F7209 "...IN THE TRUCK CAB" - SOVIET OFFICER AND DRIVERS

The Soviet officer corps began to form in the course of the civil war in Russia that broke out after the October Revolution of 1917. After its definitive end at the turn of 1922/1923 (although the main activities came to an end already in 1919), as well as after the defeat in the war with Poland (the Peace of Riga - 1921), conclusions were slowly drawn from these armed conflicts, which influenced in the shape of the Soviet officer corps and its theoretical and military views. This process accelerated at the turn of the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century, when in the USSR appeared the theory of the so-called deep operation, and their works were published by Tukhachevsky or less known, but very important for the development of Soviet military thought, Triandafilov and Isserson. However, in the mid-1930s, the Soviet officer corps was decimated in the course of the Stalinist purges, which was bad for his professionalism, and perhaps even more for the independent thinking of individual officers. This fact was not changed by the introduction of the professional officer corps in 1935. As a result of these purges, high command positions were given to officers with insufficient preparation, considerable lack of theoretical knowledge, but completely loyal to the apparatus of the communist state. Moreover, at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s, the Red Army underwent intensive quantitative development and generally suffered from considerable shortages in the officer corps. The shortcomings in this regard were already underlined by the Winter War with Finland (1939-1940), and they were fully heard in the first period of the war with Germany, especially in the period 1941-1942. Even the first great victory in this war (the counteroffensive from Moscow in 1941) was achieved more thanks to the enemy's exhaustion and weather conditions than thanks to Zhukov's commanding talents. With time, however, at the cost of a huge tribute of blood, the Soviet officer corps was professionalized and was able to carry out really large-scale land operations more and more skilfully. One example is Operation Bagration in 1944. Also such generals and marshals as Rokossovsky, Konev and Batov turned out to be equal opponents for the German commanders. Moreover - especially the former can be counted as one of the best commanders of the Second World War.The Red Army in the 1930s experienced a very intensive development, marked, inter alia, by the automotive industry and the mechanization of many tactical compounds. Many new brigades were created, and later also armored corps, and the artillery traction - field or anti-aircraft - was also motorized. All this meant that drivers responsible for driving and the simplest repairs of all these motor vehicles began to play a significant role. With the start of the German-Soviet war on June 22, 1941 and in connection with the enormous losses suffered in the first months of that war, the Red Army clearly began to suffer from considerable shortages in the field of trucks and off-road vehicles (equivalents of the American Willys Jeep). These shortcomings were still visible during the Battle of Kursk (July 1943), when the Central Front had only about 29,300 trucks of all types, both in field and logistic formations. Let us add - we are talking about a military group of over 700,000 people! These deficiencies were associated with considerable problems when it comes to efficient logistics, delivery of supplies via wheel traction or quick transfer of forces. Undoubtedly, the Red Army was much less motorized at that time than the American or British armies. It is also worth adding that a large part of the Red Army trucks were Studebaker cars obtained under the Lend-and-Lease program. A lot of Ford GPA and Willys Jeep vehicles were also sold to the Soviet state.