Claws of the Bear: The History of the Red Army from the Revolution to the Present

by Brian Moynahan

Photo-illustrations. 268 pages including Index. Hutchinson, 1989. First Edition. Hardcover.

Genres: History, Military History, War, Nonfiction, World War II, Russia, Military Fiction

468 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Brian Moynahan was an English journalist, historian and biographer.

Reviews

[Roger Burk · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a disappointment. It promises an institutional history of the Soviet Army, but doesn't deliver. Maybe the internal documents necessary to write such a history weren't available in 1989. Very likely they still aren't. The first three quarters of the book rehash the military history of the Soviet Union through the date of publication: the perils of the Civil and Polish wars; the horrifying purges under Stalin; the harrowing campaigns against the Nazis, the "fraternal" interventions in eastern Europe. The story is well-told, but familiar, and there is little about the Red Army as an institution. That last quarter goes over the well-known status of the Soviet armed forces as of 1989: the overwhelming superiority in numbers and material, the parity in best quality but inferiority in average quality compared to the West; the brutalized draftees and pervasive alcoholism; the huge secret services busy stealing technology from the West when not keeping tabs on restless Soviets. It ends with a picture of perestroika under Gorbachev, that reformer with a doomed belief in the superiority of the Soviet system that defied all the evidence. The author accurately portrays the weaknesses of the Soviet state and its ethical fault lines, but misses a chance at prophecy by dismissing as fanciful the idea that the USSR will break up, writing only two years before it did.

[TS Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1914 when the Russian army seized Allenstein in East Prussia, the Tsar's soldiers cheered as their maps were inaccurate or nonexistent and they thought they were in Berlin. Most died or were captured within days as a consequence of the battle of Tannenberg. The author of this excellent and well-researched book, arriving at the end of extensive historical research in 1989, was certain he lived in an age of "Soviet military superiority," and that the Soviet forces were "mighty" and "powerful." "The Russians," he mused, "should now be an economic as well as a military power." But he wrote off their economic and demographic weakness because imported raw materials and export markets are irrelevant to military power (a very Soviet approach). He concludes that "the empire is vulnerable" but only "in theory." Three years later it disappeared without barely a shot being fired.

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first 3/4 of the book is very disappointing as it isn't really a history of the Soviet Armed Forces as much as it is a general overview of Soviet military action up until the mid-1970s but with little discussion of the military itself. Then the book inexplicably skips over any significant discussion of Soviet military action in Afghanistan. Finally, the last quarter of the book provides an actual history of the Soviet Armed Forces in the 1980s. If the author had taken this same approach for the entire book, this review would have been four or five stars.

[Robert Knapton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fast paced an journalistic story of the red army. It's quite dated, having been written pre-1990 for readers of that era, it refers to Gorbachov's reforms as 'now' consistently throughout the book. For me it lacked both detail and anecdote.

[Dale Medley · Rating 1 out of 5]

If elementary school students have no interest in the Red Army, this book has no reason to exist.

[MR GEOFFREY W FABRON · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent and easy to read history of the Red Army and its role within the Soviet State.
A bit dated as it does not really cover the breakup of the USSR but good regardless.

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting history not only capturing the past, but the moment in time in which it was written. Brian Moynahan has not only given us a history of the USSR through the lens of its armed forces, but also a "state of the union" of those same armed forces at the moment just prior to the collapse of the superpower.

He begins his history with World War I and the catastrophic failures of the Imperial Army, which became one of the driving forces of the Revolution. In fact during the Civil War, the Red Army was officered mostly by ex-Imperial Army men and it was they, along with the absolute ruthlessness of Trotsky, that helped the Bolsheviks claim victory over the disparate and badly organised "White" armies.

Stalin, after his rise was only too aware that whatever legitimacy his regime held, his ability to stay in power relied totally on the Army: which was one of the reasons that he purged it so heavily, not only of ex-Imperial troops, but others as well.

The Nazi attack on the USSR was initially the Red Army's greatest tragedy, but became over the course of the War its greatest triumph. By the time they had reached Berlin, the Red Army was the most powerful force in the World, backed by a huge industrial base. They had learnt from their defeats, and with Eastern Europe as a buffer, were determined that the Russian heartland would never again be invaded.

Moynahan describes the War years well, and the post-war maneuverings with a good journalistic precis, keeping the story moving with just enough detail, describing the Cuban Crisis and interventions in Russia's Eastern neighbours. The Russian's sense of being surrounded by hostile forces led to the Cuban adventure, with Russia's back-down due to both the unexpected (from the Soviet viewpoint) stiffness of spine of the US, and the lack of Soviet long-range military capability to support their transports. The back-down eventually led to the fall of Krushchev, who was the leader that more than anyone else brought forward the USSR's missile forces as the elite arm of Soviet power.

The interventions in Hungary, Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia were driven almost exclusively by Soviet strategic thinking: they could not allow any independence of thought or action to endanger the buffer and launching pad that those countries were for Soviet Russia. Dissent was dealt with in overwhelming force and much brutality. Moynahan does not cover Korea or Vietnam in much detail at all, given the limited active combat undertaken by members of the Soviet armed forces in these conflicts. The USSR's Afghanistan venture gets good treatment, and Moynahan is perceptive in deciphering what the outcomes would be from that minor (at the time) disaster.

The last section of the book covers the current (as at 1989) state of the armed forces - numbers, equipment, strategy, and the espionage undertaken to keep the Soviets in the hunt technologically. Moynahan points out that the Soviet forces were geared for an offensive war, not one of defence, and he spends some time pondering what the fall of the Berlin Wall meant for that strategy. Of course with the benefit of hindsight we can see that he was writing at the peak moment for Soviet forces, as not long after the publication of this book the whole thing fell apart, politically and militarily.

This is a book of its time, but even for the modern reader there is much in this of use, especially the sections dealing with World War II and the post-war conflicts.

Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/

[Vikas Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant incisive account of one of the key fighting formations of any time...