The Second World War

by Antony Beevor

On 28 July, Stalin issued his Order No. 227 entitled ‘Ni shagu nazad’ – ‘Not one step back’ – drafted by Colonel General Aleksandr Vasilevsky. ‘Panic-mongers and cowards must be destroyed on the spot. The retreat mentality must be decisively eliminated. Army commanders who have allowed the voluntary abandonment of positions must be removed and sent for immediate trial by military tribunal.’ Blocking groups were to be set up in each army to gun down those who retreated. Punishment battalions were strengthened that month with 30,000 Gulag prisoners up to the age of forty, however weak and under-nourished. In that year, 352,560 prisoners of the Gulag, a quarter of its whole population, died.