The war was exceptionally cruel, the scale of this cruelty surpassed anything that history had known before. The death toll among those who fought with weapons in their hands is a smaller part; for every one who fought at the front, several civilians died. In our country, this is due to the fact that the occupation army (I specifically use this term because it was not only the Germans) launched a terrible genocide against the civilian population.
Archpriest Alexander Ilyashenko
Recently I was in Belarus, which suffered terribly during the Great Patriotic War; every fourth Belarusian died. The population of Belarus has still not reached its pre-war level. I was in Khatyn, this is one of hundreds of villages completely destroyed by the Germans along with their inhabitants.
In the place where each house stood there is a stele listing the names of those who lived there: old people, children, including infants, two-three-year-olds, judging by the names - Belarusians, Poles, Jews. People were different by nationality, by faith, by culture, but they lived peacefully with each other until the invaders came and brought a new world order.
Destruction of Dresden
In Germany, too, many civilians died because the Allies covered it with a carpet of bombs. The so-called strategic bombings pursued the same goal that was pursued, for example, by Tamerlane, who cut off the heads of his enemies and made mounds from the severed heads - so that even distant descendants would not dare to think about fighting such a cruel winner.
Here this was done not with a sword or saber, but with a modern weapon - an aerial bomb. To set the city on fire, incendiary bombs were used, which weighed only a few kilograms, but there were many of them. And hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people died in the fires.
It is obvious that our former Western allies do not want their activities to be perceived as merciless, to put it mildly, so they sharply underestimate civilian casualties among German residents.
Generally accepted statistics claim that 600 thousand people died from bombing in Germany, while in Dresden the deaths were reported by some as 50 thousand, by others as 120, by others as 150, and the widely accepted figure is 135 thousand. As far as I understand, they simply took the arithmetic average between 120 and 150 and got 135 thousand, such a balanced average figure.
But in recent years, a book was published by a general who was responsible for civil defense in Germany. He writes that in Dresden, before the entry of Soviet troops, they managed to count 220-240 thousand corpses, and these are not final estimates. Unfortunately, we can only guess.
In order to imagine the scale of what could have actually happened, I propose to do some basic calculations: there were more than a million people in Dresden; The population of the city doubled due to the fact that refugees arrived in it, they were placed in schools, in theaters, in cinemas so that people had a roof over their heads.
As a result of the bombing, more than 60 percent of the buildings were completely destroyed. This means that we can assume that 60 percent of the total number of people died. That is, we can talk about 600 thousand victims, among whom were Americans, British, and Russians - prisoners of war.
One of the main symbols of Dresden - the Frauenkirche - was literally destroyed during the bombing
In Dresden, the British caused a firestorm to occur; the temperature in the center was more than 2000 degrees - the bricks crumbled. And it is quite possible that there is simply nothing left of the people, and since there were unaccounted refugees there, then go ahead and count them.
But the bombing itself was calculated with fantastic cruelty and precision. A huge number of bombs were dropped on the city, the city was on fire, there was destruction, but the residents were informed in a timely manner and were able to hide in bomb shelters. The planes took off, people began to come out of shelters to put out fires, help the wounded, and dig out those trapped under the rubble.
At the headquarters of the Royal Air Force it was quite correctly calculated that in three hours people would come out of the air-raid shelters, return, if the houses remained intact, to their homes, someone would work on the street, and help would just approach them from nearby towns. So, three hours later, when help had already arrived and everyone had left their shelters, the second wave of bombers flew in, and the warning system no longer worked because it was destroyed. And then a firestorm broke out in the city.
The center of Dresden burned with such intensity that people were torn apart by the hurricane and thrown into the fire. Streams of already hot air were rapidly coming from the outskirts, because first the outskirts were set on fire, and then the center was set on fire. Everything was calculated.
And during the day, the remnants of those who survived this nightmare were bombed again, this time by the Americans. They flew during the day, accompanied by fighters, which, when the bombers bombed, descended at low level and shot everyone they saw. On our website “” there are memories of those who survived these terrible bombings.
If not 100 thousand, or 150 thousand, or even 200, but more than half a million people died in Dresden, then it turns out that strategic bombing in Germany took the lives of more than a million people.
But what’s interesting is that half of the bomb tonnage was dropped not on Germany, but on France and Belgium; the cities were bombed because there were Germans there. Moreover, English reports are now published in the open press: so many bombs were dropped on cities, so many bombs were dropped on industrial facilities, so many bombs were dropped on other targets.
