The most beautiful Asian peoples. Scientists have identified the most beautiful people in the world based on aristocratic features

And the Red Army due to Japan’s contesting the ownership of the territory near Lake Khasan and the Tumannaya River. In Japan, these events are called the “Zhangufeng Heights Incident.” (Japanese: 張鼓峰事件 Cho:koho: jiken) .

Previous Events

In February 1934, five Japanese soldiers crossed the border line; in a clash with border guards, one of the violators was killed, and four were wounded and detained.

On March 22, 1934, while trying to conduct reconnaissance at the Emelyantsev outpost site, an officer and a soldier of the Japanese army were shot dead.

In April 1934, Japanese soldiers attempted to capture the Lysaya heights in the Grodekovsky border detachment sector; at the same time, the Poltavka outpost was attacked, but the border guards, with the support of an artillery company, repelled the attack and drove the enemy beyond the border line.

In July 1934, the Japanese committed six provocations on the border line, in August 1934 - 20 provocations, in September 1934 - 47 provocations.

During the first seven months of 1935, there were 24 cases of Japanese aircraft invading USSR airspace on the border line, 33 cases of shelling of USSR territory from adjacent territory, and 44 cases of violation of the river border on the Amur River by Manchu ships.

In the fall of 1935, 15 km from the Petrovka outpost, a border guard noticed two Japanese who were trying to connect to the communication line, the soldier was killed and the non-commissioned officer was detained, a rifle and a light machine gun were seized from the violators.

On October 12, 1935, a detachment of Japanese attacked the Baglynka outpost, killing border guard V. Kotelnikov.

In November 1935, the political representative of the USSR in Tokyo, K. K. Yurenev, presented a note of protest to the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hirota, in connection with the violations of the Soviet border by Japanese forces that took place on October 6, October 8 and October 12, 1935.

On January 30, 1936, two Japanese-Manchu companies crossed the border at Meshcheryakovaya Pad and advanced 1.5 km into USSR territory before being pushed back by border guards. Losses amounted to 31 Manchu soldiers and Japanese officers killed and 23 wounded, as well as 4 killed and several wounded Soviet border guards.

On November 24, 1936, a cavalry and foot detachment of 60 Japanese crossed the border in the Grodekovo area, but came under machine gun fire and retreated, losing 18 soldiers killed and 7 wounded, 8 corpses remained on Soviet territory.

On November 26, 1936, three Japanese crossed the border and began a topographical survey of the area from the top of Pavlova Hill; when trying to detain them, machine guns and artillery opened fire from the adjacent territory, and three Soviet border guards were killed.

In 1936, at the Hansi outpost site, Japanese soldiers captured the Malaya Chertova heights and erected pillboxes on it.

In May 1937, 2 km from the border, the border guard again noticed the Japanese trying to connect to the communication line, a Japanese soldier was shot, six coils of field telephone cable, wire cutters, and six pickaxes were captured.

On June 5, 1937, in the area of ​​​​responsibility of the 21st Rifle Division of the Red Army, Japanese soldiers invaded Soviet territory and occupied a hill near Lake Khanka, but when approaching the border of the 63rd Rifle Regiment, they retreated to adjacent territory. Regiment commander I.R. Dobysh, who was late with the advance of forces to the border line, was brought to disciplinary responsibility.

On October 28, 1937, at an altitude of 460.1, the border patrol of the Pakshekhori outpost discovered two open trenches surrounded by a wire fence. They opened fire from the trenches, and in the shootout the senior squadron, Lieutenant A. Makhalin, was wounded and two Japanese soldiers were killed.

On July 15, 1938, a border patrol noticed a group of five Japanese at the top of the Zaozernaya hill, conducting reconnaissance and photographing the area; while trying to detain them, Japanese intelligence officer Matsushima was shot (they found weapons, binoculars, a camera and maps of Soviet territory on him), the rest fled.

In total, from 1936 until the outbreak of hostilities at Lake Khasan in July 1938, Japanese and Manchurian forces made 231 violations of the Soviet border, in 35 cases they resulted in major military clashes. Of this number, in the period from the beginning of 1938 to the start of the battles at Lake Khasan, there were 124 cases of border violations by land and 40 cases of aircraft intrusion into the airspace of the USSR.

During the same period, Western powers (including Great Britain and the USA) were interested in escalation armed conflict between the USSR and Japan in the Far East and the escalation of tensions into Soviet-Japanese war. One of the forms of encouraging Japan to war against the USSR was the supply of strategic raw materials to the Japanese military industry, the supply of goods and fuel for the Japanese army (an example is the supply of fuel from the USA), which did not stop either after the start of the Japanese offensive in China in the summer of 1937, or after the start of fighting near Lake Khasan [ ] .

Lyushkov's escape

After the outbreak of Japanese aggression in China in 1937, the Soviet state security agencies in the Far East were tasked with intensifying intelligence and counterintelligence activities. However, in the fall of 1937, the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far Eastern Territory, State Security Commissioner 3rd Rank G.S. Lyushkov, ordered the liquidation of all six operational points on the border, and the transfer of work with agents to border detachments.

On June 14, 1938, in Manchukuo near the city of Hunchun, G.S. Lyushkov crossed the border and surrendered to Japanese border guards. He asked for political asylum and subsequently actively collaborated with Japanese intelligence.

Beginning of the conflict

As a pretext for applying military force The Japanese put forward a territorial claim to the USSR, but the real reason was the active assistance of the USSR to China in the period after the signing of the Soviet-Chinese non-aggression treaty on August 21, 1937 (which caused an aggravation of Soviet-Japanese contradictions and a deterioration in Soviet-Japanese relations). In an effort to prevent China from capitulating, the USSR provided it with diplomatic and political support, logistical and military assistance.

On July 1, 1938, due to the increasing military danger, the Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army of the Red Army was transformed into the Far Eastern Front of the Red Army.

Due to the complicated situation on the section of the state border near Lake Khasan, as well as the important position of the Zaozernaya hills ( 42°26.79′ N. w. 130°35.67′ E. d. HGIO) and Nameless ( 42°27.77′ N. w. 130°35.42′ E. d. HGIO), from the slopes and peaks of which it was possible to view and, if necessary, shoot a significant space deep into the territory of the USSR, as well as completely block the lakeside defile for access by Soviet border guards. On July 8, 1938, it was decided to establish a permanent border guard post on the Zaozernaya hill.

The Soviet border guards who arrived at the hill dug trenches and installed an inconspicuous wire fence in front of them, which infuriated the Japanese - a unit of infantrymen of the Japanese army, led by an officer, imitated an attack on the hill, turning into a battle formation, but stopped at the border line.

On July 12, 1938, Soviet border guards again occupied the Zaozernaya hill, which was claimed by the puppet government of Manchukuo, which on July 14, 1938 protested about the violation of its border.

On July 15, 1938, in Moscow, the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Mamoru Shigemitsu demanded in a note of protest to the Soviet government the withdrawal of all USSR troops from the disputed territory. He was presented with documents from the Hunchun Agreement of 1886 and a map attached to them, indicating that the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya heights are located on Soviet territory. However, on July 20, the Japanese ambassador presented another note from the Japanese government. The note contained an ultimatum demand for the evacuation of Soviet troops “from illegally occupied territory.”

On July 21, 1938, Japanese Minister of War Itagaki and the Chief of the Japanese General Staff requested permission from the Japanese Emperor to use Japanese troops in combat against Soviet forces at Lake Khasan.

On the same day, July 22, 1938, Japanese Emperor Hirohito approved plans for an attack on the Lake Hasan section of the border.

On July 23, 1938, Japanese units began to be expelled from border villages local residents. The next day, on the sandy islands on the Tumen-Ula River, the appearance of firing positions for artillery was noted, and at the height of Bogomolnaya (located at a distance of 1 km from the Zaozernaya hill) - firing positions for artillery and machine guns.

On July 24, 1938, Marshal V.K. Blucher, without informing the government and the higher command in the person of the People's Commissariat of Defense about his actions, went to the Zaozernaya hill with a commission to check reports about the situation on the border. He ordered to fill up one of the trenches dug by the border guards and move the wire fence from the no-man's land four meters to the border guards' trenches. Blucher's actions constituted an abuse of authority (the border guard was not subordinate to the army command) and direct interference in the work of the border district headquarters (whose orders were carried out by the border guard). In addition, as further developments showed, Blucher’s actions were wrong.

The balance of forces between the parties

USSR

15 thousand Soviet military personnel and border guards took part in the fighting at Lake Khasan, armed with 237 artillery pieces (179 field artillery pieces and 58 45-mm anti-tank guns), 285 tanks, 250 aircraft and 1014 machine guns (341 heavy machine guns and 673 light machine guns). 200 took part in supporting the troops' actions trucks GAZ-AA, GAZ-AAA and ZIS-5, 39 fuel tankers and 60 tractors, as well as horse-drawn vehicles.

According to updated data, two border boats also took part in the fighting in the area of ​​Lake Khasan ( PK-7 And PK-8) USSR border troops.

Radio intelligence specialists from the Pacific Fleet took an indirect part in the operation - they did not participate in hostilities, but were engaged in radio interception and decoding of Japanese radio transmissions.

Japan

By the beginning of hostilities, the border group of Japanese troops consisted of: three infantry divisions (15th, 19th, 20th infantry divisions), one cavalry regiment, three machine gun battalions, separate armored units (up to a battalion in size), anti-aircraft artillery units, three armored trains and 70 aircraft, 15 warships (1 cruiser and 14 destroyers) and 15 boats were concentrated at the mouth of the Tumen-Ula River. The 19th Infantry Division, reinforced with machine guns and artillery, took a direct part in the hostilities. Also, the Japanese military command considered the possibility of using White emigrants in combat operations - Major of the Japanese General Staff Yamooko was sent to Ataman G.M. Semyonov to coordinate the joint actions of White emigrants and Japanese troops during preparations for hostilities at Lake Khasan.

More than 20 thousand military personnel of the Japanese army took part in the fighting at Lake Khasan, armed with 200 guns and 3 armored trains.

According to the American researcher Alvin D. Cooks, at least 10,000 Japanese troops took part in the fighting at Lake Khasan, of which 7,000 - 7,300 were in the combat units of the 19th Division. This figure, however, does not include the personnel of the artillery units assigned to the division in last days conflict.

In addition, during the fighting near Lake Khasan, the use of 20-mm Type 97 anti-tank rifles by Japanese troops was recorded.

Fighting

On July 24, 1938, the Military Council of the Far Eastern Front gave the order to put the 118th, 119th Infantry Regiments and the 121st Cavalry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division of the Red Army on alert. It was believed that defense in the rugged swampy terrain was impossible, since this would prevent the Soviet units from reaching the conflict site.

