OCI No. 5321/59 |
SINO-SOVIET BLOC AREA |
CURRENT INTELLIGENCE STAFF STUDY
The Soviet History of World War II
This is a working paper, the second to be
published by the Sino-Soviet Studies Group, a merger of the CAESAR, POLO and ESAU
projects. The group would welcome either written or oral comment on this paper,
addressed to Matthew Gallagher, who wrote the paper, or to W.P. Southard, the
acting coordinator of the group.
This paper seeks to answer questions posed by
the recent increased attention to the history of the war in the Soviet Union.
Why is the regime now encouraging historical writing on the war? What
interpretations are being promoted? What are the political and military
implications?
This is essentially a fact-finding study.
Despite the importance of the war in Soviet history, and the politically
sensitive nature of this topic in the Soviet Union, Soviet writing on the war
has not been systematically examined in the West, and in general it has not
been of such immediate political significance as to attract the continuing
attention of intelligence. This gap defines the scope of the present study.
The paper identifies the issues which postwar
propaganda created in this field and traces the evolution of Soviet views on
these issues from the immediate postwar period to the present.
--1--
Until recent years, the Soviet
leadership was consistent in regarding the history of the war as an instrument for
influencing social attitudes rather than as a subject deserving truthful
evaluation in its own right. Before and after Stalin, the Soviet official
interpretation of the war reflected the current policies of the regime.
The Stalinist
interpretation of the war was devised to conceal the traces of the wartime
drift of the Soviet Union from its historical course of development, and to
convince the Soviet people that nothing had intervened which would justify a
change in past policies. Thus the history of the war became a paean to Stalin's
political and military genius, a testament to the wisdom of party policies, an
indictment of the perfidy of the capitalist world, a proof of the soundness of
the Soviet system. The Stalinist version of the War distorted the historical
facts in at least four major respects:
It presented the
catastrophic defeats of the first year of the war as a preplanned and
skillfully executed maneuver designed to set the conditions for a successful
counteroffensive.
It magnified the roles of
Stalin and the party in the achievement of victory, and diminished the roles of
the military leaders and the ordinary people.
It depreciated the
contributions of the Allies, and sought to transform their image in the public
mind from partners in the anti-Hitler coalition into crypto-enemies of the
Soviet Union and virtual allies of Hitler.
It claimed that the
Soviet declaration of war and the defeat of the Kwantung army, rather than
American military successes, had played the decisive role in bringing about the
defeat of Japan.
Varying degrees of
resistance to the imposition of this version of the war were manifested by
those elements of the Soviet population most directly affected by it--the
military, the historians, and the writers. Military officers indicated disdain
for the concepts developed to idealize the military events of the war.
Historians demonstrated inertial resistance to the postwar propaganda assault
on the West and its attendant distortions of the Allied role in the war, and
before succumbing
--2--
to official pressure indicated their
distaste for the political considerations which motivated it. The writers
demonstrated outspoken opposition to the official line.
The reactions of all
three groups were based not on political opposition to the regime, but on the
inherent conflict between propaganda demands and their own professional
standards. A marked tendency of the professional military was a preference for
facts over theory, an attitude which seemed to reflect a concern that the
excessive idealization of military events would prevent a proper evaluation and
application of the lessons inherent in them. The historians appeared to feel
that historical questions ought to be settled by historical rather than
political criteria, and by the historians themselves. Writers who remained true
to their art were unwilling, and in any case unable, to present what they
conceived to be the epic of the war in the shallow terms of a political tract.
After Stalinís death,
the official interpretation of the war underwent important changes. These
changes reflected the Soviet leaders apprehension that the Soviet people and
the Soviet military establishment were being poorly prepared, by the
unrealistic portrayal of the last war, for the kind of war, which they now
foresaw as possible. The Stalinist line, they felt, encouraged the dangerous
illusion that war was easy, and it conditioned military officers to feel that
retreats and slow attritional methods were normal means of conducting war. The
main content of the new version of the war which emerged from these
considerations in 1955 was that the early period of the war had been a defeat
for the Soviet army, rather than a prelude to victory.
As the Twentieth Party
Congress approached, new tendencies toward a break with the past appeared,
giving fresh impetus to this reconsideration of the history of the war. The
central feature of the new movement was the break with Stalin which was
dramatized at the Congress. Khrushchevís secret speech, which portrayed Stalin
as ignorant of military matters and as criminally responsible for the initial
unpreparedness of the Soviet Union, cleared the way for removing the many
distortions of history which derived from exaggeration of Stalinís role in the
war. The early defeats of the Soviet army were interpreted now as due not only
to the surprise of the German attack, as had been emphasized in 1955, but to
the negligence of Stalin in failing to take the precautionary measures which
elementary prudence and ample intelligence warnings had indicated were
necessary. A more generous appraisal
--3--
of the role of the Allies in the war
was also fostered at this time.
After the Twentieth
Party Congress, the need to halt the deterioration of political authority
resulting from the anti-Stalin campaign threatened to halt also the progress,
toward honest military history. In the latter part of 1956, and in 1957, the
party faced the choice of curtailing the revisionary historiography of the war
to protect its immediate political interests, or of sustaining this
historiography to encourage the professionalism and realism of military thought
which it expressed and nourished.
Over the past year or
more, Soviet policy in this sphere has been carefully calculated. It has sought
to retain the gains in historical objectivity achieved in 1955 and 1956, but
not at the cost of reflecting unfavorably on the party itself. The formula has
been: to admit Soviet reverses in the early days of the war, but to emphasize
Soviet achievements--and the partyís leading role--in recovering from those
reverses. The formula has also minimized the contribution of the USSRís allies
to the victory.
The evolution of the
historiography of the war toward a more accurate appraisal of military
realities is of some importance, as in this area the regime has gradually
accepted the concept of the utility of truth. This victory for the truth is a
limited one, as the truth is surrounded by political propaganda with which the
party justifies itself and its policies. Nevertheless, this development
illustrates a tendency which has appeared in other areas of Soviet activity as
well, and this tendency is likely to grow.
--4--
The most critical issue
in the Soviet historiography of the war was the interpretation of the great
defeats suffered by the Soviet army during the first period of the war. The
immense material losses and incalculable human sufferings which the collapse of
Soviet defenses entailed would have been embarrassing for any government to
explain, but for a regime which staked its authority on its claim to foresee
the future they were catastrophic in their implications. Soviet postwar
propaganda sought to smother these implications by denying that any real
defeats had taken place.
The first problem for
Soviet propaganda was to explain the Soviet failure to anticipate and prepare
for the initial German assault. There is ample evidence that the Soviet
government was fully informed of the German intention to attack well before the
invasion took place. Churchill has described the careful personal efforts he
made to bring the seriousness of the situation to Stalinís attention. He has
also told of other warnings conveyed to the Soviet government by subordinate
British officials and the American government. Investigations of Soviet spy
networks in Austria and Japan after the war revealed that Soviet intelligence
had also uncovered advance information on the German invasion plans. Finally,
Khrushchev in his secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress cited many
additional indications that had been made available to the Soviet government
through its own diplomatic and military sources.
Soviet postwar
propaganda made no acknowledgment of these advance warnings of the German
intention to attack. Instead, it sought to turn to advantage the blunder which
the Soviet government had committed in discounting these warnings. It depicted
the Soviet Union as the victim of German "perfidy," it stressed the
"suddenness" of the German attack. The initial defeats were presented
as flowing from the natural disadvantage suffered by a peace-loving state in
the face of a ruthless aggressor. At the same time, the prewar policies of the
Soviet Union, its industrialization programs, and its diplomatic and military
encroachments in eastern Europe, were presented as calculated against an
eventual German attack, and thus as responsible for the countryís ability to
withstand the shock when the attack came.
--5--
Secondly, Soviet propaganda had to
explain the continuous defeats of the Soviet army during 1941, and the
abandonment of huge territories. and much of the population of the Baltic
republics, Leningrad province, Byelorussia, and the Ukraine. In the light of
these results, it was obvious that the Soviet army had not shown to advantage
during the first months of the war. The operational command, which at that time
was in the hands of the political marshals, Voroshilov, Timoshenko, and
Budennyy, on the Northwestern, Western, and Southwestern fronts respectively,
showed little capacity to cope with the mobile conditions of warfare operated
by deep German penetrations of prepared defense positions. Deprived of large
mobile reserves and air support and bound by the Supreme Command strategy of
defending "each inch of native soil," the army repeatedly permitted
large forces to be encircled where a more flexible strategy might have saved
them. To mention only the largest operations, approximately a half-million men,
according to German figures, were lost in each of the huge encirclements around
Kiev and Vyazma.
In explaining these
disasters, Soviet propaganda sought to have it both ways--to enhance the
dimensions of the final Soviet achievement in stopping the German offensive,
while minimizing the mistakes which made great achievements necessary. It was
acknowledged that a "difficult situation" had been created, that a
"mortal danger hung over the Soviet country," and yet a picture was
presented of the Soviet Supreme Command as being in masterly control of the
situation at all times, and as influencing the course of events toward its
final successful consummation. The strategy of the Supreme Command, it was
said, was to give space for time, and by "exhausting and bleeding white
the enemy," to prepare the grounds for a counteroffensive.
There were two formulas
in Soviet postwar propaganda which were very important in the official account
of this period, and which express the whole tenor of this account. The first
was the so-called strategy of "active defense," which was represented
as a Supreme Command plan embracing not only the tactical methods of aggressive
counteraction in defense, but the whole strategic conception of the early
--6--
period of Soviet operations.* The
second and more important formula was the so-called strategic
"counteroffensive," which also was said to embrace, as parts of a
preconceived plan, the whole complex of defensive actions conducted by the
Soviet army preliminary to the launching of the actual counteroffensive.* The
effect of both formulas, of course, was to embellish the reputation of the
Soviet leadership by presenting the early defeats as necessary preliminary
stages to the ultimate victory.
Finally, Soviet
propaganda had to interpret the ultimate stopping of the German advance and the
saving of Moscow. The facts concerning these events were as follows. The German
armies on the central front, after rapid initial progress, reached the vicinity
of Smolensk by mid-July, 1941. Here the advance on Moscow paused, not only
because of Russian resistance, but because of cross purposes in the German High
Command. Hitler wished to divert the tank armies from the Moscow
* The term "active
defense" had two meanings. Its first meaning, which it generally carried
in the writings of the wartime period, expressed the idea that the defensive
actions of the Soviet troops were designed not only to stop the enemy, but to
keep up the morale of the Soviet troops themselves, to "temper their regiments"
for a subsequent transition to offensive action. This meaning derived from
Stalinís Order of the Day No. 308, of September 18, 1941, which created the
first guards units. Its second meaning, which it assumed in postwar propaganda,
expressed the idea that the defensive actions of the Soviet troops were
preplanned to hold back the progress of the enemy until the permanently
operating factors of war could be brought into play. The direct source of the
postwar flourishing of this concept was Stalinís electoral speech of February
9, 1946.
** The doctrine of the
"counteroffensive" was first publicized in Stalinís letter to Colonel
Razin of February, 1947. Stalin derived the ideas expressed in this letter from
an article entitled "The Strategic Counteroffensive," by Major
General N. Talenskiy, which was published in Military Thought, No. 6,
1946.
--7--
direction to assist: in the flank
attacks on Leningrad and. Kiev, while. the German generals wished to continue
the advance on the central front. While the generals vainly temporized, and in
the end acquiesced to Hitlerís decision, many weeks of the best campaigning
weather were allowed to fritter away. Finally, on 2 October, the advance on
Moscow was resumed, but by the time the first successes around Vyazma had been
consolidated the fall slush had set in. Slowed to a crawl by the weather and
the stiffening Russian resistance, the advance finally petered out a few miles
from Moscow, and was then mauled back by the Soviet counteroffensive which
began on 6 December.
The reasons for the
failure of the German offensive are many, and in large part of German origin.
An important factor has been mentioned, the conflict between Hitler and the
generals, which in turn reflected the excessiveness of the demands which Hitler
had imposed upon his forces. By the time of the final German advance on Moscow,
German forces were overextended, both in terms of logistic communications and
in the ratio of operational reserves to committed forces. Men and machines were
exhausted from the long summer campaigns and the shifting of armies from one
front to another over a great territorial expanse; German divisions had been
thinned out before the beginning of the Russian campaign to spread the
available manpower and armor among the 146 divisions which participated in the
invasion. While they may have enjoyed a brief relative superiority during the
early period of the war after the initial surrenders of Soviet troops, this was
certainly lost by the end of the year. Finally, the cold weather which came on
early and rapidly in 1941 caught the Germans unprepared, since in anticipation
of a lightning victory they had not provided winter clothing for the troops.
Soviet postwar
propaganda discounted all these accidental factors as having played any effective
role in the final outcome. German logistic problems and leadership conflicts,
while mentioned occasionally in general disparagements of German strategy and
military science, were never admitted as decisive factors. The weather was
mentioned in Soviet accounts, but only as interfering with Soviet operations.
The manpower relationship was always claimed to be in the German favor, and the
number of 170 German and 38 satellite divisions attributed to the German
invasion force by the Russians during the war was retained in subsequent
accounts. In short, any factor which tended to reduce the credit due the Soviet
leadership and armed forces for stopping the German invasion was ignored in
Soviet postwar propaganda.
