The silhouettes of 15 tanks, 15 ultra-modern vehicles were barely visible in the predawn twilight. Behind there was a night march, and in front … in front - the line of defense of the Nazis. What awaits the Soviet tank company there? For her, 26 kilometers of march was a trifle, but as an infantry, weren't people exhausted? Will they lag behind the tanks? Is the intelligence information accurate? Did the Nazis manage to equip firing points on the captured line? In a few hours everything will become clear.
It's time. The motors roared. Captain Armand's tanks rushed forward.
Paul Matissovich Armand was not French. He was originally from Latvia, but as a teenager he lived for several years in France, and received his first identity card there, hence the unusual name. Before the war, he was the commander of a tank battalion near Bobruisk.
The Nazis did not have anti-tank weapons, only machine-gun bursts rained down on the armor like peas. "The machine gun is the worst enemy of the infantry," - so it is written in the manual, and the tankers combed the seen firing points with fire and caterpillars. The infantry still lagged behind. It is impossible to delay, they will spot and cover with aviation or artillery. Retreat? Captain Armand was quick in his decisions. On the command tank flags flashed: "Do as I do" - and the tanks rushed forward. Here are the outskirts of the town. Nobody is waiting for a raid of Soviet tanks, and according to intelligence there are no fascists in the town. Tanks rush with open hatches, in the lead vehicle - Armand.
Suddenly an Italian officer runs out from around the corner, waving his arms, shouting something. “I took it for my own,” Arman realized. Tank hatches slammed shut. The fascist motorized infantry battalion was out of luck. Wheels roll along the pavement, wreckage of trucks fly, surviving soldiers hide behind stone fences. But the fleeing fascists quickly came to their senses, bottles of gasoline were flying, and the surviving guns were being dragged onto the roofs of houses. The commander knows very well that one cannot fight with armored vehicles in the city, they will immediately burn them. New solution - let's move on. Tanks rush through the town, sweeping away two artillery batteries on the outskirts.
And here are the Italian tanks. A short duel - and three "Italians" burn, the other five retreated. Their shooting did not damage our tanks.
It is risky to act further behind enemy lines, and the ammunition load is running out. The company again penetrates the front line, now in the opposite direction.
The infantry did not break through the Nazi defenses in a day. After the tanks left, the surviving machine guns came to life, enemy aircraft flew in … The battle was unsuccessful. And although Armand has something to be proud of … what to report to the commander?
But brigade commander Krivoshein is not upset. It's not all bad. The tanks are intact, the losses are small, and most importantly, the offensive of the fascists has been stopped. And Colonel Voronov reported that there was a success in the auxiliary direction. Two junction railway stations are occupied.
Bright stars shine in the anthracite-black sky. A seriously wounded tower gunner died - he got out to cut telephone wires. Iron clangs, shadows from portable lamps dart about - these are technicians fiddling with tanks.
The day ends on October 29, 1936.
Yes Yes. This is not a typo. Time of action - October 1936, place - the town of Seseña, southwest of Madrid. Today this name does not tell us anything, but then it was very important.
How many times did World War II start?
We live in a strange time. People who realize Hitler's most cherished dreams are rewarding each other with a medal "for the fight against fascism." They would have specified - "for the fight together with fascism."But this is by the way.
In the European tradition, the German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 is considered to be the beginning of World War II. The Chinese (remember, this is not just a nation, one of many, it is a quarter of humanity) consider the so-called "incident on the Lugouqiao bridge" on July 7, 1937, the beginning of Japan's open aggression against China, to be the beginning of the war. Why not? Japan signed a surrender in World War II and before China, including, there was no separate surrender, which means there was no separate war.
The Americans, on the other hand, almost officially consider the beginning of World War Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) - and indeed, only from that moment, in their understanding, the European and Asian wars merged into the global one. This position also has its own reason.
But in order to determine the exact date of the start of the war, you need to understand who led it and why.
Who fought?
What was the meaning of that war? Why in one coalition there were often very different peoples, why one country acted as a predator, then a victim, then a fighter for justice in such an uncompromising clash? In an uncompromising - in the direct sense of the word. Not many wars end with the complete destruction of the military-economic potential and the military-political elite of one of the parties.
I do not want to give lengthy explanations, here they are not the place and not the time. But for me it is obvious - after all, it was a clash of two ideologies. And the ideologies are extremely simple. First, humans are created equal. Second, humans are not created equal. From the second ideology comes an undeniable consequence - that since people are not equal, then they can be higher or lower simply by birthright, and the higher ones can solve their problems at the expense of the lower ones.
Let the dear reader guess who were the main carriers of the first and second ideologies.
The complexity of the situation lies in the fact that people often do not realize what kind of ideology they profess. Thus, the founding fathers of the United States, having written down beautiful words about the equality of people in the Constitution, were themselves slave owners. After all, Negroes, in their understanding, were not quite human! Therefore, some countries did not immediately decide which camp they were in.