On July 24, the 3rd battalion of the 118th regiment of the 40th Infantry Division and the reserve border post of Lieutenant S. Ya. Khristolubov were transferred to Lake Khasan. Thus, by the beginning of the Japanese offensive, the following forces were available in the combat area:

Before dawn on July 29, Japanese troops numbering up to 150 soldiers (a reinforced company of the border gendarmerie with 4 Hotchkiss machine guns), taking advantage of the foggy weather, secretly concentrated on the slopes of the Bezymyannaya hill and in the morning attacked the hill, on which there were 11 Soviet border guards. Having lost up to 40 soldiers, they occupied the heights, but after reinforcements arrived for the border guards, they were driven back by the evening.

On the evening of July 30, 1938, Japanese artillery shelled the hills, after which the Japanese infantry again attempted to capture Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya, but the border guards, with the help of the arriving 3rd battalion of the 118th joint venture of the 40th SD, repelled the attack.

On the same day, after a short artillery barrage, Japanese troops launched a new attack with up to two regiments of the 19th Infantry Division and occupied the hills. Immediately after the capture, the Japanese began to fortify the heights; full-profile trenches were dug here and wire barriers of 3-4 stakes were installed. At height 62.1 (“Machine Gun”), the Japanese installed up to 40 machine guns.

An attempt at a Soviet counterattack by two battalions was unsuccessful, although fire from a platoon of 45-mm anti-tank guns under the command of Lieutenant I.R. Lazarev destroyed two Japanese anti-tank guns and three Japanese machine guns.

The battalion of the 119th Infantry Regiment retreated to height 194.0, and the battalion of the 118th Regiment was forced to retreat to Zarechye. On the same day, the Chief of Staff of the Front, G. M. Stern, and the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, Army Commissar L. Z. Mehlis arrived at the headquarters; G. M. Stern assumed overall command of the Soviet troops.

On the morning of August 1, the entire 118th infantry regiment arrived in the area of ​​Lake Khasan, and before noon - the 119th infantry regiment and the 120th command post of the 40th infantry division. The general attack was delayed as units advanced into the fighting area along a single impassable road. On August 1, a direct conversation took place between V.K. Blucher and the Main Military Council, where J.V. Stalin sharply criticized Blucher for commanding the operation.

In border battles with the Japanese on July 29 - August 5, 1938, Soviet troops captured 5 artillery pieces, 14 machine guns and 157 rifles.

On August 4, the concentration of troops was completed, the commander of the Far Eastern Front, G. M. Stern, gave the order to attack and destroy the enemy between the Zaozernaya hill and Lake Khasan and restore state border.

On August 6, 1938, at 16:00, after the fog cleared over the lakes, 216 Soviet aircraft began bombing Japanese positions; at 17:00, after a 45-minute artillery barrage and two massive bombings of the Japanese troops, the Soviet offensive began.

• The 32nd Rifle Division and the tank battalion of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade advanced from the north onto the Bezymyannaya Hill;
• The 40th Rifle Division, reinforced by a reconnaissance battalion and tanks, advanced from the southeast onto the Zaozernaya hill.

On August 7, fighting for the heights continued, with Japanese infantry launching 12 counterattacks throughout the day.

On August 8, units of the 39th Corps and the 118th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Division captured the Zaozernaya hill and also launched battles to capture the Bogomolnaya height. In an effort to weaken the pressure on its troops in the Khasan area, the Japanese command launched counterattacks on other sections of the border: on August 9, 1938, at the site of the 59th border detachment, Japanese troops occupied Mount Malaya Tigrovaya to monitor the movement of Soviet troops. On the same day, in the sector of the 69th Khanka border detachment, Japanese cavalrymen violated the border line, and in the sector of the 58th Grodekovsky border detachment, Japanese infantry attacked height 588.3 three times.

On August 10, 1938, the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR M. Shigemitsu visited the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR M. M. Litvinov in Moscow and proposed to begin peace negotiations. The Soviet side agreed to a cessation of hostilities from 12:00 on August 11, 1938, while maintaining troops in the positions that the troops occupied as of 24:00 on August 10, 1938.

During August 10, Japanese troops launched several counterattacks and conducted artillery bombardment of the heights from adjacent territory.

On August 11, 1938, at 13:30 local time, hostilities ceased. In the evening of the same day, south of the Zaozernaya height, the first meeting of representatives of the parties took place to fix the position of the troops. On the same day, August 11, 1938, a truce was concluded between Japan and the USSR.

On August 12-13, 1938, new meetings between Soviet and Japanese representatives took place, at which the parties clarified the location of troops and exchanged the bodies of the dead. It was decided that the boundary should be established based on the 1860 agreement, since there was no later boundary agreement.

Aviation Application

On the eve of the conflict in the Far East, the command of the Red Army Air Force concentrated a significant amount of aircraft. Without taking into account the Pacific Fleet aviation, by August 1938 the Soviet air group consisted of 1,298 aircraft, including 256 SB bombers (17 out of order). Direct command of aviation in the conflict zone was exercised by P. V. Rychagov.

In the period from August 1 to August 8, Soviet aviation carried out 1028 sorties against Japanese fortifications: SB - 346, I-15 - 534, SSS - 53 (from the airfield in Voznesenskoye), TB-3 - 41, R-zet - 29, I-16 - 25. The following were involved in the operation:

In a number of cases, Soviet aviation mistakenly used chemical bombs. However, evidence from eyewitnesses and participants suggests the opposite. In particular, it is said that the delivered chemical bombs were loaded into the bomber only once, and upon takeoff this was discovered in the air. The pilots did not land, but dropped bombs into the silted lake to avoid exploding the ammunition.

During combat operations, 4 Soviet aircraft were lost and 29 were damaged.

Japanese aviation did not participate in the conflict.

results

As a result of the battles, Soviet troops completed their assigned task of protecting the state border of the USSR and defeating enemy units.

Losses of the parties

The losses of the Soviet troops amounted to 960 people killed and missing (of which, 759 died on the battlefield; 100 died in hospitals from wounds and illnesses; 6 died in non-combat incidents and 95 were missing), 2752 wounded and 527 sick. The bulk of the sick were those who suffered from gastrointestinal diseases as a result of drinking bad water. Since all Red Army soldiers who took part in hostilities were vaccinated with toxoid, during the entire period of hostilities there was not a single case of tetanus in military personnel.

Japanese losses were about 650 killed and 2,500 wounded according to Soviet estimates, or 526 killed and 914 wounded according to Japanese figures. In addition, during the fighting near Lake Khasan, Japanese troops suffered losses in weapons and military property. In addition, domestic sinologist V. Usov (FES RAS) noted that, in addition to the official Japanese communiqués, there was also a secret memorandum addressed to Emperor Hirohito, in in which the number of losses of Japanese troops significantly (no less than one and a half times) exceeds the officially published data.

Subsequent events

On November 16, 1938, an exhibition of captured weapons captured from Japanese troops during the fighting at Lake Khasan opened in the Vladivostok City Museum.

Rewarding combatants

The 40th Rifle Division was awarded the Order of Lenin, the 32nd Rifle Division and the Posyet Border Detachment were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, 6,532 participants in the battle were awarded government awards: 26 soldiers were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (including nine posthumously), 95 were awarded the Order of Lenin, 1985 - the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Star - 1935 people, the medal "For Courage" - 1336 people, the medal "For Military Merit" - 1154 people. Among the recipients were 47 wives and sisters of border guards.

By order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR dated November 4, 1938, 646 of the most distinguished participants in the battles at Lake Khasan were promoted to rank.

On November 7, 1938, in the order of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR No. 236 of November 7, 1938, gratitude was declared to all participants in the battles at Lake Khasan

One of the points of accusation against Blucher was the creation of a commission that conducted an investigation at the Zaozernaya height on July 24 and came to the conclusion that Soviet border guards had violated the border line, after which Blucher demanded the partial liquidation of defensive positions at the height and the arrest of the head of the border section.

On October 22, 1938, Blucher was arrested. He pleaded guilty to participating in a military conspiracy and died during the investigation. After his death, he was accused of spying for Japan.

Generalization of combat experience and organizational improvement of the Red Army

The Red Army gained experience in conducting combat operations with Japanese troops, which became the subject of study in special commissions, departments of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, the General Staff of the USSR and military educational institutions and was practiced during exercises and maneuvers. The result was improved training of units and units of the Red Army for combat operations in difficult conditions, improved interaction between units in combat, and improved operational-tactical training of commanders and staffs. The experience gained was successfully applied on the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939 and in Manchuria in 1945.

The fighting at Lake Khasan confirmed the increased importance of artillery and contributed to the further development of Soviet artillery: if during the Russian-Japanese War, the losses of Japanese troops from Russian artillery fire amounted to 23% of the total losses, then during the conflict at Lake Khasan in 1938, the losses of Japanese troops from artillery fire of the Red Army accounted for 37% of the total losses, and during the fighting near the Khalkhin Gol River in 1939 - 53% of the total losses of Japanese troops.

To eliminate the shortage of platoon-level command personnel, already in 1938, courses for junior lieutenants and junior military technicians were formed in the troops.

The organization of the evacuation of the wounded and the provision of medical care during the fighting near Lake Khasan was based on the provisions of the “Charter of the Military Sanitary Service of the Red Army” of 1933 (UVSS-33), however, at the same time, some requirements of sanitary tactics were violated: the conditions in where military operations took place (seaside swamps); the wounded were carried out during the battle, without waiting for periods of calm in the fighting (which led to an increase in the number of losses); battalion doctors were too close to the battle formations of the troops and, moreover, were involved in organizing the work of company areas to collect and evacuate the wounded (which caused large losses among doctors). Based on the experience gained, after the end of hostilities, changes were made to the work of the military medical service:

• already by the beginning of hostilities on Khalkhin Gol, battalion doctors were transferred to the regiments, and paramedics were left in the battalions (this decision led to a reduction in losses among doctors during the fighting and increased the efficiency of the regimental medical centers);
• The training of civilian surgeons to care for the wounded in the field was improved.

Practical experience in the evacuation and treatment of the wounded, gained during the battles near Lake Khasan, was summarized by a specialist in the field of military field surgery, Professor M. N. Akhutin (who participated in the battles near Lake Khasan as an army surgeon) and Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor A M. Dykhno.

In addition, during the fighting, the vulnerability of the T-26 light tanks (which had bulletproof armor) when the enemy used large-caliber anti-tank rifles and anti-tank artillery was revealed. During the battles, concentrated fire disabled command tanks equipped with radio stations with a handrail antenna, so it was decided to install handrail antennas not only on command tanks, but also on line tanks.

Development of transport infrastructure

The fighting at Lake Khasan initiated the development of transport communications in the south of the Far East. After the end of hostilities at Lake Khasan, the People's Commissariat of Defense petitioned the government to build railway line No. 206 (Baranovsky - Posyet junction), the construction of which was included in the construction plan for 1939.

International Military Tribunal for the Far East

After the end of World War II, in 1946, by the decision of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 13 high-ranking officials of the Japanese Empire were convicted of starting the conflict at Lake Khasan in 1938.

Memory

His native village in the Penza region was named in honor of the assistant head of the border outpost, Alexei Makhalin.

