Red Sky at Noon

TO MY SON,

SASHA

‘My name is Nothing, my surname is Nobody.’

Saying of Gulag prisoners

Order 227

‘It is time to finish retreating. Not one step back!… Panic-mongers and cowards must be exterminated on the spot… These are the orders of our Motherland… Military councils of the fronts and front commanders should: Form within each front one to three penal battalions (800 persons) where officers and soldiers who have been guilty of a breach of discipline due to cowardice or panic will be assigned, and placed at the most difficult sectors of the front to give them an opportunity to redeem their sins by blood…’

Josef Stalin, People’s Commissar of Defence Moscow, 28 July 1942