Supreme rate. Chapter Eleven. Headquarters of the Supreme High Command

The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, SVGK) is an emergency body of the highest military command that exercised strategic leadership of the Soviet Armed Forces during the Great Patriotic War.

With the outbreak of the war, the Soviet state found itself in a difficult situation. He had to almost simultaneously solve a number of complex problems, including:

– stop the rapid advance of German troops;

– carry out a general mobilization of those liable for military service and compensate for the losses in manpower incurred in the first days of the war;

- evacuate industrial, primarily defense, enterprises, as well as the population and the most important property from areas threatened by German occupation to the east;

– organize the production of weapons and ammunition in the quantities necessary for the Armed Forces.

The solution to these and other issues required a radical change in the entire system of political, state and military leadership.

On June 23, 1941, the Main Military Council of the Red Army was abolished. By decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on June 23, 1941, a new army control body was formed; it was initially called the Headquarters of the Main Command. Its members included: S.K. Timoshenko (chairman), G.K. Zhukov, I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, S.M. Budyonny, N.G. Kuznetsov.

The first meetings of the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces in June were held without Stalin.

On July 10, 1941, in connection with the formation of the Main Directional Commands (North-Western, Western and South-Western), it was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Command. I.V. Stalin became the chairman, and B.M. Shaposhnikov was added to its composition.

On August 8, 1941, the body was renamed the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. It carried out its activities under the leadership of the State Defense Committee.

The SVGK made changes and clarifications to the structure and organization of the Armed Forces, carried out planning of campaigns and strategic operations, set tasks for fronts and fleets and directed their combat activities, coordinated the efforts of the Soviet Armed Forces and the armies of the allied states, organized interaction between strategic groupings and operational formations of various types Armed Forces and partisans, distributed the reserve formations and material resources at its disposal between the fronts, monitored the progress of assigned tasks, and supervised the study and generalization of the war experience. The working bodies of the SVGK were the General Staff, the departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense and the People's Commissariat of the Navy. The most appropriate methods of strategic leadership were developed gradually by the SVGK, as combat experience accumulated and military art grew at the highest levels of command and headquarters.

The most important issues of strategic plans and plans of operations were discussed at its meetings, which in a number of cases were attended by commanders and members of military councils of fronts, commanders of branches of the armed forces and branches of the military. The final decision on the issues discussed was formulated by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief personally. An important role in directing the combat activities of fronts and fleets was played by the directives of the SVGK, which usually indicated the goals and objectives of troops in operations, the main directions where it was necessary to concentrate the main efforts, methods of using mobile troops, and the necessary density of artillery and tanks in breakthrough areas. The presence of large reserves at the disposal of the SVGK allowed it to actively influence the course of operations. During the war, the institution of representatives of the SVGK became widespread. Knowing the intentions and plans of the SVGK and having the authority to resolve operational-tactical issues, they provided great assistance to the commanders of operational formations in the preparation and conduct of operations, coordinated the actions of the fronts, and coordinated their efforts in terms of purpose, place and time. Representatives of the SVGK on the fronts at different times were: Marshals of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, S.K. Timoshenko, K.E. Voroshilov, Chief Marshal of Artillery N.N. Voronov, Generals A.I. Antonov, S. M. Shtemenko and others.

By decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, an emergency body of the highest military command was formed - the Headquarters of the Main Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR. It was headed by People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko. The Headquarters included members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I. V. Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Marshal of the Soviet Union K. E. Voroshilov, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny, People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov and Chief of the General Staff, Army General G. K. Zhukov.

By the same decree, an institute of permanent advisers was formed at Headquarters, which included Marshals of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov and G. I. Kulik, generals K. A. Meretskov, P. F. Zhigarev, N. F. Vatutin, N. N. Voronov, as well as A. I. Mikoyan, L. M. Kaganovich, L. P. Beria, N. A. Voznesensky, A. A. Zhdanov, G. M. Malenkov, L. Z. Mehlis.

Throughout the war, Headquarters was located in Moscow, but with the beginning of the bombing it was transferred from the Kremlin to a small mansion in the Kirov Gate area. A month later, an underground center for strategic control of the armed forces was prepared on the platform of the Kirovskaya metro station. The offices of I.V. Stalin and B.M. Shaposhnikov were equipped there, and the operational group of the General Staff and departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense was located there.

On July 10, 1941, in order to ensure centralized and more efficient control of the armed struggle, by resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 10, the Headquarters of the Main Command was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Command. It was headed by the Chairman of the State Defense Committee (GKO) I.V. Stalin. By the same decree, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov was added to the Headquarters.

On August 8, 1941, Stalin was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief. From that time on, the Headquarters became known as the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (SVGK).

At the final stage of the Great Patriotic War, by decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR dated February 17, 1945, the composition of the Supreme Command Headquarters was last changed and determined as follows: Marshals of the Soviet Union I.V. Stalin (Chairman - Supreme Commander-in-Chief), G.K. Zhukov (Deputy People's Commissar Defense) and A. M. Vasilevsky (Deputy People's Commissar of Defense), Army Generals N. A. Bulganin (member of the State Defense Committee and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense) and A. I. Antonov (Chief of the General Staff), Admiral of the Fleet N. G. Kuznetsov (People's Commissar USSR Navy).

The activities of the Supreme Command Headquarters were large-scale and multifaceted. The headquarters introduced changes and clarifications to the structure and organization of the Armed Forces; carried out planning of campaigns and strategic operations; set tasks for fronts and fleets and directed their combat activities; organized interaction between strategic groupings and operational formations of various branches of the Armed Forces and partisans; distributed the reserve formations and material resources at its disposal between the fronts; monitored the progress of assigned tasks; supervised the study and generalization of the war experience.

The main working body of the Supreme Command Headquarters and personally of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was the General Staff of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which closely interacted with the departments of the People's Commissariats of Defense and the Navy.

Lit.: Danilov V.D. Headquarters of the Supreme High Command: Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, 1941-1945. M., 1991; Pavlenko I. D. Headquarters of the Supreme High Command // Great Soviet Encyclopedia. T. 24. Book. 1. M., 1976; Headquarters of the Supreme High Command // Zhukov G.K. Memories and reflections. M., 2002. T. 1. Ch. eleven; The same [Electronic resource]. URL : http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/zhukov1/11.html .

See also in the Presidential Library:

Memory of the Great Victory: collection.

This fully applied to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, which went through a difficult path from mistakes at the beginning of the war to clear, coordinated and flexible work that met the nature and conditions of modern war. On this occasion, the chief of the general staff of the Wehrmacht ground forces, Colonel General F. Halder, wrote: “... the Russian military leadership, which failed with its principle of tough defense in 1941, developed into flexible operational leadership and carried out a number of operations under the command of its marshals, which German scales deserve high praise."

The creation on June 23, 1941 of the first emergency body for leading the armed struggle - the Headquarters of the High Command and the organization under it of the institution of permanent advisers did not at all mean that the armed forces and the entire military organization of the USSR received a leadership center that was stable in composition and functions.

The negative development of the operational-strategic situation on the Soviet-German front, the military-political situation both in the country and in the world, frequent violations, and even loss of control of groupings of troops of the active army, as well as a number of subjective and objective factors required a search for its optimal structure.

Resolution of the State Defense Committee No. 83 of July 10, 1941 prescribed the creation of intermediate level strategic leadership bodies in the system - the main commands of the North-Western, Western and South-Western directions. Marshals K.E. Voroshilov (Northern and Northwestern Fronts), S.K. Timoshenko (Western Front) and S.M. Budyonny (Southwestern and Southern Fronts) were appointed their commanders-in-chief. The Headquarters of the Supreme Command included the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I.V. Stalin, Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee V.M. Molotov, Marshals of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, S.M. Budyonny, K.E. Voroshilov, B M. Shaposhnikov, Chief of the General Staff, Army General G. K. Zhukov. The primary changes in the composition of the Headquarters itself were minor: N. G. Kuznetsov was removed from it, and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense B. M. Shaposhnikov was introduced. The most important thing was that I.V. Stalin became its chairman. The reasons for the withdrawal of N. G. Kuznetsov were not explained. Most likely, this was due to the fact that at the beginning of the war, and even during its course, the fleets were operationally subordinate to the commanders of the front forces operating in the coastal areas, so the tasks of the fleets were most often assigned by the front command and much less often by Headquarters.

Obviously, this was one of the main reasons for the removal of N. G. Kuznetsov from the Headquarters. As for the institution of permanent advisers to Headquarters, it was no longer mentioned. In accordance with the same GKO resolution, the Reserve Army was subordinated directly to Headquarters, which, after being brought to full combat readiness, was planned to be subordinated to the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Direction. In addition, the GKO obliged the commanders-in-chief of the directions to indicate to the front-line and army commands subordinate to them that “the observed facts of unauthorized withdrawal and surrender of strategic points without the permission of the high command disgrace the Red Army, that from now on guilty commanders for unauthorized withdrawal will be punished by execution,” and also recommended “more often appeal to the troops in your direction with a call to hold firm and selflessly, to defend our land from German robbers and enslavers... to more often scatter from airplanes in the rear of the German troops small leaflets with your signature calling on the population to smash the rear of the German armies, tear up bridges, unscrew rails, set fire forests, join the partisans, constantly harass the German oppressors” 3. On the same day, July 10, 1941, by GKO Resolution No. 89, L. Z. Mekhlis was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Defense 4. However, neither the changes in the leadership of strategic groupings in the areas nor the reshuffle of officials produced the expected result. The formation of the main commands only complicated the process of leading groupings of troops, without ensuring the necessary efficiency of command and control of the troops of the active army and naval forces. Due to the fact that some commanders-in-chief continued to control troops in the old fashioned way, the main commands were soon liquidated.

A month later, at the suggestion of G.M. Malenkov and L.P. Beria, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks No. 319, and then by the resolution of the State Defense Committee, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command 5. On the same day, August 8, 1941, by a joint resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, J.V. Stalin was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief of all troops of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the Navy. The document stated: “...2) From now on, all orders of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command must have the signatures: “Supreme Commander-in-Chief I. Stalin, Chief of the General Staff T. B. Shaposhnikov. 3) Separate orders and instructions from Headquarters must be given in the following form: “On instructions from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, Chief of the General Staff B. Shaposhnikov” 6. In essence, this resolution completed the process of unifying party, state and military administration and the formation of emergency supreme bodies for strategic management of the country and the war as a whole. Management of the party, state and Armed Forces of the USSR was concentrated in the hands of one person - Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. During the war, the composition of the Supreme Command Headquarters underwent only minor changes: B. M. Shaposhnikov, A. M. Vasilevsky, A. I. Antonov, who held the post of Chief of the General Staff, were successively included. The last personnel change of the Supreme High Command Headquarters dates back to the end of the war: on February 17, 1945, in accordance with GKO Decree No. 7550, in addition to I.V. Stalin, it included G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, A.I. Antonov , N. A. Bulganin and N. G. Kuznetsov 7 . Nevertheless, the style and methods of work of this extraordinary body did not develop immediately. A clear regime in the activities of the Supreme High Command Headquarters began to be traced in the autumn of 1942 during the preparation of the counter-offensive at Stalingrad. The accumulated experience during the unsuccessful summer-autumn campaigns of 1941–1942. allowed her to rise to a higher level of leadership in military confrontation on land, sea and in the air. Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky wrote in his memoirs: “It is impossible to understand by Headquarters a body that constantly sat in the literal sense of the word under the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in the composition in which it was approved. After all, most of its members simultaneously performed responsible duties, often being outside Moscow, mainly at the front.

But here’s what was constant: each of the members of Headquarters kept in touch with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Stalin knew how important the activities of the members of the Headquarters were in their main position, therefore he did not consider it possible and necessary to gather all of them in full force, but periodically called individual members of the Headquarters, commanders of troops and members of the military councils of the fronts to develop, consider or approve one or another decision concerning the management of the combat activities of the armed forces at this stage of the struggle” 8. By the beginning of 1943, the main functions of the Supreme Command Headquarters became: strategic planning (development of plans for campaigns and strategic operations); determination of tasks for troops in theaters of military operations; setting tasks for associations and formations of the armed forces, coordinating their efforts in terms of purpose, place and time; organization of strategic interaction between branches of the armed forces, fronts, groups of fronts and individual armies, as well as between the active army and partisan formations; in accordance with the plans of operations, determining the required composition of strategic groupings; management of the creation, formation, preparation and use of strategic reserves; management of the construction of armed forces; management of the preparation and deployment of command personnel; implementation of strategic regroupings of troops and naval forces; logistics support, replenishment of fronts and fleets with personnel; providing assistance to the front command in the preparation and conduct of strategic operations, implementation of directives, orders and instructions.

Based on the decisions made by the Supreme Command Headquarters, as well as proposals from Headquarters representatives and front commanders, the General Staff developed plans for strategic operations and campaigns conducted by the armed forces in the most important strategic directions. Approving the plans for upcoming operations, the Supreme High Command Headquarters made its own adjustments: it clarified the tasks, determined the necessary maneuver of forces and means from other directions to ensure success in the main direction or reinforced with reserves, determined the optimal method of action of the troops, and paid attention to maintaining constant interaction between the fronts. In cases where the operational plans submitted by the front command for approval did not satisfy the Headquarters, it again explained to them the goal and the method of its implementation, demanding that they “set specific tasks for the armies for each day of the operation” 10, pay attention to the need for organized and firm command and control of troops, correctly place control points, use communication means, especially radio.