--8--
The broadest issue
raised by the Soviet historiography of the war was the explanation of the final
victory. In its most important aspect, this involved the question of which the
four pillars of Soviet wartime society--the army, the party, the people, or Stalin
alone--deserved the laurels of victory, and hence the rewards and prerogatives
which they symbolized. It will be seen that this question cut across all
others, and became the principal political issue of the Soviet interpretation
of the war.
In considering the
merits of the claims that could be advanced for the several aspirants, and the
way in which the credits were in fact allotted, it will be logical to start
with Stalin, since his figure loomed largest in Soviet postwar accounts.
Just what Stalinís role
was in the strategic direction of the Soviet army is not entirely clear.
Khrushchevs account in his secret speech of the telephone calls he had made to
Vasilevskiy and Malenkov at the time of the Kharkov battle suggests that Stalin
exercised at least a general supervision over military operations. It is
probable that his dictatorial habits and affectations of military competence
led him to interfere more directly in military matters than the other Allied
leaders commonly permitted themselves to do. But in the actual conception and
direction of military operations he was probably cautious enough to limit his
interference to the confirmation or veto of plans presented by General
Headquarters. Even within these limits, and judging by the bits of evidence
available, his record as a war leader was far from consistently good. His gross
error in discounting the numerous intelligence indications of the German
preparations for attack has been mentioned above. His strategy of "no
retreat" during the first period of the war played into the hands of the
German encirclement tactics, and his stubborn insistence on continuing the
Kharkov offensive in 1942 after the Soviet position had become hopeless was, to
say the least, militarily unjustified. His competence for command was
apparently also negatively affected by his moodiness of character. Khrushchev
charged that Stalin became panic-stricken in 1941, and Churchillís account of
Stalinís desperate appeal for a British expeditionary corps at that time lends
corroboration to this charges.
--9--
In postwar propaganda, however,
Stalin was transformed into the "greatest commander of all the ages."
All military operations were said to have been carried out according to his
plans and under his immediate direction. He was said to have "worked out
anew" and, for the first time in history, applied with full effect the
"strategic counteroffensive" which constituted the greatest
contribution in the annals of military science.
The army suffered most
directly from the postwar inflation of the Stalin image. The record of the
professional military leaders during the war was good. Whatever their merits
when compared with their opposite numbers in the West, and there are
differences of opinion on this score, they were the men who stood at the head
of the troops when victory was achieved. Moreover, their contribution was
dramatic. It was after Zhukov took over from the old Bolshevik Timoshenko, as
Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, that Moscow was saved and the first
Soviet counteroffensive successfully carried out. It was also after Zhukov took
over as overall commander of the southern fronts, and after the commissar
system had been abolished in the army, that Stalingrad was saved, and the
series of operations launched that led to ultimate victory. The figure of
Zhukov in these key events of the war was symbolic of the professional
militaryís role in rescuing the regime from the consequences of its own
incompetence.
In postwar propaganda,
the marshals rapidly faded into the background. Zhukovís fall from honor has
often been noted. It was so swift and complete that the Soviet press observed
the first anniversary of the fall of Berlin without mentioning his name. No
other military figure was named in Pravda on that day either, nor on the
other major anniversaries of the next few years. The articles published on the
occasion of Stalinís seventieth birthday, in 1949, performed the equally
remarkable feat of reviewing the whole course of the war without naming a
single Soviet general officer.
The partyís role in the
war is perhaps the most difficult to evaluate because it was so closely woven
into the fabric of Soviet society that it is hard now to distinguish, through
the smokescreen of propaganda raised on its behalf, where party inspiration
left off, and public initiative began in the great social and military
achievements of the war. Unquestionably, the partyís traditional role as the
leader and coordinator of national energies was diminished during the war as
increasing reliance came to be placed on nonparty channels of public control,
and as extraordinary
--10--
governmental and military bodies
arose to take over direction of the war effort. To name merely the activity
which the party later most vigorously claimed for its own credit, the partisan
movement, the facts seem to be that the party had little to do with organizing
the movement, and established control later only partially and with difficulty.
In general, the conclusion seems safe that among the instruments available to
the Soviet leadership for conducting, the war effort the party apparatus
performed an auxiliary function.
Thus it is
understandable why, when the leadership decided after the war to return to the
course of development that the war had interrupted, an important element in
that reaction was the reassertion of the partyís traditional place in Soviet
life. This necessarily involved a recasting of, the history of the war to show
the partyís role in a more befitting light. A very important feature of the
postwar history was the claim that the party had "always and
everywhere" inspired and led the peoples resistance to the Germans. This
claim was advanced particularly, but by no means exclusively, with respect to
the civilian aspects of the wartime achievements--the evacuation of industry,
to the east, the feats of labor heroism performed at the rear, the partisan war
carried on behind enemy lines. As Pravda put it, in criticizing
Fadeyevís The Young Guard, in 1947: "The party everywhere and
always introduced an organizing basis. Communists did not for a minute lose the
leading role."
Finally, it is necessary
to mention the role of the people in the war. Their contribution had been so
massive, and so clearly affirmed by the regime during the war, that it stood in
the way of any other claimant for exclusive honors. If this record were allowed
to stand, the regimes own claims to indispensability, based on the supposed
political immaturity of the masses, might well be open to question. Thus, a
fact which would be taken for granted under any other regime--that the war had
been won by the sacrifices and achievements of the people--in Soviet conditions
became inadmissible. In Soviet postwar propaganda, the record of the peopleís
role in the war was not openly contested, it was simply displaced.
The role of the Allies
in the war posed a particularly embarrassing problem for Soviet postwar
propaganda, since any acknowledgment of the real contributions the Allies had
made would tend to invalidate the image of a corrupt and hostile West which it
was seeking to create. The task of Soviet
--11--
propaganda, thus, was to blot out as
far as possible the friendly memories of the wartime alliance, by besmirching
the motives for which the allied states fought, and by disparaging their
achievements.
The response of the
Western Allies to Russiaís plight in 1941 was prompt and generous, and the
material and military contribution which the West made to the final victory was
very great. Allied material aid was extended at a time, and under conditions,
which imposed a very real sacrifice on the Alliesí own war effort. In addition,
as the war progressed, the Allies brought to bear a military pressure on
Germany which contributed materially to speeding the collapse of the German war
machine.
According to American
sources, the value of American Lend-Lease shipments to Russia during the war
totaled over $11,000,000,000. British shipments and American private relief
added considerably to this total. Walter Kerr, in his book The Russian Army,
presents additional figures which bring out in a graphic way the significance
of this aid to the Soviet army. During the first year of deliveries alone, he
says, Washington and London shipped to Russia 3,052 planes, 4,084 tanks, 30,031
vehicles, and 831,000 tons of miscellaneous supplies, of which the major part
got through. As Kerr points out, the relative value of these figures can be
grasped if they are compared with the numbers of 1,136 planes and 2,091 tanks
which, according to Russian claims, the Germans lost during 52 days of the
heaviest fighting in the first year of the war. There are many indications from
Russian sources, too, of the value they placed on this aid during the war.
Stalinís anger at delays in the arrival of American equipment was indicative in
this connection. The impress which Allied aid made on the Soviet population,
indications of which are scattered throughout Soviet literature, is another
sigh of its scope and significance. Even the language has recorded the dimensions
of American wartime aid in its transformation of the name "Willys"
into a Russian household word.
As for the rest, the
Allied military role in the war, the story is familiar enough to need no detail
here. Beginning in Africa, in 1942, the Allies began to build up a steadily
mounting pressure on Germany which engaged and wasted the dwindling resources
which were desperately needed on the eastern front. Soviet propaganda made much
of the claim later that no German units were withdrawn from the eastern front
as a result of Allied operations (in fact, at least two SS divisions were
withdrawn to meet the Normandy invasion), but this is
--12--
beside the point. The real
contribution of the Allies was measured not in the juggling of German divisions
which it produced, but in the German energies absorbed by a series of Allied
second fronts, in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France.
Soviet postwar
propaganda was not content merely to minimize the Allied role in the war, but
sought actively to transform the image of the Allies from partners in the
anti-Hitler coalition into crypto-enemies of the Soviet Union, and virtual
allies of Hitler. The principal device used to achieve this end was to hammer
home the accusation that the real aim of Western policy before the war had been
to isolate the USSR, and, in the final account, to embroil it in war with
Germany.
In its broadest
application this charge affected the Soviet official interpretation of the
whole prewar period. Beginning with the Paris Peace Conference, at which it was
asserted the "Russian question" occupied the primary place, almost
every major event of European diplomacy affecting the USSR was made to fit into
this framework. The Dawes Plan which loosed a "golden rain of American
dollars" into German war industry, the Four Power Pact which signified
Anglo-French willingness to come to terms with fascism, the Polish-German
nonaggression pact of 1934 which set a precedent for replacing the principle of
collective security by a system of bilateral pacts, the Anglo-German naval
agreement of 1935 which proclaimed Britainís disavowal of the principle of
restricting German remilitarization--were all seen in the Soviet account as
stages in the consistent Western policy of isolating the USSR and encouraging
German aggression.
The major event affected
by this line of interpretation was, of course, the Munich agreement. The facts
surrounding this episode were such as to lend themselves to almost any
indictment of the strategy and morality of Western policy that the Soviet Union
would wish to make. The agreement was in fact strategically defective in that
it excluded the Soviet Union from the joint action of the directing nations,
and morally defective in that it legalized violence. But these indictments,
recognized as valid in Western literature, were not broad enough for the
purposes of Soviet postwar propaganda. Instead, Stalinís phrase of 1939, that
the Munich agreement was the "price of an undertaking (by Germany) to launch
war on the Soviet Union" was resurrected as the basis of the Soviet
historical interpretation. The Western leaders were portrayed as active
plotters with Hitler for war. In
--13--
Soviet postwar historiography the
word "deal" (sgovor) became the official cachet of Munich, and
historians who had seen in the Western behavior at Munich simply a concession
or capitulation to Nazi threats were made to see their error.
A second issue for
Soviet postwar propaganda on the Allied role in the war was the matter of
Allied material aid. For Soviet postwar propaganda, any acknowledgment of the
magnitude and usefulness of this aid could serve no political purpose, as it
would document the indebtedness of the Soviet Union to a foreign state, which
the Soviet Union would be loath to admit in any event, and least of all to the
"bulwark of world capitalism." Moreover, it would diminish to some
degree the luster of the Soviet Unions own industrial achievements, which were
claimed to rest on the far-sighted industrialization programs carried out by
the regime during the first five year plans. Thus, the matter of Allied
supplies was mentioned very sparingly in Soviet postwar accounts of the war,
and where mentioned was always presented as an exchange for Soviet raw materials,
or as a paltry recompense for the Russian contributions of blood and time.
The most publicized of
the issues affecting the Allied role in the war was the question of the second
front. The Soviet attitude toward this question assumed approximately its permanent
form during 1942, when it must have seemed to the Soviet leaders that nothing
but the crumbling defenses of Stalingrad stood between them and final disaster.
It is understandable that in these desperate hours they were little disposed to
appreciate Allied logistic problems and were bitter about the failure of the
needed military relief to materialize. But even after the passions of the
moment cooled, the second front issue apparently appeared to the Soviet leaders
as too useful a device to abandon. During the war it contributed a certain
psychological leverage to the Soviet Union in dealings with the Allies, and
probably went a long way toward cancelling out whatever sense of indebtedness
the Allied supplies may have carried with them. After the war, it served as a
prop for the claim that the Soviet Union had borne the brunt of the struggle
against Hitler.
The basis of the Soviet
postwar charge that the Allies had shown bad faith in this matter was the joint
communiquÈ published in London and Washington after the Molotov visit in the
spring of 1942. The communiquÈ said in part that "in the course of the
conversations full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent task of
creating a second front in Europe in 1942." Churchill has explained that
the purpose of
--14--
the communiquÈ was to make the
Germans apprehensive and hold as many of their troops in the west as possible.
So as not to mislead the Russians, he took care to give Molotov an aide
memoire, stating that he could "give no promise in the matter."
In postwar comment on the subject, Soviet propaganda ignored the aide
memoire. Instead, it bent every effort to show that the Allies had gone
back on their word, and had done so, moreover, with the deliberate aim of
dragging out the war and exhausting the Russians.
A fourth issue was the
Normandy invasion. Soviet postwar propaganda interpreted this event in such a
way as to place Allied political motives and military capabilities in the worst
possible light. It was stated that the Allies undertook the Normandy invasion
only to forestall the inevitable single-handed triumph of the Soviet Union.
Moreover, it was charged that the Allies deliberately delayed their breakout
from the Normandy beachhead for two and a half months, while watching developments
on the Soviet-German front, and playing with the possibility of a compromise
peace. In all of this, Soviet postwar propaganda placed great stress on the
alleged inconsequential resistance put up by the Germans to the Allied
invasion. It was claimed that the German divisions in Europe were not of first
combat quality. During the whole period of the Normandy invasion, according to
the Soviet postwar propaganda account, not a single German division was
transferred from the Soviet front. Consequently, no significance could be
attached to the Normandy invasion as easing the situation in any substantial
degree on the eastern front.
