After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were evenly divided, and both countries had battles for victory and defeat in the military, scientific and technological fields, and industry. Even before World War II, the Soviet Union was already a military power, with a vast territory and a valiant army that intimidated its rivals.
However, perhaps you don't know that during World War II, the Soviet Union was also at a disadvantage, and Stalin even sent telegrams to *** six times, asking for assistance. However, to Stalin's surprise, in the face of Big Brother's request, ** all rejected him on the grounds of "powerlessness".
So, in what circumstances exactly did Stalin turn to *** for help? What are his specific requirements? And why didn't *** agree to his request?
In the thirties of the last century, the shadow of the Great Depression hung over Europe, and Germany fell into a serious economic crisis. However, with his unique charm and indomitable determination, Hitler succeeded in ascending to the pinnacle of power in Germany and carried out profound reforms in the German political and economic system, which enabled Germany to quickly recover from the economic crisis.
However, Hitler's ambitions did not stop there, and he built Germany into a formidable war machine, launching an attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, triggering a global World War II.
As a result of the appeasement policies of Britain, France, and other countries, Germany was able to conquer Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium and other countries at the speed of a blitzkrieg, and the war spread throughout the European continent.
When Germany attacked, the Soviet Union began its war against Finland. After two months of fierce fighting, the Soviet Union occupied eastern Finland and the three Baltic states, making tensions in Europe.
In fact, in the early days of the war, Hitler and Stalin coexisted peacefully, and even signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact. However, as the war progressed, Hitler's ambitions grew, and he believed that Germany needed more "living space".
And the USSR, due to its occupation by the "red beast", became one of the most valuable territories in Europe. So, after 1941, Hitler turned his attention to the Soviet Union.
For Stalin, this was bad news.
Although in the thirties of the twentieth century, Stalin brought about a rapid increase in the national power of the Soviet Union through two five-year plans, in 1937, the death of many outstanding Soviet generals led to a significant decline in the strength of the army.
Therefore, in the face of Germany's fierce eyes, the Soviet Union appeared ill-prepared. Instead, Hitler succeeded in taking control of all of Europe through a blitzkrieg strategy, and finally on June 22, 1941, he arrogantly ordered the Germans to attack the Soviet Union on three fronts, marking the beginning of the Soviet-German war.
In less than 20 days, the German army was overwhelmed, and the Soviet Red Army was losing ground one after another. On the first day of the battle, the Soviets lost 1,200 fighters.
As the war intensified, the decline of the Soviet Union became increasingly apparent. They were forced to retreat 400 kilometers, ceding large swathes of territory around the Baltic Sea, and the tide of the war was almost entirely tilted in favor of the Germans.
It was not until July 1941 that Stalin gradually stabilized the situation in the Soviet Union.
Stalin's strategy of "scorched earth resistance" ran into a wall in China. After ordering the evacuation, he took all the armored vehicles, artillery and military supplies with him, and even burned the building to a scorched earth.
Although this strategy caused huge losses to the Soviet Union, it succeeded in delaying the German offensive. The war was ultimately logistical support, and Stalin took the opportunity to reorganize the army and improve the initial decline of the German army, which was hampered by the lack of supplies.
However, at this very time, the Japanese army in the northeast began to wait for an opportunity to seize the land of Siberia.
During World War II, Japan's hostility towards the Soviet Union was closely linked to our country. At that time, the two countries had signed the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Treaty, but in order to support China's resistance against Japan, the Soviet Union provided a large number of ** and materials.
As a result, Japan believed that the Soviet Union could not protect itself, so it wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to attack. In the face of the intrusion of two strong enemies, Stalin gradually felt powerless, so in July 1941, he sent a telegram to Yan'an for the first time, requesting that *** immediately send troops to the northeast to contain the Japanese army in South Manchuria, so that when the Soviet-Japanese war broke out, he could provide support as soon as possible.
