Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army

[Pat Holscher]

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945
By Catherine Merridale.
2006. Picadore (Henry Holt & Company).

Disappointing.

There are a lot of books discussing the American soldier in World War Two, and it is certainly possible to find memoirs or books discussing the individual soldier of most of the other armies. Even the Japanese soldier, members of a culture that Americans generally find pretty alien, have been looked at. But the Soviet soldier really remains a mystery.

With that in mind, I picked up this book, one of at least two recent books on the Red Army. The book attempts to look at the thoughts, feelings views and experiences of the individual Soviet soldier. Unfortunately, it never quite gets there, and the book seems tainted by some slightly suppressed views of the authors.

The author, Catherine Merridale, undertook the project with the idea of reading declassified documents and conducting interviews of surviving veterans. Much of the information she generated in this search is indeed very interesting, and much of what she relates is fascinating. The problem, however, is that she seems to have entered into the task with a predisposed notion as to what she would find, and while a lot of her own research contradicts what she learned, she will tend to insist on her predisposed views anyway.

In short, Ms. Merridale is pretty convinced that a long history of Communism had come to completely dominate the thoughts of the Soviet Union's young people so that, by 1939, they were Soviet men. She wants to believe that this made their views uniquely distinct from generations Russians before them, and that it made them unique from other nations' soldiers at the time. That theory, it should be noted, is not unique, and was often stated in general about the views of Soviet citizens in general during the existence of the USSR.

However, neither history, nor the data generated in Ms. Merridale's book, support the thesis. At the outbreak of World War Two the Soviet Union was only two decades old, and there were plenty of Soviet troops who had a clear memory of a non Soviet past. They might be Communist, or not, but it isn't the case that they'd all grown up in a state in which Communism was accepted due to generations of influence. Indeed, throughout Ms. Merridale's book we learn that most Soviet soldiers were of the peasant class, most of them hated the collectivization of agriculture, desertion remained a pronounced problem well into the war, and after the Soviets began to take back territory from the Germans. In short, a great deal of what Ms. Merridale details is that, while the average Soviet soldier was loyal to his country, he really remained very much a traditional Russian peasant, more than anything else. Ms. Merridale even goes so far to simply excuse some things that do not fit her preconceived thesis, noting for example that Soviet soldier continued to cross themselves in the Russian Orthodox style, made crosses out of scrap aluminum, and would even pray before battle, but to dismiss this as disingenuous as they lived in a Communist state. A better conclusion would be that they retained much of the cultural attributes of their pre-1917 countrymen.

Ms. Merridale gives some good examples of the terrible suffering of Soviet soldiers during the war, with which she genuinely sympathizes. And she also at least acknowledges that some features of Communism's official views on the soldier class did not fit them, and caused them additional suffering. Her treatment of the post war abuse of the veterans by Stalin's administration gave some examples of which I was previously unaware, and are truly unfortunate. She also shows some courage, given her viewpoint, in discussing the mob like behavior of Soviet soldiers in Axis territory in 1944 and 1945. As is well known, the Soviet Army, which certainly had the admiration of the Western world for it's heroic resistance against the Germans, disgraced itself by engaging what has been described as the most massive example of mass rape in modern times, or perhaps of all time. Indeed, Ms. Merridale acknowledges, contrary to some other sources, that combat troops as well as rear area troops engaged in this, and places the percentage of Soviet troops participating in the rape, and often the murder, of the Axis female population at a very high percentage. However, remaining sympathetic to her subject, she simply somewhat excuses the behavior as inevitable.

All in all, perhaps this review is unduly harsh, but the book has the sense of being about 75% done, at which point the conclusions began to get a little too difficult to actually reach, and at which point they began to look a little too far distanced from the assumed ones. I came out of the book feeling that I had a better grasp of the Soviet soldier than I did, but that my conclusions did not really support the authors. The book could have been a lot better if had gone the extra 25% rather than simply assuming that the pre research conclusion must have been correct. In the end, contrary to the author, I was sort of left with the impression that the combined Stalin and Lenin administrations had created a hard core of Communist ruling a population that remained largely peasants in actuality or in retained culture (for good and ill), and that the Red Army, contrary to her stated comment, really was a bit of an armed mob in a way.