A highly derogatory
appraisal of Allied military capabilities was also given in connection with the
Ardennes battle and the final advance through Germany. The former was presented
as a major collapse of the Allied military position which would have been fatal
had not Stalin, in response to Churchillís urgent plea, advanced the date of
the Soviet winter offensive, and thus forced the Germans to abandon their
attack and withdraw their forces to the eastern front. The final Allied advance
through Germany was also explained as the result of the German political
decision to concentrate all forces against the Russians and to leave the way
open for the Allies to reach Berlin first.
The principal issue
raised by the Soviet account of the Pacific War was the interpretation of the
Japanese surrender. The Soviet Union from the beginning maintained that it was
the
--15--
Soviet declaration of war and the
defeat of the Kwantung army, rather than the atomic bomb, which forced the
Japanese to capitulate. The Soviet argument was based principally on three
assertions: (1) that the Allies had achieved no significant military successes
against the Japanese during the course of the Pacific War, (2) that the main
military strength of Japan remained throughout the war untouched in Manchuria,
and (3) that in 1945 Japan was still capable of continuing the war for another
two years at least. This latter assertion was based on American military
estimates, made in 1944, and 1945, of the requirements for the invasion of the
Japanese home islands.
The role of the atomic
bomb was usually ignored, or summarily dismissed, in Soviet accounts of the Japanese
surrender. The most circumstantial Soviet argument on this point was offered by
V. Avarin in his second book on the Pacific war, published in 1952. It was
based on the data presented in the United States Strategic Bombing Survey
regarding the deliberations in the Japanese Government during the last days
before the decision to surrender was taken. Part of Avarinís argument was based
on the timing of these events. The atomic bomb, he observed, was dropped on 6
August, and resulted in no particular reaction in Japanese official circles.
The Soviet declaration of war reached Tokyo on the morning of 9 August, and was
followed by a frantic series of official meetings, concluding with the Imperial
Conference in the night of 9-10 August. Part of his argument was based also on
the substance of the discussions. The key element here was the statement of the
emperor announcing his decision to accept surrender. In it, he did not mention
the atomic bomb, but said in part (according to Avarinís translation): "To
continue the war in the international situation which has arisen, and given the
situation within Japan, would mean the destruction of the whole nation."*
This, according to Avarin, proved that the point at issue was "not the
atomic bomb or strategic bombing, but the international situation which had
arisen, i.e., the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan. . .
."
* The emperors words as given in the
Strategic Bombing Survey are as follows: "Thinking about the world situation
and the internal Japanese situation, to continue the war means nothing but the
destruction of the whole nation;" Avarin obviously shaded his translation
to support his argument.
--16--
Unlike many of the other issues
discussed in this chapter, there was very little development or change in the
Soviet interpretation of the Japanese surrender during the postwar period.
According to Max Beloff, in his book Soviet Policy in the Far East,
1944-1951, the attribution of the Japanese collapse exclusively to Soviet
victories in Manchuria remained a constant of Soviet comment on this subject
from the end of the war on. All the major elements of this account were present
in the earliest analyses of this event noted. Colonel M. Tolchenov, a prominent
military writer, set out the main lines of this argument in 1945, although in
somewhat less categorical terms than later became customary. He cited Allied
military estimates as proof that Japan was still capable of resistance at the
end, and claimed that most foreign newspapers recognized that Soviet
intervention was "one of the decisive factors" compelling the enemy
to lay down his arms. An accompanying article assessed the significance of the
atomic bomb, expressing some cautious optimism as to its future peacetime
implications, but concluding that it was irrelevant to the final outcome of the
Pacific War and invoking the authority of Generals Arnold and Chennault in
support of this conclusion.
--17--
During its development
in the postwar period, the Soviet, official interpretation of the war evoked
varying degrees of resistance from elements of the population most directly
affected--the professional military, the historians, and the writers.
Although military
writers played a key role in developing the official version of the war, they
did not abdicate their professional integrity entirely to propaganda criteria,
and, in their wartime writings at least, provided snatches of direct testimony
on the real nature of wartime events. Some faint signs of dissatisfaction with
elements of the official line also appeared among military writers during the
postwar period. This expressed itself not in any open opposition to the
official line, but in indications that the professional military officers were
experiencing tension between their direct experience of the military events of
the war and the theoretical formulas in which they were required to express
them.
In the summer of 1945, a
small unsigned article in Military Thought, the theoretical organ of the
General Staff, first drew attention to this latter phenomenon. It took to task
a number of specialized military journals for exaggerating the roles of their
own services in the war, and for neglecting the Soviet doctrine on the
coordinated action of all arms. These journals, said the article, "raise
the basic question of the military employment of their own forces in combined
arms battle poorly or not at all, and sometimes, in interpreting the experience
of the military operations of their forces, attribute to them an independent
significance." The Air Forces journal came in for particular criticism in
this regard.
A more interesting case
was a crusty article by Major General A. Penchevskiy, "Concerning
Operations for Encirclement and Operational Terminology," in Military
Thought, No. 6/7, 1945, which disputed the concept of "internal and
external fronts" in an encirclement operation. This concept
--18--
was already becoming part of the
legend of the Stalingrad operation, where, it was claimed, an "external
front" had been formed on the encircling ring to prevent a breakin by
Mansteinís relief column, as well as an "internal front" to prevent a
breakout by von Paulusí army. The use of this concept to buttress the claim
that Stalin always beat the enemy "for sure," foreseeing on a large
scale all the countermeasures that the enemy might possibly undertake, gave it
a political significance. "In the planning of an operation," said
Penchevskiy, "the forces and means of an army and front (fronts) are never
under any circumstances divided between internal and external fronts (lines).
They are divided according to operational objectives, and tasks are established
by defined lines." He concluded with a blunt dismisal of the theory.
"Our staffs never used such concepts as ëinternal and external frontsí;
they are useless since they do not explain the essence of the operational
maneuver."
A still more interesting
case was an article by General of the Army Eremenko, entitled
"Counterblows in a Contemporary Defensive Operation," which appeared
in Military Thought, No. 3, 1949. This was a notable article if for no
other reason than that, at the height of the Stalin apotheosis, it mentioned
Stalin only once, in the opening paragraph, and the adjective
"Stalinist" once, in the last. Moreover, it dealt with the question
of the counteroffensive in such a way as to obscure the role of the Supreme
Commander in the direction of this operation and to enhance the role of army and
front commanders. This resulted from the fact that Eremenko attributed to the
counterblow (i.e., an operation of an army or front, larger than a
counterattack, but smaller than a counteroffensive) the crucial role in
triggering the counteroffensive, specifically with reference to Moscow and
Kursk. He spoke of the counterblows in these two battles as "turning
into" counteroffensives. This phraseology was, in itself, not unorthodox,
but Eremenko made it appear that the army or front commander who made the
decision for a counterblow was, in effect, the agent responsible for the
counteroffensive. This, in the atmosphere of 1949, was perilously close to lese
majesty.
There is evidence that
the unorthodoxy of this article was the result not of careless writing but of
blunt military honesty. Time and again, Eremenko missed the obvious
opportunities to throw in a sop to Stalinís vanity. Repeatedly,
--19--
he spoke of the counteroffensive as
"growing out of," or "developing from," the counterblows
launched by "our troops," without mentioning that it was
"organized" by Stalin, as good propaganda practice required. In one
place he went even further, and implicitly credited Zhukov with preparing the
counteroffensive under Moscow.
The ideological lapses of
this article were thrown into stronger relief by a vigorously orthodox article
on the counteroffensive which Eremenko published two years later. It provided a
whole catalogue of the standard formulas praising Stalin as the genius exponent
of this strategy.
The spirit of this
article contrasted so sharply with the earlier one that the conclusion seems
inescapable that considerations of political discretion had prompted it.
The professional
historians were blocked off from the military history of the war by political
decisions taken at wars end, and thenceforth restricted themselves to the
diplomatic history of the wartime period. In this field, a significant number
of them displayed a relatively objective attitude toward the West up through 1947,
and some beyond that date.
One work of considerable
interest was the first volume of a series, Works on Modern and Contemporary
History, which was brought out by the History Institute in 1948. This
volume was severely criticized later for many departures from ideological
orthodoxy. One article in it, "The German-Fascist Drang nach Osten
after Munich," by F.I. Notovich, is illustrative of the general
scholarships and political detachment of the volume. The main criticism later
directed against this article was that it described the Munich agreement as a
"capitulation," rather than as a "deal" or
"bargain." The very first words of the article were "The Munich
capitulation," and this phrase was used regularly throughout. It was,
moreover, devoid of the usual references to Marxist authorities. Although it
carried a heavy scholarly apparatus, in a close text of fifty pages, only two
or three purely factual references to Soviet sources appeared.
--20--
Another example of postwar
unorthodoxy in Soviet historiography was a book published in 1947, by Professor
G. Deborin, entitled "International Relations and the Foreign Policy of
the USSR, 1917-1945," IV: The Years of the Great Patriotic War.
This book was apparently withdrawn from circulation sometime in 1949, and is
not now available. According to the Soviet press, the book was published by the
Higher Diplomatic School as an informal student manual and enjoyed circulation
in educational institutions in this capacity. Official attention was drawn to
the book, apparently, when the contemporary history sector of the History
Institute attempted to republish it under the seal of the Academy of Sciences.
The substantive
criticism of the book was focused on its alleged pro-American bias. It was said
that the book presented US foreign policy during the Second World War
"just as American imperialists themselves attempt to portray it."
This interpretation, it was said, conveyed the impression that the US
government was opposed to the anti-Soviet policies of Churchill and the
American imperialists, that it was a staunch friend of the Soviet Union
throughout the struggle. Thus the book concealed the "struggle within the
anti-Hitler coalition" during the war, and ignored the "fundamental
opposition between the foreign policy of the USSR, on the one hand, and of the
USA and Great Britain, on the other." On a more specific issue, the second
front, the book also was said to have given a distorted interpretation. The
Western delay in opening a second front was attributed to the inability of US
and British leaders to evaluate the developing situation in 1942 correctly, to
their overestimation of the Hitler forces. Thus, the prolonged delay in opening
the second front was ascribed to "shortsighted" US and British
leaders. Finally, the official critics hinted darkly at improper motives in the
publication of the book.
As the critics were
clear to point out, historians were held responsible not only for what they
published, but also for what they said. A statement made in a classroom lecture
will serve as a last illustration of the laggardness of the Soviet historical
community in accepting the postwar official line on the war. The case in point
was that of Professor Zvavich, a specialist on British history. The most
startling of the words he was alleged to have uttered were described as
follows:
--21--
In the lecture course
given at the Higher Diplomatic School, Zvavich committed a direct falsification
of history, asserting that a turning point in the course of the war took place
as a result of the landing of the Americans in Italy. (Voprosy Istorii
No. 2, 1949, 156)
The full fury of the
ideological reaction fell on the historical community during the years 1948 and
1949, when, under the goad of the party press, a series of meetings was held to
place one historian after another on the rack of public criticism for the
edification of his fellows. The climax of this campaign came in the spring of
1949, when the second issue of Questions of History for that year was
held up for five months, while a reorganization of the editorial board was
effected. The resistance which the historians displayed was evoked not by
clashes over particular issues, but by professional disdain for the political
criteria which defined the partyís demands. The most striking feature of their
performance was the indisputable evidence it provided that the historians
understood the nature of the capitulations they were forced to make.
There were signs, first
of all, that the historians attempted to deflect, or blunt, or even to shield
each other from the sharp edge of party criticism. The behavior of the
editorial board of Questions of History itself was remarkable in this
respect. It displayed tact and forebearance in the case of N. Rubinshteyn, for
example, the author of a book on Russian historiography, and the first victim
of the ideological reaction, by allowing him to initiate the discussion of his
criticized book, rather than subjecting him to immediate attack by others. Its
action in the case of I.I. Mints, a specialist in the early Soviet period, was
even bolder. At a time when Mints had become the main target of the party
attack, the editorial board allowed him to publish a lead article, in the first
issue of 1949, which in effect constituted an apologia for the historical
community. This article listed all the names of the leading Soviet historians,
proclaimed their contributions to Soviet historical science, and (perhaps by a
slip of the pen, because his article was otherwise very dutiful in this
respect) attributed to his own colleagues, rather than to Stalin, the credit
for laying the "basis for the study of the Soviet period of the history of
our country."
--22--
In addition to Questions of
History itself, individual historians also made efforts to stem the course
of party reaction. At the beginning of the critical campaign, for example,
there was at least one historian (K. Vazilevich) who stood openly against the
basic chauvinist tendency of the official line. "We are not inclined to
grovel before the West," he said. "We carry our culture with
dignity. . . . But to tear off the history of Russia from the
history of other countries--this would mean to return to a past which has been
condemned, and it would hardly be right to start off on such a path." In
the first discussion of Mints book on the first years of the Soviet regime, it
was reported that one speaker (A.I. Gukovskiy) attempted to impugn Mints
loyalty. The subsequent speakers, it was noted, "unanimously
rejected" this insinuation. Again, in the discussion of Works on Modern
and Contemporary History it was reported: "Attempts to soften the
sharpness of the criticism appeared, for example, in the speech of A.Z.
