The Red Army

My paper examines the failure of Operation Barbarossa and the Invasion of the Soviet Union from the perspective of Army Group Center in 1941. My question is “What are the variables that led to the failure of Operation Barbarossa and its pinnacle point of the Battle of Moscow?” The Nazi doctrine believed that the Russians were considered to be “sub-human,” but yet the Red Army at a heavy price won a major strategic victory. The paper investigates the effects of the weather, logistics, intelligence, Hitler’s leadership role, and the Red Army’s fanatical resistance. The work includes tactical and strategical assessments of Army Group Center towards Battles of Minsk, Smolensk, Kiev, and Moscow.  As well as, Soviet military tactics to stall the advance of the Wehrmacht offensive. The evidence draws on the German and Soviet memoirs, and accounts of Operation Barbarossa. The thesis of my paper is, Hitler and his generals’ tactical errors resulted in the failure of​ the conquest of the Soviet Union. The key significance of the study is understanding the failure of the invasion resulted in the downfall of the Third Reich in 1945.

Forming in the first months after the February Revolution, sections of the extremely leftist branch of the Polish Socialist Party, the Polish Socialist Party – Left and the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania almost immediately made contact with Polish soldiers dispersed in the Russian Army, as well as serving in the Polish Rifle Division being part of the Army. The stimulus to take the action came from the example of the Bolshevik fraction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) which appreciated the importance of soldiers’ favor for radical revolutionary slogans, and developed intense activity among soldiers. Promoted in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution the idea of creating “Polish workers and peasants formations” initially received moderate attention from Polish military circles. This attitude was observed both among those who were still in active service, as well as among their demobilized companions. The widespread pacifist attitude among Polish military was a serious obstacle in attracting people ready to serve in revolutionary formations. It was previously infused by the very same emigrant radicals who, after November 7, 1917, for a change, had encouraged armed support for the revolution.

The reviewed book is an actual response to the important challenges of the contemporary information society related to the necessity to protect the historical truth about the events of the Second World War and the Liberation Mission of the Red Army 1944–1945 in Europe. The author of the review believes that Sdvizhkov's research will arouse the interest not only of the scientific community, but also of a wide range of readers who are not indifferent to the Russian history. The peer-reviewed study, which includes a large number of documentary evidence and written in lively, fascinating language, reveals Western attempts to create “Black myths” about the Red Army and the mechanisms of their introduction into modern popular culture. The author of the book leads to the understanding that it is impossible to resist the corresponding informational and psychological impact without a well-thought-out memory policy at the state
level.
The book is devoted to the problem of liberation of Europe by the Red Army during the World War II, as well as the place of these events in contemporary historical politics.
Previously the RVIO, together with the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published a collection of articles devoted to topical issues of scientific interpretation of the liberation of Europe from Nazism (1944-1945), prepared on the basis of scientific conferences and round tables held in 2014-2020.

Currently, the following data on the losses of the Red Army in Poland is generally accepted: irretrievable losses – 600,212 people, including killed in action, died of wounds and diseases; wounded, contused and frostbitten – 1,416,032 people, in total over 2 million people. The figure of 600 thousand irretrievable losses, which appeared in the final statistical report of the Ministry of Defense in 1993, was calculated for the territory within the contemporary Polish borders, taking into account shifting the German-Polish border west to the Oder-Neisse line. Accordingly, the number of these 600 thousand includes those Russian soldiers who died in Germany on the lands that were transferred to Poland and from where the German population was soon expelled by the Poles. The question of whether it is correct to call it the “liberation of Poland” when it was the territory of Germany remains debatable.

Sdvizhkov's research is based on a wide range of Russian-, English- and German-language publications and sources, which is its absolute advantage. The generalization of a wide range of sources, the popular scientific style of presentation and the author's chosen method of constructing his research – all this makes the book excitingly interesting for the widest range of readers.

The article is devoted to the encounter of Soviet officers, mostly Jewish, with Germany and the Germans in 1945. This article is written on the basis of letters, diaries, and memoirs of Soviet servicemen who ended the war in the territory of the Third Reich.

The article is about soviet presence in Soldin (now Myślibórz in Poland) in 1945. Red Army went into this small German town on 31 January 1945. Unknown soviet soldier, durring rape attent, was shot by the German officer. For this reason 120 Germnans from Soldin were executed. In the ’90s,  as  a  result  of  the  understatements,  about  rape  attend  was  accused  soviet  general  –  Amayak Babayan.

The article is devoted to the encounter of Soviet officers, mostly Jewish, with Germany and the Germans in 1945.  This article was written on the basis of letters, diaries, and memoirs of Soviet servicemen who ended the war in the territory of the Third Reich.

The article describes the problem of formation and development of professional psychological selection in the USSR in the 1920s. The most systematic and significant aspect of this work was carried out in the ranks of the Red Army. A number of events and scientific data based on the analysis of periodicals, small circulation literature and archival materials of the post-revolutionary period are introduced into academic use. They are related to the mass survey, selection and distribution of military contingents and candidates for entering military schools. Experience and prospects of using psychological methods in sociology, in particular, test methods, are examined. The article continues a series of publications by the author about empirical research in the Red Army in the 1920s.
В статье излагается проблема формирования и развития профессионального психологического отбора в СССР в 1920-е гг. Наиболее масштабно эта работа осуществлялась в рядах Красной Армии. На основе анализа периодических изданий, печатных источников и архивных материалов в научный оборот вводится ряд событий и фактов, связанных с обследованиями, отбором и распределением по родам войск и военным специальностям призывных контингентов и кандидатов для поступления в
военные вузы. Рассматриваются опыт и перспективы использования в социологии психологических методов, в частности тестовых методик. Статья продолжает серию публикаций об эмпирических исследованиях в РККА.

В статье рассматриваются проявления патриотических настроений рабочих и служащих Западной Сибири в связи с нападением фашистской Германии на СССР. Выявляются их мотивы добровольцами вступить в действующую Красную Армию и сражаться с врагом. Определяется, насколько массовым было это движение во всех регионах Западной Сибири. Установлено, что добровольцы, заявившие в 1941 — начале 1942 г. о зачислении в Красную Армию и отправке на фронт, направлялись в добровольческие и воинские соединения, создаваемые по призыву. А в середине 1942 г. началось формирование отдельных полков, бригад, дивизий и даже Сибирского корпуса только из добровольцев. Анализируется общая численность их личного состава, а также социальное положение, партийная принадлежность, национальность и возраст добровольцев, командный и политический состав соединений. Коротко показаны героический путь сибирских формирований на фронтах Великой Отечественной войны и их заслуги по защите Родины.
The article considers manifestations of patriotic moods of the Western Siberia workers and employees in connection with Nazi Germany’s attack on the USSR. It identifies their motives to join the active Red Army as volunteers and fight the enemy. It determines how massive this movement was in all regions of Western Siberia. It was found that the volunteers, who decided to enroll in the Red Army in 1941 — early 1942 and be sent to the front, were sent to conscript volunteer and military units. But in the middle of 1942 it began to form separate regiments, brigades, divisions, and even Siberian Corps only from volunteers. The paper analyzes the total number of their personnel, as well as social status, party affiliation, nationality and age of the volunteers, command and political staff. It shortly displays the heroic journey of Siberian forces on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and their merits in Homeland Protection.