The feat of Leningrad needs our protection
January 12 – 18, 1943 is one of the most important memorable dates in the history of our country. During these few days, troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, with the support of the Baltic Fleet, broke through the blockade ring around the heroic city on the Neva, thanks to which normal communication between Leningrad, its inhabitants and defenders and the mainland was resumed. From that moment on, Leningrad became a front-line, and not a besieged, city.
Despite the fact that in the 75 years that have passed since the Great Patriotic War, dozens, if not hundreds, of good-quality studies on the Leningrad blockade have seen the light of day, in our strange times we have to defend in print the blessed memory of the defense organizers and ordinary defenders of the northern capital of Russia.
It has already become a vile tradition when, on the eve of the most important memorable date, all kinds of woodlice appear en masse on social networks and online public pages, spreading “revelations” in the spirit of “there was no blockade of Leningrad - this is an invention of Soviet propaganda” with links leading to pro-fascist media resources.
If you set a goal and analyze the content of such “revelations”, you can see that they are not much different from the content of fascist leaflets and fake newspapers distributed by the German occupation authorities during the war in the occupied territories to demoralize the population.
If we talk about the siege of Leningrad, then year after year the revisionists bring to light the same deck of worn-out questions, which, in theory, should perplex the average reader. Because, they say, “even official historians do not have answers to these difficult questions.”
In fact, the history of the siege of Leningrad has been studied very well by historians, supported by a large array of documents, and the few “blank spots” that exist concern details that are unimportant to the essence of the matter.
So, what topics do the adherents of “they hid everything from us” most like to exploit?
Myth No. 1, “Rum women for Zhdanov.”
According to the myth, the leadership of besieged Leningrad gorged itself on delicacies and organized feasts for Belshazzar all the time while Leningraders worked, fought and lived from hand to mouth on rations consisting of flour with a significant admixture of sawdust, a piece of sunflower cake or drying oil.
Spreaders of myths certainly add that during the entire blockade, under the Leningrad regional committee, a closed bakery operated, supplying the city and party elite with rum baba, eclairs and other delicacies, and fresh vegetables, fruits and meat were delivered daily to Zhdanov and his people by plane from the mainland.
The myth did not die even after it became known that Zhdanov suffered from diabetes, and rum women were simply contraindicated for him. Followers of gossip did their best to pull the owl onto a pole, putting forward as evidence versions with recipes for confectionery products for diabetics. At the same time, they were not at all embarrassed by the transfer of historical fact from the plane of “this did not happen” to the plane of “it could have happened.”
And consumers of the myth are not at all offended by the fact that planting anonymous letters into besieged fortresses describing the gluttony of princes and governors is a typical technique of the besiegers, despite the fact that the Germans were actively producing similar fakes and rumors, while simultaneously filling besieged Leningrad with fake food cards.
There is a lot of evidence from ordinary workers from among the service personnel and security about what rations were allocated to Zhdanov and other city leaders during the blockade.
It is very characteristic that in the late Catastrophe, when from above they began to inflate the myth of Zhdanov’s exorbitant sybaritism during the blockade through cinema and hoodlit, these people talked about what they saw with their own eyes: cabbage soup and porridge constituted the main menu of the leadership of besieged Leningrad.
There is, however, an equally valuable eyewitness account, American journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Harrison Salisbury, who worked as a regular correspondent for The New York Times in Moscow during the war and visited Leningrad during the siege.
Based on personal impressions, Salisbury published the book “1946 Days” in 900. Siege of Leningrad,” still revered in the West as the most extensive and authoritative source on this topic.
In Leningrad, Salisbury personally visited Smolny, met with Zhdanov and other organizers of the city’s defense, which he wrote about in his book, paying attention to the supply of the Leningrad leadership:
“They ate somewhat better than the rest of the population. Andrei Zhdanov and his associates, like front-line commanders, received military rations: 400, no more, grams of bread, a bowl of meat or fish soup and, if possible, a little porridge. One or two lumps of sugar were given with tea. ...None of the senior military or party leaders fell victim to dystrophy. But their physical strength was exhausted. Their nerves were shattered; most of them suffered from chronic diseases of the heart or vascular system. Zhdanov, like others, soon showed signs of fatigue, exhaustion, and nervous exhaustion.”