In honor of the political instructor Ivan Pozharsky, one of the districts of the Primorsky Territory, the village of Tikhonovka (Pozharskoye) and the Pozharsky railway crossing, founded in 1942, were named.

In the USSR, streets were named and monuments erected in honor of Hassan's heroes.

Reflection in culture and art

• “Tractor Drivers” is a film directed by Ivan Pyryev, filmed in 1939. The events in the film take place in 1938. At the beginning of the film, Red Army soldier Klim Yarko (played by Nikolai Kryuchkov) returns from the Far East after demobilization. In another fragment, Marina Ladynina’s heroine Maryana Bazhan reads the book “Tankmen” about the events at Lake Khasan. The songs “Three Tankmen” and “March of the Soviet Tankmen” were strongly associated in the minds of the generation of the 30s with events in the Far East.
• “Khasan Waltz” is a film shot in 2008 by director Mikhail Gotenko at the Oriental Cinema studio. The film is dedicated to Alexey Makhalin.

Heroes of the Soviet Union - participants in the fighting at Lake Khasan

File:Hasan6.png

Monument “Eternal glory to the heroes of the battles at Lake Khasan.” Pos. Razdolnoye, Nadezhdinsky district, Primorsky Krai

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to:

• Borovikov, Andrey Evstigneevich (posthumously)
• Vinevitin, Vasily Mikhailovich (posthumously)
• Gvozdev, Ivan Vladimirovich (posthumously)
• Kolesnikov, Grigory Yakovlevich (posthumously)
• Kornev, Grigory Semyonovich (posthumously)
• Makhalin, Alexey Efimovich (posthumously)
• Pozharsky, Ivan Alekseevich (posthumously)
• Pushkarev, Konstantin Ivanovich (posthumously)
• Rassokha, Semyon Nikolaevich (posthumously)

Orders of NGOs of the USSR

see also

Notes

1. Khasan conflict // “Military Historical Journal”, No. 7, 2013 (last cover page)
2. “Tashkent” - Rifle cell / [under the general. ed. A. A. Grechko]. - M.: Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, 1976. - P. 366-367. - (Soviet military encyclopedia: [in 8 volumes]; 1976-1980, vol. 8).
3. Hasan // Great Encyclopedia (62 vols.) / editorial coll., ch. ed. S. A. Kondratov. volume 56. M., “TERRA”, 2006. p.147-148
4. Major A. Ageev. Subject lessons for Japanese samurai. 1922-1937. // How we beat the Japanese samurai. Collection of articles and documents. M., publishing house of the Central Committee of the Komsomol "Young Guard", 1938. pp. 122-161
5. Vitaly Moroz. Samurai reconnaissance in force. // “Red Star”, No. 141 (26601) from August 8 - 14, 2014. pp. 14-15
6. V.V. Tereshchenko. “The border guard is also responsible for protecting borders from armed attacks” // Military Historical Journal, No. 6, 2013. pp. 40-43
7. V. S. Milbach. “On the high banks of the Amur...” Border incidents on the Amur River in 1937-1939. // "Military Historical Journal", No. 4, 2011. p.38-40
8. K. E. Grebennik. Hassan's diary. Vladivostok, Far Eastern book. publishing house, 1978. pp. 18-53
9. A. A. Koshkin. "Kantokuen" - "Barbarossa" in Japanese. Why Japan didn't attack the USSR. M., “Veche”, 2011. p. 47
10. D. T. Yazov. Loyal to the Fatherland. M., Voenizdat, 1988. p. 164

75 years ago, the Battles of Khasan began - a series of clashes in 1938 between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Red Army over Japan's dispute over the ownership of the territory near Lake Khasan and the Tumannaya River. In Japan, these events are called the “Zhangufeng Heights Incident” (Japanese: 張鼓峰事件).

This armed conflict and all the dramatic events that took place around it cost the career and life of the prominent hero of the Civil War, Vasily Blucher. Taking into account the latest research and archival sources, it becomes possible to take a fresh look at what happened in the Soviet Far East in the late 30s of the last century.

INGLOLOUS DEATH

One of the first five Soviet marshals, the first holder of the honorary military orders of the Red Banner and Red Star, Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher, died from brutal torture(according to the conclusion of a forensic expert, death occurred from blockage of the pulmonary artery by a blood clot that formed in the veins of the pelvis; an eye was torn out. - Author) in the Lefortovo NKVD prison on November 9, 1938. By order of Stalin, his body was taken for a medical examination to the notorious Butyrka and burned in the crematorium. And only 4 months later, on March 10, 1939, the courts sentenced the dead marshal to capital punishment for “espionage for Japan,” “participation in an anti-Soviet right-wing organization and in a military conspiracy.”

By the same decision, Blucher’s first wife Galina Pokrovskaya and his brother’s wife Lydia Bogutskaya were sentenced to death. Four days later, the second wife of the former commander of the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army (OKDVA), Galina Kolchugina, was shot. The third, Glafira Bezverkhova, was sentenced exactly two months later by a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR to eight years in forced labor camps. A little earlier, in February, Vasily Konstantinovich’s brother, Captain Pavel Blucher, the commander of the aviation unit at the OKDVA Air Force headquarters, was also shot (according to other sources, he died in custody in one of the camps in the Urals on May 26, 1943 - Author). Before the arrest of Vasily Blucher, his assistant Pavlov and driver Zhdanov were thrown into the NKVD dungeons. Of the marshal’s five children from three marriages, the eldest, Zoya Belova, was sentenced to 5 years of exile in April 1951; the fate of the youngest, Vasilin (at the time of Blucher’s arrest on October 24, 1938, he was only 8 months old), according to his mother Glafira Lukinichna, who served term and completely rehabilitated (like all other family members, including Vasily Konstantinovich) in 1956, remained unknown.

So what was the reason for the reprisal against such a well-known and respected figure among the people and in the army?

As it turns out, if Civil War(1918-1922) and the events on the Chinese Eastern Railway (October-November 1929) were the rise and triumph of Vasily Blucher, then his real tragedy and the starting point of his fall was the first armed conflict on the territory of the USSR - the battles at Lake Khasan (July-August 1938).

HASAN CONFLICT

Lake Khasan is located in the mountainous part of the Primorsky Territory and has dimensions of about 800 m in width and a length of 4 km from south-east to north-west. To the west of it are the Zaozernaya (Zhangu) and Bezymyannaya (Shatsao) hills. Their heights are relatively small (up to 150 m), but from their peaks there is a view of the Posyetskaya Valley, and in clear weather the outskirts of Vladivostok are visible. Just over 20 kilometers to the west of Zaozernaya flows the border river Tumen-Ula (Tumenjiang, or Tumannaya). In its lower reaches there was the junction of the Manchurian-Korean-Soviet border. In Soviet pre-war times, the state border with these countries was not marked. Everything was decided on the basis of the Hunchun Protocol, signed with China by the tsarist government in 1886. The border was recorded on maps, but only license plates were on the ground. Many heights in this border zone were not controlled by anyone.

Moscow believed that the border with Manchuria “passes along the mountains located to the west of Lake Khasan,” considering the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills, which were of strategic importance in this area, to be Soviet. The Japanese, who controlled the government of Manchukuo and disputed these heights, had a different opinion.

In our opinion, the reasons for the start of the Khasan conflict were at least three circumstances.

Firstly, June 13 at 5 o'clock. 30 min. In the morning, it was in this area (east of Hunchun), controlled by the border guards of the 59th Posyet border detachment (chief Grebennik), who ran to the adjacent territory with secret documents “to transfer himself under the protection of the authorities of Manchukuo,” head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far Eastern Territory, State Security Commissioner 3rd rank Genrikh Lyushkov (formerly head of the NKVD for the Azov-Black Sea region).

As the defector (later advisor to the command of the Kwantung Army and the General Staff of Japan until August 1945) told the Japanese authorities and newspapermen, the real reasons for his escape were that he allegedly “came to the conviction that Leninism is no longer the fundamental law of the Communist Party in the USSR.” , that “The Soviets are under the personal dictatorship of Stalin,” leading “the Soviet Union to self-destruction and war with Japan, in order with its help to “divert the attention of the people from the internal political situation” in the country. Knowing about the mass arrests and executions in the USSR, in which he himself took a direct part (according to the estimates of this “prominent security officer”, 1 million people were arrested, including 10 thousand people in the government and army - Author), Lyushkov realized in time that the danger of reprisals loomed over him too ", after which he escaped.

Having surrendered to the Manchurian border patrol troops, Lyushkov, according to the testimony of Japanese intelligence officers Koitoro and Onuki, gave them “valuable information about the Soviet Far Eastern army.” The 5th Department of the Japanese General Staff immediately fell into confusion, as it clearly underestimated the true number of Soviet troops in the Far East, which had an “overwhelming superiority” over their own troops stationed in Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese came to the conclusion that “this made it virtually impossible to implement the previously drawn up plan for military operations against the USSR.” The defector's information could only be verified in practice - through local clashes.

Secondly, taking into account the obvious “puncture” with crossing the border in the zone of the 59th detachment, its command three times - on July 1.5 and 7 - requested the headquarters of the Far Eastern Border District to give permission to occupy the Zaozernaya height in order to equip its observation positions on it. On July 8, such permission was finally received from Khabarovsk. This became known to the Japanese side through radio interception. On July 11, a Soviet border guard arrived at the Zaozernaya hill, and at night they set up a trench on it with wire barriers, pushing it to the adjacent side beyond the 4-meter border strip.

The Japanese immediately discovered the “border violation.” As a result, Japan's Chargé d'Affaires in Moscow Nishi handed over to the Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Stomonyakov a note from his government demanding "to leave the captured Manchu land" and to restore on Zaozernaya "the border that existed there before the appearance of the trenches." In response, the Soviet representative stated that “not a single Soviet border guard even set foot on the adjacent land.” The Japanese were indignant.

And thirdly, on the evening of July 15, on the crest of the Zaozernaya height, three meters from the border line, the head of the engineering service of the Posyet border detachment, Vinevitin, killed the “intruder” - the Japanese gendarme Matsushima - with a rifle shot. On the same day, the Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Shigemitsu visited the Soviet People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and again categorically demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the heights. Referring to the Hunchun Agreement, Moscow rejected Tokyo’s demands for the second time.

Five days later the Japanese repeated their claims to the heights. At the same time, Ambassador Shigemitsu told the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Litvinov that “his country has rights and obligations to Manchukuo” and otherwise “Japan will have to come to the conclusion that it is necessary to use force.” In response, the Japanese diplomat heard that “he will not find a successful use of this method in Moscow” and that “a Japanese gendarme was killed on Soviet territory, where he should not have come.”

The knot of contradictions has tightened.

NOT AN INCH OF LAND

In connection with the preparation of the Japanese for armed provocations, on April 23, 1938, combat readiness was increased in the border and internal troops of the Far Eastern Territory. Taking into account the difficult military-political situation developing in the Far East, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held on May 28-31, 1938. It featured a report from the OKDVA commander, Marshal Vasily Blucher, on the state of combat readiness of the army troops. The results of the Council were the transformation of the OKDVA into the Far Eastern Front (DKF) from July 1. By decision of the Defense Committee in June-July, the number of Far Eastern troops was increased by almost 102 thousand people.