What is called the "anti-Hitler coalition" was an extremely diverse company. Many took part in it, frankly, not immediately and under the influence of a "roast cock", then of strong powers, or even "getting in the face" for supporting Hitler, such as Romania. Some, being ideologically close to Hitler and even taking part in some of his actions (like pre-war Poland), then for some reason ended up in the category of "inferior". And only one state - the USSR - fought against the fascist bloc practically from the moment of its formation until its complete defeat, for almost nine years.
The "fascist" bloc was very definite. First of all, because he had a completely definite ideological basis. And any nationalist group in any country was its natural ally, if only it considered its nation "superior" and if this nation was not "superfluous" in the geopolitical deck of the ANTI-COMMINTERNOVSKY PACT. The name "fascist" is not an entirely accurate ideological label. Captured Germans, for example, were sincerely surprised when they were called fascists. The self-name of this organization, the war with which has flooded entire continents with fire and blood, reflects its essence. And the essence was a struggle not even against the Comintern, but against a community of people who do not pay attention to nationality.
Nationalism is not always a bad thing. If a country is oppressed in one form or another by other countries or foreign organizations, then the liberation movement is often called and is nationalist. Sage Sun Yat-sen considered nationalism to be the only remedy capable of awakening China from the narcotic sleep into which the Western powers, mainly England, plunged it, and in many ways he was right.
And internationalism is different. The ruling circles of the West were not then nationally blinkered - capital has no nationality. But their internationalism is called cosmopolitanism, I will not explain the difference.
Therefore, the content of that stage of world history, which is called World War II, is the confrontation not between two imperialist groups, as in the First World War, but the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and the bloc of Germany, Italy and Japan, on the other, as the most complete exponents of both ideologies. Then, at different stages of its struggle, the nationalists of the suppressed and destroyed nations and the cosmopolitans who came to their senses joined the Soviet Union.
Therefore, the beginning of World War II is more correct to consider the first clash of regular units of the main belligerents, or the corresponding statement of at least one of them. So when did the direct military clash between the Union and the powers of the Anti-Comintern Pact (at first it was called the "Berlin-Rome axis"), that is, the actual start of the war?
Why didn't we celebrate the anniversary?
The author is not a professional historian. The article was conceived a long time ago for the 70th anniversary of this event, but the anniversary passed unnoticed. The literature I needed fell into my hands too late, and it turned out to be not easy to read it.
Here's an example: the combat description given at the beginning of this article. In the newspapers of that time and in later memoirs, this battle was reported, but the Soviet tank company was called Spanish or Republican. Although the name of the commander could be printed - why not a foreigner?
The level of conspiracy was such that in the memoirs of the famous air battles on November 4, 1936, published many years after these events, Soviet pilots
the fighters remember that they helped the "republican" bombers who were in a difficult situation, and the navigator of one of these bombers Kuzma Demenchuk speaks warmly of the "government" fighters that came to the rescue of his link.
So why did Italian divisions and German air squadrons fight openly, while Soviet battalions and squadrons pretended to be Spaniards, or even - God forbid - mercenaries? The reason is in the prostitution position of Western countries. Following the well-known tactics of street punks, they "separated" the warring parties, grabbing only one of them by the hand. The legitimate, democratically elected government of Spain was officially put on a par with the putschists, and was deprived of the right to purchase weapons and to help friends. This was kept vigilantly by the "non-intervention committee" headed by Lord Plymouth (not to be confused with Lord Owen's "commission on Bosnia").
Fighting for the survival of the world community, we broke the "laws" imposed by this community.
True, thanks to the hypocrisy inherent in the West, it was possible, simply by "observing decency", to look somewhat better in its eyes. Therefore, Voronov became a Frenchman Voltaire, Rychagov - Palankar, Osadchy - Simon, and Tarkhov - captain Antonio.
The hardest time in the defense of Madrid was the beginning of November 1936. The government of the republic and the military command were evacuated from the capital at the insistent demands of Gorev and Meretskov. The chief of the operational department of the front headquarters with his officers went over to the enemy. 21 thousand Madrid communists (out of 25) held the front. Captain Armand gloomily reported to the Defense Council: "Republican tanks heroically burst into their native Madrid"
At that time, Comrade Xanthi was quite famous in Madrid. Without occupying an official post, he organizes workers' detachments, prepares for an underground war. He is in the hottest areas, Durruti himself asks him to be careful. But who Xanthi is is a separate topic, and I mention him in connection with his remark about secrecy: “… the fascists know that we blew it up. From whom, then, is the secret? And the Spaniards and ours for some reason consider it necessary to keep silent about such things. Well, the fascists, of course, are silent - why should they confess?"
Unfortunately, this has been the case since that time. At first everything was secret, but now there are almost no eyewitnesses, and almost no memoirs.
Why did we go to war
Don't think that the Soviet Union was going to win the civil war instead of the Spaniards. If it were just a civil war, the Soviet Union could have limited itself to sending advisers, as was the case in China in the late 1920s. Back then, pro-Japanese, pro-British and pro-American groups of generals fought among themselves, and the nationalist South Chinese government tried in vain, now by force, now by diplomacy, to unite the country.
