During the entire Soviet-German War of World War II, Stalin issued many orders under the name of the "People's Commissariat for National Defense", including combat orders and commendation orders for troops, and there were two famous orders on combating apostasy, surrender or flight, namely the "Order No. 270" before the Battle of Moscow in 1941 and the "Order No. 227" during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. It can be found that they share a common battlefield background: soviet units are in the midst of a total rout.
Stalin
In fact, the original text of these two orders is very long, but the central idea is relatively simple and direct, Order No. 270 was issued in August 1941, at this time the German army groups in the south, center and north were advancing at a high speed, and the Soviet army collapsed in the battlefield in three directions, and a large number of captured and surrendered. According to post-war statistics, from June to the beginning of December of that year alone, the number of Soviet prisoners was as high as 3.8 million, which even exceeded the total number of enemy troops, because the first phase of the German army put into operation only more than 3.2 million ground troops.
In order to curb such a decline in the battlefield, Stalin personally issued "Order No. 270" on August 16, the 55th day of the outbreak of war, which stated: "Commanders and political workers who conceal their identities, desert or surrender to the enemy during the battle will be regarded as deliberate defectors." His family members will be arrested as family members of deserters who have betrayed their homeland"! This is similar to the discipline of the Northern Expeditionary Army, in short, one person surrenders to the whole family and suffers, and there is no other way but to fight in blood.
Order No. 270 was mainly aimed at the question of the will to fight of the commanders at all levels of the Soviet army and the political workers, which was considered to be "official", so the most unfortunate was the political workers at all levels of the Soviet army, because the leader of the SS, Himmler, at the behest of the moustache, also issued an order at the same time to shoot all the political commissars among the prisoners of war, according to the confession of the special operations captain and executioner Orundorff after the war: "All Jews and political workers must be transferred out of the prisoner-of-war camp and sentenced to death, as far as I know, during the entire period of the war against Russia, In other words, once the Soviet military political work cadres are captured, the horizontal and vertical are all dead, and they are treated the same as either side of the enemy or us.
Stalin's orders were even more brutal, and not only was he not spared himself, but he also had to join his family. Therefore, it is said that Stalin's Order No. 270 was too simple and brutal, forcing a former "Soviet hero" like Lieutenant General Vlasov and turning the muzzle of more than 1 million Soviet prisoners of war to become puppet soldiers. The Soviet army practiced a system of dual military and political chiefs, and the political commissar had the final decision-making power of the troops in an emergency, which directly affected the fate of the troops, and Order No. 270 dispelled all the illusions of the political work cadres and pushed them to the situation of "putting them to death and living later", which was of great significance at that time, or the army was defeated like a mountain.
Vlasov
After Order No. 270 was issued, it was quickly implemented in the army, so the will to resist of the Soviet troops was significantly strengthened, and from October 1941, the German advance towards Moscow was met with unprecedented resistance, and finally blocked 50 kilometers away from Moscow. By 6 December, Zhukov had assembled his reserves to counterattack, and the Germans had suffered the first major defeat during the Soviet-German War, and although Zhukov's victories had many factors in it, Order No. 270 still played a considerable role.
Although more than 1.3 million Soviet troops were still captured after the issuance of Order No. 270, the number of surrenders and captures has been significantly reduced, and more importantly, most of the political work cadres at all levels have really begun to play for their lives under the pressure of both sides of the enemy and us. As for the emergence of the so-called "Russian Liberation Army" of 1 million, it has nothing to do with Order No. 270.
Vlasov inspects the puppet army
Because these 1 million people were all from prisoners of war, there were not many strong people who could raise their hands and surrender themselves, and of the 5.7 million Soviet officers and men captured during the Soviet-German war, only 1 million were rescued and survived in the prisoner of war camp, and counting the 1 million puppet troops, the number of prisoners of war who were tortured to death by the Germans was not less than 3.7 million, accounting for about 65% of the total number, and the chance of survival was really small. Therefore, many prisoners of war choose to join the puppet army just for the sake of survival, such a unit has no combat effectiveness at all, from another point of view, when the puppet army can save their families?
Until the end of the war, did these 1 million puppet troops have any major achievements? Completely insignificant, a ragtag group of people, so from the whole has little impact on the Soviet-German war, on the contrary, order No. 270 became a damocles sword, hanging high above the heads of the Soviet officers and men who were still fighting, playing a considerable deterrent and appealing role, although it was ruthless, it was really necessary. In particular, there are more ethnic components within the Soviet army, such as Ukrainians, Cossacks, Estonians, Chechens, Kalmyks, etc., without harsh orders, it must be a mess.
Himmler
In the summer of 1942, the German army launched an offensive code-named "Plan Blue" on the southern front, and the victorious and defeated Soviet troops collapsed all the way to Stalingrad, and some Soviet troops had already escaped the Don River, almost repeating the situation in the summer of 1941, and Stalin had to take decisive measures to stop the collapse. On 29 July, he dismissed Marshal Timoshenko, commander-in-chief of the Southwest Theater and commander of the Stalingrad Front, and decided to give the Chief of the General Staff, Vasilevsky, the overall command of the southwestern front.
The day before, General Vasilevsky, who had returned to Moscow after inspecting the front, had been ordered to meet him, and after he had reported to Stalin on the situation on the front, Stalin suddenly spoke of the status of the troops and the will to fight, and whether the various units had forgotten order No. 270 of August 16, 1941. The Chief of the General Staff was asked to draft a new order immediately, with the central idea that "to retreat without an order is a crime and is bound to be punished by the harshest punishment in wartime". Vasilevsky naturally complied, drafting the draft of the order on the same day, and after Stalin's review, "Order No. 227" was immediately issued.
Vasilevsky
Excerpts from some of the sentences in the order: "From now on, give all officers, soldiers, and political officers an iron discipline: without orders from their superiors, they may not retreat half a step." Whether he is a company commander, a battalion commander, a regimental commander, a division commander, a political commissar, as long as he retreats without the orders of his superior commander, he is a traitor, and he will be dealt with as a traitor to the motherland"! The order specifically stipulated that 5 to 10 companies of meritorious service should be established in each regiment of operations to send out undisciplined soldiers and non-commissioned officers, and the order was required to be communicated to the company level and read aloud.
Judging from the facts of the war that took place later, the significance of Order No. 227 was equally great, the stalingrad defenders did not retreat from the battle, which played a crucial role in the final victory of the whole battle, and soon after Zhukov mobilized his troops to counterattack and completely annihilated Paulus's elite 6th Army, the timing and background of the two orders, and the results triggered, reached a surprisingly consistent, so is there anyone who said that it was excessive or cruel? This is war, a war of your life and death.
Stills of the fierce battle between the Soviet and German armies