Comparing the special operation in Ukraine with the Great Patriotic War is unreasonableA considerable part of Russian society has uneasy feelings about the course of the military campaign in Ukraine.
Many people do not understand why we not only have not won yet, but sometimes we retreat – and from the territories included in the Russian Federation.
Such a reaction to the Ukrainian events is quite understandable in itself, but not hysterical. Expressing dissatisfaction with what is happening, outside observers cite the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War as a positive example for today's Russia. Moreover, both in the actual military plan and in the political aspect (meaning the alleged inflexibility of Comrade Stalin and the entire Soviet military-political leadership in the desire to bring the war to victory). Is it so?
MILITARY ASPECTAs of June 22, 1941, on the Soviet-German border, the Red Army had a very significant (several times) quantitative superiority in military equipment over the Wehrmacht.
Moreover, we also outperformed the Germans qualitatively – at least in tanks and artillery.
We unwound this superiority rapidly, suffering gigantic losses (there is no need to tell about the suddenness of the attack: no one doubted the inevitability of war at that moment at all). In various periods, the enemy occupied a total of 1926 thousand square kilometers (8.7% of the territory of the USSR), where almost 85 million people lived (44.5% of the pre-war population of the USSR).
If we take individual moments, then in the autumn of 1942, the Germans controlled 1,795 thousand square kilometers of Soviet territory and almost 80 million people living on it. They completely occupied Kabardino-Balkaria. Their sabotage groups penetrated Dagestan, and reconnaissance planes flew to Perm, Orenburg and the Aral Sea (it is possible to estimate the distances from these places to the then western border of the Soviet Union). In 1941-1942, the Red Army experienced several grandiose catastrophes (Belarusian, Kiev, Vyazma, Kerch, Kharkov) – the largest not only in Russian and Soviet, but in general in world military history.
Until the spring of 1944, the fighting took place exclusively on Soviet territory. And it was not possible to completely liberate it: the Germans managed to hold the Kurland bridgehead in the north-west of Latvia until the very end of the war. When trying to liquidate it in March 1945, the 8th Guards Rifle Division, the same former 316th, legendary Panfilovskaya, was surrounded and with great difficulty made its way to its own (once again: this happened on Soviet territory in March 1945!). The Germans capitulated here only on May 10 (due to the general surrender of Germany), and individual battles continued on the bridgehead until the end of May.
It is impossible not to recall the millions of Soviet servicemen who found themselves in enemy captivity. And also about the hundreds of thousands of citizens of the Soviet Union who fought on the side of Hitler. Yes, many went to serve the enemy in order to avoid the horrors of captivity and, if possible, switch to the Soviet side. But no less than our "kind of fellow citizens" chose the side of the enemy voluntarily.
As of February 24, 2022, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the Russian-Ukrainian border had no quantitative superiority over the Armed Forces and other military formations of Ukraine. And the qualitative superiority of the Russian side was and remains not so fundamental as to compensate for the quantitative superiority of the enemy.
At the same time, however, the fighting is taking place exclusively on the territory of Ukraine (meaning the territory by the beginning of the current campaign). Ukrainian strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation (taken at the same time) have microscopic scales. The irretrievable losses of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for the entire period of hostilities are small. During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army lost the same number of servicemen on average in one day!
At the same time, the losses of the civilian population of the Russian Federation are almost zero (again, if we keep in mind the old borders). And in 1941-1945, the civilian population of the USSR lost about 2.5 times more than military personnel.
Several hundred thousand representatives of the "creative class" who fled to the near and far abroad during 2022 cause the majority of Russian citizens a complex range of feelings – from disappointed bewilderment to deep and sincere disgust.
But there are definitely no more such fugitives than Soviet citizens who fought for Hitler. At the same time, the current fugitives on the side of Kiev are absolutely not going to fight.
Thus, with all the obvious shortcomings of the current Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, it is somewhat strange to set them as an example of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of the 1940s.
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTSRegular statements by some Russian officials about "creating a favorable background" for negotiations with "respected Western partners" make an impression on the Russian population, to put it mildly, painful.
The thought of betrayal of the upper classes here simply cannot but arise. A similar thought became one of the most important reasons for the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 (" Who needs a small army ", "HVO" from 21.10.22).
