The History Book Club discussion

This thread is not to glorify this individual (Stalin). Despicable things were done to many human beings which can never be forgotten and shouldn't be.

This thread is to post books regarding this individual as it relates to World War II. Also urls and other research information can also be posted. There is no self promotion here and no glorifying Stalin. Those posts will be deleted,

Biography of Stalin - BBC

One of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history, Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions, but he also oversaw the war machine that played a key role in the defeat of Nazism.

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born on 18 December 1879 in Gori, Georgia, which was then part of the Russian empire. His father was a cobbler and Stalin grew up in modest circumstances. He studied at a theological seminary where he began to read Marxist literature. He never graduated, instead devoting his time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. He spent the next 15 years as an activist and on a number of occasions was arrested and exiled to Siberia.

Stalin was not one of the decisive players in the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, but he soon rose through the ranks of the party. In 1922, he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, a post not considered particularly significant at the time but which gave him control over appointments and thus allowed him to build up a base of support. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin promoted himself as his political heir and gradually outmanoeuvred his rivals. By the late 1920s, Stalin was effectively the dictator of the Soviet Union.

His forced collectivisation of agriculture cost millions of lives, while his programme of rapid industrialisation achieved huge increases in Soviet productivity and economic growth but at great cost. Moreover, the population suffered immensely during the Great Terror of the 1930s, during which Stalin purged the party of 'enemies of the people', resulting in the execution of thousands and the exile of millions to the gulag system of slave labour camps.

These purges severely depleted the Red Army, and despite repeated warnings, Stalin was ill prepared for Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. His political future, and that of the Soviet Union, hung in the balance, but Stalin recovered to lead his country to victory. The human cost was enormous, but was not a consideration for him.

After World War Two, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire which included most of eastern Europe. Increasingly paranoid, Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953.

Stalin as a Young Man

Another photo as a very Young Man:



What is interesting about this photo are the eyes. What do they say about the eyes being the windows to the soul. In this photo, Stalin's eyes have not yet become hard and evil.

A true tyrant, Bentley. His pogroms/mass executions/purges almost made Hitler's pale in comparison.....of course they were over a longer period of time. But, as I believe we mentioned on the Hitler thread, history seems to treat him with a little less disgust than is accorded to Hitler. This is probably due to the fact that he was on the side of the Allies in WWII and that the courage of the Russian people, especially during the siege of Leningrad, may have softened his image at that time. Additionally, who knew what was going on in the Soviet Union?...... a secretive government that kept much of the horrors of Stalin's "reign" from public knowledge.
A book for those who want a look inside the life of Stalin and the people who surrounded him I would recommend:

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

One of his many victims gets inside Stalin's head in this novel. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines: "Stalin never trusted anybody until he trusted Hitler and after Hitler betrayed him he never trusted anyone again."

by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn first wrote The First Circle with 96 chapters. He felt he could never get this version published in the USSR, so he produced a "lightened" version of 87 chapters. In the long version, the diplomat Volodin's phone call (chapter 1) was to the US embassy, warning them of a Soviet attempt to get atomic bomb secrets. In the short version this call is to an old family doctor warning him not to share a new medicine with some French doctors he will visit. Another difference, in the long version Sologdin is a Roman Catholic, while in the short version his faith is not described. Shortly after One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published, Solzhenitsyn submitted his "lightened" version for publication in the USSR, but it was never accepted. This version was first published abroad in 1968. The complete 96 chapter version (with some later revisions) was published in Russian by YMCA Press in 1978, and has been published in Russia as part of Solzhenitsyn's complete works. Excerpts from the full 96 chapter version were published in English by The New Yorker and in The Solzhenitsyn Reader.[2] An English translation of the full version was published by Harper Perennial in October 2009, entitled In the First Circle rather than The First Circle.[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Firs...

It's a terrific, terrific book - it's fiction, but it's really the fictionalized biography of Solzhenitsyn's life as an imprisoned scientist under Stalin. This one competes with War and Peace -

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

by Leo Tolstoy as translated by & Larissa Volokhonsky

Here is a good back on the young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Hey Michael with the same photo that I saw - terrific. Have you read this title?

Bea wrote: "One of his many victims gets inside Stalin's head in this novel. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines: "Stalin never trusted anybody until he trusted Hitler and after Hitler betrayed him he neve..."
Interesting quote Bea.

