* * *
Present:
The AG (Angel-Guardian), the AD (Angel-Destroyer).
Witnesses:
V. Kornev, A. Kuzmin, A. Hitler, K. Tipelskirch, the machine gunner Nina Orlova, Yulia Drunina, V. Molotov F. Dostoevskiy2, L. Karsavin, S. Alliluyeva, A. Gromyko, the saint Dmitry Rostovsky, the archpriest V. Shvets, Metropolitan Sergius Stargorodsky, Marshal A. Golovanov, Marshal A. Vasilevsky, Charles de Gaulle.
* * *
THE PAGES OF JOSEPH'S LIFE:
In 1942 his telegram to the full deployment of the Academy of Sciences.
The publication of the book Stalin's 'On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union' in Russian, Chinese, English, Polish, Romanian and other languages.
He hosted the meeting of commanders of partisan detachments in Moscow.
Preparing for the Protection of Stalingrad.
His order 'On the establishment of full unity of command and the abolition of military commissars in the Red Army'.
His report of the 25 anniversary of Great October Socialist Revolution.
He gave thanks to collective farmers of Tambov region, who collected 400 million rubles to fund the Red Army.
* * *
Already on the fifth day of the war and the Central Committee of CPSU(B) and the Council of Peoples Commissars of the Soviet Union rendered the first ruling of war:
'On the order of removal and placement of human contingent and valuable property'."
This resolution identified the problem and order of the evacuation. It took effect immediately.
In the first half of 1942 the restoration all evacuated plants was completed mostly successfully.
And it is truly remarkable that in July aviation production was made in 1,3 times more than in the days of peace in June 1941.
(Kornev)
* * *
The witness of Kuzmin, director of Zaporozhstal:
'The Germans captured the right bank of the Dnieper and started artillery and mortar shelling plant on the left one.
In the daytime steelworkers dismantled equipment, and at night, under cover of darkness, they loaded it into trucks.
Every night trains departed to the east, on September 15 sending of people began.
Of the shops colossus-slabbing mill and unique rolling mills, motors 8000, 1800, motor-generator, 57000 transformers - altogether 18,000 cars with the equipment were taken away.
This was an unprecedented feat of labor, an example of civic valor.
* * *
The witness of V. Kornev:
'The village emptied every day.
Men went to the front. Businesses were evacuated.
Increasingly, our engine crew went to front-line flying.
Not all of them came back. Having been in the fire of front-line railroads, they were missing and got to captivity.
Trains went to the east, being full of the wounded, evacuated, battered military equipment and disassembled factory equipment.
Westward trains moved with troops, guns, tanks, bombs, missiles, ambulances.
That continuous movement during the most violent bombings, when 'Junkers' started, 'damn carousels' above the station seemed incredible and fantastic.
The thunder of explosions merged into a continuous roar.
Fire rose into the sky, smoke extinguished the sun, but trains went almost without fail.
Battered locomotives were replaced; burning cars were pushed into a ditch.
Under bombs rails were repaired; the killed were replaced with the living.
And so it was every day.'
'During the first six months of the war for more than 10 million people were evacuated; 2539 industrial enterprises and 2.3 million heads of cattle were transported deep into the rear of.'
* * *
The instruction for a German soldier:
'For your personal glory you have to kill one hundred Russians...
Destroying a pity and compassion in yourself, kill every Russian, do not stop when the old man in front of you or a woman, a girl or A boy...
We will deliver all the world on their knees. You're going to decide the fates of England, Russia and America.
You are A German!
As it befits to a Germans destroy all living things, resisting in your way!'
* * *
Hitler said about the capture of Moscow:
'The city should be surrounded, so that not a single Russian soldier, not a single inhabitant, whether a man, a woman or a child, could not leave it. Any attempt to suppress should be suppressed by power.
Necessary arrangements should be made, so that Moscow and its environs with the help of huge buildings were flooded.
* * *
'Battles around Leningrad continued with exceptional bitterness, but due to stiff resistance defending troops, reinforced by fanatical Leningrad workers, there was no expected success...
On the 4th of December a desperate attempt was made to once again throw the army in the attack to Moscow. The offensive suspended after they failed to capture Tulu (it was alsoo defended by fanatical Tula workers who was as an eyesore too.'
