On August 28, 1942, the General Staff of the Red Army adopted Directive No. 989242 on the procedure for registering military personnel sent to penal battalions and companies.

It was one of the documents that explained the famous order No. 227 "Not a step back", which was signed on July 28, 1942 by the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Joseph Stalin.

Directive No. 989242 was sent to the chiefs of staff of the fronts and the 7th separate army.

It ordered to inform the General Staff twice a month “on the number of variable personnel in penal battalions and companies,” and also listed the data that had to be provided.

Redemption by blood

Recall that in the document, which became known as the order "Not a step back," Stalin spoke about the lack of discipline in the ranks of the Red Army.

To rectify the situation, he called for turning to the experience of creating penal units, which, in his opinion, was successfully used by the enemy.

“After their winter retreat under the pressure of the Red Army ... the Germans took some severe measures to restore discipline, which led to good results.

They formed more than 100 penal companies from fighters who were guilty of violating discipline due to cowardice or instability, put them on dangerous sectors of the front and ordered them to atone for their sins with blood, ”the Soviet leader noted.

According to him, the Wehrmacht also formed about a dozen penal battalions from commanders convicted of cowardice and deprived of awards for violating discipline, after which "they were put on even more dangerous sectors of the front."

“Finally, they formed special barrier detachments, placed them behind the unstable divisions and ordered them to shoot alarmists on the spot in case of an attempt to leave their positions without permission and in case of an attempt to surrender,” Stalin said.

Analyzing the enemy experience, he came to the conclusion that the Germans were able to improve military discipline, "although they do not have the lofty goal of defending their homeland."

In this regard, Stalin, on behalf of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army, forbade the retreat of troops without an order from the leadership of the fronts and armies, and also ordered the creation of penal and barrage units.

According to order No. 227, depending on the situation, the command of each front was to form from one to three penal battalions of 800 people each.

These units were ordered to send political workers, middle and senior commanders, "guilty of violating discipline through cowardice or instability."

The penal battalions were instructed to operate in more difficult areas of the front line.

  • Propaganda poster of the Great Patriotic War

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

In turn, penal companies were formed within the armies.

The "quota" designated by Stalin was also small - from five to ten companies of 150-200 people.

Ordinary soldiers and junior commanders were sent to them.

Like the penal battalions, they had to "atone for their crimes against the Motherland with blood" in the most difficult sectors of the front.

As Vladimir Daines, a leading researcher at the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, noted, in order No. 227, the Soviet leader did not mention that penal units were used by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, and Stalin, who was at that time a member of the Revolutionary Military Council, could not help but know about it.

It is also noteworthy that the first penal company in the Soviet troops was created even before the issuance of order No. 227.

She appeared on July 25, 1942 in the 42nd Army of the Leningrad Front.

In an interview with RT, Andrey Gorbunov, a researcher at the Victory Museum, said that there was nothing new in the practice of creating penal units.

According to him, such units in various forms have existed since ancient times.

“In terms of creating penal units, the Soviet Union and Stalin were not any innovators.

At all times there were soldiers and officers who allowed themselves looting, violence, cowardice, desertion.

They were expected either by severe punishment up to the death penalty, or a particularly dangerous service to atone for guilt, ”Gorbunov explained.

The historian stressed that in the conditions of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union could not scatter human resources.

In this regard, according to Gorbunov, Stalin made a reasonable decision: to create shock units from military personnel who, under other circumstances, should have been imprisoned.

"On behalf of the Motherland"

Order No. 227 was immediately brought to the attention of the troops.

By the end of July 1942, about 80 penal companies and five penal battalions were formed in the Red Army.

As Vladimir Daines noted, Soviet soldiers and officers had an ambiguous attitude towards the order “Not a step back”, as evidenced by the reports of the state security and political departments that monitored the mood in the troops.

So, in a special message from the head of the Special Department of the NKVD of the Stalingrad Front, senior major of state security Nikolai Selivanovskiy, dated August 8, 1942, it was said that the reaction of the commanders of the Red Army was contradictory.

“Among the command staff, the order was correctly understood and evaluated.

However, among the general upsurge and correct assessment of the order, a number of negative, anti-Soviet defeatist sentiments are recorded, which are manifested among individual unstable commanders, ”the document said.

  • On the front line near Kursk, 1943

  • RIA News

  • © Ivan Shagin

Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky wrote in his book "The Matter of All Life" that he himself and many other generals saw "some sharpness and categoricalness" in the assessments of the order.

