Everyone in our country knows about the blockade of Leningrad. I once, like many Soviet children, sobbed over the girl's diary, …
I once, like many Soviet children, sobbed over the diary of a girl who casually described the starvation of her loved ones and the terrible life of a besieged city, a life that is hardly better than death. The diary was not completed - the girl herself died of hunger.
During the blockade of the city by the troops of the Wehrmacht and the allies of Germany, from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, up to two million people died in Leningrad (according to Wikipedia estimates, from 600,000 to 1,500,000), and this data does not take into account the Leningraders who died after the evacuation from the city, and there were also quite a few of them: there were no methods of treating patients in a state of extreme exhaustion, and the mortality rate was very high.
Only about 3% of Leningraders died from shelling and bombing, the remaining 97% died of hunger, and this is not strange, since there were weeks when the daily ration of some categories of townspeople was only 125 grams of bread - this is as much as many of us eat at breakfast, spreading butter or jam on bread, eating omelet or cheese cakes with it …
But the blockade bread was different from what we are used to: in its production they used food cellulose, cotton cake, spruce needles … But even such bread was given out according to cards that could be lost, which could be stolen - and people were simply left alone with hunger: most of our contemporaries did not they understand what it is - hunger, they have never experienced it, they confuse the habit of eating regularly with hunger.
And hunger is when you eat rats, pigeons, cockroaches.
Hunger is when you kill your own cat to eat it.
Hunger is when you lure a woman to you to kill and devour her.
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In December 1941, 26 cannibals were identified in Leningrad.
In January 1942, there were already 336 people.
And in the first two weeks of February, 494 cannibals were arrested.
I have not looked for complete data on cannibalism in Leningrad, but there is no doubt that even these figures do not reflect the real state of affairs.
So, the history of the blockade of Leningrad is one of the greatest crises of mankind, the history of the unparalleled personal heroism of millions of Leningrad residents and millions of personal tragedies.
But the question is - was there an opportunity to save the lives of Leningraders?
No, I'm not even talking about the abandonment of defense and the surrender of the city to the Germans, although the terrible consequences for the townspeople in this case, put forward by Soviet propaganda as a reason for choosing a defense even in a complete blockade, are hardly sufficiently justified.
I'm talking about something else.
The fact that Leningrad did not just survive all the years of the blockade.
Leningrad produced industrial and military products, supplying it not only to the troops defending the city, but also "to the mainland" - outside the blockade ring:
For the second half of 1941, …, Leningrad gave the front 713 tanks, over 3 thousand regimental and anti-tank guns, more than 10,300 mortars, 480 armored vehicles, 58 armored trains.
In addition, in July-December 1941, the front received more than 3 million shells and mines, 40 thousand rockets, more other military equipment …
Artillery pieces, mortars and ammunition produced in the city were sent not only to the Leningrad front, but also to Moscow.
In the midst of the battle for the capital, over 400 regimental guns, about 1 thousand mortars of various calibers and almost 40 thousand armor-piercing shells were sent from besieged Leningrad. On November 28, 1941, the commander of the Western Front G. K. Zhukov sent a telegram to Leningrad: "Thanks to the Leningraders for helping the Muscovites in the fight against the bloodthirsty Nazis."
The Leningrad industry steadily increased the production of military equipment, weapons and ammunition. If we take the production of military products in the first quarter of 1942. for 100 percent, then in the third it was 488.1 percent, and in the fourth - 572.8 percent.
In 1942. Leningrad's industry provided the front with 60 tanks, 692 guns, more than 1,500 mortars, 2,692 heavy machine guns, 34,936 PPD submachine guns, 620 PPS submachine guns, and 139 light machine guns.
Leningrad Plants completed (built) 38 warships (including 2 destroyers, 1 submarine, 6 torpedo boats, 2 sea hunters, etc.).
So what happens?
On the one hand, the Leningraders did not have enough food, and they died of hunger.
On the other hand, there was not enough transport to organize the evacuation, and they did not have time to take out of the city everyone who was not needed for the production of military and other industrial products - and the ration of these people was even officially three times lower than for those employed in workshops. that is, death by starvation was practically guaranteed for them - starvation without meaning and benefit for defense, for the country, for themselves and their loved ones.
But on the third hand, at the same time when they did not bring enough food to Leningrad, they managed to bring in raw materials to meet the needs of urban industrial and military enterprises, and at the same time when there was not enough transport to evacuate the dying Leningraders - this transport was for the export of hundreds of tanks, thousands of guns, tens of thousands of machine guns and mortars, hundreds of thousands of machine guns, a huge amount of shells …
What does it mean?
This means that in fact there was an opportunity to supply enough food to Leningrad, and to evacuate many more Leningraders and much faster - without bringing the food situation in the city to critical.
This means that the tragedy in besieged Leningrad took place at the will of the country's communist regime, in accordance with the decisions of the party and government of the USSR.
This means that we were wrong, blaming Hitler and the German command for the death of the Leningraders - the blockade.
This means that Stalin and other leaders of the USSR shared the responsibility for the death of a million, perhaps one and a half or even two million Leningraders with Hitler.
This means that the authorities of our country have experience of inhuman, anti-people decisions, and many years of lying to their citizens.
Sergey Murashov