Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris Bellamy
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $40.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 315465
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 848
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.8
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.6 x 2
ISBN: 0375410864
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.5347
EAN: 9780375410864
ASIN: 0375410864
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
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Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
The battle on the Eastern Front between 1941 and 1945 was arguably the single most decisive factor of World War II, fixing the course of world history over the next half century. Now, drawing on sources newly available since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, historian and journalist Chris Bellamy presents the first full account of this deadly conflict.
Bellamy outlines the lead-up to the war—in which the fragile alliance between Hitler and Stalin was unceremoniously broken—and takes us headlong into the hostilities. He presents a shocking picture of battle in which the traditional restraints of “civilized” warfare were shed. He makes clear how the Soviets quickly rallied against Hitler, choosing homegrown despotism over foreign domination in a struggle that the Russian people call the Great Patriotic War.
Bellamy charts the early gains of the German army, whose advances into Soviet territory were brought to a halt in Moscow in the winter of 1941, and whose defeat was sealed in the Battle of Stalingrad, the most merciless campaign of the bloodiest front. He shows how Soviet men—and women—joined to fight a war whose casualties were later steeply underestimated by their government, and how even the true death toll, at 27 million, does not take into account the millions of lives on both sides that lay shattered in the aftermath.
Finally, Bellamy examines the far-reaching consequences of the battle’s outcome—the reverberations of which are still felt today—and argues that the cost of victory was ultimately too much for the Soviet Union to bear.
A magisterial study, and an essential addition to our understanding of contemporary world history.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 explores unknown territory July 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chris Bellamy's 'Absolute War' truly fills up a big 'white spot' in our knowledge of the Hitler/Stalin-conflict from 1941-'45: the workings of the Soviet-Russian leadership.
Up to now, we always had to deduct from German sources what happened at the other side of the front. Recently granted access to Russian archives doesn't make this necessary anymore.
I'll provide just one example: during the period from June 22 up to July 3, 1941, Stalin kept silent. Up to now, we always assumed that Stalin needed this period to recover mentally from his error in underestimating Hitler's determination to wipe out his Soviet-rule. Mr. Bellamy shows us quite the contrary: Stalin used these days to convert the Soviet-Russian society into a complete war-economy.
By the way, the Hitler/Stalin-conflict from 1941-'45 is that immense, that any writer cannot avoid to make a selection. As I pointed out above, Mr. Bellamy's choice is a very happy one.
 Save your money June 23, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was reluctant to critique Bellamy's Absolute War, because I know it is hard to write. But then I thought that readers wanting to learn about the Eastern Front might buy this book by mistake. If you need every new book about the Eastern Front, you will find some interesting things here. If you want a solid overview, save your money.
There is some interesting research and analysis in Absolute War pertaining to such issues as the hunt for the anti-Soviet leaflet writer "Rebel" in Leningrad during the siege, the critical role of Lend-Lease in keeping the Soviet Union afloat, and the potential use of weapons of mass destruction on the Eastern Front.
However, this book is NOT a comprehensive history of the war of 1941-45. All events after Kursk (1943) receive only cursory treatment at best. There are several detailed maps causing one to expect close descriptions of such battles as the clearing of the Dnepr (1943), Bagration (1944), or Budapest (1945), but the reader will search in vain. Why are these maps here? I suspect it was to trick buyers in the bookshop.
Moreover, as another reviewer noted, Bellamy is clearly out of his league with regard to the scholarship. It is strange that he would write without any apparent awareness of the mandatory military histories of Robert Citino (see, e.g., Blitzkrieg to Desert Storm (2004)). And it is dumbfounding that he tries to tell the Soviet perspective, yet is ignorant of the work of Sheila Fitzpatrick (see, e.g., Everyday Stalinism (1999)).
Finally, the book was minimally edited and proofread. Eastern Front afficionados will be quite surprised to learn that after "meeting in the Minsk area on 28 June, and completing the destruction of encircled German forces, Hoth's Third and Guderian's Second Panzer Groups were to move towards the Denpr." (p. 192) Those possessing a moral compass will puzzle over such statements as "if anyone deserved a break, it was Stalin." (p. 227) And gentle readers in search of a proper sentence will long ponder "The modern international system, with its five permanent members of the UN Security Council and, to a very large extent still, the world we live in now." (p. 687 -- the last sentence of the book's penultimate paragraph!)
This Can't Be Happening June 13, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
If I didn't know better I could not imagine that human beings would do such things to each other. The shear individual horrors of German Nazism and Soviet Communism are more than matched by their combined viciousness in World War II. We Americans like to feel we are above such behavior but we are blinded to the one to two million we killed in Vietnam or the half million more Iraqis whose deaths can be laid at our feet. Nonetheless the Eastern Front truly defies comprehension. It is hard to imagine the fate of Ukrainians who suffered collectization, the NKVD, then relegated to subhumanity by the Germans only to be liberated by the Soviets and again purged.