After receiving Stalin's request for help, **, after careful consideration, it was finally decided to accept his request.
He was aware that the Soviet Union was in crisis, but the War of Resistance Against Japan was also in a stalemate, and the domestic situation was also not optimistic. He firmly stated: "Our army needs to be ready to cooperate with the Soviet army in combat, and as long as the time is ripe, it can act." ”
For this reason, ** deliberately handed over this matter to *** to deal with. On the occasion of the imminent departure, ** particularly emphasized: "This kind of cooperation is a strategic cooperation, a long-term cooperation, not a campaign cooperation and a temporary cooperation, please consider all issues on this basis." ”
**Immediately comprehended ***'s intentions, he led the army all the way east, destroying important transportation hubs in Beiping, Zhangjiajie and other places, and causing great trouble to the Japanese army.
However, instead of engaging the Japanese head-on, as Stalin suggested, he constantly engaged in guerrilla warfare. This shows that although we did send troops after our party received Stalin's request for help, we did not engage in a direct confrontation with the Japanese in the northeast, as he advised.
Therefore, it can be said that we politely declined the response to this request for help.
At the end of 1941, the situation in the Soviet Union was still unstable, and Stalin feared that Japan would take advantage of the situation. He sent a second and third telegram to *** again, hoping that when the Soviet Union was attacked by Japan, ** could block it from the area of the Great Wall and slow down the pace of the Japanese army.
Having failed in his first call for help, Stalin was confident in this telegram. However, he did not expect ***'s refusal to be even more resolute, and even symbolic military assistance was not provided.
After three encounters, Stalin harshly criticized our country and even threatened to stop aid, which made Stalin very angry. However, ** did not succumb to the pressure and stood his ground.
However, between May and July 1942, Stalin suddenly changed his mind, courted our party and sent two telegrams asking for help. The reason behind this is that after protracted battles such as the Battle of Leningrad, the Battle of Khalikov, and the Battle of Crimea, the Soviet Union's battlefield situation has gradually improved, and it has entered a stage of strategic stalemate with Germany.
Around June 1942, Germany made Stalingrad, an important transportation hub and industrial town on the banks of the Volga River, a strategic goal. If the German army occupies this place, the Soviet Union will lose the oil, ** and other important resources needed for the war, and the initiative of the war will fall into the hands of Hitler.
Therefore, Stalin decided to transfer all the main forces of the Red Army, almost 3 million people, to Stalingrad. However, this move created a strategic vacuum in the western part of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union would be in danger of being attacked by the Japanese.
Therefore, Stalin twice asked *** that he would be able to strike at the Japanese army in the north in order to relieve the pressure on the Soviet Union.
In addition, he also proposed that a batch of supplies would be sent to our party on the border of Outer Mongolia, hoping that *** would be able to send troops to receive them. However, ** soon stated that the Sino-Mongolian border was the base camp of Japan, and if the Eighth Route Army wanted to receive **, it must send at least one division of troops.
However, under the suppression of the Japanese army, this move not only failed to achieve the goal, but could have an impact on the entire anti-Japanese war situation, therefore, ** again rejected Stalin's request.
Fortunately, due to the excessively long stretch of the front in our country, Japan was no longer capable of launching an attack on the USSR. Thus, despite Hitler's repeated urges to provoke a Soviet-Japanese war, Japan did not act.
In the end, it turned out that Stalin's plea for help may have been somewhat redundant.
At the time of Stalin's first five pleas for help, the Soviet Union was in crisis. However, by the time of the sixth call for help, the balance of war had already begun to tilt in favor of the Soviet Union. The victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943 marked an important strategic advantage for the Soviet Union.
Despite the heavy losses on both sides, the Soviet Union ** 2 million people, but annihilated 1.5 million elite troops of the German army. This battle completely dragged Germany into a quagmire, deprived the German army of most of its combat effectiveness, reduced the pressure on the anti-fascist European theater, and ushered in a turning point in World War II.
