Solonin

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Solonin
Presentation scheme
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1.1 Why are new versions that disprove earlier
interpretations of the events of WWII possible?
Exactly half a century passed between the
horrible summer of 1941 and the moment of the
Soviet Unions collapse. During that time tens of
thousands of books and academic articles
comprehensively analyzing the events of that war
were written in the Soviet Union. Is it possible
for another study to appear and disprove the
conclusions at which thousands of Soviet
historians arrived unanimously? Yes. It certainly
is possible. Moreover, it is absolutely
necessary. Why? Because thousands of books and
articles were written by fighters on the Partys
ideological front (as they proudly called
themselves). And war is war. Speaking the truth
is treachery. Telling a lie is a matter of valor
and heroism. The military-historical mythology
that the Party soldiers created had the
patriotic upbringing of the working class as
its goal that is, the manipulation of the
collective consciousness with the support of
censorship, an iron curtain for hiding from the
rest of the world, and repression of dissidents.
The attempt to search for historical truth was
called a manifestation of bourgeois objectivism
and was quite openly condemned. Moreover, the
conscientious study of military history would be
extremely difficult even for the subjectively
honest historian. Stalins totalitarian empire
(the USSR) was not defeated (as was the Thousand
Year Reich of the Nazi criminals, as a result of
WWII). None of the highest Soviet statesmen that
survived Stalin (neither Timoshenko, the Peoples
Commissar of Defense, nor Zhukov, the head of the
General Staff, nor Molotov, the Peoples
Commissar of Foreign Affairs, nor Beria, the
Peoples Commissar of Internal Affairs, nor their
deputies or subordinates) stood before an
independent court or parliamentary committee. The
Soviet state archives (including the military
archives) were tightly shut for half a century to
researchers who had not been engaged by the
authorities. Even these days an immense mass of
documents remains inaccessible to
historians. That is why critical revision of the
Soviet propaganda version of the Great Patriotic
War is absolutely necessary.
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1.2. In the summer of 1941 the Red Army suffered
a shattering defeat that was unprecedented in
history . Soviet historians called the things
that happened to the Red Army in the summer of
1941 temporary misfortunes, forced retreats,
losses in frontier battles. Such formulations
have intentionally diminished the acuteness of
the problem and made the search for the real
reasons of the events that occurred unnecessary.
Common sense and the personal experience of any
mature person immediately suggest that temporary
misfortunes happen in the activity of
practically any system, so why should he be
surprised that the Red Army also suffered once
from temporary misfortunes? In the summer of
1941, however, something different happened the
worlds largest land army suffered a shattering
defeat. It turned out to be equally incapable of
either defense or offense. History hadn't known a
Military catastrophe on such scale. In the course
of several weeks the army lost heavy armaments
(tanks, airplanes, and artillery systems) the
creation of which took 10 years of the hardest
labor and the immense raw material resources of
the worlds wealthiest country (the USSR). In the
first 15-20 days of the war, the Germans advanced
350-500 km in depth and occupied territory
amounting to 700 thousand km2 in area, which is
approximately three times larger than the
territory of Poland that the Wehrmacht occupied
in September of 1939 it is also six times larger
than the combined territory of Belgium, the
Netherlands, and the patch of northeastern France
the Wehrmacht occupied in May of 1940. These
gigantic territories, lost by the end of autumn
1941, had to be returned later at the cost of
many millions of victims within the next three
years of war.
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1.3 The losses of the advancing Wehrmacht were
significantly smaller than the Red Armys losses.
The enemy achieved its phenomenal success while
paying a comparably small price. In 1941 the
successfully advancing Wehrmachts losses turned
out to be many times smaller than those of the
defensive party (the Red Army) moreover, the
ratio of manpower loses was expressed in
two-digit numbers. This reality contradicts all
the canons of military science, since the combat
losses of the attacking party should be larger
than the losses of the defensive party. A
backwards ratio is, rather, possible in cases
such as when white colonizers sailed to Africa
with cannon and rifles to attack aborigines who
defended themselves with spears and mattocks. A
completely different situation prevailed on the
USSRs western border in the summer of 1941 the
defeated Red Army significantly exceeded its
enemy in its amount of military equipment.
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1.4. The defeated Red Army significantly
exceeded the Wehrmacht in number For half a
century Soviet historians talked about how the
Wehrmachts forces were predominant in number
and about the manifold advantage of the enemy in
tanks and aviation. Such statements cannot be
termed either myth or error. They were conscious
and deliberate lies. The Red Army exceeded its
enemy in all of the most important quantitative
indicators, in particular in number of tanks and
tank (mechanized) formations and also in the
number of airplanes and aviation escadrilles. The
Red Army commands capacity to build up forces in
the course of the war that had begun was many
times larger than the Wehrmachts.
