Book Description
They died in vast numbers, eight million men and women driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the soldiers of the Red Army, an exhausted mass of recruits who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. For sixty years, their experiences were suppressed, replaced by patriotic propaganda. We know how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. In this ambitious, revelatory history, Catherine Merridale uncovers the harrowing story of who these soldiers were, and how they lived and died during the war.
Customer Reviews:
soviet soldiers.......2007-09-16
As for the civilian, who has exeperienced living side-by-side with soviet army some years ago, the book did not make any new revelations. It is for a reader, who wishes to look deeper into "the russian soul", albeit in very specific historical circumstances. The author frequently refers to a russian peasant as an individual character, although agriculture in Russia has traditionally been based on collectivist mentality.
Some stories are incredible. For example, that russian couple in 1944 bought a T-34 for their life savings, and wife became a tank driver and was killed in a battle (p.214). Referring to the Baltic states, the author states that the deportations took place in 1939 (p.243), although those were carried out in 1941 after occupation of the Baltics in 1940. The final chapter gives a precise and correct observation about WWII memories, which these days in Russia build up a part of a new official state religion.
A great accomplishment.......2007-09-14
This cultural analysis of the Red Army is not only long overdue, but hits the nail right on the head. As a former paratroop infantryman with a B.A. in Russian Area Studies and a "Red Army (actually NKVD Frontier Troops) living historian", I found the book to not only be very useful, but fascinating.
If you want to know what it was like to serve in the Red Army during the WWII period, it's unlikely you'll ever read anything better than this.
It includes an extensive section about the psychological elements revolving around the infamous raping and pillaging of the Red Army in Germany.
Great social history of the Red Army.......2007-09-01
This is a very well-written book about the people who fought in the Red Army and not a military history of that Army and its campaigns. As anyone who has ever spoken to fathers and uncles about WW2 knows, it is very difficult to get these men to open up. The author makes clear that the problem is even greater for members of the Red Army. Nevertheless, she did get real stories from the frontoviki and she weaves their stories beautifully into this terrific history.
Although this is a social and cultural history of the war, her descriptions of the battles, like Kursk and Stalingrad, are as good as longer books dealing with just the military aspects.
It is a pity and a shame that so few Americans (that I know) have ever even hear of Kursk. If you are one of them, read this book.
Well written, an easy read on an oft-ignored but fascinating subject........2007-08-19
Well worth the read; the author stumbles in a few places by looping back to the same topics over and over again, but all in all, she does an outstanding job of laying out the realities of life in the Soviet Army, and the despicable manner in which the soldiers and veterans were treated. A must read for those who argue that the Soviet system was relatively benign or misunderstood.
Ivan's War........2007-07-31
Just finished reading "Ivan's War, Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945?, by Catherine Merridale (Picador). For those of you who might still be trying to understand the scale, enormity and shear incomprehensibility of those six, bewilderingly catastrophic years, you might want to pick it up at your local read store. Ivan's war starts out slowly but once Catherine Merridale gets her grove on she manages to portray, with great skill, the Red Army and the men who filled its wretched ranks.
I soon found myself mourning and grief-stricken for the victims of this supremely Soviet state, and its uniquely echanting combination of totalitarianism, Stalinist ideological rigidity, and the absolute, unrelenting carnage brought onto them by Hitler's equally mind numbingly hateful brand of collective insanity. There may never be any words strong enough to express the misery of the "frontovikis" during and after the Soviets' "Great Patriotic War".
Ever-since the fall of the Soviet Union, the reconstituted Russian state has opened its archives to greater scrutiny and researchers like Ms. Merridale have been allowed to dig in and conduct interviews with former Red Army soldiers and officers. Russian and foreign historians will no doubt have a field day with its archived decades but what is certainly not going to change is that there is, and will always be, far more ways to die at the hand of man, than there are ways for men to peacably live by it.
A longer review on my blog- http://blog.olivierlaude.com Entry title: Kiss me I'm bipedal.
