Michael K. Jones, Stalingrad: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught (2007) — a Book Review

17 February 2016

Mandatory reading for military leaders — despite its glaring flaws

Stalingrad — that massively deadliest battle in all of human history — turned the tide of the European Theater of World War II between 17 July 1942 and 02 February 1943.

Of the engagement, Richard Overy once wrote, “How the Red Army survived defies military explanation.”

See his apparently intentionally incorrectly titled Russia’s War, at the beginning of the paragraph ending with Footnote 42.

Military historian Michael Jones’ Stalingrad somewhat persuasively explains how the Soviet leadership came to defy those odds.

Despite the book’s disorganization and lack of evidentiary support, Jones’ Stalingrad should arguably become required reading for aspiring military leaders of all ranks.

Why choose Jones’ book from among so many about the battle?

Michael Jones undertook his account after Russian authorities opened previously closed Soviet records. As a result, he was able to correct the prevailing inaccuracies of Communist propaganda. Stalingrad is told primarily through quotations from Soviets (predominantly Russian) who had participated in the battle.

Ironically, as Jones discovered in examining newly opened records, much of the previous censorship had diminished the seriousness — and the magnificence displayed in overcoming it — of the Red Army’s situation at the time of the engagement.

The gist of Jones’ explanation for the victory against all odds — discipline and courageous example

Most of Stalingrad revolves around the predicament of General Vasily Chiukov’s 62^nd Army, the rickety anvil that Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus’ 6^th Army was trying to hammer into the Volga River with its far superior numbers, equipment, professionalism, airspace domination and initial morale.

Soviet inferiority cropped up everywhere. For example:

Our radio communication was very poor, and our officers were reluctant to use it, as the Germans intercepted our signals. Their equipment was so much better than ours. They could create radio interference to stop us communicating — or actually break in to our conversations and speak to us directly, mocking us with their technological superiority, suddenly declaring: ‘Russ — stop talking now!’

Jones credits four of General Chiukov’s professional traits with turning the months-long battle around

First was his ruthless enforcement of discipline.

Second, his distrust of accepted Soviet tactics and his willingness to encourage better ideas from his troops.

Third, an emphasis on the trusting his individual soldiers’ abilities to command themselves in difficult and out-of-touch situations.

And fourth, his insistence on leading literally from the front, even though Germans skillfully targeted commanding officers.

Jones emphasizes that similar qualities went down the chain of command

General Alexander Rodimtsev, division commander of the (afterward immortal) 13^th Guards, was an example:

Rodimtsev was very direct, and if there was something he didn’t like he would tell you straight away. He was tough and hardworking — and expected the same standard from those around him. He would not tolerate laziness. But he was never arrogant — and always simple and straightforward in his dealings with his men.

His two great strengths at Stalingrad were his physical bravery and extraordinary calmness in a crisis. At two moments when we were threatened with annihilation — the German attack on 22 September 1942 and their night assault on 1 October — his presence of mind was remarkable, and undoubtedly saved us from catastrophe.

Jones demonstrates that toughness and caring at the top inspired self-faith among the troops

Acts of “Medal of Honor” heroism became common.

One such:

Groups of Russians [the 62^nd Army was predominantly Russian] were falling back to trenches and dug outs right on the edge of the river embankment. But there was no longer the strength to resist effectively, and the Germans, sensing this, brought up their armour to finish the defenders off.

One private — Viktor Malko — ran forward in a crazy act of defiance, got an anti-tank rifle into position and destroyed several advancing tanks. German machine gunners quickly surrounded him. Malko ran out of ammunition, hurled a few grenades, then was overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. It looked as if nothing could stop the Germans reaching the Volga.

But Malko’s lone stand had been witnessed by others d and the mood of the defenders suddenly changed. Machine gunner Alexander Orlenok ran forward, recaptured Malko’s trench and sprayed a mass of German infantry with machine gun fire. Three enemy tanks rumbled towards him — the first only 30 metres away. But other defenders — disregarding all danger — were now pitching in to help.

Two anti-tank riflemen ran through a hail of ire, jumped into Orlenok’s trench, then opened fire at point-blank range. The German vehicles burst into flames. More Russians appeared, opening up on the enemy with machine guns and rifles.