Becky wrote: "Solzhenitsyn first wrote The First Circle with 96 chapters. He felt he could never get this version published in the USSR, so he produced a "lightened" version of 87 chapters. In the long version, ..."

Becky thank you so much for the background of the book; that adds so so much. Such scrutiny and censorship - dictators know no bounds and all they want to preserve is their power above all else.

Bentley wrote: "Hey Michael with the same photo that I saw - terrific. Have you read this title?"

No its on the shelf waiting to be read. High up on the list though.

Michael wrote: "Here is a good back on the young Stalin

I hear very good things about this book and it is also on my TBR list!

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Would like to recommend http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72.... Fascinating book.

Thanks for your fine addition, Mario.
Please visit our guidelines which describe how a book is to be cited in your post. They may be found at:

www.goodreads.com/topic/show/287892

The book you mentioned should look like this:

by Orlando Figes

Thanks Jill. Not very familiar with Goodreads yet. Love the group!

No problem, Mario.....it comes as second nature once you get started. If you haven't visited the Welcome thread, please stop by there and introduce yourself to the rest of the membership. It can be found at:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...

I really enjoyed by Robert Service

and

by Robert Conquest(no photo), which I finished today.

Service's bio does a great job describing Stalin's infamous WWII leadership. "The Great Terror" doesn't really mention much of that, of course, but it describes in detail how the purges of the Red Army affected the war effort.

Both sound like good reads, Jerome.....thanks for your recommendations.

Some great adds and posts. Thanks to Jill, Jerome, Mario, Bryan and Michael.

Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov

Geoffrey Roberts

Synopsis

Widely regarded as the most accomplished general of World War II, the Soviet military legend Marshal Georgy Zhukov at last gets the full-scale biographical treatment he has long deserved.

A man of indomitable will and fierce determination, Georgy Zhukov was the Soviet Union’s indispensable commander through every one of the critical turning points of World War II. It was Zhukov who saved Leningrad from capture by the Wehrmacht in September 1941, Zhukov who led the defense of Moscow in October 1941, Zhukov who spearheaded the Red Army’s march on Berlin and formally accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender in the spring of 1945. Drawing on the latest research from recently opened Soviet archives, including the uncensored versions of Zhukov’s own memoirs, Roberts offers a vivid portrait of a man whose tactical brilliance was matched only by the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which he pursued his battlefield objectives.

After the war, Zhukov was a key player on the geopolitical scene. As Khrushchev’s defense minister, he was one of the architects of Soviet military strategy during the Cold War. While lauded in the West as a folk hero—he was the only Soviet general ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine—Zhukov repeatedly ran afoul of the Communist political authorities. Wrongfully accused of disloyalty, he was twice banished and erased from his country’s official history—left out of books and paintings depicting Soviet World War II victories. Piercing the hyperbole of the Zhukov personality cult, Roberts debunks many of the myths that have sprung up around Zhukov’s life and career to deliver fresh insights into the marshal’s relationships with Stalin, Khrushchev, and Eisenhower.

A remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose life was lived behind an Iron Curtain of official secrecy, Stalin’s General is an authoritative biography that restores Zhukov to his rightful place in the twentieth-century military pantheon.

I have this book: by Agnes Hooper Gottlieb (no photo). It ranks each of the people the author thinks of as the most important from 1000 to 2000 AD.

Each gets a bio, from a paragraph to a couple pages (depending on rank). Each bio is summarized in a few words. For Stalin, the brief summary is "Monster".

Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II

Karel C. Berkhoff

Synopsis

Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to people on the home front? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, up close, how the Soviet media reflected—and distorted—every aspect of the war.

Red Phoenix Rising: The Soviet Air Force in World War II

by Von Hardesty

Synopsis:

A groundbreaking account of the Soviet Air Force in World War II, the original version of this book, Red Phoenix, was hailed by the Washington Post as both “brilliant” and “monumental.” That version has now been completely overhauled in the wake of an avalanche of declassified Russian archival sources, combat documents, and statistical information made available in the past three decades. The result, Red Phoenix Rising, is nothing less than definitive.

