The Faceless Horde

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Jeff Leach
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The Faceless Horde

#1

Post by Jeff Leach » 24 Jul 2014, 12:41

Does anyone know where describing the Soviets as an 'Faceless Horde that overwhelms by sear numbers' arose? My guess is Nazi propaganda or did it arise after the end of the war?

It wasn't from the German Wehrmacht, that was describing the Soviet Army as a skilled opponent (in defense at least) from the start of the war. Most of the descriptions have a respectful tone though they do point out units with lots of troops with asiatic looks (mainly those units that performed poorly). The German seen pretty well informed about the commanders and units in front of them, well at least locally.

GregSingh
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Re: The Faceless Horde

#2

Post by GregSingh » 27 Jul 2014, 04:56

Origin of this has nothing to do with Nazis, I am afraid.
It might be as early as Russian Civil War. Certainly it was quite common during Polish-Soviet War 1920.

Norman Davies in "White Eagle, Red Star" cited Tukhachevsky's order from 2nd of July 1920: [..Over the dead body of White Poland shines the road to world-wide conflagration. On our bayonets we shall bring happiness and peace to toiling humanity. To the West!...]

In the next couple of days Polish front was broken and masses of Ghai's and Budyonny's cavalrymen started to pour west from the the north and south.
Further Davies writes: [..commander boasted of 'clattering through the street of Paris before the summer is out'... the speed of this advance was phenomenal...].
Early Soviet Army lacked low level commanders as these went mostly over to White Armies, so it all looked more like a faceless hordes attacking, not military as seen just a couple of year earlier when German, Austro-Hungarian or ever Tsarist Armies were on the move.

Tukhachevsky's order became quickly know to Poles and as early as 7th of July one of the Polish newspapers printer a poster with text : [..Bolshevik hordes invade our native land wreaking murder and conflagration..]

Later in August when Warsaw was on front line, Polish press became even more alarmist, trying to attract attention of the rest of the Europe to the problem.


steverodgers801
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Re: The Faceless Horde

#3

Post by steverodgers801 » 28 Jul 2014, 05:20

It goes back to the invasion of first the German tribes and then the Slavic tribes of Europe and continued on though the Mongol invasion.

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Re: The Faceless Horde

#4

Post by gebhk » 28 Jul 2014, 12:55

Going back to GregSingh's point I think the Mongol and later Tatar invasions had resonance with the Polish population. The only significant difference between those hordes and some of Tuchaczevski's and Gai Khan's horemen (and for that matter of the Czar's more exotic mounted units) was the substitution of a rifle for the bow. Some of my relatives 'fondly' recall sheep being roasted and couldrons of soup boiled over an open fire in the yard, fuelled by fencing and trees from their orchard, because the cooking range indoors was as alien to the 'visitors' as the replicator on board the 'USS Enterprise' would have been to us.

teg
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Re: The Faceless Horde

#5

Post by teg » 30 Jul 2014, 12:20

Such stereotype appeared long before 1941 and even before 1917. I have seen some German paintings of the Napoleonic wars which depict Russian regular soldiers with mongoloid features. Of course this is rubbish - Russian regular units consisted in overwhelming majority from ethnic Russians. Some Calmuc units in the Russian army in the Napoleonic wars were lesser than 1 percent of the Russian army. The other examples of such cliche can be found in the times of WWI German authors considered that Russian Turcestan and Caucasian Army Corps complectated by the asiatic soldiers in sipte of the fact that inhabitants of Caucasus and Cental Asia were extempted from conscription and the name of the units reflected only their dislocation. Nevertheless Germans constantly wrote about yellow and dark skinned Russian soldiers. After 1917 such stereotypes were merely developed and strengthened but not invented

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wm
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Re: The Faceless Horde

#6

Post by wm » 30 Jul 2014, 22:58

But the Russian soldiers fought in formation and using the usual then tactics. As anyone else, they fought in a highly organized and disciplined manner. It was as un-hordish as it could be. It's hard to imagine they were a source of that stereotype.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Germans, and Russians (because of the 1905 war) had their own versions of the Yellow Peril scare, as depicted in this famous panting from 1895:
Peoples of Europe, guard your dearest goods.
Imagesource: Wikimedia

There were supposed to guard the dearest goods against a Japanese invasion, but the Chinese and Mongols were feared too because of their numbers.
The say that paranoid yellow scare was quite widespread in Russia, and not only in the popular literature, but in writings of such known writers like: Solovyov, Blok, Merezhkovsky, Bely.

In Poland the famous writer Witkacy wrote in 1927 Insatiability, a book based on those Russian fears. It shows Poland overran by a Mongol conquest, and describes the Mongolian army as an advancing Chinese Wall of people without faces.
It was his best book, and widely known to the point, despite being high art and really hard to read, during the communist era they tortured children in schools with it (in a fit of elitism no doubt).
The utopian story takes place in the future, around 2000. After a battle, Poland is overrun by the army of the last and final Mongol conquests modelled on the Bolshevik revolution. The nation becomes enslaved to a fictional Chinese leader Murti Bing. His emissaries give everyone a special pill called DAVAMESK B 2 which takes away their ability to think and their will to resist. East and West become one, in faceless misery fuelled by sexual instincts.
source: Wikipedia

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