Activities of the Military Directorate for the Leningrad Military District on the Eve of World War II and Those of the Field Operations Directorates for Northern and Leningrad Fronts in 1941: A Historiographic and Source Study Analysis
| 03 October 2024
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Kovalev S.N., Zharsky A.P., Szczerba A N.,
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
Activities of the Military Directorate for the Leningrad Military District on the Eve of World War II and Those of the Field Operations Directorates for Northern and Leningrad Fronts in 1941: A Historiographic and Source Study Analysis
Abstract
The article presents the results of historiography and source analysis of issues related to the activities of the Military Council, Staff, directorates, services and departments of the Leningrad Military District (LVO) in planning and preparation of military command and troops in order to repel aggression against the USSR on the eve of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945; the activities of the Field Operations Directorates for the North and Leningrad fronts, which administered the troops military operations, as well as units of other institutions (People's Commissariats) in 1941. Review of the literature on the subject prompts the researcher to divide it into several basic groups. The first group includes landmark books on the history of the Soviet Armed Forces, and the Leningrad Military District in particular. The second group includes papers dealing with issues of command and control as a part of other issues of the history of the First and Second World Wars, the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War, the interwar period. The third group includes articles in periodicals devoted to the problems of the Armed Forces. Most of them are popular science aiming to introduce a wide range of readers to various aspects of the troops management and the development of the field agencies. The fourth group includes PhD theses on the post-war period. The fifth group includes memoirs of prominent Soviet military commanders: Boris M. Shaposhnikov, Georgy K. Zhukov, Alexander M. Vasilevsky, Matvey V. Zakharov, Sergei M. Shtemenko and others. The sixth group includes the published guideline papers of the State Defense Committee (GKO), the Supreme Command, the People's Commissariat of Defense, as well as documents stored in the central state and departmental archives of the Russian Federation and published collections of documents from other archives. The analysis of historiography on the subject concludes that among the least researched is management process carried out by military authorities of the Leningrad Military District, Northern and Leningrad fronts. Researching activities of the Military Directorate for the Leningrad Military District on the eve of World War II and those of the Field Operations Directorates for the North and the Leningrad fronts in 1941 has necessitated retrieval, processing, analysis and introduction into scientific use of previously unpublished archival documents and materials. Of utmost importance for the study are documents from the Russian State Military Archive (RGVIA), the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF), the branch of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (the Western Military District, St. Petersburg), the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg (TsGA SPb), the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents of St. Petersburg (TsGAIPD SPb). Of all fonds of the Russian State Military Archive (RGVIA) materials of the operational directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army (fond 37977), directorate for the Leningrad Military District (fond 25888), and collection of documents of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939–1940. (fond 34980) are of greatest importance. Of all fonds of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (TsAMO RF) papers in the fond 217 “Documents of the Field Operations Directorate for the Leningrad Front” and such files in this fond as file 60 “Field Operations Directorate for the Leningrad Front. Operations Office of the Staff. Field Orders and Decrees of the Staff of the Front” and file 93 “Operations Division of the Staff of the Northern Front. Documents of People's Militia Army” are of particular interest. Introduction into scientific use and processing of the yet unpublished archival materials, as well as review of the recently published military-historical literature benefit the in-depth research of the subject.
Keywords
Leningrad military district, Field Operations Directorate, Northern front, Leningrad front, military authorities, Great Patriotic War, military reforms, organizational structure, operational doctrine.
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About the authors
Kovalev Sergei, PhD in History, leading research scientist at the scientific department (of the Military History of the North Western Region of the Russian Federation) of the Research Institute (of Military History) of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Zharsky Anatoly, PhD in Military Science, senior research scientist at the scientific department (of the Military History of the North Western Region of the Russian Federation) of the Research Institute (of Military History) of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Szczerba Aleksandr, PhD in History, professor, research scientist at the scientific department (of the Military History of the North Western Region of the Russian Federation) of the Research Institute (of Military History) of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it