Obviously, to put it bluntly, this debate is a question of left or right. Trotsky and Tukhachevsky represent the radical leftist, while Li Xiaofeng represents the "conservative" rightist. +◆, but this is not the core of the problem. Both the left and the right are both appearances, and the core essence is still a problem of military line.

Tukhachevsky believes that after the previous stage of great strides, the Red Army exchanged space for time and had initially consolidated its defense line. Then the next task is to regain the initiative and transform passive defense into active offense.

Naturally, Tukhachevsky did not like the "rightists" who demanded continued defense and put stability first, and he had to establish the concept that he could not retreat in the army.

However, Li Xiaofeng's perception was completely different. He believed that the Red Army had not completely gained a foothold, and the newly formed front was also shaky. The current situation was far from being good. When considering regaining the initiative in the war or even taking the initiative to counterattack the enemy. He believed that the current situation was still quite bad. The Red Army suffered a lot of losses. The mechanized troops established before the war suffered heavy damage. A considerable number of technical weapons were either destroyed or voluntarily abandoned. It can be said that the combat effectiveness of the Red Army suddenly retreated to the early 1930s.

In this unfavorable situation, the first thing the Red Army had to consider was not a counterattack, but to truly gain a foothold and restore its strength. Especially considering that the winter of 1941 was approaching and supplies would become very tight. It was simply a dream to consider counterattack at this time.

Li Xiaofeng believes that the Red Army’s current top priority is to truly gain a foothold, use a solid line of defense to block the German army outside Russia, and use the winter time to reorganize and train troops. Lay a solid foundation for the battle in the coming year.

So. He said at a meeting of the Political Bureau: "The situation has not improved yet. In the previous three months of battle, we lost about 750,000 elite troops, and a large number of technical weapons also need to be supplemented. In particular, it must be noted that the defense line we are building is still very fragile, especially at the junction of Belarus and Ukraine. Our army's strength is very weak, and the possibility of the enemy taking advantage of the situation cannot be ruled out. So, what we need to consider now is not attack, but defense! We must prepare for a new round of enemy offensives before winter comes. The first thing to bear is to fill the gap in the 6th and 16th armies!"

It is conceivable that Tukhachevsky was not satisfied with such a strategic policy. He believed that Li Xiaofeng was too much of a problem. Although Rokosovsky and Lukin's troops were indeed a little weak, he believed that Guderian was not much stronger. He said: "After three months of consumption, Guderian's armor cluster was quite large. According to the experience of the Polish battle and the French battle, the enemy's second tank cluster was already at the end of the mast. As long as Rokosovsky and Lukin were not too bad, they could completely block Guderian."

Tukhachevsky's idea was: "Our army gathered about two million troops in Belarus, and the German army in this direction was generally the same. When a considerable number of second tank clusters were restrained by a small number of 6th and 16th groups, our army's troops were dominant in the direction of Minsk. It is entirely possible for our army to take the initiative in this area to fight one or two annihilation wars, and force the third tank cluster to retreat."

Obviously, Tukhachevsky's old problem has been dealt with again, and he still wants to attack too much and wants to win one or two battles to justify himself. The question is, is this possible?

That is impossible. Although Tukhachevsky's judgment is not a problem, the Red Army does have certain advantages in the direction of Minsk, but the problem is that this advantage is too weak. It can even be said that the Red Army has advantages in terms of military strength, but other aspects are full of disadvantages.

For example, the Red Army lost a large number of tanks during its previous two counterattacks and retreats. According to the pre-war organization, a mechanized army should have more than 1,000 tanks. However, at this time, the Red Army mechanized army in the surrounding areas of Minsk had an average of 400 tanks. Please note that nearly half of these 400 tanks were old-fashioned T-26 and BT-5, and the more advanced T-34 and T-35 and T-54 were less than 100.

It should be said that the mechanized army before the war had already consumed a lot of energy, and launching a counterattack at this time is really not a good choice.

Not only is the mechanized army insufficient strength, but the infantry generally feels lacking heavy weapons (a considerable number of artillery were abandoned or destroyed on the spot), and the division's artillery regiments generally have only one and a half battalions in size.

The Air Force also has the problem of insufficient strength, but their problem is not that they have too much losses, but that the batch of I-15, I-16, SB-2, and DB-3 produced in the 1930s before the war seemed useless in this war, and could only undertake a small number of combat tasks or simply use them as coaching aircraft.

The output of the new Jacques, Lager series fighter jets, bombers and attack aircraft is not enough to completely offset the vacancies of the above-mentioned aircraft, and it also takes time to train pilots. In short, the Air Force seems to be incompetent and takes time to transition.

Overall, the Red Army seemed very weak and urgently needed reorganization, which took time. If we counterattacked ignorantly, the Red Army might suffer more losses and more holes that need to be repaired.

According to Li Xiaofeng's estimate, it would take at least half a year for the Red Army to breathe, and it might even take longer. The most optimistic estimate is that the Red Army will not be able to counterattack in the second half of 1942. Before this, it was unrealistic to talk about counterattacks.

