Page 204 - The Chief Culprit

Destruction of the Security Pale on the Eve of the War y 165

evacuation. e Soviet security pale was constantly improving. e list of objects prepared for
explosion or evacuation became longer. New obstacles and barricades were erected, new forest
abatises were prepared, and artificial reservoirs were dug in front of defensive structures; areas
of the region could be turned into swamps if necessary.
In September 1939 the border of the USSR was moved 200 to 300 km to the west. e
depth of the security pale increased greatly. Moreover, the railroad system on the territories
acquired after the division of Poland was poorly developed. Out of 6,696 km of tracks, only
2,008 were two-way, and even they had a low capacity. In case of emergency, it was very easy
to make them completely unusable.
In November 1939, the Red Army in Finland learned the hard way that a security
pale could ease the position of the defense and complicate the position of the aggressor.
Crossing the Finnish security pale required a huge expenditure of time, strength, resources,
and blood.
All Soviet commanders expressed their awe at the Finnish line of defense, and among
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them was K. A. Meretskov, Commander of the 7th Army during the war against Finland.
After having surmounted the Finnish defense line and evaluated its qualities, Meretskov was
appointed Chief of the General Staff. In accordance with his newly acquired experience, he
should have reinforced the Soviet security pale. But he did exactly the opposite. Meretskov
ordered the destruction of the security pale created earlier on the old western borders, the
disbanding of the demolition experts’ squads, the dismantling of the charges, the disarming
of the mines, and the flattening out of all barricades. He also ordered his troops not to create
a security pale on the Polish territory annexed to the Soviet Union in 1939; to lead the main
forces of the Red Army to the edge of the borders (without protecting those forces with any
kind of security pale); to move the bulk of the strategic supplies of the Red Army from the
depths of the country to the western regions; to build air bases and roads in Western Belorussia
and Western Ukraine; to transform one-track railroads into two-track ones (to raise their
cargo-carrying capacity); and to build new roads leading straight to the German border.
Here are the results of that policy. In 1939, Poland was divided between Germany and
the Soviet Union. Some rivers became borders. Bridges on those rivers that were not used
were still kept intact. In the line held by the 4th Army alone, there were six such bridges.
e former Chief of Staff of the 4th Army, Colonel General L. M. Sandalov, asked:
“Why, to ask frankly, were so many bridges across the Bug [river] kept intact in the line of the
4th Army?” e German command hoped to use the bridges in an aggressive war, and thus
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did not ask for their destruction. But what did the Soviet command hope for?
At the beginning of the war, a huge number of German troops went across those bridg-
es, crushing the Soviet 4th Army in a surprise attack. e defeat of the 4th Army opened the
way to the rear of the really powerful 10th Army, which also suffered unimaginable devasta-
tion. Without encountering any more barriers, Guderian’s tanks headed straight for Minsk
in Belarus. e German troops advanced without complications, taking bridges on the rivers
Daugava, Berezina, Nieman, Pripiat, and Dnepr.
In January 1941, Stalin replaced Chief of General Staff K. A. Meretskov for not be-
ing sufficiently active in the construction of new roads, bridges, and air bases in the new
regions. On February 1, 1941, General of the Army G. K. Zhukov replaced Meretskov as
Chief of the General Staff. e work began at a truly Zhukov speed. Before 1941, the Red