Soviet Women
The Soviet Union survived only by mobilizing
two-thirds of their own women, who worked in the
factories and in the fields.
Richard Overy, Russia's War
Soviet women played an important role in World War II. In no other country was there a phenomenon that can compare with the 800,000 girls and women in the Soviet Union who mobilized for war service and front-line functions with the Red Army following the German attack in June 1941.
The occupied territories, which comprised a population of 80 million people were subjected to alien and brutal rule by the Nazi invader, who regarded all Slavs, Jews and other Soviet nationalities as inferior races. Soviet women and girls of Jewish origin were subjected to mass executions or sent to extermination camps.
Tens of thousands were killed in bombing of cities (it is estimated that 500,000 bombings in the USSR were killed (ten times as many as in the bombing of London), died of starvation during the siege of Leningrad and were executed in anti-partisan reprisals .
The others suffered the brutality of the Nazi occupation, were victims of sexual violence or sent to forced labor in the Reich.
Over 5 million Soviet citizens, men and women, were sent to German-occupied Europe, some of them prisoners of war and many millions slave laborers.
Girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five were reduced (when they survived the "mistreatment" during the journey) to a kind of sexual slavery, both in the brothels of the Army and the SS, and in the "rest centers" of the Reich. Others were sent to concentration camps, where it was the guardians' inclinations that decided whether they should be subjected to normal sexual assaults or to "experiments" that ended in death. Still others were sent au pairs (a prime example of this institution) to German homes, where their lot depended entirely on the mood of the landlord. Women over the age of twenty-five were sent directly to the factories, where the dual task of workers and prostitutes for male workers awaited them.
Second, in the unoccupied territories, the massive demographic distortion radically changed the composition of the Soviet workforce. In the wartime economies of all industrialized countries during World War II, the "workforce" in factories and fields became female in majority. In the case of the Soviet Union this had a wider application than elsewhere. In fact, at the end of 1942 the total Soviet losses of men killed, prisoners and wounded reached 11,000,000. In addition, the wartime evacuation of industry beyond the Urals affected no fewer than 25 million people.
Every area of the country required gigantic effort and suffering from Soviet women. Mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts went to war by the millions: skinny girls, weary housewives, and stout matrons making munitions in factories and digging anti-tank ditches. In Leningrad alone, 500,000 people worked on the city's fortifications for two months, as did the residents of Moscow and Stalingrad. The younger women took to the mines, crane cabs, trucks and locomotives, and heavy industry, under harsh conditions. In the factories, where more than half of the workforce was made up of women, new working conditions were established which normally provided for 66 working hours per week with one day off per month. Holidays were suspended, while compulsory overtime was introduced. In short, after 1941 in a country that had been deprived of male labor for wartime needs, girls and women of all ages not only replaced the work of men, but also used themselves as a driving force, employing the power of own corps to replace the tractors and horses requisitioned by the Red Army. Most of the work done to produce the food supplies vital to cities and frontline fighters was done by Russian women: in 1941 they made up half of the rural labor force and by 1944 they accounted for nearly four-fifths.
On the front, as well as filling the more traditional female roles of cook and laundress, women served as surgeons, field medics and nurses.
They fought as snipers (see snipers page), machine gun operators, artillery aimers, tank crews, anti-aircraft gunners, bomber pilots. Women also served as radio operators, partisans, scouts, mortar crew, paratroopers, auxiliary services, military traffic controllers, in logistics offices.
More than 40% of the medical staff, 100% of the nurses were women of which 30% were decorated for the service.
Women served as communications operators in the Red Army, accounting for 12% of the total. Radio operators were also parachuted behind the enemy front in the extremely dangerous role of supporting partisans in radio communications.
It is estimated that a quarter of the partisans operating in the occupied territories (over 550,000) were women. Icon of these was the partisan Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya known as Tanya. Partisan volunteer at the age of 18 was tasked with burning a village occupied by the Germans. She was captured by the Nazis, she did not reveal her real name or that of her companions and after being tortured she was hanged. She was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union.
More than 250,000 served in air defense (30.5% of Moscow's air defense personnel were women). In 1942, there were two mobilizations to bring women into air defense.
Specific targets were set: women were to replace eight out of ten men in instrument sections, six out of ten men in machine gun operators, five out of six men in air lookout posts, three out of eleven men in lighthouse attendants, and all soldiers ordinary and non-commissioned officers in the air defense logistics services. Women between the ages of 18 and 27 were admitted. There were many female officers and women served in all anti-aircraft artillery duties. By the end of the war, over 121,000 women had served as gunners or crewmen in anti-aircraft artillery and some 80,000 in aviation or scouting and observation posts.
The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow female bomber pilots to fly combat missions.
Despite their huge contribution to the victory, only a small fraction in the USSR received decorations. Only 95 of them were awarded the highest honor of Hero of the Soviet Union, often posthumously, only after the 1960s.
In his 1959 book, Marshal Chuikov noted both the performance of women soldiers and the way their service was ignored: "I cannot neglect a very important topic which, in my opinion, is still weakly covered in military literature, and sometimes unjustifiably forgotten in our reports and works on the generalization of the experience of the Great Patriotic War. I have in mind the question of the role of women in war, in the rear but also at the front.