The differences between Tukhachevsky and Li Xiaofeng were too big, and the attitudes of the supporters behind them were also quite ambiguous. Let’s talk about Trotsky first, is Lao Tro still being led by Tukhachevsky?

I'm afraid this is not the case. Trotsky did not agree with Tukhachevsky's idea of ​​launching a new round of counterattacks as soon as possible. As the chairman of the People's Committee, after various data were summarized to him, he would easily come to a conclusion that the Red Army needed to rest and recover their strength.

So he did not agree with Tukhachevsky's plan and had no interest in counterattacks. The reason for making him support the "leftist" view is also very simple. First of all, although he opposed counterattacks, it did not mean that he agreed to continue to trade space for time. In his opinion, the Red Army must never retreat. If he retreated, he would probably have to defend Moscow or Leningrad. This is not a joke. The useless Tsarist army in the first battle failed to allow the German army to attack Leningrad and Moscow, and the great Red Army, with stronger combat effectiveness, actually lowered the lower limit, which was absolutely intolerable!

Therefore, Trotsky believed that it is necessary to emphasize the idea that one must fight for every inch of land, and it is necessary to let this concept penetrate thoroughly into the hearts of the Red Army officers and soldiers.

Secondly, Li Xiaofeng was the one who led the rectification movement, and he was incompatible with Trotsky. At this time, not only Sverdlov realized that someone was strong in the army, but Trotsky also felt that someone was too powerful in the army. If someone was allowed to do whatever he wanted, the Soviet Red Army would change his surname to Sbelosky in the future.

Trotsky expressed high vigilance about someone's ambitions, so when someone pointed the finger at the "old revolution" who had experienced the domestic revolutionary war but performed very bleak after the outbreak of the Patriotic War, he couldn't help but think that it was someone who was preparing to dig out the corner of the party.

Of course, Trotsky would not let Li Xiaofeng show off his wishes, he must firmly oppose it. This is the key reason why Trotsky supports the "leftist".

Like Trotsky, Sverdlov also acted ambiguously in how to rectify the wind. For Xiao Si, he was not very interested in rectifying the wind. In his opinion, the Red Army could eventually defeat the invading German army. The so-called rectifying wind is simply a by-product of the spread of political struggles to the military field.

However, when he discovered that Li Xiaofeng and Trotsky attached great importance to this rectification movement and Lenin made a rare call to support him, he suddenly realized that this was an opportunity for him. If he could strengthen his power in the military through rectification, then why not?

Moreover, compared with the traditional military field, rectification can be said to be a political matter. On the political level, Xiao Si does not think he is worse than Trotsky and Li Xiaofeng. But unfortunately, Xiao Si's actions are too slow. Just like the beginning of the era of the Big Three, his reaction in this regard is slower than that of a snail. When Trotsky stood clearly on the left side and when Li Xiaofeng raised the banner of the right side, Xiao Si once again found that he could not find the market.

If you want to expand your political power, you must win over people. Now the leftists have followed Trotsky and the rightists have united on Li Xiaofeng's side. Poor Xiao Si was once again confused. He was afraid he wanted to sigh: "Who are my people!"

Fortunately, after the experience and lessons of the Big Three period, Xiao Si already had a way to deal with this passive situation. At the beginning, Li Xiaofeng had just fooled him into a unique way, and this time he was going to continue fooling him.

Xiao Si chose a so-called intermediate route. He declared: "In the war period, it is inappropriate to blind left or extreme right. The core of the rectification movement is not to persecute people, but to save people. Criticism and education should be the first priority, and to give people the opportunity to reform themselves. We must not only establish the brave and fearless fighting spirit of the Red Army, but also avoid unrealistic and reckless actions that ignore science!"

Anyway, when he said this, Sverdlov was full of confidence. He thought that his level of speech was too high. Neither the left nor the rightist party would oppose him. At the same time, he could win over two completely different factions and indirectly criticize Trotsky and Li Xiaofeng. Isn't this clever?

Some comrades may have questions, where is Xiao Si black? It's very simple. From his last sentence, you can see that this sentence is nothing more than saying that the rightist faction is surrenderism and lacks the will to fight tenaciously, while the leftist faction only knows to do things recklessly and not talk about science. It is equivalent to putting a hat on both Li Xiaofeng and Trotsky. Look at the rectification movement he said before is not a pervert, isn't it obvious that Trotsky and Li Xiaofeng are scolding him for taking advantage of the situation!

So how effective is Xiao Si's statement? I can only laugh, because not all the intermediate routes can be made at any time. Sometimes the intermediate routes mean that both ends are not pleasing, and now Xiao Si is facing such a dilemma.

Because Xiao Si didn't understand the essence of this rectification campaign at all, he foolishly thought that this was entirely a political struggle between Li Xiaofeng and Trotsky to fight for power and profit, and thought that as long as he pleased both sides, he could win people's hearts.

I have to say that Xiao Si's starting point is wrong. This rectification is a political struggle, but the fundamental reason for the struggle is the dispute over the discourse power between the old and new commanders. Since the outbreak of the Patriotic War, there have been many contradictions around the issues of combat and command. The older generation of commanders who grew up in the domestic revolutionary war and the emerging commanders who systematically received military academy education on a lot of issues.