The Supreme Command Headquarters constantly searched for effective methods of controlling the armed forces in general and armed struggle in particular. As already noted, the institute of permanent representatives of the direction command, organized even at its creation, did not fulfill the tasks assigned to it, and from the spring of 1942, the creation of an institute of representatives of the Supreme High Command Headquarters became a very important and qualitatively new level of strategic leadership. This most efficient, flexible, stable and effective form of control lasted almost until the end of the war. Already in the first months of the war, the activities of the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff established a clear procedure for the development of documents on the command and control of troops of fronts, individual armies and districts, as well as fleet forces. The Supreme Command Headquarters issued legal acts of a general nature in the form of orders, instructions, and on operational and other current issues - in the form of directives 11. Their preparation, carried out in accordance with the law, should have contained specific and real proposals or instructions, but not duplicate the requirements set out in previously published documents, and, if necessary, have links to them.

There are several stages in the issuance of orders and directives: initiation of publication of the document, collection and analysis of information in the preparation of its draft, preparation of the document itself, its approval, signing, registration and communication to the executors. At the same time, the draft order was developed by the department in charge of the issue in question. If the order was issued as an addition, in development and change of existing orders or their cancellation, then the draft had clear instructions which orders (or points thereof) were subject to change or addition, as well as which orders were subject to cancellation with the introduction of a new one. Having received the conclusion from the interested departments that developed the draft order, the department made the appropriate changes or amendments, and then, through the head of the department, it was transferred to the USSR NGO Affairs Department for signature by the People's Commissar of Defense. Next, the prepared orders and directives of the Supreme Command Headquarters, directives of the General Staff were presented to the Chief of the General Staff through the general department. The security classification of each document was indicated by the accepted order of their numbering: starting with “0” - “secret”, with “00” - “top secret”. Directives with the letter "S" meant "secret", and with two "SS" - "top secret". The Supreme Command Headquarters issued directives and orders on the following issues: strategic and operational-strategic, operational, on changing the organizational structure of troops, the formation and disbandment of active army units, appointments and transfers of commanders, chiefs of staff (fronts and armies), as well as on those issues which were of particular importance for the active army at the moment.

In this regard, Marshal G.K. Zhukov recalled: “Intentions and plans for strategic operations and campaigns were developed in the working apparatus of the Headquarters - in the General Staff with the participation of some members of the Headquarters. This was preceded by a lot of work in the Politburo and the State Defense Committee. The international situation for this period of time was discussed, the potential political and military capabilities of states were studied. Only after research and discussion of all general issues were predictions of a political and military nature made. As a result of all this work, the political and military strategy that guided the Supreme Command Headquarters was determined.” The decision taken by the Headquarters was formalized by the General Staff in the form of an order or directive. Typically, these documents were issued along with a decision card, approved only by the head of the operational department or his deputies. Recalling the work of the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff, Army General S. M. Shtemenko noted: “The decisions of the Headquarters, documented in documents, were signed by two persons - the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Chief of the General Staff, and sometimes the Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief. There were documents signed only by the Chief of the General Staff. In this case, a clause was usually made “on instructions from Headquarters” 14. As a rule, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief alone did not sign operational documents. The exceptions were those where he sharply criticized one of the senior military leadership. “At the same time, he referred to the fact that it was inconvenient for the General Staff to sign such a document and aggravate relations; let them be offended by me.” He single-handedly signed only administrative orders.

It should be remembered that any order, any directive or any instruction from party and government bodies does not take effect instantly, but with a certain delay. Given the inertia of the state mechanism, the bodies of strategic management of the country and the armed struggle have always sought to reduce the time interval to a minimum. For the coordinated and fruitful activities of the General Staff, its directorates and departments, the daily cycle of work of the General Staff and Supreme Command Headquarters was streamlined in accordance with wartime requirements. This order of round-the-clock work was developed gradually. It finally took shape with the arrival of General A.I. Antonov to the post of Deputy Chief of the General Staff.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, having familiarized himself with them, approved the proposals he outlined for improving the activities of the General Staff without any amendments. To a large extent, it was this order of work that was associated with the daily work cycle of I.V. Stalin himself 16. Army General S. M. Shtemenko recalled: “Reports to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief were made, as a rule, three times a day. The first of these took place at 10–11 o'clock in the afternoon, usually by telephone. It fell to my lot. In the evening, at 16-17 hours, the Deputy Chief of the General Staff reported. And at night we went to Headquarters with the final report for the day. Before that, the situation was prepared on maps at a scale of 1:200,000, separately for each front, showing the position of our troops up to the division, and in other cases up to the regiment... The Supreme Commander did not tolerate even the slightest lie or embellishment of reality and severely punished those who fell for it this... In addition to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the reports were usually attended by members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and members of the Headquarters. If necessary, the commander of the artillery N.N. Voronov, the commander of the armored and mechanized forces Y.N. Fedorenko, the commander of the Air Force A.A. Novikov, the chief of the engineering troops M.P. Vorobyov, the chief of the Main Artillery Directorate N.D. Yakovlev, the chief spacecraft rear A.V. Khrulev and others. Directives of the Supreme Command Headquarters were signed by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and his deputy or the Chief of the General Staff, and when neither G.K. Zhukov nor A.M. Vasilevsky was in Moscow, A.I. Antonov signed second. Orders of lesser importance ended with the phrase “on behalf of Headquarters,” and then followed by the signature of either A. M. Vasilevsky or A. I. Antonov.

Often such orders were formulated directly at Headquarters... and immediately transmitted to the fronts” 17. In the event of sudden changes in the situation on the fronts, the General Staff immediately reported to I.V. Stalin. Written combat reports were submitted to Headquarters three times: two of them were prepared based on data from the General Staff, and the third was a generalized report from the fronts. Unfavorable development of the operational-strategic situation in the summer-autumn campaign of 1941: huge losses of weapons and military equipment, not to mention personnel, the enemy’s rapid advance in western directions from 300 to 600 km, during which he managed to capture Latvia and Lithuania , Moldova, a significant part of Ukraine and Estonia, almost all of Belarus, to invade the western regions of the Russian Federation, to reach the distant approaches to Leningrad - all this was thoroughly known to the military-political leadership. By this time, the daily operational reports of the General Staff fairly objectively reflected the course of the armed confrontation. There were often reports from the special departments of the NKVD that defeatist sentiments had not yet been overcome in the troops, and there were cases of unauthorized withdrawal of units from their positions. The withdrawal of the Red Army troops, which continued with heavy fighting, prompted the State Defense Committee, the Supreme Command Headquarters and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief personally to look for ways to increase the durability of formations and units. In these emergency conditions, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR I.V. Stalin, “in order to decisively combat alarmists, cowards, defeatists from the command staff who arbitrarily leave positions without orders from the high command,” signed an order on August 12, 1941, in which the military councils of the active army were allowed “to bring to trial before a military tribunal persons of middle and senior command, up to and including the battalion commander, who are guilty of the crimes mentioned above” 18. As war participants noted, the order definitely played a mobilizing role in increasing the resilience of formations and units of the Red Army. At the same time, when persons who had not committed any crimes but had retreated under pressure from superior enemy forces or to avoid encirclement were brought before a military tribunal, the order had the most negative consequences 19 . However, no order could instantly change the situation among the troops; meanwhile, the operational-strategic situation continued to deteriorate every day. On August 16, 1941, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command issued order No. 270, which for the first time explained the reasons and need for tightening discipline and instilling perseverance among commanders and soldiers in fulfilling their duty to the Motherland. The order noted that most units of the Red Army, “their commanders and commissars behave impeccably, courageously, and sometimes downright heroically.”

Examples were given when “parts of our army, having found themselves surrounded by the enemy, use every opportunity to defeat the enemy and escape... while maintaining the spirit of perseverance and courage and not surrendering.” At the same time, it was indicated that “recently there have been several shameful facts of surrender to the enemy. Some generals set a bad example for our troops.” Facts were also given: the commander of the 28th Army, Lieutenant General V. Ya. Kachalov, the commander of the 12th Army, Lieutenant General P. G. Ponedelin, and the commander of the 13th Rifle Corps, Major General N. K. Kirillov, surrendered. Further, the order emphasized that “members of the military councils of the armies, commanders, political workers, special detachments, who were surrounded, showed unacceptable confusion, shameful cowardice and did not even try to prevent the frightened Kachalov, Ponedelin, Kirillov and others from surrendering to the enemy” 20. It should be noted that the order prepared in hot pursuit did not take into account many circumstances. As it turned out during the investigation, V. Ya. Kachalov did not surrender, but died in battle on August 4. P. G. Ponedelin and N. K. Kirillov were captured by the Germans when leaving the encirclement. All of them were rehabilitated after the war.

Order of the Supreme Command Headquarters No. 270 established a new procedure for the application of repressive measures: “Commanders and political workers who, during battle, tore off their insignia and deserted to the rear or surrendered to the enemy, are considered malicious deserters, whose families are subject to arrest as families of those who violated the oath and betrayed their Homeland of deserters." These persons were to be shot on the spot. The soldiers and commanders who were surrounded were required to make their way to their own behind enemy lines, fighting to the last opportunity. Division commanders and commissars were given the right to remove battalion and regiment commanders, demote them to privates, and, if necessary, shoot them on the spot. For the first time, the order was signed not only by all members of the Supreme Command Headquarters, but also by the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I.V. Stalin and the Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee V.M. Molotov. It was sent to all members and candidate members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics, chairmen of regional and regional executive committees, chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars of the republics, all secretaries of district committees, city committees, chairmen of district executive committees and city executive committees (without the right of publication). The order was read out at all headquarters, divisions and units. Order No. 270, issued during the most severe period of the war, was directed against those who, violating the requirements of the military oath and regulations, allowed cowardice, confusion and cowardice in a combat situation. In this sense, he was completely justified, since he played a positive role in increasing the combat effectiveness of the troops.

At the same time, by granting broad powers to military leaders and establishing responsibility for the families of military personnel who were captured (including criminal liability for family members of commanders and political workers), he created the preconditions for violating the rule of law, and therefore has no moral justification. “Frequent cases of illegal repression and gross abuse of power on the part of individual commanders and commissars” were indicated already on October 4, 1941 in the order of the People’s Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 0391 “On the facts of the replacement of educational work with repression.” It emphasized that “the use of repression is an extreme measure, permitted only in cases of direct disobedience and open resistance in a combat situation or in cases of malicious violation of discipline and order by persons deliberately going to disrupt the orders of the command.” In this regard, it was prescribed “in the most decisive manner, right up to bringing the perpetrators before a military tribunal, to fight all phenomena of illegal repression, assault and tyrants.”

It was further said that command and political personnel must remember: “Without the correct combination of the method of persuasion with the method of coercion, the imposition of Soviet military discipline and the strengthening of the political and moral state of the troops are unthinkable” 21 . During the war years, a unique style of work of the Supreme High Command Headquarters developed. Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky noted: “During the more than 30-month period of my work as Chief of the General Staff, and subsequently while I was a member of the Headquarters, it never fully assembled in its approved composition” 22 . Despite this, it was a permanent body whose work was structured in a special way. A. M. Vasilevsky briefly but quite succinctly described the work of the Supreme Command Headquarters: “The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, in order to develop one or another operational-strategic decision or to consider other important problems relating to the conduct of armed struggle, summoned to himself responsible persons who were directly related to the issue under consideration (here there could be members and non-members of the Headquarters), and here, with the participation of all or some members of the Politburo of the Party Central Committee and the State Defense Committee, the necessary decisions were made, which were immediately formalized in the form of directives, orders or individual instructions of the Headquarters” 23. Marshal G.K. Zhukov gave a similar assessment of the style of activity of the Supreme Command Headquarters, calling it a “collective leadership body”, the basis of which was a “reasonable combination of collegiality with unity of command” 24 . Describing the consistency in the work of the Headquarters, he noted that when developing the next operation, I.V. Stalin usually called the Chief of the General Staff and his deputy and painstakingly reviewed the operational plan with them.

the strategic situation on the entire Soviet-German front: the state of the front troops, data from all types of intelligence, the progress of training reserves of all types of troops, etc. After this, the head of the rear of the Red Army, the commanders of various branches of the military and the heads of the main departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense, who were supposed to practically support this operation, were called to Headquarters. Then the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, his deputy and the Chief of the General Staff discussed the operational and strategic capabilities of our troops. The Chief of the General Staff and the Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief received the task: to think through and calculate the possibilities for a specific operation (operations) that were planned to be carried out.

Usually, JV Stalin gave them four to five days for this work, and after this period a preliminary decision was made. After this, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief instructed the Chief of the General Staff to request the opinion of the military councils of the fronts on the upcoming operation. While the front commander and his staff were working, a painstaking creative process was underway at the General Staff to plan the operation and interaction between the fronts. Tasks were outlined for intelligence agencies, long-range aviation, partisan formations behind enemy lines, and military communications agencies for the transfer of reinforcements and reserves of the Supreme High Command, as well as material supplies. Finally, a day was appointed when the front commanders were to arrive at Headquarters to report on the plans of operations. Usually J.V. Stalin listened to them in the presence of the Chief of the General Staff, the Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief and some members of the State Defense Committee. After careful consideration of the reports, I.V. Stalin approved the plans and timing of operations, indicating what exactly should be paid special attention to, who will be personally sent by the Headquarters representative to coordinate the actions of the fronts, who controls the logistics of the troops, the timely regrouping of not only them, but also the reserves of the Supreme Command Headquarters. Other pressing issues were also resolved. When developing smaller operations, front commanders were usually not called to Headquarters. At her request, they presented their views on the planned operations in writing.

