Trotsky's Military Tactics

[Geiseric]

Lately, on having a relapse of being intrested in military channel, I found that many russian generals, with the exception of Zhukov, were fond of the human wave/attrition tactics because of the gigantic red army, and wermaht were fond of pincer moves and divide and conquer tactics, and americans were fond of unconventional tactics like Paratroops, commando units in Japan, and island hopping. I was wondering what Leon Trotsky's military tactics were like in the civil war. Feel free to submit any other military tactics you find intresting, but i'd like to hear about Trotsky's tactics if any record exists.

[scarletghoul]

5 volumes of Trotsky's military writings are available at the MIA -
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/index.htm

I've not read them so don't know what tactics he used.

Anyway guerilla tactics are by far the most widespread and successful in the world today. Fights between standing armies are rare; guerilla warfare is now the dominant mode of conflict, in both rural and urban areas (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, India, Bangladesh, Ireland, Colombia, Greece, Peru, etc etc)

[Kléber]

I was wondering what Leon Trotsky's military tactics were like in the civil war. Feel free to submit any other military tactics you find intresting, but i'd like to hear about Trotsky's tactics if any record exists. In its victory the Workers' and Farmers' Red Army led by War Commissar Trotsky did not rely on revolutionary tactics and strategies so much as on revolutionary organization. It had no ranking officers, only commanders and commissioners (until 1935 anyway). Its nucleus was in the Red Guard units, all-volunteer workers' militias with elected commanders, as well as elements of the old army who voted in their soldiers' councils to throw out their officers and the Soviet power. The volunteer army proved incapable of defending the republic against professional imperialist invaders, so it was reorganized based on conscription of mostly peasant recruits.

Using the model of the French Revolution, trained officers from the old regime were made to fight for the new one and kept loyal by the power of political commissars. Initially, there were Left-SR and anarchist commissars as well as Bolsheviks, but the Soviet regime became a one-party dictatorship by 1919 and those non-Bolshevik commissars in the army had to switch parties or give up their position. Communists were also dispersed throughout the conscript army to keep up morale and lead the charges. Units with 10% communists were considered shock troops. Thanks to methods like these, the Red Army was generally better disciplined, had higher morale than the White armies, and could eventually hold its own against crack troops of the imperialist intervention.

Here are the direct links to Trotsky's military writings:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/military/
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1919/military/
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1921/military/
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/military/


many russian generals, with the exception of Zhukov, were fond of the human wave/attrition tactics because of the gigantic red army, and wermaht were fond of pincer moves and divide and conquer tactics, and americans were fond of unconventional tactics like Paratroops, commando units in Japan, and island hopping.That's close to the truth but not all of it. Zhukov and Rokossovsky were students of Tukhachevsky, the foremost pioneer of Soviet deep battle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_deep_battle), who was purged while trying to organize a coup against the Stalin clique. Paratroops were actually a Soviet innovation and armored spearheads were developed jointly by the Soviet and German staffs during the period of Soviet-Weimar secret military cooperation. On the eve of WWII, such advanced theories were dismissed as "fascist wrecking" and abandoned in favor of outdated trench warfare and cavalry tactics, while vast swaths of the Soviet officer corps were purged for their perceived disloyalty, thus contributing immensely to the disasters of 1941.

[Kléber]

Anyway guerilla tactics are by far the most widespread and successful in the world today. Fights between standing armies are rare; guerilla warfare is now the dominant mode of conflict, in both rural and urban areas (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, India, Bangladesh, Ireland, Colombia, Greece, Peru, etc etc)
Maoism, or more specifically the Lin Biao line of "global people's war," may be better described as an absolute failure. The heyday of Maoism in the is long done; whatever its media profile, the movement is a shadow of its former self. The survival of some 1970's holdovers to the present day does not change the fact that the Maoist and Guevarist fetishism for guerrilla warfare led to the removal from mass struggle and useless death of tens of thousands of eager young communists around the world, including about a thousand Argentine Trotskyists.

Don't get me wrong, peasant armies can be great allies of the working class. We should all support Maoist-led farmer and indigenous militias against the attacks of the bourgeois state in India today. That said, guerrilla war on its own can not make the revolution. Rural partisans can not operate far away from their base area; they can not hold on to industrial capacity to produce arms and supplies in mass quantities. Historically they have only been able to seize power with foreign aid and/or political collapse of the ruling regime.

[Geiseric]

I was wondering more so on individual battles that he commanded, what the tactics were to win. Did they have bombers that far back as in the early 20's? Did he make use of armor? Blimps? That kinda thing. However i've skimmed through the marxists online stuff, it's really intresting. Imaging how much it'd suck to be an american officer and get the news you're being shipped off to siberia :p

[Kléber]

I was wondering more so on individual battles that he commanded, what the tactics were to win.
Trotsky led the Red Guards who seized power in Petrograd in 1917. After that he commanded the entire war effort as the revolutionary equivalent of a defense minister. But his job wasn't to command individual armies in battle, even if he issued orders and influenced the outcome of battles, they had professional officers checked by political commissars to lead the armies. Trotsky was not a trained soldier, although he did carry a rifle into battle during an offensive to give himself experience as a soldier on the front lines, and he always carried a weapon in case his locomotive headquarters got attacked, which it did several times and he organized the defense of the train.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Russian_civil_war_West_1918-20.png


Did they have bombers that far back as in the early 20's? Did he make use of armor? Blimps? That kinda thing. During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army had a very small air force for purely reconnaissance purposes, a handful of tanks and a makeshift fleet of armored vehicles, most of which were armored cars. I do not believe the Soviet power had any blimps at its disposal until after the war.

Soviet armored car:

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/722/sovarmcar.jpg

Captured British tank:

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9883/muspro.jpg

The counter-revolution had on its side a vast superiority in armor and aviation, which White generals used to punch through the Red lines. The Soviets addressed the problem by capturing or improvising what they could, most famously establishing a fleet of over 100 armored trains.

Some Soviet armored trains:

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/8298/armtrain.jpg

Most powerful commanders in the Russian Civil War operated out of an armored train and Trotsky's, the Predrevoyensoviet or "Train of the Chair of the Revolutionary Military Council" was probably the most impressive. His own account of it is here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch34.htm. A number of articles from the train's newspaper are in his military writings on MIA.

This, along with the pictures is from Armored Units of the Russian Civil War: Red Army by David Bullock, Osprey:


Trotsky's Command Train

Trotsky made 36 tours of the front from 1918 to 1921 in what he referred to simply as "the train." Formed in Moscow on 7 August 1918 (two armored engines, 12 wagons), the train immediately reinforced the Volga Front with a shock force of Latvian Riflemen.

Eventually, there were several armored machine-gun wagons, a petrol tanker, flatbeds for wheeled vehicles, a secretariat wagon, several supply wagons, a printing press, a telegraph station, an aerial antenna which could receive transmissions from thirteen foreign locations, a bath wagon, an electrical power station, a kitchen, a library, a musical band and two aircraft. Trotsky divided the train into two echelons during the second half of the civil war. According to eyewitness Victor Serge, the train had one gun and a separate train followed with 300 cavalry.

Personnel included an elite company of bodyguards, over 100 strong, two secretaries, cooks, a photographer, a film camera man, printing staff for the train's newspaper En Route, mechanics, rail engineers and communications technicians. Socially, the group contained workers, sailors, intellectuals, and several dozen political agitators and communists, all armed with the best weapons. At first, the echelon had 250 personnel, but this could have doubled over time.

