The social and institutional origins and development of the Soviet officer corps in the 1930's and 1940'

The Social and Institutional Origins and Development of the Soviet Officer Corps in the 1930's and 1940's, by Francis Janecek is an examination of a key sector of Soviet society during a tumultuous period in history. Discovering the class, ethnic and institutional makeup of the military's leadership and how these factors affected their careers sheds additional light on developments within Soviet society in general and the military in particular. An examination of various factors impacting on the Red Army's performance in the Second World War is incorporated into each biography. Because these developments are so varied, the study uses a series of biographies of important, or revealing, Red Army officers.;After an examination of the Tsarist legacy and the current historiography concerning the Red Army, a series of nine biographies examines the various issued raised in the dissertation. The lives of P. Grigorenko, B. Shaposhnikov, M. Tukhachevsky, P. Pirogov, G. Zhukov, A. Vlasov, I. Krylov, S. Shtemenko and K. Rokossovsky are included in the study. They provide a variety of experiences during this period, ranging from execution to great career success. While no single answer or career pattern emerges from this study, it does provide an important look at the surprising variety to be found in the Soviet military during this period.