Customer Reviews

Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Catherine Merridale, a professor of contemporary history at the University of London, has written a nuanced social history of the Soviet soldier in the Second World in Ivan's War. This volume is not a military history and readers expecting such will be disappointed, but Merridale does offer an insightful glance into the soul of "Ivan" - the "G.I. Joe" of the Red Army. Overall, Ivan's War does provide context that is often lacking in other works about the East Front and this is a worthy effort, although the results that Merridale does achieve are open to debate. The main idea that Merridale's work conveys is that the sacrifices made by both the Soviet soldiers and citizens were betrayed by a Stalinist regime that saw them as only "little cogs in a machine." In the end, thanks to Ivan's tenacity, Merridale writes, "the motherland was never conquered" by the fascists but it had been enslaved by its own communist leaders.


The driving concept between this type of approach to history is to use oral accounts from veterans to add texture to broad themes that the author can then develop. To be honest, Merridale does not seem to have much flair for oral history and too many of her accounts are rather tepid. I get the impression that the Soviet vets either didn't want to talk to her since she was a foreigner - she hints at this - and those men she did interview were not the most desirable subjects. Given the availability of better Soviet accounts that have appeared since the fall of Communism, I find it hard to believe that Merridale could not have gotten some better material. Readers should note that Merridale's examination of "Ivan" is far from comprehensive - not only are there no accounts from the Red Air Force or Navy, but important branches such as artillery and cavalry are all but ignored. One need only go to "the Russian Battlefield" website to find dozens of veterans accounts, sorted by branch, that provide better detail than the accounts offered in Ivan's War. It is also odd that Merridale rarely mentions specific Soviet army units, even though Soviet vets are often proud of having served in this or that unit.


It is clear that Merridale has researched Soviet archives carefully. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that she knows how to use much of the information that she has gathered. For example, on page 215 she writes that 310,000 Soviet tankers were killed in the war out 403,000 trained, which seems like 76% fatalities. However, when I checked the footnoted source I realized that these numbers referred to only the period 1943-45 and also included personnel from mechanized units. Readers should treat her facts and figures with some circumspection.


Overall, the first two-thirds of the book, which covers the pre-war period up to 1944 is fairly interesting and well-written. This part of the book is quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, the last one-third of the book covers the period 1945 up to the current day and seems interminable. Somehow, the author's description of how Russian women wanted to marry wounded veterans for their pensions seems neither unique to the USSR or pertinent to life in the Red Army in 1939-45. In the last 70-80 pages or so the author appears to be wandering, having lost her focus once she passes VE Day.

This is a great book; it's been well-reviewed both in the press and here on Amazon.

However, the reviews have failed to mention what I found to be one of the most important features of the book: The significant lacunae in the historical record of the Red Army. Merridale shows how completely the historical reality of the Red Army experience has been replaced by the state-sanctioned mythology. Merridale describes sorting through the archives, sealed for sixty years, and finding that even the confidential reports by the internal Party spies are filled with bland pious generalities. Even as they were fighting and dying, the Army was selectively editing its official memory, removing any evidence of venality, cowardice, war crimes, insubordination and so on.

More disturbingly, the veterans Merridale interviews have edited their own memories, often describing scenes from propaganda movies as if they actually experienced them first-hand. Merridale's sympathetic treatment of the veterans' accounts makes this crime against memory all the more disturbing. In fact, Merridale's most vivid primary sources are the letters and diaries of front-line soldiers (most of whom were killed in action), preserved by grieving families.

In an odd way, Merridale's book is the perfect complement to a political-theoretical book like Hannah Arendt's "Totalitarianism". Arendt describes how the totalitarian state can control every aspect of human existence. Merridale shows that this control extended even to the chaos and relative freedom of the front line.

Merridale has written an excellent social history of the Red Army and why Russian soldiers continued to fight throughout the war. Merridale believes that songs about missing loved ones,a personal faith in God, and a belief that Stalin's Russia would change after the war contributed to the fighting spirit of the Red Army soldier. Merridale also describes vividly the hell of the battle of Kerch in which thousands of Russian soldiers suffocated to death and Kursk in which tank crewmen suffered serious burns to their bodies. Merridale also writes about how these soldiers missed and distrusted their wives and this sense of sexual frustration ultimately contributed to the raping of Berlin in 1945. The only weakness of Merridale's book is that she leaves out the works by Dale Herspring which detail how commissars kept alive the morale of Russian soldiers and skims over the works by Robert Thurston who states how the Red Army soldier fought the war for ideological purposes. Despite these flaws this an important contribution to the study of the wartime Red Army.

