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Soviet Use of “Substandard” Manpower in the Red Army, 1941–1945

David Glantz

in Scraping the Barrel: The Military Use of Substandard Manpower, 1860–1960

The Soviet Union had many minority nationalities, and its supra-national ideology meant all should serve in the Red Army. In World War II, this coincided with a desperate need for more manpower. ... More

The Soviet Union had many minority nationalities, and its supra-national ideology meant all should serve in the Red Army. In World War II, this coincided with a desperate need for more manpower. Ethnic/national minorities were conscripted, but so were many other groups, such as political prisoners and women. These groups all fought with reasonable to high efficiency, and the Red Army recognized many units with large ethnic/national minorities as “Guards”.Less

Wars

Jörg Baberowski

in Scorched Earth: Stalin's Reign of Terror

This chapter looks at Stalinism during the Great Patriotic War. It first discusses Joseph Stalin's changing approaches to terror following the end of his policy of exterminatory violence. This shift ... More

This chapter looks at Stalinism during the Great Patriotic War. It first discusses Joseph Stalin's changing approaches to terror following the end of his policy of exterminatory violence. This shift is well illustrated by two incidents, one in September 1939 when Nikita Khrushchev traveled with Marshal Timoshenko to the town of Vynnyky. This episode shows that the Stalinist terror was also an instrument of ethnic cleansing with which the Stalinist regime did its best. The other incident was in 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The front-line soldiers of the Red Army were trapped in a cycle of violence from which there was no escape. This chapter considers how the Great Patriotic War allowed Stalinism to develop to its full potential. The Soviet Union had become a world power, and yet it could offer its subjects nothing but misery and slavery. Only the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 put an end to Stalinism and with it, despotism.Less

A Personal Banner: Life in Red Army Uniform

Brandon M. Schechter

in The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects

This chapter provides an ethnography of soldiers' clothing and explores the meaning of the uniform's iconography. In the summer and fall of 1941, hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers and ... More

This chapter provides an ethnography of soldiers' clothing and explores the meaning of the uniform's iconography. In the summer and fall of 1941, hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers and commanders surrendered to the enemy or abandoned their uniforms while fleeing the battlefield. The army was on the verge of disintegrating, but many soldiers continued to believe in their duty to fight on. For those soldiers, the uniform was like a personal banner. This rhetoric was closely associated with a major change in style in 1943, when the army abandoned the uniform that so many soldiers had themselves cast-off or worn into German captivity, introducing a “new-old” uniform that reproduced late tsarist styles. Pogony (shoulder boards), a key old regime symbol, were recast as a point of pride. Along with pogony, a variety of decorations, many of which referenced old regime heroes, formed a rich text that was readable by both soldiers and civilians. The chapter then shows how soldiers' biographies and the state's self-presentation changed via medals and uniforms.Less

Trophies of War: Red Army Soldiers Confront an Alien World of Goods

Brandon M. Schechter

in The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects

This chapter focuses on all manner of trophies, from German prisoners of war to objects looted from houses in the Third Reich. Between 1941 and 1945, soldiers of the Red Army were confronted with an ... More

This chapter focuses on all manner of trophies, from German prisoners of war to objects looted from houses in the Third Reich. Between 1941 and 1945, soldiers of the Red Army were confronted with an enemy who was often better dressed, wealthier, and initially much more effective. First on Soviet territory and then abroad, Red Army soldiers confronted an alien culture. For average citizens, this trip abroad was a unique chance to go beyond Soviet borders, one that came at great personal risk and with a clear objective—to destroy Fascism and the Third Reich. What soldiers saw along the way was puzzling. They not only reckoned with material objects and institutions that the Soviet Union had purged but were also left to wonder why people who lived materially so much better than they did had waged a genocidal war against them, marked by systematic rape, pillaging, and wanton destruction. The chapter then shows how a Soviet understanding of jurisprudence and a particular perception of the bourgeois world combined with a desire for vengeance to both justify looting and frame Soviet understandings of the Third Reich.Less

