Was General Vlasov a traitor? Thrice Loyal General

On September 14, 1901, Andrei Vlasov was born in one of the villages of the Nizhny Novgorod province. He was destined to become the most scandalous military leader in Soviet history. The general’s very name became a household word, and every Soviet citizen who served with the Germans began to be called a Vlasovite.

Little is known about the early period of the life of the future general. Andrey Vlasov was born in a Nizhny Novgorod village in 1901. His father, according to some sources, was a non-commissioned officer in long-term service. According to others, he was an ordinary peasant. There were 13 children in the family, Andrei was the youngest of them. Nevertheless, with the help of his older brothers, he managed to study at the Nizhny Novgorod Seminary. Then Vlasov studied at a local university to become an agronomist, but completed only one course. The Civil War flared up, and his education was interrupted by mobilization into the Red Army. This is how his army career began.

In the Red Army, which lacked literate and educated people, Vlasov quickly worked his way up to company commander, and then was transferred to staff work. He headed the regimental headquarters, then headed the regimental school. He joined the party relatively late, only in 1930.

Vlasov was in good standing and was considered a competent commander. It is no coincidence that he was sent to China in the late 30s as part of a group of military advisers to Chiang Kai-shek. Moreover, for several months, Vlasov was considered the main military adviser to the Chinese leader. At the end of 1939, he was recalled to the USSR and appointed commander of the 99th division.

There Vlasov again proved himself to be the best. In just a few months, he managed to restore such order that, based on the results of the exercises, it was recognized as the best in the Kiev Military District and was especially noted by the highest authorities.

Vlasov also did not go unnoticed and was promoted to commander of the mechanized corps, and also received the Order of Lenin. The corps was stationed in the Lvov area and was one of the first Soviet units to enter into hostilities with the Germans.

He proved himself well in the first battles, and within a month Vlasov was promoted again. He was urgently transferred to Kyiv to command the 37th Army. It was formed from the remnants of units retreating from the west of the Ukrainian SSR, and the main task was to prevent the Germans from occupying Kyiv.

The defense of Kyiv ended in disaster. There were several armies in the cauldron. However, Vlasov managed to prove himself here too; units of the 37th Army were able to break through the encirclement and reach the Soviet troops.

The general is recalled to Moscow, where he is entrusted with command of the 20th Army in the most important direction of the German attack - Moscow. Vlasov did not disappoint again; during the German offensive, the army managed to stop Hoepner’s 4th Panzer Group at Krasnaya Polyana. And then go on the offensive, liberate Volokolamsk and go to Gzhatsk.

Lieutenant General Vlasov became a celebrity. His portrait, along with several other military leaders, was published on the front pages of major Soviet newspapers as the most distinguished in the defense of Moscow.

Doomed to Captivity

However, this popularity also had a downside. Vlasov began to be perceived as a lifesaver, which ultimately led to an inglorious end. In the spring of 1942, the 2nd Shock Army penetrated the German defenses, occupying the Lyuban ledge. It was planned to be used as a springboard for a further attack on Leningrad. However, the Germans took advantage of favorable conditions and closed the encirclement in the Myasny Bor area. Supplying the army became impossible. Headquarters ordered the army to retreat. In the Myasny Bor area, they managed to briefly break through a corridor through which several units emerged, but then the Germans closed it again.

Vlasov at that time held the post of deputy commander of Meretskov’s Volkhov Front and, as part of a military commission, was sent to the army’s location to assess the situation on the spot. The situation in the army was very difficult, there was no food, no ammunition, and there was no way to organize its supply. In addition, the army suffered very heavy losses in the battles. In fact, the 2nd strike was doomed.

By this time, the commander of the army, Klykov, had become seriously ill, and he had to be evacuated to the rear by plane. The question arose about a new commander. Vlasov proposed to Meretskov the candidacy of Vinogradov as chief of staff of the army. He himself did not want to take responsibility for the dying army. However, Meretskov appointed him. In this case, his track record played against Vlasov. He already had successful experience in breaking through encirclement, and also proved himself well near Moscow. If anyone could save a dying army, it would only be a person with such experience.

However, the miracle did not happen. Until the end of June, with the support of the 59th Army, desperate attempts were made to break out of the encirclement. On June 22, they managed to break through a 400-meter corridor for several hours, along which some of the wounded were carried out, but the Germans soon closed it.

On June 24, a last, desperate attempt to break through was made. The situation was very difficult, the army had been starving for a long time, the soldiers ate all their horses and their own belts and still died from exhaustion, there were no more artillery shells left, there was almost no equipment. The Germans, in turn, conducted hurricane shelling. After a failed breakout attempt, Vlasov gave the order to escape as best he could. Break up into small groups of 3-5 people and try to sneak out of the encirclement.

What happened to Vlasov in the following weeks has not yet been established and is unlikely to ever become known. Most likely, he was trying to get to the reserve command post, where food was stored. Along the way, he visited villages, introducing himself as a village teacher and asking for food. On July 11, in the village of Tuchovezhi, he entered a house, which turned out to be the house of the village headman, who immediately handed over the uninvited guests to the Germans. Having set the table for them in the bathhouse, he locked them and informed the Germans about it. Soon their patrol detained the general. Some sources contain claims that Vlasov deliberately intended to surrender to the Germans, but this is somewhat doubtful. To do this, there was no need to wander through the forests for two and a half weeks, hiding from patrols.

Captured

Smolensk Appeal"

Smolensk Appeal", in which Vlasov called for people to come over to his side in order to build a new Russia. It even contained some political points such as the abolition of collective farms. The German leadership approved the appeal, but considered it as a purely propaganda action. They wrote about it in the newspapers, and there were also Leaflets were printed in Russian to be dropped into Soviet territories.

The party leadership was completely indifferent to Vlasov. Hitler and Himmler had nothing to do with the captured general; they were not interested in him. Vlasov’s main lobbyists were the military, who may have seen Vlasov as a potential leader of the future puppet government, if there was such a thing. On the initiative of Field Marshals von Kluge and von Küchler, Vlasov made several trips to Army Group North and Center in the winter and spring of 1943. He not only met with prominent German military leaders, but also spoke to local residents in the occupied territories and gave several interviews to collaborationist newspapers.

However, the party did not like the fact that the military was playing their game and trying to enter their territory. The Russian Committee was dissolved, Vlasov was temporarily banned from speaking publicly, and the military was reprimanded. The Nazi Party had no desire to turn Vlasov into anything more than a propaganda phantom.

Meanwhile, Vlasov’s activities became known in the USSR. Stalin was so indignant that he personally edited the newspaper article “Who is Vlasov?” This article reported that Vlasov was an active Trotskyist who planned to sell Siberia to the Japanese, but was exposed in time. Unfortunately, the party took pity on Vlasov and forgave him, allowing him to lead the army. But as it turned out, in the first days of the war he was recruited by the Germans, and then returned to Moscow, showed himself well for some time to avoid suspicion, and then deliberately led the army into encirclement and finally defected to the Germans.

Vlasov found himself in a difficult situation. In Moscow they had already learned about his activities, but in Germany he found himself in limbo. The party leadership, including Hitler, did not want to hear about the creation of a separate army, which the military sought. When Field Marshal Keitel tried to probe the waters, Hitler made it clear that he would not allow it to go beyond the usual propaganda actions.

For the next year and a half, Vlasov became a party animal. Patrons organized meetings for him with prominent figures who looked at the “Russian question” not as radically as the leaders. In the hope that, having secured their support, it would be possible to influence Hitler and Himmler at least indirectly, Vlasov was even arranged to marry the widow of an SS man.

But all that his patrons managed to achieve was the creation of a “school of propagandists” in Dabendorf. The party did not give permission for more.

Russian Liberation Army

Khivi" right down to the village police who had nothing to do with the ROA.

However, at the beginning and middle of the war, the Germans created small detachments (usually the size of a company/battalion and very rarely a regiment), the so-called. eastern battalions/companies, which were often involved in anti-partisan operations. A significant part of their personnel was later transferred to the ROA. For example, the former Soviet commissar Zhilenkov, before coming to Vlasov, held a prominent position in the RNNA - the Russian National People's Army, numbering several thousand people. Which just acted against the partisans in the occupied territories.

For some time, the RNNA was commanded by the former Soviet colonel Boyarsky, who later also became a person close to Vlasov. Most often, eastern battalions and companies were part of German divisions, under which they were created and controlled by German officers. The personnel of these units sometimes wore cockades and stripes later used by the ROA, which creates additional confusion. However, these units, which appeared even when Vlasov was a Soviet general, were subordinate to the Germans and Vlasov had no influence on them.

the same Bolsheviks, only against collective farms." Thus, we can sum up this confusing issue. The ROA did not operate in the occupied Soviet territories, but part of the personnel of this army had previously served in the German eastern battalions in Soviet territories.

The combat path of the newly formed army turned out to be very short. During the five months of its existence, ROA units took part in battles with Soviet troops only twice. Moreover, in the first case, this participation was extremely limited. In February 1945, three platoons of volunteers from the Dabendorf school took part in the battle on the side of the Germans with the 230th division of the Red Army.

And in early April, the 1st ROA Division fought alongside the Germans in the Furstenberg area. After this, all ROA units were withdrawn to the rear. Even in the face of the inevitable end, the Nazi leadership did not have much confidence in the newly-made allies.

