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Файл:History XX–XXI centuries (Подготовка учителя-предметника к работе в системе дополнительного образования). Учебное пособие
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5. In the 1930s what % of Moscow's population were living in one
room shared between two or more households.
A. 5.8.
B. 75 %.
C. 25 %.
D. 6 %.
6. Due to the five year plans it is estimated that from 1928–1940
coal and iron industries' production roughly what?
A. NKVD.
B. proletariat.
C. doubled.
D. 6 %.
7. Due to the five year plans it is estimated that from 1928–1940
Russia achieved an annual growth rate in GDP of what %:
A. 25 %.
B. 75 %.
C. 5.8.
D. 6 %.
8. During Stalin's totalitarian rule there was a move towards
the cult of what?
A. NKVD.
B. proletariat.
C. doubled.
D. personality.
9. When did Stalin gain complete control over the Soviet Union?
A. 1930.
B. 1939.
C. 1928.
D. 1929.
10. Stalin's death …
A. 1936.
B. 1941.
C. 1941–1945.
D. 1953.
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Task 4. Check what statements are true and what are false (T/F):
1. Due to the five year plans it is estimated that from 1928–1940
Russia achieved an annual growth rate in GDP of what % → 6%.
2. When was Stalin's new constitution introduced? This meant that
the peoples of the USSR were meant to have more representation and
autonomy, but the new political structure was still dominated by the key
members of the Communist Party → 1936.
3. The aim of collectivization was to provided food for what rapidly
expanding class? → proletariat.
4. When did Stalin gain complete control over the Soviet Union → 1928.
5. When did the famine occur which is considered to be a result
of the harsh implementation of collectivization? → 1941–1945.
6. Stalin used show trials, purges and what secret police group during
the great terror → NKVD.
7. Collectivization lead to % fall in population in Kazakhstan
as peasants moved out of the region and into China → 75%.
8. In the 1930's living space had fallen from 8.5m2 to how many
meters squared per person → 5.8.
9. Stalin implemented an internal reconstruction programme and
devised strategies to deal with the Cold War → 1945–1953.
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Lecture 4. THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 1941–1945
On June 22, 1941 the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe attacked
the Soviet Union. 500,000 Russian soldiers were killed within the first
two weeks. Of the 170 Red Army divisions stationed near the Western
front, 20% ceased to exist, and 40% lost half their soldiers and
equipment. In only three months the German army had captured
Lithuania, Estonia, Belorussia, Moldavia, part of Greater Russia and
the Ukraine. By December 1941 the Wehrmacht had driven
an incredible 600 miles into the Soviet Union along an 800-mile front
and were within 20 miles of Moscow. The main reason for the impressive
German accomplishments was the almost total incompetence on the part
of the Soviet Union. The leadership that allowed a “surprise” attack they
knew was coming, allowed their military hardware to decay, and
destroyed the best leaders within the military. The incompetence was so
pervasive and the German military so adept at making gains against the
Red Army that there was no reason for Hitler, the German military, and
much of the world to think that the total defeat of the Soviet Union was
only weeks away.
By January of 1943 the war started to turn in favor of the Red Army
and in less than four years, the Russians were celebrating Victory Day
due to a vanquished Germany. The aforementioned facts beg the following
questions. How could an Army that had the tremendous tactical
advantage of surprise lose the advantage so soon? How could the Red
Army, after being decimated by the purges, repel an aggressor so close
to capturing their capital? What other assets, other than its military,
helped stave off the German war machine and save many of their key
cities? The biggest question is how did the Soviet Union go from
incompetence to total victory against Germany and the Nazi regime?
The leaders of the Soviet Union began the incompetence with
initially ignoring the growing threat from Germany as early as the mid
1920's. Hitler publicly stated his desire to destroy a Marxist / Communist
Soviet Union. In May of 1933, when Hitler was addressing a public rally
he declared: “Some 14 to 15 years ago I stated to the German nation that
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I saw my historical duty in destroying Marxism. Since then I have
consistently repeated those words. They are not empty words but
a sacred oath which I will carry out until I give up the ghost.” The war
could be seen as two diametrically opposed ideologies, Fascism and
Communism, which eventually would clash on the world stage
in spectacular fashion. This conflict and threat from Fascism was predicted
as early as 1923 by Georgy Chicherin, then the people's commissar for
foreign affairs, noted: “A fascist triumph in Germany could be the first
step in a crusade against us.” Hitler also publicly voiced his two other
driving concerns (apart from anticommunism): race and space.