Manfred, who accompanied his acknowledgment of the mistaken character of Eggerts
article with ambiguous compliments regarding the authors "great skill,
ability to master the material, etc."
Individual authors, not
infrequently, showed considerable stubbornness in refusing to bow meekly to
official criticism. I.M. Lemin, for example, the author of The Foreign
Policy of Great Britain from Versailles to Locarno, was reported sticking
to his guns at the end of the critical session on his book.
It is necessary to note,
at the same time, the unserious and irresponsible attitude which the author of
the book himself displayed toward the discussion. Admitting, in general terms,
that certainly "there are many shortcomings in the book," that
"there are certain bad sounding words," and that "the tone is
inappropriate in a number of cases," I. M. Lemin at the same time
attempted, without any proof, to deny all the concrete and argued complaints
and observations about the book made by the speakers. As a result of the false
position taken by him, I. M. Lemin in fact rejected the critical review of his
book, in the light of the criticism to which it was subjected at the
discussion, and his concluding words failed completely to satisfy those
present. (Voprosy Istorii, No. 6, 1948, 139)
--23--
The occasional cynical remarks which
some historians made during these critical sessions revealed, more eloquently
than any disquistion, their full awareness of the purely political
considerations which motivated the official reaction. Professor Lutskiy, for
example, in attempting to ward off attacks on his sector of the History
Institute, referred to the opinion which, he said, was commonly held in
historical circles, "that the history of Soviet society is not history,
but current politics." A similar theme in the defensive remarks of the
criticized historians was the complaint that they had been victimized by the
swift change in the official line after the war.
F.I. Notovich, for
example, the author of the article on German post-Munich policy, considered
above, used this defense.
Still more unsatisfactory
was the speech of F. I. Notovich, who at first refused to recognize any
substantial mistakes at all in his understanding or evaluation of the Munich
policy in his article. Only in his second speech, which followed the decisive
criticism of his first, did Comrade Notovich acknowledge that he had permitted
"false notes" in it, and that his article did not correspond to the
demands of militant party historical science. However, even in his second
speech, F.I. Notovich insinuated false notes. He explained the errors of his
article not as arising from a misunderstanding of the essence of the Munich
agreement, but as a result of the fact that he had "printed in 1948 an
article written in 1945. . . ." (Voprosy Istorii No.
12, 1948, 177)
Perhaps more significant
than these displays of individual courage or stubbornness were the signs
(naturally heavily veiled in Soviet sources) of something like an organized
resistance by the historical community to the partyís ideological campaign.
This appeared most clearly in the virtual boycott of the discussion of
Rubinshteynís text book held by the Ministry of Higher Education, in March,
1948. Of the speakers reported at the meeting, only three appeared to be
historians of importance (S.A. Pokrovskiy, A.L. Sidorov, and Ye.N.
Gorodetskiy), the others being mainly docents, or professors from outside
Moscow. The abstention of the first-rate historical figures from the meeting
was
--24--
all the more striking in view of the
high sponsorship of the affair, and the importance which the authorities
obviously attached to it. Both Sidorov and Gorodetskiy, at the meeting,
referred to the absence of the major professors in terms which suggested that a
"feat of silence" was being performed, complaining that the initiative
for the criticism had come from outside the historical community, Sidorov
stated: "Even now, at this present conference, the majority of the members
of the department (of Moscow State University) are absent. . . .
A certain, inwardness on the part of these institutions (the History Institute,
and the Academy of Social Sciences), and the absence of prominent historians at
the present meeting, characterizes, to a significant degree, the general
position on the historical front. . . ." Gorodetskiy
referred sarcastically to the "absence of the so-called pillars of
historical science from the discussion. . . ." Later, on
several occasions, it was implied that this abstention of the Moscow historical
community from the meeting had been a deliberate act.
Later criticism revealed
other cases of group opposition to the partyís ideological campaign. A lead
article in Questions of History, at the end of 1948, for example,
asserted: "There were cases when the criticism of mistakes (recently made
in the press, etc.) were met with hostility in the Institute." Also:
"The Institute did not organize work on the exposure of foreign bourgeois
historiography, and did not conduct an attack on foreign falsifiers of history.
This work, until recently, has been considered in the Institute as outside and
plan, and the workers of the Institute shunned it."
The writers community,
as a whole, demonstrated a chronic indiscipline after the war which was
unmatched by any other segment of Soviet society. The sources of this indiscipline
were no doubt various, but there were two common factors--the nature of
literature itself, and the regimes imperfect control of it.
Writers had to deal with
human beings and their relationships, in terms comprehensible to themselves and
acceptable to their readers. This meant that the subject of the writers work
was man--man, not Soviet man--and human values which the shallow political
philosophy he was required to serve failed to explain or even to acknowledge.
--25--
Secondly, the qualified
editorial independence enjoyed by literary journals encouraged writers to probe
for the outer limits of official tolerance. This helped to keep alive the sense
of a shared problem, and contributed to a feeling of group identity among the
writers.
The most dramatic
episode in the postwar collision between propaganda policy on the
interpretation of the war and the testimony of the writers was the article
"Crocks and Potsherds," which appeared in the literary journal Oktyabr,
in 1946, from the pen of its editor, F. Panferov. This article was a plaintive
denunciation of the literary bureaucracy (and inescapably, though implicitly,
of the political powers which supported it) for promoting a false, prettified
version of the sufferings, terrors, and majestic achievements of the war.
The substance of
Panferovís article was the complaint that the critics opposed any portrayal of
the war which conveyed a true measure of the enormous sacrifices it had cost.
In his article he described how he had questioned the generals during the last
days of the war, and asked them to explain to him the nature of the victory
that had been won. They could not answer, he said. Even they, the generals who
had won the victory, were forced to admit that they did not fully understand
the moral forces that had moved their armies. They stood before a puzzle, the
sphynx of victories. Only the critics, sneered Panferov, the "crocks and
potsherds," as he called them, were able to understand this great
imponderable.
For the "crocks and
potsherds" all this is clear. "Retreat? There was no retreat. This
was a planned withdrawal which exhausted the enemy."
"But,"
responds the writer, "what kind of a planned withdrawal was this, when the
fate of our country at one time hung by a hair. Indeed, Comrade Stalin and his
fellow workers spoke to us about this."
"Forget it! It is
necessary to forget this," answer the "crocks and potsherds."
"How forget?
Perhaps it is possible to forget that the Germans were at Stalingrad, at
Mozdok, at Moscow? How is it possible to forget the burdens which our people
shouldered during the war? Indeed, sometimes out shoulders cracked from these
burdens.
--26--
Panferov then recalled
the terrible hardships suffered by the working people in setting up the
evacuated industries in the rear. He described the hard living conditions, the
rigors of winter work in the Urals, the cold which froze the palms of the
workers hands to the steel. "But here come the crocks and potsherds",
he wrote, "and insistently declare: 'Nonsense, nothing like this happened
in our country.í The writer spreads his hands in perplexity."
Returning to the
military aspect of the war, Panferov concluded his article with a discussion of
the character of the enemy, and of the proper way of portraying the enemy in
literature. He disputed the official tendency to deprecate the military
qualities of the Germans. This, he argued, did no credit to the Soviet army,
and in fact minimized the significance of the victory it had achieved. The
"crocks and potsherds," he said, insist that the enemy should be
portrayed as stupid, cowardly, ignorant of military matters--as a "wooden
head with eyes."
But, if you will, why
minimize the strength of the enemy, his resourcefulness, his rapaciousness, his
cunning, his military skill, his steadiness in battle, his ability to defend
himself, to attack, and finally, to fight? Indeed, in depicting the enemy as a
wooden head with eyes, we minimize the heroism of the Red Army. What kind of
heroism is it to have beaten a wooden head with eyes? No, the enemy was strong,
in his own way, able, cunning, and steady in battle. Indeed, no wooden head
with eyes could have seized, if only temporarily, the whole of Europe, and
moved into our country hundreds of divisions armed from head to toe. No. And
how explain the power of the enemy, his psychology--why millions went over to
the fascists, if only for a time? To solve this is an extraordinarily
complicated and necessary matter. . . .
There can be no doubt
that Panferov passionately believed in the position he defended. Moreover, he
seemed to feel that his viewpoint might prevail over the opposing view of the
literary critics. He reminded his readers of the wartime words of Stalin and
the party leaders; he invoked the authority of the party which "never
concealed." At the time he published the article, Panferov seemed to
--27--
regard the interpretation of the war
as not yet a completely closed issue. The objective of his article, apparently,
was to bully the critics, and influence the political authorities behind them,
into accepting his interpretation of the role and responsibility of literature
in portraying the history of the war. No doubt, active debates on this subject
had been stimulated throughout the literary community by Stalinís electoral
speech earlier in the year.
The lasting significance
of Panferovs article rests in the testament it gave of Russiaís wartime
experience. On the eve of the postwar campaign of falsifications and
half-truths, which the regime hoped would blot out the unhappy memories of the
war, one clear voice bore witness to the sufferings and sacrifices it had cost.
It spoke not only for Panferov but for many of his colleagues as well, and
indeed for the Russian people.
Echoes of this testimony
to the truth about the war were to be heard again in the postwar period. In the
last two issues of the literary journal Znamya, in 1947, there appeared
a work entitled "Motherland and Foreignland: Pages from a Notebook,"
by A. Tvardovskiy, in which the poet attempted to recreate impressions from a
lost wartime diary. It was a collection of vignettes of his wartime
experiences. As the personal record of a sensitive observer, which was intended
originally for his own use rather than for publication, it presented a
remarkably clear view of the human features of the Soviet people in the war.
Tvardovskiy was
particularly attracted by the hardiness, the sheer survival ability, of
individuals in war, and he returned to this theme repeatedly. This naturally
caused him to deal with characters and motivations which official propaganda
pretended not to see, and laid him open to the charge that he had generalized
the untypical rather than the typical features of Soviet reality. In a striking
passage, he described a scene of refugee disaster during the early days:
On the first page of the
notebook, I remember, I wrote down a picture which struck me at the beginning
of the war, in my first encounter with those on whom a heavy burden fell in the
first days. The Moscow-Kiev train stopped at a station, apparently Khutor
Mikhailovskiy. Looking out the window, I saw something so strange and
--28--
frightening that, to this day, I
cannot get rid of the impression. I saw a field, a huge field, but whether it
was a meadow, a fallow field, a field sown to winter or spring crops, it was
impossible to tell: the field was covered with people, lying sitting, swarming,
people with bundles, knapsacks, suitcases, hand carts, little children. I never
saw so many suitcases, bundles, all kinds of village household goods, hurriedly
taken by people for a journey. On this field there were perhaps five, perhaps
ten thousand people. . . . The field buzzed. And in this drone one could hear
the agitation, the excitement caused by the recent shock, and, at the same
time, the deep, sad weariness, the numbness, the half-sleep, that one observes
in a crowded waiting room at night in a large railway junction. The field rose,
began to stir, pushed toward the right of the way, to the train, began to rap
on the windows and doors of the cars, and, it seemed, had the power to knock
the cars from the rails. The train moved. We, people in war, breaking the
strict and necessary order, pulled into the car one woman, loaded down with
bundles, holding in her hands her two children, aged three and five years. She
was from Minsk, the wife of a commander, and coming into the car hastened to
confirm this with documents. She was small, haggard, not at all beautiful,
except perhaps her eyes, shining with the joy of unexpected success. She had to
go somewhere in Belaya Tserkov, to the family of her husband. She could hardly
have gotten there--a few days later I saw that Belaya Tserkov was abandoned by
us.
Tvardovskiyís honesty
extended also to self-analysis, and produced an unusually picturesque and
unflattering account of the function of the writers in the war. Feeling the
fatigue of his long tour of service, he asked himself why his mind faltered at
the task of writing once again the story of seemingly endless battles. He compared
himself and his fellow writers to a man who helped another to chop wood by
grunting for each blow of the axe. "We grunt, and the people work. We have
taken on ourselves the function...of giving out those exclamations, ohs and
ahs, etc., which are those of the man who fights."
--29--
For the soldier, each
new battle summons up his mental and physical forces with original freshness.
"But for us, grunting, all this is just more of the same thing; we have
grunted for a thousand such occasions." Tvardovskiy conceded, however,
that it was necessary to go on writing, because of the magnificent victories
that the soldiers were winning.
The critical reaction to
Tvardovskiyís notebook was swift and caustic. An article in Literary Gazette,
in December, presented a biting review of the work. "The attempt to
poeticize that which is foreign to the life, of the people, and foreign to
poetry, has led to a false and crude ideological mistake." A week later,
an editorial in the same newspaper reiterated the official anger: "The
whole work is impregnated with a feeling of tiredness, pacifism, a
contemplative attitude toward life." In February, 1948, Literary
Gazette carried a brief report of a discussion which had been held on
Tvardovskiyís notebook, containing hints that opposition to the official
criticism had manifested itself among the writers. The report stated that the
scheduled discussion had been put off three times, and that on the fourth
occasion, when the discussion was finally held, the editorial board of Znamya
had absented itself from the meeting. In addition, the claim that the official
evaluation of the work had been supported by the meeting was qualified:
"The opinion of the majority of the speakers in large part
coincided with. . . . (Italics added.) Finally, the open
opposition of one speaker, a student from Moscow University, was acknowledged.