Stalin seized this opportunity and decided to continue advancing the front to the east.
On April 17, 1943, the Battle of the Kuban came as scheduled, which was a key battle for air supremacy launched by the Soviet Union, and it was also the largest and fiercest air battle since the outbreak of the war.
After the battle began, the Soviets quickly surrounded 300,000 German regiments, and the decisive battle was imminent, Stalin was full of confidence in this, looking forward to the victory and pursuit, and dealt a fatal blow to the Japanese army.
Therefore, in May, he called *** and asked the latter to put pressure on Japan inside and outside the Great Wall. In response, ** responded in time and arranged for the army to gradually advance northeast from near the Great Wall.
On the way forward, our army repeatedly encountered the Japanese army, however, ** decisively gave the order to avoid large-scale battles. He instructed us to continue to interfere with the Japanese army, to contain their movements, and to prevent them from continuing to advance to the north, so as to ensure the smooth progress of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union.
This strategy paid off immediately. During the Kuban campaign, our army managed to besiege the Japanese army, preventing it from posing any threat to the USSR. In the end, the Battle of the Kuban ended in a resounding victory for the Soviet army.
However, Stalin's point of view differed from ours. He hoped that we would be able to completely wipe out the Japanese forces in the north. Nevertheless, the chairman insisted on his decision and did not accept Stalin's request.
During World War II, China and the Soviet Union were allies and were supposed to assist each other. But why do you turn a blind eye to the frequent telegrams for help from Big Brother?
There are two answers. First of all, the situation of the War of Resistance in China was extremely difficult. As early as the early thirties, Japan provoked in the northeastern border areas of our country, and in 1931, the outbreak of the September 18 Incident, the Japanese army occupied the entire three eastern provinces, and China's War of Resistance fell into passivity.
At the same time, because Japan took the lead in realizing industrialization, it is far superior to China in terms of advanced equipment.
In the face of the best Japanese army, the people with lofty ideals in the land of China tried their best to resist, but the result was half the effort, and the land was lost one after another. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan and other metropolises fell into the hands of the enemy one after another.
To this end, Chairman ** found a unique way to create an anti-Japanese revolutionary base in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region, aiming to escalate the local war of resistance into a full-scale war of resistance, drag Japan into a protracted war, and consume its strength.
In this process, preserving the vital strength of our army is a matter of paramount importance. When Stalin asked our country for help, if the chairman rashly sent troops, he was afraid that it would cause heavy losses to our army and affect the overall situation of resistance against Japan.
** The chairman was far-sighted and well aware of this, so he did not accede to Stalin's request, even at the risk of offending the Soviet Union.
The Kuomintang's passive resistance to the war led to an increase in the burden on our army, and Chiang Kai-shek's policy of "settling the outside world must first secure the interior" gave Japan an opportunity to take advantage of it, and the three eastern provinces fell. The Kuomintang focused its struggle on our party, which objectively accelerated the process of Japan's invasion of China and made the war of resistance against Japan difficult.
** Facing not only the threat of the Japanese army, but also the prying eyes of the Kuomintang. In January 1941, Chiang Kai-shek instructed He Yingqin and others to lead 80,000 troops to raid the New Fourth Army.
At this time, it happened that Stalin asked for assistance, and in order to prevent our army from being attacked by **sneak attack, ** could only refuse Stalin.
On the battlefields of World War II, the Soviet people showed great tenacity and courage. Although our army failed to provide much assistance, the efforts of the Soviet people finally brought the Soviet-German war to victory.
In the Battle of Curs in 1943, the Soviet Union won a major victory, and from then on began to counterattack, recovering much of the lost territory, and pressing in the direction of Germany, and the war entered a new phase.
Looking back at history, although *** refused Stalin's 6 requests for help, this was only a helpless choice in a special period. However, the final victory in the anti-fascist war proved that the judgment of judging the situation at that time was completely correct.