The Soviet Union's involvement in World War II was pivotal, characterized by immense sacrifice and significant military achievements. Initially, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany in 1939, agreeing to non-aggression and secretly dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. This agreement allowed the Soviet annexation of parts of Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland.
The situation changed dramatically on June 22, 1941, when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. The initial German advance was devastating, leading to significant Soviet losses and the near-collapse of Soviet defenses. However, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union mobilized its vast resources and population for a total war effort.
The brutal winter of 1941-1942, combined with fierce Soviet resistance, halted the German advance at the Battle of Moscow. The turning point came with the Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943), where Soviet forces encircled and defeated the German 6th Army, marking the beginning of a major Soviet offensive. Further victories at Kursk and the relentless push westward eventually led to the capture of Berlin in May 1945.
The Soviet Union's wartime efforts were marked by immense human cost, with an estimated 27 million Soviet deaths, both military and civilian. Despite these losses, the Soviet Union emerged as a superpower, occupying much of Eastern Europe and significantly influencing post-war geopolitics, leading to the onset of the Cold War. The victory over Nazi Germany remains a central element of Russian national pride and historical memory.
Analysis of deep attack operations : Operation Bagration, Belorussia, 22 June-29 August 1944
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Strategic objectives from the Soviet and German point of view are discussed.
Blockade Diary
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Kochina, Elena -- Diaries
Kochina, E. I (Elena I.)
Saint Petersburg (Russia) -- History -- Siege, 1941-1944 -- Personal narratives, Russian
Chiang Kaishek's last ambassador to Moscow : the wartime diaries of Fu Bingchang
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This fascinating study examines wartime Chinese-Soviet relations from a Moscow-based, Chinese perspective at the ambassadorial level. The book includes descriptions of everyday life in Moscow, of embassy business, of contemporary events and diplomacy, of intelligence operations, of meetings with Stalin, and of communications to and from Chongqing.
Correspondence between the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. and the Presidents of the U.S.A. and the Prime Ministers of Great Britain during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945
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Originally published by the Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1957.
On spine : Soviet correspondence relating to World War II.
At head of title: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R.
v.1. Correspondence with Winston S. Churchill and Clement R. Attlee (July 1941-November 1945).--v.2. Correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman (August 1941-December 1945).
The memoirs of Marshal Zhukov.
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Soviet Union
Zhukov, Georgiĭ Konstantinovich, 1896-1974
World War (1939-1945)
Soviet Union
1939-1945
Military improvisations during the Russian campaign.
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"Publications in the German report series were written by Germans from the German point of view and that the procedures of the German Army differed considerably from those of the United States Army."
Moscow to Stalingrad : decision in the east
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The second of a three-volume history of the German-Soviet conflict in World War II. In this volume, the German and Soviet forces initially confront each other on the approaches to Moscow, Leningrad, and Rostov in the late-1941 battles that produced the first major German setbacks of the war and gave the Soviet troops their first tastes of success. Later, the pendulum swings to the Germans' side, and their armies race across the Ukraine and into the Caucasus during the summer of 1942. In the course of a year, the Soviet Command goes from offensive to defensive and, finally, at Stalingrad, decisively to the offensive--meanwhile, frequently in desperate circumstances, building the strength and proficiency that will enable it to mount the relentless thrusts of the succeeding years. --Foreword.
My war against the Nazis : a Jewish soldier with the Red Army
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A poignant account of the perils and fortunes of an indomitable survivor of violence in Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1939, to escape Nazi occupation, 14-year-old Adam Broner and his older brother Sam left their home and family in Lodz, Poland, and made their way to the Soviet Union. Adam enlisted in the Red Army to join the fight against the Nazis but was sent to work in a Siberian coal mine instead when his nationality was discovered. After a bold and daring escape from Siberia, Broner reached the Soviet Polish Kosciuszko Army, joined the struggle against the Nazis, participated in the liberation of Poland, and rode victorious into Berlin in 1945. He later learned that his parents, siblings (except Sam), and all other close relatives had perished during the war. Broner rebuilt his life, established a family, returned to Moscow for a degree in economics, and then went back to Poland, where he accepted a job in the Polish central planning agency. Eventually fed up with the growing anti-Semitism of the Communist government there, the author emigrated to the United States in 1969. He earned a doctorate from Princeton University and served as an economic adviser to New Jersey governors and the state legislature. In retirement, Broner learned portrait painting and reproduced the likenesses of his parents and siblings from memory, which are presented along with their biographies in this book. In recounting his struggle for survival during some of the most dramatic upheavals of the 20th century-- the Great Depression, Nazism, World War II, and the spread of Communism in Central Europe-- Broner reveals a life dedicated to the ultimate goal of freedom, which he achieved through a combination of arduous effort and fortunate circumstance.
The Soviet Air Force in World War II; the official history
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Translation of Sovetskie Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily v Velikoĭ Otechestvennoĭ voĭne.