Rodimtsev sensed the critical moment had arrived. He sent his entire reserve to the aid of the beleaguered 34^th Regiment, leaving himself with just a couple of machine gunners. His men counter-attacked ferociously, launching a mortar barrage then rushing into hand to hand combat with the surprised German infantrymen. The enemy were pushed back into the gully and finished off with hand grenades, and the breach in the defence line was repaired.

A division that had started with 10,000 men a week before was now down to a few hundred.

Jones concludes that the Reich’s 6^th Army failed, despite its overwhelming superiority, because of the 62^nd Army’s better leadership

He closes his book by observing that:

Somehow, in the burning hell that was Stalingrad, Chuikov created an army able to withstand everything the Germans threw at it. Their remarkable story has struggled hard to come to life, caught between the propagandist clichés of the communist state — insinuating everybody at Stalingrad was heroic, and that the city would never have fallen to the enemy — and Western cynicism, which believes that Red Army heroism was only created at the barrel of a gun. Neither suffices. This terrible fight took Chuikov and his troops to the very limits of endurance, and their testimony, now finally uncovered, possesses a universal significance and power.

These soldiers reached beneath deep despair and self-doubt and found near-impregnable strength and resilience. Their shared faith was forged in the fire of battle — and they stood their ground at the last defence line, 200 metres from the Volga, when there was nowhere else to go.

By the time you get to this closing quotation, you will understand that determined and self-sacrificing leadership, intentionally distributed from top to bottom rank and back, was the key to the Red Army’s success at the Volga River. These men and women turned the tide of World War II on the basis of fighting spirit and not much else. Stalingrad was monumental.

One irony — the partial death of Soviet political ideology

During the initial months of panicked Soviet retreat, Stalin recognized that communist rhetoric was no longer enough to generate the core resistance that would be necessary to mounting successful resistance against the Third Reich.

He approved an effort to link Soviet fighting spirit to Russia’s much longer history. He reactivated the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky that the Bolsheviks had ditched in 1917 for being ideologically unsound.

This medal had been created in 1725 by Empress Catherine I. It was based on the exploits of Alexander Nevsky, a prince who had turned back German Teutonic knights in 1241 and 1242.

Under the pressure of the German onslaught, we can surmise that desperation forced the partial abandonment of Bolshevist ideological nonsense. Defending the motherland became clearly more important to the troops than their political officers’ uninspiring chatter.

And an irony still further?

Of the deservedly twice named Hero of the Soviet Union, comes this purported revelation from his son:

‘I remember sorting through my father’s papers after his death’ said Alexander Chuikov.

I came across a small, hand-written prayer and immediately recognized his writing. The paper was old and creased, the ink faded. The scrap of paper would have been folded, and kept as a talisman. My father — a committed communist — never spoke about it. But I knew from other members of the family that he carried it with him during the war.

The prayer read as follows: ‘O Powerful One! The one who can turn night into day, and rough soil into a garden of flowers. Make light everything this is hard for me — and help me.’

Alexander Chuikov looked at me, and then said: ‘That is how we were defending Stalingrad.’

Makes sense to me, given the burden of command and General Chiukov’s insistence that he not let his troops down.

Yet . . .

From a scholarly perspective, however

Persuasive support for Alexander’s religious claim about his father would have been nice. For instance, a copy of the prayer note and an authenticated handwriting analysis of it.

I say this because son Alexander’s claim denies his father’s supposedly core communist principles.

Keep in mind that Marshall Chiukov became commander in chief of the Soviet Union’s ground forces (1960-1964) and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1961-1981). These are both extraordinarily highly placed positions within “godless” communism for him to have actually been a closeted practicing Deist of any kind.

In my view, as a once historian, a claim of Jones’ magnitude deserves more evidentiary support than he gives it. His uninvestigated ending is artistically and religiously satisfying to communism’s opponents (like me), but that does make it accurate.

One can certainly imagine a loved one having given the General that note and him carrying it in honor his love for the donor. One can even hypothesize that the note did not exist or was not actually in the father’s handwriting. And so on.

We do not know son Alexander’s motives. His essentially religious claim, “That is how we were defending Stalingrad” says more about him than it does his father, who nowhere else in Jones’ book says anything at all about a higher power and his dependence on It.

Indeed, virtually all of Jones’ quotations taken from Russian and Soviet troops emphasize only (a) the defense of the Motherland and (b) examples set by brave leaders and troops as key motivators in the successful protection of the city.

Other flaws — chronological disorganization and repetitive points

Stalingrad is almost ridiculously chronologically disorganized. The same few events pop up again and again, despite the story having ostensibly moved on. For example, Jones repeats his account of the heroic death of Michail Panikakha at least four or five times at various positions in the book.

The story of Panikakha’s heroism, and its worth as a symbol of defiance, first shows up in its point-making entirety on page 54.

Jones addresses the subject again on page 163:

On 1 October 1942, in the workers’ settlement of the Red October Factory, a young soldier named Mikhail Panikakha died with extraordinary valour. Buring in agony from a shattered Molotov cocktail, he seized another incendiary and flung himself onto a German tank, destroying it and killing himself in the blast. His selfless act of courage became Stalingrad’s most famous heroic deed.

The author then inexplicably returns to the same event several pages later in a section entitled “The Last Hours of Mikhail Panikakha.” Here, among a mass of otherwise essentially unrelated verbiage, Jones says only that:

A third row [of Germans] approached and began ‘ironing’ the trench. Panikakha grabbed Molotov cocktails in both hands and faced his assailant . . . [Jones’ ellipses]

The regimental combat journal noted simply yet powerfully: ‘This is how the valiant defender of Stalingrad — tank destroyer Comrade Panikakha — dies the death of a hero.’

We can conclude that the section entitled “The Last Hours of Mikhail Panikakha” is not really about those. Jones apparently recognized that he had already been through this several times. This strangely titled section adds nothing at all to the paragraph that first appeared on page 54 and whose substance the author annoyingly repeats at chronologically inappropriate times.

This unfortunately is characteristic of the whole book. Jones spends most of his account wandering through August to mid-October’s few critical dates. But he jumbles even these few dates up in meandering ways. Then he virtually skips the Soviets’ building victory from late October through January. The reversal of fortunes — from incipient Soviet defeat to astonishing Soviet victory — gets only 6 and one half pages.

Lack of legitimate footnotes

Jones further falls down by relying on what might generously be called author’s notes in place of textually tied individual footnotes. Each chapter gets an end-of-book paragraph that addresses his ostensibly primary source for what he has written. Unfortunately, if one diligently tries to source specific passages in the book’s text to the alleged authorial note, they do not correspond. Consequently, most of what Jones says in his book is either un-sourced or inadequately cited.

I found Jones’ sloppy practice in this regard curious for someone who holds a PhD in military history. Historiography has standards. Jones arguably fails those with this book.

That said, the book’s positives outweigh its negatives

The above lapses are much outweighed, I think, by Jones’ ability to uncover apparently new information about the Battle. Among such is his hypothesis that General Chiukov’s superiors fired him during the darkest, most critical, and swiftest changing moment at Stalingrad. (See Stalingrad, pages 210-218)

Jones writes that Chiukov, having lost all communication with his troops from his command post on the west bank of the Volga (on 15 October 1942) wanted to move his headquarters to the east bank — in violation of Stalin’s not-a-step-back order.

Chiukov reasoned that he could better reestablish communications from the more equipment-heavy other side of the river. He felt blind in remaining where he was.

Based on the surprising omission of Chiukov’s name from a subsequent order to the troops, Jones hypothesizes that Chiukov had been fired and replaced by another commander. However, within hours, Chiukov’s name again reappears in the combat record.

Jones hypothesizes, persuasively in my estimation, that Stalin himself immediately countermanded the firing.

Stalin had already become upset with supervising General Andrei Yeremenko’s two-day long reluctance to reinforce Chiukov’s defense of the city, as he had ordered him to. (Yeremenko had overall command of the Stalingrad Front.) Because it was Yeremenko’s foot-dragging that had put Chiukov in the intolerable position that he was in, one can see why Stalin might have overruled the 62^nd Army commander’s removal.

The moral? — Highly recommended, despite its obvious flaws

Michael Jones effectively demonstrates that inspired leadership throughout the ranks made the difference at Stalingrad.

Given the overwhelming importance of the Eastern Front in determining World War II’s outcome, one can legitimately argue that Stalingrad’s 62^nd Army commander and troops should be credited with exercising a disproportionately important influence on history.

Aspiring military leaders should read this book.

PeteFree.com

Michael K. Jones, Stalingrad: How the Red Army Survived the German Onslaught (2007) — a Book Review