I will give her credit for noting her difficulty in penetrating the official Soviet story of WWII in Russia, which she helps explain. The wartime story of the heroic Soviet soldier became entrenched. After the war, soldiers were ordered not to reveal what they had experienced at the front. And many, coming home horribly traumatized by the war, and after having participated in mass destruction and barbarity in the territories they occupied, clung to the official myth that had been created for them.

As this is, after all, the Society of the Military Horse forum, I will note that horses show up in the book, but that military horse fans can't expect too many details. At least horse use is acknowledged, although it isn't explored in any detail.

Pat

[JV Puleo]

Pat,
Years ago I had a customer in my garage, a retired US Navy Captain, who had done several tours of duty as attache at the embassy in Moscow. It must have been in the 60s and 70s. He held the position for an unusually long time because there simply weren't very many senior Naval officers who spoke Russian fluently.
In any case, he was writing a book on the Soviet Navy and one observation he shared with me was that "the Soviet Navy is more like the old Russian Navy than any of them would dare admit."

Joe P

As an aftethought I just googled his name...Bob Bathurst. I see there are several titles on the Soviet Navy by Robert B. Bathurst. It must be the same man. He had a 102 volume Russian encyclopedia in his house and told me that, if you wanted something like that you had to get a pre-revolutionary one. Nothing published by the Soviets could be relied on.

[Pat Holscher]

Originally posted by JV Puleo
Pat,
Years ago I had a customer in my garage, a retired US Navy Captain, who had done several tours of duty as attache at the embassy in Moscow. It must have been in the 60s and 70s. He held the position for an unusually long time because there simply weren't very many senior Naval officers who spoke Russian fluently.
In any case, he was writing a book on the Soviet Navy and one observation he shared with me was that "the Soviet Navy is more like the old Russian Navy than any of them would dare admit."

Joe P

As an aftethought I just googled his name...Bob Bathurst. I see there are several titles on the Soviet Navy by Robert B. Bathurst. It must be the same man. He had a 102 volume Russian encyclopedia in his house and told me that, if you wanted something like that you had to get a pre-revolutionary one. Nothing published by the Soviets could be relied on.

A few years back there was a memoir available by a US Naval officer who served in the USSR during WWII that looked very interesting. I didn't buy it at the time, and wish I had. I recall in reading the synopsis of the book that it was his recollection that serving in the Soviet Union during the war meant working in the continual haze of Vodka inspired inebriation, as his duties at the embassy required attending an endless series of Vodka fueled Soviet meetings. I wonder if there's any chance that the book is by this individual?

I would think that a Navy would be particularly inclined to rely on its predecessors. Navies require so much in the way of long range planning, I don't know how they could avoid it. And the culture of a nation's navy seem so distinct, that I would think that it would tend to carry on no matter what.

Even with armies, however, that would be true to a degree. Merridale details, for example, that the Red Army began to reintroduce officer privilege with the Red Army's poor performance in the Winter War, and during WWII it reintroduced Imperial style shoulder boards. Indeed, this was to the shock and sometimes disgust of old Russian Civil War era veterans, but the younger troops very much welcomed the return to the old style.

More than anything else, however, I think that Merridale may have unintentionally argued against herself in that a culture, no matter how repressed, will not tend to change overnight. It was clear that the average Russian infantryman reflected the values of ancestry, in that he loved his country, but hated collectivism. While the war likely strengthened Stalinism in the USSR, it would appear that a lot of Soviet soldiers had a very low attraction to it, and a very low attraction to Communism as well. They were fighting, it would appear, more for the same things that had motivated their fathers in 1914-1917, or gg-grandfathers in 1812.



Pat

[wkambic]

Military organizations are structured the way they are less because Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon said so but rather those personages recognized that humans respond well to clear structure and effective leadership.

I've read that after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China the PLA banned formal rank badges of any kind. In short order a new "badge of rank" appeared, the ball point pen. The number of pens you had in your pocket showed your rank. I don't know that it's true, but it makes sense. In a military organization it is literally a life and death issue to know the chain of command.

In an organization like the Red Army where command depended on a dual standard (professional competence and political reliability) you'll get some interesting senior officer personnel policies.



Bill Kambic

Mangalarga Marchador: Uma raça, uma paixão

[Pat Holscher]

Originally posted by wkambic
Military organizations are structured the way they are less because Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon said so but rather those personages recognized that humans respond well to clear structure and effective leadership.