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1.5. Soviet military equipment was not inferior
to the leading world examples in terms of its
tactical and technical characteristics. The Red
Army was undoubtedly and many times superior to
the enemy in terms of volume of equipment. But it
was also not inferior to the Wehrmacht in terms
of quality, if we understand this term as
encompassing the tactical-technical
characteristics of arms. In terms of the quality
of its tanks and anti-tank defense weapons, of
the quality and mechanization level of the
artillery, and of the level of equipment of
forces with means of radio communication, the Red
Army could have been considered one of the best
armies of its time.
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1.6. Sudden assault myth or reality? Another
reason for the defeat was termed by Soviet
historians Germanys sudden assault. Let us
immediately note that the extremely militarized
Soviet Union was the only one of the Second World
Wars European participants the defeat of which
is traditionally explained by a sudden assault
(not counting, of course, Luxembourg and
Albania). For all the others, a concentration of
troops near the border and a subsequent invasion
did not add up to a surprise. Surely, strategic
surprise is out of the question the Soviet
Union was persistently and for a long time
preparing for war. The numbers pertaining to the
Red Armys size that were adduced earlier and the
level of its technical equipment constitute the
most persuasive proof of this. The Soviet Union
and the Red Army were getting ready not just for
any war, but were specifically and precisely
preparing for war against Germany. Besides which,
the developed operational war plans stipulated
dealing the Wehrmacht a shattering blow and
attacking all the way to Berlin, Prague, and
Vienna. Covert mobilization and strategic
deployment of the USSRs military forces began
BEFORE, and not after, the German invasion as
far as it is possible to judge from the few
declassified documents, it began in May of
1941. The thesis that the enemy succeeded in
achieving an effect of tactical rapidity is far
from indisputable. Soviet intelligence was
continuously monitoring the concentration of
German troops on the USSRs western borders,
while the military command (both in Moscow and in
the border military districts) gave, a few days
before the actual beginning of combat, an entire
range of orders about the troop combat
readiness. In any case, the surprise that gave
the enemy the benefit of the first blow can be
taken as a reason for the defeat and destruction
of the border outposts and of some of the units
of the western border troops first echelon, but
not for the whole long chain of Red Army defeats
in 1941-1942. We have to remember that the Red
Army suffered its worst defeat not during the
first days and weeks of the war, but in
September-October of 1941, when more than a
hundred divisions were destroyed in the Kiev and
Vyazma kettles. No less shattering were the
defeats in the spring of 1942 near Kerch and
Kharkov. It is understood that surprise at that
point was out of the question.
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1.7. The incompleteness of the strategic
deployment (the enemy got the chance to defeat
the Red Army part by part). Recently, the thesis
about the sudden attack has been significantly
modernized in the work of contemporary Russian
historians. Right now it is acceptable to talk
about the incompleteness of strategic
deployment or the under-mobilization of forces
and that this lead to a situation in which the
enemy got the chance to destroy the Red Army part
by part. From the point of view of
correspondence with the actual picture these
claims are, overall, accurate. By the morning of
June 22 the strategic deployment of the forces of
the First and the Second Strategic echelons was
still far from complete. The enemy indeed
crushed the Red Army part by part in the first
10-15 days the forces of the western border
districts (the First Strategic Echelon) were
defeated (in a range of cases encircled and
destroyed) and the majority of heavy expensive
equipment (tanks and airplanes) was lost. Then,
in the period from July 5-10 and until the middle
of August, there were defeated the forces of the
Second Strategic Echelon that had arrived in the
theater (mainly rifle divisions the echelon had
far fewer large tank formations). All these are
indisputable facts. Much more complex and open to
dispute is the answer to this question what was
the reason here and what was the consequence? Was
it the incomplete mobilization and deployment
that became the reason for the months-long series
of defeats, or the chaotic retreat of the troops
that started in the first days (or even hours) of
the war? Or was it also the panicked escape of
the civil administration (the Party secretaries
and NKVD employees, that is) that did not allow
for finishing within the scheduled terms the
mobilization that had occurred earlier?
