A history of Russia

by Riazanovsky

  increasing numbers of satellite troops pressed into service, notably Rumanians, could not at all measure up to the German standard. Hitler continued to make mistakes. Time and again, as in the case of Stalingrad, he would not allow his troops to retreat until too late. The Red Army, on the other hand, in spite of its staggering losses, improved in quality and effectiveness. Its battle-tested commanders showed initiative and ability; its weapons and equipment rolled in plentiful supply both from Soviet factories, many of which had been transported eastward and reassembled there, and through Allied aid, while the German forces suffered from all kinds of shortages. As long as they fought on Soviet soil, the Germans had to contend with a large and daring partisan movement in their rear as well as with the Red Army. And they began to experience increasing pressure and defeat on other fronts, as well as from the air, where the Americans and the British mounted a staggering offensive against German cities and industries. The battle of Stalingrad coincided with Montgomery's victory over Rommel in Egypt and Allied landings in Morocco and Algeria. Allied troops invaded Sicily in the summer of 1943 and the Italian mainland that autumn. Finally, on June 6, 1944, the Americans, the British, and the Canadians landed in Normandy to establish the coveted "second front." As the Russians began to invade the Third Reich from the east, the Allies were pushing into it from the west.

  The Red Army recovered much of occupied Soviet territory in the autumn of 1943 and in the winter of 1943/44. On April 8, 1944, Marshal Ivan Konev crossed the Pruth into Rumania. In the following months Soviet armies advanced rapidly in eastern and central Europe, while other armies continued to wipe out the remaining German pockets on Soviet soil. Rumania and Bulgaria quickly changed sides and joined the anti-German coalition. The Red Army was joined by Tito partisans in Yugoslavia and in September 1944 entered Belgrade. After some bitter fighting, Red forces took Budapest in February 1945 and Vienna in mid-April. In the north, Finland had to accept an armistice in September 1944. The great offensive into Germany proper began in the autumn of 1944 when Red forces, after capturing Vilna, penetrated East Prussia. It gained momentum in January 1945 when large armies commanded by Konev in the south, Zhukov in the center, and Marshal Constantine Rokossovsky in the north invaded Germany on a broad front. On April 25, 1945, advanced Russian units met American troops at Torgau, on the Elbe, near Leipzig. On the second of May, Berlin fell to Zhukov's forces after heavy fighting. Hitler had already committed suicide. The Red Army entered Dresden on the eighth of May and Prague on the ninth. On that day, May 9, 1945, fighting ceased: the Third Reich had finally surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, first in Rheims on the seventh of May and then formally in Berlin on the eighth.

  Urged by its allies and apparently itself eager to participate, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on August 8, 1945, three months after the German surrender. By that time Japan had already in fact been defeated by the United States and other powers. The American dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on the sixth of August and on Nagasaki on the ninth eliminated the need to invade the Japanese mainland, convincing the Japanese government that further resistance was useless. In spite of subsequent claims of Soviet historians and propagandists, the role of the U.S.S.R. in the conflict in the Far East and the Pacific was, therefore, fleeting and secondary at best. Yet it enabled the Red forces to occupy Manchuria, the Japanese part of the island of Sakhalin, and the Kurile islands, and to capture many prisoners - all at the price of considerable casualties, for the Japanese did resist. The formal Japanese surrender to the Allies took place on board the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. It marked the end of the Second World War.

  Wartime Diplomacy

  Diplomacy accompanied military operations. In the course of the war the Soviet Union established close contacts with its allies, in particular with Great Britain and the United States. It accepted the Atlantic Charter formulated by Roosevelt and Churchill in August 1941, which promised freedom, self-determination, and equality of economic opportunity to all countries, and it participated fully in the preparation and the eventual creation of the United Nations Organization. It concluded a twenty-year agreement with Great Britain "for the joint achievement both of victory and of a permanent peace settlement" in June 1942 and later made a treaty with France also.

  Of the various high-level conferences of the Allies during the war, the three meetings of the heads of state were the most impressive and important. They took place at Teheran in December 1943, at Yalta in the Crimea in February 1945, and at Potsdam near Berlin in July and August 1945. Stalin, who had assumed the position of prime minister and generalissimo, that is, chief military commander, while remaining the general secretary of the Party, represented the Soviet Union on all three occasions. Roosevelt headed the American delegation at Teheran and Yalta, and Truman, after Roosevelt's death, at Potsdam. Churchill and later Attlee spoke for Great Britain. The heads of the three world powers devoted large parts of their conferences to a discussion of such major issues of the Second World War as the establishment of the "second front" and the eventual entry of the Soviet Union into the struggle against Japan. But, especially as victory came nearer, they also made important provisions for the time when peace would be achieved. These included

  among others: the division of Germany into zones of occupation, with Berlin receiving special status; the acceptance of the incorporation of the Konigsberg district of East Prussia into the Soviet Union; the determination of the Polish eastern frontier, which was to follow roughly the Curzon Line, Poland being granted an indefinite compensation in the west; the decision to promote the establishment of democratic governments based on free elections in all restored European countries; and provisions concerning the formation of the United Nations. Considerable, if largely deceptive, harmony was achieved. Roosevelt in particular exuded optimism.

