Fascism was a reflection and result of the development of the main contradictions of Western civilization. His ideology absorbed (bringing to the grotesque) the ideas of racism and social equality, technocratic and statist concepts. An eclectic intertwining of various ideas and theories resulted in the form of accessible populist doctrine and demagogic politics. The National Socialist German Workers' Party grew out of the Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace, a circle founded in 1915 by workers Anton Drexler. At the beginning of 1919, other organizations of the National Socialist persuasion were created in Germany. In November 1921, a fascist party was created in Italy, with 300,000 members, 40% of them workers. Recognizing this political force, the king of Italy ordered in 1922 the leader of this party Benito Mussolini(1883-1945) to form a cabinet of ministers, which since 1925 becomes fascist.

According to the same scenario, the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. Party leader Adolf Gitler(1889-1945) receives the position of Reich Chancellor from the hands of the President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934).

From the first steps, the fascists proved themselves to be irreconcilable anti-communists, anti-Semites, good organizers, capable of reaching out to all segments of the population, and revanchists. Their activities could hardly have been so rapidly successful without the support of the revanchist monopoly circles in their countries. The presence of their direct ties with the Nazis is beyond doubt, if only because next to the dock in Nuremberg in 1945 were the leaders of the criminal regime and the largest economic magnates of Nazi Germany (G. Schacht, G. Krupp). It can be argued that the financial resources of the monopolies contributed to the fascisization of countries, the strengthening of fascism, designed not only to destroy the communist regime in the USSR (anti-communist idea), inferior peoples (the idea of ​​racism), but also to redraw the map of the world, destroying the Versailles system of the post-war system (revanchist idea).

The phenomenon of fascisization of a number of European countries has even more clearly demonstrated the critical state of the entire Western civilization. In essence, this political and ideological trend represented an alternative to its foundations by curtailing democracy, market relations and replacing them with a policy of etatism, building a society of social equality for the chosen peoples, cultivating collectivist forms of life, inhumane treatment of non-Aryans, etc. True, fascism did not imply total destruction of Western civilization. Perhaps this to a certain extent explains the relatively loyal attitude of the ruling circles of democratic countries towards this formidable phenomenon for a long time. In addition, fascism can be attributed to one of the varieties of totalitarianism. Western political scientists have proposed a definition of totalitarianism based on several criteria that have received recognition and further development in political science. Totalitarianism characterized by: 1) the presence of an official ideology, covering the most vital areas of human life and society and supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens. This ideology is based on the rejection of the hitherto existing order and pursues the task of rallying society to create a new way of life, not excluding the use of violent methods; 2) the dominance of a mass party built on a strictly hierarchical principle of government, as a rule, with a leader at the head. Party - performing the functions of control over the bureaucratic state apparatus or dissolving in it; 3) the presence of a developed system of police control, penetrating all public aspects of the life of the country; 4) the almost complete control of the party over the media; 5) full control of the party over law enforcement agencies, primarily the army; 6) management of the central government of the economic life of the country.

This characteristic of totalitarianism is applicable both to the regime that has developed in Germany, Italy and other fascist countries, and in many respects to the Stalinist regime that has developed in the 30s in the USSR. It is also possible that such a similarity of various guises of totalitarianism made it difficult for politicians who were at the head of democratic countries in that dramatic period of modern history to realize the danger posed by this monstrous phenomenon.

Already in 1935, Germany refused to comply with the military articles of the Treaty of Versailles, followed by the occupation of the Rhine demilitarized zone, withdrawal from the League of Nations, Italian assistance in the occupation of Ethiopia (1935-1936), intervention in Spain (1936-1939), Anschluss (or accession) of Austria (1938), the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia (1938-1939) in accordance with the Munich Agreement, etc. Finally, in April 1939, Germany unilaterally terminates the Anglo-German naval agreement and the non-aggression pact with Poland, so the casus arose belli (cause for war).

The Second World War

Foreign policy of countries before the war. Finally, the Versailles system fell before the outbreak of World War II, for which Germany was quite thoroughly prepared. Thus, from 1934 to 1939, military production in the country increased 22 times, the number of troops - 35 times, Germany came second in the world in terms of industrial production, etc.

Currently, researchers do not have a unified view of the geopolitical state of the world on the eve of World War II. Some historians (Marxists) continue to insist on a two-polis characterization. In their opinion, there were two socio-political systems in the world (socialism and capitalism), and within the framework of the capitalist system of world relations there were two centers of a future war (Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia). A significant part of historians believe that on the eve of the Second world war there were three political systems: bourgeois-democratic, socialist and fascist-militarist. The interaction of these systems, the alignment of forces between them could ensure peace or disrupt it. A possible bloc between the bourgeois-democratic and socialist systems was a real alternative to the Second World War. However, a peaceful alliance did not work out. The bourgeois-democratic countries did not agree to create a bloc before the start of the war, because their leadership continued to regard Soviet totalitarianism as the greatest threat to the foundations of civilization (the result of revolutionary changes in the USSR, including the 1930s) than its fascist antipode, which openly proclaimed a crusade against communism. The attempt of the USSR to create a system of collective security in Europe ended with the signing of agreements with France and Czechoslovakia (1935). But even these treaties were not put into effect during the period of German occupation of Czechoslovakia due to the "appeasement policy" opposed to them, pursued at that time by most European countries in relation to Germany.

Germany, in October 1936, formalized a military-political alliance with Italy (“Berlin-Rome Axis”), and a month later the Anti-Comintern Pact was signed between Japan and Germany, to which Italy joined a year later (November 6, 1937). The creation of a revanchist alliance forced the countries of the bourgeois-democratic camp to become more active. However, only in March 1939 did Britain and France begin negotiations with the USSR on joint actions against Germany. But the agreement was never signed. Despite the polarity of interpretations of the reasons for the failed union of anti-fascist states, some of which shift the blame for the unbridled aggressor onto the capitalist countries, others attribute it to the policy of the USSR leadership, etc., one thing is obvious - the skillful use by fascist politicians of the contradictions between anti-fascist countries, which led to to grave consequences for the whole world.

Soviet policy on the eve of the war. The consolidation of the fascist camp against the background of the policy of appeasement of the aggressor pushed the USSR into an open struggle against the spreading aggressor: 1936 - Spain, 1938 - a small war with Japan at Lake Khasan, 1939 - the Soviet-Japanese war at Khalkhin Gol. However, quite unexpectedly, on August 23, 1939 (eight days before the start of the World War, the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the USSR, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was signed). The secret protocols to this pact on the delimitation of the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR in the north and south of Europe, as well as the division of Poland, which became the property of the world community, forced a new look (especially for domestic researchers) on the role of the USSR in the anti-fascist struggle on the eve of the war, as well as its activities from September 1939 to June 1941, on the history of the opening of the second front, and much more.

There is no doubt that the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact dramatically changed the balance of power in Europe: the USSR avoided a seemingly inevitable clash with Germany, while the countries of Western Europe found themselves face to face with the aggressor, whom they continued to pacify out of inertia (an attempt England and France from August 23 to September 1, 1939 to agree with Germany on the Polish question, similar to the Munich Agreement).

Beginning of World War II. The immediate pretext for the attack on Poland was a rather frank provocation by Germany on their joint border (Gliwitz), after which, on September 1, 1939, 57 German divisions (1.5 million people), about 2500 tanks, 2000 aircraft invaded the territory of Poland . The Second World War began.

England and France declared war on Germany already on September 3, without providing, however, real assistance to Poland. From September 3 to September 10, Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada entered the war against Germany; The United States declared neutrality, Japan declared non-intervention in the European war.

First stage of the war. Thus, World War II began as a war between the bourgeois-democratic and fascist-militarist blocs. The first stage of the war dates from September 1, 1939 - June 21, 1941, at the beginning of which the German army occupied part of Poland until September 17, reaching the line (the cities of Lvov, Vladimir-Volynsky, Brest-Litovsk), marked by one of the mentioned secret protocols Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Until May 10, 1940, England and France did not practically conduct military operations with the enemy, therefore this period was called the “strange war”. Germany took advantage of the passivity of the allies, expanding its aggression, occupying Denmark and Norway in April 1940 and going on the offensive from the shores of the North Sea to the Maginot Line on May 10 of the same year. During May, the governments of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland capitulated. And already on June 22, 1940, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany in Compiègne. As a result of the actual surrender of France, a collaborationist state was created in its south, headed by Marshal A. Peten(1856-1951) and the administrative center in the city of Vichy (the so-called "Vichy regime"). France resisting was led by a general Charles de Gaulle ( 1890-1970).

On May 10, there were changes in the leadership of Great Britain; Winston Churchill(1874-1965), whose anti-German, anti-fascist and, of course, anti-Soviet sentiments were well known. The period of the "strange war" is over.

From August 1940 to May 1941, the German command organized systematic air raids on the cities of England, trying to force its leadership to withdraw from the war. As a result, during this time, about 190 thousand high-explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped on England, and by June 1941, a third of the tonnage of its merchant fleet was sunk at sea. Germany also increased its pressure on the countries of South-Eastern Europe. The accession to the Berlin Pact (the agreement of Germany, Italy and Japan of September 27, 1940) of the Bulgarian pro-fascist government ensured the success of the aggression against Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Italy in 1940 developed military operations in Africa, advancing on the colonial possessions of England and France (East Africa, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia). However, in December 1940, the British forced the Italian troops to surrender. Germany rushed to the aid of an ally.

The policy of the USSR at the first stage of the war did not receive a unified assessment. A significant part of Russian and foreign researchers tend to interpret it as an accomplice in relation to Germany, which is based on the agreement between the USSR and Germany within the framework of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as well as the fairly close military-political, trade cooperation between the two countries until the beginning of Germany's aggression against the USSR. In our opinion, in such an assessment, a strategic approach at the pan-European, global level prevails to a greater extent. At the same time, the point of view, which draws attention to the benefits received by the USSR from cooperation with Germany at the first stage of the Second World War, somewhat corrects this unambiguous assessment, allowing us to speak about the well-known strengthening of the USSR within the time it won to prepare to repel imminent aggression, which ultimately ensured the subsequent Great Victory over fascism of the entire anti-fascist camp.

In this chapter, we will confine ourselves to this preliminary assessment of the participation of the USSR in World War II, since the rest of its stages are considered in more detail in Chap. 16. Here, it is advisable to dwell only on some of the most important episodes of the subsequent stages.

Second stage of the war. The second stage of the war (June 22, 1941 - November 1942) was characterized by the entry of the USSR into the war, the retreat of the Red Army and its first victory (the battle for Moscow), as well as the beginning of the intensive formation of the anti-Hitler coalition. So, on June 22, 1941, England declared its full support for the USSR, and the United States almost simultaneously (June 23) expressed its readiness to provide it with economic assistance. As a result, on July 12, a Soviet-British agreement was signed in Moscow on joint actions against Germany, and on August 16, on trade between the two countries. In the same month, as a result of the meeting of F. Roosevelt(1882-1945) and W. Churchill was signed atlantic charter, which the USSR joined in September. However, the United States entered the war on December 7, 1941 after the tragedy at the Pacific naval base Pearl Harbor. Developing the offensive from December 1941 to June 1942, Japan occupied Thailand, Singapore, Burma, Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. On January 1, 1942, in Washington, 27 states that were at war with the countries of the so-called "fascist axis" signed a declaration of the United Nations, which completed the difficult process of creating an anti-Hitler coalition.

Third stage of the war. The third stage of the war (mid-November 1942 - late 1943) was marked by a radical turning point in its course, which meant the loss of the strategic initiative by the countries of the fascist coalition on the fronts, the superiority of the anti-Hitler coalition in the economic, political and moral aspect. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Army won major victories at Stalingrad and Kursk. Anglo-American troops successfully advanced in Africa, liberating Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Tunisia from German-Italian formations. In Europe, as a result of successful operations in Sicily, the Allies forced Italy to capitulate. In 1943, the allied relations of the countries of the anti-fascist bloc were strengthened: at the Moscow Conference (October 1943), England, the USSR and the USA adopted declarations on Italy, Austria and general security (signed also by China), on the responsibility of the Nazis for the crimes committed.

On the Tehran Conference(November 28 - December 1, 1943), where F. Roosevelt, J. Stalin and W. Churchill met for the first time, it was decided to open a Second Front in Europe in May 1944 and a Declaration was adopted on joint actions in the war against Germany and post-war cooperation. At the end of 1943, at a conference of the leaders of Britain, China and the USA, the Japanese question was similarly resolved.

Fourth stage of the war. At the fourth stage of the war (from the end of 1943 to May 9, 1945), the Soviet Army was liberating the western regions of the USSR, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, etc. In Western Europe with some delay (June 6, 1944) The Second Front was opened, the countries of Western Europe were being liberated. In 1945, 18 million people, about 260 thousand guns and mortars, up to 40 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, over 38 thousand aircraft took part on the battlefields in Europe at the same time.

On the Yalta Conference(February 1945) the leaders of England, the USSR and the USA decided the fate of Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, discussed the issue of creating United Nations(created on April 25, 1945), signed an agreement on the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan.

The result of joint efforts was the complete and unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, signed on the outskirts of Berlin by Karl-Horst.

Fifth stage of the war. The final, fifth stage of World War II took place in the Far East and Southeast Asia (from May 9 to September 2, 1945). By the summer of 1945, allied troops and national resistance forces had liberated all the lands occupied by Japan, and American troops occupied the strategically important islands of Irojima and Okinawa, inflicting massive bombing attacks on the cities of the island state. For the first time in world practice, the Americans carried out two barbaric atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945).

After the lightning defeat of the Kwantung Army by the USSR (August 1945), Japan signed an act of surrender (September 2, 1945).

Results of the Second World War. The Second World War, planned by the aggressors as a series of small lightning wars, turned into a global armed conflict. From 8 to 12.8 million people, from 84 to 163 thousand guns, from 6.5 to 18.8 thousand aircraft simultaneously participated in its various stages from both sides. The total theater of operations was 5.5 times larger than the territories covered by the First World War. In total, during the war of 1939-1945. 64 states with a total population of 1.7 billion people were drawn in. The losses incurred as a result of the war are striking in their scale. More than 50 million people died, and if we take into account the constantly updated data on the losses of the USSR (they range from 21.78 million to about 30 million), this figure cannot be called final. In the death camps alone, 11 million lives were destroyed. The economies of most of the warring countries were undermined.

It was these terrible results of the Second World War, which brought civilization to the brink of destruction, that forced its viable forces to become more active. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact of the formation of an effective structure of the world community - the United Nations (UN), which opposes totalitarian tendencies in development, the imperial ambitions of individual states; the act of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that condemned fascism, totalitarianism, and punished the leaders of criminal regimes; a broad anti-war movement that contributed to the adoption of international pacts banning the production, distribution and use of weapons of mass destruction, etc.

By the time the war began, perhaps only England, Canada and the United States remained the centers of the reservation of the foundations of Western civilization. The rest of the world was slipping more and more into the abyss of totalitarianism, which, as we tried to show by the example of the analysis of the causes and consequences of world wars, led to the inevitable death of mankind. The victory over fascism strengthened the position of democracy and provided the way for the slow recovery of civilization. However, this path was very difficult and long. Suffice it to say that only from the end of World War II until 1982 there were 255 wars and military conflicts, until recently there was a destructive confrontation between political camps, the so-called "cold war", humanity has repeatedly stood on the verge of a nuclear war, etc. Yes, even today we can see in the world the same military conflicts, bloc feuds, remaining islands of totalitarian regimes, etc. However, it seems to us that they no longer determine the face of modern civilization.

Questions for self-examination

1. What were the causes of the First World War?

2. What stages are distinguished during the First World War, what groupings of countries participated in it?

3. How did the First World War end, what consequences did it have?

4. Reveal the reasons for the emergence and spread of fascism in the 20th century, give its characteristics, compare it with totalitarianism.