On board were five automobiles appropriated from the Tsar's garage, one of them Trotsky's command car, a Rolls-Royce outfitted with two machine guns. Several light trucks could detrain and carry emergency supplies to the front. Thirty sharpshooters accompanied the boss during his tight schedule of visitations at local headquarters, when haranguing the masses, or wherever an elite platoon could make a difference. According to Trotsky: "The train linked the front with the base, solved urgent problems on the spot, educated, appealed, supplied, rewarded, and punished." Punishments included summary executions by firing squad.

The train often traveled at 70km/hr for security. The Whites attacked several times with artillery and aircraft, but inflicted only 15 casualties (15 more listed as "missing"). The train received the "Order of the Red Banner" for actions near Petrograd in 1919.Trotsky's bodyguards' uniform:

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9356/trotskyguard.jpg

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/7616/trotskybadge.jpg

[ComradeOm]

I found that many russian generals, with the exception of Zhukov, were fond of the human wave/attrition tactics because of the gigantic red army...Um, no (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1989249&postcount=32), they weren't (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1989575&postcount=40). The "gigantic Red Army" had been largely wiped out in the summer of '41. After this the Soviets had no major numerical advantage over the invaders. What they were good at was skilfully shifting armies along the front, and disguising the movement of these, to create local superiorities in numbers. By the end of the war the Red Army was actually plagued by chronic manpower shortages

[scarletghoul]

Maoism, or more specifically the Lin Biao line of "global people's war," may be better described as an absolute failure. The heyday of Maoism in the is long done; whatever its media profile, the movement is a shadow of its former self. The survival of some 1970's holdovers to the present day does not change the fact that the Maoist and Guevarist fetishism for guerrilla warfare led to the removal from mass struggle and useless death of tens of thousands of eager young communists around the world, including about a thousand Argentine Trotskyists.

Don't get me wrong, peasant armies can be great allies of the working class. We should all support Maoist-led farmer and indigenous militias against the attacks of the bourgeois state in India today. That said, guerrilla war on its own can not make the revolution. Rural partisans can not operate far away from their base area; they can not hold on to industrial capacity to produce arms and supplies in mass quantities. Historically they have only been able to seize power with foreign aid and/or political collapse of the ruling regime.
1. I wasn't even talking about Maoism specifically, let alone "global peoples war" (which I don't agree with). I was just pointing out the undeniable fact that guerilla warfare is by far the most common form of warfare in the world today. No one could dispute that. You're the one who mentioned Maoism; I was just talking about guerilla war in general (from the Taliban to the CoCoF to the FARC to the RIRA. I don't like some of these groups, but thats not the point.)

2. since you brought it up, there are no communist tendencies doing as well as they were in the 60s or 30s or whatever. The Communist movement is only just starting to recover from a huge fall, and Maoism is no exception. But compared to the likes of revisionist ML, anarchism, not to mention Trotskyism, Maoism is by far the most successful right now. We've had some territory somewhere since 1927, and thats significant. And most Maoist movements are not '1970s holdovers'. The Nepali insurgency started in 1996. The Shining Path was an 80s thing. The Naxals have been around in some form since 1960s, but the present war took off within the last few decades, and the CPI(Maoist) was formed only a few years ago. The Maoist movement in Bhutan only started about 3 years ago. In other words, the movement is rejuvenating. If they were some relic of the 70s, where did the 10000s of young soldiers come from. You seem to always think that Maoism = 1970s PRC. And though you're certainly knowledgeable on historical matters I think you need to look into what's happening right now a lot more, before you write it off as '1970s holdover'.

3. No one is saying that guerilla warfare can make a revolution alone. In fact no revolutionary strategy can work without at least some collapse in the ruling regime. But certainly seizing territory throughout a country and winning over masses of people can bolster the revolutionary forces and weaken the government, wouldn't you say ?

4. Maoism is not limited to guerilla warfare. Maoists organise urban workers etc too.

But again, I never even mentioned the M word.

[Geiseric]

That armored train thing was awesome. They shoulda put some artillery on top, then it could influence battles :p. And the rolls royce thing with 2 machine guns... I lol'd. I wonder how effective the armored cars were, they look so russian since it doesn't look all luxurious and specialised, like the german tigers or panzers, but it's like we're gonna put as many weapons on this thing and put some armor on, send it out. Guerrilla tactics are my favorite type of military conflict since it's psycological as well as usually devastating an enemy force.

To me it equates to instead of blowing a car up, you shoot the
tires. Eventually when everybody leaves you kill the driver and his passenger, that kinda thing.

Maoism i'm thinking is the most dominant ideology in my
area, as well as thirld worldism, but nobody really takes them
seriously since their arguments at protests and in pamphlets are always consisted of Pathos arguments, and extreemly
aggitated numbers and statistics. I don't like Maoism since I believe the classes will never work togather to achieve socialism, and also I can't agree with them because of maoists like Bob Avakian, Shining Path, and the viet cong, who all are known for just killing anybody that didn't agree with them.

[scarletghoul]

maoists like Bob Avakian, Shining Path, and the viet cong, who all are known for just killing anybody that didn't agree with them.
This is..

uhh..

I'm not sure what to..

You didn't just... Bob Avakian and Viet cong....

.. wow..

[Geiseric]

I thought Bob Avakian and Ho Chi Min were Maoist <.< well whatever you get my point...

Back to military stuff. What were some popular tactics the russians used in WW2?

[red cat]

This is..

uhh..

I'm not sure what to..

You didn't just... Bob Avakian and Viet cong....

.. wow..

:lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Um, no (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1989249&postcount=32), they weren't (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1989575&postcount=40). The "gigantic Red Army" had been largely wiped out in the summer of '41. After this the Soviets had no major numerical advantage over the invaders. What they were good at was skilfully shifting armies along the front, and disguising the movement of these, to create local superiorities in numbers. By the end of the war the Red Army was actually plagued by chronic manpower shortages

How does that explain the fact that the Soviets amassed the largest standing army in the world's military history, over 11 million men and women in uniform for Nash Rodiny (Motherland)?

[Pavlov's House Party]

How does that explain the fact that the Soviets amassed the largest standing army in the world's military history, over 11 million men and women in uniform for Nash Rodiny (Motherland)?

The Soviet Union was also a huge country. Troops were stationed on every border and in reserve deep in the country; it would be a terrible military error to throw all of your forces at the enemy at once. Remember that one of the biggest turning points was the huge transfer of units in the Soviet Far East to the western front around the Moscow counter-offensive.

[ComradeOm]

How does that explain the fact that the Soviets amassed the largest standing army in the world's military history, over 11 million men and women in uniform for Nash Rodiny (Motherland)?I spent some time putting the figures together only to find out that Glantz had done it first. According to When Titans Clashed, in June 1941 the Germans had a numerical advantage in the Western Military Districts of 1:1.4 (3.5m to 2.6m respectively). By Nov that year the gap had yawned to 1:1.9 - that is almost two Germans for every Russian - as the Soviets lost approx 4.5m in the first weeks of the war. By the end of the year a rough parity was restored and slowly began to widen in the favour of the Soviets. It was not until mid 1943 however that the Soviets first gained a 2:1 advantage in personnel (6m to 3m) but this was brief and it was not until mid 1944 that a marked and sustained numerical advantage (peaking at 3.22:1 in Oct 1944) emerged

So for the first year of the war the Soviets were at a numerical disadvantage, they possessed a relatively slender advantage for most of the second, and only really came to enjoy a distinct edge in the final two years. These figures only include fighting soldiers on the Eastern Front and the Red Army numbers stabilise around 6-7 million from 1943 onwards. The increasing gap between German and Soviet resources is primarily a result of the Wehrmacht's losses