The saga of the Soviet Air Force, one of the least chronicled aspects of the war, marked a transition from near annihilation in 1941 to the world’s largest operational-tactical air force four years later. Von Hardesty and Ilya Grinberg reveal the dynamic changes in tactics and operational art that allowed the VVS to bring about that remarkable transformation. Drawing upon a wider array of primary sources, well beyond the uncritical and ultra-patriotic Soviet memoirs underpinning the original version, this volume corrects, updates, and amplifies its predecessor. In the process, it challenges many “official” accounts and revises misconceptions promoted by scholars who relied heavily on German sources, thus enlarging our understanding of the brutal campaigns fought on the Eastern Front.

The authors describe the air campaigns as they unfolded, with full chapters devoted to the monumental victories at Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk. By combining the deeply affecting human drama of pilots, relentlessly confronted by lethal threats in the air and on the ground, with a rich technical understanding of complex military machines, they have produced a fast-paced, riveting look at the air war on the Eastern Front as it has never been seen before. They also address dilemmas faced by the Soviet Air Force in the immediate postwar era as it moved to adopt the new technology of long-range bombers, jet propulsion and nuclear arms.

Drawing heavily upon individual accounts down to the unit level, Hardesty and Grinberg greatly enhance our understanding of their story’s human dimension, while the book’s more than 100 photos, many never before seen in the West, vividly portray the high stakes and hardware of this dramatic tale. In sum, this is the definitive one-volume account of a vital but still underserved dimension of the war—surpassing its predecessor so decisively that no fan of that earlier work can afford to miss it.

Stalin's Claws: From the Purges to the Winter War: Red Army Operations Before Barbarossa 1937-1941

by E. R. Hooton (no photo)

Synopsis:
In the late 1930s the Soviet Union experienced a brutal Ezhovshchina which swept through all levels of its society with millions arrested and tens of thousands shot for reasons lacking any form of ethics.

As historian, E.R. Hooton describes in this absorbing and revealing history, the Soviet armed forces did not escape the bloody tidal wave which swept away the majority of their most experienced and gifted officers. One of the driving forces for the Red Army Purges was a bitter dispute between the conservatives and radicals who sought a form of warfare based on deep-roaming mechanised forces. But the conservatives’ ensuing bitterness was due to the fact that the radicals were unable to make the mechanised forces viable operationally and this failure would prove to be the major factor in driving the radicals to the execution chambers.

Yet as the leadership of the Soviet forces was cut to pieces, the Red Army was deployed in operations at the extremities of Stalin’s empire. Despite showing ominous signs of weakness, in every case it triumphed. The Japanese had been defeated on the Korean border at Lake Khasan in 1938 and a year later suffered a major defeat on the Mongolian border at the River Khalkin (Khalkin Gol) in an offensive directed by the future Marshal Zhukov. These guns had barely ceased fire when there was a major invasion of eastern Poland following the Ribbentrop Pact. On the back of that, the Baltic States were compelled to allow the Russians to base forces in their borders.

But as the Purges eased and Moscow became overconfident, the massive Red Army became enmeshed in the disastrous Winter War with Finland of 1939-1940 which saw its military prestige shattered and its invasion not only stopped, but dealt a series of major defeats. Victory of a kind, when it came, was pyrrhic.

Following detailed research, the author provides a vivid and important insight into the operations conducted by the Red Army from 1937 to 1941 and makes some surprising conclusions about the impact of the Purges.

Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953

by Geoffrey Roberts (no photo)

Synopsis:

This breakthrough book provides a detailed reconstruction of Stalin’s leadership from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to his death in 1953. Making use of a wealth of new material from Russian archives, Geoffrey Roberts challenges a long list of standard perceptions of Stalin: his qualities as a leader; his relationships with his own generals and with other great world leaders; his foreign policy; and his role in instigating the Cold War. While frankly exploring the full extent of Stalin’s brutalities and their impact on the Soviet people, Roberts also uncovers evidence leading to the stunning conclusion that Stalin was both the greatest military leader of the twentieth century and a remarkable politician who sought to avoid the Cold War and establish a long-term detente with the capitalist world.
By means of an integrated military, political, and diplomatic narrative, the author draws a sustained and compelling personal portrait of the Soviet leader. The resulting picture is fascinating and contradictory, and it will inevitably change the way we understand Stalin and his place in history. Roberts depicts a despot who helped save the world for democracy, a personal charmer who disciplined mercilessly, a utopian ideologue who could be a practical realist, and a warlord who undertook the role of architect of post-war peace.

