Russia at War

"Alexander Werth was the BBC’s Moscow correspondent through the war. He had been brought up in St Petersburg and emigrated with his family to Britain soon after the revolution [of 1917]. So not only was he an excellent writer, but unlike most of the foreign press corps had the enormous advantage of being bilingual. Part history and part memoir, his book is shrewd, vivid and even funny. Published in 1964, it’s still one of the best general histories of the war in Russia. He’s excellent on the overall picture – especially on scratchy wartime relations between the Allies – but what makes him stand out is his reportage. One example – he’s talking about the wave of patriotism that swept the country on the announcement of war in June 1941. He’s at the cinema in Moscow. Stalin appears on the newsreel and everyone bursts into wild applause. Of course, at public gatherings this was mandatory, but Werth points out that inside the cinema it was dark, so nobody could see if you were clapping or not. He took that to mean that it was genuine applause. There’s another lovely moment when he describes papier maché hams and vegetables being put on display in the shop windows on May Day 1942, and the cruelty of this when everybody was very short of food. He makes telling little observations like that all the way through."