Ivan had a rough go of it. A lot of that was Uncle Joe’s fault for stupidly firing/killing his officer corps so he started at a huge disadvantage.
Never a more treacherous bastard has existed than Uncle Joe in my opinion. I’m glad the Allies didn’t cave to his timeline and we kept our own.
I can understand how they may Poo-Poo our contribution, it’s not entirely without cause from their perspective.
Russia fought a hell of a fight, I’ll always give them credit for that.
I have the highest regard for the average Red Army soldier (who didn’t rape and pillage across Germany, that is)
He had no say in who his leaders were, they were fighting for the “Rodina”.
Oh absolutely. I think any “whole story” Russian WW2 history would have to begin with the purge of his officer corps in the late 30’s. From there you’d have to pick out ten sub-stories. My ancestry is Russian, and I worked on a cruise ship for a while in 2005 and we visited St. Pete 7 times, all overnight stays (VERY unusual for a cruise ship, ordinarily you are in any given port for 2-5 hours) and I wandered around relentlessly. What an amazing combination of 1750, 1850, and 1950 it was. Utterly fascinating.
There’s no question that the battle for St. Pete was one of the great titanic struggles of all time, yet that was but one sub-story of Russian involvement in WW2.
Stalin devastated his officer corps in the purges. A major factor in entering into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was to buy time to rebuild the Red Army. Make no mistake - both Hitler and Stalin knew war was coming and if Hitler hadn’t started it Stalin would have when he was ready. The Red Army wasn’t ready in 1941, which almost but not quite led to the capture of Moscow.
“Russia fought a hell of a fight, I’ll always give them credit for that.”
That’s a fact.
I’ve been a student of history my entire life (well, ever since I was about 7, anyway). I loved the subject and still do. My college degree is in history. I still read voraciously, especially histories. WWII is a particular interest of mine (among others).
The German war against the Soviet Union from June, 1941 to May, 1945 was a whole other world; it was carnage and savagery on a scale never seen before. The conditions and the brutality were appalling. Millions died in that theater of WWII. The hatred between the two nations was one of the most visceral in human history, and it showed.
It is unfortunate that so many in the West know next to nothing about that war, which the Russians called “The Great Patriotic War.” For more years than I can remember I have said to myself “You’ve got to be kidding,” when reading about that aspect of WWII; but, alas, it was all too true.
An interesting characteristic of the Russian people is their capacity to endure appalling suffering, and to sacrifice their own, often on useless endeavors. They are true fatalists.