ZTE 16, April 7, 8 a.m.

In the command center of the Ministry of National Defense in Hanjing, Chen Fuqin was briefing Chen Shao on the current situation in the entire north and northwest.

Like Chen Shao, Chen Fuqin, who has a dusty face, has just returned for a few hours, and he has been running around the front lines before, but fortunately, the Army No. 2 specially equipped for them has begun to be used, and the travel efficiency is much faster than before.

Tiredness could not contain the excitement in the heart, and in all directions, the army departments had already begun to enter the period of offensive operations. The supplies and ammunition of the various arsenals were all distributed to troops on a large scale, and the battle raged more fiercely in many directions.

The troops attacking in the front can only advance and then advance, while the second-line troops in the rear will quickly take over the results of the battle, and the division of labor will be clear and orderly.

"The Northeast Theater is carrying out the final liquidation of the Far Allied forces, and once the clearance work is completed, the landing on Sakhalin Island and the removal and elimination of the Japanese army in Vladivostok will be carried out immediately.

In the Northwest Theater, according to reports by Theater Commander Chen Gengpeng, Deputy Commander Bai Chongxi, and others, after a week of uninterrupted bombardment of the Siberian Plain, they officially launched the campaign to occupy the Siberian Plain in the early hours of this morning.

Units of two armies in the Xinjiang theater have already entered Afghanistan, and a spying attack on the area is planned in three days against the Allied forces in the border area of Afghanistan of the Soviet Union.

……”

"The attack in the Northwest Theater has begun?" Chen Shaodao.

"Yes, at two o'clock in the morning today, the general offensive of the ground forces has begun. In this direction, the USSR laid out eighteen army groups. The army is also very strong. However, after a week-long bombardment, we have basically established air supremacy, and on the ground, with the coordination of army helicopters, the Soviet armored and heavy artillery clusters are completely useless. Chen Fuqin said.

"Then now Stalin is not going to go crazy." Chen Shaori thought for a while.

"Huh!" Chen Fuqin smiled lightly, "We don't know if we're crazy or not, but it's definitely not good." The whole of Siberia is about to be taken into our pocket, plus the German occupation of the territory west of Moscow, the huge Soviet Union. Three-quarters of the land is about to be lost. This is for the ever-greedy polar bear. Absolutely humiliating. ”

"Stalin can't sit still."

――――――

In fact, at present the Soviet Union urgently needs the spirit of national self-criticism and the urgent need to stop looking at reality from the point of view of mythology. Only then will it be possible to establish the true place of nations and nations in the surrounding world. Only then can we take a sober view of the problems in front of us.

The experience of the Great Patriotic War must be recognized. The war should not overshadow the excessively high cost paid by the Soviet Union. Nor can it hide the inefficiency of the Soviet leadership in the course of the war and the Soviet Union's dependence on aid from the Western Allies.

The Second World War was the greatest catastrophe ever experienced by humankind. The Soviet-German war, known in the USSR as the Great Patriotic War, was an integral part of the Second World War. Once the Great Patriotic War was one of the biggest myths in the historical literature of the USSR. It is a pity that in the Russian historical literature it continues to play a special role that continues to this day.

The war became the main reason for the existence of Soviet power and provided moral support for the totalitarian politics of the Soviet Union. As a result, its existence has been preserved, while at the same time inefficient economic and political institutions have been brought to a standstill.

Stalin was able to bring the Soviet Union to a halt because he was adept at leading millions of people and at the same time establishing his personal supremacy among them. The sheer size of the Soviet Union's territory and the assistance of the United States and Great Britain saved the Soviet Union from defeat.

From the beginning of the war to the present, the Soviet Union suffered the greatest casualties of all the participating countries, and correspondingly, the Red Army inflicted the greatest casualties on the German armed forces, so many people generally believe that the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the victory over Germany.

But without the assistance of the Allies, one-on-one - the USSR against Germany, Stalin against Hitler, that would have been a different outcome. Not only did Britain and the United States provide the Soviet Union with vital fuel, materials, and technology, but they also dispersed almost all of the German fleet and the vast majority of their air forces. Without this, the Soviet Union would not necessarily be able to gain a foothold on its own front and hold Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad.

In Britain and the United States, almost all relatives of military personnel in Britain and the United States have struggled to find out what happened to them, and military personnel are also responsible for issuing notices of death or disappearance, and this includes judicial procedural issues, such as inheritance issues.