Now the question is, what are other goals? After all, the British bombed at night, and in the dark they missed. The English’s ability to wage information warfare is simply amazing - they work smartly on wording to confuse people.
And I would also like to add that the entire West criticizes Stalin and the Stalinist era, but before the war no one criticized like that, before the war they wrote praises for Comrade Stalin. England signed trade treaties with the Soviet Union, knowing that prisoners were working here, they knew it very well. And after the war, when Russia showed itself as a mighty superpower, then they were afraid of the extraordinary strength of our people, and then the era was declared Stalinist. This is like a kind of screen, because they are afraid not of Stalin, but of the Russian nation, because it was not Stalin who won the war, but the Russian people.
It was not Stalin who nominated the commanders Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Konev, amazing scientists, engineers, aircraft builders, military officers - it was the Russian people who nominated them. Stalin simply realized that he was on the same path as the people, that if the war was lost, then it would be a question of his life and death. The fact that an era is named after him is also to some extent a propaganda move, because an era is created not only by dictators and their henchmen, but by great people: Kurchatov, Korolev, Tupolev.
"Brilliant performance" in Asia
We must remember that during World War II, more than half of the total civilian population died in Asia. There were no particularly fierce, stubborn battles on land, because when the Japanese advanced and captured Singapore and Burma, the British army offered virtually no resistance: the troops either left or surrendered. As it turned out, the British did not want to fight a trained strong army, why should they shed their blood?
In one photo album dedicated to the war, I saw a photograph - it was so blurry, you had to look closely to understand: human bodies were lying and it was written that these were the result of a bombing. If you look closely, you can see that there is no destruction, and you can see that a woman is lying on her stomach in a pool of blood, her skirt is pulled up. This is not a bombing, but the monstrous cruelty of the Japanese - most likely, they abused her and then killed her. They buried the Chinese up to their necks in the ground, cut off their heads, and starved them, but we know practically nothing about this. Why, it's hard to say.
The British worked extremely subtly and competently in the information space and presented their failures as their victories. In 1956, the book “History of the World War” was translated into Russian, which contained articles by major German generals.
The chief of staff of Rundstedt's army in the West, Walter Warlimont, writes about the evacuation of the British from Dunkirk. The fact is that the Germans struck at the junction between the British army and the French, the English were deployed from the coast, and the French further. And although the British army was fully prepared for combat - equipped with the latest weapons, it had hundreds of tanks, aircraft, artillery - it was sitting in the trenches, but, as it turned out, it was absolutely unable to resist.
Instead of pitting their tanks, artillery, and aviation against the German tank divisions, they simply fled the battlefield, betraying and abandoning their allies. Not only from the battlefield, but also from the mainland, here they must be given their due, they were able to evacuate almost all of their soldiers with the exception of those whom they call deserters. They appeared on the seashore in the very last days, and before that they were hiding in basements and other secluded places. But they did not evacuate them, but left them on the shore.
Now let’s ask ourselves a question: after all, the entire army is retreating, and everyone is trying to get on the ship as quickly as possible, why waste time and hide somewhere? The last to arrive were only those who held the defense around Dunkirk. These are not deserters, but defenders, but they were betrayed twice, abandoned on the shore, condemned to captivity, and, in addition, labeled deserters.
So, General Warlimont writes: “Even Goebbels’s victorious fanfare could not cast a shadow on this brilliant performance.” Military terminology knows advance and retreat, but does not know “action.” Apparently the translator has found a perfect equivalent to the English original. And the escape cannot possibly be brilliant. That is, if you carefully read this phrase, it is clear that the German general could not have written like that, this is the hand of an English editor.
As I understand it, German generals in the West were allowed to publish their memoirs on the condition that they fulfill certain demands of the British intelligence services. So, there cannot be a “brilliant performance,” translated into Russian it is called “shameful flight.” But those who are waging the information war in England, of course, must be given their due, they are simply well done. Unfortunately, we can't do that. They win lost battles in the information space, and we lose won ones.
They say that in Germany they already write in school textbooks that America won the war, it’s simply amazing! But as far as defeating Japan is concerned, the priority here, of course, really belongs to America. Throughout 1942-44, the war was fought at sea, and the war at sea, like it or not, is fought according to some rules: after all, the enemies do not see each other in person, there are no local residents, there is no unjustified merciless evil.