The Spanish Republic had many fighters, brave but untrained and disorganized. And the air force, for example, by October consisted of 1 bomber and 2 fighters. Even before the war, Western countries refused to sell (even sell!) Weapons to the Spanish Republic. Nevertheless, the Republic could well cope with the mutiny, and in most of the territory the coup was suppressed, although almost the entire army took part in it. It all started rather unsuccessfully for the fascists, the head of the rebellion, General Sanjurho, died in a plane crash, the forces of the fascists were geographically disunited, they did not have access to the Mediterranean Sea. Their main forces were in Morocco, and the Strait of Gibraltar was blocked by the Republic's fleet. The mutiny was on the verge of collapse.
And then the powers of the Anti-Comintern Pact intervened. The speed of reaction of world fascism is simply amazing. In the very first days, the Italian-German transport aviation was at the disposal of Franco, and the rebel army found itself in Spain.
The most difficult thing is that throughout the Spanish war the operational and strategic superiority of the fascists was evident. Very quickly, carefully coordinated strikes began against the most painful, most vulnerable points of the Republic. The offensive in Extremadura (from the north, south and from Portugal) united the previously divided territories of the fascists. The occupation of San Sebastian and Irun cut off the Northern Front from the French border, and the capture of Teruel nearly cut the Republic in half. Well, the offensive on Madrid itself … During the entire war, the Republican command did not carry out such operations, and the Nazis conducted them in the first three months, acting with very heterogeneous forces. For commanders, successful leadership of coalition forces is aerobatics, and Franco was hardly such a commander. Here you can see the brains of the German General Staff.
In the fascist army in the initial period of the war, the Spaniards proper, even together with Moroccans and criminals from the Foreign Legion, were few - 90 thousand. And fascists from other countries fought: Germans - 50 thousand (commander-in-chief Colonel Warlimont), Italians - 150 thousand, 20 thousand Portuguese, etc. Especially insolent after Munich, they sometimes did not even change their shape. And these were already cobbled together personnel units. The Italians had combat experience in Abyssinia, for them and the Germans the First World War ended not so long ago. The Germans and Italians did not suffer from complexes about "neutrality" and "non-interference", and hundreds of thousands of their soldiers and officers were gaining combat experience in Spain.
Republican detachments and columns of the People's Militia could not hold back the blow of the armies of the fascist bloc. The Spaniards did not then have a unified command and supply, and decisions on the attack were sometimes made in units by voting.
But the point was not that some regular legitimate government was being overthrown with foreign aid by the coup generals. Are there few such episodes in history? For every sneeze, you are not pleased.
The point was that the Soviet government, by some miracle, learned that the whole world would sooner or later have to fight fascism, whether the West wanted it or not. And in this case, the earlier, the better, naturally. And how the Soviet government learned this back in 1936 is still a mystery. Nobody knew, but it knew. This quality, by the way, is called "clairvoyance".
Maybe you think I'm exaggerating? And it's easy to check. It is enough to read the newspapers of the autumn of 1936, with reports from rallies and meetings of workers, and you will immediately stumble upon speeches where it was said in plain text: “today bombs are falling on Madrid, and tomorrow they will fall on Paris and London!”.
That is why, while in the training centers in Archena and Albacete, Soviet instructors were teaching the Spaniards and inter-brigades to handle Soviet equipment, Soviet gunners and pilots had to catch Italian Ansaldo, Caproni and Fiat, German T-1, “Heinkels "and" Junkers ". But, as they say, "this was not reported."
First battle, first company, first tanker
Even knowledgeable people sometimes think that there were only advisers. Well, yes, there were also advisers. Of the 59 Heroes of the Soviet Union for the Spanish campaign (starting with the Decree of December 31, 1936), there were two advisers: Batov - general-arms advisor and Smushkevich - pilot advisor. The rest are pilots, tankmen, artillerymen, submariners. 19 out of 59 were posthumous. And signalmen, anti-aircraft gunners, scouts, saboteurs, in general, all the specialists, which should be in the army, also fought. There were also engineers, organizers of weapons production, shipbuilders, of course, doctors and many, many others. And the advisers … here is a quote from the advisor's recollections: “Seeing that the crew of the nearest gun lost a commander and a gunner, I rushed to the artillerymen and helped open fire … several tanks caught fire … the enemy attack drowned … the versatile training of the Red Army's combined-arms commanders contributed to the execution of a wide variety of military responsibilities.
Among these "varied military duties" the actions of our tankmen and pilots are best known. In the defensive battles of autumn 1936 - winter 1937, Soviet tank brigades and battalions played an important role. The defense of Madrid, the battles of the tank battalion of M. P. Petrov in the area of Las Roses and Mahadaonda, the assault on the strategically important Pingarron hill are often mentioned. The behavior of Soviet soldiers and officers, then called "advisers" or "volunteer internationalists", served as an example to anti-fascists. It was not uncommon for the crews of destroyed tanks to go into battle with machine guns removed from the tanks. And during the battle on Haram, according to the participant of these battles R. Ya. Malinovsky (later Minister of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union), "republican tanks … achieved complete dominance on the battlefield." And in the Guadalajara oncoming battle on March 18, 1937, the Soviet tank brigade decided its outcome.
