About book Ivan's War: Life And Death In The Red Army, 1939-1945 (2007)
Red army, white death. I want a daughter with lips as red as blood. I want a son with translucent skin view-finding the reals of my backyard. The frozen over graveyard. Mother Russia ran into a door knob when the Fatherland had too much to drink and said let's conquer our neighbors today, tomorrow the world. The deserters walked off with the door. The only knobs with issued guns shot the deserters. There was a fairytale about Ivan, the Russian soldier with a stout heart. War as anatomically correct as a Ken doll as the myth goes. Stalin was famous for punch lining rape as "A bit of fun with a woman". When I told my sister about this she busted out with an awesome impersonation of Bilbo Baggins from the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring. "It was just a bit of fun!" (For the lame person this is when he defends to Gandalf putting on the one ring for his disappearing trick at this 111th birthday party.) You know how Frodo and Bilbo whine on and on about how they can't wait to get back to mushroom shortcuts and good tilled earth, only to carry on incessantly about missing stopping every five miles to eat at some Elven mansion when they get home? The Red Army soldiers had a sick version of that. As long as they were fighting they didn't notice the desecrated earth, didn't feel the bounds of Soviet slavery, the kicking and screaming baby in the hostage belly. What the hell were they fighting for, anyway? The moral of the story is that they were fighting to defend against Hitler for Stalin's right to enslave them instead. I don't agree that it was in particular a Jewish issue. They were not, after all, the first Soviet scapegoats. It would have been next Ukrainians, Uzbeks, on and on and on. Much like how Hitler also wanted to exterminate Slavs. Dictators are evil dicks to all people. Who knew? I cannot wholly respect any account that focuses on the victim to understand when it is all about the killer. Ask what all is dying and then ask why they were complicit. Why didn't anyone fight Stalin? If your lives are robbed for absolutely nothing what is the point? Is it a tale with some kind of a point, or an ending? Catherine Merridale interviewed former Red Army soldiers through a fog from decade of government imposed memories. Many would give accounts that were from famous novels about the war. Go to sleep and I will tell you a bed time story.I liked her approach of weaving their observations with unreliable (and censored) letters from the times with documented facts, as well as word from the opposing side (as they were well placed to witness the ins and outs of their goings on). (I guess it is an historians approach. I've probably been reading too many from the diary of... accounts of life events to be struck by this at all). I appreciated a lot that Merridale didn't put too much focus on the huge numbers of rapes from the Red Army. The number of abortions and adoptions of the time would certainly indicate that it happened. But who was keeping track? Nine rapes for one eighty year old woman? It is difficult to get a clear picture of something that happened so long ago without assembly lining it. Six million troops from Soviet countries out at one time. No one had more dead than Russia. I still am struck, the same as I am for everything else that I have read, by an image of survivors as those who were just plain lucky, or could have someone else to step on, someone else to die in their place. So much as communism for the people. This I already knew.What did I learn that I didn't already know? Quite a bit. There was a lot that I probably could have figured out on my own. I didn't know that the Red Army had to dig trenches with their own helmets. I could have figured out that they had twelve hour days of mandatory ideology training and precious little real battle training. I knew that families of those suspected for treason would face the gulag too. I didn't know that any who died in battle were declared as deserters and their families went to prison. That is a bridge too far, man! I don't think I can read too much about Stalinism that some new bit of information will not disgust me anew. I didn't know that the Molotov cocktail was a Finnish invention named because they heard Molotov's broadcasts on their radio. They would throw them onto Soviet tanks and the men inside would burn to a crisp. I can imagine another pearl like Stalin's views on rape about how there were more meat suits to burn in their place if millions of the six million troops were to be killed. The Red Army died. They lived... They lived to step on others, if they were lucky. They lived to come to cold beds. If they were women they came home to snickers and innuendo about what they did on the front. I keep writing about what I already knew. This is a good book about looking past what you could have figured out to imagine possible other stories in the carnage. One thirteen year old boy was "adopted" by a regiment. I liked how some would adopt stray dogs. If their commanders made them get rid of the dogs the villagers would pay them in booze with the expectation of selling them off to the next bunch. I loved the picture included of the grimly smiling soldiers with their wildly smiling fox like dog. I can just imagine those deserters who would dress as women in an attempt to evade "justice". There must have been millions of stories for all the official history robbed them of their homecoming. Stalin wouldn't allow them to feel their victory in defeating the Germans. They didn't have anything to come home to. I believe that they didn't really want to remember what happened. I didn't know of any of my grandfather's stories from the Korean war until reading his trial transcripts after he had died. I heard plenty of creepy (like Juvie back then) military school stories about "rolling queers". Merridale tries to root out what it was like for the Red Army on the front. Their German counterparts kept brothels of captured Soviet women. The official history would have it that they didn't touch their own penises. History now tells of mass rape. What was it like on sides of brutality? Meat on the outside and meat on the inside. I feel an iron curtain clanging on that like the prison bars in every episode ever made of every Law and Order series. I don't know how to make a theme out of cruel history other than winners and losers in stepping on piles of bodies. They defeated the Germans. If Stalin is right that there's another lump of tastes like chicken on the conveyor belt. I had a moment when I felt really stupid. Last September I read a comic book about the Bosnian war called Bosnian Flat Dog. There was stuff about ice cream in it that confused the crap out of me. I should have known that it had to do with Soviet mass production. The first sign of the communist dream coming to fruition was mass produced ice cream in many fruit flavors. Duh! So dumb, Mars. I can stuff my head with all of these facts and it is no use when I try to make sense in some kind of context. I appreciated in this book that the crappy situation they were in when "wives" on the front gave up the social constructs of the times to get by. Maybe it was a kind of stolen freedom of them, before "real life" came again. Maybe they thought they were fighting for a just cause, defeating Hitler, and everything they suffered wasn't going to be nothing. Merridale wanted to know how this army who had pretty much nothing managed to win. Stalin was right about the meat. That was it. Damn it. It's the big bad wolf.
