Who at the front was driven to attack the enemy at the point of their own machine guns
One of the most terrible myths of the Second World War is associated with the existence of detachments in the Red Army. Often in modern TV series about the war, you can see scenes with gloomy personalities in blue caps of the NKVD troops, shooting wounded soldiers out of battle with machine guns. By showing this, the authors take a great sin on their souls. None of the researchers have been able to find in the archives a single fact in support of this.
What happened?
Barrage detachments appeared in the Red Army from the first days of the war. Such formations were created by the military counterintelligence in the person of first the 3rd Directorate of the NKO of the USSR, and from July 17, 1941 - the Directorate of Special Departments of the NKVD of the USSR and subordinate bodies in the troops.
As the main tasks of the special departments for the period of the war, the decree of the State Defense Committee defined "a decisive struggle against espionage and betrayal in the units of the Red Army and the elimination of desertion in the immediate front zone." They received the right to arrest deserters, and, if necessary, shoot them on the spot.
To ensure operational measures in special departments in accordance with the order of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. P. Beria by July 25, 1941 were formed: in divisions and corps - separate rifle platoons, in armies - separate rifle companies, in the fronts - separate rifle battalions. Using them, special departments organized a barrage service, setting up ambushes, posts and patrols on roads, refugee routes and other communications. Each detained commander, Red Army, Red Navy soldier was checked. If he was recognized as having escaped from the battlefield, then he was immediately arrested, and an operational (no more than 12-hour) investigation began on him to be brought to trial by a military tribunal as a deserter. Special departments were entrusted with the responsibility of enforcing the sentences of military tribunals, including before the formation. In "especially exceptional cases, when the situation requires decisive measures to immediately restore order at the front," the head of the special department had the right to shoot deserters on the spot, which he had to immediately report to the special department of the army and front (fleet). Servicemen who had lagged behind the unit for an objective reason, in an organized manner, accompanied by a representative of a special department, were sent to the headquarters of the nearest division.
The flow of servicemen who had lagged behind their units in a kaleidoscope of battles, when leaving numerous encirclements, or even deliberately deserted, was enormous. From the beginning of the war and until October 10, 1941, operational barriers of special departments and barrage detachments of the NKVD troops detained more than 650 thousand soldiers and commanders. The German agents also easily dissolved in the general mass. Thus, a group of spies, neutralized in the winter and spring of 1942, had the task of physically eliminating the command of the Western and Kalinin Fronts, including the commanding generals G. K. Zhukov and I. S. Konev.
Special departments struggled to cope with this volume of cases. The situation demanded the creation of special units that would directly deal with the prevention of unauthorized withdrawal of troops from their positions, the return of lagging servicemen to their units and subunits, and the detention of deserters.
The first initiative of this kind was shown by the military command. After the appeal of the commander of the Bryansk front, Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko to Stalin on September 5, 1941, he was allowed to create barrage detachments in "unstable" divisions, where there were several cases of leaving combat positions without orders. A week later, this practice was extended to the rifle divisions of the entire Red Army.
These barrage detachments (up to a battalion in number) had nothing to do with the NKVD troops, they operated as part of the Red Army rifle divisions, were recruited at the expense of their personnel and were subordinate to their commanders. At the same time, along with them, there were detachments formed either by military special departments or by territorial bodies of the NKVD. A typical example is the barrage detachments formed in October 1941 by the NKVD of the USSR, which by order of the State Defense Committee took under special protection the zone adjacent to Moscow from the west and south along the Kalinin - Rzhev - Mozhaisk - Tula - Kolomna - Kashira line. Already the first results showed how necessary these measures were. In just two weeks, from 15 to 28 October 1941, more than 75 thousand servicemen were detained in the Moscow zone.