I was very excited to see that this book was coming out and pre-ordered it months ago. Upon receiving it and diving into it I was a bit disappointed, it wasn't what I expected yet at the same time it was something that I definitely needed to know about. This book is a social and somewhat of a cultural history of the Red Army. I personally expected accounts of battles and the such, but instead we are presented with the situations Red Army men had to deal with on a daily basis. Party speeches, Political officers and their jobs, what kind of food was served, what kind clothes were scare, and at the same time what frontline soldiers were missing in their lives. When they had to live off the land, when they were starving days on end, when their boots were falling apart and no new ones were forcoming so they had to take off clothing from the dead and dying, etc. The rapes and 'atrocities' in the latter year of the war are covered but too much so in my opinion, few lines are given to the 'justice' dealt out by the Red Army and numerous orders from the higher ups that said raping, etc, would be punished by executions. The storyline is a journalistic one with frontline accounts mixed in, some are stories told to the author, at other times dead Red Army men come alive through their wartime correspondences with their family members and wives. I would have liked to see more of the former and more interviews and stories in general, but what was presented was definitely interesting and worth reading about. A good investment for anyone who wants to understand what life on the Eastern Front was like on a day to day basis. There are some detailed mistakes, like saying that the German Tiger tank was based on the Soviet KV tank design, while in fact the German Tiger tank had been on the drawing boards for a while before the Germans even encountered the KV. There are others but this is the only one that stuck in my head, it shouldn't take away from the rest of the narrative which is definitely a great addition to literature on the Eastern Front.

We know quite a lot about the American, British, and even French efforts in World War II. We've seen miniseries detailing every step of Major Dick Winters' company from training to the end of the War in <em>Band of Brothers</em>. We know, almost to the minute, what happened to Lt. Col. Frost's battalion at the bridge over the Rhine in Arnhem, thanks to Cornelius' Ryan's <em>A Bridge Too Far</em>. We've covered, almost inch by inch, the long, slow slog of the marines across the pacific, thanks to William Manchester's <em>Goodbye Darkness</em>.

One of the things we know very little about, however, is how the average Soviet soldier lived and died in those long, horrific years between 1941 and 1945. We know about the major operations. We know when Marshal Zhukov did this or Marshal Konev did that. What has remained hidden, for more than sixty years, is what life and death was like for the average Russian infantryman--the "Ivan"--during that brief, but deadly time. Those experiences have, for the most part been hidden behind a wall of Soviet censorship.

Now, thanks to Russian studies scholar Catherine Merridale, we can look behind that wall, and see the truth--sometimes grim, sometimes darkly humorous--that the average "Ivan" lived with.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805074554/dalefranksweb-20" target="new">Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Soviet Army, 1939-1945</a>, is not a tale of grand strategy, or a lofty view of Generals and Marshals moving pieces around on a sand table. Instead, it is the story of the privates, the sergeants, and the young lieutenants and captains who led them into battle. It is the story of the <em>frontoviki</em>, the front-line men--and women--who faced the German guns, who fought, and who mostly died during what the Russians still call The Great Patriotic War.

Merridale, through meticulous research through formerly secret archives, and through interviews with surviving veterans, writes about what it was like to live and die as a common soldier on the front lines of that war. It is a glimpse of the wartime experience of Soviet soldiery that was denied to us for more than half a century.

Unlike the story of other Allied soldiers, the story of Ivan is essentially a tragic one, despite the defeat of the Nazis and their allies. In other allied countries, the soldier' faith with their governments was returned. The soldiers of America and Britain kept faith with their governments, and that faith was returned. Most of them came home knowing that they had fought a "good war".

Ivan was denied that comfort. Despite the undeniable bravery and gallantry of the Soviet Infantryman, they were betrayed at every turn. Their training--if they received it--was substandard. Their living conditions were execrable. They were encouraged--indeed, forced--to take part in war crimes, such as units being forced, at gunpoint, to systematically rape German girls and women in Prussia. Finally, after winning the war, they were betrayed by Stalin, who, when the war was over, discarded them, and forced them to knuckle under to one of the most repressive regimes of state terror ever known.

There were few happy endings for Ivan.

Merridale tells the whole story, from beginning to end. And she does so with an undisguised compassion for the men and women who were forced to endure so much, suffer so much, and commit horrific acts, and who, as payment, were forced to suffer the deep suspicion of a party and state that distrusted the independent modes of thinking and acting that they had become used to on the front lines.

This is an excellent book that tells a story that has needed to be told for decades.

This is a pretty well-written book, probably worth reading for anyone interested in modern Russia or the Great Patriotic War (the Eastern Front of World War II).

First, it is important to point out that this book is not a work of military history, so if that's what you're expecting you'll be pretty disappointed.

Second, I think one of the blurbs on the book states that the author conducted over 200 interviews in writing the book. This may be the case, but the author seems to rely on perhaps a half dozen of these interviews for much of her anecdotal content. Most of the rest of her content seems to come from letters written by soldiers killed during the war, which are quoted extensively. To me, this heavy reliance on such letters is a weakness, because of the unknown effects of anticipated censorship or actual self-censorship. Who knows what Ivan really wanted to say to his family in the rear? Also, it seems possible that even today many of the families which retain such letters would be reluctant to disclose some letters for fear of their Ivan being seen as unpatriotic, etc.

Third, people already familiar with Russian WWII history are unlikely to learn very much from this book.

Fourth, as pointed out by other reviewers, I don't think that the book is particularly well-organized.

Overall this is a worthy book on a topic which has not received the attention that it deserves. Moreover, given the age of most of the veterans, it might be one of the last opportunities for such a work. That said, for an understanding of Russia and its society during the war, I would probably recommend Alexander Werth's excellent RUSSIA AT WAR over this book.

What must be clear from the start is that this book is not an operational or staregic history of the Great Patriotic War but a magnificent attempt to shed light on the millions of anonymous Soviet soldiers who fought and died on the Eastern Front during World War II. Ms Merridale has the gift of a powerful prose and her research is astonishing in terms of depth and historical accuracy. Her story begins from the '30s decade, when the Soviet people were assured by Stalin that a future war would be fast, easy and of course victorious, only to be shocked with the Finnish experience in 1939. The author uses the most critical historical events of the Great Patriotic War (initial phase of Barbarossa, battle of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kerch, Kursk, operation "Bagration", invasion of Romania, battle of Berlin) as simple stepping stones in order to build her social history of the Red Army and she succeeds in a fine way. The amount of information is overwhelming and it will certainly change your views on the Red Army of the 1940s. This book is much more complete and wide in scope than any memoir of that period and is destined to be a classic on the subject. The attitude of many soldiers regarding the Stalinist regime is especially revealling as are the terrible fates of many innocent people labeled as "traitors". Ms Merridale has done also a terrific job analysing the brutal behavior of Red Army soldiers in Germany and their reactions after the excitement of battle and revenge had subsided. Highly recommended!

Ivan. Fritz. GI Joe. Tommy Atkins. The prototypical, sterotypical, mythical soldier in the Russian, German, American, and British Army. Who was he, how did he make sense of war, and how did he see himself?

Catherine Merridale introduces us to Ivan, the Russian Soldier, from 1939 to 1946, in the postwar, and in his most recent, veteran version. She adopts a roughly chronological approach.

We see Ivan first in his pre-War version -- the child of the Revolution, a peasent mite in the Stalinist horror, the first of the New Soviet Men. Merridale adroitly describes the pre-war Soviet state and shows the incredible contradition between Soviet reality and Soviet propaganda. Then she shows us Ivan and how he sees the world and the German threat through the distorted lenses of Stalin's self deception and lack of preparation for war.

When it hits the fan, pre-war Ivan dies in droves, often confused and unmotivated and lost -- and is replaced by an Ivan who is angered by the German atrocities and influenced by the Communist appeal for patriotism and sacrifice. Ivan becomes a soldier who has an ideological viewpoint and an eyes-on appreciation for the cost of war to Russia.

This mid-war Ivan is also squandered in unimaginable numbers. Ivan morphs into a combat veteran, motivated by the myth of life back home, by unit cohesion, by raw fear of the NKVD at his rear, and by a belief that the sacrifice he makes must have a compelling meaning. He learns and adapts and assumes power that contradicts and threatens Soviet expectations. He makes accomodations and takes risks that acknowledge the precariousness of his life.

The triumphant Ivan, exposed to the riches of conquered countries, indoctrinated in revenge, and hardened in the forge of war, descends upon his enemy to ravage his women and his possessions and his way of life. He begins to accomodate the conflict between what he has become and what the Soviet state asks of him.

The Ivan who returns home, betrayed by Stalin for his ethnicity or his nationality or his experiences, must reconcile the belief that he fought in a noble cause for great purposes with the knowledge that he had become a pawn for the latest Communist version of reality.

What Merridale does, and does so very well, is take us into the mind of these Ivans and let them tell us why they fought and how they saw themselves. This is not a book of campaigns or equipment or tables of battle -- it is a book that examines the universal human experience of war, of life and of death, throught the specific eyes of Ivan, the Russian soldier.

She provides us enough historical and sociological background to illuminate Ivan. She quotes enough excerpts from letters and from interviews to let us eavesdrop on Ivan. She shows us that Ivan, the Russian peasant, is a different character than Ivan, the Estonian conscript -- but she relentlessly focuses on the Russian Ivan as the soul of the Soviet Army.

I agree that she does not cover all of the Soviet military arms and that she does not give us a history of battles or diplomacy or weapons. That was not her intent and she tells us early on that she wants to listen to Ivan. I acknowledge many of the criticisms of other reviewers -- style, sometimes pacing, roving focus. However, in the aggregate, she delivers what she promises. She introduces us to Ivan, tells us where he came from, why he changed, what he did, and what he was thinking as he moved from 1939 to 1945.

I am opposed to slapping politically correct judgements on authors, but I do wonder if Merridale's gender served as an asset in her approach and her results in this book. I don't know if a male author would have wandered as much as she did; I don't know if a male author would have picked up the nuances that she does.

This is a brillant book, flawed a bit in execution, but perhaps unique in addressing the complex and convoluted evolution of Ivan (up to today) in his society, his family, his unit, and his own mind.

This excellent book is a 'history from below' of the Red Army during WWII. Based on extensive archival research and a large number of interviews of elderly survivors, Ivan's War is a successful attempt to describe the experience and thinking of common soldiers in the Red Army. Ivan's War describes well the incredible privations and mortality experienced by Soviet soldiers during WWII. This is simultaneously a very revealing book about the Stalinist state. In a nominal sense, much of the content is known well. The incredibly poor preparation of the Soviet Armed Forces, ravaged by Stalin's purges, the enormous casulties, the incredible devastation wreaked by combat in the Eastern Soviet Union, and the total pitiless nature of combat are commonplaces of the historical literature. Merridale has accomplished the difficult task of giving these abstractions real human content. Merridale is particularly good at reconstructing the attitudes of ordinary soldiers, particularly emphasizing the rage induced by the German conquest and the intense patriotism of the ordinary soldier, the latter intermixed often with genuine pride in the achievements of the Soviet state. Merridale is also particularly good on the relationship between the Stalinist state and the Red Army. During the war, some degree of autonomy was essentially conceded to the Red Army in order for it to function well. This was only temporary and Merridale shows how Stalin reasserted control after the war, cruelly dashing the hopes of the great majority of common soldiers, who anticipated some liberalization after the war. Merridale concludes with an excellent chapter showing how subsequent Soviet leaders would create and use a convenient mythology to bolster the Soviet state.
I hope this book gains a wide readership. Among other things, it is an excellent corrective to the facile triumphalism we're experiencing about the American experience of WWII.

I will gladly commend Merridale for her social history of the Red Army, but a few criticisms are definitely in order. First, the work tends to utilize the "feelings-and-emotions" approach to history ("It was a cold November day....") -- which tends to make the book a little too sacharrine (read: sugary) for some readers. Second, topics are covered in a remarkably haphazard fashion: For example, the reader is taken through a successive myriad of topics, from popular culture, to Stalin, to rations, to film, then the Great Purges, to weaponry -- all within a matter of a couple of pages. The "shotgun" approach abandons the reader to meandering through a variety of themes simultaneously, leaving one begging for more order and cohesion. I regret that Merridale did not employ the model used by Civil War historian Bell Wiley in his classic studies from the 1940's, THE LIFE OF BILLY YANK and THE LIFE OF JOHNNY REB: Individual chapters should have been constructed dealing specifically with such topics as "Morale," "Views Towards Authority," "Training," and the like. Sorry, but this reader was disappointed....