Life with Stalin and Nazis

The history of the second world war in the Soviet Union is coming alive for the western reader. Richard Overy in Russia's War has produced an excellent synthesis of the political and military situation as well as illuminating the social and economic aspects of the conflict. He also clarifies many of the emotional and moral questions raised by the Nazi-Soviet struggle.

The history of the war in the USSR has been in a paradoxical situation. Gallons of ink has been expended by Soviet writers and researchers in describing the extraordinary heroism of many individuals and groups of both military and civilian personnel. The atrocities and sufferings inflicted by the Nazis have also received detailed coverage, and there are multiple official histories of the war written in the Soviet Union.

Soviet citizens have had to live with the effects of the war still evident in their everyday lives. Soviet losses were horrendous. Stalin had not considered an attack imminent in June 1941 and the Red Army was not only unprepared but also emasculated by the effects of the army purge of 1937. The battles for Kiev, Leningrad and Moscow were vital politically and psychologically and Overy states that between June and December 1941 "for every German soldier killed, 20 Soviet soldiers died". By the end of the war, total losses "may have been as high as 28 million", although some Soviet scholars put the human cost as "high as 43-47 million".

As any tourist to the USSR could testify, a great amount of effort was expended in building monuments to war heroes. Restoration work on public monuments has been of an extremely high standard. The rebuilding of the royal palaces outside St Petersburg, which were almost totally destroyed by the German armies, are an extraordinary monument to the professionalism and dedication of restorers. Yet, when such projects were getting under way, ordinary housing was not improved and many people still live in what are little more than slums. Parts of industry, too, have not been modernised.

However, despite so much evidence of the effect of the second world war on the fabric of the USSR and the everyday lives of its citizens, very many aspects of the war were not investigated or discussed. The political authorities derived a large part of their legitimacy from the war's legacy, which was often more important than ideological tenets and elicited a more powerful response from the population. If it could have been shown, for example, that losses were higher for political reasons this would have undermined the argument that losses were a result of the atrocities and lack of support from the Western Allies.

Stalin repeatedly asked for the opening of the second front, mistrusted Allied motives and belittled Allied achievements once the invasion of Normandy began. There was no recognition of the fact that the West was trying to cut the number of casualties. No one wished to see a repeat of the carnage of the first world war. For Stalin, however, political considerations were of a higher priority. There were plenty of military reasons why the German armies had to be stopped at Stalingrad, but the city had also been named after Stalin and it would have been a terrible blow to prestige to allow it to fall. Arguably the intensity of the conflict was increased by Stalin's need to maintain his image unblemished. Similarly, Stalin wanted to capture Berlin. It was an important symbol and all other considerations were secondary.

The question of popular attitudes to the regime and the conflict is one of the more emotive and interesting. How did ordinary Soviet citizens understand the predicament of their country? If it can be argued that the late 1920s and early 1930s witnessed the enthusiasm for the creation of a new socialist society, by the end of the decade those illusions had disappeared, particularly in the armed forces when those who had fought for the Soviet side in the civil war were disgraced, humiliated and often killed. Yet many commanders who had experienced this side of Soviet society were willing to put this behind them and fight bravely for the Soviet regime. Overy argues that the sufferings that Stalin inflicted on the people were nothing new - "Stalin did to his people what Russia's ruler's had always done" - and that Soviet citizens were able to respond to the war in the way that they did because their experience of life had been so harsh.

To equate Stalin with the tsarist past is to distort the truth very badly and is the least satisfactory part of Overy's account. Imperial justice was inefficient but the system of morality was accepted and distortions of the truth were publicised. There was no concerted effort to turn black into white and overturn previously accepted truths in the way the Stalinist regime encouraged.

The life lived by the majority of the citizens of the newly industrialised Soviet state was not particularly comfortable but that was also not part of the tsarist legacy when it is possible to argue that the average standard of living before the revolution was higher than during many periods of the Soviet regime. It would be better to emphasise the complexity of emotions aroused by invasion of the mother country. This sense of violation by an invader is one which those nations which have not been invaded find difficult to comprehend. Stalin recognised and responded to this emotion through the way in which the rhetoric of his regime became patriotic rather than ideological.

Furthermore, resistance was stiffened by the atrocities of the Nazis and the equally unforgiving attitudes exhibited by the Soviet regime against its own citizens. What other regime stated that the families of prisoners-of-war would be deprived of all state aid and assistance? The population was deprived of information and many felt too isolated to question the demands of the regime. For many there was no way out; others hoped that by showing courage and fairness Soviet society would become more humane.

This book is an invaluable introduction to the history of the war in the Soviet Union and will be much used by students. It is a great pity that it lacks a proper index and that by attempting to economise in this way, the publishers detract from what is otherwise a most useful and absorbing piece of work.

Catherine Andreyev is lecturer in modern European history, University of Oxford.