we want to learn more abt that period, especially ww2 (more as a hobby than for anything serious) but:
a) were bad at reading like, high-level/academic/dense stuff
b) most of the easy-to-read pop stuff is shit
so were looking for good works kinda in the middle, that have good or at least decent factual rigor but arent a slog to read. for a reference point, Richard Evans' 3rd reich trilogy felt easy enough to read and comprehend
not rly looking for memoirs or then-contemporary works/accounts, theres a million lists for those we can look at for suggestions
interwar stuff 100% included in scope
leftist/communist bent is good but absolutely not mandatory, but not looking for like, polemics (nothing wrong w polemics its just not very much what were looking for)
You didn't mention what kind of scope you're looking for so I have a few very different recommendations.
First, Night Witches by Bruce Myers is about women Soviet pilots in the Great Patriotic War. It primarily focuses on the so-called "Night Witches", the 588th Night Bomber Regiment/46th "Taman" Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, but there's some good stuff about the other two, the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment and the 587th Bomber Aviation Regiment. It includes the story of Marina Raskova personally petitioning Stalin to create all-women air regiments, along with oral histories from the women of the 588th themselves. Absolutely incredible book.
Now, forgive me as I commit the sin of recommending a couple books I haven't finished yet because I have a bad habit of not returning to books I've started. For a much, much wider scope on the Great Patriotic War, David M. Glantz's When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler is a good book on the topic and covers the whole period of active combat, plus the how both sides' forces were organized and arranged in the lead up.
I know you said no memoirs, but maybe the memoirs of the Marshal of the Soviet Union is a little different? Georgy Zhukov wrote Marshal Zhukov's Greatest Battles in which he details the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, and Berlin. It is also furnished with some maps to give context to what he's talking about at times. It is a memoir, but it's a much wider picture than a memoir from a frontline soldier or something like that. But if that's not what you're looking for, apologies.
This last book is definitely not what you're looking for but I'm going to put it in here for anyone passing by that's interested. I'm going to preface this with an extreme content warning because the contents of this book are beyond harrowing. I cannot emphasize that enough. What the Soviet people experienced during and after Operation Barbarossa is a hell visited upon the Earth that we hopefully will never be able to fully comprehend, because hopefully we will never experience such a thing. The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich is an compilation of oral histories from Soviet women veterans. It is incredibly important for that reason, but it is an extremely hard read.
Extreme Content Warning!!!
In the opening days of Barbarossa, a Soviet unit had to retreat and hid in a swamp from the Germans at night. A soldier in the unit had just had a child, who she carried into the swamp with them, but would not stop crying. No one would dare to ask her, but she and the rest of her unit understood that the Germans would eventually hear the crying child, find them, and likely kill them all. So, she had to drown her own child in order to save her own life and the lives of the rest of her unit.I had to put it down after that and haven't been able to return to it since.
Ty for the extensive recs! Night Witches sounds rly good, gonna check that out
Weve tried reading some of Glantzs other stuff but he is unfortunately too dry w too many numbers, dates, names and units densely packed together for what were looking forπ΅βπ«
One memoir among multiple recs is fine, haha