Friends, a May 9 thread about the scale of Soviet losses in World War Two.
You cannot understand why Victory Day is the most significant secular holiday in Russia without getting a sense of just how much the Soviet Union lost in the Nazi-Soviet War. (1/N)
The Nazi-Soviet War was the single largest land war ever fought. My great grandfather served in the American army and was a lieutenant on Omaha Beach, so I would never minimize the bravery of Americans in this war. However, the focal point of the war was the east. (2/N)
Roughly 80% of Nazi Germany's casualties were suffered in the clash with the Red Army. The Soviet Union was where the Wehrmacht was attrited and eventually destroyed. This was an enormous, world-historical feat by the Soviet people, but it came at a horrific cost. (3/N)
The Red Army defeated the Wehrmacht in two phases of war. In the first phase, Germany had operational initiative and the USSR waged a desperate defense. In the second phase, the Red Army went on the offensive and destroyed the atrophied Wehrmacht. (4/N)
During the defensive phase, the hinge factor was the USSR's ability to mobilize huge numbers of trained reservists and deploy fresh units. Between June and December 1941, the Soviets mobilized 14 million reservists - 5 million just by the end of June. (5/N)
German intelligence estimated that the Red Army could raise and deploy 40 fresh divisions in response to Barbarossa. The actual number? About 800. One of the great intelligence misfires of all time. This is why Germany lost. (6/N)
It is difficult to get our minds around the scale of this war. By the war's end, approximately 35 million men had served in the Red Army in some capacity. Battlefield casualties were correspondingly horrific. (7/N)
Getting a precise number of Red Army casualties is impossible, but the best estimates are that the Soviets lost something like 10 million men killed or missing, including 3 million who were deliberately starved in POW camps. In addition, some 18 million were wounded. (8/N)
Civilian casualties were even more significant. The Germans waged a brutal, animalistic war. Soviet Jews were shot into open air pits. 1 million people starved to death in Leningrad. In all, around 15 million Soviet civilians were killed. (9/N)
When Red Army combat deaths are added to the civilian death toll, we get total Soviet losses of about 25 million people. The USSR's prewar population was 200 million.
One in eight Soviet citizens was killed in a four year span. (10/N)
The physical destruction of the country was similarly cataclysmic. About 1,700 towns and cities were completely destroyed, to go with 70,000 villages (that number is not a typo). Major cities that fell under German occupation were devastated. (11/N)
In Minsk, for example, 80% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed by the end of the war. Only 19 out of 332 major factories in the city survived. By one famous estimate, the war destroyed one third of the Soviet Union's wealth. (12/N)
It is obvious why the Great Patriotic War is now a focal point of Russian national consciousness. It was quite literally the greatest tragedy ever to befall the nation, while also being the greatest triumph. A duality of victory and devastation. (13/N)
With so much death, dislocation, and physical devastation, this war touched every single Soviet citizen in some way. It was a universal phenomenon; nobody was remote from conflict. Everybody lost a son, a brother, a father, an uncle, a cousin, a friend, a home. (14/N)
The Russian people cannot and will not forget this. The Soviet people achieved the iconic victory of the ages: the deflection and then the destruction of the Nazi war machine. But it cost them oceans of blood. (15/N)
Coda: “The German invaders want a war of extermination against the peoples of the Soviet Union. Very well then! If they want a war of extermination they shall have it!”
~ Stalin, November 7, 1941
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
🧵 Starting a thread of random books that I like and recommend that people might find interesting.
This is comprehensive look at how the Soviet Union’s unparalleled systems and rules of state secrecy shaped the powers of the state. Harrison frames secrecy as the pivot of a tradeoff which gave the USSR a high degree of security at the expense of state capacity.
A really unique book that looks at “Shinto” - originally a variegated and decentralized collection of Buddhist and native Japanese beliefs, which the imperial government deliberately molded into a “religion” that was useful for creating good imperial citizens.
Nothing about this threat even makes sense. If you think that Ukraine is worth fighting a war with Russia, you wouldn't set some weird redline where you pledge to intervene *after* Ukraine has been defeated.
The French Army has eight combat capable brigades (2 armored, 2 mech, 2 light armored, 1 mountain, 1 airborne). French force quality is fine, but this is an expeditionary force that's not built to slug it out in Eastern Europe.
A quick note on combat engineering: Over the last few months, we started to hear Ukraine talk about ramping up the construction of fortifications as they faced a pivot to a strategic defense, in some cases specifically calling for a corollary to Russia's "Surovikin Line."
This will likely be very difficult for Ukraine, for a few reasons. At the core is the dearth of dedicated combat engineering in the AFU, in contrast to the Russian Armed Forces.
The Russian Army has a host of dedicated engineering units, including several prewar engineering brigades, as well as several new engineering regiments that have been formed since 2022.
Americans bragging about lend-lease always strikes me as rather funny, because you're basically taking pride in the fact that FDR was a naïve idiot with a communist-compromised administration who gave away hundreds of billions worth of equipment for free.
In real time, American officialdom and army leadership was actually extraordinarily upset about FDR's profligate generosity, when he started shipping off American readiness stocks while they were trying to prepare for war.
"America rules, look at how easily the Soviets tricked FDR into giving them a hundred billion dollars worth of gear."
At the moment, Russia is grinding forward almost everywhere on the front, creating a bit of ambiguity as to their intentions. The overall operational trajectory in Donetsk Oblast, however, is fairly clear. With Marinka captured, they will advance up the N15 line to Kurakhove. (1)
Kurakhove as an important center of support for Ugledar - artillery based in this area was critical in helping Ukraine hold Ugledar last year. Advancing up this line puts Ulgedar into a severe salient. (2)
Meanwhile, clearing Avdiivka creates space for Russia to advance up the H20 line - important for two reasons. First, it allows a two pronged attack on Kostyantinivka (supporting the advance from Bakhmut), and it bypasses the heavily fortified AFU positions around Torestk. (3)
The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza have resurrected debates around old concepts like mobilization and force structure. A few years ago, these were just esoteric topics for military historians to chew on, but now they are back. (1)
Force generation and structure seem like a simple question of demographics - a question only of squeezing fighting aged males out of the population pyramid and getting them into uniform. It *feels* like all that should matter is the overall size and age of the population. (2)
But then we look at Israel and Russia. Both conducted a "mobilization", with Russia (population 140 million) calling up 300,000 reservists in October '22, and Israel (9 million) calling up 360,000 last month. Israel called up a larger force, with a fraction of the population. (3)