The Reds and the Jews, or the Comrades in Arms of the Military Reporter Liutov

Oleg Budnitskii

in The Enigma of Isaac Babel: Biography, History, Context

This chapter offers a new and intriguing context for reading Babel's Red Cavalry and his civil war Diary: the history of the Red Army's attitudes toward the Jews, with a special focus on Semyon ... More

This chapter offers a new and intriguing context for reading Babel's Red Cavalry and his civil war Diary: the history of the Red Army's attitudes toward the Jews, with a special focus on Semyon Budenny's First Cavalry Army for which Babel served as a reporter, propagandist, and staff officer in the Polish campaign in 1920.Less

1918–19: The Triumphal March of Reaction

Jonathan D. Smele

in The "Russian" Civil Wars, 1916—1926: Ten Years That Shook the World

This chapter examines the escalation of violence across the former Russian Empire as the First World War drew to a close, analysing the origins and early operations of the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer ... More

This chapter examines the escalation of violence across the former Russian Empire as the First World War drew to a close, analysing the origins and early operations of the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army (and that force's relations with the Don and Kuban Cossacks), the victory of Rightist forces in the Finnish Civil War, the emergence of the Baltic States, and the impact of Austro-German (and Ottoman) intervention in Ukraine and Transcaucasia. The chapter then shifts its focus to the opposition to Soviet rule that was raised by non-Bolshevik socialists in eastern Russia and elsewhere (the Democratic Counter-Revolution) in alliance with a peculiar outlier of the Allied intervention in Russia — the Czechoslovak Legion. It concludes with an account of the origins of the Red Army, noting the impact upon that process of events on the Volga Front in 1918 and the innovative solutions that the Red command introduced — especially the deployment of voenspetsy (former tsarist officers) and the ire this practise raised among Leftist elements of the Bolshevik party (and, during the so-called “Tsaritsyn Affair”, J.V. Stalin), as well as Trotsky's efforts to overcome problems of the recruitment and desertion of Red troops and officers.Less

The Soviet Union, 1941

Jasen J. Castillo

in Endurance and War: The National Sources of Military Cohesion

Chapter five examines the performance of the Soviet Armed Forces while defending its homeland against the German onslaught in 1941. Cohesion theory explains how and why Stalin's authoritarian army ... More

Chapter five examines the performance of the Soviet Armed Forces while defending its homeland against the German onslaught in 1941. Cohesion theory explains how and why Stalin's authoritarian army recovered from the shock of Germany's initial blow to launch a counterattack. A strong state composed of hard-core supporters kept the armed forces intact and fighting. Ideology, commitment to the defense of the Russian homeland, and a highly coercive state prevented organized opposition in the armed forces and at home. These factors explain why the Tsarist Russia's army collapsed in 1917 but why the Red Army did not under more dire circumstances. The chapter concludes by evaluating cohesion theory and comparing the Red Army's cohesion with Germany and France during the Second World War.Less

The Soldier’s Body: A Little Cog in a Giant War Machine

Brandon M. Schechter

in The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects

This chapter examines soldiers' bodies to look at the diversity of cadres entering the Red Army. In the course of the war, the Red Army had to transform millions of Soviet citizens into usable ... More

This chapter examines soldiers' bodies to look at the diversity of cadres entering the Red Army. In the course of the war, the Red Army had to transform millions of Soviet citizens into usable components of its war machine. The immense scale of the war would bring people into the army who would otherwise never have served. The government laid claim to the bodies of these men and women, handing them over to the commanders who were deputized to use these human resources to wage war. Commanders were tasked with training, tracking, and properly exploiting their soldiers and given almost total control over their subordinates' bodies. With this power came great responsibility: a good commander was supposed to be able to turn anyone into a soldier. Both the government and its deputies were forced to reckon not only with the physical bodies of soldiers but also with the souls that animated them. This was made all the more difficult by the demographic diversity of those serving: men aged seventeen to fifty-five, women, former criminals, and almost all of the ethnic groups of the heterogeneous USSR. The chapter then provides a brief “life cycle” of soldiers in service, from induction through training to the front and eventual wounding into the system of hospitals and back again.Less