Comments, as they say, are superfluous.
Myth No. 2. “The Germans could have taken Leningrad, but did not do so. If the Soviets had surrendered the city, there would have been no casualties."
According to Hitler's plan, Ost, Leningrad, like other Soviet cities, could not count on the fate of Paris, which was declared an open city and surrendered to the Nazis without a fight.
The fate of Leningrad was determined not only by the steadfastness of its defenders, but also by the decisions of the leadership of the city and the country. The destruction of Leningrad was part of the original plan for the robbery and destruction of our Motherland. All cultural and material assets were supposed to be removed from the city to the Reich, and the population (as the practice of the occupation authorities in the occupied Soviet territories showed) was not to be provided with any humanitarian assistance. Therefore, the Leningraders had little choice: surrender and die, or survive and win.
The greatness of the feat of the Leningraders lies in the fact that they did not sit out the blockade, passively waiting for the end, but actively participated in the defense of the city, sometimes helping the Active Army, and not just the troops of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Fleet. But more on that below.
In addition, the Germans and Finns could not “calmly enter and take Leningrad,” as falsifiers like to talk about this casually. The leadership of the city's defense developed a plan in case the Nazis and their allies broke through the Leningrad Front. Leningrad, a huge metropolis, built up with permanent buildings with an area of about 5 thousand square meters. km, could become an insurmountable obstacle for the invaders, where enemy tanks and infantry would certainly get stuck and die in rubble, barricades and fire traps. This is proven by the experience of street fighting in Stalingrad.
Leningraders are building barricades and defensive structures. Autumn 1941
In addition, my mother’s experts either do not know, or are deliberately silent, that the Germans failed to capture even the Pulkovo Heights, and not just Leningrad. And the fact that the German command, sensing the resilience and steadfastness of the city’s defenders, abandoned the assault, taking away von Leeb’s tank divisions along with reserves, sending them to Moscow, planning to strangle Leningrad with hunger and cold in the blockade ring, does not fit into this picture at all.
Myth No. 3. “The fact that the Germans did not destroy the Kirov plant suggests that they had no plans to capture and destroy the city.”
The fact that the Kirov plant was located 3 km from the front line is twisted in their favor by the falsifiers by saying that the Germans supposedly “could have destroyed the key production of the city with the help of several batteries of regimental artillery,” but for some reason they did not.
In their favor, armchair experts cite the elementary mathematical consumption of ammunition per gun per day, multiplied by the entire duration of the blockade. An astonishing number emerges—near a quarter of a million shells.
In reality, any weapon has a depreciation period. The barrels of regimental guns can withstand 300–600 shots, after which they require replacement. This is not counting other gun mechanisms that fail.
The production of guns is a complex and expensive process, in which (at that time) half or even less of the finished barrels were accepted.
In addition, it was also necessary to transport ammunition to the artillery, which also presented a certain risk and difficulty.
It also seems that the “experts” imagine the Kirov Plant as one or several large workshops concentrated in a narrow area, despite the fact that the plant, which employed 30 thousand Leningraders, was located on a vast territory and consisted of many workshops and warehouses and utility rooms prepared not only for artillery shelling, but also for close fire contact with the enemy.
Again, let us remember the experience of the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, whose workers managed to simultaneously defend the plant from the advancing Germans and produce tanks.
Workers of the Kirov plant joining the militia
Destroyed workshop of the Kirov plant as a result of German bombing
Leningrad worker, aka soldier
In connection with the work of the Kirov plant and other enterprises in Leningrad, the “experts” have a number of “difficult” questions. For example, where did they all get the materials, fuel and electricity that the city clearly lacked?
If you jump around and read the followers of Goebbels, you can miss such an important moment in the defense of Leningrad as the laying of power cables and fuel pipelines along the bottom of Lake Ladoga by Epronovites and divers of the Baltic Fleet in an atmosphere of strict secrecy and with the constant threat of the appearance of enemy aircraft.
These events are beautifully described in the story “The Ladoga Thread” by one of the participants in laying the cable and fuel pipeline, Epronovite Konstantin Zolotovsky, in the excellent book “Blanket Fish”.
