defeated Germany " fear and horror towards Soviet troops was widespread to a much greater extent than towards the British or Americans. Indeed, in the first days of the arrival of the Red Army, its fighters committed significant excesses, robberies, and violence. But the publicist E. Kubi was not mistaken when, looking back, he stated that Soviet soldiers could have behaved like a “punishing heavenly army,” guided only by hatred of the German population. Many Germans knew more or less definitely what exactly happened in the Soviet Union, and therefore feared revenge or retribution in kind. The German people can truly count themselves lucky that they have not suffered justice" .

Meanwhile, documents show that in the western zones of occupation there was by no means that idyll, the image of which is now instilled in the German and indeed the entire Western consciousness. For example, in the report of the 7th branch of the Political Department of the 61st Army of the 1st Belorussian Front dated May 11, 1945, “On the work of the American army and military authorities among the German population,” it was reported: “ American soldiers and officers are prohibited from communicating with the local population. This prohibition, however, is violated. Behind Lately there were up to 100 cases of rape, although rape results in execution"The black units especially distinguished themselves. At the end of April 1945, the German communist Hans Jendretsky, released from prison by the Western allies, reported on the situation in the zone of Germany occupied by American troops: " Most of the occupation troops in the Erlangen area to Bamberg and in Bamberg itself were black units. These black units were located mainly in those places where there was great resistance. I was told about such atrocities of these blacks as: robbing apartments, taking away decorations, destroying residential premises and attacks on children. In Bamberg, in front of the school building where these blacks were quartered, lay three shot blacks, who some time ago had been shot by a military police patrol for attacking children. But white regular American troops also committed similar atrocities...". O.A. Rzheshevsky cites data according to which in the US Army, where the number of rapes sharply increased after entering Germany, 69 people were executed for this crime and for murder.

Evidence of the behavior of the Western Allies in Germany is found in many German memoirs. For example, Chief Corporal Kopiske recalled: " We reached the village of Mecklenburg. There I saw the first “Tommies” - three guys with a light machine gun, apparently a machine gun compartment. They lounged lazily on a haystack and didn’t even show any interest in me. The machine gun was on the ground. Everywhere crowds of people were heading west, some even on carts, but the British clearly didn’t care. One played the song “Lili-Marlene” on a harmonica. It was only vanguard. Either they simply didn’t take us into account anymore, or they had their own, special idea of ​​waging war. A little further, at the railway crossing in front of the village, we were met by a “post for collecting weapons and watches.” I thought I was dreaming: civilized, prosperous Englishmen taking away watches from the filthy German soldiers! From there we were sent to the schoolyard in the center of the village. Quite a few German soldiers had already gathered there. The Englishmen guarding us rolled chewing gum between their teeth - which was new to us - and boasted to each other about their trophies, raising their hands high, covered in wristwatches." And here is the testimony of one of the German women about the behavior of the French: " When the war ended in May 1945, and the “liberators” appeared - these were young French officers - there was immediately no trace left of the joyful feeling of the end of the war. Many women were attacked and raped. This is how the world began!"

As O.A. Rzheshevsky rightly notes, the rage of the Soviet soldiers who entered the enemy land fighting was quite understandable, " however, the avalanche of retaliatory revenge did not overwhelm Germany, and criminal acts, these inevitable companions of war, were committed by military personnel of all allied armies" However, the question of the “atrocities of the Red Army” against the German population today is being inflated in the West to mythical proportions, while no less large-scale similar phenomena on the part of the Western armies - which by no means had the same psychological basis as those of the Soviet soldiers , whose people survived all the horrors of fascist aggression and occupation, are hushed up and denied.

The behavior in similar situations of citizens of Eastern European countries, who showed much greater cruelty towards the defeated Germans than the advancing Soviet units, is also forgotten. Thus, in the secret report of the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, authorized by the NKVD of the USSR for the 1st Belorussian Front, I. Serov, to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, L.P. Beria, dated March 5, 1945, it was noted that “on the part of the military personnel of the 1st Polish Army, especially cruel attitude towards the Germans." But the Polish population, and even the new Polish authorities, distinguished themselves by massive oppression and cruelty towards not only German military personnel, but also “civilian” Germans. " Local residents, Poles from Germanized Polish families, taking advantage of the favorable opportunity, rushed to plunder the farms of their former German neighbors. The Soviet command was even forced to take a number of measures to prevent mass robberies of German households and the looting of industrial and other enterprises in the occupation zones. Relations between the Germans and Poles in the areas occupied by Soviet troops were very tense. The Polish authorities, taking over the former German regions that came under their control from the Red Army, forbade the population to speak German, serve in churches, and introduced corporal punishment for disobedience." It is no coincidence that one of the political reports of the Military Council of the 1st Ukrainian Front quotes the words of German residents: " It would be better for us to be under Russian occupation all the time than to be under the rule of the Poles, since the Poles do not know how to govern and do not like to work" .

Not only the Poles, but also other peoples who were under fascist occupation showed unmercifulness and even extreme cruelty towards the defeated Germans. Thus, in the political report of the political department of the 4th Tank Army to the head of the Political Directorate of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Major General Yashechkin, dated May 18, 1945, “On the attitude of the Czechoslovak population towards the Germans,” it was reported that “ During their stay in Czechoslovakia, the soldiers and officers of our units were repeatedly eyewitnesses of how the local population expressed their anger and hatred of the Germans in a wide variety of, sometimes quite strange, forms that were unusual for us. All this is explained by the enormous anger and thirst for revenge that the Czechoslovak people have towards the Germans for all the crimes they have committed. The anger and hatred towards the Germans is so great that our officers and soldiers often have to restrain the Czechoslovak population from arbitrary reprisals against the Nazis". A detailed listing and description of these “unusual in form” reprisals (burning alive at the stake, hanging by the legs, carving a swastika on the body, etc.) differs little from what the Germans themselves did in the countries they occupied. However, so the literal fulfillment of the Old Testament principle “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” judging by the documents, caused bewilderment and rejection among Soviet soldiers, who, in understanding fair retribution, for the most part proceeded from the principle that “they should not be like the Germans.”

