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For The Motherland! For Stalin!: A Red Army Officer's Memoir of the Eastern Front
Boris Bogachev's highly readable account of life as a young platoon commander during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 makes for a fascinating read.
The son of a Soviet military commissar, Bogachev volunteered to fight as soon as reached the age of seventeen. Life in the Red Army was harsh, with food shortages, inadequate equipment and fear - not only of the well-armed enemy ahead, but also of the trigger-happy political officers behind.
Bogachev fought in many campaigns throughout the war, including the 15-month Rzhev salien "meat-grinder" which resulted in huge Soviet losses. On three occasions he was threatened with execution. Three times he was wounded. Determined and resourceful, he managed to obtain papers authorizing him to have his wounds treated in hospital, but instead smuggled himself aboard a train to travel across Russia to visit his family in Kazakhstan before returning to the front.
Boris Bogachev, who retired from the Soviet army in 1984 as a much-decorated colonel, tells his story of the hell that was the Eastern Front with freshness and candor. He vividly conveys the wide gap between ideology and reality in Stalin's Russia, the warm camaraderie among those who fought the Nazis and his horror at the inhumanity of war.
The son of a Soviet military commissar, Bogachev volunteered to fight as soon as reached the age of seventeen. Life in the Red Army was harsh, with food shortages, inadequate equipment and fear - not only of the well-armed enemy ahead, but also of the trigger-happy political officers behind.
Bogachev fought in many campaigns throughout the war, including the 15-month Rzhev salien "meat-grinder" which resulted in huge Soviet losses. On three occasions he was threatened with execution. Three times he was wounded. Determined and resourceful, he managed to obtain papers authorizing him to have his wounds treated in hospital, but instead smuggled himself aboard a train to travel across Russia to visit his family in Kazakhstan before returning to the front.
Boris Bogachev, who retired from the Soviet army in 1984 as a much-decorated colonel, tells his story of the hell that was the Eastern Front with freshness and candor. He vividly conveys the wide gap between ideology and reality in Stalin's Russia, the warm camaraderie among those who fought the Nazis and his horror at the inhumanity of war.
424 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 25, 2025
This book was interesting militaristically, but a few things held back the rating for me.
Firstly, my geography of this region isn’t great and a quick Google search yielded nothing, outside of passages from this book.
Second, the author has many side stories and thoughts often within the middle of an original thought. Sometimes, they’re completely unrelated. It’s his memoir so he can do whatever he so chooses, but to me I found that particularly confusing to the larger story
Next, he mentions the story of leaving hospital without permission (one can assume AWOL) to visit his family very far away. He then goes into hospital there for three months, and then joins a new outfit. The author many times mentions the commissars and his dangerous it would be to desert, yet he seems to be able to go to a non-military hospital and join a new unit as a young person with zero issues. Perhaps there’s more to the story that isn’t shared, or also perhaps I just missed that part, but it confounded me.
It was actually interesting to read about his training and how at 19/20 he had 30-40 people under him. Also, the battle scenes were interesting as were the stories surrounding his injuries.
Finally, his criticism of the high command of the Soviet Union was particularly unusual as you don’t often see it. He’s critical of how awards are distributed and how the Stavka and moving down the food chain had little regard for the rank and file.
Firstly, my geography of this region isn’t great and a quick Google search yielded nothing, outside of passages from this book.
Second, the author has many side stories and thoughts often within the middle of an original thought. Sometimes, they’re completely unrelated. It’s his memoir so he can do whatever he so chooses, but to me I found that particularly confusing to the larger story
Next, he mentions the story of leaving hospital without permission (one can assume AWOL) to visit his family very far away. He then goes into hospital there for three months, and then joins a new outfit. The author many times mentions the commissars and his dangerous it would be to desert, yet he seems to be able to go to a non-military hospital and join a new unit as a young person with zero issues. Perhaps there’s more to the story that isn’t shared, or also perhaps I just missed that part, but it confounded me.
It was actually interesting to read about his training and how at 19/20 he had 30-40 people under him. Also, the battle scenes were interesting as were the stories surrounding his injuries.
Finally, his criticism of the high command of the Soviet Union was particularly unusual as you don’t often see it. He’s critical of how awards are distributed and how the Stavka and moving down the food chain had little regard for the rank and file.
June 14, 2018
Great insight into how a member of the Soviet Forces during WWII perceived his role in the conflict vs Hitler and the Nazis.
June 15, 2018
Matter of fact and easy to read. Slightly hypocritical but for the most part he tells the facts and it makes for an entertaining read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews