75 years ago, the Khasan battles began - a series of clashes in 1938 between the Japanese Imperial Army and the Red Army due to Japan's dispute over the ownership of the territory near Lake Khasan and the Tumannaya River. In Japan, these events are referred to as the "Janggufeng Height Incident" (Jap. 張鼓峰事件).

This armed conflict and all the dramatic events that took place around it cost the career and life of Vasily Blucher, a prominent hero of the Civil War. 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 at the end of the 30s of the last century.

INGLORED DEATH

One of the first five Soviet marshals, the first cavalier of the honorary military orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star, Vasily Konstantinovich Blyukher, died from severe torture (according to the conclusion of the forensic expert, death was caused by blockage of the pulmonary artery by a thrombus formed in the veins of the pelvis; an eye was torn out. - Auth.) in the Lefortovo prison of the NKVD on November 9, 1938. By order of Stalin, his body was taken for a medical examination to the infamous Butyrka and burned in a 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 the anti-Soviet organization of the right and in a military conspiracy."

Blucher's first wife, Galina Pokrovskaya, and his brother's wife, Lydia Bogutskaya, were sentenced to death by the same decision. 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 the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR to eight years in labor camps. A little earlier, in February, Vasily Konstantinovich's brother, Captain Pavel Blyukher, an air unit commander 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 - Auth.). Before the arrest of Vasily Blucher, his assistant Pavlov and driver Zhdanov were thrown into the casemates of the NKVD. Of the five children of the marshal from three marriages, the eldest - Zoya Belova in April 1951 was sentenced to 5 years of exile, the fate of the youngest - Vasilina (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 fully rehabilitated (like all other family members, including Vasily Konstantinovich) in 1956, remained unknown.

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

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

KHASAN CONFLICT

Lake Khasan is located in the mountainous part of the Primorsky Territory and has a size of about 800 m in width and a length of 4 km from southeast to northwest. West of it are the Zaozernaya (Zhanggu) and Bezymyannaya (Shacao) hills. Their heights are relatively small (up to 150 m), but from their peaks a view of the Posyetskaya valley opens, and in clear weather, the surroundings 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 a junction of the Manchu-Korean-Soviet border. In pre-war Soviet 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 fixed on the maps, but only license plates stood on the ground. Many heights in this border zone were not controlled by anyone.

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

The reasons for the beginning of the Khasan conflict, in our opinion, were at least three circumstances.

First, June 13 at 5:00 p.m. 30 minutes. in the morning it was in this area (east of Hunchun), controlled by the border guards of the 59th Posietsky border detachment (head Grebennik), that he defected to the adjacent territory with secret documents, "in order to transfer himself under the protection of the authorities of Manchukuo", head of the NKVD Directorate for the Far Eastern Territory, Commissar of State Security 3rd rank Genrikh Lyushkov (formerly head of the UNKVD for the Azov-Chernomorsky Territory).

As the defector (subsequently until August 1945 an adviser to the command of the Kwantung Army and the General Staff of Japan) told the Japanese authorities and newspapermen, the real reasons for his flight were that he supposedly “came to the conclusion that Leninism is no longer the fundamental law 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 to use it to "distract 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 Chekist", 1 million people were arrested, including 10 thousand people in the government and the army. - Auth.) , Lyushkov realized in time that the danger of reprisal hung over him, after which he escaped.

Having surrendered to the Manchu 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 Division of the General Staff of Japan was immediately confused, as it clearly underestimated the true number of Soviet troops in the Far East, which had "overwhelming superiority" over their own troops stationed in Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese came to the conclusion that "this made it virtually impossible to carry out the previously drawn up plan of military operations against the USSR." The only way to verify the defector's information was in practice - through local clashes.

Secondly, given the obvious "puncture" with the border crossing in the strip of the 59th detachment, its command three times - on July 1.5 and July 7 asked the headquarters of the Far Eastern border circle to give permission to occupy the Zaozernaya height in order to equip their observation positions on it. On July 8, such permission was finally received from Khabarovsk. By radio interception, this became known to the Japanese side. On July 11, a Soviet border detachment arrived at the Zaozernaya hill, which at night equipped a trench with barbed wire on it, pushing it to the adjacent side beyond the 4-meter border strip.

The Japanese immediately discovered the "border violation". As a result, Japan's charge d'affaires in Moscow, Nishi, handed over to Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR Stomonyakov a note from his government demanding "to leave the captured Manchurian land" and to restore "the border that existed there before the appearance of trenches" on Zaozernaya. In response, the Soviet representative stated that "not a single Soviet border guard stepped an inch into the adjacent land." The Japanese were outraged.

And, thirdly, on July 15 in the evening, 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, shot the "violator" - the Japanese gendarme Matsushima - with a shot from a rifle. On the same day, the Japanese ambassador to the USSR, Shigemitsu, visited the Soviet People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and again categorically demanded that Soviet troops from high. Referring to the Hunchun Agreement, Moscow rejected Tokyo's demands for the second time.

Five days later the Japanese repeated their claim 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 means in Moscow" and that "a Japanese gendarme was killed on Soviet territory, where he should not have come."

The knot of contradictions dragged on.

NOT A SPIT OF EARTH

In connection with the preparation of the Japanese for armed provocations, as early as 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 in the Far East, on May 28-31, 1938, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held. It heard a report by the commander of OKDVA, Marshal Vasily Blyukher, on the state of combat readiness of the army troops. The results of the Council was the transformation from July 1 OKDVA into the Far Eastern Front (DKF). 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 Posyetsky 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 ​​Lake. Hassan on May 11th on the orders of Blucher. The platoon was detached, but on July 20 the commander of the DKF ordered to take it to the place of permanent deployment. As you can see, even then the far-sighted and experienced marshal clearly did not want the conflict to escalate.

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 people's commissar Yezhov. - Auth.) - 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 - Auth.) Mekhlis with the task of establishing "revolutionary order in the troops of the DKF, increasing their combat readiness and" within seven days to carry 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.

Waves of "fight against the enemies of the people" and "spies" swept over the whole country. Such emissaries were also to be found at the headquarters of the Far Eastern Front and the Pacific Fleet (only among the leadership of the Pacific Fleet during the 20 days of July, 66 people were included in their lists of "enemy agents and accomplices"). It is no coincidence that Vasily Blucher, after Frinovsky, Mekhlis and the head of the political department of the DKF Mazepov visited his house on July 29, confessed to his wife in their hearts: "... sharks arrived who want to devour me, they will devour me or I don't know them. The second is unlikely". As we now know, the marshal was 100% right.

