I.I. Betskoy (1704–1795) is a prominent figure in Russia in the 18th century. One of the most educated people of his time, he absorbed the best ideas of his contemporary century. He was a humane and cordial man, gifted with an active nature; he tried to put into practice the dreams of the best minds of his time - this is how I.I. Betsky and his contemporaries.

Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy was born in Stockholm, where his father, Prince Ivan Yurievich Trubetskoy, was a prisoner of the Swedes. Born as a result of a civil marriage, I.I. Betskoy was considered in Russia the "illegitimate" son of Trubetskoy, who awarded him a truncated surname: Betskoy. Betsky's first years were spent in Sweden, and then he was brought to Russia and brought up in his father's family. At the age of 12 he was sent to the Copenhagen Cadet Corps. In 1721 he came to Russia and received a service in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs. In 1728, he received the rank of lieutenant, and in 1747, with the rank of major general, he retired and went to travel to Europe. At this time, he became acquainted with the ideas of the French Enlightenment: Rousseau, Diderot, Helvetia, studied their charitable institutions; at the same time, the ideas of all those undertakings were born in him, which he more or less successfully put into practice in the subsequent years of his activity in Russia. In 1762 I.I. Betskoy was summoned to Petersburg and became a confidant of Catherine II. He received the rank of Lieutenant General, the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky and the position of Chief Director of the Office of the Construction of Houses and Gardens of His Majesty (Peter III). Betskoy, in addition, becomes the president of the Academy of Arts, the head of the Educational Society for Noble Maidens at the Smolny Monastery, the opening of which took place thanks to him, and occupies other positions. In 1770, according to the plan of Betsky, an Orphanage appeared in St. Petersburg, and widows and a loan treasury were established under it.

Catherine II and those who, on her behalf, were in charge of school affairs, believed that if a person was properly educated from infancy, then a “new breed of people” could be created - nobles, merchants, industrialists and artisans. Enlightened nobles will not embitter their peasants with excessive cruelty, merchants, industrialists and artisans will work diligently; devoted to the throne, not inclined to "harmful thinking", they will form a society that will be easy and pleasant for an enlightened monarch to manage.

To this end, in the 1960s and 1970s an attempt was made to create a system of educational institutions. For this case, Ivan Ivanovich Betskoy was involved.

In the “General Institution on the Education of Both Sexes of Youth” (1764), which received the force of law, Betskoy formulated the concept of education, which, according to him, should give a certain direction to the will and heart, develop character, instill a healthy feeling, morals and rules, eradicate prejudice. The result of such education was, according to Betsky, the creation of a new breed of people, free from the vices of the surrounding world. To do this, young children should be isolated from the bad influence of the environment, in particular the family, in closed educational institutions, where a perfect person should be raised from 6 to 18–20 years old.

Betskoy lists the virtues and qualities “belonging to a good upbringing”: “to establish the heart in laudable inclinations, to arouse in them a desire for industriousness and to fear idleness as the source of all evil and delusion; to teach decent behavior in business and conversation, courtesy, decency, condolences for the poor, the unfortunate and aversion from all sorts of pretense; to teach them housekeeping in all its details and how much it is useful; especially to root in them one's own tendency to neatness and cleanliness.

When opening educational institutions, the class principle was strictly followed. For noble children, privileged cadet corps, "schools for noble maidens" were intended. For raznochintsev - a school at the Academy of Arts, educational homes in all provinces.

Leaving the school, the raznochintsy were supposed to form a new estate - the "third degree of people" - scientists, artists, artisans, teachers, doctors (the first two degrees were nobles and peasants). Nothing was said about the education and upbringing of peasant children. Serfs were not admitted to any school.

Betskoy dreams, by opening various educational institutions, to create in them a “special breed of people”, free from the vices of contemporary society, to improve the morals of people. At the same time, Betskoy saw the task of true education in instilling self-respect in a person: “A person, considering himself a man ... should not allow himself to be treated like animals.” He is optimistic about enlightened absolutism, believes in the power of rational legislation - all this was inherent in most of the figures of the Enlightenment. And despite the fact that his noble desire - through education to transform the whole people, to change life - failed, his work was of great importance, since he showed society the great power of education; after him, not only ideas remained in Russia, but also their real embodiment.

According to the reports and charters developed by Betsky, the following were opened:

· Orphanage in Moscow (1764) and later in St. Petersburg.

· School at the Academy of Arts for boys (from 5-6 years old) of any rank, excluding serfs (1764).

· The same school at the Academy of Sciences (1765).

· Educational Society for Noble Maidens at the Smolny Monastery (Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens) (1764).

· Petty-bourgeois branch under him (1765).

· The land gentry corps was transformed (1766).

· Commercial School (1772).

· All these are strictly class closed educational institutions opened under Catherine II.

Betskoy himself was the chief director of the Land Corps, director of the Orphanage and the Smolny Institute.

According to the projects of Betsky, developed in the 60–70s, a whole network of closing educational institutions should have arisen in Russia, which would include lower and secondary educational institutions for the nobility (noble class) - boarding houses, and for persons of the third rank ( petty bourgeois and merchants) - educational houses, pedagogical, art, medical, commercial and theater schools.

Betskoy considered education from four sides - from the side of physical, physical-moral, purely moral and teaching. Physical education is very important, because a healthy mind lives in a healthy body. Physical and moral education is based on the idea that idleness is the mother of all vices, and diligence is the father of all virtues. We need work, games, fun. Moral education primarily consists in the fact that everything that has even a shadow of vice is removed from the hearing and vision of the pupil. Living examples of educators have the strongest effect on children. Corporal punishment is unacceptable, and other punishments should be rare. Children should be given a short moralizing book about the rules that a person should be guided by in life.

Education means the development of mental powers; it is necessary because it provides the means to obtain a piece of bread. Training will be successful if at the beginning it will have the character of a game; if it is in their native language. The law of God, reading and drawing are the subjects of primary education. Betskoy attached a great role to the visibility of learning.

Particularly important Betskoy considered the good upbringing and education of women as future wives, mothers, educators. In the family and family responsibilities, a woman, in his opinion, should look for the meaning and content of her life.

The implementation of Betsky's ideas in practice took place in various educational institutions based on his project and with his participation.

On the example of one of the institutions, one can see specific directions in raising children.

One of Betsky's undertakings was the creation of an Orphanage in Moscow, then in St. Petersburg and other cities for orphans and foundlings.