From the very beginning, the barrage units, regardless of their departmental subordination, were not guided by the leadership towards mass executions and arrests. Meanwhile, today in the press we have to deal with similar accusations; detachments are sometimes called punishers. But here are the numbers. Of the more than 650 thousand servicemen detained by October 10, 1941, after an inspection, about 26 thousand people were arrested, among whom special departments were: spies - 1505, saboteurs - 308, traitors - 2621, cowards and alarmists - 2643, deserters - 8772, distributors of provocative rumors - 3987, skirmishers - 1671, others - 4371 people. 10201 people were shot, including 3321 people in front of the line. The overwhelming number is more than 632 thousand people, i.e. more than 96% were returned to the front.
As the front line stabilized, the activity of the barrage formations was curtailed by default. A new impetus was given to her by order number 227.
The detachments created in accordance with it, numbering up to 200 people, consisted of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, neither in uniform nor in weapons did they differ from the rest of the Red Army. Each of them had the status of a separate military unit and was subordinate not to the command of the division, behind the battle formations of which it was located, but to the command of the army through the OO NKVD. The detachment was led by a state security officer.
In total, by October 15, 1942, 193 barrage detachments were functioning in the units of the active army. First of all, the Stalinist order was carried out, of course, on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front. Almost every fifth detachment - 41 units - was formed in the Stalingrad direction.
Initially, in accordance with the requirements of the People's Commissar of Defense, the barrage detachments were obliged to prevent unauthorized withdrawal of line units. However, in practice, the range of military affairs in which they were engaged turned out to be wider.
“The defensive detachments,” recalled General of the Army P. N. Lashchenko, who was deputy chief of staff of the 60th Army in the days of the publication of order No. 227, “were at a distance from the front line, covered the troops from the rear from saboteurs and enemy landing forces, detained deserters who, unfortunately, there were; they put things in order at the crossings, sent soldiers who had strayed from their units to assembly points."
As many participants in the war testify, the detachments did not exist everywhere. According to Marshal of the Soviet Union DT Yazov, they were generally absent on a number of fronts operating in the northern and northwestern directions.
The versions that the barrage detachments were "guarding" the penal units do not stand up to criticism either. The company commander of the 8th separate penal battalion of the 1st Belorussian Front, retired colonel A. V. Pyltsyn, who fought since 1943.until the very Victory, asserts: “Under no circumstances were there any detachments behind our battalion, and no other intimidating measures were taken. It's just that there has never been such a need."
The famous writer Hero of the Soviet Union V. V. Karpov, who fought in the 45th separate penal company on the Kalinin Front, also denies the presence of detachments behind the combat formations of their unit.
In reality, the outposts of the army detachment were located at a distance of 1.5-2 km from the front line, intercepting communications in the immediate rear. They did not specialize in penalty boxes, but checked and detained everyone whose stay outside the military unit aroused suspicion.
Did the barrage detachments use weapons to prevent the unauthorized withdrawal of line units from their positions? This aspect of their combat activities is sometimes highly speculatively covered.
The documents show how the combat practice of the barrage detachments developed during one of the most intense periods of the war, in the summer and autumn of 1942. From August 1 (the moment of formation) to October 15, they detained 140,755 servicemen who "fled from the front line." Of these: 3980 were arrested, 1189 were shot, 2776 were sent to penal companies, 185 were sent to penal battalions, the overwhelming number of detainees was returned to their units and to transit points - 131 094 people. The above statistics show that the absolute majority of servicemen, who had previously left the frontline for various reasons - more than 91% - were able to continue fighting without any loss of rights.
As for the criminals, the most severe measures were applied to them. This concerned deserters, defectors, imaginary patients, self-gunners. They did it - and they shot them in front of the formation. But the decision to enforce this extreme measure was not made by the commander of the detachment, but by the military tribunal of the division (not lower) or, in some cases, previously agreed upon, by the head of the special department of the army.
In exceptional situations, the soldiers of the barrage detachments could open fire over the heads of the retreating ones. We admit that individual cases of shooting at people in the heat of battle could have taken place: the soldiers and commanders of the detachment detachments in a difficult situation could have changed their restraint. But there is no reason to assert that this was the daily practice. Cowards and alarmists were shot in front of the formation on an individual basis. Karali, as a rule, are only initiators of panic and flight.