Regarding the latter, the report stated:
General agitation was
called forth by the speech of a graduate student of Moscow University, V.
Arkhipov. In an oily tone, he undertook to prove that there were no mistakes in
"Motherland and Foreignland." Attempting by all means to protect A.
Tvardovskiy from justified criticism, he ended up with openly reactionary
declarations in defense of kulaks and speculators. The harmful expressions of
the uninvited advocate were given a well deserved reply, . . .
While Tvardovskiyís work
was being discussed, another wartime memoir was being published which was to
set off an even more dramatic demonstration of opposition to the official line
on the war. This was the diary of Olga Dzhigurda, a military doctor, which
appeared in the first two
--30--
issues of Znamya
in 1948, under the title "The Motorship 'Kakhetia'". In the ensuing
discussion of this book, in which marked discontent with the official critical
evaluation was recorded, the famous partisan leader and author of the Stalin
prize winning book, Men With a Clear Conscience, Petro Vershigora,
published a strong attack on the critics for encouraging a hypocritical
portrayal of the war. In the vigor and directness of its attack, Vershigoras
article came close to matching the ardor of Panferovís polemic of two years
before.
The diary of Dzhigurda,
which precipitated the dispute, was itself a patently honest portrayal of the thoughts,
feelings, and behavior of people exposed to war. It recorded the authors
experiences as a military doctor on a supply-hospital ship, in 1941-42, serving
the besieged city of Sevastopol and other military bases. In simple,
straightforward language, the author described the people around her, neither
embellishing their virtues nor concealing their faults. At the very beginning,
she described the reluctance with which she and her companions approached their
assignment to the ship. "In vain, Belokon and Vetrova entreated the duty
officer to send us to some land unit, in vain Vetrova tried to frighten the
duty officer with big names from the Air Forces, in vain I complained of my
seasickness. . . ."
Dzhigurdas reportorial
accuracy led her to record events which were highly "untypical" by
Soviet official standards. The captain of the ship, for example, suffered a
nervous breakdown and committed suicide. Two soldiers evacuated from Sevastopol
turned out to be malingerers. "What will become of them?" asked Dzhigurda
as they were being led away. "They will be shot . . . (or)
. . . sent to a penal battalion . . ." she
was told. Once her roommates sobbing woke her in the night.
"Whatís the matter?
Whatís the matter with you?" I asked anxiously.
"I cannot be alone!
Itís boring to be alone!" Vetrova wailed through her tears.
I was upset
"Listen, Marya
Afanasyevna, arenít you ashamed? Just a few days before the trip, and all you
think about is foolishness. We have to fight with pure thoughts and a pure
spirit, and all you think about is men!" "Iím pregnant,"
suddenly groaned Vetrova, and fell on the pillow and cried.
--31--
These
"untypical" features of the book, needless to say, scandalized
official opinion. Dzhigurda was accused of having failed to bring out the real
spirit of the Soviet people, and of having lost her way in details. "It is
not necessary to minimize the personal shortcomings of our people," said
E. Knipovich, writing in Literary Gazette. "But if one is to see
the main, socialist thing above all, then the petty, personal shortcomings are
not blown up disproportionately. . . ."
A discussion of the book
was held early in May, 1948. The animation of the proceedings, the enthusiastic
support for Dzhigurda which they demonstrated, came through even in the cryptic
report of the affair which was published in Literary Gazette. A
remarkable feature of the meeting was that it appeared to be organized by, and
certainly provided a forum for, "people of experience," that is,
those who like Dzhigurda herself had actually participated in the war. The
number of military figures present, and speaking on Dzhugurdas behalf, was
perhaps the most notable feature of the meeting.
In the following month,
Vershigora published his formal attack on the critics. He described their
reception of Dzhigurdas work as flowing from the consistently negative attitude
they had always shown toward eyewitness accounts of the war. The object of his
attack was to refute not simply the official evaluation of one work, but the
whole system of official attitudes which had determined this evaluation. His
indictment exposed the nature of the campaign the critics had waged to
substitute platitudinous formulas for honest accounts of the war.
Pseudo-classical
conceptions regarding Soviet people at war, the motives for their actions and
encounters, have apparently nurtured sanctimonious ideals in the critics
themselves. And the critics (according to the laws of a certain reverse
diffusion, perhaps) react sharply to any departure from these lacquered norms.
Pharisaical critics give battle surreptiously, without undue noise, to the
genre of "experience" they avoid raising the question to the level of
principle, so to speak, ignore the early diaries of front-line people, or note
superficially their weaknesses, and, above all, disparage their significance.
--32--
Vershigora cited the
poverty of literature on the siege of Leningrad as an example of the deadly
influence which had been exercised by the critics. He said that since 1944 an
honest portrayal of this great event had been impossible. He spoke of one
"highly placed conference" devoted to literature on the war, at which
one writer justifiably complained that he had not been able to write the truth
about the feat of Leningrad ìsince the literary and critical channels had
filled up with people who never had a taste of blockade."
Every attempt to
describe the blockade is taken by them, as slander against the Leningrad
people. The almost complete absence of great literature on the worthy and
necessary theme of the heroic defense of Leningrad convinces me that the
aforementioned comrade is right. Crude facts (and they are always crude,
particularly for those who have not had a whiff of them) cannot be written, and
people are apparently still ashamed to write the prettified "little
truths" which are always worse than open lies. And the result? The needed
book about the great feat of Leningrad has not, and does not, come!.
Finally, Vershigora
asserted the bold claim that "defenders of the Fatherland" had the moral
right to share their experiences of the war with their contemporaries. He
predicted, moreover, that such first-hand accounts would not be forgotten when
the history of the war was finally written.
Our contemporaries, who
shoulder to shoulder have forged the victory, as well as future generations
studying the past, will look into them. They will have to look into them!
Surely, the many novels, stories and poems, and books, which are less finished
in literary style, but more convincing, not only by virtue of the facts they
contain, but also by their faithfulness to the human feelings they
portray, will not be thrown into the backyard of history.
--33--
The flurry of opposition
to the official history of the war was snuffed out by 1949, and for several
years thereafter a deep freeze of. Stalinist orthodoxy settled over this issue.
Occasional criticisms of individual authors during this period were indicative
more of the insatiability of critical appetites than of any real indiscipline
on the part of the individuals concerned. The increasing attention devoted to
the history of the war by the press and publishing houses registered the
propagandists conviction that the subject had become stable and safe. But
history in. the Soviet Union was no more stable than the political forces which
projected it, and with Stalinís death the image of his power reflected in
history began to fade.
The natural tendency of
the Stalinist historical myths to disintegrade was accelerated by the problems
which the new government faced. First, there was the succession itself; the new
system of collective leadership had to be legitimized; the state
administration, pulverized by Stalin, had to be reconstituted; long suppressed
consumer demands had to be satisfied; a way out of the foreign policy impasse
had to be found. Secondly, there were problems arising from the military-strategic
situation created by the maturing of nuclear developments within the Soviet
Union, and the continuing improvement of delivery capabilities in both world
power blocs. Both sets of problems required a break with Stalinist tradition.
The effects of the new
policy toward the first set of problems were apparent almost immediately. In
propaganda, the "cult of personality" was disparaged, and the
"creativity of the masses" was extolled. To be sure, the effect was
less marked, and less consistent, in historical writing on the war, but there
were unmistakable shifts in emphasis. Stalinís name appeared less frequently in
the places where one had become accustomed to expect it, and the party was put
forward as the supreme architect of victory. The role of the people in the war
was also accorded a recognition which befitted their newly acknowledged status
as the "creators of history."
--34--
More important, and
longer lasting, implications for the history of the war emerged from the second
set of problems mentioned above, the reassessment of Soviet military-strategic
policies. As men who had been close to the summit of Soviet power for many
years, the new leaders were certainly not unacquainted with the strategic
problems posed by the increasing destructiveness of world armaments. But the
responsibilities of supreme authority, the removal of Stalinís inhibiting
influence, and the new evidence which piled up during 1953, as a result of the
Soviet Unionís first hydrogen bomb explosion, and also, probably, the beginning
of the study of tactics for a nuclear war in the military maneuvers of that
year, cast these problems in a new light. In any event, clear signs of a more
realistic attitude toward the military implications of the nuclear age were
manifested. The seven year ban on the discussion of nuclear weapons was broken
in 1954, when Red Star began a series of articles on the tactical uses
of the new weapons, and defense against them. During the same period, a broad
discussion of military science, reflecting strong tendencies toward a
rejuvenation of military thought, was carried on in the General Staff journal, Military
Thought.
On the political level,
the impact of the new strategic situation was reflected in Malenkovís efforts
to damp down the sparks which might set off an international
conflagration--which, in his words of 1954, would mean the "destruction of
world civilization." The circumstances surrounding this declaration
strongly suggest that Malenkov meant it as a powerful argument in defense of
his policies. It was made just four days after the first open opposition to his
regime had been signalized in the Soviet press.* It was a carefully calculated
statement, since it revised a long held, and often repeated Soviet doctrine,
which Malenkov himself had helped to formulate, that a new war would mean the
destruction of world capitalism alone. The indications are strong that it
expressed not only his own belief in the unacceptibility of nuclear war, but
his hope that others within the Soviet
* Trud, March 8, 1954. A
commerative article on Stalin contained the first of the revised "war
records," of which there would be various others in the next two years,
listing only Khrushchev and Bulganin, of the then collective leaders, as among
the party leaders sent to the front during the war.
--35--
Union, the lesser party
leaders and intellectuals, would be persuaded to accept his view.
Malenkovs specific
prescription for Soviet policy in the nuclear age was repudiated when he
resigned in February 1955, but the military-strategic considerations which had
given rise to it continued to preoccupy his successors. Moreover, the power
struggle by which the Bulganin-Khrushchev succession was engineered, by placing
the military in a temporarily more independent position, had the effect of
stimulating the tendencies toward a fresh look at military realities which the
Malenkov regime had initiated. The return of experienced military officers to
high administrative posts in the defense establishment, which had been going on
since the last year of Stalinís life, and particularly the appointment of
Marshal Zhukov as Minister of Defense in February 1955, further accelerated
these tendencies. During the next few months, the enhanced professionalism and
realism which these developments brought to the sphere of military thought,
resulted in important revisions in military doctrine and military history.
The harbinger of the new
era in military thought was an article by Marshal of Tank Troops Rotmistrov,
which appeared in the February issue of Military Thought, revising the
reigning Soviet doctrine on the significance of the surprise factor in war.
Ever since the early days of the war, when Stalin propounded his doctrine of
the permanently operating factors which determine the outcome of war, the
significance of the surprise factor had been deprecated in Soviet military
theory. In wartime propaganda and subsequently, the early successes of Germans
were ascribed to the "temporary" factor of surprise, which had no
significance for the final outcome of the war, once the permanently operating
factors (the stability of the rear, the morale of the army, the quantity and
quality of divisions, the armament of the army, the organizational abilities of
the commanding staff) came into play. In Rotmistrovís article, for the first
time, the relationship between the permanently operating factors and the
temporary factors (of which surprise was the principal one) was clearly shifted
to heighten the significance of the latter. For the first time, the factor of surprise
was accorded a significance which an age of nuclear weapons and
transcontinental bombers made prudent and necessary. The reasons for this shift
of doctrine were explained some years later by a military author writing in Red
Star. "The appearance of nuclear weapons,"
--36--
he said, "and the
possibility for their mass employment against troops and targets in the rear,
produced different opinions on the significance of the surprise attack in a
future war, and on measures for opposing such an attack. This prompted some
military writers. to engage in an investigation of the significance of
the-factor of surprise in modern war." Marshal Rotmistrov, it seems, was
the first to have the courage to voice the opinions which these considerations
produced in him. Subsequent developments showed that he was not alone in his
Views.
The revision of the
history of the war which unfolded in 1955 was a direct result of the
military-strategic revalutions which we have been examining. It reflected the
Soviet leaders apprehension that the Soviet people, and the Soviet military
establishment were being poorly prepared for the kind of war which they now
foresaw as a possibility by the unrealistic portrayal of the last year. This
propaganda, they felt, encouraged the dangerous illusion that war was easy, and
conditioned military officers to feel that retreats, and slow attritional
methods were normal means of conducting war. In a word, the official history of
the war compounded the errors which Soviet military doctrine had committed. As Military
Thought put it at this time, and as it would be reiterated in other
writings during the year, the official history had led "not only to
distorting the actual military events of 1941, but to the idealization of this
form of combat, and incorrectly orients our military cadres to the
possibilities of repeating it in a future war."
The first full statement
of the new version of the war which these considerations produced appeared in a
lead editorial of Military Thought, in March, 1955. The main thesis
presented was that fresh and original thought was needed to keep the Soviet
military establishment responsive to the demands of contemporary military
realities. It condemned the slavish attitude toward Stalin, which, it said,
obtained among military writers. It asked scornfully why Stalinís thesis on the
permanently operating factors should have been considered a new contribution to
military science. "Why was this permitted?"
--37--
it asked. "For no other reason
than that our military-scientific workers, academicians, military editors, our
military press, are afraid to call things by their right names, and say
anything new." The editors of Military Thought themselves, the
editorial admitted, shared this guilt. They had held back the publication of
Rotmistrovís article on surprise because of their fear of posing new questions.
