The Myth and Reality of Joseph Stalin’s Order No. 227 “Not a Step Back!”

If you watch the film Enemy at the Gates, you will see a caricature of what people think Joseph Stalin's Order Number 227 was. Lots of peasant soldiers charging across the open streets of Stalingrad, getting mowed down by the Germans, and then fleeing back to their own lines to get mowed down by the NKVD blocking detachments. But is this really the case? We've seen the fiction, now let's see the facts. Starting with the very important question, why? Why create Order Number 227? Germany invades the Soviet Union in June of 1942. Cue the slaughter and starvation of millions of untermentioned subhumans, because that's how the Germans perceived the Slavic Soviet peoples to be. For the Germans, this was a war of racial annihilation. A war for living space, resources, slave labour. It was also a war to destroy Bolshevism, Communism, and the Jews, because Hitler thought Judeo-Bolshevism was an evil that needed to be extinguished. In fact, his economic plans for the Wild East were truly frightening. Nazi bureaucrats estimated that anywhere from 30 to 45 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union would have perished, with some believing those figures too low by half. For the Soviets, the war had come at the worst time. Not only were their armies completely unprepared, they were also outnumbered and deployed in poor positions close to the German border inside Soviet-occupied Poland and Lithuania. This led to their rapid encirclement and destruction by the German panzers. The Red Army is wiped out, and has to reforge itself again and again in the midst of the bloodiest war in history. The Germans reach Leningrad in the north, subjugating it to a siege, where thousands more civilians would die of starvation. The Germans enter the Ukraine, where they seize the food and the harvests from the populace, and take them for themselves, as well as the German people. Again, millions of Ukrainians would die of starvation. Finally, in December 1941, for the first time, the Soviets outnumbered the German forces facing them. They managed to halt the German drive on Moscow in some of the bloodiest fighting of the war. But in 1942, Hitler strikes again. Fall Blau sees the Germans and Axis forces in the south smash through several Soviet armies and drive towards the oilfields of the Caucasus. The Red Army crumbles, and Rostov-on-Don falls on the 23rd of July 1942. Some NKVD troops fight to the death inside the city, but many soldiers simply flee and panic. This event – the rout of the southern armies and the fall of Rostov-on-Don – sends shockwaves across the Soviet Union. Observers in Moscow cannot believe what is happening. After all the sacrifices at Moscow, and the starvation of the people of Leningrad who still refuse to surrender, the southern forces would just flee and leave the city to the enemy. It was worse than that though, because the soldiers had abandoned their guns and their weapons. The NKVD, the officers, the generals, couldn't stop the fleeing soldiers, and in fact, joined in in the rout. Discipline was gone, and the view many soldiers had was, well, we keep retreating, Russia is huge, we'll just fall back and fall back until we eventually somehow receive the weapons and the will to fight. This view, this infection, had to be stopped. Every veteran of Stalingrad can identify with a journey into despair, followed by the regaining of a sense of worth and value. For most of them, that journey started with a remarkable order from Stalin himself, his Directive No. 227, christened by the soldiers the Not a Step Back Order. It marked the symbolic drawing of a line, a decision that no further retreat was possible, and that the fleeing Red Army must turn and face the enemy and make a stand. Rostov-on-Don fell on the 23rd of July, and on the 28th of July, Stalin took action. He issued Order No. 227. "...the enemy feeds more and more resources to the front and, paying no attention to their losses, moves on, penetrates deeper into the Soviet Union, captures new areas, devastates and plunders our cities and villages, rapes, kills and robs the Soviet people." Some units of the South Front, following the panic-mongers, have abandoned Rostov, without serious resistance and without order from Moscow, thus covering their banners with shame. "...the people of our country, who treat the Red Army with love and respect, are now starting to be disappointed with it, lose faith in the Red Army, and many of them curse the Army for its fleeing to the east and leaving the population under German yoke." The people are unhappy with the Army's current performance, and want it to change. They will no longer tolerate retreat. "...some unwise people at the front comfort themselves with arguments that we can continue the retreat to the east, as we have vast territories, a lot of soil, many people, and that we will always have abundance of bread. By these arguments they try to justify their shameful behavior at the front. But all of these arguments are fully false, faked, and working for our enemies." In fact, the Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. It was now lost, and with it, the grain that would keep the Soviet peoples fed was gone. The people throughout the Soviet Union were now on limited rations. Men joined the Red Army, hoping the food would be better. And there are reports