Even with the above there were severe shortages in personnel as Moscow struggled to keep both the Red Army and industry fed. You mention women; the reason for the formation of female fighting units, and the Soviet commanders' reliance on massive quantities of firepower, was precisely because of the manpower shortages. This bit hard from 1942 onwards, at which point increased mobilisation controls and the diverting of resources to civilian infrastructure were required to stabilise the economy and stave off an economic collapse. This dilemma continued right up to the end of the war

Incidentally, if you do just want to compare headline figures, ie ignoring distinction between functions or theatres, then Harrison (Economic Transformation of the USSR) gives the below figures:

Armed forces in 1944 (millions)

USA: 11.4
UK: 5.0
USSR: 11.2
Germany: 12.4
Which places the Soviet mobilisation, and the myth of the endless Russian hordes, firmly into context. The difference between the USSR and everyone else is that it also incurred roughly 8+ million losses; the vast majority of which occurred in the first six months of the war. The pre-war standing army of 4.5 million (total) was almost entirely wiped out during Barbarossa and the Soviets had just about made good the losses by spring 1941

Fall Blau is that the Soviets had mustered their scant reserves around Moscow (in anticipation of a renewed push for the city) and had little to spare for the rest of the front]

[Geiseric]

wow, that's new. Another thing to take into accound is that the germans were at several fronts, making that 12 million spread out.

[pranabjyoti]

How does that explain the fact that the Soviets amassed the largest standing army in the world's military history, over 11 million men and women in uniform for Nash Rodiny (Motherland)?
I just want to know, by which magic the Soviet army defeated an army which was superior to it both numerically and technologically. As per Om, even in 1944, when the Germans were on retreat, they were numerically superior to Soviet army.
Soviet fighting weapon like T-34, Klim Voroshilov (heavy tank, no German tank and self-propelled gun had the ability to penetrate its armor) and new kind fighters and bombers probably answer the question.

[DaringMehring]

USSR had a population approx. twice that of Germany

It had fully mobilized its population, with women working in factories and fields, even fighting

USSR was fighting one enemy.. Germany was fighting many, with troops in North Africa, western Europe.

So --- how on earth did the USSR not have a bigger army than Germany engaging on the Front?

Of course, the T34 was superior to any German tank. I'm just questioning this impossible seeming assertion that the Red Army was not numerically superior to its German enemy. How could this be? It can't be. If it was, it would represent a giant screw up by the regime.

[khad]

wow, that's new. Another thing to take into accound is that the germans were at several fronts, making that 12 million spread out.
About 75% of that was in the East. Also factor in a couple of million from Axis auxiliaries.


I'm just questioning this impossible seeming assertion that the Red Army was not numerically superior to its German enemy. How could this be? It can't be. If it was, it would represent a giant screw up by the regime.
It's not hard to understand when you account for 3-4 million irrevocables (killed, captured, missing) in the first few months of the war. Human resources aren't infinite.

1942 was another brutal year with another 3 million irrevocables, almost half in the summer following the Kharkov disaster. For most of 41-42 the Soviet Army was largely fighting defensive operations, which tend to incur significantly more casualties than offensive ones.

[The Grey Blur]

We've had some territory somewhere since 1927, and thats significant.
your understanding of marxism is terrifyingly stupid.

[pranabjyoti]

Khad is right, we just forgot that the Romanian, Hungarian and Italian army had also fought in Eastern front beside the German army.

[ComradeOm]

As per Om, even in 1944, when the Germans were on retreat, they were numerically superior to Soviet armyNo, I'm fairly sure that I said that I said that by mid 1944 the Soviets possessed a "marked and sustained numerical advantage" on the Eastern Front. In this theatre, by Oct 1944 the respective strength of the Red Army and the Nazi invaders (including auxiliary allies on both sides) stood at 6.9 million vs 2.1 million

Now this was obviously at the end of a year of victories (and includes Romanian that had switched sides) but there was only one month during 1944 in which the Red Army did not possess at least a 2:1 superiority in soldiers. This was May when the ratio dipped to 1.9:1 in favour of the Soviets

Which is exactly why I do not like the 'headline' figures. They fail to account for troop distributions or the differences between combat and support functions. At no point in the war did either the Wehrmacht or the Red Army field 10+ million fighting men/women. The figures are only useful for showing the scale of the mobilisation effort across the major belligerent nations


So --- how on earth did the USSR not have a bigger army than Germany engaging on the Front?Add eight plus million losses to the Soviet mobilisation figures and you get a truer account of the Soviet effort. Some of these were recovered from POW camps during the advance through Germany, but on the whole the Soviets had to overcome a massive manpower deficit caused by the disastrous opening months of the war. This saw over four million men (roughly equivalent to the entire pre-war standing army) get killed, maimed or captured in a mere 3-4 months. By and large they had to rebuild almost from scratch

[PhoenixAsh]

well...if you take into account the casualties and POWs

you arrive at fast numbers.

Germans & Co had 5 million casualties and 3.5 million POWS 9of which 1 million died in captivity) the total number of service personal on all fronts numbered somewhere arount 18 million.

The Russians had 10.5 million casualties and 5 million POWS (of which 3.5 died in captivity) the total number of service personal on all fronts was 35 million.

This offcourse does not include civilian casualties within the USSR during the German occupation of large parts of it....which number somewhere around 14 million!!! the highest number of deaths...second only to China (which also includes years prior to WWII )...


That is indicative of the huge amount of troops the USSR managed to recruit and field. Given the disasterous first year in both actual troop losses and territory loss
this is an admirable feat to be sure.

As for tactic...the first year, and especially the first month, was also disastrous because of the recent purges amongst army officers. Experience was lost and that meant that it was harder to form a good response to the invasion. However the Russian army overall was well trained but numerological inferior to that of the Germans. It also had the setback it had to guard a large border...and thus was also widely dispersed. It was also for some part stationed in Poland which did not have any significantly defendable positions. Also Stalin gave the orders not to retreat...which made USSR responses very static. Given the theory of Blitzkrieg this meant the army suffered the same fate as that of France. It was outmanouvred and destroyed in pockets.

German advances only halted when supply lines were outstreched and vulnerable for guerilla and partisan attacks. And that is when the USSR began to be able to implement aan offensive strategy.

[pranabjyoti]

As for tactic...the first year, and especially the first month, was also disastrous because of the recent purges amongst army officers. Experience was lost and that meant that it was harder to form a good response to the invasion. However the Russian army overall was well trained but numerological inferior to that of the Germans. It also had the setback it had to guard a large border...and thus was also widely dispersed. It was also for some part stationed in Poland which did not have any significantly defendable positions. Also Stalin gave the orders not to retreat...which made USSR responses very static. Given the theory of Blitzkrieg this meant the army suffered the same fate as that of France. It was outmanouvred and destroyed in pockets.

German advances only halted when supply lines were outstreched and vulnerable for guerilla and partisan attacks. And that is when the USSR began to be able to implement aan offensive strategy.
You have forgot that before attacking USSR, Germans won Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Austria, Poland and all the war machinery and manpower it gained from these countries were recruited against USSR. In short, USSR had to fight against virtually a large share of whole Europe alone. When Germany attacked France, it fall before the attack in spite of the famous Magino line and NO PURGING OCCURRED IN FRENCH ARMY. I have doubt, how long UK can withstand if the same amount of war effort was engaged against UK by Germany.
Remember, UK maybe a small country but the empire it contained at that time is certainly big enough in respect of resource and manpower.
Moreover, how can people forget that how the CIA bought the high-ranking officers of Saddam's army so that the US led invasion faced much less resistance and entered into Iraq nearly without effort. Probably Iraq army can fight better with some purging inside it.