The same is true for Germany. There, totalitarianism has not yet had time to extinguish this tradition.

And in the Soviet Union, the idea of man as a screw in the state apparatus was well established. Realistically speaking, the relatives of fallen or missing fighters usually do not request judicial proceedings as to their relatives' whereabouts.

In addition, the relatives of many officers and soldiers died in the war, or were evacuated to Eastern Europe or went to work in the West and Germany. Therefore, in the first years of the ongoing war, it became impossible to calculate the casualties of the Red Army and the peaceful population to a certain extent. In the absence of pressure from the world of public opinion, the relatively detailed and accurate statistics of Soviet casualties in World War II are difficult to calculate.

However, they did not pay attention to this, or no one dared to pay attention to it. Because once you say this, it is very likely that you will be put on the hat of maliciously destroying unity, and then you will be dragged to the square to read the "crime", and finally you will be shot directly, without even having a chance to explain.

This may seem strange to modern people, but in the years of war, it was very ordinary. Because when a person is deified, his every move is related to the life and death of countless people. When he has an aversion to a certain speech, or finds something unpleasant. The result would be a thousand miles of bloodshed, because he didn't need his approval for all this, and there were a large number of people who cleared all kinds of troubles for him.

The Red Army and the Soviet military-industrial system were created after the October Revolution, which completely destroyed the old army, the previous industrial and agricultural systems in Russia. The private entrepreneur element was completely eliminated - and this was preserved in Nazi Germany.

Therefore, the strength of the Soviet political system lies in the ability to mobilize all the state resources necessary for the war, to build a large army with military equipment, and to mobilize the population in the most difficult conditions of defeat at the front.

But it was difficult for Stalin to effectively use a powerful armed force or, as Germany did, to build an independent military economy that was not dependent on foreign forces. Russia in 1917 was industrially backward compared to Germany, which lasted until 1941.

In later generations, all these issues were carefully whitewashed and covered up in Soviet historical documents. Either keep silent about this, or repeat the traditional argument that Anglo-American aid was a drop in the bucket for Soviet production as a whole. As for talking about the number of casualties. There is a general tendency to think that the total is 20 million people. It is not clear how many of them were killed or wounded by the Red Army, and how this figure was proportional to the number of German casualties.

What kind of role did the Soviet Union play in World War II, was it a mere victim? However, this point is not clearly stated either in the Soviet Union or in later Russian historical documents.

Although there are now no disputes about the fact of the Soviet occupation of Finland. But still defend it. It is said that the Soviet Union came into conflict with Germany in order to ensure its own security. And the Finnish side is too stubborn, and it must also bear part of the responsibility for the military conflict that took place. In fact, the Soviet occupation of Finland was essentially no different from the German aggression against Poland. The peaceful annexation of the Baltic coast, Bessarabia, and Bukovina was no different from the peaceful annexation of Austria and the Czech Republic by Germany.

In fact, both Stalin and Hitler aspired to hegemony in Europe. On the road to hegemony, a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Germany is inevitable, but it depends on who starts the war first. In fact, Soviet preparations began at the same time as the German invasion of the Soviet Union began with the 'Barbarossa' plan.

The Western allies did not like either Hitler or Stalin, but had to support the latter for some objective reasons. Both the Soviet Union and Hitler pursued world hegemony. But Germany was much stronger than the USSR both economically and militarily. This advantage was not only reflected in the large number of tanks or aircraft, the greater production of iron and steel, and the much greater exploitation of coal and oil, but also in the fact that the German military personnel were more well prepared, and the level of culture and education of the German population as a whole was much higher.

In fact, objectively speaking, the victory of Hitler, the relatively powerful in World War II, in the later generations, will not only bring a much greater threat to the United States and Britain, but also to the entire human race. And even in the existence of an anti-fascist coalition, a German victory was not out of the question (assuming that Germany's atomic program could be implemented before the Allies entered Germany proper, for example, before the Allies entered the German mainland). In this case, the interests of the Russian nation and the interests of humanity coincide.

Had Germany been victorious, the Soviet Union would cease to exist, the vast majority of Russian territory would have been occupied, and Russia would not have been able to recover as a sovereign state. For all of humanity, a new round of war will inevitably begin in the event of Hitler's victory, the outcome of which is difficult to predict, and the use of weapons of mass destruction is highly likely. The balance of power in the world is such that the winner will be the General Secretary of the USSR, if not the German Führer, and vice versa.

