Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II edited by Seweryn Bailer

Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II edited by Seweryn Bailer

Hardcover, ISBN 9780285502741
Publisher: Souvenir Press, 1970

Used - Very Good+. This book is in very good condition. The cover have some very limited signs of wear and the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied.

This book is more than a worthwhile book in its own right. What it is, is excerpts from other works written, or at least approved, by the Officers themselves. Like most works of this nature it is uneven, some of the writings are better than the others, it also suffers from the difference in style between the way the Russians present their works and the way most of the readers in the west will be used to.
While in the west we will see a glimpse of the rivalries and dislikes between the leadership of the war, at least in the public works diaries sometimes it is all to clear, in the Russian works or at least those in this book it seems that a National pastime would be tossing your rivals under the bus to give yourself a larger piece of the glory. Since these books were written after the death of Stalin he comes in from more criticism than would have been the case before his death. Even so most of the pointed barbs are aimed at rivals.
The book also picks time frames instead of going for a chronological approach. The War itself seems to get the short end, but that might be for the best all things considered.
In my own view some of the most interesting reading was the section on the Purges. It is hard to come to conclusions about how it would have had an effect on the Soviet Military from the look at the numbers and it causes a great deal of argument with those that feel that Stalin was getting rid of the dead weight. The sometimes point to Marshall and his retiring or ignoring officers in the US Army who were felt to be to old or inept to be put into service. While that may be true in some sense the works in that section of the book make it clear that the moral and ability to perform was impaired, due to the lack of knowledge as to the why and knowing that at any moment it might be you. While reading about the numbers involved in the purge gives you an idea of the scope of it all, reading these excerpts really brings home the feeling of isolation and hopelessness that some officers were feeling as well as how it would have made functioning at any level of efficiency difficult at best.
While this is the section that I feel is the best, it isn't the only one worth the read. Although reading this book does prove to be something of a task with the differences in writing style and trying to determine how much is reality and how much taking someone else to task it is a good source. Although I am finding myself more and more in agreement with the fact that Official Russian history should be written in a loose leaf binder format so that when there is a regime change they can just take out the sections they no longer agree with and replace them with something new.