5. What caused the Second World War, what was the alignment of the countries participating in it, what stages did it go through and how did it end?

6. Compare the size of human and material losses in the First and Second World Wars.

Chapter 16. Major economic crises. Phenomenon
state-monopoly economy

Economic crises of the first half of the XX century.

Economic crises of the second half of the XX century.

This topic of classes is fully focused on working with primary sources - documents and materials.

The last year before the start of the Second World War, which turned out to be extremely eventful in the field of international relations, is estimated by many as a "year of crisis". There are many reasons for this assessment.

Rapidly developing after the Anschluss of Austria since April 1938, the Sudeten German crisis ended with the infamous Munich Agreement, signed on the night of September 30, 1938 by the Prime Ministers of England, Germany, Italy and France. Regarding this apogee of the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany by Western politicians, W. Churchill wisely remarked that England in Munich had to choose between disgrace and war. She chose shame in order to receive war in the future.

Indeed, according to the unanimous recognition of both contemporaries and scientists, in the fall of 1938 the “Third Reich” was not ready for a big war. The determination of the West to protect the territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia would not only prevent the balance of power in Europe from being shaken in favor of Germany, but could also lead to a general opposition against Hitler. But the British and French governments preferred, ignoring the interests of Czechoslovakia and the opinion of the population of this country, to transfer the Sudetenland to the Reich.

In the course of preparation for the first seminar, it is necessary first of all to reveal what tactics the Nazis chose in solving the Sudeten problem and what role the unresolved national question in the Czechoslovak state played in the success of this tactic. Since many domestic authors reproached the president of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic for being too compliant with the Sudeten Germans, it is also necessary to find out how justified these reproaches are and whether E. Beneš had the possibility of pursuing a different policy. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to analyze the position of the British government on the Sudeten German question in the spring and summer, and especially in September 1938. The most informative here are the records of Chamberlain's conversations with Hitler on September 15 and 22-23, respectively, in Berchtesgaden and Godesberg, as well as materials on the Anglo-French requirements for the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and about the methods of Western pressure on the Czechoslovak leaders. The details of the Munich Agreement, which differ from the content of Hitler's Godesberg Memorandum, do not deserve attention, since the transfer of about 20% of the Czechoslovakia to Germany will take place without any plebiscite, and the "forms of evacuation" of this territory will be established in detail not by the international commission, but by the Nazis.

According to some authors, in March 1939, the Western governments, primarily the British, put an end to the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany, since they entered into contacts with the government of the USSR, and then into negotiations with it to prevent the further expansion of Hitlerite aggression.

The course of the tripartite Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations in Moscow in August 1939 on military issues is well covered in the literature in Russian, which cannot be said about the stage of tripartite diplomatic contacts and negotiations on political issues that preceded these negotiations. As a result, the focus of the second and third seminars is on the diplomatic correspondence of the governments of the three great European states in the period of March-June 1939 and the tripartite political negotiations in Moscow in June-July.

The importance of getting acquainted with documentary materials on these historical plots is reinforced by numerous falsifications of the history of international relations on the eve of World War II, designed to convince that not even Hitler, but Stalin, bears the main responsibility for unleashing the war. Thus, the publicist I. Bunich, in a two-volume book claiming to be a historical chronicle, claims that on March 21 “... the government of England proposed to Stalin to accept a declaration by the USSR, England, France and Poland on joint resistance to Hitler's expansion in Europe. There was no answer. March 31 England and France announced guarantees to Poland. Stalin chuckled, but said nothing.

A professional historian can determine his attitude to this kind of pseudo-history only if he is well aware of the concrete picture of the development of Anglo-French-Soviet contacts and negotiations in the spring and summer of 1939.

An even greater number of various kinds of speculation gives rise to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact of August 23, 1939. The authors of near-scientific works describe Stalin's plans in this way: dreaming of a world revolution that a new war could accelerate, he pushed Hitler to aggression, and remaining in 1939 outside the military conflict, he was preparing to conquer both Germany and all of Europe. Similar statements are also found in the literature that claims to be scientific: “The non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany was concluded ... as a completely conscious agreement on Germany’s attack on Poland with impunity from the USSR and with the prospect of dividing Poland between the USSR and Germany, and most importantly, with the prospect of a war between Germany on the one hand, and France and England on the other.... In other words, the pact unleashed Germany's hands, provoked her to start the Second World War.

Some even try to prove that Hitler was "raised" by none other than Stalin. Hoping to use the Fuhrer of the NSDAP as an "icebreaker", clearing the way for the world proletarian revolution with the help of war in Europe, Stalin, they say, since 1933 sought to collude with the Nazi dictator, never seriously thinking about the possibility of anti-fascist cooperation with the countries of liberal democracy .

In an effort to make the most of theoretical knowledge, which is sometimes remotely related to the subject of their study, historians dealing with international relations of the late 1930s, now and then also consider them through the prism of the theory of totalitarianism. The origin of the Soviet-German pact of 1939 is often associated by them with the fact that "the Stalinist regime, politically and morally, was more prepared for collusion with Hitler" . It would, however, be completely wrong to derive the Soviet-Nazi rapprochement from the kinship of the two political regimes. A unique historical phenomenon needs to be clarified not by sociological, but by historical causality - one without which it is impossible to understand why in the war of 1914-18. authoritarian Russia fought on the side of the liberal democratic countries against the equally authoritarian Germany, and during the Second World War the USSR, despite its totalitarianism, fought side by side with the “democracies” against the totalitarian “Third Reich”.

When Stalin and Molotov made the decision to go for a pact with Hitler in the midst of Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations, information about secret Anglo-German negotiations in the summer of 1939 could be decisive.

The purpose of the fourth seminar is to restore from documents the most significant plot of these Anglo-German contacts - negotiations between the ministerial director of the Goering Office for the implementation of the four-year plan of Germany, Helmut Wohltath, and the chief adviser to the British government on industrial development, Horace (Horace) Wilson. When working with sources, it is necessary to compare two versions of the Wilson-Woltath meetings on July 18 and 21, 1939, one of which belongs directly to the participant in the negotiations - Wohlthath, and the other - to the German ambassador to Great Britain von Dirksen.

1) The international situation on the eve of World War II At the end of 1938, the inevitability of a new war in Europe became quite obvious. The Italian attack on Ethiopia in 1935, the German-Italian intervention against Republican Spain and their assistance to the Francoists in the years, the Anschluss of Austria in 1938, the aggressive policy of Japan - allies of Germany and Italy - in the Far East, the Munich Agreement of 1938 - all these acts of aggression indicated the imminence of a new large-scale armed conflict. In this situation, most European countries, in an effort to protect themselves, are playing a "double game", trying to simultaneously conclude a non-aggression pact with Germany and create a "security system" together with the USSR. The Soviet Union was no exception in this situation either. It must be said that he had the preconditions for rapprochement with both England and France, and with Germany. The former include, firstly, the participation of the USSR in various peace pacts and conventions of the 1920s and 1930s, along with England, France and the USA, the Soviet-French and Soviet-Czechoslovak mutual assistance treaties (1935); secondly, the aggressive policy of the countries of the Triple Alliance towards the Union. Germany and Japan signed Anti-Comintern the pact in 1936, in addition, Japan waged military operations against the USSR (beginning in the summer of 1938, they continued until the autumn of 1939; fierce battles took place in August 1938 in Eastern Siberia near Lake Khasan, and then in Mongolia, where they lasted for several months, ground and air battles in the Khalkhin Gol region ended in victory for the Soviet troops.On September 15, 1939, a truce was signed). On the other hand, December 6, 1938. in Paris, France and Germany signed non-aggression pact; in 1938, the Munich agreement and the division of Czechoslovakia took place without the participation of the USSR; all this could be regarded as an attempt by Western countries to direct German aggression against the Soviet Union. Ultimately, this led to the fact that the USSR, like other states, pursued a dual policy.

2) The beginning of the Second World War and the events in Belarus. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany attacked Poland. On September 3, France and England declared war on Germany. The Second World War began. The courageous resistance of the Polish army at Gdynia, Modlin, Warsaw could not resist the well-armed machine of the Nazi Reich. By mid-September, fascist troops occupied almost all the vital centers of Poland, surrounded Brest on September 14, and Bialystok fell on September 15. On September 17, the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Polish border. The Belorussian front consisted of more than 200 thousand soldiers and officers. He was opposed by 45 thousand Polish soldiers and officers. There were almost no hostilities between Polish and Soviet troops. About 40 cases of resistance by border patrols were recorded, as well as battles near Kobrin, Vilna, Sopotskin. The most stubborn battles unfolded near Grodno. The losses of the Belorussian Front amounted to 316 people killed and 642 wounded. By September 25, Western Belarus was completely occupied by the Red Army. Already on September 22, General Guderian and brigade commander Krivoshein took the parade of German and Soviet troops on the main street of Brest, then the Soviet troops were withdrawn beyond the Bug. On September 28, an agreement between the USSR and Germany on friendship and borders was signed in Moscow, according to which a new Western border of the Soviet Union was established along the so-called "Curzon Line". In a secret additional protocol, an agreement was recorded on the entry of the territory of Lithuania into the sphere of influence of the USSR in exchange for Lublin and part of the Warsaw Voivodeships, which fell into the sphere of influence of Germany. On October 10, 1939, by decision of the USSR government, Vilna and the Vilna Voivodeship were transferred to Lithuania, and in the summer of 1940 - the Sventyansky and Gadutishsky regions, part of the Ostrovetsky, Oshmyansky and Svirsky regions. On October 1, 1939, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “Issues of Western Belarus and Western Ukraine”, which obliged them to convene the Ukrainian and Belarusian People's Assemblies. On October 22, 1939, elections to the People's Assembly were held in Western Belarus, in which 929 deputies were elected. On October 28-30, the People's Assembly of Western Belarus was held in Bialystok. It adopted a declaration on the establishment of Soviet power throughout Western Belarus, the confiscation of landed estates, the nationalization of banks and large-scale industry. Simultaneously with measures to expand the social base of the new government, the repressive apparatus of the Stalinist dictatorship intensively "cleansed out the enemies of the people." At the end of September 1939 a number of Belarusian figures of the national liberation movement were arrested and then repressed - A. Lutskevich, V. Bogdanovich, A. Stankevich, I. Poznyak and others. According to a secret decree of the NKVD of the USSR, forest guards and siege workers were subject to eviction from Western Belarus. From February 1940 to June 20, 1941, more than 125 thousand people were repressed.

3) German occupation of European countries At a time when Poland was heroically fighting the Nazis, a “strange war” began in Western Europe, not supported by military operations. It was a time when European adversaries tried to guess each other's intentions. U.S. Senator Borah coined the expression "phantom" or "imaginary" war. Churchill, speaking of this period, used Chamberlain's definition of "the twilight of war", and the Germans called it "sitting war" ("sitzkrieg"). as it turned out later, false - air alert. An aircraft of the British Air Force took off for reconnaissance in the Kiel Canal zone, where it discovered a number of German warships anchored. Having received his report, a squadron of 29 bombers flew to the Kiel area. The planes dropped their bombs, hitting only the battleship Admiral Scheer and the light cruiser Emden. The success of the raid was insignificant: the bombs bounced off the armored deck of the Admiral Scheer before they could explode, the cruiser Emden received minor damage. During these episodic skirmishes, Poland pleaded with England for help - the immediate bombing of German airfields and industrial centers that were within the range of British bomber aircraft. England's answer to the events in Eastern Europe consisted in "truth raids", this is the name given to them by the British Minister of Aviation C. Wood. They amounted to dropping millions of propaganda leaflets over Germany from the air in the hope that the German people, having learned about the depravity of their rulers, would rebel and overthrow them. It was also calculated that these raids would intimidate the Germans by demonstrating Germany's vulnerability to air raids. The first such raid took place on the night of September 3, when 6 million copies of Letters to the German People weighing more than 13 tons were dropped into Germany. Among the British, such actions caused only widespread indignation at the government's inability to help Poland. Nevertheless, the British Expeditionary Force was transferred to the Western Front, where it reinforced the significant French forces already there. 76 Anglo-French divisions (of which only 4 were English) stood against 32 German divisions hiding behind the Siegfried Line, but they never went on the offensive, which, of course, would divert the German armed forces from the Polish front. The French and British called their behavior "strategic waiting."

4) USSR ON THE EVE OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR. The economy of the USSR that had developed by that time was characterized by: - ​​in fact, the complete nationalization of the means of production, although the existence of two forms of socialist property was formally legally established: state and group (cooperative-collective farm); - curtailment of commodity-money relations (although not their complete absence), deformity the objective law of value (prices are determined not on the basis of market demand and supply, but are dictated by the state); - extremely rigid centralism in management with minimal economic independence in the localities; administrative-command distribution of resources of the final product from centralized funds. -Management of economic activities using mainly administrative and administrative methods. With excessive centralization of executive power, bureaucratization of the economic mechanism and economic ties develops. At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, the country's leadership adopted a policy of all-round acceleration of industrial development and the forced creation of socialist industry. This policy was most fully embodied in the five-year plans for the development of the national economy. The third five-year plan (gg.) was a natural continuation of the second and first. The first two five-year plans were overfulfilled. Industry doubled in the four years of the first five-year plan, and the 2.1-fold increase planned for the second five-year plan was practically completed by a 2.2-fold increase. According to the plan of the Third Five-Year Plan, the heavy and defense industry continued to advance especially rapidly. Thus, from an economic point of view, there was a fact of accelerated development of the defense industry. On the whole, the huge production capacities created during the two pre-war five-year plans, and especially in the three pre-war years, provided the basis for the country's defense capability. From a military point of view, the Party's line on the accelerated development of industry in the eastern regions, the creation of backup enterprises in a number of branches of engineering, oil refining and chemistry, was of exceptional importance. The material reserves laid down on the eve of the war were aimed at ensuring the transfer of the economy to a war footing and the food of the troops until the economy was fully operational for the needs of the war. Extraordinary IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in September 1939 adopted the "Law on universal military duty". Under the new law, persons who are at least 19 years old are drafted into the army, and for those who have graduated from high school, the draft age is set at 18 years. The state apparatus and the management of industry have undergone major changes, become more flexible, and cumbersomeness and excessive centralization have been eliminated. New people's commissariats were created (for road transport, construction, etc.), which were directly related to strengthening the country's defense. All these changes were caused by the increased volume of work, the requirements of preparation for active defense against aggression, the possibility of which grew every month.

5) The goals of Germany in the war against the USSR. Plan Barbarossa. On July 22, 1940, the development of war projects began. Behind Hitler's plans, the doctrine of a racial-ideological war clearly loomed, which provided for the attack of the German Wehrmacht on the USSR, the seizure of living space in the East, political domination and genocide against the population, the destruction of the carriers of Soviet ideology (party leaders, commissars, intelligentsia), racial and ideological struggle against Jews, massacres of Soviet prisoners of war. The National Socialists considered the "Soviet Jewish-Bolshevik regime" to be the main ideological enemy. December 18, 1940 Hitler signed Directive No. 21 of the Supreme High Command, which received the code name "Option Barbarossa" and was the main guiding document of the war against the USSR. In it, the German armed forces were tasked with "defeating Soviet Russia during one short-term campaign", for which it was supposed to use all the ground forces, with the exception of those that performed occupation functions in Europe, as well as about 2/3 of the Air Force and only a small part of the Navy. Rapid operations with a deep and rapid advance of tank wedges, the German army had to destroy the Soviet troops located in the western part of the USSR and prevent the withdrawal of their combat-ready units into the interior of the country. Further, quickly pursuing the enemy, the German troops reached the line from where Soviet aviation would not be able to carry out raids on the Third Reich. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to reach the line Arkhangelsk - Volga - Astrakhan, creating there, if necessary, the conditions for the German Air Force to influence the Soviet industrial centers of the Urals. Germany relied on the strategy of "blitzkrieg". The immediate strategic goal of the German leadership was the defeat and destruction of Soviet troops in the Baltic States, Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine. It was assumed that during offensive operations the Wehrmacht would reach Kyiv with fortifications east of the Dnieper, Smolensk and the area south and west of Lake Ilmen. Further, it was necessary to occupy the Donetsk coal basin in a timely manner, and in the north - to quickly reach Moscow. According to the plan, Army Group "North" was to lead an offensive in the direction of Leningrad, Army Group "Center" and "South" - to Moscow and Kyiv, respectively. It was recognized as necessary to avoid a major battle in the Bialystok region, and to fight it no later than in the Minsk region. It was also envisaged to prevent flank counterattacks by the Soviet troops. Preparations for an attack on the USSR were carefully disguised. On March 24, 1941, the commander of Army Group Center, F. von Bock, ordered the construction of various fortifications along the borders of Poland and East Prussia, supposedly designed to defend against a possible Soviet offensive. It was also decided not to prevent Soviet air reconnaissance from observing the ongoing work. The Wehrmacht Joint Command (OKB) sought to keep the personnel of the troops in the dark about Operation Barbarossa as long as possible. In accordance with the instructions of the OKW headquarters of May 8, 1941, the officers were to be informed about eight days before the start of hostilities, and the privates and non-commissioned officers - only in the very last days.