The given algorithm for the work of the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff took place during the preparation of the vast majority of campaigns and strategic operations carried out by Soviet troops during the war. As for the nature, forms and methods of work of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, they did not remain unchanged throughout the war, but developed and improved in accordance with the changing situation and emerging tasks. The most difficult and difficult time for Headquarters, as well as for the entire country and armed forces, was the first period of the war. At this time, the Supreme High Command, lacking the necessary experience, did not work in a sufficiently organized manner. The forms of its activity have not yet taken shape. As a result, many issues were resolved hastily, often by trial and error, often single-handedly by J.V. Stalin, without the participation of the General Staff, and sometimes contrary to its proposals. It was then that the Supreme Command Headquarters made the most gross miscalculations, which resulted in heavy defeats and huge, unjustified losses. The first period of the war accounted for 54.6% of irretrievable losses in people, over 62.1% of losses of small arms, 65.7% of guns and mortars. At the beginning of the war, it often happened that the General Staff, in order to clarify the situation in certain areas, had to request local authorities through civilian communication channels. Without reliable data, the Headquarters repeatedly set clearly impossible tasks for the fronts. Particularly serious miscalculations of the Headquarters were the belated decision at the beginning of the war to switch to strategic defense and the untimely withdrawal of troops from enemy attacks near Kiev, as a result of which the Southwestern Front was defeated. And in 1942, there were serious mistakes in determining the possible plan of the enemy’s actions, organizing and conducting private operations. As a result, the laboriously accumulated human and material reserves were wasted. Enormous blame for the Kharkov disaster falls on Headquarters and personally on I.V. Stalin.

But even during this period, the Headquarters was able to successfully solve a number of complex tasks, including wearing out the enemy, eliminating the gaps that had formed, organizing the Battle of Smolensk, the defense of Odessa, Sevastopol, Moscow, the counter-offensive near Moscow in 1941, the withdrawal of troops from an enveloping attack the Wehrmacht, the organization of the defense of Stalingrad and the Caucasus in the summer and autumn of 1942. Under the leadership of the Supreme Command Headquarters, three campaigns were carried out in the first period of the war: the summer-autumn defensive 1941, the winter offensive 1941–1942. and the summer-autumn defensive of 1942. They, like the operations of front groups, were not planned in advance by Headquarters.

Their preparation was carried out mainly in an administrative manner. Specific planning of operations was carried out mainly in the fronts and armies. And the role of the Headquarters was reduced primarily to setting tasks for the fronts and fleets, reviewing the operational plans developed by the commanders and headquarters of the fronts, ensuring their implementation at the expense of the reserves of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, coordinating the efforts of the fronts, as well as indicating the most rational and effective methods of action to achieve their goals. In the second period of the war, the activities of the Supreme Command Headquarters rose to a higher level. Having gained some experience, she more far-sightedly and prudently directed the actions of the armed forces, made fewer mistakes, and prepared operations with greater skill. At the same time, the very nature of the work of Headquarters changed.

This was due to the transition of the armed forces primarily to offensive actions, the seizure of strategic initiative, and a more favorable balance of forces and means in favor of the Red Army. The troops of the fronts were given more active tasks, the most decisive methods were envisaged, including the encirclement and destruction of large enemy groups. In the second period of the war, the Supreme Command Headquarters led the actions of the armed forces in two offensive campaigns: the winter campaign of 1942–1943. and summer-autumn 1943, prepared and carried out a number of major strategic operations with the participation of two to four fronts in each. Successful execution of the strategic counteroffensive in the winter of 1942–1943. near Stalingrad (Operation Uranus), as conceived by the Supreme Command Headquarters, developed into a series of sequential and simultaneous operations: the North Caucasus (“Don”), to break the blockade of Leningrad (“Iskra”), the Voronezh-Kharkov offensive and the Kharkov defensive. All of them were basically completed, although they did not receive the development that the Supreme High Command had hoped for. In the summer of the same year, the Supreme Command Headquarters organized and successfully carried out first the Kursk strategic defensive operation, and then two strategic offensive operations - the Oryol (“Kutuzov”) and the Belgorod-Kharkov (“Commander Rumyantsev”) operations. Following this, a general offensive of the Red Army began on a front stretching over 1,300 km. Finally, from August to December 1943, offensive operations were planned and carried out with the aim of liberating Left Bank Ukraine, Donbass and crossing the Dnieper.

Most of them were distinguished by the originality of the plan, the use of various methods of defeating enemy groups, and the significance of the results achieved. Nevertheless, it was not possible to avoid a number of major miscalculations, primarily due to the fact that the Supreme Command Headquarters overestimated its capabilities. For example, serious mistakes were made in determining possible enemy counteractions near Kharkov in February - March and near Kiev in April - November 1943. As a result, the inflated tasks assigned to the fronts led to significant losses. It is important to note that during this period, the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff planned in detail, independently developed and comprehensively organized the most important strategic operations. If necessary, the Headquarters made adjustments to the original plans and boldly carried out maneuvers with forces and means. It was then that Headquarters and the General Staff developed methods for consistently defeating the most important enemy groupings in various strategic directions. All this, of course, was decisive for achieving a radical turning point in the war.

By the third period of the Great Patriotic War, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff came with established views on the methods of conducting modern warfare. Rich practical experience in preparing and conducting operations of a strategic scale allowed us to develop a creative approach to solving the problems at hand. There was firm confidence in the possibility of quickly defeating the enemy even without the help of allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. It was then that the idea of launching interconnected simultaneous and sequential strikes along the entire Soviet-German front was born at Headquarters. On this occasion, Marshal G.K. Zhukov wrote in his memoirs: “In a narrow circle of people gathered in I.V. Stalin’s office, the Supreme Commander raised the question of a new form of conducting the 1944 campaigns. Previously, he asked for the opinion of each of the participants. They discussed where exactly it was necessary to concentrate forces and means to defeat the main forces of the enemy and the final defeat of the fascist bloc. There were ten such areas along the entire strategic front.”

Unlike previous years, J.V. Stalin ordered the simultaneous calculation of forces and means in all ten directions. In the third period of the war, the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff planned and conducted three campaigns: the winter and summer-autumn campaigns of 1944, as well as the 1945 campaign in Western Europe. As part of these campaigns, 17 strategic operations were carried out, during each of which large enemy groups were defeated. Operations developed to depths of up to 400–600 km, and at a faster pace than before. The Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff demonstrated the ability to firmly control troops and solve problems with fewer human and material losses. During this period, the characteristic features of the creative and organizational activities of the Supreme Command Headquarters were the desire to pre-empt the enemy in actions, defeat his troops piece by piece, deliver blows of increasing force and decisively develop the success achieved.

A special place in the work of the Headquarters at the final stage of the war was occupied by the organization of interaction with Anglo-American troops and the coordination of combat operations on the Soviet-German front with the operations of the Allies. Of course, there were some miscalculations, but this no longer had a significant impact on the course of the war. The most important element of the successful functioning of the entire command and control system was communications, its organization and technical equipment. The Supreme Command needed to have comprehensive information for every day, or even every hour. All lines of telephone and telegraph communication converged at the Supreme Command Headquarters, and a variety of information and data about the situation flowed in a stream. It should be noted that on the eve of the war, no official documents or guidelines on organizing and ensuring communications at the operational-strategic level of command of the Red Army were developed. To communicate with the headquarters of fronts, military districts, individual armies and with formations in its reserve, the Supreme High Command Headquarters used telegraph, telephone and radio communications, as well as aviation communications. The working body of the Headquarters was the General Staff, which used the communications center of the People's Commissariat of Defense. The General Staff did not have any other communications units, including spare units, at its disposal.

Via underground cables, the NPO communication center communicated with the Central Telegraph (CT) of the USSR, the Central Intercity Station (CMGS) of the People's Commissariat of Communications, automatic stations of the Moscow City Telephone Network (MGTS), as well as with communication centers of the headquarters of the Air Force, the country's air defense forces and the People's Commissariat of the Navy. This made it possible to widely use national telegraph and telephone channels for communication with the headquarters of all fronts and military districts and at the same time exchange telegraph correspondence with the headquarters of the Air Force, Air Defense and Navy. It should be noted that in the first days of the war, the communications center of the People's Commissariat of Defense was a single center and served all its needs. Due to the sharp increase in telegraph traffic, it had to be divided into two parts. The main part of this center - the operational communications center at the end of July 1941 was located on the platform of the Kirovskaya metro station (now Chistye Prudy) and served the Headquarters and the Operational Directorate of the General Staff. With its help, it was possible to maintain telegraph communication with the headquarters of the fronts, armies and with the reserves of the Headquarters:

transmit operational documents to the fronts from the center and in the opposite direction. This node also provided communication with representatives of the Headquarters. Most often it was used by generals and officers of the General Staff, who were constantly at the telegraph machines. Six negotiation points were organized for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: four in Moscow, one each at the nearest dacha in Kuntsevo and at a further one, located on the 70th km of Dmitrovskoye Highway. There were two communication centers in the Kremlin: one next to I.V. Stalin’s office, the other in the shelter. At the beginning of September 1941, signalmen had to urgently equip two telegraph communication points: one in a two-story mansion in the courtyard of house No. 33 (43) on the street. Kirov (now Myasnitskaya street), and the other - in the tunnel of the Kirovskaya metro station. The last point was widely used until the beginning of 1943. In the mansion opposite the fifth entrance of the General Staff building on June 22–23, 1941, Baudot intercoms were installed for the People's Commissar of Defense S.K. Timoshenko and his deputies. The other part of the unit (the “Pipe” object) was located in an ordinary passenger car, which was driven into a dead end at the Belorusskaya metro station. It was intended to provide telegraph communications to the central departments and rear services of NPOs.

The rest of the official correspondence was exchanged with the front headquarters through the same node. Both of these nodes were connected by powerful cable lines to the communication centers of the headquarters of the Air Force, Air Defense, Navy and the Central Telegraph. To reserve the Central Telegraph, long-distance and city automatic telephone exchanges, a secure communication center was built in October 1941 - object 01 of the People's Commissariat of Communications (NKS). Technically well equipped, it became the only structure of this type in the country 28 . Although he had connections with the Kremlin, NPOs, a communications center, the Truba facility at the Kirovskaya metro station and the Navy NK, nevertheless he was not fully capable of replacing the Central Central Station of the USSR, TsMGS, MGTS, and most importantly, he did not have there was a backup in the interior of the country. Only in April 1942 was the country's reserve communications center put into operation in Ufa 29 . The evacuation to Kuibyshev in October 1941 of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, some departments of the NPO and the NK of the Navy required the establishment of a branch of the NPO communications center there and the installation of an automatic telephone exchange with 600 numbers. For the main group of the General Staff evacuated to Arzamas, on the initiative of the head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Red Army (GUS KA) I. T. Peresypkin, in the same October, in just five days instead of the planned 15–20, a reserve communications center of the Supreme Command Headquarters was built 31. At the strategic level of management, mobile communication centers equipped in trains and cars were of great importance. According to GKO Decree No. 59 of July 8, 1941, 32 already in August, to create a mobile reserve of communications equipment at Headquarters, NKS workers formed a communications train 33, and in November, a vehicle communications center was equipped consisting of 15 Bodo devices, 10 ST-35 telegraph devices, 10 car radios as well as power supply cars.

Throughout the war, this node, which was part of a separate radio communications division of the Supreme High Command Headquarters, successfully carried out important tasks of the military command, but most often it was used to provide communications to representatives of the Supreme High Command Headquarters traveling to the fronts. The autumn of 1941 became one of the most critical moments for the country, requiring a significant expenditure of forces and resources in order to ensure firm and continuous command and control of the troops. The main difficulty was the need to provide communications to the Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff simultaneously from three control points - Moscow, Arzamas and Kuibyshev. In addition, it was necessary to provide communications from Volkhov to the General Staff operational group. Wired communication with these points was established immediately. In the second half of November 1941, the Main Communications Directorate of the Red Army developed a new version of the General Staff radio communications. Subsequently, it was supported through radio centers in Moscow, Gorky, Kuibyshev and Arzamas 35. From August 23 to September 10, 1941, the NCS built a ring system of bypass connections at a distance of 25–30 km from Moscow: Khlebnikovo - Khimki - Nemchinovka - Chertanovo - Lyubertsy - Saltykovka - Pushkino - Khlebnikovo. In addition to this ring communication line, an eastern semi-ring along the route: Laptevo - Ozherelye - Lukhovitsy - Kosterevo - Fryanovo - Zagorsk - Dmitrov was built at a distance of 80–100 km from Moscow.

These lines made it possible, in the event of damage to the Moscow hub, to provide a minimum number of important communications to the front headquarters and to the rear of the country, to establish direct telephone and telegraph lines, bypassing the capital. In order to improve the command and control of troops by the Supreme Command Headquarters, the NKS and GUS KA units also built large trunk lines, with the help of which wired communications were provided with Leningrad, Transcaucasia and Murmansk. In the fall of 1941, communications between the Supreme Command Headquarters and Leningrad worked with great interruptions. To restore it, a 40 km long underwater cable was laid along the bottom of Lake Ladoga 36 . According to the State Defense Committee decree No. 2314 of September 17, 1942 “On the construction of a telegraph and telephone communication line along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea” 37, a stationary telegraph and telephone line with a length of 1,315 km was built between October 16 and November 14.

