The war on the Eastern Front during 1941-45 was an immense struggle, running from the Barents Sea to the Caucasus Mountains. The vast distances involved forced the Soviet political-military leadership to resort to new organizational expedients in order to control operations along the extended front. These were the high commands of the directions, which were responsible for two or more fronts (army groups) and, along maritime axes, one or more fleets. In all, five high commands were created along the northwestern, western, southwestern, and North Caucasus strategic directions during 1941-42. However, the highly unfavourable strategic situation during the first year of the war, as well as interference in day-to-day operations by Stalin, severely limited the high commands' effectiveness. As a consequence, the high commands were abolished in mid-1942 and replaced by the more flexible system of supreme command representatives at the front. A High Command of Soviet Forces in the Far East was established in 1945 and oversaw the Red Army's highly effective campaign against Japanese forces in Manchuria. The Far Eastern High Command was briefly resurrected in 1947 as a response to the tense situation along the Korean peninsula and the ongoing civil war in China, but was abolished in 1953, soon after Stalin's death. Growing tensions with China brought about the recreation of the Far Eastern High Command in 1979, followed a few years later by the appearance of new high commands in Europe and South Asia. However, these new high commands did not long survive the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and were abolished a year later. The book relies almost exclusively on Soviet and post-communist archival and other sources and is the first unclassified treatment of this subject in any country, East or West.

The Russian Civil War was one of the most fateful of the 20th century's military conflicts, a bloody three-year struggle whose outcome saw the establishment of a totalitarian communist regime within the former Russian Empire. As such, it commands the attention of the military specialist and layman alike as we mark the one hundredth anniversary of the war's end. This work is the third volume of the three-volume Soviet official history of the Russian Civil War, which appeared during 1928-1930, just before the imposition of Stalinist orthodoxy. While the preceding volumes focused on the minutiae of the Red Army's organizational development and military art, this volume provides an in-depth description and analysis of the of the civil war's major operations along the numerous fronts, from the North Caucasus, the Don and Volga rivers, the White Sea area, the Baltic States and Ukraine, as well as Siberia and Poland. It also offers a well-argued case for the political reasons behind the Bolsheviks' military strategy and eventual success against their White opponents. And while it is a certainly a partisan document with a definite political bias, it is at the same time a straightforward military history that manages to avoid many of the hoary myths that later came to dominate the subject. As such, it is easily the most objective account of the struggle to emerge from the Soviet Union before the collapse of the communist system in 1991.

The Battle of Kursk: The Red Army's Defensive Operations and Counter- Offensive, July-August 1943, offers a peculiarly Soviet view of one of the Second World War's most critical events. While the Germans defeats at Moscow and Stalingrad showed that Hitler could not win the war in the East, the outcome of Kursk demonstrated beyond a doubt that he would lose it. This study was compiled by the Red Army General Staff's military-historical directorate, which was charged with collecting and analyzing the war's experience, and issued as an internal document in 1946-47. The study languished for more than a half-century, before being published in Russia in 2006, although heavily supplemented by commentary and other information not contained in the original. The present work omits these additions, while supplying its own commentary in places deemed necessary. The book is divided into two parts, dealing with the defensive and offensive phases of the battle, respectively. The first begins with a strategic overview of the situation along the Eastern Front by the spring and summer of 1943 and the Soviet decision to stand on the defensive. This is followed by a detailed examination of the Central Front's efforts to counter the expected German attack out of the Orel salient, and the Voronezh Front's attempts to do the same against the German concentrations in the Belgorod-Khar'kov area. The rest of this section is devoted to an exceedingly detailed day-by-day, tactical-operational account of the struggle, particularly along the southern face of the salient, where the Germans came closest to succeeding. The second part will be more of a revelation to the Western reader, who is likely to be more familiar with the defensive phase of the battle. Here the authors once again, in great detail, lay out the Red Army's preparations for and conduct of a massive counteroffensive to clear the Orel salient, which soon degenerated to a grinding struggle, which while ultimately successful, cost the Soviets dearly. Likewise, the authors detail the Voronezh Front's preparations to reduce the Belgorod salient and seize the industrial center of Khar'kov. This offensive, in conjunction with a simultaneous offensive in the Donets industrial region, pushed the German lines to the breaking point and set the stage for the follow-on advance to the Dnepr River and the eventual liberation of Ukraine.