Book Description
Operation Berlin, the Soviet offensive launched on 16 April 1945 by Marshals Zhukov and Koniev, isolated the German Ninth Army and tens of thousands of refugees in the Spreewald 'pocket', south-east of Berlin. Stalin ordered its encirclement and destruction and his subordinates, eager to win the race to the Reichstag, pushed General Busse's Ninth Army into a tiny area east of the village of Halbe. To escape the Spreewald pocket the remnants of Ninth Army had to pass through Halbe, where barricades constructed by both sides formed formidable obstacles and the converging Soviet forces subjected the area to heavy artillery fire. By the time Ninth Army eventually escaped the Soviet pincers, it had suffered 40,000 killed and 60,000 taken prisoner. Teenaged refugees recount their experiences alongside Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS veterans attempting to maintain military discipline amid the chaos and carnage of headlong retreat. While army commanders strive to extricate their decimated units, demoralised soldiers change into civilian clothing and take to the woods. Relating the story day by day, Tony Le Tissier shows the impact of total war upon soldier and civilian alike, illuminating the unfolding of great and terrible events with the recollections of participants.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing - not up to the author's standard.......2007-06-01
I purchased Slaughter at Halbe, having already read several of Le Tissier's other works. The author's Zhukov at the Oder was masterfully researched and well written, while his With Our Backs to Berlin was also excellent. Assuming (wrongly as it turned out)that Slaughter at Halbe would be of this same standard of quality, I was terribly disappointed. The book is - it seems - well researched, but the authors failure is in presenting that research in a readable fashion. The book jumps around, does not give a consistent or particularly flowing narrative, and the reader will find himself regularly looking for places mentioned in the text on the handful of woefully inadequate maps.
Here's (perhaps) my biggest complaint about Slaughter at Halbe: The maps are either poor or irrelevant. Dozens of towns and villages are mentioned in the text that are no where to be found on the author's odd collection of maps. Serious military history volumes need good (and relevant) maps!!!!! If I have to continually refer to my Brandenburg road map to find the author's referenced places, well, that does not say much, does it?
The review given by "Truthteller" for the paperback edition of this book largely encapsualtes my other complaints and I would refer the prospective purchaser to that review. In summary, this volume is much poorer than I anticipated, and it is clear that Le Tissier can do much, much better. To reiterate, I would strongly recommend Zhukov at the Oder, With Our Backs to Berlin, and Berlin: Then & Now. But Slaughter at Halbe is poorly written and poorly organized and while there is a lot of great research that went into it, the value of that research is severely curtailed by the manner in which it is presented. A lot of interesting details, but the failure to weave them into a larger picture is - there's that word again - disappointing.
Simply Outstanding, Buy It!.......2007-03-28
In short, this is an outstanding account of the last days of the 9th Army. Yes, it could be better here and there, but overall, I found this one a very good read and if you're a student of the German military in WWII, this one will not disappoint.
Not Interesting.......2007-02-15
Since I read Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle," I have always been fascinated with the end of the 3rd Reich. In such a hopeless situation, what was going on in the minds of the German soldiers and officers and what made them continue the fight and what did they hope to gain? I expected "Slaughter at Halbe" to focus on the battles and soldiers around Berlin starting with the final Soviet offensive in April 1945. It does contain a lot of detailed descriptions and personal accounts that may make it worthwhile as a source for a limited audience. However, as far as being interesting reading is concerned, it falls far short due to a lack of continuity, context, and uninspired writing. There are many maps, but most of them are very difficult to read and also unfocused. I would have never bought this book, but I came across it while browsing on Amazon. Usually, my Amazon inspired purchases bring great reading into my life, but I suppose that cannot always be the case. Except for possibly the extremely hardcore military history buff and book collector, I cannot recommend Slaughter at Halbe to anybody.
the review of Slaughter at Halbe.......2007-01-12
I thought the book was in teresting . i found at first was the russia part boring about where every body was on stalin team. i like story about the individual conquest. plus alot of history. how history was made. For me
Another excellent effort by Le Tissier.......2007-01-10
Add this work to his others that cover this period of WW II history and you will have a complete and accurate telling.
Book Description
Edited and translated from the Russian by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova Knopf Canada is proud to present a masterpiece of the Second World War, never before published in English, from one of the great Russian writers of the 20th century – a vivid eyewitness account of the Eastern Front and “the ruthless truth of war.”
When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for the Red Star, the Red Army’s newspaper.
