Where were and what they were doing during the Great Patriotic War, Soviet General Secretaries Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Second World War, like a litmus test, exposed all human qualities in people. Heroes and traitors - all of them yesterday were ordinary Soviet citizens and lived side by side. The future leaders of the Soviet state, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov, were age-appropriate to become Red Army soldiers. However, not all of them were at the front and have military merits. What did the future heads of state do instead of fighting a common enemy together with the entire Soviet people?

Nikita Khrushchev

By 1941, Khrushchev was 47 years old, at that time he served as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, being the de facto leader of the union republic. By this time he was already known as a communist loyal to Stalin. He actively participated in the repression, being part of the policy of the country's leader.

When the war broke out, he took command of five fronts (west, south-west and south). His high political position became the basis for becoming an officer of the highest political rank. That is, he participated in the war, but not as an ordinary soldier, but as a commander of the troops. At the same time, Khrushchev had military experience. During the Civil War, he led a detachment of the Red Army, then was an instructor in the political department of the army.

But historians are very critical of his experience as a military leader, considering his existing combat experience clearly insufficient to make key decisions. It is believed that it was Khrushchev who was directly related to two major defeats of the Soviet troops: the encirclement of the Red Army soldiers near Kiev at the beginning of the war and the defeats near Kharkov in 1942.

After the troops were surrounded near Kiev, Khrushchev was often accused of not giving the order to retreat on time. However, Khrushchev took upon himself this decision, but it was not even coordinated with Stalin, and therefore was not implemented. As for the defeats near Kharkov, the decision not to retreat and hold on to the last was not made by Khrushchev personally, but by the military council. As a result, the Soviet side suffered heavy losses, and the Nazis were able to take the most advantageous positions.

At first, the Red Army operated on the same principle of structure as during the Civil War. The dual command and control system implied that party representatives exercise simultaneous command in military units. They were also engaged in political education and supervised the activities of both the military command and ordinary privates. With the beginning of the war, some changes were made, but if ordinary party workers went to military units, then the party elite began to occupy key positions in the Red Army.

And so it happened that Khrushchev, the first person of the party of Ukraine, suddenly began to exercise command of the troops in the most difficult sector. A functionary with minimal combat experience had to confront Army Group South, which from the first days of the war caused serious damage to the Soviet troops.

The first months of the war were disastrous for the Soviet side. The encirclement in which the Red Army men fell near Kiev led to the capture of almost half a million soldiers. In addition, during these battles, the entire military leadership of the southwestern front was killed. There are several versions as to what Khrushchev was doing these days. One of the versions about an unfulfilled retreat order was announced above. According to other sources, Khrushchev unequivocally supported the need to defend the city to the last and did not give such an order.

The Kiev catastrophe was not a sufficient reason to remove Khrushchev from his post in the Military Council. The troops took up new positions, they were replenished with new recruits, making up for the losses near Kiev. Several successful offensive operations were carried out, thanks to which the liberation of Kharkov became possible. It was for this operation that preparations were underway.

In May 1942, a series of offensive operations was to lead to the defeat of the armies "South", thanks to which it would be possible to liberate part of the country's territories, including Kharkov. However, the situation began to unfold in a slightly different direction, the units were surrounded.

The head of the General Staff insistently suggested retreating, but Khrushchev and the front commander reported above that there was no threat of encirclement. As a result, an order was received to refuse to retreat. Such discord in actions led to the fact that the Kharkov defeats became the largest this year. The Red Army lost more than 250 thousand fighters, on the southern front the situation worsened the most. The Germans took Donbas, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don. The roads to the Volga and the Caucasus were opened.

It was Khrushchev's report that led to such results, despite the fact that the decision was not made by him alone. In July of the same year, the southwestern front was disbanded, and the Stalingrad front arose in its place. But in his military council there was a similar place for Khrushchev.

In the fall of 1942, Stalin abolished the principle of dual command in the army. Military commissars became advisers rather than part of the command staff. This was a strategically important decision, because the party leadership was actually losing its former privileges, all power in decision-making passed into the hands of the military. Many considered the change to be overwhelmingly positive, as it led to more effective personnel management.

Khrushchev spent the entire Battle of Stalingrad on the battle line, but now as an adviser to the military council. He did not commit any special heroic deeds, did not make key decisions. The following year he was promoted to lieutenant general. As his heroism, an example is given of the presentation of awards to soldiers right on the front line, under artillery fire. It was a deliberate step, Nikita Sergeevich tried to make it clear that the top management does not spare themselves as well as the fighters themselves.

After Khrushchev became an adviser to the First Ukrainian Front. During this period, he focuses on the restoration of Ukraine, but this was not an easy task, given that most remained under German occupation. In addition, it was the future secretary general who had to support the partisan movement. Only after the complete liberation of Ukraine, he was able to fully concentrate on its restoration.

Khrushchev, together with the top officials of the state and military leaders, hosted the Victory Parade on the podium at the Mausoleum. And this is despite the fact that Khrushchev's role in the Second World War cannot be called unambiguous. In Stalin's opinion, Khrushchev was more useful in the rear than at the front. The military rank awarded during the war years remained with Khrushchev, but there were no military awards.

Leonid Brezhnev

At the start of the war, Leonid Brezhnev was 35 years old. He left for the front from the post of the third secretary of the regional party committee of Dnepropetrovsk. Before being drafted to the front, in his party line, he took an active part in the mobilization of the population and its evacuation. At the front, the party worker was appointed brigadier commissar, by the time the war ended, he was the head of the military district. They wrote about him in the newspapers of those years, front-line correspondents could hardly guess that in front of him was the future secretary general.