For those of us who are true history buffs and love a few hours of reading a thick and juicy non-fiction volume, this book is not only a treat but something I hope all World War II buffs will get their hands on.When it comes to the second world war, we’re all rather associated with the European front in terms of the British, American, and German forces. Rarely do we get a sufficient peek in on the Russian soldiers, and if we do it’s almost never about their lives during the war. Through Catherine Merridale’s research and work, we’re able to gain some knowledge on the ‘Red Army.’This book alone is interesting enough, but woven within are some real factual gems. Did you know that they believed wearing camouflage was a sign of cowardice? Gems aside, reading some of the facts, some of the numbers the Red Army lost during the war, etc… was extremely powerful. Moving to and fro between the front line soldiers and the civilians at home covered a lot of the ground left untouched since the end of the war.I think this book belongs on a lot of shelves devoted to the second world war. It is easy to get your hands on volumes of accounts from other fronts and other armies, but it’s difficult to understand and appreciate with Russian war effort. (I believe that no matter the front or the country, it still takes a dedicated author to express the situation rightfully.) Merridale does research justice, and through personal accounts and only recently disclosed archives she has written a well thought out text.This book, however, might be well reserved to history buffs like myself. If you are interested in this point of history and have the time to dedicate to this book, then I highly recommend it. (I’m not aware of many people who will read books they aren’t interested in, though…)Some of my favorite points to make before I wrap up my review are what she included into this volume to make it such a treat to read. She was able to find veterans, civilians, or at least individuals that were able to give her first hand accounts to include in this narrative. Merridale new how to organize this text so well as to make it feel more of a narrative than a chuck of facts!
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This is (yet another) of those "it might not be for everybody" books. In fact, I imagine those who don't care for history might find it "dull". Personally, I found it fascinating. An essential addition to any WWII buff's reading-list. If you know anything about WWII & the USSR it is usually thru sterilized US-based history (which often over-glorifies D-Day and minimalizes the USSR role) or it is thru the "traditional" USSR lens of the Patriotic War filled w/ heroic, selfless sacrifice for the Motherland.There's nothing inherently "wrong" w/ the USSR "lens" per se, but it falls dramatically short of tapping into the raw emotions and real feelings of the USSR foot soldier in WWII. Why did they fight and die in such large numbers? What were their real feelings about the war? About Stalin? About fighting and dying for Stalin? Series/books like "Band of Brothers", "The War" and "The Pacific" have brought this "personalization of war" to the forefront from the US soldiers' perspective, but little is known in this regard about the men known as "Ivan" - the USSR army.This book is meticulously researched, taps into a wealth of previously inaccessible knowledge and delves deeply into the mindset, lifestyle and daily brutality of the USSR foot soldier - from the early "hopeless" days of 1941 until the "glorious" conquest of Berlin in 1945. It pulls no punches. The USSR foot-soldier is laid bare in all his raw human nature - good and bad. USSR "myths" are exposed and realities are brought to light. It's hard to imagine what could motivate men (and women) to fight for someone like Stalin. But they do. And they die - in the millions. Some is by force, some is b/c of patriotism, some is b/c of the uncertainty of what else to do when living in such times. The author does a great job of exposing the brutality, contradictions, emotions and all-around "humanity" of the USSR foot soldier - even when he is at his most inhumane.One thing is for certain - being the USSR army 1939-1945 (and after) would've sucked. Big time. Definitely worth reading if you like history, WWII or Russian history. If you don't really care that much or are just starting into the "WWII" genre, this one might not be for you.
—Christopher Rex
A nuanced view on the Russian perspective of the second world war. The book is a chronicle of a unimaginable suffering endured by the soviet people at the hands of the invading agressor and - equally and more painfully - their own system. Trapped between dictators, the Russian soldier managed to carve out their own place in history at the front. The bond with others who knew what they went trough, a search for revenge, fear, and ardent patriotism is what kept them going. What is often overlooked, perhaps because of chasing pointless questions like who suffered most, or what system was the worst, is the betrayal of the Soviet system of these veterans and the cultivation of the great Hero-myth. The grit of war - the ever present death, the shellshock, the rape and the looting - were brushed over with the shining orifice of the model soldier, chaste, fearless and always loyal to the system. The author rightly points this out. Today, this myth is still firmly in place in Russia, because it's the most comfortable version of history, or perhaps out of respect for the veterans' beliefs. A great book, for it explores on micro-level a largely unexplored and later twisted account of history.
—Mats
This is a book of enormous promise. Accessing a bunch of newly-unearthed primary source material in Russia, Merridale explores the experiences of the Red Army in the Second World War. To a considerable degree, she is able to use this to get behind and beyond the enormous mythologies that impede understanding of Russia's 'Great Patriotic War' even in the present. And her interviews with surviving veterans are remarkable, a joy to read. But sometimes Merridale gets caught up in the standard tropes of the heroic Red Army's feats, and has a hard time telling a more incisive history. This is a problem with social history in general and oral history in particular--but it is one that can be solved by having a more clear argument up front. Merridale does not and it catches up by the end. This is really a 3.5-star book (getting 4 because it is relatively new and highly accessible).People looking for very readable history of the Second World War that talks about the *other* ally will find this quite engaging. It's military history with an emphasis upon the everyday grunt who did the bulk of fighting and dying for the Soviet Union from 1941 - 1945.
—Adam
