Stalin's Reluctant Soldiers: A Social History of the Red Army, 1925-1941 (Modern War Studies)

by Roger R. Reese

Release Date: August, 1996

Edition: Hardcover

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an excellent overview of the pre-war Red Army

Reese does maginficent job at describing the poor state of the Red Army before the Second World War. According to Reese the main reason for the defeats that the Red Army suffered during the opening phases of the Second World War was due to the lack of training prior to the German attack. Soldiers spent more time working in factories or collective farms rather than training for war. To make matters worse the huge expansion of the army according to Reese left a huge shortage of junior officers and NCOs to train the new recruits. Stalin only excerbated the situation by abolishing the national guard in order to spend money on the new recruits, this only led to a lack of any reserve units in case of a emergency. Due to the above mentioned factors, Reese concludes that the Red Army suffered massives defeats during the opening phases of the Second World War. I would highly reccomend this book for anyone who wants to understand why the Russian army performed so poorly at the outset of World War II.