Time was won. From about April 1937, Spanish crews trained by Soviet instructors began to enter the Republican army.
However, let's leave. Who is interested in this now? But let's remember the date - October 29, 1936, and the name - Paul Matissovich Armand. Nikolai Nikolaevich Voronov also took part in this battle, but whether his artillerymen were Soviet servicemen, I do not know.
I did not find information about the earlier actions of the tankers and artillerymen.
1st Squadron Commander
I leaf through the crumbling pages further. Here is a newspaper report about the operation on October 28, 1936: “… government planes … made the most successful bombing raid ever during the war. A squadron of government planes … appeared over the airfield at Talavera … and dropped bombs that destroyed 15 rebel aircraft."
Who were the crews? Here is the commander of one of them:
“The black-haired stocky man said his name cheerfully:
- Khalil Ekrem! - And then he burst out laughing. Explaining, he added in Russian:
- Turk!"
Khalil Ekrem, who is also the commander of the aviation school in Tambov, Volkan Semenovich Goranov, became a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1936. And his real name was Zakhar Zakhariev. Much later he was Colonel General, Deputy Minister of Defense of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. However, the crew was international, the Russians were in the minority: only two, and the rest - this very "Turk", three Spaniards and the author of memoirs, Ukrainian Kuzma Terentyevich Demenchuk. One of the Russians - Ivanov - is a former White Guard, the surname, apparently, is not real. He fought bravely shoulder to shoulder with the Soviets and died much later in France, in poppies.
So October 28, 1936? No, perhaps. All the same, the crews seem to be mixed, the airplanes are “goodies”. The squadron commander is the Spaniard Martin Luna. We are looking further.
The first battle of Soviet fighter squadrons is quite famous; it was observed on the morning of November 4 over Carabanchel by both Madrid and journalists from many countries. The pilots of our I-15s, for the first time in their lives, having entered into a real, and not a training, battle, showed the Junkers and Fiats “that a new dog has appeared in the quarter,” as the Americans say. 30 fighters Pumpur and Rychagov in one day not only shot down 7 fascist planes, they deprived the fascists of air supremacy.
But, finally, there is a find. Thanks to K. T. Demenchuk!
“On October 28 our high-speed SB bombers made their first combat sortie. Three squadrons of 9-10 aircraft in each were formed, they made up a bomber group. It was headed by A. E. Zlatotsvetov, P. A. Kotov became the chief of staff. In addition to the bomber, a fighter group was created (3 squadrons I-15 and 3 - I-16) and, subsequently, an assault group (30 SSS aircraft) … The commander of the 1st bomber squadron - E. G. Shakht, Swiss, revolutionary, since 1922 in the USSR, graduate of the Borisoglebsk Military Aviation School. He led the first combat sortie on October 28.
So, Ernest Genrikhovich Schacht, October 28, 1936. However, the squadron commander-2, V. S. Kholzunov, having arrived in Spain even before the arrival of Soviet equipment, flew to bombing the Nazis on the old slow-moving "Breguet-19". As a high-class professional, he walked in mountainous terrain at an extremely low altitude, struck and disappeared so stealthily that the enemy did not have time to open fire. And our other pilots, starting in September 1936, flew everything that can fly, up to whatnot during the First World War.
With the advent of the SB (they were called "Natasha" and "Katyusha"), the situation in the skies of Spain changed. The SB plane, even with a full load, easily evaded any fighter. They often went on sorties unaccompanied. When this method was used in 1940 by British mosquito bombers, it was called a revolutionary innovation in aviation tactics.
In the fall of 1936, on the Madrid front alone, out of 160 Soviet pilots, 27 fell in battle.
That, in fact, is all that I managed to learn about the first battle of our troops with the Nazis. October 28, 1936 - the first combat sortie of aviation (SB squadron, commander - Major (?) E. G. Shakht), and on the 29th - the first clash with the Nazis on the ground (tank company T-26, commander - Captain P. M. Arman).
Maybe the decision to put the Soviet troops into operation was secret? It turns out that it never happened. On October 23, 1936, the Soviet government issued an official statement in which it was said in black and white that under the conditions of the German-Italian aggression in Spain, the Soviet Union would not adhere to neutrality. What does it mean during a war not to adhere to neutrality? It means going to war.
So October 23rd, 28th and 29th. Of course, these days are incomparable with June 22 and May 9, which overshadowed all the dates of Russian history, but you also need to remember them!
And then there was the war. In Spain, all types and types of troops fought, only the infantry was represented mainly by adviser officers. Least known, but most important, was the role of our officers in planning and conducting most of the operations.
Second front
And in the fall of 1937, our troops entered the war with Japan, the third power of the "Pact", in China. Mainly aviation and combined-arms commanders acted there as advisers, but also staff operators, but not only them.