  Yet even during the war years important disagreements developed among the Allies. The Soviet Union was bitterly disappointed that the Western powers did not invade France in 1942 or in 1943. In spite of the importance of contacts with the West and the enormous aid received from there, Soviet authorities continued to supervise closely all relations with the outside world and to restrict the movement and activities of foreigners in the Soviet Union. Perhaps more important, early difficulties and disagreements concerning the nature of postwar Europe became apparent. Poland served as a striking case in point. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Soviet authorities established relations with the Polish government in exile in London. But the co-operation between the two broke down before long. The Polish army formed in the Soviet Union was transferred to Iran and British auspices, while the Soviet leadership proceeded to rely on a smaller group of Left-Wing Poles who eventually organized the so-called Lublin government in liberated Poland. The historic bitterness between the Poles and the Russians, the problem of the frontier, and other controversial issues were exacerbated by the events of the war years. In April 1943, the German radio announced to the world the massacre by the Reds of thousands of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk before the capture of that area by German troops. This charge, which led to the break in relations between Moscow and the Polish government in London, has now been confirmed. Again, when the Red Army reached the Vistula in August 1944, it failed to assist a desperate Polish rebellion against the Germans in Warsaw, which was finally crushed in October. In this manner it witnessed the annihilation of the anti-German, but also anti-Soviet, Polish underground. The official assertion that Red troops could not advance because they had exhausted their supplies and needed to rest and regroup had its grounds. But Soviet authorities would not even provide airstrips for Allied planes to help the Poles. Under the circumstances the Yalta decision to recognize the Lublin government expanded by several representatives of the London Poles and to hold free elections and establish a democratic regime in Poland proved unrealistic and amounted in the end to a Western surrender to Soviet wishes. This and

  ot
her grave problems of postwar eastern Europe are treated in the next chapter.

  The Soviet Union in the Second World War: An Evaluation

  The Soviet performance in the Second World War presents a fascinating picture of contrasts. Seldom did a country and a regime do both so poorly and so well in the same conflict. Far from purposely enticing the Germans into the interior of the country or executing successfully any other strategic plan, the Red Army suffered catastrophic defeat in the first months of the war. Indeed, the Russians were smashed as badly as the French had been a year earlier, except that they had more territory to retreat to and more men in reserve. Moreover, while the German army was at the time the best in the world, Soviet forces did not at all make the most of their admittedly difficult position. Some top Red commanders, such as the Civil War cavalry hero Marshal Semen Budenny, proved to be as incompetent as the worst tsarist generals. The fighting spirit of Soviet troops varied greatly: certain units fought heroically, while others hastened to surrender. The enormous number of prisoners taken by the Germans testified not only to their great military victory, but also in part to the Soviet unwillingness to fight. Even more significantly, the Soviet population often welcomed the Germans. This was strikingly true in the recently acquired Baltic countries and in large areas of the Ukraine and White Russia, but it also occurred in Great Russian regions near Smolensk and elsewhere. After a quarter of a century of Communist rule many inhabitants of the U.S.S.R. greeted invaders, any invaders, as liberators. In addition to Red partisans there developed anti-Soviet guerrilla movements, which were at the same time anti-German. In Ukraine, nationalist bands continued resisting Red rule even long after the end of the Second World War. To the great surprise of the Western democracies, tens of thousands of Soviet citizens liberated by Allied armies in Europe did all they could not to return to their homeland.

  But the Soviet regime survived. In spite of its staggering losses, the Red Army did finally hold the Germans and then gradually push them back until their defeat became a rout. Red infantry, artillery, cavalry, and tanks all repeatedly distinguished themselves in the Second World War. Uncounted soldiers acted with supreme heroism. The names of such commanders as Zhukov and Rokossovsky became synonymous with victory. In addition to the regular army, daring and determined partisans also fought the invader to the death. The government managed under most difficult conditions to organize the supply of the armed forces. It should be stressed that while Soviet military transportation depended heavily on vehicles from Lend-Lease, the Red Army was armed with Soviet weapons.

  Although many people died of starvation in Leningrad and elsewhere, government control remained effective and morale did not break on the home front. Eventually the Soviet Union won, at an enormous cost, it is true, a total victory.

  Much has been written to explain the initial Soviet collapse and the great subsequent rally. For example, it has been argued that the Germans defeated themselves. Their beastly treatment of the Soviet population - documented in A. Dallin's study and in other works - turned friends into enemies. It has even been claimed that to win the war the Nazis had merely to arm Soviet citizens and let them fight against their own government, but Hitler was extremely reluctant to try that. The Russian Liberation Army of Andrew Vlasov, a Soviet general who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and had proceeded to organize an anti-Communist movement, received no chance to develop and prove itself in combat until it was too late. Commentators have also rightly stressed the importance of the Soviet appeal to patriotism and other traditional values. The Communist government consciously utilized the prestige of Russian military heroes of the past and the manifold attractions of nationalism. It emphasized discipline and rank in the army, reducing the power of the commissars. Concurrently it made concessions to the practice of religion and spoke of a new and better life which would follow the end of the war. The Russians, it has been maintained, proved ready to die for their country and for that new life, while they felt only hostility to the Soviet regime.

