Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship

Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship PDF Author: Mark Von Hagen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780801481277
Category : Civil-military relations
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Historians have long debated the factors most responsible for the fundamental transformation of Soviet social and political structures which occurred between the October Revolution and the emergence of the Stalinist police state. With this social and institutional history of the Red Army, Mark von Hagen provides a valuable new perspective on this critical first decade in the history of the Soviet Union.

Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship

Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship PDF Author: Mark Von Hagen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780801481277
Category : Civil-military relations
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Historians have long debated the factors most responsible for the fundamental transformation of Soviet social and political structures which occurred between the October Revolution and the emergence of the Stalinist police state. With this social and institutional history of the Red Army, Mark von Hagen provides a valuable new perspective on this critical first decade in the history of the Soviet Union.

Politics and the Russian Army

Politics and the Russian Army PDF Author: Brian D. Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521016940
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Military coups have plagued many countries around the world, but Russia, despite its tumultuous history, has not experienced a successful military coup in over two centuries. In a series of detailed case studies, Brian Taylor explains the political role of the Russian military. Drawing on a wealth of new material, including archives and interviews, Taylor discusses every case of actual or potential military intervention in Russian politics from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin. Taylor analyzes in particular detail the army's behavior during the political revolutions that marked the beginning and end of the twentieth century, two periods when the military was, uncharacteristically, heavily involved in domestic politics. He argues that a common thread unites the late-Imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russian army: an organizational culture that believes that intervention against the country's political leadership - whether tsar, general secretary, or president - is fundamentally illegitimate.

Ivan's War

Ivan's War PDF Author: Catherine Merridale
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312426521
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
A powerful, groundbreaking narrative of the ordinary Russian soldier's experience of the worst war in history, based on newly revealed sources Of the thirty million who fought in the eastern front of World War II, eight million died, driven forward in suicidal charges, shattered by German shells and tanks. They were the men and women of the Red Army, a ragtag mass of soldiers who confronted Europe's most lethal fighting force and by 1945 had defeated it. Sixty years have passed since their epic triumph, but the heart and mind of Ivan -- as the ordinary Russian soldier was called -- remain a mystery. We know something about hoe the soldiers died, but nearly nothing about how they lived, how they saw the world, or why they fought. Drawing on previously closed military and secret police archives, interviews with veterans, and private letters and diaries, Catherine Merridale presents the first comprehensive history of the Soviet Union Army rank and file. She follows the soldiers from the shock of the German invasion to their costly triumph in Stalingrad, where life expectancy was often a mere twenty-four hours. Through the soldiers' eyes, we witness their victorious arrival in Berlin, where their rage and suffering exact an awful toll, and accompany them as they return home full of hope, only to be denied the new life they had been fighting to secure. A tour de force of original research and a gripping history, Ivan's War reveals the singular mixture of courage, patriotism, anger, and fear that made it possible for these underfed, badly led troops to defeat the Nazi army. In the process Merridale restores to history the invisible millions who sacrificed the most to win the war.

Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship

Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship PDF Author: Mark Von Hagen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780701481278
Category : Civil-military relations
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Soldier in Russian Politics 1988-1996

The Soldier in Russian Politics 1988-1996 PDF Author: Robert V. Barylski
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412839075
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part I: The Military and the End of the Soviet State -- 1. Thinking About Civil-Military Relations in Russia -- 2. Gorbachev'sReforms: Political Change and Civilian Control -- 3. The Military, Domestic Political Violence, and the Gorbachev-Yeltsin Rivalry -- 4. The Double Coup of August 1991 -- 5. The Dual Presidency -- 6. From Union to Commonwealth -- Part II: The Military and the New Russian State -- 7. Military Officers as a Political Force -- 8. Dividing the Army Monolith Responsibly -- 9. Presidential or Parliamentary Armed Forces? -- 10. The Armed Forces and Yeltsin's Presidential Putsch -- 11. The Military's Politics after the Crisis of September-October 1993 -- Part III: Testing the Russian State's Viability -- 12. The Chechen War and Civil-Military Relations -- 13. The Military's 1995 Political Offensive -- 14. The 1996 Presidential Campaign -- 15. President Yeltsin and General Lebed -- 16. Military Politics in Yeltsin's Presidential State -- 17. The Theory and Practice of Democratic Constitutional Control -- 18. Serving Under the Imperial Eagle -- 19. Postscript: Civil-Military Relations in an Ukaz-Governed State -- Bibliography -- Index

The Stuff of Soldiers

The Stuff of Soldiers PDF Author: Brandon M. Schechter
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501739816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
The Stuff of Soldiers uses everyday objects to tell the story of the Great Patriotic War as never before. Brandon M. Schechter attends to a diverse array of things—from spoons to tanks—to show how a wide array of citizens became soldiers, and how the provisioning of material goods separated soldiers from civilians. Through a fascinating examination of leaflets, proclamations, newspapers, manuals, letters to and from the front, diaries, and interviews, The Stuff of Soldiers reveals how the use of everyday items made it possible to wage war. The dazzling range of documents showcases ethnic diversity, women's particular problems at the front, and vivid descriptions of violence and looting. Each chapter features a series of related objects: weapons, uniforms, rations, and even the knick-knacks in a soldier's rucksack. These objects narrate the experience of people at war, illuminating the changes taking place in Soviet society over the course of the most destructive conflict in recorded history. Schechter argues that spoons, shovels, belts, and watches held as much meaning to the waging of war as guns and tanks. In The Stuff of Soldiers, he describes the transformative potential of material things to create a modern culture, citizen, and soldier during World War II.