At the same time, from the point of view of the military leader, they were justified by the most difficult situation in which the army and the country were.

“Order No. 227 is one of the most powerful documents of the war years in terms of the depth of patriotic content, in terms of the degree of emotional tension ... In the order, we were primarily attracted by its social and moral content.

He drew attention to himself with the severity of the truth, the impartiality of the conversation between the people's commissar and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I.V.

Stalin with Soviet soldiers, from an ordinary soldier to an army commander.

Reading it, each of us thought about whether we give all our strength to the struggle.

We realized that the cruelty and categorical demands of the order came on behalf of the Motherland, the people, and it was important not what penalties would be introduced, although this mattered, but that it raised the consciousness of responsibility among the soldiers ... And those disciplinary the measures that were introduced by the order have already ceased to be indispensable,

It is worth noting that the illustrious military leader was one of the signatories of the directive, which provided for the creation of penal companies in tank troops.

On September 9, a similar document was adopted in relation to the pilots.

Pilots who evaded a combat mission were sent either to penal squadrons or to infantry.

Later, the Soviet command extended Order No. 227 to delinquent "specialists", military personnel who surrendered to the enemy without a fight, commanders who disrupted the food supply of units, as well as citizens who collaborated with the invaders.

In total, there were about 30 categories of persons who could be sent to penal units.

In the first year of the order No. 227, women sometimes became penalized.

However, in September 1943, the General Staff adopted a directive that stopped the recruitment of female soldiers convicted of crimes into penal units.

The formation and use of penal battalions and companies was not always carried out in the manner required by the Soviet command.

So, in March 1943, Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal Georgy Zhukov sent a directive to the front commanders, which demanded that the number of penal units be reduced and that the guilty should not be "aimed at the rear".

  • Mortar crew of the Red Army

  • © Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation

Nevertheless, as Vladimir Daines noted, most of the front-line soldiers testified that discipline reigned in the penal units due to well-organized political and educational work.

In addition, if there was time, the units underwent additional training before being sent into battle, which made it possible to fulfill the tasks assigned to them.

Were not cannon fodder

Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences, Colonel-General Grigory Krivosheev, in the book “Russia and the USSR in the Wars of the 20th Century: Losses of the Armed Forces”, with reference to archival reporting and statistical documents, wrote that by the end of 1942, the number of the so-called variable composition of penal units in the Red Army was 24,993 people, and in 1943 - 177,694. Then the number of arriving fines began to decline: 143,457 in 1944 and 81,766 in 1945.

Thus, during the entire war, 427,910 people were sent to penal battalions and companies.

In Russian historiography, data on the number of penal units still vary greatly.

In the list No. 33 of rifle units and subunits, compiled by the General Staff in the early 1960s, it is reported that during the entire period of the Great Patriotic War, 65 penal battalions and 1028 penal companies were formed.

At the same time, Colonel of Justice Andrey Moroz noted that the Central Archives of the RF Ministry of Defense kept documents on only 38 penal battalions and 516 penal companies.

Vladimir Daines emphasized that, contrary to a common myth, the penitentiaries were not cannon fodder and solved almost the same tasks as ordinary rifle units of the Red Army.

At the same time, acting on the most dangerous sectors of the front, they really suffered very heavy losses.

For example, in 1944, when all fronts were conducting offensive operations, the average monthly losses in all penal units amounted to 14,191 people, or 52% of their average monthly strength.

This figure was 3-6 times higher than in conventional troops participating in the same operations.

Such figures are given by Grigory Krivosheev.

In most cases, the fined were released within the time limits set by the orders of the people's commissar of defense and his deputies.

At the same time, for the courage and heroism shown in the battles, the fighters of the penal units were awarded orders and medals, and some of them were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

“On the whole, the penal units acted staunchly and courageously in defense.

They participated in forcing water barriers, capturing and holding bridgeheads, in combat operations behind enemy lines, ”wrote Vladimir Daines.

  • Attack of the Red Army

  • RIA News

  • © Boris Yaroslavtsev

According to Andrey Gorbunov, the penal units fought "no better and no worse than other units."

However, according to the expert, they were relatively few in number and did not solve strategically important tasks.

“It is customary in popular culture to romanticize fines.

But such an image can hardly be called adequate.

Penalties were not sent to death, and in principle there were relatively few of them.

Yes, they were often the first to go on the attack after artillery preparation, but their contribution to the Victory is a drop in the sea of ​​the titanic efforts of ordinary troops and our people, ”concluded Gorbunov.