Reddit reviews The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin`s War with Germany, Volume One
We found 2 Reddit comments about The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin`s War with Germany, Volume One. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
The story is a mixture of truth and fiction:
The truth is in 1914 in WWI the Russian army had 6,553,000 men, however, they only had 4,652,000 rifles, and untrained troops were sent into battle without guns.
The fiction comes from the film Enemy at the Gates, where the opening battle scene has every other man in Vasily Zaitsev platoon being given a rifle and being told "when the man with the gun dies, the man with the ammunition must pick up his rifle". However, during the battle of Stalingrad the important factor for the Soviets was manpower - not industrial output - they had enough rifles. They needed men to hold positions, not to die for the want of a cheap rifle.
John Erickson in his book - The Road To Stalingrad - lists the number of men and weapons that each side had from January to December 1942 (P556 - 558):
Manpower
Germany 250,000 Soviet 187,000
Machine Carbines
German 524,473 Soviet 952,332
Light Machine Guns
German 71,923 Soviet 100,183
As you can see the Soviets had plenty of weapons, sadly, it seems, many people cannot separate entertainment from history.
And Britain & the US convoys supplied tanks, planes, trucks and food to the USSR from 1941 onwards.
Source
[Book being referenced if you want to read it] (http://www.amazon.com/Road-Stalingrad-Stalin%60s-War-Germany/dp/0300078129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457738169&sr=8-1&keywords=road+to+stalingrad)
> this subreddit does seem to be very anti-west though
I think (just a guess) it's because a lot of people feel antagonized.
>i wouldn't say most people in the west hate russia,
Yeah, for sure. It varies.
>i'm one of these people
No dude, you're not. I think it's pretty clear you don't hate Russia or Russians. You are totally welcome here. I'm talking about disingenuous people with a sincere hate for Russia.
>Thanks
Nothing will give you a completer picture, and you're free to make up your own mind why Soviets liked the Soviet Union. If you're really interested about the subject, read about it. If you're bored on a train or plane or talking to a boring person there's really nothing better than a good book.
Personally I like this book The Road to Stalingrad. Check it out at the library or something. There's a lot of interesting events in Russian history. The contrast between the right-wing anti-Semitic 90% illiterate hardcore Christian Russian Empire and the atheist USSR is pretty funny, imo.