FALSIFICATION OF THE FACTS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR IN DOMESTIC PRACTICE

Abstract. The problem of falsification of the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War arose already in the post-war period as a result of the development of the confrontation between the USA and the USSR in the world political arena and acted as an instrument of information attack. Over time, the "cold war" was over, but the phenomenon of falsification of military facts remained in existence and continues to exist today. The problem has especially worsened with the new confrontation between the United States and Russia. Each of the countries will use deliberately false arguments to confirm their positions, which negatively affects the competence of people in matters of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War. This aspect formulates the need to analyze the falsification of the results and causes of the Second World War, to which our work will be devoted.

Keywords: Falsification, World War II, researchers.

The concept of falsification in a specific historical profile is a false description or statement regarding a particular historical event in favor of a biased idea. Considering the purposes of falsifications, one can note their wide variety: the consolidation of the role of a particular people in the event, the justification of the legitimacy of the ruling party, the ennobling of the country or vice versa – «denigration», etc.

The most common example of modern falsification of history is the problem of analyzing the results and consequences of the Second World War. As a rule, this phenomenon is caused by the introduction of politicization into the scientific field. Domestic and foreign historians often use unreliable sources or deliberately false facts in their research, with which they try to substantiate their hypothesis. As a rule, the fact of falsification in world historiography was inherent in Western researchers under the influence of political games of states. This was especially vividly demonstrated during the Cold War, when one of the weapons of the Western Bloc was the information blockade. In the light of this aspect, it seems rather absurd to have examples of false statements in domestic practice. One way or another, but such a phenomenon takes place.

Considering the Western concept of falsification, it can be noted that Western «historians» are only trying to share responsibility for the outbreak of the Second World War between Germany and Russia. In the works of our compatriots, we can find such ideas as Stalin's desire to seize Europe or Stalin's betrayal of Hitler in the conduct of the course of the war. among such pseudo-historians are such names as V. Rezun-Suvorov, G. Popov, K. Alexandrov, B. Sokolov, I. Chubais, D. Winter, etc. Referring to «a number of scientists», and in fact, echoing the «genius» of fascist propaganda Goebbels, the authors universally accuse the USSR of preparing an attack on Germany, trying to minimize the importance of the Soviet-German front in defeating fascism and liberating Europe from the German army. For an illustrative example, let's look at several actual examples of such researchers who published their works already in the XXI century.

One of the most common examples of falsification of the facts of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War in domestic practice is the theory of V. Rezun-Suvorov regarding the causes of the outbreak of the Second World War. The theory was based on the belief that the main reason for the deployment of a militarized conflict on a global scale is the result of the Soviet policy of seizing the European part of the continent. As proof, Suvorov cites a comparison of the number of military units from Germany and from the USSR, standing at the time of the attack on the western borders, in favor of the Soviet Union: «We have 20 thousand tanks, the Germans have only 3,300, Stalin is the aggressor»[ Rezun-Suvorov, 2016]. According to the paradigm of Rezun-Suvorov, on July 6, 1941, the USSR government planned the first stage of the seizure of German territories. In this light, the initial defeat and retreat of the Soviet troops to the capital is explained by Suvorov as a consequence of the effect of the surprise attack of Germany: the Soviet troops were set up for offensive operations, not defensive. Speaking about the fact of hiding the reasons for the retreats, Rezun-Suvorov wrote as follows: «Try to find a book in Paris about France's unpreparedness for war! I have trampled three pairs of iron boots, worn out three iron caps, worn out three iron staffs on Parisian sidewalks - I have not found anything in the book ruins about France's unpreparedness for war. Everything is only about our unpreparedness, everything is about our stupidity, about the cowardice of Stalin, his marshals, generals, officers and soldiers. But if some smart guy decided to calculate the percentage of fools and cowards among the officers of the French army, then they would quickly pull out his legs so as not to trample on French soil with them. And a publishing house that published a book with such information would simply be burned by a ferocious crowd» [ Rezun-Suvorov, 2016]. These statements and attempts at their argumentation can be found in the works of Rezun-Suvorov «Icebreaker», «Day M», «The Last Republic», «Purification», etc.

Another representative of the falsification of the facts of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War is the politician, economist G.H. Popov. In his work «Stalin's Three Wars», the author examines several extraordinary facts about the course of the war. So, his first absurd statement is the statement that Stalin is to blame for the prolonged impossibility of opening a «second front». Citing confirmation of his hypothesis, Popov writes: «Stalin himself – by his unwavering desire for the destruction of fascist Germany – eliminated from Churchill a serious motive for the rapid opening of the second front»[Popov, 2006]. Considering the reason for such an ardent desire to continue the war, Popov defines it as follows: «Hitler outplayed Stalin in starting the war and refused to accept his surrender. Hitler mortally offended Stalin. Such grievances are washed away only with blood – this is the «law of the mountains» [Popov, 2006].. In addition, the need to open a «second front», according to Popov, disappeared due to active resistance to the German troops, thereby eliminating «the factor of Churchill's fear of Stalin's early defeat – as a motive for the early opening of the second front» [Popov, 2006].