6) Fascist attack Germany on the USSR and will defend the battles on the territory of B. 22 Cherveny 1941 Hitler's troops barged in on the frontiers of the USSR. The enemy struck at the airfields, chigunach knots, garades Parts of the Chyrvonai Army carried vyalikiya strata. The strike of the "Center" army group, which was advancing on the territory of Belarus on Maskva, was attacked by warriors of 3 and 10 armies, and the taksama of the warriors of 4 armies (general), yakiya abaranyali Brest. 10 zen vyali bai border guards 4 outposts of lieutenant A. Kizhevatava, 7 attacks of adbil 3 outposts of lieutenant V. Usava. A. Kizhevatavu and V. Usavu was awarded the title of Hero of the Savetsk State Union. The Abaronians of the Brestskaya Krepasti - warriors of Captain I.M. Nyamnogim managed to vyr-vazza z crepasti i pradouzhyts baratzba z enemies. Heraichna zmagaliska letchyki. Adzin from the first taranau zdzeisniu In the first days of the war, the pilots sacked 1890 bayous flights and stole more than 100 samaletau. Nyagledzyachy on the masculinity and geraism of the Savets warriors, the fascists broke the abaron from Belarus. The abyss of Minsk was planned for early in the afternoon and the troops of Zakhodnyag were sent to the front. On the 4th day, the Nazis seemed to fall to Minsk. 44 troops and 2 infantry corps, 100 infantry divisions, 108 infantry divisions, azhytsyauliali Abaron. The Savetsky warriors did not succeed in escaping Minsk At the getty of the kyarunitsva of the USSR, a number of measures were taken to mabilize the resources of the country for the adpor of aggression. The mabilization at the Black Red Army began to grow. At a patch of lime, 1941 (suitable for the paradox of Stauki Galounaga kamandavannya) Arganize a line of abarons on Zakhodnyai Dzvin and Dnyapra. Here were transferred 37 dyviziy, yakiya mugli b dapamagchy did not let the praciunik break to Muskva. The parazhenne of the Savetsky troops was abumoullen nepadryhtavanastsu and abarons of the troops of Zakhodnyaga front. The strata of the front laid 400 thousand chalaveks for the agulnaya kolkastsi, 750 thousand Nyagledzyachi for the heroic supraciulenne of the chirvonaarmeytsau, and the end of the life of the akupiravana of the territory of Belarus. All the blame for the parazhenne was put on the kyraunitstva of the Zakhodny fronts. Iago kamanduyuchi i iago headquarters were i asujans i rasstralyany. Once upon a time, the abaron of Belarus did not allow the practical worker to implement the plan "malankavay vayny" for 2 months, and the Magchymas Chyrvonai Army gave the right-weights of the abaron's measures to the maskowy kirunka.

7) Measures of the Soviet state to organize the defense of the country. The nature of military construction in the second half of the 1930s was determined by the fact that by that time there was a need to eliminate the mixed territorial-personnel system of organizing the army. With this system of recruiting the army, introduced as a result of the military reform of the years, the Red Army soldiers at short-term training camps were not able to sufficiently study and master new complex equipment. In connection with this, the territorial units significantly lost their combat effectiveness and did not have the necessary mobilization readiness. The transition to the personnel system was carried out gradually, on the basis of a lot of preparatory work. It was enshrined in the new "Law on General Conscription" adopted in the fall of 1939. By law, the draft age was lowered from 21 to 18 years. By the beginning of 1940, all divisions of the Red Army became personnel. The recruitment of the army on a personnel basis required an increase in the registration of those liable for military service and a reorganization of the organization of their conscription for active military service. In this regard, local military administration bodies were reorganized - military commissariats were created in the territories, regions, autonomous republics and cities, while their number increased by more than 4 times. As a result of recruiting the army on a personnel basis, the strength of the Armed Forces in the period from 1936 to 1939 almost doubled. If in 1936 they numbered 1 million 100 thousand people, then on August 31, 1939 there were already more than 2 million people. The growing threat of an attack on the Soviet Union after the start of World War II necessitated a further significant increase in the size of the Red Army. During the period from 1939 to June 1941, 125 new divisions were formed. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, there were 5.3 million people in the Red Army.

8)Activities of the USSR in the international arena. Creation of the anti-Hitler coalition. One of the main tasks of Soviet foreign policy in the first months of the war was the organization of economic interaction between the countries that opposed Nazi Germany and its allies, primarily between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. It was necessary to immediately resolve the issue of large-scale deliveries of weapons, military equipment and strategic raw materials to the USSR. The Anglo-Soviet agreement of January 1, 2001 and the visit to the USSR by G. Hopkins, the closest adviser to US President F. Roosevelt, that followed it at the end of the same month, were of significant importance for cooperation. In September-October 1941, a conference of government delegations from the USSR, England and the USA was held in Moscow, at which the issue of distributing the resources of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition was considered. From October 1, 1941 to June 30, 1942, the United States and Britain agreed to send 400 aircraft, 500 tanks, anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, and other types of weapons and military equipment to the Soviet Union every month. The USSR expressed its readiness to pay for these deliveries with funds from the country's gold reserves. Until the end of 1941, the USSR received under Lend-Lease1 weapons and materials worth 545,000 dollars. The Moscow Conference was a great success in strengthening the anti-fascist coalition. On the basis of the “Agreement between the governments of the USSR and Great Britain on joint actions in the war against Germany”, signed on July 12, 1941, England provided the USSR with a loan of 10 million pounds sterling for a period of 5 years. But soon deliveries from the British Isles began to be carried out also on the terms of Lend-Lease. Already on August 1, 1941, an English ship arrived in Arkhangelsk with depth charges and magnetic mines. Enormous work began on the assembly and transportation of weapons, military equipment and other goods to the USSR. The governments of the allied countries noted with high awards the heroic deeds of Soviet and British sailors who participated in the escort and protection of summer convoys in 1942. Some Soviet sailors of the military and merchant fleet were awarded orders of Great Britain, and a group of English sailors were awarded orders of the USSR. For the acceptance of aircraft assembled in Iran and Iraq, as well as their further distillation by air to the Soviet Union, an air base was created in the Persian Gulf port of Abadan, where foreign military and civilian aviation specialists worked together with Soviet officers and privates. An intermediate air base was created in Tehran for the technical inspection of aircraft and preparing them for flight to the Soviet Union. Airfields were equipped in the Azerbaijan SSR, classes were organized to train Soviet pilots, engineers and technicians in the combat use of American and British aircraft, and maintenance was arranged. In addition to weapons, the Soviet Union received under Lend-Lease a significant amount of industrial equipment, fuels, lubricants, explosives, chemical raw materials, etc. It should be noted that, in turn, the Soviet Union helped its partners in the anti-Hitler coalition to the best of its ability. The USA received from the USSR 300,000 tons of chromium ore, 32,000 tons of manganese ore, a significant amount of platinum, gold, etc., totaling $2.2 million. The cooperation of states, organizations, thousands of ordinary people who worked together under Lend-Lease testified to the fact that everyone understood well that only by defeating fascism could one ensure a peaceful life for oneself and future generations.

9)Battle for Moscow.Causes of the defeats of the Red Army in the initial period of the war

On September 15, a plan for a decisive offensive against Moscow was presented, code-named "Typhoon". In accordance with it, Army Group Center concentrated up to half of all troops on the Soviet-German front in the Moscow direction by the end of September, creating a significant superiority of forces against three Soviet front formations. The location of the Soviet troops was extremely unfortunate. On September 30, the tank group of G. Guderian and the 2nd field army of Weichs delivered a powerful blow to the left flank of the Bryansk Front. The road to Moscow was open. The position of the capital remained critical. On November 15, a new offensive of Army Group Center began. The enemy quickly moved to the regional cities and soon captured them. The battles with the Nazi invaders were very difficult. On December 6, units of the Red Army launched a counteroffensive near Moscow, during which they launched a counterattack on the advanced groups of Nazi troops north and south of the capital. The immediate threat to Moscow was eliminated. The victory of the Red Army near Moscow was the first major defeat of the Nazis in World War II, which meant the complete collapse of the "blitzkrieg" plan. Shortcomings in the quality of the Red Army were primarily the cause of its failures in the initial period of the war. The Red Army was severely lacking in automatic small arms. One of the reasons for the tragic outcome of the initial period of the war is the gross miscalculation of the political and military leadership of the Soviet Union regarding the timing of the aggression, which turned out to be sudden for the Red Army. The enemy smashed the Soviet troops in parts. The decision on the transition to strategic defense, adopted only on the eighth day of the war, turned out to be belated. The morale and combat qualities of the Red Army did not correspond to pre-war ideas. Massive repressions did not pass without a trace for the combat readiness of the army. They contributed to the growth of lack of initiative, the deterioration of the training of commanders, the fall in discipline, not to mention the loss of a large number of professional personnel. The war revealed significant shortcomings in command and control. It must be admitted that the Red Army was not prepared for the conditions of the modern industrial war - the war of engines. This is the main reason for its defeats in the initial period of hostilities.

10)Administrative-territorial division of the occupied territory of Belarus. Occupational control apparatus. In the occupied territory, the Nazis introduced a new administrative-territorial division. Two Reichskommissariats were created: "Ukraine" and "Ostland". Belarusian lands were divided and included in different territorial administrative units. The northwestern regions of the Brest region and the Bialystok region with the cities of Grodno and Volkovysk were annexed to East Prussia (Bialystok district). The southern regions of the Brest, Pinsk, Polesye and Gomel regions with the regional centers of Brest, Pinsk, Mozyr went to the Reichskommissariat "Ukraine". The northwestern districts of the Vileyka region were included in the General District of Lithuania. Vitebsk, Mogilev, most of the Gomel and eastern regions of the Minsk region - to the zone of the army rear of the Army Group "Center". The remaining territory - Baranovichi, Vileika, Minsk (except for the eastern regions), the northern regions of the Brest, Pinsk and Polessye regions became part of the General District of Belarus, which belonged to the Ostland Reichskommissariat (residence in Riga). The General District of Belarus was divided into 10 districts (gebits): Baranovichi, Borisov, Vileika, Gantsevichi, Gluboksky, Lida, Minsk, Novogrudsky, Slonimsky, Slutsky. The main concern of the occupation administration was the personal accounting of the population. Moving from one settlement to another was allowed only with a special pass issued by the local commandant's office, and only in the daytime. Mandatory propiska (registration) was introduced for all newcomers to the settlement. Identity cards were issued to residents for a certain period of time. In addition to the photo, last name, first name and information about the date and place of birth, it indicated the external data of the owner. Gauleiter V. Kube headed the General Commissariat of Belarus1 from August 1941 to September 22, 1943. Under his direct leadership, a policy of genocide and "scorched earth" was carried out, the material and cultural values ​​​​of the republic were plundered. V. Kube was killed by the Minsk underground. He was replaced by Gruppenführer of the SS troops K. von Gottberg, who continued the same Nazi policy. Districts were headed by gebitskommissars, cities - by state commissars, districts - by ort commissars. In the zone of the army rear, power belonged to the command of the army units, military field and local commandant's offices. A supporting role was played by local institutions - councils. Burgomasters were at the head of city, district or county (county) councils, volost elders were appointed in volost councils, and elders, soltys, and voits were appointed in villages. Collaborationist bodies and organizations were created. Collaborators became employees of city and district governments, burgomasters, elders and their assistants, they replenished the ranks of the auxiliary police. A bet was also made on Belarusian nationalism. In October 1941, by the decision of the General Commissariat of Belarus, the Belarusian People's Self-Help (BNS) was created. It set itself the goal of providing assistance to victims of hostilities, as well as the development of Belarusian culture. Basically, the BNS was engaged in recruiting and exporting the local population for forced labor in Germany. The Central Council, appointed by Gauleiter V. Kube, became the governing body of this organization. District departments of the BNS were created in the districts. In June 1942, V. Kube creates the Belarusian Self-Defense Corps (BCS). Officer courses were opened for Belarusians in Minsk. However, there were few who wanted to cooperate with the Nazis. In the autumn of 1942, the attention of the invaders to the BCS weakened. Instead of this structure, they decided to create Belarusian police battalions under the leadership of German officers. In the spring of 1943, the BCS was liquidated. The Belarusian Scientific Society, Belarusian trade unions and judicial structures were also organized. In June 1943, the German authorities created an advisory body - the Belarusian Council of Trust. In December of the same year, the Belarusian Central Rada was created - a puppet government of 14 people. The invaders saw it as a means to mobilize the forces of the Belarusian people to fight the partisans, to use the Belarusian economy more fully for their own purposes. The leaders of the Rada launched a special activity during the creation of the Belarusian Regional Defense (BKO), i.e., the “national army”. On March 6, 1944, the general mobilization of the male population of 1908-1924 was announced. birth. In total, about 24 thousand people were mobilized. As the Red Army approached, mass desertion began in the BKO. Many of the mobilized went into partisan detachments.

11)The policy of genocide, the destruction of the material and cultural values ​​of Belarus. In 1940 the General Plan "Ost" was developed - a plan related to one of the main goals of the German leadership to capture the "living space" necessary for the prosperity of the Third Reich, its colonization, the liberation of the "living space" from the "excessive" indigenous population. Hence the strategic concept of waging war in the East - a war of annihilation. Winning in the East was not enough. It was necessary to destroy the army, the country, the people. In accordance with the general plan "Ost", it was planned to exterminate 120-140 million people on the territory of the USSR and Poland. A terrible fate was prepared for the Belarusian people. 25% of the Belarusian population was supposed to be Germanized, 75% were to be destroyed. During the war, based on the plan "Ost", the Nazis developed short-term specific tasks for the destruction of the population. Materials of such developments were found in the documents of the Reichskommissariat "Ostland". According to the map - scheme, dated November 17, 1942. Belarus from its western border to the Grodno-Slonim line, the southern part of the Brest region, the regions of Pinsk, Mozyr and the rest of Polissya along the line of Pruzhany, Gantsevichi, Parichi, Rechitsa was supposed to be completely cleared of the local population and settle only German colonists on it. In all major cities of Belarus, the Nazis intended to create settlements for the privileged strata of German society. The number of local population that could be left in these cities was determined by an exact calculation: for every master of the "higher race", two slaves of the "lower" race. So in Minsk and the region it was planned to settle 50 thousand German colonists and leave 100 thousand of the local population, in Molodechno and its environs - 7 thousand Germans and 15 thousand Belarusians, respectively, in Baranovichi 10 thousand Germans and 20 thousand local residents, in Gomel - 30 thousand Germans and 50 thousand local residents, in Mogilev and Bobruisk - 20 thousand Germans and 50 thousand inhabitants. June 22, 1941 Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. By the end of August 1941 the entire territory of Belarus was occupied. The implementation of the policy of genocide of the Belarusian people by the Nazis began from the first days of the war. Executions and mass executions took on enormous proportions. Soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht carried out massacres against the civilian population everywhere. The practical implementation of the crimes was facilitated by the indoctrination of the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the SS, carried out in preparation for aggression against the USSR.

