"Generalissimo Stalin: The Myth of Stalin as a Great..." Topic

… Military Strategist by Boris Gorbachevsky.

"Boris Gorbachevsky's "Generalissimo Stalin" offers a bit of a mixed bag for readers. The author, a veteran who went through the war and wrote his memoirs (translated under the title "Through the Maelstrom"), presents a rather polemical text for the reader. The best parts of the book, for me, among the 300+ pages are the author's personal experiences, as well as the various interactions he had with veterans and survivors of the war. Much of the narrative revolves around the battles for Rzhev, where the author fought, and where to this day there are still many questions left unanswered about the numerous operations that took place from 1941-1942 and the losses sustained by the Red Army. The author relates interesting anecdotes, reminiscences, and recollections that make for a valuable addition to literature on the Eastern Front and the Soviet Union. Then, there are stories that seem more apocryphal than true, but in the end I lean toward believing them as accurate since having read on the Second World War for over a decade I stopped being surprised and impressed with the amount of suffering, heroism, stupidity, and ignorance that was displayed by millions of men and women on a daily basis.

One of the more interesting chapters deals with Aleksandr Korneichuk's play "The Front." This was written in August of 1942 and served as a warning to those of the "old guard", veterans from the Civil War, that the modern requirements of this war needed young, energetic commanders to take the reigns. The play served as a validation of Stalin's scapegoating and shifted the blame for the defeats of 1941 and early 1942 onto the shoulders of commanders and away from Stalin himself. The chapters that deal with the Yalta Conference lean on conjecture more than factual data and there are various generalizations made that have become a cornerstone of propaganda against Stalin and the Soviet state of the time, whether deserved or not…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

I never knew there was such a myth…

Stalin earned a reputation as a leader of men at Kapteyn. Of course, it was trumped up for the sake of advancing himself and creating the legend of the man of steel.