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

To carry out this operation, the Japanese command tried to covertly concentrate the 19th Infantry Division, numbering 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 up to the border - up to 100 units in total. At the nearest airfields, up to 70 combat aircraft were concentrated in readiness. In the area of ​​sandy islands on the river. Tumen-Ula they were equipped with artillery firing positions. Light artillery and machine guns were placed at the height of Bogomolnaya, 1 km from Zaozernaya. In the Gulf of Peter the Great, near the territorial waters of the USSR, a detachment of destroyers of the Japanese Navy was concentrated.

On July 25, in the area of ​​the border sign # 7, the Japanese fired on the Soviet border detachment, and the next day a reinforced Japanese company captured the border height of Chertova Gora. The situation escalated day by day. To understand it and the reasons for its aggravation, on July 24, Marshal Blucher sent a commission of the front headquarters to Khasan to investigate. Moreover, only a narrow circle of people knew about its existence. The report of the commission 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, on the orders of Blucher, a support platoon was removed from the Bezymyannaya hill and only a frontier detachment consisting of 11 people led by Lieutenant Alexei Makhalin was placed. On Zaozernaya, a company of Red Army soldiers was stationed. A telegram from the commander of the DKF "about violating the Manchurian border" was sent to Moscow in the name of People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov with a proposal "to immediately arrest the head of the border station and other culprits in provoking a conflict with the Japanese." The answer of the "red horseman" to Blucher was brief and categorical: "Stop fussing with all sorts of commissions and accurately carry out the decisions of the Soviet Government and the orders of the People's Commissar." At that time, it seems that an open conflict could still have been avoided by political means, but its mechanism had already been launched on both sides.

On July 29, at 4:40 p.m., Japanese troops attacked Bezymyannaya Hill with two detachments up to a company. 11 Soviet border guards took an unequal battle. Five of them were killed, and Lieutenant Makhalin was also mortally wounded. The reserve of border guards arrived in time and the rifle company of Lieutenant Levchenko by 18 o'clock knocked out the Japanese from a height and dug in. The next day, between the Bezymyannaya and Zaozernaya hills, a battalion of the 118th Infantry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division took up defense on the heights. 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 begun.

At 3 am on July 31, following heavy artillery preparation, 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 take the indicated heights. Suffering losses, rifle units and border guards withdrew deep into Soviet territory, to Lake Khasan.

The Japanese on the hill Zaozernaya

From July 31, for more than a week, Japanese troops held these hills. The attacks of the Red Army units and border guards were unsuccessful. On the 31st, Chief of Staff Stern (before that, under the pseudonym "Grigorovich" fought for a year as Chief Military Adviser in Spain) and Mehlis arrived at Hasan from the command of the front. On the same day, the latter reported to Stalin the following: A real dictator is needed in the area of ​​battles, to whom everything would be subordinated". The consequence of this on August 1 was a telephone conversation between the leader and Marshal Blucher, in which he categorically "recommended" the commander "to 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, on a destroyer, accompanied by the commander of the Pacific Fleet Kuznetsov, they were delivered to Posyet. But the marshal himself was practically not very eager to participate in the operation. Perhaps his behavior was also influenced by the well-known TASS message of August 2, where false information was given that the Japanese had captured Soviet territory up to 4 kilometers away. Anti-Japanese propaganda did its job. And now the whole country, misled by the official statement, began to furiously demand to curb the presumptuous aggressors.

Soviet aircraft bomb Zaozernaya

On August 1, an order was received from the People's Commissar of Defense, who demanded: "Within our border, sweep away and destroy the interventionists who occupied the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, using combat aircraft and artillery." This task was entrusted to solve the 39th Rifle Corps as part of the 40th and 32nd Rifle Divisions and the 2nd Mechanized Brigade under the command of Brigade Commander Sergeyev. Under the current commander of the DKF, Kliment Voroshilov entrusted the overall leadership of the operation to his chief of staff commander Grigory Stern.

On the same day, the Japanese used their aircraft in the area of ​​​​Lake Khasan. 3 Soviet aircraft were shot down by enemy anti-aircraft fire. At the same time, having mastered the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, the samurai did not at all strive to continue to seize "whole pieces of Soviet territory," as Moscow claimed. 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, deficiencies in the organization of interaction between artillery and infantry, without air support due to non-flying weather conditions, as well as poor training of personnel and poor logistical security, failed each time. In addition, the success of the military operations of the Red Army was significantly affected by the ban on the suppression of enemy firepower operating from the 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 interfere all the time in the leadership of formations and units, introducing confusion and confusion. Once, when he tried to send the 40th Infantry Division to attack, in spite of everything, in front of the Japanese, along the hollow 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 counted as a comfort in the near future.

On August 3, the 39th Corps was reinforced by another one - the 39th Rifle 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 by the Japanese-Manchus" and "at any moment to deliver a powerful blow to the burrowing impudent Japanese aggressors along the entire front," ordered all the troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Front and the Trans-Baikal military district. The order also emphasized: "We do not want a single inch of foreign land, including Manchurian and Korean, but we will never give our Soviet land to anyone, including the Japanese invaders!" The real war was closer than ever to the threshold of the Soviet Far East.

VICTORIOUS REPORT

By August 4, the 39th Rifle Corps in the Khasan area had about 23 thousand personnel, was 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 height. The crest 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 the peace negotiations between the parties. The neighboring heights of Chernaya and Bezymyannaya were also occupied by Soviet troops only after the armistice was reached, during August 11 and 12. Nevertheless, on August 6, a victorious report left the battlefield in Moscow 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." On August 8, another "disinformation" for the Soviet people hit the pages of the central press. And at this time, only on Zaozernaya, from August 8 to 10, the Red Army repulsed up to 20 counterattacks of the stubbornly non-surrendering Japanese infantry.

At 10 am 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. hour. 30 minutes. still 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 that, the samurai completely ceased fire.

The fact of misinformation about the capture of the Khasan heights by the Soviet troops became known in the Kremlin from the report of the NKVD only on August 14. During the following days, Soviet-Japanese negotiations between the military representatives of the two countries took place on the demarcation of the disputed section of the border. The open phase of the conflict began to wane.

The marshal's premonitions did not deceive him. On August 31, a meeting of the Main Military Council of the Red Army was held in Moscow. On the agenda was the main issue "About the events in the area of ​​Lake Khasan." After listening to 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. Combat operations near 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 troops of the DC Front without exception.

