The Red Army
The story of the Red Army during World War Two can perhaps be summed up in one word; sacrifice. Yet that sacrifice is little known outside of the old Soviet Empire. Following the victory over Nazi Germany, Europe quickly split into two distinct parts; those which had been liberated by Western troops, and those who had been liberated by the Red Army. It soon became apparent that while the British, American and Canadian troops were only too desperate to return home, their Soviet counterparts would not be doing so. The men themselves were no doubt equally homesick, but their commanders had other tasks for them which would occupy the consciousness of the world for the next half century.
Perhaps the kindest description for the Red Army which met the German onslaught of June 1941 is shambolic. On paper, the Red Army was immensely powerful, possessing staggering reserves of weapons and men, and I believe the largest tank arm in the world. But as Blitzkrieg had shown in the West, superior numbers could be negated by operational efficiency. The army on paper and the army in the field were two entirely separate entities. The Communist leadership was quick to include new and advanced weapons in the plethora of organisational tables they issued, but was less capable of actually providing them. Their paranoia also meant the army constantly operated in a head to toe straitjacket of political restriction. Nowhere else in the world were commanders down to Rifle Company level shadowed by a political officer constantly watching for any perceived sign of inappropriate behaviour. That officers were able to perform at all with their judgment constantly being questioned by unqualified and vindictive observers is a miracle in itself.
That the West thought Russia was lost to Nazi Germany is not surprising. The Red Army was totally unprepared for invasion. Not simply Divisions but entire Corps and Armies were swallowed whole by the advancing Axis forces, from General down to rifleman. Hasty and ill-prepared counter attacks met the same fate. Salvation came from a number of unrelated sources. The infamous Russian winter is often credited as the ultimate factor, but I think perhaps alone it would not have been enough. A prime factor was Nazi complacency. They naively assumed Russia would fall within a few months, and so made no preparation to maintain their forces for a long campaign. They believed they had already destroyed the vast portion of Russia's forces, and so counter-attack was unlikely. The Red Army was like an iceberg though. The bulk of its forces had still to see action, and new troops were being mobilised all the time. The vastness of the country came into play. To their credit, the Communist leadership never adopted a 'no retreat' policy. They sacrificed huge land masses for time. The fate of those left to the mercy of Nazi occupation was a price they accepted with typical nonchalance. What was not left behind though was Soviet industry. Machines, workers and equipment were lifted and transported huge distances to new sites. They enabled new tanks, guns and planes to be produced to equip the mushrooming armies. Perhaps in the final analysis, this was the key. Allied supplies could only meet a fraction of the actual need in the war of attrition the Red Army was fighting.
The greatest success of the Red Army was its ability to reinvent itself. The losses incurred in the first two years would have obliterated any other army, including I believe the American. But the Red Army was a very different proposition. The entire population was mobilised, sharing in the privations experienced by the men at the front. Women were also drafted into frontline roles, putting them in tanks, planes and infantry battalions.
The Red Army evolved into a gargantuan force. Over five hundred Infantry Divisions alone were maintained. The mind-boggling scale of the war in the East demanded it. The losses it suffered are equally staggering. It seems no one was bothered, or perhaps able, to keep count of losses. The minimum number of dead is around seven and a half million. Various estimates increase that figure to thirteen million. It takes a moment to truly comprehend the enormity of the number. Civilian deaths swell the total to perhaps twenty million dead in four years. One million may have died in the battle for Stalingrad alone. That's more in a single campaign than the British lost during the entirety of the First World War, the scars of which can still be seen in the memorials in every town and village in the UK. It is beyond reach to know how many died at the hands of the Nazis, and how many died at the hands of the Communists. In my mind at least, there was little to choose between them.
Such losses could not have been endured by any other Western democracy. But Russia was not a democracy. Stalin had it in his power to literally fight to the last man in the East if he desired. The terrible brutality meted out by the Germans to their ' sub-human' foes guaranteed that the people would choose annihilation before defeat and surrender. The war between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia was very different to that in the West. Its two supreme leaders were not simply fighting military battles, but battles of political and even racial ideology. The consequences for the people caught up, on both sides, were of no concern for megalomaniacs such as these. They viewed their own people simply as a seemingly infinite resource of flesh and blood. In the end, only the Russians had the ability to sustain casualties beyond all reason and still function. There was no great strategy to behold, no Alexander or Caesar or Napoleon to be found. It was nothing more than a brutal slogging match between two irreconcilable foes.
The end in the West could not have been achieved without the actions of the Red Army. There would have been no D-Day, no drive to Berlin, no liberation. But in the immediate aftermath of the war, the minds of the leaders were already turning to the next conflict. The stunning reversal of the seemingly hopeless decline of the Red Army made it loom large in Western considerations. The wartime alliance of convenience quickly evaporated to be replaced by Cold War. In this climate, it was easy to ignore the massive contribution of the Russian soldier to victory. Likewise, what self respecting Communist would admit that the dead of the British, American, Canadian and dozen other nations had made a difference?
If you can stomach it, study of the war in the East is vital to understanding the conflict as a whole. The Russian contribution is as equally ignored in the West, as the Western is in the East. For me, the truly tragic denouement is that after being welcomed as liberators in Eastern Europe, the Red Army remained. Their occupation continued, perhaps less overtly oppressive as before, but in the end their invader remained, albeit in a different uniform. That tarnishes the sacrifice of so many of their fellows.
The links below lead to a description of each infantry type battalion. There is also a study of the higher formations in which these battalions served.
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Reduced Strength Rifle Battalions
The Russian Motor Rifle Battalion
Russian Divisional Organisations