Not a Step Back

Roy King

October 9, 2022

Word Count: 2190

 King 1

Table of Contents:

Analysis of Sources………………………………………………………………………………..2

Investigation……………………………………………………………………………………….4

Reflection………………………………………………………………………………………….9

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………...11
 King 2

Section I: Analysis of Sources

Order No. 2271 is a primary source written by Joseph Stalin in his role as People's

Commissar of Defense. It was written in response to a feared collapse of the Soviet armed forces

in the face of the German blitzkrieg. It was commanded that this order be read out to every

soldier in the Russian army.

The strength of this source lies in its undisputed authenticity as the ordering document for

a theater-wide strategy subsequently implemented by the Soviet army. This order set in motion a

remarkable shift in Soviet military policy and force disposition strategy and is invaluable as a

means of understanding that policy and strategy which were among the most significant and

brutal ever implemented in any war. Looking back, knowing how the war concluded, we form

conceptions about the conflict on the Russian Front that are often uninformed by contemporary

Soviet views from that time that arose in the face of an impending national disaster. This source

is set in the past and therefore gives us a view of the past from the past without being tainted by

hindsight. In particular, this source reflects the existential national emergency faced by the Soviet

Union in 1942.

The nature of this document as a primary source means that it inherently lacks the

perspective that would come with an exhaustive secondary source. Although the scope of 227 is

much narrower, it is one of those original source documents that is sufficient all on its own to

allow the student of history to gain a correct and properly contextualized understanding of one of

the most consequential military strategy shifts in history.

“When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler”, by David M. Glantz,

describes various factors that allowed the Soviet army to turn back the German blitzkrieg and

1
Hereinafter, this will be referred to simply as 227, or Order 227.
 King 3

ultimately expel the German army from Soviet territory. The content of this book is extremely

thorough in discussing its subject matter and fosters insights and connections to other

knowledge. This book's origin is a strength because it is written by a respected historian who is

an expert on the history of the Soviet Union during World War II. He has done immense amounts

of research. This means that information from this book is reliable and that inferences and

extrapolations made based on this information have a high degree of credibility.

This book is an exhaustive treatise on the development of the war on the eastern front

from Operation Barbarossa in 1941 to the fall of Berlin in 1945. This book's scope is extremely

broad and thus contains only a small amount of relevant information about military tactics and

strategies and their evolution throughout the war. This means that the book’s discussion of 227

and its effects is necessarily summerial.

 King 4

Section II: Investigation

On Sunday, June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in the history of

warfare commenced. The Wehrmacht enacted Fuhrer Order 21 2 unleashing a tsunami of more

than 4.5 million soldiers over the border into Soviet-occupied Poland and into Soviet homelands

along an 1800-mile front.3 The Germans used mechanized vehicles to cover vast areas very

quickly, just as they had done in Belgium and France.4 The Germans raced eastward, rarely

meeting any coordinated resistance. The German army raped, murdered, and burned, terrorizing

the civilian population as it rolled through the vast western regions of the Soviet Union. The

breadth of the front meant that the Soviets struggled to mobilize fast enough to reach the German

objectives in force before the German army. However, Marshall Zhukov was able to mount a

defense and stall the Wehrmacht 30 miles from Moscow. As Hitler saw his army stumble at the

finish line near Moscow he commanded that a battle plan for a southern flanking exercise be

drafted. Hitler planned to thrust multiple panzer divisions through Ukraine, cross the Volga at

Stalingrad and capture the oil resources in the Caucuses. This bold plan was codenamed

Operation Fall Blau. When Operation Fall Blau commenced, Stalin quickly recognized that the

natural resources of the Caucuses were too valuable to lose and the red army needed to make a

stand.5

In making a stand, Stalin leveraged his one strength over the Wehrmacht: manpower. By

July 1942, one month before the battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army was 11 million strong 6,

2
Hitler, Adolf, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, Case Barbarossa, Fuhrer Directive 21, The
Fuehrer's Headquarters, December 18, 1940,
3
“Operation Barbarossa: A Deadly Turning Point in WWII.” n.d. Smithsonianassociates.org
4
“Operation Barbarossa: A Deadly Turning Point in WWII.”
5
Glantz, David M, and Jonathan M House. 2015. When Titans Clashed How the Red Army Stopped Hitler.
University Press Of Kansas. pp. 110-120
6
Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. pp. 111-115
 King 5

representing a massive manpower advantage over the six-million-man Wehrmacht. Stalin knew

he needed to find a way to capitalize on that advantage and bring that manpower to bear by

forcing the Red Army to fight, to fight no matter the human cost. Stalin drafted and released