The Soviet history of World War II
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World War, 1939-1945 -- Soviet Union
Soviet Union -- History
Soviet Union
1939-1945
Soviet Jews and World War II : fighting, witnessing, remembering
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This volume discusses the participation of Jews as soldiers, journalists, and propagandists in combating the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War, as the period between June 22, 1941, and May 9, 1945 was known in the Soviet Union. The essays included here examine both newly-discovered and previously-neglected oral testimony, poetry, cinema, diaries, memoirs, newspapers, and archives. This is one of the first books to combine the study of Russian and Yiddish materials, reflecting the nature of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, which, for the first time during the Soviet period, included both Yiddish-language and Russian-language writers. This volume will be of use to scholars, teachers, students, and researchers working in Russian and Jewish history.
Soviet war documents : addresses, notes, orders of the day, statements.
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World War, 1939-1945
Guerre mondiale, 1939-1945 -- URSS
Guerre mondiale, 1939-1945
Stalingrad lives : stories of combat and survival
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In the fall of 1942, only the city of Stalingrad stood between Soviet survival and defeat as Hitler's army ran rampant. With the fate of the USSR hanging in the balance, Soviet propaganda chiefs sent their finest writers into the heat of battle. After six months of terrifying work, these men succeeded in creating an enduring epic of Stalingrad. Their harrowing tales of valour and heroism offered hope for millions of readers. "Stalingrad lives!" went the rallying cry: the city had to live if the nation was to stave off defeat. In Stalingrad Lives Ian Garner brings together a selection of short stories written at and after the battle. They reveal, for the first time in English, the real Russian narrative of Stalingrad - an epic story of death, martyrdom, resurrection, and utopian beginnings. Following the authors into the hellish world of Stalingrad, Garner traces how tragedy was written as triumph. He uncovers how, dealing with loss and destruction on an unimaginable scale, Soviet readers and writers embraced the story of martyred Stalingrad, embedding it into the Russian psyche for decades to come. Featuring lost work by Vasily Grossman alongside texts by luminaries such as Konstantin Simonov, Viktor Nekrasov, and Ilya Ehrenburg, Stalingrad Lives offers a literary perspective on the Soviet Union at war.
The War Within : Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad
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Winner of the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize Winner of the AATSEEL Book Prize Winner of the University of Southern California Book Prize Honorable Mention, Reginald Zelnik Book Prize "Stand aside, Homer. I doubt whether even the author of the Iliad could have matched Alexis Peri's account of the 872-day siege which Leningrad endured." --Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator "Fascinating and perceptive." --Antony Beevor, New York Review of Books "Powerful and illuminating...A fascinating, insightful, and nuanced work." --Anna Reid, Times Literary Supplement "A sensitive, at times almost poetic examination." --Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs In September 1941, two and a half months after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the German Wehrmacht encircled Leningrad. Cut off from the rest of Russia, the city remained blockaded for 872 days, at a cost of almost a million civilian lives. It was one of the longest and deadliest sieges in modern history. The War Within chronicles the Leningrad blockade from the perspective of those who endured it. Drawing on unpublished diaries written by men and women from all walks of life, Alexis Peri tells the tragic story of how young and old struggled to make sense of a world collapsing around them. When the blockade was lifted in 1944, Kremlin officials censored publications describing the ordeal and arrested many of Leningrad's wartime leaders. Some were executed. Diaries--now dangerous to their authors--were concealed in homes, shelved in archives, and forgotten. The War Within recovers these lost accounts, shedding light on one of World War II's darkest episodes while paying tribute the resilience of the human spirit.
A writer at war : Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941-1945
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Edited and translated from the Russian by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova Knopf Canada is proud to present a masterpiece of the Second World War, never before published in English, from one of the great Russian writers of the 20th century – a vivid eyewitness account of the Eastern Front and “the ruthless truth of war.” When the Germans invaded Russia in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for the Red Star, the Red Army’s newspaper.A Writer at War– based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered raw material for his articles – depicts the crushing conditions on the Eastern Front, and the lives and deaths of soldiers and civilians alike. It also includes some of the earliest reportage on the Holocaust. In the three years he spent on assignment, Grossman witnessed some of the most savage fighting of the war: the appalling defeats of the Red Army, the brutal street fighting in Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk (the largest tank engagement in history), the defense of Moscow, the battles in Ukraine and much more. Historian Antony Beevor has taken Grossman’s raw notebooks, and fashioned them into a narrative providing one of the most even-handed descriptions – at once unflinching and sensitive – we have ever had of what he called “the ruthless truth of war.”
Writing the siege of Leningrad : women's diaries, memoirs, and documentary prose
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Diaries and Letters 19
Diary of Liubov' Vasil'evna Shaporina, hospital nurse during Siege; later an artist 21
Diary of Anna Petrovna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, artist 25
Letter from Leningrad: El'za Greinert to children 33
Letter from Leningrad: Germany family remembered 37
Diary and letters of Evgeniia Shavrova, introduced by her sister, Elena Fassman, librarian 39
Diary of Vera Sergeevna Kostrovitskaia, ballerina and dance teacher 47
Diary of Mariia Viacheslavovna Kropacheva, school teacher 53
Diary of Anna Ivanovna Likhacheva, doctor 58
Diary to Tamara Petrovna Nekliudova, entertainer at the front 62
Ol'ga Mikhailovna Freidenberg, classicist scholar, first woman department chair in a Soviet university, The Race of Life 64
Memoirs and Oral Histories 77
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