Documents also testify to the behavior of the repatriates, whose motley international crowds clogged the roads of Germany: returning home from German slavery, they did not miss the opportunity to take revenge on their recent masters. The report of the military prosecutor of the 1st Belorussian Front to the military council of the front on the implementation of the directives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the military council of the front on changes in attitudes towards the German population dated May 2, 1945, stated that " Violence, and especially robbery and spoliation, are widely practiced by repatriated people traveling to repatriation points, and especially by Italians, Dutch and even Germans. At the same time, all these outrages are being blamed on our military personnel" .

However, in modern Europe, when assessing the events of the Second World War, accents are deliberately rearranged, negative emotions are aroused towards the country and the liberating army, their negative image is fabricated and introduced into the mass consciousness. At the same time, the main thing is not even mentioned - the fact that the USSR and the Soviet people were the saviors of Europe from Hitler’s misanthropic strategy of destroying entire states and peoples, and at the enormous cost of tens of millions of lives and colossal material losses. It is also forgotten that the Slavic and other peoples, including the Soviet Union, became the object of fascist genocide. They also don’t remember that the USSR saved from destruction not only the peoples of Europe, but also Western democracies, which are now trying to equate the aggressor and his victim, Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union. Let's give just one quote from the French newspaper Le Figaro dated June 15, 2005: " The victorious Red Army, Russian leaders and communists, in particular the French, have something to ask for forgiveness for. And strain your memory. All of Europe should demand this with one voice!“And this is being written in a country that, after a short resistance, “fell” under German occupiers, the majority of whose citizens were stained by collaboration, and among the few who found themselves in the French Resistance within the country, more than half were communists and foreigners, including escaped Soviet prisoners of war.

Perhaps the most succinct and convincing characterization of the current situation with the historical memory of the war was the President of the Czech Republic V. Klaus, who emphasized that “ The victory over Nazi Germany was a Great and truly historic victory". He noted that recently there have been increasingly frequent attempts to revise assessments of the results of the Second World War. “History, according to him, cannot be rewritten or corrected.” In his speech on the occasion of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of North Moravia, the president, in particular, said: " We often hear discussions that interpret the end of World War II differently from how it was experienced by millions of our fellow citizens. The concept of liberation disappears and the emphasis on the post-war period of history begins to predominate. The end of the Second World War is seen as the beginning of a new totalitarian era, which soon came to our part of Europe for four long decades. I am convinced that such an assessment of this historical event, which, without a doubt, meant liberation from Nazism and the end of the German occupation, as well as, in fact, the entire Second World War, should not prevail... We do not have the right to look at the past with from a different position than from the historical position. We have no right to forget about the order of facts and the cause-and-effect relationship. We cannot allegedly “humanistically neutrally” analyze the tragic events of the war and the periods immediately after it, that is, from the point of view of a certain “symmetry of suffering.” People who today come up with similar ideas constantly demand that we make more and more certain “gestures of reconciliation”, which, however, actually equate the executioners and the victims, and sometimes even change their places"

MILITARY THOUGHT No. 2/1985, pp. 3-16

Marshal of the Soviet UnionV. G. KULIKOV ,

First, Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR-

Commander-in-Chief of the United Armed Forces

states- participants of the Warsaw Pact,

Hero of the Soviet Union

The SOVIET people and their Armed Forces, under the leadership of the Communist Party, made a decisive contribution to the victory over fascist Germany and its allies, to the liberation of the peoples of Europe from fascist slavery, to the salvation of world civilization, and honorably fulfilled their patriotic and international duty. This is their greatest service to humanity, as emphasized in the resolution of the CPSU Central Committee “On the 40th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”

The liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces in World War II is a vivid example of proletarian internationalism in action. This world-historical feat is an inexhaustible source of further strengthening the indestructible union of the peoples and armies of the fraternal countries of socialism, all the forces of the world and social progress in their fight against the instigators of a new world war.

Sixty-seven years have passed since the birth of the first army of a new type - the Soviet Armed Forces. They went through a glorious military path, showing unparalleled examples of mass heroism, selfless service to their people, the cause of the Leninist party and devotion to the great ideas of proletarian solidarity. In the harsh years of the civil war and foreign military intervention, our army fulfilled its international duty with honor, for, “while maintaining Soviet power,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “we provide the best, strongest support to the proletariat of all countries in their incredibly difficult, difficult struggle against their bourgeoisie” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 35, p. 392).

In the pre-war years, the Soviet Union provided selfless fraternal assistance to the peoples of Abyssinia, Spain, China and Mongolia in their struggle against fascism and Japanese militarism for their national and social liberation. In the 30s, in the context of the impending Second World War, workers of foreign countries, all progressive people of the planet rightly saw in him their reliable friend, that real force that could rally around itself all the democratic forces of the world, stop the war machine of Hitler Germany and put an end to fascism . And they were right. During the years of the last war, when many states lost their independence, and the threat of physical destruction or enslavement loomed over millions of people, the Soviet people and their soldiers rallied closely around Lenin’s party, stood as an insurmountable wall in the way of the powerful military machine of Nazi Germany, exhausted and bled them dry in fierce battles. enemy, made a decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany and its satellites. The chronicle of the Great Patriotic War indisputably testifies to the invincibility of socialism, about it; enormous vitality.

Bourgeois falsifiers of history are trying to hide or belittle the true significance of the enormous military and material assistance of the USSR to the enslaved peoples of Europe and Asia in their liberation from the yoke of fascism and Japanese militarism. Attempts to pervert the lofty goals of the liberation mission of the Soviet Army do not stop. But the efforts of the ideologists of imperialism to belittle the truly humane, world-historical significance of the victory of the Armed Forces of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War and the noble exploits of the Soviet liberator soldiers are in vain.

It is known that before the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, not a single bourgeois state was able to withstand the blows of Hitler's military machine. The aggressor captured many European countries one after another: Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, France and a number of Balkan states.

French troops resisted for only 40 days. The English expeditionary army suffered a major defeat, the remnants of which, abandoning their weapons on the battlefield, were evacuated to the British Isles.