of people on the way to Stalingrad, writing back to their families to tell them, no, the food was just as scarce at the front. The Soviet Union's resources were not unlimited, and the country was on the brink. "...we no longer have superiority over enemy in human resources and in bread supply. Continuation of retreat means to destroy us and also our motherland. Every new piece of territory that we leave to the enemy will strengthen our enemy and weaken us. Our defense is our motherland." In July of 1942, 40% of the Soviet population had been lost to the Axis. Many people will state how the Soviets had seemingly infinite amount of manpower compared to the Germans. Well, not in 1942 they didn't. The remaining territories of the Soviet Union had a smaller population than Italy and Germany alone. This is not including the other Axis powers Romania, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia. Add them together and the ratio is even worse. This is not including the fact that, up until recently, the Japanese had been fighting an unofficial border war with the Soviet Union in the Far East. The Soviets were surrounded by enemies that outnumbered them, and further retreat would hand the resources of the Caucasus, oil and bread, to the Germans. The Germans desperately needed oil, and this was the reason Hitler wasn't aiming for the south in 1942. So retreat is no longer an option. "...the conclusion is that it is time to stop the retreat. Not a single step back. This should be our slogan from now. We need to protect every strongpoint, every meter of Soviet soil stubbornly, till the last droplet of blood. Grab every piece of our soil and defend it as long as possible. Our motherland is going through hard times. We have to stop and then throw back and destroy the enemy, whatever it might cost us. The Germans are not as strong as the panic-mongers say. They are stretching their strength to the limit. To withstand their blow now means to ensure victory in the future." To say the Germans were overstretched is an understatement. At the conclusion or failure of Fall Blau, the front line will be 4,100 kilometers, or 2,550 miles long. This is one of the longest front lines in history. And both sides are struggling to man this front. In fact, the Germans have a single division between Army Groups A and B. 16th Motorized Division, which is monitoring hundreds of kilometers of territory with a mobile defense force. The Soviets also have light probing units in the area. So again, both sides are stretched thin. So, what do we lack? We lack order and discipline in companies, regiments and divisions, in tank units, in air force squadrons. This is our major drawback. We have to introduce the strictest order and strong discipline in our army if we want to save the situation and defend our motherland. We can no longer tolerate the fact that the commanders, commissars and political officers allow several cowards to run the show at the battlefield, that the panic-mongers carry away other soldiers in their retreat and open the way to the enemy. Panic-mongers and cowards are to be exterminated at the site. Yes, commanders, commissars and political officers are the ones at fault. And while the order does say that fleeing soldiers should be executed, this order is not aimed at the soldiers, it is aimed at those above. "...from now on, the iron law of discipline for every officer, soldier, political officer should be not a single step back without orders from higher command. Company, battalion, regiment and divisional commanders, as well as the commissars and political officers of corresponding ranks who retreat without order from above, are traitors of the motherland." Again, this order does impact the riflemen, but it's primary concern is the commanders. This really needs emphasizing because this flies against the idea that the Soviet commanders were just slaughtering their own men. In fact, it is the commanders who would be in trouble if they issued an order to retreat without authorization. After their winter retreat under pressure of the Red Army, when morale and discipline fell in the German troops, the Germans took some strict measures that led to pretty good results. They have formed 100 penal companies that were comprised of soldiers who broke discipline due to cowardice or instability. They have deployed them at the most dangerous sections of the front and have ordered them to redeem their sins by blood. Further on, they have formed around 10 penal battalions comprised of officers who had broken discipline due to cowardice and instability, deprived them of their decorations, and put them at even more dangerous sections of the front and ordered them to redeem their sins by blood. At last, the Germans have formed special guards units and deployed them behind unstable divisions and ordered them to execute panic-mongers at the site if they tried to leave their defensive positions without order or if they tried to surrender. Wait, so the Germans would do this as well? Now, it's true that the Germans removed many of their generals for retreating. There's also threats and court-martials. The front-line dugouts will be reoccupied. Any man leaving his post will be court-martialed and shot. I'm not sure if they used blocking detachments outside of Moscow. Perhaps someone can clarify that. But the Germans did remove commanders who retreated, and shot their own men