Stalin's Generals - Tapa dura

The history of the Red Army is overshadowed by the bloody purges of the 1930s. How could such a maimed army face the onslaught of Hitler's divisions? How could Soviet generals, whose independent judgement was essential to success, stand up to a bloodthirsty dictator who was ignorant of military skill? How important was leadership in operations as vast as those in World War II? An international group of military historians, including John Erickson and Dmitri Volkogonov, tackle these and other questions through the lives of a selection of leading Soviet generals. These portraits of some 25 generals throw light on the relations between a new military elite and a totalitarian leader at a time when the very existence of the Soviet state was in the balance.