Another more complex question is what responsibility do people have for the actions of their leaders? The vast majority of the German and Soviet population were unaware that their own countries played the role of occupiers during the Second World War (the Soviet Union occupied Finland and was the only and very active accomplice in the German invasion of Poland, not to mention the Baltic coast and beyond).

Many people do not understand genocidal policies and political terror, at least, the extent to which they are truly applied. Of course, millions of Germans and the Soviet Union directly participated in and participated in criminal activities, although only a very small part of them were held accountable.

But blaming tens of millions of innocent people for collective sins is not in keeping with Christian doctrine. Needless to say, every nation has a government to serve.

But when it comes to the fact that in 1933 the Germans - and in 1917 - the people of the Russian Empire - most people clearly understood what the Nazis and the Bolsheviks really were. In fact, it is possible that they will prevent the latter from coming to power. And on the whole, Hitler's becoming chancellor was also fully democratic, and Lenin did not refuse to convene the next democratically elected Constituent Assembly at the critical moment.

Yes, the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War in later generations was indeed great, but it only brought sacrifices. In the long run, the Soviet Union held some territory for 45 years, plus dozens of vassal states that followed the Soviet Union - this achievement is also too insignificant. It is painful for a person with national self-esteem to make such a conclusion.

Before the start of the war, the number of German army units deployed on the Soviet border was 2.5 million, that is, the Soviet army was 1.6 times the number of the German army.

Tanks alone. The total number is more than 25,000 vehicles. Of these, almost 14,000 are deployed in the Western Border Military District. The Soviet Air Force had about 19,000 combat aircraft, of which almost 11,000 were deployed in the west. There were 3719 new aircraft (mainly fighters) that were at least comparable in performance to the Luftwaffe's most advanced fighter at that time, the М-109.

And the German deployment on the Eastern Front did not exceed 109 М-500 units. The Luftwaffe was able to use only 1,830 combat aircraft in total to attack the Soviet Union. 300 Finnish planes, 400 Romanian planes, mostly old aircraft, will not fundamentally change the balance of power in the air. Superiority in artillery was also noticeable on the side of the USSR. 60,000 cannons against the 43,000 cannons of the German army.

The numerical superiority of the Soviet Red Army was beyond doubt. The number of Soviet army and air force units deployed on the western borders reached 2,719,000 people. The number of people in the Navy reached 216,000 people. The number of troops of the NKVD reached 154,000 people.

In addition, about 1,200,000 reservists and deferred service personnel were called in. By the beginning of the war, the number of German army units deployed on the borders of the Soviet Union was 2.5 million. That is, the Soviet army was 1.6 times larger than the German army. You know, at that time, the Soviet army also threw 77 divisions of the second echelon to the western border.

16 of these divisions have already reached the Western Border Military District, which has expanded the number of the Red Army by 202,000 people, with an increase of 2,746 artillery pieces and 1,763 tanks.

Correspondingly, the total number of Soviet troops reached 4.3 million, with 59,787 artillery mortars and 15,687 tanks, including about 1,500 T-34 tanks and Klim heavy tanks, which were unparalleled in the Soviet Union. Soviet heavy tank model named after Voroshilov).

In tanks alone, the Soviet Union had more than four times the advantage of the enemy. It is important to know that the Germans had no more than 3650 tanks and assault guns on the Eastern Front, including 230 command vehicles without artillery installations.

350 tanks were commanded by Rommel in North Africa, and less than 300 tanks formed the two reserve divisions of the Supreme Command of the Fascist Armed Forces, which were only put into service on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1941. Even if you take into account 86 tanks from Finland, 60 from Romania and 160 from Hungary (which only joined the battle in June), the Soviets still had an absolute advantage.

In tanks alone, the Soviet Union had more than four times the advantage of the enemy. Stalin was fully aware of these circumstances, and therefore he was convinced: Hitler should be afraid of him, and Germany did not dare to do anything to the USSR.

At this moment, Stalin's subjective will far overrode objective factors. This led to the crushing defeat of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the German Barbarossa Plan.

So as a leader of a country on the brink of war, Stalin was a failure, it can be said that he was a qualified politician, but he had no strategic vision of the overall situation at all, and he was rumored to be a god, and he only relied on his own will, as if everyone in the world thought the same as he himself.

This is the sorrow of a country, even if the thinking begins to change in the future and gradually has a strategic view of the overall situation, but it cannot cover up the ignorance and failure in the early stage.

