"Yes, you can start, but the specific time will be decided by the General Staff." Yang Shuoming nodded, "Strive for the second and third assaults, and completely destroy them." ”

"But the defeat of the Soviet Union does not mean the end of the war." Qu Shuang reminded Yang Shuoming, "Don't forget that behind the Soviet Union, there is also China." ”

"Yes, according to the battle reports from the front, the strength of the [***] team to support the Soviet army is increasing." Yang Shuoming beckoned Qu Shuang to come to the map and said, "According to the information provided by the British and French intelligence agencies, the Chinese [***] team is being transferred eastward in large numbers, and the number of Chinese [***] teams stationed in Britain and France has decreased a lot, and the pressure on Britain and the United States has suddenly decreased. ”

"They are in a hurry to counterattack, afraid that it will not be so easy." Yang Shuoming shook his head, "The [***] team in the North African battlefield has not decreased, the main forces of the British and American armies are concentrated here, and if the [***] team is not expelled from North Africa, its recovery of the mainland will be greatly constrained, and it will be difficult to succeed." ”

"Britain and the United States demand that our country strengthen its military strength in the Pacific theater and reduce its pressure." Qu Shuang said with some concern, "The Soviet Union said that it was a big trouble for our country, and our army fought on two fronts. At present, the anti-war voice in China is higher than in previous years. ”

"It's also normal." Yang Shuoming nodded, "It is impossible for the people to support the political axe to carry on the war without limit, and the people have the right to oppose the war for their own interests." ”

"Does the President have any new ideas?" Qu Shuang heard something from Yang Shuoming's words and immediately asked.

"War with China is best avoided." Yang Shuoming did not hide it from him, but said his true thoughts, "After the elimination of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union, this war should be over for us." ”

"It's great to be able to do that." Qu Shuang said, "However, this kind of thing is not just wishful thinking on our part, the Chinese have a great appetite, and now that the army is in full swing, I am afraid it is not easy to make them stop." ”

"If they realize that they can't win in the end, they'll think about it." Yang Shuoming smiled faintly, and his eyes fell on the location of China on the map.

"If the Soviets are willing to surrender, then we will save trouble." Qu Shuang said with a smile.

"They won't have this opportunity, I know Stalin." Yang Shuoming said, "So what awaits them is only destruction." ”

Moscow, Kremlin.

Stalin's office was filled with reports of all sorts from the front.

“…… When attacking our position, the squadron drove women, children, and the elderly in front, thus making it extremely difficult for the defending troops. Children and women shouted: 'Don't shoot! 'We are our own people!' Our officers and soldiers were at a loss: what to do? It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of those unfortunate people: behind them is the muzzle of an enemy submachine gun, and what awaits them in front is death ......"

The report was not read, and Stalin reacted quickly. His reaction is in line with his real surname - extreme cruelty:

"I heard that when the brutal Chinese school team attacked our city, they drove old men, old women, women, and children in front of the troops...... I heard that among the Bolsheviks in the Red Army it was believed that it was impossible to use weapons to treat such representatives. I think that if there are such people among the Bolsheviks, they should be eliminated first, because they are even more dangerous than the beastly Chinese. I suggest: do not be merciful, but strike hard at the enemy and his accomplices, whether voluntarily or forced...... According to Chinese and his deputies, whoever they may be, fight hard, strafe the enemy, whether voluntarily or forced...... "Stalin, having dictated the order, ordered the order to be handed over to Shaposhnikov and issued as a formal order.

War was brutal in substance, but here Stalin it was a different kind of cruelty: not only cruelty to the enemy (which is understandable), but also cruelty to one's own compatriots. "Strafe the enemy, both voluntarily and forced...... Zhukov and Denov saw the order and told him, "these are women, old people and children." But Stalin said: "Do not be merciful, but strike hard at the enemy and his accomplices...... "Do you also "hit hard" with submachine guns, your own children?! This is something that cannot be understood, explained, or justified in any way...... In these nightmarish days, Stalin's punishment of the "derelict generals" was not a mere emotional impulse, but a continuation of his arbitrariness at the end of the 30s. In fact, since June 1941, Pavlov, who was executed by him, has held five field exercises at the army group level, one field exercise at the army group level, one combat exercise at the army group level, five combat exercises at the front army level, one radio exercise with the participation of two tank corps, and two drills at the division and one army level. Pavlov carefully watched the disposition of the enemy's troops and repeatedly proposed to the People's Commissar of Defense that the troops of the military district be transferred from depth to the border areas. At the time of the outbreak of the war, the troops of the military district were being reorganized. 5 tank corps, 1 airborne corps, 3 anti-tank brigades and so on are being formed. None of the above-mentioned units have yet to be formed, and their materials and equipment are not complete.