In the occupied countries, the Nazi invaders established a brutal terrorist regime. They robbed and killed people. The history of mankind has never known such mass destruction of civilians, the forced abduction of millions of people into slavery. The ominous death camps with which the Nazis surrounded the whole of Europe will forever remain in the memory of peoples as symbols of fascist obscurantism and barbarism.

The enslaved peoples rose up in a sacred struggle against the occupiers, but the forces were too unequal. With bated breath, they watched with hope the progress of the fierce battles that unfolded on the Soviet-German front, and knew for sure that the task of defeating fascism, liberating millions of people from slavery, and saving world civilization was within the power of only the Soviet Union.

All the freedom-loving peoples of the world rallied around the USSR, which became the center of the international anti-fascist movement. The Soviet Union clearly formulated its tasks in relation to the peoples subjected to aggression by Nazi Germany. Speaking on the radio on July 3, 1941, Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR I.V. Stalin stated that the goal of the nationwide Patriotic War against the fascist oppressors “is not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our country, but also to help all the peoples of Europe groaning under the yoke German fascism."

The government of the USSR proclaimed to the whole world that the Soviet people and their Armed Forces would wage an uncompromising struggle for the destruction of the Hitler regime and the restoration of democratic freedoms, the elimination of racial exclusivity, ensuring full equality of all nations and the inviolability of their territories, the liberation of enslaved peoples and the restoration of their sovereign rights, granting the full right to each people to decide for themselves the question of their state structure, providing economic assistance to war-torn countries.

This program of the Soviet Union, which clearly expressed the liberating nature of the Great Patriotic War, received recognition and support from the peoples of the whole world.

In the great liberation mission of the Soviet Army during the war, two stages can be distinguished: the first - from the entry of the Soviet state into the war until the spring of 1944, that is, until the entry of Soviet troops to the state border of the USSR; the second - with the beginning of their direct actions to liberate foreign countries from the fascist yoke and until the end of the Second World War.

At the first stage the activities of the Soviet Armed Forces were carried out in the following areas: the defeat of the main forces of Nazi Germany and its allies on the Soviet-German front, the creation of favorable external conditions for the development of the anti-fascist Resistance movement in occupied and Nazi-dependent countries; providing the peoples of the enslaved states with all possible military and material assistance; training of national personnel for the partisan anti-fascist movement in foreign countries; formation of foreign military units and formations on the territory of the USSR.

At the second stage after the defeat of the Wehrmacht on our soil and the exit of the Soviet Army to the western borders of the USSR, the time came when every Soviet warrior from soldier to marshal was ready to give all his strength and knowledge, and, if necessary, his life to fulfill the new order of the Motherland to liberate the enslaved peoples and the final defeat of the Nazi troops.

The greatness of the feat of the Soviet people and their army lies, first of all, in the fact that they stopped the fascist aggressors, destroyed their main military force and defended the world's first socialist state - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Because of this, the military aspect of the liberation mission became the main factor in ensuring the achievement of the final goal of the war. Only the complete defeat of the aggressor could bring freedom and independence to the peoples of the occupied countries.

The path to victory over fascism and liberation from its yoke of the peoples of Europe was not easy. At first, the Soviet Armed Forces, in heavy defensive battles, exhausted and stopped the aggressor and inflicted significant damage on him. The whole world learned that in the battle of Moscow, Hitler’s strategic concept of “blitzkrieg” collapsed and the myth of invincibility was dispelled fascist army. This accelerated the formation and consolidation of the anti-Hitler coalition, to the unity and strengthening of which the Soviet Union made a decisive contribution." It was the USSR that put forward its specific program, in which the allies’ indispensable obligation was to conduct a joint struggle for the freedom and independence of the enslaved peoples.

The crushing blows to the enemy inflicted by our troops at Stalingrad and Kursk Bulge, in the North Caucasus and in the battle for the Dnieper, completed a radical change in the Great Patriotic War and the entire Second World War in general in favor of the anti-Hitler coalition. The Soviet Army came to this period of the war as a formidable, powerful force, as a vivid embodiment of the power of the socialist state, as an army-liberator of enslaved peoples. The military skill and morale of the Soviet troops increased immeasurably. Lenin's prophetic words came true O that “the awareness by the masses of the goals and causes of the war is of enormous importance and ensures victory” (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 41, p. 121). All this created decisive preconditions for the Soviet people and their army to carry out their liberation mission.

The year 1944 was marked by new brilliant victories of the Soviet Armed Forces. The enemy was defeated near Leningrad, in Right Bank Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus, near Iasi and Chisinau, in the Baltic states and the Soviet Arctic. As a result of the rapid offensive of our troops in 1944, the entire Soviet land was cleared of the Nazi invaders.

For 1080 days and nights - from the beginning of the Great Patriotic War until the opening of a second front in Europe by the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition - the Soviet people, essentially alone, waged a titanic struggle against the main forces of Nazi Germany and its satellites. By grinding down the most combat-ready fascist divisions, the Soviet Army deprived the enemy of the main forces and means of waging war, and also forced his command to withdraw troops from other fronts, from occupied states and send them to the East. From 1941 to 1944, it transferred 212 divisions from Western European countries to the Soviet-German front.

All this greatly facilitated the combat operations of the American-British formations and allowed them to repel the offensive of the Italian-German troops in North Africa, carry out the landing of expeditionary forces in Western Europe, develop military operations in France and avoid serious defeat when repelling the Wehrmacht offensive in the Ardennes.

By transferring the most combat-ready divisions to the Soviet-German front, the Nazis were forced to weaken their garrisons in the occupied countries, which contributed to the deployment of armed struggle by the Resistance forces on a large scale, especially in France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Greece. “Where the German regiment was previously located,” noted M. Thorez, “a battalion or company was left; where the company was quartered; there is no one left except the Nazi patrols that appear from time to time.”