Order no. 227 making any retreating action, regardless of the hopelessness of the situation

punishable by death. Stalin realized that even though he had worse armor, a worse air force, a

worse navy, and poorly trained and unmotivated troops it didn't matter because he had more

young men to send to die for the motherland than the Germans. But it only mattered if he could

force Russian soldiers to fight and die, and that force came with the release of 227, a brutal

policy statement that created a paradigm shift within the Russian army. This shift incentivized

the Russian army to hold out at Stalingrad and then turn the tide of the war with Operation

Uranus. Nevertheless, an assertion of the success of 227 mustn't be allowed to ignore the fact that

this drastic measure may have led to panic among the Soviet troops and recklessness among the

commanders leading to increased casualty rates, and decreased effectiveness in combat.

227 authorized all Russian officers to shoot on sight any retreating soldier. In addition,

the order gave all Russian soldiers permission to directly disobey commands to retreat. The

implementation of this order was brutal but effective. Commanders were ordered to “form within

the limits of each army 3 to 5 well-armed defensive squads (up to 200 persons in each), and put

them directly behind unstable divisions and require them in case of panic and scattered

withdrawals of elements of the divisions to shoot in place panic-mongers and cowards and thus

help the honest soldiers of the division execute their duty to the Motherland;” 7 This order was

merciless in its wording and its execution. It set aside the value of human life, but it worked.

"The defeatist mood is almost eliminated and the number of treasonous incidents is getting

7
Stalin, Joseph, People's commissioner of Defense, “Not one step back”, Order no. 227, Moscow, July 28, 1942
 King 6

lower" 8 The primary objective of 227 was not to increase the fighting effectiveness of Soviet

soldiers; rather, its objective was simply to make sure the Soviet soldier stayed on the battlefield

and in the fight. Stalin knew that in a head-to-head engagement his untrained and under-equipped

conscripts would be little match for the German army anyway. He just needed the Germans to

waste supplies, manpower, and time on his conscript army, and for that to work the Russians

couldn't retreat. That was the objective of 227 and it worked.

Another important aspect of 227 was the creation of penal battalions. This would mark a

change in Soviet military strategy. The specifics for the creation of these “penal battalions” are

spelled out in 227: “Form within each Front from one up to three penal battalions … where

commanders … guilty of a breach of discipline due to cowardice or bewilderment will be sent,

and put on more difficult sectors of the front to give them an opportunity to redeem by blood

their crimes against the Motherland.”9 The penal battalions were formed so that the Red Army

could save their most effective units for important actions against the enemy. Before 227 the

most well-trained and well-equipped units had been sent into the most hopeless situations in an

effort to win battles and skirmishes that were lost from the beginning.10 Penal battalions were put

into “the more difficult sectors of the front” to slow and harass the German advance before any

area of the front truly collapsed. They would play an instrumental role in the stand at Stalingrad

and in Operation Uranus, the Russian counterattack at Stalingrad.11

The obvious danger posed by the implementation of an order like 227 is that it might

cause an increase in panic and desertion. It would not be ridiculous to assert that an order

8
Beevor, Antony. 2017. Stalingrad. London: Penguin Books pp. 86
9
Stalin, Joseph, People's commissioner of Defense, “Not one step back”
10
Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. pp. 121
11
Overy, R J. 2010. Russia’s War. London: Penguin. pp. 154-171
 King 7

threatening immediate execution at the slightest sign of a disposition to retreat would strike such

fear and panic into an army that it would simply shoot its officers, throw down its weapons, and

go home. However, interviews with Russian soldiers and an analysis of Russian action following

the issuance of 227 tell a different story. Speaking about 227, Lev Lvovich stated: "it [the

formation of penal battalions] was a necessary and important step. We all knew where we stood

after we had heard it. And we all – it's true – felt better. Yes, we felt better." This quote from a

