Order No. 227

Soviet postage stamp depicting a politruk throwing a grenade with the phrase "Not a Step Back!".

Order No. 227 (Russian: Приказ № 227, romanized: Prikaz No. 227) was an order issued on 28 July 1942 by Joseph Stalin, who was acting as the People's Commissar of Defence. It is known for its line "Not a step back!" (Ни шагу назад!, Ni shagu nazad!),[1] which became the primary slogan of the Soviet press in summer 1942.[2]

Order No. 227 established that each front must create one to three penal battalions (Russian: штрафной батальон, romanized: shtrafnoy batalyon, lit. 'penalty battalion', commonly known as штрафбат, shtrafbat) of up to 800 middle-ranking commanders and high-ranking commanders accused of disciplinary problems, which were sent to the most dangerous sections of the front lines.[3] From 1942 to 1945, a total of 422,700 Red Army personnel were sentenced to penal battalions as a result of courts-martial.[4] The order also directed that each army must create "blocking detachments" at the rear that would shoot "panic-mongers and cowards".[2] In the first three months, blocking detachments shot 1,000 penal troops and sent 24,000 to penal battalions.[5] By October 1942, the idea of regular blocking detachments was unofficially dropped.[2][6]

Intended to galvanise the morale of the hard-pressed Red Army and emphasize patriotism, it had a generally detrimental effect and was not consistently implemented by commanders who viewed diverting troops to create blocking detachments as a waste of manpower. On 29 October 1944, blocking detachments were officially disbanded by Stalin's order No. 349 citing the changed situation at the front.[7][8]

  1. ^ "Order No. 227, July 28, 1942, J. Stalin". TracesOfWar.com. 1942-07-28. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
  2. ^ a b c Roberts, Geoffrey (2006). Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. p. 132. ISBN 0-300-11204-1. OCLC 71164004.
  3. ^ Toppe, Alfred (1998). Night Combat. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-7881-7080-5.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Krivosheev was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Merridale was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Starikov, Nikolai (19 May 2012). "Ложь и правда о заградотрядах" [Lies and the truth about the detachments] (in Russian). Retrieved 15 September 2018.
  8. ^ "ПРИКАЗ О РАСФОРМИРОВАНИИ ОТДЕЛЬНЫХ ЗАГРАДИТЕЛЬНЫХ ОТРЯДОВ № 0349 29 октября 1944" [Order for the Reforming of the Separate Blocking Detachments: No. 349, 29 October 1944]. Combat operations of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War (in Russian).