The peoples and armies of the USA, Great Britain, France, China and other states of the anti-Hitler coalition made an undoubted contribution to achieving victory in the Second World War. However, it was the Soviet Union that bore the brunt of the war on its shoulders and played a decisive role in the defeat of the main forces of the armies of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan. From June 1941 to mid-1944, 92-95 percent operated on the Soviet-German front. ground forces of Nazi Germany and its satellites, or 15-20 times more than on other fronts where US and British troops were located. Even after the landing of the American-British expeditionary forces in Northern France, the main group of German ground forces (comprising from 74 to 65 percent) continued to operate on the Soviet-German front and outnumbered those forces that opposed the American forces by 1.8-2.8 times. British and French troops in the European theater of operations.

During the war, the Soviet Armed Forces defeated and captured 507 divisions of Nazi Germany and 100 divisions of its European allies, and the Anglo-American forces - only 176. The total losses of the Nazis on the Soviet-German front amounted to 10 million (out of 13,600 thousand) people killed, wounded and prisoners. The damage to personnel inflicted on the Wehrmacht by the Soviet Army was four times greater than in the Western European and Mediterranean theaters of military operations combined, and in terms of the number of killed and wounded - six times. On the Soviet-German front, the main part was destroyed military equipment enemy - up to 75 percent. total losses of tanks and assault guns, over 75 percent. - aviation, 74 percent. - artillery pieces.

The heroic struggle of the Soviet people and their army instilled faith in victory in the consciousness of the peoples of the world and contributed to the strengthening of the anti-fascist national liberation movement, which moved from individual acts of resistance to partisan actions and armed uprisings. Under the leadership of their communist and workers' parties, the patriots of the countries enslaved by the Nazis rose up against the fascist invaders and inflicted tangible damage on them. Characteristic

in this regard, the appeal of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, with which it addressed its people on the day of the German attack on the Soviet Union. It said: “The blood of the heroic Soviet people is shed not only in the name of defending the country of socialism, but also in the name of the final social and national liberation of all working humanity. Therefore, this is also our struggle, and we must support it with all our might, not sparing our own.” lives."

Already on September 16, 1941, the Wehrmacht General Staff noted that with the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union, the Resistance movement intensified in all occupied countries.

“With their heroic defense of their homeland,” said former US Secretary of the Interior G. Ickes in July 1944, “the Russians not only proved to the whole world that Nazism could be defeated, but also inspired the struggle, ignited with courage those peoples of the United Nations who had long been are on the verge of despair. The myth of the invincibility of fascism was dispelled on the battlefields of Soviet Russia by the determined resilience of the people of Russia.

Names such as Stalingrad, Kharkov, Smolensk, Kyiv became a symbol of the unshakable courage and unbending will of the men and women of the United Nations, wherever they fought.”

An important area of ​​activity of the Soviet Union in carrying out the liberation mission during the Great Patriotic War was the formation and training of foreign military units and formations in the USSR, as well as assistance to the population of the occupied countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe.

On the basis of intergovernmental agreements and at the request of patriotic organizations of foreign countries during the war, with the help of the Soviet Union, 2 combined arms armies, 3 army, tank and air corps, 30 infantry, artillery and air divisions, 31 brigades and 182 regiments were created for various purposes, 9 military schools, 19 officer schools, courses and training centers, a large number of individual battalions, squadrons, divisions, air squadrons and other units of Polish, Czechoslovak, Yugoslav, Romanian, Hungarian and French formations. Their total number reached more than 555 thousand people.

Foreign units and formations formed on the territory of the USSR received the latest weapons and military equipment Soviet made. 16,502 guns and mortars, 1,124 tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, 2,346 aircraft, 900 thousand rifles, carbines and machine guns, 40,627 machine guns and many other military equipment and materials were transferred to their arsenal.

The Soviet command showed great concern for the combat and moral-political training of soldiers of foreign formations. For this purpose, over 20 thousand Soviet specialists were sent to formations and units of a number of states at the request of their governments, passing on to them the rich combat experience of the Soviet Armed Forces. Units and formations of foreign troops formed in the USSR, at the request of the personnel, as their training was completed, were sent to the front.

The baptism of fire for units and formations of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania was the first battles on the Soviet-German front of the 1st Czechoslovak Infantry Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel L. Svoboda in the Sokolow region (March 1943), the 1st Polish Infantry Division named after. T. Kosciuszko, General of the Brigade 3. Berling near Lenino (October 1943), as well as the 1st Romanian Volunteer Division named after. T. Vladimirescu Colonel N. Cambra, who took part in the final stage of the Iasi-Chisinau operation (August 1944). They were of great importance for the further rise of the national liberation movement of the peoples of Europe. In these battles the military commonwealth of the Soviet Army was born With by the people's armies of the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe.

During the liberation mission, the Soviet Union and its Armed Forces provided the population of foreign countries with food, medicine, industrial goods and raw materials, and helped in the restoration and establishment of war-torn economies. About 1 million tons of food were transferred from army reserves alone to the population of the liberated states. In the harshest days of the war, the Soviet people brotherly shared everything they could with the peoples of these countries.

The USSR also helped train partisan cadres to fight against the Nazis in countries they had previously occupied. At the Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement, at the request of the democratic forces, special groups of organizers were trained to penetrate behind enemy lines. During 1944 alone, about a hundred such groups with a total number of more than two thousand people were sent to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. They became the core of many partisan detachments and formations that inflicted significant blows on the occupiers. More than 40 thousand Soviet citizens fought against fascism in the ranks of patriots of foreign countries.

With the advance of Soviet troops to the west, especially after they entered the territory of a number of European states, many Soviet partisan formations joined the Resistance Movement. In the spring of 1944, 7 formations and 26 separate detachments were relocated to Poland, in which 12 thousand Soviet partisans operated. By the end of January 1945, 14 formations and 12 Soviet-Czechoslovak detachments with a total number of 7 thousand people were fighting in the Czech Republic and Moravia; more than 17 thousand Soviet partisans were fighting in Slovakia.

The Soviet Union's support for the patriotic forces of European countries enslaved by Hitler's Germany, the direct participation of Soviet people in the anti-fascist armed struggle outside the Motherland contributed to the expansion of the Resistance movement in Europe, making it an effective front in the fight against fascism, a school of civic duty and internationalism of the working people.

