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Their hatred for the Soviet Union, for socialism, blinded the German monopolists and their generals. They were totally unaware of the changes in the life of the Soviet Union. The

73 country had been converted by heroic efforts inspired by the Communist Party from an agrarian into a highly industrialised power. In 1940, Soviet heavy industry was producing 12 times as much as prewar Russia, and the machine-building industry 50 times as much as in 1913.  [73•1  The redeployment of industry, its move to the East, begun before the war, helped the nation to survive the initial onslaught. Against 1913 the share of the eastern regions in the economy had by 1940 increased in power output twice over, coal output nearly threefold, oil 350 per cent and steel 50 per cent.  [73•2 

p Yet the Soviet economic potential was still far lower than that of Hitler Germany and the nazi-occupied countries.

p However, the Soviet heavy industry provided the resources for the technical rearmament of the Red Army, the Navy and the Air Force. This against a setting of general scientific progress. Soviet researchers, designers and inventors applied their genius to the new technical problems facing the nation’s defence.

p Shortly before the German attack highly sophisticated arms had been designed and prepared for mass production, among them the heavy KV and the medium T-34 tanks. Put into the field, they proved superior to anything produced before in the line of armour. New planes were designed—the armoured attack aircraft IL-2, and the fighter planes YAK-i, LAGG-3 and MIG-2. Dive-bomber P-2 was in use for daylight raids until the end of the war. Another outstanding innovation was the lorry-mounted jet mortar, fondly known by soldiers as Katyusha.

p Arms production had increased, though until the outbreak of the war it was substantially less than that of nazi Germany. From 1929 to 1941 light, medium and heavy artillery increased seven times over in number and anti-tank and tank artillery 17 times over. The armoured force grew 150 per cent betweeNa 1934 and 1939, and for each plane available in 1930 there were 6.5 in 1939-  [73•3 

p When the Second World War began, the Soviet Government took steps to expand arms production. Decisions were passed to modernise existing plane factories and to build 74 new ones. Ammunition production was to be boosted — factories were expanded and new ones built to produce gun powder, shells, and other ammunition. In addition to the Kirov Works in Leningrad and the Kharkov Plant, the tractor factories in Stalingrad and Chelyabinsk began converting to tank production.

p Mass production of new plane and tank models commenced in 1940. That year and the first six months of 1941, Soviet industry produced 3,719 planes and 2,083 tanks of new designs,  [74•1  not nearly enough for the Armed Forces. Meanwhile, the Soviet Navy was equipped in 1941 with some 500 new vessels.

p With reports of German attack preparations reaching Moscow from various quarters and army intelligence reporting vast troop concentrations along the frontier, measures were taken to enhance combat readiness in the first half of 1941.

p Divisions were moved closer to the western border throughout April, May and June from the interior and the Far East, while the border zone divisions were deployed still closer to the frontier. When Germany attacked there were 170 divisions and 2 brigades, totalling 2,900,000 men, in the western .zones, but the enemy surpassed Soviet strength 1.8 : i, with a 1.5 : i edge in medium and heavy tanks, a 3.2 : i edge in warplanes of the latest design and a 1.25 : i edge in guns and mortars.  [74•2 

p What served the country well in face of the nazi assault was the deployment of armies of the High Command reserve along the Western Dvina and the Dnieper.

p On June 12-15, 1941, the command of the border military districts in the west received .order to deploy divisions stationed in depth closer to the frontier and to areas designated in the defence plans. On June 19, orders came for the commands of the North-Western, Western and South-Western fronts to move into field posts, followed up on June 21 with a directive forming a new front, the Southern.  [74•3 

p However, many of the measures were uncompleted when the war broke out. "Particularly deplorable were the 75 consequences of the delay in putting on a combat footing those troops in the border military districts and fortified areas that were to engage the enemy the moment he struck. This was due largely to the error of judgement as to the probable time of fascist Germany’s attack".  [75•1 

p A Defence Commissariat telegram warning that "a sudden German attack is possible in the course of June 22-23" ^was transmitted at 23.45 hours on June 2i.  [75•2 

p Having built up considerably superior strength in the main directions, the enemy mounted a sudden attack against unalerted Soviet troops in the border area. This frustrated the troop movements to the frontier that had already begun. In the first days of the war the Soviet Union suffered considerable losses in men and materiel, the strength ratio tilting still more drastically in favour of the invader. The Soviet air force, too, was hit hard. Sudden air strikes at airfields, coupled with the Red Army shortage of planes of latest design, enabled the Luftwaffe to gain command of the air.

