Stalin's five information strikes

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the propaganda battle against Hitlerism, the Soviet leader made a number of well-considered moves that brought Victory closer.

Restoring justice to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalinas the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the victorious army, we must remember his outstanding propaganda talent. A number of moves that he made in the field of information war for the minds and hearts of citizens of the USSR and residents of other states, first of all, the Anti-Hitler coalition, one might say, were ahead of their time. The Generalissimo was able to outplay German opponents from the Third Reich in propaganda. We will single out five most important, as I would say now, PR-actions that predetermined the victory of the USSR in the souls of people and at the front.

Simple handling

At the beginning of the war, I. V. Stalin did not give any comments - he did not even make a radio statement to the country on June 22, 1941, leaving V. Molotov to inform "citizens and women of the Soviet Union" about the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany. However, Stalin must have edited the Molotov text, which went down in history with its prophetic finale: "Our cause is just, the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours."

The Commander-in-Chief himself was in no hurry to make a public speech, apparently decided to see how events would develop. When it became clear that the war was gaining gigantic proportions and, alas, it was unsuccessful for the Red Army, Stalin made the first move in a subtle propaganda game with Hitler and Goebbels. And this move was truly ingenious: to the people, to millions of ordinary workers, sailors and soldiers, the leader turned as the father of the family at the moment of danger threatening her, as the captain of a ship to the crew of a ship in distress: “Brothers and sisters! Soldiers of our army and navy! I appeal to you, my friends!"

Thus, in one sentence I. V. Stalin was able to show what a terrible misfortune befell the country and that now everyone needs to unite, feel like one family, forgetting old grievances and strife in order to stop the enemy. Actually, it was on July 3, 1941 that the war against fascism became the Great Patriotic War, the sacred war of every Soviet person for the freedom and independence of their Motherland.

The Nazis could offer nothing of the kind to the German population. They only talked about the abstract for the majority of the mission of the Nazis as supposedly defenders of Europe from Bolshevism, but this could not mobilize the German people for a desperate struggle. And repelled those who were under the Nazi heel against their will. But Stalin's words not only aroused patriotic enthusiasm within the country (it was already high), but also aroused sympathy throughout the world for the struggle of the Soviet people against foreign invaders.

Faith parade

The second subtle political and at the same time propaganda move Stalin made four months after the first, at the most difficult moment of the entire Great Patriotic War, when the fate of Moscow was being decided, whether the enemy would be able to break into it or not. In other words, Hitler's blitzkrieg will be crowned with success or the war will take on a protracted nature, in which the Nazis have no chance of success in the long term.

In this situation, it was necessary to undertake something that would inspire those who, perhaps, became discouraged, seeing that the German-fascist troops approached close to the capital of our Motherland. And life itself prompted such a step - it was decided, almost like in peacetime, to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. As for the ceremonial meeting and concert at the Mayakovskaya metro station, they did not come as a surprise. But after the completion of these events, Joseph Stalin announced the decision to hold a military parade, traditional for the Soviet years. Conduct in completely unusual conditions, when the enemy was in the truest sense of the word at the gates, when SS troops were advancing as part of the advanced units of the Nazis to capture strategically important objects. And in these conditions, the units that were urgently pulling up to Moscow to protect it, were sent to pass through the snow-covered cobblestones of the Kremlin.

This decision came as a complete surprise to the enemy. When Hitlerlearned about the march of Soviet soldiers, then urgently demanded to raise aircraft into the air. But on that day, according to rumors, Stalin said, God himself was on the side of the Bolsheviks - the weather was not flying. This allowed both the parade to be held and the leader himself to deliver a speech no less powerful than on July 3, 1941, in which he turned to the heroic past. Words by I. V. Stalin, addressed to the defenders of the Fatherland, were included in all, probably, history textbooks: “May the courageous image of our great ancestors inspire you in this war - Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dmitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov! May the victorious banner of the great overshadow you Lenin!»

Legend No. 227

The failure of the blitzkrieg in 1941 seemed to remove all questions about the outcome of the war and would really remove it if the Soviet troops were able to defeat the enemy in one of the strategic directions, and would not try to do it at once at all, well, or if the allies opened in the summer 1942 second front. Since neither one nor the other happened, the Nazis got another chance to tip the scales to their side. And they almost bowed down, having achieved decisive success in the southern sector of the front, and accordingly, having gained control in one way or another, the main oil fields of the USSR, and of the fuel supply routes from there. But, as in 1941, the Nazis were prevented by the unparalleled courage of Soviet soldiers - defenders of Stalingrad and, no less important, Transcaucasia, as well as decisiveness in combination with the subtle propaganda approach of the Soviet leadership, first of all, I. V. Stalin. This decisiveness and this competent propaganda move were expressed in the famous order No. 227, popularly known as "Not a step back!"

It was released on July 28, 1942, at a time when the Nazis were moving almost unhindered to Stalingrad to leave the Soviet troops without vital fuel. Indeed, the text of Stalin's order contains harsh lines: “Alarmists and cowards must be exterminated on the spot. The commanders of a company, battalion, regiment, division, the corresponding commissars and political workers retreating from a combat position without an order from above are traitors to the Motherland. Such commanders and political workers should be treated like traitors to the Motherland. Referring to the experience of the Nazis, the Soviet command decided to create penal battalions, where the guilty could atone for their guilt before the Motherland with blood.