On July 16, the command of the 59th Posyet border detachment turned to the headquarters of the 1st Red Banner Army with a request to reinforce the garrison of the Zaozernaya height with one rifle platoon from the support company of the 119th rifle regiment, which arrived in the area of ​​the lake. Hassan back on May 11, by order of Blucher. The platoon was detached, but on July 20 the commander of the DKF ordered it to be taken to its place of permanent deployment. As you can see, even then the perspicacious and experienced marshal clearly did not want to escalate the conflict.

In view of the aggravation of the situation, on July 6, Stalin sent his emissaries to Khabarovsk: the first deputy people's commissar of internal affairs (on July 8, 1938, Beria became another "combat" deputy of the people's commissar Yezhov - author) - the head of the GUGB Frinovsky (in the recent past, the head of the Main Directorate of Border and internal security) and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense - Head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army (since January 6, 1938 - Author) Mehlis with the task of establishing "revolutionary order" in the DKF troops, increasing their combat readiness and "within seven days, carrying out mass operational measures to remove opponents of the Soviet authorities", as well as churchmen, sectarians, suspected of espionage, Germans, Poles, Koreans, Finns, Estonians, etc. living in the region.

The whole country was swept by waves of “the fight against enemies of the people” and “spies.” The emissaries had to find such emissaries at the headquarters of the Far Eastern Front and the Pacific Fleet (among the leadership of the Pacific Fleet alone, 66 people were included in their lists of “enemy agents and accomplices” during the 20 July days). It is no coincidence that Vasily Blucher, after Frinovsky, Mehlis and the head of the political department of the DKF Mazepov visited his home on July 29, confessed to his wife in his hearts: "...sharks have arrived who want to devour me; they will devour me or I will eat them - I don’t know. The second is unlikely.". As we now know, the marshal was one hundred percent right.

On July 22, his order was sent to the troops to bring formations and units of the front to full combat readiness. The Japanese attack on Zaozernaya was expected at dawn on the 23rd. There were sufficient reasons for making such a decision.

To carry out this operation, the Japanese command tried to secretly concentrate the 19th Infantry Division of up to 20 thousand people, a brigade of the 20th Infantry Division, a cavalry brigade, 3 separate machine-gun battalions and tank units. Heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns were brought to the border - up to 100 units in total. Up to 70 combat aircraft were concentrated at nearby airfields in readiness. In the area of ​​sandy islands on the river. Tumen-Ula was equipped with artillery firing positions. Light artillery and machine guns were placed at the height of Bogomolnaya, 1 km from Zaozernaya. A detachment of Japanese Navy destroyers was concentrated in Peter the Great Bay near the territorial waters of the USSR.

On July 25, in the area of ​​​​border checkpoint # 7, the Japanese fired at the Soviet border guard, and the next day a reinforced Japanese company captured the border height of Devil's Mountain. The situation was heating up day by day. To understand it and the reasons for its aggravation, Marshal Blucher on July 24 sent a commission from the front headquarters to Khasan to investigate. Moreover, only a narrow circle of people knew about its existence. The commission's report to the commander in Khabarovsk was stunning: "...our border guards violated the Manchurian border in the area of ​​the Zaozernaya hill by 3 meters, which led to a conflict on Lake Khasan".

On July 26, by order of Blucher, a support platoon was removed from the Bezymyannaya Hill and only a border detachment of 11 people, led by Lieutenant Alexei Makhalin, was stationed. A company of Red Army soldiers was stationed on Zaozernaya. A telegram from the commander of the DCF "about violation of the Manchurian border" with a proposal for "the immediate arrest of the head of the border section and other culprits in provoking a conflict with the Japanese" was sent to Moscow addressed to People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov. The “red horseman”’s answer to Blucher was brief and categorical: “Stop fussing with all sorts of commissions and strictly carry out the decisions of the Soviet Government and the orders of the People’s Commissar.” At that time, it seems that open conflict could still be avoided by political means, but its mechanism had already been launched on both sides.

On July 29, at 16:40, Japanese troops in two detachments of up to a company attacked Bezymyannaya Height. 11 Soviet border guards took on an unequal battle. Five of them were killed, and Lieutenant Makhalin was also mortally wounded. The reserve of border guards and the rifle company of Lieutenant Levchenko arrived in time by 18:00, knocking out the Japanese from the heights and dug in. The next day, between the Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya hills at the heights, a battalion of the 118th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division took up defense. The Japanese, with the support of artillery, launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Bezymyannaya. Soviet soldiers fought to the death. Already the first battles on July 29-30 showed that an unusual incident had ensued.

At 3 o'clock in the morning on July 31, following a strong artillery barrage, two battalions of Japanese infantry attacked the Zaozernaya height and one battalion attacked the Bezymyannaya height. After a fierce, unequal four-hour battle, the enemy managed to occupy the indicated heights. Suffering losses, rifle units and border guards retreated deep into Soviet territory, to Lake Khasan.

Japanese on Zaozernaya Hill

From July 31, for more than a week, Japanese troops held these hills. Attacks by Red Army units and border guards were unsuccessful. On the 31st, the chief of staff Stern (previously, under the pseudonym "Grigorovich" fought for a year as the Chief Military Advisor in Spain) and Mehlis arrived on Hasan from the front command. On the same day, the latter reported to Stalin the following: " In the battle area, a real dictator is needed, to whom everything would be subordinated.". The consequence of this on August 1 was phone conversation leader with Marshal Blucher, in which he categorically “recommended” that the front commander “go to the place immediately” in order to “really fight the Japanese.”

Blucher carried out the order only the next day, flying to Vladivostok together with Mazepov. From there, they were transported to Posiet on a destroyer, accompanied by Pacific Fleet commander Kuznetsov. But the marshal himself was practically not very keen to participate in the operation. Perhaps his behavior was influenced by the well-known TASS report of August 2, which gave unreliable information that the Japanese had captured Soviet territory up to 4 kilometers. Anti-Japanese propaganda was doing its job. And now the whole country, misled by the official statement, began to furiously demand that the presumptuous aggressors be curbed.

Soviet aircraft bomb Zaozernaya

On August 1, an order was received from the People's Commissar of Defense, which demanded: “Within our border, sweep away and destroy the invaders who occupied the Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya heights, using military aviation and artillery.” This task was entrusted to the 39th Rifle Corps, consisting of the 40th and 32nd Rifle Divisions and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade under the command of Brigade Commander Sergeev. Under the current commander of the DKF, Kliment Voroshilov entrusted the general management of the operation to his chief of staff, corps commander Grigory Stern.

On the same day, the Japanese used their aircraft in the area of ​​Lake Khasan. Three Soviet aircraft were shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire. At the same time, having captured the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, the samurai did not at all strive to continue to capture “whole pieces of Soviet territory,” as claimed in Moscow. Sorge reported from Tokyo that "The Japanese have discovered a desire to resolve all unclear border issues through diplomatic means", although from August 1 they began to strengthen all defensive positions in Manchuria, including concentrating “in the event of countermeasures from the Soviet side around the collision area, front-line units and reserves united by the command of the Korean garrison.”

In this situation, the offensive of the Soviet troops, due to enemy opposition, shortcomings in the organization of interaction between artillery and infantry, without air support due to bad weather conditions, as well as poor training of personnel and poor logistics, failed every time. In addition, the success of the Red Army's military operations was significantly influenced by the ban on suppressing enemy fire weapons operating from Manchurian and Korean territories, and on any crossing of the state border by our troops. Moscow still feared that the border conflict would escalate into a full-scale war with Tokyo. And finally, on the spot, Mehlis began to constantly interfere in the leadership of formations and units, causing confusion and confusion. Once, when he tried to send the 40th Infantry Division to advance, no matter what, head-on to the Japanese, along a ravine between two hills, so that the enemy would not “scalp” this formation, Marshal Blucher was forced to intervene and cancel the order of the “party emissary” . All this was considered a front in the near future.

On August 3, the 39th Corps was reinforced by another - the 39th Infantry Division. Stern was appointed commander of the corps. The next day, Voroshilov, in a new operational order # 71ss, “to be ready to repel provocative attacks of the Japanese-Manchus” and “at any moment to deliver a powerful blow to the burrowing, insolent Japanese aggressors along the entire front,” ordered that all troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front and the Trans-Baikal Front be put on full combat readiness military district. The order also emphasized: “We don’t want a single inch of foreign land, including Manchurian and Korean, but we will never give up even an inch of our Soviet land to anyone, including the Japanese invaders!” A real war was closer than ever to the threshold of the Soviet Far East.

VICTORY REPORT

By August 4, the 39th Rifle Corps in the Khasan area consisted of about 23 thousand personnel, armed with 237 guns, 285 tanks, 6 armored vehicles and 1 thousand 14 machine guns. The corps was supposed to be covered by the aviation of the 1st Red Banner Army, consisting of 70 fighters and 180 bombers.

A new offensive by Soviet troops on the heights began in the afternoon of August 6. Suffering heavy losses, by the evening they managed to capture only the southeastern slopes of the Zaozernaya heights. The ridge of its northern part and the northwestern command points of the height remained in the hands of the enemy until August 13, until the completion of peace negotiations between the parties. The neighboring heights Chernaya and Bezymyannaya were also occupied by Soviet troops only after reaching a truce, during August 11 and 12. Nevertheless, on August 6, a victorious report was sent to Moscow from the battlefield stating that “our territory has been cleared of the remains of Japanese troops and all border points are firmly occupied by units of the Red Army.” August 8th is another “misinformation” for Soviet people appeared on the pages of the central press. And at this time, only on Zaozernaya, from August 8 to 10, the Red Army soldiers repelled up to 20 counterattacks of stubbornly unrelenting Japanese infantry.

At 10 o'clock in the morning on August 11, the Soviet troops received an order to cease fire from 12.00. At 11 o'clock 15 minutes. the guns were unloaded. But the Japanese until 12 o'clock. 30 min. They continued to shell the heights. Then the corps command ordered a powerful fire raid of 70 guns of various calibers on enemy positions within 5 minutes. Only after this did the samurai completely cease fire.

The fact of disinformation regarding the capture of the Khasan Heights by Soviet troops became known in the Kremlin from a report by the NKVD only on August 14. Over the next few days, Soviet-Japanese negotiations between military representatives of the two countries took place on the demarcation of the disputed section of the border. The open phase of the conflict has subsided.

The marshal's premonitions were not deceived. On August 31, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army took place in Moscow. On the agenda main question"About events in the area of ​​Lake Khasan." After hearing the explanations of the commander of the DKF, Marshal Blucher, and the deputy member of the military council of the front, divisional commissar Mazepov, the Main Military Council came to the following main conclusions:

“1. The combat operations at Lake Khasan were a comprehensive test of the mobilization and combat readiness of not only the units that directly took part in them, but also all the DKFront troops without exception.