“A Weapon Is Your Honor and Conscience”: Killing in the Red Army

Brandon M. Schechter

in The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects

This chapter looks at how Red Army soldiers learned to kill. The Red Army was forced to take undertrained soldiers and turn them into efficient killers, often instructing them directly at the front. ... More

This chapter looks at how Red Army soldiers learned to kill. The Red Army was forced to take undertrained soldiers and turn them into efficient killers, often instructing them directly at the front. Indeed, killing was a duty in the Red Army: the inability to kill was scorned, and soldiers were encouraged to keep competitive tallies of their kills. As such, soldiers needed to learn to use, trust, and love their weapons. In significant ways, the Soviet project was a dialogue between humans and machinery. The call to master tractors, lathes, and other industrial means of production articulated during the First Five-Year Plan were echoed in regards to weapons during the war. The chapter then explores the arsenal of the Red Army, treating weapons as tools for specific tasks and highlighting the soldiers' symbiotic relationship with weaponry. It also discusses social differentiation among different branches of service and examines changing tactics as the army became a professional fighting force.Less

The October Revolution

Matthew Rendle

in Defenders of the Motherland: The Tsarist Elite in Revolutionary Russia

This chapter examines how the Bolsheviks' October Revolution of 1917 heralded a sustained attack on elites, with the abolition of the nobility, landownership, and officer ranks. The Bolsheviks' fear ... More

This chapter examines how the Bolsheviks' October Revolution of 1917 heralded a sustained attack on elites, with the abolition of the nobility, landownership, and officer ranks. The Bolsheviks' fear of class enemies and counter‐revolution led to revolutionary tribunals and the secret police. Nonetheless, the Bolsheviks were aware that they could not build a soviet state and Red Army without the experience and skills of former elites as ‘bourgeois specialists'. In the end, as many elites served the new state as actively opposed it. Most elites wanted a strong government to restore stability and the Bolsheviks promised to offer this, whilst it seemed pointless to fight the mass movement. Elites in the White armies that opposed the Bolsheviks during the civil war (1917–‐21) harboured no such doubts, but these divisions prevented them from forging a unified programme, contributing to their defeat.Less

‘If tomorrow brings war’: A nation in uniform

Olga Kucherenko

in Little Soldiers: How Soviet Children Went to War, 1941-1945

An analysis of educational techniques, including the material presented in the mass media and school curricula, shows that the regime vigorously promoted the idea of children participating in an ... More

An analysis of educational techniques, including the material presented in the mass media and school curricula, shows that the regime vigorously promoted the idea of children participating in an inevitable future conflict. This chapter emphasizes the rigid militancy of Soviet society on the eve of the war, and argues that martial and self-sacrificial motifs of popular culture were assimilated into the child's mentality, and became a powerful driving force when the war started. Pre-conscription military training and war games, which involved children of both sexes, taught military basics. The aim of such education was not to train soldiers for immediate frontline duty, but to encourage children's military readiness in the context of the permanent threat posed by enemies.Less

Embodied Violence: A Red Army Soldier’s Journey as Told by Objects

Brandon Schechter

in Objects of War: The Material Culture of Conflict and Displacement

This chapter shows how objects constitute the story of Red Army soldiers' dramatic movement and participation in violence during the Great Patriotic War and hints at how these experiences impacted ... More

This chapter shows how objects constitute the story of Red Army soldiers' dramatic movement and participation in violence during the Great Patriotic War and hints at how these experiences impacted what it meant to be Soviet, detailing how one soldier from the hinterland attained status through successful mastery of violence. It focuses on Bato Damcheev, a sniper and later scout who killed nearly ninety German soldiers, took ten more as prisoners captured for interrogation, and destroyed three tanks and several enemy bunkers. The chapter examines several things that Damcheev would have used or acquired during the war in order to show how a particular violent subjectivity was made possible by key material objects such as identity booklets and weapons, and embodied in the form of others such as medals and trophies.Less

From Mobilization to Militarization

Elizabeth J. Perry

in Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition

This chapter explores a critical moment in the Chinese Communist Revolution, as it turned from an urban to a rural movement and began to build a peasant army.