Yes, executions, detachments and penal battalions are cruel, sometimes prohibitively cruel measures, but how should the People's Commissar of Defense have acted (namely, in this capacity, I. V. Stalin signed the order), if, as he quite rightly remarked, “To retreat further means to ruin yourself and ruin our Motherland at the same time”?

Stalin's main calculation when issuing order number 227, no matter how anyone argued the opposite, was not for coercive measures, but for a psychological shake-up of the troops, who swam a little, like a boxer after a knockdown, under the blows of selected Nazi units. And this calculation fully justified itself - the resistance of our divisions began to grow, and at the moment when units of Paulus's 6th Army broke into Stalingrad, it reached its climax.

Soldier's father

31 January 1943 Field Marshal General Friedrich Paulussurrendered to the mercy of the Soviet victors in the battle of Stalingrad, which decided the outcome of the war. Hitler could not expect, let alone forgive, that one of his best commanders would follow the path of the General of the Red Army. Vlasova, that is, he will prefer captivity to a bullet in the temple, therefore, of course, not for the sake of his salvation, he offered Stalin an exchange through the Red Cross. He was ready to return the son of the Soviet leader Yakova Dzhugashviliif he lets Paulus go.

This was a real test for the Soviet Supreme Commander-in-Chief. It is clear that as a father he could not leave his son in trouble, and most likely, as happened, doom him to certain death, but on the other hand, if he succumbed to his emotions, his authority in the warring country would fall catastrophically. Millions of Soviet people have relatives in the occupied territory, many even in Nazi concentration camps, but they cannot help their loved ones in any way, no one will offer them an exchange through the Red Cross.

In this situation, Stalin made the only correct, but very difficult decision for himself - to reject Hitler's proposal. The folk parable, which is very likely true, claims that the Soviet leader responded to the request that he does not change a soldier for a field marshal. Whether it was really so is not known for certain, it is only known that the exchange did not take place.

Perhaps someone believed and still believes that Stalin acted in this case cruelly towards his own son, but he, as the head of a belligerent country, simply had no other choice. And his son Jacob did not disappoint him. Surely the Nazis told him that his father refused to save him, but this did not break him. Dzhugashvili Jr. understood that Dzhugashvili Sr. could not do otherwise.

Rehearsal for victory

At the final stage of the war, there was no need to push our troops into propaganda - everyone was eager to finish off the fascist reptile anyway. But, crushing the enemy, they showed the generosity of the victors. If the German soldiers themselves were ready to lay down their arms - no one punished them, everyone then returned home from captivity, with the exception of those who died from wounds and diseases, as well as war criminals, who were punished in accordance with the decision of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Actually, one of the goals of another grandiose propaganda-political action, brilliantly carried out on July 17, 1944, a prisoner of war parade in Moscow, was to clearly show that no one is killing captured Nazis. They can, if they did not participate in punitive actions and were not executioners in concentration camps, calmly surrender, especially since the outcome of the war was already clear to everyone, even the most fanatical Nazi warriors.

It is very symbolic that three days after the procession of prisoners of war that dishonored the Wehrmacht, a group of German military men under the ideological leadership of the colonel Stauffenbergmade an unsuccessful attempt to destroy Hitler and a military coup, in which dozens of German generals were directly or indirectly involved. Of course, it was not the parade of shame in Moscow itself that pushed the conspirators in Berlin, but the defeat of Germany symbolized by them. There has never been another such case in history when tens of thousands of prisoners of war would have been marching through the capital, where they had been trying not long ago. The remnants of the defeated army group "Center", which in 1941 was practically on the outskirts of the Soviet capital, wandered dejectedly along the Moscow streets.

It was a powerful demoralizing propaganda blow to the enemy - the best parts surrendered. What should those who are still trying to resist do? Well, for the Soviet people it was a huge holiday. A kind of rehearsal for the victory parade, which will take place less than a year later - on June 24, 1945. Many Muscovites, then still children and teenagers, still remember how they drove the Nazis, and then sprinklers washed away the dirt and debris left from them. And no one in the world said that this is a violation of some conventions.

70 years later, the experience was repeated by the defenders of Donetsk, leading the Banderaites through its streets, but this time the West saw some violations in this. What is strange, after all, both in 1944 and in 2014, captured Nazis were escorted. The defenders of Donbass just repeated the brilliant move of I. V. Stalin.

Counterstrike in Katyn

Thus, the Soviet Supreme Commander-in-Chief won, as they would now say, the psychological war. But, as it turned out later, not dry. The Nazi propagandists led by J. Goebbels also inflicted their counterstrike in Katyn. Their idea worked, however, after the defeat of Hitlerism. First, it was used by Western propaganda in order to poison Soviet-Polish relations, and now to discredit Russia as the legal successor of the Soviet Union. Although it is still not clear where in this story is the truth, and where is the lie. It sees more desire to accuse Stalin and his entourage than undoubted evidence. So for now, this is just "black PR" in relation to the USSR and Russia, as the legal successor, and nothing more.