Ivan's War
Page 52
38 See Overy, p. 195.
39 Ibid., p. 197. Veterans remember both these brands by name today.
40 Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (2), p. 287.
41 Svetlana Alexiyevich, War’s Unwomanly Face, trans. Keith Hammond and Lyudmila Lezhneva (Moscow, 1988), p. 128.
42 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 36.
43 Garthoff, p. 249.
44 Van Creveld, p. 112; RGASPI, 17/125/78, 123.
45 On decorations, see Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (2), pp. 360–1; on shoulder boards, see Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (3), pp. 30–1.
46 TsAMO, 523/41119c/5, 51 (relates to an artillery regiment).
47 Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, RH-2, 2467, p. 127.
48 V. V. Pokhlebkin, Velikaya voina i nesostoyavshiisya mir. 1941–1945–1994 (Moscow, 1997), p. 150.
49 Cited in Werth, p. 474.
50 Alexiyevich, p. 96.
51 Stalin and the GKO approved the recruitment of women into male combat roles in April 1942. See Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (2), pp. 212–3 and 214–5.
52 RGASPI-M, 1/47/26, 175.
53 For a telling discussion of this, see Chuikov, The Beginning, pp. 221–34. The marshal describes the work of women, but always with the condescending tone of one who saw them as mere girls.
54 RGASPI-M, 1/47/49, 87.
55 Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (2), 285.
56 Alexiyevich, pp. 46–7.
57 The first women snipers were trained from February 1943.
58 Alexiyevich, p. 14.
59 Reina Pennington, Wings, includes a chapter tracing Raskova’s career.
60 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv rossiiskoi federatsii (GARF), R9550/6/62.
61 Interview, Kaluga, August 2002.
62 RGASPI-M, 33/1/563, 7.
63 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, p. 87.
64 Van Creveld, p. 73.
65 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi’, part 1, pp. 52–3.
66 GASO, 2482/1/12, 12.
67 RGASPI-M, 33/1/19, 52.
68 Ibid., 72.
69 Ibid., 85.
70 Ibid., 84.
71 GASO, 2482/1/12, 7.
72 RGASPI-M, 33/1/19, 101.
73 Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (2), 281.
74 RGASPI-M, 33/1/19, 36.
75 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi’, part 1, p. 56.
76 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 6.
77 Po obe storony fronta: Pis’ma sovetskikh i nemetskikh soldat, 1941–1945 (Moscow, 1995), p. 43.
78 RGASPI-M, 33/1/360, 106.
79 Chuikov, The Beginning, p. 66.
80 Ibid., pp. 78–9.
81 Werth, pp. 448–9; Beevor, Stalingrad, pp. 104–6.
82 Cited in Werth, p. 450.
83 Cited in Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 201.
84 I. K. Yakovlev et al. (Eds), Vnutrennye voiska v velikoi otechestvennoi voine, 1941–45 gg., dokumenty i materialy (Moscow, 1975), p. 16.
85 The version I heard, related by a retired general, was allegedly based on research in secret military archives. Until scholars can see the documents, the rumours will persist.
86 Krivosheev, p. 125. The total death toll for Soviet troops and airmen is estimated at 470,000 (Overy, p. 212). For the entire campaign, 17 July 1942 to 2 February 1943, the total of Soviet servicemen killed, wounded and missing, according to Krivosheev, was 1,129,619.
87 I heard this from several veterans, and a politer version appears in Temkin, p. 90.
88 Viktor Astaf’ev, ‘Snachala snaryady, potom lyudi’, in Rodina, 1991, nos. 6–7, p. 55.
89Alexiyevich, p. 59. The translator may have meant a mortar rather than a mine.
90 Interview, Kiev, May 2003.
91 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 8.
92 Ibid., 18–19.
93 Chuikov, The Beginning, p. 159.
94 For an analogy, drawn from a different war, see Philip Caputo’s brilliant account in A Rumor of War (London, 1985), p. 268.
95 John Garrard and Carol Garrard, The Bones of Berdichev: The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman (New York, 1996), p. 159.
96 Werth, p. 467.
97 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 195.
98 Cited in Chuikov, The Beginning, p. 253.
99 Krivosheev, p. 127.
100 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 232.
101 Ibid., p. 249.
102 Ibid., p. 263.
103 TsDNISO, 8/1/25, 5.
104 Po obe storony, p. 194.
105 Ibid., pp. 195–6.
106 See, for example, Werth, p. 554.
107 Velikaya Otechestvennaya, 2 (3), pp. 36–7.
108 Werth, p. 560.
109 Po obe storony, p. 213.
110 Werth, p. 468.
111 TsAMO, 206/298/4, 11.
112 Cited in Werth, p. 490.
113 Politruks agree on this, and so, in an assessment of morale, does the historian of Soviet warfare Amnon Sella. See The Value of Life in Soviet Warfare (London, 1992), p. 170.