I've read that after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China the PLA banned formal rank badges of any kind. In short order a new "badge of rank" appeared, the ball point pen. The number of pens you had in your pocket showed your rank. I don't know that it's true, but it makes sense. In a military organization it is literally a life and death issue to know the chain of command.

In an organization like the Red Army where command depended on a dual standard (professional competence and political reliability) you'll get some interesting senior officer personnel policies.



Bill Kambic

Mangalarga Marchador: Uma raça, uma paixão

The Red Army experimented with abolishing most of the distinctions of rank as well following the Civil War. The Revolution itself featured soldier Soviets at first. The experiment, however, was a failure in that it encouraged the enlisted men to view themselves as equal in terms of opinion as their officers.

While rank distinctions were restored, it took the Winter War to really increase them, and World War Two to fully restore them. Ironically, as Merridale also notes, World War Two had the effect, towards the end, of causing enlisted soldiers to engage in independent thought, which made them dangerous to the state.

An irony of World War Two is that the two combatants governed by dictatorial political parties that claimed working class origins found it necessary to restore or exaggerate imperial inspired insignia. The Soviet example is discussed above, but that was also the case with the German military. The Nazi party claimed to be a working class party, and it actually did put a fair number of men from non traditional classes into the officer ranks. That's sometimes been cited as part of the reason that high ranking officers were reluctant to overthrow Hitler, as they were not confident that their junior officers would follow them. Anyhow, the German Army fully incorporated and exaggerated old Prussian uniform styles, which had originated in an army that was extremely class conscious.

In contrast, the armies of the United States and the Commonwealth countries often featured a disregard for distinctive insignia amongst combat troops. Officers and NCOs wouldn't wear insignia, as it made them a target in combat.

A person can't make too much of that, but it is interesting that in the armies serving dictatorial parties that claimed to represent the working man, it was necessary to have fancy insignia setting the officers apart, while in the democratic nations' armies, combat officers and NCOs tended to ignore insignia.

Pat

[selewis]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Pat Holscher</i>
<br />[quote]

In contrast, the armies of the United States and the Commonwealth countries often featured a disregard for distinctive insignia amongst combat troops. Officers and NCOs wouldn't wear insignia, as it made them a target in combat.

A person can't make too much of that, but it is interesting that in the armies serving dictatorial parties that claimed to represent the working man, it was necessary to have fancy insignia setting the officers apart, while in the democratic nations' armies, combat officers and NCOs tended to ignore insignia.

Pat
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

In a sort of related way, I've always been struck by the marching style employed by most free nations compared to that of most of the tyrannies in the 20th century.

Sandy

[Pat Holscher]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Pat Holscher</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by wkambic</i>
<br />Military organizations are structured the way they are less because Alexander or Ceasar or Napolean said so but rather those personages recognized that humans respond well to clear structure and effective leadership.

I've read that after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China the PLA banned formal rank badges of any kind. In short order a new "badge of rank" appeared, the ball point pen. The number of pens you had in your pocket showed your rank. I don't know that it's true, but it makes sense. In a military organization it is literlly a life and death issue to know the chain of command.

In an organization like the Red Army where command depended on a dual standard (professional competance and political reliability) you'll get some intersting senior officer personnel policies.



Bill Kambic

Mangalarga Marchador: Uma raça, uma paixão

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

The Red Army experimented with abolishing most of the distinctions of rank as well following the Civil War. The Revolution itself featured soldier Soviets at first. The experiment, however, was a failure in that it encouraged the enlisted men to view themselves as equal in terms of opinion as their officers.

While rank distinctions were restored, it took the Winter War to really increase them, and World War Two to fully restore them. Ironically, as Merridale also notes, World War Two had the effect, towards the end, of causing enlisted soldiers to engage in independent thought, which made them dangerous to the state.

An irony of World War Two is that the two combatants governed by dictatorial political parties that claimed working class origins found it necessary to restore or exaggerate imperial inspired insignia. The Soviet example is discussed above, but that was also the case with the German military. The Nazi party claimed to be a working class party, and it actually did put a fair number of men from non traditional classes into the officer ranks. That's sometimes been cited as part of the reason that high ranking officers were reluctant to overthrow Hitler, as they were not confident that their junior officers would follow them. Anyhow, the German Army fully incorporated and exaggerated old Prussian uniform styles, which had originated in an army that was extremely class conscious.