for retreating. So, whether the German blocking detachments were actually a thing or not, the premise that the Soviets are savage for shooting their own men is false, since the Germans, British, US, French, and many other armies did exactly the same thing. Court-martials of course are not a Soviet-exclusive practice. "...the supreme command of the Red Army orders. First, the military councils of the fronts, and first of all front commanders, should a. in all circumstances decisively eradicate retreat attitude in the troops, and with an iron hand prevent propaganda that we can and should continue the retreat to the east, and this retreat will not be harmful to us. b. in all circumstances remove from offices and send to Stavka for court-martial those army commanders who allowed their troops to retreat at will, without authorization by the front command." Again, commanders, not troops, were responsible for threats, and therefore should be subjected to court-martial. From within each front, one to three, depending on the situation, penal battalions, 800 personnel, were commanding. Senior commanders and political officers of corresponding ranks from all services who are of broken discipline due to cowardice or instability should be sent. These battalions should be put on the more difficult sections of the front, thus giving them an opportunity to redeem their crimes against the Motherland by blood. Penal battalions or punishment battalions did exist. Their ranks were filled with cowards, former commanders who had fled, and political and common criminals. In fact, it is these units that usually have the blocking detachments behind them during the attacks. However, it wasn't like the scene in Enemy of the Gates. It's more like the Dirty Dozen. The men in the penal battalions were commanded by experienced Red Army NCOs and officers who would lead them into battle. Yeah, they would go up against enemy strongpoints and generally be assigned to the toughest missions, and in some cases they were ordered to clear minefields manually. But in practice, they were actually just like many other standard units. In fact, there are reports of people from within these units that were proud to serve in them, just like you would get in other units. The main difference was that they were first into combat and suffered heavy casualties as a result of that. An example of this is the opening moves of Operation Mars, where penal companies led the way on the 25th of November 1942. And we must remember that these units were definitely in the minority. The number of men serving in the penal battalions is as follows. 24,993 in 1942. 177,694 in 1943. 143,457 in 1944. And 81,766 in 1945. This is a total of 427,910 men throughout the war. Contrast this to the total number of men who served in the Red Army throughout the war. Not at the same time, obviously. And you'll see that 427,910 men pales in comparison to 35 million. So these were not the norm in the Red Army. Plus, you have to remember that anyone who got wounded was allowed out of the unit. So if 427,910 men served in the penal battalions, many of them would have also ended up going home, or serving in other units after being wounded. Those surviving a stint in the penal battalion would have their records marked with "...expiated his guild with his own blood." 2. The military councils of armies and 1st of all army commanders should a. in all circumstances remove from offices corps and army commanders and commissars who have allowed their troops to retreat at will without authorization by the army command and send them to the military councils of the front for court-martial. Again, massive emphasis on the commanders and commissars, and not the men. b. Form three to five well-armed guards units, deploy them in the rear of unstable divisions, and oblige them to execute panic-mongers and cowards at sight in case of panic and chaotic retreat, thus giving faithful soldiers a chance to do their duty before the motherland. So army commanders were ordered to create groups that would sit behind unstable divisions, and these groups would have the authority to execute cowards if they panicked or chaotically retreated. This is the blocking detachment bit, and it's usually taken to mean that people were sent forward in suicidal charges and then mown down by the blocking detachments. Again, Enemy of the Gates style. Authors like Anthony Beaver continued to paint the Soviets in as bad a light as possible. In his famous Stalingrad book, Beaver writes Each army had to organize three to five well-armed detachments, up to 200 men each, to form a second line to shoot down any soldier who tried to run away. Zhukov implemented this order on the Western Front within ten days, using tanks manned by specially selected officers. They followed the first wave of an attack, ready to combat cowardice by opening fire on any soldiers who wavered. Beaver also states quite confidently on page 166 that the Stalingrad Front executed 13,500 Red Army soldiers during the course of the Battle of Stalingrad. Since the reader doesn't know what the Stalingrad Front is, Beaver is able to imply that Chuikov was a monster, and executed 13,500 of his own soldiers inside of Stalingrad during the battle. In fact, this is part of the argument used by anti-Russian or anti-Soviet authorities to paint the Red Army soldiers as unwilling to fight for the Soviet regime unless they have a gun pointed at their back. However, this argument is flawed. Let's tackle Beaver's argument. The Stalingrad Front consisted of many armies. Chuikov's 62nd Army was just one of many armies in the Stalingrad Front, and it is Chuikov's 62nd Army that is fighting inside the city of Stalingrad. Chuikov actually has fewer men than Paulus. 