Rollback: The Red Army's Winter Offensive along the Southwestern Strategic Direction, 1942-43 covers the period from mid-December 1942 to mid-February 1943, one of the most critical periods of the war on the Eastern Front. It was here that following the encirclement of an entire German army at Stalingrad, the Soviets sought to take advantage of the ruptured Axis front in southern Russia to finish off the Germans' Italian and Hungarian allies and liberate the economically vital areas of eastern Ukraine. This study is drawn from a number of wartime and postwar articles, published by the General Staff's directorate for the study of wartime experience. Also featured are documents relating to the operational-strategic conduct of the various operations, which were compiled and published after the fall of the Soviet Union. Several articles deal with the preparation for and conduct of the Southwestern Front's Middle Don operation of December 1942. Originally intended as an ambitious offensive to cut off the German forces in the North Caucasus by driving on to Rostov, the operation was later reoriented to meet the threat of the German effort to relieve Stalingrad. The offensive not only accomplished its objective of turning back the German attack, thus dooming the Stalingrad garrison, but also destroyed the Italian army in the East as well. The Soviet Voronezh Front then struck further up the Don River, and in the Ostrogozhsk-Rossosh' operation destroyed what remained of the Italian forces in the area, as well as the Hungarian army. This enabled the Red Army to capture Khar'kov and push nearly to the Dnepr River by mid-February, before being thrown back by a skillful German counteroffensive. The territorial results of this operation set the stage for the front's subsequent Voronezh-Kastornoe operation, which enabled the Soviets to push as far west as Kursk before exhaustion and growing German resistance brought the offensive to a halt. Further to the south, the Soviets were able to capture Voroshilovgrad and penetrate into the industrial Donets Basin. The book also contains a detailed Soviet examination of the employment of tank and mechanized corps during the campaign. The conclusions reached here had a direct bearing on the restructuring of the Red Army's tank armies in time for the summer campaign of 1943.

Prelude to Berlin: The Red Army's Offensive Operations in Poland and Eastern Germany 1945 offers a panoramic view of the Soviet strategic offensives north of the Carpathians in the winter of 1945. During the course of this offensive the Red Army broke through the German defences in Poland and East Prussia and eventually occupied all of Germany east of the Oder River. The book consists primarily of articles that appeared in various military journals during the first decade after the war. The General Staff's directorate charged with studying the war experience published these studies, although there are other sources as well. A particular highlight of these is a personal memoir that offers a rare insight into Soviet strategic planning for the winter-spring 1945 campaign. Also featured are documents relating to the operational-strategic conduct of the various operations, which were compiled and published after the fall of the Soviet Union. The book is divided into several parts, corresponding to the operations conducted. These include the Vistula-Oder operation by the First Belorussian and First Ukrainian Fronts out of their respective Vistula bridgeheads. This gigantic operation, involving over a million men and several thousand tanks, artillery and other weapons sliced through the German defences and, in a single leap, advanced the front to the Oder River, less than 100 kilometres from Berlin, from which they launched their final assault on the Reich in April. Equally impressive was the Second and Third Belorussian Fronts' offensive into Germany's East Prussian citadel. This operation helped to clear the flank further to the south and exacted a long-awaited revenge for the Russian Army's defeat here in 1914. This effort cut off the German forces in East Prussia and concluded with an effort to clear the flanks in Pomerania and the storming of the East Prussian capital of Konigsberg in April. The study also examines in considerable detail the First Ukrainian Front's Upper and Lower Silesian operations of February-March 1945. These operations cleared the army's flanks in the south and deprived Germany of one of its last major industrial and agricultural areas.

