University of Gothenburg
Question
Asked 6 June 2016
Soviet Officers - Military Diplomats in Allied Context:-Any (Biographical) Research?
Allied diplomacy during and after the Second World War had its military dimension as well, on several levels. It required that every participating army establishes a cohort of officers, high- and mid-ranking, able to represent its interests (i.e, interests of the state of which the army is a military arm) in international arena. The Great Powers, due to their global interests, faced the greatest challenge. And, after all, it is reasonable to assume that the hardest job was to be done by the Soviets.
Is there any research on Soviet military personnel bound to represent their army abroad at the final stage of the Second World War and after? My special focus is on inter-allied command structures, country-assigned military missions (often tasked with repatriation agenda) and the like. How was this cohort created, trained, supervised and integrated once their stationing abroad was over?
On the top of this, I am interested in a certain officer: Maj.Gen. Ivan Ratov who, according to my very poor information, presided over Soviet Miilitary Missions in London and Oslo respectively and represented the USSR at UNRRA - IRO talks on refugees and Displaced Persons (DPs) in London in 1946.
Recommendations in most European languages, incl. Russian, are welcome.
Most recent answer
Dear Carel, thank you for your response and for the thesis enclosed! By a witty coincidence you bring me back to my home ground. I am fluent in Norwegian, have studied and done research in Oslo, hence I know both the documentary collection you refer to and Sven Holtsmark quite well.
Yet I have a question: I suppose that a British military mission operated in the Netherlands as well. Can you recommend some readings? I read Dutch, too.
Best wishes!
All Answers (11)
University of Debrecen
There's a collection of documents in Hungarian on Hungarian-Soviet relations from October 1944 to June 1948 - István Vida (ed.), Iratok a magyar-szovjet kapcsolatok történetéhez, 1944. október - 1948. június. Dokumentumok (Budapest, 2005) - ISBN 9639567981
Even if you can't read Hungarian, a glance at the bibliography might reveal something.
1 Recommendation
University of Wolverhampton
Ratov features, however briefly, in Chris Mann's "British Policy and Strategy Towards Norway 1941-45" (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) on pp216-217. It concerns his part in repatriating Soviet POWs held in Norway.
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University of Gothenburg
Thanks, Phil, I have read Mann. It is quite an important study for my research.
Dostoevsky F.M. Omsk State University
There are series of documents about Soviet security services activities during Second world war. It may help you to find some documents devoted to cooperation between allies.
1 Recommendation
Indirect source: Venona papers and related materials:
If you happened to read in Polish, you might also try to read a book I discussed some time ago:
1 Recommendation
Kansas State University
Not as far as I am aware, but I am not a historian. I have not seen such data.
dale herspring
University of Gothenburg
Thanks Dominik! I am fluent in Polish: In fact, I know what fine building you teach in :)
University of Bamberg
Hi Pavol,
It's a very interesting topics and I would be happy to read the resulting article/book. Personally, my work related throughout the years to post-Cold War military education and culture. Your analytic framework seems, from my perspective, to be in the right direction. Although I would make the assumptions concerning the direct benefits of military education to command skills and cultural interoprtability more explicit. Often this hypothesis is taken as given (including by governmental/congressional panels) and isn't tested empirically.
There may be some useful sutdies on Soviet military education and training from the post-Cold Era in the DTIC database:
I remember seeing some articles from the 1980s in Military Review about the Soviet officer corps and related issues:
Finally, Dima Adamsky wrote about Soviet military thought and education in the Culture of Military Innovation, and Van Creveld's The Training of Officers has a chapter on Soviet military education (but few references as far as I'm remember).
Good luck!
Bursa Uludağ Üni̇versi̇tesi̇
It can assembly is a relationship the Liberal Institutionalism Theory between Public Administration?
Emmen (municipality)
If you read Norwegian: you might use the works of Sven Holtsmark, https://forsvaret.no/ifs/holtsmark_sven_g. In a collection of documents he edited ("Norge og Sovjetunionen 1917-1955", document 289, 4 December 1945), a General Major Andrei Ivanovich Ratov (1893-1978) is mentioned, as leader of a mission to repatriate Soviet citizens from Norway.
My PhD (2014, esp. p.28) covers Western Military Missions:
University of Gothenburg
Dear Carel, thank you for your response and for the thesis enclosed! By a witty coincidence you bring me back to my home ground. I am fluent in Norwegian, have studied and done research in Oslo, hence I know both the documentary collection you refer to and Sven Holtsmark quite well.
Yet I have a question: I suppose that a British military mission operated in the Netherlands as well. Can you recommend some readings? I read Dutch, too.
Best wishes!
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