Human and the Cacophony of War (Summer-Autumn 1941): New Sources and Attempts of Interpreting

Abstract

The article is devoted to complicated problems of the initial period of the Great Patriotic war: a political, organizational, psychological and mental aspects of the collapse of the myth of Bolshevik military-ideological power, simulated by the authorities in the individual and public consciousness of the Soviet citizens in the pre-war period. An analysis is made of the situation of chaos caused by a sudden and treacherous attack of a powerful and ruthless enemy of the country and the North-Western region of Russia in particular, its impact on moral and morale of military personnel and civilians. In the center of the study — people and groups of people facing one-on-one with an all-consuming Moloch of war, with its horrors and irrationality. In work on materials of Central and regional archives reconstructed picture of the state of legal confusion and the collapse of confidence on the part of military personnel and the population in the strength and power of the Soviet state system. Attempted to address the hypocrisy and short-sightedness of Central and local authorities to arrange them in the prewar years and the initial period of the war the entire system of ideological and mass-political work, to show the price and the viciousness of the so-called «political chatter».