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

The main results of the discussion on the agenda were the dissolution of the Department of the DKF and the dismissal of the commander of the Marshal of the Soviet Union Blucher.
The main culprit of these "major shortcomings" in the first place was 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 illustrious hero was accused of "defeatism, duplicity, indiscipline and sabotage of the armed rebuff to the 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 Ruchey" in Sochi. There he was arrested with his wife and brother. Three weeks after his arrest, Vasily Blucher died.
(from here)

Results:
The forces of the USSR 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
2,752 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 you can see, the Soviet side had a clear advantage in manpower and equipment. In this case, the losses exceed the Japanese. Blucher and a number of other persons were repressed. Until 1941, there were still 3 years left ... In the battles for Khalkhin Gol, the Red Army managed to defeat the Japanese. It was possible to defeat little Finland, leaning on it with monstrously superior power, but failing to achieve its complete occupation ... But on June 22, 1941, the Red Army, "cleared" from "enemies of the people", despite a significant advantage in aviation, tanks, artillery and manpower, fled in disgrace to Moscow. Hasan's lessons did not go to the future.

Relations between the USSR and Japan in 1938 cannot be called friendly even with the greatest stretch.

As a result of the intervention against China, a pseudo-state of Manchukuo, controlled from Tokyo, was created on part of its territory, namely in Manchuria. Since January, Soviet military specialists have taken part in the hostilities on the side of the army of the Celestial Empire. The latest equipment (tanks, aircraft, air defense artillery systems) was shipped to the ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai. It wasn't hidden.

By the time the conflict arose on Lake Khasan, Soviet pilots and their Chinese colleagues had already destroyed dozens of Japanese aircraft in the air, carried out a number of bombing attacks on airfields, and they also sunk the Yamato aircraft carrier in March.

A situation ripened in which the Japanese leadership, striving for the expansion of the empire, was interested in testing the strength of the ground forces of the USSR. The Soviet government, confident in its capabilities, behaved no less resolutely.

The conflict at Lake Khasan has its own background. On June 13, the Manchurian border was secretly crossed by Genrikh Samuilovich Lyushkov, the authorized representative of the NKVD, who oversaw intelligence work in the Far East. Having gone over to the side of the Japanese, he revealed to them many secrets. He had something to say...

The conflict did not begin with an insignificant, at first glance, fact of reconnaissance of Japanese topographic units. Any officer knows that the preparation of detailed maps precedes an offensive operation, and this was precisely what the special units of the potential enemy were doing on the two border hills Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya, near which the lake is located. On July 12, a small detachment of Soviet border guards occupied the heights and dug in on them.

It is possible that these actions would not have led to an armed conflict near Lake Khasan, but there is an assumption that it was the traitor Lyushkov who convinced the Japanese command of the weakness of the Soviet defense, otherwise it is difficult to explain the further actions of the aggressors.

On July 15, a Soviet officer shoots a Japanese gendarme, who clearly provoked him to this act, and kills him. Then postmen begin to violate the border with letters demanding to leave the skyscrapers. These actions were not successful. Then, on July 20, 1938, the Japanese ambassador in Moscow gives the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs Litvinov an ultimatum, which produced approximately the same effect as the mentioned postal items.

On July 29, the conflict began on Lake Khasan. Japanese gendarmes went to storm the heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya. There were few of them, only a company, but there were only eleven border guards, four of them died. A platoon of Soviet soldiers hastened to help. The attack was repulsed.

Further - more, the conflict at Lake Khasan was gaining momentum. The Japanese used artillery, then the forces of two regiments captured the hills. An attempt to knock them out immediately was unsuccessful. They demanded from Moscow to destroy the heights together with the troops of the aggressor.

Heavy TB-3 bombers were lifted into the air, they dropped more than 120 tons of bombs on the enemy fortifications. The Soviet troops had such a tangible technical advantage that the Japanese simply had no chance of success. Tanks BT-5 and BT-7 were not very effective on swampy ground, but the enemy did not have such.

On August 6, the conflict on Lake Khasan ended with the complete victory of the Red Army. Stalin drew from it the conclusion about the weak organizational qualities of the commander of the OKDVA, V.K. Blucher. For the latter, it ended badly.

The Japanese command did not draw any conclusions, apparently believing that the reason for the defeat was only the quantitative superiority of the Red Army. Ahead was Khalkhin Gol.

Monument to the heroes of the battles near Lake Khasan, who fell in the struggle for the freedom and independence of our Motherland. © Yuri Somov/RIA Novosti

An attempt to calculate how old the guys who fought then should be now (from September 1925 to September 1939 they were drafted into the army from the age of 21), it is disheartening - 98 years old; in our country, men very rarely live to such an age. Apparently, the concept of a veteran is being used more and more widely - and soldiers who have taken the baton from other conflicts in which Russia participated are now participating in memorial events.

A few years ago, one of the authors of this material had a chance to talk at another such event with an alleged participant in the Soviet-Japanese battles for Khasan - and, it seems, the only one. It was difficult to communicate with him due to the age of the veteran, but nevertheless it was possible to find out that he did fight with the Japanese, though not here, in Primorye, but a little later in Mongolia, at Khalkhin Gol. The difference, in principle, is small - there, the peers of this old man fought with the Japanese in the steppes and sands, here, in Primorye, they broke through under heavy fire from Japanese artillery and drowned in the swamp slurry near Lake Khasan more than half a century ago.

The following is an attempt at a new analysis of past events and a discussion of the border situation decades later, in 1998. However, in 2013 domestic historiography ignores the events of those days: public sources talk about the battles on Khasan in a rather vague, general way; the exact number of Russians who died then is unknown to this day; there were no decent studies and monuments, and no. Therefore, the authors attempt to re-publish to draw public attention to this page of national history.

History reference. "If tomorrow there is war..."

Panorama of lake Khasan.

Having occupied Korea in 1905, and in 1931 three northeastern provinces of China, and having created the friendly state of Manchukuo in Manchuria on March 9, the Japanese empire reached the borders of the USSR. According to the Otsu plan, developed by the Japanese General Staff, the war with the USSR was planned in 1934, but the protracted hostilities in China forced the Japanese government to postpone the attack. Discord and disputes between countries with varying degrees of intensity lasted for years, but gradually reached a climax.

Marshal Blucher in 1938. © RIA Novosti

On July 1, 1938, the Separate Red Banner Far Eastern Army was deployed to the Red Banner Far Eastern Front (KDVF) under the command of Marshal Blucher. The armies of the front, by order of the Soviet government, were put on alert.

On July 15, 1938, the Japanese government demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Soviet territory west of Khasan Island, as well as a revision of the former Russian-Chinese border. The Soviet government refused.

Having intelligence about the concentration of Japanese regular troops near Lake Khasan, the Military Council of the KDVF issued a directive to the 1st (Primorsky) Army on the concentration of reinforced battalions from the 40th Infantry Division in the Zarechye region. The air defense system was brought to full combat readiness, units of the Posyetsky border detachment took up defense at the border heights of Zaozernaya and Bezymyannaya.

Business trip in 1998. Razdolnoe Primorsky Krai.

