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27 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT, June 19, 2007
This review is from: Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (Hardcover)
Little by little we learn more about the war in the East in WWII. Until the Russians opened their archives to Western historians, most of the events were described through the eyes of German generals who had their own axes to grind. This remarkable volume by an Irish scholar attempts to see the victory through the mind of Stalin. If there are any diaries or other personal memoirs by Stalin, they are still closed to the West. What the author gives us is Stalin's thinking through examination of his daily calender, review of what he said to his colleagues and others such as ambassadors, etc as they reported it, and an analysis of his messages and letters.
He also introduces another aspect of the early defeat of the Soviet forces. He states the Soviet thinking was confined to offense, and it was unprepared to take on major defense as a strategy in the initial stages. There is support for this analysis in Fugate & Dovoretsky's volume, Thunder on the Dnepr. They mention a top secret war game (the third) whose documentation is still closed to the West which gave the Soviets confidence they could defeat the Germans through defense in depth.
Despite his claims, Mannstein was not the originator of the tactical implementation of this strategy.
Citino's book, the German Way of War, reinforces the knowledge that the superiority of German general officers lay in their unquestioned competence in operational matters. Their great weakness was the inability to grasp the strategic implications of their operations. Here, the author points out was one of Stalin's great strengths. Even in 1943, before the great battle of Kursk, he was already thinking about post war implications.
Perrett' book, Knights of the Black Cross, describes how the Germans stripped a regiment out of each panzer division to build enough divisions for the attack on Russia. It built a fundamental weakness into the plan. Now we have Tooze's new book describing, among other things, the inherent industrial weakness of Germany fortelling the ultimate failure of the attack. Thomas Childer's Teaching Company lectures, WWII: A Military and Social History, describes how the German infantry officers encountered a different war than the panzer divisions. Overcoming Russian resistance in the encircled forces was far more difficult than contemplated.
Roberts doesn't blink at the odious consequences of Stalin's torment of the Soviet people, nor does he attempt to coat over it. It's not the purpose of his volume to go over ground that is well-known. He gives the reader insight into how the man managed the Soviet victory. He joins in creating a useable picture for students of WWII of what the man was like in conducting his affairs. His discussion of Stalin's remarkable intelligence supports the narration in Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy. Stalin's grasp of Russian history, his understanding of his armed forces and the thrust of how to conduct the war are awesome. The author points out Stalin's mistakes as well as his success. Regardless of the other sides of the man, as one reviewer emphasized, his place in this area of WWII history continues to grow.
I recommend this volume to any serious student of WWII as well as those curious about how Stalin operated on a day-to-day basis during this slice of his life. The Cold War Years portion of the book were not as interesting to me. Perhaps that era needs more time for history to digest it as well as there may be more archival releases on both sides to give us a balanced view.
This volume belongs in any library that claims to have a military history section as well as the libraries of those who wish to have a better understanding of the events of WWII or how Soviet leadership operated. It will be an important reference work for many years to come.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A contemporaneous Stalin, October 17, 2008
This review is from: Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (Hardcover)
This book is marketed as a "provocative reassessment" of Stalin's military and political leadership during and after WWII. While "provocative" may overstate the case, this is indeed an excellent new history of WWII as seen through the prism of Josef Stalin.
The blow-by-blow accounts of Big Three summits provide enough detail and background to be interesting but not tedious, offering fascinating insights into the personalities of Truman, Churchill and Roosevelt, especially vis-a-vis Stalin. And there are well-documented and reasoned assessments of everything from the Katyn massacre, to the defense of Moscow, to the victory at Stalingrad. Roberts is masterfully judicious in his choice of which documents, telegrams, correspondence or first-hand accounts to present, always seeming to come up with some perfect morsel over which others have glossed.
In the end, Roberts comes to the conclusion that the correct image of Stalin is not one filtered over the decades, through Khrushchev et al, but rather one more in line with the contemporaneous view of the dictator during his lifetime - as a military leader who deserved praise for the unparalleled achievement of winning the Great Patriotic War: "To make so many mistakes and to rise from the depths of such defeat to go on to win the greatest military victory in history was a triumph beyond compare." (Reviewed in Russian Life)
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36 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving toward a better understanding of Stalin, January 18, 2007
This review is from: Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (Hardcover)
This is one of the few books that takes a more objective view of Stalin. Taken is the fact that the man was responsible for many deaths throughout his tenure as leader of the Soviet Union. But at the same time it is presented that there was much more to him than simply being labeled a 'killer.' Starting from the beginning of the Second World War the reader is presented with the activities within the Soviet Union to first avert the war, that is make an alliance with England and France against Germany, and then to create the best possible position for the USSR to be in, that is to make a pact with Nazi Germany. Some might think this a betrayal of some sort but the fact remains that Stalin and the USSR were the first to propose an alliance against Hitler, when the Munich conference went through without Stalin even being invited this in essence showed what the west thought of him. Up until 1941 the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had trade relations from which both benefited and Stalin was trying his best to avert war even when told that it was imminent. While he made mistakes in this instance it is also true that he authorized troop movements, the calling up of reserves, etc that were meant to help the Red Army combat any enemy activity. Sadly, this proved to have been unable to stem the tide of the German advance into the Soviet Union. Throughout the beginning period of war, that is up until the battle of Stalingrad, Stalin was responsible for some of the mistakes which cost the Red Army hundreds of thousands of casualties. But it should be kept in mind that Stalin never took a decision on his own. There were also those that choose to side with a certain action and those who wanted to go against it, at times Stalin would choose the worse action but he was never a sole figure advocating for it. While this doesn't excuse him it sheds light on the fact that he was not the only one making mistakes at this point in time. Eventually he would relegate more control to his generals and Marshals with the outcome being greater and better organized operations like Uranus, Bagration, etc. While the military takes up a large chunk of the book it should also be noted that this is also a political history. Mainly looking at the activities of Stalin and his wartime allies, the US and England. Various meetings were held throughout the war; Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam which made arrangements for what relations would be like after the war was over. The Polish question was on everyone's mind as well as the question of what would happen to Germany and of course the USSR and her entry into the war against Japan was always a main point for Roosevelt. One of the interesting aspects of this book are the ideas behind Stalin's insistence that Eastern Europe should be a Soviet sphere of influence. What's interesting is that when asked to leave Greece to England, he agreed. He took little interest in the developments in Norway, Holland, and a number of other territories freed by the western allies and established once more as independent states and within the US and England's sphere of influence. Yet when it came to Poland or Hungary and Bulgaria there were the allies having to voice their opinions about what should be going on there. Stalin's thinking was that it took Germany 20 years to get into another war, it could take another 20 for WWIII to begin so why shouldn't the USSR do the most to protect itself? These Eastern European states would become the buffer zone for her to protect her from future German aggression, especially since Germany wasn't going to be broken up as he had proposed again and again. Of course I am only presenting details from here and there in the book, there is much more useful information to be found in this work about Stalin's thinking and actions and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. Many archival sources are used which adds a lot of interesting information as well as recent works on the Soviet Union which can't be tainted, as is sometimes done by some, as 'propaganda.' In my opinion an excellent addition to literature on this time period and especially on Stalin.
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