12)The policy of the occupiers in the economic sphere. The fascist occupation authorities established a system of political terror in all the occupied countries and regions. The main goal of fascist coercive domination in the occupied countries, both in its generally accepted and in its specific forms of manifestation, was the scrupulous economic robbery of these countries. Using the state-monopoly power of German finance capital in the interests of the military fascist economy, the fascist administration carried out, along with direct robbery by confiscating stocks of raw materials, gold and foreign exchange funds, imposing high occupation payments and other things, also forcibly subordinating the financial system and partial "integration" of the economic the potential of the occupied countries with the help of the most powerful and influential German monopoly associations. Moreover, new state-monopoly bodies arose, such as, for example, the main department "Ost" for the occupied Polish regions, the northern "Aluminum Joint-Stock Company", "Continental Oil Joint-Stock Company", using the intermediary services of which German concerns ensured their share of the wealth in the occupied In this way, Krupp, Flick, Klöckner, Rechling, Mannesmann, Hermann Goeringwerke and other monopoly groups often, in alliance with the big banks, appropriated the most valuable mining and metallurgical enterprises, the steel and rolling mills of Upper Silesia, northern French and Belgian industrial regions, the copper mines of Yugoslavia, that is, in fact, entire industries of the occupied countries. By such methods, the most powerful German concern "IG Farbenindustri" took possession of the products of the Polish chemical and oil industries, the Norwegian aluminum industry, as well as chemical plants in Belgium and Yugoslavia. In addition, other sectors of the heavy and light industries of these countries - Polish textile enterprises, Danish shipyards or the Dutch electrical industry - were turned into objects of preferential rights of German monopolies. In close connection with the above process was the increase in the volume of military-industrial tasks for the industry of the occupied countries. The plundering of the food stocks of the occupied countries also took on a large scale.

13) Collaboration in Belarus. In the initial period of the war, the development of political and military collaboration took place at an insignificant pace, which is explained by the successes of the Germans at the front and the lack of need for them to develop collaborationist structures. The German leadership hoped for a quick victory in the war and was skeptical about the ability of the Belarusian population to nation-state construction due to the weakness of ethnic self-consciousness. The activity of collaborators during this period was reduced mainly to the work of non-political structures, the largest of which was the Belarusian People's Self-Help, created on October 22, 1941, the purpose of which was proclaimed to be health care, education and culture. With the help of Belarusian collaborators, the German authorities tried to use for their own purposes the scientific personnel who ended up in the occupied territory. In June 1942, they created the "Belarusian Scientific Association". Gauleiter of Belarus V. Kube became its honorary president. However, Belarusian scientists boycotted the work of the partnership, and it existed only on paper. Other non-political collaborationist structures were also created ("Women's League", trade unions, etc.). At the same time, attempts to create the Belarusian Free Self-Defense Corps were unsuccessful due to the opposition of the military authorities and the SS. The attempt to create a Belarusian autocephaly with the aim of separating Belarusian believers from the Moscow Patriarchate was also unsuccessful. The situation that had developed by 1943 forced the German command to reconsider its attitude towards the collaborationist movement. On June 22, 1943, the Union of Belarusian Youth (SBM) was formally created, which became an analogue of the Hitler Youth in Belarus (in fact, it existed since 1942). On the initiative of Cuba, on June 27, 1943, the creation of the Rada of Trust under the General Commissariat of Belarus was proclaimed. This body was an administrative commission, the only task of which was to work out and present to the occupying authorities the wishes and proposals from the population. On December 21, 1943, instead of the Rada of Trust, on the initiative of K. Gotberg (who became the General Commissar after the assassination of Cuba by partisans), the Belarusian Central Rada (BCR) was created, with R. Ostrovsky (1887-1976), head of the Minsk District Council, appointed as its president. The activities of the Rada were not effective, since the Rada did not have real political power (only in matters of social care, culture and education it had the right to relatively independent decisions), and its members held different views on the future of Belarus and often did not know local conditions. In the eyes of the population, therefore, it could not have authority. The Rada was indirectly connected with war crimes - in particular, with ethnic cleansing against the Polish population. In occupied Belarus, many collaborationist newspapers and magazines were published: Belorusskaya Gazeta, Pagonya (Pahonia), Biełaruski hołas (Belarusian Voice), Novy Shlyakh (Novy Path), etc. These publications were anti-Semitic, anti-Soviet and pro-fascist propaganda. On February 23, 1944, K. Gotberg issued an order to create the Belarusian Regional Defense (BKO) - a military collaborationist formation, headed by Franz Kuschel, and instructed the BCR to mobilize. The 45 BKO battalions formed by the end of March were poorly armed. Their discipline gradually decreased, there were not enough officers. By the end of the occupation, the BKO was used to fight partisans, guard various facilities and do chores. The most important activities of the BCR at the final stage of the war were the reorganization of the BKO units and the replenishment of Belarusian military formations by recruiting new soldiers, the creation of auxiliary contingents for use in the German defense system, and the organization of the anti-Soviet partisan movement on the territory of Belarus. Initially, it was supposed to reorganize the BKO into the Belarusian Legion. In preparation for this reorganization in September 1944, at the same time, groups were selected from among those recruited by the "Union of Belarusian Youth" as "air defense assistants" (from 2.5 to 5 thousand people) to study at the anti-aircraft artillery school. After completing the course of study, they were included in the air defense units of Berlin. The last event of the BCR on the territory of Belarus was the holding on June 27, 1944 (a week before the liberation of Minsk) in Minsk of the Second All-Belarusian Congress. The name of the congress was chosen to confirm the continuity with the First All-Belarusian Congress, which took place in 1918 also under the German occupation. The congress delegates announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia, proclaimed the BCR the only representative of the Belarusian people and decided to send Hitler a statement of his support.

14)Formation and development of the partisan movement.Organizational structure of the partisan forces. During the war, the partisan movement went through three stages of development, which basically coincide chronologically with the three periods of the Great Patriotic War. In the first period of the war (June 1941 - November 18, 1942), the partisan movement experienced all the difficulties and hardships associated with the unpreparedness of the Soviet people for this method of resisting the enemy. There was no theory of partisan struggle developed in advance, there were no well-thought-out organizational forms, and therefore no appropriate personnel. There were also no secret bases with weapons and food. All this doomed the first partisan formations to a long and painful search for everything that was necessary for effective combat operations. The fight against an experienced and well-armed enemy had to start almost from scratch. On July 1, 1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus adopted a directive "On the deployment of a partisan war behind enemy lines", in which regional committees, city committees and district committees were ordered to create partisan detachments to conduct a fierce struggle against the enemy. The further the enemy moved deep into Soviet territory, the less favorable the situation became for him, since the population had already managed to recover somewhat from the shock caused by the sudden attack of Germany on the USSR. The activities of the first partisan detachments commanded by V. Korzh, G. Bumazhkov, F. Pavlovsky, M. Shmyrev and others are widely known. Already at the end of 1941, over 2 thousand partisan detachments with a total number of 90 thousand people fought behind enemy lines including in Belarus - about 230 detachments and groups consisting of over 12 thousand people. Among the first partisans there were many servicemen who were unable to break through from the encirclement to the front line or who escaped from captivity. About 500,000 servicemen participated in the partisan movement during the war years. Partisan detachments were fighting from the very first days of the German invasion. The Pinsk partisan detachment (commander V. Korzh) fought the first battle on June 28, 1941, attacking the enemy column. The partisans set up ambushes on the roads, impeding the advance of enemy troops. The partisan detachment "Red October" under the command of T. Bumazhkov and F. Pavlovsky in mid-July defeated the headquarters of the enemy division, destroyed 55 vehicles and armored cars, 18 motorcycles, and seized a large number of weapons. On August 6, 1941, the commanders of this detachment were the first of the partisans to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In August and the first half of September, Belarusian partisans carried out a massive destruction of telegraph and telephone communications on the lines connecting the Army Groups "Center" and "South". They continuously ambushed the recovery teams, signal battalions and exterminated them. From the first days of the enemy invasion, sabotage by partisans and underground workers began on railway communications. Especially the activities of the partisans intensified during the battle of Moscow. When deploying partisan detachments and underground organizations, the party-state leadership relied extensively on the bodies of the NKVD - the NKGB. They assisted in the armament and logistical support of the partisan detachments, trained the partisans in intelligence and counterintelligence activities, conspiracy and communications, and protected spies from penetrating into their midst. These bodies also carried out the preparation of partisan groups and detachments and their transfer to the front line. Often, the destruction battalions under the jurisdiction of the NKVD passed to the position of partisan detachments. From the very beginning of the struggle, the independent detachment became the main organizational and combat unit of the partisans. Its number usually did not exceed 80-100 people, the detachment was divided into platoons (groups) and squads. The detachment was headed by a commander, a commissar, and sometimes a chief of staff. The armament was mainly light small arms, which could be collected on the battlefield or obtained from the enemy. The detachments were usually based within the boundaries of their own area on well-known terrain. The most common unit of partisan detachments was the brigade, which numbered from several hundred to several thousand people and included from three to five, and sometimes more detachments. As the number of partisan formations grew and their material base strengthened, reconnaissance, sabotage, economic and sanitary services were created, and, if necessary, units for training partisans in various military specialties. Printing houses appeared, where newspapers, leaflets, proclamations were printed. A clear control system was taking shape, which included the command of the partisan formation (commander and necessarily the commissar), headquarters, and the party political apparatus. In January 1942, by decision of the State Defense Committee, three special schools were formed, where cadets received theoretical knowledge and practical skills in partisan struggle. By September 1942, 15 partisan detachments and 100 organizational groups were formed and sent behind enemy lines. In December, on the basis of the courses, the Belarusian School for the Training of Partisan Workers was formed. By September 1943 she trained more than 940 guerrilla warfare specialists. On May 30, 1942, the Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (TSSHPD) was created to coordinate partisan activities. On September 9, 1942, the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement (BSHND) began to function. The BSHPD launched an active combat activity: created partisan detachments, planned and coordinated the fighting of partisans, and improved the structure of partisan formations. Thus, by the autumn of 1942, the partisan movement had an established system of centralized leadership, which helped the partisans to interact more closely with the army in the field. 1943 became a turning point in the course of the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army successfully led the offensive along the entire front. Under these conditions, the partisan and underground movement acquired the character of a nationwide struggle against the Nazi invaders. In the summer of 1943, the TsSHPD developed an operation code-named "Rail War". Its first stage began on August 3 and lasted until September 15. It was timed to coincide with the offensive of Soviet troops in the Belgorod-Kharkov direction. The results of the operation were impressive. Only in Belarus, railway traffic was paralyzed for 15-30 days. Echelons with troops and military equipment of the enemy, urgently heading towards Orel, Belgorod and Kharkov, "got stuck" on the way, and often were destroyed by partisans. Enemy traffic has been reduced by almost 35-40%. The invaders suffered huge material losses. During the autumn offensive of the Red Army from September 25 to November 1, 1943, the second stage of the "Rail War" was held under the code name "Concert", in which Belarusian partisans played a decisive role. They blew up tens of thousands of rails, derailed more than a thousand echelons, destroyed 72 railway bridges, exterminated more than 30 thousand enemy soldiers and officers. The third stage of the "Rail War" began on the night of June 20, 1944, on the eve of the Belarusian operation "Bagration", and continued until the complete liberation of Belarus. Partisan formations carried out raids (long military marches in the occupied territory), during which Nazi garrisons were destroyed, trains were derailed, new partisan formations were created, and mass political work was carried out among the population. As a result of the fighting of the partisans, significant territories were liberated from the invaders, on which free partisan zones were created. By the beginning of 1943 Belarusian partisans controlled about 30% of the occupied territory of the republic, by the end of the year - about 60%, they managed to liberate about 38 thousand km2 of Belarusian land. There were more than 20 partisan zones, where life went according to the laws of Soviet power. They were equipped with 18 airfields through which cargo was delivered from the mainland, wounded partisans and children were evacuated. Food, clothes, newspapers, film shifters, printing presses and even musical instruments were delivered by air to the rear of the enemy. The partisans got the opportunity to correspond with relatives and friends living in the Soviet rear. In late 1943 - early 1944, the partisan formations of Belarus consisted of 157 brigades and 83 separate detachments, in which more than 270 thousand partisans fought. The Polish resistance movement operated in the western regions of Belarus. It existed from the moment the Red Army entered the territory of Western Belarus, and until the start of World War II, its activities were directed against Soviet power. After the German attack on Poland, the Polish Armed Struggle Union (SVB, then AK) began to fight on two fronts - against the Soviet government and the Germans. AK had significant forces. In 1942 - the first half of 1943, the formations of the AK and partisans carried out many armed actions against the German invaders. After the expulsion of the Nazi occupiers from the Belarusian land, the Krayova Army went deep underground, continuing a fierce armed struggle against Soviet power in the western regions of Belarus. And only in 1954 the Polish armed underground was liquidated.

15) Organization of the anti-fascist underground. The activities of the underground in the second period of the war The party underground was active in the enemy's rear. From the first days of the war, under his leadership, militant anti-fascist underground Komsomol and youth organizations and groups were created in Baranovichi, Orsha, Grodno, Gomel, Bobruisk, Brest, Mogilev, Mozyr and many other settlements. Some organizations managed to form in advance, others - after the seizure of the territory by the Wehrmacht troops. At the end of June 1941, the first underground organizations were created in Minsk, which were led by the Minsk underground city committee of the CP (b) B under the leadership of I. Kovalev. During the years of occupation, the underground fighters brought more than 10 thousand families of Minsk residents into partisan detachments, including about a thousand families of suicide bombers from the Minsk ghetto. The underground members of Minsk were the most active. They staged explosions, arson and other sabotage on the enemy's communications, took out the wounded soldiers and commanders of the Red Army from the encirclement, assisted them, and distributed leaflets. In the summer - autumn of 1941, underground anti-fascist groups began to operate in Grodno. The members of the groups helped the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, who were in Nazi captivity, recorded and distributed reports of the Soviet Information Bureau. During the battles near Moscow in December 1941, sabotage at the Minsk railway junction reduced the capacity of its highway by almost 20 times. In Gomel, the underground blew up a restaurant with German officers who were there. K. Zaslonov's group was active in the Orsha railway depot. With its help, several dozen steam locomotives were put out of action, and the operation of the station was repeatedly paralyzed. The underground paid great attention to agitation and propaganda work among the population behind enemy lines. In January 1942, the publication of the periodical "Herald of the Motherland", the newspaper "Patriot of the Motherland", and leaflets was organized in Minsk. By the end of the year, about 20 underground newspapers were being published in Belarus. Great tasks were assigned to the underground fighters: reconnaissance, distribution of leaflets, newspapers and proclamations, familiarizing the population with the appeals of the party and government of the USSR, acts of sabotage at industrial enterprises and transport, organizing sabotage, all possible assistance to the partisan movement. The first military winter and spring of 1942 turned out to be the most difficult for the underground workers. Lack of experience, disregard for secrecy led to the failure of many underground organizations. As a result, the Minsk underground suffered enormous damage: in March-April 1942, the German secret services arrested over 400 people, destroyed a printing house, and many safe houses. The Germans seized members of the city committee of the party S. Zaits and I. Kazints, secretary G. Semenov. Until the beginning of May, the Nazis subjected those arrested to sophisticated torture. Soon, the residents of Minsk saw a terrible picture: 28 leading workers of the underground were hanged on trees and telegraph poles. 251 underground workers were shot. The second period of the war is characterized by a significant expansion of the network of combat underground in cities and towns. The destruction of the Nazis was carried out in various ways. On July 30, 1943, the underground fighters of the Osipovichi under the leadership of F. Krylovich committed one of the largest sabotage of the Second World War - they destroyed four echelons with military equipment, ammunition, fuel (one of the echelons was loaded with Tiger tanks). The offensive of the Red Army contributed to the strengthening of the political and sabotage work of underground organizations. The underground workers of Minsk, together with the partisans, destroyed the German regional leadership, the leaders of the Belarusian nationalists, and with them a group of SD officers. In August 1941, V. Kube arrived in Minsk and was appointed General Commissar of Belarus. Under his leadership, the invaders committed terrible atrocities: they burned villages, destroyed thousands of civilians and prisoners of war. On the night of September 22, 1943, the Gauleiter was executed by the Minsk underground in his residence. Soviet patriot Elena Mazanik planted a mine in the bedroom of V. Kube, on which he was blown up. The Nazis brutally avenged the death of Gauleiter Kube. The famous Soviet intelligence officer N. Often, moving from underground methods of struggle to partisan actions, patriots saved hundreds of thousands of citizens from being driven into fascist slavery, prevented the destruction and looting of enterprises, factories, mines and residential buildings. The growing resistance to the enemy was also explained by the increasingly tough socio-economic, political and military measures of the occupiers. In the cities, the Germans persistently tried to attract workers and employees to restore industrial enterprises. However, little came of this: the workers hid tools and equipment, made them unusable, and managed to take finished products out of the shops. Of course, the Nazis were not going to put up with the current situation. Increasingly, they moved from "intimidation" to mass repression. The peasants made their contribution to the fight against the enemy. In a variety of ways they tried to preserve collective farm property. The peasants evaded paying taxes, disrupted the supply of agricultural products, and hindered trade and barter with the occupying authorities. The resistance behind enemy lines clearly demonstrated the patriotism of people, their unbending will to win, their readiness to make self-sacrifice to protect not only their families, but also the Fatherland. It was truly a popular movement.