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1.7 (continuing)? First of all, its necessary to
establish the quantitative parameters of the
problem. The delayed announcement of open
mobilization (it happened only after the actual
beginning of combat) undoubtedly weakened the Red
Armys fighting strength, but did not bring it
down to zero. The scheduled terms for the
complete mobilization of the formations of the
fronts first echelon added up to only several
days or even hours. In the western border
districts, rifle divisions the foundation of
land armies of that time and (whats particularly
important in this case) the main force in defense
had at the beginning of combat already been
completed with personnel and equipment to the
extent of up to 70-80 (and more) of the planned
numbers. In accordance with the Soviet commands
pre-war plans and calculations, the troops of the
western districts, relying on two lines of
permanent fortifications (the so-called Molotov
Line and the Stalin Line) and on natural
obstacles (numerous border-area rivers flowing in
a meridional direction) could and should have
held off the attack of the enemys significantly
larger forces for a week or two. This time was
sufficient enough to complete the main tasks
associated with the mobilization and strategic
deployment of the Soviet military. Finally, the
massive size of the country itself served as a
natural damper that cushioned the first enemys
blow. As strange as it might seem, this
incompleteness on the part of the strategic
regrouping was in a way beneficial on the
morning of June 22 no more than 10 to 15 of
total Red Army formations were subjected to the
enemys first blow most of the military did not
suffer any losses in the first days of the war.
As a rule, the troops of the Second Strategic
Echelon entered combat already fully equipped
according to the requirements of the wartime
plan that, however, led to no noticeable change
in the character of the battles and operations
outcomes.
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1.8. Main thesis the human factor was the reason
for the defeat Mark Solonin asserts that the
main reason for the military catastrophe of 1941
lies beyond problems pertaining to operational
skill, tactics, or the quantity or quality of
arms. Moreover, if those categories had been the
determining ones in the military conflict, then
the Red Armys victory would have been prompt and
inevitable. In the shortest formulation, the
answer to the question about the reason for the
defeat can be boiled down to five words THE RED
ARMY DIDNT FIGHT. Separate units, subunits, and
persons did fight, often with great persistence
and selflessness. If they had not, the Germans
would have walked all the way to Vladivostok. If
the organized army had fought, the war could have
ended in October of 1941 in Berlin. But that did
not happen. Not two armies, but the Wehrmacht of
fascist Germany on one side, organized and
working like a well-oiled clock, and an almost
unmanageable armed crowd on the other side, met
on the battlefields in the summer of 1941. The
result of the collision of an army and a crowd
could not have been any different than it was.
Even an immense number of top-flight arms will
not allow a crowd to beat an army. In defeat, an
unorganized crowd will pay with losses that will
exceed the enemy armys loss many times. The
reason for the Red Armys transformation into an
unorganized crowd has nothing to do with the
notorious absence of means of communications or
with a mythical sudden attack. The reason, the
consequence, and the main substance of the armys
elemental collapse were the mass failure to carry
out orders, mass desertion (both open and
covert), and mass surrender. The Soviet Union was
not ready for war from the point of view of the
human factor. In complete contradiction to what
Soviet propaganda hammered in for decades, the
Red Army was inferior to its enemy not in the
number of guns, tanks, and machineguns, but in
readiness, skill, and will of the soldiers to do
their duty. In collision with real, persistent,
and firm opponents, it turned out that the Red
Army had many tanks but not enough motivation for
armed struggle.
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1.9. Is objective evaluation of an armys
fighting spirit (motivation) possible? What could
serve as the criteria? Tanks can be counted, the
thickness of armor can be measured, and the
actual piercing capacity of anti-tank shells can
be checked in an ordnance yard. Is it possible,
though, to measure fighting spirit, to estimate
the absence or presence of motivation within
quantitative parameters? Or must all discussions
of these issues inevitably come down to juggling
convenient excerpts from the reminiscences of
war veterans? Yes, it is possible, although
certainly measuring fighting spirit is much
harder than counting the number of divisions,
guns, and echelons with ammunition. The goal of
Solonins study was exactly to search for
criteria that would allow for the objective
(quantitative) estimating of such a subjective
category as the human factor.
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1.10 The main evaluation criteria The
informational breakthrough, the declassification
of numerous archive funds that occurred at the
beginning of the 1990s, has allowed for study of
the structure of the losses in the Red Armys
manpower (the correlation between those who were
killed, wounded, went missing, and were
captives). This is the first indicator, and a
very informative one in the normal army, that
is, the fighting one (and not the scattering
one), the number of those who went missing, were
taken captive, or deserted comes to single
percentages of the total number of losses. In the
summer of 1941 at a range of fronts the number of
those who went missing was many times larger than
the number of those killed! The declassification
of a large mass of documents (including the NKVD
archives and the trophy Wehrmacht documents) made
it possible to directly estimate the number of
deserters and prisoners. . The overwhelming
result of these calculations was the following
the total number of deserters and captives in
1941 was almost twice as large as the initial
size of the Red Armys active fronts. Rigorous
study of the documents allowed for detecting an
unusually high percentage of non-battle equipment
losses (tanks, guns, and aircraft). Nothing of
this sort was found when analyzing the losses of
1943-1945. The mortality among tanks that
transpired in the summer of 1941 was never
observed before or after. The only rational
explanation for this is that an immense amount of
warlike equipment was abandoned by personnel
during their panicked retreat.
