Battle of Stalingrad from the Stalingrad Front's Political Department on 8 October 1942 that: "The defeatist mood is almost eliminated and the number of treasonous incidents is getting lower" as an example of the sort of coercion Red Army soldiers experienced under the Special Detachments (later to be renamed SMERSH). On the other hand, Beevor noted the often extraordinary bravery of the Soviet soldiers in a battle that was only comparable to Verdun, and argued that terror alone cannot explain such self-sacrifice. Richard Overy addresses the question of just how important the Red Army's coercive methods were to the Soviet war effort compared
Wide is My Motherland Wide is My Motherland "Wide is My Motherland" (), also known as "Song of the Motherland" (), is a famous patriotic song of Russia and the former Soviet Union. The music was composed by Isaac Dunaevsky and the words were written by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach. The song was first featured in the classic Soviet film ""Circus"" in 1936. The song made its début in the 1936 film "Circus", starring Lyubov Orlova and Sergei Stolyarov. The film depicts the story of an American woman who flees from racism in the United States after giving birth to an African-American child. She comes to