Rating: 
Summary: The author relies too much on Soviet sources. Need updating.
Review: David Glantz has reproduced a lot of Soviet data to show how ill-prepared the Soviet Red Army was in the face of the German Wehrmacht's invasion of the USSR, June 1941. While his statistics are numerous (from Soviet sources), any analysis of the "political-military" aspects of Stalin policy before June 1941 is absent. To his (Glantz's) mind, any present-day Russian scholar who would dare challenge the conventional view that Stalin pursued only a "defencist" policy vis-a-vis Hitler from the Nazi-Soviet agreements to the June '41 invasion is an "anti-Soviet" bigot, to paraphrase his accusations against these reputable, post-Soviet Russian military historians. But Mr. Glantz himself is the one who is being outpaced by new revelations from Soviet archives. These disclosures indicate that Stalin was planning his own offensive strategy against Hitler (which does not excuse, of course, Operation Barbarossa). Second, in his other books as well, Glantz in his shows his lack of acquaintanceship with NEW, post-Communist historiography. Anyone who would care to update himself/herself on this might see recent issues of the journal TRANSITIONS, which tracks in scholarly manner the latest developments -- and books -- in the former East European bloc, including Russia.
Rating: 
Summary: Glantz-the Master of Soviet/German military studies
Review: David Glantz's book is a very well laid out rebuttal of the claims made in the book Icebreaker that the Soviet Union was preempted while preparing it's invasion of German territory. The impressive aspect of this book though is not simply in the extremely well documented arguments made by Glantz but also in the complete lack of polemics to answer Viktor Suvorov. Glantz is supremely even-handed in laying out his arguement.
In quantity, quality and organization of information, this book is exceptional. For many years the German aspects of the war preperation and German claims of Soviet intent were nearly all that were available. Well the passage of time has changed that and Glantz has done a masterfull job incorporating previously unavailable Soviet documents. Using these and also a much smaller number of German resources, he provides nearly indisputable evidence of the Soviet State's inability to correct command and control, supply, rear support, communications, and soldiers training issues prior to the German invasion. Using these same documents, Glantz also shows how the military purges which removed some 54,000 officers from the armed services between 1937 and 1941 absolutely crippled the red army throughout the first 6 months of the war and greatly hindered combat readiness in general and the the formation of mechanized corps and the air force in particular. Furthermore, he goes on to detail the absolutely deplorable condition of the strategic reserves in the early part of the war. These reserves forming in the interior had few officers and NCOs, little food, almost no equiqment and non-existent transportation in many instances.
The only complaint that I can make with this book is in it's readability. Glantz, unfortunately, makes the reading of this book every bit as enjoyable as perusing the instructions to a DVD player. That being said, Stumbling Colossus is intended to be a serious study of the preperations and mistakes that the Soviet government made prior to the beginning of general war, not a historical survey written for a mass audience. It is furthermore intended to answer the revisionists who claim that it was in fact the Soviet government who intended agressive war in the summer or fall of 1941 but were simply beat to the punch by a preemptive German strike. In short, this book is simply an indespensible source of information for anyone interested in the myriad reasons behind the near lightning military defeat of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941
Rating:
Summary: Glantz-the Master of Soviet/German military studies
Review: David Glantz's book is a very well laid out rebuttal of the claims made in the book Icebreaker that the Soviet Union was preempted while preparing it's invasion of German territory. The impressive aspect of this book though is not simply in the extremely well documented arguments made by Glantz but also in the complete lack of polemics to answer Viktor Suvorov. Glantz is supremely even-handed in laying out his arguement.
In quantity, quality and organization of information, this book is exceptional. For many years the German aspects of the war preperation and German claims of Soviet intent were nearly all that were available. Well the passage of time has changed that and Glantz has done a masterfull job incorporating previously unavailable Soviet documents. Using these and also a much smaller number of German resources, he provides nearly indisputable evidence of the Soviet State's inability to correct command and control, supply, rear support, communications, and soldiers training issues prior to the German invasion. Using these same documents, Glantz also shows how the military purges which removed some 54,000 officers from the armed services between 1937 and 1941 absolutely crippled the red army throughout the first 6 months of the war and greatly hindered combat readiness in general and the the formation of mechanized corps and the air force in particular. Furthermore, he goes on to detail the absolutely deplorable condition of the strategic reserves in the early part of the war. These reserves forming in the interior had few officers and NCOs, little food, almost no equiqment and non-existent transportation in many instances.
