Order No. 270

Order No. 270, dated August 16, 1941, was issued by Joseph Stalin acting as People's Commissar of Defense. By the time of the order's issuance, German troops had achieved overwhelming successes in their advancement deep into Soviet territory. Their successful blitzkrieg strategy disorganized the Soviet defense system, led to encirclement of several Soviet divisions and even some armies and deteriorated morale of the Red Army's command staff. The command staff's morale was already low from the pre-war period as a result of Stalin's purges. The order was aimed primarily to raise command staff's morale, although in a very brutal manner.

In the preamble, the order gives examples of troops fighting in encirclement, as well as cases of surrender by military command.

The first article directed that any commanders or commissars "tearing away their insignia and deserting or surrendering" should be considered malicious deserters. The order required superiors to shoot these deserters on the spot. Their family members were subjected to arrest.

The second article demanded that encircled soldiers must use every possibility to fight on, and to demand that their commanders organize the fighting; according to the order, anyone attempting to surrender instead of fighting must be killed and their family members deprived of any state welfare and assistance. The order also required division commanders to demote and, if necessary, even to shoot on the spot those commanders who failed to command the battle directly in the battlefield.

Commenting on that order, Stalin declared: "There are no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors."