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RE: Stalingrad?
Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2014 8:32 pm
by spence
It was not a tactical, or even operational imperative, as much as it was a political one. Just take a few moments to review the minutes of Stalin’s meeting with Zhukov, and the STAVKA orders for StAK. Very informative.
About the political imperative I think I agree but for those of us not formerly of the Soviet Desk is there an English translation available?
RE: Stalingrad?
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 6:35 am
by Eambar
ORIGINAL: castor troy
I'd say at the time of Stalingrad the Soviets were trying all they could and invested all they could in that area.
As per my previous post Operation Uranus was secondary to Operation Mars - the main Soviet effort in late 1942 was the destruction of 9th Army and the follow on destruction of Army Group Centre.
History is written from the point of view of the victors - so the battles around Stalingrad (Operation Uranus and Saturn) are seen as pivitol to the war effort as they are Soviet victories, whereas Operation Mars is condemned to be studied only by serious Eastern Front historians. Zhukov himself barely mentions Mars in his memoirs despite being the chief architect of the Operation and in command of it. Stalin kept him around as he recognised Zhukov was a fighter and he needed generals who were prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands for victory - and he had a victory he could pin on Zhukov. Vasilevsky was the one who was largely responsible for the success of Uranus but who knows him?
If Mars had of succeeded and Uranus failed, we would be saying that Rzhev was the turning point of the war and Stalingrad would be largely forgotten as a southern sideshow.
Of course Khrushchev was being self-serving - it's easy with hindsight to say anything you like.
Cheers,
RE: Stalingrad?
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 11:56 am
by Symon
ORIGINAL: spence
About the political imperative I think I agree but for those of us not formerly of the Soviet Desk is there an English translation available?
Yes.
The journal, Voyennaya mysl (Military Thought), is being published by East View Press in Minneapolis, MN. Available digitally from 1990, the entire archive is available on microform. All of the later and many of the early issues are in translation. The CIA has DVDs going back to 1961 that are available. Army TRADCOM, Univ of Va, and Harvard are other (free) library sources. Voyenno-istoricheski zhurnal (Military History Journal), also has many issues in translation, much of it by various home-grown Russian historical groups.
Best bet is anything written by Maj Gen Nikolai Talenskyi on operational developments, and the angry, self-justification responses thereto in the next issue; the best ones are in the 1944 and 1945 volumes.
As always the fun details are found in the citations and references in the footnotes. Get these references from Rosarchiv (Federal Archival Agency) which has millions of period documents in the Lubyanka. Best to do your search in Russian, or have one of the Russian forum people do it for you. Chances are good that some home-grown group has done a translation and one can find it with a reasonably moderate effort.
RE: Stalingrad?
Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2014 12:36 pm
by castor troy
ORIGINAL: Doggie3
ORIGINAL: castor troy
I'd say at the time of Stalingrad the Soviets were trying all they could and invested all they could in that area.
As per my previous post Operation Uranus was secondary to Operation Mars - the main Soviet effort in late 1942 was the destruction of 9th Army and the follow on destruction of Army Group Centre.
History is written from the point of view of the victors - so the battles around Stalingrad (Operation Uranus and Saturn) are seen as pivitol to the war effort as they are Soviet victories, whereas Operation Mars is condemned to be studied only by serious Eastern Front historians. Zhukov himself barely mentions Mars in his memoirs despite being the chief architect of the Operation and in command of it. Stalin kept him around as he recognised Zhukov was a fighter and he needed generals who were prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands for victory - and he had a victory he could pin on Zhukov. Vasilevsky was the one who was largely responsible for the success of Uranus but who knows him?
If Mars had of succeeded and Uranus failed, we would be saying that Rzhev was the turning point of the war and Stalingrad would be largely forgotten as a southern sideshow.
Of course Khrushchev was being self-serving - it's easy with hindsight to say anything you like.
Cheers,
yeah, and what did I write above? They couldn't invest more due to what was going on and it was far from investing very little like it was mentioned in the post I quoted.