You don’t even have to go that far back.
Enemy at the gates, Both movie (2001) and book (1973), give a graphic depiction of Stalin’s Not a step back command, Order No. 227, where soldiers were shot for refusing orders to die where they stand and not retreat in WW2.
There was no arrest, trail and formal execution as seen in Paths of Glory. The troops had the choice to be shot by the Germans in front of them or by the USSR Political Officers behind them.
Enemy at the Gates is a decent flick, but it’s pretty inaccurate. I wouldn’t be citing it as a source on what actually happened on the eastern front.
I was replying to a comet about a movie, so I replied with one. I also linked order 227, which is accurate.
If you have a link that you feel is more accurate please post it.
I’m not disputing the content of order 227, I’m disputing the historical accuracy of the film. Yes, they did have supply issues, penal battalions, and blocking units in the Soviet army, but not like it was depicted in the film.
All in all, the most likely way that a soldier or officer would interact with a barrier troop was not through being cut down by a Maxim, but through arrest and drumhead court martial. Especially in the case of the NKVD detachments, they wouldn’t be set up right at the line of battle, but some ways to the rear, where they would apprehend retreaters, run a quick show “trial”, execute a few to make an example, and sentence considerably more to serve time in a penal unit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3pcjfv/comment/cw54qf3/?context=3
Enemy At The Gates is utter propagandistic and asinine bullcrap - you’ll get more historical accuracy from Mel Gibson’s crappy “historical” movies than that one.
Order No. 227 mostly only applied to high-level officers - in reality, the vast majority of retreating soldiers caught by barrier troops were merely returned to their units. There are records of these things - no matter what western historians assume.
You say there are records, but even right now Russia is intentionally keeping a lot of its dead soldiers go unrecorded (ie MIA instead of KIA) just so they can keep payouts lower and more easily downplay losses. Doesn’t mean the same happened in WW2, but how do we know it didn’t either?
It’s really simple… it’s difficult to keep things secret when an entire country is suddenly involved in a war that’s literally on it’s doorstep. It’s the same reason so many people in the US still don’t have the foggiest clue what the US actually did in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia - it’s much easier to keep secrets when the war is happening somewhere else. So yes… despite what western historians will have you believe, the Soviet Union of 1942 did have typewriters - lots and lots of them, as well as people to operate them. The massive losses the USSR suffered couldn’t be kept a secret - by 1942, the Soviet Union was literally filled with millions of first-hand witnesses. Stalin also didn’t have to lie to keep people in the Soviet Union fighting - the true nature of the genocidal Nazi colonialist program (Operation Barbarossa was no mere military operation) was pretty damn self-evident by that stage, too. If you read actual accounts of people who witnessed it all you get a far better understanding of it than the hot garbage alt-history Enemy At The Gates is based on - I recommend The Unwomanly Face of War.
The original Call of Duty (2003) featured a level about the battle of Stalingrad where you’re given a rifle but no ammo to start the level. That has always stuck with me.