The only complaint that I can make with this book is in it's readability. Glantz, unfortunately, makes the reading of this book every bit as enjoyable as perusing the instructions to a DVD player. That being said, Stumbling Colossus is intended to be a serious study of the preperations and mistakes that the Soviet government made prior to the beginning of general war, not a historical survey written for a mass audience. It is furthermore intended to answer the revisionists who claim that it was in fact the Soviet government who intended agressive war in the summer or fall of 1941 but were simply beat to the punch by a preemptive German strike. In short, this book is simply an indespensible source of information for anyone interested in the myriad reasons behind the near lightning military defeat of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941
Rating:
Summary: Excellent read, academically first rate!
Review: Glantz does a great job at dispelling Suvorov's popular theory that Stalin planned to attack the Germans in 1941. By making use of documents from the Soviet archives, Glantz proves that the Soviet Union was not in preparation for offensive operations against Germany in 1941. And since it is the Soviet archives that hold so many of the secrets of that harsh regime (a document from the archives has already proven Stalin's and Beria's guilt in the Katyn massacre), Glantz' work leaves little room for doubt.
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Summary: Stumbling Colossus: Russia Wins Despite Stalin
Review: In STUMBLING COLOSSUS, David Glantz captures a moment in time critical in understanding how the world wound up the way it did. From the time that Stalin became undisputed leader of the Soviet Union as First Secretary, his singular goal was the exportation of communism as the world's sole political system. During the late 1920's through the late 1930's Stalin built up a huge war machine that, as primitively equipped as it was, still had to be respected as the brute power he had intended it to be. With the emergence of Nazism, Hitler quickly and illegally rebuilt the German Army to the extent that year by year, Stalin came to be increasingly intimidated by it. As Glantz points out, Hitler was not the only cause for concern to Stalin. The Japanese were making threatening noises in Manchuria, and Stalin had somehow to factor in his paranoia this Japanese expansion into Soviet territory. To complicate matters from Stalin's perspective was his own paranoia. To put matters bluntly, Stalin did not trust his own military. Comrade First Secretary Stalin tended to see more snakes in his own garden than in Hitler's. He determined to remove any potential threat to his own iron grip on power. Glantz writes that "After the expulsion from the Soviet leadership of Commissar of War, L. D. Trotsky, who had been the principal defender of the 'military experts,' and the rise to power of I. V. Stalin, the cleansing of the army began."
This 'cleansing' began in 1937 and continued until the very day that German divisions rolled into Russia. The bag of officers purged was appallingly high. Any officer over the rank of colonel in the Red Army had a one in three chance of facing a firing squad or a tenure in one of Stalin's gulags. It did not take a rocket scientist for the survivors to figure out that their best chance to avoid the fate of their predecessors was to become spineless 'yes-men' who could advance in rank only by cringing before Stalin's bizarre refusal to face reality: that Hitler truly planned to take the Soviet Union as his own and to exterminate the greater mass of the Russian people.
It is here, on the point of deciding the culpability for Russia's poor intitial performance of the war, that scholars are divided. There are the mainstream historians who place the disgraceful state of readiness of the Red Army squarely on Stalin's unwillingness to antagonize the Wehrmacht before he had cleaned up his own messy situation both in Manchuria and in his recognizing that his military was not able to fend off,let alone launch a pre-emptive strike in 1941 or 1942. Reviewer Michael Petukhov insists that Glantz's book is less reliable than the ones written by fellow countryman Viktor Suvorov, whom Petukhov supports by writing in his own recent review that "Stalin was actively preparing the offensive against Nazi Germany sometime in July of 1941." I am not sure what criticism Petukhov intends toward Glantz's thesis that Stalin and Stalin alone was responsible for the near defeat of the Soviet Union in 1941 and 1942. If Petukhov insists that Stalin's generals ought not to have worried due to the massive size of the Red Army, then perhaps the inner lesson of Glantz's book suddenly takes on a crystal clarity. When any army corps of generals has to look over its shoulders towards a leader who rewards creative thinking and constructive dissent with disgrace and death, then the stumbling of their military colossus takes on a reverberating of aftershocks that lingers even until today.