But when the war approached the borders of Japan, the Americans used the same method as in Europe: huge air armadas dropped bomb loads on peaceful Japanese cities, on civilians. For example, in Tokyo they created the same firestorm as in Dresden. It is estimated that about 100 thousand people died, more than in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, such a massive bombing is more effective and efficient than the atomic bombings.
Information warfare: are all methods good?
The Americans used atomic bombs, this is a manifestation of scientific and technical power, on the one hand, but from a military point of view, it is a demonstration of their own cowardice and the lack of an elementary tactical and strategic level, because, in fact, they were not fighting with an army capable of responding blow to blow , but with civilians who cannot resist.
When I started collecting memories of people who survived the atomic bombings on the Internet, to my surprise, there were very few of them, about a dozen and a half at most. They don't publish. And they all end with a call for peace.
But along with the memories of bombing survivors, the names of feature films emerge, for example, “London after the Soviet nuclear bombing” and several other films where the Russians bomb someone. The information war is being waged brilliantly, simply brilliantly. Of course, illegal methods are used, but there is no need to demand permitted methods. If atomic bombs were used against civilians, why should historical truth be observed? And so the unprepared reader gets the impression of aggression and monstrous cruelty of the Soviet Union.
I have a video disc “Battle for the Island of Guam”, there are two amazing things there. The first is that the American command decided to seize the island, and it is clear that they need to land troops. And so the marines from the landing ships disembark and go on the attack, but, as the announcer says, it turned out that they were landing at low tide, when the sea recedes several kilometers from the coast. This means that some staff official mixed up the time of high and low tide, he doesn’t care, he’s sitting at headquarters and nothing will happen to him.
“Heroic Marines, overcoming difficulties, go to the bottom, well done,” but this is horror. An order is an order, an order is not discussed, and thousands of young guys die under the bullets of Japanese machine guns. And if they had approached at high tide, then the naval artillery could have been more effective. This is one moment.
And the second point: the announcer says that the Japanese treated the local population terribly, this is apparently correct, but “these Japanese said that the Americans treat the civilian population terribly and scared the poor people so much that they simply run away.”
The announcer's voice comments on the documentary footage: “Do you see a woman running?” Indeed, the camera holds a running woman: “she is running from an American soldier who wants to catch up with her, to say that he doesn’t mean anything bad, and she runs, you see, runs up to a cliff and jumps off the cliff.” She really jumps and crashes. “But look, there’s a child standing, and he’s shaking violently: that’s how the Japanese scared the local civilians.” Then an American soldier with a rifle accidentally appears in the frame and immediately disappears.
The valor of Russian soldiers
And in contrast to this, on our website “Uninvented Stories about War” there is a memoir of a unique person - Viktor Nikolaevich Leonov. Marine, officer, twice hero of the Soviet Union - an epic personality of epic proportions. Twice heroes are pilots, twice heroes are generals, but twice heroes are infantrymen, I don’t know how many such heroes there were who were on the front line, because they quickly died there.
“One of the most high-profile cases of the Leonov detachment is the capture of 3.5 thousand Japanese soldiers and officers in the Korean port of Wonsan.
“We were 140 fighters,” says Leonov. “We unexpectedly landed on a Japanese airfield for the enemy and entered into negotiations. After that, ten of us representatives were taken to the headquarters of the colonel, the commander of the aviation unit, who wanted to make hostages out of us.
I joined the conversation when I felt that the representative of the command, Captain 3rd Rank Kulebyakin, who was with us, was, as they say, pushed against the wall...
Looking into the eyes of the Japanese, I said that we had fought the war in the west and had enough experience to assess the situation, that we would not be hostages, but rather die, but we would die together with everyone who was at headquarters. The difference is, I added, that you will die like rats, and we will try to escape from here...
Hero of the Soviet Union Mitya Sokolov immediately stood behind the Japanese colonel, the rest also knew their job. Andrei Pshenichnykh locked the door, put the key in his pocket and sat down on a chair, and the hero Volodya Olyashev (after the war - Honored Master of Sports, repeated champion of the Union in cross-country skiing) lifted Andrei along with the chair and placed him directly in front of the Japanese commander. Ivan Guznenkov went to the window and reported that we were not high, and Hero of the Soviet Union Semyon Agafonov, standing at the door, began throwing an anti-tank grenade. The Japanese, however, did not know that there was no fuse in it. The colonel, forgetting about the handkerchief, began to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his hand and after some time signed the act of surrender of the entire garrison.
Three and a half thousand prisoners were lined up in a column of eight people. They carried out all my commands at a run. We had no one to escort such a convoy, so I put the commander and chief of staff in the car with me. If even one, I say, runs away, blame yourself... While they were leading the column, there were already up to five thousand Japanese in it..."
And on the second of September 1945, the result of this monstrous bloodshed was finally summed up, a manifestation of the most extreme limits of the human spirit - from the lowest, which can include gas chambers, strategic bombings, medical experiments on living people, to the extraordinary heights of generosity and valor . And we are grateful to those who fell on the fields of this bloody war, fighting not for some class, political, national interests, but for the truth of God.
The Soviet Union and the Russian soldier turned out to be worthy in a spiritual sense, and the Lord granted the Great Victory to our Fatherland.
Prepared by Tamara Amelina
summary of other presentations“The course of the Great Patriotic War” - Hitler was unable to capture Stalingrad. Gko. Transition to strategic defense. Hitler's autograph: From the memories of a battle participant. Documents and materials: Technical support also remained - the presence of tank and air armies, artillery reserves. J.V. Stalin. District Councils. General Staff of the Red Army. Counter-offensive of the Red Army. Authorized State Defense Committees. The beginning of the war. The enemy sought to destroy headquarters, communications centers, railway communications, and bridges.
“Great battles of the great war” - The city is a hero. In the photo, the 85-meter sculpture “The Motherland Calls” crowning the memorial. In the name of the living - Victory! Victory parade. In the name of the future - Victory! Great Patriotic War 1941 - 1945. Defense of the Brest Fortress. Street fighting in Stalingrad. On July 12, the largest oncoming tank battle in history took place in the Prokhorovka area. On June 30, the State Defense Committee (GKO) was created. In the name of the Fatherland - Victory!
“Great Patriotic War” - War of Liberation. Summer-spring campaign. Fascist Germany. Summer-autumn campaign. Losses. Offensive actions. Soviet troops. Main events of the summer-autumn campaign. The Germans opened churches. Agreement on the formation of an army in the USSR. The largest battles. Winter-spring campaign. Finland. The war of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Yalta conference. Counteroffensive near Moscow.
“History of the Second World War” - Preparation for the war with the USSR. Three army groups were created to attack the USSR. South direction. The Great Patriotic War. Commander F.I. Kuznetsov. Leningrad found itself under siege. Blitzkrieg. The strategic goals outlined by Germany under the Barbarossa plan could not be achieved. Army Group Center. Central direction. From mid-June, vacations for personnel were cancelled. As a result of border battles, the Wehrmacht inflicted a heavy defeat on the Red Army.
The Nazis planned to march through Moscow in ceremonial formation. Underwater on tanks. Through the streets in shame. A sea of fire fell from the sky. Nine in one battle. Threats and forecasts. The pilot of the Messer jumped out with a parachute and was captured. Steel hedgehogs. Horovets' car was attacked by German fighters. Molotov cocktail. It was not only Hitler who believed in the “lightning war” in 1941. A line in history.
“Briefly about the war of 1941-1945” - Zina Portnova. There was a holy war against fascism. People. Generation of winners. Lenya Golikov. Gabriel Epifanovich Sobyanin. The enemy is defeated. Victory Salute. Defense of Sevastopol. The Great Patriotic War. Chuprov Alexander Emelyanovich. 13 cities were awarded the honorary title of “hero city”. Brest Fortress. Leningrad blockade. People of the Earth. There were so many nameless heroes. Sobyanin died a heroic death.
How the magnitude of military losses was concealed
June 22 is approaching, and again we remember the saddest date of the last seventy years of Russian history. There will probably be conversations and articles about the war again, the eternal questions “how?”, “why?”, and “at what cost”?
The answer to the last question - about the cost of war, and not just about the price, but about the price expressed in human lives, itself has its own history, a small addition to which is the document published below, which we found in the archives. It once again testifies to the difficulty with which the truth about military losses made its way to the light, making its way through the dense barrier of deliberate falsifications and concealments, designed, at all costs, to downplay the price paid.
Anyone who has read numerous studies on this issue knows how the authors like to list the milestones of loss estimates:
Stalin – 7 million (1946):
“As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union lost about seven million people in battles with the Germans, as well as thanks to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German penal servitude.”
Khrushchev – 20 million (1961):
“Can we sit idly by and wait for a repeat of 1941, when the German militarists launched a war against the Soviet Union, which claimed the lives of two tens of millions of Soviet people?” .
