On February 8, 1939, Iosif Apanasenko was awarded the rank of "commander of the 2nd rank". And exactly 80 years ago, in February 1941, he received the shoulder straps of the "army general". He was called "rebel", swearing general and "savage uprising". But "where he was, everything was fine." Why did Stalin forgive him a lot? How did Apanasenko save our Moscow? And what note did this immortal "soldier of the Russian people" leave to the descendants?
Far Eastern Front
Beginning in May 1938, the Far East of the USSR was shaken by significant reforms.
Joseph Stalin decided to put things in order there. First of all, he ordered to transform the Far Eastern Military District, as well as the Special Far Eastern Army into the Far Eastern Front.
Japan arranged systematic military provocations in the areas bordering the USSR.
So in the summer of 1938, this new operational-strategic formation of Soviet troops in the Far East made its combat debut. Part of the Far Eastern Front near Lake Khasan from July 29 to August 11 fought off a provocative Japanese attack.
And although the Great Russian Encyclopedia now says:
"The Soviet troops, having won a victory in the Khasan conflict, dealt a significant blow to Japan's plans of conquest in the Far East."
But in those days, Stalin was disappointed. Moreover, he was furious. After all, it did not completely work out to defeat the Japanese troops there. Moreover, the losses on our part were too significant. The failure was also perceived as a great personal failure of Blucher.
This is what follows from the memoirs of Marshal I. S. Koneva:
“Vasily Konstantinovich acted unsuccessfully on Khasan. By 1937, Marshal Blucher was a man who, in terms of his knowledge and ideas, was not far from the times of the Civil War. In any case, Blucher failed such a small operation as Khasanskaya.
It is generally accepted that it was precisely this discontent of the leader that became the reason for numerous and lengthy, as they would say now, showdowns, and then - “debriefings” or, in other words, repression among the commanders of the Far East.
The original appointee to the post of commander of this front, Vasily Blucher, was arrested. And he died on November 9, 1938 in the prison in Lefortovo. (Subsequently rehabilitated posthumously).
A little later, in June 1941, General Grigory Mikhailovich Stern, who replaced Blucher in this post, was arrested (and shot in October of the same year). (Posthumously rehabilitated).
Frontline rebel
And then another commander of the Far Eastern Front took their place - Colonel-General (at that time) Iosif Rodionovich Apanasenko.
This general, having accepted the appointment to the Far East, did not seem at all afraid to inherit the sad fate of his predecessors.
As Nikita Khrushchev recalled about this man, for some reason the leader was surprisingly supportive to Apanasenko:
“Apanasenko was interrogated in 1937 as an accomplice in the military conspiracy of Tukhachevsky.
But he repented.
And I was forgiven by JV Stalin."
But in army circles there was a bad reputation about him:
"Ignorant, tyrant, swearing man."
In a word, foul language.
And some people did not like his appearance itself. A man is a man. No grace. As if cut out of an oak log with an ax.
Back in 1920, the war correspondent and writer Isaac Babel, who served in the Cavalry Corps (which later became the First Cavalry Army), will write down this point about Joseph Apanasenko in his "Konoarmeysky diary" in his "Konoarmeyskiy diary" and in different chapters, just at the time when Apanasenko was in command of a division there:
“The most interesting of all is the chief of the division:
grin, swearing, short exclamations, grunts, shrugs, nervous, responsibility for everything, passion”;
“If he was there, everything would be fine”;
"A rebel, a Cossack freeman, a wild uprising."
But all too soon, his fellow officers began to note that the new commander had an innate remarkable mind.
Apanasenko was extremely well-read. He is extremely attentive to the ideas and suggestions of his subordinates. Incredibly daring. And most importantly, he always took responsibility upon himself, never exposing his subordinates.
He was also a strategist and master of his land. This time - the Far East.
Apanasenkovskie 1000 km Transsib
First of all, Apanasenko revealed that the main problem of his new service monastery was the transport vacuum. The separation of the Far Eastern Territory from the rest of the country, first of all, lay in the absence of an elementary reliable road.
Another would have noted it and forgot. Or he didn’t say anything. Or chatted …
But Apanasenko was a man of action. Since there is no reliable highway along the section of the Trans-Siberian Railway, then it must be done! Design, build and build. And not ever. And here and now.