Chris Bellemy's book brings the reality of human history back into perspective. But the style of Bellemy's book is more like a strategic study from a defense institute than a polished narrative from a literary historian. As such it is a bit hard to read. I had trouble following the progress of each battle. It didn't help that the maps were both complex and in such a small font that even with a magnifying glass I couldn't find places mentioned in the text and couldn't follow what was going on. Nevertheless I liked the book. It has been years since I have read other descriptions of the Eastern Front so I felt that Bellemy has added something to my knowledge. He points out when reinterpreting events based on new knowledge from the archives but I would have liked him to expand more on this. From previous histories I remember authors citing the hardships of the German's during the winter at Stalingrad. That did not seem to play a role for Bellemy. By the time of Stalingrad, had the Germans solved the problems of frostbite and frozen engines that had plagued them a year earlier at Moscow? Were they wearing socks in their boots? Were they simply outfought at Stalingrad. That seems to be the case.
For Bellemy, the Soviet victory was almost inevitable once they had reorganized after being thrown back to Moscow in 1941. Their economic capability would have overcome that of Germany. But it was in those unsure moments that a combination of NKVD repression keeping people from wavering, Russian dedication to the Motherland, and crucial Allied material which helped them avoid defeat. After that Germany had no chance. From the battle of Kurst onward the Russians outproduced and outfought the Germans. It is odd that the latter did not sue for peace. In his book on the Pentagon House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power, James Carroll said that it was a casual use of language by Roosevelt at Teheran that introduced the policy of unconditional surrender which Carroll felt lengthened the war both in Europe and Asia. Bellemy points out that war for Stalin was unconditional, period. It was what Bellemy calls absolute war---no holds barred. That the spine of the Soviet peoples was stiffened by the NKVD is clear. The choice was being killed by the Germans or the secret police. The NKVD also made sure that any place the Soviets occupied was also cleared of opposition. So while the delay outside of Warsaw was in part due to overextended Soviet lines, Stalin made sure now one else would help the uprising, and elsewhere armed partisans were disarmed when Soviet troops arrived. Even the possibility of opposition was to be precluded. The wavering peoples of the Caucuses were shipped east even though they not longer posed a threat because of German withdrawals.
Once the Soviets got the hang of how to fight and the materials to do it, they consistently outfought the Germans. Whether it was artillery or tanks, the Soviets produced credible, even much superior weapons and used them better than the Germans. Did they win the war in Europe. Bellemy makes the case that they would have with or without the Allies. But the coast was horrendous. The Germans completely wiped out the Soviet Army two or more times and the losses in some battles, like Zhukov's entry into Berlin were unnecessary. Until the Soviet generals learned to fight (or was it maybe until Stalin and Voroshilov--who plays no part in Bellemy's--book got out of the way) Soviet offensive attacks on the advancing Germans were massacres. When Stalin allowed strategic retreat and defensive fighting the tables began to turn and the German's began to pay a higher price. As to Stalin's culpability for the destruction of the Soviet army at the outset of Barbarosa, Bellemy's explanation is unclear. Yes the planes were lined up on runways for the Germans to destroy. Yes there were warnings that Stalin ignored. But despite the purges of the Soviet Army in 1938, the Soviet Union was gearing up for war and Bellemy is convincing that Stalin did not mentally collapse after the attack. He organized the defense as poor as it was. After all the French were defeated in no time even though they had a large mobilized army, the Maginot line, and were prepared to fight. The German's overwhelmed them. Blitzkrieg worked. The Soviet Union was just too big, had too many people and was simply too Russian to be overwhelmed. The Japanese couldn't conquer China. There were simply not enough of them. That may have been true for Germany and Russia.
Thank you Mr. Bellemy for a new look into the Eastern Front. If the author is right and Putin is reclosing the archives "Absolute War," may be the only fresh history we will have on the subject for a long time.
Charlie Fisher, author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World
Good for what it is April 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is an interesting book on the Second World War covering, and focusing, on the Eastern Front, largely from the Soviet perspective. The author, apparently a protege of the late John Ericson, is a university professor in England. Bellamy states, in the introduction to the book, that he's not going to try to cover the tactical aspects of the War in the East, largely because he thinks others have covered this ground pretty well. Instead, the author decides to concentrate on other aspects of the conflict, discussing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the state of the Army on the brink of the war, the various plans the Soviets had in 1941 and whether any of them involved attacking Germany, and other aspects he feels haven't been covered enough, or correctly.
The book does spend a lot of time discussing the operational, and especially strategic aspects of the war, but the author avoids discussing tactics pretty much at all. He also spends a lot of time discussing the first year and a half of the war, up until Stalingrad. He takes the position that the Soviets were more precarious politically, and economically, in 1942 than is generally realized, and that they were very close to collapse when the Axis armies outside Stalingrad crumbled and left the Sixth Army encircled. It's an interesting point of view, anyway.
