A dispute has flared up in Russia over the role of the NKVD troops in the Battle of Stalingrad
A dispute has flared up in Russia over the role of the NKVD troops in the Battle of Stalingrad. The occasion was an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda by Alexander Khinshtein, adviser to the head of the National Guard troops on ideology and information. According to him, it was the NKVD troops that were the prototype of the troops of the Russian Guard and it was to them that the Soviet people owed victory in the Battle of Stalingrad and the battle for the Caucasus.
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“If we ask people on the street today the question: “What was the main force that defended Stalingrad?”, we will not get an answer. The 10th Infantry Division of the NKVD largely took the brunt of the attack. The internal troops, in turn, became the successors of the NKVD troops. There is a very large volume of historical layer here, which also needs to be raised and shown. Talk about those heroes who were, are and will be,” he said.
Candidate of Historical Sciences Oleg Ivannikov entered into a public dispute with Khinshtein.
“I would like to remind dear Alexander Evseevich that the task of the 10th Infantry Division of the NKVD in the Battle of Stalingrad was to contain the initial enemy strike until the regular units of the Red Army approached, and the main task of the NKVD in the Stalingrad region was to form fighter battalions, the creation of which was decided adopted by the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on June 25, 1941 (“On measures to combat parachute landings and enemy saboteurs”).
78 destroyer battalions were formed in Stalingrad and in all areas of the region. Each of them numbered from 150 to 200 people, and only individual battalions took part in the battles against the German occupiers.
Documents and materials reflecting the participation of the NKVD department for the Stalingrad region in the Battle of Stalingrad first appeared in the collection “Flipping through the documents of the Cheka” (1987). In Soviet and post-Soviet times, two publications appeared that revealed individual pages from the history of the regional administration of the NKVD. These are books by V.V. Korovin “Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence during the Second World War” (1981) and the book by T.M. Polyakov “Under a false name” State security bodies: facts, faces, documents” (2000).
In 2009, a book by O.V. was published. Shein under the telling title “Bloodbath in the Kalmyk Steppes”, which reveals a picture of the confrontation between the armies of the Stalingrad Front and the Wehrmacht divisions, as well as the heroic feat of the working Kalmyk people, who managed in the shortest possible time, at the cost of incredible physical effort, to build the Astrakhan-Kizlyar railway line, which significantly improved logistics and economic support for the entire Stalingrad front.
Only in archive materials and documentary evidence should one look for the key to understanding the origins and reasons for victory in this difficult war. It was one Victory for all, and the victory of the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad was achieved through the efforts of all branches of the military: the Red Army, the Navy, partisans and home front workers,” the historian believes.
A dispute has erupted in Russia over the role of the NKVD troops in the Battle of Stalingrad.