Stalin. Part 18: On the eve of the invasion
The threat to peace from Germany grew and became apparent to everyone. Soviet diplomacy tirelessly attempted to persuade Western countries to negotiate a joint defense against Nazi Germany. Alas, at that time Stalin's attempts to create an anti-Hitler alliance came to naught..
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The threat to peace from Germany grew and became apparent to everyone. Soviet diplomacy tirelessly attempted to persuade the Western countries to negotiate a joint defense against Nazi Germany. Alas, the phenomenal slowness, growing into open sabotage of negotiations with the Soviet Union, Britain's attempts to "pacify" the aggressor (a consequence of the friendly anti-Soviet confrontation between Europe) nullified Stalin's attempts to create an anti-Hitler alliance. By allegedly agreeing to negotiations, the Western partners at the last moment seemed to vanish into thin air. Neither the Anschluss of Austria nor even the partition of Czechoslovakia sobered the Western "strategists"! They still hoped to outplay, outwit each other, and in fact, turn Hitler away from themselves.
Skin individualism, fear of the insidious Stalin and, above all, the prerogative of its own interests forced Europe to make antics and leaps around Hitler, threatening the sound madman with a finger, instead of joint efforts to tie the obsessed with world domination when it was still possible. Hitler himself was amazed at how easily, one after another, his crazy undertakings were realized. Winston Churchill, who can hardly be caught in sympathy for the Bolsheviks, described the policies of France and England at that time as completely failed, while Stalin, in his opinion, acted "coldly, calculatingly and highly realistic."
1. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
“Russian interests are more important than all others,” Stalin replied to Ribbentrop when asked what would happen to the 1936 treaty between the USSR and France. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed. It was only thanks to the non-aggression pact with Germany that Stalin got the opportunity to push the western borders of the USSR and gained additional time to prepare for the inevitable war. And let the world, having given Czechoslovakia and Poland to be torn apart by the Nazis, considered this treaty treacherous and immoral. Stalin had no time to think about morality when the question was about preserving the state.
Unexpectedly for the Germans, having moved troops into the "liberation campaign", the USSR regained the territories lost in the Polish campaign of 1920. The forced strengthening of the second industrial base began, backup enterprises were created in the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East. In 1939, the entire economy was already under arms. By this time, the creation of "sharashki" - closed special design bureaus (OKB), working for defense, belongs. The phenomenal experience of these design bureaus, which created optimal conditions for sound engineers for collective directional search, will be successfully transferred to the peacetime of space exploration.
Thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR signed non-aggression pacts with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Soviet military bases were located on the territory of these countries. Finland was offered a territorial exchange. The USSR rented the Finnish island of Hanko (during the war, the Soviet military base located on the island locked the Gulf of Finland), the Soviet-Finnish border, which ran 32 km from Leningrad, was moved to the north, in return Finland received vast territories in Karelia.
The Finnish war, "quiet" and not very successful for the USSR, was assessed positively by Stalin. It was a test of strength, showing the weak points of the army. The reorganization of the cadre began, the repressed commanders returned to the army, the principle of one-man command was strengthened, not only party members, but also “non-party Bolsheviks,” as Stalin called them, were nominated. The Finnish war also had one more positive aspect. Goebbels finally became firmly convinced that the Soviet army was "a community of subhumans." What this delusion led to, history has clearly shown.
2. Whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword
The USSR was preparing for war not only technically and personnel. There was a powerful rebuilding of the ideological pillars of the impending sound confrontation. The olfactory Stalin understood the inevitability of the death of Hitler's sick sound idea of conquering the world. To win in the lengths of time, it was necessary to create a counterbalance to the sick sound of the enemy - a pure and powerful sound, possible only in the conditions of the Russian urethral-muscular mentality. Stalin did a lot for this in the pre-war years, supervising culture. To consolidate the properties of the Russian mentality in the mental unconscious of the multinational Soviet people, Stalin turned to the Russian classics, to the heroic history of Russia.
In December 1938, Sergei Eisenstein's film Alexander Nevsky was released. "Whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword" - these words of the prince in the final scene sound prophetic. Stalin often resorted to biblical allusions [1]. This phrase, which immediately became winged, may belong to him.