The development of children in these houses Betskoy imagined as follows: up to 2 years, children are in the care of nurses and nannies; from 3 to 7 years old, boys and girls live together and are taught to do light work; from 7 to 11 - go to school together every day; learn to read and comprehend the foundations of faith. In the same years, boys learn to knit stockings, caps, nets, get used to gardening, and girls practice spinning and knitting, weaving lace, etc. From 11 to 14 years old, boys and girls learn writing and numbers, as well as study catechism, arithmetic, geography and drawing, and continue to do household chores and crafts: girls sew, cook, iron, boys get used to gardening, yard and other work. When the pupils are 14-15 years old, education ends and they begin to engage in the craft that they themselves choose.

In accordance with the natural talents of the pupils, it was proposed to divide into three groups: the first - persons capable of sciences and arts; the second - capable only of crafts and needlework (the largest number of persons), the third - capable only of the simplest work.

The main principle of teaching was to lead the children "playing and enjoying"; to force children to sit for hours at a book is to relax and dull them. "To be always cheerful and contented, to sing and laugh - there is a direct way to produce healthy people, kind hearts and sharp minds." It is best to instruct children by examples, not by rules that are difficult to understand at a young age. It is necessary to instill in children the tendency to obey without annoyance, to prevent them from beating animals, to show anger towards their peers.

Betskoy gives priority to moral education over mental education. Its main means is to remove everything vicious from the child, since virtue itself is nothing but useful and good deeds that we do for ourselves and for our loved ones. Virtue does not exclude pleasure. Betskoy insists that the children be given enough time to play, while that the teachers do not interfere, since it is impossible to have fun by order; adults only need to observe that there is no "adversity" in the games.

As for abstract instructions in morality, then, according to Betsky, it would not be useless to write over all the doors of the Orphanage:

1. Do not do to others what you do not wish for yourself. 2. Treat others the way you want to be treated. 3. Do no evil and do not annoy anyone. 4. Do not harm or embitter any animal. 5. Don't lie. 6. Never be idle.

Punishments seem superfluous with a good upbringing. Under the influence of punishment, children become vindictive, feigned, gloomy and insensitive, their hearts harden. But if necessary, penalties can be: standing in one place for an hour or two; prohibition of walking with other children; reprimand in private; public reprimand; bread and water for 12 or 24 hours, etc. Never, ever hit a child. Before applying punishments, it is necessary to explain to the guilty in detail what their offense is. At the same time, it should be remembered that there are no congenital defects, but bad examples inspire them.

Betsky's theory of upbringing is humane, it exudes cheerfulness, trust in people, and a joyful mood. It calls for respect for the human person, recognizes the need to meet all its requirements. Light, life, warmth, heartfelt feeling come from Betsky. It should not be forgotten that he had in mind, first of all, the education of foundlings abandoned by their parents, although he considered it necessary to apply the same principles in the education of other children.

Brilliant pedagogical ideas of Betsky, however, were poorly implemented in the practice of orphanages. The lack of funds, the absence of good educators significantly affected both the situation of children and their upbringing. Overcrowding, poor nutrition and care, lack of medical care had sad consequences. There was a high morbidity and mortality in children, especially in infancy.

During the first 15 years of the existence of the Moscow Orphanage, 9 chief guards were replaced in it: it was not easy to find educators who met high requirements. Advocating for the teachers to be from “natural Russians”, Betskoy nevertheless turned to foreigners.

Betskoy experienced the shortcomings in the Orphanage very painfully. In 1775, he wrote to Catherine II about the educators: “... None of them showed reliable skills; no one comprehends the real purpose of the institution; none understands its spirit; they only care about personal gain... they quarrel among themselves and gossip...” But he intended to look for a replacement for them again among foreigners.

The craftsmen who taught children handicrafts did not have pedagogical skills at all, they mistreated children. In the factories where pupils were sent for training, they were beaten and humiliated.

In 1779, Betskoy, shocked by the failure of his plans for orphanages, confessed: “I never could have imagined that this most important thing was neglected to such a shameful extreme ... by the supervisors.” In the first pupils, he did not find “the slightest obedience, no inclination to exercise and diligence; nothing but ignorance, disobedience and stubbornness.”

The fate of the pupils of the Moscow Orphanage was as follows. Some of them, the most capable, studied Latin in preparation for the study of pharmacy. Some pupils learned to draw and then went to a special school for boys of different classes, opened according to the plan of Betsky at the Academy of Arts. The most gifted boys learned foreign languages ​​and some sciences, and then a few studied at Moscow University, and girls - at the petty-bourgeois department of the Smolny Institute. Most of the pets at home became artisans, farmers, became servants in rich houses, and the girls became nannies, breadwinners.

Betsky's idea that the family is incapable of bringing up good people and citizens, not only was not rejected in subsequent years, but was raised to the level of a pedagogical dogma; new state educational closed institutions were opened - both male and female - for different classes.

Charity Affairs I.M. Betsky. He spent all his impressive wealth on educational institutions and devoted his life to them. He made huge donations to the already mentioned widow and loan treasuries; for many years, at his expense, 5 girls were brought up annually in the Smolny Monastery and 4 cadets in the corps, and according to his spiritual will, he left: Orphanage - 162,995 rubles; Society of Noble Maidens - 38,999 rubles, Academy of Arts - 33,951 rubles. etc.

In charge of the office of buildings, Betskoy did a lot to decorate the capital. Historical monuments, with the construction of which the name of Betsky is associated: to Peter the Great on Senate Square, the lattice of the Summer Garden, the House of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, etc.

From the pedagogical works of I.I. Betsky should be especially singled out: "General of the Imperial Orphanage"; "General institution for the education of both sexes of youth"; "Charter of education of 200 noble maidens"; "Charter of the Academy of Arts"; "Physical notes on the education of children from birth to adolescence", etc.

As you can see, Betsky's activity consisted primarily in drafting bills relating to the upbringing and education of Russian youth. “... The approval of honest people will be my reward; and the successes of youth will be the crown of our labors, ”wrote Betskoy.

Despite the fact that Betsky failed to implement his program in its entirety, primarily due to the lack of educated teachers, but what he was able to do is highly respected.

With the intensification of the noble reaction after the Pugachev uprising, the ideas of I.I. Betsky were deemed too liberal, and he was removed from the leadership of educational institutions.

education pedagogical betskoy

Literature

1. Dzhurinsky A.N. History of Pedagogy. M., 1999.

2. Demkov M.I. History of Russian Pedagogy. - M., 1963.

3. Sapunov B.V. The origins of the Russian school // Sov. pedagogy. - 1989. - No. 6. - S. 100–106.

4. Stepashko L.A. Philosophy and history of education. M., 1999.

5. History of pedagogy / Ed. A.I. Piskunova M., 1998.

6. Zhurakovsky G.E. From the history of education in pre-revolutionary Russia. - M., 1978.

7. Latyshina D.I. History of Pedagogy-M., 1998.

On behalf of the front-line soldiers, whose number, unfortunately, is decreasing faster and faster, on behalf of all of them who are still living on the lands of the Great Soviet Power, on behalf of all who share the opinion about the greatness of the personality of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who took full responsibility for the fate of the country during the years of the Great Patriotic War and which led it to the Great Victory, I can’t get past the deliberate distortions of the history of the emergence and actions of penal formations created by Stalin’s Order “Not a Step Back”. And the idea of ​​them, distorted beyond recognition, is being hammered more and more persistently by modern media into the minds of the generations coming to us.

