Establishment of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces as the Main Planning and Organizing Center of the Supreme Command in the World War II

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze the process of formation of the General Staff as the main planning and organizing center and at the same time the operational management of the Supreme Command during World War II based on a study of documents and materials published in a series of collections "Russian Archives. The research methodology is based on a combination of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (historical-genetic, historical-typological, historical-systemic) methods of historicism, systematicity, scientificity and verification. The scientific novelty of the work is that the author uses still unknown to researchers, materials from the collections "Russian Archive. Red Series", which contain unique documents demonstrating the formation and operation of the General Staff of the RSCA, data collection and assessment system, planning operations, their preparation and management. Conclusions. Analysis of the documents of the collections provides an opportunity to form a clear idea of the peculiarities of the formation and work of the General Staff. About how the process of obtaining information, its processing, analysis and how the rhythm of work dictated by the war was improved every month. Evidence of this is the constant increase in its role in the development of campaign plans, strategic and frontline operations, preparation and use of reserves, coordination of efforts of groups of fronts. The role of the General Staff was significant in the preparation and planning of the counterattack, and then the counteroffensive near Moscow. Of particular importance was the timely creation of reserve armies – the secrecy of their concentration in important areas, the organization of interaction between the fronts. This, as can be seen from the content of the documents, was able to properly organize the General Staff. At the same time, due to serious miscalculations made by the Supreme Command of the Red Army, the achieved results could not be fully realized, and the general offensive in all strategic directions was doomed to failure.