[khad]

The Russians had 10.5 million casualties and 5 million POWS (of which 3.5 died in captivity) the total number of service personal on all fronts was 35 million.

Per Krivosheev,

KIA 5.2m
DOW 1.1m
Accident 0.5m
POW/MIA 4.5m

Subtotal 11.3m

Less 1.8m repatriated POWs in 1945

= 9.5m military deaths


Which is exactly why I do not like the 'headline' figures. They fail to account for troop distributions or the differences between combat and support functions. At no point in the war did either the Wehrmacht or the Red Army field 10+ million fighting men/women. The figures are only useful for showing the scale of the mobilisation effort across the major belligerent nations

What is more important to consider is local densities. Figures for the theater are misleading because both the Germans and the Soviets enjoyed numerical advantages up until the very end of the war. At Kursk, along the axes of advance the Germans enjoyed local superiority of 6-10:1 against the Soviet defenders. In 1945, the main axes of the Soviet advance sometimes enjoyed 20-30:1 superiority, but they were actually outnumbered in deprioritized "passive" sections of the front.

This is why the Germans were still able to mount limited counterstrokes as late as March of 1945. In the Lake Balaton Offensive a concentration of three German armies caught the Soviets off guard and made limited gains for about a week. STAVKA let this go on for about a week before they shifted the necessary units and drove them back to their starting positions in 24 hours.

[PhoenixAsh]

Per Krivosheev,

KIA 5.2m
DOW 1.1m
Accident 0.5m
POW/MIA 4.5m

Subtotal 11.3m

Less 1.8m repatriated POWs in 1945

= 9.5m military deaths

Yes...this is also possible. The problem with the figures is that much in the first year happened in a lot of chaos which made it virtually impossible to keep accurate counts and much of the census information of previous years had been lost. The real numbers will never be known accurately.


Soviet officers in 1949 placed the number at around 13 million.

8,500,000 KIA/MIA
2,600,000 dead in prison scamps
2,500,000 DOW

Howerver...a million more or less, thuogh very interesting for statistical purposes and tragic,...indeed does not make the immense effort and accomplishment of fielding such an army in such adverse conditions any less of an admirable feat.

thnx for the info btw.

[khad]

Yes...this is also possible. The problem with the figures is that much in the first year happened in a lot of chaos which made it virtually impossible to keep accurate counts and much of the census information of previous years had been lost. The real numbers will never be known accurately.
It has been suggested that there were some 500,000 unregistered military irrevocables in 1941, but the Krivosheev figures are more or less treated as definitive by historians. The Soviet accounting system might have been under duress in 1941, but it never got as bad as the German one in 1945, when they just stopped keeping records.


Soviet officers in 1949 placed the number at around 13 million.

8,500,000 KIA/MIA
2,600,000 dead in prison scamps
2,500,000 DOWThis figure is rather outdated and doesn't use the categories of tabulation that the Soviet army used.

MIAs were not counted with KIAs. They were tabulated with POWs. There is no reliable way to disaggregate POW deaths from MIA deaths from Soviet records.
DOW was a category that covered deaths registered after evacuation and probably the least subject to guesswork and estimation. The archival record which Krivosheev examined bore this out. Those who died during evac were considered KIA.

Moreover, there is no accounting for losses due to disease, frostbite, accidents, etc.

[khad]

Anyway, in relation to the OP, I wish people would stop with this rather tired fetishization of tactics. Was Trotsky a Lt. Col. in charge of a regiment? Did he draw up deployment diagrams for meeting engagements? Artillery saturation patterns? Of course not. Field tactics was what he got others to do. When you go to the army, front, and theater levels, it's all operational and strategic. One of Trotsky's key contributions to the army was in his reorganization of it, particularly involving beating it into fighting shape through the use of brutal disciplinary measures. Another was the skillful use of rail to shift men and materiel around to respond to threats. Trotsky actually had a mobile command train with which he traveled over 150,000km during the course of the war.


On the eve of WWII, such advanced theories were dismissed as "fascist wrecking" and abandoned in favor of outdated trench warfare and cavalry tactics, while vast swaths of the Soviet officer corps were purged for their perceived disloyalty, thus contributing immensely to the disasters of 1941.
That's news to me, because Deep Battle's roots lay in observations of cavalry warfare from the Civil War. Trench warfare wasn't exactly outdated either, as it had to be employed again in short order in defenses like in Leningrad.

The point of the reorganization was to rein in what Stalin believed to be a potentially bonapartist officer corps. Deep battle was a way of fighting that required a high degree of command initiative, since exploitation elements potentially hundreds of kilometers away from front command needed to be able to act semi-independently. This carried over to political behavior. Tukhachevsky had been given much leeway to construct his own mechanized corps within the Soviet Army, and he was even in charge of parts of the Soviet economy under the 5 year plans.

After the purges, what you had was a reshuffling of the USSR's mechanized forces away from exploitation and pursuit towards an infantry support role.

What happened in France was similar to this. You saw the French army go from a "strike first and split Germany in half if they so much as look at us funny" plan of the 1920s to the Maginot line of the 1930s. The line was a compromise between the Popular Front's attempt to democratize the army (as in making it a representative citizen army through more conscription) and a professional officer elite who regarded the Popular Front's conscripts as unreliable and subversive. In both cases the logic is analogous: to control potentially unruly personnel within the military by straitjacketing them to tightly controlled operations that could be directed with detailed orders.

[ComradeOm]

You have forgot that before attacking USSR, Germans won Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Austria, Poland and all the war machinery and manpower it gained from these countries were recruited against USSR. In short, USSR had to fight against virtually a large share of whole Europe aloneEh, no. While some material was seized in Western Europe and Czechoslovakia, it was Germany's allies in the East (Hungary, Finland and Romania) and Italy that provided the vast majority of the non-German troops on the Eastern Font. These in turn never accounted for more than 20-25% (max) of the invasion force and were never at the spearhead of the advance. So the USSR was not somehow facing the combined might of Europe


When Germany attacked France, it fall before the attack in spite of the famous Magino line and NO PURGING OCCURRED IN FRENCH ARMYNo purging was needed - the French High Command was perfectly capable of cutting their own throats. The defeat of France was entirely a military one in that the bulk of the French armies were clustered to the north in anticipation of a German offensive through central Belgium. Instead the thrust came from the south, neatly avoiding the heavy fortifications and then swinging north to trap the Allied armies against the Channel. With no strategic reserve in place the French position crumpled

Had the Germans engaged the French on the latter's terms (ie, pushed through Belgium as expected) then the most probable outcome would have been a stalemate. This was as expected by the original Halder Plan which only foresaw a limited push along the Channel in 1941. In terms of men and materials the combined Allied armies were certainly a match for the Wehrmacht

So there was nothing about the defeat of France that was determined by somehow superhuman German soldiers or some amazing new tactics. It was first and foremost the result of a disastrous French deployment. This does not excuse other nations making their strategic cock-ups; as indeed Stalin did in 1941


What is more important to consider is local densities. Figures for the theater are misleading because both the Germans and the Soviets enjoyed numerical advantages up until the very end of the war. At Kursk, along the axes of advance the Germans enjoyed local superiority of 6-10:1 against the Soviet defenders. In 1945, the main axes of the Soviet advance sometimes enjoyed 20-30:1 superiority, but they were actually outnumbered in deprioritized "passive" sections of the front.This is what I've tried to emphasise in my previous points - the Soviets proved to be exceptionally good at creating these local superiorities by shuttling reserves along the front. Which in turn gave rise to the German perception of endless Russian reserves - they did not know that one part of the line had been stripped in other to supply another. This was both a triumph of logistics and intelligence