The main content of the
new version of the war which this article defined, and later articles
elaborated, was that the early period of the war was a defeat for the Soviet army,
rather than a prelude to victory. Criticism focussed on the doctrine of
"active defense," on the old official claim that the operations of
the first period of the war had been conceived ahead of time, and skillfully
applied to bring about the defeat of the enemy. In fact, there never was such a
plan, it was now admitted. "What the case was in fact we all well
remember. Our experiences in that period, so desperate for our country, are
sufficiently fresh in our memories." The doctrine of active defense, it
was stated, concealed the mistakes which had been committed during that period,
and the defeats that had been suffered. It also denied due credit to the
soldiers and people for their patriotism, courage, and staunchness, and to the
command-personnel for their skill. "It is necessary to put an end to this
mistaken concept of the initial period of the war as quickly as possible, since
in fact the operations of that period, in the main, had the character of
withdrawal operations."
The impetus to revision
which this article set in motion carried somewhat beyond the program it
defined. Two months later, the second period of the war was being subjected to
critical review as well. Colonel General F. Kurochkin, writing in the May issue
of Military Thought, found glossing and oversimplification in the way
the "ten Stalinist crushing blows" had been presented in official
historical literature. Only a few of these operations, he said, were carried
out according to plan. Some took longer than expected, others developed into
operations larger than had been foreseen. Kurochkin presented the Stalingrad
battle in an unusual way, also, in that he gave no indication that German
strategy had aimed at the envelopment of Moscow.
--38--
The role of Stalin in
the war was naturally affected by this revisionary movement, although the
depreciation of his services did not proceed as far as certain statements in
the original Military Thought editorial had seemed to imply.
He continued to be
accorded honor as the head of the country and the leader of the Armed Forces,
although the adulatory phrases which had surrounded his name in past propaganda
were toned down or removed. Kurochkin provided a precise formula showing how
the new history allocated the credits for victory among the major political
elements of Soviet society:
The Communist Party of
the Soviet Union was the leading and directing force in the heroic struggle of
the Soviet people against the German fascist aggressors, and raised outstanding
commanders, who, headed by J.V. Stalin, demonstrated strategic and operational
leadership. . . . The fundamental creator of the victory over
fascist Germany . . .was the Soviet people. . . .
Finally, the role of the
Allies in the war was broached indirectly in the new history. This reflected,
however, no concern for fairness or honesty, but the practical desirability of
knowing the strengths and weaknesses of a possible future enemy. The original Military
Thought editorial condemned the ideological inhibitions which had
conditioned Soviet military writers to look upon non-Marxist literature as
beneath their attention. "It is necessary decisively to condemn such a
view. This is nothing but pride and arrogance." Behind the editorials
concern in this matter, it was clear, were the same pratical considerations
which had prompted its attack on the official interpretation of the war.
"It should be sufficiently clear to everyone that it is impossible to
develop national military science without knowing well the military-theoretical
views of the adversary."
While these developments
were taking place in the closed circle of military specialists, a somewhat
blurred image of the new history was being presented to the Soviet people. The
public presentation of the revised history was complicated by the recent
political upheaval. The stimulus to factionalism within the upper reaches of
the Soviet hierarchy which had accompanied the change of government, and the
temporary slackening of political control which had followed it posed an
invitation to politically-inclined military leaders to
--39--
maneuver for position in the new
regime. The historical interpretation of the war provided one platform on which
this maneuvering could take place, since allegiance to one or another political
leader could be indicated by the way in which the war was treated. The fact
that the Khrushchev faction, for tactical reasons in its struggle with
Malenkov, had associated its program with Stalinist symbols left an opening for
those who wished to declare their loyalty to Khrushchev to do so by resisting
any revision of the war which had anti-Stalinist implications. This was
presumably the reason why some military leaders, particularly Marshal Konev, in
his speech at the Bolshoi theater on the Tenth Anniversary of victory, made
little or no concession to the new interpretation of the war. On the whole,
however, the majority of articles which appeared at this time showed some
impress of the revisionary movement.
A clearer indication of
the import of the new movement was given to the two groups which, apart from
the military, were most affected by the history of the war, the writers and the
historians. At the end of May, 1955, a meeting of writers was held to explain
the contemporary role of the military, and the responsibilities of literature
in presenting that role and in cultivating the soldierly and civic virtues
which supported it. An essential element of this explanation was the
presentation of the revised view of the war which these practical
considerations had produced among the military theorists themselves. The
meeting was sponsored by the Union of Writers, but it was obviously initiated
by the Main Political Administration of the Ministry of Defense.
The keynote was sounded
by the deputy chief of the Main Political Administration, Lieutenant General
Shatilov, in an article which appeared in Literary Gazette on the eve of
the meeting.
Shatilov placed great
emphasis throughout on the danger of attack by the West, and the greatly
increased peril which this posed for the Soviet Union in view of the new
conditions of warfare created by nuclear weapons and improved delivery systems.
This, he said, gave new significance to the question of surprise in war, and
required a more careful consideration
--40--
of the role which surprise
had played in the past. In particular, he said, it was necessary to show how
the factor of surprise had dominated the first period of the last war, since a
false portrayal of this period might encourage false notions about the nature
of a future war.
In connection with this,
it is necessary to point out that in our literature devoted to the Great
Patriotic War, the first period of military operations is often idealized,
portrayed as a period of operations conceived in classic forms as a so-called
"active defense," and authors, contradicting real facts, attempt to
depict the matter as though this "active defense" had been planned
ahead of time and had entered into the calculations of our
command. . . . A primitive interpretation of the initial period
of the war, which distorts living reality, wherever it takes place -- in
scientific works or in artistic works -- cannot be tolerated, since it distorts
historical truth, and incorrectly orients our people, creating the impression
that such precedents might, and even should, be repeated in the future.
The published reports of
the main speakers and the reports of. the sessions, presented reiterations of
this theme, and also a hint or two of reactions stimulated in the writers
community by the new atmosphere. In the main the sessions bore an official
stamp (an impression enhanced by the absence of the principal wartime writers,
such as Simonov, Grossman, Leonov), and the meeting was chiefly significant as
a sounding-board for the new official line.
The historians received
their briefing on the new interpretation of the war in the lead editorial of Questions
of History in June. This was the first formal public directive for a
thorough review of the history of the war, and in some respects it went beyond
the program of revision outlined in the military press. Besides repeating the
by now standard call for a revision of the first period of the war, it also
demanded a more balanced appraisal of the Moscow and Stalingrad battles (since
describing them as turning-points of the war tended to diminish the
significance of the Kursk and subsequent battles), and urged a fuller account
of the role of the Allies. The latter point was qualified, however, by the
linked
--41--
argument that this would help dispel
the "reactionary falsifications of history" promoted by the
imperialist press. Finally, it spelled out the reasons for this call for
revision.
Study and popularization
of the history of the Great Patriotic War will help strengthen the Soviet
peoples military preparedness to crush any imperialist aggressor, and will help
further to train the Soviet people in unshakable faith in the victory of their
just cause, and in ardent Soviet patriotism and proletarian internationalism.
This article was the
principal manifesto of the revisionary movement in 1955. During the remainder
of the year there were few signs that the revision was being pursued
vigorously, although another article by Rotmistrov, in November, showed that
the theoretical considerations affecting the factor of surprise, which had
provoked the historical revision in the first place, continued to prevail in
military circles. The Essays on the History of the Great Patriotic War,
the first full-length history of the war by professional historians to be
published in the Soviet Union, which came out, later in the year showed very
little effects of the 1955 revisionary movement. This, together with the
general disappearance of the issue from the Soviet press, suggests that
cautionary political influences, as well as irresolution within the collective
leadership as to Stalinís role in history, had resulted in slowing down the
tinkering with the history of the war. This was, however, only a temporary
pause, as events of the following year were to show. As the Twentieth Party
Congress approached, new tendencies toward a break with the past appeared which
resulted in giving fresh impetus to a reconsideration of the history of the
war.
The revisionary movement
of 1956 followed the channels that had been cut by the military historians of
1955, but it was sponsored and sustained by new forces, and it served goals
that were broader than the military-strategic considerations that had defined
the earlier initiative. Moreover, it generated a momentum that, carried it
beyond the limits envisioned by the official revision of 1955, and indeed
beyond the designs of the official sponsors of 1956.
--42--
The central thrust of the new
movement was the general break with Stalin which was dramatized by the
Twentieth Party Congress. As we have seen, a gradual withdrawal from Stalinist
traditions and Stalinist methods of leadership had been taking place since
1953, and although cautious downgradings of Stalinís historical role had
accompanied this process, no clear and definitive disavowal of Stalin had been
attempted.
Strong tendencies toward
the revaluation of the Stalinist historical legacy appeared even before the
Twentieth Party Congress opened, and assumed a programmatic character at the
conference of the readers of Questions of History, which was held at the
end of January, 1956. Accurately anticipating the mood of the Congress which
was to convene two weeks later, the conference outlined a revisionary program
touching a broad range of established Soviet historical attitudes. Stalinís
name appears not to have been mentioned in the leading speeches; Lenin was
repeatedly extolled as the source of Soviet historical traditions; implicit
criticism of Stalinís textbook on the history of the party (the "Short Course")
was advanced; the cult of personality in history was condemned. Even sacresanct
Soviet historical attitudes--toward the bourgeoisie, and toward the intra-party
struggles of the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods--were affected by
the revisionary impulse. The reports of the conference made clear that a core
of liberalizing historians, led by E. N. Burdzhalov, the deputy editor of Questions
of History, was preparing to dismantle a large part of the historical
scaffolding which had been erected around Stalinís image.
The history of the war
was one part of the historical legacy that was brought up for review, although
it was not a major preoccupation of the conference. Burdzhalov touched the
subject briefly in his broad ranging critique of past historical attitudes, and
complained that "the difficulties of the first period" had not been
revealed in standing works on the war. More relevant to the main thrust of his argument,
and also carrying implications for the history of the war, was his call for a fresh
approach to the study of the West. "The USA has progressive traditions, as
well as reactionary," he noted. Others indicated their favorable attitude
toward a new history of the war by praising the revisionary editorial which had
appeared in Questions of History in 1955. Still others complained of the
situation that had prevailed in the
--43--
past: the closing down
of the military historical section of the History Institute, the
inaccessability of archive documents, the "schematization, vulgarization,
departure from historical truth, the idealization of past military figures, the
personality cult," which had characterized military history.
The Twentieth Party
Congress encouraged this movement not only by giving it official auspices, but
by supplying the substantive criticism of Stalin which served as the solvent of
traditional historical attitudes. Khrushchevís secret speech, which portrayed
Stalin as ignorant of military matters, and as criminally responsible for the
initial unpreparedness of the Soviet Union and for subsequent defeats, was
quickly made known to party members, and, indirectly, to the politically
literate elements of the Soviet population. Beginning a few weeks after the
adjournment of the Congress and continuing for several months thereafter, the
Soviet press gave numerous signs of the shock impact which these revelations
had had throughout the Soviet Union. Reports of lower party meetings, which
began to appear on 19 March, and a rash of editorial which blossomed on the
themes of "party unity" and "Leninist principles," were
liberally sprinkled with angry charges against "rotten elements,"
"demagogues," "leftists," etc., who were allegedly using
the revelations as pretexts for attacks against the party.
One charge deserves
special mention here because of its relevance to the historiography of the war.
This was the charge that party members had used the denigration of Stalin as a
vehicle for the disparagement of authority in general, and in particular in its
Soviet form of one-man command. Repeatedly, from early April until as late as
August, the party press fulminated against those who denied "all
authority," who sought to undermine "party discipline," who
expressed a "petty-bourgeois denial of the role of leaders in state,
party, and economic work," who denied the "principle of one-man
leadership," who attempted "to minimize the role of authority."
A dramatic incident
affecting the history of the war took place at this time. This was the open
dispute between two major military organs regarding the way in which the new
data affecting Stalinís role in history, and the general revisionary spirit
being sponsored by the party, should be applied to the interpretation of the
war. In April, Military Herald published an editorial, which presented a
far-reaching revision of the history of the war, bolder than anything that had
been seen in
--44--
public before. Its main
point was that the early defeats of the Soviet army were due not to the
surprise of the German attack, but to the negligence of the Soviet government in
failing to take the precautionary measures which elementary prudence, and ample
intelligence warnings, indicated were necessary. Included in this indictment
was the charge, first made by Khrushchev in his secret speech, that the prewar industrial
planning of the Soviet Union had not been properly geared to defense needs.
Secondary points of the article ran a broad gamut of criticism tending to
deprecate or even to debunk the past official historiography of the war. Among
these points was an unprecedented criticism of the concept of the
counteroffensive, as it had been applied to the interpretation of the
Stalingrad battle. From the accounts of this battle sponsored by official
propaganda, Military Herald scornfully observed, the conclusion seemed
justified that "it was fitting and even proper that Soviet troops should
have retreated to Stalingrad, since this caused the enemy to expose his
flanks." Finally, in an egregious understatement, which must have touched
exposed political nerves, the editorial noted that there had been "a lack
of proper attention to so important a question as the casualties and losses of
material in various battles and operations. . . ."