By and large, the ROA remained a propaganda force and not a real fighting force. One combat-ready division, which took part in hostilities only once, could hardly have had any influence on the course of the war other than propaganda.

Arrest and execution

Vlasov hoped to reach the location of the Americans, since he expected a new world war between the USSR and the USA. But he never managed to reach them. On May 12, 1945, he was arrested by a Soviet patrol following a tip. However, the Americans would still have extradited him to the USSR. Firstly, he was a symbolic and familiar figure. Secondly, the ROA was not a significant force militarily, so it would not even be considered by the Americans as a potential ally in the event of a new war. Thirdly, an agreement on the extradition of Soviet citizens was reached at a conference of allies; only a few managed to avoid this extradition.

Vlasov and all his associates from among Soviet citizens were taken to Moscow. Initially, it was planned to hold an open trial, but Abakumov, who oversaw it, feared that the leak of the defendants’ views would cause some undesirable consequences in society, and proposed to sort it out quietly. In the end, it was decided to hold a closed trial without any publications in the press. The final decision was made by the Politburo. Instead of an open trial of the traitors, on August 2, 1946, a meager note was given in Soviet newspapers that the day before, by a verdict of a Soviet court, Vlasov and his closest associates had been found guilty of treason and executed.

Andrei Vlasov is a Soviet general who defected to the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. He gained fame after he began collaborating with the Third Reich, leading the so-called Russian Liberation Army (unofficial abbreviation ROA).

After the end of the war, General Vlasov was accused of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. His name has become a household name and is used as a symbol of betrayal and cowardice.

Vlasov's army managed to push back the enemy and move forward significantly. But since the advance took place through dense forests surrounded by the Germans, they could be counterattacked by the enemy at any moment.

A month later, the pace of the offensive slowed significantly, and the order to capture Lyuban was not carried out. The general repeatedly said that he was experiencing a shortage of people, and also complained about the poor supply of soldiers.

Soon, as Vlasov predicted, the Nazis began an active offensive. German Messerschmitt planes attacked from the air the 2nd Shock Army, which ultimately found itself encircled.

Exhausted by hunger and continuous bombing by German aircraft, Russian soldiers did everything possible to get out of the cauldron.

However, everything was to no avail. The combat strength became smaller every day, as did the supplies of food and ammunition.

During this period, about 20,000 Soviet soldiers remained surrounded. It should be noted that even German sources said that Russian soldiers did not give up, preferring to die on the battlefield.

As a result, almost the entire 2nd Army of Vlasov died heroically, not yet knowing with what shame its native general would cover it.

Captivity

Those few witnesses who managed to somehow escape from the cauldron claimed that after the failed operation, General Vlasov lost heart.

There were no emotions on his face, and when the shelling began, he did not even try to hide in shelters.

Soon, at a council of officers, in which Colonel Vinogradov and generals Afanasyev and Vlasov participated, it was decided to leave the encirclement in small groups. As time will tell, only Afanasyev will be able to get out of the German ring.

On July 11, General Vlasov, together with three comrades, reached the village of Tukhovezhi. Entering one of the houses, they asked for food, and the general himself called himself a teacher.

After they were fed, the owner suddenly pointed a weapon at them and ordered them to go to the barn, in which he locked them.

He then called the police, all the while carefully guarding the barn with the “teacher” and his associates.

On July 12, a German patrol responded to the call. When the barn doors opened, General Vlasov said in German who he really was. Wehrmacht soldiers successfully identified the famous general from a photo published in a newspaper.

The betrayal of General Vlasov

He was soon taken to headquarters, where they immediately began interrogating him. Andrei Vlasov gave detailed testimony, answering all questions.

Vlasov's meeting with Himmler

A month later, while in the Vinnitsa military camp for captured senior officers, Vlasov himself offered cooperation to the German leadership.

Deciding to go over to the Nazi side, he headed the “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” (KONR) and the “Russian Liberation Army” (ROA), which consisted of captured Soviet military personnel.

Vlasov with ROA soldiers

An interesting fact is that some pseudo-historians are trying to compare General Vlasov, who betrayed the Soviet Union during the years, with Admiral Kolchak, who in 1917 fought on the side of the white movement against the reds.

However, for any more or less informed person it is obvious that such a comparison is at least blasphemous.

“Why I took the path of fighting Bolshevism”

After the betrayal, Vlasov wrote an open letter “Why I took the path of fighting Bolshevism,” and also signed leaflets calling for the overthrow of the Stalinist regime.

Subsequently, these leaflets were scattered by the Nazi army from airplanes at the fronts, and were also distributed among prisoners of war.

Below is a photo of Vlasov’s open letter:

What made him take such a step? Many accused him of cowardice, but it is very difficult to find out the true reasons for going over to the enemy’s side. According to the writer Ilya Ehrenburg, who personally knew Andrei Vlasov, the general chose this path not because of cowardice.

He understood that upon returning from encirclement, he would certainly be demoted for failing the operation with colossal losses.

Moreover, he knew perfectly well that in wartime they would not stand on ceremony with a general who had lost his entire army, but for some reason himself survived.

As a result, Vlasov decided to offer cooperation to the Germans, since in this situation he could not only save his life, but also remain the commander of the army, albeit under the banner.

Generals Vlasov and Zhilenkov at a meeting with Goebbels, February 1945.

However, the traitor was deeply mistaken. His shameful betrayal in no way led him to glory. Instead, he went down in history as the main Soviet traitor of the Great Patriotic War.

The surname Vlasov became a household name, and Vlasovites figuratively call those who betray the interests of the Motherland.

Death of Vlasov

In May 1945, during the battles near Czechoslovakia, General Vlasov was captured by Soviet soldiers. At the trial, he pleaded guilty because he committed treason due to cowardice.

Prison photo of A.A. Vlasov from the criminal case materials

By the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, he was stripped of his military ranks, and on August 1, 1946, he was hanged.

His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the “bed of unclaimed ashes” located near the Donskoy Monastery. The remains of destroyed “enemies of the people” have been dumped in this place for decades.

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A tall man in round glasses has not been able to sleep for several days. The main traitor, Red Army General Andrei Vlasov, is interrogated by several NKVD investigators, replacing each other day and night for ten days. They are trying to understand how they were able to miss a traitor in their orderly ranks, devoted to the cause of Lenin and Stalin.

He had no children, he never had any emotional attachment to women, his parents died. All he had was his life. And he loved to live. His father, the churchwarden, was proud of his son.

Parental treacherous roots

Andrei Vlasov never dreamed of being a military man, but, as a literate person who graduated from a religious school, he was drafted into the ranks of Soviet commanders. He often came to his father and saw how the new government was destroying his strong family nest.

He's used to betraying

Analyzing archival documents, traces of Vlasov’s military actions on the fronts of the Civil War cannot be found. He was a typical staff “rat” who, by the will of fate, ended up at the top of the country’s command pedestal. One fact speaks about how he moved up the career ladder. Having arrived with an inspection at the 99th Infantry Division and having learned that the commander was engaged in a thorough study of the methods of action of the German troops, he immediately wrote a denunciation against him. The commander of the 99th Rifle Division, which was one of the best in the Red Army, was arrested and shot. Vlasov was appointed in his place. This behavior became the norm for him. This man was not tormented by any remorse.

First environment

In the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Vlasov’s army was surrounded near Kiev. The general emerges from encirclement not in the ranks of his units, but together with his girlfriend.

But Stalin forgave him for this offense. Vlasov received a new assignment - to lead the main attack near Moscow. But he is in no hurry to join the troops, citing pneumonia and poor health. According to one version, all preparations for the operation near Moscow fell on the shoulders of the most experienced staff officer Leonid Sandalov.

“Star sickness” is the second reason for betrayal

Stalin appoints Vlasov as the main winner of the Battle of Moscow.

The general begins to have “star fever.” According to reviews from his colleagues, he becomes rude, arrogant, and mercilessly curses his subordinates. Constantly boasts of his closeness to the leader. He does not obey the orders of Georgy Zhukov, who is his immediate superior. The transcript of the conversation between the two generals shows a fundamentally different attitude towards the conduct of hostilities. During the offensive near Moscow, Vlasov's units attacked the Germans along the road, where the enemy defenses were extremely strong. Zhukov, in a telephone conversation, orders Vlasov to counterattack, off-road, as Suvorov did. Vlasov refuses, citing high snow - about 60 centimeters. This argument infuriates Zhukov. He orders a new attack. Vlasov again disagrees. These disputes last more than one hour. And in the end, Vlasov finally gives in and gives the order Zhukov needs.

How Vlasov surrendered

The second shock army under the command of General Vlasov was surrounded in the Volkhov swamps and gradually lost its soldiers under the pressure of superior enemy forces. Along a narrow corridor, shot from all sides, scattered units of Soviet soldiers tried to break through to their own.

But General Vlasov did not go down this corridor of death. Through unknown paths, on July 11, 1942, Vlasov deliberately surrendered to the Germans in the village of Tukhovezhi, Leningrad Region, where the Old Believers lived.

For some time he lived in Riga, food was brought by a local policeman. He told the new owners about the strange guest. A passenger car drove up to Riga. Vlasov came out to meet them. He said something to them. The Germans saluted him and left.

The Germans were unable to accurately determine the position of the man wearing a worn jacket. But the fact that he was dressed in breeches with general stripes indicated that this bird was very important.

From the first minutes, he begins to lie to the German investigators: he introduced himself as a certain Zuev.

When German investigators began to interrogate him, he almost immediately admitted who he was. Vlasov stated that in 1937 he became one of the participants in the anti-Stalin movement. However, at this time Vlasov was a member of the military tribunal of two districts. He always signed the execution lists of Soviet soldiers and officers convicted under various charges.

Betrayed women countless times

The general always surrounded himself with women. Officially he had one wife. Anna Voronina from her native village ruled her weak-willed husband mercilessly. They did not have children due to an unsuccessful abortion. The young military doctor Agnes Podmazenko, his second common-law wife, came out with him from encirclement near Kiev. The third, nurse Maria Voronina, was captured by the Germans while hiding with him in the village of Tukhovezhi.

All three women ended up in prison and suffered the brunt of torture and humiliation. But General Vlasov no longer cared. Agenheld Biedenberg, the widow of an influential SS man, became the general's last wife. She was the sister of Himmler's adjutant and helped her new husband in every possible way. Adolf Hitler attended their wedding on April 13, 1945.

He had no children, he never had any emotional attachment to women, his parents died. All he had was his life. And he loved to live. His father, the churchwarden, was proud of his son.

Parental treacherous roots

He's used to betraying

First environment

In the first days of the Great Patriotic War, Vlasov’s army was surrounded near Kiev. The general emerges from encirclement not in the ranks of his units, but together with his girlfriend.

“Star sickness” is the second reason for betrayal

Stalin appoints Vlasov as the main winner of the Battle of Moscow.

How Vlasov surrendered

From the first minutes, he begins to lie to the German investigators: he introduced himself as a certain Zuev.

Betrayed women countless times

November 14th marks the next, 69th anniversary of the formation of the so-called Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia or KONR, which was headed by the notorious traitor general Andrei Andreevich Vlasov. As you know, this was a purely Nazi project, originally called Wlassow-action or “Vlasov action.” The action itself was aimed at splitting our people during the Great Patriotic War - German propaganda then claimed that KONR was a kind of anti-Bolshevik Russian government, which, together with the Germans, was ready to fight the “bloody regime of Stalin.”

We have already written that the “Vlasov action” turned out to be very effective. No, not during the Great Patriotic War, when our people, rallying around the then political leadership, did not believe in Vlasov’s ideas in their absolute majority, but in our time, when, alas, there were many who wanted to “reconsider” and audit Soviet history. For them, Vlasov became a “hero of anti-communist resistance.” It is no coincidence that these people today have piled up many myths and legends around this traitor.

Let's look at some of them on some of them.

Myth one. General Vlasov went to serve the Germans due to his established ideological anti-Soviet convictions

At one time, Vlasov’s fans - mainly from among the post-war emigration - tried to prove that the general became an anti-Soviet almost before the war. At the same time, the main references were made to the conversations of Vlasov himself. Thus, while already in captivity, he told German intelligence captain Wilfried Strik-Schrtikfeldt about how hard he experienced the forced collectivization that took place in his native village of Lomakino, Gaginsky district, Nizhny Novgorod province. From the memoirs of Shtrik-Shtrikfeldt:

“Vlasov told me how he, previously an enthusiastic supporter of Soviet power, to which he owed his entire military career, now saw its other side. When he, already a high-ranking officer, came to the village to visit his father, a collective farmer, people were silent around him, not trusting him. Even vodka didn't help much. He suffered greatly from this. And this silence spoke of disappointed hopes, fear and need.”

Somewhat later, having already led the anti-Soviet movement, Vlasov, during a propaganda tour of occupied Russia, at a meeting with employees of the collaborationist newspaper “For the Motherland!” (city of Pskov) actually developed this topic. They say that with the beginning of the war, his former thoughts against the authorities only strengthened, and he began to be tormented by strong doubts - was he fighting for a just cause? And allegedly Stalin himself began to suspect him of anti-Sovietism during the military operations of the Volkhov Front, where the general commanded the 2nd Shock Army. And while the general was fighting the Germans in the Volkhov forests, his apartment was allegedly searched. A special plane was sent for Vlasov. But the general figured out Stalin’s trick - to take the unwanted commander to the rear in order to immediately arrest him. Therefore, Vlasov decided to remain surrounded... And although the general does not directly admit it, his hint here is more than obvious - he did not go out to his own people in order to voluntarily surrender in order to organize an anti-Bolshevik movement...

And in 1946, during interrogations in the Soviet MGB, he admitted to the investigator that he was deeply impressed by the repressive purges in the Red Army that took place in 1937-1938. They largely pushed him to subsequently go over to the enemy...

However, so far it has not been possible to find a single convincing fact that could even in the slightest degree confirm these Vlasov’s statements! Thus, in 1998, the general’s own niece, Nina Karbaeva, who was still living in Lomakino at that time, personally told me about the real attitude of fellow villagers to the personality of the general in the pre-war period:

“We all loved Andrei Andreevich very much. Before the war, he came to us in Lomakino almost every year. I remember he walked through the village so tall and broad-shouldered... Even though he was in the highest ranks, he did not shy away from communicating with his fellow villagers. Each of his visits was an event for the village. In the evenings he spoke at the club, talking about what was happening in the world...”

In a word, there was no alienation towards the general for “cruel collectivization”. On the contrary, fellow villagers were very proud of their high-ranking fellow countryman; each of his visits to the village was a real holiday for them.

Nina Karbaeva’s story is indirectly confirmed by evidence that can be found in the criminal case initiated in 1946 by the Gaginsky MGB department against the stepmother of General Praskovya Vlasova, as a member of the family of a traitor to the Motherland. None of the witnesses interviewed, residents of Lomakino, mentioned any anti-Soviet beliefs - neither the general himself nor any of his relatives.

What can I say - the entire known biography of Andrei Andreevich, right up to his surrender, can serve as a real model for any “builder of communism”!

As the German Strik-Strikfeldt correctly noted, if Soviet power was a mother for anyone, it was precisely for people like Vlasov. Coming from a very simple peasant family, after the October Revolution he made a very successful military career - in twenty years he went from platoon commander to army commander. All this time, he had no doubts about the policies pursued by the Communist Party. At various party meetings and events, the red commander invariably swore before the people his loyalty to the cause of Lenin and Stalin. And in his questionnaires he also confidently wrote: “I had no political hesitations. He always stood firmly on the general line of the party and always fought for it.”

I must say that Vlasov started the fight well. At the beginning of the war, he successfully led the defense of Kyiv, and near Moscow, the 20th Army entrusted to him was one of the first to launch a counteroffensive, which ended in the defeat of the German strike force. A whole train of awards and encouragements literally rained down on Vlasov, including the extraordinary rank of lieutenant general...

And then the tragedy happened on the Volkhov River. At the beginning of 1942, when trying to break the blockade of Leningrad, the 2nd Shock Army of the Volkhov Front went on the offensive. The army initially successfully broke through the German defenses, but then became bogged down in heavy fighting. The Germans quickly came to their senses and with several powerful blows cut off the army from the main forces of the front. The Headquarters sent General Vlasov to save the army. He received not only the post of army commander, but also the position of deputy front commander with the widest range of powers.

However, by the time Vlasov arrived, the position of the army was already hopeless - the units were completely drained of blood and, in fact, defeated; ammunition, medicine and food were running out. The only correct decision in such conditions was made: in separate groups, with fighting, to break through back to our own.

In the last days of June 1942, Vlasov with a small detachment of staff commanders went east and... went missing. Meanwhile, they persistently searched for him. Stalin still believed in the general and did not at all consider him to be responsible for the defeat of the 2nd Shock Army (after all, the disaster happened even before his arrival on Volkhov). According to some reports, the Supreme Commander even wanted to entrust Vlasov with an important section of the front in the Stalingrad area after he left the encirclement. The general was searched for by partisans operating in the area, front-line reconnaissance groups who, suffering heavy losses, went out every night to search behind enemy lines. Finally, six search task forces of NKVD officers were dropped from planes - almost all of them died in battles with the Germans, and the searches did not yield results. And only at the end of the summer of 1942 did news finally arrive that shocked Stalin: Vlasov had been captured by the Germans...

Obviously, the general - despite his subsequent stories - was not at first going to surrender to the enemy. Everything happened by chance. As archival documents from the state security agencies testify, Vlasov and his field wife, cook Maria Voronova, were captured by Russian police from the village of Tukhovezhi, where the general, dressed in civilian clothes, decided to visit for food. It so happened that they ran into the headman, who handed them over to the German occupiers.

But if not for this accident with the headman, the general’s fate could have turned out completely differently! He could have safely escaped the encirclement and, like Stalin’s favorite, had a brilliant career in the war, right up to receiving the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Look, Marshal Vlasov would then teach us all patriotism using the example of his military exploits and achievements. But, alas, life pushed him into German captivity and, ultimately, betrayal...

So when did the betrayal itself happen, and what, in fact, prompted the general to take such a step?

Perhaps the only evidence in this regard is the memoirs of the already mentioned German captain Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt. It was he who in August 1942 attracted Vlasov to work for the Germans in the Vinnitsa camp for prisoners of war of generals and officers of the Red Army. According to Strickfeldt, on behalf of his immediate boss, the head of the intelligence service of the German General Staff "Foreign Armies - East" Colonel Reinhard Gehlen, he was looking among Russian prisoners of war for a person who could lead the anti-Stalinist movement of the Russian people, and Vlasov attracted the attention of the Germans primarily with his the high status he occupied in his homeland.

Long conversations began that were extremely confidential - after all, Strickfeldt was not just a German, but a Russian German, originally from St. Petersburg, during the First World War he served in the Russian Imperial Army, and after the revolution he took an active part in the white movement. The captain in his memoirs indicates that at first he was able to identify Vlasov’s critical attitude towards Soviet power, and then he began to ask Vlasov questions of this nature - whether the struggle against Stalin was not a matter of the Germans alone, but also a matter, first of all, of the Russians themselves and other peoples of the Soviet Union? Vlasov allegedly thought seriously and after some time, after serious, painful reflection, made a choice in favor of the fight against Bolshevism.

These memoirs are colorfully complemented by a modern historian from St. Petersburg, Kirill Alexandrov, a prominent researcher in today's revisionist community. It must be said that of all the revisionists, Alexandrov, in my opinion, is one of the most competent researchers on the topic of the German occupation. And on the problems of the Vlasov movement, he probably has no equal today - he studied and processed more than a dozen relevant documents from the archives of Russia, Germany and the USA. It’s just a pity that his personal anti-Soviet attitude greatly prevents him from making objective, balanced conclusions from what he has studied. Therefore, the work of Kirill Mikhailovich, alas, is actually aimed at the historical justification of the general.

So, as if complementing Shtrikfeld, in one of his works he writes that, supposedly, anti-Stalinist sentiments were in the air among all the inhabitants of the camp, captured officers and generals lashed out at their superiors for the mediocre start of the war, for lost battles, for their own bitter fate etc. Allegedly, many came to the conclusion about the depravity of the entire Soviet system. But few people dared to move from words to deeds. Alexandrov emphasizes that Vlasov alone was able to make a “courageous decision” (?!) and challenge Stalin loudly and directly:

« Vlasov was not forced to cooperate with the enemy through violence and threats. He was not threatened with death, and in the prisoner of war camp he had an obvious opportunity to freely choose in captivity the model of behavior that most closely corresponded to his personal interests. The instinct of self-preservation required passive behavior in order to safely survive captivity and wait for the end of the war. But Vlasov behaved contrary to instinct”...

Yes, needless to say - a damn hero...

However, let us pay attention to the following circumstances. Wilfried Strik-Strikfeldt wrote his memoirs many years after the war, when the Cold War was already in full swing. This new confrontation again made Vlasov one of the instruments of the ideological confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union. How the “Vlasov action” turned out to be in demand by the Americans was described in detail in his study “The Third Reich and the Russian Question” by historian Sergei Drozhzhin. According to Drozhzhin, the initiator of the “Vlasov revival” was Reinhard Gehlen, who after 1945 headed the BND, the intelligence service of West Germany. It was he who commissioned the “memories of Vlasov” by his former subordinate Shtrik-Shtrikfeldt. Therefore, the objectivity of such memoirs, and therefore their historical accuracy, raises great doubts!

As for Aleksandrov’s assessments... Of course, it cannot be ruled out that our captured officers, in conversations among themselves, scolded both their superiors and the Kremlin inmates. In general, a certain amount of critical opposition has probably always been characteristic of the Soviet-Russian officer corps. I myself grew up in a military family and from childhood I remember how in private conversations, especially during a feast, comrade officers could properly scold Brezhnev, and in unprintable words analyze the behavior of some thieving general, and firmly recall some unsuccessful operation in mountains of Afghanistan, and how to “wash the bones” of the idle political workers, who were mockingly called among themselves nothing more than “political workers”... And even today you can hear such things from officers addressed to high and very high authorities that sometimes you just wonder how our country has not yet sunk to a military coup! So you can imagine what and how the officers who had the misfortune of being captured discussed among themselves.

But this does not mean at all that such criticism should necessarily push them to the side of a foreign enemy, to betray the military oath! For there are things that have always, under any political regime, been and remain sacred for a person wearing an army uniform... And which General Vlasov despised!

Therefore, I think that he did not experience any special mental turmoil that Alexandrov insists on. It’s just that the experienced intelligence officer and propagandist Shtrik-Shtrikfeldt was able to calculate Vlasov’s selfish character and skillfully play on his weaknesses. And these weaknesses were obvious - high self-esteem, painful pride and severe stress after being captured, which the general clearly could not cope with. This is understandable - his career in the Soviet Union went like clockwork, without any problems or shocks (he, among other things, was spared the harsh political purges in the Red Army, which were periodically carried out throughout the 30s). He, one might say, walked smoothly and evenly from one peak to another... and suddenly - captivity, which on a personal level meant the end of any career aspirations and hopes.

And Strik-Strikfeldt gave him such hope - not just to rebel against his former Kremlin benefactors, not just to regain his general status, but also to gain the prospect of becoming the head of all of Russia. Moreover, no special “courage” was required for such a step - it was 1942, the Germans were strongly pressing the Red Army and rushing to Stalingrad, our Western allies then seriously doubted that we would survive this war, extremely dangerous panic was growing in the country , as evidenced by the extremely harsh Stalinist order No. 227 (“Not a step back!”). So the military defeat of the Soviet Union became quite obvious to many unstable people. And Vlasov, with the skillful suggestion of the German intelligence captain, simply hurried to jump into the carriage of the “future winners.”

To put it simply, the general was simply recruited according to all the rules and laws that have long been known to intelligence services around the world...

I think that the current situation was best described, oddly enough, by the revisionist historian Boris Sokolov, who, with all his dislike for Soviet power, was forced to admit that the general was pushed to betrayal by very banal reasons, which had nothing to do with “anti-Soviet ideology” :

“... the former commander of the 2nd Shock Army, Lieutenant General Andrei Andreevich Vlasov, became Stalin’s opponent not out of conviction, but by force of circumstances, having been captured by the Germans in July 1942. He had no chance of continuing his career in the Red Army, Vlasov understood this very well. After all, Stalin did not favor prisoners, including generals.

Even in the event of a Soviet victory, Andrei Andreevich, under the most favorable circumstances for himself, could count on some insignificant position, like the head of a military department at some university. Such was the fate of those generals returning from captivity who were lucky enough to escape the Gulag or execution. In the summer of 1942, it seemed that the Wehrmacht was about to win a complete victory in the east... Vlasov decided that he should bet on Hitler, lead the ROA, and after the German victory, all of Russia, albeit with reduced borders and dependent on the Reich.”

The general’s complete lack of any ideological core is clearly demonstrated by the fact of how rudely and unceremoniously the Nazis treated him. At the end of 1942 - beginning of 1943, Vlasov made several propaganda trips to the occupied territories, where he told people living there about the massive “Russian liberation movement” directed against the dictatorship of Stalin, about the coming anti-Bolshevik “Great Russia, an equal ally of Great Germany” and many other things beautiful tales of an anti-Soviet nature. One day all these conversations reached Hitler, who, as is known, did not intend to revive the Russian state under any circumstances. And the Fuhrer burst into terrible anger!

Vlasov was harshly made to understand that the Germans needed him only as a purely propaganda tool, without any real obligations on the part of the Reich. And that's all! And so that the general did not experience any special illusions, he was actually placed under comfortable house arrest in a private villa in the suburbs of Berlin, where he and his small entourage vegetated until the end of 1944. The contempt of the Germans for the former Soviet military leader was such that throughout this entire time, various kinds of leaflets and proclamations continued to be issued in his name, aimed at disintegrating our troops. But the texts of most of these appeals... were not even agreed upon with the author!

It would seem that after such blatant deception and humiliation, as the ideological leader of his movement, he should have been deeply offended and resolutely expressed his protest - flatly refuse further cooperation with the enemy, try to escape from the Germans, demand a transfer back to the camp... But you never know ways to once again emphasize your real, not imaginary, independence! But Vlasov chose to humble himself.

“This is what a fighter of Stalin’s dictatorship is like,- Lieutenant General of Justice A.F. Katusev, who studied the Vlasov movement from a legal point of view, writes with irony. – They spit in his face, and he, having wiped himself off, continues to curry favor with the foreign dictator, who is bringing ruin and slavery to his country.”

The situation changed in the fall of 1944. Then, in the face of the threat of complete military defeat, the leaders of the Third Reich began to seize on a variety of ideas and projects designed to ensure the salvation of the Hitler regime. One of these projects was the attempt to fully create the “Russian Liberation Army” - ROA. General Vlasov was summoned to negotiations by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, who just recently contemptuously called Vlasov a “Slavic pig.” Without much difficulty, Vlasov managed to convince the SS chief, who had fallen into a nervous state, that the ROA was capable of turning back the war. Like, as soon as the Vlasov army appears at the front, hundreds of thousands of defectors from the Red Army, “hating Stalin,” will immediately rush into it, and a powerful anti-Soviet uprising will immediately break out in Russia itself.

