 He is credited with being one of the major proponents (alongside Viktor Nekrasov, Vasyl Bykov, Vladimir Bogomolov, Konstantin Vorobyov) of the so-called The Truth from the Trenches (okopnaya pravda) movement (the term was used originally in a derogatory sense by detractors who argued that formers soldier could not be trusted to write about the Great war objectively, being ignorant of its greater 'truths') which brought authenticity and harsh realism to the Soviet war literature.David Gillespie summed up his career as follows