In contrast, the armies of the United States and the Commonwealth countries often featured a disregard for distinctive insignia amongst combat troops. Officers and NCOs wouldn't wear insignia, as it made them a target in combat.

A person can't make too much of that, but it is interesting that in the armies serving dictatorial parties that claimed to represent the working man, it was necessary to have fancy insignia setting the officers apart, while in the democratic nations' armies, combat officers and NCOs tended to ignore insignia.

Pat
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I guess to carry this out a bit, another interesting example of this might be the two post war Germanys. East Germany, the Communist state, fully reincorporated the Nazi era uniform. Considering that the DDR was occupied by the Soviets after WWII, and was virtually up to the point the Berlin Wall went down, that's pretty remarkable, as it must have been the case that the Soviets allowed, or even encouraged that. Indeed, most of the Warsaw Pact countries used some variant of the Red Army's uniform, with the East German Army's uniform remarkably departing from it. With the East German's claiming to be a proletarian nation, which genuinely was heir to one of the oldest and most active Communist parties in Europe, it's choice to recall the recent, dressy, Nazi past in its uniforms is very curious.

In contrast, democratic West Germany did that much less. The Bundeswehr's dress uniforms do sort of recall the uniforms of the 30s and 40s, but their field uniforms did not, and none of them were as clearly Third Reich as East Germany's.

Pat

[Pat Holscher]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by selewis</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Pat Holscher</i>
<br />[quote]

In contrast, the armies of the United States and the Commonwealth countries often featured a disregard for distinctive insignia amongst combat troops. Officers and NCOs wouldn't wear insignia, as it made them a target in combat.

A person can't make too much of that, but it is interesting that in the armies serving dictatorial parties that claimed to represent the working man, it was necessary to have fancy insignia setting the officers apart, while in the democratic nations' armies, combat officers and NCOs tended to ignore insignia.

Pat
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

In a sort of related way, I've always been struck by the marching style employed by most free nations compared to that of most of the tyrannies in the 20th century.

Sandy

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Goosestepping was used by at least the German, Italian, and Soviet armies in WWII.

I've read that Goosestepping originates with the Romans, but I don't know that to be true. Supposedly the Romans, with their engineering minds, figured out that making soldiers march in that fashion caused them to cover an extra amount of ground per step, and more miles per hour. Again, I don't know that to be true. It certainly looks like an uncomfortable way to walk.

Mussolini supposedly lengthened out the length of the stride of the Italian Goosestep.

Pat

[selewis]

Interesting, Pat. I suppose it may just be a matter of association that gives me the creeps. North Korea has adopted it, which doesn't surprise me. The 'normal' march seems more democratic, the gait of a natural man.

Sandy

[Ken McPheeters]

Pat, your take on Merridale's work is interesting, thank you. Given that I had not read it, and had hopes it would fill in the blank of the private Russian soldier, I'm disappointed to learn this may not be the one.

The points you cite where you feel she fell short of the mark are areas she could have given better service to had she availed herself of the available information. For example, early in the war Stalin and his hierarchy realized that the "international" focus of Communism was not serving the war effort as well as a healthy nationalist loyalty to Mother Russia - and they changed that focus. Even the slogans changed from the spirit of delivering the working class of Germany from the oppression of capitalism to crushing the Hitlerites as the Russians called them. Her apparent weak explanation of the Russian soldiers' loyalty to the Orthodox Church and characterizing the practice of prayer and observance of religious emblems and icons is way off the mark. The Communist State divorced itself from the church, but the indivisual Russian never did. Stalin recognized this and established a "truce" with the Church, reinstating its public position in Russia, albeit on somewhat of a short leash, with a view to providing the private soldier with the moral authority and psychological comfort necessary to wage war. And it worked.