Shortly thereafter, on
the anniversary of Victory Day, Red Star, the official organ of the
Ministry of Defense, came out with a sharp rebuttal of these charges, and a
direct criticism of Military Herald. It was "surprised and
grieved," it said, by the incorrect and harmful opinions contained in the
Military Herald editorial. It described as "strange and unconvincing"
the assertions of Military Herald that the defeats of the early period
of the war were caused by the unpreparedness of the Soviet armed forces.
Moreover, it said, the question of the industrial preparedness of the country, as
presented in Military Herald, was "grossly" distorted. The
reasons for Red Star's reaction were not hard to find. In the first
place, it reflected the wounded vanity of the military chiefs, who had shared
some responsibility for the state of the nations defenses on the eve of the war
and who were now for the first time beginning to feel the bite of the critical
spirit they had helped to loose. Secondly, it reflected a concern, quite
natural to the conservative military establishment in the stormy atmosphere of
the post-Twentieth Party Congress period, that the denigration of Stalin was
being carried to the point where the moral basis of authority in the armed
forces was being shaken. Red Star made this concern explicitly clear.
--45--
While this drama was
being played, Questions of History was imparting its own vigorous thrust
to the revisionary movement. In its April issue, it published a directive
article calling for a broad review of virtually the whole historical legacy of
the Stalin era, including the history of the war.
In May, it published a
more detailed attack on the past official history of the war, in the form of a
critique, by Colonel E.A. Boltin, of the Essays on the History of the Great
Patriotic War. This article supported and elaborated the main tenets of the
Military Herald editorial, and also introduced an entirely new element
into the revisionary movement--a call for a more appreciative evaluation of the
contributions of the Allies in the war. The scope of revision proposed in this
matter was conveyed by specific criticisms which the author made of the Essays.
The Essays had failed to show the relationship between the Great
Patriotic War and the Second World War; the "liberational, antifascist
character" of the Second World War even before the USSR entered it; the
contribution made by the anti-Hitler coalition to the USSR; the "positive
results" of the North African operations; all the "military and
political importance" of the Allied invasion of Europe; the actions of
"our partners in the anti-Hitler coalition" in the Pacific War. The
author could well say, in line with the spirit expressed in these criticisms,
that there was "the greatest historic importance in the fact that the
Soviet socialist state . . . gained allies among the majority of
these [capitalist] states in the war against world fascism."
In the meantime, the
issue raised by Red Star, which had remained unresolved for two months,
was finally settled. In July, after the publication of the central committee
document on overcoming the cult of personality, which indicated that the party
intended to push on with the anti-Stalin campaign, the partyís theoretical
organ, Kommunist, intervened to rebuke Red Star for its sally
against Military Herald. Kommunist went down the line in
supporting the main theses of the Military Herald editorial, including
the delicate issue of the prewar industrial preparedness of the country. The
shortages of equipment which developed in the early period of the war were the
result, it admitted, of "a serious omission in the planned development of
military industry in the prewar years." It also endorsed, incidentally, in
somewhat less enthusiastic language, the more generous appraisal of the role of
the Allies in the war given by Questions of History.
--46--
This was the highpoint
of the 1956 revisionary movement. In the following months it rapidly lost
momentum. The nucleus of conservative opposition in the historical community,
which had put up a stubborn resistance to the revisionary movement from the
beginning, began to gain the upper hand in the fall. While the issues in this
running battle concerned mainly internal party history, the gradual ascendancy
of the conservative point of view on these issues had the effect of placing the
whole revisionist movement on the defensive. More important for the fortunes of
the revisionist movement were the changes in the political climate which took
place in the latter half of 1956. The adverse political repercussions of the
anti-Stalin campaign throughout the world undoubtedly exerted a depressing
influence on the anti-Stalinist ardor of the Soviet leadership. After the
Hungarian revolt, the anti-Stalin campaign, with its attendant revisionary
impulses, was sharply curbed. Thereafter, little more was heard about the
revision of the history of the war in the Soviet Union, until the subject was
reopened, under more controlled conditions, toward the end of 1957.
--47--
The need for a
readjustment of the energizing impulses of the Twentieth Party Congress to the
more permanent goals and requirements of the Soviet system of power was evident
to the Soviet leadership after 1956. In the field of military thought, the
regime did not wish to renounce the progress made in the revisionary movements
of 1955 and 1956, but it could not tolerate the political brushfires which had
accompanied, and had in part been fed by, this process.
In 1957, Soviet writing
on World War II showed clear signs of the uncertainty and tendency toward
retrenchment which affected Soviet policy generally after the events of the
fall of 1956. The Armed Forces Day articles in February, for example, appeared
to be cut from different patterns, and registered a number of partial retreats
from the advanced revisionary positions of 1956.
Marshal Malinovskiy, in
the major article of the day, while acknowledging the massive defeats of the
Soviet Army during the early days, took pains to exonerate the Soviet military
command from responsibility for these failures. Turning the Military Herald
statement of 1956 (that the war "could have come as no surprise" to
the Soviet leadership) into a defense of the military leadership rather than an
accusation, he wrote: "It must be said directly that this (the German
attack) was not a surprise to the Supreme Soviet Military Command; many
measures aimed at heightening the military preparedness and fighting capacity
of the Soviet Armed Forces, at reorganizing them, were in the stage of being
parried out and conducted at the time when fascist Germany
attacked . . .," Marshal Meretskov departed even further
from the spirit of 1956, sloughing over the early defeats, and focussing
attention on traditional inspiritional themes. He even suggested a partial
rehabilitation of Stalin. "This historic victory was achieved under the
leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee, led by J. V.
Stalin." Marshal Moskalenko, writing in Red Star, barely mentioned
the Second World War, and said nothing of the early defeats.
--48--
In general, there was
very little press attention to the history of the war in 1957, perhaps less
than during any comparable period since the end of the war. Ceremonial
occasions which in the past had usually drawn attention to this subject were
passed by in 1957 with few reminiscences of this kind. Even the Victory Day
observances were muted, and Zhukovís Order of the Day on that occasion, and the
accompanying editorials, drew attention to the future rather than to the past.
The little that was written, moreover, was strongly defensive in tone. The
Victory Day issue of Red Star was fairly typical of the Soviet press
during the year in this respect. The only article on the war which it presented
was a critique of Western "falsifications" of history, and the only
allusion to the failures of the first period it contained was the equivocal
statement that "the socialist regime permitted our
people . . .to overcome successfully the shortcomings in preparations
for repelling the attack of the aggressors . . ."
While the passage of
time had undoubtedly reduced the political importance of the war for Soviet
propaganda, the character of press commentary on this subject is difficult to
explain except as the result of leadership uncertainty as to the proper line to
pursue. The whole matter of the interpretation of the war was, as we have seen,
closely connected with the question of Stalinís role in history, and the sober
second thoughts which had arisen on this subject could not but affect the
willingness of the leadership to continue with the revisionary initiatives of
1956. In addition to the disturbing impact which the denigration of Stalin had
had within the Soviet Union, it had given ammunition to those in the satellites
who questioned the necessity and competence of the Soviet Unions leadership of
the world Communist movement. To the Soviet leaders, in this circumstance, it
mush have seemed difficult enough to preserve their own reputations unsullied
without drawing attention to a dramatic example of Soviet leadership
incompetence in the past. By the end of 1957, however, the outlines of a firmer
position on the history of the war began to appear. Beginning at this time, the
volume of press material on the history of the war began to increase, and it
showed consistent and well-defined tendencies.
The most prominent
feature of the new material was the blend of candor and caution it displayed in
dealing with the initial period of the war. Acknowledgements of the failures of
the first period were again made, but they were closely linked with arguments
calculated to draw attention to the achievements
--49--
of the party and people
in overcoming them. The quick shifting of focus from defeats to victories in these
references became almost formularized. Marshal Grechko, writing in Red Star
on Victory Day, 1958, expressed it in the following way: ìA particularly bitter
experience fell to the lot of the Soviet people in the initial period of the
war, when the Soviet Armed Forces were forced to conduct difficult defensive
battles. However these failures did not break the militant spirit of the Soviet
Army and Navy, did not shake the staunchness of our people and their unlimited
faith in the victory of our just cause." Marshal Malinovsky spoke more
fully of the first period in his Armed Forces Day speech, of the same year, but
he also emphasized the positive aspect of the countryís quick recovery from
these failures. "The attack of the German fascists on the Soviet Union was
effected at a time when our Armed Forces were still in the process of
reorganization and technical rearmament. . . . Courageously
battling with the overwhelming forces of the adversary in the extremely
unfavorable circumstances which arose in the initial period of war due to a
whole number of causes and mistakes, they heavy losses in personnel and
fighting equipment, and were forced reluctantly to retreat into the interior of
the country. In the face of the mortal danger hanging over our country, the
Communist party aroused the whole Soviet people to a just defensive war against
the fascist aggressors."
While technically
faithful to the contents of the 1956 revisionary historiography, these
references, it will be seen, were defensive in tone, and more concerned with
making clear the Soviet Unions wartime achievements than with criticizing past
historical exaggerations of it. This same purpose was manifest in the many
articles which appeared after 1957 criticizing alleged bourgeois falsifications
of history. The main complaint in all of these articles was that the
exaggeration of secondary battles and theaters in which Allied forces had
participated resulted in the minimization of the Soviet Unions role in the war.
This complaint was often linked with a more aggressive disparagement of the
Allied contribution to the victory. An article of this kind, in Vestnik
Vozdushnogo Flota, No. 6, 1959, for example, disputed the value of the
Allied supply of aircraft to the USSR during the war, it emphasized the poor quality
of "Hurricanes" and "Tomahawks", claimed that
"Airocobras" were the most accident-prone of all wartime fighters,
and implied that planes coming to Russia were intentionally damaged in transit.
--50--
This flood of criticisms
ofÝ ìbourgeois falsifications of historyî
also illustrated another aspect of the Soviet attitude toward the history of the
war. Most, if not all, of these criticisms were directed at works which had
been translated and published in the Soviet Union, and the criticisms thus were
tacitly directed at the liberal publication policy which had permitted those
books to appear. A naval captain, writing in Izvestia on 25 June 1958,
for example deplored the "incomprehensibly indulgent and careless attitude
of our publishing houses to such specimens of falsification of history."
Of the two publishing houses. principally engaged in this activity, the
Military Publishing House and the Publishing House of Foreign Literature, the
latter came in for the sharpest barbs in this respect. It must be stressed,
however, that no direct criticism of the policy of publishing translations of
foreign literature was expressed, but only of the failure of editors and
publishing houses to supply adequate critical forewords and footnotes.
The above examples bring
out clearly enough the main tendencies of the new Soviet line. It was
characterized chiefly by a conservative concern to bolster the partyís
historical reputation, and to preserve intact the traditional image of Soviet
wartime achievements. At the same time, it sought to retain the gains in
historical objectivity achieved in 1955 and 1956. In other words, it encouraged
a technically accurate account of the military history of the war, in a
framework of political interpretations which removed the unfavorable reflections
on the party itself.
There is similar
evidence of the development of Soviet attitudes in book publishing activity,
which in 1957 began to assume a bulk and Character which gave it independent
significance as an expression of official policy.
Important changes in
publishing activity relating to the war were set in motion by the 1955 and 1956
revisionary movements. One factor in these changes may have been a more liberal
military classification policy which permitted material to appear which
formerly would have been limited to restricted publications. In any event,
detailed studies of wartime military experiences, of the kind which once might
have borne the legend
--51--
"For Generals,
Admirals, and officers of the Soviet Armed Forces only," began to come out
in significant numbers after 1956. Most of these books were published by the
Ministry of Defense, and some of them were sponsored by the Frunze and
Voroshilov academies. They included analyses of small unit actions in different
types of operations, studies of specific tactical problems and unit and
campaign histories.
The professional
purposes underlying the publication of this literature were expressed in the
foreward to atypical example brought out in 1958. Major General V.D.
Vasilevskiy, the editor of a book entitled Battle Operations of an Infantry
Regiment, explained the aims of the publication in the following way:
It is impermissible to
underrate the rich experience gained in the waging of battles, much less to
forget it. Despite the fact that a new weapon has appeared at the present time
which, along with other factors, has had a great influence on our views
regarding the conduct of battle operations in contemporary conditions, the
experience of the Great Patriotic War has not lost its significance. The Great
Patriotic War provided much that is instructive which could be learned and
reflected in organization and training, and in the conduct of contemporary
battles.
The content of the book
was also typical of the bulk of this literature. It presented a collection of
studies of individual infantry actions, providing exact data on the numbers of
men and weapons involved. Each study was concluded by a brief critique
identifying the shortcomings and failures displayed in the conduct of the
action. The critiques were usually specific and technical, but included
occasional observations which perhaps had more general significance. These
studies provided no information on the numbers of Soviet casualties suffered,
which suggested that this sensitive subject was still under strict political
censorship.
Another category of
literature which began to appear in increasing quantities as a result of the
revisionary movements of 1955 and 1956 was the translations of foreign works on
the war. The authors chosen for translation included German generals who had
fought against the Soviet Union, Western military experts who dealt in an
interpretive way with the Second World
--52--
War as a whole, and Western
specialists who dealt with particular aspects of the war remote from Soviet
experience. Important, documentary collections, such as the wartime
correspondence of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, and the records of the
Nuremburg trials, also came out at this time.
