On July 28, 1941, the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR issued Order No. 0250, deciding to sentence four high-ranking generals of the Western Front to death.
The wording of this order was very harsh in the high-level, especially the fierce criticism of the commander of the Front, General Pavlov, for his stupidity in the face of the enemy, which simply disgraced the motherland and discredited the leader's face.
And the most intolerable thing for the top brass is that this future star of the Soviet army, who was given high hopes, simply abandoned hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers under his command soon after the start of the war, and hid in the headquarters of the 4th Army like a lost dog to "take refuge".
Dare to ask such a performance, where is the integrity of the soldiers?
Ironically, after his arrest, Pavlov was very "steady", and when faced with interrogation, he appeared neither humble nor arrogant, and his answers were not leaky. The interrogators accused him of treason for his poor battlefield performance, but he defended himself by claiming that he was not guilty in the slightest.
"It's just a person's confusion and bad decisions in a rapidly changing environment, and it's normal."
When questioned about the ineffective command and the mistake he made was almost equivalent to opening the defense line to the German army, he immediately replied: "I repeat, I did not betray the Soviet Union, let alone open the defense line to the German army." If I were to leave the line open, the troops would not carry it out, unless there was an order from Moscow. ”
According to relevant sources, after Pavlov's arrest, his performance in the interrogation was so impeccable that Stalin was moved by compassion and decided to give him another chance.
Pavlov was appointed adjutant to Marshal Timoshenko and at one time was able to return to the front. Fortunately, only two days later, the Ministry of the Interior arrested him again. Even at this point, Pavlov still disagreed, in his opinion, he would most likely be demoted, criticized by the whole army, and lose face; The worst possible outcome is expulsion from the military.
Therefore, when Order No. 0250 was issued, not only he himself was surprised, but even many of his colleagues felt that the punishment was a bit excessive, and they couldn't help but stand up and intercede on his behalf. In the eyes of many people, Pavlov's death was the result of the high-level "killing chickens and making an example of monkeys", and he was specially treated in a special period and was arrested as a typical example, which was purely his bad luck.
However, in fact, there are many little-known facts behind this matter, and after knowing these truths, if you were in the position of Stalin back then, I am afraid that you will be more ruthless and more resolute.
What does it mean to be "brazen"?
In prison, the Soviet lieutenant general in charge of interrogation asked reproachfully: "Any soldier who stays at the front smells a strong smell of gunpowder, why do you turn a blind eye?" ”
In the eyes of the lieutenant general, Pavlov, as the commander of the Front, was indifferent to the imminent war and disregarded the safety of hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers.
Pavlov's answer was quite artistic: "Between the nose and intelligence, I believe in the latter more." ”
He insisted that he had not received any information before the war began, but judging by what had happened, he was undoubtedly lying with his eyes open.
As early as two days before the outbreak of the war, on June 20, 1941, Marshal Timoshenko, then the People's Commissar of Defense of the Soviet Union, urgently convened an extremely important teleconference.
At the meeting, the marshal expressed concern that there was a lot of information that the Germans were massing along the border and were still dismantling the barricades, with great intention to attack. However, the supreme leader was still lucky about the situation, did not want to destroy the "ally" relationship between the Soviet Union and Germany, and ordered the front-line troops not to act rashly.
Even so, Timoshenko told Pavlov to brace himself, keep an eye on his opponent's every move, and be ready for any contingencies.
On the same day, the chairman of the State Defense Committee, Marshal Voroshilov, also called, almost repeating what Timoshenko had said.
Subsequently, Pavlov also organized a military conference. At the meeting, many subordinates revealed their worries - judging from the current intelligence, the situation at the front line is really not optimistic, and everything seems to point to a terrible possibility, that is, the German army is about to attack.
Pavlov listened to these reports depressedly, his face clouded, and he was clearly very dissatisfied. Until the idea was put forward that the Germans had not gathered these forces to attack the Soviet Union, but to transfer them to France in preparation for a future landing operation against Britain.
As soon as these words came out, he was finally relieved, and his face softened a lot.
After the meeting, on the instructions of the two marshals, Pavlov made very "cautious" arrangements and ordered to ration each company-sized unit with 3 more truckloads of ammunition - that was all he had to offer.
Ironically, at the same time, the units received another notice: the weekend entertainment was held as usual, and Pavlov himself went to the Minsk Theater on the evening of June 21, 1941 to watch an opera until late at night.
At about 1 a.m. on the 22nd, Marshal Timoshenko called again to confirm the situation with Pavlov, who said that everything was normal at the moment; At 2 a.m., in the face of inquiries from the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, Pavlov patted his chest and said that he was fully prepared.
"I have ordered each of the front-line armies to be on increased alert, and I have asked the commander of the air force of the military district to immediately arrange for the fighters and pilots to be put into combat readiness, and the planes are also being refueled ......"
Such a reply was very satisfying to the top of the Soviet army, but they never imagined that what Pavlov said did not happen at all - he did nothing in the face of a war that could break out at any time.
A few hours later, the commander of the 4th Army, Major General Kolobkov, gave another chance, in which he clearly stated: "German troops were found to be massing in the Brest direction, the power lines near the railway station were sabotaged, and it was suspected that German spies were carrying out sabotage operations." He suggested that the troops should be put into combat readiness immediately, but Pavlov flatly refused.