Finally, her analysis of the violence visited on Germans and Austrians by the Russian soldiers is the typical and somewhat myopic view held by many, in particular British and US writers. First, the Russians did little more than give as good as they got, and some would argue the Russians were remarkably restrained given the treatment of the Russian population by the German Army. In fact, from Stalin on down through the command structure, repeated directives admonished the troops to behave themselves through the areas they occupied while chasing the German Army back to its own borders. Once in Germany, the gloves certainly came off. I lived in Germany, had and still have many German friends, and knew three whose families - in particular their female relatives - suffered personally at the hands of Russian soldiers. I think it is germane to remember that when we engage in a discussion of the acts of Russian soldiers against the Germans that not many of us have Russian friends, while finding Americans who have some sort of positive experience with, or tie to, Germany is fairly easy to do. Point being, that it is easy to feel sympathy for those you know. The fact is that history began to be rewritten immediately after the cessation of hostilities and only recently have these initial precepts been unwoven in an attempt to find the truth. With the onset of the Cold War it was far simpler to accept “German good – Russian bad”. For some 50 years we've been told of the horrid experience of the citizens of Berlin once it was occupied by the Russians, dating back to the end of the war and illustrated in excruciating detail in some of the earliest literature such as Armageddon by Leon Uris. It was hell on earth, no doubt. But what we have not heard is the memories of the citizens of Kiev, Stalingrad and the other cities, towns and villages that were occupied by the Germans, and I would expect those stories to be just as hellish in nature. There is also a certain level of naiveté on our part on this side of the pond. We have never been occupied by a hostile force and our citizens have thankfully never suffered unimaginable atrocities at the hands of the occupiers. And we have never then prevailed over such an occupying force, in turn then invaded their country bent not only on the destruction of their army, but on exacting a revenge on the population who supported those forces. And too, I think its worthy of note that European warfare for generations had included rape and pillaging as a right of the conqueror – practices more specific to the times in which they happened than to the genetics of the soldiers. So while I feel comfortable standing in judgment of a modern army’s behavior, and expecting the individual soldier to behave in the manner in which brings credit upon his nation, I also realize that any history must be reviewed in a fair and balanced context.

This is the kind of subject that would be interesting to explore over a (or several) bottle of scotch.

A final thought in response to Joe’s comment about the Russian Navy versus the Soviet Navy. He was right on the mark. I had a classmate in Naval Intell who was assigned to the Pentagon during the break up of the USSR. As you can imagine, there were plenty of nervous folks monitoring the outcome of the division of assets to the various national entities as they emerged from the fray. At some point, the individual nations began clamoring for their share of the Soviet Navy’s boomers, the missile subs. A communication from the Soviet Fleet command to the politicians was intercepted that was extremely short and to the point, to the effect that first, the boomers belonged to the navy, not the politicians, and second, if they (the politicians) had any illusions that the navy would surrender their responsibility for those ships to such a pack of nitwits, the politicians were sadly mistaken. Our navy breathed a collective sigh of relief. The Russian Fleet was always held in the highest regard as being a solid and professional service and not one that was particularly interested in political ideologies. Thank God!

Best, Ken

[Pat Holscher]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Ken McPheeters</i>
<br />
The points you cite where you feel she fell short of the mark are areas she could have given better service to had she availed herself of the available information. For example, early in the war Stalin and his hierarchy realized that the "international" focus of Communism was not serving the war effort as well as a healthy nationalist loyalty to Mother Russia - and they changed that focus. Even the slogans changed from the spirit of delivering the working class of Germany from the oppression of capitalism to crushing the Hitlerites as the Russians called them. Her apparent weak explanation of the Russian soldiers' loyalty to the Orthodox Church and characterizing the practice of prayer and observance of religious emblems and icons is way off the mark. The Communist State divorced itself from the church, but the indivisual Russian never did. Stalin recognized this and established a "truce" with the Church, reinstating its public position in Russia, albeit on somewhat of a short leash, with a view to providing the private soldier with the moral authority and psychological comfort necessary to wage war. And it worked.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Indeed, in her book she seems to want to discount the Russian people's retained loyalty to the Russian Orthodox faith. She does note that the churches were opened back up, but only really in passing.

She also notes, towards the end of the book, that the Russian Orthodox Church as been reestablished in many places that the USSR ejected it from, and that the Church has gone forward to include the Russian war dead amongst those for whom it offers prayers. She tends to discount that also, which is curious. The revival of the Russian Orthodox Church is fairly good evidence that it did not go as far from the average Russian's heart as might be supposed, and the fact that it feels that it should pray for the Russian war dead, some 60 years after the war ended, is a fairly significant thing in and of itself. In that context, Merridale's comments might tell us more about Merridale than about the average Soviet soldier.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