Here are some typical examples from the history of the battle on the Volga. On September 14, 1942, the enemy launched an offensive against units of the 399th Rifle Division of the 62nd Army. When the soldiers and commanders of the 396th and 472nd rifle regiments began to retreat in panic, the chief of the detachment, junior lieutenant of state security Elman, ordered his detachment to open fire over the heads of the retreating ones. This forced the personnel to stop, and two hours later the regiments occupied the previous lines of defense.
On October 15, in the area of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, the enemy managed to reach the Volga and cut off from the main forces of the 62nd Army the remnants of the 112th Infantry Division, as well as three (115, 124 and 149th) separate rifle brigades. Suffering to panic, a number of servicemen, including commanders of various levels, tried to abandon their units and, under various pretexts, cross over to the eastern bank of the Volga. To prevent this, the task force under the leadership of the senior operative lieutenant of the state security Ignatenko, created by the special department of the 62nd army, put up a screen. For 15 days, up to 800 private and command personnel were detained and returned to the battlefield, 15 alarmists, cowards and deserters were shot in front of the line. The detachments acted similarly later.
As the documents testify, it was necessary to propping up the subunits and units that had faltered and backed away, to intervene in the course of the battle themselves in order to bring a turning point in it, according to documents. The replenishment arriving at the front was, of course, not fired upon, and in this situation the barrage detachments, formed from persistent, fired, commanders and fighters with strong front-line hardening, provided a reliable shoulder to the line units.
Thus, during the defense of Stalingrad on August 29, 1942, the headquarters of the 29th rifle division of the 64th army was surrounded by the penetrated enemy tanks. The detachment not only stopped the retreating servicemen in disorder and returned them to the previously occupied lines of defense, but also entered the battle itself. The enemy was driven back.
On September 13, when the 112th Rifle Division, under pressure from the enemy, withdrew from the occupied line, a detachment of the 62nd Army under the command of State Security Lieutenant Khlystov took the defense. For several days, the soldiers and commanders of the detachment repelled the attacks of enemy submachine gunners, until the approaching units took up the defense. This was the case in other sectors of the Soviet-German front.
With a turning point in the situation that followed the victory at Stalingrad, the participation of barrage formations in battles more and more turned out to be not only spontaneous, dictated by a dynamically changing situation, but also the result of a decision made in advance by the command. The commanders tried to use the detachments left without "work" with maximum benefit in matters not related to the barrage service.
The facts of this kind in mid-October 1942 were reported to Moscow by State Security Major V. M. Kazakevich. For example, on the Voronezh front, by order of the military council of the 6th army, two barrage detachments were attached to the 174th rifle division and entered into battle. As a result, they lost up to 70% of the personnel, the fighters remaining in the ranks were transferred to replenish the named division, and the detachments had to be disbanded. The commander of the 246th Infantry Division, in whose operational subordination the detachment was, was used as a linear unit by a detachment of the 29th Army of the Western Front. Taking part in one of the attacks, a detachment of 118 personnel lost 109 people killed and wounded, in connection with which it had to be formed anew.
The reasons for the objections from the special departments are clear. But, as it seems, it is no coincidence that from the very beginning the barrage detachments were subordinated to the army command, and not to the military counterintelligence bodies. The People's Commissar of Defense, of course, had in mind that the barrage formations would and should be used not only as a barrier for retreating units, but also as an important reserve for direct combat operations.
As the situation on the fronts changed, with the transition to the Red Army of the strategic initiative and the beginning of the mass expulsion of the invaders from the territory of the USSR, the need for detachments began to decline sharply. The order "Not a step back!" finally lost its former meaning. On October 29, 1944, Stalin issued an order in which it was recognized that "in connection with the change in the general situation at the fronts, the need for further maintenance of the barrage detachments has disappeared." By November 15, 1944, they were disbanded, and the personnel of the detachments were sent to replenish rifle divisions.
Thus, the barrage detachments not only acted as a barrier that prevented deserters, alarmists, and German agents from penetrating into the rear, not only returned servicemen who were lagging behind their units to the front line, but they themselves waged direct hostilities with the enemy, contributing to the achievement of victory over fascist Germany.