The State’s Pot and the Soldier’s Spoon: Rations in the Red Army

Brandon M. Schechter

in The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects

This chapter focuses on provisioning in the Red Army, tracing how soldiers ate, the ways the government positioned itself as provider, and the logic of who deserved more or less food under conditions ... More

This chapter focuses on provisioning in the Red Army, tracing how soldiers ate, the ways the government positioned itself as provider, and the logic of who deserved more or less food under conditions of extreme shortage. In the first years of the war, the Soviet Union lost its bread basket, making hunger inevitable. Under these conditions, the government's dedication to provide was reaffirmed to soldiers, who were promised ample provisions in return for their service. Ultimately, it was difficult to imagine such a key resource as food outside of the horizontal bonds between citizens and the vertical relationship to the state. The very term used for rations, paëk, implied mutual obligations. Paëk could be seen as the physical embodiment of the socialist adage “to each according to his work,” as its etymological root implied an earned share in a common cause. The chapter then considers how rations were assembled by the government and later received and used by soldiers at the front—how paëk functioned, was experienced, and occasionally transformed by soldiers.Less

Politicizing Antigone

Erika Fischer‐Lichte

in Interrogating Antigone in Postmodern Philosophy and Criticism

Three different productions of Antigone are investigated with regard to the way in which the aesthetic of each performance was related to its political context: (1) the Tieck/ Mendelssohn production ... More

Three different productions of Antigone are investigated with regard to the way in which the aesthetic of each performance was related to its political context: (1) the Tieck/ Mendelssohn production in Potsdam in 1841, one year after Friedrich Wilhelm IV ascended to the throne and ushered in a new era in Prussia; (2) Karlheinz Stroux's production in Berlin in 1940, the second year of World War II, and (3) Christoph Nel's production in Frankfurt upon Main in 1978, taking place at the time of the trial against the terrorist Red Army Faction in Stuttgart‐Stammheim, the suicide of the defendants in prison, and their funeral. It is argued that in all three cases it was the special relationship between stage and auditorium that brought about the politicization of the performances in their distinctive contexts, not so much because of a specific reading of the tragedy they conveyed, but primarily due to their particular aesthetic.Less

Warsaw 1944

Anthony James Joes

in Urban Guerrilla Warfare

The Warsaw Rising of 1944 during World War II has been called the “archetypal model of urban guerrilla warfare”. After the Nazis quashed the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1941, many of the surviving ... More

The Warsaw Rising of 1944 during World War II has been called the “archetypal model of urban guerrilla warfare”. After the Nazis quashed the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1941, many of the surviving members of the Jewish Fighting Organization and several dissident groups decided to join the Home Army when it attacked a retreating German army in Warsaw in August 1944. Despite being totally unprepared and woefully ill-equipped, the Home Army managed to hold out for several weeks, with help from Warsaw residents, including women and children, who performed such tasks as carrying ammunition, preparing meals and caring for the wounded. In October 1944, under orders from General Bor, about 15,400 AK members surrendered, but not before much of the city have been destroyed by heavy artillery. Meanwhile, Russia's Red Army, which was just east of Warsaw during the uprising, stood idly by, providing the impetus for the Cold War. Shortly after, Josef Stalin replaced the Polish government in exile in London with the “Lublin government”, which later agreed to Soviet annexations of prewar Polish territories.Less

‘Feudal Duke:’ Rule and Loss

Catherine Epstein

in Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland

This chapter looks at Greiser as man and ruler in the heyday of his power. It then turns to his actions in the last fifteen months of rule, when the Warthegau faced extraordinary pressures brought on ... More

This chapter looks at Greiser as man and ruler in the heyday of his power. It then turns to his actions in the last fifteen months of rule, when the Warthegau faced extraordinary pressures brought on by total war and an advancing Red Army. It also reports on Greiser's decision-making in his last days of rule, including his flight from the Gau. In January 1945, Greiser was trapped between ambition and reality. By trying to uphold his reputation as a strong, decisive Gauleiter, to avoid seeming ‘defeatist’, he created a situation that led to enormous human misery. By delaying evacuation orders, Greiser forced Germans to flee under terrifying conditions. By insisting on following Hitler's orders to leave Posen, Greiser also came off as a coward, especially given the experiences of Germans leaving just a few hours later.Less