Book Review, Red Road from Stalingrad

By Mansur Abdulin

The plot of a feel-good book usually revolves around a thirty something woman who works for an advertising agency in the city, who one day meets an artsy man with curly hair. They move in together in a cottage situated in front of a meadow and starts a bed and breakfast together with a Labrador Retriever and lives happily ever after. If you really want to put things in perspective and feel better about your life then, trust me, you don´t want any of that. What you need to do is read Red Road from Stalingrad. Do that and I can guarantee you that you will never complain about anything ever again.

A Muslim Tartar born in Siberia at the time of the Communist revolution, Mansur Abdulin fought for the Red Army during the Second World War. In Red Road from Stalingrad, he tells openly and candidly what it was like to serve in an army infamous for its harshness and brutality, during what was quite possibly the most destructive conflict that man has ever fought. As a miner, Abdulin was exempt from being drafted when the war broke out, but his sense of duty and patriotism compelled him to volunteer. The recruiting sergeant even tried talking him out of joining the army, but Abdulin demanded to be allowed to serve. After training at an infantry school in Tashkent, Abdulin was offered a cushy staff job by a kindly general, but declined and asked to be sent to the front.

He arrived at the outskirts of Stalingrad and was blooded during the savage fighting to dislodge the German troops stationed in the outskirts of the city. On November 6^th 1942 Abdulin killed a German soldier with an SVT rifle. As the first soldier of the 1034^th regiment to inflict a casualty on the enemy, he is awarded a medal for bravery. During the time he spends at the front, from November 1942 until November 1943, when he is wounded by a mortar blast and sent home, Abdulin is subjected to constant hardship and heavy fighting. Periods of rest are few and far between.

As a mortar man, Abdulin has to carry a piece of the disassembled mortar weighing between 20-30 kilograms as well as his regular kit when his regiment is on the march, which is to say nearly all the time. He notes that he is used to back-breaking manual labor and is certainly among the toughest men in his unit, having worked in the Siberian mines since he was a child. Yet the constant strain nearly brakes his body while the horrors he witnesses nearly brakes his spirit. He recalls one time when he falls down and starts to cry, unable to carry the mortar another step, but somehow forces himself to carry on. If someone like him is nearly done in, he notes soberly, his comrades must really be going through hell. These days many bankers from the city spend their weekend climbing mountains, engaged in supposedly tough military style marches. I wonder if they would have impressed the young Abdulin and his fellow soldiers.

Besides carrying the heavy mortar and being constantly under fire from the Germans, there was also an unending supply of vicious fleas to contend with. While the Germans had to take a nap before they resumed shooting at them in the morning, the fleas where a plague that never let up. While passing the burning wrecks of destroyed tanks, Abdulin recalls how he often fantasized about throwing himself onto their hulls, desperate for any relief from the itching flea bites. The Germans and the fleas and the heavy mortar notwithstanding, there was also constant famine and cold. Hot meals were served from field kitchens or “Kashas”, but these didn´t always reach the front and the soldiers often had to make do with what they could forage on their own. Having captured several German flare guns, they often managed to fool the German transport planes to drop their supplies over their positions instead. One time they hit the jackpot, and managed to get their hands on several crates of Christmas presents sent to the front from families in Germany. This treasure trove included, tobacco, chocolate, dried fruits, schnapps and pornography. Due to the fact that it was strictly banned in the Soviet Union, Abdulin and his comrades were shocked when saw the indecent pictures. Naturally, they couldn’t always rely on stealing supplies from the Germans and a state of near starvation was the norm. When they were served oatmeal porridge with sunflower oil after a particular harsh fight, Abdulin tells of how ecstatic he were, since he hadn´t eaten for several days. As someone who can´t swallow even a spoonful of porridge without a generous helping of milk and marmalade, this alone was quite enough to convince me of the war´s hardships.     

After his regiment had distinguished themselves in the fighting around Stalingrad, Abdulin´s 193^rd Division later became the 66^th Guards Rifle Division. This was a great honor, since the Guards regiments were the experienced elite of the red army, a privilege that came with better pay and conditions. Some of this was merely theoretical, since the frighteningly high casualty rate meant that combat units were quickly depleted and had to rely on a constant stream of reinforcements, meanwhile the supply situation was never dependable. Nevertheless, Abdulin and his comrades felt deeply honored and they could now wear a red star emblem on their uniforms and vehicles.

During the long marsh to the Dnieper, Abdulin´s regiment fought against several of Nazi Germany´s elite SS Divisions. The fighting was often so brutal and intense that you realize it´s a wonder anyone survived at all. Abdulin was one of a lucky few, and if you have seen the opening sequence of Enemy At the Gates, starring Jude Law, you know some of what it was like. And yes, the Soviets did have special squads led by Commissars assigned to the rear of the advance tasked with killing any who tried to flee. To charge into carefully prepared German positions was extremely dangerous, which Abdulin and his comrades did time and time again, but to refuse was to face a certain death. Once, when dragging an injured comrade towards the nearest first aid post, a cold hearted Commissar mistook Abdulin for a deserter and raised his pistol to shoot him. Luckily, from our perspective at least, the man is killed by a stray German artillery shell before he can carry out his grim work.

I myself had only read the classical German accounts of the eastern front, Guderian, von Mellenthin etc., and I must say it was both interesting and enlightening to see the other side´s perspective. The heroic men who climbed the steep cliffs of Normandy have rightly been praised time and time again, but those who fought in the east have not received the same praise, at least not outside Russia. This year marked the seventieth anniversary of the allied Victory in Europe, a victory that wouldn´t have been possible without men like Mansur Abdulin. He personally writes that the book came about because he felt that the story needed to be told, and since no one else in his regiment had decided to take up the pen, he did so reluctantly. It proved to be a story well worth telling, as well as a reminder that if you think that you have it too tough, you need to think again.