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war and social upheaval: World War II -- Soviet military forces
World War II Military Forces: The Soviet Military
Figure 1.--It would be the Soviet Red Army that would tear the heart out of the German Heer in the savage fighting on the Eastern Frint. This was the decisive campaign of World War II. After the Red Army began to drive west they encountered terrible atriocities commotted by the Germans. It was not only the Red Army that was the NAZI target, but the Soviet preople as part of Generalplan Ost. Is it at this time they began to adopt boys whose parents had been murdered--like the boy here. There was a long tradition in the Russian Army of adopting boys--sons of the regiment. These were the sons of fallem comrads. In World War II it was different. Boys like this were children orphaned by the Germans when they began killing large numbers of civilans. As grevious as Red Army casulaties were, they were only a fraction of the civilans mirdered by the Germans. In World War I civilans were only 20 percentg of the casualties. In World War II, civilians were 80 percent of the casualties because of the genocidal policies of Axis countries, especially the Germans and the Japanese.
The Soviet Union had three combat branches, the Red Army, the Red Air Force, and the Red Navy. The NKVD secret police force also mobilized military history The Red Army was the dominant or senior service throuhout the War. It would carry the load of the savage fighting against the German Wehrmacht during World War II (June 1941-May 1945). It would be the most costly and decisive military campaign in history. But for nearly 2 years, the NAZI and Soviet firces were allies and got on amiably. In fact the Soviet Union supplied the Germans vast quantities of critical war material, without which the Wehrmacht's stunning Western camapaign (May-June 1940) would have been difficult. [Tooze] At the time that Hitler seized power (1933), only two countries had militaries with a modern battle dictrine what we now call combined arrms warfare or during World War II what was called Blitzkrieg. It was not only the German that develooed this innovative concept, the Soviets did as well. This was because they trained and cooperated with the Germans as part of the Rapallo Treaty (1922). It was all done in secret deep in thev Soviet Union. Such operations were banned in Germany as part of the Versailles Peace Treaty. The Germany were not even permitted to have tanks at the time. As a result it was not just the Germamns that had this advanced tactical capability. Stuningly, as Hitler began remilitaizing and wining adherents in the German military, Stalin launched a massive purge of the Soviet military. He has much of the professional core of Soviet military arrested. There were a few show trials including Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the Red Napoleon, on down. Special attention was given to arresting the Red Army commanders who had been involved in the Rapallo process with the Germans. These were the Soviet officers who like the Germans had mastered Blitzkieg. Not only were they arrested, but the whole concept promoted by Tukhachevsky fell into disrepute. Officers were terrified of any connection with Tukhachevsky, even his concepts. And when Hitler and Stalin launched World War II. it showed. First in Poland (September 1939) where the Poles offered little resistance and more notably in Finland (Novemnber 1939) where they Finns resisted fiercely. All of this was being closely observed in Berlin and would be a major factor in Hitler's decision to invade. The Red Army would have to relearn Blizkrieg after the Germans invaded (June 1941). It involoved a blood letting upprecedented in the history of warfare, but leran they did. One of the great myths of World War II was that Red Army was comprised of countless, faceless hordes, motivated only by NKVD rifles at their backs and winning only through sheer weight force of numbers. This was an idea prpetrated by German generals who published their memoirs after World War II. Many Western histories accept this view, and it is standard fare in Hollywood, notably in the 2001 film, Enemy at the Gates'. The story was also standard fare during the Cold War, when the intelligence community frequently overestimated the quantitative side of Soviet capabilities while belittling its quality. And it went largely unaswered because the Soviet cult if secrecy, closing their military archives to Western historians. Actually, for the critical first months of Barbarossa, it was the Germans and their allies who outnumbered the Red Army. There is another myth that also has great currency, largely because of the dertermination of left-leaning authors and media to demonize the Allies war effort. The Russians and many sympathetic Western authors calim that the Red Army virtyally won the War on their own. This simply is not true. It is true that the Red Army tore the heart out of the Ostheer. But not fully reconize is that while the Heer was primarily committed to the East, German war industry was primarily supporting the war in the West waged by the Luftwaffe and Kriegs Marine. The Ostheer went east mostly with horse-drawn carts. The Panzer divisiins were a small mpart of the Ostheer. The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine requited the output of German industry. This lack of indutrial support left the Ostheer terribly exposed as the Red Army recovered from the blows delivered during Barbarossa.