114 RGVA, 32925/1/504, 29.
115 RGASPI, 17/125/214, 97.
116 See Peter Kenez, ‘Black and White,’ in Richard Stites (Ed.), Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Bloomington, 1995), p. 162.
117 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, p. 88.
118 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 66.
119 Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, RH2-2467, p. 54.
120 Cited by Vasil Bykov in ‘Za Rodinu! Za Stalina!’.
121 RGASPI-M, 1/47/24, 26–34.
122 RGVA 32925/1/514, 48.
123 RGVA 32925/1/504, 4 and 20.
124 Ibid., 31.
125 Tens of thousands of Gulag inmates applied to be permitted to serve at the front for the same reason. Their service would not only redeem them but reinstate their families as well. See Kozlov, Obshchestvennye soznanie, p. 11; Druzhba, p. 30; Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton, NJ, 2001), p. 148.
126 Viktor Astaf’ev’s novel Proklyaty i ubity, reissued Moscow 2002, presents this point of view in harrowing detail.
127 The first attacks in November were actually aimed at Romanians, but the point was to get at the enemy. On hatred of the Germans, see L. N. Pushkarev, ‘Pis’mennaya forma bytovaniya frontovogo fol’klora,’ Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, no. 4, 1995, pp. 27–9. Pushkarev, the ethnographer and historian, was at the front himself.
128 See Werth, pp. 411–4.
129 Simonov’s ‘Kill Him!’ is quoted in Werth, p. 417.
130 RGALI, 1828/1/25, 35.
131 Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 219.
132 Belov’s diary, ‘Frontovoi dnevnik N. F. Belova’ (hereafter Belov) is published in full in Vologda, issue 2 (Vologda, 1997), pp. 431–76; For this comment, see Belov, pp. 446–7.
133 Belov, p. 442.
134 GASO, 1/1/1500, 37–38.
135 RGVA, 32925/1/504, 94; Beevor, Stalingrad, p. 264.
136 RGASPI-M, 33/1/157, 2.
137 Sidorov, pp. 83–5.
138 RGASPI-M, 33/1/157, 3–4.
139 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 73.
6 A Land Laid Waste
1 ‘Prikaz verkhovnogo glavnokomanduyushchego’, 23 February 1943, in Stalin, O Velikoi otechestvennoi voine, pp. 89–90.
2 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 2 (3), p. 97.
3 At Stalingrad itself, German losses were 91,000 prisoners of war and 147,000 dead. Meanwhile, the November–February counter-offensive at Stalingrad alone, excluding the losses sustained in August–October, cost the Red Army approximately 485,735 killed, missing or wounded. Figures from John Erickson and Ljubica Erickson, The Eastern Front in Photographs (London, 2001), p. 137.
4 TsAMO, 223 SD/1/6, 10, gives details of the non-reporting practices of rifle divisions in January–February 1943.
5 Night of Stone, p. 274.
6 For an example relating to fear among the Panfilov men, see RGASPI, 17/125/185, 23. More generally, see D. L. Babichenko, Literaturnyi Front (Moscow, 1994).
7 Ilya Nemanov, interview, Smolensk, October 2002.
8 Druzhba, pp. 33–4.
>
9 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi’, part 2, pp. 50–1.
10 Lev Lvovich, second interview, Moscow, July 2003. On Samoilov, see above, p. 148.
11 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi’, part 2, p. 57.
12 E. S. Senyavskaya, Chelovek v voine, p. 80; RGALI 1814/6/144, 21 (Diaries of Konstantin Simonov).
13 Stouffer, vol. 2, p. 186.
14 Rodina, 1991, nos 6–7, p. 53.
15 L. N. Pushkarev, Po dorogam voiny: Vospominaniya fol’klorista-frontovika (Moscow, 1995), pp. 34–42.
16 Sidelnikov, p. 9.
17 Translation by Lubov Yakovleva, Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry, pp. 623–4.
18 Ya I. Gudoshnikov, Russkie narodnye pesny i chastushki Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny (Tambov, 1997), p. 6.
19 Alexiyevich, p. 46.
20 Interview with Nina Emil’yanova, Moscow, 1998.
21 Sidelnikov, p. 9; Alexiyevich, p. 46.
22 Pushkarev, Po dorogam voiny, pp. 22–3.
23 Kozlov, p. 105.
24 ‘The Crossing’, trans. April FitzLyon, Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry, pp. 561–7.