Gorbachev – 27 million (1990):
“The war claimed almost 27 million Soviet lives. And besides, there were millions of wounded, shell-shocked, and frostbitten.” .
As for Khrushchev’s “two tens of millions” and Brezhnev’s “more than twenty million,” one can only guess at the sources of these figures. The book “Demographic Modernization of Russia: 1900-2000” in relation to Brezhnev’s assessment says: “The documents preserved in the archives of the Central Statistical Office of the USSR make it possible to approximately restore the calculation methodology and statistical materials underlying this assessment. It relied on data and estimates of the number of civilian deaths (direct losses) in the occupied territories (13.1 million people), estimates of military losses (from 7 to 8.8 million people) and estimates of losses combined into a rather vague category “the excess of the sharply increased mortality over the greatly reduced birth rate” in the occupied territories (3–3.5 million people). Another 2.4 million people were added to these losses - an excess of deaths over births in the non-occupied territory. In total, we received from 25.5 to 27.8 million people. The results of the calculations were transferred “upstream” and there they were transformed into a vague formula “over 20 million”.
The published document sheds light on the path of this “transformation”. We are talking about a secret note of “special importance” sent to the CPSU Central Committee in November 1956 by the then head of the USSR Central Administration Vladimir Nikonovich Starovsky, in which he, responding to a request from D. Shepilov, prompts acceptable, in his opinion, formulations, which were subsequently used by the country's leadership.
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declassified In the Central Committee of the CPSU Comrade Shepilov asks to telegraph the figures to be published about the human losses of the Soviet army and the Soviet people during the Second World War. In this regard, I report: a) in an interview with I.V. Stalin, published in the press on March 14, 1946, it was said: “... As a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irretrievably lost in battles with the Germans, and also thanks to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German penal servitude - about seven million people. In other words, the Soviet Union lost several times more people than England and the United States of America combined.” b) according to calculations by the Central Statistical Bureau, the population decline of the USSR during the war years as a result of the losses of the Soviet army, the extermination of Soviet people by the occupiers and the excess of mortality over the birth rate amounted to more than 20 million people; c) from the figures published in the CSO collection on the population of the USSR for 1940 (191.7 million) and for April 1956 (200.2 million), as well as from data on population growth published in recent years, we can conclude that the losses in the USSR during the war were not 7 million, but much more. In this regard, I would consider it necessary to give Comrade. Shepilov was instructed either not to name the number of losses at all, limiting himself to the wording “many millions,” or to name the number – over 20 million people, giving it approximately in the following wording: “During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union lost over 20 million people in battles with the invaders, as a result of the extermination of the population by the occupiers, as well as from a decrease in the birth rate and an increase in mortality, especially in the occupied areas.” I ask for instructions. HEAD OF THE CSO OF THE USSR (V. STAROVSKY) RGAE. F. 1562. Op. 33 D. 2990. L.75 |
Thus, we can consider that the basis of the figures of both Khrushchev and Brezhnev was first indicated by Starovsky in this note. By the way, “Gorbachev’s” “almost 27 million” formally fully fit into the definition of “over 20 million people” from the letter from the head of the USSR Central Statistical Office. Apparently, the Central Statistical Office still kept its own count of losses, and this was largely due to Starovsky. But it is also true that he considered it completely normal to hide the true scale of losses from the people and the whole world and looked for ways to continue to hide the figures at his disposal in the changed political situation.
Even in his top-secret letter, Starovsky does not name specific figures, but gives evasive and “rounded” estimates. In addition, he was mistaken, and perhaps disingenuous, by including losses from a decrease in the birth rate in his proposed formulation. Such losses, albeit hypothetical, of course, occurred, but with them the “price of Victory” would have been even greater.
It remains only to emphasize once again that everyone who uses loss figures must remember and understand that we are talking not only about combat and other army losses, these numbers also include deaths civilians. After Stalin, all Soviet leaders directly indicated this in their speeches.
We will only add that this includes those who died from fascist repressions, in particular victims of the Holocaust; those killed by bombing and other military actions of both fighting armies; as well as those who died from hunger and disease - i.e. from increased, compared to peacetime, mortality, both in the territory occupied by the Germans and in the Soviet rear, including among prisoners of Soviet camps and special settlers, and also those who forever left the territory of the USSR during the war.