(K. Tipelskirch)
* * *
From the vow of a partisan:
"I, the undersigned, as a member of the guerrilla group, solemnly declare that my hand and my heart will not falter, when I perform the sacred duty to the motherland in the fight against the Nazi hordes...
For our desecrated land, for burned cities and villages, tortures and humiliation and of my people, I swear to avenge the brutal and merciless enemy...'
* * *
'Under the powerful blows of the Red Army German troops, rolling back to the west, are suffering huge losses in men and machinery.
They cling to each line, trying to push the day of their defeat.
But the enemy's efforts are vain. The initiative is now in our hands and attempts of the stirred up and rusty machinery of Hitler could not restrain the pressure of the Red Army.
Not far is the day when the Red Army by its powerful blow will through savage enemies from Leningrad, cleanse from them towns and villages of Belarus and Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, Estonia and Karelia.
It will liberate the Soviet Crimea, and over the entire Soviet land red flag will again be victoriously stream.'
(J. Stalin)
* * *
'Dear Joseph Vissarionovich!
We, communists of the Taman Guards Red Banner Order of Suvorov of the 3rd degree Aviation Regiment, gathering in our final party meeting, send ardent Bolshevik greetings to our teacher and friend!
Twenty-five operation flights, three thousand tons of bombs were dropped on the enemy, 23 Hero of the Soviet Union. These are the results of our work.
Thirty wonderful girls, communists and Komsomol members, gave their lives for the honor and independence of their country.
The regiment proved that a Soviet woman in the terrible time for the country can courageously, bravely and selflessly in arms in her hands defend her beloved Motherland.'
800,000 women joined the Red Army; three hundred thousand did it voluntarily.
* * *
'I dreamed of becoming a machine gunner...
When the war happened, I was ready!
I passed machine-gun deal to the 'excellent'.
I got, and it was luck for me! Into the Chapayev Division, the real one.
I with my gun defended Odessa and now I defend Sevastopol.
My appearance is certainly very weak, small and thin. But I can tell the truth: My hand has never wavered. The first time I was afraid, and then it passed.
When one defends his dear homeland and his family, then he becames very brave and does not understand what is cowardice.'
(A letter from the machine gunner Nina Orlova)
* * *
Could I, a simple nurse,
I, for whom the death became a way of life,
Understand in a battle that never so brightly
My life would shine.
Could I in a captivity of trench everyday's life
Understand when the war ended,
That never again will I be needed to people
At the hard moment.
(Julia Drunina)
* * *
'Stalin went farther.
He created artillery armies, which the Germans did not have.
How to maintain an offensive?
First, the Air Force should bomb thoroughly.
It must begin, then the artillery continued, then long guns, only after that tanks, and after tanks the infantry.
Stalin developed four stages of offensive very deeply.
I do not know whether Germans had artillery division, we had such divisions, and by the end of the war we had artillery armies.
Such a lot of artillery, it can pass through every front. "
(V. Molotov)
* * *
The German idea was domination. The Russian one was brotherhood.
'We first announced to the world that it is not through suppression of personalities, strange to us, we want to achieve their own prosperity.
On the contrary, we see it only in a free and independent development of all other nations and in fraternal communion with them.
Making up for one another, attracting their organic features, and giving them branches for grafting, communicating with them by soul and spirit, learning from them and teaching them.
And so it was until mankind, filling with the world communication to the public, peoples' unity as a grand and magnificent tree, will spread over happy earth.
(Fyodor Dostoevsky).
'Collegiality and unity does not suppress those who have come together.
Every moment can and should be unity, and hence all the others, but can only in their individual existence - as a special personalization ones. "
(L. Karsavin)
'Justification of nation in its implementation in the history of values, among them heroism and holiness, have at least the same ontological significance as the creation of monuments of art and science systems.'
(G. Fedotov)
* * *
'I have never seen my father so.
Being usually restrained in words and emotions, he choked with rage, he could hardly speak, 'Where, where is all this?' - He uttered, 'where are all the letters of your writer?'
It cannot be transferred, with what contempt he uttered the word 'writer'...
'I know all about it! All of your phone conversations; they are here!' He slapped his hand on the pocket.
Your Kapler is a British spy, he was arrested!'