At the time that Hitler seized power (1933), only two countries had militaries with a modern battle dictrine what we now call combined arrms warfare or during World War II what was called Blitzkrieg. It was not only the German that develoed this innovative concept, the Soviets did as well. This was because they trained and cooperated with the Germans as part of the Rapallo Treaty (1922). It was all done in secret deep in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a closed society away from the Allies ability to onderve. Such operations were banned in Germany as part of the Versailles Peace Treaty. The Germany were not even permitted to have tanks at the time. Soviet and German commanders developed the war of movement with armored vehicles on the same terraine where they would eventually fight out the Great Patriotic War of the Eastern front. As a result, when Hitler seized power (1933), it was not just the Germans that had this advanced tactical concept.
Stuningly, as Hitler began remilitaizing and wining adherents in the German military, Stalin launched amassive purge of the Soviet military. He has much of the professional core of Soviet military arrested. There were a few show trials including Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the Red Napoleon, on down. Special attention was given to arresting the Red Army commanders who had been involved in the Rapallo process with the Germans. These were the Soviet officers who like the Germans had mastered Blitzkieg. Not only were they arrested, but the whole concept promoted by Tukhachevsky fell into disrepute. Officers were terrified of any connection with Tukhachevsky, even his concepts. And when Hitler and Stalin launched World War II. it showed. First in Poland (September 1939) where the Poles offered little resistance and more notably in Finland (Novemnber 1939) where they Finns resisted fiercely. All of this was being closely observed in Berlin and would be a major factor in Hitler's decision to invade. The Red Army would have to relearn Blizkrieg after the Germans invaded (June 1941). It involoved a blood letting upprecedented in the history of warfare, but learn they did.
The Soviet Union had three combat branches, the Red Army, the Red Air Force, and the Red Navy. The NKVD secret police force also mobilized for military action.
The Red Army was the dominant or senior service throuhout the War. There was a huge didderence between the democarcies denmoceacies and noth Stalin and Fitler in their choice of military commanders. Churchill and Roosevelt could have had yes men, but instead chose Alan Brooke and George Marshall who were both unflinghingly frank. Both Stalin and Hitler preferred yes men. The Red Aarmy and Heer would pay a heavy price during the War. Stalin to a degree learned the imoprtance of competent advisers over syncophants. Hitler never did. He hung on to Kitel throughout the War. With the fall of France, the Red Army was left the only force with the capability of resisting the Germans on the Continent. Stalin was hoping that the Gerans and Allies would become locked into a World War I-type war of attrition, weakening both. Instead, the French Army desintehgrated and the British were driven off the Continent. The Red Army was left facing the Germans with no possibility of a French western front as was the case in World War I. The Red Army was theoretically larger than the German Heer, but Stalin allowed Hitler to mobilize German reserves and deploy along with its allies on the Soviet frontier. He was comvimced that Hitler would never attack with Britain still undefeated in the West. So when Hitler launched Barbarossa (June 1941), the Germans actually outnummbered the Red Army. Worse still, Stalin ordered the Red Army out of prepared positions west into the new territories seized from neighbors (the Baltic Republics, Poland and northeastern Romania). The Red Army was heavily armed. Many of the tanks were obsolete, but the Gerams were still using many basically obsolete tanks themselves. The real reason for the stunning German victories was tactics and the highly professional German officer corps. The Red Army in contrast had lost most its top commanders and many mid-levrel commanders to Slalin's purges just when they were desperately needed. Stalin even pulled some of the commanders he had confined to the Gulag rather than shooting out to fight the Germans. And concerned about a possible incident he order border units not to fire, so at first many Red Army units did not dare return fire when the Germans attacked. The Red Army would carry the load of the savage fighting against the German Wehrmacht during World War II (June 1941-May 1945). It would be the most costly and decisive military campaign in history. While the Red Army had a great deal of obsolete weaponry, when the Germas attacked the T-34 and other tanks were beginning to reach Red Army units. And from the beginning the Red Army had excellent artillery which would be supplemented with rockets. The Red Army also has excellent small arms.