The commander of the Red Army is watching the battle near Lake Khasan. © RIA Novosti

Irony, or perhaps a sign of the times, we got to the site of the Soviet-Japanese massacre in a used Japanese Toyota Carine. Well raised, with 14-inch wheels, the car still quite often hit the bottom of the ground as soon as we passed Razdolnoye. Something, but the quality of the roads in these parts has hardly changed since then: we got to the village of Khasan and the border bogs only thanks to the skill of the driver. He also owns an aphorism expressed under the cannonade of rubble on the body of the car.

- Wild people - cars here drive right on the ground! Zhenya said.

The driver Zhenya was from civilized Vladivostok and looked condescendingly at its surroundings. It was 8 o'clock in the morning and the sun rising over Razdolnoe showed us a wild picture: through the fog and evaporation of the swamp manured by the cow farm, the skeleton of ... a trolleybus stood out! A little further afield, we found a couple more!

Lake Khasan, junction with a swamp.

“This is their graveyard,” the driver said thoughtfully. They come here to die!

Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny - future marshal and people's commissar of defense of the USSR. © RIA Novosti

Razdolnoe has been a fairly powerful base of Russian troops in these parts since tsarist times. In the times of the Empire, a rifle brigade, an artillery battalion and a coastal dragoon regiment were located here - the then only regular cavalry unit east of the Urals, the rest of the cavalrymen were Cossacks. By the way, Semyon Mikhailovich Budeny, the future marshal and people's commissar of defense of the USSR, once served in this very regiment. The grandfather of our local history guide Dmitry Anchi, Nikolai Nikolayevich Kravtsov, also served as a fireworksman for a battery of a cavalry regiment. However, now we are interested in the year of the 38th ...

- Around the same hours, only in the 38th, the 40th rifle division Soviet troops,” said Ancha.

History reference. “On this day, the samurai decided…”

Lieutenant Makhalin is the hero of these battles.

Around 14:00 on July 29, 1938, a company of the border gendarmerie attacked the height, which was defended by 10 border guards led by Lieutenant Makhalin. After a 6-hour battle, the height was abandoned, the lieutenant and five border guards died, the rest were wounded.

On the night of June 30-31, 1938, units of the Japanese 19th Infantry Division attacked the Zaozernaya height with forces over the regiment, which was defended by the border guards of the Posyet border detachment and a company of the 119th regiment of the 40th Infantry Division. After a fierce battle on the morning of July 31, the Zaozernaya height was abandoned. The Japanese division launched an offensive deep into Soviet territory.

Business trip in 1998. Primorsky Krai: “Oh, dear!..”

The broken road with signs of sporadic repairs was reminiscent of the text of the pop song “We put asphalt in places and a little, so that any occupier gets stuck on the outskirts.” Along it flashed signs with local names. After a clash with the Chinese on Damansky Island in 1968, all of them (names) immediately became Russian-speaking and native. The Suifun was turned into the Razdolnaya River, we met all over Ivanovka, Vinogradovka ...

The road went under a railway bridge with an inscription on it: “Greetings to the participants of the Khasan battles!” Both this inscription and the bridge were made of concrete by the Japanese. Only not in the 38th, when they drowned these very heroes of Hassan in the swamps, but after the 45th, when we won.

History reference. "We were waiting for the battle..."

The defeat of the Japanese militarists at Lake Khasan on July 29-August 11, 1938.

On August 2, 1938, the 118th, 119th and 120th regiments of the 40th Infantry Division went on the offensive. As a result of the fighting on August 2-3, most of the territory captured by the Japanese was liberated, but the border heights that control the entire territory around Hasan remained with the Japanese.

Having suffered heavy losses, units of the 40th Infantry Division began to dig in. By the evening of August 3, the Soviet offensive had fizzled out. It became obvious to the command of the KDVF that it was impossible to conduct an offensive operation with the forces of one division.

Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov. © Petrusov/RIA Novosti

On August 3, 1938, People's Commissar of Defense Voroshilov sent a directive to the front command on the concentration of the reinforced 39th Rifle Corps in the conflict area, consisting of the 32nd, 39th, 40th Rifle Divisions and the 2nd Separate Mechanized Brigade with a total strength of 32,860 people , 345 tanks, 609 guns. The command of the corps was entrusted to Commander Stern. Ground forces were to be supported by 180 bombers and 70 fighters.

Business trip in 1998. Slavyanka of Primorsky Krai: “With a watering can and a notebook, or even with a machine gun…”

In anticipation of reinforcements from another local historian - already from the district administration - we examined and photographed a couple of monuments in Slavyanka. Near the building of the local archive there was a restored and freshly painted green MS-1, pulled out of the Khasan swamps 30 years ago.

Tank MS-1.

- Is this a tank? Our driver was shocked. “Then my Karina is an armored train!”

We were amazed - and not for the last time! – the hopeless selflessness of our ancestors. Small, like a hunchbacked Cossack, with thin bulletproof armor, a small cannon and a machine gun, the MS-1 tanks here stormed the Japanese defenses saturated with artillery in the 38th.

History reference. “Who will predict in advance the difficult path of rifle companies ...”

Patrol of the Soviet border guards in the area of ​​Lake Khasan. 1938 © Viktor Temin, Soviet photojournalist

The enemy hurriedly created a stable defense, resting his flanks on the Tumen-Ula River (Tumannaya today). The basis of the defense was the border heights, from which there was an excellent overview of the entire depth of the location of the Soviet troops and their front-line communications. The southern sector of defense was reliably covered by Lake Khasan, making a frontal attack impossible. In front of the northern sector of defense was great plain, consisting of a continuous chain of lakes, river channels, quicksand swamps with depths from 0.5 to 2.5 meters (the ancient channel of the Tumen-Ula River), - impassable for tanks and difficult for infantry.

The Japanese command concentrated the 19th Infantry Division, a cavalry brigade, three machine-gun battalions, artillery, anti-aircraft and other special units with a total strength of over 20 thousand soldiers and officers on the bridgehead. For each kilometer of defense, there were over 80 guns and mortars, and on the flanks of the defense - over 100 machine guns per kilometer of the front. One kilometer = 1000 meters. 1000 meters of front divided by 100 machine guns = 10 meters of fire sector for each machine gun: no need to aim!

Japanese Ambassador to the USSR Shigemitsu.

On August 4, 1938, the Japanese ambassador to the USSR, Shigemitsu, visited the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR with a proposal to resolve the conflict diplomatically. The Soviet government refused.

Business trip in 1998. Kraskino, Primorsky Krai.

