As it was written in the previous article, this work does not claim to fully cover the voiced problem, and this is not possible within the framework of a small article. We are talking about the most important moments in the history of Russia's participation in two world wars. The task was to consider the relevant events in the framework of the logic of the development of Russia as a separate civilization or in the framework of historical objectivism. In this regard, I would like to draw your attention to one important applied issue: the history of the last hundred years with a pail has caused heated discussions, since it has a direct and direct relationship to our life.
The question of the history of the twentieth century is not only a question about historical events and their interpretation, but also a question about the history of the management system and management methods and, accordingly, management experience. Then it is natural to ask the question: what from this experience in management would be useful to us not just like that, but to achieve a result? What historical baggage can we use today?
This is not about exploits and heroism, but about planning, execution, results and achievements.
Place in the ranks
The dispute over what place Russia occupied in the two wars is determined, among other things, by the number of enemy forces deployed against it. In World War I, the Western Front was the primary front, while the Eastern Front was secondary (considering the quantity and quality of the Quadruple Alliance units). And this despite the fact that throughout the war, Russia had a numerical superiority in personnel, and since 1916 it was overwhelming. The fact that in 1915 the Axis countries transferred the main actions to the Eastern Front and concentrated more than 50% of their divisions (mainly Austro-Hungarian and German) there, nothing changes in the assessment of the secondary importance of the Eastern Front. The Germans and their allies tried in 1915 to implement a plan to completely withdraw Russia from the war, but in fact they only achieved undermining the military and economic forces of the Russian Empire, which the country could not restore. At the same time, Russia remained in the ranks, without receiving effective military assistance from the Western allies, who took advantage of the respite for their own purposes, and, unlike Russia, did not rush headlong to help.
In World War II, the overwhelming forces of Germany and her allies were concentrated on the Eastern Front throughout the war.
The calculations may differ by periods, but the conclusions are extremely simple: in WWII, the Eastern Front was secondary, difficult for Germany, but not critical, at the same time as during WWII it was the main theater of operations throughout the war.
Allies
Russia entered the First World War, having the strongest countries in the world as allies, or rather, being an ally of the world's economic leaders, and the Soviet Union started the war without allies and a second front. The presence of a "second" front at once, as it were, simplified the solution of tasks for the leadership of the Russian Empire. But due to the country's almost complete unpreparedness for war and the amazing maneuverability of Germany's troops, this advantage was reduced to almost zero. While the USSR was actively trying to build a security system, stop the outbreak of world war and resist obvious aggression. But due to the hopes of England and France that the German military machine would immediately move towards the USSR, it was not possible to achieve an alliance before the start of a new world war. Despite the creation of an anti-fascist coalition from the beginning of the Second World War, the Red Army fought the war in Europe alone, in fact, until the summer of 1943.
Could the war have been avoided?
If, regarding the situation with the Great Patriotic War, such a question is simply not worth it, then the discussion about the possibility of Russia avoiding participation in WWI is being actively discussed. The problem is not that Nicholas II “wanted” or “did not want”, the logic of the development of historical events outside Russia led to a war for resources and sales markets.
Theoretically, managerial mistakes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries pushed self-sufficient Russia to participate in the war for other people's interests. The rigid attachment of the economy and the state to loans from a cordial ally, false chivalry and a controversial understanding of the interests of their country made this participation inevitable.
Which, of course, cannot be said about the situation with the administration in the USSR on the eve of the war, especially about its foreign policy.
And the last point: we have a lot of talk about cooperation between the "two regimes" on the eve of WWII, including within the framework of the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union of August 23, 1939, at the same time, one should not forget that cooperation " two monarchies "on the eve of WWI was much more significant, including in the military field.
The cornerstone is "the beginning of the war"?
The beginning of the war for Russia in World War I was unsuccessful, the offensive plans of the command in East Prussia were thwarted despite the insignificant forces of Germany in this direction and the same state of the troops: neither the one nor the other side had much combat experience, although the Russian army had experience of the war with Japan. And, what is especially important to add, the defeat in East Prussia occurred despite the skillful actions of privates and junior officers. But … As A. M. wrote Zayonchkovsky:
“In addition, the Russian army began the war without a sufficiently well-trained officer and non-commissioned officer personnel, with a small supply of personnel for new formations and for training draftees, with a sharp, in comparison with the enemy, shortage of artillery in general and heavy artillery in particular, very poorly equipped with all technical equipment. means and ammunition and with poorly trained senior command personnel, having in their rear a country unprepared for waging a major war and its military administration and industry completely unprepared for the transition to work for military needs.