In the same way as men they carried all the burdens of combat life and together with us men they went all the way to Berlin."
two-thirds of their own women, who worked in the
factories and in the fields.
Richard Overy, Russia's War
Soviet women played an important role in World War II. In no other country was there a phenomenon that can compare with the 800,000 girls and women in the Soviet Union who mobilized for war service and front-line functions with the Red Army following the German attack in June 1941.
The occupied territories, which comprised a population of 80 million people were subjected to alien and brutal rule by the Nazi invader, who regarded all Slavs, Jews and other Soviet nationalities as inferior races. Soviet women and girls of Jewish origin were subjected to mass executions or sent to extermination camps.
Tens of thousands were killed in bombing of cities (it is estimated that 500,000 bombings in the USSR were killed (ten times as many as in the bombing of London), died of starvation during the siege of Leningrad and were executed in anti-partisan reprisals .
The others suffered the brutality of the Nazi occupation, were victims of sexual violence or sent to forced labor in the Reich.
Over 5 million Soviet citizens, men and women, were sent to German-occupied Europe, some of them prisoners of war and many millions slave laborers.
Girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five were reduced (when they survived the "mistreatment" during the journey) to a kind of sexual slavery, both in the brothels of the Army and the SS, and in the "rest centers" of the Reich. Others were sent to concentration camps, where it was the guardians' inclinations that decided whether they should be subjected to normal sexual assaults or to "experiments" that ended in death. Still others were sent au pairs (a prime example of this institution) to German homes, where their lot depended entirely on the mood of the landlord. Women over the age of twenty-five were sent directly to the factories, where the dual task of workers and prostitutes for male workers awaited them.
Second, in the unoccupied territories, the massive demographic distortion radically changed the composition of the Soviet workforce. In the wartime economies of all industrialized countries during World War II, the "workforce" in factories and fields became female in majority. In the case of the Soviet Union this had a wider application than elsewhere. In fact, at the end of 1942 the total Soviet losses of men killed, prisoners and wounded reached 11,000,000. In addition, the wartime evacuation of industry beyond the Urals affected no fewer than 25 million people.
Every area of the country required gigantic effort and suffering from Soviet women. Mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts went to war by the millions: skinny girls, weary housewives, and stout matrons making munitions in factories and digging anti-tank ditches. In Leningrad alone, 500,000 people worked on the city's fortifications for two months, as did the residents of Moscow and Stalingrad. The younger women took to the mines, crane cabs, trucks and locomotives, and heavy industry, under harsh conditions. In the factories, where more than half of the workforce was made up of women, new working conditions were established which normally provided for 66 working hours per week with one day off per month. Holidays were suspended, while compulsory overtime was introduced. In short, after 1941 in a country that had been deprived of male labor for wartime needs, girls and women of all ages not only replaced the work of men, but also used themselves as a driving force, employing the power of own corps to replace the tractors and horses requisitioned by the Red Army. Most of the work done to produce the food supplies vital to cities and frontline fighters was done by Russian women: in 1941 they made up half of the rural labor force and by 1944 they accounted for nearly four-fifths.
On the front, as well as filling the more traditional female roles of cook and laundress, women served as surgeons, field medics and nurses.
They fought as snipers (see snipers page), machine gun operators, artillery aimers, tank crews, anti-aircraft gunners, bomber pilots. Women also served as radio operators, partisans, scouts, mortar crew, paratroopers, auxiliary services, military traffic controllers, in logistics offices.
More than 40% of the medical staff, 100% of the nurses were women of which 30% were decorated for the service.
Women served as communications operators in the Red Army, accounting for 12% of the total. Radio operators were also parachuted behind the enemy front in the extremely dangerous role of supporting partisans in radio communications.
It is estimated that a quarter of the partisans operating in the occupied territories (over 550,000) were women. Icon of these was the partisan Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya known as Tanya. Partisan volunteer at the age of 18 was tasked with burning a village occupied by the Germans. She was captured by the Nazis, she did not reveal her real name or that of her companions and after being tortured she was hanged. She was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union.
More than 250,000 served in air defense (30.5% of Moscow's air defense personnel were women). In 1942, there were two mobilizations to bring women into air defense.
Specific targets were set: women were to replace eight out of ten men in instrument sections, six out of ten men in machine gun operators, five out of six men in air lookout posts, three out of eleven men in lighthouse attendants, and all soldiers ordinary and non-commissioned officers in the air defense logistics services. Women between the ages of 18 and 27 were admitted. There were many female officers and women served in all anti-aircraft artillery duties. By the end of the war, over 121,000 women had served as gunners or crewmen in anti-aircraft artillery and some 80,000 in aviation or scouting and observation posts.
The Soviet Union was the first nation to allow female bomber pilots to fly combat missions.
Despite their huge contribution to the victory, only a small fraction in the USSR received decorations. Only 95 of them were awarded the highest honor of Hero of the Soviet Union, often posthumously, only after the 1960s.
In his 1959 book, Marshal Chuikov noted both the performance of women soldiers and the way their service was ignored: "I cannot neglect a very important topic which, in my opinion, is still weakly covered in military literature, and sometimes unjustifiably forgotten in our reports and works on the generalization of the experience of the Great Patriotic War. I have in mind the question of the role of women in war, in the rear but also at the front.
In the same way as men they carried all the burdens of combat life and together with us men they went all the way to Berlin."