Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Faber & Faber (2006), Edition: Main, 416 pages
Description
A narrative of the ordinary Russian soldier's experience of the worst war in history, based on newly revealed sources. The men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers, confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan--as the ordinary Russian soldier was called--remain a mystery. We know something about how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. Drawing on previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with veterans, and private letters and diaries, Merridale presents the first comprehensive history of the Red Army rank and file, revealing the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed, badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army.--From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member John
Ivan's War is a social history of the Red Army in WWII. Merridale describes the make-up of the army, its training, its devastation by Stalin's purges, its lack of preparation and equipment, its tragedy in the first months and year of the war, its growing confidence after Stalingrad, the curbing of
The numbers are staggering and dwarf anything in any other theatre of the war. By February, 1942, the Red Army had lost 3 million captured and 2.7 million dead, but even so, by the end of 1942, it had more than 6 million soldiers in the field. Three million Soviet POWs were killed in German captivity. 1.6 million ethnic peoples were deported by the Soviets for alleged disloyalty or sympathy with the Germans. 7.5 million Soviet civilians were killed by the Germans. 3.5 million Soviets were shipped west as slave labour, of whom 2 million died. The best estimate is that 8.6 million Soviet military personnel were killed either on the battlefield or as POWs. 5.5 million Soviet citizen were "repatriated" to the Soviet Union at the end of the war and about one-fifth of those were executed or sentenced to 25 years hard labour.
Merridale also explores the betrayal, by the system, of the sacrifices made by those who fought and risked their lives. So many had hoped that the tyranny of the Soviet system would ameliorate after the war, but all were disappointed. As Merridale says, "For those whom the state punished, postwar life was cruel. For all the rest, it was a time when relief was tinged with disquiet. Everyone would find, too, that Soviet society had grown harder, more brutal, and cold.....War itself, too, had shattered Soviet family and social networks and debased further the values of mercy, cooperation, and even simple good manners.....the real tragedy, the perfidy of Stalin's final years, was the theft that forced decent citizens to acquiesce in tyranny because of fear, the theft of almost every grand ideal that they had fought to save."
This is a book about the "facts" of the war, but even more so, it is about the power of myth and memory; about how memory distorts to filter out the worst to retain the positives, and how this can be influenced by myths that grow up on their own or, in the case of the Soviet Union, are deliberately manufactured by the state, for the glory and perpetuation of the state and the political system; how under the Soviet system it was suicidal to question the official myths.
As the Spanish historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto said, "...facts are less potent than the falsehoods that people believe. If enough people believe a falsehood, it eventually becomes true; in the meantime they behave as if it were true and its influence on the course of events becomes immense."
Ivan's War is well researched, well written, and well worth a read.
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political influence to let the military leaders make military decisions, the incredible waste of lives which all too often characterized Soviet offensives, the actions and attitudes of the Army when it crossed Soviet borders into Poland and then into Germany itself. But more interestingly, Merridale delves into what motivated the soldiers of the Red Army, what was the relationship of the Army to Soviet society, what were the attitudes of the soldiers who had to live with the "Stalinist bacillus of mistrust". She has done this by combing old records, letters, reports, and talking to veterans of all types. The numbers are staggering and dwarf anything in any other theatre of the war. By February, 1942, the Red Army had lost 3 million captured and 2.7 million dead, but even so, by the end of 1942, it had more than 6 million soldiers in the field. Three million Soviet POWs were killed in German captivity. 1.6 million ethnic peoples were deported by the Soviets for alleged disloyalty or sympathy with the Germans. 7.5 million Soviet civilians were killed by the Germans. 3.5 million Soviets were shipped west as slave labour, of whom 2 million died. The best estimate is that 8.6 million Soviet military personnel were killed either on the battlefield or as POWs. 5.5 million Soviet citizen were "repatriated" to the Soviet Union at the end of the war and about one-fifth of those were executed or sentenced to 25 years hard labour.
Merridale also explores the betrayal, by the system, of the sacrifices made by those who fought and risked their lives. So many had hoped that the tyranny of the Soviet system would ameliorate after the war, but all were disappointed. As Merridale says, "For those whom the state punished, postwar life was cruel. For all the rest, it was a time when relief was tinged with disquiet. Everyone would find, too, that Soviet society had grown harder, more brutal, and cold.....War itself, too, had shattered Soviet family and social networks and debased further the values of mercy, cooperation, and even simple good manners.....the real tragedy, the perfidy of Stalin's final years, was the theft that forced decent citizens to acquiesce in tyranny because of fear, the theft of almost every grand ideal that they had fought to save."
This is a book about the "facts" of the war, but even more so, it is about the power of myth and memory; about how memory distorts to filter out the worst to retain the positives, and how this can be influenced by myths that grow up on their own or, in the case of the Soviet Union, are deliberately manufactured by the state, for the glory and perpetuation of the state and the political system; how under the Soviet system it was suicidal to question the official myths.
As the Spanish historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto said, "...facts are less potent than the falsehoods that people believe. If enough people believe a falsehood, it eventually becomes true; in the meantime they behave as if it were true and its influence on the course of events becomes immense."
Ivan's War is well researched, well written, and well worth a read.
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LibraryThing member EricCostello
Superb, absorbing account of something that hasn't been addressed too often; that is, what World War II was like for the average "frontoviki," the "Ivan," the soldier of the Red Army. Well-organized, with good illustrations, but most of all, some excellent writing. The angle of what the soldiers
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went home to in 1945-1946 is also explored; the disappointment at promises dashed is something you don't see anywhere else, except for hints of it in Solzhenitsyn. If I had one criticism of the book, it's that it has only one map, a large-scale one in the front. More maps might have helped trace the narrative. But overall, this is a highly interesting book, and one I would not hesitate to recommend. Show Less
LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
A terrifying view of the average Red Army soldier in the largest and most brutal land conflict in human history.
LibraryThing member Ma_Washigeri
Thank you Catherine Merridale, absolutely enthralling. The author is a British social historian and her outsider status both as British and as a woman is also interesting. And has also renewed my desires to read equivalently well researched books on places/times where the author is an outsider and
It has been a strangely comforting read alongside the current Brexit and Covid pandemic. I hope the comfort lies less in the contrast of world chaos in the comfort of a warm home, and more in the work and effort the author has made to listen to people who lived through it and dig through the archives to recover something of the souls of individuals without praise or blame. Loved the photos sprinkled through the book.
For a brilliant review just see Mariel who has put the time in to write the kind of review the book deserves.
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I am at least partly insider to add that extra dimension! Must be some out there - perhaps a book on British massacres in Africa by a Peruvian historian.It has been a strangely comforting read alongside the current Brexit and Covid pandemic. I hope the comfort lies less in the contrast of world chaos in the comfort of a warm home, and more in the work and effort the author has made to listen to people who lived through it and dig through the archives to recover something of the souls of individuals without praise or blame. Loved the photos sprinkled through the book.
For a brilliant review just see Mariel who has put the time in to write the kind of review the book deserves.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2006
Physical description
416 p.; 5 inches
ISBN
9780571218097