Military fate predestined me to go through my part of the Great Patriotic War until the very Victory Day as part of one of the penal battalions. Not a penalty box, but the commander of a platoon and company of an officer's penal battalion. About these unusual formations, created at the most dangerous time for the Motherland, for many years there have been no longer disputes, but the truth has been slandered in every possible way, which I also strive to resist by publishing my memoirs about the 8th separate penal battalion of the 1st Belorussian Front, archival materials TsAMO RF.

1. Perhaps the main thing in the heap of deliberate lies about the penal battalions is speculation about the order of the People's Commissar of Defense N227 of July 27, 1942, known as "Stalin's Order" Not a step back ", and about everything that happened around that then. Unfortunately, the ban on official information about the penal battalions and penal companies created by this order, as well as detachments, that existed during the war years and many years after it, gave rise to a lot of unreliable rumors, and often exaggerated or distorted impressions of those who only heard about them. Yes, penal units (front penal battalions and army penal companies), as well as barrage detachments, were established by this order. But this does not mean at all that they were created for each other. The order is one, but the purposes of the formations established by it are different.

The detachments were deployed, as prescribed by order, "in the rear of unstable divisions." People who are more or less knowledgeable in military terminology are well aware of the difference between the “front line”, or “front line”, where only fines could operate, and the “rear of a division”. Never detachments were not exposed behind the penal battalions, despite the allegations of "experts" such as Volodarsky and others. For example, the well-known academician Georgy Arbatov, who during the war was the head of reconnaissance of the Katyusha division, repeatedly stated that the guards behind the penalty box were "guarded by guards." This lie is categorically rejected by all front-line soldiers, in particular, the author of the “Notes of the Commander of the Penal Battalion” Mikhail Suknev.

Somehow, on the First Channel of Russian TV, a more or less truthful documentary film “Feat by Sentence” was broadcast. There were testimonies of those who personally had a relationship with the penal battalions, either by penal battalions, or by their commanders. All of them denied at least a one-time presence of detachments behind the penalty box. However, the filmmakers inserted the phrase into the author's text: "wounded - do not crawl to the rear: they shoot - that was the order." This is a lie! There has never been such a "order"! Everything is exactly the opposite. We, the commanders of the penal battalion, from the platoon to the battalion commander himself, not only allowed, but even convinced the penalists that the wound was the basis for their independent, justified leaving the battlefield. Another thing is that not all of the penalty box used this at the first scratch, although there were some. More often there were cases when a penal, who was wounded, remained in the ranks out of combat solidarity with his comrades. Sometimes such wounded died, not having time to take advantage of the fact that "the blood atoned for their guilt."

2. Another myth is about the "death row" penalty box. Oh, and our publishers love to flaunt this supposedly unshakable rule in penal battalions and individual penal companies, while relying on a phrase from that very Stalin’s Order, which literally says the following: “... put them on more difficult sectors of the front to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland with blood. However, for some reason, those who like to quote this quote do not quote a special paragraph from the “Regulations on Penal Battalions of the Active Army”, which reads: “15. For military distinction, a penal may be released ahead of schedule on the proposal of the command of the penal battalion, approved by the military council of the front. For particularly outstanding military distinction, the penal, in addition, is presented to the government award. And only in the 18th paragraph of this document it says: “Penal fighters who were wounded in battle are considered to have served their sentence, are restored in rank and in all rights, and upon recovery are sent for further service ...”. So, it is quite obvious that the main condition for exemption from punishment by a penal battalion is not “shedding of blood”, but military merit. In the combat history of our penal battalion, there were episodes of very heavy losses, war, and even on “more difficult sectors of the front”, it’s not a walk ... But, for example, according to the results of the Rogachev-Zhlobin operation in February 1944, when the 8th penal battalion in in full force acted boldly behind enemy lines, out of more than 800 penal prisoners, almost 600 were released from further stay in penal boxes without "shedding blood", without being wounded, who had not passed the established period of punishment (from 1 to 3 months), were fully restored to officer rights. Using the example of our battalion, I argue that a rare combat mission performed by penalized soldiers was left without awarding those who particularly distinguished themselves with orders or medals, like this heroic raid on the rear of the Rogachev enemy grouping. Of course, these decisions depended on the commanders, at whose disposal the penal battalion turned out to be. In this case, such a decision was made by the commander of the 3rd Army, General Gorbatov A.V. and front commander Marshal Rokossovsky K.K. It is reasonable to note that the words "redeemed with blood" are nothing more than an emotional expression designed to sharpen the sense of responsibility in the war for one's own guilt. And the fact that some military leaders sent penalists to attack through uncleared minefields (and this happened) speaks more about their decency than about the expediency of such decisions.

3. Now about another myth - that the penalty box was "driven" into battle without weapons or ammunition. Using the example of our 8th penal battalion of the 1st Belorussian Front, I can categorically state that we always had enough modern, and sometimes even the best small arms, even compared to ordinary rifle units. The battalion consisted of three rifle companies, in which each squad of rifle platoons had a light machine gun, and in the company there was also a platoon of company (50 mm) mortars! There was also a company of submachine gunners in the battalion, armed with PPD assault rifles, gradually replaced by more modern PPSh, and a machine-gun company, which, earlier than in some divisions of the front, instead of the well-known "Maxims" began to receive lightweight machine guns of the Goryunov system. The company of anti-tank rifles (anti-tank rifles) was always fully armed with these guns, including the multiply charged "Simonovsky", and the mortar company with 82 mm mortars. As for cartridges and "pocket artillery", that is, grenades: before the offensive, the penalty box even ruthlessly threw out gas masks in order to fill the empty bag to the limit with grenades or cartridges. The same should be said about the myth that the fines were not on allowance and were forced to get their own food, either by robbing food warehouses, or by extorting it from the local population. In fact, penal battalions were in this respect completely similar to any other military organization, and if it is not always possible to dine or simply satisfy hunger “on schedule” during an offensive, then this is already a common occurrence in a war for all belligerents.

4. For many years, we, who went through the school of penal battalions, were urged to “not spread” about penal battalions. And when we were no longer able to bear this secret burden of truth, to endure its malicious distortion by some "advanced" falsifiers and began to violate this ban, we often heard: "Ah, penal battalions - detachments - we know !!!". And this is “we know!” it boiled down primarily to the fact that it was not their commanders who allegedly raised the penalty box in the attack, but the machine guns of the detachments placed behind the back of the penalty box. This stubborn distortion of facts for many years has led to a misconception in society about the history of penal battalions.