Rating: 
Summary: D. Glantz vs. V. Suvorov
Review: In the paper cover of the book the publisher claims that the Mr. Glantz's book Presents "convincing study dispelling many of myths about Red Army that have persisted since the war and soundly refuting Viktor Suvorov's controversial thesis that Stalin was planning a preemptive war against Germany". Several prominent authors like Malcolm Macintosh, Mark von Hagen and John Erickson of historical books about Red Army and WWII have expressed their full support to Mr. Glantz's traditional views that, Red Army was not ready for the war in June of 1941, and consequently did not plane any major attack against Germany in the summer of 1941. Those who did not read Suvorov's books might be interesting to know that, unlike conventional history books, Suvorov works are written from the standpoint of analytic intelligence officer, who in fact he was, analyzing available factual data in order to understand real intentions of the Soviet and German governments, but not their official declarations. The books contains of detailed considerations of key military aspects of the state of Red Army before June 22, 1941 as we know them today. Although his data and its interpretations are not free of mistakes, and this have been discussed in the Russian literature, vast majority of available data clearly shows that Stalin was actively preparing the offensive against nazi Germany sometimes in July of 1941. Since the main goal of the D.Glantz book is to disprove Suvorov's false claims it would be perhaps natural for a reader to expect that Mr. Glantz shows principal flaws in Suvorov factual data and/or in its analysis, that are significant enough to cancel Suvorov's main conclusions. I was quite surprise that Suvorov's book was mentioned in the introduction of Mr. Glantz book only. The author acknowledges there the impact of Suvorov's views on history scholars and more generally on public views in many none US/UK countries especially in Russia and Germany. This impact is considered to be very dangerous because it "open old wounds and inflict unwanted or unwarranted new ones" and even "can undermine peace by igniting older suspicions and hatreds". In my view, it is too political statement for the scholar who is supposed to seek the true only. Moreover this book contains no any step by step analysis of Suvorov's mistakes and, if any, its affect on the final Suvorov's conclusions. Instead the book contains of all kind of very old Soviet style stories about Red Army unprepareness for the war, poor training of its soldiers, purges of experienced officers, inadequate equipment supply etc. The author could not ignore newly established data about Red Army superiority in almost all departments of military structure and at least approximate balance in many others. However the data are given in the tables at the end of the book and are very poorly discussed. There are many of serious questions that rise during reading the Mr. Glantz's text are not addressed at all. If the Red Army was in so bad shape and it could not attack Germany what did it do in the border areas? Mr. Glantz states in many places that Stalin and the Red Army leadership was very well aware of real German intentions against USSR. However Red Army definitely was not preparing for defense. As we know there are two type of actions for any army: offensive or defense. If there were no offencive preparations why Russians did not dig up their 3,000,000 men, 11000 superior tanks and 44,000 guns and mortars that have been deployed in the border areas. In this case German led attack of 4,500,000 men equipped with 3,600 tanks and 13,000 guns and mortars would have totally different consequences compare to what really happened. As you can see here Germans had significant superiority in personnel near border by June 22, but not in equipment. This undermines legend that Russians were able to win using its superiority in manpower only, and explains scale of German success in summer of 1941 after Red Army superiority in the equipment (concentrated at the border line) has been totally lost in matter of a few days of German surprise attack. As for aviation, Russians had approximately 10000 of combat ready aircraft (including 1500 of fighters of new design) at the Germany/ USSR border versus 3000 of German ones. Even given the superiority of German pilots in terms of battle experience and training, I think it would be very difficult for Germans to gain air superiority (that was key point) so quickly, providing Red Army was preparing for defense of the country. Mr. Glantz many times references Zukov's proposal of May 15, 1941 to make preemptive attack against Germany. This has been recently published and became historical fact. The proposal was rejected because of unknown reasons. According to Mr. Glantz and others the Red Army was not ready for the war, was not preparing for the offencive and the poor shape of Red Army was very well known for USSR leadership. So why Zukov's, who was in charge of army, was proposing the attack? I guess he (gen Zukov) knew better than Mr. Glantz what were real abilities and intentions of Red Army. It could be that it was not the only proposal and perhaps one of them was approved by Stalin. After reading of this so to speak "historical work" I came to conclusion that the true is more likely on the Viktor Suvorov side. I would recommend anyone who is interesting in WWII history first to read "Icebreaker" and "The day-M". by Viktor Suvorov. After that reading of more "academic" books like this by Mr. Glantz becomes really funny. Michael Petukhov, a reader from Russia
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Summary: ConsimWorld.COM Book of the Month Selection
Review: STUMBLING COLOSSUS has been selected as the October Book of the Month by ConsimWorld.COM. For more information, including biography and interview with author, David Glantz, please v i s i t : < P > h t t p : / / w w w
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Summary: The first 6 months of War
Review: Stumbling Colossus is a examination of the Red Army on the Eve of Operation Barbarossa. The books examines the Red Army and looks at the prepardeness for war and the prepartations being made for action against the Germans. The book looks at the largest army in the world and takes a pentrating look at the flaws in the system. We see why the Soviets were able to survive the disasters of the begining of the war and the causes behind some of these disasters.