Stalin's Curse: Battling for Communism in War and Cold War

by Robert Gellately (no photo)

Synopsis:

A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives—and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire—during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West.

At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader. Even astute observers like George F. Kennan concluded that the United States and Great Britain should view Stalin as a modern-day tsarist-like figure whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, not in ideology. Now Robert Gellately uses recently uncovered documents to make clear that, in fact, the dictator was an unwavering revolutionary merely biding his time, determined as ever to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond, and that his actions during these years (and the poorly calculated Western responses) set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Gellately takes us behind the scenes. We see the dictator disguising his political ambitions and prioritizing the future of Communism, even as he pursued the war against Hitler. Along the way, the ascetic dictator’s Machiavellian moves and bouts of irrationality kept the Western leaders on their toes, in a world that became more dangerous and divided year by year.

Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of the Soviet dictator.

Two of the world's worst tyrants in the same book by the acclaimed historian Sir Alan Bullock.

Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives

by Alan Bullock (no photo)

Synopsis:
Forty years after his Hitler: A Study in Tyranny set a standard for scholarship of the Nazi era, Lord Alan Bullock gives readers a breathtakingly accomplished dual biography that places Adolf Hitler's origins, personality, career, and legacy alongside those of Joseph Stalin--his implacable antagonist and moral mirror image.

by Alan Bullock(no photo)

Jill wrote: "Two of the world's worst tyrants in the same book by the acclaimed historian Sir Alan Bullock.


by Alan Bullock(no photo).

It would perhaps be interesting to read this along with by Timothy Snyder

Hello Peter - sometimes it is easier just to not use the reply button on the post you are referring to because of the mess it makes with italics.

You could post @Jill - msg 28 and then type your response in a normal comment box.

I am not sure what you were doing with the citation but we are very happy that folks keep trying to get them right and we are very patient.

So no worries. You might want to check out the Mechanics of the Board thread for some very detailed assistance and you can practice citations right on that thread. I think this is the book you were referring to:

by Timothy Snyder

Russia at War

by Alexander Werth

Synopsis:

In this widely acclaimed history of a country at war, Alexander Werth unfolds in startling human terms the story of the Russian people and their leaders in the Soviet conflict with the Nazis from the disasters of the Second World War to the beginnings of the Cold War. Himself an eyewitness to the shattering historical drama he vividly records, Werth offers an intensely detailed chronicle of the events that exceeded in savagery and hatred any other on Russian soil. From the hardships of the citizenry to the sweep of massive military operations to the corridors of diplomacy, this modern classic captures every aspect of the grim but heroic Soviet-German war that turned Russia into the most powerful nation in the Old World.

The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin`s War with Germany, Volume One

by John Erickson (no photo)

Synopsis:

In this first volume of John Erickson's monumental history of the grueling Soviet-German war of 1941-1945, the author takes us from the pre-invasion Soviet Union, with its inept command structures and strategic delusions, to the humiliating retreats of Soviet armies before the Barbarossa onslaught, to the climactic, grinding battle for Stalingrad that left the Red Army poised for its majestic counteroffensive.

The Road to Berlin: Stalin`s War with Germany, Volume Two

by John Erickson (no photo)

Synopsis:

Completing the most comprehensive and authoritative study ever written of the Soviet-German war, John Erickson in this volume tells the vivid and compelling story of the Red Army's epic struggle to drive the Germans from Russian soil. Beginning with the destruction of the German Army at Stalingrad, he describes a campaign of almost unimaginable hardship and fighting that led to the Soviet invasion of the Reich and the triumphant capture of Berlin.

No matter how you feel about the Russians being on the Allied side during the War, you have to be amazed at the ferocity of the Soviet army. The Germans had visited terrible atrocities on the Russian people as they attempted to take the country in Operation Barbarossa and the Soviet Army was overwhelmed with the need for revenge. They were driven by that emotion and brought to the Reich what had been done to them. War is ugly but the battles between the Nazis and the Russians was beyond ugly......almost incomprehensible in its savagery.

The battle of Stalingrad is sometimes called the impossible victory. Read this book and find out why.