A Writer at War – based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered raw material for his articles – depicts the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. It also includes some of the earliest reportage on the Holocaust. In the three years he spent on assignment, Grossman witnessed some of the most savage fighting of the war: the appalling defeats of the Red Army, the brutal street fighting in Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk (the largest tank engagement in history), the defense of Moscow, the battles in Ukraine and much more.
Historian Antony Beevor has taken Grossman’s raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions – at once unflinching and sensitive – we have ever had of what he called “the ruthless truth of war.”
Customer Reviews:
War on the Russian Front.......2007-09-11
Most casual students of World War II in Europe are familiar with the major battles in the West, and are probably conversant with the Eastern struggles at Leningrad and Stalingrad, but that's about it as far as the "Russian Front" goes. This gripping book tells us the Russian soldier's story "from the grunt's eye-view", and we learn a lot about how the typical Russian soldier felt about the war. In an Ernie Pyle-style of writing, the author delves into the smallest aspect of the soldiers' lives, and their reaction to the fighting. As a conclusion, the reader learns that these soldiers fought, not for Communism or Stalin, but for the liberation of their Motherland, and for their friends who fought beside them. It's a powerful work, and one that really deserves wide distribution.
Ordinary people in wartime working to survive.......2007-07-25
Grossman was born in 1905, and though he was exempt from fighting in World War II when Hitler invaded Russia (he tried to enlist), he did get a job covering the war for the Red Army newspaper, Red Star, Krasnaya Zvezda.
Beevor (author of Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin, 1945) and Vinogradova have taken Grossman's extensive notes from his war reporting years and some of his published dispatches and combined them into a fascinating and horror-filled account of heroism, shocking brutality from both Germans and Russians, criticism of some officers, and praise for others. Grossman's experiences were coalesced into the novel Life and Fate, which Grossman tied to get published in the Soviet Union. It was suppressed in the 1960s and finally published in the 1980s to great acclaim.
Writer at War is full of beautiful brief anecdotes of ordinary people, both army and civilians, and their defense of the Soviet Union. There are short descriptions of bodies, ruins, the frenzied flight of whole towns in front of the invading German forces, the mud, the cold, the food, and the orphaned and abandoned children. These are images we may not want to confront; but we should. Brutal wars and genocide are still going on-and we need to recall what it was like and what it is still like.
I have not experienced anything so powerful since I saw Elim Klimov's film about the invasion, Come and See.
NOTE: Grossman's report on Treblinka was used in the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, and published in Znamya. Grossman was disillusioned by Stalin's refusal to acknowledge the slaughter of Jews in the Ukraine (among those killed was Grossman's mother). Grossman's articles on this subject were often censored or not used at all.
Armchair Interviews says: Powerful stories.
Eyewitness........2007-07-23
Really a unique book. Beevor contextualises Grossman's notes and editorials for Red Star but leaves Grossman to tell the story. Whilst history books can provide a detached description of events they cannot provide the level of intimacy and humanity that Grossman's interviews (from civilians to generals) and observations, at most of the key moments of the war, provide.
An understated man, he seems to have the trustworthiness for people to open up to him and you can feel the personality and character of the Russian people as individuals rather than a faceless homogenous mass.
You travel the path of retreat, teater on the brink of defeat, and feel their savage joy in fighting back.
The most powerful sections have to be that of Stalingrad and Treblinka, the former for the incredible strength of human spirit to survive and the latter for the shocking industrial scale of the state sanctioned murder in which many freely collaborated.
Whilst Grossman was a Jew and clearly feels the suffering of fellow Jews at this time you feel he is a Soviet citizen first and foremost and loves the diversity of his people.
An excellent insight.
GRIPPING REALISM.......2007-06-18
I HAVE READ MANY ACCOUNTS OF THE EXPLOITS OF THE RUSSIAN SOLDIER AND THE SIEGE OF STALINGRAD BUT THIS IS THE MOST DESCRIPTIVE ONE YET.THIS SEEMS ONLY NATURAL COMING FROM A WRITER WHO LIVED THE EXPERIENCE.WE FROM THE WEST WHO SAW NORMANDY AS THE DEFINING BATTLE TEND TO OVERLOOK RUSSIA'S DEFIANCE AT STALINGRAD WAS THE TURNING POINT OF WW2
Profoundly moving and disturbing.......2007-06-01
This is one of the very best books to come out of the War in the East. A combat journalist, Grossman saw as much action as many combat veterans. Comparable to America's Ernie Pyle, Grossman wrote with a common, sympathetic manner that powerfully conveys complex and highly emotional stories. Anyone who professes to be a serious student of the War in the East absolutely must read this book. Be warned; however, that Grossman's writings on Treblinka and other scenes of Nazi genocide are horrific and the pain they convey is staggering (his mother was one of the millions of victims of Nazi genocide). Do not read this book unless you are prepared to deal with some of the most gut-wrenchingly honest and brutal writing of your life.