In general, the Russian army went to war with good regiments, with mediocre divisions and corps and with bad armies and fronts, understanding this assessment in the broad sense of training, but not personal qualities."
Unlike the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when the enemy, firstly, concentrated troops not on the local sector, but from sea to sea, along the entire border, and secondly, the assembled troops of the Wehrmacht and allies were the main forces of all the armed forces of our opponents, and not a small group of ten divisions, thirdly, the enemy had absolute operational superiority due to the first strike, and the defending troops were dispersed over a large area. The USSR, unlike Russia, did not have time for a mob. deployment, it took place during the outbreak of hostilities.
Today it is customary to point out the fact that the whole of united Europe fought against the USSR.
However, the same situation was during Napoleon's invasion of Russia, when the armies covering different, potential directions of enemy strikes united only in Smolensk.
Fourthly, most of the Red Army's subunits had no experience of conducting combat operations - they were "unfired", in contrast to the main forces of the advancing armies, which by that time had spent more than one company in different theaters of operations. The same applies to the ability to control troops, when the overwhelming majority of the command staff did not have experience in waging war in modern conditions and learned from the wheels.
But if in World War I the human resource seemed infinite, the size of the Russian army was slightly inferior to all the forces of the Axis powers, the limitation was only the extremely low qualifications of recruits and the retirement of cadre officers, which were never replenished, then there was no reserve in the Great Patriotic War: Demanded huge human resources for production, and the threat of Japan entering the war also diverted significant army resources. Even without Japan, the population of the allied countries and occupied territories of Nazi Germany outnumbered the population of the USSR.
These key factors include, as, indeed, in the First World War, the unfinished rearmament of the army by the beginning of the war, and again, if on the eve of the Second World War the country strained all its forces, then on the eve of WWI everything went unhurriedly.
Of course, the “human factor” remained an important point, which made mistakes and miscalculations in various areas of activity at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, but these “mistakes” and miscalculations could not be compared with the administrative catastrophe in the period 1915-1917.
It is important that miscalculations and problems, up to catastrophes, were in both cases at the initial stage of the war, but the conclusions drawn were different: in the first case, the control system could not cope with this problem from the word "absolutely", in the second case, the system was preparing for war and victory long before it began and made decisions that contribute to the achievement of the result.
Suffice it to look at the lightning-fast pace of advancement of "tank wedges" in comparison with the Patriotic War of 1812.
The French entered the borders of Russia, in the same places as the Nazis in 1941, June 12 (24), and they were near Moscow (at Borodino) by August 26, the Nazis only by November 20 (!).
The constant exaggeration of defeats at the beginning of the Second World War, the emphasis on them seriously overshadows subsequent victories. I will say more, from the point of view of systemic management, the constant emphasis on these negative events should lead to the adoption of “correct” decisions today, but we do not see this in the modern practice of governing the country: everything resembles the unhurried bureaucratic work on the eve of WWI.
It is strange if, on the basis of the defeat at the Battle of Cannes on August 2, 216 BC. e., when the main male population of Rome died, the researchers concluded that the Roman Republic was completely insolvent, despite the subsequent events … But despite the catastrophe, the people and the Senate took emergency measures that contributed to the restoration of the army. Moreover, they were able to "nurture" a commander who was not inferior in his talents to Hannibal. The measures and actions taken after Cannes led the republic to victory in the Second Punic War. And it is by the results, and not by the defeats of the beginning of the war, that we judge Rome and this war.
It is impossible not to take into account the experience of defeat, and remember the feat of the fallen soldiers and the innocent victims of these wars, but the key in the course of the participation of the Soviet republics in World War II, nevertheless, was and is a victory over an enemy superior in strength and economic power. What, alas, we cannot say about Russia in the First World War.