There is hardly anyone who is unfamiliar with Vladimir Vysotsky’s famous song “Penal Battalions Go into the Breakthrough,” where true penal battalions, sometimes showing real heroism, are represented by some kind of faceless “flaw”, which, if it survives, was recommended to “walk, from ruble and more! Since then, the rumor about the criminal "flaw" in the penal battalions has gone for a walk. Boastful: "we know!" - most often and loudest of all were said by people who knew nothing about real penal battalions and real detachments.

5. And today, fictions and simply monstrous lies, used by their own, home-grown falsifiers, do not stop, despite many evidence-documentary publications of recent years, for example, the excellent historian-publicist Igor Vasilyevich Pykhalov (“The Great Slandered War”), and more than sold out My books about penal battalions (“Free kick”, “The Truth about penal battalions”, etc.) have a 50,000th circulation around the world. On the contrary, as a counterbalance to the erupting truth, the attempts of unscrupulous detractors of the past intensify even more in order to muffle the voice of truth, breaking through more and more insistently in the latest publications of honest authors.

New haters of our glorious past are pouring into the gutter of nonsense about everything Soviet, about everything that is somehow connected or intentionally connected with the name of Stalin, to already inveterate pseudo-historians. If a few years ago the Rezunians, Radzinsky, Volodarsky and Solzhenitsyns ruled in distorting the truth, now the palm of dubious primacy is intercepted by such motherland sellers as the pathologically evil Svanidze with his “Historical Chronicles” (or rather, anti-historical), and looking at them - and some famous actors, such as Sergei Yursky, the host of the popular program “Wait for me” Igor Kvasha, who at one time was proud of the film role of the young Karl Marx (the film “A Year as Life”, 1965), and now boasts of allegedly “super-similarity” to the “Stalin monster”, as he portrayed him in the film "In the First Circle" based on Solzhenitsyn.

After the publication of my first books about the penal battalion, I decided to search for former penal battalion soldiers in order to fill my memories with personal impressions, and perhaps with documents from others who went through these formations. It was for this purpose that a few years ago I personally wrote a letter to the host of the “Wait for me” program with a request to open a search for front-line soldiers from penal battalions, and sent my book in confirmation. Even an elementary polite message about the receipt of this request and the book did not follow. Apparently, the concept of "wait for me" for some requests from this talk show is infinite in time. Not for the restoration of ties between front-line soldiers, but for the resuscitation of interrupted holiday romances or casual acquaintances, this company takes on more and more willingly.

6. There were no neo-officer penal battalions. Very diligent pseudo-historians, deliberately mixing in penal battalions and offending officers, and deserting soldiers, and some mass of all kinds of criminals, do this with a specific goal. In the 12-episode “Penal Battalion” of Volodarsky-Dostal, known for its lies, the idea is quite transparently traced that, they say, the Red Army was almost completely defeated by that time and the only force capable of resisting the enemy invasion is those same “enemies of the people” and people doomed " Stalin's regime" to an inglorious death. And even the officers capable of leading this uncontrollable mass into battle are no longer there either, the battalion commander is appointed a penalist who escaped from captivity, and the company commander is a thief in law. Almost every penalty box is relentlessly followed by an uncountable army of "special officers", and even a mediocre general commander is controlled by one of them. In fact, in our battalion, even when it had a full staff of 800 people, the “special officer” was one senior lieutenant, doing his own thing and not interfering in any way with the affairs of the battalion commander or headquarters.

Front-line penal battalions, unlike army separate penal companies, were formed only (and exclusively!) From officers convicted of crimes or sent to penal battalions by the authorities of division commanders and above - for instability, cowardice and other violations, especially strict discipline in wartime. Although, in fairness, it should be noted that sometimes the direction of military officers, for example, for "cowardice", did not correspond much to the officer's combat biography, or, as they say now, "the severity of the punishment did not always correspond to the severity of the crime." For example, in my company, Major Rodin, the former commander of the reconnaissance company of the division, who was sent to the penal battalion "for cowardice", died in battles on Polish soil. One can hardly imagine a “coward” of a scout who was previously awarded three orders of the “Red Banner” for feats and heroism. Or retired colonel Chernov from the documentary "Feat by Sentence", also a commander of a reconnaissance company, who ended up in a penal battalion for an elementary domestic misconduct.

7. Of course, different penal officers got into the penal battalion, but in the vast majority they were people who had a firm concept of officer honor, who strove to return to the officer ranks as soon as possible, and this, of course, could only come after direct participation in the battle. Apparently, they understood that it was precisely by Stalin's order that the fate of the advanced combat detachments, used on the most difficult sectors of the front, was prepared for the penal battalions. And if the penal battalion was in a state of formation or preparation for hostilities for a relatively long time, the well-known words of the song “When Comrade Stalin Sends Us into Battle” that were popular even before the war were more often pronounced in the sense of “Well, when will Comrade Stalin send us into battle?” . For the most part, in the recent past, penal officers were communists and Komsomol members, although now they did not have the appropriate party and Komsomol cards. Most often they were those who had not lost their spiritual connection with the party and the Komsomol, and even sometimes gathered, especially before the attacks, for unofficial meetings. Belonging to the Bolshevik Party is a huge incentive and a real obligation to be the first in battle, in attack, in hand-to-hand combat.

I will venture to tell one of my front-line dreams. This happened during the development of the well-known operation "Bagration" in July 1944, before the attack on Brest, on the eve of an important event for me personally - after I was accepted as a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the political department of the 38th Guards Lozovsky Rifle Division, a party ticket. Then, at the front, joining the party had to be earned, and we wrote in statements, “I want to be the first in the ranks of the defenders of the Motherland.” Literally the day before, I dreamed of Lenin and Stalin, talking in my dugout and approving the military deeds of my and my platoon ... How proud I was that, although in a dream, I came into contact with them. And until the end of the war, and more than one year after, this dream somehow inspired me in my military service. Truly, almost like Yulia Drunina, who wrote: “I only saw hand-to-hand combat once, once in reality, and a thousand in a dream,” but with me, just the opposite: “only once in a dream and many times later.”