Among the measures taken by the Soviet government to protect the vital interests of the peoples subjected to Hitler's occupation or under the threat of their capture, an important place is occupied by the entry of units of the Soviet Army together With British troops to Iran in August 1941. As is known, before this, the territory of Iran was used by the Nazis in order to open here a new front of struggle against the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, primarily against the USSR. This not only threatened the Soviet Union, but also contradicted the vital interests of the Iranian people themselves. August 26, 1941 according to With According to the Soviet-Iranian Treaty of 1921, Soviet troops entered Iran as part of the rifle and cavalry corps of the Central Asian and Transcaucasian military districts. With this, the Soviet Armed Forces, for the first time in World War II, carried out a direct liberation mission against the people of a neighboring country, who were in danger of fascist enslavement.

On March 27, 1944, when Soviet troops entered the territory of Romania, the second period began in the fulfillment of their international duty. The Soviet Army immediately began to liberate the peoples of Europe from the oppression of the occupiers and complete the defeat of fascism. If in general political terms this task stood from the very beginning of the war, then in operational-strategic terms it was set during the planning of the summer-autumn campaign of the Soviet Army of 1944 and was clearly formulated in the May Day (1944) order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The Soviet troops were entrusted with: clearing our entire land from fascist invaders and restoring the state borders of the Soviet Union along the entire line, from the Black Sea to the Barents Sea; to rescue our brothers the Poles, Czechoslovaks and other peoples of Europe allied with us who were under the heel of Hitler’s Germany from German captivity. Our troops were supposed to withdraw the satellite countries of Nazi Germany from the war and help their people liberate themselves from fascist oppression.

To carry out these tasks, the Supreme Command Headquarters attracted most of the Soviet Armed Forces. For more than a year, over 7 million Soviet soldiers fought stubborn battles with the Nazis on the territory of European countries, about 1.5 million people fought in the war with Japan. 11 front-line formations, 2 air defense fronts, 4 fleets, 50 combined arms, 6 tank, 13 air armies, 3 air defense armies and 3 flotillas took part in the operations to liberate the peoples of Europe and Asia. 11 European and 2 Asian states with a population of about 200 million people were completely or partially liberated.

The foreign policy of the Soviet Union towards the liberated countries was carried out in strict accordance with Leninist principles, as evidenced by historical documents. Thus, in the Statement of the Soviet Government in connection with the entry of the Soviet Army into the territory of Romania, it was stated that “The Supreme High Command of the Red Army gave the order to the Soviet advancing units to pursue the enemy until his defeat and surrender. At the same time, the Soviet Government declares that it does not pursue the goal of acquiring any part of Romanian territory or changing the existing social system of Romania and that the entry of Soviet troops into Romania is dictated solely by military necessity and the continuing resistance of enemy troops.” Similar statements by official Soviet government and military bodies were made as the Soviet Army approached the brink citizens of other European countries. They especially emphasized the idea that the Soviet Army was entering the lands of foreign states not as a conqueror, but as a liberator of enslaved peoples from the oppression of the Nazi invaders.

Soviet troops entered the territories of foreign countries not against the will of their people, as bourgeois falsifiers of history claim, but on the basis of relevant intergovernmental agreements, true to their allied duty (as was the case in Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Norway and China), into the countries of the fascist bloc - in accordance with the international documents of the states of the anti-Hitler coalition, which provided for the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies, the elimination of the Nazi order and the liberation of the peoples of these countries from fascist oppression.

The Soviet Army in August - October 1944 carried out military operations to liberate Romania, and in September it carried out its liberation campaign to Bulgaria. In October, she carried out the Belgrade operation, providing assistance to the Yugoslav people in the struggle for the independence of their homeland. Having defeated Hitler’s troops in the Balkans together with formations of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia and the Bulgarian People’s Army, the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front forced the fascist German command to withdraw their Army Group “E” from Greece and Albania. In September 1944, the Soviet Army forced Finland to withdraw from the war, and in October liberated the northern regions of Norway. For six months she fought stubborn battles on the territory of Hungary, about 8 months in Czechoslovakia and almost 10 months in Poland. In early April 1945, Soviet troops liberated the eastern regions of Austria and its capital Vienna, and in early May the Danish island of Bornholm. In the Berlin and Prague operations, the defeat of the Wehrmacht was completed, which led to the complete elimination of the fascist “new order” and the liberation of all peoples, including German, from Nazi oppression.

True to its allied duty, the Soviet Union began military operations against militaristic Japan on the night of August 9, 1945. And again, the USSR set the political goal of this war to “bring the onset of peace closer, to free peoples from further sacrifices and suffering...”. As a result of the rapid advance of the Soviet Armed Forces by the end of August from the entire territory of Northeast China and North Korea The Japanese invaders were completely driven out.

The crushing defeat by the Soviet Army of the main forces of the states of the fascist-militarist bloc played a decisive role in the liberation of those countries where Soviet troops did not enter. The peoples of France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Burma, Indonesia and other states that experienced the horrors of the German and Japanese occupation remember this with gratitude.

Soviet soldiers carried high across the countries of Europe and Asia the battle flags of the liberating army, raised by the Communist Party in the spirit of internationalism and brotherhood with the working people of all nations. In the course of carrying out this noble mission, political agencies and party organizations of the Soviet Army helped soldiers, sergeants and officers assess from class positions the social role of various segments of the population of the liberated countries, and provide all possible assistance to progressive forces. Attention was paid to strict adherence to international law, respectful attitude towards national traditions and local customs.

The ideas of class solidarity and humanism allowed Soviet soldiers to rise above personal experiences, and for many of them, the tragedies that fascism brought them. Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov well showed the change in the mood of the soldiers that occurred in connection with the entry into enemy territory: “Honestly, when the war was going on, I was determined to repay in full all the fascists for their cruelty. But when, having defeated the enemy, our troops entered Germany, we restrained our anger. Our ideological convictions and international feelings did not allow us to give in to blind revenge." .

Fulfilling their international duty, Soviet soldiers showed massive heroism and dedication. Of the 11,603 people awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, more than 8 thousand received this title in 1944-1945.