On the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, Glinka's opera "A Life for the Tsar" was resumed; now it was named after the main character - "Ivan Susanin". It is interesting that Stalin proposed to shorten the scene of Ivan's mourning by his daughter and grandson: intense grief, but personal. "Glory, glory, great people!" must sound like an unconditional triumph of the victory of the whole over the particular. Stalin's other proposal concerned the finale of the opera. Instead of the model of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky, the winners themselves began to ride on real white horses on the Bolshoi stage, and the people threw the banners of the defeated gentry at their feet.
On June 24, 1945, this scene will be embodied on a different scale. The Victory Parade will be held on Red Square in Moscow. Soviet soldiers in white gloves disdainfully and contemptuously dump the standards of the defeated Reich at the mausoleum. The olfactory providence of the ruler was accepted by the people. For the embodiment of these "pictures from a common future" four long years of war were the continuous return of millions of short personal lives.
Using the Molotov-Ribbentrop postponement, the USSR was rapidly assimilating into new territories, building fortified defense lines, developing new types of weapons, including nuclear weapons. By 1941, 11 combat vehicles with 132-mm rockets were manufactured. They will become famous under the affectionate name "Katyusha".
3. One soldier in the field
And yet, despite the powerful sound breakthroughs of scientists and the selfless labor of millions of people, the general situation with the technical equipment of the Soviet army on the eve of the fascist invasion remained disappointing. For the pre-war moments stopped by the olfactory providence, the truly impossible was done. But even this was catastrophically small in comparison with the power of Hitlerite Germany, which was progressively and carefully built up under the conditions of the benevolent non-intervention of the Western countries.
On the political map of the world there was not a single ally of the USSR in the war against Hitler. Stalin had to resist fascism alone. The mind of the ruler of the USSR refused to believe that, contrary to logic and common sense, not giving a damn about mutual agreements, Hitler would unleash a war against our country, a war on two fronts. The olfactory psychic prompted that it would be so.
On May 5, 1941, Stalin spoke at a government reception in the Kremlin in front of graduates of military academies, young officers. The speech was usual for the format of government reception: the policy of the USSR is peaceful, we know our enemies, we are ready for provocations. A banquet followed. And here, in response to an offer to drink to Stalin's peace policy, to the leader and teacher of Comrade Stalin, Stalin suddenly offered a toast to … the war. He was pale, spoke incoherently, stammering slightly, with a suddenly intensified Georgian accent: “Germany wants to destroy our state. Germany wants to destroy our homeland, exterminate millions of people, and turn the survivors into slaves. Only a war with Nazi Germany and victory in this war can save us. He warned the soldiers of the impending danger. On the border of non-being, he drank to being.
Continue reading.
Previous parts:
Stalin. Part 1: Olfactory Providence over Holy Russia
Stalin. Part 2: Furious Koba
Stalin. Part 3: Unity of opposites
Stalin. Part 4: From Permafrost to April Theses
Stalin. Part 5: How Koba became Stalin
Stalin. Part 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Stalin. Part 7: Ranking or the Best Disaster Cure
Stalin. Part 8: Time to Collect Stones
Stalin. Part 9: USSR and Lenin's testament
Stalin. Part 10: Die for the Future or Live Now
Stalin. Part 11: Leaderless
Stalin. Part 12: We and They
Stalin. Part 13: From plow and torch to tractors and collective farms
Stalin. Part 14: Soviet Elite Mass Culture
Stalin. Part 15: The last decade before the war. Death of Hope
Stalin. Part 16: The last decade before the war. Underground temple
Stalin. Part 17: Beloved Leader of the Soviet People
Stalin. Part 19: War
Stalin. Part 20: By Martial Law
Stalin. Part 21: Stalingrad. Kill the German!
Stalin. Part 22: Political Race. Tehran-Yalta
Stalin. Part 23: Berlin is taken. What's next?
Stalin. Part 24: Under the Seal of Silence
Stalin. Part 25: After the War
Stalin. Part 26: The Last Five Year Plan
Stalin. Part 27: Be part of the whole
[1] “Then Jesus says to him: Return your sword to its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Gospel of Matthew, ch. 26, v. 52).
