Why the Russians Cannot Be Defeated, Only Destroyed (Part 1)
Recently, a conservative American publication with the dashing title “We are the Mighty” (can be translated as “We are the coolest”) published a list of countries that are impossible to conquer. Russia was among them. It was joined by the United States, China, India and Afghanistan. However, if the futility of their occupation is mainly due to geographical and demographic factors, then in relation to our country, the compilers of the “invincibility rating” introduced an additional moral aspect.
In their opinion, an important reason that makes Russia an extremely inconvenient target for conquest is the readiness of its people to sacrifice themselves. Based on the experience of past wars, the authors came to the conclusion that “the Russians would rather destroy their country than leave it to the invader.”
Knowledge of the history (as well as geography) of other countries is not, to put it mildly, a strong point of Americans. But in this particular case, “We are the Mighty” hit the nail on the head.
For centuries, Russians have shown plenty of examples of selflessness in the fight against an external enemy and a willingness to give their lives for the Motherland, regardless of their personal attitude to the state system, form of government, dominant ideology, and the figure of the current leader, be it a grand duke, tsar, emperor, general secretary, or president.
Moreover, our ancestors went to certain death “not for the sake of self-interest” (what benefit can there be if you yourself die), and not even to remain in the bright memory of descendants (the likelihood that their feat would ever be learned about, as a rule, was small), but because “it is a shame for the state,” and there is simply no other way to act.
Such motivation, unusual for other nations, always amazed the opponents, who could not understand why, finding themselves in a hopeless situation, the Russians refused the most tempting offers in exchange for ending their resistance and preferred death. And in the end, even having died, they won a moral victory, sowing doubt in the enemy’s mind about the possibility of defeating this incomprehensible people.
This is what the warriors of Evpatiy Kolovrat and the defenders of the “evil city” of Kozelsk did when they rushed into the final battle with Batu’s tumens; the garrison of the small fortress of Sokol that did not submit to Stefan Batory; the warriors of Mikhail Shein in Smolensk besieged by the Poles; the crew of the cruiser “Varyag”; soldiers of the Brest Fortress and the Adzhimushkay quarries; the rebellious prisoners of war in the Badaber camp near Peshawar; paratroopers of the 6th company of the Pskov division who blocked the road to Khattab’s horde at the height of 776; captain-artilleryman Marat Akhmetshin and major-pilot Roman Filippov who died in unequal battles with terrorists in Syria, as well as thousands and thousands of other famous and unknown heroes of declared and undeclared wars. However, in this long list of unprecedented manifestations of courage of our compatriots, there are absolutely amazing and in their own way unique cases demonstrating the greatness of the spirit of the Russian people. One of them was told by the Japanese writer Seiichi Morimura in the documentary investigation “The Devil’s Kitchen”, which tells about the activities during the Second World War of the sinister and mysterious special forces of the Kwantung Army, known as “Unit 731”. In the Soviet Union, this terrifying book was published in 1983 and has not been reprinted since…
Eighty years ago, in the summer of 1938, in the village of Pingfang, not far from Harbin, the Japanese began to hastily create a secret military base. In order to quickly clear the site for construction, the occupiers burned down three hundred Chinese fanzas, and soon in their place appeared squat concrete buildings, surrounded by a deep ditch and a high fence with electrified barbed wire. The completely autonomous facility, with an area of 36 square kilometers, had its own power plant, an airfield with a squadron of fighters, a bomb shelter, large warehouses, an equestrian arena, a prison, a railway, and even a Shinto shrine.
According to the documents, the base belonged to the Main Administration for Water Supply and Prevention of the Kwantung Army. This cunning signboard concealed “Unit 731” headed by the doctor of medicine, Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro. The main task of the unit was to create bacteriological weapons, which were supposed to be used in combat operations against the Chinese and in the future war against the USSR. The enormous importance of this work for Japan is evidenced by the fact that the unit was created by personal decree of Emperor Hirohito (by the way, he was interested in biology since childhood), it gathered dozens of the best scientists from the leading research centers of the country – both military and civilian. Requests from Pingfang for the allocation of funds were satisfied in full and without delay, even during the war, when Japan was experiencing serious financial difficulties. In addition to “daddy” Ishii, whom his fellow soldiers called a “learned monkey” behind his back for his readiness to resort to any cruelty in order to obtain a scientific result, there were eight more generals in the detachment, and its total number, including support units and branch personnel, reached three thousand people by 1945.
This mass of people worked tirelessly for the good of the empire under the motto “We are all trying to win the war and must tirelessly improve our skills.” In the laboratories, day and night, work was carried out on an industrial scale to grow bacteria of plague, typhus, cholera, anthrax, dysentery, tuberculosis and other deadly cultures. Field tests of “combat microbes” were also conducted here, and practical problems were solved on their most effective use in combat conditions. In parallel, various medical experiments were conducted, designed to help the soldiers of the Japanese army become stronger and more resilient, and at the same time weaken the enemy. For this purpose, the characteristics of the human body were meticulously studied, including establishing the limits of its endurance, resistance and survivability in aggressive environments.
The objects of “scientific activity” were living people – Chinese, Russians, Mongols, Koreans. It was on them that the most barbaric experiments and tests were carried out. In this regard, the Japanese were no different from the Nazi doctors, who also widely practiced such “research” on concentration camp prisoners. The only difference is that the general public, especially in the West, knows much more about the deeds of the German “killers in white coats” than about the “works” of their colleagues in the Far East.
Prisoners of the “Unit 731” prison were inoculated with plague, cholera and other diseases, infected with gas gangrene, had various organs cut out and limbs amputated without anesthesia, were put into freezers, centrifuges, pressure chambers and hotly heated rooms-stoves. The course and results of monstrous experiments, which almost always ended in the death of the subject, were carefully recorded, including recorded on photo and film.
Unfettered by the framework of human morality, the fantasies of Dr. Ishii’s subordinates truly knew no bounds. Any question, even the most insane, that came to the “scientist’s” mind had to receive a clear answer in practice as soon as possible. For example, how long can a person endure sitting in cold water in the cold? When will death occur if the “object” is suspended upside down, and how do various internal organs change? How will the body react if horse urine is injected into the kidneys? What happens if you replace human blood with monkey blood? What happens when your lungs fill with smoke? What changes happen if you inject poisonous gas or rotting tissue into your stomach? And so on…
The exact number of victims who died at the hands of Japanese sadists in Pingfang is unknown and is unlikely to ever be established, since the laboratory documentation was partially destroyed when Soviet tanks approached Harbin in August 1945, and partially taken by Ishiya and his “close associates” to the United States, from where, like from the Don, there is no extradition. It is believed that as a result of the monstrous experiments, from three to ten thousand people died. Maybe more.
