Pictured: From the publication titled “Glorified Warriors of the Red Army—Candidates of the People to the Supreme Council of the USSR,” Guards Colonel-General V. I. Chuikov examined the targets of the fighters after firing training and enjoyed a meeting with his Guards voters. The text reads: “Servant to the Homeland, Father to Soldiers! The name of twice Hero of the Soviet Union Guards Colonel-General Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov is inextricably linked with the heroic Stalingrad epic. Under his command, the hero-guardsmen stood to death at the walls of the Volga stronghold and did not miss the enemy. From Stalingrad, Chuikov's Guards, crushing the enemy, traveled a long and difficult path to Berlin and participated in the assault on the German capital. The soldiers of the Special Electoral District nominated the faithful son of the Soviet people, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov as [their] candidate for Deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Now the hero-guards are tirelessly studying the experience of war, improving their combat skills day by day.” Leadership can be loosely defined as having the influence over another group of people to cause them to do what is wanted. This influence is tied to the power associated with an individual. Social psychologists French and Raven (1959) indicated 5 power bases in their research: legitimate, reward, expert, referent, and coercive. A newer list of bases includes 3 more—physical, resource, and network power. In studying Marshal Chuikov’s life, work, and writings, it appears that he possessed numerous power bases. Legitimate power came from his rank and authority. As a leader, he had the power to reward, provide resources, and serve as an expert with informational power. Chuikov was also physically tough—he had to be to withstand the severe conditions of heavy combat, for he was actively present with his soldiers at the front lines of battle. And, Vasily Ivanovich was able to inspire his soldiers through his warmth and ability to connect with them—his referent power is evident in photographs as well. Case in point—the photos attached with this blog post feature a patient Colonel-General Chuikov carefully observing his soldiers during target practice, reviewing the results of their firing automatic weapons; and another with Chuikov surrounded by voters who supported his candidacy as a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet. While one may argue that the photographs were staged by the photographer, there remain elements of body language occurring naturally which cannot be dictated or fabricated. It is obvious to the viewer that the connection between Chuikov and his soldiers is genuine. While Marshal Chuikov is most widely known for his heroism during the Great Patriotic War, his career spanned over several decades and included numerous offices. His election as a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet led to many years of fruitful service for the public which lasted through Convocations 2 – 9. Soviets, in the form of freely elected deputies, exercised state power on behalf of the people of the Soviet Union. The deputies were fully authorized and responsible representatives of people who, based on trust, worked to represent the public interest in the state, address and examine the government's work, and direct and monitor social and economic development. It is a fair assessment to state that Marshal Chuikov positively impacted the lives of countless people and brought tangible benefits through his participation in the work of the Supreme Soviet.

Pictured: Chuikov's 8th Guards Army in Berlin, 1945 Since the beginning of time, humankind has often asked the question “why…” The great philosophers of antiquity grappled with the question, as it is central to understanding the human experience. And it begins at a young age. Toddlers often ask, “Why is the sky blue?” or “Why is the grass green?” As a person grows older, the question continues to gain complexity and causes one to reflect. Authentic leaders are self-aware and fully understand their “why”—why they strive, why they act, why they fight. During the Great Patriotic War, soldiers understood why they fought when they witnessed first-hand the death and destruction caused by the Nazis across Europe. Western and Eastern Front armies closed in on Berlin in the final days of the war in April 1945, and Chuikov’s 8 th  Guards Army were there in the thick of things. In  The Fall of Berlin , Vasily Ivanovich shared a moment of respite before the assault on the city. His writing is descriptive, giving the reader a sense of the calm before the storm. In this brief excerpt from his memoirs, a scene from a bombed-ravaged house caused him to recall a sweet moment of time with his wife and younger daughter Irina. Chuikov fully understood his “why”—to defeat the evil regime bent on destroying his family and friends, his community, his homeland, his culture… “In the morning I went up to my observation post. It was in a large five-storied building near the Johannisthal aerodrome. From a corner room here, where there was a jagged hole in the wall, one got a view of the southern and southeastern parts of Berlin. Roofs, roofs without end, with here and there a break between them—the work of landmines. In the distance factory chimneys and church spires stood out. The parks and squares, in which the young leaves were already out, seemed like little outbreaks of green flame. Mist lay along the streets mingled with dust raised from the previous night’s artillery fire. In places the mist was overlaid by fat trails of black smoke, like mourning streamers. And somewhere in the center of the city ragged yellow plumes rose skywards as bombs exploded: the heavy bombers had already started their preliminary “working-over” of the targets for the forthcoming attack. Suddenly the earth shuddered and rocked under my feet: thousands of guns announced the beginning of the storming operation. I glanced around. To my right there was the white patch of a bath, and in the bath lay a broken piece of brick. I felt I had to throw it out. Maybe because something very near and dear had come to mind at the sight of it—my younger daughter, little Irina, who was very fond of splashing about in her bath. When the war began and the front came close to Moscow, my wife and both our daughters were evacuated to Kuibyshev (now known as Samara, on the Volga). There they lived in someone’s flat, which had no bath. Irina used to get bathed in a wooden tub. Instead of soap, my wife used mustard power…. There’s a war on! A pricking, maddening itch started up on my arm, from fingers to elbows. My skin burned as though my arms had been plunged into hot pitch, or into an ants’ nest. I threw the brick away violently, but the itching did not stop. I first got eczema at the time of the fighting on the approaches to the Volga, and from then on it would flare up periodically. Another little present from the war which was brought to birth by this same Fascist Beast….” (180).

Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Soviet Union Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov In today's global business environment, it is essential that effective leaders and managers learn to be more assertive to succeed. Leaders who fail to speak up receive fewer resources. A leader's job is to ensure the team has what it needs to succeed, such as new members, training, and supplies. Marshal Chuikov understood that building trust with his leadership team and his soldiers meant fighting alongside them in the trenches as well as advocating for them in the requisitioning of more supplies. It was necessary for Vasily Ivanovich to approach his superiors with the dire situation of the battlefront as well as the acute need for ammunition. In mid-October 1942 during a crucial phase of the Battle for Stalingrad, Chuikov demonstrated his tenacity and insisted on increased supplies. This scenario is described in his memoirs: "The same night (16 October 1942), I was warned that the Commander of the Front, Colonel-General Yeremenko, and his deputy, Lieutenant-General Popov, were coming to see us. Gurov, the Member of the Military Council, and I went to the landing-stage to meet them. Everything round us was exploding, the noise was deafening; German six-barrelled mortars were keeping the Volga under incessant attack. Hundreds of wounded were crawling towards the landing stage and the ferry. We often had to step over bodies. Not knowing where the boat with the Front Commander would land, we walked up and down the bank, then returned to the dugout... To our surprise, Generals Yeremenko and Popov were already at the command post. It was a wretched picture that they had found. The command post dugouts had been turned into craters with logs sticking out of the ground. Everything on the bank was covered in ash and dust. When we said goodbye at dawn I asked the Front Commander to let us have more men, not divisions, but small draft units, and more ammunition. ‘You will have what you want,' he said, and, as he left, recommended that with the arrival of the 138th Division, we should move our Army command post further south along the bank of the Volga. A day later we received the plan, confirmed by the Front Commander, for deliveries of ammunition to the Army. We were scheduled to be sent as much ammunition for the month as we could use in one day of fierce fighting. We could not but protest, and we managed to obtain a little more than the amount set out in the plan." (The Battle for Stalingrad, 203-204)

Photo inscribed on the back with the words “Bandage on the move”—Lieutenant-Colonel V. I. Chuikov stands with a battlefield nurse receiving a dressing change in Stalingrad. Chuikov suffered from a painful, burning weeping eczema on his hands brought on by the stresses of constant heavy combat which required regular dressing changes. This photo is from a family archive of General Semyon Tsvigun—the entire photo collection is located here . Women filled numerous roles in the Great Patriotic War, and their contributions to the defense of the Motherland did not go unnoticed. Like their counterparts in the US and other Allied nations, Soviet women worked tirelessly in factories manufacturing weapons, vehicles, and aircraft, and provided support in other ways as well behind the battle lines and at the front. True to his nature in fully acknowledging the warriors of the 62nd (later 8th Guards) Army, Vasily Ivanovich was quick to credit the women soldiers of the Red Army for their tenacity, courage, abilities, effort, and indispensability. Even battlefield nurses knew how to use their weapons and were well-prepared to fight. In his book titled The Battle for Stalingrad , Marshal Chuikov recounts the actions of the brave women who unflinchingly served alongside the men of the Red Army all the way to Berlin: “The deliberate mass entry of women, particularly girls, into active service in the army was not always clearly understood by everyone. There are some who probably still do not understand that they did so as equal builders of socialism and equal defenders of the interests of the workers. This is why, in the war against the Nazi invaders, we saw our Soviet women acting as orderlies, carrying tens and hundreds of wounded from the firing line; as doctors, carrying out operations under air and artillery attack; or as telephonists and radio operators, handling operational conversations and administration in battle. We saw them working at headquarters and in political organizations, where they did army administration work and educated the troops in a spirit of military tenacity. Anyone who visited the front would see women acting as gunners in anti-artillery units, as pilots of aeroplanes doing battle with the German air aces, as captains of armoured boats, in the Volga fleet, for example, carrying cargoes from the left bank to