The Greatest Battles in History: The Battle of Stalingrad

by Charles River Editors (no photo)

Synopsis:

“Approaching this place, soldiers used to say: ‘We are entering hell.’ And after spending one or two days here, they say: ‘No, this isn't hell, this is ten times worse than hell.’” – Soviet general Vasily Chuikov

World War II was fought on a scale unlike anything before or since in human history, and the unfathomable casualty counts are attributable in large measure to the carnage inflicted between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during Hitler’s invasion of Russia and Stalin’s desperate defense. The invasion came in 1941 following a nonaggression pact signed between the two in 1939, which allowed Hitler to focus his attention on the west without having to worry about an attack from the eastern front. While Germany was focusing on the west, the Soviet Union sent large contingents of troops to the border region between the two countries, and Stalin’s plan to take territory in Poland and the Baltic States angered Hitler. By 1940, Hitler viewed Stalin as a major threat and had made the decision to invade Russia:

The surprise achieved by the German invasion in 1941 allowed their armies to advance rapidly across an incredibly wide front, but once winter set in, the two sides had to dig in and brace for German sieges of Russian cities. In the spring of 1942, Germany once more made inroads toward Stalingrad, Stalin’s own pet city. Not surprisingly, he ordered that it be held no matter what. There was more than vanity at stake though. Stalingrad was all that stood between Hitler and Moscow. It also was the last major obstacle to the Russian oil fields in the Caucuses which Stalin needed and Hitler coveted. If the city fell, so would the rest of the country, and Hitler would have an invaluable resource to fuel his armies.

Stalin chose his best general, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, to lead the more than one million soldiers who would stand between Germany and the precious city. Stalin made sure that they were continually supplied with every sort of military paraphernalia available, from tanks and aircraft to guns and ammunition. Zhukov, who had never been defeated, held the line until November 19, when Stalin ordered him to attack the now weary Germans. In a carefully planned pincer maneuver, the Soviet armies attacked from both the north and the south, carefully encircling the German troops until the German general, Friedrich Paulus, begged Hitler to allow him to withdraw. But by then the Fuhrer was obsessed with capturing the city that he refused his general’s pleas, so the Germans attempted to hold on, losing thousands of additional men without taking the city. When the remains of the German 6th Army finally surrendered in February 1943, they had lost about 1.5 million men and over 6,000 tanks and aircraft in a little more than 5 months of fighting. The Soviets lost a staggering number as well, with estimates of over 1 million casualties.

Altogether, the Battle of Stalingrad was the deadliest battle in the history of warfare, and the Soviets’ decisive victory there is considered one of the biggest turning points in the entire war, and certainly in the European theater. Over the next two years, the German gains in Russia were steadily reversed, and the Red Army eventually began pushing west towards Berlin. Fittingly, the importance of Stalingrad was commemorated in several ways, from Churchill presenting Stalin with a “Sword of Stalingrad” to the Russians’ decision not to rebuild parts of the battle scarred city.

A little different look at one of the most historic battles of WWII.

199 Days: The Battle for Stalingrad

by Edwin Palmer Hoyt (no photo)

Synopsis:

n 199 Days, acclaimed historian Edwin P. Hoyt depicts the epic battle for Stalingrad in all its electrifying excitement and savage horror. More than the bloodiest skirmish in history-a momentous conflict costing three million lives-the siege was a hinge upon which the course of history rested. Had the Red Army fallen, the Nazi juggernaut would have rolled over Russia. Had the German's not held out during those last few months, Stalin would have painted Europe red. Now, over 50 years after the most extraordinary battle of the second millenium, the truth about this decisive moment is finally revealed.

This book covers every aspect of the Red Army during WWII and will be enjoyed by the military history buff.

The Red Army Handbook 1939-1945

by Steven J. Zaloga(no photo)

Synopsis:

Stalin's Red Army entered World War II as a relatively untried fighting force. In 1941, with the launch of Operation Barbarossa, it joined battle with Hitler's army, the most powerful in history. After a desperate war of attrition lasting more than four years, the Red Army beat the Nazis into submission on the Eastern Front and won lasting fame and glory in 1945 by eclipsing the military might of the Third Reich. From the army's development prior to the outbreak of war in 1939 to its peak in 1945, every aspect of its force is examined here: the organizational structures, combat arms infantry, amour and mechanized forces, cavalry, airborne, and special forces. A technical overview of infantry weapons, armored vehicles, artillery, and support equipment is also provided. Fully illustrated with a comprehensive selection of archive photographs, charts, and tables of organization, this is a useful source of reference for anyone interested in the armies of World War II.