2. The events of these few days revealed huge shortcomings in the state of the DC Front... It was discovered that the Far Eastern theater was poorly prepared for war. As a result of such an unacceptable state of the front troops, in this relatively small clash we suffered significant losses: 408 people were killed and 2,807 people were wounded (according to new, updated data, 960 people were killed and 3,279 people were wounded; the overall ratio of losses of the USSR and Japan is 3: 1. - Author)..."

The main results of the discussion on the agenda were the disbandment of the DKF Directorate and the removal of Commander Marshal of the Soviet Union Blucher from office.
The main culprit of these “major shortcomings” was primarily named the commander of the DKF, Marshal Vasily Blyukher, who, according to the People’s Commissar of Defense, surrounded himself with “enemies of the people.” The renowned hero was accused of “defeatism, duplicity, indiscipline and sabotaging the armed resistance to Japanese troops.” Leaving Vasily Konstantinovich at the disposal of the Main Military Council of the Red Army, he and his family were sent on vacation to the Voroshilov dacha "Bocharov Ruchei" in Sochi. There he, his wife and brother were arrested. Three weeks after his arrest, Vasily Blucher died.
(from here)

Results:
The USSR forces at Lake Khasan were:
22,950 people
1014 machine guns
237 guns
285 tanks
250 aircraft

Japanese forces:
7,000–7,300 people
200 guns
3 armored trains
70 aircraft

Losses on the Soviet side
960 dead
2752 wounded
4 T-26 tanks
4 aircraft

Losses on the Japanese side (according to Soviet data):
650 killed
2500 wounded
1 armored train
2 echelons

As we can see, the Soviet side had a clear advantage in manpower and equipment. Moreover, the losses exceed those of the Japanese. Blucher and a number of other persons were repressed. There were still 3 years left until 1941... In the battles for Khalkhin Gol, the Red Army managed to defeat the Japanese. We managed to defeat little Finland, piling on it with monstrously superior power, but still failing to achieve its complete occupation... But on June 22, 1941, the Red Army was “cleansed” of “enemies of the people”, despite a significant advantage in aviation, tanks, and artillery and manpower, fled in disgrace to Moscow. Hassan's lessons never came to fruition.

The battles at Lake Khasan (July 29, 1938 – August 11, 1938) (in China and Japan known as the “Zhanggufeng Heights Incident”) arose due to mutual claims between the USSR and a dependent state of Japan Manchukuo to the same border area. The Japanese side believed that the USSR misinterpreted the conditions Beijing Treaty of 1860 between Tsarist Russia and China.

Causes of the collision

Throughout the first decades of the twentieth century, there were strong tensions between Russia (then the USSR), China and Japan over the border issue in northeastern China. Here in Manchuria took place Chinese Eastern Railway(CER), which connected China and the Russian Far East. The southern branch of the CER (sometimes called the South Manchurian Railway) became one of the reasons for Russian-Japanese war, subsequent incidents that caused Sino-Japanese War 1937-1945, as well as a series of clashes on the Soviet-Japanese border. The most notable among the latter were 1929 Sino-Soviet conflict And Mukden incident between Japan and China in 1931. Fighting on Lake Khasan broke out between two powers that had long distrusted each other.

This clash was caused by the fact that the Far Eastern Soviet troops and border units NKVD erected additional fortifications on the Manchurian border in the area of ​​Lake Khasan. This was partly prompted by the flight of the Soviet general to the Japanese on June 13-14, 1938 Genrikh Lyushkova, who previously commanded all NKVD forces in the Soviet Far East. Lyushkov handed over to the Japanese essential information about the poor state of Soviet defense in this region and about the mass executions of army officers during Great Terror Stalin.

Starting a conflict

July 6, 1938 Japanese Kwantung Army intercepted and deciphered a message sent by the commander of Soviet troops in the Posyet area to his headquarters in Khabarovsk. He asked that headquarters give the soldiers orders to occupy a previously unowned hill to the west of Lake Khasan (near Vladivostok). Owning it was beneficial, since it dominated the Korean port of Rajin and the strategic railways connecting Korea and Manchuria. Over the next two weeks, small groups of Soviet border troops arrived in the area and began to fortify the mentioned heights, setting up firing points, observation trenches, barriers and communications facilities.

At first, Japanese troops in Korea paid little attention to the Soviet advance. However, the Kwantung Army, whose area of ​​responsibility included these heights (Zhanggufeng), became concerned about Soviet plans and ordered troops in Korea to take action. Korean troops contacted Tokyo with a recommendation to send an official protest to the USSR.

On July 15, the Japanese attache in Moscow, Mamoru Shigemitsu, demanded the withdrawal of Soviet border guards from the Bezymyannaya (Shachaofeng) and Zaozernaya (Zhangufeng) hills west of Lake Khasan, insisting that these territories belonged to the neutral zone of the Soviet-Korean border. But his demands were rejected.

Progress of battles near Lake Khasan

The Japanese 19th Division, along with some Manchukuo units, prepared to attack the Soviet 39th Rifle Corps (which consisted of the 32nd, 39th, and 40th Rifle Divisions, as well as the 2nd Mechanized Brigade and two separate battalions ; commander - Grigory Stern). Colonel Kotoku Sato, commander of the Japanese 75th Infantry Regiment, received orders from Lieutenant General Suetaka Kamezo: “At the first news that the enemy moved forward at least a little, You should launch a firm and persistent counterattack.” The meaning of the order was that Sato was to expel the Soviet forces from the heights they occupied.

The Red Army soldiers go on the attack. Fighting on Lake Khasan, 1938

On July 31, 1938, Sato's regiment launched a night attack on the hills fortified by the Red Army. At Zaozernaya, 1,114 Japanese attacked a Soviet garrison of 300 soldiers, killing them and knocking out 10 tanks. Japanese losses amounted to 34 killed and 99 wounded. At the Bezymyannaya hill, 379 Japanese were taken by surprise and defeated another 300 Soviet soldiers, knocking out 7 tanks, and losing 11 people killed and 34 wounded. Several thousand more Japanese soldiers of the 19th Division arrived here. They dug in and asked for reinforcements. But the Japanese High Command rejected this request, fearing that General Suetaka would use reinforcements to attack other vulnerable Soviet positions and thereby cause an unwanted escalation of the conflict. Instead, Japanese troops were stopped in the captured area and ordered to defend it.

The Soviet command assembled 354 tanks and assault guns at Lake Khasan (257 T-26 tanks, 3 ST-26 tanks for laying bridges, 81 BT-7 light tanks, 13 SU-5-2 self-propelled guns). In 1933, the Japanese created the so-called “Special Armored Train” (Rinji Soko Ressha). It was deployed to the "2nd Railway Armored Unit" in Manchuria and served in the Sino-Japanese War and the battles of Hassan, transporting thousands of Japanese soldiers to and from the battlefield and demonstrating to the West "the ability of an Asian nation to absorb and implement Western doctrines of rapid deployment and transportation of infantry."

On July 31, People's Commissar of Defense Klim Voroshilov ordered the 1st Primorsky Army to be put on combat readiness. The Pacific Fleet was also mobilized. Commander of the Far Eastern Front created back in June, Vasily Blucher, arrived to Hassan on August 2, 1938. By his order, additional forces were transferred to the battle zone, and on August 2-9, Japanese troops on Zhanggufeng were subjected to persistent attacks. The superiority of the Soviet forces was such that one Japanese artillery officer calculated that the Russians fired more shells in one day than the Japanese did in the entire two-week battle. Despite this, the Japanese organized effective anti-tank defense. Soviet troops suffered heavy losses in their attacks. Thousands of Red Army soldiers were killed or wounded, at least 9 tanks were completely burned, and 76 were damaged to one degree or another.

But despite repelling several assaults, it was clear that the Japanese would not be able to hold Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya without expanding the conflict. On August 10, Japanese Ambassador Mamoru Shigemitsu sued for peace. The Japanese considered that the incident had an “honorable” outcome for them, and on August 11, 1938, at 13:30 local time, they stopped fighting, yielding the heights to Soviet troops.

Losses in the battles on Khasan

For the battles on Lake Khasan, more than 6,500 Soviet soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals. 26 of them received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and 95 received the Order of Lenin.

According to the then data, Soviet losses amounted to 792 dead and missing and 3,279 wounded. It is now believed that the number of those killed was significantly higher. The Japanese claimed to have destroyed or damaged about a hundred enemy tanks and 30 artillery pieces. It is difficult to assess how accurate these figures are, but losses of Soviet armored vehicles undoubtedly numbered in the dozens. Japanese losses, according to the General Staff, amounted to 526 killed and missing, plus 913 wounded. Soviet sources increased Japanese casualties to 2,500. In any case, the Red Army suffered noticeably more casualties. Responsibility for this was assigned to Vasily Blucher. On October 22, 1938, he was arrested by the NKVD and apparently tortured to death.

Destroyed Soviet tank. Fighting on Lake Khasan, 1938

The next year (1939) another Soviet-Japanese clash occurred on the Khalkhin Gol River. For the Japanese, it had a much more disastrous result, leading to the defeat of their 6th Army.

At the end Second World War The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946) indicted thirteen high-ranking Japanese officials for crimes against peace for their role in starting the fighting at Lake Khasan.

Before we begin the description concerning the events at Khasan and Khalkhin Gol, we should remember what Japan was like in 1938. Nominally the emperor rules, but in reality the military and oligarchs have power. The entire top military ranks, the local Chubais and other Khodorkovites, are sleeping and looking for someone to rob and fill their purses with. And since your country has already been plundered, you can only grab something outside of Japan.

Nationalists, lured by the oligarchs, call on the people to fight against everyone who has offended and is offending the Japanese. The Russians, the USA, England, the Chinese (who are waging a civil war among themselves) and the Koreans for company are assigned as the culprits for everything. The USSR looked weaker than the USA and England, and they decided to start there. But, rightly fearing for their own skins, they did not dare to start a war without considering “is it worth it?” and “can we?” For this, it was decided to conduct reconnaissance in force, without starting a full-scale war. The place where it was decided to try our strength was near Lake Khasan. If you want to fight, there will be a reason, you just have to look for it. They found a reason and made a claim to the territory, which “suddenly” turned out to be “disputed.” To get things started, diplomats step in and, rather rudely, offer to leave the “disputed” territories. Attempts to point out what was wrong were met with threats of force.
Due to the increased threat of a military attack from Japan, the OKDVA was transformed into the Far Eastern Front on July 1, 1938. Marshal of the Soviet Union V.K. Blucher is appointed commander

(He was considered an expert on the East: it was under his command that in 1929, units of the Red Army defeated Chinese troops in a clash on the Chinese Eastern Railway. But at that time he was no longer the same dashing grunt. He drank himself to death, abandoned worries about providing the rear, and did not train soldiers and officers , distracted soldiers for chores. And cheerful reports were sent to Moscow about the constantly growing combat readiness.), a member of the Military Council was divisional commissar P. I. Mazepov, and chief of staff was corps commander G. M. Stern.