Soviet soldiers paid a heavy price for the liberation of the peoples of foreign countries from fascism. The total losses of the Soviet Army during this mission exceeded 3 million people, of which over 600 thousand people died in battles on the territory of Poland, Czechoslovakia - more than 140 thousand, Romania - 69 thousand, Hungary - over 140 thousand, Austria - 26 thousand, Yugoslavia (only in the Belgrade operation) - more than 8 thousand, in Germany, in the Berlin operation - 102 thousand. The material costs were also high.

A feature of the liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces during the Second World War was that they acted hand in hand with the troops and patriotic forces of Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, at the final stage of the war - the Romanian, Bulgarian armies and Hungarian units, and in the defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army - with the warriors of fraternal Mongolia. The emergence of a military community of socialist countries and their armies is one of the most important results of the liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces.

The greatness of the international feat of the Soviet people and their Armed Forces also lies in the fact that they not only played a decisive role in the liberation of peoples from fascism, but also helped many of them consolidate the freedoms they had won, take their own destiny into their own hands, and take the path of democracy and socialism . Necessary at It should be emphasized here that the fabrications of the bourgeois falsifiers of the story about the “export of revolution” by the Soviet Army have no basis. Social transformations were carried out by the masses under the leadership of their communist and workers' parties V favorable internal and external conditions. “Revolutions,” V.I. Lenin pointed out, “are not made to order, are not timed to coincide with one moment or another, but mature in the process of historical development and erupt at a moment determined by a complex of a number of internal and external reasons” (Political collection. soch., vol. 36, p. 531). By the time Soviet troops entered European countries, revolutionary situations had developed there. There were objective and subjective factors: the political maturity and organization of the proletariat, the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist parties in the national liberation movement, the readiness of the masses for decisive action. Having passed through severe trials bourgeois-landlord regimes, war and occupation, the people longed for deep social changes. The Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, defeating the fascist occupiers and their accomplices, created favorable conditions for victory people's revolutions. The presence of Soviet troops fettered the forces of internal reaction and prevented them from unleashing civil war, deprived the imperialist powers of the opportunity to resort to military intervention.

The international feat of the Soviet Army brought it unfading glory. The peoples who got rid of the fascist yoke saw in the Soviet warrior a man of the new world, possessing high, noble moral qualities. Sincere gratitude to the soldiers of the Soviet Liberating Army is captured in historical documents and statements of government officials, in works of literature and art. Streets, squares, schools, enterprises in many foreign countries are named after them, monuments and obelisks were erected to them. Many Soviet soldiers were awarded foreign orders and medals and were elected honorary citizens of the cities of Isel.

An expression of gratitude to the Soviet people and their soldiers is that the dates national holidays a number of countries are directly connected with the liberation mission of the Soviet Army: July 22 - Day of National Revival of Poland, August 23 - Romania, September 9 - Bulgaria, April 4 - Hungary, May 8 - GDR, May 9 - Czechoslovakia.

The bourgeois military historical literature today talks a lot about the “liberation mission” of the armies of the United States and England. Their troops, as is known, at the final stage of the war entered the territory of France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Greece, and later Germany. However, their arrival in these countries was radically different in their socio-political character. from missions of the Soviet Army. The American and British occupation authorities used all kinds of measures to stop the development of the progressive socio-political process in Europe. Thus, in Greece, where the revolutionary wave rose especially high, the British troops who landed in the fall of 1944 carried out a bloody massacre of Greek patriots - fighters against fascism and, by force of arms, restored an anti-people, monarchical regime in the country. In Italy, the presence of numerous American and British troops created an obstacle to the growing revolutionary upsurge of the masses. After the landing of American-British troops in France in the summer of 1944, the Western powers tried in every possible way to disorganize the Resistance movement and put an end to it as quickly as possible. “...While the imperialist troops rob and oppress the population of the countries they occupy and hinder their development, Soviet officers and the soldiers provided us with fraternal assistance in cultural and economic construction,” noted G. Dimitrov.

Decisive The contribution of the USSR and its Armed Forces to the defeat of fascism and Japanese militarism, to the liberation of many peoples of Europe and Asia from the oppression of the occupiers contributed to the creation of favorable conditions for the formation of a world socialist system, a fundamental change in the balance of forces between two opposing socio-economic systems in favor of the forces of peace and socialism.

In the fire of the Second World War, thanks to the world-historical victories of the Soviet Union in Europe, anti-people regimes collapsed, especially Hitler's Reich - the main breeding ground for militarism, racism and ardent anti-communism. The anti-fascist liberation movement led by the working class and its vanguard - the communist and workers' parties - grew into a struggle against the very foundations of capitalism. Socialism has expanded its horizons far. In Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Albania, in Asia and Latin America- Vietnam, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, China, Cuba and Laos. The People's Republic of Kampuchea has now taken the course towards building a socialist society.

In Europe, the ruins were still smoking, and the ruling circles of the USA and Great Britain had already begun to develop plans hostile to the Soviet Union and the entire socialist community. The reactionary forces of imperialism, fearing the ideas of peace and socialism and their popularity among millions of ordinary people on the planet, launched a psychological war against the forces of peace and social progress. Just four years after the defeat of Nazi Germany, they united into the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO bloc) to prepare a new war against the USSR and the young socialist states.

Engaged in peaceful creative work, the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community, in an atmosphere of sharp aggravation of international tension in response to the creation of a military bloc by the imperialist powers and their strengthening of military preparations, were forced to take measures to further increase their defense capability and strengthen the combat power of their armed forces. On May 14, 1955, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was concluded in Warsaw. It embodied and further developed Lenin's ideas about the commonwealth and mutual assistance of socialist countries, about the consolidation of economic and military efforts to protect revolutionary gains.

The military community of socialist countries and their armies arose during the liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces in Europe. In the post-war period, it strengthened and expanded, and now forms the cornerstone of the Warsaw Pact Organization - a fundamentally new form of military-political collective cooperation and mutual assistance of the socialist states of Europe. The Warsaw Pact is a defensive military-political alliance that reliably protects the gains of socialism, the sovereignty and independence of fraternal countries, and is a stronghold of peace and social progress.