8. Soviet officers who escaped from enemy captivity or left the encirclement from the territories occupied by the enemy are another category of penalized. As former prisoners of war who ended up in penal wards used to say then: “The Queen of England awarded her officers with an order in such cases, and we were sent to penal battalions!” Of course, it was unlawful to identify all those who fell into German captivity with traitors. In many cases, those who simply could not avoid it due to circumstances beyond their control were captured, and escaped from captivity at the risk of their own lives only in order to resist the enemy together with the entire people of the country. However, it is known that there were also numerous groups of saboteurs abandoned to us, recruited by the Nazis from among prisoners of war and trained in special Abwehr schools from traitors who agreed to cooperate with the enemy. The checks carried out by the NKVD and the SMERSH army counterintelligence and the costs of that time did not guarantee the absolute reliability of the results of such checks. So they sent many to penal formations. The mood and resentment of honest patriots who fled from captivity, recently, recalling the past, figuratively expressed in their hearts the former such penal of our battalion Basov Semyon Emelyanovich, who escaped from captivity and ended up in a penal battalion. He, a real Soviet patriot, who was also ranked among the traitors, spoke about Stalin like this: “For the fact that he ranked us all as traitors, I would hang him. But for the fact that he led our Motherland to such a Victory over such a strong and insidious enemy - I would take him out of the noose and put him on the highest pedestal on planet Earth. Semyon Emelyanovich, who recently left our mortal world at the age of 95, spoke about our penal battalion, in which he “washed away the guilt” before the Motherland: “I regret that I turned out to be an innocent penalty box, but I am proud that I was in a particularly stubborn, especially daring and courageous 8th OSHB, where we were all united not by one offense or misfortune, but by one hatred for the enemy, one love for the Socialist Motherland - the Soviet Union.

9. Than raised in the attack. Some "experts" claim that the slogans and calls "For Stalin!" only the political officers shouted. These “experts” did not lead their subordinates into attacks and hand-to-hand combat, they did not use machine guns when the platoon or company commander, raising his subordinates into the “death-soaked air” (according to Vladimir Vysotsky), commands “Follow me, forward!”, And then already, as a natural thing, “For the Motherland, for Stalin!” burst forth by itself, as for everything ours, Soviet, with which these dear names were associated. And the words "For Stalin" by no means meant "instead of Stalin", as the same "experts" sometimes interpret today. Patriotism was then not "Soviet", as detractors of our heroic past like to use foul language today. There was true, Soviet, real patriotism, when the words from the song “Before think of the Motherland, and then of yourself” were not so much a song line, but a whole worldview, brought up by the entire system of socialist ideology, not only among young people. And it was precisely the patriotism nurtured in the Soviet people that was the force that raised the people to the heights of self-sacrifice for the sake of victory over the enemy.

10. The Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repressions in Russia and other former Soviet republics has been held annually on October 30 since 1991. At rallies and various other events, some schools organize "live" history lessons, to which witnesses of the tragic events are invited. By the way, we, front-line soldiers, are less and less often invited to schools for "lessons of courage and patriotism", as it was even a few years ago. Probably, we, with our truth, did not begin to fit into those “historical” pages of textbooks that marked the events of the Great Patriotic War. The feelings of those who honor everyone who was repressed in those years, including those who spent the most terrible years of the war for the country not at the fronts, but in prisons and camps, are understandable. But for some reason, the voice of human rights activists does not rise in defense of those who have already been slandered in our, post-Soviet time, fines, those repressed by wartime, who were sent to the front from places of detention, who were sent to penal units, which means they were also repressed for violations of the Military Oath and military discipline. But these people, having become penalized in accordance with Stalin's Order "Not a step back!", Bravely fought the enemy, putting their lives or health on the very altar of Victory. In mid-2009, in response to an appeal to the relatives of the penal battalions known to me, I received support not only from them, but also from honest journalists and public figures.

Here, for example, is what the granddaughter of the illustrious army commander, General of the Army Alexander Vasilyevich Gorbatov, answered my appeal:

“I acknowledge receipt of your initiative letter with a proposal to establish an “All-Union Penal Day” and sincerely support it. In addition, I congratulate you and your fellow soldiers in advance on this holiday, which you deserved with your blood and hard trials that fell to your lot! With best wishes, Irina Gorbatova.”

And here are a few lines from a letter from journalist Olga Solnyshkina from Sergiev Posad: “The idea of ​​a holiday is great. May I publish your offer in the newspaper? In your words and with your own signature, what if we have supporters?”

And the essence of my proposal was to, “celebrating the courage, heroism and a certain contribution to the cause of the Great Victory of the Great Patriotic penitentiary, declare July 27, the day the Order was issued on the creation of penal formations in the past war, “Penal Day”. These special battalions and companies proved themselves, in spite of custom-made falsifiers, as the most stable, courageous and daring in the battles for the Motherland.

It is hard to believe that this call can find a kind response in the modern power structures, but I would like to hope.

11. By the upcoming 65th anniversary of the Victory, unscrupulous media activity has revived. It has already passed and, I think, more than once will go on TV screens through the deceitful “Penal Battalion” of Volodarsky-Dostal, which, despite the massive rejection of it by veterans, is assigned sonorous epithets like “the most truthful film about the war”, “The Golden Series of Russian War Films”, "people's blockbuster", etc. Unfortunately, neither the already numerous publications of the army "Red Star", nor many reliable books about penal battalions created on a strict documentary basis, nor even the authority of the President of the Academy of Military Sciences, General of the Army Makhmut Gareev, can yet overcome the gigantic press of lies of the true masters of television, anti-historians and anti-patriots. The attack on the truth continues.

The latest attacks against Stalin are the serial “Altar of Victory”, which claims to be objective, on the NTV channel and the program organized on the same channel on December 20 “Stalin with you?”. In "Altar ...", where the series "Generalissimo" was recently held, despite the majority of positive assessments of the role of the Supreme, the authors made the well-known false postulate of anti-historians in the finale of the film: "Victory was achieved not thanks to Stalin, but in spite of him," as if the people the Soviet himself, with the last of his strength, went to the Victory for a long 4 years and won, and the Supreme, as best he could, resisted and prevented this.

When I managed to get through to the co-director of this "Altar ...", then to my question, how could they ignore the opinion of the front-line soldiers, he replied: "We were given a tough directive - not to whitewash the name of Stalin." May this Great name not need any “whitewashing”! However, it is impossible to denigrate him endlessly, shamelessly! Of course, we understand that this "installation" is not from Kashpirovsky and not even from well-paid NTV managers and their henchmen, but from a higher leadership, from true owners.

The NTV channel, among the list of films of the Altar of Victory series, also includes a film about penal wards, for which they filmed a large number of television interviews with those who went through the “penal school” of the Great War, including me, as one of the “last Mohicans” penal battalions." When I asked this co-director if they had the same “installation” about penal battalions, I was told that in this film there would be a conversation with Alexei Serebryakov, the performer in that very scandalous 12-episode “Penal Battalion” of the role of battalion commander Tverdokhlebov . It can be assumed what conclusions the "entevshniks" will make if they again take Volodarsky's "movie masterpiece" as a basis, and not reality. And we, the still living witnesses and participants of that time, will again turn out to be only an “exception to the rule” of the current ideologists, emasculating the true truth from the difficult history of the Great Patriotic War.

