What the right could learn from Stalin

Project 2025 🤝 Operation Bagration, part two

Operation Bagration was more than a victory. It was the victory, perhaps the greatest single win in all of military history.

Robert Citino

Probably the best example of deep battle in practice - military practice - is Operation Bagration

After halting the German offensive at Kursk in the summer of 1943, the Red Army permanently seized the strategic initiative. By the spring of 1944, it had liberated nearly all of Ukraine on the southern flank of the Eastern Front and pushed back German forces in the north. In the central sector of the front, in Belarus, German Army Group Center, commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch, occupied a prominent eastward-facing salient referred to by the Soviet High Command as the “Belarus Balcony.”

This exposed salient presented a highly tempting target. In May 1944, the Soviet Armed Forces High Command, known as Stavka, began planning an ambitious operation to eliminate four German armies in Belarus, a theater of operations roughly equivalent in size to the United Kingdom. The operation aimed to encircle and annihilate Army Group Center. This group occupied a strategically vital position known as the Smolensk land bridge, a strip of land between the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers. Key anchor points of this position were the city of Vitebsk on the Western Dvina River and the city of Orsha on the Dnieper River.

Aware of the precarious position of his forces, Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch presented Hitler with two withdrawal plans on May 20, 1944. The first proposed a limited pullback to the Dnieper River, while the second suggested a more substantial retreat to the Berezina River. Either maneuver would have allowed Army Group Center to shorten its front lines and free up critical operational reserves. However, Hitler, fixated on holding every inch of conquered territory, dismissed both plans outright. Instead, he issued orders for the so-called fortress cities of Belarus to be defended to the last man, further solidifying the precarious situation of the German forces.

Operation Bagration, named after General Pyotr Bagration, a celebrated hero of the Napoleonic Wars, involved an enormous buildup of Soviet forces. In preparation for the operation, the Red Army assembled significant reserves to face off against Army Group Center. Four Soviet army fronts were positioned for the offensive: the 1st Baltic Front under Lieutenant General Ivan Bagramyan, the 3rd Belarus Front under Colonel General Ivan Cherniakhovsky, the 2nd Belarus Front under General Grigory Zakharov, and the 1st Belarus Front under Colonel General Konstantin Rokossovsky.

Together, these four fronts fielded a staggering 1,670,000 troops, 33,000 guns and mortars, and 5,800 tanks and self-propelled howitzers. To exploit breakthroughs, each army was assigned a tank or mechanized corps, while separate tank brigades were tasked with supporting infantry divisions in breaching the German defensive lines. For air support, the offensive relied on five Soviet air armies, all front-level aviation assets, and nearly all long-range bombers—amounting to 5,300 combat aircraft. Additionally, behind German lines, 140,000 partisans, coordinated directly by Moscow, were poised to disrupt enemy operations and assist the advancing Soviet forces.

By mid-May 1944, the Red Army was fully prepared to launch Operation Bagration, which was designed to unfold in two distinct phases. The first phase focused on breaking through German defenses along the eastern face of the salient. Once the defenses were ruptured, the second phase aimed to encircle and annihilate the German forces defending key cities such as Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, and Bobruisk.

In the first phase, the 2nd Belarus Front was tasked with pinning down the forces of Army Group Center, while the 1st and 3rd Belarus Fronts executed wide flanking maneuvers to encircle the German frontline units. These two fronts received the bulk of Soviet reserves, combat vehicles, and equipment—amounting to two-thirds of the resources allocated for Operation Bagration. Meanwhile, the 1st Baltic Front was assigned a secondary role of securing the right flank of the 3rd Belarus Front and maintaining the separation between German Army Groups Center and North.

The operation's second phase aimed to encircle German forces west of Minsk, destroy the main body of Army Group Center, and push forward to the pre-war Soviet border.

Without going into even more detail (I would recommend this 20 minute video from the IWM if you can’t be bothered to read more) Operation Bagration achieved the encirclement of much of Army Group Centre.

By June 28, the German 4th Army had been destroyed, along with significant portions of the Third Panzer Army and Ninth Army. Exploiting the collapse of the German front line, the Red Army launched the Minsk Offensive, encircling and annihilating German formations near Minsk, which was liberated on July 4. With organized German resistance in Belarus effectively crushed, the Soviet advance continued into Lithuania, Poland, and Romania throughout July and August.

The Soviet forces obliterated 28 of the 34 divisions of Army Group Center, completely shattering the German front line. This engagement marked the largest defeat in German military history, resulting in approximately 450,000 German casualties, while another 300,000 soldiers were left isolated in the Courland Pocket.

In political practice

What Trump is doing is remarkably similar to a political deep battle concept.

He struck on an initial offensive against enemy positions. The line of contact here is not the firefight, but the passing or enaction of specific legislation, and the positions are policies, rather than dug in Wehrmacht veterans.

He also moved on a broad front, moving orders on a range of policy areas, dissipating opposition activity. Frederick the Great’s adage that ‘he who defends everything defends nothing’ is true; the left does not have a sufficient time or funds to pursue legal action for everything that Trump is going to bring forward. The effectiveness of lawfare to the opposition is therefore limited. It’s also true that because the left works in more along the lines of specific interest groups than a monolithic block, there will be significant opposition to each of these policies; but they will now be acting in isolation. Operating against the entire weight of government apparatus, the defence of their areas will be left difficult (the Belarus balcony), impossible (Minsk) or irrelevant (the Courland pocket).

Finally, there is the ‘deep’ element to this. The actions above are only the first phase of the deep battle operation. The second phase - the strike at the strategic depth behind the front - will be delivered by Trump’s actions on the civil service. Much of the logistical ability to prevent Trump 1 enacting policy was provided by the Deep State by ideologically hostile civil servants; removing this makes opposition to his policies much more difficult to sustain. This marks the shift from Trump 1 - which was more analogous to Svechin’s theories - to Trump 2 - which, like Tukhachevsky, seems to prioritize offensive operations.

This could all be applied to the UK. However, as I am about to argue in an upcoming piece, the right in Britain lacks the necessary operational art or the institutional thinking necessary to develop and implement a plan like this.

Systemic reform is essential, but 'The Blob' has spent decades digging in. Every key power center within the left-managerial regime must be besieged, isolated, dismantled, or captured. We require an intense and coordinated effort to organize, direct, and wield political power in order to overcome the Blob's inevitable resistance. We need grassroots movements, direct action, media influence, legal and institutional reform to target vulnerable points within the system

The struggle is only beginning and will be arduous; the opposition will undoubtedly regroup and launch counterattacks. The Blob, like the Germans, will face critical stakes, and will defend skilfully, ably and viciously to the last. If studying military strategy taught me anything it’s that nothing can be said to be certain except death, taxes and German counter-attacks.