On the morning of June 13, 1938, the head of the NKVD department for the Far Eastern Territory, State Security Commissioner 3rd Rank Genrikh Lyushkov, ran over to the Japanese. Currying favor with his new masters, he spoke in detail about the deployment of Soviet troops, about the codes used in military communications, and handed over the radio communication codes, lists and operational documents he had taken with him.
The 19th Infantry Division, numbering up to 20 thousand people, which was to capture the hills adjacent to Lake Khasan, as well as a brigade of the 20th Infantry Division, a cavalry brigade, three separate machine-gun battalions and tanks began an offensive, with the goal (to begin with) of capturing border heights. Heavy artillery, armored trains, and anti-aircraft guns were brought here. Up to 70 combat aircraft were concentrated at nearby airfields.
The measures taken to strengthen defense capabilities turned out to be timely.
At the end of July 1938, the Japanese Armed Forces started a conflict, believing that here, in conditions of roadlessness and swampy terrain, it would be much more difficult for the Red Army to concentrate and deploy its troops. If the attack was successful, the Japanese plans went much further than moving the border near Lake Khasan.
On July 23, Japanese units located in Korea and Manchuria on the border with the USSR began expelling residents from border villages. And the next morning, artillery firing positions appeared in the area of ​​the sandy islands on the Tumen-Ula River. Armored trains lurked on the railway. At Bogomolnaya heights, one kilometer from Zaozernaya, firing positions for machine guns and light artillery were set up. Japanese destroyers were cruising in Peter the Great Bay, near the territorial waters of the USSR. On July 25, in the area of ​​border checkpoint No. 7, our border detachment was subjected to rifle and machine-gun fire, and the next day a reinforced Japanese company captured the border height of Devil’s Mountain...
Dreaming of quickly returning to bottles and his young wife, Marshal Blucher decided to voluntarily engage in a “peaceful resolution” of the conflict. On July 24, secretly from his own headquarters, as well as from the deputies who were in Khabarovsk. People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Frinovsky and Deputy. People's Commissar of Defense Mekhlis, he sent a commission to the height of Zaozernaya. As a result of the “investigation”, carried out without the involvement of the head of the local border station, the commission found that our border guards were to blame for the conflict, allegedly violating the border by 3 meters. Having performed this act worthy of current “peacekeepers” like Shevardnadze and Lebed, Blucher sent a telegram to the People’s Commissar of Defense, in which he demanded the immediate arrest of the head of the border section and other “those responsible for provoking the conflict.” However, this “peace initiative” did not meet with understanding in Moscow, from where came a strict order to stop fussing with the commissions and implement the decisions of the Soviet government to organize resistance to the Japanese.
Early in the morning of July 29, under the cover of fog, two Japanese detachments crossed our state border and began an attack on Bezymyannaya Height. The border detachment under the command of Lieutenant A. M. Makhalin met the enemy with fire. For several hours, eleven warriors heroically repelled the onslaught of many times superior enemy forces. Five border guard soldiers were killed and the rest were wounded, mortally - Lieutenant Makhalin. At the cost of heavy losses, the Japanese managed to take control of the heights. A reserve of border guards and a rifle company under the command of the communist Lieutenant D. Levchenko arrived at the battlefield. With a bold bayonet attack and grenades, our valiant warriors knocked out the invaders from Soviet soil.
Having cleared the hill, the soldiers equipped trenches. At dawn on July 30, enemy artillery rained concentrated fire on them. And then the Japanese went on the attack several times, but Lieutenant Levchenko’s company fought to the death. The company commander himself was wounded three times, but did not leave the battle. A platoon of anti-tank guns under Lieutenant I. Lazarev came to the aid of Levchenko’s unit and shot the Japanese with direct fire. One of our gunners was killed. Lazarev, wounded in the shoulder, took his place. The artillerymen managed to suppress several enemy machine guns and destroy up to a company of infantry. It was with difficulty that the platoon commander was forced to leave for dressing. A day later he was back in action and fought until the final victory...
Already the first battles on July 29-30 showed that this was not an ordinary border incident.
Meanwhile, Blucher actually sabotaged the organization of armed resistance to the invading aggressors. Things got to the point that on August 1, during a conversation over a direct wire, Stalin asked him a rhetorical question: “Tell me, Comrade Blucher, honestly, do you have a desire to really fight the Japanese? If you don’t have such a desire, tell me directly, as befits a communist, and if you have a desire, I would think that you should go to the place immediately.” However, having gone to the scene, the marshal only interfered with his subordinates. In particular, he stubbornly refused to use aviation against the Japanese under the pretext of fear of causing damage to the civilian Korean population of the adjacent strip. At the same time, despite the presence of a normally working telegraph connection, Blucher avoided talking via direct wire with People's Commissar Voroshilov for three days.
Due to the remote location and the almost complete absence of roads, the advance of the 40th Infantry Division to the border was slow. The situation was complicated by continuous heavy rains. At 3 o'clock in the morning on July 31, the Japanese opened artillery fire and, with the help of two infantry regiments, launched an offensive on the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya. After a fierce four-hour battle, the enemy occupied these heights. Our leading battalions retreated to the east of Lake Khasan: the battalion of the 119th regiment - to a height of 194.0, the battalion of the 118th to Zarechye. The main forces of the 40th Infantry Division at that time were on the march 30-40 km from the battle area.
At the direction of the People's Commissar of Defense K.E. Voroshilov, the troops in the Primorsky Territory, as well as the forces of the Pacific Fleet, were put on combat readiness. Repelling the enemy attack was entrusted to the 39th Rifle Corps under the command of brigade commander V.N. Sergeev. It included the 40th Rifle Division named after S. Ordzhonikidze (commander Colonel V.K. Bazarov), the 32nd Saratov Rifle Division (commander Colonel N.E. Berzarap) and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade (commander Colonel A.P. . Panfilov). The chief of staff of the front, corps commander G.M. Stern, arrived in the combat area with a group of commanders.
The Japanese, having captured Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya, covered these hills with deep trenches within three days. Machine gun platforms, dugouts, firing positions for mortars and artillery, wire fences and anti-tank ditches were equipped. On key positions Armored caps were installed under machine guns, and snipers were disguised behind stones. The narrow passages between the lake and the border were mined.
The commander of the 40th Infantry Division made the decision to attack the enemy at the heights on the move on August 1 and restore the situation on the border. However, due to impassable roads, units of the division reached their starting lines late. Corporal Stern, who was at the command post of the formation, ordered the attack to be postponed until the next day.
On August 2, the commander of the Far Eastern Fleet troops, V.K. Blucher, arrived in Posiet. Having familiarized himself with the situation, he approved the actions of G. M. Stern and gave instructions for more thorough preparation of the troops for the attack.
On the same day, the 40th Infantry Division went on the offensive. The main attack on the Bezymyannaya height was carried out from the north by the 119th and 120th Infantry Regiments, with the attached 32nd separate tank battalion and two artillery divisions. The 118th Infantry Regiment was advancing from the south.
The fight was brutal. The enemy was in extremely advantageous positions. In front of his trenches lay a lake, which did not allow our troops to attack the heights from the front: it was necessary to bypass the lake, that is, move along the border itself, strictly within our own territory, under enemy flank fire.
The 119th Infantry Regiment, having forded and swam the northern part of Lake Khasan, reached the northeastern slopes of the Bezymyannaya Sochka by the end of August 2, where it encountered strong fire resistance from the Japanese. The soldiers lay down and dug in.
By that time, the 120th Infantry Regiment had captured the eastern slopes of the Bezymyannaya hill, however, having encountered strong enemy opposition, it stopped the attack and lay down. The 118th Infantry Regiment captured a hollow to the west of Height 62.1 and by the end of the day reached the eastern and southeastern slopes of Bezymyannaya.
The infantry was assisted by the 32nd separate tank battalion of Colonel M.V. Akimov.
No matter how great the courage of the Soviet soldiers, all attempts by our troops on August 2 and 3 to drive the Japanese out of the occupied territory were unsuccessful. The front command, on the instructions of the People's Commissar of Defense on August 3, entrusted the task of defeating the enemy to the 39th Rifle Corps, whose commander was G. M. Stern. The corps included the 40th, 32nd, 39th rifle divisions and the 2nd mechanized brigade with reinforcements.
Meanwhile, trying to gain time to bring even larger forces to the Lake Khasan area and gain a foothold on captured Soviet soil, the Japanese government resorted to a diplomatic maneuver. On August 4, the Japanese Ambassador to Moscow met with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR M. M. Litvinov and stated that his government intended to resolve the conflict “peacefully.” This “peaceful path” meant an attempt to impose on the Soviet side negotiations on border changes, as well as to achieve the retention of Japanese troops in a number of areas of our territory. Such an impudent proposal was, naturally, resolutely rejected. The Soviet government firmly stated that a cessation of hostilities was possible only if the situation that existed before July 29 was restored. The Japanese refused this.
Then our troops were given the order to launch a general offensive. The order, in particular, said: “The task of the corps with attached units is to capture the Zaozernaya heights on August 6 and destroy the enemies who dared to invade our Soviet land.”
G. M. Stern proposed a bold plan: the 32nd Infantry Division with the 3rd Tank Battalion of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade would capture the Bezymyannaya height and, with a strike from the north-west, together with the 40th Infantry Division, expel the enemy from the Zaozernaya height;
The 40th division with the 2nd tank and reconnaissance battalions of the same brigade will capture the Machine Gun Hill height and attack from the northeast together with the 32nd division - the Zaozernaya height; The 39th Infantry Division with the 121st Cavalry Regiment, the motorized rifle battalion of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade was charged with providing cover for the right flank of the corps along the Novo-Kievskoye line, height 106.9.
The operation included artillery preparation by three regiments of corps artillery, as well as support and cover of ground forces by aviation. This time too, infantry and tanks were prohibited from crossing the state border between China and Korea.
The day of the general attack at Lake Khasan coincided with the ninth anniversary of the founding of OKDVA. In the morning, on this occasion, an order was read out in all units and divisions of the corps on behalf of the commander of the Far Eastern Fleet V.K. Blucher. “...Deal a crushing blow to the insidious enemy,” the order said, “to destroy him completely—this is the sacred duty to the Motherland of every soldier, commander, and political worker.”
On August 6, at 16:00, after the thick fog cleared, TB-3 heavy bombers, under the cover of fighters, attacked Japanese troops. More than 250 guns began artillery preparation. After 55 minutes, infantry and tanks rushed into the attack.
The enemy resisted fiercely. Under his machine-gun bursts, fighters in certain directions were forced to lie down in front of barbed wire barriers. But the heavily swampy terrain and dense artillery fire held back our tanks. But all these were just temporary delays.
By the end of the day on August 6, the 118th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Division captured the Soviet part of the Zaozernaya Height. The red banner on its top was hoisted by the secretary of the regiment's party bureau, Lieutenant (later Major General) I. N. Moshlyak, who inspired the soldiers with an example of personal courage. He went on the offensive with the lead battalion, and when the battalion commander died, he replaced him and ensured that the unit completed its combat mission.
The 32nd Rifle Division, under heavy enemy fire, persistently advanced along a narrow strip along Lake Khasan and successively captured the heights of Machine-Gun Hill and Bezymyannaya. The commander of the 1st battalion of the 95th Infantry Regiment, Captain M. S. Bochkarev, raised the soldiers to attack six times.
The fighting went on with unrelenting force. Both sides suffered heavy losses. Having brought up reserves, the enemy repeatedly launched counterattacks. Only on August 7, the enemy attempted them, for example, at the height of Zaozernaya twenty times! But they were all repulsed.
The battle lasted for four days without stopping. It ended with the defeat of Japanese units. On August 9, Soviet territory was completely cleared of foreign invaders. At noon on August 11, hostilities ceased. As a result, the Soviet side lost 960 people killed, died from wounds and went missing, and 3,279 were wounded and sick (Russia and the USSR in the wars of the twentieth century: Statistical research. M., 2001. P. 173). Japanese losses were 650 killed and about 2,500 wounded. Considering that we used aircraft and tanks, and the Japanese did not, the loss ratio should have been completely different. As has often happened in our history, officers and sergeants paid for the sloppiness of the highest military authorities and the poor training of soldiers with their heroism. This, in particular, is evidenced by the large losses of command personnel - 152 killed officers and 178 junior commanders. However, Soviet propaganda presented the results of the Hassan clash as a resounding victory for the Red Army. The country honored its heroes. Indeed, formally the battlefield remained with us, but it should be borne in mind that the Japanese did not particularly try to retain the heights behind them.
As for the main “hero,” a well-deserved reward also awaited him. After the end of hostilities, Blucher was summoned to Moscow, where on August 31, 1938, under the chairmanship of Voroshilov, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held, consisting of members of the military council Stalin, Shchadenko, Budyonny, Shaposhnikov, Kulik, Loktionov, Blucher and Pavlov, with the participation of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR Molotov and deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Frinovsky, who examined the issue of events in the area of ​​Lake Khasan and the actions of the commander of the Far Eastern Front. As a result, Blucher was removed from his post, arrested and executed on November 9, 1938 (according to another version, he died during the investigation). Taking into account the sad experience of the Blucher leadership, it was decided not to concentrate the command of Soviet troops in the Far East in one hand. On the site of the Far Eastern Front, two separate armies were created, directly subordinate to the People's Commissar of Defense, as well as the Trans-Baikal Military District.
The question arises: were Blucher’s actions ordinary sloppiness, or were they deliberate sabotage and sabotage? Since the materials of the investigative case are still classified, we cannot answer this question unambiguously. However, the version of Blucher’s betrayal cannot be considered deliberately false. So, back on December 14, 1937, Soviet intelligence officer Richard Sorge reported from Japan:
“There are, for example, serious conversations that there is reason to count on the separatist sentiments of Marshal Blucher, and therefore, as a result of the first decisive blow, it will be possible to achieve peace with him on terms favorable for Japan” (The Case of Richard Sorge: Unknown Documents / Publ. A G. Fesyuna, St. Petersburg, M., 2000, p. 15). The defector Lyushkov also told the Japanese about the presence of an opposition-minded group in the command of the Far Eastern Front.
As for the supposed impossibility of betraying such a well-deserved revolutionary commander, history knows many similar examples. Thus, the generals of the French Republic, Dumouriez and Moreau, defected to the enemy’s side. In a similar way, in 1814, Napoleon was betrayed by his marshals. And there is no need to talk about the conspiracy of German generals against Hitler, although many of them had services to the Third Reich no less than Blucher did to the USSR.
From the point of view of the Japanese command, reconnaissance in force was more or less successful. It turned out that the Russians were still fighting poorly, even in conditions of numerical and technical superiority. However, due to the insignificant scale of the clash, Tokyo soon decided to conduct a new test of strength.

