Year of Victory

Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984. Second printing [stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. [2], 248 pages. Frontis Illustrations. Illustrations. Maps. Errata slip present. English translation by Progress Publishers 1969. Small chips to dust-jacket edges. Sticker on back of DJ. The author was army and Front commander. Ivan Stepanovich Konev (28 December 1897 - 21 May 1973) was a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during World War II. After graduating from Frunze Military Academy in 1926, Konev rose through the ranks of the Soviet military. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Konev took part in a series of major campaigns, including the battles of Moscow and Rzhev. Konev further commanded forces in major Soviet offensives at Kursk, in the Dnieper-Carpathian and Vistula-Oder offensives. In February 1944, he was made a Marshal of the Soviet Union. In 1956, he was appointed commander of the Warsaw Pact armed forces, and led the violent suppression of the Hungarian Revolution. In this first-hand account of the great finishing strokes with which the Soviet Army ended the war against Hitler Germany, Marshal Konev, who was then in command of the 1st Ukrainian Front, analyses the strategic and operational situation of those days. His story includes portraits of many prominent commanders such as Rybalko, Gusev and Pukhov, and his reflections on the nature of modern warfare, the art of moving large masses and equipment, and the morale of the Soviet soldier. Marshal Konev's book covers only a little over a hundred days. Here is the story, told by a man who saw it all with his own eyes, a general who knew every detail of every operation because it was his duty to carry them out. Half the book is devoted to the most authentic account yet written of the Berlin operation, which Konev himself describes as more complex than he had ever undertaken including the skillful manoeuvre that recovered the industries of Silesia intact. The last chapter tells of the thrust that liberated Czechoslovakia.