Front and rear
The First World War showed what the real cost of the "rapid" development of Russia, which is now being spoken of from all "irons": in peacetime, Russian industry could only meet the current needs of the armed forces in the main types of weapons - artillery, rifles, shells and cartridges. The mobilization stock of shells was used up in the first 4 months of the war, from December 1914 to March 1915 the front received 30% of the necessary weapons and shells. All parties to the conflict had such a problem, but not so global. Only a year later (!), In May 1915, actions began to mobilize industry, in August four Special Conferences on defense, transportation, fuel, food were created, which carried out military-economic regulation in these sectors. The military-industrial committees or "headquarters" of the big bourgeoisie could not exert a significant influence on the supply of the army, but were used as lobbying organizations (3-5% of military orders, 2-3% upon completion). The State Special Defense Conference ensured a fantastic increase in rifle production (1100%) in 1916 in relation to 1914, 76-mm guns for the year: from January 1916 to 1917. by 1000%, shells to them by 2000%. But, according to the latest types of weapons, many of which were not produced in Russia at all, the country was inferior to Germany and France from 2 to 5 times: we are talking about machine guns, airplanes, vehicles, tanks. In many ways, Russia depended on the supplies of the allies, which led to an increase in the state debt and an imbalance in all systems of the national economy.
“The supreme power, which was already“held captive by the stock market sharks,”was finally dispersed in the hands of Alexandra Fedorovna and those who stood behind her,” wrote A. Blok. No unity of the front and rear was observed at all. Simultaneously with the growth of armaments, production in other strategic industries fell: rails, rolling stock, which did not provide clear logistics, the underload of coal by 1917 amounted to 39%, which even led to the halt of military enterprises. Plus the food crisis, the crisis caused by the lack of management of the country and its finances, the speculative rise in prices, the lack of rolling stock capable of providing bread to the capital and the army, in the conditions of a shock harvest in 1914-1916. The introduction of compulsory appropriation at the end of 1916 did not ensure the supply of the capital and the army, Petrograd received 25% of the food it needed, the army sat on starvation rations. Even the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire since 1916, whose very appointment raised questions in the sound mind of those who appointed him, a man, to put it mildly, with oddities, A. D. Protopopov wrote:
“The kits depopulated the village (the 13 million was taken), stopped the agricultural industry. A village without husbands, brothers, sons and even teenagers was unhappy. The cities were starving, the village was crushed, constantly under pain of requisitions … There were not enough goods, prices were rising, taxes developed the sale "from under the counter", it turned out to be looting … There was no one to organize the matter. There were many bosses, but there was no guiding will, plan, or system. The supreme power has ceased to be a source of life and light”.
Against this background, the situation with the unity of the "front and rear" during the Great Patriotic War, the management of transport and the national economy, the situation with the supply is strikingly different. Of course, the facts of looting, embezzlement, outright banditry, etc., were also during the Great Patriotic War, but the fight against them was carried out harshly, according to the laws of wartime, and most importantly, systematically.
Let me repeat some well-known facts, from July to November 1941, 1,523 enterprises were evacuated to the Urals, Siberia, the Volga region and Kazakhstan. 1,500 thousand wagons with evacuation cargo were transported. There have been changes in the budget: the military budget has been increased by 20.6 billion rubles. rub., and for civil industries and socio-cultural areas decreased by 38, 1 billion rubles. rub. Only in the second half of 1941, in comparison with the first, were produced: rifles and carbines: from 792 thousand to 1500 thousand, machine guns and assault rifles: from 11 thousand to 143 thousand, mortars from 15 600 to 55 thousand, shells and mines: from 18 880 thousand to 40 200 thousand pieces.
New production methods were also used, so the production of aircraft was put on the conveyor, the cost of the La-5 fighter was reduced by 2, 5 times, and the Il-2 by 5 times. Moreover, the USSR, from a country of borrowing technology, became at a certain stage, of course only in a number of areas, a technology leader and a driver. Here is just one example about the now fashionable topic of "automation" during the Patriotic War, about which A. N. Kosygin wrote:
“Of great importance for the improvement of tank production was carried out under the leadership of Academician E. O. Paton replacing the manual welding of the armor of the tank hulls with the automatic one. Neither our opponents, on whom the entire arsenal of Europe worked, nor our allies, who had a highly developed industry, until the very end of the war were able to weld tanks with automatic machines, and even on conveyors."
