Tag: 1941

Yelnya: The Soviet Red Army and the First European Defeat Inflicted Upon Nazi Germany During WWII! (18.3.2023) 

‘Nevertheless, the fact that Russia had “allies” – or rather, one major ally, Britain – and that America was going to “help” was of some psychological importance to the Russians, they did not feel entirely alone, and soon after the invasion the thought had become deeply ingrained that the war would be won, no matter how terrible and how long it was. Much was, of course, made of minor military successes, such as the slowing-down of the blitzkrieg at Smolensk (which, curiously, created for several weeks almost a feeling of euphoria, at least in Moscow), and of the small Russian counter-offensive at Yelnya, south of Smolensk in September 1941, when a few hundred square miles were recaptured from the Germans – the first to be recaptured anywhere in Europe since the beginning of the Second World War. At that time, in bombed and half-devastated Vyazna, the future Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky made to the foreign press the significant remark that, fearful as the war was, the Russians were “gradually grinding down” the German war machine, and that in any case Moscow would not be lost.’

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Email: Trotsky and Furr! (27.5.2022)

The bourgeois ‘lie’ that then followed (fuelled by ‘Orwell’ and others), was that this purge of traitors was a) ordered personally by Stalin, and b) aimed at Red Army Officers who hated Stalin and wanted him removed! Stalin was the least of their worries as he possessed very little personal power (being ‘elected’ into Office), but this false story has ‘stuck’ in Western discourse and is found almost universally in explanations of ‘why’ the Nazi Germans were able to make such in-roads into the USSR in the first six-months of their 1941 attack! The fake story is that Stalin’s purges so weakened the Red Army that it was unable to perform its allotted duties when push came to shove! This is disingenuous to the power of the racist ideology Hitler propagated and the ‘new’ tactics and very good technology that Nazi Germany developed – and the fact that when all this was integrated within the German people it defeated the combined military might of Western Europe in a matter of days – with Stalin having had no direct influence over the Officer Corp of those defeated countries!

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USSR: Red Army Cavalry 1938 Model ‘Carbine’ (17.5.2022) 

The concept of the ‘carbine’ may well have originated during the late 1500s in France and referred to the weapon these ‘Light’ Cavalrymen used to carry. In this instance, this may well have been a ‘slang’ term used in the French language which referred to mounted archers from Flanders who were considered deadly shots and sure bringers of ‘death’! (The association is unclear but may refer to an assumed connection between the ‘carrion beetle’ and the ‘plague’, etc). Whatever the origin, a ‘carbine’ appears to refer to a ‘short’ and highly effective weapon carried when sat in the saddle and used when riding the horse whether into or out of battle. The 1938 ‘Carbine’ Model measured just 1020 mm (or 3.4 feet) long (minus a bayonet) – and fired a round measuring 7.62 mm! The ‘Carbine’ Model 1938 was sighted to fire up to 1000 meters! The Izhevsk Machine-Manufacturing Plant was the only place equipped for producing this ‘Carbine’ between 1941-1942 – during the height of the ‘Great Patriotic war’ – when the workers of this factory produced over 1,106,510 which were sent immediately for frontline service! 

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The Use of the Cavalry Lance (‘Pike’) and the Red Army (1924) 

In general, the combination of today’s ‘unusual’ cavalry soldier with this type of horse is very far, unfortunately, from the image that is desirable or associated with a ‘traditional’ cavalryman. Meanwhile, a ‘pike’ (or ‘lance’) is good only in the hands of an excellent rider, sitting on an excellent and well-trodden horse! History sufficiently proves (through a number of examples) that in the absence of these two vital attributes – the pike is only a burden that rushes into battle without finding any effective use for itself!  

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