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Post by dodger on Aug 13, 2013 5:54:18 GMT
At the end of January 1943, the German armies that had tried to smash the Soviet Union’s third-largest industrial centre surrendered in ignominy…
Stalingrad: the battle that saved the world
WORKERS, JANUARY 2010 ISSUE
Sixty-seven years ago, the most momentous battle in modern history was fought out in a city on the Volga River – Stalingrad. On its outcome rested the fate of the world.
It was not the first time the city had been the site of a pivotal battle. In June 1918, during the intervention following the Russian Revolution, the city, known as Tsaritsyn, formed a wedge between anti-Bolshevik forces in the east and the south. After these forces, the greatest threat to the young revolution was hunger. Beyond Tsaritsyn lay the grain to feed Moscow. Stalin was despatched to organise its defence, and the rest is history.
Along with Kliment Voroshilov, Stalin rallied the local workers’ organisations, forged the first regular units of the Red Army and, by August, despite great odds, had crushed the advancing force of General Denikin. The Soviet Republic was saved from starvation and collapse. Those who had defended Tsaritsyn renamed it Stalingrad.
Stalingrad
10 January 1943: the battle for Stalingrad rages, but the Nazi army is doomed.
By 1940, Stalingrad was the third-largest industrial centre in the Soviet Union, with a rapidly growing population of over half a million. It had become a “showpiece” city, the largest port on the Volga with the biggest tractor factory in the world.
Spirit of the people
Any city is more than just brick and cement, steel and glass. A city is and as with Madrid in 1936, it was the people who gave the city of Stalingrad its particular political complexion.
Adolf Hitler’s Nazis knew this well. In 20th century warfare, with its emphasis on mechanisation and speed, a siege was already something of an anachronism. Yet that was the tactic they opted for when attacking both Stalingrad and Leningrad. They could not afford to bypass either city and leave its spirit intact.
And so a siege was laid with the aim of starving and bombarding the defenders into submission, thereby dealing a blow to the morale of a whole nation.
With the outbreak of war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalingrad – as in 1918 – assumed a special strategic importance. Launching an attack on 23 August, the armies of Von Bock and Von Paulus knew they had four months in which to take the city before winter set in. Through a combination of guerrilla raids, of fortifications manned by a workers’ militia and a simple refusal to give ground, the Germans were kept at bay.
The workers were always having to stop work to bolster the regular units. Once in mid-September the Nazis broke through to the tractor repair shop. The workers there, in what has become a well documented act of bravery, jumped straight into the tanks they had just finished repairing and took them into battle.
They were joined by a battalion of workers’ infantry commanded by a dean of the Mechanics Institute in one of the city’s five universities. This particular battle lasted for two days, until the Nazis were pushed back. Such events contributed to what became known as the spirit of Stalingrad.
Despite the deliberate pessimism of such newspapers as the Daily Mail, every factory canteen and every pub in Britain was the centre of a discussion of the tide of battle, workers everywhere showing their support for the Red Army.
By October the time of the major battle was approaching. Hitler had ordered the capture of Stalingrad “regardless of cost”. Stalin ordered “not a step back”. The city was fought for street by street, house by house.
Encircling
With winter setting in, the armies of Soviet generals Zhukov and Rokossovsky began an encircling manoeuvre which formed the basis of a general offensive on 15 November, an attack that turned the tables. The lengthy defence of the city had bought important time for the Soviet Union to bring in fresh, crack troops, skilled in winter combat.
More than 330,000 German prisoners were taken as successive battalions of Nazi troops were caught in pincer movements. The last battle of the campaign was fought, ironically, under the heights of Mamaer Kurgan – the same spot where the Bolsheviks had secured Tsaritsyn in 1918.
By 31 January 1943 Von Paulus, along with the armies of 15 other Nazi generals, surrendered.
Two years and three months later, the Red Army entered Berlin. It was because of that momentous battle, which workers worldwide now acclaimed as the decisive victory over Hitler, that Red Army soldiers could carve with pride on the central column of the Reichstag, Germany’s wrecked parliament, “We come here from Stalingrad.”
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Post by dodger on Aug 14, 2013 18:01:11 GMT
Useful account of the battle that saved the world, 23 Mar 2010
This William Podmore review is from: Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed (Paperback)
Michael K. Jones, an experienced writer on battles, has written a fine account of Stalingrad, the battle that saved the world. It is based on eyewitness testimony, interviews with veterans of the battle, and the 62nd Army's war diary and combat journals.