On the Precipice: Stalin, the Red Army Leadership and the Road to Stalingrad, 1931-1942

by Peter Mezhiritskiy (no photo)

Synopsis:

Nominated for the 2013 PushkinHouse/Waterstone's Russian Book Prize. Like some astronomers, who discover cosmic objects not by direct observation, but by watching the deviations of known heavenly bodies from their calculated trajectories, Peter Mezhiritsky makes his findings in history through thoughtful reading and the comparison of historical sources.

This book, a unique blend of prosaic literature and shrewd historic analysis, is dedicated to events in Soviet history in light of Marshal Zhukov's memoirs. Exhaustive knowledge of Soviet life, politics and censorship, including the phraseology in which Communist statesmen were allowed to narrate their biographical events, gave Peter Mezhiritsky sharp tools for the analysis of the Marshal's memoirs.

The reader will learn about the abundance of awkward events that strangely and fortuitously occurred in good time for Stalin's rise to power, about the hidden connection between the purges, the Munich appeasement and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, and about the real reason why it took so long to liquidate Paulus' Sixth Army at Stalingrad. The author presents a clear picture of the purges which promoted incompetent and poorly educated commanders (whose most prominent feature was their personal dedication to Stalin) to higher levels of command, leaving the Soviet Union poorly prepared for a war against the Wehrmacht military machine.

The author offers alternative explanations for many prewar and wartime events. He was the first in Russia to acknowledge a German component to Zhukov's military education. The second part of the book is dedicated to the course of the Great Patriotic War, much of which is still little known to the vast majority of Western readers. While not fully justifying Zhukov's actions, the author also reveals the main reason for the bloody strategy chosen by Zhukov and the General Staff in the defensive period of the War. In general, the author shares and argues Marshal Vasilevsky's conviction - if there had been no purges, the war would not have occurred. The book became widely known to the Russian-reading public on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the last ten years its quotations have been used as an essential argument in almost all the debates about the WWII. The book is equally intended for scholars and regular readers, who are interested in Twentieth Century history.

Jill could you divide the above post into paragraphs for easier reading - thanks

Done.....it was rather awkward to read.

The Red Army soldiers were some of the most feared in WWII....they were brave, brutal, and unforgiving. The author provides some answers as to why.

Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II

by Roger R. Reese(no photo)

Synopsis

Inept leadership, inefficient campaigning, and enormous losses would seem to spell military disaster. Yet despite these factors, the Soviet Union won its war against Nazi Germany thanks to what Roger Reese calls its "military effectiveness": its ability to put troops in the field even after previous forces had been decimated.

Reese probes the human dimension of the Red Army in World War II through a close analysis of soldiers' experiences and attitudes concerning mobilization, motivation, and morale. In doing so, he illuminates the Soviets' remarkable ability to recruit and retain soldiers, revealing why so many were willing to fight in the service of a repressive regime--and how that service was crucial to the army's military effectiveness. He examines the various forms of voluntarism and motivations to serve-including the influences of patriotism and Soviet ideology-and shows that many fought simply out of loyalty to the idea of historic Russia and hatred for the invading Germans. He also considers the role of political officers within the ranks, the importance of commanders who could inspire their troops, the bonds of allegiance forged within small units, and persistent fears of Stalin's secret police.

Brimming with fresh insights, Reese's study shows how the Red Army's effectiveness in the Great Patriotic War was foreshadowed by its performance in the Winter War against Finland and offers the first direct comparison between the two, delving into specific issues such as casualties, tactics, leadership, morale, and surrender. Reese also presents a new analysis of Soviet troops captured during the early war years and how those captures tapped into Stalin's paranoia over his troops' loyalties. He provides a distinctive look at the motivations and experiences of Soviet women soldiers and their impact on the Red Army's ability to wage war.

Ultimately, Reese puts a human face on the often anonymous Soviet soldiers to show that their patriotism was real, even if not a direct endorsement of the Stalinist system, and had much to do with the Red Army's ability to defeat the most powerful army the world had ever seen.