It ensured a stable connection between the Supreme Command Headquarters and the Transcaucasian Front and with the troops stationed in Iran. At the end of 1942, in a short period of time in the Arctic, an underwater cable was laid through the strait in the northern part of the White Sea, reliably connecting the General Staff with the headquarters of the Northern Fleet and Moscow with the Murmansk port, which provided supplies under Lend-Lease 38 . The improvement of communication between the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff of the Red Army with the troops was facilitated by the order of the Headquarters No. 00107 “On improving the use of radio communications to ensure uninterrupted command and control of troops using radio” dated May 30, 1942. With this order, the military councils of the fronts and armies pledged to decisively put an end to the underestimation of communications and regardless of the situation, ensure uninterrupted command and control of troops and continuous radio communication with higher headquarters. The order determined specific measures to ensure uninterrupted communications when changing command posts and when commanders travel to the troops. The head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Red Army allocated two portable radio stations of the “North” type to the personal disposal of each army commander to communicate with front headquarters. Within the armies, for communication with divisions, additional radio communications were organized using radio stations RB 39. Discussing the issue of preparing this order with A. M. Vasilevsky, I. T. Peresypkin emphasized: “The rule must be ironclad without any exceptions: wherever the commander is, the radio station must be with him. This will also encourage lower headquarters: they will also have to keep radio stations nearby.”

In order to implement this order, in 1942, about 500 sets of car radio stations were supplied to the General Staff - Front link, about 3 thousand radio stations to armies and corps, and more than 25 thousand portable radio stations to the commands of divisions, regiments and battalions 41. Aviation was also used to connect the General Staff with the headquarters of the fronts and armies. On December 17, 1941, the formed 233rd separate aviation communications squadron of the Air Force was transferred to operational subordination to the head of the Main Communications Directorate I. T. Peresypkin. A year later, on December 3, 1942, on the initiative of I. T. Peresypkin, by order of the People's Commissar of Defense, the 3rd separate aviation division was created, which included two regiments, a separate transport air squad and an aviation service battalion. The tasks of this division were: ensuring communications between the General Staff and the fronts and armies, delivering courier mail and periodicals, transporting generals and the General Staff from the central departments of NPOs, communications equipment, etc. to the front and back.

At the end of December 1944 - beginning of January 1945 in Minsk, in bunkers that remained after the defeat of German troops in this area, on the personal instructions of J.V. Stalin, under the leadership of I.T. Peresypkin, another communications center of the Supreme High Command Headquarters was equipped. In order to improve the stability of wire communications of the General Staff, since April 1943, special purpose communication centers (USON) 43 began to be used for the first time. To increase responsibility for the state of communications of the General Staff and improve its work, in December 1943 the positions of chiefs of operational communications directions (NONS) 44 were introduced, to which experienced generals of the communications troops were appointed. For the purpose of stable radio communication of the General Staff with the headquarters of the fronts and their armies in the autumn-winter period of 1944–1945. On the instructions of the head of the Main Communications Directorate, I.T. Peresypkin, retransmission of the work of front-line and army stations was organized, which was carried out by powerful radio transmitters located near the western borders of the USSR 45 . At the final stage of the war, when hostilities unfolded on the territory of other states, communications commandant's offices were formed at large communications centers and special-purpose communications centers (USSN) were organized, whose task was to provide communications to the military command and bodies of the Soviet military administration. With the help of all of the above means, communication was ensured between the General Staff and representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters with the headquarters of the fronts, and sometimes even the armies, throughout the war. If necessary, other communication centers were created, which were strengthened by the equipment, equipment and personnel of the NCS, but the main one for the General Staff remained the NPO communication center, located in Moscow. An important means of communication for the Supreme Command Headquarters in the first months of the war was telegraph communication via Baudot devices, since J.V. Stalin marked on all telegrams: “Transmit only via Baudot.” He followed this rule throughout the war. Since May 1942, linear classification equipment (LAS) began to be introduced in the communications of the General Staff with the headquarters of the fronts and armies. The introduction of “radio-Bodo” lines with the “Almaz” prefix and classified equipment allowed the General Staff to have with respondents not only a stable, but also a classified communication of letter-printing from telegraphs located near the operational staff of the headquarters. With the help of this equipment, direct negotiations were carried out and radiograms were exchanged. In ensuring communications between the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the General Staff with the fronts and armies, units of the government HF communications of the NKVD played a significant role. Until January 1942, they provided this communication only in a station position, and the main lines served units of the People's Commissariat of Communications and the Main Communications Directorate of the Red Army. By Decree of the State Defense Committee of January 11, 1942 No. 1129 “On ensuring uninterrupted government HF telephone communications between Moscow and front headquarters” 47 the NKVD was entrusted with the solution of this task. Only the commander, chief of staff, member of the military council and head of the special department used HF communications. On January 30, 1943, by decree of the State Defense Committee No. 2804, HF communications were placed in a privileged position, and the Main Communications Directorate of the Red Army was exempted from servicing it. To resolve the issue of providing HF communications, special troops were created under the NKVD, to which the Main Communications Directorate was obliged to transfer 135 separate communications companies within ten days, and after April 1, 1943, also all stocks of wires and fittings intended for HF communications, and captured cable PPK-4 48. At the same time, despite the presence of a large number of HF communications units, the communications chiefs of the fronts and armies were obliged to allocate the best telephone circuits and the best telephone communication channels to the heads of departments and departments of HF communications, respectively, of the fronts and armies. As a result, the functions of these departments and divisions were often reduced to the installation of station classified equipment, the laying of subscriber communication lines in the area of headquarters and armies and their maintenance. The front commanders did not want to put up with two commanders and, in the absence of HF communications with the armies, they often placed responsibility for this on the front communications chiefs, although the latter were not responsible for its condition. During the war years, the Supreme Command Headquarters did enormous work in terms of its significance, scale and volume to solve problems related to the restoration of the damaged strategic front, the reorganization and strengthening of the armed forces, and their technical re-equipment. She led eight military campaigns and about 50 strategic operations. With the direct participation of the Supreme Command Headquarters and under its strict control, more than 250 front-line operations, a number of air, anti-aircraft and amphibious landing operations, as well as three centralized operations of partisan forces were carried out. She also organized and

carried out large regroupings of troops (armies, and sometimes entire fronts), deployed new fronts or abolished existing ones after they completed their assigned tasks, created and successfully used large reserves. In leading the armed struggle, the Supreme High Command Headquarters acted organically with the General Staff, the State Defense Committee, the People's Commissariats of Defense, the Navy, Internal Affairs, State Security and other government bodies. Thus, during the war years, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command was a permanent governing body of the Armed Forces of the USSR. At joint meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters, the most important events for the preparation and conduct of military campaigns and strategic operations were discussed, and issues of the military-political situation of the country were considered. During the war, the work style of the Supreme Command Headquarters was continuously improved. The main decisions were made after discussing the proposals of the General Staff for the preparation of military campaigns and strategic operations, as well as the proposals of the front (fleet) commanders for conducting operations. Major military leaders, government and party leaders were involved in the preparation of proposals and their discussion, and when considering issues of material support for military operations, the heads of the leading People's Commissariats. The Supreme Command Headquarters constantly searched for ways to effectively strategically lead the army in the field. One of them was the decision to create the main commands of the troops of the directions. The institution of representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters played an important role in the leadership of the armed struggle, and the General Staff became its main working body.

Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. In 12 volumes. T. 11. Politics and strategy of Victory: strategic leadership of the country and the Armed Forces of the USSR during the war. - M.: Kuchkovo pole, 2015. - 864 pp., 24 l. ill., ill.

On June 22, 1941, the Great Patriotic War began. In its scale, brutal nature and number of victims, it has no equal in the history of mankind.

With its beginning, the Soviet state found itself in a difficult situation. He had to almost simultaneously solve a number of complex problems, including:

Stop the rapid advance of German troops;
- carry out a general mobilization of those liable for military service and compensate for the losses in manpower incurred in the first days of the war;
- evacuate industrial, primarily defense, enterprises, as well as the population and the most important property from areas threatened by German occupation to the east;
- organize the production of weapons and ammunition in the quantities necessary for the Armed Forces.

The solution to these and other issues required a radical change in the entire system of political, state and military leadership.

The Constitution of the country at that time did not provide for the procedure for the implementation of state and military administration in wartime conditions, and the structure of the relevant bodies was not fixed. Therefore, with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the general leadership of the armed struggle of the Soviet people was carried out by the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), or more precisely by its Central Committee, headed by I.V. Stalin. In accordance with the current Constitution of the USSR, the supreme body of state power in the country was the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

The body reporting to him - the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, headed by M. I. Kalinin - was endowed with the right to declare a state of war, general or partial mobilization, martial law in the interests of the country's defense and state security.

The highest executive and administrative body of state power - the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, headed by V. M. Molotov - took measures to ensure public order, protect the interests of the state and protect the rights of the population, determined the annual contingent of citizens subject to conscription for active military service, directed the general construction of the Armed Forces.

Under the Council of People's Commissars there was a Defense Committee headed by Marshal of the Soviet Union K. E. Voroshilov. He provided leadership and coordination of military development issues and the immediate preparation of the country for defense. Military administration, as envisaged before the war, was to be carried out by the Main Military Council headed by the People's Commissar of Defense.

This system of state and military administration was inherently consistent with the experience of the First World War and the Civil War. However, the very first days of the war showed that it did not meet the new requirements for armed struggle, did not provide the necessary centralization of the leadership of the state and the Armed Forces in a complex and rapidly changing situation, the forced withdrawal of Soviet troops, and the mobilization of all the forces and resources of the country. As a result, the reorganization of the highest bodies of state and military administration took place already during the war, which was often associated with certain miscalculations.

The issue of reorganizing the system of state power was resolved on June 30, 1941, when by decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the State Defense Committee was created - the extraordinary highest state body of the USSR, which concentrated all power in the country. The chairman of the committee was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) I.V. Stalin, his deputy was the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov. The GKO included L. P. Beria, K. E. Voroshilov, G. M. Malenkov, L. M. Kaganovich, and later N. A. Bulganin, N. A. Voznesensky, A. I. Mikoyan were introduced. Each of them was in charge of a certain range of issues.

The State Defense Committee was endowed with broad legislative, executive and administrative functions. He united the military, political and economic leadership and had full power in the country. The resolutions and orders of the State Defense Committee had the force of wartime laws and were subject to unquestioning execution by all party, state, military, economic and trade union bodies.

At the same time, the constitutional bodies of government - the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, its Presidium, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, people's commissariats - continued to operate, implementing the decrees and decisions of the State Defense Committee. Thus, the Supreme Council met three times during the war: on June 18, 1942, from January 28 to February 14, 1944, and from April 24 to 27, 1945. At these sessions, the country's budgets were approved, the treaty between the USSR and Great Britain was ratified, and the Law on Expanding the Rights of the Union Republics was adopted.

The State Defense Committee was assigned the following tasks:
- management of the activities of government departments and institutions, directing their efforts towards the full use of the country’s material, spiritual and military capabilities to achieve victory over the enemy;
- resolving issues of restructuring the economy on a war footing;
- mobilization of the country’s human resources for the needs of the front and the national economy;
- training of reserves and personnel for the Armed Forces and industry;
- evacuation of industrial facilities from threatened areas and transfer of enterprises to liberated areas;
- restoration of the economy destroyed by the war;
- determination of the volume and timing of industrial supplies of military products.

In addition, the GKO set military-political tasks for the military leadership, improved the structure of the Armed Forces, determined the general nature of their use in war, and appointed leading personnel.

In its activities to lead the country, the State Defense Committee relied on the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, people's commissariats and departments, local party and state bodies, and city defense committees. The working bodies of the State Defense Committee on military issues, as well as the direct organizers and executors of its decisions in this area, were the People's Commissariats of Defense and the Navy.

Already in the first weeks of the war, a number of measures were taken to improve the management of the national economy, especially the military industry. New people's commissariats were created, responsible for certain branches of military production - the tank industry, mortar weapons and others. The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated July 1, 1941 expanded the rights of the People's Commissariats in wartime conditions.

To carry out the evacuation of industrial enterprises and the population from the front-line areas to the east, a Council for Evacuation Affairs is created under the State Defense Committee. In addition, in October 1941, the Committee for the Evacuation of Food Supplies, Industrial Goods and Industrial Enterprises was formed. In October 1941, these bodies were reorganized into the Directorate for Evacuation Affairs under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

As a result of the efforts made, the output of military products in March 1942 only in the eastern regions of the country reached the pre-war level of its output throughout the entire territory of the Soviet Union. Industry, reoriented to a military perspective, relying on the country's production capacity, began mass production of modern aircraft, tanks, weapons and ammunition.

The problems of providing the national economy with trained personnel required the creation in 1941 of the Committee for Accounting and Distribution of Labor under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. At the same time, bureaus for mobilizing the working population were created under the regional and regional executive committees. These measures made it possible to significantly strengthen the Armed Forces already in the first weeks of the war. In the first week of the war alone, 5.3 million people were mobilized into the army.

In order to improve the management of the most important sectors of the economy, which ensured an increase in the production of weapons, military equipment, ammunition, and equipment, on December 8, 1942, the Operations Bureau of the State Defense Committee was created. He was entrusted with monitoring the current work of all people's commissariats of the defense industry, as well as monitoring the preparation and implementation of production and supply plans for industries and transport.

Thus, the State Defense Committee became the main link in the mechanism of centralized management of the mobilization of the country's human and material resources for defense and armed struggle against the enemy.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, a reorganization of military command and control bodies was also carried out.

On the second day of the war, June 23, 1941, by decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Headquarters of the Main Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR was created. It was headed by People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko. It included members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I. V. Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Marshal of the Soviet Union K. E. Voroshilov, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny, People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral of the Fleet N. G. Kuznetsov and Chief of the General Staff, Army General G. K. Zhukov.