In conclusion, let us recall that “the figures on the population of the USSR published in the CSO collection”, which are mentioned in Starovsky’s note, are data from the statistical collection “National Economy of the USSR” Andreev E.M., Darsky L.E. and Kharkova T.L. Population of the USSR. 1922-1959. M.: Nauka, 1993.
Mikhalev Sergey Nikolaevich. Human losses in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Statistical research. 2nd ed. Krasnoyarsk: RIO KPGU, 2000. P.97. Here is a “Certificate on combat losses of Red Army personnel in the Great Patriotic War” and a link to TsAMO is given. F.14. Op. 3028. D.8. L.1-2.
It is interesting that modern official data on military losses, which first appeared in 1990 (Military Historical Journal. 1990, 3) and in expanded form in 1993 (in the book “Classified as Classified” M.: Voenizdat, 1993) in the number of killed and deceased from wounds practically coincide with these figures from back in 1945.
The Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945. M. Nauka, 1976. P. 369; Perkovsky A.L., Pirozhkov S.I. From the history of demographic development of the 1930-1940s (using the example of the Ukrainian SSR). /Economy. Demography. Statistics. M.: 1990. P.189-190; Polyan P. Victims of two dictatorships. M., 1996. P.368-369. Referring to the same archival sources, these authors give different figures, the smallest of which is 6075 thousand dead civilians.
Demographic modernization of Russia 1900-2000. M.: New publishing house, 2006. P.453.
Demographic modernization of Russia 1900-2000. M.: New publishing house, 2006. P.439.
Dmitry Trofimovich Shepilov (1905-1995), in 1956 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and a candidate member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee (equivalent to the Politburo in 1952-1966).
National economy of the USSR. M.: Gosstatizdat, 1956. P.17.
The question of the human losses of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War remains open to this day. So far, only irretrievable losses among military personnel have been relatively accurately calculated. But those killed on the battlefield and those who died in hospitals are only a minority of the total number of human lives that the war claimed.
FOR THE FIRST TIME, the “official” figure, which summarized, as it was believed, all the losses of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, was given in February 1946 by J.V. Stalin. According to his words, published in the magazine "Bolshevik", "... as a result of the German invasion, the Soviet Union irrevocably lost in battles with the Germans, as well as thanks to the German occupation and the deportation of Soviet people to German penal servitude - about 7 million people." It is difficult to understand why this particular figure was named, but the very desire to underestimate it can be explained: the Cold War was beginning, and the Soviet leadership was clearly trying to hide from its astute allies - by then former allies - the real extent of the damage inflicted on the country.
At the beginning of 1961, N.S. Khrushchev made a different figure known to the world community, indicating that the war “claimed two tens of millions of lives of Soviet people.” Although this figure is difficult to substantiate scientifically, it became a textbook for almost a quarter of a century, being included in all scientific works and works of art.
THIS, however, did not mean that the scientific search completely stopped. Even during the years of “stagnation,” attempts were made to clarify specific figures. Russian historians and demographers have already developed a special technique that allows them to “cleanse” the numbers from falsifications.
AFTER the war - mainly in the early 50s. - Population censuses were carried out in almost all countries at war, which made it possible to roughly calculate the scale of losses. In the USSR, such a census was postponed for a long time and was carried out only in 1959: from the point of view of demographic changes, the 13.5 years that had passed at that time since May 1945 was a long time. As a result, specialists had to use other historical sources - in particular, for example, voter lists for elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1946 - 1954.
According to calculated data, in mid-1941 the most probable population of the USSR (including the population of territories annexed after the start of the Second World War, in 1939 - 1940) was 196.7 million people, and at the beginning of 1946 - 170 .5 million, i.e. 26.2 million less.
Based on military operational reports from the fronts, materials from the General Staff and reports from the military medical department, the total irretrievable losses of the payroll of the Armed Forces, together with border and internal troops, were determined: 8 million 668 thousand people. The remaining losses - about 18 million - fell on the civilian population of the occupied and front-line territories.
At an international scientific conference held in March of this year at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, most experts agreed on these figures. Of the 18 million civilians, about 8 million 500 thousand people died in the occupied and front-line territories from hunger, bombing, artillery shelling, difficult living conditions, and backbreaking labor. Another 2 million 165 thousand died in forced labor in Germany. The number of those deliberately exterminated as a result of Hitler's policy of genocide (shot, died in ghettos, prisons, concentration camps) amounted to approximately 7 million 420 thousand people.
IN THE RESULT, as we see, the losses of the civilian population were almost twice as high as the combat losses of the USSR Armed Forces.