25 Gudoshnikov, pp. 83–9.
26 Ibid., p. 5.
27 RGALI, 1828/1/25, 35.
28 Temkin, p. 90.
29 Interview, Kursk, July 2003.
30 Van Creveld, Fighting Power, discusses the way lessons were learned.
31 Erickson, ‘The System’, p. 239.
32 On the United States’ army, see Van Creveld, Fighting Power, especially pp. 77‒9.
33 Testimony cited in Senyavskaya, Frontovoe pokolenie, p. 85.
34 The petitions often served as evidence in alleged cases of desertion. See, for example, RGVA, 32925/1/526.
35 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi,’ part 1, p. 69.
36 See Rodina, 95, no. 5, p. 60; the same stories were related to me by another shtrafnik, Ivan Gorin, in 2002. See also Victor Astaf’ev’s controversial novel, Proklyaty i ubity (Moscow, 2002).
37 Interview with Ivan Gorin, November 2002.
38 Rodina, 95:5, p. 63.
39 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 2 (3), pp. 109–10.
40 Temkin, p. 34.
41 Stalin’s Generals, p. 354.
42 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4 (4), pp. 17–18.
43 Erickson, ‘The System’, p. 246.
44 M. V. Mirskii, Obyazany zhizn’yu (Moscow, 1991), p. 193.
45 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4 (4), p. 7; Overy, p. 201; Rokossovskii, Soldatskii dolg, pp. 207–10.
46 Suvorov, p. 99.
47 RGASPI-M, 33⁄1⁄1405, 1.
48 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, p. 90.
49 Belov, p. 452.
50 Ibid., p. 453.
51 Bundesarchiv, RH2/2624.
52 Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv kurskoi oblasti (GAKO), R 3322/10/21, 15.
53 GAKO, R 3322/10/21, 1–39.
54 Ibid., 1–3.
55 GAOPIKO, 1/1/3478, 14–15.
56 GAKO, R3322/10/5, 44.
57 GAKO, R3322/10/4, 511; 3322/10/5, 44.
58 GAKO, R 3322/9/106, 12–13.
59 GAKO, R3322/10/8, 27–33.
60 GAKO, R3322/10/14, 58–64.
61 GARF, R9550/6/339 (on nettles) and 527 (wild meat).
62 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1404, 16.
63 GAKO, R3322/10/1, 55.
64 Stroki, opalennye voiny (Belgorod, 1998), p. 71.
65 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4(4), p. 7.
66 Zaloga and Ness, pp. 163–80; Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4 (4), p. 7.
67 Zaloga and Ness, p. 169.
68 In 1943, Soviet factories produced 15,529 of the standard T-34 tanks and (in December) 283 of the modified T-34-85s. Ibid., p. 180.
69 Ibid., p. 174.
70 See John Erickson, The Road to Berlin (London, 1983), p. 109.
71 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4 (4), p. 7; Erickson, ‘The System’, p. 239.
72 Po obe storony fronta, p. 52.
73 Erickson, ‘The System’, pp. 239–40.
74 Detwiler (Ed.), vol. 19, C-058, p. 23.
75 Ibid.
76 Po obe storony fronta, p. 52.
77 L. N. Pushkarev, ‘Pis’mennaya forma bytovaniya frontovogo fol’klora,’ in Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie, 1995, no. 4, p. 30.
78 Po obe storony fronta, p. 51.
79 Krivosheev’s figures for 1943–5 suggest that losses among tank crews were roughly half those among riflemen (although the catastrophic months of 1941–2 are not included for lack of information), but in view of the enormous death rates in both cases, the statistic is not comforting. See Krivosheev, pp. 218–9, Table 79 (Red Army Losses by Arm of Service).
80 Erickson, ‘The System’, p. 239; see also Reina Pennington’s contribution to the same volume, especially pp. 257–8.
81 For descriptions, see John Ellis, The Sharp End, pp. 153–4.
82 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4 (4), p. 26.
83 Ibid., p. 33.
84 Belov, p. 454.
85 Ibid., 456.
86 Overy, p. 203.
87 Ibid., 203.
88 Velikaya otechestvennaya, 4 (4), p. 250.
89 Belov, p. 456.
90 Krivosheev, p. 132.
91 M. V. Ovsyannikov (Ed.), 55 let Kurskoi bitve (Kursk, 1998), memoir of B. Ivanov, pp. 276–7.
92 Erickson, Berlin, pp. 104–5.
93 55 let Kurskoi bitve, memoir of B. Bryukhov, pp. 265–6.
94 Interview, Prokhorovka, July 2003.
95 55 let Kurskoi bitve, B. Bryukhov, pp. 265–6.
96 Po obe storony fronta, p. 53.
97 55 let Kurskoi bitve, memoir of B. Ivanov, p. 277; V. V. Drobyshev (Ed.), Nemtsy o russkikh (Moscow, 1995), p. 28.