The fact of the reason that provoked the outbreak of World War II and the Great Patriotic War, Popov describes, continuing the idea of Rezun-Suvorov about the preparation of the USSR for a strike on Germany: «I want to hope that our leaders... will tell the people the truth: Stalin's communist regime was going to attack Germany first»» [Popov, 2006]..

B. Sokolov's book «The Truth about the Great Patriotic War» begins with a rather loud annotation, where the author examines the topic of the consequences of the Second World War in numerical terms: «The Truth about the Great Patriotic War» is one of the first serious attempts in Russian historical science to tell about the facts that really took place, but or were carefully hidden, or received the opposite interpretation. The figures of the USSR's military losses, the contribution of our allies in the anti-Hitler coalition (especially the United States) to the victory over Germany, the truth about the Soviet economy (more precisely, the truth about the colossal postscript during the war) are also our story»[Sokolov, 2012].. The author accuses the state of deliberately falsifying data on b economic spending during the war. Sokolov considers the formation of an order for statistics to be one of the reasons for this phenomenon: «The irretrievable losses of the Soviet Armed Forces of 26.4 million people... It should also be noted that the huge irretrievable losses of the Red Army did not allow, to the same extent as in the Wehrmacht and even more so in the armies of the Western Allies, to retain experienced soldiers and junior commanders, which reduced the adhesion and resistance of units and did not allow the replenishment fighters to adopt combat experience from veterans, which further increased losses. Such an unfavorable ratio of irretrievable losses for the USSR was a consequence of the fundamental vice of the communist totalitarian system, which deprived people of the ability to make decisions and act independently, taught everyone, including the military, to act according to a template, to avoid even reasonable risk and, more than the enemy, to be afraid of responsibility before their higher authorities» [Sokolov, 2012].

Of particular interest in the field of falsification of the causes of World War II and the Great Patriotic War is I. Chubais' article «How did the USSR unleash World War II, and Putin turned history around?». The author of the article considers the beginning of the war as a result of the work of the USSR and Germany on the policy of seizing Poland: «On August 23, a «Non-aggression Treaty» was signed with Germany and, to it, a Secret protocol. In accordance with the agreements reached, the Reich a week later, and Stalin three weeks later attacked Poland and began WWII»[Chubais, 2020]. «In addition, in the article, the author cites an interesting fact about the cooperation of Hitler and Stalin to seize Europe: «Having captured and divided Poland with Stalin, Hitler believed Moscow. And by the middle of the 41st year, having occupied, with the economic support of the USSR, most of Europe, the Reich increased its military potential and came to the conclusion that it was time to attack Russia» [Chubais, 2020].  According to the logic of these two theses, Chubais argues that Stalin could have avoided the war twice, but did not take the chance. Considering the fact of signing a treaty with Germany, and not with France and England, which, according to Chubais, would be more effective for the USSR, the author cites the following statements: «Stalin preferred friendship with Hitler to the ENTENTE already because he could agree with the Fuhrer on the division of Europe and the transfer of vast territories from Finland to Soviet control Romania. Such collusion was impossible with England and France».  The second thesis of Chubais, as well as the representatives of false history considered by us earlier, calls the fact of the USSR's desire to seize German territory, the reason for which the author calls the nature of the Soviet system: «The fact is that the Bolsheviks never sought peace, they sought war!... Hastily patching up the terrible losses suffered in the Civil War, canceling the NEP and declaring the era of the Great Turning Point, Stalin continued accelerated preparations for the great war. In the mid-30s, it turned out that the plans of the Fuhrer and the Leader coincide, after the confrontation in Spain, they became allies» [Chubais, 2020].

Thus, we can say that over the last decade in Russia there has been a tendency to «denigrate» the role of the USSR in the victory over fascism. One of the characteristic negative features of the spiritual sphere of the modern world are attempts to falsify the history and results of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, which are an important component of ideological confrontation and the realization of geopolitical ambitions of a number of states. Attempts to rehabilitate fascism and replace post-war realities lead to the destruction of the entire system of modern international relations and, as a result, to an aggravation of the struggle for the redistribution of the world, including by military means. The modern policy of the United States and the European Union, based on the so-called Euro-Atlantic solidarity, according to Western ideologists, needs a revision of values, and then international legal norms. To this end, they seek to distort the results of the Second World War, remove the Great Patriotic War from history, the feat of the Soviet people who saved the world from fascism, and put the Soviet Union together with Hitler's Germany in the dock of history, blaming all the troubles of the twentieth century. The analysis of attempts to «rethink» and «revisionism» the history of the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War shows that most often it is carried out by ignoring or even demonstratively refusing to comply with the general principles and methods of historical research that have been developed by the world scientific community of historians and philosophers. For this purpose, they are actively used: the creation of various myths that have nothing to do with historical truth, the tendentious pulling out of the historical process of individual "fried" facts, around which false conclusions are built; introduction without proper scientific justification of new concepts, manipulation around historical events or personalities. Today we are on the threshold of a new stage of understanding the national history. More and more people understand that its distortion and falsification are dangerous for our society because they destroy the historical consciousness and memory of the people, deform social and individual morality.