Just as Chen Shao and Chen Fuqin were talking, they were far away in Chelyabinsk.

In the underground bunker in Chelyabinsk, the top of the Soviet government who had been transferred from the Kremlin had long since become a mess.

In the Siberian Plain, the ground offensive of the Chinese army has been going on for a full three hours, the second round of attacks in the air has also been completed, and a large number of ground armored forces are constantly plunging into the depths of the Siberian Plain, at this moment. The land of the USSR was groaning, and countless villages, cities, factories were caught in artillery fire.

The new chief of the General Staff, Vasilevsky, has not had time to live a few days of comfortable life, or rather, he has not come to this post to live a comfortable life. Just a few minutes ago, the People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov informed that it was about the air strikes of the Chinese army on several cities and towns in Siberia.

On the phone, Voroshilov "ordered" Vasilevsky to report the news to Stalin, but while Vasilevsky was preparing the materials in his office, bad news came one after another. The Eastern Special Military Region, the Siberian Special Military District, and the Far Eastern Special Military Region have received news that they have been attacked by the Chinese army.

"Let me pass ......on the bad news," Vasilevsky thought with some dissatisfaction, but after thinking about it, he changed it to the role of Voroshilov. Most of them will also let others report to the "master".

It's too late to wait any longer. Vasilevsky pulled his staff and hurried towards the second bunker where Stalin was.

When all this bad news was presented to Stalin, the Soviet "master" fell into a huge shock, and the hand holding the pipe actually hung in the air. So long that he could not answer. These are the top leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I have never seen my own leader in such a situation.

When he came to his senses, he asked Vasilevsky in a hoarse voice to notify all the members of the Politburo to come to his office for a meeting. In fact, after learning that the troops of the Chinese army attacked the Siberian Plain on all fronts. The entire Politburo was assembled early on in the office building where Stalin was located.

In less than ten minutes, all the members of the Politburo of the Red Party of the Soviet Union had arrived, and Vasilevsky and Shaposhnikov went to the office to invite Stalin out of the inner room. Stalin, pale, walked out slowly, and sat down slowly at the table. Molotov, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs on one side, noticed a small detail that Stalin had a pipe full of tobacco in his hand, but did not light it.

In the end, it was Stalin himself who broke the silence, which was the usual rule, and it seemed that it was most appropriate for him to break the silence, only this time his words were not so coherent. He slowly swung his delicate little pipe, and then said with a calm face (at least it looked calm): "Chen Shao is crazy...... Crazy indeed...... In front of our mighty Red Army...... They will be hit on all fronts...... And it was a devastating blow. ”

At this point, he made a downward slashing gesture with his pipe in his hand, and then he asked the generals of the Red Army's top ranks: "You all report the specific situation, so that everyone can have a general understanding...... Comrade Vasilevsky...... Let's talk about it first......"

Vasilevsky, who was standing next to Marshal Shaposhnikov at this time, immediately spoke: "Comrade Stalin, just now I had another telephone conversation with Comrade Pavlov of the Western Siberian Special Military District, and he reported to me that the enemy was still attacking along the border at this time, and the front was very wide, but it did not penetrate much into our depth, and all units were carrying out effective counterattacks. ”

Seeing that Stalin nodded slightly, Vasilevsky continued: "After some analysis, the General Staff recommends that the advancing enemy troops should be violently counterattacked with all the forces of the border military districts and stopped from continuing their advance. At the same time, the National Defense Committee also instructed our border guards on the western border to attack on all fronts to contain the enemy. In short, before the first battle report arrives, I think we should wait for further news. ”

"Comrade Vasilevsky, do you think containment is enough? Not just to contain the enemy, but to annihilate it! "Stalin seemed to think that the situation at the front was not bad, and now he was somewhat optimistic.

However, after seeing that Stalin's mood had improved considerably, the Politburo members standing in the back immediately became quite optimistic. They also stated that under the leadership of the great Comrade Stalin, the heroic Soviet Red Army would certainly be able to punish the imperialist aggressors severely.

In the name of the provisional Supreme High Command of the Red Army, Stalin issued Order No. 4 of the Supreme High Command after the start of the war to all units of the Red Army and the Air Force. In general, it is necessary to call on all military districts along the eastern border to stubbornly use all forces and means to attack the enemy forces invading the motherland and annihilate them in the eastern border areas of the Soviet Union. (To be continued......)