Finally, her analysis of the violence visited on Germans and Austrians by the Russian soldiers is the typical and somewhat myopic view held by many, in particular British and US writers. First, the Russians did little more than give as good as they got, and some would argue the Russians were remarkably restrained given the treatment of the Russian population by the German Army. In fact, from Stalin on down through the command structure, repeated directives admonished the troops to behave themselves through the areas they occupied while chasing the German Army back to its own borders. Once in Germany, the gloves certainly came off. I lived in Germany, had and still have many German friends, and knew three whose families - in particular their female relatives - suffered personally at the hands of Russian soldiers. I think it is germane to remember that when we engage in a discussion of the acts of Russian soldiers against the Germans that not many of us have Russian friends, while finding Americans who have some sort of positive experience with, or tie to, Germany is fairly easy to do. Point being, that it is easy to feel sympathy for those you know. The fact is that history began to be rewritten immediately after the cessation of hostilities and only recently have these initial precepts been unwoven in an attempt to find the truth. With the onset of the Cold War it was far simpler to accept “German good – Russian bad”. For some 50 years we've been told of the horrid experience of the citizens of Berlin once it was occupied by the Russians, dating back to the end of the war and illustrated in excruciating detail in some of the earliest literature such as Armageddon by Leon Uris. It was hell on earth, no doubt. But what we have not heard is the memories of the citizens of Kiev, Stalingrad and the other cities, towns and villages that were occupied by the Germans, and I would expect those stories to be just as hellish in nature. There is also a certain level of naiveté on our part on this side of the pond. We have never been occupied by a hostile force and our citizens have thankfully never suffered unimaginable atrocities at the hands of the occupiers. And we have never then prevailed over such an occupying force, in turn then invaded their country bent not only on the destruction of their army, but on exacting a revenge on the population who supported those forces. And too, I think its worthy of note that European warfare for generations had included rape and pillaging as a right of the conqueror – practices more specific to the times in which they happened than to the genetics of the soldiers. So while I feel comfortable standing in judgment of a modern army’s behavior, and expecting the individual soldier to behave in the manner in which brings credit upon his nation, I also realize that any history must be reviewed in a fair and balanced context.

This is the kind of subject that would be interesting to explore over a (or several) bottle of scotch.

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

I agree. It might take several bottles of Scotch to be able to just handle the story.

This whole aspect of the war between the Germans and the Soviets is one that is not only hard to take, but which has been underexplored by the histories. The major German atrocities have, of course, been subject to exploration, but the participation in them is wider than has generally been acknowledged. German propaganda early during the invasion of the USSR even included radio broadcast by Goebbles stating that Russian women were a "right" of the German conquerer. And the German occupation of the Soviet Union was brutal in the extreme.

Indeed, an irony of WWII is that Germany's only real hope of defeating the Soviet Union lied with the Russian people, who were receptive in varying degrees to receive an invading force as a liberator. However, the racist motives of the invasion meant that the Germans were never prepared to accept the position as a "liberator". Even at that, a large number of Russians chose to aid the Germans. But, German behavior in the Soviet Union during their occupation turned a large number of Red Army soldiers into men possessed with a visceral hatred of their opponents.

As the Red Army approached Axis territory (not only Germany, but Hungary also) their leadership ramped up the level of propaganda they were subjected to, urging them to take their revenge on their opponents. The purpose of this may be debated, but in part it may have been simply because the Soviet leadership knew the final battles were going to be brutal, and the attrition rate in the Red Army horrific. Quite a few Red Army soldiers had no understanding that they really needed to fight beyond their own borders. But the effect of the propaganda, combined with their own hatred of the enemy, and the fact that they were really a very simple people, rooted in the village, with a nearly tribal outlook on the world, operated to encourage the worst sort of behavior.

An irony of all of this may be that the Western World looked on the Red Army of WWII for years as an example of what it would face if the Soviets invaded Europe. But at least as to the character of the Soviet soldier that has to be questioned after the mid 1950s. By that time, most of them would have been better educated, less provincial, and likely of a bit different world view. That's not to say that the USSR wasn't a danger, however.

Pat

[Pat Holscher]

I've mentioned this book in my review of On The Roads of War, here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8770

While On The Roads of War is not an attempt to get inside the head of the average Soviet soldier, it does offer the views of one Soviet soldier. Interestingly, nearly ever single significant topic that is covered in Ivan's War is covered in On The Road's To War, but in a matter of fact off hand way, in many instances.

At any rate, I dare say that Ivan Yakushin has given us a better look at the views of the Soviet soldier than the author of Ivan's War did. It's a short book, but I'd recommend it over Ivan's War any day.