Reddit reviews A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945

Seems like it's too long, so I'll split it up in two here:

General accounts:

When Titans Clashed

Russia at War

Thunder in the East

Absolute War

Hitler's War in the East

The Road to Stalingrad

The Road to Berlin

A Writer at War

THE ROLE OF THE SOVIET UNION IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR: A Re-examination

Why Stalin's Soldiers Fought: The Red Army's Military Effectiveness in World War II

If you're interested in memoirs I'd suggest:

Blood on the Shores

Over the Abyss

Sniper on the Eastern Front

GUNS AGAINST THE REICH: Memoirs of an Artillery Officer on the Eastern Front

PANZER DESTROYER: Memoirs of a Red Army Tank Commander

Through the Maelstrom: A Red Army Soldier's War on the Eastern Front, 1942-1945

Red Road From Stalingrad: Recollections Of A Soviet Infantryman

Red Star Against the Swastika: The Story of a Soviet Pilot over the Eastern Front

Penalty Strike: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander, 1943-45

BUT NOT FOR THE FUEHRER

Through Hell for Hitler

A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War : Russia, 1941-1944

Barbarossa:

War Without Garlands: Barbarossa 1941/42

BARBAROSSA DERAILED: THE BATTLE FOR SMOLENSK 10 JULY-10 SEPTEMBER 1941 VOLUME 1: The German Advance, The Encirclement Battle, and the First and Second Soviet Counteroffensives, 10 July-24 August 1941

Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East

Kiev 1941

Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941

THE VIAZ'MA CATASTROPHE, 1941: The Red Army's Disastrous Stand against Operation Typhoon

THE DEFENSE OF MOSCOW 1941: The Northern Flank

What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa

War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941

Germany and the Second World War: Volume IV: The Attack on the Soviet Union

I read a pretty decent book by Vasily Grossman called "a writer at war: a Soviet journalist with the red army, 1941-1945." Fairly short read and gives some solid insight to life in the eastern front.

https://www.amazon.com/Writer-War-Soviet-Journalist-1941-1945/dp/0307275337

Also, Antony Beevor's books, "Stalingrad" and "Berlin: the downfall, 1945" are both solid reads about the eastern front.

Well of course the first place to start would be Wikipedia. You could look up:

1936 Soviet Constitution, Gosplan, five year plans, collectivization, kolkhoz, Gulags, the Virgin Lands campaign, TASS, Izvestia, Pravda, Elektronika, their incredible space program, etc. And of course the leaders. And the various republics (SSRs) would be good to know. In fact the country itself was CCCP = SSSR.

Read about all the post-collapse conflicts: Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Transnistria, Russia-Georgia war, Ukraine Crisis. And about how turbulent the 90s were.

There are personal accounts of the gigantic conflict with the Germans, like those of Vasili Grossman and Marshal Zhukov. There are transcripts of interviews with Khrushchev and the books that Gorbachev wrote on Glasnost and Perestroika. Historian David M. Glantz writes almost exclusively about the Soviet military. There are the accounts of dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.

There are some classic pieces of literature like Master and Margarita and Dr. Zhivago. And music on YouTube by people like Shostakovich.

There are surplus stores like Soviet-Power.com that sell helmets, medals, coins, busts, and the like if that is what you are into. And blogs like English Russia.

r/history here on reddit probably has some articles to peruse. r/HistoryPorn often has old Russian photos.

And of course I've talked to several people on this forum who lived during Soviet times. I'm sure some here or elsewhere on reddit would be happy to tell you.

I believe that Vassily Grossman made the same point about the quality of life in Germany angering the invading Soviets in his book "A Writer at War".

http://www.amazon.com/Writer-War-Soviet-Journalist-1941-1945/dp/0307275337