Germany's surprise attack on June 22, 1941, shocked a Soviet Union
woefully unprepared to defend itself. The day before the attack,
the Red Army still comprised the world's largest fighting force.
But by the end of the year, four and a half million of its soldiers
lay dead. This new study, based on formerly classified Soviet
archival material and neglected German sources, reveals the truth
behind this national catastrophe.
Drawing on evidence never before seen in the West-including
combat records of early engagements-David Glantz claims that in
1941 the Red Army was poorly trained, inadequately equipped,
ineptly organized, and consequently incapable of engaging in
large-scale military campaigns--and that both Hitler and Stalin
knew it. He provides the most complete and convincing study of why
the Soviets almost lost the war that summer, dispelling many of the
myths about the Red Army that have persisted since the war and
soundly refuting Viktor Suvorov's controversial thesis that Stalin
was planning a preemptive strike against Germany.
"Stumbling Colossus" describes the Red Army's command
leadership, mobilization and war planning, intelligence activities,
and active and reserve combat formations. It includes the first
complete Order of Battle of Soviet forces on the eve of the German
attack, documents the strength of Soviet armored forces during the
war's initial period, and reproduces the first available texts of
actual Soviet war plans. It also provides biographical sketches of
Soviet officers and tells how Stalin's purges of the late 1930s
left the Red Army leadership almost decimated.
At a time when blame for the war in eastern Europe is being laid
with a fallen regime, Glantz's book sets the record straight on the
Soviet Union's readiness-and willingness-to fight. Boasting an
extensive bibliography of Soviet and German sources, "Stumbling
Colossus" is a convincing study that overshadows recent revisionist
history and one that no student of World War II can ignore.
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