John Erickson, 72; Expert on Red Army
John Erickson, 72, an academic expert on the Soviet Union and the Red Army, died Feb. 10 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The cause of death was not reported.
Erickson became interested in the Soviet army while serving with the British army in Austria.
“One morning I virtually blundered onto a Soviet armored column, replete with tanks and riflemen,” Erickson told an interviewer some years ago. “Both the men and the machines made an indelible impression on me, combining as they did stark contrast between crudity and sophistication. The inadvertent meeting left me with impressions, images and a persistent curiosity that could not be stifled.”
After leaving the army, Erickson resumed his study at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and began studying Soviet and Russian military matters.
He was the author of “The Soviet High Command 1918-1941,” published in 1962; “The Road to Stalingrad” (1975) and “The Road to Berlin” (1982).
The distinguished British historian A.J.P. Taylor described “The Road to Stalingrad” as “the outstanding book on the Soviet war in any language.”
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