Having suffered defeat during the intervention against Soviet Russia, in 1922, the Japanese were forced to evacuate from Vladivostok, but in the future they did not lose hope of subjugating the vast Asian territories of the USSR, right up to the Urals. By the early 1930s. The militarists took over in Japanese ruling circles. Japanese troops repeatedly staged military provocations against the Soviet Union from the territory of Manchuria they occupied in 1931-1932. In the summer of 1938, Japan with large military forces violated the Soviet border in the south of Primorye near Lake. Hassan. The 19th Infantry Division took part directly in the invasion. In addition, the 15th and 20th infantry divisions and other units were moving towards the combat area. On July 29, 1938, Japanese troops, after a series of attacks, throwing back the border units, captured the tactically advantageous Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya hills, relying on which they threatened the entire Posyet region. Troops of the future 39th Rifle Corps (formed on August 2, 1938, commander - corps commander G.N. Stern) took part in repelling the Japanese invasion. As soon as the provocation became known, the 40th Infantry Division of Colonel V.K. was concentrated in the conflict area. Bazarova. On July 31, the Primorsky Army and the Pacific Fleet were put on alert. The 32nd Infantry Division (Colonel N.E. Berzarin) and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade were additionally sent to the Lake Khasan area. The 2nd Mechanized Brigade was formed in April 1932 in Kyiv, and in 1934 it was transferred to the Far East. In October 1938, it was reorganized into the 42nd Light Tank Brigade. Just before the start of the conflict, Colonel A.P. took command of the brigade. Panfilov. The brigade was armed with, among other things, 94 BT-5 and BT-7 tanks. The brigade also includes a company of fire-reinforced HT-26s (5 serviceable units). In addition, the 32nd Rifle Division had a 32nd separate tank battalion (Major M.V. Alimov) with T-26s. The same battalion (Senior Lieutenant Sitnikov) was in the 40th Rifle Division. With considerable difficulty, the attack was repulsed and the border was restored, however, this incident revealed shortcomings in the management and training of troops. Miscalculations were used to justify repression. Many commanders, including one of the five first Marshals of the Soviet Union V.K. Blucher were arrested and then shot.

ENTRY IN I.M.MAISKY’S DIARY OF APRIL 12, 1938 ABOUT THE CONVERSATION WITH SUN FO

Sun Fo spent 6 weeks in Moscow. Negotiated with the Soviet government about assistance to China. He left satisfied and expressed gratitude to me for the careful implementation of the agreements we concluded in Moscow. However, Sun Fo apparently did not immediately become satisfied with the Moscow negotiations. As far as I could understand from his somewhat vague explanations in this part (in general, he speaks very clearly, precisely and frankly), on his way to Moscow, he hoped to convince the Soviet government of the need for a military action by the USSR against Japan in alliance with China. The Soviet government rejected such a proposal, but promised energetic assistance by sending weapons, airplanes, etc. The results are visible in the course of military operations in China. There is no doubt that the Chinese successes of three weeks are largely due to the arrival of our aircraft, our tanks, our artillery, etc. It is not surprising that Sun Fo now feels almost triumphant. The details of his decisive conversation with Comrade are curious. “I was told,” Sun Fo said, “that I would see your leader on a certain day, but they did not indicate the exact date. I got ready. I’m sitting at the embassy and waiting. Evening comes - 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock... Nothing!.. Somewhat disappointed, I decided to go to bed. He undressed and climbed into bed. Suddenly, at a quarter to twelve they came for me: “Please, they are waiting for you!” I jumped up, got dressed and drove off. Along with Stalin were Molotov and Voroshilov. At the end, Mikoyan and Yezhov also came. Our conversation lasted from 12 at night to 5 1/2 in the morning. And then everything was decided.” It was during this conversation, according to Sun Fo, that the Soviet government rejected direct military participation of the USSR in the fight against Japan. The motives put forward by Comrade Stalin in defense of this line of behavior, as transmitted by Sun Fo, boil down to the following: 1) military action The USSR would immediately unite the entire Japanese nation, which is now far from united in supporting Japanese aggression in China; 2) a military offensive by the USSR, on the contrary, could frighten the right-wing elements in China and, thus, split the united national front that has now been created there; 3) a military offensive by the USSR with the prospect of our victory would frighten England and the USA and could turn the current sympathy of both countries for China into its opposite; 4) a military offensive by the USSR - and this is especially important - would be used by Germany to attack our country in Europe, and this would unleash world war. For all the above reasons, Comrade Stalin considers an open military action by the USSR against Japan inappropriate. But he is ready to help China in every possible way by supplying weapons, etc. (Sun Fo is the head of the Chinese special mission sent to the USSR, England and France; Chiang Kai-shek’s confidant, millionaire). Published: Sokolov V.V. two meetings between Sun Fo and I.V. Stalin in 1938-1939. // New and recent history. 1999. N6.

HEAD OF THE PODGORNAYA BORDER POST P. TERESHKIN

On July 29, the head of the political department of the district, divisional commissar Bogdanov, and Colonel Grebnik arrived at the height of Zaozernaya. ...At the beginning of the conversation, Lieutenant Makhalin urgently called me by phone. I reported to Bogdanov. In response: “Let them act independently, do not allow the Japanese into our territory...”. Makhalin calls again and in an excited voice says: “A large detachment of Japanese violated the border and began to attack the border detachment’s locations, we will fight to the death, avenge us!” The connection was interrupted. I asked permission from divisional commissar Bogdanov to hold Makhalin’s group with heavy machine gun fire. I was refused this with the reasoning that this would cause retaliatory actions by the Japanese in the area of ​​Zaozernaya Heights. Then I sent 2 squads under the command of Chernopyatko and Bataroshin to help Lieutenant Makhalin. Soon, divisional commissar Bogdanov and department head Grebnik left for Posiet. From the memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union P.F. Tereshkina

ORDER OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR DEFENSE OF THE USSR No. 0071, August 4, 1938