For example, the older generation generally has a relatively low cultural level. Even after being trained by later military academy, their natural foundation seems rough, and their understanding of war was affected by the previous domestic revolutionary wars. For example, they generally do not pay attention to defense, generally do not pay attention to casualties, like to act recklessly, and advocate using revolutionary offense to fight the enemy's counter-revolutionary offense, and defeat the opponent by attacking and attacking.

The later group of emerging academics received systematic education, and their experience in fighting against Japan in the Spanish Civil War and the Far East made their understanding of war completely different from those of the old revolutionaries. They did not like those old experiences. They believed that the Red Army's tactics could be richer, and they did not think that defense was a mistake.

Obviously, these two factions cannot pee. The former believes that one generation is worse than the other, and believes that the academics think too much and do too little, and believe that war is not a map homework, but a ruthless spirit. It is very important to think that the academics are just too concerned about casualties and forget how to win.

The latter believes that the old revolutionaries are all a group of local bullies, who are only good at doing things recklessly, not good at thinking, and do not know how to study strategies and tactics. They only know how to use human lives to fill holes. In this way, they are simply disregarding human lives, so they naturally have to resist resolutely.

After all, this is a debate between the old and new thinking, representing the Red Army's understanding of the future direction of war, whether to bring simple and rough man-intensive tactics to the extreme, or to carry out industrial upgrading to play more technical tactics.

In short, the debate between these two factions is completely opposite, and there is no intermediate route. Sverdlov expects to please both ends, and is destined to be unreliable on both ends. Let's put it this way, the centrists that Xiao Si wants to win over are basically in the punishment camp or the meritorious service company, and these people have no value to win over. Xiao Si is destined to be a blind man who lights the lights in vain.

So who can win the left or right? I'm afraid this is a very long-term struggle process, and may even be accompanied by the entire Patriotic War. After all, the struggle of soldiers depends on the achievements on the battlefield. Whoever has good achievements and makes great contributions can laugh at the end.

However, for the time being, Li Xiaofeng has the upper hand. Why? Because neither the officers nor the soldiers are fools. Judging from the three months since the outbreak of the Patriotic War, the leftists who advocated a fierce rushing and attacking had nothing but a large number of reports of casualties. This result is naturally unpopular.

The rightists, on the contrary, have no outstanding performance, but their calls for respecting every warrior and actually demanding improvement of tactics and tactics are still very attractive. It is a very simple truth. On one hand, it will only make you die foolishly, but on the other hand, it says you don’t have to die like this at all. Which vote will you vote?

In the hearts of middle and grassroots officers and soldiers, the rightists have a market, and most grassroots officers and soldiers welcome the rightists. The key reason why Li Xiaofeng has not established an overwhelming advantage is that of the middle and senior officers. A large number of these officers grew up during the domestic revolutionary war. They have accepted the traditional tactics of the Red Army and believe that this is the Bible that cannot be desecrated, and the power of a large wave of middle and senior officers cannot be underestimated.

If Li Xiaofeng wants to win, he may have to clean up this group of people, otherwise it will be difficult for the Red Army to unify their opinions. Of course, this is also a long-term process. It is neither possible nor realistic to achieve success overnight. Li Xiaofeng can only move forward step by step.

For example, in the current first round of confrontation, the core question is whether to launch a Minsk counterattack. The leftists agreed unanimously, while the rightists strongly opposed it. This quarrel directly brought in all the senior generals at the front, the military district and the military committee level. The meetings came one after another, and the quarrel never stopped. Anyway, it was dark and the sun and the moon were gone.

It was not until the German Southern Army Group tank cluster suddenly appeared in Mozili that they easily eliminated the garrison forces left there, and then went north to cross the river to cooperate with Guderian to attack the Sixth Army. After two days of fierce battle, they completely repelled Rokosovsky.

When this information was placed on the desks of the Military Commission and the Political Bureau, the debate over whether to launch a Minsk counterattack ended temporarily.

In Trotsky's statement: "Now, the enemy has once again broken through our army's weak defense line. Once the enemy crosses the Dnieper River, it will cause a chain reaction. What we need to do is to block the enemy and block the enemy on the west bank of the Dnieper River to prevent them from invading Russia!"

After pausing, Trotsky said in an unquestionable tone: "We should immediately draw troops from Minsk to reinforce the 6th Army, and immediately order the 16th Army to go to Dong'an of the Dnieper River to build a solid defense line!"

Trotsky's opinion was very marketable. The Belarusian front once again mobilized rapidly, and the reinforcements quickly set off towards the Dnieper River, with ambition to stop the German army at all costs.

However, Li Xiaofeng sneered at this ambition: "I have long said that Rokosovsky and Lukin are very empty and need to pay attention to it. As a result, the General Officer and the General Staff did not listen and focused on making small moves with the excuse of defending Minsk. Now, Rokosovsky has been broken through, and the fire has burned to the roof before he wants to put out the fire. It's too late!" (To be continued...)

ps: Bow and thank Ma Shen**, Shen Shanshan, Fatty Fei Ai Fei and Comrade Juventus!
Chapter completed!