Book Description
The focus of this book are the author's vivid memories of service as a company commander in a Red Army officers' penal battalion on the Eastern Front 1944-45.
During this time, he and his unit participated in the 1944 Soviet summer offensive Operation 'Bagration', the Vistula-Oder operation into eastern Germany, and the final assault on Berlin.
The stories of penal companies and battalions in the Red Army gave birth to legends about men who rushed to the attack across minefields against German machine-guns with one rifle per three men. The author of this book knows from his own experience what a penal battalion is. A common threat during the war, "I will send you to a penal battalion!" meant nothing to him. He was there.
He was a platoon commander and later a commander of an officers' penal company. He was a senior lieutenant having a degraded regiment commander as a second-in-command. He and his company had to carry out the most difficult and dangerous operations in order to break through the enemy defenses. With more than 80% of the men lost his company succeeded in completing their missions. The horrors of war, the hand-to-hand fights with a desperately struggling enemy are described in this book along with a story of a strong feeling between the young officer and a hospital nurse Rita. Thanks to Alexander Rita was appointed a nurse in the penal battalion. She saved dozens of soldiers, carrying them from the battlefield under enemy fire. It was Rita who saved Alexander Pyl'cyn from death, when he was badly wounded near Berlin. She became his wife in the last months of the war. The author is brilliant at detailing the way of life and personal relations in the war. In this horrible slaughter cowardice and treason went side by side with friendship and heroism. In these inhuman conditions people remained as they were: they lived, they laughed, they loved.
Key sales points: High-quality memoirs from Soviet soldiers who served on the Eastern Front are rare - rarer still are firsthand accounts of the Red Army's penal battalions / The author's intense and exciting style produces a fluid and highly-readable account of the brutal reality of war in the East during its most bitter final phase / Includes the author's experiences during the storming of Berlin 1945, and his battlefield romance with Rita, the battalion's nurse, and his future wife.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Account of a Red Army Penal Battalion at War.......2007-03-25
As a lieutenant, the author in December 1943 was assigned to lead a platoon in a Red Army "Officer Penal Battalion". He describes the organization, training, equipment of his battalion, and the personalities he recalls, in great and fascinating detail. Essentially, Officer Penal Battalions were shock troops used to infiltrate through or breach holes in German defensive lines. The "Officer Prisoners" fought to redeem their honor and freedom after being arrested and convicted of crimes against the State. If the officer prisoners survived and fought with honor, they were often freed and reinstated to officer status, depending on the personality and quirks of the commander of the army to which the penal battalion was attached. The author was not a convicted offender; he was part of the cadre assigned to lead this unit into combat. As a platoon leader, his deputy in one battle was a lieutenant colonel who had commanded an infantry regiment with distinction before running afoul of the State. He freely admits his unit sometimes captured, interrogated, and executed German prisoners of war, because when operating behind enemy lines in his words, "What else could we do?" This is a harsh book on the nature of close in infantry combat and the soldiers who wage it. Mercy is an alien concept when you are outnumbered and slugging it out with pistol, submachine gun, grenades, and entrenching tool against German soldiers at night inside an enemy trench. Readers interested in Soviet accounts of the infantryman's war during the last years of WWII will find this one of the best books on the subject. The author tells a candid story, one chock full of fascinating details and chilling memories, quite well. Heroism, cowardice, and luck fill the pages. This book is so well written, one can almost smell the cordite and hear the sounds of the advancing German assault guns as the author and his comrades fight like lions to repulse counterattack after counterattack in the Narev Bridgehead, October 1944.