"The Germans cannot be left with any excuse for going to war."
This is what he said conclusively, "he did not receive any information beforehand", and when he was later interrogated, he inadvertently revealed his true thoughts, which was even more shocking.
The interrogators questioned why Pavlov, who had seen the build-up of German troops with his own eyes, not only did he not report to the General Staff in a timely manner as Marshal Timoshenko requested, but he refused to give even the most basic deployment orders.
Pavlov made many justifications, one of which read: "If I had done this and the Germans had not attacked, then I would have had to lose my head." ”
From this, Pavlov was very cunning: he was well aware that the supreme leader did not want to see the outbreak of war, and in a sense, he did exactly what Stalin thought. What Pavlov hoped was that if war did happen, he would not be the one who "started the war" when the autumn was settled.
Don't seek merit, but seek no fault, that's pretty much what it means.
It is worth mentioning that when he saw the final verdict, Stalin's mood was very complicated, he thought for a long time, and finally picked up a pen and stroked out some very negative words in the verdict that described Pavlov very negatively, such as "stupid", "stupid", etc. But in fact, it is not an exaggeration to use these words to describe him.
This man had a very high starting point, and he was once regarded as a "sectarian" figure in the Soviet army.
In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out, the Soviet Union sent a military advisory group, and Pavlov was the "chief armored adviser". On the battlefield in Spain, he developed the infantry and tank defense tactics, which were regarded as gems by the Soviet leadership.
What is even more widely known is that after the long-term and unremitting efforts of Tukhachevsky, Ubolevich and other relatively young and far-sighted military strategists, Stalin was finally persuaded to approve the formation of mechanized troops. The Soviet Army initially established two armored brigades, with Zhukov and Pavlov as brigade commanders respectively, which shows the status of the latter in the Soviet Army.
However, it was a big surprise that it did not take long for Pavlov to inexplicably come to an opinion contrary to the mainstream on the use of tanks.
It is said that he saw several light tanks in Spain easily destroyed by enemy artillery and reduced to scrap metal when they attacked. He therefore believed that tanks were not suitable for the main attack and should not be used centrally, but should be used in a dispersed manner, only as a tool to cover the advance of the infantry.
A deeper view is that behind Pavlov's unnatural conclusion is actually a psychology of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages: after the political catastrophe of the 30s, Tukhachevsky bore the brunt of it. As a "protégé" of the former, Pavlov, fearing that he would be implicated, hastily drew a line with it, deliberately contrary even from a military point of view.
If this statement is true, we can assume that Pavlov dared to ignore basic military common sense for the sake of his career, and was not a qualified soldier at all.
What is even more unbelievable is that the powerful Western Front was actually tossed by Pavlov and had no combat ability.
The Western Front had six mechanized armies, equipped with more than 1,000 tanks, and in terms of the number of weapons, the armies of the Western Front alone were larger than the armies of most countries in the world at that time. However, Pavlov's manipulation is incomprehensible.
These 6 mechanized corps can be described as "drought and waterlogging": among them, the 6th mechanized army is equipped with 1,131 tanks, about 20% of which are advanced T-34 tanks and KV heavy tanks; In addition, the army is equipped with more than 6,000 military vehicles of various types. As a matter of fact, the level of equipment of this army has been seriously exceeded.
In contrast, the equipment level of other mechanized armies is very pitiful, taking the 17th Mechanized Army as an example: the army only has 63 backward tanks and 12 artillery pieces, and the full strength rate is only 12.2%, and the equipment level is not as good as a tank regiment. Not only that, the Western Front never paid attention to the daily maintenance of weapons and equipment, and the tanks were thrown in the warehouses at will, resulting in a considerable number of tanks not being able to be launched at all.
After the outbreak of war, Pavlov made a fatal miscalculation: he believed that the German offensive on both flanks was a feint and would place the tank cluster in a more open center, so he mistakenly concentrated the main forces in the direction of the Biastok salient.
He naively believed that the Western Front would be able to withstand the German attack with its own strength, and if he was lucky, he might be able to turn the tide through a powerful counterattack. As everyone knows, he completely misunderstood the direction of the enemy's offensive - the German army did exactly the opposite, sacrificing a textbook "pincer offensive", which became a classic case in the history of human warfare.
What is even more ridiculous is that when he realized that everything could not be saved, Pavlov fled from the front headquarters with his own radio station, but did not tell his subordinates about the radio channel, so that he "disappeared" for 3 days, and his subordinates could not be contacted, and the base camp could not be contacted, which was simply laughable.
Due to space limitations, the author did not expand on many details, but the above is enough to see Pavlov's stupidity. But even so, Stalin crossed out many unpleasant words in the final verdict.
Even if the final verdict of Pavlov and four other generals was approved, Stalin probably did not mean it. He even tried to give Pavlov another chance to serve as Timoshenko's deputy and almost return to the front - if so, how would the Soviet officers and soldiers who had been buried for his lowly mistakes feel?
Lenin criticized Stalin for being too "merciful" and not decisive enough to deal with problems when they became more serious. This sounds unbelievable at first glance, but judging from the above, I am afraid that what is said is true.