I will question your figures at Kursk though. Such local German superiorities may have existed at the point of advance but overall the Soviets had more than a 2:1 advantage in personnel, rising to at least 3:1 for guns. This was an operation that Stavka and Russian intelligence called right and allocated appropriate reserves for


The point of the reorganization was to rein in what Stalin believed to be a potentially bonapartist officer corpsI don't necessarily believe this, because the purges extended far beyond the Red Army, but then nor do I believe that they were solely to blame for the disasters of 1941. That was primarily the result of the border deployments. However, regardless of the causes of the purges, it can't be denied that they introduced serious and near-fatal instability into the Red Army. The impact was two-fold:

1) The executions removed at a stroke a vast body of experienced officers - up to a third of the 75-80,000 office corps were purged. This could not be made good in three years. By 1941 most Soviet commanders were probably serving two to three levels beyond their competence. One of the immediate lessons that emerged from Barbarossa was that these generals and colonels did not know how to command large formations and often made basic mistakes. Hence the temporary abolition of mechanised corps and the amazingly basic directives (eg, how to properly coordinate artillery barrages) that Stavka was forced to send out. The commanders would learn and the mechanised formations would reappear but the damage in the meantime had been immense

2) Soviet doctrine and organisation regressed considerably after 1937, particularly after the Kulik Commission of 1939. The highly advanced and admirable theoretical base (which would be 'rediscovered' in 1942-43) was largely abandoned with a shift in emphasis away from mechanised warfare and towards more conventional infantry operations. This was accompanied by an organisational reform (although the tank corps did survive being formally abolished) which didn't help. The results of this can be glimpsed in the shambolic performance during the Winter War, which produced yet another set of reforms. At least these, in 1940, were productive and saw the sidelining of Voroshilov, the reintroduction of mechanised formations and increased emphasis on training. Basically, the Red Army was returning to its 1936 state but at the cost of great losses and continuing organisational disruption

Or to sum it all up by quoting Glantz, "the bloodletting... tore the brain from the Red Army, smashed its morale, stifled any spark of original thought and left a magnificent hollow establishment, ripe for catastrophic defeat". All to weed out "potential Bonapartists"...


What happened in France was similar to this. You saw the French army go from a "strike first and split Germany in half if they so much as look at us funny" plan of the 1920s to the Maginot line of the 1930s. The line was a compromise between the Popular Front's attempt to democratize the army (as in making it a representative citizen army through more conscription) and a professional officer elite who regarded the Popular Front's conscripts as unreliable and subversive. In both cases the logic is analogous: to control potentially unruly personnel within the military by straitjacketing them to tightly controlled operations that could be directed with detailed ordersSources? I've not read anything on PF attempts to "democratize the army" and such behaviour would have been out of character for that government. There was a conscription law in 1938 but that was passed by the conservative Daladier government and merely broadened the terms of the draft. This was something that the French officers, while also decrying the decline in the peacetime cadres, had been calling for for years. So the intention was certainly not to start a fight with the military

[khad]

Sources? I've not read anything on PF attempts to "democratize the army" and such behaviour would have been out of character for that government. There was a conscription law in 1938 but that was passed by the conservative Daladier government and merely broadened the terms of the draft. This was something that the French officers, while also decrying the decline in the peacetime cadres, had been calling for for years. So the intention was certainly not to start a fight with the military
You forgot the 1928 conscription law backed by the French left which lowered the term of conscription to one year. I'm using the chronological definition of the Popular Front broadly, taking into account earlier actions undertaken by the same political actors.

The one year conscription law that the popular front supported was what offended the brass. The goal was to cycle more Frenchmen into the armed forces in the sort of the republican tradition of mass citizen armies, while on the part of the professional military elite, this was seen as civilian leftist meddling in their domain and a threat to their institutional autonomy. There is an essay by Elizabeth Kier that talks about this political struggle from the perspective of institutional culture. I'll post a bit of that here, the more relevant pieces anyway:


the early 1920s over the length ofconscription, a radical socialist declared,
"It is necessary that France have the army of its policies; but I don't want
France to carry out the policies of her army."41
In contrast, the French Right demanded the retention ofa professional
army. Just like the Left, the Right felt that the number ofyears that the soldier
served in the ranks determined whether or not the army could be
relied upon to maintain the status quo. In a domestic crisis, only soldiers
toughened by many years of strict discipline could be depended upon to
guarantee social stability and the preservation of law and order. Creating
citizen-soldiers would only, in the Right's view, strengthen the revolutionary
forces in society. In the nineteenth century Louis Adolphe Thiers
declared that he did not want "obligatory military service which will
en flame passions and put a rifle on the shoulder ofall the socialists; I want
a professional army, solid, disciplined, and capable of eliciting respect at
home and abroad."42

Whereas the Left sought to avoid a deep divide between the army and
society by minimizing the length of conscription, the Right wanted to
keep the conscript under arms for at least two years. The Right agreed that
a shorter military service was sufficient to train soldiers, but more time was
needed to create the necessary obeissance passive. 43 Before Parliament,
Horace de Choiseul explained this process: "A soldier that has served for
one year has learned without doubt to use his weapons, but he has not
learned to obey; his character has not been subjugated, his will has not
been broken; he has not yet become what makes an army strong: passive
obedience. "44 For the Right, a long term ofservice would allow the officer
corps to instill an esprit de corps in the troops and thus detach the allegiance
of the men from the society at large and forge a collective identity
that would unquestionably follow the orders of the commanders.
Remembering the workers' revolt in 1848 and hardened by their experience
during the Commune, the Right felt that one of the army's chief
tasks was to preserve peace at home. As the Germans were approaching
Paris in 1940, General Weygand revealingly declared, "Ah! If only I could
be sure the Germans would leave me the necessary forces to maintain
order!"45

...

The French army objected to the shorter length ofservice, but once it had
been adopted, the army was obliged to design a doctrine around that decision.
It is because the French army had a choice that the importance of the
army's culture becomes clear. A shorter length of service did not require
the adoption ofa defensive doctrine. It was a conceptual barrier that stood
in the way of the adoption or, more accurately, that prevented a continuation
of an offensive orientation after 1928.

An offensive doctrine was objectively possible. The French army did
not suffer from a lack of financial support; the requisite material for
armored warfare could have been acquired. Nor was it unaware of offensive
alternatives. The French army was well versed on doctrinal developments
in Germany, as well as having its own advocates of mechanized warfare.
De Gaulle's campaign in the 1930s is the most renowned but not the
only attempt by a French officer to persuade the French army ofthe potential
of massed armor. Nor did French civilians demand a defensive doctrine
or actively participate in the formation of army doctrine. Even construction
of the Maginot Line left open offensive possibilities. As discussed
above, the fortifications were initially conceived to support offensive operations.
The French army had the money, ideas, and freedom to adopt an
offensive doctrine, but it instead chose a defensive doctrine. Its organizational
culture would not allow otherwise.