Let's go further. Our local historians, now together, are inspecting the surrounding monuments. There are several of them in Kraskino, but the most noticeable are two - a private multi-storey palace of the head of the local administration, who was stealing back in the 90s, and a huge bronze soldier "Vanechka" on a height dominating the district. Locals call him "Vanechka". They also wrote “Lucy” on its pedestal and left behind broken bottles and banana peels. And ten meters down the slope there is an excellent pillbox, from the embrasure of which a wonderful view of the official's palace opens. The palace, by the way, is pretty, red brick. The large-scale complex of buildings of the local customs was made of the same material…

Looking for a gas station, we got lost. We see a local sitting by the road.

The lad—either drunk or stoned—answered thoughtfully:

History reference. “The armor is strong and our tanks are fast…”, as well as “When Comrade Stalin gives us an order…”

On August 3–5, 1938, units of the 39th Rifle Corps arrived at the battlefield. However, the redeployment of units was slow, and by the beginning of the offensive on August 6, 15,600 people, 1,014 machine guns, 237 guns, and 285 tanks were concentrated directly in the combat area.

The 40th Infantry Division, the 40th Separate Tank Battalion, the 2nd Tank and Reconnaissance Battalions of the 2nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, which suffered losses in the battles on August 2–3, took up positions south of Lake Khasan. The 32nd Rifle Division, the 32nd Separate Tank Battalion, the 3rd Tank Battalion of the 2nd Separate Mechanized Brigade took up positions north of Lake Khasan.

Japanese soldiers dug in at the height of Zaozernaya.

Sapper units hurriedly laid through the swamps gati for tanks. The heavy rains that took place on August 4-5 raised the water level in the swamps and Lake Khasan by a meter, which was an additional difficulty for the Soviet troops.

On August 5, 1938, the commander of the 38th Rifle Corps, Stern, gave the units a combat order: on August 6, go on a general offensive and, with simultaneous attacks from the north and south, pinch and destroy enemy troops in the zone between the Tumen-Ula River and Lake Khasan.

Soviet commander Stern. © RIA Novosti

The 32nd Rifle Division (Colonel Berzarin, who in 7 years will be the commandant of captured Berlin), with the 32nd separate tank battalion and the 3rd tank battalion of the 2nd separate mechanized brigade, should deliver the main blow from the north and capture Bezymyannaya height, and subsequently together with units of the 40th Infantry Division, to throw the enemy off Zaozernaya Hill.

Nikolai Berzarin on vacation on the shores of the Amur Bay in 1937. © RIA Novosti

40th Rifle Division (Colonel Bazarov) with the 40th separate tank battalion, 2nd tank and reconnaissance battalions The 2nd separate mechanized brigade is to deliver an auxiliary strike from the southeast in the direction of the Machine-gun Hill, and then to Zaozernaya, in order, together with the 32nd rifle division, to throw the Japanese off it. The 39th Rifle Division with the 121st Cavalry Regiment, motorized rifle and tank battalions of the 2nd Separate Mechanized Brigade advanced to secure the right flank of the corps at the Novokievka line, height 106.9.

The infantry and cavalry platoon of the 40th Infantry Division are practicing offensive combat techniques before the start of the attack on Japanese positions. Lake Hassan area, August 1938.

According to the plan of the battle, before the start of the attack, three massive air raids (commander - brigade commander Rychagov) and a 45-minute artillery preparation were envisaged. The battle plan was approved by the Military Council of the front, and then the people's commissar of defense.

Commander of Aviation Brigade Commander Rychagov.

Marshal Blucher and Commander Stern were clearly aware of the viciousness of this plan. The Japanese defense had to be stormed head-on through terrain unsuitable for an offensive, without the necessary superiority in manpower - three to one.

However, on Stalin's personal order, it was strictly forbidden to cross the state border and expand the territory of the conflict. To control the implementation of this order, Mekhlis, the head of the Glavpur of the Red Army, was sent to Blucher's headquarters.

Head of Glavpur of the Red Army Mekhlis.

As a result, the territory of active hostilities did not exceed 15 square kilometers, of which almost two-thirds were occupied by Lake Khasan and the swamps adjacent to it. The terrible overcrowding of the Soviet troops is evidenced by the fact that the headquarters of the army commander were 4 kilometers from the Japanese trenches, the headquarters of the divisions were 500-700 meters, and the headquarters of the regiments were even closer.

Having an overwhelming superiority in armored vehicles, the Soviet command could not use it effectively. Only along two narrow field roads near the southern and northern extremities of Lake Khasan, tanks could actually reach the Japanese defenses. The width of these passages never exceeded 10 meters.

Business trip in 1998. Demarcation: “We don’t want an inch of foreign land, but we won’t give up our own inch…”

After checking the documents in the Posyet border detachment, the same procedure was carried out at the outpost -13.

— Demarcation? So they gave away the land! - said her boss, commenting on recent events. (Immediately after the first publication of this material in 1998, he was removed from his post for being too frank with journalists. The authors did not have the opportunity to apologize to the officer for such an involuntary “setup”, we are doing it now – better late than never: everyone does their own work, and the evolutions of superiors are unpredictable).

- How did you give it away?

— Yes so! They made some noise, got indignant, and there they gave way slowly. True, we gave less than the Chinese wanted to take.

And so it turned out. After many hours of walking tours, comparing maps of different scales, measuring them up and down with a ruler, we found that we can talk about a piece of swamp with an area of ​​1 sq. km. Although at first it was a concession of 7 square meters. km. It would seem - what is 1 kilometer? However, 1 kilometer here, ceded to Damansky, several Amur islands near Khabarovsk. The Japanese need a few more islands of the Kuril chain...

Either Mikhail Lomonosov was wrong, or times have changed, but now it is not Russia that is growing into Siberia, but its Asian neighbors. “A sixth of the land with a short name Rus” suddenly became one eighth and everything continues to dry out. Of course, a piece of swamp is not God knows what. Especially if you do not count the Russians who died at this place.

But it is precisely the number of those killed in the war of 1938 that needs to be corrected.

History reference. “Pilot pilots, bomb planes…”

General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union, member of the Politburo Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin and the head of the Red Army, People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov. © Ivan Shagin/RIA Novosti

To conduct a successful offensive operation, it was necessary to strike through tank-accessible areas: in the south - at the junction of three borders (Korea, China, Russia), in the north - bypassing the Khasan swamps, cross the state border, go to the rear of the Japanese defense and throw the enemy into the river. However, bound by Stalin’s decision, the Soviet command was forced to act on the principle of “we don’t want another’s land, but we won’t give up our inch”: it was not ordered to cross the state border.

On the morning of August 6, 1938, the artillery battalions carried out shooting at benchmarks and proceeded to hit targets. Low and thick clouds made adjustments to the plan of the assault, scheduled for 12:00 - aircraft could not rise from the airfields. The artillery preparation dragged on and turned into a duel with Japanese batteries.