Unlike the PMR, railroad transport successfully coped with the assigned tasks, so Whitworth, an English specialist in railroad transport, wrote that “the offensive in August - September 1943 could create even greater difficulties for the Russian railways than the retreat of 1941 and 1942..”, But his prophecies did not come true.
As noted in the decree of the Central Committee, in 1943, agriculture "on the whole, without interruptions provided the supply of food to the Red Army and the population."
By the end of 1943, collective farmers, “mucked by collectivization,” donated 13 billion rubles from their savings for the needs of the front; Golovatov handed over 100 thousand rubles. How strikingly different from the shouts addressed to Matilda, the ballerina Kshesinskaya, though in 1905: "Take off the diamonds - these are our battleships!"
Victory only with tears in your eyes?
First. Within the framework of this article, I would like to draw your attention to one scientific, source study moment. On Russia's participation in WWI, we have information and figures determined in the wake of these events. Most of the fundamental, systemic facts and, most importantly, figures are beyond doubt, the dispute is about their interpretation. As for the history of the Second World War, there are more questions than answers on some important figures. What equilibristics is worth, you cannot say otherwise, with the total losses of the USSR! At first, this figure was hushed up so as not to pull at the wounds, then, in the 60s of the twentieth century, including the efforts of Soviet historians-revisionists, the figure was determined at 20 million people, this figure became "convenient" and was used, for example, USSR Foreign Ministry as a weighty argument in negotiations with opponents on the Cold War. With the advent of perestroika, the need arose to substantiate the depravity of the political system of the USSR, and this figure was “scientifically substantiated” at 25 million people, although this common story was already circulating in the 70s. By our time, it has crawled to 27 million victims. This is one of the examples of statistical juggling, without working with primary sources, using quantitative methods of analysis, and such a colossal work is long overdue.
Second. I would like to say about one more "cool" argument, at the level of those WWI soldiers who assumed that the Germans would not reach Tambov and that they could "leave" the front. The argument that in WWII we did not lose our indigenous territories, but in WWII the Germans reached Moscow … First, as part of the real defeat of Russia in WWI, it does not matter now, for whatever reason, the Germans and their allies occupied Finland, Belarus, Ukraine and Crimea, reached the Don, occupied the Baltic States and Pskov. Secondly, if the main forces of Germany on the same scale as it was during the Second World War were directed against Russia, the result would be the same, but only much earlier. Do not forget the fact that the British government, even being our "cordial" ally, did not particularly strive to sincerely cooperate with the Russian command, it might not have taken part in the war that began in 1914, at least this is the position of a number of members government was announced on the very eve of the war.
Outcome
The result is well known: a consistent chain of antisystemic decisions and complete managerial anemia led imperial Russia to defeat in the PMR, which (or at the same time) resulted in a change in both the country's governing system and the economic system, in the interests of the overwhelming majority. Of course, we are not talking about some mythical death of the Russian state, we are talking about a change in the management system, which did not even coincide with the time of the entire reign of the Romanov dynasty and which was at most a little less than a hundred years old, about “military-bureaucratic” or “autocratic Monarchy.
If we talk only about the military component, although it is always difficult to isolate it from society as a whole, then WWII cannot be compared with the fateful WWII for the Russian civilization: neither in terms of the intensity of battles, nor in terms of the resources involved, victims and results. There is no need to talk about the commanding staff, the whites, led by the generals of the WWII period, were utterly defeated by the “red marshals” of non-commissioned and self-taught non-commissioned personnel.
The "modernization" of the Bolsheviks not only ensured the progress of the country's social and economic forces, it created "challenges" to the world hegemony of Western civilization, and at the same time properly prepared the entire structure of the country to resist Western aggression. The result of the war was the creation, for the first time in the history of the Russian state, of a security system headed by the USSR. A system that, for the first time in our history, provides security on the "distant approaches", a system that created military parity with the leader of the Western world, a country that had not known a foreign invasion by that time for more than 135 years - the United States.
Our country has received almost forty years of peaceful development.