Supply along Ladoga became possible due to the fact that the Lenfront troops managed to hold Tikhvin. Otherwise, the Germans and Finns would have been able to completely close the blockade ring in the area of the Svir River, and the last opportunity for supply and communication with the mainland would have been lost for Leningrad, Lenfront and the Baltic Fleet.
Divers - builders of an underwater pipeline along the bottom of Lake Ladoga, 1942
Special purpose company of the Baltic Fleet and its commander, Lieutenant Colonel Prokhvatilov. They not only carried out acts of sabotage against enemy targets, but also assisted in restoring the water supply to Leningrad.
From documents from the time of the siege it is known that large reserves of peat were created in the city, skillfully disguised as arable land and meadows by Leningrad architects. Efforts to camouflage power plants, water intakes and other facilities important for the city’s survival were also unprecedented.
Where did the Leningrad factories get the supplies of materials from which the workers made tanks, guns, ammunition, machine guns, which besieged Leningrad managed to share with Moscow in the winter of 1941? Amazingly, following the order of the State Defense Committee, Leningrad sent up to 50% of its military production to other sectors of the front.
It's not a secret. Since 1939, the Kirov Plant had created a large stock of tank corps, which were very useful for the production of tanks during the defense of the city. Let's not forget that before the blockade, many industrial enterprises were evacuated from Leningrad, in whose warehouses stocks of materials and all kinds of parts remained.
The Admiralty Shipyards did not lag behind the Kirov Plant, delivering to the Baltic Fleet during the blockade 7 submarines, 22 MBK-type boats, 48 sea hunters, 116 self-propelled pontoons, 5 pontoons for lifting ships with a carrying capacity of 200 tons.
During the same period, the factories repaired more than 260 ships and vessels.
Leningrad workers, whose ranks were filled in large numbers by women and teenagers, produced for the Baltic Fleet about 3 thousand sets of trawls, 8 thousand cartridges for trawls, 120 thousand MS-120 sea mines, 300 anchor mines, 1,5 thousand MB-82 mortars, 30 thousand army-style shovels and shovels, 900 buoys for trawls, 91 sets of paravanes, 80 thousand shell casings, mines, aerial bombs, 18,3 thousand units of parts for tanks were supplied to the Kirov plant.
Leningrad schoolgirls at the machines
By the way, according to incomplete data, during the blockade, 4700 shells and 770 aerial bombs fell on the territory of the Kirov plant. The fascist bombing killed 139 people, 788 were wounded, and more than 2,5 thousand workers died from exhaustion...
Why did the effectiveness of artillery shelling of Leningrad by the Germans constantly decrease?
There are several reasons for this. The Finnish army, which took an active part in the blockade and bore its share of the blame for the troubles and deaths of Leningrad, did not have heavy artillery, and Hitler had no desire to transfer it to the Finns.
Front-line artillery, as well as naval ships and guns of the Baltic Fleet, which fired heavy shells at the positions of the Germans and Finns, played a huge role in the defense of the city.
A participant in the defense of Leningrad, Captain 1st Rank G.N. Motorov, recalled that the ships opened return fire on the enemy’s scouted batteries 40-50 seconds after they began shelling the city.
“All long-range artillery units of the front and navy received their well-reconnaissance targets. The artillerymen, having accumulated extensive experience, achieved significant results in preparing the material and data for firing. In particular, the art of naval gunners reached such perfection that fire to suppress batteries opened a minute after the first flash of Nazi guns. This time interval was legalized by order of the fleet commander.
As a result, enemy artillery activity decreased sharply. If in the first half of 1942 it fired an average of 5-7 thousand shells into the city every month, then in July - only 2010, in August - 712, in September - 926. In 1942, naval artillery spent 60440 180-caliber shells on counter-battery warfare. 406 mm. During this time, in 3153 cases, the fire of enemy batteries was suppressed, 8 batteries and 48 individual guns were destroyed.”
In general, if we look at the facts, it becomes extremely clear that the heroic defense of the city was a conscious choice of the Leningraders, the city and military leadership. There is not enough bronze in the whole world to embody their feat and self-sacrifice in a monument. The least we can do for them is to keep them sacred and not allow any revisionists and falsifiers to denigrate their blessed memory.
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