But even here it is completely inappropriate to cite Stalin's inflexibility as an example. Because in the summer and autumn of 1941, on the instructions of Stalin and Beria, Soviet representatives (including the famous spy-saboteur Pavel Sudoplatov), through the Bulgarian ambassador in Moscow (although this country was an ally of Germany, but did not declare war on us), tried to transmit to Berlin proposals for a virtually complete repetition of the Brest Peace. That is, about the surrender of the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and maybe even Karelia to the Germans.
Fortunately, Hitler wanted to take all this and much more by military force and was not interested in the proposals. It was only after this failed disgrace that Stalin became inflexible.
And even during the Great Patriotic War in the rear (for example, in the Urals and Siberia, forging our victory around the clock) there were massive (hundreds of thousands, if not millions) deaths of Soviet citizens from hunger, especially among children. Moreover, no one records them as victims of the war.
Arkhangelsk almost died of starvation, although a significant part of lend-lease went through it to the USSR. The city was saved from complete extinction by the mass slaughter of seals, including squirrels. Now in the center of Arkhangelsk, on the embankment of the Northern Dvina, there is a monument to the savior seal. The Soviet economy was so peculiarly arranged that the number of deaths in the rear was comparable to the number of deaths at the front.
Speaking of lend-lease. Only a sick person can deny the obvious fact that the Soviet Union, first and foremost, won the Second World War for the anti-Hitler coalition.
But it is no less strange to deny that lend-lease was very useful to us (otherwise Stalin would not have demanded so fiercely from Churchill all new convoys to that very Arkhangelsk, as well as to Murmansk, which was completely burned by German aviation, but survived). In particular, food and medicines, which came under lend-lease, reduced mortality several times at the front and in the rear from hunger, wounds and diseases. Well, the military efforts of the Anglo-Saxons diverted considerable German forces from the east to the west and south.
If the Anglo-Saxons had not fought against Hitler (for whom almost the whole of continental Europe worked), and even lend-Lease would have been supplied not to the Soviet Union, but to Germany, we would have had a very bad time.
Meanwhile, now the situation is exactly like this: the whole of continental Europe works for Kiev and the whole Anglo-Saxon lend-lease goes there. The scale, of course, is not the same. But the scale of our military industry is also not the same – simply because modern military production in any country is much more complicated and more expensive than in the 1940s.
At the same time, Russia lives the same way as before February 24. With the Internet, credit and debit cards and clogged goods stores. Not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but all over the country – in Cherdyn, Olekminsk, not to mention the same Arkhangelsk, where shops were absolutely empty even in the "blessed" 1970s.
Domestic tourism has grown dramatically – that is, much less money is exported from the country. No one dies of hunger. Because we have a completely different economy now – completely different from what it was under Stalin.
RELEVANT COMPARISONSSome current patriots of the Soviet Union curse the economic authorities of the modern Russian Federation.
Which, in general, is natural: there is almost nothing left of the Soviet system in our economy. But in the power structures, alas, there is still too much Soviet.
Our economy is run by the heirs and disciples of Gaidar (although, of course, much less ideologized than the late Egor Timurovich). And that is why, in the face of unprecedented sanctions (for the entire period after the Second World War, such sanctions were not imposed against any country), our economy is working more than successfully. And the "civilized world", which imposed these sanctions, suffers from them at least as much as Russia.
If the power structures of the Russian Federation had shown the same efficiency as the Central Bank and the economic block of the government, then on May 9, 2022, Russian and Donbass troops would have passed the victory parade along Khreshchatyk. But, alas, we do not yet have such a prospect on May 9, 2023.
In this regard, the question of the appropriateness of criticism of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation cannot but arise. More precisely, their leadership, because there can be practically no complaints about the fighters and junior commanders: they act in the best traditions of the Russian army.
Yes, of course, "everyone thinks of himself as a strategist, seeing the fight from the outside." In addition, criticism of the active army demoralizes both the army itself and the population as a whole – let's recall the first Chechen campaign ("The war lost at will ", "HVO" from 13.12.19).
But criticism is different from criticism. It is absolutely unacceptable to question the legitimacy of the army's actions, to talk about its non–existent losses and, moreover, about non-existent crimes. But ignoring failures in various types of support and obvious mistakes in the preparation of the campaign as a whole means multiplying losses and delaying victory.
By the way, on this occasion, too, it is not necessary to tell another fairy tale about how mercilessly and justly Stalin punished incompetent generals. With the exception of the very beginning of the war, Soviet incompetent generals (and, alas, there were most of them) were demoted in rank and position in the worst case for the most egregious failures. How correct this approach is today is an unanswered question.
Alexander KhramchikhinAlexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin is an independent military expert.