All his work was associated with ideological and patriotic education in the troops. But in the fall of 1942, the position held by Brezhnev was abolished. He served in other political positions on the Caucasian and Southern Fronts. By personal example, showing colleagues a fighting spirit and a patriotic spirit.

What did a political ideologist do during the war? Its main task was to maintain the high morale of the soldiers. Brezhnev was directly involved in the admission of new members to the party in combat conditions. It was on him that the entire ideological basis was laid, on which the entire Red Army could be said to have been. It wasn't easy. Each had to look for his own approach, and very young boys were often lost in the face of real danger.

Brezhnev received military awards, the first - the Order of the Red Banner, Leonid Ilyich was awarded for the battles near Dnepropetrovsk and the Barvenko-Lozovskaya operation. He took part in these battles. He received the Order of the Patriotic War of the first degree for the battle for Novorossiysk.

The newspaper Pravda wrote about Brezhnev that he visited the Malaya Zemlya bridgehead 40 times, which was surrounded. This was an extremely dangerous undertaking. Some ships were blown up by mines on the way or hit by bombs and shells. Once, nevertheless, Brezhnev got caught on a mine, he was thrown overboard by a blast wave. The sailors managed to pick it up, but this salvation was akin to a miracle. It was after this contusion that he developed speech defects, which often became the subject of jokes.

But the most difficult thing in his work was the ability to maintain a fighting spirit even when the others no longer believed in a successful outcome. If necessary, he could shake the fighters so as to bring them to their senses. The correspondent writes in a note about Leonid Brezhnev that the crew of one of the tank machine guns got confused and did not open fire. The Germans immediately took advantage of this and got so close to the positions of the Soviet soldiers that they could throw a grenade.

Brezhnev literally forced the machine gunners to return to duty. As a result, the Germans retreated, the crew conducted aimed fire on the orders of Comrade Brezhnev, who returned the soldiers' morale in time. Even if for this it was necessary to use fists.

In 1943, the future secretary general received the Order of the Red Star for ideological work in the ranks of the Red Army during the offensive near Novorossiysk. He earned the second Order of the Red Star the very next year not only for organizing political work, but also for personal courage on the first Ukrainian front.

During the Victory Parade, Leonid Brezhnev led the column. He walked along with the commander of the Fourth Ukrainian Front at the head of the column, at that time he was the commissar of the consolidated regiment. In 1966, a memorial ensemble "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" began to be erected at the Kremlin walls. The remains of an unknown soldier were transferred and reburied here from the mass grave near the Leningradskoye Highway. During the grand opening, Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev lit the Eternal Flame. Despite the great awards and a noticeable military path, Leonid Brezhnev himself is akin to an unknown soldier, very little is known about him as a veteran. For the majority, he was the general secretary and nothing more, but it is not customary to remember his military exploits.

Yuri Andropov

At the start of World War II, Yuri Andropov was 27 years old. It would be quite logical that he participated in the hostilities, like the entire adult male population of the country at that time. However, Andropov's biography does not contain such facts. Although he still has one reward.

When the war began, he, in the role of a young activist, established Komsomol work in the Karelo-Finnish Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. There is some dry evidence that at the beginning of the war he was busy organizing underground partisan detachments. He even had his own call sign "Mohican", as his comrades in the underground partisan movement called him. He created Komsomol partisan detachments in the territory of Karelia, which was under German occupation.

Andropov was sent to the Karelo-Finnish Republic in 1940, he became the first secretary of the Lenin Communist Youth Union. The first wife remained in Yaroslavl, and he met his second wife Tatyana Lebedeva through the Komsomol movement. It is believed that at that time Finland was planning to seize Karelia and Lebedeva was part of a sabotage group. She worked behind enemy lines under the guise of a Komsomol activist.

But Andropov liked Tatyana very much, so much so that he tried to protect her from dangerous tasks. And he was not afraid to ruin his career by connecting his life with a saboteur. Lebedeva reciprocated the young man. A war broke out in the country, and they played a wedding, in the summer of 1941 their son was born. Andropov was not called up to the front.

Many were outraged by the fact that at the moment when the whole country rose to defend the Motherland, a young and healthy guy was arranging his personal life. Party colleagues also voiced this opinion, in their opinion, there were enough party workers at that time even without Yuri.

In fact, Andropov did not take a direct part in military battles, but he is considered almost the main organizer of the partisan movement. The first secretary of the Karelian regional committee, Gennady Kupriyanov, wrote in his manuscripts that Andropov did not go to the front at all because he was very much needed in the rear. And the partisan movement was not the reason. He was just a careerist and an ordinary coward.

Kidney problems, the presence of a small child - all this was used as an excuse to protect oneself from front-line work, not to mention going to the front. However, Kupriyanov has something to take offense at Andropov. He was convicted in the "Leningrad case", and Andropov was among his accusers. In the 50s, Kupriyanov was arrested, and Andropov was transferred to Moscow.

Yes, and during the war, Andropov was moving up the career ladder, in 1944 he began to occupy the post of second secretary of the Petrozavodsk City Committee of the CPSU (b). And he received a medal for organizing the partisan movement in 1943. It is difficult to judge how well deserved this award was, and not the result of the competent steps of a careerist.

Behavior in a critical situation largely characterizes not only the leader, but also the man. Three examples of behavior during the war and three leaders of the country, who divided its history into periods. Three views on courage and honor, freedom and career.