Soviet commanders on the shores of Lake Khasan during the Japanese invasion. © RIA Novosti

At 15:10, the clouds cleared and Soviet aircraft took off in three groups from the airfields. At 16:00, the first group of light bombers bombed the positions of the Japanese. Following it, ground targets were attacked by a fighter air brigade. Heavy bombers were the last to bombard the rear of the Japanese. Immediately after the air raid, artillery preparation was repeated. Exactly at 17:00, with the support of tanks, the infantry went on the attack.

SSS plane.

The air raid did not justify the hopes placed on it. In the shortest possible time, control of the Japanese troops was restored, artillery and machine guns of the enemy opened fierce fire. The 32nd division, advancing in the north, suffered the most from it. The infantry, with difficulty overcoming the swamp, suffered heavy losses and was forced to lie down several times.

Fighter I-15.

Tanks that did not have the ability to maneuver and moved along the roads were shot by Japanese artillery. Until they got out onto the solid ground of the oxbow spit located in the center of the swamp, dozens of cars were hit or drowned.

However, the oxbow spit turned out to be a trap - behind them lay another one and a half kilometers of swamps and small lakes, which made the further movement of tanks completely impossible.

Tanks were fired upon by Japanese artillery, as if at a training ground, many crews burned down along with their vehicles. The infantry, having lost the support of tanks, continued to move through the swamps towards the Japanese defenses, but lay down under aimed machine-gun and artillery fire.

Local historian Dmitry Ancha says:

Destroyed Soviet T-26 tank on a slope in the combat area.

- What this tank "breakthrough" looked like as a whole, one cannot understand with a rational mind, one can only "believe" and judge by a single episode described in the book "Years in Armor" by Colonel General D.A. Dragunsky, who in August 1938 served in the 32nd separate tank battalion: “On August 6, a general assault on enemy positions began. The 3rd company, which I commanded, was advancing on Bezymyannaya Hill, a hundred tanks marched with us ... There was incredible heat in the tank, there was nothing to breathe, shell casings burned our hands. Through the scope, all I could see was a bright blue sky. And suddenly something exploded in the car. Smoke and mud clouded my eyes. The tank turned to the left, began to fall down and, burrowing up the tower into the swamp, froze in a dead cramp. It was only when I jumped out of the tank that I realized what had happened. Bloodied crew members stood in front of me. Andrey Surov, the driver, was not among them. Two Japanese shells hit the tank: the first driver's leg was torn off, the second hit his head. In the starboard side of our T-26, there were two round ragged holes.

Judging by the description of the area and the location of the holes, the Dragunsky tank collapsed from the road embankment, the same embankment sheltered him from Japanese fire, otherwise it is not known whether he could have left the car at all. What happened to the "hundred tanks" that went along with the Dragunsky tank may someday become known.

In the "Generalized and systematized material on the combat losses of the Red Army during the border conflict near Lake Khasan", along with Surov, another 87 tankers appear - almost thirty full crews of T-26s. However, as can be seen from the example of Dragunsky, not all crews in full force perished with their cars and there were undoubtedly more than thirty wrecked Soviet tanks.

"We'll meet for the last time tomorrow in hand-to-hand combat..."

The Red Army go on the attack. Surroundings of Lake Khasan. © Victor Temin

Over the next three days in the swamps, under continuous Japanese fire from the front and from the right flank, in the semicircle were 5 battalions of the 94th, 96th rifle regiments of the 32nd rifle division. Without movement, the ability to carry out the wounded, they were simply destroyed. Only by the end of August 9, having suffered very heavy losses, they were able to get to the front line of the Japanese and gain a foothold in front of them on east slope border watershed.

The losses were aggravated by the fact that units of the division arrived at the battlefield on the evening of August 5, their commanders were not able to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the area, and the border guards, who were in the forefront and indicated the direction of movement, were mostly already killed.

The 40th Rifle Division and the tank units attached to it acted more successfully. By the end of August 6, they captured the Machine Gun Hill and went to the Zaozernaya Hill. A red flag was raised over her.

Bombardment of Zaozernaya Hill.

During the following hours of the night, neither side took active action. The intensity of the shooting decreased slightly, it was carried out blindly. Periodically there were short hand-to-hand fights, when separate units of the belligerents clashed in the dark. Soviet tanks retreated to their original positions.

The outcome of the fighting on August 6 was disappointing. In the northern sector, Soviet troops did not even come close to the Japanese defenses. In the south, they wedged into it, captured the Zaozernaya hill, but there was practically no opportunity to firmly hold it.

Being an excellent point for adjusting artillery fire, the conical hill with a narrow top was not well suited for defense. Whoever occupies it controls the entire territory on both sides of the border. To protect Zaozernaya, the Japanese created a multi-tiered system of trenches and trenches on Soviet soil - from the western shore of Lake Khasan to the top.

There was no doubt that with the onset of the morning counterattacks would begin in order to regain lost positions, which urgently needed to dig in on western slope watershed, creating a similar defense on enemy territory, but there was an order: do not cross the border.

The foregoing applied not only to Zaozernaya. In order to hold the border watershed, it was necessary to take the same measures in other areas, which, under the supervision of Mekhlis, seemed completely impossible. Moreover, in strict accordance with the plan of the offensive operation, a suicidal decision was made to repeat the attack of tanks and infantry through the swamps on the 32nd Infantry Division on the morning of August 7th.

“So-so-so,” says the machine gunner, “knock-knock-knock” says the machine gun ... „

Panorama of lake Khasan.

And this attack ended in failure. The tanks burned and sank, the infantry that advanced forward was laid in the swamp and methodically shot. In the future, seeing the hopelessness of attacks through the swamp, the Soviet command threw the remaining units into a narrow corridor between the swamps and the northern shore of Lake Khasan in the direction of Bezymyannaya Hill, occasionally attacking the left flank of the Japanese defense along the edge of the swamps in order to weaken the Japanese fire on the battalions, squeezed in a quagmire, and if possible, unlock them.

However, this became possible only by the end of August 9, when the Japanese command transferred a significant part of its manpower and equipment from the left flank of the defense to the right, in order to compensate for the growing losses. In the area of ​​the 40th Infantry Division, at dawn on August 7, fierce attacks by the Japanese infantry began in order to return the Zaozernaya hill and other lost positions on the border watershed.

After a fierce battle that turned into a hand-to-hand fight, they managed to do it for a while. On Zaozernaya, a Japanese fire adjustment point was again deployed and the “blinded” were heavy guns and an armored train, located across the river on the Korean side, could shoot accurately.

