Richard Overy - Russias War: A History of the Soviet Effort: 1941-1945

PENGUIN BOOKS

RUSSIA'S WAR

The great merit of this volume is its judicious, dispassionate quality: Overy goes where the evidence leads him, he does not fit it into an a priori straitjacket, as so many Western historians do Overy is extremely good on diplomacy and high politics a book full of plums and accurate research Frank McLynn, Herald

A pacy, broad-brush overview of the Eastern Front It is only appropriate that one finishes Russia's War pathetically grateful that one has never had to face anything remotely like the Eastern Front and astonished that anyone emerged from it Dominick Donald, Guardian

Russia's War gives a masterly account of the connection between the politics of the Kremlin and the rudimentary conditions of life in the USSR a vivid, coherent account. No one in Russia has tried to do this Overy has risen to the challenge Robert Service, Independent

Overy is able to provide the sort of close-up view of the conflict which has never been available before Michael Kerrigan, Scotsman

An excellent synthesis of the political and military situation as well as illuminating the social and economic aspects of the conflict. He also clarifies many of the emotional and moral questions raised by the NaziSoviet struggle an invaluable introduction to the history of the war in the Soviet Union and will be much used by students Catherine Andreyev, The Times Higher Education Supplement

A very useful single-volume history Overy is admirably balanced in his treatment of Stalin and his regime Max Hastings, Evening Standard

Overy conveys the vast scale of the events brilliantly, using both anecdotes and the staggering statistics: 11 million military losses, 18 million medical casualties, and estimates of civilian losses that range from 16 to 24 million Until we incorporate the Soviet history of war into our own histories, our knowledge of the 20th century will remain incomplete Anne Applebaum, Sunday Telegraph

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Overy is Professor of Modern History at King's College, London. His books include The Penguin Atlas of the Third Reich, The Battle, Interrogations and the widely praised Why the Allies Won. He recently edited the fifth edition of The Times History of the World. He is currently writing a comparison of the Hitler and Stalin dictatorships.

RICHARD OVERY

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First published in the USA by TV Books Inc. 1997

First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1998

Published in Penguin Books 1999

Copyright IBP Films Distribution Ltd, 1997

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-192512-7

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Preface

The story of the Soviet war effort between 1941 and 1945 is one of the most remarkable, not just in the modern age, but in any age. For a long time it was a story shrouded in secrecy, little known or understood in the West. Over the past decade or so that situation has changed. Few would now contest the view that the Soviet war effort was the most important factor, though not the only one, in the defeat of Germany. The focus of the debate has now shifted to how the Soviet Union achieved that victory, and on this issue there is still no scholarly consensus. There is now a wealth of evidence not available twenty years ago to help to answer that question. Much of Russia's War draws on that evidence, which is now widely available in the West. It shows both sides of the war: the war against Germany and the war against Soviet society; the military conflict and the terror.

This book was produced to accompany a television series that has succeeded triumphantly in bringing the Soviet war effort to life. Russia's War, a series of ten fifty-two minute documentaries produced and financed by IBP Films in London in association with Victory Series in Russia, was inspired by the changing history of the war. The documentaries show all sides of the war, from military defeat and incompetence to military triumph, from simple Soviet patriotism to the terror of the regime against its own people. The films were made using materials made available from hitherto-closed film sources in the former Soviet Union. They are intercut with testimony from survivors of the war. The interviews were conducted in Russia in 1995, with the exception of a number which were made much earlier for Soviet films.

The inspiration behind the project lay with the executive producer, Judith De Paul, who succeeded in winning the co-operation of five senior Russian film directors and a co-executive producer in Moscow, Alexander Surikov. The films were produced in collaboration over a two-year period in 1994 and 1995. The book was written in 1997 and incorporates further material that became available from Russia in the two preceding years. I am particularly grateful for all the unstinting encouragement that Judith De Paul has given me. I would also like to thank the supervising editor of Russia's War, Nick Barnard, who has been unfailingly helpful over the six months it took to produce the book. Vladimir Bouilov has translated at a moment's notice anything in Russian that I needed, for which I am more than thankful. My publisher, Peter B. Kaufman, has been patient and long-suffering enough. The usual pre-emptive confession of responsibility for errors and misinterpretations is more than necessary here as I trespass into less familiar territory. A final thanks, as ever, to my family.

Richard Overy

London, May 1997

Introduction

This book is the direct offspring of a remarkable series of television documentaries that were made in London during 1995 with the co-operation of a number of distinguished Russian film-makers. The film records used in making the series were made available from the KGB film collection and the Presidential Archive, and they are unique in their range and historical quality. The very fact that Russia's War, the name given to the television series, could be made outside Russia at all reflects the greater openness between Russia and the West following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The objective of the films is to give Western audiences for the first time as full a visual account of the Soviet war effort as the film sources will allow.

The book follows closely the structure and substance of the films and takes its title from the series. Like the films, the purpose of the book is to bring to a non-Russian readership a history of the Soviet war effort based on the extensive revelations made during the decade after Mikhail Gorbachev declared the age of