The difficulty was that there was no normal transport connection with China, neither sea nor rail, because Northern China called Manchukuo then belonged to Japan. As, by the way, the whole of Korea, and the Chinese province of Taiwan, and now the Russian Kuriles and South Sakhalin - the empire was rather big.
Through Xinjiang from Turksib, a road was laid with a length of more than 3 thousand kilometers, it was served by more than 5 thousand ZIS-5 trucks, and on Soviet territory more than 5, 5 thousand railway cars. For urgent cargo, an airline operated by TB-3 aircraft.
According to incomplete data, up to a hundred tanks (how, it is not clear, not on their own), 1250 new aircraft, more than 1400 artillery systems, tens of thousands of machine guns and small arms, etc. were sent to China.
However, there was also a sea route through the ports of South China, Hong Kong, Rangoon and Haiphong (then French). But I simply did not find any mention of him in the memoir literature.
All this immediately went into battle. For example, V. Kurdyumov's squadron. Having made a dangerous flight across the high-mountainous deserts (V. Kurdyumov himself died in this case), seven I-16s on the day of their arrival in Nanjing (November 21, 1937) shot down a fighter and two bombers over the airfield. The next day, the squadrons of SB Kidalinsky and Machin bombers bombed the Shanghai airfield and Japanese ships in the roadstead. They opened an account of the destroyed Japanese warships, drowning, among other things, the first Japanese cruiser in World War II.
The nearly four-year war in China was rife with events, but the actions of the pilots are best known. By the way, in the history of our aviation there are not so many operations like the raid of F. P. Polynin's bomber group on Taiwan on February 23, 1938, or the sinking of a Japanese aircraft carrier by T. T. Khryukin's bomber group in the winter of 1938-1939 (10 thousand tons).
Dear Readers! How many of you have ever heard that our pilots have ever sunk a cruiser or aircraft carrier? I want to note right away that the sinking of the aircraft carrier is not now confirmed by other parties, but it seems that there is a rational grain in this story - that is, our pilots were really hunting for a Japanese aircraft carrier in June 1938.
Military specialists from other branches of the armed forces also operated in China - tankmen, artillerymen, engineers. I have no numbers, I rely on evidence like:
“The situation was quickly heating up. From there, wounded Soviet volunteers, mostly pilots, have already begun to arrive in Lanzhou."
This phrase is from the memoirs of the pilot D. A. Kudymov about the battle in Tricity on April 29, 1938, the birthday of the Japanese emperor.
Now the history of this war is practically inaccessible to the reader.
Third front
The USSR had bad relations with Finland since the revolution. The Finns destroyed their revolutionaries and at the same time several thousand of ours, and not only revolutionaries. For a number of reasons, Lenin then only sighed sadly and congratulated Svinhufvud (the Finnish president, the surname means "pig's head") on independence. However, several attempts by the Finns to round off their territory at the expense of ours (for example, "Olonets adventure") were gently but decisively suppressed. At that time, mainly special forces units operated on both sides. For example, the raid of Toivo Antikainen's detachment armed with machine guns on the Finnish rear in the winter of 1922 impressed the Finnish military so much that by 1939 they had several tens of thousands of Suomi (very similar to the PPSh). And by that time we had somehow forgotten about the machines.
There are all sorts of neighbors, but with the birth of fascism, the Finns, in accordance with the idea of Svinhufvud ("Any enemy of Russia should always be a friend of Finland"), also became allies of the fascists, and a not obligatory war became inevitable.
Finland has been preparing for war for a long time. A quarter of the budget was spent on military purposes. Germany, the USA, England, Sweden and France equipped the Finnish army well. For example, in 1935-1938. Finland absorbed a third of British military exports alone. By the spring of 1939, a network of airfields had been built, which ten times exceeded the needs of the then Finnish Air Force (270 aircraft).
In the summer of 1939, the Finns carried out the largest maneuvers in their history on the Karelian Isthmus. The Chief of the General Staff of the German Ground Forces F. Halder inspected the Finnish troops, paying special attention to the Leningrad and Murmansk strategic directions. In case of failure, the German Foreign Ministry promised to reimburse the Finns for the losses. Since October, the Finns have carried out a general mobilization and evacuation of the population from Helsinki and the border regions. The commission of the Finnish parliament, having familiarized itself with the areas of concentration of troops in October, came to the conclusion that Finland was ready for war. The foreign minister ordered the Finnish delegation to end negotiations in Moscow.