This is a new one on me.....very strange. It is basically Hitler's biography prepared for Stalin and is quite rare.

The Hitler Book

by Henrik Eberle

Synopsis:

Stalin had never been able to shake off the nightmare of Adolf Hitler. Just as in 1941 he refused to understand that Hitler had broken their non-aggression pact, he was in 1945 unwilling to believe that the dictator had committed suicide in the debris of the Berlin bunker. In his paranoia, Stalin ordered his secret police, the NKVD, precursor to the KGB, to explore in detail every last vestige of the private life of the only man he considered a worthy opponent, and to clarify beyond doubt the circumstances of his death.

For months two captives of the Soviet Army--Otto Guensche, Hitler's adjutant, and Heinz Linge, his personal valet--were interrogated daily, their stories crosschecked, until the NKVD were convinced that they had the fullest possible account of the life of the Führer. In 1949 they presented their work, in a single copy, to Stalin. It is as remarkable for the depth of its insight into Adolf Hitler--from his specific directions to Linge as to how his body was to be burned, to his sense of humor--as for what it does not say, reflecting the prejudices of the intended reader: Joseph Stalin. Nowhere, for instance, does the dossier criticize Hitler's treatment of the Jews.

Today, the 413-page original of Stalin's personal biography of Hitler is a Kremlin treasure and it is said to be held in President Putin's safe. The only other copy, made by order of Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1959, was deposited in Moscow Party archives under the code number 462A. It was there that Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, two German historians, found it. Available to the public in full for the first time, The Hitler Book presents a captivating, astonishing, and deeply revealing portrait of Hitler, Stalin, and the mutual antagonism of these two dictators, who between them wrought devastation on the European continent.

An upcoming book:
Release date: September 25, 2015

The Red Army and the Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Soviet Military

by Peter Whitewood (no photo)

Synopsis:

On June 11, 1937, a closed military court ordered the execution of a group of the Soviet Union's most talented and experienced army officers, including Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevskii; all were charged with participating in a Nazi plot to overthrow the regime of Joseph Stalin. There followed a massive military purge, from the officer corps through the rank-and-file, that many consider a major factor in the Red Army's dismal performance in confronting the German invasion of June 1941. Why take such action on the eve of a major war? The most common theory has Stalin fabricating a "military conspiracy" to tighten his control over the Soviet state. In The Red Army and the Great Terror, Peter Whitewood advances an entirely new explanation for Stalin's actions—an explanation with the potential to unlock the mysteries that still surround the Great Terror, the surge of political repression in the late 1930s in which over one million Soviet people were imprisoned in labor camps and over 750,000 executed.

Framing his study within the context of Soviet civil-military relations dating back to the 1917 revolution, Whitewood shows that Stalin sanctioned this attack on the Red Army not from a position of confidence and strength, but from one of weakness and misperception. Here we see how Stalin's views had been poisoned by the paranoid accusations of his secret police, who saw spies and supporters of the dead Tsar everywhere and who had long believed that the Red Army was vulnerable to infiltration by foreign intelligence agencies engaged in a conspiracy against the Soviet state. Recently opened Russian archives allow Whitewood to counter the accounts of Soviet defectors and conspiracy theories that have long underpinned conventional wisdom on the military purge. By broadening our view, The Red Army and the Great Terror demonstrates not only why Tukhachevskii and his associates were purged in 1937, but also why tens of thousands of other officers and soldiers were discharged and arrested at the same time. With its thorough reassessment of these events, the book sheds new light on the nature of power, state violence, and civil-military relations under the Stalinist regime.

Thanks, Jerome.

This inquiry from Xan was moved from another thread. I hope someone can help him. Thanks.

"Of the 91,000 Germans captured during the Battle of Stalingrad, only 5,000 ever returned home. Is there any survivor testimony from those who returned? Thanks."

There seem to be some links out there which might provide some info for Xan:

Links for you Xan:
http://ww2history.com/testimony/Easte...
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003...
http://www.historynet.com/perspective...
http://facingstalingrad.com
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/27...

Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFDoM... (Part One)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=invD1... (Part Two)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asrE2... (Part Three)

Also:

by Paul Carell (no photo)

Hi for those interested in Stalin's Gulag Archipelago system I highly recommend
by Anne Applebaum

Thanks Michael - great add

This book might give the reader some insight into this enigmatic dictator.