In the program, which took place on December 20, on the eve of the 130th anniversary of the birth of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union I.V. Stalin, young, aggressive journalists, already with their brains "powdered" by their own anti-historical propaganda, like a pack of evil mongrels, attacked everyone who spoke kind words about Stalin. They actually staged a shameful coven, obscene even for modern "talk shows". Their most used argument against the Stalinist period of Soviet power was: "Did you eat meat then?" Yes, we ate both fish and natural meat, Russian, and not imported, including such rare meat now - crab meat! Maybe they didn’t eat so much as on Rublyovka or in the French skiing Courchevel now our “upper class” is eating, for which “barbecue” of pork and chicken, meat on ribs, beef steaks and other delicacies cooked in marinade with whiskey - almost not a daily menu. But kebabs in the free resorts of Georgia, Abkhazia, beshbarmak and Uzbek pilaf in Soviet public sanatoriums in Central Asia - they ate! And Siberian dumplings frozen for the winter were not translated either in Siberia itself, or in the Urals, or in the Far East. Answer for yourself, spit-sick gentlemen, but do millions of former prosperous Soviet people, destitute, robbed by your oligarch masters, eat meat now?

A familiar documentary filmmaker from the Trans-Urals wrote to me about this obscene television coven: “I watched this vile program, once again made on NTV. I watched with Vovka, who at the end said about the program and its presenters: “Dad, they yelp at Stalin, because they are ALL afraid of him. They yelp and have fear and HORROR in their eyes.” Vovka is 14 years old and he understood everything.”

They are afraid not so much of the light of this Great Name, coming from our recent heroic past. They are afraid that the name of the Great Stalin is becoming more majestic and attractive to new generations as an unsurpassed example of true service to his people. In this next anti-Stalinist program, despite the pathological activity of its hosts, justice itself sounded from the lips of the well-known throughout the country, Colonel of the General Staff Vladimir Kvachkov:

“More than one 130th anniversary will pass, the names of the Khrushchevs, Gorbachevs, Yeltsins and their followers will be forgotten, but the name of the Great Stalin will shine even brighter!”

Alexander PYLTSYN,
Major General of the Armed Forces of the USSR, retired,
Active member of the Academy of Military Historical Sciences,
Winner of the Literary Prize. Marshal of the Soviet Union L.A. Govorova,
Honorary citizen of the city of Rogachev (Republic of Belarus),
former commander of units of the 8th officer penal battalion of the 1st Belorussian Front

With the onset of perestroika, thanks to the media and cinema, the topic of penal battalions in the Great Patriotic War received wide publicity. In Soviet times, it was forbidden, so the existence of such formations was overgrown with a large number of various myths and tales, for the most part very far from reality. So who are they - the penalty box?

It is believed that the first penal companies and battalions appeared at the front in the summer of 1942, two weeks after the publication of the famous order No. 227 "Not a step back." Among other things, it spoke about the need for severe punishment of all soldiers and commanders who left the front line without an order from the command. For this, it was recommended to create specialized units - penal battalions and companies.

It was planned that each front would have from one to three such formations of at least 800 people each. All "traitors" included in their composition will have to "atone for their guilt with blood."

However, the use of penal battalions became completely "legal" after the issuance of the order, which explained the procedure for the creation and use of penal units.

With the announcement of the Regulations on penal battalions and companies and the staff of a penal battalion, company and barrage detachment of the army in the field. I announce for guidance:

1. Regulations on the penal battalions of the active army.

2. Regulations on the penal companies of the active army.

3. Staff No. 04/393 of a separate penal battalion of the active army.

4. Staff No. 04/392 of a separate penal company of the active army.

5. Staff No. 04/391 of a separate barrage detachment of the army.

Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Army Commissar of the 1st rank E. SCHADENKO

Officers, as well as middle and senior commanders, were sent to penal battalions, who for any misconduct were deprived of their ranks and became ordinary. Private and sergeant soldiers "staffed" penal companies. The commanders here were appointed ordinary combat officers who were not penalized. How difficult it was sometimes for lieutenants to lead into battle those who not so long ago were older than them in rank. But even colonels often came across among the penalty box. Former ones, of course.

It should be noted that the list of crimes for which one could fall into such disgrace was by no means always such in the ordinary sense. Neither malicious thieves, nor murderers, nor political prisoners got here. Basically, they became penalized for violating military discipline, as well as for cowardice or betrayal. It was not uncommon to meet soldiers whose fault in peacetime could have cost a reprimand or a few days in a guardhouse. But there was a war.

The armament of the penalty box consisted of small arms and grenades. Anti-tank rifles, machine guns and artillery were not supposed to, so in battle they had to rely only on their own strength.

Officers in the penal battalion could be sent by order of the division commander. Often without trial. The maximum stay was considered to be 3 months. They replaced 10 years of camps. Two months replaced 8 years, one month - 5 years.

Often, deadlines ended earlier. True, this happened only when the unit was involved in a complex combat mission associated with heavy losses. In this case, all personnel were released, the convictions were removed, and the fighters were restored to their ranks with the return of all awards to them.

Initially, in addition to infantrymen, tankers, artillerymen and soldiers of other branches of the ground forces, pilots were also sent to penal units. However, this did not last long. Already on August 4, 1942, an order was issued to create such units in the Air Force, which led to the appearance of penal squadrons. This was due to the fact that the country spent a lot of effort and money on the training of flight crews, therefore, the pilots serving their sentences in land penal battalions could be considered a waste of personnel. It is believed that the formation of these units was started after the Headquarters received a corresponding request from the command of the 8th Air Army.

Such squadrons were assault, light bomber and fighter. The first fought on the Il-2, the second - on the Po-2 ("maize") and the third - on the Yak-1. As in the ground units, the penal pilots were commanded by ordinary combat officers. True, the service here was set a little differently.

The attitude towards the personnel was more severe than in the infantry. If the latter were released from a criminal record, in the worst case, after 3 months, the "flyers" could wait for such indulgence solely on the basis of the results of successful sorties, strictly taken into account by the commanders. No specific release dates were set. Even half a year of successful “work” was far from always an argument for the removal of a criminal record. Injuries were also not considered "blood atonement". These pilots could not count on receiving any awards, which was sometimes found among the infantrymen. Moreover, there were cases when, being released, the aviators, as if nothing had happened, continued to perform their duties.

It is unlikely that penal pilots deserved such an attitude towards themselves. They cannot be called traitors, because, having the opportunity to fly to the enemy at any time, they continued to fight courageously without receiving anything in return.

