The article is devoted to the assessment of the results of the Bolshevik modernization of Russia in the 20-30s of the 20th century in its military-technological, personnel and political aspects on the example of the struggle of Soviet Russia with Nazi Germany in the first years of World War II and the Great Patriotic War. The relevance of the topic is due to the contradictions in the assessments of the Bolshevik transformations of the 20-30s. In historiography and in the public mind, disputes about the role of these transformations for victory in the Second World War and WWII are not abating. This is especially true of the first years of the Second World War, which led the USSR to disaster. This problem was analyzed by an outstanding theoretician, leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and a figure of the Russian intellectual emigration V.M. Chernov. As historical sources, the article considers a number of such interesting documents as the letter of V.M. Chernov to I. V. Stalin in 1942 and issues of the emigre magazine “For Freedom!ˮ published in the USA. Using these sources as an example, the position of V.M. Chernov on the successes and failures of the Bolshevik reform of Russia and the related victories and defeats of the Red Army in the early years of the War. It is proved that the failures of the USSR in the first years of the War were the result of a number of political and personnel problems, some of which were caused by the accelerated "assault" nature of the Bolshevik modernization of the 1920s and 1930s.