And so, on November 14, 1944, a special Manifesto was adopted in occupied Czech Prague, proclaiming the creation of the “Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia” - KONR. Revisionists often write about how enthusiastically this Manifesto was supposedly received by the Russian people, who, for the very reasons, found themselves on the territory of the Third Reich. However, this is not true. Vivid evidence of this is the personal impressions of Vlasov member Leonid Samutin:

“The Bolsheviks deprived the peoples of the right to national independence, development and identity,” the Manifesto said. But in our ROA battalions there were Tatars, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Belarusians, and representatives of the Caucasian peoples. They all knew very well that it was under Soviet rule that they received their own written language, their newspapers, literature, the opportunity to develop their own, national art. The only thing that was “taken away” from them was the dominance of local religions, bays, khans and kulaks. These “national forms of development” were indeed covered up by Soviet power, but will calls for their restoration raise the masses of these peoples to fight against Soviet power? Doubtful... In the positive part of the program announced in the Manifesto, there was a lack of anything new in comparison with the program provisions of Bolshevism. The Manifesto listed one by one all the rights that all citizens of the Soviet Union already possessed...

... What have we done, crazy people? In the name of what, for what purpose did they betray their Motherland, their compatriots, and go to serve the enemies of their country and their people. What could we offer him in return for what he had and what we all had with him? In the evenings in my room, I took out my papers and re-read that document over and over again, the only program document that our “movement” could give birth to, the notorious Manifesto of the Committee headed by Vlasov. The emptiness, meaninglessness and demagogic chatter of this paper, proclaiming all these “real” freedoms, were revealed with increasing and merciless clarity... How many times during these four years did I have to risk my life, stand on the very edge of the abyss - everything turned out to be in the name of lies, untruth , direct and primitive treason."

The fact that Samutin was far from alone in such critical thoughts is evidenced by the entire remaining epic of the Vlasov movement. Immediately after the adoption of the KONR Manifesto, under the auspices of the command of the German armed forces, it began to form ROA units. However, it was possible to form only one full-blooded division, which, having gone to the front in March 1945, not only failed to raise the Red Army against Stalin, but also quickly turned out to be demoralized by unsuccessful attacks on the Soviet bridgehead in the Oder River area.

After this, the Vlasovites decided not to fight again “against Stalin’s yoke.” They voluntarily left their sector of the front and rushed to the west, towards the advancing Western allies, hoping to find political asylum with them. Along the way, they managed to get into a fight with the Germans, who were having problems in Czechoslovakia: sensing the approaching collapse of the Third Reich, the Czechs rebelled. The Vlasovites decided to help the rebels. It’s difficult to say why - either they decided to get even with the Krauts for past humiliations, or simply to curry favor with the allies by appearing before them in the guise of “anti-Nazi resistance fighters”... In any case, in the Prague area, things began to boil between the Vlasovites and their former German masters fierce battles, which, however, quickly ended after it became known about the approach of Soviet troops - both sides of the conflict hastened to get away to the west.

The Germans were literally shocked by such twists and turns of Vlasov’s associates! I, of course, in no way admire such a person as the fanatical Hitlerite, head of the Belgian Nazis and SS General Leon Degrelle. But I cannot but agree with Vlasov’s assessment given by Degrel after the war:

“There was too much of a traitor in him. Is it possible to change your ideology so quickly, and even while in captivity? ...And my distrust of Vlasov was confirmed when he betrayed Hitler in the case of Prague. A traitor cannot change his nature."

Once in the zone of American troops, Vlasov’s “army,” one might say, ran away in all directions—everyone saved himself from extradition to the Soviet Union to the best of his ability. But the top of the movement was unlucky; almost all of it, including Vlasov himself, was handed over by the Americans to the command of the Red Army without any regret. It is curious that after the arrest, during a search, in addition to all sorts of German documents, they also confiscated from the former Soviet general... a Red Army command book and a communist party card. Why the “convinced anti-communist” Vlasov kept his Soviet paper regalia so carefully, and how he was going to use them remained a mystery...

And about one more “ideological” myth associated with the name of Vlasov. Revisionists love to insist that the supposedly Vlasov movement was entirely initiated not by the Nazis, but by the German military, many of whom were allegedly even convinced anti-fascists. They say that such “oppositionists” were Captain Strik-Strikfeldt, his chief Gehlen and a number of other Wehrmacht officers. According to this version, from the very beginning of the war, all of them sharply opposed the monstrous occupation policy pursued by the Nazis, and even advocated for the creation of an independent Russian state on the territory occupied by the Wehrmacht, as a counterweight to the Stalinist regime. Together with Vlasov, they allegedly had to wage a serious – almost in spite of Hitler himself (?!) – struggle for full recognition of the “Russian liberation movement” by official Berlin.

What can you say to this? Yes, the creators of Vlasov the politician were indeed the German military; it was then the SS men led by Himmler who took him into their hands. But were these people real friends of Russia, even if it was anti-Bolshevik? Doubtful. All these “friends” were, in my opinion, given a fairly accurate description by the former Soviet and Russian diplomat Yuliy Kvitsinsky in his book “Vlasov - the path of betrayal”:

“Strik-Schrikfeldt was one of those typical Baltic Germans who fiercely hated the Bolsheviks and was convinced that they loved Russia. True, they did not love Russia as it is, but the Russia of their dreams - greatly reduced in volume, much weaker, adapted for the export of raw materials and oil to Germany, dependent on the import of German products and scientific intelligence, not interfering with Germany’s dominance in Europe. .. Their often passionate discussions about the desire for friendship with Russia, as a preface, always had a lot of reservations about the need for a radical change in the role of the Russian Empire, or the Soviet Union, in the modern world...

The “fight against Bolshevism” was just a convenient excuse to demand from Russia the same thing that Kaiser Germany demanded of it. They wholeheartedly approved of what Hitler did. They only disapproved of the way he did it.”

In general, these “friends of Russia” and Hitler had one goal - to conquer living space in the east. But Hitler did this with soldierly directness, brutally treating the conquered peoples, and the German military proposed a more cunning plan - not to completely deprive the Russians of their statehood, but so that this statehood would be entirely under the control of Germany.

Moreover, through an “alternative” government to Stalin, the “German friends of Russia” intended to victoriously complete their campaign in the East, unleashing a civil war in our country. In November 1943, the commander of the 203rd Abwehr department, Captain Reichard - also, presumably, a “friend of Russia” - wrote an entire memo to his superiors, which was called "On the need to transform the eastern campaign into a civil war." Reinhard proposed to immediately create an anti-Bolshevik Russian government in the occupied territory, with which Germany would make peace:

“This peace will deprive the Russian people of any reason to continue the war against the German people, falsely portrayed as a “Patriotic War.” Peace with Germany will give the government that can conclude it the same popularity that in 1917 allowed the few Bolsheviks to win over the masses when they concluded the promised peace... Capable propagandists must be selected and trained from among the employees of special teams and units , which should be thrown into unoccupied territory. There is an opportunity in a short time to intensify unrest and war weariness, to unite and intensify the remaining resistance forces against Stalin from previous times, and ultimately unleash a civil war, which would mean a decisive turn in the eastern campaign.”

The question arises, what difference did it make for our people how they were going to conquer and humiliate them - through direct bloody actions of the SS or through the “soft” occupation policy of Vlasov’s patrons from the Wehrmacht aimed at a civil war? As Kvitsinsky correctly emphasized, horseradish is not sweeter than radish.

It must be said that gentlemen the revisionists really do not like the book of Yuliy Kvitsinsky. They constantly point out that it cannot be seriously studied by historical research. After all, this book is, first of all, not a documentary, but rather a literary work, although it contains real historical characters and describes real events.

Yes, that's true. But we must remember that Kvitsinsky wrote his work on the basis of many authentic documents. And among such documents, in my opinion, a memorandum by a certain Hilger, a former adviser to the German embassy in Moscow, dated August 1942, may well be included. It was compiled on the basis of a conversation between Hilger and a number of captured Russian officers in the Vinnitsa prisoner of war camp. Among these prisoners was Vlasov, who, having already been recruited by Strickfeldt, began to prove to the German diplomat the need to create an “independent Russian center”, which would disintegrate the Red Army and prepare the overthrow of Stalin in order to create a new Russian state, allied to Germany, on the ruins of the Soviet Union.

Do you know what the diplomat-intellectual Hilger, who by all revisionist signs was “secret opponents of Hitler”, answered Vlasov and one of his henchmen? I quote the document verbatim:

“I clearly told the Soviet officers that I did not share their beliefs. Russia has been a constant threat to Germany for a hundred years, regardless of whether it was under the Tsarist or Bolshevik regime.Germany is not at all interested in the revival of the Russian state on a Great Russian basis.” (emphasis mine - V.A.).

In the opinion of this “friend and anti-fascist”, the Baltic states, Ukraine and even the Caucasus should become part of the Reich... It seems that Kvitsinsky, if he wanted - if he were writing not fiction, but a historical monograph - would give many more relevant examples of cannibalistic plans for attitude towards our country, both from outright Nazis and imaginary “German anti-fascists”.

In addition, we must remember that the late Julius Alexandrovich was a professional diplomat and, in the opinion of many of his former colleagues, a major expert on a number of European countries, including Germany. He carefully studied the German elite, its traditional views on Russia and the entire neighboring world. And not only at official receptions or on short-term business trips, but one can say from the inside, communicating for years with German professors, politicians, diplomats, and military personnel. Therefore, he knew perfectly well what he was writing about.

In any case, none of our revisionists can seriously oppose Kvitsinsky in this regard...