The Battle of Kursk: The Red Army's Defensive Operations and Counter- Offensive, July-August 1943, offers a peculiarly Soviet view of one of the Second World War's most critical events. While the Germans defeat s at Moscow and Stalingrad showed that Hitler could not win the war in the East, the outcome of Kursk demonstrated beyond a doubt that he would lose it. This study was compiled by the Red Army General Staff's military-historical directorate, which was charged with collecting and analyzing the war's experience, and issued as an internal document in 1946-47. The study languished for more than a half-century, before being published in Russia in 2006, although heavily supplemented by commentary and other information not contained in the original. The present work omits these additions, while supplying its own ommentary in places deemed necessary. The book is divided into two parts, dealing with the defensive and offensive phases of the battle, respectively. The first begins with a strategic overview of the situation along the Eastern Front by the spring and summer of 1943 and the Soviet decision to stand on the defensive. This is followed by a detailed examination of the Central Front's efforts to counter the expected German attack out of the Orel salient, and the Voronezh Front's attempts to do the same against the German concentrations in the Belgorod-Khar'kov area. The rest of this section is devoted to an exceedingly detailed day-by-day, tactical-operational account of the struggle, particularly along the southern face of the salient, where the Germans came closest to succeeding. The second part will be more of a revelation to the Western reader, who is likely to be more familiar with the defensive phase of the battle. Here the authors once again, in great detail, lay out the Red Army's preparations for and conduct of a massive counteroffensive to clear the Orel salient, which soon degenerated to a grinding struggle, which while ultimately successful, cost the Soviets dearly. Likewise, the authors detail the Voronezh Front's preparations to reduce the Belgorod salient and seize the industrial center of Khar'kov. This offensive, in conjunction with a simultaneous offensive in the Donets industrial region, pushed the German lines to the breaking point and set the stage for the follow-on advance to the Dnepr River and the eventual liberation of Ukraine.

Berlin Operation, 1945, tells the story of the Red Army's penultimate offensive operation in the war in Europe. Here the forces of three fronts (Second and First Belorussian and First Ukrainian) forced the Oder River and surrounded the defenders of the German capital, reduced the city and drove westward to link up with the Western allies in central Germany. This is another in a series of studies compiled by the Soviet Army General Staff, which during the postwar years set itself the task of gathering and generalizing the experience of the war for the purpose of training the armed forces' higher staffs in the conduct of large-scale offensive perations. The study is divided into three parts. The first contains a brief strategic overview of the situation, as it existed by the spring of 1945, with special emphasis on German preparations to meet the inevitable Soviet attack. This section also includes an examination of the decisions by the Stavka of the Supreme High Command on the conduct of the operation. As usual, the fronts' materiel-technical and other preparations for the offensive are covered in great detail. These include plans for artillery, artillery and engineer support, as well as the work of the rear services and political organs and the strengths, capabilities and tasks of the individual armies. Part two deals with the Red Army's breakthrough of the Germans' Oder defensive position up to the encirclement of the Berlin garrison. This covers the First Belorussian Front's difficulty in overcoming the defensive along the Seelow Heights along the direct path to Berlin, as well as the First Ukrainian Front's easier passage over the Oder and its secondary attack along the Dresden axis. The Second Belorussian Front's breakthrough and its sweep through the Baltic littoral is also covered. Part three covers the intense fighting to reduce the city's defenders from late April until the garrison's surrender on 2 May, as well as operations in the area up to the formal German capitulation. This section contains a number of detailed descriptions of urban fighting at the battalion and regimental level. It closes with conclusions about the role of the various combat arms in the operation.

"The Battle of Moscow, 1941-1942: The Red Army's Defensive Operations and Counteroffensive Along the Moscow Strategic Direction" is a detailed examination of one of the major turning points of World War II, as seen from the Soviet side. The Battle of Moscow marked the climax of Hitler's "Operation Barbarossa," which sought to destroy the Soviet Union in a single campaign and ensure German hegemony in Europe. The failure to do so condemned Germany to a prolonged war it could not win. This work orignally appeared in 1943, under the title"Razgrom Nemetskikh Voisk pod Moskvoi" (The Rout of the German Forces Around Moscow). The work was produced by the Red Army General Staff's military-historical section, which was charged with collecting and analyzing the war's experience and disseminating it to the army's higher echelons. This was a collective effort, featuring many different contributors, with Marshal Boris Mikhailovich Shaposhnikov, former chief of the Red Army General Staff and then head of the General Staff Academy, serving as general editor. The book is divided into three parts, each dealing with a specific phase of the battle. The first traces the Western Front's defensive operations along the Moscow direction during Army Group Center's final push toward the capital in November-December, 1941. The study pays particular attention to the Red Army's resistance to the Germans'attempts to outflank Moscow from the north. Equally important were the defensive operations to the south of Moscow, where the Germans sought to push forward their other encircling flank. The second part deals with the first phase of the Red Army's counteroffensive, which was aimed at pushing back the German pincers and removing the immediate threat to Moscow. Here the Soviets were able to throw the Germans back and flatten both salients, particularly in the south, where they were able to make deep inroads into the enemy front to the west and northwest. The final section examines the further development of the counteroffensive until the end of January 1942. This section highlights the Soviet advance all along the front and their determined but unsuccessful attempts to cut off the Germans'Rzhev-Vyaz'ma salient. It is from this point that the front essentially stabilized, after which events shifted to the south. This new translation into English makes available to a wider readership this valuable study.