The Nazi party and Hitler had open contempt for the Slavs. Hitler
lumped them into the same category as the Jews: an inferior race and
equated bolshevism with Zionism. He boasted of them being “vermin”
and “subhuman” who were intended to serve the Aryan master race.
The Nazi's and Hitler had long looked eastward to find “lebensraum”,
living space, for the German people. “If we speak of new land in Europe
today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border
states”, he wrote in Mein Kampf. “Her fate itself seems desirous
of giving us a sign”.
The facts listed above indicate that from the mid 1930's to the end
of the decade, the Soviet Union was incompetent in relying solely
on diplomatic means to protect them from the threat that they suddenly
realized from a growingly aggressive Germany. They made almost no
effort before 1937 to build-up their military and defense industry that
could be used to augment their diplomatic efforts. The geopolitics of the
region, at that time, and perceived dangers from his neighbors in Europe
made Stalin suspicious of all imperialist powers and drove his desperate
search for security. Since the early l 930's Russia called for, at various
international conferences, agreements that would have stopped Hitler
's
plans. These proposals ranged from complete and total disarmament
(1932) to the creation of a system of collective security to eradicate
the threat of a new World War (1938). Russia saw many problems
to their existence, but the main two were the leading capitalists of the
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time – Great Britain, and the rise of a fascist Germany that was being
appeased by the west. This appeasement began in 1935; Germany
introduced conscription and announced the creation of the Luftwaffe,
both in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. The West did nothing.
That same year Great Britain signed a sea treaty with Germany,
allowing the Germans a navy – another violation. In 1936, Mussolini
invaded Abyssinia and Germany occupied the Rhineland. The West did
nothing. Why did the West do nothing and why did this disturb Russia?
The answer can be found in a statement by Lord Halifax after a meeting
with Hitler at Obersalzberg in 1937: “I and other members of the British
government fully realize that the Fuhrer has achieved much not only for
Germany itself but, as the result of having destroyed communism in his
country, he has barred the latter from Western Europe. And Germany
may therefore rightfully be considered the West's bastion against
Bolshevism.” Stalin was starting to understand that the Western idea
of appeasement included tacit support for a German strike eastward
toward the world's only socialist state. It explains why Hitler was
allowed to take Austria and why most of Europe sold out
Czechoslovakia with regard to the Sudetenland.
The culmination of the Western Powers turning a deaf ear to Soviet
proposals that would have allowed it to protect itself and a policy of full
appeasement towards Hitler drove Stalin to accept the non-aggression
pact with Germany. The combination of French and British appeasement,
U.S. isolationism, and ignoring Soviet proposals had the effect of leaving
the leadership of the anti-Nazi struggle to the USSR by default, and they
knew it. Stalin certainly did not help matters when he prohibited
precautionary measures directed towards a more defensive disposition
of the Soviet troops that could not have provoked Hitler. Not even
the mobilization of reserves was allowed to be stored farther to the rear.
All suggestions of this kind were condemned as signs of mistrust
in the capability of the Red Army.
With the knowledge of a coming confrontation with Germany, it was
unwise to wait to strengthen the Red Army. It was reprehensible
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to cripple the Red Army by purging its officer corp. An estimated
40,000 officers underwent repression during 1937/38 and another 40,000
for the years 1939–1941. About 90% of the generals and 80% of the
colonels suffered repression, most of them shot. The repression did not
end with the war's beginning. In 1941, for instance, during the battle for
Moscow, numerous high-ranking officers – 300 according to Marshal
Zhukov – were shot after having been imprisoned since before the war.
The Red Army had enormous problems in supplying its units with
qualified officers, essentially decapitating it. The purges not only
decimated the experience of the officer corps, but it silenced most, if not
all, of its forward-thinking strategists.