p The enemy seized the strategic initiative along the entire front and drove on steadily. Assault groups consisting chiefly of panzer and motorised divisions thrust forward, suppressing Soviet resistance. Fighting bitterly, the Red Army retreated. The mobile nazi formations hooked round the Soviet defence flanks and cut deep into the rear. The Soviet troops tried but failed to disengage themselves from the persistent foe, were often encircled, and fought in extremely unfavourable conditions.

p The Soviet troops abandoned towns and villages with a heavy heart. Their setbacks perturbed the nation. The blockade tightened round Leningrad, the cradle of the October Revolution. Heroic efforts were demanded of those in the rear, most of whom were women whose husbands had gone to the battle-lines, and adolescents. People near the combat areas came out in the hundreds of thousands to build fortifications. In the cities, they stood guard over the nation’s property during air raids, and hunted for saboteurs and spies.

p No other country in the same predicament could have survived. But the heroic Soviet people, led by the Communist 76 Party, the people that had built socialism despite the hostile capitalist encirclement, arose as one to stem the nazi tide.

p The scale of the fighting increased. There were no prolonged lulls. Each day the Soviet-German front became more and more the main and decisive theatre of the Second World War.

p The Communist Party called on the nation to rally and drive out the enemy: to preserve the socialist system, the honour and independence of their country, to smash the invader, liberate the enslaved nations of Europe, the German included, and to afford them the freedom of choosing their political and socio-economic order. The war became the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union. Resisting the treacherous nazi attack, the Soviet people affirmed the just, anti-fascist, liberative character of the war.

p Acting on Lenin’s precepts relating to the defence of the socialist homeland, the CPSU Central Committee and Soviet Government drew up measures to assure the mobilisation of all resources. A summary of what had to be done was contained in the Central Committee and Council of People’s Commissars directive of June 29, 1941, which was the basis for Joseph Stalin’s radio address to the nation on July 3.

p The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet announced a general mobilisation on the first day of the war. All groups (born between 1905 and 1918) in all military districts save the Central Asian, Transbaikal and Far Eastern, were called up. Martial law was proclaimed in some republics and regions. The Headquarters of the Supreme Command was formed on June 23, consisting of the People’s Commissar of Defence Marshal S. K. Timoshenko (chairman), Chief of General Staff General G. K, Zhukov, J. V. Stalin, V. M. Molotov, Marshals K. Y. Voroshilov and S. M. Budyonny, and People’s Commissar of the Navy Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov. On June 30 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the Party Central Committee, and the Council of People’s Commissars also formed the State Defence Committee, appointing Joseph Stalin its chairman. The decision said: "The full power of government shall be concentrated in the hands of the State Defence Committee”,  [76•1  which immediately launched a mammoth national effort, mobilising men and resources.

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p The nazis encountered stubborn resistance the moment they crossed the border. Having lost some 300,000 men and officers in the conquest of Poland, France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia, Greece and Luxembourg, Germany’s ground forces lost as many as 389,924 in just the first 53 days of the war against the USSR (from June 22 to August i, 1941).  [77•1 

p Soviet resistance in the frontier battles astounded the nazi command. The German generals had expected a walkover. Now they had to face up to the fact that the Barbarossa schedule had been based on fallacious assumptions. On June 24, 1941, General Franz Haider, Chief of the OKH General Staff, wrote in his diary: "The enemy in the frontier area put up a resistance almost everywhere__No sign of the enemy’s operational withdrawal so far."  [77•2  And Hermann Hoth, Commander of the Third Panzer Group, admitted years later: "In the vicinity of the frontier —the enemy was flung back, it is true, but recovered quickly from the surprise and mounted counter-attacks with reserves and tank groups rushed up from the rear, stemming the German advance again and again."  [77•3 

p Despite the surprise element and the fact that for the first time in history an aggressor committed so vast a force in the opening battle, the Soviet troops kept their head, retained faith in ultimate victory and rendered determined resistance. Their courage in face of overwhelming odds gradually sapped the nazi power.

