Penal formations of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War: historical truth and non-historical lies. Part 1

Penal battalions, penal companies, barrage detachments: these phenomenal formations of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War are one of those topics around which passionate discussions rage at the beginning of the 21st century. Moreover, these discussions affect not only historical science, but also journalism, as well as artistic creativity (for example, the infamous “Penal Battalion”, a Russian TV series that was released in 2004 and is regularly shown on various television channels to this day). The mentioned topic has also become one of the priorities among various kinds of falsifiers of the history of the Great Patriotic War (the so-called representatives of the ultra-liberal school of historians). They, of course, receive a worthy rebuff from historians of the Great Patriotic War, who truthfully and objectively cover this problem. Meanwhile, the danger of insinuations of falsifiers cannot be underestimated. The purpose of our article is to briefly highlight the key aspects of the history of the penal formations of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War for the period from July 28, 1942 to May 1945, based on state-patriotic positions, a comparative approach, the principles of objectivity and historicism.