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The brilliant Running Iron Report piece I spent a couple of days on turned out to be a piece of crap, so I junked it. A high volume Russian Kettlebell workout in 36-degree temperatures kicked my ass. Watching a couple of hours of impeachment hearing over a fantastic lunch with my friend Jack McGowan was good fellowship, but bad for my cynicism.
When the dusk descended — early as it does at this time of year in these parts, I had nothing. Didn’t want to pick up the guitar; didn’t even want to read. I just wanted to sit on the couch. But I can’t abide just lying around; just can’t do it. So I fired up the Amazon Prime and started rolling out Soviet Storm: World War II in the East.
The series is a deep and detailed dive into the most titanic conflict in human history — the Soviet vs. Nazi throwdown that took millions of lives and reshaped the world. The scope and scale of the war is hard to wrap your head around. Two of the darkest tyrannies humankind ever produced contended for domination of the Eurasian landmass. The stakes were as high as they get.
Soviet Storm recounts the bloody road the Red Army rode from abject defeat in the wake of the German invasion on June 22, 1941 to total victory by May 1945. It’s an unflinching look at the most brutal of wars.
*
Soviet Storm blends computer graphic animation, reenactment and historical footage to illustrate the war across 18 episodes. Given my interest in resistance movements and in “the ranging way of war” that characterized frontier conflict across the globe, I was particularly interested in the episode on the partisan war.
The partisan operations that flared up almost as soon as the German Wehrmacht started slicing into the Soviet Union in June 1941, created an almost separate theater of war. This was “the ranging way of war” writ larger than it has ever been before or since. As with everything associated with the German-Soviet War, the scale is almost unimaginable. Much of the Ukraine, Byelorussia (Belarus) and parts of Russia itself remained a battleground far behind the German front as bands of partisans took to the forests to resist the German invasion and to exact revenge for the savagery inflicted upon the people by a German Army that was explicitly fighting a war of annihilation.
Partisan operations tied down significant numbers of German troops and inflicted massive casualties — as many as 500,000 in Byelorussia.
Of course, the partisans themselves were not necessarily noble. Some were outright bandits, and even legitimate partisan forces could behave brutally toward the civilian population, especially those suspected of collaboration with the Nazis. And partisan attacks and sabotage inevitably led to German reprisals, which fell upon civilians whether they cooperated with partisans or not.
It was a ghastly conflict in every respect. There’s a reason historian Timothy Snyder referred to this Eastern Europe frontier zone as the Bloodlands. Snyder takes a dim view of the Partisans, for a variety of reasons that boil down basically to the belief that partisan activity intensified the conflict and made things much worse for civilians. He questions whether the game was worth the candle. From where I stand, he misses the point. The Partisans of the Bloodlands fought, and in the fighting itself they rebuked the darkness. As Emiliano Zapata put it: “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”
You have to respect the courage and fortitude of those who chose to resist — and resisted effectively while surviving the attentions of partisanjaeger units and the harsh conditions of an outdoor life in the woods in country subject to extraordinarily harsh weather.
It is important to understand that the Partisans were not freelancers. They were organized and centrally coordinated, used as a strategic asset to disrupt the Germans during major operations. By May/June 1943, Partisans were staging 1,000 operations per month in the rear of the German Army Group Center — mostly train derailments at which they became masters.
Women played a very significant roll in the Partisan Movement, including as combatants, and they faced even greater dangers than their male counterparts — not least sexual coercion from their own side. Women could be forced into “camp wife” relationships, and the potential for rape and torture at the hands of a captor was ever-present.
Some of the partisans were treated as heroes by the Soviet Union (those who were reliably communist), others were regarded with great suspicion by the notoriously paranoid Premier Josef Stalin. Those who were seen as too independent were treated as threats in the post-war world. Some ended up in labor camps, much like Soviet POWs who were considered by the Soviet leadership to be contaminated by their forced sojourn in the West.
*
After running through multiple episodes, I’d salvaged the evening; learned something, wrote something and was reminded yet again that there is nothing more intoxicating than a deep draught of history. Turns out, a few hours spent in the Wild East was time well spent. I recommend it strongly.