Stalin's directive number 227, issued on 28 July 1942, said, "Every commander, soldier and political worker must understand that our resources are not unlimited ... To retreat further would mean the ruin of our country and ourselves. Every new scrap of territory we lose will significantly strengthen the enemy and severely weaken our defence of our Motherland. ... Not a Step Back! This must now be our chief slogan. We must defend to the last drop every position, every metre of Soviet territory, to cling to every shred of Soviet earth and defend it to the utmost."
Lieutenant Anatoly Mereshko, a key member of 62nd Army's HQ staff, said, "Order 227 played a vital part in the battle. It opened the eyes of the army and the people, and showed them the truth of the situation facing the country. It led to the famous slogan at Stalingrad: `There is no land for us beyond the Volga.' We were no longer just fighting for a city. It inspired us to fight for every metre of ground, every bush and river, each little piece of land. Order 227 brought an incredible ferocity to our defence of Stalingrad."
Machine gunner Mikhail Kalinykov said, "To be honest with you, there was considerable uncertainty about the fate of the city - whether we could hold it or not. And yet, after Order 227, we felt that we had to hold out at Stalingrad regardless of that uncertainty - somehow, we had to make our stand there. You see, the soil was now precious to us, and we had to defend every metre of it. It was our promise to the Motherland."
As against Anthony Beevor's vicious lies (in his book Stalingrad) about 62nd Army's commander, Lieutenant-General Vasily Chuikov, Jones shows the qualities of Chuikov's leadership - his toughness in command, his distrust of blueprints, his democratic method of work, his trust in the ordinary soldier, his listening to his soldiers, his leadership by example, his courage (his HQ was always in or near the frontline), his decisiveness, his clear and direct orders, his high demands on both himself and his soldiers, and his ability to motivate his troops. Interestingly, Jones claims that on 14 October 1942 Khrushchev briefly sacked Chuikov. Stalin reinstated him at once.
The Nazi lie was that the Soviet Union won only because of its greater numbers of men and munitions. At Stalingrad the opposite was the case. The Red Army was hugely outnumbered and outgunned and the Nazis also had total command of the air. Yet the Nazis lost - because the Red Army had a better strategy, better tactics (especially in street-fighting) and higher morale.
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Post by dodger on Sept 17, 2013 18:05:57 GMT
Fine study of crucial victory, January 31, 2003
By William Podmore
This review is from: Victory at Stalingrad: The Battle That Changed History (Paperback)
Roberts aims to provide an overview of the battle of Stalingrad and its historical significance, and also to summarise, synthesise and criticise the vast literature on Stalingrad. To a remarkable extent he succeeds, although his review section is all too brief, a mere twenty pages. As he notes, Alexander Werth's superb Russia at war is still the unsurpassed account of the battle.
Stalingrad was indeed the turning point of the entire war: as the American historian Stephen Ambrose wrote, "The Russians, alone, stemmed the Nazi tide, then began to roll it back." The strategic initiative passed from Hitler to the Soviet Union. The battle ended the string of Allied defeats, and opened the way for all our subsequent victories.
As Roberts writes, "No battle changed history more than Stalingrad." He also shows how Stalingrad resulted from the Soviet Union's economic, political and moral superiority - "the successful mobilisation and deployment of Soviet material superiority - that was a matter of effective politics and economics."
Soviet forces inflicted more than 90% of the Nazis' losses, 600 divisions, ten million casualties. President Roosevelt said, "the Russian armies are killing more Axis personnel and destroying more Axis material than all the other twenty-five United Nations put together."
The Soviet Union assisted the D-Day landings by stepping up its attacks in Eastern Europe, stopping Hitler from reinforcing Normandy. As the BBC said, "But for the Russians, D-Day would have been impossible." Even after D-Day, Soviet forces were still fighting twice as many German soldiers on the Eastern front as the British and US forces were fighting on the Western front.
Without Stalin, the Bolshevik Party and the Red Army, Hitler would have won the war, Britain would be enslaved, and we would be living, if at all, in concentration camps. We must never forget the huge debt that we all owe to the Soviet Union.
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