Along with direct losses, demographers also highlight indirect losses from increased wartime mortality, that is, premature deaths due to deterioration in life, unsatisfactory medical care, and severe nervous stress. This also includes losses associated with the reduced birth rate, which during the war years amounted to 30 - 50% of the pre-war level. All these losses are estimated at 22 - 23 million people.
Thus, direct and indirect losses of the population of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War, based on available data, can be estimated at 48 - 50 million people. These figures will undoubtedly be refined in the future.
Olga VERBITSKAYA, Candidate of Historical Sciences
On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, humanity once again turns to its lessons, to the experience of cooperation within the framework of the anti-Hitler coalition, and seeks to understand the origins of Nazi aggression. That is why it is very important to know and protect the truth about the most terrible war in history and to suppress any attempts to distort or falsify it.
An honest and objective position is especially important today, when the world is faced with the threat of terrorism, the propaganda of violence, interethnic and interreligious intolerance.
We are decades away from that war. But debates about its causes, winners and consequences are still raging. Why is so much importance attached to the vicissitudes of World War II? Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Sergei MIRONOV talks about this.
Was war inevitable? Although history does not have a subjunctive mood, most experts agree that there was no fatal inevitability of the most tragic battle of the 20th century. As W. Churchill wrote in his famous book “The Second World War”: “It was not difficult to keep Germany disarmed for 30 years, and the victors properly armed...”
The policy of “appeasement” of Nazi Germany pursued by the European powers, ignoring its rapid militarization, other violations of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919, and most importantly, the desire of the Nazis to strangle the hated Soviet Union with the help of the Nazis - these are the fundamental reasons that led to the Second World War.
Hitler skillfully took advantage of the favorable political situation, especially since it corresponded to his strategic plans to gain “living space in the East.” But first, contrary to the hopes of his connivers, he turned against them - to the West - and occupied almost all of Europe.
It was a lightning-fast blitzkrieg of the aggressor, which met practically no serious resistance: the Nazi war against Poland lasted 4 weeks, against Norway - 8, Holland was taken in 5 days, Belgium - in 17. France fell into the hands of Hitler in 6 weeks, Yugoslavia - in 11 days, Greece - 3 weeks.
Of course, there may be different approaches to historical events. As the famous French writer G. Flaubert correctly noted: “We would have a different idea of Caesar if the history of the Gallic War had been written by Vercingetoris” (Caesar’s main opponent in this war).
Unfortunately, along with objective scientific research, outright falsifications of the history of the Second World War have recently become widespread. Under the slogan of restoring historical justice, baseless, false myths about it are created.
The war claimed millions of human lives. I consider it extremely immoral to manipulate the events of 70 years ago for the sake of political expediency.
Today we often hear that the USSR is guilty of starting the war along with Nazi Germany. The focus of criticism is mainly directed at the Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the USSR of 1939 and the secret protocol to it, which is often called the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.”
The truth is that the signing of these documents was a forced step for the Soviet Union. It was preceded by the Munich Agreement on the division of Czechoslovakia in 1938 (“Munich Agreement”), the failure of negotiations between the USSR with England and France on allied actions against Germany due to the fault of the West. Offers from the Soviet Union to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia, including with the use of armed forces, were ignored. 
By that time, the Anglo-German and German-French declarations of non-aggression had already been concluded. Almost all leading European states tried, first of all, to protect themselves at the expense of others. In the end, everyone lost.
Poland was no exception. She seriously considered the possibility of an alliance with Hitler against the USSR in 1934, and considered herself “the guardian of the West against the penetration of communism from the East.” In 1938, Poland took a direct part in the division of Czechoslovakia, receiving the Cieszyn region. But she herself became the first victim of fascist aggression.
By the time the treaty between Germany and the USSR was signed, the threat of a major war was clearly brewing in the world. This was clear from the military-political plans and specific actions of the Nazis. In addition, at that time the USSR, faithful to its allied obligations to Mongolia, was conducting military operations against Japan in the area of the Khalkhin Gol River. The Soviet state was faced with a dilemma: to remain alone with Germany and the prospect of a war on two fronts, or to try to delay the inevitable invasion.
Another thing is that Stalin did not expect such a quick outcome of events.
Much is said today about the so-called “occupation” of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union.
But in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, throughout the entire period of their stay within the Soviet Union, with the exception of the true occupation of Germany during the Great Patriotic War, national authorities acted.