Stalin's Reluctant Soldiers

Stalin's Reluctant Soldiers PDF Author: Roger R. Reese
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780700607723
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Under Joseph Stalin's iron-fisted rule, the Soviet state tried to forge an army that would be both a shining example of proletarian power and an indomitable deterrent against fascist aggression. In reality, the author reveals, Stalin's grand military experiment failed miserably on both counts before it was finally rescued within the crucible of war. Instead, the author portrays an army at war with itself, focusing on the daily lives of soldiers, officers, and civilians.

The Soldier in Russian Politics, 1985-96

The Soldier in Russian Politics, 1985-96 PDF Author: Robert Barylski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351291149
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 848

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Book Description
If Russia is to become a viable democracy, it will need a viable state to make and enforce decisions that nurture societal cohesion and sustain complex economic activity. Armed forces are essential attributes of viable modern states, but what happens when states undergo major structural changes? What was the military's contribution to the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of post-Soviet Russia? The Soldier in Russian Politics is the first study to go beyond familiar accounts of the main events that brought down the Soviet state and began its reconstruction. It captures the interplay between soldier and civilian politicians in a major political history based on solid political-sociological analysis. Barylski uses the study of civil-military relations to explore new political and intellectual conditions and explain the historic relationship between changes in Western models of Russian reality and political change in the former Soviet Union. Examining the military's participation in every major, twentieth-century, political change from 1917 to 1991, Barylski demonstrates that every deep political transformation in Russia has military dimensions. Barylski discusses how the Russian presidency's power to command and control the military without legislative checks and balances led to armed conflict with Parliament in October 1993 and to the Chechen war of 1994-1996, and is unhealthy for long term democratic development. Barylski analyzes ministers of defense Yazov, Shaposhnikov, Grachev, and Rodionov as political actors, traces the careers of ambitious political soldiers such as Aleksandr Lebed and Aleksandr Rutskoi, and describes the military's growing political alienation from the Yeltsin administration. His final chapters cover the presidential elections, the short-lived Yeltsin-Lebed political alliance, the tensions associated with Yeltsin's ailments, and Yeltsin's efforts to rebuild his personal power political effectiveness. The Soldier in Russian Politics presents political history in an incisive and objective manner. It applauds the progressive officers, soldiers, and politicians where decisions minimized bloodshed and prevented civil war. But it also warns that civilian and military leaders can make mistakes which cause political institutional failure, violence, and dictatorship. This book will interest political scientists, political sociologists, students of Russian and soviet politics, and all military historians and professionals.

Soldiers, Commissars, and Chaplains

Soldiers, Commissars, and Chaplains PDF Author: Dale Roy Herspring
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742511064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This innovative study offers the first-ever comparison of the military roles played by commissars, political officers, and chaplains in military settings ranging from the armies of Cromwell, the Jacobins, the Nazis, the Soviets, and the United States. Despite the stark differences in the political systems of the countries of these disparate armed forces, Dale R. Herspring argues that there are certain critical functions that must be fulfilled in every military, regardless of its ideological orientation. Most vital are motivation, morale boosting, and political socialization. In addition, Herspring's comparative historical analysis decisively demonstrates that the roles of commissars, political officers, and chaplains alike have evolved in ways that are crucial yet rarely understood either by policymakers or scholars.

Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought

Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought PDF Author: Roger R. Reese
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700617760
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Inept leadership, inefficient campaigning, and enormous losses would seem to spell military disaster. Yet despite these factors, the Soviet Union won its war against Nazi Germany thanks to what Roger Reese calls its "military effectiveness": its ability to put troops in the field even after previous forces had been decimated. Reese probes the human dimension of the Red Army in World War II through a close analysis of soldiers' experiences and attitudes concerning mobilization, motivation, and morale. In doing so, he illuminates the Soviets' remarkable ability to recruit and retain soldiers, revealing why so many were willing to fight in the service of a repressive regime-and how that service was crucial to the army's military effectiveness. He examines the various forms of voluntarism and motivations to serve-including the influences of patriotism and Soviet ideology-and shows that many fought simply out of loyalty to the idea of historic Russia and hatred for the invading Germans. He also considers the role of political officers within the ranks, the importance of commanders who could inspire their troops, the bonds of allegiance forged within small units, and persistent fears of Stalin's secret police. Brimming with fresh insights, Reese's study shows how the Red Army's effectiveness in the Great Patriotic War was foreshadowed by its performance in the Winter War against Finland and offers the first direct comparison between the two, delving into specific issues such as casualties, tactics, leadership, morale, and surrender. Reese also presents a new analysis of Soviet troops captured during the early war years and how those captures tapped into Stalin's paranoia over his troops' loyalties. He provides a distinctive look at the motivations and experiences of Soviet women soldiers and their impact on the Red Army's ability to wage war. Ultimately, Reese puts a human face on the often anonymous Soviet soldiers to show that their patriotism was real, even if not a direct endorsement of the Stalinist system, and had much to do with the Red Army's ability to defeat the most powerful army the world had ever seen.