Conversations with Stalin

by Milovan Djilas

Synopsis:

Milovan Djilas was one of four senior members of Tito's government until his expulsion from the Yugoslav Communist party in '54 & eventual imprisonment on political charges. He wrote Conversations With Stalin in '61, between arrests. The book is a diary of his three voyages to Moscow in '43, '44 & '48. Djilas, memories no doubt leavened by hindsight, titles the three meetings "Raptures", "Doubts" & "Disappointments". As these names indicate, the book chronicles his growing disillusionment with Soviet-led socialism. Djilas was an educated man, a sophisticated thinker & a writer. So that when we read passages in the "Raptures" section such as, "My entire being quivered from the joyous anticipation of an imminent encounter with the Soviet Union", it seems clear he was not the naïf that he makes himself out to be. Rather, given his circumstances at the time that he was writing, he was heightening the sense of his early fascination with all things Soviet so that his later disenchantment is all the more palpable. The book fascinates with its detail. He travels to Moscow as a foreign dignitary to discuss Yugoslav-Soviet policies. He must cool his heels for days before he's finally summoned to meet Stalin. Then the meetings are typically all night dinners with copious drinking & byzantine political subtext to the conversation. Stalin dominates the discussion so thoroughly that when he insists that the Netherlands was not a member of the Benelux union, nobody dares correct him. Djilas recognizes traits of greatness in Stalin, his ruthlessness & farsightedness. He describes these not out of regard or respect, but because they are precisely the qualities which make Stalin evil. "Every crime was possible to Stalin, for there was not one he had not committed." As doubts begin to creep in, he records the development of his own cynicism. "In politics, more than in anything else, the beginning of everything lies in moral indignation & in doubt of the good intentions of others". His portraits of Krushchev, open-minded & clever; of Molotov, Stalin's taciturn lieutenant; Dimitrov, the powerful Bulgarian kept on Stalin's string; Beria, sinister & drunk; & a host of other prominent figures make this book required reading for those interested in the era. The descriptions of machinations surrounding Yugoslav-Albanian-Bulgarian politics & his unflattering characterization of Croatian hero Andrija Hebrang are of great interest to students of Balkan history.

A little known incident in WWII.

The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia

by Tim Tzouliadis (no photo)

Synopsis

The Forsaken starts with a photograph of a baseball team. The year is 1934, the image black and white: two rows of young men, one standing, the other crouching with their arms around one another's shoulders. They are all somewhere in their late teens or twenties, in the peak of health. We know most, if not all, of their names: Arthur Abolin, Walter Preeden, Victor Herman, Eugene Peterson. They hail from ordinary working families from across America: Detroit, Boston, New York, San Francisco. Waiting in the sunshine, they look just like any other baseball team except, perhaps, for the Russian lettering on their uniforms.

These men and thousands of others, their wives, and children were possibly the least heralded migration in American history. Not surprising, maybe, since in a nation of immigrants few care to remember the ones who leave behind the dream. The exiles came from all walks of life. Within their ranks were Communists, trade unionists, and radicals of the John Reed school, but most were just ordinary citizens not overly concerned were politics. What united them was the hope that drives all emigrants: the search for a better life. And to any one of the millions of unemployed Americans during the Great Depression, even the harshest Moscow winter could sustain that promise.

Within four years of that June day in Gorky Park, many of the young men in that photograph will be arrested and along with them unaccounted numbers of their fellow countrymen. As foreign victims of Stalin's Terror, some will be executed immediately in basement cells or at execution grounds outside the main cities. Others will be sent to the corrective labor camps, where they will be starved and worked to death, their bodies buried in the snowy wasteland. Two of the baseball players who survive and whose stories frame this remarkable work of history will be inordinately lucky.

This book is the story of these mens' lives, The Forsaken, who lived and those who died. The result of years of groundbreaking research in American and Russian archives, The Forsaken is also the story of the world inside Russia at the time of Terror: the glittering obliviousness of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, the duplicity of the Soviet government in its dealings with Roosevelt, and the terrible finality of the Gulag system. In the tradition of the finest history chronicling genocide in the twentieth century, The Forsaken offers new understanding of timeless questions of guilt and innocence that continue to plague us today.