the right and back again in unbelievably difficult conditions. It is no exaggeration to say that women fought alongside men everywhere in the war. It must also be remembered that in the second half of 1942, when our armies had retreated to a line running through Leningrad, Mozhaysk, Voronezh, Stalingrad and Mozdok, leaving densely populated areas of the country in enemy hands, new recruits were needed. Women volunteered for the army en masse , and this made it possible for us to bring our units and establishments back up to full efficiency. We had whole units (such as anti-aircraft batteries and night-flying PO-2 bomber regiments) in which the majority of gun-teams and crews were women. And it must be said that these units did their jobs as well as the units in which men predominated. We can take two types of work involved in defense operations—anti-aircraft defense and signals—as examples. The majority of gun crews in the Stalingrad anti-aircraft defense corps, in both anti-aircraft batteries and on searchlights, consisted of women. But the efficiency of these crews and batteries was not the slightest inferior to the anti-aircraft units we saw on the Don and in other parts of the front, where the majority of the crews were men. In terms of tenacity and self-sacrifice, in the battle with the German dive-bombers, the women anti-aircraft gun crews on the banks of the Volga were models of courage. They would stick to their guns and go on firing when bombs were exploding all round them, when it seemed impossible not merely to fire accurately, but even to stay with the guns. In the fire and smoke, amid bursting bombs, seemingly unaware of the columns of earth exploding into the air all about them, they stood their ground to the last. The Luftwaffe’s raids on the city, therefore, in spite of heavy losses among the anti-aircraft personnel, were always met by concentrated fire, which as a rule took a heavy toll among the attacking aircraft. Our women anti-aircraft gunners shot down dozens of enemy planes over the blazing city” (239-241).

Pictured: Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal V. I. Chuikov Authentic leadership involves being self-aware and drawing from personal experience  to shape one’s thoughts and activities. It requires quiet reflection on past events to learn and grow both as a person and as a leader. It is evident through his writings, military service, and civic work that Marshal Chuikov was introspective about his role as a leader. During his stellar career, Vasily Ivanovich ascended to a high military rank and position, yes—but it was a rank and a position involving consistent effort and public service built upon a foundation of years of responsibility and trust. And his work also caused him to remember past events to consider future ramifications. In his book titled From Stalingrad to Berlin , he shared the following opening thoughts: “Memory… What a powerful force it is--you can't order it, you can't refuse it. Sometimes she resurrects before her mind's eye such pictures of what she has seen and experienced that her heart shrinks and cold sweat comes out. This happens both night and day. Sometimes I am ready to reproach myself, my heart for such a reaction to the memory of the past: after all, the reality of the current days, today's events, is far from those tests. Far away, but the memory brings you back to them--and the distant becomes close. ... Hundreds of dive-bombers are circling over the city, the walls of houses and factory buildings are collapsing from explosions of bombs and shells, the earth is heaving, the air is filled with the whistle of bullets and fragments, torn fittings, twisted rails of tram tracks, crushed stones, funnels, pits, and ahead, before your eyes, the top of the mound... There is the command post of the army, and you go there through the cycle of fire. You go, having received an order to lead the defense of the center and the factory district of the city. You go, forgetting about the danger, thinking about how to stop and defeat the enemy divisions that have broken through to the city.” And in the closing paragraphs of his work titled The Fall of Berlin: “We know and believe that the freedom-loving peoples wish to live in peace, to create, to work towards universal prosperity through peaceful labour. I am nearing three score years and ten now. I have worn a soldier’s uniform for almost fifty years, and I say with a full sense of the responsibility of my words: we, Soviet soldiers—other ranks, officers, generals, and marshals—will be the most reliable and faithful of supporters of any union of countries and peoples striving to avert war. Reason demands that the bitter lessons of the bloody history of the last war must not be forgotten. And if men will follow the dictates of common sense, there is every reason to hope that the last world war was indeed the last" (273).

Pictured: Stalingrad in ruins; Lieutenant-General V. I. Chuikov at the 62nd Army HQ, 1942. Marshal Chuikov has often been described as “ruthless” by Western historians, and I decided to explore this characterization to learn about the situation in which he found himself and his fellow Soviets. The descriptor “ruthless” was assigned to Chuikov while in Stalingrad, especially during the crucial first days of his command of the 62nd Army in September 1942. However, it is necessary to understand the situation of the Battle of Stalingrad to gain context for Chuikov’s actions and commands while there. It is important to consider the sheer volume of Luftwaffe bombing raids tonnage, constant artillery shelling and machine-gun fire, and an inferno of a city destroyed into mounds of rubble creating an apocalyptic scene. And, significantly, Chuikov was in the thick of it all with his soldiers  and led by example. His HQ was within meters of the front line of battle... Daniel Davis shared an account by a 13th Rifle Division Guardsman , commanded by Major-General Alexander Rodimtsev, from his crossing the Volga on 14 September 1942, just after Lieutenant-General Chuikov took command of the 62nd Army. It is essential to recall that troops and supplies had to be shipped across the river in perilous conditions. As soon as these soldiers reached the Western bank of the Volga, they were thrust straight into battle: “Because the German Luftwaffe had air supremacy in the skies, it was near suicide for any reinforcements or resupply to be ferried over the Volga during daylight. But because the Soviet commander of the 13th Guards Division believed that the Russian defenders near the river’s edge would not hold out until nightfall, he ordered his division to cross anyway, believing the battle and perhaps the war was on the line. Gen. Alexander Rodimtsev led his troops onto the barges and started across the river. According to eyewitness accounts, the general’s boat was hit with a German bomb before reaching the far shore, killing most on board—but miraculously, he survived. Most of his men were not so lucky. […] Albert Burkovski, one of the few Soviet defenders still holding on the Stalingrad side of the river, described the approach of the 13th Guards Division troops. ‘We were lying on the ground. Everything was on fire,’ he said. 'The boats were being bombed and shelled. I saw a big barge – full of soldiers, with their big coats, grenades, sapper’s spades, ammunition and machine guns – go down right before my eyes.’" When taking account of both Soviet and German losses, nearly 2 million people perished in the Battle for Stalingrad during a 6-month period . Amazon’s Audible recorded volume, Stalingrad: A Captivating Guide , revealed a brief but gruesome depiction of what took place during the slaughter on the Volga in Chapter 5. An excerpt is provided here: “Because the fighting was so intense virtually all of the time, most of those killed in battle remained where they died or were blown apart. The men left alive had to navigate through streets, alleys, and buildings covered in human [carnage]. Those wounded in ‘No Man’s Land’ were left in between the two armies, often screaming their lungs out for hours. […]” When faced with total annihilation by the Germans and the threat of invasion beyond the Ural Mountains into Siberia, Commander Chuikov had no choice but to hold on to a narrow strip of land in front of the Volga. This meant that every soldier was involved in the fight and had to grasp the gravity of the situation. It also meant a high casualty rate—the average life expectancy  of a Soviet soldier in Stalingrad was 24 hours. Author Michael Jones shared a rhetorical question raised by a Stalingrad veteran, which seems to be a fitting end to this blog entry: “Making a stand in such terrible conditions required absolute ruthlessness. Chuikov demanded the utmost of his men, insisting they hold their lines come what may. It was a pitiless edge of steel behind Stalingrad’s defenders. ‘At times like this he could be merciless,’ Anatoly Kozlov remarked, ‘always pushing his men. But how else was Stalingrad to be held?’”

In leadership studies, we often speak of the difference between management and leadership actions. There is the occasional example of a person who is effective both as a leader and a manager. As a student of WW2 history, I find that Marshal Vasily Ivanovich Chuikov was very effective in both capacities. It is a well-known fact that Marshal Chuikov cared very much about his soldiers. Although he could be a tough disciplinarian, his soldiers were always in his thoughts, as demonstrated in an anecdote from a Ukrainian historian: Divisional Commander Nikolai Batyuk (center) and Lieutenant General Chuikov (left) in Stalingrad, 1 January 1943 "In the 1970s, veterans who served with Chuikov during WW2 lived in Zaporozhye, Ukraine. They went to a meeting of veterans in the city of Odessa. Marshal Chuikov was also invited there as their esteemed guest. After a solemn ceremony of remembrance was held, tables were laid with refreshments for the party leadership of the city of Odessa and the command staff of the 8th Guards Army. But when Marshal Chuikov saw that his soldiers who were present at this meeting were not invited to the table, he loudly and seriously told the organizers: 'I did not go on the attack by myself, but with my soldiers.' His point was taken. Everyone quickly fussed and laid additional tables for ordinary soldiers and veterans."

Pictured: Colonel-General V. I. Chuikov speaking to a group of soldiers, 1948. From the publication titled “Glorified Warriors of the Red Army—Candidates of the People to the Supreme Council of the USSR.” A popular behavior assessment tool, the DiSC assessment, is based on Dr. William Marston’s theories  as well as his publication titled Emotions of Normal People . DiSC assessments are used in organizations with team members to improve communication and cohesion and reduce conflict. Understanding one’s personal DiSC profile is helpful in leadership effectiveness. The letters of DiSC represent the following traits: (D)ominance, (i)nfluence, (S)teadiness and (C)onscientiousness. When participants take the assessment, there are times when their results are a combination of traits. After reviewing various resources focusing on Marshal Chuikov, including his memoirs, speeches, and reflections of those who knew him, it is my assessment that he fits the Di combination profile, which is known as the “Achiever.” Achievers think  quickly and are great communicators, and debate and competition are enjoyable activities for them. Many of them become notable leaders due to their "force of nature" personalities. Both empathetic and resolute, they adapt swiftly to different scenarios and act effectively. Moreover, Achievers inspire their teams to accomplish more than previously thought possible, which certainly fits the situation of the 62nd Army Commander and his soldiers in Stalingrad. When Lieutenant-General Chuikov was appointed to command the 62nd Army, he encountered demoralized troops who were under-supplied and psychologically overwhelmed, with questionable combat effectiveness due to prior ineffective leadership. In his book titled Stalingrad: How the Red Army Triumphed , Michael Jones shares an anecdote about Achiever Vasily Ivanonvich’s immediate effect on his troops. He went about the task of raising his soldiers’ morale quickly—and set the tone for his leadership very early on: “Feodor Shatravko remembers meeting the newly appointed Commander of the 62nd Army, Vasily Chuikov, at this time. He was part of the so-called ‘northern group’ based around the Stalingrad suburb of Spartanovka, and he accompanied his own commander to Chuikov’s HQ on the Mamaev Kurgan. ‘Chuikov asked us how things were,’ he related. ‘Well, we were honest with him—the mood of the men was terrible because of the drastic shortages in equipment and ammunition. The atmosphere was really ugly.’ […] For the defending 62nd Army the shortage of supplies was a fearful handicap. A different spirit of leadership was needed to counter it, and to maintain the will to resist. Shatravko recalled personal assurance on the slopes of the Mamaev Kurgan. ‘He spoke to us frankly, in man-to-man fashion. He told us that the present supply situation was completely unacceptable and promised us he would do everything in his power to improve it. We believed him and we felt for the first time that we had a commander who really cared about his soldiers.’”