16) Stalingrad and Kursk battles. A turning point in the war The Battle of Stalingrad was of decisive importance in the course of all the events of 1942 on the Soviet-German front. It began on July 17, 1942 in difficult conditions for the Soviet troops: German troops outnumbered the Red Army in personnel by 1.7 times, in artillery and tanks - by 1.3 times, in aircraft - more than 2 times. In mid-October 1942, in the Stalingrad direction, almost on a 900-kilometer front, the enemy went over to the defensive. The exception was Stalingrad, where the fighting continued with the same force. In the first half of November, German air reconnaissance and other sources invariably confirmed that the Soviet command was not only reinforcing troops in Stalingrad, but was also concentrating large forces northwest and south of the city. The Stalingrad strategic counter-offensive operation (November 19, 1942 - February 2, 1943) was carried out in three stages: 1) breaking through the defense, defeating the enemy's flank groupings and encircling his main forces (November 19-30, 1942); 2) disruption of the enemy's attempts to release his encircled grouping and the development of the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops on the outer front of the encirclement (December 12-31, 1942); 3) liquidation of the encircled grouping of German troops in the area of ​​Stalingrad (January 10 - February 2, 1943). In the first three days of the offensive by the troops of the Southwestern and right wing of the Don fronts, the enemy suffered a crushing defeat. By the end of the third day of the operation, the enemy defenses northwest of Stalingrad had been hacked. While the German command was looking for ways to prevent the impending catastrophe, the Soviet troops continued active operations. On November 23, the troops of the Southwestern and Stalingrad fronts, in cooperation with the Don Front, completed the encirclement of the enemy's Stalingrad grouping. The immediate task of the counteroffensive was solved. Fierce fighting continued until 30 November. The Soviet command took the first step towards seizing the strategic initiative. The final stage of the battle of Stalingrad was the operation "Ring", carried out from January 10 to February 2, 1943 in order to eliminate the encircled enemy grouping. The Battle of Stalingrad lasted from July 1942 to the beginning of February 1943 and was the longest during the Great Patriotic War. The victory at Stalingrad was a decisive contribution to achieving a radical change in the Great Patriotic War and had a decisive influence on the further course of World War II. Battle of Kursk. In the spring of 1943, the Allied Powers already had all the material resources, as well as a sufficient number of troops, to open a second front. However, this has not happened at this time. From mid-April, the General Staff of the Red Army began to develop plans for a defensive operation near Kursk and a counteroffensive under the code name Operation Kutuzov. At that time, on the Kursk ledge, preparations were underway for an unprecedented depth of defense of the Red Army. During a period of relative calm, both sides made great efforts to comprehensively prepare for the summer-autumn operations. The Soviet armed forces were clearly ahead. The actions of the enemy were characterized by the intensive use of all means. On the morning of July 12, the battle began, called Prokhorovskoye. On both sides, over 1,100 tanks and self-propelled guns were involved in it. On July 15, a turning point occurred in the Battle of Kursk: Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive and pursuit of the enemy. The plans of the German command completely failed. In the Kursk defensive operation, the troops of the Central, Voronezh and Steppe fronts thwarted the plan of the Wehrmacht to encircle and defeat more than a million Soviet troops. The Nazi command sought to hold its positions to the last soldier. However, it was not possible to stabilize the front. On August 5, 1943, Soviet troops liberated Orel and Belgorod. The victory of the Red Army near Kursk and its exit to the river. The Dnieper marked the completion of a radical change during the Great Patriotic and World War II. The strategic situation changed dramatically in favor of the anti-Hitler coalition. The leaders of the allied states decided to hold talks at the highest level.

17) Liberation of Belarus from German invaders . The Belarusian people fought steadfastly against the Nazi occupiers. And the long-awaited liberation came: on September 23, 1943, Soviet troops liberated Komarin, and on September 26 - Khotimsk, the first regional centers of Belarus. By September 1943, about 100 thousand people fought in partisan formations. This impressive force, equal in number to two combined arms armies of the period of the Great Patriotic War, together with the formations of the Red Army, liberated native Belarus. By October 1943, the troops of the Western Front reached the border of Belarus, and the Bryansk Front - to the border of the river. Pronya to the city of Propoisk and further along the river. Sozh. From September 27, 1943 to February 24, 1944, the troops of the Central, Kalinin, Western and 1st Baltic fronts, as well as partisan detachments and brigades of Belarus, completely or partially liberated 36 districts of Belarus, 36 district and 2 regional centers (Gomel and Mozyr ). Subsequently, the troops of the Central, Kalinin and Western Fronts were transformed into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Belorussian Fronts. In May 1944, almost the entire length of the Soviet-German front was calm, both opposing sides were preparing for the upcoming battles. The tasks of the Red Army for the summer and autumn of 1944 were to complete the expulsion of the invaders from Soviet territory, to restore the State Border of the USSR along its entire length. To this end, during the summer-autumn campaign, it was planned to prepare and consistently conduct a whole series of strategic offensive operations in a vast area - from the Arctic to the Black Sea. Priority in the future campaign was given to the central sector of the Soviet-German front. Only by destroying a large strategic enemy grouping, which was the Army Group "Center", it was possible to liberate Belarus. At the same time, it was taken into account that an extensive network of partisan formations was actively operating in the occupied territory of the republic, which constantly disorganized the rear of the enemy. Berlin was also preparing for hostilities. Units and formations of the Wehrmacht were urgently replenished with personnel. From January to May 1944, two motorized and one infantry divisions were deployed to the eastern front. Nevertheless, it should be noted that as a result of the losses incurred in the winter campaign of 1943/44, the total number of troops operating against the Red Army decreased by 900 thousand people. The number of military equipment has also been reduced. Despite the loss of initiative, the Wehrmacht command still did not consider the war lost. In the center of the Soviet-German front, a Belarusian ledge was formed up to 1,100 km long, the top of which went far to the east. The ledge was of great operational and strategic importance: it covered the shortest routes to East Prussia and Poland. In its space, about 600 km deep, six armies defended themselves. The German command sought to keep the Belarusian ledge at any cost. The main role in this was assigned to the Army Group Center, which included 63 divisions and 3 brigades with a total strength of 1.2 million people. In Belarus, the Germans created a strong defense in terms of engineering. Its borders and bands extended inland for 250-270 km. Large cities were turned into powerful centers of resistance, and Vitebsk, Orsha, Bobruisk, Mogilev, Borisov and Minsk were declared "fortified areas" by Hitler's order. The commanders of these areas gave the Fuhrer written commitments to hold them to the last soldier.

18) Military operations on the fronts of the Second World War (North Africa, the Pacific Ocean, the Mediterranean. The opening of the second front). In the autumn of 1942 Fascist aggression reached its apogee. The armed forces of Germany and its allies in Europe and North Africa, and Japan in the Asia-Pacific region, seized a huge territory Under the heel of the German invaders was almost the entire continental Western Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic States, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, the western regions of Russia, in the north Africa is part of Libya and Egypt. Japan captured a significant part of China, occupied many islands and almost a third of the Pacific Ocean. The fascist bloc was opposed by 34 states that were part of the anti-Hitler coalition. However, of the entire composition of the anti-Hitler coalition, only the Soviet Union used its military and economic might in full to fight the enemy. The Soviet-German front remained the most significant in World War II. The second most important theater of war in 1942 was the North African one. Groupings of troops, limited in composition, operated here, and the ongoing operations, in terms of scale and results achieved, could not be compared with military operations on the Soviet-German front, although they indirectly influenced the general military-political situation in the world. This summer, German-Italian troops under the command of General E. Rommel invaded the northeastern regions of Egypt. The result was a direct threat to Alexandria, Suez and Cairo. In response, American and British troops under the command of General D. Eisenhower from November 8 to 11 carried out large landings on the coast of North-West Africa in the areas of Casablanca and west of Algiers. By December 1, the total number of landing forces was brought to 253 thousand people. The position of the German and Italian troops in North Africa was becoming difficult: deprived of support from the European continent, squeezed from the west, south and east, under the dominance of the air and fleet of the American-British troops in the Mediterranean basin, they were doomed. In early November 1942, the 8th British Army, during two weeks of offensive battles, broke the resistance of the Italo-German troops near El Alamein and drove them out of Egypt. On May 13, 1943, the Italo-German troops in Tunisia capitulated. The hostilities in North Africa are over. In July - August 1943, the Allies landed on the island of Sicily and captured it. On July 25, Mussolini's regime was overthrown and Italy signed a truce with the Allies, and on October 13 declared war on Germany. The third theater of war was the Asia-Pacific. In the middle of 1942 in this theater, Japan dealt a serious blow to the armed forces of the United States and Great Britain. Its troops held the occupied part of China, seized the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, captured Indonesia, Singapore, Burma, reached the borders of India, threatened Australia and New Zealand. Scattered on numerous fronts and hundreds of islands, the Japanese troops were exhausted. From July 1942, the United States intensified the fight against German submarines off the coast of North America, which were trying to strike at important coastal targets. In the second half of the year alone, the Germans lost 66 boats here. This forced the German naval leadership to withdraw the main forces of the submarine fleet to the center of the Atlantic. But even in this area they faced increased opposition. In the end, Hitler decided to concentrate the main efforts of surface and submarine forces in the North Atlantic. As a result, the activity of the German fleet in the area increased dramatically. The situation in the Balkans was unfavorable for Germany and its allies, where the national liberation struggle intensified. In Yugoslavia alone, the partisan formations of I. Broz Tito by the end of 1942 controlled a fifth of the country's territory. Thus, the situation in the world as a whole, and especially on the Soviet-German front, by the beginning of the winter campaign of 1942/43 was complex and contradictory. The overall superiority in the armed forces and combat means has already passed to the side of the USSR and its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. The enemy was stopped everywhere and experienced great difficulties both at the front and in the rear. But this did not predetermine his final defeat, especially since at that moment the states of the anti-Hitler coalition, despite the changed balance of forces, also experienced considerable difficulties. The problem of opening a second front arose immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union. However, the United States and Britain, which announced on June 22-24, 1941, their readiness to assist the Soviet Union, were in no hurry, and could not do anything concrete in this direction at that time. The defeat of the Germans near Moscow, which put an end to the "blitzkrieg" and meant that Germany was being drawn into a protracted war in the east, dispelled for some time the doubts of the US and British leadership about the combat capabilities of the USSR. But now the leaders of the Western powers faced another question: will the Soviet Union stand if Germany repeats last year's powerful onslaught on the Red Army in 1942? The command of the US Army perfectly understood the strategic importance of the invasion of Western Europe and the opening of a second front, where large ground forces would operate, for they were aware that in a continental war, which was basically the Second World War, the final victory would be won on the fronts, leading to vital areas of Germany. In May - June 1942, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. Molotov visited London and Washington, where he negotiated the opening of a second front. Justifying their refusal to open a second front in Europe, the leaders of the United States and Britain referred to military-technical and other reasons. the allies were clearly inclined to believe that in 1943 the second front would not be opened. The US and British leadership did everything to gain a foothold in the North African region and expand their positions there. And only after the defeat of the Germans near Kursk at the Tehran Conference was it decided to open a second front in May 1944. The concentration of forces and means on the British Isles began in order to “start the operation on May 1, 1944 from such a bridgehead on the continent from which further offensive actions could be carried out. The offensive of the American-British expeditionary forces in Normandy, which began on June 6, 1944, was one of the most important military and political events of the Second World War. For the first time, the Reich had to fight on two fronts, which Hitler had always feared so much. "Overlord" became the largest amphibious landing operation of a strategic scale. Many factors contributed to its success: the achievement of surprise, the interaction of forces and combat arms, the correctly chosen direction of the main attack, uninterrupted supply, high morale and combat qualities of the troops, a huge rise in the forces of the Resistance movement in Europe.

19) Liberation by the Red Army of the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe.Liberation of Romania. On March 26, 1944, Soviet troops reached the river. Prut - State border of the USSR with Romania. The dictator of Romania, Marshal I. Antonescu, organized the sounding of the terms of the truce with the allies. The terms of the armistice provided for the restoration of the Soviet-Romanian border under the 1940 treaty; compensation for losses caused to the Soviet Union by military operations and the occupation of Soviet territory by the Romanian troops; ensuring free movement of the allied troops on the Romanian territory in accordance with military needs. For about seven months, the Red Army fought on Romanian territory against German troops, while suffering considerable losses. Liberation of Bulgaria. After the defeat of the German-Romanian troops, the withdrawal of Romania from the war, and with the approach of the Soviet troops, the ruling circles of Bulgaria began to look for a way out of the situation. The main force opposing the government was the anti-fascist workers and peasants, the progressive intelligentsia. On September 6, the Bulgarian government announced the severance of relations with Germany and requested the terms of a truce with the USSR. Gradually, the campaign of Soviet troops in Bulgaria was completed. It took place in favorable political conditions and was not associated with the conduct of hostilities. Liberation of Yugoslavia. Since the troops of the Yugoslav patriots were not able to defeat the enemy and liberate the country on their own, the High Command of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia (NOAJ) sought help from other states. On October 1, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command approved the plan for the Belgrade strategic offensive operation, and the Soviet troops went on the offensive. In September - October 1944, the troops of the Red Army, in close cooperation with the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, defeated the German army group "Serbia", liberated the eastern and northeastern regions of Yugoslavia with its capital Belgrade. Simultaneously with the Belgrade offensive operation, the Red Army troops began to liberate such states of Central Europe as Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. The military operations here were extremely tense. Liberation of Czechoslovakia. Until August 1944, the partisan movement in Slovakia did not gain significant momentum. In July, the Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement began to send specially trained organizing groups to Slovakia. As a result of the activities of partisan detachments, several regions were liberated in Central Slovakia by the end of August. The Soviet leadership, at the request of the Czechoslovak side, ordered to immediately begin preparations for a special offensive operation. The offensive of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front began on September 8, and the 4th Ukrainian - a day later. At the same time, the resistance of the enemy by this moment had noticeably increased. Since October, the troops of the 1st and 4th Ukrainian fronts began the East Carpathian operation and provided direct assistance to the Slovak national uprising. Liberation of Hungary. On October 16, 1944, with the approach of Soviet troops to the Hungarian border, M. Horthy signed a renunciation of power and documents on the transfer of the post of head of state to Hitler. In the fierce battles that unfolded, the troops of Marshal Tolbukhin, despite the superiority of the German troops in tanks, not only stopped their advance, but also threw them back to their original positions. Although the offensive of the Soviet troops developed slowly, the position of the encircled enemy was getting worse and worse. Liberation of Poland and Austria. The most difficult situation developed "in Poland. In August 1944, the front commanders K. Rokossovsky and G. Zakharov, under the leadership of G. Zhukov, developed a plan to encircle the German troops near Warsaw. However, this plan was not destined to come true. The command of the Home Army and the Polish government in exile in London, without the consent of the Soviet authorities, an uprising in Warsaw was raised on August 1, 1944. The uprising was brutally suppressed. The Nazis celebrated their last victory on the ruins of Warsaw. Only on January 17, 1945, Warsaw was liberated by Soviet troops and the 1st Army of the Polish Army, which has been advancing together with the Red Army since the beginning of the liberation of Belarus.In early April, Soviet troops moved the fighting to the eastern regions of Austria.On April 13, Soviet troops completely occupied the capital of Austria.