The Red Air Force was the largest air force in the world and at the onset of Barbarossa performed even more poorly than the Red Army. Its leadership like that of the Red army had been ravaged by Stalin. And Stalin ordered Red Air Force commanders to allow Luftwaffe overflights so the Germans could see he had no hoistile intentions. This allow the Luftwaffe to meticuously plan its assualt, destoying a great number Soviet planes on the ground. There was on saving grace, the Soviet pilots were largely soared for future operations. It would be more tha a year before the Red Air Force could launch signigficant operations. This occured as the airceaft dactories moved east began coming back on line. In addition, the Luftwaffe was brought back from the East to defend German cities
from the allies stratehic bomving campaign.
The Red Navy was a much smaller force and played a minor role in the War. The Germans very early on, turned the Baltic into a German lake. This was essential as Swedish iron ore and other war material had to cross the Baltic. The big guns and sailors of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, however, played a role in saving Lenningrad. The Red Navy was active in the Black Sea as the Germans turned South (1942). In the final months if the War, Red Navy submarines were able to resume operations in the Baltic, but by thius time tghe Swedes were reducing shipments to the Germans.
For nearly 2 years, the NAZI and Soviet forces were allies and got on amiably. In fact the Soviet Union supplied the Germans vast quantities of critical war material, without which the Wehrmacht's stunning Western camapaign (May-June 1940) would have been difficult. [Tooze] The NAZI-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (August 1939) essentially made the NAZIs and Soviets allies. The Soviets never joined the Axis, although Japanese diplomats argued that they should be allowed to join. Even so, the Soviets were a very important NAZI ally. World War II histories generally mention the Pact in terms of making possible the NAZI invasion of Poland and then generally provide littleadditional information on the Pact and the NAZI-Soviet alliance. This is in part because after the NAZI invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviets became a key element of the Allied struggle against the Axis. And this Soviet aggressions were inconvenient in depicging the struggle with the Axis as one between good and evil. Unfortunaltely, subsequent historians have focused on NAZI campaigns and occupation policies and generally left untouched the 2 years in which the NAZIs and Soviets cooperated. There was extensive cooperation between the two powers as they proceeded to divide Europe between themselves. The relation was troubled over differences between how Eastern Europe was to be divided, espcially disagreements over Finland, Lithuania, and Romania. With the Royal Navy blockade in place, the Soviet Union became Germany's most important supplier of strategic materials. The Soviets also facilitated contacts between Germany and Japan.
Although it is the NAZI aggressions that are most commonly addressed in World War II histories, the Soviet Union compiled nearly as long a list of aggressions as the NAZIs. Operating within secret protocols to the Non-agression Pact, Hitler and Stalin were in fact close partners in the waging of aggressive war. The Great Patriotic War fought against the NAZIs after the 1941 German invsion came to be an icon in Soviet history. Left unsaid was the fact that Hitler and Stalin were partners in the virtul partition of Europe. And the mnassive Red Army gave Stalin the capability of enforcing his will on the small, poorly armed comtries of Easter Europe. The first target was Poland which both NAZI Germany and the Soviet Union invaded launching World War II (September 1939).
After Poland, the first target was Finland, but Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania were also targets. The Soviet invasion of Finland had significant repercussions. The Allies for a time considered actively aidinging Finland, but the Germans offensives in the West soon made that impossible. The poor performance of the Red Army in Finland was a factor in Hitler's decission to attack the Soviet Union before Britain had been defeated.