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1.11 Additional criteria for evaluating the moral
state of society and the army The indicators
mentioned above do not exhaust the list of those
criteria that allow for objectively estimating
the moral and political state of Soviet society
and its military. The mass draft dodging that
took place in the summer of 1941 stands as an
obvious proof of the absence of motivation. The
incredibly fast pace of the Wehrmachts advance,
the speed with which the German army forced the
crossing of a full-flowing river and broke
through two lines of permanent fortifications,
can also be seen as an indirect, yet sufficiently
demonstrative, criterion. Another illustration of
the Red Armys low morale is the duration of
battles in encirclements. While the encircled
Wehrmacht formations stood up in the Demyansk
Pocket and Stalingrad Kettle for several months,
encircled Soviet armies (Minsk, Uman, Kiev,
Briansk, Kerch, and Kharkov) inevitably ceased
organized resistance within several days. Mass
collaboration with the occupiers and the
participation (in many cases quite voluntary) of
tens of thousands of Red Army ex-servicemen in
punitive actions against the local population and
Soviet partisans is indisputable evidence of
Soviet societys moral decay. The low level of
activity of the Soviet Air Force and particularly
of the Navy deserves special attention and
further study. (Inefficiency and unproductiveness
could depend on many subjective and objective
factors, in particular on a low level of activity
that in a range of cases acquired a distinct
character of covert desertion.)
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1.12. Appraisal of the situation by the Soviet
government and the Red Army command the opinion
of contemporaries and of participants in the
events. Contemporary readers often take a
declaration about the low morale in the Red Army
circa 1941 as sensational and scandalous. The
Red Army command and the countrys supreme
military and political leaders, however, very
promptly (by mid-July of 1941) lost any illusions
or hopes about mass heroism unprecedented in
history. Numerous orders and headquarters
directives leave no doubts on that matter. Nor
were the clear-eyed people who lived through
those tragic events mistaken in their evaluations
about what was going on in the army.
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1.13 Discussion of the REASONS for such a low
level of motivation falls beyond the framework of
this study. It represents a separate scientific
issue. The goal of Solonins study was to search
for criteria with which to objectively estimate
morale in the Red Army circa 1941, based on found
criteria. This study established a fact in
reality (and contrary to the propaganda myths
that press upon mass consciousness even now),
motivation to take part in combat among Red Army
soldiers and officers was quite low, which was
reflected in mass desertions, mass surrender, and
mass abandonment of military equipment to the
enemy. Eventually, it was precisely problems with
the human factor that led to the military
catastrophe of the summer of 1941. As for what
caused this low motivation, thats a separate and
extremely complicated issue that lies not only
beyond Solonins study, but beyond the framework
of military-historical science as such. In a
general way it is obvious that it is in principle
impossible to identify one single reason.
Motivation is a complicated alloy of skills and
desire moreover, both these components are
interconnected. The low level of professionalism
among the Red Army command personnel, the rupture
of the military tradition that occurred in the
1920s and 1930s, the paralyzing effect of the
mass repressions of 1937, the ruin of the
peasants and orchestrated famine at the beginning
of the 1930s, the demobilizing effect of
demonstrative cooperation with Hitler in
1939-1941, the anti-Soviet attitudes among the
majority of the population in the annexed
territories of Poland and the Baltics, the
destruction by terror of the habit and readiness
to express personal initiative this is a far
from complete list of the possible reasons for
the moral and political decay of Soviet society,
and of the Red Army as its component.
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1.14 Why this concept faces incredible
resistance (a society without a future needs a
myth about its glorious past). Over 220 thousand
copies of Solonins books have been published in
Russia. Dozens of articles and interviews with
the author have been published. His books have
been translated and published in Poland, Estonia,
Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. He
gave lectures at universities in Tallinn,
Vilnius, Bratislava, Boston, and Washington.
Solonins concept did not remain unnoticed in
Russia, rather, it faced acute rejection. Were
talking here not so much about the reaction (or
rather deafening silence) of the functionaries of
official Russian historical science, but rather
about the outraged voice of the broad masses of
people. Such a reaction to a well-documented
scientific study is regretful, but is not an
accident. The critical evaluation of ones past
and the ability to admit mistakes is a luxury
available only to a healthy society that calmly
and confidently looks to the future. A country
that is attempting to suppress its sense of
inferiority with warlike yells and tribune calls
requires a comforting fairytale about the
glorious past, about a golden age that, at
least, existed at some point. Fear about the
future inevitably turns into furious resistance
against the bitter truth about the past.
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