Border conflict in the region of Lake Khasan in August 1938. A Soviet officer interrogates a captured Japanese soldier. © From the funds of the Museum of the Soviet Army / RIA Novosti

Combat aircraft of the Imperial Air Force appeared in the air, but the overwhelming advantage of Soviet aviation nullified all the efforts of the Japanese pilots. However, they shot down several Soviet cars.

The Soviet troops had to start all over again. Again, under the cover of tanks, the infantry went on the attack. The strength of Japanese fire is evidenced by the fact that the height on the southern section of the border, which had not previously had a name, around which one of the three Japanese machine gun battalions (44 heavy machine guns) and machine gun platoons of an infantry regiment (about 60 light machine guns) dug in, has since and is called Machine Gun Hill. These almost 100 machine guns kept at gunpoint a sector of the front only a kilometer long and 70 to 250 meters wide.

Again, at the cost of heavy losses, the Japanese were partially driven out of the border watershed, Zaozernaya was returned, but after a while a new attack by the Japanese followed, and Zaozernaya was again lost. And so several times a day.

Soviet soldiers set up a combat red flag at the height of Zaozernaya during the events on Lake Khasan. © RIA Novosti

The next three days were marked by successive attacks and counterattacks, which escalated into an endless hand-to-hand fight. With the onset of twilight, Soviet tanks retreated to their starting lines, the fire almost subsided. The units of the belligerents tried to gain a foothold on the lines where the night caught them. At dawn, those who had lost their positions tried to return them, aircraft bombed, artillery fired continuously. Ammunition was delivered to Soviet troops mainly along the shortest route - across Lake Khasan - and almost always under fire.

Monument on the hill Zaozernaya.

The question of the number of victims of the Hassan battles of 1938 was confused from the moment of the conflict itself and remains so to this day. Approximate estimates of 300-500-700 human lives wandering through the pages of various publications do not stand up to the test of analysis of both archival and memoir data, and battlefields .

Primorsky local historian Dmitry Ancha has been studying the Soviet-Japanese conflict for more than a year and has a personal interest, so to speak:

- My grandfather, Nikolai Nikolaevich Kravtsov, fought there. He was wounded, lay in a swamp for two days - and still survived! Neither what he said, nor the picture that I recreated, do not coincide in some ways with the official version. The small area of ​​the bridgehead, its extreme saturation with huge military forces and equipment gave rise to an unprecedented intensity of battles.

"That's right," the border guard confirmed. - I am not a historian, but as an officer I can say that the theater of operations was oversaturated with manpower and equipment 50 times! In the history of wars, I do not remember this.

Let's sketch a picture of "general, rough, visible". Following the border guards, one after another, larger and more equipped formations enter the battle. The Japanese had already occupied all the heights in the district, dug up the front with trenches in full profile and saturated the defense to the point of impossibility with weapons. Just think - 100 machine guns per 1 km, not counting other weapons! And through the hills - right from behind the border, which cannot be crossed - their heavy cannons land and land with a canopy. All heights belong to adversaries, and fire is corrected in the best possible way. What 300-700 dead can we talk about? It looks like so many could die in just a day. Soviet troops were driven into the swamps regiment after regiment. They not only died, but also beat off some areas from the Japanese, and then were again forced out by them. And so not once, not twice.

Soviet tank attacks - through the swamps on the hills - are terrible! And all this - masses of people, hundreds of tanks, tens of thousands of barrels of all calibers - in the line of sight of the naked human eye. Aim - no need!

Business trip in 1998. “Our dead will not leave us in trouble…”

In the answer received by Andrey Karpov, a local historian from Slavyanka, from the archives of the Soviet Army , official loss data are given: “40th division: ran. - 2073, dec. - 253; 32nd Division: Ran. - 642, dec. - 119; 2nd Mechanized Brigade: Ran. - 61, dec. - 45; otd. communications battalion: ran. - no, kill - 5; 39th corps artillery regiment: ran. - no, ub. – 2“.

Summing up, we get the following figures: 2,776 wounded and 479 killed. Not only are not all the units and subunits that participated in the battles listed here, but can even these numbers be trusted? Note that the data on losses were submitted by the surviving commanders higher up on August 11, that is, on the day the hostilities ceased.

People who had not yet come to their senses, deafened by firing and stunned by blood - what data could they provide about their comrades, whose bodies were still cooling in the bushes and swamps, at the bottom of the lake ?!

In 1988, after the usual typhoon in these places, water flows rushing from the Zaozernaya hill eroded a piece of land closer to the lake. On an area of ​​approximately 50 by 50 meters, the border guards collected and reburied the remains of 78 people. Without making any excavations - only what was washed away by the rain ...

The trenches of the Japanese defense are still clearly visible. You can admire the literacy of the location of firing points if you do not think that our fellow citizens were poured with lead. My grandfather could have been here, but it turned out to be Dima's grandfather ...

Dmitry Ancha says:

- After being wounded, he came to his senses in ... Khabarovsk! But the field medical battalions and the powerful hospitals of Razdolny, Ussuriysk, and Vladivostok were much closer. Is this not yet another indirect evidence that all the surrounding hospitals were simply filled with the wounded in the battles near Hassan? Unfortunately, we have only indirect evidence that the death toll is enormous. For example, in the district there are now about 20 monuments dating back to that time. Almost all of them are fraternal, that is, mass graves. But even before 1988 there were more than 50 of them, although these are far from all burials, but only precisely known ones. Then, for the 50th anniversary, the military decided to gather together all the dead and pulled off several dozen pedestals with armored personnel carriers. But they had no idea of ​​the scope of the work they were undertaking. Didn't make it to the end. Where are these graves to be found now? It's wild, a year or two - and everything is overgrown ...

- In 1995, I proceeded here all the hollows. And if they ask me, where are these darknesses of the dead, where are the graves, I will answer this way: swamps, Lake Khasan - there are even more of them, drowned. And the trenches - how many of them are still here. And then ... Imagine the end of the battles, mountains of corpses decomposing in the 30-degree heat. An epidemic can break out at any moment - and what are the identifications, what are the statistics?! To the trenches! Fill with lime and sprinkle with earth! By the way, there was a similar picture after the 45th in the Kuril Islands, I was there too ...

Summary:

Family vault of the Brynner family. © kiowa_mike.livejournal.com

- Solution? There can be only one solution: we cannot be mankurts, Ivans-of-kinship-not-remembering. Need to look for it. Serious, systematic, long-term and funded work in the archives is needed. We need excavations. After all, what is going on! - people destroy, trample on their past! In the village of Bezverkhovo, the family crypt of the Brynner family, the most authoritative founding fathers of Vladivostok, its spirit, was destroyed; their remains are thrown into the sea. Broken bronze letters - non-ferrous metal! - from the monument to the great Ussurian Mikhail Yankovsky. The same story in Vladivostok with the monument to the Polytechnics who died during the war years - a bronze automatic machine of 15 kilograms was cut down from it ... Of course, we are late, 60 years have passed. But here, as in a song: “It is not necessary for the dead, it is necessary for the living…”

History reference. “One more, last effort…”

Japanese on Zaozernaya.