*
Matthew says
Sorry that you were having a rough time.
I always found it interesting that partisan groups often included women and sometimes children. For most of history, regular armies generally excluded women (though some of the men they recruited were young enough to be children by today’s standards.)
Nah, not rough. Just a day. But thank you.
A ham sandwich and an impeachment hearing? You are one scintillating lunch date. lmao.
Ain’t it the truth?
Matthew says
Speaking of partisans, here’s a video about Witold Pileski a Polish resistance fighter against the Germans and later the Russians. He actually infiltrated and survived Auschwitz. The band Sabaton had a song about him and did video with Indy from the World War I videos about him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_6ARLOgsbA
Thanks. I’ll check this out.
TJ says
When not abused, today’s tech and access to cool information, history, sharing others experiences on the net, video-streams, (this site), etc is super cool.
The guy on the top could be Craig in about a decade.
Just saying.…..
??
Ugly Hombre says
“I always found it interesting that partisan groups often included women and sometimes children. For most of history, regular armies generally excluded women”
Right now in Hong Kong 40 percent of the rebels going up against the Chicom’s are women, they have big time guts, western media are spiking the savage response of the HK police- who seem to be re enforced by Chicom SF in HK riot police unifoms. Very young people are involved in the revolt.
The Protestor/Rebels have then ramped up the violence with bows and arrows and spears catapults and sling shots, molotov cock tails and clubs of all types. They did this in response to brutality from the once much respected HK police.
https://twitter.com/SolomonYue
Its brutal and close to a real Partisan War, full scale. The above link is a good place to look if interested. Follow the various feeds from there.
Hong Kong women are tough as nails one of my martial arts teachers told me long ago of the danger of underestimating any woman ” you go to the match, you think its a just a girl- its the daughter of the master you might get knocked the hell out.”
Toughest KF teacher I ever saw was a North Shaolin teacher in Manila- yep the daughter of the old teacher.
The battle for Hong Kong will not end well for the protesters sad to say, already they are being rounded up and shipped to the mainland via train.
One way train- no doubt.
Matthew says
Very interesting, Hombre.
Ugly Hombre says
Yes it is- I was in Korea when the Tiananmen massacre happened in 89- watched it real time on local TV that showed a lot of footage never seen in the west- horrific.
The Beijing kids never got a chance to fight back, Hong Kong is different as the eyes of the world are on the Mao Xi regime- but when they get the rebels captured and isolated it will be the same Socialist/Communist Chekist/ MSS story- rape, torture and concentration camps with the added horror of organ harvesting.
Also-it has nothing to do with extradition for criminal acts murder etc to the Mainland it is all about giving the Communists the tools to punish “Thought Crime” in Hong Kong EG anti Communist thinking, publishing, art etc.
The Hongkongers know this, they have seen it- hence the battle. The mainstream media in the US are per their MO spiking the real story.
Massive guts hats off to them unreal courage. During the last two days elections in HK reports are they rejected by a large majority the pro Communist Beijing candidates. What Chairman Xi’s next move will be- no one knows.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23chinazi
https://twitter.com/xxhomanxx
https://twitter.com/lee1999619
Some more feeds from Hongkonger’s
Through the looking glass to the reality of Socialist rule.
Yes sir.
Breaker Morant says
You really need to read Gulag Archipelago. I read it 20 years ago and am working on it again. Finished V1 and started V2. I believe that Jordan Peterson collaborated on a 1‑volume abridgement which is probably the way to go for most. Not for me though-right now I want all 3 volumes.
Also, there is a new book called “Google Archipelago” which hits the RIR wheelhouse.
Thanks Breaker.
Great read. I’ve run through it twice and will likely read it a third time in the future. I went on a solid five-year Russian literature binge which took me to some interesting places. From Akhmatova to Pasternak, Chekhov to Gumilev, and Dostoevsky to Solzehnitsyn, almost nobody has ripped open their own character with the relentlessness of the Russians. Certainly no American, with perhaps the exception of Faulkner–who nobody reads anymore because he doesn’t have an Instagram account.
Patrick McGowan says
The only thing I have to say is you seem to know a lot of McGowans. Wonder if he is a distant cousin.
Goes without saying.