In the first half of the twentieth century, both czarist Russia and its successor, the Soviet Union, were confronted with the problem of conducting military operations involving mass armies along the broad fronts, a characteristic of modern war. Despite the ideological and technological differences between the two regimes, both strove toward a theory which became known as operational art-that level of warfare that links strategic goals to actual combat engagements.

From the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, through World War I, the civil war, and to the eve of World War II, modern operational art grew from theoretical speculations by a small group of officers to become a critical component of the Soviet art of war. In this first comprehensive treatment of the subject, Richard Harrison shows how this theory emerged and developed to become--despite radically different political settings and levels of technology--essential to the Red Army's victory over Germany in World War II.

Tracking both continuity and divergence between the imperial and Red armies, Harrison analyzes, on the basis of theoretical writings and battlefield performance, the development of such operationally significant phenomena as the "front" (group of armies), consecutive operations, and the deep operation, which relied upon aircraft and mechanized formations to penetrate the kind of intractable defense systems that characterized so much of World War I.

Drawing upon a wide range of sources, including memoirs, theoretical works, and materials from the Russian military archives (many presented here for the first time), Harrison traces the debates within the Russian and Soviet armies that engaged such theorists as Neznamov, Svechin, Triandafillov, and Isserson. The end result is an exemplary military intellectual history that helps illuminate a critical element in the "Russian way of war."

The Rout of the German-Fascist Troops in Belorussia in 1944 covers the Red Army's Belorussian strategic operation: the linchpin of the 10 major Soviet offensive efforts launched that year to clear the country of the invader. During the course of this operation, the German position along the western strategic direction was destroyed and the stage was set for an advance into Poland and Germany. The success of this operation also set the stage for the Red Army's subsequent advance into the Baltic and South-Eastern Europe. Like most works generated by the General Staff, the Belorussian study divides the operation into two parts: preparation and conduct. The first deals with the massive efforts by the First Baltic and the First, Second and Third Belorussian Fronts to accumulate the men and materiel to break through the German defenses in the swampy and forested terrain of Belorussia. This section contains valuable information on the overall correlation of forces, equipment and troops' densities along the breakthrough sectors and Soviet plans for supplying the offensive, as well as detailed information regarding the employment of the various combat arms. The second part deals with the actual conduct of the several front operations that comprised the overall effort. This section covers the initial breakthrough battles and the encirclement of the Vitebsk and Bobruisk garrisons, followed by the capture of Minsk and the encirclement of sizeable German forces east of the city. The narrative then continues with the follow-on operations to cut off German forces in the Baltic States and to seize crossings over the Vistula River in Eastern Poland. Compiled and written by professional staff officers, this study provides a detailed look at the conduct of one of the major operations of the Second World War. This latest work, along with other studies in this series, offers another insight into the Red Army's conduct of the war at the operational-strategic level.

Georgii Samoilovich Isserson (1898-1976) was one of the most prescient and prolific authors on military science in the years preceding World War II. His theories greatly influenced the Red Army's operations and were instrumental in achieving victory over Germany. This book gathers together for the first time English translations of Isserson's most influential works, including some that are still classified. His writings on the preparation and conduct of ""deep operations""--the deployment of tanks, mechanized infantry, air power and airborne troops to penetrate echeloned defenses-also serve as a primer on how to construct a position to defeat such an attack. His well argued defense of deep operations based on an examination of later wars, and his reminiscences about the people and events that shaped Soviet military theory in the 1930s are included.

The Red Army's leading operational theorist in the 1930s, Georgii Samoilovich Isserson is perhaps best known as the mastermind behind the "deep operation," which became the cornerstone of Soviet offensive operations in World War II. Drawing from an in-depth analysis of Isserson's numerous published and unpublished works, his arrest file in the former KGB archives, and interviews with his family, this book provides the first full-length biography of a man usually overlooked by contemporary historians. Two chapters are devoted to the first 30 years of Isserson's life, but the bulk of the narrative deals with the flowering of his intellectual talents from 1929 through 1941. Additional chapters deal with Isserson's arrest and his remaining 35 years, 14 of which were spent in labor camps and internal exile.