54,000 compared to 80,000 at the start of the battle. Yes, the numbers vary, but coupled with the fact that their country was now outnumbered by their enemies, the Soviets, and especially Chuikov's 62nd Army, do not have the men to spare in order to execute them. 13,500 men would be like executing an entire division, and Chuikov didn't have many of them lying around. Beaver is incorrect. In fact, the number of men who were stopped by the blocking forces in 62nd Army up until mid-September totaled just 1,218 men. They were stopped for attempting to leave the city without permission. Out of this 1,218 men, only 21 were shot, and a further 10 were arrested. The rest 1,187 men were redistributed to different units. The estimated total number of people shot on the Soviet side during the whole war is about 158,000. Compare this to the total number of killed in action and missing in the Red Army throughout the whole war, 8,653,000. Or the total number of Red Army losses, killed, captured, missing, 14.5 million, and it is a drop in the ocean. So, enemy of the gates makes no sense, because it leaves no room for survivors to, well, survive. Chuikov is often quoted as saying the phrase And again, this is used to paint him as some sort of slaughterer of his own troops. Beaver in fact has an entire chapter in his book entitled Time is Blood. Seriously, Beaver hates this guy, and his anti-Russian bias is about as subtle as the meteor that killed the dinosaurs. Chuikov's Time is Blood quote is often taken out of context. Here's the full quote. The Americans have a saying. Time is money. During those days, we might well have said time is blood. Time wasted had to be paid for with the blood of our men. He is saying, if we, the commanders, waste time, our own men will pay the price with their blood. He is not some blood-sucking communist vampire. This guy cares for his troops, and this was what he was known for at the time. His troops were inspired by this guy and wanted to fight for him. Again, Beaver is wrong. So clearly, Order 227 has been taken out of context in order to paint the Soviets as inhuman, evil and militarily incompetent. It has been used to show the Red Army could only fight with guns at their backs. This is partly a result of German racism, since the Germans at the time were Nazi and viewed the Soviet peoples as subhuman. And it is also the result of the Western Cold War propaganda demonizing the Soviet Union. The reality is, as we have seen, much different. What then was the impact of Order 227? If it wasn't about charging towards the enemy and getting mown down, or executing people for taking one step back, what was it about? In 1942, the Red Army suffered from ill-discipline and had retreated in the face of the German summer offensive. Order 227 was issued to prevent any further retreat. It was aimed primarily at officers and political commissars, rather than the rank and file, which had always been subject to very harsh discipline. The main target was the commanders and commissars who had also retreated and shown ill-discipline. If Chuikov had retreated, he would have been court-martialed. In fact, unauthorized retreats by officers were quite common up to this point. Colonel Tarasov, commander of the 92nd Rifle Brigade, and was also commanding the remnants of 42nd Rifle Brigade after that commander was wounded, was so distraught by the fighting in Stalingrad in mid-September that he and his commissar abandoned their troops and moved their headquarters onto an island in the Volga. He then submitted false reports by radio pretending that they were still fighting in the city. When Chuikov discovered this deception, he put them on the military tribunal, and later had them executed in front of us. The order also applied only to unauthorized retreats, not to retreats in general. Unauthorized retreats only. If an attack failed, you weren't allowed to fall back to your own lines. You just weren't allowed to fall back further than that without permission. And even then, there were instances where unauthorized retreats did happen, and commanders weren't shot, but simply demoted. Like in the case of Andrewsenko, commander of the 115th Rifle Brigade, who was simply dismissed from command of the brigade and demoted. So while the blocking detachments and penal battalions were a thing, they're not as we would instantly imagine them to be, and certainly not like the shown in the film Enemy at the Gates. However, there is an aspect of Order 227 that is often completely ignored by its critics. Every new retreat by our armies had a devastating effect on the mood of our people. The army was faced with the greatest danger of all, losing the trust of the nation. In these circumstances, the slogan, not a step back, was coined. "...it was harsh but inevitable. The task was to stop the Germans. It was already clear that what happened at Stalingrad was critical, that everything would be decided here. There was nothing else to do." The defeats of the previous year, the hostility and suffering inflicted upon the Soviet