As for the procedure for the Baltic states to join the USSR in 1940, it can be treated differently. But the decisions of the highest legislative bodies of the Baltic states, which received significant support from voters in the elections, complied with the norms of international law of that time.
Yes, having joined the USSR, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians experienced the consequences of political repression carried out throughout the Soviet state. But what fate would await them if Hitler won the war? I will cite excerpts from a memorandum dated April 2, 1941, by the “plenipotentiary for the centralized solution of problems of the Eastern European space” Rosenberg regarding the residents of the Reichskommissariat “Ostland”, which was supposed to include Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: “It will be necessary to ensure the outflow of significant layers of the intelligentsia.. ... to the central Russian regions, then begin to populate the Baltic states with large masses of German peasants... It is possible that Danes, Norwegians, Dutch, and, after the victorious end of the war, the British would also move to these areas, in order to annex this region in one or two generations, already completely Germanized, to the indigenous lands of Germany...".
Note that these plans were hatched even before the attack on the USSR.
People who are “not friends” with history also claim that the Second World War was won by Great Britain and the United States, and the contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory over Germany was insignificant.
Let me make a reservation right away: we pay deep tribute to all veterans of the Second World War and mourn its many victims. We bow to the feat of the Soviet people, who endured the unbearable hardships and deprivations of that war. The aggression against the Soviet Union that began on June 22, 1941 was, in fact, the crown of Hitler’s plans for aggression. Our army stopped and destroyed the military machine of the Third Reich.
Paying tribute to the role of the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, I want to emphasize that the battles on the fields of the Great Patriotic War were the main events of the Second World War. From 190 to 270 combat-ready divisions were simultaneously operating against the Soviet troops, that is, more than 75% of their total number. It was in the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad, on the Kursk Bulge, during the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad and the defense of Sevastopol, during the Dnieper-Carpathian and Belarusian operations, and other major battles that the fate of the world and humanity was decided. The German army suffered 82% of all its losses here.
“The Second World War is truly the main lesson of the 20th century.”
President of Russia
Dmitry Medvedev.
Therefore, I want to repeat once again: we will not allow the memory of the fallen heroes of the Great Patriotic War to be consigned to oblivion and our living victors to be discredited. We will not allow the role of the Soviet soldier in the victory over fascism to be belittled. For anyone who is even slightly familiar with authentic documents and eyewitness accounts, the truth is so indisputable that it does not require additional evidence.
The assertion that the agreements on the post-war reconstruction of the world, reached at the meeting of the heads of state of the anti-Hitler coalition - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain - in February 1945 in Yalta, marked the beginning of the Cold War, is untenable. 
American researchers even went so far as to accuse their own president, F. Roosevelt, of “mental disability,” explaining it as a progressive illness during the Big Three meeting. Let it remain on their conscience. In fact, the final communiqué, which provided for the division of Europe into zones of influence, was an American project to which the Soviet leadership did not make a single amendment, and the British side limited themselves to only insignificant stylistic comments.
For some reason, critics of the Yalta Conference are silent about one of its main results - the agreement on the creation of the United Nations, an international organization to prevent war. Only in the wake of the suffering suffered was the world able to find a format for countering military aggression that suited everyone.
The harbingers of the Cold War were not the actions of the USSR. It began with secret separate negotiations between Great Britain and the United States with the highest fascist military leaders about the surrender of Germany, the maintenance by the Anglo-American command of captured SS divisions and captured weapons in combat readiness for their possible use against the Soviet Union.
The full philosophy of the “Iron Curtain” took shape in the speeches of W. Churchill to students at Westminster College in Fulton and G. Truman to the American Congress. Their essence was that the main threat to peace now is the increased power of the USSR, which must be countered with adequate armed force. That's how things were back then.
Today we are witnessing another attempt to escalate tensions in the world and militarize international relations. Evidence of this is the expansion of NATO to the East, the actual torpedoing of this CFE Treaty alliance by a number of countries, and plans to deploy missile defense elements in Europe. In the recent past - massive NATO missile and bomb attacks on Yugoslavia, political and military support for the barbaric aggression of Georgia against the people of South Ossetia.
As the Roman philosopher Seneca said: “There is no safe time. In times of peace, war begins."
With this development of events, the world may again, like 70 years ago, face serious challenges. That is why Russia, remembering the lessons of the past, advocates strengthening collective European security and calls for the conclusion of a new legally binding document that meets modern realities.
This is the result of World War II for the aggressor.
