Order No. 227

227 established that each front must create one to three penal battalions (Russian: штрафной батальон, romanized: shtrafnoy batalyon, lit.

[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.

[7][8] During the first part of the war on the Eastern Front, the Soviets suffered heavy losses along with mass retreat and desertion.

The German invaders penetrate toward Stalingrad, to Volga and want at any cost to trap Kuban and the Northern Caucasus, with their oil and grain.

The enemy already has captured Voroshilovgrad, Starobelsk, Rossosh, Kupyansk, Valuyki, Novocherkassk, Rostov on Don, half Voronezh.

Part of the troops of the Southern front, following the panic-mongers, have left Rostov and Novocherkassk without severe resistance and without orders from Moscow, covering their banners with shame.

The territory of the Soviet state is not a desert, but people – workers, peasants, intelligentsia, our fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, children.

After the loss of Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic republics, Donetzk, and other areas we have much less territory, much fewer people, bread, metal, plants and factories.

Therefore it is necessary to eliminate talk that we have the capability endlessly to retreat, that we have a lot of territory, that our country is great and rich, that there is a large population, and that bread always will be abundant.

Such talk is false and parasitic, it weakens us and benefits the enemy, if we do not stop retreating we will be without bread, without fuel, without metal, without raw material, without factories and plants, without railways.

J. StalinMarshal of the Soviet Union, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, wrote: "...Order N 227 is one of the most powerful documents of the war years due to its patriotic and emotional content... the document was motivated by rough and dark times... while reading it we were thinking to ourselves if we were doing everything it takes to win the battle.