98 Alexiyevich, p. 107.
99 Erickson, Berlin, p. 108.
100 Overy, p. 211.
101 Belov, p. 456.
102 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, pp. 90–1.
103 Bundesarchiv, RH2/2624.
104 Belov had observed this as early as July; Belov, p. 453.
105 Nemtsy o russkikh, p. 28.
106 Ibid., pp. 32–3.
107 Belov, p. 457.
108 Cited in Werth, p. 685.
109 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, p. 91.
7 May Brotherhood Be Blessed
1 Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed, p. 180.
2 Stalin, O velikoi otechestvennoi voine, pp. 117–20. In his assessment of the war economy, Richard Overy, among others, follows Stalin in conceding that only a centrally planned system of this type could have delivered the levels of output needed to sustain the Soviet war effort. See Overy, p. 227. This may be true, but it neither vindicates the brutality of the system nor establishes Stalin as the Soviet Union’s wartime saviour.
3 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1405, 50.
4 Ibid., 109–10.
5 Po obe storony fronta, p. 86.
6 V. I. Ermolenko, Voennyi dnevnik starshego serzhanta (Belgorod, 2000), p. 37.
7 Van Creveld, p. 83.
8 Rodina, 1991, nos. 6–7, p. 53.
9 The poem is ‘Remember, Alyosha’, trans. Lyubov Yakovleva, Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry, pp. 619–21.
10 On SMERSh, which was established on 13 May 1942 and was independent of the NKVD, see Viktor Suvorov (pseud.), Inside the Soviet Army (New York, 1982), p. 240.
11 The word comes from the German Hilfswillige, or volunteer helper.
12 On the oppression of labour battalions, see Temkin, p. 53. On hiwis, and their confusion with Vlasovites, see Kopelev, p. 98.
13 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi’, part 1, pp. 52 and 67.
14 Glantz and House, p. 180.
15 TsDNISO, 6/1/1484, 173 (refers to Smolensk region in April 1944).
16 Belov, p. 465.
17 Ermolenko, p. 36.
18 Samoilov, ‘Lyudi’, part 2, p. 56.
19 Po obe storony fronta, p. 99.
20 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 52.
21 GASO, 2482/1/1, 35.
22 Snetkova, p. 38.
23 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 107.
24 Leave was s
ometimes used as a reward for outstanding bravery, but it was usually granted only after a man was so badly wounded that he would no longer be needed. At the time of Stalingrad (9 October 1942), provision was made for more regular leave (especially for officers), but in practice it was treated as a reward, not a right. TsAMO, 1128/1/4, 32.
25 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1189, 3.
26 See above, p. 127.
27 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, pp. 95–6.
28 Ibid., p. 97.
29 GAKO, 3322/10/21, 296.
30 GAKO, 3322/10/22, 2, 9 and 10.
31 GAOPIKO, 1/1/3478, 7. The CC resolution is reprinted in the same file, ll. 85 ff.
32 TsDNISO, 6/1/1697, 190.
33 GAKO, 3322/10/46, 30 and 41.
34 Pis’ma s fronta i na front, 98. A pood weighs about thirty-six pounds. Even if they supplemented their diet with potatoes, Masha’s family would get through a pood of flour in two months.
35 TsDNISO, 6/1/1695, 144, 219.
36 RGVA, 32925/1/515, 70.
37 TsDNISO, 8/2/109, 15.
38 TsDNISO, 6/1/1484, 33 and 39.
39 See, for example, GAKO, R 3322/10/1, which defines their role in February 1943, following the city’s liberation.
401 Garrard and Garrard, Bones, p. 155.
41 This preference, which survivors attest to, was also noted by local police and the officials in charge of trophies.
42 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1406, 52.
43 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1208, 71.
44 TsAMO, 136/24416/24, 275.
45 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1494, 48.
46 Stroki, opalennye voiny, p. 182.
47 RGVA, 32925/1/514, 47.
48 Yu. N. Afanas’ev (Ed.), Drugaya voina (Moscow, 1996), p. 433. This source claims that the comparable increase among British troops was 200 per cent.
49 Armstrong, p. 164.
50 For an example, see RGVA 32925/1/515, 267.
51 GAKO, R3322/9/93, 15.
52 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1454, 78.
53 Alexiyevich, p. 65.
54 Pennington, Wings, p. 67.
55 Temkin, p. 202.
56 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1494, 48.
57 Ibid., 78–9.
58 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1405, 100.
59 Ibid., 64–5.
60 Hunger was especially severe in the countryside, as rural people often had no right to ration cards. The theft of food anywhere in the Soviet Union was punishable by death. See William Moskoff, The Bread of Affliction, pp. 108–9.
61 RGASPI-M, 33/1/1404, 7.
62 Ibid., 8 and 5.
63 Ibid., 3.