It should be noted that the question of creating the Headquarters of the Main Command was raised by the People's Commissariat of Defense to I.V. Stalin back in the spring of 1941. At the same time, it was planned to conduct strategic command and staff exercises with its participation at the line of Valdai, Orsha, Gomel, and the Psel River. Unfortunately, apart from reconnaissance, nothing could be done during these exercises. The issue of the Civil Code Rate also remained unresolved.

The very first days showed that the appointment of the People's Commissar of Defense as Chairman of the High Command Headquarters turned out to be a mistake. The dynamism of military operations, rapid and drastic changes in the situation on a huge front required high efficiency in the leadership of troops. Meanwhile, Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko could not independently, without the consent of J.V. Stalin, make any serious decisions on the leadership of the Armed Forces. He did not even have the right to make decisions on the preparation and use of strategic reserves, not to mention logistical issues related to the management of the country's national economy.

In order to ensure centralized and more efficient control of the armed struggle, by resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 10 of July 10, 1941, the Headquarters of the Main Command was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Command. It was headed by the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I.V. Stalin. By the same decree, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov was added to the Headquarters.

On August 8, 1941, J.V. Stalin was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief. From that time on, the Headquarters began to be called the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. Thus, only on the 48th day of the war, through trial and error, was the supreme body of strategic leadership finally formed.

The last time the composition of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command was radically revised was on February 17, 1945. By decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR, it included Marshals of the Soviet Union I.V. Stalin (chairman), G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky, Army Generals N.A. Bulganin and A.I. Antonov, Admiral of the Fleet N. G. Kuznetsov. It was this “composition of winners” that led the armed struggle of the Soviet people at the final stage of World War II.

Initially, members of the Supreme Command Headquarters gathered in the Kremlin office of J.V. Stalin. But with the start of the bombing, she was transferred from the Kremlin to a small mansion on Kirov Street (now Myasnitskaya). In addition, an underground center for strategic management of the Armed Forces was prepared at the Kirovskaya metro station. The offices of I.V. Stalin and B.M. Shaposhnikov were equipped there. The operational group of the General Staff and departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense was also located here.

The activities of the Supreme Command Headquarters were large-scale and multifaceted. She exercised strategic leadership of the Red Army, Navy, border and internal troops, and partisan forces. Its activities consisted of assessing the military-political and military-strategic situation, making strategic and operational-strategic decisions, organizing strategic regroupings and creating groupings of troops, organizing interaction and coordination of actions during operations between groups of fronts, fronts, individual armies, as well as between active army and partisan detachments. The headquarters supervised the formation and preparation of strategic reserves, logistical support of the Armed Forces, monitored the progress of assigned tasks, supervised the study and generalization of war experience, and resolved other issues related to military operations.

The headquarters of the Supreme High Command led the fronts, fleets and long-range aviation, set tasks for them, approved plans of operations, provided them with the necessary forces and means, and directed the partisans through the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement.

The work of the General Staff during the war was complex and multifaceted. Its functions included collecting and processing operational-strategic information about the situation on the fronts, preparing operational calculations, conclusions and proposals for the use of the Armed Forces, and directly developing plans for military campaigns and strategic operations in theaters of military operations. Based on the decisions of the Headquarters and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the General Staff prepared directives to the commanders of fronts, fleets and branches of the Armed Forces and their headquarters, orders of the People's Commissar of Defense, monitored their implementation, supervised military intelligence, monitored the condition and provision of troops, as well as the preparation of strategic reserves and their correct use. The General Staff was also entrusted with the task of summarizing the advanced combat experience of formations, formations and units. The General Staff developed the most important provisions in the field of military theory, prepared proposals and applications for the production of military equipment and weapons. He was also responsible for coordinating the combat operations of partisan formations with Red Army formations.

The Chief of the General Staff began to unite the activities of all departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense, as well as the People's Commissariat of the Navy. He was given the authority to sign, together with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, orders and directives of the Supreme Command Headquarters, and to issue orders on its behalf. During the Great Patriotic War, the General Staff was successively headed by four military figures - Marshals of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov, B.M. Shaposhnikov, A.M. Vasilevsky and Army General A.I. Antonov. Each of them is a unique military individual. It was they who had the greatest influence on the Supreme Commander-in-Chief; it was their thinking that literally fueled his decisions and will during the war years. Therefore, it was these commanders who were the most frequent visitors to I.V. Stalin during the war.

Before becoming an effective working body of the Supreme High Command, the General Staff went through a search for its place and role in strategic leadership, its organizational structure and methods of work. In the initial period of the war, in the conditions of an unfavorable situation on the fronts, the volume and content of the work of the General Staff increased enormously. In this regard, in order to concentrate the efforts of the General Staff on the operational and strategic leadership of the Armed Forces, it was relieved of a number of functions not directly related to these activities. By Decree of the State Defense Committee No. 300 of July 28, 1941, the functions of mobilization, commission, conscription, organization of the Armed Forces, supply, military transportation, and management of military educational institutions were removed from it. The organizational and mobilization departments, the department for the organization and staffing of troops, the road department, the department for organizing the rear, weapons and supplies, as well as the communications center were removed from the General Staff. Subsequently, the negative aspects of this decision became visible, and most of these units again became part of the General Staff.

The necessary changes in management have taken place. In particular, directions were created for each active front consisting of the head of the direction, his deputy and 5-10 officer-operators. In addition, a corps of officers representing the General Staff was created. It was intended to maintain continuous communication with the troops, verify the execution of directives, orders and orders of the highest command authorities, provide the General Staff with prompt and accurate information about the situation, as well as to provide timely assistance to headquarters and troops.

An important place in the work of the General Staff, especially in the last period of the war, was occupied by the organization of communications and interaction with the headquarters of the Allied armies. Almost from the beginning of the war, military missions of the allied powers were accredited to the General Staff: from the United States led by General Dean, from Great Britain by General Berluz, from the government of the fighting France by General Latre de Tassigny. There were missions from Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and other countries. In turn, at the headquarters of the allied armies, Soviet military missions were established, which, through the General Staff, were subordinate to the Supreme Command Headquarters and were not within the competence of the ambassadors.

The organizational structure of the General Staff was improved throughout the war, but the changes were not fundamental.

As a result of the reorganization, the General Staff became a command body capable of quickly and adequately responding to changes in the situation on the fronts. Organizational restructuring, determined by the nature and content of the combat situation on the fronts, allowed him to focus on solving mainly operational-strategic issues, developing and preparing the necessary data for decision-making by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

However, in the first years of the war, J.V. Stalin himself underestimated the role of the General Staff. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief not only ignored his proposals, but also often made decisions contrary to all his advice. In the first year of the war alone, five heads of the leading department of the General Staff, the operational department, were replaced. Many generals from the leadership of the General Staff, by order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, were sent to the active army. In a number of cases, this was indeed caused by the objective need to strengthen the headquarters of the fronts and armies with experienced workers. Only towards the end of the first period of the war were Stalin’s relations with the General Staff significantly normalized. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief began to rely more on the General Staff, even perceiving it as an important body of strategic leadership. And by this time the General Staff had acquired a wealth of experience and began to work more organized. Therefore, it is no coincidence that since the second half of 1942, J.V. Stalin, as a rule, did not make a single decision without first hearing the opinion of the General Staff.

For coordinated and fruitful activities, the work of the General Staff, its directorates and departments had to be streamlined in accordance with wartime requirements. A certain order of round-the-clock work was needed. This routine was developed gradually. It finally took shape with the arrival of General A.I. Antonov to the post of Deputy Chief of the General Staff. The general, pedantic in the good sense of the word, outlined his proposals for improving the activities of the General Staff on three sheets of paper. Having familiarized himself with them, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, without saying a word, approved them.

To a large extent, it was tied to the regulations of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief himself. Reports to I.V. Stalin were made, as a rule, three times a day. The first of them was done at 10-11 o’clock in the afternoon by telephone, from 16.00 to 17.00 the second took place, and from 21.00 to 3.00 a final report for the day was carried out at Headquarters. During it, in addition to the situation, draft directives, orders and instructions were reported. The documents for the report were carefully worked out, the wording was honed. They were sorted by importance into multi-colored folders. The red folder contained priority documents - directives, orders, plans. The blue folder was intended for documents of the second stage. The contents of the green folder consisted mainly of nominations for ranks and awards, orders for movements and appointments. Documents were signed according to their importance.

Along with the reorganization of strategic leadership bodies, there was a continuous search for ways to increase the efficiency of troop control and establish closer cooperation between the fronts. Already in the first days of the war, when, in a rapidly changing situation in the absence of stable communication with the fronts and timely reliable information about the position of the troops, the military leadership was systematically late in making decisions, the need to create an intermediate command authority between Headquarters and the fronts became obvious. For these purposes, it was decided to send leading officials of the People's Commissariat of Defense to the front, but these measures did not produce results. Therefore, by decree of the State Defense Committee of July 10, 1941, three Main Commands of the troops of strategic directions were created.

The Main Command of the North-Western Forces, headed by Marshal of the Soviet Union K. E. Voroshilov, was entrusted with coordinating the actions of the Northern and North-Western Fronts, as well as the Northern and Baltic Fleets. The Main Command of the Western Direction Forces, led by Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, coordinated the actions of the Western Front and the Pinsk Military Flotilla, and later the Western Front, the Front of Reserve Armies and the Central Front. The main command of the troops of the South-Western direction, led by Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny, was to coordinate the actions of the South-Western, Southern, and later Bryansk fronts. The Black Sea Fleet was also under his operational control. In August 1941, the field management staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Forces was approved.

The tasks of the Main Commands included studying and analyzing the operational-strategic situation in the directional zone, informing the Headquarters about the situation on the fronts, directing the preparation of operations in accordance with the plans and plans of the Headquarters, coordinating the actions of troops in the strategic direction, and leading the partisan struggle behind enemy lines.

The introduction of intermediate strategic leadership bodies in the difficult conditions of the first period of the war was justified. The main commands had the opportunity to ensure more reliable, precise command and control of troops and the organization of interaction between fronts, and to respond more quickly to enemy actions. At the same time, there were many shortcomings in the activities of the High Commands. The commanders-in-chief not only did not have clearly defined functions and sufficiently broad powers, but also did not have the necessary reserve forces and material resources to actively influence the course of hostilities of the troops subordinate to them. Therefore, all their activities often boiled down to the transfer of information from the fronts to Headquarters and, conversely, orders from Headquarters to the fronts. Often the Supreme Command Headquarters directly controlled the combat activities of fronts, fleets and armies, bypassing the Main Commands. Due to these and other reasons, the Commanders-in-Chief of the troops in strategic directions failed to improve the leadership of the fronts.

At the same time, experience in managing troops of the command and headquarters of the fronts was accumulated, the connection between the Supreme Command Headquarters and front-line departments became more and more reliable and stable, and the situation at the front became more and more stabilized. Under these conditions, the Main Commands of the troops in strategic directions were abolished one by one. On September 10, 1941, the Main Command of the Western Direction of Troops ceased to exist, on September 29 – the North-Western Command, and in December – the South-Western Command.

However, the Supreme Command Headquarters did not completely abandon them. Already in February 1942, she assigned the responsibilities of Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front to the commander of the Western Front, Army General G.K. Zhukov. He was tasked with coordinating the combat operations of the Western and Kalinin fronts during the Rzhev-Vyazemsk operation. Soon the Main Command of the South-Western Direction was also restored. The commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union S.K. Timoshenko, was appointed commander-in-chief. He had to coordinate the actions of his own and the neighboring Bryansk Front.

On April 21, 1942, the Main Command of the North Caucasian Forces, headed by Marshal of the Soviet Union S. M. Budyonny, was formed to direct the actions of the troops on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front. The Crimean Front, the Sevastopol defensive region, the North Caucasus Military District, the Black Sea Fleet and the Azov Military Flotilla were subordinate to him.

As practice has shown, combining the positions of the Commander-in-Chief of the strategic forces and the front commander turned out to be inappropriate. Although this combination gave the Commanders-in-Chief relative independence in resolving operational issues, their ability to coordinate the actions of other fronts was narrowed. Ultimately, the Supreme Command Headquarters was forced to do this. Soon such a control system had to be abandoned. In May 1942, the Main Commands of the Western and North Caucasian troops were abolished, and in June - the Southwestern Commands.

The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command resorted to a similar system of strategic leadership, but in a more advanced form, only in 1945 during the military campaign in the Far East. Taking into account the remoteness of the theater of military operations from the center, the Main Command of Soviet troops in the Far East was formed, headed by Marshal of the Soviet Union A. M. Vasilevsky. Unlike the previously created Main Commands of the troops of strategic directions, it had large forces and means at its disposal and was endowed with greater independence in resolving issues of preparing and conducting military operations. At the same time, here too the Supreme High Command Headquarters retained the right to control the fronts and the Pacific Fleet.

Since the spring of 1942, the institute of representatives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command appeared, which became widespread during the Great Patriotic War. Representatives of the Headquarters were appointed by it from among the most trained military leaders. They had broad powers and were usually sent to where, according to the Supreme Command Headquarters plan, the main tasks at the moment were being solved.

The functions of the Headquarters representatives did not remain unchanged. Until the summer of 1944, they were reduced mainly to assisting the front commands in preparing and conducting operations, coordinating the efforts of the fronts, and monitoring the implementation of the decisions of the Supreme High Command. But representatives of the Headquarters did not have the right to make fundamentally new decisions during the operation without the sanction of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Subsequently, the powers of the Headquarters representatives expanded. Thus, in the Belarusian offensive operation, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov directly supervised the actions of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian fronts, and Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky - the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Baltic fronts.