It was conceptually impossible for the French army to conceive of the
execution of an offensive doctrine with short-term conscripts. To the
French officer, one-year conscripts were good for only one thing-a defensive
doctrine. In the army's view "young troops" could only be engaged
"methodically"; they could not handle sophisticated technology or new
methods of warfare, and they could not exhibit the elan necessary for
offensive actions. To most French officers, a one-year term ofconscription
reduced the army to marginal value. In discussing the annual intake of
conscripts, General Debeney explained that these "men are far from having
the solidity of professional soldiers since they have only done six to
eleven months of service.... In effect, this mass of reservists will only be
good for the second echelon.P" Similarly, General Weygand commented
on the technical capabilities of short-term conscripts: "The professional
army is able to use certain materiaL ... A militia, to the contrary, will be
incapable of manipulating modern material.T"

Although Petain is frequently blamed for infusing the French army
with a defensive spirit, he was explicit in arguing that it was the presence
of the nation armee that made it inconceivable to initiate a war against
Germany with a strategic offensive. Petain stated that "the professional
army is above aU an offensive instrument.P'' With only short-term conscripts,
General Henri Mordacq explained, "it was absolutely impossible
to give our contingents an instruction responding to the demands ofmodern
warfare."53 The vice president of the Superior Council of War and
inspector general of the army, General Weygand, agreed about the marginal
value of the French conscript army:

The character and the possibilities of the French army were profoundly
modified the day that France adopted military serviceofless than two years.
... Because of its organizational structure, today's army [1932] is much
weaker and lessprepared to fight than the army in 1914 .... This army has
been reduced to the lowest level possible to permit France'ssecuriry.P"
In sum, short-term conscripts, who represented only quantity, could not
be entrusted with offensive operations.

This rejection of the value of short-term conscripts or reserves was not
shared by all armies or based on the experiences of the French army. The
French officers had plenty of opportunities to see that short-term conscripts
could be used effectively in offensive operations. France's defeat in
1870 by a quantitatively superior army based on universal military service
should have alerted French military leaders to a potential source of power
that they had previously dismissed. Yet, before World War I, while Joffre
was declaring that "under no circumstances will we absorb the reserve formations
in the active units," the German army was stating that "reserve
troops will be employed in the same way as the active troops."55 In addition,
during the initial battles ofWorld War I, the German army had successfully
used reserve formations in offensive operations. Since it was
Napoleon who first took advantage of this new form of military organization,
this persistence of the link between professional armies and offensive
operations in the organizational culture of the French army is all the more
surprising. By Napoleon's mastery of the war of masses, the French army
had conquered all of Europe.

The Military's Parochial Interests

According to a functional argument, offensive doctrines are powerful tools
in a military organization's pursuit of greater resources, autonomy, and
prestige. The pursuit of these goals, however, is largely indeterminate of
choices between offensive and defensive military doctrines. Even if these
goals could be fulfilled only with an offensive doctrine, military organizations
often forfeit the attainment of them. This pattern holds true even in
the case ofthe preference for greater resources. Furthermore, without civilian
prompting, military organizations ostracize those officers who advo-
care a more offensive orientation and willingly and dogmatically endorse
defensive doctrines.

Although Posen and Snyder argue that the preference for the reduction
of uncertainty encourages the adoption of offensive doctrines, defensive
doctrines can also structure the battlefield and reduce the need to improvise.
An integral aspect of the French army's excessively defensive doctrine
before World War II was the concept that the French termed the methodical
battle. Instead of allowing for initiative and flexibility, fa batailleconduite
ensured tightly controlled operations in which all units adhered to
strictly scheduled timetables. As a German officer explained, "French tactics
are essentially characterized by a systematization which seeks to anticipate
and account for any eventuality in the smallest detail." 16 The French
army's defensive doctrine maximized the centralization of command and
reduced spontaneity to a minimum.

Similarly, military organizations use both offensive and defensive doctrines
to insulate themselves from civilian interference. The French
army's endorsement of a defensive doctrine after 1929 is partly attributable
to its being part of a larger package that allowed the army to retain
what it most treasured-a small (and relatively autonomous) professional
force. With the exception of the air force, there is a weak connection
between autonomy and offensive doctrines. Civilians, and especially
those in the foreign office, would be more likely to interfere in military
planning if these operations included offensive strikes into a foreign
country. Civilians are not likely to take a hands-off approach if their
armed forces are invading a neighboring counrry.l/ Air forces have
exploited strategic bombing (an offensive doctrine) to ensure their independence.
During the 1920s and 1930s, both the French and the British
air forces used an offensive doctrine in their efforts to obtain institutional
autonomy. But the extent to which each service manipulated its
doctrinal preferences to defeat the army and navy attack on its independence
does not correspond to the expectations of a functional perspective.
While the French air force fought bitterly and unsuccessfully for its
independence, French airmen only halfheartedly endorsed the offensive
doctrine that, according to a functional argument, could have furthered
their quest for autonomy. 18 In contrast, the Royal Air Force (RAF) gained
institutional autonomy relatively easily but remained enamored of
strategic bombing long after it had cemented its independent status as
the third service.

[khad]

I will question your figures at Kursk though.

You're wrong on this. On average a soviet regiment at Kursk on the front line could expect to face a full German division, a division by a full corps. It is simply impossible to break through entrenched defenses without overwhelming numerical superiority at the point of attack.

The Soviets enjoyed a 2:1 advantage in the salient, but most of that salient barely saw action. Many Soviet troops waited in operational reserve to be shifted forward as the Kursk defensive transitioned into the Orel offensive. The Germans, on the other hand, since they held the initiative for the attack, could choose where to focus. In the north, the full weight of 9th army was concentrated along a frontage just 45km long. This was 9th army, the largest army formation the Germans ever fielded, weighing in at over 330,000 men by the time of Kursk. On the Soviet side, the northern flank was defended by the 70A, 13A, 48A, with the 2GTA in reserve. Given that an average Soviet field army was between 60-70,000 men, that's almost 300,000 men. However, along the 45km frontage that was 9th Army's responsibility, there was only the 13A, with the 2GTA lying about 20-30km behind in reserve. You can do the math. On the tactical scale the force ratios for breakthrough engagements were easily on the order of 6:1 or even 10:1. The 2GTA sustained severe losses on the second day having been thrown into a hasty counterattack without the sufficient support--it was only until several days later that force ratios shifted to favor the Soviets as the necessary reserves were shifted to the combat frontage.

Edit: This map of the force disposition of the northern flank will help illustrate what I said. Take note of the dotted lines demarcating zones of responsibility and axes of advance. Any one division of 13A could expect to face up to 6 German ones. Also consider the fact that any given German division was on average 50% larger than a corresponding Soviet division.

http://i.imgur.com/JU4xO.png


I don't necessarily believe this, because the purges extended far beyond the Red Army, but then nor do I believe that they were solely to blame for the disasters of 1941. That was primarily the result of the border deployments. However, regardless of the causes of the purges, it can't be denied that they introduced serious and near-fatal instability into the Red Army. The impact was two-fold:

1) The executions removed at a stroke a vast body of experienced officers - up to a third of the 75-80,000 office corps were purged. This could not be made good in three years. By 1941 most Soviet commanders were probably serving two to three levels beyond their competence. One of the immediate lessons that emerged from Barbarossa was that these generals and colonels did not know how to command large formations and often made basic mistakes. Hence the temporary abolition of mechanised corps and the amazingly basic directives (eg, how to properly coordinate artillery barrages) that Stavka was forced to send out. The commanders would learn and the mechanised formations would reappear but the damage in the meantime had been immense

2) Soviet doctrine and organisation regressed considerably after 1937, particularly after the Kulik Commission of 1939. The highly advanced and admirable theoretical base (which would be 'rediscovered' in 1942-43) was largely abandoned with a shift in emphasis away from mechanised warfare and towards more conventional infantry operations. This was accompanied by an organisational reform (although the tank corps did survive being formally abolished) which didn't help. The results of this can be glimpsed in the shambolic performance during the Winter War, which produced yet another set of reforms. At least these, in 1940, were productive and saw the sidelining of Voroshilov, the reintroduction of mechanised formations and increased emphasis on training. Basically, the Red Army was returning to its 1936 state but at the cost of great losses and continuing organisational disruption

Or to sum it all up by quoting Glantz, "the bloodletting... tore the brain from the Red Army, smashed its morale, stifled any spark of original thought and left a magnificent hollow establishment, ripe for catastrophic defeat". All to weed out "potential Bonapartists"... None of this contradicts what I said. Military men like Tukhachevsky were in charge of large sections of the economy, Tukhachevsky in particular because he was funneling it into developing his model mechanized corps.