20) The defeat of Nazi Germany. End of WWII. The final battle of the Great Patriotic War was the Battle of Berlin (April 16 - May 8, 1945). The troops of three fronts took part in it - the 1st and 2nd Belorussian (Zhukov, Rokossovsky) and the 1st Ukrainian (Konev). The Nazi command mobilized all the resources of the country, hoping to defend the capital. By April 15, 214 divisions were fighting on the Soviet-German front, of which 34 were tank divisions. The 1st Ukrainian Front was given the task of crushing the grouping of enemy troops in the area of ​​Cottbus and south of Berlin. Before the 2nd Belorussian Front, the task was set, by crossing the Oder, to defeat the enemy's Stetting grouping. This ensured the actions of the 1st Belorussian Front from the north. Thus, by the beginning of the Berlin operation, all three fronts had 2.5 million people, 41,600 guns and machine guns, 6,250 tanks, and 7,500 combat aircraft. Before the offensive, a comprehensive training of troops was carried out. At dawn on April 16, the air was shaken by the roar of thousands of guns. The enemy, suppressed by artillery fire, offered no resistance at the forefront of defense. By the end of the first day, it was possible to break the opponent's defenses in a fortified position near the railroad embankment. By the end of April 17, the second line of defense on the Zelenovsky Heights was broken through. On April 21, troops of the 1st Belorussian Front cut off the ring road of Berlin, and battles began for the suburbs. On April 20, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front approached the Zossensky defensive area, which covered Berlin from the south. By the end of April 22, formations of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts made their way to the streets of Berlin. On April 24 - 25, 1945, by the unification of the shock groups of the fronts, the ring around the enemy troops was closed. Panic broke out in the city. Many leaders of the fascist party left the capital. By the end of the day on April 25, Soviet troops reached the borders of the central sector of the city. The Nazi command hoped to break the encirclement, but the ring was shrinking more and more every day. The battles for the center of Berlin were especially fierce. On the morning of April 30, battles broke out for the Reichstag. Fights took place literally for every room. On the night of May 1, a red banner was hoisted on the pediment of the building. The position of the enemy was hopeless. On April 30, Hitler committed suicide. At 00:40 on May 2, 1945, the Germans made a radio request to cease fire. On May 8, in the suburbs of Karlshorst, Marshal (USSR), Marshal A. Tedder (Great Britain), General K. Spaats (USA), General J. Delattre de Tassigny (France) and a representative of the German High Command signed an act of unconditional surrender. On June 5, 1945, the Declaration of the Defeat of Germany was signed.

21) The defeat of militaristic Japan. End of World War II. The participants of the Berlin conference also paid attention to the issues of the Far East. After the end of the war in Europe, Japan was in a difficult position - she had to fight alone. At the same time, the interests of restoring peace demanded the speedy liquidation of the Far Eastern seat of war. During the work of the Potsdam Conference, a message arrived about the successful test of the American atomic bomb. Many US leaders were inclined to use the atomic bomb against Japan and end the war faster. On August 6 and 9, 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, heralding the world about the advent of a new, atomic era. This act of the US authorities pursued both military and political goals - to hasten the end of the war and at the same time demonstrate to the world the might and strength of the United States. As early as April 5, 1945, the Soviet government demonstrated a treaty with Japan on neutrality, and on August 8, V. Molotov met with the Japanese ambassador to Moscow, Sato, and stated that the Soviet government had considered itself at war with Japan since August 9. This news was immediately conveyed to Tokyo. Japan was moving inexorably towards a national catastrophe. All attempts by the government and military command to delay unconditional surrender were ultimately futile. The plan of military operations of the armed forces of the USSR against Japan provided for the conduct of the Manchurian and South Sakhalin strategic offensive operations, the Kuril landing operation and the landing operation to capture the northern part of the island. Hokkaido to the line stretching from Kushiro to Rumoe. The general leadership of military operations in the campaign was carried out by the High Command of the Soviet troops in the Far East, headed by the most experienced military leader Marshal of the Soviet Union A. Vasilevsky. The idea of ​​the Far East campaign was to simultaneously invade Manchuria from the Transbaikalia, Primorye and Amur region by Soviet troops to deliver crushing blows to the Kwantung grouping and liberate the northeastern provinces of China and North Korea from the Japanese invaders. Two deep and powerful counter strikes were envisaged - from the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic and the Soviet Primorye, which was supposed to put the troops of the Kwantung grouping in front of the need to defend on two fronts. At the first stage, on August 9, at about one in the morning, the forward and reconnaissance detachments of the three fronts crossed the USSR state border and wedged into Manchuria. Thanks to the crushing blows of the Soviet troops, the powerful Japanese fortified lines were broken through. During the first six days of the offensive, Soviet and Mongolian troops defeated the enemy in 16 fortified areas and advanced 250-400 km in some directions. At the second stage of the Manchurian offensive operation (August 15-20), the defeat of the main forces of the Kwantung grouping was completed, the most important political and economic centers of Northeast China and North Korea were liberated. A mass surrender of Japanese troops began. The Far East campaign dramatically changed Japan's position on other fronts. During the 24-day military campaign (August 9 - September 2), the Kwantung Army (General O. Yamada) of the enemy in Manchuria was defeated, Korea, South were liberated. Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Seeing the catastrophe of the Kwantung Army on August 14, the Japanese government decided to capitulate, it was unable to fight. On September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay, on the American battleship Missouri, Japan signed an act of complete and unconditional surrender. This act ended the second world war of the anti-Hitler coalition with the countries of the fascist bloc.

22) Combat activity of partisans. Partisan zones and features of life on their territory. In the years partisans carried out daily combat operations against the invaders. In battles, the partisans conquered entire regions. This led to the creation of partisan zones, which were under the complete control of the partisans. In 1943, 20 partisan zones were formed, which occupied 60% of the territory of the republic. Soviet power was restored in the partisan zones, "forest" schools for children worked, and civilians worked in the fields along with the partisans.

The heroic partisan leaders, outstanding commanders and organizers of the partisan movement inflicted enormous damage on the enemy:,, and others.

Underground Komsomol organizations were loyal assistants of the party in the fight against the Nazis in the occupied territory. Many underground Komsomol members were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Dozens of partisan zones were created deep behind enemy lines, which were completely controlled by the people's avengers, partisan territories and even partisan forest republics with Soviet authorities. Such a republic - a huge region of an insurgent people who did not submit to the enemy - existed, for example, in the Leningrad region, Pskov and Novgorod forests. 400 villages and villages lived behind enemy lines according to the laws of the Soviet state, having expelled the fascist administration. Here their own newspapers were published, party and Komsomol meetings were held. The military force of the republic was the 2nd partisan brigade, headed by a commander and a commissar. The Nazis repeatedly besieged the region with punitive expeditions, mercilessly bombed its villages and villages. But the edge remained unconquered.

Partisan territories with local bodies of Soviet power actively operating on their territory were also in occupied Belarus. District and village councils, district committees of the party and the Komsomol, schools and hospitals worked in the Luban, Oktyabrsky and Starobinsky districts.

23) Soviet rear during the Great Patriotic War. In the fight against the fascist invaders, not only military units, but also all the home front workers participated. On the shoulders of people in the rear fell the most difficult task of supplying the troops with everything necessary. The army had to be fed, clothed, shoes, weapons, military equipment, ammunition, fuel, and much more were continuously supplied to the front. All this was created by the home front workers. The leadership of the Soviet Union, with the unique diversity of the regions of the country, an insufficiently developed system of communications, managed to ensure the unity of the front and rear, the strictest discipline of execution at all levels, with unconditional submission to the center. The centralization of political and economic power made it possible for the Soviet leadership to concentrate its main efforts on the most important, decisive areas. Under the conditions of domination of state property in the country, the authorities managed to achieve the maximum concentration of all material resources, carry out a quick transition of the economy to a war footing, carry out an unprecedented transfer of people, industrial equipment, and raw materials from areas threatened by German occupation to the east. Until the end of 1941, more than 10 million people, over 2.5 thousand enterprises, as well as other material and cultural values ​​were evacuated to the rear. In the shortest possible time (on average, after one and a half to two months), the evacuated enterprises began to work and began to produce the products necessary for the front. Everything that could not be taken out was mostly destroyed or disabled. In general, the restructuring of the Soviet economy on a war footing was carried out in an unusually short time - within one year. Other belligerent states took much longer to do so. By the middle of 1942, in the USSR, most of the evacuated enterprises were working at full strength for defense, 850 newly built factories, workshops, mines, and power plants were producing products. The lost capacities of the defense industry were not only restored, but also significantly increased. Having subordinated the national economy to the needs of the war, the Soviet Union was able to provide the Red Army with high-quality weapons and ammunition in the quantity necessary to achieve victory.

24) Activities of the first partisan detachments. After the German troops occupied the territory of the republic in many of its regions, the struggle of the population against the invaders began. It was carried out in a variety of forms - from non-compliance with the measures of the occupying authorities to armed resistance. The most tangible for the Wehrmacht and the police forces were the actions of armed partisan detachments and groups. Among the first, independently emerged, was the Pinsk partisan detachment under the command, numbering about 60 people. On the territory of the Oktyabrsky district of the Polesye region, the Red October detachment was actively operating. Its leaders and on August 6, 1941 became the first partisans - Heroes of the Soviet Union. On the basis of the former destruction battalions, partisan detachments were formed in Paritsky, Lelchitsky, Yelsky, Loevsky, Rogachevsky, Mekhovsky and other regions of Belarus. In total, in the second half of 1941, about 60 detachments and groups arose independently. Most of the partisan formations were those that were organized by the party and Soviet bodies. Under their leadership, in the eastern regions of the republic, before their occupation, special briefings and instructions were carried out, short-term courses and training centers were created. They operated in Mogilev, Lezna, Vitebsk, Gomel, Mozyr, Polotsk, and other settlements. The result of this work was that in July-September over 430 partisan detachments and organizational groups were formed in a centralized manner, in which there were more than 8300 people. The activities of the partisans caused serious concern among the invaders.

With the onset of winter cold and due to the lack of the necessary amount of weapons, ammunition, food, warm clothes and medicines, part of the detachments and groups temporarily self-liquidated or switched to a semi-legal position, so that later, with the arrival of spring warmth, they would take up arms again. But even in winter conditions, about 200 partisan detachments and groups continued their armed struggle against the invaders. Over time, they grew into large partisan formations that inflicted significant losses on the enemy in manpower and equipment. The Battle of Moscow had a positive impact on the development of partisan struggle. The defeat of the Germans at the walls of the capital of the USSR vividly testified that the plan of "blitzkrieg" was buried, that the war would be long and the aggressor, in the end, would be defeated. A new rise in the partisan movement in Belarus took place in the spring-summer of 1942: the number of detachments and groups grew, which united into brigades, "garrisons", military task forces; the armament of the "forest" fighters was significantly improved, the structure of the partisan forces was improved. They increasingly acquired a military device. Brigades mainly consisted of detachments, which in turn were divided into platoons, squads. At the beginning of January 1943, the number of partisans in Belarus exceeded 56 thousand people.

The growth of the partisan movement caused a wave of punitive enemy expeditions. During May-November 1942, the Nazis carried out more than 40 punitive operations in different regions of Belarus. In the course of them, the enemy sometimes managed to push the patriots out of their areas of permanent deployment for some time, but he could not liquidate the partisan movement. After the successful completion of the Battle of Stalingrad, other front-line operations in 1943, primarily the Battle of Kursk, the partisan forces began to increase even faster.

25) The meaning of the great victory.

In terms of scale, cruelty, human and material losses, the Second World War has no equal. It affected the fate of 4/5 of the world's population. Military operations were conducted on the territory of 40 states. About 60 million people died in the war, 27 million people lost the Soviet Union. Among its peoples, Belarus suffered the most, losing every third inhabitant. The irretrievable losses of the Wehrmacht, its allies and various paramilitary formations from among foreign citizens who took part in the battles on the Soviet-German front amounted to 8 people. During the fascist invasion, the civilian population was exterminated through mass executions and burnings. 628 Belarusian villages and villages were burned to the ground in the place with the inhabitants. 7.4 million people were exterminated in the occupied Soviet territory, more than 1.5 million of them in Belarus. Near Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk and on the Dnieper, the enemy suffered incomparably greater losses than in all the battles with the Western allies of the USSR throughout the Second World War. The victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War was determined by a group of interrelated factors. But still, the main merit belongs to the Soviet people, who managed to rally in the face of a common misfortune, forgetting or pushing their grievances and hardships into the shadows. Defeat in this war could be not only a national-state, but also a social catastrophe. The Soviet people and their armed forces inflicted a crushing defeat on Nazi Germany and other states of the fascist bloc. By overthrowing Nazism, the Soviet Union saved humanity from the threat of enslavement. For Germany, the results of the war were unprecedented: the country lost its statehood for several years and its territorial integrity for many years. The violence committed on a global scale turned into a disaster for the Third Reich and a tragedy for the German people. The victory in the war brought the USSR into the ranks of the leading powers of the post-war world. The prestige and importance of the Soviet Union in the international arena has increased significantly. The victory also became a turning point in world social development and gave rise to new global trends. A new stage in international relations has begun. One of the important results of the victory is the preservation of territorial integrity and the consolidation of Russia's historical borders. The results of the Great Patriotic War allow us to draw an important lesson that can be called reminiscent - the ability to realistically assess the state and trends in the development of society, the international situation, the state of forces in the world. Politicians should be ultimately responsible for decisions, and the decisions themselves should be adequate to the interests of the country and the people.

The fragility and inferiority of Versailles. Washington system, the origins of a new confrontation. The economic crisis and the "Great" depression, its consequences for world politics. - "Closing" of the leading powers on internal problems - The coming of the Nazis to power in Germany - The beginning of aggressive actions aimed at revising the Versailles-Washington system. Fascism as a phenomenon of world history of the twentieth century. "People's Fronts" in Spain and France - resistance to fascism. F. Roosevelt's "New Deal" as an alternative to fascism and communism.

Cause of the collapse of the Versailles system. Relative stability in Europe. The tranquility of the European powers. Each country acts alone. The return of the US to the policy of isolation. Beginning of Japanese aggression against China. Germany's demand to revise the Versailles-Washington Treaty. The policy of "appeasement" of Germany and the direction of the threat to the East against the "communist threat" Occupation by Germany of the Saar region. in 1935 Capture of the Rhine region in 1936

Japanese aggression 1931 - capture of Manchuria 1933 - withdrew from the League of Nations 1937 - invasion of Northern China 1938 - invasion of Mongolia 1938 July-August armed conflict on the territory of the USSR in the area of ​​Lake Khasan 1939 - battles near the Khalkhin River Gol Hirohito - 124 emperor 1926 - 1989

Khasan A small freshwater lake in the Russian Federation, in the south of Primorsky Krai. Located southeast of Posyet Bay, near the border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, 130 km southwest of Vladivostok. The lake entered the history of Russia thanks to the military operation in this area, as a result of which, in August 1938, Soviet troops defeated the Japanese military units that invaded the territory of the USSR.