Russian infantryman proves that a paradigm shift did in fact occur in the Soviet army as a result

of 227. They understood that there was no possibility of retreat.12 It was win or die on the banks

of the Volga and, faced with this choice, the Russian army chose victory and that is what it

achieved.13

There are obviously strong moral arguments to be made against 227 and these are

certainly valid but are beyond the scope of this paper. The assertion made and supported

throughout this paper has been that 227 led to an ethos within the Russian army that allowed it to

overcome the psychology of retreat that was leading them to certain defeat. The rebuttal to this

argument is that the creation and implementation of 227 was detrimental to the Soviet war effort

because it led to poor military strategy and reckless disregard for human life among the Soviet

command. Whether or not these criticisms are valid, it seems likely that 227 shortened the war

and may have reduced the Soviet Union’s ultimate number of casualties. The human losses

precipitated by 227 were clearly necessary to stop Operation Fall Blau. Stalin understood that he

had an army twice the size of the German Reich and no matter how poorly trained or

unmotivated his men were if he could force the Germans to die trying to kill them he would

12
Merridale, Catherine. 2007. Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. New York: Picador. pp.
286-302
13
Glantz and House, When Titans Clashed How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. pp. 122-135
 King 8

eventually bring the Nazi war machine to its knees. 227 can be regarded as morally corrupt and

evil but it is indisputable that it worked and that it saved the Soviet Union and kept them in the

war where they made a tremendous contribution to the eventual allied victory.
 King 9

Section III: Reflection

When I was researching and writing this paper, I noticed many patterns and consistencies.

Part of the explanation for this is the pattern-seeking nature of the human mind but I also think

that these patterns were numerous enough to support the assertion that actual patterns are present

in my topic that are not apparent at first glance. Noticing and interpreting these patterns is the

hallmark of the art and practice of the discipline of history. As we develop abilities to identify

these patterns, we increase our ability to understand the past. However, simply understanding and

retelling the past isn't the business of a historian; that is the art of the novelist. True history is

done when these patterns are recognized and we are able to form deeper understandings of both

the present and the past. I was able to do this through my analysis of the Soviet army in the early

stages of WWII. We understand the Soviet army of WWII as a cruel, soulless meat grinder, that

perception is correct in part, but it lacks context. Context may never get us to the point where we

agree that 227 was justified, but it can allow us to understand why the Soviets were convinced it

was necessary and understand the assessment of facts that lead to such conviction. Through my

research, I found out that 227 resulted from the exigencies of a national emergency rather than a

lack of skill on the part of the Soviet high command. The conscript-based Soviet army, lacking

any real sense of patriotic duty or motivation, needed a brutal policy and military strategy to

become effective. This brutality turned out to have more to do with a complete inability to

motivate their troops rather than poor leadership in actual combat. This prompted me to revise

and deepen my understanding of the Soviet Union during its trial by fire before the guns of the

Wehrmacht. Being able to study a very specific event in history and find themes and extrapolate

those themes to aid my understanding of broader concepts is what history is all about. This is

what I was able to do through my research on my topic. I was able to find and understand the
 King 10

implications of a key element of the attitude of the Soviet military during the time period I

investigated and that discovery allowed me to answer an important question I had and gain a

further understanding of the broader context surrounding the event researched.

 King 11

Works Cited

Beevor, Antony. 2017. Stalingrad. London: Penguin Books.

Glantz, David M, and Jonathan M House. 2015. When Titans Clashed How the Red Army

Stopped Hitler. University Press Of Kansas.

Hitler, Adolf, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, Case Barbarossa, Fuhrer

Directive 21, The Fuehrer's Headquarters, December 18, 1940

Kelerchian, Gabrielle. 2014. “The Significance of the Russian Campaign of the Napoleonic

Wars.” The Histories 1 (1). https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/the_histories/vol1/iss1/6/.

Merridale, Catherine. 2007. Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945. New York:

Picador.

“Operation Barbarossa: A Deadly Turning Point in WWII.” n.d. Smithsonianassociates.org.

https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/227352#:~:text=On%20June%2022%2

C%201941%2C%20Nazi.

Overy, R J. 2010. Russia’s War. London: Penguin.

Stalin, Joseph, People's commissioner of Defense, “Not one step back”, Order no. 227, Moscow,

July 28, 1942