The Soviet Union for nearly 2 years was a NAZI ally and helped launch the War by invading Poland. The Soviets committed the same kind of rimes most commomly asociated with the NAZIs, but without the Jewish mania. And like the NAZis these actions were commited at the direction of its government. The major difference was that the greatest killing programs and slave labor brutalities were committed against the Soviet people, not conquered people--although there was a great deal of this as well. The crimes committed included launching wars of aggression, mass murder, genocide of civilians, murder of prisoners of war, and brutal repression of coquered people. The Bolsheviks began committing terrible crimes furing the Civil War (1919-21). This included creating famine in areas controoled by the Whites. War crimes and atrocities were perpetrated by not only the Red Army mikitary formations but the various secret police organizations beginning with the Cheka. It was the NKVD during the Great Terror that killed the large numbers of peole. This was ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, but killing operations were authorized by Lenin during the earliest period of Soviet rule. The crimes ofvStalin were superficially addressed by Khrushche, but reprted in detail by Solzhenitsyn. This brutal behavior continued after Stalin and Hitler launched World War II with the invasion of Poland and other neighboring countries. The Katyn Massacre and mass rape by troops of the Red Army are the best known atrocities, but only a small part of what occurred. Many more mass graves have been found since the War. After the War, the Allied Powers consucted the International Military Tribunal to examine war crimes committed by NAZI Germany. Soviet officials participated in the judicial processes. As a result, there was no examination of Soviet atrocities and no charges were brought against its military and governmet. And because they controlled Eastern Europe where massive war crimes were committed, Soviet conduct went unexamined and unpunished, inclusing the atrocities committed after the War. The Soviet Government during most of the Cold war denied all charges of atrocities but finally began dmitting what their forces had done including Katyn. It is very contoversial in modern Russia because the Red Arm and Great Patriotic War is such an important part of Russian identity. Under President Putin, Russian autoirities have returned to covering up Red Army conduct. The Russian Government regularly dismisses Soviet war crimes as a Western myth. School text books war crimes are either portrayed positively (Russian censors are very creative) or simoly omitted. Ppresident Putin waffels slightlynon the issue. He has acknowledged the 'horrors of Stalinism', but criticizesd the 'excessive demonization of Stalin' by 'Russia's enemies'. China takes a similar approach with Mao.
World War began with the incasion of Poland (September 1939). Soviet historians generlly downplay the next 2 years because the Soviet Union was an ally of NAZI Germany and engaged in terrible aggressions and attrocities (1939-41). Russian historians would like to forget this black page of their country's history. The actions of the Soviet NKVD were comparable to those of the NAZI SS, but without the racial component. (But not without the ethnic component.) Most Russian historians would like for their country's World War II history to begin with the NAZI Barbarossa invasion (June 1941) and the valiant record of the Soviet resistance to the aggression of their NAZI ally (1941-45). The cataclysmic struggle on the Eastern Front was the most gigantic military struggle in the history of warfare. In large measure, the result of the campaign determined the outcome of the War. It is difficult to see how the Western Allies could have staged the D-Day invassion to liberate France if the NAZIs had succeded in destroying the Red Army on the Easern Front. The resistance of the Soviet people to the NAZIs is one of the outstanding instances of heroism and valor in human history. It is no reflection on the character of the Soviet people that Stalin became virtually an ally of Hitler and launched a series of aggressions comparable to those of the NAZIs. Opperation Barbarossa came as a complete shock to Stalin (June 22, 1941). The Wehrmacht achieved stunning successes. In the drive toward Moscow and Leningrad, the NAZIs committed the most heinous attrocities in modern times. Hitler had made it clear from the onset that the campaign would be a war of extinction. At the gates of Moscow, the Russian Winter, interference by Hitler, and the bravery of the Red Army broke the Wehrmacht. Slowly after Moscow and Stalingrad the the weight of Allied production, the resurgent Red Army, the strastegic bombig campaign, and finally a second front with D-Day doomed the Wehrmacht.
Myths
One of the great myths of World War II was that Red Army was comprised of countless, faceless hordes, motivated only by NKVD rifles at their backs and winning only through sheer weight force of numbers. This was an idea prpetrated by German generals who published their memoirs after World War II. Many Western histories accept this view, and it is standard fare in Hollywood, notably in the 2001 film, Enemy at the Gates'. The story was also standard fare during the Cold War, when the intelligence community frequently overestimated the quantitative side of Soviet capabilities while belittling its quality. And it went largely unaswered because the Soviet cult if secrecy, closing their military archives to Western historians. Actually, for the critical first months of Barbarossa, it was the Germans and their allies who outnumbered the Red Army. There is another myth that also has great currency, largely because of the dertermination of left-leaning authors and media to demonize the Allies war effort. The Russians and many sympathetic Western authors calim that the Red Army virtyally won the War on their own. This simply is not true. It is true that the Red Army tore the heart out of the Ostheer. But not fully reconize is that while the Heer was primarily committed to the East, German war industry was primarily supporting the war in the West waged by the Luftwaffe and Kriegs Marine. The Ostheer went east mostly with horse-drawn carts. The Panzer divisiins were a small mpart of the Ostheer. The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine requited the output of German industry. This lack of indutrial support left the Ostheer terribly exposed as the Red Army recovered from the blows delivered during Barbarossa.