Rating:
Summary: A sideways Glantz at Suvorov
Review: Suvorov book "Icebreaker" elicited a response in the form a book titled "Stumbling Colossus" by non other than David Glantz a prolific heavy weight author who specialises on the Eastern Front. Glantz's book claims to obliterate the Suvorov myth by proving that the Red Army in 1941 was beyond putting up a reasonable defence let alone launching a surprise attack. Unlike Suvorov he bases his work on recently declassified Soviet documents and reams of statistical data.One would have expected Glantz to tackle Suvorov head on and take apart his book paragraph by paragraph. To the frustration of many a reader this does not happen and it appears that he talks past Suvorov for most of the time. Nevertheless he succeeds in proving to the reader that the Soviet War machine was in no fit state to even consider any pre-emptative strike and therefore due to this one fact the whole of Suvarov can therefore be consigned to the rubbish bin. It is as if a child asks the question "What would happen if the moon fell down?" and the father answers that this can never happen. If Suvorov book raises one question that begs a direct answer from Glantz, it is to why the Red Army, assuming that it had adopted a defensive posture with over a year to prepare this strategy, had not done a better job of it. In fact it seems that the Red Army performance at the opening of Barbarossa bordered on nothing less than gross negligence. The onus was on Glantz to illuminate on the strategy that the Red Army was trying to achieve, rather than suggest that they had no strategy at all. The Suvorov thesis that an army in an offensive mode deployed offensively can offer up nothing but a poor defence if surprised, seems attractive in a vacuum created by a lack of other evidence Glantz's book is by no means an easy reader. His books are about as much fun as reading a technical manual. His writing style reveals very little of the author or his viewpoints, but instead stick to a rigid presentation of the facts as revealed in copious amounts of Russian documents he has examined. However his contribution to the study of the Eastern front is immense and writing style aside he has made a massive contribution to our understanding of this epic struggle. This is not a book for the layman as it takes a dedicated few, hungry for the knowledge to wade through copious amounts of dry statistics
Rating:
Summary: An Essential Reference on the Red Army
Review: This book is an essential reference on the state of the Red Army on the eve of Operation Barbarossa. Although a bit dry in tone, there is a wealth of information in these pages. Excellent maps and statistical data on the Soviet Army Order of Battle in 1941. The author uses recent Russian archival material to provide an unprecedented look into the Red Army just prior to Barbarossa. His assessment is that the Red Army was caught in the throes of rapid expansion, with most units at 60-70% strength. The purges further diluted the pool of available military leadership. Units on the front-line were short of ammo, fuel and key equipment. Finally, the Red Army staff misjudged the German main effort - which they expected in the southwest along the Kiev axis - and thus further weakened the defenses of Leningrad and Moscow. In the long run, the main Soviet success was their ability - albeit initially slow - to tap the full human resources of the USSR and to field replacements to fill the huge losses of 1941. However once again, the Russian fascination with quantity rather than quality cost them dearly. Stalin would have done better with 80-90 well-trained, well-equipped divisions than 170+ poorly-trained, poorly-equipped divisions.
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