Ivan's War: The Red Army at War 1939-45: The Red Army, 1941-45

by Catherine Merridale

The superpowers were destined to be enemies for decades, but for a while their soldiers seemed to be making friends. The attraction was based on respect, gratitude, and complementary social skills. American troops enjoyed the Russians’ spontaneity, their talent for impromptu drinks and music.26 Red Army men were grateful for the razor blades, the cigarettes, the bright packets of gum. For Soviet utopians, too, Chicago was a prototype, these square-jawed, healthy men the models for their own children to come. America was starting to look dangerously glamorous. The devil, they say, always has the best tunes, and it worried the politruks that blues and jitterbug was gaining ground on the Red Army’s hymns. The longer they remained in Germany, the more uncertain – from an ideological and disciplinary point of view – the war heroes seemed likely to become.