Myth two. Vlasov was tried and hanged illegally

Like the first myth about the “Vlasov ideology,” this tale was also originally born during the Cold War, among the second Russian emigration, and today it is advertised in every possible way by the revisionists. The emigrants told each other that Vlasov’s associates captured by the NKVD were promised on behalf of Stalin that their lives would be spared if they renounced their beliefs. Some hesitated, but the majority, led by Vlasov, allegedly stood firm, loudly declaring that they were not traitors and that at the upcoming trial they would loudly declare their hatred of the Soviet regime.

As emigrant historian Ekaterina Andreeva writes, Vlasov was allegedly warned that if he did not admit his guilt, he would be “brutally tortured.” Andreeva attributes the following answer to Vlasov: “I know and I’m scared. But it’s even worse to slander yourself. But our torment will not be in vain. The time will come, and the people will remember us with a kind word...” Yes, not to give, not to take, but just the last words of the first Christians going to their Golgotha!

Allegedly for these reasons, the trial of Vlasov and his comrades was closed and speedy - the authorities were afraid of their possible public statements against Stalin in an open court...

Of course, these are all legends that have nothing to do with reality. However, in our time, Kirill Alexandrov tried to revive them, giving them a “scientific basis.” First of all, he points out that there is nothing... illegal in Vlasov’s transition to the side of the Germans?! They say that treason against the Bolshevik regime is not treason at all, since the regime itself came to power through illegal means:

“Strictly speaking, neither the RSFSR nor the USSR were states, but, according to the definition of Doctor of Historical Sciences A.B. Zubov, they were “extralegal power structures, typologically similar to bandits.” The same historian, without in any way touching on the essential emphasis of the Vlasov movement, asks a fair question in principle: “Can treason be blamed on such a state?” It is also worth mentioning here the fictitiousness of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926, on the basis of the articles of which the Vlasovites were allegedly “tried.” The Code was adopted by the bodies of the usurper power that arose as a result of the armed rebellion in October 1917 and, thus, had an illegal, lawless origin. Criminal punishment applied on the basis of an unlawful criminal code cannot be recognized as lawful.”

"Innovative" approach, isn't it? Alexandrov does not like Soviet power, therefore it is historically “illegitimate”, and betrayal of it is not betrayal at all...

In general, the legal legitimacy of this or that power in history is a very, very relative question. As I already said, any historical situation can be brought to the point of complete absurdity and it can be proven that, for example, the accession to the throne of the Romanov dynasty at the very beginning of the 17th century was of a very dubious nature, that it was not at all the will of the entire people through the Local Council, but only the result of unscrupulous intrigues of the boyar nobility. And there is very serious evidence of this - experts will confirm it. Or let’s take the arrival of the Rurikovichs in Rus', which most likely was not due to the voluntary calling of the Varangians to the princely throne by the Novgorod Russians (as the chronicles tell us), but the banal seizure of Slavic lands by a bunch of Viking adventurers (in Europe at that time such cases were quite common and nearby).

Therefore, if you wish, you can call into question the entire difficult thousand-year history of Russian power!

A historian, it seems to me, must take into account the actual state of affairs of a particular time, the real situation of the period being studied (even if you don’t like it for some reason), otherwise it will no longer be science, but pseudo-scientific fiction. And the reality of the mid-20th century was this: historical Russia existed under the name of the Soviet Union, and at that very time it was subjected to probably the most terrible foreign invasion since the times of Batu and the Time of Troubles. And the sacred duty of any Russian, regardless of his political beliefs, was to go and stand up for the defense of the Motherland. Therefore, anyone who went over to the enemy’s side automatically became an ordinary traitor, so that he would not later repeat in his own defense. Moreover, when we are talking about a high-ranking general, who, moreover, owed his entire successful career to the Soviet government... But for the revisionists, as we have already seen, the concept of military duty is an empty phrase if this duty concerns the oath to the Soviet state .

Therefore, developing his idea about the “illegality” of the Stalinist regime, Kirill Alexandrov gradually moves on to the myth of “brutal torture” that was allegedly applied to the Vlasovites:

“We have no direct evidence of the use of torture in relation to those under investigation... However, a number of indirect indications of the possible use of physical torture against individual persons under investigation, the best traditions of Stalinist justice in the investigation materials are Abakumov’s phrase(the head of military counterintelligence SMERSH, his department conducted the operational and investigative development of Vlasov and his associates - V.A.) in a letter addressed to Stalin, Beria and Molotov that Vlasov “so far answers” negatively to some questions, recorded in the interrogation protocol of Bunyachenko(commander of the First Division of the ROA - V.A.) demands of the investigator to “tell the truth”, huge discrepancies between times limited scope of interrogations and the volume of protocols, etc.”

Alexandrov also points out that a number of SMERSH investigators who handled the Vlasov case were later, already in the 50s, dismissed from the authorities precisely for the unjustified use of torture...

What can one say to this... Aleksandrov does not provide any direct and convincing evidence for his assumption. Moreover, I have the feeling that Kirill Mikhailovich, due to his personal ideological convictions, without hesitation, simply automatically repeats tales of “torture atrocities,” which in the eyes of revisionists, human rights activists and other liberal de-Stalinizers are a mandatory attribute of the Stalinist era. Apparently, they gleaned these beliefs mainly from the historical gossip of perestroika times, and from such a “reliable source” as Nikita Mikhalkov’s film “Burnt by the Sun”, where the movie NKVD members, having barely arrested Divisional Commander Kotov, immediately begin enthusiastically processing him with their own fists like a punching bag. Because our revisionists cannot provide any other, more serious evidence of the “torture investigation” during Stalin’s time!

The stories of the Vlasovites themselves have survived to this day, although not as important as the general himself and his entourage. For example, the already mentioned Leonid Samutin described in great detail the epic of his arrest in 1946 and what happened to him then.

He himself, being a lieutenant in the Red Army, was captured at the beginning of the war, after which he voluntarily went into service with the Germans. In the Vlasov ROA he rose to the rank of lieutenant and dealt with propaganda issues. The end of the war found him in Denmark, from where he had to flee to Sweden. In 1946, the Swedish authorities handed over Samutin to the British, and they, as part of a group of the same traitors, handed over to the Soviet side, to a special department of the 5th Shock Army stationed in northern Germany.

This is what Samutin recalled:

“We were all expecting a “torture investigation”; we had no doubt that we would be beaten not only by investigators, but also by specially trained and trained burly fellows with their sleeves rolled up. But again they “didn’t guess”: there was no torture, no burly fellows with hairy arms. Of my five comrades, not one returned from the investigator’s office beaten and torn to pieces; no one was ever dragged into the cell by the guards in an unconscious state, as we expected, having read stories about investigations in Soviet prisons over the years in the pages of German propaganda materials.”

Samutin was very afraid that the investigation would reveal the fact that he was part of a large German punitive unit - the so-called 1st Russian National SS Brigade "Druzhina", which committed atrocities on the territory of Belarus (Samutin served in this brigade before joining the Vlasov army). True, he did not directly participate in punitive actions, but he was reasonably afraid that his very membership in the “Druzhina” could add additional charges to his case. However, the investigator, Captain Galitsky, was more interested in serving with Vlasov:

“He conducted his investigation in completely acceptable forms. I began to give my testimony... Galitsky skillfully turned my confessions in the direction that he needed and aggravated my situation. But he did it in a form that, nevertheless, did not evoke in me a feeling of infringed justice, since after all, I was really a criminal, what can I say. But the captain talked to me in human language, trying to get only to the factual essence of events, and did not try to give facts and actions his own emotional assessment. Sometimes, obviously wanting to give me and himself the opportunity to rest, Galitsky started conversations of a general nature. During one, I asked why I didn’t hear from him any abusive and insulting assessments of my behavior during the war, my treason and service with the Germans. He replied:

- This is not part of my duties. My job is to get factual information from you, as accurate and confirmed as possible. How am I I regard all your behavior as my personal matter, which has nothing to do with the investigation. Of course, you understand, I have no reason to approve or admire your behavior, but, I repeat, this is not relevant to the investigation.”

Four months later, Samutin was tried by a military tribunal of the 5th Army. After the verdict was pronounced, the prosecutor frankly told the convict the following:

“Consider yourself lucky, Samutin. You received 10 years, serve them and still return to normal civilian life. If you want, of course. If you had come to us last year, 1945, we would have shot you. Often later those words came to mind. After all, I returned to normal civilian life...”

If they didn’t torture ordinary Vlasovites, then why talk about their bosses, whom clearly no one laid a finger on! It seems to me that neither Abakumov nor Stalin himself needed this. Probably, they themselves were interested in finding out what these people themselves would say in their own defense, what particular circumstances could push them onto the path of betrayal. And when Stalin got acquainted with the very detailed testimony received, he was simply disgusted! For, by and large, the main motive of these traitors was rather petty selfish interests - one was offended by the oppression that once took place by the NKVD; the second simply chickened out on the battlefield and, fearing to bear responsibility for this, ran over to the Germans; the third lost faith in Victory after defeats in the first months of the war; the fourth wanted to leave the German concentration camp at any cost...

And these little people, whose “ideology” revolved primarily around their own “I,” tried, with the help of foreign invaders, to challenge the entire Soviet country?!

