4 ms·

"One of just 69 men in his 12,000-strong division to survive the war" The Soviets suffered a horrific toll in WWII. 25 million dead is an unimaginable number.

js2 5y ago
The Soviets also had women fighting alongside the men. I can't recommend this book highly enough: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/540744/the-unwomanly-face-of-war-by- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/540744/the-unwomanl...
- k2enemy 5y ago
  I also recommend Vasily Grossman's books. Life and Fate, Stalingrad, Everything Flows, etc. Life and Fate is one of the most powerful books I've read. https://www.nyrb.com/products/life-and-fate?_pos=1&_sid=f10e973a3&_ss=r&variant=1094930101 https://www.nyrb.com/products/life-and-fate?_pos=1&_sid=f10e...
baybal2 5y ago
> The Soviets suffered a horrific toll in WWII. 25 million dead is an unimaginable number. It is. In the town in the Russian Far East where I spent my last few years in Russia, one old timer was telling me how extreme food confiscations were. There were people basically solo living in sticks, hunting, fishing, gathering, doing crafts etc. One such guy probably only catches, and dries few fishes a week, and lives off that. He lives in really unpassable wilderness, weeks of travel to get to his place. Nevertheless, NKVD had few men teams to regularly reach, try in a show trial them for "connivance," do simulated executions, and confiscate their few fishes which rot from improper storage by the time they come back to the city. At some point, there were nearly equal amount of men drafted into NKVD, and other political police, than the men on front lines. At every moment of the war, communists were equally scared of their own people, as they were of Germans, if not more. Communists fought the war betting fully on assumption that they had more soldiers than Hitler had bullets. And it was Stalin's fright, and surprise of a lifetimes when Germans somehow popped up within 10km of Moscow. He was hours away from taking a plane away from Moscow. He wasn't afraid of Germans as much as the prospect of meeting his end Gaddafi style.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- myth_drannon 5y ago
  Soviet Union would have lost the war if Stalin and his henchmen didn't stop terrorizing the people. Only when Stalin strategically decided to give more freedom, Soviet people started to mobilize and defend their homeland. Before it was no difference between the two evils. The rest is history. Of course after the war, NKVD and the rest were given free reign again.
  - the_af 5y ago
    Agreed! As the war progressed, an interesting parallel developed: as Stalin learned to trust his generals and give them free reign to make plans, Soviet successes increased. Conversely, as Germany experienced its first dramatic setbacks, Hitler grew more paranoid and trusted his generals less and less, and disasters grew larger and more frequent.
- the_af 5y ago
  > Communists fought the war betting fully on assumption that they had more soldiers than Hitler had bullets. This just isn't true. The myth of the endless "Asiatic hordes" and the "human wave attack" (a tactic the Soviets didn't really use) is mostly postwar propaganda, a way to save face by German generals in later accounts to their Cold War allies. I suggest you read "The Myth of the Eastern Front" for more debunking of false narratives about this, as well as any of Col. David Glantz books on the Eastern Front. The Soviets didn't win the war because they were numberless. They won it because Germany never had any hope of taking their territory, and because they learned fast and outmaneuvered and out fought the Germans.

js2 5y ago

The Soviets also had women fighting alongside the men. I can't recommend this book highly enough: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/540744/the-unwomanly-face-of-war-by- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/540744/the-unwomanl...

k2enemy 5y ago
I also recommend Vasily Grossman's books. Life and Fate, Stalingrad, Everything Flows, etc. Life and Fate is one of the most powerful books I've read. https://www.nyrb.com/products/life-and-fate?_pos=1&_sid=f10e973a3&_ss=r&variant=1094930101 https://www.nyrb.com/products/life-and-fate?_pos=1&_sid=f10e...

baybal2 5y ago

> The Soviets suffered a horrific toll in WWII. 25 million dead is an unimaginable number. It is. In the town in the Russian Far East where I spent my last few years in Russia, one old timer was telling me how extreme food confiscations were. There were people basically solo living in sticks, hunting, fishing, gathering, doing crafts etc. One such guy probably only catches, and dries few fishes a week, and lives off that. He lives in really unpassable wilderness, weeks of travel to get to his place. Nevertheless, NKVD had few men teams to regularly reach, try in a show trial them for "connivance," do simulated executions, and confiscate their few fishes which rot from improper storage by the time they come back to the city. At some point, there were nearly equal amount of men drafted into NKVD, and other political police, than the men on front lines. At every moment of the war, communists were equally scared of their own people, as they were of Germans, if not more. Communists fought the war betting fully on assumption that they had more soldiers than Hitler had bullets. And it was Stalin's fright, and surprise of a lifetimes when Germans somehow popped up within 10km of Moscow. He was hours away from taking a plane away from Moscow. He wasn't afraid of Germans as much as the prospect of meeting his end Gaddafi style.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
myth_drannon 5y ago
Soviet Union would have lost the war if Stalin and his henchmen didn't stop terrorizing the people. Only when Stalin strategically decided to give more freedom, Soviet people started to mobilize and defend their homeland. Before it was no difference between the two evils. The rest is history. Of course after the war, NKVD and the rest were given free reign again.
- the_af 5y ago
  Agreed! As the war progressed, an interesting parallel developed: as Stalin learned to trust his generals and give them free reign to make plans, Soviet successes increased. Conversely, as Germany experienced its first dramatic setbacks, Hitler grew more paranoid and trusted his generals less and less, and disasters grew larger and more frequent.
the_af 5y ago
> Communists fought the war betting fully on assumption that they had more soldiers than Hitler had bullets. This just isn't true. The myth of the endless "Asiatic hordes" and the "human wave attack" (a tactic the Soviets didn't really use) is mostly postwar propaganda, a way to save face by German generals in later accounts to their Cold War allies. I suggest you read "The Myth of the Eastern Front" for more debunking of false narratives about this, as well as any of Col. David Glantz books on the Eastern Front. The Soviets didn't win the war because they were numberless. They won it because Germany never had any hope of taking their territory, and because they learned fast and outmaneuvered and out fought the Germans.