[introduction.]

p A special place among the sources of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War is held by the leading and guiding role of the Communist Party of the 222 Soviet Union. The Soviet people won a historic victory in that war because the political leader, organiser and inspirer of the working masses in the struggle agairrst the Nazi invaders was the Leninist Party, which was in the vanguard of the people and which enjoyed their boundless trust.

p At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had a great deal of experience in leading the country in wartime conditions-in the years of the Civil War and military intervention by imperialism in 1918-1920.

p In a speech made on behalf of the Central Committee to the Ninth Congress of the Communist Party, Lenin said: "It was only because of the Party’s vigilance and its strict discipline, because the authority of the Party united all government departments and institutions, because the slogans issued by the Central Committee were adopted by tens, hundreds, thousands and finally millions of people as one man, because incredible sacrifices were made-it was only because of all this that the miracle which occurred was made possible. It was only because of all this that we were able to win in spite of the campaigns of the imperialists of the Entente and of the whole world having been repeated twice, thrice and even four times.”  [222•1 

p In the years of the Great Patriotic War the CPSU assumed full responsibility for the destiny of the country and stood at the head of the fighting people. Equipped with Marxist theory and having extensive experience in running the Soviet state, the CPSU became a united mobilising and directing force of Soviet society, which enabled it to make the fullest possible and most rational use of the material and moral potential of the nation to defeat the Nazi invaders.

p A directive of the Soviet Government and the Central Committee of the Party on June 29, 1941, reads: "...It is the task of the Bolsheviks to rally the entire nation around the Communist Party and the Soviet Government for the selfless support of the Red Army, for victory.... Now everything 223 depends on our ability to organise and act without losing a minute, without wasting a single opportunity in the struggle against the enemy.”

p The Communist Party of the Soviet Union set forth the political and military goals of the war, and made clear the just, liberatory nature of the struggle of the Soviet people in defence of the gains of the October Revolution against the imperialist onslaught. In that the Party proceeded from Lenin’s precepts that the understanding by the masses of the goals and reasons of the war is of the utmost importance for the ultimate victory. The Party directed the entire life of the Soviet Union and its armed struggle against the invaders.

p The strength of the Party is in its indissoluble unity with the masses and the great esteem in which it is held by the people. On the battlefield, at factories, on collective and state farms, in the most difficult places, everywhere there were Communists who set an example for the masses in fighting and in labour and led them to victory. Lenin said; "When millions of working people unite as one and follow the best people from their class, victory is assured.”  [223•1  The conditions of the war required that the CPSU concentrate its efforts for the accomplishment of the main task: to rally the Soviet people in the struggle for the defence of the socialist Motherland. This task called for setting up special emergency party and state bodies and for redistributing the party forces to benefit the front.

p Onjule 30, 1941, the State Committee for Defence (SCO) was set up which assumed the functions of supreme state and party leadership for the duration of the war. The SCD included the political and state leaders of the Soviet Union who were full members or alternate members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party. The highest military body which was directly in charge of the armed struggle on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War was the General Headquarters of the Supreme Command. Out of the ten of its members three were members of the 224 Political Bureau, three were full members and two Alternate members of the Party’s Central Committee. On questions of particular importance the Political Bureau, the SCD and the GHQ Supreme Command took joint decisions.

p Already at the end of 1941, the personnel of the Soviet Army and Navy had 1,234,000 Communists, which was more than twice as many as the number of full members and alternate members of the Party in the Soviet armed forces on the eve of the war.  [224•1  Altogether, about 6’0 per cent of the party membership took part in the fighting on the fronts of war.  [224•2 

p The immediate representatives of the Party in the Soviet armed forces were political workers. In his book Little Land, Leonid Brezhnev, who went through the whole war as a political worker in the army, speaks warmly about the Communists who discharged their party functions in the army. "The majority of our political department men, political instructors, Komsomol organisers and propagandists managed to strike the right note, they carried weight with the soldiers and, what is most important, the men knew that when things got tough those who called on them to stand their ground would be at their side, would stay with them and advance together with them, gun in hand and in the lead. The word of the Party, uttered with deep feeling and reinforced by deeds and by personal example in battle, was thus our main weapon. That was why the political workers became the heart and soul of the armed forces."  [224•3 

p To be a Communist during the war meant to be a committed, staunch defender of the socialist Motherland. Party members were always in the front ranks of the fighters, setting an example of courage and valour. The supreme law in the life and work of a party member was summed up in the watchword "Communists, to the fore!" And the Communists-commanders and political workers, 225 officers and men-were always in the fore. Three million Communists gave up their lives on the frontlines of the Great Patriotic War. Of those who were awarded the highest military title of Hero of the Soviet Union in the years of the Great Patriotic War, 70 per cent were full members or candidate members of the Leninist Communist Party.  [225•1 

p As we mentioned earlier on, some Western historians admit the advantages of the social and state system of the Soviet Union and its military organisation. Although very few of them write about the activities of the Communist Party in the war years. The French historian Yves Trotignon notes, though, that during the war the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "embodies the Soviet Motherland more than at any other time".  [225•2  However, assessments like this one are very few and far between, for in most cases the role played by the CPSU is either distorted or just ignored. Some bourgeois historians assert that during the war the Party and its Central Committee did not play any significant part at all.  [225•3 

p The ideological enemies of communism are well aware of the strength of the Communist Party and its leading role in the war effort, in the victories won by the Soviet army over the fascist invaders. However, when they speak about this role they never lose a chance to say something disparaging about the CPSU. For example, they like to hold forth about the contradictions which allegedly divided party and military leaders in the Soviet Union. Publications of this sort are grist for the mill of the Western Sovietologists and the anti-communist propaganda-mongers. One such Kremlin-watcher, David Dallin (a former Menshevik), speaks about a conflict between "the Party’s communist position and national tendencies”. Raymond Garthoff divides all Soviet army officers into two groups: “traditionalists” and 226 “technocrats”. Roman Kolkowicz has drawn up a long list of such “contradictions”. "Bourgeois historians who claim that there were contradictions between the Party and the army, between party leaders and military leaders are trying to counterpose the commanding party personnel and command cadres to political cadres, and contend that the first group embodies the army and the second group, the Party,” writes Soviet Professor Yu. Petrov.  [226•1  There is not a grain of truth in all these assertions by reactionary historians.

p Proof of the growing prestige of the Communist Party, its inviolable unity; the faith that Soviet people had in the ideals of the Party and the recognition of its great services in the defence of the socialist Motherland was its growing membership in the years of the Great Patriotic War. A-total of 5,319,000 patriots joined the Party in this trying period in the life of Soviet people. In their applications for membership Soviet officers and men wrote "I want to go into battle as a Communist”. Their probation period was a test of courage in the life-and-death fight with the enemy. "What privileges could anyone expect, what rights could the Party grant him on the eve of a fierce engagement? Only one privilege, one right, one duty-to be the first up and into attack, the first to dash forward in the face of withering fire,” wrote Leonid Brezhnev.  [226•2 

The German imperialists lost two world wars. After the First World War General Hoffmann of the German General Staff wrote a book The War of Lost Opportunities. After the Second World War, Hitler’s Field Marshal Manstein wrote a book Verlorene Siege (The Lost Victories). Both had hoped to win. That war was forced upon the Soviet Union. But the armed forces created and led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union defeated the aggressors and established peace on earth.  [226•3