According to statistics, from 1942 to 1945 there were 56 penal battalions and 1049 penal companies in the Red Army. The last unit was disbanded on June 6, 1945.

Despite the fact that the soldiers of these units always found themselves in the most difficult parts of the war, they did not have any honors. They were not erected monuments, and the accomplished feats were not considered as such. Nevertheless, penalty boxers cannot be considered heroes.

Penal battalion. Photo by Dmitry Baltermants.

Source - waralbum.ru

You better chop wood for coffins - Penal battalions are going into the breach!

Vladimir Vysotsky "Penal battalions"

As you understood from the quote from Vysotsky's song, the topic of this article is the penal parts of the Red Army. Let's take a closer look at them. During the Great Patriotic War, our penal units were subdivided into a penal battalion and a penal company. They were created according to the well-known order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Stalin I.V. No. 227 of July 28, 1942. Which, among other things, stated:

"one. To the military councils of the fronts, and above all to the commanders of the fronts:

c) to form within the front from one to three (depending on the situation) penal battalions (800 people each), where to send medium and senior commanders and relevant political workers of all branches of the military who are guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability, and put them on more difficult sections of the front, in order to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland with blood.

2. To the military councils of the armies and, above all, to the commanders of the armies:

c) to form within the army from five to ten (depending on the situation) penal companies (from 150 to 200 people each), where to send ordinary soldiers and junior commanders who are guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability, and put them in difficult areas army to give them the opportunity to atone for their crimes against the Motherland with blood.

Subsequently, all fighters and commanders of the Red Army found guilty by military tribunals of committing both military and ordinary crimes began to be sent to such penal units. At the same time, the criminal punishment as imprisonment was replaced by serving the sentence in a penal battalion or penal company. They did not give long terms of being in penal wards, so imprisonment for a period of 10 years was equated to three months in a penal battalion or company. The minimum period was 1 month.

"Penalty" who were wounded or distinguished themselves in battles were presented for early release with the restoration of their former rank and rights. The dead were automatically reinstated in rank, and their relatives were granted a pension "on a common basis with all families of commanders." All penalized prisoners who have served their time are "represented by the command of the battalion to the military council of the front for release and, upon approval of the submission, are released from the penal battalion." All those released were also restored in rank and all their awards were returned to them.

On September 28, 1942, the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Army Commissar 1st Rank Shchadenko, issued Order No. 298, which announced the provisions on penal battalions and penal companies, as well as the staff of the penal battalion, penal company and barrage detachment.

According to these documents, the servicemen of the penal units were divided into permanent and variable composition. The permanent staff was recruited "from among the strong-willed and most distinguished commanders and political workers in battle." For special conditions of military service, they received appropriate benefits, for example, in relation to the calculation of length of service. The permanent composition of the penal battalion included the command of the battalion, officers of headquarters and administration, commanders of companies, platoons, political leaders of companies and platoons, foremen, clerks and medical instructors of companies. In the penal company, the commander and military commissar of the company, the clerk of the company, commanders, political instructors, foremen and medical instructors of platoons belonged to the permanent staff.

As you can see, the command staff of penal units did not consist of penalized units, but of specially selected commanders and political workers, since not every commander was able to manage such a specific unit as penal battalions and companies were, where it was necessary not only to be able to command correctly, but also to the decisive moment of the battle to raise and lead the penalty box to the attack. Which contradicts the modern film "Penal Battalion", where in the battalion even the commander (Serebryannikov) is a penal.

As for the variable composition, that is, the penalty box, regardless of their previous military rank, they served as privates, but could be appointed to the positions of junior officers. So the former colonels and captains with rifles, machine guns and machine guns in their hands clearly followed the orders of lieutenants, commanders of penal platoons and companies.

Not only guilty military personnel fell into the penal units of the Red Army. Persons convicted by the judiciary were also sent there, however, courts and military tribunals were forbidden to send to penal units convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes, banditry, robbery, robbery, recidivist thieves, persons who had already been convicted for the above crimes, as well as repeatedly deserted from the Red Army. In other categories of cases, when deciding on the issue of postponing the execution of a sentence with sending the convicted person to the active army, courts and military tribunals, when passing a sentence, took into account the personality of the convicted person, the nature of the crime committed and other circumstances of the case. Not everyone was given the opportunity to atone for their guilt with blood at the front.

At the same time, I want to emphasize that it was the persons convicted by the judiciary who were sent to whom deprivation of liberty was replaced by serving their sentences in penal units. But people who had already served their sentences in places of deprivation of liberty and filed a petition to be sent to the front were sent to ordinary rifle units after an amnesty. At the same time, it was also forbidden to send persons convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes and especially grave ones. In relation to commanders who were repressed in the 1930s and released in the pre-war or initial period of the war, a different procedure was applied. Their criminal cases were removed from the archives and reviewed, then the sentences were canceled due to the lack of corpus delicti. Very often, Rokossovsky K.K. is cited as an example, which is not true, since no sentence was passed against him, and the trial was postponed and the case was sent for further investigation due to the fact that all the witnesses for the prosecution were already dead. The case was subsequently dropped. As is believed in connection with Tymoshenko's petition. Here is another commander - Gorbatov Alexander Vasilyevich was indeed convicted on May 8, 1939 under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (“counter-revolutionary crimes”) to 15 years in prison and 5 years of loss of rights. He served his sentence in a camp in Kolyma. Released after retrial on March 5, 1941. After being reinstated in the army and treated in sanatoriums, in April of the same year he was appointed to the post of deputy commander of the 25th Rifle Corps in Ukraine.

By the way, during the war years in the Red Army there was another type of penal units. In 1943, separate assault rifle battalions appeared in the Red Army. So on August 1, 1943, the order of the People's Commissar of Defense No. Org / 2/1348 “On the formation of separate assault rifle battalions” was issued, which prescribed:

"In order to provide an opportunity for the command and command staff, who spent a long time in the territory occupied by the enemy, and did not take part in partisan detachments, to prove their loyalty to the Motherland with weapons in their hands."

These penal units were formed only from the contingents of commanding officers contained in special (filtration) camps of the NKVD. At the beginning, 4 such assault battalions of 927 people each were formed. Assault battalions were intended for use in the most active sectors of the front. The term of stay of personnel in separate assault rifle battalions was set at two months of participation in battles, either before being awarded an order for valor shown in battle or until the first wound, after which personnel, if they have good attestations, can be appointed to field troops for appropriate command positions. - commanding staff.

