Leningrad: State of Siege - New book by Mike Jones

[nestormakhno]

Mike Jones, author of the superb book, "Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed" has brought out a new book about the 900-day siege.

I have just started reading it so I can't tell you too much about how he handles the later stages. The descriptions of the early stages, however, make for a pretty disturbing read, focussing as they do on the errors made by the Soviet authorities during the defence.

Voroshilov, in particular, comes out of it quite badly - his neglect and mismanagement making worse an already bad situation for the people of Leningrad. I have to say that this does not surprise me too much. IIRC even in the civil war days KV was always pretty cavalier with the lives of those beneath him and seems to have been kept around by Stalin because of his blind loyalty. Driving up to the front lines and waving a pistol around are not what is needed to manage the defence of a huge city full of civilians.

The siege was a deliberate attempt by Hitler to starve Leningrad to death so, as you can imagine, several episodes from it make for very harrowing reading indeed. For example, the description of the bombing of the children's refugee train made me want to go out and smack a nazi-apologist in the mouth. I also have to say that the testimony of the people stuck in the siege and their descriptions of the hunger really brought a tear to my eye. As with Stalingrad, you can only wonder at the stoicism of those who survived.

As in his other book, Mike Jones throws some light on what it was like to be in such a terrible situation and what it takes to be able to survive it. The role of art, particularly Shostakovich's performance of the 7th symphony, in helping remind people what it is to be human in such dehumanising circumstances is also discussed.

I will give a further report on the book when I have finished but so far I would say that it is an essential but often uncomfortable text about the siege.

Thoroughly recommended so far.

It is not yet available though Amazon but you can get a copy from here: TSO Online Bookshop - Coming Soon

BTW - my article about the sword of Stalingrad should be out in a few months, though I will probably try to get it published in one of the UK history magazines before any other publication. The research is coming along very nicely.

[desantnik]

Thanks for the review!

There is so much "good" information on all the bad stuff that happened at Leningrad. In my opinion the notoriety and fame of this horrific seige was and is underrated compared to Stalingrad's day in the sun.

[dav1941]

Read the book too. I met Mike Jones a couple times in Volgograd. Back in '05 we sat in the Hotel Volgograd cafe drinking a few beers discussing aspects of his new book. I recall he had some very good sources there and I showed him a personal interview I did of Zaitsev's wife in Kiev. If you happen to know him on a personal basis tell him I said Hi. I lost email contact with him a couple years back.

Gary

He was supposed to include me in the credits of his book. Damn! Should have gotten that in writing!