Pictured: The 1957 visit of the Chinese delegation to the Kiev Military District, when Marshal V. I. Chuikov was the Commander there. He is to the right of Peng Dehuai, the former Defense Minister of the People’s Republic of China. In considering various avenues for researching Marshal Chuikov’s life and work, one tactic is to examine his focus on being a life-long learner in a series of posts exploring his academic preparation, teaching and training duties, and leadership practices. As a fellow educator, life-long learner, and researcher, it is interesting to discover Vasily Ivanovich’s learning style and approach. Considering the number of years he spent in formal education after his Civil War experience in the Red Army, it is no wonder that he was considered to be a cultured intellectual. As part of his educational experiences at Frunze Military Academy where he proved to be a stellar student, he was invited to enter Chinese language and culture studies. Various sources confirm that the Chinese languages of Mandarin and Cantonese are two of the most difficult languages to learn. A young Chuikov spent an intensive time memorizing characters and learning proper pronunciations to prepare for his diplomatic service in the late 1920s. He wrote about this time in his book titled Mission to China : “My first business trip to China in 1926 was not accidental. At twenty-six, I experienced a lot: behind my back were the Southern, Eastern, and Western fronts of the Civil War, [4] wounds, and command of a regiment. Like many active participants in the Civil War, in 1922 I went to study at the M. V. Frunze Military Academy. After graduating in 1925, I was offered to continue my studies at the Chinese Department of the Oriental Faculty of the same Academy. […] We studied hard, with great enthusiasm. Day and night we crammed Chinese characters, tried to master their correct pronunciation, painstakingly studied the history of China, the traditions and customs of its people. I still remember our teachers - V. S. Kolokolov, Liang Kun, professor-historian A. E. Khodorov, and others. Our faculty was often visited by comrades who had already been to China. They told us a lot about the situation in that country. […] Frankly speaking, it was not easy for us, then still poorly acquainted with the situation in that country, to understand all the vicissitudes of the revolutionary storm in China, to imagine the ways of its further development. In 1926, some students of the Oriental Faculty of the Academy were given the opportunity to visit China. I was sent to practice with the duties of a diplomatic courier.”

Pictured: Group of military advisors in China, 1927. V. I. Chuikov is seated third from left, bottom row. Photo taken from the commemorative book Marshal Chuikov: Peace and War. In a another blog entry, I explored Marshal Chuikov’s studies of the Chinese language and culture through Frunze Military Academy. An accomplished student, Vasily Ivanovich was invited to spend a year of intense study with the Oriental Faculty of Frunze in preparation to be a diplomatic courier and military advisor. Chuikov later traveled to China for the first time in 1926 for a short internship. During the summer of 1927 after finishing at Frunze, he returned to China for a lengthier stay to serve as a military advisor. On this second eastern business trip, he learned to speak Chinese quite fluently, having traveled almost every corner of North and South China. In 1928, his daughter Ninel (a backward spelling of Lenin) was born in Harbin. The Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) was the focus of a notorious conflict in 1929, provoked by the Kuomintang military. Marshal Zhang Xueliang attempted to seize the CER, which was built by Russian engineers under Tsar Nicholas II. Vasily Ivanovich detailed the location of the contested railway in Mission to China: “As you know, almost from Chita (in southeastern Siberia) to Vladivostok, for several thousand kilometers along the Chinese border, the Trans-Baikal Railway stretches. It connects our Far East with the center of the country. Throughout its length, this road in some places passes several kilometers from the Chinese border. In addition, the navigable Amur and Ussuri rivers, which are our natural border with China, link many regions of Transbaikalia and the Soviet Far East as water communications.” V. I. Chuikov, head of the intelligence school in Zagoryanka, 1933. If you look closely, the photo of the military advisors to China is on the mantle behind him. During a raid of the Soviet Consulate General in Harbin on 27 May 1929, the Chinese police arrested 80 people and seized documents. The Special Far Eastern Armies were being formed in Khabarovsk to combat Chinese aggression with the support of Russians and Western powers. Chuikov returned to the Soviet Union via Japan, after which he was sent to Khabarovsk. About this time period, Russian researcher Viktor Gavrilovich wrote the following: “In 1929, during the CER incident, Chuikov was forced to leave China after the Soviet Union severed diplomatic relations with the Republic of China on 13 July. [Chuikov wrote,] ‘In August 1929, my comrades and I arrived in Vladivostok. On behalf of the headquarters of the Special Far Eastern Army, we were immediately sent to Khabarovsk, where the Special Far Eastern Army was being formed. By that time, an alarming situation had developed on the Soviet-Chinese border, and an armed conflict was brewing.’ Chuikov, who by this time had received the rank of Commander with his Chinese experience, was appointed to the newly created Special Red Banner Far Eastern Army (ODVA) in Khabarovsk as the head of the intelligence department of the headquarters. The Soviet Far Eastern Army defeated Zhang Xueliang's Northeastern Army, and Chuikov participated in the negotiations that restored Soviet control over the CER.” As a representative of the ODVA headquarters, Chuikov presented the Chinese parliamentarians with the Soviet terms of capitulation. Taking a car owned by the Japanese consulate, Vasily Ivanovich departed for the city of Manchuria to receive the surrender.

