The People’s War – Seven Facts About Life in the Soviet Union During WW2

“The Soviet victory in 1945 stands as a testament to the courage and endurance of ordinary citizens.”

By Colin Turbett

THE SECOND WORLD War has often been described as a people’s war. And although it’s a fact that millions were mobilized across entire populations of the countries involved, arguably no nation sacrificed and suffered more in the fight to defeat the Axis than the Soviet Union. In this year of the 75^th anniversary of the Allied victory, facts about the true scale of the war in the East are worth remembering. Here are a few:

1. The Soviet Union was ill-prepared for war

Despite the Red Army’s woeful state of readiness for the Nazi onslaught in June of 1941, the Soviet population had been long been on a war footing. Throughout the 1930s, as Stalin purged the military of suspected traitors and counter-revolutionaries with disastrous effects for military preparedness, young men and woman across the U.S.S.R. were receiving elementary military training in communist youth organizations for years leading up to the German invasion. And although these preparations were stepped in the ideals of the party, young men (and women) learned how to train with weapons. Even flight training was offered – something in Allied countries was largely the preserve of the privileged.

2. Millions fought, millions more died

By the height of the war, the Red Army had mobilized as many as 25 million men and women. Many of these conscripts were hastily fed into the front lines to replace the horrendous losses suffered. All told, more than eight million Soviet soldiers perished through the course of four years of intense and continuous fighting that stretched along a nearly 4,000-mile front. Civilian casualties were even more staggering. In 1941, the population of the U.S.S.R. totalled some 197 million people. Four years later, that figure had been reduced to 171 million. At the height of the Battle of Stalingrad, the life expectancy of a soldier in the front line was just 24 hours, and that of an entire air squadron, one week.

3. It was a workers’ war

Although, arms and equipment was transferred to the Soviet War effort by way of the United States and Great Britain under programs like Lend-Lease, it would be Soviet workers and Soviet factories that would ultimately keep the vast Red Army in action. Much of the country’s pre-war manufacturing base was located in the western-U.S.S.R., regions that were quickly overrun by Hitler’s armies in 1941. Facing the loss of its heavy industry, Moscow ordered the dismantling and relocation of hundreds of factories to the Urals and central Russia. Ultimately, some 1,500 manufacturing plants were re-established there by the end of 1941. And along with the factories went their workforces. Entire families were moved and labourers lived in the most primitive of conditions until their factories were rebuilt and the production of tanks, guns and others vitals could recommence. Only after the assembly lines were rolling could decent housing for workers be resourced. In one tank factory alone, 8,000 women lived in dugouts on the premises. These, along with other hardships, were accepted stoically by those affected, such was the commitment to drive out the Nazis.

4. It was a war fought by women

In many ways, the wartime Soviet Union was decades ahead of the west in terms of equality between the sexes. While females in the U.S., Britain and Russia famously toiled in munitions factories during the war, women served in combat roles in the Red Army. In fact, by the war’s end some 800,000 women were in uniform. Although many worked in support roles undertaking what was regarded as traditional women’s work, many still saw action, risking and losing their lives alongside the men. As many as 27,000 served in partisan units, others flew warplanes in combat in all-women fighter squadrons. Frontline medical personnel, who went into battle with troops, were invariably women. Several thousand females served as snipers, too; a role that was thought to be particularly well-suited to the patience, focus and determination of their gender. One such, Ludmilla Pavlichenko, killed over 300 Germans. She would later tour the United States where she was befriended by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She also visited Britain to campaign for Allied military support.

5. It was a guerrilla war

By 1944, an estimated one million Soviet citizens of all ages were serving behind the German lines in partisan units. Although many were civilians and amateurs, most of their units were organized under the discipline and control of the Red Army. Partisans eschewed open battle with the Wehrmacht and instead favoured hit-and-run style attacks that targeted enemy communications. Their continued harassment of the German rear echelon tied up entire divisions of enemy troops that would have otherwise been sent to the front lines. The first partisan outfits were made up of Soviet troops cut off behind enemy lines as the Germans swept across Ukraine and Byelorussia in 1941. Their ranks soon grew to include escaped prisoners of war. Entire brigades were eventually raised. As areas were liberated by the Red Army, partisans were obliged to join the regular army where many served with great distinction.

6. Children also fought

Today, the phenomenon of child soldiers is commonly associated with warlord armies of the developing world. But Russia had a long-standing tradition of children being attached to military units as quasi-mascots or “sons of the regiment.” This practice was adapted in the Second World War as children, many still in adolescence, found themselves in the thick of the fighting and became unofficially absorbed by military units. Girls served as front line nurses and one 14-year-old boy, the child of squadron commander and future space program pioneer Nikolai Kamanin, flew over 400 sorties as an air force pilot. Estimates suggest that as many as 25,000 children served in military units during the war. Millions of other children did not fight, but still felt the ravages of the conflict; an entire generation of Soviet youth became war orphans. In many cases, it would take years to reunite these youngsters with their next of kin.

7. The war’s left a bitter legacy for many

The Soviet victory in 1945 stands as a testament to the courage and endurance of ordinary citizens. While their American and Allied counterparts returned home as heroes with hopes of a better future, things were much different in the post-war Soviet Union. Stalin, still the supreme leader, was initially reluctant to idolize ordinary soldiers when more effort and sacrifice was needed to rebuild the country. Disabled veterans, of whom there were millions, were poorly treated and many were reduced to beggary. Women returnees were also held in low esteem. Many were misunderstood and ostracized by those who stayed at home and found themselves similarly rejected by returning soldiers, who often sought the normalcy of a homemaking wife rather than a woman who was scarred by the same experiences as them. Disfigured and disabled women fighters were at the greatest disadvantaged. Perhaps none were as ill-treated as former prisoners-of-war. Unlike their Allied counterparts, Red Army POWs were regarded with suspicion and shamed for having surrendered. Many of course had acted heroically and it was to be many years before their reputations recovered.

Red Star at War – Victory at All Costs

Stories behind all these facts and more can be found in my new book, Red Star at War – Victory at All Costs, which focuses on the wartime experience of ordinary Soviet citizens and tells their stories with many of their own photographs as well as others that give life to accounts of life on the Eastern Front.

Colin Turbett is the author of Red Star at War – Victory at All Costs. He has long held an interest in the history of the Soviet Union and its people. This is his first book for Pen and Sword.