The conflict reached a positional impasse. Losses grew. And not only from the Soviet side. The Japanese command was forced to transfer forces to the threatened right flank of the defense from the left, which eased the position of the 32nd Soviet division; to bring into battle "from the wheels" the arriving units of the 20th Infantry Division. The Soviet command gradually introduced units of the reserve 39th rifle division into battle.

In fact, both sides have exhausted their options. New reserves were required, but the intensification of the conflict was not part of the plans of the Soviet and Japanese governments.

On August 10, with the last incredible effort, the Japanese units were driven almost everywhere beyond the state border line. On this day, a meeting of the military council of Japan was held, which noted the impossibility of continuing hostilities against the USSR and decided to enter into negotiations to end them. On the same day, the proposal of the Japanese government to end the conflict was transmitted through diplomatic channels.

On the night of August 10-11, Stalin had a telephone conversation with the commander of the KDVF, Blucher. On the same night, leaving full power to Commander Stern, on a carriage along a road broken by tanks under horse guard, Blucher arrived at Razdolnaya station, where a special train was waiting for him. On August 11, 1938, hostilities were stopped, the state border was restored.

Business trip in 1998. “Dedicated to the living…”

Panorama of the surroundings of Lake Khasan.

Returning to Vladivostok, the crew of the expeditionary "Karina" made room and took on board two teenage girls who hitchhiked into the city in the middle of the night. "The tribe is young and unfamiliar" shot a cigarette for two and hinted that they also drink vodka.

“Girls, do you know anything about border demarcation?”

— Wha-oh?! We are decent girls, by the way! And you promised not to bother!

- No! I mean ... Ugh! .. Well, do you know about the Khasan battles? Are you from these places?

— Ah! The girls calmed down. - This is when with the Germans, in the last century?

- Wow! The driver shook his head.

- Guys, don't you know how to expel gas from the Sprite? ...

P.S. - Andrey Karpov called from Slavyanka. After our departure, he measured with a pole the rivulet connecting the swamp with the lake, and found differences in depth in the area, which makes it possible to assume the presence of 2-3 tanks under water. This is just the direction of their strike in the 38th. There is nothing more to guess.

P.P.S. – Discussing the affairs of the past days, Dmitry Ancha, a local historian from Primorye, specified that there was no normal road to those places, just as it did not exist then, and still does not exist, in the summer of 2013: “people drive right on the ground”…

The thirties of the XX century were extremely difficult for the whole world. This applies both to the internal situation in many states of the world and to the international situation. After all, global contradictions were developing more and more on the world stage during this period. One of them was the Soviet-Japanese conflict at the end of the decade.

Background of the Battles for Lake Khasan

The leadership of the Soviet Union is literally obsessed with internal (counter-revolutionary) and external threats. And this idea is largely justified. Clearly, a threat is unfolding in the west. In the east, in the mid-1930s, China is occupied which is already throwing predatory glances at Soviet lands. So, in the first half of 1938, a powerful anti-Soviet propaganda was unfolding in this country, calling for a "war against communism" and for an outright seizure of territories. Such aggression of the Japanese is facilitated by their newly acquired coalition partner - Germany. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the Western states, England and France, are in every possible way delaying the signing of any treaty with the USSR on mutual defense, hoping thereby to provoke the mutual destruction of their natural enemies: Stalin and Hitler. This provocation is spreading

and Soviet-Japanese relations. In the beginning, the Japanese government increasingly starts talking about contrived "disputed territories". In early July, Lake Khasan, located in the border zone, becomes the center of events. Here, formations of the Kwantung Army begin to concentrate more and more densely. The Japanese side justified these actions by the fact that the border zones of the USSR, located near this lake, are the territories of Manchuria. The last region, in general, was not historically Japanese in any way, it belonged to China. But China in previous years had itself been occupied by the imperial army. On July 15, 1938, Japan demanded the withdrawal of Soviet border formations from this territory, arguing that they belonged to China. However, the USSR Foreign Ministry reacted harshly to such a statement, providing copies of the agreement between Russia and the Celestial Empire dating back to 1886, which included the relevant maps proving the correctness of the Soviet side.

The beginning of the battles for Lake Khasan

However, Japan had no intention of retreating at all. The inability to substantiate her claims to Lake Khasan did not stop her. Of course, in this area was strengthened and Soviet defense. The first attack followed on July 29, when a company of the Kwantung Army crossed and attacked one of the heights. At the cost of significant losses, the Japanese managed to capture this height. However, already on the morning of July 30, more significant forces came to the aid of the Soviet border guards. The Japanese unsuccessfully attacked the opponents' defenses for several days, losing a significant amount of equipment and manpower every day. The Battle of Lake Hassan was completed on 11 August. On this day, a truce was declared between the troops. By mutual agreement of the parties, it was decided that the interstate border should be established in accordance with the agreement between Russia and China of 1886, since no later agreement on this matter existed at that time. Thus, Lake Khasan became a silent reminder of such an inglorious campaign for new territories.

Japanese soldiers pass by Chinese peasants.

Sun Yat-sen is the father of the nation.

Chiang Kai-shek.

Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang.

Chinese soldiers with dadao.

Aisingero Pu I.

Soldiers of the Manchurian Imperial Army on exercises.

Japanese soldiers in Shanghai, 1937

Japanese soldiers deal with Chinese prisoners of war.

Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro, Commander of Detachment 731.

Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army of China on the Yellow River. 1938

Chinese soldiers in the battle of Tai'erzhuang.

Shigemitsu Mamoru, Japanese Ambassador to Moscow.

Japanese infantry unit on the march near Lake Khasan.

Patrol of the Soviet border guards in the area of ​​Lake Khasan.

Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Konstantinovich Blucher.

People's Commissar of Defense Marshal of the Soviet Union Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov.

Japanese machine gunners in the battles near Lake Khasan.

Commander Grigory Mikhailovich Stern.

Army Commissar Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis.

Soviet machine gunners near Lake Khasan.

Soviet riflemen during the battles near Lake Khasan.

The Soviet commander is watching the battle in the area of ​​Lake Khasan.

Japanese machine gunners on a hill near Lake Khasan.

Artillerymen of the 39th Corps Artillery Regiment near Lake Khasan.

The Red Army soldier watches the enemy.

People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Maxim Maksimovich Litvinov.

Red Army soldiers are photographed at the end of the Khasan battles.

Warrior of the Red Army on top.