Excellent reference about a fairly obscure topic.......2007-01-24
This book was written by a man who experienced life in a penal unit firsthand, and offers a unique perspective. He debunks several misconceptions about such units, while simultaneously providing an excellent account of daily life as an officer leading a unit of Shtrafniks. Pyl'cyn displays great personal bravery on a number of occasions. The only downside to this book is that, as the memoir of a junior officer, it does not give a big-picture perspective of the role of penal units in the war. I think it would be greatly aided by a companion piece written as a scholarly study of such units.
The Only WWII Red Army Memoir on Punishment Units.......2006-12-11
This interesting and insightful book is the only War World II memoir written by an officer of the Soviet Army's World War II penal or punishment formations.
Some 422,700 Red Army soldiers served in punishment battalions during World War II. Few survived service in such formations, which one specialist of the Soviet Army described as "forlorn," "deadly," and "soul destroying."
Alexander Pyl'cyn served as a platoon commmander and deputy commander of the 8th Independent Penal Battalion. He and his battalion fought in Byelorussia, Poland and Germany, ending the war in Berlin. Wounded three times during the war, Pyl'cyn's description of life and death in a penal battalion is powerful. He and his company carried out the most difficult and dangerous missions on any sector to which they were assigned and were frequently in the lead of Red Army breakthroughs of the German lines. Suffering casualty rates of some 80 percent, he and his men usually accomplished their mission.
"Penalty Strike" is not an easy read, though it is very well written. The text is dense and packed full of people, places, and battles. Still, the author manages to clearly and powerfully convey to the reader what it meant to be a Soviet soldier on the Eastern Front in World War. II. And many parts of the story are moving, especially when dealing with close friends killed in battle or Pyl'cyn's courtship with a Red Army nurse, whom he later married.
Those interested in the Red Army or the Eastern Front in World War II will find this book an important contribution to the literature.
Rssential for any researching the Soviet military experience during the second world war........2006-11-07
Alexander V. Pyl'cyn's PENALTY STRIKE: THE MEMOIRS OF A RED ARMY PENAL COMPANY COMMANDER, 1943-45 is also essential reading for any who would understand the WW2 experience from the Soviet participant's viewpoint: again a participant's vivid memories are plumbed: this time from a company commander's viewpoint. The author and his unit participated in the 1944 soviet summer offensive program and the final assault on Berlin: his accounts of penal companies and battalions offer vivid insights into the foundations of a penal battalion's operations. Both are essential for any researching the Soviet military experience during the second world war.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
worth it for EF junkies .......2006-05-04
I have read the Russian version of the book - it is reasonably well written memoir which dispels a whole lot of legend about Soviet penal units (big bad commissars with revolvers shooting every one at the slightest hint of fear, sanding people without the weapons in battle etc). Well worth the money.
Book Description
For a young Soviet man in the 1980s, the chances were high that he would be obliged to serve for at least two years in the Soviet Armed Forces. At this time Soviet society was far more militarized than most other European countries; by the time they turned 18, most Soviet boys were far more familiar with military life than their Western European and American counterparts. Focusing on the daily experiences of a young recruit in the Soviet Army of the late 1980s, this book examines the history, organization, appearance and equipment of the Soviet forces, from pre-service indoctrination to uniforms and leadership.
Customer Reviews:
I beg to differ.......2005-05-07
I think that the illustrations were 1st rate. As I was in the Army during the "Army Of Excellence", I thought Mr. Rottman had a couple of good points. But I also think that some of the problems faced by the Officers Corp should of been addressed like the zero defect mentality and the fear of making a mistake by Junior Officers. Also the up and out program that has a very bad effect on the ethical standards of Army Leadership which fosters way too much careerism in my humble ex enlisted man opinion.
Excellent Illustrations, Barely Adequate Text.......1999-07-20
The author is one of those fellows who writes a lot and researches very little. In the case of this book, since he was serving in the reserve forces in the period covered and had access to good photos this book is of some use. The illustrator does excellent work but as far as I know, being a Brit, has no first hand knowledge of the subjects he does. In other words, good sources, good illustrations. Or to use the computer terms--GIGO. This book is fine if you want a bunch of pictures to trace for a school project and the teacher is as ignorant as the pupil is of what should be.