'I love him!'I said, finally finding my voice.
'Do you love?' father shouted with inexpressible anger to this very word, and I got two slaps the first time in his life.
'Think about it, nurse! He could not hold back any longer. It is such a war, but she is busy with �! and he said vulgar words.
He could not find other words...
From that day my father and I were strangers for a long time.
We did not talk to each other for a few months; only in summer we met again.
But former relations never arose between us.
For him I was no longer a favorite daughter as it was before.
(S. Alliluyeva)
* * *
Even before the Molotov's appeal at the beginning of the war, an appeal of the future Patriarch Sergius on the protection of our Orthodox fatherland took place.
For the money believers the tank column named after Dimitryi Donskoy and the aircraft squadron named after Alexander Nevsky were produced.
Everywhere in the churches prayers for victory were held.
In churches, which were territories occupied by Germans, partisans, scouts and the wounded found hid.
The priests were returned from camps and exiles.
The famous Archbishop and the surgeon (Luke Voino-Yasenetsky) straight from his exile was sent to a military hospital.
Soon, he received the Stalin Prize of the first degree for his book about contaminated surgery.
* * *
Gromyko witnesses:
'We want you to send you to the U.S not for a month but maybe for a year,' added Stalin and looked at me. Immediately he asked:
'How good is your English?'
I replied:
'I fight against it, and it seems I gradually prevail it, although the process of learning is complex, especially when there is no necessary conversational practice.
And then Stalin gave an advice that somewhat puzzled, and at the same time amused me and, most importantly, helped to be less constrained in the conversation.
He said:
'Why not sometimes drop in American churches and cathedrals and listen to sermons of church pastors?
They speak clearly in pure English. And they have a good diction.
After all, no wonder that many of the Russian revolutionaries, being abroad, resorted to such a method to improve their knowledge of foreign languages.
I was somewhat confused.
I thought how Stalin, being an atheist, and suddenly recommended me who was also an atheist, to visit American churches?
Did he not test me, so to speak, on loyalty?
In the USA I certainly did not go to churches and cathedrals. This was probably the only case where a Soviet diplomat failed to fulfill an instruction of Stalin.'
* * *
The message to shepherds and the flock of Christ Orthodox Church:
'Fascist bandits attacked our Homeland.
Violating every treaties and promises, they suddenly fell upon us, and that blood of innocent civilians already sprinkles our land.
Times of Batu, the Teutonic Knights, Charles the Swedish, Napoleon are repeated.
Pathetic descendants of enemies of the Orthodox Christianity want to try again to put our people to their knees in front of an untruth.
But it is not the first time that the Russian people have to withstand such tests. With God's help they will scatter the fascist enemy force to ashes again...
Let us recall the holy leaders of the Russian people Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy who believed laid souls for people and the Homeland.
And not only leaders did it.
Let us recall countless thousands of ordinary Orthodox soldiers...
Our Orthodox Church has always shared the fate of the nation. Together with it underwent trials and was comforted with its progress.
It will not leave its people now too. It blesses the upcoming national feat with the heavenly blessing...
If anyone, it is we who need to remember Christ's commandment:
'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends'.
(John 15:13).
For us, shepherds of the Church, while the Fatherland calls on deeds, it is not worthy to silently look at what is around is done.
Not encourage the craven, not to comfort the distressed, not recall the hesitant of the duty and the will of God.
And if in addition, silence of a shepherd, his indifference to experienced things is accounted for crafty considerations at the expense of benefits on the other side of the border, it will be a treason to the Homeland and his pastoral duties.
Because the church needs a shepherd carrying his service truely 'for Jesus' sake, but not for bread', as it was expressed by St. Demetrius of Rostov.
Let us lay our souls along with our flock...
The Church blesses all the Orthodox to defend the sacred borders of our country.
Lord grant us victory.'
* * *
The Archpriest Vladimir Shvets witnesses:
'When the Great Patriotic War started, the Patriarch of Antioch Alexander III sent a letter to the Christians all over the world for prayer and material aid to Russia. Very few real friends were left in our country then.
There have been great people of prayer in Russia, as Hieroschemamonk Seraphim Vyritsky.
A thousand days and nights he stood in prayer for the salvation of the country and the Russian people during the difficult years when the country was torn by enemies.
