 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com They died in vast numbers, eight million men and women driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the soldiers of the Red Army, an exhausted mass of recruits who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. For sixty years, their experiences were suppressed, replaced by patriotic propaganda. We know how the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. In this ambitious, revelatory history, Catherine Merridale uncovers the harrowing story of who these soldiers were, and how they lived and died during the war. |
Average Customer Rating:   Little known history Ivan's war presents details of little known history of WWII. It supports another account of the times which I have recently read and was very impressed withAbandoned and Forgotten: An Orphan Girl's Tale of Survival During World War II, exceedingly well. The Red Army of a sometime WWII ally I was floored by this account of the Russian Army in World War II. There were so many facets that Merridale delved into and explored, so many interesting and jaw dropping looks into the life of a Red Army soldier that I couldn't stop shaking my head, amazed at such a different WWII experience. Merridale did wonderfully in showing the shambles that the Red Army was in 1939 to the war behemoth that it became by the end of the war. Showing how two different propaganda machines warred on each other, how the Communist government treated its soldiers and its citizens. In the end Merridale gave a very well rounded and thoroughly documented account of a sometime ally Russia.
Right from the beginning you know that you are in for a treat as Merridale described the Red Army under Stalin. How they were a poor army, giving their soldiers cloth for socks, guns that were almost 50 years old and improper cold weather uniforms. This is all a background to the tempest of a life that the Russian soldier and citizen existed, always in fear of the eyes and ears of the ever so eager to admonish, discipline and, even, kill and kidnap those that said the slightest bit that could infer dissatisfaction with Stalin's Communist government. It was amazing to read how brutal they were in keeping everyone under their heels. The paranoia that was rampant with Stalin and his government ultimately led to the purge of the Russian military elite, which of course brought the Red Army to the low that would exist at the beginning of the war.
Of course a little known fact to the common person is that Russia took part in the opening acts of WWII - on the German side! We read how Germany invaded Poland and started WWII, but we don't read or recall too often that Russia, with its nonaggression pact, invaded Poland as well and split the country in half. In fact Russia was ruthless in its land grap in Finland and the Baltic States. For two years they were consolidating their borders, using WWII as an excuse to grow their country. This, of course, was ultimately led Hitler to invade Russia cause it saw how poor Russia's army was, so how could they stop the German War machine?
Merridale is at her best here as she shows the retreating Russian as they struggled to fight the Germans. Always pushing forward fearfully because the Russian officer's were behind them with the new machine guns ready to gun down any who tried to retreat. The Russian army was so decimated in 1941 that they had the option of attacking tanks with bayonets and rocks, or dying by the guns of their own comrades behind them. Life in the Red Army was tough as millions were fed to the meat grinder. Eventually the tide turned and the Red Army slowly became a lean fighting machine. Just as the Japanese woke a sleeping giant, so too did Hitler. The books value is seeing the comparisons that are drawn between the Germans and the Russians. Both had evil rulers. Both used their propaganda machines heavily, outright lying in order to shape how they saw the war was going. The comparison of the Germans in Russia with the Russians in Germany (this was appalling to see the downright evil that men in war with power thrust upon them could come to, from both sides). The brutal treatment of POWs.
In the end I was shocked by the Red Army because they were governed by Stalin's Communism. Russian soldiers who were captured and put into POW camps weren't liberated, but instead transferred to another prison on Russian soil and treated as traitors to their country. Invalids were shunned and eventually herded off to an island to rid their presence. High ranking officials, such as Zhukov, were demoted or imprisoned after the war. Whole races were shipped off to prison and labor camps to die of starvation and exhaustion. Communist Russia was not an honorable country, but rather one that was as corrupt as its leader. If Hitler would have never attacked Russia I wonder if the allies would have invaded Russia as well to depose Stalin. As is he was a sometime ally and was able to maintain his sovereignty.
A fantastic account of life and death in the Red Army and a must read.
5 stars. The deployment and use of cannon fodder Merridale, Catherine 2007 Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. Picador (Henry Holt) New York ISBN-10 0312426526 ISBN-13 978-0312426521
The deployment and use of cannon fodder
Page 48 "As the same veteran recalled, there were 138 young people in his rifle regiment. After the first battle there, 38 were left, and ten days later there were only 5."
This is a magnificent piece of scholarship and a documentation of almost unspeakable horror. It is a "must read" for all tacticians armchair and real. I stumbled upon this book in a search to document the the incredible cruel and wasteful tactics of the Soviet Army and compare them to tactics used by Castro during the Bay of Pigs and in Angola. This volume proved most useful for this purpose. Senior officers were not immune from mass elimination: "In June 1937, the deputy minister of defense (and former chief of the general staff), Mikhail Nikolaevich Tukhachevsky, was arrested. Many of his senior aides, including several civil war heroes, were implicated in a trumped up case. The entire group was put on trial, found guilty and sentenced to death ..." (page 45).
The book contained many items appropriate for my own work (manuscript in preparation "Narrations of War in Cuba). Stalin in 1937, despite the obvious impending conflict, even purged the officers of his own armed forces: "The armed forces were not immune, despite the certainty of war
Some of these were the example of Stalin's evil character found on page 47; the documentation of mass killings of Polish officers in other places than Katyn on page 73; D.G. Pavlov's failures as tank general despite his experience in the Spanish Civil War (various places first mention on page 85) and his subsequent execution at Stalin's orders page 88; wide spread rapes committed by Soviet soldiers (see page 305); the chronology of major events in WW ii including the alliance between Hitler and Stalin (pages 389-391). But above all the horrendous and uncaring feeding of Soviet soldiers to the maws of the German "cannon."
The photograph of a Soviet bunker on page 178, except for the peaked roof, strongly resembles that used by Castro forces to defeat the summer offensive of 1958. These bunkers were constructed either or both by direction of Ernesto Guevara or Huber Matos, a coincidence that suggests that Guevara had read or been instructed by the Soviet military experts (most probably the Hispano-Soviet Alberto Bayo). Apparently Guevara placed undue faith in Soviet tactics, for instance it is clear that Molotov cocktails (pages 51, 106, and 123) were far more lethal to the user than commonly assumed. Thus when Guevara proposed their use at the encounter of Pino del Agua February 1958* in Cuba to "reduce" a stubborn defense position of the enemy, Castro wisely blocked the order; on the other hand Guevara--a true Stalinist--was far more cavalier about his men's lives than his own (a trait also shown common to Russian high command in this book)--may have known this and did not care.
As a follower of Soviet tactics the Castro Cuban government has never admitted the level of casualties incurred during the Bay of Pigs Invasion; these have been estimated to be much higher than that of the invading force (about 100 killed) and to total somewhere between three and five thousands. Anecdotal information tells of the Cuban police of Almejeida constantly patting their bodies to see if they had been wounded as they charged into deadly accurate fire from the invaders. Or the tales of screaming burning communist militia trapped in burning Leyland buses along the open causeways of that swamp. In a similar fashion, the true cost to Cuba of the War in Angola (estimated from South African funeral monuments to be at least 5,000) is not known. This information is also suppressed in Cuba, tallies from a number of small interior towns seems the only information available to that Island's public.
All this suggests that after most of his experienced rebels had defected, been executed or were in prison Castro's generals followed the horrendous Soviet tactics described in this volume, with similar results considering the duration of action and the size of the Cuban armies deployed. Thus it is clear from Merridale's book and my notes above that following Soviet tactics is enormously expensive in human life and suffering.
One wonders if Stalin, had deliberate intended to use the broken bodies of his lost soldiers as excuse to magnify the contributions of the Soviets to the defeat of the NAZI's certainly this has become a major and long standing communist propaganda point. This careful work of Merridale certainly makes clear that Stalin, as is said of Napoleon, considered that soldiers, not useful to kill the enemy, also served his purposes as "cannon fodder."
The Cuban insurrection, 1952-1959 By Ramón L. Bonachea, Marta San Martín Page 99 *"In the evening (after Camilo Cienfuegos had been wounded and other rebels killed in a failed assault) "Che" Guevara suggested to Fidel a second attack ... but were repelled by the army. Next "Che" Guevara insisted on leading (says he L.D.) a third assault on the army position with the idea of approaching the trenches and throwing Molotov cocktails. ... Fidel ...(told him to lead) ... but not risk his life .... (this) third attack did not take place."
Surprising... I enjoyed reading Merridale's book - especially since she calls herself 'unmilitary'. I expected more discussion on the battles, most of which have been well covered in other volumes, whereas Ivan's War "surprised" me by being a personalised biography of the average everyday Soviet soldier.
I guess the best text I read was regarding the Russian troops complaining as to why the Germans would invade their poverty stricken land, when Germany was so unbelievably rich!
I still see no purpose in the invasion of Russia by Germany, particularly since Rommel was already slogging it out in North Africa - it perplexes me every time I read a book on the subject. Why Hitler continued with Barbarossa after having to deal with Greece thanks to Mussolini's 'invasion' & rout. He should have continued on to Egypt after having missed half of the Continental summer and knocked Britain actively out of the war and prevented the U.S. Armed Forces from learning modern warfare via Operation Torch. They could have done a deal with Middle east nations for oil and maybe even drawn Turkey in as their Allies for a second time. The Caucasas would have been more easily reached from the south also.
Ah the benefit of hindsight.
Merridale's book proves that whilst most Soviets weren't fans of Communism and Stalin, Hitler's invasion forced them to become so. A Good Social History of the Red Army When I first picked up Catherine Merridale's book "Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945", I expected it to be a typical military history on a tactical and operational level. Rather, it is something much more unique and every bit as interesting. "Ivan's War" is essentially a broad social history of the soldiers serving in the Red Army during the Second World War. How these soldiers lived, passed the time, communicated with their families, and died is all wonderfully presented by a gifted historian. Relying as much on interviews as documents, Merridale offers many personal accounts of the tragic time as Hitler's forces smashed into the Soviet Union with a shock millions of times greater than America's Pearl Harbor. The Book deals with many tough topics for its subjects, including the mass rape and looting carried out by Red Army soldiers as the Soviets entered German territory. The work's strength is also a minor downside- there is not really a lot here on tactics or operations during the war. The reader would liked to have had a little more in the way of standard military history to provide context, but this is a small point. In all, this is an informative, haunting work that makes one glad not to have lived it. |  |
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