Why stalin soldiers fought

Rate this title Rate this. Book , 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….

Subject and genre Soviet Union. World War, — Social aspects — Soviet Union. Sociology, Military — Soviet Union — History. Details Publication. Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, c Full details Full details of this title, opens an overlay.

From the community What did you think about this title? Add to Cart. 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.

Contrary to legend, they did not fire machine guns at retreating troops. The detachments were not even designed to intimidate soldiers. Bearing only small arms, they rounded up stragglers and disorganized, retreating men and returned them to the front.

The blocking attachments arrested only 3. The penal battalions, in which casualties could be extremely high, did not mean permanent punishment; service in them sometimes lasted only several days. Survivors usually returned to their original units and ranks. Little evidence suggests that women soldiers and support troops ever failed in action; despite horrendous conditions and sexual harassment, women were "vital" to Soviet success.

The invaders bombed and strafed at will and detected formations approaching the front, greatly damaging Red Army morale and performance. Furthermore, the book can be excessively conceptual.

Why divide those who obeyed to "the point of self-sacrifice" into "soldier-philosophers" or "soldier-victims" ? When troops were surrounded and bombed, shelled, and cut apart by armor; when they ran out of ammunition, food, and water in the summer heat; no theoretical explanation for surrender is needed.

Thankfully, readers can easily cut though this occasional foliage. Simplistic notions about glorious patriotism or pervasive disloyalty are unhelpful. Reese instead introduces a variety of human motivations, emotions, and responses to the war and to the regime.