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Understanding Human Misery Through Human Experiences

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Understanding Human Misery Through Human Experiences Michael Jones. Leningrad: State of Siege.. New York: Basic Books, 2008. 352 pp $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-465-01153-7. Reviewed by Lee Baker Published on H-German (January, 2009) Commissioned by Susan R. Boettcher In this book, Michael Jones uses memoirs, in‐ the violence in most past wars, especially during terviews, and museum resources to reconstruct a the pre-modern period. The absence of their expe‐ picture of Leningrad during one of the most bru‐ riences except as mere chronicle has thus loomed tal sieges of warfare, a siege designed not to cap‐ as a large hole in the usefulness of military histo‐ ture the city but to kill its inhabitants through ry. In this book, which belongs to the new genre, starvation, disease, bombardment, and neglect. It civilians fgure prominently. The testimony of reflects not traditional military history--an odd children, grandmothers, and elderly men adds a type of human study because it tends to ignore poignancy to the dreadful story about the siege of the people involved, instead recounting unit Leningrad that other histories generally miss. In movements, strategies and tactics, equipment, essence, the siege was a gigantic murder opera‐ and the role of leadership at the highest levels of tion rather than a military operation, and Jones command—but newer scholarship, which focuses creates a vivid picture of what this gruesome ex‐ more on the people involved in epic struggles be‐ perience was like. This work is an excellent place tween nations. This new approach includes not to begin the study of the siege of Leningrad, but only the experiences of soldiers, as they have al‐ readers will have to look elsewhere for an expli‐ ways played a large role in military history, but of cation and analysis of battles for Leningrad and civilians and noncombatants as well. The experi‐ its eventual relief. ences of civilians who experience wars as armies As the Germans rapidly approached the city approach their cities, attack, and pass through of‐ during the summer of 1941 and the impending fer much material of interest to military histori‐ disaster neared, Jones believes that two men de‐ ans and general readers as well. Military person‐ serve the lion's share of blame for the dire cir‐ nel have never been the only people affected by cumstances facing the inhabitants: Joseph Stalin war, and civilians have in fact borne the brunt of and Kliment Voroshilov (for whom the much- H-Net Reviews vaunted super-heavy KV tanks were named), the the best commanders of the war, but Jones does marshal long responsible for the city's defense. not exempt him from severe criticism for his di‐ Voroshilov was an old Bolshevik ally of Stalin's, all rection of the defense of Leningrad, calling his as‐ the way back to the Russian Revolution and Civil sumption of command a "poisoned chalice" (p. War. According to Jones, neither man had any ap‐ 124) because of Zhukov's insistence on defending preciation of military affairs and both shared low and attacking from the Nevsky bridgehead, which opinions of military experts. For Leningrad, such became a charnel house for the Red Army. Even attitudes presaged disaster. The city was simply after Zhukov was recalled to help defend Moscow, unprepared for war at even the most elementary Zhadanov continued to press the defense of the level. The one man who could have made a differ‐ bridgehead and thus continued to lose thousands ence--Mikhail Tukachevsky, who had been re‐ of men who could have been utilized better else‐ sponsible for Leningrad becoming a major center where. of arms production before the war--had fallen vic‐ Jones spends much of his time relating the ut‐ tim to the machinations of Voroshilov and ter incompetence of city authorities and the disil‐ Leningrad Communist Party boss Andrei lusionment this incapacity caused among city res‐ Zhadanov. He was denounced as an enemy of the idents. He cites instances where corrupt officials, people and executed during the purges of the such as hospital directors and their wives, illegal‐ 1930s. Jones makes much of the supposed result‐ ly hoarded food and held splendid feasts during ing weakness of the Red Army and attributes a the famine. Communist Party officials were no dif‐ large part of the blame for its poor performance ferent, and he carefully chronicles how they in 1941 to the decimation of experienced officers, feathered their own nests with food intended for especially because this practice created a vacuum hospitals, soldiers, and the starving, even feeing of able leadership among feld divisional officers. the city when they could. Cannibalism is a major Recent scholarship has tended to de-emphasize theme of the hunger stories related in the book the effects of the purge, but Jones is nonetheless and despite its relative rarity, Jones devotes con‐ right to argue that the purges had some effect, siderable space to this macabre crime, carefully even if upon morale rather than upon combat reporting both specific instances and punish‐ readiness. This portion of the book, however, ments meted out for such desperate barbarism. makes a larger and more interesting point: it was He chronicles, as part of this desperation, the fail‐ not the generals who won the battle of Leningrad, ures of city authorities to distribute adequately but rather the people of that great city. Their vic‐ not only food, but even ration cards, and at one tory came despite the incompetence of their polit‐ point marvels that bread rations were increased ical and military leadership. at just the moment when the failure of electrical The indomitable spirit of the population of plants shut down the city's water network and Leningrad was eventually supported by Georgi thus the bakeries. These episodes, he believes, Zhukov, whom Stalin dispatched as overall com‐ were symptomatic of the city's utter failure to do mander of the city's defenses in place of its job. Indeed the NKVD (People's Commissariat Voroshilov and his cohort. This change in leader‐ for Internal Affairs) spent its time not ensuring ship did not mean, however, that matters changed that the city did its job, but rather hunting down overnight, and the botched evacuation of children "counterrevolutionaries" and thus wasted both its is an example of this continuing failure. Accord‐ efforts and the lives of Leningrad residents. Even ing to witnesses cited by Jones, this episode the fabled "Ice Road," the supply line across Lake turned many of the city's inhabitants against their Ladoga that has loomed so large in the myth of city government. Zhukov may have been one of the siege, is decried as the "Road of Death" due to 2 H-Net Reviews botched evacuations and the incompetence that accompanied its construction and use. The only bright spot in this dark landscape of bungled and lost opportunities was the performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony during August 1942, which revitalized the city's spirit in unimag‐ inable ways and convinced many people that Leningrad would again be free. General readers will fnd this book fascinat‐ ing and hard to put down; specialists should fnd it an excellent model for the writing of more ef‐ fective popular histories. If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-german Citation: Lee Baker. Review of Jones, Michael. Leningrad: State of Siege.. H-German, H-Net Reviews. January, 2009. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23437 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.
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