By the way, the Vlasovites aroused disgust not only among Stalin, but also among white emigrants. Thus, a prominent thinker of the Russian diaspora, journalist and writer Ivan Lukyanovich Solonevich personally communicated in Berlin with many figures of the Vlasov movement. His sentence was merciless:

“I was imprisoned in the Soviet versions of the OGPU eight times. In German twice. I had to talk with security officers and communists, with Nazis and Gestapo men - when there was nothing between us except a bottle of vodka, and sometimes several. In my time I have seen all sorts of things. I have never seen anything more disgusting than the “head” of the Vlasov army.”

This is for sure - there is nothing worse and more disgusting than yesterday’s Soviet nomenklatura, repainted in a different color (I myself saw enough of these after the collapse of the Soviet Union, sometimes I just wanted to spit at the sight of how former party ideologists suddenly became “convinced democrats”). And the Vlasov elite was precisely the nomenklatura - former Lieutenant General Vlasov, former party journalist from Izvestia Zykov, former Major General Malyshkin, former first secretary of the district party committee from Moscow Zhilenkov, etc. This elite has absorbed the worst nomenklatura traits - no matter what, to remain at the top, at the trough of power, even at the cost of betraying the Motherland. As Solonevich wrote, these figures didn’t care “Chi Stalin, chi Hitler, the main thing is to be with your briefcase.” This life principle was their true, real idea...

I don’t know why Stalin made the final decision to try the traitors in a quick and closed trial, although at first it was assumed that the trial of the Vlasovites would become open. As already mentioned, the revisionists are trying to convince us that the leadership of the USSR was allegedly afraid that during the trial the general and his comrades would begin to express their “anti-Stalin ideas. They say that after this Stalin never decided to make the trial public.

Dubious statements, and here's why. The materials of the preliminary investigation clearly showed the worthlessness of Vlasov’s idea, which was confirmed by the very active testimony of the defendants themselves. And I don’t think that at the trial they would have decided to “sing” other songs. On the contrary, they would probably have sprinkled even more ashes on their heads, trying to somehow beg for their lives (which, in general, was confirmed by the materials of the closed trial that took place on July 30-31, 1946).

If the authorities had fears of the “wrong” behavior of the Vlasovites, then they would probably have treated them in exactly the same way as the Bolsheviks once did with the white general Yevgeny Karlovich Miller, who fell into their hands. This general, who headed the Russian All-Military Union in exile, was secretly kidnapped in Paris by NKVD agents in 1937 and taken to the Soviet Union. It was assumed that the general would be tried in an open court, where he would loudly express his repentance for “crimes against Soviet power” and call on the emigration to abandon the fight against red Moscow. But nothing came of it. Apparently, Miller flatly refused to cooperate with the Bolsheviks, much less speak at an open trial. It is clear that there could be no talk of any open trial after this. The old general, who never renounced his monarchist beliefs, was quietly killed somewhere in the Lubyanka basements. Even the protocols of his interrogations were destroyed - only a short certificate of Miller’s detention in prison, and several of his petitions addressed to People’s Commissar Nikolai Yezhov with requests of a purely personal nature have survived to this day. That's all! Apparently, the white general said such things to the investigators that the authorities did not dare to leave these clearly harsh anti-Soviet statements to posterity.

Compare how this contrasts sharply with the behavior of Vlasov’s entourage, who extremely quickly began to confess to all their crimes. And these investigative materials have survived to this day, as they say, in their entirety! So there were no prerequisites for the unexpected behavior of the Vlasovites in an open trial...

I think that Stalin was pushed to close the process by completely different motives. The country has not yet recovered from the shocks of the last war. Many wounds have not yet healed, including those of a purely psychological nature. The whole country resembled one, very tired man who had returned from a difficult battle. Anyone who was in the war will confirm my words - such a person quickly wants to quickly plunge into a peaceful, calm life, and at least for a while erase all his military adversities from his memory. Then it will be possible to analyze what happened, understand what actually happened and how we managed to survive the war. But that will happen later, but for now the entire essence of the human body required normal oblivion, until complete mental recovery.

Here too, the warring and victorious state had at the forefront the issues of restoring the destroyed economy, establishing a peaceful life, eliminating hunger, cold, child homelessness, and widespread poverty. And at this very moment, to show people who had barely recovered from the terrible hard times of the war what was far from the most beautiful page of the war, to demonstrate traitors and traitors who occupied not the least place in the Soviet political system... In general, the open process could leave far from the best in the souls of our people sediment and even give rise to certain suspicions towards all those in power - wow, how many high-ranking bastards turned out to be during the war! Or maybe not everything has been identified yet? And where did the Kremlin bosses look when, before the war, they promoted future traitors to large and important positions?

Apparently, so as not to once again disturb society and not generate suspiciously hostile sentiments towards the authorities during the difficult recovery period, when strict consolidation of all Soviet people without exception was again required, and the final decision was made to try Vlasov and his henchmen behind closed doors. Moreover, there was no particular problem in proving their guilt - during the war, all of them had already been convicted in absentia of treason and sentenced to death, the process only consolidated the wartime sentences already passed. Which is what was done in the summer of 1946...

... But sometimes I think - maybe Stalin, when rendering the verdict that the trial should be closed, was still wrong? Maybe it was just an open process that was required so that the whole world would see the insignificance and treacherous wretchedness of Vlasov’s idea, and this topic would be closed once and for all? And then would any basis for the mythology of General Vlasov disappear? Question...

Myth Three. Unprecedented mass scale of the Vlasov movement

This is a very favorite hobby of revisionist historiography. The remakes of our history devote entire pages to discussions about the “huge number” of Soviet people who went to serve the Nazis. They cite figures of either a million or one and a half people who agreed to wear enemy military uniforms. Like, this has never happened in Russian history! And the blame for this, of course, is solely on the “inhumane Soviet power” and “cannibal Stalin,” who were said to be so hated by the population of the USSR that Soviet people rushed en masse to enroll in all sorts of “volunteer” units recruited by the fascist occupiers...

What can you say to this?

The topic of collaboration during the Second World War is difficult not only for Russia. After all, many Belgians, Poles, Dutch, French and representatives of other European countries conquered by the Nazis collaborated with the German invaders. In Yugoslavia, for example, a real civil war was in full swing between everyone and everyone. The Serbs alone were then divided into Chetnik monarchists who fought under the banner of the king who fled to London, Red partisans who fought under the command of the communist Josip Tito and fascist collaborators who swore allegiance to Hitler! They slaughtered each other without any mercy and with such cruelty that even the German military was horrified.

And the French, who seem to still be considered our allies in the war, managed to form an entire SS division for the Germans, where, according to some sources, many more people served than in the entire Resistance Movement of General De Gaulle! And what, it was Stalin’s repressions that subjected the French to such massive collaboration with the enemy? Or Soviet collectivization?

It seems to me that the current situation was due to the unusual nature of the Second World War. It was not just a fight between individual states, but a real deadly confrontation between ideologies at war with each other - Nazism, communism and liberal democracy. In any case, Hitler tried his best to give the war just such a character. And as you can see, he acted in this regard by no means unsuccessfully...

As for our country, cooperation with the enemy, alas, has its own long-standing traditions in Russia. Let us remember the times of the Tatar yoke, and who led the enemies to Rus'. Aren't they Russian princes who solved their power ambitions in such a vile way? And the epic of Prince Kurbsky? And the numerous traitors who mixed with foreign invaders during the Troubles of the early 17th century or during the civil war already in the 20th century?

It is worth recognizing that at terrible and turning points in Russian history, our people did not show such strong unity as we would probably like to see. And this, obviously, had its own objective prerequisites and historical reasons. The harsh years of the Great Patriotic War were no exception in this regard.

The main reason for going over to the enemy was, of course, the difficult conditions of German captivity. Hundreds of books have been written about the inhumane conditions of our prisoners of war. Personally, I was most shocked again by the memoirs of Leonid Samutin, in which he described his stay in a camp for prisoners of Soviet commanders near the Polish town of Suwalki. It just makes your hair stand on end when you read about how people were forced to sleep in the snow in winter, how dozens of them died from hunger and beatings from guards, how real cannibalism flourished among prisoners...

Today, a popular theory among revisionists is that the Germans allegedly could not create normal living conditions for the prisoners due to too many captured Soviet soldiers in the initial period of the war. They say that in Germany they did not count on such a number of prisoners, hence such “forced” (!) brutal treatment. They also talk about the “guilt” of the Soviet leadership, which allegedly did not sign the Hague and Geneva international conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war - this, they say (almost “legally”?!) gave the SS executioners a free hand in the destruction of our soldiers.

I dare to say that all these arguments are a complete lie, which our would-be “researchers” repeat after Hitler’s generals: they, in turn, in their post-war memoirs thus tried to justify themselves for the war crimes they committed. In fact, the Soviet Union officially confirmed the recognition of both conventions - the Hague in 1941, and the Geneva in 1931. And for his part, he strictly observed these agreements in relation to the captured Germans. But the Nazis did not give a damn about international law, especially when it came to the treatment of “Russian barbarians.”

Therefore, all responsibility for crimes against our prisoners lies entirely with the misanthropic policies of the German leadership and its military elite. This leadership, by the way, on September 8, 1941, issued a special secret “Order on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war,” which contained the following words:

“Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of National Socialist Germany. For the first time, the German soldier faces an enemy trained not only militarily, but also politically, in the spirit of destructive Bolshevism... Therefore, the Bolshevik soldier has lost all right to claim to be treated as an honest soldier, in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

It is therefore entirely consistent with the point of view and the dignity of the German armed forces that every German soldier should draw a sharp line between himself and a Soviet prisoner of war... All sympathy, much less support, should be strictly avoided... Disobedience, active and passive resistance must be immediately and completely eliminated with the help of weapons (bayonet, butt and firearm... Prisoners of war escaping should be shot immediately, without a warning hail. No warning shots should be fired...