What I said was that Stalin believed that the officer corps as an institution was getting too powerful for his liking. He likely feared bonapartism, especially since radical military doctrines are typically seen as tools that military institutions use to push for greater autonomy. Deep battle was one of the most salient examples of this. On a command and control scale of 1-5, with 1 being minimal and 5 being detailed order tactics (the Wehrmacht's mission-type C&C rounding out the middle at around 3), the Deep Battle school, or as Simpkin (writing in the 80s) would term the "Old Tankers" would rank between 1 and 2.

[ComradeOm]

You forgot the 1928 conscription law backed by the French left which lowered the term of conscription to one year. I'm using the chronological definition of the Popular Front broadly, taking into account earlier actions undertaken by the same political actors.

The one year conscription law that the popular front supported was what offended the brass. The goal was to cycle more Frenchmen into the armed forces in the sort of the republican tradition of mass citizen armies, while on the part of the professional military elite, this was seen as civilian leftist meddling in their domain and a threat to their institutional autonomy. There is an essay by Elizabeth Kier that talks about this political struggle from the perspective of institutional culture. I'll post a bit of that here, the more relevant pieces anyway:First of all, can we please stop calling this the Popular Front. It was not. The term that you are looking for is Cartel des gauches. But then even to talk of this is misleading. Largely because the Cartel was not in power in 1928. These military reforms were passed by the conservative government of Poincaré

The Republican conception of the 'nation in arms' is well known and has a long history. Most importantly for this discussion however is that it was near-uniformly accepted in the 1920s. Certainly by civilian politicians, including those epitomised by Poincaré: conservatives who had rallied to the Republic and its traditions. The generals demurred but in 1928-29 they were bought off with an increased professional cadre and a separate colonial army

This was not a matter of the Left forcing themselves of an reluctant Right or military. It was certainly not a matter of the Popular Front picking a fight. The arguments over France should have a popular or professional army had been settled in the 19th C and decisively so in the Great War. The generals obviously pushed for their views to prevail but it was against a wider Republican tradition (now as much associated with the cult of the poilu or peasant-soldier as with 1792), plus fiscal necessities, rather than some Left programme


You're wrong on this. On average a soviet regiment at Kursk on the front line could expect to face a full German division, a division by a full corps. It is simply impossible to break through entrenched defenses without overwhelming numerical superiority at the point of attack.The key term here being "at the point of attack". I consider it far more useful, in this discussion, to examine the ability of both sides to deploy strategic and operational reserves. Because then you're not dealing with the ability of junior officers to engineer such an advantage or the impact of defensive works or the like. Holding Kursk up as an example of the Soviets being outnumbered is pretty disingenuous when they were able to commit, if needed, twice as many men as the Germans

[khad]

First of all, can we please stop calling this the Popular Front. It was not. The term that you are looking for is Cartel des gauches. But then even to talk of this is misleading. Largely because the Cartel was not in power in 1928. These military reforms were passed by the conservative government of Poincaré

What are you saying? That because it was Poincaré the Cartel just magically disappeared? You do realize that they won the popular vote, despite not having the PCF. But let's take a look at Poincaré's legislature. Here are results of the 1928 legislative election:

Far-Left
French Communist Party (PCF): 11

Left
French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO): 100
Republican-Socialist Party (PRS): 18
French Socialist Party (PSF): 12

Centre-Left
Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party (PRRRS): 125
Independents of the Left: 15
Social and Unionist Left: 18

Total Far-Left, Left, and Centre-Left: 299


Centre-Right
Radical Left 54
Democratic and Social Action 29
Republicans of the Left 64
Popular Democrats 19

Right
Democratic and Republican Union 102

Total Centre-Right and Right: 268

Non-affiliated 37

Grand Total 604

As you can clearly see the left still outnumbered the right in the legislature, though they no longer commanded simple majority.


The Republican conception of the 'nation in arms' is well known and has a long history. Most importantly for this discussion however is that it was near-uniformly accepted in the 1920s. Certainly by civilian politicians, including those epitomised by Poincaré: conservatives who had rallied to the Republic and its traditions.On this particular issue they were able to draw in many of their opponents due to the evocation of traditional republican sensibilities, true, but there was never any doubt which side of the political spectrum was for the reduction of conscription terms. If you know anything about Poincaré's political history, you may remember this (http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr_thirp.html#rpo):


On 17 January 1913, Poincaré was elected President of the Republic by the Congress, and immediatly attempted to increase the power of the President. Poincaré was one of the partisans of the extension of the duration of the conscription from two to three years.You can be pretty sure it wasn't Poincaré and his people who thought up the plan to reduce conscription to one year. Three-year conscription was one of the major issues that rallied the French left against him.


This was not a matter of the Left forcing themselves of an reluctant Right or military. It was certainly not a matter of the Popular Front picking a fight. The arguments over France should have a popular or professional army had been settled in the 19th C and decisively so in the Great War. The generals obviously pushed for their views to prevail but it was against a wider Republican tradition (now as much associated with the cult of the poilu or peasant-soldier as with 1792), plus fiscal necessities, rather than some Left programme
Actually, that is not the case at all. France's army was still subject to intense debate in the aftermath of WW1, when you had arguments being made for the necessity of professionalization by the military. The argument that they used hinged on 1) the defense of sites of strategic concern, such as the northern coal fields (seen as a failure on the part of the French citizen army) and 2) offensive operations. They were eventually granted an allotment of 100,000 professional troops as a political compromise.

Still in the 1930s you had people like de Gaulle calling for a professional core in the army to have a minimum of 6 years of service.


The key term here being "at the point of attack". I consider it far more useful, in this discussion, to examine the ability of both sides to deploy strategic and operational reserves. Because then you're not dealing with the ability of junior officers to engineer such an advantage or the impact of defensive works or the like.Now you're just pedantically changing the goalposts of the debate. What I said originally was this:


At Kursk, along the axes of advance the Germans enjoyed local superiority of 6-10:1 against the Soviet defenders. In 1945, the main axes of the Soviet advance sometimes enjoyed 20-30:1 superiority, but they were actually outnumbered in deprioritized "passive" sections of the front.

This unequivocally shows that I was addressing the matter of force concentration on a strictly local scale, ie "sections" of the front.

This apparently you had a problem with, even when I showed you the force disposition of the northern flank, with the 330,000 of 9th Army arrayed against a front line held by 13A and a second line held by 2GTA. At each stage of the advance the German army enjoyed a massive local numerical superiority.

You'll also have to do a better job of convincing me that operational reserves are considered a part of the "axis of advance" since what really made Germany call off the offensive on the northern flank was the counterblow by 11A, 61A, 3GTA, 4TA, 3A along the Bryansk Front some 100km to the north, striking towards Orel. This threatened the 9th Army with encirclement.


Holding Kursk up as an example of the Soviets being outnumbered is pretty disingenuous when they were able to commit, if needed, twice as many men as the GermansThe only thing disingenuous is you putting words in my mouth. My only point, originally, was about active and passive sectors in an offensive operation, how local superiorities would always favor the attacker because as he holds the initiative, he can choose where to attack and where to focus. Sure, the Soviets enjoyed numerical superiority in the salient, but this was spread out over 500km of front, minus those units held in operational reserve, whereas the Germans concentrated 700,000 men along just two narrow frontages of 40km in the north and south. The average troop density of the Soviet defense was much, much lower than for the German attack.