The successes of socialism and the loss of imperialism's ability to dominate undividedly and control the destinies of peoples with impunity aroused fierce resistance from world reaction. This is precisely where the underlying reasons lie for the current unprecedented scale of intensification of its militant circles, and above all the ruling elite of the United States. It was their reckless policies and adventurist actions that aggravated the international situation to extremely dangerous levels and increased the threat of nuclear war.

The openly pursued course to achieve military superiority of the United States over the USSR and the NATO bloc over the Warsaw Pact Organization has become especially dangerous due to attempts at its practical implementation and a sharp increase in military preparations. For these purposes, the military spending of the United States and its allies is unprecedentedly increasing, qualitatively new systems of nuclear and conventional weapons are being created, armed forces are being built up in various regions of the world, and plans for the militarization of outer space are being rapidly developed.

The military superiority that the imperialist states are strenuously striving to achieve is a unique indicator of their aggressive aspirations. As one of the lessons of the pre-war period testifies, the main culprits of the Second World War - Germany, Japan and their satellites - strived for it. Therefore, relying on the existing parity between two opposing social systems, the USSR and its allies advocate gradually limiting and reducing weapons, maintaining an equal balance of forces at any given moment, but at an increasingly lower level.

The Soviet Union and other member states of the Warsaw Pact are putting forward a detailed program of action designed to help overcome the division of Europe into military-political groupings, increase the degree of trust in relations between all European states, maintain detente in international affairs, and prevent military conflicts.

However, “as a result of the growing aggressiveness of imperialism,” emphasized the leader of our party and state, Chairman of the Defense Council, Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Comrade K.U. Chernenko, when he was awarded the Order of Lenin and the third gold medal “Hammer and Sickle”, a dangerous situation has been created in the world. It makes special demands on all of us, on all Soviet people: to work as never before, in an organized and selfless manner, to be constantly vigilant, to strengthen the country’s defense in every possible way, to do everything to weaken the military threat, to preserve peace.”

The armies of the Warsaw Pact member states have been guarding peace and socialism in a single battle formation for three decades now. The past years have clearly shown what an influential and beneficial role the Warsaw Treaty Organization plays in international affairs. The combined power of the allied countries invariably became an insurmountable barrier to the hegemonic aspirations of imperialism. Therefore, the immeasurable value in modern conditions have further strengthening of the Warsaw Treaty Organization, deepening economic, scientific and technical cooperation within the framework of CMEA, unity and coordination of the actions of our countries.

The Party and people place the highest responsibility for ensuring reliable security of the country on the Soviet Armed Forces. The personnel of the army and navy see their primary duty as fully maintaining the combat readiness of troops and forces at the proper level, in which units and ships can come out to defend the Motherland at any moment. Together with their brothers in arms - soldiers of the armies of the countries participating in the Warsaw Pact, the defenders of the Land of the Soviets stand vigilantly guarding peace.

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USSR in the fight against fascist aggression, 1933-1945. - M.: Nauka, 1976, p. 230-231.

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History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, vol. 5, book. 1. - M.: Politizdat, 1970, p. 567-569; 50 years of the USSR Armed Forces. - L1: Military Publishing House, 1968, p. 454.

History of the Second World War 1939-1945, vol. 12. - M.: Voenizdat, 1982, p. 35.

History of Yugoslavia, vol. 2. - M.: Acad. Sciences, 1963, p. 193.

The Soviet Union and the struggle of the peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe for freedom and independence 1941-1945. - M.: Nauka, 1978, p. 442.

USSR in the fight against fascist aggression, 1933-1945, p. 230-231.

Feat of the people. - M.: Nauka, 1981, p. 195.

USSR in the fight against fascist aggression, 1933-1945, p. 235.

The Soviet Union and the struggle of the peoples of Central and South-Eastern Europe for freedom and independence 1941 -1945, p. 444.

Military Historical Journal, 1976, No. 4, p. 6.

The liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Second World War. 2nd ed. - M.: Politizdat, 1974, p. 9.

History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, vol. 5, book. 1, p. 577.

Liberation mission of the Soviet Armed Forces in the Second World War, p. 455.

Foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War, vol. 2, p. 105.

Foreign policy of the Soviet Union during the Patriotic War, vol. 3, p. 363.

Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. - M.: APN, 1969, p. 727.

50 years of the USSR Armed Forces, p. 441, 468; History of the Second World War 1939-1945, vol. 12, p. 48, 49.

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Dimitrov G. Selected works, vol. 2. - Sofia: Literary Publishing House. to foreign lang., 1968, p. 601,

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Surrender of Germany

The offensive, launched in the winter of 1944 near Leningrad and Novgorod, continued continuously. The Red Army gave no respite to the enemy. From the end of December 1943 to mid-May 1944, our troops marched to the west over 1,000 km, defeated 99 enemy divisions and 2 brigades (of which 22 divisions and 1 brigade were destroyed). To Right Bank Ukraine - the main direction of the offensive - the Nazi command transferred 43 divisions and 4 brigades, of which 34 divisions and all brigades were from European countries and from Germany itself.

In the spring of 1944, Soviet troops reached the southwestern border of the USSR and transferred hostilities to the territory of Romania. The troops of generals F.I. Tolbukhin and A.I. Eremenko, together with the forces of the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla under the command of admirals F.S. Oktyabrsky and S.G. Gorshkov, liberated Crimea.

By this time, the Allies had prepared the landing of their troops in northern France. Operation Overlord is the largest strategic landing in history; a huge expeditionary force of 2 million 876 thousand people took part in it. Simultaneously with the Allied offensive in the west, in the summer of 1944, the largest offensive operations of the Red Army were launched. On June 10, the liberation of Karelia began, which led the Finnish government to the decision to withdraw from the war. Then came the main blow in Belarus and Western Ukraine.

