In June 1942, the human resources of the USSR, the large European part of which is in the zone of occupation, and Germany (especially the Axis countries) are equalized. Three of the four main industrial regions are captured. Almost the entire personnel Stalin army – 4 million military, in captivity.
What in such conditions can be at least a tiny, barely noticeable, but correct step to an apparent unthinkable victory?
…In 1931—32, the country was hit by a famine. They are affected by the Holodomor, first of all, Ukraine, the North Caucasus (Kuban), the Volga region. There was no drought. Some put forward such exotic versions as plant diseases – the so-called. rust, and even ergot. The harvest of 1932 was only 40% of the norm – this is a fact. Another version; in central Russia it was historically taken to plow on horses, and in Ukraine, and, generally, in the south, for this purpose, oxen were used. During the collectivization of 1930—31, almost all the personal livestock had to be given to the collective farm. Not wishing that their property was used by some strangers, in many respects hoping for «maybe», peasants pinched and ate their draft power. With horses, it was not customary to do this, both for ethical and nutritional reasons. Some fields in the south of the USSR remained unsown. The tractor purchased in America often had a number of difficult removable flaws. But the central authorities firmly demanded the fulfillment of the plan for grain procurement. Since the beginning of the thirties, grain has been ordered, under pain of severe punishment, to be stored in collective-farm elevators, where it can easily be confiscated for state needs. The volunteers of the new power, the pioneers, looked for someone who hid the «food surpluses», did not they plant potatoes in forest glades, looked around the fields from the towers-suddenly irresponsible persons gather grain spikes?
According to the resolution of the CEC «On the protection of the property of state-owned enterprises… and the strengthening of socialist property» as a «measure of judicial repression for the theft of collective-farm property – execution with confiscation of all property and with replacement under mitigating circumstances with imprisonment for a term not less than 10 years, with confiscation». Amnesty for the «law on the three spikelets» is not provided.
If the tax did not hand over one village, it was recorded in the black list of debtors, and its arrears were shifted to another. The accumulated burden fell on more or less prosperous farms, and simply crushed them with their own weight. Stalin believed that Ukrainian villages «drive the Italian», that is, the Italian strike, when people agree to work only when all formal rules are implemented – which, in reality, is simply impossible. Dzhugashvili fell into a raging anger when he learned, for example, that in the Dnipropetrovsk region collective farms were allowed to leave grain for sowing, even to fill in the insurance fund, demanding to punish the «cheaters of the party» as cruelly as possible. After three years of collectivization, the psyche of the southern peasants broke down, there was persistent indifference to work, threats, promises, and sometimes even their own lives. Collecting arrears government sent usually Jewish commissars, which did not contribute to the popularity of persons of this nationality in rural areas. Ukraine cordoned off from central Russia cordons of the NKVD with machine guns. People trying to escape in the less affected areas of the USSR, for the most part, had to return to their place of permanent residence. Identification of «outsiders» in the cities of the country was facilitated by the system of Soviet passports introduced with December 1932 with a residence permit, actually reviving serfdom.
In Kazakhstan, Stalin’s protege, Isai Isaevich Goloshchekin decided, simply, so, for the convenience of centralized power, to transfer the local population from semi-nomadic to a settled way of life. As a result, the mass mortality of livestock, which is the main source of nutrition, began; One and a half million Kazakhs and exiles died from the «Holoschekin» famine.
In central Russia, 380,000 families were dekulakized, a total of 1.8 million, of whom 90,000 died on the road, 300,000 from malnutrition and disease in places of exile. But, the habit of being a community, a «peace», worked out even under the tsars, helped the general mass of peasants survive even on collective farms.
You can always buy food for gold, currency, valuable property, antiques in Torgsin, (trade-with-foreigners); this system extorted from the population family heirlooms in an amount sufficient for the implementation of the «great construction projects», payment of contracts to American firms (basically, exercising technical control over the construction of industrial enterprises), but it hardly increased the level of sympathy of the population to the existing system.
The harvest of 1933 was good. However, two years later, with the murder of Kirov, which has popular popularity, which in many ways restrains the will of the Secretary, a new wave of repression is rising. The 17th Congress of Winners held in 1934, voted to remove the «leader of the peoples» from office (in particular, for wanting to condemn Bukharin, Rykov and other representatives of the «old guard»), but Dzhugashvili himself managed to count the votes. It is open to accusations against a person who turned the Soviets into a terrible parody of themselves, no one dares, besides, Soviet systemists have their own sins. Of the 1956 delegates 1108 do not survive the next three years, as well as 97 of the 139 elected members and candidates for the Central Committee of the party at the congress. This time Moloch devours the intelligentsia, leaders – civilians and military. In 1937—38, three of the five marshals of the USSR were shot by three, then: of the 5 commanders of the 1st rank – 3, 10 commanders of the 2nd rank – 10, 67 commanding corps – 57, 199 commanders – 125, 397 brigade brigade commanders – 200. In addition, only about 10,500 officers of different ranks, who were ever promoted to the posts by the above-mentioned commanders, were killed and buried, thousands were dismissed or convicted in other articles. The senior officer is the person who says – and people go and do it. To do this, we need increased energy from birth, or cultivated for decades. A commander can not simply be replaced by a graduate of a military school, which, perhaps, knows the theory, but has not yet accumulated a specific internal strength.
…The army, and the whole country, has become a trembling creature, avoiding any manifestation of initiative. In total, directly from hunger and terror, from 1932 to 1941 (in peacetime) killed 8.5 million people. Different scientists give different numbers, and I’m not a historian; the number is the mean between the extreme values, and it most corresponds to my inner sensations.
What in such conditions could induce people to continue (or, rather, all the same, the beginning) struggle?
…Stories of eyewitnesses of the German occupation. Yes, sometimes they are organized by commissars, but, what these people say is true, and not ordinary Soviet propaganda. There is definitely something implausible that is clear: those who go here are even worse, even worse than «their own». They intend to kill everyone.
You can now recall the current series «The Game of Thrones». To rephrase: «The Army of the Dead is coming from the West, and they do not accept any negotiations. We must fight together, despite the differences».
The Battle of Stalingrad
On July 17, 1942, the first fighting clashes began at Stalingrad. The correlation of forces is not in favor of the Red Army: 187,000 people, 300 tanks, 500 aircraft against 270,000 soldiers and officers, 400 tanks, and 1,200 aircraft. On Aug. 23, Richthofen’s air fleet drops 2000 tons of bombs on the city, turning it into a heap of debris that is practically unsuitable for the movement of tanks. This is the beginning of the destruction, including 300,000 civilians, including refugees from Leningrad, who, on the orders of Stalin, or, in general, in the spirit of the times, were refused timely evacuation. The maneuver war turns into a positional one. This is the first battle in which German soldiers admit they see more corpses of their «genossa» on the streets than an enemy soldier. By November the Wehrmacht lost 700,000 people, the Red Army 644,000.
For incomprehensible