Representatives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on the fronts at different times were G.K. Zhukov, A.M. Vasilevsky, S.K. Timoshenko, S.M. Budyonny, K.E. Voroshilov, A.I. Antonov, N.G. Kuznetsov, N. N. Voronov, A. A. Novikov, A. E. Golovanov, Ya. N. Fedorenko, G. A. Vorozheikin, S. M. Shtemenko, I. T. Peresypkin and others. J.V. Stalin personally set tasks for them before leaving for the front and received them with reports upon arrival. If necessary, he called them to Headquarters during operations, especially when something went wrong. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief demanded constant reports from his representatives on the progress of the assigned tasks, making high demands for omissions and failures.

The creation of the institution of representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters contributed to increasing the effectiveness of strategic leadership. The Supreme High Command had the opportunity to coordinate efforts on the spot and maintain close interaction between fronts, branches of the Armed Forces, branches of the armed forces and partisan formations, and to use them more rationally in ongoing operations.

The institution of representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters existed almost until the end of the war. Only in the final operations, due to a significant reduction in the front and a decrease in the number of front-line formations, was there any need for it.

To manage the formation of reserves, prepare marching replenishment, and manage reserve and training units, on June 29, 1941, the Main Directorate for the Formation and Recruitment of Troops (Glavupraform) was created at the People's Commissariat of Defense. It was headed by Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union G.I. Kulik, but on August 6 of the same year he was replaced by E.A. Shchadenko.

The scale of the activities of this governing body is evidenced by the fact that in 1941 alone it formed 286 rifle divisions and more than 500 brigades. The creation of such a control body allowed the Supreme High Command to quickly resolve issues of preparing marching reinforcements and creating reserves for the active army.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, universal military training of workers was widely launched in the country, on-the-job and in schools. In September 1941, by decision of the State Defense Committee, universal compulsory military training for men aged 16 to 50 years was introduced according to a 110-hour program. For centralized management of this type of military training, on September 17, 1941, the Main Directorate of General Military Training (GUVVO) was created as part of the People's Commissariat of Defense. Departments for general military training are formed in military districts, republican, regional and regional military commissariats. These measures ensured the continuous replenishment of the active army with trained human resources.

To coordinate the work of the Logistics of the Armed Forces, the Main Directorate of Logistics was formed, and the post of Chief of Logistics of the Red Army was established with the Logistics Headquarters reporting directly to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Throughout the war, the head of the rear was General A.V. Khrulev.

On July 16, 1941, in order to strengthen the combat power of the army and navy and increase the level of organizational and ideological work in the Armed Forces, the institution of military commissars was introduced. At the same time, political propaganda bodies are reorganized into political bodies - the Main Political Directorate of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (GlavPU RKKA) and the Main Political Directorate of the Navy (GlavPU Navy). The powers of political agencies were expanded - they began to manage both mass political and organizational party work in the troops and navy. These measures made it possible to intensify the activities of political agencies to ensure the implementation of orders and directives of the Supreme Command Headquarters, increase their role in solving combat missions, and improve the leadership of party and Komsomol organizations.

In connection with the expansion of the scale of armed struggle, the increase in the number of formations and units of branches of the Armed Forces and branches of troops in the active army and the need for their more effective use during combat operations, the positions of commanders of branches and branches of troops with the corresponding governing bodies - military councils and headquarters were established: chief, and from November 1942 - commander of the artillery of the Red Army, commanders of the guards mortar units, armored and mechanized troops, the Air Force, air defense forces, long-range aviation, airborne troops with their subordination directly to the Supreme Command Headquarters, as well as the chief engineering troops.

Some commanders were elevated to the rank of deputy people's commissar of defense, but were stripped of it in 1943. By that time, the People's Commissar already had about two dozen deputies, which began to create difficulties in the activities of the People's Commissariat. As a result, the People's Commissar of Defense had only two deputies left - Marshals of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov and A.M. Vasilevsky.

Already in the first period of the war, popular resistance to the enemy developed widely in the occupied territory of the country. The scope of this nationwide movement was enormous. Thus, only in the summer and autumn of 1942, during the period of fierce battles for the Caucasus and Stalingrad, the fascist German command was forced to use up to 25 divisions to protect their rear and fight the partisans.

However, centralized control of the struggle of the Soviet people behind enemy lines was not established immediately, but as it unfolded. The centralization of leadership of the partisan movement began with a resolution of the State Defense Committee of May 30, 1942. In accordance with this decree, the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD) was created at the Supreme Command Headquarters. It was headed by a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus (Bolsheviks) P.K. Ponomarenko. The headquarters established contacts with partisan formations, coordinated their activities, supplied the partisans with weapons, ammunition, medicines, trained personnel, and carried out interaction between the partisan formations and regular units of the Red Army.

For direct leadership of partisan detachments, headquarters of the partisan movement were created under the Military Councils of the fronts: Ukrainian, Bryansk, Western, Kalinin, Leningrad and Karelo-Finnish.
On September 6, 1942, in order to further develop the partisan movement and increase its effectiveness, the position of Commander-in-Chief of the partisan movement was established. A member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a member of the State Defense Committee and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, Marshal of the Soviet Union K. E. Voroshilov, was appointed to this post. The Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was subordinate to him.

Soon, in accordance with the GKO decree of September 28, 1942, the headquarters of the partisan movement, operating under the Military Councils of the fronts, were reorganized. They were transformed into representative offices of the TsShPD at the fronts, and their leaders were included in the Military Councils of the fronts. The main task of the partisans' struggle was determined by the GKO to disorganize the enemy's rear. The measures taken made it possible to overcome the fragmentation that reigned in the partisan movement and reduced its effectiveness.

True, at the beginning of March 1943, the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was disbanded, and management of the partisans’ actions was entrusted to the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics and the regional committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. But the fallacy of this decision almost immediately became obvious, and already in April the headquarters was restored.

From the very beginning of the war, the rapidly changing operational-strategic situation on the flanks of the Soviet-German front required close interaction between the fleets and the front troops operating in coastal areas. Initially, fleets and flotillas for this purpose were transferred to the operational subordination of the fronts. However, their commanders often did not pay due attention to the fleets’ performance of independent tasks in naval theaters, and did not always fully orient the fleets about the general tasks and prospects of their activities. In this regard, and also due to the increasingly complex situation at sea, a need arose for a radical improvement in the operational and strategic leadership of fleet forces.

The directive of the Supreme Command Headquarters dated March 31, 1944 established the position of Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Naval Forces. People's Commissar of the Navy Admiral of the Fleet N.G. Kuznetsov was appointed to this position. By the same directive, the Baltic Fleet remained operationally subordinate to the Leningrad Front, and the Northern and Black Sea Fleets were subordinated directly to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. The directive stated that henceforth the tasks of the fleets would be assigned directly by the Supreme Command Headquarters. From now on, the use of naval aviation in the interests of ground forces was allowed only in exceptional cases and only with the permission of Headquarters. Responsibility for the defense of the coast in coastal areas was assigned to front commanders, and at the same time the degree of participation and responsibility of fleets in solving these problems was determined. Henceforth, front commanders were prohibited from interfering in tactical naval issues and the internal service of the fleets transferred to their operational subordination. The new system of leadership of the Naval Forces provided the naval leadership with more independence, which made it possible to more successfully solve the problems of defeating the enemy at sea.

At the beginning of the war, the Soviet Armed Forces had to operate according to pre-war operational plans. They envisaged the conduct of defensive battles for three to four weeks by covering troops, and then, with the introduction of the second echelons of the border fronts and the approaching strategic reserves into the battle, it was planned to go on a counteroffensive. But the situation at the fronts did not allow these plans to be realized. The strategic initiative was entirely in the hands of the German troops. Under these conditions, contrary to the military doctrine adopted in the pre-war period, the Soviet military leadership was forced to decide on the transition to strategic defense.

As the front stabilized and the strategic leadership system was reorganized, troop control improved. Planning of operations began to be characterized by more coordinated efforts of the Supreme Command Headquarters, the General Staff and front headquarters. A feature of the strategic leadership of the armed struggle was the combination of collegiality in the development of decisions with sole responsibility for their implementation. Campaign plans were adopted at joint meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters. The commanders of fronts, branches of the Armed Forces and branches of the armed forces took the most active part in further work on preparing operations. All this made it possible to consider issues deeply and comprehensively, develop expedient solutions, and promptly implement them.

However, the Supreme Command Headquarters did not come to this immediately. In the first period of the war, and especially in its first months, the principle of collegiality was practically not observed. But as experience was gained, a relatively coherent system of preparing and making both fundamental long-term and particular current decisions emerged. Clear principles of strategic planning, development of ideas and plans for military campaigns, strategic and front-line operations were developed and mastered. The Supreme Command Headquarters and the General Staff consistently moved from solving individual urgent strategic tasks in an administrative manner to advance planning of front operations, then strategic operations of groups of fronts and, finally, military campaigns.

An indicator of the increased level of leadership of the Soviet Armed Forces was the specificity and purposefulness of plans for military campaigns in the second and third periods of the war. Unlike the first period, the campaigns of which were carried out without a clearly defined plan, subsequent campaigns were developed in advance on the basis of a deep and comprehensive analysis of the military-political and military-strategic situation, taking into account the goals put forward by the political leadership, the prospects of war and the real capabilities of the troops.

The activities of the State Defense Committee, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and other higher government bodies during the war were distinguished by their scale and versatility. Most of them were headed by J.V. Stalin, in whose image the state military and political leadership largely merged. Therefore, the style of work of the highest bodies of state and military administration was largely determined by the style of work of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. It was often impossible to determine which body was meeting: members of the Politburo, the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters simultaneously gathered in the office of J.V. Stalin. However, the unifying body in the conditions of the most brutal war, apparently, was the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. It was this that became the core of the Kremlin’s entire policy during the war years. Here, in addition to plans for operations, military-political, economic and many other issues were discussed. For this purpose, government and military figures of the highest rank were invited, as well as ordinary soldiers, partisans and workers.

J.V. Stalin knew how to force people to act. The operation hours of the Supreme Command Headquarters were almost around the clock. The tone was set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief himself, who worked 12-16 hours a day, and, as a rule, in the evening and at night. He paid main attention to operational-strategic issues, weapons problems, and the preparation of human and material resources.

The training of senior military leadership - commanders, chiefs of staff and members of the Military Councils of fronts, armies, and sometimes corps and divisions - was constantly in the field of view of the Supreme Command Headquarters. Often, I.V. Stalin, noticing a commander or commander who had proven himself, met with him, and then closely followed his career growth. As a result, during the war years a new generation of commanders emerged, whose names are known all over the world.

The priority in resolving military issues, of course, belonged to the General Staff. Therefore, during the war, his superiors visited I.V. Stalin almost every day, becoming his main experts, consultants and advisors. After the heavy defeats of the first months of the war, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was so imbued with the importance of the General Staff that he willingly listened to the opinions of ordinary General Staff officers.

Front commanders often visited Headquarters. Typically these visits were related to the preparation of major operations or the appointment to a new position. Sometimes members of the Military Councils came with them, less often - chiefs of staff.

Regular visitors to the Supreme Command Headquarters were People's Commissar of the Navy N.G. Kuznetsov and Chief of Logistics of the Red Army A.V. Khrulev. Repeatedly, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief met with the heads of the Main Directorates of the People's Commissariat of Defense, commanders and heads of military branches. On issues related to the adoption of military equipment or its supply to the troops, the People's Commissars of the aviation, tank industry, weapons, ammunition and others came with them. Leading designers of weapons and military equipment were often invited to discuss these issues.

Ordinary soldiers - pilots, tank crews, artillerymen, partisans - were also invited to the Supreme Command Headquarters. In the Kremlin one could meet military writers, directors of defense factories, workers, collective farmers and even priests.

On May 5, 1945, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the State Defense Committee was abolished. The headquarters of the Supreme High Command ceased its activities in October 1945.

In general, the system of military command and control by 1945 was largely consistent with the nature of military operations and the general requirements of politics and military strategy. It ensured reliable and effective command and control of troops and forces, and the successful implementation of military-political and strategic tasks.

Thus, during the Great Patriotic War, a coherent system of state and military leadership in wartime developed in the USSR. It developed gradually, with the accumulation of experience and the growth of the art of management at the highest levels of government. This system effectively governed the country and its military organization, which ultimately helped achieve victory over the enemy.

At the same time, some negative features of the existing management system should be noted. The main one was that in the very first months of the war, I.V. Stalin concentrated immense power in his hands. He, while remaining the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, headed the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the State Defense Committee, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and the People's Commissariat of Defense. At that cruel time, such a concentration of power was largely justified and objectively necessary. But gradually the negative aspects of such centralization began to emerge more and more fully.

Formation of the State Defense Committee

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany, grossly violating the terms of the treaty with the USSR, attacked the Soviet country. 153 German divisions, mobilized in advance and armed with the latest military equipment, were thrown against the USSR.

Together with Hitler's Germany, Romania, Hungary and Finland entered the war against the Soviet Union, and in the very first days they fielded 37 divisions.

Fascist Italy also opposed the USSR. Germany received assistance from Bulgaria and Spain. Imperialist Japan was waiting for an opportune moment to attack the USSR. For this purpose, it kept the million-strong Kwantung Army on alert at the Soviet Far Eastern borders.

