There were also many cases in which Soviet pilots flew directly into enemy targets. When captured by the Germans, partisans also bore themselves courageously. As a rule, they were executed after terrible torture. Such was the fate of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a female partisan fighter captured by the Germans near Moscow. General Karbyshev refused to join the Germans and was transformed into an ice block, frozen alive in the Mauthausen camp.
As in any event of these dimensions, the war gave birth to myths and legends whereby soldiers were endowed with miraculous strength. Words were attributed to them which later became part of the history of the war. Such mythology is inevitable and has always been part of wars. For example, many Soviet books on the war attribute the following words to the political officer Klochkov, who allegedly said to a handful of soldiers of General Panfilov's division, near Moscow: "Russia is huge, but we cannot retreat any further, for behind us is Moscow." Who could have reported these words, when Klochkov and all his men but one were killed, and the one survivor was mortally wounded and unable to speak coherently? A journalist named Aleksandr Krivitsky took this mission upon himself; he was the first to write about the heroic feat of Klochkov and the other "Panfilov men." Asked by Shcherbakov, director of the Red Army's Main Political Directorate, how he knew Klochkov had said those words, Krivitsky replied, 'That's what he must have said."
The Soviet victory in the war was not the result of Stalin's wise and infallible leadership, nor that of the State Defense Committee and the high command. The Soviet Union won the war despite the party leadership's colossal errors, through the combined efforts of the people, the army, and those same leaders.
Before the war the adventuristic and dangerous policies of the government led to the creation of a common border between the Soviet Union and the principal military force in Europe, Nazi Germany. The dismantling of the pre-1939 border defenses and the absence of adequate fortifications at the new border gave the enemy a considerable advantage at the beginning of the war and permitted enormous gains in time and territory. These mistakes alone (not to mention the senseless orders for offensive operations in the first days of the war, which resulted in the encirclement and ruin of entire armies) caused incalculable damage to the Soviet war effort. During the first days of the war, the Soviet Union lost a territory equal in size to the parts of Western Europe occupied by Germany in 1939—1940. Only the vastness of Soviet territory and the existence of a very distant rear area with an industrial base rich in raw materials (the Urals, Siberia, Transcaucasia, and the Far East), together with Hitler's political and strategic blunders, saved the Soviet Union from total defeat in 1941. In spite of everything, its resources sufficed finally to exceed Germany's strength, both in numbers of divisions and in volume of military production. If the Soviet Union had been the size of France or Germany, the mistakes of the Communist party and its leaders would have brought the country to defeat. It suffices to recall that during the first three weeks of the war, the German armies advanced faster into Soviet territory than they had into Poland.
For example, this is what Artillery Chief Marshal Nikolai Voronov wrote:
If the fascist invaders, who treacherously attacked us at dawn on June 22, 1941, had met an organized resistance on the part of our troops, starting from lines of defense prepared in advance, if our aircraft, moved in time and dispersed to forward airfields, had dealt hard blows to the enemy, if the manner of advancing our troops had corresponded to the situation, during the initial months we would not have suffered such great human and material losses. We would not have given the enemy vast amounts of Soviet territory, and the people would not have had to endure such sufferings and ordeals.164
Another military leader, Marshal Grechko, wrote: "Sadly, it must be admitted that one of the chief causes of the setbacks at the beginning of the war had its roots in the errors of the top military leadership."165
In 1941 the Soviet armies had vast territories behind them and they were able to withdraw to Leningrad in the northwest, Moscow in the west, and Rostov-on-the-Don and the Crimea in the south. In 1942 they also had room for withdrawal and retreated to Stalingrad and the Greater Caucasus Range.
Stalin's famous order No. 227, known as the Not One Step Back order, denounced the apparently widespread idea that it was always possible to retreat farther. But this idea reflected an objective reality: the immensity of Soviet territory, which allowed it time to prepare a counteroffensive. The fact of so much territory in reserve compensated to a certain degree for the mistakes of the Communist party politicians and the military leadership.
The Soviet Union had a stable rear, solidified, on the one hand, by the patriotism of the people and, on the other, by the cruelty of the Germans who left the population no other choice but to fight to the end. The Soviet system proved solid enough to withstand the terrible blow dealt by Hitler's Germany. Aid from the United States and Britain also played a major role.
The experiences of the war demonstrated that totalitarian regimes, which base themselves on unlimited violence, imposing a state of constant fear and an ideology of moral or racial superiority, have a certain stability. It took the combined efforts of the states of the anti-Hitler coalition and the occupation of the capital of the Reich through the fierce struggle of the Soviet armed forces to smash the Nazi system. Also necessary was a military program unifying the members of the coalition, a program which had at its base the ideals of liberty and democracy. The Nazi regime put up a desperate resistance until it was physically destroyed. In carrying the fight through to the end, the Soviet Union and its allies showed a tremendous will to achieve victory.
For a quarter of a century, with the exception of the brief NEP interim, before collectivization, the Soviet population had known very difficult times. It had grown used to privations, malnutrition, lack of sleep, and poor housing. For this reason, it was able to endure wartime hardship that people of Western culture would probably have been unable to endure.
The Soviet leadership was able to recover after the initial blows of the enemy. The Soviet Communist party, having at its disposal devoted and loyal political cadres, a powerful state security organization, and years of experience in subjugating and governing the masses, soon reestablished its control everywhere it had been lost or weakened. Identifying its interests with those of the people, it led and took the credit for the upsurge of patriotism.
The government even succeeded in presenting its mistakes and crimes as proofs of foresight and as correct defensive measures. For example, the terror of the 1930s, which had eliminated the most competent military commanders, industrial leaders, and so forth, was portrayed as the timely destruction of a "fifth column," of "German spies" and "enemies of the people." This explanation was taken up enthusiastically by the Communist parties abroad and circulated by the liberal antifascist intelligentsia in the
West. The disorganized retreats and defeats of 1941 and 1942 were portrayed as a wise strategy of "mobile defense" and the like.
For a long time victory overshadowed the privations, difficulties, and pain. Soldiers returned to their homes with hope for improvement in their lives. The war was over. But nostalgia for the past, and regret over the unrealized dreams of German—Soviet hegemony in Europe, haunted Stalin for years to come.