p The now legendary resistance of the Brest Fortress, the garrison of which fought for over a month against a vastly superior enemy, was a feat among many similar ones. On its ruins are left the inscriptions of its defenders. One of these, made by a mortally wounded soldier, reads: "I shall die, but never surrender! Farewell, my country. July 24, I94i."  [77•4 

p The 13th border post of the goth Frontier Detachment, commanded by A. V. Lopatin, fought for 11 days in a ring of enemies, while men of the gth post, g2nd Detachment, under N. S. Slyusarev, flung back the invader in a hand- to-hand clash. Nor did they flinch when 10 panzers were sent out against them.

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p The feats of valour performed in the early days of the war were an inspiration for the Soviet nation and all champions of freedom and independence in the rest of the world. They became the hallmark of the Patriotic War to be emulated by other heroes. On the first day of the war, airman D. V. Kokorev, discovering that he had run out of ammunition, continued his pursuit of an enemy Messerschmitt-iio and slashed off its tail with his propeller. On July 26, Captain N. F. Gastello directed his plane, which had caught fire, at a concentration of German lorries and gasoline carriers. The explosion was costly for the enemy, who paid a high price for the lives of the Gastello crew.

p The population in the frontier zones and beleaguered towns helped fortify the defences. A partisan movement began on the first day of the war, soon growing into a force that struck terror into the nazis.

p Foreign observers wondered about the secret of the Soviet resistance. But few could answer the question correctly. To do so they had to know the nature of the Soviet system, its material potential, and the makeup of the Soviet man.

p Two diametrically opposite social systems —fascist imperialism and socialism—had come to grips, and^he question was: Which was the more viable?

p The main source of Soviet power lay in the socialist system, triumphant in the country by virtue, of the immense reconstruction accomplished by the people led by the Party. The reconstruction involved a radical change in society’s class structure, giving birth to a state without exploiting classes and class antagonisms, a homogeneous society of working people. The socialist state was the bearer and champion of their interests.

p All grounds for differences between government and people, differences that usually surface in a war, no longer existed. All sections of the Soviet people regarded the policy of their government as their own, backing it and determined to uphold it. Trust in the government was boundless. In a society resting on antagonistic class interests, war rouses the masses against the government’s policy. In Soviet society, based on the identity of the class interest of workers and peasants, the war fused the masses with the Communist Party and the Soviet Government.

p The moral and political unity of the people had been forged long before the war. It was an entirely new factor 79 in the relationship of people among themselves, and vis-a-vis the state. The unity was of great potency, producing a society fused into a mighty whole; the wishes, aspirations and actions of millions blended into one.

p Workers, peasants and the intelligentsia were firmly resolved to defend the socialist state, defying difficulties, defying death, defying hardship. This determination spelled doom for all enemies.

p The Leninist solution of the nationalities question in the multinational Soviet Union had a strong bearing on the strength of the Soviet socialist society. The USSR had become a community of equal socialist people^. The friendship of the peoples of the USSR was a prominent factor in the country’s power of resistance. Loyalty to socialism became a feature of the national character.

p Soviet patriotism combined with genuine proletarian internationalism. The people fought in a patriotic war that was at once internationalist in the loftiest sense of the word. They performed their mission of liberation with unexampled bravery, helping the nations of Europe fling off the fascist yoke. Men and women alike were consumed with bitter hatred of the nazi killers, while conscious of their internationalist bonds with the working people of Germany. It was farthest from their thoughts to impinge on the sovereignty and continued existence of the German nation; instead, they offered the Germans a hand of friendship, helping them emerge from the shame with which nazism had covered them.

p The Great Patriotic War revealed the spiritual mould of the Soviet man—his faith in victory, hatred of the enemy, loVe of country and deep loyalty to the Communist Party and the socialist cause.

Naturally, the outbreak of the war terminated all socialist construction in the country. The Party and the government advanced-a new slogan, "All for the Front, All for Victory!”. It was converted into constructive acts, into a material force the impact of which the nazi invaders soon experienced in full measure.