The enemy invasion began at 4 a.m. on June 22. Large formations of infantry and tank troops on a wide front crossed the Soviet border. At the same time, German planes brutally bombed border points, airfields, railway stations, and large cities. An hour and a half after the start of the invasion, the German ambassador in Moscow made a statement to the Soviet government about Germany's entry into the war with the Soviet Union.

A mortal danger loomed over the Soviet country. In its statement made on the radio on June 22 at 12 o'clock, the Soviet government called on the entire Soviet people and their Armed Forces for the Patriotic War against the Nazi invaders, for a holy war for the Motherland, for honor and freedom. “Our cause is just. The gate will be broken. Victory will be ours” - these words of the government statement expressed the deep confidence of all Soviet people in victory over the enemy.

On the same day, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the mobilization of those liable for military service in 14 military districts was announced, and martial law was introduced in the European part of the USSR.

The treacherous attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR interrupted peaceful construction in our country. The Soviet Union entered the period of the liberation war.

The Soviet people, as one, rose up to defend their Motherland, to fight a holy national war. The workers, peasants and intelligentsia were overwhelmed by a huge patriotic upsurge; they expressed their unshakable determination to defend every inch of their native land, to fight to the last drop of blood, until the complete defeat of Nazi Germany. The Soviet people rallied even more closely around the Communist Party and the Soviet government.

Fascist Germany unleashed a predatory war, designed to seize our lands and conquer the peoples of the USSR. The Nazis set as their goal to destroy the Soviet state, restore the capitalist system in the USSR, exterminate millions of Soviet people, and turn the survivors into slaves of German landowners and capitalists.

The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany and its accomplices was a just, liberating war.

The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union merged with the struggle of freedom-loving peoples of other countries against fascist aggressors. It was carried out in the interests of all progressive humanity.

The armed forces of Nazi Germany acted according to a pre-developed plan, called the “Barbarossa Plan”. The German command counted on the complete defeat of the Soviet Union during a short-term campaign. The main strategic task was to defeat the Soviet armed forces and seize the territory of the USSR to the Arkhangelsk-Volga-Astrakhan line. At the same time, the German command intended to destroy the Ural industrial region by aviation forces after the Nazi troops reached the Volga.

In accordance with the “Barbarossa Plan”, the German command concentrated its forces on our borders in advance. A group of enemy troops called “Norway” was intended to attack Murmansk and Kandalaksha. Army Group North was advancing on the Baltic states and Leningrad. Finnish troops interacted with this group and launched their operations in the area of Lake Ladoga. In the central direction, the most powerful group of fascist German armies, “Center,” operated, whose task was to capture Minsk and then advance on Smolensk and Moscow. In the southern direction, on the front from Kholm to the Black Sea, Army Group “South” operated, the left wing of which struck in the direction of Kyiv.

The German command intended to use sudden attacks to make a deep breakthrough into the areas where the troops of our border military districts were located, to prevent them from retreating into the interior of the country and to destroy them in the western regions. If this plan were completely successful, the enemy would have the opportunity to capture the most important vital centers of the USSR - Moscow, Leningrad and the southern industrial regions.

Hitler's Germany, even before the start of the war against the USSR, transferred the country's economy to a war footing, mobilized troops and carefully prepared a strong invasion army. This army had almost two years of experience in conducting major combat operations in Europe. It was equipped with all types of the latest military equipment, and consisted of selected soldiers and officers, brought up in the spirit of predatory, fascist ideology, national and racial hatred of Slavic and other peoples.

Despite the heroic resistance of the Soviet troops, the situation at the front at the beginning of the war was extremely unfavorable for our army.

Numerous, technically well-equipped and experienced in modern warfare, the fascist German divisions, taking advantage of the treachery of the attack, put the Soviet troops of the border districts, where significant forces of the regular army were located, in an extremely difficult situation. Not being sufficiently concentrated and deployed for combat operations, Soviet troops were unable to withstand the numerically superior enemy forces that operated in the main directions. Enemy strike groups (tank and motorized divisions) cut through the battle formations of the Soviet troops and advanced deep into our territory. As a result, control of Soviet military units was extremely difficult. Strong attacks by enemy aircraft on troops and strategically important objects inflicted heavy losses on Soviet troops and caused enormous damage to the rear and communications. The enemy quickly achieved a change in the balance of forces in his favor. Soviet troops were forced to retreat, fighting heavy battles and suffering heavy losses.

By the beginning of July 1941, the enemy managed to capture Lithuania, a significant part of Latvia, the western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, and reached the Western Dvina.

The failures of the Soviet troops in the initial period of the war were explained by a number of reasons. Among these reasons, first of all, it should be noted the belated transfer of industry to a war footing.

The industry of our country, which was at a high level of development at which it could fully provide the Soviet Army with everything necessary, was not timely and truly mobilized in order to produce the maximum quantity of all types of weapons and combat supplies. This did not allow the timely completion of the rearmament of the Soviet troops with new equipment before the war, the replenishment of losses and the provision of weapons to new formations at the beginning of the war. Major mistakes were made in the construction of mechanized troops. In 1937, the mechanized corps of the Soviet Army were disbanded. The tank brigade was adopted as the highest organizational unit, which did not meet the requirements of modern warfare. Only in 1940, taking into account the experience of the Second World War, mechanized corps again began to form in the Soviet Army. However, their formation was not completely completed before the start of the war.

The shortfall in creating mechanized forces was aggravated by the fact that, while outdated tank systems were being phased out, mass production of the new T-34 tanks and heavy KV tanks had not yet been launched. As a result, there was a large shortage of tanks. The mechanized corps stationed in the border areas were not fully equipped with materiel.

Many artillery units had not yet been converted to mechanized traction, and there was a lack of anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery.

The situation was approximately the same in the construction of our air force. Although by the beginning of the war, Soviet aviation had no fewer aircraft in its arsenal than the enemy, most of these aircraft were outdated systems and inferior to the German ones in their combat qualities. True, at that time, Soviet designers gave new designs for aircraft that were superior to German ones.

But the rearmament of the air force was slow. By the beginning of the war, new aircraft in the aviation fleet made up only a small part. In addition, the pilots have not yet had time to truly master the new equipment.

The preparation of new defensive lines was not completed, and the weapons from the old long-term structures were removed. The network of airfields in the border areas was insufficiently developed. Highways and dirt roads for troop movement were in poor condition.

One of the reasons for the lack of preparedness of the Soviet Army to repel the enemy was J.V. Stalin’s incorrect assessment of the military-political situation immediately on the eve of the war. Stalin believed that Germany would not dare to attack the USSR in the near future. Therefore, he hesitated in taking defensive measures, believing that these actions could give the Nazis a reason to attack our country. J.V. Stalin also underestimated the military capabilities of Nazi Germany.

The underestimation of the threat of a fascist attack on the USSR was reflected, in particular, in a TASS report dated June 14, 1941. This statement pointed out the groundlessness of rumors about Germany mobilizing troops and preparing a war against the USSR. The message stated that “according to USSR data. Germany just as steadily complies with the terms of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, like the Soviet Union, which is why, in the opinion of Soviet circles, rumors about Germany’s intention to break the pact and launch an attack on the USSR are devoid of any basis.”

In the border military districts, the creation and concentration of sufficient forces in threatening directions that could be countered by large strategic groupings of the enemy were not completed in a timely manner. It should also be taken into account that in the pre-war years, a significant number of experienced commanders and political workers, especially at the highest levels, were repressed as a result of the actions of hostile elements who broke into the state security agencies. Young personnel who came to leadership of units and formations often did not yet have sufficient knowledge and experience. This also negatively affected the course of military operations of the Soviet troops in the first period of the war.

As a result of all these mistakes and shortcomings, the Soviet troops, being taken by surprise, suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment in the very first days of the war.

Soviet aviation, which suffered heavy losses from enemy surprise attacks on the very first day of the war, was unable to properly carry out its tasks to interfere with the operations of enemy ground forces. Due to the rapid advance of enemy troops into the interior of the country.

The Soviet Union lost the opportunity to use industrial enterprises in the western regions for the production of military products. Some enterprises were evacuated, while some remained in the occupied territory. This further aggravated the difficulties of the war for the Soviet state.

The retreat of the Soviet troops was forced. The temporary loss of a number of territories of the USSR resonated with acute pain in the hearts of all Soviet people. The enemy's actions caused great damage to the Soviet state. Therefore, it is incorrect to assert that Soviet troops acted according to a pre-developed plan of “active strategic defense”, that the retreat of Soviet troops in the first period of the war was supposedly designed to wear down the enemy and then launch a counter-offensive.

The enormous difficulties and failures of the initial period of the war did not break the fighting spirit of the Soviet Army. Formations of Soviet troops, despite the extremely complex and difficult situation, retreated with stubborn battles. In dozens of major battles and hundreds of skirmishes, Soviet soldiers fought with unparalleled courage. For a whole month after the German invasion, the heroic struggle of the small garrison of the Brest Fortress against the advancing enemy forces lasted.

The defense of the fortress was led by people of remarkable courage, selflessly devoted to the Soviet Motherland - Captain I. N. Zubachev, Regimental Commissar E. M. Fomin, Major P. M. Gavrilov and others. The resistance ended only when not a single defender of the fortress remained in the ranks. On the Bug, Lieutenant Monin’s outpost fought for a whole day against a battalion of Nazis. Having received information that the Nazis crossed the Prut, occupied the railway bridge and began to make a flooring along it for the passage of tanks, border guards of the fifth outpost A.K. Konstantinov, V.F. Mikhalkov and I.D. Buzytskov penetrated behind enemy lines and killed him guards and blew up the bridge. The advance of German tanks in this direction was delayed. For this feat, A.K. Konstantinov, V.F. Mikhalkov and I.D. Buzytskoz were awarded the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union. An unforgettable feat was accomplished on June 26, 1941 by captain N. F. Gastello and the crew of his plane consisting of A. A. Burdenyuk, G. N. Skorobogatiy and A. A. Kalinin. When an enemy shell hit the gasoline tank of their plane, Captain N. F. Gastello drove the burning car towards a column (of enemy tanks and tanks. Together with the plane of the heroic crew, German tanks and tanks exploded.

Already in the first battles on the fronts of the Patriotic War, many thousands of Soviet soldiers performed unprecedented feats, not sparing their lives to defend the Motherland.

The Headquarters of the Main Command was created on June 23, 1941. Its composition was somewhat different from the project proposed by the People's Commissariat of Defense. It included: People's Commissar of Defense S.K. Timoshenko (chairman), Chief of the General Staff G.K. Zhukov, I.V. Stalin, V.M. Molotov, K.E. Voroshilov, S.M. Budyonny, N G. Kuznetsov. It was also proposed to include First Deputy Chief of the General Staff N.F. Vatutin in the Headquarters. But J.V. Stalin did not agree.

A group of advisers on various issues was formed at Headquarters. In practice, the group played a nominal role, since all the advisers soon received other appointments, and their replacement did not take place.

Throughout the war, Headquarters was in Moscow. This had great moral significance. Due to the threat of enemy air strikes in early July, she was transferred from the Kremlin to the Kirov Gate area to a small mansion with reliable work space and communications, and a month later, operators of the General Staff, the working body of the Headquarters, were located nearby, on the platform of the Kirovskaya metro station .

On June 30, 1941, following the approximate model of the Leninist Workers' and Peasants' Defense Council, during the period of foreign military intervention and civil war, by decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, an emergency body was created - the State Defense Committee, headed by I.V. Stalin.

The State Defense Committee became an authoritative body for the leadership of the country's defense, concentrating all power in its hands. Civil, party, and Soviet organizations were obliged to comply with all his decisions and orders. To control their implementation in the territories and regions, military-industrial people's commissariats, at the main enterprises and lines, the State Defense Committee had its representatives.

At meetings of the State Defense Committee, which took place at any time of the day, as a rule, in the Kremlin or at J.V. Stalin’s dacha, the most important issues were discussed and resolved. Plans for military action were considered by the Politburo of the Central Party Committee and the State Defense Committee. At the meeting, people's commissars were invited, who were to take part in ensuring operations. This made it possible, when the opportunity arose, to concentrate enormous material forces in the most important areas, to pursue a single line in the field of strategic leadership and, supporting it with an organized rear, to link the combat activities of the troops with the efforts of the entire country.

Very often, heated debates broke out at the State Defense Committee meetings, and opinions were expressed definitely and sharply. If a consensus was not reached, a commission was immediately created with representatives of the extreme parties, which was tasked with reporting the agreed proposals at the next meeting.

In total, during the war, the State Defense Committee adopted about ten thousand decisions and resolutions of a military and economic nature. These decrees and orders were strictly and energetically executed, work began to boil around them, ensuring the implementation of a single party line in leading the country in that difficult and difficult time.

On July 10, 1941, in order to improve the leadership of the armed forces, by decision of the State Defense Committee, the Headquarters of the High Command was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, and on August 8 it was transformed into the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. From then until the end of the war, J.V. Stalin was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

With the formation of the State Defense Committee and the creation of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, headed by the same person - the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, the creation of the structure of state and military leadership of the war was completed. The Central Committee of the Party ensured the unity of action of all party, state, military and economic bodies.

On July 19, 1941, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, J.V. Stalin was appointed People's Commissar of Defense.

It must be said that with the appointment of I.V. Stalin as Chairman of the State Defense Committee, Supreme Commander-in-Chief and People's Commissar of Defense, his firm hand was immediately felt in the General Staff, the central departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense, the State Planning Committee of the USSR and in other government and national economic bodies.

