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A book by the President of the European Academy of Safety and Conflictology, President of the European Fund of Slavic Literature and Culture, Doctor of Law, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, professor, a veteran of combat operations Igor Bondarenko and a chief editor of "Russian news", member of the Union of Writers of Russia, professor, candidate of Historical Sciences Dmitry Klimov "Russia. The twentieth century. Brief Chronicle of revolutions wars and conflicts." was recently published. Edition of the book is very unusual, representing at essentially, an encyclopedia of all the wars and armed conflicts in which our country took a part in the twentieth century that was full of tragic events. The first presentation of the book took place on the 22d of June - the Day of memory and sorrow. This year marks 75 years since the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany on our country. The book, in which there were presented a lot of new information and data, has already aroused a great response from the audience. Particular importance for the book attaches the fact that the preface is written by leading historian, a prominent social and political activist, author of many fundamental works - Valentin Falin, whose name is well known not only in our country but also abroad. In this context, we present to the readers of "Russian news "interview with the authors.
- Igor Ivanovich, the first question is to you. How did the idea of this book appear? Because you created almost an encyclopaedia with a military bias?
- Igor Bondarenko. The work on the book lasted for nearly 40 years. We together with my friend and Co-author have started working on the theme of wars in the widest sense of this word independently of each other. Of course, Dmitry Klimov, as he is several years younger than me, specifically studied the problem a bit less but also long enough. It is necessary to note that he is an expert on military issues and has a significant number of publications on various aspects of history of wars. Each of us has accumulated a sufficient amount of documents. And here some regularity was revealed, on which previously was paid less attention. But, if we will put into a single line all well- known facts, this regularity will appear very clearly. Thus was born the idea to combine everything and to present it all in the compressed form of events and facts.Who wants, can explore them separately and more precisely. Regarding a variety of events there were published a lot of books, multi-volume encyclopedias, memories of direct participants. It just so happened that to a number of events presented in the book, I had a direct relation.
- And what is the regularity that you have mentioned?
- Igor Bondarenko. The external influence of the third force, which is manifested in almost all military clashes. More specifically, the role that was played by Great Britain and The United States towards Russia. By the way, their position was not so harmless, neutral and friendly, how sometimes foreign and even Russian researches like to present. Let us take for example such a fact that London was actively pushing Japan into a war with Russia, wishing to weaken Russia's influence in the Far East. Two secret agreements were conducted between Great Britain and Japan against St. Petersburg in 1903 and in 1905. So, regarding the agreement of 1905, Great Britain had to prepare a direct military intervention in the case if Tokyo would be defeated. But such result was very probable. This was also manifested during the The First and The Second World Wars, though, it seemed our countries were allies.
- Dmitry Klimov. But it all has started much earlier with the "times of Ochakov and the conquest of the Crimea ", as it stated in the well-known phrase of Alexander Griboyedov. Of course, this was not included into the book, because there have been set deliberately other time frames that are much closer to contemporaries. Immediately after the conclusion of Jasskiy peace treaty in 1791 between Russia and Turkey, according to which, as it known, Crimea and Ochakov fortress were transmitted to Russia, in the British Parliament began to sound proposals to prevent further "Russian expansion," and not to give our state to strengthen its positions on the shores of the Black Sea. We may recall the actions of the British Navy, which was ready to open fire on Russian troops in another Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, when our troops could enter the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and take control over Bosporus and Dardanelles. Not to mention the Crimean War of 1853-1856, that poured out into direct confrontation with Great Britain, in which Great Britain had an aim to push Russia out from all its borders - from the Black and Baltic Seas to the Pacific and Arctic oceans. It is a systematic policy of "Albion", aimed for the elimination of its main geo-strategic rival in the world. Later the United States also joined to such policy, in which the same financial-oligarchical circles began to gain the strength of the power, especially under its influence of British foreign policy. We may recall the operation "Unthinkable", which was developed as a plan of attack on the Soviet Union on the direct order of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in early 1945, even before the final defeat of the III-rd Reich. This fact is also shown in the book.
- Various events have different degree of influence on the domestic history. The book contains three chapters: Wars, Revolutions ... (internal conflicts); International crises (external conflicts). So, what is the difference between the wars and conflicts?