This is why defensive operations can never accomplish a decision. It was the offensive phase of Stalingrad on the northern and southern flanks that trapped the German 6th Army, and it was the beginning of the Orel offensive during Kursk that made 9th Army retreat and Zitadelle get scrubbed altogether. That so many operational reserves were brought up to stop the Southern spearhead actually hampered Soviet plans, as those units could not as effectively contribute to ensuing Soviet offensives. Thus, the liberation of Kharkov in the south happened some two weeks after the liberation of Orel in the north.


I consider it far more useful, in this discussion, to examine the ability of both sides to deploy strategic and operational reserves.I never disputed your figures, John Mearsheimer. But I was never talking about that.

[ComradeOm]

What are you saying? That because it was Poincaré the Cartel just magically disappeared?Well, yes. The Cartel was an electoral pact and a left-coalition government. After 1926 (note, two years before the 1928 elections) it was no longer in power. Instead the conservatives, under Poincaré, formed a new coalition government with the help of a number of Radicals. This was not a cartel des gauches and it was a whole world away from the Popular Front


As you can clearly see the left still outnumbered the right in the legislature, though they no longer commanded simple majorityAnd...? Really, are you trying to assert that the post-1928 government was of the Left because parties of the Left were numerically superior in the Assembly? This betrays an ignorance of both coalition politics and the political workings of the Third Republic

The 1928 election was a triumph for Poincaré because he was able to piece together a coalition government following it. In doing so he relied heavily on elements of the Radical Party that supported his policies, particularly in regards to the franc. The story of post-war French politics was one of continually shifting Radical sympathies. Even talking of a unified Radical Party is somewhat misleading. Ditto with trying to impose strict party divisions on the politics of the 1920s


You can be pretty sure it wasn't Poincaré and his people who thought up the plan to reduce conscription to one year. Three-year conscription was one of the major issues that rallied the French left against himIn 1913, yes. Not in 1926-28 when the Left was marginalised and he was head of a right-centre coalition. More to the point, the Great War had significantly altered perceptions of the French Army. On the Right the cult of the peasant-soldier came to supersede the fear of the citizen-soldier and, more importantly given the repeated financial crises facing Paris, the budgetary strain of maintaining the army forced repeated cuts throughout the 1920s. It was the latter, and not some Left campaign, that led to a reduction in the service period in both 1925 and 1928


Actually, that is not the case at all. France's army was still subject to intense debate in the aftermath of WW1, when you had arguments being made for the necessity of professionalization by the militaryYes, the military was pushing for increased cadres, more professionalism, etc, etc. The politicians had long decided that this was simply not going to happen and the Right had reconciled itself to the 'nation in arms'. The generals could complain all they wanted but it was the civilians that were firmly in charge. In contrast to previous periods, there was no real danger of Bonapartism in the late Third Republic. It was only when this was actively collapsing in 1940 that a reactionary bloc of officers moved to occupy the political stage

So to sum the above up, you claimed that "the Popular Front attempted to democratize the army (as in making it a representative citizen army through more conscription". In reality the Popular Front did no such thing; the previous Left governments did no such thing; the 1928 military legislation was passed by a centre-right coalition; these reforms were enforced by necessity and backed by most of the political class - Left and Right. These military reforms were simply not some attempt by the Left to thwart Bonapartism in the military


This unequivocally shows that I was addressing the matter of force concentration on a strictly local scale, ie "sections" of the frontWhich is very much my point. You are the only one doing so

[khad]

Well, yes. The Cartel was an electoral pact and a left-coalition government. After 1926 (note, two years before the 1928 elections) it was no longer in power. Instead the conservatives, under Poincaré, formed a new coalition government with the help of a number of Radicals. This was not a cartel des gauches and it was a whole world away from the Popular Front

And...? Really, are you trying to assert that the post-1928 government was of the Left because parties of the Left were numerically superior in the Assembly? This betrays an ignorance of both coalition politics and the political workings of the Third Republic

The 1928 election was a triumph for Poincaré because he was able to piece together a coalition government following it. In doing so he relied heavily on elements of the Radical Party that supported his policies, particularly in regards to the franc. The story of post-war French politics was one of continually shifting Radical sympathies. Even talking of a unified Radical Party is somewhat misleading. Ditto with trying to impose strict party divisions on the politics of the 1920s.

I believe you are misunderstanding things. I merely pointed out the relative sizes of "left" and "right" in the assembly to demonstrate the presence of continuity in the assembly, despite alliance shifting. The same political actors who had formed the cartel, who had passed into an alliance with Poincare, would eventually help to re-form the cartel in 1932.

You are overemphasizing the significance of the appearance of the Poincaré government (on this matter specifically), when the pieces of the Cartel were still present and could still exercise enough pull on certain projects of the left, though many joined with Poincaré on fiscal matters. Proposals to reduce the term of conscription to one year were on the table in early 1926, in the waning months of the Cartel, and the debate continued until it became the Painlevé law in 1928. If you remember Painlevé, he collaborated with Herriot to form the Cartel and then ran for president as a left opponent of Doumergue. He was minister of war during the time of the cartel, retaining that position throughout the 1920s and ended his career as the minister of air under the second Cartel government.

It's disingenuous on your part to suggest that an initiative that was proposed under the leftwing cartel government suddenly became rightwing the moment Poincaré took office. Looking at the main political actors involved, there was far more continuity.

The nature of the debate over the conscription law, which took more than two years, centered on a number of preconditions, particularly involving expanding the number of police and professional soldiers. The left had consistently pushed since the days of the Cartel for an immediate reduction in conscription terms without any preconditions, but the final loi Painlevé represented a compromise. The gendarmerie was expanded by 15,000, and the total number of professional troops was increased to 106,000. Moreover, the left was not able to secure a number of key clauses that underscored their lack of faith in the military to properly socialize citizen-soldiers, such as the provision for training centers not attached to active units.


In 1913, yes. Not in 1926-28 when the Left was marginalised and he was head of a right-centre coalition. More to the point, the Great War had significantly altered perceptions of the French Army. On the Right the cult of the peasant-soldier came to supersede the fear of the citizen-soldier and, more importantly given the repeated financial crises facing Paris, the budgetary strain of maintaining the army forced repeated cuts throughout the 1920s. It was the latter, and not some Left campaign, that led to a reduction in the service period in both 1925 and 1928.Even when there were more on the right who came to accept the concept of the citizen soldier, they by no means embraced it. That it took two years of debate and numerous compromises to get the new conscription law attests to the fact that there were still serious political disagreements.


So to sum the above up, you claimed that "the Popular Front attempted to democratize the army (as in making it a representative citizen army through more conscription". In reality the Popular Front did no such thing; the previous Left governments did no such thingAnd where did such ideas originate and where were they carried strongest? Who wrote the New Army in 1911?


Which is very much my point. You are the only one doing soThe most academically pedantic thing you can possibly do is to accuse someone of not doing something he didn't even set out to do in the first place.

[el_chavista]

Maoist and Guevarist fetishism for guerrilla warfare led to the removal from mass struggleThe guerrilla warfare has an initial phase or guerrilla foco, to gain strengh until you have a true people's army, but, nevertheless, victory can only be reached by a general popular uprising.

Although mobility is the main concern of the guerrilla warfare, still the traditional firepower issue applies. So, according to the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla by Carlos Marighella (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla/index.htm), if the guerrilla is besieged by the regular army, the only way out is by doing, in turn, a siege to a smaller part of the regular army, inside its bigger siege.

[Red Bayonet]

To a get an idea, research the Russian-Polish War of 1921.