About the book: 2017 / Prehistory and the beginning of the Great Patriotic War is the topic of a tough debate that unfolded in post-Soviet Russia. If the Soviet Union realized the inevitability of war with Germany, prepared for it, reorganizing the Red Army and the defense industry, then how to explain the disaster of 1941? Separating facts from myths, relying on a scrupulous study of declassified documents of those years, analyzing the actions of the Soviet leadership in foreign and domestic politics, considering virtual options for military operations in 1941, the authors of this book explain the real reasons not only for our defeats in the first stage of the war, but also for the inevitable revenge of the USSR.