I read something along the lines of "the civilian casualties of the Battle of Stalingrad is partially an example of the faults of Soviet centralized planning, as the state was not able to provide food, transport, housing, etc. in the time and numbers required." I am wondering what the response to this claim would be?
I find it funny that an entire city under siege by a reaving genocidal army is somehow turned into a failure of communism.
state was not able to provide food, transport, housing, etc
Huh, I wonder what happened west of Moscow in the early 1940s that would make the state unable to provide for its people? I guess we'll never know...
what the response to this claim would be
simple shock at the suggestion.
how are logistics handled in every modern army? centrally. how is rationing managed for civilians in wartime? centrally. there was very little difference in the organizational principles of the USSR and the capitalist powers during WW2 except at the production level (who owns & manages the farms and factories).
therefore, deficiencies are not organizational, but from the inputs---which they could possibly claim central planning hindered, it's easy to procure production figures that expose that as a joke---and the obvious answer to soviet deficiencies was the loss of territory and material from the fighting
I would respond with pretty much anything @wombat@hexbear.net says
There were all kinds of complications. For example they had limited boats to ferry people to safety. These boats operated night and day under mortar and artillery fire as well as air attacks. Later on under direct fire when the Germans took parts of the Volga beachhead. Then when it got colder chunks of ice floating in the current made the waters even more treacherous to navigate.
I'd argue that it was exactly the centralized planning that enabled the Red Army to muster the forces necessary to counterattack and encircle the Germans in such depth that they couldn't break out or be rescued by an outside force.
The idea that keeping civilians in the city would probably make the Soviet soldiers fight harder probably lead to a lot of preventable deaths but that order has nothing to do with central planning.
It's something that's technically true but practically meaningless. What's the proposal for an alternafive way to transport supplies that isn't going to be affected by a siege?
