The Stuff of Soldiers

No book has given me a clearer, more visceral sense of what it was like to be in the Red Army than this book. It reminds me of my favorite war story—Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried—Schechter dives into the objects (spoons, weapons, letters, trinkets, tools) that Red Army soldiers carried to give you a sense of their gritty, everyday reality—how they ate, slept, fought, joked, and what it felt like to be in their bodies as they moved through the killing fields of eastern Europe. 

This fascinating history of the Red Army in World War II examines the material objects—the overcoat, the boots, the “thing bag,” the spade, the spoon, the bayonet, and other items—that helped turn civilians into Soviet soldiers. By focusing in on “the quotidian details of provisioning,” Schechter provides a unique view of the Red Army and of soldiers’ everyday lives.