Decapitation of the Red Army?

It is astonishing to see today, how historiography has completely overshadowed the terrible tragedies and real terror against millions of people in the Soviet Union, in favor of the Great Purge of 1937-1938. This so called purge had been chewed upon for decades, and the final conclusions of which are as wrong as they can be. The Great Purge was the time when Stalin cleansed the party and those who had taken prominent part in the elimination of millions of people. In other words, Stalin eliminated those with whose help he managed to subdue the country. Without lessening Stalin’s responsibility for these atrocities against the people of the Soviet Union, let us state clearly that the Great Purge was the time when some of the bloodiest executors were executed.

Those who since the revolution in 1917 were continuously involved in bloodshed, and in one way or another stimulated the terror machine, finally met their own death. In fact some of the most prominent figures, who felt victims, had built their careers on bloodshed, among which Tukachevsky and Dibenko for example. Today historiography sheds tears for them, finds more and more evidence on how they were tortured before their trails, instead of shedding more light on their crimes against humanity, and perhaps how their own actions let to their own elimination.

But no, the road set by historians such as Robert Conquest will mislead us for decades to come. Why would we care for the millions of masses killed, when we could tragically talk about the unjust deaths of those handfuls of executors who actually significantly contributed to the terror against the masses? History is so twisted by now, that evidently it argues in favor of the most prominent criminals of the 20^th century. Those on whose bloody hands stand the wasted lives of millions of human beings.

The more one digs into this twisted history, the more one understands how powerful the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union actually was. What incredible damage it had done to history, to the past, present and future generations. It was so powerful that it caught in its net the most prominent western historians to such an extend, that today they have to basically ignore evidence, ignore historical events, and continue to plug the ever growing holes of the sinking boat of traditional historiography, hoping to save their careers and escape the shame of what they (willingly or not) had contributed to: the legalization of the Soviet propaganda history into the free western world! Congratulations dear professional academics! It just goes to show how incompetent many of you actually are, and how much more you need to study, not the publications of your friends and brothers in arms, but the evidence and the historical events, which you are writing about.

Next time any of you considers mentioning the Great Purge as the decapitation of the Red Army and it being the reason for the initial failure to respond to the German invasion, and before quoting the fantasies of your colleagues in order to boost the sales of their books, try to actually be real historians for once and study the evidence which has been available ever since 1993. Instead of quoting the tragic number of the supposedly killed 40000 officers, and then go on and fantasize about the fear among the rest of the officers, try and double check where this number came from. I know it had been published thousands of times in books and articles, but still, can anyone tell me the origins of it? If you can, then you will also know that document this number came from, also provided other numbers, which completely disprove any large scale terror against the Red Army commanding staff.

Yes, I am talking about the report from September 19, 1938, which clearly states that the total number of discharged officers during the period of June 1937 to September 1938 was just under 37000 officers. And it also clarifies that only fewer than 11000 of those discharged were actually arrested (which does not necessarily mean killed). Then let us remember that as of February 1937, the officer’s staff of the Red Army was consisting of 206000 people according to the narkom of defence K.E. Voroshilov, and also that as of May 1940, over 12000 of those officers who were unjustly discharged were reinstated back in the Red Army, (according to the report by Schedenko from May 1940) part of them were officers whom were arrested, and part were officers who were discharged but not arrested. Now, do the calculations yourselves, but even if we assumed that all 11000 arrested officers were actually shot (which they were not), this would still give us less than 5% of the total officers, which is by far an insignificant number to use as a claim that the Red Army was decapitated, isn’t it?

Could anyone of you decapitation propagandists tell me, why do you keep on writing nonsense, even though the numbers and evidence disproving the decapitation argument have been published for over 13 years now? Do you actually believe that repetition of such outdated and wrong arguments would contribute to your image as professional historians? I hope not, because sooner rather than later, history will change its course, and it already is doing so, simply because until recently your writings were harmless to no one, except those individuals who carefully read your books and saw the numerous omissions, lack of logic and evidence in them. Now the political wind has changed, and modern Russia completely brainwashed by its own and your version of history is already attacking the cyber space of the EU and NATO, and since nobody wants to start a 3^rd world war, there will be a need for a proper response, one of which will be the gradual but final demolition of this propaganda, which includes your works as well. Remember, had this propaganda been fought with from the beginning, today we would not have the problems with Russia, which we experience at the moment. Too bad many analysts failed to realize that earlier; nevertheless later is still better than never!