- Igor Bondarenko. The book contains more than 80 events in which were directly involved Russian armed forces or Russian military advisers. All the material, was structured depending on the significance of the event for the country's history. Of course, wars occupy the most important place because of its effects - social, economic, political. That is why the material is not simply represented in a chronological sequence.
- Dmitry Klimov. Strictly speaking, the war practically is an any armed conflict - internal or external. According to the classic definition of the war by the theorist Carl Von Clausewitz, given in his treatise "About War", "war is the continuation of politics by other means ". The war - is, above all, armed confrontation between the recognized states, involving regular military forces. But the conflict is different from the war by the scale of actions. The war officially announces and finishes with the signing of a peace treaty, or with the total surrender of one of the party. Though we must to admit that the line between the complete war and the conflict is very conditional. From this point of view, the "Cold War" falls within the definition of war, although it was carried out by fundamentally different methods, but the armed power is still maintained its leading positions. Winston Churchill declared about actual start of "Cold War" in his Fulton speech in 1946, but the General Secretary of the CC of CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev and the President of the USA George Bush declared about its completion during the Malta meeting in 1989.
- The book was published on the eve of the tragic date. Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - 1945 was exactly 75 years. But so far there are not any final clarifications of why there was such a massive catastrophe in the initial period of the war? Why our troops were forced to retreat till Moscow and Leningrad and to leave Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and the Baltic states?
- Igor Bondarenko. All of this is mentioned in the book, but I would not say definitely about the catastrophe, especially if we will remember the final of the war. There were two main reasons: the lack of preparedness of the army and the fact of treason to deny which is very difficult, taking into account all known facts. The status of the Red Army was not the very good. Judge for yourself. During the fighting at Hassan in 1938 Red Army with a big difficulty repelled an attack of the Japanese militarists, whose forces were not so great and did not have any support by tanks and aircrafts. First battles in Halhin-Gola in 1939 were also not so easy for Red Army. Only thanks to the strategic talent of the future Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov, Red Army was able to prevent not only the very serious consequences for the USSR and for the allied Mongolia, but also to completely defeat the Japanese group. But the imperial army was much weaker then German army. During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939 - 1940 years the situation for the Red Army was not so good. The small and rather poorly-equipped Finnish Army was able not only to keep the strike of the offensive of the Red Army for a long time, but also inflicted severe blows to the Red Army. Helsinki, as you know, was defeated, but the impression of the actions of the Soviet generals was rather depressing. Captivated German generals later admitted that fighting actions during the Soviet-Finnish war dispelled their fears about the possibility of the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union because previously they thought that they would have a deal with a much more powerful enemy. Only later the command of the Wehrmacht had to be convinced of the correctness of their previous thoughts.
- Dmitry Klimov. Hitler's command was well informed of the reorganization plans and re-equipment of the Red Army, which had to be finished to the end of 1942. About the,horrible situation that was in the Red Army we can see from the document of the transfer of The Civil Committee of Defence of USSR from Marshal Klement Voroshilov to to another Marshal Semen Timoshenko. This act of 8 May 1940 states that all kinds of troops were not ready for the war (except cavalry), there were not prepared any plans of defence management. Of course it was impossible to eliminate all problems in a year before the start of the Great Patriotic War. In addition, because of the very strange set of circumstances Many Soviet troops stationed on the western border, were actually deprived of opportunity to conduct effective military operations. Ammunition and fuel was seized from the military units, engines were disassembled from aircrafts. Artillery was deprived of target sights and horse traction. (It was decided to change horses on cars, but cars did not come, and horses were not ready and were not in a proper amount). Border airfields were under reconstructions, which has not been completed by the start of the war. Nazis also had all maps of dislocations of our troops. Enemies got most of bridges at entire condition despite the fact that many bridges were mined and prepared for explosions. Bridges battered German forces intact, although they were prepared to explode. Veterans, who met enemies in the first days of war gave only one explanation to all that facts - a lot of betrayals.
-Thank you for the interesting conversation. I would like that as many readers as possible become familiar with your book.
- Igor Bondarenko. Thank You. But I would also like to thank to Valentin Falin, who is for us with Dmitry is a an unquestioned authority. Without his comments and corrections the book could not exist.
- Dmitry Klimov. Please allow me to join to those words. To Work with Valentin Falin is a great honour and responsibility.
Interviewed by Dmitry Ermolaev