Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (review)

Chris Bellamy, in this substantive volume, has unleashed his considerable talents as a Soviet military analyst, skilled journalist, and accomplished historian to recount the often sordid but always complex and captivating history of the Soviet-German War (1941-1945), a war he aptly describes as the "most hideous land-air conflict in history." He has done so to good effect. After decades of post-war neglect caused by a near total absence of archival materials on the war, at least from the Soviet side, a state that permitted mystery and myth to dominate, this sad situation changed for the better when the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Thereafter, thanks in part to the Russian Federation, which permitted the doors of its military archives to swing open, albeit slowly, and in part to a new generation of historians who were both willing and able to exploit these formerly forbidden sources, the world can finally ponder the war's immensity with some conviction that it is at long last perceiving its real causes, course, and consequences.

In this respect, Bellamy's fresh single-volume history of the war is a welcome addition to other fine books written on the subject during the last ten years. Doing justice to his mentor, John Erickson, whose landmark trilogy on the Soviet High Command and wartime Red Army paved the way for historians in this field long ago, Bellamy has exploited a host of archival materials and combined them with materials from a multitude of sound books on all aspects of the war to produce an admirable synthesis describing what is known and pondering what is still unknown about the war. Most important, he has done so with the linguistic austerity and artistry of a jeweler's eye and a dry tongue-in-cheek humor that makes the book extremely readable for historian and layman alike.

Bellamy's treatment of the war is conventional; a straightforward chronological narrative, primarily of the military course of the war but with necessary contextual excursions into the war's vital political, diplomatic, economic, and social dimensions. In short, his exposition displays those features that indeed made the Soviet-German War the "absolute war" he ascribes to it in the book's title. Embracing as it does most of the war's many "forgotten" facets, in every respect his narrative is fresh, comprehensive, and "cutting edge." Furthermore, his deft integration of non-military aspects of the war into an austere yet surprisingly complete narrative of the raw military struggle provides the reader with orderly understanding of what otherwise might be undue confusion.

The only fault readers might find with this book is its concentration on the first two years of the war (June 1941-July 1943) at the expense of the war's final two years (August 1943- May 1945). Although this criticism is valid to some extent, the coverage in Bellamy's book is understandable, since analysis of the war based on the clarity offered by new sources has yet to extend fully to this period. Indeed, this very state of archival research offers the author prospects for publication of a new edition several years hence. In the meantime, this book will likely remain one of the most comprehensive, readable, and thoroughly enjoyable books on this important subject.