As we have noted above,
some criticism of this liberal publication policy began to be expressed in 1958
in connection with the general conservative tendency of Soviet political
attitudes at that time. However, these criticisms, which were directed at the
manner in which this material was presented, were accompanied, by explicit
approvals of the general policy of translating and publishing foreign works on
the war.
General histories of the
war did not immediately emerge in any quantities from the revisionary movements
of 1955 and 1956, although some initial steps in this direction were taken.
Both the Frunze and Voroshilov military academies brought out individual
collections of materials at this time which were designed as a basis for such a
history. These publications, which were restricted in circulation (and bore
approximately the same title--A Collection of Materials on the History of
Soviet Military Art in the Great Patriotic War) presented selections of
previously published articles from such sources as Military Thought, add
the Large Soviet Encyclopedia, conveniently arranged to provide the best
available information on various phases and topics of the war. A more ambitious
work, by a collective of authors headed by P.A. Zhilin, was brought out by the
Ministry of Defense under the title The Most Important Operations of the
Great Patriotic War. This book, which was given to the printer in July
1955, and signed for the press in January 1956, reflected and documented the
candid appraisal of the first period of the war which became orthodox in 1955.
Thereafter, the cautionary influences, which we have noted above in other
connections, apparently intervened to hold up any similar historical
documentation of the broader revisionary movement of 1956.
The key event in
stimulating a further development of the historiography of the war was a
decision of the Central Committee in the fall of 1957 authorizing the
Marxism-Leninism Institute to prepare a five-volume history of the war. P.N.
Pospelov, a candidate member of the party presidium, with general
responsibilities in ideological and propaganda matters, was named as the
supervisor of the project. A new sector of the history of the Great Patriotic War
was set up in the Marxism-Leninism Institute with a group of authors headed by
Major General E. A. Boltin. Periodic reports on
--53--
the progress of the work
indicates that the scope, of the history has been expanded to include a sixth
volume, mainly devoted to a critique of Western historiography of the war. The
work is scheduled to be completed during the period 1960-1962.
The Central Committee
decree of autumn 1957, in addition to authorizing a textbook had the effect of
focussing the attention and efforts of the whole military-historical community on
the subject of the history of the war, and of starting something like a race to
exploit the newly opened market. The first results of the competition have been
registered. Two of the new books, G.A. Deborins, The Second World War, and B.
S. Telípukhovskiyís The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941-1945,
deal largely with the political aspects of the war, and register the generally
conservative trends which have become evident in this area since 1957. A third
book, S.P. Platonovís The Second World War, deals more directly with the
military aspects of the war, and reflects the relative objectivity which
continues to prevail in this aspect of the historiography of the war.
Platonovís The Second
World War, published in 1958, is a large book, covering almost 1,000 pages
of text, and including a separate volume of unusually well-printed maps,
cross-referenced to the relevant sections of the narrative. It covers not only
the events on the eastern front, but includes sections on the battle of the
Atlantic, the North African operations, the Normandy invasion, etc. Parts of
the narrative dealing with the Soviet-German war are based on documents and
materials of the History Administration of the General Staff, which, for the
first time in Soviet published literature, are specifically identified in the
bibliography of this volume. The authors foreword tells us that the book is
intended for generals, admirals, and officers of the Soviet armed forces.
Platonovs account of the
initial period of the war adheres closely to the general line which emerged
from the revisonary movements of 1955 and 1956. It includes the admission that
Soviet industry on the eve of the war was improperly geared to defense needs,
that the Soviet army was unprepared for the German attack, and that the
retreats of the first period were forced upon the Soviet army by its
unpreparedness and inadequacy.
--54--
The delicate question of
the industrial preparedness of the country on the eve of the war is treated
approximately as it was in 1956. It is claimed that the status of industry, as
a whole, was good, but that the production of military equipment was obstructed
by planning mistakes. According to Platonov: "The transition of industry
to a broad production of new military equipment and armaments was carried out
with great delay, and the tempo of its reconstruction was slow and inconsistent
with the growing danger of an armed attack by Hitlerite Germany on the
USSR." (p. 163).
The military
unpreparedness of the country is described with equal candor. It is stated that
the Soviet border units were undermanned, that they were largely composed of
new recruits, and that they were not deployed in assigned defensive lines. They
were also psychologically unprepared for war, it is said, due to the failure of
the government to warn the staffs of the border districts that a danger of war
existed. Finally, it is admitted that the armament of the Soviet troops, though
superior to the Germans in quantity, was far inferior in quality. The wealth of
detail which Platonov provides on this question presents a picture of stupidity
and complacency on the Soviet side which is more damning than anything
previously published in the Soviet Union and perhaps even outside the USSR.
Platonov spares little
in his account of the early defeats. He gives exact figures on the extent and
tempo of the German advance which bring out in a graphic way the scale of the
initial catastrophe. He also portrays the ineffectiveness of the Soviet
military resistance. "Thus," he says, "neither in the border
area, nor on the line of the western Dvina, nor at the Pskov and Ostrovskiy
fortified regions, could the troops of the Northwestern Front hold back the
adversary."
The freshness of
Platonovís account is revealed particularly by his treatment of issues, on
which no public leadership statement exists. The battle of Smolensk provides a
case in point. Soviet historians had always sought to portray the long German
delay at Smolensk as the result of stubborn Soviet resistance when, in fact, it
stemmed also from a German decision to shift the directions of its advance to
other sectors of the front. Platonov mentions Soviet resistance as a factor in
stopping the Germans, but he makes it clear that the pause on the central front
in July and August was the result of a voluntary German decision, and he cites
the German military orders bearing upon this decision.
--55--
The relative objectivity
of Platonovís account, illustrated by these examples, affected not only his
description of the external course of events, but also his analysis of the
factors. which influenced these developments. Past Soviet accounts, for
example, had always laid great stress on the alleged numerical superiority of
the Germans during the early part of the war as a reason for Soviet failures.
Platonov goes a long way toward correcting this distortion. While he disputes
German claims of a dramatic shift in the manpower ratio during the first
campaign (Tippelskirch claimed that the Russians enjoyed a twentyfold
superiority at Moscow) he does admit that a slight shift to the advantage of
the Soviet side had taken place, at the jumping-off points of the Moscow
counteroffensive, by the end of November. He also assigns due weight to the
variety of accidental factors which told in the final German failure to take
Moscow. Unlike previous accounts which had reserved all credit in this event
for Soviet staunchness and military skill, he speaks freely of German mistakes
and difficulties. He points out, for example, that the quality of the German
army had deteriorated badly by the time of the Moscow battle, with its infantry
divisions reduced to half strength and its tank forces badly depleted.
Moreover, in a startling admission for a Soviet author, he states correctly that
the Germans "did not have winter uniforms, and that the equipment and a
part of the infantry and artillery weapons were not adapted for use in winter
conditions." (p. 248)
This history is, of
course, far from a truly objective account by Western standards. In general, it
is least satisfactory where the narrative of military events becomes entangled
with the political line on the West. This is illustrated by Platonovís
treatment of the forewarning of the Soviet government of the German invasion
plans. He speaks of the "miscalculations of J. V. Stalin in the evaluation
of the situation," and complains that the "catastrophe" of the
first days "could have been avoided if the troops of the border districts
had been forewarned in good time," but this is the closest he comes to
acknowledging that the Soviet government had been given advance information by
Churchill of the German intention to attack. Distortions deriving from
political attitudes become more glaring as Platonov moves away from the
strictly military aspects of the narrative.
The basic tendency of
Stalinist historiography, as we have seen, was to deprecate the wartime roles
of the professional military and the people, and to magnify the roles of Stalin
and the party at their expense. After Stalinís death, the other
--56--
elements of Soviet
wartime society moved forward into the historical limelight, with the party
taking the center of the stage. This arrangement of roles is basically retained
in the present account, but Platonovís concentration on the specifically
military aspects of the war has the effect of focussing attention on the role
of the military in Soviet wartime achievements.
In this sphere he introduces
details and refinements which constitute an innovation in the Soviet history of
the war. The question of the basic command responsibility for the major
military decisions of the war, for example, has always been a subject of
imprecision in Soviet writing on the war. During Stalinís life, the
"Supreme Commander" was identified as the author of all military
decisions. After his death, the more impersonal "Supreme Command" or
"General Headquarters" were often designated as the agencies of
military initiative. With rare exceptions (including notably, General
Eremenko's article in Military Thought, No. 3, 1949) military decisions
were always presented as flowing from the top down, with front and army
commanders playing no role in the formulation of these decisions. This
obviously superficial picture of the complex processes of military decision-making
began to be corrected in various accounts which came out from about 1955 on,
and is completely discarded in Platonovís history. In place of it, he presents
a fairly detailed discussion of how military plans were in fact formulated.
Regarding the plans for the
Moscow counteroffensive, for example, he ascribes the initiative to Zhukov
(without naming him), and the final product to the cooperative efforts of
various top echelon commanders and staffs. "In accordance with the
situation which had arisen," Ýhe
writes, "the military Council of the Western Front presented a plan for a counteroffensive
of the front to General Headquarters on November 30." Platonov then notes
the additions: to the plan introduced over the next few days, and concluded:
"Thus, the plan for the counteroffensive under Moscow was the result of
the great creative activity of the front commands, the General Staff, and the
Headquarters of the Supreme Command." His account of the Stalingrad
planning is approximately the same.
In a general appraisal
of the lessons of the war at the end, Platonov discusses the wartime command
processes in a more general way:
--57--
General Headquarters effected its
leadership through its representatives, staffs of directions, the General
Staff, the commanders and staffs of specialized forces and troops, the central
administrations of the Commissatiat of Defense, the commanders of fronts and
fleets. . . . The strategic leadership was not the same during
the whole course of the war. In the beginning of. the war, the supreme commands
of directions occupied a prominent place in the leadership of the armed
struggle. From 1942, representatives of Headquarters of the Supreme Command
played an important role in the leadership of the armed struggle in areas of
military operations and strategic directions. In the concluding campaigns of
the Soviet troops in Europe the Headquarters of the Supreme Command itself
directed all the fronts, without sending its representatives to the place.
Platonovís history has
its political padding which contains, among other things, dutiful praise of the
partyís wartime leadership and of its mobilization of popular energies. Like
all post-Stalin accounts, too, it reflects the mozaic of political forces in
the current leadership. Khrushchev, for example, is mentioned much more
frequently than any other leader, and Zhukov is named only where historical
decency requires. But this padding is clearly distinguishable from the core of
the narrative, while depicts Soviet wartime society as a military machine in
action, under the leadership appropriate to such an organization.
The differentiation of
approach to the military and political aspects of the war, which we have noted
above, is demonstrated most clearly by Platonovís treatment of the role of the
Allies. In general the account is colored by deep hostility, but where military
details are concerned, or, more particularly, where military lessons are to be
drawn from the history of Allied operations, Platonov does not hesitate to face
the facts.
The story of alleged
Allied duplicity before and during the war is recounted by Platonov much as it
has always been told in the Soviet Union. The Allies are depicted as having
sought to buy their own security before the war by encouraging Germany to
attack the Soviet Union. "The finale of this treachery,"
--58--
writes Platonov,
"was the shameful Munich deal (sgovor) of the English and French
governments with Hitler, which gave Czechoslovakia to fascist Germany. It is
completely obvious that this was a recompense to Hitler for his undertaking to
begin war against the Soviet Union." In similar vein, Allied policy during
the war is interpreted as having been directed at the exhaustion of the USSR
and Germany and the extraction of maximum profits from the war.
The question of allied
supplies to Russia during the war is mentioned very sparingly by Platonov. The
figures cited by him are somewhat lower than those announced by the American
government, and Platonov does not explain the basis of his calculations.
The expenditures of the
USA on Lend-Lease supplies comprised 46.04 billion dollars, or 14% of the total
military expenditures of the USA. Of this sum, the countries of the British
Empire received goods from the USA totaling 30.3 billion dollars (of which
England received 21.5 billion dollars), and the USSR received the value of 10.8
billion dollars.
Thus, the Soviet Union
which carried the major burden of the war on its shoulders, and played the
decisive role in the victory of the anti-Hitlerite coalition, received half as
much under Lend-Lease as England.
This unfairness affects
also many aspects of Platonovís account of Allied-military operations. He
interprets Allied operations in Italy, for example, as aimed at the seizure of
eastern Europe, and he gives a very grudging appraisal of the Normandy
invasion. Where Allied and Soviet operations overlapped, as in the protection
of the Murmansk sea route, he grossly exaggerates the Soviet role.
On the other hand, where
he finds it useful to do so, Platonov presents data and observations which tend
to contradict these political interpretations. For example, in a section
comparing the military potentials of the fascist and democratic states before
the war, Platonov cites many facts testifying to the strenuous preparations of
the democratic states for war in the late 1930s, facts which tend to belie the
Soviet claim that these states were banking on a detente with Hitler and a
Soviet-German war. In another place, where he disparages the significance of Allied
operations in Europe, he adds:
--59--
[Manuscript ends abruptly at this point]
--60--