One of these was Marshal of the Soviet Union M.N. Tukhachevsky,
First Deputy Commissar for Defense, Chief of Red Army Ordnance and
potential commander-in-chief in the event of war. In the winter of 1935
Tukhachevsky proposed a special war game to the general staff, with
the intention to investigate the situation arising out of a German attack
on the Soviet Union. He wrote numerous papers to Marshal Voroshilov,
Defense Commissar of the Soviet Union, detailing serious strategic
problems of the Soviet Union only to have his war game neutered.
Voroshilov would not allow the German side of the war game to have
a qualitative advantage or surprise attack. This, as history has shown,
was precisely what happened six years later.
Tukhachevsky stated that Germany's preparations for war made it
imperative that the defense of the Soviet western frontiers be undertaken
in all seriousness and it was clear that the "classic" form of entry into
war with phases of concentration was a thing of the past. War could
begin with large-scale operations with sudden, surprise initiation,
conducted by the belligerents on land, at sea and air. It followed that
an enemy could forestall the Russians and strike first. Tukhachevsky,
along with many other Russian military visionaries were shot during
1937 to 1939. This partially fostered the errant Soviet military doctrine
that never envisioned fighting on the defensive for very long against
an aggressor, but instead anticipated quickly blunting the enemy attack
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and then rapidly moving to offensive warfare in order to carry the battle
onto enemy territory. They could not see, as Tukhachevsky and others
did, that modem warfare would not be like WWI with trench warfare.
They could not foresee that modern opponents would have the ability
to maneuver at high speed and rapidly capture large amounts of territory.
Another indicator of Russian ineptness was how they let their machines
of warfare become outmoded and useless for modern warfare. Although
the Russian military had a 5 to 1 advantage in planes and tanks, most
were WWI era obsolete death traps for the brave crews that manned them.
The German military also had its share of problems and failures that
contributed to the Wehrmacht going from the offensive to the defensive.
The German high command took the Red Army too lightly. They
thought that the Soviet Union would capitulate in a matter of weeks, thus
not properly providing their soldiers with proper winter equipment when
they attacked in June of 1941. In the middle of November, the temperature
dropped sharply, and the ground froze. The Germans were delighted –
at last the Panzer tanks could move again. But soon they realized just
how cold it would become and how ill equipped they were for the
Russian winter. The soldiers had not been issued with cold weather
clothing because Hitler insisted that the Wehrmacht would be
in Moscow before the cold weather set in. During the next few days
the barometer continued to drop. At 20 degrees below freezing, German
vehicles and artillery could no longer function. By the end of November,
the Russian climate was killing more Germans than the artillery
of the Red Army. The error of taking the Red Army too lightly further
compounded the German military's problems in two other areas: men
and equipment. First, by becoming stalled and kept from a quick victory
the same German troops had to continue to fight on the frozen eastern
front without proper supplies against a continuous stream of fresh
Russian troops from Siberia. Secondly, unable to strike Soviet factories
in the east due to being bogged down with the Red Army, the German
war machine was eventually out produced by the Soviet Union in terms
of armament.
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The turn from incompetence to competence, and eventually how
the Red Army repelled the Wehrmacht, seemed too many to start
in December of 1941 with the Russian counter-offensive at Moscow.
In reality, the actual turn towards competency started around
the beginning of 1940. Russia started to transform its workforce, step
by step, into a mobilized working army by restricting the freedom
of movement of workers and other measures. Eventually, workers could
no longer leave work freely and could be transferred to other jobs
without their consent. The workday was extended from seven to eight
hours and the workweek from five days to six days. They were turning
the relationship at the place of work into a military one.
At the same time the Red Army started to grow in response
to the growing threat from Germany. Its size almost quadrupled from
1.1 to 4.2 million soldiers between 1937 and 1941. Consequently,
the armaments production had to be increased, and reached its peak
in 1941. Even more important was the fact that the Soviet Union
armament production had been partially transferred to the eastern
regions and many farm-producing factories were changed to armament
producing ones in order to equip the newly formed mechanized corps.
The competency continued after the start of the war with the Council for
Evacuation, which was formed to organize the removal of industrial
plants away from the fighting.
