Russia's Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras Book

Colossal conflict...

Road to Stalingrad

The last 2 chapters of this book are by far the best (they constitute over 120 pages). Prior, I feel, the author has a hard time distinguishing the trees from the forest and the forest from the trees. These chapters are filled with endless sentences like "...the 4th Airborne corps to use his 7th and 8th Brigades..", "...the escape eastwards for 3rd, 10th and now 13th Army was.." and on and on. This approach makes for a very dry dissertation of the largest military conflict in recent history.

Nevertheless Erickson does not glorify nor glamourize the Red Army. Stalin's Russia was not only unprepared for this colossal conflict with the German armies, it was incompetently led. Stalin had killed off his officer corps by the end of the 1930's and was self-quarantined in the Kremlin listening only to advisors who told him what he wanted to hear. Erickson is correct when he describes Stalin as the 'top' leader in the Soviet Union. Erickson's description of Stalin and the decision-making process is interesting if concise.

It is only in the last 2 chapters that the battle scenarios are well painted by Erickson, and one feels the horror of Dante's inferno that existed in Stalingrad. Why the German armies became entrapped in this cauldron of total destructiveness is unknowable, but it lead to their first major defeat in the Second World War (aside from their aborted invasion of Britain).

Do not read this book for a glimpse of civilian life in either the German or Soviet zone. There is no mention of the Einsazt-gruppen killing squads who butchered entire villages, or of Jewish life throughout German-occupied Soviet territory.

This is "military history," but when it does step out of that zone, it is interesting; and Erickson offers insights into both protagonists.

Some maps would have been helpful (there were none in my edition). This book does not have the 'Soviet patriotism' of Alexander Werth's Russia at War: 1941-1945 and is better for it.

The Road to Berlin:
The Road to Berlin is much like the first volume (The Road to Stalingrad), but the events, if possible, even over-shadow those of the first book; such as the battle of Kursk, the annexation of Eastern Europe under the Soviet yoke, and the fall of Berlin. Orchestrating all of this is the figure of Stalin.
But much like the first volume there is a blur of details, i.e. military groupings and geographical minutiae. Is it necessary to list all the Guard units, divisions, battalions, etc. that took forth on the assault on the Baltic States? Words like "hammer," "break through," etc. abound.

Yet there are many rewards. Erickson writes entirely from the Soviet perspective with no glorification of their overall role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. There are gems of dialogue between Stalin and his generals vividly illustrating the brutality of the regime. Once it became apparent that the Nazis were to be expunged from the Soviet Union the next step was to occupy as much land as possible in Eastern Europe. With production in full swing by 1944 and an army numbering some 5 million entering Eastern Europe (never mind the agreements at Yalta promising free elections in Poland or democratic self-determination for the countries liberated from Nazi domination); Erickson discusses this country-by-country. He also brings up the notorious Soviet stand-still in front Warsaw while the Nazis methodically routed and slaughtered Polish partisans. The Soviet army may have had to re-group, but they never told this to the Polish partisans.

Do not read this book for details of the liberation of the concentration and death camps - it merits only a few sentences and there is even less on the treatment of Soviet citizens in areas occupied by Germany. Also very little is said on the barbaric treatment meted out by Soviet troops once they entered "liberated zones."