peoples by the Germans, and the wave of patriotism brought about by Stalin in the August of 1942 rallied the Soviet people. This, and Order 227, were a turning point in the morale factor of the war. "...Russian society was roused to a fever pitch of hatred and vengeance. Hating the Germans and everything German became the central message of the propaganda machine. Soldiers and citizens were encouraged to give way to a blind patriotic rage. The word German or Fascist assumed a satanic dimension." Ilya Ehrenberg was a former anti-Bolshevik who had returned from exile in Paris in 1939 to be rehabilitated by Stalin. Yes, you heard me correctly. Rehabilitated by Stalin. Now we know. The Germans are not human. Now the word German has become the most terrible swear word. Let us not speak. Let us not be indignant. Let us kill. If you do not kill the German, he will kill you. If you have killed one German, kill another. There is nothing jollier than German corpses. Order 227 and Stalingrad went hand-in-hand. Not because Chuikov deployed any penal companies, nor the Soviet troops there were relying on blocking detachments. Rather, Stalingrad was a symbol of defiance and inspiration, an embodiment of the new will of the people of the Motherland against the Germans. Stalingrad became a moralistic struggle for the Soviet people. "...we knew that this was a time of crisis and felt the pain of our people. There were two options left to us, either to defend Stalingrad or become slaves of the Germans. Order 227 played a vital part in the battle. It opened the eyes of the army and the people and showed them the truth of the situation facing the country. It led to the famous slogan at Stalingrad There is no land for us beyond the Volga. We were no longer just fighting for a city. It inspired us to fight for every metre of ground, every bush and river, every little piece of land. Order 227 brought an incredible ferocity to our defence of Stalingrad." To be honest with you, there was considerable uncertainty about the fate of the city, whether we could hold it or not. And yet, after Order 227, we felt that we had to hold out at Stalingrad, regardless of that uncertainty. Somehow, we had to make our stand there. You see, the soil was now precious to us, and we had to defend every metre of it. It was our promise to the Motherland. Stalingrad was the Soviet equivalent of Verdun. It was like the Battle of Britain for the British, or Thermopylae for the Greeks. It was a rallying cry for the nation, and this was embodied in the spirit of Order 227. The Red Army soldiers welcomed the order, and changed their attitude from one of defeat to one of victory. It was not about shooting their own men. "...blocking detachments could not make Order 227 work. The motivation had to be within us." And while some may view all of this as propaganda created to extort further sacrifice from the Soviet people by a wicked regime, it is no different than the propaganda used in other nations that attempt to do the same. Do we view the actions of these nations in as negative a light? So, Order 227. Controversial, misunderstood, and debatable. Blocking detachments did exist, but there was also a big rallying cry for the Soviet people. What do you think? Was the Red Army motivated to fight more by the carrots or the stick? Let us know in the comments below. But what is certain is that the perception of the Axis-Soviet Front in the Western world has been warped by a few factors, most notably the writings of the German generals, which is why we in the West call it the Eastern Front, and the politics of the Cold War as well. There are many people around the world who want to paint the Soviet regime, and the people of the Soviet Union as well, in as bad a light as possible, and they have taken it a bit too far. To clarify, the Soviets did commit atrocities, much like the Germans. Stalin was an evil man, and the Soviet regime was a terrible dictatorship, a totalitarian dictatorship, which betrayed its people multiple times over, leading to many deaths. While it's understandable why people would want to demonize the enemy and the Soviets, there's already enough negatives as it is, so there's no actual need to exaggerate them. There's no need to take the fact that, okay, one division out of all those that fought at Stalingrad got to the front without enough rifles, and then, well, they turned that into, well, they must have sent them in suicidal waves against the enemy. Really? Like, where's the evidence for this? Hint, there is none. Why do people make stuff up? There's no need to change it. It just doesn't… it's giving people the wrong perception, and there's no need to do that. If you don't like the Soviet regime, fine. Just don't make stuff up in order to make the Soviet regime look even worse than it already was. There's no need Anyway, there we go. Thank you to my Patreons for supporting me. In fact, you helped me purchase Chuikov's Memoirs, which I use specifically for this video, so there's some quotes from it. It costs an arm and a leg, but never mind. I'm not going to recommend you read that, because it's quite expensive and you can't get a hold of it. Instead, I'm going to recommend the book Stalingrad, How the Red Army Triumphed, by Jones, which is one of the better books I've got on the Battle of Stalingrad, so check it out. Anyway, thanks for watching, thanks for supporting, bye for now.