Pavlov knew that the Chinese were preparing a surprise attack, so he asked permission to station field fortifications along the border. On June 20, a coded telegram signed by Vasilevsky, deputy head of the Operations Department of the General Staff, informed Pavlov that his request had been reported to the People's Commissar and that the People's Commissar was not allowed to station in field fortifications, as it might provoke provocation by the Chinese.

Many people did not think that Pavlov's actions were sabotage or betrayal, both before the war and during difficult defensive operations. The defeat of the Front was not due to Pavlov's inability, but to a number of reasons, the main of which were: the numerical superiority of the enemy, the suddenness of the enemy's attack, the fact that the Red Army occupied the fortified area too late, and Kulik's unscrupulous intervention...... As for the commander of the 4th Army, General Korobkov, it should be said that the injustice to this talented commander who had led his division in the Finnish War was appalling. After the end of the Finnish war, General Korobkov was appointed army commander, and later, a few months before the outbreak of the war, took command of the 4th Army, he was a brave and active army commander. His shortcomings are that he seeks to unconditionally carry out any order of the command of the military district, including orders that clearly do not correspond to the actual situation.

Why was it precisely the commander of the 4th Army, who, despite suffering heavy losses, continued to exist and maintained contact with the command of the Front, who was arrested and brought to trial by the Tribunal? It turned out that, according to the "apportionment", the Eastern Front should have a commander of the army group to be put on trial, and there was only one commander of the 4th Army present at that time. The commanders of the 3rd Army and the 10th Army did not know where they were at that time and lost contact with them. This decided the fate of Korobkov. Korobkov's punishment deprived the Soviet Red Army of a good commander of the army group. Many people believed that he could have been among the best commanders of the Red Army.

There are many, many people who could have grown but failed to grow. Many died on the battlefield. There were also many generals who, after fighting as much as possible, committed suicide unwilling to be taken prisoner or punished by Stalin. There are many reports of this situation. Major General Petrov, commander of the 17th Motorized Mechanized Corps, reported to Marshal Timoshenko that his deputy commander, Korokhin, had committed suicide...... The commander of the Air Force of the Western Special Military District, Kopets, committed suicide...... In his report, the head of the Political Propaganda Department of the Western Special Military District, Lestyev, explained the suicide as "coward......ice due to the partial defeat of the Air Force and large losses" (maybe just a fear of being accused of being panicked?). The loss is "partial", while the loss is only "larger...... Some of the generals who were caught up in the whirlpool of tragic events had a fate worse than suicide.

The state security apparatus had reported to Stalin that two generals had voluntarily surrendered to the Chinese and were working for the Chinese. One was the former commander of the 28th Army, Lieutenant General Kacharov, and the other was the former commander of the 12th Army, Major General Ponegerin. Stalin instructed: "Trial." "Not all orders, far from all those that involved front-line affairs, especially in the early days of the war, were carried out to the letter. If it had been carried out, then the Chinese would not have hit the city of Moscow so quickly. However, orders such as "judgment" are carried out with certainty. As a result, the two generals were sentenced in absentia to execution in accordance with article 265 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, "with confiscation of personal property and demand the deprivation of the Order of the Soviet Union, the award they received."

Those stupid and brazen whistleblowers could not have imagined that Kacharov had already died on the battlefield with a direct hit from an enemy shell. But until now, his surviving family has been carrying the black cauldron of the relatives of the "traitor". The fate of Poniegerin was even more tragic. He was mortally wounded during the encirclement, unconscious and captured. He resolutely refused to cooperate with the Chinese side. Although he was later released and repatriated, he was arrested and held in a Soviet concentration camp, although he had already been sentenced to death in absentia. As a result of Poniegerin's direct appeal to Stalin, he was tried again and sentenced to execution again. Major General Poniederin was sentenced to death twice, suffering in the Chinese prisoner of war camps and Stalin's concentration camps, and was still sentenced to execution simply because he was unfortunately captured while unconscious...... From the very beginning of the war, Stalin, who had just recovered from his lost soul, resorted to his own tried and tested methods in order to save the situation: repression and intensification of terror. Tens of thousands died at the front, and many more became prisoners. Those who broke out of the siege and those who escaped from the camps were put in "special concentration camps under censorship." Beria had many reports on the functions of these "special concentration camps". After the vetting, some soldiers were sent to the new units being formed, while others were summarily executed or sent to concentration camps for long periods of time. Their fate was particularly tragic: humiliation and loss of honor, not only for themselves but also for their families. Naturally, among these people there are also those who consciously betrayed the Motherland, or who, due to timidity, did not fulfill their military duties. Stalin's brutality towards the Soviets in the war is often thought to be limited to Pavlov and the generals of his command. But few people know that Stalin approved the arrest of a large number of commanders during this period. Among them are:

Major General Alekseev, commander of the 6th Infantry Corps; Major General Arushan, Chief of Staff of the 56th Army; Major General Gopich, head of the Communications Department of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army; Major General Gorushkevich, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Eastern Front; Lieutenant General Ivanov, reserve of the General Cadre Department of the People's Commissariat of Defense; Major General Kuzmin, Head of the Tactical Teaching and Research Department of the Frunze Military Academy; Major General Leonovich, Chief of Staff of the 18th Army; Major General Melkov, Head of the Department of the Military Academy of the General Staff; Major General Pota Turchev, commander of the 4th Tank Division; Major General Romanov, Chief of Staff of the 27th Army; Lieutenant General Selivanov, commander of the 30th Infantry Corps; Major General Semashko, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Stalingrad Front; Lieutenant General Trubetskoi, head of the Military Communications Department of the Red Army; Major General Qiulnikov, commander of the 15th Infantry Division.

The list does not include all those arrested. The fate of these people also varies. Some were able to return to the front, some were held in concentration camps, and some were killed.

In most cases, Stalin only authorized arrests, although sometimes he also gave certain instructions himself. For example, at 5:15 a.m. on November 25, 1944, Stalin dictated a telegram sent to Stalingrad that read as follows:

"I was surprised by the fact that Vasilevsky and Malenkov had personally broken through the enemy's line of defense on the Stalingrad front and penetrated deep into the rear of our troops, just as they had broken through our line on the Sverdlovsk front last year. It should be noted that the chief of staff of the Sverdlovsk Front at that time was also Zakharov, and the deputy of Comrade Yeremenko was also Rukhle. Food for thought. Either Yeremenko did not understand the fact that a second echelon must be established wherever a division lacking combat experience was in the first line, or there were bad people there who provided Chinese with accurate information on the weak parts of our army's defensive line......"

It was inconvenient for Stalin to suspect Zakharov and Yeremenko directly, but the Supreme Commander-in-Chief apparently had doubts about the head of the operational section of the Front Command, Major General Rukhle. He did not understand the law that the commander of the squadron sought out the weakest points of the Soviet army and struck at them, but believed that the reason for this was that "there were bad people who provided accurate information to the Chinese...... and that for the special staff members, after receiving such a telegram, there was no longer any need for any basis, because there were instructions from the Supreme Commander himself. Major General Rukhle was immediately arrested, but his luck was not bad and he managed to survive.

Stalin never completely abandoned the cruel "game". However, everyone at the time believed that the harsh times could justify the cruelty of the "leaders".

Stalin resembles a marble statue in the sun, and the sunlit side is taken as the essence of the phenomenon. And on the dark side, it's as if it doesn't exist. In fact, the "sunny side" is just an illusion. The real Stalin, however, was always hidden behind a statue for the people to admire.

Stalin was not a "wise commander-in-chief", as hundreds of tomes, films, long poems, research reports, and statements proclaimed to the world. He's not a mediocre guy. He was a study-type commander with practical talent and strong will, no shortage of bad ideas, and mastered the mysteries of the art of war at the cost of bloody experiments. The miserable situation of the Soviet state and army was the result of the miscalculation, self-confidence, lack of foresight, and bloody policy of terror of the man who became the supreme commander-in-chief. Some people think that it is too much to blame one person, but you must know that there was a party, a party central committee, a political bureau, and a group of people around him. Yes, there are those. But under the rule of the scholars, under the conditions of the practice of Caesarism, all the institutions of the state and society practically lost their role. It is important not to ignore the fact that the reader decides everything by his own will. The truth cannot be concealed forever, and millions of Soviet soldiers and civilians gave their lives first of all as a result of the mistakes of the military-political leadership.

Stalin never had exceptional predictive powers. And this is also impossible under the dogmatic temperament of wisdom. But the main thing is that Stalin, with a strong will and not very shrewd intelligence, could not rely on professional military knowledge. He did not understand military science, did not understand military academic theory. It was in the process of gaining experience in blood, conducting many experiments, and making many mistakes that he mastered the profound truths of strategy and campaigning. The experience he gained during the civil war as a member of the Military Council on several fronts, as a plenipotentiary of the Central Committee, was obviously very inadequate for those who occupied the post of supreme commander-in-chief.

Stalin's reputation as commander-in-chief was due to the collective wisdom of the General Staff, though seldom talked about, and to a number of high-ranking military generals with whom he worked in wartime. Among them, first of all, Shaposhnikov, Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Antonov. Stalin practically never spent time in the troops, in the headquarters, in the field command posts, had no real understanding of the mechanism of action of the military system, and often lacked (especially within a year and a half of the start of the war) a sense of the time of the operation, of the actual spatial coordinates of the battlefield, of the potential of the troops. Therefore, some of his instructions were predestined to be unfulfilled, or he acted in a hurry without thinking it through.

(To be continued)