Commanders should organize camp police from suitable Soviet prisoners of war, both in prisoner-of-war camps and in most work commands, with the task of maintaining order and discipline. To successfully carry out their tasks, the camp police inside the wire fence must be armed with sticks, whips, etc. ...".

It directly follows from this document that the Nazis, in destroying and humiliating our prisoners, acted quite consciously and purposefully. One of the goals they pursued was precisely the recruitment of spy agents and “volunteers” into Vlasov formations

“In order to expand intelligence work,- Erwin Stolz, the head of the Abwehr sabotage department captured in 1945, said during interrogation, - I proposed an idea to Canaris: to launch recruitment activities among prisoners of war of the Red Army. In putting forward such a proposal, I justified it by the fact that the Red Army soldiers were morally depressed by the successes of the German troops and the fact of their captivity, and that among the prisoners of war there would be people hostile to Soviet power. After this, instructions were given to recruit agents in prisoner-of-war camps.”

A combined plan for the treatment of Soviet soldiers was developed and began to be implemented, an integral part of which was the creation of inhuman living conditions. It is clear that not far away he all withstood such pressure and “broke”, committing treason to the Motherland and the military oath. Here is a characteristic testimony of Colonel of the German army von Renteln, the former commandant of one of the camps for our prisoners:

“The prisoners of war were kept in extremely difficult conditions. People were completely infected with lice, typhus was raging, and the food was extremely poor. All prisoners were required to go to work. Soviet prisoners of war were doomed to destruction. I ordered the camp commander to line up the prisoners and announced to them before the line that if they wanted to save their lives, they could enlist in the German army. I told the prisoners of war that if they agreed, they would be well fed, provided with uniforms, and after the war they would receive land plots in their homeland. 21 people agreed to “voluntary” service in the German army.”

However, the difficult conditions of captivity were by no means the only reason for going over to the enemy. Regarding the problem of cooperation with the German occupiers, in particular, representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, the author had to somehow communicate with a well-known specialist on this topic, a teacher at the Yaroslav the Wise State University (Veliky Novgorod), Professor Boris Nikolaevich Kovalev. Here are the thoughts he shared with me:

“The topic of cooperation between our citizens and the Germans is not as simple as it was portrayed in the Soviet years, when the subject of studying the Great Patriotic War was more propaganda than scientific in nature. Personally, I see three main reasons for this kind of compromise.

Firstly, this is the shock of the first months of the war. Let's remember what Soviet propaganda was broadcasting before the war - at least from the film “If there is war tomorrow!” It said that we would fight only on foreign territory, and we would defeat the enemy very quickly - with little bloodshed and a mighty blow.

What happened in reality, in the summer of 1941? We were defeated, and the Germans advanced across our land with literally leaps and bounds. And a certain category of people felt confused. The feeling that power is steadily and finally changing. And these people are accustomed to serving the authorities, each in his own place, no matter what. Without this, they simply could not imagine their future, since they were accustomed to occupying a special, privileged position in society.

Secondly, the totalitarian Soviet regime, with its rigid party ideology and the suppression of any dissent, also played a negative role, of course. And among the Russian intelligentsia, as you know, this state of affairs has always caused protest. It seemed to these people that “civilized Europe” was definitely about to come to the rescue. And many of our intellectuals perceived Hitler’s invasion as providing such assistance. Moreover, the Germans wrote in their propaganda leaflets that they were going “on a crusade” against the yoke of Bolshevism, for the liberation of all European peoples, including the Russians. Here we must remember that in Russia, since pre-revolutionary times, there has been a deep respect for Germany - we loved its culture, the quality of its products, the hard work of the German people.

Thirdly, among the intellectuals there were many who were offended by Soviet power. By the way, the Germans made their main bet on precisely this category. For example, in Veliky Novgorod, after the start of the occupation, when recruiting into the newly created police force, the Germans demanded from candidates proof of “suffering from Soviet power.” We were talking about certificates of release from the “NKVD camps” and other documents confirming the status of a victim of Stalinist repressions...”

Yes, some collaborators certainly had an ideological anti-Soviet component. But not all traitors. I will say even more, ideological anti-Sovietists, apparently, constituted an absolute minority among the entire collaborationist mass. The majority were pushed to cooperate with the enemy by forced life circumstances. While working on the book “On the Trail of the Werewolf,” I had the opportunity to become acquainted in detail with a number of criminal cases brought against the Vlasovites after the war in the Gorky region. And you know, in none of them did I find any signs of a strong anti-communist ideology of the defendants.

Thus, Vlasov propagandist Alexander Batalov, arrested in 1948, testified during interrogation by the MGB that at the beginning of the war he was convicted by a military tribunal for unauthorized abandonment of his military unit in Balashikha near Moscow: this former criminal was a terrible cynic and did not intend to marry anyone shed your “precious” blood. He was sent to the front to serve his sentence. But since he didn’t want to fight, he immediately ran over to the Germans, who recruited our prisoners as propagandists for anti-Soviet indoctrination. And when the Germans began to suffer defeats, Batalov fled from them, dressed in the uniform of a Red Army soldier...

Red Army deserter Alexander Polyakov followed approximately the same path when he tried to hide from the war in his native village in 1941. For his cowardice, he was also sentenced to be sent to the front to a penal unit. Near Rzhev he voluntarily surrendered. Then there was service in the Berezina punitive battalion and work as a Gestapo informant in a camp for Soviet prisoners of war located in Austria. And from there, with the best characteristics, the Germans sent him to serve in Vlasov intelligence. In 1946, Polyakov was detained by SMERSH officers. During interrogations, he swore to the investigators that he never had anything against the Soviet regime. It's just how life happened...

And the former senior sergeant of the Red Army, Ivan Galushin, who became a Vlasov lieutenant among the Germans, after his arrest in 1947, honestly and directly admitted to the security officers that he simply could not stand the cruel conditions of German captivity. And when he agreed to German recruitment and entered the service of Vlasov, he quickly realized his mistake. But, alas, I couldn’t do anything - the fear of punishment for treason against the Motherland prevented me from going back to my own people...

The veteran of the Gorky KGB Directorate, Colonel Vladimir Fedorovich Kotov, who for many years after the war searched for and put in the dock a variety of war criminals, did not recall any special “ideological spirit” among the traitors to the Motherland - I widely used his memories when writing “The Werewolf.” In Kotov’s memory, there was only one single case when a seemingly “ideological” enemy fell into his hands.

It was right after the war, when Kotov, having been demobilized from the ranks of the Soviet Army, was just beginning his KGB service as an ordinary trainee in distant Primorye. He then worked in special settlements where our former prisoners of war lived who were undergoing filtration checks. Once he had to examine the case of a certain Mikhail, who claimed that while in captivity he was forced to join as an ordinary “hivi” in the economic platoon of the 581st battalion of the German army - they say, he only worked in the kitchen, chopped wood, carried water, did laundry. underwear for the Germans and nothing more.

But by that time, the security officers became aware that behind the sign of the 581st battalion of the Wehrmacht was hiding a special police unit that carried out merciless punitive actions against the civilian Soviet population. And when Mikhail was literally “pinned to the wall” by these and other revealed facts, he immediately changed. Instead of a seemingly downtrodden, narrow-minded and frightened former prisoner of war, a completely different personality suddenly appeared before the security officers. Her entire appearance literally radiated hatred! Mikhail said to the operatives: “Yes, I was a non-commissioned officer, a platoon commander in this battalion and took part in all punitive actions. I hate you and I really regret that I didn’t destroy you enough in my time, you red bastard!”

However, such “dared souls” were the exception rather than the rule...

The situation with the “ideological firmness” of the Vlasovites is very clearly characterized by the circumstances of the capture of General Vlasov himself. It was captured in May 1945 by a small group of our scouts led by Captain Yakushev from the 25th Tank Corps near the German castle of Shlisselburg. Vlasov was in the zone of presence of American troops, who gave tacit consent to the Soviet representatives to capture the traitorous general. However, the general was accompanied by a serious convoy, consisting of his guards and members of the Vlasov headquarters. How they could have behaved in the situation of Vlasov’s detention was unknown.

But the arrest went off, as they say, without a hitch! The Americans silently watched from the sidelines as Soviet intelligence officers stopped a convoy of vehicles in which the Vlasovites were moving, and then... The commander of the 1st battalion of the 1st ROA division, Major Kulchinsky, pointed directly to the general to the intelligence officers, who thereby decided to earn forgiveness from the Soviet government . And when captain Yakushev ordered Vlasov to get out of the car, no one rushed to his aid. And the general’s “faithful” adjutant, ROA captain Rostislav Antonov, deftly took advantage of the resulting confusion, sharply turned his car around and quickly ran away with it. They only saw him!

No one from Vlasov’s entourage wanted to go to death for their “beloved” general, or even just to recapture him from the security officers. This is not surprising - the “Vlasov idea” actually died long before the arrest and execution of the traitor general himself...

Vadim Andryukhin, editor-in-chief