Book Description
Tank Rider is the atmospheric memoir of Evgeni Bessonov telling of his years of service in the vanguard of the Red Army and daily encounters with the German foe. He brings large-scale battles alive, recounts the sniping and skirmishing which tried and tested soldiers on both sides and narrates the overwhelming tragedy and horror of apocalyptic warfare on the Eastern Front.
Customer Reviews:
Poor translation hurt unusual memior.......2006-08-16
Unfortunately the Russian translator constantly confused the words shell and mine and really had a poor grasp of grammar. On the positive side the author tells a reasonably detailed story even though he was 80 years old when he wrote it. I hoped for more details about infantry combats etc... but I enjoyed this book especially since so few written by Russian soldiers have shown up here.
A good story that needed a better editor.......2006-05-12
The story that the author tells is excellent. As another reviewer said, we need more like it. Personal accounts were discouraged by the USSR, and the veterans able to write them are getting old.
My complaint about the book is that the editor or the translator did a poor job of rendering the story in English. There are countless run-on sentences that should've been fixed. One can still enjoy the book, but it needed a better editor.
Fascinating Account.......2006-05-03
I just finished this book and found it to be one of the most interesting WWII memoirs that I've read. Here's what I liked about it:
1) This is the most honest Russian account of WWII that I've ever read. The author tells it like he sees it, even when it is not necessarily flattering for the Red Army: the absence of Russian fighter cover, tankers refusing to advance against panzerfausts or Tigers, fraticide, bungling, commanders mysteriously always absent from the fighting, etc. That said, the author's pride in his men and his unit's achievements is obvious.
2) Unlike some other military memoirs, where the author might start the war as a colonel and end as an army commander, this author remains a platoon leader for almost two years of constant fighting. While he seems to have been constantly passed over for promotion, he was constantly assigned to the most dangerous missions in the leading elements of his brigade (overall, this book really reminded of IN DEADLY COMBAT by Bidermann).
3) While the book focuses on the fighting, there is also plenty about rest periods, what they ate, how they interacted with civilians, etc. From this perspective, this book is vastly more informative about the Russian soldiers' experience during the war than the more highly acclaimed IVAN'S WAR and more interesting than books like FIGHTING FOR THE SOVIET MOTHERLAND by Loza.
What didn't I like? Nothing really...not many maps, but they are not really missed given the small scale of the engagements described in the book and the good descriptions by the author.
grittty, realistic look at Russian tank crews and infantry pushing into Germany in WWII.......2006-01-26
These memoirs written a few years after the author's 50-year career in the Russian Army "are a look back at the life of a typical member of the Red Army" in World War II. Bessonov was an officer in a tank detachment; but lower-ranking field officers such as he was at the time were out in front of their men in advances and engagements. The memoir is shorn of any heroics or sentimentality. Nor does its author focus on himself any more than necessary to make for a sense of continuity or set the scene for the reader. The style is like an officer's "after-action report"--in this case one long report--going little beyond what happened to be read by others for purposes of intelligence-gathering or a comprehensive military history. "We came under fire from three German assault guns, which turned out to be some 50 metres from us. We had to take cover behind trees, as the assault guns fired at almost very single soldier." For the reader, such spareness makes in seem he is almost participating in the action. In battle, there's no time or occasion to think or feel really--only sheer action and reaction, the way the former officer writes. Bessonov joined the Red Army at the climatic 1943 battle of Kursk dooming Nazi Germany to eventual defeat on the Eastern Front. But it wasn't until two years later that the author and his tank crews and accompanying infantrymen victoriously enterered Berlin. In his plainly-written, though gripping war memoir, Bessonov brings the reader every step of the conflict-filled way.
Honest memoirs from the other side of the hill.......2005-02-16
Evgeni Bessonov took part in the Great patriotic War while he served in the 49h Mechanized Brigade of the 6th Mechanized Corps of the 4th Tank Army of the 1st Ukrainian Front (commanded by the dynamic Marshal Ivan Konev). In this book he recounts many of his wartime adventures, at least as far as his memory perimtted, because the writing was made many years after the war. Bessonov was a junior officer who commanded a platoon of 12 - 20 tank riders, the men who rode in battle on top of the Soviet tanks, mainly T-34s and later IS-2s. Although he saw much action and was wounded some times he was not lucky when it came to promotion and didn't manage to command his own company. Albeit he made the Army his carreer after the end of the war. The book is important because it presents the war from the view of a simple Soviet warrior and is particularly revealing regarding the strength of the Luftwaffe even late in 1944 (when according to history books German aircraft had been disappeared from the sky of the Eastern Front, but quite the contrary was true!) and of the qualities of the German soldiers, whom he regarded as tough, well trained, cunning and strong opponents, from whom one could expect anything, anytime. Bessonov started his wartime carreer in August 1943 and finished it just a week before the fall of Berlin, when he was seriously wounded fron an artillery shell. The book contains some good maps but many of the places mentioned are not to be found on them. I didn't also understand why the translator kept calling the artillery and mortar rounds as "mines" throughout the text.
