The fight on the eastern front in World War II makes for an interesting study; often, this theater of war is presented in terms of German operations and Soviet reaction, German defense planning and Soviet offensive action. In such studies, Soviet planning by the Stavka is portrayed as inferior to the kind of planning conducted by the German General Staff, the premier military institution of continental Europe.
The soldiers of the Red Army fare even worse. Soldiers of the German army, for all the faults of their political leadership, are portrayed as skilled professionals fighting against overwhelming odds against the “red hordes.” Except for some translated reminisces of the Great Patriotic War from the Soviet era, which read like hagiographies, very little is available about average Soviet soldiers.
One of the most recent books touching upon this topic is The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in World War II through Objects. Generally, books on the eastern front portray Soviet soldiers at their worst: attacking the enemy while drunk, rigid control by politruks and the Secret Police, and trading lives for time or for geographic objectives. The Stuff of Soldiers looks at the Red Army man and woman in terms of their equipment and material needs. The food they were fed, the kind of weapons they carried, the uniforms they wore; all of these things defined the soldiers who fought for the Soviet Union.