Khalkhin - Gol An armed conflict (undeclared war) that lasted from spring to autumn 1939 near the Khalkhin Gol River in Mongolia. The final battle took place in late August and ended with the complete defeat of the 6th separate army of Japan. A truce between the USSR and Japan was concluded on September 15.

German aggression Adolf Hitler - Reich Chancellor 1933 -1945 Fuhrer 1934 -1945 Remilitarization of Germany 1933 - withdrew from the League of Nations 1934 - creation of a military organization 1935 - introduction of universal conscription 1936 - entry of troops into the Rhine demilitarized zone 1936 -1937 - conclusion of the Anti-Comintern Pact 1938 - accession Austria September 1938 - Munich agreement August 23, 1939 - non-aggression pact

In November 1936, Germany and Japan conclude the "Anti-Comintern Pact" on the joint struggle against communism. Italy joined in 1937. This is how the axis "Berlin-Rome-Tokyo" ("Axis countries") was formed.

Anschluss of Austria The idea of ​​unifying Austria with Germany and specifically the annexation of Austria by Germany on March 11-12, 1938. The independence of Austria was restored in April 1945

30. 09. 1938 "Munich conspiracy" and the occupation of the Sudetenland. . Spring 1939 - invasion of Czechoslovakia

Appeasement policy A special kind of foreign military policy of peace-loving states based on compromises and concessions to the aggressor in the hope of keeping him from taking extreme measures and violating the peace. As historical experience shows, such a policy usually did not produce the expected results. On the contrary, most often it prompted a potential aggressor to take more decisive action and, in the final analysis, entailed the undermining of the international security system. A typical example of this is the Munich Agreement of 1938, which did not stop Nazi Germany, but, on the contrary, pushed it to unleash the Second World War.

An attempt to unite against fascist aggression. 1934, entry into the League of Nations of the USSR. 1934 "Eastern Pact" between the USSR and France on collective security in Europe. The Munich Agreement put an end to the Eastern Pact. France's refusal to help Czechoslovakia put the USSR in a difficult position. April 1939 Italian occupation of Albania. An attempt at negotiations between the USSR, France and Britain in 1939 ended in nothing. The USSR was isolated. On August 23, 1939, the forced signing of a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany.

Non-aggression pact Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union - "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" Concluded on August 23, 1939 The agreement was signed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs: from the side of the Soviet Union - V. M. Molotov, from the side of Germany - J. von Ribbentrop. The treaty was accompanied by a secret additional protocol on the delimitation of spheres of mutual interests in Eastern Europe.

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov Soviet politician and statesman, Hero of Socialist Labor (1943) Head of the Soviet government in 1930-1941 People's Commissar and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1939-1949, 1953-1956). In the 1930s - 1940s, according to the hierarchy of the Soviet party organs, including the Politburo The second person in the country after Stalin. One of the main organizers of political repressions during the construction of an industrial society in the USSR.

Joachem von Ribbentrop Adolf Hitler's foreign policy adviser In February 1938, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. On this occasion, as an exception, he received the Order of the German Eagle. Immediately after the appointment, he achieved the admission of all employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the SS. He himself often appeared at work in the uniform of an SS Gruppenfuehrer.

Soviet-Finnish war Armed conflict between the USSR and Finland in the period from November 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940. According to a number of historians - the offensive operation of the USSR against Finland during the Second World War. In Soviet and part of Russian historiography, this war was considered as a separate bilateral local conflict that was not part of World War II, just like the battles on the Khalkhin Gol River. The war ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty, which fixed the rejection of a significant part of its territory from Finland.

Three groups of states on the eve of World War II Lines of comparison Participants in the Tripartite Pact Great Britain, France, USA USSR Goals of foreign policy Redistribution of the world and Preservation of world domination. existing struggle with the world order. communism Opposition to communism Strengthening the international positions of the USSR Policy features Germany's rejection of Great Britain and France's conditions are pursuing the Versailles Treaty policy. appeasement Expansion of the aggressor, the United States - territory in isolationist Europe. politics The unleashing of local wars by Italy and Japan The duality of the course: the desire to prevent a war and attempts to activate the communist movement through the Comintern. Solving the question of a possible ally Sphere of foreign policy interests Division of the world into spheres of influence Territory of the former Russian Empire, zone of the straits World with borders established after the First World War

World War II September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945 armed conflict between two world military-political coalitions, which became the largest war in the history of mankind. More than 70 states were involved in the Second World War (of which 37 took part in hostilities), on the territory of which more than 80% of the world's population lived. Military operations covered the territories of 40 states. According to various estimates, from 50 to 70 million people died. The reasons for the war are still disputed.

Causes of the Second World War - Isolationism of the leading powers and a focus on domestic problems. – Underestimation of the military danger by the governments of world powers. – The desire of a number of countries to revise the existing structure of the world. - Incapacity of the League of Nations as a regulator of international relations. - Folding an aggressive block - the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis.

Periodization of the Second World War Period and time frame Events First period (September 1, 1939 From the attack on Poland to June 22, 1941) of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Second period (June 22, 1941 - November 1942) Defensive battles of the Red Army , the defeat of the Germans near Moscow, the failure of the "blitzkrieg" plan. The third period (November 1942 - Stalingrad and Kursk December 1943) battles, a radical turning point in the course of the war. The fourth period (January 1943 - May 9, 1945) The defeat of Nazi Germany, the end of the Great Patriotic War The fifth period (May - September 2, 1945) The capitulation of Japan, the end of World War II

1. Beginning Parade of German troops near Gdansk 1. 09. 1939 - German attack on Poland. 50 divisions. 3. 09. 1939 - Entry into the war of England and France. 8. 09. 1939 - to Warsaw. Blitzkrieg. September 17, 1939 - The Red Army crossed the Polish border. 28. 09. 1939 - Capitulation of Warsaw and Modlin. Soviet-German Treaty of Friendship and Border.

2. The conquest of Europe "Strange war" England and France - a threefold superiority on the western front. Refusal to take action. 09. 04. 1940 - Invasion of Denmark and Norway. May 10, 1940 - Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg. May 26, 1940 - The Dunkirk miracle. 14. 05. 1940 - Breakthrough of the line Evacuation of the English Maginot army. Entry near Dunkirk of the German army in Paris. Peten's government.

2. Conquest of Europe An air defense soldier on the roof of a London house "Battle of Britain" England's ultimatum. Blockade. "Sea Lion". 08. 1940 - submarine and air war. (losses: 1733 German aircraft, 915 British). 09. 1940 - Italy attacked Greece. 6. 04. 1940 - the invasion of the German army into Yugoslavia. In Croatia, the Ustasha are in power. Summer 1940 - Completion of the conquest of Europe.

2. Conquest of Europe General de Gaulle Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Croatia join the Tripartite Pact. December 1940 - approval of the plan "Barbarossa" - the war with the USSR. June 18, 1940 - General de Gaulle appealed to France to organize resistance to the invaders. "Free France". Resistance movement.

3. 1941 -1942 22. 06. 1941 German attack on the USSR. The beginning of a new phase of the war. December 1941 Battle of Moscow - disruption of the blitzkrieg. 7. 12. 1941 - Pearl Harbor. US entry into the war. December 11, 1941 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. January 1, 1942 - formation of the anti-Hitler coalition. War in Africa American aircraft carrier Summer 1940 - Italy occupies a number of British colonies after a Japanese air strike.

3. 1941 -1942 General E. Rommel Spring 1941 - Germany in Libya. E. Rommel. October 1942 - El Alamein. Rommel in Tunisia. November 1942 - Operation Torch. D. Eisenhower. 1943 - the defeat of the German grouping of the Pacific Ocean. Summer 1942 - Midway (the Japanese lost 330 aircraft, 4 aircraft carriers). American occupation of Guadalcanal. The end of 1942 - the offensive of the German block was stopped.

4. A radical change in the Soviet-German front. Summer 1942 - Wehrmacht offensive against Stalingrad. 19. 11. 1942 - the counteroffensive of the Red Army. 2. 2. 1943 - capitulation of the German group, the capture of Paulus. Summer 1943 Kursk salient. Battle of Prokhorovka (greatest tank battle), "rail war", air superiority. Beginning of liberation A captive field marshal of the Soviet territory. Strat. Paulus near Stalingrad, the geic initiative is in the hands of the Red Army.

4. A radical change I. Stalin, F. Roosevelt, W. Churchill in Tehran Summer - autumn 1943 - Smolensk, Gomel, Left-bank Ukraine, Kyiv were liberated. 1943 - Allied landings in Italy. Removal of Mussolini from power. P. Badoglio truce with the Anglo-American Corps. 8. 9. 1943 - capitulation of Italy. The entry of German troops into the northern regions. Occupation of Rome. Summer 1944 - Liberation of Rome. 28.11-1. 12. 1943 - Tehran Conference - II front.

5. The surrender of Germany Operation "Overlord" 1944 - "10 Stalinist blows". Exit of the Red Army to the borders of Eastern Europe Summer-autumn 1944 - uprisings in Warsaw, Slovakia, Bulgaria. Liberation of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia. 6. 06. 1944 - operation "Overlord" - the opening of the II front in Europe. D. Eisenhower 18 -25. 8. 1944 - Liberation of Paris. 09. 1944 - Allies reach the German border. 12. 1944 - offensive in the Ardennes and East Prussia.

5. Surrender of Germany 12. 1. 1945 Liberation of Warsaw 4-11. 2. 1945 - Yalta conference: the end of the war, the post-war structure, the war with Japan. 16. 04. 1945 - attack on Berlin 2. 5. 1945 - flag over the Reichstag 07 -8. 5. 1945 - capitulation of Germany. 17. 7. -2. 8. 1945 - Potsdam conference: post-war arrangement, 3 D, reparations, Flag of victory over the Reichstag of the German border, trial of war criminals.

6. The defeat of Japan 1944 - Japan - the seizure of territories in China. Kwantung Army - 5 million. 6, 9, 8. 1945 - Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 9. 08. 1945 - the USSR declared war. Three fronts. 14. 08. 1945 - Emperor Hirohito about surrender. 2. 9. 1945 - Battleship "Missouri" - the signing of the surrender. End of World War II. Signing of surrender Results: 54 million killed, Japan destroyed 35 thousand settlements, destroyed cultural values.

Results of the war Political consequences of the war Fascism, one of the forms of totalitarianism, was defeated. The independence and sovereignty of the countries of Europe and Asia has been restored Conditions have been created for socio-political changes, opportunities for the democratic development of states The United Nations Organization has been created on the basis of the Anti-Hitler coalition There is experience and a further opportunity to develop relations between countries with different socio-political systems, there is a tool to prevent wars , improvement of weapons. The emergence of nuclear weapons The first attempts of "nuclear dictate" by the United States. The desire of the USSR to parity with the United States in the field of nuclear and other weapons The liberation of the countries of Central and Eastern The growth of the influence of leftist forces in these states, Europe by the Soviet Union the desire of the USSR to control the development of the region The growth of the international authority of the USSR The transformation of the USSR and the USA into superpowers In the post-war world, two contradictory trends are manifested : the possibility of maintaining peace and developing cooperation and the possibility of confrontation between states in a bipolar (bipolar) world.

"Peace is the virtue of civilization, War is its crime". V. Hugo "The Apotheosis of War" Vasily Vereshchagin

. V. Vereshchagin was an ensign, "who was attached to the Turkestan governor-general, wore civilian clothes and enjoyed the freedom of action and movement necessary to sketch and write what he saw. Until the spring of 1862 he tirelessly sketched nature, folk types, scenes of life in Central Asia" . Subsequently, the artist combined all his Turkestan paintings (along with sketches) into a series in order to strengthen the ideological impact on the viewer. Following one after another, these pictures unfolded the whole plot before the viewer ("Beggars in Samarkand", "Opium Eaters", "Selling a Slave Child", etc.). In the canvas "Samarkand zindan" V. V. Vereshchagin depicted an underground bedbug prison in which the prisoners eaten alive were buried. Every hour of their stay in this prison was a cruel torture for them. And only the light falling from above, which dissolves in the evening darkness of the dungeon, connected the prisoners with life. The central place among the Turkestan paintings by V. V. Vereshchagin is occupied by battle paintings, which he combined into a series of "Barbarians". The final canvas of this series is the world-famous painting "The Apotheosis of War". The painting by V.V. Vereshchagin is not so much concrete historical as symbolic. The canvas "The Apotheosis of War" is an image of death, annihilation, destruction. Its details: dead trees, a dilapidated deserted city, dried grass - all these are parts of one plot. Even the yellow color of the picture symbolizes dying, and the clear southern sky further emphasizes the deadness of everything around. Even such details as scars from saber blows and bullet holes on the skulls of the "pyramid" express the idea of ​​the work even more clearly. To express it more fully, the artist explained this with an inscription on the frame: "Dedicated to all the great conquerors: past, present and future." Continuing this idea of ​​the artist, the remarkable Russian critic V.V. Stasov wrote: “The point here is not only with what skill Vereshchagin painted with his brushes a dry, burnt steppe and among it a pyramid of skulls, with crows fluttering around, looking for another survivor, maybe be a piece of meat. No! Here appeared in the picture something more precious and higher than Vereshchagin's extraordinary virtuality of colors: this is a deep feeling of a historian and judge of mankind ... In Turkestan, Vereshchagin had seen enough of death and corpses: but he did not become coarse and dull The feeling did not die out in him, as in most of those who deal with war and murders, His compassion and philanthropy only grew and went to depth and breadth. He did not begin to regret about individual people, but looked at humanity and history going back centuries - and his heart was filled with bile and indignation. That Tamerlane, whom everyone considers a monster and a disgrace to mankind, that the new Europe is all the same!" The noble merit of Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin to humanity lies precisely in the fact that he debunked this beautiful bravura with a real display of the bloody essence of war. The strength of his picture was such that one Prussian general advised Emperor Alexander II "to order the burning of all the artist's military paintings, as having the most pernicious influence."

World War I was the catalyst for industrial development. During the war years, 28 million rifles, about 1 million machine guns, 150 thousand guns, 9200 tanks, thousands of aircraft were produced, a submarine fleet was created (more than 450 submarines were built in Germany alone during these years). The military orientation of industrial progress became obvious, the next step was the creation of equipment and technologies for the mass destruction of people. However, already during the First World War, monstrous experiments were carried out, for example, the first use of chemical weapons by the Germans in 1915 in Belgium near Ypres.

The consequences of the war were catastrophic for the national economy of most countries. They resulted in widespread long-term economic crises, which were based on the gigantic economic disproportions that arose during the war years. Only the direct military spending of the warring countries amounted to 208 billion dollars. Against the backdrop of a widespread decline in civilian production and the standard of living of the population, there was a strengthening and enrichment of the monopolies associated with military production. Thus, by the beginning of 1918, the German monopolies accumulated 10 billion gold marks as profits, the American - 35 billion gold dollars, etc. Having strengthened during the war years, the monopolies increasingly began to determine the paths of further development, leading to the catastrophe of Western civilization. . This thesis is confirmed by the emergence and spread of fascism.

15.2. The birth of fascism. The world on the eve of World War II

Fascism was a reflection and result of the development of the main contradictions of Western civilization. His ideology absorbed (bringing to the grotesque) the ideas of racism and social equality, technocratic and statist concepts. An eclectic intertwining of various ideas and theories resulted in the form of accessible populist doctrine and demagogic politics. The National Socialist German Workers' Party grew out of the Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace, a circle founded in 1915 by workers Anton Drexler. At the beginning of 1919, other organizations of the National Socialist persuasion were created in Germany. In November 1921, a fascist party was created in Italy, with 300,000 members, 40% of them workers. Recognizing this political force, the king of Italy ordered in 1922 the leader of this party Benito Mussolini(1883-1945) to form a cabinet of ministers, which since 1925 becomes fascist.

