Occupation and Soviet Resistance (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Occupation and Soviet Resistance
Overview of devastation
The Soviet Union endured catastrophic destruction during the Second World War, experiencing devastation in two distinct phases: first during the German advance, and then during the Soviet counter-offensive. As German forces pushed eastward, they inflicted massive damage on Soviet territory. When the Red Army retreated, it implemented scorched earth tactics (deliberately destroying resources, infrastructure, and anything of potential use to prevent them falling into enemy hands) to deny the invading forces supplies and shelter.
During the Soviet fight-back from 1943 onwards, the same territories that had been ravaged by invasion and occupation became battlegrounds once more. The tides of war washed over certain areas repeatedly, with some locations changing hands multiple times.
The Battle for Kharkiv
Kharkiv in Ukraine exemplifies the repeated devastation pattern:
- October 1941: First overrun by German forces
- February 1942: Briefly recaptured by Soviet forces
- March 1942: Lost again to Germans
- May 1942: Scene of enormous battles
- August 1943: Finally liberated
The city changed hands multiple times, experiencing destruction during each phase of the conflict.
The scale of destruction was staggering. By the war's end, approximately 1,700 Soviet towns and cities had been devastated, along with 70,000 villages. This physical destruction represented not just material loss but the wholesale devastation of entire communities.
Civilian hardship on the home front
Life for civilians on the Soviet Home Front proved unrelentingly harsh. Food, fuel, and shelter were all in critically short supply throughout the war years.
The Siege of Leningrad
The siege of Leningrad stands as perhaps the most extreme example of civilian suffering during the war. From autumn 1941 to spring 1944, the city endured German encirclement, during which approximately 600,000 people died of hunger and cold. This siege represents one of the deadliest blockades in human history.
By 1945, civilian deaths totalled more than 12 million. This enormous death toll resulted from multiple causes beyond direct military action. Massive destruction of factories, hospitals, and urban housing compounded the difficulties of survival. Normal life became impossible due to several dislocating factors: the displacement effect of the German invasion forced millions from their homes; mobilisation for the armed forces removed working-age men from communities; mass deportations (forced removal of populations, particularly ethnic minorities, to distant regions) further disrupted society.
The hardships experienced by Soviet civilians stemmed from both military conflict and deliberate policies. German atrocities, including massacres and forced labour, inflicted terrible suffering on occupied populations. However, repressive measures by the Soviet dictatorship against its own people also contributed to the misery. Despite these multiple sources of suffering, many Soviet citizens developed a strong sense of making sacrifices for a great national cause, which helped them endure the hardships.
German occupation policies and atrocities
When Nazi leaders launched the invasion, they spoke grandly about "liberating" the subject nationalities of the USSR from communist dictatorship. Initially, there were instances of Germans being welcomed in parts of Ukraine and in the Baltic States, where resentment against Soviet rule ran deep. However, this initial reception did not last. The Germans rapidly alienated the residual loyalty of Soviet citizens through repressive actions and systematic atrocities committed by German occupiers.
Treatment of Soviet military personnel proved particularly brutal. Thousands of Soviet soldiers were held as prisoners of war in appalling conditions; very few ever returned home. Thousands of Soviet workers were conscripted and forced to work in German war factories under harsh conditions. From the outset, Hitler ordered the instant execution of captured Soviet commissars (political officers attached to military units), demonstrating the ideological nature of the conflict.
The Babi Yar Massacre
The occupation witnessed systematic mass murder, particularly of Jewish populations. At Babi Yar (a ravine near Kiev where one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust occurred), 34,000 Jews were taken, shot, and placed in mass graves in September 1941, soon after the German occupation of Kiev.
This massacre exemplified the racial war Hitler waged in the East, with widespread deportations and massacres of Jews throughout occupied Soviet territories.
German forces also conducted vicious reprisals against partisan groups (irregular resistance fighters who harassed German forces behind the lines). These reprisals often involved collective punishment of civilian populations suspected of supporting partisan activity.
Soviet repression and ethnic deportations
Soviet citizens suffered at the hands of their own government as well as from the German occupiers. Commissars and secret police became obsessed with hunting down "slackers" (those avoiding work obligations), "deserters" (those who abandoned military service), and "defeatists" (those whose morale or statements were deemed harmful to the war effort). Thousands of people were arrested or executed under these categories.
The Soviet regime intensified its existing suspicion of ethnic minorities who might collaborate with the Germans. Groups such as the Chechens and Crimean Tatars (a Turkic ethnic group with a distinct national identity) faced collective punishment through mass deportation.
The Deportation of the Crimean Tatars
In May 1944, Beria organised the deportation of the entire Tatar population (240,000 people) from Crimea to Uzbekistan in Soviet Central Asia.
The Tatars had maintained a sense of national identity since the fifteenth century and had been strongly influenced by the Ottoman Empire. After the end of Tsardom, many Tatars had died in the Civil War, and survivors had suffered during forced collectivisation and the Great Famine in the 1930s. Stalin remained suspicious of their separate national identity, even though many Tatars had served in the Red Army.
Their descendants only returned to live in Crimea after Ukraine became independent in 1991.
When western areas of the USSR were liberated from German occupation, Stalin's regime treated harshly those citizens who had been prisoners of war or who had worked for the Germans, regarding them with deep suspicion and often subjecting them to punishment or further deportation.
The national myth and underlying reality
Out of the experience of the Great Patriotic War emerged a powerful national myth: that of a united Soviet people pulling together through shared sacrifices, following the Great Leader Stalin to heroic victory. This myth became central to Soviet identity in the post-war period.
Myth versus Reality
The myth was not entirely true. Many people criticised the regime both during and after the war, and many examples existed of cowardly and corrupt behaviour by selfish Party officials. Numerous individuals were punished by the state for various perceived failings.
However, the myth rested on a solid basis of truth. The experiences of total war, combined with the massive propaganda campaigns that accompanied them, did bring people together in important ways.
Several unifying factors operated powerfully: fear and hatred of the Germans following their brutal occupation policies and atrocities; deep patriotism in defending the Motherland against foreign invasion; an underlying faith in the revolution and its promises; and personal loyalty to Stalin, whose authority had been reinforced by propaganda that portrayed him as the embodiment of Soviet resistance.
Thus, whilst the myth simplified and idealised a more complex reality, it drew its strength from genuine experiences and emotions that many Soviet citizens shared during the war years.
Key Points to Remember:
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The USSR suffered catastrophic destruction twice over: during the German advance (including scorched earth tactics during Soviet retreat) and during the Soviet counter-offensive, with some areas like Kharkiv changing hands multiple times.
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Civilian suffering proved immense, with over 12 million deaths by 1945 from multiple causes: German atrocities, the siege of Leningrad (600,000 dead from hunger and cold), mass displacement, and Soviet repression.
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German occupation, initially welcomed in some areas, quickly alienated populations through systematic brutality: mass murder of Jews (such as the Babi Yar massacre of 34,000 in September 1941), harsh treatment of Soviet POWs and forced labourers, and savage reprisals against partisans.
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The Soviet regime itself added to civilian suffering by hunting "slackers," "deserters," and "defeatists," and by deporting entire ethnic groups suspected of disloyalty, including 240,000 Crimean Tatars to Central Asia in May 1944.
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A national myth of unified Soviet heroism under Stalin emerged from the war, which, whilst not entirely accurate, drew strength from genuine experiences of total war, effective propaganda, fear and hatred of the invaders, patriotism, and faith in the revolution.