The wars of the past show us that even armies that had won brilliant victories for decades, in some cases were not only defeated but even disintegrated and ceased to exist. Such a fate, for example, befell the army of Napoleon, who for almost two decades kept the whole Europe under its boots. The army needs to instill a spirit of confidence in its power, but not in terms of boasting. Bragging about invincibility brings harm to the army.
Speech to Red Army personnel, 13 May 1940
Quelle: http://porto-fr.odessa.ua/index.php?art_num=art021&year=2008&nnumb=40
Lew Sacharowitsch Mechlis: Zitate auf Englisch
Mekhlis in 1940. Quoted in The People Need a Tsar: The Emergence of National Bolshevism as Stalinist Ideology, 1931-1941, by D. L. Brandenberger & A. M. Dubrovsky, 1998
Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 14 March 1939 - quoted in Albert L. Weeks, Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941
From a leaflet written by Mekhlis in 1941
Quelle: http://porto-fr.odessa.ua/index.php?art_num=art021&year=2008&nnumb=40
Speech to Red Army personnel, 13 May 1940
Quelle: http://www.warmech.ru/1941war/sher_4.html
A fragment of a letter to Stalin by Mekhlis in 1938, after two years of constant purges of people. Quoted in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar.