(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
On deflating certain myths [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2023-03-07
The history of Russia and Ukraine is complicated.
I intended to write this as a comment to www.dailykos.com/… but soon realised it should be a diary of its own.
As an historian of both world wars, I’d like to offer some perspective on how much worse today’s Russian Army is from the Russian Imperial Army of WWI and the Red Army of WWII by puncturing a few myths.
1. Russian soldiers were sent into battle armed with sticks, and told to pick up the rifles of their fallen comrades. This did happen in 1915. Every European army faced huge shortages of arms that year, because they had not prepared for war on such a large scale. In the UK there was a “shell scandal” as the munitions factories could not meet the demands from the front. In France they made shells from cast iron, which too often blew up in the barrel after being fired, destroying the gun and frequently the crew as well. Germany was suffering from the loss of supplies of essential materials due to the Allied blockade. And Russia could not gear up the production of rifles and other small arms fast enough. By 1916 the Allies had come up to speed, although Germany continued to suffer shortages until the end.
2. Red Army soldiers were sent into battle unarmed, and told to pick up the rifles of their fallen comrades. This did happen in 1941. Many Soviet units were encircled and forced to break out. The USSR had vastly increased the production of rifles and other small arms compared to Imperial Russia. However, there were thousands of men of non-combatant units near the frontier. For example, construction battalions digging fortifications were also surrounded. They had not been issued rifles because their task was to build fortifications; imagine carrying a shovel or a pick as well as a rifle. As well, many desperate soldiers had lost their rifles due to battle damage. So German propaganda played up the image of unarmed “Russians” linking arms and charging into the face of machine guns. This image remains, even though it was based on sheer desperation. By 1942 every Red Army soldier had a rifle at least, and many had sub-machine guns, and plentiful grenades.
3. The Red Army posted blocking detachments armed with machine guns to force its men forward. This myth is largely based on that utterly useless movie, Enemy at the Gates. The terms of Order No. 227 did not apply to regular soldiers; it applied to those commanders who retreated without orders. Blocking detachments were formed, and were armed, mostly by the NKVD, but their main job was to sort out retreating soldiers and redirect them to their units. The USSR was facing a manpower shortage, and only the worst offenders were arrested, much less shot.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/7/2156840/-On-deflating-certain-myths
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