Book Description
From its revolutionary inception in 1917 to its demise in 1991, the Red Army played a crucial role in all aspects of Soviet life. The Soviet Military Experience is the first general work to place the Soviet army into its true social, political and international contexts. This timely account includes discussion of: the origins of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army; the Bolshevik regime's use of the military as a school of socialism; the Second World War and its repercussions; and the effect of Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent summary of Red Army.......2004-06-24
Dr. Reese does an outstanding job in finding the middleground between the political, operational, and anecdotal history of the Soviet military. An immense amount of knowledge is ably condensed into a relatively swift read and his analysis of the early years of the Red Army is especially well done. The only book is only lacking in its examination of the mid-late Cold War years, which he covers very fast, but all in all a very good book, a must-read for anyone interested in the USSR's military history.
Book Description
Tank and mechanized forces spearhead Red Army operations from the gates of Stalingrad to the center of Berlin. This new book profiles Six Soviet commanders who rose to lead six tank armies created by the Red Army on the eastern front during the Second World War: Mikhail Efimov Katukov, Semen Ill'ich Bogdanov, Pavel Semenovich Rybalko, Dmitri Danilovich Lelyushenko, Pavel Alekseevich Rotmistrov, and Andrei Grigorevich Kravchenko. Each tank commanders' combat career is examined, as is the rise of Red Army forces, and reveals these lesser known leaders and their operations to western military history readers. Richard N. Armstrong, a colonel in the United States Army, has served in military intelligence since 1969, and holds a military historian specialty. He has published historical and professional articles on Red Army operations and Soviet military affairs. He wrote the Combat Studies Institute monograph, Soviet Operational Deception: The Red Cloak, and edited Red Armor Combat Orders; Combat Regulations for Tank and Mechanized Forces 1944.
, 15 b/w photos, maps, 6" x 9"
Customer Reviews:
Excellent biographies.......2006-04-22
This book contains in depth biographies of the commanders of the 6 Tank Armies that took part in the war on the Eastern Front within the Red Army. There are few such works in the West that concentrate on specific commanders or generals from the Red Army and this is a great addition to any library on the Eastern Front in the English language. I'll be glad to order other works by this author (whenever he puts them out), and I have spoken to him on a number of occassions (on a history forum online, I've actually 'bumped' into many authors on online forums including David Glantz and Marc Rikmenspoel), so I can vouch that his research within Russian/Soviet sources is credible (many authors have yet to do real research with Russian sources), he has a good command of Russian when it comes to military matters, and his literature is a great improvement to helping the US and the Western World understand what went on within the Red Army and on the Eastern Front during WWII.
Indispensable.......2001-02-19
When I first got wind of the existence of this book I just tought that it was too good to be true. However, reality turned out to be even better. Written by a former member of the US Army military intelligence, this book is a lenghty and in-depth analisys of the life and deeds of the Soviet commander who leaded the six Guard Tank Armies: Katukov (1st GTA), Bogdanov (2nd GTA), Rybalko (the "Soviet Patton", 3rd GTA), Leylushenko (4th GTA), Rotmistrov (commanding the 5th GTA at Prokorovkha!) and Kravchenko (6th GTA).
Except for Rotmistrov (thanks to his involvement in the culminating point of Zitadelle) all the other names are probably unfamiliar to all but few people, even among those interested in the history of the Russo-German war of 1941-45. Recently the situation has somewhat improved, but even today is difficult to dispel the myth that only the Nazi Army had "real" generals, their Soviet counterparts being skilled only at the very top of the military structure (thus the focus on the "usual" Zhukov, Koniev and Rokossovsky), while at the operational and tactical level the Red Army was lead by faceless robots alway following orders, and more inclined in launchhing costly human wave attacks than dealing seriously with the art of war.