Pictured: Colonel-General V. I. Chuikov, Poland, 1945. In a previous blog entry , I focused on the supply chain situation leading up to the events at Poznan in western Poland. The Soviet advance on Germany was swift, and it was often difficult for the supply chain to match the pace. Taking Poznan was a strategic objective of the 1st Belorussian Front due to its proximity to the Polish-German border. During my time researching this battle of the Vistula-Oder Operation, I found varying accounts regarding the circumstances surrounding the 8th Guards Army taking of Poznan in February 1945. This blog entry is an attempt at reconciling these accounts. First, Marshal Chuikov wrote in his volume titled From Stalingrad to Berlin : “Suddenly an order from the front, unexpected for us, followed by phone. In connection with the encirclement of the enemy troops in Poznan and the possible delay in the battles for the city, the commander of the front forces [Zhukov] ordered me to unite the actions of the 1st Guards Tank Army and the approaching units of the 69th Army and by the joint efforts of these troops by 25 January 1945, be sure to capture the city of Poznan. Prior to this, Poznan was not included in the boundaries of the actions of the 8th Guards. The 69th Army was to attack Poznan. We did not expect that she was so far behind that we had to close our flank from the danger of a blow from Poznan, where a strong enemy garrison was concentrated. It was necessary to urgently turn the army around, which was by no means easy, given the inertia it had acquired in moving west along previously set directions. I immediately contacted the headquarters of the 1st Guards Tank Army. It turned out that the tankers have already approached the banks of the Varta River and even captured a bridgehead. Therefore, they had already pierced with their blow, like a spear, the Varta defensive line. They even tried to break into Poznan on the move but were stopped in the eastern part of the city. The reconnaissance of the tankers claimed that it would not be easy to take Poznan. Wasn't that also the directive of the front? The liberation of Poznan grew into a complex military task.” Author and historian Anthony Beevor wrote the following in his book titled The Fall of Berlin 1945 , including impressions and recollections from journalist Vasily Grossman who was attached to the 8th Guards Army at the time: “Poznan was not like Lodz. On reaching Poznan on 25 January, Katukov [Commander of the 1st Guards Tank Army] saw that it could not be captured off the march and pushed straight on as Zhukov had instructed. Poznan was left to Chuikov, closely following with the 8th Guards Army, to sort out. He was not pleased, and it seems only to have increased his dislike for Zhukov. […] ‘It really is amazing,’ Chuikov remarked sarcastically in one of his jibes against Zhukov, ‘when you consider our battle experience and our wonderful intelligence, that we failed to notice one little detail. We didn’t know there was a first-class fortress at Poznan. One of the strongest in Europe. We thought it was just a town which we could take off the march, and now we’re really in for it.’” In Total War , Michael Jones shared statements from Anatoly Merezhko, who worked as an 8th Guards HQ staff member: “’We were racing across Poland,’ Captain Anatoly Merezhko said, ‘and we had been allocated a clear line of advance—a corridor—that we would push forward along, without straying into the path of other armies. But Chuikov had already developed a habit of disobeying these instructions.’ Chuikov had ordered the 8th Guards Army to seize the Polish town of Lodz, although it was 6 kilometers inside the 69th Army’s own corridor…’” Jones wrote that the liberation of Lodz was a successful offensive, and according to Merezhko, Vasily Ivanovich continued on the path he elected to take inside the 69th Army’s corridor to the fortress city of Poznan closer to the Polish/German border. Swift nighttime action might be undertaken to free the city of Poznan from the German occupiers. However, Chuikov and the 8th Guards Army were met with stubborn resistance. It was thought that 20,000 soldiers were in Poznan’s citadel and surrounding forts; in truth, there were over 40,000 (and probably closer to 60,000) German troops stationed there: “To his credit, Chuikov […] reorganized his forces, deployed storm groups and assault forces in Poznan, and found the right tactical methods to combat the Germans. [Later,] Chuikov was criticized for creating a situation where two different Soviet forces—the 8th Guards and 69th Armies—were both fighting for the city without proper coordination and cooperation.” Instead of seeing these as conflicting accounts, perhaps synthesis is a more appropriate response. All sources agree that Kolpachki’s 69th Army was lagging behind in their advance to Germany. Chuikov was an aggressive commander who pushed forward and moved quickly, much like General George Patton, Commander of the US 3rd Army. Since the 8th Guards were so far ahead of their slower neighbors—and Marshal Zhukov as the 1st Belorussian Front Commander knew this—it could have been a combination of Chuikov’s 8th Guards side-stepping into the 69th Army’s corridor ahead of them and Zhukov, seeing this to be the case, ordering Chuikov to take the city by default. In defense of Chuikov’s actions to enter into the 69th Army’s corridor, he thought that it was important to protect the flank which should have been covered by the neighboring army, as he indicated in his memoirs. Either way, reconnaissance was lacking details on the sheer size of the German forces at the citadel. And, due to Chuikov’s strong leadership and ability to adapt quickly and fight without a template, the 8th Guards and 69th Armies eventually liberated the city of Poznan in time for the Red Army Day holiday on 23 February 1945. An official review of the actions at Poznan occurred, and though there were concerns about the initial failure to take Poznan due to a lack of coordination, Chuikov was praised for his ability to adapt quickly when faced with challenging circumstances.