On November 30, 1939, the Soviet government gave an order to the troops of the Leningrad Military District (commander K. A. Meretskov) to repulse provocations, at the same time once again offering Finland to conclude an agreement of friendship and mutual assistance. Finland has declared war on the Soviet Union. 15 Soviet rifle divisions, 6 of which were fully operational, engaged 15 Finnish infantry divisions. I will not describe the course of the war, since, unlike other fronts, there is some literature on the Finnish war. For example, in the 12-volume "History of World War II" as many as 8 pages are devoted to it. I will only note that during the war it became clear that our troops "needed additional training in methods of breaking through a system of powerful reinforced concrete fortifications and overcoming densely mined wooded and swampy terrain in difficult conditions, with 40-45-degree frosts and deep snow cover." Sorry for the long quote, but I personally have no idea how to get started with such "additional training". However, methods were found, the Finns were beaten at a loss ratio of about one to two. The classic ratio for this type of combat is one to three. Moreover, the main losses were incurred in a secondary sector of the front, where the Finnish skiers squeezed our division on a forest road, and by no means during the breakthrough of the Mannerheim line or the assault on Vyborg.
End of the first stage of the world war
Our units were withdrawn from Spain simultaneously with the international brigades, in the fall of 1938, only advisers and instructors remained. The Spanish government did this under pressure from the "Committee on Non-Intervention". Naturally, soon, in March 1939, the Republic fell. Soviet advisers were evacuated at the risk of their lives (and what was safe for them?). Before that, in February, England and France recognized the Franco regime and severed relations with the republican government. But then the Republic still held both Madrid and all of central Spain!
This is perhaps even more vile than the Munich deal. The Soviet Union could do nothing. All routes to Spain were blocked, the Nazis, taking advantage of their domination in the Mediterranean, drowned our "Igreks" (transports with weapons).
In Asia, in the summer of 1938, the war already spread to our territory near Lake Khasan, and although the Japanese were driven out rather quickly, not everything was good in the actions of our units. The air war in China took an increasingly grueling form. In 1939, groups of our pilots lost up to 3/4 of their strength. China suffered defeat after defeat, Japanese armies steadily marched westward, Japanese flotillas climbed the Yangtze, despite massive Soviet bombing raids. On our Far Eastern (and western) borders, border guards and NKVD units waged a continuous, daily, albeit quiet, war. The Japanese invaded Mongolia.
Hitler's proposed truce in the midst of the fierce Soviet-Japanese battles at Khalkhin Gol and in Central China was unexpected for everyone, especially for the Japanese. Apparently, Hitler calculated that by dealing with the "corrupted cosmopolitan West" without hindrance, he would gain more than the Soviet Union would gain by dealing with Germany's Far Eastern ally. The psychology of a nationalist is sometimes just touching! We didn't have to choose. Even a limited war on two fronts was too much for us then. And here is such a gift! As a result, Russia, for the first time in many decades, to smithereens crushed quite a serious army of an external enemy. Moreover, the military leaders of the new generation, who were not part of the "Spanish" or "Chinese" cohorts, showed themselves well.
It should be noted that because of the seemingly easy victory at the end of the war, the Japanese army is somehow underestimated in our country. This is deeply wrong - the Japanese simply met in 1945 with the best soldiers of the 20th century. And on Khalkhin Gol in 1939 it could have turned in different ways!
The Japanese, deeply offended by Hitler and offended by Zhukov, thought about more attractive targets of aggression. Our ties with the Chinese government have become complicated because of, in Chiang Kai-shek's opinion, too warm relations with the Chinese communists. In April 1941, a neutrality treaty was signed with Japan. In May 1941, at a reception in honor of graduates of military academies in the Kremlin, Stalin announced the inevitability of war with Germany.
In 1941, our servicemen were withdrawn from China. Behind were the vastness of Eurasia, dotted with the graves of comrades.
What lay ahead?
“We raised the coffin to shoulder level and inserted it into the top row of niches. We watched as the worker quickly, deftly bricked up the hole with a spatula.
- What inscription should I make? the caretaker asked.
“There is no need for any inscriptions,” I replied. - It will lie for the time being without an inscription. Where necessary, they will write about him."
This time never came.
Enemies and Friends
But what is especially important is that this is the main role of the wars of 1936-1941. - at this time all and all kinds of masks began to break off. People began to understand themselves and others.
What do you think a real communist revolutionary should do when the fascists attack the capital of your country? It turns out that he must raise an armed rebellion. You will say that the author has slightly moved on to anti-communism. No, everything is simpler. This is the attitude of the notorious Jew Trotsky, the so-called "Clemenceau thesis". He believed that it was in such conditions that it was easiest to take power. It sounds unlikely, but it seems even more unlikely that there were people in Spain who followed this instruction. The Trotskyist organization POUM in May 1937 revolted. Fighting in Barcelona and other cities of the Republic claimed nearly a thousand lives. Thousands were wounded, and an important offensive in Aragon, aimed at helping the Northern Front, was thwarted and Bilbao was lost. Therefore, for the Spaniards, Trotsky became the fiend of hell, and it was the Spaniard who killed him in 1940.
By the way, the English Trotskyist Orwell, who was just then in Spain, expressed his then vision of the world in the dystopia "1984" a few years later, and the Trotskyist's attitude to the power of the people - in the worst satire "Animal Farm".
But his vision of the world, based on the same experience, is also expressed in the book "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by a certain Hemingway. By the way, one Moscow pensioner quite recently could tell something about how it was written and about whom. Alas, the "oldest saboteur on the planet" Ilya Starinov died recently.