In recent days, the Japanese in the Posyet region suddenly attacked our border units and captured part of Soviet territory near Lake Khasan. This new military provocation met with due resistance on our part. However, the Japanese stubbornly cling to Soviet territory, despite heavy losses of their troops. The provocative actions of the Japanese military are obviously calculated on our peacefulness and restraint. The Japanese believe that the Soviet Union and the Red Army will endlessly tolerate the brazen provocations of their military, which, under the guise of local border incidents, began to seize entire chunks of Soviet territory. We don’t want a single inch of foreign land, including Manchurian and Korean, but we will never give up even an inch of our own, Soviet land, to anyone, including the Japanese invaders! In order to be ready to repel provocative attacks of the Japanese-Manchus and in order to be ready at any moment to deliver a powerful blow to the burrowing, insolent Japanese aggressors along the entire front, immediately bring the troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front and the Trans-Baikal Military District to full combat readiness, for which I order: 1 Immediately return to their units all command, political, commanding and Red Army personnel from all types of work, secondments and vacations. 2. The Military Council of the DKFront take measures to cover the borders of the front. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account that if a new provocation arises from the Japanese-Manchus, then the covering troops with aircraft and tanks must be ready, upon special orders from Moscow, for an immediate powerful, crushing blow. 3. Bring the air forces of the DKFront and the Western Military District to full combat readiness: a) relocate air units to field airfields, providing them with air defense systems and reliable communications, having strong fists for powerful strikes; b) establish constant duty of fighter flights in full readiness for immediate departure; c) provide units at field airfields with bombs, ammunition for at least 2 sorties, at remote airfields for 5 sorties and fuel for 5 sorties; d) provide all flight personnel with oxygen devices for high-altitude flights and the required amount of oxygen; check and seal devices; e) The military councils of the DKFront, ZabVO, 1st and 2nd armies and the Khabarovsk group immediately, through special flight technical groups, together with the command, verify the readiness of the aircraft’s equipment, weapons and instruments. This check should be carried out at least four times a month. Commanders and commissars of air units should check daily; f) commanders and commissars of air units ensure the speed of refueling aircraft, hanging bombs and filling with cartridges; g) all commanders of the air forces of the specified front, armies, district and Khabarovsk group immediately have the stock of bombs, aircraft cartridges, fuel and technical personnel in charge of storing weapons and fuel checked, immediately eliminating all discovered shortcomings. 4. A. The Military Councils of the Democratic Front and the Western Military District should put all fortified areas on full combat readiness, reinforcing them, if necessary, with field troops. B. In fortified areas, their commandants: a) immediately install fully weapons and equipment in all structures; b) fill military installations with the required standard amount of ammunition and property; c) install wire barriers in important directions and build anti-tank obstacles; d) fully provide combat installations, command posts and field troops occupying fortified areas with communications means; e) establish a permanent military guard, patrol and observation service. 5. Rifle, cavalry and tank units must be placed in camps or bivouacs with combat support measures (security, duty units, air surveillance and air defense), having reliable communications within the formation. 6. In tank units, put ammunition in combat vehicles, have tanks constantly refueled and fully ready for immediate action. 7. In rifle and cavalry units: a) restore the full regular number of units in the units; b) check the readiness of mobilized plans for formations and units; c) issue the weapons and ammunition assigned to the soldiers to the units, where they are stored in a sealed form under the responsibility of the duty officer; d) transported supplies of ammunition should be placed in charging boxes and carts; e) commission repair horses at least 3 years old and check forging. Reforge horse train with old forging; f) have weapons and other property ready for quick delivery. 8. At air defense points, install artillery and machine gun units in position, relocate fighter aircraft to operational airfields and raise the VNOS system, checking the connection of VNOS posts with command posts and airfields of the fighter unit. 9. Fully provide transport parts with rubber, spare parts and fuel. 10. The military councils of the DKFront, the 1st and 2nd armies, the Khabarovsk group and the Western Military District: a) fully provide the units with all required property and ammunition according to wartime standards at the expense of the front-line (district, army) warehouses; b) put warehouses in order, and first of all, ammunition warehouses: dismantle the property stored in them, check the readiness of warehouses for the rapid release of property, review the security of warehouses and strengthen the main ones at the expense of secondary objects; c) conduct combat alerts of units and subunits. When raising units on combat alert, check their equipment and material security to the smallest detail in accordance with established standards and report cards. At the same time, conduct tactical exercises as part of formations, in which units raised on combat alert will act, obtaining from each commander, soldier and staff excellent knowledge of the terrain and combat conditions in their sector. Monitor the organization of communications at all levels of the headquarters service; d) pay special attention to training in night operations and repelling surprise enemy attacks at night and in fog, training your units to operate at night and in fog. I would like to draw the special attention of the entire command staff to this; e) in support units of border troops: 1) commanders of support units to develop on the ground, together with commanders of border units, a plan for border defense in their sectors. Provide technical communication between support units and the command of border units and with their direct superiors; 2) strengthen continuous military surveillance abroad, especially be vigilant at night; 3) study in detail the topography of their plots on the territory of the USSR; 4) store weapons and ammunition of support units in units, ensuring their uninterrupted food supply. 11. All measures to bring units into full combat readiness must be carried out while maintaining military secrets. 12. Commanders and commissars of all military formations should check all units and eliminate all detected deficiencies on the spot. The results of verifications and the measures taken must be reported in code to the command of units and formations, the Military Councils of the DKFront, the 1st and 2nd Armies, the Khabarovsk Army Group of Forces and the ZabVO once every five days, and the command of the DKFront and the ZabVO must be reported to the General Staff of the Red Army within the same period. Report receipt of this order and its communication to the executors no later than 24 hours on 08/06/38.37. People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union K. Voroshilov Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Army Commander 1st Rank B. Shaposhnikov

Present: Voroshilov, Stalin, Shchadenko... Blucher. Listened: About the events on the lake. Hassan. The Main Military Council, having heard a report from the NGO on the situation in the DKF [Far Eastern Red Banner Front] in connection with the events at Lake. Khasan, as well as the explanations of the front commander Comrade Blucher and the deputy front commander, member of the military council Mazepov, and having discussed this issue, we came to the following conclusions: 1. Combat operations near the lake. Khasan were a comprehensive test of the mobilization and combat readiness of not only those units that directly took part in them, but also of all DCF troops without exception. 2. The events of these few days revealed huge shortcomings in the composition of the DCF. The combat training of the troops, headquarters and command and control personnel of the front turned out to be at an unacceptably low level. The military units were torn apart and incapable of combat; The supply of military units is not organized. It was discovered that the Far Eastern theater was poorly prepared for war (roads, bridges, communications). Storage, conservation and accounting of mobilization and emergency reserves, both in front-line warehouses and military units, found themselves in a chaotic state. In addition to all this, it was discovered that the most important directives of the Main Military Council and NGOs were criminally not implemented by the front command for a long time. As a result of this unacceptable state of the front troops, we suffered significant losses in this relatively small clash - 408 people. killed and 2807 wounded. These losses cannot be justified either by the extremely difficult terrain in which our troops had to operate, or by the three times greater losses of the Japanese. The number of our troops, the participation of our aviation and tanks in operations gave us such advantages that our losses in battles could be much smaller... Moreover, the percentage of losses of command and political personnel is unnaturally high - about 40%, which once again proves that The Japanese were defeated and thrown beyond our borders only thanks to the fighting enthusiasm of the fighters, junior commanders, middle and senior command and political personnel, who were ready to sacrifice themselves, defending the honor and inviolability of the territory of their great socialist Motherland, as well as thanks to the skillful management of operations against the Japanese, i.e. Stern and the correct leadership of Comrade Rychagov in the actions of our aviation (...) During the period of hostilities, we had to resort to cobbling together units from different units and individual fighters, allowing harmful organizational improvisation, creating all kinds of confusion, which could not but affect the actions of our troops. The troops advanced to the border on a combat alert completely unprepared... In many cases, entire artillery batteries found themselves at the front without shells, spare barrels for machine guns were not fitted in advance, rifles were issued unsighted, and many soldiers, and even one of the rifle units of the 32nd division , arrived at the front without rifles or gas masks at all. Despite the huge reserves of clothing, many soldiers were sent into battle in completely worn-out shoes, half-footed, and a large number of Red Army soldiers were without overcoats. Commanders and staffs lacked maps of the combat area. All types of troops, especially the infantry, showed an inability to act on the battlefield, to maneuver, to combine movement and fire, to apply themselves to the terrain... tank units were used ineptly, as a result of which they suffered heavy losses in materiel. The culprit for these major shortcomings and for the excessive losses we suffered in a relatively small clash are the commanders, commissars and chiefs of all levels of the DKF and, first of all, the commander of the DKF, Marshal Blucher... The Main Military Council decides: 1. The administration of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front is to be disbanded. 2. Marshal Blucher should be removed from the post of commander of the DKF troops and left at the disposal of the Main Military Council of the Red Army. 3. Create two separate armies from the DKF troops, directly subordinate to the NPO... RGVA. F. 4. Op. 18. D. 46. L. 183-189 Blucher V. (1890-1938). Since 1929, commander of the Separate Far Eastern Red Banner Army. In the summer of 1938 - commander of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front. Arrested and shot in 1938. Rehabilitated after 1953. Stern G. (1900-1941). In 1938 - chief of staff of the Far Eastern Front. In 1941 - Colonel General, Head of the Main Directorate of Air Defense of the NPO of the USSR. Arrested on June 7, 1941 on charges of participation in an anti-Soviet military conspiratorial organization. Shot without trial on October 28, 1941. Rehabilitated in 1954. Rychagov P. (1911-1941) - Lieutenant General of Aviation (1940). In 1938 - commander of the Air Force of the Primorsky Group of the Far Eastern Front, 1st Separate Red Banner Army. In 1940 - Head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army Air Force. Arrested on June 24, 1941 on charges of participation in an anti-Soviet military conspiratorial organization. Shot without trial on October 28, 1941. Rehabilitated in 1954.

ORDER OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR FOR DEFENSE OF THE USSR No. 0169, September 8, 1938

On the imposition of penalties on the command of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front for violating the orders of the NKO On August 7, 1938, during the period of hot battles with the Japanese in the area of ​​​​Lake Khasan, the deputy commander of the DKFront, corps commander Comrade Filatov, signed an order on the disbandment of medical battalions and field hospitals in the rifle divisions located in battles. The Military Council of the 1st Army delayed the execution of this order. On August 17, the corps commander, Comrade Filatov, made another gross mistake - he ordered the deputy commander of the front air force to provide a DB-3 aircraft for the transfer of a representative of the NKVD from Khabarovsk to the city of Chita, thereby violating the orders of NKO No. 022 of 1934 and [No. 022] of 1936, categorically prohibiting the use of combat aircraft as transport vehicles. Asked on my orders why the plane was provided, and even the DB-3, Comrade Filatov reported that he had given the order to provide the plane, but did not indicate the type of plane; Meanwhile, Comrade Senatorov reported to me that Comrade Filatov’s written order specifically indicated DB-3. Thus, Comrade Filatov did not find the courage to admit his mistake, did not tell the truth, trying to shift the blame to Comrade Senatorov. In turn, the deputy commander of the DKFront Air Force, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Comrade Senatorov, having received and executed the order of the Corps Commander Comrade Filatov to send an aircraft for the specified purpose, did not report to him about the illegality of this order. Wine vol. Filatov and Senatorov is aggravated all the more so because they, having violated my orders, also did not take the necessary measures to organize this flight, and the plane way back from Chita to Khabarovsk crashed and 3 crew members were killed. For a frivolous attitude towards service and violation of NKO orders No. 022 of 1934 and No. 022 of 1936, I severely reprimand Comrade Commander Filatov. I put Colonel Comrade Senatorov on notice for violating NKO orders No. 022 of 1934 and 1936. I warn you that for the use of combat aircraft for purposes not related to combat and training missions, I will severely punish those responsible. People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Marshal of the Soviet Union K. Voroshilov