  These and other similar explanations of the Soviet turnabout and of the German defeat appear to contain much truth. Yet, in the last analysis, they might give as one-sided a picture of the Soviet scene as the wholesale admiration of the Communist regime and its virtues popular during and immediately after the war in less critical Western circles. The salient fact remains that in one way or another Stalin and his system prevailed over extreme adversity. Besides, whatever its wartime appeals and promises, the regime did not change at all in essence - as subsequent years were to demonstrate to the again astonished world.

  XXXIX

  STALIN'S LAST DECADE, 1945-53

  We demand that our comrades, both as leaders in literary affairs and as writers, be guided by the vital force of the Soviet order - its politics. Only thus can our youth be reared, not in a devil-may-care attitude and a spirit of ideological indifference, but in a strong and vigorous revolutionary spirit.

  ZHDANOV

  When the immediate passions of the war recede into the background and it becomes possible to view the decade after 1939 in greater perspective, the statesmanship exhibited during World War II by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin will doubtless be more fully understood. What is remarkable is not that the Western democracies and the Soviet Union failed to reach any general agreement as to the postwar organization of Europe, but rather that they were able to maintain their coalition until the end of the war with so few alarms and disagreements. It is now clear that the success of the coalition must be attributed more to the immediacy and gravity of the common danger represented by the military might of Germany and Japan, than to any harmony of opinion among the Allies regarding the political bases of a stable peace. During the long period since the winter of 1917-18, when the Bolsheviks had negotiated a separate peace with the Central Powers, agreement between Russia and the West had been the exception rather than the rule. Close co-operation had been achieved almost as a last resort in the face of an immediate threat to their security, and once the enemy was defeated the differences in political outlook which had been temporarily overlooked inevitably reappeared.

  BLACK AND HELMREICH

  The Second World War brought tremendous human losses and material destruction to the Soviet Union. In addition to the millions of soldiers who died, millions of civilians perished in the shifting battle zone and in German-occupied territory. Of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens who went west, either as Nazi slave labor or of their own will, only a part ever returned to their homeland. The brutality of the invaders defied description. Red Army prisoners starved to death in very large numbers in German camps; whole categories of people, such as Jews, Communists, government officials and gypsies were exterminated wherever they could be found. Partisan warfare led to horrible reprisals against the population. In contrast to the First World War, most atrocity stories of the Second World War were true. The total number of Soviet military and civilian

  dead in the dreadful conflict remains quite uncertain. In 1946 the Soviet government set the figure at seven million. A similiar total has been reached by a few specialists outside the Soviet Union, such as Mironenko. Most foreign scholars, however, have arrived at much higher figures, for instance, Prokopovich estimates fourteen million and Schuman twenty million. Latest calculations based on some newly available material raised the figure even to twenty-seven million. It is generally believed that the losses were about evenly divided between the military and civilian. To the dead must be added perhaps another twenty million for the children that were not born in the decade of the forties. Population figures announced by the Soviet Union in the spring of 1959 tend to support high rather than low estimates of the Second World War losses. Significantly, the ratio of males to females among the peoples of the U.S.S.R. in 1959 stood at 45 per cent males to 55 per cent females.

  Material losses were similarly enormous. In addition to the destruction suffered in the fighting, huge areas of the country were devastated - frequently more than on
ce - at the hands of the retreating Red Army or the withdrawing Germans. The Red Army followed the scorched-earth policy, trying to destroy all that could be of military value to the enemy. The Nazis, when they were forced to abandon Soviet territory, attempted to demolish everything, and often did so with remarkable thoroughness. For example, they both flooded and wrecked mines and developed special devices to blow up railroad tracks. Much of the Soviet Union became an utter wasteland. According to official figures - probably somewhat exaggerated as all such Soviet figures tend to be - Soviet material losses in the war included the total or partial destruction of 1,700 towns, 70,000 villages, 6,000,000 buildings, 84,000 schools, 43,000 libraries, 31,000 factories, and 1,300 bridges. Also demolished were 98,000 kolkhozes and 1,876 sovkhozes. The Soviet economy lost 137,000 tractors and 49,000 combine-harvesters, as well as 7,000,000 horses, 17,000,000 head of cattle, 20,000,000 hogs, and 27,000,000 sheep and goats. Soviet authorities estimated the destruction in the U.S.S.R. at half the total material devastation in Europe during the Second World War. It may have also amounted to two-thirds of the reproducible wealth of occupied Soviet areas and one-quarter of the reproducible wealth of the Soviet Union.

  The war affected Soviet Russia in other ways as well. It led to a strong upsurge of patriotism and nationalism, promoted by the Communist government itself which did all it could to mobilize the people for supreme effort and sacrifice. The army acquired new prominence and prestige, whereas from the time of the Civil War it had been kept in the background in the Soviet state. Religion, as already mentioned, profited from a more tolerant attitude on the part of authorities. In addition, a striking religious