According to the same scenario, the Nazis come to power in Germany in 1933. Party leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) receives the position of Reich Chancellor from the hands of the President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934).

From the first steps, the fascists proved themselves to be irreconcilable anti-communists, anti-Semites, good organizers, capable of reaching out to all segments of the population, and revanchists. Their activities could hardly have been so rapidly successful without the support of the revanchist monopoly circles in their countries. The presence of their direct connections with the Nazis is beyond doubt, if only because the leaders of the criminal regime and

the largest economic magnates of fascist Germany (G. Schacht, G. Krupp). It can be argued that the financial resources of the monopolies contributed to the fascisization of countries, the strengthening of fascism, designed not only to destroy the communist regime in

USSR (anti-communist idea), inferior peoples (the idea of ​​racism), but also to redraw the map of the world, destroying the Versailles system of the post-war system (revanchist idea).

The phenomenon of fascisization of a number of European countries has even more clearly demonstrated the critical state of the entire Western civilization. In essence, this political and ideological trend represented an alternative to its foundations by curtailing democracy, market relations and replacing them with a policy of etatism, building a society of social equality for the chosen peoples, cultivating collectivist forms of life, inhumane treatment of non-Aryans, etc. True, fascism did not imply total destruction of Western civilization. Perhaps this to a certain extent explains the relatively loyal attitude of the ruling circles of democratic countries towards this formidable phenomenon for a long time. In addition, fascism can be attributed to one of the varieties of totalitarianism. Western political scientists have proposed a definition of totalitarianism based on several criteria that have received recognition and further development in political science. Totalitarianism is characterized by: 1) the presence of an official ideology that covers the most vital areas of human life and society and is supported by the overwhelming majority of citizens. This ideology is based on the rejection of the hitherto existing order and pursues the task of rallying society to create a new way of life, not excluding the use of violent methods; 2) the dominance of a mass party built on a strictly hierarchical principle of government, as a rule, with a leader at the head. Party - performing the functions of control over the bureaucratic state apparatus or dissolving in it; 3) the presence of a developed system of police control, penetrating all public aspects of the life of the country; 4) the almost complete control of the party over the media; 5) full control of the party over law enforcement agencies, primarily the army; 6) management of the central government of the economic life of the country.

This characteristic of totalitarianism is applicable both to the regime that has developed in Germany, Italy and other fascist countries, and in many respects to the Stalinist regime that has developed in the 30s in the USSR. It is also possible that such a similarity of various guises of totalitarianism made it difficult for politicians who were at the head of democratic countries in that dramatic period of modern history to realize the danger posed by this monstrous phenomenon.

Already in 1935, Germany refused to comply with the military articles of the Treaty of Versailles, followed by the occupation of the Rhine demilitarized zone, withdrawal from the League of Nations, Italian assistance in the occupation of Ethiopia (1935-1936), intervention in Spain (1936-1939), Anschluss (or accession) of Austria (1938), the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia (1938-1939) in accordance with the Munich Agreement, etc. Finally, in April 1939, Germany unilaterally terminates the Anglo-German naval agreement and the non-aggression pact with Poland, so the casus arose belli (cause for war).

15.3. The Second World War

Foreign policy of countries before the war. Finally, the Versailles system fell before the outbreak of World War II, for which Germany was quite thoroughly prepared. Thus, from 1934 to 1939, military production in the country increased 22 times, the number of troops - 35 times, Germany came second in the world in terms of industrial production, etc.

Currently, researchers do not have a unified view of the geopolitical state of the world on the eve of World War II. Some historians (Marxists) continue to insist on a two-polis characterization. In their opinion, there were two socio-political systems in the world (socialism and capitalism), and within the framework of the capitalist system of world relations there were two centers of a future war (Germany in Europe and Japan in Asia). A significant part of historians believe that on the eve of the Second world war there were three political systems: bourgeois-democratic, socialist and fascist-militarist. The interaction of these systems, the alignment of forces between them could ensure peace or disrupt it. A possible bloc between the bourgeois-democratic and socialist systems was a real alternative to the Second World War. However, a peaceful alliance did not work out. The bourgeois-democratic countries did not agree to create a bloc before the start of the war, because their leadership continued to regard Soviet totalitarianism as the greatest threat to the foundations of civilization (the result of revolutionary changes in the USSR, including the 1930s) than its fascist antipode, which openly proclaimed a crusade against communism. The attempt of the USSR to create a system of collective security in Europe ended with the signing of agreements with France and Czechoslovakia (1935). But even these treaties were not put into effect during the period of German occupation of Czechoslovakia due to the "appeasement policy" opposed to them, pursued at that time by most European countries in relation to Germany.

Germany, in October 1936, formalized a military-political alliance with Italy (“Berlin-Rome Axis”), and a month later the Anti-Comintern Pact was signed between Japan and Germany, to which Italy joined a year later (November 6, 1937). The creation of a revanchist alliance forced the countries of the bourgeois-democratic camp to become more active. However, only in March 1939 did Britain and France begin negotiations with the USSR on joint actions against Germany. But the agreement was never signed. Despite the polarity of interpretations of the reasons for the failed union of anti-fascist states, some of which shift the blame for the unbridled aggressor onto the capitalist countries, others attribute it to the policy of the USSR leadership, etc., one thing is obvious - the skillful use by fascist politicians of the contradictions between anti-fascist countries, which led to to grave consequences for the whole world.

Soviet policy on the eve of the war. The consolidation of the fascist camp against the background of the policy of appeasement of the aggressor pushed the USSR into an open struggle against the spreading aggressor: 1936 - Spain, 1938 - a small war with Japan at Lake Khasan, 1939 - the Soviet-Japanese war at Khalkhin Gol. However, quite unexpectedly, on August 23, 1939 (eight days before the start of the World War, the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the USSR, called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was signed). The secret protocols to this pact on the delimitation of the spheres of influence of Germany and the USSR in the north and south of Europe, as well as the division of Poland, which became the property of the world community, forced a new look (especially for domestic researchers) on the role of the USSR in the anti-fascist struggle on the eve of the war, as well as its activities since September 1939 to June 1941, on the history of the opening of the second front and much more.

There is no doubt that the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression pact dramatically changed the balance of power in Europe: the USSR avoided a seemingly inevitable clash with Germany, while the countries of Western Europe found themselves face to face with the aggressor, whom they continued to pacify out of inertia (an attempt England and France from August 23 to September 1, 1939 to agree with Germany on the Polish question, similar to the Munich Agreement).

Beginning of World War II. The immediate pretext for the attack on Poland was a rather frank provocation by Germany on their joint border (Gliwitz), after which, on September 1, 1939, 57 German divisions (1.5 million people), about 2500 tanks, 2000 aircraft invaded the territory of Poland . The Second World War began.

England and France declared war on Germany already on September 3, without providing, however, real assistance to Poland. From September 3 to September 10, Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada entered the war against Germany; The United States declared neutrality, Japan declared non-intervention in the European war.

First stage of the war. Thus, World War II began as a war between the bourgeois-democratic and fascist-militarist blocs. The first stage of the war dates from September 1, 1939 - June 21, 1941, at the beginning of which the German army occupied part of Poland until September 17, reaching the line (the cities of Lvov, Vladimir Volynsky, Brest-Litovsk), marked by one of the mentioned secret protocols of the Molotov Pact — Ribbentrop.

Until May 10, 1940, England and France did not practically conduct military operations with the enemy, therefore this period was called the “strange war”. Germany took advantage of the passivity of the allies, expanding its aggression, occupying Denmark and Norway in April 1940 and going on the offensive from the shores of the North Sea to the Maginot Line on May 10 of the same year. During May, the governments of Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland capitulated. And already on June 22, 1940, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany in Compiègne. As a result of the actual capitulation of France, a collaborationist state was created in its south, headed by Marshal A. Pétain (1856-1951) and the administrative center in Vichy (the so-called "Vichy regime"). France resisting was led by General Charles de Gaulle

(1890-1970).

On May 10, there were changes in the leadership of Great Britain; Winston Churchill(1874-1965), whose anti-German, anti-fascist and, of course, anti-Soviet sentiments were well known. The period of the "strange war" is over.

From August 1940 to May 1941, the German command organized systematic air raids on the cities of England, trying to force its leadership to withdraw from the war. As a result, during this time, about 190 thousand high-explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped on England, and by June 1941, a third of the tonnage of its merchant fleet was sunk at sea. Germany also increased its pressure on the countries of South-Eastern Europe. The accession to the Berlin Pact (the agreement of Germany, Italy and Japan of September 27, 1940) of the Bulgarian pro-fascist government ensured the success of the aggression against Greece and Yugoslavia in April 1941.

Italy in 1940 developed military operations in Africa, advancing on the colonial possessions of England and France (East Africa, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia). However, in December 1940, the British forced the Italian troops to surrender. Germany rushed to the aid of an ally.

The policy of the USSR at the first stage of the war did not receive a unified assessment. A significant part of Russian and foreign researchers tend to interpret it as an accomplice in relation to Germany, which is based on the agreement between the USSR and Germany under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as well as the fairly close military-political and trade cooperation between the two countries until the beginning of Germany's aggression against the USSR. In our opinion, in such an assessment, a strategic approach at the pan-European, global level prevails to a greater extent. At the same time, the point of view, which draws attention to the benefits received by the USSR from cooperation with Germany at the first stage of the Second World War, somewhat corrects this unambiguous assessment, allowing us to speak about the well-known strengthening of the USSR within the time it won to prepare to repel imminent aggression, which ultimately ensured the subsequent Great Victory over fascism of the entire anti-fascist camp.

In this chapter, we will limit ourselves to this preliminary assessment of the participation of the USSR

in World War II, since the rest of its stages are discussed in more detail in Chap. 16. Here, it is advisable to dwell only on some of the most important episodes of the subsequent stages.

Second stage of the war. The second stage of the war (June 22, 1941 - November 1942) was characterized by the entry of the USSR into the war, the retreat of the Red Army and its first victory (the battle for Moscow), as well as the beginning of the intensive formation of the anti-Hitler coalition. So, on June 22, 1941, England declared its full support

The USSR and the USA almost simultaneously (June 23) expressed their readiness to provide him with economic assistance. As a result, on July 12, a Soviet-English agreement was signed in Moscow on joint actions against Germany, and on August 16, on trade between the two countries. In the same month, as a result of a meeting between F. Roosevelt (1882-1945) and W. Churchill, atlantic charter, which the USSR joined in September. However, the United States entered the war on December 7, 1941 after the tragedy at the Pacific naval base Pearl Harbor. Developing the offensive from December 1941 to June 1942, Japan occupied Thailand, Singapore, Burma, Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. On January 1, 1942, in Washington, 27 states that were at war with the countries of the so-called "fascist axis" signed a declaration of the United Nations, which completed the difficult process of creating an anti-Hitler coalition.

Third stage of the war. The third stage of the war (mid-November 1942 - late 1943) was marked by a radical turning point in its course, which meant the loss of the strategic initiative by the countries of the fascist coalition on the fronts, the superiority of the anti-Hitler coalition in the economic, political and moral aspect. On the Eastern Front, the Soviet Army won major victories at Stalingrad and Kursk. Anglo-American troops successfully advanced in Africa, liberating Egypt, Cyrenaica, and Tunisia from German-Italian formations. In Europe, as a result of successful operations in Sicily, the Allies forced Italy to capitulate. In 1943, the allied relations of the countries of the anti-fascist bloc strengthened: on the Moscow

conference (October 1943) England, the USSR and the USA adopted declarations on Italy, Austria and general security (signed also by China), on the responsibility of the Nazis for the crimes committed.

On the Tehran Conference(November 28 - December 1, 1943), where F. Roosevelt, J. Stalin and W. Churchill met for the first time, it was decided to open a Second Front in Europe in May 1944 and a Declaration was adopted on joint actions in the war against Germany and post-war cooperation. At the end of 1943, at a conference of the leaders of Britain, China and the USA, the Japanese question was similarly resolved.

Fourth stage of the war. At the fourth stage of the war (from the end of 1943 to May 9, 1945), the Soviet Army was liberating the western regions of the USSR, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, etc. In Western Europe with some delay (June 6, 1944) ) the Second Front was opened, the countries of Western Europe were being liberated. In 1945, 18 million people, about 260 thousand guns and mortars, up to 40 thousand tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts, over 38 thousand aircraft took part on the battlefields in Europe at the same time.

On the Yalta Conference(February 1945) the leaders of England, the USSR and the USA decided the fate of Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, discussed the issue of creating United Nations(created on April 25, 1945), signed an agreement on the entry of the USSR into the war against Japan.

The result of joint efforts was the complete and unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, signed on the outskirts of Berlin by Karl-Horst.

Fifth stage of the war. The final, fifth stage of World War II took place in the Far East and Southeast Asia (from May 9 to September 2, 1945). By the summer of 1945, allied troops and national resistance forces had liberated all the lands occupied by Japan, and American troops occupied the strategically important islands of Irojima and Okinawa, inflicting massive bombing attacks on the cities of the island state. For the first time in world practice, the Americans carried out two barbaric atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945).

After the lightning defeat of the Kwantung Army by the USSR (August 1945), Japan signed an act of surrender (September 2, 1945).

Results of the Second World War. The Second World War, planned by the aggressors as a series of small lightning wars, turned into a global armed conflict. From 8 to 12.8 million people, from 84 to 163 thousand guns, from 6.5 to 18.8 thousand aircraft simultaneously participated in its various stages from both sides. The total theater of operations was 5.5 times larger than the territories covered by the First World War. In total, during the war of 1939-1945. 64 states with a total population of 1.7 billion people were drawn in. The losses incurred as a result of the war are striking in their scale. More than 50 million people died, and if we take into account the constantly updated data on the losses of the USSR (they range from 21.78 million to about 30 million), this figure cannot be called final. In the death camps alone, 11 million lives were destroyed. The economies of most of the warring countries were undermined.

It was these terrible results of the Second World War, which brought civilization to the brink of destruction, that forced its viable forces to become more active. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that an effective structure of the world

communities - the United Nations (UN), which opposes totalitarian tendencies in development, the imperial ambitions of individual states; the act of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that condemned fascism, totalitarianism, and punished the leaders of criminal regimes; a broad anti-war movement that contributed to the adoption of international pacts banning the production, distribution and use of weapons of mass destruction, etc.

By the time the war began, perhaps only England, Canada and the United States remained the centers of the reservation of the foundations of Western civilization. The rest of the world was slipping more and more into the abyss of totalitarianism, which, as we tried to show by the example of the analysis of the causes and consequences of world wars, led to the inevitable death of mankind. The victory over fascism strengthened the position of democracy and provided the way for the slow recovery of civilization. However, this path was very difficult and long. Suffice it to say that only from the end of World War II until 1982 there were 255 wars and military conflicts, until recently there was a destructive confrontation between political camps, the so-called "cold war", humanity has repeatedly stood on the verge of a nuclear war, etc. Yes, even today we can see in the world the same military conflicts, bloc feuds, remaining islands of totalitarian regimes, etc. However, it seems to us that they no longer determine the face of modern civilization.

Questions for self-examination

1. What were the causes of the First World War?

2. What stages are distinguished during the First World War, what groupings of countries participated in it?

3. How did the First World War end, what consequences did it have?

4. Reveal the reasons for the emergence and spread of fascism in the 20th century, give its characteristics, compare it with totalitarianism.

5. What caused the Second World War, what was the alignment of the countries participating in it, what stages did it go through and how did it end?

6. Compare the human and material losses in the First and Second World Wars.

Chapter 16. Major economic crises. Phenomenon