Subsequently, the formation of assault battalions was continued. Their combat use, in principle, did not differ from penal battalions, although there were differences. So, unlike the penalized, those who were sent to the assault battalions were not convicted and deprived of their officer ranks, respectively, they had a different attitude. The families of the personnel assigned to the battalions from the special camps of the NKVD were granted all the rights and benefits defined by law for the families of the commanding staff of the Red Army. There was one more difference between assault battalions and ordinary penal ones, so if in penal battalions (as in penal companies) the permanent staff occupied all positions, starting with platoon commanders, then in assault battalions only the positions of the battalion commander, his deputy for political affairs were included in the permanent staff , chief of staff and company commanders. The remaining positions of the middle and junior command staff were occupied by the fighters themselves from the personnel of the assault battalion.

The armament of the penal units of the Red Army was no different from the equipment of regular rifle units. The same Mosin rifles, PPSh-41, machine guns of the Maxim and Goryunov systems.

I would like to note that during the war years there were cases when the status of a penalty area was removed from an entire unit:

“At the end of August 1942, the 163rd penal company of the 51st Army in a defensive battle repulsed an enemy attack supported by ten tanks. Being cut off from its troops, the company with battles left the encirclement, and on September 1, it already participated in an offensive battle and only retreated to its original positions by order. The soldiers and commanding staff of the company carried the wounded for 60 kilometers. By order of the military council of the army, the title of penal was removed from the company.

Penal units existed in the Workers' and Peasants' Division from September 1942 to May 1945. In total, 427,910 people were sent to penal units throughout the war. On the other hand, 34,476.7 thousand people passed through the Armed Forces of the USSR during the war. It turns out that the share of military personnel who have been in penal companies and battalions is only 1.24% of the entire personnel of the Red Army.

Finally, it is worth noting that the penal battalions and companies turned out to be one of the most persistent units of the Red Army. Here it is worth saying that the detachments behind them are just a myth. The barrage detachments, created in 1942, were located behind unstable divisions, and not behind the penalty box. Pyltsyn Alexander Vasilyevich, who at one time commanded a penal battalion, states:

“Having fought in the penal battalion from 1943 until the end of the war, I dare to say that there have never been detachments or other intimidating forces behind our penal battalion. By order No. 227, detachments were created in order to put them in the rear of "unstable divisions." And the penal battalions turned out to be exceptionally persistent and combat-ready, and detachments in the rear of these units were simply not needed. Of course, I can’t talk about all penal units, but after the war I met with many who fought in penal battalions and penal companies and never heard of the detachments behind them.

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In recent years, films and publications have begun to appear, allegedly exposing loud shocking moments in the history of the Great Patriotic War. However, at the heart of many topics disturbing the public consciousness is the banal demand of the modern market for sensational information. Penal companies and battalions became one of such controversial and controversial pages in the history of the last war. Clarity in this matter is brought both by the archive of the Second World War by the names of the participants in the disciplinary units, and by the memoirs of the veterans themselves. It must be said that many of those whose ancestors ended up in penal companies or battalions are far from always sufficiently aware of the details of service in special conditions, because often participants in those events preferred not to talk about what tests they had to go through.

The history of education and the foundations of the organization

Penal formations appeared in the Red Army in the summer of 1942 on the personal orders of I.V. Stalin. The need for the formation of such disciplinary units was explained by the fact that the number of soldiers and officers who committed crimes of minor gravity was impressive enough to allow this category of military personnel to serve their sentences in places of deprivation of liberty in difficult wartime. This state of affairs is confirmed by the military archive. A search by the names of those who fought in the status of a penal gives answers to questions regarding this phenomenon.
Soldiers and officers fell into disciplinary units for offenses related to the violation of the charter and failure to comply with the order, but did not entail serious consequences, as well as for cowardice, desertion, cowardice and slovenliness. Only officers were sent to penal battalions, and soldiers, sergeants and foremen were sent to penal companies. For the entire time of the conduct of hostilities, there were 65 penal battalions and a little more than a thousand penal companies. The period of stay in formations of this type was limited to 3 months (or until the first injury). Officers who ended up in penal battalions were deprived of their ranks and awards, but after their release, as a rule, they were fully restored in their rights. Nevertheless, for the heroism shown in battles, the penalty boxers were often awarded orders and medals. The archive of the Second World War by the names of the participants contains in its vaults a lot of personal files, in which there are notes about heroic episodes during service in penal battalions.
The penalty box was commanded by ordinary regular officers who did not have any penalties. Compared with the commanders of ordinary combat units, these officers had some benefits and advantages. Women who served in the Red Army and committed misconduct were not enrolled in penal units, but were sent to the rear.
There were similar disciplinary formations in the Wehrmacht army.

Truth and fiction

In cinema and modern literature, one can observe a number of blunders associated with penalty parts. These fictions are completely refuted by the military archive; searching by surnames in it clarifies many points of those events. So, for example, there is an opinion that a significant part of the fines were political prisoners and criminals, and some of them supposedly even ruled the divisions at the level of commanders, or rather godfathers. In fact, by definition, there could not be convicts in the penal battalions. A small number of criminal elements ended up in penal companies, but their dominance in the collectives was out of the question.

Some so-called historians like to savor the myth that the brunt of the war was carried on their shoulders by the penitentiaries. This is not true. The number of soldiers and officers who went through disciplinary battalions and companies throughout the Great Patriotic War barely exceeded 1% of the total number of all military personnel of the war period. Another thing is that the penal battalions and penal companies always ended up in the thick of it, which is why the losses in these units were significantly higher than the average. Anyone who wants to verify this can personally look into the WWII archive; By the names of the participants in bloody battles, one can trace the combat path of the formation and, accordingly, the number of losses. It should only be remembered that soldiers from ordinary forward regiments and divisions also fought desperately next to the penalty box.

Many modern films about the war vividly demonstrate the cruelty of their own detachments, destroying those who dared to retreat without an order, and this supposedly concerned the penal units in the first place. And that's not true. Detachments really existed, but there were not as many of them as sensational hunters write about it, and they did not have any special instructions about the penalty box. By the way, the enemy also had similar barrage units.

We also have such literate people who claim that the fighters of the penal battalions were sorely lacking in weapons and that they were fed on a leftover basis. Again fairy tales! All military units on the front line were supplied with weapons and food in the same way. Simply, breaking away from the rear support or being surrounded, any unit had difficulties with ammunition and food. Attributing this problem only to penalty parts is incorrect.

Thus, you should not be ashamed if in the process it turns out that your ancestor at some point ended up in a penal battalion or a penal company - a military archive, a search by surname in which it may well provide such information, often indicates sharp turns in the biographies of Red Army soldiers . Everyone makes mistakes, although the cost of misdeeds committed in wartime can be prohibitive. Nevertheless, many soldiers and officers who went through disciplinary units redeemed themselves with blood, and many performed feats and were even awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

When writing the article, information was used from the memories of people who passed through penal companies.

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