The evacuation began within days of the invasion; dozens of factories
in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belorussia, the Baltic Republics and
Moldavia were evacuated under fire. Other industries were converted for
wartime purposes. The Gorky Automobile Plant concentrated
on the production of tank engines, and a vast Volga-Urals combine for
mass-producing tanks was established. One factory, evacuated on 9th
August, was relocated in the Urals on the 6th September and was in full
production again by 24th September. From Kiev alone 197 major
industrial plants were evacuated in just two months. Altogether, between
July and November 1941, 1,523 industrial enterprises, including 1,360
large armament plants, were moved to the east.
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Despite the extraordinary difficulties it faced, the achievements
of the Soviet industry during the war were remarkable. Up until 1943 it
was still recovering from the evacuation, but thereafter tank production
was phenomenal. In that year they produced eight and a half times more
tanks than in 1940 and nearly four times more than in 1941. The output
of aircraft increased by 37 percent from 1942 to 1943. Between 1942
and 1945 the Soviet Union produced about 100000 tanks, 120000
airplanes, 36000 guns, over 1200000 machine guns, 6000000 Tommy
guns, some 700000000 shells and some 20 billion cartridges. From
the end of 1941, the USA and Great Britain sent weapons, planes and
tanks to help the war effort. This equipment amounted to 4 percent
of the Soviet total. It is clear to see, now, that a key reason for
the reversal of fortunes for the Red Army was the Soviet Union ability
to out produce Germany and its war industry.
During the second half of 1941, despite all handicaps, the Soviet
Union was able to produce more tanks than Germany in all of 1941.
This became apparent to German field generals in November of 1941
at the battle of Rostov near the Don River; during a Russian counterattack they realized that they did not have enough men and tanks and
ammunition to hold a front sixty miles long.
A second key reason for the ability of the Red Army to begin
to prevail against the German invaders was a vast superiority in the supply
of troops. Both sides started the conflict with roughly the same number
of troops near the front line, but after the disastrous start in June
in which nearly three million Russian soldiers fell into German
captivity, the Germans had an extreme advantage. But, the Soviet Union
was able to get new recruits to the front before their lines fell.
What turned the tide in was the movement of troops from the Soviet
Far East. For ten years, the strength of the Far Eastern forces had been
steadily built up to be able to repel the Imperial Japanese Army if
needed. Their strength had reached some 30 divisions, three cavalry
brigades, 16 tank brigades, and over 2,000 tanks and aircraft. All were
considered front line troops. Stalin began to move these assets
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in October. The effect of this move was felt in December with the first
Soviet counter-attack south of Moscow.
A young German second lieutenant expressed the common frustration
in a letter to his mother in Hamburg: "These Russians seem to have
an inexhaustible supply of men. Here they unload fresh troops from Siberia
every day; they bring up fresh guns and lay mines all over the place.
We attack, but then need to retreat. We needed only another eight miles
to get the capital within gun range-but we just could not make it.
As the Russian divisions were getting stronger with a constant supply
of fresh troops; the stalled German divisions were being sapped of their
strength by inadequate supplies, the weather, and Russian soldiers.
The main reason for the Soviet Union ability to go from
incompetence to victory was its citizens. The largest factor in the Soviet
Union, being initially decimated, not sustain larger loses than they had
was due to the average Russian citizen helping the Red Army buy time
to regroup and eventually triumph. The evidence of this lies
in Leningrad, Stalingrad, Moscow and the other besieged cities
of the Soviet Union. The Russian citizen was one of Russia's most
powerful weapons because of their convictions, they believed in their
country. They were the first to stop the German military machine.
Normal citizens stopped their lives to take up arms, work in factory's,
dig and erect defense's, and performed many other services that were
course and bitter work, but needed to be done.
Therein lay the answers to how Leningrad was able to resist nine
hundred days of siege and why the people Leningrad, in spite
of the shelling and bombing, the cold and the starvation, refused
to break and turn into some sort of demoralized subhuman mob.
On the contrary, they continued to read and write poetry, to compose
and listen to music, and to perform their daily acts of heroism. Therein
lay the answer to why, when Stalingrad was in fact in enemy hands,
when endless shelling and bombing turned the city into pure hell, when
by all human logic the city could not be saved, it was not taken.
The desire to help was almost universal. The new open churches
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