Catherine Merridale found archives of letters, diaries and police reports that have allowed her to write a major history of a figure too often treated as part of a vast mechanical horde. Here are moving and terrible stories of men and women in appalling conditions, many not far from death. They allow us to understand the strange mixture of courage, patriotism, anger and fear that made it possible for these badly fed, dreadfully governed soldiers to defeat the Nazi army that would otherwise have enslaved the whole of Europe.

The experience of the soldiers is set against a masterly narrative of the war in Russia. Merridale also shows how the veterans were treated with chilling ingratitude and brutality by Stalin, and later exploited as icons of the Great Patriotic War before being sidelined once more in Putin's new capitalist Russia.         

 

Catherine Merridale is the author of Night of Stone, described by Misha Glenny as 'an epic and moving history' and Antony Beevor as 'an original and intriguing study of death in Russia'. She is Professor of history at Queen Mary College, London.