Each member of the State Defense Committee received a specific task and was strictly responsible for the implementation of national economic plans. One of them was responsible for the production of tanks, another - artillery weapons, a third - aircraft, a fourth - supplying ammunition, food and uniforms, etc. JV Stalin personally ordered the commanders of the military branches to join the members of the State Defense Committee and assist them in their work to implement the program for the production of certain military products exactly at the appointed time and of the required quality.

Under the influence of party-political work, the improvement of the art of command and control, and the accumulated experience of armed struggle, the resistance to the enemy intensified. Warriors of all types and types of weapons acted heroically and selflessly in battle. Military discipline has noticeably improved among the troops.

However, despite the energetic measures of the Headquarters and the front command, the situation at the fronts continued to worsen. Under pressure from superior enemy forces, our troops retreated into the interior of the country. In conditions of unfavorable developments in military events for us, the strategic defense of the Soviet Armed Forces also took shape. She was distinguished by very active forms and tenacity of struggle.

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the State Defense Committee showed serious concern about the state of the country's air defense, since fascist German aviation was very active. The enemy had high hopes for the Luftwaffe. He hoped to use a mass of aircraft to disrupt mobilization in the western regions of our country, to disorganize the work of the immediate rear, transport and state apparatus, and to undermine the will of the people to resist. Hitler showered the air robbers and their leader Goering with favors and rewards,

Analyzing the current situation and taking into account the unfavorable forecasts regarding the air defense of the state's main facilities, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, with his characteristic energy, set about strengthening the combat capability of air defense. He invited a group of senior air defense officials to his place and strictly demanded that within two days they present fundamental considerations for strengthening air defense forces and assets, improving their organizational structure and management. The chief of artillery of the Red Army, General N. N. Voronov, generals M. S. Gromadin, D. A. Zhuravlev, P. F. Zhigarev, N. D. Yakovlev and others provided him with great and useful advice with their advice.

The main task of air defense then was to cover Moscow, Leningrad and other large industrial centers where tanks, aircraft, artillery weapons were produced, oil was extracted and the most important railway communications, energy and communications facilities were located.

The most powerful group of air defense forces and means was created for the defense of Moscow. In July, it already included more than 600 fighter aircraft prepared for flights at night, over 1,000 anti-aircraft guns, 370 anti-aircraft machine guns, up to 1,000 searchlights and a large number of barrage balloons.

This air defense organizational structure has completely justified itself. Fascist aviation, taking massive actions, suffered enormous losses, but was still unable to break through to Moscow in large forces. In total, many thousands of bombers took part in the raids, but only a few of them (two to three percent) managed to penetrate the city, and even those were forced to drop their deadly cargo anywhere.

Of course, the process of creating Soviet strategic leadership bodies took some time and underwent a number of fundamental changes dictated by the course of the war and the nature of the military-strategic situation. But gradually, Soviet military science, guided by the experience of armed struggle accumulated even before the Great Patriotic War, achieved significant success in the area of troop control.

However, the absence of a supreme body of military leadership in the USSR, which the Headquarters should have been at the time of the attack by Nazi Germany, naturally could not but initially affect the command and control of troops, the results of the first operations and the general operational-strategic situation. Moreover, the enemy has already gained considerable experience in Europe in organizing war and sudden invasions by shock forces. It must be admitted that both the commanders-in-chief of the directions and the front commands at the beginning of the war made significant shortcomings in troop control. This also had a negative impact on the results of the armed struggle.

It must also be recognized that a certain share of responsibility for shortcomings in the preparation of the armed forces for the start of hostilities lies with the People's Commissar of Defense and senior officials of the People's Commissariat of Defense. As the former Chief of the General Staff and the closest assistant to the People's Commissar, I cannot absolve myself of blame for these shortcomings.

Finally, an important role was also played by the fact that until the last moment - the beginning of Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union - I.V. Stalin did not abandon the hope that the war could be delayed. This to some extent connected the People's Commissar of Defense, who did not dare to approach J.V. Stalin with the project to create Headquarters until the spring of 1941.

At the end of spring, G.K. Zhukov had to once again, in an urgent form, ask the People's Commissar to report to J.V. Stalin on the need to consider the draft plan for organizing the Headquarters of the High Command developed by the General Staff and allow its practical testing at large command and staff exercises. This time the report took place and J.V. Stalin agreed to conduct such an exercise, but away from the border, somewhere on the Valdai-Orsha-Gomel r line. Psel, and then present to him the draft organization of Headquarters, its functional responsibilities and working bodies.

Reconnaissance of the line for the exercise was carried out in May 1941, but the exercise was not carried out. Due to lack of time and other circumstances, activities for the practical preparation of the High Command Headquarters and its bodies were not considered.

Upstairs, at Headquarters, it was especially clear that in war there are different types of mistakes: some of them are correctable, others are difficult to correct. It all depends on the nature of the errors and their scale. Tactical errors, as experience has shown, could be quickly eliminated by higher command. Miscalculations on an operational scale are immeasurably more difficult to correct, especially if the command does not have the necessary forces, means or time at its disposal to put these forces into action where and when it is needed.

To correct the operational-strategic mistakes made by the Headquarters and the command of some fronts in the summer of 1942 (which made it possible for Hitler's troops to reach the Stalingrad area and the North Caucasus), extraordinary efforts were required by the entire country.

As you know, strategy is completely dependent on politics, and mistakes of a military-political nature on a national scale are difficult to correct. Only a country that is waging a just war and has the necessary military and material capabilities can cope with them. And vice versa, when the goals of the war do not meet the vital interests of the people, mistakes of this kind usually lead to catastrophic consequences.

But there are also irreparable mistakes. Such a miscalculation was made by the fascist leadership of Nazi Germany when they risked attacking the Soviet Union. This miscalculation stemmed from an incredible overestimation of its forces and means and an underestimation of the potential capabilities of the USSR - a country where a socialist system exists, where the armed forces, people, party and government are united.

Intoxicated by previous easy victories, Hitler and his political and military entourage believed that their troops would march victoriously through the Land of the Soviets, just as they had in Western Europe. It turned out the other way around. Guided by the adventuristic, nationalist ideology of fascism, the Nazis were unable to correctly understand the issues that decide the outcome of the war, which in preparation for war need to be known and resolved without emotion on the basis of the science of society and war.

Having soberly identified the reasons for our unsuccessful operations in 1942, the Communist Party. The Soviet government, relying on the undeniable advantages of the socialist social and state system, managed to mobilize all the forces of the country for new efforts to repel the enemy. Thanks to the selfless support of the people, the Soviet Supreme High Command found the most acceptable methods and forms of struggle in the given situation, ultimately wrested the initiative from the enemy, and then turned the course of the war in its favor.

During the war, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government paid great attention to the leadership of the armed forces. During the war years, more than 200 meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Organizing Bureau and the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the party took place. Decisions made on issues of foreign policy, economics and strategy were carried out respectively through the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Council of People's Commissars, the State Defense Committee or the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command.

The work of the Headquarters was based on the Leninist principles of centralized command and control of troops. The headquarters directed all military operations of the armed forces on land, at sea and in the air, and built up strategic efforts during the struggle through reserves and the use of partisan forces. Its working body, as already mentioned, was the General Staff.

As a result of the reorganization, the General Staff became a more efficient, operational body and was able to carry out the tasks assigned to it much more effectively throughout the war. Of course, there were shortcomings even after the reorganization, but only in isolated cases and on some complex issues.

To improve the management of the fronts, on July 10, 1941, the State Defense Committee formed three Main Commands in the following areas:

North-West (commander-in-chief - Marshal K. E. Voroshilov, member of the Military Council - A. A. Zhdanov, chief of staff - General M. V. Zakharov);

Western (commander-in-chief - Marshal S.K. Timoshenko, member of the Military Council - N.A. Bulganin, chief of staff - General G.K. Malandin);

South-West (commander-in-chief - Marshal S. M. Budyonny, member of the Military Council - N. S. Khrushchev (since August 5, 1941), chief of staff - A. P. Pokrovsky.

By creating the Main Directional Commands, the State Defense Committee hoped to help the Headquarters ensure the possibility of better command and control of troops and organize interaction between the fronts, air force and naval forces. It was assumed that the Military Councils of the directions, to a greater extent than the front commands, would be able to use local forces and means in the interests of the armed struggle.

However, the first months of the existence of the High Commands showed that they did not live up to expectations. Headquarters still directly controlled the fronts. According to the practice that existed at that time, the commanders-in-chief of the directions did not have at their disposal reserves of troops and material resources to influence the course of military operations. They could not implement any fundamental decisions without the consent of the Supreme High Command and, thus, turned into simple transfer authorities. As a result, in 1942 the Main Directional Commands were liquidated.

Headquarters had to once again direct the actions of a large number of fronts deployed over a vast area. This was inevitably associated with significant difficulties, especially in the area of coordinating the efforts of troops of several fronts operating nearby. The search began for new management methods, which ultimately led to the emergence of an effective form of direct influence of strategic leadership on the activities of the fronts. This is how a very unique institution of strategic leadership emerged - representatives of the Supreme High Command Headquarters, who were sent to the most important sectors.

The role of the Supreme Commander's Headquarters in the Second World War

From the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, the Communist Party launched a gigantic effort to organize a nationwide struggle against the fascist invaders, to reorganize all life on a war footing. The Central Committee of the Communist Party developed measures to mobilize all the forces of the country to fight the enemy. They were set out in a directive letter from the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the party and Soviet organizations of the front-line regions dated June 29, 1941. The letter emphasized that our country had entered into a mortal battle with a dangerous and insidious enemy - German fascism. “In the war imposed on us with fascist Germany, the question of life and death of the Soviet state is being decided, whether the peoples of the Soviet Union should be free or fall into enslavement.”

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR indicated that in order to eliminate the greatest danger looming over the country, it is necessary to mobilize all the forces of the people, reorganize all work on a military basis, organize comprehensive assistance to the front, and increase in every possible way the production of weapons, ammunition, tanks, aircraft, etc. etc. It was necessary to abandon peacetime sentiments and direct all forces to repulse the enemy, to defeat him. The Red Army and Red Navy had to fight to the last drop of blood for our cities and villages. The party called on Soviet patriots to launch partisan warfare behind enemy lines. To lead the people's struggle behind enemy lines, underground party organizations were created.

In order to quickly mobilize the material, spiritual and human forces of the Soviet state, on June 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee was created, in whose hands all power in the state was concentrated. The chairman of the State Defense Committee was J.V. Stalin. As soon as the war began, prominent party and government figures were sent to military work - N. A. Bulganin, A. A. Zhdanov, N. S. Khrushchev, A. S. Shcherbakov and other members of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, many secretaries Central Committee of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics, Regional Committees and Regional Committees. In addition, tens of thousands of responsible party workers went to the front, who played a big role in strengthening discipline and morale in the army. During the war, important areas of work in the rear and at the front were taken over by members of the Central Committee, as well as Soviet military leaders, who, through their organizational, political, economic and military work, together with local party and Soviet organizations, ensured the victory of the Soviet people in the war. In total, more than one and a half million communists joined the ranks of the Soviet Army.

With fiery words and personal example, the communists instilled courage and bravery in the hearts of soldiers. Komsomol youth fought bravely alongside the communists.

On July 3, 1941, the head of the Soviet government, I.V. Stalin, spoke on the radio. He emphasized the deeply just, liberating nature of the Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, and outlined to the people the program developed by the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of People's Commissars for restructuring the country's life on a war footing and mobilizing forces to fight the enemy. J.V. Stalin, recalling the terrible danger looming over the Soviet country, appealed to the entire Soviet people to show courage and dedication in defending the Motherland. “Our forces are innumerable,” he said. “The arrogant enemy will soon have to be convinced of this. Together with the Red Army, many thousands of workers, collective farmers, and intellectuals are rising to war against the attacking enemy.”

The Soviet people, driven by a feeling of ardent love for the Motherland, expressed their determination and readiness to defend every inch of their native land, to fight the enemy until he is completely defeated. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers joined the army and people's militia. 100 thousand people immediately joined the people's militia of Moscow, about 160 thousand people of Leningrad, 32 thousand girls and women of Leningrad voluntarily went to the front as sanitary workers and nurses. Entire families often joined the people’s militia.

In the first five months of the war, 100 thousand communists and 260 thousand Komsomol members left the Moscow party and Komsomol organizations for the front.

Those who remained in the rear sought to contribute through labor to the defeat of the enemy. Women housewives and students went to work in production. Many old workers who were retired returned to the enterprises at their own request.

Raising the Soviet people to the Patriotic War, the Communist Party put forward fighting slogans: “Everything for the front. Everything to defeat the enemy!”

In the very first days of the war, the Soviet government identified areas for the evacuation of industrial enterprises and the population; measures were planned for the distribution of the country's material resources, as well as budgetary allocations to more fully meet the needs of the front and military industry.

On August 16, 1941, the military-economic plan for the fourth quarter of 1941 and for 1942 was approved; in the regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. This plan provided for the widespread expansion of industrial construction in the East, the relocation of enterprises from the front line and their commissioning in new places, an increase in the production of weapons, ammunition, metal, coal, gasoline, etc. In order to create trained reserves for the Soviet Army and Navy, the State Defense Committee on July 16, 1941 adopted a special decision “On the training of reserves in the system of the People’s Commissariat of Defense and the Navy.” In addition, the State Defense Committee introduced, on October 1, 1941, compulsory military training for male citizens aged 16 to 50 years.

Across the country, universal training of Soviet citizens in military affairs unfolded on a broad front. Communists and Komsomol members were in the forefront of universal education. A major role in organizing military training for the population was played by the voluntary society of workers - OSOAVIAKHIM.