Of course, this was not (at least, not always!) the case, and "Red Army Tank Commanders" explains superbly why. All the six personalities are analized using a large array of documents, and at the end each commander is judged in the bigger context of the Soviet military evolution in the conflict.
What does emerge is that not only these people where as able and proficient as their German or Western "colleagues", but that they faced and overcame in huge variety of tasks and difficulties, nearly always displayng a great deal of flexibility and ingenuity (not the kind of thing you could expect from your stereotypical "soviet-leader-pushed-on-by-a-pistol-welding-political-commissar"). So, Rybalko and Katukov emerged as true masters of battlefield stamina (the later being almost reckless at times!) while Rotmistrov (a well learned and perceptive theoretician) tended to fight "by the book". Bogdanov was impulsive, adept on taking decisions in a snap second and commanding always "on the lead", a la Guderian. Kravchenko was the most conservative and cautious of the lot, with a strong sense of the past military tradition of the Russian army, and an meticoulos planner. Leylushenko excelled on flexibility and improvisation (something he shared with Rybalko) and often reorganized plans and disposition literally on the move.
All of them faced - very often - incredible hardships and risks. Being a commander in the Red Army wasn't easy - fighting a though, powerful and ruthless enemy, and under pressure from an High Command that rarely forgave failure. In this sense their career was quite unique in the context of WWII - a darwinian selection where only those learning from battlefield reality could hope for survival. Armstrong does a great job analysing each commander performance during the major operation in which the Red Tank Force was involved. Not always thing went well (like Rybalko's bloody failure during the Third Battle for Karkhov), but each commander learned from previous failures, and their performance invariably improved as the war progressed. The exception to this seems to be Rotmistrov, who was sacked after 5th GTA less-than-perfect performance during Operation Bagration - to be "kicked upstairs" and become the Deputy (later overall) Commander Of The Red Army Armoured and Mechanised Forces. Anyway Armstrong seems uneasy to decide if he losed his battlefield touch or was the victim of a clash of personalities with his superiors. After mature consideration, I incline for the latter version
It's always wrong to make comparision in the tricky business of warfare history (and even more so in the slippery arena of Eastern Front history!), but it's human to be tempted to compare these general with more famous names like Rommel, Hoth or Manteuffel (or, why not, Patton!). My take is that in their own way these men where all as good as commanders as those well known armour specialists - and if we take in account the difficulties they had to deal with, I suspect they could have been even better. This book could explain you why.
Just for the record, I've some complain. The first is that the writing is not always as good as the content. The most curious thing is the translation of the dialogues (nearly always taken from Soviet sources). They are all written in a very "wooden" english, the variety you learn from at school, and the sintax is - at least - a bit stilted.
The second critique is on the lack of a decent pictorial support (a minor sin), and the lack of decent maps. What we have in exchange are bare-boned diagrams that seems to have been made with Powerpoint. Well, could be a good excuse for a major reworking in a future second edition.
The bottom line? Buy it! It's one of a kind stuff - hope it will be reprinted sometimes in the future...
Book Description
'We must all fight for Holy Russia!' declared the Russian officers at the outbreak of the Crimean War. Despite the immensity of the Russian forces that fought in this conflict, however, their dispersion over vast distances, along with poor roads and contrary weather, contributed to their defeat. Still, many regiments won much-deserved battle honours; from the navy emerged a number of heroes, including Admirals Kornilov, Nakhimov and Istomin. This book details the forces that served the Tsar in the defence of the Crimea, with chapters on Army organization, the Army of the Caucasus, the Imperial Navy, army life, tactics and Russian heroes.
Book Description
By 1920 the Red Army fielded an overwhelming array of armored cars and armored trains, while tank detachments had begun forming in earnest. These armored units played an important part in consolidating the newly won Bolshevik empire in the early 1920s; as a consequence of the fact that railways were the strategic arteries that essentially controlled Russia, armored trains have never played such a significant role in military history as they did in the Russian Civil War. This title details their management, construction and repair, personnel and training and combat on all fronts, as well as discussing Trotsky's armored train, in which he conducted 36 tours.
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