So our intervention in the war against fascism raised the authority of the Soviet Union to such a height that even the Western intelligentsia fell in love with us (no matter how odious this word is now). As a result, the Soviet Union gained many friends, not only among the world's poorest people. In particular, the beginning of cooperation with our intelligence service of the most intelligent and disinterested agents who came to us from ideological considerations dates back to this time.
"Fifty years of undeclared wars lie ahead, and I signed a contract for the entire term."
And when a Chinese peasant in a soldier's uniform, who mainly waged a war with Japan, saw that there are officers who do not beat soldiers, do not buy concubines, do not sell soldier's rice, do not shake at the sight of a dollar, do not like either the Japanese or the British and they are not afraid of anything - in his century-old struggle for the freedom of China, there is hope.
And the "enlightened West" … It happened that the anti-aircraft guns of American warships hit Soviet bombers, covering the Japanese convoys to the Yangtze. Japanese tanks made of American steel ran on American gasoline. The word "Munich" characterizes Anglo-French politics in Europe. It is less known that their policy in Asia was also called "Far Eastern Munich." But France and England threw a tantrum all over the world, almost got together to fight when the USSR pushed the territory of Hitler's ally away from its second capital for several kilometers.
The point is that we did not view the events of that time from class, Marxist positions. The ruling circles of England and France believed that the brewing world conflict was a form of class struggle, and that Hitler and Mussolini, despite their anti-Western rhetoric, were their allies in the elimination of proletarian internationalism. The apotheosis of this policy was the end of 1938 - the beginning of 1939, when the Nazis were led by the Anglo-French "politicians" to the borders of the Soviet Union. So a dangerous beast is released into the arena along the corridor from the bars. But fascism was not dangerous, but a very dangerous beast! And the defeat of the Anglo-French in 1940, the shame and humiliation of Vichy and Dunkirk were a natural result. It is not often in human history that the reckoning for the stupidity and cynicism of politicians is so quick and effective. The West did not like the Popular Front government (far from communist) - and he gave Spain to the fascists. The West did not like the USSR - and he gave Europe to the Nazis! It is interesting that Western politicians did not understand anything, and Churchill even had the audacity to reproach Stalin in his memoirs for a temporary truce with Hitler!
Similar "subtle calculations" of the West can be observed even now. Take the war in Bosnia and compare it to the war in Spain - a one-to-one match. Expanding NATO at the expense of Central Europe and pushing this organization to the borders of Russia, the Anglo-French-Americans are sincerely confident in their ability to maintain their control over NATO. Well, time will tell. The only major difference from the situation in the 1930s is that there is no Soviet Union in the world now.
Unlearned lessons
It is difficult to say in whose favor the first stage of the world war ended. Yes, we defended our borders and even pushed them a little to the West. We have redirected the Japanese. But they did not acquire allies. Although there were victories, everyone we supported was defeated. We have lost many brave and skilled military personnel.
And the saddest thing. Our enemies took advantage of the respite better than we did. The Soviet leadership believed that the troops could be led by commanders of a new generation, who had grown up in the conditions of modern war. The hero of the Spanish and Chinese wars, Lieutenant General P. V. Rychagov, became the commander of the Air Force, and the most important Special Western Military District was headed by Colonel General D. G. Pavlov, the organizer of some well-known operations in Spain, an ardent supporter of the use of tank and mechanized corps.
Nevertheless, Stalin, even before the war, apparently felt a certain uneasiness. At a well-known meeting of the highest command personnel of the army in December 1940, an operational-strategic game was held. The cavalryman Zhukov played for the blue (western) side, and the tanker Pavlov for the red. The result was unexpected: according to Zhukov's delicate expression, "for the eastern side, the game was replete with dramatic moments." Stalin was dissatisfied, but, apparently, was satisfied with Pavlov's opinion that everything happens during exercises. In addition, Pavlov's report on the use of mechanized troops at the meeting was bright, well-argued and attracted everyone's attention.
There were also some serious contradictions between Stalin and the leadership of the Air Force. Shortly before June 22, 1941, they even spilled out, when Rychagov, at a military conference, insulted Stalin, saying that he was forcing the pilots to fly on coffins. This was precisely an emotional breakdown, since you can blame the Stalin government for anything, but only the most rabid critics can say that it did not want to give the army what it needed, or that Stalin did not care about aviation.
But in June-July 1941, the troops of the Western Front were defeated, all our tanks were lost. And not because of the low combat qualities of the equipment, as they sometimes write, but because of organizational miscalculations - the troops lost control, our mechanized corps immediately found themselves without fuel and ammunition.
It's not about the "bulletproof armor of our tanks." The BT-7 had weaker armor than the T-3 main tank of the Wehrmacht, but the gun was more powerful, and they mutually struck each other.
Read the memoirs of both Zhukov and Halder, everything is written there.
It turned out to be similar to the rout organized by G. K. Zhukov for the "eastern side" in the operational-strategic game six months earlier.
