Victory over the truth

After the anniversary celebrations in Moscow, the impression remains that the victory in the Great Patriotic War is a completely main event in the thousand -year history of Russia and the only unconditional justification of the existence of the Russian state. Taking an unprecedented parade in the number of troops and equipment, President Putin said that this victory is the "heroic peak of the history of our country." It turns out that after 1945, Russia was moving along the descending. Well, perhaps the president is not so wrong - but it sounds unflattering. The fate of the country is sad, the national pride and identity of which are reduced to one historical event. And the peoples of the world recall the Second World War primarily as the greatest tragedy. And only here they say about her as the greatest triumph.

During the procession of the Immortal Regiment, Putin said : “I think that my father is the same as millions of ordinary soldiers - and he was a simple soldier - had the right to go through this square. But fate turned out to be so that not everyone could walk along Red Square.” However, the president is not going to understand why so many of our compatriots did not live to victory.

At a meeting with the leader of China Xi Jinping, the Russian President said : "As a result of World War II, the Soviet Union and China turned out to be the most affected states, since we died the largest number of citizens - both in the Soviet Union and in the PRC." Well, to be proud of the millions of dead is quite in the spirit of Asian despotisms. And on May 9, the President of Russia praised China for "having lost many, many millions of people in this war." And he stated that the main front of the struggle against militarism in Asia was passing through China. " This is an obvious violence against historical truth. The main front of the struggle against Japanese aggression was in the Pacific Ocean, and America made the main contribution to the victory here. China remained a secondary theater of military operations. But Putin really does not want to recognize the American contribution, but I would like to make pleasant to the Chinese, with whom he is going to be friends against the United States.

In his speech on Red Square, the Russian president never mentioned either Ukraine, or Moldova, the Baltic Country, or Poland, who ignored Moscow celebrations. He emphasized that on the Eastern Front "the largest in terms of the number of troops and technology, which decide the battles of World War II," took place. " And at first he thanked England for his help, then France and only in conclusion - the United States. Although it was the help from America, which accounted for the lion's share of supplies on Lend-Lease, and the bulk of the allied troops landing in Europe, and the main mass of aviation bombing Germany, was crucial for the general victory. And without American and British help, we would not have won. Without it, Hitler could throw three times more aircraft against the USSR, twice as many tanks, and a half times more infantry. And the Soviet Union, for its part, would have half of the aircraft, tanks and shells and could not quickly move the troops without the allies of vehicles and gasoline from allies.

In order to prove to the people the greatness of victory in the Great Patriotic War and the sinlessness of Stalin as a commander, to muffle the issue of the price of victory, in Russia the process of underestimating Soviet and overstating German military losses continues. The former head of the Department of the Ministry of Defense, member of the Presidium of the odious Russian military-historical society, Major General Alexander Kirilin, claims that, according to the latest archival data, the losses of the German troops by the dead were 8,876.3 thousand people, which exceeded the losses of Soviet troops in the war by 207,900 people. Now it is an officially accepted value of the loss of the losses of the two armies.

However, all these figures are pure patriotic science fiction, in which the Russian Ministry of Defense has been practicing for more than twenty years. Since the beginning of the 90s, I myself have been involved in the calculation of the losses of all countries in the Second World War. Their results are published in the book " USSR and Russia on Boyn. Human losses in the wars of the 20th century ." And they are strikingly different from Russian official numbers. According to my estimates, the Red Army lost 26.9 million people who died. The total irretrievable losses of the USSR population amounted to from 40.1 to 40.9 million people. Losses of the Wehrmacht as a whole can be estimated at 4-4.5 million people, and on the eastern front there were ten killed Soviet soldiers on one murdered German. And in 1941-1943, the ratio of losses was even worse for us. So, on September 18, 1942, only one Soviet 258th Infantry Division near Stalingrad lost 978 people killed. In order to bear comparable losses killed (1538 people), sixteen divisions of the 6th German army had to fight ten days - from September 11 to 20. Moreover, all of them conducted active fighting - advancing and defending themselves.

As for China’s losses in the war with Japan in 1937-1945, the official Chinese figure - 20 million people - inspires great doubts. The losses of the Chinese army are estimated at 2.8 million dead, and the losses of civilians during military operations are unlikely to exceed 1 million people. For a secondary theater, losses are considerable, but not at all record for the Second World War. This is less than the total losses of Poland (O from 4.5 to 6 million dead). Mortality from hunger in China cannot be considered military losses, since it took place before the war and after it.

As for the Red Army, she simply overwhelmed the enemy with corpses. In another way, Stalin did not know how to fight and did not want to fight, because in the professional army he saw the threat of his own absolute power and preferred to have a large, but untrained militia. In this way, it was possible to wage war only with at their disposal a meek majority of the people, ready to pay any price required by power for the promised future happiness. And we won not “contrary to the inhuman system,” as Dmitry Volkolonov’s program article was called in 1993, but only thanks to her, because only one person made all the main decisions, as it is now. And otherwise, in the Great Patriotic War, our country could not defeat. In this regard, Putin inherits Stalin. And he got the people in many ways the same - not asking about the price of victory and lined with total propaganda. Therefore, in particular, in society there is no concern about Russian losses in the Donbass, anxiety that in the first quarter of 2015, mortality in Russia suddenly increased by 23.5 thousand people, or by 5.2%. It is difficult to completely explain this phenomenon without sacrifices in the Donbass, but the euphoria does not go about the “Russian world”. And the anniversary celebrations are called upon to reinforce it.