But as in 1612 the Providence of God for the expressions of God's will and determination of the fate and the people of Russia, there was elected a man of prayer and a friend of from a brotherly Church: the Metropolitan of Lebanon mountains Elijah (the Patriarchate of Antioch).
He knew what Russia meant to the world, and therefore always prayed for the salvation of the Russian country and enlightenment of its people...
He decided to shut up and ask the Mother of God to discover how we can help Russia.
He descended into the stone vault, which no sound came from the ground, where there was nothing but an icon of the Mother of God.
The hierarch shut up there, not eating food, not drinking, not sleeping, but only he prayed on his knees before the icon of the Mother of God with an icon lamp.
Each morning the hierarch was given reports from the front about the number of the killed and about where the enemy came. In three days of his vigil the Mother of God Herself appeared to him in a fiery pillar and announced that he was elected, the real man of prayer and a friend of Russia, to convey the definition of God for the country and the people of Russia.
If anything that it was determined not to be fulfilled, Russia will perish.
'Churches, monasteries, theological academies and seminaries should be opened throughout the country.
Priests should be returned from the fronts and prisons and begin to serve.
Now they prepare to surrender Leningrad; they cannot do it.
'he said, 'Let the miraculous Lady of Kazan be taken and carried around the city in an icon-bearing procession. Then no enemy will tread on its holy land. It is an elected city.
Before the Kazan Icon a prayer service in Moscow is necessary to perform; then it should be in Stalingrad, which cannot surrender to the enemy.
Kazan icon should go with the troops to the borders of Russia.
When the war ends, Metropolitan Elias should come to Russia and talk about how it was rescued.'
* * *
'The insidious and cruel enemy invading our borders, apparently, exerts all its strength. By fire and sword it is going through our land, plundering and destroying our villages, our cities...
The enemy is strong, but 'great is God of Russian land," as exclaimed Mamai on Kulikovo field who defeated by the Russian army.
Lord willing, our present enemy will have to repeat this cry.
Above us the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary who has been the perpetual patron of the Russian Land. We pray for all radiant hosts of saints in the land of our shine...'
(Metropolitan Sergius Stargorodsky)
* * *
'In the postwar years, thousands of parishes in all dioceses were opened, especially in Belarus, and Ukraine.
If in 1946 the Russian Church had 10,544 parishes, three years later that number increased in nearly four thousand.
At Easter in 1946 the service in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra were started again, Moscow and Leningrad Theological Academy started working, eight seminaries were opened.
'The Magazine of the Moscow Patriarchate' become a center of spiritual education of Soviet people.
Publication of antireligious literature almost stopped.
'Reducing the requirements for the conditions of unity to the mere recognition of Jesus Christ our Lord belittles the Christian faith to the only faith which, according to the Apostle, is accessible to 'demons'.'
(From the resolution of the meeting on the issue of ecumenism).
* * *
A. Golovanov, 'I can remember how during the war he offered me his cottage:
'We live side by side because everyone say I'm great, and genius bu in the evening I have no one to drink tea with.'
I refused, and he says, 'Take it, or else I will give it to Vasilevsky.'
He had an interesting history with Vasilevsky.
Alexander Mikhaylovich told me that Stalin invited and began asking about his parents.
And his father was a village priest, and Vasilevsky maintain no relationship with him.
'It is not good to forget parents,' said Stalin, 'And you, among other things, will not to pay off to me for a long time!' he went to the safe and took out a stack of receipts of postal orders.
It turned out that Stalin had regularly sent money to Vasilewsky's father. The old man thought it was from his son.
'I did not know what to say,' says Vasilevsky.
* * *
Charles de Gaulle witnesses:
'... I have the impression that to me a cunning and uncompromising champion, exhausted from the tyranny of Russia, glowing from the national ambition.
Stalin had a great will.
Being tired of life of a conspirator, masking his thoughts and heart, being ruthless and not believing in sincerity, he felt resistance or danger in every human.
He considered everything as tricks, distrust and stubbornness.
Revolution, party, government and war were for him reasons and means to dominate.
He rose, using, in essence, tricks of the Marxist interpretation, totalitarian severity.
Relying on daring and non-human deceit, subjecting some and liquidating others.'