Pictured: An award list for Colonel Sergey Borisovich Vil’din, a Belarussian who served in Lieutenant-General Pozharsky’s artillery of the 8th Guards Army; the second page of the award list, which includes Colonel-General V. I. Chuikov’s signature to the left (the original month for the signature was anticipated as being January 1945, but it appears that Chuikov wrote ‘February’ over it, indicating a date of 24 February 1945, following the taking of Poznań); photos of Colonel-General Chuikov commanding the 8th Guards Army at the front near Germany. A popular course of study in US colleges and universities focuses on Supply Chain Management (SCM). Planning, procurement, manufacturing, fulfillment, inventory management, logistics, returns from suppliers, and returns from consumers are all components of the supply chain . These are the operational components which are responsible for receiving and filling orders for replenishment. Logistics and the supply chain not only apply to for-profit businesses, but an effective system is also crucial to a nation’s military needs. During the Great Patriotic War, the swift movement of the Red Army and the necessity for supplies put a constant strain on the Soviet supply chain. Marshal Chuikov made sure to recognize the stalwart efforts of the supply chain workers, especially for the railway transportation of tanks and artillery to keep the soldiers at the front ready for combat conditions. Western Poland was no exception—before the advance on Germany, one of the Nazi strongholds to be conquered was the Polish citadel of Poznań. This German-occupied military fortress was difficult to overcome as there were 3 times more enemy soldiers  there than previously realized. However, the final assault on the citadel took place on 22 February 1945, and divisions from Chuikov’s 8th Guards Army took an active role in the Battle for Poznań. He shared about the heroes of the supply chain in his book titled From Stalingrad to Berlin : “The battles for Poznań only partly delayed, slowed down our forward movement. The main trouble was in the supply. The lack of fuel and shells was not replenished by courage and audacity. Heroic efforts were made by our Soviet railway workers to establish an uninterrupted supply of the front. The scale of transportation of military cargo was grandiose. When I had to meet a man in a railway uniform, I looked at him as a front-line soldier, as a fighter from the front line. […] We entered the bands of the most powerful fortifications. Only the most powerful artillery could bring us victory, only the interaction of infantry and armor could suppress the firepower of the enemy. We needed shells, shells ... The logic of military operations is merciless, [as] it does not accept any excuses, any good reasons, if in battle the rear service failed to provide the fighter with everything necessary. The rear service of the 1st Belorussian Front was just a rear service and acted in accordance with the instructions of the Military Council of the front. The January offensive operation, as we already know, was planned by the front headquarters for 10-12 days, with a depth much less than what actually happened. Reorienting the rear service to a more accelerated advance of troops and to a deeper one is not an easy task. Within a few days, the supply arm for the troops was significantly lengthened. Vehicles have lengthened the mileage. The run time was multiplied by the increased fuel consumption. In a word, the front, the battle at the front, required the strict fulfillment of obligations by the suppliers, and another mistake, inaccuracy could cost the lives of thousands of soldiers... The offensive demanded, no matter what—no matter what the circumstances... But the closer we moved to the Oder [River], the deeper we penetrated into the heart of Germany, the more difficult the supply situation became. Especially began to lag behind the means of reinforcement—artillery, engineering units, aviation. […] For the sake of saving gasoline, half of the vehicles returning empty from the front were transported on trailers. All captured fuel was taken into account and spent under strict control. The alcohol we captured was mixed with other ingredients and used as fuel. We collected captured guns and shells and used everything that was fit and serviceable to fight the enemy.”