The Belarusian operation (“Bagration”) is one of the largest in World War II. The offensive began suddenly for the enemy, who was waiting for him in the south. On June 23, after powerful air strikes and active actions of Belarusian partisans, Soviet troops penetrated the enemy’s defenses. Tank and mechanized groups rushed into the gaps formed. On July 3, Minsk was liberated, to the east of which 105 thousand German soldiers and officers remained encircled. In other “cauldrons” near Vitebsk and Bobruisk, another 30 thousand and 40 thousand, respectively, are surrounded.

Soviet troops developed a rapid offensive and reached the border of East Prussia to the Grodno-Bialystok line, and in the south to Brest. During the offensive in Belarus, the Lvov-Sandomierz operation began to liberate Western Ukraine.

The grandiose offensive of the Red Army strengthened the public demand in the United States and England to intensify actions in France. But the Allied offensive from the Normandy bridgehead began only on July 25, 5 days after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler. German troops tried to launch a counterattack, but were unsuccessful, and began to retreat. On August 15, the Allied landing also landed in the south of France, after which the Germans began an organized retreat along the entire Western Front. By August 25, the Allies captured the territory of France between the Seine and Loire. Throughout the country, Resistance fighters entered into battle with the occupiers. The armed struggle of the French people significantly helped the offensive of the Allied forces. The central element of the struggle was the successful Parisian armed uprising, led by the Communists.

The joint offensive of the anti-Hitler coalition troops accelerated the collapse of the Hitler bloc and intensified the struggle of anti-fascist forces in the countries of Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. In the countries occupied by Nazi Germany and the states allied with it, a sharp polarization of forces occurred during the war. The victories of the Soviet Union made socialism popular among the broad masses and strengthened the influence of communist parties. The entry of Soviet troops into the countries of Eastern and Central Europe revolutionized the liberation movement and provided support to socialist-oriented political forces.

In the countries of Eastern, Southern and Central Europe, the process of defeating Hitler's troops by the armed forces of the Soviet Union merged with liberating anti-fascist people's democratic uprisings and revolutions.

During the Iasi-Chisinau operation to liberate Moldova, an anti-fascist uprising began in Bucharest on August 23, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Romania and in agreement with the Romanian king. By August 29, the encircled enemy troops were defeated, and 208.6 thousand people were taken prisoner. By August 31, Soviet soldiers, together with Romanian formations and work detachments, liberated Ploesti, and then entered Bucharest, enthusiastically greeted by the residents.

During the liberation of Romania, Soviet troops reached the borders of Bulgaria, where by the summer of 1944 a communist-led guerrilla war had begun against the monarcho-fascist government, which had drawn Bulgaria into a bloc with Germany and provided its territory and resources for the fight against the USSR. In 1944, Bulgaria continued to actively help Germany. The new government of Bulgaria, formed on September 2, 1944, declared neutrality, but still left its territory at the disposal of the German fascists.

The advance of Soviet troops in Bulgaria dramatically changed the entire situation in southern Europe. Yugoslav partisans received direct assistance from the Red Army. In accordance with the agreement between the government of the USSR and the leadership of the liberation movement of Yugoslavia, Soviet troops, together with Yugoslav and Bulgarian units, carried out the Belgrade operation. Having defeated the German army group, they liberated Belgrade. The Yugoslav People's Army received a strong rear and military assistance for further struggle for the complete liberation of the country. In Albania, by the end of November, German troops were expelled by popular resistance forces, and there, too, a Provisional Democratic Government was formed.

Simultaneously with the offensive in the Balkans, the Red Army advanced into the Eastern Carpathians to help the Slovak partisans and the borders of Hungary. Overcoming fierce enemy resistance, Soviet soldiers liberated a third of Hungarian territory by the end of October and launched an offensive against Budapest. The Anti-Fascist Front of Hungary created the Insurgent Liberation Committee, which included several political parties led by the communist one. The liberated territory became the basis for the creation of people's power and the development of the people's democratic revolution in the country. In December, the Provisional National Assembly formed the Provisional Government, which declared war on Germany and began to reorganize the political and economic life of the country on a democratic basis.

In October, troops of the Karelian Front (General K. A. Meretskov) together with the forces of the Northern Fleet (Admiral A. G. Golovko) liberated the Soviet Arctic and part of Northern Norway. In the fire of the war against fascism, the foundations of the military commonwealth of the armed forces of the USSR and the new people's republics were formed. Particularly heavy fighting took place in Hungary during the Budapest operation, which began on October 29 and lasted until February 13, 1945 by the forces of the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts, the Danube Flotilla with the involvement of the 1st Bulgarian Army and the 3rd Yugoslav Army. A bloody defensive battle took place in the area of ​​Lake Balaton, where Soviet troops steadfastly withstood a powerful enemy tank attack.

On January 17, Warsaw was liberated, on January 19 - Lodz and Krakow, which the Nazis mined during the retreat, but Soviet intelligence officers managed to save the city. By the end of January - beginning of February, troops of the 1st Belorussian (Marshal Zhukov) and 1st Ukrainian (Marshal Konev) fronts reached the Oder, capturing large bridgeheads on its western bank. Troops of the 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts (Marshals Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky) together with the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (Admiral V.F. Tribune) led an offensive in East Prussia and Pomerania. In the south, Soviet troops advanced into Czechoslovakia and began the liberation of Budapest.

As a result of the offensive of the Soviet troops in the winter of 1945, Hitler’s army suffered a crushing defeat, and the imminent end of the war became a fact. On April 16, the Berlin War began strategic operation. Soviet troops broke through the enemy's deeply layered defenses and entered the suburbs of Berlin. On April 25, the encirclement of the Berlin group was completed. Along the entire Western and Italian fronts, the Allies accepted the partial surrender of Nazi troops (bypassing the signing of the act of unconditional surrender of Germany), quickly advancing through German territory. At the insistence of the Soviet government, on May 8, the act of unconditional surrender of Germany was signed by all allies. It was held in liberated Berlin under the chairmanship of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov. Only after the signing of the act did German troops in the east begin to lay down their arms everywhere. The last day of the war became the day of liberation of the fraternal Czechoslovak people. The Red Army fully fulfilled its international duty as a liberating army