We also lost our aviation. Partly at airfields, partly because of, apparently, incorrect tactical training. What was a revolution in aviation tactics in 1936 became obsolete in 1941. We all remember the tragic episode from "The Living and the Dead", when heavy bombers are killed unaccompanied by fighters. The reality was just as tragic. Here is a quote from Manstein's memoirs about the battles on the Western Dvina: “During these days Soviet aviation made every effort to destroy the bridges that fell into our hands with air raids. With amazing persistence, at low altitude, one squadron flew after another with the only result - they were shot down. In just one day, our fighters and anti-aircraft artillery shot down 64 Soviet planes."
For example, the air defense of the fleet turned out to be on top, but the air defense of the country - alas, not. And Stalin is clearly less to blame here than the commander of the country's air defense.
Fair or not, Heroes of the Soviet Union Pavlov and Rychagov and several other generals paid with their heads. This was then the measure of responsibility for the assigned case.
But the school of the first stage of the Second World War turned out to be good. Almost the majority of the top leaders of the Armed Forces of 1940-1960 passed through Spain and China: Malinovsky and Voronov, Batitsky and Kuznetsov, and many, many others.
And reading the history of the Battle of Stalingrad, I was surprised - how many participants in the defense of Madrid were there! The same Voronov, Batov, Shumilov, Rodimtsev, Kolpakchi. This is probably a coincidence.
“He was wounded near Madrid in the first, And at Stalingrad for the fifth time."
Everything is secret
Once again I will return to the question that I have already stumbled upon more than once: why is all this practically unknown, almost classified?
First - so that the West does not declare us the aggressor (it did later anyway). This reason is quite serious; no antidote has yet been found. After all, under Soviet bombs and tank tracks, not only Germans and Italians, at worst the Moors from the "wild division", but also the Spaniards were caught up. And not only convinced fascists. If you find yourself on fascist territory, whether you like it or not, go and fight! You cannot turn away from mobilization. The civilian population also got it. And since the world mass media were then in approximately the same hands as they are now, one can imagine how the actions of the Soviet troops were described. So that's why they tried to close the information as much as possible.
Now - another period of secrecy, rather vile. If you “do not notice” the state of war in which the USSR was from October 23, 1936 until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, then there is a possibility to present some things in a distorted manner. Just one example: representatives of the German General Staff were invited to the big exercises of the Red Army in 1937. If you do not know that we were at war with Germany at that time, albeit on foreign territory and with relatively little blood, then such an invitation looks unambiguously - as evidence of friendly feelings. And that was not the case at all. And this applies not only to the 1937 exercises.
Epilogue
Why is this article written? Our children no longer know about Alexander Matrosov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, let alone Tkhor, Ku-Li-Shen or Lizyukov. So tell them! Only one weapon remains for us in the fight against vile, deceitful and ignorant television, with mentally defective school textbooks - these are our own stories. Tell them that the Soviet government declared war on world fascism on October 23, 1936, and that the soldiers of freedom carried out the order of the Soviet government.
We still remember Stalingrad and Berlin, but we almost forgot about Khasan, Yelnya, Khingan, Barvenkovo and Zelena Brama, and we know nothing about Guadarram and Wuhan, Teruel and Hankow.
So tell your children that of all the governments of the world, only the Soviet leadership, back in 1936, understood that world fascism must be stopped at any cost, and the Soviet Union threw everything it had then into battle. The best pilots and scouts, tankers and submariners, artillerymen and saboteurs fought and died in burning cities and on the polar plains, in waterless mountains and rice fields, in Europe and Asia, and maybe not only there.
Brave, humble, funny and businesslike people. The war against fascism began for them long before June 22, 1941, and for many it ended at the same time. Not always under a red star, sometimes under the red-yellow-violet emblem of the Spanish Republic or the white twelve-pointed star of the Kuomintang, or without any insignia at all - they selflessly gave their lives for someone else's and their freedom.
I only know about the fate of Ernst Genrikhovich Schacht, Hero of the Soviet Union: “mind. 1941.
Hero of the Soviet Union Paul Matissovich Arman died in 1943 on the Volkhov front. The war against fascism was for him for the seventh year, and for two years he did not live to see the Victory.
There is no mention of them in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
However … do you remember who was the commander of Arman during the first battle of Soviet tankers with the Nazis? Kombrig Krivoshein? So, when our brilliant reporter Viktor Temin had to be the first to photograph the Victory Banner (he had such a hobby - he was the first to photograph victory flags, he did it both on Khasan and on Khalkhin-Gol), he turned to the commander for help. 1st Krasnograd Mechanized Corps to Lieutenant General S. M. Krivoshein. It was his tanks that rushed through the Tiergarten park to the Reichstag. And soon the main newspaper of the USSR "Pravda" published three pictures of V. Temin. On the first there was, as you might guess, the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag, and on the second - tankers of General Krivoshein, resting at the Reichstag.
It was him who had gone through the great war against fascism from its first day to its last, and it was necessary to ask when this war began and when it ended.