The book is written in a breezy, conversational style that seems to be stylish now with books that are supposed to be scholarly. I don't know how well this will work in a book half a century from now. Right now, it's kind of jarring but I will say the book reads relatively fast. It does suffer from some annoying typos (Kluge giving way to himself as Army commander, Field Marshal "Kodl", and so forth) and the grammar is frankly odd, with incomplete sentences abounding in odd places. This is tough to read (for me anyway) because you don't know if you should be looking for a verb when you read a sentence. The book could have benefited from a strong editor, overseeing the way the prose was constructed and acting as a brake on the author's preference for fragmented sentences.
I generally enjoyed this book. I found much of the information interesting, and his arguments, while I didn't agree with everything he said, interesting. I would recommend this book to specialists, though of course you have to be aware of the shortcomings.
Prepare to be bludgeoned... March 12, 2008
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Absolute War is impressive (in size, if nothing else) -- but disappointing. This book is like the Russian military strategy it chronicles; it marshals vast numbers of facts and hurls them straight at you until you're bludgeoned into submission. It's a fine choice if you want a comprehensive timeline of the German-Russian front from 1941-1945, a catalog of all the battles, the code names of every attack and counteroffensive, and a down-to-the-last-corpse list of causalities.
But if you want a book that explains the war in human terms -- what it felt like to struggle at -40 in the icy Russian winter, or to fight in a partisan force behind enemy lines, or to be a terrified civilian caught in the steel maw of a German offensive -- keep looking. Other than a few, brief quoted letters, the "ordinary person" viewpoint is ignored. Absolute War's author, Chris Bellamy, sacrifices human drama for a surplus of details, and substitutes dry scholarship for storytelling flair.
The book has other flaws, too. First, it's sloppily edited, with information frequently repeated. One example: On page 278, Bellamy writes: "...by 1 November 1941, the Germans had lost 686,000 casualties, or one-fifth of the original Barbarossa force and all the replacements received since 22 June." On page 301, he writes: "By [October 30], the Wehrmacht had suffered 686,000 casualties -- one-fifth of the force that had launched its proud crusade in the small hours of 22 June, plus all the replacements sent since then." Yes, we got it the first time.
Second, the book contains much new information from archives unsealed after the fall of the Soviet empire. Unfortunately, Bellamy tends to focus on the new at the expense of the important. In one instance, he spends a full page debunking a "famous" Russian story about 28 heroic members of the "Panfilovtsy" rifle division who fought near Volokolamsk. Newly uncovered NKVD documents reveal the story to be fabricated. But the Panfilovtsy skirmish -- whether real or fake -- was an insignificant part of the war. WWII scholars may be impressed by the new information, but the typical reader won't care.
Third, Bellamy has a strange preoccupation with the Iraqi war. At least a half-dozen times he draws some labored comparison between the Russian front and the American invasion of Iraq. But except for some similarities between the anti-German partisan efforts and the Iraqi insurgency, the parallels are farfetched. A war between millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks on the frozen plains of Russia is as unlike a guerilla campaign waged with IEDs in the dusty heat of Iraq as you can imagine. I don't know if this is Bellamy's attempt to make the book more "relevant," but it's jarring and unnecessary.
Fourth, Bellamy displays a curious blindness about the horrors of the Soviet regime. While acknowledging in passing the deportations and arrests, the mass killings, and the suffocating blanket of surveillance, Bellamy writes that, after surviving WWII, the Soviet Union was a "very successful exponent of a new political and economic system." Yes, communism was "successful" -- if you overlook the estimated 93 million people slaughtered around the world by its adherents. Similarly, Bellamy obliquely praises the USSR's post-war occupation of Eastern Europe. He writes: "...the meticulous Soviet arrangements for 'state-building' and establishing security in the immediate wake of military conquest or reconquest -- for example, in Poland, the Baltic States and post-war Germany -- compare quite favorably, in terms of their organization and effectiveness, with recent efforts in Iraq." (There's Iraq again!) I can only hope that Poland and the Baltic nations appreciated the "meticulous" way the Soviet Union occupied their countries for decades, looted them for natural resources, and ruthlessly squashed all opposition. Which part of that Soviet strategy is the U.S. supposed to emulate?
Finally, the book is sometimes just odd. The best example is on page 430, when Bellamy recounts Winston Churchill's first visit to Moscow to meet Stalin. He writes: "Churchill had not known quite what to expect in the land of workers and peasants which was bearing the brunt of the war with Germany, so he brought some sandwiches." Thus, another crucial sandwich-related fact about WWII is documented. (I was just relieved that Bellamy didn't regale us with newly uncovered NKVD documents revealing what kind of sandwiches Churchill brought.)
The bottom line: If you're interested in the Eastern Front and you want plenty of numbers, maps, and charts, sloppy editing, quirky digressions, and irrelevant new information, then Absolute War is the book for you. But if you seek effective storytelling, a focus on essential information, an understanding of the human dimension of war, and a clear-eyed view of the Soviet Union, keep looking.
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