Erickson

JOHN ERICKSON (1929 - 2002)

John Erickson was the western world's leading authority on the Soviet Union, its politics and military power, throughout the Cold War and after. He was for many years NATO's top adviser on the Soviet Union and was courted by US commanders and policy-makers. Born in Newcastle, Erickson attended South Shields High School and St John's College, Cambridge. He met Russian troops in the Balkans where he served in the army after 1945. It was while working at Manchester University in 1962 that he published his first major work The Soviet High Command 1918-1941, still a standard work. As a scholar respected by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Erickson was given unique access to Soviet archives and military personnel; he also met Marshal Rokossovsky, whom he regarded as the best Soviet tactical commander. His next project was the two-volume history: The Road to Stalingrad (1975) and The Road to Berlin (1982), an account of the Russo-German war unsurpassed in any language, drawing on Soviet and German sources, and turning volumes of minute detail into epic prose.

From 1967, Erickson set up a Centre for Defence Studies in Edinburgh, and from 1969-1988, he was Professor of Politics there. His operation was something like a mediaeval university, a guru surrounded by devoted pupils. When the Afghan invasion took place in 1979, Erickson sacrificed government funding in order to maintain throughout the '80s the 'Edinburgh conversations' where Soviet and American commanders could meet. In 1997, with his wife Ljubica, he completed a rigorously definitive bibliography The Soviet Armed Forces 1918-1992.

Erickson had no time for performance criteria, men in suits, political correctness, spin or form over substance. He never compromised his principles. Consequently he was more valued abroad, particularly by the two superpowers.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
JOHN ERICKSON (1929 - 2002) John Erickson was the western world's leading authority on the Soviet Union, its politics and military power, throughout the Cold War and after. He was for many years NATO's top adviser on the Soviet Union and was courted by US commanders and policy-makers. Born in Newcastle, Erickson attended South Shields High School and St John's College, Cambridge. He met Russian troops in the Balkans where he served in the army after 1945. It was while working at Manchester University in 1962 that he published his first major work The Soviet High Command 1918-1941, still a standard work. As a scholar respected by the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Erickson was given unique access to Soviet archives and military personnel; he also met Marshal Rokossovsky, whom he regarded as the best Soviet tactical commander. His next project was the two-volume history: The Road to Stalingrad (1975) and The Road to Berlin (1982), an account of the Russo-German war unsurpassed in any language, drawing on Soviet and German sources, and turning volumes of minute detail into epic prose. From 1967, Erickson set up a Centre for Defence Studies in Edinburgh, and from 1969-1988, he was Professor of Politics there. His operation was something like a mediaeval university, a guru surrounded by devoted pupils. When the Afghan invasion took place in 1979, Erickson sacrificed government funding in order to maintain throughout the '80s the 'Edinburgh conversations' where Soviet and American commanders could meet. In 1997, with his wife Ljubica, he completed a rigorously definitive bibliography The Soviet Armed Forces 1918-1992. Erickson had no time for performance criteria, men in suits, political correctness, spin or form over substance. He never compromised his principles. Consequently he was more valued abroad, particularly by the two superpowers.
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