So what happened? The Japanese could easily blow up just a couple of bridges or a few tunnels, and the Red Army would be left without supplies. And, in general, without freedom of maneuvering.
And then General Apanasenko immediately gave the order to begin work on the construction of a dump road with a length of a thousand kilometers. And for everything about everything, he set a very short period of time - only 150 days. That is, in five months such a road should have appeared in the Far East. And the point.
And what do you think?
But Apanasenko still managed to build such a strategically important road for the country in these tight deadlines.
The order was carried out. And already by September 1, 1941, the first vehicles with army cargo were driven along the new road from Khabarovsk to the Kuibyshevka-Vostochnaya station (to Belogorsk). But it was the first year of the Great Patriotic War.
By the way, this 1000 km Apanasenkovsky section is today a component of the Transsib Eurasian international transport corridor. And now it is included in the same long-suffering federal highway "Amur" Chita-Khabarovsk (2165 km), which after almost 80 years from that September 1941 our authorities will not bring it to mind. Did Apanasenko build almost half of these 2,000 km in just 150 days? And from scratch. So we can?
The Japanese will not pass: Moscow is behind us
By the way, by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the number of Red Army troops on the Far Eastern Front was higher than that of the Japanese. At that time, the USSR had 704 thousand fighters in the Far Eastern borderland against 700,000 in Japan.
Several rifle brigades from the Far East were sent to the western fronts only in July and August. But this was only a small part of the aid that Apanasenko constantly sent to the front lines in the western regions of Russia.
The country was then torn apart on all fronts. On the one hand, the Nazis almost raised glasses of champagne in honor of the "capture of Moscow" expected by them. On the other hand, the provocative Japanese day and night planned and prepared an insidious and daring attack on Soviet territory.
Our army just painfully needed fresh forces both in the west of the country and in the east.
According to the published records, during the days of the defense of Moscow on October 12, 1941, Stalin summoned to the Kremlin the commander of the Far Eastern Front I. R. Apanasenko, as well as the commander of the Pacific Fleet I. S. Pegov to discuss a possible transfer of troops from the Far East to Moscow.
At the very beginning of the conversation, Stalin outlined the situation:
“Our troops on the Western Front are engaged in very heavy defensive battles, and complete defeat in Ukraine … Ukrainians generally behave badly, many surrender, the population welcomes German troops ».
Then the conversation turned about Moscow.
Stalin explained that he was forced to withdraw troops from the Far East. Stalin dictated, Apanasenko carefully wrote down, and then immediately signed the order and sent an encrypted telegram to his chief of staff for immediate execution.
Tea was served on the table. And Stalin asked Apanasenko:
"And how many anti-tank guns do you have?.. Load these weapons too!"
And then suddenly Apanasenko threw his glass of tea to the ground, jumped up and yelled:
“What are you? What are you doing? (so-over-the-top!).
And if the Japanese attacked, how would I defend the Far East? These stripes?
Remove from office, shoot, I won't give up the guns!"
But Stalin did not get angry with Apanasenko and replied:
“Should I be so worried about these guns? Leave them to yourself."
But no decisions were made that day.
A couple of days later, when the situation near Moscow deteriorated sharply, Stalin called Apanasenko and asked:
"How many divisions could you transfer to the west at the end of October and in November?"
Apanasenko replied that up to twenty rifle divisions and seven to eight tank formations could be transferred. The point is now in the railway services: how they will cope.
In fact, these three dozen - and there were all his combat-ready units and units.
Immediately they immediately began to send troops from the Far East to Moscow. So already from November 1941, fresh divisions from Apanasenko with the Far East fought for our capital, held the defense and did not let Hitler into the heart of Russia / USSR.
But didn't such a maneuver bare our Far Eastern borders? The Japanese, too, did not doze at all, and they still strove to contrive and attack?
The wise Apanasenko acted cunningly. He, sending divisions to the West, immediately put new formations in their place and under the same numbers. Agree, isn't that clever?
Of course, as you might guess, no orders have been received on this score. And it was an exclusively personal initiative of the front commander.
It is worth remembering that in those years this kind of amateur performance was strictly prohibited and threatened with execution. But the general was nicknamed the "rebel" for a reason? The homeland demanded fresh strength, which means that there will be such forces: here and there. A bold and desperate decision. And the main thing is the right one.
In our opinion, in a modern way, he would now be called the word "creative". And then they would say in a simple way:
"Need for invention is cunning."
Our general was unprecedentedly active. Which is not typical of every military commander.
Apanasenko opened military plants, factories and manufactures. He restored and created military state farms.
Unprecedented courage at that time - he pulled out all the talented commanders from prisons and exile and returned them to the army. After all, then most of the places of detention were located just there, in the Far East. It seems close. But who dares? Who dares to take on such a responsibility? And he could and did.
Of course, not everything is as smooth as in the song, then our general went there. The heads of local prisons were extremely dissatisfied with the free-thinking of Joseph Rodionovich, as well as his initiatives for the emergency release of capable military prisoners. Naturally, they scribbled denunciations and libels to the Kremlin every night. Complaints and slops poured into the same place and a direct stream to the address of Beria also from the outraged leadership of GlavDalstroy. But you never know such complainants? It is clear that not everyone and not everyone will like this.
Stalin knew everything. But he was silent.
Then our general went further. He could not help helping Moscow, but he also did not begin to expose his own front. To this end, he single-handedly decided to expand the training of recruits. From that moment on, a conscription was organized in the military unit of the Far Eastern Front from literally all the republics of the USSR.
So, in his Russian east (USSR) men aged 50–55 began to be conscripted.
The Komfrontom then turned into a leader and the main holder-manager of both the party and economic power of the gigantic Far Eastern region. He strengthened and strengthened the defense of each and every one of the basic cities of our East. Especially such as Khabarovsk, Vladivostok and Blagoveshchensk.
He turned the eastern borders of Russia into a single and impregnable fortress.
Thanks to General Apanasenko, who launched such a vigorous military construction there, Japan was seriously afraid of the power of Russia. And it was preferable for her then to maintain armed neutrality. Her hands, in fact, were tied by such a growing and unrelenting strength of the Russian front, which was commanded by the indefatigable and productive managing general Apanasenko.
But Joseph Rodionovich himself all the time dreamed of a real front. He constantly tried to persuade Stalin to redirect him to the active forces.
Soldier of the Russian people
And at the end of May, his dream came true.
He was sent to the Voronezh front.
He managed to fight for only 100 days. Just three months.
On June 6, 1943, General of the Army Apanasenko was appointed deputy commander of the Voronezh Front.
In early August, the troops launched a decisive offensive. During one of the reconnaissance during the Battle of Kursk near Belgorod on August 5, Apanasenko came under fire.
He was overtaken by a shell fragment at the very peak of the Battle of Kursk. He was mortally wounded, from which he died.
General Joseph Rodionovich Apanasenko died on August 5, 1943.
He was honorably buried in Belgorod. His party card was sent to the Main Political Directorate.
And from there an officer soon arrived and said that under the cover of Apanasenko's party card a note was found in which he asked to bury him in the Stavropol Territory in case of death.
In that note, General Apanasenko wrote this:
I am old soldier of the Russian people.
4 years of the first imperialist war, 3 years of the civil one.
And now it was my lot and the happiness of a warrior to fight, to defend my homeland.
By nature, I want to be always ahead.
If I'm destined to die I beg at least burn at the stake, and the ashes bury in Stavropol in the Caucasus.
Andrey Vasilievich Povolyaev, who was a junior adjutant of I. R. Apanasenko, donated the general's personal belongings to the Stavropol State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve.
Among them are binoculars, gilded shoulder straps (which the adjutant removed after Apanasenko's death), a purse, a wallet, and a field leather tablet. In 1955, the general's family donated part of the personal archive to the museum's funds, including a copy of a suicide note written by Joseph Rodionovich three weeks before his death.
The general's last request was fulfilled.
Apanasenko's body was taken to Stavropol and on August 16 was buried on the Komsomolskaya (Cathedral) Mountain with a huge crowd of residents.
Paying tribute to him, the townspeople erected a tombstone to Joseph Rodionovich within three days.
But in the Far East there are no monuments to this legendary general I. R. Apanasenko (the defender of the cities of the Far East and the organizer for them of a record 1000 kilometers of the automobile Transsib) as was not, so to this day and not.
As well as in the official history of the Great Patriotic War, the name of this legendary general and "soldier of the Russian people", alas, for some reason is not mentioned.
